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sunflowersoldat · 2 years ago

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All Is Fair ~ In Life & Death

Chapter 8: All is Fair in Life & Death

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Series Summary: Family is important, but so is the Family business. Everyone has secrets, some are deadly. Your the best in the business, but no one knows who you are. Tensions are high, will you raise the stakes or fold under pressure?

Series Warnings: 18+! Mentions of blood and violence, bad language words, smut, manipulation, gaslighting, death, trauma, please follow the warnings for each chapter.

Chapter warnings: 18+ Only! Death! violence and threats. Bad language words, TRIGGER WARNING! Implied Non-Con, SA, Violence, abuse, PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS BOTHERS YOU! blood, lots of blood, assassination, implied torture.

Pairing: Mob!Steve x Assassin!Stark!reader

Word count: approx. 5.7K

***** <- this indicates a POV change

A/N: Taking a short break from the main story, this is how Ace became Ace! I am really excited for this chapter! let me know what yall think. I really hope y'all enjoy it! feedback is always welcome, let me know your favorite part. Ace has a lot that she keeps under wraps...

Six Years Ago-

Being on your own wasn’t too bad. Your mother respected your choice to not be involved with the shadier side of the family business, your father didn’t agree, but he understood, the life within the mafia families wasn't easy. The darker habits of your brother and father made your skin crawl on good days, and on bad, well, you rather not think about that. Your parents didn’t really protest your choice, your brother on the other hand, downright opposed your decision, and was extremely vocal on the matter. When you had brought the plans for the new history museum to your father, he beamed, you could see the pride swell in his eyes.

His own daughter had chosen a path that would better the city, and she wanted to do it on her own. He offered many times to help you pay for the plans, but you mostly refused. You had used most of your life’s savings on the plot and the proper certifications and contacts. The rest of the funds came from charities and other fundraising, mostly sponsorships.

It was coming along quite nicely, the only hand your father had in the making of the museum was telling you which contractors to use,which to avoid and who to contact to speedup the process, but there wasn’t a link between the Stark fortune and the museum; not a single dirty penny, nor an honest one. This project was purely your own.

You had been on your own for nearly a year now, the museum was almost finished, it was a late night, the crisp spring air lifting the stress from your shoulders as you made your way home. You hadn’t just severed your ties to the Stark name, but you had moved out as well, and took your mother’s maiden name as your own. You didn’t need the scrutiny or public eye watching you like they did the rest of your family.

A chill ran up your spine, you cautiously looked around, the streetlights casting eerie shadows across the street and sidewalks, you quickened your pace, the distinct sound of footsteps echoed behind you. Turning you could see a figure round the street corner behind you.

Breathe. You were almost home, just a couple of blocks, if push came to shove, you could defend yourself; a perk of growing up under Howard Stark’s roof, and alongside your brother. Pulling your phone from your bag, you began to text Natasha, that way at least someone would be aware, in case–

'What's a beautiful flower like you walking the streets so late?’

Your gaze snapping to the figure that slowly exited the alley in front of you, “None…none of your business.” you curse yourself for your wavering voice. You began to turn around, only for the figure you thought was far behind you to now be right on top of you, quicker than you could react, he knocked the phone from your grip and shoved you into the alley.

Your back harshly hits the wall, stealing the air from your lungs, your mouth opening to call for help, scream, or regain the air you lost, something, anything. But a leather gloved hand covered your mouth, as he pressed his body against yours. The hand belonged to the shorter of the two, the one that came from behind. Flicking his knife open, he trailed it down your cheek, your body stiffened, hot tears streamed down your cheeks, “Hello Ms. Stark,” his french accent hanging thickly in the air, your eyes widening at the use of your familial name, “Yes, sweetheart, we know who you are. Wouldn't waste our time with some random chienne (bitch).” the knife in his grip trailed down your chest, the fabric of your shirt givingway. The cool breeze kissing your skin, you squirmed under his weight. “Wonder what you feel like, petite demoiselle (little miss).” your blood ran cold at his words as the icy steel of his blade traced down your exposed stomach. Thrusting your leg up harshly, your knee collided with his balls, he crumpled into the dirt, his hands shooting down to cradle himself, as he howled in agony.

Red-hot pain unfurled against your abdomen, you could feel the blood begin oozing from the open wound. Your voice erupted from your throat in an anguished wail, “Help! Someone help m–”

A sharp slap sent your head spinning, before the other man was upon you, one leg shoved between yours, his hips pinning you against the wall again, “Shhh. Shhh.” he gripped your face harshly, forcing your gaze to meet his, “Quite, you spoiled bitch, be a good girl, and you might get out of this alley alive… Hm?” his filthy stare roamed your body, sending shivers across your skin, panic surged through you. His fingers digging into your cheeks, pain radiating through your jaw and cheekbones. “If I let you go, are you gonna behave?” his breath is hot against your skin. You nod weakly.

“Good girl.” he released your face, patting your cheek lightly.

You snarled, shoving him backward, he growled as he shoved you against the wall harder, your ribs straining from the force, head slamming into the brick, vision momentarily darkening. Tsking he grabbed both of your wrists in his hand, his other finding your wound, pressing into it, the squelch of blood meeting your ears, as the pain registered. A blood curdling scream left your lips, “You have some fight in you. That’s good, I like a challenge.” his gravelly voice vibrating his body as it pinned yours.

Your stomach roiled at the thought of what they would do to you, shaking your head to clear your vision, as your eyes met his again you spat in his face. Your action stunning him, he blinked slowly, pursing his lips before tracing his bottom lip with his tongue,

“You asked for this–” his hand met your cheek again, your head snapping harshly to the side, white spots clouded your vision, his hand snaking around your throat. Choking on the air leaving your lungs, you clawed at him as his other hand ripped the closure of your pants, finding its way into your underwear. You thrashed against him, pounding your fists against his chest, clawing at his face just out of reach. His grip tightening, cutting off your airways, darkness filled your vision, your punches sluggish, your body becoming too heavy for you to hold as he took what he wanted from you. The far away sound of a pant zipper echoed in your ears.

Maybe your brother was right. You couldn’t make it out here on your own… you just wanted to be free of it all.

Muffled outcries filled the alley, your attacker’s grip loosened, allowing you to slump to the ground. The sounds of fists meeting flesh rang in your ears, along with muffled groans and the sound of bones snapping.

Strong arms wrapped gently around you, lifting you from the ground, the blurred figure holding you close, “It's okay pequeña peleadora (little brawler). I gotcha.” His gentle voice and soft eyes filled your senses before unconsciousness seized you.

—

You came to on a sofa in a dark, empty office, you were alone for only a moment, before the door knob turned, light flooded in, your hand raising to shield your eyes, as it blinded you.

“Hey, you're awake…”

You quickly sat up, your head pounding from the sudden movement, a sharp pain sliced through your abdomen–

“Woah, take it easy, you’ll pull your stitches!”

You recognized the voice, the same one from the alley, a heavy spanish accent washed over you, gentle hands slowly helping you to sit up. As your eyes adjusted, they were met with a pair of watchful brown eyes that belonged to your savior. He sat near the edge of the sofa, a single brow raised, disappearing into the mess of curly hair atop his head.

You swallowed hard, eyeing him suspiciously, granted you were grateful for him ‘saving’ you, but you had your reservations, who was he and why did he interfere, what did he gain from this? And where the hell were you?

“Who are you?”

Tilting his head, he sighed, placing his palms flat on his thighs, a way for you to keep an eye on them. “Jake Lockley.”

“And the men that attacked me?”

His eyes never left yours as he answered your questions simply, “They are commanders under Johann Schmidt he is–”

“I know who he is. He runs the underground syndicate known as Hydra.”

He nodded slowly.

“Why did you interfere?”

His eyes narrowed slightly, his head tilting in the opposite direction, as he tried to figure you out. You talked calmly, but your body language said you were terrified, his gaze roaming your body, with concern, before meeting your eyes again. You did not cower, your gaze steady, “would you rather me have left you there?”

“Why didn’t you? You don't know me.”

Jake sighed heavily, “No, but I know your spirit. I could hear the struggle, when I saw who was causing trouble, well…” a small smirk lifted his lips, “Let’s just say they had it coming.”

You scowled, “Know my spirit? What does that even mean?”

Pursing his lips, he ignored your question, “Your wounds will take a week or so to heal, you are lucky the knife didn't do more damage. I can arrange for one of the others to take home if you’d like.” he stood walking towards the desk, picking up a medication bottle.

“One of the others? There’s more of you? Whatever you are.”

He brought the bottle of pills to you, motioning for you to open your hand, he placed them in your palm, closing your fingers around them. “Yes.” he turned to the door, “I have to finish what I started…”

Finish what he started? What the hell did that mean? “Wait! What do you mean by that?!”

Stopping, he turned to you, “Would you like me to take care of them for you or not?”

Oh. oh. Take care of them. You sat in silence for a moment, their faces flashing across your mind, your blood boiling. No. You didn't want him to take care of them. “No.”

His brows lowered, “you want them to get away with what they did to you?” he scoffed, “That’s not what I–”

“Teach me.” you pushed off the sofa, standing. Your body swayed lightly, but you forced yourself to steady.

A dangerous smile pulled at Jake’s lips, “Teach you? What exactly am I teaching you, and why?’

“Teach me what you do.”

“Why?”

You stared him down, walking closer. He watched a resolve wash over you, a darkness danced in your eyes.

“So I can do it myself.”

“Come peleadora (brawler), there is someone we need to speak to first.”

—

“She wants to learn Jefa (boss).”

The woman's cold, intense stare pinned you to the spot, you could feel her peering into your soul, before they slid to Jake, “This?” she gestured to you, her glossy red nails waving in the lamplight. “You want to waste your time on this?” Quirking her brow she walked around the desk she had been sitting at, her heels clicking against the tiled floor. “You want to hurt those men you touched you?” you nodded.

Her finger lifting your chin to meet her gaze, you stood your ground, your back straightening, even against the strain in your stomach. She tsked, turning her back to you, “If you can get through them…” she paused, placing her hand upon her desk, “You can go after the commanders…You have three months заря (zarya - dawn).” her manicured hand waved, dismissing the two of you.

You and Jake left the office, you followed him through the empty casino floor, “Jake!” you hurried to catch up, “What did she mean by three months? And who is Zar… Zarya”

He pressed the button to call the elevator, stepping inside once the doors opened, you followed, “Jake?”

His hard gaze met yours, “Did you mean it?”

You blinked, “What?”

“Did you mean it, when you asked me to teach you?”

“Yes… yes. Of course I did.”

“It won't be easy. Training with me isn't easy peleadora.(brawler)” he pulled out his phone and began typing.

You shook your head, “Jake, I can do it…you obviously believed in me enough to take the chance…”

His gaze flicked to yours, “What I believe doesn't matter, what you can do is what matters. We start tomorrow. The rest I’ll explain along the way. Get rest. If you would like to sleep here you can, or we can take you home. It’s up to you.” he placed his phone back into his pocket.

“Home, I’ll sleep better in my own bed…”

He nodded, as the elevator opened, a security guard waited patiently outside the front doors, next to a nondescript black car. He monitored for you to get in, nodding, you made your way out the doors.

Jake called to you one last time, “Oh, peleadora (brawler)...”

You turned back around.

“Once you start this, there is no way out.”

—

*****

It was only a few hours after he had left you at the front doors of the casino, the first training session began, Jake made his way down into the basement gym. He honestly didn’t expect you to actually meet him here, he had his hopes, but in reality the life of an assassin wasn’t for everyone. He sighed as the elevator doors opened on the gym floor, a smile split his lips as you came into view. A purple bruise beginning to form on your cheek, he had underestimated you, he was pleasantly proven wrong.

*****

It was only the first day, and you were already brutally beaten, Jake wasn't lying about his training not being easy. By the time the first session was over, you could barely walk. You knew he didn't expect you to show up to the next session, but every time you showed up, you reveled in wiping the surprised, taunting smile from his face, until he trusted you would show up.

“How the hell am I supposed to beat you in three months?! How long have you been doing this?” you asked between panted breaths, as you dodged a nasty right hook.

“Because…” he swung at you again, “you are fighting for your life. If you fuck up, you die.” he landed a punch in your stomach, “so learn fast. adapt.”

Every session you learned, adapted, and analyzed his every move. You learned to adjust your fighting style to his, mastering the weapons and tools he allowed you to employ. By the end of the first month, you were able to take him down. By the end of the second month, he wasn't able to defeat you. And by the end of the third month, he could barely lay a hand on you. You were able to out maneuver and outskill him in almost every aspect of training.

He smiled wickedly at the end of your final session, “Peleadora(brawler). You are ready.”

—

The woman stood before you again, this time you weren't in her office, you were in the gym, on the mat. Her blonde hair pulled into a high pony, blue eyes lazily raking over you. Two more people had joined you in the gym, another blonde woman whose green eyes absorbed every detail, and a brunette male, who the new blonde seemed to look at with annoyance. You couldn't hear their conversation, but you noticed his mouth never ceased its movement, even when she scowled at him, yelling words in a foriegn language.

“Hey kid…”

Your gaze snapped to the blonde standing next to you, Sharon, or as Jake calls her Jefa, raised her brows at you, “I said, are you ready?”

Swallowing, you nodded, situating yourself across the mat from Jake, who nodded encouragingly, his eyes darkening mischievously, before lunging in your direction. You parried his attack with ease, adjusting to his fighting style. The two of you locked in a dangerous dance, until he changed his approach, pulling a knife from his belt, he launched it at you. It whizzed past your face, scraping your cheek. This was new, Jake never used knives when the two of you sparred, caught off guard, he landed a few hits on you, shaking your head clear, you did what he taught you. You adjusted.

Flipping across the mat, you retrieved the dagger and used it to your advantage. Within the next minute you had him pinned with the blade to his throat.

His chest heaving, a proud smile stretching across his face.

Lesson learned: don’t allow them to catch you off guard.

A deep feeling of triumph bloomed in your chest as you stared down at Jake.

Behind you Sharon clapped slowly, “Well done…” she looked down on the two of you, “Удача(udacha fortune).”

The other blonde pushed off the wall and made her way to you, “Now go through her. You have one month.”

—

You made it through Yelena’s training, beating her faster than you had beat Jake. This time, you didn't fight her on the mat, no. You had a course you went through, Sharon wanted to see if you could out stealth her. Sharon had cameras set up within the building and body cams attached to the two of you.

Your hands shook, and breaths came in short puffs.

You had lost her in the maze of the warehouse a few minutes ago, so when you rounded the corner, your gun raised to Yelena’s temple, just out of reach, a weight lifted from your chest.

She turned to face you, her smile mirrored Jakes only a month before.

Lesson learned: trust your instincts and always be six steps ahead.

The triumph from defore darkened, rooting itself deep in your heart. The feeling of someone else’s life balancing in the palm of your hand sent a trill up your spine.

And like before Sharon presented you with a new challenge.

Желать (zhelatʹ-desire/obsession).

One week.

—

You pushed through Wade’s grueling sessions, each trainer harder to mimic, each harder to learn than the last, but you did it. Even through Wade’s incessant monologuing and never ending wisecracks.

Wade’s final challenge was a mix between Yelena’s and Jake’s, but you pulled through. He definitely shut his mouth when you landed a kick to his chest, his katanas flying across the room, sending him out of range as a firecracker, dummy grenade, rolled under his feet, and you safely out of its radius. A maniacal laugh filled the air, he pointed to your now bleeding arm, “At least I gotcha.”

Lesson learned: Think. Don't feel. Don’t allow your feelings to get in the way.

It wasn’t just the adrenaline of danger and thrill of the chase coursing through your veins, they gave way to something much deeper. It hadn’t just rooted into your heart, it had wormed its way into your soul.

You nodded to him, as Sharon joined you, Jake and Yelena absent. “You have twenty-four hours.” she handed you a blank envelope, a wax seal with a spade sealing it. “Your assignment is inside…” she walked towards the elevator, Wade already missing, “Don’t disappoint me kid.”

You ripped open the envelope, in black ink at the bottom, three names:

заря (zarya-Dawn)

Удача (udacha-Fortune)

Желать (zhelatʹ-Desire/obsession)

And an address you recognized.

Your museum.

—

You stood in the deafening silence, the three Aces lying unconscious at your feet. Your chest heaving. That same sense of pride washed over you, but it wasn’t pride. This corrupting darkness you felt in your bones was power. Power over who lived and died. A narcotic.

This power felt like an addiction, you wanted more.

You wanted those men.

Dead.

—

The other Aces sat gathered in the office with you and Sharon,save for Wade, he was MIA at the moment, as she explained your new assignment. They were bruised and beaten, but proud of your success, they had told you as much. You had learned now why Sharon insisted on testing you, the Dealer was looking for a new Ace. someone they could trust with any assignment, and you felt up to the challenge. Sharon’s voice pulled you from your thoughts–

“The family heads have become restless, they want Hydra eradicated. And who better to take down two of its commanders than someone who has a personal vendetta against them?” her icy eyes locked with yours, “You have until dawn. Bring me their heads and syndicate rings. Or don't bother coming back.” —

A storm had rolled in shortly before you arrived, the rain made your surveillance trickier than you’d liked. Now you stood across the street, watching the flickering of the club name, Hypnosis, in neon lights. You had heard things from your brother and his friends about the club, it was known for drugs, trafficking, and many other shady activities, you were told to stay clear of it, and any of its patrons. A cruel smile lifted your lips, you were getting the pleasure of wiping this stain from the city, and you were going to enjoy it.

A lone security guard stood at the front doors, you knew the club was closed, but the music still thumped through the walls. You figured whoever was left was either there against their will, or part of Hydra’s payroll. Cracking your neck you stalked forward.

Down to business.

—

“It’s done Wilson, I’m on my way to the mansion. Get rid of the body and keep your head down, the city won't be safe for the night.” Wade didn’t get the chance to reply, Barnes had already hung up. Shrugging, Wade cleaned his knives as he pulled the phone from his ear and dialed again, his boss and men had left him over an hour ago, he had already disposed of Krueger’s body before Barnes called.

Those chains and bricks should keep his body under the water, at least until there were nothing but bones left. The phone rang on, the sound itself grinding on his nerves. He was already irritated he had missed the meeting with the new initiate and the rest of the Aces, instead he was stuck here doing Steve’s dirty work. Granted he did enjoy the dirty work, he would have liked to be there when they told you about your upcoming initiation. He rubbed his jaw at the thought of you, his still fresh bruises and cuts from a few nights ago pained him, his body and ego were more than a little bruised.

“Wilson?” Sharon’s voice cut through the ringing line.

“Ugh, finally you answer, it’s not like any of you have important things to do–”

“Where the hell are you? The kid already left for her final initiation–”

Wade’s blood ran cold, “What!? That was supposed to be tonight?!” dropping his tools he shot to his feet, hurrying to his vehicle.

“Yes. how the hell could you forget–”

“Abort it! Get her out of there now!”

Sharon scoffed on the other side, before Jake interrupted her, “What happened?!”

“Barnes just killed Johann… You have to call it off, she is walking into a hornets nest! I’m on my way, but I don’t think I’ll make it in time.” he hung up the phone, turning the keys in his ignition, blazing a trail to the club, he had to make it.

—

There weren't many thugs left in the club when you entered. You hadn't bothered being stealthy about it, in fact you relished in the chaos of men trying and failing to take you down. You had just taken down one of the four men circling you when your earpiece erupted with Sharon's panicked voice.

“A–abor–t—kid–kid –ca–can you –h–hear—”

Blocking a particularly nast kick from the man behind you, you shoved him diagonally at the other thug charging you, lifting one hand to your ear, “What? I can’t–”

A fist collided with your jaw, your ears ringing from the blow, the earpiece no longer lodged in your ear. The tangy taste of blood filled your mouth, straightening you spat the blood out, facing the thug again. “Oh you’re gonna regret that…”

—

Sharon tried the commlink again, but all that filled the air was feedback. Growling in frustration she slammed her fist against the table.

Jake rose from his seat, walking towards the door.

“Jake. No.”

He whirled around, “What do you mean, no? We sent her to her death. If what Wade says is true, every Hydra thug in the entire city will converge on that building. They will tear her to shreds!”

Sharon shook her head, “You cannot interfere, she took the assignment knowing the danger–”

“Bullshit! If we would have known about Barnes, we wouldn't have agreed to send her!She is walking into a death trap. I will not stand by and watch–”

“Stand down.” Sharon’s gaze caught his, the deathly calm of her radiated through the room.

Yelena squirmed in her seat by the door, the two most dangerous people she knew were having a staredown over saving you. The kid with an attitude and an aptitude for assassinations.

“That is an order, Lockley.”

Jake growled before leaving the office, the door slamming behind him, rattling the walls.

Sharon nodded towards the door, “Make sure he stays put.”

Nodding Yelena followed Jake out the door.

—

When you reached the main office, you saw Batroc and Ward were both standing over their boss’s body with a bullet to the chest and head. The door clicked shut behind you, both their gazes snapping to the intruder. You pulled the cloth that covered the lower half of your face,

“Hello gentleman. It's unfortunate that we meet once again.” a sadistic smile pulled at your lips, you had debated on giving them a slow and painful death or making it swift. Slow and painful was the choice you had gone with when you entered the building.

“Oh Ms. Stark…” Ward started, stepping toward you, until he registered the blood splattered on your tactical uniform, he froze, a cocky grin split his face, “Did you come back for more?”

Batroc began moving toward you as well, lightning fast you whipped your pistol from its holster aiming it in Ward’s direction, your eyes hard, the slightest tremble in your stance.

“Ha ha, what does the kitten have claws now? How about you put down–”

Bang.

Ward tumbled to the floor, light leaving his eyes as blood trickled from the wound between his eyes.

A swift death then.

Turning your aim toward Bartoc–

The gun was knocked from your grasp, Batroc’s boot connecting with your chest, sending you flying into the bookshelves behind you. The momentary stun gave Batroc the upper hand he needed, he pounced on you gripping your throat tightly,

“Ward got a taste last time, I think it's my turn kitten–”

Growling you threw your arm into his elbow, a sickening crunch filled the room as you broke his hold on your windpipe. His howl in pain was cut short as your fist collided with his jaw, sending him tumbling to the floor. You wasted no time picking up your discarded gun from the floor, slow and painful for Batroc.

Bang. Bang.

One shot to his knee the other to his groin, his agonizing cry felt like music to your ears, a high you would didnt think you could get used to as you lunged at him, landing blows to his face and abdomen, your mind turning off, no longer in control of your body and its actions.

—

When your blackout faded, you were standing in the office, blood pooling at your feet, something wet and cold clutched in your hand. You should have been afraid, should have been disgusted with the scene in front of you, but nothing, no guilt pulled at your heart, no remorse for the deeds you had done. Your eyes grazed over the mutilated bodies on the floor before you turned and left the office.

When you stopped at the bottom of the stairs, a mob of Hydra thugs had swarmed the building, a slow smile lifted your lips, round three… Start.

—

Wade prayed he had made it in time, the vehicle sliding to a halt against the rain-soaked pavement, hastily he ripped the door open–

A sudden burst of light filled the area, his attention snapping to the cub doors, a silhouetted figure stepped into the rain, liquid dripping from their form, he couldn't tell if it was rain or something else entirely. Instantly drawing his weapon he called to the figure,

“Put your hands where I can see them!”

The figure did not respond.

Fuck.

Terror shot through him as he watched the liquid drip into a nearby puddle the dropplets turning the water a pinkish hue. He grabbed his flashlight from the car door, aiming it at the figure…

His heart nearly lept out of his chest, it was you, now covering your eyes from the bright light, you were covered…

Covered, from head to toe in blood, he couldn't tell if it was yours or not, he moved toward, checking his surroundings, it looked like he beat the other hydra gang members here, thank the gods. When he reached you, he gave you a quick once over, looking for wounds, a few knicks here and there, but nothing mortally challenging. He pulled you hastily towards the car, setting you in the passenger seat, there was a far away look in your eyes he recognized, bloodlust.

“Its okay kid, i beat them here, we gotta hurry before they come…” he began buckling you,

“Came.” you breathed.

Wade stopped, gently grasping your face, “What?”

“Gone.”

You clenched your fist, Wade noticed now, you had something clenched tightly in one of them, he knit his brows together, looking back at the club, he patted your shoulder, “Stay here kid…” he cautiously moved toward the building. The low music thumped against the door, slowly, very slowly he pushed the door open.

Wade took a shaky breath, his knees buckling at the scene in front of him, bracing himself against the doorframe, taking another breath to calm his churning stomach, he glanced back at you in disbelief. He shut the door behind him as he made his way back to the car, slipping into the driver’s seat he turned to you. You were still facing forward with a blank expression.

“Let’s get you home kid…”

—

You weren't responsive as Wade led you into the casino, heading to the Dealer’s office. It was eerily terrifying walking through the empty casino with you still caked in blood, most of which had dried, aside from the few spots that were thoroughly drenched.

Wade opened the office door for you, Sharon stood waiting, whirling around when she heard the two of you shuffle in. Her gaze flicked to Wade, then back to you, who approached her desk slowly, lifting your clenched fist, you released the items you had been holding.

The unmistakable clink of jewelry rang in the air, Sharon’s face paled, as she looked down at the items, two bloody signet rings sat on her desk glinting in the low light. One of them still attached to a finger.

Sharon watched as you hummed disappointedly, picking up the finger, removing the ring and tossing the finger behind you, Wade scowled as it landed next to him. Still in your trance-like state, you turned from the desk and walked out the door. The silence in the room was thick, Sharon cleared her throat, “Looks like you beat—”

“No.”

She blinked at Wade, “What do you mean no.”

“I. Did. Not. Beat. Them. There.”

“Wade…”

He held up his hand, “Let’s just say there is no such thing as Hydra…”

—

Jake glared at Yelena, in the elevator,

“You didn’t need to babysit me. She gave me an order I wasn’t going to–”

As the elevator opened on the High Stakes floor, they were greeted with you, soaked in blood, a dazed look on your face. You entered the elevator without even looking at either of them, not a word left your mouth. For a moment relief filled Jake, but was immediately replaced with concern. He lifted his hand to your shoulder, but Yelena stopped him, shaking her head. She signaled for him to just watch, not to interrupt whatever coping process your brain had begun putting you through.

When the elevator opened on the ground floor, Jake bid Yelena goodbye as he followed to ensure you made it to wherever you were going; safely.

—

You stared at yourself in your bathroom mirror, almost every inch of you was covered in blood, some yours, but mostly it was theirs. Jake had warned you in the beginning.

There is no way out.

Slowly you raised your hand to your reflection, your palm meeting the frigid surface.

Real. This was real.

—

He had followed you home, into your townhouse, up into your guest bathroom. He watched you now as you stood in front of the mirror. Watched as you placed your hand against your reflection.

Watched you cock your head to the side, as your hand slid from the glass, a bloody handprint left in its wake.

But you, no emotion crossed your face, the challenging glint you always had in your eyes gone. It was always traumatizing after the first kill. But you didn't just kill one.

You killed them all.

It would take a long time to bring you back into reality, they would need to watch you carefully, to ensure you did not spiral into something far more sinister than the assassin you were meant to be. Jake turned from you as you began to undress for your shower, softly closing the bathroom door. He made his way back through your home, picking up the key from your counter, he walked out the front door. Closing the door he turned the lock. Shivering as it clicked into place.

He couldn't help but let his mind wander.

Locks cannot keep death from coming.

@dontbescaredtosingalong @texan-tazzy @tianamontag @daiseychaindisaster @silently-killing-you @buckyfan12 @leyannrae @justlovelifeblog @austynparksandpizza @captainson-of-coul @betareader7 @vicmc624

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ticklefits · 3 years ago

Text

AO3 LINK! | tickletober 2021 day 1: CHASE.

voltron: legendary defender | klance | words : 2572

“Oh, don’t let me stop you. Keep singing.” With a tone much too amused and muscular figure leaned against the door frame, Keith’s eyes have locked on his boyfriend who’s settled at the countertop, chopping up onions for their lunch. His ears were previously graced with the melodic & upbeat notes of Lance’s singing before he halted as soon as he noticed Keith’s presence, cheeks dusting over in a soft shade of cherry at having been caught.

"You snuck up on me! Y'know, all that Blade of Marmora training has made you seriously light on your feet, you're too quiet when you walk up on people--" Lance complains, obviously trying to shift the attention off of his virtuoso vocals, but Keith isn't falling for the trick. He merely grants the other a shrug, stepping further into the kitchen to peer down at the meal he was preparing before the interruption. It was a newer dish, something that Lance had talked about trying to cook before and though Keith rarely indulged in foreign grounds when it came to what he ate, Lance was a decent cook and he's willing to try anything for him. After a once-over of the food, he twists to match his gaze with Lance with Lance again, a small smirk now presented half-cocked upon his lips.

"Being quiet has its advantages," is his rebuttal, arms crossing along the width of his chest as he gently knocks a shoulder against his love's. "You can keep complaining about it if you do it in song."

A silent curse leaks out with the sensation of heat that strengthens on the surface of Lance's cheeks, half-tempted to run into the next room and half-tempted to actually take Keith up on his offer. Complaining while singing truthfully sounds sort of hilarious and maybe Lance might've considered it had he not been ambushed by the other, but the abashment that's welled up in the center of his stomach has stolen the reigns from his usual confidence and is keeping his vocal chords locked and twisted. At this point, he's temporarily canceled prepping lunch and his new focus lies on a getaway. Sapphire sight slowly inches from where Keith stands to the archway that connects into the living room, calculating the distance to it from his own feet and weighing the risks. Keith, however, is a warrior, and a highly trained one at that, so as soon as he notices Lance's fixed stare towards the living room, his smirk widens and his own stance alters.

"C'mon loverboy, don't make me chase you down. You know I'm faster than you." There it is. A challenge. A challenge to his Leo boyfriend, who's neatly sculpted eyebrows perk and furrow and his lips twitch at the corners.

"You're funny, Keith. The only one way you'd be faster than me, is if you tap into that cat-like Galran side of you and get on all fours. Stronger than me? Sure, maybe -- but not faster." Lance knows he just spit some fighting words, and judging by the slightly surprised, oh no he did not just say what I think he said look, Keith was about to square up. It was silent for a moment that dragged on like an hour, until Keith cements a stare at Lance and for a split second, Lance could swear he saw his pupils slit just like a feline.

"You get five seconds."

"Wha--"

"Run."

Lance did not need to be told twice. As soon as he heard that single word practically growled from his boyfriend, he sprang into a nearly full sprint into the living room. Keith kept his words and after 5 seconds, rocketed off after Lance. By the time he had an open view of the room, Lance was nowhere to be seen. He paused, rummaging through his thoughts to figure out where Lance might have escaped to next. He figures their bedroom would be a good place to start, plenty of the places to try and hide in there; try, being the operative word there. He enters the shared sleeping space and, just to tease Lance thoroughly in case he was hiding in there, starts to tap his nails on the walls and other hard surfaces, knowing damn well the clicks and clacks will echo.

"Oh, Laaance.." the swordsman practically coos, feigning an innocent tonality all the while checking under the bed and in their closet for his prey. "You know I'm not gonna hurt you. I wouldn't ever hurt you. But you do need to be punished for what you said."

Lance can hear him. He can hear him and Keith knows that he can. Their apartment isn't very generous with running room and hiding spaces, so he's taken refuge in their master bathroom. He nearly scoffs at Keith's statements; he knows Keith wouldn't hurt him, not intentionally, but that's not what he's worried about. He knows what those clickity clacks mean. The surface of his skin is already tingling and he's biting back a grin, hands smoothing over the goosebumps popping up along his arms. He could speak lies and say he hates when Keith does this, but they both know the truth: Lance thrives on it. Every tap of his nails drives Lance insane and he can feel his body trying to gravitate towards the sound, but he refuses to give in and admit defeat. Keith challenged him, so it's on.

He's dragging his nails now, goddammit, and he's getting closer. Those silent steps aren't so silent anymore and Keith's doing that on purpose. He wants Lance to hear him coming; it's all part of the chase. Thankfully though, their bathroom contains a door that opens up to the hallway, so if he times it right, he can get past without him hopefully noticing. Slowly, nearly holding his breath, Lance scoots to the second door and ever so gently turns the handle to minimize any sound and opens the door. A quick peek tells him that it's safe, but as soon as he fully exits the bathroom and begins his quiet tread through the hall, Keith appears behind him from their bathroom, running towards him. Lance yelps and his reaction is immediate, making a break for the living room once again. He jumps onto the couch and grabs a pillow, deciding to fend off his hunter with a weapon instead of continuing to run.

"En guard!" Comes his battle cry as Keith reaches him and narrowly misses the swing of a cushion at his head.

"That's a dirty play, McClain!" He manages to say before he gets uppercut with a cushion and it's as if the world goes into absolute silence. Lance hadn't really meant to smack him like that, but the damage has already transpired, so all he can do is gently place the couch cushions back to their proper home, all the while observing with fright behind his eyes as Keith's visage lowers back down to look at him. He says nothing, amethyst sight blank, but he does start to move towards Lance, which has the taller scooting backwards on the couch, palm outstretched as if that were to quell Keith's wrath any.

"Keith -- Keith, babe, baby, look at me -- you know I didn't mean to do that, I swear--!" But Keith still doesn't utter a single syllable, even as he climbs atop and straddles Lance's hips. He then moves to grab some of the mini pillow cushions nearest Lance's head, one in each hand, and Lance's eyes widen, remembering a time when Pidge pulled this on him herself, except she used vinyl, elbow - length gloves. Keith's method is unorthodox, but Lance is sure it's gonna tire him out all the same.

"Keith! No! No, no, no, no--!" But his pleas are no use. Raising the small pillows into the air, it isn't a second later that Keith starts to rapidly smack Lance's upper body with them. It's a furious barrage, one arm raining down a strike right after it's counterpart. If this was an action movie, and pillows were bullets shot out of a gun, this would be absolutely brutal. Fortunately for Lance, these soft, fluffy pillows don't hurt anywhere near a bullet wound. In fact, he's grinning all the while, limbs held askew above his head as a shield.

"Now this is a dirty play, Kogane! Fight me like a real man!" And Lance is about to regret those words, because as soon as Keith hears him, he halts his assault and tosses the pillows to the side, eyes glinting dangerously.

"Oh, I'm just getting started." Now unoccupied hands shift to settle on Lance's sides and instantaneously, Lance knew he was fucked.

"Woahwoahwoah, no! No, now this is really foul--!"

"Sucks to suck."

"FIRST of all, I'm the one who taught you that saAAhahah--!" Keith's heard enough prattling out of Lance, it's time to hear some of that sweet, hilarious laughter now. Fingers scribble over the clothed flesh of his sides and waist and that already gets him into giggling hysterics. Keith will always be pleasantly surprised at just how ticklish Lance is. Nearly every inch of him is sensitive to something and it never fails to gift him with serotonin when he's got Lance beneath him, rosy cheeked, squirming around, and laughing his heart out - much like he is now.

"Nohohohoho! Keh--Keheheheith! Stahahahahap!" His pleas are broken apart by giggles that are only raising in volume the more his sides are attacked and he's only growing further sensitive by the second. Lance knows his religiously vigorous skin care routine is partly to blame for how ticklish he is, but can you blame him for wanting soft, youthful skin? And it isn't like Keith's complaining about it either.

"Nah, I don't think I can. My fingers are under some sort of spell." Such a blatant lie from the older pilot and the grin he dons is unmistakably teasing.

"Yo--you're suhuhuch a lihahahahahar!"

"What? I'm offended. I'm not lying at all. In fact, I'll tell you an easy way to break the spell and get me to the stop."

"Gohohohohohod! Fiiiiihihihine, OKAY, okahahahy!" Lance is really beginning to struggle, squeals forcing themselves free as Keith migrates from waist, to stomach, and then to his ribs, poking & scritching between each one in an agonizing manner. "Aaahahahahaha! Tell---tell mehehehehe alreadyyyy!"

"You really wanna know?"

Lance's strength is sapping quicker than he'd like it to, but he still possesses enough of it to gently smack at Keith's arm, his giggles evolving into full blown laughter once those dastardly fingers begin reaching towards his armpits in retaliation.

