#she would be next forced to work as his main and be his loyal dog was almost forced to kill the persons he previously served but he was | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deiliamedlini · 4 years ago

Text

WIP Wednesday

I wrote this last night and really don’t know where I’m going with it because I wrote another section of this that’s completely different from this first part, but I’m having too much fun so this might become a long oneshot or like a two/three chapter short fic eventually. I signed into my Guild Wars account for the first time in forever to watch the chat and apparently Lion’s Arch isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Not that any of that is really relevant.

This is Zelda and the Champions as internet friends playing a MMORPG video game called Hyrule Warriors.

Zelda Harkinian loved Fridays. Not that it was a rare thing to be obsessed with the weekend, but she maybe loved it a little too much. After a week of lesson plans, and cleaning the classrooms, and sneezing students, and emails asking for an extension on a paper that wasn’t even due yet, she relished the escape the weekend provided. Granted, she still had to grade about a hundred tests, but that was a problem for Sunday or even Monday.

Smiling down at her roommate, a kitten she’d raised when she found it in the street all alone, Zelda fed her girl—whom she’d named Duchess because she had every intent of treating her like royalty—and played with her for a bit before throwing down her bag in her room and then grabbed a water and a granola bar before heading to her desk. She flipped her laptop open and booting up Hyrule Warriors, her favorite open world MMORPG.

Her internet sucked, so she grabbed her phone to aimlessly scroll to see if there was any news or updates. But it was pretty dull.

Instead, she thought back to how this whole weekend ritual began.

She’d been in a cavern just off of Death Mountain for about three days killing fire keese, lizalfos, and beamos. As a mage, her AOE skills made short work of the larger groups, hitting them all at once. It was especially useful here because her main specialties were water and light, but she struggled when boss fights came out. The NPCs weren’t great teammates, and she constantly found herself resurrecting far from the boss, only to make a long run with a health penalty that ended with her getting killed again, until her heath penalty was maxed out and she had to restart for any hope of succeeding. As a mage, her light armor made her vulnerable to physical attacks, and this boss was very physical.

Zelda didn’t like interacting with people in this game. It was massively popular, and the chat was always running. Sometimes, she’d just sit at an outpost and watch people talk. Her favorite interactions were often the random ones. She’d begun to look up the acronyms everyone used in chat just to understand them better. WTS= want to sell.

Indigo2421: WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Britneigh4Horses: WTS My mother. 1 rupee. Will pay postage fee.

But after her days of suffering in the lonely caverns in Death Mountain, she relented.

A quick search had her hands shaking, but she typed quickly so she couldn’t back out after she’d hit enter.

xPrincessZx: LFG Dodongo’s Cavern

Holding her breath, she’d waited in the hopes of a private message being sent to her.

One did.

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: What missin are doing there?

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: Mission*

(PM): xPrincessZx: I have to kill the Dodongo boss for the main story

ThunderstruckQueen would like to join your party.

Biting her nails, she’d accepted.

(PM): RockRoast12345: Still need someone?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Yes! That would be great! Thanks!

RockRoast12345 would like to join your party.

That had been how it started: A goron warrior with a Warhammer and some serious defensive moves joined as the tank to take as much damage for the team as he could stand, and a Gerudo Paladin had joined her party. Zelda was jealous of the purchase-only red hairstyle the Gerudo had for her character. She had a sword and shield, but her body flickered with elemental lightening magic. In-game purchase effects.

They’d defeated Dodongo with ease, and had gone on several missions together that day, taking down their storylines with relative ease. But they couldn’t function with the NPC healer who barely functioned at all.

So, ThunderstruckQueen had taken to the map chat and put out a request.

ThunderstruckQueen: I found someone. She’s a Zora Cleric. Level 40

RockRoast12345: Let her in! I want to get this one over with

Rutella Zoran IV would like to join your party.

After that, the four of them realized they worked so well together that they’d formed a guild. The Champions. ThunderstruckQueen paid the guild fee, bought a hall, and began decorating it with merchants, and chests. Zelda still shuddered, wondering what she did to have so many rupees ready to go. Needless to say, she made herself the leader.

Some days, they didn’t play together. Other times, only two of them were on. But on weekends, they all came together.

But it had been a Monday when Zelda played, and she’d been alone. Having already tossed her tissue box across her room in frustration, she debated making a new character with more defense, but she sucked it up and went into the Castle Town map, ready to ask for help. She couldn’t wait until she could get to be a higher level. As it was, she’d only gotten to these level 40 areas as a 32 because of Rutella.

Suddenly, a random Hylian man in green with a fancy sword and shield ran up to her and bowed. Zelda scoffed at her computer screen, unsure if she was supposed to respond.

She didn’t need to.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Hey Princess

(PM): xPrincessZx: Hello?

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Jst wondering if u have a spare flower crown from yesterday’s festival. Missed it. Will pay

Zelda pulled up her inventory, forgetting she was still wearing her flower crown from the Flower Fest. It must have been what tipped him off. In fact, she had four spares.

(PM): zPrincessZx: Yeah, I do. Come to the chest and I’ll trade.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Thx

She’d never done a trade with anyone who wasn’t in her guild, so she’d felt nervous running to grab it.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: How much u want?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Actually, I’ll give it to you free if you’re willing to help me with a quest? Or 10k.

WildKnightOut2 would like to join your party.

She accepted and watched his character appear in the corner of her screen.

WildKnightOut2: That’s a rip off, btw. Crowns are with 15k at least. Don’t undersell

xPrincessZx: Thanks. I didn’t realize. I’m still kind of new.

WildKnightOut2: Howd u get out here then?

xPrincessZx: I had a run from a friend in my guild.

WildKnightOut2: Got room for a warrior in there?

Zelda introduced him to the other Champions when they’d signed back on, and after a few weeks, Zelda had leveled up enough that she didn’t need to constantly rely on a teammate. But still. She liked Wild the best after ThunderstruckQueen.

They’d brought in a Rito Ranger named TheBestYouveNeverMet, which immediately set Wild off.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: should I aggro a group over so he has to fight them for us?

(PM): xPrincessZx: No! Don’t do that! I’ll get sent over to deal with them!

(PM): xPrincessZx: HEY! I SEE YOU ON THE MAP!

(PM): xPrincessZx: WILD GET BACK TO THE GROUP

On the mini-map, she saw a hoard of red coming at them and rolled her eyes before joining TheBest to kill them with area attacks. Rutella stayed back to heal them, but Thunder and Rock both continued on, unfazed.

ThunderstruckQueen: Wild you’re an idiot

But that was then. This was now.

They’d been together for months as a guild, and now, the six of them knew how the others worked.

If Wild or TheBest took off on their own, no one would follow. They’d both been killed numerous times in an attempt to piss the other off. Zelda had learned to stay with Thunder and Rock. Rutella flitted between running back to revive the idiots, or sticking with the smarter members while letting them heal on their own.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u wound me

Zelda chuckled, but he wasn’t done.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: After all ive done for u

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u leave me to die

(PM): xPrincessZx: Don’t run off next time

It was a Wednesday when she and Wild were playing alone, so they freely used party chat for ease. She’d surpassed his level, and towered as a 93 while he was an 87.

WildKnightOut2: Hang on. Fuzzball wants food

Zelda stared at his character on her screen, wondering if he looked anything like that avatar. Blonde hair, muscular, piercing blue eyes. She’d made her character look like herself, so it wasn’t hard to imagine others had. Plus, he was the only Hylian. She highly doubted that RockRoast12345 was actually a giant rock-man, or that Rutella Zoran IV was a short fish lady.

She knew everything about these people except their names, faces, and voices.

She knew that ThunderstruckQueen was a single mother who called her daughter Ri on chat. She was a chief of police, and had a few hundred of her force to look out for. Still, she wanted to quit soon to join the military reserve forces now that her daughter was getting older. Devoted and loyal, Thunder occasionally snapped when everyone would start fighting with each other, though it was usually directed at TheBest and Wild, the annoyance sometimes extended out to others.

She knew that RockRoast12345 was older than all of them and had a young grandson. He’d bonded with Thunder over their children at first, and then, without meaning to, they became the parents of the group. Recently, Rock had retired from working as a supervisor in a mine, and gaming had become his way of relieving some of that boredom. But he told the best stories when they were idling around, just stories about anything, and they were always captivating. Also, he was afraid of dogs.

She knew that Rutella Zoran IV was the daughter of a politician. She cared for her little brother like he was her own, and sometimes, he took control of her character, proudly revealing that his real name was Sidon. She was in school to be a doctor, and that made her family prouder than anything. She lived and breathed for her family.

TheBestYouveNeverMet was a pilot. His schedule was the most hectic out of everyone’s because of the flights, but he was sarcastic to the core, and sometimes, the sarcasm was simply rude and definitely didn’t translate well over chat. He was superior, and since he’d been playing the game longest, he thought it entitled him to make more decisions. But Zelda knew from her private conversations with him that deep down, he was sweet and caring. He’d always be the first to ask her how her day was, and he’d learned some of her students’ names to ask if they’d been nuisances.

But Zelda spent the most time talking to WildKnightOut2, so she knew the most about him. At first, they’d bonded over the fact that they both had cats. His was called Fuzzball, an orange, fat cat that needed to exercise more. He’d tried to leash him, but Fuzz wasn’t interested. Sometimes, Fuzz would crawl over the keys, send Wild running, and send chat a long stream of letters.

He was funny and made comments in her private chat while they were playing that had her roaring at times.

He was a rock-climbing instructor and in his free time, he was a free solo climber. When she’d looked it up, she’d been horrified to see that he basically climbed mountains without a harness or ropes, and a fall could kill him. She’d asked if he was good at it, or just did it for fun, and his answer had been an ambiguous “yes.”

She knew about his family. He didn’t live near them, but he kept in contact with his grandparents, his father, and his little sister.

WildKnightOut2: k back. Where we going princess?

xPrincessZx: I need to farm for new armor out in the Haunted Wasteland. Do you need to do anything?

WildKnightOut2: I need to help u farm in the haunted wasteland. What do you need?

xPrincessZx: 10 Rubies

WildKnightOut2: damn ok I have 2 u can have so u only need 8

xPrincessZx: Thanks. How’d that party go last night?

WildKnightOut2: Sucked

xPrincessZx: Cool details

WildKnightOut2: If ud been there, ud have hated it

xPrincessZx: Why?

WildKnightOut2: Bunch of self-absorbed idiots. Like TheBest is

xPrincessZx: Lol. He’s not that bad.

WildKnightOut2: if u say so

They headed into the Wasteland looking for red poes that had rare drops for rubies. She and Wild took out a few groups before they started to struggle. Neither could play and talk at the same time fast enough to warn the other that something was happening, and they both ended up at the shrine of resurrection more times than they cared to admit.

xPrincessZx: Hey Wild. This might sound weird, but do you have that gaming app where we could just maybe voice chat?

xPrincessZx: Unless you’re not comfortable with that. We can invite the others, and when we play together, and it would probably make life a thousand times easier

xPrincessZx: But it’s okay if you don’t want to

WildKnightOut2: yeah I have it

Oh, Zelda thought to herself. That was easy.

xPrincessZx: Do you want to add me? I have the same name

She watched her phone like it was food in the microwave, only occasionally glancing at her computer to see if Wild had sent her another message. She drummed her fingers and her leg started to bounce until her screen lit up.

WildKnight has sent you a friend request.

She hastily hit accept and grabbed her headphones from the drawer before typing into her phone.

xPrincessZx: Your name is missing a few things here.

WildKnight: Yeah HW already had someone with this name so I added on

xPrincessZx: The meaning completely changes

WildKnight: which do you like better?

Zelda froze, unable to make her fingers type. Was he flirting? Was that how people flirted online? She was really good at reading body language cues, and that was always how she knew someone was flirting. But this? There was no context! How was she supposed to know?

xPrincessZx: Which fits your personality more?

That was a safe way of getting out of answering while still sounding maybe like she was flirting. Right?

WildKnight: this one

Zelda’s face warmed up and she put her head in her hands, unsure how to respond. How does she respond to that? What if he wasn’t flirting? What if he was.

#wip wednesday #legend of zelda #LoZ AU #modern au #video games #link #zelda #zelink #daruk #mipha #revali #urbosa #writing #not proofread #zelda is a professor because I was too lazy to look up any job other than my own

34 notes · View notes

kryptsune · 4 years ago

Text

World Building Wednesday! (AU edition)~

The Hunt (Fellswap)

*I am going to start off with some basic information just to start!*

The Surface: The surface has been overrun by corrupt leaders. It is very much the concept of big brother. They are a council that presides over the affairs of the world. If you are seen as a threat you will be immediately thrown into “prison” without a trial. They hold occasional public trials in the guise of being fair. Just as WTU claims, the very concept of magic is a threat to them so those that have it are quickly disposed of but leaders don’t always do the dirty work themselves. No. In fact, they use another source by means of execution…the monsters. More accurately it is very similar to the idea of throwing your enemies into a kind of gladiatorial arena. It is not technically considered an execution if circumstances lead to death. The humans are not stupid they know what is going on. Some believe in rebellion against the state and some wonder if the monsters could fix their corrupt world. Either way, the corruption continues and they are not above tossing innocents into “the pit” if it suits their agenda. “The Pit” (aka the Underworld/Underground): The underworld is broken up into different factions by location. The only location without a faction or any type of ruler is The Ruins, because of its size and its isolation this is where humans try to reach for some form of Salvation. Asgore, the caretaker, has made it into an encampment for those that have fallen (the innocent ones). It is almost like a refugee camp. Unfortunately very few make it to Asgore’s safe haven. He does his best. Poor goat dad. He is not like canon Toriel however as he will use violence if necessary as he knows that humans are simply using them as tools to get rid of who they deem criminal. There are signs of old campfires, broken tents, and habitation. Before The Ruins is, of course, the main factions. “Snowdin” is the beginning and Crimson is one of the most powerful in the Underworld.

The Layout of the world: New Home= The Capital Snowdin= Magmire Waterfall= Windyspires Hotland= Tundra

The Underworld is backward to its original layout. The humans end up trapped in The Capital instead and they have to make their way to The Ruins to escape. So it would go like this: The Capital -> Tundra ->Windyspires ->Magmire. The closer the faction to the capital the higher the rank in other words because both Grimm and Crimson live in Tundra. Crim is the lord making him one of the most notorious. He is known for being a loyal “dog” to his queen. Whether that be out of loyalty or self preservation is unclear. Each faction has a lord or lady that rules over it. The ones loyal to Toriel’s (As a side note she is known as the ice queen) regime and their supposed way of life. This also means the closest ones receive the most benefits. Tundra is the one with the most prestige and of course other monsters are trying to strip that title from its current holder, The Crimson Lord. Due to Crimson’s loyalty, he is almost exempt from any wrongdoing in the Queens’ eyes which means he can do pretty much anything he wants. Which is dangerous and I will explain why in a bit. I have a faction ruler list sitting here so I am going to add that to this as well. They are as follows, of course, this does not account for potential power struggles during the story: The Capital -> QUEEN: Toriel Dreemurr Tundra -> Lord: Crimson Lady: N/A Windyspires -> Lord? (I mean she wouldn’t want to be called a lady SHE IS TOO TOUGH FOR THAT!): Alphys Lady: Undyne Magmire-> Lord: Grillby Lady: Muffet “It’s Hunt or be Hunted”: The motto of this verse. After so many centuries of humans being disposed of by monsters they become aggressive. In addition the anger toward all of humanity begins to fuel violence in the monsters. The hunts deter monster on monster violence. It also adds fuel to Queen Toriel’s fire that one of the humans that fell down the first time killed her son. This of course is a lie as Asriel seeks refuge with his father in The Ruins. He helps as much as he can watch his mother lose her mind from afar. It saddens him but he refuses to be a part of this new world order. That is when they realized that humans weren’t just falling into the Underworld. They were throwing throwing the worst of the worst. Their undesirables, criminals, and anyone that dare went against their own agenda. At first, they just captured them and held them in the Capitals network of catacombs but then some began to escape causing damage across their “New Home”. Toriel wouldn’t allow it. A proposal turns it into a game of cat and mouse. The humans are detained and released and then the monsters hunt them down. It used to be about protection but now it’s become a sick twisted death game. The forests of Tundra are littered with traps and deadly pitfalls along with the rest of the locations.

The Brothers Grimm:

Grimm is the wilder of the two brothers and is very much a predator type. His name is derived from the mythos of the Grimm or Black dog. I wanted to keep that dark omen symbology in both his name and design. He slinks around in the shadows so that the black dog aspect is not far off. He also loves watching from trees. He enjoys the catching and hunting aspect of his job and even plays around with his “toys” when he finds them. He will specifically call anyone “chew toy” in a mocking kind of way. That does not mean though that he will not spare you if he catches you. He is naturally curious by things. He also has a little skele tail too. Unlike his brother, Grimm doesn’t really have an ego he just finds his job fun. He is like a giant untamed wolf. Grimm has a love of sweets as well. He admires his brother but he is not bound to his brother. In other words this is not a master, dog dynamic. He is, however, the more accepting of the two. If he is asked to do something he doesn’t approve of then he most likely won’t. Also just because he has the whole puppy thing going on doesn’t mean he isn’t smart and cunning. Again he likes to play around with those he finds sometimes not even dragging them back to his brother for a while. If you are a threat he will kill you but if you’re not you can probably get on his good side. If he thinks you are cute he will probably flirt with you too. He is not beyond that. He plays the part of the dog quite well. Crimson is more sophisticated. He doesn’t go out on “hunts” himself often as he has a faction to rule over but those brought to him will see first hand that he is an insufferable flirt. He is prideful, egotistical, and commanding. He also has a bad habit of keeping mementos from those he deems worthy (what those are… you don’t want to know). He is stern with his brother and seems very outwardly cold to most unless he is playing up his charm. He is not someone you want to make angry as Toriel considers him to also be the Bloody Lord. His weapon of choice is a rapier. His drinks of choice are red wine and champagne specifically the pink kind. Crimson’s incisor teeth also have that vampire point to them. They are longer than the rest of them. There is far more to Crimson than just a ruthless skeleton lord.

