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sirenofthegreenbanks · 6 months ago

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🐞🦗🪳

hehe someone stepped into my trap mwahaha

🪳 recommend a great AU!

falling til four in the morning by phnelt. MDZS, The Untamed, modern au, wangxian, T. 90s AU where lan zhan and wei ying meet through analog media. its been a while since i read it but i have a weakness for analog media, especially tapes, and these things really get to shine here.

widow‘s weeds by travelingneuritis. MDZS, The Untamed, modern cultivation, wangxian, wlw, comphet, E. very fun AU about wei wuxian being engaged to jin guangyao, and lan wangji, the landscape gardener wei wuxian hired for her wedding, suspecting that wei wuxian has been killing her former husbands (plural). jin guangyao has only a small role here but i liked how the author has written him and his incidental cahooting with wei wuxian!

but the wind keeps blowing by morwen. WOH pre-canon/canon divergence, wenzhou, amnesia, ghost valley, M. a man without a name wakes up in a place without a yesterday. on his travels to find out who he is, he picks up two interesting companions with their own agendas. a really cool stab at zhou zishu’s and wen kexing’s and gu xiang's pre-canon selves, and a look at how wen kexing‘s coup for the throne of ghost valley might have been like, now with zhou zishu thrown into the mix. i especially loved how the department of the unfaithful plays into this. this fic is written in german!

the remains of summer by nirenhuang. WOH modern AU, wenzhou, fluff, T. zhou zishu and wen kexing are students in the Berlin of 1920-30. this is a bilingual fic (german, english). due to the time this is set in, some of the places that show up here dont exist anymore, they were destroyed during the third reich or ww2. i loved how the author interweaves these aspects and creates this rich tapestry of culture, identity, language, queerness, and finding your crowd, in the years just before hitler comes into power. (politics have no impact, though.) this is a rewrite of a similar fic by the same author in mandarin, and there is a sequel! predominantly written in english with some german phrases!

🐞 recommend a favourite fic or several from one of your friends OR a fic author you really look up to!

how to be ravenous by caffeineaddict94. WOH modern au, Ride or Die AU, wenzhou, wlw, E. zhou zishu and wen kexing reunite after years of not speaking with each other. their complex relationship is unravelled over the course of wen kexing comitting murder for zhou zishu and their subsequent escape from the authorites. a story about want and yearning and these hidden things lodged deep inside that even if u dont acknowledge them, still have the power to ruin your life—or change it for the better.

one of the moments i cant stop thinking about:

Her fingers fit perfectly around Zishu‘s throat, right against her windpipe. Zishu studies Kexing‘s flushed face and vicious eyes with no reservations. Serenity washes over her like a deep ocean as her pulse beats rabbit quick beneath Kexing‘s fingertips. ��You didn’t have to get my hopes up,” Kexing seethes, grip tightening just enough to make it difficult to swallow. “I was over all of it. I was over you but you had to pop up again, you selfish asshole!” “Kill me then.” That throws Kexing off balance.

written by my wonderful, talented friend!!!! read it!!!! if u want to feel, like, a little gutted!!! for fun!!! read it!!!

🦗 recommend any fic, wild card!

so pretty but your heart‘s got teeth by livinginaworldofnoise. WOH modern au, wenzhou, crack, G. zhou zishu‘s terrible and chaotic neighbour wen kexing devises a masterful plan to woe zhou zishu, much to zhou zishu‘s chagrin. that plan includes feral kittens and lots of atrocious ignorance of boundaries. nothing at all goes wrong (lie). i reread this one recently and it was great :D

bug me for fic recs!!!!!! seriously im begging u

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jerzwriter · 6 months ago

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Tobias Carrick Appreciation Week - Day 4: Seasons

Tobias is definitely a four-seasons kind of guy—he wouldn't be happy living somewhere that didn't have a change in seasons for very long. Each season has things he really loves, in including some of these:

Winter:

As a kid, he used to sleigh ride down Capitol Hill in his hometown. He took Casey to do it just before they started dating and later enjoyed it frequently with his daughters.

Ice skating. Something he never thought he'd like to do, but Casey loves it, so he learned - and now he loves it, too.

As much as he loves the outdoors in winter, nothing beats time in front of the fireplace... bonus points if he's there with Casey. 😏

Spring:

He loves it when the weather gets warm again! That means it's time to get outside and shoot some hoops.

To Casey's chagrin, he loves camping. She went once ... and swore that was something he'd have to do without her in the future, but he just turned it up to glamping (which he had mixed feelings about lol).

Once they have a house, I can see him gardening. He'd leave the heavy lifting to the landscapers, but maybe he has a little vegetable garden.

Summer:

Summer is probably his 2nd favorite season. It means spending time in his boat, hitting the beach, and cruising in a convertible.

He loves the beach and gets there as often as he can (and not just because his wife looks that good when they go). After the girls come along, he buys a beach house for them to spend time at.

Fall/Autumn:

His favorite season. It's beautiful, there's football, and it's snuggle weather 😏.

The man loves Halloween and always has. As a kid, having the right costume was very important. When he was single, he attended some pretty wild parties. With Casey, their couple's costumes were always on point, and their parties were the event of the season. With his daughters, they went all out—no one beat their decorations.

Fall is also special because it's when he and Casey got married and spent their honeymoon in Vermont.

#tobias carrick appreciation week #day 4 #seasons #tobias carrick #tcaw #jerzwriter #open heart #playchoices

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psalacanthea · 1 year ago

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The Fall of Arlathan- Chapter 9

A big double-sized (12k words help) chapter of this Solavellan fic, the sequel to my old Schooling Pride. Yes, it exists. I need to actually put them in a series on AO3- i'll try to remember to do that later.

...

“Don’t turn this around on me,” Ellie scolded Solas, not wanting to hear a lecture about how she should keep being a sucker.

He smiled, chagrined, the edges of his eyes crinkling. His gaze became uncomfortable, but his voice remained even as she glanced away awkwardly. “If you insist. But never forget that your kindness was my salvation.”

She brushed that off because she didn’t have the cope. “Yeah, well…we’ve never had a fight like this before. He’d cross lines, I’d draw a boundary clearly, and we’d move on.” Ellie couldn’t find it in her to lie right now. “And then he’d cross it again. I just– I thought I was helping him. He did get better in a lot of ways, but I got arrogant, Solas. And– and he needed me.”

His denial was quiet, but firm. “He does not need you. He is possessive. Those are very different things.”

Ugh, of course he was going to make this entirely about Falon’din and excuse her completely.

Of course.

“No, I mean…I liked that he did,” she admitted firmly, staring at her hands. “I encouraged it. When I realized it I tried to wean him off of depending so much on me, but the damage was done. It was just…from the moment– this is kind of too much to say.”

“I would rather you did,” Solas said quietly.

“I know. That’s part of what makes it so hard. I wish you had better boundaries around me,” she muttered.

His voice was low and calm. “Better? No. My boundaries remain intact, very far from any landscape you have yet to wander across. Explore as you like.”

“Pain,” she muttered, wishing he didn’t make it so easy to talk to him. That he didn’t feel like a portent, a thing hovering over her ready to drag her back down to those old, painful depths. “Ever since, Solas, you left…it was like my brain got fixated on people leaving me. First it was you, then Sebastian, then Cass, a lot of other people…and my mom died like a month after Wren was born.” She paused, steeled herself. “He needed me.”

Ellie exhaled roughly, trying to keep her voice under control, her body. But it was hard, she could feel herself starting to get tense, trembling. “He wasn’t going to–”

Leave me.

She swallowed those words before they could trip up her tongue, her nerves already strained by stress. Ellie steeled herself and continued. “No matter what I did he kept coming back. And I could help him, like I couldn’t...”

It was like bile in her throat, bitter and unwelcome.

“Ellana…”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes impatiently, hating the weakness. “Tears are just tears, they don’t mean anything. Listen…I unpacked this all a while ago; this isn’t new, Solas. I have a really good therapist. When I go. It’s just…I figured, hey, I’m helping someone. Even if it’s a coping thing, it’s not bad, right?”

“Does Falon’din know how you feel?” Solas asked, smiling sadly at the disbelieving look she gave him. “Yes, it sounds as if that would be unwise.”

“He hates you enough,” she said quietly.

#Solavellan #Solas x Lavellan #The Fall of Arlathan #modern au #in which Ellie is on the edge of a breakdown #I promise the story won't all be stress lol #the catharsis will be worth it #I swear!

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tact-and-impulse · 1 year ago

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wip wednesday game

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

I'll play along, here are five of my WIP snippets. Send an ask and I'll write more!

In Check (Psycho-Pass, Sengoku era AU)

At the sight of him, Mika immediately thought: not you again. The one-armed samurai was leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed and sake left untouched. Despite the frivolous conversation and peals of false laughter from the other guests, his presence was immovable.

simple charm (Shepherds of Haven, childhood friends AU)

He and Naolin would escort her to the opening of the Cave, and they headed to the stables together. Her ahfuri perked up immediately, nuzzling into her welcoming embrace. She always did like cats. Halek couldn’t resist smiling as he saddled his elk. Then, to his chagrin, Moonsilk was pulling at his coat, acting the part of the devoted fiance making sure he was warm for travel. He turned his gaze away, unwilling to play along when people were dying. He caught Naolin’s uncomfortable expression, and for an instant, Kalmia’s violet eyes observing them, before her ahfuri yowled. As soon as Moonsilk’s grip relented, he snapped the reins.

Event Horizon (Mitarai-ke Enjou Suru, a darker angle)

She spares him a glance and that’s a mistake. He’s staring at her with that soft, half-lidded look. The one that reminds her of the stargazing boy, searching for those lights beyond his reach. Only now, it’s with full force upon her. How many nights had she spent wishing for him to turn her way and look at her like that? But they weren’t children anymore, and they weren’t even friends.

personal taste (this one's a gift, so I'm holding off on the fandom!)

When the chapter ends, her neck is starting to ache and she slides the book back, dropping her elbows on the flat wooden surface to massage the tight muscles. Only half an hour has gone by, on this languid summer night… Then, the curtains move, and she lifts her head just as a hand waves in greeting and a familiar voice says. “Yo.”

#disaster gang (original work)

“Y-you…” His teeth chattered. “Oh, good.” She pressed her mittened hands to his numb face and he felt a static prickle of energy, checking his condition. “Cold.” “Yes, you are.” She took one of his arms and draped it over her shoulders, before grabbing him around the waist. She was startlingly warm. “Don’t fall asleep!” A stamp of her foot and the snow parted to make a path for them. He stumbled and staggered, but a little round tent materialized out of the blank white landscape. They entered and as soon as her touch fell away, he hit the freezing ground without protest.

#writing #psycho pass #shepherds of haven #mitarai ke enjou suru #disaster gang #why are all of these titles two words and involving people looking at each other #anyway #i'm working on releasing an overdue chapter this weekend :D

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turtlethon · 1 year ago

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“Split-Second”

Season 9, Episode 6 First US Airdate: October 21, 1995

The Turtles battle a clock-obsessed villain.

We head into the later episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season nine with “Split-Second”. As with most adventures from this period, David Wise is credited as the writer of this adventure.

The Turtles are training in the Lair with Carter, who laments that he joined the team to train in the ways of the ninja under Splinter but has instead spent much of his time battling Dregg. Between dealing with this new enemy and their unstable mutations, the Turtles have found themselves being pulled in all directions, and so Leonardo pushes for them to adopt a strict new schedule, much to Michaelangelo’s chagrin. During the conversation, our heroes notice that all the clocks in the Lair seem to be showing an incorrect time. A conversation with April via Turtlecom confirms this is happening everywhere and so, suspecting this to be Dregg’s doing, the team set off to investigate.

The source of the signal is traced to a billboard atop a roof advertising “Officially licensed Dregg watches”. (Plenty of ads like this have appeared dotted around the urban landscape of TMNT over the years, but none of them have had as much thought put into them as this one, which with its bright colours and off-kilter design looks like an actual watch advertisement you might see in a magazine aimed at kids or teens in 1995.) Behind the billboard is a small device which Leonardo destroys, immediately restoring the normal flow of time; seconds later a pair of drones attack Michaelangelo and Carter, sending them flying off the side of the roof. Mikey uses his grappling hook to land safely, while Carter is protected by adopting his mutant form.

