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mrs-harkness · 4 years ago

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Ocean Eyes (Part 1)

Pairing: Tammy x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.6K

Taglist: @peggycarter-steverogers @imgayandmymomdoesntknow

A/n: Hey guys. Sorry for the wait. Life has been so busy as I just became a certified therapist and just life stuff in general. This is just going to be a mini fic for fun while I work on writing my next big one- which will be for Cordelia! Literally nothing like Run to Me, so I hope you don’t find it disappointing. Just a little filler while I work out the plot for my next story!

You pulled out your phone, checking the time. 1:53 PM. Your interview was at 2 o'clock and if you didn't figure out where you were quickly, you were going to be late. You walked faster, panic dialing your best friend who had gotten you the interview.

"Hello?" the sweet voice chimed on the other end.

"Sarah! Help! I'm lost," you pleaded, looking at the address on the piece of paper in your hand and trying to match it to the towering houses around you.

"How did you get lost? I gave you the exact address. Did the driver put it in wrong?"

"No. I made the Uber drop me off at the entrance to the neighborhood because his car looked super sketch and I didn't want the mom to see me step out of a car that looks like it was used in a 70's porn film. I started walking and I got lost."

You heard Sarah shuffling around in the background, and what sounded like the tapping of keys.

"Okay, give me the address for the closest house," she said. Your best friend was a life saver.

"Uhhh... 768 Elm Street," you told her, trying not to look suspicious in this wealthy neighborhood.

"Hmmm. Okay you're literally two streets over. If you go to the end of this street, take a right and walk less than two blocks. You'll make it to maple from there. You somehow managed to be right behind her house. It will take you about ten minutes."

Shit.

"No! There has got to be a quicker way! I am going to be late!" You whined, stomping your feet on the sidewalk in frustration.

"Yeah, Tammy is not going to like that. She is very patient but she's got three kids so she really only has enough patience for them. Well wait, hang on a second."

"What? Did you find a quicker route?"

"Sorta. You should have just stayed in the Uber."

"Sarah I did not want to pull up like Will Smith from the Fresh Prince of Belaire, now spit it out already!"

"Well that house you are standing in front of? Technically if you could find a way into their backyard and through the trees... you could get to Tammy's house in half the time."

You looked at the house in front of you. It looked more like a post office than a home. Large marble columns, real gas lamps framing a shiny oak door, and a second floor balcony that seemed larger than Sarah's whole apartment. This is not the type of property you just meandered around on, but this job was also not the type of opportunity you just let slip away by being two minutes late.

You walked a little to the side of the house, and there you found your favorite thing of the whole house: A gate to the backyard.

"I'm gonna do it," you say to Sarah, who had been quiet this entire time.

There was more silence, before you heard your best friend draw in a breath.

"Don't get arrested please. Call me when you're done, or in lock up. Either way, be safe."

Sarah had always been someone who just supported and loved you no matter what. Whether it was moving on a whim to another city and crashing on her couch indefinitely or trespassing through a rich family's yard to get the job that would help you get started on your dreams. She was that type of friend and you loved her for it.

You didn't even say goodbye as you hung up and checked the time again. 1:55 PM mocked you on the screen. You shoved the phone in your pocket before quickly looking around. No one was out and about thankfully probably due to the heat picking up, so you walked briskly over to the gate.

You said a prayer and begged the universe to be kind to you under your breath as you forced yourself to find the courage and flung open the lock to the gate, letting it swing open. You looked around the yard really quickly to find it empty as well. Maybe this wouldn't be hard at all.

You closed the gate behind you and you quickly jogged into the yard. There was a picnic table close to the other side of the fence and you would be able to hop right over! You breathed a sigh of relief because everything was going to plan, until the dog.

A ear piecing yap began sounding through the yard like an obnoxious security alarm. You turned and saw that the back of the home was basically one big window and there inside was the ugliest looking purse dog you had ever seen, notifying every living creature with working ears within a mile of your presence.

You watched horrified as the owner of said ugly dog appeared in the view of the window like some horror movie on a tv screen. An older woman, dressed as if she had been in the middle of a workout, was also now yapping at you angrily and making her way to her giant window wall.

Your feet started moving before you realized what was happening and you bolted to the back of the yard and onto the picnic table, jumping and throwing one of your legs over the fence. The little old woman made it to a sliding glass door, releasing her dog and profanities towards you.

The dog tore across the lawn, but thankfully was no actual threat. You looked at the woman as you threw your other leg over the fence.

"I'm not a criminal! I'm sorry! I just got lost on the way to a job interview. You have a nice home!" you yelled, trying to prove to this stranger you were not bad, just had poor execution of your ideas. You dropped over the other side of the fence and into the wooded area behind the home, running as fast as your feet could carry you from the angry woman and her angrier dog.

It only took you about a minute of running full force to make it to another fence, a fence you were praying was Tammy's. You ran around the length of it, following it to the front of the house. You shakily pulled out the paper from your pocket and checked the address. You had made it. This was the house. You laughed, more relieved than anything, and jogged to the front door.

You knocked and weren't even able to take a full breath before the door opened.

There before you stood the most beautiful woman you had ever laid your eyes on. Her hair was the color of sand on the beaches of heaven its self and her eyes looked like brownies fresh from the over, and you had the strange thought of wanting to burn your mouth on them.

Y/n, that's weird. Stop it.

You stared at her, trying not to look to heavily at her gorgeous smile at the fear she may think you were looking at her lips. Even though you kind of were. You forced yourself to smile back.

"You must be Y/n," she said, looking at her watch, "and you are right on time. Let it be known I find that super attractive."

You chuckle nervously, unable to process a coherent thought. You really just hoped she couldn't tell you had just ran through the woods to stand stupid on her doorstep. Thankfully it didn't seem like she did and stepped aside, letting you in.

The home was gorgeous and lavish, but also homey and seemed lived in. You could hear the distant laughter of children somewhere in the house and portraits of what you could only assume were those children hung on the walls. You did notice though that there was a lack of family portraits probably due to the husband no longer being in the picture.

Sarah had filled you in a little bit about the family situation. She had worked with them over the summer and was working for them when they filed for divorce. Supposedly neither of them seemed upset by it, but he had still decided to move into another town. Tammy supposedly worked a very busy job and with three rambunctious kids, help was needed. Sarah had helped them occasionally, but Tammy needed something more permanent and hopefully that's where you would come in.

You followed Tammy into a big open kitchen and sat down with her at the kitchen table.

"Can I offer you some tea or water?" she said sweetly.

Even though you were parched from the mini marathon you had just ran, you politely declined. You pulled your resume out of your bag and put it on the table. Tammy reached over and took it, looking at it before smiling back up at you.

"I know Sarah said you had just moved here, so what brought you to town?" Tammy asked.

You hoped the look of confusion was not obvious on your face because you were expecting only questions about the job. You were unsure how useful you would be talking about yourself right now.

"Uh, well I came to town for a fresh start, and with Sarah here, it just seemed like the best place to restart."

"Running from something?" Tammy asked, putting down the resume and taking a sip of something in a mug that had been sitting on the table.

"N-no ma'am. Nothing illegal. I am not a criminal. I told the old lady the same thing," you stuttered.

Tammy raised her eyebrow at the last part, but you kept going to breeze over it hopefully.

"I just- I got my heartbroken and got kicked out of the apartment we shared. I didn't feel like I was making anything of my life where I was and I have such big dreams, but all I found there was pain and complacency, so I came here in hope to change that."

You voice sounded small and you ringed your hands in your lap, nervous that you may have said too much. Tammy's face softened even more somehow though and she smiled at you over the edge of her mug. She stared at you for a moment, her eyes seeming to sparkle. She nodded and looked down at your resume again.

"Well, you certainly have quite an impressive track record here. You seem like a kid expert. And because I already did a background check on you, I feel comfortable saying, if you would like the job its yours."

You sat there at the table, now not trying to hide the stunned look on your face. You had a harder time getting over the fence than getting employed by this woman.

"That's it? You don't need to ask me anything else? You're giving me the job?" you ask, stumbling over your words.

Tammy laughs and it feels like butterflies flutter in your belly. You like to make her laugh, but you aren't sure if she think's you're funny or stupid.

"With my life and my job, Y/n, the thing that is most important to me is being able to trust you. With my kids, my day to day life, and if I need your help with something. Trust and honesty go a long way with me, and you proved that with one question," she said, coming over to you with a glass of water.

You took it with a smile, forcing yourself to take a slow slip.

"Well, you can definitely trust me. And I'd be honored to by your nanny," you say, excitement and nervousness flowering inside your chest.

Tammy smiles sweetly at you.

"Consider yourself part of the family Y/n. Now you do know this is a live in position right? Sarah told you that?"

You nodded, that having been one of the main reasons you wanted the job. As much as you loved Sarah, you did not love sleeping on her couch. Being a live in nanny presented its own set of challenges, but it wouldn't be forever.

"Good. Can you move in today?"

You choked on your water, coughing and spitting it all over your shirt. Tammy laughed at you, and your cheeks burned red. Now you were embarrassed and Tammy sensed that.

"I'm sorry Y/n, I didn't mean to shock you. I just really need your help around here as soon as possible. And it would be better if you just came on in and got to know me and the kids since you're going to be a big part of our lives."

She handed you a paper towel, looking down at you with a comforting expression. Your cheeks burned red again, but not from embarrassment. You looked away and cleared your throat, unsure why you were so flustered.

"Sure. Yeah, no problem. I just need to run home and grab my clothes and things, but I don't have any furniture so-"

"Oh don't worry. You'll have the whole attic. Its renovated and fully furnished and you'll have your own bathroom. You don't need to worry about buying anything."

That was a relief. It would have taken you a while to afford those things.

You got up and walked with Tammy to the front door, her opening it for you.

"Thank you Ms. Tammy for hiring me, you will not regret it. I will take good care of your kids and make your life as easy as I possibly can," you say, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear, attempting to look confident and wanting to ensure Tammy she had made the right choice.

She chuckled again, putting a little hole in that confidence, but it was quickly repaired when she wrapped her arms around you. It shocked you and you stood there, frozen for a second before hugging her back.

"I know you will. You're going to be a wonderful addition to our lives, all of our lives," she said. Her voice had a hint of something in it, making it seem like silk, but then you felt her pulling on your hair a bit and you felt like your legs may fall out from under you. Who was this woman?

Before you could assume anything further though, she pulled back and revealed she had taken a small branch with green leaves from your hair. You laughed nervously. Tammy cocked an eyebrow at you and smiled cheekily, holding it up.

"That is a funny story... I can explain that. I promise I bathe."

It was Tammy who laughed this time thankfully. She nodded and played with the branch in between her long, manicured fingers.

"That's alright. You can tell me about it tonight over drinks once you are home. I'd like to get to know you better while we get you settled."

Something about the way she said it made your breath catch in your throat. She smiled at you and you two said your goodbyes. You would text her when you were on the way back home. How strange that felt.

You sat in a much cleaner Uber on the way back to Sarah's, your head pressed against the glass. You couldn't stop thinking about Tammy and it seemed like you also couldn't wipe the smile from your face either. It seemed almost like a dream.

Just then, your phone buzzed and you were pulled from the thoughts of the woman to see that her name was on your screen. You quickly held the phone up to unlock it, suddenly overcome with the need of answering her at a moments notice. Thankfully it was not a message of her changing her mind.

Btw, just call me Tammy. Ms. Tammy is a little formal ;)

You smiled and bit your lip, quickly responding.

Okay, Tammy :)

#oceans 8 #tammy #tammy oceans 8 #sarah paulson x reader #sarah paulson #sarah paulson fanfic #sarah paulson fic #mini fic

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aseasonwithclarasblog · 2 years ago

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Lily's Father: part 2

From Lily point sorta? Like her lack of understanding what's happening to Jack- so there's nothing near explicit

9 weeks into Jack’s captivity

tw: drugs, drug use, bbu, cutting, knives, blood, dizziness, hunger, starvation, medicine, boxboys, boxbabes, Jack starting to NOT like it here :), Al is horrid, implied stuff which you can take in any way you’d like (refrenced noncon)

Previous // ~ Jack Masterlist ~

~~~~~~~~~~

Jack woke up with a sickening headache. He tried sitting up, or at least he thought he did before his head fell back down on the floor.

The tile was cool. It felt nice against his blazing forehead. He tried to hold onto that thought but it slipped away with everything else.

He pried his eyes open only to see the room going in and out of focus. Was someone spinning him around? Everything was moving.

“H…hel-“ He shut his eyes tightly. “Help… pl-please.” His voice had a heavy strain. He could have sworn he felt fingers carding through his hair before losing himself back into a dreamless sleep of unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lily whined unhappily. “Daddy, stooop! He’s my friend!”

Al raised an eyebrow while chuckling. “He’s a pet, a slave, my little angel.”He picked her up as she shook her head almost violently. “Sweetie. It’s not a bad thing he is.”

“No, he’s my friend!” Tears welled up in her eyes, her voice even breaking a bit.

He hummed while rubbing her back. “Ok ok.” He rocked her gently. “Your friend. He’ll be ok. He’s just a bit… loopy.”

Kendall grimaced. Disgust filling up every corner of her face. Flinching when Al glanced at her when he silently told her to stop.

“What’s loopy mean?” Little Lily asked.

He hummed a bit. “It just means he’s a bit dizzy and tired.”

“Oh ok.” She nodded while watching Jack who sat down and held his head. Softly whining. The poor boy had no idea what was happening to him. Al had brought him in about an hour before, dropping him next to the couch. He was as limp as a rag doll.

When Maka walked over to try and help, Al kicked him until he walked away. He wanted the drugs to run their course.

~~~~~~~~~~

After a while, Lily was sent to bed and Victoria had her fun giving Jack little cuts everywhere. Showing off to her father how well her skills in the subject had grown over the summer.

“Careful not to cut anything importa-“

“I know dad.” She sighed. Twirling the knife in her hand to show off. “Even IF I did, he would like it. He likes pain. He mixes it up with kindness or some weird shit. It’s cute.”

“Cute?” Al snickered.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she glared at him. “Almost cute.”

“Mhm.” He nodded a bit, smirking faintly. “How old is he?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. Though all boxboys are eighteen.” She hummed while pausing over her words. “He didn’t come in a box though, and I think grandmother said he bought him illegally or something stupid.”

He nodded while considering. “Oh well.” He picked him up. “May as well start training him.”

“Training him?” Victoria laughed. “He’s already trained perfectly.”

“Not for what I had in mind.” He walked off.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Jack finally awoke he stiffened at the feeling of pain, it had been a long time till he felt it so strongly. When he shifted to stand the fire in his lower body grew and he whimpered while laying his head back down.

He stared at the ceiling. Tears were welling in his eyes before Lily’s head popped into view of his own. “Hi, Jacky Jack! You’re awake.” He could hear the smile in her sunshiney voice.

He quickly wiped the tears with one hand, taking a shaky breath. Nodding a hello.

“Come on, you’ll be late for the tea party!” She nearly dragged him off his mattress and over to her little table. He followed as fast as he could. Vision blurring out now and then.

Low blood sugar.

That’s why it felt so sick… right?

After a day or two without food, it started hurting. His stomach formed knots in discomfort. Sometimes he’d see black or white like it was a cloud coming to take him away. That would have been nice. Then he wouldn’t have to be trapped here.

Lily noticed the way he stopped halfway to the table. Holding his head.

“Are you hurting?” She asked, soft and concerned.

She was always concerned for his health.

If only he could tell her how much pain he was going through. The idea of a confidante sounded nice.

Then again he wouldn’t- he couldn’t actually talk to them. Therapy wouldn’t work that well.

He took a breath before nodding. She lightly dropped the doll she was holding and went over to hug his legs.

Healing hugs! Hugs make everything better!

“Did that help?” Lily giggled a little.

Jack took a breath before shaking his head again. Sitting down while burying his face into his knees. “N-n-no, Lil- Lily. I-It hurts.”

She frowned hard, tilting her head. “What does?”

He whined. Everything. “M-my head.”

She looked at him. Becoming a lot more serious. “I… don’t know what to do.” She mumbled. “I… um.” She bit her lip while watching him start shaking harder. “Are you hungry?” She offered our help. Blinking at how quickly he nodded.

She left the room. Going to the kitchen.

Now that her father was back the boxboy and boxbabes were free to be out. It was a, supposedly, odd rule of the house to make it seem like the slaves were always with him. So when he left for three months during summer their rule was to be hidden. None of them knew why it was this way, Al had his reasons.

She went to the kitchen. Looking in the fridge before finding some cinnamon-flavored applesauce, about to head back before grabbing four cookies.

When she returned she gave him two of the cookies and the applesauce. Setting the remaining cookies at the place where the tea party would be. Those were for herself, of course.

She looked over as he ate a cookie hungrily. Tilting her head. She never saw him so desperate.

She looked at him pityingly before looking at the applesauce. “Oh! I forgot a spoon, I’ll be back!” She ran off again. Finding the silverware drawer and getting her favorite spoon out. It was different from the others. It had small ridges on it, making it look like a seashell. It was the prettiest one in her opinion.

Maka glanced at her before going over. “Hello, Lillian.” He bowed briefly.

She looked up at him. “Yes?”

“Is Jack hungry?”

“Mhm. I got him applesauce and… the bestest spoon.” She held it up to show off.

“That’s cool.” He chuckled lightly before getting a water bottle. “Give him this ok. Also.” He gave her a small white pill which she stared at. “It will help him feel better.”

She nodded with complete seriousness. “I will. I promise.” She smiled up at him.

She let Jack eat and drink. “Are you still loopy?” He nodded shortly and she looked down at her hands, sitting in silence for a few awkward minutes. “Um, Jack? You can sleep some more, if you wanna.”

He looked at her for any sign of it being a trick. Of course, there wasn’t. No traps with Lily. “Th-thank you.” He whispered as he went back to the mattress and curled up tightly. She smiled while giving him a bear before going to eat her cookies.

Jack closed his eyes while sighing softly, burying his face into the soft fur of the stuffed toy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Written on July 28th, 2021

Next // ~ Jack Masterlist ~

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katara0524 · 3 years ago

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Impromptu Ramblings about the NEO:TWEWY Demo

In case y'all weren't aware, I've been a pretty big fan of TWEWY for a couple years now, and with the sequel coming out next month, the excitement I feel for this game is greater than ever :) I played the Demo for the first time yesterday, and following a couple views of some livestreams of others playing it, I felt like sharing my (very ramble-y) thoughts prior to the release of the full game. This post WILL contain spoilers for both TWEWY and NEO:TWEWY, so if you want to avoid those from now on, please block the tags: #twewy spoilers, #ntwewy spoilers, #neo twewy spoilers, #ntwewy, and #neo twewy ^_^ Oh, and if you wanna keep up with any other posts I make about my experience with this game, please refer to the tag "kat plays neo twewy" :)

-First things first: I have not watched the Final Trailer and I don't plan on doing so to avoid spoilers, especially after the pre-release era of KH3 where a lot of the later trailers spoiled a lot of the endgame content. That being said, I've seen some minor screenshots from the final trailer including what many believe to be characters from the original TWEWY, namely Shiki and Joshua. That is all I know about the Final Trailer and I would very much like to remain as blind as possible going into NEO :)

-The very first cutscene was quite ominous in the sense that this game is likely going to be about "changing fate" (a recently common theme in Squeenix games, which I do appreciate), perhaps leading off from the end of A New Day in the OG and trying to stop an Inversion of Shibuya. Also worth noting that A New Day had similar aspects in which the main character experienced "future visions" of tragic events, although in A New Day these events were not able to be changed, while in NEO it seems like one of the main "powers" our protagonist has is specifically to rewrite these events and avoid a "bad ending." Very interesting indeed!

-I really like the revamped comic book style dialogue scenes, it's much more fluid and modern, which is an excellent direction for the series to take!

-I would love to have an actual PokemonGO knockoff of Final Fantasy creatures, please Squeenix that would be incredibleeeeee

-Also the LINE stickers??? Are so cute???

-I would just like to point out that Fret is an absolute treasure throughout this entire demo, he's hilarious and I will protect him with my life

-UHHHH don't like that Fret picked up some Reaper Pins just out of nowhere.....or the fact that they're apparently popular all over Shibuya.............did y'all not learn anything from the OG game or what lmao

-Okay so when I first got the "curry or ramen" scene and heard NPCs talking about the new curry place replacing the old ramen place I became IMMENSELY distressed that Ramen Don was totally cut from the game because....well, Ramen Don is a King okay?? But I'm glad to learn that no, he didn't fall off the face of the earth, he's still in business and he's the one opening the curry restaurant lolol. PHEW, crisis averted!

