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according-to-the-laura · 3 years ago

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StackedNatural Day 166: 1x21, 7x20, 11x19, 12x19

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

April 27, 2022

1x21: Salvation

Written by: Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker

Directed by: Robert Singer

Original air date: April 27, 2006

Plot Synopsis:

Meg turns to killing John's friends in order to get the Colt. Sam and Dean stakeout the Demon's next target; a family with a six month old baby showing signs of special abilities. John heads off alone to confront Meg.

Features:

A hunter priest, Sam’s guilt complex, John learning about Sam’s visions, a call from Meg, lots of throat-slitting, the demons calling John’s bluff, Sam missing his shot on the yellow-eyed demon.

My Thoughts:

Stacked wobbles back and forth between being a chore and being super fun, but we’re in finale territory now babey, and that means episodes are on a quality upswing.

I love Meg 1.0, she really kills is with the line between flirtatious and threatening, she steals every scene she’s in. The opening scene and the meeting with John in particular are awesome.

One thing I really miss about the first few seasons are Sam’s visions - they’re such a great plot point, they really set him up as fundamentally different from other people and it adds a lot of tension between him and Dean. Also, I love his sweet puppy dog eyes any time he has a vision and gets concerned about the person he sees in danger.

Do NOT come for me on this but John Winchester is a badass in this episode. The holy water move is great. It’s very obvious that he loves his kids, but like I’ve mentioned in other posts, that doesn’t necessarily make him a good father. He wants Dean to have a home, but he isn’t capable of providing one for him. He wants Sam to go to college, but he kicked him out and cut contact when he did.

Dean saying that this revenge quest isn’t worth dying for is the fundamental difference between him and his family. I like following Moriah with this episode - because when the chips were down, he did throw away a chance at revenge that would kill himself and Jack.

Notable Lines:

“The other day I met this man. A nice guy, you know? We had a really good chat, sort of like this....then I slit his throat and ripped his heart out through his chest. Does that make me a bad person?”

“Call you? Are you kidding me? Dad, I called you from Lawrence, all right? Sam called you when I was dying. I mean, getting you on the phone? I got a better chance of winning the lottery.”

“I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school, I want Dean to have a home. I want....I want Mary alive. It's just....I just want this to be over.”

“That's funny, John. We're going to strip the skin from your bones, but that was funny.”

“If hunting this demon means getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.5

IMdB Rating: 8.9

7x20: The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo

Written by: Robbie Thompson

Directed by: John MacCarthy

Original air date: April 27, 2012

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean discover that Frank's hard drive, containing everything on the leviathans, is now in Dick's company building. To retrieve it, they ask for help from one of the employees, a young computer hacker.

Features:

Another visit from Bobby, a slaughterhouse for human cattle, Charlie walking on sunshine, Sucrocorp, nerds bonding, Bobby sneaking into Richard Roman Enterprises, Charlie’s Leia D&D tattoo, Dean flirting Charlie’s way out of trouble, Sam and Dean diving through glass, a fight between a ghost and a leviathan, a successful heist.

My Thoughts:

This is hands down the best Charlie episode. I still think she’s fun in later episodes, but she’s in a perfect niche in this episode that they try to spread from rather than digging deeper into what makes her extremely skilled. In this one she’s scared but still brave, extremely smart and tenacious, and thinks well on her feet. I love a hacker with a heart of gold.

The directing on this episode is also extremely fun, and it fits well with the heist style. They’ve tried to do a heist episode since, with The Scorpion and the Frog, but it fell flat. Of course we have the ICONIC scene of Dean flirting with the security guard via Charlie. The fact that she specifically says she can’t flirt with him because she isn’t into men and then Dean very competently flirts with him… I can’t believe they maintained that he was heterosexual for a full 8 years after that.

Notable Lines:

“If you can't score at a reproductive rights function, then you simply cannot score.”

“15 minutes ain't a lot of time.” “She said if it took longer to hack his desktop, then she deserved to be eaten.”

“He's not my type.” “You're gonna have to play through that.” “As in he's not a girl.” “Oh, oh. Pretend he has boobs.”

“She’s kinda like the little sister I never wanted.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.7

IMdB Rating: 9.1

11x19: The Chitters

Written by: Nancy Won

Directed by: Eduardo Sánchez

Original air date: April 27, 2016

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean are visiting a small town in Colorado where people are mysteriously disappearing every 27 years. While they are investigating, the boys encounter a pair of hunters seeking revenge on the monster causing the disappearances.

Features:

A naked green-eyed monster, a generational curse, the hottest sheriff in the series, parasitic cicada spirits, Jesse and Cesar, philosophical debates over revenge, some light body horror, beheading with a shovel, hunters making it to the finish line.

My Thoughts:

This episode had everything I like in a good monster of the week episode: a cool new monster, interesting and empathetic secondary characters, moments with big Sibling Energy, and a thematic link to the overarching or upcoming plot. Plus, gay hunters! The only thing that actually disappointed me is we didn’t even get to see Jesse and Cesar kiss.

I do think that the transitionary stage of the monster, when they just stand in the woods and shake, is scarier than the full transformation stage where they jump you in an alley. I wish the alley scene had been filmed at night to preserve a little of the mystery, but whatever.

The first scene with the cold open helps drive home that Dean’s motivating factor this season really is Cas and not Amara. Despite his “connection” with her, he’s staying up all night trying to figure out how to kill her so he can get Cas back.

I really like Jesse and Cesar - so often when other hunters are introduced to the boys the moral of the episode is that they can’t be trusted - think of Gordon and Lee. I was so scared that one or both of them was going to be killed, but they actually got their happy ending. Plus if they settled down in New Mexico and spend most of their hunting years in that area then I can very neatly fit them in DTA as part of Alpha, so love that for me.

There was a lot of emotional intelligence in the writing of this episode. Not just Jesse’s grief, but the old sheriff's as well, not to mention Dean and Cesar’s conversation about revenge and closure, which reminds us of Mary and neatly seeds her return at the end of the season. Dean got his revenge, and it didn’t fix him, and soon he’ll get Mary back, and that won’t fix him either. And then Dean and Sam make the decision not to ask them to help when they would have, because they deserve to retire. (It does make me wanna riot about Dean not getting to retire with his partner, but that’s not this episode’s fault.)

Notable Lines:

“Dude, I was eighteen.” “Sinner.” “It was college. It was probably oregano anyways.”

“when someone loses someone when they’re young. It never heals over.” “No, it doesn’t.”

“And the insane thing is, how many hunters have you seen over the years get their revenge? [...] And they are never fixed, are they?”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.2

IMdB Rating: 7.7

12x19: The Future

Written by: Robert Berens & Meredith Glynn

Directed by: Amanda Tapping

Original air date: April 27, 2017

Plot Synopsis:

Sam comes up with a way to stop Lucifer's baby, but Castiel has something else in mind for Kelly. Dean is furious when he finds out someone stole the Colt.

Features:

A big suicide TW, Cas finally returning to the bunker, Thee Mixtape, fetus Jack saving Kelly’s life, Dagon’s parenting plan, Cas stealing the Colt and then Kelly, cas googling how to fix his truck, Cas feeling Jack kick, Kelly stealing the Impala, Dagon destroying the Colt, Cas switching to Jack’s team.

My Thoughts:

I need to repent my sins, because the last time I watched this @weedsinavacantlot was dragging me back into the show kicking and screaming and I was in full irony mode. I can’t believe I missed how much this episode absolutely fucking rules.

First of all, Amanda Tapping as a director my beloved. There are a lot of great shots - obviously the entire mix tape scene, the broken arm healing, Cas feeling Jack kick - but one I didn’t remember was Kelly looking at herself in the cracked mirror before attempting suicide, and the cracks cutting her face out of the image so that all the remains of her reflection is her stomach. Gorgeous symbolism.

And the mixtape scene…. Boy oh boy. There are so many reasons to call that romantic, but suffice to say that Ledd Zepplin was what Mary and John first bonded over, which we learned about at the beginning of this very season. And then Cas steals the Colt not to hurt Dean, but to prevent him from getting innocent blood on his hands, to prevent his guilt, and to give him a win. AND we get the intimately framed shot of Dean shoving cas against a wall this episode, thank you Amanda.

When Cas and Kelly were talking after stealing the Impala and she said that he would have faith, I got shivers remembering 1x12 Faith.

This episode loses 0.1 points for cutting the visions that Jack shows Cas and thus not showing us post-orgasmic Dean thanking Cas.

Notable Lines:

“Dean, I just keep failing. Again and again. [...] And I just wanted I needed to come back here with a win for you. For myself.”

“Your child could bring the universe to its knees.” “Or lift it to its feet.”

“His power, his soul surged through me, and it was good. Pure. I feel- I know he is good.”

“He chose you, Castiel. [...] You asked me who would protect him, guide him when I'm gone. I know now. It's you.”

“I wish I had your faith.” “You will.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.9

IMdB Rating: 8.2

In Conclusion: EXTREMELY STRONG STACK TODAY, Y’ALL. I get stressed about 4-ep days because I have to work and commute and take care of my dog but this one was a straight up pleasure.

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#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #1x21 #Salvation #7x20 #The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo #11x19 #The Chitters #12x19 #The Future

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sixtyeightdays · 5 years ago

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Apologies don’t change anything

helloo so i did this today bc i probably would’ve procrastinated if i left this for tmr but i really wanted to write this bc i love the idea of it alot so yes here goes (yes i ended up writing half then procrastinating again but its done now so yay)

also the idea of this goes to this post by @flufflepuffle296

⚠️TW: Mentions of murder

Marinette stared blankly at the airport she had just reached. Her class had gone on a trip to New York City, where Lila had oh-so-humbly bragged about all the famous people she knew here.

Lila had gotten Max to tamper with her alarm, setting it to go off a few hours late, at 5.30am instead of the 2am alarm she’d set it to, especially since their flight was at 6 in the morning.

Marinette had gotten to her hotel room late because everyone hadn’t bothered to get their own luggage to the car, and Marinette was reprimanded for not ‘helping her classmates bring their bags on to the bus’, especially because of Lila’s ‘sprained wrist’.

She had then been forced to carry all 30 luggages and carry-ons onto the bus by herself. Thankfully, the bus driver, who was staying at the same hotel as them for convenience had noticed her trouble when she’d tripped while carrying Lila’s huge baggage.

Lila had convinced the rest of the class not to bring suitcases that could be wheeled for no good reason, and everyone had brought large duffel bags, apart from Adrien, to which Marinette was very grateful for, even if the blonde boy was still bending to Lila’s whims.

Marinette had never appreciated lifting flour bags in the bakery more.

It had taken over two hours to get al the bags on the bus, especially since her class was stupid enough, or maybe they did it on purpose, and forgot stuff in their room, which they would then come down carrying, and forcing Marinette to unpack all the bags she’d piled on top of one another so they could put their item inside.

Marinette almost screamed when Max came down for the eighth time, carrying a stupid battery that could’ve easily fit into his pocket or Markov’s tail compartment.

Marinette was no exception and her stuff was on the plane, which was now on its way back to Paris-- without her.

She probably would’ve been more mad if she’d hadn’t seen it coming, and prepared a small backpack with her, with her phone, wallet, the binder she used to plan the class trip, a bag of cookies for Tikki, the box of power-up macarons, a jar of sugarcubes for Kaalki, and a spare change of clothes.

Tikki and Kaalki were safely hidden within the pouch Marinette had at her hip, which she was eternally grateful for. The Miracle Box was hidden in Ladybug’s yoyo, which was convenient for the girl so people wouldn’t steal it.

She let out a small groan in frustration until a hand gripped her shoulder. Panicking slightly, Marinette reared back her fist and clocked her attacker in the nose.

He yelped and staggered back as the lady with him looked slightly shocked. The lady faced Marinette, who was still on the defensive, but relaxed slightly when in the scuffle, the man’s badge fell out of his pocket, showing the golden unmistakable symbol of the NYPD.

‘Oh my gods, I am so sorry!’ Marinette helped the man up blushing slightly and panicking because she’d just punched a police officer in the face.

Marinette was very grateful she spoke fluent English.

He just groaned and with the help of Marinette and the lady, he stood up, clutching his bruised nose.

She introduced herself as Nette, because even if he was the police, she didn’t really want to give her name out to someone she punched in the face. You know, so she could run away, maybe Jagged would let her stay at his old apartment in Gotham--

She snapped out of her stupor as the lady tapped her on the shoulder cautiously and introduced herself as Amy Santiago and the man Jake Peralta.

‘What are you doing here, all by yourself? You can’t be more than 16.’

Frowning, Nette evaded the topic slightly and said she was here on a class trip, but she missed her flight back. The police officer looked disapproving until she noticed the binder peeking out of Marinette’s bag.

Her expression gave way to a happy delight as she plucked the binder out of her bag, gushing about how neat it was, how she used the correct fonts to emphasise everything, and she squealed when she saw the itinerary inside of it.

‘I am so sorry for her, she’s a bit of a nerd and she loves binders.’ Jake waved his hand side to side, making a tsk sound. Marinette could tell they were either dating or married, from the way he looked at her.

‘Why don’t you come with us to the police station? It’s about a 5 minute drive away, and we’re heading back anyway. We just had to drop my sister off.’ He explained, and Amy winced at the mentioned of Jake’s sister.

Huh, wonder why.

Marinette, still slightly wary but followed the couple to their car. He was a legitimate officer, and besides it wasn’t like she had anything to lose.

She clambered into the backseat and Tikki nudged her from the purse, a small show of support and a way of saying “i’m here for you”. She pressed her hand against the purse in response, listening to the somehow comforting banter between Jake and Amy.

When they arrived at the precinct, Marinette fidgeted in the lift, slightly nervous. Paris’ police department wasn’t the most friendly, and she was not welcomed there, since apparently Sabrina had complained to her father about Marinette.

When the lift doors opened with a small ding, Marinette clutched the string of her purse tightly, led around by Amy’s comforting hand o her shoulder. As she sat down in the seat Amy asked her to, facing Amy and away from the pigsty that was Jake’s desk holy shit were those rats?

Marinette placed her bag on the ground, making sure to keep it away from Jake’s crumbs.

She looked around her, taking in her surroundings before facing Amy who had a clipboard in hand, ready to write down her statement or Mlle. Bustier’s number she didn’t know.

She looked past Amy and her eyes widened when she noticed a familiar someone in the office behind Amy. She gasped, and somehow he winced totally not hearing it from a bug in Peralta’s desk and looked up.

His eyes widened and he strode out of the office, the door opening with a small bang which made Marinette raise her eyebrow.

Amy looked confused and turned around but shot to her feet when the captain stood behind her. He was not paying attention to his detective at all, staring at Marinette like he was seeing a ghost.

‘Uh, Captain? You look like your favorite detective just died, which he didn’t I’m right here, what’s up with the look?’

He ignored Peralta and started speaking in french, which Mari reciprocated.

‘Marinette? Is that you?’

‘Yep. Your detectives picked me up at the airport when I missed my plane back to Paris.’

‘I’m going to call Kevin.’

He switched back to English, looking to Jake and a rather dumpy looking man. ‘Boyle, do you remember when I told you I shared a croque monsieur with Kevin in France? And I made one for Kevin?’

The dumpy man, Boyle, nodded.

‘Guess who gave me the recipe?’ Raymond Holt smirked, pressing send on his phone. Marinette could make out a ‘Dear Kevin, Marinette is at the precinct. Sincerely, Raymond Holt.’

Dumpy man looked slightly awestruck.

She looked at him and deadpanned. ‘Still type like an old man?’

He smirked back, much to the dumpy man, Jake and Amy’s shock. ‘Still after model boy, Marinette Agreste?’

Marinette winced. ‘Consider me divorced.’

Holt looked slightly concerned. When he had gone to Paris with Kevin maybe a year or so back, the bluenette had blushed over the blonde model Adrien Agreste, her wishing that she’d have a relationship with the boy as successful as Raymond and Kevin’s.

The elevator dinged once more before he could question the girl that was so much like a daughter to him. Marinette noticed that two more people, a woman in all black that had a dagger in her boot and a katana strapped to her leg in a discreet way --badass, she noted-- and a buff man in suspenders that made Marinette want to gouge her eyes out.

Before she could rip into him, she was attacked by a blur of plaid and ginger. It was Kevin! The girl hugged the man fiercely and him likewise.

She socked him in the stomach as soon as he let go.

‘That’s for not telling me you were leaving Paris.’ She glared at the man as he doubled over.

Badass lady smirked and whispered to Buff Suspenders. ‘I like her.’ Not that Mari couldn’t hear of course.

‘Thank you, Badass Lady.’ The lady in question looked mildly flattered. ‘My name’s Rosa, pinky.’

‘My name’s Nette!’ She chirped, the badass aura lessening slightly. ‘I like your dagger! Can you teach me how to throw one?’

Amy looked rather puzzled. There was no visible weapon on Rosa. ‘What--’

Rosa was staring at the bluenette with shock and newfound respect. Rosa reached into her boot and drew out her dagger, and it glinted in the light.

‘How’d you know it was there?’ The dagger was small enough so that while it fit snugly in her palm, the blade was still long and sharp enough to cause bodily damage. It was small enough so that it couldn’t be seen petruding out from her boot.

Marinette just smiled and shrugged, wiggling her fingers.

‘Magic.’

Marinette eyed Rosa’s pant leg that held her katana.

Rosa looked very impressed by the petite girl.

Suddenly, a groan came from behind them, and whipping around, Marinette could see two men, foodies probably, gorging themselves on Tikki’s cookies.

‘Woah woah woah, my cookies are off limits!’ One of them, the shorter one, scoffed.

‘Like you can finish this much food anyway.’ Marinette raised an eyebrow and the other man glared at the bluenette, and the two men waddled over to a room.

Marinette followed and when she entered, she could see different types of chips, cookies, cakes laid out on the table. Jake let out a low whistle.

The two men were already seated there, napkins tied around their necks as a sure sign that they were going to eat.

Mari plopped herself on the chair opposite them and the taller man, looked at Marinette disbelievingly. No way that tiny girl could eat more than him and Hitchcock.

She took it as a silent challenge and waited a few seconds before starting to eat. The squad looked shocked at the fact that not only was the girl not vomiting from eating so fast, she was keeping up with Hitchcock and Scully.

The two had evidently noticed this as well, and shovelled more food in their mouth, causing cream and icing to drip everywhere. Their napkins, clothes and the chair.