Back on the roof, the drones continue to pester the other Turtles. They attack Raphael, who’s also sent flying, transforming into his new, beastly self along the way. The drones knock Leo and Donnie through the building and out the other side, only for them to be caught by Raph and Carter. The two bots cut down the billboard, with our heroes only narrowly avoiding being flattened.

One of the most lamentable aspects of this season has been watching April get pushed into near-total irrelevance, relegated to sitting in front of a computer and passing on details of what’s happening in the world to the team via Turtlecom. That’s exactly what she does here, as she informs them of a robbery of antique timepieces from a museum. The Turtles are initially dismissive until they learn that laser weapons and stun rays were used in the crime. According to Michaelangelo, “only Dregg packs that kind of gear” - which isn’t true, for years now we’ve seen cops, the military and even the pettiest of criminals in the show use laser guns, presumably due to the moral panic about violence in cartoons and fantasy weapons being considered okay – but in any event, the Turtles opt to pay the museum a visit.

To my surprise, April is at the museum when the Turtles and Carter show up. Observing a group of clocks on the wall, Donnie and Carter measure the longitude and latitude, the tallied-up figures leading to the map co-ordinates for a steel mill. (The show is perhaps falling back into its old habits today, as Raphael breaks the fourth wall to point out TMNT’s educational value.) Though they suspect it may be a trap, the group dutifully head off.

Upon arriving at the mill, the Turtles spot a shadowy, spiky-haired figure looking down upon them, his high-pitched voice confirming it’s someone other than Lord Dregg. Though the group don’t recognise the mystery man he makes it clear that he knows them well, announcing himself as Chronos and launching a clock-shaped bomb in their direction as the first act ends.

Evidently Chronos is a cyberpunk-esque bad guy with a clock fixation, multiple watches strapped to his arms and numbers adorning his outfit (because, y’know... time involves numbers, though the multi-coloured aesthetic makes him look like he’s about to demand the Turtles tell him how to get to Sesame Street). He continues to use his array of time-themed weapons to fight the green teens around the steel mill, forcing them to avoid the various pitfalls located around the building while engaging in combat. Following a scuffle with Raphael the villain escapes, threatening that he knows everything about the Turtles. The team head outside after hearing a large explosion but find their enemy has vanished.

Speaking amongst themselves, the Turtles remark that there was something oddly familiar about Chronos. As they drive off in the Turtle Van, Carter discovers an alarm clock left in the vehicle. The team assume this must be a bomb, but instead it relays an audio message from Chronos: he intends to perform two crimes simultaneously, breaking into the city’s Central Bank. While doing so, he also plans to reset the midtown subway’s switch clocks, causing a collision between the north and southbound trains.

The clock continues to tick down, leading the team to again assume an explosion must be imminent; instead, a big... Chronos head on a spring pops out of it? We’re clearly dealing with a real goofball here. April splits off from the team to research the history behind this new villain. Leonardo and Donatello leave for the bank while Mikey, Raph and Carter attempt to stop the impending train crash.

Splinter is meditating in the Lair when an intruder alarm sounds. Heading into the exterior sewers, he finds himself face to face with Chronos, who taunts him by revealing he knows all about the mutant rat’s history and his connection to the Turtles. The two go at it, and though Chronos is no match for Splinter’s ninja skills, the villain gains the upper hand by using one of his watch weapons to pin him to the wall.

This must be the first time in years that the show has granted us a decent view of April’s apartment, both the exterior and interior, and it’s not entirely clear if it’s intended to be the same locale seen in the pre-Red Sky years; it’s certainly a lot more run-down than anything seen in years prior, especially from the outside. She performs a search on her desktop PC for any information pertaining to Chronos, bemoaning what a drawn-out task it’ll probably turn out to be.

Raphael leads the charge to clear the subway, using the public’s newfound fear of the Turtles (thanks to Dregg’s propaganda) to their advantage. In a revealing moment, we get a sense of just how effective the campaign has been as an old man driving the train cowers in fear upon seeing the Turtles, begging them not to hurt him. Raph, Mikey and Carter narrowly manage to make the switch between the trains in time but are informed by the voice of Chronos that he never altered their path at all, our heroes having now been tricked into causing the impending collision themselves.

Leonardo and Donatello make their way into the bank to thwart the robbery, but this, too, turns out to be a ruse: on a screen, Chronos reveals that he was never interested in stealing the contents of the vault. Instead, he’s placed a thermal device inside which will detonate after thirty seconds. Leo and Donnie race to escape, but the vault door closes, locking them inside as the second act concludes.

The final portion of the show opens with Donatello and Leonardo pushing against the vault door, deliberately activating their mutations and using their newfound strength to shove their way out at the last second. In the subway, the other members of the team apply much the same approach, adopting their new forms and pushing against the two approaching trains until they come to a stop.

April continues to peruse old newspaper scans on her computer. One includes the headline “MAN ARRESTED IN CLOCKTOWER”, followed by the line “Man arrested in clocktower, who called Chris Ross” [sic]. A photograph of a bespectacled man accompanies the headline; curiously, the rest of the text that appears on the page appears to be a blurb about the Bejing Review, alongside a second headline which simply reads “GEORGE YONPIN”. Naturally I tried to Google the name, but nothing came up. Huh.

The Turtles and Carter reunite, griping that their respective missions both turned out to be traps. Departing in the van, they again wonder just who Chronos is until they notice the nearby City Hall clock tower. This prompts another fourth wall break from Raphael, who announces an impending flashback sequence.

Leonardo recalls events from “a couple of years ago” - confirmation, if you still need it this late into the run, that the Turtles are considered to have been fighting crime for multiple years at this point. The Turtles were scouting the rooftops when they encountered a man named Winston Fripp, who had just robbed the city’s treasury. The team tied up the crook, leaving him for the police, and went on their way. The Turtles remark that none of this explains Chrono’s claim to know everything about them including where they live, or his bizarre transformation. (I would add that it also doesn’t explain the involvement of Chris Ross or George Yonpin, whoever they are.) It dawns on the team that this puts Splinter in danger, and so they rush back to the Lair.

The Turtles return home ready to throw down, and instead encounter a grandfather clock equipped with... a chibi representation of Chronos, what the fuuuuck? The little model version of the villain relays a message, informing the team that the clock is a “gift in exchange for your beloved sensei”. He threatens to dispose of Splinter unless they meet him at the south bank drawbridge and surrender.

April relays information to the Turtles that adds further weight to the idea Winston Fripp is the likely alter-ego of Chronos. The newspaper clipping which she’s now printed off reveals he “was fired from the city scheduling department because of an attitude problem,” his subsequent robbery that was thwarted by the Turtles intended as an act of revenge. In the time between the team tying him up and the cops finding him, Fripp (no relation to that other obnoxious Fripp) was driven mad by the ringing bells of the clock tower, planting the seeds for his current supervillain persona.

With Carter stationed nearby, the Turtles arrive to confront Chronos and his flying drones, which he dubs his “clockwork warriors”. The team take a pounding from the bots and are forced to relinquish their weapons in exchange for Splinter’s life. Chronos reveals their sensei is being kept at Claybourne Tower – the same building where a sphere drops on New Year’s Eve. Overhearing this via Turtlecom, Carter leaves on his motorbike to rescue Splinter, unaware that the sphere has been activated and is beginning to drop. Not only is Splinter about to be flattened, but the Turtles face the same fate, now tied to the mechanisms of the drawbridge which threatens to crush them as the two sides rise. As if all of that wasn’t enough, Chronos intends to use a set of concussion generators to “shake the city apart”, taking any valuables for himself in the aftermath. All of this, the Turtles learn, was made possible thanks to Lord Dregg.

Following the departure of Chronos, Donatello breaks free of the ropes restraining him and quickly works to untie the others. The Turtles take their van to the clock tower where they first encountered Fripp, figuring he’d want his victory to take place there as a symbolic gesture. Meanwhile Carter makes a last-second intervention to save Splinter, transforming into his mutant form and smashing the globe.

Buildings are seen crumbling as the Turtles arrive at the clock tower, spotting that the master control for the concussion generators is wired into the clock’s machinery. The ensuing battle with Chronos’s drones sets off the team’s mutations, the villain shocked and horrified as he discovers he didn’t know everything about the green teens after all. After destroying the generator system, the Turtles tie up Fripp, leaving him to suffer the sound of the bells once more.

An unspecified amount of time and one dissolve later brings the arrival of Lord Dregg to the clock tower. Chronos is admonished for his failure in dealing with the Turtles and destroying the city, but the warlord declares he still has a use for the defeated villain: later, a TV news report frames Dregg himself as “our protector from the stars” who stopped the clock tower plot. The Turtles and Carter are disgusted as they watch this in the Lair, firing off a rapid-fire series of time/clock/watch-based puns to close the episode.

After writing the entry for “The Showdown” I remarked on Mastodon about how deflating the experience of watching and writing about season nine of TMNT has been, with Lord Dregg the only good thing to come out of this whole misguided re-reinvention of the series. “Split-Second” continues in much the same manner as the handful of episodes that preceded it, with Dregg again bringing in a new Villain of the Week to do his bidding, alongside more of the usual unsuccessful attempts to convince us that Carter and the new mutations of the Turtles are impressive. Despite that, I enjoyed this one a lot more than most of season nine’s output. David Wise utilises many of his favourite storytelling tools here, having multiple disasters going on at any given time that the team need to resolve, while also sneaking in some of the self-referential humour that’s largely been absent since the beginning of season eight. Throw in an increasingly rare appearance by Splinter and April getting marginally more screen time here than she has throughout the rest of 1995’s outings, and this adventure almost has a throwback feel to it.

Chronos is an unashamed mish-mash of two different DC villains, the Riddler and the Clock King, but he succeeds by way of having an intriguing history and connection to the Turtles, by immediately being set up as a villain who poses them an actual threat, and by being so inexplicably goofy. We’d have to go back to Creepy Eddie to recall a time when the team went up against a foe this off-kilter. This kind of zany enemy can easily just turn out to be irritating (see Mister Ogg, another member of the TMNT rogues’ gallery created by Wise), a concern circumvented here by keeping the Turtles and their friends in serious peril throughout. The character isn’t just clowning around for the sake of it, he has an established reason for acting this way and for seeking revenge against the team, and as a result everything clicks. Okay, his outfit is still dreadful, but at this point I can live with that. Little victories during this troubled era of the show are perhaps as much as we can hope for, and that’s exactly what we get here.

Just when I thought perhaps season nine was beginning to turn around, the next episode is ominously titled “Carter, the Enforcer”. Spare me.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #TMNT #Ninja Turtles #Turtlethon #1995 #TMNT 1987 #Split-Second #Split Second #Chronos #Lord Dregg #Dregg

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creophagos · 11 months ago

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ryuji's arched eyebrow speaks volumes, a silent testament to his amusement at zakir's suggestion. and his lips, unable to contain their burgeoning smile, betray the subtle delight that danced in the depths of his gaze. with a studied nonchalance, he peruses the digital landscape displayed on zakir's phone, his feigned curiosity masking the quiet victory that pulsed beneath his cool exterior—he had won, and they were definitely going to a diner.

the playful banter hangs in the air as the two embark on their gastronomic adventure, the city's pulse echoing their footsteps. ryuji falls into step beside his colleague, hands disappearing into the confines of his hoodie pockets in a casual gesture that belied the hunger gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.

"what gives you that impression?" ryuji's voice carries a playful lilt, although he is chagrined that he had been so easy to read.

Zakir chuckled. “Plenty American Diners are open, it would seem,” he commented, not noticing the playful scepticism, as he showed the other his phone. Not something he usually did, he got far too many texts on a daily basis from fans, people he was sort of dating, and all the likes he got on his social media apps. Yet, he only spends about an hour a day replying to them. Yet, to his luck, nothing showed up while Ryuji had a look at the map.