-.....I don't like the sudden appearance of a Wall Reaper and being able to read NPC thoughts. Wtf happened when they left the ramen place??? Are they playing the Game alive somehow?

-Okay so I have my own theories about this "Swallow" character and what they're up to but considering this is only the Demo and I still Have No Idea What's Happening, I'm just gonna say that I think Swallow intentionally led Rindo and Fret to the Crossing so they could join the Game. I mean, add in the fact that Swallow still communicates with Rindo during the Game and you've got yourself a suspicious character right there lol

-"Hey they're shooting off fireworks!" Fret honey that's not fireworks oof (see also: "*laughs* I'm in danger")

-WOOOOOO way to traumatize Rindo right off the bat like that LMAOO

-The visuals for the intro are VERY GOOD, the song is pretty decent until it gets all "screamo" (which I absolutely cannot stand sorry lol)

-Shoka is every Customer Service employee ever and I respect that

-Susukichi went from being "meh" to "WOW THIS GUY IS FUN" in the span of 10 seconds and I also respect that (he is also built like an Absolute Unit which is hilarious)

-The Wall Reapers (and just Reapers in general) seem.....way nicer and more helpful this time around?? Like in the OG the Wall Reapers were SO RUDE gfhjgjdfkhn and yeah I'm sure we'll get some like that but the juxtaposition of the first Wall Reaper in the OG compared to the first one in NEO is insane.

-The puzzles are quite a bit more entertaining this time around even if it's generally the same "fetch quest" formula lol

-"Rindo's Group" way to go Fret HFKJDGHSDFKJ mans really left the default name in there lmao

-OKAYOKAYOKAY so to those who aren't aware I am a MASSIVE SIMP for Sho Minamimoto, he's my absolute favorite and I think about him daily. HIS INTRODUCTION IS. INCREDIBLE. I LOVE IT SM.

-GOD hearing him actually SPEAK FULL SENTENCES is just SO SURREAL I love this sm

-Also the remix of his theme???? NEO TRANSFORMATION????? IT'S SO GOOD????????? It's like gone from a Boss Theme to a more triumphant sounding theme and I am HERE for it (every version of Transformation is just INCREDIBLE and getting a new one is even better)

-I Love Him, Your Honor

-Also idk how exactly but it's kinda weird seeing Sho in the OG vs NEO, cuz while he's mostly the same Insane Math-Obsessed Catboy, he's.....calmed down quite a bit?? Like OG made a whole point of how poorly he cooperates with others (not to mention just being completely unhinged and trying to kill everyone), whereas here in NEO he's......actually kinda working with others??? HELLO???? Sir what happened to you and Neku during those 3 years I would love to know all about it

-I guarantee you Sho is still probably scheming shite and will likely pull some total insane BS later down the road, and I am very much looking forward to that. Also, is he looking for a certain Pin or something??? Cuz he keeps talking about different Pins and even mentions "this is just another Psych Pin" like he's actively looking for a Pin to do something with. Maybe it also has to do with the "latent powers of Players" thing he mentioned as well??? What is this dude UP TO oml (also is he in contact with Neku at all?? they're both technically fugitives at this point right?? WHAT HAPPENED AFTER A NEW DAY I AM BEGGING YOU)

-I seems like Sho ALSO has an idea of what's going on in this specific game (even if he won't admit it straightforward). Per his quote "The game's 142,857. Factor it out," he's essentially saying, "This game is a neverending cyle, figure out how to get out of it" (or at least that's what I got from his "cyclic number" nonsense lolol)

-I do like how Sho mostly stays out of sight until he's needed for a battle or assisting with a mission, that's kind of on par with his whole "uncooperative" quirk from the OG, plus he might literally have to stay out of sight of other Reapers and Players considering he's likely breaking the rules of the Game (not surprising considering him and Neku broke practically every rule in the book during OG)

-The nicknames for Sho- I can't- They're so FUNNYYYY GFHJSDFKJ

-He goes from being called "Pi-Face" and "Tabooty" in OG to "Mr. Minami" and "M-Teezy" in NEO LMAOO

-(Wowee I just realized I've been mostly talking about Sho oopsies sorry y'all, this is what I meant by thinking about him almost daily he is THAT much of a fav of mine ghfkjsd)

-Okay RIP Fret and Rindo for not getting literally ANY explanation as to how the Game works OOF, that is kinda cringe that whoever gets the Pin earns points, not whoever erases the Noise (which like I understand but also URRRGGHHH I WANNA SEE THE SQUAD SUCCEED)

-"I should be going home now it's getting late" Oh you sweet summer child-

-Also love the mention of parents in this game???? KH you could learn a thing or two from TWEWY (poor Rindo's mom fhgjkdh)

-KUBO IS HILARIOUS I SUPPORT HIM AND HIS GROSS FACE (also thank you Final Trailer thumbnail for spoiling my suspicions about him very cool smh)

-Kaie is a LAD I also support him, go King type those funky texts I believe in you

-FRET PLS STOP SCANNING FHGJKSDHKJFGHFKJ he's like me when I scan in OG during Weeks 2 and 3 and see Taboo Noise coming after me ghfjdshfj

-Also Rindo can you stay off your phone for TWO SECONDS ik you're trying to figure things out but Fret is a jelly boi and I don't want him to be upset with you my guy

-Sho being an actual sorta mentor to the kiddos?? Who are you sir this is so unlike you ghfgskj what happened to the guy who tried shooting children in the face 8 times over LMAO (granted he's probably just using them but it's still nice to see him actually cooperating and sharing knowledge with the kiddos aaaaa)

-EYO EIJI OJI THE TIKTOK INFLUENCER IS BACK LMAO

-hgjkfshgkjf "we aren't glorifying capitalism on my watch" THATS SO FUNNY TO ME GFHJFSDGHJKS (also an all-orange ensemble is disgusting you deserve jail for one thousand years fkn Cheddar Goldfish Cheezit ass woman)

-WICKED TWISTERS NAME DROP EYOOO we love to see it

-gfhsgjf Poor Rindo embarassing himself for the sake of the Game that's incredible

-R e t u r n t o M O N K E. That is all.

-Dialogue during boss battles is HELLA cool i love that

-HHHHH THE KANON SCENE MADE ME A N G E R Y FRET STOP SIMPING MY GUY says the girl with a Literal Simp Encyclopedia and simps for pixels on a screen daily

-Can't wait to see the other Reapers :eyes emoji:

-CAN'T WAIT TO SEE NAGI MY BELOVED YEAHHHH WOOOOOO AAAAND that's about it for the demo lolol, I absolutely CANNOT wait for next month, this game is gonna be INCREDIBLE holy hell Prepare for more simping, more screaming, and more vibing from Yours Truly :) I fully intend on sharing more general thoughts like this on both Tumblr and Twitter so it's not just reblog-retweet-reblog-retweet with the occasional comment fhgskjd

If you wanna witness my insanity up close and personal I have a Square Enix Discord server called Sea Side Dreamers! You can look it up on Disboard, or you can add me on Discord @Katara0524#9244 for a direct link :) We have topics about Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, NieR, and ofc TWEWY (as well as other topics!), so if you want some good ol' chaos and chitchat, you're more than welcome to join!

#neo twewy #ntwewy #neo twewy spoilers #ntwewy spoilers #twewy #neo: the world ends with you #the world ends with you #twewy spoilers #twewy rindo #rindo kanade #twewy fret #tosai furesawa #twewy sho #sho minamimoto #long post #also shameless Discord plug lmaooo #kat plays neo twewy

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years ago

Note

would you class percy as a morally grey character? i’m really interested to hear your input

Anon 2: Would u class percy as an Morally Gray character?

Hey there! Let me write that essay for you about morally gray Percy ^^

It’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s about he has to be otherwise the story doesn’t make any sense. At least for me it wouldn’t.

Ashley (@gr33kg0ds) said in the tags of my dark!Percy post something along the line of people diminishing Percy’s character because they need him to be pure and fluffy and I wholeheartedly agree with that!

Just because Percy’s twelve doesn’t mean he’s pure and didn’t do unproblematic things. I’ll mostly refer to The Lightning Thief because that book is the Magnus Opus for Riordan and perfectly stands for Percy as a morally gray character from the very beginning of the saga. (Also the only book I’ve recently re-read)

As much as I love fanon with all the amazing artworks, debates, memes and jokes, analysis, cool edits and wonderful fanfics, projecting your version of Percy doesn’t make the image in your head real. Percy in canon is not the fun and fluffy boy you imagine him to be or which social media sites (Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and yes, also Tumblr) tend to make him to be. He’s a scrawny little sarcastic twerp that was the unpopular kid. He isn’t that cringy dude Tony Lopez doing that fucking weird TikTok dance (side note: I don’t even know who this person is and I don't care, I saw the video and immediately wanted to delete every social media app on my phone, so thanks Tony?), kissing his Yeezys goodnight, vibing to our lord and gay icon Taylord “T. Swizzle” Swift song and flexing them iPhone 11 Max Pros. Percy literally said that going to Burger King with his mother once in a while would be considered a luxury. He’s a poor bastard in literal sense.

Part of the problem with the distinction of Percy’s character and his motives stem from the fact that Percy is a sneaky unreliable narrator and we as the audience (especially if you’re younger) don’t question most of his behavior if you even question some (pretty sure that most of us only picked up weird stuff as adults). Everything seems plausible to you. But does it mean that his behavior is necessarily good? Something that would paint his character as good?

Like I’ve said, let’s take a look at TLT. The very beginning of everything and the wonderful line that gets quoted everywhere: “Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood”.

The very first line that quoted everywhere or used as in moodboard and edits but its meaning and significance get brushed off for the most part. It immediately sets the tone and the atmosphere for the book and for Percy as a character. A(n in my opinion) morally gray character. The very first thing we hear from Percy is that he doesn’t want to be in this world. He’s an involuntary participant who has been (upon further reading) blackmailed and forced into this world and is only cooperating to get his mother back and said in regards to his father (who also stands for the Greek pantheon) ”well yeah, would be nice to know about my dad but I’ve survived without him the past twelve years so I don’t know, he wouldn’t be missed necessarily I guess?“ That pretty much tells you, it foreshadows, that we will be dealing with someone with grit, someone that fights back, someone that went through shit, someone that isn’t a goody two-shoed character. Does it mean he’s a terrible (in the sense of evil or bad) character from the get go? Not really, but it tells you in nuances that he won’t be the white shining knight you might expect from a fairy tale.

There is so much that little Perseus Jackson has to offer you directly in the first book. So much that paints him as a morally gray character. From the illegal candy stash all the way to tricking Procrustes into his own trap. He knows right from wrong and isn’t innocent by any means. He wants you to think he’s innocent. Yes, he hunts monsters and the book also tells you that some adults (Gabe) can also be monsters, but Percy’s personality is so interesting and full of facets which I love! He’s misleading you on purpose. Deflects, plays events down. He lies in front of you to others but you don’t really doubt it. Instead of questioning it, you understand it.

What distinguishes Percy from other male protagonists in that notion that the author doesn’t try to paint him as particularly good (the reader connects the dots, in reality) is pretty much that. Percy is neither inherently good or bad. He’s in the middle. He does lots of questionable things and his personality adds to it. Something that immediately comes to my mind is his lack of fear of consequences. He thinks in the short term and not in the long term. Of course, he’s caring about those that are close and important to him (Grover, Annabeth and his mother of course. And well. The world not getting destroyed by his weird father and fucking crazy uncle would be a plus). But Percy isn’t really a strategist (yet). Look at the Medusa head thingy. Annabeth and Grover warn him, that he’s gonna get his ass beat and he doesn’t care. That these gods could squish him in the end didn’t matter to him.

The Olympian gods are painted as these unpenetrable huge mighty force and some fuzzy annoyed twelve year old dipshit sends them the severed head of a monster - but not any monster, the monster his father had a role in creating (well, Athena for the most part, but you know what I mean). (Also, I know this kinda reckless behavior gets sorta rewarded but at first, everyone was like ‘NO, NO, NO!’ before Percy was glorious with his attempt). Percy essentially tells these ancient forces that drive the way of his new cosmos how shit‘s gonna work from now on.

Percy isn’t fear riddled and doesn’t think about the possible outcome. He manipulates, he lies, he persuades and all of this as soon as he hits twelve. But probably earlier. Pretty sure he had to become a believable lier in order to trick (survive being around) Gabe. Perseus is angry, he’s agitated. Had Riordan written Percy as a soft spoken, frightened, goody two-shoed kid, almost nothing in TLT and the follow-ups would have made sense. He’s the outcast, but slowly blossoms into the strength and muscles of the group. Of the entire camp. Someone that outsmarts opponents and wins battles. But he didn’t do that by playing nice and being a bootlicker.

TLT would’ve been a perfect standalone book that would have emphasized that Percy is an involuntary person sive) if you skip Kronos, leave a little bit foreshadowing with the prophecy out, tweak the talks with the gods and Annabeth’s first meeting and skip Luke and the scorpion at the end. The ending would’ve been “and so Percy had a first awesome summer vacation and found a group of friends for life” or so (aka PJO movie 1 in less shitty and more cohesive).

The morally gray character shrinks a little bit in the SOM because there lie straighter dangers ahead which dive more into the bigger picture and Percy grows more into the character who takes care of friends and but he does come back with TTC, and definitely BOTL and the St. Helens explosion.

Consequences of Percy’s interactions had people partially dying. There is doubt, there is guilt. But the show must go on. There are battles that have to be won. There is no big giving up, no big overturn for the bad guys.

Also... isn’t it interesting that we start with Percy saying ”look, I don’t want to be in this world“ in TLT and it ends with TLO where he says ”for once I didn’t look back“? The full circle? The way that accepting his fate took five books? To change Percy from being an involuntary participant to becoming voluntary? He didn’t want to be a half-blood, he didn’t want to be the kid in the prophecy, but he actively chose to be in the end. He went from a darker shade of gray to a mayhaps lighter, if you want to say so.

To conclude, I repeat myself again: it’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s that he has to be.

Thanks for asking me about some meta stuff I really do like diving into these things here and there. Tumblr’s sorta glitchy, I do get notifications but I really don’t see asks, so I’m sorry if my response is mad late ^^

#mel answers #pjo #Percy Jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #the lightning thief #rick riordan #the last olympian

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kareofbears · 3 years ago

Text

plainly in truth, chapter 1/5

“Without you around, it's sorta like stuff is just kinda...bleh."

—

Or: hiding, confiding, and misguiding.

read on ao3 or below the cut :)

The sweat on the back of Ryuji’s neck is thick as he climbs the stairs to his apartment after a lengthy run.

It’s hot for spring, mild for summer, and now that it’s late June, it’s finally starting to teeter into real heat. He escalated slowly, gripping the guard rail like an old man to make sure his legs don’t give out, in no rush to head back to an empty apartment. His mom’s been doing back to back shifts, businesses booming like it does during this time of the year.

Normally, that would make him miserable. Nothing worse than hopping back from a day of fun shit only to come back to an empty living space with laundry piled to the nines and the TV left running. He doesn’t blame his mom because he’s not an asshole, but he never dealt well with being alone. But nowadays, he’s actually starting to like it. Crave it. Maybe a little too much.

It’s easier to deal with being alone than getting that sinking feeling he gets whenever he talks to his friends.

Shoving his hand in his basketball shorts, he pulls out his keys when something makes him pause. The plastic plant beside the entrance had been moved. Ryuji squints. Quietly, he grabs the knob and turns. It’s unlocked.

“Hey.”

Ryuji lets out a frustrated sigh, tension leaving his shoulders as he kicks the door closed. “Fucking hell. How’d you get in here?”

Seeing Ann sit primly with her legs crossed in a dining table that’s barely big enough to put two plates down evokes a feeling of nostalgia in him. She holds a key between her fingers idly. “Spare key hasn’t changed since we were thirteen.”

He walks to the fridge, pulls out a carton of milk and drinks it straight, ignoring her grimace. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he offers it to her.

“Hard pass.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, putting it back in the fridge. “I’m gonna shower. I think we might have some chips in the cupboards if you want some. Might be stale though.”

When Ann speaks again, her tone is flat. “You haven’t been hanging out with us. Or even talking to us.”

He tries not to let the annoyance show in his face too much. “Yeah, well, what part of ‘I need some alone time’ was confusing to you?”

Wood creaks, and he can feel her presence right behind him. “Cut the crap, Sakamoto. Something happened, I know it did. It’s not like you for your big mouth to be shut like this.”

Shaking his head, he strides to his room, praying that Ann will take the hint.

She doesn’t. “Okay, so I’ll just keep talking until something happens.” She leans against his door frame as he rummages for a change of clothes, listing off with her fingers. “It’s summer vacation, so it’s not a school thing. Phantom Thief stuff has been done for a while, so it’s not that either. I saw your mom last week, and she’s doing great. Congratulate her on the promotion for me, by the way. And the only other thing in your life that’s important is—” he hears her pause suddenly. “Are you and Akira doing okay?”

The sudden sharpness in her voice is enough to make his irritation ebb away for a second. “We’re fine,” he answers, pulling a probably clean shirt from the bottom of his drawer. He knows just how much she’s invested in their relationship. She’s pretty much a third member given how desperate she is to make them work. “I would’ve told you if we weren’t.”

“Thank god,” she breathes. “So what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he rolls his eyes. “A big fat load of nothing with nothing sprinkled on top. You want me to say it again?”

“If it’s nothing, then why aren’t you over the moon that Akira’s finally visiting tomorrow?”

His stomach does a weird flop inside of him. He can’t tell if it’s a good flop or a bad one. “I’m over the moon,” he defends. “I’m crazy excited.”

“Then show it!”

“Okay! Damn, sorry I wasn’t happy enough for you.” Giving up on finding clean shorts, he picks one up from the floor and hopes it isn’t too gross. “I’m headed to the shower.” He rounds on her, giving her a glare. “And do not tell Akira that anything’s going on with me, ‘cause there isn’t anything going on. You’re just gonna make him worry for no reason and he’s gonna be all—” he frowns, overexaggerated. “—About this, so cool it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. He won’t hear about it from me.” Ann gives him a long stare, and he refuses to look away. “You sure you’re okay?” she asks, softer this time.

“Never been better. Now scram.”

“Good. See you tomorrow, and don’t be late!” she calls as she marches through his apartment, foot out the door. “Noon! Leblanc!”

“I got it!” he yells back.

When the lock clicks back into place, Ryuji leans his back against the wall, letting his eyes slide shut. Is he that obvious that Ann would notice? He rubs his eyes with palms, frustrated. If Ann noticed, Akira’s definitely going to notice, and that isn’t allowed. He’ll just have to do better.

Going into the bathroom, flicking on the shower, he realizes he forgot his towel in his bedroom. Stupid Ann, distracting him.

Padding back to his room, he nabs it from the side of his bed, refusing to look at the letter collecting dust on his desk as he flicks the light off once more.

—

Akira came home to a face-full of streamers, two pots of curry, and six arms tackling him. Smiles and hugs were passed like a bottle of wine after a war has been won, and Akira shrugs it all off like he isn’t soaking up each and every exclamation of how much they miss him for a rainy day. Morgana gets his fair amount of head scratches, Akira gets enough noogies to warrant a concussion, and even Ryuji somehow manages to forget his problems for approximately three minutes.

It’s evening now, and while everyone had already left (not after slamming down two plates each and Yusuke brazenly asking for tupperware after the fact), Ryuji decided to linger.

“So,” he starts, sleeves rolled up as he washes the dishes while Akira dries. It might not look like it, but he doesn’t mind doing his chores; especially not with the way they both purposefully knock their knuckles against each other whenever they pass a plate between themselves.

“So,” Akira repeats. “I’m home. That’s cool, huh?” Even with eighteen layers of nonchalance layered on top of each other, there’s no hiding the lilt in his voice.

“Pretty damn cool,” he rinses a mug and hands it to him. Ryuji pauses as he watches Akira dry, lip quirked up. “I like seeing you like this.”

“Cleaning?”

“No, you bastard.” He reaches forward, unable to help himself as he pinches his cheek. “Smiley.”

Akira slaps his hand away. “I’m always happy,” he says, voice fond.

“I didn’t say happy, now did I? I said—” Ryuji wipes both hands on his jeans before pinching his cheek with both hands. “Smiley!”

He doesn’t fight back this time; instead, he lets Ryuji knead his face. “Your hands are wet,” he complains, slightly slurred.

“Suck it up.” His skin is mesmerizingly soft. Probably softer than even a girl’s. He would hold him like this all night if he’d let him. “This saves you from washing your face tonight, so you’re welcome.”

With one last tug, he reluctantly sets him free. Akira’s face is red and blotchy from the assault, but somehow he pulls it off because of course he does. “Thanks,” he deadpans.