The Ultimate Unlikely Hunters: This backstory will involve Grimm and Crimson’s unusual infliction and conditions. They were both experiments under Rivers research team in the beginning. Having been weak monsters as children unable to gain any LV they had to think of a way to survive. They did not seem to possess the ability to wield magic. Tired, injured, and without hope Papyrus carried his baby brother all the way to Windyspires banging weakly on the metal plated doors. The Royal scientist at the time, Dr. River Styx, took the boys in. River cares about the two brothers and he gives them a choice if they want to become stronger as their souls are not capable of it on their own. Grimm takes the offer hoping it will save his baby brother offering to be the first test subject. At the time Undyne was nothing but a teenage prodigy lab tech watching the events of soul manipulation take place. At first the process works. Pap is able to conjure new bone like attacks with magic and all seems to be well. The results cause River to start the experiment on Sans next. By this time complications have already begun to show signs. Pap seems to be more short tempered and aggressive even with little things. His mood swings cause him to lock himself up being monitored day by day.

Sans has never seen his gentle brother this aggressive before forcing himself to look away as they have to strap him down for a follow up experiment. He tries to help his brother the best he can and takes on the older brother role due to Pap’s inability to think clearly. Even he is starting to change. The longer this situation continues the more Sans becomes numb to the feeling. That is until one day Pap’s condition takes a turn for the worse causing him to lash out, bones shifting and elongating. He drops to the ground in agony transforming into a skeletal beast like wolf tearing the entire lab apart. Sans on the other hand continues to take care of his brother but he too is feeling some strange side effects to the soul manipulation. It turns out that each monster’s ancestry buried deep within their soul draws upon a primal power. Not all monsters were about love and compassion in the beginning. Bringing this primal trait to the surface causes adverse physical and biological changes within the two. Sans is more gradual as he starts to be in immense pain. His soul struggles to keep itself together but even he snaps lunging at a lab tech. He zeros in on their soul pulling it from their chest and sinking his teeth into it, draining it of its life force. The pain is suddenly gone. He realizes that he needs souls essence and power to keep that hunger/thirst at bay. It gives him extraordinary abilities. He remembers a long time ago reading about a monster that humans had such a fear of, the vampire. As he comes into power he realizes that humans concentrated soul traits are even better than monster souls. The blood has a high concentration of soul essence which sustains humans as well as monsters (yes the monsters bleed in this). His brother learns to control this new beast within himself but not before he nearly claws his brothers socket out, hence the signature scar. Crimson has scars on his entire body from trying to reason with his once feral brother. They slowly work their way up to eventually ruling the second most powerful kingdom in the entire Underworld with exception to The Capitol. The constant hunts keep both the brothers conditions satisfied. No one is quite sure how the two skeleton brothers became this way after River’s disappearance, all except Undyne.

*This is just to get started! If you have any questions about the characters, how the world works, the layout, story, any of that go ahead and drop me an ask I would love to answer them!*

#undertale #WBW #Worldbuilding Wednesday AU edition #underfell #Fellswap #undertale au #underfell au #The Hunt #friskys multiverse #kits multiverse #multiverse #The Crimson Lord #Crimson #my au #Fellswap au #fairytale aesthetic #lore

36 notes · View notes

rocksinmuffin · 4 years ago

Text

Sin Queen, I loved your work for years but was to nervous to ever ask or submit any art or stories but that changes tonight.

Meet my TFA oc, Chain Angel. Given life by the allspark fragment like Wreck-gar later on in the series, she's made a place next to the orange junkion along with the other autobots.

Just like Wreck-gar her intro was sudden and chaotic, but unlike the sweet trashbot she much more self aware albeit confused of the world around her. Angel didn't start out as a fembot. Nope she started in her alt mode a junkyard dog. Great right? After the autobots heard about a giant metal dog chasing cars in the streets of Detroit, the first meeting was... a bit confrontational.

Her manner of fighting is close and personal. This includes the chains wrapped around her waist occasionally swinging and striking her intended victim or pulling them close in hopes of strangling with the pretty pieces of gold. At other times the head on her back can give energy blasts to blow anybot away. She's brutal to put it short.

Personality, accompanied with a New Yorker accent, Angel is brash, abrasive, and will not hesitate to say what's on her processor. She's the brain between the herself and Wreck-gar, acting as the voice of reason for the older junkion when the situation turns sour. So she's basically your hot tempered take no shit boston robo lady.

Her words consist of slang such as " what a schmuck", " ya mook," and "quit yer grillin." Everyone is stumped of how she obtained such a humanlike personality in such a short time frame, especially old bot Ratchet who has no honest to god idea of what she's saying. He thinks it has something to do from the trash pile she came from. But before Angel could lunge for any throats she saw little Sari staring up at her in curiosity her. Angel completely melted. cooing and nuzzling the little girl.

Upon seeing such a familiar design Ratchet somehow tracks down Wreck-gar all the while Sari puppy talks Angel into following her, chained tail wagging all the way. The medic is yelling and shaking him demanding what he did. Locking optics with the trash hound there's an instant pull. Shifting into her fembot alt surprising everyone, Angel steps closer and both emit a white glow the closer they get. Angel's demeanor softens finding someone that feels so... familiar. Wreck-gar feels the same way. It kind of feels like... home. After the meeting, the two trash bots become inseparable. Wreck-gar gives the name Angel saying she was his guardian Angel (most likely repeating it from human propaganda). They start using the terms "big bro" and "little sis" as Sari explains how they came from the same place in a similar way dubbing them family.

After that she becomes fiercely protective of anyone she deems a friend. This junkion will either treasure you or flat out despise you. (There's no in between.) And we're talking full guard dog mode. Her main favorites of the cast are Wreck-gar, Sari, and Ratchet much to everyone's shock. You so much as look at her family or friends funny she's out for blood. An example of this is when Sentinel made a snide comment about Sari being an organic in front of Angel, ending with her chasing him up a tree with Optimus snickering at his screaming ex friend.

Chain Angel has a temper that puts hothead to shame along with a sharp tounge. You insult her she comes back full force. Not only that but she has the strength to back it up. If your familiar with the tfa series than you know Wreck-gar has some serious power thanks to the allspark fragment. The only difference is Chain Angel knows how to use it. Which is good because she finds herself going head to head with bots three times her size (cuz this girl short, a whole head shorter than bumblebee) whether decepticon or neutral.

Lockdown heard about Wreck-gar housing a fragment and found the opportunity too good to pass up figuring Megatron would pay handsomely for it. But upon meeting loyal protector Angel, the bounty hunter is more than surprised to find a smol angry fem threatening to choke him to death with a gold chain. He then has an inner conflict from wanting to take her spark as well to wanting to date her. Another instance is Megatron himself humored Angel referring to her as a "mutt" patting her on the helm mockingly. Angel just stood there, silent, static cracking from her metallic hair. Let's just say the warlord didn't find it so funny when he only pulled away with a few wires sticking out of the slot where his arm should have been.

But rough tough psychobot aside, Angel is super sweet towards humans finding them adorable. She'll refer to her friends as "boo," "sweetspark," and "Hon." She even calls oppy "Hot lips" or Bulkhead as "Dreamboat" flustering them immensely. She basically gives nicknames to anyone who she considers a friend, though it does get confused with flirtation often.

Despite being from Earth it doesn't stop her from help the autobots whenever she can with Wreck-gar by her side often cleaning up the city after decepticon attacks and coming to the rescue when there's an injured friend. The trash siblings even have an intro when making it to the scene. "I am Wreck-gar." "And I am Angel." "And we are your heroes!"

__________________________________________

Submitted by @purple-striped-shirt

Oh!!!!!!!! I love your Transformers character, she’s so cute!!!! What a fun character!

I’m so glad you decided to share her!

72 notes · View notes

katekyo-hitman-aus · 4 years ago

Text

Beast Tamers AU / Beast Fantasy AU

In which the setting is completely fantasy-and instead of Tsuna finding out he’s going to be the next Mafia Boss, he would instead be the next boss of a powerful organization who keeps peace and coexistence of the supernaturals and humans (i haven’t thought clearly of what he’s the next heir to-maybe the next king? next boss of an adventurer’s guild? i dunno).

Tsuna – after his father left – grew up in the small village of Namimori consisting of around 200 people; and, because the village is mostly isolated on a mountain surrounded by a huge forest filled with dangerous beasts, there’s limited supplies and manpower so he’d be forced to work and help his mother at around 5 years old. Tsuna would have experience in farming, cooking, tree chopping etc, but would have never hunted beasts since his mother kept (dramatically) telling stories of the forests – since she worries about him dying at the hands of a beast.

Iemitsu would’ve been an adventurer who goes out beyond the forest surrounding Namimori village and bringing back goods. But because he secretly worked for the Vongola Organization as a CEDEF leader (which CEDEF would then be a possible scouting group gathering info on kingdoms (human or supernaturals)), he then left the village for work after Tsuna was 5.

His guardians would then be his beast tamers demons, dragons-each of them can be different powerful species. Tsuna would’ve also known Kyoko as the village’s most beautiful girl (he probably would have a crush on her at one point but gives up) and would have been bullied by Mochida and others since they don’t like Kyoko hanging out with ‘No-good Tsuna’. Hana and Haru would probably be Kyoko’s beast tamers.

I have a rough idea how Tsuna would meet his guardians, but it’d probably go something like this; • Tsuna would meet Hibari-a powerful cloud-related beast-sleeping on a tree and they’d probably • Takeshi would be a rain-related beast- wanting to commit suicide since • Gokudera would be ofc a storm-related beast, who came to Namimori to test Tsuna’s strength as the next future leader of the Vongola Organization. Of course, Tsuna saves his butt when his power was about to hit him, he becomes like a loyal dog to Tsuna, yada yada yada • Ryohei, a sun-related beast would have encountered Tsuna when he was running away from wolf beasts. Since Ryohei loves to run like a literal marathon, he’d get interested in Tsuna’s sprint and spirit when Tsuna decides to fight the wolves using his bare hands. • Lambo… Tsuna would naturally encounter him in one of his beast hunts with reborn • Mukuro, mist-related beast-I literally don’t know. He’d probably be hunting Tsuna down, and once he finds Tsuna he’d try to possess him and all to try and reset the world, blah blah • As for Chrome, she’d be the little sister of Mukuro, working together with him i guess

Reborn… he’d be the strongest adventurer, coming to the Namimori village to train Tsuna to become a strong adventurer and leader. As for the rest of the Arcobalenos-haven’t though that far ahead.

I do want Tsuna’s guardians to be a bit… protective of Tsuna? It sounds OOC compared to the canon, but I like it when the main characters are being adored by the surrounded people. And since this is about Tsuna and him taming his beasts, surely there’s a need for adoring Tsuna if they allow Tsuna to tame his guardians.

Basically, at the end of the day,Tsuna’s guardians are protective of him.

#beast tamers AU #khr #katekyo hitman reborn #katekyo hitman aus #sawada tsunayoshi #tenth generation #submission

24 notes · View notes

jq37 · 5 years ago

Text

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 6 Chaos in the Cathedral

Candians v. The World

As sure as the sun rises and sets every day, a D&D session that starts with the DM telling everyone he loves them is a D&D session that’s going to end in tragedy.

We begin with the stakes as dire as they’ve ever been. The PCs are in the Cathedral with 7 Tartguard and none of their other allies. Amethar has just been excommunicated from the church for adultery, stripped of his title, and ordered seized as--technically speaking--Candia is now at war with the rest of the Concord. They are surrounded on all sides, outnumbered, and there’s no easy way out.

And Jet decides to charge the Pontifex.

She grabs her water dagger (8d6 to Candians, 4d6 to everyone else, plus the poison cocktail Amethar suffered and only 1 Use--clearing up Keradin’s statement about there being 3 daggers) and says, “I’d rather be a bastard than a fool who believes in a bulb.” If she wants war, the Rocks family will bring it. She provokes an opportunity attack from Bonathan (the french fries fighter) but Theo blocks it and joins in on the heresy with a, “Fuck the Bulb!” The Pontifex screams as she takes 28 damage--though she burns a legendary resistance (which she apparently has) to avoid the poison effects.

War dog Amethar immediately starts looking for exits. He hears the guards on the other side lock the big, main door and he sees that there are these big, glass windows, but they are reinforced with crossbars that need to be broken for anyone except maaaaaybe the kids to squeeze through. He yells for the Tartguard to hold off the Imperial soldiers before running up to Jet and begging for her to cooperate for once in her life. “Please, do not die for me.” He physically picks her up and--on a Nat 20--throws her right up to a ledge where one of the big windows are. Once she’s up there, she sees that there are priest-archers in hiding, waiting to snipe them.

(Emily/Jet: You don’t have to worry about me.)

(Ally/Liam: We’re fucked. We’re absolutely fucked.)

The archers go, getting a shot at all three kids, including Nat 20 on Jet for an arrow in the back.

Liam (after considering an entirely different course of action that gets ret-conned away) Hunters Mark’s Bonathan and crossbows him. As he does, a familiar figure rounds the corner--Keradin, unshackled and bearing his mace.

“Witch. Is that the spell you cast on me?”

He goes to town, dealing a full 31 points of damage, bringing Liam down to 6. Theo also takes a beating this round, getting 27 points of damage from Plumbeline.

Lapin at first tries to goad Basha into joining the fight against the church by prodding at his pride but only a Nat 20 would entice him to take that bait and Zac doesn’t hit it. He did however hit a Nat 20 last week to find out more info about the Bulb and Brennan gives him the first piece of info now: The magic of the Bulb isn’t different from the magic of the Sugarplum Fairy. Power is power. A warlock is a cleric is a warlock. It’s a difference of semantics. With the rest of his turn, he casts Fly on Theo so he can get the kids up to the window and he stands in front of Liam to protect him (tossing him 2d6 of healing).

“I misjudged you,” says Theo.

“Oh, shut up,” says Lapin.

Ruby, twinning as always, decides to also attack the Pontifex, doing 28 damage with her grasping arrow (which also forces the Pontifex to stay in place or take damage).

On his turn, Theo (who is under strict orders from Amethar to save his kids) gets both Liam and Ruby up to the window--and still has the time to flip off the whole church and say, “Long live the Sweetening Path.”

The Chaos Continues

The knights attack Amethar. Amethar attacks the Pontifex. Grissini, filled with grim determination, attacks the Tartguard (5 go down). Jet chucks a crossbow priest off the ledge.

Amethar grapples the Pontifex and declares, “I have your leader. Will you not defend her?” But on a 9 Intimidation check, everyone can hear the panic in his voice. Fine. Reckless attack: 14 damage. Onionpatch, weedy though he is, is able to break the grapple on his turn.

Liam tries to break the bars on the window--which Brennan has stressed several times is a very high DC to hit (Liam would need a Nat 20) and needs to take at least 20 damage at a time for it to stick at all--but doesn’t do it.

Keradin rains down blows on Lapin, the pretender, and Lapin goes down (the Fly spell on Theo going down at the same time). As he goes down, he has the second revelation about the Bulb gleaned from his Nat 20 from last session: the Bulb exists and it is powerful but it is mindless. It’s a pure source of power with no agenda or wants or desires. They’re worshiping a battery or a nuclear reactor. He rolls a death save. Failure.

Ruby gets out her rope, gives one end to Theo, then uses Mage Hand (which is invisible but, in reflection, can be seen as her Aunt Lazuli’s hand) to send the other half down to Amethar before casting Fog Cloud to make him harder to hit.

Theo tries to drag Amethar up with the rope, but Amethar hasn’t had the chance to grab it yet so it just slips his grasp. He tries to break the bars on the window but fails. He wants to Compel Duel with Keradin to take the heat off Lapin, but he’s out of range.

The Pontifex heals herself, undoing many turns of effort. Amethar takes 9 points of damage from various knights. The remaining Tartguard go down. A Ceresian soldier tries to hit the prone Lapin but rolls a 1 and a 2, missing him entirely (somehow).

Jet--who, as you might have guessed, has been very “Not Without my Father” all battle despite Amethar’s orders--attacks one of the priests and then uses her Maneuvering Attack ability to let Amethar move half his movement without provoking Opportunity Attacks--an ability that works despite the lack of line of sight caused by Ruby’s protective Fog Cloud.

Amethar climbs the rope and gets to work on the window--hitting both times but only doing damage on the second. He does 22 points of damage but the bars have 30 HP so it’s gonna take another hit. The priest fighting Jet tries to disengage but her Sentinel ability activates and she slices him through, dead.

Liam sends Preston down to help Lapin with his death saves and then unsuccessfully tries to break the bars. Keradin immediately starts wailing on Preston and does 28 points of damage, dropping him.

