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desertno3 · 4 years ago

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Violet – Chapter Four (5/7)

When Sean finally meets his daughter, you wonder why you ever left him in the first place.

Sean Wallace x fem!reader Chapter Four: 1991 words

Prologue // Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three

A/N: Hi! This chapter became longer than I ever planned it to be lol and as a result this series is now going to be seven parts instead of six! Low-key excited about what’s coming up but for now, I hope you enjoy this chapter! 🧡🧡

Taglist: @ysmmsy @prettyinpayne @the-a-word-2214 @peakywitch @danceyreagan @ella1grace03 @whenthe-smokeisinyoureyes

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist for this series!

You wipe your hands on a tea towel when you hear the front door open, signalling Violet and Sean’s return. You then hear Violet’s footsteps pitter-patter down the hallway, immediately followed by Sean telling her to come back and take her shoes off first. Smiling to yourself, you leave the kitchen and head over to greet them, finding Sean knelt down and helping your daughter out of the aforementioned shoes.

“We’re back mum!” Violet says happily when she sees you.

“Yes, I can see that, love,” You smile before giving her a look. “Vi, you know how to take off your own shoes.”

“It’s fine,” Sean assures you, leaning over to place them neatly off to the side.

He had been visiting frequently ever since you and Vi moved into your new place - an arrangement you both had agreed on not long after everything had been dealt with. He wanted to be an active part of Violet’s life and you were more than willing to let that happen, knowing how much it would mean not only to him but to Violet, too. She still didn’t know the truth about Sean but it was clear she’d grown attached nonetheless, her eyes never failing to light up every time you told her Sean was coming over. Today, she had been particularly excited because he promised he would take her to a park.

“There was a pond at the park, mum!” Violet exclaims excitedly, practically bouncing where she stood. “And we saw so many ducks! And swans. And gooses! One got angry at Sean.”

She’s giggling as she tells you the latter and you look at Sean with an amused expression on your face. Still crouched before your daughter, he glances up to give you a deadpan look as if to say don’t even ask, which makes you snort.

You both miss the way Violet’s gaze flits between the both of you curiously, a happy smile forming on her face. She then throws her arms around Sean, hugging him farewell.

“Bye Sean.”

He sways a little at the force with which she throws herself at him but manages to steady himself, chuckling as he hugs her back.

“So eager to be rid of me, hm?”

Violet pulls away with a sheepish look on her face, “I’m going to watch TV now.”

“Go on then,” He taps her nose. “I’ll see you later.”

She grins at him and then she’s gone, energetically sprinting past you and down the hallway, making a quick beeline for the living room.

“You don’t need to run!” You call out to her but it’s futile, she’d already disappeared into the other room. Behind you, you hear Sean chuckle.

“You’re such a mum,” He teases, getting up onto his feet.

You let out an amused scoff in response, folding your arms across your chest. “Don’t even start, she'll be a little terror if I don’t give her some rules to adhere to.”

Sean smiles fondly, thinking about his little terror of a daughter. While you were mostly joking, Sean knew there was a bit of truth to your statement. It was a task and a half to wrangle Violet sometimes, the headstrong little thing that she was. Unsurprising, Sean thinks amusedly, considering who her parents were.

But as difficult as she could be sometimes, Sean had seen first-hand all the good values you’d managed to instill in her. You’d definitely raised a sweet kid, one who was wonderfully earnest and full of kindness, and he tells you just as much, with a genuine sincerity in his tone that catches you off guard.

“You’ve raised her well, y/n,” He says sincerely, leaving you speechless for a moment. You didn’t expect to hear that from him at all.

“Thanks, Sean. I feel like I’m a terrible mum sometimes,” You confess quietly. “So that’s… that means a lot.”

He smiles and you’re sure your heart skips a beat.

You didn’t want to admit it but you enjoyed Sean's visits just as much as Violet did. The more time you spent around him, the more you found yourself falling for him all over again. You’d forgotten how well the two of you could get along and on top of that, watching him and Violet spend time together made you melt. You had no real inkling as to how he felt about you but moments like these definitely didn’t help your growing feelings.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

It comes out of your mouth before you could even think to stop yourself and when you see the surprise and hesitation on his face, you immediately regret asking.

“You don’t have to, obviously,” You assure him, trying to backtrack. “You probably have things to do.”

He winces apologetically, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go back to the office tonight, unfortunately. Take care of some things.”

“That’s fine!” You reply almost too quickly, embarrassed at the fact that you might’ve been too forward by asking him in the first place. “No worries.”

There’s an awkward pause where neither you nor Sean know what to say next and you sigh, feeling like you’d just ruined a perfectly good moment between you two.

“Well I won’t keep you then,” You continue as nonchalantly as you could, hoping he didn’t notice how mortified you were. “I hope you have a good night.”

“Yeah, you too.”

He gives you one last parting smile and you watch as he heads out the door, hating how disappointed and embarrassed you feel after it clicks shut behind him.

You stand there for a moment before letting out an agonised groan and heading back to the kitchen, trying to forget that conversation ever happened.

The rest of your night is filled with your usual routine - dinner, dishes and then giving Violet a bath before bed - but no matter how hard you try, you can't help but keep dwelling on the exchange, ruminating on what it might have meant.

You were starting to feel foolish for thinking that maybe things were changing between you and Sean. That’s what led you to ask him to stay for dinner to begin with, thinking you were both at a place where that could happen without any tension or awkwardness. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t have stayed even if he didn’t have business to attend to.

You shake your head, trying to stop yourself from going further down that rabbit hole. You were going to drive yourself crazy if you kept thinking about it. The fact of the matter was that you had no idea how Sean felt about you but he was here nonetheless because he cared about Violet. You just had to live with that and forget your feelings.

Easier said than done, you think sourly. When the mere sight of him makes my goddamn heart race.

"Mummy?" Violet asks while you shampoo her hair, bringing you out of your spiral of thoughts.

"Hm?"

"You and Sean should get married."

You nearly choke on the air you breathe. Pausing your actions, you look at her in bewilderment but her eyes are on her hands as she glides them through the soapy water.

“Why do you say that, Vi?” You pry gently.

You wonder if you’d been that obvious with your feelings or if maybe Sean had said something, but she just shrugs like it was simply a passing thought she decided to say out loud.

“Sean and I are friends, darling,” You say to her, though you were starting to wonder if maybe that label was a stretch. “Usually people who get married are dating each other."

Violet makes a contemplative face, “Will you and Sean do that?”

“What, date?”

She nods, leaving you more confused than ever.

“I doubt it, Vi,” You sigh.

I burned that bridge a long time ago.

You massage her scalp gently, lathering up the shampoo as you watch her continue to play with the water, your own mind racing.

“Did you want us to date?” You ask her, still trying to figure out where this was coming from.

She nods again.

“Why?”

Violet looks sheepish now, patting away at the bubbles that surrounded her, and she says shyly, “So then I can have a dad.”

You sit against your headboard with your head in your hands, thinking about everything that had transpired since the late afternoon. Not only were you dealing with your reemerging feelings for Sean - who most likely did not reciprocate them - you were also dealing with a daughter who suggested you marry the man because that was the only way she thought she could get a dad.

Letting out a frustrated groan, you press your head against your forearms. You were acutely aware that you would not be dealing with any of this if you’d never left Sean in the first place. You sit there despairingly for a long while before a persistent buzz from your phone starts to fill the air. Lifting your head, you blink in surprise at the caller ID before answering it.

“Sean?”

“Hi,” His voice comes through the speaker, making your heart involuntarily skip a beat. “Sorry, I know it’s late.”

“It’s fine,” You assure him, shifting the phone to a more comfortable position. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, I just… I wanted to apologise again for not being able to stay for dinner. I should have taken you up on it, the meeting I went to instead was the dullest shit imaginable.”

You can’t help the small laugh that bubbles out of your throat at the grouchy tone his voice takes on as he tells you about how dull it was, “Sorry to hear that.”

He hums in response and you could just imagine the amused smirk on his face. “You don’t sound very sorry.”

“Well, I don’t know,” You reply. “Violet spent all of dinner telling me about every animal you saw at the pond today. Not sure if you would prefer a play-by-play of your own day over the meeting.”

“You underestimate how boring the meeting was.”

“No,” You laugh. “I’ll take your word for it.”

There’s a natural lull in the conversation and you know you have to take the opportunity to clear the air, for the sake of your own sanity.

“Sean,” You start, steeling yourself with an inhale. “I hope I didn’t overstep earlier, asking you to stay for dinner.”

“Overstep?”

“I… I worried you might’ve thought it was a bit much. The three of us have never properly spent time all together so I realise that it might have been a big ask and-”

“It was fine, y/n,” He says softly, quelling your worries. “I was surprised you asked but it wasn’t a problem. I would’ve liked it, the three of us together.”

After all that time you’d spent ruminating earlier, the statement is more than you ever expected from him. So much so that you’re rendered speechless, your heart in your throat.

“That’s why I called, actually,” He continues. “I wanted to ask if you and Vi wanted to come over for dinner next weekend. To make up for the fact that I couldn’t tonight.”

You don’t even have to think twice about your answer.

“Yes, of course. We’d love to.”

“Great,” He says and you can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll see you both then.”

You can’t help but smile in return, “Looking forward to it.”

“Me too. Goodnight y/n.”

“Night, Sean.”

You’re giddy as you place your phone on your bedside table and settle into bed for the night, Sean’s call single-handedly flipping your entire mood. Maybe it was silly to feel that way after just one phone call but you couldn’t help it, not when it came to Sean. Against all your better judgement, you feel a little spark of hope in your chest as you drift off to sleep.

Maybe there was something there after all.

#sean wallace #sean wallace x reader #gangs of london fanfiction #violet series #*writing #gangs of london imagines #sean wallace imagine #sean wallace fanfic

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re-diesirae · 3 years ago

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12. Claire

She had never felt so happy to wake up with the sunlight hitting at her face the way it did that morning. They didn't dare to leave the storage house until the first rays of light hadn't come out from the horizon. In part, because they had wanted a little more rest and in part because they didn't want to risk the chance of meeting another of those horrible creatures.

With the light, they could finally see what was inside the storage room, and after checking the contents of the boxes, they had come across some supplies that included more weapons, ammo, a first aid kit, and flashlights. The weaponry was quite old, and Claire knew they probably weren't as fancy as the ones Leon usually used, but it was better than nothing. They also found some cans of food and water that weren't yet due in the boxes. It wasn't a fancy meal, but the canned fruits provided the needed carbohydrates that their bodies required for energy. Claire had instantly felt a little more energetic after the small and humble meal, and she had to admit that compared to other times, she appreciated the locals for storing the food in that place. She would have thanked them if they hadn't turned into parasite controlled zombies, of course.

With their new gear, stock, and a full stomach, the duo had started their walk to the mysterious manor. So far, the way had been calm: only interrupted by a couple of the unfriendly locals that they defeated without problems.

Claire noticed that the closer they got to the manor, the quieter the forest became. Somehow that made her uncomfortable. The lack of sound was antinatural, and maybe it was her paranoia, but she felt observed, and she was half expecting another sudden monster to jump over them. She could tell Leon's thoughts weren't too far from her own as the man moved stealthily and alert at all times.

Nobody would think that, some years ago, this same man was a scared rookie cop trying to survive a city filled with zombies.

The thought of how much he had grown and become better drew a smile on Claire's face.

Just what are you feeling so proud about when this is all a mess?

She often felt proud of others, even if it wasn't something she was supposed to do. She was proud of her brother. Like hell, how wouldn't she? The man had saved many lives in the last few years. She was also proud of Moira; the girl had gotten over her fear of guns and trained under her father's eye. She was also proud of Natalia. She had a normal life now, making it through all the horrors of her past. Claire was very proud of Sherry. She had heard from Chris that the girl had become an agent like Leon, and even though Claire would have wished for the girl to live a quiet life, she respected her decision. Of course, she was proud of Leon's successful career as an agent.

"There it is." Leon's voice broke into her thoughts, and Claire stopped dryly, staring at the manor ahead, "It certainly gives me bad vibes..."

An unpleasant flashback ran through her head as she remembered the Ashford's Residence, but as she watched the house more carefully, she realized that the place was different. This house looked older, and the gray walls, covered by ivy and moss. More than a manor, it looked more like a castle. A quick scan around convinced them that there was no one around the area.

"Guess our friends from Neo-Umbrella didn't wait for us..." Leon whispered.

"Well, knowing their sense of hospitality, they probably left some of their pets behind to receive us, though."

"Most likely. That sounds like something terrorists would do," Leon sighed, "We'll have to take a look and find out. I think the thing jamming the sign of my phone is in there. If we can deactivate it, I can contact Hunnigan, and maybe, we can figure out something about what they were doing in here."

"All right, let's take a look. What could go wrong, right?"

A lot of things. The annoying little voice in her head muttered.

The duo made their way to the house with extreme caution. The place seemed deserted. The only evidence of people ever being in there was the mess inside: furniture was turned over or broken, papers scattered all over the floor along with other decor accessories. Claire found bloodstains in some of the walls, and she shuddered. Maybe their "friends" hadn't left after all, but something had gotten them before they arrived.

"Now, this looks ominous. Why are there so many papers in here?"

"They seem like medical records, but the papers are too dirty to read them," she said, picking some of the scattered sheets. The pages looked blurred with humidity, and some had red stains that covered half of the text.

"Knowing these guys, there's probably an electronic record somewhere. We need to find a computer." Leon replied, looking around the rooms with his gun raised, "There are signs of struggle. I guess they didn't leave on good terms…"

That if they had made it out alive.

"There's too much blood. Do you think one of their pets went through havoc?"

"Most likely, maybe it was the one that attacked us last night."

Claire picked a folder that was over a table. The yellowish surface had dried stains of blood, but she ignored it and flipped through its contents. Her face tensed as her eyes traveled over the printed letters.

"They were making a new virus, " she said with anger, "These people don't ever learn that you shouldn't mess up with nature."

"Any idea of what sort of virus that is?"

"No...this seems more like genetic blueprints," Claire replied, "RNA virus sequences and possible recombinations with other viral agents. I'm taking these. it might be useful later. I can look into it when we get back to TerraSave.."

"Didn't know you had a liking for this sort of mad scientist stuff. Didn't picture you like a science girl..."

"You know, I did finish college before I joined TerraSave," Claire laughed.

"So I heard, but I never asked what you majored in, now that I think about it."

"Oh, so you didn't check my background?" Claire replied, surprised.

"I don't do that with friends. It's easier to ask, so what did you major in?"

"Biology and life sciences. Did a specialization in virology after joining TerraSave," she replied, checking another pile of folders, "I never thought I'd get so much into viruses. You would be amazed by how many outbreaks TerraSave attends, and for worse or better, not all of them involve zombies. Going into virology sounded reasonable, logical, and useful. "

Claire's crescent interest in viruses had to lead to her choosing a virology specialization. She had thought that it would come in handy while working in TerraSave. The organization was founded as a countermeasure to terrorist attacks. However, as time went by, TerraSave began attending other cases, including viral outbreaks in affected zones and as they worked with WHO. As an active agent at the time, Claire had participated in many operatives. That made her interested in the subject. After thirteen years of working in the organization, Claire was a pretty respectable professional. She wasn't as prodigy as Saya or Rebecca, but her observations and criticisms were valuable, and she had permission to work on her own projects.

"Never pictured you like a bookworm, but it seems I was mistaken."

"Another con on my side, I guess. Relationship wise..."

"I doubt it. Nothing wrong with a smart woman. I find it much more appealing. So, does your scientific vision give you a lead to what we have here?"

"Unfortunately, nothing clear. There's a lot of things you can do with genomes and some genetic engineering. I am not a biosynthetic engineer, but this looks like design proposals? We have someone in HQ who could see through it or maybe in B.S.A.A. I want to look at the digital records; if we are lucky, there might be something left in there. What about your signal jam?"

"I think I might have found the cause. Up there in the tower, there seems to be an antenna of some 's a good lead..."

"Guess we found our next stop. Let's go. I've got the feeling that I don't want to be around when the night falls."

"Always trust a female's sixth sense."

Claire followed Leon through the house. The absence of hostiles was welcome, but at the same time made her wonder what could have happened to them. They found more papers on their way, but nothing that could give them a clue of what had taken place in that place. After a while, they finally arrived at the tower.

The room seemed to be the security command center as there were several screens and computers. Leon got himself busy as he started to work on the antenna right away. Without much else to do, Claire decided to take a look at the server and see if she could get her hands on any interesting data while Leon tried to fix his communication line.

Well, let's see what you kept in here.

Claire began typing. She wasn't a techie like Wallace, so her skills as a hacker were terrible, but to her surprise, the security around the server was much laxer than she would have imagined. Or maybe she was too used to her overestimated security system in TerraSave.

