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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Risk”

Welcome back, everyone! I have a lot of mixed, complicated feelings about today's episode and I'm already sure this recap will miss a great deal that should be said. There's a lot to digest, we need some time to do that, so until things have settled I think that the one, entirely confident claim I can make here is that our writers weren't BSing the fandom on twitter. The last few days have seen a number of big claims made regarding "Risk" —

— and whatever else we might have to say about the episode, it certainly delivered in terms of shocking content. From confessions to reveals to a new plan in place, there's a lot to unpack.

So let's get started.

Our first shot is a problem.

I don't want it to be! But I've got to work with what I've got. We open on Salem's flying monkeys — or gorillas, if we're being technical — and my immediate thought is where in the world they came from. I mean, obviously I know where. We ended Volume 6 with the post-credit scene of Salem adding wings to an army of Beringels, Hazel commenting that she'll lead the invasion herself. When Salem arrived at the end of Volume 7 and we picked up where we'd left off in Volume 8, the fandom was obviously expecting an attack led primarily by flying, transformed grimm. That didn't happen. For ten episodes the plot forgot that the Beringels existed, focusing instead of the Hound, the grimm soup, then the Whale, then the ground grimm the Whale was producing. Months back I encountered a number of posts asking, "What happened to the resource we know Salem brought to this fight?" and those questions are partly what inspired the "Introducing new grimm that are then quickly abandoned" spot on the bingo board. Now, suddenly, the Beringels have re-appeared and that is a good thing. Though it's too little, too late, as is so often the case with RWBY. Getting something you expect has a sour taste when it arrives months past when it was needed, especially when that something only exists for a second on screen.

This is doubly true given that we saw Oscar eliminate the grimm last episode.

At least, I thought he had? Pretty much everyone I've spoken to thought he had. This last week's discussions have centered around RWBY nerfing the stakes, taking out a whole army of grimm in one, magical blast. That's far from great. Yet now we see that we were apparently wrong. Atlas remains overrun with grimm, this problem remains a problem... so, yay? But we're once left with a tradeoff. RWBY has no longer eliminated the stakes with a deus ex machina as we had originally thought, but in its place we're left with a badly executed scene last episode and an assumed problem that is "fixed" with an enemy we should have been dealing with since the start of the volume. The road to the Beringels has been messy indeed and all they've done so far is fly across the screen.

Which reminds me: if this army of grimm still exists — and absolutely existed prior to Oscar's blast — how come not a single one is attacking the Schnee manor? This opening is in Atlas, the skies are overrun, we've seen a few grimm show up to help out the Hound, yet miraculously nothing bothers the group while they freak out at the dining table, or freak out as Penny tries to leave. That's a whole lot of grimm and a whole lot of negativity... yet somehow these two things never meet in a way that would inconvenience our characters. While from a writing standpoint I can understand not wanting to interrupt all these conversations and feel good moments, the show can't simply ignore the rules of its world whenever it's convenient. If anything, given that Atlas' population is currently hidden beneath the city, Schnee manor should be even more of a hot-spot than it normally would be. There is one (1) group of people out in the open for them to target.

Yeah, we're a single shot into this episode. It's a doozy.

Moving right along, those Atlas citizens (and, let's not forget, a large number of Mantle evacuees too) are still huddled in the tunnels, listening to Ironwood's insane broadcast. They're obviously terrified, as are those down in Mantle who are staring execution in the face. Fiona bursts into tears.

It makes me wonder why we didn't get the airship subplot now. As I've mentioned extensively in the past, that decision didn't make much sense and I think the writers knew it didn't make much sense because they chose not to reveal what Ruby and co. planned to do with the citizens once they were on board. The point was never to come up with a feasible plan, something the audience would put to the test, but rather to just make it seem like the group was doing something Smart and Heroic before Ironwood inevitably derailed it. Don't look too closely at the man behind the curtain. Normally, I'd comment that yes, it's damn hard to come up with a brilliant plan to save others in a situation like this — our characters can only be as smart as our authors! — yet that sympathy dissipates when we hit this episode and are given a scenario where airships would have been great. Ironwood has threatened to nuke Mantle. Suddenly, it is imperative that the civilians leave the safety of the crater as soon as possible (whereas before it was not). So Whitley remembers that they have access to these ships and the group hatches a plan to sneak them down while Ironwood is distracted, get everyone up into Atlas so he can't use Mantle as a bargaining chip anymore. Then they're spotted, the plan revealed, and Ironwood shoots their ships down, leaving them devastated that their attempt to help the citizens has literally gone up in flames. We're still left with the problem of why Ironwood wouldn't just allow a continued evacuation now that Salem is briefly out of the mix and the Schnees have provided extra resources — the writing really took a sledgehammer to his characterization — but the group trying to get people to Atlas to avoid death by bomb at least makes more sense than them trying to move the citizens to an undisclosed location, for unestablished reasons, when they were already relatively safe. The bomb is what makes those airships a necessity.

It really makes me wonder how much editing goes on and how much time the writers have before they finalize scripts.

Regardless, we cut from terrified people to Ironwood himself, accompanied by Winter. The animation has some nice parallels going on here, what with the same black, white, and blue color scheme, hands behind their backs, the need for robotic accommodations, and steps perfectly in synch. As we're about to see though, Winter is very good at looking the part of a loyal soldier while actually bending the rules.

However, are we really going to ignore that she betrayed Ironwood last episode? Betrayal from his perspective, that is. Winter was given a direct order, disobeyed that order, pissed off Harriet in the process, and wasn't able to give a good explanation for her actions — she was too busy being creeped out by Ironwood's reaction. For all intents and purposes she should be considered disloyal right now. Or at least under suspicion, yet Ironwood acts as if everything is fine. We've skipped over any meaningful fallout between them, or a reason why Ironwood would dismiss her betrayal. This ties into something I'll bring up later in the episode: namely, that RWBY introduces too much too quickly and doesn't have time to satisfyingly tackle — or tackle at all — the plot points they've introduced, simply because there's always a new one to focus on. We dropped the "Winter went against Ironwood at great personal risk" plotline to make room for the new "Ironwood has randomly threatened Mantle" plotline, which likewise doesn't do Ironwood's characterization any favors. I don't just mean the obvious "Omg he's willing to murder a whole city now" issue. Ironwood used to be smart, yet his unfounded trust in others makes him look foolish now: first trusting Watts, now Winter. Alongside that, the story and fandom have both pushed the idea that Ironwood is paranoid, yet that "paranoia" has only ever been attached to justified threats. If he were actually paranoid then Winter's actions would have caused him to mistrust all of the Ace Ops now, labeling everyone near him a disloyal enemy, despite evidence to the contrary (especially when it comes to Harriet). Yet across two volumes Ironwood has continually been "paranoid" only in regards to things like Cinder and Salem — proven threats — while simultaneously trusting known villains and ignoring when his subordinates straight up say, "She let our enemies go free." There’s little rhyme or reason to any of his decisions here.

Still! A nice, meaningful shot lol.

As Ironwood and Winter get closer we see the Ace Ops discussing the threat. "Of course he's not going to do it," to which Marrow pushes back with, "So what? He's bluffing with a whole city?" This is a really, really important moment that I don't think the writers realize is important. See, everyone is shocked when Ironwood reveals that he intends to go through with the threat. The Ace Ops, Winter, Robyn, our heroes... everyone grapples with the idea that this is actually happening. Everyone has some moment of, "It's just a bluff, yeah?" and I don't think that's just denial. The characters' shock tells us that Ironwood normally wouldn't be a man who'd do something like this. Ever. That shock has to stem from something, such as an ingrained understanding that Ironwood is a protector, not a murderer. Note the difference between the fandom and the characters' reactions. Whereas a good chunk of the fandom went, "Of course Ironwood means it. We all saw this coming! Remember how he..." and then proceed to list various things — persuasive or otherwise — that prove he was always a bad guy in the making. Yet no one in the RWBY world is inclined to use those moments as evidence. Winter doesn't go, "He's not bluffing. I saw him shoot the councilman just for speaking up" and the Ace Ops don't go, "Oh, he'll do it. This is the man who destroyed his arm to take down Watts. He'll stop at nothing." After everything they've seen — the same things we've seen — there's still some instinctual, nebulous knowledge that goes, "No. Ironwood wouldn't. He's one of the good guys." We can certainly talk about real life people getting swept up in horrible institutions, unwilling to admit how bad things actually are until they hit a specific line they can't cross... but I think this is less a comment on some sort of bystander effect (RWBY isn't that deliberately nuanced lol) and more an unintentional acknowledgement that until the very sudden and entirely unexpected shooting of Oscar, Ironwood actually wouldn't have done this. The Ace Ops are reacting to a man who absolutely existed until the writing erased him and they believe the core of that man still exists. To my mind, he should, but because our show can't actually have Salem as the main villain right now, she's conveniently blown up and Ironwood takes her place.

So we've got some loaded implications there, as well as Vine's comment that he hopes "the kids" see sense now. I am begging RWBY to pick a lane already. Are they kids, or are they adults? Because that answer makes a big difference and we can't continue to have it both ways.

Ironwood and Winter arrive were Ironwood orders that she prep drones with the "payload." That's the moment Winter and the others realize he's serious. Cue that shock all around. The revelation is the last straw for Marrow, prompting him to start yelling some excellent points about how Ironwood is doing Salem's job for her. See, this accusation works. Telling a guy threatening to blow up a city that he's as bad as their villain is accurate. Having Oscar tell that same guy that he's as bad as their villain because he wants to save a city full of people... is ridiculous. Totally different setup here and RWBY got it right this time. The only line that didn't work for me was Marrow asking the Ace Ops if they believe in anything. Uh... yeah. They believe in saving Atlas + all the Mantle evacuees they got. That's pretty well established. I swear, most RWBY speeches are padded with generic, heroic-sounding lines that don't actually mean anything, or are outright falsehoods we’re meant to ignore.

We'll see more of that with renora.

Marrow attempts to leave and his eyes go wide as he hears the click of Ironwood's gun. Remember I said that Winter is good at playing the obedient soldier? It's after Ironwood aims that she tackles Marrow.

On the surface it looks only like she violently disarmed him, but in reality she got him out of the bullet's path and kept Ironwood from firing at all. She saved his life, choosing to play up how she'll “take this traitor to the brig” where he belongs, rather than watching him die. A really nice moment in terms of strategy and one of the few lately where I've actually felt like I'm watching smart characters.

However, I cannot deny the uncomfortable implications in this scene. Smart or not, necessary or not, it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that one of our darkest characters was a) nearly killed by a white man and b) beat up by a white woman. To say nothing of Marrow's status as a faunus. I was cringing during his line about loyalty: “I used to wear this rank with pride. Now I see it for what it really is: a collar."

Honestly, I don't have the qualifications to unpack all that, so let's just acknowledge that the scene, while good in some respects, was massively insulting in others. I’ll let others in the fandom defend or damn it as they see fit.

We get a shot of how shocked the Ace Ops are that they nearly watched their team member get executed for speaking up against a bomb threat. It once again highlight's RWBY's strange depiction of violence and when it's deemed appropriate. Harriet has threatened people a couple of times now — here telling Marrow she'll shut him up herself — yet her reaction tells us that she never would have killed him as Ironwood nearly did. Threats, then, mean little... unless Ironwood is making an exaggerated comment about shooting Qrow. Then it's evidence of evil intent that's bound to come to the surface eventually. So does that mean Harriet will be trying to bomb cities herself someday? If so, it once again leaves our heroes in an awkward position, considering that Ruby started the fight Harriet wouldn't, Weiss stuck her weapon in Whitley's face, etc. If it says something awful that Winter would punch a minority — even to save his life — what does it say about Qrow that he would punch a child in anger? Outside of the easy to label actions like Ironwood's bomb threat and shootings, there exists this gray space that asks, “When are you justified to use violence? When is a threat forgivable?” The problem is, the show keeps coming up with contradictory answers. I bring this up not because Winter's punch or Harriet's threat are the most significant examples of this that we've seen, but because the themes of forgiveness and violence take center stage at the episode's end... and RWBY completely drops the ball. Keep these complications in mind.

Before that though, the group is crowded into the dining room and no matter what else "Risk" might give us, I'm reminded that I really like the design of the Schnee manor. I'm glad the episode found an excuse to show us this room again.

My initial thought upon entering the scene was, "Are we going to talk about Penny's hack? The silver-eyed grimm? Ozpin's return?" and to RWBY's credit it touches on all of these, though I stand by my point about plotlines coming too quickly. Any one of these should have been given the space to grow, not fighting for space against the potential destruction of Mantle. If you don't acknowledge these things in "Risk" you've lost your chance (much like how "Oscar is kidnapped" replaced "Oscar has to deal with Ozpin's return," resulting in a scene where Oscar was just... randomly okay with Ozpin again. We lost the chance to deal with the first conflict introduced because we barreled into the second), yet if you do spend episode time on these issues, it feels like the characters aren't dealing with the immediate threat. Questions of silver eyes, what to do about Penny, and Ozpin's return needed to be given their due before there was an hour time limit resulting in thousands of deaths. Now, you have to wonder why Yang and Ruby are talking about their mother when a city's safety is ticking away. Where were these questions and reassurances years ago?

I think this is why this episode — maybe even this whole volume — simultaneously feels too full and too boring. We're being introduced to lots of Big Things, but then putting them off to focus on other, smaller stuff, and by the time we circle back around it's no longer the right time. We're constantly focusing on the least interesting, least important thing in the room. Why is the group sitting around with their tea when we could have moved the Hound plotline up and started this groundwork earlier? Which means we're doing that work now instead of worrying about Mantle or Penny. All of which is connected to Salem herself being here, yet Ironwood is our villain instead... We're just introducing new idea after new idea, dropping each to focus on something else when the viewer is already emotionally invested in the last conflict. It makes the show feel overly packed with problems we don't have time for while simultaneously having too much time in which the characters do nothing of importance. We're never dealing with these issues at the right time. Talking about a silver-eyed grimm while Salem is here feels like Too Much and having the girls unpack that now, with Mantle’s life on the line, feels like Too Little. Stop sitting around while you've got less than an hour to save half a kingdom! We needed this conversation in a different episode, one not already driven by a problem that’s objectively more important.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're in the dining room and the group is listing all the stuff that has gone wrong lately. Blake mentions that Qrow and Robyn are still in custody, because we definitely want Blake remembering that Qrow exists, not one of his nieces. Ruby, meanwhile, is having a meltdown. "So then it's impossible!" she yells, head in her hands.

Emerald sneaks in an insult: “See? If Ms. Hero here with all the answers doesn’t have one..." and the others, of course, jump to Ruby's aid. But Emerald is right! It's entirely Ruby's fault that Atlas didn't get the chance to escape with those they had. Her actions and lack of a plan led to where they are now. I'm not saying she's responsible for Ironwood's insane decisions — that's like saying he's responsible for Qrow's in relation to Clover — but Ruby indeed played the part of the hero who had all the answers... without actually having any answers. Now that things are worse than how they started, her only answer is to say it's all "impossible" and throw up her hands. Ruby is an absolutely terrible leader right now and someone should indeed be calling her out on that, it's just too bad it's Emerald, someone technically still presented as an untrustworthy figure for the next couple of minutes. (More on that later.) Any and every criticism of Ruby is dismissed out of hand. Don't believe Ironwood because he's crazy now. The Ace Ops? His boot lickers. Yang has things to say, but once Ren agrees with her she does a 180. Now Ren is heading towards an extra special apology for daring to doubt Ruby. May calls her out, only to also change her opinion the next episode. Now here's one more person, but she's a bad guy. The show has never once encouraged us to treat these criticisms seriously — never allowed them to stick, let alone lead to change — and at this point I'm done with everyone falling over themselves to absolve and praise Ruby. By making Emerald the criticizer and having Ruby throw herself a pity party, the writing ensures that the conversation goes from, "Yeah. You messed up big time and now have a responsibility to fix things" to "Aww, don't be so hard on yourself! We won't let mean Emerald insult you anymore."

Ruby makes herself the victim here. She gets so upset and acts so defeated that all anyone can do is reassure her. The focus turns towards her, a focus centered around hiding against the table, or cowering on a staircase, so that it feels cruel to call her out on her deadly mistakes when she's so clearly upset. But they still should have, especially since cowering and tears have never protected anyone else from the group's criticism. Ozpin is proof of that.

What I'm getting at is that Ruby runs away. She's faced with the consequences of her actions, is informed she needs to help come up with a solution, and instead of braving that decides it's "impossible" and literally runs from the room. While they're on a time limit. Keep this moment in mind for just a bit longer. These choices become doubly important later.

So Ruby can't handle the responsibility she violently ripped from others and the group goes out of their way to comfort her in this. Especially since the writing again decides to conflate Emerald and Ozpin through a comment of Oscar's, demonstrating that it still has no decent sense of what "responsibility" or "villainous acts" means. These scenes are three years in the making and every step getting here was dogged with problems, so the fact that the end result is a mess isn't exactly surprising.

We (thankfully) leave Ruby for a bit and instead turn to Jaune. He's amplifying Nora's aura, but admits that he can't get the scars to go away. That makes sense. After all, they're scars. His semblance helps people heal, but at this point Nora has already healed. Those scars are the result of that.

She says it was “Just another ditzy move from Nora” and I'm glad we're acknowledging that, even if it is all framed through the lens of Nora being incorrect in that assumption. Once again, the writing continually makes statements about characters, but fails to have their actions reflect that. Nora wanted to do more than just hit things with her hammer without thinking them through... and we showed that by having her hit a door with her hammer without thinking it through. Was it heroic? Absolutely. Did it lead to any growth? No. I'd much rather someone acknowledge that yeah, she did the same thing she always does, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nora's impulsivity is a part of her and, given the talk of teammates here, she could have gotten reassurance that she'll always have people around to help her temper those impulses. Instead, we're (again) told that she shouldn't do A anymore, watch her do A anyway, the writing presents it like it’s B, Nora admits that she did A, and everyone rushes to assure her it was actually B. Just let these characters make mistakes for once, especially mistakes made in an effort to help someone. This should be the easiest and kindest way to criticize the group and RWBY can’t even manage that.

Which brings us to Ren. Ren, I am so sorry. You deserved better than this. Nora rips into him, saying, “We were supposed to be a team, but that didn’t matter to you! You shove people out so you don’t have to feel things that are hard!" and again we have RWBY making grand statements that are meaningless. Did Ren keep things bottled up in Volume 7? Yes... and no one tried to help him with that. Instead, Nora decided to bypass his problems completely and try to kiss it better. When that (shockingly) didn't work, Ren was finally forced to open up at Yang's insistence and was abandoned for his perspective. That's what that was, literally and metaphorically: they walked away from him and made it clear that so long as he believes these things, he's not welcome. What were those things? We've made mistakes, Ruby made mistakes, we're not ready for this stuff. That's it! "We were supposed to be a team" makes it sound like Ren betrayed them in the worst possible way, when in reality all he did was acknowledge that they're imperfect and that things are a mess right now. But of course, that is the ultimate betrayal for this group: acknowledgement that they’re not perfect. Everyone can call themselves out to generate sympathy — Nora does it, Ruby does it — but as soon as someone else agrees and implies that they should make changes, they’re dismissed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the refusal to question Ruby makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Is this as bad as Ironwood shooting someone who questions him? Of course not, but that doesn't make it good. The group has made it clear from Ozpin to Ren that if you put a toe out of line, that's it. You're gone. You are not a part of the group until you are willing to back the group 100%, no matter what horrible things they might be up to. That Nora yells at Ren for questioning and Ren learns to keep his mouth shut, apologizing to both her and Jaune for speaking his mind is... well, it's horrible. That's not friendship. I know the fandom doesn't want to hear that given how much we otherwise love these relationships, but it's not. If you can't question and voice concerns without about serious topics like this without the threat of abandonment — literal or otherwise — then that's not a friend group you should be sticking with. Ren’s "biggest failing as a teammate and a partner" is that he didn't agree with the others and didn’t immediately change his mind when they demanded it. There are awful implications attached to that, especially since Ren’s perspective was a good one. He’s not out here slinging horrific views like, I don’t know, homophobia at the bee’s non-relationship. He just went “We made mistakes” and the group responded “Absolutely not. Absurd. Fuck you.” They didn’t even consider that position, which speaks to both a lack of respect for Ren and a level of arrogance that keeps getting them into trouble. But these issues are easily overlooked given everything else that surrounds them. Outside of Ren's apology, I quite liked the renora moment. We got a detail about Nora's backstory! She called Ren pretty! We got an "I love you"! He booped her nose!! It's all very cute and wholesome... and soured by the knowledge of what Ren had to do to get here.

Outside of these generalized responses, there are three other points I wanted to make about this scene:

Yes, more obligatory humor to ruin an otherwise serious moment. Jaune could have just smiled softly and slipped out. Or have him leave before the conversation started (because Ren shouldn't have been apologizing to him in the first place...) Instead, we got multiple seconds of him being awkward, including a bunch of funny sound effects.

I'm legitimately happy we got that "I love you" — outside of the problems since arriving in Atlas, I've always enjoyed the ship — but coming on the heels of last week's episode, it makes the bee's forehead touch look even worse. Renora has been confirmed multiple times at this point, but we still can't get something overt for our one, queer ship.

On the one hand, I really like that Nora set a boundary here — a surprisingly mature conversation for RWBY — but I'm confused as to what exactly the boundary is. She says she needs to figure out who she is without Ren, but what does that translate to on a practical, day-to-day basis? Normally, when a couple needs to figure out who they are they separate, but renora can't do that. They're still on the same team, stuck in the same war, presumably off to do the same things they've always done together. It sounds great on paper to say that Nora is going to discover who she is without Ren, but unless they separate again I don't see how that can happen. More likely, we'll get a volume or two of them looking and acting exactly as they always have, but when it comes time for relationship drama again, Nora will insist she's a different person who is now ready to be with him. That she's changed. But change requires, you know, making a change, so is renora actually going to look any different moving forward?

While these two confess their love but also decide to be separate (is that what happened?), Qrow and Robyn have knocked out some guards and retrieved their weapons. Robyn watches four security feeds, whispering, "He's... really gonna do it." See? Even Robyn, someone who never liked Ironwood and considered him dangerous from the start, is in shock that he would go this far. Qrow doesn't want to talk moral downfalls though, he's all action: "Not if we stop him first."

You know, at least Qrow is doing something. What he's doing is stupid, particularly given his motivations, but with the volume we've had I give him props for coming up with a plan and sticking to it. That's more than many of the others have done.

Yet then, suddenly, Robyn doesn't want to kill Ironwood. ...Since when? Robyn has been the most trigger happy of the lot while Qrow initially wanted to talk. Now they've switched places for no reason I can see, with Qrow all murder happy and Robyn cautioning restraint. Which admittedly isn't uncommon. Remember how Nora was all about protecting Mantle and then randomly decided to help with Amity instead? Remember how Yang was critical of Ruby and then decided to defend her to Ren? Remember how Hazel was pro-Salem until he saw a blue naked lady and decided to defect? At this point, characters just do things at random.

Robyn says that Qrow isn't trying to kill Ironwood because that's the right thing to do, only because he wants revenge. A true enough assessment. But then she follows it up by claiming that Qrow is a better huntsmen than Clover because he does the right thing. Without rehashing all my arguments regarding how Clover was not the devil incarnate for refusing to let two potential criminals walk free — especially after they attacked him — we're really playing the dead guy card now? Clover was murdered. Robyn and Qrow were participants in that murder. Now Robyn is making sweeping claims about who is the better person when Clover quite obviously isn't here to defend himself? That's all kinds of messed up.

Before they can bash the dead guy anymore though the elevator arrives. We see Qrow and Robyn's shocked expressions at whoever is behind the doors, presumably Winter and Marrow. It seems likely that Winter didn't really intend to take him to the brig. They're defecting and have now found two more allies to help them. Robyn wants a plan other than run upstairs and stab Ironwood? Winter will likely provide one.

We return to Ruby who, as established, is wallowing in the most dramatic position on the staircase. Obviously things are legitimately horrible right now and if Ruby had been given a storyline different from what we've seen since Volume 6, I'd feel sorry for her. As it stands, it's just frustrating to watch her look like the maiden of a Victorian novel while Mantle's time ticks away.

The conversation between her and Yang is great though. At least, it is for the first few sentences. I love that the show remembered they're sisters and have them talking again. I love that Yang tries to cheer Ruby up by saying she outshines her big sis in regards to the Hound. I love that she nevertheless acknowledges that the Schnees were a part of that defeat, giving them their due rather than putting all the praise on Ruby. We establish that Yang has learned what the Hound really was. This conversation is going strong...

...but then.

"That's what happened to mom."

Really? Really? In eight episodes we went from, "Lol just because the Hound spoke doesn't mean Summer was secretly made into a grimm. That’s a crazy theory" to "Summer was absolutely turned into a grimm. That's canon now!" Except because it was made canon by Ruby just announcing it one day, we can expect for an even bigger "twist" in the future: Summer is still alive. Why wouldn't she be? The Hound was untouchable outside of silver eyes, so we have little reason to think anyone has defeated her in the last 14 odd years.

I'll admit the timeline works out better than expected (I think) with Salem killing SEWs during Maria's time before switching to experimentation, but there's no emotional weight to this. I just don't care and frankly I don't think the fandom cares either. Oh, there's plenty of excitement over the reveal, but that's all for the version of Summer Rose people have built up in their minds for the last eight years, not anything that exists in the show. If you strip away all the headcanons and fics, Summer isn't interesting because she barely exists. We know nothing about her as a person and therefore we have no reason to care that she's likely another Hound. Worse — because maybe this could be smoothed over if we just care since Ruby cares — everything else surrounding this reveal was badly done. Summer, as said, has been a non-character for this whole series. Yang only just remembered two episodes ago that Summer is her mom too. The only evidence of experimentation we've seen is on other grimm, not people. There was more mystery surrounding why Tyrian was interested in Jaune, not why he'd kidnap Ruby (Big Bads always want to kidnap heroes). We have no idea who this silver eyed faunus was. We have no idea why Salem would randomly start experimenting when she doesn't need additional weapons. We don't know why she would keep these weapons to the sidelines when she’s apparently had them for over a decade. I don't even buy that Ruby, someone who we never see thinking about or questioning any of this, suddenly put all these pieces together to hit on the revelation.

None of this adds up because it wasn't planned. Summer was dead, added to the series purely because having a dead mom is interesting, and she was treated as dead for seven years. Not just by the characters, by the show. Then, suddenly, the narrative raced to remind everyone that she's supposedly a Very Important Character so we could get this twist. It’s awful. Not because the idea itself is horrible, but because it was shoved into a story that wasn't prepared for it and certainly doesn't need it. The group has Salem herself attacking the kingdom, Ironwood threatening destruction, three Relics still to discover, not to mention all the other personal conflicts going on — Emerald walking around the mansion, Ozpin is back, Penny is being controlled, Oscar has finite magic now, Nora is still recovering — but we're going to introduce another subplot to deal with? RWBY acts like it's terrified that if it doesn't add something new and flashy every third episode, its viewers will jump ship. Despite its hiccups, there's a reason why the arcs of Volume 4 worked well overall: characters were given the time to explore specific problems, like Yang's PTSD and the destruction of Ren's village. Now, in episode 11 of 14, RWBY reveals that two of the characters' mom was turned into a literal monster, but there's only time for a tiny bit of comfort because Penny is escaping and they have less than an hour now to save Mantle. There is way too much going on and we're not devoting enough time to any of it.

