#did my best to sort of make this feel like the novels but its also definitely my style.

[aranarumei]

the anomalous agate (part 1)

edit: there's an updated version of this here

so. a few days ago i floated the idea of a crossover of hanzawa to tashiro and the case files of jeweler richard to the illustrious @dirtbra1n, and after talking about it i. could not stop thinking about it. here is that. you will notice above it says part 1, and that is because I spiralled a bit out of control. this is so long (4.3k) that I thought it merited me posting it on ao3 as well, if you'd prefer to read it there. there's also some notes about the fic contained there, none of which I feel like repeating, except i do have to credit the line of dialogue where seigi asks hanzawa why he has so many piercings to @dirtbra1n. that's entirely their genius.

without further ado, under the cut:

case 2-x: the anomalous agate (part 1)

The longer I worked for the shop, the fewer days arrived when there were no appointments scheduled for the day. As always, Richard seemed unfazed by the lack of customers. I supposed it made sense—this was a shop that only existed on the weekends, after all. He had hired me, but had the two of us not met by chance, it was likely he wouldn’t have hired anyone at all.

Perhaps the reason my employer seemed so content was the fact that he was currently cutting into a delicate slice of tiramisu crepe cake. He ate with almost ethereal grace, and as I somehow hadn’t thought to grab a slice for myself, my mind wandered to the circumstances that had led me to the purchase.

The week before, I had been making Richard’s royal milk tea as usual—I felt somewhat confident in my skills at this point, but there really was no matching a master—and asked him if there was a reason we didn’t serve coffee to customers. It was a common feature of many cafés, after all, and though this place was no longer a café, we still offered things like tea and snacks to customers.

Richard had stared at me like he was waiting for me to figure something out on my own, and after wracking my brain for possibilities, I tried, “We have barley tea and green tea, so it can’t be because you think anything except for royal milk tea won’t do…”

I received a deep sigh for my efforts. Richard arched an eyebrow. “Do you know how much is involved in the process of making coffee?” he asked.

As the coffee I most regularly consumed came from a can, there wasn’t a single response I could give.

That night, I searched up the process of manufacturing and brewing coffee, and quickly found myself beginning to develop a headache. Not only were there many places where coffee beans were grown, the different ways in which coffee was then brewed and what it was paired with felt almost limitless. Searching for espresso machines brought prices well over 15,000 yen, and it was at that point that I began to understand what Richard had conveyed in a single sentence.

Instant coffee could be made without any sense of technique or equipment, but the kind of coffee that set one’s mind at ease was probably the kind that only a real café was capable of. Or a coffee enthusiast, and I was neither. I tried to conjure the image of being offered canned or instant coffee at Jewelry Étranger, and immediately wrinkled my nose. Coffee at a café was meant to pleasant; I had no desire to remind myself of what it felt like to work late night after late night as a security guard. While I felt coffee had a warm, comforting scent, I knew all too well that it was also a bitter necessity. I was thankful that the caffeine had kept me awake, but it only worsened the quality of my sleep.

Still, though I had given up the idea of introducing coffee to our drink selection, I must not have completely forgotten about it, because the next time I stepped into a bakery, their offering of a tiramisu crepe cake caught my immediate attention.

I’d had tiramisu only once during a birthday in junior high. Birthdays when I was younger were a melancholy affair—they were small, intimate celebrations that reminded me of the insignificance of my life. It was the same feeling as lighting a candle in pure dark—loneliness shined more under small points of light. But my mother had always remembered to buy a cake year after year, no matter the circumstances. While she had already developed a taste for coffee, I still considered it something that was a bitter, awful drink that adults actually enjoyed. But after some firm persuasion from my mother, I reluctantly dug in.

Add enough sugar and it can turn bitter into sweet. I knew that now, but as a child I had been given an experience akin to magic. Even now, I could still recall the light and sweet taste accompanied by the delicate hints of coffee and chocolate.

Remembering it now, it was hard to explain why I hadn’t had one in such a long time, but I hadn’t developed the habit of searching out cafés, bakeries, and sweet shops until I started working at Jewelry Étranger. Food tasted better as of late.

This bakery in particular was a favorite of mine—it felt like every time I entered, there was still some sweet I had yet to try. And encounters like these, where it felt like little parts of my life were slotting together in serendipitous fashions, were becoming far more common. It was obvious in the way I’d found out about Tanimoto-san’s love for rocks and minerals, as well as her friend Shinkai’s dance company, or Hase-san visiting at the exact time I happened to be in the back, but when I told Richard this, he simply brushed it off.

“The more knowledge and experience you acquire, the more the world reveals itself to you,” he said. “Department stores have existed before you began working here, but only once you took an interest in diamonds did you notice the kinds of jewels they sold. The girl you wish was your girlfriend had an interest in minerals long before you began to. That was not fate—it was the fact that the more you learned, the more you could find commonalities or points of connection in the world around you.” He paused. “You, in particular… I would guess that you run into so many coincidences because you’re unable to turn your back.”

He was correct. The more people that visited Richard’s store, the more that I came to knew about the world. I had liked Tanimoto-san before I had met Richard, and she had loved rocks and minerals for far longer. But because I had been able to meet with Richard—and that was an encounter that could have only been fate—I’d gained awareness of a part of the world that had always existed, just not in my eyes. The more I learned about jewels, the more I treasured various things.

So that Saturday, I entered the bakery again, bought a slice, and arrived at Jewelry Étranger with an offering.

“…I still won’t give you a raise, you know,” Richard said.

As always, he looked beautiful. I had the feeling that he’d be annoyed if I told him the purchase was due to a bottomless kind of gratitude.

“I know.” At this point, I wondered if I needed to directly tell him how he paid far more than what I earned as a security guard. But I’d already turned down a job offer to stay here, so he must have known that I felt as if the work I was doing here was infinitely more valuable.

Since we’d had this kind of exchange quite a few times before, Richard tried the tiramisu crepe cake without much fuss. It was obvious he was enjoying it—perhaps his face hadn’t cracked out into a smile or anything of the sort, but there was a serene look on his face when he was enjoying sweets.

As he ate, a question popped to mind: “Say, Richard, have you had real tiramisu in Italy before?”

Richard paused between bites. “Do you mean to ask if I’ve had authentic tiramisu?”

“Well, you just seem as if you’ve been everywhere in the world…”

Rather than tell me if he’d spent time in Italy or not, Richard began to speak about the conflicted meaning of the word ‘authentic.’

“Tiramisu is Italian in origin, but the exact nature of how it was first produced is still up for debate. Tiramisu as we recognize it today certainly does not come in the nature of a crepe cake, but—” He paused to take another bite. “Grab yourself a fork, would you?”

I stared at him blankly as he deliberately placed his fork down on his plate. The last few bites of the crepe cake remained untouched, and only when he tilted his head in confusion did I rush to the kitchen in realization.

When I returned, Richard continued speaking without commenting on my lack of wits. “Something being authentic indeed means it is the real thing—a genuine article. Authenticity is also related to truth—in art, the style of realism is grounded in an attempt to depict life authentically. Without alterations or embellishments. For gemstones this is a fairly simple thing to classify—jewels are mined from specific places, so we designate that which is naturally-occurring as authentic. This runs in opposition as to imitation jewels, which are made from a different material, and approximate the look of a jewel without matching its innate qualities. The question of authenticity also is relevant when looking at heat treatment—pigeon blood rubies that haven’t undergone heat treatment are more valuable, because they have acquired the color naturally, yes?”

I nodded in agreement, reminded of Tanimoto-san’s opinion on heat treatment. She probably prized the authenticity of a gem—the one-of-a-kind nature each jewel had. I understood her feelings, but I also thought there was some kind of wonder in the process of polishing and cutting and heat treatment—each step gave a jewel a special kind of shine. But beauty was the kind of thing where opinions differed often.

“You’ve forgotten to actually put your fork to use,” Richard said, and I startled out of my daze to hurriedly take a bite. Well, no one would disagree about his beauty.

As expected, the tiramisu crepe cake was both light and sweet. The texture of crepes was certainly different than what I’d eaten as a child, but both carried that sense of pure delicacy—each layer felt like cotton-candied air. Though it didn’t smell like coffee, there was indeed the warm, rich undertone of what I’d come to understand as coffee’s flavor. If I could spend a birthday just like this… it would be a treasure of a memory.

Richard’s lips curled. “How is it?”                      

I made sure to properly swallow before I replied. “It’s delicious,” I marveled. “I don’t know why I’d forgotten the taste.”

“When you make rice at home, would you consider that rice real or authentic?” Richard asked. When I nodded, still chewing on my final bite of cake, he then asked, “Why?”

Maybe I would buy tiramisu on the way home. Or gift some to Hiromi—I could only assume that my birthday all those years ago was the last time she’d had tiramisu, too. “Well, because it’s rice,” I said. “I bought the rice grains, didn’t I? They were grown naturally. And then I cooked them.”

“If you acquired the exact ingredients required for tiramisu, and followed the same exact process as the original—though there are debates at to what the original is—would you still say that was authentic?”

I frowned. “I… suppose I would? Since everything is exact.” Was there a loophole I was missing?

“Perhaps,” Richard said. “Because it is hard to pinpoint its specific origins, what tiramisu qualifies as authentic can be hard to judge. Though the base components and methods are the same, the exact specifics differ—some may consider any tiramisu that follows the general process to be authentic, while others may not. In the case of champagne, unless what you think of champagne is made in the Champagne region of France, it cannot legally be called by that name. Even if the sparkling wine that is created is similar in taste, or uses the same process and ingredients, if the grapes are not sourced from that region, it will not be champagne.”

“Even though it’s possible to make an equivalent product?”  

“You could, indeed, make a very close match,” Richard said. “But it would legally not be authentic. Can you think of a reason why someone might want a name of a food protected?”

When phrased like that, the answer arrived to me immediately. “Brand protection,” I said. “Because the idea of champagne is precious, if other winemakers started selling something labelled as champagne, it would lose some of its prestige. By controlling what can be called champagne, they retain control over the production and image of champagne.”

“Good for you,” Richard said, and I bit down a smile. “Authenticity holds a different value for many people and many things. All that aside… this tiramisu crepe cake remains delicious.”

“It is,” I agreed, and then began to make him tea.

The rest of the day passed by in peace. Richard read from his collection of books, blond hair glittering under the sharp sun. I busied myself by cleaning the kitchen and running out to complete a few errands. The movement was helpful; the chill of autumn had settled in, and I had made the mistake of dressing far more lightly than Richard. His choice of wear likely made it easy for him to sit still, but I thought that even if he was wearing his suit in a blizzard or a tropical summer, he would seem as even-keeled as ever. That was the beauty of jewels—they were something that was gorgeous from all angles.

Around a half hour before closing time, the intercom buzzed.

Richard set down his book, and I went to let in our surprise customer.

Accompanied by a brush of cold wind, a young man stepped into the store. He had a slim frame, but despite being dressed as lightly as I was, showed no signs of being sensitive to the cold. His hair was slightly long in the front, bangs barely cropped above his eyes, but it was trimmed evenly. He was dressed casually yet neatly in a simple powder-blue sweater, gray slacks, and loafers.

The door closed behind him, and he glanced around the room once before asking, “This is a jeweler’s store, correct?”

“You’d be right,” I said, guiding him to sit in one of the red armchairs.

His hesitant expression curved into a full-faced smile. As he sat down, the awkward lines of his body began to bleed away, and he relaxed into the chair with an air of steady self-assurance. His pose remained polite, though—he kept his hands carefully folded over his lap, and his ankles were loosely crossed.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked. Originally, I had wanted to give him something to soothe his nerves, but it looked like that was unneeded.

“Ah… that milk tea would be nice, if you don’t mind,” the man said, gesturing to Richard’s teacup.

Richard returned from the bookshelf, taking over the process of greeting out newest, customer, and I headed back to the kitchen. Both men spoke in measured tones, so even though they spoke at a medium volume, their voices carried well enough.

“…Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian? Is it alright to call you Richard-san, then?” He spoke the name slowly, but he pronounced Richard’s full name without fumbling.

“Just Richard is fine, too.”

“Nice to meet you too, Richard-san. I’m Hanzawa Masato. If I’m not incorrect, you sell jewelry at this place?”

“Indeed we do. Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”

I returned to see Hanzawa-san wearing a thoughtful expression on his face. His gaze flickered towards me as I reentered the room. “I was hoping to look at stud earrings… is there anything else I should specify? I would prefer if it wasn’t prohibitively expensive…”

“Are there any kinds of stones you’re interested in looking at? Or a particular occasion or style this is meant for?”

When I drew close enough, Hanzawa-san turned to face me and accepted my tea, eyes still curved in a pleasant smile. “It’s something like a birthday gift, I suppose. As for stones… I’m not too knowledgeable regarding them.” He paused to contemplate.

Choosing a gift was always a complicated thing, in my opinion. For a gift, the trouble never ended at the purchase—it was always at the gifting that the issues arose. Would they understand the gift with the same meaning that I had in mind when I picked it? I thought about my grandmother and mother choosing my name. Was I the type of person they’d had in mind? I could only hope that was the case.

“I guess… something neutral would be best? The kind of earring fit for daily work wear.”

“Are you interested in looking at birthstones?”

Hanzawa-san sipped his tea, eyes fluttering shut in thought. “Not particularly.”

I had spent enough time to catch the traces of concern on Richard’s face, but not enough time to understand his worries. “It will take some time for me to bring my selections out. Please enjoy your tea while you wait,” he said, and then he was off, a determined crease to his brows.

Though I didn’t know exactly what was troubling him, I could learn. Surely Richard wouldn’t mind if I made some small talk?

“Might you also be a university student, Hanzawa-san?”

Hanzawa-san waved dismissively. “It’s only my first year, so I think I’m younger than you. I know I’m a customer, but there’s no need to be formal. Your name is…?”

“Nakata Seigi,” I said. “I’m in my second year.”

“I was right, then,” Hanzawa said. He’d passed over both Richard and my name without comment. I’d expected him to sound as restrained as he had with Richard, but he spoke freely. “Would I be right in saying you seem more interested in jewels as compared to jewelry?” At my confusion, he gestured to my neck, ears, and hands, which were bare of any accessories. “You don’t seem to wear any, so I’d wondered…”

“I suppose it’s the jewel itself that interests me,” I admitted. “Is it the opposite thing for you?”

“Most likely,” Hanzawa said. “It’s what I have experience in, anyways.”

At my once-again befuddled expression, Hanzawa brushed back his hair, and I caught sight of six piercing holes in his left ear.

“I see…” I replied, a little stunned. Even when his hair wasn’t brushed back, it was easy to see a few of his piercing holes.

Richard had probably noticed them from the moment he’d walked in.

Now that I thought about it clearly, a birthday gift could be presented to oneself, couldn’t it? Just like Yamamoto-san trying to buy herself a garnet.

I’d seen guys in my college with piercings, but none who bought any with jewels like the ones in Richard’s store. It was a kind of flashy choice for someone who looked so mild-mannered, but so were piercings in general.

In the same way that I’d only noticed the tiramisu in that bakery after asking Richard about coffee, I realized the reason for his concern. If it was a present for himself, the uncertainty in his answers could prove troublesome.

“If I could ask…” I prompted, as Richard returned with his tamatebako.

Richard set down his tamatebako with a harder than usual thud. He still looked concerned, but there was a different note to it.

“Sure.”

“Is there a reason a guy as young as you has so many piercings?”

Richard opened up his tamatebako with a sharp click.

Hanzawa kept smiling up at me. He took a long sip of his tea, and then directed his attention towards what Richard had selected.

I leaned over to take a look. As I did, Richard shot a pointed glare towards me. What? I mouthed back, but he ignored me.

The stones Richard had picked were split between gemstones with faceted cuts and cabochons. The studs themselves were made of a simple silver backing, with the stone fitted on top in a rounded or squared shape. The exception to this was the studs fitted with lapis lazuli, which were backed with gold. While I recognized the diamond and amethyst, there were a few colored stones in faceted cuts that I wasn’t certain how to identify. But the ones that caught my attention were the larger stud earrings, which were fitted with polished stones that didn’t sparkle but had bands of red, terracotta, and peach striped across its surface. Others had the same banding pattern but in soft grays and whites.

“These are beautiful,” Hanzawa said, smile dropping into a look of deep consideration. He leaned forward to study each one. “Of course, diamonds are a classic choice,” he sighed to himself.

“The clear color of a diamond is indeed well-suited to various shades of any outfit you might choose.”

“I see,” Hanzawa mused. He gestured to the rest of the jewels. “I recognize the amethyst. And the… lapis lazuli, yes? Seeing it in person, it certainly is a vivid kind of blue,” he said. “But I’m a little unfamiliar with the rest of these gems. Would you mind explaining them?”

“Of course,” Richard said. “The green stone you see here is peridot. The yellow, orange, and brown stones you see here are citrine. Like amethyst, it is a type of quartz. This”—he pointed to a deep yellow-orange stone— “is heat-treated amethyst, which looks similar to citrine, with minor differences. The banded stones are agate. They are a mix of quartz and moganite—both have an equivalent chemical composition, but different crystal structures.”

I hadn’t heard of moganite until now—unless I was mishearing morganite, but Richard had such wonderful pronunciation I thought that was impossible. Despite all of the information, all Hanzawa did was nod in understanding.

“Peridot,” Hanzawa repeated to himself. “I don’t think I’ve seen any before.”

The stone he was looking at was a sparkling kind of lime green. “It’s like the color of spring,” I said.

Hanzawa bowed his head, suddenly bashful. “Yes. It’s… well, it’s a color I’m fond of,” he admitted.

“Would you like to see more?”

He shook his head. “…No, it’s not really… well-suited for me.” After a moment of contemplation, he pointed to the lapis lazuli. “How does this one get its gold flecks?”

“Lapis lazuli is composed of several different minerals, and a common addition happens to be pyrite, which is responsible for that gold color. As you mentioned, it is a very vivid blue, which is why, historically, it was ground to create ultramarine. Before a synthetic alternative was created, it was an extremely expensive and prized paint.”  

Hanzawa smiled down at the stones. “I’ve heard of ultramarine. Isn't it what provides the blue shades in many of Johannes Vermeer’s works?”

I made a note to ask Richard who Johannes Vermeer was later.

“That’s correct.” After a pause, Richard added, “If you are looking for something neutral, blue tends to be a color that pairs well with others.”

“Oh, that’s—I’ll keep it in mind,” Hanzawa said. Haltingly, he asked, “Is jewelry made of lapis lazuli—is it quite common?”

“Compared to the rest of these stones, it’s a bit of a more delicate material,” Richard allowed, “so it has to be carefully looked after. But historically, lapis lazuli has been used in all kinds of jewelry.”

“…Is that so.”

Silence dragged on between them. Hanzawa seemed unbothered by it, though it was hard to see much of his expression, with both his bangs and lashes obscuring his eyes.

“…This agate. I feel like I’ve seen stones with this banding before.”

“Banding is characteristic but not exclusive to agate,” Richard said. “It has been used for carvings as well as jewelry and remains popular today. Each piece of agate has differences in how exactly the banding occurs, so one could say that each piece is truly unique.”

“Unique…” A ghost of uncertainty appeared on Hanzawa’s face, but it was gone in a flash. “Does it come in any other colors?”

“Oftentimes agate will be dyed into various colors, but there are some other colors present in naturally occurring agates. Would you like to see some blue lace agate?”

“Surely that dyed agate is prettier, huh?” Hanzawa murmured, so low I barely heard him. Apropos of nothing, he then straightened up, looking flustered. “Sorry,” he said. “I think—I think I’m a little in over my head.” He drank the last of his tea in disconcerting silence.

“If you’d like to come back, we take appointments,” I said.

“…Right,” Hanzawa said, eyes still fixed on the earrings before him. He set his teacup down on the table. “What would be a good time?”

“Sunday, 4PM?” Richard suggested, and Hanzawa agreed.

With that settled, Hanzawa thanked me for the tea, bid a polite goodbye to us both, and exited the store, leaving another gust of crisp air in his wake.