"All you gotta do is sing. Like, that one red-headed princess, to break a spell that was on her, or whatever." The fact that Keith really provided a Disney comparison to Lance's current predicament is hilarious all on its own, but Lance wasn't about to give into this torture, and deliver what Keith desired so easily.

"Hohohohow is -- i-is ticklihihihing me suhuhpposed to make me wahahahant to SING?? B-Besides, a kihihihihiss broke Ahahariel's spell, not -- not singihihihihihing!" Poor Lance, with his cracking voice and breathy, hollow words that could scarcely be understood through all of his laughter. Keith understood the gist of it though and contemplated his conditions. He still wanted Lance to sing to him, but a kiss sounded pretty nice too. However, he isn’t quite finished with his boyfriend’s torture; there’s still one last area he very much wants to explore before he allows Lance free. Spidering digits cease their actions, smoothing up and then down the expanse of Lance’s toned torso, granting him a desperately needed, albeit quick rest. Lance doesn’t speak, merely taking this opportunity in stride to gulp down as much air as he can, because a minute part of him knows Keith isn’t done and that something wicked this way comes.

Something wicked indeed. After some very short-lived moments of repose, without skipping a beat, Keith breaks into full force tickling all over the surface of Lance’s soft thighs. The first and last thing to run through Lance’s mind is a sharp curse to himself for deciding that today was a good day to wear shorts. Keith has an all access pass to one of his death spots and he is allowing no mercy. They’re certainly going to get a noise complaint from their neighbors ( not that Keith cares ), because the inhumane screech that burst from the tunnel of Lance’s throat could probably be heard blocks away.

“K---KEEEHEHEHEHEHITH!! NO! NOHOHO, NOT RIGHT THEHEHEHEHRE! PLEHEHEHEASE, AHAAAHAHAHAHNYTHING BUT THERRRRE--!” the couch has been shaved of all of its cushions by flailing, lengthy limbs and even Keith is having trouble keeping atop of Lance, what with all of his wriggling and buckling.

“Geez, Lance, you almost sound like I’m killin’ you.” Keith’s grin is now from ear to ear, more than enjoying himself, the view, and his love’s ridiculously adorable laughter.

“YOU AHAHAHAHARRRRE!! PLEEEEHEHEHEHASE!” But it’s only when Lance deflates into silent laughter, arms going limp against the couch underneath him, that Keith finally concludes his torture. Calloused hands remove themselves from the slender frame and he completely slides off of Lance, disappearing into the kitchen. Unbothered by Keith’s abrupt departure, Lance soaks up every single second of relaxation he can, until he glances up once he hears footsteps, and sees the water bottle Keith’s offering. Smiling a little weakly, Lance sits up, releasing a few lingering giggles as the movement of his still hyper - sensitive upper body brings forth some ghost touches.

“Alright, time to break your spell.” Keith’s statement is oh so cheeky and as he leans forward, waiting for Lance to close the distance, he half expects Lance to do anything but kiss him. A pleasant surprise is given to him when he feels those familiar, supple lips intertwining with his own, and he smiles into it. The kiss lasts for a couple of seconds before Lance pulls away and eyes Keith, brow rising along his temple.

“Guess whose job it is to prepare lunch now?”

A roll of lavender eyes, but he holds out his hand nonetheless. “Yeah, yeah. I tired you out, so I guess it’s mine. I don’t know how to make what you were making though.”

Lance takes the hand that’s offered and ascends from the couch, bending to start picking up the collapsed couch cushions. “Go on into the kitchen, I’ll be right behind you to boss you around.” Keith snorts a quickle chuckle, but does as instructed, making his way back into the kitchen. He nearly stops as something catches his ears, a heavy warmth blooming in his chest. Lance sings more than loud enough for Keith to hear him, even as he’s waiting in the kitchen. He continues singing, once all of the cushions are placed back in their proper place, and as he finally enters the kitchen. He saunters up to Keith, sight locked with sight, a hand on his chest, happiness brimming in the way he sings.

“♪ Maybe this love is mad, you're filling every thought I have. Now I've stayed too long, and there's no turning back. Might as well dance.~ ♪” As if on cue, Keith takes his hand and spins him, earning an even more brilliant smile from Lance, and he lands softly against Keith, arms coiling around his neck to bring him back in for another kiss. Suddenly, lunch doesn’t matter so much anymore.

#tickletober2021 #tickletober 2021 #voltron #vld #klance #tickle fic #tickling #lee!lance #ler!keith #ticklish!lance

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btsandvmin · 4 years ago

Text

Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16

Time to answer some more of your questions. I have a lot this time, and still a lot left I’ll have to save to another post. You are all very good at being curious and asking interesting questions. There are also some asks that are replies to old asks, and then I’ll include the link to the referenced post.

This time the topics will be:

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady” Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content? Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview Ask 9 - The garnet necklace Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook? Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53? Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Today’s post is a long one... Enjoy!

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations

Ok, so I did write a shit post about this... (I mean… This is literally all Vmin’s songs so far ), but I still think your questions are worth a proper answer.

Honestly I think speculating about KTH1 is kind of hard, and as seen in the shit post I am quite torn with my expectations... In general I am the type who doesn’t like to expect too much in fear of being disappointed. I rather be pleasantly surprised. That being said Vmin does have a track record of getting involved in each other’s songs. I mean a lot is just speculation of course, but we do have confirmed cases as well, enough to not be too surprised if they would keep it up and do something for Tae’s solo album as well. (Tae saying his mixtape would be named Jimin back in 2016 still haunts me.)

On the other hand, they have already given us a lot of collabs. Adding more would feel more like a statement, at least if it would be only Jimin out of the members on that album. The thing is that if Vmin would have something “real” or at least if they are a bit careful with how they come across... I am not sure they would do something too “obvious”. But where such a line would be drawn is impossible to know. I mean clearly they managed to write and sing Friends and it worked fine, even if they did get more attention as a ship.

We also know Tae has been quite loud about Jimin in ways that single him out, so maybe they would really dare push the boundaries as far as actually including Jimin in the album somehow. It’s also very possible there could be other members, and honestly we probably shouldn’t hyper focus too much on it and that it has to mean something no matter if anyone is on it or not.

I think one of the rappers being on it is probably more likely out of the members, but it seems Tae has shown an interest in collabs with people outside of BTS, so that’s kind of what I am expecting the most. No matter who in the group is on it I am sure fans will make a big deal out of it, and maybe Tae would rather have his own thing for his first album. I really don’t know how his thoughts would go.

But again, looking at how Tae and Jimin has talked about working together, and have had moments like Tae promising Jimin a song or Tae saying they will work together again... It’s definitely not impossible to get another Vmin song. I do feel it’s more likely for any connections to be vague and not instantly noticeable though (at least not anything romantic looking because we know what happened to the Christmas song). Especially considering how they have only recently revealed things like 4 clock’s inspiration more openly and had Friends followed by Sweet Night. My main stance for any possible real ship is still that they have reason to be careful, and yet another Vmin collab, on Taehyung’s first personal album would probably raise some eyebrows considering everything else we already have. But it could also be me over analyzing them, and maybe they just really like and want to work together. Tae for sure has after all been vocal about this preference and want to work with Jimin.

So yeah, on one hand they have a track record that is hard to ignore... But on the other I wonder if they might want to add another “point” for ARMY to look at them and their songs. I also don’t want to assume that if there are songs on there that sound romantic that they automatically will be about Jimin. There will have to be legit possible connections for me to acknowledge them.

It’s tricky. I guess we will have to wait and see. I am kind of scared both that there won’t be anything or that there will be SOMETHING. Thank you for the ask, and I hope I shed some light on my thoughts on this subject. Either way I am very excited and looking forward to an album full of Taehyung’s own songs and the stories he wants to tell.

Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady”

I am not sure it is “lady”, since it’s a bit unclear in general. He also has a part that just seems to go “do be do” and I don’t know if the lyrics are even finished or if he worked with someone else etc. We basically lack a lot of information. But even so using lady/her/she etc. in a song doesn’t have to mean it is about a specific person or that the person is a she or that it is Taehyung’s own feelings (I know he said he usually sings about things he have felt, but just saying it doesn’t always have to be).

Of course I don’t want to downplay it and say it doesn’t mean anything, but considering their fanbase is majority women, they live in a homophobic country and he has even been denied to sing a romantic song with a man before, it’s not impossible to add that to make it more “relatable” or less “gay”. God, that sounds terrible. I don’t want to start discussions where we don’t take their words for what they are, so I hope you might understand my point of view. That being said of course it could just as easily be to or about a specific woman in his life that we don’t know about. Or as you say, he isn’t actually in love but is simply writing love songs that could be inspired by non-romantic relationships or movies etc. as was the case for his inspiration for Winter Bear.

Tae also used “she” in Winter Bear, and that seems a bit forgotten. Or people try to say it has to be about his grandmother... Which we obviously don’t know, it’s just the woman people jump to since he used “she” and many people don’t like the idea of him dating a woman or writing about a woman we don’t know. Either way I think we need to remember that anything is possible and we don’t know them personally and how they think or why they choose to do what they do.

I think we need to remember that there is always going to be the possibility that ships aren’t real, that the romantic songs aren’t about Jimin and that either one of them could be in a relationship with someone else (all genders included).

Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex

Hello! I want to address something that has been bothering me for a while now. I have been seeing some vminnies have a superiority complex just bcoz they ship vmin. Its very rampant among new vminnies and twt vminnies. I get that we all feel validated and happy when out OTP claim to be soulmates and bff. I feel that way too. But people have to remember that vmin are real people and their relationship is dynamic. Like they did grow from bff who used to tease e/o and fight alot to soulmates who are gentle and caring. Who is to say that one day they wont drift apart (i hope not and dont think thats gonna happen but for argument sake) so there is no reason to feel superior or look down on other shippers.

If people think vminnies are superior bcoz they are not toxic they probably know they are lying. Lbr i have seen my share of toxic vminnies though may be a lesser number but they are there and its not the ship but its that particular person who is at fault. While i agree that some ship theories cultivate hate and toxicity there may be people among those ships who are just as sane and good as we claim to be. I just wanted to address this bcoz seeing some vminnies on twt saying locals thinking vmin were tgt after coway add is a validation kind of triggered me. I m sure there would have been similar responses to any other ship bcoz they all have been tgt for a decade and are very comfortable with e/o. I just wanted to talk to someone about this and i know you have discussed similar topics in the past. So yeah this was very long.

First of all, on request I won’t show your name, but thank you for sending me this and letting me know who you are. It’s always nice to know who is behind the question. But that being said I don’t mind people asking on anon, I totally get it being a lot easier to ask or question things when you don’t have to reveal yourself. Either way I am just glad to get interesting and important topics and I do think the things you bring up are worth talking about.

As you say, there is this thing when people start to feel and act superior for various reasons, and I too have seen some Vminies do this. Getting a lot of moments is sure nice. But honestly, just imagine if another ship came and mocked Vmin or gloated every time they got more moments. It has surely happened too, and I am sure it doesn’t feel very nice when on the negative end. Just be a decent human, ship moments will always vary and it’s great to be happy about getting moments, but there is no need to compare or look down on other ships. I say it again, shipping is not a competition, just enjoy your own ship and let others enjoy theirs.

As for feelings superior based on group behavior I think we really need to stop looking at groups and start looking at individuals, both when it comes to groups we are part of and groups we consider “bad”. I have said it many times, but individuals of other groups we don’t agree with won’t all be bad, or all stupid or young etc. We might want to tell ourselves they are worse, but it really doesn’t change much.

Being “less bad” it not a merit and it shouldn’t be a competition. We all have our own selves to answer to and we should judge other people based on their actions and not based on what group they might belong to.

I think size and the toxicity of a narrative can lead to more people in certain groups behaving in toxic ways... But I think any person could happen to fall into these behaviors if not careful and aware. Often the change is gradual too, or you feel attacked by the other “rival group” and thus feel it’s justified to attack back, and so it escalates.

Vminies are at the moment as a group smaller, and thus have less “bad apples”. We likely also have a narrative for Vmin that doesn’t require as toxic mindsets, for example extreme jealousy or Vmin being forced to hide. But there for sure are still toxic Vminies, and there are also a lot of non-toxic shippers in all groups. Usually the louder ones are also the worst ones while the chill and nice will remain in their own lane and ship more peacefully. But being part of a smaller group doesn’t make you superior, your actions is what is important.

As for small moments getting noticed or other types of “validation” for your ship, of course it’s going to feel nice. However, what people see and think of any relationship in BTS is still just an outsider view and literally has no meaning for their actual relationship beyond it being a cute moment. That’s why size and popularity also doesn’t matter as any kind of “proof”. Interpretation will always just be interpretation, good or bad, if you like it or not.

Sadly I think we will get more and more toxic behavior from more ships as the fandom grows and as some things get more normalized within those ships’ communities. It’s about certain behaviors growing into a community culture... The more toxicity that is allowed the more others will follow. That’s why bringing up the problems is important, but trying to do so without shunning people so that they don’t go and create their own space where everyone else is the enemy. After all, being open and welcoming and understanding is much more likely to make someone listen and even change their mind than by attacking them.

I answer for my own actions. So does every person. I don’t want to be judged for everything every Vminie or ARMY or Multi K-pop fan etc. has done. Generalization is a huge problem in general, not just in fandoms or ship wars. I do try to be a positive influence, to not judge too harshly and to remember that being hostile won’t help any situation. But that’s about it. I am glad you brought up this topic, because talking about it is important, but sadly I don’t think there is a lot that can be done about it. Just try to be nice and open minded.

Thank you for the ask, I hope you all understood what I wanted to say.

Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys

Thank you. I really see no need for it. It’s clear as day that they all love each other, and even if one pair would happen to be romantic instead of platonic that won’t change. We don’t have to compare and we definitely don’t have to downplay the moments they share with each other. All shippers should at the very least accept the the things they do and say as mostly genuine. I trust BTS and what they show us, it’s that easy.

I know some also get influenced by toxic fans, but we really need to remember that no narratives by fans matter when it comes to reality and what bonds BTS share with each other. They are all great people and seem to have such love and respect for each other I frankly don’t understand how you can be a fan if you think any of it is played up to the point some claim.

Likely no ship in BTS is real, but if any is, to me I am sure the ones involved would be happy and supported by the rest of the members. That’s why it doesn’t really matter what ship would be real or not real as long as they are happy. We shouldn’t let our own views and sometimes want or hopes affect the way be judge their reality. This applies for things outside shipping as well.

Thank you for your kind words. :)

Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts

Indeed. The brain is a powerful thing. This is very obvious if you are a multi-shipper or a general fan, but BTS truly has a lot of questionable moments between all kinds of pairs. Focus is a interesting thing. If you like something you will notice it more, and you will also remember it more while you forget other moments. Likewise if something is “negative” like a rival ship you are likely to notice them more as well. This happens even if you just watch the general content and get your own bias. Imagine then how it might influence you when others keep repeating either your happy interpretations or things you worry about? You’ll get it stuck in your head and remember it more than other things.

Like isn’t it funny how we might gush about Vmin sharing beds, or worry about ji/kook or tae/kook cuddling while hope/kook literally sleep wrapped around each other in both Bon Voyage 3 and 4? Sometimes it’s all about perspective.

By now we need to realize that fan perspective will influence us a lot. And in particular if a lot of people say it or if it is presented in a way that makes it sound logical and intelligent. Words have power.

I still think using “Vmin is dead” or spreading worry often in itself leads to people thinking it and it being somehow accepted as fact. In similar fashion getting to hear about certain ships or certain narratives will make us notice things in relation to that. My own words and posts too will have influence on some people that read them. That’s why I try to be so careful, and why I try to avoid using strong words or claims that might cement themselves in someone’s mind. (I’ll actually talk more about the power of language in my big analysis as well)

Thank you for your input, it’s definitely an interesting thing to consider and another aspect of why shipping mentality is so complicated.

Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta

Hi and yes, I have answered this before HERE, but it’s ok. I know it’s not easy finding old topics amongst my collection posts.

Collection of asks - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 2 - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 3 - BTSandVMIN

In short I think Vmin wanted to share rooms but that Taehyung got fooled when Jimin stopped him from checking the upper room. Because it seemed like Jimin stopped him from walking into that room by saying he couldn’t peak Tae probably assumed it wasn’t Jimin’s room and that when Jimin said it was his room he was joking (his face was definitely something). So yeah, I think he just got fooled by Jimin’s statement about not being allowed to look inside the room before picking. There are other interesting things about this whole moment, but the one thing we should take away from it is how it is one out of now many examples that seem to show that Vmin have a preference to share rooms/beds. Thank you for the ask. :)

Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content?

I wouldn’t say it’s something recent. I say it often, but we really do get very intense periods from time to time with many of the ships. For example in February 2017 with ISAC, fan signs and everything else we got a lot of Vmin too. I remember being overwhelmed myself, and that was coming out of BST era Vmin. We got many moments every day and that’s just one specific period I can remember.

Over the years sometimes we do get these very intense days or weeks with a lot of moments at once. Usually I get asks like “do you think something is up with Vmin lately” or “wow I can’t believe how much Vmin we have gotten lately” but really, it’s hard to tell, because it really does happen from time to time. I also still say we always get Vmin moments regularly as long as we get BTS content, but sometimes a bit more and sometimes less. I am sure there will be more times when we also get “Vmin is dead“ and worried people because we get less moments than they expect. It just happens, up and down and around it goes.

As for what ships are big I will definitely say Ji/kook and Tae/kook are the biggest, but that all BTS ships are big by now. Meaning as soon as we do get moments it will be seen online. Especially if you follow people who talk about it of course. I also think what platform you are on can result in some ships being seen more than others. For example I know ji/kook is by far the biggest BTS ship here on Tumblr while Youtube seems to have more tae/kookers.

Thank you for the ask. Let’s hope Vmin keeps overwhelming us. (But let’s not start to worry if they don’t) ;)

Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview

Ah yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for this interview myself. I am not sure, but I think it might be from 2017 (since Tae wrote a birthday letter to Jimin in 2016), or at least that’s when I found it and saved it down. I haven’t actually tracked the original source. You can find the translation in the link shared HERE, credits to @95z.

Seeing this close after the chaos of Let’s BTS and other letter confessions it really does seem very cringe for them to express sincere thoughts in these more formal ways. I can’t blame them.

I do think this interview is yet another example of how much Vmin has tried to adapt to each other, learn and be more open with expressing how they feel. They literally inspire and learn from each other in how to express themselves. Isn’t it completely endearing?

I also love how they get each other to feel strong emotions and how they are there for each other when in need. On a slightly more analytical note I also can’t help but note the “just a friend” vs “soulmate” descriptions and how they seem to have a hard time putting it into proper words. We already know this of course, but yeah... They really don’t have an easy time describing their relationship.

Thank you so much for sharing this moment. I was going to talk about it in my big analysis anyways, but honestly I can’t save everything for it, and you mentioned it so who am I to keep it to myself.

Ask 9 - The garnet necklace

Oh yeah, I know that JK wore it once and that the talk was that a fan gave it to all of maknae line. Not much was ever confirmed from what I know, but regardless it doesn’t change why I think it’s a Vmin/soulmate necklace and why I see it as special.

Here is the thing, when I use “Vmin thing” it really doesn’t have to be exclusive. To me it’s the context around it and how they have used it and even reacted to it that makes the garnet necklace something special for Vmin. In the case of the soulmate necklace Vmin wore it a lot. Almost constantly during a big part of 2017 and even a bit into 2018. They also wore it at the same time a lot. I find this very cute, and we all know “couple items” is something all fans enjoy even if it would just be a platonic relationship behind it. But if both of them wearing it was all there was, as a lot of Vmin sharing clothes (or BTS in general sharing clothes) I wouldn’t really think too much about it beyond it being cute. It could still be just a cute thing that Vmin did, but I personally see it as something beyond the normal clothes/jewelry sharing.

(At the very least you can remember Vmin did this while people thought their relationship was dead, which doesn’t make much sense to do if you hate or dislike someone.)

The things I find more noteworthy about this necklace is the fact that the fandom picked up on it and because they wore it so much and so often at the same time it was dubbed the “soulmate necklace”. Possibly knowing this Tae also brought specific attention to the necklace at two times, as if wanting to show it off. Interestingly enough, in one of these times Jimin seemed to ignore Taehyung who was bringing attention to it on purpose. For me it came across as another thing Taehyung wanted to show off and that Jimin was a bit more careful about.

Of course I could have read it wrong, maybe Jimin just misunderstood. But even so, Tae did bring attention to it in specific relation to Jimin. You can watch the clip HERE. (BTS Tell Us What They Love About Each Other & An Update On Tony & Nate From America Hustle Life)

The other time was in Run ep. 39, right after Vmin talked about being in school together and showing off their school uniforms. If Tae is the one to try and highlight something, I feel it likely has some meaning to him at least.

Either way the necklace is basically a symbol of Vmin’s relationship and the fact that they liked it so much and wore it together during a long period I think they liked wearing it not only because they both happened to like the design but because they both had it. If JK also had one and didn’t use it of course it could include him, but I will still say it remains significant for Vmin’s bond with each other.

As for buying a necklace together they haven’t talked about this one in particular, but Tae did mention he bought his tiger necklace with Jimin in NY, so maybe you are mixing the two things up?

Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs

Thank you for loving my blog and for the ask! :) I am not sure if you perhaps meant in a lot of BTS own photoshoots/units as well, but I’ll focus on CMs in this post since that was your direct example. I might go a bit beyond here, but I saw it as a good chance to revisit some Vmin ad moments.

I wouldn’t personally say we have gotten “way more” but I do think because of their Friends unit they got to do some more interviews together and some CM stuff too. I also think we have gotten more BTS commercials in general now, likely because it’s an income alternative to touring during the pandemic. So that obviously means more CMs, and more chances for them to be paired up. They also have gotten paired with others of course (like in the Bodyfriend CM or Baskin Robbins), but most commonly they aren’t divided in smaller groups at all.

We also have gotten Vmin paired up before, both in photoshoots and in CMs. Of course we saw some great ones in 2016 with Puma and NUGU, but I don’t think we got that much more in 2016 and before than in 2017-2019. I think what we can see is BTS having more endorsements after Covid.

Like honestly, the Puma adds are iconic. Of course the original one, but also the revisits from 2018. Puma definitely seemed to like to pair Vmin in particular. (There are so many good examples from Puma that I’m not including)

We also got a snippet in the Hyundai one, also from 2018.

Another snippet from the Coconut Chicken ad from 2017.

I mean, I don’t know if I should count the snippets at all, like from BTS x VT cosmetics in 2019, but I feel sometimes just being seen in the same frame seems to get attention as being paired up so. (I decided to not include being together when it’s at least a third member in the frame)

And guys... Have you ever watched BTS and the milk song?

What did we get so far more recently? In 2020 we had the Hyundai interview.

And the hyundai #PositiveEnergyChallenge

Fila provided a nice one, also from 2020.

Samsung gave us a snippet recently.

Coway was basically couple goals and like the best one in my own opinion (besides Puma because it is going to take a lot to beat Puma).

But other than that? I don’t think we have seen it that much, have we? I am not complaining or anything, like I am happy with what we got, but I don’t know if it’s that much. I might forget some obvious ones, but these were the ones I had top of mind. Feel free to add ads if you can think of more recent ones that I left out.

So I think we have gotten more BTS ads in general, also more where they are not all of them or single focus, and that we have seen maybe Vmin getting paired a little more after Friends. But to me there is such a small difference I can’t really say if it is anything particular to Vmin or just BTS doing more CMs.

I mean, I don’t have a sheet of who has been paired with who and how many times over the years. But either way I don’t think we should look too deeply into things like CMs or even photoshoots units. Thanks for the ask though, I hope you enjoyed this mini collection. :)

Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook?

So this is a thought sent in after THIS ASK though it really brings up a new subject, which is that of Tae possibly being uncomfortable with shipping. As for Tae saying that to a tae/kooker in particular I think we have to remember it could very easily just have been in the moment and we can’t know why he decided to reply to that person in particular.

The Vmin post was not invasive and it wasn’t romantic. I mean, I do think Tae keeps showing again and again that if there is any person in BTS that is special to him it’s Jimin. But the difference in the posts also likely matters, but we can’t know how much. We don’t know if Tae would feel annoyed if a Vminie wrote the same thing as the tae/kooker did, and we don’t know if it was just in that moment that he got fed up with the shipping discourse in general, or if it was because it was tae/kook.

Honestly any shipper, regardless if a ship would eventually prove to be real or not, should not go and invade spaces where the boys get exposed to it. We don’t know if Taehyung would have reacted in a similar way if it happened to be another ship.

Personally I don’t think tae/kook drifted apart as a result of shipping, because honestly they still kept being pretty intimate physically and engaged in fanservice on stage etc. If they truly were uncomfortable with the idea I just don’t think they would “feed it” much at all. I think as they said in ITS they just, kind of changed and it became harder to talk. I’ve talked more about tae/kook and my views on their bond in THIS POST and a little in THIS POST as well as about BTS possible stance on shipping HERE.

I also think all of BTS has a pretty good distance from hate and fandom speculations in general. I think that because they know about shipping and partly also feed into it they probably expect crazy people to some degree as well, even if they probably don’t like it. Hetero shippers as well, or solo stans etc. have very toxic behaviors at times, but I think BTS can recognize that it is kind of “bound to happen” with their popularity, no matter what they do about it. Not saying they would like it, and they could definitely feel awkward or annoyed because of it, but it doesn’t seem to bother them too much as I think they can detach themselves from it pretty well.

I also think “fan opinions” in form of rival shipping wouldn’t really harm a hidden couple as it first would likely be a sort of “shield” and second because they have their relationships and are likely comfortable with them on their own terms. What fans think is probably secondary.

It is possible that they could get annoyed or frustrated at times, but again, if they truly felt bothered by it they probably wouldn’t do a lot of the things they do. Because I am sure they are aware to some degree that fans scrutinize their every move and ship moments. Both Tae and Jimin are some of the most physical out of the members, and also some of the members that seem to like to initiate fanservice moments... So I doubt they would have much problem and can feel secure enough in their relationship no matter what fans think.

Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53?

Hi, I guess you got curious after I talked about this episode recently in my post Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 (Ask 8 - Going down the rabbit hole, micromoments and shipping vs believing).

I don’t know hangul, but I do know what “Jimin” looks like. On Jimin’s shirt from behind the scenes of Run ep. 53 you can see he’s written his own name “지민” Jimin followed by what looks to be “ 님 “ which is nim. So basically the text on the container in the picture says Sir Jimin.

Jimin seemed very keen on writing his name on both his own shirt and on Tae’s and even tried on JK’s. He failed of course, but he sure did try.

Thank you for the ask, and isn’t Tae cute?

Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up

Glad you liked my reply. :) (From Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 Ask 4 - Idols dating members of the same group). Yeah I get what you mean, talking about it openly I suppose isn’t so normal. But since it seems to be more and more fans who assume it happens to some degree maybe it’s not so strange if it starts getting more talked about as well. I’ll take it as a good sign, even if the information is nothing new in itself, being more open is going to make it easier for fans to realize it’s possible for their idols to be LGBT+ or have hidden relationships.

As for K-Population it doesn’t seem to be too well known, but it’s one of few actual examples to be found. So yeah, interesting that we know it has happened, and also that it shows what risks it could mean to get involved with a group member. I think the risk of a falling out is something a lot of shippers tend to forget. Anyways, thank you for your reply. ^_^

Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Oh my... I am not sure I have ever been called sweetheart by anyone ever before. Thank you! You are making me blush with all the praise. 💜💜💜

But really, we can all just watch Vmin in awe and be happy they have each other and feel such immense love for each other, no matter what that love is. It’s kind of amazing. Like even if they are platonic their relationship is so wholesome and they put so much love and effort into it that it’s truly inspirational. I love when we get bombed with moments like this with a very intense period of great Vmin interactions. As you, me too never fail to feel all soft watching them together.

95z is love and what a love they share. Truly wonderful. 💜

You take care too, and really, thank you so much for this lovely message. it means a lot and is very heartwarming.

And with that sweet ask I’ll end the post. There was a lot of very different questions and I feel I could have written more about many of them, but alas I need to remember I can’t write full essays on everything or I would never get anything posted. Thank you all for reading and I hope you found my thoughts and speculations interesting. ^-^

#vmin #vmin analysis #btsandvmin #ask: reply #vmin collection #vmin ad #vmin cm #vmin commercial #vmin gif #vmin photo #bts shipping #btsandvmin answer #my post #Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16 #vmin soulmate necklace

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rosy-cheekx · 4 years ago

Text

Hypothetically

@aspecarchivesweek Day One: Wish

I wish to make you happy.

Jonathan Sims/Georgie Barker

This was it. Jon fiddles with the pale green collar of his shirt; eyes focused resolutely on the version of himself in the mirror that hung on the wardrobe in his student flat. Tonight’s the night I’m going to ask Georgie to…

He shakes his head to himself, wincing at the end of that sentence. He knows what he’s going to do tonight, what he wants to do tonight, what difference does vocalizing it make, even if it’s just to himself?

Glancing down at his watch, Jon chews his lip. He was meeting Georgie at the bar in thirty minutes. The bar was ten minutes away…He should probably leave now, right? In case he needed to find them seats or use the loo or if the walk ended up taking longer than the dozens of times he’s been there before? He doesn’t want to be late, that would just make everything worse-

Huh. He’s pacing. Jon forces himself to stop and stands in the middle of his bedroom, wrapping his hands around his sides, thumbs digging into his back, feeling his diaphragm push his ribs out and in as he breathes, focusing on the solid movement of his body. Why am I so nervous? His therapist had talked to him, years back, about identifying sources of his anxiety. He hates that it works, hates that it means confronting his own brain and acknowledging his faults.

Is it the bar? No. This bar, The Addison, is one of the few pubs Jon actually enjoys. It’s always got a bit of a draft so even in the busiest nights it never feels like the heat of the room is inescapable. Jon’s not the biggest fan of beer, per se, but he can knock back a pint with the best of them, so long as he has something in his stomach first, and the pretzels and beer cheese The Addison makes are his favorite. The thought of them make his stomach growl.

Is it Georgie? No. He has a lot of strong feelings for Georgie, feels comfortable being himself around her. He drops his stuffy academic persona and can be his regular, less-stuffy-but-still-academic self, the one who speaks to her flatmate’s cat in a higher-pitched voice but still with proper Queen’s English, because “they deserve to be treated with respect, don’t you Madame?” She cares about him, too, he knows that, and he’s enjoyed their months as friends and the past few weeks they’ve been a couple.

As a couple…He feels a twinge of anxiety in his chest that makes him flap his hands instinctively, a quick stim to ward off the impending doom building in his belly. Ah. Found it. He and Georgie have only gone on a few dates: a coffeeshop on a Saturday morning, and a movie night in Georgie’s flat, an evening which had been planned to be a movie marathon of Georgie’s favorite bad horror movies, the B and C rated films that were truly just a vehicle for half-naked women sprinting down alleyways and gratuitous fake blood effects. Any excuse for them to laugh over popcorn and predict the plot points, except Jon had fallen asleep partway through the second movie and had woken up the next morning on Georgie’s couch, a worn fleece blanket over his slumped form. But this? This was a proper night-time date, involving alcohol and a walk home and, Jon was sure, a “mind if I come in?” and it would be different because it wasn’t a friend he was talking to, it was his girlfriend and there were expectations and he was a virgin and didn’t want to disappoint her because he knows Georgie is experienced and she deserves to have a good time and it’s his responsibility as a boyfriend to do that, even if he’s terrified because he hasn’t before—

Woah. Jon takes a deep breath. That was a lot. He did a full Sims, as Georgie would say, letting things snowball in his head until he explodes. He closes his eyes, wringing his hands again, just a gentle flutter at his sides. It’ll be fine. She’ll understand. She has up to now. Georgie has understood his weird studying habits, his deep aversion to spiders, his need to be early everywhere, his sudden shutdowns and stimming habits and how he loves to be held and touched. She can certainly handle him being a nervous virgin.

Jon slips a condom in his wallet and then, hesitating, tears off two more and throws them in. In case he messes up the first time. Checking his watch, he sees its quarter to eight. If he leaves now he’ll only be five minutes early. Perfect.

The Addison is a healthy dose of busy on a Thursday night in late autumn, the hum of conversation and music floating over Jon is just the right amount of chaos for him to reach equilibrium, feeling enthused by his nervous energy. He’s sitting at the bartop, spinning the cap to his beer bottle, watching it whirl, whirl, whirl, clattering on the stained wood and spinning all the while. It’s entrancing.

Georgie is speaking to him now. She smiles warmly at him and feels his stomach flip. God, she’s gorgeous when she smiles. Her hair’s in braids this month, pink and orange weaved tightly together, contrasting with the tight black turtleneck dress she wears. He catches himself staring at her profile, the planes of her face animated as she tells him a story about her professor and his alleged vow to fail her this semester. His face is warm. See, he soothes himself, you are attracted to her. You’re just nervous.

“Jon. Jon?” Georgie’s eyebrow is quirked up and she’s smirking at him, like she’s caught him in a lie. “Everything alright? You’re staring.” Jon feels another rush of blood to his cheeks, prickling at how exposed he feels to have been caught up in his thoughts about her.

“Oh-uh, yeah,” he nods, hesitating before reforming his own features into a smile. “I-I was just thinking. Well. How nice you look tonight.” Georgie isn’t immune to compliments, he knows this for certain, and its reaffirmed as she ducks her own head briefly, smile shifting from teasing to soft.

“O-Oh. Thank you, Jon.” She sips her drink, preferring something a little harder than Jon’s beer, usually a vodka cranberry she can nurse throughout a night or throw back when she needs a little something more in her bloodstream, fogging her mind. “You look really nice too, you know. Your green shirt is my favorite.” She gestures to the button up and he nods absently, glancing down at it. When he looks up, her face is close to his, hand weaving into the curls by his ear. He sighs and leans into the touch, feeling a shiver run through him when they kiss. He tastes the cranberry on her lips, vodka on her tongue, her liquid courage enthusing him as well as her (not that she needs any excuse to be bold, really), and makes a choice.

When they pull away for air, he grins wildly at her, the face he makes when he knows he’s about to a very Not-Sims thing. When the bartender makes his rounds again, a pale man in a black button-down, Jon orders his own ruby-red drink. Georgie’s eyebrows meet her hairline as he does so, folding her hands together. “Who are you and what have you done with Jonathan Sims?” The chuckle behind her voice balances the sternness of her words. He just grins at her and takes a sip of his newly-acquired vodka and cranberry juice, the dry flavors curling on his tongue and making his head feel light and warm after even half the glass.

Jon is drunk. It doesn’t take a genius to see that. He knows he’s a lightweight and even the divine soft pretzels he’s been munching on since his arrival can only handle so much. He’s finished his second hard drink on top of the beer and is feeling properly light and airy. Like a cake, he giggles to himself. He’s having fun, chatting with Georgie about life and cats and uni and their plans for the future. Jon’s entertaining a couple of options, a few research jobs in London, and Georgie is poking his side, making him laugh as she teases him about his studying skills being useful for something more than exams.

“At least I have studying skills!” He says, pushing her off his side, linking their fingers together to inhibit her from poking him again. “You can’t ride my coattails forever, you know.”

“I won’t have to! It came in today.”

“What did?” His thoughts are clouded, edges of anxiety smoothed over into something more ignorable.

“My microphone! So I can start my podcast about spooky shit, remember?” Georgie squeezes his hand and finishes her own drink, far along as Jon in liquid consumed but not nearly as affected as he is. “I’m going to uncover the world’s mysteries and teach my faithful audience about the supernatural. I’ve got the title nailed down, too.” With her free hand she paints a banner in the air. “What the Ghost. ‘Cause it’s like ‘what the fuck’ and I can talk about all sorts of weird shit.” Georgie swears a lot, and more when she’s tipsy.

“Can I see it?” The words are out of his mouth before he can think them through. “The-the microphone, can I see it?”

Her eyes widen and she nods, “Oh, yeah of course! I haven’t been able to test it out yet, so maybe you can help me.”

Jon insists on paying. So does Georgie. They resign to splitting it, each vowing to pay next time and knowing they will never outsmart each other.