Lapin has his second death save. Failure.

Ruby tries to attack the bars but fails. She tries unshackle Manta Ray Jack (who was chained and tortured to get Amethar’s secret last episode) and fails even harder on double Nat 1s.

Brennan throws the gang a bone and says that the bars will now break on a 19 or 20 since Amethar weakened them and, what do you know, on his very next attempt, Theo rolls a 19. BAM, he rushes the window and immediately falls out. Jet grabs Liam and jumps out, taking most of the falling damage herself. Amethar throws Ruby out the window, looks back at Lapin’s body, then jumps out himself. Theo catches him, negating the damage that would have dropped him.

Lapin’s Big Day (Part 3)

Lapin is left alone in the church, Preston’s body still beside him, the Pontifex and Keradin above him, consciousness slipping away. He has one last death save and, on a 20, he’ll pop back up to 1 HP and get a turn. It’s absolutely his only chance. He rolls.

13, for the rabbit whose luck has run out.

He does an Insight check on the Pontifex and, on a 14, he gets the sense that she doesn’t know the true nature of the Bulb and she doesn’t care. She just cares about power.

“Heretic, apostate, warlock of the Sugarplum Fairy. You mock all that which is bright and shining. Do you have any last words?”

And, legend to the end, Lapin says, “The Bulb cares for no one.”

The Pontifex tells Keradin to end it but, before he does, Lapin hears a voice in his ear.

“They wouldn’t have survived this without you. My final wish is for you to come home.”

And Keradin dashes Lapin across the stone of the cathedral.

In Memoriam

I knew last week that I would be writing a eulogy for a piece of candy today, but I had my money on the wrong piece of candy (or pieces of candy rather).

Lapin had the most to lose in this fight, and the easiest out. He was still, at least on paper, aligned with the church. He could have just hung back and let the others escape while he did nothing or sent an Eldritch Blast flying that purposefully missed its mark. There was a path out of this for Lapin in simply doing less.

But he didn’t. He had exactly one proper turn all fight and he used that turn to turn the tide of the entire encounter. If he doesn’t step up to protect Liam, Liam absolutely drops. If he doesn’t cast Fly on Theo, Ruby and Jet are screwed. If Ruby and Jet can’t get that Fog Cloud/Maneuvering Attack double team, Amethar is screwed. He saved everyone. He’s *always* saved everyone. That is the entire story of Lapin in this game. The grumpy but loyal bastard whose last words to the party are, “Oh shut up,” when he’s told he’s been misjudged.

Lapin’s game was cut tragically short but, man, did he cram so many epic moments into the time he was given. From single-handedly keeping Ruby and Amethar up during the Ambush to his skillful manipulation of damn near everyone he came into contact with at the Tournament and then his heroic sacrifice in this ep, and getting to meet death with defiance for his enemy and praise from his patron.

Many mid-campaign deaths are unceremonial and just kinda random, like in real life, but Lapin’s death really did have a poetry and a sense of closure to it. He was told he needed to protect the Rocks family. He was told boldness would be required. He said if anyone found out about him he would die. Check, check, and check. And death even came for him on the third fight--I absolutely live and die by the rule of three and, apparently, so does Lapin.

To die in the stronghold of the church he infiltrated, secret out, more knowledge about the inner machinations of the religion than possibly even the Pontifex herself, secure in the thought that with his death, he bought his charges enough time to make a run for it is, I think, a lot more closure than a lot of characters get. That’s a full arc.

Plus, he got one more sick one-liner for the road.

And, let’s not forget, our baby boy Peppermint Preston who fell taking blows meant for Lapin, sent down by Liam who earlier that week was convinced that Lapin hated him. It seems like a waste, but that’s only because it’s how the dice shook out. How badass would it have been if he’d drawn the attacks and Keradin had whiffed them or if Preston had dropped, but Lapin had rolled a Nat 20, popped back up, scooped him, and left--healing him on the way out? It could have been great.

But it wasn’t. It was just brutal.

So, RIP to our boys. May they be doing shots with the Sugarplum Fairy in Candy Heaven.

Things I’m Concerned About

The Candians were pretty screwed no matter what they did in this episode, but man they truly decided to burn all their bridges with all the F the church talk, blatant magic, and attacking the Pontifex. They are fully terrorists at this point.

None of their people (besides the Tartguard) were in the church when this happened. What happens to them? Do they have time to alert them? Are they all just dead?

I wish Jet hadn’t used that knife on the Pontifex. Like, it’s the least of their worries but not only was it a waste, it makes it seem like the attack on Amethar was a false flag which would also make the attack on the road seem like even MORE of a false flag. That was tactically Not Good.

Because of the way the information was tortured out of Manta Ray Jack (sidenote--are they, like, gonna kill him?), it seems like the Candians might still have allies in the Dairy Islands (as in, they know the Candians were railroaded and didn’t attack first) but this is such a crappy position to put someone in and the Dairy Islands are already weak. Plus, there’s at least one known bad actor there. Who knows who can be trusted at this point?

Where do they even go from here? The rest of the map is at war with them. If they can make it home, war will follow them there too. What is the victory condition here? Dismantling the entire church? If so, yikes.

And, speaking of, the church was really wilding out just having Keradin come out to fight the PCs. Does this mean he’s off the hook? Alfredi too? It seems like they very well might be now that their actions can be retroactively “justified”. Still curious about whether they were working under the church’s direct orders or doing their own shady thing that happened to align with the church’s goals.

THEY HAVE NO HEALER. Like, unless Zac’s next character is also a healer, the party is now in the most precarious position they’ve ever been in with no healer. Hands down, the worst person who could have gone down, party comp-speaking.

Five More Things

There’s a rule in law school called the laugh test and it says that, before you make an argument, say it out loud and see if you can get through it without laughing. And there’s a part in this episode where Siobhan is proposing some BS but I don’t even know what it was because she just fully breaks herself and can’t get through it, and that’s the best illustration of that rule I’ve ever seen in practice. And, while we’re here, the other two A+ Siobhan moments this episode were her face at her double Nat 1s, and, to Lou for reminding Brennan that attacks on him get advantage, “You’re a good man. I’m gonna miss you so much.”

Man, how painful is it that Lapin got to see into the Matrix and figure out the Bulb and then he had the knowledge immediately die with him? Absolutely brutal.

The tension at the table this episode. The ominous music that felt bad until it would cut out completely, which was infinitely worse. The burying of heads into hands and leaning on each other for support. This episode was a LOT. I can’t IMAGINE having been at that table. And I had a week to make my peace with the idea that someone was most likely gonna die. To have to deal with this right on the heels of last ep? Geez.

Hearing on Adventuring Party how Zac planned to have Lapin give a bad guy speech and Thunderstep out with Liam if Initiative had shook out differently really makes it hit home how D&D is really about those in the moment things you can’t control. This could have been a very different encounter but was Jet supposed to NOT try and stab the Pontifex? Of course not, she HAD to. She’s JET. And she got to set the tone of the fight because she rolled highest.

Can you imagine if Amethar had jumped out the window, taken that damage, and just dropped? And failed his death saves? And they had no healer?

Just as a final note, I have to give major props to the whole cast for this episode. We’ve known that this was the “actions have consequences” season since it was announced, but this is really the first time we’ve really gotten to see the extent of the consequences and everyone handled it very well--the PCs staying true to character, even it wasn’t optimal, but still playing smart, and Brennan for facilitating such emotionally difficult scenes. This is peak D&D y’all.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #the royal report

100 notes · View notes

lazylazyhowl · 5 years ago

Text

A work in progress— (sasusaku oneshot)

—because the Sharingan may let him copy a lot of things, but skills of the heart are not amongst them. [Sasuke. On, accepting himself. And her.]

AO3 Link

—

"Maybe next time."

His words are calculated.

Maybe, he's said, and given himself a way out. Given her a probability that, should the odds fall through later on, he can point at and absolve himself of responsibility. The same shit Itachi pulled when they were younger, really, except he won't apologize for it.

He sees the way her face lights up with hope and feels a mirroring force of optimism inside him that he has to clamp down to keep from bursting through the surface and muddying the reality of what he's doing.

His journey cannot involve her no matter what. He's not ready to be with her in any capacity of the words. Perhaps never. But he also doesn't want his last—but only for a while, he adamantly tells himself—memory of her to be a frown.

She's been burdened enough where he's involved. So he'll let her see him off with a smile, even if it's only self-gratification.

There is no guilt when he leaves her with his own smile and gratitude and goes on his way.

The day before his departure, she demanded a spar. He was bleary-eyed squinting at her, in her ninja gears, standing in the damp cold of early morning in front of his door, the flush of her cheeks of strange particular interest to him for a moment before he simply nodded.

She cited professional purposes ("I want to make sure you're in proper conditions for travel, Sasuke-kun.") even though he had already agreed. Even though her reason was crap and made no sense whatsoever.

He wondered if that was the only reason she thought he would accept, even if not believe; and if her request the only one she thought he was least likely to turn down.

He wondered if she was right.

Thanks to her he never had to find out. He only had to hurry and leave for the training ground with her, knowing Naruto would appear soon after, demanding the same of him. But not for the same reason. (Whatever that might have been.)

He helps people during his travel, but otherwise generally stays away from them. It's for both his and their good.

More for his.

People ask too many questions, and even the simplest ones dredge up far more than he's willing to deal with.

"Who are you?" they'd ask. "Just a shinobi," he'd answer.

But he's not just a shinobi. Avenger. Missing nin. Akatsuki. Terrorist. War criminal. The list goes on and he cannot in good conscience cross off any one of the items. Those personas, damned as they are, are still a part of him, and if he closes his eyes, he can recall them all in sickeningly vivid details.

"What's your name?" they'd ask. "Uchiha Sasuke," he'd tell them.

And then it's a coin toss on whether recognition and fear flit past their expressions. For the first few times, he's even considered using an alias, but that would have been such a meaningless thing to do in a journey of redemption.

And cowardly.

He's done with running away.

Or so he tells himself.

It's a calm, sunny day when he stops at a dango stand in a village near the border between Fire and Rain. The decorative flags caught his eyes, he supposes, but he still can't quite pinpoint what has possessed him to purchase a stick of dango for himself.

Itachi loved these (his chest tightens the way it does whenever he's reminded that he can only refer to his brother in past tense), and maybe that's it. But then what?

He isn't one to waste food (though it's debatable whether this is 'food') so he brings it to his mouth and slides the first ball of dango from the skewer.

And he flinches, not from the taste but from the smile that flashes through the front of his mind, innocent and genuine.

His throat runs dry. Too sweet. He makes it through the second ball of dango before leaving the rest behind on the table.

The night before his departure, Naruto finagled him into joining the rest of team 7 for ramen as his farewell party. There wasn't just team 7 at the party.

She was there, of course, with same the dark rings beneath her eyes that he'd noticed rather belatedly during their spar in the morning. Those hadn't kept her from giving him a few bruises and grazes, but he'd be a little less bothered by them if she hadn't also healed him up afterwards.

("But you don't like the hospital, Sasuke-kun.")

She was out like a candle before they even got to the main course.

Being enthusiastic neither for the people nor the ramen, he jumped at the opportunity and volunteered to take her home.

As he left the shop with her, Naruto called after him not to try anything funny and the table erupted into laughter and catcalls. He did not dignify any of that with a response.

She was completely malleable in his arms (Susanoo), her warm breaths seeping into the chest of his shirt, and he didn't dash through the air and over the roofs of civilian houses to get to the shinobi side of the residential district.

Abrupt movements could wake her, and she would fight to stay awake again.

Susanoo used enough chakra already and he needed to be conservative for tomorrow.

Reasoning ironed out, he took a leisure stroll to her apartment, occasionally glancing down to ensure her eyes remained peacefully closed.

He supposes he did attempt something funny that night. He called upon his Sharingan and committed to memory things that rightfully should be of no consequence to him.

He enjoys the long stretches of solitude in his travel, even if his voice will croak from disuse once he hits civilization again.

He likes forests best, especially after rain. The musk of earth and tree sap reminds him that clean air exists, and there is no curious gaze on his Rinnegan, no whispering except for the rivers and trees.

A heavy flapping of feathers reaches his ears, and he holds out his arm to receive the messenger falcon.

Letters from his team.

Naruto rambles, illegible at places, about everything and anything that has happened and then some more; and Kakashi includes some personal postscripts after a mission briefing.

He reads hers last, after feeding the bird and sending it away.

He's forgotten if he was the type to save the best or worst for last.

It's the first time she's written to him, and she's surprisingly succinct. Perhaps reserved. A greeting. Comment on the weather. Well-wishing. Her name. And that was all.

But against all logic, he felt her longing for him.

He isn't sure if it's the way the ink seems to tremble at certain strokes, or how the creases where the paper was folded adds a depth to the spaces she's left between the sentences, that seem to be filled with unspoken sentiments. Or if it's just his inflated ego.

He burns every letter he receives, as the information might get into the wrong hands, but can't bring himself to do the same for hers.

Fortunate, then, that she's written nothing that would be of interest to anyone.

(But him.)

The feeling of her eyes on him was calming, almost spiritual, like a brush of warm smoke at the back of his neck, downy feathers on his skin. He could have pretended sleep forever if she wasn't likely to figure him out the longer he kept up the charade.

It occurs to him one night, looking out the dirty window of an inn, that he has no idea who he is, if not war criminal, not terrorist or Akatsuki or missing nin; if not an avenger.

He's certainly no hero.

The more people he helps, the less he feels himself. There's a disconnect between what he's doing and what he knows himself to be. More often than not, he'd ask himself—what would Naruto do? What would Sakura do? What would Kakashi do? What would Itachi do—have done? (Damnitdamnitdamnit.)

And whatever he'd think they would do he'd do just that. It makes for surprisingly simple problem-solving.

But at his core he's not selfless like Itachi. Not faithful like Naruto. Not loyal like Kakashi. Not kind like Sakura.

At the end of the day, he still doesn't know what he would do.

He scarcely acknowledges it, but he keeps chasing after the back of these great people. He's running himself ragged trying to catch up, but he's so aggravatingly slow that it's a wonder he hasn't lost sight of them all.

He fears it's only a matter of time. And then he will once again be lost and directionless.

He's Uchiha Sasuke, and he no longer knows what that means.

"Oniichan, you suck." This statement is followed by chattering agreements of the other kids crowding around him on the dirt floor of the orphanage.

Children are vicious creatures, he's beginning to learn. He struggles to recall if he was ever this much trouble to Itachi as a kid. They are also incredibly unhygienic, and they incessantly tug at his clothes and hair, poke at the stub of his arm with such disregard that he almost misses the fangirl treatment from way back when in the village.

By the fifth time that they make him redo the voice for the rabbit-dog-cat-looking thing in the story, he's teeteringly close to setting Amaterasu-fire to the worn book in his lap.

His rescue comes in the form of the old matron appearing in the doorway announcing dinner. The children abandon him like one would a sinking ship.

"Thank you for playing with them, Uchiha-san."

He nods noncommittally as he receives his own bowl of food from one of the older kids. It was hardly his choice when the little ones ensnared him within their circle of skin and bones, threatening to cry if he didn't comply, so he thinks her gratitude is therefore unneeded.

None of these is needed. The feeding him, the lodging. He's only sticking around for at most a few more days to take care of the group of mountain bandits that has been harassing the orphanage. He would have been fine setting up camp nearby and not having to deal with the children growing attached (because he knows they will), but the matron insisted.

He's always had this inexplicable soft spot for the elderly, and he wonders if it's not in parts due to the fact that so few in his world get to be old and grey.

"So Little Piggy went to ask Mommy Pig."

The matron's lilting voice floats to his ear as he perches atop the roof of the orphanage, miles and miles of moonlit forest spanning out before him.

"'What is happiness, Mommy?'"

"'It's your tail, sweetie,' said Mommy Pig, and Little Piggy looked at her wiggling tail."

For the longest time, he's had an idea of what happiness should be.

It was the firmness of Itachi's back. His mother's warm meals, and his father's approving grunts. It was a compound brimming with powerful chakras, and memories of children play-training in the clan's private training grounds; and red tomatoes getting snuck out of his mother's garden.

"Little Piggy looked at her tail and began to chase it around in circles until she was out of breath. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn't catch it at all!"

Happiness was home, when home wasn't yet piles of bodies and dark corridors and slipping on cold blood.

He has no idea what happiness would look like now.

"'Mommy, how can I ever catch happiness?" asked Little Piggy."

"'Well, sweetie, your tail will always be there. Why don't you keep walking and let happiness follow you?'"

He closes his eyes and taps into the warm hum of collective chakra inside the orphanage, the tiny sparks flickering dimmer and dimmer as sleep slowly claims the children.

"And so Little Piggy listened to her mother. She walked forward without worry, for she knew her happiness is always wiggling right behind her. The end."

"Goodnight, my dears."

Matron closes the book and gets up from her squeaky chair to stand by the window right beneath where he is, likely to stare out into the forest.

"Goodnight, Uchiha-san."

If he didn't have his shinobi hearing he never would have caught the whispered words.

He's turned the bandits in to the authorities and said all goodbyes in the afternoon. She doesn't know he's there, and he's all the more puzzled.

He stands guard for the rest of the night and silently slips away from the orphanage's grounds at the break of dawn.