Hell, even the conversation can't afford to stay on the Summer reveal for more than a few sentences. Ruby segues back to her self-chastisement, saying that she wasted time on Amity. She did, but not because people didn't come. She never should have made that terrifying, nonsensical announcement to begin with. But just like Ruby never thought through the pros and cons of telling the world about Salem, she apparently never thought about the logistics of getting help. She's written the world off now — so you just know help will appear in the finale — yet she never considered how long all this would take. Our timeline is (supposedly) two days, so how long would it take a kingdom to digest the information she gave them, decide on a course of action, get people and resources together, then fly all the way to Atlas? After Ruby used most of the first day just to send the message? As I and others have pointed out, the answer is “way longer than the group has.” It shouldn't be possible, yet neither Ruby nor Yang realizes basic facts like, "What's the flight time between Vacuo and Atlas?" Like Qrow blaming his semblance rather than his decision to team up with Tyrian, Ruby blames the world for abandoning them rather than her terribly thought out plan. Both have reached the right emotion — regret — but not for the right reasons.

Also, Ruby says that Amity fell. Are Pietro and Maria okay??

Yang talks about blind optimism vs. no optimism at all, something I could really get behind if the group hadn't been governed by blind optimism this whole time. Also if what the rest of what Yang said made sense. She fires back with, “And in case you didn’t notice, my plan for Mantle didn’t work either." Uh... what plan? As far as I recall there was no plan. They just went down to do any tasks that needed doing: supply runs and grimm killings. What plan is Yang talking about?

This conversation is a disaster. We circle back around to Summer with Yang saying she also took a risk (the title is very obvious this episode) but "she's still my hero." Is she? Because the only thing you've ever said about Summer is that she baked great cookies. Regardless, Yang lays her head on Ruby's shoulder and they cry some more.

Then Jaune hurries down the steps because Penny has woken up and broken through a window.

Again: how were they planning to deal with this? Did anyone discuss it? Because it looks like Klein said, "Hey, that friend of yours powered up and could have hurt us," Nora said, "Hey, Penny was fighting some sort of control," and Whitely said, "Yeah, she wanted to open the vault and then self destruct" and everyone just left her alone in some room, deciding they'd worry about that later. If Penny had just snuck out a little more quietly the group would have been screwed.

What I do like though is the teamwork to keep Penny from flying off. It feels like we get so little teamwork nowadays, which makes everyone piling on others' range weapons, or Jaune boosting Weiss' glyphs, really enjoyable. Even Emerald gets in on the action because apparently they gave her her weapons back!

We're going to talk about this nonsense in a second.

For now, Ruby implores Penny to fight it, which is exactly what I said we'd get. Penny insists Ruby kill her though, saying that if she does she'll ensure that the power passes to her. I find this to be a weird priority. Does the group really care about who gets the Maiden powers right now? The threat here is that Penny will successfully open the vault — which shouldn't even be that much of a worry. Just let Ironwood leave instead of trying to destroy Mantle! Keeping him here has made things worse! — and that Penny will self-destruct. That feels like the biggest worry: that Penny will die. So they're going to prevent her death by... killing her themselves? Priorities and motivations really feel shaky this week.

Luckily, Ruby remembers that Penny is A Real Person and tells Jaune to amplify her aura. The fact that she has a soul keeps the virus from overtaking her. Hurray!

That's like saying my sense of self will beat off rabies. Just believe that you're your own person and nothing can touch you. They go so far as to say, “That’s who you are. Our friend, not a machine” and that feels like such an erasure to me. Penny is a machine. She is! And that was great back when this was accepted as a good thing, not something to ignore. Remember this?

You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?

Here, Ruby acknowledges Penny's difference and reaffirms that she still has worth. Now, the group denies Penny's difference in order to prove that she has worth. She has worth because she's supposedly not a machine and supposedly can't be controlled like one... even though she is a machine and is being controlled. It's only Jaune's semblance that keeps her from going under again. The concept of Penny's personhood is now connected to her ability to resist a machine-based virus and she has failed to do that. This doesn't confirm Penny's humanity, it tells Penny (and us) that humanity is distinct from the machine parts of her, rather than a concept that includes it, and the moment she is too influenced by that machinery she ceases to be a person. The group isn't accepting her here, they're encouraging Penny to ignore and deny the parts that make her Penny.

If you want an example of how to do an arc like this far, far better, go watch The Next Generation with Data. He's what Penny could have been.

Regardless, the virus has been held at bay, at least so long as Jaune has aura. Which seems to be endless given that he was exhausting himself in the whale, but is now boosting Nora, Weiss, and Penny without any difficulty.

At least that's a minor concern in the grand scheme of things. What we're about to get? Not so much. Honestly, I'm 7k into this recap and I just don't have the energy that these two scenes deserve. Which scenes? The one where Emerald is welcomed into the fold with laughter and Ozpin has to grovel for forgiveness.

Emerald first. Last week I said:

“However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you, [Emerald.]” That’s it then. Discussion over. We knew as soon as it started that blindly trusting her was being presented as the “right” thing to do and now here we are, deciding that conclusively, despite Jaune and Yang’s complaints. By the time the group reaches the mansion, Oscar is defending Emerald from Ruby. We’re supposed to just accept that she’s a part of the group now, only minimal pushback allowed.

and I was right. Over the course of the last week I spoke with a number of friends, many of them working under the belief that this was just the start of an arc for Emerald. Obviously the show wouldn't instantly have the group trust her after all this. They'll need to warm up to her first. She'll need to prove herself. Well, I was far more pessimistic, arguing instead that I thought this was it. She was already being presented as a perfectly trustworthy figure. I'd briefly thought I'd been mistaken when the group turned on Emerald for her comment to Ruby, but then suddenly she's been given her weapons back. It's not even a matter of "You should be able to defend yourself, but you're still not trustworthy" (which would still have problems, but). No, she makes a comment about "switching sides" and that's it, trust achieved. That's all it took — nothing at all.

Now, some shows do function on a second chance policy. We can name hundred of stories where heroes instantly forgive antagonists and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that RWBY is very much not that show. In the exact same scene Ozpin apologizes to the group and begs that they try to trust him again:

“I’ve failed all of you. I should have trusted you with the truth and I should never have run the day you discovered it."

This is complete and utter bullshit. Sorry, I'm not mincing words for this one. Two years we waiting for the group to come around, hoping that there would be apologies on both sides, but there wasn't. The group doesn't physically or verbally hurt Ozpin anymore — they do accept his request — but it's done with expressions that say this is what they are owed. You’d better apologize.

I could rehash all the arguments I've already made about how atrociously they treated him, how Ozpin had no reason to trust a bunch of teenagers, how important it was that both sides admit their mistakes, but if you're reading this recap you're likely already familiar with all that. Rather, what I want to emphasize here is that our opinions on Ozpin don't even matter here. Even those who take his apology at face value — fully believing he did fail them, he should have told them everything from the start, and that him leaving was "running away" rather than being driven off — even if we accept for just a moment that Ozpin is as guilty as the show says and heinous as the fandom claims... surely he's not as bad as Emerald? In roughly chronological order she has:

Tried to ally herself with Adam along with Cinder and Mercury

Helped to attack Amber, resulting in injuries that would have killed her if Cinder hadn't gotten to her first

Helped kill Tukson

Pretended to be a transfer student and Ruby's friend for the rest of the semester (that’s a lie that would breed mistrust)

Tricked the world into thinking that Yang had attacked Mercury unprovoked

Uses her semblance on Pyrrha, causing her to unintentionally kill Penny

All of this was in service of the Fall of Beacon, an event that destroyed a school, killed an unknown number of students, killed Pyrrha, and lost Yang her arm

Participated in the attack on Haven which, beyond the intent to further Salem's goals, nearly got Weiss killed

Came to Atlas to assist in the next attack

Went after Penny, Pietro, and Maria — two of whom might still be in trouble depending on if Amity literally fell out of the sky

Listened to Oscar being tortured, hemming and hawing for a while before realizing that, if the whole world is in danger, she's in danger too

Finally jumped ship

Emerald is one of the bad guys. All the sad looks over the years doesn't change that. Yet somehow an antagonist we've had since Volume 1 is considered more trustworthy than Ozpin, a man who hasn't intentionally helped kill their friends and who has been helping and apologizing for months now.

Yang "Aww"s when Emerald speaks. Just sit with that for a second. The woman who went through all of that horror because of Emerald, who just last episode was correctly saying they can't expect her to forget all that, is going "Aww" after... Emerald helped hold Penny for two seconds? This is ridiculous. These are the faces of the group when talking about Emerald's trust

whereas these are their expressions when talking about Ozpin's

It’s not a matter of who deserves trust or not, here it’s purely a matter of comparison. Emerald should not be more quickly forgiven than Ozpin.

Now toss in the story Ozpin tells. Unsurprisingly, it's another fairy tale — we've gotten a little heavy-handed lately — about a young girl who flees the consequences of a choice and, having never learned from her initial failure, spreads even more trouble. That's Ruby. That is Ruby to a T in this episode and the last three volumes. She is literally a young girl who has caused staggering consequences, literally ran away from the conversation about those consequences, and is now poised to continue making those mistakes because everyone keeps reinforcing her flaws. That's Ruby, yet somehow the show thinks it's Ozpin. He positions himself as the young girl here, as if he didn't face his consequences generations ago when he left the cabin, didn't learn from his mistakes by keeping Salem's secret, and hadn't been driven away by the very people he's asking for a second chance. This scene has everything backwards and while normally I'd grab hold of the possibility that maybe things will right themselves later on... we're done. This is the ending of that arc. After two years of saying, "Maybe, maybe, maybe," Ozpin has been taken back into the fold after begging his way back in. There's no more time to correct things. RWBY missed its chance. Weiss says that "Trust is a risk" and that's how Ozpin is forgiven. They have taken the risk of trusting him again after months of reflection, life-saving actions, and apologies. Emerald is granted the risk of trust in under an hour. I’ve heard so many people say they’re dropping RWBY this volume and scenes like this are precisely why.

Ugh. Heavy stuff, folks! I feel like I need to lighten the mood. Here, let's take a moment to acknowledge that the Schnees and Klein only marginally know what's happening.

Someone help them.

That is, to all intents and purposes, the end of our episode. Ruby has some sort of epiphany about actually handing Penny over — "That's actually a risk we haven't considered" — and Ironwood will no doubt fall for whatever plan they've concocted because he's stupid now. He receives a call from Ruby saying they agree to his terms, Watts is attempting to get communication of his own up and running, and Neo arrives to do... whatever she intends to do. Idk, I have assumed she wanted Ruby, but Cinder obviously doesn't have her yet for a trade off. Regardless, Neo is ready for a fight while Cinder just smiles. Team up 2.0?

As for bingo, I'm using my free space for "Worst redemption arc I've ever seen," with an honorary nod to Hazel too, and Ozpin's square gets blacked out in exes because that was just #bad.

This bingo board is a mess. Appropriate lol

Three more weeks, everyone. Hang in there! 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby risk #mymetas #rwby recaps

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skellebonez · 4 years ago

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Smoke, Flasks, and Unfinished Tasks: Chapter 11

AO3 Link!

Chapter 1 Link!, Chapter 2 Link!, Chapter 3 Link!, Chapter 4 Link!, Chapter 5 Link! Chapter 6 Link! Chapter 7 Link! Chapter 8 Link! Chapter 9 Link! Chapter 10 Link!

Summary: Things are coming to a head. Poor Red.

Warnings: descriptions of blood and injury, self depreciation, mentions of past abuse, mention of one character dismissing their own abuse in the past in passing

Chapter 11: Escalation and Benefaction

Jin was not expecting a celebratory parade when he managed to sneak his way out of his confinement, but he wasn’t expecting the dead silence that greeting him either.

“Hmn... maybe she can’t keep her attention divided up between the four of us as easily as I thought,” he muttered to himself. “Or maybe my extra tricks back there actually worked.”

There was only so much one person could pay attention to at any given moment, and Jin was looking to take advantage of that fact. That, and the fact Jade face didn’t know how easy it would be for him to set up a continuous loop of some of his past actions (pacing, laying down, pacing again, kicking the bed, etc) to distract her into thinking he had given up in frustration. Should she ask him something and he not answer, he hoped that she would be able to believe that he was giving her the silent treatment.

As for being on the outside... he needed to be careful. He had an extra cloak on him now, something that he knew would only fool the system for a short while and something that he couldn’t share with the others. If he had been able to, they all probably would have been out of here by now.

He needed to be quick, he needed to be silent, and he needed to use everything about the Calabash he and Yin had built from scratch deep in his own memory to his advantage.

... now if only he could remember the stupid shortcut key code so he wouldn’t have to wander around like a headless chicken...

Mei held back a wince as the blood on Pigsy’s back ceased flowing. It was much more than he should be able to survive losing, transparency to it allowing her to look at it without much more reaction. It worried her how the rest of it had started not to bother her, the sight of exposed bone quickly vanishing after that. Now, once she was able to properly ignore it, it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

She tried to think back to what MK and Jin had told her about the Calabash. Jin knew the inner workings of the machine (for some reason he called it more of a Lotus Eater than the original type of artifact the Calabash of old was, but she had no idea what that actually meant), but he had never actually been inside of one that was trying to work on him actively. Only test runs, and they weren’t a match for the real deal like MK had gone through.

The Monkie Kid had made one thing clear, smell in particular was dulled. And as long as the biting coppery smell of blood wasn’t there fully Mei knew she could handle this. None of it was real.

There were other things to look out for, little glitches that would showcase weaknesses in where the machine was trying to make things work but failed.

She’d seen a few of these so far, watching the monkey dancers she’d seen two of them buffer like on a live stream and then jump forward back into position. She watched as a cat seemed to teleport instead of jump from one food stand to another. The more she paid attention to them instead of her friends the more of them she began to notice.

The Calabash didn’t seem to be doing as good a job trying to keep four different people contained at once as Princess Jade Face seemed to think it was. Or maybe the fox spirit just didn’t care as long as the job was done.

“What’cha thinking about over there?” Tang voice called out from behind her. The parade was long since passed, faster than she thought it would have come to think of it, and the four of them were making their way back to Pigsy’s food stall. The festivities weren’t over with yet, they still had customers to feed and then they had to pack everything up, and-

When Mei turned to look at Tang they were all on the ground, a crowd surrounding all of them and half staring at the bodies while the rest stared at her sword. Brilliant and green and shining with freshly spilled blood.

“Bud?” The fake Wukong asked softly, stepping forward with a look of concern on his face. “Are you ok?”

“No,” MK answered honestly without even thinking, fighting the urge to take an immediate step back away from the sight of his mentor. Every time he looked his face seemed to flicker back to the one from not even a few minutes ago. Cold. Angry. Disappointed.

“No?” Fake Wukong repeated, looking at him for a second before scowling. MK did not fight the flinched step back this time as he shook his head, looking at his student with disdain. “Why did I ever pick someone like you to be my successor anyway? Damn, my brother was right, you are the worst possible choice for anything.”

“Wh-what?” MK asked, eyes widening in shock. “B-brother?”

Fake Wukong scoffed, looking more like Macaque in his motions than Wukong. MK didn’t know if this was making what was before his eyes better or worse.

“I knew you were dumb, Kid, but damn,” Wukong shook his head, and despite the fakeness of his words that still hurt. That hurt deeper down than he would ever admit to anyone out loud. “I didn’t know you were this much of an idiot. Your own boss is Zhu Bajie and you can’t even put the pieces together to realize that’s the brother I am talking about? Pathetic. I should have picked Mei, she would have been so much better at this than you. Or Red Son, even-”

MK didn’t pay attention to the rest of the Monkey King’s tirade. He couldn’t. He did what he was second best at. Not paying attention. He let his mind unfocus and wander and think about the only thing in this conversation that he latched on to.

Pigsy was Zhu Bajie's reincarnation. He knew that, he’d known that since he and Wukong had reunited and Pigsy got so angry at his mentor for not recognizing him even in his newest life. But he had forgotten just how important that was over time. He knew the stories, he knew who Sun Wukong’s enemies wore... and he knew who Zhu Bajie’s were. Pigsy was his father figure, the man next to Tang who had cared for him the longest and next to Wukong also cared about him the most. Pigsy was as close to Mei and Red Son as he was now. He’d called them both his kids before.

MK wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, he would readily admit that both Mei and Red Son were smarter than him in multiple ways, but the fake Wukong was wrong. He wasn’t an idiot. And now he knew exactly what Princess Jade Face actually wanted, what she was trying to do. He’d had it happen before, long ago with other people. Unfortunately for him, he was also smart enough to know that whatever happened to the three of them now... she probably didn’t care. They weren’t the ones she was truly after at all.

“Are you even listening to me?” Fake Wukong snapped, glowering down at him with even more anger than before. But then he softened, sighing as his form glitched and his concerned visage took back over. “Bud? I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me... can you forgive me?”

“Yeah,” MK said softly, nodding his head down. Now he focused, taking in everything around him and deciding on what to pay attention to. The monkeys that were with them during training glitched. He couldn’t hear the wind the way it should have been. The incense that should have been burning at the memorial shrine was not there. “I’m sorry Monkey King, I promise I can do better.”

He gave his widest and most fake smile, the one he had used on so many time and time again.

“OK,” Fake Wukong smiled, and the world glitched around them.

Red Son knew that to a lot of people this wouldn’t have been as bad as it seemed to him. Red Son knew that to a lot of people this would seem like something he should have been able to move past and forget. Red Son was like most people at first. Berating himself for not being over it, for being hurt, for running what his father said to him over and over in his head as he told himself “it wasn’t that bad, he barely even did anything why are you upset?”

“What I said back then,” DBK growled out, placing Red Son down once they were far away from their food stall. He didn’t hurt him, but the tight feeling of being held that way lingered. “When the spirit possessed me? I didn’t like the idea of thinking I had thought those things myself.”

MK and Mei were not "a lot of people”. They were the only two that knew what had happened between himself and his father on the day of the Lunar New Year festival. Not even Sun Wukong knew why he had fled to Flower Fruit Mountain to seek him out that day.

“But now I know you truly are a disappointment,” he continued, just as he had that day. His voice was low, both in volume and in tone, but the words his Red’s ears like they were screamed at him. “To throw everything away for something as petty as... what? Fear? Pain? You are a demon! Our whole lives are fear and pain! You have grown soft, under that teaching or over time I do not know which, but I have no place for a weakness like you.”

Red Son said nothing. There were no glitches. He had said nothing before. He clenched his fists, bit his lip, remembered what Mei and MK had told him.

His father scoffed, reaching forward with a claw to rip the necklace hidden under his shirt off his neck. The phantom pain of his neck burning from the pull as the chain snapped lingered longer than anything else here had.

“You are a disgrace,” DBK bit out, sounding for all the world like he had just been insulted in the highest degree. “You’re barely even my son. No... No, if you’re going to fall down to this? After your mother and I fought so hard to get you back? After I was trapped for so long because of you? Then I don’t have one.”

The world glitched forward a bit. He remembered, he had tried to argue with his father. But he hadn’t listened. The glitch ended and he was backed into a corner, his father’s huge face in his own as he scowled. He was intimidating him. Never touching, never laying a hand on him.

“Then prove it, calf. If you are my son, if you aren’t the disappointment you have proven yourself to be time and time again, then show me,” he stood back to his full height, scowling and eyes glowing in energy. “Go to the Little Thief. Join him. And either defeat me in battle, prove to me by besting me that we should no longer fight... or bring me his head.”

And that was it. His father jumped, leaving him behind feet from the food stall.

Disowned. Abandoned. With two impossible tasks.

Red Son slipped to the ground, shaking as he remembered what Mei and MK had told him when he told them the truth. Of why he flew to Flower Fruit Mountain, the one place where his father could never follow. Why he had let Wukong take him to Pigsy’s Noodles when he found him on the beach, sad and alone and soaking in the ocean water he had crashed landed in. Why he had been so hesitant to get close to anyone but was so willing to offer then any information or tech they needed.

Mei and MK told him that he was hurt. That it was ok that he felt hurt. That what his father had done wasn’t something to just get over. What his mother had done was much the same. That he was hurting because they had hurt him.

The steam that was his tears that billowed out from the corners of his eyes told him that he thought they were right.

“Oh... my poor little cub,” a soft voice rang out from behind his ear, and Red Son didn’t even have the chance to jump before arms that only felt half there wrapped around his shoulders. “Had I known that my husband would treat you this way I would have come back sooner. You don’t have to go back to him, you know.” The soft chuckling in his ear was warped, glitched, but sounded too close to not be from her. Princess Jade Face was smiling in the corner of his eye, soft and warm and terrifying.

“I don’t plan on hurting you, Red Boy. I promise.”

Red Son did not believe her.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #fanfic #sfaut #smoke flasks and unfinished tasks

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purplehairedwonder · 4 years ago

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Hearts With(out) Chains Chapter 8

Fandom: One Piece Rating: PG-13 Pairings: Gen (eventual Lawlu) Words: 3629 Characters: Trafalgar Law, Monkey D. Luffy, Nico Robin, Usopp, Sanji, Vergo Note: I’m taking my turn at the Corazon!Law AU because my brain won’t leave me alone until this is written down. Tags will be updated as the chapters come out.

The story title is based on the Ellie Goulding song “Hearts Without Chains.”

Summary: Law is reclaimed by the Family when he's 17 and, with Doflamingo holding the lives of his crew as collateral for his good behavior, eventually becomes the third Corazon. Years later, trapped by his impossible situation, Law finds a strange connection to Monkey D. Luffy, which offers a glimpse of something he's repeatedly had ripped away from him: hope.

Previous chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Read also at AO3 / FF.N

Robin watched as Luffy came out of the infirmary, a smile on his face as he shut the door behind him. She’d left an ear on the desk, disguised by her book, and she had to admit she was surprised by the conversation—especially that Luffy had gotten their guest (prisoner, despite what Luffy wanted) to volunteer his name. During her time with the Revolutionary Army, she’d known of many attempts by the Revolutionaries and others to learn Corazon’s real name. She filed the name Trafalgar Law away to look into later while once more marveling at her captain’s ability to read—and reach—people.

She rose from her seat and walked over to Luffy, who’d been intercepted by Usopp just outside the door.

“So, what happened?” Usopp was asking, glancing between Luffy and the closed door.

“We talked,” Luffy said, entwining his fingers behind his head. “Torao’s a good guy!”

Usopp frowned. “Torao?”

“Shishishi,” Luffy chuckled. “His name!”

Bemused, Usopp glanced at Robin, who smiled. “I believe our captain convinced Corazon to reveal his real name.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because I asked,” Luffy replied as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Perhaps it was to him. Usopp sputtered, and Robin patted his shoulder.

“Usopp’s right, though.” They looked up to see Sanji emerge from the kitchen. He was still moving carefully, but he looked much better than when they’d first arrived outside the lab. “Names have power, and that guy’s been going by an alias for years. Why share something so dangerous with his enemies?”

There were a number of potential answers to that question, but Robin had a feeling it was the Luffy Effect in action.

“We’re not enemies,” Luffy said, crossing his arms and frowning.

“He tried to kill us!” Usopp protested.

“He electrocuted me,” Sanji added, lighting a cigarette.

“And we have him locked up in Seastone,” Robin felt obliged to point out.

But Luffy shook his head. “Jimbei made it sound like he took a big risk helping us at Marineford. He said that Mingo guy would be angry, but he did it anyway.”

Robin knew the rumors about Doflamingo’s abilities, his crew, and his underground operations. His cruelty and brutality. Doflamingo saw his crew as a family, with his executives being his most trusted. And he did not stand for disloyalty in his Family. She could only imagine how he might have reacted to his second-in-command helping rival pirates.

“Luffy,” she said gently, waiting for her captain’s eyes to find her, “Corazon was already infamous when we met him on Sabaody. But over the last two years, his reputation has only gotten darker. They call him the Surgeon of Death.”

She had a feeling this wouldn’t dissuade him—little tended to once Luffy had made his mind up about something or someone—but she wanted to make sure he knew anyway.

As expected, Luffy shook his head again while Usopp spluttered in the background. “He saved me.”

There had been endless speculation over the last two years about why Corazon had saved Luffy and Jimbei, ranging from an attempted coup within the Family to a secret love affair (Robin had laughed aloud when this had been floated).

As she’d sat in the infirmary waiting for Corazon to regain consciousness, she found herself watching him. From what she could work out about him, he was a few years younger than her yet had risen to the rank of second in command of the Donquixote Pirates more than half a decade earlier; how young had he been when he had joined such an infamous pirate group to rise so high at such a young age? She knew a thing or two about joining criminal organizations and the way they took advantage of children.

Corazon’s defensiveness upon waking up had been unsurprising, and she again found herself wondering why he had saved Luffy—but then she’d seen the way he’d frozen when Luffy had entered the room, the breath catching in his throat and something in his expression. And he’d given Luffy his real name.

“Luffy,” Usopp said, pulling Robin from her thoughts, “the guy he works for owns this lab where they are experimenting on kids. He’s trying to protect that.”

Luffy huffed. “I don’t know how to explain it. I can just feel it,” he said, a hand going to his chest where the scar—from Corazon’s life-saving operation—was hidden under his winter coat. “I can feel that he’s a good person. He helped me, and I think maybe I’m supposed to help him.”

Robin exchanged glances with Sanji and Usopp. They all knew Luffy’s senses when it came to people were beyond rational explanation but somehow right. Robin in particular knew the power of Luffy’s intuition, having been saved from her own darkness because he wouldn’t let her go. If that intuition was telling him that Corazon—Trafalgar Law—was similarly important and worth helping, then there wasn’t much more to argue.

That was the Luffy Effect.

“Okay,” Robin said.

Sanji and Usopp took a moment longer but also nodded grudgingly. They might not understand it, but they’d trust their captain. (But, if need be, they’d protect him, too.)

-----

Once the door shut behind Straw Hat, Law dropped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes, suddenly exhausted. His head throbbed from the hit from Zoro’s blade, and he considered getting up to look for some painkillers in the infirmary supplies but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Outside the door, he could hear the Straw Hats talking, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

As he sat there, he couldn’t stop Straw Hat’s words from playing over and over in his mind.

“Jimbei said that you’d be in trouble with that Mingo guy for helping us, and I was worried. Were you? In trouble?”

“I fail to see how that matters.”

“But you helped me anyway. And I’m grateful! So, you’re a good guy. No matter what anyone says.”

“No, I’m really not. You should listen to Nico-ya.”

“Nope, I can feel it. Right here.”

Law had no illusions about what kind of person he was. He’d joined the Donquixote Pirates as a terminally ill ten-year-old, determined to do as much damage as he could before he died, and in many ways, he’d never outgrown that broken boy with bombs on his chest. He was the second in command to one of the biggest names in the slave trade, among other morally reprehensible operations. And though he was a doctor, he’d killed more than he’d saved, the letters tattooed on his fingers a promise as much as a warning.

Perhaps worst of all, though, he’d stopped feeling anything when he killed.

He shuddered to think what Cora-san would think of the man he’d become.

And yet, Straw Hat looked at him and—impossibly—saw something worthwhile. Felt that Law was something worthwhile. Felt it in the same place Law had felt the tug that pulled him to Marineford two years earlier.

What did it mean?

What did Law do with that?