But Marinette was still eating calmly, although her jaw was working at a furious pace. However, not one thing spilled anywhere which made Dumpy Man and Buff Suspenders look thankful, muttering something about a Marge.

But by the end of the race, contest, whatever, it was evident that it was a tie. While Hitchcock and Scully had eaten more food, Marinette had not made any messes at all. Plus, Marinette was only one person, while Hitchcock and Scully were two.

Needless to say, by the end of the day everyone had grown fond of the girl who could kick everyone’s asses and still look like a ball of sunshine.

She had ripped into Buff’s stupid suspenders, and he had been insulted until Marinette used the old sewing machine in Holt’s office that he had marched into the break room because he knew firsthand how amazing Marinette was at designing (Kevin had also been on the receiving end of her fashion administrations and it was not pleasant, although the end product was)

She fixed Terry’s suspenders, making the colors match for kwamis’ sake, and he had been very proud and paraded around the whole of the precinct.

Gina, who had just come back from the bathroom where she was totally not watching monkeys walk into an invisible wall had noticed Terry’s new suspenders and walked to the break room, and looking at the bluenette sew, fixing Charles’ tie because “yellow does not go with light orange what the hell were you thinking, dumpy”.

Gina asked Marinette if she wanted to be a fashion designer, because she definitely had the talent, and Mari smiled, saying that she was already one, but she went under an anonymous alias.

‘Ooh, we do love a good mystery. What’s your alias? Maybe I’ll commission a piece from you, I’ve been telling Charles to burn that horrible yellow tie for ages.’

‘My brand’s called MDC.’

She said this with the most innocent face she could as everyone around her freaked out that this barely 16 year old girl was one of the most up and rising designers, beating Gabriel Agreste in sales.

Even Jake knew who MDC was, but that was mostly because MDC was Jagged Stone’s personal designer. (He did freak out when Gina told him that MDC designed Jagged’s album covers from Rock Giant onwards)

Gina spent half an hour coaching Marinette on how to strut down the runway “like Catwoman slinking off into the night like the sexy queen she is”. Turns out, Marinette was a natural. (‘You need to work on that blushing though.’)

Eventually night fell and Marinette didn’t have anywhere to stay. Everyone offered their homes, even Rosa.

She eventually decided to go with Terry because why not, and she also wanted to fix the rest of his suspenders and maybe make him a suit that wouldn’t tear when he moved.

Turns out, Sharon took to Mari immediately, Cagney and Lace even more so. Marinette had loads of experience babysitting, she babysitted terrors on a weekly basis, ahem Manon, Ella, Etta, Chris, and so Cagney and Lacey were bascially nothing.

She loved the two and they loved her too, saying that “Mimi” was definitely the best babysitter they’d had, and Sharon and Terry agreed after seeing how easily the three got along. Marinette knew what made them tick, what made them tired and what made them happy, and nothing got past her.

When Lacey tried to steal cookies, Marinette was there, booping the girl on the nose and handing her one and telling her that she would’ve given them one if they had asked, but since they didn’t, only one cookie for the night.

That had the two of them sharp at attention and they went to sleep without a fuss for once, Sharon and Terry cried at the peaceful silence they hadn’t had in almost a decade.

Rosa taught Marinette to throw knives, which was kind of the same as a yoyo, just with more force necessary and a different angle of throwing. Marinette, using her cool guardian voodoo, summoned an undetectable dagger, that couldn’t be detected by metal detectors.

‘Why do you have this?’

‘...Why not?’

‘...Fair enough.’

Dumpy Man, also known as Charles, had taken to Marinette almost immediately, firstly because of the brilliant croque monsieur, and secondly because of the amazing paella recipe she shared with him.

Nikolaj had declared Marinette his ‘big sister Arin’ after trying one mouth of the paella and saw the girl talk back to his dad. Genevieve loved Marinette, who had made her a new scarf as soon as she noticed the drabby scarf that she was wearing.

Amy loved that Mari could keep up with her puzzles and riddles. The bluenette was amazingly clever and even gave Amy ideas on making a new binder. Jake loved that the girl was the MDC and even more so when he saw how well Amy and Mari got along.

Jake, Amy, Kevin and Holt got into a fight on who should have custody of Mari while she was here. (She ended up alternating the days she stayed with everyone in the squad.)

Marinette had ended up bonding with Hitchcock and Scully the most, forcing the two to clean their desks, goddamnit, and Hitchcock happened to be a big fan of Clara Nightingale, who was one of Mari’s closest friends and clients.

The fact that Scully spoke French, Hitchcock loved French pastries and Marinette living in a bakery helped matter loads too.

Eventually, the fact that Marinette was Ladybug became the squad’s most closely guarded secret. She’d gotten caught because Holt was a nosy parent and decided to pry into Marinette’s purse and conveniently found a cookie nibbling Tikki and a haughty looking Kaalki.

Jake had fangirled big time when Ladybug, looking rather grumpy, swung in and smacked the baddie on the head with her yoyo, hard enough that he’d go unconscious. Turns out, Ladybug was a very popular figure in New York.

After about a week in New York, Mari finally had to leave for Paris again. She was dreading it because of what lies Lila probably spun into making everything Mari’s fault, which made the girl dissolve into a small panic attack, and Rosa, Terry, Kevin, Amy, Jake and Gina wanted to commit cold blooded murder to the people that made this girl as sad as she was when she deserved the whole world.

Holt was very tempted to let them.

The squad and Kevin took a week of leave and followed Mari back to Paris, escorting her all the way to her classroom. Mr. Damocles had tried to stop them but a glare from Rosa and the sight of Terry’s muscles made him squeak and back away.

They could all hear the false tales pouring out of Lila’s mouth as soon as they reached the outside of the classroom.

‘Mlle. Bustier, surely Marinette will be punished for skiving off school and playing truant?’

They could hear Mlle. Bustier’s voice dripping with disappointment. ‘Rest assured, Lila, she will be punished accordingly.’

This made Amy extremely mad, hearing them talk so crudely about the girl she cared for very much, and she slammed the door open. The class jumped at the sound of the door hitting the wall, and Mlle. Bustier winced when Holt’s deadly glare looked her straight in the face.

It was then that the class noticed Marinette, who was feeling afraid and hiding behind Charles and Jake.

Max shot up to his feet when his eyes landed on Kevin. That was the Kevin Cozner, one of the most famous and respected teachers known to all of humanity.

Said Kevin had both hands on Marinette’s shoulders, pinning Max with a stare that made the boy’s feet turn stiff and he sat back down.

Murmurs and yells broke out in the classroom and Mlle. Bustier internally sighed at the trouble Marinette was causing. Really, if the girl didn’t skip school and cause a dramatic entrance, she would have been going through the lesson and maybe even getting a promotion, considering Kevin Cozner was here.

She mentally groaned and composed herself, wrenching Marinette out of Kevin’s grip and dragging her to the front of the classroom, where she proceeded to berate the girl loudly for skipping school for a week and causing an unnecessary scene in school.

Instead of looking frustrated or upset and cowing like the teacher though Marinette would be, Marinette only smiled coolly at the teacher. Amy strode forwards, plopping a stack of papers in the hands of the teacher before turning to Marinette and checking her arm, which now had purple bruises standing out in contrast to her pale skin.

Charles looked furious, and when Mlle. Bustier spluttered upon looking at the papers, which in bold, had the words ‘Sued’ on them, he took great pleasure in saying loudly, “You just got served, Caline Bustier.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but then seemed to remember her students’ presences, and those students were currently looking at the exchange between the foreigners and their teacher with rapt attention.

Mlle. Bustier smiled nervously and raised her hands as if to placate the squad and change their minds about suing her.

‘Let’s talk in the corridor. More privacy.’ She explained, striding to the door. She stopped adruptly a dagger was pressed to the teacher’s throat.

She gulped and went slightly crosseyed looking down at the dagger before saying that the children shouldn’t see this and repeating that they should go out in the corridor to talk.

Suddenly, a voice spoke up from the room. It was Sabrina, looking confident and proud and very unlike the meek and timid student who constantly answered to Chloe’s every whim.

‘You didn’t give Marinette that liberty.’

Chloe didn’t look surprised when Sabrina stood up, looking up at the girl proudly. She then stood up and put in a word.

‘You just dragged Marinette to the front of the classroom and tried to scold her when you were the one who listened to Lie-la and didn’t bother to do a headcount before leaving the hotel, hell, before boarding the plane.’

‘You left her in New York City,’ chimed Sabrina, leering at the teacher, who shrunk back into herself.

‘Who do you think paid for her ticket back?’ Chloe smirked.

‘Goodbye, Caline Bustier.’ They spoke in unison.

Mlle. Bustier paled. Gina looked like she wanted to run away with Chloe and Sabrina, and Marinette looked to the two gratefully, the former giving the girl a nod while the other smiled broadly.

Amy spoke again, grinning manically at the redheaded teacher, reciting everything that she’d done wrong in her years as a teacher, whether it be when she was teaching old students from almost a decade ago, or now, when she was teaching Marinette’s class.

“Yes, Rosa, I learnt French specifically for this. I took a seminar, called The French Way to Reprimand A Crap-sack.”

Mlle. Bustier dug herself an even deeper hole as she frantically tried to pile the blame on Marinette, who was pressing the bruises on her arm with morbid fascination.

Gina leaned towards Caline, her breath hot against the teacher’s ear as she drawled in a rather threatening voice. “I know every little secret you have. It’d be best if you’d just mosey on out.”

Bustier shook her head even more, doubting Gina, who took great pleasure in calling out Mlle. Bustier’s shortcomings and dirty little secrets that she’d tried so desperately to bury.

“Caline Bustier. You had a student named Bridgette Jaeng a few years back. She died. Her death was written off as a accident, when that really wasn’t the case, was it.”

Her voice, although rather soft, echoed loudly in the room, ringing in the ears of Marinette’s classmates who turned to look at their teacher with horrified expressions on their faces.

“No! She--” Gina continued as if Mlle. Bustier hadn’t said anything at all.

“She fell down the stairs.” Gina made air quotes when she said fell. “She was pushed down the stairs by her bullies. She broke her neck on impact, and Bustier?” She laughed wryly.

“She saw the whole thing, but didn’t do anything to stop her students. She even went so far as to turn the security cameras off.”

Caline was growing increasingly pale but didn’t say anything for fear of making it worse.

“You bribed the principal of this school to hire you.” Gina’s voice, quiet and deadly cut through the tension in the room, and as if a dam broke, all hell broke loose and chaos was ensued.

Gina spoke up again, effectively making the class quiet down.

“You told Marinette to be the ‘best Marinette she could be’. You told her to not do anything when Lila and he posse bullied her. You turned off the cameras again when Lila walked down the stairs and sat there, bawling and lying about how Marinette pushed her down the stairs.” Gina’s voice came out in a hiss.

“You didn’t tell them how Marinette was expelled, huh. It was because Lila framed her for stealing a necklace that was found in her locker. But none of the students here are allowed to use locks for some stupid reason.’

The evidence was overwhelming. The contrast of the yelling from minutes ago was now replaced with a deadly silence as they mulled over Gina’s words.

Officer Raincomprix had shown up and arrested Caline a few minutes later, courtesy of Sabrina.

As Caline Bustier was dragged out of the room, she yelled on last time. “What gives you the right to arrest me? I was only looking out for my students!”

Holt smirked smugly, and everyone in the squad, bar Gina and Kevin, held up their badges, with the very unmistakable logo of the NYPD.

Caline was forcefully dragged away, shocked. And as she sat in the solitary confinement of her prison cell almost a month later, thinking about what she’d done, there was a knock on the door. The one person Caline thought she’d never see again stood in the doorway, the bars being the only separator between the ex teacher and her ex student.

Caline didn’t trust herself to speak, only staring at the girl.

Marinette stood there, patiently waiting for her to speak.

When she did, the only thing that came out of her mouth was, “I’m sorry.”

Marinette smiled. Not a pitying one, not a smug one, no. It was a sad smile.

“Apologies don’t change anything.” Marinette told her old teacher. “I can’t speak for Bridgette, but for what it’s worth, I forgive you.”

4.2k words

well yes. feedback and thoughts appreciated

i didnt reread this bc i dont like reading my own works they make me cringe so if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes im sorry oops

Asks are Open!

#caline bustier bashing #caline bustier salt #b99 #brooklyn nine nine #marinette is a queen #miraculous ladybug #mlb #gina is a savage #lyra speaks #hope u enjoyed this bc it took me a whole week to write

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lady-star-strings · 4 years ago

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DNF/Georgebur PotO & LND AU

Okay, to begin with, thank you so so much for giving me the chance to blab about this @dtvibez because I’ve always wanted to work with this AU, but I’ve just never had the characters to do it with and my musical nerd heart is thriving right now. Alright, anywhodilydo, geek-out over, let’s get into it - just a warning kiddos, this is gonna be a long one so strap in and hold on...

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Roles

To start off, let’s address the roles here for how I believe these plots would fit best with the characters involved - it’s purely up to individual interpretation, but these are my thoughts as an in-depth lover of these musicals.

Obviously, our dear George is the leading lady Christine Daae in this story, that was pretty much a given - let’s just be honest here guys, he’s the simp-bait through and through and if that wasn’t Christine, I don’t know what was. Meg - Christine’s friend - and her mother Madame Giry I’m going to combine and make Fundy for reasons I shall disclose later in this post, and Sapnap will have a role to discuss later down the line too, just lemme get there. Now as for the love interests, I can easily say that Eric/The Phantom is Dream and Raoul is Wilbur in this situation. Some of you might be questioning why it wouldn’t be switched because Raoul was her childhood friend and Eric was a gifted musician, but I have answers for you ahead on that, don’t you worry~ ;)

Phantom of the Opera Arc

After studying under Dream - or the Nightmare of the Opera as people prefer to call him - for years to be the star singer he was always destined to be, George is finally granted the chance to do so when some strings are pulled behind the scenes to give him a leading role in an opera. There isn’t anything George wouldn’t do for his Angel of Music after giving him such a chance at success, and Dream is practically preening with pride over how astounding his Georgie has turned out to be. Before Dream can whisk George away in triumph, however, his childhood friend Wilbur shows up out of the blue to shower him in praise and remind him of the puppy love they shared as children before George moved to the opera house. George is smitten with nostalgia, to say the least - it’s nice to put a face to the affection for once.

Needless to say, Dream is hardly pleased with this turn of events and actively tries to keep George not only away from Wilbur, but also to himself because George is quite literally all he has in the world - not even his music can compare to how much George means to him. Of course, the way he goes about this is hardly morally right and only serves to drive George further and further away from him and into Wilbur’s arms as a safe haven from all of the horrors. In the end, though, even after so much heartbreak and all the terrible things Dream’s done to keep him hostage as his muse and love, George finds it in his heart to forgive him for being how the world made him to be and genuinely offers to give up his freedom if it means he won’t be alone in that darkness anymore and Wilbur won’t die.

As expected, Dream realizes he really can’t do that George when it comes down to it - he simply loves him too much to force him to stay if it means he’d wind up hating him for it in the end. He’d rather let him be free and live the life he’s been dreaming of with Wilbur than have him stay and live the rest of his life resenting him. Even so, George is surprisingly hesitant to leave and can only offer to return the wedding ring Dream gifted him as a final goodbye and a silent show of his remaining love for him before he let’s him go in return and goes off with Wilbur. Following that night, Dream disappears from the opera house altogether, never to be heard from again...

Love Never Dies Arc - *SPOILERS*

...Or so the story goes in Paris 10 years ago. Little did anyone know, Fundy actually helped Dream steal away from the opera house when the mobs came searching for him and was unyieldingly by his side as they made their way to America for a fresh start. Once there, Dream - with a little seedy behind-the-scenes help from Fundy - founded a successful side show on Coney Island where he and others like him such as Sapnap and Punz - Miss Fleck and Dr. Gangle - are able to live freely and are treated with respect for their unique traits. Fundy has actually taken to training under Dream to be a successful singer in his own right with a well-known show in the attraction, his only goal to gain Dream’s favor and hopefully prove he’s able to replace George in his life. Dream unsurprisingly has no interest in anything of the sort and still actively mourns the loss of his muse - not even his music brings him joy anymore because it only reminds him of what could’ve been, and Fundy will never be his Georgie despite how much he insists otherwise.

But Dream is a clever thing, and he winds up securing a contract for George - who is now married to Wilbur and is raising a 10-year-old son with him - to come perform at the side show for one last performance. George takes the contract with little to no thought as to the odd pseudonym on the paperwork because Wilbur has lost himself to gambling and alcohol over the years, and they’re desperate for money to survive. At first, George is irate and somewhat heartbroken to learn that Dream’s been alive after all these years, especially after how their lives have turned out following the one night of passion they shared before he disappeared. He admits he still loved Dream when he left and would’ve gone with him, but because he thought they couldn’t be happy and left without him, that ship has long since sailed. They both wish things could have been different, but also accept that what happened happened and all they can do now is move forward with the choices they’ve made.

Much to everyone’s immense shock, though, George’s son is actually Dream’s and not Wilbur’s - a fact which Dream deduces on his own after connecting the dots between his age and musical prowess. Unfortunately, the child is terrified of Dream’s true face just as George once was and after getting the truth confirmed about the child’s real parentage, he begs for him to never know. George ultimately blames himself for what’s happened, and although he can’t take back not telling Dream of their child and the fear said child feels toward him, he swears to perform for him one last time to make up for it before they return to Paris to avoid hurting him further. Meanwhile, Dream vows everything he’s worth in the world to be the child’s once he’s gone even if he can’t be his father, and Fundy isn’t happy to hear that in the slightest because he will have nothing after all the sacrifice he’s made for Dream. All of the sleazy deals and late nights in his dressing room plying people for Dream’s success, and he will get nothing - his mind is just too fragile to face that reality at this point without doing something rash.

Naturally, Wilbur has no clue about any of this at first and makes a drunken deal with Dream regarding George - if George sings for him, he and the child will stay with Dream and Wilbur will leave. If George doesn’t sing, he and the child will leave with Wilbur with all of their debts wiped away as not to burden their family further with his problems. Wilbur then proceeds to try his best to convince George to stay with him by using nostalgia yet again since he now knows who the child belongs to as well, but in the end, George realizes that although he may have loved Wilbur at one time, his love for Dream transcends all that and has never once wavered despite everything they’ve been through. Throughout everything, Dream has always been there waiting for him and wants nothing more than for George and their child to have the life they deserve - Wilbur lost all of that a long time ago. George makes his choice, and Wilbur leaves as promised with the acceptance that he while no longer makes George happy, Dream does and he’ll take care of him - but the child, however, leaves with a distraught Fundy seeking to “right his problems.”