Sadly, the computers had no access to the research datalog. However, it gave Claire information about the facility, and just as expected, there was a large underground structure underneath the mansion; the security system provided a clean 3D blueprint of the facility, showing research rooms, animal essays rooms, and laboratories. Everything pinpointed on the screen.

What the hell were they researching here?

Claire checked the security protocols, which seemed typical procedures designed for facilities handling potentially pandemic agents. She was familiar to them as a few years before she had adapted to those same protocols to propose an effective plan of contention in case of bioterrorist attacks. There was nothing that could be useful to find out what she wanted, but she did find something that caught her attention.

Damn, if only Wallace were here. He could probably hack into the central system and get me that information.

"I think I got it." Leon's voice made her look away from the screen, "I have the signal back. I'll try to contact Hunningan."

"That's great news…!"

"What about you? Did you find anything?"

"No, and yes. I managed to hack into the security system, but the servers aren't linked, so I have no access to research data from here. I did get a nice blueprint of the facility, though. Just look at this, the main research area is right underneath us, which is not surprising at all. I also checked the security protocols, and from that, I can say they were doing in vivo essays. I found something alarming and unexpected."

"How come?"

"They have a viral repository here. It is curious because, with the T-virus, C-virus, and all those new strains that Umbrella had been spreading, most bioterrorists had dropped the use of traditional pathogenic weapons."

"By traditional you mean…?"

"Regular viral agents: influenza, Nipah Virus, chickenpox, ebola… Ring a bell? They have a bacteria stock, too. Anthrax, Tuberculosis, MRSA," she said, scrolling down the screen, " Basically Level 3 and 4 pathogens. Just what the hell were they doing here?"

" If you don't know, neither do I. Can you get the information from here?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I am a virologist, not a hacker. The information should have a back up in the central server, but I am not skilled enough to break through their encryption to get it. We would need a vicious hacker for that, and the only one I know is somewhere in Hughesville."

"So, in other words, if we want that data, we'll need to go down there."

"Very sharp, Kennedy."

"Well, I guess we should bring some company down there," Leon commented, pulling his mobile to his ear. "Hunnigan… I need a favor."

NOTE: if you guys want to come and chat about the fic, or just about CLEON in general. Feel free to drop by the discord and say hi! JOIN SERVER

#my fanfiction #my fanfic writing #Cleon #claire redfield #claire resident evil #leon x claire #leon kennedy #Resident Evil

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ajnerdess · 4 years ago

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Comfort (Charles Smith x Reader fluff oneshot)

Help, i’ve jumped on the red dead train and i can’t get off. This is another idea I had of the reader thinking her lover Javier is dead after the Saint Denis Bank job disaster and getting closer to Charles as a result. Lil bit of angst, lil bit of fluff, the perfect combo!

You couldn’t help but look sad as you shaved the sides of Charles head, watching the long black hair fall to the ground. You loved his hair, but since Javier had been involved in that bank job and disappeared, presumed dead, just like Lenny and Hosea were, Charles had been a great comfort to you, you had grown much closer, so much so that when he asked you to help with his hair, you jumped at the chance to help him.

“I can hear you sighing you know” he said.

You carried on shaving his head, steadying your breathing as you tried not to make any more sounds of disappointment.

“I’m sorry, I just, I love your hair, cutting it off like this, it feels like a crime in itself.”

Charles laughed. “It will grow back hummingbird. It’s just easier like this, gets in the way less” he replied.

You began to braid his hair as he instructed, smiling as Charles seemed to ease into your touch.

“So, this haircut, is this linked to why you keep disappearing on me for a day at a time?”

Charles kept quiet. You knew he was a man of few words, he only ever really opened up to you, and Arthur of course. He had his secrets and you had to respect that. He wasn’t your husband, he wasn’t even your lover. That was Javier, or had been, you didn’t even know any more. You had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive. Everything had gone to shit. Sean, Kieran, Hosea, Lenny, they were all dead. And now Javier, Arthur, Dutch, Bill and Micah were either dead or lost to you too.

As you finished his braid, you leaned down and kissed the side of his head gently. “There, perfect, handsome as ever.”

Charles stared at you as you walked around to face him and admire your work. He looked taken aback by your kiss, and even you blushed a little at the realisation you had kissed him, no matter how chaste it had been.

“Thank you y/n, thank you very much” he said as he stood up.

“Any time, though actually, I would really rather prefer you didn’t ask me to cut anymore of your lovely hair off.”

Charles smiled at your words, touching your arm gently as he passed you.

“So I suppose you’ll be off again? Off on your adventures without me, while I sit here, lonely, waiting, terribly bored, waiting for your return” you called after him.

Charles sighed as he looked up at the sky before walking back towards you.

“If I show you what I’ve been doing all this time, will you stop looking at me like a wounded deer?”

You nodded eagerly.

“Fine, ride with me. Be prepared though, it’s a long ride from here to the grizzlies” he told you as you both walked to your horses. You mounted your white Arabian stallion as you watched him mount Taima with a puzzled look on your face.

“The grizzlies? That’s where you have been going all this time?”

As he led the way, he looked at you as you rode side by side. “I’ve been helping Eagle Flies and his people at the Wapiti reservation, his father, Rains Fall, he wants his people to be treated with respect, but he wants that respect to come peacefully. Eagle Flies has other ideas, his blood runs hot. Actually, maybe you could help, you always do have a way to bring out the best in people.”

You blushed at his words, Charles always had a way of complimenting you while sounding as though he didn’t actually mean to. It was as appealing as it was adorable. The ride to the reservation was long, but you made your way there by the end of the day.

The tribe welcomed you better than you expected, after all, they had every reason to fear outsiders, but your friendship with Charles showed quickly and they were quick to accept any friend of Charles.

You listened as Rains Fall, Charles and Eagle Flies argued, trying to get Eagle Flies to step down attacking a nearby patrol for an unprovoked attack on some members of the tribe. When Charles and Rains Fall’s words fell on deaf ears, Charles gave you a pleading look to intercept.

“Eagle Flies, I understand your pain” you told the young man. “If somebody attacked my family, if someone attacked Charles the way these soldiers attacked your people, I would want revenge as well. But you have to understand, these people are provoking you because they want you to retaliate. They want you to give them a reason to wipe you out. Your location leaves you vulnerable, Fort Wallace is around the corner, Fort Mercier and Strawberry is not that much further out, the army will be on you within hours and they outnumber you ten to one. You do not want your bloodline to end over such a thing. You do not want these men, these bullies, these monsters to be the death of your people. Please see reason, your father just wants you and your people to be safe.”

Charles gave you a small smile as you spoke. You waited with baited breath to see if your words had any sway over the Chieftains son. Eagle Flies brows knitted together as he looked at you.

“Fine. I’ll leave it this time, but I will not let these animals torture us for much longer” he said before walking away.

Rains Fall shook his head as he looked at his headstrong son before bowing his head in thanks to you.

“Thank you miss, thank you. And Charles, thank you, my thanks to you both. There’s a free tent over there, please feel free to stay the night, everything here is at your disposal.”

You thanked the Cheiftain before Charles turned to you. “So, it seems a little late to travel back to Lakay. Are you happy to stay the night here?”

You nodded, a night away from the swamp was exactly what you wanted.

You both stayed by the campfire as you ate and listened to the tribes stories. Charles braided a feather into your hair to say thank you for braiding his own and you blushed when you noticed a group of young women giggled at the sight of Charles playing with your hair softly. You remember reading about how braiding things into people’s hair in Charles’ culture meant a lot, each braid, feather or bead had a different symbol and you wondered what the feather Charles had chosen for your hair meant.

After a while Charles got into a conversation with Rains Fall and you took the opportunity to go away from the crowd and admire the view the reservation had over the heartlands.

With Colter behind you and Valentine not far in-front, you were reminded of Javier. Of the journeys you had taken with him, of the night you had seen him flirt with a woman at the saloon in Valentine and how that night had very nearly been the night you confessed your feelings for him. You were reminded of how much you missed him, of how you would never see him again or feel his arms around you, you would never hear his soft “good morning mi amor” greetings in the morning or the way he kissed you and whispered “te amo” in your ear when he made love to you. He was gone. Half your family was gone.

“Everything ok?”

You wiped your tears away before turning to nod at Charles. He stood next to you, silent, comforting. You rest your head on his shoulder as he stood close.

“Sorry Charles, I know I’ve not been the best company of late” you told him.

“Don’t apologise hummingbird. You have lost a lot, I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel.”

You looked up at him. “You’ve lost people before Charles, you know how that feels.”

He nodded once. “Been a lone wolf for a long time though, this gang is the first time I’ve been around people for more than a week or two in a long time.”

You frowned at his admission of truth. “Must have been hard to be alone for that long. Is there, is there anyone you feel close to, someone you care about?”

He met your gaze, his eyes tracing over your face before he swallowed. He nodded once. “Mm, there’s one person I care for, more than anyone else, more than I’ve ever cared for anyone actually but, I’m not sure she feels the same way.”

You stared down at Charles’ full lips before you met his stare and something in you snapped. You leaned up and pressed your lips against his own. Charles’ hand went to your neck as you kissed, holding you close as he deepened the kiss, his lips covering your own before he parted them, allowing you to dip your tongue into his mouth, deepening the kiss enough to make him growl. Your hands went to his chest feeling the sheer muscles beneath his shirt clench as he tried to keep some self-control. But it didn’t take long before you remembered Javier and felt a sense of guilt.

You pulled away, leaning your head down as Charles’ lips rest on your forehead. “Sorry Charles, I, Javier, it’s too soon, I’m sorry.”

He nodded, kissing your forehead gently before pulling away enough to look down at you. “It’s alright, I understand.”

“I’m so sorry Charles” you whispered, getting upset again.

Charles’ hand shot out to wipe your tears away. “Hummingbird, it’s alright, you don’t need to apologise. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

He led you to the free tent and closed it behind you both. As you both prepared for bed, Charles placed the blanket over you both, giving you the main half of it. It was cold outside, up in the mountains.

“Will you, will you hold me?”

Charles wasted no time in scooting closer to you, spooning you from behind as he held you close, keeping you safe from the cold mountain air in his warm arms and protected in his all-encompassing hold. You stroked his hands gently as they held your waist.

“I’m sorry Charles, sorry for not being here with you the way you want me to be. Everything’s, everything is so wrong, how could everything go so wrong?”

Charles kissed your hair gently as he nuzzled you. “Everything will be alright my hummingbird, just you wait. It will all be alright, I’m here, I’m not leaving you. I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

You listened to Charles’ words, eventually falling asleep to his soothing voice as he held you tight, protecting you from the outside world, and all the pain it had caused you lately.

#Red Dead Redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #fanfic #charles smith #charles smith x reader #fanficition #rdr2 fanfic #charles smith imagine #mywriting #fluff #angst

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beyondstupidityblog · 4 years ago

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On March 13th 2021, two friends and I did what never could have imagined possible, I watched Freddy Got Fingered for the ninth time, and it will by no means be the last. I’m explaining this to you, dear reader, so you and I have an important understanding between us. You will be reading the ramblings of one whose brain has curdled like milk left out in the hot afternoon sun. Now that introductions are out of the way, let us begin.

Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 Comedy starring and directed by Tom Green as the Non-Titular Gordon Brody; an aspiring animator who goes to California to realize his dream, only to be constantly crushed under the weight of his father’s expectations. Sounds tame at first, but what lies beneath the veneer of mediocrity is truly impressive. Completely bombed, audiences hated it, and critics loathed it. Roger Ebert got angry, saying “it isn’t even below the bottom of the barrel” and “Green should be flipping burgers somewhere.”. “Tasteless”, “appalling”, “offensive”, “gross”, and “poo poo,” are just some of the things people have had to say about this film. Animal genitalia can be seen on screen for much longer than anyone could have expected, Tom Green swinging a baby akin to a morning-star with its umbilical cord, said umbilical cord being stolen and taped onto his stomach, gratuitous caning of a nymphomaniac paraplegic, and the dissection of a deer carcass. It is an abrasive experience that leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of those who mention it. Nonetheless, I love this movie.

You ever see a contemporary art exhibit that has a piece that just looks like garbage somebody left out but in actuality is a tongue-and-cheek allusion to the pitiful state of modern art? That garbage is Freddy Got Fingered, and that exhibit is Hollywood. At face value it just seems like a poorly done film by a comedian trying to use his name to get a few butts in the seats before his irrelevancy arrives, but when scrutinized as a commentary of comedy films do the pieces start to fall into place. Tropes like the Protagonist being an unremarkable honkey, gross-out designed to get some cheap quick chuckles, side-characters who occupy the space solely for comedic relief, a shoe-horned romantic side-plot, and an equally as shoehorned in happy ending are all present in a mocking fashion. So many of these Hollywood schlockfests that this movie is paying homage to abuse tropes in some vain attempt to trick the audience into thinking they’re having a good time, when in reality it just reminds viewers of films that they’ve already watched before and could be enjoying instead. All of the awkward and uncomfortable scenes of gross-out and romance are purposeful, because nothing is quite as awkward and uncomfortable than a film disengaging the audience with its own mediocrity. “This is what it’s like to endure this trash!” Drunkenly screams Freddy Got Fingered atop the tallest piece of furniture in the room, while also exposing its genitals to keep you from getting too comfortable around it. Unlike the films it is parodying, its obsession with making a fool out of audiences rips them away from the comfort of the cinema, making them genuinely ask if it is worth wasting their time watching a film called Freddy Got Fingered. Even the title is an intentional slight, as it seems to be completely untethered to the actual plotline and is instead a reference to a seemingly inconsequential scene. But then again, that is the point of it all. Tom Green is an artist, and on his canvas is a portrait of Hollywood with all of the ugly little imperfections that cause a movie like this to be created. But this is just the meta-narrative of Freddy Got Fingered, something that you could find all over the internet. Why do I resonate with it so much, and what about it makes it so exceptional that led to this unhealthy fascination?

Every instance that I’ve rewatched Freddy Got Fingered has always brought about a new side to it, and in the process leaves me craving for more. Gord is an interesting take on the average leading man. He is on the surface bland and inoffensive, made so in order to allow the majority of the audience to immediately identify with him, said group being 20-something skater guys with unrealistic expectations of themselves. Made especially ironic when after the introduction of Gord as an adept skateboarding rebel escaping from authority, he starts to show that in reality he is an unlikeable, bratty, entitled, and all around unpleasant person. Barely a scene passes before we see him masturbate a horse while exclaiming he is a farmer to his father who is not present, seemingly a crude gag but is in reality an insight into his low self worth caused by his imposter syndrome stemming from distant paternal relationship. I would like to remind you, dear reader, that I am still writing of Freddy Got Fingered, in case you were beginning to think I have lost my mind (The answer is yes by the way). All throughout the film Gordon Brody puts on masks for different situations, never allowing himself to be who he is. When infiltrating the Animation studio where he wishes to pitch his cartoons, he pretends to be a mailman to get past reception and then impersonates a police officer when the former stops being effective. Donning the visage of a British Bobby, he dashes into the restaurant where the man he is searching for, Mr. Wallace, is eating. Showing him his cartoons, Wallace is impressed with the potential they have, but says that they are incoherent and lack real substance. Upon rejection, Gord puts a pistol in his mouth before Wallace stops him and advises what he should do to improve. Gord was genuinely ready to blow his brains out the back of his skull if he wasn’t able to get his show greenlit, and it hit me in that moment that he isn’t just some random jackass, but a victim of detrimentally low self-esteem.

The origins of his complex are made apparent when he goes back home to Oregon and are reintroduced to his Family. We see that his father Jim, played by Rip Torn, is disappointed in his return and begins to sneer at him for his failure. This father and son dynamic always has tension in every scene from this point onwards. Gord, who just wants to be accepted for who he is and not judged by what the world expects him to be, is always at the receiving end of Jim’s wrath, who values his idea of a successful life over the happiness of his sons. From here it becomes little wonder why Gord is the way he is, all his life he was told that who he was is not good enough, he has to be what his father wants if he is to be considered worthy of not only love, but being treated with a modicum of dignity. Whenever Gord acts eccentric or divulges his interests to his father, they are met with either resentment supplemented by verbal assault, or physical violence. After a late-night skateboard outing to escape from his father’s wrath goes awry, he visits his convalescing friend in the hospital, whereupon he meets one of the more interesting characters in relation to Gord, the love interest Betty.