He had no love lost for the fatty food that could be found at diners, but he was too hungry and thirsty to fight the suggestion, and caved quickly. “Ryuji bhai, I’d almost think that you want to go to a diner,” he said, mostly in jest. He put his phone away once he found the closet one and gestured for the capo to follow him. “Yallah, let’s go then. We will have to see your fast eating skills.”

#* . ⊹ thread › zakir.#* . ⊹ 竜司 › in.

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princesssarisa · 3 years ago

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Snow White Winter: "Cannon Movie Tales: Snow White" (1987 film)

Any child of the '80s or '90s probably has at least vague memories of the Cannon Movie Tales. This series of star-studded direct-to-video musicals was produced (of course) by the Cannon Group and filmed in Israel, allegedly conceived both as an answer to Disney's animated fairy tales and as a tribute to the German fairy tale films of the '50s and '60s (e.g. the films of Fritz Genschow or Erich Kobler) that were once a staple of "kiddie matinees." While only nine films were made, the series still stands out in the memories of countless fairy tale lovers. It most definitely stands out in mine!

1987's Snow White was the fifth entry in the series. It opens with the Prince (James Ian Wright) riding home from long travels through the snow (massive quantities of paper and salt used to transform the Israeli landscape into a European winter wonderland), and yearning, as princes do, to find a princess. Straight away he finds one, but unfortunately, she's lying lifeless in a glass coffin. Beside it, he meets the seven dwarfs, Iddy, Biddy, Diddy, Fiddy, Kiddy, Giddy and Liddy, and the story leading up to this point is told as a flashback, narrated to the Prince by the eldest dwarf Iddy (Billy Barty).

Compared to most other non-German Snow Whites, this version is remarkably faithful to the Grimms' tale. It features the Grimms' opening with Snow White's mother wishing for a child with snow white skin, followed by her death in childbirth. This is also the only screen adaptation of the tale to portray Snow White as just a small child (Nicola Stapleton) when the wicked Queen (Dame Diana Rigg) resolves to be rid of her. The Queen isn't yet told by her magic mirror that Snow White is the fairest in the land, though. Her initial motive is jealousy of her husband the King's loving bond with his little daughter – hearing him playfully call her "the most beautiful lady in the kingdom" is the last straw. It's only some seven to ten years later, when Snow White (now played by 17-year-old Sarah Patterson) has grown into a lovely maiden in the dwarfs' cottage, that the mirror proclaims her to be the fairest. Meanwhile, the poor King dies during the time skip, thinking his daughter was killed by wild animals.

All three of the Queen's attempts to kill Snow White are included: the suffocating bodice, the poisoned comb and the poisoned apple. Each attempt sees her adopt a distinctly different disguise and accent, and unfortunately, the first two are embarrassing by today's standards, as she delivers the bodice in brownface as a Romani woman and the comb in yellowface as a Japanese geisha. Only for the apple does she dress as the conventional old peddler woman.

After hearing the story, the lovesick Prince begs to take Snow White's coffin to his castle to keep her safe from harm. But as his entourage rides home, a blizzard blows up, a falling tree startles the horses, and the coffin is thrown from its wagon, jolting the piece of apple from Snow White's throat. As for the Queen, this version revives the old tradition of "she breaks the magic mirror in her rage over Snow White's survival and its magic backfires on her." As the cracks gradually spread across the glass, she slowly transforms into an ugly old hag, and when the mirror finally shatters altogether, her body shatters too and crumbles to dust.

This is no perfect Snow White, but without question it has charm. Its settings and costumes strike an excellent balance between fairy tale whimsy and folksy realism. The Queen's often outlandish gowns and headdresses perfectly suit her larger-than-life personality, while the blue and white royal castle surrounds her with coldly beautiful elegance. Particularly in the eerie room containing the magic mirror, which speaks from a sinister man's face (Julian Chagrin) carved into its ornate white frame while other carved faces on the sides of the frame underscore his speech with high-pitched chatter and laughing. In contrast to this world is the rustic warmth of the dwarfs' cottage, with the endearingly eccentric dwarfs (all played by actors with dwarfism) portrayed as raggedy nature-gnomes with leaves and twigs in their scruffy hair. The songs – "Where Is The One I Long For?" "Let It Snow," "Hopping On My Daddy's Knee," "More Beautiful Than Me," "The Bed Song," "Iddy, Biddy" and "Every Day" – are tuneful and appealing too, if not Disney quality.

The film's main weakness (besides the Queen's racially stereotyped disguises) is a slight lack of heart. The scenes with the most feeling come at the beginning, where Snow White's parents are shown as a truly loving couple, her mother is given is given a brief yet touching deathbed scene, and young Snow White's sweet bond with her father is highlighted. But the second half of the script seems more concerned with moving through each plot point than with emotions. The King is perfunctorily killed off (I would have preferred to see him live to reunite with Snow White in the end), and Snow White's "death" is less poignant than usual, because the dwarfs barely mourn before comforting themselves with the hope that she's only under a spell.

But regardless of any flaws in the writing, the cast is excellent. The real star is Diana Rigg as the Queen, whose deliciously campy comic villainy is unforgettable. But both of the two Snow Whites, child and adolescent, are perfectly cast too, and the dwarfs, the Prince and the rest of the supporting actors all fill their roles very well.

For anyone who might like to see a charming musical Snow White that's more faithful to the Grimms' tale than the Disney version, and who doesn't mind a little camp, I recommend this version highly.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock

#snow white #fairy tale #snow white winter #cannon movie tales #1987 #live action #musical #tw: brownface #tw: yellowface

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davidkarofskyindie · 2 years ago

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inechoingsilence:

“You’ve got a deal. Study and coffee. Yes, time to feed the addiction.” Acelin agreed as he locked his office door behind them. Falling into step next to Stan, he took the time to look around a bit, to remember the way. He did notice that it looked like there was almost a path, the grass was walked on so much. College life was fueled on caffeine, if you asked him.

“It does look like it gets a lot of use, this shortcut.” he agreed. “As for running for it, I would like to think I wouldn’t need to but somehow I see it happening.” He never meant to be late, but Acelin was either the polite five minutes early or the near-panicked ten to fifteen minutes late. He liked to think he didn’t have too many faults, but that was a big one.

“One night a week, if I was lucky. If I wasn’t..” Acelin shrugged a shoulder and pushed a stray curl behind his ear. “I like the outdoors, so I do things like surf, beach volleyball, hike, jog. When the weather’s not ideal for outside things, I cook, and study antique books.”

He was relatively certain Stan wasn’t going to give him grief about cooking - he didn’t come across that way- but he was still sort of waiting for the snark to come. He’d been burnt in the past, but he refused to be anything then himself.

“What about you, what do you do for fun? Also, what is there fun to do around here?” he asked.

“Oh this is probably the most well used shortcut on campus, much to the groundskeeper’s chagrin” Stan joked with a playful little chuckle, almost impishly playful about it “I swear he keeps trying to plant new grass in this area to make this part of the lawn look good and it never works. I swear one of these days they’ll just make this into an actual path but till then, this easily chops a solid 5 minutes off the walk on a busy day”

Stan made sure to keep just a tiny bit ahead of Acelin, enough that he could easily lead the way through the college. “Sounds like you got more than enough to keep you busy off hours. Very cool that you’re into cooking, I’ve been trying to do that and the best I get is I can boil an egg without setting a fire” he joked with the biggest grin.

Stan lead the way down a set of stairs that headed towards the area where a few little take out places had set up shop, the cafe they were heading for was dead centre of a row of assorted other little food places. “Well I’ve been known to do a big of surfing and jogging myself, though mostly if I’ve got some spare time and need to unwind I’m hitting up the gym I’ve got in my garage or working on a painting... I’m still learning how to do landscapes but it’s weirdly relaxing even if I never make anything good” he said before gesturing to the cafe “Come on, let’s get you that much needed caffeine”

He happily walked to the cafe and paid for both their drinks, using his stamp card to get Acelin’s free, before turning so he could lean back a little against the counter while they waited “So that’s the easy shortcut, the long ways got a few more stairs and goes all the way around the building... this ways much better, and you can usually get here before the big rush between classes” he said, scratching his chest casually with a sweet grin on his face. Their coffees were placed on the counter and Stan handed Acelin’s over before taking a sip of his own “So you wanna sit and enjoy, or continue with the big tour while we enjoy this cup of the good stuff?”

New Teacher on Campus

Running a hand through his curls, Acelin took a look around his new office. It was a good size, enough for some comfortable chairs and a couple of bookcases that were already crammed full of various science texts. He'd put posters of fractals and other naturally occurring shape patterns up on the walls, and there was a dock for his phone. Right now, the phone was playing Einaudi as he sat at his desk with a lesson planner, laptop open.

There was a knock on the door, and he looked up with a smile for the man standing in the doorway. "Hi...sorry, is the music bothering you? I can turn it off," he offered, reaching towards his phone.

#queueded #inechoingsilence

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heniareth · 3 years ago

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🍁🌳💫 soft asks for Astala if you feel like doing them! ^v^

Boy oh boy do I! Thanks for sending them in, this has been great XD I have discovered a lot of things here. It does get dark at the third question :[] sorry about that. But the first two are softer ^^

🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?

The Denerim alienage isn't known for being a quiet place, and even if they've never been a household of more than four (which is still a lot, considering the size of the Tabris's apartment), a broad street runs past their front door and the walls are thin. There isn't much quiet space to be had and Astala has gotten used to it. That said, there are a few times when she needs it

When she was young enough to fit into it without feeling self-conscious about it, Astala would hide in a sturdy wooden dresser under which her mother kept her sword and dagger (and she'd make a mess of the stuff in there, much to the chagrin of her parents who'd have to re-fold the laundry until Astala was able to do it herself)

As she got older she also had more freedom to roam about and look for peace and quiet outside of home (and she needed it after her mothers' death). There's a narrow corridor behind her house where she and her mother used to train. She also ended up at hahren Valendrian's house once and he allowed her to come by when she needed

Later, a favorite spot was the cellar of Alarith's shop. When she started to work, she quickly found a corner behind some big barrels at the tavern where she could hide and take a breather

During the Blight she has her tent, or a walk around camp accompanied by the one companion who is most sparse with words: Rascal the dog. Mostly, however, she finds her quiet time while they walk. Walking through the slowly changing landscape is a good moment to let her thoughts run free. This is one if the downsides of reaching their various destinations: all that quiet is gone

At Vigil's Keep, she likes to walk battlements, especially at night. The starry sky and the chill in the air are all the quiet she needs

Because of her lifestyle, she doesn't have the possibility of having a comfort corner with her favorite stuff, and when she does settle down she doesn't need it. Astala tends to make herself easily at home in most places. Restricting her comfort to a corner wouldn't make sense to her (although she starts to understand why it would for others when she has to write Official Replies to Official Letters, the thedosian equivalent of the professional email; that's when she finds herself wishing she had a corner where the letters wouldn't be able to reach her)

This next one feels like a logical continuation from the first, so thanks for sending them in together XD

🌳 What is your OC’s favourite way to relax after a stressful day? Do they have a favourite book to curl up with? A hobby? Or do they have a nice bubble bath and have an early night to bed?

Astala does have at least one hobby (I honestly haven't given that particular aspect of her life much thought), it's embroidery. When she has to patch up her clothes and has the time for it, she likes to add some small details to brighten it up and cover for the fact that the piece of clothing is one step closer to falling apart

Back in Denerim she'd spend many evenings where she didn't have to work in the tavern with Nessa, Nola, Olanne and several other girls chatting and working, playing cards, swapping stories, etc. She would've loved for somebody from that group to get married before she left because the making of a wedding dress would've assured many such evenings

But what I'm getting at: the best way for her to relax is definitely some quality time with friends and/or family. All she needs is a fire, good food and good company, and if she can first wash the grime if the day off, even better

If she's in a bad mood, however, she'll be more withdrawn and look for some quiet time (see above). Since that's difficult to find in camp during the Blight, she might just call it a day and go to sleep

(Tbh, she should find something that might relax her even if she's in a bad mood, but she's stubborn even in her unhappiness)

"Wow, this character needs to find more ways to relax," said the writer as she tinkered around with said character and promptly moved on to the next question XD

And here comes the question that turned dark on me ._. It starts off nice enough but the thing ran away with me

CONTENT WARNING for death, discussion of execution and hanging, implied death of a character's mother and childhood trauma resulting from all of this

💫What is your favourite fact about this character and why?