The Seastone cuffs weighed heavily on his wrists, clanking as he opened his eyes and rubbed his face through his hands. He stared up at the ceiling, the words of his nakama from before his departure ringing through his head in the wake of Straw Hat’s declaration:

“I know you spooked when I lost my arm. But it’s not your fault.”

“You’re not this person you’ve let yourself become. They might think of you as Corazon, but to us, you’re Captain.”

Two years of pushing his crew away to protect them, of doing nothing to earn their trust or affection, yet they refused to give up on him. Like Straw Hat, they looked at him and saw something worthwhile. But how could Law accept that from them after what he’d cost them?

Despite what Violet said, Law knew he was, inside and out, Doflamingo’s creature. He knew what he saw when he looked in the mirror, the marks of claiming left on his skin and the emptiness in his eyes. After what he’d lost, Law was too tired to fight it any longer.

So why did people keep looking at him like he was anything but Doflamingo’s broken doll?

Law was startled from his reverie by a loud thud from the deck of the ship. He straightened as he heard the tone of the Straw Hats’ voices change in response to whatever had happened. Punk Hazard was unfriendly territory for them and full of more hazards than they could have known about when they anchored on the island. And most things unfriendly to the Straw Hats should be friendly to Law as Joker’s second.

Law rose and made his way to the door in an attempt to hear more clearly. He was wondering at the odds of using this distraction to search for the key to his cuffs when a familiar voice responded to the Straw Hats’ demands of who he was. Law’s stomach dropped.

“—ase commander of G-5,” Vergo was saying as Law pulled open the infirmary door.

The Straw Hats looked back at him, surprised, but Law ignored them, his eyes focused on Vergo. Vergo inclined his head when Law appeared, which was not a good sign.

“Torao, you should—”

“What are you doing here, Vergo?” Law demanded over Straw Hat.

“You two know each other?” Long Nose asked, glancing between them nervously.

“Your ally?” Black Leg asked, stance turning defensive. “But he’s a Marine.”

There was no way Vergo was here to help Law. But why had he come? Doffy hadn’t wanted him to blow his cover; that the entire reason for sending Law to Punk Hazard in the first place.

“It seems Joker was right to send me to check on your allegiance, Corazon,” Vergo said, lips twisting mockingly around the title he’d once worn himself. “I’ve been warning him for years that you were disloyal, and now I find you defecting.”

Law’s eyes narrowed, and he raised his shackled wrists. “Does this look like defecting, Vergo?” he hissed. Not that it would make a difference; Law was certain Vergo didn’t actually think he had defected. “I’m a prisoner.”

Vergo smirked. “No matter. All Joker needs to know is that I found his favorite plaything standing with the very crew whose captain he betrayed Joker to save two years ago.” His expression darkened. “And don’t forget the -san, boy.”

Law flinched at being called a plaything.

“What’s going on?” Straw Hat asked, frowning between the two. Law ignored him.

“What do you think Joker will do to your crew when he hears you betrayed him again?” Vergo went on.

Law felt the color drain from his face. “You son of a bitch.”

Straw Hat turned to look directly at Law, his expression turning concerned when he saw that Law had gone pale. “Torao—”

Turning his back on Vergo was a mistake. Law’s eyes widened as Vergo drew his bamboo stick, and, as he surged forward, coated it with haki. He swung at Straw Hat’s exposed back. Straw Hat sensed him coming, but Vergo’s speed took him off-guard; Vergo swung his bamboo, and Straw Hat tried to dodge but took enough of a blow to his side that it knocked him off-balance. He yelped in surprise as Vergo swung again, sending him over the ship’s railing into the water below.

Law inhaled sharply as Long Nose and Black Leg both cursed. Long Nose turned to Black Leg.

“Stay with Robin,” he said before taking a running leap and jumping overboard after his sinking captain.

Without missing a beat, Black Leg and Nico Robin took defensive postures in front of Law. Law looked at their backs in disbelief. Why? Why would they help him?

“I have no quarrel with you,” Vergo said to them. “Step aside. This is Family business.”

Black Leg snorted in disbelief, and Nico Robin smiled in that knowing way of hers. “Donquixote Doflamingo wouldn’t want it known he has a spy so high up in the Marines. You won’t let us go.”

Vergo straightened his glasses. “You caught me. But if you step aside, I’ll make your deaths quick.”

“I don’t think so,” Black Leg replied.

Vergo frowned, clearly as confused as Law himself. “Why would you protect him? He tried to kill you.”

So Vergo saw the fight. He must have followed Law from Dressrosa, leaving right behind him. That bastard was just looking for an excuse to cut Law down and finish what he’d started on Minion Island. Had Doffy told him to come, or was Vergo acting on his own?

“Our idiot captain seems to like him,” Black Leg replied with a shrug.

Law started as Nico Robin gave him a small smile before turning back to Vergo. “And Luffy is a very good judge of character. Even if we don’t understand his reasons at first.”

Law’s breath caught in his throat.

Vergo hefted his bamboo. “So be it.”

He charged once more, swinging his bamboo at Nico Robin. Black Leg intercepted the blow with his leg. Vergo fell back and Black Leg charged in a flurry of kicks. Vergo met him blow for blow until the two stopped in the middle of the deck, legs locked. Law winced at the sound of cracking bone. Black Leg slumped, and Law momentarily regretted hitting him with Counter Shock earlier.

“Sanji-kun!” Nico Robin called, worried.

“Where’s the key to these cuffs?” Law demanded urgently as Vergo turned back toward them. He did not want to be defenseless again with Vergo bearing down on him. And he was not going to let Vergo kill Nico Robin for protecting him. Too many people had been hurt or killed protecting Law, and he didn’t deserve any of it.

“Usopp has it,” she said, glancing toward the railing.

“Great,” Law muttered.

As Vergo approached, Nico Robin summoned giant hands, creating a wall between them and Vergo. Law knew it wouldn’t hold against Vergo’s Demon Bamboo. She winced as Vergo slammed against it, the structure shaking under his strength.

“Take Black Leg-ya and get out of here,” Law told her. Hopefully, Long Nose had rescued Straw Hat by now, and they could recover on shore. Vergo would let her go, at least temporarily; he was here because of Law, after all.

She looked at him, startled. “And leave you? You’re powerless.”

“You have no reason to protect me, Nico-ya. I tried to kill your friends. I wouldn’t have stopped, either.” She winced again as the wall trembled against Vergo’s onslaught. “We may both work for Doflamingo, but Vergo wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if given the chance. And now he has the chance.” He shook his head. “Get out of here and regroup with your crew. This is Family business.”

Nico Robin opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by bamboo tearing through her wall. She cried out as the wall collapsed. Vergo met Law’s eye and smirked. Law gasped in pain and surprise as, in a flash, bamboo met his side and sent him flying into the ship’s railing. Slowly, he pushed himself upright and blinked against his spinning vision in time to see Vergo grab Nico Robin by the neck.

“Demon Child Nico Robin,” he said. “I should kill you, but I have a feeling Joker could make good use of you.”

“No thanks,” she choked out between gasps. “I have a crew.”

Vergo simply laughed—a sound that made Law’s skin crawl—and flung her across the deck. She slammed into Black Leg, who was struggling to balance with a fractured leg, and the pair were knocked into the far wall.

Law pushed himself to his feet. Vergo turned to look at him, the malice radiating from him palpable on the winter air. If Law had access to his powers, he would have no problem taking Vergo on. But with the Seastone shackles blocking him from his Fruit and draining his strength, he was as helpless in the face of Vergo’s rage now as he had been as a sick child—and they both knew it.

Vergo moved and suddenly Law’s back slammed into the wall, a haki-clad hand around his throat. Law’s feet dangled off the ground as he struggled to breathe. He grasped at Vergo’s wrist, struggling vainly to loosen the grip stealing his air.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Law.”

“Beating a terminally-ill child nearly to death wasn’t enough for you?” Law wheezed. It somehow seemed fitting that Vergo would finish the job he’d started on a winter island on the winter side of Punk Hazard. There was a feeling of things coming full circle as the snow fell around them.

“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Vergo growled. “You’ve never been good enough for Doffy. Yet he brings you back and elevates you to his right hand.”

As darkness encroached on the edges of Law’s vision, it hit him that Vergo wasn’t simply holding a grudge about Cora-san’s betrayal. Since Law’s return to the Family nearly a decade earlier, Doffy had kept Law close, giving him no opportunities for betrayal. Holding Law’s crew hostage, he’d groomed Law—teaching him, training him, even fucking him. He did everything to make sure his ownership of Law was complete. Law had hated every moment of it—the only freedom he’d found was leaving Dressrosa on the Polar Tang with his crew on missions—but Vergo was jealous.

Law croaked out a disbelieving laugh at the realization.

Vergo frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“I didn’t take you for the jealous type, Vergo.”

Vergo snarled wordlessly and tightened his grip. Law gasped, feeling what little strength he had leaving him. His lungs screamed, he was light-headed, and his eyes started to close.

Would it really be so bad if Vergo killed him now? It would end nearly a decade of hell, the daily physical and emotional torture that had beaten him down to the point of pushing his nakama away…

Law’s eyes flew open at the thought of his nakama. He couldn’t die and leave them alone to face Doffy’s retribution. He couldn’t die without them knowing how much they meant to him, that even if he’d been a poor excuse for a captain, there was no greater honor than leading them.

A sudden fire burning in his chest, Law’s gaze sharpened, and he dropped his hands from Vergo’s wrist. Vergo looked at him in confusion—clearly, he’d thought Law had been about to succumb—and Law took his moment of distraction to loop the Seastone shackles over Vergo’s neck and cross his arms to tighten them with his waning strength. Vergo didn’t have a Devil Fruit so the Seastone wouldn’t affect him, but he would feel the bite of metal into his skin.

In his current position, Law didn’t have enough strength to truly strangle Vergo, but the move was enough to startle Vergo and cause pain. Reflexively, he loosened his grip, and Law gulped in the delicious, frigid air. Letting go of Law’s neck, Vergo grabbed Law’s arms.

“Let go,” he growled.

“You can’t kill me, Vergo,” Law rasped.

Vergo regarded him through those sunglasses. “Why not?” He only had to strain a bit to speak against Law’s attempted strangulation.

“Doffy has plans for my death, and we both know it.”

The surprise was evident on Vergo’s features. “How did you know—”

Law scoffed. “You don’t think I know why they call the Ope Ope no Mi the ultimate Devil Fruit? Kill me now and Doffy will have to look for the Fruit all over again if he wants that operation.”

Law never intended to go through with the operation, but it was leverage Vergo couldn’t ignore.

“Doffy always says you’re too clever for your own good,” Vergo said, lips curling in distaste. But Law knew he had the other man; Vergo was completely devoted to Doffy, and he wouldn’t do anything to risk his master’s chance of receiving immortality.

In one sudden motion, Vergo let go of Law’s arms and grabbed the chain wrapped around his neck. He pulled it free and held the chain above his head, leaving Law dangling in midair by the wrists. Law hissed in surprise.

“Now what, Vergo-san?” Law asked, sneering the oft-demanded honorific.

“I take you back to Dressrosa, a fallen traitor,” Vergo taunted. “Doffy will finally see you for what you are—nothing better than his miserable excuse for a brother. You can watch Doffy slowly destroy your crew one by one. Maybe he’ll even make you kill some of them.” He sounded amused at the prospect. “And then he’ll make you beg to perform the Perennial Youth operation—and only then will you die, doing one useful thing in your miserable life.”

Chest clenching, Law thought of his crew. Of kind Bepo. Of goofy Shachi. Of brave Penguin. Penguin’s words came back then, sharp and pointed.

“You want to pull that, maybe you should start acting like a captain again.”

No. I won’t let that happen. He was done failing them as their captain.

His eyes flew open as Vergo’s haki-coated fist connected with his stomach. The breath left his lungs—again—and he would have curled in on himself if he wasn’t hanging in midair. Vergo let go of the chain and Law dropped to the grass of the Thousand Sunny’s deck. He looked up in time to see Vergo’s bamboo coming right for his head.

“Torao!” he heard in the distance.

Then nothing.

Next chapter

#I had an off day so have an early chapter #I really like how this chapter turned out #Caitlin's fic #Trafalgar Law #One Piece fanfic #One Piece fanfiction #One Piece

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another-sonic-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The Fanfictioner Ch.1

Pineapple Pizza

The Fanfictioner

Pineapple Pizza

10K (ShadAmy)

The moon was above them and although it was a cold night, they didn't care. Sonic got closer to Amy, emeralds eyes shone brightly with love and desire. He caressed her as he softly placed his hands around her face, pulling her closer to him. Amy licked her lips as they begged to be touched by the blue blur. They have fought to be together for a long time and now nothing was stopping them. Finally, they could express and show their love to the world with no restrictions, with complete freedom. Sonic got closer to his lover, their lips just a few centimeters away and then-

"Amy, what are you writing?"

The pink hedgehog slammed shut her laptop as she mentally cursed for not being more delicate. Today was filming day but she promised her followers that she was going to update a new chapter of 'Falling Petals' by tonight. Of course, like the good fanfic writer that she was, she always kept her promises.

Amy shifted her body from the chair to look at the standing blue hedgehog behind her. She tried to hide the panic on her face but it seemed like this picked Sonic's interest even more.

"Um... my shopping list?" That came out more like a question than a statement. Once again, she cursed under her breath because although Sonic wasn't the smartest hedgehog out there, he wasn't dumb either.

"Then why are you acting so ... strange?"

Sonic had the sincerest of interest. He cared for the pink one and her recent actions had just baffled him. Recently, Amy was acting quite strangely. Before Sonic was free to use her laptop whenever he wanted and now, she kept it to herself and hid it as her life depended on it. The blue bur knew that Amy likes to write from time to time but now? Sonic found her writing whenever he visited her at her house. She would be checking her phone constantly and even smiled as she typed on it. The thought had crossed his mind that maybe Amy was 'seeing' someone and the thought alone just made him pay more attention to her.

"Are you sure-"

"Everyone get on ready on set!"

Amy was saved by the show's director once again. She smiled awkwardly at her blue friend as she placed her laptop on her chair. She heard Sonic sigh in defeat and Amy felt a little bit bad that she made her friend and love interest worried. However, she just couldn't go to him and say 'Hey, I know I have been acting strange but it's because I am writing fanfiction of Sonic Boom and I don't want you to think I am weird.'

Amy greeted everyone as she stepped on set. The camera, lighting crew and just every who crossed her path. Of course, her friends were there as well looking as fresh as they could be. They were outdoors and currently they were filming Sonic Boom's most recent and most wanted episode 52 of season 1.

"Hey, guys! Amy greeted her friends, Sticks, Knuckles, and Tails as they waved their hands from right to left, Sonic followed from behind.

Amy's attention was focused on the red echidna who had sleepy eyes. This was very strange because Amy knew that Knuckles was one who appreciated his sleep especially because he always woke up early morning to go workout.

"Hey Knuckles, you alright?" Amy asked. "You look very sleepy.

Knuckles let out a yawn as he stretched his body. "I didn't sleep much I was binge reading this book I found online and-

"WHERE IN CHAOS IS SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG?" The director of the show screamed in desperation as everyone was ready to go but the star of today's episode.

" I still can't believe they hired Shadow the Hedgehog to do this roll." Tails said with a bit of amusement in his voice. "I mean he is the same guy who appeared in Chao in Space 2."

"And in Anti-Vengers the Final Game," Sticks added.

"And in Fast and the Glorious 8," said Knuckles.

"It makes me wonder if Sonic Boom produces that much money for them to pay someone like him," Amy looked from side to side, in hopes that the black hedgehog would appear. She hasn't met him yet and if she was completely honest, she looking forward to his approval.

"He is not that big of a deal," Sonic rolled his eyes in annoyance. "I mean, I was in Chao in Space 2 as well."

"Yeah, as a side character. Shadow was actually the protagonist." Tails was saying this because it was the truth and not to annoy his blue friend. However, it was quite funny to see Sonic jealous over at Shadow the Hedgehog's accomplishments. Tails were lowkey a fanboy of the black hedgehog, although he would never admit that out loud.

"What is all of this fuzz about? I am right here,"

Finally, the hedgehog that everyone was waiting for arrived. He had an energy drink on his right hand and in one gulp he drank all of it. He then turned around to give it to his assistant who quickly took the can away from him. He stepped on the set where the rest of 'Team Sonic' waited to start.

"Mr. Hedgehog, nice to meet you!" Tails said as he extended out his hand, shaking a little due to the excitement. "I am Tails Miles Prower and I-"

"Yeah, I know who you are," Shadow said with a monotone voice.

The yellow fox leaned into Amy's ear and he whispered, 'Did you hear that Amy? He knows me.'

"You are the only one who has ... descent acting skills," Shadow let out mocking laughter as he looked down on the rest of the 'actors.'

Everyone looked at him, offended at his comment. It seems like the rumors that the black hedgehog had a prepotent personality was true.

"Says the one who can only portray edgy characters."

Everyone turned to look at Amy in disbelief. Actually, she had thought of that in her head but in one way or another, it came out of her mouth. The set was filled with silence until Sonic let out a big laugh and wrapped his right arm around Amy's shoulder.

"That was a good one Ames!" Sonic said.

Shadow wasn't expecting that from the pink hedgehog in front of him. Who did she think she was? She was no one compared to the great acting career he has had. Of course, he wasn't going down without a fight.

"My apologies, I don't accept criticism from people who can't even act," Shadow replied.

"Well maybe if you did, you would get a different type of role from time to time," Amy replied.

By now Team Sonic was static. There was so much tension between the two and they had only met two seconds ago. Vermillion eyes met emerald ones and neither one of them wanted to quit the internal battle.

Shadow the Hedgehog had to admit, this was interesting.

"Shadow!" Sonic Boom's director interrupted the moment as he had finally eyed the black hedgehog. "You are late! What were you doing?"

Mia, a brown girl hedgehog, and Shadow's assistant was watching the scene unfold from afar. She watched the director seated on his high chair and to prevent Shadow from getting scolded, she answered on his behalf.

"He didn't get enough sleep yesterday sir-" Mia said loud enough but the director, who was an old and strict monkey, raised his hand and interrupted her.

"I want him to tell him,"

In all honesty, if it wasn't because he was the director, Shadow would have said something offensive. However, the black hedgehog always had a sense of responsibility and respect towards his job and especially to the director.

Shadow sighed and looked up to the director, "I was up all night on my phone ... reading."

"Hey, me too!" Knuckles said in surprise. "I was reading this really good story about our show and-"

"I am sure that whatever you were reading doesn't compare to what I was reading," Shadow interrupted him and rolled his eyes

The director faced palmed himself and loudly he said, "I don't care! Just make sure this doesn't happen again, Mr. Hedgehog."

Shadow couldn't say anything more. It was his first day on set and he almost wanted to leave ... almost.

"Yes, sir."

The day ended worse than Amy expected. Shadow wasn't only prepotent, he was mean, rude and jerk. He took in every opportunity he had to bully and tease the hell at out of Amy. The black hedgehog mocked her acting, made fun of her lines and bumped into her multiple times.

And today has only been the first day of filming for this month's episode. Good thing that filming only took around two weeks to complete due that the episodes were short. They started every first day of the month. Today was September 1, they will finish on September 14 and they will have the rest of the month free. Thirteen more days to go, thirteen more days that she had to endure Shadow's presence on set.

She was quite disappointed when she found out who the real Shadow was. Just like her friend, Tails, Amy was secretly a fan of the acting he has done in the past. Although his roles were kind of repetitive, his acting was always exceptional. Even today, his acting techniques were really good, she even liked the character he was portraying.

Amy stretched her back as had finally reached the insides of her home. During today's break, she was able to finish the last chapter of 'Falling Petals' and to make it extra special, she wrote a 20 thousand final chapter. This chapter was filled with a lot of drama, romance, and fights which will lead to the second book. She couldn't wait to just upload it to her page so her readers will enjoy and maybe cry a little with her writing.

After showering and changing to her pajamas, Amy comfortably laid on her bed with her computer on her legs. She logged into fanfiction.com where she had already hundredth of comments in her work, reading for her to read. She always made sure to reply to them whenever she had the chance. The pink hedgehog even had created a bond with a couple of people who always commented on her fanfics. She scrolled down the comment section as she replied to them and a familiar username came into her screen.

"I've following your work since I stumbled upon 'The Forest of Dreams: A Love Story' and in all honesty, you are the best fanfiction writer out there. You improved so much and now every story you publish is great and you develop the characters amazingly well. Yesterday, I was re-reading all 30 previous chapters of 'Falling Petals' and I got late to work but it was worth it. I can't wait to read the final chapter tonight."

By: The Fanfictioner

Amy smiled to herself, she was always happy to read comments and it was one of the few things that kept her going through the day. She took a few moments to think about what to write and finally she began to type.

"This means a lot to me. 'The Forest of Dreams: A Love Story' was the first story I wrote and I am really happy you still enjoy it. I appreciate you a lot, I see that you always like and comment on my work. I'll keep working hard for you and my other readers. I hope you like the last chapter of 'Falling Petals' ... Thank you!"

By: A Rose Without Thorns

After she finished typing and hitting 'Enter', our adorable pink hedgie was now ready to publish the last chapter of her latest work. She uploads her writing file from her laptop, publishes it and waits for her reader's reaction. Amy closes her laptop and places it next to her, closing her eyes, the pink hedgehog drifted into sleep.

"CAN YOU GUYS BELIEVE SONIC LEFT AMY TO GO SAVE THE WORLD?!" Knuckles, who has his bubbly self again was walking right and left on the set. "AFTER EVERYTHING THEY WENT THROUGH, HE LEAVES!"

"Knuckles, I am right here," Sonic said as he read a magazine. It was early morning and 'Team Sonic' was waiting for everyone to arrive. "Also, I am not going anywhere. I have to save enough folks on the island as it is."

"I am not talking about you! I am talking about the Sonic on the story I was reading!" Knuckles replied again. "The writer said that they will publish a second book, so I have hope that they will end up together."

Amy, who was sitting on the actor's small chair circle, was interested in what Knuckles was reading. Especially since it seemed like he read the last chapter of her most recent work.

"Out of curiosity," Amy began. "What were you reading?"

"I read 'Falling Petals' by A Rose Without Thorns in fanxfiction.com," Knuckles replied. "I just love the writer's stories, they are so good!"

Amy hid her evident blush by taking a sip of her coffee.

"What if Knuckles is TheFanfictioner? He did say that he stayed up all night reading and his comment right now sounds a bit similar to the one of last night."

"Wait, fanxfiction.com?" Tails who was quietly drinking tea finally spoke up. "You read fanfiction?"

"I do," Knuckles said, still not seating down on his chair. "We need to support fans that create free content for others and besides ... Some of these writers are way better than the ones we have here."

"That, I do believe," Sticks puts down 'Theories Magazine', the issue of this month was government space theories. She was reading a very interesting story about a project that was created on a space colony and it was shut down due that scientists created a powerful ultimate life form.

"Still, it's lame," Sonic said, still not looking at his friends directly. "I understand your curiosity Knuckles, but I still think it's a bit weird. Especially the writer ... It's so cringy."

"It's not! Look!" Knuckles pulls out his phone and shoved into Sonic's face, making him drop the magazine that he was reading. "Read the first chapter! It's really good!"

The blue bur leaned his head a little, as he tried to catch a glimpse of Knuckle's phone. He read the first lines of the story and a smirk crossed his face. He grabbed Knuckle's phone and stood up from his seat.

"Although I was always pushed away by him, Sonic the Hedgehog was the only one for me." Sonic made his voice sound in a higher pitch, pretending to be the female hedgehog of the story. "His green eyes, his strong form, and heroic personality were some of the things that made me fall in love with him."

Tails and Sticks began to laugh. Even Knuckles who wasn't laughing at the story itself, but at Sonic's overly bad acting, let out a giggle or two.

"See? This is so bad!" Sonic said as he pointed to Knuckles' phone.

The blue one noticed that Amy was awfully quiet, just there, seating on her chair. As to look for her approval, Sonic asked, "Don't you think this is lame Amy? I mean just the fact that you love me is ridiculous enough!"

"Yeah, haha," Amy looked down to the floor, as she tried to hide her evident embarrassment. "It is pathetic."

She had never felt such embarrassment before. The pink one started this because she enjoyed writing and loved to write about the Sonic Boom characters. However, looking at her peer's reaction made her wonder. They were the ones who interpreted the characters and they thought it was lame. Maybe, she wasn't as good of a writer as she thought she was. Doubt filled her mind and before she could say or do anything else, Knuckles jumped to say something.

"You all are just uncultured," Knuckled said as he took his phone away from Sonic's grasp "You guys will never know how deep and life-changing 'Falling Petals' is until you read it-"

"Will everyone just shut up?"

The prince of dark and gloom appeared and to say that he looked bad was an understatement. Shadow the Hedgehog had dark circles under his red eyes. He arched his back and his stance was way too weak. He even looked sick. Shadow walked towards his chair and sat down with a cup of black coffee on his hand.

"Well, did someone forget to read today's script or something?" Sonic said mockingly.

"I had a very emotionally draining experience last night, I don't need your jokes at this moment," The black hedgehog replied. He was wearing a black leather jacket and out of it's right pocket, he pulled out some shades and puts them on.

"It wasn't a joke," said Sonic. "There was a change in plans yesterday and we are supposed to record another scene today, did you read your script?"

At that moment, Shadow thanked Chaos that he was wearing shades because otherwise, everyone would have seen his confused face.

Just like he sat down on his chair, he stood up again.

"I need to talk to my manager."

It was already 11 in the morning and they still haven't started filming. At this rate, they were just going to lose the day. It was September and the sunlight was running out short. Sonic Team was already eager to start but there was no sign of the director. Even less Shadow.

"Everyone takes one-hour break, come back at 12 P.M." The show director appeared. He had a tired face, one that showed that he was done with his job.

The director came into the circle of actors and approached Amy directly.

"Ms. Rose, I need to speak to you ... Privately," he said as he made a motion to follow him.

"Of course, Mr. Johnson," the pink hedgehog stood from her chair and followed the old monkey. Once again, they were supposed to be filming outdoors. They had closed a small part of Hedgehog Village so they could film. Her friends were on the other side while Amy and Mr. Johnson had already placed themselves behind the camera crew to get some privacy.

"Ms. Rose, I need a favor," Mr. Johnson said. Amy nodded, not expecting that from the director. "I need you to stay here and help Mr. Shadow the Hedgehog finish memorizing his script. I know you are the best at that."

Great, this is just what she needed. To spend her break time with Shadow, the rudest hedgehog she has ever known. She knew that this wasn't really a favor but part of her job and she normally wouldn't have cared. Amy was glad to help her friends memorize their scripts but Shadow? He was far from being her friend.

"I'll do it but, can I ask something?" Amy asked.

"Go ahead."

"Why is he here? Don't get me wrong but Sonic Boom doesn't seem like the type of show that an actor of his caliber would want to do."

The old monkey sighed and placed a hand on his forehead. "To be honest I don't even know either ... He just came in saying that he wanted to play a role in the show. He is charging us half the price he normally charges and this will definitely increase the rating of the show ... I know Shadow doesn't have the best personality but for everyone's sake ... Just be nice to him."

Amy nodded. She knew that Shadow was hard to deal with, but just like the director said, having the black hedgehog on the show will help everyone. More ranting equals more money. Also, there was a small part of Shadow that intrigued Amy. Why would he want to be in this show if he could literally be in anything he wanted? Maybe if she could make him open up a little she can find out.

