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wiener-soldiers · 4 years ago

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heal my soul with your lips - tommy shelby

request: “idea: tommy with a singer or just someone that's musically talented” from anon

summary: a melodic voice helped him through the depths of hell once. the same melodic voice finds him once more or tommy shelby recognizes the sweet voice of nurse that sung to the soldiers in france in a jazz club in london.

pairing: tommy shelby x fem!reader (race non-specific)

words: 3.9k

warnings: some themes of ptsd (it’s subtle), jealous tommy!

a/n: based off this head cannon. also, the song i used was “through the valley” by shawn james and IK it’s not period accurate; the song just fits the show so well i couldn’t not use it. also also, ik made the name of the club an awful combination of french and english. i speak french so ik it’s awful, but it’s intentional.

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Tommy Shelby heard you before he met you.

He was in a field hospital in God-knows where. Somewhere in France, obviously, but he didn’t remember where exactly. They were ordered to keep pushing forward, but with his days underground and his endless tunnelling, it was impossible to know how much ground they had covered.

As it turns out, he was closer to the enemy lines than he realized and a brief but bloody squabble in a tunnel under the gunfire left him with a stab wound in his leg.

He practically dragged himself to a field hospital before plopping himself on the nearest empty cot. His condition wasn’t terrible, a nurse had told him, as the knife had missed a major blood vessel. But the prospect of living another day didn’t excite Tommy, it was the promise that he would probably be one of the later patients to be treated and he could rest in an actual cot instead of the cold, wet ground, even for a few hours.

He laid in the bed, trying not to aggravate his wound further, and slowly shut his eyes. Strangely, he felt tranquil. Yes, he could hear the screams of soldiers, the cries of anguish, the gunfire and the shells dropping, but he felt at peace. Laying undisturbed at the Somme was a win for him.

Suddenly, he hears a voice cut through the violent sounds that filled the ear. It was hauntingly beautiful, so much so that Tommy wondered if that the nurse who had spoken to him at first had been wrong and he was on the brink of death.

But the voice persisted. Soft. Unrelenting. Beautiful. He assumed that the woman singing was further within the hospital, closer to the more severe patients. The cries and screams of the men seemed to stop and even the battlefield seemed to quiet. It’s like everyone took breath to hear her voice, Allies and Central powers alike.

The juxtaposition between beauty and darkness was almost too much for Tommy as he felt his chest start to squeeze. He suddenly felt nostalgic for home, for his family, for his brothers. Instead, he was fighting in a war that wasn’t his.

“Sergeant Major Shelby,” a voice calls. It’s a new nurse this time and she looks as exhausted as he is. He notices the tray she’s carrying and how it’s full of medical equipment. He sighs; it was time to get his stitches and his moment of tranquility was now over.

---

Years later, he and his brothers are walking through the streets of London like the own the city. It was comical, really. Tommy had just started a war with Darby Sabini, one of the most influential men in London, and he had the confidence of a man who had just killed a hundred men single-handedly.

The Shelby brothers hopped from club to club, drinking in the lavish London lifestyle which paled in comparison to the more humble pubs back in Birmingham. Though his brothers couldn’t help but try their hands at some snow (and even something stronger), Tommy kept his distant, trying to stay aware.

Eventually, their energy began to die down and the brother stumbled into their final club for the evening. It was quieter than the others, Tommy notices, but perhaps it’s because the night was getting quite late.

The club was painted a deep red with gold decor to compliment, but what stuck out to him was the rest of the decorations: military medals, entire walls lined with them. Batered Union Jacks hung from door archways, ones that looked like they had been brought back from France. Finally, a wall full of photographs of men in their uniforms. Veterans, Tommy realized. The one’s that didn’t make it home, he noticed, as their birth and death years were on display. He then notices the vases filled with poppies on nearly every table and every spare ledge.

And then a voice.

“I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

and I fear no evil because I’m blind to it all.”

It feels as if the air from Tommy’s lungs had been sucked out. It was the same voice from the Somme. It was louder now and he could hear it more clearly...it was even more beautiful than he remembered.

“And my mind and my gun, they comfort me,

because I know I’ll kill my enemies when they come.”

His chest starts to squeeze again, just like it did when he was on that cot in the cramped field hospital. He froze, seemingly transported back to the warfront. His brothers paid him no mind however, as they stumbled to the bar to order a drink.

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I’ll dwell on this Earth forevermore.”

“You served?” a voice calls to him. It’s a man who’s slumped in a chair, staring at the medals on the wall in melancholy.

“Yes,” Tommy answers curtly.

“You have that look about you,” the drunken man says. “All soldiers get that look when she sings that song.”

“Said, I walk beside the still waters

and they restore my soul.”

“You see a lot of soldiers here, then?” Tommy asks the man.

He laughs, shaking his head sadly. He lifts he glass up to Tommy and says candidly, “Brother, I am one. This is where the soldiers with the Flanders Blues come. Too violent to fit back into normal life, too tired to fight another war aside from the one in our own heads.”

“But I can’t walk on the path of the right

because I’m a wrong.”

Tommy finally looks at the direction of the singing and locks eyes with you. You’re standing on a small stage at the end of the club, swaying to the haunting jazz tune of the piano. Behind you was a large Union Jack, soot stained in the fabric and filled with bullet holes. You were a vision, in Tommy’s eyes. You sung beautifully into the microphone, your satin red dress accentuating the dips and curves in your body. The men in the pub, most likely soldiers according to the drunk man Tommy spoke to, stared at you in wonder and sadness. You seemed to be an enigmatic cure for their sorrows. You sung of tragedy and sadness, but you seemed to be the light guiding them through the darkness. Tommy fell into your trance as quickly as the other men.

“Said, I walk beside the still waters

and they restore my soul.

But I know when I die,

my soul is damned.”

You held your final note as the pianist hit the final key and the crowd clapped in muted and bittersweet cheer. You still smiled, understanding that a large reaction wasn’t appropriate especially given the men in the room knew that death was nothing glorious. A few men walked up to you, sincerely thanking you through their unshed tears before leaving the club to return to their families. You conversed with the pianist as you sipped a glass of water when you noticed that his expression began to falter.

“Mr. Shelby,” the pianist stutered out, looking over your shoulder at someone behind you.

You turned to look behind you and noticed the man who had caught your stare approaching. His face was hardened and his aura was dark and dangerous, but you saw through it immediately. He was no different from the veterans who flocked to the pub every night.

“Evening,” Mr. Shelby replied. “You know who I am?” he asks, voice neutral but laced in curiosity. He had just come to London, even he was slightly surprised about his reach.

The pianist nods, “My cousin works in one of your factories, sir.”

Mr. Shelby curtly nods before saying, “You wouldn’t mind if I spoke to the lady then, would you?”

“Of course, good evening to you both,” he says respectfully before turning to leave.

“Mr. Shelby then, is it?” you say without the intimidation in your voice. You’ve been through and seen a lot in France and you know how the men acted when no one was watching when they returned home. It was going to take a lot for you to feel intimidated. “What can I help you with?”

“You were a nurse, weren’t you? You were at the Somme,” he says, though it didn’t seem like a question.

Your eyes widen, taken aback slightly by his forwardness and his accurate description of your time as a nurse on the front. “I was. Have we met?”

Tommy shakes his head no. “I was getting stitches in a field hospital when I heard your voice,” he explains.

You laugh lightly, though it feels strained. Tommy understands why. “The men find it easier to take the pain if I sing to them.”

“Is that why you sing here? In front of all these broken soldiers?” he asks. You can’t tell if he’s being condescending or curious. It was hard to read men like him, despite the practice you had every day.

You decide to answer honestly, hoping that it would allow you to see the man he was on the inside. “I was too hot-headed to stay a nurse after the war, but I still wanted to help because I knew most of the men were as broken, if not more, once the returned home than they were in France. So, here I am. The singing seemed to help them in France, why not let it help them here as well?” you say softly, still bravely staring at his face. You watch his facade crack, just a little.

“You think I’m like the rest of them, then? A soldier too tired to fight another war except for the one in his own head?” he asks, testing her.

You don’t falter and reach forward to flick his collar where blood had spattered from his fight in Sabini’s club. “I think you died back there. In France, I mean. So, you keep finding and fighting new wars to distract yourself from the one goin’ on in your head.”

You worry that your candor is too much for him, but Tommy stares at you in what you could only call as affectionately.

“Was this place always a pub for soldiers, then?” Tommy asks, hearing himself become more comfortable.

You laugh, eyes crinkling slightly, and Tommy finds the sound as addicting as your voice. “You’re definitely new around here,” you tease. “Before the war, this club was full of classist, elistist toffs who rejoiced the King. None of them faught. When the war was over, the soldiers basically drove them out with their horrific stories of France and their despise for the Crown. Turned it into the place it is today. The owner’s son served and he was more than happy for the change.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“So many questions, Mr. Shelby,” you continue to tease, hoping to get a reaction out of him.

“I find you very intriguing,” he remplies simply, pulling out a cigarette.

“You don’t even know my name,” you point out.

The corner of his lip quirks upwards and you find yourself grinning slightly at your success. “It’s Y/N. Reckon I should spare you from the pain of suspense,” you say, breaking out into a smile as you do so.

“Tommy,” he says, grabbing your hand and pressing his lips to it.

“Oi, Tom!” a thick Brummie accent shouts through the club. “Arthur’s piss-faced and can barely fuckin’ walk. We should go.”

Tommy sighs against your knuckles and you giggle slightly. “Your brothers?” you ask, making note of a younger man attempting to haul an older one with a moustache out of a bar stool.

“Hmm,” he nods, before taking a step back. “Can I see you again?”

“You know where I work,” you tease and he rolls his eyes in an amused manner.

“I was thinking dinner,” he says boldly and you grin.

“Come back tomorrow and ask me again,” you smirk before brushing past him and walking into the back room.

---

Tommy did come back the next night and asked again. You said yes, slightly shocked that he fufilled your request. He didn’t seem like the type of man particularly fond of taking orders, but rather the type of man who often gave them. If being around veterans every day taught you anything, it was how to read those who didn’t want to be read.

Your dinner date turned into two, then three, then weekly visits from Tommy, then weekends spent alone in your apartment, then you visiting Birmingham, then you meeting his family. Neither of you had talked about where exactly you stood in a relationship because it was seemingly obvious.

Tommy was infatuated with you and you easily returned the sentiment.

He had learned that you aren’t really from anywhere because you moved around countless times with your parents as they tried to find work. So, it wasn’t too hard to convince you to move to Birmingham to live with him after nearly a year of courting.

You had been slightly pained at the prospect of leaving your old club behind, especially since the owner was getting old and his son was involved in his own medical career to take over the business, so Tommy made a quick move to buy the club from him and began running it as one of his legitimate businesses in London.

It’s a gift, he had told you but that didn’t stop you from nearly burst into tears. That club meant a lot to you, as it was a safe haven for both you and the soldiers it serviced. Tommy had put you in charge, so you hired a few people—all veterans, most of them regulars who were eager to help keep the business alive—to manage the place while you were in Birmingham. Every few weeks, you’d make the trip to London for a few performances. Though you hired new girls to sing, the club was still filled like no other night when you were in town. You called it The Club Infirmerie, an ode to the field hospital in the Somme where Tommy had first heard you sing. More and more veterans flocked there to heal amongst the music and amonst their fellow soldiers, just as you hoped.

When you were in Birmingham, you involved yourself in business where you could. You had no problem with the kind of work Tommy was involved in, to his delight, but there was still a lot you didn’t fully understand. Polly did her best to groom you in the more complex side of business, but you still gravitated to a more manegerial role. So, Tommy put you in charge of most logistics of the factories and clubs he owned. Your favourite establishment, however, was The Garrison.

“Look’s a little like the Inifirmerie, Tommy,” you teased him as he showed you around The Garrison for the first time, arm slung around your shoulders as you gazed at the decor of the pub.

“I may have gotten some design inspiration from you, darlin’,” he hummed, pressing kiss to your temple.

Like The Club Infermerie, you had set up a small stage, piano, and microphone to have performers in The Garrison. When you were doing this, Tommy opened up and explained why there had been no singing in his pub before; the pub was void of singing becauase of Grace and her betrayal. You kissed him softly, a reminder that you were different and that were staying. Tommy’s heart swelled as you found another way to slowly heal his soul with your lips.

On that particular Friday, The Garrison was more full than usual, partly because there had been word that you were to perform a set that evening. The bar was bustling as men and women of all backgrounds ordered drink after drink. You, Harry, and Arthur had a hard time keeping up, so you inlisted the help of Finn and Isaiah who had been sharing a pint with some younger Peaky’s at the end of the bar.

“Oi! Finn, ‘Saiah, c’mere!” you shout, filling another pint.

“What is it, Y/N?” Finn asks as he approached you, Isaiah in tow.

“Hop ‘round the back and take over for a bit, will ya?” you ask quickly, wiping your hands on the skirt of your work dress. “I need to prepare for my set.”

"Course,” Isaiah says kindly and agreed to help right away, though you aren’t blind to the small crush the younger boy harbored towards you, which is probably why he had been eager to help.

Finn, however, groans. The effect of being seen as a sibling to him, you suppose. “’S what hiring more people’s for, Y/N,” he complains, dragging his feet as you approach him. “Why’d I gotta do it?”

You squint your eyes playfully at Finn before saying, “I’ll let you have a glass of whiskey.”

“And you won’t let Tommy take it away?” he says skeptically.

“I won’t let Tommy take it away,” you confirm.

Finn perks back up again and pecks your cheek before shouting, “This is why I like you better than Tommy!” You laugh to yourself as you slip into the snug to change out of your work dress into a fancy, silk one. It’s one Tommy had purchased on a business trip to London because he said it reminded him of what you were wearing when you first met. The dress was long, almost a gown, but it still abandonned the old, Edwardian silhouette in favour of a more modern one. In fact, the dress was more scandoulous than most, with the neckline and back dipping deep into your chest and back and a slit in the skirt as climbing as high as your thigh. The red of the dress was deep and luxiourious, matching the walls of The Garrison.

The moment you stepped out of the snug, it’s like the crowd had parted for you and allowed you to walk through the pub interrupted until you reached the stage. It’s not the awe of your presence that drawed you to keep singing, but the calmness and tranquility that followed. Throughout your set, the peaceful daze that fell over the pub persisted. Tommy had entered The Garrison halfway through the set, having just finished business, and he fell back into your spell just as easily as everyone else. He loved that about you—how easily you could calm a rowdy crowd. It meant you could just as easily calm his thundering and monstrous soul. He leaned on the threshold of the snug, watching you sing with a content smile on his face.

When the set was over, the crowd errupted into applause. Women flocked forward and gushed to you about your performance and men stared longingly from afar. You were Tommy’s girl and they knew you weren’t to be trifled with.

Unfortunately, someone had not gotten the message. Rather, he got the message but simply didn’t care.

Tommy noticed Finn and Isaiah behind the bar and apporached them curiously. Upon seeing his brother, Finn grinned at him.

“Whiskey, Tom?” Finn asks cheekily. He knows the answer will be yes anyway, so he starts preparing his drink.

“What’re you doin’ behind the bar?” Tommy asks, accepting the whiskey from Finn.

“Y/N asked us to help because she needed to prepare for the set,” Isaiah explains, filling up another pint.

Tommy smirks at him. “I know why you’re helping behind the bar, Isaiah,” he jokes, referring to the crush the young Blinder has on his girl, “I was asking why Finn was.”

“Can’t I just be a helping hand?”

“She offered you whiskey, didn’t she?”

Finn groans. “C’mon, Tom! Just this once? She said she wouldn’t let you take it away! It’s been ages since you let me have a glass.”

“What about that time Y/N patched you up after getting into a pub fight, eh?” Tommy notes, teasing his brother further. “Nearly had half a bottle there ‘cos you wouldn’t stop fuckin’ wailin’.”

“I was in pain,” Finn defends himself, but with no malice in his voice. He liked that he could joke around with his brother again; that was all your doing. “’S not my fault the bloke stabbed me with a rusty fuckin’ knife.”

“Sorta is, Finny boy.”

“Uh, Tommy?” Isaiah interrupts with a confused look on his face as he stares in the distance. “Is he supposed to be doing that?” he continues, nodding in your direction.

Tommy turns his head in your direction and his jaw clenches.

“I’m tellin’ ya, love, your voice? Fan-fucking-tastic. Couldn’t have captured the sound of heaven betta’ meself,” the man talking to you chuckled, placing a large hand on your waist.

You tried your best not to get flustered, “I’m really glad you enjoyed it Mr. Solo—”

“Alfie.”

Both you and Alfie turned to face Tommy who was staring at the later with more distate than you’ve ever seen.

“Ah, Tommy! Good to see you, m’friend,” Alfie cheers loudly, sticking his hand out for Tommy to shake. Tommy’s doesn’t budge.

“I see you’re getting reaquainted with Y/N,” Tommy notes bitterly. You catch Tommy’s stare and you almost laugh at how jealous he’s getting.

“What can I say, Tom? She’s a sight to see. And hear for that matter,” Alfie jokingly puts his hand on his chin inquisitivley. “I wonder what she sounds like in b—”

“Right, that’s enough,” Tommy hisses, grabbing your hand and dragging you away. He can hear Alfie’s booming laughter in the distance as he pulls you into the snug. Luckily, it’s empty.

“Tom—”

You’re interrupted by a harsh kiss to the mouth, with Tommy’s hands wrapping themselves around your waist as he backs you into the table, forcing you to sit on it.

“Well, hello love,” you giggle against his lips. “What’re you doin’, handsome?”

“Didn’t like the way he was looking at you. Or touchin’ you,” he grumbles harshly, moving his lips to your neck.

“You’re not one to act like that in public. In front of him for that matter,” you note, letting your hands squeeze Tommy’s hair as he kisses and especially sensitive spot.

“Can’t help it,” you says against your neck and you snort.

“Yeah you can, darlin’,” you say, pulling away to look at him. “Everything alright?”

Tommy stares at you, mentally debating with himself, before saying, “That bastard was supposed to meet me today before I came here but he bailed. Came here pissed to the fucking moon ‘til I heard you sing. Turns out, he was here watching you up close while I was in my office waiting for his fuckin’ pompous ass.”

“Probably just wanted to rile you up,” you say ernestly. “Don’t let him.”

Tommy kisses you again before muttering against your lips, “If where this is going is me getting riled up, I wouldn’t be opopsed.”

You almost let out a moan, but choke it back and say, “Tom, someone’ll hear!”

Tommy pulls away, a mischevious smirk and a dark look in his eye forming. “He wants to know what you sound like, eh? Let him.”

#tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby x reader #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders x reader #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #anyway im back on my tommy shit and i WILL be writing more #wiener soldiers #tommy shelby fic #thomas shelby fic #peaky blinders fic

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sashi-ya · 4 years ago

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{+18} - Law x Fem Best Friend ♥ CH.2

♥ Daily living with the Heart pirates crew AU ♥ Spoilers after Dressrosa Arc. Law´s backstory. ♥ Female reader. Little physical description. Everybody is 18+, canon ages. ♥ TW: Nightmares related to PTSD. Little NSFW. no further warnings. If you think I should include some feel free to tell me ♥Thank you for the likes and follows, I appreciate it them so so much! If you wanna know when I’ll be updating the next chapters, you can follow me on Twitter @LawIsMyWaifu, come interact I love to have mutuals that love Law and One Piece as much as I do ♥

Word count: 4.1K

» List of parts: {CH1} {CH2} {CH3} {CH4} {CH5} «

Chapter 2.

The sound of his low, raspy voice resonated all over my head, making my body react instantly. I gasped as I felt a strike of pleasure travelling down my stomach to in between my legs. Closing my eyes, unable to move, I didn’t want to move, I wanted him to keep whispering, to kiss my neck… “Hahahaha, I’m sorry, I’m just fooling around, your face, you look astonished Y/N-ya”, he said while laying back on the bed, laughing. I chuckled as I stood up brushing my clothes as if I was trying to fix them. “Stop it, I’m not into that you ass. Goodnight”, I said trying to dissimulate how agitated and embarrassed I was.

Almost running, I left the room, directly to mine, holding on my hand my underwear. I jumped to my bed resting violently on my back. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” ... a little time passed until I passed out.

Hard knocks on my door woke me up. “Vice-Captain!! wake up! breakfast is ready!!!” Clione shouted from the corridor. “God damn how many times I have to tell this whole crew I fucking hate being awakened with shouting?” I mumbled annoyed, covering my face with the sheets.

I was brushing my hair when I remembered my “memory box” for some reason. Opened my drawer and found the little velvet red box that holds my “treasures”. Inside, there is a photo of my parents with me when I was 7, happy, eating some ice cream with them. It was taken during one of “the white parades”, on Flevance, before everything turned into hell. A little blue bow that my little sister used to wear, some photos of Law, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and me when we were the only members of our crew. And, a necklace Law made with some seashells as a gift for my 15th birthday, were also inside.

I got watery eyes while looking at it, “I must be getting old”, I thought, “I got emotional over the memories” ... laughed and put everything back to its place.

“Morning..” I said, greeting the whole crew that was already devouring their breakfast. I noticed Law wasn’t there, so I had to ask. Uni told me he was in the control room preparing for the arrival at the next island. I took a few pancakes and some tea and headed to the control room to ask my captain if he needed help.

“Good morning, doc”, I saluted him. Law that was seated facing the controls, turned the chair to look at me nodding. He has more dark circles as always, so I asked him, “Oi, did you sleep last night? are you feeling sick again?”. “I’m ok, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I got caught up with the book I was reading”, he answered with his usual unfriendly tone. “Yeah, right” I answered back, rolling my eyes, and proceeded “Let me know if you need something before we get to the island”. Left the control room and went back to my room.