First off: this is a difficult question. There is so much and yet so little (so much that I find interesting, so little that really stands out to me. It's just- *gestures at whole character)

But I do have something I want to talk about and it's that Astala was obsessed with pirates for a good long while. Her mother was a smuggler for some time and told her all kinds of stories. She still remembers many of them and also some pirate songs

Pirates were the ultimate ideal of freedom. You didn't even need a ship for it, you just chartered one and then spent your life stealing from rich people and twisting the nose of the authorities. What a life!

There were supposed to be actual raiders on Brandel's Reach, a particularly rocky island that technically belongs to Ferelden. Sometimes, at the docks, Astala caught a glimose of people who looked like they could very well be part of those raiders. Or just, y'know, very sun-burnt, tattooed and gnarly but otherwise upstanding sailors

This obsession came to an abrupt end when a part of her mother's smuggling crew was aprehended and publicly executed. Adaia went, sort of like one would go to a funeral. Astala had been asking A Lot of questions about this topic, because she understood well that what happened to her mother's friends could happen to her mother as well, especially since the guards had tasted blood now and were on the smugglers' trail

So Adaia sat Astala down, explained what was going to happen at the execution and asked her if she wanted to come, so that she might see for herself what Adaia's line of work. Astala thought about it and finally, with all the seriousness of a 9-year-old, said yes. Cyrion was absolutely horrified, but couldn't convince neither his wife nor his daughter not to go

Astala managed to watch from the proclamation of the crimes her mother's co-smugglers (all of them elves) were accused of to when they were pulled up to hang. Then she had to look away and ask her mother to take her home. Her father had been waiting a streets down, so her mother sent Astala home with him while she stayed. Astala had nightmares after that

A few months later, her mother disappeared

Fun times

This turned very dark, I'm sorry

This is a fact that is dear to me because it's fundamental for who Astala is (and she is very dear to me) and because it's not something that usually comes up in a conversation. So ask games like this are places where I can talk about this kind of stuff, even if it's supposed to be a soft ask game. So... sorry about that ^^'

On a more cheerful note, however, thank you so much for the asks!! They were fun to write (even the darker stuff) and I hope they have been fun to read as well

These questions come from this ask game

#astala tabris #ask game #warden tabris #my oc #dao #dragon age #for fun #cw: character death #cw: death of a parent #cw: execution #cw: hanging #cw: trauma #long post #anna-the-great-and-terrible

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years ago

Text

Emp-Ire, “Patriot.”

Still working and am still in a bit of a writing slump.

I have only been able to write the very few things that REALLY interest me right now. So thank you for your patience with me going off on the occasional tangent, ok maybe more often then not going off on a tangent, but thanks anyway :)

A crisp morning breeze needled his skin, the icy tendrils causing goosebumps to break out over Adam’s bare chest and shoulders. Overhead a layer of dismal grey clouds blocked the sky over an alien landscape.

He was so tired.

And he hurt.

All around him other bodies shifted in the cool morning air, and he would have sworn he could see their breath puffing out in great gouts of steam, though that might just have been his imagination. He was so cold, what the hell was wrong with wearing a shirt, or at least some real pants.

But no, apparently pants were reserved for those who earned them, everyone else was relegated to nothing better than short leather skirts, or underwear which he found mildly infuriating. Even some compression shorts would have been nice. Another cold breeze ran past him and he crossed his arms over his chest palms pressed flat over his freezing nipples in hopes that by warming them up they wouldn’t just fall off.

Also his toes were numb, courtesy of the sandals he was wearing.

Looking around him, he could see that the other men and women didn’t appear to be nearly as cold as he was, in fact, they were probably being kept nice and warm by the sheer awesomeness of their big manly muscles or something.

Standing in a line with all of them he felt like the awkward nerd kid trying out for the football team. Each and every last one of them had washboard abs, or similar since genetics is more kind to some than to others.

And then there was him.

Chicken chest, noodle arm bastard that he was, with only the faint line of abs hanging out waiting for the moment he flexed intentionally to pretend his abs were bigger than they actually were. He hunched his shoulders just a bit, feeling very very small in comparison.

“Hey, how are you doing? Looking good everyone, looking good…. Hey…. hey.”

Adam lifted his head just in time to watch Ramirez strut up like he owned the damn place turning heads with the sheer gravity of his confidence.

He walked up to stand Next to Adam, “Fuck you, dude.”

“What?”

“How can you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Strut up like you and I aren’t literally the most pathetic people here.”

Ramirez patted him on the shoulder, “Confidence is key my friend. If you pretend to be awesome, soon you’ll believe it and eventually it will be. Self fulfilling prophecy and all of that. The mind is a powerful tool. Also chicks dig confidence.”

“What about men?”

“Them too, I don’t discriminate.” he held his arms out wide, “Everyone could do with a little bit of Ramirez in their life.” He looked at Adam pointedly, “How about you?” He flexed, “Want some of this.”

Adam snorted, paused and then said, “You know what, if I swung that way, sure.”

Ramirez put his hand over his chest, “That is probably the nicest thing you ever said to me. But the Ramirez is an open door and I open both ways.”

“You’re not a swinging door, you're a revolving door.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know man, it just sounded good. But if you were a door, you would also open from the bottom up, I just couldn’t think of an object that opened on both the x, y and z axises.”

He tapped his chin, “Gotta love how my morning has mostly involved being compared to a door, besides I don’t open to just anyone, I am age restricted, and no pets allowed.”

Adam grimaced, “Gross.”

“No I am not gross, if I was pet friendly THAT would be gross.”

Adam paused, “How about…. aliens ?”

Ramirez shrugged, “If it’s sentient, I Will try anything once. You kno, can’t knock it till you've tried it.”

It was at this moment that Adam became acutely aware that they were the only ones talking. They may have been speaking rather quietly, but at some point the other men and women had stopped speaking. He paused and turned his head to look. Ramirez’s voice faded off into the silence as the two of them turned to find a tall, heavily muscled woman standing before them. Her hair was tied back and her midriff was bare. She carried a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, and she waited very pointedly for the two of them to stop talking.

The look on her face could have coagulated his blood in his veins.

He shrunk back.

She walked up, looked at the two of them and her face pulled into an expression of disgust.

“Flabby.” She announced smacking Ramirez in the thigh with her spear. He yelped and grabbed his leg, “Soft.” The spear jabbed Adam in the belly driving the wind from his boy, “Pathetic,” She announced, “No weakness, not on my island.” She jabbed at him again and, on instinct, Adam caught the haft of the spear.

He knew pretty immediately he had made a mistake as her eyes widened, and then he was slammed to the dirt head ringing from the metal of the shield on his skull.

He groaned and rubbed at his head.

“Thank you for volunteering.”

Adam didn’t know what he had just volunteered for, but it sounded like he wasn’t going to like it very much.

As it turns out.

He was right.

She announced immediately that they were going to play a game. He thought that seemed weird for the biggest badasses this side of fake Greece but ok. But it turned out her idea of a game was just a fun way of saying I am going to make you regret you ever lived.

They were the wolves, he was the rabbit. He had a two minute head start, and then they would chase him. If he got caught, they were allowed to beat him up for a few minutes, and then he got another two minutes head start.

This lasted all morning.

About two or three hours. He couldn't tell by the end.

He had never been so exhausted in his life, andhe thought training with the Drev had been hard.

By the end he determined that they were about the same amount of hard, but the Drev didn’t do nearly as much Running. Towards the end his two minute head start counted for almost nothing, and he was in a nearly continual state of getting the shit kicked out of him. Ramirez huffed and puffed at the back of the pack like the big bad wolf had asthma.

And Adam threw up…. Three times.

Three times.

By the time it was over he was covered in bruises and could barely walk. He thought, like during training, they would get a lunch break or something, but nope by the end of the day they were back to the sandy training field where it was either, wrestling, bare knuckle boxing, sparring, or some other ungodly torture.

There was no stopping.

Occasionally, they were allowed to kneel on the dirt and have something to eat. He wasn't sure what the spartans had eaten back in the day, but this looked like meals clearly prepared by people who studied the science of getting jacked. Mostly protein and vegetables. Whatever drink they were using was some kind of water, but cut with something else he couldn’t have been sure about, probably electrolytes.

Either way he had a hard time keeping it down.

Ramirez on the other hand was part of the passing out gang.

The two of them together barely made a functioning human. And by the end of the day they crawled themselves back to what constituted as the barracks, which was just one long building with mats laid out on the floor. He was so tired that he slept like a log through the entire night until they were woken up to do it again the next day. He slept whenever he could, using anyone and anything as a pillow.

He became way more intimately familiar with Ramirez than he had ever wanted to be but at that point he was too tired to give much of a shit. Even Ramirez was too tired to say anything sarcastic or inappropriate.

He honestly couldn't have said how long they were there, every day seemed to bleed into the next with only the changing of the weather and the night to let him know anything was going on at all.

The change in himself was so gradual that he barely even noticed until one day…

“SHIELD WALL!”

Adam and Ramirez raced forward interlocking their shields with the group of men and women before them. Others piled up behind bracing their spears over the shoulders of their comrades.

“Remember the wall is only as strong as its weakest member!”

Across from them a group of other trainees raced forward and slammed against their shield wall.

Adam and Ramirez shouted their exertion.

“Push back!”

They pulled back slightly and then drove forward shoving the other recruits back and to the ground tossing a few of them bodily three or four feet back.

“BRACE!”

They returned to their interlocking position, spears bristling outward like some sort of demonic porcupine.

They did that exercise once or twice more until ordered to break off, separating into individual units which charged the other groups' spears raised.

Adam Batted another combatant’s shield aside, slammed his shoulder into the man’s chest, kicked another oncoming from the left, dodging out of the way as Ramirez covered him from the right with a sharp jab of his spear which caught another woman by the bottom of the shield and sent her deflecting to the right.

They clashed on the training field for a good half hour of continual battle, when another group of fresh, armored combatants charged them. He was tired, but as the enemy charged inward, he shook it off, roared a battle cry and charged them.

“Shields!” He ordered without thinking, and a small group of remaining fighters bunched up with him and Ramirez. They managed their wall right before the new combatants hit, “PUSH!” And with a massive have they threw them back, causing them to trip over one another. They broke their wall to take on the remaining group now fractured.

Adam went straight down the middle with Ramirez guarding his back chagrin at the armored combatants.

They were fresh, and Adam had the distinct impression that they were also not trainees.

Three of their number had already gone down under the onslaught, but he brought up his spear, knocked the shield to the side and tagged the other man with a glancing blow in the throat. He staggered away holding his neck. He spun left clobbering a woman with his shield. Ramirez cut past him stabbing straight down the middle and catching another one straight in the breastplate.

Two more of their number went down to the right.

There was no way they could make an effective shield wall now.

One more went down on their right.

Ramirez went to his knees shield held up before Adam, who used the shielding to strike past with his spear.

Ramirez ducked and Adam leaped over him crashing into another line of men shield on one side spear on the other.

The man before him went crashing to the dirt. He caught incoming strikes simultaneously and ducked under both allowing Ramirez to take one while he dealt with the other. They were split off from each other in the confusion and he didn’t see what happened as he was blindsided by another shield.

The power in that was awful, and he went flying back at least two feet staggering until he skidded in the sand and regained himself. The armored man came charging at him with a roar, and they clashed shields again. The other man was clearly stronger, though not by much. Adam strained against him, feet digging into the dirt before suddenly slacking and rolling off to the side.

It nearly caught the other man off his guard, but he was good, and caught himself before he could fall forward.

Adam snarled as they exchanged a flurry of blows. All the other combatants had backed off so the two of them could fight. He advanced pushing the other man back, though it seemed impossible that he would be able to score a hit, the other man was just too fast. It went on for a while.

Adam got tagged in the right hip, but kept fighting, it was nothing compared to the beating he had received only yesterday. He cut in again slamming his shield against the other man to throw him off balance. It didn’t do it as well as he had hoped, but for a split second he saw an opening. He would have to time it perfectly.