The weather in Tea is shifting into spring when he arrives at its border. After a few days of travelling in silence, he stumbles upon a cherry blossom tree that has flowered early, its cloud-like plumage colourful in a sea of solemn green; low-hanging branches swaying in invitation.

He tells himself it's as good a resting spot as any, and feels a decided sense of betrayal that the spilling flowers don't smell the way he thinks they should.

A letter arrives suddenly, informing him of her kidnapping, and he doesn't remember another time that he's been more desperate. She's not someone who'd just let herself be taken, and he fears the worst.

Her letters that he's saved in his pocket weigh like a ball of lead near his heart. He's running as if his life's at stakes. Perhaps it is. For the first time since getting the Rinnegan, he wishes he knew how to control it better.

Then, watching her take down her captors, he learns these:

She's grown so much, has come so far from that little girl she once was and no longer needs to be rescued, least of all by him.

He's the very reason why she's been taken in the first place, her weakness, just that kind of toxic existence to her.

After making sure she will be safe, he leaves and doesn't look back.

Just as she has been born into this life to love him, he must have been born with the sole purpose of bringing her pain.

He only needs all of two weeks in Konoha to have her crying before him again. The weather is grey as if matching the storm in his heart. They're standing in front of that bench where he's left her once upon a time, and he can't say he doesn't notice how history is dangerously close to repeating itself.

Every muscle in his body is coiled for battle, ready to cite the 'maybe' in his promise and gain the slightest semblance of equal moral grounding with her.

She's chewing on her lip in an attempt to bite back her emotions (probably more for his sake than hers. She needs to stop making things easy for him). The tears haven't spilt yet, but they are there, glazing over jewel-like green eyes.

"I thought this time surely—" She cuts herself off when her voice cracks and chews on her lips some more, breaking eye-contact. "What went wrong, Sasuke-kun?"

Before he could stop himself, he'd already slapped her hand away, shouting at her not to touch him.

She simply smiled, like a mother dealing with the tantrum of a child, and calmly finished changing his bandages while guilt still had him in its vice.

He went wrong, but what else was new? With her, he's both a madman and a smitten fool, angry and frustrated and thankful and disgusted and confused and elated and most of all scared. Terrified.

The way she hugs herself and seems to be on the brink of falling apart is nauseating to look at. He's getting worked up over what was supposed to be a simple goodbye. But that's the problem, isn't it? Nothing's ever simple when she's involved.

"You know that this is your home, right? You've never needed to earn any right to stay in it."

"…I know."

She raises a doubtful eyebrow. "Do you?"

It had taken him two years and countless good deeds to finally find the resolve to forgive himself and return to Konoha as someone he thought would be worthy of his friends.

Yet all it took was one smile from her to undo all the confidence that he'd built up like it was a house of cards. He realized immediately that no amount of atonement would ever redeem him enough to be worthy of her.

"Welcome home, Sasuke-kun."

And the worst part was that he wanted to stay regardless.

"Don't be annoying, Sakura." And he can see her visibly shrink back like she's been hit. He might as well have. His fist curls at his side, itching to do something just to stop her from further torturing her steadily swelling lip.

Instead of leaving him alone as he expects her to (and how senseless it is to keep expecting something that will never happen), she steps forward and grabs gingerly onto his mantle.

"Are you…unsatisfied in Konoha? With m—with us?"

He doesn't respond, and she seems to take his silence as agreement and starts to cry in true. Big, fat droplets roll down her cheeks as she matches his gaze. The raw hurt in her eyes startles him.

"What will make you happy, Sasuke-kun?" She tightens her grip, pulling him infinitesimally closer, choking on her words. "Please, please tell me how I can make you happy."

"That's not your problem." That's apparently also a wrong thing to say. She looks resigned now, and the sight somehow claws at him even more. The wind picks up suddenly, nearly drowning out her next words.

"Do you even want to be happy?"

He thinks for a length and honestly cannot say for certain he does. He can hardly picture what his happiness would be now that the old one is so drenched in blood, and misery is a lot harder to take away from a person.

It's ironic, then – or perhaps apt – that he would chase after something he doesn't really want. Because he's full of greed and self-gratification.

She once again takes his silence into her own narrative and lets out a long sigh. Meeting his gaze again, her eyes are already dry, red-rimmed, beseeching. Her voice is but a whisper.

"Is there something you want, Sasuke-kun? Anything?"

If she puts it that way, he wants a lot of things, as a greedy man should. Full control over the Rinnegan. Restore his clan. A tomato garden. Her. To name a few.

But he looks at her, her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks and bruised lip, and sees that she is all wrong compared to everything he's etched into his memory; and blurts out the single thing that floats up to the forefront of his mind right then.

"I want you to be happy."

It takes her a second to react to his words, her large eyes becoming impossibly larger as her mouth opens only to close again. He's not sure why she's so surprised. Of course, he wishes her happiness, even if that will be independent of his own.

A million emotions seem to flicker past her expression in a second, of which he only identifies disbelief, suspicion, melancholy and finally exasperation before she inexplicably bursts into a short fit of giggles. She lets go of his mantle and, before he can miss the anchoring hold, reaches for his tight fist and brings it up between her palms, squeezing.

"I can do that."

She's smiling that smile that unravels him to his core again, her eyes glittering. And he can blame his carnal desires for overriding all of his faculty, but he finds himself ensorceled.

"How about we work on it together, Sasuke-kun?"

His chest is strangely free of heaviness as he uncurls his fingers, almost in a daze, and encases her callused yet delicate ones.

"Hn."

A few days before his departure, he asks if she would come with him and she agrees easily, if not a little exasperatedly that he'd waited so long to ask, and he's mystified as to why he's stayed up all night worrying that she wouldn't.

Three months into their journey together, a newly formed part of him is startlingly assured that she will always have his back, and nothing—nothing can ever change that.

It takes a while longer, but the day finally comes that he figures it out.

He's Uchiha Sasuke, and he means everything to Uchiha Sakura.

—

Notes: I do not own the children story.

#sasusaku #uchiha sasuke #uchiha sakura #haruno sakura #blank period #pseudo character study #hurt/comfort #pining #denial of feelings #light angst #self-deprecation #Sakura just needs to give him a hug

128 notes · View notes

calliecat93 · 4 years ago

Text

Callie’s Disney Princess Retrospective: Cinderella

(Snow White Review)

The year was 1950, 13 years after Snow White’s release. Despite that film’s mass success, Walt Disney’s next feature films during the 1940’s such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi would all bomb. His only true success at the time was Dumbo, and that film was dampened by a mass strike during production that saw many animators walk out. It didn’t get any better when America entered World War II and the military took over many different animation studios, including Disney. They not only had to produce propaganda shorts but due to the limited funds, they were forced to rely on Package Films and live-action to survive. As the 1950s began to dawn, it was clear to Walt that if he wanted to stay in business, he needed another hit. But not just any hit, he needed the same kind of success that Snow White brought him. But what film could give him that success?

For that, he returned to fairy tales, and he found one. A story that he could relate to as a Missouri-born boy who began with nothing. A tale that could appeal to just about anyone. A true rags to riches story of one down-on-her-luck girl having all of her dreams come true. That film would be Walt Disney’s twelfth animated feature, his second fairy tale-based film, and of course the creation of the second Disney Princess who quickly became one of the most famous. Thus, let us discuss the 1950 film, Cinderella.

Overview

Since a young child, Cinderella has been in servitude by her cruel stepmother Lady Tremaine. She is regularly mistreated and worked to the bone by both Tremaine and her nasty stepsisters Drizella and Anastasia. Despite this, Cinderella keeps a cheerful and hopeful demeanor, caring for her mouse friends and hoping that someday the dream that she has wished for will come true. A day that seems to have arrived when the family gets an invitation to a ball held to find a suitor for The Prince. With all eligible maidens asked to attend, Cinderella believes that her chance has arrived, but Lady Tremaine has other plans.

Just as it looks like all of her hopes have been shattered, Cinderella’s kindness and hard-work are rewarded by her Fairy Godmother giving her what she needs to attend the ball. She has a lovely time but is forced to flee at midnight with only a lone glass slipper to remind her of that night. But the ended up charming the Prince and left the other slipper behind, so now the girl who fits the slipper will be made the prince’s bride. Once more, Tremaine tries to prevent Cinderella from succeeding. But with the help of her animal friends and her own hope, Cinderella’s dreams will at long last come true.

Review

youtube

As a little girl, there were many films that I would watch over and over again, such as The Aristocats or The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. But I think that Cinderella was the one that I would play back the most. I remember every single part of this movie. The music, the story, the characters, just everything. And even after all of these years, my feelings and love for the film haven’t changed. If anything, it’s only grown. I still remember when my family went to Walt Disney World, and aside from Mickey Mouse the only thing that I cared about was meeting Cinderella. I did so on the last day in the Magic Kingdom, and she was so kind and beautiful and was everything I ever dreamed of. It is a moment that I will never forget.

Looking at the film itself, it’s clear that it took a lot from Snow White. A fairy tale-inspired movie, a heroine in servitude who charms all around her, an evil stepmother, a handsome prince, animal companions, you name it. I don’t think that it was accidental either. As I said, Walt /needed/ another Snow White success story. He needed to replicate what made that film work and make it better. Which he did. While the two films are similar, it’s arguable that Cinderella improved on many of those elements. While we only really get told that Snow was a servant and only see it briefly at the start, we see Cinderella’s suffering throughout the film. While Snow could look a little off due to the animators still getting used to animating realistic humans, Cinderella looks realistic, moves more fluidly, and fits the style of the film much better. While The Queen never interacted with Snow until the end and therefore never see how she treats her, we see Lady Tremaine’s cruelty towards her stepdaughter in full force and it’s equally as chilling. It truly feels like Walt looked over Snow White, saw what could be improved on, and did so with Cinderella. It really shows how far the company had come since 1937.

But Walt wasn’t the only important person on the film. In fact, he was less involved than he was with Snow White since he was focusing more on live-action and developing Disneyland. This was the film that established Disney’s most talented and loyal animators, his Nine Old Men. These men not only worked on the first five features and the Package Films, but they would go on to work on every film up to The Fox and the Hound and some even went into Imagineering. These would be the men who not only pulled the company back onto its feet after WW2, but they would teach future Disney animators/directors such as Glen Keane, Jon Musker, Rob Clements, Andreas Deja, Brad Bird, and so many others who would continue their legacy. Cinderella herself was done primarily by Marc Davis, Eric Larson, and Les Clark.

Like Snow White, the story is pretty straight-forward. It seems to be based mainly on the version written by Charles Perrault and some of the Grimm Brothers version. It does some expansion, like showing what Cindy’s daily life is like. Having her dress get ripped apart, her getting locked up, and of course, giving an expanded role to the mice. Otherwise though like with Snow White, it’s one of the more faithful adaptations minus a few things. For example, if we go off the Grimm version, the stepsisters don’t mutilate themselves to fit into the slipper… and I don’t have an issue with that either. It can feel a little dragged out, like IDK how necessary the King and Grand Duke scenes were aside from establishing certain things like the ball and the slipper search, but it’s nothing that brings anything to a halt.

The animation is gorgeous. The Nine Old Men weren’t chosen out of random, after all. This film really shows off their talents. Characters like Jaq and Gus, Lucifer, and the Stepsisters are very lively and entertaining to watch. Ward Kimball, who was the main animator for Lucifer the Cat, used his own cat as a reference after Walt pointed it out to him, and you can tell that he was having fun with it. The more realistic characters like Cinderella and Lady Tremaine look and move very well despite the challenge the animators had keeping that realism up. I’d say that their work paid off though. Lady Tremaine especially has some of the most chilling, frightening expressions of any Disney Villain. Frank Thomas did a masterful job making her cold demeanor reach through the screen and to the audience. The art itself looks beautiful and we can thank artist Mary Blair for it as she did the concept art for the film. The use of colors and shadows were done very well. It’s just the right amount of brightness when necessary, and the right amount of darkness when necessary. It hits the mark perfectly.

Then there’s the sound and the music. On the latest rewatch, I noticed how they use music for characters a lot. Take the sequence where Jaq has to distract Lucifer in the first act for example. When he’s crawling across the wall, getting ready to get at Lucifer and kick him into his own milk bowl. They use strings for his movements as well as for strings, like the other mice shutting up Gus when he laughs. It’s nothing new for Disney, after all, it was doing this in Steamboat Willie that launched the company into fame. But it always adds so much even if you don’t realize it. The score uses a lot of strings and horns, knowing when to sound triumphant and when to be subdued. It’s a very good score.

youtube

Cinderella’s soundtrack was the first to be done by the newly established Walt Disney Records, allowing the company to gain profit for their own music. The vocal tracks have two classics worth mentioning. The first is Bippidi-Boppidi-Boo, the Fairy Godmother’s song. It’s a super fun, whimsical song and even though I still struggle to get the words right, it really fits the Fairy Godmother’s nature and is just so darn catchy! The other is of course the theme of the film, Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes. There are several variations of the song throughout the film, but of course, the first time done by Ilene Woods (I’ll talk about her more when I do Cinderella’s character in-depth) is the one we remember most. It’s beautiful, hopeful, and was one of my favorite songs as a little kid. I used to annoy people with how much I would try to sing it, haha. It really tries to convince you that your dreams CAN come true, and by golly did I believe it when I was a kid… and deep down I still do, I supposed. Point is, it’s a lovely song~

What about the characters though? Well, let us have a looksie.

As with Snow White, there are many animals, though this time it’s mainly mice and birds. The mice are the main ones, as well as the only ones who can talk. There are other animals like the birds, a horse, and of course Bruno the Dog. But the main animals to discuss are Lucifer the Cat and the du of Jaq and Gus. Lucifer is a cat, so as expected he chases the mice. But it’s clearly not just due to instinct. It’s shown throughout the movie that he seems to take sadistic glee in chasing after them, especially Gus which is especially clear in the final act. But he also enjoys tormenting Cinderella, such as messing up the floor when she’s wiping it down during the Sweet Nightingale sequence and trapping Gus with the key in part to keep her locked up. He also enjoyed getting Bruno into trouble at the start of the film, which ends up being his downfall at the end. He seems genuinely cruel which...I mean with a name like Lucifer, is it a surprise that he’s a little devil? He has some great expressions thanks to Ward Kimball and was a fun challenge for our favorite mice.

Speaking of, Jaq and Gus serve as comedic relief and the unofficial heroes of the film when you really think about it. They drive many of the events forward such as making Cinderella’s dress and retrieving the key from Lady Tremaine. Jaq is the unofficial leader of the mice and the most talkative by far. He’s charismatic and crafty, usually unafraid (for the most part) of going up against Lucifer or from helping Cinderella whom he cares greatly for. We don’t know how long he’s known Cinderella, but he’s the one who assures Gus that she’s a nice person. Gus the newbie of the mice and a little dim-witted, but well-meaning. Due to being new, he ends up getting into several incidents like nearly being caught by Lucifer several times. Jaq and Gus make a fun duo and I always enjoyed seeing what the two would get themselves into. Also for added fun, both mice were voiced by Jimmy MacDonald (nowadays they’re played by Rob Paulsen and Corey Burton respectively). Jimmy was not only the main sound effects man for the studio but at the time he was also the voice of Mickey Mouse himself. Guess he’s a natural fit for mice, huh?

Next, we’ll go to the royals. Sadly, like with Snow White, the prince is more or less a plot device. I guess they were still having a tough time with realistic male characters. He’s a handsome young man, but sadly that’s all there really is. He doesn’t even get a name, being dubbed as Prince Charming in most material and IDK if that’s really official. They DID plan on giving the Prince more of a role, such a planned sequence with him hunting a deer but it turned out it was play hunting, but this never happened. He doesn’t even go looking for his mystery girl in the end, the Grand Duke does which is pretty disappointing. It’s a shame too since going off the King’s dialogue about how he’s been evading mariage he could have been like the male version of Jasmine. A royal who’s being pushed to get married, even though he wants to find true love on his own time and just have some freedom. They did do a bit more with him in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. They also did more with him in the live-action remake, expanding his and Cinderella’s relationship and giving him an actual name (Kit). But we’re focusing on the original, and it’s sad that he didn’t get more to him.

The King and Grand Duke are also comedic relief and overall pretty good ones. The King is loud, blusterous, and quick to anger. He’s not a bad man, after all the only reason he wants his son to get hitched is because he feels lonely and wants grandchildren. It’s kind of cute when you think about it, even if unfair to his own son. He can be very friendly, but as I said quickly to anger. After all, when the mystery girl got away, he outright attempted to /behead/ the Grand Duke until he told him about the slipper. In comparison, the Grand Duke is more timid, but quite sarcastic as well. Very much the straight man to the King’s blusterous personality. While very much afraid of the king (though not unwilling to backtalk him), up against anyone else he takes no crap from anyone. Just watch him as he tries to endure the Tremaines, it’s amazing how absolutely done he is with all of them, and he wins points for shutting up Lady Tremaine when Cinderella makes her way downstairs. A good man!