I knew him well to know he hadn't slept because something was worrying him, and not because he was reading the old comic book of “Sora, the warrior of the sea against the evil Germa 66”. But hey, Law never shows any emotion besides annoyance if he is not sick.

A few hours later, the submarine got to the shore of some winter island, and we all got ready to accomplish our assigned tasks. “Ok everyone, we will meet here at 7 pm, is that clear?” told my crew members, everybody agreed and headed to the island.

The temperature was pretty low, and it was snowing. Law was wearing the long black coat with yellow dots and our Jolly Roger that he used to wear at Punk Hazard, his hat and of course the Kikoku over his shoulder. I love when he wears warm clothing, he looks so cozy, hiding his mouth behind the collar. (He does it so his lips don’t get chapped with the cold breeze, haha). I don't like to wear the boiler-suit when we get to explore islands, so I decided to wear a long yellow coat with a hood, also with our crew's Jolly Roger emblazoned on the left side of the chest.

We asked a few civilians where to find a pharmacy and headed to the destination following their instructions. Law didn’t say much during the walking, as he normally does.

The island seemed a little bit deserted, yet it had picturesque streets, full of colour that stand out from the snow. It has cobbled lanes, some canals of crystallized water, there were wooden houses and shops with little lights that garnished their architecture giving the place a romantic aura. The scenery behind the city center included big snowed mountains and a big castle over one of the highest peaks.

I saw a boutique with some cute sweaters on display that caught my eyes and I wanted to try them on. “Law, would you mind if I enter here? I want to buy a new sweater.”, I said. Law looked at me and made a gesture with his hand as he was saying to go ahead.

While searching for the sweater I like on one of the clothing racks I saw through the shop window that a few kids approached the captain. The seller asked me if I needed some help, so I stopped looking at him and l directed my gaze to the girl in the shop. So, I forget about him.

After buying two cute pullovers, we continued walking through the picturesque streets.

When we finally arrived at the pharmacy shop, it seemed like it was closed, but the door was open, so we entered. I rang the bell over the counter and waited for someone to show up. Law walked in front of me and had his hand over his sword. I knew he was alert and trying to protect me even if he didn’t say a word. I didn’t think we could be in danger, yet he never fully relaxes when we are outside. After all, he is one of the most wanted pirates of our generation, so it's understandable he trusts no stranger.

After a minute or so, an old lady approached the counter from the inside of the store. She seemed a little weak and perhaps a little sick. She coughed, covering her mouth with a handkerchief, and then greeted us. “Good afternoon, how can I help you?”, she asked. Law handed her a list of supplies we needed, and we waited. “Oi, don’t you think she looks bad? I mean, she is probably sick, should I ask if she is ok?”, I told Law who gave me a disapproving sight. I rolled my eyes, and said, “Fiiiine…”, “You know that I hate you rolling your eyes at me, you did it yesterday and now too. Stop it.” I looked at him with an “excuse me?” face and while I was about to spit an insult to him the granny appeared. “I’m sorry, I put on the bag some of the supplies, but I don’t have everything you need. We are short on medicines'', she informed us and started coughing harder. “Excuse me, Mrs. Are you alright? are you sick?”, I asked as she seemed to lose composure from all the nagging coughing. Law, that hated when I don’t give a fuck about what he had just said, gave me the look of death. “Oh young lady, we are pretty much sick, a strange illness is hitting the island. Even the only doctor in town fell ill. The orphanage, though, is getting the worst part. All of the kids are bedridden”, as she said, the memories of Flevance and the amber lead disease hit me.

Law's expression changed to a more compassionate one and asked about the symptoms they were experiencing. He might be serious, he might not want to get involved in a lot of things, but he is a true doctor. And he can't let people die if he can help.

We decided to visit the orphanage in hopes of helping the sick people, so we asked the old lady to give us directions to it. She said it was pretty far from the city center and told us her husband would take us there with his cart.

"Thank you so much for offering your help, young doctors", said the old lady's husband that later told us his name was Gerald. The cart was pulled by two brown percheron horses that opened their way through the white landscape.

We had a small talk during the journey, until Gerald asked, "how long have you been together? Are you already married?". Despite the freezing cold weather, my cheeks turned to fire, and I could sense Law hiding his head even more into his coat and hat. Almost as if clarifying that we were no couple was a life or death situation I said, "WE ARE JUST BEST FRIENDS!". I realized I almost shouted and felt mortified. Gerald looked at us with a little smirk and kind eyes, excusing himself for the mistake.

A few minutes after we arrived at the orphanage. It took us almost 30 minutes to get there and the sun was starting to set on the horizon.

When we entered the place, the situation was worse than we thought. There were kids and adults lying on the ground, some of them shivering, others coughing while others were straight unconscious. A few nurses were working in order to maintain them, but the situation had clearly surpassed them.

Immediately Law and I started working. While I helped the nurses, Law used his ope ope no mi power to scan the bodies of the sick people.

We got to the conclusion that what they were suffering was a type of bacteria that caused the respiratory symptoms and the fever.

During our duty, there were times when our eyes interlocked, and we smiled at each other. I wouldn't say we like people suffering, but, we certainly enjoyed working to save lives together.

A few hours passed since we arrived there, the sun was already set, and outside it seemed as if a snowstorm was beginning. I've lost track of time until my portable Den Den Mushi started to ring. "Oi, y/n, where are you? Is Law with you? Are you alright? We've been waiting for you on the shore! It's 9 pm already and we were supposed to meet at 7!", shouted Shachi from the other side of the line. "Oh my God I'm sorry I forgot to tell you!... you see …" I explained to them what we've been doing and that we were probably not going to return to the submarine in a few more hours.

The kids and the other people began to get better and those who were helping there offered us some food that we accepted happily.

While we were having dinner, Gerald got back from outside, who's been in the forest collecting some firewood. He informed us that the weather was getting really bad so coming back to town would be pretty dangerous.

Law and I agreed that staying there for the night was the safer choice.

One of the nurses, Sister Alley, told us we could spend the night in the cabin next to the orphanage. "I'm really sorry guys, I wished we had a better place for you, we owe you so much. The cabin has a fireplace, Gerald would start a fire to keep you warm”, she said. We both smiled at her and thanked for it.

We walked some meters through the forest until we started to catch sight of a wooden cabin. Despite being a strong pirate, I’m the queen of the clumsy people, so I slipped off with what I assume was an ice patch on the already snowy ground. I was about to hit the ground when Law grabbed me by the waist and saved me from a few bruises. His face in front of mine, the feeling of being safe on his arms, I wished it has been eternal. But the romantic moment was destroyed by Law mocking me. “It must be the devil fruit; how come you are so clumsy? Be careful”, he said, and I told him to shut up, this time I wasn’t embarrassed, but I was almost angry at him.

“Here we are, let me help you with the fire”, Gerald said, opening the wood door that creaked as it moved. The inside felt cozy, there were a few cushions and pillows on the ground next to the fireplace. There were no separate rooms, so in the middle of the lounge there was some kind of mattress with a few blankets over it. Our “host” asked for forgiveness about the lack of separate beds, but Law intercepted him and said, “It’s ok sir, we are grateful to have a warm place to stay until tomorrow. If you need help with any patient during the night, just please tell us”. It might be ok for you, damn Law. Was I supposed to sleep with him? - I mean, I wanted to, but, he was still my best friend, and those thoughts should have been erased.

Gerald wished us a good night and returned to the main building.

I hung my coat and as I love to explore, I started to do so around the little wooden house. The kitchen seemed really equipped, so I grabbed a kettle and some cups. Gerald was kind enough to give us some tea bags, so I thought making some tea was a great idea.

Law was next to the fireplace, wearing only a sweater and his jeans. Apparently he has already hung up his coat and his white spotted hat. I saw him once more with a lost sight that seemed to contemplate the firewood.

Looking at him with my face resting on my arm that was over the breakfast nook, I got lost worshiping his profile. I’ve always adored his upturned nose, his spiky black hair, his facial hair, the contrast between his grey eyes and the tanned skin. How come he has always been so handsome, but I’ve never seemed to fully realize?.

The whistle of the kettle intensified as the water started boiling, but I was so into admiring my best friend's beauty that I didn’t notice. Law turned to me and woke me up from my reverie shouting “Oi, Y/N, the kettle!”. My stupid smile quickly erased from my face, and my whole skin turned red. “Sorry”, I said straight away and turned off the burner.

I served two cups, noticing that the tea has an amazing scent. I believe it was hibiscus mixed with some other spices, perhaps some cardamom and maybe a little hint of clover. The smell of the tea mixed with the slightly one from the logs burning, was wonderful.

I walked to where my captain was, “Here, I think you may like it”, I said and handed him a cup. Our fingers brushed softly when grabbed the tea, he looked at me and said “Thanks”. I sat not so near him over one of the cushions and sipped a little bit of my tea. Law looked at me and stood up from his place. I could sense how awkward he felt when he made a little pause, and then walked away.

Why is he leaving? Did I make him feel uncomfortable?, I asked myself trying to hide little stings of pain on my chest that traveled to my throat. Somehow I felt like crying, and when my eyes started to get slightly watery, Law approached me placing his hand over my right shoulder.

I turned my face to him, looking up with a slightly pouty face. I was about to cry, and I didn’t even know why when I noticed a blue little box on his hand.

He sat next to me and said, "Do you remember when we were 15?, that day when I gave you that necklace I made myself for your birthday? I looked at him confused but I answered, "yes, of course, I got it on my memory box, I'm afraid to wear it outside the polar cause it might get lost and I wouldn't forgive myself if I lose it". He was now looking at the little box moving it around nervously and finally said "I got you a better one". He handed me the little box still not looking at me.

"A present?? OMG Law, thank you very much!" When did you buy it??" I almost shouted in excitement while opening the box. Inside there was a fine rose gold necklace that has a little anatomical heart figure as a pendant. I grabbed it and admired the beauty of the jewelry I had in my hands. The heart had a little red stone crimped on it, that shined with every movement.

"Law, this is too much! It must have cost you a lot of Berries, I don't deserve such a fine jewel!, thank you so much", I expressed with a big smile on my face.

"You do deserve more than this, you know. I'm glad you like it", he said, a little embarrassed. “When you were buying the sweaters, I asked some children there if they knew a jewelry store, turned out it was just around the corner”, he confessed.

“Thank you so much, it is just perfect! You know how I adore hearts; they remind me of you.. “Doctor Heart Stealer”” I almost shouted, realizing I have said too much…

I tried to put it on my neck, but I couldn’t clip it right, so I asked him for help. He stood up, kneel at my back and passed from behind the necklace around my neck.

Some branches hit the window violently as they were suffering the merciless wind of the snowstorm outside.

He struggled a little and finally fastened the collar and when he did, the electric power went off. The fireplace was the only source of light, the dance of the fire created figures with shadows and highlights all around the walls of the cabin. We remained silent, maybe a little scared or even surprised, but enjoying the sound of the weather and the creak of the fire.

He was still behind me, and after a few seconds he placed a soft kiss on my back that sent a shiver through my spine. Once again I was unable to speak, did he… did he just kiss my back?.. Before I could say or do something Law stood up and headed to one of the windows. “The storm seems to be even worse than earlier; don’t you think?”, he said, trying to device something through the window.

I couldn’t focus on anything else than the kiss he softly planted on my nape, minutes ago. He suddenly yawned and walked to the mattress that was in the center of the room, on the floor. He then took his jeans off and hopped inside the bed, naturally. I remained on my spot, contemplating his actions. “How could he be acting so normal?, I’m right here. He just gave me a necklace, kissed my skin and now he just goes to sleep?” I said to myself, still with a confused expression on my face.

“Oi, aren’t you coming to bed?”, he asked me, freely. “Yes… give me a second”, I said, and ran to the bathroom. The toilet was pretty tiny and basic, but enough for me to hide for a few minutes. “Come on, Y/N you slept with him two nights ago, it’s ok, he is like your brother, it’s ok…” I thought, trying to calm myself down.

I finally left my hiding place and headed to the mattress. Law was lying there, he took off his sweater, probably while I was in the bathroom, so he was only using a white tight undershirt, that molded his torso anatomy. Some blankets were covering the under part of his body from his hips. He had his forearm over his eyes, covering them with his neck stretched back.

I bite my lip, as a reaction for such a tempting scene. I was enjoying it, watching him breathe peacefully. I started feeling hot, so I took off the sweater but not my jeans and approached the “bed”.

I thought Law was already asleep, so I got in bed trying not to wake him up. I muffled myself up with the sheets. I remained still, hearing the snowstorm, fixing my eyes on the wooden ceiling, as the memories of my childhood flooded my mind. It must be the snowstorm, the wind, the cold that triggered these memories. eventually I fell asleep.

“No, stop it, my family, leave us alone!!!!”, I screamed. “Y/n-ya! Y/n-ya!, wake up!” said Law, pulling me out from the terrific oneiric world I was submerged in. I got lost into his eyes, and remained there with tears streaming from my eyes, rolling into my cheeks. Law was holding me close to his body around his arms. “Are you having those nightmares, again? why didn’t you tell me?”, he asked, worried. “This is the first time in ages, I think it must be the storm, perhaps the orphanage, the children…”, I expressed amid tears. My best friend brushed his tattooed fingers through my hair, moving it out of my face, and then wiped the tears from my cheeks.

“Oi, do you remember what happened when I gave you the first necklace?” he asked, trying to distract me. A feeling of warmth invaded my insides, suddenly I felt happy. “I do...” I said, laughing timidly, and continued, “It was my first kiss”. He smiled back at me, and said, “Mine too”.

For a second we both closed our eyes. I was grabbing the pendant with my left hand cherishing it and the memories of our younger days when we kissed for the first time. We haven't had much time to think about love while striving to survive so we forgot about it, letting the days, months and years pass, leaving the experience as a mere child’s play.

Suddenly we started laughing, Law didn't let go of me, and our faces were pretty close. “Everything's better when you laugh, I hate it when you cry, it makes me so sad…” he said, rubbing his thumb over my right cheek. I stopped laughing, as he got even closer. Almost as if the point of our noses were about to touch. I could feel the warmth of his breath over my lips, and he did too. My heart started racing, and the only thing I could hear was the blood pumping on my ears. I wasn’t moving, I wanted him to kiss me, I wanted to kiss him… I just didn’t care that he was my best friend, I just needed him to kiss me. What is taking him so long? Why am I not moving if I wanted this more than anything?. After a good minute, that felt eternal, he exclaimed “Fuck it”, and plant the sweetest kiss over my lips. A feeling of happiness filled my insides, I’ve never been so joyful in ages, it felt the same way as the first time. I was like a teenage girl experimenting love for the first time. Both smiled still with our lips pressed. I doubted for a second if succumbing to my deepest desires was the right thing to do until he decided to turn the cute kiss into a more passionate one. From then on, the desire I’d been accumulating inside of me took control of my body…

We kept on kissing; Law slid a hand under my shirt timidly caressing the skin of my tummy. The kisses migrated from my mouth to my neck, mixed with little bites that surely would turn into hickies tomorrow.

“Law…” I gasped when his hands reached my breasts. “What?” he replied, whispering next to my ear and pinching one of my nipples in between two fingers…

Chapter 3

Ch1: Link

#Trafalgardwaterlaw #one piece law #law x reader #trafalgar d law x reader #Trafalgar law x reader #one piece x reader

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shoezuki · 4 years ago

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Tommy's prison/revival arc isnt well written actually

Anyways ive been wanting to talk on it a while for a bit here but havent had the Time or like. The thought to. But im gonna go off now.

First off im gonna say im ASSUMING this stream and plot of tommy being in the prison with dream is written entirely by tommy and dream. Wilbur May be involved in the latest stream but im not sure.

Bringing tommy back to life after only three days of him being dead did practically nothing to progress plot, the characters, or audience's understanding. In fact i feel that it damaged Other characters' potential and plot and already established plotlines.

The 'development' aspect

A really, really easy way to see if anything has changed or developed through an arc or plotline is to straightup just compare the 'beginning' to the 'end' in terms of the barebones situation. So;

Beginning: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream, his own abuser who has hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. He's terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

End: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream after being killed then revived by him, his own abuser whos hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. Hes terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

Okay. This is simplified obvious. But the point stands. ALTHOUGH the troupe of 'going back to the beginning' is common in the heroes journey its. It doesnt work here. Has tommy learned anything? Has he changed as a character? Is the severity of their situation any different? Have we, as the audience, learned anything new?

Im going to expand on that last point because i think it has the strongest potential argument. Technically for progression in literature and development of plot/characters, things can Change without them being Aware as characters. It can change just by the audience's perception changing or being challenge.

Slight example: i've been reading a webcomic called Your Throne. Its a fantasy/political drama about a noble lady who entered a competition with another noble lady to become the empress. The main lady lost despite her being a better fit, and the comic starts with the main lady trying to assassinate the empress. Its assumed and stated by the main lady that she 'ruined her life' and so thats all the readers know. However, later in the novel we see flashbacks to the competition itself and find that the two ladies were extremely close friends, neither wanting anything bad for the other, but it was the emperor himself who manipulated both of them for his own agenda. Those flashbacks gave us an entirely different idea of who the real antagonist is and completely changed the two main ladies' relationship. THAT is how the audience's understanding of the plot and novel can be used to change the entire story. We dont get such here though

Some things that were brought to light during tommy being dead/revived:

Dream is capable of reviving people infinitely

This was already implicated and assumed. The book dream has being a means of reviving people has been around Technically since schlatt's death. This just 'confirmed' what was known

Time works differently/feels longer in the afterlife

This doesnt really impact much beyond emotions and implications. If we had more insight into what the 'afterlife' is like beyond nothingness perhaps so. But really it just makes it so wilbur being dead for what feels like 9 years and tommy having been dead for 2 months appeal to emotions.

Wilbur is evil

This one fuckin sucks i cant lie HSKSHSISSGEGDV. Like i was gon go on bout it and i will but it jus sucks. We have nothing to go on besides tommy's word, no examlles of what Horrible things wilbur said could make tommy assume this, etcetc. Ill most likely make a seperate post on how this feels like we're just going to get 'wilbur is a horrible villain' type with him. But still. I feel wilbur Not Being Good isnt a new development.

Dream is going to revive wilbur

This doesnt feel new either, part because phil had wanted to revive wilbur before (ill get to that more later) and that tommy had kept dream alive/initially imprisoned him with the idea of him reviving wilbur.

Dream believes wilbur will break him out of prison

Okau this makes no sense to me actually. I cwnt understand How exactly wilbur would be able to do this? Or why dream believes he even Could? Mans been dead for like 9 years and all we Know of the afterlife is that its black... nothingness. How would 9 years of that make wilbur capable of busting the prison open?

So. Yeah. All in all this plotline hasnt done anything new, developed things, or altered people's perceptions. We just ended up back at square one. Back to tommy being traumatized, dream being 'evil' and horrible and doing villain monologues, and them being stuck together.

Other characters and plotlines

Im pretty damn sure tommy's revival fucked up a LOT of other characters' plotlines and potential development. Honestly i feel this has a lot to do with the writers not communicating with other ccs well enough. But Ill talk about specific characters from least to most fucked over in my opinion:

Sam

He's the best off. He hqd been there during tommy's death, had been close to tommy, had majorly blamed himself and his own mistakes for tommy's death. His grief and self hatred was actually really heartbreaking and well done. The attached character of Sam Nook being unaware of tommy's death and simply waiting for tommy to return was a really good parallel to sam's own grief and anger. like it really snapped sam the guy who cares for tommy and wants to do Right by him back together with him as the Warden of the prison. Mixed personal life with 'just business'.

I feel it wouldve been nice to have him like. Have more time to grieve properly and come to terms eith tommy's death and his own involvement/influence over the events. Him finding tommy alive again Could be a means of him like. Facing his own grief head on if done well.

Ranboo

Mostly in the context of him and sam's argument do i feel it got screwed over. The weight of them yelling at each other and trying to find who to blame and the implications that Maybe ranboo was the one who caused the security breach that closed down the prison on tommy just.... doesnt hit so hard anymore. Because how can there be blame and arguments and a 'who done it' mystery when tommy popped up all fine again?

Puffy

I dony know much of her involvement or how she found out tommy died (besides metagaming shhhhh) but i saw her monologuing of how they 'failed' tommy and like. Her whole 'he was so young we the Adults failed him' spiel is like........... inconsequential? Now??? Like no dont worry he died but hes alright now.

Philza

BET YOU DIDNY EXPECT TO SEE THIS FUCKER!!!!!! But actually though i want to talk bout how this ties into phil. A LOT. for Zalbr ❤. But also because i see ppl tying phil to tommy's death n like nah shutup u doin it wrong. Ill go off more in a Wilbur Post. But essentially: i dont like that dream is now going to revive wilbur. I feel they arent going to tie philza into this Despite phil having originally been trying to revive his son and studying on it and Attempting and Failing. But now suddenly dream can just. Say some magic words and Poof wilbur lives? So we're just going to Kill philza's revival attempts plotline and leave that hanging? This made his efforts seem pointless and Wack like oh why didnt you just Say The Magic Words phil????

Niki

I feel really bad for niki. She hasnt been able to do a lore stream during tommy's 'death' (she tweeted she wanted to but her computer wasnt working) and considering her entire character.... that shit is important. We seen it with Jack Manifold how tommy's death impacted Him considering he literally wanted tommy dead. And since niki is in a similar boat to jack of trying to kill tommy and it being her Only goal...... thats extremely important.

BUT. i feel there wasnt any communication. Did she or anyone even know tommy would be revived? Did no one consider they could At Least let her do a single stream on it? Like jack manifold????

