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reservoirreputation · 2 years ago

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Newly Minted Orphan, Extras Part 2

For my Reservoir Dogs fic of the same name. Just some nerdy writing things.

Part one was about the character's brief summaries and how they interact with each other, at least for the first draft of the fic.

Part two will be about the first draft of the story, in chronological order. Paragraphs serving as outlines for the fic as a whole. Some things stay exactly the same, some characters' behaviors are changed, some stuff is kept word-for-word, some stuff is chucked entirely.

Funny enough, the inclusion of flashbacks from Eddie's Mom didn't come into play until 90% of the fic was done. Just kinda felt weird to emphasize Eddie's new status as an orphan and only focus on losing his Daddy. The other intention was to give the house more character by delving into its past, and how Helen's efforts gave the place new life, if only temporarily.

>>>>>>>>>>

THE PLOT, CHRONOLOGICALLY: Joe Cabot is killed in his office. His coroner, who is paid off, lists his death as cardiac arrest. This is to preserve the Cabot family image, to not show weakness. His son Eddie presides over a small burial with only himself and Vic in attendance; he’s determined to get back at whoever did this, doesn’t know where to start. Enter the family lawyer, who reads aloud Joe’s will. Suddenly Eddie has direction and a plan of his own; the only way to get all the suspects together was by bait; one of Joe’s houses and some of his money should do, nicely. He adds Blonde to the list, telling him that his Dad only wanted to play a game, and reward one of his buddies, to not only have extra eyes, but also to secure the house ‘legitimately’ should nothing pan out, to try again another way. Some weeks later, it’s finally arranged. All but a few show up, because the rest are already dead/in jail/prison.

They trickle in throughout the day, and by early evening, all have arrived. They’re searched and disarmed at the door, and told the rules; last person in the house by dawn gets it. Eddie tells some bullshit story about the place being extremely haunted, that being why Daddy never did business here, and why he couldn’t just sell it. Whoever could put up with it would get the property, and a cash prize. Eddie pretends to be upset about both, as it’s his right to inherit everything. He uses this as a reason to bitterly probe the guests with questions. He also says that the only other rule for the game was to not reveal your names, as Daddy didn’t like opening the business up to legal issues, if he could help it. For Eddie, if anyone should ‘accidently’ die tonight, it will make disposal all the more easy; no one knew each other, no one could rat on one another. No one would care about rank and tenure. Just a game, a masquerade minus the masks. He also tries to use it as a bit of psychological warfare, as his Daddy made it difficult, if not impossible, to find out Orange’s real name. Even before meeting the list, he had already zeroed in on Orange as the culprit.

He doesn’t know all their connections to his late Daddy; Blonde is his bestie, despite the age difference of 8 years. Blonde got out of prison recently, after a pretty lengthy stint, and his presence brought out a more immature version of Eddie, since he hadn’t seen Vic since he, Eddie, was in his early 20s. Eddie knows Blue and White because of how long they’d been around. Some of his earliest memories consist of Blue, whose name he never learned until recently, and White, affectionately known as Uncle Larry, being around the house, and being very friendly towards him. He learned later on that their kindness was only matched by their ruthlessness. He knows Brown from the occasional job, especially the past few years where Eddie had been taking on more responsibility. He also knows that if you’re not careful, Brown could talk your ear off. Has heard of Pink, never met him. Knows the guy’s got reliable feet, and even more reliable hands. No idea who Orange is. Right out the gate, he feels the most suspicious about Orange.

As the night wears on, Eddie begins to feel more and more conflicted; two of the people on Daddy’s list were well-known employees and Daddy’s friends, and he just couldn’t look at them unbiased. Blonde, as he was Eddie’s friend first, Joe’s employee second, could pick up where Eddie left off. They gather information, alibis, and regroup in Eddie’s room. They rank who’s the most dangerous, and capable of murder; Blue and White are nearly evenly matched. Pink has popped a few cops, before. They’re not sure if Brown’s ever fired a gun. Orange is unknown. When Eddie tried searching the guy’s real name, which Joe did not list as Freddy Newandyke, he kept getting no hits. Like Joe was hiding the guy’s real name, or the guy lied about who he was, and did that make him guilty, or cautious? Smart or suspicious? Every passing minute, the scales tip towards Orange.

It was easy to bullshit about the house; it was old, a 1920s Victorian revival. The place was musty and dusty, like nobody wanted to stay there. It was stuffy because it didn’t have modern AC, the real reason why the Cabot’s rarely visited. The house settled and unsettled, groaning in the slightest breeze. The wooden walls were dark, and much of the furniture and art fixtures resembled a grown human when looking in dim lighting, or out of the corner of your eye. The first floor was tolerable, the second floor too warm. Modern fans did only so much, and one couldn’t wear more than one layer of clothing, upstairs. All the bedrooms were up here, too. If one didn’t believe in ghosts, running from the house screaming because of tricks of the mind, then they would likely want to leave and seek out a hotel, which was much more comfortable. Sleeping here was miserable. The mattresses were old, the bedding scratchy. The floorboards creaked, the wood warped in the center of the room, giving the impression that a hole could suddenly appear, swallowing a person back down to the ground. Much of the house felt similar; too old, very unsafe.

Supper is unexpectedly good; had to give the impression of following Daddy’s ‘instructions’. The party had no doubt that Eddie wanted to run them off, but was still a decent host. Drinks in the lounge/library proved a few things; Brown and Pink were great drinking buddies. Brown was very complimentary and flirty, and Pink was scarily great at reading people. Blue chuckles at this, and Eddie wonders about picking Pink’s brain when they’re alone. White goes up to take Orange some supper; the latter declined attending, as ascending the stairs once that night was enough for him. White also has a bottle of rum to try and cheer the kid up. He asks Orange about the leg, if he didn’t mind telling. Orange dances around it, saying it was a gift from Joe. White thinks sadly how this doesn’t surprise him. They don’t share names, but talk about family. They ask how old the other is, and have to give ballpark estimates. They ask why the other agreed to come tonight. White wants to find closure, say goodbye to an old friend, and Orange needs the money; medical bills from a few years back wiped out his savings. He doesn’t have to say from what.

Roughly the same time, the others downstairs are asking the same thing; why did you come here to this god-awful house? Blue’s just curious to see how it all will end; he’s in retirement as it is, Joe having financially supported him these past few years as recognition for Blue’s contributions to the family. He could always use more money. He thinks he’d just tear the place down, sell the lot. Brown says the place is creepy; he’d totally lean into it’s vibe, turning it into a tourist trap. Pink admires that line of thinking, but looks at the long term; spend the money on renovations, you could make this a fancy bed and breakfast. Soon, Eddie pulls Pink aside.

Eddie wants to know what the perceptive Mr. Pink thinks of Orange; it’s presented as a challenge, like can you get a read on someone who you’ve barely met, and haven’t seen in hours? Pink tries, drunk and happy to be appreciated. He says the kid’s bitter, sarcastic. He doesn’t come across like a guy that’s been crippled all his life, that it’s something he’s still getting used to. Has a bit of a disciplined air to him, maybe ex-military. Banked his life on going career, and had to swallow a bitter pill called reality. Eddie asks what Pink thinks the guy does, job-wise. Pink shakes his head, “Not one of us.” “How can you tell?” “Just a guess, haven’t really talked to the guy.” “I mean, could he be dealer, smuggler, bouncer? Thief, getaway driver?” “He sure as shit ain’t a bouncer.” “He had a small pistol strapped to his calf, what do you think of that?” “We all came here with heat. Nothing wrong with it.” No, what’s it say about him?” he shrugs, “Could be a petty thief. Could be someone’s backup. Guy looks real young, could just be a spare set of eyes.”

We return to upstairs, Orange and White A few shots in, and the two have loosened up a bit. From Orange’s perspective, he was at first annoyed at White’s persistence; Freddy planned on waiting out the night in his room, unbothered. He knows he’s in a precarious position, and only showed up out of desperation. He tries to tell himself not to let anyone get close, don’t say shit to anyone. He tries to envision the other guy’s rap sheets, the crimes they must’ve committed. Robbers, smugglers, perhaps even killers. Freddy knows enough about Joe Cabot to figure the people who mingled with him were no better. White talks some about work, but keeps things casual. Freddy can’t help but find him charming. He thinks about asking White what all he’s done, from first to worst, but knows the question could easily be directed at himself. White volunteers a bunch of info, but Orange doesn’t press for more. Unexpectedly, he finds himself enthralled by White’s exploits. Orange feels he can live vicariously through the older man, and it feels oddly cathartic.

Eddie reiterates this to Blonde, when they’re alone. Blonde gives his own perspective, “Sounds like a cop.” “The fuck?” “Disciplined, disappointed, can’t do any field shit. Wants nothing to do with us.” “Daddy wouldn’t let a cop get close.” “Maybe he’s crooked, gave good info.” Blonde still thinks this is a game, while Eddie wonders how Daddy could be so careless. A cop, allowed close enough to cut his Daddy’s throat-

He sees red. “I’m gonna kill him.” Blonde’s eyes widen at that, “Hey, man, your Dad named him for a reason-” Eddie fights to keep his voice down; now’s the time to let Blonde in on his plan. “So, Joe made a list of his would-be killer?” “Yeah.” “And you thinks it’s Orange?” Yes!” “Well, tell White that, so he can keep an eye on him.” Eddie panics, realizing that Larry’s not come back down, yet. He thinks that the little bitch has gotten to another family member. He begins to storm off, but Blonde stops him, “What are you thinking?” “Larry’s in danger.” “You don’t know that.” “The pig killed my Daddy.” “You don’t know that, either.” He reaches out, trying to calm Eddie down, “If you’re right and spook him, he might actually kill White. Okay? If he’s really a cop, and ain’t crooked, he doesn’t know we’re onto him. Besides, guy’s probably not working, not with that limp.” “He could be a rat.” “Then why come alone? Why stay with a bunch of rabid dogs?” “Backup-” “There is none, we had security check just an hour ago. No heat’s anywhere near here, tonight.” They stare at each other, and Eddie finally comes down, “You’re probably right.” Blonde’s uncharacteristically tender, giving Eddie a reassuring kiss. “I’ll send word to White. He can scout for you.”