“Don’t sweat it, dude. You know I got you,” he laughs, and for a second, he feels good. Light. Being with Akira does that to him, a pendant that wards off all evil. The pendant must’ve had some fine print in the contract though, because his stomach drops again when he remembers again. Ryuji turns around and starts scrubbing the pan harder than he needs to. Chill out, chill out, chill out.

Arms encircle his waist. “Sojiro’s gonna smite us if we don’t finish these before he opens tomorrow,” Ryuji says.

“I know.” A chin hooks around his shoulder blade, sliding in place. A perfect fit. “We’ll get to it.”

Ryuji leans back, far enough to smell the shampoo in his hair. He breathes in deep. It’s not what he’s used to, probably different brands in his hometown, but it still smells nice.

With the water still running, a group of businessmen’s laughter booming from just outside the cafe, Ryuji nearly says it. To take that weight off of his weakened knees and share some of the burden with someone who’s never complained about carrying some of his baggage. It would be embarrassing, humiliating, fucking mortifying, but it would be better than this, right?

He opens his mouth. “Missed you,” is what comes out instead.

“Missed you more, I think.” A beat passes, and then Akira continues, quietly: “You don’t know how good it feels to be back.”

That was all it took. The final piece, the last lock. The words he needed to convince him that this was the right thing to do. If he was on the fence of whether or not to tell Akira, this was the tug that took him over the edge. Because Akira came here for one reason: to have fun. To feel good again. To feel like Akira again. Is Ryuji really going to be the one to shit all over that? To fuck up his summer vacation with his problems again?

Yeah. Fuck that.

He wishes he can pull Akira impossibly closer. “Welcome home.”

It can wait until he leaves. After that, the world will just have to explode, taking him with it.

—

Ryuji’s in bed that night, tossing and turning, blanket tangled in his legs and head underneath his pillow, when he finally caves.

Smacking around for his phone, he pulls it to his face, squinting against the bright light.

SR: futaba

The response was immediate.

SF: what SR: that was fast. whatre you doing up SF: im always up. why are YOU up SR: just wanted to talk SF: ok

He waits a few moments to see if she’d continue the conversation. She doesn’t.

SR: hows school? SF: ?????? who cares, its three am SR: i care SF: ugh, go to sleep. we’re meeting tomorrow anyway SR: yeah but you dont talk about school during group meetings much SF: alright weirdo SF: schools cool. people mostly leave me alone, and i think akira must’ve tipped off kawakami cause she is wayyyy too nice to me even after bullying her in front of the class SR: what did you do lmfao SF: she said that whoever could recite pi to ten decimal points can get a bonus ten percent in the final SF: and i kept going until the bell rang SR: damn! SF: its mostly okay though. better than i thought it’d be for sure SR: and how about actual school stuff SR: like classes. Math, science, english, all that shit. SF: sheesh, easiest part no doubt. could do all that stuff in my sleep SR: really? even though youre a year behind? SF: uh yeah? i could be eight years behind and still dunk on these clowns with one hand tied behind my back and watching a live stream

Ah, right. Futaba’s a literal genius. As in ‘Make A Documentary Of Her In Twenty Years In A Movie He’d Never Watch But Makoto Would Love’ kind of genius. He forgot.

SR: nice SR: thanks, im gonna sleep now SF: kk see you SF: (¯﹃¯)

—

“Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous,” Ryuji says when he opens the door to his apartment.

Ann is sitting in his dining chair once again, this time donned in hot pink shades and a comically big sun hat. He tries not to let annoyance and panic flare inside him. He loves her, because of course he does, but he was banking on stocking up some energy and alone time before they hit the road. Maybe even shed a couple of frustrated tears, who knows? As long as he’s alone, it’s fair game.

“Hey, don’t give me any of that,” Ann says. “You and packing your luggage is like mayonnaise and my flawless complexion—it’s not good, buster. Remember Hawaii?”

He feels his skin heat up, and slams the door harder than he should. “How the hell was I supposed to know I’d get randomly checked? ‘Sides, I didn’t do anything illegal.”

“A backpack filled with condoms and a toothbrush might as well have been illegal.” Ann reaches into her pocket, whipping out a wrinkled piece of paper. “You can’t pull that kinda crap now, and if I know him as well as I do, I’m sure Akira’s already packing for that.” She laughs at her own joke and raises her hand enthusiastically. He can’t help but grin as he high fives her. Hey, even if his life is falling apart, at least he’s still getting some, right?

“So I’m here to help,” she continues, shaking the sting from her palms. “I finished packing a day early and everything, so I better get some thanks after this.” Before he can complain, she holds up a finger, expression stern. “I know you don’t need help. Yes, I’m still worried about you. Yes, I’m doing this because I’m worried about you. Let me do this stupid little thing, okay? It’ll make me feel better.”

His stomach churns, more intense than usual. “You’re still worried about me?” he asks, breath hitching. What? No. Did he fail at that too? Does she know? That must mean Akira knows, right? And if Akira knows, then—

“Whoa, hold on!” A hand grips his shoulders. “Deep breaths, Sakamoto. Don’t spiral on me now.” Gently, he’s led to a chair. He sits gratefully and waits for his heart rate to drop. The entire time, Ann stays quiet.

Eventually, when the room stops closing in on him, he sighs and leans back against his chair. “Sorry,” he says, feeling really stupid. Damn, what happened to him keeping this on the down low?

She slaps his knee. “Shut up, don’t apologize for that,” she scolds, and he almost smiles. It’s easy to forget how good Ann is at this sort of thing. For better or for worse, she’s had plenty of practice while talking to Shiho. The grip on his knee tightens. “Ryuji…”

He shakes his head. “No.”

And, for better or for worse, she absolutely does not let things go.

“Look, buddy.” The grip is starting to hurt, and it means business if her red acrylics are anything to go by. “I just saw you have a teensy little panic attack two damn minutes ago, and you’re expecting me to just leave you to it? Are you a clown? Are you a clown in a circus, Sakamoto? Is that what you are?”

“I just don’t want to fucking talk about it.” He shoves her hand off his knee, and before he knows it, his voice is raised. “Christ, can’t you just leave me alone? All you do is get up in my business when I clearly didn’t ask you to. Just cause we did this whole Phantom Thief crap together doesn’t mean it gives you the right to everything going on in my life.”

He loathes the ringing in his ears from his own voice. He hates it when he yells in the apartment, but hates the silence that follows more. Too much like his dad, too much like his exhausted mom.

Ann is staring up at him, hard and unwavering. “You’re such a piece of shit sometimes.”

“Huh?”

“If you want me off your tail, you’re gonna have to work harder than that.” She gets on her feet, glaring at him. “‘Piss me off and make me leave in tears’ was your tactic, right? Boring. Overdone. Try again.”

The way she’s standing, shoulders pushed back and chin jutted out like she’s ready for a shoot in some kind of army magazine, means she’s dead serious.

“Ann, just get the fuck out of my house. You’re really starting to get on my nerves.”

“Ooo, classic 'angry and make me storm off’, right? Better, but not good enough.”

“What the hell are you even saying?”

“I’m saying that you could say whatever pops into your bleached head—” she flicks his forehead, viciously sharp nails digging into his skin. “And I wouldn’t go anywhere. You could call me names, or threaten me, or try to hurt me, but I am not going anywhere.”

Her eyes are bright blue, but he can still feel the heat of it like Carmen was inches in front of him. His throat quivers when he swallows. She’s really not going to give in.

“My knee’s been real bad lately,” he relents, making a fist and lightly knocking it against his thigh. “Normally it acts up during bad weather, but the sun hasn’t left in weeks and it still sucks. I didn’t wanna tell anyone, ‘cause I hate talking about…” he trails off, but she doesn’t need him to continue. They both know damn well who he’s referencing.

Ann’s face crumbles. “That’s horrible,” she says, absently rubbing the red mark on his forehead. “I’m sorry I was mean.”

He waves it off, the same way he does whenever his mom asks him if he’s getting enough sleep. “Don’t sweat it. I know how crazy you get.”

It’s a real testament to how worried she must’ve been when she didn't take the olive branch. “I know you probably don’t want to worry the group, but you should tell Akira.”

“Ann—” he starts wearily.

“You know I’m right about this. Now that the Metaverse is back and we’re going to be running around more, he can’t not know about this. Your boyfriend aside, he’s our leader. Something really nasty can happen if we’re not thinking straight.”

“...Sure.”

Ann gives him a weird look. “That was surprisingly easy. I thought you’d complain more.”

She’s getting way too sharp. “What, you wanted me to be a dick about it?”

“I guess not.” Leaning against his kitchen counter, she chews her lip like it’s bubble gum. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Yeah.” Ryuji stands to stretch, ready for this conversation to be over. “You can keep this between us—”

“—Except for Akira,” they say in unison, Ryuji exasperated and Ann insistent.

“Fine. I’ll back off if you think you have it under control.”

“Hallelujah, she’s finally giving me space.”

“But,” her gaze is harder than steel. “Never, ever keep secrets from me again, got it?”

Ryuji rolls his eyes. “Gotcha. Can we get started now? I’m over talking about my horrible past so that we can finally have a straight-out-of-an-anime summer vacation.”

Her eyes brighten up. “Yes! Okay, I made this huge list and I know for a fact we’re gonna have to go for a quick shopping trip—”

“Quick? So, like, three hours going by your standards?”

“Don’t interrupt me. We need to pack some swim trunks, toiletries, and I know you’re worried about your mom so we’ll go grocery shopping for her before we leave in the morning.” Feet tapping excitedly, “This is gonna be so fun. You start packing, I’ll go shopping. Rendezvous in an hour.”

Before he even gets a chance to put a word in, she’s already out the door.

—

Later that night, when everything is messily thrown into one oversized backpack and a rucksack and the fridge is chock full of groceries for his overworked mother, he gets a text.

TA: i know you said not to bring it up but i dont care TA: i searched it up and apparently cold and hot compresses can help with the pain on your knee TA: also getting shoes with really good support would help too. i modeled for some shoe brands, i can def get you some discounts!!! TA: like, i know this is all base level stuff and you know this already, but i bet you we can ask sophia for more help. maybe she can access top secret doctor stuff for knee injuries?? :O

Ryuji stares at his phone for a long moment, before shoving it under his pillow.

Great. Add ‘guilt’ and ‘keeping up with a lie’ to the list of shit he has to worry about.

—

“A lake!” Yusuke cries, kneeling in front of the body of water like a man discovering a desert oasis. Gently, he cups the clean water and cradles it against his cheek. “You are nothing like the garbage-infested sewers in Tokyo. You are crystal clear. You are divine. You are salvation. You are—”

“Akira, Inari’s being a weirdo again,” Futaba points an accusing finger at Yusuke, who’s shirt is slowly absorbing more and more of the water. “At this rate, he’s gonna have to change.”

Makoto grunts as she lugs out the grill singlehandedly, a loud clang ringing out when she nonchalantly sets down a family-sized piece of machinery. “Alright, here it is.” She catches the look of awe that Ryuji’s giving her. “Does it still shock you that I can probably bench press you twice over?”

“I’m just trying to figure out where you’re hiding all that muscle, prez,” he snorts, and it’s the truth. Her and Akira must be the same breed, considering they’re both way too lithe to be this strong. He’s seen the way they throw a punch in the Metaverse—they could probably disintegrate a dude in real life if they really wanted to. Like yeah they workout, but not that much. Maybe they’re dieting too? He’s tried dieting, but ramen is just way too good, even at the expense of muscles.

“Ryuji, when you’re done spacing out, can you grab the ingredients?” Akira calls out.

“Ugh, cut the mind reading dude, it scares the hell out of me.”

He shoots him a signature Kurusu Akira smile; small yet disarming all the same, and it never fails to get Ryuji’s heart to do weird flips. “It’s not mind reading once you realize that I’m just obsessed with you.”

Instead of answering, Ryuji grumbles as he stalks off into the RV. Damn him and his genuine words and compliments.

He pulls out their luggage from underneath the table. Akira doesn’t need to say what ingredients he needs to grab—he’s helped out enough times during Leblanc’s afterhours to know the curry spices by heart. Ryuji might be a failure, but hey, he can do this no problem.

Grabbing bottles and shakers and balancing them on top of his arms like an overworked waiter, he glances left and feels his heart dropped. The envelope from his room—dust-free from rubbing against the rest of his luggage—is sticking out of his backpack. After a quick adjustment, he uses his free hand to shove it deep in his bag, hearing the paper crinkle in on itself.

It was a spur of the moment decision to bring it along with him, one that he’s still half-regretting. Why’d he do it? Maybe he was worried that he might enjoy this trip a little too much? Maybe he was some kind of masochist that likes having his problems and anxiety follow him literally everywhere he goes? Maybe he was scared to hell and back that his mom would find it before he had a chance to tell her himself? Fuck if he knows.

Poking his head out of the door, he yells, “Heads up!”

Throwing a bottle of black pepper, Akira catches it without looking. “Thanks.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

“Too late, I already sweat a little bit.”

Ryuji squints. “It’s sweated. Right, Ann?”

“Don’t look at me. I went to America for modelling, not a spelling bee.”

“I won all my spelling bees in middle school,” Makoto says, chest puffed out in pride.

“Were you the only one who joined?”

“That’s not important.”

Akira’s phone beeps enthusiastically, and Sophia’s voice rings out. “Got it! According to the internet, ‘sweat’ and ‘sweated’ are both grammatically valid. Technically, both Ryuji and Ann are correct.”

“Can we all just shut up for a second about sweating, for the love of god,” Futaba fans her face weakly. “It’s already sooooo hot. I feel like my skin is melting. Yusuke, is my skin melting?”

He looks at her for a moment, peering closely. “Yes.”

“How about we go in for a quick dip in the lake?” Haru offers, and Ryuji suspects that she can feel the same energy that he’s feeling when the group gets like this. “We were all talking about how beautiful it was, and it would cool down Futaba-chan no problem.”

She leans down, swirling her hand in the water. “It’s a little chilly, but it’ll definitely take care of the heat.”

“Good idea!” Futaba jumps up and throws off her shoes, ready to march in. “This is gonna feel so good.”

“Socks!” Akira reminds her.

“I know that!”

Haru and Yusuke follow suit, eager to get away from the heat, Makoto going in to change to shorts. Ryuji guesses it’s probably not an easy feat to roll up leather pants. Probably makes it either to ride motorcycles, or whatever people with leather pants do.

He feels a poke in his side. “You hopping in with them?” Akira asks.

No. The answer is already at the tip of his tongue, ready to roll out. Given how cramped the RV is, keeping up the trademark Sakamoto energy while lugging more baggage than an airport employee is brutal. It’s barely been a day since they started the trip, and he’s not sure how much longer he can keep this up. Already his chest feels heavy with something, and whenever all the windows are rolled up, it gets weirdly hard to breathe. But if he says no, Akira would definitely know something was up.

“Uh—”

“Actually, I think we’ll take over the curry for you,” Ann cuts in.

Ryuji turns to her, startled and wide eyed.

“Why?” Akira asks, just as confused as he is. They both know how much Ann loves being in the middle of things, especially in group hangouts.

“Because you look like you could use a break. I know for a fact that you had to pack Yusuke’s stuff for him, or else the van would’ve had fifteen canvases and an easel, and you had to grocery shop for everyone, and talk Haru out of a guilty spiral because she wasn’t confident enough in her driving. And all this before—” Ann looks down at her wrist to peer at a non-existent watch. “Five o’clock.

He frowns. “Sure, but I’ve done twice as much during our prime. This,” he gestures at the pot. “Is a walk in the park. Thank you, though.”

Ann sighs, heavy and contemplative. “I didn’t want to say it out right, but since you’re being difficult…” She places a hand on his shoulder. “You should hang out with Futaba more. Being gone from her for that long has been rough, and yes, we took care of her while you weren’t there, but you’re different.” Her hand tightens. “You know, Wild Card and all that.”

“That’s not what that means, but I appreciate the effort,” Akira says. Despite his words, it’s clear that what she said bothered him. Eyes flickering to Futaba, enthusiastically kicking the water to see how far the droplets would go, he directs his gaze to Ryuji. “Is it okay if…?”

Ryuji rolls his eyes, pretending like relief isn’t crashing through his body. “Go.”

Akira kisses his cheek. “Thank you.” When he pulls away, he gives Ann a hesitant look.

She grimaces. “Thanks, but no. Go hangout with the gremlin.”

He gives her a salute and saunters off, rolling up his jeans to wade through the water, making sure to splash Futaba on the way there.

After a moment of silence, he sighs. “Fine, I’ll say it. Your acting classes are actually doing you some good.”

“Ha!” she points at him triumphantly. “And you said it’d be a waste of time!”

“I didn’t say that.” Ryuji slouches into a nearby camping chair, the one that Sojiro forced them to lug along, hoping that some of his fatigue would seep away. “We both know that Futaba’s never been better, so what’s up? Why’d you throw out Akira like that?”

“It’s not for me, stupid,” she scoffs, but he can’t help but feel the weight in his chest get even heavier. He sinks even deeper into his chair. “The water was cold, right? That would make your knee even worse.”

“Yeah,” he blinks, having already forgotten the whole fucked-up knee story. “Thanks.”

“I won’t chew you out for not telling Akira, even though I should. But like I said,” she ruffles his hair. “I got your back. I know it must be hard, but you’re still acting all normal. We’re lucky that it’s only affecting you in the real world, too.” She had come up with that one herself, and thank god she did, cause he wouldn’t have known what to say if she had confronted him on how he could easily do flips and sprints in the Metaverse. “That just takes a lot of guts, and even though I know for a fact this would make you feel so much better once you tell him, I trust that you know what you need better than me.”

“Quit trying to look all cool,” he says, and prays to fucking god that the red on his face comes off as embarrassed gratitude rather than earth-shattering guilt. “And aren’t you supposed to be cooking, curry master?”

“Hey, he asked you to do it, not me. I’ll help you get the ingredients, but no way I’m doing the whole cooking shebang.”

“Ugh, fine,” he says, as if he doesn’t secretly love the idea of getting to cook for Akira this time instead of the other way around. Pushing himself up, Ann reaches out to help him. “You don’t gotta baby me, Takamaki.”

“I’ll baby you for as long as I need to, and then eventually Akira will be the one babying you. We come in shifts.”

“I hope you’re unionized.”

Makoto pokes her head out of the RV, wearing a showercap. “Did someone say unionized?”

“What the hell?” Ryuji staggers back in shock. Crap. “How long have you been there?”

“And why are you wearing that?” Ann gasps.

“Not long, and I don’t want my hair getting wet in case I fall in. We have no idea what’s been in here.”

“Were you going to fall in a bathtub?”

“Did you want me to push you in?”

“No, ma’am.”

—

There wasn’t a problem initially. Well, not one in Palaces, anyway. Wait, they’re called Jails now, which is really confusing. Ryuji’s just gonna have to avoid using those words so he doesn’t make himself look like an idiot.

Back in Shibuya, it had been...fine. Attacks landed, punches were dodged, Batons passed like his life depended on it (and it did). Like clockwork, instinct came to him and the weird nostalgic normalcy of fighting Shadows made it bearable.

Ryuji was off his game, and he could tell.

But he was barely off his game. If anything, he still had a foot on his game. Maybe even an entire leg on the game if he was being generous. He was still enough on the game that even Akira doesn’t notice.

But the weird part was, he doesn’t mind the fact that he’s off his game. In an even weirder way, he’s never been more on his game in his entire life.

“There!” Futaba’s voice crackles through the comms. “Uncle is open wide!”

“Her name is Ante, Oracle,” Makoto responds, brass knuckles jammed into the throat of some poor Shadow. “It’s open, but it’s vicious.”

Ryuji calls for Kidd just as she pulls away, wiping out the rest of the weaker ones with ease. “This thing’s like a goddamn mousetrap.” Ante’s serpent body slithering on the cool tiles so fluidly that it gives him the creeps. Her tail has tiny spikes etched into it, like mini knives hot glued onto a tetherball. The minute any of them even come close, she strikes outwards. “How vicious is vicious?”

“Depends on how fast you are.”

Akira’s head jerks up, and when their eyes meet, cracks a smile. “Fast, you say?”

Ryuji grins wider than he has in days. Joker relying on him? How can someone not feel a little giddy at that? “Say no more, leader.”

He stretches quickly, and feels eyes piercing the back of his head. Ann, probably. Shrugging it off, he sprints low towards Ante. As long as Ann doesn’t say a word, there won’t be a problem.

She’s taken hits from where Akira’s been concentrating on her. A mixture of bullet holes in its scales mixed in with cross slashes from where his bless attacks hit had left her delirious and pissed off. When he’s close, she bares her fangs and strikes, only for him to skid on the smooth tiles, rugged hands touching his mask.

“Come on out, Captain!”