A horny wheelchair bound temptress may not seem like it upon first glance, but Betty is actually the most interesting character out of the entire cast. She feels genuine, introduced as a bored receptionist flipping a coffee creamer idly. Gord immediately strikes up a conversation, whereupon he and the audience find out she has an interest in physics, and apparently an interest in him as well. Betty is strangely well written for what most considered at the time to be a crass sexual joke, so much so that she would actually be a better protagonist than him. She is everything Gord is not, she’s smart, funny, ambitious, and kind to a fault. Even her side plot to create a rocket powered wheelchair makes for a much more unique plot than the one given. Even Gord reciprocates this sentiment in their meeting, lying that he is a stockbroker in an attempt to impress her. In fact, sectioning her off as just the dull protagonist's love interest is a jab at how women in these movies are only there to serve in the development for the male protagonist, just nothing more than their muse. Nonetheless, without this relationship the movie would lose a lot of its soul. Romantic chemistry in comedy films is always hit or miss, but Gord and Betty do seem to have it surprisingly. They’re both silly and impulsive, creatively driven to a fault, but just different enough to eek out the best and worst in them. Gord thinks that what he wants to do with his life is wasteful, but Betty doesn’t. Now I don’t mean that she directly affirms that he is worthwhile like most poorly written love interests would, stroking their lover’s(and by extension the director’s) ego, rather she confronts him with her optimism. He asks if she would feel stupid and like a loser if her experiment failed. Taken aback at first, she questions why she would, relaying that her failures are just as important as her successes. Gord’s self-worth is directly tied to his ability to succeed, whereas Betty doesn’t need this affirmation. Their dialogue further cements how detrimental his father’s overbearingness was to his outlook, and how he is slowly beginning to realize how destructive that mindset is.

At their dinner date, Jim sees Gord and Betty across the restaurant, then reveals that Gord was lying to both him and her about his office job while poking fun at her disability, leading to a father-son scuffle that throws the entire floor into utter chaos. Cops show up, Gord and Jim are detained, and Betty bails Gord out. Most mediocre comedies at this point would have the love interest be upset that her significant other lied to her, leading to him having to make things right to repair their relationship before the happy ending. Breaking the mold, Betty does not get angry with Gord even a smidgen, choosing to be understanding of his situation now that she caught a glimpse into his home-life. She just plain likes Gord, willing to put up with him more than she really should, but still chooses to look past his lies and self-destructive nature for who he truly is, someone who just wants to be accepted by the world around him. Someone just like her.

Right after that enaction of social terrorism performed by the Brody father and son duo, they decide it would be best to go to family therapy and assail the audience with what I fondly refer to it as, “The Scene.” “The Scene” is Freddy Got Fingered’s statement to the world, it is what instills a man with the impetus to rewatch a glorified stoner daydream for the ninth time and leave him wanting more! Gord accuses his father, in a final act of defiance, of molesting his younger brother Freddy. During the ensuing confusion Gord picks up a bust of Sigmund Freud and throws it into the glass window pane, allowing him to escape into the evening sun. The authorities take Freddy away and send him to The Home for Molested Children, and the family slowly unravels from then on. Besides the heavy handed metaphor of Freud’s theories being used as a way for Gord to escape his predicament while simultaneously discrediting them, “The Scene” also recontextualizes Freddy, innocuous of a character as he is, as Gord’s foil. He is in the movie very little but when he is it is to serve one of two purposes: To be compared to Gord, or to be treated as an object. During breakfast much earlier in the film after a fight between Gord and Jim, Freddy tries to explain to his brother that he should grow up. Gord, surprisingly, talks down to him and halts the conversation.

Gord: “He's driving me insane.”

Freddy: “No. No, you're driving him insane. You're older than me and you still live at home. I have a job, you know. I pay my own way.”

Gord: “You work in a bank. Should I be dazzled?”

Freddy: “Well, at least I don't live at home!”

Gord: “No, you live in a tiny shithole and you come here to eat for free.”

With these lines it is plain to see that despite Freddy’s idea of success directly lining up with his father’s, he is even more pitiful than Gord. What little we know of him is to show that his acquiescence to his father’s expectations has left him bereft of not only genuine personal success, but of dignity itself. When child protective services come to take him away, he is half naked, mouth agape, watching open heart surgery on television, a palpable indication of emptiness. He isn’t treated as an adult either, as his protests to the police fall on deaf ears as both them and the psychologist infantilize him. Why would Tom Green name this movie after a character like Freddy, whose lack of presence and characterization make him little more than an afterthought when looking back on the story? Or did I just answer my own question? Freddy is not a character because he is not allowed to be one, he is just too passive and accepting of his circumstances for him to stand out. All he can be is a doll that Jim uses to dress up as the perfect son, and this passiveness leads to Gord, the “failure,” to both pity and resent what he let himself become. That’s why Gord accuses their father of molesting him, after all he does narratively violate Freddy’s autonomy by consistently making decisions for him. Evidently enough, as soon as Gord dons a suit for a quick bit Jim is elated because he believes that his son finally gave in to his demands for him to get a job, because he is acting more like his obedient brother. In this sense Freddy is the most tragic member of the Brody clan, a literal manchild whose growth was stunted by overbearing guardians. When I think of him, a bonsai tree comes to mind. Sure, it looks healthy, but when you realize that it could have grown into a much bigger plant if it were not for its small pot, that realization of wasted potential comes with a tinge of melancholy.

I want to end this essay with a moral that I took away from Freddy Got Fingered, as strange enough as that sounds, and what it has to say about art as a whole. Put simply, this is a story about revenge. Despite and because of his Father’s harsh ways, Gord managed to take from the trauma he sustained throughout his life and sublimated it into his animation. Creation not only lets him heal, but also acts as retaliation against Jim once he becomes successful. So long as you have the drive to prove everyone’s doubts and admonishments wrong by persevering out of wicked spite, you will have the last laugh. Freddy Got Fingered is a story about revenge through artistic expression, and I think that is quite beautiful.

#freddy got fingered #tom green #movies #essay paper #comedy

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brightbeautifulthings · 4 years ago

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Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

"'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?'"

Year Read: 2014, 2020

Rating: 5/5

Context: It's hard to know where to begin writing a review for this book. I read it for the first time in graduate school in about five weeks (alongside everything else I had to do in grad school, so I don't recommend that), and it basically blew my mind. At the same time, it's hard to imagine tackling it any other way for the first time. Despite its difficulty, there are things obsessive and immersive and, appropriately, even addictive about it. Full immersion might be the only way to read it for the first time, and I obsessed about it for months afterward. Since I'm not on any deadlines, I took it more slowly this time (21 weeks) so I could enjoy the writing and the nuances without the pressure to finish. For my less coherent weekly updates in real time, see my blog posts. Trigger warnings: Everything, everything. Death (on-page), child death, animal death, suicide, suicidal ideation, rape, pedophilia, possible incest, child abuse/abusive households, graphic violence/gore, eye horror, severe injury, drug use, addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, depression, OCD, grief, racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, inexplicable hostility toward Canadians.

About: If it's difficult to know how to write a review, it's equally hard to describe what Infinite Jest is about. It's about so many things, tennis, addiction, communication (failures), and entertainment among them, but I'll do my best. Beneath all the numerous characters, timelines, and subplots, the main plot is about a film so entertaining that it kills anyone who watches it, robs them of all desire to do anything but watch it until they die, and what a faction of Canadian assassins will do to possess it. The auteur is James Incandenza, a suicide whose son, Hal, is a prodigy at Enfield Tennis Academy. Next door to E.T.A. is Ennet House, a drug rehabilitation center where Don Gately, former thief and Demerol addict, is taking it day by day to stay sober. Though they don't know it, Hal and Gately are connected, and the deadly Entertainment and those who seek it draw their paths closer and closer together.

Thoughts: It's rare to find a book that is actually as smart as it claims to be, but IJ is--certainly much smarter than I am, despite all my attempts to make sense of it. It starts off strong and doesn't let up for several hundred pages, which is a huge achievement all by itself. Wallace excels at writing extremely polished sections that could almost function alone as short stories, and the first chapter is one of my favorites in all fiction. It's reassuring, I think, to start the book off on a strong note, in case we worried we were in for a thousand pages of tedious slog. It can be both, but it's often heartfelt, insightful, and funny as well, and the payoff is well worth the effort. I don’t know how Wallace manages to pack every page with so much meaning. Anybody can put tedious lists in their books or make reading purposely difficult (and I have attitude about writers who do this for no reason), but there’s nothing haphazard about this book, despite its size and varied focus. Everything seems utterly intentional. The conversations are really top-tier; Wallace has a great ear for how people talk, and it's a fascinating look at how communication works and doesn't work.

Thematically, I think the book succeeds on more than any other level, including plot or structure. If we could say this book is "about" anything, we would almost certainly start with the themes and not the plot, which is often secondary to whatever point Wallace is trying to make at the moment. It takes an in-depth looks at things like addiction, depression, loneliness, failed communication, sincerity v. irony, critiques of postmodernism and metafiction (while being very meta itself, at times), and the very specific selfishness of an American culture that insists on freedom even to the point of self-destruction. At times, it feels a little heavy-handed or like it was yanked right out of an intro to philosophy course, but I suppose something in a thousand pages has to be obvious if we're ever going to pick up on it. A lot of these themes resurface in his other work, from "This is Water" and "E Unibus Pluram" to Orin Incandenza's Brief Interview style Q and A (and he would be a perfectly fitting character in that book).

The characters are some of my favorites in literary fiction as well, particularly the Incandenza family and Don Gately, and to a lesser extent Joelle Van Dyne (although Wallace typically doesn’t write female characters very well, and she comes with some issues). Hal and Gately couldn't be more different; Hal excels at everything he's ever done, and Gately has a record that includes accidental homicide on it. Hal is the hero of non-action, since little that happens in the book is engineered by him, while Gately is closer to the more typical hero of action, who defends the undeserving at great cost to himself. Yet their struggles with addiction are similar, and they both manage to be incredibly sympathetic characters. In my opinion, the book is always at its best when we’re with Hal or Gately, but I’m strongly driven by good characters. Despite being dead, James Incandenza's presence is also felt all over the book, from the Entertainment he created to his haunting ETA and sticking beds to the ceiling (probably the weirdest ghost I've ever seen in fiction). He's a tragic character in a book full of tragic characters. The others are too numerous to name, from the other tennis players at ETA and recovering addicts at Enfield, to the various bystanders populating Boston. We get brief glimpses into almost all of them, and while they may not all feel relevant at the time, most are memorable or heart-wrenching or slapstick funny, or all three. It's a book that contains multitudes.

That's not to say it's always on point though, and it isn't. There are a number of very serious problems with representation in this novel, and they're as bad as its detractors claim. A lot of the 90s humor aged very poorly, but that's not an excuse for some of the unabashedly racist depictions of African Americans, the uncharitable descriptions of Steeply's and Poor Tony's cross-dressing, or--however much I love him as a character--the fact that Mario Incandenza’s descriptions are ableist in just about every possible way. Wallace thinks he's capturing "voice" when he's really encouraging harmful stereotypes. The humor of the novel often doesn’t depend at all on these stereotypes and would in fact, be a lot more funny if I wasn’t spending so much energy cringing at it. So many of the little racist and ableist asides could have easily been edited out of the entire novel to make it less offensive. There are also sections where he seems at pains to be as gross as possible for its own sake. There are plenty of things grim or uncomfortable or flat out distasteful about this book, but sometimes the graphic violence kind of jumps out and stabs you in the eye, say, with a railroad spike.

If there are times when I was totally absorbed in the little tragedies of the Incandenza family or Gately's struggles, there are plenty more where it's like pushing something heavy up a hill. No lie, some of it is slogging through tedious minutiae and various experimental writing styles (some more successful and less offensive than others). Wallace has a gift for purposeful tedium; it’s at its peak in The Pale King, but he gives it a nice warm-up round here. The novel is difficult and meant to be, since Wallace maintained that some of the best pleasures are the ones we have to work for, and he's not totally off base. There's something very satisfying about living, for a time, in a book that spans a thousand pages, that demands focus and perseverance, and manages to give back (almost) as much as it takes. The book is always structurally interesting, but it starts to get more complicated toward the end as various characters and plots begin to almost slide into one another. I forgot how frustrating it was to near the end and realize--again--that it wasn't going to wrap up with any kind of satisfaction; the various plots slide, but they don’t meet. I thought if I paid closer attention on a second read that I would pick up more of the plot things I’d missed on my first, but I think the problem is that those answers simply aren’t to be found in the actual text. Of course, they can point us toward various conclusions, and the novel certainly encourages us to speculate and make connections, but I don’t think the actual answers are there.

That brings me to some of my final thoughts, for now. There's no doubt that this is a hugely successful book, and I believe it accomplished exactly what Wallace meant it to do. He jokingly referred to it as a failed entertainment, much the way Jim considered his lethal Entertainment a failure, but I have the sense that Wallace, unlike Jim, failed on purpose. The book purposely pays more attention to structure and theme than it does to plot or character, yet the plot and characters are hugely compelling for what we see of them. Imagine the book it could have been if he had paid equal attention to all of them. Wallace attempted to create a book that people wouldn't want to stop reading. Reaching the end certainly encourages us to begin again, as the first chapter is actually the last in chronology, but that trick only works the first time. By my second read, I realized that starting over wouldn't help me fill in any of those blanks or answer any of my questions, and I was content to let it go. On the one hand, IJ depends upon its structure to tell the story it's telling. On the other, think of the book it could have been if it spent more time telling a story and developing its characters and less time belaboring a point. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the tragedy is that I think it could have been even better.

#book review #infinite jest #david foster wallace #literary fiction #adult fiction #5/5 #rating: 5/5 #2020 #bookoween

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johnnys-green-pen · 4 years ago

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First Lines Meme

Via @curator-on-ao3:

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

Tagged by @squad51goals - thanks a bunch, I absolutely love getting tagged for stuff like this!!

(also, I ended up tossing everything in there I could find that was either posted somewhere or even remotely finished, lol)

All fics aside from #8 are various degrees of sfw, by the way.

First off, the Emergency! fics:

1) Catnap Their last run had been, to put it mildly, a little unnecessary.

2) Dog Days Johnny was furious at himself. For days he hadn’t been able to sleep, and now that they were having a fairly busy day, he couldn’t seem to stay awake.

3) Home It was winter, late evening and rainy, and the street lamps were throwing rhythmical glimpses of light into the darkness of the cab.

4) Priorities Life at Station 51 taught one to expect the unexpected, if not for Chet’s constant pranks, then thanks to Johnny’s uncanny ability to make any day far more interesting than it really had to be.

5) Callback The second Mike Stoker realized that the first few hours of his shift had been uncommonly pleasant and quiet, he should’ve known he was fucked.

6) Burned Bridges Mike Stoker considered himself a patient man, and he’d never been prone to impulsiveness or ill-advised, rash decisions - at least until the day he’d found Hank Stanley huddled in his office looking like he’d seen a ghost - or become one himself - after his latest encounter with one Chief McConnike.

7) Vital Equipment One autumn morning, Roy arrived to his shift to no Johnny in the locker room and weird, muffled noises coming from the squad.

8) In The Heat Of The Night (nsfw) In retrospect, Roy figured there was no way a business trip to San Francisco together with Johnny could ever have gone as planned - but he definitely hadn’t expected the whole thing to go sideways the moment they stepped into their hotel room, of all things.

Then - a rare glimpse of non-E! stuff on here - the assorted fanfics:

9) An Equinox In Space (Star Trek AU for an original project, using all-original characters) “Our latest one-week patrol around the Sol system was made uncommonly exciting by two engine failures, one barely-avoided warp core breach after an unfortunate collision with a very small asteroid, a ship-wide failure of all sanitary facilities, and every single replicator only serving Gagh for an entire earth day for reasons as of yet unknown.“

10) Engineering Malfunctions (A oneshot for the above-mentioned Star Trek AU for my original project. Link goes to Google Docs because I never actually cleaned it up and posted it anywhere but it’s cute so whatever) Three days after the malfunction in main engineering, the situation was still critical, and they were still coasting along at impulse speed, kept going by nothing but momentum.

11) At the Drop of a Hat (random oneshot for a Pokemon highschool AU I originally wrote as a 12-year-old; don’t judge) Wallace of Sootopolis, most esteemed Champ of the Hoenn region, Contest Master (and, somewhat less glamorously, teacher), sat on a bar stool at the counter of his favorite bar, idly dragging his fingers across the rim of his glass and glancing over to the entrance of the cozy little establishment every now and then.

Aaand the all-original stuff:

12) Untitled (Modern AU of the same original project as Equinox in Space) Professor Absalom Hayes had looked forward to going to bed at a reasonable time for once.

13) Things that go Bump in the Night (oneshot for my urban fantasy story “Death of a Midnight Snack”) It was the darkest night I’d ever seen. Pitch black, without a single star in the inky sky. Just the dimly yellow glow of a dying street lamp in the distance.