As it was now closing time, I went to collect the now empty teacups, only to find Richard looking up at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked.

He sighed. “Nothing that concerns you, I suppose.”

“By the way, who’s Johannes Vermeer?” I asked.

“Have you ever seen Girl with a Pearl Earring?” Richard asked.

“He was the artist?” I confirmed, and then went to wash the teacups.

When I returned, Richard was staring at his open tamatebako.

I took a seat next to him. “Thinking about our customer?”

“…Jewels reflect the inner feelings of a person,” Richard said after a long silence. “I wonder how to convey that truth to a person like him.”

“It was strange to see someone so young here,” I agreed. “Well, Hajime-kun was much younger, but his circumstances were different.”

“You’re quite young yourself,” Richard commented dryly. “Aren’t you two the same age?”

“If we went to the same university, I’d be his senpai,” I said. “Still. It’s rare. I thought he’d be more nervous.”

“…I don’t think he wasn’t nervous,” Richard said, but when I asked him what he meant, he didn’t elaborate.

“Well,” I said, wondering how I could clear those worry lines from his face, “we’ll see him next week.”

“Maybe,” Richard said, and this, I didn’t need him to explain.

If Hanzawa Masato came in next week at the appointed time, or if he had disappeared out that door for forever, it was impossible to know.

[artsy-waffle19]

They literally put Edwin through every possible gay-romance trope but made it realistic and that's so special to me like

we got the "probably former friend can't handle feelings and turns into bully instead" but it doesn't end with them, making up and being happy, they break apart, things escalate and they both suffer from that situation for a major part of their existence. With a bit of luck and a LOT of growing they manage to talk it out and the victim finds it in himself to forgive his bully but it's never going to be truly fine. But even though they both suffer tremendously, they are faced to deal with themselves in the process and find a kind of peace they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Because maybe it's better to hurt for a long time only to realise that it really doesn't have to be torture to be the way you are and finally freeing yourself entirely than quietly live without the conflict but also without the realisation and resenting yourself for its entirety.

then there's the situation with the cat king. Older, emotionally unstable guy obsesses over younger inexperienced guy who actually understands him and causes some sort of gay awakening. But instead of some "I can fix him" bullshit with them, ending up happily ever after because "they're the only ones who understand each other"TM we get to see Edwin set boundaries and standing up for himself which benefits the both of them. For Edwin this ends in going "Hey thank you for opening that door to discovering that part of myself but I'm actually gonna have to leave you at the doorstep now" and for the cat king it ends up with him actually feeling seen because for once somebody didn't fall for his probably usual game of "I'm bored so I'm going to make a game of getting that guy to do what i want by seducing him". The fact that they don't end up together is the reason they were good for each other.

Also the situation with Monty which is basically the experience of a lot of queer peoples first relationship. They meet and they're both somehow new to all of this. Being queer, relationships, all that stuff. And they get along and share some interests, they like soending time with each other and technically it's like in a romance book because they meet and one of them is immediately interested and then they talk and they sit on a swingset and they kiss. And there's the excitement about "apparently I'm making my first experience with romance right now" and the worry of "I'm queer...I have it harder with relationships...what if this is the best option i have? what if it's the only one?" so they go through all the romance book tropes but the spark simply isn't there and it ends in one of them getting way more invested tha the other and they eventually end up breaking up in blood. But in a way both of them got an idea about what they actually want in life out of it so even if that sone didn't end well, it did give them something.

And last but not least the "in love with best friend who likes someone else/someone of the opposite gender specifically" but instead of having that best friend be secretly in love with the character all along or suddenly turn homophobic and the friendship being ruined they talk about it and they move on and the friendship isn't damaged and in a way it might even be better because sometimes our feelings are unrequited and sometimes that's okay.

I just really really love how the show took all of those options for cheesy and in a way sometimes even forced romance tropes and went "hey, life is not a romance novel but actually that kind of makes it better because look where it got you now"

[spennsrs]

spencer agnew x reader

reader is a new intern/assistant for the games department and her and spencer kinda hit it off

possible slow burn

spencer content <3 love you

↳˳;; ❝ fuckin' nerd ༊*·˚

here we go spencer nation this is for you and erm its somewhat slowburn ig.... no confirmation of relationship so yas... reader referred to using they/them <3

first day jitters fuckin' sucked. [y/n] could attest to that.

they rub their hands on the front of their jeans, the material somewhat grounding them as they stare at the office building... okay, technically it wasn't their first day, they had been there yesterday to set their desk up and get somewhat acquainted with the games side of the office. they met alex tran, jacqi, even vida!

but a specific glasses wearing, kickstart drinkin' idiot (alex tran's words) wasn't there. spencer agnew.. or their boss, essentially.

[y/n] didn't know why they were so nervous. it's not like spencer was a scary guy, per say... maybe he was. shaking their head, [y/n] enters the building with a semi-confident grin on their face, entering the lobby... only to be met with another body. well.. more like colliding.

"oh shit, i'm sorry dude-" "my bad-"

[y/n] collects themself as they brush off their clothes, before looking up to an average height male with curly dark hair and round glasses framing his eyes. he was... cute, in a... kind of dorky, awkward nerdy best friend in some mediocre coming of age novel. they find themself staring and quickly before they start to talk.

"you okay? we bumped pretty hard into each other... usually, i'm paying way more attention, i guess, i'm so sorry-" "hey.. you're that new intern, right? holy shit, you are. [y/n], right? what a first impression... i'm spencer by the way."

fuck. shit. fuckin' shit. of course this was their boss. they just ran into their boss, on their second first day...

"uhm... yeah. i'm [y/n], the one and only, heh. listen, i feel terrible for what i did, i can make it up to you! buy you a coffee, extra work, whatever you need, i'm willing."

their words were met with silence from spencer, and for a brief moment, they thought they fucked up royally. completely. fired on the spot.

"first meeting, an you're already asking me on a date? bold moves, [y/n], but i'm not that easily swayed." spencer's lips tug into a toothy grin, a grin that holds a teasing and chaff, a grin that promises lots of fun jokes at work, a grin that promised to keep them on their toes, to keep their heart fluttering-

[y/n] can't help but snort with a raised brow, determined to give back the same sass. if this is what it was like working here, they could get used to this place. "in your dreams, boss man. workplace relationships never work out anyway." they snap back with a laugh, which makes spencer mirror the action.

"fair enough, fair enough. i'm just pulling your chain, welcome to smosh games. i think we'll get along just fine."

[y/n] likes to agree with that statement.

only a week of working at smosh, and [y/n] was finding the place to be a second home of sorts.

alex t had quickly climbed the ranks of becoming [y/n]'s favorite person, almost like a brother figure of sorts to the newer employee. on the other end of that, spencer had grown to be [y/n]'s biggest enemy, bully, and pin in their ass.

in a loving way, of course.

the two of them would bounce off each other's energy, and could bicker for hours, and had even developed a bit of a joking beef in the office. this also led to a little.. club of sorts, smosh employees who were banking on spencer and [y/n] eventually ending up together. even mythical employees were in on this, thanks to trevor. (who would've known rhett and link would be the fan club's number one members)

of course, this had led to some unspoken feelings, at least on spencer's side of things. he refused to say a thing, workplace relationships and h.r and all that jazz or whatever. he also didn't want to seem creepy as their boss having a crush on one of the interns. the only person who actively knew about spencer's little... predicament was alex t, which kind of sucks considering how close alex was to [y/n]. so, all in all, he was fucked.

lost in his own thoughts, spencer made his way to the office kitchen to grab another kickstart when he notices [y/n] fiddling with... well, he couldn't give a shit. what mattered was [y/n] was here. he runs a hand through his hair as he approaches them from behind, a wicked grin on his lips before he gently pokes their side. the other's body jolts and spencer catches how their eyes go wide like saucers, before spinning to glare at spencer. he could tell the glare wasn't angry or upset really, but also the bubbling laugh kinda gave them away.

"hey, [y/n], whatcha doin'? anything interesting?"

the other scoffs and turns back to what they were doing, which spencer can actually see is them fixing their lunch as [y/n] releases a dramatic sigh. "i was peacefully making lunch, but now the duke of chaos himself is here."

"duke of chaos? i'm the god of chaos, thank you very much, goddess of idiocy." that earned him another friendly glare over the shoulder. this is what he adored about them. sure, they were really cute, and their laugh was like... the most beautiful song he's heard, and their hands were nice and soft and fit right in his perfectly-

spence, stop getting carried away.. right.

he adored [y/n] because they knew how to joke, how to have a laugh, to keep up with his rather snarky little comments. he really valued that in a friend or a partner, but for some reason.. playful bullying looked really good especially on [y/n]. well... [y/n]'s specific hair color looked good on them as well... and that new top - he knew it was new because maybe he overheard them talking to chanse about it - fit them perfectly, and their eye color fit them perfectly-

"anyone home in there? this is ground control to spencer agnew, do you copy?" .... oh shit, they had been talking. he stared at them with wide eyes, swallowing thickly. he felt something akin to a blush creeping up his neck to settle on his cheeks, and he knew they could see it based on the sly smirk that played onto their lips. "you're lucky it's me you're staring, y'know. think about that next time you gawk at women while zoning out."

"i wasn't-.. shut up, i wasn't gawking!" he definitely was gawking.

"you stupid fuckin' nerd. come on, we have a meeting to get to."

spencer could live with this, keeping the pretty intern a daydream away so they could keep a good work friendship with their inside jokes and their movie nights they'll end up having, spencer sharing his love for kickstarts with [y/n] who will complain but drink them anyway... as long as they were in his life, he didn't quite care what they were, or what other people thought of them. he couldn't care less if he gave his feelings away in the fleeting touches when they returned a pen they borrowed and how he made it linger, or how he stared at them like they hung the stars in the sky just for him... he didn't need a picture perfect movie ending...

all that mattered was he was their stupid fuckin' nerd, where they liked (or knew) it or not.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Which dorm arc do you think was the best written? I liked the ignihyde arc the most if I have to be honest

This might be unfair to the other books (since most of them have fewer parts/less time for their stories + book 7 isn't even complete yet for me to judge), but I think the writing in book 6 is the strongest (as in, "most interesting" and "most narratively sound") so far. What gives book 6 a massive leg up over other books is that the conflicts addressed in book 6 were foreshadowed WAY in advance through other content like voice lines, vignettes (I believe Ortho's Precision Gear), and events (like Wish Upon a Star). It was sooo satisfying to see all of the payoff (and Idia breaking down)!!

I don't think the other books are bad by any means except for book 2, sorry not sorry Leona, I just feel that 6 had a lot of space to touch on more characters and their development than only the Ignihyde boys; I loved catching up with characters we've already met and seeing how they've grown or changed, even in little ways. Additionally, I personally prefer stories with "high stakes" and family-oriented drama involved in them, so they biases me quite a bit toward book 6. The high stakes and family drama angle is also true of book 7, but again, it's not out in its entirety yet so I'm going to reserve my judgment until it has.

Something that's unique to book 7 (and that I wish previous books did, even if it elongates them significantly) is actually deepening our understanding of every character within the dorm. I would have been so bored if book 7 focused solely on Malleus. I loved getting to learn more about what makes Lilia tick, and seeing how Sebek and Silver develop from their experiences. I feel like I didn't get a significant enough of a look into many of the other boys during the main story campaign... Instead, we're often told about things that happened without truly witnessing it for ourselves. I know, I know, that's the whole point of a visual novel--expecting a lot of reading. I still would have preferred like... more flashbacks and scenes demonstrating what we're being told rather than the dialogue doing it for us. Show me how Riddle's relationship with Chenya and Trey has changed since their childhood! Show me young Jack being inspired by Leona's play and wanting to be in the same team as him! Etc., etc., etc. I could always look to vignettes and event stories for more lore on each character, but those are always portrayed as "AUs", whereas the main story is what is 'canon" so it's sort of sad to see that we never get to look any closer at most of the supporting cast upon that bigger stage.

It’s exciting that we now get to see more of the boys since we’re now dream hopping for book 7; I’m just going to hold my judgment for now since I found the pacing uneven and a little quick for what we’ve seen of Pomefiore so far, especially when compared to the longer Lilia dream segment. Again, I find book 6 stronger in this regard but that could be because its scale is slightly smaller and it has fewer characters to juggle. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how book 7 wraps up—maybe it’ll completely win me over!

[infizero]

Why Ambrosius and Ballister’s Relationship Feels So Different in the Movie (Nimona)

As someone who read Nimona countless times growing up, I am very familiar with the story and these characters. Which is why when I watched the movie, I was struck by how different Ambrosius and Ballister felt. They seemed like totally different and unfamiliar characters to me, and it didn’t have anything to do with their designs.

After rereading the original Nimona graphic novel recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that the main reason they feel like completely different characters in the movie comes down to one thing: the removal of the joust.

When I watched the movie, I was surprised by the fact that they changed the circumstances that drove these two apart. But it didn’t hit me just how much this one event shapes both of their characters and their relationship to each other until I reread the book. 

The joust is CRUCIAL to their dynamic. It pervades every interaction they have with each other, they bring it up constantly, it is literally the crux of their collective storyline. We learn about it on PAGE 5 of the whole book, and their big heart-to-heart when Ballister is captured near the climax of the story is based around Ambrosius finally admitting the truth about what happened. Honestly I’d say that him finally coming to terms with what he did and apologizing for it is probably what allowed these two to finally find peace together by the end of the book.

We get something similar to it in the movie. Ambrosius still is responsible for Ballister losing his arm, but it is under WILDLY different circumstances. So I want to talk about how the joust affects them in the book, and then explain why the movie’s version of events, while similar on the surface, has a completely different effect on everything. So let’s get into it!

(All images of the book are via pictures of my own physical copy btw, so apologies if they’re not the best quality.)

(Also I want to make it clear that I don’t hate the movie nor its adaptation of these two. I do personally greatly prefer the book, but this post is not here to tear down the movie and exclaim that the book was way better. I just find it interesting how changing one event can have huge ripple effects!)

Part 1: The Graphic Novel (AKA: “My Boyfriend Shot Off My Arm Because of His Wild Ambition!”)

Like I said before, we learn about the joust very early on; Chapter 2, page 5. It is told to us first via Ballister’s perspective. Nimona asks if she can kill Ambrosius while they’re making evil plans, and Ballister says no -- if anyone is going to kill Ambrosius, it’s going to be him. We then get a flashback to the joust itself.

Ballister explains how they were friends and how the joust was the first time they had been pitted against each other. Ballister won fair and square, but in his words:

BALLISTER: “but Ambrosius hates to lose.”

BALLISTER: “He always claimed it was an accident. No one could prove otherwise.”

BALLISTER: “Turns out the Institution had no use for a one-armed hero. I took the only other viable option.”

Ambrosius used a weaponized lance and blasted Ballister’s arm off. After the incident, Ballister was rejected by the Institution, and became a villain instead of the hero he had originally set out to be.

In Chapter 3 we see Ambrosius appear for the first time, and he and Ballister have a very relaxed sort of cartoon hero-villain dynamic going on. There’s definitely real animosity between them, but they don’t hesitate to simply talk casually to each other or help each other when things go south. It’s all pretty lighthearted and lowkey. 

They fight briefly, but after Nimona triggers the building they’re in to self-destruct, Ambrosius doesn’t hesitate to help Ballister escape and Ballister doesn’t hesitate to accept his help. Ambrosius even tries to reassure him that Nimona will be fine. After they make it out, with Nimona presumed dead, Ambrosius puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him to go before more guards show up. They may be “arch-nemesises”, but they certainly don’t act like it.

AMBROSIUS: “Haven’t you missed our fights? We haven’t done this since you tried to clone the king’s daughter!”

BALLISTER: “Ambrosius, I really don’t have time for this.”

AMBROSIUS: “Are you trying to make me jealous?”

BALLISTER: “You’re an idiot.”

By the way, I’m not going to be doing a full breakdown of every single scene with them, don’t worry. I just think that their first interaction shows off their dynamic very well. This is presumably how they’ve been with each other since the incident, as it’s made clear both here and throughout the book that they’ve both been doing this for a while at this point. They have a very established dynamic, which is important as that is one of the big differences between the book and the movie. (I’ll get into that more later.)

Whenever these two interact throughout the book, it’s clear that they have very different opinions on the incident that drove them apart and how their relationship functions now.

Ambrosius tries to act like it was simply an accident and that it doesn’t matter. Ballister became a villain of his own volition, and now they are arch-nemesises who have to fight because that’s their job -- though he doesn’t exactly act like he hates Ballister. 

Meanwhile Ballister saw it as a deep betrayal, and while he definitely still cares deeply about Ambrosius, he cannot get over the incident as easily as Ambrosius can.

Their respective feelings about what happened are shown perfectly in the scene in Chapter 7 where Ambrosius invites Ballister to meet with him in secret. Ambrosius tells him that the Institution has ordered him to kill Nimona and begs him to send her away, both so he doesn’t have to kill her and so things can go back to “normal.” Ballister then says that Ambrosius gave up normal at the joust.

AMBROSIUS: “I can’t believe you’re still hung up about that. It was a long time ago, you know.”

AMBROSIUS: “Besides, it was an ACCIDENT.”

BALLISTER: “I bet you’ve said that so many times you’ve started to actually believe it.”

Ambrosius insists it was an accident, and Ballister claims that he blasted off his arm because he couldn’t stand that Ballister was better than him. This sets Ambrosius off and they begin to argue.

AMBROSIUS: “You can’t blame me for how your life turned out! You made the choice to turn evil!”

BALLISTER: “Choice? I never had a choice! The Institution needed a villain. That lot fell to me. I never chose it.”

BALLISTER “And it could just as easily have been you, had that “accident” happened differently!”

AMBROSIUS: “Oh please! Do you really believe that?”

AMBROSIUS: “You never had it in you to be a hero! Everyone always knew that you were going to be the one to go bad!”

Ambrosius has convinced himself that Ballister chose to become evil, and that he isn’t responsible for what happened because it was an accident. We later learn that it wasn’t an accident though, which means that this really is him just making excuses so he doesn’t have to accept responsibility.

Ballister brings up the idea of Ambrosius becoming like him again after they fight, in one of if not my favorite scene between them in the whole book:

AMBROSIUS: “uugghh”

BALLISTER: “What if I cut off your arm right now?”

BALLISTER: “Then you’d see how fast the Institution would cast you aside. Just like they did me.”

AMBROSIUS: “You wouldn’t.”

BALLISTER: “No, I wouldn’t.”

BALLISTER: “And I’m the villain.”

BALLISTER: “What do you suppose that says about you?”

Ballister and Ambrosius are both very complicated individuals, and I think they lose a lot of their moral grayness in the movie. (Which I will get to later.) 

Ambrosius is the “hero”, but it was his ambition that drove him to blast Ballister’s arm off, and he’s never accepted responsibility for it, instead trying to convince himself that Ballister turned out this way because of his own actions. But he doesn’t disagree here that the Institution would throw him out if he were to lose his own arm, which I think is very telling. He knows deep down that he is not a good person, and he is not working for good people. But he doesn’t want to admit it.

Ballister is the “villain”, but in many ways he is better than Ambrosius. He abides by his own rules of never killing unless it’s necessary, and goes out of his way throughout the book to make sure that as few people are harmed as possible. He knows that the Institution is corrupt, because he was one of the people it failed. And he works to try and bring it down. 

Ambrosius cannot accept what happened, and because of that they aren’t able to get anywhere. They both know it wasn’t an accident. But because Ambrosius cannot admit it, they are stuck like this.

It’s a fascinating part of Ambrosius’ character that though he is adamant about Ballister being the one to destroy himself, he still cares about him. Much more openly than Ballister does in return, in fact. Ambrosius consistently does whatever he can to avoid having to kill him and always seems to have his wellbeing in mind. While he initially refused to kill Nimona, revolted at the idea that he should be ordered to kill “a little girl”, he eventually agrees to do so, but only under the condition that Ballister would be spared.

THE DIRECTOR: “Your motivations are quite transparent. I KNOW what the nature of your relationship was. I made it clear at the time that I disapproved. If your fixation on him has impeded your ability to do your job, then he truly has outlived his usefulness.”