They manage to catch up to Fundy in time to avoid disaster, but not completely as he still views George as the reason he could never be happy with Dream and winds up fatally shooting him in the midst of a mental breakdown. Dream can do nothing but hold George - the man he loved and was finally loved by in return - as it’s revealed to the child who his real father is, only for him to flee the scene in horror of the truth. For once, Dream is at a loss for what to do because there isn’t any more time for them to have their happy ending and he hasn’t any idea what to do about their child without George. In his dying moments, George soothingly reminds him of one simple fact: Love never dies, and the best thing he can do is just live and give everything he can for both himself and the child now as all they have is each other. With a final kiss, George slips away and a sobbing Dream is left cradling his body when the child and Wilbur - who he ran to find to help George after he was shot - arrive on the scene.

Dream isn’t cruel. He understands how Wilbur must feel in the same situation, so he allows him to mourn the loss of George in his own way with the child as he contemplates whether or not he can continue on. While he debates what to do with himself, the child slowly comes to him unafraid and willing to face the man he now knows to be his father in a new light. In his eyes, Dream can see George, and that’s more than enough for him to stay just a little longer in the world.

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Sorry if that’s a lot to process and read through, but it was a lot to get out and I wanted to be crystal clear on things as not to confuse people. This is for the most part just hitting the main plot points of the musicals, however, tweaking and adjustments and further deep-dive analyses can be done now that I’ve gotten the main idea out of the way. I definitely don’t want to stick too strictly to it myself and want to tailor it more to the SMP events and characters, but I’ll save that for later since it’s already super late and I should be writing my fic instead.

Happy writing kiddos, thank you for letting me indulge myself with this concept and I hope you enjoyed it~ <3

#don't sleep won't sleep #sleep is for the living #poto & lnd AU #dreamnotfound #georgebur #phantom of the opera #love never dies #dream #dreamwastaken #georgenotfound #wilbur soot #fundylive #fundywastaken #sapnap #punz #you don't know how happy i am to finally mess with more musical junk #this is honestly one of my favorite ideas surrounding them

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illeee-girl · 4 years ago

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La La(chimolala) Land Chapter Two: Over My Iced Vanilla Latte

jimin x reader genre: fluff, fluff, and more fluff word count: 1.5k warnings: none

[Inspired by La La Land]

Read on Wattpad

Read on Ao3

“I still don’t understand,” Jessenia says, stopping in between generous applications of mascara to shoot you a doubtful look. “You met some Korean tourist dude on the top of City Hall, just gave him a copy of Red Writer, and now you’re meeting him at a Starbucks to hear his feedback?”

You attempt to square your shoulders, though it doesn’t quite work. Your roommate—sweet as she is—can be a little intimidating. “That’s about the size of it.”

“That’s about the size of it,” she mocks. “Listen to yourself! You sound just like Sybil from Downton Abbey.”

“Life goal achieved, then.”

Jessenia lets out a heavy sigh. “I just can’t believe you literally handed a complete stranger a copy of your work. He could totally just steal it! Sell it to a film studio, or make a movie out of it himself—”

“That seems a little unlikely, seeing as how I’m unable to sell it to anyone.” She walks over to where you sit on your bed, completely interrupting her makeup routine. Now you know it’s serious. “Y/N. I’m only telling you this because I love you. Be careful. You don’t know squat about this guy.” “I do indeed! I’ve watched him walk away. He definitely does squats.” If you’d delivered that line in any other situation, Jessenia would have been doubled over in laughter. You always made her laugh. But this time, it didn’t have that effect. She sashayed over to her closet, digging through halter dresses and high heels. She had an audition that afternoon. “Don’t let some cute butt distract you from the reason you came to LA.” You suppress a laugh—but not a smile. “Jess,” you start, forcing yourself to be serious. “You’ve known me since college. You know I’ve never let anything—let alone anyone—distract me. This is just . . . I don’t know, Jess, it feels like a breakthrough. An outsider’s perspective will be helpful. Maybe he’ll give me an idea for something—something good—that’ll finally sell Red Writer.” “Maybe,” she responds, “though he sounds like just a himbo to me.” “We don’t know squat about him, remember?” She rolls her eyes, but smiles. “Even himbos can do squats, Y/N. Boy ever can they do them.” _________________________ The Metro ride downtown is longer than you remember—probably because you don’t have a manuscript to pour over to pass the time. Jimin has the only print copy of Red Writer. That fact—and Jessenia’s words—make you more than a little anxious. Sure, you’ve got soft copies backed up on your hard drive and files placed on approximately 5 USB drives—you’re not stupid—but him having the paper manuscript feels a little . . . strange. Out of place. Intimate, almost. No pantsuit this time. There’s no need for it. This isn’t a business meeting—at least, not technically. You opted for a pair of loose-fitting jeans, a pastel purple t-shirt, and a whitewashed denim jacket. It’s not a bad look on you. But when you walk down the Grand Park stairs and spot him through the fountain, you realize you’ve greatly underestimated the level of fashion called for in the situation. He’s in ripped, black jeans; a thin, white shirt that somehow looks both loose and form-fitting; and a silvery-gray leather jacket. And he’s wearing jewelry—a Harry Styles amount of jewelry. Stud earrings. A black Chanel necklace. Rings on almost every finger. Like before, you think: Who is this guy? He sees you across the way and waves. Too late to turn back and try to throw together a better outfit. You’re suddenly mindful of how bulky your denim jacket is, but why should it matter? You fit in with the crowd of Californians much better, while he sticks out like a sore thumb in that getup. A surprisingly sexy sore thumb. Never mind that. You’re the writer in this situation. You’re the one who’s created something amazing. He’s just the reader. Assert your dominance, Y/N.

“Hey,” he says as you approach. “Love the jacket.” “Thanks. Nice . . .” you trail off, gesturing at him awkwardly, not sure where to look. “Nice outfit.” “You don’t think it’s too much?” “You look like you should be riding horses down Rodeo Drive with Usher.” He puts a hand over his heart. “You have no idea how much of a compliment that is for me.” Enough chitchat. The sun is starting to get lower in the sky, and you don’t particularly want to have to ride the Metro home in the dark. Besides, you’re starting to look at him—like, really look at him. And you think—though you figure you’re probably mistaken—that he’s starting to look at you. “Want a drink?” He asks. “I’m buying.” “Too late in the day for caffeine,” you respond. You need to make this as fast as possible. “Then get a decaf, or a tea.” He opens the door to the Starbucks, leaving you no choice. Once you get your drinks, you pick a table back outside; the weather’s too nice to pass up the opportunity. Besides, whoever’s running that Starbucks chose to play mood music over the loudspeaker. Quite the departure from the ambient, helps-you-focus stuff they usually go for, you think. The current playlist, in the current situation, with the current company, will surely not foster productivity. “So, what comments do you have about Red Writer? Is Marianne too headstrong? Are the bandmates too stereotypical? Is it too early 2000s to appeal to a modern audience?” He holds up a hand. “Whoa, slow down. I have yet to touch my Americano.” You decide to be straight with him. “I don’t have time to prioritize coffee over work. Every second that passes, someone else gets closer to becoming a successful screenwriter, and I lag behind while they take my place at the writer’s table—” “Whoa there. Take a sip of that iced vanilla latte, and breathe.” You do as he says, but not without rolling your eyes. After a swig, you look down at your cup. You have to look somewhere. The setting sun’s starting to backlight his blonde hair. It’s as if nature’s purposefully trying to complement his beauty. “I loved it,” he says softly. You look up. He’s smiling, and it’s real. It’s genuine. He isn’t teasing. “You do?” “Are you kidding?” His dark eyes light up as he begins to recount the plot of your screenplay. “Nerdy college girl is a journalist by day, songwriter by night. Her best friend’s in a small band from the Valley, and she basically begs this friend to let her write their lyrics, so she can get experience points. The band absolutely takes off, and the girl gets tons of gigs as a lyricist for struggling performers who’ve recently signed with big labels—only to find out that her real dream is to sit in coffee shops and play the simple, acoustic music she writes herself, just to uplift and relax people.” It takes you a minute to register that he’s praising your work. You’d forgotten what that felt like. It’d been years since someone had given you positive feedback—outside of your close inner circle of family members and roommates, that is. Panel after panel of producers had taken one glance, said “no,” and put your manuscripts through the shredder. But no more. Someone not only liked what you’d written. He loved it. “I devoured it in one night. Couldn’t go to bed until I finished it.” “That’s how I felt when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time!” “Nerd.” You choose to disregard that last little comment. Someone felt the same way about your work as you’d felt about Jane Austen’s. I’ve made it! “I just have one little criticism.” Uh oh. Here it came. “What’s that?” “Your description of the bandmates . . . it’s not accurate at all.” _________________________ “So let me get this straight,” the manager of the Starbucks in Grand Park stared Park Jimin in the eye. “You’ll pay me how much to play this CD?” “You heard what I said,” responded the fashionable, blonde Korean man standing on the other side of the counter. “And I’ve got cash.” The manager shook his head, but acquiesced. “Okay, man. I’d be a fool not to do it, I guess. You know how much cannabis that kind of money can get me?” Jimin chose to ignore that last little bit. “One question, though. Why? What you’ve got written on here seems pretty standard. Chris Brown, Boyz II Men. . .” “It’s . . . none of your concern.” Jimin ran a hand through his hair, looking a little nervous. “But since you’re being so kind, I’ll tell you this much: it’s undoubtedly worth it.”

#bts fanfiction #btsfanfic #bts #BTS jimin #park jimin #jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #jimin fanfiction #jimin fanfic #bangtan sonyeondan #La La(chimolala) Land #inspired by La La Land

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nataliedanovelist · 5 years ago

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GF - Where the Crop Circles Grow ch.1

Summary: When things get out of hand at the Pines’ family farm, Ford asks an old college buddy to assist investigating anomalies and Stan hires a farmhand. Who knew asking for help would actually get you somewhere?

For @lemonfodrizzleart. Part of her Farmer AU and featuring her OC, Jackie Asante.

Ao3 link here.

ch.2

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“Jackie, was it?” Stan repeated as he rocked in his chair, the shade feeling comfortable with the warm summer’s day baking everything that dared to escape air conditioning.

“Yes, sir.” The woman repeated. Her ankles were crossed as she sat in her rocking chair, her hands on her lap. Nerves hindered her normal behavior; Never in a million years would she sit like this, unless she really wanted a job and wanted to impress her potential employer.

The man in a gray t-shirt (it might have been white at some point), dirty jeans, and boots raised an eyebrow at her and waved the response away with a strong hand. “First off, there’s no need for all that sir-stuff, okay? I ain’t that old.”

Jackie let out a good-natured snort and smiled more relaxed. “Okay.” She sat a little bit more relaxed, now one knee over the other, and she rocked a little in her blue-jeans, white t-shirt, and light-purple jacket, the bottoms of the side tied together and her sleeves rolled up.

Stan looked at her, reading her as if she was a book, and he instantly knew he would like her. Something in the sparkle in her dark eyes, something in the way she held herself up promised the whole world that she was way more capable than what people initially believed and she was going to rub it in their faces.

Okay, now that he got that out of the way, what was he supposed to do now? Sixer probably had a pamphlet full of things to do or a check-list in his brain of what to ask her, but that genius got distracted by some new freaky thing and ran off into the woods, but not without telling Stan to interview the potential farmhand. Why’d he have to do this? It was all Sixer’s idea. While a farmhand was probably a good idea, Stan would’ve hoped they could save the dough by making Ford and his friend from college work, but both brothers knew that wasn’t going to happen. Well, she was here. Might as well get her a drink.

“Want a soda or somethin’?” Stan asked as he stood and stretched his arms over his head, his shirt stretched tightly over his gut and strong chest.

Jackie shrugged with a smile and stood. “Sure, thanks.”

Stan waved towards himself casually, signalling her to follow him, and he led the way inside the house. Jackie followed him and allowed herself to take in the space without being too nosy. In front of the doorway was a big living room with a yellow-plaid couch and matching armchair, a card table, a wood-burning stove, and even a TV. An owl-themed tick-tock clock hooted the time (11:00am) with eleven wheezy hoots. Stan led the way to the left, the opposite direction of the stairs leading up to the second floor, and into the kitchen.

Jackie’s face flinched a little bit at the state of the room, a big mess all over the table and every square inch of counter decorated with books, food, and dirty dishes. Jackie stood at the doorway and couldn’t help but notice a picture of a family hanging by her head. A man with a straw hat and sunglasses stood tall and strong behind his family, while his wife sat with a set of twins in her arms, hugging them with a big smile. A third boy, about three years older than the twins, smiled in front of the father and besides the mother.

“Well, this here’s the kitchen.” Stan narrated pointlessly to fill the air, stealing Jackie from her thoughts. His head was in the fridge but he soon emerged with two glass bottles of Pitt soda. He even popped one open for Jackie before giving it to her. “Livin’ room’s just by the door, then past the stairs is two bedrooms, one’s a master with a bathroom, and then upstairs is the attic and two more bedrooms.”

“Nice place.” Jackie complimented.

“Thanks.” Stan said after a sip of soda. “Pa left it to me and my brother. We got another brother, Shermie, but he’s workin’ for a bank in California. Got a kid now and everythin’.”

“Ah, somebody’s an uncle.” The dark-skinned woman commented with a smile.

Stan grinned proudly and seemed to have straightened his stance just a little bit. “Yup. Anyways, what made you wanna work here?”

Jackie shrugged. “I’ve always liked the fresh air n’ workin’ hard. My mama used to say sittin’ still’s a sin.”

Stan smiled in agreement. He was right; he liked this girl. “Okay, so what can you do?”

Jackie took a second to think of what she can do that applies to a farm. Really, in her mind the list kept growing. She couldn’t think of a single thing she couldn’t do if she really tried, so she gave him a sly smile and said, “Anythang.”

Stan barked a laugh and freed a finger from holding the bottle to point at her. “I like your style! Alright, so how much you want a month?”

“Eight-hundred.”

Stan raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think that’s a little high?” Not that he was worried; he liked to negotiate.

“Don’t you think I need enough to rent a place?” Jackie returned.

Stan snorted. “If you’re looking for a place to stay, we’ve got three… well, two bedrooms we aren’t usin’. You could stay with us rent-free for cheaper pay.”

“Well how much you willin’ to fork over?”

Stan grinned. Yup, he liked her. He wasn’t going to lose such a promising worker. “Five-hundred a month.”

“Deal.” Jackie held out a hand to shake.

Stan grasped it and shook. “Then you’re hired. You can have tomorrow to move in and…”

“No, I can start work tomorrow.” Jackie insisted. “Just give me this afternoon.”

Stan grinned. “Alright, fine. You’ll start first thing in the mornin’ tomorrow. You’ll know when. Go get what you need and I’ll show you your room and give you the full tour of the farm. There’s a stable and chicken coop and barn and fields full of work, as you saw comin’ in. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Stan exited the kitchen, giving Jackie a good look at the dirty kitchen. She sneered playfully to herself, “I can see that,” and followed her new boss out of the house.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford was tired, but satisfied with his success. He collapsed into a rocking chair on the porch and glanced down at the photos in his hands; that polaroid Stanley got him for Hanukkah was being used well. It was so rare to get pictures of the floating eyes so crystal clear, mostly only seeing them at night, but these were lurking in the shadows of the overgrown trees and bush of the woods, and by sheer luck and perfect timing on Ford’s part, he got what he wanted.

The six-fingered investigator pulled out his journal from his messenger bag and bookmarked a page to fill out later with the photos. As he closed the book and became lost in thought at the sight of his golden handprint, the screen door opened and Stanley poked his head in. “Hey, dinnertime, nerd.”

“Coming,” Ford said as his brother left and he got to his feet, suddenly very hungry and ready to eat so he could finish his work for today.

While Stanley sat in a chair, rubbed his hands together, and smacked his lips at the table, Ford stood at the doorway with his jaw hanging like an executed criminal. Laid out on the big table in the kitchen was a plate full of fried chicken, collard greens, a skillet of cornbread, mashed potatoes with cheese, and unless Ford’s nose was playing tricks on him, there was something made of chocolate in the oven. Even more surprising than the mouth-watering meal was the stranger in the house.

Untying a long apron, a dark-skinned woman with short black hair was standing by the hooks on the walls for keys and hats. She smiled as she hung her apron up and said, “Wash up, Mr. Pines. Oh, excuse me. Dr. Pines.” She added playfully.

Ford snorted. Apparently Stanley already told her about his twelve PhDs. “Please, call me Ford, ma’am.” He requested as he went to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “Let me guess… you decided to hire Ms. Jackie Asante, Knucklehead?”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad idea.” Stan quipped as Jackie sat in the chair on his right. He threw her a wink, which her eyes sparkled at.

“Quite the contrary, considering she clearly sees fit to celebrate Thanksgiving any day of the year.” Ford said as he sat in the chair across the table from his twin.

Jackie smiled with hot cheeks and shrugged. “Clearly you’ve been starving out here. Well, you can forget TV dinners and take-out for awhile. At least not while I’m breathing.”

“Now hold up, take-out’s delicious.” Stan defended as he brought a chicken leg up to his lip and bit down with a beautiful crunch. His eyes grew wide and he sagged in relief and delight. He munched on his chicken happily and managed to wheeze out between bites. “Fuck take-out.”

“Stanley,” Ford scolded lightly before trying his dinner, but he was amazing and started mumbling swears like a sailor.

Meanwhile, Jackie grinned proudly into her cup of water and started to cut up the cornbread. Maybe getting this job was a good idea after all.

#gravity falls #gravity falls au #farmer au #fanfiction #gift #lemonfodrizzleart #jackie asante #oc #big BIG thanks to lemon!#I love her art and she's just... GAH!#I just love her!#I could gush about her all day!#I hope you like this fic #please please PLEASE lemme know if you want me to add or do anything #more to come!#and yes the title is a reference to Where the Red Fern Grows #and i may or may not've referenced the help #couldn't HELP myself #...I'll go home now...

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katana-otoko · 5 years ago

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Codename KATANA’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name: Kam

OOC Contact: Over Tumblr’s messenger is fine, I’ve a discord as well if you’d prefer to converse over that!