14) The Lich’s Lair (oneshot for DOAMS again) Imagine a forest, if you will. Just a boring old forest. Not all that dark or all that scary, no dangerous animals, the kind of place you'd walk your dogs on a rainy Saturday morning.

Conclusions: I like starting off (or at least I’m trying to start off) my stories with a sort of one-two punch, where the first line is some kind of set up and the second follows through with... something. Makes the “first line” stipulation here a wee bit unfortunate, lol. Also, a lot of them are “a character does or thinks something”, or location descriptions of some kind. I very rarely start with dialogue (though I have done it before) - even that Equinox tidbit is in quotes for log entry reasons, not because it’s said to someone in particular.

Favorite: Oof. Honestly? Probably An Equinox In Space, which is funny because the actual story as it stands is really just a hot mess, even though I’ve written some pretty cool one-shots for it. Most of my favorite stories are E! fics, but those really only come alive in the second or third line. The first line of Callback does stand on its own pretty well, though...

Tagging: Normally I’d be tagging Hitch now but I know she was already tagged... uh. So I know @madilayn writes. @evilsilenc3 too, iirc? I know for a fact that more of y’all write, but I’m totally blanking on everybody’s URL’s right now, even after a solid 15 minutes of trying to remember - so if you like getting tagged and you have anything at all you could use for this, you’re hereby officially tagged. Please pretend I pinged you, I’m just really really bad with names.

#penworks

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1863-project · 4 years ago

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I’m at the end of my first-ever Omega Ruby run, and I’ve honestly had a great time getting to know Hoenn. I just have to evolve some Pokemon and catch the Regis and Deoxys before I move along (I’m waiting to trade with folks to finish the Dex properly, but I can do that at any point), but I think it’s worth doing a retrospective on the characters and Pokemon I met along the way.

As a region, Hoenn is unique in that it has a LOT of water routes. You spend a large portion of the second half of the game traveling via Surf. The Azumarill in my party, Pikablue, ended the game knowing Waterfall, Surf, and Dive (it also carries Play Rough), and it was one of the most crucial members of my party for transport purposes.

When I won the Hoenn League, the team May (named ‘Hatshepsut’ in my playthrough because we love cool historical figures in this house) had with her was her evolved starter, a Blaziken named Cluck You, along with Pikablue the Azumarill, Pangaea the Groudon, Charles II the Shiftry, Friendo the Latios, and the team anchor, Bastet the overleveled Skitty. I beat Steven because Bastet dodged a Zen Headbutt from Metagross and gave me the time I needed to revive both Blaziken and Groudon in the back, and their fire moves handled the rest. Bastet went on to become the first party member to reach level 100, way ahead of everyone else. She was absolutely incredible and I love her. Her final moveset: Heal Bell (surprisingly useful, especially in Doubles), Thunder, Ice Beam, and Play Rough. She’s a Dragon Slayer.

As soon as I got my hands on the Eon Flute I started running around to check every Mirage location that came up in the hopes that it would be a Mirage Cave. I knew that was where Tynamo was, and I needed Eelektross to complete the Submas team I was building (the other nine members are in SwSh at the moment; Eelektross will hopefully someday join them). On November 30th, my persistence paid off, and I went and caught three Tynamos so I could have the entire evolutionary line in my National Dex in Pokemon HOME. As it turns out, Eelektross still hasn’t been added to HOME because Third Rail has become a vital member of my party in postgame and I love him and he loves me. (I’m just Emmet, really.) The Eon Flute is also really nice in that using it allows you to literally fly in real time over the entire region, and I prefer doing that to using Fly because it’s just so aesthetically nice. Friendo just swoops down and picks me up, and we have a nice time exploring together. It’s especially pretty at night when everything is all lit up. It’s a lovely little feature exclusive to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and it’s so great.

Character-wise, Hoenn has produced some notables. Magma and Aqua are two of the most beloved villain teams in the entire franchise, and the reboots gave them so much more personality and gave the leaders and admins some excellent updated designs. (Years ago, when the remakes were first released, my dash was filled to the brim with Hardenshipping.) I had OR, so I had Magma to contend with, and one of the single most entertaining things in the entire game is Maxie’s losing animation. It’s perfect, it suits his character so well, and it’s just really funny. Also, shout-out to the Team Magma grunt that I met in the Extremely Obvious Hideout who told me how proud he was of kicking his soda habit whilst standing next to the vending machines. I love that guy. In terms of reformation, Magma and Aqua come around very easily when they realize that they’ve had a very bad idea - they ultimately were well-intentioned but made a really horrible mistake and set out to set things right (with the player’s help, of course). It ultimately makes both teams very likeable.

In terms of other characters, not every Gym Leader from Hoenn is a complete standout, but a few are very, very popular. Flannery is a perfect time capsule of 2003 fashion and I love that so much, and I don’t think I need to say much about Wallace. He’s just Wallace. He’s so freaking entertaining. Steven is also a very popular Champion, and he plays a pretty big role in the plot, so you see a lot of him throughout the game. (He and Wallace are also a very popular ship, with Originshipping - named for the Cave of Origin which Wallace has to grant you access to - actually being referenced in Pokemon Masters on, of all days, Valentine’s Day. Make of this what you will, but I’m here for it.) The Gym Leaders all received redesigns as well, with a lot of them benefiting greatly from it - I like Roxanne’s new school uniform so much better than her old one, for example, and once again, Wallace outshines everyone with an ensemble that would go wonderfully at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. I wish we got to know the Gym Leaders a bit more as people, because they don’t get to stand out as characters as much. Galar actually did this very well by allowing us a lot of interactions with the Leaders outside the Gyms and as teammates and rivals in the Galarian Star Tournament. A big part of the reason Wallace is so popular as a Gym Leader here is that you see him outside the Gym multiple times and can even compete with him in Contests. You get to know him as a person more and not just as the eighth Gym Leader, and it makes him a much more interesting character.

In short, here’s how the League stacks up for me:

Roxanne: Benefited massively from her character redesign, which gives her a lot more personality. Would like to see her and Steven interact since they’re apparently friends, which I imagine revolves around going out and licking rocks together or whatever geologists do with their geologist friends.

Brawly: He still isn’t very distinct. He’s a surfer who trains Fighting-types, which is a bit of a subversion since you’d expect Water-types from someone like that, but nothing about him really pops for me.

Wattson: Gives off Grandpa Vibes. Wattson actually gets a lot of expository development via his work on New Mauville and Sea Mauville, where you find out he halted the projects to protect the Pokemon ecosystems in both locations. A lot of employees were angry about this and he was even investigated briefly for stopping the projects, even being called a traitor to the company (which appeared to overwork its employees and prevent them from unionizing), but it was apparently evidently clear that he did things out of environmental concerns, and the employees were able to find work on other projects elsewhere. This actually slots nicely into the themes of the game involving environmentalism and how to ensure the livelihoods of people and nature both.

Flannery: Time capsule from 2003! I was, of course, around in 2003 (I turned 14), and Flannery was at the peak of fashion back then. Flares were in, and I miss that trend so much. For that alone, she’s one of my favorite Gym Leaders in this generation, but I also appreciate that she’s shown trying to find her footing and figure out who she is instead of pretending to be someone else. There’s a certain performative aspect to being a Gym Leader, but it needs to come naturally from them and be an extension of their own personality, not be artificial. I would, however, love to know who her grandfather is. It’s still never been confirmed. (As a side note, a lot of people headcanon her to be Kabu’s niece, since he’s from Hoenn, which is cute.)

Norman: A Dad. More specifically, the player character’s dad. There’s really nothing that stands out about him except for that damn Slaking, which gives a lot of people trouble. I did, however, appreciate the conversation he had with Wally’s father as Wally and the player character departed together, because I’m actually pretty close to my own father (who I’m very similar to in many aspects). I’m 31 years old and I still get emotional every time my parents tell me they’re proud of me. Notably, Norman is the only player character father we have ever seen in Pokemon, though, which is odd.

Winona: In-game, she doesn’t feel like she has much of a personality, although she goes off on aesthetics pretty well. It just weirds me out that that’s her hair coming out from under the helmet and not wings attached to it. She could have been really cool but she gets the short end of the development stick.

Tate and Liza: The two of them intentionally playing up the ‘weird twins’ angle by completing each other’s sentences actually comes across really cutely because they’re kids. You can also run into them in the Lilycove Department Store being children and buying toys, a good reminder that they’re still very young and evidently very skilled for their ages. Battle-wise, my Azumarill knew Surf by this point so I ended things quickly because I’m into Doubles as it is and like using spread moves when I can.

Wallace: I’ve discussed him a lot above, so I don’t need to say much else, but he really is the most notable Gym Leader in the region, and not just because he’s the last one you face. He has a lot of personality and development, you meet him outside the Gym several times, his niece Lisia is also out and about in the game and the family resemblance is notable, and you find an old magazine in Sea Mauville featuring a woman on the cover who looks like Lisia - likely Wallace’s older sister, Lisia’s mother. The entire family gets more development than a lot of the other Gym Leaders in this region.

Sidney: The first member of the Elite Four you face...I’d actually like to know more about him. He seems like an interesting person, and I personally enjoy Dark-types myself so I always appreciate seeing Dark-type users not being portrayed as evil. His upbeat nature is nice, and it’s a pleasant surprise to run into him at the Battle Resort, even if he was only there to track down Steven.

Phoebe: I love how much her appearance contrasts with her Pokemon typing. She’s a Ghost-type trainer and you’d never guess that from her outfit! Her grandmother is the old woman on Mt. Pyre, which is why Phoebe has an affinity for Ghost-Types, and I’d love to see more interactions involving them together. You can run into Phoebe on Mt. Pyre after you beat the League and talk to her briefly - she was likely visiting her grandmother - but sadly she doesn’t get much development outside of that.

Glacia: An Ice-type trainer who we learn next to nothing about. Glacia is mentioned outside of the context of the Elite Four by an NPC in the Mauville Food Court who says she was slurping down ramen so intensely that she broke a sweat, but that’s all we know about her aside from that she’s originally from a different region, and she tells us that herself. Not very memorable.

Drake: Yet another Dragon trainer late in the game, and not one of the more notable ones. Lance and Clair are remembered for being cousins and for being the first Dragon trainers you really come across in the series, and later Dragon-type trainers like Iris (who becomes Champion of Unova in B2W2) and Raihan are carried by their personalities and distinct looks. Drake is just an old sea captain with Dragon-types, and he doesn’t really jump out at me much either.

Steven: A major player in the plot - one of the most active Champions we’ve had in the franchise - and a perpetually popular character. I never minded running into Steven out and about in Hoenn, even if it meant I’d have to listen to an infodump about rocks, and his Champion battle was actually fairly difficult for the team I brought in despite having two team members with Fire-type attacks to handle the Steel. As I mentioned above, it was my Skitty that made the decisive dodge to allow me to bring in the team member I needed to deliver the final blow, meaning this is now the second time in my life I’ve beaten the Champion with an unevolved house cat. (Rick Pratt the Purrloin is a vital member of my beloved Young Ones Galar Championship Team.) Overall, Steven’s a very likeable Champion, and I did enjoy the little detail of the rocks on display in his home - he has them labeled so you can see where he found them, and they’re from every region featured in the games up to that point.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire also have the Delta Episode, which features Rayquaza (which you’re forced to catch) and a character named Zinnia, who isn’t in RSE at all and is new to ORAS. Besides being named after my favorite flower, Zinnia’s personality is actually very interesting because although she comes across as cheery it’s clear she feels the weight of a massive responsibility and that the cheeriness is covering a lot of pain. Her Whismur named Aster is evidently named after someone important to her who is no longer around, and it’s never revealed in-game who the original Aster was. Whoever Aster was, though, Zinnia misses her deeply. In a 2015 interview, Ohmori Shigeru stated that the original Aster was the person who held the position of Lorekeeper before Zinnia, but we don’t know anything more than that - a shame, really, because that makes for some interesting backstory.

Overall, I had a lovely time in Hoenn, and I’ll be moving on to Kalos in the next few weeks once I finish up this Dex business first. I just wish I got to get to know so many of the characters I’ve met a little better, but I adore the team I put together and I’m super proud of them and all they’ve accomplished.

#Pokemon #Omega Ruby #ORAS #Hoenn #Hoenn Retrospective

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sage-nebula · 4 years ago

Note

Do you have headcanons about which characters Alan meets in each region?

Brock — I feel like Brock would be a very good friend for Alan to have. They’re the same age in canon (15), which makes them peers, and aside from that Brock has a very soothing, nurturing nature, which is exactly the kind of friend that Alan needs after everything that happens with Flare. This is especially true since while Brock is kind, his kindness is true kindness in that he’s also firm when he needs to be, i.e. he’s not an enabler of untrue, self-deprecating thoughts. If Alan tried to blame himself for things that weren’t his fault, Brock would put a stop to that right quick, ripping the shovel from his hands and refusing to let him dig himself deeper. That said, I honestly imagine their meeting would be by chance; perhaps Alan goes to Professor Oak’s lab to run an errand for Sycamore and ends up hearing about how a couple of the Gym Leaders in Kanto have mastered Mega Evolution, and so he decides to check that out on his own before returning to Kalos, and that’s how he meets Brock. But either way, I think it’d be a good friendship for him and one that’d last for years.

Gary — I mentioned this in another post, but Alan and Gary already have so much in common that I just think it’d be neat to see them interact. They’re both nerds who care a lot about pokémon, they both love battling, they were both raised by regional professors, and so on and so forth. Mega Charizard X vs. Mega Blastoise Round II would also be really interesting to see. Though their areas of study are different, I think they’d have a lot to talk about, and the fact that they’re both fond of fieldwork would also be another point in favor of the two of them meeting. If Alan did that errand to Oak’s lab that I mentioned above, this could easily be how he meets Gary, who is perhaps home from his own travels for a little while.

Professor Oak — I mean, let’s just continue this “running an errand to Oak’s” thing, which means that he obviously meets Professor Oak. Alan is a studious young man who’s quite experienced in taking care of pokémon and I think Oak would appreciate that. I don’t think they’d get particularly close, both being focused on the research end of things (and Oak not being one to poach other professor’s assistants, generally), but they’d get along well enough, particularly since I’m sure Alan has a lot of respect for Oak given all his accomplishments in the field.

Tracey — RESURRECT TRACEY SKETCHITT 2020. Honestly, Tracey is Oak’s assistant and so it’s completely bewildering why he is nowhere in sight ever the few times we’re allowed to actually go to Oak’s ranch in the anime. In my world, though, he’s there, and while obviously Oak is his hero I imagine that he’s also very curious about Sycamore’s research as well and would probably jump at the chance to ask Alan all sorts of questions about it, and would be even more excited to draw pictures of Lizardon. Alan would be very happy to let Tracey draw pictures of Lizardon because it gets Tracey out of his personal space bubble and to stop asking him rapid-fire questions. (He doesn’t mind Tracey, but Tracey is very enthusiastic when it comes to gaining knowledge and that would make Alan feel kind of on-the-spot and uncomfortable.)

Delia — When what he has to do at Oak’s ends up having to run into another day (or another couple days), Delia, who happened to be visiting at the time and recognizes Alan as one of Ash’s friends (because Ash told her about him and showed him the picture that was taken of everyone at Sycamore’s lab) “invites” Alan to stay the night, and by “invites” I mean “insists” and so he gets a home cooked meal and a nice place to sleep (in Ash’s room) and also gets mothered for the first time ever in his life. Like, Sycamore is his dad, obviously, and Fulbert was his grouchy uncle, but both of those things aren’t quite exactly the same thing as having a mom, especially one who (though she won’t say it) knows you’ve been through a lot recently and can tell you’re still kind of going through it and so makes extra sure to give you a warm hug when you leave and also a bento with lunch and an extra pack of sweets to take with you. (And when he tries to apologize to her for putting Ash in so much danger she won’t hear of it because Ash told her that Alan saved him multiple times and that’s all that matters to her.) Alan won’t think of her as “mom,” of course, because he’s only known her a couple days and she most definitely is not his mom, but he does wonder, when she hugs him, if that’s what being hugged by a mother feels like, and it sticks with him for a while. All in all, Alan likes Delia, although he and Lizardon both don’t know how they feel about Delia calling Lizardon “Li-Li.”

And wow, this is getting really long, so all the rest (and there are a lot more) are going under a cut!