THE DIRECTOR: “We’ll find you a new nemesis. Perhaps you will be more competent without Blackheart as a distraction.”

AMBROSIUS: “I won’t kill him. If you demand I kill the girl, I’ll do it - but I won’t kill him.”

Despite him and Ballister’s separation being his fault, he is the one who wishes most for things to go back to the way they were.  And this is likely why he refuses to accept responsibility about the joust. If it were truly an accident, then there shouldn’t be anything preventing them from continuing to be together. By painting it as an accident, Ballister becomes the villain for refusing to move on and let things go back to the way they were, not Ambrosius.

But finally, after Nimona disappears and Ballister lets himself be captured, we get probably the most important scene between these two. Ambrosius has been demoted due to his failure to kill Nimona, and is now forced to guard Ballister’s cell. Ambrosius is at his lowest that he’s been throughout the story, disgraced and discarded by the Institution who he had always been so loyal to.

It’s notable that Ambrosius says here that they both know Ballister is not evil, since he has been paddling that idea this whole time that Ballister made the choice to turn evil. By admitting that he is not, it shows that he is both starting to turn against the Institution, and starting to be more honest about what really happened.

Naturally, after Ambrosius wonders how things ended up like this and reminisces on when they were together, Ballister once again brings up the joust. And finally...

AMBROSIUS: “I- I never wanted to hurt you. I- I didn’t- It was-”

BALLISTER: “Don’t you dare try to tell me again that it was an accident.”

AMBROSIUS: “It wasn’t.”

...he admits the truth.

Ambrosius shares his side of the story, letting both us and Ballister in on what really happened that day. It wasn’t fully his fault -- the Director had called him into her office the night before the joust and told him that he had promise, that he was her choice out of the two, but that he had to prove himself against Ballister or that opportunity would go away.

On the day of the joust, Ambrosius received a weaponized lance instead of his regular one, which he instantly noticed. He asked what the Director expected him to do with it, and was told that she expected him to win.

To Ambrosius’ credit, he had no intention of using it, as he was confident that he would win. But the weight from the weaponized lance threw his balance off, and he ending up losing. And so...

AMBROSIUS: “I wanted it, more than anything. You never wanted it as much as me. You were just BETTER, without hardly even seeming to try.”

AMBROSIUS: “I don’t even remember- but I must have-”

[...]

AMBROSIUS: “I’m sorry, Ballister. I’m so sorry.”

To be fair, Ambrosius is not entirely to blame here. I doubt he would’ve come up with this idea on his own; he only acted on it because the Director had already given him the weaponized lance, and stressed the night before that the opportunities she dangled in front of him would not be given to him if he did not win. He was manipulated.

But he still made the decision to do it. He could’ve simply not used the lance. But he chose to. It is his fault.

It’s fascinating that the version of events Ambrosius had been swearing by this entire time is the exact opposite of what really happened. He claimed that it was an accident, he didn’t choose to do it, he had no choice, and that it was Ballister’s choice to become evil that caused all of this. But in reality, Ambrosius was the only one who got a choice here. And that choice is why their relationship was destroyed.

Ballister then brings attention to something even more damning:

BALLISTER: “You’ve never said it before.”

AMBROSIUS: “What?”

BALLISTER: “You never said you were sorry.”

AMBROSIUS: “I- didn’t?”

AMBROSIUS: “Oh god.”

I feel like you could interpret this in a lot of different ways, but the way I see it, they probably didn’t see each other much right after the incident. Ambrosius was catapulted into stardom as the kingdom’s beloved knight, and Ballister became a villain. I don’t think they really interacted much until their hero-villain antics started up, so I don’t think Ambrosius really had a chance to apologize. And if he did, he didn’t think to. Regardless of why, I do think it is messed up that he never apologized, and it goes to show just how much this event destroyed the bond they used to have.

From here, there’s not too much, as Plot Stuff starts getting serious around this point. Ambrosius ends up betraying the Institution after they continuously attack Ballister to provoke Nimona, attacking the guards who are holding him. This is when Ambrosius finally chooses Ballister over the Institution, which is great for his character, but there’s not really much more than that to say about it.

He and Ballister plan together to try and save the kingdom, with Ambrosius being adamant that they have to kill Nimona while Ballister refuses to. It’s during this conversation that Ambrosius mentions that he “never did anything good [his] whole life”, which is really sad but also kind of accurate, and it goes to show how he’s finally accepted responsibility for everything he’s done and had a part in up to this point.

Eventually Ballister is able to find a way to nerf her and they split up, with Ambrosius wanting to tell him something in case they don’t see each other again, but Ballister shuts him down.

BALLISTER: “We can’t do this now. Just... just promise me you won’t get yourself killed.”

It’s easy to assume this was something romantic and it likely was, but I imagine Ambrosius could’ve also wanted to say sorry again for everything. Perhaps it would’ve been a mix of both.

Regardless, they split up and climax stuff happens: Ambrosius attempts to kill Nimona but gets seriously injured, Ballister tries to reason with Nimona, etc. etc. Eventually at the very end, we see that these two have made peace and are together again, living on after everything. And that’s these two in the book!

Whew. I know that was a lot, but don’t worry. I won’t be going into as much detail about the movie’s version of events, as Ambrosius and Ballister have a much more cut-and-dry dynamic there than in the book. Their relationship in the original is very complex, so I wanted to make sure I covered all of those little nuances.

The joust is what defines their relationship and a lot of their respective characters; it is unimaginably important. Ballister became a villain because he lost his arm and was cast aside by the Institution. Ambrosius became the kingdom’s hero because he took Ballister out of the picture. They are unable to be around each other normally for very long because of their divided views of what happened. It is only after Ambrosius finally faces the truth that they are able to find peace together once more.

All of this is to say that it’s extremely hard to imagine what their relationship would be like in the graphic novel had the joust not happened the way it did. Which brings us to...

Part 2: The Movie (AKA: “My Boyfriend Sliced Off My Arm Because I Literally Killed Someone!”)

Before we start, I want to again stress that I am not trying to argue that any changes made here are inherently inferior. I am merely pointing out the differences between the book and the movie that contribute to the overall dissonance I and many others have felt when it comes to these two across versions.

Right off the bat, we are greeted with the movie’s version of Ambrosius and Ballister’s backstory. Like was implied in the book, they appear to be together (or something along those lines) which is great to actually see. But it quickly becomes clear that the events here are far different.

Instead of a joust, it is a knighting ceremony. There is no competition between Ballister and Ambrosius here. Ambrosius is knighted and cheered for, and then it is Ballister’s turn. He is knighted and everyone is silent before breaking into cheers as well. And then...

...his sword suddenly turns into a cannon and kills the queen. And in retaliation...

...Ambrosius chops his arm off.

Now if you’ve listened to ANYTHING I’ve said so far, this should immediately set off alarm bells. Because this one little difference changes everything about these two’s dynamic.

In the book, Ambrosius shot off Ballister’s arm in order to win his position. It was an entirely selfish and evil action spurred on only by his uncontrollable want to be the winner.

But here, Ambrosius is debatably justified in his response. Sure, he didn’t have to be as drastic as slicing his whole arm off (and I know there’s symbolism there with how the kingdom has taught people to get rid of problems), but Ballister -- to him -- literally just shot the queen. The queen who Ambrosius has sworn to protect. It is completely reasonable for him to respond in this way. And that’s a huge difference.

By changing this, we already have a completely different situation. Ambrosius here didn’t particularly want to cut Ballister’s arm off, it was a reflex, a response to a sudden danger. (Not saying he wanted to in the book, but there he made the deliberate decision to do so. In the movie it seems much more like an actual accident -- an overreaction that he immediately regrets and, as we’ll see, continues to regret.) And there was justification for it. There was no justification for it in the book. 

Instead of an Ambrosius whose ambition caused him to commit an evil act of betrayal against the man he was closest to, we now have an Ambrosius who, in the heat of the moment, overreacted like he was trained to after Ballister seemingly betrayed him. We’ll see over the course of the movie how this affects things, but that’s not the only major change here.

As we figure out shortly afterward, the movie makes a huge change when it comes to how the story functions, and that’s the timeline of events. In the book, the joust and the subsequent fallout between Ballister and Ambrosius happened years ago. We don’t know how long, but it’s clearly been a while. Enough time has passed where they are fully settled into their roles as hero and villain, and they look significantly younger in the flashbacks as well.

Like previously stated, book Ballister has been a villain for a while. He is completely settled into this role and has been making schemes and having fights of the week with Ambrosius for a considerable time. He knows what he’s doing. He has his own way of doing things, and when Nimona inserts herself into his life much of their early dynamic is him teaching her how he does things. In the book, Ballister is the teacher, Nimona is the student.

But in the movie, this incident just happened. It's unclear how exactly long it's been, but judging from Ballister's arm being created and his wounds healing it's probably been around a month.

Regardless of exactly how long it's been, the point is that these events are still very fresh. Ballister seemingly has just been laying low, not villain-ing it up, and he and Ambrosius haven't seen each other since the knighting ceremony. This changes literally everything about Ballister’s character. This post is specifically about Ambrosius and Ballister’s dynamic and not a Ballister character analysis so I’ll try to keep it brief, but movie Ballister seriously could not be more different from the book.

Compare this to movie Ballister, who I’m pretty sure never knows what he’s doing ever, at any point. He was training to be a knight. He has seemingly never once questioned the Institution. Now he has suddenly lost his arm and been thrust out into the unknown of being treated as a villain, and he has no idea how to handle it. Then Nimona shows up, tells him “hey, the Institution sucks”, and eventually he ends up believing so as well. In the movie, Nimona is the teacher, Ballister is the student.

Book Ballister actively resents the Institution and has no doubts that what they did to him is wrong. He has been plotting their downfall for a while. Nimona, on the other hand, seems to be out of the loop when it comes to the Institution and seemingly only starts hating them after she finds out how they threw Ballister out. Again, I’d just like to stress how completely and totally opposite their dynamic in the movie is compared to this.

There’s also Ballister being a scientist and being much more jaded in the book, but that’s not really important for the purposes of this post. So alas, I shall move on.

This different timeframe greatly impacts Ambrosius and Ballister’s dynamic, and obviously it would. There is a huge difference between a falling-out that happened years ago and you’re both still bitter about, and a falling-out that happened very recently. This, along with the different course of events resulting in said falling-out, is what causes their dynamic to feel so alien.

Also while talking about their early interactions in the movie, I’d just like to point out that while here Nimona is the one to assume Ambrosius is Ballister’s arch-nemesis and call him such, which Ballister doesn’t agree with, they were actually arch-nemeses in the book. Just something I noticed.

Something else I find interesting is later on, Ballister seems to be almost in disbelief about Ambrosius cutting off his arm and makes excuses for him.

BALLISTER: “He didn’t cut off my arm. He disarmed a weapon.”

BALLISTER: “It’s how we were trained.”

(Side note, but I wonder if book Ballister ever felt this way right after the joust? Did he try to convince himself it was an accident too, once upon a time? Did he try to make excuses?)

And to be fair, he is sort of right. Like I said before, Ambrosius’ reaction to Ballister seemingly killing the queen was debatably justified. While we’re obviously supposed to side with Nimona here and agree that Ballister should be more upset at Ambrosius for what he did, the movie definitely paints Ambrosius as more sympathetic overall. We see him freaking out internally about cutting off Ballister’s arm, and there is a lot of emphasis placed on how he and the others were trained by the Institution, inviting the audience to place more of the blame on the system that taught Ambrosius to act this way rather than him as a person.

And again, I’m not saying this is a bad thing! I love a good "taking down a corrupt system” story, and with the different circumstances of the movie it definitely makes more sense to play it this way. But in comparison to the book, Ambrosius is much easier to sympathize with. His character is changed from a very morally gray person who did something horrible and won’t admit it, to a pretty okay person who did something horrible and wholly accepts and bemoans that fact. He’s almost the opposite of what he was in the book.

So we have an Ambrosius who accepts what he did to Ballister and feels awful about it, and a Ballister who has no idea what he’s doing and is basically just being dragged around by Nimona. With both of them being basically the complete opposite of how they were in the book, is it any wonder that their relationship with each other feels so different when they themselves are so different?

Also, once again, the circumstances are very different. There is no Queen murder plot in the book, nor is their any attempt to clear Ballister’s name. A significantly different setting makes a difference too.

I don’t see a need to go into further detail about specific scenes in the movie as I think I’ve made my point clear. But going back to the movie’s lack of Ambrosius and Ballister’s already established hero-villain dynamic, I think these differences are made quite apparent just contrasting how they talk to each other. I mean, just compare these two scenes:

AMBROSIUS: “What? You’re gonna kill me now too?”

BALLISTER: “You believe that?”

BALLISTER: “Then you never knew me at all.”

AMBROSIUS: “uugghh”

BALLISTER: “What if I cut off your arm right now?”

BALLISTER: “Then you’d see how fast the Institution would cast you aside. Just like they did me.”

AMBROSIUS: “You wouldn’t.”

BALLISTER: “No, I wouldn’t.”

BALLISTER: “And I’m the villain.”

BALLISTER: “What do you suppose that says about you?”

Their relationship in the movie is much softer and healthier than it was in the book. Their dialogue in the movie tends to lean much more towards tried-and-true “friendship betrayal” stuff; the wound of Ballister’s “betrayal” may be fresher, but it’s clear both of them love each other far more than they resent each other. In the book, it is the opposite. The movie could NEVER have the bar fight scene. It’s too ugly and bitter to fit these softer versions of Ambrosius and Ballister.

Part 3: Conclusion

So, that was a lot. I hope it’s a little clearer now how big the differences are between these two’s dynamic in the book and the movie! Especially if you’re someone who is only familiar with one or the other. While I prefer the book due to me tending to prefer more complex and messy relationship dynamics, I totally understand the appeal of the more loving and healthy relationship Ambrosius and Ballister have in the movie.

To summarize, here are some of the main takeaways:

Ambrosius causing Ballister to lose his arm is completely unjustified in the book and happens due to Ambrosius’ wild ambition, while in the movie it is a debatably justified reflexive action in response to an active threat.

Ambrosius overall is portrayed as much more sympathetic in the movie, with the system itself being more to blame for what happened.

In the book, the main thing keeping them apart was Ambrosius’ refusal to take responsibility and admit what he did. In the movie, it’s a misunderstanding about Ballister seemingly turning evil.

In the book, Ambrosius and Ballister have a very established hero-villain dynamic with the joust having happened years ago. In the movie the “betrayal” is still very fresh, which leads to very different interactions between the two.

And that’s about it! Thank you for reading this very long post. And if you haven’t read the original graphic novel or watched the movie, go do that!!! Much love to ND Stevenson and the rest of the people who made this story come to life.

Let me know your thoughts in the tags or the replies! Which version do you prefer? Are there any other factors you feel have a significant role in why their relationship feels so different? Or do you think I’m totally wrong about this and they feel basically the same to you?

Either way, thanks again for reading and goodbye!

[vivalas-vega]

sunshine / jake 'hangman' seresin x reader

heyooo !!! the fic I've been teasing for the past few days is finally here ! I don't know that I'm fully happy with it but I've invested a minimum of 25 hours into this and I had to metaphorically put the pen down at some point. I hope you enjoy, as always please please please let me know what you think!

sunshine / jake 'hangman' seresin x reader

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feel free to buy me a kofi if you like my work!

based on this request! here is your fic @gryffindormarveltwilight :)

word count: 14k (estimated read time: 60 minutes)

warnings: language, drinking, some suggestive humor, brief rooster x reader/allusions to rooster x reader, navy inaccuracies, terrible descriptions of flying a fighter jet pls forgive me

Sitting in your superiors' stuffy office underneath dim fluorescent lighting the only thing you could think of was that your best friend was right. A point that you didn’t want to admit to anyone, let alone her… but that was also a lie, the biggest thought dominating your headspace was her brother. Jacob Seresin. She’d told you a thousand times over to get ahead of it, that you couldn’t keep this secret forever and to just come clean to him and your family but you’d dug your heels in, insisted this was the right way to go about things, and god did you hate eating your words. She was fucking right. 

You were reminded of Thanksgiving two years ago, one of the events in a long list of near-misses where your secret almost came to light.

“Sunshine, your phone keeps ringing, do you want me to get it?” Jake asked from across the couch. You were fully immersed in your novel with your legs stretched out and resting against his, you hadn’t even noticed your phone… or anything else for that matter outside of the world you were holding in your palms.

“Just silence it,” you said as you flipped the page.

“Wait a minute,” he said and the shift in his tone pulled your attention to him. He was staring at your phone screen in shock… or was that confusion? “How the fuck do you know Rooster?” he asked and your blood ran cold.

“What?” you asked and he flipped the screen around to reveal Rooster’s contact photo. You thanked your previous self for cropping yourself out of it because this was going to be hard enough to explain without the addition of you in your khakis. “Oh,” you chuckled, hoping to just brush it off entirely as you sat up. “You know, I kind of forgot he was a pilot, too. I met him a few months ago when I went to San Diego for that convention.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me you happened to meet another naval aviator?”

You shrugged, “I didn’t think you knew him.” You knew he did. “We met in a bar and hit it off, we’ve kept in contact since.” 

“Are you like… a thing?” he asked, disgust evident in his tone. 

You laughed, “no, you know… it is possible to meet someone in a bar and not immediately jump their bones.” you said, trying to deflect this conversation in its entirety. 

“Nope, you’re not flipping this around on me.” Damn it. “I find it awfully suspicious this is the first I’m hearing of Rooster… by accident no less.”

You sighed, “fine, you caught me. I’m secretly a naval aviator too and Rooster was my wingman on a mission in Eastern Europe,” you said, and you didn’t try to sound innocent or sarcastic, just the right amount of indifference for him to not believe you.

He chuckled, “yeah of course you are, and I’m not an aviator, I’m actually a fucking astronaut.”  He added an eye roll for dramatic effect. “At least make your lies believable, sunshine, you know you’d never even make it to basic because I’d have killed you before then.”

You let out a laugh but there was no humor in it, “you’re right… me being in the Navy is definitely far fetched.”

“Top Gun, sir?” you questioned, trying to focus your thoughts on the present and he nodded… not even fully looking at you as he sorted through paperwork on his desk.

“Despite your insistence on keeping your achievements quiet, you’ve caught the attention of a lot of people. Mission is need to know, and apparently I don’t make the cut,” there was a bitter taste on his tongue as he spoke the words. “All I know is the best of the best from every aviation squad are headed west.”

“Yes, sir. When do I leave?” 

“You’re on a plane in six hours. Go home, pack, get your affairs in order. You report for duty at 08:00 tomorrow.”  Six hours. 

“They think I’m a research assistant to a fucking archeologist, Sadie! I mean, how stupid could I possibly be!” Your voice was shrill as you shouted in the general vicinity of your phone perched atop your dresser as you threw things into a duffel bag. You weren’t even concerned with what you were packing, you were more concerned with the fact that the single thread holding your intricate web of lies together was unraveling right in front of you. “You were right the other day when you said he already knows, he just… doesn’t know it’s me. I’ve heard of the infamous Hangman, there’s no way he hasn’t heard of Viper.”

“Just take a deep breath, I mean… I won’t say I told you so, even though I totally told you so.” Good thing she won’t gloat. “What’s the worst that can happen? He’ll be shocked, he might yell at you, he might rat you out to our parents but, maybe that’s for the best.”

“Maybe it’s for the best that everyone finds out I’ve been lying to them about what I do for a living for eight years?” you nearly shrieked as you rooted through your drawers for your one good swimsuit.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to stop taking online archeology courses on the off chance people ask you for specifics? Which… no one ever has because you picked a boring fake job to have, or wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able to tell your parents about your job, your achievements? Did I tell you that Jake actually mentioned Viper to me? Said something about some elusive hotshot pilot very few people have ever actually seen but their exploits have been heard everywhere.”

“Sadie, I called you because you’re supposed to be helping,” you groaned.