Jon doesn’t realize how drunk he is until he’s walking the five minutes to Georgie’s flat. Tucked into her side, the air is cool around his face, the wind an icy hand cupping his cheek. Everything feels smeary, liquid, warm. Hands in the pocket of the peacoat he knows he bought for the aesthetic and not to keep him warm, he fingers his wallet, feels the circular outline inside, and feels…nothing. Good. He can do this.

He’s always loved Georgie’s flat. It is warm, all orange and yellow lamplight, houseplants, and a cosy cluttered look. Her roommate exists only in residuals, the sneakers she leaves by the door and the dishes she does at odd hours more proof she exists than anything like conversation. Jon respects that. Georgie’s room is a lot like the rest of the flat, which means it’s a lot like Georgie herself. Warm, dark, soft, and scattered, with hidden elements of cat hair no matter how many times she cleans. Jon throws his coat over his desk chair and collapses onto her bed, reveling in how her pillows feel under his back. He takes a moment to greet the weird smile-faced stain on her ceiling before sitting up, watching Georgie fold herself next to him and open a carboard box, taking out a chunky black microphone with a USB cable. She brandishes it like a sword, before angling it to her face.

“This is BBC 4 with breaking news,” she intones into the microphone, putting on a crisp RP accent and lowering her voice an octave. “Ghosts and ghouls have been discovered at King’s College, Oxford, residing as university professors. News anchor Jonathan Sims has the story. Sims?”

Jon presses back his giggles and leans into the character, accent already pretty close to the posh voice she puts on. “There’s been an error, actually. They’ve been the students all along. Journalism student Porgie Parker has been found out to have been a ghost. These discoveries were made after her boyfriend, English Literature student…Bonathan Bims, realized she had never picked up a textbook because she couldn’t! Her hands went right through them!” By the time he’s gotten to the word textbook, Georgie has pounced on him, microphone forgotten as she wrestles him to the bed, alternating between poking and tickling him until he lets the bit trail off, voice a mix of giggles and pleas for her to stop.

When she lets off, Jon abruptly realizes the intimacy of their position. She’s straddling him, her hands pinning his wrists to the plush pillow behind his head. They’re both breathing hard, cheeks flushed, and smiling.

Jon isn’t sure who started the kiss, but it doesn’t really matter. His arms are wrapped around Georgie’s neck and her hands are cupping his face, cool to the touch, nails lightly scratching his jawline. The bed is soft and Georgie is warm, pressing in from all sides, and it feels good. This he likes.

She kisses along his jawline and he feels heart rate pickup, flexing his hands (when did he curl them into fists?) as she presses against his neck. He wishes vaguely she’d put her hands back in his hair, he likes that soft feeling of pressure on his scalp. The smile on the ceiling is smirking at him now, the curve of the water stain looking more vicious than it had earlier.

Her hands are on his chest, she’s unbuttoning his shirt. Her hands feel too cold now, the shiver running through him one of anxiety, not desire, and Jon is sitting up before he knows what he’s doing. Fuck. Georgie, the saint, backs off him and kneels beside him on the bed. Jon’s hands flit to the undone buttons, fingertips circling them, suddenly unsure what to do.

“Are you okay, Jon?” Georgie’s voice is softer, eyes searching his face as she wedges her hands underneath her knees. He watches her wrists, the swing of her braids as she cocks her head, anything to avoid her eyes.

“I-” he gestures to her vaguely. “Y-You know I haven’t before, right?”

“Oh. Oh.” Georgie nods, understanding maybe a little better than he expected. “No offense, but I kinda figured, Jon. Not in a bad way!” She backpedals. “I just figured, you know, there’s no rush.”

“I mean, there’s a little of a rush,” he admonishes under his breath. At her hum of confusion: “You know, the whole-” he gestures again, as if he could pluck the word from the air. “-third date…thing.”

“Jon,” Georgie sighs his name, voice soft and so patient, a voice he doesn’t think he’s heard used anywhere else. “There’s no rule saying what we have to do when. Or how. Or ever, for that matter. It’s no one’s business what we do except ours.” She reaches out a hand, waiting for a slight nod, before taking his thin hands in her own. “Is that why you drank more than usual today?”

Jon nods, feeling a sag of relief spread throughout his body. “I just- I want to make you happy.”

“You do make me happy, you twit. That’s why we’re friends and it’s why I’m dating you.” She presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t need sex to be happy. Is it fun? Yes. But not necessary.”

Jon frowns, chewing on his lip and eyeing the window of her bedroom, tracing the rectangle with his eyes over and over again. “I-hmm.” Georgie watches him search for words; she knows how he ticks well enough to know they’re coming if she waits. “What if, hypothetically, I never had sex with you? Ever.”

“Well,” she gave his hands a light squeeze. “Hypothetically, I’d be totally okay with it, though I’d ask if you were asexual and make sure we had appropriate boundaries.”

“Huh?” The word draws him back to her face, the deep brown eyes that search his own. “Asexual. Like, no sex?” She nods, again, ever-patient. “Huh. Asexual.” He drops the pretense. “Maybe.”

Asexual. The word felt good as he rolled it around in his mouth. He traced the letters with his fingertips in cursive against his thigh as Georgie let go of him, rolling off her bed to pull on sweatpants and a t shirt instead of the dress she was wearing

“Let’s look into it, if you want. Together.” Georgie grins at him now, rye and warm. “I will have to ask you if want hypothetical crisps, because I’m hypothetically fucking starving.”

#aspec archive week #jonathan sims #Georgie barker #cw alcohol #cw internalized acephobia #/confusion #just some good confusing feelings #based on my own experiences? said who?#also! important note: Jon's stims are reflective of my own habits #just sayin #asexuality #ace #ace flavor: who knows? not even Jon

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averyscarlet-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Project Clypse

Hello there stranger! If you don’t know who I am, or you’re too lazy to read my name, I’m AveryScarlet! You can simply call me Avery or Av. And if you know me on fanfiction.net, mostly through my works Mercury Alchemist or Final Fantasy Versus XV, welcome! Now, for a while now, I’ve been wanting to write up my own original story. Issue with me, thanks to college in the past, I haven’t properly developed the mindset to write a full-blown novel. I’ve gotten so used to typing up a chapter or two in a month before publishing them that I can’t properly focus as an actual writer should.

As much as I want to focus on writing some of my fanfiction, I can’t because I’m focusing on studying for NCLEX. So if you’re waiting for the next chapter for FF Versus XV... It’s almost done! It’s just gonna take a while. But as you can see below, I’ve been working on something else. I’m sure you’re confused as to who these characters are in the chat and why I’m pushing so many out. Well. I’ll tell you. This is my way of practicing for a story I’ve been... REALLY wanting to write for a long time. It doesn’t have a definite name, so I’m calling it Project Clypse. Which partially comes from the group my main characters are in.

Now, I thought of writing up their character bio’s but..... I’m not really that good at it as I used to be. I used to for when I was active in RP’s but I’m so rusty that I doubt I can keep up with whomever I’m chatting with. So, I’m just summarizing certain details you need to know about them! Not all of it because that'd be spoiling the story of every character. Now, with all that’s said and done, let me start explaining key points of Project Clypse.

Premise/Background

The story is centered on a world called Avarus, which you can say is sort of like Earth, except it was made with someone else's version of life. Or, it used to be. Avarus is one of the few remaining worlds that has an active patron God, who has chosen to go under the alias Belial. The world was originally created and governed by another, Belial’s younger sister, Soleil. After Avarus’ creation, and the birth of man, she was killed by an unknown assailant. But before she died, she was cursed to experience an endless cycle of death and rebirth into various random worlds. She will live a short mortal life, then die from either natural or unnatural causes.

According to Belial, this curse is bestowed only to Celetials who have performed a dire sin. While there is no definite way to lift the curse, Belial hopes that by locating and retrieving her while she's still alive, or at the very least obtain her soul, then he could find the proper means to spare his sister of her cursed fate and return Avarus's true patron Goddess. Because of her demise, life on the planet started to decay. To prevent its destruction, Belial forced the planet to stop rotating, hoping to delay it long enough for him to find Soleil.

However, there were dire consequences to this act. His actions indirectly causing the world to cease rotating; time became non-existent as a result. This, inevitably, killed off most of the remaining life in the world due to the imbalance of the ecosystem as one half of the planet became stuck in perpetual darkness, and the other being dried up caused prolonged exposure to the sun's light.

The only life that Belial was able to salvage was her sisters creation; humanity. Those that survived after the planet ceased its rotation found themselves unable to age. They can still die, but their bodies will no longer decay. During the first Century since Soleil’s death, the God went through various countermeasures to keep the world and the life still inhabits it safe until he can find his sister.

However, a strange plague began to manifest. Soon, it began to devour most of the remaining populace, creating a dark entity in the process; the Astrals (will explain in a different section).

While Belial was successful in wiping out the infected, the God realized that he cannot keep the last remnants of humanity safe. Not while there are still Astrals lurking about. So he put them to sleep, sealed them in a place that only he knows. However, because of the sudden absence of time and life, the world began to deconstruct itself each time he departed in search for her in other worlds. Realizing he cannot manage Avarus and search for his sister at the same time, he found an alternative. Since his conception, he had noticed a peculiar type of living being popping up now and then in a variety of sentient species. So he sought them out.

Eventually, gathered enough to temporarily replace humanity and trick the world itself into thinking life still exists. At first, he gathered adults since he knew nothing can grow in Avarus once they’ve lived in the world for a certain period of time, but because of their attachments to the worlds they originated from, it was difficult to convince them to remain. Then he thought up of another solution, one which he knew his sister would frown upon. Children. With their young minds, they’ll easily forget their place of origin and can be easily trained in the necessary skill in traversing through different worlds. And, after learning that the Astrals have branched out to those said worlds, learn how to handle their sudden enemy.

Their goal is simple; to locate and, if possible, retrieve Soleil and eradicate the Astrals.

Main Characters

Note: Just in case you did not know... I. Cannot. Draw. As much as it pains me to do this, but I need you guys to have some sort of idea on how they look like. I cannot find the original artists of the artworks; mostly because google imaging is shit and Pinterest tends to... Send you elsewhere. So of you know the artist, please PM me so I can give them credit. If you know they don't want their works republished, I'll remove it and try to figure something out. I take no credit whatsoever on the art! I merely scoured the internet for any references I could use. If you're wondering why I'm not.using actual people... You know how awkward that is?

Anyway, much of these are concepts so expect changes in the future. I tried to discuss as little as possible about each character. And let me tell ya.... That was a lot I had to cut off, so if the explanation is a bit messy, that was from me trying to select what to remove to avoid revealing too much.

. . .

Sound

‘I have to be better. I have to be a better leader. I have to be a better lover. I have to be a better sibling. If I don’t... then I’ll lose everything again. If I must, I’ll sacrifice my identity for a third time if it means protecting them.’

Credits to: T0Q00(?) - Okay, on Pinterest it has the person’s name AND link to their twitter account. The thing is... it’s empty. Their entire page is empty. At least I found the artist’s name?

Also known as the Glutton King, Sound is one of the leaders of his faction, Tunera Clypse and a member of Mythral. He is a first generation Nors. While not as lazy as Noise, he’s not really a fan of getting involved in fights with people. When it comes to killing Astrals; that’s an entirely different story.

Outwardly, he displays laid back, playful, and very concerning outlandish behavior. And by outlandish, I mean his... eating habits. Sound likes to experiment with his stomach. He’ll do absolutely ANYTHING to eat whatever he deems as edible. He also - absolutely - lacks any sense of shame (ex. walking out of the shower and to his room without a towel, slapping Noise’s butt). Although limited to communicate via writing, he makes sure that every single thing he writes is worth reading. Many are even surprised at just how fast he writes his messages. Then again, after years of practice, it’s expected he’d adapt.

Sound is self-aware of the fact that he’s a fictional character and will randomly break the fourth wall, causing much confusion to his friends several times. While not as dark as his previous self, Fell, he maintains some of his views towards life and tends to be as vocal - via writing - of his previous self's beliefs.

As a Cursed Blood, his curse forces him to conceal his face behind a customized Fox Mask. Depending on the amount of facial skin that was exposed, a person can live up to several minutes to several hours before inflicted with sudden death. If a person were to see the entirety of his face, they will die on the spot from unknown causes. He has a Physical Curse as well, which causes him to inflict a certain degree bad-luck to whoever hears his voice. While it’s rarely anything life-threatening, Sound is forced to become selectively mute. Although he tries his best to remain silent, he tends to accidentally let it a few words or sounds slip. Which usually occurs when he sneezes, and when he does, it is immediately advised by his friends to duck and cover.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, he joined the faction Tunera Clypse and then gave up his original name, becoming the next Sound. Unbeknownst to him, his actions later in life has caused him to unknowingly become the Vessel of Gluttony. It is unknown if his eating habits is the reason he became the vessel or it’s the other way around. Either way, he has shown to be fully capable of controlling the abilities that comes with being a Vessel. Sound merely chooses not to use them.

. . .

Ayane Koronashi

“If my brother had left the orphanage that day without me, I would simply smile. If Ulric presented me his latest girlfriend, I’d smile. Smiling is all I can ever do without being a nuisance. I could never show them my pain. I want to cry but my curse renders me incapable of doing so. But now it’s better. I’m better.”

Also known as the Black Fox. Ayane is the younger twin sister of Sound. Like her twin, she is also a member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral; as well as a first generation Nors. Despite being an active member, unless accompanied by her brother, Ayane is rarely allowed to participate in any scouting or combat-related missions. The main reason for this is her curse. While also a Cursed Blood like her brother and some of their friends, the unnatural causes that led to sudden conversion to a cursed blood caused her condition to be unstable. At the beginning, she was unable to retain her original form and would take the shape of a fox.

After some time and practice, she has learned to maintain most of her former human appearance, leaving only a pair of fox ears to replace her human ears and a tail (not by choice) as an extra ligament. Not only that, some of her internal organs remain similar to that of a fox. Because of this, she is unable to eat certain foods that are potentially poisonous to her (or generally unhealthy). She was told that eventually, if nothing is done, she will permanently take the complete form of a fox. She cannot surgically remove the fox parts as they will simply grow back.

Side-note: No, they did not try or plan to remove her fox ears. The curse replaced her human ears so they cannot remove them without indirectly making her deaf.

Her personality is the somewhat similar to Sound’s, but is far more excitable and outgoing than her brother. Just like a fox, she is clever and witty, which she demonstrates many times during combat. She has a tendencyto steal things without her knowledge. While this isn’t necessarily kleptomania, as objects appear in her hands at random, she still tries get over her childhood habit. She does have a tendency to be reckless, though this is stems from her need to be useful as her curse leaves her unable to perform all of the necessary abilities that is required of a Nors.

Another thing to know is her intense hatred towards cats. Which will be explored at a later time.

As a Cursed Blood, she can take the form of a fox. While the size varies, depending on her emotional state, she is commonly seen to change into the size similar to an elephant. If she performs multiple transformations, she will regress to a regular sized fox and sleep for an extensive period of time. She has been recommended to avoid constantly rely on her full fox form as it will hasten the progression of her curse.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, she followed her brother and joined the same faction as him, but unlike him, did not join as a core member so she did not have to give up her original name. Because of the current state of her body caused by her Cursed Blood, her emotions has unknowingly lead her to become thenext Vessel of Envy.

. . .

Reihana Toelle Ur Kamaria

“Why was I born like this... what did I deserve to be cursed like this!? All I want is to hold someone without fearing I’ll crush them. I can’t be the receiver forever!”

Or Rei for short. Is a member of Mythral and is a second generation Nors. As a floater, Rei rotates between the three factions, but she usually works with Tunera Clypse. Known for her terrifying brute strength, Rei is feared by many and is challenged on a near daily basis. Because of her strength and seemingly indestructible nature, she is (much to her annoyance) sometimes used as a human shield. While she is able to take on an army by herself, Rei tries not to go all out in fear of accidentally killing her allies in the crossfire. In terms of mental maturity, aside from Xavier, she is slightly more competent and is level-headed enough to not participate in childish activities. Most of the time.

Rei prefers to ‘punch first, talk later’ when confronted, though the talking never happens as her opponents is either obliterated or immediately knocked out after one hit. While she can be aggressive at times, she merely acts out on this person's due to the rumors that were spread when word of her curse began to circulate. Those closest to her have witnessed her carefree and adventurous nature. She is also cautious and careful of her surroundings, becoming more thoughtful in the usage of her strength as a result.

As much as she loves the thrill and adrenaline that comes from combat, she prefers not to fight too often. Mostly because it usually leads to unnecessary mass destruction. She craves for proper physical contact, but due to her curse, she forces herself to avoid it as much as possible.

Being the physically oldest, next to Percy, she tends to act like the big sister of the group, which Rei has admitted she finds embarrassing. Still, she works hard in trying to act as moral support for her friends. That doesn’t stop her from losing her temper when a certain line is crossed.

As a Cursed Blood, she is cursed with immeasurable strength. Her strength doubles based on who or whatever is the strongest in a world that she sets foot in. That, of course, excludes Celestial’s as the strength of the divinity is almost non-existent. By default, back in Avarus, her usual strength is enough to crumble an entire building. In other worlds, it depends. To help control and regulate her strength during combat, she uses a large amount of Astral Dust to create form-fitting gauntlets around her lower arm. She was meant to become the Vessel of Wrath but was instead changed to be the candidate for the Vessel of Pride.

. . .

Perseus Vlahos

"I used to believe that being a hero will allow you to cement your place in history. But over time, I learned that the farther in time your name is shared in time, you become nothing more than a mere legend. Or worse, a myth. Stories can be altered, changed. If that’s the case, I’d rather not be remembered at all. I didn’t work this hard just to be written off as a bedtime story.”

Christened under the name ‘Percy the Naive’ by his best friend, later life-long rival, Wilhelm, he is the current wielder of the legendary sword; Excalibur, and member of Infernum Poncitator. Grandson of Rayner, Percy is one of the few third generation Nors in Avarus. He is a kind young man and is respected amongst his peers (well, most of them) and superiors, so much so that he has been offered the position of leader of the faction. Percy refuses as not only deems himself unworthy, but out of respect for those that have lived in Avarus longer.

He displays many the ideal traits of a knight, eventually becoming viewed as an ideal knight by others. However, deep down, Percy perceives himself as the opposite. He feels he is a dishonorable fraud and is not proud of his status as Excalibur's chosen wielder. If he was given a chance to do it over again, Percy would immediately abandon his decision never search and locate the sword.

After joining Avarus, in a short span of time, Percy was able to easily establish himself as a sort of leader figure within his faction. While serious most of the time, especially during missions, due to his time with other Nors, has displayed a degree of patience and tolerance towards whoever he is assigned. Still, he never forgets their main objective and takes charge if he deems the assigned leader incompetent. Which happens more times than he refuses to count. He tries to maintain a cool head, but will severely reprimand others if the situation calls for it.

Proficient in the ways of the sword, he garnered the attention of (the then Mongrel) Mitchell. He was very reluctant in taking in a squire. But eventually, Percy relented after the younger boy attempted to fight against an Astral and nearly lost his life. He plans to one day pass down Excalibur to Mitchell once he gains the strength to surpass Percy.

At the moment, Percy is the current Vessel of Wrath.

. . .

Noise (***** Rallus)

“I tried all of my life to give my dad a reason why he shouldn't be treating his body the way he did. I tried all of my life to keep my friend in line so I'd never have to be the one to discipline him. And yet... If only I didn't try so hard, they'd still be alive.”

Author’s Note: Yeah I... legit do not know who this belongs to. There’s the artist’s signature so that’s the good thing. Problem is....

After escaping from the confines of his original world, Eingesperrt City, and, with the help Sound, joined Avarus and assumed the title of Noise. Unlike others that were gathered in the past, Noise is a regular human being. Something only Sound knows. Regardless of the danger, he became one of the leaders for Tunera Clypse, later joining Mythral after adapting to his new lifestyle.

He wears one of the Artifacts in order to copy and use only one ability of his choosing. As long as a piece of original user is within the Artifact, Noise can use it for as long as he wants. However, if its been removed and replaced with something else, the previous copied ability cannot be used ever again.

Since his recruitment, Noise adopted an extremely lazy personality. He’s so lazy that somehow even snoring consumes too much energy. To make sure he’s awake most of the time, Sound forced Noise to set up a sleep schedule, so that when he’s ready, he has enough energy to do SOMETHING. However, no matter where he is, he’ll take every opportunity to take a nap. He doesn’t care. As long as he gets to close his eyes, Noise is fine to sleep wherever, even if it involves napping righ at the edge of a volcano.

He’ll get annoyed if anyone that dares try to wake him up and he’ll be in a fowl mood for the rest of the day. The only exception is the fox girl and his lover. Despite this, he displays a certain degree of kindness. It’s just really hard to tell if what he’s doing is truly an act of kindness or he’s just too lazy to do things such as delivering a ‘motivational speech’. He can be blunt when he has to be, and he tends to come off as a jackass rude because of his personality. However, this is his way of showing he cares. Noise will flat out tell you if he dislikes you.

Another thing to know about him is his crude sense of humor. Combined with his blunt and rude nature towards people, mostly acquaintances and strangers, it always leads to various... Misunderstandings. Worst case scenario? A fight. He'd improve if he could, but he won't.

Look, if you haven't figure out that he's lazy after reading all this, gooood luck.

For reasons unknown, despite becoming the next Vessel of Sloth, it remains dormant within him. They thought of extracting it to learn the causes that led up to its current dormant state, but Sound intervened in time as he knew that extracting it by force will kill the the vessel.

. . .

Michael/Raphael/Gabriel/Uriel/Saraqael/Raguel/Remiel/etc

‘Dragons are raised under the false pretense that they are the supreme species above all others. But that merely obscures the truth; the truth that we’re just as vulnerable as anyone else. There are various ways to kill aside from piercing our hearts with a spear.”

Author’s Note: Just so you know, HE’S BLONDE and has green eyes! This was the only option I have that closely resembles how I envisioned him! There was another because he gives off the same atmosphere when you look at him but... he’s from an otome game. And I only learned that recently so, if the same goes for this one? WELP. Oh and he has patches of dark brown scales on part of his skin.

Neither a Quietus Nors nor a resident of Avarus, Michael is a dragon. His version of his race if capable of transformation, but can only change into the form of the last creature they devoured. Whole. Rather than his true form, in order to remain working in Avarus, chose to work in the form of the former Prince of Edrakon, a world where dragons were enslaved and cruelly treated as mere objects. Despite his appearance not being his own, he maintains an intimidating and powerful aura, which is easily distinguishable even within a large crowd.

Due to the high esteem he holds towards his race and his pride as a Dragon, he can come off as domineering, even becoming critical towards other versions of his race if he finds something illogical or nonsensical in their appearance and their abilities. While he does act this way, he finds it absolutely disgusting to find dragons place themselves in a position of power and abuses their power in controlling another species. Another aspect of him is that he looks down on dragons with physical defects, which is mostly directly aimed as himself due to his extremely poor eyesight. Thus, forcing him to rely on his human form to watch glasses. He also has a very confusing naming system; where he changes his name based on the date, time and temperature.

Micheal held the potential required to become a Nors, but because of his age, he was unable to undergo the necessary steps to fully integrate into Avarus. While others are reluctant to have him join their ranks, several others, for different reasons, allowed him to remain. This eventually allowed others to accept his addition to the organization.

As the one in charge of organizing and handling most of Avarus’ internal affairs, a job the Nors, even the Ex-Anima/Animus, are reluctant in taking up such an important position; he takes his job very seriously. Although he does express some contempt towards humans, this does not extend to the people he works with. He cares about them to a certain degree, which is shown by he constantly reprimands whoever acts risky during a mission.

He is the current Vessel of Pride, something he only learns of later on. Despite the fact Micheal is a vessel, Belial believes this is only temporary. He isn’t particularly close with Belial, but he respects the God enough to follow his orders.

. . .

Ulric Soknawo

'In my tribe, I was considered an outcast. You can thank the unnatural union that birthed me. Now? It hasn’t changed much, but at least I’m no longer considered the runt of the pack.’

Whose other name is Kuckunniwi, is a former member of the Aniwaya Tribe. In their world, his people are Natives who worshipped a guardian Wolf Spirit. According to them, in return for their unyielding loyalty and devoted nature, it granted the people with the power to take the form of the spirit they have worshipped for many generations. So long as they use that power to protect the forest, it shall provide them protection. Ulric is the third, second youngest, illegitamate son of the Tribal chief Tamaska and grandson of Wolfram.

As per tradition, all tribesmen are given two names, one for their human form while the other is for their inner wolf. Despite being allowed to use either name like others of his tribe, he refuses to be use his wolf name due to the meaning behind it. After being discovered by Ayane, she brought and recruited him to Avarus. Ulric is considered to be a Third Generation Nors due the fact his father was (oddly) not born a Nors, or had to potential to be converted into one.

Ulric tends to act like the stereotypical lone-wolf, choosing to remain in solitude and observe from a distance. He likes to spend his quiet time alone, though he does allow others to sit next to him when asked. Many have pointed out that he never smiles, but, as much as he hates to quote Noise, states that if there is no reason to smile, there is no reason to put so much effort in abusing his facial muscles.

As much as he loves being a wolf, he finds certain aspects of his second nature to be... aggravating. Depending on the season and the weather, it deals a the effects his wolf instincts on his human nature. Because of the two separate natures continually clashing, he tends to act irritable and his temper worsens, especially during the night. Ulric holds a strong belief that one’s nature, regardless of your race, should never control a one's personal feelings.

He holds an unyielding loyalty to his loved ones, almost to the point of willing to kill for them if the situation calls for it, but his actions are subtle and tends to be the exact opposite of how he truly feels. Only two people in his life have been able to decipher his behavior, and he cherishes them for it. Ulric has a bit of a temper as well but is able to keep it in check. His temper, however, is what led him to becoming a Cursed Blood. His curse forces him to foresee the deaths of whomever he romantically falls in love (or at least feel an interest) with.

Any attempts at interfering will only hasten their death.

. . .

Xavier Wozwald Hawthorne

'Murderers are dumbasses, always killing because of their unchecked emotions and pented up desires. Hence why most of them clumsily try to hide their crime. Serial killers are more... sofisticated with their craft, but their ego always gets in the way. If they weren’t complete dumbasses, they would have lived a long comfortable life. I should know.’

Note: Yes, this is obviously Vflower. Did I know that before? No. Do I plan to change the art reference? Yes, but only when I find one that’s not a god dang real-life person’s online avatar. XD Seriously, each time I thought I found one... it’s an utaite or vtuber.

Is a member of Mythral and a First Generation Nors. Like Rei, he is a Floater, which allows him to particiate in mission for all three factions. However, he prefers to work with those in Tunera Clypse as, since they mostly handle scouting and recruiting missions. As long as he doesn’t remain in Avarus for too long, he's fine with accepting any mission related to Tunera. Xavier will still accept missions from other factions, but that's merely to fill up his quota.

Despite appearing around the age 12-14; which was not by choice, Xavier is in fact mentally older than most of his fellow Nors. Known for his sharp tongue, Xavier is one of the few known Nors to have been granted permission to travel outworld immediately after undergoing the Ascenscion Ceremony.

Due to the experiences his past life went through, Xavier has a very grim outlook of the world and displays little to no respect towards authority figures. And that includes his current patron God; Belial, which only worsens after being told by the God that he is unable to help Xavier grow into the appropriate intended size. Unlike most Nors, he displays a high degree of critical thinking and intelligent. He is, if not more, level-headed than one of his friends; Percy. Though that doesn’t stop the teasing. While confident in his abilities in terms of combat, Xavier knows the limits of his current smaller body.

In order to compensate, he creates an excessively large scythe as compensation, but he's too proud to admit this.

Because of his level of maturity, he has been labeled as a 'Midget Grandpa'. Which he fails at trying to prove otherwise by collecting certain tthings that are considered out of date by their standards. Eventually, it became a soft of hobby for him to collect such things.

Xavier tends to display a sadistic nature while in combat, choosing to taunt his opponent by constantly pointing our their obvious flaws deficits and toy with them until the last minute. Most times, he will use his child-like appearance to his advantage to further torment his opponent/victim. Comically enough, if his opponent is a cold-blooded criminal, Xavier will compliment and , depending on their actions, congratulate them; much to the annoyance of those involved.

Like Sound, he has both a Physical and Blood-based Curse, but unlike the latter, Xavier was born with both. His Physical Curse has caused severe permanent scarring on his right arm, making it appear similar to third degree burns. If freed from any type of coverage, such as bandages, his arm will painfully be set a blazed, forcing him to conceal his arm at all times. As a Cursed Blood, Xavier has a similar effect of a Siren, except his hypnotic singing forces someone to commit suicide. Every time he uses this curse, he temporarily falls into a coma.

. . .

Succu(bus) Kilmer

Like her name suggests, Succu is a succubus, but belongs to a different version of her species. Due to being a demon, she is forbidden to reveal her true name. Succu is neither a Nors nor a Cursed Blood. She’s more of an illegal immigrant after sneaking her way into a group of Nors when they were scouting for potential recruits. There have been many attempts in trying to relocate her back to her original world, but she is able to seduce her attackers and slip away. Eventually, Belial declared that she will be allowed to remain as a resident, so long as she contributes in their mission to locate Soleil.

While they do seduce those of the opposite sex, her source of food is not as grotesque as several others. She does seduce her victim, but moves her body in a way that her victims find alluring. Succu will then massage certain parts of their body as a means to relax them. To assure that they will not attempt to escape, she will release pheremones that nulls the victims senses. What she devours isn’t the flesh of her victim nor does she devour their soul, she merely devours the emotions she was able to invoke until her hunger is quenched.

Succu is flirtaceous and very... very.... VERY- Well, you get the point. While she doesn’t flaunt her beauty, she does know how to use it to her advantage. However, despite many approaching her, Succu has only eyes for one, and is willing to wait as long as possible for that person to reciprocate her feelings. Succu, although assertive and open with her feelings, is not the type to force them onto someone.

She does like to express herself by getting physical - very physical. Not the way that you’re thinking, you perverts. She finds it more convenient to allow her actions to talk rather than saying things verbally. Since she’s an outsider, she notices several things that not even Pery or Ulric have noticed, and both are outsiders as well considering the fact they grew up outworld before being recruited. Regardless, she remains silent for the sake of remaining by her beloved’s side.

Succu is often mistaken as the Vessel of Lust due to her nature, and, on her part, finds it’s tiresome to prove that she is not.

Side Characters

Tank Mortem

A former member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral, Tank has been assigned to act as one of the engineers in maintaining the Infernian Generator due to his body’s condition and the issues of his mental state. He seldom participates in missions but, despite being given strict orders not to, joins in anyway. Due to the limits of his mental capacity, Tank has difficulty interacting with others. Quite literally.

Beatrix Staccato

Is a researcher and inventor in charge of the tools and weaponry utilized by most Nors and Ex-Animus. Having taken over most of the unfinished projects since the passing of his master, Beatrix has dedicated all of his time in improving the welfare of the world and its inhabitants. However, most of his experiments tend to be a bit... over the top. If he’s not thinking of new potential products that may benefits the Nors, he’ll make whatever comes at the top of his head, and most of the time it’ll lead him to make the most outrageous and unnecessary items. Beatrix prefers to remain in his lab/home at all times, rendering his social interactions with the three factions to be limited via holographic meetings.

‘Nyx’ Pierrot

Leader of Vanidicus Persona, she is one of the oldest Nors - next to Constantine - making her the default leader of her faction. Much about her is a mystery. Even her behavior can be viewed as... questionable. Not outlandish, that’s Sound’s department. Her behavior is so odd that it’s enough to baffle even Belial. She takes her leadership over her faction very seriously, however, as part of her nature, the requirements in joining and maintaining your membership vastly deviates from the original. However, looks can be deceiving. Aside from her seniority, there is a reason why she was given the position of leader.

Mitchell Pierrot

He prefers to be called as ‘Mitch’ after being told, and proven, by his sister how much of a tongue twister his name is if repeated constantly in a single conversation. While he is the younger brother of Nyx, Mitch opted to become a submember of Tunera Clypse upon undergoing the Ascension Ceremony to be in the same faction as his mentor, Perseus Vlahos. Compared to the Nors in his batch, he is viewed as weak by many as he is unable to perform the abilities that is expected of him to develop after becoming a Nors.

Constantine L. Refrain

Nothing is truly known about him except that he’s a chronic smoker. Nobody truly knows who he is, no one even knows which faction he belongs to. It’s nearly impossible to question these things as he is constantly surrounded by a shroud of - barely tolerable - smoke. All that is known is that he’s been around longer than most of the Ex-Animus. Constantine usually frequints the Silent Siren Bar, staying there for hours until he’s either drunk or needs to receive another pack of cigarretes from Beatrix. He says they’re for medicinal purposes buuuuut...

I’m pretty sure black smoke isn’t normal.

Stefan Mal Sorcier

Is Percy’s second pupil. Although, it was more like Percy was forced into taking in another after his continual refusal to become leader of Infernum Poncitator. Outwardly, he is aloof and always appears smiling, which unsettles Mitchell even when they’re alone. His politeness is found unusual by many and causes others to feel wary around him. Even the dragon finds himself is unable to remain in the same vicinity as the young man. Despite being full of many secrets, Percy accepts him as is and tries his best to teach him all he can, which Stefan appreciates.

Kyline Necro

Considered as the mascot ambassador of Avarus, like the soul that was fused with her upon birth, she mostly lounges around and has little participation in any missions in and out of Avarus. This has caused her to be disliked by many, most especially Ayane. The only person Kyline has gotten close to is Noise; mostly because they share the same favored sleeping spot. On a side, she acts a physician, or surgeon if you like to get technical. She has a strange fondness of picking apart and replacing specific limbs with doll parts.

Yu-Yan Chi Ryou

Was once one of the strongest Nors from Xavier’s batch until he was inflicted by an unknown disease during one of his missions. While there is no name for the disease, it has caused much of his bones to undergo crystallization; rendering him immobile due to the pain that comes from even the smallest of movements. Since he is incapable in participating in any activities, Yu-Yan has since been forced to be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

Anita Eine Kleine

Is the fighting instructor of the Mongrels and a member of Infernum Poncitator. Anita is a highly-skilled caster, able to conjure and manipulate various elements. She absolutely hates the term ‘witch’, even going as far as to cast a minor curse in making a person temporarily mute if they refer to her as one. Which Sound found rather offensive when he found out about the curse, something she deeply apologized for. She participates in some Scouting Missions but only if personally requested by someone from Tunera Clypse.

Victor Stein

Is Beatrix’s (only living) research assistant. He is the sole survivor of the Night of the Black Moon. Although having physically recovered, the damage to his mental state has left a deep scar on his psyche. He fears yet obsesses over the sensation of pain. There is not one instance where he isn’t found sowing over his own intact skin. While Victor knows his addiction found uncomfortable by others, he finds it extremely difficult to control his urges.

Wolfram

Grandfather of Ulric and most of his siblings, he is an Ex-Anima (or retired Nors) and a former member of the original Mythral. As the more experienced and one of the longest surviving resident of Avarus, he acts as a mentor to those who seek his guidance. However, in terms of combat, his skills are very limited as he has become permanently stuck in his wolf form. The only grandchildren he's ever personally met are Ulric and Seeing, who have both ironically became his favorite. While acting as a mentor, he is rather strict, constantly parting lessons in order to make sure none make the same mistakes he committed when he was younger, many of which he refuses to share.

Diantha Anemone

Despite being still a Liberi, Dia still participates in many activities meant to be done only by Nors. She originally wanted to become a part of Tunera Clypse due to the many adventures imparted by Sound. But after having a first hand experience in one, it traumatized her to the point where she wants to merely work as a Librarian, a position many people avoid.

Echo & Yell

Fellow teammates of Sound and Noise. As part of the four heads leaders that overwatch many of Tunera Clypse's activities, both in and out of Avarus. They mostly take charge of delegating the members while the other two take an active role in leading many scouting missions off-world. Contradicting her name, like Sound and Noise, her personality is the completely opposite. Due to her sociophobia, she is extremely shy and is unable to speak when talked to, only whispering her sentences as she talks. Yell, however, is the only one whose personality fits the mantle she inherited. Due to her curse, she has to raise her voice after every two hours. If not, she will fall into a coma, and she can only be awaken by *************.