By the time Blonde gets upstairs, White and Orange are pretty buzzed. They lounge on Orange’s bed, flicking through the channels on a real old TV. When there’s a knock, White gets up and answers. He only feels a little shame when he sees Blonde, who’s trying to peer around the door. “Can I talk to you?” In the hallway, “What’s he told you?” “We’re not supposed to talk-” “Cut the shit, you’re trying to get in his pants.” “I’m not-!” “What’s he do?” Panicked silence, “Focus! For a living?” “I don’t know.” “Eddie thinks he’s heat.” White stares blankly, “Are you serious?” “Eddie is. I’ve told him you’d keep an eye on things.” “But-” “Eddie’s this close to busting a cap in him, if you don’t.” “Is that what Eddie says, or what you say?” White never quite trusted Vega, knowing too many of the unhinged things he got sent away for. Blonde looks real pissed, “I’m the only thing that stands between Eddie and your little toy in there. Don’t you forget it.”

Back in the room, things are suddenly tense. Orange couldn’t hear what was said, but feels awkward. It was likely about two grown ass men sharing a bed, getting drunk. His face burns at this, and how White will probably want to excuse himself. Instead, the older man stays. They’re not as close as they were, before, but White does get on the bed. He sits at the edge, looking at the wall, “Not gonna lie to you, kid, this has gotten serious.” “What’s up?” “What happened to your foot?” He feels angry, ashamed, like an invisible barrier has come up between them. He reaches down, takes off his left sock, revealing a lot of scar tissue; two of his smallest toes are gone. ”A gift, like I said.” “Why’d he do it?” “My partner and I were on patrol. Got word of an active shooting at a residential home, we were only two minutes out. Get there, try to wait for backup, hear more shots. Marvin rushed in.” he frowns, “He was a stupid, well-meaning rookie. Got lit up for his troubles. I try to help him, take out two of the guys. Get knocked out by my blind spot. Wake up in a different place, and there’s Joe Cabot. He asks how long we’d been watching his boys. I say we were only responding to a call. He says bullshit.” He moves what’s left of his foot, “When I don’t change my story, after he cripples me, he finally believes it. Lets me go, says his boys fucked up in the first place. Civilians were killed, and letting me go was payback for their mistake.” (this could all serve as one giant flashback)

White seems like a mixture of hurt and relieved, “You still working?” “Fuck no. I told you I was on shitty-ass disability.” “You ratting?” “Why the fuck would I?” “You’re a cop.” “Was.” “You’d want revenge.” “I had to get myself out of there!” Orange’s voice raises, “I limp out, and two blocks away is my backup. They knew I’d been picked up, and let the fucker do this to me!” He’s shaking with rage, “Fuck all of you.”

White gets up to leave, turns around, “I’m sorry.” he goes.

In reiterating this info to Eddie and Blonde, Blonde suddenly remembers, “Oh yeah, I was on that job. Things went sideways and I had to tie up some loose ends. Thought that both cops were killed, and focused on getting rid of the civilian bodies. Didn’t get a good look at anyone.” This rattles Eddie, “What are you talking about? You mean to say you’ve killed real people?!” “Things get hot and you do what you have to.” “That goes against the rules, man!” “You know I’m a rule-breaker, babe.” White tries to ignore that, going on, “So, you gonna leave the kid alone? It’s what your Dad would’ve wanted. He’s being invited here for a reason.” Eddie considers letting Larry in on the truth, realizes that if Vic could deceive him, even in omitting info, anyone can. “Keep an eye on him.” “That’ll be kinda difficult, now.” “Well, make sure he don’t leave his room!” Knowing it won’t end well, White marches back upstairs, checks that Orange is still behind the closed, and now locked door. “You in there still?” “Fuck off.”

>>>>>>>

I didn't like where Freddy and Larry's dynamic was headed, so this is where draft one ends. Part three will cover in-depth the character's backstories, and where I establish, for myself, whodunnit.

Yes, I wrote a murder mystery without knowing who the killer is from the get-go. Don't tell me you haven't done it, too. Also, Joe's a POS, it could've been anyone.

#reservoir dogs #fanfic #writers #writing #behind the scenes #extras #nerdy shit

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inkedmyths · 2 years ago

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S1: E12 "Faith"

Brought to you by Crepe bribing me with Flight Rising money

[ Kayla asks if it was worth it to sell your soul to capitalism. Crepe said yes. I agree. I may have to endure on but now I have more money for my dragons. This will, unfortunately, always work on me. ]

Cuz you gotta have faith-uh faith-uh faith-uh

Oh we're starting out with the Winchesters? No mysterious deatb if some random person?

[ Kayla interjects with Carry On My Wayward Son. I get flashbacks to playing it on repeat when I initially began this journey. ]

Oooough closeeeet Dean I'm sure you're scared of that

[ Kayla asks Crepe if Dean does any homoeroticism in S1 aside from being too happy about getting pinned to a car. Crepe says no. This does not matter to me, I will make the joke anyways. ]

There are children! Hello children!

Ew what is that

UH Dean buddy that canNOT be healthy

HOSPITAL

HEART ATTACK???

Hi Dean! You look like shit!

Dean you are too chill with your mortality but also Sam is WAY too not chill about it

JOHN WINCHESTER PICK UP YOUR FUCKING PHONE. BITCH

Sam. Sam no

I mean I know Dean is still sround for however many fucking seasons but

DEAN DID YOU BREAK OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. MORON

Why are you both stupid

[ Kayla says this is the parentified child vs child he parentified effect. Which. Yeah fair. ]

Dean: Sam what kinda crazy religion place are you bringing me to

DEAN STOP FLIRTING WITH EVERY LADY YOU MEET. DUMBASS BITCH

[ Kayla says that he's a whore and to leave him alone. That the sluttiest thing a man can do is be an older brother. Kayla is this some kind of kink for you. ]

GOD NO I DIDN'T EVEN GO TO ONE OF THESE KINDS OF CHURCHES BUT. HRGH. HORRIBLE. I want to leave

LMAO CALLED OUT DEAN

LAUGHING im sorry watching Dean get throwm on the spot. Poor dumbass

Go up Dean this is your personal hell now

[ Crepe says no, wrong season. Lovely. ]

Dean having that face that I feel so deeply in my soul whenever someone tries to preacg Christianity to me

FUCKING. HAND AGAINST HIS HEAD poor Dean's face shshshs

UHHH WHAT WAS THAT. WHAT WAS THAT FIGURE

Oh. Oh my god it traded his life for his

O h n o

This is interesting and good but its also so fucking spooky the vibes

Ohhhh something. Something wanted Dean to live.

[ Kayla and Crepe go back and forth about how Supernatural is technically a horror show, though this is dropped somewhat in later seasons. What the fuck did I get myself into. ]

What the fuck is up w/Layla (Leilah?)

Oh :( poor girl

And Dean was the one who got healed so he's :((

"Why do you deserve to live more than my daughter?" man

Dean's like 😟

Chick in the woods? Girl whats up?

Girl is abt to die for this old guy

A REAPER?

The music shdhdhdhsh

Thats pretty banger ngl. Whats this song anywas.... Death In The Valley?

NOT ME LOOKING IT UP ON SPOTIFY AND GETTING A PLAYLIST FOR SPN SOUNDTRACK?

DOG LEASH ON A GREAT WHITE

SCREAMS the guy handing out pamphlets "Roy is a fraud"

Dean: Amen brother

Sam: You keep up the good work!

Man: Thank you

God its so interesting storywise but also the vibes are Upsetting

Sam committing breaking and entering all by himself good for him

IS THE CHURCH GUY MURDERING PEOPLE HE DOESN'T LIKE BY SAVING OTHERS

HE IS. HOMOPHOBIC! LITERALLY

GOOOOOD SHIT FUCK nooo i dont wanna watch anymore I don't like confrontation and oough BAD VIBES

Im turning on captions hold on

LAYLA I KNEW IT

Noooooooooooo besties I Cannot

Guys this is UPSETTING

I keep pausing 😭

I'm like stop starting bc I would rather read than hear WHASGSFAFAF

[ Crepe is grinding in Coliseum on Flight Rising to pay me more so I watch more. I can't tell if I'm genius for this or not. ]

Oh the poor guy screaming and Sam being like WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT

Oh I stopped started so much Netflix crashed LMAO

Hrrrgh yeah yeah ok compelling but I want to crawl up a tree

Oh shes still praying

AH YES DEAN GETS TAKEN AWAY. ARRESTED. AGAIN

Ohhh its his wife.... his wife couldn't stand to lose him.... oh.......