Who the heck is my muse anyway:

Codename Katana, a covert TURK introduced much later in the plot of Before Crisis. ‘Balto’ is the most agreed upon fanon name, I’ve decided to accept it in this depiction. I’m still wondering if I’d like to keep the name I’ve given him... I need a bit of time on this;;;

We get a few paragraphs about him from material outside the game--he’s a swordsman from Gongaga; a generally upbeat fellow who doesn’t stay in one place for long. He gained a scar across his face while trying to rescue a friend held hostage--a task in which he failed, and left a massacre to exact his grief.

After the massacre, Balto was arrested and incarcerated for a brief time, after a few nights he managed to escape from the backwater jailhouse. He took his wife, and fled Gongaga. The two reached Costa del Sol and stowed away to Junon, where Balto hoped they’d be able to better hide on the eastern continent. He forged documents for himself and his wife, stating that the both of them were much older. His wife found work for herself, and Balto passed an entrance exam for a school of electrical engineering. The tuition cost far more than the couple could afford: Balto had to commit further fraud. He graduated, and started working as an operator of Junon’s underwater mako reactor.

As much as Balto tried to distance himself from his past, he was arrested for the murders he had committed, and his past forgeries and fraud were soon uncovered. Finding himself incarcerated once again; this time in a far tougher facility to escape than some backwater jailhouse. Yet, Balto’s skilled actions did attract a certain sort of attention, especially considering the length of time it took for him to get caught: the cost of avoiding a lifetime prison sentence? His service and loyalty to Shinra, among the ranks of the TURKs.

Points of interest:

Balto’s scar is his most prominent physical feature. He received this scar while fighting his friend’s captors. There isn’t a way for him to conceal the scar without seeming obvious that he’s hiding it--over time, he’s become comfortable about this facial feature.

Few may recognize Balto as the ex-husband of a now famous jazz singer and musician, Rosamie. Their divorce took place just as she was starting to become famous, so most fans know she was once married, but not to who.

He often wears a fine gold chain and gold coin pendant around his neck. The coin has an imprint of a minor goddess’ portrait upon its face, and a specific constellation upon the other side of the coin. The chain and coin once belonged to his father.

Balto has a tendency to run himself into the ground. Get used to finding him fast asleep, sitting up before his desk. While in relationships, he’ll take better care of himself (provided enough is going well in that relationship) and manage his priorities better for the sake of someone else.

He likes to bring natural flora and fauna into his surroundings, keeping plants and animals from the western continent. He has an affinity toward frogs, common to his hometown of Gongaga, but is also skilled in handling wild animals. He always seems to know a person who knows some other person to get his hands on especially rare creatures.

What they’ve been up to recently:

This varies wildly depending on the verse, and each RP partner is (mostly) its own verse. By default, it all depends on the timeline.

Where to find them:

Balto’s work takes him across the whole planet. Crossing paths with him is imaginable in all sorts of locations. He avoids Gongaga, though; and will avoid its smoldering remains if given the decision.

Balto does take the time to tour around if his assignment from Shinra allows some sight-seeing. He’ll go on hikes and runs, dine at local restaurants and unwind in lounges or bars. When off the clock, he no longer wears his suit.

Current plans:

Honestly uh... I don’t plan out events since the blog isn’t one cohesive verse. So, it’ll vary from RP partner to RP partner as we either decide to collaborate or just go off the cuff.

Desired interactions:

Encountering Balto before he becomes a TURK - I think it would be interesting to meet Balto while he’s a bit anxious and always glancing over his shoulder, waiting until his past catches up with him. He’s mostly found in Junon at this time, working as a mako reactor operator, often frequenting bars and performance halls after work to watch his wife sing and accompany her to their home.

After Zirconiade, OG timeline - I’m flexible on the theme of post-BC settings. I’m willing to write on any scenario: Balto being on friendly terms with Shinra, stepping in to resume his obligation as a turk; or not-so-friendly terms and actively trying to escape from Shinra’s influence. It’s interesting to focus on the fact that if he’s not serving time within Shinra’s ranks, then he should be in prison.

Offered interactions:

Expert swordsman -- A lifetime of training makes Balto a capable opponent. Fight me, nerds.

Veteran TURK -- Balto has plenty of successful covert missions under his belt. He’s known for gathering information, especially within Junon and specific Midgar sectors. He’s savvy on the construction, operation and failure of mako reactors. He’s the turk to send when statement needs to be made: the katana is capable of making quite a mess. He’s fluent in the languages of Gongaga and Wutai.

Family man -- His upbringing gave him the ideal way toward eternal happiness; a large home and many children. As blood stained as his hands are, he still feels worthy of holding a child with the very same hands.

Anything else?:

Woah, I can be flakey. Sometimes it’s due to depression (I usually go radio silent when this happens) and other times certain interactions are easier to write so I crack those out sooner. It’s best to communicate with me if this is something that bothers you; I’m also going to try harder to touch base when I’m super stuck on how to follow up with reply.

I’ve recently changed jobs at the same time the pandemic unfolded in the US. Both these things required a lot of change. Change is immensely stressful to me but I seem to be fairing okay.

Tagging: oh geez don’t feel obligated buuuut @marie-dufresne, @unrequiteddeath, @shadowxcetra, @lisaudacieux, @pinkxglasses & anyone else who wants to steal this!

#i got carried away with some answers #oh well!

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youngboy-oldmind · 4 years ago

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DISCOGRAPHY REVIEW: 1) THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY ft. My Girlfriend

“Tell me what I wouldn't wanna give for a life like this, arm and a leg quite like this/ Fuck around wanna fight like this, take a hike like this/ I might just, might just, I don't know/ Reinvention, that's my intention/ Want so much more than this third-dimension/ That's not to mention my true ascension is a bigger picture/ No metaphor, I’m being real with ya”

Overall Thoughts

After the success and impressive display Under Pressure, Logic follows up with his sophomore album The Incredible True Story: A perfect embodiment of Logic as a person, rapper, and artist. Here, he is at his most creative, telling an entire story through the lens of a futuristic fictional sci-fi story. Filled with narratives, skits that give insight to the crew’s personalities, and an overall message that resonates even after the album concludes, The Incredible True Story is the perfect reflection of Logic as an artist.

If someone asked me to introduce them to Logic, I’d start with this album. If you start with a deeper, more experimental album like Everybody or a project not quite as unique like Under Pressure, they may be left unsatisfied or unimpressed. But it’s near impossible to dislike his most rounded and well-constructed project.

I’ve said this with every project of his, but the production was excellent. The techy, spacey instrumentals perfectly parallel the theme and tone of the project. The vocal inflections on “Fade Away”, “Young Jesus”, “Run It” and the choir in the first half of “City of Stars” were all brilliantly executed. Also, Logic allowed collaborations on some tracks and they were some of the highlights on the album: Big Lenbo on “Young Jesus”, Lucy Rose on “Innermission”, and Jesse Boykins III on “Paradise”. Overall, the construction of each song on this album was near perfect. It can’t be overstated.

Logic branched out stylistically on this project. On Under Pressure, each song had a relatively similar tone, which made that project very consistent yet unspectacular. The fixed tone was good for the purpose of that project but restricted him from reaching a high peak. Here, his delivery, instrumentals, and lyrical style varied and was less consistent, allowing him to reach highs like “Fade Away” and “City of Stars” while also allowing him to reach lows like “I Am The Greatest”. Despite that flaw, the unique style of the album improves its overall ranking and separates him from the issue of his last project; the issue of being indistinct and being a carbon copy of his influences.

That’s one of the biggest strengths of this album. While I can think of other artists that could do Under Pressure or No Pressure, I don’t think anyone can do The Incredible True Story. Logic has a niche combination of lyrical talent, production skills, and geekiness that shines profusely.

The main theme of this project is doing what you love and finding life. This theme paired the fictional nature of the album’s structure loosens the restraint on Logic. Before, he was limited by discussing his experiences and thoughts in an autobiographical way, whereas now he’s allowed to discuss things from an outside perspective and speak more prophetically.

Album Breakdown

Side Note: I will be adding comments and thoughts from my girlfriend who also loves this album. Her comments will be bolded.

1. Contact

This was extremely creative. I was instantly drawn into the music. Sounded like a soundtrack I'd hear in a movie. And the introductory conversation between the two men established a very interesting and compelling start to the album and makes it feel like I'm getting ready to start a story book. Solid start, can't wait to see what happens.

2. Fade Away

Off the rip, this track had me excited. As I mentioned earlier, the composition and instrumental is excellent. He also comes through with an intense flex of delivery and rhyming and syllable scheme construction. This is the first song I’ve ever heard from Logic and it still gets my hype every time I hear it.

The flow in this song just hit me like a truck. The lyrics were pretty good and not necessarily a brag, but more of a showcase of pride. The music was also very catchy and had my bobbing my head before he started rapping. But the flow! Absolutely loved it. Def a hype song for me.

3. Upgrade

This track transitions well from the previous song discussing kai upgrading his system. Logic discusses “upgrading” from his old life and mindset. The space background with a simple drum pattern is satisfying.

Loved how the intro music played off of the space theme established by the intro. The music was already banging, and the countdown had me anticipating what's to come. Liked how the lyrics also incorporated space elements. Somewhat simple song with somewhat basic lyrics, but overall still quite enjoyable.

4. White People (Scene)

This was super fun to listen to and I was laughing when the black guy made fun of the white-man-horror-movie stereotype. I was almost wishing for them to investigate. I am really liking this album so far. Who knew Logic was such a innovative storyteller.

5. Like Woah

Although this song doesn’t say much content wise, the vocals were pretty slick and the instrumental was constructed well. Verses were average and I found the chorus a little iffy. But overall, it’s one of the more mid tracks.

The others definitely fit the theme of the space, but this song felt more of a Top 100 hits song. The flow was not as stellar as the songs so far, definitely no Fade Away, but still steady and impressive nonetheless. Nerdy comment, but the music reminded me of something I'd hear in a video game with the female singing--maybe Zelda or Fire Emblem.

6. Young Jesus

Although this song isn’t in my top 3, it’s still one of my favorite on the album. The boom bap 90s throwback mixes well with the modern, techy sound of the album. Logic and Big Lenbo both flow perfectly; this some of the best chemistry Logic has had with another rapper, the only other contender being Big Sean. Instrumentally this song stands out the most because its composition derives so much from the rest of the track list.

This throwback to the 90s flow with a slight modern twist was fresh as hell and a very fun listen. I actually very much enjoyed Logic's flow in this song. "See I'm a self diagnosed hypochrondria/ Either at the crib, or on the tour bus, is where you'll find me at" was a fun, funky flow that had me smiling as I listened to it. Would have definitely enjoyed if he did this flow and slight drawl in words a bit more. Big Lenbo was perfect for this song. His voice has that 90s feel and his lyrics fit the bragging feel seen in old hip hop songs.

7. Innermission

Another top track on this project, “Innermission” features Logic discussing his life’s purpose and “inner mission”. Lucy Rose on the chorus is beautiful. The mellow beat allows Logic to truly dive into his thoughts without being overwhelmed by the instrumental. And I loved the skit at the end.

Not gonna lie, the music initially reminds me of elevator music, but the lyrics hit hard. Hearing his story of his home life and his friend in prison was...heartfelt? It made me introspective of my role in my friend's lives and my own background. This song has a nostalgia to it as Logic retrospects his life before reaching fame, yet an almost hopeful undertone as he contemplates why he wanted this lifestyle and how he managed to actually accomplish it. And, of course, ending the song with a child continuing the space them fully establishes the air of wistfulness as I hear the kid's innocent tone reminiscing about his home. Genius move.

8. I Am The Greatest

There are few songs that make me rush to the skip button. “I Am The Greatest” is one of them. I hate this song. The different voice clips have no rhythm or syncopation, seemingly haphazardly tossed together. The beat is underwhelming and the yelling is obnoxious. And logics lyrics and delivery are really bad. I strongly believe this should’ve been cut or put on a project like Bobby Tarantino.

9. The Cube (Scene)

As someone who can rap and solve a Rubiks cube, I found this very funny. But also ironic, since I pulled exactly 0 girls from solving it. But, Logic is a nerd and this skit fits his personality well.

So this didn't make much sense until I looked up "logic the cube" and saw some videos of him solving a Rubik’s cube. Cute that he inserted a past time into this.

10. Lord Willin’

Logic has a very distinct flow throughout this album. It's very similar in each song with similar rhythm--I find myself bobbing my head at the same speed as his other songs. Not a bad thing, but just an interesting note. I actually quite like it, though. It makes the songs in this album more harmonious and makes it feel like one long story, rather than several songs thrown together onto one album. The lyrics themselves were actually quite inspirational. I felt a sense of pride in myself swell as I listened to him overcoming and living a full life and encouraging me to do the same.

11. City of Stars

Arguably one of the best on the album, “City of Stars” features Logic discusses his negative/toxic relationship with the hip hop industry. The spacey beat and echoey chorus vocals area AWESOME. The echo on the snare paints a visual of singing in a wide open space. Logic’s singing is above average, his use of auto-tune isn’t bad either. The beat switch to an intense boom bap and going in sent shivers down my spine. Although this has been done before, its definitely an excellently put together concept.

Also, only hip hop fans will notice but Logic incorporates patterns and lyrics from other songs: Drake’s “Forever”, Kanye West’s “Last Call” & “Two Words” of The College Dropout, and Talib Kewli’s “Get By”. Logic isn’t one to shy away from nodding to his influences, but here it feels like paying homage instead of stealing. Top 3 track.

12. Stainless

This song is 100% dope. From the vocals on the chorus, complex background in the instrumental, Logic’s intense flow and delivery, along with the content. Another top 3 on the album.

Bruuuh, this song slapped from the moment it started. The music had a flow different from the other songs, and his energy from the first few lyrics was solid as hell. I was hype and smiling not even 20 seconds in. This is a riding-with-the-windows-down-with-the-volume-blarring-on-the-highway-as-you-flaunt-your-youth-and-just-jam-hard kind of song. I would have def played this before a basketball game to get myself hype.

13. Babel (Scene)

“Babel” was the best skit by far. I think this plays well into the theme of the album: The concept of doing what you love and finding life. This skit mentions how “paradise” may not be something you find, but something you make and maintain. And on the flip side, you can also turn paradise into “purgatory”. So this journey is about creating the best and making your own incredible life instead of trying to find it. It also transitions well into the next song both musically and thematically.

14. Paradise

This was an interesting song. When he described Paradise initially, he spoke of it as a land of racial equality. I had not expected race to play a major role in this story, but it makes sense, given his background, why he would consider this Paradise. As a fellow biracial person born without a silver spoon, I can relate to his struggle. So hearing him describe this planet called Paradise, I can see why it earned that name. But the beat change. I find it interesting that he switched the message behind his lyrics up. It changed to perseverance and strength to overcome haters and obstacles and doubt. It gives me this feeling of self-worth as I push through the negativity to achieve Paradise. Interesting that he decided to include this message after describing what Paradise looks like. Did he do this to highlight the struggle it would take to get there? The challenge? Saying how "Of those around me that down and pray on my demise/But it only makes it that much better when I rise" definitely encapsulates his ability to attain Paradise. I'm not sure, maybe he did so as proof that he finally reached the top.

15. Never Been

Years ago, I used to be a hater of Logic. I used to despise when people complimented or praised him. So this song about remaining positive and persevering while blocking out negative hits even harder. He battles with fears of being inadequate while projecting a message of not letting those fears control your life and potential success. Amazing message. Musically, the track is very solid. The sped up, high pitched vocals on the chorus and outro remind me of Kanye’s style, and the simple beat isn’t distracting emphasizes the introspective nature of the song.

"Talk all you want about me homie, I'mma let it live/Hater this, hater that, say I sound repetitive/ Hatin' in your blood, you was born to be negative" now THAT is how you diss someone. If someone said this to me, I'd just walk away because what do you say to that? I appreciate that he is able to both dis and praise in a song, yet not come off as cocky and arrogant and braggy. Listening to him, it truly sounds like he worked his ass off to achieve his fame, so hearing him brush off haters and telling me I can do it too actually makes me feel like he's right. This songs has an introspective vibe as he recounts his insecurities of failing, yet how he can't afford to "let the devil in."

16. Run It

“Run It” is another very good track on the album. The flow and beat were dope and simple yet effective and pleasing. I think this song’s placement was strange. After hard hitters like “Stainless”, “Paradise”, and “Never Been”, “Run it” feels underwhelming by comparison. I could see this after between “Like Woah” and the White People Skit. But this late into the album, this song’s tone sit right. Ultimately a great song though.

17. Lucidity

“Lucidity” gives good insight on the theme of the album. Thomas describes taking for granted people on Earth having dreams and wants instead of living to find paradise. I like the concept of one’s life and story being defined by pursuing what you want. Mostly a set up for the final song, it’s still a solid scene.

18. The Incredible True Story

This track can be defined by one word: epic. From the first half with Logic’s vocals and singing, encapsulating the whole question in this album “Who Am I?”. The instrumentation is beautiful. Then the second half with the crew landing on Paradise is so powerful and well constructed. As a listener, I feel like I’m there with the crew. You can feel everyone’s fear, nervousness, excitement, anticipation, and hope.

What. An. Ending. I had no idea how Logic was going to end this and he did not disappoint. His lyrics in the beginning. The sub-sequential inspirational message of following your desires. The 2 men as they get ready to land on Paradise. All of that was flawless. My favorite part was the music change as the female finished her countdown of the landing and it changed to this soft, exploring sound full of hope. Hearing the 2 men talk in wonder as the sounds of nature slowly encompassed the music before hearing the woman say "Life" literally made me so fucking emotional, I'm tearing up thinking about it.

Final Thoughts

The Incredible True Story is the embodiment of Logic as an artist. It is strengthened by being unsafe. Under Pressure felt like bowling with the rails up. You’re definitely gonna score, and you may hit a strike on your own, but it’s just not as good as bowling without safety rails. And yes, you may hit gutters (”I Am The Greatest”), but putting everything on the table and living/creating unrestrictedly allows you to reach highs in life/art you wouldn’t otherwise reach. And I think by allowing himself to create riskily and unhindered, he fulfilled his own theme.

As an avid bibliophile, I will tell you that most sequels are shit. But damn, this album was fucking amazing. I have been sleeping on Logic. Honestly, 12/10 ending. Logic wanted to leave a statement that he could still be one of the best even after his debut album and, trust me, he proved it. This ending alone proved that he knows how to do this shit. I feel like I just finished reading a great book. Who knew rap could be like this?