We couldve gotten a Really good niki lore stream. I genuinely was so excited for it and i dont regularly watch her. But we seen it with jack manifold which is why i dont feel he got screwed because mans genuinely did So Good he could pop off with anything n i think it works in His favour. But now........ for niki. Canonically she never even knew tommy was Dead. So its like nothing even happened for her. Is she just supposed to continue on trying to kill tommy with no progression?

What i think would work

This is more me being like 'hey @ the dsmp writers let me in' type speculation sbosegussgs. But i was thinkin on a Really easy way to 'fix' this without rewriting lore and the streams.

Dream should kill tommy again now that he's been revived and Leave Him Dead.

More development for the characters who are affected by his death Especially niki. More time for grief and self reflection and development

A chance for the audience to figure out what the 'afterlife' really is.

Dream is supposed to be smart and a master manipulator or something right? Why doesnt he use being able to revive tommy as a bargaining chip with sam for his own freedom?

The audience would now Know dream's intentions with tommy better, that this death isnt 'final', but we could still see other characters' grief and reactions and coping without it feeling cheap. Ive seen some 'but people dont know tommy is alive so hes still dead in their mind' but that sucks imo.

We'd know more on dream's ability to revive people and that he can just Do It on a whim (which i think sucks but hey im trying) but no one else would know this canonically

Okay. Im done. If you read this. Thankyou. I love you. Hmu.

#mcyt #dream smp #dream smp critical #tommyinnit #dream #im puttin this in main tags took me too fuckin long to write for me Not to #death mention #ask to tag

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years ago

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Top 5 Characters in ANF Who Would’ve Made Better Love Interests Than Kate

There are a lot of mixed opinions on TWDG: A New Frontier. Some people like it, some don’t, and some people hate it so much that they refuse to accept as canon in the series. Extreme? Yeah, but hey, to each their own.

One thing that always bothers me when I do my replay of the series and this game is how much Kate is forced on us and even kinda punishes us for not romancing her. Like, no offense, but I’m not really interested in dating my sister-in-law, especially when her husband is actually alive, and even if she wasn’t my brother’s wife, she’s still not a character I have chemistry with, y’know?

And every time I play, I can’t help but think that almost anyone else in ANF would’ve been a better romantic interest for Javi over Kate, so I decided to make that the list for this week.

I would’ve loved more choices and for the game to actually show Javi’s canon bisexuality outside of a flirty line with Jesus that most players didn’t even pick. Just sayin’.

I do want to note that if you enjoy the romance with Kate and the relationship between her and Javi, that’s totally cool. Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean you can’t ship them, y’know? I’m not here to try to change your mind or tell you you’re bad for shipping something I don’t because I’m not a dingus. You do what makes you happy, friend. :)

Besides, going off the stats, a majority of players romanced her so if anything, I’m the weirdo. This list is just for fun!

Before we start, just wanna say a big thank you to @pi-creates for helping out with this one! Really appreciate it! Now, here are my top 5 characters who, in my opinion, would’ve made better love interests for Javier than Kate.

5. Jane if the writers didn’t turn her into a dead potato

Oh man, you should see your face right now.

Wait, wait, stop! Before you click outta here in a huff with your “Kenny good Jane bad” grunts and come yell at me, just hear me out-- this entry is mostly a joke and the other four on this list are serious, okay?

I needed someone to put at #5 and after talking over some options and going back and forth.... Jane came up as a joke and then kind of made the list. Because really, I thought about it. I was like, “Would I really rather have dingdong “whatever happens stay out of it” potato face Jane as a love interest over Kate? Do I dislike Kate as an option that much?” and Pi and I talked about this for a while and yeah.... yeah I would actually.

When I said anyone but Kate, I guess I really meant anyone.

Trust me, I know, I’m just as surprised. I guess this really says a lot about my feelings for Kate. I didn’t know I disliked her this much either.

But for fun, let’s entertain this idea of the writers NOT pulling the ol’ character assassination on Jane and she made it to Richmond with Clementine and AJ because--

Jane: "One time I ate glass because I was drunk and thought it was sugar."

Javier: "I gambled on my own baseball matches and disgraced myself for money."

Jane: “Well, I dragged my little sister around with me after everything went to shit until I finally gave her what she wanted and left her to die.”

Javier: “I wasn’t there when my dad was fighting cancer and when I finally showed up, I was too late and he was already dead, then he turned and I bashed his skull in with a piece of wood.”

Jane: “I shot a dude’s dick off once.”

Javier: “Oof. I insulted an old lady’s cake and then shot her eye out.”

Jane: “I screwed a guy when I was supposed to be securing a place for some lady to have her baby and it resulted in the death of a teenage girl.”

Javier: “I screwed my brother’s wife.”

Jane: “...”

Javier: “In my defense, I thought he was dead.”

Jane: “That’s fair.”

Clementine, exasperated and emo: “Oh my god.”

....I mean... we might be onto something here, c’mon--

Okay, now onto the more legit entries.

4. Conrad

Now listen... I know, okay? I know. I know this one can be seen as a bit problematic considering the fact that Conrad, in his grief and anger over Francine’s death, held a gun to Gabe’s head and threatened Javi and Clementine.... plus Javi can literally murder him.

...and if you don’t do anything, Conrad with murder both Gabe and Javi and you’ll get a “YOU ARE DEAD” screen...

But we don’t talk about that because it’s not canon.

I know, but listen... I’m allowed to have ships that are difficult, as are you, and this is my list so... there.

If Conrad was a love interest that’s the route I’d take because I love him and I think a relationship between him and Javi could’ve been so damn good if properly done.

I just find Conrad to be an interesting character with a great arc that you only get to see if you don’t shoot him... which is what most people did, so they missed out. And like, I get it, I get why y’all shot him but maybe next time you play, you could consider not doing that?

So here’s the thing, Javi and Conrad share something-- they both lost loved ones because of shithead Badger. Javi is heartbroken after Mariana’s death, Conrad is devastated after Francine’s death, and they both handle that in different ways. Conrad becomes so focused on revenge and getting into Richmond, that he’s willing to threaten two kids in order to get what he wants but the thing is... that’s not him.

He even says so himself when you keep him alive-- he genuinely apologizes for what happened and will end up coming back to save Javi’s life in ep4. The potential for this to work as a relationship? It’s there... the only problem is that my confidence in the writers handling something like this is low, but let’s pretend they used their time and brains wisely-- ya got yourself a classic slow-burn friends to enemies to friends again to lovers romance and I’m here for it.

3. Paul “Jesus” Monroe

A lot of people really like the idea of Javi and Jesus and wanted him to be a romantic option, and I don’t blame them. They have chemistry in the scenes they share, and Javi can straight up flirt with him at the end of the season, and it’s super cute... of course, I wish we had more but Telltale was too scared to actually show Javi’s bisexuality outside of that one line, I guess.

But, anyway, this ship has a lot of sweet fanart that we love to see.

The only real reason he isn’t higher on the list is that Jesus is apparently already in a relationship at this point? I guess? From what I’ve been told? Listen, I don’t read the comics, I don’t watch the show, I just go off what y’all tell me. Plus, I believe Kent joked about Jesus having someone in each community during the commentaries so like... that’s a thing?

But let’s pretend that we throw that all out and Jesus is single and ready to be in a committed relationship with our boy Javier here. Like I mentioned above, these characters have a believable chemistry from the moment they meet and I think that has a lot to do with how charming they are by themselves. Those different charms work well together.

I also enjoy how much of a badass Jesus is when it comes to fighting off walkers. Javi has a lot of force that you feel with each hit, while Jesus almost has a lighter but just as impactful hit? I dunno if I’m explaining that well-- basically, Javi strong but Jesus can bounce off walls and do cool shit with weapons that feels effortless.

It’s a combo of fighting styles that I love, so these two fighting together? *chef kiss*

There’s also Jesus’ morality and how he wants to see Javier make “good” decisions, y’know? Sure, he gets pissy if you murder the shit outta Badger, which is mostly just Telltale showing you consequences, but I get it. He sees a lot of potential in Javi, more than Javi himself sees. And unlike certain characters, Jesus doesn’t completely hate you for doing something he doesn’t agree with to a frustrating degree.

If the game gave us the option to pursue Jesus as a love interest, he and Javier would’ve been such a badass couple with a sweet romance.

2. Eleanor

This one might come as a surprise to those of you who know my feelings about Eleanor... as in, I don’t like her. I never forgave her for the shit she pulled in ep4/ep5, and now every time I replay ANF and she shows up? Well, all I really hear is the hissing of a snake.

But, putting those feelings aside and looking at her from a different perspective, I do believe that she would’ve made for a better love interest than Kate assuming that if you romanced her, she wouldn’t rat everyone out to Joan, y’know?

Hell, most people believed that Eleanor was going to be the second option with Kate back when the episodes were coming out, and for good reason. The chemistry is there in the flirting, and their relationship could’ve been super cute.

Of course, Eleanor being a love interest also comes with things becoming awkward with Tripp, but c’mon-- as awkward as pursuing a relationship with your sister-in-law and never telling your brother after finding out he’s alive? Nah, I don’t think so.

Plus, for the first three episodes, Eleanor’s not a bad character. In fact, she’s pretty damn likable, she deeply cares for the group and wants to use her medical skills for good.

And you can tell through the dialogue that she and Javi are fond of one another... well, I guess until they shove the Kate thing in our faces and suddenly Eleanor’s like “oh, I thought you two were a thing??” like... Eleanor, we were flirting and I totally rejected all of Kate’s advances last episode I mean??

If she were a love interest, instead of turning on us, she would... y’know, not do that and instead help us out. We have a couple cute moments like back in ep1 where she’s patching Javi up but this time with a smooch? Super cute.

1. Tripp

Okay but seriously, why wasn’t Tripp a love interest?

He’s the perfect option. I just-- uuuughhhhh.

They already have a great believable bromance, so why not take it a step further and make it an official romance? Oh wait, that’s right, ya gotta kill off 95% of your determinant characters, I forgot. Sorry Tripp.

Well, fuck that. Out of all the other adult characters, Javi has the most chemistry with this man. I believe them more than I believe him and Kate. Sure, they got off to a rocky start the progression of their relationship felt natural with every episode.

That scene where Tripp is confiding in Javi about his feelings for Eleanor? And in turn, Javi can confide in him about Kate? One of my favorite scenes. I only wish there was an option to tell Tripp he can do much better and set the path for the romance.

Seriously, I’d probably feel more okay about the romance with Kate if Tripp were the second option. That way, Kate wouldn’t be so forced onto the player, the writers confirming Javi’s bisexuality on Twitter or whatever wouldn’t feel like they were trying to earn points without actually showing representation, and we would’ve gotten the beauty that is Javier and Tripp.

Also, then Tripp could make it to the end without dying that dumb death of his that no one likes.

And if I haven’t convinced you yet, then look at these swaps Pi did--

--and tell me they aren’t fucking perfect?? You can’t, because look at them.

Where’s my Tripp route, Telltale??

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Honorable Mentions

-If I wasn’t sticking to just ANF characters, Luke probably would’ve made the list because that’s apparently a popular combo and I dig it. -Pudding... because Javi fucking loves pudding. -Honestly Max probably would’ve been a better love interest than Kate oof--

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So, whattya think? Do you agree with this top 5 or nah? Do you have a favorite Javi ship? Let me know, I’d love to hear from you. :D

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Times Lee was the Absolute Best

#twdg t5f #twdg javi #twdg javier #twdg kate #twdg gabe #twdg mariana #twdg clementine #twdg tripp #twdg conrad #twdg eleanor #twdg jane #twdg kenny #twdg jesus

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fostersffff · 3 years ago

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Finished Season 4 of Castlevania: the Netflix, and thus the whole series! And I’ve got a lot to say!

Here’s the biggest observation for this season: I get the impression that they didn’t originally plan for this to be the final season. It feels like, at the start of Season 3 they believed they were going to have two more seasons, and then maybe by the time they started wrapping that up they were told they’ve been cut down to just one more, so they had to speed of the pace of Season 4 dramatically to make sure they could still hit the ending. I have no actual evidence to support this- I haven’t read any interviews or official comments to that effect- just a gut feeling based on aspects of the plot:

Biggest support of this is how quickly Saint Germaine is just like “ok I’m evil now”. He immediately submits to the random woman who tells him he’s gotta be evil to find his lady love, there’s one scene of him murdering a guy, and then he’s all-in on being a villain, complete with “I AM A GOD WHO FUCKS” monologuing.

In addition to Saint Germaine’s heel turn feeling half-baked, the Dracula’s resurrection plot in general really doesn’t feel all that important until the finale. Varney is a comic relief character, which in hindsight was completely intentional, but Ratko and Draken are just huge fighter dudes who weren’t involved with Dracula’s court during Season 2, but are very into bringing him back for reasons that are never clearly explained besides the assumed “it’s Dracula so we gotta”. Additionally, the way major characters like Hector and especially Isaac treat the resurrection plot don’t help, although it makes perfect sense that they both do what they do.

The things that happen in Targoviste, and the way they happen, also contribute, especially because there’s no satisfactory resolution to it. Trevor and Sypha start to help the people organize and rebuild, and then get whisked away to the Underground Court. They barely have time to react to the fucked up shit going on down there before they teleport to the castle to kick off the finale. More time to let hostilities between them and Zamfir bubble up before the reveal of the Underground Court, along with a more satisfying build-up to Trevor collecting the components of the Super Holy Dagger would have been good.

Season 3 ends with Alucard in Hector in very bad places: Alucard has just been betrayed by the twins vampire hunters, which has brought out a misanthropic streak, including him leaving them on pikes, and Hector has once again been duped into an even deeper submission than he was in as Carmilla’s prisoner at the end of Season 2. Trevor and Sypha’s vignettes establish that roughly a month and a half have passed, which was apparently enough time for Alucard to basically get over his trust issues, enough to help the villagers, and Hector to not only cope with the reality of his situation but also finally develop into a character on par with every other major character in terms of competence.

Carmilla and Isaac’s stories didn’t feel rushed like everything else I’ve mentioned, but following the train of thought that there was originally going to be more episodes, both of them could’ve stood to have more time and events to get to their final forms.

So, Death: I don’t know how I feel about Death as portrayed in this series. On the one hand, this interpretation technically not being Dracula’s right hand as he is in the games, and instead being an independent actor that stands to benefit from Dracula’s rampage and thus serves the same capacity as a right hand, is incredible. On the other, the fact that Death’s true personality is actually just Varney fucking blows. The design for Death is also not my favorite, because it reminds me just a bit too much of Castlevania Judgment, but Malcolm McDowell being the voice actor is really cool. In conclusion, Death is a land of contrasts.

On that note, “no it’s not Death Death, it’s an entity that calls itself Death that feeds on death and is an elemental spirit- or force of nature in other words- but is distinctly different from the personification of the concept of-” just fucking say “yeah for all intents and purposes it’s the Grim Reaper”. Coming up with a semantics explanation for why vampires get fucked up by crosses to explain the cross subweapon is fun, don’t undercut your final antagonist by trying to rationalize it into something less fantastical.

I already said that I liked the motivation behind Death, but also the execution of “I’m going to bring back Dracula wrong on purpose” and the way he accomplishes that is the best it’s ever been.

I thought Varney hopping over the stream of holy water was a fun cap on the argument about whether or not vampires can cross over running water from Season 2, but was in fact clever foreshadowing, since Death isn’t a vampire. Good stuff!

I think it’s just because I’ve been focusing a lot on animation quality over the last few months, but I noticed they started using 3D models a lot more this season. I imagine it was a matter of practicality considering that there are more action setpieces in this season than the other three combined. I think this is ultimately a good thing, because they do a very good job of masking the fact that they’re using 3D most of the time because it still looks very good, unlike some of Netflix’s other 3D action projects, and if it makes life easier for the animators without sacrificing quality then that’s a win for everyone.

Didn’t think much of it at first, but I’ve really come to appreciate the term “night creatures” as a catch-all for monsters in this series. It’s generic enough to encompass everything regardless of design difference, but more unique than just ‘monsters’ or ‘demons’.

I had heard someone make a joke about a character wearing Artorias Dark Souls’s armor for a scene because fuck you, but holy shit, Striga really does just wear Artorias Dark Souls’s armor for a scene because fuck you.

When Saint Germaine first shows up, his lines sound really low quality compared to Alucard and Greta, and then that issue goes away after that episode. I imagine that it was pandemic related, but clearly Bill Nighy was either able to get into a studio or eventually got a better home setup- couldn’t you just have him re-record those lines?

I’ve talked so much about how Carmilla’s design in this series is The Best™ because they masterfully adapted a single sprite with no animation from a 1987 video game into a fully realized design, and this frame in particular struck me as perfect. This is the best this character has ever looked and likely will ever look.

I love how optimistic and positive the tone of everyone’s ending is. Ranging from the unexpectedly beautiful and uplifting resolution to Isaac’s story, to the foundation of a town that fundamentally accomplishes what Lisa hoped for at the very beginning of the series, it’s all nice way to go out. Even Lenore choosing to commit suicide, while not necessarily optimistic or positive, is at least on her own terms.

Dracula and Lisa also having a happy ending is nice. It doesn’t really make any sense, and it makes me wonder what Richter’s call to action is going to be in the next series, but I think they were right to have the series end with the same two characters it opened with.

AYY SOMEONE THREW A WINE GLASS!!!

Unfortunately, I’d say Season 4 is the weakest of the series, but they did everything they could to make sure they provided an explosive finale and a solid ending. This was a damn good show and without a doubt the best thing to be associated with Castlevania in over a decade. Not that it had much competition there, but still!

As a final note on the nature of Castlevania as an adaptation: I can certainly understand why certain people don’t like this series. If you’re looking for Castlevania: The Video Game: The Animated Series, you’d walk away disappointed because of how many things were changed in adaptation, how much they were changed, and that so much is just made up from whole cloth. But an animated series isn’t a video game, and while an eight episode series where each episode is a different stage of non-stop fight scenes, complete with a big boss fight at the end sounds like it could be cool, if that’s what I really want I’d probably be better served just playing a game.

#Castlevania #Netflix Castlevania #anime #video games #long post

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blonde-toddy · 4 years ago

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Random and Not So Random thoughts while watching Bridgerton: Season 1, Episode 4

Oh they're at court.

Also she's not a commoner. She's the daughter of a Viscount.

Another Daphne brag moment, but homegirl really got the juice. She's bagging mfs over hand holding and dancing.

Violet dgaf. She's hungry now, damn it!

Oh he's buying jewelry already.

Ooooooh the way she imagines the Duke behind her. Honey yes. That scene was hot.

Too bad she came back to reality.

Hyacinth is my spirit animal.

Lady Whistledown ain't ready to write Simon off yet. She's waiting on the Dukes Hail Mary.

Shit. So am I.

I have never seen someone look so depressed in such an exquisite piece of jewelry. It's like the necklace chokes her. Testament to the acting and script for that though. It truly represents a trap.

Awww Simon is wearing that heavy bag out. I would say poor Simon, but he made this damn bed.

I love Alice and Will. They are the kind of wholesome love I need to keep my heart steady watching this damn show. She's his rider and I love it.

Alice roasting Simon over Daphne. Get. Yo. Girl. Mane.

I always cringe when a man tells a woman to smile.

Poor Marina. Portia is determined to find her the oldest mf. She's playing smart though.

Those damn dingbat sisters.

Maybe Penelope does care.

Well at least the least mean sister got a caller. They're awkward/cute.

Eloise girl, I love feathers in hair. Your one dimensional preaching is wearing me out again.

A boxing match date? I'd be down.

The prince legit seems like a nice guy. And Daphne is trying....but she's CLEARLY hung up on Simon.

Oh look Simon's losing focus on his friend because he's too focused on Daphne and the prince.

Ok mf! Take that shit off and roll them sleeves up. It turns me on too sis!

Oh look at the sweet family talk with the prince. Girl he'd give you any and everything you wanted.

But you and the Duke are just ATE TF UP about each other!

Mondrich for the win!!!!

Oh Benny. You've got a new friend. But what kind of friend? Give me more of this.

Well Anthony is smug and pleased as punch. Simons courtship of Daphne has ended. She has her perfect suitor. And Simon is leaving England to go rake and fuckboy about.

Though Simons hard slammed shot when the prince approached says he's anything but happy.

Violet always worries about the wrong shit.

Hyacinth always wants to know the good shit.

Be Hyacinth.

Oh fuck the prince is ready to propose. That shit escalated quickly.

SIMON!!!!!! Now would be a good time for that Hail Mary.

Good job Anthony. Way to realize that the women in your life have agency over THEMSELVES.

Violet always beating around the damn bush.....but she is still 100% #teamduke

Aw Daphne you're gonna break down snitching on yourself.

If it wasn't real with Simon you wouldn't be so ate up about it, and you would be rocking tf out of that necklace from the prince instead of crying.

There's a reason for the black in her outfit. For Daphne, who is normally all pastel blues, that black is her mourning. It's her 'attempting' to put to death her feelings for the Duke. And also I think mourning the loss if the bond they shared. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But this seems like a very deliberate show with it's details.

Danbury ripping Simon open before she sends him off. Big energy.

She knows everything you thick headed mf. Why won't you just listen?! You letting your rank ass daddy live rent free in your soul.

He's so jaded it hurts.

Ayyyye this Trowbridge party looks like the real deal.

Oh gawd. Marina and the old man.

Mr. Finch and the cheese frock. Jesus who wrote this. I love it

Cressida you have been Daphnes biggest hater all season and now you're mad that she's with the prince. He was never gonna marry yo basket headed ass anyway.

Oooooh shit Simon sees the 'intimate painting' and has 2nd thoughts.

Go. Get. Yo. Girl.......Bitch.

Ooooh Benny's at the new homies spot and it's lit!

Naked models, easels, mingling between the classes. Yes indeed.