Important Figures

Belial

Credits to: @airtrees0507 (Again, another artist who... disappeared from the internet. How do I keep finding refrences where the artist is just gone?)

Is a Celestial and the younger brother of Soleil. However, despite his godly status, he does not have any of the expected gifts. Neither a god of creation, life, or death, he has been given the title God of Void by his peers. Because of this, he is incapable of maintaining Avarus by himself, forcing him to use alternative (and questionable) means in preserving the world his sister created. Like his title, Belial is unable to express emotions, giving blank demeanor. He does, however, hold some semblence of emotions within him. Yet despite this, he has little to no understanding of life, death and emotions. Even after centuries since he over his sister’s role as Patron God, he still has no understanding to all living things, almost to the point of coming off as insensitive and heartless.

Belial has a deep devotion to his sister, having gone through great lengths to make sure to maintain her world and willingly sacrifice the lives of many. Despite knowing her distaste towards such acts, he holds onto the hope of one day finding her.

Soleil

Credits: Um... Lucare Eu??? Sorry, I’m just basing it off the signature. Once again, can’t find the artist themself so...

The true patron goddess of Avarus and the older sister of Belial. Aside from her status as the original creator and caretaker of her world and the life that once flourished within it, not much is known about her. While her exact cause of death is unknown, she was cursed to live an endless cycle of death and rebirth in various worlds. In order to restore the world she created and loved dearly, Belial dedicated his life in searching for her soul and freeing her of her curse. As a Celestial, she was said to have chosen to take the form of her first ever creation and first mortal friend.

It is said that, despite having blessed with the gift of creation, she was known to be a lonely goddess. Those that new her describe as someone that’s physically there but is spiritually detached.

The Oracle

Is a title given to those with the ability to commune and guide the spirits to the Empyrean Plain, more specifically Avarus’ residences due to the absence of Soleil. The Oracle acts as the divine anchor on the world to aid Belial in prolonging the world’s existence. They are also the main source of Belial’s divine power; both of which are maintained through her prayers. The gender and species of the Oracle is non-specific, but it if preferred by Belial if they are humanoid and have the ability of speech for the sake of communication.

The current Oracle is Aniela Fischl, who, unlike her predecessors, is able to foresee various futures. She does so by carefully peeking through the leylines and selects various possibilities that solely benefit Avarus. No one is allowed to meet her except Belial and her assigned Seekers.

The Seekers

The guardians, caretaker, and acting medians between the Oracle and the residents of Avarus. Their duty is to ensure that the chosen Oracle remains within the Spiral Tower and that he/she fulfills their duty, even going as far as to grant their wish regardless of the consequenses. Each Seeker has only one desire, and that’s to protect the Oracle at all times.

Races

Liberi

Age Range: Birth or 5 to 10 years

Although that is the official term, ‘Mongrel’ is what they are commonly referred as. It is the used for the for the children taken to or born in Avarus. Mongrels spend most of their young lives training within the safe walls of the Aldebaran Academy. They are forbidden from leaving as, according to Belial, they are the extremely fragile during this point of their lives. Regardless of their age, depending on how well they’ve performed in training, they will be given the right of undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. Those who fail are xxxxxxxx xx.

Due to their young age, their behavior is more sporadic than that of a normal child. Their reflexes are enhanced, almost to the point where it becomes difficult to contain them. Mongrels lack common sense so they tend to act out without fully understanding the impact their actions have. While childish and friendly by nature, Travellers are advised to approach with caution. Those who act beyond the expected norm are called Prodigies.

Quietus Nors

Age Range: (Physically) 14-19, (Mentally) 10 or above

Or simply called, Nors. After their graduation, every Nors is immediately sent to work. Depending on the final results of their training prior to undergoing the ceremony/procedure, each is individually assigned into one of the three factions ; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona, and lastly, Tunera Clypse (formerly called Tunera). Those that are assigned to neither of the factions are assigned to more menial jobs alongside the Ex-Animus,

Despite their young minds, they have quickly adapted into their new forms. Due to time becoming almost non-existant in Avarus, Nors age at a rapidly slow rate. Though known to be childish by nature due to the gap of their young minds to their bodies, they dangerously lack empathy and display little to no compassion and remorse towards others. In worst cases, some act selfishly on their own accord. On a positive note, they lack any emotions that may hinder their mission in locating Soleil; such as fear.

Only two of the three current generations of Nors differ greatly from the first:

First Generation Nors - Are those converted or directly born within Avarus with the blood of two Nors. Those born in the first generation share two specific physical characteristics; raven black hair and golden eyes. They all share the same abilities upon conversion/birth, but it depends on the individual which ones they should master. Unless they happen to be a Cursed Blood, they are unable to obtain different abilities to call their own. They are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Second Generation Nors - In terms of personality, they are considered half as bad as those in the first gen. Unlike the previous, second generation Nors are considered slightly weaker, however, they have a better chance of obtaining other abilities outside of Avarus. Their hair is slightly lighter shade of black but their eyes remain the same. They too are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Third Generation Nors - While rare, they do tend to appear once in a while. It’s not exact how one falls into this category. The closest is being the grandchild or who has an anscestor that was a Nors. Because of their circumstances, these Nors are far weaker as they cannot use any of the standard abilities. Third Generation Nors are far difficult to locate as their potential doesn’t surface until they are of a much later age, rendering them incapable of taking necessary training to hone their abilities and undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. They do not share the common personality or physical traits of a Nors. One thing every Nors in this generation share are sky blue eyes, which emit a faint glow when in the dark.

Ex-Animus (or Anima for singular)

Age Range: (Physically) 30 to 40, rarely appears in their early 20′s

Are individuals who are retired from their duties as a Nors. Although Nors generally age at an excessively slow rate (due to the effects of Avarus), after a number of cycles (which refers to the number of batches that underwent the Ascension Ceremony), they will be given the order to retire. Regardless whether they are willing to or not, there is nothing they can do once the order has been issued. Once one becomes an Ex-Anima, they are completely cut off from their original faction and are unable to leave Avarus for the rest of their life.

Not only that, they are unable to defend themselves like they used to as they can no longer control Astral Dust and use the abilities from their time as a Nors,Basically. Basically, Ex-Animus’ are left to fend for themselves.

Factions

Every Nors is allowed to join any of the three factions; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona , and Tunera Clypse. There is an option to not join any of the factions; they are called ‘Floaters’.

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kaiowut99 · 4 years ago

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5D's Episode 27... with an “Uncut” Dub?! (Re-Edited 4Kids Dub/Japanese OST - Revised)

“A World Without Light -- The Dark Synchro Frozen Fitzgerald!”/”A Web of Deceit (Part 1)″

Everybody listen!

Took long enough to finish up and polish (partly because of work and activism life actually picking up a bit), but here’s a brand-new “dub-uncut” episode! With my first few takes in episodes 23-26 newly revised, I was looking forward to working on 27 and starting fresh again, lol. In case this is the first you’re hearing about my mini-project here, let’s get you up to speed:

So, the official Spanish YGO channel on YouTube flubbed a few uploads of the 5D’s dub such that they ended up uploading a few episodes of the English dub instead of the Latin American dub (21-29)–but with none of 4Kids’s background music! Which meant that I could swoop in and re-insert the original Japanese soundtrack (which I did by matching each track to how it was looped in the episode), but I wanted to do more by also tweaking the dub itself so that not only was it matching the original footage, but the dialogue was more in line with the original dialogue timing-wise (since I couldn’t salvage much of what they changed). Hence, the “dubbed uncut” gimmick here. To this end, I’ve also used dialogue from Duel Links where applicable, or even borrowed audio from other episodes with the vocals isolated to lend to that effect.

Check out the masterpost of episodes I’ve done here!

Check out this episode’s WIP videos! WIP #1 WIP #2 WIP #3 WIP #4 WIP #5

So, this one was fun to do particularly because overall, save for the, er... butchering that happened on explaining the Dark Synchro mechanic (4Kids wut) and the rewrite of Carly’s interaction with her Editor-in-Chief (and making Carly a “blogger” lol), the dialogue was already more or less in line with the Japanese version, which meant that I was more or less just removing a lot of the fluff as I added back the OST. As I did in 22, 24, and 26, I added subs for the scenes where 4Kids rewrote things a bit too much for my taste (so, the scenes I mentioned above, but also the occasional line or a few), but of course these subs will be optional in the MKV I release on NAC for this. I also added back some SFX and tried to remove the dub’s replacement SFX in most cases, though I had to swap out the SFX as Speed Warrior was tuning with Junk Synchron since 4Kids had a tendency to add some new one over the original SFX and made it too loud to work with the Yusei chant I put there. And I translated the OP/ED credits in Last Train and CROSS GAME, revamping my singable lyrics a bit for Last Train while drafting new ones for CROSS GAME which I’ll post soon; you can see my Last Train translation in the second WIP video and CROSS GAME’s here. Full process breakdown below the cut.

Also, major thanks to yugidmx5 for providing A+ rips of the “The Day Begins/Tenpei” theme in the Carly/Angela scene, the “Vision of Tragedy” theme as Yusei and Ruka talk about the Satellite’s future, and the alternate “Dark Signers” tune which plays as we first see them and then again between the Dark Signer drones recruiting and Yusei chasing Dark-Signer!Dick down (before it transitions to the OST-released version once Yusei gets to the building under construction); I know that since these came out well, he’s working on better rips for some or most of the unreleased OST, so stay tuned there (I also drafted up a full version of the alternate DS theme, but had to get creative since they didn’t play all of it in this alternate style; will post soon). And thanks to Tiny Spider Productions, who provided the “shock” SFX playing as Carly sees Yusei’s arm actually glowing in her car, some inspo here/there for dialogue fixes, and provided CurtisH from CastingCallClub’s recording he did voicing a line from Tanner translating the original line about the four Signers they know which 4Kids cut short.

I hope folks enjoy! Just breezing through 28 often for lines to use here, I can tell it’s going to be a headache because they did throw in a lot more jankiness in the dialogue... So, fun. 🙃 Once I handle finalizing my subs for GX 56 (and possibly 57 due to how long this took), I’ll start drafting it out; stay tuned~

(And if you're able to reblog for visibility, it’d be appreciated given Tumblr’s suckage with links 🙏🏽)

Breakdown, breakdown~

So, I used Duel Links audio for the twins to handle the Noteworthy/Showcased Cards bit (we’ll see if I still can in 28... And as the twins are voiced by Eileen Stevens in Duel Links but not yet in 5D’s [that happens in 65], bear with me lol), and I also translated the sign for this hardsub in Photoshop, masking in the Fitzgerald card and Rua and Ruka’s heads over it in Sony Vegas.

Moving to the episode proper, a second was trimmed from the shot of the stadium in the TV Rally/co are using once it tunes in, and I couldn’t properly loop the “Yusei!” shouts to cover it, so I just filled in the audio with the crowd just cheering. In the Carly/Angela scene, I removed Angela’s extra lines about her makeup and hair while Carly was getting ready, then tweaked Angela’s line on camera to remove her last name (which we never learn originally) and move her lines about “Fusei Yudo” winning to play sooner while removing Carly’s “one journalist to another” as she walks up to correct her (as this scene was rewritten, there are subs to show the original dialogue). Looped chants of “Yusei!” to remove his internal “pointing out the obvious” monologue before the OP.

After the OP, I used the JP audio to keep the doctors moving Jack quiet (hopefully you don’t notice the chants changing lol), then as Yanagi runs over, I replaced his bit about Yusei having “a brand new enemy” in the media with “we should all get going” from 26. The Godwin/Lazar scene stays the same since it was accurate, but I did have to put the end of Rex’s “that’s the only thing that matters” line on another track so Lazar’s gasp would play when it should (they added a second to his talking in the dub). The Yusei/co scene in the tunnel stays mostly the same, just switched to the JP audio as the flashback to the Satellite vision happened, then as Yusei had a quick one before gasping, I recycled a gasp and a “hmm” from elsewhere to cover the commercial-inducing monologue they gave him in the dub. For the press conference scene, I thought about removing the one “That’s right, Ted” reporter’s line since he’s quiet originally, but thought “whatever,” and then I spaced out Carly’s line as she reads her fortune to match her Japanese line’s pace and remove some of the fluff. I switched to the JP audio after Carly asked about Yusei’s arm glowing to remove Rex’s comment over it, then stitched up a “Perhaps; still, I didn’t see that” mixing his line there with a “still” from 23. Carly’s line as she’s excited about Goodwin dodging her question (originally just “I’ll keep moving forward too!” [she references her fortune a lot more]) was longer in the dub, so I cut out the “which means I’m onto something” for use later. For Carly’s chat with her Editor-in-Chief, I included subs because of the rewrite, but I did shorten Carly’s line just before “bring some dirt and you might still have a job” which was lengthened by 4Kids. Removed a lot of Carly’s fluff as she began to watch the Yusei duel footage via the JP audio, then stitched together “Goodwin tried to give me that bit but [the whole world will know what Goodwin’s trying to hide]”, the latter bit coming from Carly’s monologue as she’s running at the end of the ep, then switched to the JP audio to remove Carly’s fluff about living in her car. Then, as we see the Dark Signers looming, because 4Kids removed the commercial break here, I kept only Demak and Kalin’s chuckling and Roman’s “lower the curtains” line over the desk shot, then looped some of his laughing from after the eyecatch to lead into it.

After the eyecatch, I made use of his “Goodwin assembled his Signers” bit, recycled a little chuckling, then cut Roman’s reference to Shakespeare to just the “tangled web” line (thanks to yugidmx5 also providing the SFX for this scene, I was able to move Roman’s laughing to play where it should after he releases his spiders). Moving to Yanagi drawing the Crimson Dragon, I only kept his “saw it the once” line while using Japanese Rua and Ruka’s interested gasps to fill a fluff gap, then combined two bits of audio to get a [slightly] awkward “t[ail]” to fix 4Kids’s dumb error claiming he had the Head birthmark; accordingly, made Leo say “What about it?” instead of “What about the Head?”. CurtisH’s line for Tanner comes in here, with a slight tweak or two to match the lip-flaps more, then JP audio as we see all the Signers so far to remove Leo’s dialogue. Meanwhile, for Jack’s hospital scene, I translated the “No Visitors” sign Mikage walks past (along with fixing “Atlus” to “Atlas”). The Dark Signer recruitment scene also gets some subs, then I used the JP audio from when we see Dark Signer!Dick walking to Yusei’s birthmark beginning to glow; yugidmx5 providing the SFX was a big help here, too. Yusei runs out to chase Dick down, and then when he sees him inside the under-construction building, I took “Who are you” from later in the episode, but added a more question-ending “u?” to flesh the sound out a bit (since the line was “Who are you and what’s going on”). I took “Fine, then” and “What are you planning to do to the Satellite” from 28 (which I’ll likely cut as it was added offscreen dialogue), and TSP provided a vocal-isolated cut of Dick’s line about his master (because 4Kids cut his shot short by a second or two and played it as the SFX for the zoomout as his Disk activated played).

They begin the duel, and here I just kept “What’s going on?” from the line I noted earlier, recycled some laughing from Dick to match the JP script, then shortened his line about their being offered up “by the light” to work with the new timing. Dick begins his turn, but I recycled an “It’s my turn now” line from later for accuracy, then his setting-a-card line is cut short at his ending his turn as Yusei looks on. Carly, driving nearby and seeing lights from the duel off in the distance, gets her reference to the Goodwin “sheen from Yusei’s Runner got in your eye” line that I cut replaced with the “I’m onto something” I noted before. Yusei gets a recycled “It’s my move!” line from 24 to start his turn, tweaked to remove the drawing SFX that happens in it, then to remove a dub SFX I used a Duel Links line to fill out “I activate the Tuning [Spell Card]”. “I summon Junk Synchron” comes from 24 (and “Level-2-or-below Monster from my Graveyard” comes from his Graceful Revival explanation in episode 3), then--thanks to Arian over on NAC reuploading some HQ dub episodes--a better-quality vocal rip of his “Level-3 Junk Synchron, tune with Level-2 Speed Warrior!” line from 87, along with a better-quality rip of his “From two come one” chant and “Form the road of light!” from Duel Links. Yusei shouts “Battle!” from Duel Links, then I slowed down his line at “[Attack his Blizzard Li]zard” to end it there (and remove the “warm Satellite welcome” fluff). As Blizzard Lizard’s effect activates, I combined an “I activate,” “Blizzard Lizard’s special ability,” and “now” for a better line than “Blizzard Lizard’s special ability is going on.” Yusei’s lines after being damaged and realizing he damaged Dick too are spaced out to match the JP script, then I borrowed Yusei’s line on setting two cards from episode 3. Then, when Dick plays Ice Mirror, I stitched up an explanation (since the Card Interruption does it for him) combining Call of the Haunted’s explanation with a few other pieces of dialogue (thanks to TSP for the inspo). I cut Dick’s “Now I’ll play” line there to remove the dub’s zooming-in SFX, and then made Dick’s line about his third Blizzard Lizard end right before the split-screen with all three of them to remove the dub’s split-screen SFX. I thought about replacing Yusei’s “three’s a crowd” line with “What’s that all about” from later, but couldn’t figure out a way to fill the line in before that, so I left it, but didn’t let Dick acknowledge it by just recycling “With that done” to replace “Well, how about [I release]”, then after Yusei reacts to his Dark Tuner, I recycled some chuckling to match the JP script and trimmed his line about its “power to extinguish;” the Dark Synchro “explanation” gets some subs to actually explain it, then I looped Carly’s panting as she runs to cover the “Goodwin’s trying to hide” line I moved to earlier, and recycled/amplified Dick’s laughing at various points through the ep to remove Yusei’s episode-ending monologue.

In the preview, I just recycled Yusei’s “No way...” and “A Dark Synchro Summon?!” while borrowing Carly’s lines about the Dark Tuner from 28, then Yusei’s line about getting his answers to end it. I had to speed up the OST version of the preview tune to match the pace here, then trimmed it and ended it with the JP audio for the quick fade-out.

/phew

#yugioh #yugioh 5d's #yugioh 5ds #ygo #ygo 5ds #ygo 5d's #5D's #yu-gi-oh 5ds #yu-gi-oh 5d's #my work #5ds dub uncuts #woot glad this is finally done #now to finish up that edit for GX 56 and then get to working on the script~

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phoneboxfairy · 5 years ago

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Love in Quarantine ch 1...

(ao3 link -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23417971/chapters/56125711) Okay, the first chapter is pretty light on the smuttiness. But from chapter 2 on...not so much. This is pretty much two horny twenty-somethings spending a week of isolation *really* getting to know each other...enjoy!

It all began on a typical afternoon at the guild. The hall was filled with hustle and bustle, with its occupants fighting, flirting, eating, or reading.

Of course, it’s always the typical days that end up going haywire.

The first sign of trouble was Wendy sneezing then claiming to feel fatigued. She never got sick, usually protected by her sky dragon magic.

This wasn’t a good sign.

“Come, child. Let’s go to Porlyusica’s house before you get any worse.” Carla grabbed her then flew off. This left the rest of the guild shrouded in uncertainty.

What was going on…?

Minutes ticked by, each one seeming like an hour. Lucy tried to read, tried to pay attention to her book, but just couldn’t. Somehow, from across the room, Natsu noticed. He moved away from his fight with Gray mid-punch, walked over to her, put a hand on her shoulder.

“You alright?”

She shook her head.

“Not really. I’m worried about Wendy.”

“She’s a tough kid. She’ll be fine.” Shoulder squeeze. The touch was familiar, comforting. She found herself wanting him to hold her close, wanted to hug away all her fears. Irrational, but honestly Lucy didn’t mind the feeling. She wanted to be close to him...although she wasn’t about to admit it out loud.

Not just yet anyway…

Minutes later the hall door flew open. Porlyusica came rushing in, as close to panic as anyone had ever seen her. She had several words with Makarov, then both got the entire guild’s attention.

“Okay, you brats, this is serious! We need you all to report to the dormitory immediately.” “Wait. Gramps, is Wendy okay?” Natsu shouted, met with similar sentiments from the others.

“She’ll be fine. She has a mild magic bug that could jeopardize the entire town if we’re not careful.”

“Indeed. I have enough antidote to vanquish the bug but I cannot administer it until you are all quarantined. Listen to this old fossil. For once he’s got the right idea.”

There was more clamor as everyone made their way to the dorms behind the hall proper. Luckily the guild’s recent expansion had included building more residential facilities in addition to Fairy Hills.

Nobody could have predicted that they would be used in such a manner, though.

The quarantine itself was initiated fairly easily. Wizards were paired off in each room, typically with a teammate. Then they were given an injection of the antidote. Happy, Carla, and Lily went with Porlyusica to give Wendy some company as she recuperated. Anyone who already had a dorm in Fairy Hills went there, although Lucy couldn’t help noticing that Levy was accompanied by Gajeel and Juvia had somehow convinced Gray to bunker down with her.

One room was left, which meant she was going to be more or less stuck with Natsu for a week, which was how long the antidote took to work. A certain less vocal part of her found the situation appealing.

That didn’t make it any less awkward. Stuck in a room with someone you had growing feelings for but didn’t have the nerve to do anything about it? This could be a nightmare.

Ugh. Well. Better make the best of things. Lucy set her bag down and glanced around the room. It wasn’t huge but it was nice. The kitchen was stocked with enough supplies for the week. The window gave a nice view of the waterfront. A couple comfy chairs, a desk to write at…

...And one full-sized bed. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

There was just one bed...when did my life become a cheesy romance novel?! She shook the thought out of her mind and plopped down on one of the chairs, book in hand, determined to distract herself.

Easier said than done. Natsu, true to form, was working out by the window. From where Lucy was sitting she had the perfect angle to watch his every move as she read.

Talk about a distraction…

At one point she glanced up at him. Their eyes met. He grinned.

“Yo Luce. Let’s spar.”

“What, here?”

“Sure! I won’t even use fire. What d’you say?”

“Alright. Just be careful. We don’t want to destroy the dorm.”

“Deal.” That was that. Lucy took a moment to change into her Taurus form, then they sparred. Both took every opportunity possible to train, but in this case it was just a fun way to pass time.

Being careful didn’t mean taking it easy. Lucy knew that and went after Natsu at full strength. He noticed, grinned, and she forced herself to ignore the fluttering butterflies just south of her tummy.

At one point things took a rather interesting turn. She had him pinned against the wall despite his best efforts to wriggle free. Was he going easy on her? Probably. She knew damn well that he could have knocked her on her ass if he felt like it.

Still, she rather liked feeling like she could kick his ass. She also rather liked how it felt to be pressed up so close to him...although she wasn’t about to admit that out loud at the moment, along with the sudden desire to have him push her up against the wall and…

Whoa, whoa. She stopped that line of thought dead in its tracks, well aware that she was blushing like mad. At least she could shrug it off as a side effect of their sparring.

“Good fight, Luce. We should do that again sometime.” He flashed one of his trademark grins. Lucy couldn’t help agreeing with him. It was fun.

“Definitely. I think I’m gonna go take a shower, though.” If Natsu responded she didn’t see or hear. She grabbed her towel and a change of clothes then headed to the bathroom to wash away the sweat and to clear those intrusive thoughts from her mind. Or try to, anyway.

So I have feelings for my best friend. So what? Natsu’s a great guy. He’ll understand…right? Still, doubt flooded her mind. What if she told him, and what if he shrugged her off…? Well, she would have to figure that out soon.

Once she had toweled off and gotten dressed, she smelled something cooking.

Huh...guess he made himself a snack… She pushed the door open, made her way to the kitchen nook, and there was Natsu eating a bowl of noodles on one of the chairs.

“Hey. Dinner’s on the counter.” “Oh...thanks.”

Lucy grabbed her bowl and they ate together, enjoying the meal as well as relaxed conversation. Then they played games into the night. It felt nice to not have any obligation for a few days. Eventually the game ended. Natsu washed dishes and Lucy lay down in bed with her book. Several minutes later he claimed the spot next to her. She sat bolt upright, trying to keep her heart from racing and the blush from deepening. "What are you doing?" "Uh, laying down because I'm tired. Duh." "I...I...I'm not sure that's a good idea." "Why not? There's room for both of us." He quirked his head. "You okay? You're actin' even weirder than usual." "Me? I...I'm fine. Everything's great." "Nice try. Come on, Lucy. You know you can tell me if something's up." He put his hand on hers, squeezed gently. Such sweet warmth. "It's just that...I like you, and not just as a friend. It feels like we've been more than that for a while...I just, you know, didn't know how to say it. You...you probably think I'm crazy, huh?" "Nah. Come here." He pulled her into his arms, rested his forehead on hers. Grinned. "Everything's better when we're together. Even quarantine, I guess." "Yeah..." She giggled. "Hey Natsu?" "Yeah?" "There's something I want to try, if it's alright." "Okay. Go for it." He looked adorable, his expression a mix of amused and confused. So she blushed, leaned forward, letting her mouth meet his in a gentle kiss. His hands brushed over her waist. Neither seemed too keen on letting go, at least until a need to breathe prevailed. "Wow..." she exhaled. He chuckled. "Still want me to sleep on the floor?" "Nuh-uh. You can stay." With that she slipped out of his arms and lay down. He followed, laying so they were face to face with hands clasped. "So, uh...when was the last time you had a relationship?" "Two years before we met. How about you?" She hadn't expected him to ask, but fair was fair. "Right after I ran away, about a year before I joined the guild. I tried to have a fling after you left, but it didn't feel right." "How so?" "Like, the guy was nice and all, but I couldn't do it." I felt like I was cheating on you, she thought. No way was she going to admit that out loud, though. "That's when I started focusing on getting the guild back together." She yawned, pulled her blanket up around her. She was about to doze off...then Natsu pulled her back into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Huh? Whazzat for?" "Bringin' Fairy Tail back together. Night, Lucy." "Oh...night, Natsu..." The last thing she remembered was feeling his warmth around her, feeling so comfortable in his arms... I could get used to this...

#nalu fluff #nalu smutfic #love in quarantine #quarantine fic #quarantine #there was just one bed #work in progress

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mysaldate · 5 years ago

Note

!!! Similar to what you did with Kamanue (the babiest baby of all babies) could you please write a mini analysis/general hcs for Susamaru? I love her so much

@kimetsuno-yaiba-imagines This probably isn’t you but I’m writing about your girl so I thought I’d tag you. Sorry if I don’t do her justice!

So this is then the third in the General + Past headcanon series! I’ll link the other two at the end of this post just in case anyone is interested in my takes on the others.

General Susamaru headcanons

I’ll open it up with the obvious this time. You would hardly find a more playful demon than Maru-chan. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like playing with her, if she says you will, you don’t have the right to refuse. If you try that, she will make sure you know why it’s a bad idea. You will be lucky if you live to get another chance.

It doesn’t even matter all that much whether it would be playing with the temari or with something else, though if you choose the former, she will be much more pleased. But she will also enjoy other outdoor activities. Sports, of course, are her strongest suit.

She is quite good at most calmer activities as well. Most board games are a-ok with her. She doesn’t appreciate long strategy-based games though so don’t bother asking her for a game of chess. The most you would get out of her is playing for a few minutes before she would start flinging the pawns at you.

Karaoke. Take her to a karaoke night and you’re about to witness a real monster. You thought you took a cute girl out for a date? Hah! This cute girl will utterly destroy you no matter what song you pick. She can do anything, and I mean absolutely anything, from opera to metal, her vocal range is just as impressive as her football skills.

Despite all of this, she will still enjoy it when you call her cute – even if she won’t tell you. She might scoff and deny it, saying she’s powerful and scary and cool but there’s really a little part deep inside her that still enjoys that for reasons I will more expand on later.

She tends to get carried away really easily. It’s not unlikely for her to receive a mission that’s supposed to be stealthy but end up entirely blowing up the place. But well, if nobody is alive to tell the tale, she did technically go unnoticed, right? It’s not like anyone can pin the blame on her if she’s quick enough to disappear before anyone can come and doesn’t leave a trace.

She has a lower pain tolerance than most other demons. Why? Not sure. But when you compare her reaction to Muzan’s curse activating to other demons’ reactions to having their heads off (Rui, Enmu, Wakuraba) or getting their whole body sliced to pieces (spider sister), she still does feel like someone who feels more than she probably should. Or it might just be because Muzan’s curse is simply THAT painful, I’ll leave this one up to you (if it is the pain tolerance, it could hint at something I will mention later on so stay tuned!). Also she actually shrieked when Yushiro punched her and that didn’t even draw blood.

Another one to really idolize and adore Muzan, as seen from her confrontation of Tamayo. While it’s true we never saw any other demon being confronted with anything like that, it’s not unlikely that few of them would react anywhere near the extent of her anger. Much like Tanjiro points out, she is very childish so it’s not completely impossible she sees Muzan as a sort of father figure as well.

I imagine she also hasn’t been a demon for a long time, and neither has Yahaba. Since they don’t seem to know about the eyeball engraving for the Demon Moons and simply believe they’re part of them because Muzan told them so, they probably haven’t met anyone higher in the hierarchy other than Muzan himself.

It’s true that they have only been put together with Yahaba for that one mission but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of them seeing each other before. Naturally, they didn’t talk or anything since demons can’t really group up together for the most part. But it is possible they have at least a little idea about each other’s abilities as well. After all, Tokyo is only so big, it’s highly unlikely they would never run into each other.

She is a surprisingly humble girl for someone of her flashiness. After all, she doesn’t mind Yahaba giving her instructions and even though she clearly finds his worries about dust to be ridiculous, she never puts him down for it. They don’t really bicker either, nor do we ever see him complaining he didn’t support her enough. Oh and let’s not forget she didn’t really think there was a house being hidden and just acted on Yahaba’s orders during the first attack. And she did admit he was right. She also has no issues recognizing Nezuko’s strength. She’s really not a proud girl, just very very dedicated and certain they could win since Muzan trusts in them enough to give such an important mission to them.

Susamaru backstory headcanons

I’ll start, again, by the type of background I see her growing up in. This time, I am quite sure it was a rich family. Not insanely rich but the colour of her kimono as well as the colourful sash were usually a sign of power, influence, money. Not to mention the stripped inner yukata she wears, they’re usually made in plain colours unless you want to show you can afford better. She also has what appears to be pearl earrings, those would without a doubt be expensive. And even if they’re not pearls, the fact she’s the only demon in the series to wear earrings (and the only character aside from Tanjiro’s family) seems to hint on something because as we’ve already estabilished, the past has a lot to do with a demon’s clothes.

But don’t get the wrong idea, they weren’t rich by inheritance or family fortune, both her parents worked very hard to make that kind of money. It’s probable they owned a large company, possibly with an overseas branch (remember the story of KNY is set in early 1910′s so she would become a demon some time before that) that kept them busy most of the time.

Another option is that they might even be a samurai family, just a lesser known one than Kokushibo’s, a smaller clan if you will. And possibly did some business too because by then, it was no longer very benefitial to just be a samurai since the industrialization and all.

Either way, they had little to no time for her. And she didn’t have any siblings. She saw her mother more than her father who was practically absent from her life. This lead to her often being very lonely. And that’s not even mentioning her tomboyish tendencies that caused the girls from her neighbourhood not to want to play with her. Girls playing with boys was being frowned upon, especially since she came from an influential family.

Basically, she needed to be a “proper lady” regardless of whether she wanted to or not simply not to bring shame to her family. She hated it, naturally, but there was little she could do about it. It didn’t get better when she got older.

She might have had a cat. Since temaris are often used to play with them, maybe the cat was the only companion she had. I feel like she’s the type who’d pick up a stray kitten and then refuse to give it up even when her parents (or mother since her dad was never home) were against it. She might have even pulled the “You don’t have time for me so let me have this” card.

She wasn’t even the age to get married yet and people around were already saying she would never find anyone. A lot of them mentioned she’s just not cute, not suited to be a wife, not womanly enough, too wild, too loud, not gentle enough. Her mom often cried over that and it made Maru-chan feel kinda bad. Still, it was a part of herself and she didn’t want to give it up.

She has first met Muzan when she was still quite a little kid. She was hanging out around the house after the sun has gone down, playing with her cat when he walked by. Being the mischievous and fearless kid she was, she threw the temari at him, then straight-up went to ask him if he wanted to play with her.

He was quite tempted to just kill her then and there but she showed a good amount of courage by approaching him in the first place and she didn’t shrink back after seeing his red eyes. I have a feeling she might even call him cool which fluttered his ego just enough to let the little cupcake live. No, he didn’t play with her.

It wasn’t too long before the troubles of owning a large corporation caught up to them. Her mother ran away with a lover who paid her more attention than her husband and Maru-chan was left alone with their few house servants and her always busy father. In hopes to make it up to her, her father started giving her many presents, such as the afforementioned earrings but, naturally, none of that could really replace the human contact she needed (I imagine she could be some 10-12).

Now for the theory regarding pain tolerance. My theory is that a demon’s ability to tolerate pain grows based on how old they were when they were turned and how much blood have they received over time as well as the number of humans they have devoured. For example, Rui was turned at a very young age but he is a Lower Moon, he received a large amount of blood and he devoured a lot of people, thus, he was able to cut his own head off without much any issue. Rui’s spider mother, however, didn’t receive that much blood and most likely didn’t devour nearly as many people as he did. As a result, both Rui and the spider father could easily cause her a lot of pain. The spider sister was turned into a demon when she was older than her and she ate a fair share of humans so even when Rui cut her body to pieces, she was able to pick herself up rather quickly and run off with just a few hisses. As for where does Maru-chan come in, we know she received a fair amount of Muzan’s blood because she says so to Yahaba. In spite of this, Yushiro’s punch is enough to make her scream out and Muzan’s curse hurts her to the point of tears even before ripping through her. So my explanation for this is, she was turned into a demon at a young age and she didn’t eat that many humans.

Basically, I believe that after her mom left, she no longer had anyone to spend time with in her house, nobody who would care for her. So after her kitty inevitably left this world, she was all alone. This is around the second time she ran into Muzan. And it was she who recognized him before he could recognize her. Once more, she ran up to him, this time not asking to play but rather asking why was he there.

She was very contact starved, alright? Chatting with him was the closest she got to a proper talk since her mom left. And he didn’t really have anything more important to do back then so he suffered through her complaining about her life. She certainly had a lot of bitterness inside of her at that point and she still had that childish courage from when they first met. And she was also just desperate enough that when he asked if she wanted to go with him, she nodded to it without a second thought.

One of the main reasons she admires Muzan so much is that he was the first person to fully accept her. He took her in when her own mother ran away and her father couldn’t care less as long as she didn’t bother him.

The reason she doesn’t look that young is simply because, as mentioned, some demons can shapeshift. Her powers are far from as impressive as Muzan’s but she can at least alter her physical age slightly. Seeing as Muzan can shapeshift to the point where he changes even his own aura and even his fellow demons have troubles recognizing him makes her strive to be like him. The fact that she can do just a speck of what he can is what draws her closer to him. And also why that final betrayal when she gets killed by his curse hurts so much more than just physically.

Previous demons in this series: Kamanue | Enmu

Wow, these things are getting longer and longer the more of them I do xD

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #susamaru #kny susamaru #kny headcanons #kny imagines

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angelkurenai · 6 years ago

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Imagine Steve being your bodyguard and you flirting with him and trying to get him to loosen up but making him flustered.

“Please. Please! Miss (Y/l/n) won't take any more photos. That will be enough.” Bucky, one of your bodyguards, said to the fans that had piled up and were all asking for photos with you or an autograph.

“She doesn't have time for this. We would like to ask you to stop now.” Sam, another bodyguard, tried to say over the loud screaming and cheering of your name, the fans only asking for more photos and you weren't one to say no.

“That will be enough for today, (Y/n).” somehow over all the noise you could make out and be able to focus on his voice. Steve Rogers was your main bodyguard ever since you got involved with acting and he had been there through it all. If there was one person on this world you had blind faith in, that you trusted with your life 100% was him. You had come closer than you would ever admit, much less let the media know – not that the fans didn't already ship the two of you as it was, but no matter how you'd see him as more than your bodyguard or friend, the man was too professional to do anything about it. Sometimes you loved the perfect gentleman and what a sweetheart he was but sometimes it got on your nerves how proper he was and how he just refused to overstep his boundaries. Especially when all you could think about, when you saw him in that great suit giving you an adorable boyish smile, was to grab him by the tie and crash your lips to his.