"God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work." hey who gave this show the right

[ Kayla says "Remember when I told you this show was sometimes really good?" I tell her to fuck off. She says I'm only proving her point. I call her a bitch. This has no effect. ]

SAM BESTIE U DID IT TO SAVE DEAN CAN U NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONFLICT HERE

LMAO DEAN JUST YELLS AT THE COPS AND THEY CHASE HIM THATS SO FUNNY

A+ plan buddy

Godddd the vibes are so ick and tragic but man

MAN I LOVE WHEN THINGS TAKE CHRISTIANS AND MAKE THEM FUCKED UP

Dean buddy get ready to run again

"The Lord chose me" NO IT FUCKIN DIDN'T

Sams gonna like smack her huh

Oh that Reaper did NOT like being bound

Something something metaphor for controlling death

Winchester Patented Guilt Complex

Oh she still has faith even when she's got a bad diagnosis :(

GODDAMMIT NO DONT

; - ;

So like Dean Winchester Aetheist Extraordinaire saying "I'm not much of a praying type... but I'll pray for you" is something that can be so personal actually

Don't. Don't touch me go away

Fuck you guys for making me watch this show I'm tearing up I hate you all

In conclusion: OKAY DEAN WINCHESTER LIKERS MAYBE I GET IT. But also fuck off fuck all of you I hate it here goddamn you AUGH I WASNT EXPECTING TO TEAR UP OVER THIS FUCK YOOOOOOOU

#on the highway to superhell #ink actually has an emotion about spn count: 1 #god fuck all of you. im watching another ep

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onmykneesforhotdilfs · 3 years ago

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jealous

guess who is back, that’s right, ME. anyway, this was not a request or anything but i needed to do this in order to get back on track. there are bunch of requests sitting in my box over there but i am working on them, i promise. if not in august, then you will get them all in september. k? now that this is out of the way, i hope you enjoy and as always, if you guys wanna talk about my fics or anything really, feel free to message me, i’m always available.

“Are you absolutely sure you want to go?

Bloom sighed and winced as Stella pulled a strand of her fiery hair too hard, sharp pain from the tug settling in her temple lobe making her regret her decision to have her blonde friend help her get ready for, yet another, Eraklyon ball.

“Well it seemed like a good idea to me at the beginning… but judging by the number of times I have been asked that question, I am starting to think it is not such a good idea after all.” Bloom responded sarcastically.

“Look Bloom,” Stella began as she took another strand of Bloom’s hair and curled it around the curling iron, “I get it. You guys broke up on friendly terms, but no one is going to blame you if you choose not to go.” Bloom frowned and she was about to open her mouth to protest, but Stella paid her no mind as she continued to curl her hair. “It’s his engagement party at the end of the day and the one that could turn rather messy considering who the bride-to-be is.”

“I know this might seem slightly unorthodox Stell, but I honestly have no hard feelings towards Sky.” Bloom shrugged one of her shoulders. “Besides, I’ve moved on.”

Stella snorted and tried to cover the sound (not befitting of a royal) with a cough but Bloom saw right through it as she leveled her best friend with a flat look. “Sorry Bloom. But you’ve got to admit that the situation is slightly absurd.”

Bloom sighed, her shoulders slouching forward in a clear sign of defeat. “Well, yes, I admit that the situation might seem weird-“

“Weird?” Stella laughed. “Sweetie, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the situation ceased to be weird when you decided to spare the bastard.” Bloom saw Stella raise one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows in the mirror but an amused smile full of mirth was present on her lips. “This right now, this is insanity at it’s finest.”

Bloom rolled her eyes. “Okay now you’re exaggerating. Besides, the two of you are getting along quite well. With the way the two of you strive to get on my nerves, I’ll even say, you get along better than him and I do.”

“Okay, that’s just hurtful.” Stella pouted, her bottom lip sticking out and Bloom laughed at the puppy dog look her friend was giving her.

“I’m just kidding Stell.”

“I don’t know Bloom. I now might have to tell your boyfriend you find him annoying.” Bloom never quite considered Stella as a snitch, but the devils dancing in blonde’s eyes reminded her that she needed to thread carefully unless she wanted to be eaten alive by the devil himself and his accomplice.

“Now, don’t be twisting my words. I never said I find you or him annoying…” She stopped for a second to debate whether or not she should say the next sentence. “No matter how true that statement might be.” She mumbled at the end.

Stella burst out laughing and hugged Bloom from behind. “That’s ok Bloom, you annoy us too.” At the red head’s confused look, Stella continued. “Between your constant rushing into danger without thinking and doing the exact opposite of what you’re told, it’s a miracle neither of us has a set of gray hair from worrying too much.”

Bloom felt the heat rushing to her cheeks and she lowered her head to conceal the blush that was climbing up her neck. “I’m not that bad.”

“No, you’re not.” Bloom’s eyes met Stella’s in the mirror. “You’re even worse.”

“Thanks a lot.” Bloom mumbled but she had to bite her lip to stifle a laugh as Stella’s sharp elbow stabbed her in the back making her bend forward slightly.

“Speaking of the devil, how is Valtor?” Stella asked as she started tucking delicate curls into a bun with an elaborate pattern. “I mean, you did leave him with your parents, your real parents, after all. Aren’t you worried that there will be nothing left of him when you come back?”

Bloom grinned. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He knows he should stay away from the throne room when I’m not there… He had to learn that the hard way though.”

“That hard way wouldn’t happen to be an angry king of Domino with a magic sword?” Stella asked through her giggles as the mental picture of an aristocratic wizard being chased across the hall by Bloom’s father popped up in her head.

“Who blabbed?” Bloom asked with genuine interest painted across her features.

Stella shrugged. “One of the maids that has a cousin working in Solaria’s palace happened to be at the right place and at the right time.” She pinned the final curl to the right place and stepped back to admire her work. “And I happened to be at the right place and at the right time to hear it being passed directly from one person to another.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky?” Bloom mumbled as she stood up from her chair and stretched her stiff muscles.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I never had the misfortune of being chased by your dad with a sword after all.”

Stella laughed as Bloom pushed her slightly, slight grimace present on her face. “Thank you for your help.” She leaned in to give Stella a hug. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss the show for anything.” Stella smiled and wiggled her eyebrows.

Bloom laughed. “You know, it is not nice to rejoice in someone else's misfortune. Dragon knows I would rather jump off the bridge than marry Diaspro.”

Stella waved her arm dismissively. “Each to it’s own. He should’ve sucked it up and come clean right away instead of preventing you from moving on and just prolonging the misery. A bit of suffering might be good for his soul.” She stopped for a second. “Though I’ll admit, marrying Diaspro might be too cruel of a punishment, even for him.”

“Well I am certainly not going to pull a Diaspro card tonight. I just hope he will live to see himself get married. After that, he is beyond my care.”

“Honey, he was beyond your care the moment you ended things, don’t pay too much attention to him.” Stella wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “Valtor might get jealous if you do.”

Bloom shook her head. “He’s not necessarily the jealous type Stell.” When Stella raised an eyebrow and her face morphed into an expression of disbelief, Bloom frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you completely blind or something?” When Bloom’s face continued to show nothing but plain confusion, Stella continued. “Are you seriously telling me that you do not see the glares he is sending to other people who look at you for two seconds too long?” Bloom shook her head negative but a stunned expression tensed her facial muscles and if Stella focused, she could probably see the cogs turning in Bloom’s brain.

“I’ve… honestly never noticed.”

Stella smirked. “I’m not sure why I’m even surprised. The two of you separately could conquer the world, but apparently when you’re together your brain cells eat each other or something because you are stupid for anything and everything besides for each other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bloom, honey, if there was a picture for ‘crazy in love’ in the dictionary, it would be a picture of the two of you.”

Bloom rolled her eyes. “I’ll have you know that we actually talk quite a lot.”

“I’m sure you do… when you’re not too busy getting lost in each other’s eyes from across the room.”

Bloom exhaled and pinched a bridge of her nose. “Okay I think that’s enough of that. Don’t injure that fashionable brain of yours by thinking too hard about me and Valtor. I’ll see you tonight.” She gave Stella another quick hug, ignoring the ‘Hey!’ she got and opened a portal to Domino. She threw a quick ‘I love you’ to Stella before stepping into the portal.

Shining rays of sun almost blinded her and she had to squint her eyes as she stepped into the throne room, making the people in it stop what they were doing to greet the princess. Bloom dismissed them all with a wave of her hand and a friendly smile as she climbed the steps to greet her parents.

“You look gorgeous honey.” Her mother said as she kept Bloom at an arm’s length to examine the hairstyle. Marion brought her hand to Bloom’s face and twirled a lock of fiery strand that framed her face.

“It’s all Stella mom. But thank you.” Bloom laughed cheerfully and tucked the lock behind her ear. “Have you seen Valtor by any chance?” She ignored a dangerous growl that sounded next to her, courtesy of her father, and continued. “We should get going soon.”

Just as Marion opened her mouth to answer, the door to the room opened and Valtor, wearing classic black pants and white shirt, strode in. Oritel jumped from his chair and Bloom saw, in her peripheral vision, how Marion gripped his forearm when Valtor came closer and started to climb the steps. He acknowledged no one as his eyes locked onto hers and Bloom got a flashback of Stella gushing about him having eyes only for her. Bloom felt the heat rushing to her head but paid it no mind as Valtor’s hands finally wrapped around her waist and he leaned down to kiss her forehead in greeting. She collapsed onto him, feeling almost boneless, her knees barely supporting her. The dragon fire connection burned pleasantly in her veins, carrying even more heat into her cheeks but Bloom was too busy basking in the euphoria that their connection provided to care. His thumb was drawing lazy patterns on her waist and Bloom had to resist the urge to giggle quite childishly. Instead she distanced herself from his embrace slightly, only now realizing they were not in private, and looked up at his face that had the beginning of a genuine smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Someone (Oritel) cleared their throat and Bloom broke eye contact with Valtor as unkind lights flashed in his eyes, his hand tightening around her waist, a clear sign of sheer annoyance on his part.