The pink hedgehog looked back at her friends who were laughing again at her fanfiction as she saw that Sonic was once again holding up Knuckle's phone. Spending time with Shadow didn't seem so bad now.

It took all the strength in the world to come to terms with herself. Our pink lady was backing out of the previously made decision as she waited outside Shadow's dressing room. She knocked once and she wished for Chaos that whatever Shadow was doing will stop him from opening the door. Amy looked around nervously, it wasn't like she was afraid of the black hedgehog, well maybe just a tiny bit. She was more scared of having to go through an awkward situation or saying something that might cost her head. Incoming steps were heard by the pink one and in a blink of an eye, Shadow was in front of her holding the door open for her to step in. She looked at him with an awkward smile on her face as she made her way in, in a sense, it was her way of greeting him. Yesterday, they didn't have the best of days but maybe Amy could make up for that by helping him. As she made her way in, she realized that his dressing room was way fancier than hers. All black, a bed, a small kitchen, and even a small dining room. For all, she knew this could a small house.

"So," Amy pushed her thoughts away as she sat down on the small dining table. "Today's scene we are going to be introducing your character ... do you know any of the script yet?"

"Not really, I wasn't notified about today's change and I didn't have time yesterday, " Shadow sat down on the chair facing Amy.

"No worries, change in plans happen a lot around here so it's best if you get used to it now," the pink hedgehog kept her eyes glued to the script. "Alright, your dialogue start on page seven so let's go from there. If we can't finish memorizing the script then we can improvise-"

"Why are you helping me?"

The question took Amy by surprise, finally, she looked at the black hedgehog in front of her who had a monotone look on his face. His right hand served as support for his face as it delicately rested on his right cheek. The sunlight coming from the window highlighted Shadow's features and especially his eyes. Vermillion eyes studied her deeply and Amy could see why he was so popular with the ladies.

"To be honest, because they asked me to and ..." Amy sighed as she shook away the thought. "Because a part of me wants to start again with you."

"We didn't have a good start, did we?" Shadow looked outside the window as if he was in deep thought. Three seconds pass in which Amy thought it had been minutes, a very unpleasant feeling ran down her spine. She wanted to end with the awkwardness but Shadow beat her to it.

"There's no way I am going to memorize all 50 pages in one hour," Shadow said as he looked back at the pink hedgehog.

"Then improvise!" Amy replied. "This is your character, create your own dialogue."

"I don't know who this character is! And I am sure not even the writers know," Shadow stood up from the chair and walked towards the small bed that was across the dining table.

Amy looked over at the black hedgehog who was resting comfortably on his bed.

"Then even better! Make it your own!" Amy raised her voice a little. "Look, for what I know your character, 'Shadow', is mysterious and rude but he actually cares for others. He just doesn't know how to properly show it."

Shadow looked over to Amy and with a plain expression he asked, "Meaning?"

Amy stood up from her chair and placed herself in front of the black and red striped hedgehog. She looked at him as she placed her hands on her waist. "Meaning that maybe he had a tragic past, something that explains his personality. It makes him an interesting character ... You can work something from that."

"I don't know, doesn't it sound too-"

Shadow would have never expected what happened next. At one moment, he was laying peacefully on his bed. The next moment, he was still laying peacefully on his bed but the difference was that Amy was on top of him. Her hands were placed on the sides of his head. Her legs were slightly touching his as she had positioned them to each side of his legs.

"You need to stop!" Amy said, her face very close to Shadow's. "You have beaten up my friends! Why are you after us?"

Shadow blinked multiples times. First, nothing made sense but his brain connected the dots. This was similar to the scene he read on the script. Where Sonic pinned him down to the ground after a fight. He was pressured and he only had a few seconds, what should he respond?

"I am not after you nor your friends! I am trying to complete my mission and you are just on the way!"

A few seconds passed in which Amy and Shadow only stared at each other's eyes. Amy was looking at him, surprised that he actually followed along with her plan. And Shadow? Where he was starting to get lost. Lost in the pink one's emerald eyes and for a small fraction of a second, he had forgotten where he was.

"That was good!" Amy said as she made Shadow wake up from his trance. "It's a bit vague but that leaves up to interpretation and further build-up for the story."

The pink hedgehog moved away and took a sit on the edge of Shadow's bed. She didn't think too much about it. However, Shadow couldn't let go of that thought that easily.

"You are a strange one," Shadow said as he sat down on the edge of the bed, next to the pink one. "Last time someone confronted me like that was Rouge and it was a different circumstance."

"Rouge as ..." Amy gulped. " Rouge the Bat? The famous actress?"

"Yeah, do you know her?"

"Of course, I do! She is the best actress of our generation! She is great!" Amy said excitedly. Shadow noticed that Amy's tail was wiggling from side to side, it was something that he would normally make fun of but he had to admit that it is cute on her.

At that moment, Amy remembered that a couple of days ago she was reading a celebrities' magazine. There was a rumor saying that Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat were in a secret relationship. She wanted to ask him about it but decided not to since that would be crossing the boundaries. Maybe she would ask ... Later on, if they ever get to be that open with each other.

"Anyways," Amy turned around to look at Shadow, who was once again looking at her with his vermillion eyes. "Should we practice a little more?"

Filming the scene did not only go great but Shadow got praised from everyone after the shooting. Even Sonic had to admit that he had done a good job and Mr. Johnson went personally to Shadow and thanked him for his commitment to his character. Every time this happened, Shadow looked back at Amy and gave her a small smile to acknowledge her help. He didn't exactly thank her, but Amy knew this was the best thing she could get from him.

More days like this came. In two weeks, Team Sonic had slowly made up their minds that Shadow was going to be sticking around for some time. There was still some conflict from time to time but it wasn't anything that they couldn't handle. The black hedgehog would even 'compliment' the other members once in a while. 'Not half bad', 'Could be better but it wasn't horrible', 'If you are going to say that, at least keep your head up. It will make you look more credible.'

Shadow had slowly made his way into the Sonic Boom family and nobody was complaining. He still had his prepotency and pride, which he would show more often than his soft side. But at least he was trying. Amy Rose didn't care now. He wasn't interfering with her job nor she was interfering with his. They didn't have much communication since she helped him improvise. Maybe just the casual, 'Is there any coffee?' and a 'Yes, it's over there.'

It was the last day of filming and as usual, Amy said goodbye to everyone on set. She won't be seeing them until next month so she made sure she got to say her goodbyes to every last one of them. Finally, her friends were last. She didn't care too much about saying goodbye to them because she knew she will seem them in the next couple of days. Probably when Eggman is attacking or something like that. Strange enough, Eggman never attacked them on filming days, it was as if he knew and didn't want to ruin their day on purpose.

"I say we should go to the beach soon," Knuckles said.

"I am down," Tails said and Sticks nodded in agreement.

"Same," Sonic was then quick to turn around and face Amy who seemed to look at something or rather someone else. In hopes that she will give him some attention, Sonic raised his voice a little. "What about you Ames? Do you want to go to the beach?"

"What about Shadow?"

Amy's response wasn't the answer Sonic was looking for and instead, he proceeded to walk towards the pink hedgehog and placed his arm around her shoulder in hopes to comfort her. "I don't think he is the type to go to the beach."

"Should we at least invite him?" Amy said, still looking away. She was a bit embarrassed that Sonic was doing this more and more often. "I mean just out of courtesy ...It doesn't matter if he says no."

"I guess if you want to you can do that but ..." The blue one faced the direction that Amy was looking at. His green eyes met the black figure and a small hint of jealousy treated to overtake the blue blur seeing that Amy was giving too much attention to Shadow. "You are still coming with us, right?"

The pink hedgehog had finally faced her blue hero and saw a small smile placed on his lips. She returned it and kindly she said, 'Of course!'

Shadow the Hedgehog was glad that the filming was done. A part of him was enjoying filming for this low-quality show but he still felt relieved that this was over ... for now. He walked outside the set where his beautiful black motorcycle waited for him. Today was going to be a relaxing night. Just him, a glass of wine and re-reading some of his favorite stories.

"Hey, Shadow!"

The black hedgehog recognized that voice, he turned around and met a running pink hedgie running towards him. Almost out of breath as if she had been looking for him everywhere. When she finally reached him, she took a few seconds to get air back into her lungs. Shadow watched every single moment of her and waited until she was ready to speak again.

"This month's episode is coming out next week. To celebrate the launching, my friends and I are going to the beach," Amy looked around, a bit nervous to look at him in the eyes. "I was wondering, I mean, we were wondering if you wanted to join us?"

Alright, this was something he had never experienced before. He was usually invited by other acting peers to go to parties and formal get-togethers where a large group of people were present. However, he had never been invited to such an 'intimate' activity before. Going to the beach? As like playing volleyball together? As building sandcastles? Doing a cookout and eating together after playing in the water?

Was Amy Rose that crazy?

"My apologies," Shadow said. "I am not interested in such things."

Amy mentally sighed in relieve, her job here was done. "It's alright! I won't see you for a while so if you need a friend, hit me up. I am one phone call away."

The rose hedgehog was already making her way out, she walked a few steps away until she felt something small hit her head.

She turned around again to face Shadow who was proudly playing with pebbles on his hand. "You said to hit you up if I need a friend."

Amy didn't know how to react to that. It was clever and even sweet of him. However, Amy didn't know until what extent he meant his words or if he was just saying it to tease her.

But she was about to find out.

"Well," Amy walked towards the black hedgehog, a small smirk decorated her face. She wasn't completely doing this, but she still decided to give it a try. She mounted Shadow's bike and placed her hands on the accelerator and the break. "I can be your friend right now."

It was very interesting, the strange dynamic that the two had. Shadow wasn't even complaining which even surprised him. He didn't let just anyone ride his bike, but if it was the pink hedgehog then maybe he could make an exception.

Her character and persona were just very intriguing to him. She was a simple hedgehog, very plain looking but still, there was something about her that attracted him to her.

"Very well then," Shadow said as he took a sit on his motorcycle. He placed his hands delicately on the pink hedgehog's hip, trying to touch as little as he could. They were close but Amy didn't seem to mind the contact at all. "Where to next?"

There was a soft aroma that Amy couldn't quite describe yet. It was probably all the natural scents radiating off the jungle. If she was being honest, she didn't quite understand what was going at the moment. It was certainly strange for her to be this close to the hedgehog, more strange because well ... They weren't even friends. Just to strangers taking a ride together. Now that she thinks about it, this scene with Shadow was very ... Unusual. She didn't know much about the black hedgehog besides everything that she read on celebrities' magazines. Of course, they weren't too reliable.

The stars sparkled above them, the air caressed their faces and moved their quills along the dancing wind. Amy's mind drifted towards the dark hedgehog behind her. His hands were softly placed around her waist, trying to touch her as little as possible. It was actions like this that made the pink lady realize that there was more to Shadow.

Where could Amy take such a guy? Shadow was the most popular hedgehog in town and if she was being honest, Amy was sure that he had seen more of the whole island than her. She really didn't think this through, come on Amy ... What was a place that was good enough to surprise Shadow the Hedgehog?

Oh, wait there was a place.

The rosette hedgehog let out a small smile decorate her face. This might turn into an interesting night after all.

A tulip flower field that crossed through miles and miles of grass. All of them planted beautifully according to their color. Although it was dark, the moon provided enough light to differentiate the colors. Amy tried to not look at the dark hedgehog, but something inside of her was looking for his approval. After all, the pink hedgehog really admired the success of Shadow even if he didn't have the best personality.

Shadow's ear moved from side to side as he looked around the field of tulips. His face had a small smile and he moved his body from side to side as he tried to get all the view possible. Amy had to admit that the dark hedgehog being excited was a pleasant view to witness.

"Like what you see?" Amy asked as she approached the actor.

"I have to admit that I have never seen anything like this."

Shadow and Amy began to walk next to each other, following a soil path and the beautiful tulips were next to them.

Dammit ... This is getting awkward again. Why did I think this was a good idea?

There was a heavy silence in which only the crickets and the sound of shoes impacting the soil could be heard. The wind also helped the atmosphere to be less silent as the strong air made the tulips and grass move from one side to the other and they softly touched each other.

"How did you know about this place?"

Just like that, all previous silence was broken, Amy turned her head to look at the black hedgehog and immediately regretted it. The moonlight softly landed on his face enhancing his strong features. His vermillion eyes shone brightly and there was a certain confidence on his face that Amy couldn't quite describe. Wow, was Shadow the Hedgehog an attractive one?

"Well, to be honest, I kinda stumbled upon it," Amy answered as she looked away to make the small blush on her face go away.

"So you are telling me you found this place ... by accident?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Just the thought alone made Amy embarrassed. If she was completely honest, she found the tulip field on one of her many times chasing Sonic. When they were younger, she was a total fangirl. Always chasing the blue blur, but Amy was always left behind by Sonic. In one of those days, she was chasing him and of course, he ran away from her. In an attempt to keep up with him she ended up lost. She walked a lot through the jungle and when it was getting dark desperation began to hit her. Then, she ran at different directions until she finally came across the beautiful tulip field.

But of course, she wasn't about to tell him all that.

"Well to put it simply... I was looking for someone, lost track of them, and ended up here."

"And did you find the one you were looking for?"

It was strange even for Shadow to be this intrigued about someone else's life. He mostly would not talk or just talk the minimum. Nonetheless he saw this as a way to return the favor. She helped him learn how to improvise and in exchange Shadow will listen to her. Although to be honest, he didn't know if that was an equal exchange.

"Mmm ... Not really, but it's alright now. I do seem him daily-"

The rosette hedgehog shut down her lips as soon as the words left her mouth. Before, she wouldn't mind expressing her long history of loving the blue one but now ... Well, it was better to keep that a secret.

"Something tells me, that this has to do with the blue one."

She really thought she was about to have a heart attack. Shadow has been part of the 'team' for a couple of weeks and he already felt something going on between Amy and the blue one.

"Am I that obvious?" She asked almost in a whisper. The awkwardness between them was completely gone now. It was just two hedgehogs walking under the moonlight on a flower field and enjoying each other's company.

"No ... I just guessed, and well, you just confirmed it."

Amy thanked Chaos that it was night time because otherwise, she was sure Shadow would be able to see her intense blush. She also cursed at the God under her breath for making her so gullible.

"Don't tell anyone, Sonic believes I am over him and the rest don't know."

The dark hedgehog let out a small sigh, he looked over at the pink lady next to him. He nodded and reassured her.

"Your secret is safe with me,"

A thought crossed Amy's mind. One of her secrets had just being exposed, she was feeling embarrassed and awkward. The pink one concentrated on the black hedgehog next to her, this time she could tell he was relaxed. He didn't look annoyed nor angry nor gloomy like he usually does. What she was about to do was risky, the whole night could go to waste but as her secret has been exposed, she might as well get something worth knowing out of this.

"Since you know a secret of mine ... don't you think its fair for me to know a secret of yours?" With her peripheral vision, she could see the hedgehog had kept his relaxed face, making her feel more comfortable. "Only if you want to of course."

" ... What do you want to know?"

"I don't know ... Do you like pineapple on pizza?"

Amy kept walking but to her surprise, Shadow had stopped doing so. She turned around and faced the black hedgehog who was a few feet away from her. While she had a stern look on her face, Shadow had placed a hand on top of his mouth. However, his other actions could not lie. His eyes were closed and his ears were trembling a little. His body was shaking as he placed a hand on his stomach. Soft attempts of trying to suppress the air from coming out of his mouth couldn't be contained and delicate sounds were created.

Amy couldn't believe it... Did she just make Shadow the Hedgehog laugh?

"Are you laughing?"

At her question, the dark hedgehog made a small turn and completely gave his back to Amy, trying to hide his evident humor.

"No," he responded but small giggles were still coming out of his mouth no matter how much he tried to suppress them.

"That was a serious question Shadow! Do you like pineapple on pizza?

Amy's serious voice was the breaking point Shadow needed to let go. This time he was full out laughing, his voice echoed through the field of tulips and it was moments like this that Amy appreciated.

A few seconds passed and Shadow was finally able to control himself. When he turned around to face the pink hedgehog, he noticed a cocky smile on her face. Shadow blames himself and Chaos for letting him act so 'out of character' for him.

"So, are you going to answer my question?" Amy asked once again as Shadow walked past her, gaining his proponent posture back.

"Out of all the questions you could have asked ... You decide to ask me if I like pineapple on pizza?" Shadow watched the pink hedgehog take small running steps to catch up with him.

"Well, do you want me to ask more personal things? What about the rumors that you and Rouge the Bat are dating?" When the question left Amy's mouth, Shadow's face turned to one of nervousness.

"Why would you want to know that?"

"Rouge the Bat is my favorite actress, she is so beautiful and smart ...I just want to know if it's true .. I don't see her dating someone like you." Amy made eye contact with Shadow and a part of him felt strange because the pink one hasn't been this straight forward with him before.

"Wait ... What is that supposed to mean?"

There was a certain tone to his voice that made him sound offended and the pink one immediately panicked. She just didn't want to ruin the good moment she was having with the actor.

"Nothing! I mean, you are very attractive and all but-" Amy felt her muzzle get hotter by the second, especially when Shadow had a smirk plastered on his face. "I mean it's just that you seem to be very ... um, quiet and Rouge is very flamboyant, to say the least."

A few seconds passed in which Amy waited for the red striped one to say something or make any type of movement. However, nothing happened and our pink lady decided to break the silence once again.

"But of course you don't have to answer that, I prefer if you tell me whether you like pineapple on your pizza or not," Amy said.

"Is that information important to you?" Shadow asked. He looked at the pink one waiting for anything that indicated that she had changed her mind on the question.

"Well, I need to see if you are trustworthy."

"And the toppings I put on my pizza decide whether or not I am worthy of your trust?"

"Of course."

Just like the situation was strange for Amy, it was for Shadow as well. He had personally known Amy for a few weeks in which they had only talked a few times for no longer than 10 minutes. Now they were talking, walking together and sharing 'secrets'. Shadow had now realized that it was true about it being easier to talk about yourself to strangers. What was even more bizarre for the black hedgehog was that even when it came to meet other actors or strangers, they seemed to talk to him out of courtesy ... but Amy? She was genuine about getting to know him.

Maybe that was why he tended to let his guard down around her.

"To be honest, I don't know," Shadow began, "I've never had pineapple in pizza, so I don't know if I like it or not."

"Oh, then next time I'll take you to the best pizza place in the village!" Amy excitedly said as the previous embarrassment was totally gone by now.

"Next time? Who says there would be a next time?" Taking his previous proponent attitude back, Shadow rolled his eyes in annoyance, clearly wanting to anger the pink one.

"Well, I am sorry Mr. Doom and Gloom! I thought you were enjoying my company. We can just go home now if you want." Amy made a turn, showing her determination to just go back home. It was intended to follow Shadow's attempt to tease her and not meant to be taken seriously. However, it seemed like the black hedgehog did think otherwise.

"Come on Amy, if I didn't like you I wouldn't be here."

The sentence made Amy's heart skip a beat. After all, anyone would feel embarrassed if a boy as attractive as Shadow said those kinds of things naturally. It wasn't like she liked him in that sense it was mostly because she made a small realization.

"That line could work great for the fanfiction I am working on ... Thank you, Shadow!"

"Well, that's nice to hear," Amy said, trying to get the most out of the conversation. This could lead to some very good dialogue scenes. "And don't worry, I was playing with you, I like you too Shadow!"

Amy was waiting for the dark hedgehog to say something but instead, a puzzled look stayed on his face. He didn't say anything but the only thing that happened was that vermillion eyes met with emeralds ones. The dark hedgehog was in a trance, in disbelief and so, Amy questioned him one more time.

"Are you alright?"

"Uh? Yes, my apologies."

Shadow quickly turned around and began to walk once again on the soil path. He looked at the flowers from side to side and then at the moon in the dark sky.

He turned around again and faced Amy on the distance. She had a worried look but soft and gentle at the same time. Her face shone brightly and her emerald eyes were more beautiful than any Chaos Emerald Shadow has ever seen. Indeed, Amy was beautiful even when Shadow did not see her with romantic eyes.

Or so he thought.

Without him knowing, Shadow let out a small smile decorate his face.

Amy had taken him to see other places. They were simple but Amy's small talk really made it memorable.

That night ended without any problems. Nothing else was said as they only enjoyed each other's company in silence during the motorcycle ride. Amy took Shadow across the island to see things he had never seen before. The moon provided enough light for them to fully appreciate the beauty of the forests, beaches, and even small villages. Amy let out a small smile whenever Shadow got excited about the smallest things. Did he see a pretty flower? His ears would move excitedly. Did he see a pretty view? Again his ears. Did he like the moon and stars? Ears. He was very expressive with them and Amy was found of such a cute act.

When their time as running out, Amy drove to her house. She thanked Shadow for the night and a sense of her told her that Shadow didn't want to say goodbye just yet.

She climbed out of the motorcycle and watched Shadow take her previous seat. The pink hedgehog was ready to enter her house but before, she had to properly say goodbye to those vermillion eyes.

"I'll see you next month Shadow," Amy said as she kept eye contact with the black one. "I hope you enjoy this month's chapter."

"Chapter?"

Holy shit.

"Episode! I meant to say, I hope you enjoy this month's episode!"

Amy cursed mentally at the fanfiction writer inside of her who was so used to saying 'I hope you enjoy this chapter.'

"I will ... I believe," Shadow replied.

"Well, you are a great actor," Amy said quickly. "Whatever you are on it, I am sure it will be great."

Her words weren't meant to come out of her mouth so easily. She said them so naturally that it caught her and Shadow in surprise. The pink hedgehog looked around nervously as she tried to hide the evident blush on her face. Amy wanted to disappear, to get inside her house, and just start writing the new fanfiction she had in mind.

A few seconds in which no one said a word until Shadow decided to break the silence.

"It will be great ..." Shadow said as he turned on his bike again, ready to leave. "Because you helped me along the way."

The next day, Amy was happy to have some time for herself. She concentrated on writing today. The pink one had different ideas she would like to explore for her new story. Although she didn't have a title just yet. She had been thinking about writing a Sonic Boom alternative universe story in which everyone was part of a Resistance and they had to fight the forces of evil aka Eggman.

The rosette hedgehog, who was still on her pajamas, was laying on the sofa. Laptop on top of her, and a bag of chips next to her and the television on. She was writing peacefully until a 'ring' sound came from her computer. It was a notification from fanxfiction.com.

She didn't think twice about checking out the notification.

It was a comment from one of her loyal followers, 'The Fanfictioner.'

" After I got home yesterday I couldn't sleep and decided to re-read 'Falling Petals' I can't believe just how good this is! The characters are well written and the romance is well developed. Although I don't like Sonic's character much especially how he treats Amy at the beginning ... but overall it's amazing!"

The comment caught Amy by surprise. She had never gotten a comment before saying that they didn't like Sonic's character. The pink one wanted to know more about the opinion of her reader. She began to type:

"Thank you for the lovely comment! However, I would like to know why don't you like Sonic's character?"

The pink one-clicked enter and she thought that it will take hours for The Fanfictioner to respond. However, as to prove her wrong, the anonymous reader responded within a minute.

"Sonic was kind of a jerk to Amy at the beginning and even after he confessed to her, he treated her badly just because he is shy. I think if Sonic was truly in love then he wouldn't hurt her so much as he did. At least if I had someone I liked, I would never hurt them by avoiding them and leaving."

Wow, Amy was impressed. She had never thought about it that way. Amy had to admit that although her work was praised, she knew that she lacked in the romance department. Especially because she had never experienced it. Well, she does love someone and knows the feeling of it very well ... but her feelings had never been corresponded.

An idea popped in her mind.

"I had never seen it that way ... Actually, would you tell me more about your opinion about the characters and story?"

Once again after replying to the comment, it didn't take long to hear a reply.

"Sure, I would be delighted to talk to a talented writer like yourself. Do you have a Xiscord?"

She smiled to herself as she read the comment. It was nice to have someone who appreciated her work and without a second thought she began to type:

"Yes, I do, ARoseWithoutTorns#0923. Please add me."

Amy thought she would get some feedback from 'The Fanfictioner' and that would be it. However, it turned out to be more than that. Yes, there was great feedback but they also talked about themselves. It was strange for Amy because although she had talked to her readers before, it had never been to this extent. They talked about their hobbies, their daily lives, and things of interest. They texted and texted each other and the pink one couldn't think of anything else but to be happy that she had made a new friend.

TheFanfictioner#0619: I am so bored at home, I wish I could take a ride on my bike, too bad it's raining.

Amy had been so engrossed in their conversation that she didn't realize that it was raining outside.

ARoseWithoutTorns#0923: What a coincidence, it's raining where I live too! To be honest with you the first time I rode a bike was yesterday.

TheFanfictioner#0619: Really? How did that go?

ARoseWithoutTorns#0923: Yes. I actually learned right there and then. I am pretty sure the guy I went with didn't realize that was my first time driving a bike.

Amy mentally laughed, yesterday was her first time driving a bike and she learned from the few times she saw Shadow driving it. She knew that Shadow would have never let her drive his bike if he knew that Amy didn't know how to drive. Therefore, she had to look confident enough so Shadow wouldn't doubt her skills. She was actually proud of her acting because Shadow seemed to not know that she was a first-time driver.

TheFanfictioner#0619: Well, your friend must be an idiot, its easy to know when it's a person's first time driving a bike.

ARoseWithoutTorns#0923: Well, he can be an idiot. He is rude but he can be nice ... Sometimes.

Amy's mind diverted to Shadow. He was indeed a very interesting hedgehog. And very unlike anyone she had known before. He was mysterious, quiet, and wasn't afraid to speak up his mind even when he seemed extremely rude. That's what she had gotten from him and the few times she had talked to the black hedgehog.

TheFanfictioner#0619: Maybe he is rude because he likes you. He doesn't want to be rude but he is unconsciously rude because he doesn't know how to deal with his feelings.

ARoseWithoutTorns#0923: Hahaha I doubt it! I think he likes someone else ... Besides, I have feelings for someone else as well.

The pink one made a disgusted face at the thought of Shadow having those kinds feelings towards her. Definitely, Shadow wasn't her type and she was sure that she wasn't Shadow's type either. The only thing that could happen between them besides a co-worker relationship was a friendship and that Amy didn't mind at all.

TheFanfictioner#0619: Well, that guy must be very lucky.

This month's episode of Sonic Boom wasn't great ... It was fantastic. People were just loving the introduction of Shadow the Hedgehog into the story. After a few hours of being aired, people were already talking about it their social media and other types of platforms. Amy even had to admit that if it wasn't because she was already in love with the blue bur, she might have been a Shadow fangirl. He acted amazingly and he made his character relatable which was very hard to compel.

Right now, the pink hedgehog was comfortably sitting on her sofa, as the TV was on and she was scrolling to her fanfiction web page. Tomorrow she was going to the beach with her friends and maybe she could take her laptop with her to finish some writing.

An idea crossed her mind and to celebrate the brand-new episode of Sonic Boom, she decided to open up prompt requests.

She began to type on her laptop.

"Sonic Boom's new episode was really good, wasn't it? To celebrate today's episode, I'll be opening up prompt requests! Send it right away and I'll answer you as soon as I can!"

By: A Rose Without Thorns

The pink hedgehog clicked 'Enter' and soon after she began to receive multiple notifications. She opened one from a username she clearly recognized. This person was a loyal follower of hers and it was now her personal goal to give them the best story they could ever ask for.