Top 3 Tracks:

1) City of Stars 1) Stainless

2) Paradise 2) Paradise

3) Innermission 3) Incredible True Story

Overall Grade: A+

Album Link:

https://open.spotify.com/album/5dOpbgAmJeyoakKQ0QLWkR?si=bAQ0FEA4RMupkUEspycH1Q

#music review #album review #hip hop review #hip hop #logic

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kingbyakuya · 5 years ago

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I don't really know much about any of your ocs, but I saw the recent post about one of them and now I'm curious about all of them? Like, as many as you're willing to talk about

Ooohoooohooo buckle up cuz I got a lot!! I'm going to go in order of their creation and keep it brief cuz I can go on forever lol I based all of my ocs in the Victorian-ish era but I have manipulated them to fit any universe.

Soleil Saint des Étoiles:

My sun priest! In all his forms he is a very religious man and follows the book to the letter. Vain and snooty, he sees a lot of people below him and won't be afraid to demean them. He's going through a redemption arc to become a better, actually good priest, so I'm very excited to see how that plays out.

Nira Santana:

Nira is an older woman and trained to be a soldier. Even though she was born female in the Victorian times, her father taught her all the 'male' teachings while her mother taught her the 'female' teachings. She is very ice cold and stoic, rarely ever showing emotion or interest, but she does have a care for humanity.

Catherine (Cathy) Davis:

She is the sunshine and bright smile everyone needs in their life. So full of life and giggles, she sees the best in everyone and always wants to make people smile. She's a famous dancer as well and wears her heart on her sleeve and she is not afraid to let her emotions be shown.

Ryan Frost

Ryan... is a complete bastard. An absolute asshole. He is my version of Jack the Ripper. Malicious, snarky, cocky, temperamental; he's my 'suave' villain. He's also leader of the Blue Snakes gang, so he's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve and knows the underground of London very well.

Jacque Chanteur

He is the most emotional man you will meet. He's 6'4, built like a brick building (I use Hugh Jackman as a reference), but a total softie. He's also Ryan's right hand man and Ryan's blood brother. (Did I mention that Ryan and Jacque are vampires? Cuz they are lmao). Please just give Jacque a hug.

Alistair Kraus

An old herpetologist, Alistair is Jacque's and Ryan's sire. He's a jovial old man and in love with humanity. He's the one that started the Blue Snake gang but it started out as a group of Robin Hood's before Ryan killed Alistair and took over. Full of life, even in death, Alistair loves everything cold and warm blooded.

Aeron Bishop

He's a huge nerd. Tall and lanky with super round, thick glasses, he's built like the stereotypical nerd. Full of curiosity, he studies witchcraft as well, under his mother and grandmother's teachings. He plays the cello, loves to read, and always seems to find trouble.

Dominic Moore

Dominic is a successful banker, practically rolling in dough for his outrageous interest rates and such. He was abused as a child by his father after his mother died during childbirth and that caused a lot of issues with Dominic's childhood. After being turned into a vampire, he killed his father by accident and took over the banking business, eventually finding the love of his life, @flowerquince's Grace McLoughlin.

William Kingsley

Coming from a wealthier family, he studies anatomy compared to his father who is actually a doctor. Serving in World War II as a medic, he's left with PTSD from loud sounds and another mishap that caused him to be honorably discharged. He grew up very religious but turned away out of fear due to his sexuality. He's a very soft and gentle man, wanting to help those who have been injured, but is very quiet and reserved, mostly watching from the sidelines.

Simon Orestella

His parents were killed and his house burned down when he was a young boy, leaving his little sister and him as orphans. He's a thief now, obsessed with knives and always carries one with him. While his sister goes to school, he manipulates those into paying him and steals as well to help pay for her classes and such. He means well, but goes about it in the absolute backwards way.

Abraham (Abe) Crowley

Having his wife murdered by a vampire has left Abe a broken man. Now alone with his young daughter, Penelope, he lives a double life. In the morning, he's a British solicitor, making money and such to support Penelope. At night, he hunts and kills vampires, hellbent on revenge for what happened to his wife. For him and the relationship with his daughter, I was inspired by Lee and Clementine from the Walking Dead video games. Abe teaches his young girl how to kill and fight vampires, even though she is only eight years old.

I can go into so much detail about all of them, how they're all connected in some way, and how they interact with each other, but as mentioned - for the sake of everyone's sanity - I just gave the bare bones.

#my ocs #my oc stuff #thank you so much for showing interest anon

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infantbluee · 6 years ago

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not a manic pixie dream girl

summary: the first time he meets her, she’s stripping naked in his neighbor’s backyard.

chapter three - death by bikini

"You're heading out?"

Soul pauses on his way to the sink for a brief moment before continuing on his path, rinsing out his bowl then placing it in the dishwasher. He waits until his hands are dried before he turns to face his brother.

Wes is leaning against the doorway, a strangely calm expression on his face. Despite the early hour of the day and no place to be that Soul knows of, his older brother is dressed to the nines like he always is, a crisp white button-up and slacks fitted perfectly to his frame. Both of them share the same lanky height and bizarre coloring, but Wes has always been slightly more filled out than Soul's lazy, introverted ass is, and the four years between them somehow feel much wider—yet at the same time not at all.

They're not close. They never have been. Wes is the prodigal son, an expert violinist with a brilliant future ahead of him and the charm to boot. Soul, on the other hand, can adequately play the piano but is nothing special compared to his brother and everyone knows it.

Wes has always tried to bridge the gap between them, but his kindness and attention to his brother's feelings of inadequacy only feel like pity to Soul, and it makes the resentment impossible to avoid.

Soul tries not to snap at Wes most of the time, knowing his brother is only desperate for Soul to love him and would do anything to make him happy, but there's only so much that can be done on Wes's end. A relationship is a two-way street. Until Soul is ready to reach for that olive branch Wes has been holding out to him since they were kids, the two of them are never going to have a decent relationship.

Soul knows he should be happy for his brother. He knows that. He should be proud of his success, glad for his kindness, and accepting of the help Wes always tries to give him.

He's just not ready yet.

"Yeah," Soul answers finally. "Maka's picking me up in a few minutes."

"You know, usually it's the guy who has to pick up the girl for dates," Wes says casually. "Mom would have an aneurysm if she knew you were letting your girlfriend drive you around."

Soul scowls. "First of all, Maka's not my girlfriend; we've only known each other for a month, since that party Mom and Dad threw at the beginning of the summer vacation. Secondly, this isn't a date. We're meeting the others at Blake's before we head to the beach together."

"Still, you should at least offer to pick her up instead. Open the door for her. It's the chivalrous thing to do."

"She can open her own damn door," Soul mutters. "To be honest, she'd probably make fun of me if I tried."

Wes smiles faintly. "You might be right."

That's it. "Okay, what's your deal with Maka?" Soul demands. "You've been acting weird ever since you found out I'm friends with her. Do you like her or something? Is that why you're being so weird?"

To his surprise, Wes gets really quiet. He frowns at his hands for a moment before raising his eyes to meet Soul's. "Doesn't matter what I think. What matters is how you feel, and I can tell from the way you look at that girl that you think she walks on water."

"What—you—it's not—"

"I'm not teasing you about it," interrupts Wes. "I'm being serious. You like Maka, and I'm glad that you do. She's a great girl, Soul. Kind, smart, funny, selfless. You couldn't choose any better. It's just..."

"What?"

His brothers rubs a tired hand over his face. "Go easy on her, alright? She had a rough time of it in high school and she doesn't deserve to be led around if you're not serious about this."

"Yeah, I know. She told me she was a bit of a nerd then but I don't see how that—"

"Is that what she told you?"

Soul stares at his older brother, not liking the look on his face. "What? Was she lying?"

Wes grimaces. "No, it's not—she wasn't lying, Soul. It's just an oversimplification, is all."

"An oversimplification? What the hell are you talking about?"

They're interrupted by the sound of an obnoxiously lyrical doorbell ringing through the house. If Soul hadn't been staring intently at his brother, he would've missed the strange look that flickers across Wes's face at the sound, and the equally strange look that settles as he says casually, "Guess that's her," and walks right out of the kitchen, leaving Soul nothing to do but follow him.

"Wes!" Maka is beaming when Wes opens the door, and Soul gets a front-row seat to her smile when his brother presses a kiss to her cheek. Soul is really starting to dislike the greeting. "You're still here. I thought you were headed back to Europe?"

"Nah, decided I had enough traveling for a while. Wanted to stay home, network a bit, spend time with my brother before he starts his senior year."

"And I keep stealing him away from you." Maka cringes. "My bad. I've been needy. I'll leave him alone tomorrow so you guys have a brothers' day together."

Soul jolts to attention. "What? No! You don't need to do that!"

She gives him a chiding look. "Your brother cancelled a tour so he could spend time with you. Don't be mean."

"It's fine," Wes chuckles. "Don't abandon my brother for my sake. He likes you a hell of a lot more than he likes me anyway."

"Oh, I doubt that's true."

But it is. From the meaningful look Wes exchanges with him, Soul knows his brother is aware of what he's thinking. It makes him feeling impossibly worse about the situation yet somehow not remorseful in the slightest.

He won't apologize for choosing to spend his free time this summer with Maka, not when every time he and Wes have done things together, it's resulted in some sort of colossal fuck-up. She's the only person he ever feels remotely comfortable around. Being with Wes just makes him feel wholly inadequate, which doesn't help their relationship at all. If anything, the more time they spend together, the worse it gets.

Especially now.

"Actually," Wes says, "if you're not doing anything near the end of the summer, do you want to go to a concert with us? I was given free passes through my company and I was going to ask Soul to come with me, but I have a few extra tickets."

Soul chokes on air as Maka's face brightens. "Really? I'd love that!" She pauses slightly. "Are you sure though? I don't want to intrude on any brotherly bonding time, especially if—"

"Don't be silly, Maka. I wouldn't have invited you if I didn't want you there." The corner of his mouth twitches. "Besides, maybe now that you're coming, Soul won't make up some excuse to ditch me last minute."

Much to their surprise, Maka merely shakes her head. "That's not Soul's fault. Some days it's just harder than others to work up the nerve to face other people, especially in public settings. I get it; I'm still the same way sometimes, even though I've gotten a lot better since the height of my anxiety." She gives Soul a smile that makes his chest warm far past healthy levels. "He's actually a lot better than I was before. I'm grateful every time he's sweet enough to indulge me by keeping me company. He doesn't owe me anything, but he'll drag himself out of bed for my sake anyway."

Soul can only stare at her in shock.

How is it they've only known each other a month and she already knows him that well? No one has ever—ever—spoken about his tendency to bail on plans last minute as anything other than a nuisance. They call him a flake, unreliable, untrustworthy. His parents still berate him constantly every time his anxiety gets in the way of an appearance at a stupid party or a performance in front of crowds that make him want to hide in a corner and die. Even Blake complains and groans whenever Soul chooses solitude over his company. After all, it's how he's gone this long without meeting Spartoi in the first place.

But not only does Maka show she understands by not berating him for it, but she also defends him in front of Wes. Perfect, understanding Wes who no one ever disagrees with.

Soul has wanted to kiss Maka countless times since he first met her, but this... this clearly takes the cake.

Wes seems just as taken aback as Soul is, but he recovers much quicker, his expression becoming very, very soft. "You're right. I know I'm a little too hard on him sometimes. I know it's not his fault."

"It's not your fault either, Wes," she says gently. "You do your best. Besides, I've met your parents. Trust me when I say how hard it can be to function normally under that level of overbearingness."

"Spirit is still overcompensating by smothering you?"

"He barged into my bedroom with a baseball bat the other day because he had a dream that I was talking to a boy," she deadpans. "A dream."

Wes bursts out laughing before he can stop himself, then laughs even harder when she smacks his arm.

"It's not funny, Wes! I was trying to sleep!"

"Let me guess: you jolted out of bed and laid him out on his ass on instinct." His grin widens when she pouts adorably but doesn't answer. "That's what I thought. You're a little menace, aren't you?"

"I'm cute," she huffs stubbornly.

"You're capable of beating up a man more than twice your size."

"Still cute!"

"Yeah, yeah, she's adorable, we get it," Soul grumbles unhappily. "Can you be all nauseatingly charming and Wes-like later? Everyone is supposed to meet at Blake's soon and I don't want to have to explain that we're late because my big brother likes to hit on my friends."

"To be fair, Maka was my friend first." When Soul growls like a gremlin fed after midnight, Wes flashes a smile that manages to be both innocent and conniving all in one. Soul inwardly contemplates the pros and cons of putting a hit on his brother.

"We'll figure out the details for the concert later?" Maka asks hopefully.

Wes softens. "I'd like that." Then, because life hates Soul, his brother adds, "Hopefully by then my little brother will find his chill and stop acting like an old man who hasn't gotten his rocks off since nineteen-fifty-two."

"Wes!"

"I've been trying to pull the stick from his butt for weeks now," Maka agrees, "but for some reason he still walks around like he has a permanent cramp in his perky little ass cheeks."

"MAKA!"

"Must've left a splinter," Wes says solemnly.

"It wasn't ready."

"We pushed too soon."

Maka nods like she's commemorating a fallen comrade. "Now he'll be backed up for eternity."

"OH MY GOD."

Five minutes later and way too many jokes at the expense of their own personal dartboard to count, Maka and Soul climb into her car with the latter pouting like a child who got the wrong McDonald's toy in his Happy Meal.

She keeps sneaking glances at him as they pull out of his driveway on the way to Blake's, but he refuses to meet her eyes and maintains his crossed arms like a life vest off a sinking ship. With each passing second, he feels more and more like a spoiled brat and less and less inclined to fold for the sake of his stupid, stubborn pride.

"Soul?"

"…What?" he grumbles moodily.

"You really do have a cute butt."

[ read the rest of the chapter on ao3 // ffn ]

p.s. i know i’m not active on tumblr these days but i love and appreciate you all! thank you so much for your support <3

#soul eater #soulxmaka #soul eater evans #maka albarn #soma #look i know it's 2019 and i'm super late to the fandom but i will stop writing for soma over my dead body #i love them..... too much #soul x maka #wes evans

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rambling-at-midnight · 6 years ago

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Pick Your Battles: Epilogue

Request: I loved Pick Your Battles! Can you do a small oneshot follow up of Five and Spartan Reader going to school?

I know you said small, anon, but I really love this universe and I had to resolve the unresolved question at the end of the story. So… have this 4603-word fic. I hope you aren’t too disappointed lol.

Pairing: Five x Reader

“That is not right,” you complain for the thirtieth time in as many minutes. Five’s gotten a bit tired of it, really. “You don’t—nobody actually believes Caesar was stabbed, right? He was poisoned! I was there!”

“Really?” Five asks, fascinated. “Were you the poisoner?”

“No, I was protecting the poisoner,” you respond, scowling at the worksheet the teacher gave the class. “These are all wrong! Does anyone bother to consider if historians are lying because they’re ashamed of either themselves or their friends? This is all bullshit!”

“Hey, calm down,” Five soothes. “Look, I know it’s hard.”

You snort. “It’s not ‘hard’, dumbass. I’m fine in this era.” It’s true; you’ve adjusted almost completely. Except for the concept of the computer—how can there be an entirely different world that people can only access through specific portals? This is literally magic—but not the actual use of it, you’re fine. In fact, you’re great. Everyone in this school is so transparent and easy to read and manipulate. “Everyone else is just stupid.”

Five has to give that one to you. “I mean, yeah, but we can’t really say that.”

A football player leans over to your desk. “Y/N, what’s the answer for number seven?”

“Well, I can’t just tell you that,” you whisper back, all traces of frustration wiped off your face. “Isn’t the point of this class to learn?” Five would be impressed with your acting if you weren’t flirting with another boy to do it.

No, he still hasn’t told you how he feels. He’d sort of assumed that you and him would end up together eventually, considering it would be sort of weird for an old lady in a young body to date a younger person, but you don’t seem to have a problem with it. You’ve got half the male population panting after you; they seem to think your accent is hot and your chameleon-like personality isn’t hurting things. To be honest, Five wouldn’t be bothered by the logistics of it if he didn’t love you.

Five grinds his teeth together as you and the oaf continue to flirt. Why on earth would you show interest in him? He’s not smart, and you don’t seem like the type of girl to wrap a meathead around your finger; you seem like the kind of girl that would have a partner that’s her equal in every way to push her and help her improve.

Or maybe he just thinks that because he wishes that was him you were flirting with.

Five’s about to kick your chair to get you to pay attention to him, dammit, but someone leans over and puts their pencil on his desk. All the flirting’s got him in a bad mood, so his expression when he turns to see what the person wants must be thunderous. Their expression is hilarious; they seem to think he’s about to kill them.

It’s a small girl named Angie with bouncy curls. She’s a part of the drama department of this infernal school. All Five knows about her is that she’s got a high-pitched voice and a great body. He’s sure you know more about her. You know just about everything about everyone.

“Hey, Paolo, I was just wondering,” she starts, biting her lip at Five and leaning further across the desk in an obvious attempt to entice him with her chest. He grimaces at the fake name he’d used to enroll with at the school. “Are you going to the dance with Y/N?”

Five blinks at her for a second. He’d expected her to ask him to the dance, but… “No,” he answers slowly, the beginnings of an idea forming in his head. He doesn’t even glance at her chest and instead stares at her levelly, which seems to unnerve her a little bit.

“Oh, cool!” She tosses her hair. “I know Michael is planning on asking her.”

Five’s jaw clenches and a muscle in it ticks. “I see.”

Angie gasps loudly and dramatically, which makes a few people look at her. Now you’re paying attention to the conversation, Five can tell, and he barely shakes his head: He’ll tell you later; keep paying attention to the doofus trying to get a look down your shirt.

“Paolo, do you like Y/N?” she whispers.

“She’s my best friend,” Five answers cautiously. He’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, but some of the modern slang still confuses him.

“But do you like… like like her?” Angie clarifies.

“No,” Five says unconvincingly. Hey, you’re the actor in this… it’s not a relationship. Partnership. You’re the actor in this partnership. “No, I just… I’m really protective of her,” he forces out. He can’t bring himself to say that he thinks of you like a sister. “You know, since we’ve been in the foster system together for so long.”

The bell rings and you finally extricate yourself from your conversation with the football oaf, much to Five’s relief. Next period he has is lunch, and if you leave Five for the football lunch table or bring the football boys to your shared table he just might throw a fit. You’re his partner, goddamnit, and you’re his best friend, and you’re his crush. He doesn’t like to share.