“So…” Bloom began rather awkwardly, clearing her throat as Valtor and Oritel continued to shoot each other unkind looks from across her head. “I trust the day has passed without any incidents involving swords and other sharp objects.”

“That only happened once.” Both of them spoke at the same time, a similar grimace painted at both Oritel’s and Valtor’s face.

“And once was enough, thank you very much.” Bloom said as she looked between the two men, trying to suppress her laughter.

“He started it.” Both men mumbled at once and turned an evil eye to each other.

“Very mature.” Sarcasm was dripping from every word Bloom spoke, her teeth nibbling at the bottom lip as she felt that exploding argument was about to commence and she really had no time for such shenanigans.

“If I remember correctly, your majesty,” Valtor began, sugar coating his voice but his face frozen in a sour expression, “you were the one that chased me with a sword, not the other way around.”

Bloom mumbled an ‘Oh no.’ and pinched Valtor’s side warningly. She squeezed her eyes together as dull pain began thumping against the walls of her skull. Her eyes met the worried but slightly amused eyes of her mother, and the queen shook her head clearly referring to the childish argument between the two grown men.

“Next time I’m simply going to break one of the hardwood chairs against your back then.” Oritel continued with a sheer, his frame slowly molding into one ready for an attack. The men leaned towards each other dangerously, and Bloom was afraid that sooner or later lightning will shoot from their eyes.

“There won’t be a next time. Your luck is that I chose not to defend myself, because otherwise, the outcome of that meeting would’ve been very different.”

“We can test that theory right now!”

“Bring it!”

The two were about to rush at each other, Oritel’s hand reaching for his sword and Valtor’s hand already lit with a spell, but an explosive spell rushed between their faces and forced the two to close their eyes and turn in the opposite direction. When the searing white finally retreated from their retinas and they were able to see clearly again, they turned to the women standing on the side, Marion’s hand raised as remains of the spell still sparked at her fingertips.

“Gentlemen. Please, behave.” The queen’s tone bore no traces of jest and Valtor and Oritel straightened their clothes in an effort to compose themselves, both coming to a conclusion that the continuation of a quarrel could result in serious bodily injury provided by none other than Marion.

Oritel cleared his throat and looked across Valtor’s shoulder towards the open hall. The servants were frozen in surprise, some were even huddled together as numerous whispers passed through the room. He looked towards his wife who was shaking her head in disbelief as if to say ‘Look at what you’ve done now.’ He once again cleared his throat and turned towards the people in the room. “Go back to your duties, there is nothing to see here.” The servants scattered across the room, fearing the wrath of their king, but amused chuckles still broke through some mouth.

“If you’re quite done,” the queen began, “maybe it would be for the best to go separate ways for today.”

“But Marion he-“ what was undoubtedly about to be another epic rant about whose fault it is was put on hold by a simple hand gesture. Marion crossed her lips in an universal ‘Zip it.’ motion and king’s mouth snapped shut. Seeing such scene, Valtor opened his mouth to say something but a sharp elbow to his ribs made him rethink his decision. He cleared his throat and grabbed the owner of the said elbow, a girl who was red in the face and almost had steam coming from her ears, and pulled her towards himself. Bloom struggled against his hold for a second but relaxed fairly quickly when Valtor sneaked his arm across her waist.

“I agree with mom.” She looked at Valtor and the hard look she gave him indicated that there was no room for refusal. “We should go get ready.”

As soon as the door to their room closed, Bloom snatched the shirt she was wearing over her head (weary of her hairstyle) and flopped face first onto the mattress. The dull ache in her head was turning into a full fledged migraine and she had to resist the urge to rip out all the bobby pins Stella placed into her hair. A sigh sounded somewhere next to her and a bed dipped slightly to the side due to the added weight. Bloom reached across the surface of the cool bed sheets blindly until her fingers wrapped around a gloved hand. She tugged on the hand slightly, a chuckle sounding in the room, as Valtor leaned above her to place another kiss at her forehead.

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“If another person asks me that today, I am going to scream.” Was her muffled response as she rubbed her face into the pillow she found laying around on the bed. “I’ve sat in the chair for hours, Stella practically tortured me with how much she pulled and tugged on my hair. There is no way, and I cannot stress this enough, no way in hell that I will miss Sky’s engagement ball just because I’d rather stay in bed.”

“If you say so.” He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “But in that case, we should probably start getting ready.”

Bloom groaned and pressed her face harder into a pillow. “Five more minutes.”

Valtor huffed a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh but moved towards the middle of the bed, one of his arms planting in between the bed and Bloom’s head replacing her pillow, while the other arm rested at the curve of her hip, his fingers drawing patterns at the soft skin. Bloom shuffled quietly on the bed as well, her head settling at the space where his neck met his collarbone, while one of her legs settled across his stomach. The hand that was mapping out the skin of her hip trailed teasingly upwards and Bloom twitched when his fingers ghosted over her ribs.

“That tickles.” She whispered against the skin of his neck, her lips brushing over the sensitive nerves with every letter.

“All the more reason for me to keep doing it.” Bloom pouted and lifted herself up on her forearms, her weight supported by her arms placed at his chest. Valtor huffed jokingly when she shifted her weight and he was rewarded for it with a slight punch to his shoulder. She ignored the fake ‘Ouch.’ from his side and moved to straddle his legs. He moved to meet her halfway when she leaned down for a kiss, the movements slow and gentle but no less passionate.

“Maybe we should just stay in.” He murmured when she broke the kiss only to descend down with short pecks to his neck. His hands took hold of her hips, fingers squeezing the tender flesh harder than necessary in a fit of passion.

“Mmmmm no. No. No, we don’t have time for that.” She groaned when his hands reached for the clasp of her bra.

“We can make it quick.” He huffed, annoyed and frustrated, when Bloom reached around to grab his hands and stop his movements. He fell back onto the bed as she moved up towards his face, his hands still held captive by her small fingers.

“No, we can’t.” She giggled and kissed his cheek quickly before swinging her legs off his lap and walking to her closet to pick up her dress.

“You always have to spoil my fun, don’t you?” He groaned and sat sup in bed, his fingers threading through his hair.

“Don’t sulk, we’ll have time to play later.” She didn’t even look at him as she continued rummaging through her stuff, but a teasing note and a promise was very much present in her voice. She let out a victorious ‘Aha!’ when she found the dress. “Besides, as my partner, I want you there.” The dress was tossed carelessly across the chair as she moved to stand in front of him at the foot of the bed. “Are you telling me you’d let me go all alone?” Her voice took on a slightly higher pitch and her lower lip wobbled slightly with every word. “You’d let someone else dance with me, put his hands on me?” She was playing a dangerous game and that was evident by the low growl that escaped from deep within his throat and by the darkening of his eyes.

She squeaked, slightly startled by the sudden movement, as his hands took a firm hold of her thighs and pulled her to him, his mouth attaching to her left hip, his sharp teeth leaving a bruised bite in the area as she wiggled in his hold, the pain from the bite sharp but not unpleasant. He soothed the tender spot by placing gentle, barely there kisses, no more than a brush of lips against the flesh. She hummed and ran her fingers through his hair, making him look up at her mischievous eyes. “You’re jealous.” It was not a question, but a statement and he groaned as he buried his face in her stomach, his arms circling her hips, hands resting on her behind. Bloom chuckled and tapped his shoulder twice before she pushed slightly on them, a clear sign he should let go, and grabbed her dress before she retreated to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

She emerged ten minutes later, silky turquoise dress sitting on her frame perfectly, loose curls placed behind her ear. Valtor, in the process of buttoning up his vest, stopped what he was doing and smiled at her. She mimicked his movements and stood right in front of him as her hands smoothed out wrinkles on his sleeves before straightening the collar of his shirt. No words were spoken as his large palms took hold of her delicate ones and brought them to his lips. The intimate moment was broken with the loud blaring of a cellphone and Bloom moved to answer it, Valtor’s hands letting go of her.

“Hello Stella.”

“Hey, where are you guys? We just landed. Are you going to be here soon?” Before Bloom even had the chance to answer either of the two questions, Stella continued. “Please say you will, because Bloom, I cannot promise I will not do anything if I see Diaspro.”

Bloom laughed, her hands rummaging through her makeup bag in search for lipstick. “We’ll be there shortly Stell, don’t worry.”

“You’re teleporting, right?”

“Mhm.” Bloom hummed absentmindedly as she continued looking for the lipstick.

“Okay, I’ll see you soon then. I love you.”

“I love you too Stell. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Stella laughed. “No promises. Ciao.”

Bloom threw her phone to the bed as she finally dug out a lipstick from a black hole that is her makeup bag. She leaned over the desk to apply it and she was about to turn around to ask Valtor if he could carry it in his pocket but gasped in surprise when two hands came up from behind and something cold was placed on her neck. Bloom bit her lip when she noticed that the cold object was a beautiful sapphire necklace, the color of the precious stone matching her eyes almost perfectly. Valtor’s hands moved from her neck, following the line of her spine, before settling on her hips. His lips ghosted over her hairline, down the line of her jaw before they settled in the junction of her neck and he placed a proper kiss there.

“You look stunning.” He whispered in her ear, his lips barely touching the shell of her ear, but the hot breath washing over her face made the goosebumps erupt across her skin.