“(Y/n), come on, we need to get going. We have a flight to catch.” he kept a firm voice, being the most professional he could be when others were around, but always very patient with you.

“Come on, just a couple more photos, ok? Two or three... or ten? Alright? Alright!” you gave him the most adorable smile you could and you noticed how a laugh left his lips, his head lowered as he shook it softly.

“(Y/n)” he warned in a softer voice this time, placing a hand on the small of your back as he showed your way to the car waiting for you.

“One more! One more!” you said before turning back to your fans for more autographs, grinning and laughing “Oh my gosh is that a Wonder Woman drawing you did yourself? That's so awesome!” you said in awe, signing it when she asked for an autograph.

“No more. No more photos.” Steve said firmly but the moment he took a step forward he stopped, realizing that you weren't following him anymore but more like totally ignored him and kept smiling while you talked with the fans. He sighed softly, giving you a stern look that just made you pull away and roll your eyes.

“Fine” you sighed in defeat and he smiled in victory, as you pulled away from your fans after telling them how much you loved them, and followed him as he held the door open for you to enter the car. You got inside before he followed suit, never leaving you alone even in the car. Sometimes you wished he wouldn't leave you alone even in the bedroom but you couldn't always have it your way, sadly, despite how much you wanted to see firsthand again what he hid underneath that perfect suit of his. Not that Steve Rogers wasn't already the kind of man to open a door for a lady whether he got paid for it or not. You were sure that he was a bodyguard just because he was a perfect kind of man, ready to protect anyone and be caring too.

~*~

“Sometimes, you're like a kid in a candyshop when you're around them.” Steve said with a soft smile, holding a hand out for you to hold onto as you walked up the small stairs to your private plane.

“I am also like a kid in a candyshop when I'm in a candyshop.” you giggled and he smiled that adorable smile of his that made your knees go weak, making you even more thankful for his support. You made sure to link arms with him so that he would walk next to you, sometimes he was too formal and would take his job as a bodyguard too seriously.

“That I've seen firsthand.” he nodded his head, looking at you from the corner of his eyes with a smile.

“And you are always such a bodyguard, too. Whether it's the candyshop or the fans or anything else for that matter.” you admitted with a soft sigh as you got inside the airplane “Εven around me.” you added so softly you doubted he even heard you. Or if he did, he did a good job at hiding it.

“It's still good to see how all the fame hasn't gotten in your head. I've had to-” he sighed, looking down at the beer bottle he was holding “Ι've had to see people I considered friends lose themselves to all this, they weren't the same. It felt like I lost them too, some of them quite literally-” he choked on his words but cleared his throat before he could let it affect him in front of you. Another thing you wished he'd stop was hiding his feelings or tears from others and even more you, that he'd just let you comfort him for a change for once at least, but he had been through so much in his life that you were still learning new things after 6 years of knowing him “Βattling an addiction sometimes is hard b-but when everyone else just makes it harder for you and pushes you over the edge you just lose yourself in every meaning of the word before inevitably other lose you too. I've been alone since I was 18, you know it, but this... It was something I couldn't believe, and I ended up finding myself in a place where without them around it felt like I didn't know where I was. You know, something like waking up into the future?”

“Yeah” you said in a hoarse voice “Ι know. Bucky's... He's told me a couple things.”

“Yeah, well-”he cleared his throat, putting on a brave smile on his lips “Αt least I know that you're not going to end up like that, especially as long as it is up to me. I am going to do everything it takes for you.” he said softly, looking back at you and you looked down shyly, feeling your cheeks heat up.

He cleared his throat, going back to pop open the beer bottle before speaking to you “Want anything to drink?”

“Glass of wine would be perfect. Red.” you sighed softly, sitting down on the chair to take off your heels and massage your feet 的t's going to be a long flight and then a long day of interviews.

“Why don't you take a nap? You barely slept last night.” he walked back to you with a glass of wine in one hand and a beer bottle in the other, sitting on the seat directly in front of yours.

“Would love to, but I'm sore all over.” you bit your lip, trying to keep yourself from grinning mischievously only to seem as innocent as possible before you spoke up again “I would ask you to give me a massage but I don't wanna make you blush or embarrass you to the pilot with the sounds I'll be making. I'm pretty vocal, what can I say?” you shrugged, again innocently, and a sheepish laugh left his lips.

“Shame.” he said with a hint or red on his cheeks “I'm pretty good with my hands.” and you were sure the words were just as innocent as the way he said them, in his mind at least, but not yours.

“Do tell?” you raised an eyebrow, crossing a leg over the other and of course taking notice of the way his eyes lingered on you and your legs, before he blinked and looked away slightly embarrassed “Then, what other parts of yourself are you good with other than your hands, Rogers?” you smirked, leaning back in your seat and once he understood the meaning behind your words, his wide eyes jumped up to meet yours and his lips fell apart.

“Oh oh I- I didn't- I-” he cleared his throat, looking out of the window “I meant in case you wanted a massage, that's... that's all.”

“Oh I got it crystal clear, trust me. And I'll definitely hold onto that, but maybe I'll choose a hotel room at first. Make it more private.” you winked and his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“What?” he asked in a more rough voice and all you did was laugh softly.

“Come on, Stevie!” you burst into giggles “Relax, nobody's watching now. And I'm certainly in no danger either, loosen up.” you said with a soft smile and he let out a small sigh, shaking his head with a smile as he looked outside the window once more “Don't need to be such a tight-ass all the time.”

“Language.” he muttered softly yet firmly, giving you a look that just made your grin widen before you burst in laughter and as realization set down on him, he looked down with a shake of his head.

“Did you just-” you started.

“It slipped!” he defended immediately but you still kept laughing, this time in a softer way.

“But you know what?” you whispered, only giving him a gentle smile “I love it that you have started being more of yourself around me than my loyal bodyguard. Don't get me wrong, I could never ask for a better protector than you. You're almost like- no, you are my knight in shinning armor.” the shy and incredibly sweet smile made your heart skip a beat because you saw your words meant a lot more to him than he dared say “But, you know Steve, I-” you let a soft sigh, getting up from your seat and walking towards him “I don't see you just as that.”

“What do you-” a small gasp left his lips when you sat down on his lap “What are you doing, (Y/n)?”

“Do you just see me as your boss?” you tilted your head to the side but the man only stared at you with wide eyes, holding his breath “Tell me, please. I want to now this, do you see my as only the woman you're working for?” you asked sincerely.

His baby blue eyes that always warmed your heart, moved back and forth before he finally took a deep breath and spoke up “No. No, you're much more to me.”

The way your heart leapt to your throat made it impossible for you to breathe for a moment - or were you maybe holding your breath all along? - you didn't know. All that could register in your mind was how crazy the butterflies in your stomach went. You smiled at him, a little shyly, before speaking “Then why are you so formal around me?” you tilted your head to the side “Just let me know you more... I want to.”

“I-” he started but struggled to speak for a second “I would love it too.”

“Then-” you could hardly fight your smile, your hands moving to his shoulders before you started pushing off his suit's jacket, him not doing anything to stop you as you got rid of it. Your hands moved to his tie which he had already tugged at to loosen up but you made sure to undo it and throw it next to his jacket. Last but far from least, you undid a couple buttons from his button-up shirt that in all honesty had you staring every time you looked at him. The way every shirt struggled against his chest made you lose your track of thoughts once in a while anyway.

You wrapped your around his shoulders and gave him a soft smile, whispering “Let's get to know each other better then, my lovely bodyguard.”

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plumoh · 5 years ago

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[FE3H] the rust under their binds

Word count: 5002

Summary: Sylvain participates in the Gronder Battle even if he knows full well how it will end. / chapter 17 of Verdant Wind.

Note: AO3 link. Graphic depiction of violence, major character death, Sylvain & Felix & Ingrid platonic. This was prompted by me killing the Blue Lions kids in my Golden Deers run and getting hit in the guts......

The entire battlefield looks like it’s on fire. The central hill is burning while thick, almost black wisps of smoke cover the sky. Sylvain’s eyes are prickling and he curses under his breath as he pushes his horse forward, ignoring the sickening sounds that the bodies being trampled on make. Death is everywhere; there are corpses lying right and left, weapons scattered around them and the remains of demonic beasts sticking to the soil. The smell is awful—Sylvain wants to throw up and forget that he’s ever stepped in this damned field that will turn into a cemetery.

He lost his battalion around half an hour ago; it wasn’t even a proper battalion, constituted of only a dozen men desperate for peace but consumed by trust. Gautier is one of the last military bases Faerghus has left, but he’s reduced to this: charging forward alone, exhausted, clothes soaked with the blood of allies and enemies alike, his armor nicked in places he didn’t know was possible, a lance that’s about to break, and his relic. His cursed relic that’s been pulsing and demanding for more destruction as the minutes turned into hours.

The wind picks up and the howl of an animal sounds. Sylvain looks up and admires the graceful form of a white wyvern crossing the field with a definite path in mind.

***

He lies awake in his bed and considers chickening out.

That’s what he wants to believe but he perfectly knows he won’t ever find the courage to pick up his lance, mount his horse and disappear somewhere until the war ends. He’s always been a coward, after all, and this night like the others isn’t any different—it’s not any different even if tomorrow there is a high chance they won’t be able to come back at all.

Their army isn’t that big, compared to the Empire and the Alliance; they’ve gathered as many loyal soldiers as they could and recruited anyone not too shady looking, but they’re still a drop in the ocean. Fighting against two armies who possess much more resources and men is not a thought that would have ever occurred to him, even in his most crazed state.

Since he’s not getting any wink of sleep tonight, he might as well go dig into their meager food supplies. Nobody is going to eat it, anyway.

***

He coughs up blood and grips the reins of his horse tighter, shuddering and sputtering, but refusing to stop. The soldiers thrust their lances at him with renewed vigor, and maybe frustration, but Sylvain doesn’t let them hit him again and he deploys the Lance of Ruin’s power to take them down. His blood boils and his hands shake when the lance goes through them like they were made of ash and mud. He doesn’t watch their bodies hit the ground and kicks into his horse’s side.

Fuck. It’s getting difficult to see what’s going on.

The Alliance is focusing on the imperial troops but they’re still standing in their way. Sylvain distantly remembers that their main objective is Edelgard, but they were also given the order to kill every last one of them. Ha. Who is he to disobey his king?

There are voices he recognizes, even if it’s been five years since the last time he heard them. Funny how the brain works, sometimes; he isn’t able to remember the name of the girl he dated last week but he perfectly knows that former classmates are fighting for their survival just like he does merely by sound. He’s a soldier, but that doesn’t mean he wants to fight people he once considered his allies—that’s really irresponsible and foolish of him, but he can’t help it. Lysithea is firing spell after spell, wreaking havoc on the battlefield and never letting her enemies a chance to stand up; Leonie is rushing into the troops and in one fell swoop of her lance she injures several of them; Ignatz’s aim has always been the best and his arrows make clean kills. Others are here too, even demure Marianne who stays behind and heals her allies from afar. Sylvain acknowledges that he logically should kill her first so as to deprive his enemies of healing abilities.

Instead, he runs off to the left side and hopes he can regroup with the others.

***

“What the fuck are you doing up at this hour?”

“Well, I’m clearly not the only one.”

Felix scoffs but doesn’t retort. He’s nursing a cup of water, sitting at a table in the tent that is supposed to be the kitchen, in the dark because he’s that much of a lunatic. Sylvain prefers looking at what he’s rummaging through so he lights up a candle. He ends up picking the first thing his hand touches, which is a stale piece of bread. He eats it slowly.

Nights are like these aren’t uncommon, happening more frequently as they approach the Empire’s territory. Being near Gronder Field will naturally make some people restless and maybe a bit afraid, too. Sylvain isn’t sure that what he feels is fear, but he sure as hell knows he doesn’t like it.

“Were you training?” he asks, turning a careful eye towards Felix.

“What else do you want me to do?” Felix shrugs. His voice isn’t dripping with his usual venom. “Sleeping like we should all be doing?”

“I’ve heard that sleep is good for the body. Would you believe that? I thought that roaming around camp all night and snacking on days old food would be much more healthy.”

Sylvain flashes him one of his smiles, full of fake confidence and casualness, and of course Felix glares at him.

“This isn’t the time for jokes,” Felix says.

“It’s never the time for jokes.”

They’ve been robbed of tranquil days for the past five years, and try as they might, even if they pretend everything will be fine they know it won’t. Dimitri emerging from the dead should have rekindled the hope in them, but it didn’t have the expected effect—Sylvain doesn’t want to say it, but his return made things worse.

Felix swallows the content of his glass and puts it down with more strength than necessary. They stay silent for a while, Felix contemplating the empty bottom of his glass and Sylvain toying with crumbs on his fingers. If anyone walked in, they would think they make a pathetic sight.

“Hey, about that promise,” Sylvain starts, but Felix stands up and his chair rattles before toppling over.

“Don’t be stupid.” He takes a few steps towards the exit but he doesn’t touch the tent’s flaps.

Sylvain shrugs. “Just wanted to make sure you remembered.”

“You and I know what’s going to happen tomorrow, Sylvain.”

For someone so vocal about his thoughts and so quick to disagree with orders given by a specific person, Felix doesn’t say the words that have been haunting Sylvain’s mind for the entirety of their journey to Gronder Field. Perhaps they don’t need to be vocalized; perhaps it’s Felix who doesn’t want to recognize their truth, even if they hang heavily in the air. He’d much prefer that Sylvain is the one to say them so he can tell him he’s been right all along. That might be the case, but Sylvain has never said he wasn’t willing to believe in fantasies as long as he was with his loved ones.

So what he says instead is, “That means a lot of people will share the promise with us, then.”

This time around his grin feels more genuine, amused by his own lack of taste in jokes at such a critical time, but Felix snorts and that’s as much approval as he’s going to get. It’s good to have one last laugh.

***

He leads on foot his battalion of cavalrymen and they all travel in tense silence to their position. Next to him, Ingrid is looking at the sky, most likely evaluating the force of the wind and the direction it will blow in a few hours. Her pegasus is walking behind her, as agitated as his horse.

“You think you’re going to be okay?”

Ingrid grips her lance tighter and glances at him.

“Of course I’ll be alright. We have to fight for His Highness, after all.”

Sylvain dearly wishes he can reply something sensible, but his mouth as usual runs faster than his brain.

“We’re going to die, that’s what is going to happen.”

Felix knows this mission is suicide; Ingrid refuses to see it as such. And naturally, she glares at him with the fierceness she reserves for her lectures.

“We are knights. Fighting for our liege is what we do, and dying is—dying as a knight is the best death we could get.”

“I’d prefer not dying at all.”

“Then why are you here?”

Why is he here, indeed? Ingrid’s resolve has never wavered, not even in these uncertain times when all they could do was run in circles or train without seeing results. She is steadfast and strong when she latches onto her principles, because she’d be lost otherwise; her mind and her heart have decided long ago how she is going to live, even if everyone around her is spitting on chivalry and is treating her ideals like garbage. Sylvain admires that in her, and that’s why he’s sad that she’s willing to blind herself for someone they all cherish. She could have become the greatest knight in Faerghus.

Sylvain is here because he can’t run away and because he’s still cradling memories of better days.

“I guess I have nothing else to do.”

Ingrid’s sharp intake of breath makes him smile a little bit, and he pats her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself.”

“You—you don’t even know what is coming out of your mouth, do you?”

He doesn’t want her to cry, but he feels he’s the one who might cry if they keep talking. He ignores her sniffling and he ignores his own misty eyes.

***

Lying on the ground are the corpses of pegasi and their riders, shot down from the sky with a single arrow. The fall most likely killed the knights instantly, judging by the amount of blood under their helmets. Sylvain scans the area, slightly swaying on the saddle of his horse, dread clambering from his stomach to his throat. The fire has almost spread to the entire field—maybe they won’t even need to bury the dead if the fire keeps raging on like this, and burn them to a crisp.

“Sylvain!”

Sylvain’s head snaps up and his lips curl immediately in a grin when he sees Ingrid approaching, covered in blood and limping, Lúin clutched in her hand. She probably lost her pegasus in the midst of the battle, or decided that she’d be more efficient on foot. Sylvain doesn’t care; he gets closer to her and offers her his hand to get behind him. But as soon as he extended his arm all colors drain from his face when he realizes there is an arrow embedded deep into her back, close to her neck, and a javelin protruding from her side. How did he miss that?

“You’re injured, Ingrid,” he says absentmindedly. “Go—go see Mercedes.”

“You’re also bleeding, and I bet you didn’t even notice,” she mutters, wincing when she takes one final step and falls on her knees.

Sylvain wants to dismount and help her, be by her side in the last minutes she has left, but it’s as if she can read his mind and she shakes violently her head.

“Go, go, go, don’t get distracted,” she chokes. “I wanted… to see a familiar face…”

What’s the point of going away if he’s going to die too? Why can’t he stay by her side until she finds rest?

“His Highness is up there… the Alliance…”

A laugh breaks its away out of Sylvain’s throat, wet and uncontrolled. It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, it’s complete madness. Against his better judgment he swings his leg over the saddle and gets down, to his horse’s relief, but he keeps the reins tight into his hand. He thinks he might be losing too much blood but that’s inconsequential. He gets down on one knee, gently passes his hand behind Ingrid’s head, and brings her to his chest. All the fight leaves her.

“I said...”

“I know what you said,” he interrupts her. “Go to sleep, Ingrid.”

Around them, the battle is still fierce. There are still infantrymen rushing to crush the enemy’s defenses, and there are still mages casting every spell they know while the heavy armored knights are keeping them safe. The sounds of people fighting aren’t drowned by the crackling of the fire or the roars of the demonic beasts left. Only wyverns are flying in the sky, now.

Ingrid lets out a shuddering breath that’s too close to a sob. Sylvain keeps stroking her hair.

“I’m sorry… I failed my duty…”

Sylvain doesn’t have to wait long before she stills and slumps against him.

He lays her down and gets back on his horse, the Lance of Ruin weeping a red, bright glow.

***

He suspects that none of his words will be heard, but he supposes he can try.

“Your Highness, are you really sure you want to fight both the Empire and the Alliance at the same time?”

Dimitri doesn’t even look at him and keeps his eye trained on Areadbhar.

“We have already come here. It would be a waste of time not to charge.”

“Well, we could ask the Alliance to help us with resources…”

“Is there a point you wish to make, Sylvain?”

Sylvain has rarely considered Dimitri cold. He’s distant, yes, ever since the Tragedy of Duscur, but he’s never shown so much animosity towards people he trusts and has known for his entire life. Dedue is the only one who can get through him, but even still, that’s only because Dedue has pledged to serve him and to obey him. Sylvain is a knight of Faerghus, but he has yet to throw away his decision-making.

“What if we die?” he asks with as much boldness he can muster, hands clasped behind his back.

Dimitri slowly turns around, his fingers curling around his relic like they’re about to break it.

“Then we take that woman’s head with us.”

Sylvain is a knight of Faerghus. The man in front of him has not yet sat on the throne.

He smiles.

“Of course, Your Highness.”

***

Before they each depart with the battalion and the soldiers they were assigned, Sylvain pulls both of them into a tight hug. He’s mindful of his gauntlets and his cold armor but his arms easily snake around their shoulders and he brings them so close that their heads bump into each other, which makes Felix splutter every swear word he knows and Ingrid groan but there is laughter in her voice. Sylvain chuckles when her hands come at his waist while Felix awkwardly pats him on the back.

“You guys are the best.”

“If we’re the best then don’t freeze us to death with your stupid armor,” Felix retorts, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Such sincerity coming from you is rare, Sylvain.”

“What, can’t I express my love for my friends from time to time?”

“Not when you’re being weird about it, no.”

Sylvain releases them and grins, squeezing their shoulders one last time. Felix pushes some bangs out of his eyes then crosses his arms over his chest, gauging him. His jaw is tense and his posture is stiff at best, like what he’s about to say is going to cause him great pain. Were they only chatting with a drink in hand, Sylvain would have cracked a joke to save Felix from embarrassment, but they all know that it’s time to lay bare their feelings.

“Are you prepared? Did you memorize the map?” Felix asks tersely.

“I did, don’t worry,” Sylvain replies. “And I can count on my battalion, so I can’t get lost.”

“We all have soldiers we are responsible for,” Ingrid adds with the beginning of a smile, but the curl of her lips is sad. “We could have fought alongside each other, but I understand His Highness’s decision.”

Felix grits his teeth, and Sylvain expects him to storm off but he remains rooted on the spot, only casting down his gaze and silently fuming.

“We are his trusted generals, after all,” Sylvain says.

“‘Trusted’ my ass,” Felix mutters.

“Felix,” Ingrid admonishes, more out of habit than real bite.

Sylvain thinks it’s nice to speak with his friends before going into battle. They ease into familiar chatter and banter, chasing away for a few minutes the danger looming over them. It’s not the most reasonable course of action to take, but they’re only human—Sylvain is only human and he clings to what is reassuring, to get through this war and come back with as much sanity as he can keep. That was his original plan, anyway.

“Well, time to go to war,” he announces evenly, jerking his chin towards their mounts.

Ingrid nods. Lúin is securely strapped on her back, while Felix has yet to pick up the Aegis Shield from the armory but he’s already carrying the sword of Moralta and a sword of Zoltan. Sylvain has heard Felix brag about his swords more times than necessary to recognize them with only a glance.

They share one last look, maybe lingering a bit too long. None of them is going to admit they are scared, because knights from Faerghus aren’t scared of going to war. Ingrid follows him to get to her pegasus and Felix goes on the opposite side, joining Dimitri’s troops. The Lance of Ruin is itching for a fight, and Sylvain will let himself be consumed.

***

Ever since he was small, Sylvain thought that the crest of Fraldarius looked cool. Even when he started to despise and reject his own crest, he viewed that shield-shaped crest as something comforting, always protecting them from immediate danger. Felix prides himself in his strength and the use of his crest, in spite of what he thinks about its meaning and the expectations that befall him.

Sylvain follows the glow of the crest of Fraldarius visible even from afar. He knows that the biggest forces of the Alliance have gone to fight Edelgard, but the imperial troops have focused theirs on the Kingdom. It’s a real carnage; the bushes and the trees are all painted in blood, and the fire is starting to reach them. Felix swings his sword with terrifying speed but Sylvain recognizes the laboriousness of his moves. Aegis is shining and pulsing, deflecting the blows and pushing the opponents away like they weigh nothing. There are grunts and hisses and shouts, soldiers from all sides mingling and unable to tell apart ally and foe.

Sylvain charges into them and with one swipe of the Lance of Ruin he decapitates two soldiers. He actually doesn’t know who he killed, only that they’re not on his side. His hands keep shaking but he’s holding onto his weapon firmly, never allowing himself to lose focus even for a split second. His arrival has alerted mages he vaguely recognizes as Edelgard’s, and they direct their spells at him. His horse is just as tired as he is, and dodging quickly takes too much effort. The fire spell hits him square in the chest and he lets out a wordless scream, gripping painfully on the reins so as not to fall. The situation is so, so bad. The blood in his eyes and the fog in his mind cloud his judgment, perhaps, but he’s only had one objective since the beginning of the battle.

His horse is whining and also stumbling, but Sylvain pushes him forward, relentlessly, even if he’s hurting all over and unable to see clearly what’s in front of him. He brandishes his relic and calls upon the power of his crest, nausea crawling up his throat as the light of his crest is the last thing the mages see before they’re struck down. Sylvain has barely the time to lower his weapon when he vomits blood and bile on the ground, shivering and pitching forward on his saddle. It’s far from being over.

When he reaches Felix (or is it Felix who reaches him?), he’s sure he’s oscillating between life and death.

“Hey, Sylvain, hey,” Felix rasps, shielding them both from an arrow.

Sylvain has crossed half the field alone and has cut his way through here, has lost count of the number of soldiers he killed, and has seen Ingrid die in his arms. He’s exhausted.

He looks down, peering at the frazzled figure of Felix looking up at him. Felix’s hair has seen better days; it’s matted with blood and sweat, and some of the bangs are sticking out of his ponytail. There are cuts on his face and he’s lost his pauldron, where a deep gash is still oozing blood, which explains his extensive use of Aegis. He’s also heavily leaning on his right leg. Sylvain doesn’t have the time to take in all the other injuries.

“Stay focused, Sylvain,” Felix tells him with so much vehemence that Sylvain laughs.

“That’s all I’ve been doing for the past hour or so, I don’t remember.”

Dedue and Dimitri aren’t here; they probably went to fight Edelgard and left the others taking care of the minions and the Alliance. There’s not much Sylvain can say about this strategy, since the goal of this battle has always been killing Edelgard, means and consequences be damned.

“We… we’re done.” Felix swallows, and Sylvain is surprised he can hear him with all the noises around him and the blood banging against his skull.

“Done? There’s still the other half of the field to clean up.”

“No, I mean… we’re losing.”

Sylvain’s head jerks up and he blocks the assault of the wyvern rider diving for him. The Lance of Ruin grinds against the axe and Sylvain snarls, pushing with all his might and hoping that it won’t break. Felix, like the idiot he is, jumps and runs his sword through the wyvern’s stomach, between the armor plates, and the beast shrieks. The rider gets jostled and loses the advantage for one second, so Sylvain uses the opportunity to once again make the crest of Gautier flare up, and his lance comes away red. He’s so dizzy he’s pretty sure he can hear the Saints’ cajoling whispers to the dead fallen into battle.

He wants to lie down.

“...vain! Sylvain!”

Felix is shaking his arm, trying to get his attention. Sylvain has never been able to refuse him. His eyes glaze over him, and he smiles.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here.”

Felix’s eyes are wide and his mouth is quirked downward. He looks like the boy he used to be, scared of everything and hiding behind people and asking what he should do to become stronger. The old Felix wore his heart on his sleeve and this Felix is close to tears—maybe they’re not this different, have never been two separate people in the first place. Sylvain briefly closes his eyes.

“You don’t usually show your emotions on the battlefield,” he says.

“Cut the bullshit, move your horse! Don’t you fucking dare give up now!”

Didn’t Felix say they’re losing? What’s the point of fighting if they’re already doomed? But Felix’s logic has always been flawed.

“Sylvain, I swear to fucking god—”

His horse suddenly reels and Sylvain snaps his eyes open, his Lance coming up just as instinctively, but there is nobody in front of him. Instead, Felix is blocking an attack with his shield while a battalion of cavalrymen is surrounding them. Sylvain didn’t think that there were enough people left to form a battalion of any kind.

It’s the Alliance, judging by the color of their armors. And he recognizes some faces among them—he also won’t pretend that the anguish twisting the features of their faces isn’t bringing him some sort of sick satisfaction. He knew he should have killed them instead of coming here to help whoever survived.

Felix is struggling to stay upright, blood loss and exhaustion finally catching up on him, but he’s stubborn, always stubborn. Well, Sylvain doesn’t have any right to criticize him since he’s still fighting.

“If you surrender…,” one of the Alliance members says, Ignatz or Leonie, he doesn’t quite know.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Sylvain replies with a sharp laugh.

Sylvain inhales and exhales slowly. The sky is orange, now. The battle has been going on for too long already.

“Time to end this,” he declares, and brandishes the Lance of Ruin.

Felix lunges at them, the crest of Fraldarius driving him onward. Sylvain summons his last forces—the crest of Gautier engulfs him.

***

When Dimitri reappeared and told everyone he was marching towards Enbarr, Sylvain wasn’t sure he would follow.

“We can’t leave him in this state,” Ingrid says, horrified. “He’s going to get killed!”

“Yeah, and we’re going to die too if we follow his orders,” Felix growls.

But they spent five years looking for him. Five long years of endless searching and fighting against their own people who only wanted a chance at living. There is no king on the throne at Fhirdiad and there is no one to lead them. Gautier and Fraldarius can’t hold the fort forever. Besides, it’s Dimitri they’re talking about.

“Can any of us really abandon him right now?” he asks, quietly, because he might be having a few realizations himself.

Felix is, of course, the first to express how much he disagrees with this notion.

“You’d foolishly trail after a boar when you know he’s fucking insane?”

“He’s not insane!” Ingrid protests. “He needs our help!”

“Well, he’s not getting it from me.”

The three of them are fucking liars—they’re all liars in different ways, but pointing out each other’s lies only calls for further falsehood and they end up ignoring it altogether. It’s easier to pretend everything is alright, or to take it all at face value.

They don’t argue for long, though. They act like there is something legitimate to argue about in the first place when they’ve been raised to care for each other, and to care for their kingdom. Sylvain has opinions about the way Faerghus is run, about the emphasis put on traditions and ridiculous expectations children have to uphold, but he’s the first to defend loyalty.

Loyalty is the rust that lingers in the chain links binding them together.

***

The moment Felix loses his left arm, it’s over.

It’s not cut clean from the shoulder, but someone must have noticed he had difficulty using it every time he lifted the Aegis Shield, so they shot an arrow, and it pierces the flesh with appalling accuracy. Felix muffles a scream and his arm goes limp against his side, as he pants and hisses, his right hand never letting go of his sword. It’s over, and acceptance slowly overcomes Sylvain.

“Not now… not like this…”

Felix is still trying to get in a few hits with his sword, but with only half his limbs functional he can’t gather much strength to land a proper blow. The shield is still burning and flashing its gleaming light, with its power rendered useless.

Sylvain’s horse got injured by a lance and collapsed, so he’s now standing on his feet, though wobbling would be a better qualifier. He doesn’t even know how he’s still up and waving his weapon around; he should have died a long time ago. Perhaps stubbornness only is keeping him alive.

Each one of these cavalrymen is holding a bow or a lance. The sight is strangely comforting.

“I’m not afraid. I figured it would end like this…”

It’s selfish of him. There is no way to know whether the Alliance was truly going to take them in as war prisoners, as soldiers, or something. Maybe they could have found comrades in their ranks and they could have overthrown Edelgard’s reign together. It doesn’t matter—Sylvain has a promise to keep, and a silent pledge to abide by.

He doesn’t look at Felix as he lifts the Lance of Ruin one last time. The crest of Gautier bursts out but he never gets to unleash its power.

When the arrows go flying, he sees movement to the side. His mouth curls upward even as pain explodes behind every inch of his body, forcing him to drop his relic before he follows soon after, his face meeting dirt and his eyes filled with dust. There is another grunt beside him and he hears a thud. A laugh bubbles in his throat but he only spits out blood and atrocious wet sounds. He doesn’t have enough energy to say how funny the situation is, so he simply closes his eyes.

He can finally rest.

***

Once upon a time, Sylvain admired Glenn for being such a righteous and strong knight, walking the honored path of serving the prince and receiving praise for his accomplishments. However, more than anything, Sylvain loved him as the big brother he never had; and when he lost him, too, he thought that maybe it was his turn to act like a big brother. Dimitri, Felix and Ingrid still didn’t see all the horrors of life, not yet—they suffered the loss of a loved one but their hearts weren’t ready to keep on stepping down that road. He didn’t have Miklan’s raw fury or Glenn’s unshakable belief, but caring is something he’s capable of, despite everything. He’s clumsy with words and hopeless with actions, but he can watch over them and keep them close to his heart.

He realizes that he failed every single one of them, but at least none of them has to live through the guilt of surviving.

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #sylvain jose gautier #felix hugo fraldarius #ingrid brandl galatea #my fanfic #I LOVE THESE KIDS SO MUCH UGH #so much that i write a fic where they suffer yea #hhhh

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bigsnzstanacct · 5 years ago

Text

Dave

Lmao this shit is so weird don’t read it. I am choosing not to feel bad about it bc I wrote it a literal decade ago.

The sneezatoriums were erected, all across the world, shortly after 2025, when the mutation first appeared. At first, of course, it was only a few men that suffered from nasus magnificus, but the damage caused by those few thousands was more than sufficient to warrant the construction. The enlarged noses and lung capacity that marked nasus or simply The Sneeze Syndrome for short had at first been seen only among a few men, marked S-class for their ability to sneeze with such tremendous force that they blew away fences, small pets, plants, and even, in one well-documented case, a large door. But the disorder proved congenital. Between the S-classers reproducing and spreading the disorder to their sons along Y-chromosomes, and the high incidence of the mutation occurring elsewhere, by the year 2075, fully half of the male population suffered from the condition. Worse, the sneezes only grew in size. One particularly nasally-endowed young man had actually blown down several large trees in a forest after a particularly bad run in with a very fluffy white cat and a grandma far too eager to have her cat petted, and far too set-in-her-ways to accept the modern dangers of such behavior. Thankfully, his own father had been one of the first to teach his sons the techniques of sneeze-control that had become practically universal by 2112, and he managed to control the sneeze long enough to run to a nearby forest; otherwise, the damage could have been much more serious.

Nowadays, of course, nasus was simply a fact of growing up for young men. It was just a part of puberty, of “becoming a man”. One’s sneezes went from a young boy’s simple “achooo!” no more powerful than any standard sneeze from a woman, to a man’s mighty roar of a sneeze, and the attendant responsibility to control that sneeze and only direct it towards the proper circumstances, i.e., sneezatoriums. In fact, men with bigger and stronger sneezes were considered more masculine, not only because massive sneezes were a sex-linked trait, but because stronger sneezes were seen as contributions to society; the sneezatoriums, over the years, had also become generators for wind power. A town with a lot of big sneezers in it could provide a good deal of the city’s energy needs with sneeze-power alone, saving the town and the government lots of money. Thus big sneezes had become a point of pride among most cultures by 2112. Young men were taught techniques for controlling their nasal tickles and itches until the opportune moment, and shamed when they were unable to control their massive sneezes. However, great praise and even increased attentions from the opposite sex (as well as the same sex) resulted when a man had extremely powerful sneezes that he also controlled extremely well.

This brings us to the story of young David Herbert Crane. Dave was one of the most popular boys in school, not least because he was known as one of the biggest sneezers in his city. The local webnews broadcasting service had even done a story on his sneezes, which were of record-breaking power for a man of his age, and he looked forward to seeing how powerful his sneezes would grow, as usually a man’s sneeze power increased until around age 30. At just eighteen, he could outsneeze many grown men.

Of course, he hadn’t discovered this without accident. Bigger sneezes were harder to control, and when he was younger, Dave had accidentally blown around everything in a guest room in his uncle’s house with an uncontrolled sneeze, before he had even really begun sneeze training. Dave had felt so ashamed after that incident that he had practiced nose-control even harder than all the other boys his age. He was disciplined, focused, always fearful that he’d let another monster loose and ruin another room, or, as his sneezes got even bigger, and bigger, blow away fences, small trees, maybe even walls and cars. Motivated by his uncle’s destroyed guest room, Dave learned to control his nose with flawless skill, almost obsession. Even then, throughout his late teens, there were times when Dave nearly lost it while running to the nearest sneezatorium, squeezing his nose shut, praying that he could control his nose, barely holding off the colossal explosion until he could get into an empty cubicle in the sneezatorium and fire off sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, each one with enough power to blow down trees, uproot gardens and destroy classrooms. He was truly a super-sneezer. Even when he thought he had his sneezes under control, they had undergone sudden “growth spurts” in power, making them even more difficult to manage, even more impossible to stop.

Now, however, Dave’s control was flawless. He could hold off a sneeze for two days if he had to, although such behavior was highly discouraged, not just because of the danger of holding back already tremendous sneezes, but because of the money it lost the city. He would even get a little cocky with it, teasing the other boys about their ‘weak’ sneezes, or letting himself start the breath-hitching buildup to a big sneeze to intimidate or impress his peers, before suddenly and skillfully calming his nose down and continuing with whatever he was doing. It was even a party trick!

In fact, he was performing just such a party trick before class on this particular Tuesday afternoon. He was sitting in a desk towards the back of the room, as a very pretty girl, named Marianne, leaned over to him, and asked, very softly, “can you really do those great big sneezes? Or did they just put that on the web to fool me?”