However, her heart skipped a beat when she read the prompt request.

"As I watched this recent Sonic Boom episode, I realized that Shadow and Amy's characters have great potential to develop a relationship. Can I request a story where Shadow and Amy fall in love? Thank you."

By: The Fanfictioner

A/N: Finally, 'The Fanfictioner' is here. I am super excited to continue writing this story, it's been a while since I have worked on a series like this. The chapters would take around a month or so to come out, not sure. But they will be long chapters ... So I hope you enjoy each and one of them! Thank you for reading! This story is going to have a little bit about everything. Romance, mystery, comedy and drama.

I want to thank @redsunlight for the amazing artwork, please everyone check out her tumblr! Once again, thank you so much! I also want to thank @mysuperlaserpiss, @nothing-fancy94 and @justasadcloudpassing because they are just lovely people!

Ps. My other story "By Accident" will be uploaded soon too with a new chapter :)

Prologue: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/621393124729683968/the-fanfictioner

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/PeachesAndReams

#shadow and amy #shadow the hedgehog #shadamy fanfiction #shadowxamy #amyrose #Amy Rose #sonic boom #sonic fanfiction #sonic the hedgehog #sonic fanfic #shadamy

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franboos · 5 years ago

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I don’t want to be your friend i want to kiss you neck

a vds college roommate fic

written by @gucciboner and me <3

word count: 3282

chapter one, part 1/3 (part 2/3)

They arrived in Antwerp about a half-hour ago. It is the beginning of September. The weather is still okay and since these are the last days of summer everyone is making the best of it by enjoying the sun outside. Lucas is driving a minivan with Isa in the passenger seat. They arrived in the last part of their journey, since they are just a few streets away from their new student residence.

“I already love Antwerp,” Isa says while looking out of the window, “the city looks so full of life.” She smiles and turns to look at Lucas. “Yeah, I’m excited too,” he says smiling back while still focusing on the road. “I hope our roommates are as nice as they told us online.” Isa starts laughing and bumps Lucas’ shoulder. “I’m sure they are nice people, don’t worry about it.”

Just a few minutes later they arrive in the correct street. “okay, now we gotta find the right house,” Lucas says slowing down slightly so he can absorb his surroundings, “It’s house number 264, you’ll look right, I’ll look left.” He slowly keeps driving through the street looking for the house until he hears Isa screaming next to him.

”Stop, it’s here, number 264!”

Lucas stops the van and turns to Isa her side to check out the house. “Well, that looks about right,” he smiles.

“We, surprisingly, survived this 2 hour trip together with you behind the steering wheel, so I think we are gonna be totally fine here in Antwerp,” Isa teases.

“Ah! I’m a perfectly good driver,” Lucas reacts offended but quickly changes his voice to a teasing one, “how dare you offend me like that Isa Keijser!”

“I think, Mr. van der Heijden, as one of your best friends, I’m privileged enough to offend you like that,” she says with a serious but still mocking tone.

“So you're one of my best friends? Weird I didn't know that.”

“Luc!” Isa says offended.

“I’m just kidding Ies, I’m really happy we are doing this together, since you are one of my best friends.”

She gave Lucas en smile with a hug right after. “Well, what are we waiting for, let’s go and meet our new roomies!” Isa giggles and jumps out of the van.

Once they both stand in front of the door, Isa rings the bell. They wait a few seconds until they hear a voice through the intercom. “Hello?”

“Oh, uh hi, we’re Isa and Lucas. we're here to move in,” Isa says.

“Ah yes! If you wait a sec, I’ll come open the door,” the voice, that probably belongs to a guy, says.

After a moment a figure appears behind the door. They hear the jingling sound of keys, a loud sigh, some more keys rustling together and finally the lock clicking open.

The door swings open to reveal a guy. Lucas swallows, taking in his appearance. He looks about their age, tanned skin and dark brown hair, or maybe it's black? Lucas can't really tell in this lightning. He's wearing a maroon-coloured shirt with grey sweatpants underneath that are just a tad too short. He looks taller than Lucas, altogether he was very handsome.

“Hey guys, come in,” the guy smiles stepping aside. They walk inside and Lucas closes the door behind him.

“I’m Jens, nice to meet you.” He stretches his hand out in front of Isa who takes it.

“Nice to meet you too, I’m Isa.”

Jens smiles and releases his hand from hers and turns to Lucas, sticking out his hand again. Lucas looks at his hand for a second before taking it in his own. He sucks in a breath at the touch.

Suddenly Isa elbows him in his side. He totally forgot to say something. “Oh uh,” his voice comes out shaky, “I’m Lucas.”

“it’s nice to meet you, Lucas,” Jens nods with a smirk on his face.

They drop each others hands. The small silence that followed was quickly replaced by Isa’s voice.

“So, can you give us a little tour?”

“Yes, sorry, of course,” Jens said, shaking his head, “follow me.”

Lucas and Isa follow Jens from the small hallway to the stairs, which leads them to another, but little bigger, hallway with a few doors on the right side, another staircase on the left side and a door on the end of the hall.

Jens point to the doors at the left. “these are few of the bedrooms which you can look at later, because first I’m showing you the living room.” He keeps walking to the door at the end of the hall, and opens it before stepping aside so Isa en Lucas can enter first.

There are two couches placed on the left side of the room with a small coffee table in the middle, which already as some empty beer cans laying on top of it. On the wall is a TV, and it looks like there is already a PlayStation installed. In the middle of the area, there is a big wooden dining table with place for at least 8 people. And on the right side is a kitchen that is, for the most part, separated from the living area with a white empty wall. Behind the kitchen table are a few large windows and two doors that lead to a balcony. The whole place looks a bit crappy, it is still just a student residence, but Lucas thinks they will be able to make this a nice and homey place. Maybe they can add some plants?

“This is our main living room. As you can see it’s mostly still empty, I just moved in three days ago and I thought it would be more fun to decorate it all together.”

“It looks nice,” Isa says while walking to the middle of the room to take a better look.

“Are any of the others already here?” Lucas asks Jens.

“Ah yes, one guy named Friso. We arrived at the same time, but I think he is in his room right now. He isn’t so talkative, so I don’t know much about him.”

Lucas nods.

“and the last people should also arrive today if I’m correct.”

“That’s awesome,” Lucas says while giving Jens a small smile. “But how does this work, can Isa and I just choose between the leftover rooms?”

“Yeah, the rooms are all kind of similar, so it doesn’t really matter who gets which room. So there are two rooms down this hall, one of which is already in use by Friso, with a small bathroom in between them. Then we have three more rooms on the second floor, but with a bit bigger bathroom. And lastly a room in the attic with a small bathroom.”

Lucas and Isa nod and take in all the information.

“I’m using one of the rooms on the second floor, the one right in front of the staircase, so you can choose between the rest,” Jens says while walking over to one of the couches to sit down.

“Okay, thanks Jens,” Isa said while grabbing Lucas's arm to drag him out of the living room. ”Come, Luc, let’s get ourselves a room.”

After checking out all of the rooms, Isa settles in a room on the second floor, at the end of the hall next to Jens his room, with the bathroom next to hers.

Lucas went for the room on the attic. It has a big window, which he likes because now his room has a lot of light, and there is enough room to leave all his art and his easel.

The rooms already contain a bed, a dresser for some close and a small desk with a chair. Lucas his bed is placed on the left side against the wall, opposite from the window. It is a double bed, which he likes. The desk is also placed on that side and the dresser is next to the window.

Lucas looks at the setting for a while, before deciding to switch the dresser and desk. He places the desk right under the window. this way he has a lot of daylight while working, and he can look outside while doing so, which calms him down.

After giving everything a place he is satisfied with, he hears Isa calling him from under the staircase. “Luc, come, we're gonna get our stuff!”

“coming!” He walks out of his room and hops down the stairs.

“Jens and Friso are gonna help us,” Isa says when Lucas walks up to her.

“Friso?”

“Yeah, that other guy. Do you ever pay attention, Luc?” she rolls her eyes in a playful way. “I just had a little chat with him, he seems nice.” “So come, you got to meet him too and we're gonna get our stuff from the van.”

They walk down the other staircase, through the hall to the front door. Jens and Friso are already waiting at the back of the van. This is the first time Lucas sees Friso. He has black hair, is wearing a simple grey sweater with dark blue jeans and wears a pair of glasses. He kind of reminds Lucas of Shane from buzzfeed unsolved.

When Lucas is in front of him, Friso shakes his hand. “Hey, I’m Friso.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Lucas answers.

“Okay, let’s get all this shit to our rooms,” Isa says, while opening the back of the van.

When Jens walks into Lucas his room, he sees him sitting on the floor opening one of his clothing boxes. “This is your last box”

Lucas looks up. “Thanks, you can put it next to the others,” he says while pointing to the last unopened boxes standing next to his desk.

Jens walks over to the other boxes and places it next to them. he stands back up and takes a look at the stuff that Lucas already took out. There is a skateboard placed against the wall under some band posters. He takes a better look at the posters. One of them is from the 1975 and the other from the arctic monkeys. He does recognize the names and knows they are indie bands, but he doesn’t really listen to it himself. Next to his desk is an easel with an empty canvas on it. There are a few pictures on his desk, probably with his friends, a few books, an open sketchbook and a lot of paint and some brushes. He wants to take a better look at the sketchbook, so he moves some of the boxes making more room for him the stand.

On the paper is a pencil drawing, a portrait of a woman laughing with wavy hair and eyes that sparkle. The whole drawing has a calm and happy vibe to it.

“that's my mom.” Jens jumps a little from Lucas’s voice, before looking up.

“It’s really pretty. Did you draw this?” Jens asks curious.

“Yeah, I think that's kind of obvious since half of my room contains art-related products,” he laughs, “but thanks,” he says with a genuine smile.

“Do you just do this for fun or do you also study art or something?”

“Well, of course, I do this because I like to do it, otherwise it would be a waste of time. But yes, I’m gonna start studying art, here in Antwerp.”

“That’s so cool! From what I have seen, it looks like you’re really good at it.”

Lucas laughs. “You have literally seen one pencil drawing I did.”

Jens rolls his eyes. “Okay, then show me more, convince me,” he says with a cocky smile.

Lucas stares out the window, staying silent for a second.

“Unless you don’t want to show me more, of course,” Jens says, realising art can be something very personal.

Lucas looks back at Jens. “Maybe another time,” he says before ducking down to grab another box and walking back to his dresser.

Jens stays silent for a second, watching Lucas walk away. The small interaction had left him stunned for some reason. “I’m heading to the supermarket for dinner, any requests?” he asks, walking over to the door.

“Uhm, can we just get pizza. I’m really hungry from the drive so some good pizza would be nice,” Lucas looks over his shoulder.

Jens nods. “That sounds good, see you later.”

“Later,” Lucas answers going back to unpacking.

After putting some of his clothes away Lucas decides to check how Isa is doing. He walks into her room and sees that there are still a lot of closed boxes on the floor. It looks like she hasn’t done anything at all.

“Looks like you have made a lot of progress,” He says while scanning the room.

Isa is laying on her bed that is located in the middle of the room with the head against the wall. She is scrolling through her phone while mindlessly eating out of a bag of leftover chips from the trip.

“huh? O yeah, I’m not in a rush,” she says with her eyes still glued on her phone.

Lucas laughs. “I can see that.” He walks up to her bed and drops himself down next to her.

“You excited for your first day of school tomorrow?” Lucas asks. “Gonna be kinda scary, new country, new people.”

“Yeah and new hot people,” Isa says with a cocky smile while finally taking her eyes off her phone and looking at Lucas. “It is time for you to meet a nice Belgian guy. On our way here I already saw some cute guys walking around.”

“Ugh Ies,” he says annoyed but with a smile on his face. “I’m not really looking for anything you know.”

“Okay I know that, but it doesn’t hurt anyone to at least meet some new guys, does it?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. I will meet some people, for you,” he says while getting off the bed.

“No, no Luc. You gotta do it for yourself!”

“Yeah Ies, whatever. Get off your lazy ass and start unpacking these boxes” He gives her a big smile and walks out of the room.

They are all sitting on the couches in the living room, eating their cheap pizza while watching some random program on the tv when the doorbell rings.

“who's that?” Isa asks with her mouth full of pizza.

“Probably one of the new housemates,” Jens shurgs.

When nobody gets up to open the door friso says “somebody needs to get up,” but everybody stays put.

“Alright, I’ll go,” Friso sighs moving off the couch.

Just a few minutes later, Friso comes back with two new people behind him. Jens sits up straighter so he can see who the new people are.

One of them is a girl. She has blond wavy hair, her skin is kind of tanned and she is wearing light blue denim skinny jeans on her long legs with a black tank top and white Nike air forces. She looks kind of sweet but arrogant at the same time. Next to her walks a guy. He has messy dark blond hair, he is wearing a white oversized band shirt with dark blue pants and a pair of white dr. martens underneath. He has a big grin on his face while scanning the area he is standing in. He looks like a chill guy.

Before Jens observe them more, Friso starts talking.

“Guys, this is Annabell and Ely, our last roommates.”

They all put down their pizza and stand up from the couch to properly meet.

“Do you guys already know each other, since you came together?” Jens asks after they introduced themselves.

“O no, we just arrived at the same time,” Ely answers.

“Ah, okay cool,” Jens says. “Well you guys can fight over the last two available rooms. One of them right down the hall and one upstairs on the second floor.”

Ely turns to Annabell. “Oh, I don’t really care, you can choose. I’m going for a smoke,” he says while turning around to walk to the balcony.

“Is it okay if i come with you?” Jens asks.

Ely looks back. “Yeah, sure.”

Jens walks over to the coffee table where he has an already rolled joint ready. He grabs it, and walks to the balcony where Ely is already lighting his joint. He leans back against the railing and looks at the view. It is around 8:30 in the evening. The sun is slowly setting, giving Antwerp a orange glow.

“You need the lighter?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jens says while taking the lighter from Ely.

He puts the joint in his mouth and covers it with his right hand from the wind while lighting it with his left hand. When it is lit, he lowers his left hand and takes the joint in his other and inhales slow but deep.

“What do you study?” Jens asks after exhaling the smoke.

“Music production, gonna start my second year tomorrow. You?”

“That’s so cool! I’m gonna study communication and multimedia design, it’s a lot about programming and visual design and stuff. This is my first year so I’m pretty excited.”

“I’ve heard of that, sounds cool,” Ely answers. “What do you do in your spare time?”

“I like to skate with my friends.”

“Really? I also skate, we should go to the park together sometime,” he says while taking another drag.

“Yeah sounds cool,” Jens says with a smile. It’s gonna be fun living here with these people he thinks.

“Does anyone else want anything?” Annabell shouts from where she’s standing in the kitchen

They’ve been spending the rest of the night hanging out in the living room, getting to know each other. Except for Friso, he wanted to go to bed early and get a goodnight rest before his first day.

“No thanks, we’re all good” Lucas yells back at her.

When she returns from the kitchen holding a can of coke, she walks over to the couch that Jens is sitting on. She plops down right next to him. Leaving almost no space in between their bodies. Jens rubs his hands over his legs and gives her an awkward smile.

“Have you lived in Antwerp your whole life?” She asks him, turning her upper body into his direction.

“Yeah I have.” he slides his body away from her, completely leaning against the armrest of the couch.

She pushes the tab of her coke can down before taking a slow sip, looking into Jens’ eyes the whole time.

Across from them, on the other couch, Isa is trying not to laugh at how uncomfortable Jens looks.

"wow me too, weird I haven't seen you before," Annabell says, making Isa and Ely snort at the same time.

Annabell tries to give them an innocent look. “What?” She says, batting her eyelashes.

Lucas rolls his eyes at her, he already doesn’t like her. Right when Annabell is about to say something else to Jens, Lucas cuts her off. “I heard there was a chill skatepark around here somewhere, is that right?”

“Yeah, there is.” Jens looks relieved and sends him a small smile. “You skate too right? I saw your board in your room.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Annabell slumps down against the couch and crosses her arms with a big pout on her lips making Isa laugh again.

“Jens and I were talking about skating together, you should join us,” Ely suggests.

“Yeah, you should” Jens grins directly at Lucas.

Lucas smiles weakly and nods, “Yeah cool.”

He was kind of hoping to skate alone with Jens, but there’s plenty of time for that in the future.

#this is my first time writing a fic #hope you enjoy #vds week #van der stoffels #skam nl #wtfock #I don't want to be you friend I want to kiss your neck #when the chapters are complete we will also drop them on ao3 #lucas van der heijden #jens stoffels #isa keijser #fic

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peterstanslizzie · 5 years ago

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Reacting To: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Season 2 Episode 4)

Episode Title: To Catch a Deathstalker

Spoiler Warning: Kindly proceed if you’ve already seen the episode or are able to handle spoilers.

1. Episode 4 opens up with an action scene already! We see two of the ModFrogs, Harris and Kwat chasing after Wolf who stole a heart-shaped box of chocolates from them. I believe this is a flashback to a time when Wolf hasn’t met Kipo yet. Wolf manages to escape by crossing into Deathstalker territory, which is basically where the giant scorpions live.

2. However, she’s being hunted by one of the scorpions, which is able to detect Wolf’s heartbeat. She realizes this and is able to calm herself down and the scorpion leaves eventually. But Wolf seems fascinated by that same scorpion and goes to sneak up on it herself. As the opening credits start of roll, we can hear some noises, which sounds like Wolf attacking the scorpion. I guess that’s how she got Stalky? Cool throwback lol.

3. We get back to the present and we see Scarlemagne’s Nobles flying through the city, looking for Kipo and the others. The coast is clear and Wolf tells Kipo that the fastest way to her parents’ old burrow is by passing through Deathstalker territory. She also warns the rest about making sure their heartbeats don’t go too crazy when they’re there.

4. Even making it over to the entrance of Deathstalker territory is already so difficult with the Nobles patrolling the area. Benson and Dave both come up with a distraction called ‘Flaming Phantom’, which involves some cheese and an explosion, giving Kipo and Wolf the clear to head over to the entrance themselves first.

5. At Scarlemagne’s Court, we see a brainwashed Hoag filling up a wine glass with nectar bomb. Scarlemangne then orders his “soprano”, who is basically a mute who can sing really high, glass-shattering notes to use her singing to break the wine glass, resulting in an explosion that breaks open the door of a massive safe.

6. Inside the safe is revealed to be massive stacks of what it appears to be gold bars that once belonged to the humans who were the rulers back then. The scene then cuts over to the Nobles walking on the street and carrying the gold bars with them.

7. The same cloaked individuals we saw at the end of the first episode are overlooking the area. I still have no clue as to what they are. Back to Kipo and Wolf; they’re now walking all stealth-like through the territory but Kipo is struggling to keep calm. Wolf advises her to inhale for four counts and exhale for eight, which seems like solid advice to me. Who else actually tried doing the same thing? I did lol.

8. They eventually come face to face with a scorpion and it appears to be the same one that Wolf attacked and chopped off its pincer. Both Kipo and Wolf try to keep their heart rate on the low but it’s too difficult because there’s a bunch of scorpions all over the place. So the scorpions start chasing them and they climb up to one of the buildings’ balcony. And it’s revealed to be where Wolf’s old home is! That’s cool and all but why did she choose to stay in such a dangerous place lol. I guess the scorpions can’t feel her heart beat at higher altitude places probably?

9. Kipo is fan-girling over Wolf’s apartment and the different toys/apparatus she’s been using incorrectly as weapons instead. Kipo then finds a karaoke machine to which Wolf refers to it as a Hoot-hoot; Reminds me of the Pokemon lol. According to Wolf, scorpions are afraid of owls and she usually says “hoot-hoot” to scare them away.

10. Wolf wants to make sure Kipo is able to keep herself calm for when they go back outside. But after an hour of attempts, Kipo feels discouraged and is beating herself up for letting her people down. After telling Kipo to take a break, her demeanor immediately changes and she turns her attention to the catalog of karaoke songs.

11. Kipo puts a duet song into the system and starts singing a song about being heroes. And because it is a duet, she wants Wolf to join her but Wolf is not down on singing. But as she continues to sing and gets into the lyrics, Wolf is starting to let her walls come down and is even willing to stand beside Kipo whilst she’s singing.

12. And just like that, Kipo is able to learn how to calm herself down and that is by singing! It’s just like how she was able to calm down the Mega Monkey by singing to it too. Anyways, this means that they’re both ready to continue on their journey.

13. They’re walking outside but a scorpion is sneaking up from behind them. Wolf notices this and tries to warn Kipo but she’s too focused on calming herself down that scorpion rushes in to make its attack. Wolf tries to defend Kipo but she gets stung and taken away by it.

14. Instead of transforming into her jaguar-form, which I actually predicted for her to do, she goes back into Wolf’s apartment to gather all her “weapons” and goes to the scorpion’s den to save Wolf. She manages to temporarily restrain it with the jump rope but it manages to break through it shortly. Kipo is doing a good job defending herself and in the end, she got the scorpion to stab itself. Nice job!

15. Unfortunately, more scorpions are on their way and they are doing the best they can to keep their cool, once again. They eventually sneak past them and they make their escape. I actually just realized how come they didn’t try to make owl noises to try to scare them away? Didn’t Wolf tell Kipo they’re afraid of owls?

16. Meanwhile, Scarlemagne is overseeing his Nobles building a structure made out of the gold bars. Lemiuex arrives to tell him that had lost Kipo’s trail much to Scarlemagne’s disappointment. However, he did come back with some findings of his own and that is discovering the destroyed mind-control collar that was once around the Mega Monkey’s neck. Scarlemagne is angry to find out that the Mega Monkey is free and he demands for his followers to find both Kipo and the monkey immediately.

17. In the distance, the three cloaked individuals are spying on what’s going on and they find out that Scarlemagne’s is going after the Mega Monkey. So one of them announces that they need to find her first. I wish I’d knew who these people/mutes are lol.

18. Wolf is proud of Kipo for handling herself well back there. In fact, her spirits are really high right now to the point that she’s even humming! OMG, I never thought I’d see her acting to chilled like that. Kipo is obviously taken aback by this but she’s not satisfied and persuades Wolf to actually sing this time:

19. And she does sing! Aww and she’s blushing...that’s so cute!

20. Oh look! Benson, Wolf and Mandu finally reunite with them; I was beginning to wonder if those three were okay lol. But why are they dressed like that? Anyways, Benson also knows the song and he starts to sing too. We basically are treated to a group performance of the very same song, including Wolf! I have a question; Is the name of the song, “You’re Not Alone”?

21. That’s the end of my review of episode 4! I hope you guys enjoyed reading it. Please be on the lookout for my review of episode 5 tomorrow. Thanks for all your support and likes. Bye!

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katherinemallory · 4 years ago

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#4 What happens in Geneva

If you'd like to know how Katherine has found herself in Switzerland, you can read the previous chapters here: #1 #2 #3

Everything went wrong. After a week in Geneva we’ve been escorted back to England by two MI6 agents sent directly by M. As it turned out later, M made a decision to abort the mission because of the possible exposure.

We had the assignment under full control until that one disastrous evening when Amanda tried to seduce one of Abbruscato's men in order to gain more information about their monkey business. The man gave an impression of being interested in spending the night with her, but suggested to meet her the next evening. Looking from today’s perspective, I think we should have got an idea of his true intentions, but unfortunately we didn't get suspicious at all...

Before Amanda had the chance to meet the man the following day, two MI6 agents arrived in our hotel in the dead of night and announced that we would have to go back to London immediately. To support their story, they showed us the documents signed by M only a few hours earlier...

Later on they spilled the beans and told us that Abbruscato's men planned to kidnap us that day. The MI6 wasn't sure if those criminals had known that we were secret agents, but the information about the kidnapping was confirmed by the Swiss equivalent of the Secret Service (our friends from Switzerland probably had the criminals’ phones tapped or something)...

These were the kind of things I had in mind when I was sitting in our private plane to London. I couldn’t recall *anything* about the conference or even our investigation... But most of all I felt helpless. I refused to believe that my first mission as a double-0 ended so quickly.

Frankly, I had no doubts about the merit of M’s decision. Of course he was right. There was no need to take risks here, but I still naively felt that he could have let us finish the job. We knew what we had got ourselves into.

On the other hand, I was a bit flattered by the fact that M didn't want to risk our lives, and he responded to the situation so quickly. Perhaps he cares for us a bit, I thought, even though I was aware of the fact that my theory definitely wasn't true. But he did send two of his agents to escort us after all. Suppose that's something.

Amanda didn’t express her feelings even for once during our flight. She didn't want to talk to me. I could tell it by the look of her eyes that she felt guilty, but I didn't blame her for anything.

...

After our arrival in the MI6 Headquarters, we were allowed to take a bath and get some sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor (there is not a thing in this building they would not have there). In the morning we were taken straight to the M's office. It was around 8 A.M. I'll never forget the shocked look on Moneypenny's face, when two strapping men made sure we went through the famous leather maroon door.

It surprised me a bit that the whole double-0 section was there. Thirteen double-0 agents were sitting on the chairs in front of M's wooden desk. I noticed two empty chairs - they were intended for me and Amanda - but I didn't see M anywhere. What is going on here? I thought.

Suddenly, one of the agents turned his head and winked at me, and then I felt my cheeks flush. Bond smiled gently at me and I saw him whispering something like “You look great”.

I felt the urge to answer him, but then I heard a familiar sound. An attribute of an older and life-experienced man. I’d recognize those footsteps anywhere.

“Good morning, everyone,” said Mallory who has just walked through the door. "We will be joined by 002 and 005," he added harshly, looking at me and Amanda and pointing to the two empty chairs, as he sat behind his desk. And that’s when I realized our upcoming conversation wouldn’t be pleasant.

In fairness, I couldn’t say the same thing about what was right in front of me... it was *very* pleasant... Mallory was wearing a double-breasted navy chalk stripe suit. It was very similar to the one I remembered from our first encounter. Both of its buttons were fastened, and it reminded me of a way a naval officer would button his uniform. Is it a coincidence that I also have a thing for double-breasted jackets and coats...? They give you an elegant and powerful look at the same time, and that is exactly the case with Mallory... The colour of his blue shirt was a bit less intense than usual and it suited him pretty well. There is something extraordinarily attractive about this kind of men: sedate, but not lifeless; quite distant, and yet hypnotizing... If only I could tell him that I find him incredibly attractive, I thought. I was dying to do that for the first time since my promotion.

“Well, now that we’re all here, let me cut to the chase,” said Mallory. “Due to the failure of one of the double-0 missions, all of your ongoing field operations are suspended with immediate effect. We have to withdraw you all for a while and make sure we don’t have a leak. You’ll get informed about any changes to the decision”, he announced.

He looked at every single one of the double-0 agents except for me and Amanda. Hmm, this is going well... I turned my head to the left and I noticed that Bond has been observing me for the whole time.

“However,” continued Mallory, “this doesn’t concern you, 007. You’ll leave tomorrow. Report to Q later.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Bond. He stood up and buttoned his suit, ready to leave the office.

“Dismissed,” said Mallory, and the rest of the double-0 agents followed Bond.

Me and Amanda didn’t dare to move, as we were aware M would like to talk to us both. And as we could expect, he raised his voice, making sure everyone in the office has heard him, “002 and 005, you stay.”

M has never sounded so *horrible* before. The threatening tone of his voice gave me goose bumps.

He observed as everyone left the office, and then turned his head to the window. To me it was clear he was furious, but he didn’t want to express his emotions yet. The three of us were sitting in silence at least for a minute, as if he was looking for the right words. Or worse, as if he didn’t even know how to start.