“Am I not?” she asked, genuinely sounding innocent and you just glared at the phone… and though she couldn’t see it, she definitely felt it all the way back home in Texas. “You know, you never actually told me how you got Viper as a call sign-”

 “You know what, I have to go.” you said abruptly, cutting her off.

“What are you-” you didn’t bother listening to the rest of the sentence as you hung up and quickly dialed a number you hadn’t in months.

“Hey sunshine,” Jake’s voice rang throughout your room and normally the pet name bestowed on you from a very young age, meant to be ironic considering you’ve never had a sunny disposition, would have been comforting but now it just made you feel sick. “What are you up to?”

“Hey you,” you breathed out. “I just got off the phone with Sadie and I figured I’d give my favorite Seresin a call,” you joked and his laughter on the other end did nothing to ease your nausea. 

“I’ll be sure to tell her you said so. Where are you calling from this time?” he asked and you thought there might be a winch in your chest, each sound from his end of the phone cranking it tighter and tighter.

“Uh, I’m actually stateside for a bit… lab work,” you lied. “What about you, jetsetter? Where’s the Navy got you now?” You were fishing.

“Also stateside, at least for now. Your timing is actually impeccable, I’m packing for a last-minute detachment and you were always better at that than me.” He was referencing all the times you’d wander up into his room just minutes before leaving for one of your shared family vacations, finding him standing in front of his closet with a blank look on his face and an empty suitcase on the bed, leaving you to do it all for him.

You chuckled nervously, “after all this time you still can’t pack a bag without my input?”

“Well, you’ve never forced me to figure it out for myself and the times I’ve had to go without I ended up with all the wrong things.”

“I’m pretty sure this is weaponized incompetence. Where are you headed?” You already knew the answer, but there was a small flicker of hope burning within you. 

“San Diego, all I know is I’ve been recalled to Top Gun.” he answered and you felt your heart drop into your stomach.

“Well,” you started, clearing your throat, “definitely some shorts and t-shirts, maybe a few of those ridiculously tight short-sleeve button-ups you always insist on buying… but none of the bright colored ones, they’re awful.” you said and he laughed. “Throw in those green swim trunks if you plan on heckling any innocent women simply trying to enjoy some sun and surf.”

“Heckling innocent women, how do you know I’m not the one being heckled?”

You laughed, “because I know you, you’ve been a heartbreaker since age ten.”

“I prefer the term rolling stone,” he protested and you laughed again.

“I’m sure you do Mr. Rock n Roll but that is not the perception. Your mother worries.”

“Did she call you again?” he asked, voice going up an octave.

“Oh yes, she asked me if we crossed paths in Bosnia… because, of course we would have while I was in Bahrain, said I needed to talk some sense into you.”

“When were you in Bahrain?” he asked and you internally groaned. You’d said too much. But then again, as you looked at the clock it didn’t really matter how much you said. You could say hey Jake, by the way… I’ve been in the Navy all this time, I’ll see you soon! and it wouldn’t make a damn difference.

“Uh, you know… just a few months ago.”

“Huh, I almost went there a few months ago,” he said and you could hear the contemplation in his tone.

“Small world,” you said breathlessly. “Shoot, urgent text from the lab… I’ve gotta head in, call me when you get settled in San Diego?”

“I will, when this deployment is over I was actually going to try and get some leave… come visit you if you’re still stateside, if that’s alright?”

“Of course it is, I’ll talk to you later.” You fell backwards onto your bed with a huff as you disconnected the call, “son of a bitch.”

The red neon sign above the Hard Deck used to be a comforting image, a port in the storm, light illuminating a pathway towards a night of blowing off steam but right now it felt more like the flicker was mocking you, laughing as you prepared to walk through those doors and undo years of lying and manipulating those closest to you. You knew he’d be there. You were. There was nowhere else for aviators to go when arriving in town. Well… nowhere else aviators would go.

“Oh dear god,” you mumbled to yourself, keeping your head low as you waited for your beer. You saw Phoenix strutting across the bar with Fanboy and Payback in tow and the voice that rang out from the pool table made your blood run cold. Of course he was already here.

“What do we have here? If it ain’t Phoenix,” he said, fixing her with that famous smirk as he stood upright. “And here I thought we were special, Coyote. Turns out, the invite went to anyone.”

“Fellas, this here’s Bagman,” she introduced as you carefully approached, mindful of where you were positioning yourself as you started to slide back into your work persona.

“Hangman,” he corrected.

“Whatever.” she dismissed. “You’re looking at the one of only two naval aviators on active duty with confirmed air-to-air kills.”

“Stop,” he said, and you couldn’t help but chuckle and the faux-display of modesty. Always a showboater.

“Mind you, the other guy was in a museum piece from the Korean war.” she smirked, you’d been deployed with her a few times and you always found her ability to outpace the men refreshing and oh-so-needed in the Navy. 

“Cold war,” Coyote corrected.

“Different wars, same century.” Payback said.

“Not this one,” Fanboy added.

“Who are your friends?” Coyote asked, gesturing to the two of them as they introduced themselves. “And I’m assuming this other aviator with a confirmed air-to-air kill will be gracing us with his presence tonight?”

“Her presence,” Phoenix said, narrowing her eyes as she corrected his assumption. “Call sign’s Viper, if you two made the cut then she definitely did.” 

“Ah, Viper.” Jake chimed in and you felt your ears burn as you watched him from your spot behind a beam. The way your name fell from his lips in such a condescending way made your eyes narrow. “You know, I’ve heard an awful lot about this Viper but… I’ve never laid eyes on her. Pretty sure she’s just a myth, what do you think, Coyote?” he asked and his friend nodded his head.

“You just can’t stand that the person holding you in a draw is a woman.” Phoenix quipped and you couldn’t help but smile.

“No one’s holding me in anything, darlin’, but I can’t say I’m not excited to finally meet this elusive pilot… set the record straight on who’s number one.”

“Oh Jakey,” you tutted, finally emerging from your spot behind the beam as you approached the table and you ignored the way he was physically caught off guard, quickly standing from his perch on the pool table. “I wouldn’t hold your breath because it sure as shit ain’t you.” You looked him up and down once for good measure. “Bagman, and Hyena, was it? Names Viper, pleasure to meet you.” You held your hand out for Coyote with a smirk rivaling Jake’s. For all the fear you had about your secret coming to light you knew you had to come in strong, if you showed up with your tail between your legs like your old teenage self, scared of Hangman’s wrath you’d never get out from under it during training.

“So, you’re not a myth,” Coyote responded, shaking your hand but you weren’t looking at him… you were looking at Jake who’s eyes seemed like they were about to bug out of his head as they scanned you, clad in a matching khaki uniform. 

“No, but she is a legend,” Fanboy piped in and you chuckled at the reinforcements.

“Hey V, knew you’d turn up sooner or later,” she said as she pulled you in for a quick hug and you reached out to squeeze both Payback and Fanboy’s shoulders in greeting. “And who’s this?” Phoenix asked, not picking up on the tension rising between you and Jake as her eyes glanced at the man sitting in standard-issue glasses to your left.

“Who’s who?” Coyote asked, not noticing he was there at all. She looked directly at him as he brushed peanuts off his lap. “When did you get in?”

“Oh, I- I’ve been here the whole time.” he answered with a cute smile on his face and you couldn’t help but chuckle at his earnestness. 

“Man’s a stealth pilot,” Jake finally chipped in, seemingly recovering from your shocking arrival but his eyes still held a lot of questions you knew you’d be hearing later. 

“Literally.” Coyote added.

“Weapons Systems Officer, actually,” the man corrected.

“With no sense of humor,” Jake sighed and you narrowed your eyes at him as he passed the pool cue to Phoenix before he made his way to the bar and you took the opportunity to slip away and follow him.

“Penny, my dear,” he started, leaning against the bartop. “I’ll have four more on the old timer.” he said, eyes darting to Maverick and you knew he’d regret saying that later. Everyone else might have been alarmingly slow at connecting the dots but you knew his presence here wasn’t a coincidence. As far as you knew he was supposed to be in Arizona acting as a test pilot.

“Unprepared for an ambush?” you asked and he sighed, you watched as his bicep flexed when he gripped the edge of the bar.

“You could say that,” he replied dryly.

“Doesn’t sound like the Hangman I’ve heard of… always so prepared for everything,” you shot back and he turned to look at you, expression steeled.

“Well, deception sounds exactly like the Viper I’ve heard of.” You couldn’t be surprised, verbal volleyball with him was always your forte and this time he had genuine cause to be upset. “What the hell are you doing here?” There it was.

“Recalled, same as you.” you answered, as if it was really that simple.

“In the Navy,” he clarified. “You didn’t think to mention this when we were on the phone four hours ago? Or better yet, when you joined?”

“Thought this would be better face to face.”

“What, were you calling just to get information from me?”

“I like being prepared, wanted to know what I was walking into.” you replied, keeping your features calm as you looked up at him.

“And you couldn’t have prepared me for seeing my little sister’s best friend in front of all my colleagues?”

“Your colleagues? Thought I was a little more than that,” you responded, focusing your attention forward and subtly nodding to Maverick who was sitting across the bar in lieu of a proper greeting. “You’re a professional, Hangman, I think you handled it well.”

“Like how well you’ve handled lying to your entire family? How was that dig in Bahrain, by the way?”

“Needed to come up with something to account for all the traveling and lack of contact,” you answered, cutting through to the question beneath the question.

“And where do they think you’re off to now?” he asked as Penny set the beers in front of you. “You know, just in case I need to cover your ass.”

“Croatia. Called them before I called you and Sadie.”

“Sadie knows?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why the hell did you keep this from everyone?”

“Are you forgetting the chaos that ensued when you told everyone your plans after high school?” you asked. “Besides, I did tell you in no uncertain terms, you just turned it into a joke.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Thanksgiving a few years ago? When Rooster called?” you prompted and you watched his face fall. 

“Oh my god,” he muttered. 

“Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t believe me which is why I said it to get you off my back… and what you said about killing me before I even made it to basic just proves my reasoning was right to not tell anyone.”

“Wait, so Rooster really was your wingman on a mission?”

“Several.” you answered.

“I don’t understand, I first heard of Viper six years ago. How have we never crossed paths?”

“I asked to keep my accomplishments on the downlow, they thought it was modesty but really I didn’t want you finding out through a Navy newsletter. Truthfully, I don’t know how we haven’t been on detachments sooner, that was just dumb luck.”

“Dumb luck,” he scoffed, looking you over once more. “God dammit. I am happy to see you,” he finally conceded and you let out a laugh.

“Really? I’m not convinced,” you replied as he pulled you in for a tight hug.

“Meant what I said too,” he started, picking up two of the beers and nodding for you to grab the others. “I do intend on winning this tie between us.”

You laughed again, “good luck with that, bud.” you shot back as you walked back to the pool table. You were aware of the questioning eyes but you had no intention of filling anyone in at the moment.

“Bradshaw, as I live and breathe,”Jake said, swiping Bob’s pool cue as you gave Rooster a one-arm hug.

“Hangman, you look… good,” Rooster responded, apprehension clear in his voice and you shared a look with Phoenix.

“Well, I am good, Rooster.” he replied, lining up and taking his shot. “I’m very good, in fact, I am too good to be true.” You rolled your eyes as you watched Phoenix give Rooster an exasperated look.

“So,” Payback interjected, “anyone know what this special detachment is all about?”

“No, a mission’s a mission, that don’t confront me.” You watched in amusement as he made his way around the pool table, oozing arrogance. You’d heard the stories of the cocky pilot but seeing it before you, in stark contradiction to the Jake you grew up with, was jarring to say the least. “What I want to know: who’s gonna be team leader? And which one of y’all has what it takes to follow me?”

“Hangman, the only place you’ll lead anyone is an early grave.” Rooster replied and you watched Jake continue his path with an overwhelming urge to smack the smirk off of his face. If you wanted to, you knew you were the only person here who could get away with it.

“Well, anyone who follows you is just gonna run out of fuel.” Jake shot back, “But that’s just you ain’t it, Rooster? You’re snug on that perch waiting for just the right moment… that’s never gonna come.” He finished, stepping closer. “I love this song,” he added before walking away.

“Well, he hasn’t changed.” Phoenix sighed.

“Nope, sure hasn’t.” Rooster agreed and you chuckled.

“If only you knew how untrue that was,” you said, eyebrows raised as you looked after him, a man almost completely unrecognizable to you now. You were almost impressed that he was able to suppress this new side of himself when he went back home just as easily as you did.

“Thought you were in Bahrain,” Rooster commented and you spared him a quick glance.

“Thought you were in Japan,” you replied simply.

“Looks like your intel is outdated,” he said and you finally looked over to him with a smirk.

“Same goes for you.” You nudged his shoulder with yours, “good to see you, Roo.”

“Does anyone here have a normal relationship with one another?” Coyote asked, watching as Rooster disappeared and as you went to steal some of Bob’s peanuts. 

“This is like a dysfunctional summer camp reunion, Coyote. When have we all been in the same room at the same time?” Phoenix answered.

“Any thoughts as to how this is going to play out?” Jake asked, sidling up beside you as you ordered another beer and you didn’t even look in his direction as you watched Penny mix a drink for someone.

“Thought it was just a mission… none of the details confront you,” you responded and he didn’t miss the air of mockery in your tone.

“I meant between us,” he clarified and you glanced at him out of the corner of your eye.

“Thought we were just colleagues.”

He shot you an unamused look, “are you really going to be like that?” he asked and you shrugged.

“Matching your energy, Hangman. Have to say, I was hoping the rumors were false.”

“Oh yeah? And what rumors are those, Viper?”

“The rumors that you’re an arrogant asshole. Imagine my surprise to find the Jake I know nowhere in sight.”

“Well, imagine my surprise to find out the girl who used to steal my sweatshirts and whine if I didn’t cut the crust off her sandwiches in the Navy with a reputation of being a calculated bitch.”

“I’m a woman in the Navy, what’s your excuse?” you fired back and he nodded his head appreciatively as if to say touche.

He sighed, “I just mean… we have history, how do you want to go about that?”

“Pretty sure everyone here has some form of history with each other, I don’t see why we need to go about it any particular way.” you shrugged and he narrowed his eyes at you.

“Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a long detachment?”

“Probably because you’re right.”

“I just don’t understand why you can’t be a team player. You’re taking this whole Hangman thing too far,” you snapped from your side of the booth. “I’m sick of doing push ups because of you.”

“Ever considered it’s just because you’re the one that’s failing?” Jake asked with a smirk.

“No, it’s just because you’re a shitty wingman, always have been.”

“Now what is that supposed to mean?”

You laughed dryly, “Christmas? Two years ago? You had one job, be a decent wingman. You can’t do it on the ground and you certainly can’t do it in the air.”

“Hold up. Christmas two years ago? What do you mean?” Phoenix asked, having

overheard your latest round of ripping into Jake as she was walking by and you let out a sigh.

“Bagman and I grew up together,” you finally came clean and you gave her an exasperated look as she did a terrible job at masking her shock.

“Wait, like grew up grew up together? As kids?”

“My best friend is his sister,” you explained as briefly as you could. “Well, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than my theory,” she said and you furrowed

your brows.

“What was your theory?” you and Jake asked at the same time.

“I thought you two had slept together on a deployment,” she shrugged and you blinked in surprise. You looked at Jake and waited for him to respond because you were at a loss for words at the implication.

“Your quickness to assume I’ve slept with every woman I’ve come into contact with is frankly insulting,” he said and you bit back a laugh.

“But not entirely untrue,” you muttered.

“Please tell me you have embarrassing stories about him,” Phoenix pleaded and you let out a full laugh now.

“Oh, I definitely do.”

“That will remain in the vault because unless you’re forgetting, I have stories too.” Jake chimed in and you rolled your eyes.

“Hold on, I’ve been deployed with both of you, and mentioned both of you to each other, how is this the first I’m hearing of this?” she asked and you noticed the way almost everyone was not subtly listening in.

“Our families didn’t have the warmest reaction to him joining the Navy, let alone to be a fighter pilot… so I just kept it to myself when I did. Jake didn’t know until last week,” you answered.

She shot him a weird look, “I always forget you have a real name… makes you too human,” she muttered before slipping away and you chuckled. 

“Cat’s outta the bag now,” he said, eyeing you over the rim of his glass as he took a drink and you didn’t miss the way his pupils dilated as Rooster came into his field of vision.

“Buy you a refill?” he asked you and you nodded, allowing him to pull you up and lead you to the bar. “So, you and Hangman have history?” You realized he must have only caught a piece of your previous conversation.

“Mmhm,” you confirmed, “Seems everyone has history with him, including you.” you said as the two of you sat down on the bar stools.

“Nothing beyond the obvious.”

“And what’s the obvious?” you asked and he smirked, sliding a fresh beer towards you.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said and you raised your eyebrows at him before he chuckled. “Thought it’d be good to catch up… haven’t heard from you since our last mission.”

“And whose fault is that?” you shot back, with Rooster it was always about what was unsaid. On the surface you weren’t even sure this would be considered a conversation, too much back and forth with not enough shared in each passing remark.

“You know how it is,” he shrugged and you nodded.

“How was Japan?”

“How was Bahrain?” You stared him down before cracking, a smile spreading across your face as you laughed.

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“You know I can keep a secret. Besides, what are friends for?”

“Oh, are we friends now?” you countered, amusement clear in your tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we weren’t.” he shot back.

“Our last communication was you sending me a photo of bird shit on your canopy with a series of emojis that I’m honestly still unsure the meaning of.”

“That’s peak friendship,” he laughed. “What is the story with you and Hangman and why was I not allowed to tell him we knew each other?”

“He’s my best friend’s brother,” you said and realization passed over his features. “He’s a little… protective, and I knew he wouldn’t respond well to me being in the Navy.”

“Ah, well that explains why he looks like he wants to kill me everytime I get close to you,” he said and you looked over your shoulder to find him glaring in your general direction and you let out a laugh.

“That’s just his face when it comes to you.”

“No, pretty sure it’s more than that,” he replied and you raised an eyebrow at him as if to say elaborate. He reached down to grab your stool and yanked you closer, forcing your legs to slide in between his and smirked as he brushed a strand of hair behind your ear while you just looked at him with wide eyes. “I give it five minutes, tops.”

“Five minutes for what?” you asked, coming out a little more breathless than you were hoping for.

“The way he looks at you is far more intense than just being his sister’s best friend… I’m just testing my theory,” he said, voice low with how close the two of you were.

“And what do you think these test results will yield?”

“I think he’s going to stew over there for a moment,” he said leaning closer as he looked over your shoulder and nodded slightly, “just like he’s doing right now… and then when I make any sort of indication of taking this further he’s going to come pull you right out of this chair and drag you off.” 

“Hmm,” you hummed, deciding to lean into it if only for the fact that your life was so hectic you had no time for attention like this… even if it was for show, and you let your fingers absentmindedly drag along his forearm. “And how are you going to indicate taking this further?” you asked, your eyes almost daring him.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he teased, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as his fingers trailed along your thigh.

You gave a half-hearted shrug, “contrary to popular belief, I’m not immune to a little flirting… real or not.”

He frowned slightly, “I know you’re not immune or are you purposefully forgetting our first mission?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” you replied and now it was your turn to smirk. You saw something in his expression shift, like he was accepting the challenge you’d just given him.

“Do I need to remind you?” he asked, inching closer and your breath hitched when his hand rested on your neck. “Because I remember it quite vividly,” he whispered in your ear and you couldn’t help the shiver that raced up your spine. 

“I think it’s coming back to me now,” you said as he pulled back to look at you and he chuckled.

“Incoming.” you furrowed your brows at him as he leaned away but before you could ask him what he meant you felt a strong hand wrap around your arm and yank you upwards and suddenly you found yourself being pulled across the bar and one glance back to Rooster only revealed a smug look that said I told you so. And he did.