“Can I?” he said rhetorically. “Baby, I can blow the house down.” And then at once, he launched into a build up. His eyes went unfocused. He felt the big sneeze welling up from his toes. His head started to tilt back, as his eyes fell half-closed. He sucked in a small breath, nothing big, and let it out. Then he sucked in a slightly bigger breath, and the paper on his desk wafted slightly. He started sucking in an even bigger breath, vocalizing slightly this time, “Heehhhhh… ahhhhh... ahhhHHHH… AHHHHHHH.” As his breaths got louder and louder, he started sucking in air to his lungs in much more massive quantities. His exhales began to disturb not only his own papers, but the ones on nearby desks. Marianne smiled as she felt her hair rise and fall with Dave’s biggest breath of all, which was starting to get loud, loud enough to be heard in the next classroom even. “AHHHHHHH…” his final exhale not only blew around any papers that his classmates didn’t bother to hold down with their hands, but also moved the desk ahead of him slightly, almost tipping it over… and then all at once, he completely stopped. His head tipped forward, and he hunched over. He gently massaged his nose, and took in shallow breaths through his mouth. He began to massage his nostrils, one after the other, more roughly, and then began to exhale softly through his mouth. After about thirty seconds of this, his head popped back up, and except for his slightly bleary eyes, no one could have guessed that just a few seconds ago, he was building up towards a sneeze that could power a computerminal for a month!

“Wow…” Marianne said flirtily.

Suddenly, the teacher from the next classroom over, a stern elderly man named Mr. Wallace, peeked his head into the door. “Is everything alright here?” He inquired, “I believe that I might have heard some sneezy breaths. I just want to remind all you young men that if you even feel slightest inkling that you might need to give the ol’ schnoz some room, you head right over to the sternatorium, no delay. Why, I remember in my day…”

“Thank you very much, Ezra,” said Mrs. Stevens, as she strode into the room, “but I believe I know exactly what was going on here, and all of our young men are well under control. Their noses, anyway.” She said, staring straight at Dave. She muttered under her breath, “Their hormones, I can’t vouch for.” As Ezra Wallace existed, Mrs. Stevens, who scrupulously avoided students calling her by her first name, Hilda, because she hated its antiquated, 21st century quality, rounded on her class. “Mr. Crane, I presume? You wouldn’t happen to be putting on exhibitions that jeopardize my classroom, would you?”

Dave casually shook his head no.

“Good, because if you were, I might have to refer your file to the district principals’ terminal, and they might even prevent you from playing in this Friday’s holoball game, and you wouldn’t want that, now would you? I thought not.”

As Mrs. Stevens harassed David, the student who had nearly been toppled by Dave’s little “exhibitions” fumed. His name was Eliot Stearns, and he was not a big sneezer. In fact, his sneezes were barely big enough to topple a few of the desks in the classroom, much less blow out a wall, like Dave’s sneezes probably would have done, if he’d let them out. He was still tall, attractive, smart. But he couldn’t sneeze to save his life, and all the girls knew it. Especially after Dave had exposed him earlier that year. He’d been on his way to the sternatorium before class after foolishly walking through the area of his neighborhood marked for bi-weekly lawn cuttings (everyone in a specific radius had to cut their lawn at a specific time and post very clearly on the neighborhood information terminal, or the NIT, when and where, so that those with poor nose control would be able to avoid the powerful sneeze-inducing effect of freshly-cut grass). Dave had strode up, fresh from rocking the sternatorium with a fit of ten earth-shattering sneezes that probably kicked up more wind than Eliot did in a month, and noticed Eliot, twitching his nose around and trying his best to hold back some very itchy sneezes. For whatever reason, Dave had been in a pissy mood that morning, and decided to have a little “fun” with Eliot.

“Hey, shrimp, where you headed?” Dave had asked, in a bullying manner.

Eliot hardly trusted himself to speak he felt so sneezy, so he just kept walking along. However, Dave kept moving into his path, slowing him down. Despite the fact that Eliot was obviously massaging his nose in such a way as to control his sneezy tickles, he tried to talk.

“I-I-I’m ohhhh… on my way to the sneehhh…. Sneezahhhhh… AHHHHH! Sneezatorium!” Eliot quickly and firmly clamped his right hand around his nose, doing his best to control the quickly forming sneezes. Opening his mouth had been a huge mistake; it had set off tickling vibrations all through his sinuses, and he felt the telltale signs of a long and messy sneezing fit.

“Oh, whatcha doing that for? You’ve got a tiny little sneeze, just let out here. It’s not like it’ll do any damage!”

“Juh… just let me through, jerk!” Eliot said through his stuffed up nose. He knew he could only control his sneezes for a few more seconds. Suddenly, he made a break for the sneezatorium, but for some inexplicable reason, Dave just grabbed him and held him up. A few of Dave’s friends (probably people who had gone to hear Dave rock the sneezatorium) had gathered around in a small crowd, and Dave spoke to them. “Hey everybody, you wanna see this kid sneeze? It won’t compare to mine, but look at him! He can’t even control those little sneezes. What would he do with great big monsters like mine, eh?” “Lemme… lemme… go…” Eliot tried to say, but suddenly he felt the sneezes grow too much for him. He was paralyzed by the gale-force gust he felt in his nose, so that even when Dave let him go, he was helpless to move. He started drawing in huge gusts that rustled the skirts of all the nearby girls and shook the leaves on the trees. His nostrils swelled until they were huge, round openings for his sneeze. He took in a few more huge breaths before

“ACCCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He sneezed a wet, explosive sneeze. He managed to turn his head away from the crowd, but everyone saw the sneeze nonetheless. It was big enough to kick up a nice sized breeze and uproot some grasses. It was still a very powerful sneeze, and Eliot felt several more on the way. But Dave was right; it was a far below-average sneeze, and certainly didn’t compare to Dave’s gargantuan blows.

“ACCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Eliot sneezed again, “ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! REEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” Those sneezes were slightly bigger, and as one girl accidentally walked in the way of the blow, she was hit by the huge gusting wind from Eliot’s disdended nostrils and nearly fell over. But the same sneeze from Dave probably would have blown her five feet away, if not farther. As it was, her clothes got rumpled and damp, but not wrecked, as even a normal-sized sneeze would have done. “Ugh!” she said as she walked by, “can’t you even control those tiny things?”

The whole group had laughed at Eliot then, both for his lack of control and for his weak sneezes. He had run to the sneezatorium then to blow out the last of his tickle, but the damage had been done. He’d been marked as a tiny sneezer with no control, and he’d been ridiculed ever since. And that was why he was constantly annoyed by Dave and his massive, manly a-choos. There was no way he could compete with sneezes like that. But he was going to get revenge. He’d show the world that even Dave Crane didn’t have the perfect control he boasted about. He was going to make Dave huff and puff and blow something down, so he’d be completely humiliated, and then people wouldn’t praise and adore him for those huge sneezes of his. They’d see that Dave was a freak of nature, just like they should!

***

Later that day, David was headed home, when he felt an itch well up in his nose. He knew he could easily control the itch, but he was moderately surprised at the fact that an itch was welling up so quickly. After all, he’d already visited the sternatorium twice that day. Dave knew he had mild allergies, but lately, he’d been getting tickles in his nose with a lot more frequency. He didn’t know if it was a new plant that had been introduced into the area or if he was just developing a new allergy, but he was secretly a little worried. He knew his sneezes tended to undergo sudden leaps in power, and he was afraid he was at the beginning of just such a leap. During his “leap” periods, his nose got much more itchy and harder to control. In fact, that sneeze he’d played with in class had left such a tickle in his nose that he ended up having to go to the sternatorium after class to let loose with a few of his super-powered sneezes. He made a mental note to stop his little ‘exhibitions’ or at least have a moratorium on them until he could figure out just how strong his sneezes were going to get this time. Dave had a fairly stable conception of how powerful his sneezes had been before the leap. Besides the measurements they took for the record, Dave had snuck out to the woods several times to let out a completely unrestrained sneeze, full-power. When he was sixteen, he could blow off branches, maybe knock down a smallish tree if he directed several consecutive sneezes as it. But after his last little nasal growth spurt, he could easily knock down a medium sized tree with one good sneeze, and he knew that by the end of this one, he’d probably have to stop letting the sneezes out, even in the woods; he didn’t want people noticing him leveling giant redwood trees with just one of his superhuman a-choos.

So, just as a precaution, Dave decided to make a nasal pre-emptive strike, and head to the sneezatorium to release just a few sneezes, to take the pressure off. The nearest sneezatorium was a large, cylinder-shaped building with an open run by the government. Upon entrance, men stepped on to one of several small platforms that lined a smaller cylinder at the center of the building. Once someone stepped on a platform, a holopanel would appear in front of them asking for their age, sneezer classification, and sneeze urgency level. There was also an optional input for sneezer ID. Most fathers purchased sneezer ID numbers for their sons on their fifteenth or sixteenth birthday; it was somewhat of a rite of passage. Sneezer ID numbers were used to keep track of the amount of power they generated for their city, and could be eligible for certificates of recognition and even some prizes if they contributed enough. Sneezer classifications were issued by the federal government and measured how strong an individual’s typical sneeze was, in order to make sure they entered a room with sufficient reinforcement to handle their sneezes without breaking. Sneeze urgency level was a feature added in 2095 to all sneezatoriums after a young man demolished a large part of a sneezatorium with a poorly controlled sneeze. If a man was struggling especially hard to keep a sneeze in, he could choose level 10 urgency, in which case he would be transported to a sneezer room immediately. If a man had a lower urgency level, he would wait until all men with higher urgency levels had been sorted into rooms before being carried by the moving platform into one of the many rooms lining the walls of the sneezatorium’s outer cylinder. These rooms were known as the “sneezer rooms” and it was here, and only here, that men were expected to release their sneezes. The rooms were powerfully reinforced with a super-tough plastic that could withstand even the mightiest sneeze. Once a man entered a sneezer room, he was expected, if at all possible, to hold back his sneeze until a large tube, connected to the underground power generator, could attach to the room (high urgency sneezers, of course, were not expected to wait for the generator tube, but were therefore unable to contribute to the wind power generator, or have any power counted towards their sneezer ID total). Men would sneeze into this tube (which was made of the same reinforced super-plastic as the rest of the room), and the wind power generated would be redirected into a wind turbine below ground, and converted to useable energy.

So, as Dave entered the sneezatorium, he followed the normal proceedures, entering his sneezer ID number (his father had purchased his at thirteen, unusually enough, because at thirteen Dave was already producing enough wind with each sneeze to contribute significantly to his totals), confidently putting his sneeze urgency level at 1, and waited for a room to become available for him. While he was waiting, several boys from his high school passed his platform, and waved enthusiastically, or gave him a thumbs up. Everyone was excited to see such a legendary sneezer at the sneezatorium. Dave smiled broadly; he thrived on the attention. Finally, the platform kicked into gear and carried him into a sneezer room. Before the tube had even attached, Dave was launching into an enormous, gasping buildup:

“ehhhh… hehhhhhhh… HEHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHHHHH… HIH! HIH! HIH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

He released his first colossal sneeze, straight into the tube. Anyone would be able to see that this was a far more powerful sneeze than the tiny ones a guy like Eliot would release. This was a sneeze stronger than many grown men. It was a true twister of a sneeze, and the recoil almost knocked Dave off his feet from the sheer force of it. But Dave knew he wasn’t anywhere near done. In fact, the next one felt ever stronger:

“hehhh…” he hitched, his nostrils flaring widely, “hehhhh… ehhhhh… gonnahhhhh… ahhhhh… b-b-b-beeeee aaaa… bihh… bihhhhhh.. biiiiiiggg… biiiiiiggg… ahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh…. oneahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh… HAHHHHHHHHHHH… HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” his head was bobbing up and down with each tickly inhale now. He mentioned how big the upcoming sneeze was, to no one in particular, because the sneeze that was brewing in his nose felt truly gigantic in strength. Had there been any furniture in the sneezer room, Dave’s enormous sneezey breaths would have sent it flying around the room, or, worse yet, hurtling towards his face. This was definitely a super-strength sneeze! “HAAHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! HAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

KAAAAAA-TTTTTCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

That sneeze was easily twice as big as the previous one. Silently, Dave thought to himself that if he had let that one loose in the classroom, it wouldn’t have just blown out a wall, it would have taken out half the classrooms in the hall! And he felt himself gearing up for a last sneeze that would put the other two to shame. “iiiggghhhhiieeee… AGGGGHHHHHHH… AGHHHHHHHHH… AAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH… AHHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH!

HHHHHHRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYY-SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

He sneezed, with the most titantic force he could muster, hoping to blow the itch so far out of his nose that he wouldn’t have to sneeze again for a week (and possibly to break another record), pressing the air out of his super-sized lungs, channeling the force through his body, blowing and blowing until all of the power in his lungs was spent.

That was a sneeze! Dave thought to himself, as his incredible burst of wind (and, he had to admit, quite a lot of spray), rushed down through the tube into the wind turbines beneath. Checking his nose for further tickles as he had learned as a boy, he felt confident that he didn’t have any more sneezes lurking in there. He was almost glad of this, because those three had taken the wind out of him, quite literally. Not for the first time, Dave thought about how big his sneezes had been lately. That triple, while not his best effort ever, was easily as powerful as the record breaker from the webnews shoot (but then, that hadn’t been his best ever either, though it was close). The last one probably moreso. And his nose hadn’t even felt especially tickly! Dave felt pretty sure then, that his nose was undergoing another spurt in power. And as excited as he felt, he also felt a tiny bit worried; how strong exactly were his sneezes going to get? He still had years of sneeze growth to go!

—-

Dave Crane was on top of the world. When he hit puberty, he thought he was a freak of nature for his colossal sneezes, which were even harder to control than the average boy’s sneeze. He’d had more close calls almost blowing away pets, plants, doors, fences, even other people, than he cared to count, not to mention that one mortifying time when he practically destroyed his uncle’s guest room. But those times were behind him now. Not only did he have those same massive sneezes well under control, but he was using them to ride the popularity wave to the top.

Normally, people just gossiped about the power of the boys’ sneezes, some boys bragging that they were stronger, others keeping quiet about it but occasionally waiting a little too long to go to the sternatorium on purpose, so they could flail about and act like they were worried about causing so much damage with their massive, man-sized sneezes. Dave didn’t have to do any such thing, mostly because if you listened hard enough, you could hear his sneezes through the sternatorium walls.

Dave was truly a super-sneezer, even among boys of his age. Sure, everybody had a big sneeze, infinitely larger than the powerless puffs of air people did at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But Dave had a BIG sneeze.

After visiting the sternatorium for a sneezy work-out (Dave worked on his abs, but they’d probably flat enough with just his incredible sneezes), Dave got on his hoverbike and headed home, careful to avoid the areas marked for grass-cutting. He remembered once, when he was a bit younger, he’d had one of his close calls when he forgot to avoid the grass-cutting areas. Freshly-cut grass was one of his worse triggers, as they were called. All young men went through yearly allergen testing, and older men did the test every five years. The test was held in a very sturdy special sternatorium; folks sometimes had to use transports that took almost fifteen minutes to get to a Testing Sternatorium. The Testers, as they were called, were staffed with plenty of doctors and plenty of protection, as testing often provoked almighty sneezes even from the weakest of noses, much less Dave’s monster honker (complete with his super-powered lungs, of course). The Testing Sternatoriums were often hours away, and every man had a scheduled visit that he could not miss, except in the event of illness that might contaminate the test results, so that the process could run smoothly. Dave remembered his testing session from just a few months before. It was actually a report from the testing session that led to his record-breaking TV appearance.

As he walked up to the building, Dave marveled at how strong its steel walls appeared, and he knew that that was only the outer layer of the building, which was further protected by special carbon polymers, advanced plastics, and sheet rock. The Testing Sternatorium nearest him was—luckily enough—a new model, designed to prevent some of the accidents that had occurred at other Testings, as the Doctor who greeted Dave explained.

“Yeah, there was one guy up in North Albans who had a great big sneeze, off the charts really. I mean, I’m not exactly a lightweight in the sneezing department myself,” the doctor hastened to add, “but this guy was one for the record books. Anyway, they lower in the grass, and he’s OK, does a few big sneezes but that’s all by-the-book. Then they try the cat dander and he’s fine, and the ragweed, and the pepper, of course. You know, he sneezes each time, and their big, I mean, they’re always big, but not, you know, volcanic, not like ‘oh, look out he’s gonna blow,’ you know, normal big sneezes. But then, they try the dog dander. And they’re doing an experiment right—now, why they thought they needed to experiment on this guy, I’ll never know, but hey—and so they show the guy a picture of the dog. Well, the guy must’ve had some sort of psychosomatic something going on, ‘cause even before they released the dander, his irritation levels spiked something fierce. And when they lower the dander, man… it sets him off. Bad.”

Even hearing about a sneeze for such an extended period of time was starting to make Dave’s own titan of a nose long for a good, hard, relieving sneeze, and Dave was glad that the Testing Sneezatoriums were famously efficient—he knew he could hold out for a while, but he was glad he’d be able to fire off in just a few minutes.”

“So the guy starts sucking in air, right? Crazy amounts, like, off the charts. Now, mind you, this is a twenty-nine year old guy, fully grown, in good shape… he’s firing off the biggest sneezes of his life anyway. But this time. Man. He just sucked it in and blasted em out. ‘KA-CHOOEY!” and all that, you know, real loud, insane decibel levels—you know OSHA’ll get you for stuff like that. Anyway, crazy noise levels, crazy wind velocity. And he just keeps going! And they’re getting faster. We’re at like, six or seven sneezes, right? And the building was only using standard Polymer One, plus inward-facing sneezers, right, not fully reinforced rooms. Well, the guy’s an allergic mess, he can’t see straight, much less aim his sneezes at the perfect center of a target, so he’s shootin’ ‘em like fire crackers all over the place. I mean, this is a full blown fit, we’re climbin’ towards nine, ten sneezes, and they’re fast, close together but they’re humongous, like, recording-breaking massive, right? I gotta tell you, I’ve looked at the numbers and I did a double take, I didn’t even really believe it…”

Now Dave’s nose was raring to go. He was really glad that the appointment was soon. Hell, he was even a little scared he wouldn’t be able to make it ‘til then without beginning control procedures. But he knew that he was already on file as a potential Class 2 sneezer, the designation for those who had the potential for truly superhuman explosions, given the right triggers; and so to start control procedures might bring… unnecessary attention. So Dave suffered in silence, not even daring to twitch his nose, while the Doctor—who obviously loved the sound of his own voice—droned on.

“And all of a sudden, they get even bigger! And closer together and he’s just screaming ‘em out and I can hardly blame him, that kind of pressure, it’s unbelievable. And they’re coming closer and closer together, he’s just arching back and letting fly, over and over and over, well, the polymer starts cracking. And mind you, he’s blasting all over the place, towards the ceilings, towards the floor, everywhere. And not everywhere is properly reinforced. And so as he gets toward fifteen, sixteen sneezes, they’re like, ‘SHUT IT OFF! SHUT OFF THE DANDER! SIR, PLEASE CONTROL YOUR SNEEZES,’ the whole routine. But I don’t know if the intercom isn’t working or the guy is just outta control, but he keeps blasting, full-force, just arch back, explode out and the walls can’t take it and soon the guy’s blasted a hole through the building. I wouldn’t think it was possible. Caused I don’t know how much damage, they’re still sorting it out in court whose fault it is, especially after the sneezer statue of ’09… the guy’s saying they dandered him too hard, the technicians are saying they told him to get control, but I gotta say, if MY sneeze were that big, I’d still be in training today, they wouldn’t even give me my sneezer-card, and I can promise you, I wouldn’t have this job!” Technicians, of course, had to have flawless control, as they spent large amounts of time around highly allergenic substances in large quantities, which could easily cause a disaster of tectonic proportions.

Dave, for his part, was longing just to give his nose one twitch, to reach his hand up for one quick squeeze to control the pressure… but he persevered, and kept his cool.

“Wow… sir…” Dave said, taking as much time between words as he dared, feeling the itch rise just a bit with each word, “that sounds like one big sneeze! Wh-what was the guy's name?”

“Eh... Geoffrey Wal-something, I don't remember. Anyway,” the doctor said, suddenly serious, “if I’m reading your numbers right…” He paused as he poured over the chart he had brought up on his holo-sheet by pressing a button on his belt as they turned the corner towards the Testing Room, “you’re headed in that direction. You practice your sneeze control good, young man. I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble for ‘Failure to Control Nasal Output,’ I don't want to see you on the evening news, standing over some building you blew down, like a fairy-tale wolf, alright? I'll huff and I'll puff... none of that young man.”

“Y-yeah, whatever” Dave snapped, praying that the doctor didn’t notice the quick catch in his breath. He was getting pissed. This was taking way too long, and he had to sneeze. Plus, the guy was doing these ridiculous infant-school jokes. Dave was a Last-Year in Final Form of his schooling. Big Bad Wolf jokes were so First-Year.

Finally, they arrived in the testing room. The Doctor showed David into the room, a clean, white room with a large vent above head from which allergens slowly drizzled, and of course, thick cotton-12 handkerchiefs, for the fashionable set. Dave knew he’d just have to let his sneezes fly; while he might carry handkerchiefs on dates and such, they were really just for show. He knew one of his small sneezes would rip a handkerchief to shreds in seconds.

Dave walked over to the full-body suit he was to wear during the testing. The suit used tiny sensors all over the body to measure any and all statistics pertinent to the testing. Dave hurried to slide the suit on. He didn’t want to look weak by sneezing before he was supposed to, but if he was going to avoid a big boom, they were going to have to start the testing soon.

“Alright.” He heard a voice from above, coming down from the loudspeaker next to the vent. “David Crane. Age 18 Sneezer Test. You will soon feel an itching sensation in your nose. The name of the trigger will not be revealed to you until after the test is over. Please do not attempt any sneeze control measures. Let the sneezes come naturally and unforced. Do not worry about volume or power, simply let the sneeze come freely and as powerfully as you need. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I do, can we get started so I can get back home?” said Dave, irritably. He was ready to get the test started, and sick of hearing the spiel he’d heard every year since he was a kid.

“Alright. The Allergen Test will now begin.”

—

Dave wasn’t sure exactly what they’d released first—they did the allergens in a random order each time—but it immediately increased the already-strong tickle in his nose threefold, and his breath began to hitch as they continued to release the sneezy substance: “hih! HEEEHH! HEEEEEHH!” The tickle was there, but the sneeze, which had seemed so close just a moment ago, was just out of reach. But the itch was maddening! Dave knew that one of his colossal sneezes would immediately make him feel ten times better, and since this was a safe place to do so, he planned on blasting it out full force. But he couldn’t… quite… get there…

“iihhhh… ihhh… igggghhhiiieee…” He stood for a moment, his face contorting as his nose twitched about, trying, desparately, to coax out the sneeze he so desperately longed for. He took in a big sniff, which almost seemed enough to fuel the sneeze: “Hah! HAHH! HHAAAAAHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” But just as his gasping intakes of air reached critical mass, the urge to sneeze died back down again.

“Damn!” He cursed out loud, before saying under his breath, “just… wanna… sneeze…” He knew the technicians were waiting to release the next trigger, waiting to see what would happen with this one, whether it would be strong enough to provoke a sneeze or not. But Dave just wanted them to hurry up so he could sneeze!

“Can you just do the next one naa…n-n-naaaa… now…. Ahhhh… ahhhhhhhh…” the sneeze came back, and Dave was hoping that he’d finally be able to sneeze it out: “ahhhhhh… AAAaaaaaggghhhhhh… AGGGHHhhhhhhhh… AGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH…”

But it disappeared again! “DAMN!” Dave cursed again, louder. “Why won’t ih… it… j-just cahhh.. ahhhh… come?” The pitch of his voice rose on every word as the ebb and flow of his sneezy tickle refused to leave him alone. His chest heaved in and out, the tight biometrics outfit revealing his strong pecs and hard abs working feverishly to accept the huge weight of air that was slowly but surely accumulating in his super-powered lungs. His eyes, watery, began to slowly close as he felt the itching, tickling sensation that washed over him from his feet to his head, centered in his incredible nose, grow once again… Oh, God, when he finally sneezed he knew it was going to be a monster…

“ehhhh… EHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” The tickle in his nose was gradually taking over. Dave steadied himself: he’d had this happen before. Usually when one of his sneezes got stuck, the problem wasn’t that the tickle was too small. The problem was that the sneeze was too big.

“AAHHHHHH… AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…” Finally, he knew, he’d be able to sneeze. Keeping himself braced for fear this one would knock him over, he nevertheless felt his back begin to arch uncontrollably as he sucked in three last enormous breaths in preparation… “AHHHH! AHHHH! AAAHHHHH!”

“RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAA-SSSSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Dave erupted, his body flying uncontrollably forward, his long, shaggy hair (quite the fashion in 2112), flinging forward as his whole torso bent into the power of his sneeze, the hot, sneezy air erupting from his nostrils at God-knows-how-fast speeds. It was a truly explosive sneeze, even for Dave. He felt his lungs straining to blast out all the sneezy air, and with it, the dreadful tickle that had plagued his nose. He blasted it out for what seemed like an eternity before the sneeze was finished. But as soon as he finished the first one, as he tried to take in a breath of air, his breath hitched again

“ahhh… oh, no… ehhhhhh… EHHHHHHH… EEEEHHHHHHHHH…” This one felt even bigger! And it was building quickly… “EEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH…EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The pitch and volume of his colossal inhales increased proportionally to their power, as he sucked in air again for another earth-shattering, tree-felling, fence-smashing tornado of a sneeze, “EEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This one turned out not to have quite as much wind power as the previous, but the volume was unbelieveable. He didn’t know that the sneeze exploding out of his nose could make such a ruckus, but he had no choice but to scream it out in pure release, so terribly did he need the burning, twisting sensation out of his nose. He worried that he might break the scientists’ instruments, especially if they were calibrated for an average teenager. When it came to sneezes, Dave Crane was no average teenager.

"Allergen check one completed. Prepare for allergen two."

—

As Dave headed towards home, after school, and after his terrific fit of sneezing in the sneezatorium, leaning his mind on the remembrance of sneezes past, Eliot was also heading home. He too had stopped by the sneezatorium on his way home; Eliot always took precaution, as his control of his sneezes was genuinely quite weak. It was hereditary; just as Dave’s dad was a champion sneezer in his youth, so Eliot’s father had the same wimpy sneeze Eliot had. So his father had barely learned nose control, always aware that his sneeze was simply not dangerous, except perhaps to unsecured paper items. And how could he pass on to his son what he barely knew himself?

Eliot made sure to check his HoloPad—a product of the Steven Jobs Memorial Technology Company, the nationalized techno-corp of Eliot’s nation—to see where the grass was being cut that day, so as to avoid it. Freshly cut grass set him off like none other. Most men had particular triggers like that, triggers that set them off more than the other allergens. For some men, it was particular flowers. For others, it was a particular breed of dog or cat. Whatever it was, when that scent hit his nose, even the most experienced and controlled sneezer would immediately head to the sneezeatorium, because a true monster was on its way. Except Eliot, of course. He’d run to the sneezatorium, certainly, because he didn’t want to embarrass himself. But even his biggest sneeze produced a blast like a strong gust of wind, not enough to knock down a small child, nothing like the tornadic blasts emitted by folks like Dave. How Eliot wished that he could produce monstrous sneezes like Dave’s! But he was a wimp in the sneeze department, as he was in most areas.

But he was a nice guy, which is more than he could say for Dave most of the time. And it would be hard not to let sneezes like Dave’s go to your head, to be in high school and blatantly out-sneezing college guys, even your dad’s colleagues! Sneezes like that could get you any girl you wanted, even cheerleaders (cheerleading technology had evolved surprisingly little since the ancient days of pom-poms and football fields, perhaps because centuries of technological advancement could provide little to improve the mini-skirt.)

It was these thoughts, and others like them, that succeeded in distracting Eliot from his HoloPad. And that lead, inevitably, to Eliot walking right past a veritable field of freshly cut grass.

His nose noticed it before he did. “H-hih! Hiiiihhh! Hiiihhhh! HIH! HIIIH!” His breath was already hitching; that’s what the grass did to him. It took his already sensitive nasal passages from sensitive to on fire in seconds. His breath hitching, Eliot tried to start sneeze controlling, trying to breathe gently through his mouth, controlling the tickle with his hands, but he knew that he’d have to run to the nearest Sternatorium, because he couldn’t hold back for long…

“hhh-huhhhh… huuuhhhhhh… iiiiigggghhhhiiee… iiiiggghhhhhh….”

---

Dave was still reminiscing about his colossal sneezes during his last test. He recalled how they’d sent allergen after allergen after him, and each time he’d let out a true monster of a sneeze. Heck, he was probably outsneezing grown men with a few of them. The worst of all had been when they lowered in the dog dander.

“Alright, sir, just a few more. We want to assure you that despite the strength of your sneezes, you should continue to produce them freely. This structure can withstand the force.”

Dave had almost smirked at that one. He hadn’t heard that one before. It was still an automated message, but it must be a pretty rare one. He hadn’t heard it mentioned before at any rate. For his part, Dave was enjoying the chance to let his sneezes out full tilt. Not that he held back at the ordinary sternatoriums, but there was just something… liberating about sneezing and sneezing and sneezing, as soon as you felt a tickle, not holding back even for a second, even coaxing a few of them out, and then really blowing for the rafters when you let out your sneezes, letting your lungs fill up with air like a bellows, and then sneezing it all out with all the wind and wetness the tickle in your nose demanded. If normal people sneezed from their chests, Dave sneezed from his toenails, each sneeze a full-body experience, feeling the sheer force of them rippling through his body. He gave a good hard sniff of enjoyment, feeling the incipient stirrings of yet another powerful sneeze.

“Prepare for the next allergen.”

He could tell when it was released. What was just a tickle suddenly tipped over the scale and became a sneeze. He could feel this one building, “hehhh… h-hehhh… heyyyyy-uhhh… heh… heehhhh-uhhhhhh… hhhheeeeeeeeeeeshhhhhh… hehhhhhhhhhhh… HHHHEEEEEEEHHH… HEHHHHHHH… HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY-SCCCCCHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He erupted monstrously. He blasted that hot, sneezy air out of his lungs at truly hurricane=like speeds. This was a long sneeze, perhaps due to the extra-large tickle he had felt, and the whole time he just blasted it out, almost shocked by the end to find that there was still air in his lungs to power the massive sneeze. And oddly enough, he felt another on its way.

This one scarecely required any buildup, just one great, “HHHAAAAAHHHH!” And he was off, with a tremendous, “YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH-SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” That one was even bigger than the last, and he still felt the huge tickle in his nose. He sucked in two great gusts of breath before blasting out two more sneezes, “AAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS-CHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Each sneeze bent him double. And oddly enough, he felt another one, even bigger than the previous four. This one would require some coaxing out.

As his nose twitched and seized and tingled, and his chest expanded out to accommodate all the air his lungs were sucking in, Dave couldn’t help but imagine letting out a sneeze like his in public! Imagine the men, trying to scream at him, “Dave! Don’t do it! Don’t let it out, man!” Imagine the women, fleeing the space in front of him, and yet… staying in close enough range to see it, to hear the noise, to find out what a truly cataclysmic sneeze sounded like, how a man’s man sneezed, with such force and power that they’d put the whispering gossip of girls to shame. And as if such thoughts could power his sneezes, Dave’s nose positively exploded with his next sneeze, “HHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR-CCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He folded back for one final sneeze, his chest heaving, his eyes watering, his nose tickling unmercifully, his whole body bending back to prepare for one last,

“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-SSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

And then he was done at last. He heard a technician’s voice come from the speakers in the walls.

“Sir, we usually just send messages for things like this, but I had to say somethin’. Man! Those were some sneezes! Sure are glad we reinforced the plastics on this place, boy howdy! That was a real firecracker there! We’ve got a few more to spray, but I think we’ve seen all we need! And, uh, make sure you come talk to me after we’re done here. I’ve got a cousin that does the holonews and I think he might just wanna see you, young man!” Dave knew it was probably wrong, but as he wiped his nose and gave an almighty sniff, he couldn’t help smirking a bit with pride at how powerfully he sneezed.

Dave Crane finally rounded the corner onto his block, mentally telling his hoverbike to stop as he glided into his driveway.

“Up.” He said out loud, and the hoverbike responded, elevating to the third floor of his home, where the hoverbike interfaced with the door to his room, which would only open, of course, for a hoverbike with the correct element signature—the last thing Dave needed was to wake up one morning and groggily walk out of his third-floor door with no hoverbike. Sure, the bike would probably be fast enough to catch him, but there was always the chance that it wouldn’t.

“And what a tragedy that would be, for the ground to injure the beautiful face of the most handsome, superior holoball playing, biggest sneezer in the Northeastern Federation.” Dave crowed to himself, mostly joking, as he slid into his room, and stepped off the bike.

“And don’t forget! The most conceited, superior show-off, biggest head on Planet Prime.”

Oh, god. Nancy was home.

“Naaaaance… I didn’t know you were coming home… it’s… great to see you?” Dave said, with an uncertain lilt to his voice. He jumped over to the far corner of his bed, the corner that faced the wardrobe Nance stood in front of (no doubt she’d be staring at herself in the mirror ‘til she’d heard the holobike).

“Yeah, yeah, and it’s great to see you too, little brother.” Nancy replied, “especially with such a warm welcome.”

“Aw, you know I’m kidding, Nance. It is good to see you,” Dave confessed, smiling brightly at her. Nancy was an astonishingly annoying older sister, bossy, conceited, always “cutting you down to size,” as she put it—and she was also probably one of his three best friends on Planet Prime, or any of the colony planets, for that matter.

“But ah… what are you doing in my room…?” Dave continued, glancing around to where he saw her suitcase parked in the corner… and was the biolum radiating a slightly blue-ish light, wasn’t it always yellow (which complimented Dave’s skin tone the best… not that he’d set it that way on purpose, but…) and did he see…

“Why the hell is your bra in my dresser?”

Nancy looked up at Dave with her most innocent eyes, her brightest smile, “Oh, Dave, didn’t Dad tell you? I’m moving back in for a while!”

Dave was running down the stairs faster than a datapad could uplink. “DAD?! WHAT THE…?!”

--- “haaahhhhhhhhh…. Haaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Eliot wasn't sure if he was panting from the sneeze brewing fitfully in his nose, or from the exertion of running. And once again, there was a crowded sternutorium, with a bunch of guys, old geezers, teens, even kids barely old enough to need the sternutorium, all calmly waiting their turn. And once again, Eliot was frantic.

“I… aahhhhhhhhhh… excuse…. I-I-I-I… iiaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…”

“Hey, guys, we got a loose cannon here! Outta control. Somebody let him up to the front, will yah?”

“Oh by the blue biome, that’s what’s-his-face, Al Stearns’ kid… you might as well just tell him to let it out where he’s standing, won’t be much different.”

Eliot was rubbing his nose frantically, barely keeping control, pressing against the underside of his nose with one hand, tapping at the bridge of his nose… doing anything that seemed like it helped at all… “N-n-n-no! Lehhhhhhh… leeeehhhhhhhhhhh… lemme though!” he managed.

“Calm down, calm down, kid,” a friendly voice said. Not the one who knew his dad. Who knew his family’s lame nosed curse. “Here, take my room, the platform’s ready.”

Blinking through allergic tears, Eliot tried to smile at the man, but all he could manage was a weak grimace before virtually leaping onto the platform, willing it to get to the sneezer room as soon as possible, just so he wouldn’t have to face the shame of blowing out a sneeze in front of everybody.

“, you know that kid’s lame sneezes are going on YOUR sneezer ID, right?”

“Oh, shut up, Tom, he clearly needed to sneeze bad, what did you want him to do embarrass himself…”

But it was already too late. Apparently the kind man’s sneezer room had been one towards the very top of the sternutorium, and as the platform ascended, Eliot’s control gave out: “haaaaaahhhhh…. Hahahhahahahhhhhhh… HAAAAAY-SHHHOOOOOOOAAYY!” he roared, more shout than force, however, as the puff of air blew fitfully from his nose, enough to make him stumble, but not enough to do anything to the plastic-reinforced sneezer rooms, not enough to even richochet down to the floor of the sternutorium, enough to be heard, enough so that everyone could look up and see he’d lost control… but not enough to do anything. He dragged himself into the sneezer room, blinking through tears he wasn’t sure were all allergies anymore.