2nd sons having fun. Hell yes.

Damn Even Sienna at the ball...as a performer of course.

And Anthony looking tongue tied.

Violet....you need to chill. There take another sip.

Portia trying to shade Lady Trowbridges style is comical. Both of y'all bitches gaudy as hell.

Oh shit Phillipa lost her man.

Wtf is wrong with Lord Featherington?

And wtf are you doing Eloise?

Ayyye she just let her have it. You think servants have the time to be Lady Whistledown? I'm dead.

"Get out."

Ok Penelope with your saucy ass.

Well fuck! You just pushed him right to Marina. You played yourself boo.

Oooh the prince is about to shoot the big shot and Daphne keeps running away.

She done spotted Simon. Its over.

Fuck off Cressida.

Rip that mf necklace off girl.

Simon followed her ass outside.

"Miss Bridgerton." Motherfucker, call her Daphne.

"I came to say goodbye." Man. Go to hell.

Daphne serving those barbs. You not ready to keep playing with her.

Damn, Simon. If you're not gonna give her what she wants, get out the way.

Tell his ass sis.....even if you don't believe it yourself.

Really Simon? You stand there quiet as a mf church mouse whiles she's pleading with you to say something.....then you take off after her once she walks away from your shit

I swear.....men.....yall mfs really do shit like this. Speak up! Or...LET. ME. GO.

She's really cracking on his ass and I'm here for it....but wtf us up with his "I forbid you." Who tf are you to me? I'm glad she ain't playing with his ass.

Ooooh he called her Daphne and grabbed her.

Oh honey this is what fulfillment feels like, isn't it?

He's definitely fulFILLing her all the way up!

Oh shit Anthony caught them.

At least he finally landed some decent blows on Simon.

This RAKE ass mf still won't marry her.

Oh Simon.....for once.....Anthony is in the right and you the wrong. You are really about to die over your fucking daddy issues. Boy bye. Again.

Poor Daphne.

Wait, how did Cressida know she was in the garden?

That can't be good.

At least Benny is having a good time.

Dearest Portia, when you go looking for shit, it usually falls in your lap.

Marina keeps carrying on about Colin and Penelope is crushed.....or scheming....or both.

Aww Penelope let her hurt feelings cause a fight with her bestie. Her jealousy is seething.

Daphne still out here having to educate Anthony....though I get the need for the duel. And he still thinks he's running something.

Ooooh this is why they brought up 2nd sons.....Anthony is prepping Benny to take over. Well Benny, at least you had one good night out.

Colin caring for drunk Violet is parenting goals one day.

Oh great, now yall wanna bring Colin into the shit.

Simon raiding Wills spot for booze was so uneccesarily loud.

So Berbrooke alludes to her dishonor and Simon caves his fucking head in. Simon legit dishonors her and he's just like ,"Kay, guess I'll go get shot now." Someone get this man some therapy.

Oh great Anthony is back at Siennas door with more of his bullshit. Girl. Close that door.

No, not after you've let him in and climbed his torso. I guess y'all fuckin again.

He lost all the money and now he's fucked up.

Her face while he cried, is literally the face of every woman sick of a mediocre man's shit.

Oooh now they're all riding off into battle like the fucking idiots they are.

Colin is so pure.

I knew that Cressida shit would come back.

Well at least Anthony was willing to care for Sienna in his death....but damn mf, treat me right while WE'RE here.

Oh the dramatics of drawing a gun.

Nobody is here for Simon's weak ass apologies and I'm okay with that.

Hurry hurry Daphne.

Daphne down....but she's alright.

Call them idiots just like they are.

Simon still being a hoe about this shit. You really about let her be ostracized because you're a fuck boy.

Ultimate fuck boy line...I can't be with you because I love you too much. Fucking hell.

They do obviously love each other though.

Hold up.......you CAN NEVER, or WILL NEVER give her children. Don't play this like you have a reproductive issue.

So your reason for not marrying her is that you "can never" give her children and you know that's what her heart desires.

You playing with fire, Simon.

I wonder how much shit I let slide with his character just because he's portrayed so well by the phenomenal Regé-Jean Page.

No, I do love Simon's damaged ass. He just makes me so mad.

So the duel resumes......or not.

Daphne said, "Fuck them kids, give me my husband." Or something like that.

Well. This us an uncomfortable arrangement even though both of these idiots are in love.

Simon's evasion will most certainly come back to bite him in the ass.

But I'll be here with my popcorn and tissue, rooting for these cool kids to make it!

#bridgerton #bridgerton reaction #bridgerton season 1 #simon x daphne #daphne x simon #lady danbury #the duke of hastings #daphne bridgerton #anthony bridgerton #benedict bridgerton #colin bridgerton #eloise bridgerton #penelope featherington #marina thompson #portia featherington #will mondrich #violet bridgerton #hyacinth bridgerton

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invaderlynx · 4 years ago

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Booker and La Campagne de Russie

I just watched The Old Guard and honestly, it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a VERY long time. Of course, now I’m having all sorts of thoughts about the whole thing and particularly about Booker because his backstory intersects perfectly with my historical interests. I know that all the immortals in The Old Guard have experienced all sorts of terrible trauma, but because I am a history major with an affinity for the Napoleonic period, especially the Russian Campaign (and because Booker is my favorite character), I’d like to give you guys an idea of just what sort of torture he faced even before the pain of losing his family (also for fair warning, I have not read the comics):

Please place yourself in Booker’s shoes. You are one of over 600,000 men mustered to march into Russia. You’re serving in an army you never wanted to join, taking up arms for the glory of an empire that’s never done anything for you. You’ve been separated from your three beloved sons and your wife whom you love more than life itself, and have been sent off to fight in a foreign land that’s nothing like the home you’ve left behind. That much becomes evident immediately.

The invasion starts in the summer of 1812 and it is hot, unseasonably hot. You feel it, laboring as you are under the thick heavy materials of your sweat-soaked uniform. Each step is its own torture in the heat as you struggle through mud left behind by hard summer rains. More than a few men kill themselves at this point and although this is just the beginning, you can hardly blame them. Some of your comrades get the bright idea to start discarding some of their extra layers of clothing—underthings and the like. Perhaps you join them, anything to lighten the load. You can’t be expected to carry all this over the long miles ahead. You’ll live to regret that decision.

The fighting itself is worse than the conditions. You never quite get used to the violence. No matter how many times you’re thrust into battle, your mouth still goes dry, your heart still thunders as loud as the military drums’ tattoo, you still choke on that thick gunpowder smoke. You nearly threw up the first time you killed with a bayonet. You remember sticking the man in between the ribs, a swift stab and he is bleeding out. It is only then that you see his face and realize just how young he is. He is a boy, maybe a few precious years older than your eldest. He cries as he falls. You didn’t speak Russian at the time but you didn’t need to to recognize the word “Мама”.

The only thing that makes it possible to keep putting one foot in front of the other (besides your family, of course) is your comrades-in-arms. Against all odds, you’ve found friendship here, men with whom you can share stories and jokes and drinks. You find a few men of around your own age with families, wives and children that they lovingly speak of, but many of these soldiers are young, young enough to be your sons, far too young to be out here slaughtering and being slaughtered. Over your meager meals you tell stories of home and it is enough to hold off the impending horror, at least for a moment. When that doesn’t work, you turn to drink. You drink an awful lot.

The conditions of this foreign land are mercurial at best and your woes are only compounded by your lack of proper supplies. The Russians have been scorching nearly everything in the wake of their retreat, making it difficult for you to forage for food. Your search parties turn up very little by way of provisions and your food supply continues to fall in tandem with the temperature.

Borodino is hell. You see the man to the right of you receive a cannonball to the chest and fall in a spray of red, you see the man to the left crumple as a shot rips through his handsome, hard-lined face. One of your friends, one of those boys that you’d come to regard as a surrogate son who was barely old enough to grow hair on his chin, catches a bullet in the leg. He dies in agony four days later, one of the thousands of casualties of that damned battle. In your lowest moments, you wish you would have joined him.

You were never a particularly happy man, even before the war. Prone to fits of melancholia, they would have said back then. Your darling wife and your three sons certainly helped to alleviate that heavy, aching emptiness that resided in your chest, but it never went away, not fully. It resurfaces with a vengeance now. Sitting with your gun in your hands and far too much liquor in your belly, you think about ending it all. How easy it would be to put a bullet in your brain and finally die. In the end, it’s your family that saves you again. You may not want to live for yourself, but for them- for them you can keep fighting. Besides, Moscow is only 70 miles away and once you take the ancient capital, Russia will have no choice but to surrender. That’s what everyone is saying and you force yourself to believe that it’s true.

Moscow was a lie. You took the capital but there was no peace. There was no food either. The Russians took it all when they abandoned the place, leaving almost nothing for your starving army. Nothing but liquor, which you are very grateful for at least. Your superiors probably aren’t, you think wryly as you raise the bottle to your lips and drink, drink, drink.

Moscow passes in a drunken haze for you. You drown yourself in Russian booze, drinking yourself absolutely insensate. There are entire days you spend propped up against the wall of some ramshackle Russian establishment, surrounded by empty bottles, too drunk to even stand. You remember bits and pieces, shattered memories drifting in and out of the fog. The looting and the things you took (a fine scarf, a silver flask, maybe more), a ladies’ fur shawl wrapped about your shoulders to keep out the chill, the burning heat of a terrible fire and the screams in French and Russian, the acrid taste of bile in your mouth as you splutter sick all over yourself only to raise the bottle to your lips again for another drink. In the end, you’re forced to leave Moscow as the position becomes untenable, the abandoned city burned to a shell of its former self. You never do learn who first started the fire, even years after the fact.

The retreat is hell on Earth, worse than anything else that came before. La Grande Armée is hardly an army any longer, you’ve lost practically all discipline. By now, you’re just a bunch of exhausted, cold, starving men who want nothing more than to just make it home alive. Most of them won’t. The temperatures have dropped to below freezing at this point and you are wishing more than anything that you still had those infernal layers that caused you so much pain in the summer months. The clothing you and your comrades drunkenly plundered in Moscow—silken scarves stolen from abandoned trunks, heavy furs pilfered from store inventories, ladies’ shoes that hurt your feet but do a better job of keeping out the slush than your tattered boots—help, but not enough. Your fingers stiffen to near icicles in the cold as you try your damnedest to massage even a little warmth back into them, your face is wind-chapped and scabbed. You feel as though your very marrow has frozen, and you are one of the lucky ones. Men freeze to death in their sleep in less than an hour. Fifty men will sit down at a fire and only the twenty or so closest will ever get back up again. You all begin to loot the bodies of the dead and—as you grow more desperate—the dying as well. Corpses are stripped naked and left in the snow as the survivors squabble over their threadbare uniform pieces. Sometimes the corpses still twitch and moan but you try to ignore that.

There’s no food either. In addition to freezing, you’re starving too. The lot of you fight and quarrel over moldy crusts of bread, and in some cases even kill each other for them. The more clever turn to other sources to fill their writhing, empty stomachs. Some eat their boots, but there isn’t much leather left in any case. Some carve their meals off the horses as they walk, tearing bits of bleeding flesh off of the warm, moving flanks in a short-sighted attempt to get even a few morsels of meat in their bellies. Others, in mad desperation as the march (if you can even call it that any longer) wears on, turn to each other.

Perhaps you take part in this, perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you sidle a man out of the way to get closer to the fire, perhaps you take a coat off a corpse that you don’t know for sure is dead yet, perhaps you accept a piece of meat that you do not quite know the origin of. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

In the end it doesn’t matter. You die anyway. You don’t really remember how it happened the first time. Maybe you were finally picked off by the advancing Russians, maybe it was exposure, exhaustion, starvation, sickness, any of the hundred ways that you could die in this frozen wasteland. All you know is that one moment you were on your feet, shambling mutely forward, the next you were lying on the icy ground, gasping air back into lungs that had fallen completely still. Four faces are burned into your memory and from one you can still hear the gurgling, watery screams.

That’s when the dreams start, after that first death. Though, you wouldn’t classify them as dreams, they’re far more alike to nightmares. You see that screaming, drowning woman often. You feel her fear as she slams her body against her metal coffin. Even awake you can’t get the sound of her choking out of your head. Sometimes there are soft moments interspersed with the horror. You see a woman with short hair (it reminds you of a coiffure à la victime) laughing, you see two men resting in each others’ arms, foreheads pressed together gently, blissfully happy. To be quite honest, these ones hurt worst of all because they make you regret ever waking up.

You die a few more times before you finally decide to desert. You can’t take it anymore. That tyrant Bonaparte has abandoned this army, why can’t you? You take flight under the cold cover of night, trying to get to the Russian border. You don’t make it very far. You are dragged back—aching, tired, and hungry—and are hanged by the road as a deserter. Perhaps there still is a little discipline left in these ranks, at least enough to allow these soldiers to kill their comrades in the name of orders. You have to wait three days for the road to clear before you can finally run. In that time your body is almost entirely picked clean by looters. You continue your desperate trek back home in spite of it all and die many more times in the weeks (or was it months?) that follow. It never gets any easier.

It’s near the border into Prussia that you finally meet one of the figures from your dreams. Perhaps it is the woman with the short hair who offers you a drink and a coat to put around your shoulders, and tells you bluntly but not unkindly that you’re immortal. Perhaps it is the curly-haired man who helps hold you upright when you stumble and is careful and caring with his words as he gently explains the situation. Perhaps it is his lighter-haired lover who catches you when you fold in on yourself from the weight of his words and offers you affirmations and condolences in a voice reminiscent of a priest. Whoever it is, they ask you to come with them and explain that there are others like them- like you out there.

“What about my family?” you stutter out, almost unconscious of the words as the tumble from your mouth “My wife? What about them?”

They favor you with a sad smile and try to explain, but you will hear none of it. They do not stop you when you tell them that you are going home, and you are glad for it.

With the supplies they give to you, you manage to hobble your way back home. You’ve been taken for a dead man, you realize, everyone you pass seems to think you’re a ghost. You don’t care. You only have one person on your mind.

Your wife answers the door dressed in black. She starts to cry when she sees you and throws her arms around your neck. You nearly crumple, weak as you are. “Bastien, Bastien,” she sobs against your shoulder “What happened?”

That question fills you with icy dread. Your stomach drops as you realize you cannot explain to her what you’ve been through, not in a way that she’ll understand. Even if you explain the immortality and she believes you, she won’t understand the horrors you’ve seen. No one will. A soldier’s burden.

You stay silent and instead cradle her closer as your boys appear in the doorway. You have them and, for now, that is enough. You won’t forget, you will never forget, but for now at least you have this.

#there we go #i made myself sad #you see what this poor bastard had to go through #it does not excuse what he did #not in the slightest #but it explains why he wants to die at least #there are very few things that i would want to go through less than the russian campagne #the old guard #tog #sebastien le livre #booker #andromache the scythian #yusef al kaysani #niccolo di genova #quynh

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rainy-day-gracie · 5 years ago

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Old Friends 8

So I’ve decided to make the last two chapters of this series like a two part finale almost. 9 and 10 will be the last chapters of Old Friends :(

But I do have more in the works, so don’t cry! Just enjoy this fluffy chapter with Spencer and the team. :))

Spencer Reid x Reader

Chapter 8:

JJ grabbed me by the arm as soon as I walked into the bullpen.

“Explain to me why Henry is telling me that, I quote, ‘Uncle Spencer is in love with the smart lady.’?”

I just stared at her with wide eyes. “Um, I don’t know, maybe you should ask Spencer.” I tried to get away without grinning, but she kept her grip on my arm, a sly smirk on her face.

“When you guys babysat Henry he definitely picked up on your flirty little banter, and now he’s constantly talking about how Spencer is so in love with you.” JJ let go of my arm and gave me a knowing glance.

I was trying to keep from laughing hysterically. “How old is Henry?”

“He’s three.”

Calming myself down, I walked past her to my desk. “JJ, I’m just going to be honest…” I looked her in the eye, faking seriousness. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

She gave a groan of frustration as Prentiss and Garcia walked past. “What are we talking about?” Prentiss saddled up next to me. “Are we talking about how you and Reid are totally hooking up?”

Garcia gasped. “Yesterday I heard them talking about their favorite French movies… the language of love!”

I raised my hands in the air in mock surrender. “Oh, you caught me! We were talking to each other, whoa!”

All three of the women rolled their eyes, and I could tell they weren’t leaving until they actually got something juicy.

I sighed. “Okay, I’ve spent the night at his place a few times. Nothing happened,” I added quickly after seeing their scandalized faces. “We just eat ice cream and I crash on his couch. After what happened a few months ago, sometimes it’s hard to be alone.”

They all looked suspicious, but eventually they dropped it.

I didn’t tell them the total truth, but they didn’t need to know details.

Yes, we’ve kissed a few times, so what?

After a few minutes of working at my desk, a fresh coffee appeared next to me, and Spencer quickly was walking away. I giggled softly, watching him wink at me from across the bullpen.

I heard Morgan snort as he was walking up behind my desk. “What, Morgan?”

“Something fishy is going on with you and pretty boy over there,” Morgan pointed over to where Spencer was sorting through different files.

“Something fishy? We’re old friends, you know that.”

Morgan smirked, clearly unconvinced. “Old friends, my ass.”

We all came to attention when we saw Garcia power walking across the catwalk in her heels. “Minions of the BAU, you have a case!”

The stunt that I pulled, ignoring Hotch, happened almost a month ago and he was still pissed. I could read it on his face, and it was almost comical to see this normally stone cold leader so heated.

“I think Dad is still mad at me,” I whispered to Prentiss, and she laughed out loud, drawing the attention of everyone in the briefing room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Spencer with his little sweet puppy smile, the smile he wore when he was happy.

“Ladies and gents, you are going to San Francisco where there have been three very strange murders, I direct your attention to the photos,” Garcia pointed to the screen.

She wasn’t lying, the murders were extremely strange. One crime scene appeared to be in a tunnel with a male and female victim. The other crime scene was a medieval execution, a woman hanged using a classic noose. Suicide was ruled out given that her hands and feet were bound and her apartment showed signs of a struggle. All of the victims were in fancy medieval clothing, corsets and all.

“The only thing connecting all of these kills is the elaborate costumes. Clearly our unsub has a flair for the dramatic. He wants these bodies to be found.” Spencer looked over at me as I cleared my throat.

“There’s something familiar about these murders, I just can’t put my finger on it.” Looking at the photos, something was ringing in my head but I couldn’t figure out what it was. “Probably the work of a single unsub, the medieval wardrobes practically screams individuality.”

“What I’m worried about is the rate of kills. Two victims in three days is almost a nonexistent cooling off period.” Hotch stood up and scanned the room. “Wheels up in 20. Reid, come see me for a moment.”

Spencer shot me a glance and followed Hotch into his office.

“That can’t be good.” I muttered to JJ, and she nodded inn agreement.

“So he stabbed the female victim at the first crime scene, and poisoned the male. Those are two completely different MOs.” Everyone was still puzzled at the crime scenes on the plane. Morgan had almost an angry look on his face. “And he hangs the single female? It doesn’t make sense.”

I shook my head. “I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen this before.’

Prentiss raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think any of us have seen anything like this before.”

Spencer was sitting in the window seat next to me, surprisingly not saying anything. At the back of my mind I wanted to ask him about what Hotch called him in for.

“I never thought I would get to kiss you again,” Spencer whispered gently. His arm around my shoulders on his couch felt so much like home I forgot that we were also coworkers.

“Well, you did, so it’s okay,” I smiled up at him and turned back to the TV. In these few short weeks of being a couple again of sorts, my mental health has improved more than in the last six months. Someone would touch me and I wouldn’t flinch anymore, and the nightmares of that damn basement lessened.

Everything was so easy with Spencer. There was still the same connection of kindred spirits we’ve had since college, and we would talk about the most random, nerdy subjects.

Damn, he made me happy. So, so happy.

“Everything good?” I murmured to Spencer on the plane.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” Spencer gave me a reassuring side smile as Hotch began giving assignments.

“Prentiss, Morgan go to the latest dump site. Look through it in the killer’s eyes. YLN, Reid, go to the station and interview families. Rossi and I will go to the ME. JJ, take care of the press.”

I suddenly got it. Hotch was putting Spencer in to babysit me. That’s what they were talking about. I gave Spencer a look, and he glanced away awkwardly.

“So the first two victims were Rosie Greenlin and Tom Janney, they were both in their early twenties, dating, college students.” I shook my head as I walked up to Spencer. “Parents don’t know anything except that Rosie and Tom were in love, clear as day.”

Spencer sighed as he scanned the crime scene photos. “Betty Wright came from a wealthy family, and her parents say she’s always been very outspoken but kind.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Rosie and Tom both came from wealthy families as well. Could he be targeting the rich?”

Spencer shrugged, out of ideas for now.

“Hey, did Hotch pull you aside so he could tell you to babysit me?” One look on Spencer’s face told me yes. “He’s afraid I’ll go rogue again.”

Spencer looked guilty and spoke slowly. “He’s just making sure that you don’t…”

I raised my eyebrows when Spencer trailed off. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m not mad, I just wanted to know, that’s all.”

A police officer came into the room as I finished speaking. “There’s another one. Dylan Walker, stabbed then submerged in liquid. But here’s the weird part, he was submerged in a barrel of wine.”

Spencer pulled out his phone. “We need to get everyone here. We’re not going to catch this guy by splitting up.”

After everyone got back to the station, we ordered food and threw out ideas.

“It’s probably this guy’s first time killing, could the varied MO just mean he’s seeing what he likes?” Morgan had the same puzzled expression from earlier, as did most of the team. “Betty Wright was found hanging from a tree on an isolated hill and the coroner said she’d only been there about an hour.”