“Thank you.” She spoke, her voice shaky, her fingers twirling the necklace resting at her sternum.

Colder breeze passed over her the very next second as he moved away from her to look at the mirror, spell words already on his lips and his appearance morphed back into perfection, not a hair out of place and no wrinkle on his clothes. He cleared his throat and turned to Bloom, who was still quite red in the face, and offered her his hand.

“Shall we?”

Bloom took his hand as his other one was already busy creating a portal, she moved closer to him, one of her hands searching for a pocket in his blazer. She smiled when she found it and looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. “We shall, good sir.”

Valtor smirked as his free hand landed on Bloom’s left hip, his thumb tracing the bruise he left there, before the two stepped into a portal and disappeared with a flash.

#sparxshipping #valtor x bloom #bloom x baltor #bloom x valtor #baltor x bloom #winx club #winx valtor #winx baltor #winx bloom

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bamf-jaskier · 4 years ago

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Who the Fuck is Eskel?

If you have ever gone on The Witcher tag on Tumblr, I’m sure you’ve seen dozens of blogs dedicated to this guy named Eskel and for people who have just seen the show you might be wondering - who the fuck is this guy?

Hi, I’m Aaliyah, and this is Part 5 of my WTF Series - a crash course in subjects from The Witcher Books.

Post under the cut

Let’s jump in by talking about what books Eskel is in. He’s only mentioned in one line in The Last Wish, The Tower of Swallows and The Time of Contempt. He has a flashback scene in Lady of the Lake and the only book where he plays a heavy role in is Blood of Elves.

For all you Eskel Stans out there, this is good news, because it looks like S2 of the show is going to be taking some cues from Blood of Elves and we do know Eskel is going to be appearing so these scenes might be showing up in some form or another in the show.

We first meet Eskel in Blood of Elves when Geralt is first bringing Ciri to the keep:

“Who comes?” Ciri heard a menacing, metallic voice which sounded like a dog’s bark. “Geralt?”

“Yes, Eskel. It’s me.”

“Come in.”

The witcher dismounted, took Ciri from the saddle, stood her on the ground and pressed a bundle into her little hands which she grabbed tightly, only regretting that it was too small for her to hide behind completely.

“Wait here with Eskel,” he said. “I’ll take Roach to the stables.”

“Come into the light, laddie,” growled the man called Eskel. “Don’t lurk in the dark.”

Ciri looked up into his face and barely restrained her frightened scream. He wasn’t human. Although he stood on two legs, although he smelled of sweat and smoke, although he wore ordinary human clothes, he was not human. No human can have a face like that, she thought.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” repeated Eskel.

She didn’t move. In the darkness she heard the clatter of Roach’s horseshoes grow fainter. Something soft and squeaking ran over her foot. She jumped. “Don’t loiter in the dark, or the rats will eat your boots.”

Still clinging to her bundle Ciri moved briskly towards the light. The rats bolted out from beneath her feet with a squeak. Eskel leaned over, took the package from her and pulled back her hood.

“A plague on it,” he muttered. “A girl. That’s all we need.”

She glanced at him, frightened. Eskel was smiling. She saw that he was human after all, that he had an entirely human face, deformed by a long, ugly, semi-circular scar running from the corner of his mouth across the length of his cheek up to the ear.

“Since you’re here, welcome to Kaer Morhen,” he said. “What do they call you?”

“Ciri,” Geralt replied for her, silently emerging from the darkness. Eskel turned around. Suddenly, quickly, wordlessly, the witchers fell into each other’s arms and wound their shoulders around each other tight and hard. For one brief moment.

“Wolf, you’re alive.”

“I am.”

“All right.” Eskel took a torch from its bracket. “Come on. I’m closing the inner gates to stop the heat escaping.”

Couple things here. First, for all the game fans out there, Eskel’s scar in the books is VERY different. It’s not the lightening-like claw marks that go over his eye but instead it goes from the corner of his mouth to his ear. This is interesting because it really parallels in my mind Ciri’s scar she gets later on that extends from under her eye to her ear.

Also, the little reunion between Geralt and Eskel, so sweet. The line about Eskel in Last Wish establishes that they were close friends so here is the snippet just to give more backstory to the two of them:

“Once, years ago, when a little snot-faced brat following his studies in Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Settlement, he and a friend, Eskel, had captured a huge forest bumblebee and tied it to a jug with a thread. They were in fits of laughter watching the antics of the tied bumblebee, until Vesemir, their tutor, caught them at it and tanned their hides with a leather strap.”

Childhood friends and brothers is just so damn great. Actually, speaking of brothers, it is stated in Blood of Elves that Geralt and Eskel actually look very similar and are often mistaken for brothers such as in this scene from Triss’s POV.

Eskel stood next to Geralt, resembling the Wolf like a brother apart from the colour of his hair and the long scar which disfigured his cheek. And the youngest of the Kaer Morhen witchers, Lambert, was there with his usual ugly, mocking expression. Vesemir was not there.

“Welcome and come in,” said Eskel. “It is as cold and blustery as if someone has hung themselves. Ciri, where are you off to? The invitation does not apply to you. The sun is still high, even if it is obscured. You can still train.”

“Hey.” The Enchantress tossed her hair. “Politeness comes cheap in Witchers’ Keep now, I see. Ciri was the first to greet me, and brought me to the castle. She ought to keep me company—”

This really interests me because Ciri is very young child when she meets Eskel and she is very terrified of him and intimidated. Which makes sense, she is very traumatized. But, when Triss meets Eskel she only makes a short note of his scar and focuses more on his resemblance to Geralt and commenting on the lack of politeness. It just goes to show how different characters perceive people differently. A child’s perspective of a warrior is not going to be the same as a Mage’s.

“You didn’t even know.” She nodded in what was now a calm, concerned and gentle reproach. “You’re pathetic guardians. She’s ashamed to tell you because she was taught not to mention such complaints to men. And she’s ashamed of the weakness, the pain and the fact that she is less fit. Has any one of you thought about that? Taken any interest in it? Or tried to guess what might be the matter with her? Maybe her very first bleed happened here, in Kaer Morhen? And she cried to herself at night, unable to find any sympathy, consolation or even understanding from anyone? Has any one of you given it any thought whatsoever?”

“Stop it, Triss,” moaned Geralt quietly. “That’s enough. You’ve achieved what you wanted. And maybe even more.”

“The devil take it,” cursed Coën. “We’ve turned out to be right idiots, there’s no two ways about it, eh, Vesemir, and you—”

“Silence,” growled the old witcher. “Not a word.”

It was Eskel’s behaviour which was most unlikely; he got up, approached the enchantress, bent down low, took her hand and kissed it respectfully. She swiftly withdrew her hand. Not so as to demonstrate her anger and annoyance but to break the pleasant, piercing vibration triggered by the witcher’s touch. Eskel emanated powerfully. More powerfully than Geralt.

“Triss,” he said, rubbing the hideous scar on his cheek with embarrassment, “help us. We ask you. Help us, Triss.”

Now, if you can’t tell, Triss’ favorite is Eskel. This scene is also implies that Eskel is more magically powerful than Geralt which Is very interesting. But Triss is an Eskel stan, in fact a couple lines later Triss thinks to herself:

Vesemir hawked again. But Eskel, dear Eskel, kept his head and once more behaved as was fitting.

“Of course,” he said casually, smiling. “We understand and clearly we will postpone your exercises until your indisposition has passed. We will also cut the theory short and, if you feel unwell, we will put it aside for the time being, too. If you need any medication or—”

Eskel definitely has the older sibling energy where he ends up in charge sometimes and knows how to keep a cool head. He’s also the most aware of societal norms of behavior which is why Triss likes his so much. She really respects people who know how to move in society.

There’s also this scene in Blood of Elves where Eskel is drinking and offers Triss some:

“White Seagull.”

“What?”

“A mild remedy,” Eskel smiled, “for pleasant dreams.”

“Damn it! A witcher hallucinogenic? That’s why your eyes shine like that in the evenings!”

“White Seagull is very gentle. It’s Black Seagull that is hallucinogenic.”

“If there’s magic in this liquid I’m not allowed to take it!”

“Exclusively natural ingredients,” Geralt reassured her but he looked, she noticed, disconcerted. He was clearly afraid she would question them about the elixir’s ingredients. “And diluted with a great deal of water. We would not offer you anything that could harm you.”

I think it’s very funny how secret The Witcher keeps all their potions and elixirs. Whether it’s mushrooms or potions, they gotta keep those secret drugs locked down tight. Also the fact that Eskel is the fantasy equivalent of high every night? Love that for him.

Eskel really is the peace-maker of the group. He’s not a push-over by any means but he is definitely more willing to play along that any of the others. When Triss is talking at night, Eskel is really the only one listening and engaging, even if it’s very half-hearted.

In the evenings, consistently and determinedly, Triss guided the long conversations held in the dark hall, lit only by the bursts of flames in the great hearth, towards politics. The witchers’ reactions were always the same. Geralt, a hand on his forehead, did not say a word.

Vesemir nodded, from time to time throwing in comments which amounted to little more than that “in his day” everything had been better, more logical, more honest and healthier.

Eskel pretended to be polite, and neither smiled nor made eye contact, and even managed, very occasionally, to be interested in some issue or question of little importance. Coën yawned openly and looked at the ceiling, and Lambert did nothing to hide his disdain.

And he is really the only sort-of listener to Triss’ stories and retellings of events:

This time it was Triss who began to yawn and stare at the ceiling. This time she was the one who remained silent – until Eskel turned to her with a question. A question which she had anticipated.