The Fairy Godmother is only in the film briefly, but she leaves a major impact. She is the first decent person to Cinderella in a long, /long/ time. She is very grandmotherly in her design, voice, and demeanor. She’s a little forgetful and scatterbrained, as she forgot where her wand was and it takes a good while for her to notice Cindy’s torn up dress. But she is a kindly old woman who was summoned by the hope remaining in Cinderella’s heart. She came at the girl’s darkest hour and gave her the one night that she had always dreamed of. She is voiced by Verna Felton, who was a pretty regular VA for Disney at the time. Though she often did much harsher characters such as The Matriarch in Dumbo and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. But she perfectly portrays the Godmother’s kindly grandmother persona. Her modern VA was Disney Legend Russi Taylor, who also took over Drizella, who sadly passed away last year. It is unknown who will do the Godmother in the future, but I have no doubt that she will emerge again one day

We now come to the Tremaines. First, the daughters. Drizella and Anastasia are ugly, loud, snooty, and mean to both Cinderella and each other. They argue frequently, outright hitting each other during their… ugh… we’ll call it a music lesson. They’re spoiled in the worst way, never being happy with what they have yet get angry if Cinderella dares wear the things that they outright discarded as trash. It’s clear that their mother raised them to be as horrid as her, though they’re nowhere near as calculating. She pretty much raised them to be her attack dogs against Cinderella as well as to use them to marry off and move up in the world. Their obnoxiousness is their only real character trait, though their character animation via Ollie Johnston is quite fun to watch. Anastasia would gain more depth in the two direct-to-video sequels at the very least, more or less also getting a redemption arc. She was also voiced previously by Lucille Bliss, who played the teacher in Invader Zim, and is now voiced by the legendary Tress Macneille.

Then there is Lady Tremaine. Ho boy, Lady Tremaine. If I had the time, I could do an entire essay on this woman alone. She is one of the most chilling, yet memorable Disney Villains despite being nothing but an old woman. Why? First, her voice. In the film, she is voiced by Eleanor Audley, which remember that name cause it’s gonna come back later in this series. She is able to keep the perfect balance of calm and methodical, yet sharp when necessary. Perfectly in control. Actually, that’s a great way to describe Lady Tremaine, in control. She knows what she wants and is willing to go to any length to get it. She carries herself with confidence and regality, very rarely losing her cool. She’s calculative and methodical and you never quite know what she’s going to do until she does it. But most of all, she is cruel and petty, especially towards Cinderella.

Unlike her obnoxious daughters, Tremaine’s abuse towards Cinderella is calm and subdued, preferring to use emotional abuse and manipulation. She has brow-beaten the poor girl so bad that she becomes obedient as soon as the old woman speaks up. Tremaine is jealous of Cinderella’s beauty and therefore tries to make the girl’s life as difficult as possible. She enjoys mistreating and controlling Cinderella, wearing a cold smirk any time that she ramps up the cruelty. Probably her cruelest act in the film is manipulating her own daughters into ripping Cinderella’s dress right off of her after she managed to get it on for the ball. Despite having agreed to let Cindy go to the ball if she got her work done, she ruined her chances anyway just because she could. She’s not only horrible to her stepdaughter but even to her own daughters with how they ultimately turned out and clearly only interested in marrying them off

What makes Tremaine scary though is because… well, compare her to The Queen/Hag and later villainess Maleficent. In the real world, you’re not likely to encounter an evil queen who uses witchcraft and turn herself into an old hag just to poison you. In the real world, you’re unlikely to encounter an evil fairy witch who can curse you to die and transform into a ferocious dragon. But running into a cruel, petty old woman who will abuse you due to jealousy and for her own enjoyment? Oh yes, that can and does happen. Lady Tremaine is real. She is a perfect depiction of an abusive stepparent. Plus as I said before, Frank Thomas did an excellent job depicting her expressions as utterly chilling. I was afraid of her as a child, and I still am now. Even at the end after her daughters failed to get on the slipper, she breaks it just to keep Cinderella from achieving a life of happiness out of pure spite. On the upside, seeing her plans all fall apart and especially her face when Cinderella reveals the other slipper is deliciously satisfying. One of the greatest all-time Disney moments.

Well, that was a lot more than I thought. But with all of that out of the way, there’s only one more character to discuss. Strap yourself in folks, because I have been waiting /years/ for this.

Cinderella Analysis

As I said above, Cinderella was one of my favorite princesses as a child. She was beautiful, had an amazing singing voice, was kind, and I wanted to have my dreams come true just as she did. She is one of the most famous Disney characters by far. I remember her pretty much being the face of the Disney Princess line when I was a kid. Nowadays I’d argue that Rapunzel is more of the face (or if we wanna count Frozen, Elsa is) but that doesn’t mean that Cindy has faded out of the public eye. After all, it is her castle that stands as the main landmark at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. That alone will ensure that she never fades out of popular consciousness.

In return, however, Cinderella is probably the most criticized princess of the Classic Three. It’s mostly for the same reasons as those two. She was a damsel-in-distress. She was domestic and passive. She got together with a man at first sight. She needed others to save her. It’s all the same thing you hear about pre-The Little Mermaid, but since Cinderella is probably the most well-known, she’s the one who gets it levied against her the most. As I said in Snow White, there is some truth about this portrayal furthering the depiction of women as domestic/passive in film. But it truly baffles me as to why Cinderella is the one who gets this criticism the most. It really, really baffles me. I can somewhat get it with Snow White and I can get it with Aurora, but Cinderella? Ugh… no. Just… no.

First of all, let’s get this part out of the way. Cinderella is an abuse victim. I think that Cinderella is meant to be about 19 years old in the film. While we don’t know how old she was exactly when her father died, we see in the opening narration that she was still a child. A child. Let’s say that she was around nine years old. That would mean that she has been under Lady Tremaine’s thumb for ten years. A full decade. If you are under abuse for that long at any age, but especially ever since a child, then that is going to affect you. So Cinderella being passive? Yeah, that’s likely in part because of the abuse that she went through. She was conditioned to not fight back, or if she did she would pay the consequences. As great as imagining standing up and fighting against your abuser is, it is unfortunately very rarely that simple especially when you are under years of psychological conditioning like Cinderella was.

But it is also unfair to say that Cinderella is blindly obedient and broken either. She isn’t. Cinderella is introduced as kind, cheerful, and playful when she teases her bird friends and gets ready for the day. Cinderella is a kind young woman, facing every day with a smile despite her treatment. The girl lives in an attic, yet she happily sings as she gets her day started. Cinderella’s defining trait is that she is a dreamer. As she herself says in the opening, her dreams are something that no one can control. Not her step-family. Not the clock telling her that it’s time to get on with a new day. In her dreams, she is able to do whatever she wants. It is her escape. The one thing that gets her through the day, hoping that one day the dreams that she wishes in her heart will come true.

youtube

This is what fuels Cinderella ahead. It is what allows her to remain kind. It is what allows her to be sympathetic to others. What shows this most is her treatment of the mice. She treats them as her friends, making them clothing, feeds them, and frees them from traps. This is important for what happens later, but we’ll get to that later. She is also kind to the other animals, such as the horse and to her dog Bruno. In fact, it’s pretty interesting when she scolds Bruno for wanting to chase Lucifer. She tells him that it’s bad, how he’ll lose his warm bed, and quote “you know the orders”. She expects Bruno to obey the same way that she must obey. Doing so otherwise will mean consequences such as losing one’s own bed. The only animal that Cinderella doesn’t get along with is Lucifer, who is also the only character she is willing to speak against. At one point she was even willing to smack him with her broom when he ruined the floor she just finished scrubbing. It makes sense since Lucifer not only goes out of his way to make things more difficult for her, but he can’t order her around or really do anything to her as Lady Tremaine can. So in a way, it’s one thing that she has some power over.

Still, the first act shows what Cinderella’s life is like. It doesn’t seem too bad at first glance. She seems happy and treats her morning more like an annoyance than anything. But once we meet the Tremaines, it becomes clear just how bad it is. Anastasia immediately accuses Cindy of planting a mouse under her cup on purpose and Cinderella gets no chance to defend herself, though she is able to make Lucifer free Gus. She’s then summoned into Lady Tremaine’s room, clearly uneasy. Whenever she tries to explain herself, Lady Tremaine snaps back at her, making her go silent. There is no arguing. Lady Tremaine likely knows that Cinderella did nothing wrong, but doesn’t care. Whatever makes the girl miserable works for her and gives her an excuse to pile on that misery. Thus she piles on the workload, even making Cinderella do things that she already did once over again. Cinderella is unable to do anything but listen to the commands.

Everything changes, however, when the invitation to the ball arrives. Now we go back to one of the criticisms against Cinderella. Many accuse her of only going to the ball to meet the prince and get married. Now I will go more into this later, but there’s a reason why I am bringing it up now. Cinderella never at any point time from this point until the search for the mystery girl starts, even so much as mentions the prince. The ones who want to go to get married are the Tremaines. The whole reason that they go is because of the royal command for every eligible maiden to attend. Lady Tremaine wants to marry off her daughters. The sisters obviously want to get hitched to a good-looking man of power like the prince. Cinderella though? She just wants to go to a fancy ball because she can. By royal command every maiden is to attend no matter their status, so a lowly servant girl like herself is allowed. She even points this out to her step-family in one of the few cases she does stand up to them. Not by getting angry or defensive, she just outright points out the fine print. But no, nothing about getting with a guy ever comes up until much, much later.

Lady Tremaine agrees that Cinderella can go if gets her work done and finds a dress. But she uses the first part of that deal to bombard Cinderella with orders to make her unable to accomplish the second half. Cinderella has the dress picked, one of her mother’s, but she has no time to mend it up. As Jaq points out to the other mice, the Tremaines are going to make her do everything to make her unable to get her dress. But this is where Cinderella’s previous kindness kicks in. It’s clear that the mice really care for her because of how she cares for them. As such, they decide to fix up the dress for her. Jaq and Gus outright risk their lives against Lucifer to get some discarded trimmings.

Sure Cindy ultimately didn’t mend the dress herself, but it shows how her kindness came back to reward her. Just look at how downcast she is when the carriage arrives. She realized far too late that her step-family was never going to give her the chance to go to the ball. She is saddened as she returns to her attic-dwelling, looking out at the castle from the window and trying to convince herself that the ball would have been boring anyway. It fails. She is standing in darkness until the room lights up via candlelight and the mice reveal the mended dress to her. You can just hear the glee and gratitude in her voice as she swings around the dress and is at a loss of words before thanking her friends. Her kindness was rewarded… but sadly, not for long.

We now come to what is by far the darkest scene in the movie. Cinderella comes down to the door, shocking her stepfamily that she actually got a dress. At first, Cinderella is elated that she can actually go… until Lady Tremaine begins to approach. The old woman doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong, agreeing that Cindy kept her end of the deal and even compliments the dress. But then she points out the beads to Drizella, who previously discarded them. It provokes her and Anastasia into a bitter, angry frenzy. They outright rip the dress apart while Cinderella is still in it. It is disturbing, Cinderella unable to do anything as her dreams are literally ripped away from her bit by bit. By the end, Tremaine calmly calls her daughters away and bids Cinderella a good night, leaving the girl standing in a pile of rags.

This is the final straw for Cinderella. She runs out to the back garden and breaks down. After trying so hard for so long to keep her hopes up, she can’t. All that she wanted was to go to the ball. Not to get married, just to have one night where she could have a good time. That was it. But her stepfamily just couldn’t allow for even that and tore it all away from her. Can you blame her for crying after all that? After dealing with that kind of treatment since she was a little girl? I can’t blame her. Her friends can only watch in sympathy and sadness as she says that there’s no use in dreaming and that she can’t dream anymore. She has hit her breaking point, a far cry from the hopeful young dreamer she was at the start of the film.

But not all is lost. In her despair, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother is summoned. So a big question I’ve seen some ask is how the Fairy Godmother was summoned to begin with? Well, it’s as she herself said, she couldn’t be there if Cinderella didn’t have hope in her heart still. She is essentially a manifestation of Cinderella’s hopes and dreams. If I had to guess with Cinderella reaching her breaking point and ready to give in to despair, the Fairy Godmother manifested because she now truly needed help. It was to restore her hopes and allow her to get to the ball after the chance was so cruelly ripped away from her. I know what some are going to say, once again Cinderella got something handed to her. But this is a case where Cinderella herself more or less summoned the one who would help her. Her kindness caused the mice to help her, now her hope summoned up her Fairy Godmother to help her. It’s not happening just because.

So The Fairy Godmother creates her carriage, makes her new dress, and gives her the glass slippers. But like all dreams, this can’t last forever. She has until midnight, after which the spell will be broken. Which is perfectly fine with Cinderella, she’s just grateful for what her Fairy Godmother has done for her. Seeing her smiling and hopeful again after the previous moment and her just receiving some motherly kindness from someone is just really nice to see. Thus, she is whisked away to the ball, and almost as quickly as she arrives, she catches the eye of The Prince himself. While Drizella and Anastasia are trying to get him to look at them, funny enough.

So let’s get back to the ‘Cindy only wanted a man!’ critique. As I already said, she never mentions a man until near the end. But here at the ball, it’s not even her who goes to The Prince. Heck later when midnight hits, it’s pretty clear that she didn’t even know that the guy she was dancing with was The Prince. No, it is Prince Charming who approaches her. We outright see him look up, notice her as she enters, and is stricken by her beauty. It is him who walks to her and presents himself to her, a major contrast to how all the other girls were going up to him with him clearly bored. So no, Cinderella never wanted to get a man. It all happened purely by chance, and again she didn’t even realize that he was The Prince until after the ball was long over.

Cinderella dances with the prince throughout the night, getting so caught up that she loses track of time until the clock goes off. Once again, the clock is telling her that it’s time to wake up from her dream. She flees, but loses one of her slippers along the way. Midway on the road home, the spell is broken and she is once more in her torn-up dress. She apologizes to her animal friends for losing track of time, but happily recalls the night. But the mice then point something out to her: her glass slipper is still on her foot. Now… why is that? Well what summoned the Fairy Godmother to begin with? Hope. It is my opinion that this is why the slippers didn’t disappear as well. Cindy’s hope kept them manifested, to the point that I don’t believe that her losing one happened by chance. It is the key to her having a chance at a better life. It slippped off her foot due to that, and the other one remained for the same reason. Cindy seems to think it’s the Fary Godmother’s doing as she thanks her, but the truth is it is herself who caused both of those.

Thus, we come to the next day. The Grand Duke is looking for the mystery girl, and Tremaine is ready to leap at the chance. At first, Cinderella is pretty much ready to resume her regular life now that she’s gotten the one night that she had wanted. But as Tremaine explains the new development to her daughters, Cinderella hears it. This is when she realizes that it was The Prince that she was dancing with. That it was her slipper that was found, which means that she’s the mystery girl. Which means that she’s the one who can fit it and thus she will become The Prince's bride. This is the point that she wanted to get married to a man. In the final fifteen or so minutes. But look as to why she wants to. This will absolutely ensure that she is able to have a better life than she has now, so can we blame her for being happy?

Cinderella is so elated that she outright ignores her stepsisters demands and starts to day-dreamingly go to her room to prepare for the Grand Duke’s arrival. But this turns out to be a mistake. Because of her elation, Lady Tremaine immediately puts the pieces together. Cinderella not only managed to defy her and go to the ball, but she is now in the way of her plans to marry her daughters off. If she is there when the Grand Duke arrives, then that’ll be it. She’ll fit the slipper, be taken to the palace, and will marry The Prince not long after. That is something that Lady Tremaine simply cannot allow. Not to mention that she can’t allow the girl to go unpunished for her defiance. Thus, she locks Cinderella in her room. To both keep her out of the way and to make sure that she can never leave.

So… it looks like that’s it. There is nothing that Cinderella can do at this point. She realizes that she’s once more going to be trapped in a cruel life and begs Tremaine to let her out before just breaking down. She had her chance once more, and once more her stepmother took it away. But once more, Jaq and Gus act to help their friend and manage to get the key. But of course Lucifer interferes, trapping both Gus and the key and Cinderella is now in a position where she can’t make him stop. All of her animal friends try to help, but it proves futile. That is, until Cinderella has a realization. There is someone who can chase off Lucifer. The same someone that she previously scolded because it would be going against orders; Bruno the Dog.

Remember when I pointed out how Cinderella got after Bruno dreaming of chasing Lucifer because he’d lose his home otherwise? Yeah, it comes back around here. She’s now close to getting out of her situation, so why not allow Bruno the same thing? She has her bird friends alert Bruno, and indeed the dog rushes in and causes the evil cat to jump from the window. I think it was supposed to be implied that this killed Lucifer, but we see in the later sequels that he survived. But with him out of the way, the mice slip Cinderella the key and she is able to get out and to the stairs just as the Grand Duke is beginning to walk out. And he’s clearly glad to see her to, outright making his way past Lady Tremaine and reminding her that he’s supposed to give every maiden a chance when she tries to ward him away,

But, of course, Tremaine can’t just accept defeat. She trips the earl and the slipper is shattered. It looks like once again, Cinderella’s hopes have been for naught. But this time, she doesn't cry. She doesn’t even get sad. Why? Simple, because it wasn’t for naught. She pulls out the other slipper, proving beyond doubt that she is the mystery girl. It was her hope that created the slippers. It was her hope that kept them manifested when the spell was broken. Now it is her hope that gave her the key to at long last break free from her stepfamily for good. She gets married to The Prince (we don’t know how long after, so there is a window open for those who want to get after her for marrying a guy she just met) and is whisked away to a better life. The wish that she made at last came true.