It was probably as much luck as it was skill that he managed to pass the spear through the little hole between the shield and man scoring a long cut across the man’s left bicep. As soon as he did someone shouted the halt, and he froze in palace.

The man before him lowered his shield and pulled off his helmet to reveal.

The King!

Adam stepped back in shock, quickly raising his spear in salute.

“Sir!”

The man smiled grimly turning to look down at his bleeding arm. He turned back to look at Adam, “Exhausted, training all day, and you still managed to cut me, I think that is a good sign.”

The entire field was returning to rest position.

Ramirez climbed out from under his shield, dazed but somehow unscathed.

“How long have you been with us now, two months maybe more.”

“I can’t remember.”

“Two months of improvement I think, and today many of these men proved themselves worthy of being real soldiers….” He turned to look at Adam, “How about yourself, what do you think you deserve?”

Adam planted his spear against the ground, “I’m still standing aren’t I.”

James, the king of sparta, laughed, “Spoken like a true Spartan.” He turned to look at the others, “I tend to agree with your assessment.” He waved a hand at those who are still standing, which included Ramirez, to Ramirez’s evident surprise.

He looked down at himself then around then grinned nodding as if it was very obvious he deserved to be there.

Adam smiled slightly.

He supposed he did.

And now that he realized it the two of them didn’t look at all out of place in comparison to the other men and women there. He stood up straighter, “Thank you, sir.”

“Just right in time then. We set out for Argos tonight, one last test before I let you go.”

The men and women raised their spears to thor king.

***

It felt good, almost familiar, with a cloak fluttering at his back, a spear in hand and a helmet on his head. Granted it was almost nothing like the Drev, but it still felt good enough that he could forgive it. He was, in fact, very proud of his accomplishment as he now stood on the rocky outcrop next to the King of the Neospartans and an entourage of warriors, his sandals feet rested hard against stone and a bare wind tugged at the red plume on the top of his helmet, the same wind that caused the red cloak to flutter behind him in the breeze.

“What is in Argos?” He wondered allowed, not entirely sure if he was allowed to ask, but curious enough to risk it.

James looked down at him from the pinnacle of rock, “You know we dislike the New Athenians?”

Adam nodded “Yeah…. About that, is it just tradition… or…”

James shook his head, “No, nothing like that. We would be fine working with them. This is a real place with real people who have their own real beliefs. It isn’t just some elaborate LARP. No, I was here when this colony started, and there was no difference between us and the New Athenians but after a while there rose some… disagreements.”

Adam tilted his head, “And what disagreements are those?”

“Moral disagreements. I am a patriot, admiral. I may be the king of Sparta, but I was also born on earth and am a True believer in the unity of the GA. Division Will only weaken us. But there are factions among the New Athenians who don’t believe the same, which would be fine. I understand a group of people who disagree with the current political system. That should be allowed by all means, but the way they are going about it is just wrong.”

“What do you mean.”

“They Are supplying information, weapons, and lodging to rebel forces who wish to destroy the GA and everything it stands for. They aren't just doing it through protests and reforms, but through violence, and hurting innocent people. They don’t care how they win as long as they do, and that is something I cannot abide. I have on good authority that some of them are working with Kree operatives and anti-alliance forces to plan assassinations against key members of government.”

Adam’s eyes widened in shock, “Really!, than why haven't we heard about this.”

James shook his head, “Despite their radical ideals, they are a very small and mostly powerless group who don’t pose much of a threat to GA members themselves. In fact, most of them are all bark and no bite. I figure that it's my job to keep my little slice of the galaxy clean, and I have managed it so far.”

Adam shook his head in surprise…. “So the Oracle….”

James nodded, “She recognized you, and likely sent you here in hopes that we would kill you for being spies, which we have done before. She honestly should have killed you herself, but the New Athenians don’t like to get their hands dirty, they like to keep their hands clean and let others do their dirty work.”

He turned to look at Adam, “Based on my studies, you are an important piece in an intergalactic chess game, holding the GA together with a volatile humanity.” He turned his head back to stare out at the horizon, “Like I said, protests, petitions, and legislation is all well and good, but as soon as your course starts to hurt innocent people you lose my sympathy. You are no longer the heroic rebel, but you are a blight and you must be stamped out.”

The fire in the man’s golden eyes was enough to make Adamstand back a little.

“I see.”

“I am glad you do, you need to see what goes on at the small scale. You need to know that there are people here fighting for you and your ideals. You built what the GA is today, whether on purpose or not, and that is something I intend to uphold.” He pointed downwards, “And we are going to start here.”

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fascination-street-writing · 4 years ago

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Jumping on Someone Else’s Train | Narancia Ghirga x GN!Reader

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again.

A Canon Divergence AU, in which Narancia does not follow Bucciarati on the boat in Venezia

- 200 Follower Giveaway Piece I for @vergissmeinnnicht -

Content Warnings: Regret, Angst, Mentions of Alcoholism, & Mentions of Other Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Men and women clad in suits of varying styles and colors stand along the proscenium of the tracks, waiting for the first wave of commuter trains from Venezia. With thoughts of unfinished reports, soccer practices, and uncertainties of whether to have spaghetti alle vongole or ai ricci for dinner, no one pays heed to the three battered teenagers seated just behind the line – who, mind you, certainly ought to be in school.

To your left, Fugo fumes; and yet, despite his ever-apparent anger, there is unbounded despondency in his violet eyes. Despondency indeed, perhaps for the mutual decision of yours and his, or otherwise, because of Bucciarati’s blasphemy. Although, you suppose that you cannot fault your former Capo. He has always had a proclivity for saving undesirables – yourselves, included. But his kindness is not your own.

To your right, Narancia leans over and slouches, clutching his head between two hands that have not yet healed from his scuffle with the first man of the assassination team. You cannot help but to notice that several of the crackling scabs have been picked open. You regret deeply that you had not offered to run Trish’s errands with the black-haired boy. And, though he will not admit it, as does Fugo.

The sound of a shoe tapping against the concrete flooring would be irksome to you if it were anyone other than Narancia’s doing. You cannot decide if he is merely growing impatient for the train to arrive, or rather, unequivocally conflicted about what has transpired within the past hour. A shuddering breath slips past his lips, expelling as his shoulders begin to quake. He might never forgive you for letting him snivel in public.

Gently, you place your hand on his back. Narancia stills at your touch and allows his own to fall from his reddened cheeks. Reluctantly so, he meets your concerned gaze. He fears he might disintegrate into nothing more than bones if you keep looking at him this way – like you adore and loathe him all the same.

You speak his name softly, reminiscent of some kind of lullaby that his mother might have sung to him during his early adolescence. “We need you to be here,” you tell him.

His nod is an automatic response. He contemplates the bluntness of your words, understanding well enough that they have sprung from a good heart. You have become more like Bucciarati, he thinks; your pension for austerity in love rivals his, to be sure. Narancia swallows and nods once more. “I’m here,” he insists.

He would wince at the cracking of his voice if you had turned away sooner. You pull your hand back and rest it atop your leg, curling your fingers into the threadwork of your pants. “Stay with us, then.”

The rotors of the train squeal as the machinery lulls to a stop. In truth, you would never like to board another train for as long as you should live. But this is not a luxury you can afford.

“Now boarding from Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia to Napoli Centrale. Total travel time – seven hours and thirty-nine minutes. First stop: Ferrara.”

Within the compartment of the train, Fugo sits beside you and pours over a bit of reading that he had swiped from a kiosk before embarking. Narancia determines that the book the younger boy reads must be painfully dreadful, or implausibly wonderful. His brow furrows, as if deeply embedded in his own thoughts, but his fingers never bend to turn the page.

A quivery sigh escapes as you stare from the window, appearing to be as bored as ever. The Italian countryside passes by in blurs of likewise colored landscapes. Narancia wonders how it is that you can tell the difference between a vineyard and a farm against the speed of travel. Or maybe you cannot, though you try to anyways.

You stifle a yawn, finally succumbing to the exhaustion that has accumulated over the past several days. And yet, despite it all, you are still living. Narancia feels his own jaw beginning to twitch, and his mind drifts elsewhere, to the interlude of youth before life with Bucciarati became quite so complicated; good thoughts to keep him grounded amidst the unrest of divided loss.

As it were, he remembers the day when he first met you as if it were yesterday. Before Mista, Abbacchio, and certainly Giorno – back when the two of you, Fugo, and Bucciarati made for the greatest family whom he had ever known. The only other time Narancia has ever seen such strain upon your face was when Bucciarati took you into his home, still clothed in street-rags and muddied shoes. You had not even joined Passione yet; their then eighteen-year-old leader had acted of his own volition to take you in. He always has had a way of saving people.

Narancia knows your strife as if it is his own. Your mother died and your father neglected you; you took to thievery and pickpocketing to find whatever you needed to spend a night without an empty stomach. It was only a matter of time until, provoked by the unfortunate solidarity of utter hurt, you had clicked with the two boys.

But it was not always this way.

In truth, your eagerness to snub the boy is, of some emotional gravity, debilitating. He has always believed friendship to be deserving of the highest value of any other virtue in life. When you observe his struggles to solve seemingly simple math equations during tutoring sessions, with such an unreadable look on your face, he dreads that your hesitation has born itself from an aura of superiority that you harbor against him. The moment you turn away as Fugo’s chastisement rains upon him, he wonders how he might ever be good enough to earn your favor when he cannot be good enough for himself.

When he speculates his plan to befriend you, he thinks without fail that it must be the most brilliant little scheme in the world. Narancia begins by buying you a chocolate bar from the corner store down the street, because what peer of your age does not like chocolate? By the time he has returned home, it has begun to melt in his pocket. He hopes you will not mind, and if you do, he has already decided that he will go back and purchase a second one – cognizant to carry it instead, rather than stuffing it in his corduroys.

To his chagrin, you turn your nose up at the creased, seeping parcel. “I hate sweets,” you tell him with a heavy insistence and no succeeding explanation or defense. Never mind that he had caught you sneaking cake from the kitchen last night when you thought everyone else had gone to bed.

Alas, his resolve is strong. He supposes that it was wrong of him to assume that you would indulge in a chocolate bar, because it is simply not the same thing as cake. During an astronomy lesson with Fugo, a fetching optimism takes over. That evening, he forgoes dinner to sweep the terracotta roof of dead leaves and earthly dust. He rummages through his closet for the softest blanket he owns – blue gingham that had once belonged to his mother.

He runs into you in the hallway on his way to your bedroom; budding with courage, he asks if you would care to watch the stars with him on the rooftop, because the window in his room leads right to the widow’s walk. You roll your eyes and turn away, muttering, “Constellations make me dizzy.” But did you not tell Bucciarati in passing yesterday just how much you love searching for the little dipper when the night skies are forgiving?

Narancia’s spur is beginning to wane, though he cannot blame you. Perhaps he has been reading you wrong. He simply has not pinpointed your interests – that is all. Flipping through the channels of the television, he stumbles upon a culinary program of an older man demonstrating how to prepare bucatini alla carbonara. Struck with inspiration, the boy rushes to the market for pancetta, parmesan, and dried pasta; he has never quite had the patience for making fresh dough, so he settles for pre-packed bucatini. Surely, you will understand.

And so, he leads you into the kitchen with a grin on his face. While pointing to the array of ingredients on the counter, he asks you to lend a hand and to help him prepare dinner. You are all in need of a reprieve from Il Libeccio. “I don’t like cooking,” you say, disinterested. It surely must have been a ghost who prepared the rigatoni al pesto on this past domenica, then.

Narancia does not have high hopes when he extends to you the offer of catching the movie Panni Sporchi in the theater with Fugo and he. His crushed spirits know better by now. But it never hurts to try.

You set down whatever magazine you have snatched from the corner store and cock an eyebrow. “Comedies aren’t my thing,” you utter. “They’re not even that funny. Besides, they’re just poor imitations of life. So are romances. And dramas. Thrillers – horrors . . . Actually, I hate movies.”