“And what is it really like in the south, on the Yaruga? Is it worth going there? We wouldn’t like to find ourselves in the middle of any trouble.”

“What do you mean by trouble?”

“Well, you know…” he stammered, “you keep telling us about the possibility of a new war… About constant fighting on the borders, about rebellions in the lands invaded by Nilfgaard. You said they’re saying the Nilfgaardians might cross the Yaruga again—”

“So what?” said Lambert. “They’ve been hitting, killing and striking against each other constantly for hundreds of years. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ve already decided – I’m going to the far South, to Sodden, Mahakam and Angren. It’s well known that monsters abound wherever armies have passed. The most money is always made in places like that.”

“True,” Coën acknowledged. “The neighbourhood grows deserted, only women who can’t fend for themselves remain in the villages… scores of children with no home or care, roaming around… Easy prey attracts monsters.”

“And the lord barons and village elders,” added Eskel, “have their heads full of the war and don’t have the time to defend their subjects. They have to hire us. It’s true. But from what Triss has been telling us all these evenings, it seems the conflict with Nilfgaard is more serious than that, not just some local little war. Is that right, Triss?”

Once more, Eskel is the peace-maker of the conversation and he brings it back around to what Triss originally said and also points to her expertise. Basically, Eskel is not really a fan of verbal conflict.

This is actually the last line we see Eskel in a scene outside of the flashback in Lady of the Lake. After this, Triss, Geralt and Ciri head off. It is important to note that near the end of Blood of Elves Ciri says this about Yennefer:

The lady magician knew a surprising amount about a witcher’s sword and “dance.” She knew a great deal about the secrets of Kaer Morhen; there was no doubt she had visited the Keep. She knew Vesemir and Eskel. Although not Lambert and Coën.

Yennefer used to visit Kaer Morhen. Ciri guessed why – when they spoke of the Keep – the eyes of the enchantress grew warm, lost their angry gleam and their cold, indifferent, wise depth. If the words had befitted Yennefer’s person, Ciri would have called her dreamy, lost in memories.

So clearly Yennefer is also friendly with Eskel and knows him. I love the idea that Yennefer regularly visited Kaer Morhen before Ciri came into Geralt’s care and I would literally cry if they did a flashback sequence in S2 of Yennefer visiting Geralt in Kaer Morhen.

The flashback sequence in Lady of the Lake with Eskel goes like this:

The fire in the huge fireplace went out. A gust of wind from the mountains whistled through the crevices of the walls and screamed through the improperly closed shutters of Kaer Morhen, Home of the Witchers.

“Damn it!” Eskel said, standing up and going to the cupboard. “Seagull or vodka?”

“Vodka,” Geralt and Coen said with one voice.

“Sure,” interjected Vesemir, hidden in the shadows, “Yes, of course! Drown your stupidity in vodka. Damn fools!”

“It was an accident…” muttered Lambert. “She had already mastered the comb…”

“Shut your big mouth, you idiot! I don’t want to hear any more! I warned you, if something happened to that little girl…”

“Enough,” Coen interrupted him, softly. “She sleeps peacefully. Deep and healthy. She will wake up a bit sore, but that’s it. About the trance, and what happened, she will not even remember it.”

“As long as you remember,” said Vesemir, panting angrily. “Cabbage heads! Pour for me too, Eskel.”

They were silent for a long time, listening intently to the howling gale.

“We will need to call someone,” Eskel finally said. “We will need to bring a sorcerer here. What is happening to the girl, it is not normal.”

Eskel is one of The Witcher who really pushes to call Triss in order to help with Ciri’s trances. Also, once again this guy is hitting the drinks.

So yeah! That’s Eskel in the books. Based on how in the non-canon wedding short Asaps wrote where he ended up having Triss and Eskel get together, I think his hints of them having a connection in the books is very intentional and if The Witcher wasn’t such a god damn tragedy and Triss wasn’t mooning over Geralt, I’m willing to bet they would have gotten together at some point.

Eskel is the peace-maker of the family and is the best at recognizing the norms of “polite society” (or at least noble society) and while Ciri might have been scared of his appearance, it isn’t enough to phase Triss who is considered rather vain. In fact, she seems to respect Eskel the most out of the Witchers. Just imagine a dark-haired, scarred Geralt and BOOM, you got yourself an Eskel.

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deja-vux · 4 years ago

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Sweet Night

Taehyung x Reader Word Count: 2.0k+ A/N: I’m sorry it’s been awhile school has been a pain in the but and i’ve been doing midterms and quarter exams. Anyways here’s one i’ve been working on. I reccomend listening to the song Sweet Night as you read it. Anything in bold is a flashback other than that I hope you guys enjoy it. KPOP Masterlist

The rain pattered against the window as Y/N woke up to the darkness of her room instead of the usual sunlight she had grown accustomed to since she had moved to the big city. She sat up in her bed rubbing her eyes softly looking out the window before looking at the time. The time showed as “7:24” in bright white light. She groaned laying back as she tossed her phone to the side. She turned onto her stomach, closing her eyes as she attempted to sleep again to take advantage of her day off. As soon as she felt sleep approaching her phone rang making her hide her head under the pillow. She tried her best to ignore the ringing until the phone began to ring again. She rolled her eyes grabbing her phone automatically recognizing the ringtone answering, “You better have a good reason for calling me this early on my day off Tae,” she warned through the phone.

“I promise just be ready in the next half hour ok,” Taehyung responded.

“Yeah yeah whatever just let me sleep,” she responded.

“I’m serious Y/N ok I’m already on my way,” he responded.

She simply hummed a response before hanging up as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The next thing she knew she was being woken up by the feeling of Taehyung’s body weight crushing her as he laid on top of her, his back against her stomach as scrolled through his phone. She groaned, pushing him off of her, Taehyung hitting the floor with a thud a tiny ouch before sitting up as he sent her a playful glare. “Finally you're up. I told you to be ready and I found you sleeping,” said Taehyung as he sat next to her on her bed.

“Tae it’s my day off I want to sleep,” she chucks one of her pillows at her, “Not to mention it’s raining all I wanna do is stay in and cuddle my pillow unless you brought Yeontan with you. How’d you get in anyway,” she questioned as the fluffy dog joined the pair on the bed greeting her.

“I did and I told you not to leave the spare key under the mat,” he said, tossing her the key he used, “Also that’s just sad come on just because it’s raining doesn't mean we can’t go out. If anything we should go out and have a cheesy movie moment in the rain just like in those terrible cheesy movies you like,” he joked as she smacked him with a pillow.

“You can go, I’ll stay with Yeontan,” she cuddled the dog as he barked in agreement.

He nodded softly telling her to get ready as he left her room heading to the kitchen to make breakfast. She cuddled with Yeontan for a few more minutes petting him and scratching behind his ear before finally getting up to change. She dressed into some ripped black jeans and a white shirt tucking it in slipping on some socks and shoes as she headed out to the kitchen meeting up with Tae who had just finished up. She grabbed a drink from the fridge as her presence was announced by the barking of the small furry friend that followed behind her. He placed the eggs and bacon into a plate as she took a seat at the kitchen island. He turned, handing her the plate, Y/N beginning to eat as Taehyung leaned against the counter, both of them talking amongst each catching up about the week that had passed. “So what's your big plan for the day that you intruded my day off,” Y/N asked, finishing her food, getting up[ to wash the dishes, Tae stopping her and taking over.

“You will see as we go along it’s a surprise,” he shrugged his shoulders softly, “Come on get your coat on we got to get started.

She nodded softly going to the closet, grabbing her coat as Tae got Yeontan settled after he finished the two said their goodbyes to the energetic friend before heading out. As soon as they reach the wet pavement Taehyung opens his umbrella making sure the two were shielded from the incoming droplets of rain. Eventually, as they began their journey he offered her his arm which she gladly took leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked. Although the action was simple and not new to the pair it sent butterflies to his stomach as the heat rose up his cheeks, his heart fluttering. Although he hated to admit it over the past 5 years of knowing each other he managed to catch feelings the more comfortable and close they got with each other.

“Ha you can’t catch me you slowpoke,” Y/N said as she ran teasingly waving his phone.

“Ugh you better pray I don’t catch you Y/N” he smirked picking up the pace.

Y/N ran and ran until she reached a clearing and sought shelter behind a tree. She leaned her head against the bark as she steadied her breathing. She peered over her shoulder to find the area empty. Sighing in relief she turned only to find Taehyung reaching for her. She attempted to run off but it was too late. As Taehyung grabbed her the force of her taking off pulled them both to the floor Taehyung on top while she landed on her back. The two laughed at their clumsiness until they realized the position they were in not to mention how close they were to each other. Y/N gulped silently as Taehyung turned away blushing softly before getting up offering his hand to help. She gladly took it as he helped her gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as soon as her feet hit the ground.

The first stop of the day was a nearby theme park. Thanks to the rain many people were there which meant they could do more. Most of the day was spent enjoying their favorite rides laughing as they joked around and poked fun at each other. Their current teasing being caused by their faces on the rollercoaster in which they saw in the picture that was taken. They poked fun at one other playfully pinching and poking each other’s faces. For the most part, the heavy rain had subsided and it had turned into a light sprinkle. They walked towards one of the carnival-style games. Y/N took her chance at the game attempting to win the ball toss to win a stuffed elephant missing the mark by 2 points. Taehyung then took over teasingly rolling up his sleeves to show off his toned arms. The action caused her to change her pout into a smile as she giggled at his actions. Watching him as he focused his aim on his throws hitting each target. With the points accumulated he managed to upgrade to the bigger version of the elephant, she had her eyes on. She smiled blushing softly as he handed it to her standing on her toes to kiss his cheek making his confidence flush from his face turning him shy.