Cinderella is defined by hope, kindness, and dreams. It is these things that fuel her to continue on with her life. It is these things that allow her to remain a good person and not be broken by her stepmother’s attempts to humiliate and demean her. Even at her lowest moment, her hope couldn’t be truly broken. Sure in real life you’re not going to be able to magically summon a Fairy Godmother or be married into royalty because of a shoe. But this is NOT real life. This is a fairy tale. It is escapism. It doesn't have to adhere to reality exactly. Plus even then, there is something to be said about not giving up hope and remaining kind in the face of adversity. It is that lesson that I have carried with me since I was a child, to remain kind no matter what. I’ve had my own breakdowns, especially since it’s still 2020 at the time of this writing. But even so, I’ve tried to remain kind. Because Cinderella taught me to do so.

It is why I have never understood the hate against her, and never will. I love the modern princesses and yes, they did need to become more proactive and strong. But this does NOT make the first three bad. Especially not Cinderella. She is an abuse survivor. She is a dreamer. She is a young woman who only wanted to have some happiness in her life. Her kindness and hope was eventually rewarded, and in a way was granted to her by herself. The mice helped her with both her first dress and to escape the attic because she was kind to them. Bruno and the animals liked her because she was kind to them, so they repaid her. The Fairy Godmother manifested because Cinderella wanted to give up, but hope still remained in her heart and gave her the help she desperately needed. The glass slippers remained because of her hope, and became the keys to her achieving a better life. Sure she didn’t have to physically fight for it, but it doesn't change the fact that things happened, that others helped her because she was kind and hopeful. Because of herself.

The last thing to note is her voice actress, Ilene Woods. She was originally hired to do the singing for Cinderella, but after Walt heard her he cast her to also do the speaking lines. She did a beautiful job. She conveys Cinderella’s grace, kindness, and hopeful nature absolutely beautifully and her singing voice is outright angelic. Do you want to know a sad, yet beautiful story? Well at the end of her life, Ilene Woods had sadly been inflicted with Alzheimer. I think we all know how devastating that disease is. She was living in a nursing home, unable to recall anything. Reportedly, the nurses would often play A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes for her. Even though Ilene couldn’t recognize that it was herself singing, it was the one thing that could make her happy all the way up to her passing in 2010. Mind you that story is from Wikipedia /TV Tropes and I haven’t been able to find an actual source saying this, but I’ve never seen anyone contest if this was true. Either way, Ilene was and will always be the Cinderella, a legacy that the current actress Jennifer Hale is keeping alive and well today.

Final Thoughts

Cinderella will always be special to me. She’s not my overall favorite princess, we still have quite a while before we get to her. But she is firmly my second favorite. The film is outright my second favorite of all time (again, we’ll get to number one later). It’s the first movie that I remember seeing in my life. I would watch it for hours over and over again. I had dolls of her. I would dress up as her. The whole reason I wanted to go to Disney World was to meet her, and I did. The film looks beautiful. The music is beautiful. The characters are memorable. The story is an outright classic even before Disney adapted it. To quote Beauty and the Beast, it is a tale as old as time. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but even after all these years, I love this movie just as much as I did when I was a little girl. Maybe even moreso now. It is a true Disney Masterpiece.

Disney was hoping for a miracle, and he got it. Cinderella was the biggest hit that they had had in a looong time. Audiences and critics loved it. It was the moment that Disney was back in business and able to return to feature film, launching them into the Silver Age of Animation. While his next film, Alice in Wonderland, didn’t go very well, both Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp helped keep the studio afloat. As the decade came to a close, the studio decided that it was time to release another fairy tale-inspired film. Would this one strike gold like the first two? Come back next time to meet the final Classic Princess, Sleeping Beauty.

Image Sources: Disney Wiki, Animation Screencaps Other Sources: Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella Documentary

#cinderella #disney princess #disney princess reviews #callie reviews

21 notes · View notes

kyloxox · 5 years ago

Text

𝕀 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝔼𝕩𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕕 (James Potter x reader)

Summary: you and James had a complicated history. You wanted to forget he existed. But you just couldn’t.

AN: this went in a complete different direction then I attended but hope you guys like it!

Lover Series Masterlist

———————————————————————

Laughed on the schoolyard. As soon as I tripped up and hit the ground, ground, ground.

“Hey are we gonna meet up later in the library to prepare for the transfiguration exam?” You asked.

“Sure.” James briskly said as he looked over you to see behind you.

“Sirius! You got them! This is going to be perfect.” James held up a bag full of pop its. “Bye y/n!” James said as he walked with Sirius into the classroom, talking to him whatever god knows what.

“Bye.” You said huffing and walking away to your next class.

“Miss. L/N.” You felt your whole body go numb. Of course Mcgonagall chose you first. She placed an apple on on table, gesturing you to stand up and go to the front of the class. As you stood up your chair made a loud shrieking sound. And throughout the quiet classroom it was even more noticeable. You heard some giggles from a pair of boys but you didn’t notice who’s they were. You walked up to the front, your hand gripping your wand.

“Alright Miss. y/n.” She moved out of your way. You shakily held up your wand.

“D-duro.” You tried to say as loud and clear as possible but nothing happened. You heard some giggles behind you but ignored it.

“Duro!” You said more confidently. But still nothing. As the giggles still ensued you gripped your wand tight. “Duro!” You tried one final time. Finally the apple started to turn but instead of to stone it turned into a mush.

“Thank you, Miss L/n, you may sit down.” As you walked to your seat you were finally able to see who was giggled. James and Sirius. Your heart froze. Your best friend was laughing at you, mocking you.

While trying to hold back your tears you sat back to your seat, who now had Lucius Malfoy preoccupying the seat that was empty.

“At least you’re not doing as back as Weasley.” You turned to the front of the classroom to see Arthur’s apple grew wings.

“Shut up Malfoy.” He laughed a little.

“You coming to the slytherin party tonight?”

“No why would I go to that?”

“Cause I want you to.” He looked you up and down.

“Shut up.”

“Whatever worth a try. It’s not like you’ll be over Potter in a night.”

“Excuse me? What did you say?” You turned with a concerned look.

“Everyone knows you’re like obsessed with potter, I mean even he knows. You follow him like a lost dog.”

“I’m not obsessed with him. He’s my best friend.”

“But are you his?” Your lips parted. You never thought of it that way. “Listen come to the party tonight. It’s only slytherins so maybe you can have friends in your own house.”

“Fine, I guess.”

Your name on my lips, tongue tied. Free rent, livin’ in my mind. But then something happened one magical night. I forgot that you existed. And I thought that it would kill me, but it didn’t. And it was so nice. So peaceful and quiet.

It was the first day back for your 7th year. Your last year before leaving your childhood behind. Over the summer you and your dorm mates hung out almost every other day. They showed how wonderful life was in the world of rich purebloods, especially the shopping weekends in paris.

And your life back home had gotten better. Your parents were happy that you stopped talking to James. They believed as he grew older he became the prime example of a blood traitor. And they were more than happy to pay for your expenses. Along with getting better along with your parents they forced you to get a dark mark and join Voldemort.

“You won’t be a main member, just a follower.” They told you. It still felt wrong. But when everyone around you was doing the same thing, it help fizz that tension.

Over the course of the summer you had almost completely forgetten about James and his immature behavior. You barely tried to contact him over the summer and if he wanted you to he could have done it himself, but he didn’t. And you weren’t surprised.

So now as you were walking into the great hall, trying to act like everything was fine with your fellow slytherins you couldn’t help but feel the lingering eyes of James and his friends. Sure you changed a lot of the summer, including a new hairstyle, no more braces and new expensive diamond earrings banging from your ears. But it wasn’t like James should care.

“Bloody hell. It looks like those slytherins corrupted her.” Sirius joked as he saw you. James just slowly nodded his head as he looked at you awestrucked. You changed. Changed a lot over the summer. New confidence. New hair. New friends.

James would be lying if he said he wasn’t sad you guys didn’t hang out over the summer. I mean it was tradition for you guys to spend the first day of summer together, but James was too busy getting drunk with Sirius to notice.

But the fact that you didn’t even acknowledge James was the saddest for him.

It isn’t love, it isn’t hate. It’s just indifference.

“Hey y/n….”

“Potter.”

“Ouch denounced to Potter.” He smirked at you playfully

“Yep…that’s what I denounce blood traitors as.”

“Damn.” He continued to smirk.

“Bye Potter.”

“Wait y/n!” James said as he graded your arm. In that process your sweater as riden up amd your mark was revealed. You quickly gasped and pulled your sleeve down.

“Y/n? What the hell is that?”

“Nothing!” You swiped her arm away from him.

“I knew your parents were going to corrupt you! But I always thought you’d ignore their efforts. Now with your new friends I’m not surprised.”

“Maybe if you were a good friend I wouldn’t have to become friends with the people who you think are “corrupting me.”

“Okay y/n! I’m sorry! I’m sorry for being such an idiot! I’m sorry for acting like an asshole to you for years.”

“I don’t care James! I don’t care anymore! You’re the only one obviously phased by this!”

“Because we used to be best friends! We used to do everything together.”

“Well, people change James and I think we both know who’s the one who did.”

“Says the one who’s a death eater now!” The moment he said that you turned around and slapped him in the face.

“At least I don’t go behind my friends back and treat her like shit!”

“Oh really? Then what do you call this!” He grabbed your arm and forced your mark in your face.

“It’s called being loyal to my parents! My legacy!”

“Legacy? Y/n, are you hearing yourself?!? Two years ago you made fun of this stuff?!”

“Well I grew up. Obviously you haven’t.“

With that you rushed out of the room. Leaving your childhood behind. Leaving your friendship behind. Leaving your best friend behind.

One year later

You barely knew where you were going. All you had was an address scribbled on your hand that was smudged. But it didn’t keep you from briskly walking through adandonded streets.

You managed to find the tiny cottage at the end of the lone street. You quickly looked out as you banged on the door. A few seconds later it was opened by James. He looked aged from the stress of the war but he still looked the same.

“James please! Just listen to me! Voldemort is going to come here. He’s going to kill you! He’s gonna kill you!” You shrieked trying time get him to listen to you.

“Please listen to me! Peter he’s….he’s a death eater now-”

“Please y/n, Peter isn’t you. He would never do that.”

“James!” You shrieked again. “Please believe me!”

“How do you even know where we’re hiding out!” He roared at you.

“Because-”

“Peter told her…” Sirius finished before you could finish “Prongs. I think she’s telling the truth.”

“James please.” You looked into his eyes, as glossy as ever. “Lily, Marlene, Mary has already been killed by him, I don’t want to see you with them.” He looked into your eyes deeply. He knew you were telling the truth and he couldn’t risk it.

“We have to evacuate.” James stated to the rest of the members hiding in the small cottage.

“Well?” James raised his eyebrows, holding the door open. You noticed you were the only one left in the room.

“Well?”

“Are you gonna come?” He said amused.

“Haha very funny.” You deadpanned.

“I’m serious. If he sees you here, he’ll kill you.”

“Maybe it’s what I deserve.”

“Don’t say that.” You both stood silent for a moment. Letting the feeling of childhood nostalgia sink in.

“I’m sorry-” you both say at the same time. God another cliche. Your life was such a cliche.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for doing this. God I hate myself so much with this, this thing on my arm.”

“I’m the one who drived you to it.”

“No, no it was me. I thought getting it would be pay back to you. A kick in the chest to you. But I was wrong I was stupid.”

“I’m still in that equation. If I hadn’t treaten you like an asshole you would never have felt the need to do those things.”

“Yea but maybe I should have acted like tha-”

“Shhh.” James said as he moved closer to you. “It my fault. I was afraid. I was afraid of what people would think if I dated you.” He paused for a second.

“I was afraid they would think I was insane for liking a slytherin. So I acted like an asshole. To get you away from me and god was that stupid. Cause it worked. You were smart enough to get away from me. I thought you would just kept clinging, and that’s what I wanted.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you treated me like garbage-"

“I know... and it was the worst mistake of my life. Cause I lost you, during the time I most needed you, cause I was selfish.”

“James please, I get you’re trying to apologize but we need to leave.”

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

“Just promise me one thing.” He moved closer to you.

“After the war is over, we forget everything. The war, 7th year and we become best friends again.”

“Yes I promise.” You said and not being able to hold back you grab his face and smash your lips into his.

“Bloody hell.” You whispered.

“Wow just like I imagined.” James smirked holding onto your waist.

“Shut up now we really have to go.” You said grabbing his hand and rushing out the door.

“You two are finally done in there?” Sirius snickered to you guys.

“Don’t worry you’ll have your seven minutes in Heaven with someone soon.” James said over to him with a cocky smile. You just laughed, realizing how much you missed this.

taglist: @accio-rogers @llamaluverlizzy @arianna-17-11 @peasantview @girlyisthatweirdkid @timeladygallifrey @malina4ka @outrodaylight @emcchi @sophisticatedslytherin @thatharrypotterfan13

#james potter x you #james potter #james potter x reader #young james potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter #lover #taylor swift #i forgot you existed #marauders #marauders imagine #marauders era #young remus lupin #remus lupin #sirius black #slytherin #gryfindor

485 notes · View notes

bush-viper-cutie · 5 years ago

Text

Love Me Roughly: An Exchange

Pairing: Snape x fem!reader

Word Count: 2,041

Rating: M for Mature

Plot: Severus doesn’t know where his relationship is going, but he does hope it never stops. The only problem comes from the fact that they cannot remain strangers any longer.

A/N: This is part 5 of 7 for the week 1 schedule for Snape Appreciation Month! @snapeloveposts

DISCLAIMER: I have edited (drawn over the original) the artwork (taken from a 80′s bodice ripper novel) for the purpose of this short series and will post more information about the original work here.

Posted: 6/5/20

Chapter List

<– Last Chapter Next Chapter –>

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

May flowers were blooming, and the hot June sun was soon approaching, threatening the cool temperature of the little log cabin by the cliff. The clouds blew passed overhead as the sun touched the highest point in the sky and slowly fell back down to earth.

Severus was laying on the blue picnic blanket in just his white shirt and trousers, intertwining his fingers over his chest while listening to the birds chirp and fly, fluttering away from the small dog that barked in the distance. He sighed and turned to the beautiful woman resting beside him. He propped up his head with his arm and moved a slender finger of her cheek, making her smile.

“How hot does it get here?”

She laughed and opened an eye at him, “Worried you won’t be able to wear only black for much longer?”

“Perhaps… I was thinking of putting cooling charms throughout the house. Care to help me?”

She sat up, pushing him back onto the blanket and pressed her lips to his, smiling, “It’ll get too cold – ”

“I can handle that. Besides,” he pulled her in closer, “All that means is you’ll have to stay more often to keep me warm.”

She bit her lip, catching that twinkle in his eyes, “I’ll keep you real warm.”

Severus stood up and offered to clean up the picnic while she fetched her dog, who was getting more and more annoying as the days went on. He tracked mud when it rained, he barked every morning and night and when any squirrel decided to prance by the house… he even managed to wedge between him and the woman at night.

He rubbed his neck and winced, remembering the night before, having to make room for the mutt by sleeping in a highly uncomfortable position. He rolled the blanket in his arms and stuffed it in the basket. The woman walked back to him with the dog in her arm and took his hand, leading him down the hill towards his home.

“Do we have to put the cooling charms everywhere today?”

Severus rolled his eyes, “The bedroom at the very least.”

She dropped the dog inside and closed the door, turning, “You get started, I’ll make us some lunch.”

Severus nodded and headed up the stairs to the bedroom, wand in hand ready to add the charms. It was far messier than he had expected, forgetting that last night she hadn’t gone home so there was no need for her to pack her things. All her clothes were either on the floor, on the night stand, or on the bed, along with his coat.

He chuckled to himself and got to work on charming the window, door, and walls along with floor and ceiling to keep the hot air out and the air around them cool. He lifted his arms for one last charm and winced, rubbing his shoulder and neck where it hurt.

“I’ll close the door so he won’t get in tonight,” the woman entered and placed a tray of sandwiches on the nightstand. “How sore is it?”

“Very,” he hissed, touching a particularly rough spot.

She stepped closer and hugged him from behind, kissing him and rubbing his chest with her hands, “I can help with that, you know.” She laughed and pushed him down on the bed, kneeling behind him on the mattress.

“If I turn out worse than before, I’ll poison you,” he growled.

“Your little jars and dead crawly things don’t scare me anymore – ”

He could hear the smile in her voice.

“ – You can act tough, but I know how you really get in bed.”

He knew she was winking. He shook his head and sighed, letting her arms reach around him to unbutton the shirt he wore. She unbuttoned half and pulled down the shirt collar, revealing his shoulders to the encroaching night air.

He felt her thumbs push into his back and neck, and he couldn’t help but groan as she rubbed slow circles into his tender muscles. She laughed and kissed his head as she worked, which was surprisingly helping his pain. His groans got louder as she reached his shoulders, pushing harder than she had been previously.

“Yeah. That hurts differently,” he gripped the mattress and dropped his head. He couldn’t count the amount of times he wished she could have done this for him in his Hogwarts office after hours of reading awful essays.

“Why don’t you sleep in my bed this time? Just once?”

He sighed, “No.” He didn’t mean to make his voice so menacing, but he couldn’t let the relationship go that far. First, he would be sleeping over there forced to get to know her more intimately, then he’d be hearing her name, and beyond that was her finding out about him which he could never let happen. “No,” he said softer.

Her hands fell to her side and she sat down behind him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him back to lay on her. He let his head rest on her shoulders and closed his eyes.