He bears it with a curt nod, choosing to ignore that you had held a private viewing of Auguri Professore in the living room yesterday. His head tells him that you do not wish to be his friend, amongst other things – but his heart insists that one day, you will.

It is by chance that he should wake up this night with the irrepressible urge to use the bathroom. On his way back, skin still damp from the sink, Narancia tiptoes along the embroidered vines of the carpet. It is a solitary game he only partakes in when no one is around to question his antics. When he hears a hiccup, he surmises that he has been caught. His sock-clad feet sink into the floor as he stills and prepares himself for whatever beratement is sure to follow. Instead, there is only another gasp for breath.

No, not a hiccup, he notices: it is the sound of grief that came from your bedroom. With little regard to your privacy, he peaks his head through the cracked door.

“What are you doing, Narancia?” you demand as you wipe the back of your nose and hoist the blankets – wetted by your tears – up to your shoulders. “Get out of my room.”

In this moment, it is as if the clouds have parted and clarity canvases the sky. All this time, he truly was enough for you – it was you who was not adequate for yourself. And here you are, curled up in your bed with swollen eyes that beg him to stay even though you had told him otherwise. You are tormented by bad memories that ought to be shed like snakeskin.

Narancia steps forward. “I just wanted to tell you, uh, it’s okay to cry,” he says with a certain tenderness that seems so unfamiliar to you. He rubs the back of his neck, averting your gaze. “Even if you don’t think so.”

You gawk at him and say nothing, for words have failed you. The silence is deafening, all the same. It is an audacious move, but he smiles to you – a gesture of compassion – before turning to leave. He has overstayed his welcome, and your unrelenting stare does not make him feel any better.

“Wait.” He stops, anticipating your delayed retaliation. “Could you . . . Can you spend the night with me?”

As he lies in bed next to you, distance kept by a pillow wedged between your bodies, Narancia beams – but you cannot see outline of his grin in the darkness of the room. This night and many more will pass, and you slowly become something of a beacon. He is beholden to you, because you make him feel appreciated in the ways that not even Fugo or Bucciarati can. For this reason, he will always cherish you – a talisman encapsulated within a friend.

And now, though the seeds of regret have already begun to spring roots within him – hyacinths embedded in his heart –, he will stay strong, for you are like a pharos to him. If not resiliency for his own sake, then certainly yours.

At least, for as long as he can.

“Hey, Narancia.” Startled, he jumps in his seat and clasps his knees tightly. “Is there something on my face?” you ask.

“I – Huh?” he stumbles over any response that might have come to mind. “What do you mean?”

You chuckle. “Well, it’s just that you’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes.”

“Uh . . . I . . .”

Fugo drags his gaze from his book to your face. “I don’t see anything,” he assures with a shrug. “Actually, come to think of it, I think your nose has gotten bigger.”

The banter of humor between you and Fugo is lost on the black-haired boy. Or rather, he is far too distracted to mimic it. He stands from his seat abruptly and reaches for the door to the compartment. “I have to piss,” he mutters.

He is gone before either of you can comment on his sudden brashness. In his absence, you nudge Fugo and gesture towards his book; just as Narancia had noted, you realize that your strawberry blonde friend has not gotten past the first page of the novel ever since you had departed. You left nearly an hour ago.

“My head is just elsewhere, I guess,” he confesses to your proclamation. He closes the book and sets it down on the seat. “I’m fine, though. As much as I can be. But Narancia isn’t.”

You hum in agreeance. “I’ll go check on him.”

Water rushes from the faucet and pools in the porcelain, ceramic bowl of the basin. Steam wafts towards the ceiling, blanketing the mirror in a cloud. Narancia’s fingers curl around the rim of the sink so tightly that the coloring flees from his knuckles. He feels like a phantom, for a part of him has surely died back in Venezia.

In another world, he imagines that he might have followed Bucciarati – as would have you and Fugo. But this is nothing more than a nonsensical thought that can never be anything more than an instance of intangible pondering. He does not wipe the fog from the mirror, because he cannot bear the sight of the boy who will greet him in return.

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again. His stomach churns and his head whirls with aches. He has never been the type of person to boast of his character; it takes a humble attitude to realize that there is nothing special about oneself – until there is. Truly, Narancia once believed that he was a proper man, because he worked for someone as virtuous as the young Capo, whose confidence bred itself and more.

“I guess I’m not much of one now,” Narancia mumbles aloud with a sigh of vexation. “Not like Mista, Abbacchio . . . or Giorno.”

He taps the tip of his shoe against the linoleum floor. As it were, his socialization into Passione – no, into Bucciarati’s squad – has taught him the moral necessities of defending the weak who cannot otherwise safeguard nor vindicate themselves. Betraying him is a dreadful regret. How can he ignore the voice in his head that affirms his folly and tells him that he is no better for abandoning Trish in all her temperamental, vain ways, either?

When the sound of knuckles rapping against the door startles him from his thoughts, his first impulse is to lash out at whoever has disrupted his mind chamber of self-reflection. “Hey, can’t you read, idiota?” he demands, angrily. “Bathroom’s occupied.”

“Narancia, it’s just me.” The scowl on his face falters as he recognizes your voice. He turns the squealing faucet until it has dried. He does not stop to catch his staggered breaths before opening the door, and perhaps he should have. Even though you have become such close companions, you still make him feel like a child under your anatomizing gaze – as if there is something particularly interesting about him after all, which takes him for a good subject of study.

Your look of concern is jarring. For a moment, it is difficult to breathe, and he wishes he had tried to calm himself first. So much for staying strong for them. You step forward and lock the sliding door behind you. If it were anyone else – even Fugo – the proximity of your body to his might have made him uneasy. You drag a finger through the film of steam on the mirror. “I’m going to ask you something,” you begin to say, “and I’d like you to answer me, honestly. Are you alright?”

He chokes up at your words, because yes – he is perfectly fine; healthy, albeit a bit battered still from his fracas with Formaggio. As soon as he manages to stop himself from instigating the scabs on his knuckles, they will heal, and he will be left with nothing more than pink scar-tissue as an everlasting memento of these past few days.

But, in other contingencies of prosperity, he is unequivocally not alright. Against his better sense of control, his eyes well up with tears, and his cognition scatters.

“Narancia?”

There are many things that a person indulges in as a means of coping, some safer than others. Men fall to the bottle, like Abbacchio – and men lash out in violent rages, such as Fugo. He could keep picking at his scabs, find an emptied compartment to scream in, or pull out his unkempt hair. Contrition moves through him like a venom, and he supposes he should find a way to suck it out before it kills him.

His hands meet your arms in a shockingly gentle, clammy grasp; he jerks himself closer and suddenly, his lips are on your own and he is kissing you. His teeth scrape against your own and he pulls you flush, as if he cannot get close enough to you already, desperate to suffocate the detrimental notions running through him. Stunned and too preoccupied with dwelling on the sweet taste of his mouth, you have forgotten how to reciprocate.

You break apart and shrug the grip on your arms, unsure of what to say as his desperate indigo ogling gauges you for a reaction – whether you should berate him or express your equal adoration, anything is preferable than the silence. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he finally says when you have not.

“It’s fine,” you insist, an unreadable poignancy sweeping your face. “You can do it again, if you need to. I don’t mind.”

He must have heard you wrong; surely, you did not give him such a blessing as this. And yet, when he cups your jaw and meets your lips halfway, you do not shove him off. Instead, you repay the gesture and swipe your tongue along his own. His heart sings for you, like a schoolboy’s choir: thank you, thank you, thank you. You swear that your legs have become melting gold, for they quiver and you can no longer stand on your own.

Or maybe it is because the train has lurched forward. Despite the separation of your lips, Narancia catches you in arms that harbor unassuming strength, but make you feel guarded, all the same. It is strange, you reflect: he has always been something of a haven to you, ever since the night when you had cast aside all hesitations of welcoming him into your circle and did exactly that.

“I just want you to know that everything will be okay,” you tell him – about the kiss, about the train, or about your shared regrets, he does not know. No matter the intent, he enjoys listening to your voice. “You aren’t alone in this, Nara. We both made the decision to leave. You don’t have to suffer on your own, because I feel just as guilty, too.”

He frowns.

“Besides, we have all we need. You, me, and Fugo. I’m glad you’re here, you know; I couldn’t do this without you.” He hastily wipes away the tears that trickle down his cheeks. Stop crying, he sneers to himself. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You pull his frantic hand away from his reddened face and lace your fingers with his, so that he might not try it again. “It’s okay to cry, even if you don’t think so.”

He blooms and comes undone, sobbing into the crook of your neck and clasping your shirt so tightly that the spooling contorts and wrinkles. You trace shapes against his back, creasing the leather with your nails. Slow, tentative, and soft. He wishes to stay like this forever, bathroom or not – just so long as he has you.

While Narancia straightens himself and splashes fresh water upon his face, you wait for him at the door. He hesitates to follow you back to the compartment, because he can lose himself to grief exactly where he is without repercussion. You know this well, and so you extend your arm for him to take with a sense of hushed encouragement. His fingers meet yours, only this time, it is not to stop him from swiping at his face until his skin is raw. “We should check on Fugo, yeah?” you suggest.

“Yeah . . .”

Down the corridor, he trails behind you like a lost stray to his savior. In a way, that is exactly what you are, he thinks. And he will forever be grateful for it. It is not until you have returned to the strawberry blonde that Narancia lets his grasp fall from yours. You return to your seats, and Fugo offers his own attempt at a smile to you each. His book lies in his lap, untouched and unmoved.

“So, Fugo.” You drag out his name, as if deep in thought. “Did you get past the first page yet?”

| 3704 Words |

#narancia ghirga x reader #narancia x reader #narancia ghirga #jjba reader insert #jjba x reader

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madsdefencesquad · 4 years ago

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Okay I got boooored so here’s a Kevison magazine fic I wrote for Kevison nation coz I love yous and we deserve to see Kevin talk about his fam magazine-stylez coz you know he’ll be gushing all the time about them, like you just KNOW IT.

Kevin Pearson on life, fatherhood and what’s next for him by x March 2028, Spring edition

It’s been twelve years since the impassioned The Manny star Kevin Pearson announced to the world that he will be quitting the role that had started it all for him. Pearson’s public meltdown was excruciating, to say the least, but it was this very act of defiance that led the actor towards the path of the actor-crusader that he is now known for—a revolutionary who defied the odds and ultimately defined him as one of the greatest actors of his generation.

After a slew of tabloid-worthy dalliances with famous co-stars including the soap operatic love triangle with Tony award-winner Olivia Maine and his Back of an Egg co-producer and playwright Sloane Sandburg, to the court-ordered rehab stint after a DUI arrest, Kevin Pearson has done nothing but illicit the kind of stories that tabloids are desperate to display and monetise from in full view. All of these seemed the perfect pivot points for the actor, basking in the affordances of all this fame and fortune albeit in a trajectory of a complete career-destruction, but the actor was by no means deterred in proving that he can and should be taken seriously in his acting craft.

Pearson came through with striking, emboldened performances: a soldier with an inability to confront his demons in the Ron Howard-helmed World War II flick opposite Sylvester Stallone, and an embittered cop in the M Night Shyamalan action flick Stairs to Nowhere. But it wasn’t until his role as a disingenuous trial lawyer in the 2020 Jordan Martin Foster film Glass Eye that earned him his first ever Academy Award nomination and eventual win that proved to the world that when he puts his mind to it, Kevin Pearson can truly achieve the kind of acting greatness worth the lauded applause.

Pearson, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh before moving to New York and eventually Los Angeles, has spent a good amount of his life in the public eye. Though his sunny, easy-going persona and physicality have been compared to the likes of Chris Hemsworth and (supposed rival) Chris Evans, the Pittsburgh-bred Pearson doesn’t feel the need now to prove that he is anything but a conscientious actor and a dedicated family man.

It’s a warm, spring afternoon when I ring the buzzer of a sprawling floor-to-ceiling glass residence tucked away in a town in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The little lady of the house, barefoot in a floral-print dress, greets me with an encouraged wave from her father, who is cradling her against him upon opening the front door. “She’s not normally this shy,” Kevin says with an affectionate grin as he leads the way to the sitting room, his little girl curiously taking peeks at me with what I garner is her mother’s soft blue eyes given Kevin’s famous warm browns.