The pair currently sat on the couch binge-watching the latest true crime documentary. They focused on the screen in front of them as they mindlessly consumed snacks, popcorn, and slices of pizza. It was Tae’s first weekend off in a while and all he wanted to do was spend it with his favorite people. Yeontan was currently nestled at their feet slowly falling asleep in a comfortable position as the night crept closer. Sleep was also creeping up on the pair Y/N falling victim first. As she slipped into dreamland her head found a resting spot upon his shoulder causing him to turn towards the sudden weight on his body. He smiled warmly wrapping his arm which was currently resetting on the back of the couch around her. He blushed softly as she snuggled up closer to him getting comfortable as she did. Not long after Taehyung followed the two eventually laying on the couch. The next morning Taehyung woke up to the light creeping in through his blinds. He looked around smiling at the scene that lay before him. There she was wrapped in his arms, her head nuzzled in the crook of his neck as she peacefully slept. He gently moved her hair from her face as he enjoyed the moment not wanting it to end. His changed feelings for her now confirmed.

They continued their day at their favorite cafe sitting at the same table in the back corner closest to the fireplace. They discussed upcoming plans, as well as interesting stories from the recent tour Taehyung, had returned from. With them there was never a dull moment. She laughed as Taehyung recounted the boys’ mischievous antics. Although he seemed quiet and cold to most with her he was the complete opposite. Some would even argue if the Tae she saw and the one the public saw could not be the same person. They stayed in the shelter of the cafe enjoying their drinks till the skies began to clear letting them finish their day at her place. He handed her coat to her as she got up from the table grabbing the umbrella on their way out. As they walked down the streets they walked in comfortable silence, people watching as they made their way down the surprisingly empty streets. Just as they reached the final block rain began to pour heavily catching them off guard. Y/N couldn’t help but laugh at Taehyung’s stunned reaction.

“What are you laughing at?” Taehyung turned to her coming out of his stupor.

“Your face. It’s just rain Tae it won’t hurt us,” she teased stifling a laugh.

“I know that it just caught me off guard,” he defended.

“Your face looked like that one Pikachu meme. It was great. I wish i took a picture of it,” she said full blown laughing this time.

She watched as he pouted, crossing his arms the rain that was hitting their skin no longer phasing him. She shook her head softly knowing the game he was playing knowing he wasn’t truly upset. “Oh come on do be like that,” she smiled warmly, her hand on his arm as she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

What she didn't expect was for him to turn and face her making their lips clash. She instantly pulled away looking at the floor to hide the heat rising to her cheeks not that it mattered. Taehyung was currently in shock, his heart pounding as he found out what to say. He finally pulled himself back to reality with newfound confidence lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger as he bent down making their lips connect once more, this time more official. Taehyung’s mind began to race as he waited for her to react. He finally settled the moment she wrapped her arms around his neck kissing him back. Y/N felt butterflies in her stomach as they continued eventually pulling away their foreheads against each other. Taehyung cupped her face in his hands placing a gentle kiss on her nose. He chuckled as she scrunched her nose up. “We should hurry up and get inside before we get sick huh?” Taehyung suggested.

“I think it’s a little too late for that but yes we should,” she nodded softly smiling.

Taehyung placed a soft peck on her lips before opening the umbrella covering both of them from the rain. As always she took his arm, her head resting against him as they walked. As they headed into her apartment they were greeted by an excited Yeontan who ran around their feet barking hellos. “You know we still have something very important to talk about,” Taehyung said, turning to Y/N who was hanging her coat.

“That we do but first can we order food? I’m starving,” Y/N said.

Taehyung laughed as he nodded his head softly grabbing his phone after hanging his own coat, “Sure, what are you craving,” he asked.

#v imagine #kim taehyung imagine #taehyung imagine #kim taehyung x reader #kim taehyung x y/n #taehyung x reader #taehyung x y/n #v x reader #v x y/n #bts imagines #bts x reader #bts x y/n #au #kpop imagines #kpop headcanons #kpop au #kpop oneshots #+×DejaVu×+#deja-vux

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belovasangel · 4 years ago

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Come Back to Me

Summary: Shawn missing big events leaves to beautiful memories and Christmas miracles

Pairing: Shawn x fem!Nurse!Reader

Warnings: swearing, light angst, fluff, flashback heavy, holiday feelings

A/N: Yup. Surprise. Also flashbacks are in italics, per usual. Also I am not Canadian so I don’t know if y’all celebrate Remembrance Day. For the sake of this story, pretend that it’s the equivalent to Thanksgiving.

Shawn took your hand as you barreled down the sidewalk, laughs flying past you in the wind. Tonight had been a perfect date, something great to wrap the summer up, full of time alone with your favorite guy (and your favorite wine). He had been planning this for weeks now, and you can even remember him talking about this back in June when his tour had been announced. The pandemic put a damper on your two’s plans since March, but once the numbers started decreasing did he get calls from managers, and then... there was another world tour. You weren’t mad, music was his passion. Even though you two would be wrapped in each other’s arms after a lovely night, you could tell behind his eyes he longed to play the guitar for different cities.

That’s why tonight was so important, because he started packing and planning, then he would leave on Wednesday for Prague. And of course, your job needed you in Toronto. While Canada hasn’t experienced any significantly alarming numbers, there were still cases rolling in. You insisted that Shawn goes on tour, so much that you had to pay for his first ticket yourself (he payed you back, though. He insisted).

Shawn skidded to a stop, turning around and putting his hands on your shoulders. “Now promise me you’re gonna close your eyes, just for a few seconds.”

You huffed and shrugged your shoulders, “Shawn I’m out of breathe, you made me run in heels for about half a mile... Give me 5 minutes instead.” With a quick chuckle, he pecked your lips and turned you around. You heard his shuffling from those black boots he wears to rubble, then decided to look around. He somehow managed to find a quaint park, with a nice bubbling fountain and family’s scattered around. Dogs were running a lit in the distance, and the bustle of the city wasn’t nearly as booming as it usually is. This was nice.

“Okay, turn around.”

With a giggle, you turned around to see Shawn on one knee. Behind him was a tree strung with lights that were glowing, and underneath the tree was champagne and a radio playing your two’s song, Turning the Page (Yeah, we know it’s from Twilight, but that doesn’t stop it from being any less romantic). He was kneeled on a red and white picnic blanket, the typical one you’d see in catalogues for fall. On the blanket were rose petals scattered.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), you have changed my life for the better. The moment you saw me in the E.R., and had to take care of my broken hand, I knew you were just as kind and gentle as you looked. Once you let me in, and take you on that shitty first date, I got to see the real you. The you that cries during every Disney movie, the you that would bring me breakfast in bed when I had a rough day, the you that would rescue a damn pigeon off the street because it looked sad. You are the most sincere, selfless, and intelligent woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I don’t want ever want to stop or slow down. You have become my life and my rock, I’m completely lost without you. I am utterly in love with you, (Y/N). I want us to have a family, I want to make an album for you, and everything in between. Will you please marry me?”

You shuddered awake, looking quickly at your blaring alarm from the end table. Picking it up and turning it off, the time read 4:25 A.M., signaling it was time to get ready for work. You got up, and went to open the blinds to your bedroom, watching the snow fall steadily. Slipping on your socks and bathrobe, you shuffled to the kitchen to get a cup of tea brewing before you hit the shower.

Mornings like this weren’t incredibly tough anymore, once Shawn was gone on tour. He face-timed you once a week because of tour, sent you letters and packages from your favorite cities, and even had roses delivered on your birthday. And of course, he always said, “Lemme see it. I wanna see you wear that pretty ring. There it is, there she is, soon-to-be Mrs. Mendes.”

Slipping in the hot shower, you played some of his songs, some of your regular playlists, and when you were throwing on your outfit, your two’s song. You missed Shawn. He had missed your two’s favorite holiday, Halloween, where you two always did the cheesy couple costumes. He missed your birthday, but he sent his family in place. He missed Remembrance Day, because in Europe that wasn’t a thing. And tomorrow is Christmas, where he has no sign of coming home whatsoever. That’s fine, though, because you took the long shift at the hospital.

When the song came to an end, you threw on your coat and snow boots, grabbing all the food and equipment you would need for a 12-hour and began to head out. Shawn sent you his daily vlog and you watched that on the shuttle. Once that was over, you got to the hospital where you would forget about your slightly more aching heart. After work, the routine would basically go in reverse. Commute home, get back into your pajama’s, drink some tea, get dinner, and go to bed, where you would have a restless night in an empty bed.

“When do you think we should have the wedding?”

Shawn looked over, a piece of popcorn hanging onto his lip like a lifeline. His cheeks were flushed and he still looked a little sweaty from the show he just played at TD Garden. He knew you were doing the planning to keep yourself from descending into madness (well, not entirely, but you only brought it up when you really missed him). “I think we should do a summer/fall sort of wedding, like when the leaves are red but it isn’t freezing by 5, ya know?”

You hummed in agreement, a smile picking at the corners of your mouth. “I completely agree. Do you want it to be outdoors then, because of the leaves?”

Shawn took another few things of popcorn from the bag and popped them into his swollen lips, he always licked them when he was frustrated by how a show went, or just when his mind was reeling. “I think we should get married outdoors, and then have the reception indoors. Kind of like-”

“Twilight...”