“Get off of me!” you yelled as you pushed Jake’s hand off you, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared up at him and squinted your eyes to shield from the sun setting over the beach… now just a handful of yards away in your new location. “What the hell is your problem?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” You just gestured for him to explain. “Rooster? Really?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Please tell me you’re not that dense,” he said and you could see the disappointment in his features but what you couldn’t figure out was why. You just shook your head and threw your arms out in exasperation and he sighed. “Do you really think flirting with Rooster is a good idea?”

You let out an indignant laugh, “you think that was flirting?”

“Okay, I know you’re not that dense.” 

“I know this has been difficult for you to wrap your head around but I have friendships on this squad outside of you that have been in existence for years. Whatever you think you saw was me catching up with an old friend.”

He scoffed, “and he just had to have his hands on your neck and thigh while doing so?”

“And so what if he did? I’m failing to see where this is any of your business and why it gave you the right to physically remove me from my conversation.”

“Figured I’d save you from making a mistake because it’s never a good idea to get involved with someone on your squad… especially on a mission as hard as this one.”

“You would know wouldn’t you?” you countered. “Speaking from personal experience?”

“Don’t do that, you always find a way to turn it around on me.”

“Maybe because you’re always the one in the wrong!” you shouted. “I know that me being here is weird for you, and I know it’s been an adjustment having me in the air with you but that does not give you the right to act like you have for the past eight years. I am not your kid sister’s best friend anymore, I am not a teenager that needs you to bail her out when guys get handsy.”

“Well, you’re definitely acting like a teenager who needs me to bail her out before she makes a mistake that could follow her around for the rest of her career.”

“You are the one acting like a teenager right now! In case you haven’t noticed because you’ve been too busy strutting around like you’re god’s fucking gift to us all, I’ve built an incredible career for myself, and I’m pretty damn good at what I do… I have to be, right? Because I landed myself here with you. Or do you think that was just a fluke? The only reason this is new to you is because I diminished myself to hide from you because I knew you couldn’t deal with the fact that I can handle my own shit now.”

“You think lying to everyone is handling your shit? You hid because you were too much of a coward to own up to it.”

You let out a bitter laugh, “I lied to everyone because they worry. Your mother cries every day you’re on deployment. Your sister calls me twice as much. Your dad goes to church twice a week. My parents check their phones every hour waiting to see if yours sent them any kind of update. It’s easier for everyone if they believe my traveling and being out of service range is because I’m safe and sound, digging up old relics. I lied because I knew you would act like this and I lied because giving our families some peace of mind was worth more to me than getting credit for everything I’ve accomplished.”

He was silent for a moment as he processed what you’d said, and he took a step back as silence permeated the outdoor patio. “I don’t think it was just a fluke,” he finally said and you let out a sharp exhale.

“Well, obviously it wasn’t, I’m a much better pilot than you.” you joked and he gave you a deadpan look. “Every time you snap at me in the air, or dismiss me in the training room, or conveniently occupy yourself elsewhere when my previous missions become the center of focus, you're only reinforcing the reasons I kept this from you. I didn’t want to. Of course I wanted to tell you of all people, I just… didn’t want to feel like I used to when we were growing up. Like the little kid you got stuck with.”

He sighed, “well, now I feel like a jackass.”

You shrugged, “well… you kind of are a jackass.”

“You’re not the little kid I got stuck with, sunshine. I just-”

“I get it,” you cut him off. You wanted this conversation to end before it got too deep, and you could tell by the look in his eyes you were about to jump headfirst into a conversation neither of you were ready for. “Come on, buy me a beer to make up for what a jackass you were.” 

You were on your third run through of the mission today, probably the dozenth this week and each time something went wrong, or you weren’t fast enough, or nothing went wrong and you were fast enough but you missed the target. Between this and Maverick’s constant reminders of just how impossible this mission was, you were finding it hard to push through the noise and focus on your objectives… something that had never been an issue for you in the past. You’d made a career off of keeping your head down and doing what was expected of you no matter how difficult it was but this? Each time you stepped into the cockpit you couldn’t help but think you were training for your death.

“Talk to me, Bob,” Phoenix said as you flew above the dry terrain. You could feel the clock running out, both on this run through and your mission training in general.

“We are twelve seconds late on target, we gotta move! We gotta move,” Bob replied.

“Copy, try to stay with me,” you said as you increased your speed.

“Wait, who’s that?” Bob asked and you cocked your head slightly, waiting for further information.

“Blue team, you’ve been spotted.” Maverick’s voice rang throughout your headset and you winced.

“Shit, it’s Mav.” 

“What the hell is he doing here?” Phoenix asked,

“I’m a bandit on course to intercept, blue team what are you gonna do?”

“He’s twenty miles left, ten o’clock. Seven hundred knots closure.” Bob supplied.

“Your call, what do you want to do?” you asked Phoenix, looking over your shoulder in the direction of her aircraft.

“Continue, we’re close. Stay on target.”

“He’s swinging around to the north,” Bob said as you began to brace yourself.

“Stand by for pop-up.” 

“Be ready on that laser, Bob,” Phoenix ordered.

“Copy, I’m on it.”

“Blue team, bandit is still closing,” Maverick reminded you and you felt tension settling in your muscles.

“Popping now,” you communicated as you sharply moved to a steep incline. You gasped for air as the weight crushed you backwards into your seat. “Talk to me, Bob. Where’s Mav?”

“He’s five miles out, he’s coming fast.”

“Target’s in sight,” Phoenix said.

“Where’s my laser, Bob?” you asked, already feeling the panic creep in.

“Deadeye! Deadeye! It’s no good. Sorry, I can’t get a lock.”

“We’re out of time, I’m dropping blind,” you said with a slight shake of your head as your thumb hovered over the button as you tried to drop it at the exact right moment. “Fuck, I missed,” you sighed as you began your steep climb out.

“That’s tone,” Maverick said and you could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Maverick’s got missile lock on us.” Bob groaned.

“Shit, we’re dead,” Phoenix cursed.

“Blue team, that’s a fail.” You let out a sharp exhale as you ripped your mask off in frustration. No matter how hard or how many times you tried you were always so close without ever actually making it. “That’s enough for today.” Maverick said as you leveled out and you navigated to flank him. “Bird strike! Bird strike!” he shouted as you tried to avoid the onslaught of birds but it was no use, you felt your jet become unsteady as one flew directly into your engine.

“Shit, left engine’s on fire. Climbing,” you said as you yanked up on the yoke. “Throttling back, shutting off fuel to left engine. Extinguishing fire,” you narrated as you ran through your mental checklist of everything you needed to do. “Fuck, it’s still spinning. Trying to restart,” you tried to keep your voice and your nerves steady but it was no use, the erratic beeping filling the cockpit was threatening to pull you apart.

“Viper, it’s on fire! Don’t start-” Maverick started but you cut him off.

“Throttling up.” You watched as everything flashed at you and you tried to regain control as you quickly lost altitude. “Extinguishing right engine.” Everything was in failure and you were running out of options.

“Viper, punch out.” Maverick ordered as your jet hurtled towards the hillside in a spiral. “You can’t save it. Eject, eject!”

“Fuck, ejecting! Ejecting!” you shouted as you pulled the handles between your feet and the last thing you remembered was watching your plane burn in.

You awoke in a panic, gripping the sheets as a distant beeping accelerated your heart rate and as if on autopilot your hands grabbed for the controls but there was nothing but fabric. “Hey, hey you’re okay,” you heard and you let out a sharp exhale as you saw Jake sitting beside you, leaned forward in his chair with concern written all over his face.

“I don’t- what the hell happened?”

“Bird strike. Thank god you punched out in time but you lost consciousness on the way down. Doc said you’re fine, they’re coming to discharge you soon,” he explained and you nodded as you began to calm down.

“Jesus,” you whispered before another wave of panic rolled over you. “Mav? Phoenix and Bob?” you asked, realizing you’d been so wrapped up in your own cockpit you didn’t even know if the voices coming through your headset were for you or if they were struggling with their own aircrafts.

“They’re good, Mav stopped by earlier to check in and everyone has been blowing up the group chat asking for updates,” he chuckled as he rested a hand on your leg.

“Just another thing to tack onto the long list of failures with this mission,” you sighed, running a hand through your hair.

He frowned at you, “hey, no one faults you for this. You can’t control bird strikes,” he reassured. “Everyone is just glad you got out.” His thumb was rubbing reassuring circles against your thigh and you took a deep breath as you tried to shake off the way he was looking at you. It was concern and… something else you couldn’t place.

“Jake, I don’t… I don’t think everyone’s going to come back from this,” you whispered, it was a universal truth, everyone had thought it at one point or another, Maverick had basically said it without being explicit, and you knew damn well Cyclone didn’t care about casualties so long as the mission was completed. “We can’t even get through dropping the bombs, we haven’t even accounted for SAM’s or bandits.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s us.” he said, voice firm and you knew it was a defense mechanism. He wouldn’t come out and say it but he shared the same fears you did. “Come on, let’s get you up, everyone wants to see that you’re alive and well for themselves,” he diverted but you knew better. He just didn’t want to get into it with you because if he did he wasn’t sure he’d be able to flip the switch back. He had to stay focused and so did you.

The drive to the Hard Deck was silent, much like a lot of your time had been with Jake recently and it made you want to rip your hair out. You couldn’t deal with the hot and cold, one minute you felt like nothing had changed when he brought you your coffee exactly how you liked it, or when you were doubled over in laughter by the dart board and the next he was distant, blowing you off entirely and pretending you were no more than a colleague. You knew things wouldn’t be like how they were back home, this was work and the lives of you and your team were on the line. There were more important things to focus on but when you watched him let loose with Coyote after-hours or humor Fanboy while he talked about some nerdy tv show you couldn’t help but think it felt like a knife to the back. 

“Easy, I know you’re sore even though you’re pretending you’re not,” he said softly as he helped you climb out of the car and you just gave him a deadpan look.

“I’m not pretending,” you protested and he smirked.

“Sure you’re not,” he agreed, even though he really didn’t.

“There she is!” Fanboy cheered as you walked in and you gave a bashful smile, hiding your face behind your hands to shield yourself from the commotion. “How are you feeling? What’d the doctor say?” he asked as everyone looked at you intently.

Bob elbowed him, “you are under no obligation to share your private medical information,” he said, clear disapproval in his tone at everyone’s nosiness.

You chuckled, “it’s okay, Bob. No concussion, nothing broken, just some light bruising in my ribs. Still cleared to fly so it looks like the competition hasn’t been knocked out yet,” you teased.

“Thank god, I couldn’t stand it if you abandoned me,” Phoenix said with a warm smile as she wrapped an arm around your waist carefully. “Are you allowed to drink?”

“It’s actually been encouraged,” you joked and she nodded before disappearing.

“Glad you’re okay,” Rooster said, giving you a sheepish smile. “Scared the shit out of all of us.”

“I like to keep you on your toes,” you replied. “Since I almost died today and all…” you started and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, so you’re milking this?”

“Mmhm,” you smirked. “Since I almost died today, think you could go play a little something?” you asked and he shook his head with a chuckle.

“For you, I think that can be arranged.” you watched with a small smile as he did his usual routine of yanking the cord of the jukebox out of the wall before sauntering over to the piano. You loved watching the bar crowd around him, watching your new and old friends sing along and bust out terrible dance moves. It made it a little easier to forget the impending doom you were all facing.

“Did you make that happen?” Phoenix asked, placing a glass of bourbon in your hand.

“Not like I had to try very hard,” you laughed, watching as she nearly ran over to join him.

“You’ve always been so good at that,” Jake said, appearing beside you suddenly and you tore your eyes away from watching the fun for a moment to look up at him.

“What’s that?”

“Bringing people together,” he answered, gazing down at you. “This could have been just another detachment. Forced friendship while we’re stuck with each other before we go back to our normal squads, but nothing about that looks forced to me,” he said, turning back to watch Bob twirling Phoenix around, Payback and Fanboy doing the robot to a song completely unsuited for such a dance, Coyote and Rooster singing at the top of their lungs.

“Thank you,” you said and he pulled his attention back to you, an unasked question on his face. “For staying with me, it was nice having you there when I woke up.”

He shrugged, “no problem, you’re Sadie’s best friend… pretty sure she would have flown out here just to kick my ass if I didn’t.” Your face fell for a moment but you quickly recovered.

“Right, just Sadie’s best friend,” you muttered, polishing off your drink in one swig. Suddenly you felt silly, of course that’s only how he saw you. You were naive to think the ‘friendship’ you’d built over the past two decades was nothing more than the fact that you were in his life because of his sister, because your families had bonded over the daughters who couldn’t stand to be apart for more than twelve hours. The quarterly phone calls and drinking sessions past midnight over the holidays were nothing more than circumstantial. 

“Sunshine-” he started but you gave him an empty smile.

“Need a refill,” you said before walking towards the bar and Penny saw you coming, saw the look in your eyes and was quick to pour as soon as you’d set the glass down.

“Gave everyone quite a scare today, you alright?” she asked and you nodded. You knew she wasn’t really asking you about your ejection but you were content to pretend she was.

“All good, comes with the territory,” you chuckled and she gave you a knowing look.

“That one’s on me, consider it your unofficial hazard pay,” she joked and you took a moment to lean against the bar as you collected your thoughts. You couldn’t help but feel stupid  to think that even with the rigors of the job and learning curve of being around each other professionally you’d find some sort of groove resembling the one you settled into back home. You wondered what the hell that even was when you were home. He was always the highlight of your holidays, someone who understood you even though he didn’t know it. You looked forward to sneaking into his room when everyone had gone to sleep with a bottle to talk shit about your families and you shook your head as you sat in the embarrassment of thinking he could have looked forward to that too.

“Sunshine, I didn’t mean-” he started as he approached you and you just shook your head.

“It’s fine, I get it.” you said, focusing your attention on Rooster who was still fiddling with the keys while everyone went back to their groups and listened to it as background noise. “Training is almost over and when the mission is done we can go back to our squads and you can forget about the little kid who’s been following you around for twenty years.” 

“I don’t think you’re a little kid, I really didn’t mean anything by-”

“Jake.” you cut him off, turning to look up at him. “Really, it’s fine. With any luck after this we won’t see each other until Christmas so… maybe it’s better if we just focus on our own shit. We have enough to worry about.” You walked across the bar and slid onto the bench with Rooster who gave you a questioning look.

“Everything okay?” he asked and you nodded, taking a swig of your drink. 

“What do you say to a little Great Balls of Fire?” you asked, resting your head on his shoulder for a moment and with just a few of the opening chords he’d pulled everyone right back in just like he always did.

“It’s been an honor flying with you,” Maverick started as you all stood at attention. “Each one of you represents the best of the best. This is a very specific mission, my choice is a reflection of that and nothing more.” 

“Choose your two foxtrot teams,” Cyclone said and the tension in the room was palpable.

“Payback and Fanboy, Phoenix and Bob.” You smiled softly, that’s exactly who you would have picked.

“And your wingman,” Cyclone added and you felt the anxiety settle in the pit of your stomach. It was between you, Rooster, and Jake… You knew there was a complicated history between Maverick and Rooster, and despite your instability with Jake you didn’t want to be pitted against him.

“Viper.” he called out and the first person you looked at was Rooster who was doing a great job at masking his feelings and he shot you a tight smile. You glanced forward to find Jake looking at you and he gave you a slight nod. You thought getting picked for this mission would feel better than this, but you only felt sick.

“The rest of you will stand by on the carrier for any reserve role that’s required. Dismissed,” Warlock said and your limbs were slow to catch up with your brain as you began to move for the exit to head back to your bunk. You’d been training for weeks yet you felt entirely unprepared. Maverick stepping in as team leader restored a bit of your confidence but even with him leading you knew the odds of actually pulling this off and everyone making it back were slim. Part of you was relieved it was you and not Jake, or Rooster. Rooster still had a legacy to fulfill, and Jake simply wasn’t finished. He had a lot left to learn, and a lot left to accomplish.

“Hey,” Rooster called after you, jogging to catch up and you stopped in front of your door, looking around at the crowded hallway and you subtly nodded for him to follow you. “Congratulations.” he said as you closed the door behind you.

“I’m sorry,” you started but he shook his head.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You earned this, I know better than anyone how good you are in the air. Mav made the right call… I’m only sorry you aren’t team leader, we all thought you would be.”

“If it makes you feel any better you would have been my wingman if I was,” you offered and he chuckled.

“Not Hangman?”

You sighed, “I trust Jake implicitly on the ground, but… I can’t in the air, and he hasn’t had the best reaction to seeing me in this environment. You on the other hand I know I can trust in the air. You’ve saved my ass several times,” you said with a soft smile.

“Only as often as you’ve saved mine,” he replied. “I think you need to look at Hangman’s attitude towards you through a different lens.”

“What do you mean?” you asked as you slightly tilted your head in confusion.

“It’s not that he sees you as his little sister’s best friend, or the kid he can’t seem to escape… it’s the fact that he doesn’t see you that way, and now he’s forced to face it every day.” 

“If he doesn’t see me that way, then what way does he see me?” you asked, struggling to put the dots together and he just smiled.

“I can’t do all the work for you.” he said, pulling you in for a hug. “I’ve missed having you around, V.”

“I’ve missed having you around too, Roo. Let’s be actual friends when this is all over… which means no more sending me photos of bird shit on your canopy,” you said with a laugh.

“I told you, that’s peak friendship!” he said and you pulled away when your door creaked open.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” Jake asked as he poked his head in, clearly uncomfortable and you and Rooster both shook your heads.

“No, I was just leaving… I’ll see you before, yeah?” Rooster asked and you nodded, giving his arm a squeeze as he walked past. “Hey, don’t think, just do, right?” he said before leaving and you nodded.

“Don’t think, just do.”

“Sure you two aren’t a thing?” Jake asked as he walked in, glancing behind him to make sure he was gone and you chuckled.

“Scout’s honor,” you replied.

“I just wanted to come congratulate you,” he said and you let out another soft laugh.

“Seems everyone wanted to do that,” you said. “Thank you, I’m sorry you weren’t picked.”

“Don’t be, you were right. You’re the better pilot,” he said and there wasn’t an ounce of dishonesty in his tone. “I need you to have a clear head while you’re up there, but… can we talk when this is all over? I handled this completely wrong and I don’t want to forget about the girl that’s been in my corner for twenty years when we go back to our old squads.” you smiled at the way he rephrased what you’d said earlier.

You nodded, “I’d like that.”

He moved towards the door but turned back to say, “I know Sadie’s your best friend, but just so you know… you’re mine,” before he left and you let out a sharp exhale and flopped onto your bunk as the door shut behind him. You put your hands over your eyes as you let what both Rooster and Jake said sink in and it left you with far more questions than you had when you entered this dorm… so much for having a clear head. You heard the door push open and let out a groan, sitting up to see who was coming to mess with your head now but quickly turned sheepish.

“Jesus, hello to you too,” Phoenix muttered as she walked in and set something on her bunk. “Saw both your boyfriends leave,” she said with a smirk and you rolled your eyes before laying back down.

“They’re not my boyfriends.” you protested and she just laughed.

“Sure they aren’t. How are you feeling?”

“How are you feeling?” you shot back as she sat next to you.

“Terrified, but we’re as ready as we’re going to be.” You sat up and turned to face her fully.

“I’m really glad you’re flying with me, Phe. How badass are we? Not one but two women selected for the uber secret, uber dangerous mission?” you asked and she let out a laugh.

“Super badass, now we just gotta make sure we come home so we can brag about it.”

You stood on the platform with nerves rattling you to your core. You took a deep breath and shook your limbs out as you looked up at your jet.  You reached up to press your hand to its exterior and said, “no funny business today, alright? I wanna come home.”

“Sunshine!” you heard from behind you and turned to see Jake jogging towards you. You stood in silence for a moment before he pulled you in for a bone crushing hug. “You give ‘em hell, okay?” You nodded when he pulled away and you watched him walk to his own jet where he’d be sitting as Dagger Spare. You made eye contact with Maverick who gave you a nod that you returned, a silent exchange that solidified you were in this together.

“Dagger One, up and ready on catapult one.” Maverick said in your ear and you exhaled forcefully, willing any reservations to leave your body with your breath.

“Dagger Spare standing by.”

“Dagger Four, up and ready.”