His blond hair ruffled from Kidd’s attack, a crack of lightning came down from his Persona’s mangled hand, and a split second later her tail had been sliced clean through. And another crack comes, her neck landing on the tiles with a muffled thud. An attack that should’ve just been enough to incapacitate Ante had instead completely decapitated her.

A beat of silence passed as everyone processed what had happened. Ryuji’s mouth drops open, but he can’t muster any surprise.

He doesn’t know how, or why, but for some reason his attacks have been at least five times as strong as they had been back before the Metaverse was still intact. Moves that he didn’t even know are on the tip of his tongue, as if he had practiced them all his life. Normally this would only happen after rigorous training for months, adding up in tiny increments.

Now it happens every day.

“Well, looks like someone woke up on the right side of the gym today,” Futaba laughs awkwardly.

“What on earth was that, Skull?” Haru asks, eyes wide. “I had never seen you do something like that.”

Morgana’s tail swished. “She makes a good point. When’d you learn that one?”

“I don’t know.” He calls back Captain Kidd, eyeing the drop that Ante had left behind, but doesn’t move forward to snatch it up. “But whatever the reason is, it’s awesome as hell. I mean, did you see that? Sliced that thing open like a stuffed bear.”

“Let’s not bring stuffed animals into this, please,” Makoto frowns.

Akira’s giving him a look again, and it leaves Ryuji unsettled. “What is it, dude? I got something on my face?”

“No,” he steps closer, and his voice drops. “Are you alright?”

“Am I alright? I’ve never been better, man.” He flashes him a grin, hoping that it’s bright enough to distract Akira’s ever-searching eyes. “Come on, let’s get moving. Natsume’s heart isn’t gonna change itself.”

After one last glance, he nods, and Ryuji can see the minute Calculating Joker comes back. “You heard him. Let’s get moving, everyone.”

They all follow him up the stairs, eager to get moving past the eternally bleary and uncreatively written setting of Natsume’s Jail.

“Psst!” Ryuji hisses at Ann, who turns to him with a question in her eyes. “Panther! Get your ass over here!”

“What?” she whispers back.

He rubs the back of his neck. “I fucked up my knee when I rushed her, and I still haven’t told Joker, so do you mind…?”

An expected look of disapproval emerges from her expression, and Ryuji hurries to beat her to the punch. “I know, I know! But I can’t tell him in the middle of all this, now can I?”

“Fine,” she grumbles before calling Carmen. “I’ll cover you for now, but only ‘cause I’m a good friend and I’m super cute.”

“Yeah, the cutest, prettiest, whatever.” He glances over to Akira, swooping down to grab Ante’s drops before heading up. “Quick, before he looks back.”

Diarama washes over him, and even though relief floods through his body, he can feel a bead of sweat running down his temple. He’s not sure if it’s from her inherent heat or from the stress of lying to her again.

“Better?” Ann asks.

“Way better. Thanks.” He catches Sophia looking at them curiously. “The kid’s watching us. You better move ahead before she starts analyzing our personality types or something.”

Her eyes light up. “You think she’d do it if I asked? I really wanna know.”

“Just go!”

Ann hurries to catch up to Sophia, and while she’s distracted, Ryuji gently rolls up sleeves—he had gotten nicked by Ante as he slid. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem; he had gotten thrown through walls, been hit by mini hurricanes, been blown up by a boat, and walked away from all that still swinging.

Yet lately, any tiny, fractional, miniscule injury is enough to shoot unbearable pain throughout his entire body. It’s as if he was back in Kamoshida’s Palace, where every punch thrown at him had been life or death.

Glancing down at his forearm, he sighs. The cut was gone, but he can’t keep asking Ann to heal him in secret every time.

“Skull?”

Hurriedly pulling down his sleeve, he glances up to see Akira standing in front of him.

“Everyone’s waiting for you,” he says casually, as if those words don’t mean the entire goddamn world to Ryuji. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” he answers, shaking his head. “My bad. Let’s go.”

They clambered up the staircase, and Ryuji decides that all of that stuff—getting injured and having it hurt like hell—just isn’t too important.

That just means that he’ll be fine as long as he doesn't get hit, and he’s had plenty of experience dodging punches that were thrown at him before.

—

“Cheers!”

All of them raise their red plastic cups, clinking it against each other in a way that they see adults do all the time on TV. Apple juice and iced tea slosh as they gulp it down eagerly, excitement so prevalent that they can hardly taste the cheap, convenience store-esque quality of their drink.

“This isn’t too bad,” Makoto muses, leaning against the faux-leather seats of the RV. “Though it would probably taste better if it wasn’t room temperature.”

“Does it look like this place has a mini fridge?” Futaba says, legs swinging down from her top bunk. “That’s a good idea though. I should’ve bought mine from home. Can you imagine we’re halfway through a six hour road trip and you want iced coffee and boom! Two feet behind you is Futaba’s Ice Cold Cafe, one hundred yen per use.”

“I hope you’d be ready to sleep on it, because this place is cramped enough as is,” Akira slaps the wall a few times, the way a rancher would a sturdy horse. “We’re lucky with what we have.”

“I know that! Without this thing we never would have been able to conquer Natsume’s Jail.” She reaches down to muss Yusuke’s hair. “I’m sure Inari feels good about that.”

He smiles, hair sticking up in all directions. “Of course I feel satisfied. Though I understand his struggle, being able to stop a fellow artist into becoming a true monster is always something that will bring me joy. Justice will never stop feeling good.”

“Cheers to that!” Ann raises her drink. “And you know what? This wouldn’t have been possible had Ryuji not kicked some major ass in that Jail.”

The group whoops and hoots loudly, and Ryuji can’t help but scoff when Ann winks at him. “Aw guys, you’re making me blush. I’m fucking awesome, sure, but we’re all pretty amazing.”

Haru shakes her head. “She’s right, Ryuji-kun. WIthout you, defeating dragon Natsume would’ve been much more difficult.”

“Even I can admit that you’ve gotten much stronger, Skull.” Morgana leaps onto the table, licking up the bowl of apple juice that Haru had left him. It feels wrong to let an animal drink that, but he’d never say anything about it. “Have you been training?”

Ryuji shrugs. “Yeah, a little.”

“Ooo, look at Mr. Humble all of a sudden,” Futaba jeers.

“I’m always humble!”

Ann grimaces. “I don’t think so. Remember when you finally got Akira to go on a date with you—”

“How dare you. He was begging me to go on a date with him—”

“And you wouldn’t stop telling us about how you had nabbed the coolest guy in Tokyo—”

Ryuji nearly jumps over the booth to put a hand on her mouth. “Quit yammering, Takamaki, I’m begging you.” He feels something slimy on his hand, and pulls back quickly. “Ew, did you lick me?! That’s so effing gross.”

“You’re gross.”

He feels a hand on the small of his back, warm and familiar. “I don’t think you’re gross, Ryuji,” Akira says. “I think you’re very clean.”

A harmonic beep rings through the air. “Sorry to interrupt,” Sophia’s clear voice cuts in. “But Akira, you got an email.”

“Thanks Sophie.” He points to where his phone is perched on the windowsill, propped up so she can see them celebrate their victory. “Can you…?”

Ryuji wordlessly passes it to him as everyone breaks off into smaller conversations, chatter blending into each other until it sounds like the kind of white noise he would queue up when he’s desperate to get some studying done. Immediately, Akira begins scanning through his phone, gray eyes focused.

He props his head against his shoulder to read alongside him and makes a noise of interest. “You signed up for cram school?” he asks, surprised.

“I did,” he replies, thumbing through the details of his admission.

Ryuji stares at him. “But you’re so fucking smart. Why are you paying who knows what to learn shit you already know?”

“Because Tokyo U barely cracks a 30% admission rate, and chemistry is hell incarnate.” With one last few clicks, he sets his phone down with a wince. “Sure is expensive though. We might have to reform the heart of someone in the education committee.” When he continues to stare at him wordlessly, Akira turns to him. “Don’t worry, I’m still leeching off of the Thieves' money from last year, so it’s not too bad when you take into account my part-time back home.”

“No, that’s not—I’m just—” he shakes his head and forces himself to start over. “Since when did you decide on Tokyo University?”

It’s Akira's turn to look taken aback. “What do you mean? You’d never leave Tokyo, especially if it meant leaving your mom.”

“That’s not the point. The point is I’m making you choose between me and your hometown!” he exclaims, but he already knows in his heart what Akira’s choice is going to be. It’s stupidly obvious. For some reason, the longer this conversation goes on, the tighter his chest feels.

The feeling doubles when Akira’s eyes, always focused and always sharp, subdued at his words. “Are you really comparing yourself to that place? You know I’d choose you over anything.” He reaches forward and combs through Ryuji’s hair, hushed and gentle in a way that only Akira can manage. “I’m so excited to live life with you again.”

The white noise, so comfortable before, abruptly turns overwhelmingly loud—grating and unbearable and painful to be around. Ryuji stands abruptly, barely reacting to Futaba’s yelp when he backs into her.

“Hey! What gives?”

“I…” his eyes dart around, flinching when he accidentally makes eye contact with Akira, and again when he locks eyes with Ann.

The sudden silence from the group is somehow worse than the noise from before, and if the tightness in his chest gets any more painful, his lungs are gonna burst into a million pieces and he’s not gonna be able to pick it all up from the ground if everyone’s watching.

“Trash,” he blurts out.

“What?” Makoto blinks, glancing up from her map.

“This place is disgusting and it’s way too cluttered and it’s bad to leave such a big mess so I’m gonna—” Ryuji grabs the plastic bag filled with garbage, haphazardly tossing empty cans and plastic cups into it. “I’ll be back. Don’t wait up.”

Before they can question him, he’s already out of the RV, towing trash and leaving his friends behind him.

—

“What the fuck was that?!” Ryuji screams into the sky.

He was far enough from the trailer that he knew they couldn’t hear him even if they had strained their ears, and it was late enough into the night that even the tourists weren’t poking around to look at the shrines or the Great Masamune himself.

“Keep it a secret’, my ass! That was the second dumbest thing—no, the third dumbest thing you’ve ever done in your entire life. Do you know how high that threshold is, Sakamoto? High! Higher than you can see with your own two eyes! Higher than Yaldabaoth’s goddamn crane-sized spine!”

Swooping down, he grabs a fistful of pebbles and throws it as hard as he can. “You are so selfish! What happened to keeping ‘Kira happy, you effing asshole?” Relishing in how far it went, he takes another two more. “You are so annoying. You are—” he throws, the rocks landing with a little plink. “Insufferable. Stupid. Selfish. A fucking—” this time, he doesn’t even know where it lands. “Gah!”

Turning on his heel, he glares up at the statue and grits his teeth when he sees Masamune’s stoic expression. “Don’t give me that look—you’re dead. You ain’t got nothing to complain about. Everyone’s remembering you as the guy who saved Japan, or whatever. But guess what? You’re probably a loser. A dumb, stupid loser who convinced everyone that you’re good for something when you’re worth jack shit!”

Before he can stop himself, he takes the garbage bag full of cans, glass bottles, and crumpled chip bags and hurls it at Masamune. It hits the base of the statue, far below damaging the One-Eyed Dragon himself, but the glass cracks under the force of being thrown, tearing through the plastic and causing trash and shards to explode all over the steps. Ryuji’s chest is heaving as he stares down at what he’s done.

“Impressive.”

He whirls around at the voice behind him, stomach lurching straight to the ground when he sees who it was. “In his years of war, I doubt that anyone’s ever tried throwing waste in his direction in order to defeat him.”

“Yusuke,” he breathes, feeling his frustration draining away to make room for even more guilt, if that was even possible. Ryuji cannot possibly look any more of an asshole than he does right now—tearing his throat raw in a public space, surrounded by the garbage he had thrown at a national monument in front of a guy who clearly worships and respects art that’s old as hell. “Sorry, I’ll clean it up, I promise. I was just…” he hesitates. “Talking to myself.”

Yusuke hums, unconvinced, and carefully approaches the mess in front of him. Ryuji waves him off. “No, don’t. Broken glass is a bitch, especially the little pieces. If that gets in your skin, it’s game over. You’d have to go into the hospital for sure.” He grimaces. “Trust me. My dad used to throw beer bottles at our place like he was in a ball game, and that ain’t fun, I promise you that.”

“I see.” Turning around, Ryuji hoped that he was magically going to head back to the group and not mention this to anyone there, but instead Yusuke stopped in front of a water fountain. “You’re right. If you’re not careful, it could be very easy to hurt yourself when dealing with broken glass.” Pulling out a handkerchief from his breast pocket in a way that only Yusuke can, he soaks it in water before crouching down at the shards glimmering under moonlight. “But if you use wet fabric to dab it on the shards itself—” he pats the concrete and flips the fabric over, revealing the moist and glistening pieces stuck on its side. “You can clean up the pieces with little to no danger.”

“Huh.” After a moment, he realizes that he’s making Yusuke do the dirty work for him. “Pass me that. Thanks for the tip, but I can take it from here. I mean,” he rubs the back of his neck. “It’s totally my fault that the glass is here anyway.”

He doesn’t look up from his task, eyes focused and movement meticulous. “No need. If you’d like to help, you can start picking up the non-dangerous litter around us.”

Ryuji does as he’s told, wincing as he has to pick up sticky, pop-soaked wrappers with his bare hands but he doesn’t complain. Karmic retribution has never held back against him. “The glass thing,” he starts, squatting down and picking up empty cans and plastic utensils with curry remnants still stuck to them. “They teach you that in Kosei?”

“No, from one of Madarame’s past pupils actually.” Yusuke shifts over to dab at another glass-covered section, concrete looking clearer with every pat. “Sensei had a rather violent habit of hurling canvases at the wall if they do not meet his standards, and his actions had led to many of our more fragile belongings being shattered when he did.” His tone doesn’t change, but Ryuji can see his shoulders tighten. “At least it allowed me to move away from that house very quickly, considering I had very little to pack away.”

Ryuji opens his mouth to comfort him. Instead, he finds himself speaking in a low tone. “Glad that bastard is rotting in jail,” he resists the urge to spit on the ground. “Then afterwards, I hope he rots in hell, just to really cover all of our bases.”

That pulls a chuckle out of Yusuke. “Thank you,” he smiles, and all Ryuji can do is nod. There isn’t much you can say after that without making it weird. But how weirder can it possibly get when the two of you are off towing around someone’s perception of the world on a daily basis?

They continue to work in silence; the wind is gentle, but it’s enough to rustle the leaves and allow Ryuji to feel some relief from the summer heat. He’s picking up wet paper tissues, and it’s gross, but it’s nice to be doing something with his hands.

He’s just about done his part of the clean-up when he can’t take it anymore. “Aren’t you gonna ask?”

“No,” Yusuke answers without looking up. That’s another thing that Ryuji really appreciates about him—playing dumb has never been something that he’s done to get out of an awkward situation. To be fair though, Yusuke himself is an awkward situation.

“Why not?”

“Did you want me to?”

That question makes him pause, and Yusuke doesn’t wait for an answer. “You’ve always been the most vocal in the group, and while many a time it has been our downfall in terms of secrecy, I have always considered it one of your strong points. And if you, Sakamoto Ryuji, are indeed struggling with using your words,” Yusuke’s eyes turn to him. “Then it must be very difficult to talk about.”

A beat passes. “No,” Ryuji mutters. “I don’t want you to ask.”

“Then I won’t,” he says easily. “But I do have a question.”

“Lay it on me.”

Yusuke shuffles to crouch down next to him, and it’s kinda weird seeing someone as elegant as him pose like some kind of hoodlum. “Does Akira know about your struggle?”

His mind flashes back to the confused look back in the RV and he scratches his neck roughly. “I bet he does now.”

Yusuke leans back, shocked. “He doesn’t know?”

“I’m getting there! Don’t pressure me, man. You said it yourself, I’m fucking struggling.”

“Well, yes, I did say that, but it’s Akira,” he says the name almost reverently. “I’d be surprised if he doesn’t sense that something is askew.”

“I just said that, didn’t I? Goddamn, you and Ann are just two of the same peas in the same freaking pond, aren’t you?”

“It’s ‘pod’, Ryuji,” he corrects. “Ann is aware?”

“She—” Ugh, how does he explain that she thinks she knows, but really he had lied about what he told her? “She basically knows.” And because his fat mouth just keeps getting fatter, “She’s sort of part of the problem.”

Yusuke’s eyes widen and Ryuji hurries to cover up for his mistake. “She’s not a problem, it’s just that I didn’t explain…It’s really my fault, and how I deal with internal shit, you know what I’m saying? And Ann’s just kind of in the crossfire, so what ended up happening is when I talk to her about what I’m feeling, I end up just feeling worse.” He winces. First he lies to her and now he’s shit-talking her? “I did not say that. What I really mean is that, uh, feelings...and actions...are complicated,” he finishes weakly.

“I see,” he says finally.

It seems that even Yusuke has a threshold for uncomfortable moments, because he rises to his feet. “Thank you for sharing all of that with me.”

“Uh, yeah, for sure. Thanks for the glass trick.”

“No need to mention it. It’s much easier to clean up a mess when you have someone helping you.” He points vaguely behind himself, “Would you like to head back together? I’m sure by now the festivities are winding down, and the trash you were so keen on disposing of has definitely been thrown away.”

Ryuji blanches. It grossed him out that he forgot he was holding an armful of garbage in his hand. “You go ahead. I just need to,” he rocks his arms, almost cradling the wet garbage. “Throw this out.”

“Very well. I’ll see you when you get back, then.”

He waves at him, and Ryuji wiggles in response (unless he wants it all hitting the ground and restarting that whole process again, which, no thanks.) After dumping it all into a nearby trash can, the process of which lasts several minutes since he still had to sort out the recycling, he feels a buzz in his pocket.

KA: come back when you can KA: i miss you

He takes a shaky breath.

SR: on my way

#p5 #p5s #ryuji sakamoto #akiryu #mine #fic tag #plainly in truth #akira kurusu #pegoryu #happy birthday ryuji this ones for you

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maggies-scribblings · 4 years ago

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Ladynoir, thinking post-reveal pre-relationship but idk whatever makes you happiest: “I’ll kick his ass if you want me to.”

I decided to make it a continuation of this. Hope you like it, and sorry it took me so long.

Ass-kicking

It was the first Saturday afternoon after the night they found out about their identities, and Adrien and Marinette were at the Historical Library. They were working on an ongoing History project with Alya and Nino, meeting there every weekend.

“Oh, great!” Marinette huffed, looking at her phone screen. “They just bailed.”

“Really?”

She showed him the message on her phone.

[Alya] Hey sweetie, sorry, we can’t make it today. Nino’s family is away and I need to help him with his French homework.

“French homework, huh?” Adrien said as he returned the phone.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“There will probably be French involved,” he quipped, waggling his eyebrows, “but definitely not homework.”

Marinette had to cover her mouth as she snorted.

“How about we investigate that other subject?” he leaned over the table and whispered conspiratorially.

The library was mostly empty, but Marinette still shushed him.

“What? Here?”

“Where else? We can check out books about ancient languages, history…”

“Hmm… I don’t know… what if someone sees us? Won’t it be suspicious?”

“We’re still working on a project, right? I know! You’re applying for fashion internships in the summer, right?” She nodded. With a playful smirk, he pointed at himself with his thumbs. “Who better to help you with a fashion presentation than your friend, the actual haute couture supermodel?”

Marinette giggled softly while Adrien winked and made finger guns, in full-on Chat Noir mode. Her laughter made his heart sing.

“Okay, actual supermodel. Where should we begin?”

A few weeks later…

[Alya] Hey there gorgeous! Girls’ lunch today?

[Marinette] Hey Alya! No can do, project work all day.

[Alya] Secret project again, huh? 😉

[Marinette] Quit it Alya, I have to go. Raincheck?

[Alya] How’s Sunday?

[Marinette] Great! Text me in the morning. xoxo

[Alya] Yeah, right… I’ll drop by to wake you! xoxo

Alya sighed as she put her phone away. Marinette had been acting weird for some time now. Ever since that day she showed up at school with dark circles under her eyes and with a silly grin on her face, which she explained away with some excuse about good news from her Chinese relatives, and staying up late on Facetime to talk to them.

After four years of BFF service, Alya could tell when she was making up stories… and yet, even when caught in a lie, there were some things Marinette just wouldn’t share. It was frustrating, but Alya was respectful of her friend’s privacy. Well, most of the time, anyway.

It was also weird that she was hanging out with Adrien so often, seeing that not so long ago she had trouble even maintaining a simple conversation with him.

“Sooo, giiirl…” Alya playfully asked, before taking a bite of her kebab. “Got anything you want to share with meee?... ”

“Share?” Marinette looked genuinely confused. “What about?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, sweetie. You thought I wouldn’t notice you and Adrien sneaking around on breaks, going to your place after school?”