Spencer shifted in his seat and moved his hands. “The dump sites seem to be crucial to his fantasy, but we just don’t know why.”

I hadn’t said anything since the team got back. “Oh my god,” I whispered, looking at the crime scene photos. “A malmsey butt… a public execution… two deaths in a tunnel…”

The team just stared at me. “What is it, YFN?” Spencer asked.

I tapped him on the arm, completely astounded that I figured it out. “Remember when we went to see King Lear in college?”

Spencer’s eyes widened. “Cordelia was executed by hanging.”

I nodded at him, standing up and looking at the team. “She was executed because she valued love over property, so her father killed her. Betty Wright was known to be very outspoken. Clarence in Richard III was stabbed then submerged in a malmsey butt, or a barrel of wine. Romeo and Juliet both died in an underground tomb, Romeo poisoned himself and Juliet stabbed herself. Rosie and Tom died in a sewage drain underground in the exact same ways.”

“He’s recreating the written deaths of Shakespeare,” JJ concluded.

“The medieval clothing ties all of it together, the costumes he puts his victims in were common among royalty in Shakespeare’s time.” I looked to Hotch, who wore a microscopic smile on his face. Good job, he seemed to say.

The unsub was Devin McCoy, a former Shakespeare director who lost his job two weeks ago for assaulting one of his actors. Hotch insisted that I stay at the station while they made the arrest, and I grudgingly obliged. Devin came with little resistance, saying that he was creating the art that his actors couldn’t. The whole thing looked like a bad movie when they dragged him into the station.

Hotch pulled me aside as we were packing up.

“YLN, I have to say that you did a fantastic job in this case. You saw something in the murders that no one else did, and we would’ve been here a lot longer without you.” I fought the urge to happy cry. Hotch has never complimented me like that.

“Thank you Hotch. Does that mean Spencer doesn’t have to babysit me anymore?” I asked hopefully. “I have the green light again?”

Hotch gave me a rare smile. “Yes, you have the green light again.”

The plane ride was quiet. We took off at midnight, and with the five hour flight, we were all dreading the next day at work.

I was sitting next to Spencer, who was reading Romeo and Juliet. “How can you read that after the case we just had?”

He looked up and shrugged. “Last time I read this play was in Spanish, so I figured I would read the original English instead.”

I gave him big doe eyes and made a pitched tone. “Oh, Spencer! Spencer! Wherefore art thou Spencer?”

He chuckled and turned away from me. Across the plane, I saw JJ and Prentiss laughing to themselves, most likely at our dorkiness. I smiled and winked at them.

“I know JJ and Prentiss are watching, otherwise I would kiss you.” Spencer whispered to me, still looking down at his book.

“Who cares about JJ and Prentiss?”

His eyes shot up to mine, trying to see if I was joking or not. I gave a devilish smirk, and he laced his hand in my hair.

Spencer kissed me sweetly, and we pulled away when we heard the applause of everyone on the plane.

“Finally!” Rossi exclaimed. “I’ve been pretending to sleep for 45 minutes!”

@itsarayofsunshine @thesailbells @squirrellover1967 @softpeteparker @parkeroffline

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #dr spencer reid #dr reid #criminal minds self insert #criminal minds #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody.

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different?

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years.

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture.

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

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likethecatiam · 4 years ago

Text

I Just Watched The Crow and Here Are the Thoughts I Had

Is this supposed to be like New York?

Devil’s Night huh

I can’t seeeee

I paid $4.28 for HD do I need glasses

Oh okay it’s better

Alright alright I see her where is He

No he’s not lying, she lives doesn’t she?

Oh nice style

Oh…

Are they the guys?

Oh, these sound effects…

Damn just. Alright

Awww he took care of her

Rise! Arise!!

Is that Nickelback???

Chaotic flashback scene

Sir, no, excuse me you cannot put on makeup/face paint and THEN a shirt that tight no what sorcery is this

Alright gettin into that real shit, I see you crow

Oh we huntiiing

Oh just fucking SWAN DIVE YES

Beat his azzzz

Baby slap

No get tf up and kill this man

Knife dodge

Knife Slap

Knife CATCH

Warehouse party

Who is this vampire lookin fuck?

Her makeup is…Bold

Girl get out of this bar

Oh that’s your mom? Damn

Ooo stole that coat, lookin spiffyyyy

God you’re so hot

Watch me heal

Shit on you is correct sir

God you’re so HOT

That’s a lot of knives

Punch him in HIS mouth fuck you “detective”

Are we burning?

Oooo one hand shotgun

Are We Burning?

Kill him, dafuq

Oh okay, leave one alive yes a messenger

Yes it isssss

WE BURNING

WE BOOMING

Kinda awkward cut to that but whatever

Nah, I like you both don’t be enemies

Oh I didn’t even notice the guitar

I like your riddles, handsome man

A hot mime from hell you mean

Fuckin Armand lookin fucker

Oh burning eyeball, fun

How do you know what order they went in??

How’d I know that was going to happen?

Oh you’re so young

I don’t even know I feel about that but it’s melancholy

I think? It’s a bittersweet emotion for sure

Piecing it together, my man?

Crow friend! I love this. I really fucking do

She’s gonna die from overdose isn’t she?

God you’re so fucking HOT

Oh you’re gonna diiieeee

Mr. Window Maaaaan

Fuck, do that thing with the light bulb again

Owie a booboo hahahaHAHAHAHAHA

Keep shooting, the same thing is gonna keep happening

Listen to his riddles!

You died from That? Bitch

Girl what’re you gonna do?

He’s telling you to be a better mother, pay attention

Oh, hey, Fucker

That’s your favourite saying, huh

Oh you’re not dead, okay

Hurry up Eric, he’s on his way and he got that gun

Oh damn, that’s a lot of needles

You can “Shh” out of my window any night

You’re very calm for-Oh. Oh so you know

Bruh this could’ve been something great, secret partnership

My preferred Batman and Commissioner Gordon

Heart to heart time~

Smoking is bad, I’m already dead so it’s fine if I do it but you don’t do it

*Fiance

Will they believe you?

Who are you? Like, actor wise. You look so fucking familiar

Yeah I don’t know who you are

Oh gross, !nc3st wtf

They are twisted, yes

Spin kill? Spin stab?

Yeah, spin stab. Oh and then shooty bang

Kitty!

Oh you’re playing the guitar I thought that was the soundtrack

I see that open window

I see that crow!

Eric buddy where you at?!

Was that green screen/edited in???

Psycho fuckers

You are very unhinged, sir

Oh hell yes

Your death

Oh passenger, okay that works too

“You hit my car”? Lmaoo

How’d I know that coffee was gonna get spilled

These streets are too tight for a car chase

Okay that line made me laugh

High speed collision!

That’s a lot of explosives

Yeah you do. Yeah you do. Yeah you did. Yeah you did! It is. It is!! He came back yes he did!

Later Fucko!

Nah, he doesn’t deserve this music

Okay but this fire crow does, crank it up!

Nobody noticed this giant un-dug grave until him??

Oh, so that’s why it’s Devil’s Night

Well, at least she’s trying, I can give her that

I was having a good day and you ruined it, Detective

Punch him in the mouth!

Where you goin, girly

If you keep this up sir I’m gonna have to start calling you Louis, you handsome handsome pyro

Kitty!! Wish my cat were that nice

Have you always had an undercut?

Is he gonna show? Is he?

I gasped. I did. I’m serious. Yes, hugs are good

Oh geez just kill him already

You look like James Franco? Maybe? Is that why I find you familiar?

Officer friend

Oh no don’t break your guitar, sweetheart noo

Oh wait who was that chick I saw for half a second on stage she was kinda hot

She looks so uncomfortable in that top and those pants

Is this your entire gang, then?

I don’t care about what you’re saying but I’m sure it’s stupid and psychotic

Hiii Eriiiccc~

Crow friend!!!

Ain’t not gentlemen here but continue

Oh shit, nice jump and sit

His face is way hotter than yours Armand-James-Franco

Kill em all

Nice slice!

Good thing he left that blade vault open

In case you have forgotten, this is Brandon Lee son of Bruce fuckin Lee he knows how to fucking fight

Have a nice fall~

Holy shit is right

Ooo that fall looked bad, you good, sweet boy?

Officer friend!!!!!

Don’t just run!

Yo, who the fuck is she????? What’s her deal? Seriously

No, sweet boy, don’t look so small, nooo I wanna give you a hug

Awww innocent children. I feel it is very unsafe for them to be out like this in Devil’s Night

Sarah don’t sleep next to graves

They’ll always be right in your heart Sarah, it’s okay

Sir, stop being this fucking cute okay

Oh shit no. No, not Sarah

SARAH!!!

Eric get the fuck up. Go save Sarah. Eric!

Oh damn that’s hot—Sorry serious time Gotta save Sarah

Not the crow!

Yeah, Aw Fuck is fucking right!

Not the fucking crow!

OFFICER FRIEND!!!!!!

Nice dive Eric

Bitch put the bird down

Yo, ACAB for sure, but this man. I don’t want this man to die

It’s okay, Eric sweetheart, we gon get your invincibility back, don’t worry

No do NOT fucking die I stfg

Lady, I don’t think that’s how that works

Yeah just watch as it gouges out her eyes, I’m genuinely okay with that

God, where is your waist

Sarah hold on sweetheart

Behind you!

NO!!!

Fuck you!

Hell yeah! That’s gruesome as fuck but I’m for it!

If both of you die and I’m gonna be so upset

If you live, fuck you, you Will live

Yeah he does that, it’s normal

Noooo I don’t want it to be overrrrr

Shelly! Oh you’re very pretty!

Damn, I kinda wanna cry now

My final review: Started off kinda rough, but by the time I was thirty minutes in I was all for it. I’m actually so upset I didn’t watch this movie sooner. Also, definitely feeling the loss of Brandon Lee. Great actor, awesome dude, truly upsetting. We could’ve had something great and it was all cut too short. I’m thinking about reading the comic, will definitely look into that. I fucking loved this movie, it was such a great time.

Once again, I will not be watching the sequels because No :D

#mrow #the crow 1994 #the crow film #brandon lee #movie reaction #I rented this on amazon but now I might purchase it

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tracle0 · 5 years ago

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hey hello hi SO here's the deal I legit adore all your bird facts and your tag rambles n whenever I see them I'm like "!!!!!!" so I wanted to ask you a Bird Question so I get to hear more rambles but I don't know enough about birds to ask anything that sounds smart SO if this is not a weird request maybe could I please have some words about... 1) a Weird Bird, 2) a Cool Bird and 3) a bird you would most like to be bros with. sorry if this is a super weird ask ahaha ok cya later have a good day

HI HELLO you actually read those??? omg that very much makes me v happy to hear I just like to throw up knowledge into the tags and then assume no-one is gonna ever observe it.

Wowza. Secret fan right here :D

Okay okay birds. Biiiirds. I gotchya man. Lots of my college project has been looking into birds. I know birds.

However, I do live in England where there aren’t many weird birds. Our birds are kinda tame. I guess the tiny birds are kinda weird. I’ll give you some tiny bird facts.

European robins are very shy little birds, very wary and cautious around people in most of Europe. Here is one of them;

Little fat lad. In most of Europe, v shy. However! In England, they are super bold. Very daring. Very commonly seen in gardens and allotments, waiting for gardeners to finish digging at a patch to go rummaging for bugs and other things they can eat. This is because in England, it’s considered bad luck to kill robins (don’t ask why I couldn’t find out) so they’re v safe here.

They were called Robin Red Breast for a while, due to... red. Postmen in Victorian England also wore red around winter time, as part of their uniform, so a popular nickname for postmen in winter was Robin Red Breast. It became a sign of Christmas coming, hence why robins are so strongly associated with Christmas despite being year-round visitors. The last bit of their name was dropped but the sentiment remains.

Other small bird facts; Goldfinches! V pretty birds. Here’s a picture

Wow look at that bird, so pretty! So, the deal with goldfinches was that they have super sweet song. I can hear one outside right now, actually, v tuneful, v recognisable songbirds. As a result, for a lot of history, goldfinches have been caught to keep as cage birds, to sing away and make rich lords and ladies houses sound nice. Rude practise.

People think their population has been declining and blame the magpie. You’re Australian so maybe you’re like ‘reeee magpie’ (although my brain is telling me you don’t hate them and think they’re bros correct me if I’m wrong) but here magpies are mostly disliked because of their habit of taking from nests - a behaviour common to many corvids (more on that later). However! There have been lots of studies into this, and it was found that areas with higher magpie populations had no correlation to the number of songbird deaths in the area. Almost like... industrialisation and farming are driving them out of their area.

These are long rambles. There are two info-splurges on tiny birds. Let’s move on to a cool bird, the swift! The common swift. Just to be clear.

I fucking adore swifts. Every year I wait eagerly for May to roll around so they return to England again. They are delightful birds, even if their screams are a bit unnerving. In Medieval times, people used to think their screams were the screams of damned souls in hell, and that when swifts vanished during the winter, they were buried in the mud to sleep, a belief held due to their nest-building habits of dried mud being the main item used to build nests.

Swifts barely ever land!! The only exception to this is to feed their chicks. When they’re little chicks, they do press-ups with their wings to build up wing muscles, Once they leave the nest, they keep flying for most of their life, only stopping when THEY have chicks!!! They eat, sleep and mate on the wing!!! Wild man!!

As said before in the tags that I think you read, they rarely fly in the rain when in England/Europe - they fly to eat the bugs, and the bugs hide when it rains, so they just.... fly around the storm. They’re the only bird to actually do this. Unrelated but also neat, they’re one of the oldest species of birds, and whilst they look like swallows and house martins, they’re most closesly related to the hummingbird!!!

Swifts have the fastest level flying speed of 69mph. This means that it has the fastest speed it achieves by itself - the fastest bird of all is the peregrine falcon with its dive breaking speeds of 240mph!! That’s wild. They also keep flying for the longest, as said, and fly the furthest, from Africa to Europe and back again every year. One swift was recorded flying 4 million miles in its life - the same as travelling to the moon and back 8 times!!! Crazy. Insane. I love swifts.

Bird I would most like to be bros with is the crow 100% because. Hello. Have we met. I love crows. Carrion crows, because they’re the crow we have here the most.

There they are!!! V pretty. I love them. So much.

So! Carrion crows often get a bad wrap for a variety of reasons, mostly history based, which is what I was actually exploring in the funky crow comic I’ve been doing for college work. I will say I blame Christianity and Alfred Fucking Hitchcock for their demonisation the most. They’re actually bros, being able to recognise human faces, reward those who are nice to it and punish those who are cruel. They can also tell other crows which humans are good and bad.

As said previously, a lot of corvids attack nests and eat eggs or young of other birds. I can’t defend this much - it’s what corvids do. Hell, the local crow in our area recently attacked the jackdaw nest across the road. It happens. C’est la vie. They do this because they’re scavengers, opportunistic, eating anything and everything they can, which is most likely how they’ve adapted so well to the huge industrial boom and in so many different places around the world!

In Japan, the Kanji for ‘crow’ is the same as the Kanji for ‘bird’, except the bit that symbolises the eye is removed. This is because crows, being all black with beady black eyes, look like they don’t have eyes from a distance. I learnt that from Persona 5.

Their brains are huge!! Smart boyos!!! Hell, in terms of brain to body mass, their brains are bigger than apes!!! They’re insanely good at problem solving, with wild crows who were kept in captivity for short periods for testing being able to solve multi-step problems (some problems being 8 steps long!) for food!!! They’ve also been seen playing around with each other and the environment, something that had only been seen in apes and other high-intelligence and social creatures. They recognise their reflection. They have been observed making tools in the wild. They are very smart.

Crows have really interesting routines and behaviours they follow regarding death - when finding a dead crow, they sound the alarm, and all swarm around the body, working together to try and figure out how it died and if it’s a threat to all of them. Sometimes they lay things on the dead crow, which some believe is similar to burying. If you’re interested in this, Kaeli Swift is a good name to look into - she specialises in corvid behaviour.

My head is now going blank with crow facts but I think there are more. Support your local corvid nerd. Support your local bird nerd! Didn’t know I had so many facts rattling in my head.

This uhhhh got long. If you got to the end, thumbs up 10/10 appreciate. Hope you have a top tier day :D

#albatris #bird facts #crow #robin #goldfinch #swift #'hey trade you like birds please ramble about birds'#no-one has ever asked me that it was an HONOUR #wish we had more weird and quirky birds in england tbh #here's a bonus fun fact #the area I live in has the highest population of barn owls around #and also a lot of just cool birds #so a lot of bird watchers come here to watch birds #my grandad is 99% the reason I probably like birds so much he's a big bird watcher #the other percentage of blame goes to andy who is 100% the reason I love crows so much #'hmmm this ominous character needs ominous symbolism - oh I know! crows!'#that's how it alllllll started

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years ago

Text

Dad Fluff: Bad Day

CW: Chronic pain, referenced past torture, Mina is sickeningly cute, and all of the things she does in here are things I have personally witnessed a four year old doing. (I was actually the four year old who did one of the things in this piece - guess which one!)

Danny is busy pitying himself when he hears Mina wake up down the hall. He’d had this idea of what parenting would be like, and lying in bed with agonizing pain ripping up and down his back isn’t it.

Instead, as he’d waited and waited for them to be matched with a birthmom, Danny had pictured waking his daughter (or son - they hadn’t known which the baby would be, yet) with homemade breakfast.

He’d seen himself as being already on his second cup of coffee, settling down at the kitchen table to watch tiny legs swing on chairs too tall.

Danny had pictured asking his child what they had dreamed about the night before, and lying about his own nightmares with ease by then. Never letting on that when his baby needed a nightlight, he still did, too.

Some days - most days, even, he tries to be honest with at least himself - he is exactly the father he wanted to be. But then there are days like today, where his four year old daughter starts singing to herself in her room down the hall and Danny can’t get up to greet her.

“Hosanna, hey-sanna, sanna superstar,” Mina sings brightly in the joyful off-key caterwauling of very young children, and Danny finds a smile. It’s faint and faded and it doesn’t last, as a new spike of pain rips up the right side of his back where a knife once broke off inside him, but he decides to count that one single smile as his first victory for the day.

He should have told Nate to call off class, he really should have, but… the thing was, Nate’s been working on this lecture he’s really excited about - something something World War I and horror in popular culture, there’s a book, something something there’s always a book - forever and his students are all hyped up for it and Danny having a bad back doesn’t seem like a reason to ruin everyone else’s day, too.

It felt like doing the right thing then - pretending to be peacefully asleep while Nate quietly got ready and let himself out the front door after putting Toto out in the fenced-in yard - but in the moment it means Danny lying in bed, in the dark he tells himself he no longer fears because he’s in too much pain to turn on the light, waiting for his daughter to give up waiting on him to come to her room and come looking for him herself.

“Hey-sanna, hosanna, sanna superstar,” Mina sings, and then there’s a pause. Danny closes his eyes against the angry tears, tries to tell himself to stand, but when he moves his legs his back screams at him to stay still and he gives up, letting out a soft, half-broken sob.

“Daddy?” Mina calls. He can hear the sound of her turning the doorknob, the soft sound of the door opening up. “Daddy? Do you hear me singing?”

“Yes, baby,” He manages, his deep voice hoarse and a little cracked. “I’m… I’m in my room, Mina, honey. Can… can you, um, come here?”

Silence, and then the padding of tiny footsteps down the hall, until his own bedroom door slowly opens. He can close his eyes and picture her going up on her toes to turn on the light, and the sudden brightness soothes something that is always jagged in Danny in the dark.

Grown man, afraid of the dark, Abraham whispers in the back of his mind, never quite gone, the ghost that left a parting gift of pain. My fingers never leave your mind.

Around the side of the little dresser his daughter peeps at him and Abraham’s voice is gone as quickly as it came. Mina chases all his ghosts away.

She’s wearing her matching unicorn pajamas that are probably too small by now, but he can’t bear to make her give them up. Her hair is a halo of textured black curls around her head - Danny is supposed to give her back her braids, today, the ladies down at the salon they go to showed Danny and Nate how to take care of hair so very different than their own

He can’t braid her hair if he can’t fucking sit up.

Mina takes him in with wide brown eyes, the largest feature in her tiny round face. She’s starting to lose the toddler babyfat but only just, and the resemblance to his own younger brother in the first days Danny was adopted is… uncanny, sometimes.

Like now, when Mina looks at him and knows what she is looking at.

“You didn’t turn on the light,” She says, softly. “You don’t have your light on the wall. Are you sick?”

“I’m… I’ll be okay, honey. I just have, um, my back hurts… pretty bad today. I thought I’d handle it, but…” He groans without meaning to, it feels like so much energy just to talk. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m not… not gonna be much of a daddy today.”

Mina frowns at him, her big brown eyes locked on his.

It isn’t supposed to be like this.

Abraham found a way to leave him one last goddamn gift, a present he never unwrapped or asked for and would do anything to give back.

“I’ll get your phone,” Mina says seriously, and comes further in, dragging RiffRaff behind her, the stuffed giraffe with a neck long enough to approach pure absurdity. A gift from Ryan, one among many.

She moves quickly across the floor with her little bare feet padding, a flash of brown stomach showing as her too-small shirt rides up. She has to stretch up again to pull Danny’s cell phone down from the bookshelf, and he watches her, thinking, by next year you won’t have to go on your toes, by two years you won’t want me to be the first thing you see any longer, by thirteen you’ll be slamming doors in my face, will I still be lying here with my back refusing to let me be the parent I wanted to be for you?

“Sad Daddy face,” Mina says, slapping the cell phone down next to him. “Dad would poke your nose.”

“He would,” Danny says, and manages a small smile. “Honey, I’m trying, but I think we have to call Dad back home from work. I can’t… I can’t get out of the bed. I’m sorry, Mina, but it’s not… it’s not gonna work today.”