Well, he’s a bit protective of you. He wasn’t lying to Angie.

“What did she want?” you ask immediately, falling into step with him. God, walking everywhere is so tedious. Five would love to be able to jump to his classes, but he doesn’t need people to know that he’s really Five Hargreeves who disappeared years ago and has reappeared looking the exact same age.

“She said you should join the theater department,” he lies smoothly. He’s gotten much better at it; he’s not better than you, but there have been times when he’s been able to fool you. Like when he told you he wasn’t even planning on going to the dance.

Well, he’s not planning. He’s fantasized.

It might have something to do with your skill at reading him as an old man. You’re still getting used to Five in his kid body.

You snort. “I’m not an amateur.”

“Then go star in your own movie,” Five suggests. “I’m sure Allison could hook you up.” It’s actually a good idea; you’re great at acting and you’ve got connections, so why not? He steps in front of you when you look incredulous, bouncing on his heels. “Just think about it, Y/N,” he pleads. “Actors can build up a cult following. That would be a great place to start, right? It’s a relatively fun job, you’re really good at it, and as long as we’re successful we won’t even have to worry about money no matter what we do on the side!”

You bite your lip. “You really think so?” When too many people start giving you odd looks for standing in the middle of the hallway and building up traffic, you grab Five’s arm and start to haul him backwards towards the lunch room. You’re hungry.

“You know what, I’ve got an even better idea,” Five says, nearly tripping as he tries to turn himself around. You and him have hated the foster home you’ve been stuck in ever since you’ve gotten back. He’d refused to be adopted by one of his siblings, because that would be utterly humiliating, and also because if the two of you were adopted it’d be weird if you ever got together. “Allison can adopt you! It’ll help her reputation as a family woman or whatever if she’s adopting poor orphans.”

“What about you?” you ask, sitting down at your lunch table. Five sits across from you. No one dares to join you because of the nasty looks Five sends people.

Five grimaces. “Get adopted by one of my own siblings? No thanks.”

You scowl. “Five, that place is crappy. I’m not abandoning you in it especially when we have the option not to.”

“I don’t want to,” he insists. “My new name is Paolo without a last name. It’s a complete new start, and I can’t be adopted by any of my siblings because someone will inevitably make the connection. My appearance hasn’t changed at all, plus being a Hargreeves? But you’re unknown, Y/N. Besides, we’ll still hang out. I’ll just sleep over at the house, or maybe I won’t. They wouldn’t notice anyway.” The quick grin he flashes at you has butterflies fluttering in your stomach, so you look down at your lunch.

You pull out a thermos container and frown at it.

“That’s a thermos,” Five instructs, a little tired. “Unscrew the top. So it’s decided, then?”

“I’m not changing schools,” you decide. “I don’t want to leave you or join new teams.”

“I’m sure Allison won’t mind you living at the Academy,” Five shrugs. “Now I just need to decide what to do with my future.”

“I think being a model is out of the question,” you tease. It’s a total lie; he’d make fantastic money as a model. Five is hot as a kid.

“I’ll speak with Allison after we get out of school,” he says, smiling at you without showing teeth. “Not that I would want to be a model anyway, but if I did, I would be fantastic.”

“Yeah, if you were a model for nerdy loser time travelers,” you snort.

“I’m not a nerd!”

You fix Five with a look. “Honey, you’ve spent your entire life working on math.”

“Yeah, to get back to my family!” he protests. He’s not sure whether to be offended or just roll with the teasing.

You purse your lips and raise your eyebrows. “It was your personal decision to translate the problem into math. Honestly, I don’t know how you did manage to incorporate calculations into it; in case you haven’t noticed, there’s not a lot of math involved in, like, running or something.”

“When someone times you,” he counters.

You wave a hand dismissively. “Yeah, but you don’t have to be able to time your run in order to run.”

“Just forget it,” Five grumbles. “You don’t understand.”

You spear a piece of the chicken that was inside the thermos and take a hesitant bite. It’s not flavored at all. Spartan cooking may have been awful, but you’ve gotten used to good food.

Honestly, this foster home’s food might as well be straight from Sparta. Five hates it and generally steals food from stores and the cafeteria, especially when the foster parents forget completely to pack the food.

Truth be told, you’re a bit disappointed, but not in the food. The school’s big dance is coming up, and you’d hoped that Five would ask you, but he seems to have his eye on Angie. She seems to like him too, so you quickly gave up on that and started scouting out suitable males to take you. It’s not like it’s hard. They’re all so shallow and dumb.

You want to ask him if he’s taking Angie, either to dash your hopes once and for all or to know that you’ve still got a chance, but you can’t take that risk.

So you take another bite of the dry chicken and try to swallow it.

Word gets out quickly once you’re adopted by Allison. If you weren’t already the most popular girl at school, you are now. Everyone wants to be your friend. You pretend to want to be theirs, too, and the amount of people that unknowingly hand you information about possible conflicts to exploit are astronomical.

You know all about the fight that Susia and McKayla are having, and the problems George is having at home. Richard is cheating on his girlfriend, Katherine, with Drake.

You know everyone and everything, and only Five knows you.

Michael asked you to the dance. You’d panicked for once and told him you weren’t sure if you were going to be able to go anyway because of how chaotic the adoption is, because you hadn’t wanted to put up with him peering down your shirt and only talking about how your accent is attractive. You were never one of the femme fatale assassins, so you’re not very used to people showing interest in you. The only way you know anything about flirting is by doing it with Five for all the years you two haven’t been sniping at each other.

“It’s Paolo, isn’t it?” he’d asked, scowling, and you were so offput you’d forgotten for a moment who Paolo was.

“I—it’s no one,” you’d replied, confused. “I’m just not sure if Allison wants me to live at her house here or her other house. It’s just…” you look at the ground and bite your lip, playing the vulnerable girl card. “It’s really stressful. You’re here for me, though, right?”

“Yeah,” he’d replied, a little dazed.

You may not have had much practice, but you’re a very quick learner.

By the end of the day, word has spread like wildfire about how you might not be able to go to the dance and people are treating it like you just lost your mother or something. You’ve been approached by at least seven girls that have talked about how very sorry they are for you or some BS like that.

You can’t tell, but Five is ecstatic. He’d heard through Angie, who heard from Drake, who heard from Michael that you’d turned him down for the dance and said you didn’t know if you would be in town for it. Now, Five knows that’s a lie; you’d fight tooth and nail before letting anyone unenroll you from the school, but nobody else does.

He’s pretty sure you turned Michael down just because you didn’t want to go with him.

To be fair, that’s a decision anyone would have made, even if they didn’t have a crush on their partner/best friend/fellow assassin.

Still, he walks into your room after school and tells you to get up. It’s much larger than you’re used to, mostly because Allison is a mother and can’t picture you as anything other than a poor orphan girl with a tragic past and she wants to get to know you. You’re trying to be nicer to her because of her generosity.

“What?” you ask, putting down your book. “Why?”

“We’re going shopping,” Five says, rolling his eyes as if it was totally obvious. He’d stolen his foster mom’s credit card. She won’t even notice; she’s got like a hundred of them. Now he thinks about it, he should have just asked Allison to pay for the outing because she’s hella rich, but too late now. “Haven’t you learned by now from all our missions that dates have to wear matching outfits?” There was, like, one mission where he and you had to dress up and attend a dance together, but still.

“What?” you ask again. Five can see you blushing but decides against commenting.

“We’re going to the dance together,” he says slowly.

You blink. “Why?”

“Well, I know your excuse about not being sure if you would be in town is BS,” Five explains. God, he hopes you can’t see his nerves. “So you will be in town for the dance. And if you turned down Michael, that means you really don’t want to attend the dance with him. And if you’re there, he’ll want to dance with you. So—”

“All right, I get it!” you say loudly, cutting him off. Typical Five. Always looking out for you. You’re not a younger sibling that he needs to protect. This is going to be torture. Can’t he tell that you like him?

Of course he can’t. Like he’d said, you’re an amazing actress. Allison has already started sending out your headshots to different agents. She says you really have a future as an actress.

“Sure,” you say, getting up and leaving the book on your bed. “Won’t that make people think we’re dating or something, though?”

“We can just say we’re going as friends,” Five shrugs. “I mean, we’ve got the act going that we’re close because we grew up in the foster system together, so that would explain why we would go together.”

“All right.” You grin and interlock your arm with his. “Just warning you, though, I will be recognized.”

“I can handle a bit of fame,” Five says, rolling his eyes. “You forget I was a child star myself.”

“That is true,” you concede and start to drag him out of the house. “Allison, Five and I are going shopping!”

“Have fun!” she calls back from her room. “Do you need money?”

“I have a credit card!” Five yells.

“Who’s? It’s not one of mine, is it?”

Five pretends not to hear her and pulls you out of the house before she can quiz you two anymore.

Five swallows thickly when you open up the door to the Hargreeves mansion. You’re wearing your y/f/c dress and Allison’s hair stylist must have done your hair because it’s up in an elaborate twist.

“Hey,” you say, a little shyly. God, Five in a suit is going to be the death of you.

“Hey,” he replies, dazed. Allison has to clear her throat behind you two to get you to stop staring at each other.

“Y/N, I want you back by eleven,” she says sternly.

You glare at her. “Absolutely not.”

“Y/N, it is still a school night,” she starts but you’re already shaking your head.

“That’s what coffee’s for, Allison.”

She sputters, but you’re already out of the house, so she sighs wearily. I swear, if Claire’s anything like this when she’s older, Patrick will hand her right over to me with a smile on his face.

As you’d expected, the rumors start to circulate the moment you and Five step into the school arm in arm. A combination of intimidation of your new status as the celebrity kid and genius, and people’s fright of Five, keeps too many people from approaching you, though you notice Michael and Angie glaring at you two from opposite sides of the room, both with arms crossed and pouts on their faces.

“Did I tell you?” you ask, which is the first thing you’ve said since stepping in the school. For some reason, the air is thick between you and Five, and you sort of hate it. “I got a role.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Some movie adaptation of a book,” you say airily, waving your hand. “I’ll have to read it, of course, but I got the gist of it from that Wikipedia thing, and it’s a dystopian story. Lots of destruction. I’m sure you’ll feel right at home when you watch it, huh?” You nudge Five’s shoulder with yours and smile, trying to get him to, but he’s glancing around the room like he’s waiting for someone. If he’s going to ditch you, you’ll kill him. “Hello?” Five?” You wave your hand in front of his face. He doesn’t even blink. “Five.” You snap your fingers and he jerks away from you.

“What?” he snaps and you blink. He hasn’t snapped at you for a long time.

“Never mind,” you reply, unhooking your arm from around his. “I’ll be right back.” You march across the dance floor right to Angie. She tries to paste a smile onto her face when she sees you coming, but it’s obviously fake.

“You like Paolo, right?” you ask bluntly. You have a feeling she’s not in the mood to pussyfoot around anything right now.

“I don’t think I should be saying so to his date,” she replies, which is an inadvertent yes.

You wave your hand. “We came as friends. He’s not interested in even talking to me, though. Maybe he’ll be interested in talking to you.”

“Really?” Angie smiles at you.

“Good luck,” you reply. “You know how prickly he can be.”

She laughs softly. “Uh, yeah. Do you know if he likes me back?”

“He sure as hell doesn’t like me,” you say without thinking, which makes her brows crinkle with worry.

“Y/N, you aren’t interested in Paolo, right? I don’t want to make a move on him if you—”

“Doesn’t matter,” you reply. “He’s made it very clear we are just friends.”

Angie bounces across the floor. When you turn around, you’re confronted with a large chest. When you look up, Michael is forcing a very pained smile onto his face. “Hey, Y/N.”

You want to shoot yourself. “Hi, Michael!”

“You said you weren’t going to the dance,” he says pointedly, eyes flickering over to where Angie and Five are now talking.

“I honestly thought I wasn’t,” you fib. “By the time I found out, I thought you already had a date and I knew Fi—Paolo didn’t, so I thought it would be best to go as friends.”

“Why’d you think I already had a date?”

“I heard it somewhere,” you say vaguely. Before Michael can say anything else, a loud slap echoes around the room. Your head jerks around to where Angie is storming away from your ex-partner, looking to be about to cry, and Five is glaring after her, one hand on his cheek.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter under your breath. “Excuse me, Michael.” You hike up your dress and make it across the room before any of the teacher supervisors can converge on Five and ask him if he’s okay. You take the scowling boy by the ear and drag him out of the room in the opposite direction Angie left in, ignoring the wolf whistles that sound out and one loud “Ooh, someone’s in trouble!”

“Get off me!” Five exclaims the moment you step out of the room. You let go of his ear and instead grab the front of his shirt.

“What the hell did you say to her?”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about me?” Five gripes. “I’m the one that just got the shit slapped out of me!”

“Shut up, you’re fine,” you reply. “God knows you’ve gone through worse. Now I want to know why Angie’s suddenly on a slapping spree just after talking to you. Not that it isn’t a common urge I have whenever you even open up your mouth—”

“She was trying to get me to dance,” Five says sulkily, shoving his hands in his pockets as you let go of his shirt.

“So?” You look at him with disbelief. “What did you say to her, exactly?”

“I didn’t say anything!” he protests. “I told her I didn’t want to dance with her!”

You raise one skeptical eyebrow.

“Okay,” he grinds out. “And I called her—”

“I don’t even want to hear it,” you mutter. “You know, you deserve to get slapped sometimes, right?”

“And you won’t even let me trip you,” he mutters.

“Yeah, because I’m better than you,” you automatically reply. “Besides, why wouldn’t you dance with Angie just one time? She’s nice and she likes you! Don’t you like her?”

“God, no,” he replies viscerally. “God. No.”

“What’s so disgusting about her?” you ask, genuinely curious. Does he know something about Angie that you don’t?

“She isn’t you,” he blurts out, and both your eyes get as big as dinner plates. “Wait! Shit! I didn’t mean to say that!” Five tries to babble, but the damage is done.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you cut him off.

“It’s just that, well, she’s, you know. And, well, most girls are, well. And… you know?” He stares at you and chews his lip, awaiting your response like he made any sense at all.

“No, I don’t know,” you say slowly. “What do you mean, Five?”

Either he leans forward or he trips when he steps forward, but suddenly Five’s lips are on yours, a little too rough, and you instinctively pull back with shock.

“She’s not you,” Five repeats, breathing a little heavily. “Look, I get if you don’t feel the same way, but I had to get it out there. I like you, Y/N; I have since before we got our second chance and, god, I’ve really fucked up now, but I just—”

You grab the front of his shirt again and stand on your tiptoes to press your lips to his again. It turns out to be the best way to get him to shut up.

Umbrella Academy Taglist:

@fentanvl @deathswretch @lightningidiot @five-hg @iamsnek666@ameliatrh @ihatecheesyusernames @dora-the-grownup @emilyt0314 @idklol707

Five x Reader Taglist:

@statsvitenskap @dare-the-punisher

Forever Taglist:

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes

#tua #the umbrella academy #number five #five hargreeves #five x reader #number five x reader #five hargreeves x reader #reader insert #reader x five #reader x five hargreeves #reader x number five #allison hargreeves

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 218: Purse Pilferage and Mouse Murder

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan and Deku sparred in an attempt to draw out Deku’s mysterious new power once again, but to no avail. In a brief flashback, the OFA Scooby Squad (now including Bakugou!) discussed Deku’s recent visions and his multiple quirks. Kacchan pointed out that it was very similar to All for One’s power, which seems to be weighing on Deku’s mind some. That evening at the fanfic dorms, Shouto approached Deku asking if he had been hiding a second quirk. Deku assured him that the new quirk surprised him as much as everyone else, and fibbed that it was probably derived from his original quirk. Meanwhile the U.A. faculty accepted Shinsou into the hero course, and Aizawa acted all weird and cagey about someone from his past named “Shirakumo.” Later, Monoma met with Aizawa, Mirio, Deku, and Eri at the teachers’ dorms and unsuccessfully attempted to copy Eri’s quirk. Eri apologized for being so troublesome, and the others assured her that she wasn’t and Deku told her that even seemingly dangerous quirks can be used for good. It wasn’t lost on him that this applied to his own powers as well, and he resolved to keep working to master OFA.

Today on BnHA: Early one December morn, the kids of 1-A gather in their common room to watch some TV while they wait to hear if Bakugou and Todoroki passed their provisional license retest. The news is reporting on a company called Detnerat which has recently entered the hero equipment business. Their CEO is some Joker-looking dude who’s apparently a big fan of AFO’s old nemesis Destro of Meta Liberation Army fame. Destro’s book has recently been republished and is making the discussion rounds. DetCEO discusses it with his cute lil mouse subordinate Miyashita, but Miyashita isn’t really a fan. This proves unfortunate for Miyashita, as DetCEO is all “that’s too bad, guess I’m just gonna have to snap your neck then.” Like, for real though. Anyway so then DetCEO heads to a secret meeting of like-minded individuals who are apparently Destro’s descendants and are seeking to make his goals a reality. We then segue to a group of purse-snatchers led by someone who I really thought was Shirakumo for a hot minute, ngl. He’s not, though. Anyway so they’re wreaking some havoc and stealing people’s shit -- that is, until two good boys who just earned their provisional licenses after three months of hard work show up to spoil their fun.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 225, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

HOLY SHIT

BABY WE GOT OURSELVES SOME MOTHERFUCKING SNOW IN THE FANFIC DORMS!!!

holy shit. and it’s the weekend! ARE WE GONNA HAVE SOME ANTICSSSS YES PLEASE I REALLY NEED THIS SO BAD RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

KIRISHIMA WHY ARE YOU TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF

I hope they get a ton! I WANT SNOWBALL FIGHTS AND SNOW FORTS AND TODOROKI TO LET IT GOOOOOO LET IT GOOOOOOO

ahh but apparently he and Bakugou are away right now

wow they even got that class on Sundays now, huh

also, who did Sero borrow the tankoubon from? because more likely than not it was Bakugou since I can’t even picture Shouto reading manga (unless he borrowed some volumes from Deku, maybe). so that means Bakugou is (a) a big ol’ manga-reading nerd who brought his manga to school with him, and (b) sharing with friends. both of which make me so, so happy

(ETA: Viz translated this as “I want to borrow the next volume of this manga from Todoroki,” but as far as I can tell, in the RAW version he doesn’t specify who he borrowed it from. I think Caleb Cook just doesn’t think Bakugou is capable of sharing. give him some credit, Caleb Cook.)