Marinette’s reaction was even stranger. Instead of her usual sputtering and denial, she coolly replied they were working on a project together, refusing to add any other details. And yet, Alya couldn’t resist some gentle teasing.

“So, does this… erm… project include any nookie?”

“A-Alya!” There she was. Blushing, stuttering Marinette. “No-nookie? No! This is strictly professional!”

As it was, Marinette refused to discuss the project any further, except to add it had something to do with fashion and her application for summer internships with established designers Adrien knew. It was the exact same explanation Nino had heard from Adrien… almost verbatim. Her reporter's sixth sense was tingling, but she let it go. If her best friends were seeing each other in secret there probably was a good reason for it.

“Alya’s on to us.”

“What!?” Chat Noir almost spit out his palmier. “She knows?”

Ladybug shook her head and corrected herself.

“No—not that! I mean she’s not buying the story about the…” she gestured air quotes, “‘fashion project’!”

“Oh. That.” After licking his fingers, he took another cookie from the box Ladybug had brought to patrol. One of the best perks of the job, and now much more frequent. “Nino was also acting weird about it.”

“What do you mean, acting weird?”

“He was all like, oh, you dog, finally saw the light, took you long enough, whatever.”

Ladybug swallowed her juice quicker than she should, breaking into a coughing fit. Chat Noir tapped her back, which was no help at all but made him feel like he was doing something. As the coughing stopped, the pats turned to gentle rubs.

“He did?”

“Yeah, he was so… smarmy about it. Like he knew something I didn’t.”

“Huh.” Ladybug scooted away from him and went very quiet.

“Are you alright?”

“I… I just need a minute, okay?”

Adrien was confused by her reaction. Sure, things were different after that night. Since then, Ladybug seemed slightly more restrained around Chat Noir. Although he had toned down his banter, she seemed more embarrassed whenever he made some flirtatious joke.

The civilian side of their lives was altogether a different story. After a few days of mutual awkwardness, working together on the grimoire brought them closer than ever.

Of course, they had been friends for a long time — well, except for that time in the beginning, when she had been so uncomfortable around him. The gum incident when they met was probably a bad start, and there had been ups and downs between them ever since. He even asked Nino if she had something against him, but he wasn’t any help.

Eventually, that bashfulness faded as they grew older. Marinette started going out with Luka, much to the joy of their mutual friends and his own inexplicable chagrin. Adrien and Kagami were also dating within the confines of their controlling, yet approving, parents. After that, whenever they hung out there was a relaxed familiarity that made her open up more, and Adrien considered her one of his best friends.

Now that he knew she had been Ladybug all along, he couldn’t help but feel the bitter twinge of regret. What would—could—have happened if he knew then what he knew now?

“You really don’t know why Nino teased you?”

“No—I don’t.”

“They think we’re, you know, dating in secret.”

“What? Why? They think you’re cheating on Luka?”

“No! Not cheating… Luka sorta dumped me six months ago.”

“Luka dumped you?” Adrien was totally confused. How could anyone dump Marinette? “I’ll kick his ass if you want me to, Milady.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” she chuckled sadly. “It wasn’t working out anyway.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, you know. He has his music, I have all of this,” Ladybug sighed, pointing at her suit. “He wanted me to be more present, and I just couldn’t. It’s like we were always out of sync.”

“—out of sync,” Chat Noir ended the phrase with her. “I know what you mean.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it was the same with Kagami,” he admitted. “She wanted to do, you know, couple things, when I was exhausted from all of this. She needed me to be there for her. By the seventeenth time I ditched her during an akuma alert with a lame excuse, she was done and ended everything.”

“You still seem hurt about it.”

“I think I’m over it now,” he shrugged. “It’s been almost a year. I just couldn’t be the kind of boyfriend she needs and deserves, so…”

Ladybug was silent for some minutes. When she spoke, Chat Noir jumped a little.

“I can’t believe she dumped you,” she said indignantly. “She was so in love with you…”

“How do you know that? She’s usually so reserved.”

“Well, besides it being written all over her face when she was near you? She told me. Well, actually she told Ladybug.”

“She told you that? When?”

“Oh, it was a while ago, the last time she was Ryuko. She said you were made for each other.”

“Oh yeah, when you saved her from Heart Hunter. They were after people who were in love.”

Ladybug cringed with embarrassment, then sighed and straightened her back, psyching herself up.

“I—I need to be honest with you, Adrien… I didn’t exactly save her. I chose her that day because I was jealous.”

Chat Noir nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him.

“Jealous?” he cleared his throat. “Of… me?”

“Yes.” She uttered a sad chuckle, shaking her head. “I was so confused back then. So tired. I liked Luka, but I was so obsessed with Adrien-you, and I was trying not to like Chat-you. Then you and Kagami looked so happy that day… I tried to walk away, but jealousy got the best of me.” Ladybug covered her face with her hands. “I made so many stupid decisions that day. I almost ruined everything.”

Chat Noir pulled her into his lap and hugged her.

“Hey… hey… It was a tough time for all of us, with Hawkmoth chasing Master Fu—”

“—and I led him straight to where Master Fu was! It was all my fault.”

“No.” He gently lifted her chin to meet her eyes. “It’s all his fault. Hawkmoth’s the one who’s caused all this. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Ladybug nodded, sinking into his arms and pulling him closer.

“You can always count on me when you feel overwhelmed,” Chat Noir whispered, kissing her forehead. “Or if you need me to kick some ass.” He felt her chuckling softly into his shoulder. “Now you always know how to find me. Any time, day or night, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And we’ll talk about that other thing another day. I’m still annoyed with our so-called best friends and their teasing.”

“Okay.” This time there was a hint of laughter in her voice. “Please don't kick their asses.”

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t… Now, let’s clear this up so I can take you home.”

To be continued? Let me know!

Thanks to @chanceuseladynoire, @zenmisery and @nomolosk for the beta read.

Asked for a sequel and/or to be tagged: @miraculous-elcie-fanfics @ao3bronte @bowser14456 @alexseanchai @delectablycoolscientist @lecolibribleu @omgpercabethadrinette @damelicorne

#alexseanchai #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #miraculous fanfic #ladynoir #adrinette #adrienette #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #ladybug #chat noir #my writing #my fic #my fanfic #post-reveal pre-relationship #prompt request

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Ducktales Reviews: The Town Where Everyone Was Nice! or Scrooge Is the Lindburgh Baby

Saludos Amigos! The Ride of the Three Cablleros has at long last come to the last stop before it’s final phase. It’s been a hell of a ride so far: Our boys have tried to woo some ladies, performed some black magic, had some sort of drug trip, dealt with Donald’s ego, helped goofy ungoofy himself...

“SEASONS CHANGE, TIMES CHANGE BUT UNGOOFY IS FOREVER AND ALWAYS HE IS ALWAYS THERE” ... I created this magificent stalion.. kinda I think he came out of a styigan hole in the universe from the darkest dark in the dark of the dark... I can’t be sure. Our heroes fought an arrogant prince, found a lost city and helped donald get his smile back. All culminating in our heroes going to Spain for some reason, soundtracking Goofy’s win against Horace in Flamico Dancing, somehow that wasn’t a Covid induced fever dream I had but the actual premise of the episode, and then played some soccer with Daisy’s cousin and Pancho Pete. All in all we’ve had some good times getting here and I feel acomplished having made it this far. While I’ve still got quite a ways to go, getting this far means I really made something.. and not just the 80 something dollars it took to comission all of this. And I genuinely just want to thank all of you for reading these as these have easily been some of my most popular reviews and @weirdkev27 for comissioning all of this. It’s been easily one of my faviorite projects so far and I look forward to the final leg of it soon. For now though we have one last adventure before the biggest one starts. But before we can dive into it you probably have a few questions, and since I don’t really need to give Ducktales 2017 a lavish introduction as unlike most stuff so far this show is well and familiar: it’s what got me started reviewing animation on this blog, it’s what got me into the duck community as a full member, and it’s what caught Kev’s attention leading to this entire series. So I have time to answer the questions your probably asking and if your not.. well here’s the answers anyway Wait aren’t you going to cover Louie’s Eleven?: Nope. While I love that episode, I already did a full review of it earlier this year. I saw no reason to completely and utterly redo the entire thing when my opinions toward the episode haven’t really changed. That being said since I didn’t touch on the boys characterizations in that one too much and since I do want this retrospective to be comprehensive, I will talk about Panchito And Jose’s characterization there briefly during this review at the right time as a compromise.

Wait why isn’t THIS the last stop since it came out AFTER Legend of the Three Cablleros: Simple.. it felt unsatsfying to both me and kev to end on this one. While their apperance here IS a good one and a big deal... it’s also ANOTHER guest apperance. It’s something I didn’t quite realize for now but outside of the movie.. every apperance after is them guest starring in another series. Their aperances in Don Rosa’s Duck Comics, while awesome and treating them with proper respect, were still them showing up to shake up Donald’s stories and formulas. They were LITERAL guest stars in House of Mouse, and Roadster Racers was entirely just “let’s shove them in there because we can”. Legend.. is their story. Their moment in the sun after too damn long with all three as main characters and while being a lead is normal for donald, Jose and Panchito really HAVEN’T had that shot outside of their home countries. To be the hero of their own fully realized epic adventure. So it just fits best to have the road lead there instead of have all that happen.. then go back to yet another guest appearance. The other major factor.. is that while Legend came out around the same time as ducktales, to the point many compared and contrast both shows treatment of Donald, this episode is what most non-latin american audiences saw first as it took Disney WAY too damn long to air the series over here.. i.e. until Disney Plus launched, finding it somewhere online was the only option despite the series being produced in america with some really big american names voice acting wise. Point is this came first to some people, so i’m using that as a flimsy excuse to put it ahead so we get a better finale.

Now all that’s settled, let’s dive into “The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!” and see what one of the best duck propeties period makes of our boys.

We open in a remote town in Brazil. It’s the Festival of the Flower.. which is a bit off to me. While it DOES kind of make plot sense.. the problem is the lure was written to Panchito and Jose.. Jose whose a brazil native and could’ve possibly been supscious that a tourist invintation wasn’t in Brazilian Portugese, the countries national language and something I specifically researched just to see what it’d be called. For the record it’d be O Festival da Flor acording to google translate, which still sounds neat, Webby could’ve still said it means festival of the flower. It just feels like a missed opportunity from a creative team that’s taken such pains to make the series feel as authentic as possible and clearly put a lot of hard work and research into making each location feel like it’s real world counterpart. But it’s a minor thing and we soon get our two plots for the episode: Our B Plot.. is that Dewey can’t stay the fuck off his phone and is taking pictures rather than actually getting experiences with Louie enabling him, while Webby gets increasingly frustrated at Dewey not actually botherting to experince this unique and obscure culture. We’ll get back to this in a bit.

Our main plot naturally concerns the reason our heroes are here: Donald is reuniting with The Cabs, who in this continuity are his old College friends who Scrooge hates due to having to listen to them practice constnatly and tells the kids they’d hate it worse than his playing the bagpipes.

Bagpipes are objectively the worst insterument on earth. They are loud, unharmonic and generally just obnoxious. I do respect how important they are to Scotland, home of David Tennant, Grant Morrision and .. Alan Cumming and James Macavoy? Wait what? that’s awesome! Point is Scotland is great but I do not like the bagpipes except when Bugs Bunnny is murdering them. Honestly Donald’s college band was probably more like this. Nothing bad at all just mildly pathetic and mildly pathetic is what got Donald a girlfriend, so it’s not a bad look

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That brings me to another point: Scrooge is pretty obnoxious in this episode. It seems like his sole reason for coming was to bitch about Donald’s old college band. He could’ve just sent them a stern letter like the pros at being a cranky old geezer do.

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I do GET why he’s here as there are some REALLY damn funny bits with him in the a-plot, it just feels like they could’ve justified it better. But on to better things as Jose and Panchito enter the scene after Scrooge claims they “weren’t so cool”.. with Panchito diving from a plane and drifting down on his umbrella

And Panchito shows up dramatically playing the guitar. A truly awesome and worthy intro to our boys. So let’s talk about them in this series. Honestly the two really aren’t that diffrent from usual, though Jose’s lady chasing is given to Panchito, his footloose world traveling lifestyle remains in tact as does his genuine charm while Panchito remains the peppy one, just with his outbursts gone as his guns are replaced with cell phones..

Yeah while I do get replacing the pistols because let’s face it the mexican of the group being a gun nut was pretty damn unfortunate, though Don Rosa toned it down and justifed it well, and frankly guns are a hard no for family shows these days unless their laser guns so replacing them I get. But instead of I dunno giving him knives or turning his holsters into pouches carrying his stuff.. he just has two Cell Phones. It’s weird. It dosen’t really make sense other than for him putting on a big shot act and even big stars probably don’t have two phones on them at all times. It’s just a VERY weird update that makes not a whole lot of logical sense and I belivie is thankfully gone by the next ep. The only real issue I have is the two just sorta blend together personality wise instead of being distinct like usual, but that’s also happened in other apperances, so it’s not exactly a new or unique problem, and the two’s voice actors do a great job making both feel like they should.

Speaking of which let’s just go ahead and discuss that elephant in the room: The Cabs were recast for the first time in ages, which didn’t sit well with friends of legend as Eric Bauza, who’d replaced rob Paulsen, was himself replaced by Arturo Del Puerto and Bernado Del Paulo replaced Jamie Camil and Carlos Aquazi as Panchito. And I have mixed opinons on this one: Replacing Eric was a no brainer: while he’s a terrific voice actor.. he’s not brazilian and the crew of Ducktales 2017 perfer to cast actors who match their characters backgrounds, which again adds to the authenicty of it’s globetrotting and scope. They don’t ALWAYS, Cree Summer isn’t, as far as I know, Egyptian and Catherine Tate, while wonderful, isn’t italian. But for the most part it adds a nice flavor to things and frankly I personally prefer it when Jose is voiced by an actual brazilian man. So that change i’m fine with. Not using Camil though... I do not get. Jamie Camil is a throughly talented voice actor, having done TONS of great work lately , vocing Globgor for star vs and not getting nearly enough screen time as the loveable demon dad, and stealing the show as Don Carnage earlier in the series. While that episode is one of the series weakest, he’s still easily the best part of it and I hope Carnage shows up one last time before the finale.

So it really makes.. no sense to me to replace him. Not only is camil a bigger named actor, but he was already on the show and even the defense of “well they don’t want actors playing multiple rolls” ended up utterly destroyed by the end of the season, as Christ Dimatopolus not only reprised Storkules, but went on to play Drake and Melon, and picked up a FOURTH role in season 3 as Hades. My point is the show has no real issue with doubling up on voice rolls, so I scratch my head as to why Camil wasn’t given this part too despite being the obvious choice. Del Paulo isn’t a bad actor and is great in the role.. I just scratch my head why he was needed when a perfect actor for the part was right there and already had experince with the character.

I do think Puerto and Paulo are terrific and do the characters justice, issues with Paulo being there at all aside, and they do a great job and more than earned the roles and I don’t think the mass critcisim of this version of the characters is entirely warranted.. for this episode. This episode while they can meld into each other... that happens in most of their apperances anyway, so it’s not unusual or unique to this series. I will say however that the way their written in their next apperance is utter garbage: they aren’t really given any chances to be distinct, are basically written as one person even worse .. and that one person is a greedy asshole who takes advantage of their friend and never apologizes. I do get why people did not like them in that episode. I do think it has no baring on this one and people should stop bashing these versions as a whole for one terrible episode, especially when Louie has been written pretty badly for the bulk of season 3, yet is still not a bad character. It’s unfair to paint the series as painting them soley as selfish jackasses when it didn’t at first and hopefully wont’ again when they presumibly show up for the finale’s big avengers endgame sequence I hope is coming. For now they aren’t bad and the colors are crisp and the animation nice and bouncy on our boys.

Since we have two plots here, I’m just going to go ahead and split em since honestly, the b plot dosen’t really impact the a-plot until really the last minute and is basically happening right along side it and in concert with it. Sooooo...

The Trite B-Plot: As you can probably gather I didn’t really like this one. It’s basically 5-7 minutes of me wanting to punch a child in the face. Or rather Webby wanting to have fun experinces and actually take in the culture while in town, while Dewey just wants to take pictures of everything, make it seem like he did stuff, and generally is obnoxious to webby while Louie supports him wholeheartdly. That last part is really one of the few good parts of the plot as it’s nice for one of the brothers plots to NOT be about them being in conflict or squabbling but just hanging out and having some fun, doubly so since i’ve had to spend a season watching Louie , outside of a few good exceptions be an absolute dick to Huey and also Dewey once. It’s nice to just see him and Dewey bond over a shared intrest: posting shit online and getting good photos.

And it’s not without GOOD gags: Dewey’s obnoxious captions at one point while Webby continually looses her shit, Louie continually saying “that’s so wise” at Dewey’s bullshit philosphies, Webby’s continued annoyance is delivered great by Kate as always, and the best bit is Webby, utterly pissed at Dewey for refusing to eat Local Cuisine, wolfing down the entire fucking plate, all the dumplings in her mouth at once while Dewey, naturally, takes a picture. Otherwise this is just.. grating. It’s utterly grating to watch Webby GENUINELY try hard to absorb the local culture and really enjoy a once in a life time experince.. while Dewey jackasses about and basically acts like she’s wrong for it and treats his best friend like garbage. Just because i’ts nice it’s not Louie this time doesen’t make one of the kids being a dick without any nuance or character stuff suddenly great. It’s just tiresome.

And SOMEHOW , despite already not liking it the first time watching the episode.. it’s even WORSE now afterlast years. No not because I watched it while having to put up with Coronoavirus induced Chills, but because another show did this plot 100 times better: Close Enough. One of the best new shows of the year, Close Enough had a plot where exes Bridget and Alex, aka yet aother great set of Kimiko Glenn and Jason Mantzokus characters, went on vacation together, but their attempts to have some ex sex fell flat due to longstanding issues we found about through this plot: Bridget has a bad habit of doing what Dewey did, focusing way more on her social than actually enjoying her vacatoin while Alex has a bad habit of befreinding random weirdos who agree with his worldview. Keep in mind this is the same worldview that spent an afternoon connecting garfield to jesus while pissing in a jug for some reason. Point instead of a character just being a smug dick, it ties into actual character flaws that helped us not only learn more about them but lead to a really heartwarming scene where the two admit they jsut can’t sleep together casually with allt heir baggage, and that they still have a lot to sort out. Before given the show their on having their friends show up from the a plot and all of them getting kidnapped by a robot because Josh skipped a bunch of ads and a 5 year old has to solve some issues and prove she’s not dumb to blow up said robot. What i’m saying is it’s even more insufferable watching this after seeing it done a thousand times better, and fucking watch Close Enough. Thankfully unlike Inifnity Train it’s not reliant on you to get a second season as it’s been renewed proving that even in a cluster fuck like 2020 miracles can happen, but it’d still be nice for it to get more fans during the presumably long wait for Season 2. Let’s move past this, i’ll get to the plot relevant bit for the climax when we get to the climax, and onto the reason your all here.

The Main Event: A Life Not Wasted

Okay onto the actual plot. Rewinding quite a bit, the boys meet our boys, and we get some good bits. The boys cool new handshake leaves Huey wanting one only for Louie to simply lick his hand. See this is Louie dickery I can get behind because what did Huey expect? I do take comfort in the fact he has actual friends now who will likely do a handshake, fenton very much included. I’m sure Gyro didn’t want one either so he’s had plenty of time to workshop. We also find out one of the boys was dropped as an egg and well.. given Dewey opens and closes his eyes one at a time for this one moment, the ohter triplets just sorta.. silently agre it’s Dewey. IT does explain why he thought Champ Popular would get over..that and Santa Claus is Going to Highschool being his favorite movie.