Misty — Because if Alan goes to Pewter Gym to battle Brock due to Mega Evolution, then of course when Brock tells Alan that the Cerulean City Gym Leader has also mastered Mega Evolution, he’s going to go there as well. Given that they both get pretty fired up for battles, Alan and Misty would get along pretty well right off the bat. Misty would be particularly interested in battling (and beating) him since she knows that he beat Ash at the Kalos League, and as much as she loves Ash, she wants to be able to have that one over on him because they’re rivals just as much as they’re best friends. Unfortunately, this battle doesn’t go so well, because when Alan learns that Misty’s Mega Evolution partner is a Gyarados, that gives both him and Lizardon trauma flashbacks pretty much right away. They both try to shake it off, but Brock can tell something’s off and all but insists they stop the match . . . which neither Alan or Misty are really happy with, but, well. Alan can’t say he’s exactly upset to see Mega Gyarados go back in its ‘ball.

Casey — She ends up being the Johto Champion, so of course he meets her (and in specific they meet as Champions). Alan and Casey don’t really talk very much because they don’t really have anything in common. She’s not interested in “nerd stuff” like his research and he has 0% interest in baseball (when she mentions The Electabuzz he legitimately thinks she’s talking about the species of pokémon and has no idea why she’s so offended when he says he’s never heard of the sports team). Casey does get on really well with Manon, though, since the two have very similar energy, even though Manon also knows nothing about baseball. (She does know how to join Casey in making fun of Alan’s “nerd stuff” while he rolls his eyes, though, so there is that.)

Morty & Eusine — Counting these two together as they should be. I don’t think this would be a long-lasting relationship by any means, but I could imagine a scenario where Alan travels to Ecruteak City to learn more about the legends there since he’s interested, and he goes to Morty to learn about them, and Eusine either happens to already be there or barges in while the two are talking, and the second he hears that Alan has some interest in Suicune (and that Alan has interest in hearing about Eusine’s findings once he learns that Eusine is the Ultimate Expert On Suicune™ (according to Eusine himself), well. Alan regrets asking only 30 minutes into that 4 hour lecture. Morty leaves partway through and brings back some tea for them to share because, well. Alan really did it now, didn’t he.

Lance & Clair — In a timeline where Alan studies his heritage (and learns that his heritage links back to the Blackthorn dragon clan), he meets both of them. He might meet Lance in a standard timeline anyway since Lance is always vying for Kanto’s Champion seat and held it before Ash did, but nonetheless he wouldn’t get on with either of them, honestly. Clair has an imperious attitude and is prone to fits of temper when she doesn’t get her way, which would annoy Alan, and Lance can be pretty arrogant and his sense of morality often clashes with Alan’s own. On the flipside, Clair would think Alan an upstart brat who has no right to think he could be on her level, while Lance would find Alan naive and foolhardy. So while they hail from the same clan (albeit distantly, in Alan’s case), they would not consider each other friends, let alone any kind of family.

Wallace — Alan is friends with Steven, and Steven is dating / engaged / married to Wallace, so it’s pretty inevitable the two would meet. I think they’d get along well enough in the few times they were around each other, but honestly they wouldn’t see / talk to each other enough to have any kind of real relationship.

Zinnia — In my head my Delta Episode AU 100% happens and they meet and bond through that when Zinnia tries to mug him for his Key Stone, fails, but then actually succeeds in stealing Sycamore’s Key Stone and so Alan goes tearing after her to get it back. This whole thing culminates in Zinnia revealing to Alan what Devon Corp has been doing with Infinity Energy (which puts a severe strain on his friendship with Steven, very nearly shattering the trust between them, and it takes a long time to heal), and Alan helping Zinnia summon Rayquaza despite his own trauma associated with it and also riding with her into space to help Rayquaza + pulling her off the great sky dragon at the last second so they can be caught by their dragons and both survive. (In other words: Unlike how the actual Delta Episode played out, Zinnia does not have her thunder stolen here. She is the one who summons Rayquaza, teaches it Dragon Ascent, and carries out her destiny as Lorekeeper. Alan just helps her survive the experience, even though they both still almost die, and end up laughing hysterically about it on the roof of the Sky Pillar because, after falling from space and almost dying, what else is there to do?) Their relationship definitely gets off on a rocky start due to the mugging and theft and Zinnia’s habit of being deliberately vague about important things and also talking in circles to avoid answering questions directly (not to mention that Zinnia knows that Alan is friends with Steven and figures, at first, that he must therefore be like Steven in all the ways Zinnia dislikes, such as using pokémon as a means to an end and not caring about lives that he can’t see), but after getting to know each other through the journey to save two universes from a giant Deoxys-infested meteor, they come to a mutual understanding and end up realizing they’re something of kindred spirits. Even though they can still be prone to teasing and bickering whenever their paths cross again after that, there’s also a very deep foundation of trust that can only be gained when you realize you have met your match in attempts to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the world in death-defying stunts that you will never, ever learn your lesson from no matter how many times you tell the people who care about you that you have most definitely learned it this time, you promise. (Not that Zinnia has many of those people left, but she does have her grandmother and others from the Draconid clan, plus she now also has Alan, so. There’s that. Also, no, she and Steven never, ever come to like each other, and Alan does his best to hang out / talk with each of them separately to save himself the headache of trying to mediate.)

Cynthia — She’s the Champion of Sinnoh, so obviously he meets her once he becomes Champion himself, and given that they’re both nerds they get along pretty well as a result. I think I’ve talked about this before, that she kind of becomes like a Cool Aunt for him, in that they can talk about legends and mythos and go on ancient ruins explorations together. Like if one of them discovers some ancient ruins, they’ll send the other a message to see if they want to go spelunking together and the answer is almost always yes. The only times Alan doesn’t appreciate spending time with Cynthia are the times when she teams up with Steven to try to “improve his wardrobe” because Steven and Cynthia are the designated Fashion Icons of the Champion Squad and both think it’s “such a shame” that Alan doesn’t care much about clothes. Otherwise, though, he gets along great with Cynthia and is always happy to have a new message from her.

Tobias — Alan doesn’t actually know Tobias, in that he never got Tobias’ name and probably wouldn’t recognize him again if he saw him on the street (and vice versa), but it’s my headcanon that the first time Alan and Lizardon ever successfully used Mega Evolution, it was in a battle against Tobias. They still ended up losing the match (I mean, the man has a team of legendaries, there’s only so much anyone can do), but given that they successfully used Mega Evolution for the first time, Alan and Lizardon still considered it a victory overall.

Iris — Iris becomes Unova’s Champion, obviously, but I’d like to think that they actually met before that, when Iris traveled to Kalos as part of her training (and the cameo episodes that she DESERVED but NEVER ACTUALLY GOT), and Iris saw Lizardon and got so excited because cute dragon!!! and as a result introduced herself. She makes a remark about how she knows that Charizard isn’t actually a dragon-type, and then Alan tells her about the X form of Mega Evolution and she decides to write Ash a letter right then and there telling him that he was WRONG and she was RIGHT and he should STUDY MORE, MAYBE, or something along those lines. Anyway, I like to think that they battle (with Iris using her Dragonite, or perhaps Haxorus if Axew has evolved by that point), and perhaps even run off some criminals / protect the lab together, or some such. You know, bonding time. Iris and Alan get along pretty well given that they both love dragons and enjoy battling and adventure. She’s the one who always most appreciates when Alan posts pictures of Lizardon into the Champion messenger.

Emma — So this one is sort of an AU idea, considering that much of Alan’s story was clearly based on Emma’s story from the XY postgame, and as such it makes sense to think that they might not exist in the same world. But I love the idea that they were, perhaps, childhood friends; they both would have grown up in Lumiose City, after all, and I could imagine them having a sort of odd friendship over the years, wherein Emma teases Alan for always having his nose in a book or wanting to study and do homework, while Alan just wants to research in peace, and all the while Sycamore is trying to encourage Alan to make friends. Emma, I like to imagine, would have been adopted by Looker around age 7, so they didn’t get to know each other for too long before she was whisked away with her own adoptive parent. But perhaps they met again at the Summer Camp, and perhaps years later Emma — now running the Lumiose branch of the Looker Bureau — helps uncover evidence that gets the police off Alan’s back for the Flare incident somehow. I think it could be a sweet relationship for them. (Alternatively, I’ve also imagined an AU where perhaps she’s his younger biological sister, despite them being roughly the same age canonically, in that his biological parents had another child a little while after abandoning him and decided to keep this one. This AU is more sad because Alan wants nothing to do with his biological parents, and he wouldn’t consider Emma his sister even if they were related by DNA, so I don’t like it as much. It’s still one I’ve considered, though, since design-wise they still look pretty similar and, as I said, they’ve got quite a bit in common even if there are notable differences.)

Louie — We actually do see these two interact in TSME 1, as well as the Kalos League, so this isn’t a headcanon per se. What is headcanon is that Louie considers Alan to be His Rival, while Alan — despite his eidetic memory — always forgets Louie exists the moment they’re done battling. I actually like to think that perhaps they met at the Summer Camp, too, and that they got off on the wrong foot perhaps because Louie was envious that Alan, a kid like him, was Sycamore’s assistant, and Alan got irrationally upset when Louie said that he’d be a much more deserving assistant and would prove it (irrationally because Sycamore would never kick Alan out for another kid, and Alan should theoretically know better at age 10, but also Alan was a child who was already abandoned once and also abused before Sycamore found him so maybe we can give him a pass on this one), and so they spent the whole three day camp hating each other. But then after the camp, Alan forgot about him. And when they met years later and battled, Alan didn’t recognize him (even though Louie DID recognize Alan), and then Alan forgot him again. And Louie felt he’d have his revenge at the League . . . but of course, he didn’t win, and also Alan didn’t know who he was. All in all, this video is a perfect summary of how Louie feels about Alan vs. how Alan feels about Louie.

Hau: Alola’s Champion in the future, and that’s how the two meet. Hau and Alan are pretty neutral toward each other. They have very different energies (Alan is quiet but not laidback, while Hau can be loud but is very laidback), and while this doesn’t make them dislike each other, it also means that they generally don’t talk very much outside of necessary business / the occasional exchange in the Champion messenger. It’s like a very coworker relationship between the two of them, even though they aren’t exactly coworkers. (And before anyone gets in a tizzy, in my headcanon Ash becomes Kanto’s Champion, so no, I’m not “demoting” Ash, please relax.)

The rest of the Alola people he would know I’m leaving out because I wrote those relationships before the games were even released, much less the anime, and so they ended up VERY different from canon. And while I could write in canon-accurate relationships, it’s honestly hard for me to shake what I’d already created out of my head, so it’s just . . . not something that I’d really want to fight with. So if you’re curious about Alan’s relationship with the Aether family, Aether employees, etc, that can go in a separate ask, and will be specific to my Alola AU (which, again, has characterizations from before the games were released even, so the Aether family isn’t IC in it, among other things that I just plain got wrong from the trailers, but whatever, it is what it is). That said, I will say that the comment about “poaching assistants” that I made in Oak’s section was actually kind of a reference to my Alola AU, in which the idea is that after the big climax, Kukui tries to “poach” Alan by inviting him to come be his assistant, because hey, he’s got a pretty impressive resume (and also Ash told Kukui about Alan and especially about all the newfound trauma he has as a result of the Aether AU and asked Kukui if Alan could come stay with them for a while). Alan can be Kukui’s research assistant and also a student teacher at the school and roomies with Ash, it’ll be great. He actually does this right in front of Sycamore, which Sycamore thinks is pretty rude, but when Sycamore asks him about it later Kukui’s like “it was Ash’s idea” and shrugs because he’s got no stakes in this tbqh. (Yeah, I didn’t characterize Kukui completely accurately either because I was working with pre-release info, let me live.) As for whether Alan would say “yes” or not . . . well, we’ll just have to see (I say as if I’ll ever finish that fic this century).

Leon — Galar’s Champion, and as I’ve talked about before I think they’d definitely be friends, plus a little extra, (also they love each other). They’re both Charizard specialists, they both love battling with all their hearts, they love traveling and exploring, they know what it is to have a lot of responsibility foisted upon them at young ages, they’re both very protective of others, valiant and brave, so on and so forth, I’ve already talked about this in another post, haha. They meet as Champions, hit it off immediately, and the relationship forms from there.

Hop — Hop has a tendency to hang around Leon, so I imagine that Alan would meet Hop when he meets Leon. He and Hop don’t talk / interact much after that, really, but Hop and Manon do become rivals, both in whose big brother think they is the best, as well as in battling and the like as well. Just like Alan and Leon are very similar, so are Hop and Manon. I definitely enjoyed the similarities in the Galar games, I won’t lie.

Sonia — I do imagine that Leon would introduce Alan to his friends, which would include Sonia, but at the same time I could also see Alan and Sonia meeting because, like the situation with Gary, they have some commonalities in their backstory. Sonia wasn’t raised by Professor Magnolia, exactly, but clearly her grandmother was a steady presence in her life and she decided to be her assistant. Of course, she ends up taking over the practice by the time she and Alan meet in their 20s, but nonetheless, all that means is that they’re both nerds who would enjoy talking about their research together, and even though Sonia isn’t as big on battling, that wouldn’t stop she and Alan from having a nice friendship and comparing research notes on the differences between Dynamax particles and Mega Evolution energy.

Raihan — As I said, Leon introduces Alan to his friends, and Raihan is still his best friend and rival even though they are also ex-boyfriends. I think that Alan and Raihan would really enjoy battling against one another, would definitely respect each other as trainers, and hey, they both love dragons, so that’s another thing in common. But Raihan is also a social media influencer whose Rotomphone is always snapping pictures, while Alan highly values his privacy and basically isn’t even on social media outside of a rarely updated Instagram that’s purely pictures of scenery and also occasionally Lizardon, never himself. So how they each tend to exist in public spaces is something that puts them at fundamental odds (Alan doesn’t want to be in the pictures and is kind of annoyed, honestly, by the constant snapping of the camera; Raihan thinks Alan is comparable to a caveman for not being on social media and not liking it). They don’t dislike each other, per se, but they also don’t tend to hang out much at all, and when they do it tends to be in small doses (particularly on Alan’s end, given how introverted he is compared to Raihan’s extroversion; Raihan wears him out).

Bede — I’m actually not sure how these two would meet, but while I played through the SwSh games, Bede’s devotion to doing whatever he had to in orde to help Rose achieve his goal (all the while being manipulated into doing so, albeit by Oleana rather than Rose) felt uncomfortably familiar, and I think if Alan was made aware of that he’d try to steer Bede away from that and would definitely not be friendly at all to Oleana. Of course, the primary difference between them is that Bede is a snotty brat while Alan is not and never was, so Bede would not want to listen to Alan at all, and Alan’s help would thus fall on deaf ears. But he’d still try, even as Manon would personally be of the opinion that, hey, maybe Bede is just an annoying jerk and you should just ignore him. (Bede would pick on her just as much as he picks on Hop and so she would not like him one bit. And honestly, Alan’s not too fond of him either, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see another kid manipulated and used like he once was. You don’t get a pass out of doing the right thing just because you don’t like someone, in Alan’s eyes. And that sense of justice and want to do good is really annoying in Manon’s (particularly as she gets older), but is also one of the key things that made her like him so much to begin with, so it’s like. She doesn’t want him to change, but also, Bede is really annoying and mean, though.)

Chairman Rose — Since Alan would participate in tournaments in Galar, and also since he’s Leon’s Special Someone, of course he’d end up meeting Rose at some point. To be honest, Alan wouldn’t trust Rose right off the bat. The fact that a megacorporation owns and runs everything in Galar, including the League, wouldn’t sit right with Alan and he’d be suspicious of it. This is especially true considering that Fleur-De-Lis Labs held considerable influence in Kalos (and look what happened), and Devon Corporation still holds considerable influence in Hoenn (and look what they do re: Infinity Energy). But the thing about Rose is that he’s a natural fit for the public eye and is legitimately a philanthropist / humanitarian, and he’d brush off any distrust that Alan has and always be cordial with him, and over time with him not doing anything wrong to anyone and Leon’s assurances that Rose is all right, Alan would relax around him. A little. Bit by bit. Look, he has a lot of trust issues, okay? He’s hypervigilant. And it doesn’t help that Rose’s second-in-command is, well . . .

Oleana — Oh ho ho these two would not get along at all. While Rose is genuinely friendly and likes talking to people and enjoys battling etc, Oleana is all business and, on top of that, she decides to make some of her business manipulating and using a literal child to do her bidding and then throws him away like used garbage when he goes too far on her orders. To most people she’s cold, calculating, and ruthless (and I say “most people” because she shows the most warmth toward Rose and even that’s not too much). And like, that bit’s fine, she can be how she wants to be, but when she uses and manipulates a child and then discards him like trash, that gets under Alan’s skin. And the thing is, Oleana doesn’t care about that. What she does care about is that she has, of course, done her research on Alan, and she knows that he is Very Likely to interfere with Rose’s plans if he finds out about them, given his past actions (and I believe she’d be of the opinion that he bit the hand that fed when it came to turning against Lysandre, and she’s the type who might bring that up in an argument against him so oh boy), and she’s not about to have that. (To that end, him being around Leon so much, when Rose needs Leon for Eternatus? Hmm. She doesn’t like that.) So there would definitely be a strong and mutual dislike between them, even if they Keep It Together during public events, and Rose and Leon either don’t notice or pretend not to because, well, they’re keeping it civil and don’t have to be around each other for long, so it’s fine, right? Right??