“Dagger Three, up and ready.”

“Dagger Two, up and ready,” you said as you focused your mind and pushed out anything but the mission. You weren’t going to think about what Rooster had said, or about what Jake wanted to talk to you about when this was all over, and especially not what you were hoping he wanted to talk to you about. Blocking out the noise was what you were good at, and one of the reasons you were selected. Get in, get out, go home. That’s all you had to do.

You launched off the catapult and fell into formation behind Maverick and listened for the command to fall below the radar. The ocean was closer than it had ever been before and somehow it felt so different from your proximity to the ground during training. This was real. This wasn’t a simulation.

“Feet dry in sixty seconds. Comanche, Dagger One. Picture.”

“Comanche, picture clean. Decision is yours.” 

“Copy,” Maverick replied and waited for a beat before saying, “Dagger attack.” Not that it was an option before but there was no turning back now. You watched the tomahawks fly over your head as you assumed attack formation and marked your time as you entered the valley and rounded the snowy ridges. “First SAM site overhead.”

“Looks like we’re clear on radar, Mav.” Phoenix said.

“Let’s not take it for granted.” You knew they were there but you chose to ignore the presence of the SAM’s above you. Worrying about them now wouldn’t do you any good, you had plenty of time for that later. Your only concern was staying below where you could trigger them.

“We got two minutes to target,” Bob said and you checked your radar, increasing your speed.

“Stay with me, Payback.” you grunted as you overtook a curve.

“I got you,” he confirmed.

“We’re picking up two bandits. Single group, two contacts.” Comanche informed and you furrowed your brows slightly.

“Comanche, what’s their heading?” Phoenix asked.

“Bullseye 090, 50, tacked southwest.”

“They’re headed away from us, they don’t know we’re here,” you replied.

“The second those tomahawks hit the airbase those bandits are gonna move to defend the target, we have to get there before they do. Increase speed,” Maverick ordered and you nodded to yourself as you did.

“We got you Mav, don’t wait for me,” Phoenix responded. You lagged as you finally saw one of the SAM’s, a visual you were trying really hard to avoid and your breath caught in your throat as some of the noise started to creep in.

“Stay with me, V, don’t think.” Maverick said to you and you nodded to yourself again.

“Just do,” you finished as you pushed forward on the throttle.

“Jesus, Viper,” Payback shouted in your ear and you chuckled.

“Come on, Payback, you with me?” you asked. “Watch your heads,” you warned as you navigated through a bridge.

“Right behind you!” he confirmed after Fanboy let out some expletives that let you know they were still tailing you.

“Phoenix, stand-by for pop-up strike.”

“Dagger Three in position,” she replied. You heard their grunts through the headset as they fought against the gravity trying to pull them backwards.

“Get me eyes on that target, Bob!”

“Dagger Three, standby, Mav… Standby… I’ve got it!”

“Target acquired, bombs away.” Mav said and you felt your body stiffen as you waited for confirmation.

“We’ve got impact. Check, direct hit! Direct hit!” Bob yelled and you felt a wave of relief that disappeared as quickly as it had washed over you.

“Dagger Two, status.”

“Almost there, Mav, almost there,” you replied as you flew over the ridge.

“Fanboy, where’s my laser?” you asked as you grew closer to the target.

“V, there’s something wrong with this laser… Shit! Dead eye, dead eye, dead eye!” Fanboy shouted and you cursed under your breath.

“Come on, we are running out of time. Get it online!” you yelled back.

“I’m trying!”

“Come on, Fanboy!” you heard Payback say and you were running a risk analysis in your head.

“Nearly there, nearly there!”

“There’s no time, I’m dropping blind.” you said, voice calm and steady as you focused on the target.

“Viper, I’ve got this!” Fanboy tried and you wanted to reassure him but you couldn’t.

“Pull up. Bombs away, bombs away!” you said as you pressed your button before pulling up.

“Bullseye, bullseye, bullseye!” you heard command say but you couldn’t focus on anything as you tried to get oxygen to your brain, the force was compressing your lungs and you could feel the edges of your vision darken as you let out breathless pants.

“We’re not out of this yet,” Maverick grunted. “Here it comes.” you listened as they communicated, trying to evade the SAM’s. “Viper, status.” You wanted to answer but you couldn’t as you flew over the ridge and onto the radar.

“Oh fuck,” you muttered, looking overhead as the missiles launched. “Smoke in the air!”

“SAM on your six, Viper!” Payback warned.

“Deploying countermeasures,” you called as you slammed the button. “Negative contact.”

“Dagger one defending.”

“Talk to me, Bob!”

“Break right, Phoenix, break right! Mav, nine o’clock! Nine o’clock!” It was pure chaos as they exploded overhead.

“Viper, two more on your six!” you heard someone say but you couldn’t tell who.

“Dagger Two, defending,” you said as you hit your flare button.

“Payback, SAM on your nose.”

“Dagger Four defending.”

“Viper, tally, tally, seven o’clock!

“Talk to me, Bob!”

“On our six!”

“Dagger Two defending.”

“Phoenix, break right!”

“I see it, I see it!” Everyone’s voices were overlapping as you tried to look out for yourselves and each other, in all your years in the Navy you’d been in some pretty fucked up situations but this one just felt different. You yelled out to Phoenix and watched as she came close to taking a hit, and you could hear Fanboy’s panicked shouts trying to keep up with what was going on around you. You thought that if you had the time you might throw up, but you didn’t.

“Dagger Two, defending,” you said as you looked over your shoulder to see two on your tail. “Fuck, I’m out of flares!”

“Viper, evade, evade!” Maverick shouted and you whipped your jet around but shook your head.

“I can’t shake ‘em! They’re on me, they’re on me!” You watched Maverick’s jet pass overhead as he deployed his flares but gasped when one hit his tail. Your heart sank as you watched what was left of his jet fall out of the sky and tears pricked at your eyes that you quickly blinked away.

“Maverick!” you yelled, trying to turn in your seat to look for a parachute.

“Dagger One is hit! I repeat, Dagger One is hit! Maverick is down!” Phoenix called out as the wreckage of his plane floated down around you.

“Dagger One status? Status!” you asked with no answer. “Anyone see him? Does anyone see him?”

“I didn’t see a parachute,” Payback replied.

“We have to circle back.”

“Comanche. Bandits inbound. Single group, hot. Recommend dagger flow south. One minute to intercept.” There was a pause before you heard, “All daggers flow to ECP.”

“What about Maverick?” you asked, chest tightening at the thought of leaving him behind. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t.

“Dagger Spare, request permission to launch and fly air cover,” you heard Jake in your ear and you didn’t realize how badly you’d needed to hear the sound of his voice.

“Negative, spare.”

“Dagger, you are not to engage. Repeat, do not engage.” You gripped your controls as you listened to them ask you to acknowledge you heard the order but it all sounded muffled.

“Viper, those bandits are closing,” Phoenix said. “We can’t go back.”

“V, he’s gone. Maverick’s gone,” Bob added and you could hear the sadness in his voice but you weren’t accepting that. You thought of Rooster… of him telling you Maverick had pulled his papers and how despite how angry he was you could see through it to the hurt. He’d lost his father and alienated his only male role model. You thought of him listening in back at the carrier, the regret you knew he would be feeling as he realized Maverick was gone.

“I’m his wingman,” you said firmly. “Daggers flow back to carrier.” you ordered.

“Viper?” “What the fuck are you doing?” Fanboy asked.

“Dagger Two. Return to carrier.” You heard command say but you ignored it.

“Maverick is down which means I’m team leader now, I’m not leaving him behind.”

“Viper, you can’t do anything for him,” Phoenix tried.

“Only if I don’t try. Return to carrier, now.” you ordered again as you flipped around in pursuit of where his jet had fallen. You flicked off your radio and disconnected the overlapping chatter filling your ear. You whizzed back through the canyon and saw Maverick running through the snow covered clearing, trying to evade a helicopter and you used the element of surprise to your advantage… swinging around behind it.

“Dagger Two, deploying missile,” you narrated as you pressed the button but then let out a breathless laugh as you made contact. “Don’t really know who I’m saying that to.” You moved to circle back around and unknowingly triggered a SAM that quickly intercepted you and you cursed as you pulled up on your ejection loops.

You hit the ground with a thud and rolled over onto your back as you let out a groan. “Son of a bitch,” you muttered, “I am so sick of ejecting.” Your muscles ached as you worked on rolling up your parachute and you lifted your head to see Maverick running towards you.

“You alright?” he yelled and you nodded as you stood.

“Yeah, I’m good. You alright?” you asked but were caught off guard when he sent you flying backwards into the snow. “Oh, Jesus,” you muttered as you hit the ground, again. “What the fuck?” you yelled as you got up.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as you threw your helmet to the ground.

“What am I doing here?” 

“You think I took that missile so you could be down here with me? You should be back on the carrier by now!”

“I saved your life!” you shouted.

“I saved your life, that’s the whole point.” he countered and you narrowed your eyes at him as you dusted the snow off your jacket. “What the hell were you even thinking?”

“I’m your wingman!” you shouted, throwing your arms out in exasperation. “That means something to me beyond the mission. I haven’t lost anyone yet and I don’t intend on losing anyone today.” He stared at you for a moment before letting out a sigh.

“Well, it’s good to see you,” he finally said and you put your hands on your hips as you tried to catch your breath.

“Yeah, good to see you too… so, what’s the plan?” you asked and he just gave you that famous Maverick look that said you probably weren’t going to like it.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” you said as you looked at an old plane through your binoculars. “An F-14?”

“I shot down three migs in one of those,” he pointed out and you just gave him an incredulous look.

“We don’t even know if that bag of ass can fly,” you countered.

“Let’s find out!” he said before taking off and your eyes widened.

“Mav!” you whisper-yelled after him. “Okay,” you muttered as you followed suit, stumbling into step with him as you walked out into the open, trying your best to act natural. “There’s a lot of people around.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s more over there.” you said as you looked around as subtly as you could. You knew this mission would be unlike anything you’d ever faced but you really weren’t anticipating being in enemy territory on foot.

“Okay.” he said, looking around. “Let’s start running.”

“Yeah, run.” you agreed, chasing after him into the hangar.

“Once I give you the signal for air, you’re gonna flip this switch until the needle gets to 120. When the engine starts, you gotta pull out the pins and disconnect everything. You understand?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, watching him power it on.

“Once I’m up, stow the ladder,” he yelled as he climbed up and you were quick to fold it away behind him. You gave him a thumbs up as you flipped the switch and watched the dial and when the engine fired on you ran around the jet pulling everything out.

“Ah, shit,” you huffed, struggling slightly as you jumped up onto the wing and climbed into the backseat. “Jesus, this thing is old,” you commented as you looked over everything and tried to make sense of it.

“Canopy?” he asked and you confirmed you were clear.

“Both runways are cratered,” you pointed out. “How are we gonna get this museum piece off the ground?” You looked out the window and furrowed your brows. “Hey Mav, the wings are coming out.”

“Yep.”

“Why are the wings coming out?” you asked but he didn’t answer. “Holy shit, are we really using a taxiway as a runway?” You were absolutely terrified but you’d be lying if you said there wasn’t a small part of you that was absolutely exhilarated. 

“Just hang on,” he said and you flew backwards in your seat as he took off. “Come on, come on, come on.”

“Mav?” you asked, looking ahead of him at the structure you were barrelling towards. “Holy shit,” you muttered as you closed your eyes and felt the wheels lift off the ground. You looked down and switched your ESAT on, hoping they’d see you and send reinforcements.

“Alright Viper, get us in touch with the boat.”

“Working on it, everything’s out. What should I do?”

“First the radio. Throw the uh… the UHF2 circuit breaker. Try that.”

“Sure, I’m not looking at like three hundred breakers or anything… got anything more specific?”

“I don’t know, that was not my department,” he answered and you nodded.

“Where’s Bob when you need him?” you muttered as you leaned down to fiddle with what you could find and your eyes widened when you looked beneath you. “Mav, tally two, five o’clock low. What do we do?”

“Okay, listen. Just be cool. If they knew who we were, we’d be dead already.”

“That’s comforting… what’s the plan?”

“Just put your mask on. Remember, we’re on the same team.” you watched as they pulled up beside you. “Just wave and smile.” You forced a smile as you watched the other pilot gesture with his hands but it wasn’t anything you were familiar with.

“What is that, what’s he saying?”

“No idea. I have no idea what he’s saying.”

“What about that one?” you asked as they changed gestures. “Any idea?”

“Nope, never seen that one either.” Maverick played dumb as he tapped his helmet and gave a thumbs down. “Shit, his wingman is moving into weapons envelope. Alright, listen up. When I tell you, you grab those rings above your head. That’s the ejection handle.”

“Can we outrun them?” you asked, not exactly keen on the idea of punching out for a third time in as many weeks.

“Not their missiles and guns.”

“Then it’s a dogfight,” you said, and he sighed.

“An F-14 against fifth-gen fighters?”

“It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot. What would you do if I wasn’t here?”

“But you are here,” he said and you could hear the apprehension in his tone. “I don’t intend on losing anyone today,” he repeated your earlier words.

“So don’t. Come on, Mav. Don’t think, just do.” He was silent for a moment and your hands flew to brace yourself as he jolted to the side and laid into one of the other jets.

“Tell me when you see smoke in the air,” he ordered and you twisted in your seat to watch behind you.

“Smoke in the air! Smoke in the air!”

“Hang on!” He dropped a missile and led the other plane directly into it.

“Splash one! Splash one!” you cheered, still trying to find your bearings as the plane jolted around. “Here comes another one!”

“Viper, flares, now now now!” he called and you pressed the button, watching as they intercepted the missile. “Splitting the throttles, coming around,” he said as you grunted and placed a hand on the ceiling. “Give me tone, give me tone.”

“You got him, Mav!”

“Taking the shot,” he said as he deployed and you watched the other plane do an evasion maneuver you’ve seen before. “What the-”

“Holy shit,” you said, watching him practically float past your canopy. “What the fuck was that?”

“Hang on, we’ve gotta get low. The terrain will confuse his targeting system.”

“Here he comes!” you shouted as he was hot on your tail.

“Talk to me, Viper, where is he?”

“He’s still on us,” you managed to get out as you bounced from side to side of the canopy. “We took a hit, we took a hit!”

“Damn it.”

“Come on Mav, do some of that pilot shit!” 

“Brace yourself.” You quickly rose in altitude and you struggled to get a breath in as you went careening back into the valley. “I’ve got tone, taking the shot.” he said and you watched the other plane take it out with countermeasures. “Out of missiles, switching to guns.”

“You got him, Mav!” you yelled as the distance lessened.

“It’s not over yet,” he replied. “One last chance.” You watched him use his last round of ammunition to rip into the top of the other jet and you let out a cheer when it crashed into the rocky hillside.

“Yes! Splash two!” you said before you went back to fiddling with the controls, trying to recall anything from initial training back in the day and you exhaled in relief when the system in front of you came to life. “Mav, I got the radio on!”

“Outstanding, get us in touch with the boat.”

“Copy that,” you said just as alarms started ringing. “What the fuck? Where even is he?”

“He’s on our nose,” Maverick said and you really wished you didn’t hear the dread in his tone. “We’re out of ammo. Smoke in the air, Viper, flares!” 

“That was way too close,” you said. “We’re out of flares, Mav! Shit, he’s already on us.” you grunted as bullets began hitting your jet. “This is not good!” Maverick did his best to try and evade but it wasn’t any use. “We took another hit!”

“No, no, no. no!”

“We can’t take much more of this!”

“We can’t outrun this guy, we gotta eject.”

“What?” you yelled, panic creeping into your voice.

“We need altitude. Pull the ejection handles the second I tell you to.”

“Mav, wait-” you started but he cut you off.

“Viper, there’s no other way. Eject, eject, eject!” he ordered and you reached above you to pull on the loops but they were stuck. “Viper, pull the handle, eject!”

“It’s not working!” you yelled back, still trying. “Mav!” You were still rising in altitude and you pressed your hands against the canopy as you realized this was it. You weren’t getting out of this. You thought of Jake, how he was going to have to tell Sadie… how it was going to fall on him to tell your parents not only were you in the Navy but that you were dead. You thought about Christmas Eve’s with him in middle school, dancing with him at his senior prom because even though you were a freshman he’d much rather have danced with you, and laughing at his old school photos while he watched you walk around the museum that was his childhood bedroom with a bottle of whiskey in your hand. It’s not that he sees you as his little sister’s best friend, it’s the fact that he doesn’t. 

“Oh my god,” you whispered, realization washing over you. I know Sadie’s your best friend, but just so you know… you’re mine.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Maverick said and you flinched when you heard an explosion but exhaled in relief when you realized it wasn’t you. You turned to see what was left of the enemy jet floating down to the water as an F-18 emerged through the smoke. Your eyes were wide as you tried to process what was happening… were you actually dead? Is this what the afterlife is?

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your savior speaking.” Jake started and you let out a breathless laugh as he pulled up beside you. “Please fasten your seatbelts, return your tray tables to their locked and upright positions, and prepare for landing.”

“Jake…” you said, looking over at him in disbelief.

“Hey sunshine,” he replied. “I’ll see you back on deck.” he said before flying ahead of you and you couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled past your lips as the adrenaline worked its way through your system.

“Maverick is downwind. No front landing gear. No tail hook. Pull the cable and raise the barricade,” Maverick communicated as you buzzed the tower and you giggled.

“Cyclone hated that,” you muttered and Maverick chuckled as you circled around and felt a jolt. “For the love of god, please don’t tell me we just lost an engine,” you sighed.

“Alright, I won’t tell you that,” he replied. You grunted as you hit the deck and flew forward in your seat at the impact before coming to a screeching halt. You were both silent for a moment, in disbelief that you actually made it back. “You good?” he finally asked and you nodded.

“Yeah, I’m good,” you answered as the canopy raised and you were met with the cheers of all of the crewmen and your teammates. As your feet hit the ground it actually crossed your mind to drop to your knees and kiss the disgusting tarmac you were so grateful for but you had someone to find. Phoenix threw her arms around you and you reciprocated the hug but you were searching the crowd over her shoulder, muttering half-hearted thanks to the people congratulating you and you pushed everyone away as you started walking.

“Sunshine!” you heard and you turned around and finally saw him. You exhaled sharply as you ran towards him but he held out a hand that stopped you in your tracks. “What the hell were you thinking? I thought you were dead,” he shouted over the commotion and you knew you probably should have been apologizing, or explaining yourself but instead you just smiled as you looked up at him. You could see about a dozen emotions on his face, but the one you were focusing on was the one that had been there all along… you’d just been too slow to realize it. “Why are you smiling? This isn’t funny, you really scared the shit out of me. That was reckless, and it- I… Fuck sunshine, I love you so much, I can’t ever go through thinking you’re dead again. Are you even- shit, are you okay? Let me look-” you knew he wasn’t going to stop on his own so you reached out and grabbed onto his flight suit with a smirk, pulling him into you and pressing your lips to his. He reciprocated immediately and you smiled into the kiss as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders. He lifted you off the ground as the cheers magnified around you.

“About damn time,” Rooster muttered from beside you but you didn’t care.

“I love you too, idiot,” you said when you pulled away and he set you back down but kept his arms firmly around your waist. “Chalked yourself another kill, looks like I’m going to have to even the score.”

“Always so competitive,” he said with a shake of his head before kissing you again and you pulled away when you felt a hand on your shoulder to see Maverick. He was looking at you with so much pride and gratitude that was only mirrored on your own face.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he said and you felt tears prick at your eyes.

“Thank you for saving mine, sir,” you replied and held out your hand for him to shake, but when he took it he only pulled you in for a hug. You watched him start to disappear into the crowd and quickly turned to grab Rooster by the collar and you gave him a look that had his eyes widening in fear. “I didn’t do that for Mav, I did that for you. Go,” you said firmly, shoving him in the direction Maverick had gone.