So both Jose and Panchito claim to be sucessful: Jose being a sucessful jetsetter and trendsetter, and Panchito being a world famous pop star, never stop stopping. So Donald being donald panics and runs into a alley where Scrooge and Huey join him. Donald is fully convinced he’s wasted his life and has nothing to show for it. Huey rightfully points out he raised three wonderful children and isn’t that enough? Naturally given Donald clearly has some issues related to this subject and Scrooge has develoved into old man yells at cloud, he agrees it’s not important as money. So Huey decides to help his uncle because he’s the good son.. and because the two are easily the most alike out of Donald and his Kids. It’s something I haven’t really been able to bring up before so I was delighted to realize i could now: Besides the obvious people bring up constnatly, I.e. Huey having inhereted the most of the family rage out of his brothers, there’s the fact both are kind of obessive, both tend ot spiral into panic when a situation goes wrong, both are awkward with women, both are frequently ignored or taken for granted by those around them, and both are awkward adorable dorks who I will give my life to protect. It’s why I think Huey has the best relationship with his uncle of the bunch: He’s the only one who at least TRIES to empahtize with him and support him. While the other two do love him, and Webby of course likely has an insanne and horrifying shrine of him, and scrooge and probably della now in her closet.. and of course lena but that’s less out of hero worship and more out of her insane, over the top, very webby version of love. Point is, he’s the one who genuinely sees his uncle as a person who needs help and love. This was best demonstrated in the scene at the bank back in “Who Is Gizmoduck” as Huey tries to get his uncle a loan using the guidebook and is there soley to help the guy and taking time out of his day to visit the bank. Let’s face it though this is huey: he probably loves visiting the bank. They just got new pens! So Huey decides to put his improv badge to good use... so far the only use he’s gotten is Louie laughing at the fact he actually earned an improv badge and urges donald to simply ACT like he’s sucessful. Scrooge balks at this, because as Wonder Woman 1984 taught us nothing good comes from lies.. or from banging your ghost boyfriend while he’s possessing someone’s body without said body’s consent and plan to fully live out the rest of your lives togehter without ever considering how fucked up this is. I will..deal with that movie ... soon. But he soon changes his turn and agrees to go along with it to avoid Jose getting upset and them having to pay for everything.

So Huey suggest Donald keep the lie small, but belivable. Given the law of sitcoms when it comes to anyone saying that and the fact this is Donald, he instead panics and lies that he’s taken over McDuck industries and scrooge has gone full abe simpson in the other direction.

Which is why i’m not enitrely annoyed by Scrooge’s presence: while they don’t even handwave him being here, Scrooge putting on an old man act, and sometimes getting back at donald for it is solid gold the whole damn time and some of David Tennat’s best comedic acting on the show, so it makes up for him being a grumpus. And while i’m not usually not a fan of liar revealed plots, this one works for me.. mostly because it’s rooted in character. Here Donald is lying.. but because of deep seated neurosis he’s yet to fully tackle. While he loves his boys and is proud of htem every day... it’s very clear Donald hates his life and how it turned out. We got bits of this back in House of the Lucky Gander, with Donald’s first thought upon thinking he’s about to die is “I wasted my life” and feeling entirely like a looser. This episode brillinatly builds on that: it shows a Donald who simply feels.. he acomplished nothing. It’s easy to see why as his parents were happy and sucessful at whatever they did from the looks of it and how well taken care of the kids were, his uncle is the richest duck in the world and it’s greatest hero and explorer, his sister is the only one who could rival that record, and his cousin constnatly gets riches and fame handed to him. Donald.. by comparison.. is just a normal guy whose house is in his rich uncle’s pool, who has no job, no partner, and only really the love of his family. He spent his life on adventures he didn’t want to have living int he shadow of someone he grew to resent before the Spear of Selene incident blew things up for a decade. And then when he was free instead of becoming a big sucess... he blew the rest of it being overprotective of his boys and bouncing from dead end job to dead end job. It’s easy to see why he sees himself as a failure despite having lived a good life: compared to everyone else, even his sister who mooned herself, in his life.. he feelsd far behind. And as someone whose felt they were far behind countless times and only now is realizing they haven’t and it’s a marathoon ot a sprint I naturally relate. So his wanting to play big shot for just ONE day, to be the big hero like scrooge, teo be a sucess for five minutes with his best friends.. it’s understandable and relatable.

So Donald continues the ruse, leading to a great bit where the cabs all try to avoid picking up the check “WE can’t all keep whistling nonchalantly” before Scrooge is forced to give Donald the money to in the best joke of the episode.. and I mean FORCED. He and donald get into a fight with their hands under the table and Huey eventually gets fed up with that and has to BITE his uncle’s hand just to get him to do what he shoudl’ve done ruse or no given he’s the richest person there. The reason I take special offense to this.. is that my fairly wealthy grandpa and grandma, my mom’s dad and his wife for the record, would buy us dinner EVERY TIME they were near town, a nice steak dinner with whatever we wanted to most of the time. They knew we couldn’t afford such luxury half the time and wanted to treat us and spend time with us. Since my grandpa’s passing, my Grandma and her New Husband have continued the tradition since then, if obviously not this year for damn obvious reasons, thought hey sent us a really nice dinner to cook for christmas in the same spirit. What i’m saying is when you know your relatives arne’t as stacked as you , you pay for the fucking meal especially since i’ts a special occasion, and even for someone as stingy as scrooge, it comes off as a dick move.

We then get the best scene with the episode, just inching out the climax as the three simply talk, remince on old times, have a good rib like old friends would. It feels natural and wonderful to watch and gets even better when the three hear the radio and end up having an impromptu dance and musical number. Also Jose’s umbrella is also a flute somehow.

Point is the boys have a good time and Donald gets carried away, with the boys planning a world tour. Huey, while happy to endulge his uncle in a badly needded ego boost, isn’t happy to endulge this and scrooge is unwilling ot pay, more resonably this time. Huey eventually talks him out of being a moron and tells him he has to tell the honest truth and while that dosen’t work this does.

So as Donald goes to face the music, we have come to our climax. Phrasing.

The Finale: Ay Carumba

So we come to our finale. Backing up a scene or too to the B-Plot, webby is interviewing a local about the festival when she gets stuck in a loop. So far in the episode we’ve had hints something is up with the people as they go all yellow eyed.. and webby finds out why as she notices the “person” she was interviewing is, in a hilarious and disturbing review.. a horrignly realistic hand puppet.. and upon stealing Louie’s phone, she points out there’s no shots of anyone’s feet.. and the reason why is that the giant flower the feast is about is a mean green mother from outer space and he’s bad. And Webby finding that out’s got him fighting mad. Webby and the boys naturally run to warn the remaning boy and scrooge and they all run out only to get blocked out of town and captured. Dewey looses his phone inside the plant monster.

In a great joke, Scrooge ended up actually throwing his back out with the old man act, so our heroes are all captured and it’s up to our stars to save the day. So while his family is in peril, Donald finally comes clean with Jose and Panchito naturally being upset.. for a second before Jose admits he lied to and an irate panchito.. is forced to admit he also lied. Jose is a flight attendant, hopefully he’ll get his own mini series where he accidently murders a dude on disney plus, which is a nice update of his globe trotting ways, as it’s a resonable way for someone with no money to get around the world these days and Panchito is a birthday party muscian. They all however chuckle over this realizing they haven’t come as far as they thought.. and they still have each other. It’s a nice way of modernizing Rosa’s jobs for them and their hard luck lives he set up and I love this. IJt’s just a sweet emotoinal scene that makes donald, and his friends, realize they aren’t faliures and life isn’t just about reaching some arbitrarity goal.. just like Soul taught me aka the actually great movie I watched on Christmas Day. But since Donald’s family is in peril Jose suggests theys till play the gig.. just like they did ion acapulco thus we get the second best scene of the episode and another worthy rendition of The Three Caballeros as our heroes beat the shit out of the plant, free the kids and the plant straighens out scrooges back.

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It’s beautiful, psycadelic, and utterly awesome. Seroiusly the bright boldend colors are awesome and so’s this sequence. Easily one of the show’s best.. and it’s a show that contiains the greatest scene in television history

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So that masterclass concludes with Donald signing.. badly.. and blowing the plant hte fuck up. Our heroes win and head off in the sunchaser. No idea what Launchpad is up to, probably has another ex in the area. Point is our heroes win, Dewey deletes his photos because “If there was no pics it didn’t happen” (So wise) and Donald decides to get the band back together, prompting scrooge to do an animal house on Panchito’s guitar... you.. you know you have to pay for that right? you aren’t a loveable frat man and he wasn’t ‘singing and I gave my love a cherry. Your obligated to get him a new guitar. You know that right?

So with that the episode wraps. This is a pretty good episode. While the subplot is bad and it should feel bad the main plot is emotional, well done and really adds more depth to Donald’s character while giving us a hell of a show with the cabs. The College Band background gives the boys a unique flavor this time around, not musically but in how they know each other and helps set it apart from the countless other reunions. It’s a truly bright, colorful and fun episode with some great gags and great performances. As I said Puerto and Paulo really knock it out of the park as the boys and while I would’ve preferred Jamie Camil, Paulo was still utterly excellent, though Puerto was the clear standout of the two. While their second apparence would be disapointing characterization wise, overall this was a fun introduction to two of disney’s best into it’s best universe and one of Season 2′s Standouts.

Next Time on the Ride of the Three Cablleros: we begin our massive finale look at The Legend of the Three Cablleros. Donald gets dumped by a nightmare of a person and finds an inhertance, new friends, and some sort of hot adventure god in his new cabana. Good times. Until then goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#ducktales #donald duck #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #Jose Carioca #webby vanderquack #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #huey duck #louie duck #Abe Simpson #the town where everyone was nice #The Three Caballeros

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rikumorimachisgirl · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Seal the Deal

Characters: Bokuto x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 1,848

Author's note: So, I haven't written in a long time and I know I'm kinda rusty. Please bear with me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Haikyuu!! and the characters, but I own the plot for this fic.

'Congratulations! You have been selected as one of the winners in the Bouncing Ball Corp's Monster Generation giveaway. A limited-edition Nendoroid and a special surprise will arrive at your delivery address. Please confirm if you are available to receive this tomorrow by responding to this message. Thank you.'

You must've read the text message over a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours, but it still made your heart skip a beat. Setting your phone down, you stood up and tried to straighten up the flat that you had just moved into last month. It wasn't much - a cozy one-bedroom apartment with a small living area, which usually doubled as your dining area on days when you could eat a nice meal at home. It certainly was a far cry from the lavish three-bedroom apartment you once shared with your ex-boyfriend, but at least it was easier to clean.

Your ex-boyfriend - the wild, and oh-so-adorable big baby you'd loved since high school, the same one who broke your heart a few months back when he couldn't choose between you and the sport he loves, and the reason you sent in several entries to the Bouncing Ball Corp's giveaway. You sighed. If your friends found out you'd won a limited edition Nendoroid of that same person they had worked so hard to help you get over, you knew you'd be done for. But how exactly does one get over the sweet summer storm that is Kotaro Bokuto? And besides, you thought, at least a Nendoroid won't leave you unless you throw it out.

** Ding-dong **

The sound of your doorbell snapped you back to your senses. "Just a minute," you called out as you quickly tied your hair and hurried to the door in an oversized sweater and shorts. You could feel your heart beat faster at the thought that your precious Nendoroid was within reach. 'Oh, and the text message said there was a special surprise, too,' you thought quietly. Maybe, if you were lucky, you'll also get his signed jersey. That wouldn't be so bad, you thought again as you unlocked the door and pulled it open.

You gasped, as the person waiting right outside the door greeted you with the warmest smile and his signature line.

"Hey, hey, he -," he paused halfway through upon seeing you. "Y/N-chan?"

Hearing him say your name almost made you cry. You had missed how he always managed to make it sound so beautiful. You also missed his naughty smirk that usually came with calling your name. As you gazed at your reflection in his golden eyes, you wondered if - like you - this beautiful man thought of you, too. You had no idea how long you've been looking at each other, but it wasn't until you heard your neighbor's baby crying that you both shook yourselves out of your reverie.

"Oh, uh. Did you need anything?" You asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Yes, I'm here to personally deliver the prize from Kenma. Kuroo asked to go, and this was the address he gave…," your ex-boyfriend said as he fumbled over his phone, looking for the exact message his friend has given. Glancing back and forth his phone and the number on the door, he scratched the back of his head. "See, it says 2404 -"

"Yes, Bokuto-san, I won the contest," you finally admitted, as you felt a blush slowly creep up your cheeks.

"You did?" He flashed you a dazzling smile, his eyes sparkled and you looked away. When he noticed your eyes move to the paper bag he was carrying, he cleared his throat. "Uh… yeah, this is for you…"

"Uh, thanks," you replied shyly, as you took the paper bag containing the Nendoroid of the very same person you were talking to now. Your gaze darted from his handsome face to the suddenly empty hall outside your flat, and you could tell he was feeling just as awkward. "So, uh…"

"So, uh, this is where you moved to?" He asked as he took a step forward to peek inside your humble abode.

"Uh-huh," you replied. "I-I'd invite you in, but…"

"Don't mind if I do," he said, stepping inside your pad. Even with his back facing you, you could tell that he was surveying your space, and you felt more and more flustered by the minute. "You have a microwave. I need to get me one of those."

"You have a microwave, Bokuto-san. It's top-of-the-line, and it was working fine when I moved out," you quipped, as you watched him from behind.

"Was it? Then I must've destroyed it the other day when I tried to use it to heat water," he said casually, as he looked around your pad some more.

"Your couch looks comfortable. I should probably buy one for my bedroom."

"What's wrong with the sectional? If I remember correctly, you had it customized by Fendi," you retorted.

"Did I? There must've been a reason I did, but I can't remember," he muttered, turning his attention to the wall. "Oh, this is a nice painting. I need one of these."

"That's just a painting I bought at a trift shop," you said, cocking an eyebrow at your tall ex-lover. "You have original Murukamis on your walls, Bokuto-san. We bought three of them in the fundraiser that Kuroo hosted."

"Oh. Of course," he sighed. "It's just that… well, your place is -"

"Small?"

"No, it's not that," he responded, as he gazed upward as if trying to find the right word.

"Tiny? Minuscule? Compact?"

"Hey, those all mean the same thing," he whined before plopping down on your couch. You quietly watched as he leaned back and stretched out his legs, trying hard not to bump the coffee table, but he still managed to do so. Something about the scene before you were so endearing, you found yourself smiling before you could stop yourself. And right about that time, your dashing ex-lover happened to look at you and smile back. Lifting his hand out to you, he said, "I'm just saying your new place sorta gives off a certain kind of vibe, you know."

Raising an eyebrow, you stared at his hand and thought twice about taking it. It wasn't like you never held hands before, but now that you've broken up, it all seems so weird.

But you wanted to take it. Oh, how you've imagined holding his hand a thousand times since you broke up, so just before he pulled away, you moved forward to grab it, and fell on his lap in the process. As you struggled to stand up, the dashing MSBY Outside Hitter put his arm around your waist to keep you from budging. "Ah, now this scene looks awfully familiar."

"Stop it, Bokuto-san," you said, hitting him on the chest so he could loosen his grip on you a little bit.

"Oh, but don't you think seeing each other after several months is fate?"

"More like a certain capitalist's underhanded scheme," you retorted, as you tried to wiggle your way out of his grasp.

"Just… just let me hold you a little longer, Y/N-chan… please?"

You stopped squirming as you listened to his silent plea, and you slowly turned your eyes met his. "Bokuto-san…"

"You could do better than that," he said, as he lifted one hand and traced the side of your face with his long fingers. "I… I missed you, Y/N-chan. I know this was all my fault, I just didn't think you'd up and leave."

"That's what usually happens when you say you love your career more than your girlfriend, Kotaro," you managed to reply, as you thought back to that fateful night when you had come home from attending another one of your friends' wedding stag because he had practice. He was watching one of their games against the Adlers, paying close attention to Ushijima and Kageyama's quick attacks when you sat beside him and recounted how beautiful the ceremony was and how much more fun it would've been if he had attended it with you. He'd usually humor you - asking you to tell him what you liked best about it, how the food was, and listen intently to what you had to say - but lately, he'd neither had the patience not the drive to hear you out and on that night, you weren't having it either. After your stories were met with silence, you decided enough was enough. And on that same evening, you called your old roommate to let her know you were staying over.

"I didn't mean it like that, Y/N-chan. I was under a lot of pressure before," he said, drawing you away from your thoughts. "I was under a lot of pressure. You knew a lot was riding on winning the championships."

As he looked at your blank expression, he huffed and pouted. "I know, I know… I could've chased after you - and believe me, I wanted to, but… uh..," he trailed off.

"But I wasn't your priority," you deadpanned.

"To be honest, I thought you'd come back the next day, and when you didn't…"

"You got angry and thought you shouldn't come after me?"

"No… more like I thought you'd come back the day after or the day after that, and before I realized it, so much time has passed and it was too late to chase after you…"

"So you decided not to?" You watched as he nodded silently, admitting defeat, and you sighed. If this were someone else, you would easily doubt what he said was true, but this guy wouldn't lie to you if his life depended on it. The tightness you had felt in your chest started to ease up, and rolled your eyes and clicked your tongue. "That's so like you, Bokuto-san."

"And there's no one else but you for me, Y/N-chan," he replied, holding you steady in his arms. "So, what do you say, do you think you can give me another shot at this?"

"At what exactly?"

"At this," he gestured to the both of you. "At us. Please? I'll be a better boyfriend. I'll attend all the parties you want to go to, or I'll listen to whatever you want to say to me - even when you repeat it several times, I'll do whatever you want, Y/N-chan, so please…"

You could feel your heart melt as he pleaded with you, and you silently scolded yourself at having your resolve crushed so easily. You knew your friends were probably not going to be happy, but you also knew no one else would do for you.

"Y/N-chan?"

You sighed and turned your attention back to him. "I suppose you are cuter than the Nendoroid," you said haughtily.

"So, will you date me again?"

"As long as you promise I'm your priority from now on."

He squeezed you to his chest and squealed. "You don't need to worry because you're the only one that matters," he said before his lips met yours to seal the deal.

The end.

#haikyuu #haikyū!!#haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu fanfic #hq fanfic #bokuto x reader #bokuto kotarou #iris writes #my first fic in months #i'm sure this sucks #please be kind

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doyelikehaggis · 4 years ago

Note

Oh my gosh think about Lizzie being sad around the school post ep and bumping into Kaleb and they bond and he cheers her up

Hi!! I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. For context, this was about episode 6! (I think...) BUT I WROTE A THING FOR IT!! I'll put it below a "read more"! Thank you for this idea, anon, I love it so much!! (I'm actually tempted to write a little more for it...) 🧡

Lizzie lets the smile slide from her face only when she hears MG close his door behind her. Each step away feels heavier and heavier, and she has no idea where she’s even going. Back to her room seems to be the only option she has left now, but she also really doesn’t want to be reminded that Josie has left her by seeing her side of the room with all of her stuff.

MG doesn’t want to spend time with her. She can’t exactly blame him; did she really just expect him to be sitting there waiting for her to finally be ready for him? Of course he said no. And Hope has a new friend. One who actually makes her smile and laugh. Lizzie honestly doesn’t think she’s ever seen her so happy before.

She takes the stairs instead, walking into the kitchen. After all, she never got her ice cream. She finds the two bowls surprisingly still there, the ice cream perfectly intact thanks to the freezing spell she placed over them. Maybe she had been hoping that MG would take her up on her offer for just a late-night talk and she could suggest ice cream, and it would be there waiting for them already.

Now she has two bowls and only one of her. With how she’s feeling, that’s probably better.

Grabbing a spoon from the drawer, she siphons the spell back off of one of the bowls and hops up on the counter. Then she digs in with a desolate sigh.

“I don’t know what’s more depressing,” a voice says from the doorway, and Lizzie looks over at Kaleb, standing there and eyeing her with pity, “the fact that you’re eating ice cream alone when there’s another bowl, or the fact that you’re doing it in the kitchen, in silence, at…” he checks his watch and raises his eyebrows, “... a quarter to midnight.”

Lizzie lowers her bowl into her lap with a shrug, swallows the lump of ice cream, and shrugs, saying bleakley, “Both. You just summed up my life, so.”

Kaleb’s eyebrows hike up higher and he sucks in air through his teeth. “Yeesh. That bad?”

He walks past her to get to the fridge, presumably for a late-night blood bag.

Lizzie scoffs and stabs her ice cream with her spoon. Then she sighs again and says, “No, it’s just… this school is a mess. We only just have enough students to even qualify as a school! We’re probably in god knows how much debt at this point, which, I kinda thought would be enough for my mom to come back and fix, you know? After all, she is headmistress, yet somehow she’s just fine letting my dad make mess after mess of this place, and—”

“And you miss Josie.”

Kaleb closes the fridge, blood-bag in hand. He sends Lizzie a small smile when she looks over at him, and she deflates, because…

“Yeah,” she breathes out as Kaleb joins her at the counter, but leans against it instead. “I really, really miss her. And I hate myself for it, because she’s probably so happy there, and this is what she wants, and she has spent years doing what I want, so… I should be able to support her on this. Shouldn’t I?”

Kaleb shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah, you should,” he says, but to her surprise he continues, “but it makes sense that you’re gonna miss her like crazy. You two have never been apart. Like… ever. So, yeah, it’s gonna suck that she’s not here, and you’re allowed to be sad about it. So long as you accept that she's gonna do it anyway."