. . . oh boy.

#like don't get me wrong Oleana wouldn't have agreed with Lysandre's plans AT ALL and would be glad the genocide was stopped #but also loyalty is a HUGE part of her characterization and clearly something she values very highly #given the way that she sticks by Rose No Matter What after he believes in & listens to her #so Alan NOT doing that for the man who gave him the means to Mega Evolution the first time around? she'd look down on him for that #also just in general she Knows he will interfere if he finds out Rose's plans and she Won't Have That No Sir #if she has to kick him off the top of Rose Tower or w/e it was called then so be it #if it's for the Chairman it's Justified #(it's really not but try telling her that. she will not cede)#pokemon #trainer alan #trainer alain #champion alan #there are too many other characters here for me to tag #it's a LOT people #and it's late and my hands hurt so #i'm not tagging them all for now #Anonymous

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alaspoorwallace · 5 years ago

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David Foster Wallace

YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT

[...] [DFW, Infinite Jest, 14b]

'I think there must be probably different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type of like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 X 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types. Hurt themselves.' Still that intriguing, unsettling combination of blank facial masking and conventionally animated vocal tone. The doctor's small nods were designed to appear not as responses but as invitations to continue, what Dretske called Momentumizers. 'I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all.’ 'Play,' nodding in confirmation, making small quick notes. 'I wanted to just stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock I would have done that. Instead.’ The doctor was writing with great industry. 'The last thing more I'd want is hurt. I just didn't want to feel this way anymore. I don't... I didn't believe this feeling would ever go away. I don't. I still don't. I'd rather feel nothing than this.’ The doctor's eyes appeared keenly interested in an abstract way. They looked severely magnified behind his attractive but thick glasses, the frames of which were steel. Patients on other floors during other rotations had sometimes complained that they sometimes felt like something in a jar he was studying intently through all that thick glass. He was saying 'This feeling of wanting to stop feeling by dying, then, is —’ The way she suddenly shook her head was vehement, exasperated. 'The feeling is why I want to. The feeling is the reason I want to die. I'm here because I want to die. That's why I'm in a room without windows and with cages over the lightbulbs and no lock on the toilet door. Why they took my shoelaces and my belt. But I notice they don't take away the feeling do they.’ 'Is the feeling you're explaining something you've experienced in your other depressions, then, Katherine?’ The patient didn't respond right away. She slid her foot out of her shoes and touched one bare foot with the toes of the other foot. Her eyes tracked this activity. The conversation seemed to have helped her focus. Like most clinically depressed patients, she appeared to function better in focused activity than in stasis. Their normal paralyzed stasis allowed these patients' own minds to chew them apart. But it was always a titanic struggle to get them to do anything to help them focus. Most residents found the fifth floor a depressing place to do a rotation. 'What I'm trying to ask, I think, is whether this feeling you're communicating is the feeling you associate with your depression.’ Her gaze moved off. 'That's what you guys want to call it, I guess.’ The doctor clicked his pen slowly a few times and explained that he's more interested here in what she would choose to call the feeling, since it was her feeling. The resumed study of the movement of her feet. 'When people call it that I always get pissed off because I always think depression sounds like you just get like really sad, you get quiet and melancholy and just like sit quietly by the window sighing or just lying around. A state of not caring about anything. A kind of blue kind of peaceful state.' She seemed to the doctor decidedly more animated now, even as she seemed unable to meet his eyes. Her respiration had sped back up. The doctor recalled classic hyperventilatory episodes being characterized by carpopedal spasms, and reminded himself to monitor the patient's hands and feet carefully during the interview for any signs of tetanic contraction, in which case the prescribed therapy would be I.V. calcium in a saline percentage he would need quickly to look up. 'Well this' — she gestured at herself— 'isn't a state. This is a feeling. I feel it all over. In my arms and legs.’ 'That would include your carp—your hands and feet?’ 'All over. My head, throat, butt. In my stomach. It's all over everywhere. I don't know what I could call it. It's like I can't get enough outside it to call it anything. It's like horror more than sadness. It's more like horror. It's like something horrible is about to happen, the most horrible thing you can imagine — no, worse than you can imagine because there's the feeling that there's something you have to do right away to stop it but you don't know what it is you have to do, and then it's happening, too, the whole horrible time, it's about to happen and also it's happening, all at the same time.’ 'So you'd say anxiety is a big part of your depressions.’ It was now not clear whether she was responding to the doctor or not. 'Everything gets horrible. Everything you see gets ugly. Lurid is the word. Doctor Carton said lurid, one time. That's the right word for it. And everything sounds harsh, spiny and harsh-sounding, like every sound you hear all of a sudden has teeth. And smelling like I smell bad even after I just got out of the shower. It's like what's the point of washing if everything smells like I need another shower.’ The doctor looked intrigued rather than concerned for a moment as he wrote all this down. He preferred handwritten notes to a laptop because he felt M.D.s who typed into their laps during clinical interviews gave a cold impression. Kate Gompert's face writhed for a moment while the doctor was writing. 'I fear this feeling more than I fear anything, man. More than pain, or my mom dying, or environmental toxicity. Anything.’ 'Fear is a major part of anxiety,' the doctor confirmed.

[...] [DFW, Infinite Jest, 14c]

#literature #american literature #novel #american novel #DFW #david foster wallace #infinite jest #90s novel #year of the depend adult undergarment #wallace #postmodernism #postmodern literature #ingmar bergman #after the rehearsal #lena olin #depression #foster wallace #davidfosterwallace

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certifiedskywalker · 6 years ago

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Safe - Roman Godfrey

Anonymous said: Roman with a girl that has social anxiety please?

I hope you like this!

You couldn’t remember the last time you were able to walk around with your head held high. Something in your mind clicked and the fear of public speaking became the fear of speaking to people in general. At least when it came to people you didn’t know. For the friends you did have, they watched as you shied away from life. All except one.

On those days where you just couldn’t face the world or it’s people, Roman stayed inside with you. He’d hunker down right beside you, watching whatever films you wished while you safely ignored the world. Sometimes, Roman would take you for drives to clear your head from the fear that gnawed at your brain. With him, the anxiety was a dull ache, nothing you couldn’t handle.

“Did something happen today?” Roman’s question broke through your hazy thoughts as you stared out at the landscape that raced by. Turning your head, you allowed yourself a moment to study his soft features. His green eyes were on the road, but they dart to the side to sneak a glance at you. When he noticed your eyes already on him, Roman grinned. “You okay, Y/N?”

“Y-Yeah,” you replied, shifting in the passenger side seat to gaze out the window once more. You heard Roman sigh, but your eyes remained trained on the trees alongside the road. Extending your arm, your hand traveled through the air as it traced the currents of wind that surrounded the car. Bits of your hair whipped as Roman seemed to speed up.

“Was it harder today?” You didn’t need to look at Roman to see the concern written across his face. His voice dripped with worry and it made your heart race.

“Yeah,” you said, more soundly this time. A few moments of silence passed as Roman searched for something to say that he hadn’t already said before. You could imagine that he had a list archived in the back of his head. A list full of “it’s not your fault” and “fuck them”. The words you longed to hear never left his lips, but you were alright with that. You feared that he if did utter the simple phrase that you would fumble and the fear would shroud Roman, cutting him from your life.

“It’s alright,” he said quietly. You turned when he spoke, as this was not something that was on his list. “If everyday was an easy day, a good day, what would make them so special?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” you murmured, your eyes still trained on the boy beside you.

“I know I am,” Roman teased, “I’m a Y/N expert.”

“Really now?” You raised your eyebrow at him as he continued to drive. A smile played on Roman’s lips, making you smile as well.

“Really.”

“Prove it,” you pressed, turning in your seat to face him. Roman turned the car down the street and his house came into view. Pulling into the driveway and parking the car, Roman turned to face you. His green eyes were bright with that confidence that only Roman seemed to possess. The same confidence you wish you could have when you tried to talk to others.

“I know your favorite color, favorite food at your favorite restaurant,” he pushed open the car door as he continued, “I know your favorite animal and whether you prefer cats or dogs.” You stepped out of the car to hear him better. He paused in his speech to grab your backpack along with his own before walking up to the house. “Hell, I even know who your first crush was.”

You blushed a deep crimson, hoping that wasn’t true. “I bet you don’t.”

“I’m sure I do,” Roman said smugly as he held the door open for you. You strode inside the Godfrey mansion, turning to watch Roman enter.

“Then who was it?” Roman smiled as he settled the bags on the floor before walking up to you. Gazing up at him, the smugness in his expression making you weak. Did he really know? Had you been that obvious when you were younger.

“Jackson Williams.” You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped your throat.

“That guy? Who do you take me for?” You said as you walked into the Godfrey’s kitchen. You heard Roman’s frantic footfalls follow behind you. Smiling, you face him. “I can’t even t-talk t-to him.”

Roman frowned as you stuttered out the last few words. It was a sign that your anxiety was beginning to overwhelm you. You pressed your back against the counter in an attempt to ground yourself. As you calmed your breathing, you heard Roman walk up to you. His warm hands rested against your shoulders and you couldn’t help but lift a hand to cover on his own.

“Sorry,” he murmured, but you shook your head.

“No, I just got worked up. I-I….it’s okay.” You pulled away from Roman’s touch and sat down at the large dining table. With you head still held in your hands, you rooted through your thoughts.

As you got lost wandering in every wrong thing you had ever said to other person, Roman set a glass of water down beside you and pulled out the seat next to you so he could sit. You could hear his steady breathing, a sound that, unknown to Roman, had soothed you before class or a club meeting at school. When a teacher or other student talked to you and you couldn’t find the words, Roman, with his rhythmic breath, would come up behind you, guiding you through the conversation.

“Thank you,” you whispered, taking the glass of water to your lips. Roman nodded at you, his eyes now downcast. The tension nestled between you and you hated it. Hoping to shatter the discomfort, you spoke up again. “Still think you’re an expert?”

Roman let out a chuckle. “I’m sure of it. I just misspoke then. Didn't you like Avery Wallace?” You shook your head. “Godammit, was it Sara McAllister?”

“I don’t think you’re gonna get this one, Ro,” you said with a soft smile, “you might want to quit while you’re ahead.” Roman huffed and leaned back in his chair.

“But I know you, Y/N. I know all the ticks you have when you’re annoyed-”

“Because you annoy me,” you teased.

Rolling his eyes, Roman continued, “and I know that when you smile like how you are now it’s because you’re not on edge. Because you’ve forgotten the stress of being with other people. I know that you feel safe around me….but I’m not sure why.”

“Maybe it’s because you kn-know me so well,” you said, trying to hide the blush that creeped up to your cheeks. Roman smiled, chuckled quietly, but his serious eyes were still glued on you.

“Why are you nervous?” You clenched your jaw, knowing full well that he had caught your stutter. Swallowing hard, you set your glass back down on the table. Your eyes never left the polished wood of the table top, not even as you stood up.

“I’m not, I just re-remembered that I-I have t-to go. C-Chores.” You started to walk out of the kitchen quickly, but not so fast as to arouse more suspicion. Alas, your efforts were in vain. Before you could leave the room, you left Roman’s large hand grab your wrist. With a simple tug, he pulled you to him with is green eyes glittering in the light.

“Y/N, do you….I know now, I think.” You swallowed hard, your eyes turned down to study your shoes.

“Kn-know what?” Your voice was barely above a whisper when you spoke, but Roman picked it up. His free hand moved up your arm, fingertips tracing along the exposed skin. Soon the hand made its way under your chin, but he didn’t lift you face up to his.

“Your first crush,” he clarified, his voice low in his throat.

“Y-Yeah? Who is it-t then?”

“Me…” He didn’t have to lift your head so that you would look at him. Instead, finding some deep seeded pinch of courage, you lifted your gaze to his. You nodded silently, licking your lips nervously. Just like when you were introduced to someone new, you felt your mouth go dry and any semblance of words die on the tip of your tongue. So you just nodded and wrapped your arms around Roman’s middle.

His gangly arms held you close to his body and that feeling of safety returned. The beat of his heart lulled you back to comfort, something that seemed only Roman could supply. You allowed yourself to melt into his embrace before you let reality pull you back. It was everything you dreamed it could be, being held in Roman’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into his chest. You felt Roman’s hand moved against your back to your shoulders as he pushed you away enough to look into your eyes.

“Don’t be,” he replied calmly, “I wouldn’t have his any other way.” He leaned his face down, but your breath caught as you jerked your head away. “It’s alright,” he whispered, “may I kiss you?” It was the first time you had ever heard Roman ask for something. He wasn’t all demands all the time, but he never asked with the softness in which he asked you right now.

“Yes.”

“No stutter,” Roman said, a smile forming on his lips.

“You were right,” you said, leaning in, “you do make me safe.” When you finished speaking, Roman leaned in and pressed his lips to yours. He was more gentle than you had expected him to be. Almost as if he thought that if he pushed too hard that you would break around him; but you only felt stronger.

#roman godfrey #roman godfrey x reader #roman godfrey imagine #roman godfrey imagines #hemlock grove #hemlock grove imagine #hemlock grove imagines #roman godfrey fanfiction #roman godfrey x you #hemlock grove fanfiction

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heywhatshouldiwatch · 5 years ago

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Help, what should I watch if I’m drunk ?

First of all, 3 things :

I said drunk but this article works if you’re high or under any kind of drugs I might not even know about as well.

I’m not here to judge you or your life’s choices.

Alcohol and drugs are bad. Use these substances in moderation. Please.

Having said that, we can get into the heart of the matter. Forget about How High and all that kind of stupid movies your stoner friend loves to talk about all the time as if they were real masterpieces. Because they’re not. I assure you there are lots of other much better movies which you don’t necessarily think about when it’s time to watch something while you’re stoned, drunk or whatever your state is. Sometimes, these movies even have nothing to do with drugs, but they’re so absurd there is no need.

The Big Lebowski, Joel & Ethan Coen (1998)

Ok, I have to admit this one was easy, but we can’t get tired of it. The Big Lebowski is doubtless one of the best movies ever made. And I use the term « movies » and not « comedies » on purpose : I really think that this movie is way more than just a refreshing comedy. The story follows Jeff Lebowski, better known as « the Dude », who is going to be mistaken for a millionaire of the same name. While the Dude just trying to get his carpet replaced - the two guys who confused him with the other Lebowski urinated on it - he’ll find himself involved in a dangerous mission with his bowling buddies. The Dude may be vulgar, lazy, weed and White Russian addict, he’s also the coolest character cinema has ever seen.

A Town Called Panic, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar (2009)

I still remember when I saw this movie for the first time. I was captivated all along and at the end, I was asking myself : what the f*ck did I just watch ? This Belgian film is absolutely surreal. The story is about two friends, Cowboy and Indian, who want to find the perfect gift for their friend’s birthday, Mr Horse’s. Spoiler alert : their plan turns out to be a total disaster. After they accidentally destroyed Mr Horse’s house, they will be taken in a hilarious and absurd journey to the center of the earth, where they’ll find a secret and dangerous underwater universe. I told you, this movie is totally surreal. And great. Even if you probably won’t understand everything, you’ll laugh for sure.

By the way, this movie’s humour and the stop-motion animation remind a lot of Wallace and Gromit’s universe.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson (2004)

This movie is about a sea expedition in order to hunt down a mysterious creature, a « leopard shark », that killed the partner of Steve Zissou, the main character played by the legendary Bill Muray. Besides being visually beautiful, the story is absolutely insane and all the characters hilarious. This expedition is also about making a documentary of it, so you basically have a movie within the movie. Zissou’s crew will also have to espace from pirates and a multitude of other incredible situations. The Life Aquatic is definitely unique, brillant and imaginative. Impossible to get bored while watching it.

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televisor-reviews · 5 years ago

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Top 10 WORST Movies Of 2018!