“You know, you could have just told me. You didn’t have to be an ass about it,” you said, looking up at Jake who rolled his eyes playfully.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked as you hit his arm. “I didn’t know… not until I thought it was too late,” he said, voice lowering as he stepped closer and placed a hand on your cheek, brushing his thumb against your cheekbone to wipe away a falling tear.

“I thought I’d realized too late,” you whispered as he pressed his lips to your forehead. 

“Now we have all the time in the world… after we get our asses handed to us for deliberately disobeying orders,” he said, pulling away when he noticed Cyclone approaching and you chuckled as you looked over your shoulder.

“Hey, if we get dishonorably discharged at least we’re alive and have each other, right?” 

“That’s all we need.”

ONE YEAR LATER

“Cheers to the one year anniversary of Dagger Squad,” Phoenix said as all of your glasses clinked together and you couldn’t wipe the smile from your face as you looked around the room at your team.

“And begrudgingly, cheers to Cyclone who, in his own words, completely disagreed with our tactics and lack of respect for authority, but couldn’t deny the overall effectiveness of our squad,” you added as everyone laughed and you leaned into Jake beside you. “Happy Dagger-versary everyone.”

“Cheers!” everyone shouted as you sank back into your previous conversations and you looked up at Jake as you took a sip of your beer.

“It’s our one year too,” you pointed out and he smirked down at you.

“Don’t you worry, sunshine, I’ve got a whole thing planned,” he said and you smiled as

you rested your head against his chest. “How lucky am I to have had you following me around for the majority of my life?”

You pulled away and playfully hit his arm, “when you say it like that it makes me sound so juvenile!” you protested and he just laughed.

“Hey, those are your words. Besides, you’re the one who followed me into the Navy…”

“And hid from you for eight years!” you said, pretending to be mad but your laughter gave you away.

“It’s okay, you just wanted to follow in the footsteps of the greatest pilot in the world. No one could ever blame you for that.” he teased.

“Are you conveniently forgetting you admitted I was the better pilot?”

“Yeah, but then I saved your life, so…” you narrowed your eyes before leaning up to peck his lips.

“Thanks for that, by the way.” 

“Anytime, sunshine… anytime.”

taglist: @callsignspirit @thegodessc @failuretothrivestuff @olliepig @cruelmissdior @underaveragefangirl @grxcieluvr @amatswimming @camilaricci @nolita-fairytale @dempy @pinkpantheris @aviatorobsessed @tiredqueen73 @pono-pura-vida @binnieslove @nik2blog @waklman @abaker74 @halstead-severide-fan @percysaidnever @memeorydotcom @eli2447 @dumb-fawkin-bitch @djs8891 @Genius2050 @stargazer-88 @chloeforde @kmc1989 @casa-boiardi (if your name is struck through it means I couldn't tag you - sorry!)

[ticklemerainbows]

Aestheticore Legacy Challenge

Hullo friends! I have been searching for a little while for a legacy challenge that I could also use as some sort of perfect genetics challenge and I figured, why not make my own. So the aestheticore legacy challenge was born! As you can tell from the title, this challenge is centered around differed aesthetics. There are a ton of aesthetics out there so it was hard to pick just 10, and some of these I’ve never heard of before so I’m excited to try this out! 

If you decide to do this, tag me ticklemerainbows or aestheticore challenge so I can see! And feel free to let me know what you think. This is my first challenge so if there’s things I could do different/better let me know!

And without further ado, the challenge.

                                                         ~x~x~x~

Generation One - Cottagecore

Your favorite thing about living on family land is the garden. It’s been around for at least the last 10 generations, and you want nothing more than to keep it going, but living in a city isn’t for you. So you pack up, take a keepsake plant from the garden and move to a quiet town in order to grow your own garden that will hopefully last for generations to come!

Requirements:  The Perfect Garden

Live on a small (no bigger than 30x30) lot

Maintain a garden for the entire generation

Reach level 10 Gardening

Make a living off your plants

Suggested Traits: Green Thumb, Loves the Outdoors

Color: Green

Generation Two - Auroracore 

You try your hardest to help your parents on the farm but you can’t help but have your head in the clouds. Fairy tales are your favorite genre of anything, and while living on a farm is all fine and dandy - you absolutely love your horse, you did raise it from a baby after all! - you always wonder if there’s something more. Like, a unicorn, perhaps?

Requirements:  The Fairy Tale Finder

Raise a horse from foal to adult

Reach level 10 in the Riding Skill

Have your horse get the Friend of the Herd Lifetime Reward

Search for a unicorn anytime there’s an aurora

Suggested Traits: Equestrian, Animal Lover

Color: Lilac

Generation Three - Light Academia

Being raised by someone who’s lifelong mission was to find a supernatural creature was surprisingly not as chaotic as it would sound, though you still prefer to stay more…grounded. While your parents were out hunting, you preferred to keep your head in the books, earning a scholarship to get into University. 

Requirements:  The Perfect Student

Get on honor roll as a child/teen

Earn a scholarship in any subject

Buy the bookstore

Suggested Traits: Socially Awkward, Workaholic, Perfectionist, Bookworm

Color: Beige

Generation Four - Fairycore

Your grandmother always told you about her times with her unicorn friend, and while you never quite believed her, you fell in love with the idea of supernatural creatures altogether. Magic, fairies, it all sounds so fantastical that you even begin trying to figure out if you can turn yourself into a magical creature!

Requirements:  Alchemy Artisan

Reach level 10 Alchemy

Visit the arboretum once a week to search for fairies

Befriend a fairy

Use an elixir to become a fairy

Suggested Traits: Supernatural Fan, Gatherer

Color: Pink

Generation Five - Comfy/Cozy

Life around magic has been a whirlwind, and you are anything but all that excitement. Having a grandparent who owns a bookstore has its perks, and you spend most of your time curled up with a good book and a warm cup of tea. Leaving your house to work doesn’t sound too appealing but you don’t have to go outside to write, do you?

Requirements:  Professional Author

Join the bookclub

Visit the library at least 3 times a season

Reach level 10 Writing

Write a best selling novel

Suggested Traits: Bookworm, Couch Potato, Artistic

Color: Orange

Generation Six - Decora

You always get asked how you turned out so outgoing when you were raised by homebodies, and you never have an answer for that. You just love being around people, and more importantly dressing those people up. You want to fill as many peoples lives with as much color as possible.

Requirements:  Fashion Phenomenon

Change your outfit every season

Reach level 10 Painting

Makeover at least 10 sims

Become best friends with one of your clients

Suggested Traits: Charismatic, Artistic, Excitable

Color: Magenta

Generation Seven - Jamcore

You love color just as much as your parents, but not so much the fashion part. Your clothes get way too messy as you experiment in the kitchen, after all. Creating yummy, colorful dishes are where your passions lie and you are determined to learn as much about the culinary arts as you possibly can.

Requirements:  The Culinary Librarian

Cook meals for your family every day

Grow a fruit orchard on the family farm

Have a personal recipe library

(Optional) Use the Grandma’s Canning Station once a week

Suggested Traits: Natural Cook, Bookworm

Color: Yellow

Generation Eight - Nautical

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls ye. You’ve always been drawn to the water, so much so that your family jokes that you might be a mermaid. Swimming, fishing, boating, it all appeals to you. You’d live on a houseboat, if given the chance. 

Requirements:  Presenting the Perfect Aquarium

Own a boat

Install a pond on your family land

Move into a houseboat

Reach level 10 Fishing

Suggested Traits: Loves to Swim, Angler

Color: Blue

Generation Nine - Wanderlust

Your parents loved the open sea but you want to see what’s beyond that! Visiting other cities, and even other countries. Learning and immersing yourself in the culture. You’ve read books about it, watched shows, and now that you’re old enough it’s time to dust off your visa and visit those places for yourself.

Requirements:  Seasoned Traveler

Reach level 10 in Photography

Collect a relic from each location

Go on at least 1 adventure in each country

Marry someone from a foreign country

Suggested Traits: Adventurer, Perfectionist

Color: Red

Generation Ten - Synthwave

You spent your life in other countries, other cultures, and you have to wonder, what more is there? You’ve inherited a love of traveling but is it possible to go to other timelines, or even the future? There’s not much research on it now but there’s only one way to find out. To the future!

Requirements:  Made the Most of My Time

Become best friends with Emit

Reach Level 10 in Advanced Technology

Complete the Time Keeper Legacy Statue Challenge

Create a time machine

Suggested Traits: Friendly, Adventurer

Color: Black

[babiebom]

Stardew Bachelor/ette's as relationship tropes

A/N: because this is cute and im in my feelings watching the little mermaid im feeling so giddy omfg THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR MEEKLALQOWOSOA also plus victor and Sofia(sophia?) WOW so if anyone has already read this it was not finished nor was it supposed to be posted so as I finish it it'll just be updating because i don't wanna delete it oopsies!

Tw: none? Idk maybe bullying???

Genre: headcanons

Wc:maybe like 5 bullet points per thing?

Sdv Masterlist

Strangers to Lovers:

Emily

Penny

Leah

Elliott

Friends to Lovers:

I feel like Penny and Leah would be a meet-cute sorta thing like at a coffee shop or a library

Maybe elliott also at the library or at a bar

But I feel like with Emily it would be somewhere chaotic

Like a concert

Or a rally of some sort

All of these would be like a romance novel of some sort you meet your soulmate on a chance outing super cute!!!

Sam

Sophia(Sofia?)

Enemies to Lovers:

Harvey

All of these guys seem as if they fall hard for friends mostly

Like yeah they sometimes find a stanger attractive

But I feel as if these people are the kind to slowly develop a crush on someone they already know

Sam would make the best tv show character and Sophia(pls someone tell me how to spell) and Harvey would make better book characters

Haley

Sebastian

Abigail

Second chance:

Alex

You probably absolutely hated these guys ngl

Like I feel like they have enemy quality

Like especially Haley and Alex they have high school bully energy to me

So even if they weren't bullys they would somehow end up on your kill list

Seb and Abigail seem like general assholes and probably did something to piss you off(im saying this as a Seb girlie)

Honestly my favorite genre to read but that's because i am toxic oops

Shane

Victor

Maru

I feel like these three would've been in relationships they had to let go of for different reasons and now that time has passed you meet again and get that second chance at loving one another

Shane would prolly be because of his downward spiral and you two broke up after a heated fight because he just refused to try so you left(Jas was torn up but doesn't really remember because she was younger)

Victor prolly had to break up with you because of Olivia and different statuses in money. She only wants the best for her son and unfortunately in her eyes you were not it.

For Maru i think its obvious Demetrius had something to do about it. Maybe you were in a relationship in high school

And even if her grades didn't slip at all when he found out he made her break up with you to force her to focus on her future.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

i think you're onto something with the romance novels world and plot points needing to mirror the kind of outlandishness of the love story. bc the main characters are already inherently acting absurd just by falling madly in love in a month or whatever and then if you add in the contrivances of romance tropes, it starts to feel like whiplash trying to pretend the characters live in any sort of grounded "normal" world. Like when the author adds in a family conflict subplot where the MC is like in absolute shambles because her mom said something slightly passive aggressive at lunch. that reads as more jarring to me than like conflict being something ridiculous that her mom doesn't want her being a marine biologist bc they come from a long line of fishmongers. Give me absurd drama to match the over the top dialogue and character emotions, I knew it would be unrealistic it's a romance novel! I guess this applies more to romcoms, but the same would apply I think to an analogous serious scenario. Or at least that's my take on it

okay so having just finished genuinely the most boring romance novel I have ever read in my LIFE I'm going to expand on this a little so thank you for sending an ask that gives me such a great platform to do that

I personally generally prefer a romance that just gets fucking silly with it, like really outlandish. A Lady for the Duke (Alexis Hall) is obviously the dream, being a whole swoony historical trans-affirming fantasy, but contemporary fake relationship stories can also be fun in their sheer ridiculousness, like Love, Hate, and Clickbait (Liz Bowery), which I actually liked, and Unfortunately Yours (Tessa Bailey), which I did not like but was very funny. and let's not forget queen Helen Hoang's Bride Test, which has a premise that dances perilously close to human trafficking but all works out in the end!!!

BUT HAVING SAID THAT. I don't think that something needs to be totally implausible to be a good romance. two of my very favorites romance novels anywhere ever are Helen Hoang's Heart Principle (no one should be surprised Hoang is on her twice I adore her) and Akwaeke Emezi's You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. both of these books are very grounded in reality but with very uncommon situations to heighten emotions and add urgency; in Hoang's case it's a character's adult autism diagnosis + death of a parent and in Emezi's case it's a very sudden and #problematic attraction coming out of absolutely nowhere. the stakes are very real, mostly centering around being true to yourself v disappointing your family, but the circumstances are still wild enough to make you say "god DAMN" and keep turning pages. hell, I'll even be extremely generous and include Mistakes Were Made (Meryl Wilsner) which is kind of a flop but does have the intriguing premise of "what if you were fucking a milf but her kid was YOUR BEST FRIEND and it was a secret?"

those are like the two sweet spots TO ME, and this book I just read (which was Thank You for Sharing by Rachel Runya Katz, I feel so bad putting it on blast but I know people are going to ask) really solidified it for me because TYFS didn't fall into either of those categories. I'm going to say something absolutely insane, which is that multiple times while I was reading it I found myself wishing that the book was fanfic, because on its own it just... didn't bring a lot to the table? it falls into the grounded category but doesn't really bring any of those heightened stakes to the story, it's just 330 pages of people in their late twenties complaining about dating and their office jobs. if I wanted that I could just ask my group chat! there's nothing particularly particularly gripping about watching made up strangers do it!

but then I was like oh hang on... if this was two fictional characters who are usually fighting with swords or throwing cars at each other or something this would be so gripping. it's literally the coffee shop AU principle, right? like seeing people in a very mundane setting having an office job and going to a bar is very shrimpteresting when they're normally defusing space bombs. I was explaining this to my housemates and I couldn't think of a straight couple to apply it to (the book is m/f) so I said Naruto and Sasuke, which is crazy because I've never seen a single episode of Naruto, but like. idk Naruto being a museum curator who has to work with Sasuke, a marketing specialist who he had beef with a summer camp 14 years ago, sounds kind of compelling, right? definitely more than just two people I don't know.

there's a post on here that I think about a lot that talks about why advertising a story with tropes doesn't work for original fiction as well as it does for fan fic because knowing the tropes is more helpful when you already have a sense of investment in the characters and their personalities, and I think this is related to that! I think sometimes you NEED to have a wider sense of scope for the characters for them to be interesting in a very mundane setting!

ANYWAY. much to consider, etc.

[sohkrates]

It Drinks Light: The Origins of the Xenomorph and LoadingReadyRun's Heat Death

In previous drafts of this essay I spent paragraphs outlining my love of the Alien films, defending Alien 3 and Resurrection, and using that to lead into why you would enjoy an Alien RPG actual play series called Heat Death. But I just spent a lot of money on a tattoo that I think will speak to my bona fides:

I like the Alien franchise. I like Geiger’s xenomorph, I like the clunky cassette futurism imagined in those 80’s movies. It feels increasingly like a much needed antidote to modern digital interfaces, and the maddeningly undefiled aesthetics of the corporate digital age.

But after I saw Prometheus and then Covenant it became very apparent to me that Ridley Scott isn’t interested in the parts of the universe that I am interested in. Or at least, his answers to those questions aren’t particularly satisfying.

There are some good things in those movies, don’t get me wrong. The moment when the two Michael Fassbenders have flute lessons is some of the gayest shit in the series, right alongside Ripley and Call having come good ol’ fashioned knife play in Resurrection.

The prequels also continue the theme established in the first few movies that the whims of the rich and powerful will doom us all in general, and the people who work for them specifically. Their corporations are shown time and again to be fundamentally opposed to human flourishing. True as it ever was.

But that’s kinda it for me.

The question at the heart of these prequels is “Where did the xenomorph come from?” to which they answer:

Some sort of chemical weapon or tool synthesized by tall aliens called engineers for ambiguous purposes. Millenia later this was discovered and hijacked by a singular android of human design, flawed in all the ways its creator was flawed. Some iterations and experiments later we get the xenomorphs we recognize. 

Admittedly there may be more nuance than that. But as far as I can tell any further details are all muddled in cut content and unskilled storytelling.

Ultimately, according to the prequels thus far, the xenomorph is something we did to ourselves.

That is not a particularly engaging answer to me. I don’t really care about how the titular alien came to be. I don’t need to see the engineers, or the origins of the space jockey. I liked it when it felt like that tall alien was merged with the cockpit, when it looked like one organism, a new and novel form of life from another evolutionary path completely unlike our own.

And if you feel the same, I have something to recommend to you. 

Heat Death is an actual play series made by the Canadian comedy/streaming troupe LoadingReadyRun in 2020 as part of their Dice Friends series. They did 6 episodes where Cameron, the GM, leads 4 players through their own scenario in the official Alien RPG.

And it’s one of the best Alien stories I’ve ever seen.

Cameron provides much more interesting answers to the questions Ridley Scott keeps asking, and in a method that compliments the familiar set up of Alien films. A typical day in the life of spacers is interrupted by a combination of corporate malfeasance and/or the existence of the xenomorph.

The setup of Heat Death is thus: The crew of the research vessel Ludomia, our PC’s and NPC’s for the series, wake up on a strange and grandiose space station called New Eden. Their vessel is missing, the rest of their crew is missing, and they have no idea where they are. They seek answers, they seek escape, and they try to figure out what was happening here hidden in the shadows of space.

And in typical Alien fashion, it all goes to hell.

Part of the reason the series works so well for me is because the GM has a background in the sciences. This helps when the characters are confronted with the truly alien things they find. I am an amateur appreciator of things like biology and astronomy ,and so there is just enough detail to make me feel like I know what’s happening, but also enough unfamiliar jargon that I feel an appropriate sense of awe and dread. Cameron doesn’t talk down to his audience or his players, he describes the world in ways that would make sense to the character’s point of view, and offers explanations and details when prompted.

The xenomorph’s biology is described as being reminiscent of Teflon, an immediately startling non sequitur.

The primordial black goo from the prequels is described as incredibly hazardous to human beings through exacting technical terminology. It makes it seem real and dangerous. In the prequels it always felt flat and… out of place.

I like Heat Death because Cameron and the players are actively investigating the question of the origins of the xenomorph without limiting the possibility space. It’s not a closed loop that begins and ends at LV-426 with the space jockey and its ship. Instead we see a possible answer to what is waiting for us in the stars, a galactic ecology that we have stumbled into and are ill-equipped to handle. It makes the machinations of Weyland-Yutani seem even more feeble and doomed.

It also works so well because the players are all in on it. They lean into the themes of the franchise, of roughnecks who shoot first, of commanders in over their head, and corporate representatives quietly manipulating things to their own end. There’s no power gaming or looking to get the upper hand or finding an optimal path to survival. They see the awfulness coming and they don’t look away.

There’s more that I could recommend about this series, but I run the risk of giving away too much. There’s the poetic introductions to each episode that give breadth to the fiction. The investigations of different bits of lore and tech, from faster than light travel to how synthetics work. But I guess I’ll end by going over all the players and their characters.

First there’s Commander Roman Moritaka, played by Ian, who I think more than anyone leans into the doomed nature of the storytelling. Ian is always ready to make the obvious mistake and try to do the most reasonable thing in an unreasonable situation. One of my favourite moments in the game comes from Roman making telemetry calculations. How many AP’s do you know that bother with the drama of rocket science?

Then there’s Clinton Barker played by Alex, a colonial marine who thinks in equipment and utility, and has no time for metaphor or theory. Alex is also obviously an Alien fan and someone who knows military tech and lingo, which lets him launch into interesting asides and funny anecdotes that punctuate the story.

There’s Gregory Sinclair Jr., the corporate liaison played by Cori. He is a perfect mix of uselessness and cold corporate comfort. Cori plays him relentlessly, a perfectly willing pawn right into the final moments of the final episode, and a constant needle in everyone’s side.

And then there’s Harris Schafer, played by Adam. Harris is a laid back academic and scientist, which makes them a great foil for the other characters and the perfect POV character to let us know just how bad things are, much like Adam himself. Adam is a great addition to the table, always willing to ask the basic questions and react in relatable ways.