“Yes it can,” Mina says, with a stubborn set to her jaw she gets from Nate, not that Nate has ever noticed he does it. Danny finds a small smile, at the sight. Adopted or not, Mina is Nate Vandrum’s daughter through and through - already reading some words, already curling up with a book to turn the pages and make up stories about the pictures she sees on the page. Already a serious little girl, a tiny adult.

“I don’t see how,” Danny replies, shifting minutely in the bed, just trying to move onto his side, hissing when his back protests once again.

“We do like when I get sick,” Mina says, softly. “I can open the fridge all by myself and my stuffies and my loveys can sit with us and we can do like when I’m sick.” She considers, and he sees a sudden gleam of mischief in her. “I can have my screen?” She asks, sidling a little closer to the bed.

Danny swallows, and looks down at his cell phone. It’s 7:30 in the morning. The lecture Nate has been planning for happens for his 10 AM class, and he can move his office hours maybe if Danny gives him enough notice to put up a sign…

Hey Nate, he texts, keeping his eyes on Mina, who watches his texting with interest and a clearly increasing certainty that she is going to get exactly what she wants out of this. Bad back day. Fine rn but cn you come home after lecture plz?

“Gonna get to watch princesses,” Mina says, with evident delight. “And eat Lunchables.”

“Sssshhhh,” Danny says, but he can’t quite hold back his own smile in response to his daughter’s. “Daddy being sick isn’t supposed to be something you look forward to, baby.”

His phone vibrates in his hand and he glances down.

Danny, please use full words, that drives me up the wall when you type like that.

“I can’t believe you took the time to write that out,” Danny mutters to himself, but his smile widens even more. He can feel the stretch of scar tissue along his nose and jaw, even this long after Abraham’s death the marks are there, fading but never gone. “Mina, only your Dad uses correct punctuation in his f-... his text messages.”

“Writing is important,” Mina recites in her best impersonation of Nate, pitching her voice hilariously low. Danny laughs out loud despite the way the motion seems to stab whole new little daggers up and down his spine. He’ll be damned if he’ll let a little agony stop him from appreciating his daughter.

Another message comes in and he glances down.

I’ll be home by 12:30. Bringing ramen from the place you like and gyoza for Mina. Do you want me to just cancel and come home now?

No, fine. Just after lunch is good.

Whether Nate believes him or not, he doesn’t know, but he drops back to lay his head down on the pillow, watching Mina watch him right back. “Okay, honey. Dad will be home after lunch. So we just have to… to make this work for a few hours, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll be right back.” With that, Mina throws RiffRaff onto the bed next to Danny and goes running back out. All he can do is lay there, feeling spectacularly useless, while he listens and hopes that she isn’t taking this moment to color on all the walls or break a bunch of things or learn how to set the house on fire.

When she finally returns, she is dragging her small travel suitcase - the one with some kind of cartoon character whose name he can’t remember - behind her like an overworked flight attendant at the end of a long day. “Okay… Daddy…” Mina says, comically out of breath. “I brought… everything.”

He realizes she never actually zipped the suitcase when she simply overturns the whole thing and Danny stares, trapped on the bed, as it opens up and dumps a chaotic mixture of toys and food and her favorite blankets onto his bedroom floor.

“Jesus Christ, Mina,” Danny whispers, eyes wide.

“Jesus Christ, Superstar,” Mina sings happily in response. Not a single note is on key, and Danny thinks maybe adoption doesn’t matter and Mina is his child too. “Do you think you’re what they say you are? Okay, Daddy, I got… I got us stuff for sick. Can I get up on the bed with you?”

Danny looks at the roughly mound-shaped pile of things on the floor, then slowly up at his daughter. “Can we… can we do something about all your stuff first?”

“It’s your stuff, too. Look!” Mina digs into the pile with enthusiasm, and the first thing she pulls out is Danny’s bottle of pain medication.

Hi, I’m Daniel Michaelson, and my baby brings me my fucking pain meds. Pin the medal on the father of the fucking year.

“Oh my God,” Danny whispers. Someone is going to psychically know this happened and he’ll lose her, and he can’t lose her, not because of his stupid back, not because of goddamn Abraham fucking Denner-

“I pushed a chair up to the counter and climbed up and got in the special cupboard,” Mina says seriously, giving him the bottle. He takes it with shaking fingers, his heart so gripped with guilt it’s like it has to work harder to beat. “Where you keep medicine. I can open the lock now and I put my feet in the sink!”

Danny is going to hell for being a bad father, he knows it. He knows it, and he knows your four-year-old stood in your sink to dig out your fucking pills, you fucking whiner is going to be the first thing the Devil says to him.

Maybe he’ll get to suffer right next to Abraham.

Maybe Abraham’s the demon set to make him sorry for everything all over again.

“Daddy, stop,” Mina says, looking a little nervous at the look on Danny’s face. “Dad always gets you medicine when your back is bad. Am I in time-out?”

“Um. Uh… no, honey. Just… just don’t do that, um, again. And don’t ever, ever tell Dad you know how to get into the medicine cabinet. Okay?”

“Okay.” Mina drops back down to the pile, and brings up a small bottle of the cold brew they buy in a pack of six at the store. She hands that to Danny, too, taking to her work with perfect seriousness. All he can do is watch her as he swallows two pills dry and then washes them down with the coffee.

There.

An hour, and he’ll be able to move around in the bed, at least, even if he’ll still hurt too badly to get all the way up. His back is like that - on bad days you can’t get rid of the pain, only make it a little less debilitating. Most bad days he can keep himself moving through sheer momentum, and everyone tells him he must be feeling better and he doesn’t know how to tell them that his baseline changed, back when Abraham first held him captive - he and Nate in the woods in Canada.

Long before the blade broke off in his back, there were days of bruises, battering, and beating. He starved and never slept and hurt like hell.

People think pain ebbs and flows, but the tide is never fully out for Danny. There is always a whisper of oceanwater promising a later tsunami.

While he lays there watching her, Mina picks out her stuffies and loveys, one by one, and begins to lay them throughout the bed. In the backyard, distantly, Danny hears Toto barking - the high-pitched bark that means he’s treed something again. At least somebody is having fun, Danny thinks.

“Okay, Daddy,” Mina says, laying a series of stuffed animals carefully around his head and lightly against his shoulders as he forces himself to shift onto his back on the bed, closing his eyes against the way the pain drains all the blood from his face and his fingers, leaving everything cold and numb as it’s his spine where the nerves light up in fire. “You can have RiffRaff today, and Mister Bones, and Zombie Monkey, and She-Ra, and Ugly, and Bo. I’m going to keep the rest.”

Danny takes a deep breath. “Honey, did you leave any of your animals in your room?”

“No,” Mina answers with a shrug. She clambers back down and comes back with her tablet, which she smacks down a little too hard on Danny’s stomach. He winces and hisses, and her eyes go wide. “Oh, your tummy is sick? I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“N-No, baby, it’s okay. It’s… yikes. I’ll pull a, um, a movie up for you, okay?”

“Princess movie!”

“Can we… watch literally anything else, baby?”

Mina juts her lower lip out and sets her jaw. “Princess movie, Daddy.” She says, stubbornly. When Danny responds with silence and a raised eyebrow, she lets the pout go and gives him a disarming, charming smile instead. “I mean, Daddy-can-I-please-watch-princesses?” She asks, batting her eyelashes and everything, the words all run together the way she always does when she has to ask nicely.

Danny sighs, but it’s with a smile on his face. “Yeah, okay, honey. What else do you have on the floor?”

“Um, some toys, and… this!” Mina holds up two matching Lunchables in the air like she’s declaring victory.

Honestly, she probably is.

“Lunchables for breakfast, huh?” Well, there are worse things in the world, Danny thinks to himself. At least it’s not drugs, right? Yeah, there’s a good bar for good parenting, whether or not your four year old prefers Lunchables or… cocaine or something.

“I need these fucking pills to kick in,” Danny mutters, not realizing he’s speaking out loud until Mina turns to look at him, wide-eyed.

“Daddy,” She says, sounding absolutely scandalized. “You’re not supposed to say that word anymore, Dad said-”

“I know what Dad said,” Danny says, gesturing carefully with one arm, moving as few of his back muscles as possible to do it. “Climb on up here, honey. Let’s do Lunchables. I’ll put a dollar in the jar when I can stand up, okay?”

She nods and climbs up with him. Danny carefully opens the Lunchables for her with his teeth gritted. There’s another thing they didn’t tell him, before it was his life - that sometimes even doing tiny things like tearing the perforated opening off the side of a cardboard Lunchables box could hurt so badly. People think they know what a backache is.

They don’t know.

But then Mina takes the Capri Sun and puts it aside and makes herself a tiny ham-and-cheese sandwich using the little cracker in the box, and some of Danny’s stubborn self-pity starts to slide away, eroded by her cheerful smile. “Elsa with the water horse?” She asks. “Can we do that princess movie?”

“Frozen 2,” Danny corrects absently, scanning through the Disney movies on the tablet with casual swipes of his finger. She never asks for the new princess movies, only the ones from before she was born. Once the movie starts, the sound small and tinny coming from the tablet, Danny settles himself back against the pillows and hands her the screen. She pulls out his arm - he holds back the sounds of pain at the stretch of muscle - and then snuggles in against his side, pulling RiffRaff back into her own lap, her fuzzy black hair brushing softly against the roughened scar tissue on Danny’s neck.

He manages to turn his head and kiss her, on the top of her head. “Just a few hours until Dad gets home,” Danny whispers. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’ll be a better Daddy tomorrow.”

He hopes.

Mina is watching the opening previews and doesn’t look at him or even seem to hear what he said.

By ten, Danny’s been able to get up and use the bathroom, at least, and brush his teeth. That’s his second victory, he decides, in a day where they don’t come easy.

Around eleven, right in the middle of Nate giving the lecture he’s been working so hard on, Danny and Mina fall asleep listening to The Princess and the Frog, a firefly singing to the evening star.

Nate comes home at half past noon with the ramen in hand. He sets it down on the kitchen table and lets Toto back in, the scruffy shelter dog all wagging tails and half-wild jumps. Nate gets him slowly calmed down, and listens. “D-Danny? You around?”

Nothing.

“Mina? Baby? Where are you and D-Daddy?”

Still nothing. Nate frowns - Danny hadn’t answered his text asking what kind of ramen he wanted, and he’d thought maybe Danny was playing with Mina in the toyroom and hadn’t heard - but when he checks, they aren’t in there either.

Finally, he heads upstairs, and halfway up he realizes he can hear the tinny sounds of music coming from their bedroom. He stops in the doorway to stare down at a small, scattered pile of plastic horses, a tiny baby doll, dollhouse furniture, and at least one Pegasus next to his daughter’s suitcase for when they travel to see Danny’s parents.

There’s a soft exhalation, and he turns to look at his husband and daughter asleep on the bed.

The tablet has been discarded, off to the empty side of the king-sized bed. It’s still playing the menu for one of the Disney movies, although Nate can’t remember which one this menu screen is for.

Danny is on his side, with his knees curled, some of the age fallen off of his face His hair is a mess of bright red with hints of silver over his eyes - he’s had silvery strands in his hair since Alberta, the first time Abraham held him - and spread out across the pillows. His hands aren’t up to cover his head - he hasn’t done that in a few years now.

Instead, he has one hand curled up against himself, and the other arm flung over his sleeping daughter. Mina has her head under his chin, on her side as well, and her face is buried against his neck and his collarbone. The two of them breathe nearly in unison, and they are absolutely suffocating in Mina’s favorite stuffed animals and the remains of empty Lunchables packages.

Next to the bed, on the side table, is a half-drunk bottle of iced coffee and Danny’s pain medication. Nate swallows - Danny never takes pills until it’s so bad he can’t move or Nate forces him to. Too afraid, even now, that taking a few pills would lead him right back to relying on fuzzying up his mind to shake away the memories that still threaten when the room is dark.

Nate considers just closing the door and heading back downstairs to eat alone, but Toto comes barreling past his legs and runs into the room, taking a bodily leap onto the bed, all forty pounds of him trying to wriggle between Danny and Mina to try and lick both their faces at once.

Danny jerks awake, eyes fluttering and blinking rapidly, pushing instinctively back Mina groans and rolls over, scooting away, trying to slip right back to sleep the way kids sometimes do.

“H-Hey, Toto,” Danny slurs, getting his hands on the excited dog and gently moving him back. “Hey, bud, how did you get inside…”

“I let him in,” Nate says softly, and Danny turns to look at him. His face is pale and drawn, but the smile when he greets Nate is real.

“Oh, hey,” Danny says, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Sorry to call you home early, I just-... it’s just not a good day for my back. Mina and I decided to… to just take a break in here-”

“Danny, you’ve been in here all day, haven’t you?” Nate sighs. “Don’t l-lie to me.”

“It’s fine,” Danny says, shaking his head. Mina groans again, but her eyes are open now, and she rolls back over. “It’s fine, I’ll do better tomorrow, I’ll… I’ll try harder-”

“Danny,” Nate says, firmly, and it’s only then that Danny seems to realize what he just said. His face pales a little more, making the healing muzzle scars stand out in a ring around his face. “You don’t h-have to. I don’t m-m-mind coming home.”

“Hello, Dad,” Mina says blearily, scooting back to Danny now that Toto is safely sitting far enough back to give her spot back to her, snuggling right back into him. “Did you bring food?”

“I d-did, honey. Have you and Daddy had fun this morning?”

Danny winces, guilt written clearly across his face. “I’ll be better tomorrow, I’ll do better, I can... can try harder-”

“Danny, stop it,” Nate says, a little more edged this time.

“We had so much fun, Dad,” Mina says cheerfully, and Danny turns to look at her, surprised. “We ate Lunchables for breakfast. I always want to and you never let me! And Daddy said a bad word so he has to put money in the jar again-”

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t tell,” Danny says with fake anger, and Mina makes a face at him until he smiles.

“And I got to have all my friends in your bed even though I’m not supposed to and we watched princess movies and I got to pick the movies and Daddy played Stuffy Fight with me!”

“So you d-did have fun,” Nate says gently, and Mina nods.

Danny sits back, closing his eyes briefly, and Nate watches the way his face stills, and knows he’s holding back emotion that wants to write itself there that he doesn’t want to show. Nate sits down, lightly resting on the side of the bed, and slides a hand behind Danny’s head, leaning in to give him a kiss.

“Don’t s-sell yourself short,” Nate says gently. “You’re a g-g-good dad, Daniel Michaelson. Even on b-bad days. But… call me n-next time. Listen to me. You’re a good dad.”

There’s a pause.

Then Mina leans slowly over and says, “I got Daddy’s pills down from the cabinet for him.”

Nate turns to look at her, blinking, as Danny groans and puts his hands up over his eyes. “Oh my God, Mina, I did not ask you and you promised not to tell-”

“Okay,” Nate says, with exaggerated patience. “I am going to pr-pretend I did not h-h-hear either of the things either of y-you just said, and go g-g-get the trays and our r-r-ramen and gyoza. Please n-n-never explain it to me. Ever.”

Danny nods without taking his hands down.

Nate gets all the way downstairs, gets the food settled on the TV trays, and Danny has slurped up his first bite of noodles when Nate finally sighs and says, “You know wh-what, I lied - I need to know exactly how you explain-”

“I didn’t tell Daddy until after I did it,” Mina says brightly, picking up the little fried dumpling with her fingers.

“... and there it is. Let’s eat b-b-before I panic, at l-least.”

“I know how to open the special lock! I can open under the sink now, too!”

“... okay, too l-late, I’m panicking now.”

#whump #I feel like I want to call this parenting whump #emotional whump #trauma recovery whump #tw: chronic pain #tw: references to past torture #original fiction #dad fluff #epilogue #mina vandrum #mina and her dads #writing #oblique references to things that haven't happened in the Bad Arc yet

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dahvangogh · 5 years ago

Text

and empty words are evil | Jason Todd

[masterlist]

[ prologue | one | two ]

CHAPTER ONE

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

– Anais Nin

“How to be single and satisfied at the same time?” Daniel reads the headline out loud, his eyes skimming through the cover of It Girl with curiosity.

Grace hums out loud, thinking the question over while chewing her bottom lip.

“Masturbating, for sure,” Lisa says without missing a beat, Grace only seeing the top of her blonde head because of how burrowed on the laminated menu she was.

The raven-haired laughs loudly –she can’t help it–, but poor Daniel, red tinting his face, starts looking around in case anyone at the dinner has heard them and was giving them any dirty looks.

“Relax, Dan. No one cares.” Grace pats him on the shoulder.

Lisa seems to have forgotten her menu and is now staring fully at Dan, a wicked smile appears on her purple-painted lips, completely ready to bug him.

“Don’t… Leave him alone, Lisa.” Grace quickly chastises her, even kicking her under the table for emphasis, for Lisa can be the most annoying person ever when she wants to. “And Dan, no one is paying any attention to us. Relax.”

Dan is still looking around, his face finally back to its natural color.

“It seems… everyone is paying attention to the tv?”

Pauli’s Diner is crowded, every booth full and a long queue that reaches from the counter to the door. The usual. Yet everyone’s attention, even the four waitresses, seems to be on the tv. Grace also focuses on the big tv, which is placed high at the back of the diner wall, three booths away from theirs. It is on and showcasing a newswoman reporting about something, but without the sound and no headlines or subtitles below to indicate what she was talking about, Grace is left with more questions than answers.

“I think something happened.” Dan sounds between scared and resigned.

The three of them look at each other, then almost comically pull out their phones at the same time. Something always happens in Gotham –the city that never rested–, and it was a common occurrence to check the Gotham Gazette App every day. After all, any good Gothamite knows that to be well informed is the key to survival in such an insane and restless city.

“Fuck. I swear if that madman of Zsasz has escaped again, I will hunt him down and drag his ass to the Asylum myself,” Lisa grunts; her pale brows furrowed tightly. “Fucking load already, stupid App!”

Grace focuses on her screen, the app taking more time than usual to load.

“Mine too…” Dan’s answers in his usual hushed voice. Then, he starts chewing on his lip, worry all over his face.

A big headline pops on Grace’s screen –the App finally deciding on working–, and she sighs happily after reading it.

“Seems an aircraft has fallen to the Sprang River; 20 people are currently missing and the rescue team is doing everything in their power to get to them.” She literally reads out loud the last words, happy that no madman is out and about on the city. “Nothing about Zsasz, sorry Lisa.”

Her two friends exhale the air they had been holding.

“Seems your impromptu date with Zsasz will have to wait.” Grace kicks her friend’s leg again, but this time just to annoy her.

Lisa shows her the middle finger.

“No, but for real. After last time, I don’t think he is going anywhere.” The raven-haired reminds them. “He killed 5 people until Batman and young Robin stopped him.”

Grace sees Dan gulp.

“Yeah, after escaping. Again.” Lisa sounds mad, which is understandable after living in Gotham for five years, and seeing all the hurt Zsasz has caused many Gothamites. “And one of them was my neighbor!”

Dan sighs, remembering her. “Oh, that poor woman…”

“She was a mean bitch, though,” Lisa adds as if it is vital information.

Grace can’t help but to huff.

“Lisa!”

Suddenly, one of the waitresses appears at their booth. With a sheepish smile painted on her serene face, –probably because of how much they had had to wait– she asks them what they would like to order.

Lisa happily asks for a sandwich and a banana smoothie, –as if the last conversation has never happened– but quickly rectifies and changes for a big portion of the chocolate cake instead of the sandwich. The waitress, Marge by what the badge on her blouse, agrees with the blonde and sings praises about how good it is. Then, her attention goes to Dan, asking him sweetly what he would like to order.

The boy, who has never liked being the center of attention, turns bright red again. Shyly, he orders a cappuccino and one of their famous big chocolate cookies, all the while his eyes are zooming on the table instead of her.

When she turns to her, Grace feels as if she has been punched on the stomach.

The waitress aura, white and bright as any other, is twinkling and shaking from pure anxiety.

“What about you, sweetheart?” The old lady asks kindly, her face completely composed despite what her aura said of her.

The contrast between her aura and her facial expression is starting to freak Grace out. Nevertheless, she tries to focus on the present, on what she is feeling, on where she is and, more importantly, on what she wants to fucking eat. Which is really obvious if you know her, by the pointed looks of Lisa and Dan.

“I want a yogurt and banana smoothie, please.”

Marge hums.

“Be right back, then.”

Then, Lisa quickly starts rambling about what they should do on the weekend, something about the opening of a new club in town, but the raven-haired girl can’t pay enough attention to the get on the conversation. Marge’s soul is making it hard for her to concentrate; she even starts rubbing her hands together instinctively as if to distract herself.

She says fuck it and turns around.

The old waitress looks as composed as before, preparing their orders with the help of another girl while looking at the tv. But if Grace focuses hard enough, she can clearly depict Marge’s aura still shaking and twinkling, perhaps even more so than before. Despite training hard to control it, Grace still sometimes is unintentionally receptive to other people’s feelings –almost like an antenna would, she can perceive them and even go as far as toying with them.

This woman is anxious and worried, and Grace doesn’t even know how she isn’t shaking physically.

And Grace, being the sympathetic girl that she is, can’t help but take pity on the poor woman and break her own rules.

She extends her hand, scanning before that no one is paying her any attention, and then lowers it slowly.

Marge’s aura calms at the same time that her hand motion stops, and it no longer twinkles.

Though the lights in the room go crazy for a few seconds.

Grace has to thank whatever God exists, or even the Cosmos, that small tasks such as this one don’t make her hands or her whole self glow with the usual green-bluish energy.