Lizzie stares at him. She wants to be glaring — she probably would have if this was a year ago, and she’d probably throw some snarky remark at him to cover up the fact that he’s right and she’s in denial. But she can only mush her ice cream sadly because she’s not in denial anymore and nod, looking down at her lap.

“I just…” She forces out a chuckle, closing her eyes. “Ugh, and I’m doing it again!”

“Doing what?” Kaleb asks, his brow crumpling.

“Using people as my own therapists! I did it to MG for, like, two years, and now he’s pushing me away because of it. I did it to Josie our entire lives and she left. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why my dad prefers Hope over me, or why my mom won’t even return to the freaking country! And I’m still doing it to you! Oh my god.” She waves a hand at him. “You should go before I need to start paying you. Seriously, please.”

But Kaleb laughs. Not in a cruel, ridiculing way, but in a confused and slightly exasperated way. He doesn’t leave. Instead, he sets his blood bag down on the counter.

“You’re not using me,” he tells her. “Trust me, if I didn’t want to listen, I would’ve been out of here in a second.”

Lizzie just presses her lips together and gives a doubtful hum. It’s not fair that she keeps doing this. She just starts unloading without thinking, and people stick around because they feel bad for her.

“Hey, we all need to vent sometimes,” Kaleb says, adopting a gentler tone when he realizes she doesn’t believe him. He gives her leg a little nudge with his elbow. “I got rejected today, if it’s any consolation, so I could use some free therapy time, too.”

Lizzie can’t help looking back over at him at that, but does at least try and put up a fight against her surprise. She fails. “Really? You were rejected? I mean, I understand MG rejecting me, but who the hell rejected you? Oh god, don’t tell me you tried with Alyssa again, I have had enough of that witch.”

It’s Kaleb’s turn for surprise but he does nothing to try and hide it. “Hold up. Rewind. MG rejected you? MG? My boy, MG, who spent all last summer talkin’ about you?”

“No need to rub it in,” Lizzie says bitterly, but there’s a small smile twitching the corners of her lips. “But come on. Fair’s fair. I’ll only tell you about my embarrassing rejection if you tell me yours.”

“So, you’ll show me yours if I show you mine?” Kaleb teases, cracking a grin.

Lizzie rolls her eyes even as a laugh escapes her. She flicks her wrist; a drawer across the room opens and a spoon comes zooming out into her hand, the drawer closing back over.

“Grab a spoon and take a seat, Mr. Hawkins,” she says with mock-seriousness.

He laughs and shakes his head at her like she’s crazy — but in the good way. The kind of crazy that makes people smile so much they can’t stop until their face hurts. The kind of crazy that they want to be around because it’s fun and a little contagious and feels sorta like safety in a weird way. And the thought that he could feel any of that around her makes her feel a little less of the bad kind of crazy.

Accepting the spoon from her, Kaleb hops up one of the stools, his leg brushing hers every time he moves. She doesn’t mind, just pushes the second bowl of ice cream across the counter and siphons the freezing spell off of it.

“Go ahead,” she says, waving a hand at him, before digging back into her ice cream.

“Cleo,” Kaleb says.

Lizzie’s eyebrows raise and she hums around her mouthful of ice cream. She isn’t shocked. It was pretty obvious he had a thing for her the second he offered to try and get her to enroll at the school. And it was pretty obvious by the way she looked at him that her decision to stay was not going to be because of him.

“Maybe she just needs some time,” Lizzie suggests, shrugging. “After all, she only just got here. It’s gonna take some time to get used to this place. Maybe once she gets to know you?”

“Maybe,” Kaleb agrees, though he doesn’t sound too bothered.

Lizzie frowns. “Or not? Do you not like her?”

“Nah, of course I like her,” Kaleb says, rolling his eyes, mushing his ice cream. Lizzie notices that he’s doing that thing where you make it smoother by mixing it a bit, the same way she does. “I just… it’s like you said. I don’t really know her, so it’s not… that big of a deal? She’s cute, and she’s interesting, and I could definitely catch some real feelings if she was into it, too. But at the same time, I’d rather just… get to know her.”

Nodding, Lizzie shrugs again. “That’s not a bad thing.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes jokingly. “So, technically you didn’t really get rejected. I should be taking that ice cream back.”

Kaleb pulls his bowl away from her with a look of offence. “How dare you try and take away my ice cream privileges. I am heartbroken!”

Lizzie arches an eyebrow. She just smiles and doesn’t argue as Kaleb smiles back, finally eating some of the ice cream. As soon as he does, he stops, making a face.

“What — what is this?” he asks, a note of disgust in his voice. “Is this… peanut butter?”

“It’s Netflix & Chill’d!” Lizzie says. Then, when Kaleb just continues to stare in confusion, “Ben and Jerry’s? Peanut butter, pretzels, and brownie?”

Kaleb just tilts his head and she scoffs.

“Have you never had Ben and Jerry’s before?!” she asks in disbelief.

“Yeah! But it was, like… chocolate! You know, the one with the little chocolate fish? And, uh — the cookie dough one! You know, normal flavours. Good flavours.”

Wrinkling her nose, Lizzie says, “You qualify Phish Food as a good flavour?”

Now he’s staring at her like she’s the two-heads kind of crazy. It’s still not bad, she notes quietly, and warmly. It’s actually taking a lot of her self-control not to grin.

“It’s chocolate and marshmallow!” Kaleb says. “How can you hate that?!”

“How can you hate peanut butter, pretzels, and brownies?” she counters.

“Because that is way too salty!”

“Oh, sorry, would you like a little more iron with that?”

They both pause. And then Kaleb starts laughing, and it’s like the first domino has been gently pushed as Lizzie starts laughing, too. Arguing over superior ice cream flavours at midnight is definitely better than eating them alone.

Despite his complaints, Kaleb still loads his spoon with more ice cream and eats it as if giving it another go will change his opinion. Lizzie watches him curiously. His nose wrinkles again and she presses her lips together to hold back another laugh — a giggle — because seeing him trying to act like it tastes good is actually kind of adorable.

He swallows and shakes his head. “Mhm. Nope.”

“There’s cookie dough in the freezer,” Lizzie tells him, putting him out of his misery. “It was Jo’s favourite as well, she always made Dad buy in at least two tubs in case of emergencies.”

“An ice cream emergency?” Kaleb questions.

Lizzie gestures around them, then at her own bowl.

Kaleb nods. “Enough said.” He points at the second bowl as he gets up to move over to the freezer. “What about that?”

“Considering my day, two bowls seems fair,” Lizzie tells him.

She dumps the contents of the second one into her own as Kaleb gives another chuckle. He retrieves the tub of cookie dough ice cream from the freezer and returns. When he takes a spoonful of it, his nose doesn’t wrinkle, and he gives a contented sigh and smiles, nodding to himself.

“Now that,” he points his spoon at the tub, “that is good ice cream.”

“Honestly, you have no taste,” Lizzie jokes. “In anything except fashion. That, at least, I can respect.”

“I could say the same for you,” Kaleb quips. He glances up at her from beneath his eyelashes and maybe her heart gives a little flutter as a sly smile twists across his lips.

She narrows her eyes, hiding it. Except he can hear it. But that doesn’t matter, she tells herself, because it’s nothing anyway. Probably brain freeze getting to her. Just… in her chest, instead.

“Agree to disagree,” she says.

“Fine by me.” Kaleb then nods at her expectantly. “Right. Come on. Your turn.”

Catching on, Lizzie groans. “Oh no, I can’t. It’s humiliating!”

Even as she says it, she’s laughing again as Kaleb persists, trying to pull it out of her. In the end, it actually works, and she spills the whole nightmare to him. He listens. He laughs, of course, but only when she does, and he… doesn’t leave.

Lizzie finishes both bowls of ice cream and Kaleb gets through his entire tub, then finally gets around to his blood bag as they keep talking. It’s well past midnight — maybe even past one in the morning, she can’t be sure — but neither of them even thinks about leaving. After the day they’ve had — hell, the weeks they’ve had — this was exactly what they both needed.

#oh look a wild anonymoose #ask away earthlings!#legacies #legacies 3x06 #kizzie #kaleb hawkins #lizzie saltzman #lizzie x kaleb #kaleb x lizzie #fanfiction stuff

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neo-shitty · 3 years ago

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toffee!

hehe glad i could make you laugh, oooh that sounds awesome! yeah id love to be tagged it sounds great :)

YES the differences are so fucking weird. like, they do know they're the same age right? i feel like its just an exagguration of how much the persons role in the group matters, like we see chan being held up as such a mature, old leader while jungkook who is literally the same age, is still babied etc. like enha hyung line is basically the same age (if a bit younger) as chenle and jisung but somehow the rules are different?? as you point out, still legal but still bizarre. hehe yeah, i mean where else are we going to rant? quora lol. mmm, hopefully more people can just write less smut abt people who are barely adults

ah, no prob it didnt take long. yeah i think thats right (i keep forgetting you know my url lol) mmhmm :( i think if that happened irl there would be some major trauma going on. knock wood it never happens to you or me lol (/hj)

hehe same! oooh glad Redemption For Cheese was realised! yess we cant rllycomplain that theyve written/produced too much good music lol. yeah, ive dragged him into being a stay so *dusts hands off* mission accomplished. mmm yeah, they tend to have a certain vibe but tbh it couldve worked if they were any other group but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ahh ur one step ahead of me on the stages of listening to ssick i think, still not convinced but thats okay! hehe, it had to be said. yesss the itch in the back of my brain is very satisfied by sorry i love you, felixs vocals deserve to be appreciated! (side note i feel like hes trying to sing more like his speaking voice, sorta husky, but tbh i wouldnt be mad if he sang like in glow, his sweet honey vocals made my life lol. but i think ive heard him say he doesnt like singing like that cos it makes his normal voice less husky, so what can you do)

> YES SOMEONE SAID IT. seungmin rap KING, he sped thru that rap like it was nothing, he deserves more rap lines. i do like how they gave minho some melodic rap lines this comeback, my guy deserved to show off those skills that made him not be eliminated (flashbacks to stay collectively wanting to murder jyp) and we already know changbin can sing, my man murdered masked singer. hyunjin can obviously sing as can jisung and felix, and i want to hear chan rap more! i feel like he started as part of 3racha (as a rap unit not producing) and then just became a vocalist (which im fine with, but it could be nice to hear him flex his rapping skills) and was partially replaced by hyunjin. anywayyy

back to album talk. lmaooo sad music to twerk to PERFECTLY describes silent cry. yes secret secret is and will always be, a masterpiece. hehe glad i could make you laugh :) i just felt like they have similar vibes. putting off skz stuff bc of not having time to cry IS the kpop stan life summarised. oh my beloved track, red lights. ahh thats okay, we can have different opinions, but by god the lyrics are *chefs kiss*. *banging on table* TWISTED AU TWISTED AU TWISTED AU. yess id love to see ur take on it! sdfghjkl it would have been glorious

no no! not stupid, just able to predict my brainwaves. ooooh thats so cool! makes me want to go there (wherever there is lol) yeah the waves are pretty good here, but none of my familys a surfer, so we dont rlly enjoy the full potential lol. YES moving on to gone away, it is indeed a heartwrenching track, but the vocals and the bloody key change? makes me want to brave being sad just to listen to it. mmm yeah, good point :( i feel like ive just gotten used to overthinking so much so that it doesnt matter what mood im in, ill do it anyway, so might as well just do what i feel like doing anyway.

yeah i think ur right! it is quite comforting knowing that all the tracks will get the love they deserve. i feel like also people assume kpop is just one genre which is utter bs. there are so many different vibes and feels and songs, i couldnt get into kpop (of which i thought only the bright cheerful present day bts stuff existed smh) until i heard gods menu so... idk where i was going with this but yeah. :)

YES FUCK YG, theyre literally on the brink of being kicked out of the big three and they are holding their salvation hostage without letting them do ANYTHING. idek what thought process goes thru their minds but arghhh its so infuriating. yess lisa's cb will be awesome but ot4 is the gold standard here.

hehe, glad u could get to this point. no no! u dont sound like a cult member at all lol yeah, i loooove some of their songs but the whole 23 members thing is getting to me. thats prob a common problem with nctzens but what can i say? im a simple girl with a limit to how many korean boys i can give my money to. atm im just trying to get into ateez and finish memorising enhypen's faces. also kard is kinda sucking me into their fandom atm, as well as eric name lol. ah what can you do? ooh thats good!

hehe i love it too! its exactly like online penpals, that was rlly well put. aww ty! hmm im okay, recovering from a bad case of rsv so thats fun. im doing okay mentally, starting therapy soon (after having to convince my mother that its not just smth i can brush off). physically i wont go into, basically i should be doing stretches to help but they dont completely fix it so my lazy ass doesnt do them, plus i got told recently im going to be stuck with this condition for the rest of my life so thats fun! ah, before you type smth dw abt me ill be fine. the weather atm is cloudy but warm, its been raining on and off today which is good for the garden. uhh i just finished reading sunburnt veils and im in the middle of prom theory which is rlly good. ummm ive got a concert tonight? that i may or may not be able to sing in (bc of the whole rsv thingo) and uhhhh idk. my dog is cute? im drinking tea rn? ive got a school dance coming up?

wbu? hows ur day going, how are you? whats the weather like on ur end? done anything interesting lately? found smth that makes you rlly happy? just any random thing youve been dying to tell someone?

no no! dont apologise, i love these exchanges. i think im happy to continue them for a long time :) on the other hand, if you get tired of them, feel free to just not answer at any time. goodness gracious this was a long ask haha hope it isnt too annoying

<3 w.a. 🐺

sorry it took me a bit to reply, i was fixing my theme ;n;

yeah, i figured it was because of the roles too. my friends and i still get taken aback when 3rd gen idols are the same age as 4th gen ones. in my head it doesn't add up sometimes. PLS THE RANT AT QUORA SKJDK tbh tho it's just going to be normalized as the years pass? esp that the boys are growing older and the amount of explicit fics will just increase. i might have to start blocking tags.

i had to look up the previous ask to remember what we were talking about xd i hope the events in champagne problems never happens to anyone. realistically, it probably happens a lot. damn i really won't wish that pain on anyone. dragging your brother into being a stay i whEEZED JFKSA additional noeasy music enthusiast o.o and ALL I CAN SAY WITH YOU GUSHING ABT FELIX IS AHA WHIPPEEEED OML can't blame you tho, i also want to hear felix sing more in other shades (if that makes sense HAHA) i really hope they'll do the role exchange in the next comeback :( or like in the near future bc i know they can do it :( the day i hear seungmin rapping it i will respectfully pass away. minho was given more lines this comeback thank fUCK i could rmb my irl being vocal abt her frustration. i don't get why minho barely has center time/lines in title tracks??? like the line distribution in the past eras just made me ???? if seventeen can balance lines with 13 members why cant a group of 8 do the same? moving on. i haven't watched the stray kids show simply bc i don't want to cry HAJS but i've seen clips. imagine if skz debuted without minho and felix?!?!? i rmb another irl catching bias feels towards changbin bc of the masked singer only to find out that the man's a rapper. i love how skz's vocals were highlighted this comeback :c there were a lot of mellow tracks! i find it cute when chan sings/raps bc it gets kinda obvious that he's a foreigner? the accent (im not even sure if it's the accent) it just shows. "putting off skz stuff bc of not having time to cry IS the kpop stan life summarised." CORRECT.

abt the twisted au o.O i'll inquire my irl if she wants to write it or not. if she doesn't want to, i'll do it. i miss writing twisted aus <3___<3 and i also miss going to the beach with my friends :' ) but it's starting to get cold here and i don't think i'll be able to enjoy the beach as much as i would if i went beaching in the summer. so maybe next summer? gone away really has an sm-ballad vibe. the thing about skz being a self-producing group, their songs don't sound like typical jype songs? and i just appreciate that bc in all honesty im not a fan of jyp groups at all. PLS the overthinking. i wish i could mute overthinking.

anyone who assumes kpop is just one genre obv hasn't listened to a single track. if kpop was just one genre why do i like some tracks more than the others??? oh you've only recently become a kpop stan? tbh im not a fan of the bright songs of bts either. i liked their older ones *chefs kiss* really matched high school vibes. yg has good artists and they're just wasting the talent ~.~ that strategy they have will get tiring eventually. people will stop waiting on blackpink and move on to newer more active groups ://

HAHAHAH yeah the 23 members is pretty overwhelming! it was the reason i didn't bother stanning before quarantine started. i don't regret stanning tho, met my ult bias in that group <3___<3 i don't really purchase albums unless i like the tracks xd ohhh getting into ateez just in time for the comeback! let me know what you think about them! i was fond of them at some point but grew out of it. good luck with memorizing enhypen! it took me a while to distinguish to people there XD i haven't checked out kard yet but chan plays their songs during lives and they're sexc hype music me likey *u*

i had to look up rsv im sorry. i'm glad you're recovering! please rest more and don't stress yourself out. bro i wish i could go to therapy too bc i have weird issues i can't justify and i need a professional to tell me what's the reason behind it. stuck with what condition btw? what happened? i'm sorry in case i just forgot. yesterday was a bit rainy for me too :(( it's not the type of rainy that makes me anxious so B) oh concert! good luck and i hope you'll be able to sing but i also don't think it's best for you rn :c what's your dog's breed? and yes i just finished drinking tea too. AAAAA i miss school dances :(( the last one i was supposed to have was cancelled bc of covid.

i was less productive today and i'm teetering between being mentally stable and becoming a hermit again. i'm anxious with a lot of things atm so like : D not the best state. today it was a bit sunny but not hot hot which was nice. i changed my theme today bc i couldn't wait for sept. 1st. and no i haven't found anything that makes me happy HAHAHA shit like that's hard to identify. don't have anything to say too, i'm just thinking about why i'm procrastinating too much atm T_T and i'm listening to this rap song atm and one of the rappers sounded like han.

it isn't annoying! i enjoy the long exchanges but i do admit it takes me awhile to type down a reply. so if i get more busy, it'll prolly take a bit longer for me to reply.

#toff.asks #wild anon 🐺

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hibiscuswolverine · 4 years ago

Text

Making a Stupid Despair Apocalypse AU with the Ahoge trio bc why not?

Ok so where to start hmm oh! Backstory!...kinda

-The Boys are essentially childhood friends to lovers(?) Hajime knew Makoto while he was in kindergarden and Haji was in 1st grade and Shuichi being the smartie kid in class, he was transferred into the same grade as Haji. But they, still hung out bc Haji was that kid that always got on yellow in class and Shuichi was along for the ride with Makoto’s weird luck its amazing they got through primary school.

-Middle school rolled around and they all kinda lose contact because you know everyone trying to determine what HS you get into and stuff and its stressful. With Haji working hard to get into HPA, Mako honestly just floating along and Sushi starting to get more involved with his Uncle’s cases they don’t see each other alot but they always make sure attend each others BDays and have a end of summer hurrah vacation.

-FInally Hope’s Peak Academy! (Whoa!) Hajime in the Reserve Course, Makoto is in the Main along with Shuichi. So they start to hang out again and everyone is catching feelings. Too bad those feelings aren’t enough to keep Hajime from undergoing Izuru Kamukura project.

- Both Makoto and Shuichi start to get worried as they usually took like walks and stuff to and from the reserve the department and dorms and just hung so where did Hajime Hinata disappear to?

-Izuru Kamukura can’t get any freaking sleep because in the back of his mind something keeps nudging on and on about a Makoto and Shuichi? what are these things and why does he keep thinking about them?? WHO ARE THEY???

[More under cut cuz it gets long]

- The despair twins bust Izuru out and he begins his hunt for the mysterious names. Luckily he get his hands on both of them before things go down the drain in HPA.

- The two recognize the face and overwhelmed with both fear and relief as ‘hey our crush is safe but like he doesn’t look so friendly anymore uh oh.’ and Izuru all like ‘come with me if you want to live’ and they do want to live and see if they can get hajime back as they recognized his face but they don’t know why he’s calling himself Izuru??

- He takes them a location ( I was thinking The ndrv3 building but its not hope’s peak it like a sorta abandoned underground mall, shopping center, business stuff and apartment type building) and commands that they must stay as the apocalypse is coming and for some reason is deeply concerned for their well being.

- Shuichi is sorta hesitant but is too shy to speak up about it, so its Makoto who gets into an argument with izuru, saying that he needs to get his family, his classmates before its too late if the apocalypse is truly happening and want to go back out and bring them. Izuru rejects the idea which start an argument between the two which snaps the Hajime out of Izuru.

- Hajime tries to reason and calm Makoto down but in the heat of the moment Makoto storms out and goes to retreat his family and his classmates. So its just Shuichi and Hajime in the building, the two try to make the best of whats happening. Being a detective Shuichi does ask for the deets and Hajime tells him what izuru knows but refuses to let Shuichi go. He feels as if he already lost Makoto and he doesn’t wanna lose another person he cares about deeply.