I’ve already mentioned Cameron, and as GM he plays all the NPC’s with depth, and deftly cuts between scenes, heightening moments of tension and underlining moments of impending dread. His obvious writing ability is on full display. It feels like he loves this stuff. And in a way that Ridley Scott kinda doesn’t. Not in the same way. There’s curiosity and time and thought on display here, and I really appreciate that.

And that’s it. You should watch it, especially if you like the alien series and the art of actual play. It’s good. It’s on Youtube and it’s on podcasts. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Recommend me some other Alien fanfiction.

And if you would have liked to have read this earlier, or would like more essays and stuff like this, kick me a couple of bucks on Patreon. If folks like this sort of thing, I may do more essays. Heck, I'll probably do them if you hate it.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

is jgy different in the books than in the untamed? sorry if u haven’t read them im kind of just assuming u have even tho i haven’t lol but i was wondering if his characterization has any major differences like how wwx in novel vs untamed they sort of sanitize him and take away any culpability and honestly some of his edge. just curious if there’s any major differences in his characterization between the two

I'm not the best person to answer because I've only read the first two volumes of MDZS. Short answer: Yes, he is different, and in fact gets the reverse of WWX's treatment: Drama JGY is more overtly villainous than Novel JGY. However, IMO it's a little more complicated than that!

(Novel enjoyers, please chime in if I'm forgetting or misrepresenting anything.)

A lot of JGY fans greatly prefer the novel and feel that The Untamed did him dirty, because a lot of the show's plot changes that make WWX look better make JGY look worse. Jin Zixuan's death is the most glaring one: in the novel, WWX really does lose control of WN because he overestimates his abilities, and it's a tragic accident. JGY and SMS's implied involvement in the Massacre at Nightless City also doesn't happen in the novel; that, too, was a devastated WWX wreaking havoc and/or losing control. The novel also establishes that JGY is subject to abuse within Jinlintai, so there's an element of duress that one can read into his actions under JGS. Novel NMJ behaves more aggressively towards JGY than he does in the show, so his murder doesn't have the same tinge of malice. (The novel timeline also has JGY and LXC meeting before JGY and NMJ, all during Sunshot, so there's that.) Additionally, the novel tells us that JGY is genuinely a very good leader once he's Chief Cultivator and has implemented policies that have improved the lives of regular people and contributed to political stability. We're also told more about his childhood and his love for his mother, and we learn that his relationship with QS is a tragic love story (he doesn't know they're related until after she's pregnant) rather than something he went through with anyway. So in the novel, he's got a lot of positive things going for him that censorship didn't allow to carry over into the show for fear of having too much moral ambiguity.

HOWEVER!!!

The thing about the novel (and why I don't vibe with it as much) is that it's very much WWX's story, whereas The Untamed spends wayyyyy more time with its supporting cast. You might've noticed that I said the word "told" a lot in the above paragraph, because... well, that's what happens. We're told things about JGY, but we don't see him as much, especially since the novel is focused on the post-timeskip era with the stuff in the past coming through non-linear flashbacks. You don't get to see Meng Yao being Just A Little Guy very much before he becomes the Kitten Thinks About Nothing But Murder All Day meme. Now, you also don't hear dramatic music telegraphing HEY!!! HEY!! VILLAINY IS AFOOT!! HEY!!! every time JGY does literally anything, but you do have everything filtered through WWX's unreliable narrator monologue, and he is out there saying some truly wild shit. (You also get less Xiyao. Like, it's there if you want it to be, but The Untamed really went all-in on that.)

For me, the show works better, because I am a sucker for corruption arcs where you see glimpses of the character before they start the atrocities. Seeing him be Just A Little Guy making the saddest meow meow faces when people were mean to him kept me from totally losing sympathy for/interest in him once things start getting squicky, because I had evidence that he wasn't always like that. Meanwhile, JGY's first big scene in the novel is the confrontation with QS (which already makes my skin crawl and is somehow WORSE in novel form), and I was just like "wow, this guy sucks" even though I knew the story and all the extenuating circumstances already. For others, the novel works better, because "first impressions and society's opinion are unreliable" is a major theme, so the reverse reveal combined with the fact that he demonstrably tries to improve people's lives as a leader is less expected and more satisfying.

So yeah! JGY is different, but the ways in which he is different are due to storytelling methods as well as to plot changes!

[lovelykalopsia]

I projected my own Aromanticness onto Scar and now hes sad. Lolz

Romance was something Scar just absolutely loved, but not in the way of wanting to be in any sort of Romance relationship, it was more of...watching on of his friends be all lovely dovey, reading different romance novels, watching stupid romcoms, that was the kind of romance he loved. He couldn't even imagine himself wanting to experience it himself, he doesn't think he has ever felt intrested in it other rather just seeing. And he was happy with that, he didn't really want to experience romance anyways, it was perfectly fine with his freinds, even if it got lonely sometimes, but only sometimes! He could handle it, he didn't need to constantly around his friends when they had a love life, that was selfish anyways. He also didnt get jealous listening to his friends talk about how happy it made them to be inlove, it didn't make him wish he could feel that, even once. Nope, not ever, that would be crazy to assume. Although....

Sometimes, he did wish he could feel it, his friends made it sound so good, like it was the best thing they had ever felt. He wondered if he could feel love, he would be happier, not that he isnt already, just, maybe he could be a bit happier? And he can't talk to anyone about this because how would he go up to one of his friends and be like 'I think love is amazing, but its not for me, and that makes me sad' That really wouldnt make sense to anyone besides him. His feelings might just be broken, and he has to find a way to be okay with that.

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #19 – Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the third book I’ve picked up as part of my whole aspirational ‘read a piece of non-SFF capital-l Literature every month’ New Years resolution. Of those three, it is the second I opened only to discover it actually is science fiction and/or fantasy after all. Which is just a very funny thing to happen twice, and also meant the book was significantly less outside my comfort zone than I’d expected. Which did make it quite a pleasant read.

The story follows Klara, an AF (Artificial Friend, a companion robot for children) in a broadly sketched and mildly dystopian future America. At first it just follows her life in the shop where she’s kept, observing the world around her and interacting with the store manager and the other AFs, but the meat of the book is her life with the family who buys her. Over time you learn that Josie, her child, suffers from severe and increasing health issues as a consequence of being ‘lifted’ (genetically enhanced, in some unclear way) in the womb. Klara, being solar-powered and having quietly developed a one-robot religion underpinned by a firm belief in the power and benevolence of Mr. Sun (and a moral opposition to Pollution, which obscures and drives him away) does her best to invoke his help in nourishing and restoring Josie. At the same time, she learns that her job is not just to comfort Josie but, should she die, to be her mother’s replacement goldfish and imitate her perfectly.

The setting is broadly sketched and never really exposited upon – it’s just not something Klara is particularly interested in – but it’s a very modern sort of dystopia. Much of the populace, even among the American professional elite, have been left ‘post-employed’ by robotic automation. The remaining meritocratic elite have embraced novel and risky genetic enhancements for their children, as the only possible way of ensuring they get into a good school and one of the few good careers left. There are fascist militia compounds off in the distance somewhere. The overall feeling is that of a society dimly aware it’s midway through collapsing, but with no ideas of how to arrest its fall. But since Klara has no interest at all in either politics or economics, we only see this as it directly intrudes upon the story, with nary a lecture or manifesto to be seen.

I’ve only ever read one other book by Ishiguro, so I really don’t know how much this generalizes, but the similarities to Never Let Me Go really were striking. Both books are set in really rather horrifying societies, but portrayed in an utterly normalized way by someone who never even thinks to question the real rules they live under. Which is even more striking because in both cases the protagonist is seen by society as only quasi-human – like a person, but existing only in relation to and for the benefit of the people who really matter. And in both cases the story follows the protagonist who lives their life moving through the role they were made for without ever really resisting it, let alone changing it. Not that the roles of ‘friend to sick child’ and ‘mandatory organ donor’ are exactly comparable but, you know.

A definition I’ve always kind of liked for what makes literary fiction, well, literary is that it’s as or more concerned with the beauty and presentation of its prose than it is on the information the prose is conveying. Not at all true in terms of how the term’s actually used (genre is marketing), but it works for me, and lets this book count as literature quite handily. The whole story is told quite tightly from Klara’s point of view, and it’s a pleasure to read. Even if it took me more than a few pages to really understand how she described scenes, always foregrounding the ways they were divided by grids or patterns of the sun’s light.

Portraying the normal human society through the eyes of a naive and somewhat alien narrator to get away without explaining everything is a classic sci fi trope for a reason, but it’s overall used really well here as well.

I’m still not entirely sure how to interpret the sudden intrusion of magical realism with the ending. But otherwise, really quite a good read.

[my-favourite-zhent]

Writer Interview

Tagged by the lovelies @commander-krios here and @coreene here

Tagging: @dustdeepsea @thisaccountisagainstmywill @fistfuloftarenths

@littleplasticrat @captainsigge @grossestjay

Questions under the cut!

When did you start writing?

I suppose depends what counts? Where I went to school we did creative writing as early as six. The first stories I remember were Halloween stories I wrote with very unhappy endings.

Writing purely for myself maybe not till high school? I dabbled in a little fanfiction and then didn't touch it again for years and years and then suddenly BG3 and Rugan happened, smdh.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

Just like Krios I enjoy horror novels, although I actually prefer horror as short stories/novellas. If you look at my spotify history you will see a lot of NoSleep podcast and Knifepoint Horror so its definitely a running theme. I could never write horror though, would spook myself too much. I did rather like the tiny horror story in one of the books in Baldurs Gate.

I also enjoy reading low fantasy (low magic, more grit, considerably plucky, ensemble casts) which I think comes across in New Tricks, but in contrast the stories I read have very minimal if any romance.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Nope, as much as there are many writers I enjoy and at times think "I wish I were that talented" I also don't wish to be a perfect copy of anyone's style because what's the point of that?

I suppose if it was something more like "as funny as so and so" or "world-building on level of such and such" then probably Pratchett, Rothfuss, Sapowski or Glen Cook?

I will literally write anywhere, a lot of my ideas pop-up while daydreaming and I have to get them down when they happen or I won't remember clearly later. So at my desk, in bed, on the couch, on the train, standing in the shoppe, literally anywhere.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Consuming other media. Books, TV, movies, podcasts, etc. Seeing a scene or circumstance and imagining how the characters I write would react under similar circumstances.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Hmm hadn't considered it before but I guess so far: grey morality, class differences (this likely due to my muse being Rugan) and overcoming betrayal? I suppose the last one surprises me a little, I think I might just like the angst of it.

What is your reason for writing?

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I mentioned earlier I haven't touched personal creative writing since high school, although I did consume fanfiction on occasion. I originally returned due to a frustration at the lack of Rugan content. I wanted to consume, but at the time there wasn't much, compounded by the fact that I did not have an AO3 account at the time so of the few that existed I could only see half. So I started by writing how I thought getting that drink at the Elf Song might go.

After that I got a bit attached to the OC and was inspired by the works of @dustdeepsea to write something with a little more emotional depth. I was prone to daydreaming these sorts of things before but I never put pen to paper till now.

I'm happy any time someone enjoys my work, but I suppose the best comments are when the reader notices the characterization I've been trying to get across. It makes me feel validated that I'm able to write certain qualities without (hopefully) being too on the nose with it.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Me or my writing? Myself, hopefully reasonable and open-minded. My writing, I hope they find it funny and exciting in turns, I hope it makes people feel some sort of emotion even if negative rather than being boring. I hope the world I've tried to piece together from bits of Forgotten Realms lore feels consistent and cohesive, that the rules and stakes make sense.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Similar to Krios I think my dialogue comes across the best of all my writing, and it certainly feels the easiest to get down.

How do you feel about your own writing?

It seems to change by day and chapter. There are some things that when I write I'm quite pleased, and then come back a month later and am quite embarrassed by. Other things I didn't like originally but actually enjoy quite a bit on reread. I find myself having to just post things I'm unhappy with at times otherwise I won't get on with the story. I jokingly tell myself "we'll fix it in post!" and I have slowly begun some edits of early chapters so it's not a complete lie.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

It's mostly what I think the story needs at the time. There are times where I feel "augh we've been on this mood/theme for too long, the reader will get bored" but I try to reframe it to myself as "is the pacing good? is this scene necessary right now?" and that helps me make a decision that is hopefully a bit more objective. Sometimes we need that information for later, sometimes we don't. I have been known to go back and adjust a thing here or there if the current chapter is missing a bit of set-up and will continue to do so until the story is over. I'm treating it all as a work in progress.

Thanks for reading this far!

[donniesbabygirl28]

A little like Carrie

━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼━━━━

Warning: Cursing, mentions of smoking, Cinder (bitch ass), bullying, Randy being the cutest and sweetest boy ever <3

Pairing: Randy x Fem reader

Summary: Randy's best friend, y/n, was always fond of Stephan King- but never knew she would be living the life of her own personal favorite. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━ You walked down the steps of your cabin, lighting a cigarette before one of the counselors yelled for you to put it out. "Aw come on, its just one!" You said, smiling at her. Ms Kristy was your favorite counselor, she was always there when you needed her. She rolled her eyes before looking around. "Just this one time, Y/n. Go behind the cabin." You smiled, nodding as you went behind the cabin and felt eyes on you. You looked up to see Cinder. "Hey, Y/n" She smiled falsely. "What's up Cinder?" You smiled back with just as much sarcasm. She pressed herself against the wall of the cabin, her eyes scanned your clothing as she fixed her sun glasses. "Just walking around and I noticed you here. Which is really weird considering you are usually in the shadows of your boyfriend, reading your stupid 'King' novels. Did you do something different with your hair?" She teased, inching closer to you as you scoffed.

"He's not my boyfriend, he's just a friend- and no I did not. Also its not stupid, you should try it sometime, pretty nice." You snapped, getting fed up as you put out your cancer stick.

"No need to get upset, just checking," She laughed at you before walking away. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

You walked into the woods, your copy of 'Carrie' in your hands as you sat down by the Kayaks, turning to the page you left off on. You suddenly felt arms around you, knocking you over. "what the hell!" You screamed as Randy laughed, laying on the ground like it was the funniest thing ever. "Oh come on, Y/n. Just a joke." He smiled at you softly, playfully punching you in the arm. You nodded, turning back to your book as he slowly took it from your hands and started to read the page. "I haven't seen you read this one." He spoke softly, looking at the printed words that spread through the pages. You shrugged.

"It's my favorite novel so I don't really like bringing it outside, you know how camp is. People are mean." You said, leaning back against the old boat. The kayak was your favorite spot to hang out with Randy besides the dock house by the lake. The kayak was once blue- you could tell by the way rust was eating at the paint, showing a hue of some sort of pale blue. "Was Cinder messing with you again?" He said, finally looking up at you. You shook your head, lying right to his face. It broke your heart to have someone like Randy having to look after you like a baby. It made you feel weak.

"No. Just sayin'." You mumbled, looking down at your lighter. He nodded, looking back down at the book.

"Woah- This book is incredible, where did you get it?" He smiled at you, handing the book back. You laughed softly at him, gently taking the book from his hands. "Got it for Christmas. You should watch the movie with me, its even better." You smiled. He nodded, leaning back as well, his arm barely touching yours. It made your heart jump at the touch. Sunshine ran to you, smiling. "Hey Y/n! Come on, we're going to look for dresses for the camp dance." She breathed out, trying to catch her breath since she ran. "Oh, nah it's okay. I don't have anyone to go with and those aren't my thing really." You said, looking at her. "Go with Randy. I'm sure he'll take you." She smiled, looking at Randy then you.

Your eyes widen at her, making her shut up. "I mean, I would go with you if you wanted." He spoke quietly to you, smiling. You blush before covering it up, nodding. Sunshine smiled, grabbing your hand. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

You looked through your closet, pulling out all the dresses you had, which wasn't a lot. "Where are all the dresses?" Sunshine asked, looking at them. You shrugged, grabbing your last dress. "Told you dances weren't my thing."

"That one." She said, grabbing it from your hands. It was white, silky and ankle length. "You sure?" You asked, grabbing shoes. She nodded quickly, throwing it at you. "Go put it on, I'll find you some shoes to match" You did, walking out of the bathroom, looking in the mirror next to your bed. She squealed, smiling at you. "You look beautiful!" She said as you smiled, putting on the shoes she picked out. "Thanks, sunshine." ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

Cinder walked up to Randy, her hand on his shoulder. "Hey Randy." She spoke softly as he nodded. "Are you going to the camp dance?" She asked him, smiling. "Yeah actually-" "Great, so you'll go with me?" She spoke over him, her nails touching his knuckles. "Actually I'm going with Y/n. Sorr-" "King freak? Why would you go with her?" She sneered, not so happy now. "Don't call her that. She's my friend. She's sweet and I would go with her anywhere. Leave me alone and leave her alone." He snapped at her, snatching his hand away as she scoffed. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

Ferris did your makeup for you as Sunshine did your hair. "So who are you going with, Y/n?" Ferris asked you as she added lip gloss. "Randy." You blushed, looking in the mirror. You were disgusted with the way you act when he's around or when you hear the sound of his voice, or when you hear his name. "That's perfect. You two should get together, in fact." She smiled, looking at you. Sunshine nodded, agreeing with her. "No no, he doesn't think of me that way and he might be interested in someone els-" "Y/n L/n, What the hell do you think you're saying? I knew you were blind but I didn't think you were this blind. Randy likes you, Y/n." Ferris said, looking at you. You didn't say anything then, Sunshine finishing up with your hair. "Thanks guys." ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━ You walked out of the cabin, sitting on the bench that was by the field, people were already with their partners or friends, smiling and laughing. You looked at Ferris, she gave you a thumbs up as she took Sunshine by the hand. You felt a tap on your shoulder, turning around to see Randy.

"Oh hi." You smiled, getting up from your seat. He smiled at you, love filling his eyes, yet you didn't seem to notice. "You look beautiful." He smiled at you, taking your hand in his. You blushed, looking down at the ground. "Thank you.." ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

You smiled at Randy as he hugged you, hearing the announcements. "Okay, listen up. We have the votes for the camp dance. Remember, this isn't a real dance and its okay if you don't get picked. This is just for fun." The counselor spoke, before naming people. Your ears perked at the sound of your name, your eyes wide. You looked at Randy who had a proud smile on his face. "what do I do?" You spoke quickly "Girl, go up there! Hurry!" He smiled, gently pushing you forwards towards the stand. You went to the stand, holding the flowers that were given to you, smiling. His smile soon faded as there was another named called, it was a random boy that he didn't even know. And he got to stand up there with you. But he smiled again anyway, proud of you. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━ Cinder climbed up the steps to the top, moving some of the lights to put a tin bucket in the middle, mixing red paint with corn syrup. She looked at her friend. "I wonder if King freak would mind being Carrie for one night." She laughed, as well as her friend. ━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━━━─━━━━━━─ ⇀♡↼ ━━━━

He looked up, seeing Cinder with a bucket. He looked closer, seeing that it was about to tip over. "Y/n! Up!" He yelled, running to the front, trying to push past people. You look up before shutting your eyes tightly, feeling the cold liquid spread through your skin. You looked at your hands, tearing up before getting off the stage and running to the woods, sitting by the Kayak. Randy followed, grabbing your hand, turning you towards him. "Randy go away." You cried, covering yourself with your hands. "No. I'm not leaving, Y/n." He spoke softly, taking your face in his hands. You refused to look at him. "I thought I was really gonna be the dance queen." "Y/n, You are. Cinder just wanted to mess it up for you. But you were always the dance queen." He smiled at you, rubbing your cheek, not paying any mind to the red substance.

"And..I still think you look beautiful. In fact, I think you look awesome. A little like Carrie." He laughed, poking your nose, making you smile. "Really?" You blushed, even though he couldn't see. "Yes. You always look beautiful." He mumbled softly against your lips, inching closer, his lip barely touching yours You fill the gap in between you two, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "Lets go to the lake, get that stuff off of you." He smiled, grabbing your hand.