The newly built residence is a remarkably private house perched on a dramatic hillside overlooking a panoramic view of the verdant surrounds, which Kevin says, “keeps the family very safe from prying eyes.” This feature, of course, was at the forefront of his mind prior to laying its foundations there.

“There’s one main reason as to why I chose to build here specifically,” he says. “But I’m not gonna bore you with the details. Let’s just say, I’m honoring a memory. Makes me sound real poetic, doesn’t it?”

Throughout Kevin’s career, he’s been known to talk quite candidly about his love and appreciation for his mother, Rebecca Pearson, with his Oscars acceptance speech having heavily featured his immense gratitude to her as would a loving son. But, as we move along the elegantly furnished corridors with him pointing and elaborating at the various artworks decorating the walls and the spaces, it is obvious that Kevin has an unrivalled affection for his wife that is quite notably special.

We make our way to a sitting area outside where we are entreated to the sounds and sights of a naturally filtered swimming billabong with cascading falls—a modern feature incorporated with the Japanese Zen garden landscaping that is just breathtaking to behold in person. “I wanted to make it feel as authentic as the ones you find in Japan,” he says, sitting on one of the cushioned recliners. He pours me a glass of red wine while he settles for chilled tonic, his little girl now helping herself to some olives and crackers.

There is an air of rare contentment around Kevin as he laughingly recalls his twins’ daily shenanigans. “Nothing really compares to coming home to them,” he says. “And I’m not trying to sound ungrateful or anything, but I’ve been [working my whole life] and I’ve only had my wife and kids just short of a decade, and that’s nothing! So, I do what I can to be home in as most days of the year as I can.”

When asked whether he’s perhaps heading into the territory of acting retirement in favour of other pursuits like directing or producing, Kevin thinks it can go either way.

“The other night in bed my wife suggested I do voice acting,” he says, to which his little girl unintentionally responds to in glee as she, her feet now strapped in light-up sandals, runs the width of the garden (within sight of her dad, of course) with her Jessie and Bullseye dolls held high. “She knows me too well,” he says fondly of Madison, his wife of eight years now. “I’d love to have my kids watch a movie that dad’s in without having to wait till they’re teenagers. And I hate thinking of my babies as teenagers! God, it’s just the worst age!”

Kevin recalls his teenage years with the kind of accepted embarrassment fit for a 48-year-old, but he laughs saying, “But I see a little more of their mom in them than me so that gives me hope. I’d hate to think I passed on angsty teen Kevin to either one of them. Just serious kudos to my parents for putting up with me all those years. I must’ve been a nightmare.”

From endorsing the des Resistance popular eau de parfum for men to his Armani-clad behind splashed on every billboard in the country (much to his chagrin and to his wife’s entertainment), Kevin Pearson has always been quite the go-getter, and though his “yes man” days in the industry are over, he’s always open to other ways in which he can challenge himself in his craft without compromising the time spent with his family.

“They’re my first priority, no questions asked,” he says. For a kid, who grew up in a middle-class family with parents whom had high hopes for their future, Kevin says that now, as a father himself, his perspective has shifted as to what’s really important and what’s not.

“I think a lot of the time there’s an expectation for your kids to meet the standard their parents have set or even go beyond it,” he says. “But that’s just toxic, you know? And it puts a lot of pressure on them to be someone that they’re not and not meant to be.”

Kevin is candid about his insecurities as an actor and as a father and as a husband, but there is a masterful acceptance there that he gives full credit to his wife. “We’re not perfect people, perfect parents,” he says. “And we’ll never be. That’s just a fact of life. But getting to do this with your person, the love of your life makes the biggest difference. I used to think that my parents had the greatest love story ever, and I used to really idolise it, you know, but honestly I think Madison and I can probably rival that.” And he thinks that if he’ll ever write, direct or produce a script, it’ll be about him and his wife’s sweeping and unconventional love story that will be the “tear-jerker of the century. Like, A Walk to Remember or The Notebook level but like better!”

I ask him what Madison would think of his plans to unleash their love story to the world, and as if on cue, he fishes his phone from his pocket and utters a “just a sec” before leaving to grab his daughter and take the call.

Following his game-changing Academy Award win in 2021, Kevin had let himself free fall in the industry as a kind of versatile actor in roles where he sweeps you away with gut-punching monologue deliveries coupled with an intensity that comes in through the eyes. He hasn’t delved into comedy since his Manny days though, but there is a certain cajoling ease in his demeanour that could easily challenge his funny bone.

“It’s Madison,” he returns not long after and settles himself down again, his daughter handing me a pizza-shaped play-dough I pretend to munch on. “She’ll be home soon. You should meet her. You’d love her! Everyone does not that it’s surprising.”

And who could deny that offer?

Kevin shows me a photograph of the twins on his phone at their cousin’s birthday whom they celebrated with in California last week and qualms that they’re growing up way too fast—yet another reiteration that he is as doting of a father as he is a consummate actor. He thinks that though Hollywood is a lot less ageist in terms of film and TV roles, there is still that pressure not to succumb to filling a role just because you’re the right age for it.

“Ever since my kids were born, I’ve been approached to do a lot of dad roles. Like my agent would send me about five scripts a week where my character is supposed to be this stereotypical dad. I’ve rarely taken any of them because I feel like it’s like they’re just trying to fit me in to a role just because I can say, ‘Oh hey, yeah I’m a dad now, I know what that means or what that looks like’, and not that that isn’t a good thing per se, but there’s a difference between the director wanting me to put my own spin to it as Kevin Pearson the actor versus them just wanting Kevin Pearson the dad. The way I approach parenting my kids, the way my wife and I do it, would be different to the way my character in this film would parent his kids. Sure, there may be certain overlaps, but it’s not going to be full Kevin Pearson the dad, you know? So, it’s hard with that kind of expectation.”

As the sun dips a little lower and it gets a little cooler, Kevin takes us back to the house just in time to finally meet Madison and their little boy, who looks strikingly like his father though, upon closer inspection, actually looks a little more like his mother. But there is one undeniable feature of the twins that definitely comes from both parents: the adorable identical dimples adorning their little chins.

Madison Pearson is as beautiful in person as she looks in photographs standing beside her husband in premieres and events. With her light-blue eyes and warm, soothing voice that sounds both delicate and excited at the same time, Madison is nothing but the embodiment of all things lovely.

“She grounds me,” he says adoringly, watching Madison and their kids flit about in the kitchen arranging dinner. “There isn’t much I can say that’s good about me if it hadn’t been for her. I can be ambitious and sometimes there’s always that pull towards something bigger but not necessarily better and she tells me honestly. She calls me out. And everyone needs that, you know? A frank person who won’t sugar coat anything, but they do it because they love you.”

It’s easy to imagine Kevin in gritty noir films playing bad cop, good cop or even as an intimidating trial lawyer, but Kevin as a family man is the role that is perfectly suited for him, almost like it’s created especially for him. As a father, he thrives on the affections of his kids, and as an actor, he finds pleasure in what’s he’s good at. And as a husband, his smile is the widest. “Not gonna lie, her not even being slightly jealous of that one time I did a love scene still gets to me,” he jokes. But it’s obvious that it bothers him not one bit. He enjoys being Madison Pearson’s more than anything.

“It’s crazy to think that people are inspired by what I do and who I am when for most of my life, it was 100% the other way around. It’s a huge responsibility, really, but I take it as it goes. I have my kids on the back of my mind now every time I make any decision, and I have a wife to love and support too, so it’s easier to not feel trapped by people’s opinions and expectations of you when you’re too focused on them and being the best person you can be for you and for them. So, it’s about growing every day, and enjoying all that life has to offer, and making every moment count.” x

Particular shoutout to my GC gals coz like ILY 5EVS @wallofweird @betweensunflowersanddaffodils @thisiskevison @thesocietalmisfit @tryalittlejoytomorrow @lullabiesandgoodbyes @flythesail @ourfinehouse @elephantsneedwater @holding-up-the-universe @smoakingpinklipstick @purpleinthesky

#kevison #kadison #seriously let's get rid of this tag @ sterling better not be annoying af next ep aye!!#hope you enjoyed kevin gushing about his family lol #i'll probs make another one but less formal and more kevison-centric #but I just love love loveeeee imagining dad! and husband!kevin sah much #so don't mind meee #anywhooo #kevin and madison #kevin pearson #this is us madison #kevison fanfic #kevison fic #i have not written in 5eva but boyyyyyy this was sah much fun #Kevin Pearson #TIU #tiu spoilers

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vercopaanir · 5 years ago

Text

I Trust You

The Lovely Moons, Chapter 4

Pairing: The Mandalorian x blind!Reader

Summary: On a trip for supplies, the Mandalorian accidentally hurts the feelings of his child's caretaker.

Words: 3.2k

Rating: T

Warnings: Honestly, I don’t think I have any warnings. Mild angst. Illusions to menstruation, but it’s pretty vague.

Notes: Thank you so much for everyone who reads, comments, reblogs, and likes this series! You’ve all been incredibly kind, and I appreciate your feedback. Let me know if this slow-burn has been too slow, by the way. Things are progressing (and will even more-so in the next chapter), but this is just how it’s naturally going. :X AO3

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 + Don’t Go Far

The first time you land the Razor Crest, your hands are trembling like dead leaves shaking in the wind. The Mandalorian has showed you how to enter coordinates, which he gave to you based on a digital schematic of the planet Quanera. The landscape is fairly open, which you’re thankful for, as you don’t have to worry about landing on a sandbar or a cliff’s edge. You hold the controls steady as the ship thunders to a rumbling halt.

You hold your breath until the Mandalorian, who stands steady beside you, holding onto a latch above your head, hums, “Not bad.”

The pride you feel flushes in your cheeks, and you duck your head down, busying yourself with fussing over the small child’s robe. He’s perched in your lap, happily suckling on a necklace of an indiscernible shape. You wonder how he got it, now that you’re able to focus on something that isn’t the ship’s controls.

“Where did you get this?” you coo, brushing your thumb over the child’s cheek as he continues to nibble on the sterling silver pendant. His large, dark eyes blink owlishly at you, and it never fails to make you smile.

“Temperature’s on the cooler side. Looks overcast, too,” the Mandalorian mutters, and you feel his eyes on you even behind his helmet. “Come with me.”

Shouldering the child up in your arms, you rise from the pilot’s chair and carefully follow him out of the cockpit. He’s since turned on more lights, and though it’s still too dim to see as clearly as you’d prefer, you’re not in complete darkness. He turns down the narrow passageway to another room, and you hesitate at the threshold.

You hear the wrenched metallic sound of a locker being opened, a lot of shuffling, and then he returns and drapes a heavy cloak over your shoulders that nearly buckles your knees. The hem pools a bit on the ground, and you know that it’s his by that. And the scent.

Wobbling for a moment, his gloved hands cup your shoulders, and you reach one hand out to the beskar chest plate, grateful for the stability. Your eyes flicker along the gleam of the armor, your stomach fluttering when his hands seem to form to the top of your arms before quickly retracting.

“Should do for now,” he mutters, then turns on his heel and descends the ladder.

Blinking, you follow wordlessly, feeling lighter in spirit and physically more cumbersome at the same time. You draw the cloak around the child in your arms, protecting his ears as a cool wind blows into the hull of the ship while the hatch opens. The ramp lowers, and you bite your lip with excitement at finally being able to stretch and languish in the outdoors.

“Stay close,” the Mandalorian says sternly, and a small furrow bends your brow.

“Where else would I be?” you mutter as a reflex. Your eyes widen at the insolent edge to your voice, and the Mandalorian stares at you for a moment, seemingly just as surprised as you by your words. Where did that come from? “S-Sorry, I-”

And then, an unmistakable noise comes from his helmet: he snorts .

Your face turns completely red, and you press your face to the top of the child’s head, sinking your neck back into the cowl of the cloak. His voice is quiet and low when he speaks again. “Come on, then.”