Deku says they should be back around six, and Iida says it’s apparently the last day of their provisional class!

OHMYGOSH. hold up. so that means that their re-test is in like a week, no? holy shit. oh my god I’m so hypppppped ahhhhhh

SDLFKHASLDFKJLK HOLY SHIT

IT’S TODAY!?!??

YOU CAN DO IT KIDS I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOU GOT THIS

KACCHAN ARE YOU READY TO OFFICIALLY BECOME KACCHAN THE HERO

(ETA: maybe we’ll actually get Kacchan’s hero name before I grow old. maybe.)

SDFKASLDHK AND LOOK AT THIS SETUP!? AHHHHHH PLEASE DON’T CUT AWAY FROM THIS. OH MY GOD

but snow antics though. oh my god I’m so torn lsdkjlk

anyways of fucking course we cut away, and I don’t really mind because I love cozy 1-A snow day dorm antics also. plus everyone is gossiping about Todo and Baku, and Satou is baking a cake like the Princess Peach he is

Kami is playfully lamenting the fact that he’s about to lose the one leg-up he had on those two, and flipping on the news

oh shit are we gonna get some Plot

I guess so. what is this

Detnerat?? is that a portmanteau of something? an acronym? or another Star Wars reference I failed to pick up on??

(ETA: yeah so it’s the word “talented” spelled backwards. except with an r instead of an l.)

so the news is showing some people with mutant quirks, including a four-armed lady, a jello child, and a walrus with a bowler hat

and the narration is talking about how people like this used to be a minority but now “their era arrived”

interesting. I guess there’s pretty much no such thing as “one size fits all” anymore these days huh. so does that mean there’s been a shift back to custom-made tailored items?

this pointy nose guy is extremely theatrical

calm down buddy

so he says his company has come all this way while building products that meet the needs of each of their customers individually

this is cool and all but I’m trying to figure out why this new arc is opening with an infomercial

I’m expecting things all right, but I think it’s a little too early to say if they’ll be great

and now we’re cutting to this guy’s office, where his employee is concluding his presentation. apparently he was showing his boss the finished commercial

and now they’re discussing the thus-far lukewarm reception to their recent announcement

(ETA: holy shit. famous last words. fuckin’ jinxed it Miyashita.)

are you guys... good guys? bad guys? how is this related to the plot?? a new arc all about stock holdings and market shares. Iida did you write this arc

so pointy nose says that they’ve been doing this on a much larger scale for a long time already, so he’s confident they’ll be successful

oh shit

it only just occurred to me that he used the word “superpowers” instead of quirks

AND LOOK AT THIS SHIT

IT’S THAT BOOK. THE ONE THAT WAS PROBABLY WRITTEN BY DESTRO OMG

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

IT WAS DESTRO. CALLED IT WOOP WOOP

Mishiwhatsa says he read the book too but “it’s a load of crap if you ask me”

he says that what the army was doing was nothing but terrorism at the expense of innocent people, and yet Destro “had the gall” to act like he was in the right

hot damn this guy really was Magneto. are we going full-on X-Men in this arc. I want the works. I want fucking sentinels and everything oh god please

oh shit I’m starting to worry about ol’ Mishi here

MIYASHITA, RUN

OH SHIT

IS HE GOING TO SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK!?? HOLY SHIT!??

holy fucking shitballs oh christ

this dude is straight up murdering his best employee, Nezu’s cousin, all because he didn’t agree with his favorite book!?

...

holy shit

fuck. I’m speechless

okay. okay shit. well. uh. Detnerat, huh

you have my attention, plot

hooooooooooly shit

holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay. calm down, self. let’s jot down some thoughts real quick

okay so one, that one shot of that guy with his hand on his hat has a decided Ian McKellen vibe to it. I’m telling you guys. X-Men references all over the damn place in this arc

two, the word “supremacy” was used. meaning this wasn’t just a “quirk rights” group, this was a quirk supremacist group. or is a quirk supremacist group, I should say. these people believe themselves to be the future of humankind. they don’t want liberation, they want control. and assuming we continue to follow the X-Men parallels here, they also believe themselves to be superior to those without superpowers and they’re looking to assert their authority over them

they clearly believe the current laws restricting the usage of quirks are a form of oppression and persecution and are looking to eradicate them

this seems like exactly the type of philosophy the League of Villains would be eager to spread, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another team-up is in the works here

lastly, if these guys are now in the business of making hero equipment, whoever buys from them had better be really careful, as I can easily see some sort of Iron Man 2 plotline going down in which there’s a secret command built into the coding of the new equipment which will sabotage its users once activated. or if you’d rather think of it in Star Wars terms rather than MCU, call it an “order 66” ploy

(ETA: well I partly called this one. still up in the air honestly, who knows.)

also: friendly reminder that Bakugou’s gauntlets were recently destroyed and he’s gonna be needing new ones! (:

so having said all that, let’s see how this pans out!

and right away, the prediction about them teaming up with the League is panning out. waste no time, huh

so Hooknose is telling him to do so at once

oh shit hold up

WELL I SURE GOT THAT BACKWARDS NOW DIDN’T I

lol oh shit. I totally forgot that AFO was the one who bombed the Army’s HQ all those decades and possibly centuries ago. I can’t believe these guys still remember that and know how AFO was connected to boot

also, is there a Rorschach thing going on here? I wonder if it’s a reference to the psychologist or to the comic book character from Watchmen. I’m betting the latter given the way they’re using the inkblots as masks, and also because this is a manga based on superhero comics after all

(ETA: yeah, Rorschach, Joker, and Magneto... drawing on a lot of classic villains and anti-heroes in this arc.)

ah so now we’re getting details on their new bid to enter the hero market

HOLD UP

WHAT THE FUCK THIS GUY LOOKS AWFULLY FUCKING FAMILIAR

IS THIS SHIRAKUMO??? AIZAWA WERE YOU NOT CONTENT WITH THE STRIKING SIMILARITY YOU ALREADY BORE TO KAKASHI? HAD TO GO AND ADD THE OLD FRIEND TURNED EVIL BACKSTORY TOO?? OR WHAT

given that this guy seems to have some sort of cloud-based power (look at what he’s riding! and now the people he just harassed and stole from are describing it as “carbonated water”), and kumo means “cloud”...

(ETA: nope, this is just good ol’ Soda Sam. Carbonation Carl.)

okay and now we’re cutting to a conversation between two as-yet-unknown parties that seem to be witnessing this robbery from a distance, and deciding whether or not to intervene

for a moment I entertained the idea that this might be Kacchan and Shouto with their hot-off-the-presses licenses, possibly talking to All Might? but none of this dialogue seems to have that Kacchan flair, and it also doesn’t make much sense for them to have attended the lesson accompanied by All Might and no one else. Aizawa’s been pretty good about making sure there’s always at least one other fighting pro accompanying them

so now this group of merry bandits is celebrating their new haul

OH SHITTTTTTT

ODDS OF THIS BEING BAKUGOU AND SHOUTO JUST SHOT WAAAAAAAAAY WAY UP OH MY GOD?!

OH MY GOD IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT?!

I SHOULD STOP DOUBTING MYSELF AND HORIKOSHI’S PROPENSITY FOR GIVING ME EXACTLY WHAT I WANT ALL OF THE TIME

motherfucker. you just know Kacchan spent that entire cab ride with his nose pressed to the window trying to sense danger and keeping his fingers crossed something like this would happen

(ETA: him and Shouto both, since the dialogue suggests it was Shouto that spotted it first! so basically one of them stationed at each window with All Might sandwiched in between wondering if he’s even going to survive this trip. the answer is yes, All Might, but not without it becoming Eventful.)

also, 30 minutes or 30 seconds, it hardly matters All Might. you know these two spent the last three months anticipating this moment every single minute of every day. they’re gonna go do reckless hero shit, All Might. THEY’RE JUST GONNA

oh my godddddddd

TodoBaku fighting against Aizawa’s possible friend-turned-villain in the snowwwwww having JUST EARNED THE SHIT OUT OF THEIR NEW LICENSES HELL YEAHHHHHHHHH

and it appears Kacchan does have a gauntlet. goddammit. make that propensity for giving me almost exactly what I want, most of the time

anyways, I don’t really care! life is good. life is fucking amazing, fam

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #redestro #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #poor miyashita just kept on digging himself in deeper didn't he #'hey boss you sure are bald'#'and our business is very much not booming'#'oh hey what's that book you've got there'#'oh is that the one by destro?'#'lol I flippin' hate that guy'#'he's just the worst isn't he?'#'why no I don't have any friends or family or anyone who would miss me or notice my sudden disappearance in any capacity'#'why do you ask'#'boss?'#'...'

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ohjohnno · 5 years ago

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Outrageous Fortune Reviewcap: S1E08 (”My Dearest Foe”)

Well, now I see why I didn’t remember what happened in this episode. The answer, it turns out, is nothing much. This isn’t technically a filler episode - a couple of important new characters are introduced, and a plot thread is introduced at the end that will continue through just about the whole rest of the show - but the actual events of the episode are mostly inconsequential. Accordingly, I won’t spend too much time on ‘em here.

The first plot concerns Cheryl, who has now taken up a job at an insurance company. Nobody except her is especially happy with this - insurance companies, we’re informed, are “the scum of the Earth” - but Cheryl seems to like it.

Things, alas, are not as they seem. The branch Cheryl works for turns out to be running a neat little scam, the girls there all approving each others’ bogus insurance claims; the boss lady, Penny, has been overseeing it thus far, but is looking to move on and wants Cheryl to be her replacement. She only hired her, it turns out, because of who she was, and Cheryl is quietly exasperated; no matter how she tries, she can’t seem to outrun her past. Penny also suggests that another reason she hired her was because she thinks of her as a kindred spirit in having been victimized by a terrible man; Cheryl’s not overly enthused with that suggestion either.

After a little deliberation, she turns down the offer. Penny didn’t expect that, and now fears that she’s told Cheryl enough to make her a threat; she tries to ship her off to a different branch in a place called “Pakuranga” (apparently way off elsewhere in Auckland). Cheryl, feeling betrayed, indulges in a bit of the old family tradition and steals her car, pawning it off to pay some maintenance bills; Penny fires her, and that, one might think, would be the end of it. But Penny, in a fit of pique, calls the cops on Cheryl over a stolen item she spotted in their house one time, and after an incredibly bored visit from Judd and Hickey (who have much better things to be doing), she pays Penny another visit, telling her in no uncertain terms to leave her the fuck alone before she has her friends rob the pants off her and everyone else in the office. Penny backs down.

“For your information, I’m nobody’s victim,” she tells her. Hmm. No comment.

The other main plot concerns Pascalle, and there’s barely anything there. She gets a call from the modeling agency she got registered at before she left the strip club, and they’re considering her for a charity shoot about animals. While in the waiting room, she bumps into a girl named Chantel Lazenby, a fellow model with the agency who also used to be a schoolmate. She used to be very fat, apparently, but she certainly isn’t anymore, and Van is of the belief that she’s “a dyke” (mostly because she rejected his advances once). What follows is an extremely low-stakes rivalry between the two as they both attempt to get the modelling job, mostly involving Pascalle and Chantel having a couple of glorified drinking contests and a few silly lesbian jokes. Eventually, Chantel is successful, and Pascalle is left in the dust, bitterly assuring herself that “Chantel was fat once, and you can’t escape genetics.”

That’s really it, as far as plots go. Doesn’t sound like enough to fill up an episode, does it? Well, it really isn’t - and it doesn’t. The rest of the episode is filled, mostly, with little things; interactions between various characters that have little plot significance but are fun to watch anyway. They’re the meat of this episode, and they make it a lot more likable than such an inconsequential episode really has any right to be.

For a start, Loretta - perhaps thanks to the success of her atrocity last episode - is in the very best mood we’ve ever seen her in the show so far; she’s bubbly and perky, grinning constantly, cracking jokes at everyone’s expense at the speed of light while making herself a constant nuisance for Cheryl, and, as much as I kinda hate to admit it considering what a monster she’s proven herself to be, she is absolutely delightful. We also learn that she’s one of those film nerds who considers Showgirls to be an underrated masterpiece, although she might just be teasing Van there.

There’s a running joke involving a big wooden cuckoo clock that Van (at Loretta’s behest) bought Cheryl for her birthday; it’s an ugly old thing, and it turns out to be stolen (not surprising, since Van bought it from Eric), and Cheryl hates it, which of course means Loretta completely loves it, repeatedly putting it back up on the wall every time Cheryl takes it down. “It’s a battle of wills,” she says, and it’s both hilarious and kind of oddly adorable. Also, lest we forget, Loretta having the idea to get Cheryl a present in the first place is significant - there’s a heart in there after all, it turns out, even if it behaves very strangely sometimes.

We also learn that she used to be great at Irish dancing, which will eventually be important (though not for a very long time). Elsewhere, we find Ted dealing with the fallout from last episode in his own way: poker, at the Wests’ dining table. He’s joined, over the course of the episode, by Munter (which is significant, since that makes this the first time he’s done anything plot-wise that isn’t related to Van), Eric (who’s still upset over Cheryl leaving the crime business), a new character called Falani (a very large, very crooked Samoan mechanic who will become a major supporting character eventually, and who also fixes Cheryl’s car this episode), and eventually Rochelle (who you may remember from episode four). It’s pretty high-stakes for them - they’re all playing for money - but it’s very low-stakes for the viewer, and it is also, possibly, the best part of the entire episode.

Nothing much happens because nothing much needs to. It’s oddly relaxing to watch, actually; just a bunch of nice, simple jokes about an odd cast of various bogans playing poker against each other, subtly revealing things about themselves in the process. Falani goes on lengthy monologues about his skill at making love to his wife, but proves markedly less skilled at the patient, analytical art of the game; Munter is remarkably laid-back, enjoying softly making fun of Falani’s bad luck perhaps more than the game itself; Eric is perpetually grumpy, except when he disappears into the West bathroom and decides, for some reason, to try on some of Pascalle’s moisturizer (possibly thinking it’s Cheryl’s), which is hilarious; Rochelle is arrogant and remarkably skilled. But none of them are as good as Ted, who cleans them all out with aplomb, rarely speaking or changing his facial expression. “I feel much better now,” he says to Cheryl at one point; Cheryl isn’t so enthused with all these bums lazing around her house, but she can see his point.

Ted, at one point, has a one-on-one chat with Cheryl, noting with neither praise nor condemnation how the Wests “have never been much good at what you might call actual jobs”. We’ll see how that statement ages. Wolf turns up just long enough to justify Grant Bowler’s paycheck, his scene pretty much pointless except for how funny it is; he baked her a birthday cake, apparently, but when a car failure prevented her from arriving at the prison to pick it up “it got eaten”, and now he doesn’t want to talk about it, moping like a teenage boy behind the prison desk.

There’s two sides to this show, basically, and this episode is the lighter one. It’s all very low-stakes and very whimsical, and if that means nothing much of consequence happens, well, that’s okay. We get to see the three West children who still live at home laughing and having fun with each other, their lives all mostly tranquil for once, giving us something of a control group for when things start to go wrong. We see the West household in a moment of peace, nothing particularly awful happening to it, nothing calamitous getting in the way of the atmosphere. It’s nice. I like it.

There’s one more thing. In this episode, we’re introduced to Kacey, an old friend of Cheryl’s with “shit taste in blokes” (her words) and a passion for designing undergarments. She talks, at first, of starting up a business, and eventually, having lost her latest job, Cheryl agrees to join her in her venture. The results from this pairing will last a very long time indeed, and Kacey will end up becoming an extremely significant character. That’s all yet to come, though.

This episode also has possibly my favorite ending to any of the less important Outrageous Fortune episodes ever. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. Man, this show could be funny when it wanted to. And here, for the most part, that’s all it wants to do. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. After the last episode, it’s nice to have a breather. As I recall, actual important stuff kicks in again next episode. I will see you then.

#Antonia Prebble #Siobhan Marshall #antony starr #Robyn Malcolm #grant bowler #television #outrageous fortune #Frank Whitten #rachel lang #Gutter Black #nz

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sepiadice · 7 years ago

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Tales of Genius Ch. 2: Follow the Light

(9/16/18)

And so, for possibly the first time ever, I got a session two in a campaign! New high score! Woo-hoo!

Also, got to redo an adventure I ran for the old High School crew. Updated it slightly, added a puzzle, changed the final encounter, added a pair of magic items.

Don’t think I have any sort of RPG Life updates. Working on various other projects off and on. Started watching a new Netflix original series that redoubles a plot point later in this campaign.

Added a fourth party member. Which I think I’m going to lock down on. The games I’ve been involved with always had a problem of having a large number of players, so I think I want to try for the classic four-person ensemble.

Hope they’re having fun. Doubt plagues me, but they’re not whining to me, so it’s probably fine? It’s still clear I need to continue practicing GMing, and I’ve noticed I’ve been stuttering and having difficulty pronouncing words. That will all need to be improved before we move on to the podcast phase.

Now, for the second part of Tales of Genius![1]

CAST

Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellect! Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated. Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions.

Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist.

Quick exposition:

So, that whole “Child of…” thing is part of my world’s lore. About nineteen hundred years ago, nine sisters travelled the world and founded nine schools of philosophy and nine separate cultures that populate the world. The only solid marker for the tribes is eye color. White/Light grey for Clio. Yellow for Thalia. Orange for Calliope. Green for Terpsichore. Others for the other tribes as they’re introduced.

The sisters are named after the Greek Muses.

And, so, onto our tale.

DATE: Late Winter 1911

PLACE: THE TINES (Mountain border of Astree and Hervar)

We open back up on North Fort. Food supplies are running even lower, especially since a good chunk of it has been poisoned. The mayor has decided to send those clever adventurers to try and find an alternate path out of town,[2] plus this nice Jean fellow who speaks highly of his own conquests.[3]

After some brainstorming while I was busy making curry,[4] the mayor mentioned the town crypts, which are a small network of caves some distance from town. There’s an iron door there which no one has explored past, because there’s a bunch of warning symbols on it, so better just stick the dead in there until claimed. But, well, it’s something?

The party heads to the crypt, as I couldn’t be bothered to force any scene work in the town. Would’ve been nice to establish the mixed critters of the setting, but I’m bad at following even my own notes, and I didn’t really have any cause to delay them.

In the crypts, they discovered a small band of Saber-toothed foxes.