“I’ve been sleeping in your bed for weeks… How much longer are you planning on keeping me at arms distance? You clearly care for me and I care for you so…”

Severus shut his eyes tighter, knowing she was right. He liked her a lot. Much more than he had anticipated, but he still couldn’t let his past creep up on him. He didn’t want to talk about the war. Nor the years spent as a spy, Not to mention having to explain being a Death Eater.

Everything was so simple when he didn’t have a name and no past… Except he kept wondering about hers. What is her name? Why was she in London? Is she from here originally? What’s her name? These were all questions he wanted answers to. He wanted to know her favorite color, her favorite fruit, if she preferred the summer or the winter… Even what the dog’s name was…

“You might not like me if I told you who I was just last month,” Severus sat back up and pulled his shirt on properly, buttoning it up, and stood. “My life is better like this. It’s finally better… And I won’t – ” his words caught in his throat and he shook his head.

He picked his coat off the bed and put it on, buttoning it up as he walked down the stairs. In the few weeks they had been semi-living together, she had gifted him a comfortable chair to read his book in. He had barely picked it up around her because every time he did, she would laugh in the background, though she assured him it wasn’t because of the book itself. It was because of how red he got when she caught him with it.

He sat down and picked up the book, turning to the next page.

‘Robin cried into the arms of her oldest friend, not wanting to believe how loyal they were to their friendship. Stephano picked her small body off the ground, holding her to his muscly bare chest. Her friend said their goodbye and left, promising to come by often.’

The woman walked into the room with her arms crossed, frowning at him. He glanced up and lifted the book higher, unwilling to continue their discussion.

“What’s the alternative – ”

“Give. It. A rest!” Severus shut the book and turned away, staring instead at the small dog licking himself. He groaned and turned back to his book.

“What I’m saying is,” she walked forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, “I… I really, really like you. And I don’t want to call you a stranger still in a year let alone… five! – or some other large and scary number.”

His eyes flickered to her face, seeing a small smile playing at her lips. He hadn’t considered what things would be like in a year, but he certainly hadn’t thought she would want to stay for that long, Let alone five.

He figured she’d get tired of him in a month. Actually, he thought the potions ingredients he had brought with him would creep her out enough to make her leave, but all she did was make a gagging noise and offer to get the bed ready for sleeping while he put them away. And she doesn’t mind when I spend all day long reading, which is his main activity – although he has enjoyed the walks, and picnics, helping with dinner, even playing with her dog…

“I – ” he groaned, “I’ll let you tell me the dog’s name.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “It’s Jiggy.”

The dog barked and came running, wagging his tail and pawing at Severus’ leg.

“‘Jiggy’?”

She scratched behind Jiggy’s ears and nodded, “As a pup he did this weird sort of dance, but he stopped, and I can’t get him to do it anymore.”

He nodded slowly, wishing he hadn’t been told, but hoped that would end the conversation. Of course, he was wrong and it was brought up again during dinner, while they changed into their pajamas, and while they brushed their teeth together.

Severus crawled under the covers quickly and shut his eyes immediately, trying to pretend he was too tired to talk, “Good night.”

She crawled in after him and sat, looking down at him and shaking her head. “Are you always this stubborn?”

“More so during the summer.”

She slid farther down and pushed him onto his back, though he kept his eyes closed. She started pecking his face, kissing softly. He parted his mouth and felt her lips on his instantly and hummed, loving the way she kissed him so sweetly.

“I thought you were too tired,” she teased.

He opened his eyes and moved her closer, “Is this not what you wanted?”

He pulled her on top of him and let her continue her attack on his lips while he pulled the sheets higher to conceal them in warmth. She pulled his night shirt up and placed herself perfectly on top of him. He let her do all the work while they kissed, perfectly content with everything she did.

When he had last thought of what relationships would be like, he had been quite certain that sex would be the highlight of it. And although they were intimate most every night like spellbound lovers, he came to realize that it was only the cherry on top of everything she had to offer. He thought more about what she had said before. He wanted all this to last well over a year… In fact, I want this to last well over five…

He was pulled back to reality by her moans and couldn’t help but join her. Her head was bent over his chest and he could smell the sweet shampoo she always used. He gripped her waist tight and waited until she looked back up at him to kiss her hard between his moans and hers.

“I want you to moan my name,” she whispered.

Severus’ groan turned into a moan. “You’ve tricked me,” he could hardly speak with all the rough breathing he was doing. He heard her giggle and he couldn’t help but give in as she worked her magic on him. “What is it? I want to say it,” he moaned urgently.

“(Y/n).”

It was music to his hears and he immediately put it to good use.

“Don’t you want me moaning yours?”

Fuck. Of course I do.

“Give me your name to moan,” she bit his lip gingerly and tugged.

“Severus,” he gasped and swept his hands over her back and pressed her close to him, tangling his fingers in her hair while she gave little love bites to his neck.

With every moan she made he heard his name on her lips, louder with every passing second. Everything seemed better suddenly, everything felt better. They were closer, even if their physical intimacy was at its peak. She dropped her head and sighed loudly as a wave washed his body of all tension and stress was replaced by pure pleasure.

“(Y/n),” he hugged her close.

“Severus.”

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Chapter List

<– Last Chapter Next Chapter –>

#pro snape #snapeloveposts #severus snape #severus snape x reader #severus snape x you #severus x reader #severus x you #snape x reader #snape x you #snape x fem!reader #snapedom #snape fanfic #snape fanfiction #snape appreciation month #snape appreciation month 2020

53 notes · View notes

seagreen-meets-grey · 4 years ago

Text

When Lightning Strikes Ch. 12

When your life is nothing but a cloudless sky, lightning can come and strike you so unexpectedly, you won’t even know what hit you.

Or: When Hiccup and Astrid meet, it is as if lightning strikes.

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6] [Chapter 7] [Chapter 8] [Chapter 9] [Chapter 10] [Chapter 11] [Chapter 13] [Chapter 14] [Chapter 15] [Chapter 16] [Chapter 17] [Chapter 18] [Chapter 19] [Chapter 20]

Crossposted on ao3 and ff.net

_______________

“Okay girls, chop chop, the shower awaits! You were in good form today, let’s keep that up until tomorrow!”

Seven girls from ages eight to eleven rushed past her, giggling and jumping around each other after a successful training session. With a sigh, Astrid watched them disappear behind the door to the showers, glad that none of them slipped on the wet floor. The last thing she needed was half of her team losing their teeth or breaking their bones before the competition tomorrow.

She watched the water for a few minutes, small waves still rippling through the pool from the recent activity. As always, it was entrancing, hearing the soft gurgling call out to her, inviting her in for a swim. Briefly considering giving in, Astrid shook her head and walked towards the shower to check on the girls. She had to make sure they didn’t dawdle too long because their parents were picking them up soon. Besides, she had plans herself.

The big clock on the wall told her she still had time; if it weren’t for the children she had to urge to leave the warm shower and quit fooling around (like they always did, because even if they couldn’t swim in the water, they found other ways to play with it), she’d technically have time to swim a few laps on her own. All she had to do was lose the shorts, flip-flops and t-shirt she wore over her swimsuit, and dive in.

But she didn’t give herself the option, walking through the door to the showers instead. Excited squeals and giggles mixed with the sound of splashing water greeted her. And when she turned the corner, situating herself in the doorway with a stern face and her hands on her hips, she didn’t have to wait five seconds before the girls had spotted her and hurriedly went back to dumping shampoo on their hair.

“I want to see all of you dressed and ready by the hairdryers in ten minutes! If I catch one of you still in here by then, I’ll have all of you do twenty extra laps next week!”

Aware that she was one to follow through with her threats, the girls sped up their showering routines, their chatter dying down to the occasional urge for the particularly slow-paced teammate to hurry up.

Astrid left the showers for the changing rooms, swapping her clothes for her jeans and t-shirt. By the time she was tying her shoes, the last of the kids had entered the room and started to dress themselves.

“Don’t dawdle too long, you parents are waiting,” she reminded them when she left the room. A few years back, when she’d first started this job, she’d always stayed behind until the last of the kids were done. But she’d soon found that it was far more effective to get them to hurry if she already left the room, letting them know she was waiting for them.

And lo and behold, no more than five minutes later, all seven girls were fully dressed and fighting over the best hairdryers. The first parents were waiting behind the turnstiles, but Astrid took the time to huddle up her girls for a last team assembly.

“Remember, go to sleep early tonight, and don’t eat an entire chocolate cake before bed. Believe me, I’ve been there, you’ll just regret it in the morning.” That earned her a few giggles. “And don’t stress yourselves out too much, you got this! We trained hard and we’re in top form. And even if we don’t come first tomorrow, I know you’re going to do your best. Team Berk on three!” Seven hands joined her in the middle. “One, two, three, Team Berk!”

“Team Berk!” seven motivated kids repeated.

She high-fived every one of them before she let them go. Another glance at her watch informed her that she still had a few minutes, but when some of the parents engaged her in small talk and details about the next day, she started to feel impatient. Answering their questions as best (and fast) as she could, she waved goodbye to the lot and nearly sprinted over to her car.

Checking herself in the rear-view mirror and combing through her bangs with her fingers, she took a deep breath and started the engine. There was a forest waiting for her.

_______________

Every car that drove onto the parking lot turned out to be a disappointment. Even though they were probably good cars from good manufacturers (and some of them were, he could see that) and some looked really sleek, definitely better than his own heap of scrap metal – they all weren’t the car he was waiting for. Or rather waiting to see only, because he was actually waiting for the person who drove the car.

The people that emerged from the cars dug the hole of disappointment in his belly even deeper. He knew that those who hopped out wouldn’t be her, but actually seeing it smothered the small, excited flame inside him further. Because who knew, maybe she was getting a ride from someone, maybe she’d bought a new car in the last few days and didn’t mention it.

And maybe he shouldn’t work himself up over this so much. Because wasn’t he just waiting for a friend? Hadn’t he told his heart to shut up and lose the last dusty boxes of hope it was still storing in the back somewhere? He really needed to have a serious conversation with himself sometime soon.

For now, however, he could only focus on the street and the exit to the parking lot, the sound of tires on gravel slowly beginning to fuel his nervousness with every wrong car that showed up. He watched hikers, families, joggers, groups of teenagers, and dog walkers disappear between the trees. Knew that the crowd would disperse around the first picnic table at the big old oak tree. From there on, the pathways would lead in various directions deeper into the woods, forking off every now and then to meet again at a different point, direction signs and maps at every junction.

Two short honks made him wince and turn around, laying eyes on the small blue car maneuvering into a parking spot. Every disappointed drop of his stomach in the last twenty minutes was forgotten the moment the door opened and Astrid Hofferson stepped out, long hair shining in the sun like liquid gold, making his heart forget to beat for a long moment. Well, so much for getting over her.

“Hi!” she called over, shutting the door behind her and pressing a button on her key. Hiccup had to force himself to close his mouth and feebly wave back. Why did her legs have to look so long in her simple jeans? And what was it about her that exuded so much beautiful energy?

“Hey,” she said again when she reached him, putting her keys and phone in the little backpack she was carrying.

“Hey,” he managed to reply in a steady voice. Why was he doing this to himself? Why couldn’t he just stay away from her? Why did it have to be so hard?

“Let’s go?” she suggested when he just continued to stare at her, unable to formulate a coherent sentence. He still didn’t trust his brain to speak properly, so he just nodded and hummed in agreement. Only briefly did he consider turning on his heels and getting some distance, but she was already striding over to the first line of trees with purposeful steps. Like a loyal, devoted dog, he could do nothing but follow her.

The first few hundred yards on the wide main path, they walked in silence. Sometimes, their swinging hands would brush and every time he would recoil from the shock. For a split second, he could swear that her pinky curled around his. But when he glanced down, her fingers were tapping against her leg and he couldn’t tell if he’d imagined the contact. He decided it was smarter to stuff his hands in his pockets to stop himself from reaching for hers constantly.

“Where to now?” she asked once they reached the old oak. He hadn’t really thought about that beforehand; he usually just let his mind wander and his feet take him somewhere.

“Um… Let’s go right,” he said, pointing in the left direction. “Uh- That right.” He pointed the other way. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Astrid stifle a grin.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He could hear the amusement in her voice and he wanted to lie down and die. Then she lightly punched him in the arm and walked past him. His arm tingled like crazy and he didn’t want to die so much anymore.

Catching up to her, he mentally pulled up a map of the forest, loosely planning the route they could take. He wanted to steer away from the main paths a little, go where it was quiet and where there weren’t any babbling people and loud teenagers with their music and littering disturbing the scene. Besides, he kind of wanted to be alone with her, even if there was nothing he could do about it. He felt like he was trying to milk a bull.

“So–“

“What–“ she started at the same time. She swept her bangs out of her eyes and glanced at him, right when he glanced at her. They locked eyes for a few seconds, staring at each other with blank faces before they both burst out laughing. It successfully melted the awkward tension away.

“You go first,” she said.

“Wow, thanks, that- that’s so generous of you.”

“Okay, then I will–“

“Nope! You’ll get your turn. Be more patient, Astrid.” He jumped out of the way before she could sock him in the arm again. He probably should have seen it coming, though, that when he returned to her side, she used the opportunity to tackle him sideways. He staggered to the side with a surprised yelp.

“Oops! Was that too hard?” she asked with a falsely apologetic voice.

“I came here to have a good time,” Hiccup whined, rubbing his arm, “but I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” The incredulous grin on her face was worth all the pain (that she inflicted on him herself, but never mind that detail).

“Is that all you have to say, you dork?”

“No, I actually just wanted to ask how your day was. Yesterday, I mean. And today, so far. You had swim training, right?”

“I did.” She smiled and he felt safe enough to walk right beside her again. “Yesterday was pretty average. Almost boring, if it hadn’t been for your constant spamming of nerdy fantasy book stuff.”

“Constant spamming of nerdy stuff? You specifically asked me to tell you more!”

She shrugged. “Still nerdy.”

“So you’re calling yourself a nerd.”

“If anything, I’m a nerd for hearing my friends talk about their nerdy interests.”

“Are you trying to tell me you were not at all interested in the magic system of the book I had to read for work and that you did not keep asking very specific questions with a vocabulary that not at all insinuated that you obsessed over fantasy world settings before? Besides, you’re the one who’s been forwarding me all kinds of dog videos all week.”

She grumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “You’re the nerd, shut up.”

“What was that?”

“So I had swim training today.” As she continued to tell him about the competition the next day, he couldn’t stop grinning and had trouble taking his eyes off her. God, he loved her. And there really was no way out.

Their comfortable banter rolled back and forth between them as they hiked deeper into the woods, soon leaving the main paths behind.

“How do you know this place so well?” she asked when he led her through the underbrush onto a clearing that she would have never discovered by herself.

“My dad took me here a lot when I was a kid. And when I got older, I went by myself. You know, just walking for hours, thinking, winding down, and sometimes the inspiration just hits.”

He strolled over to a thick tree lying on the ground and sat down. For a minute, he closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face. When he looked again, Astrid sat next to him, studying his face. He tried not to blush. “What?”

“What did you do with your dad when you came here?”

“Fishing, at a small lake in that direction.” He pointed ahead. “Well, he wanted to go fishing. I was mostly busy searching for trolls.”

She chuckled. “Sounds about right.”

“Yeah, I was that kind of kid.”

“I was the one wrestling all the boys on the playground to show them I was stronger.”

“Were you?”

“Of course! Anyone who tells you different is a liar. Especially Zack Bauman! He was only six years older, but definitely not stronger.”

“For the sake of my own health, I’ll choose to believe that.”

“Good.” She took off her backpack and pulled out a water bottle. “You’re smart.”

“I know.”

She drank from her water and frowned at him. “Didn’t you bring anything?”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going camping.”

“What if you get thirsty?”

He shrugged. “I’ll just drink from a stream.”

The pace at which her eyebrows rose was almost comical. “You know that’s not filtered, right? Dirt gets in there, rain polluted with fumes, it’s where fish die, and sometimes people pee in there!”

“So? Beauty of nature!”

With the way she continued to stare at him as if he was growing another head, it became harder and harder to keep up his poker face. Finally, he broke down, a grin breaking out over his face and his shoulders shaking with quiet laughter.

“Just kidding, I have water in the car. Besides, the running water here is actually pretty good.”

She rolled her eyes and tried to hide her smile. “I’m still not fully believing you, though. Here.” She held out her bottle to him. “It’s medium sparkling.”

“Thanks.” He took the bottle and started drinking. Only when his lips touched the opening, his brain caught up in the most annoying of ways, almost prompting him to choke on the water. What it told him wasn’t, oh this water is refreshing or I was more thirsty than I thought or something else mundane like, the color of the label is white and green.

No, what his brain screamed at him was: HER LIPS TOUCHED THIS! Admittedly, the way this particular thought affected him was less mature than he’d like to claim. In a way, wasn’t he indirectly kissing her over some kind of detour? (Oh god, he was pathetic.)

He handed her the bottle back, refusing to meet her eyes, willing the blush away that had crept onto his face and only felt impossibly warmer when she took another sip herself before she put the bottle away.

“Alright, let’s get going!” She jumped up from the trunk and planted herself in front of him. “Where to next?”

“Don’t you just want to sit and enjoy the moment for a few more minutes?”

“If I’d wanted to chill under trees, I’d have gone for my hammock. Come on!” She pulled him up by his arms and when he stood, he was suddenly so close to her, he could count the tiny freckles on her nose. But he didn’t get the chance to because she was already walking purposefully ahead again.