As everyone is talking about their favorite and least favorite films of last year, I’d much rather take a look at what came out two years ago! This is what I do every New Year, get used to it. And keep in mind that I haven’t seen every film from 2018, so as bad as I’m sure Sherlock Gnomes and Pacific Rim: Uprising are, I haven’t gotten around to them. If you’d like a list of every film I have seen, I have them listed on my Letterboxd: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1HnDnQ4ibO82ryM9lOCGgw1FZhVLdC4SZ

#10. Fifty Shades Freed On my 2015 list, I didn’t even bother putting Fifty Shades Of Grey on it because I thought it was absolutely hilarious! On my 2017 list, I placed Fifty Shades Darker at the very top for its lack of even the basics of what makes a decent flick, notably there being no real plot. So I guess I’m meeting this franchise in the middle by putting Fifty Shades Freed at the tenth spot for just how batshit this movie is. Shit kinda just happens randomly with little to no reason while also not being funny in the slightest. In fact, large segments of the film is kinda boring, particularly the sex scenes in which there are so many that by the 20th time, you’d just get used to it like a jump scare in Winchester. Really, the biggest reason this is only at #10 is because Fifty Shades Freed has Freed us all from this series, assuming that a film adaptation of Grey isn’t made. And that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever given to one of these movies. #9. A Wrinkle In Time I once heard someone justify Disney’s live action remakes by saying they help fund their more unique film escapades like Nutcracker And The Four Realms (which barely didn’t make the list). The problem with that is that I don’t want those ether! And considering how Solo and The Rise Of Skywalker turned out, maybe Disney’s live action department should just stick with Marvel movies. Honestly, I don’t completely remember why I left the theater after seeing A Wrinkle In Time so angry, like legitimately pissed off. I remember the girl who looks like one of the Mean Girls being treated like a member of the Losers Club, how terrible the child acting was, how even worse the adult acting was, how annoying everybody who wasn’t Chris Pine was, and how that little kid was named Charles Wallace because the characters said it at least a million times! Considering how angry I am just writing about it, I’m guessing it was a combination of all of those elements being wrapped up with a pretentious bow. Honestly, A Wrinkle In Time was a humongous waste of my time. #8. Show Dogs It’s a bad sign when the movie starring Bojack Horseman yelling at Ludacris dog is only at #8 on my list. The big reason for that is because this is so terrible that I had to break down laughing at times. Not because Show Dogs is genuinely or ironically funny, it’s just so batshit insane that I had to laugh. Almost like a defense reflex: like if I wasn’t laughing, I’d end up jumping off the roof. The plot is crazy, the acting is crazy, the whole fucking idea is crazy! I’d like you to stop and imagine Will Arnett with the straightest face possible yelling at a dog voiced by Ludacris that nobody can actually hear in the middle of a very serious police station about the dog fucking up an undercover job and somehow not laughing your ass off. That is what it was like watching Show Dogs. You’re welcome. #7. Slender Man I think people really downgrade how good horror has been lately. I know that in a world of Insidious: The Last Key and Truth Or Dare, it’s easy to be pessimistic. And I think people also dismiss the greatness the internet has had on modern pop culture. Considering how bad things like Daphne And Velma and Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle are, I kinda get it. In reality, these tend to be the outliers among a lot of greatness, but after seeing Slender Man, I’m starting to think similarly. I was one of the only people who was actually excited about this movie because I’m young enough to remember a time when Slender Man: The Eight Pages was the scariest thing in the world and after seeing how well Hollywood treated the character in Beware The Slender Man, I was really hopeful. Little did I know that Madhouse Entertainment had one of the least interesting and least scary horror movies I’ve ever seen with boring characters, a monster that’s barely in the movie, and a script that’s closer to Rings than it is to its source material. I really hope this’ll go the way of Ouija and Annabelle and end up having a really good followup or else Slender Man will be a huge blot on the legitimacy of the internet. #6. Snake Outta Compton I’m gonna be straight with y’all, I have been doing a pretty bad job at keeping up with horror B-movies lately. I mean, I did watch The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time and Leprechaun Returns but those were mostly just mediocre, even within the context of the rest of their franchises. So when I saw the title Snake Outta Compton, I knew I had to watch it expecting something really stupid and funny as all hell. Instead I got a boring and uninteresting barely even an attempt at cinema. I really hated this film, it’s just such a boringly dull film where little to nothing ever happens and I hated every dumb second of it. The terrible rapping, the awful effects, the horrendous acting, everything in snake Outta Compton sucks and I hate it. #5. Norm Of The North: Keys To The Kingdom Remember that god awful polar bear movie starring Rob Schneider from a few years ago… yeah, they made four of those. Normal people would say the first Norm Of The North was the absolute bottom of the barrel, I say “No!… It’s Norm Of The North: Keys To The Kingdom,” and even more suicidal people would probably say it’s Norm Of The North: King Sized Adventure. If you thought the animation in the original was bad, you’ve seen nothing! This is so bad that I’m not even sure it should be considered animation! This is so bad that it makes Duck Duck Goose look like The Grinch! This is so bad that they couldn’t even get Rob Schneider back! The plot, it’s like this is one of those straight to DVD Disney sequels that were made up of episodes of conceled TV shows except why would anyone try to make Norm Of the FUCKING North into a TV show! But apparently it made money considering how (and I’ll repeat this again) there are four of these! Maybe the immense failure of Arctic Dogs will stop Entertainment Studios from making any more. #4. The Thinning: New World Order Speaking of sequels that’ll make the originals look like masterpieces, we’ve got Logan Paul’s magnum opus, coming straight outta that Japanese suicide forest. A film that tells you that a country made up of the smartest 95% of citizens are stupid enough to not catch on to the pretty obvious government plan going on in this universe. Even more so, apparently presidents to be are allowed to just make major laws that’ll arrest about 50% of the population before being sworn in as president. But even more so, I’m to believe that Logan Paul of all people is smart enough to escape these poorly conceived concentration camps. This is a key example of suspension of disbelief gone too far. I don’t believe for a second that this world actually could exist. And I want everyone reading this to remember The Thinning: New World Order after seeing what I put at number one that even liberals can make terrible movies too! #3. The 15:17 To Paris No shit, this is easily the worst movie I’ve ever seen in theaters. No joke, no sarcasm, the Clint Eastwood trainwreck that is The 15:17 To Paris is by far one of the worst movies of the decade… and it’s only at #3 on my bottom 10 of the year. Let me explain. Where the absolute bottom of the barrels of the year are total slogs that I wouldn’t be able to stand watching again, this is actually really fun to watch. Immediately after seeing it in theaters, I wanted to see it again just to make sure it wasn’t a fever dream. In every conversation I have, I recommend this movie because it has to be seen to be believed. Of all the films on this list, this is the only one I’d actually recommend to people. No other film has the balls to portray three normies with ADD talking as boringly as possible taking selfies in Venice for 30 minutes for no goddamn reason. In no other movie will you see a bunch of comedians try and do serious roles that they had no right being casted in. When I went back to school and brought this up with my film nerd friends, every one of them had a different story of watching this. My god, please watch The 15:17 To Paris so that we can convince Clint Eastwood into making The 15:18 To Paris. #2. Gotti Let me tell ya, Gotti is one of the wurst felms ya’ll evar see! Who in da hell convinced John Travolta that he culd do serious roles! But in all seriousness, this movie sucks. I’m not super familiar with the story of John Gotti, and by that I mean I’ve never even heard the name before seeing this film. And I’m pretty sure that to even get what’s going on in this, you’d have to see a 3 hour documentary on the guy beforehand or else you’d be incredibly confused the entire time because I know I was! Don’t even ask me what happens in Gotti because I have no clue. It goes all over the place with different characters doing different things at different points in time and eventually, I stopped paying attention! I do remember that there were about 20 characters named “John,” John Gotti only kills one guy though I’m pretty sure that as a mob boss he’d kill more, and I have no idea how this mafia makes money. Oh, and this convicted feline is apparently also Jesus Christ. I’ll tells yas, ya can live 100 yeers an neva see a moovy as bad as Gotti. Before we get to #1, let’s do some runners up!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom I wanted so bad to put this on the list because as a pretty big Jurassic Park fan, I can fairly say that Fallen Kingdom is easily the worst film in the franchise. If only because of that dumb ass twist at the end with that kid I kinda forgot even existed. Or just for those annoying ass comedic reliefs that are consistently useless. Or just because on a base filmmaking level, this movie sucks. Hurricane Bianca: From Russia With Hate Listen, I’m openly and proudly bisexual, so I get how important it is to get good representation out there in the film industry. And I also get why a lot of the Ru Paul: Drag Race fandom has latched onto this series. But Jesus Christ guys, drag queens can do better and they deserve better. From Russia With Hate is definitely a step in the right direction with it being way more interesting and fun than the first Hurricane Bianca… but come on guys! These aren’t good movies! Just watch more Drag Race, it’s much better. The Happytime Murders Disney, please let Muppets Now be good! The puppetry artform deserves better than this garbage! The Happytime Murders is a movie in which half the jokes is that a puppet is jizzing a lot. Honestly, my biggest beef with this film is that it doesn’t even get to the heart of what people love about the Jim Henson style of puppetry, notably the fun. Look at most of the cast, they are very humanoid compared to Kermit The Frog or Fozzy Bear. This movie is, first and foremost, not fun. Bob Lazar: Area 51 And Flying Saucers This is my nomination for worst documentary of the year. It’s just annoying to me that this guy can get away with lying to so many people without any repercussions. In fact, he gets this whole documentary that’s basically sucking his dick the entire time! I went in expecting something along the lines of Behind The Curve, a doc that takes an even stance at looking at its crazy subject matter but in a respectful way. In reality, Area 51 And Flying Saucers isn’t even in the slightest being totally on Bob Lazar’s side without questioning his all knowing wisdom for a second and is n’t respectful in the slightest for the intelligence of its viewers! Fuck this doc! A Simple Favor This is my nomination for best worst movie of the year. A Simple Favor is a crazy film with a cast and crew taking it weirdly seriously for a comedy, all with super monotone voices. None of the actual jokes are genuinely funny but lots of them are ironically hilarious. Granted I was very high while watching this, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s the best state of mind to be in while watching it! And did I mention how nobody acts during this but rather just say their lines monotonely! Loved it! God’s Not Dead: A Light In Darkness This was the year Christian propaganda got boring. I was so excited when I went to see I Can Only Imagine in theaters as my first theatrical Christian film experience only to be totally disappointed when it turned out to be pretty dull. Even more so when, later on in the year, the newest installment in the world famous God’s Not Dead franchise, the same one that first brought upon this new age of Christian based filmmaking that’s brought me so much joy before, turned out to be similarly dull. There was a split moment when a character states, “Jesus Christ was the original social justice warrior,” when I was brought back to life with its own stupidity, but it turned out to be fleeting. Not outrageous enough to be put on the list, but too outrageous to be any good. So this is how God’s Not Dead ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Meg And speaking of boring, The Meg has to be the most boring shark movie ever made. A film that feels like it lasts for days and in which no real stakes feel like are in play. This has got to be the most boring and dull and uninteresting and BORING movie of the year! And considering how boring of a year it was for film, that’s saying a goddamn lot! Mary Poppins Returns I feel like I went through an arc of my own while watching this. I went from, “this isn’t bad,” to, “okay, this is a little too much like the original,” to, “why the fuck am I watching this?” Mary Poppins Returns feels like one of the Disney live action remakes because it’s basically just a shittier version of the original with absolutely no good reason to exist let alone to watch, especially compared to said original. And the climax makes absolutely no sense with the logic of the film universe; she can literally fly! And by god, does this feel like anything but Mary Poppins. Blockers Listen, I get that this film is sex positive and that’s a really great thing and all the actors are really trying their best. But it is all in vain for this film with a really unfunny script and that’s kinda important for a comedy. Sometimes Blockers can get a chuckle out of me because of how over the top it can get at times but those are just outliers in a mostly mediocre movie that got built up too much because of how much positivity is in this. Proud Mary Proud Mary is the perfect example of a film in which just because someone can do it well, doesn’t mean everyone can. Ever since Quentin Tarantino has been making movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, throw back action films have been really cool to see. Then, all of a sudden, the director of London Has Fallen had to come around and remind everyone that they can’t all be winners. Mostly dull dialogue between characters I don’t care about waiting for the action that isn’t even all that good. I was really hopeful that Proud Mary would be fun, but it’s anything but. #1. The Trump Prophecy Listen, I get that when I say that a movie literally titled The Trump Prophecy is the worst film of the year, it comes off as if I’m making a big political statement but believe me, I am not. Politically, admittedly, I am pretty liberal but I’m not really a political dude. But I do know terrible filmmaking when I see it, and believe it or not, a film about a crazy firefighter who gets a vision in his sleep from a god orb that Donald Trump must be president might not be very good. In fact, fuck this cynical, piece of shit, taking advantage of conservatives, monotonely acted, with no love or passion put into it, goddamn movie! As much as I didn’t like any of the movies I’ve mentioned on this list, it’s clear someone, anyone, was passionate about making them. But considering how clearly the director never asked any of his actors to do a second take, no love is clearly put into this. How cynical, how shameless. As someone who does genuinely love the art of filmmaking and would adore the opportunity to make a relatively big budget movie myself, the fact that something as lifeless as The Trump Prophecy gets to be put into any theaters really pisses me off. Say what you want about The 15:17 To Paris, at least it had its heart in the right place. Say what you want about Gotti, at least John Travolta was obviously passionate about the project. This has nothing and is easily the most hatable film I’ve seen in years!

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darkvalkyrie6 · 5 years ago

Text

The mighty slayer

Drawn by: Kerby Rosanes (coloring book Mythomorphia)

Colored by: me

I got the inspiration for the story from one character, from books of my favorite author. I won't say which one so no spoilers. Just read the story, there is a short explanation at the end.

I didn't use any movies or series for inspiration, all I did is sit in front of my laptop and start to write, the story is my original work.

This is just the result of my weird imagination and brain thinking of what that character would do and telling me what to write. I hope you like it :)

It’s still just a story, like all of my other stores. It doesn’t have a deeper spiritual, moral or ethical meaning.

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It was a peaceful morning. One of those mornings, even the rosters were sleeping in late. Wallace just got up and thought that this will be a good day. His father already fed all the animals, he just needed to do his favorite chore, take the sheep to the pasture to stretch their legs.

Wallace got dressed, came down to the kitchen, took something he could eat on his way to the pasture and left towards the sheep pen. He called Stella, the sheepdog, to help him with getting the sheep out of the pen and towards the pasture. Stella was a good sheepdog, she was very obedient and smart. Wallace sometimes felt she was even smarter than he was. Together they rounded up the sheep and directed them towards the pasture.

On the way to the pasture, a small group of bandits jumped out from the bushes.

“Give us yer money!” One of the bandits said.

“I don’t… I don’t have money. I’m just… I’m just taking the sheep to the pasture.” Wallace said with fear in his voice.

“Then give us what yer got!” The same bandit shouted at him.

“I don’t have… I don’t have anything.” Wallace said turning his pockets inside out, panicking. The sandwich he took from the kitchen fell on the floor next to him. The bandit, not seeing clearly, what it was, started walking towards Wallace.

Wallace panicked bent down to pick up and show the bandit that what fell from his pocket was just a sandwich. He accidentally picked up a rock and as he stood up, to show the bandit that the sandwich wasn’t worth anything, the rock flew out of his hand hitting a big rock on the wall next to the road, above the bandit. The big rock fell down on the bandit, killing him instantly and pulling a few more rocks with it, killing the other bandits.

Wallace just stood in the middle of the road, the sandwich still next to his feet, not believing what just happened. People who lived near, saw what Wallace did, came rushing towards him cheering his bravery. Shaking his hand and happily throwing him in the air, thanking him for saving them from the bandits who were giving them trouble for months.

From that day on, in his village Wallace was known as Wallace the bandit slayer.

People in the village started looking and behaving differently towards Wallace. He didn’t like that, he was just a farmer's son, not a bandit slayer. Nobody believed him that it was all an accident, they all thought that he was just being modest. He decided to ignore their behavior. Everything that happened in the village was interesting for a time and as quickly as it got interesting, it was forgotten.

One evening Wallace was in the village tavern with his friend Harold. They were drinking beer and having a few laughs on account of the mighty Wallace the bandit slayer when a knight in black armor walked in.

Everyone in the tavern got really quiet because everyone knew who the black knights were and what they were capable of. The Malum kingdom, the southern kingdom was ruled by the evil king Lues the fourth. Their only goal was to expand the kingdom by any means necessary and that meant conquering any town, village or kingdom by brute force. The black knights were a group of elite knights that could single-handedly kill a hundred people in a fight.

Nobody in the tavern was staring at the black knight, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t looking at him. Everyone was just hoping that he was passing through. Wallace couldn’t help himself and looked at the black knight. The knight looked back at him with a pretentious look on his face and Wallace quickly looked away. The knight stood up and walked over to the table where Wallace was sitting.

“You have a problem with me farm boy?” The knight said with a pretentious voice.

“No… No, sir. I don’t.” Wallace said with fear in his.

“Then why were you staring at me you sheep?” The knight said, wanting to insult Wallace in front of everybody.

“I… I just... I just like your armor, sir.” Wallace said softly.