Olivia tried to befriend the foxes using the cheese from the rations North Fort gave her, but the foxes weren’t satisfied, and unhappy with the intrusion. So combat despite Olivia’s protests!

I still am far from getting a handle of combat narrative, but after a few rounds, they’ve killed two foxes and scared off three.[5]

Then Olivia used a magic spell to cave in the entrance. Which… I should probably take a moment to taunt the party over.

And now I have. What nerds.

The party moved towards the iron door. It’s magic proof,[6] locked, and barred. So the group needs to figure out how to get in.

Unbarring it was easy enough, but it’s still locked.

But, hey, the party has a new Scoundrel Character! Maybe he can pick the lock!

The dice say no. This is dire, as the back up plan I had is sitting in North Fort,[7] and that’s not an available path anymore.

Okay, okay. Let’s reason this out. Is the door there to keep people out, or something in? Both, but which is important?

Which is to say: this door opens out, so the door hinges are on our players’ side! Which the fair doctor thinks up, then teases the con artist for not coming up with.

Said scoundrel (Jean) uses skullduggery to get the pins out. (Because it’s heavy iron, hasn’t been moved in a while, and would require finesse. Probably some heat to remove frost). I then have them do another check to get the door open since the lock is still engaged and needs to be worked out of the wall. Which they do.

Momentary inside baseball thing that might ruin the magic: I didn’t have a firm solution. I just placed the door down and waited until I heard a solution I liked. I recommend fellow GMs do this, but also try and prepare an alternate solution if the party can’t get past it for some reason. (See footnote 7 for my release valve).

On to the next room! A massive cavern, with many tunnels shooting off, and crystalline protrusions here and there. Then there’s a wooden lean-to slash shack near the door.

In side is a desk with a chess game mid-progress, and notebook tracking the game next to it, a glass jar of mythril dust, and a mummified corpse sitting in a chair[8] holding a bullseye lantern.

Eli Roberts examines the board, makes a move, notates it in the notebook(!), pockets the mythril dust, then investigates the mummy.

(A spent story point later also says he took the notebook.)

Eli fails to find anything notable on the corpse, so he turns to figure out what path to take.

Olivia, who we are learning this session has no regard for her fellow humans, uses her magic to puppeteer the mummy.

This jostles a rolled up scrap of paper out of its beard.

Time for the puzzle! Also pop quiz for my world building lore, because screw you, at least learn the muses you picked for your character’s heritage![9]

I wrote a poem (not a great poem, because I lack rhythm) that referenced the Muses in a certain order.

Now, this puzzle needs workshopping, because once the party figured out to use the mummy’s lantern[10] to shoot a beam of light into a large crystal to refract it into colored beams, and that they needed to follow the beam that corresponded with each Muse’s assigned eye colors in the order listed on the poem, there wasn’t much else to do until the final twist.

I probably could’ve done something with the crystals. Finding them, getting them in position,[11] just some complexity for the successive rooms.

Needs workshopping. But we also had a time limit, so maybe simple wasn’t bad for this rendition.

Now, this refracted light thing was an expansion on a moment that wowed the last time I did my North Fort session, which I mimicked halfway down the mine: the first obvious crystal sent the light bouncing all over the chamber, hitting other crystals, and illuminating the entire chamber, revealing a mural![12]

The mural told the mine’s story: they were mining it normally, then thought ‘hey, let’s try magic!’. Magic resonated with the mythril they were mining, heating the cave and waking up a giant snake that started gobbling people up. They got some adventurers in to deal with the snake and stopped using magic.

What I wish I added was the snake’s giant skull in this room. Instead, I had it in another room, looming over the exit tunnels. Oops.[13]

So that’s neat.

The party continued the prescribed solution and moved on, seeing the ribs of the snake were repurposed into support beams.

Another element I failed to convey is that the mining shafts were actually expanded from the snake’s tunnels throughout the mountain.

Anyways, the final room was the cool twist. Because the final mentioned Muse is Urania. Who I assigned black/dark grey eyes.

Black light’s not a thing. What could be the…

They killed their light. Eventually, mythril dust started to glow, a thick vein going down the final correct tunnel. (The poem also mentioned Urania using the stars in her line. This fit with the mythril dust but also her role as the Muse of Astronomy.)[14]

And they exit into another large chamber like the one at the top. Including wood office shack and an iron door. Inside the shack is another mummy, chessboard, and a notebook with matching move notations to the one earlier.

Including the move Eli noted and wrote down.[15] Huh.

Eli’s player spent a Genesys Story Point to say he nabbed the first notebook earlier so he wouldn’t have to hike back up.[16]

For those curious, there’s another poem on this end for going the other way. The colors don’t even have to be the same since they’d be approaching the crystals from a different angle, so the first step doesn’t have to be Urania![17]

Anyways, the spent story point ruined how I’d hoped to bring in the boss fight, so instead a Masked Snake slithers in.

Smaller than the one slain long ago, but still pretty big. Also way too young to listen to reason.

Again, three party members work to kill it as Olivia uses nonlethal magic. The snake iced the floor, making footing difficult.

I allowed the fight to drag on a while because, despite putting in my session plans to come back to make stats and having more than a month to, I never did.

Really should sit down and just make a series of notecards for easy, normal, and hard enemies. Get too distracted with narrative.

Anyways, combat rages, half the party gets upset with Olivia’s efforts not to kill the snake, when a mysterious figure in fancy robes and snake skull mask arrives and pulls a gun.

Olivia promptly magically murders this man without a word. Then steals his mask. And returns to nonlethal spells against the snake.

After realizing the snake can’t fit through the door, Eli and Jean attempt to flee, but Olivia refuses to leave, instead standing on the human corpse she created to avoid the disadvantage of the ice floors.

Eli goes in and finishes off the snake.

Grumpy after the encounter, they exit the caves, which leads out to a point on the path below the avalanche. There’s a way to connect North Fort and Soldier’s Rest.

They go to Soldier’s Rest (named such because it’s where the military men went to rest when not on duty at the mountain fort). Turn in a letter of introduction to Soldier’s Rest’s mayor, and step outside.

Where they encounter a Jackalope. They’re giant creatures ridden by the mail carriers of His Majesty’s Courier service![19] The courier has a letter for Eli Roberts: The Queen and Heir Apparent are ill with a mysterious disease, and Dr. Roberts comes highly recommended by his peers to help.

Whether this is because his peers genuinely believe he can do it, or because not healing the royal family could have dire consequences and they’d rather gamble Eli’s career over their own is a question I intend to play with.

End session two.

Admittedly, it was a railroading session that hinged on two combats that I didn’t prepare properly and a puzzle that need a few more facets, but I set some Campaign Plot up and actually got players to the table, so I say sufficient success! Always a learning experience! And Anthony seemed to prefer the system vastly over GURPS, so I think it’s good.

Just need to cement running combat and the Advantage and Disadvantage system. It’s a new thing that takes getting used to. Plus the question of what to do when you get a nothing roll.

Also need to get firmer control over what magic can and cannot do. And also that GM trumps rulebook everytime.

I have an outline for the next session. Just need to add some meat and work in elements the players enjoy. Maybe try and have it be less of an Eli Roberts focused story.[20]

Until next time, may the dice make things interesting!

[1] Pompous sounding name? Perhaps! But it’s a grab from the Tales JRPG series, and a TED Talk I saw once. [2] Had the party asked, the Mayor was avoiding asking South Fort for help because that crosses a border and could cause a lot of diplomatic tensions. The party didn’t ask, so I’m noting it here for my own gratification. [3] Because we needed to fit a new party member in some how. [4] Which I forgot to put potatoes and apples in. I’m disappointed in myself. [5] Unless it was the other way around. There was confusion! [6] Iron is magic proof in the setting! Because I’m taking inspiration from my vague knowledge of fair folk mythology. [7] Her name is Debra. I didn’t have the exact details (improv!), but if needed, she’d have the key for the door for… reasons? [8] I keep trying a Douglas Addams thing where I save the most glaringly obvious and distressing fact for last. It’s never worked because I keep getting interrupted or the players overlook I mentioned a monster. Might be a sign to stop, but why would I? [9] I casually left a prose-y cheat sheet on the table before we started. So it’s open notes. [10] Always provide the required tools if you can’t be sure the party has the needed supplies. [11] My much coveted block puzzle! I’ll figure it out someday! [12] In the pathfinder version, it instead revealed a sleeping dragon. I should’ve worked in a similar element on top of what I put in the chamber. [13] Maybe if I ask nicely, my players will pretend this is what I did. [14] Why do the muses include two with dominion over Astronomy and History? Who knows! They just do! [15] I was hoping someone would mess with one of the notebooks for this exact reveal. They played right into my hands. [16] I’ll leave it to the players to retcon why they stole the first notebook. [17] Maybe Urania should’ve been the mural room. You light the crystal for the story, then have to darken it to move on.[18] [18] Take three on this dungeon’s going to be epic! [19] A pay off when, long, long ago, when I was very young looking through a borrowed copy of GURPS 3rd Edition, I saw a picture of cowboys riding giant rabbits with saddlebags reading ‘Bunny Express’. Finally did it. [20] He took the reigns on the session one mystery, and the letter plot hook only works with him. I’ll try to do hooks working off the other three before returning to him, if at all.

#SepiaDieGMs #Genesys #tales of genius

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flowercuco · 7 years ago

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Veil Part 2

When we last left our heroes, Senza Misura the Attached, Synch Auzenne the Empath, Fortuna Zhou the Catabolist, 4β Ariel the Aparatus, and WIll Triumphant the Honorbound, they were on their way to furry city! The group was following Taba the 9 foot tall alligator woman and Floating Down From Your Heaven the psychic from a group known as the Eyes on the Inside to this town, leaving the mysterious Pit facility and starting their trek to this brand new world where furries are real and have a town.

Will got connected to the internet, giving her a chance to talk to her bosses about, what she’s found, which she doesn’t do, instead calling on her friends in the Seat, Eastern Seabed the doctor and Risa Turner Toluca the librarian, to muse on the possibilities on animal people, fearing for their lifepsan. Ariel tries to avoid getting scooped by Taba, but fails, instantly earning them a seat on her powerful shoulders.

The group arrived, finally, to Azu, and found a welcoming party incoming, in the span of like, five minutes, Floating hands the unconscious bird Letty off onto Fortuna and Ariel scurries backwards, not really wanting to be on Taba’s back or deal with whatever was happening next. Synch decides to leave the group to follow Floating as the rest of the group greet the 7 foot tall crocodile man Slate, who introduces himself as the more or less appointed leader of the settlement.

A hawk doctor that I didn’t get to name Ace asked Fortuna what happened, and upon learning about her healing slime, asked her to come with. Will followed, not knowing much about the amount of medical personal here but wanting to help in any way she could and also wanting to get ready for whatever the fallout of Taba and Slate fighting, as upon meeting him, the former challenged the latter to a fight over who would lead, something Slate seemed rather okay with. Senza was upset, wanting to get to the business of signalboxes, (as LACUNA wanted to interface with the one here) but her worries were unfounded as Taba crushed Slate, making her the new leader of Azu! After assigning Slate as her trusted adviser, the two made way to the medical bay to see what the deal with signal boxes was.

Ariel tried to muse on Azu’s place, as a settlement of non humans, and how that related to them, and failed to come to a good conclusion, getting humanity harm from dwelling on the idea that they has just as much in common with the animal people of Azu as they do with regular people, putting them out of the picture for a while. Synch meanwhile lost Floating when they were attacked by a mysterious voice, which distracted them long enough for Floating to vanish. Not wanting to lose their perp, Synch used cool cyber ears to try to get a track on where she could have gone, and using that and a map of the zoo they found, figured out approximately where they had to go. However, the voice spoke about friends, and despite Synch’s beliefs to work alone, they went back to the entrance to get help before going into where a group of dangerous psychics were, who only they knew were psychics.

Back with the trio of Senza, Fortuna, and Will, Slate recognizes the signalbox and wants to lead the group to a building where there would be another one. Before she leaves, Fortuna is asked by one Doctor Cool, to give away some of her precious healing ooze, which she of course accepts, giving her one obligation on the cool Doctor Cool. Senza and Will pressure Slate for some answers on the way to the signalbox, and learn that they have been living in Azu for about six months, and that they have been attacked by monster people (like the one that originally started this mess), for around the last month. After some more probing, Slate reveals that there are some other concerns, but that he has someone on it, and that if Senza and Will want in on it, they have to promise to listen to these someones. Shrimpteresting.

The trio and their large and in charge scalie friends reach the place Slate thinks they’d find the signal box, where Will sees a cool buff lady with a mask from the Seat of Judges. Senza, Taba, and Slate all go off to find the signalbox while Will tries to confront this person on why they have this special mask! Fortuna is accosted by a nerd wearing a shirt that has the entire script of Bee Movie on it, scrolling vertically. The nerd, who eventually is revealed as Melting Down and Crying Into the Sea, pretends not to know who Fortuna is and eventually leads her away from the group with the promise of cool junkware to scrounge. The buff lady, wearing this shirt, pretends not to know what Will is talking about, gives her the mask, and then just kind of walks away when Will continues to probe, leaving her somewhat miffed, but as there isn’t really anything she can do, goes off to find Fortuna.

Fortuna eats a cool dinosaur bone while Melting takes notes, then Melting and Thundering leave. Will comes in just in time for a bird to attack her.

Senza used LACUNA to find the signalbox, hoping to interface with it before Slate or Taba could do anything with it, and did find it! Along with a mouse person fiddling with it, which, to the initial confusion of Senza, was also something LACUNA wanted to interface with! After a successful tussle, she manages to interface, learning that the mouse person is being controlled by her own cyberware, and eventually finding out about a cyber being known as 2δ (Delta), as well as the name of another, 2β. After calling for help from Taba and Slate, she interfaces with the signalbox and confirms that not only is it calling the monstrous animals, it called a bunch of them right now!

Meanwhile, the duo of Synch and Ariel sneak their way to where Synch believes the Eyes live, being interrupted by a panther monster, who Ariel distracts long enough for the pair to sneak through, finding a facility with caged monster people and various notes by someone named Melting. The two keep delving deeper, finding an inactive elevator as well as another room, which Synch punches open, to find Floating and her boss, the vaping, Mohawked, armor wearing, Mr. “I’m the guy who sucks + I have depression” Burning In Flames Empowered By My Soul himself.

Burning, to Floatings dismay, starts flirting with Synch, while Ariel continues to try to be really cool by asking Floating questions. The pair respond without a lot of trouble, openly talking about their part in researching and containing the monster people who come to Azu, as well as their goals in defeating the mysterious Creators of Ariel, who they believe created their psychic powers and are also secretly in charge of Quid Central! Stunning if true. This infodump on the Eyes as well as their potential connection to Ariel, gives them a moment to introspect, at which point they finally gain a new emotion! Angry! They get mad at Floating while Burning continues to try to Flirt with Synch and Thundering and Melting finally return to the base.

Will, attacked by a bird monster person, gets pinned to the ground for not drawing her weapon earlier, as Fortuna misses a gunshot and fails to help, instead drawing the attention of more creatures. Senza tells Slate and Taba that the mouse person is being controlled by their cybernetics, and that they need to get somewhere else because of an oncoming monster attack, something Slate thinks is manageable and Taba crashes through the walls to get Senza outside, just in time to draw the ire of the bird monster, who succeeds in stealing LACUNA as all of the other three fail to stop this. Scared as shit from being apart from her special snake friend, Senza presses on, being given the key to the underground by Slate, and told to go to towards where Synch and Ariel are. With the bird gone and Slate and Taba more than confident in their abilities to fend the other monsters off, the group leaves.

Fortuna deals with the panther monster that Ariel and Synch encountered by fake throwing a bone, then the group see the cages, elevator, and an open room with their friends and the Eyes on the Inside. After various people are caught up, and Senza fails and attempts to mobilize the group, they finally decide to all go down to the underground upon realizing that on the elevator is a hidden sigil, a coffin held up in the air by floating coils, that of Ariel’s creators. Around this moment, they see a glimpse of Meltings room, where he’s hugging his catboy bodypillow. Fortuna also grows a second dinosaur/bird/tree leg in this moment, to Meltings joy.

In the elevator large enough to fit nine people, Melting tries and fails to comfort Senza, citing his relationship with Daryl (his bodypillow).

When they reach the underground, they see a thick, red fog, which seems to be a sign of a thick cloud of veil. Ariel clears the fog in front of them, revealing the lights of many signalboxes, their digital, red veil ghost body, and in their hand the snakey robot friend LACUNA. Ariel attacks the A.I. ghost, 9Σ (Sigma) and all hell breaks loose. Will clears the path for Senza to recover the dropped LACUNA, causing other A.I. ghosts to start attacking her, with many more showing up. As Senza grabs LACUNA they merge with her, which is really cool and hard to describe and I hope seedy does it basically. Upon being reunited with her snake friend however, Senza finds 2β, a virus A.I. that is trying to take LACUNA over, only stopped by the fact that LACUNA is not a normal A.I. and currently, that Senza is also there.. Synch saves Will with their cool power glove while the Eyes on the Inside all fend off the increasing masses of ghost. Burning just shoots fire out of his hands, something everyone else just assumes isn’t the result of mind magic and is instead just cool technology, so only Ariel and Synch know that psychics are real.

Fortuna and Senza figure out where they need to go to defeat 9Σ as Ariel cuts a path past the signalboxes, revealing the way to 9Σ’s current server. Will is the first to go through, but is powerless, as she is bad with computers, and can do more or less nothing as 9Σ claims that his work here is done, and that he’s going to upload himself back home. Ariel slows the upload process by corrupting the upload with furry porn, opening their up to start to get badmouthed by their “sibling” while Fortuna attempts to use their omni-tool on the computer, and fails, only getting bad furry porn for their trouble.

Senza and LACUNA, merged as one, succeed their attempt to interface with the computer, and for a moment, they can stop 9Σ’s upload, but LACUNA notices that if they don’t, they can covertly track the signal. Senza announces that they’ve failed the hack, deciding to leave the information about the track until later. Will asks, “Is it ok to punch the computer?” while Synch punches the computer with their power glove, which Senza and Ariel realize harms the leaving 9Σ, and miraculously leaves the data in the server unharmed. As the fog, no longer controlled by the A.I. leaves, Ariel downloads the data, getting an info dump that I’ll put in another post at this point.

The group leave Azu’s underground, satisfied that, if nothing else, the monster people will stop attacking Azu, and definitely will no longer trouble Torvin.

#Quidama-Dre #Quidama Dre

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