“WWWWASSSSSSSHOOOOOOO!” He blew. “HAAAAWWWWWWWWSSSHHOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH! HIIIISSSHHH! HAAAASSSSSHHHHHAA! IIIISSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOIE!”

The sneezes came, hard and fast, one after the other, each blowing around in the empty room til the tube attached, spending their small force. Sure, it was enough to blow at Eliot’s clothes and whip up his hair. Sure, it would have thrown around plenty of papers, but… it was practically a kid sneeze. And if his dad’s sneeze was any indication, he didn’t have a much stronger sneeze to look forward to as an adult. He sighed, resigning himself to a small-sneeze fate, as the fit continued.

“ISSSSSSSHHHHOOOO! AAASSSSSSSSSHHHHHHOOOO! Hih… hih… hehhhhh… HAAAASSSSHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!”

#snz story #snz fic #OLD ASS fic #gigantic sneezes #this shit is so weird and embarrassing #but whatever I'm posting it so I have it somewhere #...and I might write more of it one day you can't stop me bye

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imagitory · 5 years ago

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D-Views: Mary Poppins

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another installment of D-Views, my on-going written review series where I dive into and analyze movies from Disney’s extensive film library, and even occasionally those influenced by that library. For other reviews in the series for movies such as Frozen, Enchanted, The Little Mermaid, and Lacewood Productions’ The Nutcracker Prince, feel free to consult the “Disney Reviews” tag! And as always, if you enjoy any of my reviews, please consider liking and reblogging them!

Today, thanks to the votes cast by @karalora, @banana-9-pancakes, and @aceyanaheim, we’ll be looking at the story of a magical woman -- one who is prim, proper, and practically perfect in every way...Mary Poppins!

Production-wise Mary Poppins is in some ways the culmination of everything Walt Disney learned in his thirty-year-long film-making career. It adapted a classic, whimsical story as an charming, emotion-heavy screenplay, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- it featured a fresh-faced, but extremely talented young singer in the title role, like Sleeping Beauty -- it seamlessly combined animation with live action, like Song of the South -- it had state-of-the-art special effects, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- and it featured music by two songwriters who later went on to write Disney film scores for decades. But all of that started with a tiny, little spark. As a little girl, Walt’s daughter Diane had started reading the Mary Poppins books, and when Walt read along with her, he was absolutely enchanted by them and knew he wanted to adapt the stories for the silver screen. All the way back in 1938, one year after the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Uncle Walt had his first meeting with Mary Poppins’s creator, P.L. Travers, but as anyone who has seen Saving Mr. Banks knows, the two did not see eye to eye. Uncle Walt spent the next twenty years trying to convince Travers to give him the rights to her stories, but unlike in the film where they had a sincere meeting of the minds, Travers recalled their final meeting where she gave him the rights as being more like Walt “holding up a gold pocket watch and dangling it tantalizingly in front of [her] eyes.” Admittedly one factor in the situation was that Travers herself had been having some financial trouble, and Uncle Walt’s payment for the rights to her books, as well as a portion of the gross profits for a film adaptation, was a boost that Travers severely needed. Despite the rights being given to Disney, however, Travers retained script approval rights, and for the next few years of production, she had quite a few complaints about the product. Even at the premiere of the film -- which, incredibly, she had not originally been invited to until she shamed a Disney executive into action -- Travers was very vocal about how much she disliked the film. The animation, done by some of the best in the business? Had to go. The story, which created such memorable and likable characters? Lacked teeth. The score written by the young Sherman brothers, who later went on to win awards for both Poppins and their other works? Left her cold.

Now, here’s the thing...do I agree with Ms. Travers? No. Do I like her as a person? No -- one would be hard-pressed to really admire a woman who decided to adopt half of a pair of twins from a poor family, raise the boy thinking he was her biological son, and then try to prevent her son from seeing his twin when the twin came to see him. (Yes, she really did that.) Do I think she was a malcontent who probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything? Absolutely. But at the same time, I must acknowledge, as a writer myself, it can be very difficult to share your creations with others. It can be hard even letting others read your works, given how personal and emotionally resonant the things you create often end up being, but it’s even harder letting others add onto your work. In a way, it’s like giving your child to a babysitter, except that unlike babysitters, most filmmakers who aim to adapt books don’t have a great track record in respecting the author or their vision. And in regards to Walt Disney specifically, his studio has never exactly been very interested in “staying true to the original story” -- the Walt Disney Company adapts the heck out of anything it touches. Even more modern Disney projects based on books like Ella Enchanted and Tuck Everlasting are great examples of this (if you’d like to delve into those films as adaptations, please look up Dominic Smith/The Dom’s wonderful Lost in Adaptation episodes for them -- they’re both fabulous!!). And in a way, Travers never saw her magical nanny as something light and cheerful -- this was an immortal woman who in later books once took the Banks children up into the Heavens on Midsummer’s Eve. Like the famous 1939 film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, there was definitely some dry wit and edge lost in translation from book to screen...and just like with The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins the film has largely taken the place of the original novels in the public consciousness.

But you know something? For what it’s worth...I think that, just like The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins succeeds in being a well-written, well-directed, well-performed, classic film, even if it’s so different than the book it was inspired by. And honestly, the world seems to agree. Mary Poppins grossed over $28.5 million at the box office, making it the most profitable film of 1965, and completely won over both critics and audiences alike. Even now at Rotten Tomatoes, it still boasts a rare 100% Fresh rating. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won five (including Best Picture, which made it the first and only film Walt ever produced to win that honor) and also earned both a Golden Globe and two Grammys. Not only that, but the profits for the film were so high that they helped Uncle Walt fund his “Florida project,” which would eventually become Walt Disney World Resort. Mary Poppins later went on to inspire both a Broadway musical and a sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, and even today you can still meet both Mary Poppins and Bert in the Disney theme parks. So yes, “I recognize Ms. Travers had her opinion, but given that it is a stupid-ass opinion, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

PFFT, I’M KIDDING, ONLY KIDDING. Let’s talk about Mary Poppins.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that from the very beginning, the overture embraces us with the melody that will become the story’s main theme, Feed the Birds. The overture, like all the best Sherman brother overtures for films like Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Sword in the Stone, is just a smooth, glamorous kaleidoscope of music. I also have to applaud the special effects team right off the bat with their overlaying of Julie Andrews as Mary onto the mat painting of London underneath our opening credits -- even now, when one can more easily guess how the trick worked, it’s still rather neatly done.

In this opening sequence, we also meet Bert, played by Dick van Dyke. The character of Bert was actually a compilation of several figures from the books, but that results in a very interesting, almost transient sort of character. This cheery, optimistic Jack of All Trades may have an accent that wouldn’t convince anyone, but is nonetheless unbelievably charming, and van Dyke’s physical comedy is so ridiculously on point. My mum and I have had a soft spot for Dick van Dyke for a long time because my late grandfather, although he was quite a bit older, resembled him quite a bit not just in appearance but also in attitude. Even now I look at Bert and fondly remember going to see the Broadway production of Mary Poppins with my grandparents, who ended up loving it and its music just as much as I did. It all the more makes me lament the end of the Soundsational Parade at Disneyland, which always concluded with a Mary-Poppins-inspired float covered in chimney sweeps and merry-go-round horses, one of which was ridden by Bert.

One of the changes that Ms. Travers was most disdainful of was the idea that the Banks family -- especially Mr. Banks -- had flaws that needed to be addressed and fixed by Mary Poppins. The flaw in the parents’ case is that they’re so focused on their own work and goals that they neglect their children’s emotional needs -- a plot point that would eventually get beaten into the ground in films that came later, but is not done half bad here. After all, the film doesn’t try to frame Mr. Banks’s job or Mrs. Banks’s activism as unimportant or bad in any way -- it’s just that the parents are solely focusing on those things. Mrs. Banks’s activism in particular, which is something that doesn’t appear either in the books or in the Broadway production, is something I really like. Sister Suffragette, which actually helped bring Glynis Johns on board to play Mrs. Banks, is just such a ridiculously fun song to sing. Although I wouldn’t ever say it’s the best song in the film by a mile, it’s still insanely catchy and entertaining, and I sing along to it every single time. WOMANKIND, ARISE!

David Tomlinson, who plays Mr. Banks, is easily the weakest link singing-wise, but fortunately he gives an acting performance that more than compensates for his poor vocals. From the very beginning, he comes across as incredibly pompous, self-centered, detached, and sexist, and yet he’s never shown to be an inherently bad person. He can be very cheerful, and even the way he’s framed makes it clear that a lot of his bluster is a front for his actual feelings, such as the way he falters when he realizes that Katie Nana has left the family. In the wrong hands, this role could’ve been despicable and shallow, but Tomlison handles it carefully enough that one can always see the emotion and suppressed softness in his eyes even long before he has his change of heart.

After an excellently paced entrance that involves effortlessly blowing away the line of nannies outside 17 Cherry Tree Lane, we are finally fully introduced to the magical lady herself, Mary Poppins. It is unbelievable when you remember that this was Julie Andrews’s first film role ever -- she’d previously only been a stage actress, but after finding success in both My Fair Lady and Camelot on stage and being denied the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady (which was later given to Audrey Hepburn), Julie accepted the role of Mary Poppins. Interestingly Julie was the only actor in the movie that P.L. Travers actually expressed some approval for, and honestly, I don’t blame her -- Julie is just flawlessly cast here. The role combines all of her performing strengths -- a great singing voice, expert dancing, inherent charm, sophistication, intelligence, pride, grace, and a touch of sass -- together in a cohesive, memorable character. Mary’s first song, A Spoonful of Sugar, really showcases Julie in her prime, spotlighting her flawless falsetto and precise pitch (as well as her impeccable whistling), and beautifully accompanies some of the at-the-time-revolutionary special effects. Although yes, it’s easy in the modern day to see how the effects were done, they’re never out-of-place or distracting, which is a testament to how much better practical effects can sometimes age in comparison to computer-generated effects. The things that tend to stick out most to my eyes are the green-screened stuff, simply because of how much that particular technique has been used in film and television since Mary Poppins’s release, but the nice thing is that it’s only one of many effects used, which helps in distracting the eye away from getting too used to one effect. Sometimes the effect will be stop-motion; sometimes the effect will be reversing the film; sometimes it’ll be green screen; sometimes it’ll be combining separate shots together. It makes it so that you would have to watch every scene several times and very carefully in order to pick out specific techniques, rather than just being able to go, “That’s fake, that’s fake, aaaaand...that’s fake,” the way you can while watching movies using only CGI.

Speaking of special effects, we have to talk about the sequence that made P.L. Travers the most upset -- the Jolly Holiday segment, set in an animated, living chalk drawing. Not only is the song just excellent, but the colors and energy of the piece are...well, practically perfect! It only serves to plus a song that was already pretty great and turns it into something amazing. Something else I like about Mary and Bert that I actually have to thank P. L. Travers herself for is that they are not romantically involved. Ms. Travers specifically indicated that that should be the case, and for a film made in the 60′s when male and female characters were almost always neatly paired off, it’s really neat that the two characters, despite some faintly teasing, flirty affects, never act like a couple. And really, having had both male and female friends since I was a kid, I really enjoyed seeing an attractive leading woman and man as friends. On the note of Mary, Bert, and songs I love singing along to, I would be very, very amiss if I didn’t also bring up Supercalifragalisticexpeliadocious. It’s really a very short number, but packed into it is so much energy that it feels like it never takes a breath. It’s like a sugar buzz, written into song form -- exuberant and big and loud and energetic...at least until the inevitable decrescendo as the rain wears away Bert’s chalk drawing and Mary, Bert, and the Banks children sadly return to the real world.

Our next adventure with Mary takes us to dear old Uncle Albert’s, where the aforementioned uncle, played by Mad-Hatter-voice-actor Ed Wynn, is rolling in the air laughing. This scene in particular showcases the various practical effects used in the film, whether hanging the actors on wires, putting them on one side of a seesaw, or even flipping the entire set on its side or upside down. Admittedly it’s very obvious that Katie Dotrice and Matthew Garber, who play Jane and Michael Banks, are having a harder time laughing convincingly than Dick van Dyke and Ed Wynn, which honestly is unsurprising given how many times they had to film this particular scene so as to get different shots. One story from the set of this film centers around Matthew Garber, after getting tired of recording the scene, receiving a nickle every time he had to go back onto the wires and in the end earning an “absolute fortune.” For child actors, Katie and Matthew aren’t awful, but it’s fortunate that they’re almost never the sole focus of a scene, as the more talented adult actors understandably overshadow them. And before you try to tell me it’s unfair to hold child actors to the same standards as adult actors, I grant that that’s true, but child actors can still give good performances that make them stand out as individuals...take Georgie Henley in The Chronicles of Narnia or Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, for example. And as much as I’ll give Katie Dotrice and Matthew Garber credit for their performances, neither of them quite stands out that way. It’s admittedly a little harder for me to be that critical of Matthew’s performance, though, given that ten years after he retired from acting, he sadly passed away of pancreatitis at the age of 21. It’s very fortunate that thanks to his performance in Mary Poppins, Matthew will be remembered fondly for generations to come.

Walt Disney’s favorite song is frequently cited as Feed the Birds, and honestly, it’s little wonder why. As I touched on earlier, the song sort of sums up what the film Mary Poppins is trying to say -- that the smallest, seemingly insignificant gestures can mean so much. And isn’t that so integral to Disney, or even movies and entertainment in general? We all know of a character in a movie or TV show -- a line in a book -- a song someone wrote -- a simple smile from a stranger -- that somehow brightened up our whole world, that inspired us in ways we could never have imagined. And all of that comes back to sincere, gentle feelings, and how we can share those feelings with others. Mary Poppins, in short, is about compassion...and isn’t it little wonder why such a message resonated with so many people?

After an absolutely disastrous visit to the bank, the Banks children run out into the streets of London alone, where they’re fortunately found and walked home by Bert. Accompanying the jaunt back to Cherry Tree Lane is the Academy-Award-winning song Chim Chim Cheree, which is definitely catchy and, if I may say so, very fun to whistle. I admittedly am a little sour with Mrs. Banks that she doesn’t get a bit of a reality check when she ends up choosing to leave Michael and Jane alone with someone who’s effectively a stranger to her to go help her suffragette friends. It’s just fortunate that the “stranger” ends up being Bert and that Mary Poppins ends up coming back despite it being her day off, as otherwise Mrs. Banks’s negligent parenting could’ve had serious consequences. But the leap in logic does end up leading us into one of the best parts of the movie -- Step in Time!

Step in time, step in time, come on, matey, step in time! Hahaha, yes, this sequence easily has some of the best dancing ever recorded on film, right up there with the choreography in West Side Story and Singin’ in the Rain. It’s especially remarkable when you know that prior to Mary Poppins, Dick van Dyke had had no formal dance training, and yet he keeps up seemingly with ease with dozens of professional dancers. It blows me away every time. And despite the unending repetition of the song, it miraculously never becomes annoying due to the variety of the dance breaks and the high level of energy with which it’s performed. And really, despite the insane length of the song (it running over eight minutes all together), it amazingly never feels like padding. Perhaps it’s because the talent on screen is just so on display and integrated so perfectly with the building orchestrations and well-chosen special effects that it only serves to plus the musical action more and more and more until it finally culminates in the chimney sweeps escaping down the Banks family’s chimney and dancing off into the street.

As fun as everything has been with Mary Poppins and the chimney sweeps, however, Mr. Banks is now in danger of losing his job at the bank, and Tomlinson’s talent is made very evident once again in how, even after seeing all of his character’s mistakes and faults, we still feel very sorry for both him and for his family. Mr. Banks at first feels the impulse to blame Mary Poppins for his change in circumstances, but thanks to some pointed guidance from Bert and some compassion from his children, he comes to see the cracks in the foundation of his world view. And this goes back to the entire family needing help -- Mr. Banks is a very, very flawed man, but at the same time, as Bert brought up to Jane and Michael, he feels he has to handle absolutely everything on his own, and it’s largely thanks to the support of his children that he’s able to face the threat of losing his job with his head held high. Something I love a lot about the part where Mr. Banks makes his way to the bank alone is the Feed the Birds instrumental that accompanies his walk and that comes to a head when Mr. Banks reaches St. Paul’s, only to see the bird woman no longer there. Whether you choose to read it as the bird woman simply having left or having died or whatever else, it’s clear that every opportunity for charity and kindness we are offered is fleeting. Compassion is and will never be a passive thing.

Fortunately everything turns out for the best. Mr. Banks makes up with his children and he, Michael, Jane, and Mrs. Banks go fly a brand new kite in the park, alongside the film’s final song Let’s Go Fly a Kite. Mr. Banks even ends up getting his job back thanks to a joke that he told Dawes, Sr. the night we sacked. Even despite the cheer, however, it doesn’t feel completely saccharine and lacking of substance to me because Mary Poppins does still leave in the end. She doesn’t achieve the same kind of happy ending that she gave the Banks family -- instead she simply takes off into the air, presumably to give some other family help, with a faintly sad smile on her face. It’s remarkably mature of an ending for something that P.L. Travers thought was “all fantasy and no magic.”

Mary Poppins is not that much like the Mary Poppins books originally written by P. L. Travers. Perhaps at some points it sanitizes or misses out on what inspired Ms. Travers to write the books in the first place...but for all that is lost, I’m confident in saying that a lot was also found. There is a lot of heart in this movie, from a family growing and improving through the intervention of a wise, magical woman to finding deeper meaning in the seemingly insignificant things in our everyday lives. This movie is ridiculously fun to watch, but it’s not like the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where there was never supposed to be a point and it was just there to entertain children. There are lessons one can learn here, and they’re not heavy-handed or pretentious in their delivery. One can learn the value of a sunny disposition, resilience, and empathy in less than stellar circumstances and see how a family full of love is the wealthiest and luckiest of all. And the best part? Those are lessons that both children and adults could stand to learn and re-learn through watching this movie for many, many years to come. Mary Poppins is an immortal figure, and even if this film was made by human hands and so couldn’t possible recreate P. L. Travers’s vision of her, the film is just as eternally relevant itself.

#d-views #disney reviews #mary poppins #disney #p.l. travers #opinion #analysis #reviews #walt disney #julie andrews #dick van dyke #pamela travers

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ghostmartyr · 6 years ago

Note

What does the manga add to Roy and Riza's relationship that the anime doesn't have? Asking out of curiosity since I'm an anime only and they're still one of my favourite pairs of all time!

Oh, ha, I didn’t specifically point to the manga because I have anything in particular against Brotherhood (…or 2003 for that matter) it’s just not my canon, and I’m used to specifying which version of FMA I mean when I talk about the series. I do have a list of petty grievances against Brotherhood, but there is nothing fundamentally altered between Roy and Riza.

I mean. Yes. A number of my petty grievances are related to them. And feel slightly less petty as thought is spent on them.

But I would need to go back and watch the anime scenes again to point out the specifics of why.

[many hours later]

(As a note about this post, since I guess I did make the choice of tagging it, this is heavily critical about some specific moments in the Brotherhood anime, but before I get started I want to emphasize that my problems, with the exception of an example that spans a volume, don’t cover even two minutes of video. These things exist, and they bug me, and I clearly have things to say about them, but Brotherhood is 64 episodes long. My impassioned hatred of a few choice features isn’t indicative of my overall feelings on the anime.

Essentially, this is me having fun whining. Not trying to set off landmines. I hope it proves enjoyable.)

So there is this scene change in the first five minutes of episode 19 that has my eternal hatred and I have no plans to ever forgive. That has been true since it aired, and it is still true here today, because I am insufferably stubborn.

(I actually did a session about it before. I’m probably going to repeat most of it, but have a link if it interests you.)

That is not the dialogue the manga goes with.

In the manga, Riza’s interaction with Roy is focused on “what the fuck were you thinking why are you here.” Both versions have the scene with her berating Mustang for endangering the mission to save her.

In the anime, the above screencaps are what follow. After giving him a hard time for showing up at all, she thanks him for saving her life. Sweet, I guess, except Roy fires back with a mission-focused response.

If I were doing an anime-only meta thing, something could be said about the hypocrisy of Roy playing hero only to lecture other people about concentrating on the mission, and it would just be another cute thing. I guess. If I were in a charitable mood maybe.

But this is the first anime adaptation I sat through properly, angsting about every twist and turn and change.

My grudges. They last.

In the manga, Mustang brings up the slightly more personal aspects of what has happened. The reason he runs after Hawkeye is that he just lost Hughes, he won’t lose her, and he loses his head entirely. They have the yelling session over it, and he basically yells back the equivalent of, “yeah yeah fine -sulk sulk sulk-”

They leave Fuery and Hayate behind, and we have the presented moment.

Going to assist Riza is not the Proper choice for the military operation they’re running. It was a dangerous thing for Roy to have done, and she rightfully calls him on it. But he does it because he cares, and the fact that he cares is why all these people follow him. He’s a hopeless, idealistic dreamer at heart. His squad is loyal to him because he’s loyal to them.

Roy Mustang is a damn softy.

In the anime, Riza’s the one to call attention back to the whole life-saving motive. In the manga, it’s Roy.

In the anime, when it comes up, Roy dismisses it.

In the manga, when it comes up, Riza apologizes for worrying him.

It’s a small moment, but small moments are allowed to matter, and when small moments are changed, it leaves a bigger impact than if they were just left alone.

In the anime, this exchange, plus Hawkeye’s smile after, suggests that the sentimentality of the relationship comes primarily from her. Riza’s the one having her heart warmed when they have a job to do.

…That’s a slightly meaner way to put it than the scene perhaps deserves, but there is no unfair bitterness like unfair bitterness towards Brotherhood for me. Whining about this adaptation is a thing I do, despite honestly loving the majority.

Anyway, in the manga, the scene is both of them putting legwork into their dynamic. Hawkeye yells at Mustang for showing up out of sentiment, but when he expresses that sentiment in the aftermath, she expresses understanding of his perspective. He did a stupid thing, but they’re a team, and both at ease with their interplay.

In the anime, stop talking Hawkeye, don’t you know we have a job.

The manga is a conversation, the anime is putting a wall up to prevent that conversation. Especially annoying is that the character putting the wall up is the one who initiates the conversation in the manga. The anime drags Mustang back from his emotional openness and pushes Hawkeye to be more so, then provides a dismissal of her acting that way.

Besides being an inverse plus a step back for their relationship, it. also just feels kind of sexist. Instead of the man talking about feelings, the woman is. When the man talks about his feelings, it’s greeted with understanding and respect, when the woman talks about her feelings, it’s greeted with the instruction to put it somewhere else.

The fact that they changed it bothers me, because the way it is in the manga is great. It’s one of many small moments Roy and Riza have where they are shown to respect and care for each other.

The anime version doesn’t add anything, and lessens the mutuality of that bond.

I snarl in its general direction.

The other change that springs to mind is of a similar cloth.

Mustang and Hawkeye encounter the Elrics before they’re aware of Hughes’ death, and Mustang makes up a story about Hughes retiring in the country with his family so that they won’t go looking for him.

Hawkeye greets this with the face of judgment. “Why are you treating him like a child all of a sudden?” He’s never shied from giving Ed adult responsibilities before. This is a blatant lie. Roy says they don’t need any further obstacles to their journey.

A few moments pass. In silence, in the manga. In the anime, Riza points out that they’re going to find out someday. Then…

“…Who am I trying to kid?”

(Funimation, the heck is with some of your translation choices. Did you just keep the simulcast version for the official DVD subs?)

So there are a few things. The most obvious difference is the dialogue changes. Hawkeye is more insistent about how the Elrics will find out at some point, then after Mustang makes his character commentary, she calls it cruel instead of sighing and moving on to the next topic.

The other most obvious change is that Mustang smiles after calling himself soft in the anime.

These all sort of play together.

In the manga, Hawkeye is just as judgmental as she is in the anime, but she allows Mustang the space to dwell on his choices for himself. She asks him one question about how he’s treating Edward, then they walk in silence, her disapproval creating a tangible aura.

It isn’t simply Hawkeye judging him. He’s judging himself. In the anime it comes off as a, “tee-hee, what a silly softhearted boi I am.” So in the anime, she vocally objects to what he’s doing.

In the manga, Mustang takes in his inability to break the news to the Elrics as the emotional flaw that it is, and Hawkeye lets him off the hook. He doesn’t need a lecture; he knows his shortcomings. It’s not great, but he’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to tell Ed and Al that Hughes is dead because Hughes tried to help them.

Again, Mustang’s softness is part of what endears him to his crew. It is not always a good trait. Sometimes, as in this case, it’s actively causing problems. But it is who he is.

Riza knows this, and she can let this failure pass with a sigh because Roy knows it too. The anime version has a smile when it’s nothing to smile over. The manga version is more, “hahaha… fuck.”

Roy and Riza know each other and themselves extraordinarily well. They might have the boundaries of superior and subordinate, but they are comfortable enough in their understanding of each other that they are allowed to be themselves. It’s the conversation thing. There is an undercurrent of figurative dialogue to their relationship that never stops.

When they do call each other out in the manga, it does not keep the conversation from flowing. It continues it. Both of the above changes take it to a stuttering halt in their scenes.

Then we have episode 30.

After which, I do not have memories specific enough to shout about things or know if there are things to shout about, but episode 30.

-screams forever and ever and ever-

-intersperses screams with tears of anguish-

From what I know of being an FMA fan, it is difficult to be an FMA fan without being passingly familiar with the debates of which version is better. Usually it’s Brotherhood vs. 2003. My personal, obviously right opinion, is that this is the wrong way to do it, and it should be manga vs. 2003, because really it’s an argument over which plot is better, and Brotherhood’s plot is the property of the manga.

I also think it’s impossible to really debate. The two series have different feels and themes. They are both extremely well done, meaning that which one you prefer comes down to personal preference.

I’m pretty sure people who bother to have those discussions could say a lot more on the topic, but that’s my general, broad stroke, very glossed-over perspective on it all.

I mention this because I think anyone who loves FMA should read volume fifteen of the manga. If you’re not a manga person, you don’t want to read 27 volumes of manga, yeah, understandable. You have your version of the story, enjoy it, you shouldn’t feel the need to read the original if you don’t want to. The idea that you have to pour every bit of content into your brain to be a good fan is pretty unhealthy.

But I recommend volume 15 regardless, because the anime does not come close to presenting its content. It is four chapters devoted to the Ishvalan War. Outside the framing device (Ed going to return Hawkeye’s gun and asking about what went down), the entire volume basically stands on its own.

It is a harrowing, intimate depiction of the genocide campaign. That is the focus of the entire volume.

Scar’s backstory is moved to an earlier section in the anime, and Mustang burning Hawkeye’s back is moved to the Envy fight, so this might be an unfair barb to throw, but I still want to say it. The anime covers this volume in one episode.

-goes back to screaming-

(Honestly though, some of the best fun I ever had in fandom came from being on a forum full of manga fans and all of us yelling our despair over Brotherhood’s choices. You would never believe that this anime was considered the gold standard of anything.)

But we’re here for Roy and Riza!

There’s only one thing that sincerely bothers me to pain of the irritation of the above. Most of my sulking is just why did they do this to my favorite volume. Mustang and Hawkeye’s stuff is mostly intact. Except when it isn’t.

Chronologically, the first complaint is that when Riza’s father collapses (dies), Mustang is alone with him. In the manga, the scene ends with a shot of Riza, watching, terrified, from the doorway.

Also known as the scene where Roy calls Riza by her first name.

-still screaming-

The cemetery scene is truncated. The anime jumps right into Roy and Riza discussing Roy becoming a soldier. The manga starts the scene out with the focus on funeral things. Roy asks if Riza has other family, and what she plans to do now.

After that, he offers her his number, and they get to talking about the military and Roy’s dream.

They also cut this.

In the anime, Roy discusses his military life through the lens of Master Hawkeye’s opinion on it, asking if Riza is going to disapprove as well. Roy starts talking because he assumes that’s how she feels about it, and preemptively defends his perspective.

In the original, when Roy hands Riza his information, she asks, “For the rest of your life…?” It’s followed by the above panel.

Roy’s monologue about his aspirations and his dream for what he can do as a member of the military happens because Riza asks. Not directly, but her addition to the conversation prompts him to talk about his views, and he mentions that those views are why he studied alchemy. In other words, why he’s standing in front of a grave, awkwardly trying to talk to his dead master’s daughter.

Following that, the original pays more attention to the lead-up of Riza entrusting Roy with her father’s research. In the anime, she jumps straight from the ideals topic to asking if she can trust him with it.

In the manga, there’s that beat of contemplation after Roy brings up alchemy, and how his master didn’t teach him everything.

Riza tells him that his dream sounds wonderful.

Another beat.

That’s when she tells him that her father did leave his alchemical secrets behind. Words about this are exchanged for a small number of panels.

In the anime, she asks Roy if she can entrust her father’s work (dream, values) to him. Directly after the dream dialogue.

In the manga, when Roy tries to bring their discussion back to Riza’s father, and what he did with his research, Riza redirects him. It isn’t about her father. It’s about her, and by consequence, Roy, and how Roy’s dream inspires her.

“That dream… Can I entrust you with my back so that I can help make it come true?”

The anime severely underplays the significance of Riza offering her father’s research to Roy. They address it a little once Envy is being dealt with, but in the manga, all of the discussion of Riza watching Roy’s back is drawn from how Riza’s back is what’s given Roy the power to rise as far as he has.

It goes from maintextual subtext to subtextual subtext.

Also, the cuts to their conversation just plain means that there’s less of Roy and Riza interacting. The two of them are very, very young, standing in front of a grave and talking about ideals. The longer manga version allows the quality of their youthful awkwardness to truly shine.

The scene is dropped in the middle of the volume, whereas in the anime, it opens the Ishvalan flashback. There’s much to be examined about how that affects the emotional impact, but… geez that gets to be a lot of threads. Trying to go through all of the ways they crammed a whole volume into one episode is just going to make me dizzy.

Even if the theoretical focus of this post weren’t shipping, I’m not sure my brain would be up for that. There’s just so much going on, and the time allotted means it’s a Frankenstein job.

The one major difference for Roy and Riza, which I can’t believe they went with, and can’t believe my sad feelings every time I watch the episode and confirm yeah, they really went that way with it.

Why why why why why why why why must you hurt me this way.

SO!

THE ANIME VERSION!

OF ROY AND RIZA MEETING IN ISHVAL!

Riza walks up and says hi after noticing them because Hughes is babbling about his future wife.

Yay.

The manga version does not. does not do that.

It.

That’s not how it goes.

At all.

In the manga, Roy and Hughes run into each other on their break and start chilling together. Hughes gets a letter, does his excited babbling, Roy tells him to stop being a stereotypical red shirt, when suddenly

Oh noes.

Roy and Hughes react as fast as they can, which might or might not end up fast enough, when a bullet goes through the Ishvalan’s brain.

There’s quiet for a moment, then Roy gets behind cover because oh no gunshot, and Hughes tells him to chill, it’s all good.

“We have the ‘hawk’s eye’ on our side. […] A real ace sharpshooter… who’s causing quite a stir in my circle of friends. She’s still in the academy but because she’s so skilled… they brought her to the front.”

Guess who.

Hughes and Roy, being the good people they are, go back to camp to thank the sniper for saving them. Hughes is his cheery self. Roy is not noticeably perturbed.

Then the sniper drops her hood and stands up.

You could say I prefer the manga version. It has Riza being a badass, and adds to the shock they both have of seeing each other here.

Riza gets her own little horrified section of panels all about it.

She was just helping out two soldiers. She didn’t realize until after she fired that one of them was Roy, and that he’s in this hell too.

The other thing that I enjoy about this particular sequence of panels is that in the manga, they come up a bit earlier. Throughout the manga, Ishval flashback panels are everywhere. As this scene is initially presented (Hawkeye looking at Mustang through her scope), many chapters earlier, it looks like maybe they’re on opposite sides.

Or maybe it’s just me who thinks that’s a thing.

In any case, it adds some serious drama to their reunion. In the anime, the drama is entirely that they are both here in this awful war. In the manga, a Mysterious Sniper saves Roy’s life and turns out to be his master’s daughter.

It’s just cooler, okay?

Their conversation when Riza becomes Roy’s aide is also truncated. Riza says her specialty is guns, because death doesn’t linger when you use them. Roy tells her, with what I feel is sympathy, that’s just a deception to make the work easier. She agrees, but because she’s decided that work is necessary, there we go.

…

I thought that would be my last thing, but now that I have volume fifteen open, I can’t help but go to the scene during the Envy stuff. I won’t touch the main scenes of that, though I’m sure there are changes, because this is already too long and I’ve officially gone through the things that personally affect my view of the anime, which… was, at some point, maybe, the point of the ask. ^^;

Basically, I will never stop if I go through everything, but in case it isn’t obvious, I really love the fifteenth volume, so to Envy we go.

Huh. They really didn’t alter much. The core’s all there. Because of the placement, Mustang gets docked a few lines, and he is rewarded one of Riza’s (about making the tattoo as illegible as possible) in return, but it’s basically the same, with the addition of Riza thanking him.

I have no particular feelings on that. The ending of the scene is different because it’s not intended to go with the rest of the Ishvalan War, and… I guess I could manufacture some dislike over Riza expressing gratitude instead of the pure stubbornness the manga has. It distracts a little from why she’s asking those secrets to be burned off. They’re in a hell of their own creation. The soft thanks blurs the cutting edge.

Which isn’t to say I can’t have other problems with it.

As a manga reader who enjoyed Brotherhood as it was coming out, as well as someone who is writing this mostly from memory and going over only specific scenes, I have no way to ascertain how clear it is to anime fans what happens with Riza’s back and when. In the manga, it is excruciatingly clear that her father puts his research on her back, that is how Roy comes to have Flame Alchemy, and that is what Riza asks him to burn off.

Since that’s all in volume fifteen, the next twelve volumes are read with the understanding that before Riza is instructed to watch Roy’s back in case he falls, she offers him her back, and brings the ruin of Flame Alchemy to Ishval.

That history defines them. Their own choices plant them in that war, but Roy uses the alchemy she gives him out of hope for a better world to commit genocide. It’s a horrific weight on both of them, and his decision to have Riza, of all people, watch his back after the war?

Dude, it is such an amazing ship detail. Riza entrusts her back to Roy. He, in turn, entrusts his to her.

I get why it’s moved. Sort of. Given that volume fifteen is given one episode, I get why it’s moved. It’s most heavily relevant to Roy’s rampage against Envy.

However, I don’t think the power of knowing the depths of their connection earlier on can be understated. Roy and Riza’s devotion and synergy comes from watching their shared idealism burn the people they wanted to protect to a crisp, and their commitment to never letting that happen again. They create a hell through their good intentions. Having done that, they do not abandon their good intentions. They refine them and continue forward.

That is what binds them together. They rise from the ashes of their flames.

I do not, for the most part, think Brotherhood does them a major disservice. My gripes are pretty much all listed above, and my praises are endless.

But if you really love Roy and Riza, I’d seriously recommend reading the manga at some point, because there’s stuff the anime doesn’t bother with. AKA, yes, there is even more royai to be uncovered, don’t you want to seeeeee? :D :D

This kind of obviously grew past what you were initially asking, but I hope it serves a satisfactory answer regardless! Thanks for the opportunity to spam my love for these two!

…Through spamming my hate of stuff, but we’re ignoring that.

#Fullmetal Alchemist #FMA #royai #tl;dr #asks

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ellanainthetardis · 6 years ago

Photo

The temperature increases today! Let me know your thoughts!

[ff] or [ao3]

Chapter 5 : Escapism

Two weeks later Haymitch had proved his point that a circus ran far more easily when there was a foreman and a crew to handle the manual labor, but it still hadn’t been enough to win the troupe to his side. The show was slowly getting better but the others were changing things at a snail pace. The only one truly willing was Trinket – in the spirit of encouraging the others to do the same, he figured – but aside for insisting she used a safety net until Chaff had had an opportunity to replace the busted ropes, there wasn’t a lot he could say about her and Finnick’s act. It was good, it didn’t need changing.