“Wrong direction.”

In one graceful move, she spun around and walked the other way.

“Just kidding, that was the right direction- Ow! No violence in these woods!” Rubbing his arm, he caught up to her.

“You brought this on yourself, pal. Now show me the way!”

For a while, they walked the beaten paths, evading stinging nettles and other overgrowing weeds. The air was warm and humid, the sun was trying to burn through the leaves and Hiccup was gladder than ever that he’d decided to wear short sleeves today (ignoring the nettles that were on a personal mission to cuddle him).

“Man, I can’t believe it’s only May, this feels like mid-July!”

Astrid snorted. “Are we back to awkward weather talks?”

“It’s not awkward if I’m complaining. Which I am.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Berk used to be so cold when we were kids. Fricking climate change.”

“Nope, nuh-uh, we’re not having the climate change talk right now. If you want to ban weather talk, I’m banning climate change talk.”

“But I have opinions!”

“Big news, Astrid, we all do. We can talk about it another time.”

“Fine,” she grumbled and kicked at a pebble. “Then I’m not going to tell you about my cousin’s treehouse.”

“Okay, and I’m not gonna tell you how Snotlout and I became friends.”

“Who?”

He scratched his neck. “That guy that hit on you. At the park. Last Saturday.”

She chuckled. “Oh, right. I completely forgot about him. But yeah, what’s up with that?! I mean, I only spent, like, a minute with that guy and I wasn’t even paying attention to him, but I did hear how he tried to flirt with me.”

“That’s Snotlout for you. But first, I wanna hear about that treehouse.”

She hopped onto an oak log lying next to the path and balanced down its length, occasionally holding onto Hiccup’s shoulder to steady herself. “Well, when we were kids, my cousin had this treehouse he built with his dad. It had three stories, a ladder, walls with windows, a roof, even a fence. We played so many games of pretend up there and climbed through the trees.” She jumped from the end of the log, wiping a few strands of hair from her face that had escaped the braid falling down her back.

“Sounds fun.”

“It was. But then we got older and he wanted to play Fifa more than climb trees. I miss that sometimes,” she shrugged, glancing at him from the side, “pretending that the invisible enemy you’re hiding in a treehouse from is the most important thing in the world right now.”

With a loud smack, Hiccup hit the mosquito on his arm and successfully squashed it. “Gotcha!” He met Astrid’s bewildered expression. “Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt you. These damn fuckers are early this year. And for some reason, they love me.”

“Oh, I’m sure they don’t love you,” she said with a wave of her hand. “They’re only using you to get to your blood.”

“Harsh.”

“Look, if they can suck it up, you can too. I need to know the Snotlout story.”

In that moment, Hiccup spotted something up ahead and a smirk spread on his face. “First of all, nice wordplay. And second – too bad that, once you get older, you can’t climb trees anymore.” And before she could answer, he sprinted off towards a large old oak stretching its limbs over the path in front of them.

He put his foot into a split in the trunk, held onto a branch and hauled himself upwards. He didn’t get far, though, before Astrid practically climbed over him, fast and agile and with a competitive determination.

“Hey, slowpoke!” she called down from a branch fork further up the tree.

“That’s a Pokémon,” he huffed while pulling himself higher up. Winded and with new scratches on the side of his arm, he finally made it next to the branch she was sitting on. He stayed in a slightly uncomfortable spot where part of the trunk split in two more parts, leaned against the bigger half and caught his breath. “How- how are you… so good at… at this? Phew! Wait, that… That was a stupid question.”

“It’s because I’m the best. But you’re not so bad yourself, look, we’re at least ten feet up! Probably even higher.”

“Yeah, that’s- Oh, that’s high up.” He looked down at the ground, glad he had enough tree to hold onto.

“Don’t fall.”

He shot her an unimpressed look. “Ha ha ha. Funny.”

“Or at least don’t until I heard the Snotlout-Hiccup origin story.”

Securing his footing, he made himself as comfortable as possible. He was high up in a tree with Astrid Hofferson in the middle of the woods. Just a normal Saturday.

“Fine, fine. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a ride. I was only a wee lad when–“

“Hiccup,” she interrupted, “you’re not Scottish.”

“Technically, I am. Partially. Half Berkian, one quarter Icelandic, the other Scottish. And if I believe my grandpa’s stories, both my dad’s and mom’s families are Viking descendants.”

“Hey, me too! Both my great-grandmas were from Sweden, and they definitely descended from Vikings. We still have my great-grandfather’s ancestry research collection in the attic somewhere.”

“Wow. No wonder you didn’t change your name when you got married. Keeping the Hofferson name, the legacy, and all that- that jazz.”

She averted her face. “Yeah. That’s the reason. Part of it, anyway.”

He got the clue that she didn’t want to talk about it further, so he changed the topic. “So, Snotlout and I were neighbors growing up.”

Her smile returned and she looked at him expectantly, like a kid waiting for its campfire story. It was adorable. He wanted to lean in and cherish that smile up close until he kissed it off her face…

“And that’s it?” her voice brough him back to reality. “You were neighbors? That’s the whole story?”

“Sorry, I kinda spaced out there. In the memories,” he quickly added. “Like I said, we were neighbors as kids and became friends along the way.” His cheeks were still burning. “Actually, Snotlout used to make fun of me a lot back then – okay, not much has changed, if I think about it… But I’d call it lovingly teasing instead of bullying now.”

She chuckled. “Lovingly teasing?”

“Or maybe respectful bullying that’s not meant to actually hurt and that I can shrug off as Snotlout being Snotlout?” He shrugged. “Call it whatever you like.”

“Respectful bullying,” she repeated and pushed a leaf out of her face. She had to stick the twig behind a branch so it didn’t swing back in her face. He could relate. He’d been there too many a time. “How’d he go from bullying to respectful bullying, then?”

“When we were eight, I built a trap that knocked out two of his teeth. Gained his respect for life. Or maybe he’s just scared of me.”

She laughed, and it was music to his ears. “Yes, you’re very scary. All of… this is making me cower and shiver in fear.”

“Did you just gesture to all of me?”

“Well, all of you is very scary.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” He leaned his face against the forked off part of the trunk and she adapted her position right after. Her gorgeous eyes were so much bigger in this light. It was like looking into the summer sky. She licked her lips. He gulped hard, yearning to close the gap and melt into her, hallowing this tree forever.

She blinked a couple times and shook her head, breaking him out of his trance as well. How many times had she sucked him in already, lifting him from the ground, into a dreamlike state, like some kind of mind-bending drug? He needed to get a grip on himself and stop drifting off every time she so much as looked at him.

“Uhh… Where was I?” he asked and cleared his throat when his voice came out too raspy. For his own safety, he leaned back against the thick trunk. Just in case.

“Teeth and respect.”

“Right.” He rubbed his neck. “Yeah. So. We, uh, we kind of hung out together after a while, but, like, separately?” His hands started gesticulating on their own and without the additional support, his balance began to shift dangerously to the side so he held onto the next best branch again. As soon as his hands were out of the conversation, his shoulders took over and he felt the soft vibrations in the tree. “What I mean is, we would both be at the playground, but we didn’t interact much, until one of us had an idea to share or needed help with something. Over time, we grew closer, and then suddenly, we realized we were friends. We would never say it, but we both knew.”

“Aw, that’s cute.”

He snorted. “Don’t tell him that, he’ll deny everything.”

“Oh, in that case, I will definitely tell him that the next time I see him.”

Hiccup’s heart leaped at the idea of her spending time with his friends. It meant she would continue to be in his life. “When you do, please make sure I’m there to witness.”

“That’s a given.” She grinned and he had to force himself to believe that, in that moment, the sun only coincidentally lit up her eyes even brighter.

“Good.” He grinned back. “Anyway, I think I already told you this, but I had social phobia as a teen, low self-esteem and – yeah. It was hard to maintain friendships, but Snot was kind of a constant in my life. Someone who stuck with me, despite constantly complaining about my general loserness in public. Sometimes, late at night, when I’d climbed the roof of our house again because I was in one of my down phases and wanted to be left alone, he could see that from his bedroom window.”

While he talked, she pulled out a granola bar from her backpack. She broke it in two and handed him one half, munching on the other. Their fingers brushed. He was enjoying every little moment of this day, no matter how much he would suffer from it in the long run.

“Thanks... So he snuck over and kept me company, even though I didn’t wanna talk or see anyone. He would just sit there with me, keeping his distance, and tell me how he thought I actually didn’t suck and that other people sucked who didn’t see that. Coming from that guy, that’s the highest form of compliment you can think of. Because it was one hundred percent earnest.”

He bit off a piece of his granola snack, humming when the taste of raspberry and nuts exploded in his mouth. “We also both had problems with our dads,” he continued before swallowing the food, “so we bonded over that, too. And then I went to therapy and my dad made an effort to help and things got way better between me and him. Snot’s dad, though… He’s still an ass.”

While the last of the granola bar disappeared between his teeth, she regarded him thoughtfully. Eventually, she said, “I knew it was worth it asking for this story.”

“Oh? How so?”

She shrugged. “Because I figured there was no way you’d be friends with a guy like Snotlout if there wasn’t more to it, or to him. Because there’s more to you.”

“Oh. Uh…” he ran a hand through his hair, combing out a small bug in the process. “I guess…” His fingers tingled with the urge to reach for her hand so badly. He clapped his hands together in order to ignore the sensation. “So! What now?” he asked, maybe a little too loudly.

“I don’t know, you’re the one with the plan.”

“Right…” He pulled up his mental map. “How about we keep walking? There’s a stream not far ahead.”

“Sounds good to me.”

He nodded a few times before glancing past his feet. “…So how do I get back down?”

#httyd #hiccstrid #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #when lightning strikes #modern au #a bit of angst with a dash of drama #or the other way around #maja writes #ff #fanfic #how to train your dragon

7 notes · View notes

iriswc1995 · 4 years ago

Text

Ash’s Diary Of Distortion 1: ‘Family Christmas’

What follows are excerpts from the diary Ash keeps on Cygnus’ data storage files about the various Distortions and Distortion-like effects that she encounters on her excursions into Ordina. They are brief glimpses into the inner workings of the city and the kinds of horrors that can be found there, and by extension, snapshots of Ash’s usual routine as an explorer/mercenary-for-hire. They do not fit into the continuity of the main story and can be perused in any order. Ash keeps these records for the purposes of learning more about the Distortion’s possible behaviors so that she can be as prepared as possible. Perhaps one day they will help you, as well.

-----

Once a year, at the stroke of midnight on December 25th, there is magic in the air. Even for the dogged and downtrodden citizens of Ordina, there are those who cannot help but feel joy bursting in their hearts during the holiday season. And no holiday with quite the peculiar fervor or saturation of Christmas’ alien greens and bright reds.

The Schmidt family were one such unit. Despite the many compromises of modern life, they were a clan who remained staunchly loyal to the traditions of the old days. Family values. A clean house. A love of the Christian God. They were a large family of three generations and splitting branches in their grand tree. Trees; a forgotten luxury of the upper-class, were almost sacred to the Schmidts; they are the Family, they are the Hearth-Fire, they are what every member of their bloodline gather around once a year on Christmas Day.

“Don’t crowd each other, kids!” Annamarie Schmidt, the mother of the house, called out to the dining room. While certainly a modest home - there existed no other kind for those of their wealth level - nearly their whole family would cheerfully crowd around the dinner tables. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins galore. Seating was arranged in a strict hierarchy based on age and importance, which Annamarie took great pains to ensure would not offend any of her lovely guests. Granny Taylor sat at the head of the table, the oldest among them at age 66. She smiled and spread her arms as everyone clustered into their chairs, rubbing elbows and adjusting plates. From the next room, a radiant light shone into the kitchen from the artificial glass star atop the plastic tree.

“Ah, it’s just so wonderful to see all of you, on this blessed day…! To see how much you’ve all grown up like little sprouts!”

“Meanwhile you’ve aged like a steamed grape!” Said Aunt Helen, the promiscuous one.

A chorus of hollow chuckles preceded the Granny’s measured response. “Grapes turn into fine wine too, don’t you forget.”

“Let’s pray that we all be as wise as you one day, mother,” Annamarie said dutifully.

One of the young ones, Ryan, bounced in his seat. “Can we say grace yet? I wanna eat!” His mother smiled and chuckled with the others, but would of course punish him harshly once they returned home.

“Wait, but where’s Leo?” Mary said. She was the oldest of the children, allowed to sit at the adult’s table for the first time this year. Several other people echoed her words in eerie unison, looking around the room as if he would suddenly appear at the mere mention of his name.

“Oh,” Anna said, pursing her lips. There was a painful pause as she fidgeted with a cloth. “You know how our Leo is. Cooped up in his room, again. No matter what I try, he just can’t seem to get in the Christmas spirit. To think, he’s nearly old enough to sit at the adult’s table himself!”

“Ah, well,” said her sister May, putting a hand on her arm. “Don’t blame yourself, dear! Kids these days just don’t value family like they used to.” May smiled, scathing judgement behind her eyes. A vein bulged in Anna’s forehead. How dare that miserable boy embarrass her like this. Perhaps physical punishment would be the only way to get through to her problem child.

“I wanna eat! I wanna eat!” Came another cry from the kid’s table.

“Hehe, alright then~” Anna said, finally taking her own place at the table. “But prayer comes first, of course!”

Silently, the children filed over to the main table so that they could all hold hands in one large circle. Granny Taylor began a sincere, thoughtful speech to their heavenly father.

The table in the center, save for the plates and silverware that Anna had set down, was completely empty.

“Amen~” said Granny Taylor, dead skin falling from her hair.

Annamarie smiled. “Time to dig in, Family~ I hope you all enjoy it!”

Two of the uncles grabbed Mary’s arms and shoved her onto the table, flat on her back. For a fraction of a second, she looked confused, but then her eyes went limp in their sockets, the same soulless smile of the other Schmidts attaching itself to her face. Knives flashed.

Red began to cake the dining room walls. Limbs were sawed, extremities cut, organs scooped with bare hands. The Schmidts continued conversing among themselves in the hollow manner of most families; with the women talking about the unseasonable weather and the men discussing how business had been. Mary, too, would join in now and then, oblivious to her ongoing destruction, and the adults would laugh at the delicious whimsy of a not-quite-adult but far-from-child beginning to learn the ways of the Elder. They spoke without pause even as they stuffed their faces with her meat in the manner of ravenous wild animals; choking, spitting, and vomiting as their airways required. They continued even as the flesh dwindled and they began forcing their teeth through her bones. There was nothing left of Mary to continue speaking, yet now and then they would chuckle as though they could hear her all the same.

And they could. For the cabinets around the room would open and close, the very walls of the house would groan and shudder in the rhythm of Family. Afterwards, only rarely would the Schmidts refer to the one they consumed each year; always with the presumption they were still alive and well. But the house groaned in response all the same. Was it the people who hungered, or the house itself? No, perhaps not the building but the gathering - was it possible for even a time of year to lose its mind?

Long into the night and even to the next morning, the Schmidts mindlessly feasted, until not even the stains on their clothes remained.

Finally, only silence filled the home save for the sound of quiet weeping. Leo, hiding under the bed as he did every year, knew he would never see cousin Mary again.

------

𝔸𝕤𝕙’𝕤 ‘𝔻𝕚𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝕆𝕗 𝔻𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟’ 𝔼𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝟛𝟡: ‘Family Christmas’

𝔻𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕆𝕗 𝔼𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪: December 26th, 2164

𝔻𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕋𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝: Probably Green, I think? It’s definitely dangerous, but it seems completely localized to the one family. I hope I don’t see any more of it, at least.

This one is a unique case of a Dissonance occurring on a seemingly regular period while remaining in a kind of ‘dormant’ state for most of the year. On top of that, it seems to only affect the Schmidt family, at least from what I’ve found so far. I guess this is proof that tips from Harvesters about ‘blood in the air’ aren’t total bullshit all the time.

Cygnus helped me get in the house, and I could tell there was a Dissonance pretty much immediately. Red ghosts were lined up around the house like they were in a marching order, almost. All of them were facing the wall and smiling weirdly. The family itself seemed to be in a weird zoned-out state too, which as I can tell now is essentially the Dissonance’s ‘honeymoon period’ where it puts everybody in this weird trance and alters their memories. Creepy, but helpful.

Most of what I know comes from Leo. Poor fucking kid. I doubt he’s ever gonna get out of that hospital I dropped him off at. Even then, I only know the vague details about certain things. No idea how many years this has been happening… but it definitely happens every Christmas. The eldest child is killed and eaten by the adults, who seem to have no idea what they’re actually doing, just treating it like a normal Christmas dinner. And yes Cygnus, it’s disgusting, even for me. They treat the kid like they’re alive for a while after that before sort of just forgetting them and moving on to the next one. It also seems like the Dissonance, or the eating itself, somehow extends the lifespan of all the adults, which explains why the matriarch was so damn old. I also have no idea how exactly this started, since it seems like either Leo’s memories were fucked with as well, or he’s just too traumatized to even remember. The only clue is the family’s weird traditionalist mindset about stuff, but I’ll hold myself back from going on a rant about it here.

Anyway, the Schmidts are gone now except for the kid. I burned the house down just in case it had something to do with it. Happy holidays, I fucking guess.

#writersontumblr writing cyberpunk horror gore trauma

2 notes · View notes