Now this is where this thing spilts into two different paths:

One path is when Makoto gets captured by some despairs who give him to junko so then he goes through the killing game and its not until they leave HPA and is back into the Apocalypse (with the other 5) that he meets up with Shuichi and the occasional Hajime/Izuru

The other is when Makoto eventually comes back... not looking so hot. Dude got a limp and covered in wounds and blood and oop... He collapsed! Hajime was a lil hesitant to let him back in which offended Shuichi enough to bitchslap him and talk some sense into him. When Makoto wakes the trio talk it out and agree to stay in the building. Hajime turns into Izuru and leaves for awhile and comes back leaving Makoto and Shuichi to fend for themselves, its hard but they get used to it eventually that doesn’t mean they come back unscaved. They also have been looking for Komaru and have been watching the killing game.

This also really stupid but I was listening to this song and made me think what if they went surfing in the apocalypse???(I specifically thinking of Shuichi and him going overboard to the beat of the music at 1:24) SO DUCK IT MIGHT BE THE APOCALYPSE BUT THE THREE WENT THE BEACH AND HAD A GOOD TIME.

This is a mess ik but maybe i’ll write more idk but i hoped liked it or sumething,,,

#i haven't written like this in ages #longpost #long post #ik its stupiddd #makoto naegi #shuichi saihara #hajime hinata #izuru kamukura #danganronpa #My writing #danganronpa au

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thetriggeredhappy · 4 years ago

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scout likes sniper but can't help but blush and go awkward when he sees it

me, who saw a very pretty girl with bitchin’ tattoos and temporarily forgot how to speak english for about five minutes today: ha check out this fuckin loser having’ crushes and stuff..... ha what a fuckin goobus

(no warnings)

He really did legitimately hate the fact that he always made such an idiot out of himself in front of people he liked.

Like, he had literally no problem just hooking up with people. Absolutely no shame. See someone good-looking, walk up, ask them if they wanna bang, either get slapped or get in a car. He didn’t feel even a little bit bad about it, he was just being really honest about exactly what it was he wanted. And plenty of people respected that he wasn’t one to play stupid games.

The issue was that as soon as he got like, more than moderately invested before he could cut to the chase, he was absolutely fucked.

Miss Pauling was a great example. The situation surrounding him first meeting her was such a whirlwind and so weird that he didn’t really get a chance to ask her out, and so he’d just sorta been left to stew on it, and then he got cheesy. Started thinking about all kinds of romantic shit. And that was a complete fuckin’ mess for like, literally years until he found out she was seeing some girl and promptly stepped off because he was a hopeless romantic, not an animal.

And that had like, sucked, but at least he was functional. He only saw Miss P like, on the monthly maybe, and usually just over the phone or whatever and not in person. At least he could spend the vast majority of his time being exactly as much of a doofus as he usually was and not just a hoppy sappy mess.

But then. Oh, but fucking then.

He glanced in his periphery as subtly as he could, popping his gum to try and just for a second act natural, so frustrated with himself over how warm his face had gotten all of a sudden.

It was especially frustrating because like, it had kinda snuck up on him, all the gross heart-fluttery crap that always came along for the ride whenever he got a thing for someone. And he hadn’t really pieced it together for such a long time, but then one thing happened and everything cracked wide open all at once and now he couldn’t even just sit through the team meeting without—

Sniper moved to tug on his own hat idly, nudging his shades up his nose the millimeter or two they’d slid down since he last adjusted them maybe a minute and a half previously, and Scout had to force himself to stop looking at the guy for like ten seconds. And ten seconds was exactly how long he lasted before he was looking over again.

It sucked. Like, he’d gone years and years just kinda letting Sniper do his thing—the guy clearly just wanted to be left alone, didn’t want to be bothered with their shenanigans, so he really didn’t ever see Sniper around much. Barely knew the guy beyond like, some very basic stuff. And he kinda got the impression at first that Sniper was actually just way too cool for him to talk to, a hired assassin from fuckin’ Australia of all places, beyond skilled and into intimidating in his particular practice, maybe a little scary in the few interactions Scout caught him in during battle.

And he was like, more an idea of a person than an actual person, for those reasons. Scout didn’t really think much about what he had to actually be like.

Then one night Scout woke up around 3 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep and he decided to just go grab a snack from the kitchen to try and maybe squeeze a nap in before he was meant to be awake at 6:30, and he’d walked in and seen Sniper standing there.

Sniper was pretty professional in all interactions Scout ever had with him. Only ever showed up in the base proper in full uniform, and while he wasn’t like, Medic or Spy levels of crisp clean-cut, he still always at least looked put-together. But now Scout was confronted with the concept of what Sniper wore for pajamas, something he’d only ever thought about once or twice before, and was now suddenly witnessing.

Sweatpants, apparently, and a sweater. Green and grey, knitted. Socks. No hat or sunglasses, which was weird enough that it actually kind of took Scout a second to understand who he was looking at.

Sniper looked up at him when he walked in, and Scout knew he probably looked like hell, but Sniper didn’t look all that much better. He seemed pretty tired, and Scout watched as he visibly tried to sort himself out, standing up straight and squaring his shoulders a little, leaning less heavily on the counter.

“Uh, sup,” Scout said, and walked over to the fridge, deciding to just kinda play it cool and like he was totally anticipating that someone might be in the kitchen at 3 AM, and also that it wasn’t weird that he was in the kitchen at 3 AM.

“...‘llo,” Sniper mumbled, and glanced back down at what he’d been doing before Scout showed up.

Eating cereal, apparently, the bland wheat garbage that about half the team usually put up with, he and Pyro being the ones who tended to go for the more sugary brands. Scout occupied himself with trying to sift through the over-stuffed fridge for something he could feasibly eat, deciding not to stare.

But the silence was pretty painful. He didn’t like silence, it always felt almost itchy to stand there and not say anything when there was someone like five feet away, so he broke it after a few seconds. “Doesn’t it get hot in that?” he asked, not looking over at Sniper.

A pause long enough that Scout was half convinced Sniper was just going to ignore him, but he did end up speaking. “Gets cold at night. ‘Specially out there, it’s... warmer in the base,” Sniper murmured. “Used to it being warm, besides.”

“Fair,” Scout shrugged, pulled out a container, glanced at it, put it back. “Probably hotter in—“

“Australia, yeah,” Sniper agreed, in a tone that implied he’d heard that a hundred times before.

“It’s summer there right now, right?” Scout asked, pulling out a different container and scowling when he saw Engie’s name on it, begrudgingly putting it back.

“...Yeah.”

Scout finally found a leftover Chinese takeout box that he was at least reasonably sure was his own, and moved over to the microwave, dropping the leftovers on a plate and putting in some random amount of time, aware he’d just be stopping the microwave when noises started happening anyways. He glanced back over at Sniper. Sniper wasn’t looking at him. “That’s a cool sweater, though,” Scout finally said.

“Thanks,” Sniper said into his bowl. “It’s, er...”

There was a very long silence as Scout waited for Sniper to finish his sentence and he didn’t. He popped the microwave open to check on his leftovers. Not warm enough. He closed it again, turned back around. Kept waiting.

Apparently Sniper did decide to finish his sentence eventually. “It’s wool. From... back home,” he said, voice still quiet.

“Huh?” Scout asked, a little confused.

Sniper finished his bowl, put it on the counter next to him. Scratched at the back of his neck. Without the hat it was much more obvious how Sniper’s hair just kinda flipped up in the back, and how unruly the rest of his hair was as well, even deliberately brushed back out of the way. “Family’s sheep farmers,” he finally said.

Scout’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”

Sniper nodded. “We don’t... spin the wool, some other bloke does that, but we get to sell the yarn at least. Usually m’parents keep at least a little bit. Mum knits. Gives... gloves and the like to any kids in town.”

“She made that too?” Scout asked, glancing the sweater up and down again. “Jesus, how long did that take?”

Sniper shrugged. “Week, maybe two.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Scout scratched at his arm as a memory occurred to him. “Only sweaters I ever had were hand-me-downs from my brothers, itchy as all fuck. They never wanted to pass down the softer ones.”

Sniper nodded at that. “Makes sense.”

There was a long silence then, in which Scout finally noticed his food was starting to make popping noises and he pulled it out. Mostly hot, some cold bits in the middle, but he grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the drawer of assorted utensils and stirred it around so it was more even. It was just noodles, so it didn’t matter much.

“Late dinner,” Sniper said, almost managing to make it sound like a joke.

“Early breakfast,” Scout shot back, nodding at the cereal bowl and stirring his food around a bit more.

Sniper tilted his head in a vague sort of agreement, going quiet again. Scout started eating, and winced a little at how some noodles were weirdly dry and others were goopy, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Silence again, but at least Scout could keep himself occupied with eating instead of thinking about it.

“You know how to use chopsticks?” Sniper finally asked, surprising Scout a little bit. He glanced up.

“Yeah, duh, who doesn’t?” Scout scoffed.

Silence for a second. “I don’t,” Sniper said.

Scout looked up again, befuddled. “Man, are you serious? I learned that when I was like, five,” he prodded.

Sniper shrugged, looking away again. “Just never learnt. Never really had to, didn’t come up.”

“Fuckin’, learn how to use chopsticks, man. What’re you waiting for, a written invitation?” Scout joked.

“Eh. I’ll get to it,” Sniper shrugged again, and rubbed at his eye, and suddenly it hit Scout how much of a human being Sniper was. Standing there in a sweater his mom knit for him, eating cereal at three in the morning, admitting that he just never learned how to use chopsticks.

What the fuck, Sniper was just a regular dude who happened to be in their line of work.

What the fuck.

(He did look pretty good out of uniform, huh—?)

And that was it for him, a series of back-to-back realizations compounding until he realized how good-looking Sniper was, even rumbled at three in the morning under the shitty fluorescents of the kitchen—especially like that. And he felt his face go burning hot, and he dug into his noodles to try and cover it, and he almost choked on his food.

Absolute fucking mess.

And like—now Scout was noticing all kinds of tiny little things. Sniper always crossed his legs at the ankle, left-over right, and his arms right-over-left. He had a bruise on his thumb from jamming it on his rifle, and his shades were crooked a little tiny bit to the left, and his hair was all flippy-uppy in the back but there was this one lock of hair that was especially flippy-uppy. He didn’t put anything in his coffee like an absolute monster but did put just a little bit of sugar on his cereal, apparently. He kept nodding off during meetings but nobody else seemed to notice since he had the shades on and you had to be looking pretty closely and from roughly Scout’s angle at the table to see his eyes were closed, and he didn’t have any other tells besides his jaw being a little tight.

Twice so far he’d been asked by Medic if he had a fever, he was blushing so hard. At once point Demo had dunked on him a little bit about “zoning out” and “thinkin’ about someone special, probably”, and he’d only barely escaped by rolling his eyes and rolling with the joke instead of getting defensive. He’d gotten mysteriously more clumsy in front of the team at large, fumbling and tripping over his words and even stammering sometimes. He was such a goddamn sappy mess.

God. He was so fucked.

#sniperscout #speeding bullet #tf2 #team fortress 2 #shut up me #everybody talks #my fanfiction #yes its 3am as i post this dont worry abt it

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sedge-and-sanctuary · 4 years ago

Text

Sanctuary Pack Stories: The Herbalist [Part Three]

[Eight and Dace continue on their journey to track down an expert herbalist in an effort help cure the illness ravaging The Sanctuary Pack]

It’s good to be on the move again; a blue, brilliant winter morning, the air crisp and clear as glacial runoff. A few stubborn birds perch in the barren trees, trying their songs against the silence.

Dace clears her throat. "Eight. I wanted to say."

"Hm?" Eight looks up, half-startled. She's been deep in thought all morning; 'hunting clouds', as Saturn would say.

And no wonder. There had been a moment, the night before, when Dace had made a mistake. Had made Eight uncomfortable-- had made things uncomfortable, between them.

Eight’s eyes meeting hers; her breath fogging in the winter air, and Dace had thought, I’ve missed this more than I can say. Something must have showed in her face; Eight had stepped away, fast, turning her head.

She has been quiet, since.

"Just: last night. If I made you uncomfortable, or something." Dace shrugs, keeps her eyes fixed forward. "You know-- sorry. Won’t happen again."

"Oh!" Eight shakes her head. "Oh no, Dace, that's-- No, I wasn't. Uncomfortable, I mean! It's fine."

Dace does twist, now, to look over Eight. She's not looking back; has her head craned around, staring with great intensity into the trees.

"Alright," Dace says. Resolves to keep a little more distance, anyway, if Eight’s going to be too polite to admit when she’s wrong-footed.

The walk on, the loudest sound for miles the crunching of their paws through the crusty snow. The sun creeps its slow way across the sky.

Eight clears her throat, venture: “Um, so-- how is it?”

Dace looks up.

“Being a-- scout. Or a loner? I mean--” she shrugs, looks briefly at Dace and then away again. “I don’t know. Is it-- fun? I guess? Do you like it?”

Dace nods. “It’s alright. It’s good, actually.” She looks out at the frozen wood: at the towering trees, bark black against the snow, the sharp pine-needle smell. At the sky, a piercing, thorn-sharp blue above. “I do like it. In fact…”

In fact, they're right by that old pond, aren't they? The frogs will be dug into the mud hibernating-- they could dig some out, like that crow had shown Dace last spring, and--

She looks sideways at Eight. Remembers her odd stiffness the night before. Clears her throat. “In fact, though, it can get a little boring.”

“Oh?” Eight cocks her head.

“Sometimes.” Dace shrugs. “And you? Healing? That seems-- interesting.”

A stiff pause. Eight huffs. “Well, I guess-- a little too interesting, lately. Um.”

Dace winces. “Of course. Scat, Eight, I’m sorry-”

“No--” Eight shakes herself. “No, it’s okay. It is- not just now, I mean- interesting.” She laughs, a little awkwardly.

They walk along for a while. Dace watches her paws; studies the prints she makes, tries not to think about much else.

After a while, Eight laughs again. “I’m sorry, Dace-- I don’t really know-- there aren't. Sorta, fun anecdotes, I guess? It isn’t--”

“No, you’re fine!” Dace huffs. “Just uh, not used to travelling with someone else. Probably getting too chatty.”

“No.” Eight sighs. “If it was spring- or summer or even fall, really- I could show you plants and stuff? Like herbs? But.” She looks out over the forest; undergrowth buried under months of snow, the trees dormant, roots all locked away beneath the frost.

“Sure,” Dace says, easily. “Bad season for it. Maybe--” I can come by in spring, and you can show me then. She almost says it. Clears her throat. “Maybe this would have been a little more fun in spring,” she settles on instead, trying to keep her voice light.

“Less cold,” Eight says, by way of agreement.

They walk on-- endlessly, they walk on.

It’s five more days of travel to reach the bear, and even Dace is starting to get a little footsore. The hard, icy surface of the snow is wearing away at her pawpads, sure as rough stone would.

Eight isn’t any better, facing all the same strain of long travel with none of the practice Dace has. She limps up to where Dace has paused on the edge of the forest, and comes to a stop, breath fogging as she catches her breath.

They’ve come to the edge of the forest.

Beyond, the prairie goes on forever. White, flat land, rolling endlessly on until the blue curve of the horizon. It seems very exposed. Dace imagines living there, without shelter of tree or rock, without shadow or undergrowth, and shivers, despite her thick winter coat.

Eight makes a low, uncertain sound in the back of her throat. She’s hunched up into herself; ears flat, tail tucking under, and Dace’s chest squeezes.

“Pretty weird,” she says, to break the silence.

And she hasn’t been saying as much, lately. Been trying to give Eight her space. But it’s worth it, now, to see Eight relax, a little. To see her stand up straighter.

“Pretty weird,” she agrees.

And still the prairie stretches on. Beyond the shelter of the trees, a wind kicks up, and a tumbleweed of snow goes skating out across the plain, silver against the brilliant, endless blue of the sky.

“Hoot,” Dace says, and finds her voice comes out a bit hushed. She clears her throat. Tries again. “Hoot used to talk about-- where she came from.”

“Mhm.” Eight can’t seem to find the words to respond; that’s okay.

Dace goes on. “On hunting trips- back when I was hunting- She's say about the ocean. You know?”

“Yes,” Eight says, low.

“About how there was somewhere the land stops. And it’s just water forever, after that. Until the-- the edge. Do you think...”

She doesn’t know how to put it. But Eight nods, eyes still fixed rigidly forward. “Yes,” she says, again. “This is-- it seems like--”

The both look out over the prairie again. Flat land, stretching on. It must end, somewhere. But--

Dace shakes herself. “Well,” she says, sounding just short of upbeat. “Well. Our bear lives out there, somewhere.”

Eight nods. “Yes,” she says. “Right.”

And if she sticks a little closer to Dace’s side, as they step out onto the plains-- Well. Dace can’t blame her, for it.

It makes her feel better, too.

They reach the bear that evening. A low hill, a copse of cottonwoods, the ceaseless, piercing howling of the wind, unbroken across the whole of the prairie.

“Strange place for a bear to den,” Eight says, her voice very low. “Isn’t it? I mean--”

“Yes,” Dace says. Finds herself speaking very softly, involuntarily. She tries again, clearing her throat. “But from what I’ve heard, he’s a strange bear. He couldn’t help us if he wasn’t.”

Her voice comes out a little more strongly, and Eight straightens up. Nods.

The cottonwoods grow close together, trunks dark and strangely straight, an unnatural quality to them. The wind breaks as they come through the trees, and leaves an eerie silence- not much better- in its absence.

Dace’s own breath is loud in her ears. Something brushes her shoulder-- Eight, drawing close. They look at one another for just an instant. Dace lets out a breath, slowly. Is suddenly very glad to have Eight here with her, in this strange place.

The ground is rucked up by the roots of one enormous tree, in the very center of the grove; its bark is nearly black against the snow, the sharp white-blue of the sky. A dark space peeks out between the gnarled roots.

They have come to the bear’s den, at last.

Dace thinks, for a wild, stupid moment, of the stories Rover tells to pups; a great Rowan tree, a pack of monstrous wolves.

She stares up at the giant cottonwood. Shakes herself. “Hello?” Her voice, thankfully, does not waver. “We’ve come from far away, seeking medicine.” She pauses. Looks sideways at Eight.

Eight looks back at her, ears pulled down in uncertainty. “I’m a healer myself,” she tries, and Dace touches her shoulder, briefly, encouraging. “But I can’t heal this sickness-- we need your help.”

Another pause. The den is all shadow, before them; a deep pit, an open mouth, plunging down into the frozen earth. Dace can’t quite make herself step towards it; shivers at the idea of it, squeezing herself blind and helpless between the roots, towards who knows what.

She tries again, instead. I will go, she tells herself, sternly, if he does not answer this time, I will go in. “Great-- bear healer. May we speak with you?”

Nothing, for a long moment. Dace takes a breath-- wrenches herself away from Eight’s warm side and pads forward to the mouth of the den. Here goes, she thinks, and then--

“Dace!” Eight says, tight with alarm, and at the same time another, deeper voice sounds out.

“Well,” it says. “There’s no need to shout.”

Dace turns, slowly, and there is the bear.

A massive shape, almost unreal. His huge, blunt head dips down beside Eight, nearly the size of her entire torso. His shoulders, humped with muscle, could put pause to a bison. He crouches, peering at Dace, and when he curls his lip up to sniff, his teeth flash long and white.

Eight is stiff as if she’s frozen solid, only a paw’s length away from the creature. The whites of her eyes show, plainly frightened, and Dace wrenches herself into action.

She folds into a bow, back hunching, tail tucking automatically. They don’t hold with submission much, at Sanctuary, but it is nearly instinctive to do it now.

“Great bear,” she says, eyes fixed firmly on the ground- on the bear’s immense paws, heavy and clawtipped, digging furrows into the snow. “I have heard of your healing from other creatures--”

“Yes, yes,” the bear says, his deep voice strangely cheerful. “The geese, was it? They do love to gossip.”

Dace looks up at him, startled, for a moment, and then drops her eyes again, hastily. “It-- was the geese, sir.”

If the bear notices her surprise, he says nothing of it. “Hm. Just as well. Follow me, then!” And he shoulders past Dace- a brush of immense strength, something like one of the human’s cars blowing past on their roads- a near miss, an impression of power- and then he is by, lumbering awkwardly down into his den, and there is nothing left to do except to follow.

#wolvden #The Sanctuary Pack #pack stories #eight #dace #winter three #year three #the herbalist #listen i live in the mountains and i find the prarie very frightening #sorry to like. saskatchewan. but i am a little afraid of you.#anyway! here is this.#sorry this is so fucking long lol.

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