She still remembers the hilarious comment that once a crewmember of the Serbian Mafia made when he saw her appear out of nowhere, floating in the sky, just minutes before she brought hell upon them. Her, attired in her tight black suit and black domino mask, surrounded by bright green-bluish energy floating in the black sky while defying gravity.

And instead of running away, hide or even shot at her, he placed his hands on his hips and said out loud impressed:

“What the fuck? She looks like Goku Super Saiyajin!”

Grace can’t hold now the giggle that escapes her lips.

“What the hell?” Lisa’s voice brings her back to the present, and to the diner.

The raven-haired girl turns around and looks at her friends, smiling as if nothing had just happened, while blinking innocently.

“Sorry, you were saying?”

[ – – – ]

The pencil runs all over her sketchpad, quietly humming along to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition while drawing the sun setting between the skyscrapers. It looks spectacular from her high-ceiling windows. Grace’s weird obsession –despite her psychologist telling time and time again to her that it isn’t exactly a bad thing– of drawing beautiful things, or anything she believes is beautiful to her own standards, has made her sit down and try to make it justice.

Despite having to get ready for a night out with Lisa.

“Just fifteen minutes more and you will get ready.” She sets an alarm, just as Dr. Carson had advised her to do, and keeps drawing happily.

The oranges, in light and deep tones, together with the goldens of the sun setting almost make her forget about any advice, psychologist and nightclub.

And so she keeps going, her sketch pencil running through the page.

She has always felt privileged for owning an apartment in Gotham Village, where only the rich dwelled and played, with amazing views and almost non-existent criminality –which is surprising to say the least in this damned city–. It is the place where she could find herself being happy or at least, try to be normal.

But she misses going out and doing her thing as she did back in Europe.

Grace sighs, chewing on her already-chewed sketch pencil and stops drawing, hugging her legs to her chest.

When she had moved to Gotham almost a year ago, she had wanted to set aside her “dangerous hobby” and live a normal life. Like Lisa or Dan did.

After what had happened to her six years ago, she had used her family’s connections and pulled some strings so she could go and study in a European country. Away from Central Park and New York. There in Berlin, Grace had trained with an Israeli private trainer, Isaac, in Krav Maga until achieving a black belt and her expert five patch. Initially, she had started with just wanting to know the basics, a bit for self-defense and that’s it. Until one day, on a Friday night while she was watching The News, she saw another rapist just get five to ten years in jail and a pat on his shoulder. It had made her so furious that all the windows on her apartment exploded. Moreover, it was in that exact moment, while floating in the middle of her room with her whole being surrounded by the weird bright green-bluish energy and feeling full of rage, that she knew she could try and make a difference, for those who had power were clearly not doing anything.

The next day, after paying the window installer for she had no windows after last night’s debacle, she had asked Isaac about what he would wear, hypothetically of course, if he went to a fucking battle. At first, her trainer had answered that his military uniform but then he had rambled on and on about how a suit of Kevlar thread paired with a good armor would be the best choice if he could afford it.

So Grace, after debating all day whether to do it or not, had called her father that same night and had asked him to find someone who could build it for her.

Matthew Henderson had asked many questions, but she had just told him that in due time she would tell him. Just not now.

He had refused and straight-up hang up.

Later that same night, wide awake and after seriously considering to just wing it and buy a superhero costume from a cosplay online shop, her father had miraculously called again and accepted.

She really was his spoiled little girl.

Grace had flown to New York, the city that she now loathed with a passion, and had her measures taken. The guy who created it made the suit so it fit her like a glove – the downside to that? she had to be careful with what she ate.– It was tight, full-body and with high heeled boots to make her seem taller –after all, she couldn’t go around looking like a gremlin while also fitting crime. A pair of matching black gloves and a domino mask were also made.

After that, before putting the suit, she had not only trained to be the best at Krav Maga but also had learned a few other things –fighting with knives and how to use a gun properly, yet she still preferred to this day using her powers and Krav Maga–. A year and a half later, she had made her debut on Berlin’s streets.

In those years, she had killed many rapists, abusers and pedophiles. Delivered a few petty thieves and robbers to the nearest police station like Santa Claus would do on Christmas Eve, even going as far as tying them up and sticking a note on their foreheads explaining what they had done wrong. She really had been a good samaritan. A few encounters here and there with the Serbian Mafia and the Triad too.

Moreover, she might have done some petty thievery here and there, just to add a bit of spice to her life, but mainly she had been a good girl.

And fuck, she misses doing those things.

It was fun.

A bit dangerous, yes, but fun.

When you have powers beyond your imagination and are able to do some good, why would you step back and live a normal boring life?, she tries to reason with herself every night.

Yet back then in one of her many Skype sessions with Lisa, her childhood best friend, she had realized how empty and alone she had been feeling.

She had superpowers, at 23 she had her damn degree and had been studying to further her education even more, had also a lovely apartment, and yet she felt more lonely than ever.

And loneliness is a dangerous thing.

So, when she had told her good old friend, while omitting a certain hobby she had, of how she was feeling, the blonde had just replied with:

“Come to Gotham! We could live together and the city is fun. Trust me, you will never get bored here.”

Grace chuckles when remembering that. In the next twenty-four hours, she had packed her things, had said goodbye to her colleagues from University, and then hopped on a plane.

She has to give it to Lisa, Gotham city is everything but boring.

Gotham honors its name with its gloomy atmosphere, high buildings and horrible weather. The city is probably Tim Burton’s wet dream. You can find gargoyles in many of the buildings façades, many nights the city is covered in a thick fog, it has an Asylum for the worst of the worst with a high rate of escapees, an absurdly high rate in criminality and many bat-related vigilantes coming out at night to play.

Oh, and the many deranged individuals that play around Gotham like it is a child's’ dream playground.

Lisa had filled her in during those six years on her weekly Skype sessions about those individuals and so she knew most of them before she had placed a foot on the city. Gotham City has the Joker, currently-for-who-knows-how-long-because-he-always-escapes locked in Arkham Asylum, a psychopathic clown who had a weird obsession and ongoing feud with Batman; Two-Face, a half-burned crime lord obsessed with duality and the number two; the Penguin, another crime lord who looked like his namesakes and wore a monocle and umbrella; Poison Ivy, a stunning woman (Lisa said so, her gayness clearly showing here) who was an eco-terrorist and could control nature; and the list could go on and on for ages to no end.

So, her current life in Gotham is never dull or boring. She is working on a renowned and bohemian art gallery in the city, has an amazing apartment –she had tried living with Lisa but they had almost ended fistfighting with each other over a jar of marmalade–, can meet her best friends every day if she wanted, and is continuing her studies at the local University.

But she would be lying if she said she doesn’t miss going out and doing her thing.

Even drawing and painting, the thing that had always distracted her from suiting up and going out, was starting to not divert her attention as it normally would.

Her alarm starts going off.

“I really don’t want to go out.” she sighs loudly, as if someone would pat her on the shoulder and tell her not to go. “I hate partying and crowded places.”

Grace chews her already-very-chewed sketch pencil while walking all the way to her wardrobe.

She has to get ready or Lisa will probably scream her ear off for making her wait.

Though she is always late.

[ – – – ]

Grace, setting aside her ex-extracurricular activities, has always hated going out and now she remembers clearly why she does.

The night would always begin as good as it could possibly be. Lisa and her looking bomb would march to a nightclub, then the club would be buzzing with activity and music, they would have a few drinks and perhaps even dance a bit if the music was any good.

Then Lisa would start flirting with any of the cute waitresses and end up, don’t ask her how, with their tongue almost reaching her throat.

Lisa visibly looked like a terrible kisser, she always reminded Grace of a lifeguard doing mouth-to-mouth, and so she never understood why would the women always end up going God-knows-where to probably fuck.

And so then she would end up all alone, surrounded by sweaty bodies while going deaf by the loud music, and nursing a drink.

Tonight is no different from the usual, but she is tired. Her head hurts from overthinking too much all day long and the high heels are killing her.

Grace decides it is time to call it a day and head back home.

She quickly sends a message to Lisa, who is probably very busy with the cute blonde-haired waitress, and stands up from her barstool.

Hey girl, hope you are having fun with the redhead girl wherever you are.

As you left me alone, as usual (don’t fret, i’m used to it lmao) I have decided to stop being a pathetic human being and go home.

Call me tomorrow, but don’t even think of giving me any details. I don’t care about your sexual life.

Bye, bitch. xx

PD: text me when you GO home and when you GET home, it isn’t safe out there.

The raven-haired sighs.

She has to hit the bathroom before calling her uber though.

Too many drinks.

[ – – – ]

♡ Here, in this fancy shithole, Lucy Ross lost her virginity ♡

Grace sniggers, the situation completely reminding her of some of the type of things she had seen written back then on her high school’s cubicles’ walls.

She sighs happily while finally peeing.

Suddenly, the screams of a high pitched voice and the sound of glass shattering continually almost makes her fall off the toilet.

“Fuck! Fuck!”

She grabs some toilet paper and when she is finished cleaning herself, she pulls her panties up as quickly as possible. Grace holds her breath. It is one person, a female by the sound of the colorful series of profanities she is screaming, and Grace doesn’t need to check her aura to know how angry she is.

Though just in case, she takes a peek.

She focuses on her own aura, then changes her focus towards the other one in the bathroom, even going as far as closing her eyes to discern it much better –without stepping out and risking getting hurt.

It is shining as bright as the sun, but trembling and roaring with despair and sadness. The fact that the poor female isn’t angry surprises her.

Grace takes a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever she is going to face after stepping out of the enclosed and safe space where she is.

When she opens the door, almost scared of what she might see after reading the aura, the sight of a blonde woman headbutting the bathroom’s big mirror isn’t at all what she had expected.

The girl doesn’t even pay her any attention, clearly busy trying to crack her skull open, and so she keeps doing it, even adding some punches to the mix.

Grace can’t let her hurt herself this way.

“Hey, hey, hey!” She has to stop her before she kills herself, or gives herself a concussion if she is lucky enough. “Stop! Stop!”

Grace grabs the blonde by the waist, as if trying to separate her from the mirror, and pulls her against herself.

Next thing she knows, the blonde answers her with a chokehold and then sends her flying over her shoulder without breaking a sweat.

Her body collapses against the same toilet she had been peeing seconds ago, tearing the door from its fringes in the process. However, because her pain tolerance is higher than normal, Grace just grunts and answers right back.

The raven-haired extends her hand, a bright green-bluish glowing around it, and makes a motion towards the sinks. Now the blonde girl is the one being sent flying but this time towards the mirror she had been shattering just before and the sinks.

Grace stands up, her back killing her even more than usual, and approaches the blonde sitting with her back against the shattered mirror.

Weirdly enough, the girl instead of being knocked out is looking at her as if she is Jesus Incarnated. There is wonder all over her face.

“You are so paying for the damages.” the raven-haired quickly points out but then stops herself.

She can’t help but examine her for serious injuries. After all, she had been head-butting the mirror three seconds ago and then sent flying to it –on self-defense though–. But despite all the blood that is running down her forehead, she seems more than fine. Happy even, just gazing at her.

“What the hell?” she can’t help but voice her thoughts out loud.

The raven-haired almost falls backwards when the girl —who is clearly not right in the head— jumps to hug her tightly, mumbling “yes” nonstop while jumping up and down like an excited child.

The blonde girl pulls back, black eyeshadow and glitter smeared around her big blue eyes, and her black-painted lips start smiling almost manically.

“You! You!”

Grace blinks several times, completely lost for words. Then she sighs, trying to get back to the present time.

“Are you out of your mind?” she asks her, completely serious.

“No, I’m Harley Quinn and you...” the blonde points at her, smiling cheekily. “You are my new best friend.”

The raven-haired girl can still hear Lisa, in one of their many Skype sessions, telling her snippets of information here and there about Harley Quinn.

“She is definitely insane. For a long time, she was the partner in crime of Joker and dated that nutter. Girl… the things she has done are something else. Anyways, then she left him and joined a girl band… No, kidding. But Catwoman, Poison Ivy and her did start hanging out and creating some mayhem.”

Again, Grace doesn’t know what to say.

“Let’s go have a drink!”Harley links one of her pale arms with hers, then starts dragging her out of the bathroom.

[ – – – ]

They both sit on a VIP booth with an exceptional view of the dance floor and enough privacy to plot the murder of the current President. The loud music is now faint and low. At the glass low table, there is a big metal ice bucket with two expensive-looking champagne bottles and two glass flutes nearby.

Harley is sitting on the other side of the table, her maniacal smile still on and with her legs crossed, while Grace sits on the other side in the U velvety couch.

She scans her, now fully seeing her for who she is.

Her hair is up in a messy bun, which is dyed in blue and pink, lipstick smeared from probably drinking too much and her clothes are as eccentric-looking as the wearer is. She is wearing what seems like a dog collar, a very sparkling sequin red crop top matching with a penguin sequin dark jacket, striped high-waisted dark pants, and red neon high-heeled boots.

“Interesting choice of clothes.” she can’t help but say, then nods to her neck. “Nice collar, too.”

Harley smiles, almost childlike.

“Bud and Lou hate wearing it, so I decided to put their dog tags on one and wear it to honor them. Cool, right?”

Grace raises an eyebrow.

“Bud and Lou are…?

The blonde laughs loudly, a hand going to her flat stomach.

“My hyenas, silly!”

Then gets serious, so suddenly that Grace almost jumps from such a radical change of demeanor, and picks up one of the champagne bottle on the ice bucket.

“Sounds cool.”

It is all she can say.

But Harley doesn’t pay her any attention, furiously shaking the bottle up and down until it pops. She laughs fascinated by it, then pours some on both flutes and gives her one.

“Anyways!” she cries out loudly, then sips a bit of the champagne while staring at her, doe-eyed. “I kinda need your help.”

Grace takes a sip too.

“My help?” The raven-haired gets comfortable on the couch, a bit curious about the whole thing. After all, it isn’t every day you have a conversation with the infamous Harley Quinn. “You have just met me, Quinn.”

Harley opens her mouth – almost fish-like–, but Grace points a finger, interrupting her.

“Also, you are paying for the damn damages of the bathroom!”

The blonde enthusiastically nods, even going as far as to salute her military-style, all while smiling cutely.

Grace can’t help but smile back.

Harley Quinn is a very cute girl.

“So, will ya help me?”

She blinks a few times.

“With what?”

“Well, you see… it’s a long story.” Harley says, dragging the long while saying it. Then, she takes another loud sip of her flute. “When Mista J an’ I broke up for the hundred’ time, I decided it was time to emancipate myself! I started hanging out more with my besties, adopted many cute pets, hooked up with hot-billionaire Bruce Wayne once an’ even changed ma’ hair.”

Grace raises a thick brow, surprise all over her face.

“You hooked up with Bruce Wayne? The Bruce Wayne?”

Harley shakes her hands nonchalantly.

“Just kissed an’ groped his ass. Very tight and firm!”

Grace laughs at that and Harley joins her.

“Anyways, anyways. My friend Selina had just recently gotten a heart surgery an’ Red an’ I were helping her out on some things, then decided to live together. We had so much fun together! So, so, so much! We ran Gotham, the boys couldn’t keep up! And… Pammy an’ I… we fell in love.”

The blonde sighed happily, blowing raspberries into her glass flute.

“Pammy is Poison Ivy, right?”

Harley nods with a happy smile, but her face quickly contorts in one full of hatred and disgust.

“But Batnight ruined everything!”

The dark-haired girl scratches her temple, trying to remember the names of all the vigilantes of Gotham City, but she can’t remember anyone called Batnight.

“I don’t… I don’t recall any Batnight?” Grace chews her bottom lip, completely lost. “Is he new in town or…?

Harley shakes her head effusively, a clear no, while moving closer so her butt is now placed on the verge of the couch.

“He has sticks!” the blonde points out as if to help her distinguish who the vigilante is.

Grace takes that into consideration.

“Batnight… Batnight… Bat… Night… Night?.” Grace mumbles out loud while Harley nods along to what she is saying. “Nightwing!”

“That’s what I said!”

Grace opens her mouth to correct her, then closes it. She thought Nightwing now patrolled on Blüdhaven instead of Gotham City. Then, she opens her mouth again to ask about it but decides on not doing, Harley’s tale is already making her head hurt a bit. There is no need to enlarge the story even more.

“Red was helping her plants, ya’ know. Doing some good for nature, an’ the Batnight took her down!” Harley places her flute on the table with ferocity, making it shatter. Nevertheless, she is still looking at her with shiny eyes. “Now, Red is at GCPD Lockup, an’ in a week will be taken to the Asylum! Unjustly!”

The blonde starts to sob desperately, putting her hands to her face so it is hidden from her, and Grace sighs silently. While she stands up and approaches her, she checks her aura.

It is shinning and twinkling furiously, Grace can feel the sadness and sorrow the woman is feeling.

She is not lying.

Grace sits beside her and pats her back slowly.

With a kind smile, she asks her: “And because of what I did in the bathroom, you want me to help you?”

Grace is really an empathic girl, she can’t help it.

Harley drops her hands to her lap and looks at her, her eyeshadow and glittery mascara even more messed up than before. Then, almost shyly, nods.

“I… I have…. “ the woman hiccups while her pale fist starts rubbing her left eye. “I have a plan. It is good! But I need me some explosives to cause a distraction, so I can bail out my Pammy. Normally I would do it myself, I was going to… ‘til I saw ya’ earlier in the bathroom!”

The raven-haired girl laughs softly, then cheekily pinches Harley’s right cheek.

“Alright. Girl, I do have superpowers.” Harley nods along to that. “And I can make things go Boom, but where the heck do I get explosives, huh?”

The blonde grabs Grace’s hands with her bleached ones, turns on the coach to sit cross-legged on it and squeezes her hands tightly. She is smiling a bit more now which makes Grace a bit happy.

She likes seeing people smile.

“Blubberpot probably has some, but we ain’t good friends, ya’ know? So he won’t give it to me.”

“Blubber… pot?”

Harley nods.

“Penguin! Small with a pointy nose? Like a toucan?” she makes a gesture of a nose going large until touching her lap with her hand.

Grace realizes she means Cobblepot, Oswald Cobblepot; and nods.

“But I earlier heard some birds talking about Black Mask, it seems he had a new shipment of LX-14, CL-20 an’ TNT to one of his warehouses here in Gotham. ” Harley whispers conspiratorially, puckering her mouth like a duck, though they are alone in the VIP area.

The dark-haired hums, running Harley’s plan through her mind.

“And you want me to smuggle them up, right?”

Harley nods, then subsequently adds: “Selina is busy with don’t-fucking-know-what and I would ask Zatanna but I heard she was busy! So, please?”

Grace sighs.

“You could go there, make the explosives disappear an’ make them appear in my house!”

“Girl, that’s not how my powers work. To open a portal and then move them to your house, I would need to first have set a foot on the place. I can’t just teleport myself to somewhere I haven’t been to before.” Grace takes her hands off Harley’s hold and crosses her arms while explaining this to the blonde girl. “Also, do you even know which warehouse it is? Last I heard from Black Mask, he has many.”

Harley jumps from her seat and starts searching through her pants pockets, nodding to what Grace said while taking out whatever she finds inside and placing it on the small table. A lipstick, some keys with a key-chain of a circus hammer, a small pocket-knife, another pocket-knife but with a blue handle, some sort of ring –which curiously looks like the pin of a hand grenade, but Grace will turn a blind eye on that –, and finally a crumpled piece of paper.

The blonde gives it to her, smiling happily.

“I wrote it down, ‘cause I’m a smart girl. I got a Ph.D., ya’ know?”

Grace reads the direction written in messy handwriting and chuckles at the smiley face doodled underneath it.

“I will help you out on one condition.” She points a finger to the blonde’s face. “No killing any policemen. Got it?”

Harley nods enthusiastically.

“Then I will help you.”

The blonde lets a loud scream and throws herself to Grace’s arms, ecstatically jumping up and down as she did an hour ago on the nightclub’s bathroom. She is thanking her again and again, tears running down her face and falling to Grace’s naked arms. The dark-haired girl pats her in the back, chuckling lightly, and then hugs her back.

A few seconds later, but still as happy and ecstatic as before, Harley pulls back and places each of her hands on Grace’s cheeks.

“Let’s go have a sleepover at mines!”

#jason todd fanfiction #Jason Todd x reader #jason todd x you #Jason Todd x oc #jason todd x y/n #dc fanfiction #batman fanfiction #aewae ff #my wrtiting

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iwilleatratfood · 4 years ago

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happy holidays fellers heres my review of the newest madhouse post

long ass post that deals with abuse and a very thinly veiled death threat, read at your own caution

TW Abuse

im not gonna go too grammar insane as a writer especially since a lot of pokemon grammar is hotly contested. however like in the second paragraph lily makes a pretty obvious tense error lmfao. theres tons of little ones scattered around. obviously not proofread lol

“She didn’t know, Bonnie. This lady…” G racked her brain, looking for a way to communicate the problem in a way Bonnie would understand. “…She was kinda like the Sun.”

Bonnie prickled, her face contorting into pure, unadulterated horror. “BUT THE SUN IS PURE EVIL!” She made it very clear to the entire household how little favor she had of the sun, the bright thing in the sky that always made her head hurt.

was this necessary? this may surprise you lily but the people reading madhouse have basic reading skills. you dont have to explain this to us like we’re three.