“You’ve both disappointed me,” he said, looking directly at me and Amanda. “What you did was a complete disregard for the procedures...”

Amanda revealed a bit of her rebellious side.

“With all due respect, sir, it could have been worse.”

M’s gorgeous green eyes were full of annoyance.

“Worse? You both were unbelievably reckless,” said Mallory breathlessly. “You didn’t take into account that they were *professionals* as well! You should have been more cautious!”

I didn’t like it when M raised his voice, but... that day I knew he had the right to do so and I was too ashamed to answer him.

"You’re right, sir,” said Amanda after a few seconds that felt like hours.

“Thank you, 005,” replied Mallory sarcastically.

He paused, rubbed his chin and looked down on the files that were lying on his desk. An unbearable silence fulfilled the office again. He didn’t look up as he added, “You’re both officially grounded... That’s all for now, 005.”

Amanda stood up, nodded, and left me alone with Mallory. For a while, he refused to notice that I was there, still focusing on the files. Then he looked through the window.

“I find that hard to understand that you didn’t stop her from going to that man. It was pretty *obvious* they would like to verify you both, wasn’t it...?” his voice was gentle and smooth, but not for long. “I would expect such an imprudence from a few other people I know,” confessed Mallory as he began to get more emotional. "But you...?" he made a dramatic pause as if he wanted me to really feel that I had let him down. “... such a responsible and calculating operative!?"

He looked through the window again. It has started raining.

“Now, would you care to explain why it all happened? And take your time, 002.”

I had absolutely no idea what to say. There were so many things I wanted to tell him at that exact moment: how I wasn’t properly focused on the mission because of Bond, and how he - my supervisor - was on my mind every single evening I had spent in Geneva... There is no way I can confess the truth to Mallory, as the whole story will depict me as far from being a true professional... But lying to him won’t be appropriate either...

“There is nothing to explain here, sir,” I scratched my left cheek. “We just didn’t get suspicious and that’s where we went wrong.”

“You *just* didn’t get suspicious?” frowned Mallory with disapproval. “And what if you would have *just* been killed?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I have no excuse for my behaviour,” I answered him, looking at my shoes.

The raindrops continued to run down the windows.

“Am I to understand that you’ve learned your lesson?”

“Yes, sir.”

He didn’t answer me this time. But instead, he stood up and went to a big table on his right, and picked up a huge, but flat package.

“I suppose you’re responsible for this?” asked Mallory in a semi-friendly manner.

I noticed that the package was nothing else but his Christmas present from the double-0 section. I had suggested Moneypenny to get it before I left for my mission. A huge ship painting. HMS Victory. I’ve heard about Mallory’s grandfather being an officer of the Royal Navy and Mallory still having a soft spot for the British naval ships.

“Indeed..,” I replied, taken by surprise. “... sir. How did you know it was me?”

For the first time I’ve seen a genuine smile appearing on Mallory’s face. Even though he was standing more than two meters from me, I could observe the wrinkles his smile had formed around his mouth and green eyes.

“I’m head of this department not without reason,” stated Mallory, as he unwrapped the package. “You did some research, didn’t you?”

“I thought it would be nice to remind a former Lieutenant Colonel in the SAS of his years before entering the service. The childhood years he spent with his grandfather,” I said, as I looked at the painting. “I hope I’m not being too personal, sir.”

“No, actually I do not find this present inappropriate,” he observed the painting as if he had seen it for the first time. “I just didn’t expect such... gesture.”

“Well, sir, the whole double-0 section agreed that you would be pleased.”

It wasn't the truth, actually. I had to convince a few people, but it didn't matter that much. Mallory didn't have to know.

“And the whole section was right, 002,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll take it to my house.”

“That’s wonderful, sir.”

...

I thanked Eve for buying the painting. The whole “operation” would not have been possible without her. She pretended it was no big deal.

“You’re welcome, Katherine”, she smiled. “I’m always happy to help.”

“I owe you one. He’s delighted,” I said, turning my head to the marron door that led to the M's office. “Shall we have a dinner together tomorrow? What do you say? It’s on me.”

“With pleasure,” she replied. “I hate to rush you out of here, but someone’s waiting for you,” she smiled and pointed to the door.

“Alright, I’ll call you later, Eve.”

I opened the door and saw a bloody handsome blonde man. It was him. Again. Bond, James Bond.

“The rain’s still pretty bad... Would you mind if I drove you home?”

“No,” I replied firmly. “Let’s go.”

...

The rain didn’t bother me at all. I was in a pretty good mood and Bond was craving to know why I kept giggling the whole time. I didn’t want to go into details, but I told him what Mallory had said about the painting, and how much it meant to me, as it had been my idea to buy him a present. Later on, I asked Bond about his new mission, but he couldn’t tell me much about it, apart from the fact he would be going to the Maldives.

“It’s weird that M still wants you to go abroad. It’s a big mess. It may be dangerous.”

“Oh,” said Bond, “is the *famous* 002 worried about me?”

“Come on, you know it’s pretty dangerous to begin any mission right now.”

“Well,” added Bond, “I guess I’m not an attractive female operative who has just got herself in big trouble,” he teased me.

“Don’t be ridiculous, James. M withdrew us all. All except *you*. There were plenty of male double-0s there.”

“And none of them was as good-looking as you.”

...

At the time we arrived and got outside of the car, it was still raining. We stood under Bond’s umbrella for a few minutes.

“Hey, I’m serious about this mission,” I said, as I buttoned my coat, because I was cold. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied. “It’s just really important. MI6 can’t wait any longer,” he paused. “I’m sure you get it. You are not going to tell me what has happened in Geneva either.”

“Yeah. What happens in Geneva, stays in Geneva.”

Bond leaned in toward me.

“You can’t imagine how relieved I am that you’re all safe and sound,” he whispered. “I missed you so much, Kath,” he got even closer and kissed me on the lips before I could say anything. I felt his right hand on my waist. “I leave tomorrow... and I already want to be back in London.”

“James,” I said, looking into his blue eyes, “take care of yourself. But about that kiss... I’m not sure... this is a good idea. Let’s take it slow.”

He didn’t like my answer. In a single moment his blue eyes turned cold.

“It’s not about me, is it?”

There was a wry smile on his face.

“I should have noticed it earlier,” he said as he took his hand off me.

“Noticed what?”

“I see the way you look at him,” snarled Bond. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you earlier today, but you were interested in someone else.”

Deep inside I got scared of what I might hear from him next, but I asked:

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, please, don’t act surprised,” said Bond. It did sound like he had been deeply disappointed. He got really close to me.

“It’s Mallory, right...? It looks like you have a crush on him...”

“How dare you...” I fumed, but I never got to finish this sentence.

“... but you know what,” added Bond. “He’s way too old for you.”

As Bond said this, he furled the umbrella, leaving me in heavy rain.

“James!” I shouted. “JAMES!!”

But he refused to look at me. He got inside his silver Aston Martin DB10 and all I could hear except for the sound of rain, was the car’s starting engine.

I’ve never felt like that before - furious, but unable to say *anything*. The blood in my veins was *boiling*, even though I was soaking wet. How dare he... how dare he tell me things like that! Who the hell does he think he is? And that kiss... who gave him the right to kiss me?

In general, there were two things that got me upset. First: I wasn’t sure how I should react to Bond’s comment about Mallory being “way too old for me”. Second: I was aware of the fact that... Bond was right about me and what I feel for Mallory.

It’s not everyday someone leaves me speechless. It’s not everyday someone suggests that I’m in love with my supervisor.

***

To be continued.

#fanfiction #james bond fanfiction #james bond #bond james bond #m #gareth mallory #mallory #katherine mallory #miss moneypenny #casino royale quote #007 #002 #skyfall quote #spectre quote

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funkymbtifiction · 6 years ago

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Wicked!: Elphaba Thropp [INTJ]

OFFICIAL TYPING by Charity / the Mod

Functional Order: Ni-Te-Fi-Se

Perceiving Functional Axis:

Introverted Intuition (Ni) / Extroverted Sensing (Se)

Elphaba takes and runs with new ideas once she conceptualizes them as possible -- her solo is all about her future with the Wizard, how they will do great things together, then he will see how her external appearance should reflect her internal state of goodness and change it so she no longer has green skin. She senses there is more than meets the eye to the movements against the talking animals in Oz. In her eagerness to please the Wizard, she fails to stop and consider her actions -- she turns the monkeys into a flying army, then quickly realizes the Wizard's true intentions for them. Under stress, she can be impulsive and reactive with low-order Se, worsening situations rather than resolving them. She rescues the lion cub without a plan as to what to do with it, or where to release it; she reacts quickly to save Boq, using magic she’s unprepared with and has not mastered, and in the result, creating both the Tin Man and the Scarecrow.

Judging Functional Axis:

Extroverted Thinking (Te) / Introverted Feeling (Fi)

She is a good student and someone who devotes herself to taking action against injustices. She scorns Glinda’s desire for social acceptance, and forges her own path – fearlessly confronting the Wizard about his evil intentions and storming out if necessary. Her Te can be reactive and strong-willed; she takes instant action when she sees an injustice. She runs away from her troubles, and does not mind being seen as the “witch” if it’s for a cause she believes in (Fi). She also blames herself, rather than her father or the flowers, for her sister’s premature birth and her mother’s death. Due to her upbringing (with a father who never cared for her, and excluded her in favor of her “normal” sister), Elphaba heavily identifies with other persecuted, ignored, and abused creatures – namely, the talking animals of Oz. This leads her to form a strong attachment to her professor, and take a personal interest in championing animals’ rights.

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Values: daring, nerve, and chivalry.

She alone isn’t afraid to stand up against injustice, and defy the Wizard. She allows her reputation to go down the drain, in order to help liberate Oz. She encourages Glinda to become the witch Oz needs – a liberating force. She reacts in the moment, and is happiest when she’s following her heart (“I feel… wicked!”). She fights for the rights of those unable to champion themselves.

Enneagram: 4w5 so/sx

Tritype: 468 The Truth Teller [4w5 6w5 8w9]

Elphaba has suffered from persecution her entire life, so she adopts that as her identity – expecting others to reject and dislike her. She carries her hurts deeply and finds it difficult to move past them. She can’t let go of the ruby slippers, because of what they represent and how they factored into her loss. She has a strong desire to be authentic and independent, but her social stacking also makes her care what others think (Glinda says of her, “She cares… she just pretends not to”) and she often compares herself to them. Her 5 wing make her scholarly, withdrawn, and focused on her studies – she can be elitist about her accomplishments. Her 6, however, wants others with her -- she reaches out to Glenda whenever she’s feeling out of her depth, and tries to convince her to come with her. She lacks confidence in herself at times. Her 8 is confrontational and aggressive. Her sx stacking forms an instant attachment to certain people, on an intense emotional level.

#wicked #elphaba thropp #intj #c: intj #f: intj #mbti #official typing #gryffindor #enneagram #c: enneagram #enneagram 4 #4w5 #c: 4w5 #so/sx #4w5 so/sx #intj x 4w5 #c: 468 #the truth teller #character typing

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mobius-prime · 5 years ago

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118. Sonic Super Special #8

Zone Wars: Prelude

Writer: Dan Slott Pencils: James Fry Colors: Josh D. Ray

So this story is kind of infamously hilarious, but it also introduces a rather important concept. Sonic is racing around the hills, avoiding blasts of magic from a bizarre being that basically just looks like someone put boobs, pigtails and fishnets on Robotnik and who is apparently known as Ivana Robotina. A figure that appears to be standing sideways, called Zonic, gets a report of this happening from another zone and heads out to investigate. Before Zonic can get there, however, a few more people arrive on the scene - Sally Moon and Chibi Rose, who look like exactly what their names imply, that is to say Sailor Moon characters. Then Robotina is knocked out by a rather flimsy blow from a rose, and another unexpected figure makes his entrance - Tuxedo Knux!

Don't worry, Sonic, we're all just as baffled as you are.

At this point Zonic arrives through a portal and ushers everyone back through it, back to their home zone called the Luna Zone. He explains to Sonic that he's a Zone Cop, coming from a parallel dimension that runs 90 degrees through all other dimensions, allowing them to effectively police any attempts to travel to alternate zones. Sonic challenges him, saying he's been to plenty of other zones, but Zonic informs him that he deliberately sent Sonic there from his home zone, Mobius Prime (eyy, blog title drop!) to help restore order.

Oh c'mon Sonic, we're only like a third of the way into this comic. You have plenty of time to win Sally Prime over! (Well, technically, he already has, but don't tell him that!)

Running on Empty

Writers: Roger Brown and Nelson Rebeiro Pencils: Nelson Ribeiro Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Sonic and Amy are hanging out on a hill overlooking Knothole, admiring the view, and when Amy gets cold, Sonic races down to the buildings and back in a fraction of a second to retrieve her coat. When she compliments his speed, he decides to tell her about a time it almost got him killed. One day a few months ago (at least that's what I'm assuming, since Sally wears her trademark blue vest throughout it, and she didn't always have that near the beginning of the comic) Sonic thought he heard Sally calling for help, so he rushed to the gazebo where she appeared to be standing. However, his hand went right through her like she was a hologram, and then Snively, hiding behind the structure, activated his trap, zapping Sonic.

Ooh, dramatic. Sonic rushed back towards Knothole and encountered Rosie roaming the woods looking for an apple grove. Sonic rushed to lead her to it, trying to catch one of the apples before it fell from the tree, but suddenly found himself unable to stop running and smashed into the tree, dropping a whole heap of apples onto his head. At least this helped Rosie collect the apples she wanted, but on the way back Sonic noticed a Robotnik surveillance drone above the trees and decided to run back to Knothole to warn his friends. However, again, he was unable to stop running in time, and what's more, his sheer speed created some kind of vacuum behind him, sucking up tons of junk and depositing it directly on top of his hapless friends.

Rotor offered to run some tests to figure out what was causing Sonic to suddenly be able to run so fast that it was causing him problems, and had him run on a treadmill, which of course quickly overloaded and exploded. The data Rotor collected before it was ruined informed him that whatever had zapped Sonic had given him super-super speed, but along with it, every time he used it he aged further, causing him to quickly turn into a feeble old man. Everyone (except a fearful Antoine) teamed up to infiltrate Robotropolis and find the machine Snively used to cause this effect, hoping to get it to run in reverse and turn Sonic back into his former fifteen-year-old self. Once they got inside the city, Rotor discovered that although he was able to alter the machine to run in reverse, they needed a security code to actually activate it. However, as you might expect, at this point Robotnik and Snively, along with a host of swatbots, entered and sprung an ambush. Sonic was determined to save the lives of his friends, so despite his decrepit state, he used his speed one last time to destroy all the bots and kick Robotnik out of the room.

Exhausted from his feat, he collapsed, and his friends still didn't have the code needed to save his life. Sally, thinking fast, grabbed the gloating Snively and put her acting skills to use.

And just like that, the aging process was reversed, and no one ever thought to try to reverse-engineer that to help anyone else suffering from age-related problems ever again! Back in the present, Amy is pleased with the story, and asks for more, which Sonic happily obliges. It's nice to see that despite her obvious crush on him, Sonic is quite friendly with her in this universe, considering that in other canons he's often been shown to be somewhat callous toward her feelings.

Den of Thieves

Writer/Pencils: Frank Strom Colors: Barry Grossman

It's time to see what ol' Monkey Khan has been up to lately. He's been residing in a village called either Lau Kar or Leung Kar (it's called both over the course of the story, for whatever reason), along with two Mobians who… well, I can't tell what animal they're supposed to be by sight, but the wiki tells me they're rabbits, and they're brother and sister, named Liu Fang and Liu Chi Mei respectively. One morning they're distraught to find the Temple of the Golden Lotus being robbed by some bat ninjas of the Yagyu Clan, and call for help, which comes in the form of, you guessed it, Monkey Khan. He beats on the ninjas for a moment, but then they pull the smoke bomb trick and vanish, to his surprise.

Khan, Fang, and Chi Mei head up to the lake, where they're predictably ambushed by several more Yagyu ninjas. They try to get to higher ground, perhaps hoping to imitate their favorite Jedi Master, but find themselves dropped through a trapdoor into an underground room.

Okay, first of all, that does not look like a dragon, that looks like Godzilla with stegosaurus legs. Second of all, it's obviously a robot and not a mythical terror, something which Khan focuses in on right away. The "dragon" attacks him, hoping to steal his headband to become another piece of the Yagyu's stolen treasure collection, but Khan beats it back and then attacks its circuitry, confusing it and causing it to turn on the Yagyu ninjas instead. As it chases the Yagyu away, Khan, Fang and Chi Mei collect all the stolen treasure - fifty years worth of it, in fact - and take it back to their town, triumphant. Good to see Khan's found himself a place in the world, huh?

Ghost Busted

Writer/Pencils: Jay Oliveras Colors: Frank Gagliardo

This story is actually a retelling of an episode by the same name from the SatAM TV show, told from the point of view of Tails. Sometime in the past, he had gone out into the wilderness with Sonic and Antoine for some good old fashioned roughin' it in the wilderness, when Antoine, supposed to be hiding so Tails could practice tracking him, fell screaming down a muddy slope into the water below. He claimed that he had seen a ghost, but Sonic and Tails brushed him off, saying there's no such thing. That night, Sonic kept Tails and Antoine up late by telling ghost stories, including one about the "Headless Gopher" who was cursed by a stolen gold medallion. Antoine irritably (and somewhat nervously) demanded Sonic stop talking so he could sleep, and feeling tired, Sonic and Tails joined him. However, in the middle of the night, Tails found himself awakened from creepy dreams to something even creepier…

Tails was certain that he'd seen the Headless Gopher, and what's more, Antoine was now missing. Sonic decided to humor him and they split up to search the immediate area. However, Tails hadn't gone far when he circled back around and to his horror, saw Sonic standing right next to the fiery ghost, appearing to be working together with it to find him! He tried to fly away to find Sally and get her help, but ran smack into the ghost…

I don't know about you, but I'd love to find a bush like that, 'cause a bush that perpetually glows like it's on fire sounds awesome. The next morning, Tails, emboldened by his scary nighttime experience, asked Sonic for some more ghost stories as they packed up to leave. Sonic offered to tell some more later, but just then, Tails noticed a shimmering gold medallion on the ground near their camp… and thus, the three brave souls ran away screaming their heads off, certain that they really had gotten a visit from the Headless Gopher in the night. And ever since, it's been their little secret that they've never admitted to anyone else. Great job, guys! Truly a tale worthy of the legendary Freedom Fighters!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sonic super special 8 #writer: dan slott #writer: roger brown #writer: nelson ribeiro #writer: frank strom #writer: jay oliveras #pencils: james fry #pencils: nelson ribeiro #pencils: frank strom #pencils: jay oliveras #colors: joshua d ray #colors: frank gagliardo #colors: barry grossman

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brunhiddensmusings · 6 years ago

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Tell me more about this conspiracy theory about dragonball as a retelling of journey to the west please

okay, some of this is pretty surface level to the point its just face value but also just more ignored then denied firstly, i must establish ‘journey to the west’ to those not familliar with it- its a 2000+ page long chinese novel from the ming dynasty, like 1600 if i recall, but odd because it focuses on a buddist mindset in a time when china still considered buddism to be a foreign influence. the author uses fairly large sections to critisize the other contemporary options to buddism such as daoism (for being largely unconcerned with helping people or betterment) and confucianism (for being rigid to the point it cant adapt and promote extremely bloated beaurocracies incapable of doing much) as well as to extoll the upsides of budism (namely magic powers) and how badass demons are journey to the west is notable for being the origin of about 80% of all anime tropes and over a dozen anime and videogames are directly based on it son goku, unsurprisingly, is pretty much a dirrect anlouge for son wukong, the magical stone monkey king that was born with laser eyes spends the first 7 chapters becoming about (i lost count) 8+ kinds of immortal, learning how to shapeshift and fly from an old hermit monk, and pissing off most gods of any note and the entire bureaucracies of both heaven AND hell. as i said, this is face value to the point its pretty open

son wukong’s identifying features including a size-changing 8 ton iron staff, being pretty much indestructible even to major gods, being extremely impulsive and moderately arrogant, flight, and pretty much openly admits he has probably eaten some people. this should sound familiar however he is not the main character, Buddha himself buries him under a mountain (which has a magic seal on top because a regular mountain wouldnt be heavy enough to hold him) to try and teach him some humility (which fails) saying he needs to wait untill someone frees him in which case he will be endebted to and be the servant of said free-er. while we progress to the ACTUAL protagonist of the story a bald monk named Tang Sanzang is in fact the central charachter, although his name has been interpereted several ways including Tripiṭaka (also the name of the baskets of scrolls hes supposed to carry). the big B entasks he of the shiny head with the task of journeying from china to india to pick up said sacred scriptures so holy they can redeem anyone and then bring them back to filthy filthy china thats badly in need of these ‘morals’ things people keep talking about. but this is where you start to get a lot of ‘wait, that sounds familiar’ when i describe things like ‘bald monk’ and the adventures cueball the magical is going to go on with his companions of anime

because almost immediately after freeing son wukong from the magic mountain of sityerassdown and putting a magic circlet on his head that causes him great pain when baldy says a prayer to keep him in line (yes this is where inuyasha gets the ‘sit’ necklace) they come across a SHAPESHIFTING PIG DEMON who turns out inst all that bad a guy its just that his new wife is very upset because she thought she was marrying a handsome bishounen despite admitting hes a dilligent worker and treats her well because hes seeking attonement for having eaten people after being kicked out of heaven (where he used to actually be a bishounen in the celestial army) for hitting on women. yet another case of DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR

and i just now realize why he was wearing the chinese military officers uniform or at least would sound familiar to people who watched the original ‘dragonball’ and not just DBZ where oolong and the 50 other characters who were all established to be quite powerful when used cleverly were all relegated soely to be sideline cheer squad and ‘hey, remember these guys, from back when this wasnt the kiss goku’s butt show’- which is the point here following the original journey to the west story you started with the magical monkey shenanigans (check) then he learns from hermit (check) how to fly (check) and shapeshift (i guess they thought he was powerful enough without it despite it being one of his major go-to solutions in the story but i get that they already established thats a power someone else had so i understand leaving it out narratively) battling demons, gods, and pissing off the kings of hell and the emperor of heaven (check) and then gets humiliated by Buddha (absent, again i understand leaving this out for narrative tone and to avoid being overly religious in a kids cartoon despite actively leaving king Yema in the story) teams up with the bald monk who they initially clash but becomes his friend over time (check) who then becomes the main protagonist (major not-check) magical monkey jerk is repeatedly scolded for wantonly killing people and given a magical crown of headaches ( fail) teams up with shapeshifting pig who also becomes close ally with useful powers but has deep character flaws (check) and then team up with a dragon who ate their horse who then apologizes by transforming into a horse and then everyone forgets its a dragon (wait, what) and then team up with a river god named sandy (by this time the dragonball plot has already passed mars and is orbiting Jupiter because i think this is when frankenstein appeared and then king piccolo with his sons drum, tamborine, piano, and cymbal, i think goku kills one eats another and asked a samurai if he could eat the third but this is before they retcon piccolo to be a namek {eg- from the planet ‘slug’} instead of a demon because they keep waffling if demons are real) and is then followed by a long list of falling into traps laid by demons because the monk is naive, the pig is cowardly, the monkey is foolhardy, the dragon is too busy staying in his ponysona, and the river deity is carrying the bags narratively this is confusing for several reasons but i could literally teach a college level class on what DBZ does that no writer should ever, EVER, do and every friday to prevent unkind amounts of homework point at how original dragonball at least had narrative cohesion of purpose when it went off in left field but that's part of the journey- in original dragonball everything is a journey of the human spirit for self improvement, in original journey to the west everything is a journey of the human spirit for a shot at redemption, but in DBZ everything is goku is awesome and nobody else is worth his time unless they go ‘ha-ha, i am the most powerful fight punch guy in universe, we must fight’ because fuck anyone who isnt the most powerful being in the universe and even fuck them because they almost never have a reason for being the most powerful and its irritating how shit they are like some of them are mentally five years old who gave you the power to be this dangerous. whats odd is they specifically set it up several times that goku is supposed to narratively step aside and his son(s) step up to carry on the legacy in a return to the earlier more sensable formula, even presenting them as being less powerful as him as an attempt to move away form the absurd escalation issues the series had where goku can destroy a planet by farting yet every thursday they mysteriously find someone five times stronger then the last strongest person in the universe as that wasnt the point in either original dragonball or journey to the west where being clever was always far more important then being powerful, especially as son wukong was mostly more powerful then goku anyways but still got in monster of the week shenannegans not solvable by impulsive brutality. they knew this was a problem, they understood that the endless escalation had gone to the realm where the audience had lost any investment and nobody other then goku could be useful to the story to the point that they even had a WHOLE SERIES where to try and counteract the power creep they had some weird explanation goku is actually time traveled or cursed or some shit so hes only a kid and roughly as strong as he was in later episodes of the original dragonball..... close, so close to actually addressing the problem but also keeping so many other problems krillin moving into being the protagonist would have alleviated the majority of the problems DBZ had- the power escalation bullshittery and the complete lack of stakes as you know goku is going to punch the thing untill it explodes after six episodes of yelling and anything without ‘planet gonna go boom’ no longer seems like a problem worth caring about. goku being downgraded to being the impulsive muscle on a team that included others that were less overtly powerful but still narratively useful to the adventure would have also alleviated almost all the ‘everybody who isnt goku is a fragile useless porcelain figurine of a child’ problems that are very counter-intuitive and kind of insulting: in original dragonball, for example, master roshi was the only known human capable of doing the kamehameha which took 50 years to learn (goku learns it by watching it once and that should have been the cap for him being overpowered{a rival teacher had a more powerful version that nobody else learns}), climbed the sacred tower which took 7 years (it took goku about a week, which is well within the realm of where escalation should be), and blew up the fucking moon but in dbz his ‘power level’ is lower then his pet turtle..... despite all of that and being the one who trained goku and krillin allowing them to be absurdly strong in the first place so they apparently forgot their own history. so taking the actual good story points they aready had and throwing them in the trash is a running problem

they even had the setup for krillin being in peril continually, all the ‘krillin dies’ memes are about on par with how often every demon on the road (which they pass like gas stations) are kidnapping and trying to eat Tripitaka, whcih is framed as despite Tripitaka being powerful he isnt as powerful as his allies but never framed as useless, especially as even goku has to seek help frequently, often from non-martial sources instead of the ‘kung fu solves everything’ mindset im unsure if anyone will want to start a fight about my statements regarding daballz but im okay with an intelectual argument about its writing .... how do i tag this? i forgot replies dont let me do that but i need to learn how to tag my rants one of theese days in hopes they actually get feedback

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letswritefuriously · 6 years ago

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Episode 1x1 of My Nameless WIP

Part one

(I still need a name for this WIP btw if anybody has some ideas.) Now, I know that this post is gonna be long, but don’t be daunted! Please just check it out, see what you think! There’s gonna be three parts to this episode, so if you wanna keep reading, ask to be tagged/follow me! (Preferably both). Remember to give me feedback!

Scene 1

It’s late at night; probably about 10pm. It’s a full moon, so the night is bright and the sky is full of stars. An old, abandoned house sits under the milky way, two stories high with faded white paint, one of those triangular pointed roof above a window thingies. The leaves of a low hanging tree blow in the wind, brushing a tall, spiky fence.