He was starting to settle in though and the others were starting to include him, which was good.

Now if only the weather would cooperate… It wasn’t that fun living on the road when winter was this harsh.

The knocking on his door distracted him from those considerations and he stopped glaring at the portable heater in the corner of the trailer to call out for his visitor to come in.

Trinket stepped inside with obvious relief, shivering despite the fur coat that she shed almost as soon as she had closed the door behind her. She was wearing a blue dress that day with a matching scarf holding her puffy curls away from her face. She always looked classy even when it wasn’t show time, no matter that the rest of them preferred to run around in comfortable clothes.

“Rue said you needed me?” she asked.

Her eyes roamed around by reflex even though she had been in his trailer once or twice by that point so she knew what she would find: a mess that had her wrinkling her nose in distaste. Clothes were tossed around, the props that hadn’t been crammed in one of the storage trucks were stuck in a pile and the bed was unmade. Her gaze lingered on the couple of liquor bottles but she didn’t comment. It was for the best because… He had been trying to ease off the stuff a little and he was grumpy about it.

“Yeah.” he confirmed, glad that the kid was fast at running errands. He was still contemplating the assortment of chains and handcuffs spread on the bed. “I need you to tie me up.”

He couldn’t keep on pulling rabbits out of his hat. He needed to go back to daring acts or he would get bored before long and being bored meant more drinking. He had always been good at escapology and had the vague idea of making a whole spectacular act out of it. Assuming he could convince Trinket to spare the money for a human sized fish tank and that she would be willing to trap him into one…

“Do I get to gag you too?” she joked, getting to work without protest.

He was so shocked by that comment that he barely realized she had put the handcuffs on before his arms were secured at the small of his back.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the flirting. Flirting was all they were doing when they weren’t fighting – and sometimes even the arguments themselves felt like an odd sort of seduction act. But that was taking it a little further than simply commenting on the shape of each other’s body or hinting at stuff… This was… Really not what he had thought she would say.

A girl like her… A girl who came from where he suspected she came from – money, privilege – you didn’t expect that girl to know about that kind of things. You barely expected her to know about sex at all because it wasn’t proper and shit. Sex, to people from her background, was still something linked with marriage and…

Maybe she hadn’t said it like that. Maybe it was his mind, a little too feverish when she was concerned, that was taking leaps. Still…

He let out a low whistle. “And there I thought you were a proper lady…”

He was careful to sound teasing, a little vague just in case she really didn’t know what she was implying. She still might have taken it as an insult but she laughed it off instead.

“Your mistake, then.” she hummed, wrapping the chain around him without much efficiency. She secured the padlock and considered her work with amusement. “I find tied up men are much more likely to comply with my demands.”

He turned around to face her with lifted eyebrows. “Don’t need to tie me up, sweetheart… I’d be more than happy to let you play around…”

Her lips twitched. Her blue eyes were sparkling with amusement but watching him carefully, considering maybe.

“Somehow, I have the feeling you are more fond of giving orders rather than taking them.” she replied.

He took a few steps toward her, backing her against the wall of the trailer. She went willingly enough though. She was still looking amused when he pinned her between him and the hard surface.

“Is that a bad thing?” he challenged.

“Not necessarily.” she replied in the same tone. “Although you are the one currently tied up so…”

“Am I?” he smirked.

Did she see it coming? A flick of his elbow was all it took for the chains to fall. He didn’t give her time to react. He had the handcuffs around her wrists in a flash and her arms stretched over her head in shorter time than that. She gasped in surprise but not in fear and he leaned a little closer, his smirk deepening when he felt her heart racing up against his chest. He placed his free hand on her waist, running his thumb up and down the thick fabric of her dress… Could she feel it? He wasn’t sure.

“You play with fire, you’re gonna get burned, Princess.” he said.

“Is that so?” she hummed, arching her back a little, pushing her breasts toward him. His fingers were clenching around the chain holding her wrists together.

“Don’t be reckless…” he warned because somehow… It wasn’t how he had expected this to happen. He wanted it. There was no doubt. And she wanted it too, that too he knew for certain. There were signs and the tension between them for the last two weeks had been thick enough to slice with a knife. But she was…

Classy.

And her propositioning him in his trailer wasn’t how he had seen that going. He had thought she would make him work for it, make him chase her a little longer before surrendering… He hadn’t thought she was the kind of girl who gave in that easily. Not that he wasn’t happy for it or that he judged her but… He hadn’t expected that.

She kept on surprising him, that girl.

“I dance on a tightrope for a living.” she reminded him. “Don’t you think I am a little reckless?”

“Point taken.” he snorted, letting his hand wander up her waist to her breast, hesitantly stroking the swell of it over her dress. Her breath caught and she licked her lips. He pressed his hips hard against hers, leaving no room for doubt as to what he wanted. She pressed back.

He almost fell into her.

He brushed his mouth against hers, grasping her breast a little more firmly… It was on the small side but it fitted so well in his palm… She gasped again and he smirked because he could tell she would be vocal and… That turned him on.

“Guess we need to get it out of our system anyway, yeah?” he mumbled distractedly, searching her mouth.

She drew back a little. “Out of our system?”

“Once should do the trick…” he shrugged, dropping a kiss on her jaw. “Then maybe we’re gonna be able to talk without jumping at each other’s throat…”

“Once?” she repeated and her tone was icy enough that he frowned and stopped retracing the line of her jaw with his lips to look at her. She was frowning and that wasn’t good. “You do not want this… You do not want me…”

“Sweetheart, I very much want you…” he scoffed, jutting his hips forward to prove his point.

She didn’t gasp or press back this time though and he took his hand off her breast to place it back on her waist, not really enjoying how unresponsive she had become.

“But only once.” she huffed.

“Ah.” He winced, finally getting what the problem was. He stepped back, giving her back her space. “I ain’t interested in a relationship. Sex is… Sex is alright but…”

“Of course, sex is alright.” she deadpanned with enough sarcasm to chill the whole room, letting her bound hands fall in front of her. “My apologies, I clearly misread the situation and you clearly mistook me for what I am not.”

“Hey, you’re the one who waltzed in all knowledgeable about gagging and shit…” he retorted and then winced again. “Look, I’m sorry… For what it’s worth, I never thought you were…”

“A slut?” she finished when he let his sentence trail off. “No, you simply thought I was the kind of woman who slept around for fun apparently. And why? Because I am an unmarried woman running a circus by myself? I thought you were different.” She pursed her lips. “I think it is far better for the good of the troupe if we forget this even happened. Let’s remain friends.”

Haymitch had a bad taste in his mouth. He felt guilty and for no good reason of his own. He hadn’t promised her anything. He hadn’t courted her or some shit… He hadn’t even really initiated this. She…

“Let me get those off you…” he awkwardly mumbled, nodding to the handcuffs still encircling her wrists.

“No need.” she snapped and, in clicking sounds that seemed almost deafening, the handcuffs slipped off her wrists and onto the floor. He must have gaped a little because when he looked back up at her, she looked both smug and irritated all at once. “You are not the only one who is gifted at escaping, Haymitch.” The fact that she could have gotten out of the shackles at any moment somehow made him feel even worse. “I trust you not to blab about this around the others.”

“Course not.” he scowled. “Ain’t that kind of asshole…”

She snatched her coat and slipped it on with jerky angry moves. He watched her toss her hair over the collar with an impatient flick of her arm. He tried to catch her eyes but she wouldn’t look at him. He thought they were shiny and, more than anything, that made him want to reach out, to salvage this.

He didn’t dare try to touch her again.

“Effie…” he whispered and she froze for a second. It was the first time he had used her name, he realized.

“Let’s stay friends.” she insisted. And then she was gone.

The door swung shut quietly behind her and he would have preferred for her to have slammed it.

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #thg circus au #The Greatest Show

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mackinmacki · 7 years ago

Text

Rock Me Ama-Dia-Us

Rating: K+

Word Count: 6235

Pairings: DiaMari, KanaRuby (mentioned)

Summary: Dia finds herself annoyingly fascinated by the punkish Mari. There might be something mutual going on there, though. Kanan is no help whatsoever.

Notes: Happy birthday, @diayase! I hope you like this, and that it also posts on time :))

Links: (FFN) | (AO3)

It was hard not to notice Ohara Mari on campus. She stood out like a sore thumb with her bright blonde hair and the pentagram hanging around her neck. No one else looked so apologetically edgy, which was Dia's best guess as to why she was so curious about her. It certainly couldn't have been because she was attracted to her, because there was no way in Hell that was the case. She wasn't interested in the weird loop in her hair, or the studs in her nose. The band name - or at least what she assumed was a band name - on her t-shirt was absolutely illegible. She just kept seeing her on campus, that's all. Why would she be interested in someone like that?

"Maybe you're attracted to bad girls?" Like usual, Kanan was no help at all. Dia frowned and crossed her arms, giving Kanan the stare. It was the classic Kurosawa look that let someone know that they had messed up. Kanan had seen it enough times that it didn't even phase her anymore. Sure, she'd been scared of Dia when they were kids - something she was loathe to admit - but they were at university now. She was over Dia's stubbornness. "Don't look at me like that. You have to admit that it's at least a possibility."

"I will admit nothing." It was a thought Dia refused to entertain. She was a good girl. A prim and proper heir to the Kurosawa estate. She wouldn't dare sully her family name by even considering that she wanted to get closer to the strange girl with a skull tattoo on her arm. That was a cliche rebel girl thing to do anyway. If she was going to act like that, she could at least be more original. "You know me, Kanan. I'm not that type of person."

"Well, I know you had a crush on the Hex Girls when we were kids. So maybe that should've tipped you off." Dia felt her face heat up as she glared at Kanan with all her might. Kanan was still unmoved. "Oh yeah, and you were really into that one blonde idol from Tokyo, right? Maybe you're into blondes too. They do say blondes have more fun."

"That is not the kind of fun I'm interested in having!" Why couldn't Kanan understand that she was a hundred percent wrong? Just because she stared at someone didn't mean she liked them. Her stares were of a disgusted nature. She could never see herself being with someone like that. That Mari... She probably spent her free time drinking copious amounts of alcohol and smoking marijuana. Didn't she realize how quickly someone could die from just one marijuana needle? "Why are you even talking about her so much, Kanan?"

"Me? You're the one who was staring at her like she was a piece of idol merchandise." Once again, Kanan had to defend herself from Dia's spurious accusations. This wouldn't be happening if she wasn't so damn obvious about who she was ogling. "Look, you don't have to get yourself in a twist over this. It's not a big deal. Maybe you just like big breasts."

"Wh-What?!" This was even more embarrassing to hear than her having been attracted to cartoon characters at one point, and never ever again she swears. Did Kanan have to be so casual about that?

"You know, breasts." Kanan pointed at her own ample chest. "Boobs, melons, bazongas-"

"I know what breasts are, Kanan!" She hid her rapidly reddening face in her hands. "And please don't call them any of those other things."

"What about honkers?"

"No! Stop talking about breasts!"

"Aww, but I just got here!" The unfamiliar voice made Dia shriek and fall from her seat, landing ungracefully on the ground below. Groaning, she sat back up and looked up into the grinning face of Mari. She now regretted going to this university. "Please, start from the beginning. I'm all ears."

"Well, I was saying that Dia-"

"KANAN, SHUT UP!" A few students glanced over at the shouting, further embarrassing Dia. If she had the chance to look in the mirror, she was sure that she was red to the tips of her ears and down her neck. This was not supposed to be happening. How had their conversation become so public that Mari of all people had sidled up to join in? She wanted to stand up tall and tell Mari to mind her own ruffian business, but for some reason she found herself getting lost in Mari's eyes. This was not happening. She was not falling for someone like Mari. "It's not polite to eavesdrop, you know."

"I know." Smiling, Mari sat down where Dia had been sitting just moments before. So not only did she have no compunction about eavesdropping, she was totally okay with taking others' seats as well. She truly was a ne'er-do-well. "It's just as impolite as staring at someone, right?" Dia couldn't argue with that, but she wasn't going to admit that Mari was directly referencing her. So she folded her arms and looked away. "Are you going to stay down there, cutie, or are you going to come sit on my lap?"

"I beg your pardon?!" Dia shot up like a rocket, giving Mari the famous - or was it infamous? - Kurosawa glare. "I am not sitting on your lap!"

"What about mine?" Kanan chimed in.

"No! Nobody's lap is getting sat on!" She walked around both of them and sat next to Kanan, crossing one leg over the other and glaring at both of them.

"Then why even wake up in the morning?" Mari giggled, already enjoying teasing Dia. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Unless you change your mind." Dia kept glaring at her. "Okay, maybe not. I'm Mari, by the way!" She flashed them both a big smile, her teeth shining white. Kanan smiled back, while Dia just scowled.

"We know. Your reputation proceeds you. I'm Kanan, and the ray of sunshine here is Dia." Her smile turned into a playful smirk as she placed a hand on Dia's shoulder. "She's not always like this. You just caught her at a bad time."

"Was that bad time talking about breasts?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" This was completely unacceptable. How did this even happen? If only she hadn't accidentally glanced at Mari for just a moment, or if Kanan hadn't noticed. Then she wouldn't be the butt of their jokes right now. It was embarrassing, and she didn't like it one bit. "And you're wrong on all counts. I am in a fine mood, thank you very much."

"Aww, you're just being grumpy." Kanan giggled at Dia's absolutely offended expression, playfully rubbing her shoulder. "She just needs a hug and she'll be good as new."

"Oh?" Mari stood up from her seat and approached Dia, who tried to scoot back with suddenly-wide eyes.

"No, that's not true at all. I do not need a hug. I'm not grumpy, dammit!" She couldn't really back up without falling off her seat again, leaving her no escape as Mari descended upon her. Mari nearly tackled her off of her seat anyway, wrapping her up in a tight grip with a smile that was strangely cat-like in nature. "Mari!"

"Ooh, you're warm!" Mari smiled and kept hugging Dia, who was seemingly powerless to resist. She didn't like the implication that came with her having not shoved Mari off of her and flat on her back. Mari was pretty warm too, and her hug made Dia feel strange. She could smell a hint of lemon in her hair, which looked surprisingly well taken care of from up close. Even being this close, though, she couldn't read what was on her shirt. "You sure like staring at my breasts, don't you?"

"I was not!" She was sure that her face would be permanently red with the way things were going. "I was just trying to look at the strange symbol on your shirt. It's completely illegible."

"Oh!" Excitement fluttered in her eyes as Mari jumped back and grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulling it forward to proudly it off. "It's Cattle Decapitation!" Both Dia and Kanan stared at her.

"Excuse me?" "Say what?"

"Cattle Decapitation!" Mari said it again, letting her shirt flutter down. "They're from America! I'll play you some of their music!" Before either of them could protest, Mari sat herself down on both of their laps, straddling their legs as she pulled out her phone. "Here we go!" She pushed her finger against her phone, bringing up an album track list. Dia looked down at the phone, noting that all the titles were in English. The one that Mari hit said 'Your Disposal', and then some of the foulest-sounding noise came out of her speakers, sending both Dia and Kanan reeling back.

It sounded like total distortion, combined with someone kicking a drum repeatedly. The vocals - or what Dia could only assume were vocals - may have been in English, but there was no way to tell. She wanted to cover her ears, but she also didn't want to seem rude. Looking over at Kanan, she could tell that she felt the same way. On the other hand, Mari was having a blast, smiling from ear to ear and tapping her feet on the ground with rapid-fire movements.

When the song finally ended, she turned towards the two of them with wide, bright eyes, smiling all the while. "That was great, right? Oh, you're speechless!" Well, that wasn't wrong. "You should both come check out my band! We're gonna practice this evening in the music hall!" Dia wasn't surprised a ruffian like Mari would be in a band that played such horrendous sounds. She certainly didn't want to spend an evening listening to that headache-inducing noise, even if for some reason she felt a strange curiosity to watch Mari outside of normal school confines. Before she could say she had other plans, Kanan ended up answering for her.

"Ahh, I can't. I've got a lot of work to do today. But I know Dia is free, and she'd love to come watch your band." Mari had started to pout when Kanan declined, but lit up again when Dia agreed to go against her will. For her part, Dia glared at Kanan, who just smiled serenely. Why was she like this? Kanan was so going to get a stern talking to that night.

"Great!" She spoke in English, surprising Dia with another hug before jumping back on her feet and bounding away. "Music hall, room six, 18:30! See ya later, Dia!" Dia was left with no idea what to feel. Mari was so weird and uncouth, with a casual manner of speaking and no respect for personal boundaries. She was also very warm, though. Even though she didn't need any hugs and would never want that ever. She was not going to admit that she felt good being in Mari's arms.

"So you're going to text me if you bring her home, right? She seems like she'd be pretty loud."

"Kanan, they will find your body in the river, and they will never connect it to me. I will claim that you didn't come home tonight, and that I haven't seen you since this moment. Not even Ruby will be able to save you from your untimely demise."

"Can I at least shower before my untimely demise?"

"No."

It wouldn't have been a big deal if she didn't show up to Mari's band practice. She could just say she ended up having work that couldn't be put aside, or that she was feeling under the weather. For whatever reason, she didn't use these excuses. Instead, she found herself walking towards room six in the music hall, something she was sure she didn't want to do. So why was she doing it?

There was something about Mari that repulsed her, freaked her out, and drew her in all at the same time. She'd never spent any time around someone like Mari. Her life had always been being around older people who were very formal. It had made her become that kind of person, which wasn't so bad. Social anxiety had hit her like a ton of bricks during grade school, and Kanan had ended up being the only friend she'd really made. Everyone else seemed more like a classmate or a subordinate. It made things easier. If they were closer to her, she knew that she'd mess it up.

The fact that she was going to check out this band practice at all made her nervous. There was no reason to go to something like that unless she was friends with them, but there was no way she was friends with Mari. They'd barely ever spoken in the history of their dual existence, and none of their conversations could be deemed pleasant. Maybe she was having some sort of reality breakdown, since there was no healthy reason why she was doing this.

Outside of the door to room six, she hesitated, not committing herself to opening the door. It felt weird to just barge in there, even if she had been invited. She didn't want to go. She didn't want anything to do with Mari. That wasn't the kind of person she hung out with. Yet there she was, standing outside the door to where Mari was, feeling like she was intruding. Why was that even a concern? Mari was the one who had intruded into her personal space! Why was even thinking about Mari making her nervous?

She was overthinking this. All she needed to do was go inside, because she was invited, and watch Mari's band practice. Then she could go home and never think about Mari again. That was as good a plan as any. Feeling more confident now, Dia grabbed the door handle and flung the door open, stepping in and then nearly being knocked off her feet by a wall of sound. Maybe she should've brought earplugs.

The walls must've been soundproofed. That would explain why she didn't hear anything until she opened the door. Now she was being 'greeted' by noise that was five times as loud as what had been coming through those phone speakers, but it also wasn't as punishing. It seemed to have more of a noticeable rhythm, or at least Dia thought there was. At least it wasn't as bad as before.

There were three other members of the band besides Mari. A scrawny-looking girl with dark blue hair was holding a microphone in her hand, a girl with red hair was sitting at a large grand piano, and a girl with brownish-gray hair was behind a drum kit. They were all playing or singing, but Dia's attention was immediately captured by Mari. She had a guitar strapped around her, and her fingers were flying across the fret board as she played. It was amazing how she could keep her focus on playing all those chords. There was quite a difference between that and Dia's own musical background: the yamatogoto.

Dia's entrance quickly brought a stop to the music, as all four of them turned to look at her. This made her feel self-conscious all over again, but she forced herself to stand tall. She had every right to be there, and it would be for only one time. Still, she didn't know what to say to break the sudden silence. Luckily - or unluckily: she wasn't sure - Mari broke it for her.

"Dia! You made it!" Putting down her guitar, Mari rushed over and wrapped Dia up in a tight hug. What was more embarrassing than being hugged was the suggestive looks the vocalist and drummer were giving her. She made herself wriggle out of Mari's grasp, crossing her arms and glaring at Mari. "Ooh, scary. You should be the bouncer for our next show!"

"I am not doing that." Dia sighed and let her shoulders slump, softening her gaze slightly. "Well, I'm here. Are you going to keep practicing?"

"No no, not yet! I have to introduce you to the band!" Grabbing Dia's hand, Mari yanked her over to the other musicians, who were still staring at her. She felt way too awkward under their curious stares. "So on vocals we have Yoshiko-"

"Yohane!"

"Right right, Yohane. The three of us sing..." She pointed at herself, Yoshiko/Yohane, and the redhead. "... but she's our main singer. She's got quite the voice!" Cackling, Yohane struck a pose, her voice taking on a deep, huskier tone.

"The voice of a fallen angel such as myself can convert even the most pious into my army of little demons. Shall you be the next to join?" She stuck her hand out towards Dia, who frowned and took a step back. This Yohane was definitely a weird one.

"Uh, no thank you..." Mari then led her over to the piano, where the redhead suddenly looked away shyly. What was this? Dia was supposed to be the one who felt uncomfortable. This girl was taking her mood.

"And this is Riko! Our resident piano player and dog hater."

"I-I don't hate dogs!" She spouted out suddenly, facing the two of them with a blush. "I just... don't feel comfortable around them." She glanced at Dia specifically, able to hold eye contact long enough to give her a shy smile. "It's nice to meet you, Dia." Well, at least Riko seemed less crazy than Mari and Yoshiko. Dia smiled back at her and nodded.

"Likewise." Finally she was led around the drum kit, where the girl sitting there saluted at her.

"And I'm You! I drum for them so they don't have to use a drum machine."

"Isn't she a darling?" Mari giggled, then turned Dia around to face her. "And now, for the main event. The guitarist, lyricist, and creator of Guilty Kiss: me! Mari!" She stuck out her arms in dramatic fashion, making quiet, fake cheering sounds with her mouth. Behind them, Yohane rolled her eyes.

"And she says I'm the dramatic one..."

"So, are you ready to hear us play?" Mari was bouncing up and down with excitement, but there was still one concern Dia had.

"You don't happen to have any earplugs, do you? Not that I... don't want to hear you play, but it's very loud."

"Sure!" It was You who answered, reaching into the backpack at her feet and offering a pair of earplugs. "I always keep a spare in case I lose mine." Well that was convenient. Dia took the earplugs with a 'thank you', then let Mari lead her to a chair. She sat down and put in the earplugs, watching as Mari went back to pick up her guitar and sling it over her shoulders.

Mari was pretty attractive. Dia hadn't really noticed it before, or had pretended not to, but she was. Even the tattoos and piercings gave her a sort of 'rebel cool' look, something that Dia hadn't really seen before as being good looking. It just worked on Mari, though. She made these things look flawless, like she wasn't even trying. She could just stand there and rock out in a t-shirt and a skirt, which she was, and Dia would still think these things. Which she really needed to stop doing...

"Alright, count us off, You!"

"Aye aye! Three, two one!" She clacked her drumsticks together, then had them come down against the snare drum. Mari came in next with the guitar, and soon Dia was watching the entire band come together in a melding of metal music. It was somewhat different than the music Mari had shown her earlier: it had a kind of industrial sound to it. It was actually kind of good. Not really her style of music, but she didn't recoil from it instantly, so that was an improvement.

When they finished the song, Dia wasn't sure what to do. Was clapping appropriate? It was just a practice, after all, but they were certainly putting their all into it. She settled for saying something instead. "That was very nice. You all are quite skilled with your instruments."

"Aww, that's the most formal compliment I've ever gotten!" Mari laughed and looked back at the others. "Alright you three, let's play Strawberry Trapper now!" Dia didn't know how long they were going to practice, or how long she was supposed to stay before it was okay to get up and leave. It would certainly have to be between songs, since it'd be rude to leave without saying goodbye. There was a part of her that didn't want to leave, though. For some reason, she was fascinated with the music being played. Well, maybe not the music generally, but Mari specifically. Though she tried to just lean back and let the music flow over her, she found her eyes never leaving Mari for longer than a few seconds. It was as if Mari had cast some kind of spell on her, which made her unable to break away.

She ended up staying for the entire practice, time passing without her really realizing it. It was interesting the things she learned while just watching those four in their musical environment. For some reason, Yohane would always stare at the wall when she sang, though Dia supposed that was because she was pretending it was the audience. Dia was an audience, though. Why not look at her? She also noticed that Riko would keep sneaking glances at Yohane, which was surprising. Riko seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. Why would she be looking like that at someone as weird as Yohane? Then again, what was she doing looking at Mari? Maybe none of them had their heads on straight.

"Good practice, everyone!" Mari grabbed her guitar case and put her guitar in it while the others started to pack it up. It seemed that the piano, drums, and microphone were all owned by the school, since nobody was trying to lug them out of the room. "We're gonna do great at the concert next week!" You and Yohane pumped their fists at that, followed by Riko with a more tentative fist. "That's the spirit, Riko!"

Dia stood up and walked over to them, addressing her words to the group as a whole, though maybe to Mari a bit more than the rest. "Well, that was very well played, you four. I hope you do well at your concert. It's gotten rather late, though, so I should be heading back to my dorm."

"Okay. Thank you for watching us practice!" Once again she gave Dia a big hug, though this time Dia didn't try to worm out of it. She was still very warm, and she gave the kind of hugs Dia suspected were good for when one was being drowned in stress. She even gave Mari a stiff hug in return, which seemed to surprise Mari by the way her body tensed. Then it loosened up again and she gave Dia a big smile. "You're gonna come to our concert, right?"

"Well, I..." Going seemed more appealing than it had when she'd first stepped into the music room, but barely. She probably had school work to do anyway. "I guess I could make time for it." Dammit, what was she saying?

"Yay!" Mari hugged her again, happiness evident all over her face. "It's next Saturday at 20:00 in the student center! Don't be late! I may even be able to get you backstage." She winked at Dia, who blushed and grumbled about needing to go. Waving to the others, she left the music room with a very conflicted mind. She really didn't know Mari, and she could be a hassle and a half. She had no idea what personal space was or how to dress properly. Why did she agree to go to the concert, then? Why did she have this desire to go somewhere and just be with her for awhile?

Wait, did that mean she wanted to go on a date with Mari?!

"If you say anything, I swear I will end your existence."

"Come on, Dia. Why do you always do this?" Kanan rolled her eyes as she laid out on the couch, taking up all the room because Dia was too busy burning a hole in their carpet with her pacing. "You have some preconceived notion about something, and you let it color your perception even after it's proven otherwise. Why can't you just ask her out on a date? It's obvious you want to."

"Kanan, you've been on thin ice ever since you started dating my sister. Do you really want to risk running across it?" She really, really hated it when Kanan was right. Ever since they were kids, it'd always seemed like Dia was right about everything, and Kanan just went along for the ride. Now that Kanan was the one speaking reason, Dia really didn't like this switcheroo.

"You know why I'm dating your sister? Because I decided to go for it even though I knew you'd probably bury me under the fishing docks." She straightened and stood up, grabbing Dia's shoulders to stop her from pacing. "You're keeping yourself from potential relationships, Dia." Dia sighed and bit her lower lip, looking down at the floor.

"I know... I can't just ask her on a date, though! What am I supposed to say? I barely even know her. There's no good reason for me to ask her out or even be around her."

"You don't need a reason to ask someone out on a date. Just say that you think she's an interesting person, and you want to try and get to know her better. If it works, then great! If it doesn't, then there's no harm in at least trying." Kanan wasn't supposed to be making this much sense. It wasn't fair.

"What if I can't keep up with her? She's so... out there. So much energy. I'm not like that."

"You've kept up with me all this time. Remember when I ran away from home because I was gonna live with the dolphins? You were the one who stopped me from doing that."

"You did do a lot of dumb stuff as a kid."

"I-I don't think that's true..." Kanan blushed and looked away, getting a giggle out of Dia. Well, at least there was a silver lining there. "The point is, if anyone can keep up with crazy ideas, it's you. If you want to go out with her, then you should ask. Would it make you feel better if I went with you? I'd be by your side the entire time." Dia thought about it, then nodded meekly. Kanan smiled and pulled Dia into a hug. "It's gonna be fine, Dia. I promise."

"If you say so... I guess I won't end your existence yet, then."

"Ah yes, very comforting as always."

The concert was a pretty popular event. It nearly filled the student center as friends, metalheads, and curious listeners filed in to check out Guilty Kiss. Dia and Kanan had gotten there early so that Dia could stress about it for a bit, which allowed them to stand near the front. There was already a piano and two microphone stands on stage, though the only band member visible was You, who was setting up the drum kit. The others must've been waiting for the official starting time.

Soon enough, the other three got on stage, with Mari holding her guitar like it was her precious baby. Everybody filtered towards their positions, with Yohane grabbing the mic and taking it off of the stand. "Ah, what a hellacious night! Packed to the brim with my little demons! Of course, you're all here to support the fallen angel Yohane, aren't you?" A couple of people clapped, but most people just looked confused. Mari sidled over and leaned into the mic.

"In Japanese, she's asking if you all are ready to rock." That got a better reaction, as more people clapped and cheered. Yohane just pouted and yanked the mic away from Mari. You laughed behind them, and even Riko giggled softly. Before any potential arguing could occur, You stuck her drum sticks up high and clacked them together. Then she brought them down, and the music began.

She recognized the opening song. It was the second song they'd played at practice: Strawberry Trapper. Dia smiled slightly when she remembered watching them practice, hearing the crowd's cheering mixing in with the industrial sounds and Yohane's smooth voice.

I found you! Your eyes looked lonely Your heartbeat's calling out, saying "take me into your hands" Feeling so much heat but calm on the outside, I can enjoy that Hold down those growing feelings

She glanced over to her right, only to find Kanan staring at her. "Eh? Kanan?" The music was loud enough that she might as well have just mouthed the words. Kanan tried to respond, but realized she wasn't getting anywhere, so she leaned in and spoke directly into Dia's ear.

"I think this song is supposed to be about you."

"Eh?! Why would it be about me?"

"You heard those lyrics, right? Lonely eyes, calm on the outside? Sounds just like you." Dia frowned and looked away from Kanan, back towards the stage. There was no way those lyrics were about her. Yes, Mari was the lyricist, but they'd never really interacted beyond random annoying encounters. It had been that way until the day she watched them practice, and they'd played the song then. There was no way. She did notice that Mari seemed to be staring directly at her as she sang, though...

Quietly, collecting information about you Certainly, there's value in a sensitive mind Stepping up in the background, the thrill is unbearable Because once I've chosen my target, you can't run away. You can't run away, my target!!

Kanan had to be mistaken, right? There was no way that Mari had been watching Dia since they'd first encountered each other. She would've noticed, considering how often she'd been watching Mari. ...That didn't sound as good as she hoped it would. Having Mari's stare on her, she felt her body heating up. Why didn't she start looking at the rest of the audience?

Stupid Kanan and her stupid theories. It made Dia analyse all the lyrics, which made her feel self-centered. There was no way Kanan was right. Those lyrics must've been written generically some time ago. Mari would've had no reason to write about her. They'd barely interacted!

To you, who loves quiet and solitude I'm firing an undeniable brilliant light I want to make you mine before you can realize

She was going to kill Kanan after the concert for making her think these ridiculous thoughts. At least it was a nice concert, all strange thoughts aside. Most people seemed to enjoy it, and cheered loudly after each song. Dia found herself clapping as well, louder as each song came and went. The music wasn't so bad the longer she listened to it, and it was clear they all were very skilled at what they did. Her eyes kept wandering back to Mari, though...

When the concert was over, and all the cheering had finally died off, Dia and Kanan found themselves whisked backstage by Mari, who was clearly hyped up on adrenaline. Everybody seemed to be affected as well, though. Even Riko seemed excited, her fingers occasionally still moving like she was playing the piano.

"So? What'd you think? Did you like it? Huh?" Mari's eyes eagerly moved from Dia to Kanan, awaiting their opinions. Kanan glanced over at Dia, giving her the go-ahead to say something.

"I... I thought it was great. You all played really well." She smiled, hoping that it looked as genuine as it felt. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Of course! We were happy to have the inspiration herself attending our concert!" You's words confused Dia, who just stared at her with a blank expression. Mari turned to stare at You too, though Dia couldn't see what kind of expression she was making. Whatever it was, it made You shrink back with a guilty smile. "Ahaha, glad you could make it!"

"C'mon, let's take a walk, Dia. I want to burn off this energy." Smiling sweetly, Mari packed her guitar up and slung it across her back, grabbing Dia's hand and pulling her out of the student center. She looked back at Kanan with a panicked expression, but she just got a thumbs up in return. Okay, Kanan was back on thin ice again. "I'm really glad you made it, Dia. I really was hoping that you'd come."

"Well, I said I would, didn't I?" Dia was a bit flustered, not having expected to hear that. It made her feel warm again, though. "It was fun, though. You're really good with the guitar."

"Well, I've been playing it since I was seven." She beamed brightly, slinging an arm over Dia's shoulders, which Dia surprisingly didn't immediately shrug off. "I wanted to ask you something back when we'd finished practicing, but I figured tonight would be the better time to ask."

"Oh? Well, I... I wanted to ask you something as well." Now that the time to ask her do or die question was upon her, Dia was back to feeling nervous. She couldn't seem to fully fish out the necessary confidence from her well of positive emotions. This wasn't going to bode well.

"Why don't you ask first?" Mari stopped and grinned at her. "You seem like you're dying to ask me something."

"A-As if!" Dia crossed her arms and looked away, now no longer wanting to ask first. "Why don't you ask first, since you've been waiting for over a week?" Hypocrite that she was, since she had wanted to ask her own question for about that long. There was silence, which confused Dia. She turned back to look at a suddenly contemplative Mari. "Mari?"

"How's your love life? Hot or cold? You can tell me. I won't judge." Back to grinning, Mari put her arm around Dia's shoulder again and pulled the blushing girl closer.

"That's... That's private, don't you think?"

"I'm serious, Dia." The grin vanished once more, and she could see the seriousness in Mari's eyes. "Are you dating anyone?" Dia gulped, feeling put on the spot.

"For... For your information, I'm not dating anyone. That's all I'm telling you, though." That simple answer seemed to put the pep back in Mari's step, who grabbed one of Dia's hands and squeezed it.

"Then I want to ask you out!" There was such earnestness in her eyes, it made Dia freeze on the spot. "I know I must not be the kind of girl you hang around with that often, but I think you're really cool! It's been fun actually having you watch my band play, and I want to keep having you hang out with us. Me specifically, of course." Dia's eyes were wide the whole time, but then she squeezed Mari's hand back, smiling softly.

"I... I would like that, Mari. To be honest, I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Really?!" Mari gaped as Dia nodded, trying to hold eye contact but ending up just staring at the floor. Her excitement could practically be heard as she hugged Dia and lifted her in the air. "So exciting!"

"H-Hey, put me down! Mari!" She had to endure being held in the air for a few more seconds before Mari finally put her down, a silly grin on her face. Mari grabbed Dia's hand again, but there was definitely a different aura around it now. It was a nice aura, though.

"We should get back to the others. I wanna start planning our date!" Mari's excitement was contagious, and Dia felt herself feeding off that happiness as they started walking back to the student center hand in hand.

"I hope this doesn't sound self-centered, but the lyrics to Strawberry Trapper... Were they written about someone in particular?" When she looked at Mari while waiting for a response, she was surprised to find Mari blushing. Could Kanan have been right?

"They were written about someone who really fascinated me, but I never really got a chance to talk to them that much." She turned to Dia, smiling warmly. "But they kinda mean a lot to me." Dia smiled back, feeling that same warmth flooding her body. The kind of warmth she was starting to associate with Mari.

"Well, I'm sure they're very flattered." Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. It didn't matter what kind of lifestyle Mari led. She was a teaser, yes, but she was also friendly and full of energy. Plus she was a very warm hugger. Maybe Dia needed someone like that in her life. "Any girl would be happy to have a song written about them."

"Are you happy?" Dia caught the hope in Mari's eyes, and she found that as she held her hand, the truth came out easily.

"Yes. I'm very happy." They both kept holding each other's hands, sharing smiles the rest of the way back to the student center.

#love live! sunshine #DiaMari #kurosawa dia #matsuura kanan #ohara mari #sakurauchi riko #watanabe you #tsushima yoshiko #my writing #I do really like Your Disposal

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