“Your Mom wouldn’t let her split us up, though. It was the one thing she refused to cave on,” she continued. “And the lady got more and more angry over not controlling her completely. So one Christmas, she broke your Mom’s heart more than it had ever been broken.” G’s mind flooded with memories of that day. The aftermath of what was supposed to be a cheerful getaway christmas vacation for Lily and her then fiance. G awoke one night to find that Lily had come home earlier than expected bawling her eyes out on the couch. The look of absolute despair on the face of her lifelong friend. The things she spoke of. It still made G’s blood boil over ‘the last one’.

first off this shouldn’t be one paragraph if you want your readers to not immediately skip over it. the reason why authors like david foster wallace use it in books like infinite jest is to create prose that is painful and hard to look at. i dont think that was your intent.

second, i made a post on this shit and deleted it before lizzy told her side of the story because i wanted to not come off as a complete asshole. but i really dont care anymore.

putting your real life relationship problems, about a person whos accused you of sexual coercion (bc lets not mince words here, that’s what it is) is literally one of the lowest things you could do. this isn’t for “healing”, this is trying to weaponize your fanbase to harass your ex.

“You were going to have to tell her eventually,” G argued as she took a step back and glanced at Mikaila and Ginger, who had both clued in to the conversation and were looking at her disapprovingly. “What?”

“Yeah, but not when she’s still so small and baby,” Lily pouted before going back to comforting Bonnie. “It’s okay, sweetie. The last one is gone and she’s never coming back. Mommy is much happier now that she’s gone. It’s okay.”

“Then Momma will eat her,” Lily said with a warm smile.

“Oh don’t call me Momma!” G groaned.

Lily snickered. “Your Godmom will eat her.”

“That’s better,” G huffed. “And yes, I will. I’ll bury every fang in her sternum. I’ll purge her evil from the world with the unstoppable power of my digestive tract.”

hm wonder why this couldn’t make it into a comic. wonder why it couldnt be put to a visual medium right after lizzy’s twitlonger. hmmmm

“Was G like this when you guys were little?” Ginger asked.

“Sort of? When we were little, G’s psychic powers were still developing so she couldn’t really read people as effectively,” Lily explained. “And since we were both little, we had little kid things to worry about. Telling Bonnie about Kirsten only made her understand the feelings she picks up better. That’s why we have to be careful what we tell her.”

ok again with the past tense shit. i noticed this before and im starting to get annoyed. if this is happening now and its not a memory, use the present tense speaking verbs ffs.

my real point here is why is this a pokemon work. like whats the point of having G be a pokemon or this taking place within the canon universe. this is a ultimate flaw with a lot of sentient pokemon works, so lily you’re not exactly special here, but i feel like recently its become more glaring.

if all the pokemon act like humans and are sentient like humans, why are they owned by them? if i made G a sentient alien and removed all the pokemon shit, not a whole lot would change, and thats a fucking problem if ur making a work within that universe.

“I look forward to it every year,” G smiled as she hugged Bonnie tightly.

Ginger turned a smirk back to Lily. “So it’s like an anniversary?”

“It’s not an anniversary!” Lily exclaimed, wheeling around with pursed lips. “Why do the two of you always go there?”

if pokemon/human is morally wrong stop teasing it in your work.

“Why not?” Bonnie pouted.

“Because… dear lord, how do I explain this to a baby?” Lily let her head fall back against the couch.

“Because it would make both of us unhappy,” G explained as she ran her fingers through Bonnie’s hair.

Bonnie blinked, looking up at her Godmother in complete and utter bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

G bit the inside of her cheek slightly as she took a moment to consider her next words. “Well… a lot of reasons really,” she started. “A big reason is If she and I were together, I would only want to have her all to myself. Your mom isn’t like that. She needs to share her love with everyone she feels it for. She’d have to give that up just to appease my insecurities. Mikaila and Ginger wouldn’t be here to spend time with you or tell you fun stories.”

so why is G still here if she would be so abusive and controlling?

rest of the post is boring and not worth my time to review but seriously. why is this a pokemon story still, why is this G even with lily still after how controlling and obsessive she’s been in the past... typical questions that come up whenever new madhouse is posted.

and like. holy shit for a “damn good writer” lily cannot fucking seem to follow basic writing rules and/or basic grammar. even i know this shit, and i consider myself a writer that needs to improve. tons of basic tense shit that grammarly will hit you for, a fundemental lack of understanding on how fucking dialogue is formatted, and just massive paragraphs that need to be broken up so the reader can actually read the shit your posting.

merry christmas, i will be reviewing the next post as well.

#lily orchard #poke madhouse

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iguessishouldbethankful · 5 years ago

Text

Sly Cooper 1 Review:

As in, I recently completed the game and since I was asked to, I will give my review on it. I’m a little nervous because this is the first time I’m doing this, so hopefully I’ll get this right.

KEEP IN MIND: I did not grow up with this series, and I am going in after @oroanillado gifted me the entire series for the PS3. I am a new fan who basically grew up on Nintendo products, so my views might come off differently.

ALSO: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Onto the review.

0. Initial Reaction:::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was pretty surprised how the game collection required no download or installation. So that was a good little bonus as I could immediately sit down and play it without much of a wait. As for the starting point on top of the roof... lemmie say that Sly is adorable at first glance. His movements are fluid and it’s very satisfying to control him--especially the fact that he has a bass sound to his steps that is beyond addictive. I love it.

Not to mention the music is nice. Not exactly as memorable, but I can listen to it and it does give the area a feel.

And then Bentley opened his mouth. Whew boy. Okay. Rok heard my live commentary every time he opened his mouth, so it’ll be a theme. It wasn’t that bad at first though so it’s mostly me wanting to explore the Police Station. It’s mostly a tutorial level so it’s nothing impressive, just giving the feels.

When Carmelita showed up, like expected, I was stunned by two things: she owns an extra fancy taser gun, and that slow as fuck taser gun is able to cause the destruction of public and private property as a massive scale. Ma’am, can we talk? Can you not blow up the cars?? LADY-

As for the comic style animation? Yes, perfect. I was looking forward to it and was not disappointed. I love the cartoony look it gives to the whole world. Which is something else I noticed--the feel and look of the game is very much like the love child of Banjo Kazooie and Psychonauts. The colors and collectathon.

Also the character motivations for Sly, Bentley and Murray are believable. All are orphans, and Sly saw his family get killed but the bad guys and the family book of thieves stolen. Carmelita? Eh, wish I had more context to her but good cop trying to catch the robber is good enough.

Note: I had no idea Carmelita was actually someone that worked for Interpol. My dumbass thought she was just a French cop. The more you know.

As for the hub safehouse area, it’s simple and direct to the point.

Okay. We good? Now onto the levels.

1. Tide of Terror:::::::::::::::::::

Sly dies in one shot.

No. This was okay. I was determined to find out how I could get around this. I explored the initial open area, collecting the coins and trying to get the bottles because I knew that the point of the games was to collect all pages, right? So I needed the bottles to get the clues so Bentley could give me the code. Thing is, I ran into a few problems on the get go. BESIDES SLY BEING A ONE HIT WONDERBOY.

I didn’t know I could pimp whack enemies with the cane. So I see this walrus looking mofo just hammering away on a boat and I’m like... How do I not aggro this dude. Keep to myself, reach areas I new I could jump to, and... OH FUCK THERE ARE BOTTLES ON THAT BOAT GOD DAMN IT! Fine. Let’s sneak in. By sneak I mean run around the walrus and realize that the guy just sees me and hammers harder. What? Okay then he doesn’t chase me. Get the bottles, realize after 5 minutes that Sly’s pimp ass cane can in fact obliterate the ship’s pole to get the last bottle, before trying to confront the walrus.

So I died the first time. Then I smacked him. You know, for a one hit wonder as Sly is, I appreciate that the enemies are the same as well. That balanced everything out and not made it a colorful furry version of Dark Souls. So off I go. Up the ladder and jumping right into the second area where there are search lights. I’m like okay, let me go around these and--

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ROSE BUSH KILLED SLY?!

GOD DAMN IT!!

Yes, a lot of this happened. It has been a while since I played a colorful game like this and I a lot of this is simple designing that is obvious, but I am also someone that enjoys finding other ways to get around them. So many choices in the game seems nonsensical. A raccoon unable to brush by some thorn bushes was rather hilarious. I was basically fussing at full volume while Rok was laughing at me. Which was good, I meant to be hilarious.

I discovered the wonders that were the search lights and that they are easily turned off in the small sections. That I could in fact dodge most attacks from the minor enemy characters. Realized that this damn raccoon cannot swim to save his damn life. LITERALLY.

kjsdbkjsd And then I realized that I was missing quite a few bottles once I got to the end. I was frustrated. I wanted to get them all already. So I went back and tried figuring out how to get them and I SWEAR TO GOD I CANNOT EVEN LOOK AT THE SAFE WITHOUT BENTLEY GOING “YOU DON’T HAVE THE BOTTLES NEEDED TO OPEN IT U-”

Bro. Bro I know. Bro please.

Shut the fuck up.

Got the bottles and moved on. Found out that I absolutely adore Sly being in a barrel and wanted to take that barrel with me everywhere but I couldn’t. Realized that Sly puts come paper cuts outs of his emblem in opened up safes and--can we talk about this? Does Sly just sit in his room with colored craft paper and cuts these out every night? Does he redo them if one comes out funky? Does he get glittery paper or is it like the kiddy kind? Does he do them in the van? Is it with scissors or an x-acto knife?! How do you make these bro you don’t simply walk into a FedEx’s Kinkos to print these out!

Anyway, I’m learning more tricks as I go along, getting all of the keys and bottles and I do go back to each stage to get all of the damn bottles because I am not leaving one behind because I really want all of the pages. I am also seeing all of the death animations Sly does and honestly, the humor in each of them is not lost on me at all. I adore them. The first time I saw him just realizing he’s gonna fall to his death and he just-

I busted laughing so hard and Rok got to hear me lmao oh my god-- But for real, most of his death animations are strangely adorable in my opinion. Especially when he just falls and his little leg twitches. They never made animations like that for other games I played so far (not even for Banjo Kazooie). And the lightness of everything makes it less frustration in my opinion. As though I had no problem if Sly died along the way. Whereas I would get way more frustrated with how Mario or Banjo would die.

Anyway those are my tidbits. But lemmie tell you something.Once I got to the last stage where I needed to get the 7 keys to access the final boss? There’s a treasure chest with crabs mini games.

FUCK. THAT. GAME.

The only reason I got through it was because I’m stubborn and I distracted my frustrations in my chat with Rok as I had this damn raccoon swim around in a submarine, killing about 100 crustaceans just for 40 chests!! 40! Not a normal number like 20 or 25. No. 40. That drove me nuts for some reason.

Anyway, finally got to the final boss after I collected all the horseshoes and lives around the main hub of the level, and then yeeted Sly from the canon ALA Wind Waker style.

Raleigh is freaking gross. Not in voice, but his animation made me feel really nasty with looking at him, which in my opinion was a good visual design and motivator to get rid of him faster. It was also easy to sort of find out what the boss fight was requiring from me in the end--making it so much easier as well. I guess for a kid it’s a bit more difficult and I can understand that. I just enjoyed the fights for having a repetitive nature that was satisfying. Like even if I died many times, the game didn’t throw me all the way out of the level at all. It restarted the fight from the beginning and that, to me, was a good way to introduce me to the entire function of a Sly Cooper 1 boss fight.

I felt happy when I defeated Raleigh. And of course, Sly isn’t a “killer” so froggo dude is still alive, just in prison after “HOT LATIN FOX LADY” caught him. Of course. Can someone tell me where Carmelita is from? Is she Spanish or Mexican or..? Like was that defined by the games or was it thrown up in the air?

Anyway, onto the next level.

2. Sunset Snake Eyes:::::::::::::::::::::

Lemmie just say that I actually enjoyed Mugshot’s backstory? It made me feel really sympathetic towards him in a way.... Despite him being a murderer but you know. It was a nice touch.

Okay so, are any of you familiar with the whole “Mickey Mouse is taking his dog Pluto for a walk” dilemma? Well, I had a moment like that as well in this section. Why? Because Mugshot has feral dogs all over his turf and that messes me up a lot for some reason. Like I always wondered how, evolutionary wise, can an anthro dog and a feral dog look so similar? I had a moment like that as well when reading Farewell, Beloved Falco. There was a feral pig in that comic and it bother the fuck out of me. But it didn’t impede me from playing the game.

The look was very much classical American desert wasteland in the middle of nowhere. Possibly southwest USA if I were to guess, and I liked the feel of the casinos and run down RVs, trailers and cars. However it made me question why this place was a junkyard almost if he kinda has a functioning casino. For Raleigh I could understand because it was a hideout, you do what you can right? Even if you have a fucking floating metal blimp over your hideout, like that won’t catch military attention at all, nooooooo--

But like, an abandoned casino suggests that it was once owned by the mafia or a mob, and just--Okay. Police regulations and gun control. Etc etc, I’m rambling on about things that have nothing to do with the game. Back to the design.

Again, collecting all the bottles like a desperate AA member that needs a hit for old times sake and running back to open up the safe. Can I just say that the names of each Cooper ancestor is rather amusing? Like some have the most dumb but adorable names. Huckleberry Cooper jfc--

And once I got into the main hub, I got my first taste of the “Murray can’t think without his stomach thus gets himself in trouble and needs to race his Moon Rover turned into a Van to win one of the keys” mini game and “Bentley told me I gotta keep you alive as you run through this area full of trigger happy criminals, Murray, plEASE STOP RUNNING IN FRONT OF MY BULLETS MURRAY-” mini game. Nice. Not as bad as the 40 treasure chests crabs.

Also, why would Mugshot or his minions just leave a red sports car running on reverse for days on end?? Anyway.

The inside of the casino was a nice section to play ngl. I enjoyed that a lot. The platforming too, despite some of the bottles being utterly difficult to get without having to die and do the entire section again to get them. And then comes the level when Carmelita decides to destroy private property because she’s after this dumbass raccoon. I wonder how she felt seeing him jump around back and forth breaking bottles and dodging her SLOW AS FUCK TASER GUN.

“Could you stand still?!”

“Nope. Not my fault you couldn’t get a license for a firearm.”

Finally I got to the Mugshot boss fight and like the first one, it was a very satisfying fight. Mugshot had me in stitches because he walked around with his long ass arms instead of his legs at first like lmao! Also once I got to the final third stage, I was all cautious and excite to jump around the wires. Yessss.

Defeated, all bottles collected, Carmelita caught this villain as well, and off we go... stealing shit from the USA before coming back to the Safehouse? Alrighty then.

3. Vicious Voodoo:::::::::::::::

Let me tell you something about myself. I have an intense love for Voodoo in video games. Started with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, Princess and the Frog and I had an intense call back to one of the swamp areas of Banjo Kazooie in this level.

So basically, this is my favorite level.

I think it’s also the level where I argued the most with Bentley as well. Or at least the second one because, since the very first game, he keeps repeating the same obvious commands all the time with a constant reminder of press the O button. Sly? Sly?? SLY! PRESS THE O BUTTON! Bentley? You’re cute, but you gotta stop my dude.

The sliding effect on the long branches was a lot of fun, the tree enemies that had more than one hit kills were also satisfying to beat the shit out of. I also enjoyed the general murky color of the level in general. Just the spooky was definitely my aesthetic. You know what wasn’t my aesthetic? The first mini game I ran into, which was the candle mini game where Bentley would repeat himself all the time right at the start of if you had to restart the level. I muted the entire thing and had Sly mindlessly killing the fishes to turn on the candles while blabbing to Rok on the phone so it was easier for me not to get nervous about the time limit or the amount of candles I had to turn on. It was the same thing with the Chicken Gumbo mini game, but I didn’t mute that one. Because Bentley stayed quiet.

Also, @oroanillado is the biggest troll. I was on the beast section of the game and they did not describe to me what it was like. So I’m honestly not expecting much at all, just wanted to grab my bottles and go. Once I’m halfway though, and I already saw the water moving around I’m having Amnesia the Dark Descent flashbacks like OH SHIT OH FUK O Shi- But no. No. What got to me was... This intensely huge serpent coming out of the water and chasing me and my camera kept pointing BACK instead of pointing forward so I could navigate Sly out of that mess while also getting the fucking bottles along the way!!

I was shrieking!! I have an acute fear of things that are larger than normal (it’s connected to my Agoraphobia). I have that with whales and sharks and fish, so I usually avoid big mobs if possible in any game. Yes, including the 3 mythical dragons from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. @thekursedone-lylat was present when I was freaking out about saving Naydra and how huge it was. But at the same time I have a big fear of these sorts of creatures, I was laughing and cursing at the end of the level because honestly, Rok was having a good time and so was I.

Oh yes, also the other mini game where I had to navigate the same speed boat thingy and shoot down the on coming ghosts and flaming rocks was pretty annoying until I figured out I needed to destroy the pillars where the ghosts came from. Then it was easy.

But my absolute favorite section of this whole level was the Green Water Full of Body Parts and Bones. Bentley was losing his shit at the beginning of the level and I would accidentally yeet Sly into the water of decomposing bodies like yeah, yeah the turtle won’t like the smell of this. It was just a well designed level, so I had no problems having to redo it to get all the bottles again and again.

Now, the boss fight? I was warned about this ahead of time so I had to unfortunately put Mz. Ruby on mute so I would concentrate on her attacks but apparently they were supposed to go with the rhythm of the song and the Sly Cooper Collection messed that up? I think she was the only Boss I was really wanting to listen to as she talked because she was giving me good “yeah I’m bad, probably not the best one in the group, but I don’t care I’mma own up to it so try to dodge my attacks as best you can” vibes. It was also entertaining to see Sly go Neo with some of the commands.

All bottles collected and onto Winter in China.

4. Fire in the Sky::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oh hey look, fireworks!

.....oh.

Surprisingly, this entire stage was rather meh to me? It worked like the others, felt like the others, but I really wasn’t as wowed by it. It might also be just the fact that I mostly saw white in general due to the snow, and spent most of my time looking for a few bottles on one section that really irritated me. Like I legitimately got mad in one section and didn’t want to deal with it because of the noises some of the monkeys were making.

This section. I hated it so much because I thought the bottles I was missing were in here and 2 of them were but I needed hints for it. Argh... Everything else in this section was pretty much a blur for me besides the two mini games with Murray, and the one level where Carmlita came back again, destroying more private and ancient property with her taser gun--and the main reason I remember this was because:

Carmelita saying she was going to catch criminal scum Sly and Sly just went “you really need to get woke, I’m not the bad guy here.”

I collected all the bottles but Bentley told me I had to defeat Clockwerk before I could open this damn safe, and it was the only one requiring this!!

Carmelita went down with the dragon statue, into the hypothermia levels of cold water while shaking her fist into the sky.

I will say the part of Sly and Bentley discussing the whole mechanics of Sly taking the rockets into Panda’s lair was pretty funny tho. Just,

Bentley: Hey you might be able to reach the top of the tower before these explode.

Sly: Okay but what if they explode before I get there?

Bentley: Then I guess you’ll blow up into many pieces.

Sly:

As for the Panda King boss fight, it was okay. I just kept running in circles around the arena while approaching the dude. Defeated him and was like okay, I really need to go and defeat Clockwerk now so I can open that safe.

5. The Cold Heart of Hate:::::::::::::::::::

Look.

I get Sly probably weighs next to nothing, Murray, but could you at least break once Sly gets knocked off the top of the van? Or when the rocks are falling down towards us, maybe also step on the breaks so not everyone is being driven to their ultimate death?

No?

Okay.

I will say, I headcanon that both Bentley and Sly were getting an intense case of whiplash when Murray was driving that van around at 120 MPH collecting all 60 computers because... Bentley needed those to hack into something??? It wasn’t as bad as the 40 crabs and treasure chests but man. And then of course there’s the section where, oh surprise surprise, Carmelita is in an obvious trap, slamming her fist on the glass, needing to be saved. Bentley warned Sly it was a trap. But of course Sly is like:

OH THANK GOD THE BARREL IS BACK.

Anyway, obvious trap is an obvious trap. Carm just bitches at Sly right as he gets stuck in the glass chamber and is sprayed with RAID. So Bentley has to save his ass. This is possibly the mini game I dislike the most. I just put Bentley on constantly circling mode as he shot down the targets.I died about 9000 times before I won.

Carmen is all Oh I was wrong about you the whole time Sly!

Sly: Duh.

And off we go to the next section where Sly lost his cane and he needs to recover it with Carm’s help. So I’m controlling Carm’s taser gun. Guess how many times I purposefully killed Sly? Many. For funsies. Because the gun magically got faster once I was behind the trigger.

Next section was the whole climb up the beam tower as it’s being consumed by lava! I very much enjoyed this whole climbing bit. It was fun. Again, died a lot and I actually glitched through the walls because I jumped somewhere I wasn’t supposed to and had to kill Sly along the way. But still very fun.

FINALLY.

CLOCKWERK.

Are we serious? Are we actually serious right now? Clockwerk had absolutely no motivation beyond ultimate hate? WHAT?! That’s just... not a satisfying reason ngl. Anyway, the jetpack flying section was probably the easiest thing ever and I loved it. What I didn’t like was the laser section that came after it... I kept dying. Again. FUCK. THOSE. LASERS.

Clockwerk speaking random little words while malfunctioning was super cute those. I don’t why, but I loved it. I was shrieking by the end of everything though because once I got right at the back end, where I’m supposed to jump on this mad owl, I was not expecting the head to jump on me. HHHHHHH!!!

Anyway, I killed Clockwerk dead. Back into the lava you go. Witnessed Sly give Carmelita the slip of the tongue and handcuffed her onto a railing over an active volcano before yeeting himself. Classy. Then back to his old tricks again with the gang. End credits.

NO WAIT.

The last chest. In the Panda section. Yeah I went back for that and got the extra ending.

0. MY RATING::::::::::::::::::::

Honestly, 8 trashcans out of 10. If Clockwerk actually had a believable motive besides hate, I’d give it a higher rating. But the game is satisfying and I love the mechanics of it.

Bentley just needs to chill the fuck up tho. God.

#sly cooper #sly cooper reviews #peep peep #long post

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