Quanera isn’t freezing, nothing close to somewhere like the planet Hoth you’d heard was iced over, but it is cooler than all the other planets you’ve been to. You can feel it kissing your cheeks and the tips of your ears, but it doesn’t calm the drum beat of your pulse as your eyes drink up the landscape around you.

It’s so green. Green and grey, with splashes of purple and blue. You pause in your walking, kneeling down to touch one of the oily swirls of color in your vision. You feel the plump leaves, then the silky petals of a flower. It’s nothing but a watery, violet smear to you in the cloudiness of your sight, but you prick it up between two fingers, and the child in your arm coos in wonder as you pass it to him.

“What are you doing?”

The Mandalorian has stopped on the narrow dirt road, looking back at you with a curious tilt of his helmet. You grin when the child burbles in delight as you pluck another flower, this one blue.

“He likes flowers!” you say with excitement, fully sitting on your knees to shift the baby in your lap. This wasn’t just an exciting excursion for you, but it was for the baby as well. You planned on getting him something from town to help keep away his boredom, as the Mandalorian spoke of a market that sold all kinds of wares.

The child wrinkles his nose up after sniffing at the flowers, then sneezes adorably, sending a few purple petals flying up into the air.

Suddenly, the Mandalorian is hovering over both of you, and his voice is near a panic. “What’s wrong? Did he eat it? How do you know that’s not poisonous?”

You tilt your head up at his voice, raising your eyebrows. You have a small smirk on your face, unable to hide it. “No, he only sniffed it.”

The Mandalorian lifts the child from your arms, and the flowers slip from his small three fingered grip to land in the dirt. The warrior checks over the child with a fierce tenacity, and a small pinch of annoyance irks you.

“Do you think I’d really poison him?” you ask tersely, pushing yourself to stand up and dusting off your clothes. Your hands rest on your hips, feeling brave surrounded by wildflowers and overgrowth.

“Not on purpose,” huffs your employer, nearly an afterthought. He seems satisfied that once he’s checked over the child personally, finally looking towards you.

You draw in a breath, slow and steady, then let it out. You don’t recall having to tame your temper before, but for some reason, this tests your patience. Tapping your fingers at your hip, you straighten your back. “Poisonous flowers don’t have single leaflets,” you say slowly to prevent snapping. “They have three.”

The Mandalorian pauses, looking up at you in silence while the baby coos and reaches out a grabbing hand towards the ground where his flowers lay. You lean down and pluck two new ones, pressing them into the child’s fingers and pat his head.

“How do you know that?” he asks, guarded and wary.

“I read about it.”

“You can-?” He stops suddenly, his voice choking on the question.

“Yes,” you mutter, letting your arms fall. “I can read.” After a pause. “Can you?”

A heavy, strained silence hangs between you.

You step around him and continue down the dirt path, planting your feet with a little more force than necessary. The absolute chagrin in the form of a Mandalorian following behind you is akin to the clouds that hang in the sky overhead. You have no interest in appeasing him, either. You have one job, and that’s to keep the little one safe. He really thinks you would do something that would let harm come to the child?

It’s nearly an hour before your annoyance dissipates, and you let out a small sigh. The Mandalorian has matched you in stride, now walking beside you and still holding the baby in his arms like he’s afraid to let him go.

Perhaps...perhaps you were too hard on him, you think, touching the back of your neck. He was only worried about his child, after all. Could you blame him for putting his safety first? You think of your own father, so long ago, laughing as you played in dirt and ran barefoot and climbed trees. He had never seemed worried about you getting hurt, simply laughing at your foolhardy smile when you’d proudly present him with a mud pie or a shiny new river rock.

Would he still be alive if he had?

Would you be able to sleep through the night and not wear a scar on your neck if he had?

Tears clog your throat, and it’s all you can do to swallow them down.

The town you landed the Razor Crest near is a bustling, thriving community on the edge of a mineral deposit. Quanera is wealthy in its earth and soil, and it has made a name for itself as a trading post for being such a small planet. You follow silently behind the Mandalorian as he walks like a shadow through the marketplace, deeply inhaling the different scents of food, spices, and perfumes.

Weeks of being isolated on the Razor Crest gives you a hunger for the lively atmosphere. It’s different than the cantina. It’s not contained, like a pressure that builds into a headache. Instead, you find yourself listening to peoples’ conversations, peering into the different vendor stalls, and smiling at the sound of children laughing. With the renowned warrior walking ahead, you assume he’d either been here before, or it was something he saw all the time. He didn’t seem affected by anything around him, until he stepped up to a shop and turned to the side.

You blink, skidding to a stop, and he bows his head slightly at the open doors.

Oh. Oh.

You step in first, and only then the shadow of beskar follows you inside.

The shop smells antiseptic and seems chillier than the outdoor air. You shuffle next to him and listen as he speaks with the vendor about bacta kits, splints, and waterproof bandages. Your eyebrows raise with surprise, leaning closer to hear. It hadn’t occurred to you he’d need such extensive medical supplies, but now that you consider it, bounty hunting isn’t exactly for the faint of heart or the weak of body.

When your arm brushes his elbow, the child peeks around the gleaming pauldron to blink coquettishly at you. With a small hand, he offers his blue flower towards you that has lost most of its petals from how he insists on waving it about with triumph.

Smiling, you take the little bloom and tuck it in the soft fold of your dress’s neckline by your collar, and the baby coos in delight. The sound gives you the warmest feeling in your chest, and you’re suddenly struck with an intense realization that makes your face fall.

The Mandalorian has just put away his purchases in a pack slung over his shoulder when he seems to notice your disquiet. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice holding a worried edge.

“N-Nothing,” you say slowly. Your mouth suddenly feels dry, a violent red blush flaming your face. “I...I just…” The emotional peaks and valleys suddenly make sense, you think, and being around the medical supplies has only confirmed your suspicions. “I’d like to buy something here.”

“Oh.” His tone is nothing but surprise, and when you don’t elaborate, he tilts his head to the side.

“Could I have some privacy?” you whisper, ducking your gaze down. You’re grateful the vendor has moved down the counter to rearrange his stock that the Mandalorian has just emptied.

It only takes a moment for your employer to seemingly understand. “Of course,” he says with such a level politeness in his voice, you wonder at it. You expected awkwardness-as many men project on the subject-but he bows his helmet towards you with deference. “I’ll wait outside.”

You don’t move until you hear the door close, and you take a deep breath, moving down the counter to speak to the shopkeeper. Having never needed to discuss such a topic with someone before, especially a man and a stranger, you feel a little clumsy about it. Thankfully, the older, wizened voice puts you at ease. You tell yourself that this isn’t the first time he’s had this conversation, being a vendor of medical supplies. It once again makes you think of Kuiil.

“I have several options,” he says, tapping his fingers in thought on the counter. “But, if you’re traveling, you might find a cycle suppression more convenient.”

Chasing after a small child and living on a rather confined ship with limited privacy has given you an appreciation for convenience. You happily pay the credits for the small implant to be injected into your bicep, which he does with no trouble and a minimal discomfort. You find it ironic how grateful you are for the slight sting when you were so nervous about the transmitter being removed from your neck before.

When you exit the shop, feeling calmer and more collected, the Mandalorian is lounging against the wall, listening intently to the child babble up at him while he waves his flower with vigor. That familiar warmth in your belly returns, and you wonder if this emotion is your body’s fleeting hormonal responses, after all.

The Mandalorian straightens up as you approach. You fold your hands in front of you like you were taught as a handmaiden, a habit hard to break. He’s looking at you, and you give him a small smile of appreciation.

“I owe you an apology,” you say after a moment of silence, looking down at your hands. “I shouldn’t have-that is, before, on the road-”

“No. I-” He stops, tweaking the child’s ear fondly, busying his fingers. “I do- you know , trust you.”

The words meant more than anything, and you take a deep breath, feeling your lip tremble. You bite it. “Don’t stop worrying after him,” you murmur, stepping closer. You lay a hand over his glove where it holds the child’s tinier one. “He’ll never doubt you care for him, even if he fusses about it.”

The helmet tilts down to look at the little green baby waving the flower up at you, or, perhaps he’s looking at your hands. Either way, you step closer. “May I hold him now?” you ask softly.

“You-” his voice is thick, but you think he may be smiling. “You don’t have to ask.”

The child offers you his flower, just as before, and you take it with a little grin, gathering him in your arms. Thinking better of it than to pair it with the one you already wear, you step even closer-and you certainly hear the way the fearsome bounty hunter sucks in a breath through his modulator-and gently tuck the flower inside the bandolier across his chest.

The baby gurgles happily at this, and you giggle, shouldering him within the confines of your cloak so he’s kept warm. “Come on, let’s try to find you a toy,” you murmur with the most conspiratorial voice, walking off into the traffic of the market. It only takes a few moments for the Mandalorian to follow dutifully behind you, just as silent as ever. That’s where he remains as you purchase a few things from various vendors.

He is ever present yet not overbearing, and you can feel his gaze as you choose clothing items to replace your threadbare dress and robe. He silently pays for the stuffed bantha with crossed eyes and lopsided horns that you pluck up for the child, and he doesn’t question you when you buy leafs of paper and pencils. When you near the food stalls, he quietly picks out various items that you comment on that smell so good your mouth waters, and he only nods when you remind him to get extra of something because the child has a tendency towards things with bones.

“We should try to leave soon. It’ll be dark before we reach the Crest if we’re not careful,” he says, his voice low as he steps close enough that his chest plate brushes your shoulder.

You were in the middle of running your hand over a spine of a book, the raised curvatures and nodules telling you it was a book on sentientology. It was unique to find a braille bound book, and you were impressed the vendor still had it. Most were collector’s items, since they could not be transferred to datapads or digitalized formats. You already knew it was too expensive for you to afford, even if you envied its future owner, and you withdrew your hand.

“Will we leave immediately?” you ask, turning your face to look up at the sound of his voice. The child was beginning to fuss in your arms, and you lean down to press your lips to his forehead. It soothes him sufficiently for the time, and he nuzzles into your warmth.

“No.” The answer is roughened, and you hear the strain of leather when he flexes his fingers at his sides.

You nod, and you leave the stall with a polite thank you to the vendor. With two full packs, you and the Mandalorian navigate your way from the marketplace, and you only become aware of the presence of his hand on your lower back to guide you when you leave the town’s bustle behind you.

Your cheeks warm, even as the air grows cooler from the sun sinking in the sky, but you just bury your face between the child’s ears and walk quietly beside the bounty hunter.

When a light mist begins to coat the air with sweet rain, that hand on your back draws the hood of the cloak up over the crown of your head, and that’s when you stop, pausing to turn your face toward him.

Immediately, his hand jerks away like he’s been burned by your very gaze.

You open your mouth to speak, but before you can, he does.

“I do trust you,” the Mandalorian says, echoing his words from before, and you feel your heart stumble in its pace to quicken. The child sleeps against your chest, but he doesn't seem to notice the sudden change in rhythm. The Mandalorian shifts, his boots scuffing in the dirt against tiny stones. “With him. I’m-from before, I didn’t mean-

When your hand slips in the crook of his elbow, you’re very aware of the soft curves of muscle tensing beneath your fingers under the dark fabric of his clothing. “I know that,” you murmur, ducking your head a little, both to hide your blush and to keep the mist from the child’s sleeping face.

The Mandalorian stands in the middle of the road, dumbfounded by this gentle confession. When he doesn’t move, you glance up out of the corner of your pale eyes. “Shouldn’t we go?” you ask, squeezing his arm gently and leaning into him. You wonder what he’s thinking when he does this, loses himself in hesitancy and roots himself to the ground like an irontree.

Finally, you feel him jerk his head in a nod. “Y-Yes.”

Your footsteps sound as one as you lean into his side, keeping your eyes closed and letting him guide you back to the Razor Crest. You can’t make out much of the landscape in the watery sunset, but you listen to the sounds of evening insects singing songs and taste the petrichor rising from the surrounding fields. You don’t need to see the way back to feel surefooted, and you wonder if he knows your hand on his arm mirrors his own confession.

I trust you, too.

Tags: @lavenderl3mons @itzagoodthing @letaliabane @rzrcrst, @yodaswrinkles

#the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #star wars fanfiction

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