“Did I hear you right? You want my armor?!” The black knight shouted as if he was in shock that a petty farm boy dared to challenge him.

“Then come! Take it from me if you think you can!” The knight shouted with anger in his voice, not believing that a farmer would have the nerve to look at him, let alone challenge him. He grabbed Wallace by his upper arm and dragged him outside the tavern.

“No! I… I just… I didn’t...” While the knight was dragging him, Wallace tried to explain that the knight heard him wrong.

Outside the tavern, the knight shouted at Wallace. “Are you a coward, trying to talk your way out of a fight you started? Fight you coward!”

Wallace looked back at the tavern, everyone who was in the tavern was now standing at the door and the windows looking at them, nobody was coming out to help him. He looked around looking for anything that he could use as a weapon, it wouldn’t make any difference because he couldn’t fight, but it would at least look like he tried.

“I see you have no weapon. Let’s make this a fair fight.” The knight said and threw a dagger towards him.

As Wallace picked up the dagger, the knight took out the biggest sword Wallace has ever seen. ‘I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die...’ The thought repeated inside Wallace’s head.

The knight took a position to fight, ready to attack, he ran towards Wallace with his sword raised in the air. Wallace put the dagger in front of his face and started moving back towards the tavern. The knight's sword hit the dagger with so much force that Wallace’s whole hand went numb. Wallace dogged the knight’s next attack, moving towards the tavern even more. Wallace tried to attack the knight with the dagger, but it just bounced off the black armor, making the black knight lough.

“Let’s end this, shall we?” The knight said with a smirk on his face.

He grabbed Wallace by the neck and slammed him against the tavern’s wall. “What made an insect like you think you can fight me?” The knight said with anger in his voice and slammed Wallace again against the wall of the tavern. As he slammed Wallace against the wall, the metal rod holding the tavern sign started to get loose.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you who dare to be so arrogant to think you are better than the black knights!” He slammed Wallace again against the wall of the tavern and the metal rod shook, now barely holding onto the wall.

“Let this insects fate be a warning to all of you!” The knight shouted, slamming Wallace again against the wall and he raised his sword in the air with the intention of killing him. The metal pole holding the tavern sign got loose and started to fall down. The spike at the end of the metal rod stabbed the knight into the top of his head. The black knight fell to the floor dead.

From that day on, in his village Wallace was known as Wallace the black knight slayer.

Many stories about his battle with the black knight were circling around the village, none of them true and again nobody believed Wallace that it was all just an accident. Even his own family didn’t believe him, they were even proud of him, of their youngest son the black knight slayer.

Wallace needed to get away from it all for a while so he took the sheep to the pasture. At least he was alone there; there were no people that looked at him as if he was a miracle incarnated. As the sun started to go down he and Stella rounded up the sheep and headed home.

At the farm, Wallace and Stella got the sheep in the pen and Wallace went to the house to get something to eat. ‘A normal day for a change.’ Wallace thought to himself, ate and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, the loud bleating of sheep awakened Wallace. He put on his pants, ran out of his room and down the stairs. He saw his father and mother rushing out of the house so he followed them. Outside he saw a thunderstorm in the sky and a few of their neighbors, whose animals were also restless. There was a short flash of light high up in the sky. It repeated a few times and then a loud roar followed.

“Oh no. A dragon!” His father yelled. “Get the animals under shelter! Hurry! There’s a dragon in the sky!” He shouted. He told Wallace’s sisters to go warn the neighbors, and Wallace and his older brothers to take care of the animals.

Wallace took care of the sheep, got them inside the barn and walked out to see the dragon. He never saw one, he heard many stories about them, but he always wanted to see one in real life. He looked up in the sky, but he couldn’t see the dragon because of the thunderstorm clouds.

“Are you crazy son? Get inside or the dragon will get you!” His father shouted at him but it was too late. The dragon landed a few feet away from Wallace. It was a magnificent creature, big as a house, wings larger than the sails of a ship, scales black and smooth and horns on his head and neck impressive and big as spears.

The dragon wasn’t looking at Wallace, it was looking for the animals, for food. But as the animals were all safe inside, the dragon saw the only thing still outside in the open, he saw Wallace. The dragon started to move towards Wallace and Wallace’s father started shouting at Wallace to run and hide.

Seeing the dragon move towards him, Wallace started to run across the field. It didn’t even occur to him that a house or a barn would be a safer place to run to. He ran as fast as he could across the field, reached the high fence surrounding their farm, it had metal columns and a wooden fence and crawled under it. As he crawled under it, the dragon tried to catch him with his mouth and in the process, the dragon stabbed his left eye with one of the metal columns.

Wallace continued to run as fast as he could, feeling the earth beneath him shake under the weight of the dragon running behind him, the now raging thunderstorm drowning out the dragons growls and roars of anger and pain from the metal rod sticking out of his left eye. Thinking he could hide in the water, Wallace ran towards the lake, the dragon followed him. Wallace tried to jump into the lake to dive underwater and hide there, but the dragon jumped first and being bigger and stronger, jumped over Wallace and landed in the lake first. As the dragon landed in the lake, a lightning bolt struck the metal rod sticking out of his left eye, frying his brain. The dragon fell down into the lake dead.

From that day on, in his village Wallace was known as Wallace the dragon slayer.

Many stories about his battle with the dragon were circling around the village, none of them true. ‘Not again.’ Wallace thought to himself. This time Wallace didn’t even try to explain that it was all an accident. For several days, he didn’t leave his house because every time he went to the village people cheered and just made a spectacle of how brave and strong he is. Even the travelers and merchants just passing through the village knew his name.

After a few weeks, Wallace went to the village, to have a drink at the tavern in the middle of the village. When he got there, he saw a statue of himself with the words Wallace the dragon slayer engraved at the bottom of the statue. Wallace looked at the statue with a blank stare, turned around and walked home. ’This whole village is crazy.’ He thought to himself.

On his way home, somebody jumped out of the bushes behind him and hit him on the head and he lost consciousness. Wallace woke up in a grating carriage, surrounded by other people, some of them still unconscious. There was one driver in front, six knights on horses and a few soldiers following the carriage. ‘I think I just got kidnapped. My head is killing me. What did they hit me with? A stone wall?’ Wallace thought as he massaged the part of his head that hurt like hell.

After a while, Wallace saw a massive campsite in the distance. It looked like an army campsite. He looked at the knights following the carriage more closely trying to see the coat of arms on their armor, it looked like the coat of arms from the east kingdom, the Orientem kingdom. He knew that the east and the west kingdom were at war and that his village was on the edge of the west kingdom, the Occidens kingdom. But he didn’t know there would be a battle so close to his village. He had to warn his family somehow.

‘How can I warn them when I’m a prisoner?’ Wallace thought and tried to come up with a plan. Coming up with plans wasn’t one of his best personality traits.

At the campsite, the soldiers forcibly pulled the people out of the carriage and put on shackles and chains on them. They split up the people from the carriage and took them in different directions. A soldier took Wallace and a woman to a tent that looked like a makeshift tavern where the soldiers came to eat and drink. The soldier chained them to the floor, in what looked like an improvised kitchen and left. “Guess we are the cooks now. I’m Wallace. What's your name?” Wallace asked the woman.

The woman just crouched, hugged her knees and cried.

“Ok�� Nice to meet you.” Wallace said nervously.

A big fat man walked into the kitchen and said. “They brought only two. How do they expect me to make a feast with only two? What am I, a wizard?!” He shouted.

The fat man looked at the crying woman, picked her up by the shoulders and started hitting her. “Stop that! We have a lot of work to do!” He shouted at her, but she just cried even more. He threw her on the floor. “Wilfred! Come here!” He yelled.

A soldier came inside the kitchen. “What?” He asked.

“Get this one away from here and bring me a few new ones. I have no use for this one.” The fat man said.

The soldier unchained the woman and said. “We have none to spare. All the others are preparing the weapons, armor, horses, catapults and other things for the battle tomorrow.”

“But I need more to prepare the feast for tonight. You know the general, the feast before the battle must be flawless. How can I do it with only one? If there are none of them to spare, bring me soldiers to help!” There was anger building up in the fat man's voice.

“I'll see what I can do.” The soldier said and left with the woman.

“I guess you will have to do work for two now. The soldiers will be here soon with food that they gathered from the forest and the fields and meat from the hunt.” The fat man said and five soldiers entered the kitchen to help with preparing the feast. “It is my job to prepare a flawless feast for all the soldiers for tonight because for many of them it will be their last meal. If I find you slacking off, I'll whip you until I see the bones on your back. Do you understand me?” The fat man said with a serious and angry look on his face.

“Yes.” Wallace didn’t want to anger the fat man, he looked angry enough already. He also didn’t want to tell the fat man that he didn’t know how to cook. He decided that he’d pretend he knew what he was doing and wait for the soldiers to fall asleep and then try to escape and run home to warn his family.

The soldiers returned from the food gathering and the hunt, bringing different vegetables, fruits and animals. The fat man ordered Wallace to dice up the vegetables and two soldiers to light the fire for the meat, while the fat man and the other soldier’s butchered animals, preparing the meat to roast it on a spit.

It looked like the soldiers gathered mushrooms from the forest and stole vegetables, like carrots, tomatoes, onions, cabbage and some herbs from farms, but some of the onions looked a bit strange to him. Wallace knew that one type of onion was poisonous. It looked exactly like a normal onion, the only difference was in the leaves and a slight difference in the shade of color. The normal onion had smooth leaves while the poison one had small white hairs on the edges of its leaves and a lighter shade. While the soldiers gathered the vegetables, they removed the leaves and in this tent, under this light, it was difficult to see what shade of color the onions were.

Either way Wallace didn’t care. He started to dice all the vegetables and mushrooms, while the fat man and the soldiers prepared and put the meat to roast on a spit. When he was done, the fat man gave him further instructions and he spent all day preparing the evening feast.

The night finally came and Wallace sat on the floor exhausted. All the soldiers gathered and sat at the tables in front of the camps improvised tavern. The fat man yelled at Wallace. “Get on your feet and start serving portions, so that others can take them to the soldiers, you lazy bastard!”

Wallace stood up, looked at the fat man with a blank stare, wanting to punch him so badly, but started putting food on plates. He put the same portion on each plate, a few pieces of meat, vegetable mushroom side dish and a portion of fruit. The bread, beer and mead were already on the tables. Other prisoners, like him, carried the portions to the tables. When every soldier had a portion in front of them, Wallace and the fat man prepared large plates of meat and bowls of vegetable mushroom side dish that was left, the other prisoners cried the large plates and bowls to each table so that the soldiers can refill their plates.

Before the feast began, the general gave a speech on how the soldiers should fill their bellies and get a good night's rest before they ride into battle tomorrow. Wallace was sitting on the floor in the kitchen listening to the general babble on about glory, victory, death for your kingdom and loyalty to your king, eating a piece of meat and bread. Still not trusting those onions, Wallace kept far away from the vegetable side dish.

The feast ended and the general and the soldiers left toward their tents to go to sleep. Only the night watch was left to guard the campsite. Wallace tried to break the chain that was keeping him in the kitchen. It was a thick and sturdy chain, nothing he did caused any damage to it. He tried using everything he could get his hands on in the kitchen to unchain himself, but the chain just wouldn’t budge. Still exhausted from all the work today he decided to rest until morning, when the soldiers leave for battle and when he will have more strength and maybe a plan to escape. Wallace lay down on the floor and fell asleep.

When Wallace woke, it was already bright outside and it was quiet, disturbingly quiet. ‘Did the army leave already? How didn’t I hear them? So many people moving would make a lot of noise.’ He thought to himself and tried to look outside but the chain was too short. He took a knife, made a hole in one side of the tent and he pushed his head through the hole. He looked around the campsite but couldn’t see anybody. ‘So they really left without me noticing. I must have been exhausted as hell.’ He got back to solving the chain problem. He thought that if he chain wouldn’t break maybe the part on the floor that he was chained to would. The chain was attached to a metal plate fixed to a wooden board

Wallace took the meat hammer and tried breaking the wooden board with it. The wood started cracking slowly. ‘Yes! This could work.’ Wallace thought to himself happy that finally something was going the way he wanted. He continued to hit the wooden board, feeling happy with every cracking noise he heard.

So focused on breaking the wooden board, Wallace almost missed the sounds of horses and people entering the campsite. As soon as he heard the horses and people talking he hid behind the improvised bar, peeking out to see if the army was already back or if bandits came to steal things when nobody is around. To his surprise it was neither the army nor the bandits, the general, the knights and the soldiers entering the campsite were wearing the coat of arms of the Occidens kingdom, the west kingdom, his kingdom.

‘Why are they here? Did they beat the east army? If they did, did they come to rescue the prisoners?’ This whole situation was strange Wallace thought. He didn’t know what to do and then he saw a woman running towards the general and the knights shouting. “It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle. The whole army is dead.” She threw herself on her knees, on the floor, in front of the general. “Thank the heavens.”

‘Oh no… The onions… I knew it!’ Wallace thought.

The general ordered his soldiers to go look in the tenths at the soldiers and report back. After the soldiers reported, back Wallace saw the general unmount his horse and walk over to the improvised tavern. Wallace stood up and, seeing a general for the first time in his life, not knowing what to do, he just stood frozen looking at the general like he was a god.

“Son, my soldiers told me that the general and his soldiers all have white foam coming out of their mouths and that they probably died of poisoning. This place looks like a place the soldiers gather to eat and drink. Am I right?” The general asked.

“Yes, sir!” Wallace answered as one of the soldiers would.

“Would you by any chance know what happened and how did the men get poisoned?” The general asked.

“Yes, sir!” Wallace answered.

“Well? I’m waiting.” The general said.

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! They kidnapped me and put me here in the kitchen to help with preparing the feast before the battle. The soldiers brought the supplies for the feast and some onions seemed strange to me, they looked like the poisonous ones but I put them in the food anyway. I think it was the onions that poisoned them, sir!” Wallace said.

“You killed an army of three thousand and a half men with onions?” The general said in disbelief. “Do you know what you just did?” He asked Wallace with a cryptic look on his face.

“Except for poisoning people no. No, I don’t, sir!” Wallace said with a nervous voice thinking he did something wrong. The look on the general’s face was troubling him.

“You know that we have been at war with the east kingdom for decades now. Both kingdoms lost many good men in battles during those years and the kings decided to end the war with one final battle. The battle that will decide the winner of the war. That battle was supposed to happen today.” The general said and sighted. “When we arrived at the agreed battlefield location this morning, we waited for our opponents, but nobody came. We waited and waited and still, no one came. We sent a scout to look for their campsite and he reported that it was empty.”

The general looked around and then looked at Wallace again. “To my surprise, the campsite is not empty, it’s defeated. We won the war. You won the war.” The general had a serious look on his face, he scratched his forehead and then he sighted. “You won the war with onions.”

He ordered his men to free all the prisoners and he said to Wallace that he is coming with them to the capital city to see the king. Wallace asked the general to send one soldier to his home to tell his family that he is all right because he was missing for days now and they were probably worried sick. The general did as Wallace asked and they headed to the capital city to see the king.

At the capital city, Wallace stood in front of the king, seeing a king for the first time in his life, not knowing what to do, he just stood frozen as the general explained that the war was over and that Wallace was the one who won the war. The king walked over towards Wallace, looking him from head to toe with a skeptical look on his face. “Aren’t you Wallace the dragon slayer?” The king asked.

“Yes.” Wallace said. ‘Oh no… How does the king know?’ Wallace thought.

The king turned towards the general and said. “This is wonderful news. Wallace the dragon slayer defeated the whole army and won the war. We must celebrate at once!”

A celebration, the biggest one in the past few decades, was held in the capital city as the king proclaimed. “The war with the east kingdom is over! We won!” The sea of people cheered. The king picked up a gold medal, turned towards Wallace and said. “We owe our victory to the bravery of the mighty Wallace the dragon slayer who will, from this day on, be known as Wallace the army slayer!” The sea of people cheered even more.

‘Not again...’ Wallace thought as the king put the gold medal around his neck.

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“Come on sister. The bandits and the knight I can give you, but the dragon and this! These two were one in a billion chance, not one in a million. You are cheating and I’ll prove it.” Fate said.

“Sister Fate, you are just jealous, those two were exactly a one in a million chance or they wouldn't happen.” Fate’s sister said with a smug smile on her face.

The end

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The inspiration for the story is the goddess of One in a million, from the Terry Pratchett books, that is very interested in Rincewind. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author and I'm really sad that he is gone. I thought about one of his books one day and remembered the goddess of One in a million.

I thought about what things she could do to cheat fate and my story was born.

Thanks for reading :)

Every comment is welcome

#tw implied death #tw violence #tw mass murder #fantasy #one in a million

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