Running very fast, two people vault over the fence, making it rattle, and then continue to run towards the house.

Scene 2

There is a shot from the inside of the two people entering the house. They flick torches on, and reveal themselves to be ALICIA (African America, 19, short, stylish) and ETHAN (African American, 19, tall, nerdy but sill cool TM). ALICIA pulls out a phone and begins to record.

A shot from the camera’s point of view; it focuses on Ethan, who waves. The expression on his face is almost condescending; as if he is playing with a small child.

ALICIA (turning the camera to selfie mode): Haunted house number 8.

ETHAN (off screen): I’m really beginning to think this is a waste of a gap year.

ALICIA (smacking him): Shut up. (Turns back to the camera). Up the stairs?

ETHAN (off screen): This isn’t a freaking vidchat!

ALICIA (ignoring him): Up the stairs! (She wags a finger at the camera). If I fall through some floorboards, you’re paying for my not-so-free healthcare.

ETHAN (Muttering from some distance away): She got no money.

ALICIA flips the bird at him, and then flips the camera back around so that we can see him walking up the stairs, which creak ominously. He is clearly oblivious of the profanity.

Scene 3

ALICIA is receiving a boost from ETHAN up through the pointy window thingy (oh god someone tell me what they’re called please). She clambers onto the roof, and then offers her hand to ETHAN, who ignores it and pulls himself up.

ALICIA: I can do that. Just so you know. I’m just smart, and didn’t want to fall.

ETHAN (snorting): Sure you could.

ALICIA: Just because I don’t have to go around displaying my fragile masculinity-

ETHAN: You must have VERY fragile masculinity, as it’s not there at all.

ALICIA shoves him, and he nearly falls off the roof.

ETHAN (after he has recovered): If I fell, you wouldn’t be able to blame it on Tahlia, and you’d be the one paying.

ALICIA: Yeah, ye- Oh! Tahlia! She pulls her phone back out, and hits record. (To ETHAN). Scooch, you gotta be in the picture. (She turns to the camera). Hey Tahlia! We’re back!

ETHAN: ‘Sup.

ALICIA: It’s confirmed! She opens her mouth, and then looks at ETHAN expectantly.

ETHAN: Do we have to do this is every time?

ALICIA: Yes!

TOGETHER: Not haunted!

ETHAN: Just go to sleep, trash monkey. If this wreck ain’t haunted, I’m sure your bedroom isn’t either.

ALICIA: What he said. Love ya! I miss you so much!

ETHAN (half-heartedly): Bye!

ALICIA finishes the recording.

ALICIA: I’ll send it in the morning, she’ll be asleep by now.

ETHAN: For God’s sake, she’s 10, if she’s NOT awake she’s a freaking wimp.

ALICIA: Hey, you know how strict Mom’s rules are.

ETHAN mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘sleep before you see her drunk and sobbing’. If ALICIA hears him, she pretends not to.

ALICIA (sighing): I do wish I could see her again.

ETHAN: You could just say sorry, you know.

ALICIA: I meant Tahlia, not Mom.

ETHAN: My point still stands.

ALICIA (as if she hadn’t even heard him): I don’t even remember what we were fighting about now.

ETHAN: ‘Course ya don’t.

ALICIA: I’m not gonna be the first to apologise, though.

There’s a long pause. After a few moments, ALICIA leans her head on ETHAN’s shoulder.

ALICIA (yawning): It’s only like eight years until she graduates, anyway... Her eyes drift shut.

There is a very, very long pause.

ETHAN: Yeah. Only eight years.

And we cut to black.

Scene 4

Title card.

Scene 5

The screen is suddenly split open by bright rays of bold sunlight. The camera catches on what appears to be a military base; multiple chain-link fences, a big lot of khaki jeeps and black SUVs, plane hangars and large, threatening buildings.

It seems to be abandoned; empty plane hangars, no patrols, the cars are covered in layers of dust.

The camera refocuses on a small figure, lying on a hill about two-hundred metres back. The figure is wearing dust-coloured clothing over what appears to be a black wetsuit.

Looking closer at their face, we can see that it is ARI (androgyne, 19, badass). His eyes are completely focused on the facility ahead of him. At his waist hang two boomerangs, unadorned and wooden. He raises a pair of binoculars and scans the facility.

ARI (speaking into a UHF radio): Agent queer, reporting nothing at 1400. Over.

VOICE (crackling over the UHF): Ari, cut the s***. What’s up?

ARI: What I said; literally nothing. There is literally nothing going on here. Over.

VOICE: Quit it with the overs. Please tell me you haven’t been staring at the bloody clouds for eight hours.

ARI looks over at a half-empty pack of marshmallows and a lighter next to him.

ARI: Uh... not exactly.

VOICE: Goddammit Ari, this is exactly why you lost you squad.

ARI (innocently): I thought I lost my squad because I was ‘a danger to everyone around me.’

VOICE: Same difference.

There is a pause.

ARI (bringing the UHF very close to his face): You gotta say f***ing over, man. How else am I supposed to know if you’re done?

VOICE: You just wait until I f***ing pause. Like I did just then; you didn’t say over.

ARI: Well, s***.

VOICE: Moooooood. You can hear somebody yelling at the VOICE from the other end of the UHF. Once it’s over, VOICE begins to giggle a bit, but manages to hold most of it back. So your point is there’s nothing.

ARI: Yep.

VOICE: Great, that’s you done for today. The next shift’ll be there in about half-an-hour-

ARI: About that.

VOICE: Oh goddammit, here we go.

ARI: It’s empty. I’m going in.

VOICE: S***. Indistinctly, you can hear him calling for his superiors. Ari, you know what happened last time-

ARI: Yup. And I literally see no downside-

VOICE: You got demoted-

ARI: Aaaand now I don’t have to work with anyone else. He begins to take off his khaki shirt.

VOICE: Look, you little s***, we’ve got another team on the way-

ARI: That other team isn’t going to get here for an hour. There is literally nothing you can do to stop me, so, you might as well just not tell anyone at your end.

Indistinctly you can hear VOICE talking to people on the other end.

ARI: I hate you. He is now wearing only the black wetsuit. He chucks the UHF into the dirt next to him. He grabs one last marshmallow, stuffing it in his mouth, and then army rolls forward. Almost immediately, his body begins to shake, and then shrink. Before he has completed the first complete roll, he is a desert mouse. He quickly scampers down the hill.

The camera comes to focus on the abandoned UHF.

VOICE: Ari? Ari!

Scene 6

The wind blow dust through the deserted military base as ARI hops through the chain link in the form of a mouse. He rests for a moment, and then continues to hop along.

There is a shot of an empty hangar, which ARI hops through. He comes to a door. With a nervous glance around, he becomes himself again, and then jiggles the handle. It’s locked.

ARI reaches into his-

ARI: S***. No pockets.

He drops his hands and turns to slowly look around the hangar. The camera catches on a toolbox on the other side.

There’s a pause.

Scene 7

ARI is now holding a piece of wire and a small metal tool. He picks the lock. A second later, he jiggles the handle again. The door opens this time, and he slips inside. The door closes behind him, and for a few seconds, all you can hear is the wind, as the camera gets further and further away.

Scene 8

A perfectly sterile, completely white hallway stretches away from the camera, until it intersects with another corridor. The corridor is lined with doors, and the top half is separated from the bottom half by a long silver line across the wall. There is complete and utter silence, for a very long moment.

A fly buzzes across the corridor.

Silence.

It buzzes back. The moment it reaches the other side, there is a sound similar to that of an electric fence zapping you, and ARI tumbles onto the floor. As he stand up, he shakes himself and shudders. Apparently being a fly is not too pleasant.

He looks around and then raises a hand to sliver line on the wall. With a stifled yelp, he withdraws it; a close-up on his knuckles shows them to be an angry red.

ARI: Daaaaammn. They thought this out. He closes his eyes and concentrates, but nothing happens. Kill me now.

He walks down the corridor, making no attempt to sneak; with the black of his wetsuit like clothing jarring against the white walls, he’d be spotted immediately, and nobody is here anyway.

He tries the first door he comes across. It’s unlocked, and he steps inside.

Scene 9

Inside is a white room just like the last, except for the fact that in the centre, it has a table filled with people. They all look up at ARI.

ARI (immediately adopting a serious face): Oh! Sorry I didn’t realise a meeting was in session, I’ve got an urgent message for the-

Twenty guns aim at his face.

ARI: Oh... He laughs nervously. ...I wasn’t aware that you were in the business of killing your employEES-

His voice rises to a yell as twenty safeties click off and manages to shut the door just as bullets slam into it.

Scene 10

ARI sprints down the hallway, and all the EXECUTIVES pour into the corridor and take aim. ARI turns down a corridor to the sound of reports.

ARI: Come on, shift dammit!

He does not shift. The camera cuts to a tracking shot of the EXECUTIVES running after him, trying unsuccessfully to shoot and run. One speaks rapidly into their phone.

EXECUTIVE 1: We got a security threat, Building 3, Sector 5-

Cut back to mid shot of ARI bursting through a door.

Scene 11

ARI bursts into the sunlight of the Hangar he came into originally, only now, it’s filled with at least fifty SOLDIERS. They haven’t looked in his direction yet though, and mid-leap, he shifts into a fly again.

The EXECUTIVES burst through the door he came through a few seconds ago, EXECUTIVE 1 still babbling on the phone. All the SOLDIERS guns train on them, and they put their hands up.

EXECUTIVE 2: Don’t shoot! Our spy is here somewhere.

EXECUTIVE 1 (still on the phone): ...orders to kill on sight...

EXECUTIVE 2 (to EXECUTIVE 1): This is a suspected C-O-N, give the lockdown code.

As EXECUTIVE 1 begins to rattle off numbers, the camera cuts to a close up of ARI as a fly, listening avidly.

EXECUTIVE 1: Two-three-oh, six-five-two-

ARI’s fly-face contorts in horror as he realises what is happening, and he buzzes off-

EXECUTIVE 1: Six-three-one, two-seven-five.

A fine, glittering silver and grey powder sprays explosively from the ceiling, and there is another zapping sound, as, with a yelp, ARI sprawls onto the tarmac near the opening of the hangar.

ARI (squeaking): Hi! Bullets begin to fly and he ducks around the corner. As he runs, he curses. Oh-crap-I’m-screwed-ohnoohno-I’mgonnadie- The camera cuts to the chain-link fence rapidly approaching. OH S***! He squeezes his eyes shut and jumps-

And slow motion, bird’s eye, low angle, mid shot, high angle, extreme close-up on his foot-

Right as it shifts into a jaguar’s paw.

The shot speeds back up to normal motion as ARI’s paws leave the ground, propelling him into the air and over the fence in one, graceful leap, the SOLDIERS slowing down before they run into the fence. EXECUTIVE 2 presses his face to the chain-link, curling his hands around the wires with a feral snarl, baring some very inhuman teeth. His face, inexplicably, is covered in fresh blisters.

Scene 12

SOLDIERS from a different section of the base stream through the gates, but the jaguar that is ARI is already at the crest of the hill where he was staking out the base earlier. He grabs his cloths and backpack in his teeth, and, with one last, longing look at the pack of marshmallows, continues his sprint.

A fleet of jeeps peels out of the base’s front gates, their trailers filled with SOLDIERS.

ARI stops running and shifts back to human form, looking desperately over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching jeeps. He slings his bag over his shoulders and reaches down, pulling the camouflage cover off a motorbike.

The fleet of jeeps appear, roaring, over the top of the hill, churning up dust.

ARI kicks the bike to life, shoots one last look over his shoulder, and guns the engine, speeding off.

The SOLDIERS aim the sights of their guns around the side of the jeeps and take aim, but he has too much of head-start. He speeds out of sight down the side of hill, and he’s away.

There’s a close-up of ARI’s face; he’s smiling.

ARI (under his breath): Ha, suckers. Then, no longer under his breath; Ha! Suckers! HE grins and pumps a fist in the air-

Scene 13

ARI flops onto tiny bed in a cruddy motel room.

ARI: Stupid, stupid, stupid! He balls his fists over his eyes and then tears them through his hair. This is why nobody likes you. Tears begin to stream from his eyes, but he doesn’t make any sound. You’re so – I’m so stupid.

He pulls a pillow over his eyes and shakes with silent tears. The camera slowly zooms out.

And we cut to black.

ARI (VO): I’ll find a way to fix this.

Scene 14

ALICIA is sitting on her laptop at the kitchen table in a log cabin, completely motionless, except for her fingers, deftly moving over the trackpad.

An extreme close-up on her face show that she’s frowning, chewing her lip with urgency. Her eyes look like they’re about to flood with tears, but she sniffs violently and blinks several times, tilting her head back. She sits like that for a moment, but is interrupted by her phone chiming.

She starts and immediately picks it up, her whole face lighting up with joy. It’s only a new alert though, and her shoulders slump. She chucks it back down on the table, and then flinches at the thump it makes, quickly picking it back up to make sure the screen isn’t cracked.

She sighs and looks back at her screen, slouching back in her chair.

ALICIA (barely audible): Come on, you know this.

ETHAN walks into the room, leaning over her shoulder. She swats him away and tilts the screen so he can’t see.

ALICIA (sort of playfully, but not really): Hey! Don’t look over my shoulder!

ETHAN: You’re literally just doing your mojo stuff, what’s the big-

ALICIA (irritably): It’s psychology, not mojo.

ETHAN (holding his hands up): Okay, okay. I thought you said you were going out...?

ALICIA: I AM, okay? Just get off my back, I gotta finish this.

ETHAN (backing off): I’m not on your back. Calm down, you’re already a few days ahead of the course.

ALICIA: I just need to-

ETHAN reaches over her shoulder and closes the laptop.

ALICIA (practically apoplectic): Hey! No, no no, you can’t do that, it hasn’t saved my progress-

ETHAN: You were on question one.

ALICIA: I had work to do! I NEEDED to-

ETHAN: Hey, calm down. No you didn’t. Go relax or something.

ALICIA (eyes practically popping out with rage): What, be like YOU?! Just never do anything and never get anywhere? ETHAN flinches, and ALICIA’s face falls as she realises what she’s said. I didn’t mean it-

ETHAN (eyes on the ground, muttering): It’s okay. It is clearly not okay. Just... He hands her his wallet. ...Go nightclubbing or something. Take a break.

ALICIA smiles nervously.

ALICIA: I’m really sorry, I’ll just-

ETHAN: It’s fine.

ALICIA: I feel really bad though... You know I didn’t mean it, right? How can I make it up?

ETHAN: Just go and have some fun. He folds her fingers around his wallet.

ALICIA: Um... ETHAN shoots her a glare. Fine. Let’s make a deal. If I ‘have some fun’, you finish up your college applications.

ETHAN: You drive a hard bargain. He thinks. Fine. (Playfully) Just get out.

ALICIA (walking to the door): Going, going!

ETHAN: And don’t drink!

ALICIA: You told me to have some fun!

ETHAN: Non-drug-involved fun!

ALICIA shuts the door behind her, and the smile on ETHAN’s face immediately falls. He collapses onto the chair that ALICIA was sitting in, and stays there for a long moment.

A second later, he reaches over the table and grabs himself a bag of chips. He shakes his head and grimaces, opening the laptop again.

Scene 15

ARI walks into a shop, with a sign above it dubbing it ‘face the rainbow’. Once inside, it is clear that it is a gay bar – people sitting in couples, fairly dark, with a drag queen singing in the back.

ARI immediately takes a seat at the bar.

ARI: Cheapest thing you sell, thanks.

THE BARTENDER nods at him, and turns around to get it. STRANGER, clearly drunk, flops down on a seat next to ARI.

STRANGER: Hey, handsome. My buddies bet me I wouldn’t be able to make conversation with the finest guy in the bar. Wanna buy some drinks with their money?

ARI: Great, I’ve been running off cheap beer for a month. (To THE BARTENDER) Make that the most expensive thing, thanks! (Back to STRANGER) So you know, though, I’ve only agreed to conversation. Don’t get any ideas.

STRANGER (putting his hand on ARI’s thigh): So what... what are your plans for tonight?

ARI: Nothing, although I might commit a felony if you don’t remove your hand from my leg right now.

STRANGER: Come on... don’t be like that... Tonight’ll be better if you re-

ARI: I’m not into that. Move your hand.

STRANGER: Come on, why would you be at a bar if you didn’t want to?

ARI: To have a freaking drink. This is your last chance, mate; Move. Your. Goddamn. Hand.

STRANGER: I’m sure you’ll want me once I-

Quick as a flash, ARI grabs his middle finger, jerking it back suddenly to the sound of a large crack. STRANGER yelps. THE BARTENDER looks up suddenly.

ARI: What? He wouldn’t move his hand.

STRANGER staggers off. THE BARTENDER continues to look back and forth between them.

ARI: Can I please just have a drink?

THE BARTENDER shrugs and continues to make the cocktail.

ARI: Oh, he even left his wallet here. How nice. (To THE BARTENDER) Make that two of those, thanks!

Scene 16

ALICIA is riding her bike out of the camping ground where the log cabin they were renting was. It’s twilight, and she’s going to have to ride fast if she wants to get to her destination before dark.

The bike’s wheels squeak on the road; it’s the only sound that cuts through the evening air. A bird gives a single warning, and everything is quiet. And then-

There is a crash from a little way into the woods, nearly making ALICIA fall off her bike. She puts her foot down to steady herself, and there’s another crash. Then silence.

ALICIA: ...H-Hello? The silence continues. Hello? A strange music comes from the woods, halfway between moaning and screaming, causing her to yelp and drop her bike, crashing, to the ground. The music stops. ALICIA takes a step forward. Who’s there?!

She takes another step off the side of the road, but then pauses.

ALICIA (berating herself): You’re not a white kid, Alicia. She picks up her bike, and shoots a longing glance at the woods-

A deer comes springing out of woods and misses her by a few metres. ALICIA shrieks, and then stops, looking around to make sure nobody heard. The silence presses in once again.

ALICIA (under her breath): If an abandoned house isn’t haunted, then a... She looks around. ...Deserted, creepy-ass road isn’t haunted. She gets back on her bike and continues to ride.

With her back turned to the woods, ALICIA doesn’t notice that the trees have been lit up a strange, eerie green.

Scene 17

ALICIA padlocks her bike to the bike-rack, humming ‘We will rock you’ by Queen, and occasionally singing a lyric or two under her breath.

ALICIA (half-humming, half-singing): Buddy... big noise... blood on your face... big disgrace...

She walks along the street for about enters the bar; a different drag queen is singing, and she waves hello. She walks up to the bar.

FEMALE BARTENDER (the shift has changed it’s been two hours do you really expect the BARTENDER to stay there that long?!) (Flirtatiously btw): Aren’t you a little young to be in here?

ALICIA (also flirtatiously): Who’s checking? She leans in. Who says I’m here to drink, anyway?

FEMALE BARTENDER wags a finger.

FEMALE BARTENDER: Don’t pretend you have any clue how to flirt. But she’s already getting her a drink. Just sit over there – she motions to the back – so that nobody... important sees you.

ALICIA: I think the most important person already has seen me.

FEMALE BARTENDER: I mean cops, you jackass. Sit your ass down.

ALICIA winks and walks away with her drink.

Scene 18

Camera cuts to ARI, who is practically asleep on the bar top. He arrived at ‘Face the Rainbow’ at 6pm for the tail end of the happy hour. It’s now 8pm, and THE STRANGER had a fair amount of money in his wallet.

To say the least; ARI is as drunk as a skunk.

He’s getting some pretty strange looks from onlookers. There are about three empty glasses next to him; clearly, FEMALE BARTENDER stopped bothering a little while ago.

FEMALE BARTENDER (coming over): Are you meeting someone, or are you just depressed?

ARI (raising his head): Ugh... He blinks multiple times... I think I might be meeting... someone?

FEMALE BARTENDER: Dude... I stopped giving you drinks like an half-an-hour ago, why the f*** are you still here? She thinks for a moment, and then becomes concerned. Do you have a way to get home?

ARI doesn’t move from where he put his head back on the counter, except to raise his thumb. FEMALE BARTENDER sighs.

FEMALE BARTENDER: So... you ARE meeting someone... have you even looked to see if they’re here?

ARI raises his head to give her a look with the most sarcasm it is possible to fit onto a human’s facial features. After a moment, he realises he hasn’t, and then looks around the room slowly, like a turtle.

ARI: ...Nope... They said they’d be here at... He taps his fingers on the bar top. Six hours? He frowns. What time is it now?

FEMALE BARTENDER (chuckling): It’s 8. Go home.

ARI nods slowly, and looks around the bar again. He’s just about to stand up, when he whips around again, nearly falling over. The camera catches on ALICIA, sitting the corner.

Thanks for reading! Follow me and ask to be tagged for more content! All feedback is appreciated!

#writing #my writing #writeblr #writers #writblr #screenplay #creative writing #original writing #original content #amwriting #letswritefuriously

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toasttz · 6 years ago

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Photon Breaker Zechs: Through the Window

Chapter 2: Video games are best enjoyed with your friends. After composing myself from my initial shock, I realized I was able to call up the familiar menus and interfaces as I saw them in-game. A swipe of my hand and a little willpower would call up my inventory, status menu, skill tree, and anything else I could normally access at button prompt. Once I was aware of this, I tried to find the “Log Off” or “Exit Game” option but was unable to call up that one submenu despite having all others at my disposal. Silently cursing, I called up my friend list and saw a few active profiles – namely that of Deegal. If Dieter was playing, then I would at least be in good company to figure out the situation. If he was outside the game, perhaps he could give me valuable insight for how I would get out of this mess or, if he too were suddenly in a similar situation, we could at least bask in a shared misery. I tapped his name in my list and saw he was in Strattburg as well. Which was good, as this new body felt awkward, like I was standing on stilts that I couldn't remove, as they were now my own legs. I had made my avatar as tall as a Loppo could possibly be – not counting his... my... ears I believe the game told me I was about 6'10”, or about 8 inches taller than I was in the real world. This made my gait clumsy and awkward, so I wasn't in any rush to go bolting out of the village on some half-baked effort to find him. Then the options came up: Message, Voice Chat... Wait, voice chat? How would that even work without a headset or a mic, I pondered. Either way, it would at least work to grab his attention and I could think of something else. I pressed the option and heard a strange ringing sound, like a telephone I could hear but not see had begun to ring for him. After waiting for what felt like a small eternity, but was really just a few seconds, I heard the other side answer. “Hi?” I heard a... weirdly feminine voice chime in answer. “Uh, Dieter?” I hesitated. “Jake,” the woman's voice confirmed. At this point, the only thought that ran through my mind was, Hell with it. I'm just gonna roll with this. “Can you come over here? We have some things we need to discuss,” I tried to play it off like I was in control of the situation, even though it was apparent to all involved I totally wasn't. “Okay,” the woman's voice replied, “But there's one thing...” “What's that?” I pried, beginning to walk down the main street of Strattburg, moving my eyes from side to side as I went. “Where are you?!” they snapped. That confirmed it for me – female voice or no, that was Dieter's usual level of patience. I recalled he had made a female avatar and, while the idea repulsed me in every way humanly possible, I had to conclude that his vocal chords were now physically different, much as my legs were now. “We're both in Strattburg, so we can easily meet up,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. Just as the words left my mouth, my eye took note of a player character with green text over her – the color the player's text would appear to those on one's friend list. “Deegal”. That was her... or rather, him. “How do you know that?!” he barked. “Dieter, I can see you. Turn around,” I explained. He turned around, revealing his avatar as I recall him building her – a ludicrously voluptuous Floof clan woman, barely passing for PG-13 with a karate gi that seemed to desperately strain against physics and logic to stay covering her body. Like Neeku, she had pointed, animal ears atop her head and a bushy tail waving behind her – which I would later learn wagged when Dieter was excited about something – with brown hair and bright eyes. The fact that this form was easy on the eyes made me want to throw up a little. It made sense, of course. No anime-inspired MMO would make characters less than at least conventionally attractiveness. I recall I gave my own avatar ridiculously huge, flowing golden blond hair as a joke before it immediately was concealed below the bucket helmet that all Bunkers began with. Around this time, I noticed someone had been following me and with a quick glance I was able to identify it as Seamus. It wasn't hard, not only did the green nametag prove it, but also that, unlike Dieter and myself, he made himself a human avatar and then went to great pains to make it look as much like his actual real-world self as the system allowed for, though with some embellishments all his own. I silently wished he hadn't added the weird, whispy mustache to his avatar. It was creepy and unsettling but I didn't have the heart to say so at the moment. I nodded to him, a gesture he returned as we all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion. “Well, why didn't you tell me sooner?!” Dieter grumbled as he approached us. The call, once we stopped focusing on it, seemed to hang itself up. What a courteous invisible phone line. “I was trying to,” I returned with a half-truth. As if I had any idea what the hell was going on in the first place, “It seems we're all of the same opinion,” I trailed off, unable or unwilling to state the obvious. We made an odd trio, a modestly short, immodestly-dressed Floof woman, a towering giant made up of plate-mail to the point where my sex and species were, frankly, irrelevant, and a dark-haired anime protagonist with a long, flowing white coat and the mustache one would associate with wanted posters. We really could've passed as a trio of estranged characters from an anime. “Oh, hey, Dieter! It looks like you’re here, too! Fancy that!” He beamed with entirely too much enthusiasm granted our current situation, “I woke up from a cheese poof nap and here I am. I don’t think I’m dreaming, am I?” “No, Seamus, I don't think so,” Dieter frowned dramatically at his junior. Dieter always complained of Seamus's high-pitched voice, but I just didn't have it in me to tell him that was actually deeper now than it had been in years prior. Not that I think he'd believe that assertion anyways... “Oh boy! Does this mean you’re going to call me by my actual name from now on?!” Seamus beamed, pulling his hands up to his chest in surprise and elation. “Don't count on it, Zechs!” Dieter grinned, baring fangs, “Anyways, do you guys have any idea why or what we’re doing here?” Before I could posit my theory about Satan being alive and well in the world, or monkey's paw wishes, or gypsy curses, I was headed off by a newfound intruder, “Isn’t it obvious? You play the game,” a woman, clad in a flowy, purple robe approached us. “And... who might you be...?” I became incredibly aware of the weight of the warhammer slung over my back and felt a need to have it ready, just in case. Something about her just never did sit right with me, but I maintained my stance. “I’m the administrator of Slidelands. It is by my power that you’re here now, as you are,” she explained simply. The three of us stood opposite her, at a loss for words. I could think of nothing else but to beg for whatever she had done to be undone but before I could even get that far, it was Seamus, or rather his avatar, Zechs, who spoke first. “Whoo-hoo! Thank you! I love Slidelands, and now you need us to save the world or fight some great evil, or take on a nearly impossible quest, right?” he whooped with joy. It was everything in my power not to deck him for that. Dieter seemed to share my frustrations, but I held my silence, hoping that some good news would come of this exchange. The strange woman grinned slyly at us, “See? I knew it, ever since I met you, that you’d be perfect for my purposes,” She reached out, patting Zechs's shoulder, which would later cause Dieter to joke about it being 'the first time a girl touched him' but I awaited her answer with baited breath, “No, my dear Zechs, your task before you that I wish you to complete is to conquer this world. Defeat all others with your group and realize your potential as your titles as No-Life Kings,” I was visibly crestfallen – or would have been had my helmet not hidden my face – as I let out a sigh. Ultimately, all that told me was that we were screwed and she lacked either the will or ability to set things to right if we didn't cooperate with her sick little game. “That’s pretty flowery language,” Dieter observed, making a rude gesture with his off-hand. “That's hardly the problem here,” I growled, barely above a whisper. Come to think of it, I doubt anyone heard it outside my helmet... “It’s critical to your mission. Death has no hold over you now, not that you were paragons of life anyways,” the admin smirked in a truly obnoxious fashion. She held the power in this struggle and knew it too, the smug snake. I grit my teeth in response, willfully ignoring the inherent futility. Dieter folded his (her? Never mind. Not thinking about that anymore.) arms across his chest, “Is that so?” “I guess you’ll have to see!” she again grinned at us, “In any case, I hope you’ll enjoy and explore my world, and eventually, fulfill my task,” She then, without warning, faded from view, becoming little more than a hologram before vanishing completely. So that was our challenge. We were being asked to complete an MMORPG. She might as well have handed us a spade and asked us to count the grains of sand on a beach. Online games are, by design, endless. They are designed to be unbeatable, not because you'll hit a wall at the opposite end, but because you'll never run out of doors and hallways. As I said before, Slidelands has undergone over 15 major expansions and add-ons not to mention smaller bugfixes and minor content upgrades. Even if a player soldiered through the enormous swaths of content – or simply cherry picked their favorite bits and focused primarily on the story quests – the difficulty eventually begins to scale on a logarithmic basis, meaning no amount of grinding will ever be enough to satisfy the difficulty demands of the next steps. In short, you either undergo, frankly, ungodly amounts of side content, spending enormous amounts of your life doing quests that are, by and large, unnecessary, or you get hard denied by the obscenely high numbers of late game content. Most players simply reach a saturation point and drop off, stop paying their monthly fees, and allow their accounts to be soft-locked by the administration until they either pick it up again or delete it from their hard drives. Telling me to “beat an MMORPG” is akin to telling me to tear down Mt. Everest with a shovel. Doable only in theory. My theory-crafting train of thought was derailed when Zechs pumped both fists skyward and shouted, “Well! Time for us to explore, you guys!” His boundless optimism would be admirable, were it not so misplaced. Dieter mumbled something incoherent, prompting Zechs to ask him what was wrong. “I… don’t know how really to play this game,” he confessed. “You serious?” I was incredulous, “But you spent like four hours on it before, didn’t you?” “Well, yeah, but I spent most of that time actually making my character. I only actually played the real game for about twenty minutes. Well, twenty minutes after I finished the tutorial. I know how to use items and all, but I’ve seen combat tutorials online, and I am not ready to say I would wager my life on the byzantine, comprehensively dense pile that is Slidelands combat,” Dieter had a bad habit of stuffing 20 dollar words into 10 cent conversations, but it was a welcome change from the 2-bits one was more liable to receive in an MMO. But I digress. Placing an armored hand to the helmet-equivalent of my chin, I said, “Well, I guess the best way to understand it is to undergo it yourself, then!” “Hey, yeah, we can go out into the forests,” Zechs suggested, “You can level up and learn the ropes. We’ll be nearby and there’s nothing that could possibly hurt us there. Well, not hurt me. There are still elite critters who can give you a hard time, there, Jake,” I shot him a look, but I doubt the meaning found its mark as he just grinned in response. “Fine, fine, I suppose, if I’m going to be stuck here for the time being, I may as well get the low-down from the “expert” here. First things first, though, I, uh...” Dieter trailed off again, looking awkward for a moment. Again, Zechs had to prompt the follow-up, “I…uh, need to powder my nose, or whatever!” “Is that it, why didn’t you just say so? There’s one over there. Although, it’s cool. Why didn’t you just say you needed to go?” Zechs managed between his hysteric laughter. “Because dude or no, I’m not going to out and say I need to take a crap to you, Zechs,” Dieter demanded, then hurried off, clearly not perfectly in control of his new frame. “We have to use the bathroom in an MMO?” I pondered aloud. “Well, since we're in the game world now, I guess we still need to do those things. Y'know, like eat and sleep,” Zechs returned, “What are you gonna do with all those layers of armor when nature calls, anyway?” “Hardly seems like your concern,” I growled, “Moreover, I can just open the interface and unequip anything, as needed. Though I suppose since I can fiddle with the latches, I could do it the old school way,” I reasoned, best as I could. It's not that Zechs's logic was wrong. It's more that I just couldn't put my head around this 'world' being 'real'. As far as I was concerned, this world was a game, a 'fake' world that somehow impeded me from returning to the 'real' world. We stood idly. Or, rather, Zechs leaned against a fence and I practiced walking in my new body by pacing, trying to adapt to just how bizarre it felt to suddenly be as tall as I was. I had been the same height since I was 13 years old – to suddenly have 18 years of muscle memory pulled out from under me was quite a shock. “Sure is takin' her sweet time,” Zechs observed. “His time,” I corrected his nomenclature, aware of how much triggering that would cause, should it have been broadcast in the server's public chat feed. But honestly, I couldn't say I would've cared, as I tended to mute that when this was all just a game. “Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...” Zechs giggled. “Eww. Gross. Barf,” I replied, “I'm putting a moratorium on that line of thought right now,” As I was practicing my steps, I felt one leg fail to connect and I went face-first to the ground. I sighed deeply as I glanced up towards a densely wooded area, just behind a nearby tent. I then witnessed Dieter walk into the bushes and... offer up a prayer to the porcelain god there. Well, never getting that image out of my head, no matter how hard I try. I pushed myself to my feet and walked back to Zechs, pretending I hadn't just seen that as Dieter quickly jogged back to us. “Okay, okay, I’m good, let’s go,” Dieter said, looking quite flustered. Zechs nodded and I offered Dieter an unheeded glance of pity. We ventured into the first forested zone outside the town, where Dieter had briefly started doing some simple quests and got to level 3 before losing interest in the game. Dieter was a Jetter, a class that specialized in speed and attack at the expense of all other stats, and it suited his impatient, impulsive personality type quite well. Explaining to Dieter the Three Rings Theory of party formation was just a waste of breath, as he would just rush all of his problems and hope that the limited sustain talents of the class could carry him. Not that Zechs was any better, but at least the Breaker wore medium-class armors and therefore could soak hits better. But what do I know, I'm just the party tank. I suppose now is the time to explain Slidelands and her namesake. Imagine a slider puzzle, made up of square pieces that can be rearranged to form a picture. That's how the map of the game looks, when taken as a whole. The game is made up of moving 'pieces' that follow set rotations, linked by warp gates at the extreme edges of each. On each tile are a series of zones, broken up into towns (safe zones), field zones (like the forest, where monsters spawn), dungeon zones (small, self-contained areas full of monsters and loot), and raid zones (essentially, super dungeons). If it sounds like this game has entirely too many systems crowbarred into it... well... you're right. Once in the forest, Dieter set to work, randomly punching and kicking critters, screaming his attack names like a man possessed. Or perhaps, a woman possessed by a man, I guess? I chose to ignore him in order to check a theory he caused me to consider. That, instead of using an interface, we could use our abilities by simple verbal command. Zechs and I tried this a little while Dieter sent furry bodies sailing through the air. I found a spot in the menu called 'Journal' I had previously ignored while playing the game where I could focus my thought on it and they would manifest as text memos. I thought about making a memo about it, but reconsidered when I realized it might come off as redundant. “So, uh, guys, I see some squares in my vision,” Dieter shouted over to us, “Whenever I do attacks they fill in. They seem to erase themselves after a few seconds, though?” “Oh, those?” I looked up from my memo, “Those are your Art Cells,” “And what are those...?” Zechs raised a hand to emphasize his point and began to explain, not unlike a college professor, “It’s a way that the developers found to halt the excessively fast attacks of the Jetter. In vanilla Slidelands, the Jetter’s actions were limited only by the action speed of the user. Because of this, people would overdose on coffee, ritalin, and sometimes… other things, in order to increase their reaction speeds and solo even the strongest known raid bosses. To counter this, the 1.1 patch replaced the Jetter’s action set with the Art Cells, forcing them to pause every so often and wait for further attacks,” “So, I got nerfed then?” Dieter balked. I rolled my eyes. Only he would view something that stopped players from actively breaking their finger bones as 'I got nerfed'. “Well, not really? This was back like… twelve years ago? I doubt you would’ve cared back then,” Zechs nervously grinned with a shrug. Dieter then went back to punching the squirrels as I briefly removed my gauntlets using the interface. “What're you doing, Jake?” Zechs pried. I silently grabbed a fistful of grass from the forest floor and let the blades cascade into the breeze as they wafted by. “I couldn't do this when it was a game,” I observed, seeing small amounts of the chlorophyll stain the white fur of my paw-like hand, “Weird,” “Uh, are you getting existential or something?” Zechs was clearly uncomfortable with this. I sighed. My attempts at parsing this world piece by piece was soundly defeated by someone who simply chose to embrace a world with no real accountability like a manchild. “Uh, guys? I found this weird monster statue. It also has a weird exclamation point over it,” Dieter shouted over to us. “Monster statue?” I wondered, sliding through some of the in-game menus in front of me over to the in-game encyclopedia, a disgustingly comprehensive guide to anything one is liable to encounter in the game. After using the search function, I found it. “Ah. Here it is. It must be a Master Statue. Given location, probably the World-Devouring Ogre subclass,” Oh, right, subclasses. Those are yet another means by which to customize your characters. You can level them up to your heart's content, but you can only have one active at a time – thereby only receive the stat bonuses of one at a time. Broadly speaking, these fall into one of four families: crafting, collection, combat, and hobbyist. Crafting classes, like blacksmith and seamstress, create useful tools, weapons, armors, and other things adventurers can immediately put to use. Collection subclasses, like miner and woodcutter, are for the gathering of raw materials. Since raw materials will be used in recipes well into the endgame sections, there is always a demand for their services. Combat subclasses, like the World-Devouring Ogre and Vampire, supplement combat talents and can even grant additional combat skills. And hobbyist classes, like Beekeeper and Qwibon Rider, each have unique abilities all their own. “Are you sure?” Dieter called back. “Yeah, dude,” I returned, re-equipping my gauntlets, “You like massive damage dealing, this subclass’ll give you that. Go for it!” I looked back down to my memo-to-self as I jotted down my observations. “Wow, look at them go,” Zechs admired, evidently watching Dieter's battle against low-level fauna with great interest. I hummed a reply, wondering vaguely if our memos could be seen by other players. Last thing I'd want was for some passers-by to read that I had been sucked into a game and assume I was crazy. “Up and down and up and down and...” Zechs chanted rhythmically for a time. “Uh-huh,” I managed. “It's like watching gelatin bounce!” he sputtered and salivated. “Yeah, well, I would assume... Wait, gelatin?” That was what commanded me to look up at the fight again, as Dieter was dancing furiously against a crimson-colored critter. I then watched on as it sunk its teeth into Dieter's arm and I saw a green bar sink slowly downward and change to an equally-red color as the monster in question. “The hell?” I whispered. I watched as he activated some buff or the other, punching the critter out of the air and throwing it back as it unleashed a mortifying scream. “Dieter! That cry! That’s a roaming boss! Oooh, I was afraid of this!” Zechs exclaimed, running towards our companion, “Don't worry, we'll help you!” A boss? Surely Zechs had misspoke. Could boss-tier monsters spawn in the very first field zone?! I briefly pondered just how sadistic the devs of Fairy Land were in their design philosophy, but then I remembered these were the people who sent a giant crab riding atop a giant turtle after Neeku and I for sitting in the shade for too long, and I quickly pursued after Zechs. When I caught up, I bent down, halting his advance, “No, no. He's... he's got this. I think,” He and I took a step back to watch what would happen next. What unfurled next was a truly impressive and acrobatic display of combat prowess. Not hindered at all by his new physique, Dieter deftly dodged and dished out damage with deadly devastating decisiveness. I was legitimately impressed. At one point, it seemed like he had the monster on the ropes and would force it to retreat – many monsters in the game were actually given pretty advanced AI routines to dynamically react to how a battle was going – but Dieter would not grant it the opportunity. He brutally grabbed it out of the air and began squeezing the life out of the thing by crumpling it into a ball as it was originally a piece of furry origami art. And, much to my horror, stuffed the thing in his mouth and ate the damned thing. I don't know if it's the fact that the taste of paper triggers my gag reflex or if I was just too stunned to even comprehend this, but I just stood there, stunned at the display. Dieter then turned to us, a crazed bloodlust burning in his eyes as he unleashed a fell and terrible howl, throwing his head back like a wolf. Just in time for his oversized chest to follow-through and bash him in his own face, throwing him head-first to the floor below. “Whoa,” I heard Zechs admire, barely above a whisper. I sighed and walked over to my stunned companion and glanced down at him. He blinked a few times, presumably trying to shake the haze off, as he groaned, “C-can you help me up?” he weakly offered. “Got a bite to eat and you think you could take me on?” I chuckled, then gestured with my free hand to the area on my helmet where my mouth would otherwise have been, “Oh, you got some Critter in your teeth,” I heard him mumble his reply, “Oh, good. I could still take you. I'm level 75 now!” “Oh, well, that’s good.” I nodded as I called up my menu before my hand and flipped a few settings, “However, still, let me put my profile on public,” Windowz, Proton Bunker, Level 237. “Oh. Wait, levels in the hundreds? What the heck is up with that?!” he grunted, in a way not entirely dissimilar from how I had reacted to the same realization. Zechs walked closer to us to explain, “This is a MMORPG, and one of the worst about grind. Of course this game is going to have a stupidly high level cap. In fact, in the fifteen years that Slidelands has been up and running, no one has hit the level cap. Ever,” I didn't have it in me to mention I heard previously heard rumors about the game's level cap going up with each expansion, either, so I simply assisted Dieter in getting to his feet and helpfully said, “Here, let’s get you back to town,” Not long after, we sat down in the biggest tavern of the first town. I was skimming menus still as we found a table and sat down together. I admit I was only half-paying attention as Zechs and Dieter engaged into a conversation about the latter's recent stat point gain and his wanting advice on where to distribute them. Like there was any doubt, since the min-maxing scrub was already following a meta build I had heard of – where the Neutron and Jetter had insane power/speed builds that had surprising amounts of self-sustain. It struck me as absurd that he'd follow a guide and then suddenly stop midway in. In the back of my head, I could hear Neeku's condescension of “But... but the meta!!” I chuckled when the thought crossed my mind. My focus returned midway into the discussion with Zechs gawking, “So, you're telling me that you made a nearly perfect min-maxed character without trying to do so?” “I guess?” Diegal shrugged. “Wow, man, just, wow,” Zechs shook his head in disbelief. “Like you have room to talk,” I scoffed, “Your build is a Photon Breaker, a middling all-rounder 'Tron alongside a middling all-rounder front line combat class. Face it, Zechs, you're a jack of all trades, master of none,” The Photon Breaker lacked major, crippling weaknesses, which made it noob-friendly and a 'safe' choice for the noncommittal sort. “So? What's your build then?” Deegal challenged. I sighed, pressing the tips of my gloved fingers together before my helmet. I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off, “Dude, you seriously need to take off your helmet. At least in here. You can't be a big, scary space marine guy all the time!” I sighed again. I guessed he couldn't see my nonverbal cues and figured he might have had a point. I yanked the bucket off my head and shook my sweaty hair free as it carelessly tumbled down around my head. As I mentioned earlier, my hairline in the real world was... unsatisfactory. So as a bit of an in-joke, I gave my character a ludicrously massive pompadour worth of blond hair that flared a bit in the front, in traditional anime-esque fashion. Deegal made a strange face at me, perhaps surprised I was playing a loppo race, but allowed me to speak, “I, Jake,” I deliberately hammed up my delivery, “am a Proton Bunker. Proton is a physically inclined 'Tron, while Bunker is the epitome of defensive field control and enemy direction. I ensure that enemies focus on me and me alone,” He nodded wordlessly at me, but seemed a bit startled by something. He knew I played a tank, so I guess it was the loppo thing. Weird. “Here are your orders, sirs and madams,” the waitress stepped over to our table. She smiled at me, almost apologetically, as she spoke, “The, erm, meatball sandwich for you, sir Loppo,” “Indeed,” I chirped merrily, “Excellent!” I was excited at the prospect, having not eaten at all this day and, frankly, I figured fake food could tide me over until I figured out what was going on. Right up until the blinding, searing agony surged through my entire being with a force that felt as if a heavy weight boxer had just checked my solar plexus. Every iota of willpower in my entire being had to be forced to a singular point in the back of my throat to stop myself from vomiting what contents may have been in my stomach prior. I spat out the sandwich in a mixture of feral terror and mortal shock. What the hell had just happened?! I cursed and sputtered desperately. I think I managed to get some words out, but couldn't swear to it at the time. Zechs shrugged and grinned nervously, “W-well, buddy, I didn't want to tell you this, but Loppo, your rabbitman race, are all strictly vegetarian. They can't digest meat, like at all,” I struggled to recover my breathing as Dieter riotously cackled at me, “Hey, can you get my friend a new sandwich, with... Hmm. Kale, pickles, oh, lots of pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes? Oh, and some carrots on the side, too?” I barked something obscene under my breath that, in retrospect, shouldn't be transcribed here. As if I need to explain further, I don't care for bitter tastes or certain textures – of which the above order falls neatly under. The only reason I didn't say more was because I stopped to run my tongue along the tops of my teeth. In the front were pronounced, sharp teeth for cutting. Next to them in the human jaw would be canines – designed for tearing. But in place of them were flattened teeth, like a vegetable-eating species would have. I was unsettled by this, to say the least. The waitress was uneasy, simply giving us an, “Okay,” before pulling something from her pocket, “Oh, and before I forget. I was told to give this to you.” She then handed Diegal an envelope. Out of reflex, I shot her a nasty glare, indicating that her presence was no longer welcomed at our table. I then extended the same to the laughing hyena-bitch who sat opposite me. I must have said something, as Diegal fired at me, “Don't hate me, hate yourself for opting for a vegetarian race. I'll be taking your sandwich, now, too,” As he slid the plate across the way. “You wanna fight?” I whispered, as I felt Zechs grab my shoulder, clearly telling me to knock it off. I knew he was right but in that moment, I was pretty mad, to put it gently. “Who's it from?” Zechs cut me off. “Does it matter?” Dieter shrugged carelessly. I snatched the letter from him and opened it forcefully. I scanned it for a second before reading it aloud, “Dear Zechs, Windowz and Deegal, My apologies for earlier. I didn't realize I hadn't installed proper toiletries for you before. Hopefully, everything is fine and dandy now that the latest patch-mancy has been implemented. Well, I wish you luck and hope for your success, Sincerely, Administrator Catalina Ur-Grafzou,” As I finished I thought back to what I saw and decided to take jab back at my dear friend, with the opening now presenting itself, “Wait, toiletries weren't implemented before? What the heck? Was everything right before, Dieter?” I saw the color drain from his face, “Uh, sure?” he offered, biting into my sandwich anew, “Why do you ask?” “Oh,” I hummed, “No reason. It just seemed odd she'd send us a message for that if everything was fine before, but whatev—Ohgodammit.” The waitress returned, having taken Dieter's faux-order seriously. I swear to whatever demon rules over this world, the NPCs were just as stupid when I was trapped with them than when I skipped their dialog with the Escape key. I said some... words one really should not say to someone in a service industry job to make her leave. The weird part about it was... I think I made the NPC cry? I told myself it was a trick of the lighting. Nothing that rock-stupid would happen in this world. My appetite completely destroyed by what just happened and my enthusiasm a distant memory, I put my mug to my mouth to the good old reliable taste of city tap water. Well, it tasted like the tap water of the town I lived in. I stopped halfway. This is all fake anyway, so who really cares? I reasoned. Diegal and Zechs continued talking but I had stopped listening. It was immature and stupid and I should've let it go, but I sat there and stewed in my anger instead. Setting my cup down, I interceded into their conversation, “Anyways, enough of this stupidity, let's get out there. We need to get ourselves up to snuff so we can complete this dumb quest thrust on us,” I went to stand, only to see the damned waitress was back again, but this time to hand me a bill. God damn NPCs... I fished for the coins, dropped them and cursed the brainless AI one last time for good measure. Afterward, we were heading back to the Forest of Beginnings. Putting my helmet back on and getting to move around freely helped me burn off some of the stress – in addition to the primitive catharsis that was smashing monsters who we hopelessly outclassed in single blows. I must say, it made me feel pretty cool to know I'd come such a long ways in a short time, for what it was worth. However, the resounding gong of falling hammer blows came to a stand-still – in fact, all three of us did – when we heard a sudden cry: “He-e-elp!!!” “Did you all hear that?” Dieter cried out. “It's coming from ahead of us, by about a mile,” Zechs reasoned with startling levels of precision. Dieter seemed to think so too, as he shot back, “That's pretty impressive. How did you figure that out so quickly?” “Oh,” Zechs sheepishly grinned, “I took ten levels in the Stalker subclass, and I can track anyone I've ever messaged, and that's coming from one of my friends.” Dieter and I awkwardly exchanged glances as I offered a shrug, “All the more reason to help. Let's go!” I brandished my hammer and shield, as something occurred to me. An odd bug I discovered in the game due to my particular build. And it didn't take long for my friends to notice it either. “Uh, Jake, man? You're, um, how do I put this... You're running backwards,” my floof companion offered. “I know. Because I can't move that fast forward. My armor load is too high for my weight bearing, and so my walking speed is cut in half. You could give me a five minute head start and you'd probably still beat me in the hundred yard dash as I am now. However, movement speed doesn't factor into defensive evasive maneuvers, so...” I trailed off. I learned the trick while goofing around, finding my back-step dodge command, which was technically on a 1-second cooldown, moved my avatar faster than walking forward. Weird ninja-solutions to these kinds of problems were lauded by Fairy Land developers and, thus, usually were not patched out. He seemed satisfied with my explanation, “I see, then. Well, don't hit any trees.” I swiftly explained a talisman I used for 360 vision. While the game was viewed 3rd-person style, wearing certain equipment would have secondary effects and bucket helms would shadow the world behind my character as a means of expanded role playing. The talisman in question was a reward for tank classes who reached certain level thresholds and did a particular questline. But it worked for my needs. Which is good, as we soon ran into a complication in our impromptu search-n-rescue mission. There, at a lake somewhere near the forest's center (where subsequently stronger monsters tended to gather) was a Boss monster. Zechs broke the awkward silence, “Oh, geez. I didn't realize it was the new moon,” There before us, center of the lake was a truly impressive sight to behold: from the waist up, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a 30 foot tall woman, blessed by her creator with an unnaturally acute beauty and an otherwise-inviting smile and posture. The devs even rendered her a belly button, which barely floated above the waterline. However, there was no mistaking the lower half for what it was – a terrifying amalgamation of aquatic animal body parts. Where hips should have been was the body of a cuttlefish or a particularly sponge-like snail, with tentacles extending every which way not unlike a squid. Around the water's edge were smaller, cuttlefish-squid monsters, called Lesser Omens, patrolling nearby. When Dieter demanded to know what the lunar phase had to do with anything, Zechs shouted back, “That's because that's the only time that this monster, the Neptunine Omen, appears. Be on your guard, Dieter!” “Yeah, yeah, I've seen enough weird Japanese porn to know what to expect if I fail,” Dieter, in a bout of infinite class, responded coolly. Surrounded by the Lesser Omens, there stood a lone adventurer: a Squerran female who looked to be some sort of mage-class based on her ill-fitting, baggy robes that made her already-petite frame look even smaller. My natural instinct was to protect her first, but if we broke rank and got swarmed, we wouldn't be doing her any help at all, so I motioned for Zechs to stay close as we advanced. I dropped my hammer down atop a Lesser Omen as Zechs stayed by my side, slashing wildly at the slimy little piles. I figured we could stay in standard 3-Ring formation and force the upper hand by weeding out the smaller ones faster than the big mama could generate them. Dieter, of course, had other plans. She leaped over us, sailing into direct contact. Zechs briefly reached his free hand out, as if to call for him, but I motioned for him to... let it unfold. There was no use in trying to stop him now. “Dude, if she dies, there goes my chance!” my short friend hissed at my side. “It was funny the first time. Now it's just creepy, man,” I shot back. I had to admit, his surprise attack gambit caught the boss off-guard, so I saluted Dieter somewhat for taking initiative. Or, rather, I did up until one of the tendrils grabbed him around his midsection and began slamming him to the ground, much akin to the old Saturday morning cartoon slapstick sketches I used to watch. I admit it: I smiled a little. “I'll help you!” The Squerran girl suddenly started, “I call upon the Gnosis of the Soldonna! Tiny Puttirim!” I glanced over just in time to see a tiny, cherubic angel figure appear and began shooting small jolts of lightning into the horde. This served to provoke every last one of them – including ones that I had previously focused on me – as they dog-piled onto the poor thing. As I looked back to see Dieter's health (unsurprisingly in the red) ticking downward, as he unleashed a roar, fell and terrible, as he proceeded to tear the tentacle from its original owner and began bashing the lessers into oblivion. I was a bit at a loss as I watched the scene unfold. Just then, I heard the boss's low laugh echo again and looked her way, just in time for Zechs to take to the air, slashing wildly. Before I knew it, he had pureed a hole straight through her, dropping the boss where she floated. “WHOO-HOO! Oh, yeah, Dieter! Good job on distracting her so I could finish her off!” Zechs cheered wildly. “What?” I heard Dieter barely mumble. “You think you won? Lady Neptune will devour your... guts,” the barely-hanging-in-there boss gurgled. Feeling the day's mounting frustrations and my own helplessness mounting up, I whipped out my hammer and proceeded to exert all those feelings all over the boss's skull, quickly demolishing it into a semi-consistent pudding-like mixture. “My heroes,” The Squrran mage teased as she approached us. Zechs took it to the mug like a champ with a big grin, “No worries, there, Errin. Say, how have you been?” She shook her head, “Not terribly good, I'm afraid. At first, I was enjoying myself being so immersed into the game, as I was collected quite a bit of excellent data, and then... I realized I couldn't get out. Is this what they call losing touch with reality?” “Dude, who is this?” I asked, leaning down closer to Zechs. “Oh, my apologies. I am Dr. Erin Sanderson. You may call me Erri or Errin, too, if you prefer,” She introduced herself politely. I was considering why the name rang a bell, but Dieter beat me to it. “Really?! You know Erin Sanderson?” he growled. “Is that a problem?” Zechs squeaked. “She only wrote the most inflammatory documents on the internet, only after that one guy who wrote the hilariously incendiary 'Everything you like is shit' trollpost,” I had heard of her. I had actually even watched a couple of her ZoomTube videos where she talked about social systems in games. Sure, I disagreed with her take that every game needed social elements crammed into them, but I didn't find her all that offensive. Compared to how my day had been so far, I considered her a step up. “Yes, well, please, forgive Seamus, or Zechs. He was quite a gentleman to help me before as he did, and now. He has been invaluable to my research into online interactions, and now, what with this bizarre happenings before me, I'm sure his help will be invaluable once more,” “Now, you need to fill me in,” I offered. I wanted to hear the other side too, just to be sure I didn't step into a minefield. “I'll tell you when we get back to town. I need some new clothes. I got squid slime all over these ones,” Dieter wrinkled his nose in distaste. Which was fine by me. I was already exhausted after the day we'd had.

#Photon Breaker Zechs #Comedy #Fantasy #Action #Adventure #MMORPG

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