You both looked at the screen and snorted, sending both of you into fits of hysteria. “Shawn, we really base our relationship off of those books, didn’t we?” He looked over, licking his lips once again. “Explain, babe. I get a little bit, but our whole relationship?”

You shuffled in the bed a little bit, “Hear me out, Shawn-y boy. We met when you were hurt and I had to save you, or more-so your career. Edward saved Bella from the car, right? Right. So, there’s that. Then that girl who you worked on the album with tried to get you on the few dates, but that was long after we were official. Boom, Jacob plot line. Then you leave me for your first tour, which I get 100%, so don’t be upset over that. But the girl you worked with saw you kind of sad and made it her mission to befriend you and then attempt to change your mind over me... And our song is the one from their wedding, and we want an outdoors-y wedding.....”

Shawn looked at the screen, then back to the popcorn leaking butter in his hands. “Damn. So you’re saying that I’m Bella?” You began to shake your head, cheeks turning red. “Maybe I meant that wrong, but-”

“No, no you’re saying I’m Bella. Does that mean I get to wear the dress? I cannot wait to get married with no emotions and then have the ugliest CGI baby in the history of cinematics. Aren’t you so excited for that, my love?”

“Absolutely thrilled.”

The alarm on your phone blared once again, pulling you from Shawn. You picked up the phone, getting a few “Merry Christmas” texts from family and friends. You assumed Shawn was out partying with his crew mates, plus it must’ve been a busy day altogether. Turning off the alarm and standing, you pulled on the slippers and followed your routine again.

Once it got to 6:07, and still no text from Shawn, you decided to call him. Immediately, you were sent to voicemail. With a sigh, you waited for voicemail.

“Hey bubs, Merry Christmas! I miss you more than ever, it’s snowing here pretty rough. I know you’d probably go outside right about now and insist to make a snowman or some angels, so that might be a mission for me after work. Um, I wanted to let you know that I love you so much, and I hope you’re having fun on tour... The apartment isn’t the same without you here, especially around this time. You’re probably having fun with your friends and I don’t wanna intrude on that, so I’ll hang up. I love you Shawn, be careful. Stay safe, come back to me soon. Bye.”

Wiping the tear that fell down your cheek, you stepped outside your apartment, hopped into the elevator and began the commute to your shift. You got to work on record time, beginning your patient rounds and vitals, then celebrating with the coworkers. Working 6:30 AM-9:30 PM would be a tough one, but whatever to keep you under that roof. Plus, double-time because of the holiday.

Once it hit 9:30, you booked it out of the hospital and onto the shuttle. Your eyes were barely open as you saw the texts from Shawn.

(Shawn) 7:59 AM: Hey babe, I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your call! I can’t wait to see your face tonight, you still up for FaceTime?

(Shawn) 9:26 AM: I bet you’re busy, but I’m gonna be in a few conferences and doing press so I won’t be able to talk for a while. Love you!

(Shawn) 3:14 PM: (Y/N) I don’t think we can FaceTime tonight, I have to do something for a fan and it’s really important. I am so sorry.

(Shawn) 8:44 PM: Are you mad at me or are you still working?

(Shawn) 9:32 PM: Something is waiting for you at home, it’s your gift. I hope this can make up for the call!

You hopped out of the shuttle, heart feeling extra heavy as you walked into the apartment. The string lights and streamers along the walls were taunting you as the elevator brought you to your floor, and you tried to compose yourself until you would get inside. Stepping up to your door, you looked for the present, to no avail.

(Y/N) 9:45 PM: Shawn I don’t see a package

(Shawn) 9:45 PM: Mom must’ve brought it inside, I’m sure it’s there.

With a huff, you shoved the key into the door, and walked inside. Chucking your purse and coat onto the hooks, while flinging off your shoes, you composed yourself enough to look for the package. If he got it express-shipped it had to be good. Checking the kitchen was no luck, and the living room looked normal.

(Shawn) 9:48 PM: Bedroom, babe

With a gasp, you quickly buzzed to the bedroom, and laid your hand on the door. You stopped, hesitant to what was behind the door. What if it isn’t him? Taking a deep breath, you dismissed the negative thought and opened.

The room was filled with lit tea lights, rose petals on the bed and the floor, and Shawn. He was standing there in that chunky-white knit sweater you loved, with flushed cheeks and watery eyes, holding a bouquet of flowers, and your favorite song playing softly in the background.

You gasped, running into his arms with a squeal and sob, him mimicking the sound. He held onto the small of your back, and one hand on the back of your neck, and you felt his tears falling onto your skin. “I missed you so much, (Y/N). You don’t even know.” He pulled back slightly pressing his lips to yours in a soft embrace.

After a minute of kissing, you pulled back. “Merry Christmas, Shawn.”

“Merry Christmas, (Y/N).”

#shawn #shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes x reader #shawn mendes x you #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fanfiction #imagine #love #christmas #lumineshawn

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swaps55 · 4 years ago

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Please, please, the coffee, number 48. (Having Citadel DLC flashbacks)

Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”

48. Getting them a coffee just the way they like it.

A few minutes after Shepard gets home, the coffee pot starts running. Kaidan glances towards the kitchen from his spot on the couch with mild curiosity and a pinch of disappointment. Rare for Shepard to get back and not drop in for a hello before getting caught up in something else. Also a surprise that he’s still on his feet. He’s been gone since breakfast, dinner’s not far off and his bad hip just doesn’t last that long.

He almost gets up to go into the kitchen and investigate. Instead he sulks and goes back to his book. He might be a little grumpier about the missing hello kiss than he’d like to let on.

A few minutes later Shepard finally appears and sets a mug of coffee on the side table next to Kaidan’s arm. Kaidan looks at the mug, then looks up at Shepard. Shepard crosses his arms and shifts his weight to his left foot.

“What’s this?” Kaidan asks.

“I brought you coffee.”

Kaidan peers suspiciously into the mug. “Why did you bring me coffee?”

“You like coffee.”

“Did you make the coffee?”

Shepard makes the face he makes when he’d rather make another face but is trying to be patient. “Yes. I made the coffee.”

“Which brings us back to…why did you bring me coffee?”

Shepard sighs in exasperation as he picks up the mug and forcibly hands it to him. “It’s not me coffee, it’s you coffee.”

Kaidan inspects it one more time. “Is there cream in this?”

“Yes.”

“You never put cream in coffee.”

“Yeah, when I drink it. I made it for you.”

“Why?” Kaidan demands.

Shepard throws his hands up. “Why can’t I just make you coffee?”

“Because it’s four in the afternoon, and you never make me coffee. In fact, you take great joy in pointing out all the ways I drink coffee wrong, even though everyone you have ever met has taken away your coffee pot privileges.”

“You let me make coffee.”

“Yeah, because I love you, and we have a pact that you will never inflict your interpretation of coffee on me.”

Shepard’s eyes narrow. “How much do you love me.”

“What did you do.”

“Nothing!”

“What did you do.”

He grins. “I brought you coffee.”

“Sam—”

Shepard clears his throat, drops his chin and fidgets with his hands. “I also might have come back from town with something that wasn’t on the list.”

A million different scenarios run through Kaidan’s mind. Shepard had gone out to drop off a few cartons of the Cortland apples to the distributor, with plans to stop for feed, fertilizer, and some lumber to fix the fence where Echo had popped a board off because the grass on the other side looked more appetizing. That leaves a lot of room for error.

“Please tell me you didn’t come back with another horse.”

Shepard brightens. “No. Not a horse. See? It’s not that bad.” He offers a hand to pull Kaidan up off the couch, which Kaidan takes warily. Shepard grimaces as he bears Kaidan’s weight to haul him to his feet, but when the pain passes his expression becomes a font of hope. He hands Kaidan the mug. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

The crazy thing is, the coffee is good.

“Do you mean to tell me that all this time you’ve been perfectly capable of making a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste like motor oil?” he complains as Shepard leads him towards the barn, the hand not holding the mug firmly clasped in his.

“I’m keeping the mystery alive,” Shepard replies.

“You’re sure you didn’t come back with a horse,” Kaidan says skeptically as they walk past Echo’s stall to the empty one beside it. Except, it’s not empty.

A dog looks up at him from inside, floppy ears rising at the sight of Kaidan’s face.

“Not a horse,” Shepard declares.

A curved, shaggy tail wags hopefully. The dog is ash grey all over save for a splash of white on the paws and a streak down the belly that looks like a swipe of paint.

“You got a dog?” Kaidan asks, not sure yet if he’s surprised, irritated or disappointed he didn’t get to help pick it out.

“I didn’t get one,” Shepard says carefully. “More like, she started following me around at the feed store and refused to take no for an answer. She chased the skycar for half a mile on three legs before I stopped and let her in.”

One of her hind legs – the right one – cocks to the side at an odd angle. When she moves toward the door, wagging her tail more insistently now, Kaidan spots a knotted scar runs that runs from her haunch down to her hock.

Shepard opens up the stall door just enough to slip inside. He crouches down and offers a hand – the equine therapy has at least helped him develop an instinct for animals – letting the dog sniff his fingers. After a moment she licks his palm.

“Good dog,” he coos, scritching an ear.

Kaidan rests his arms against the stall door, subtle smile spreading across his face. “So we have a dog now, huh?”

Shepard flashes him a guilty look. “Depends. How good is the coffee?”

Kaidan chuckles and takes a sip. “Pretty good, actually. Does she have a name? Do you know anything about her?”

“Guy at the feed store says she’s been wandering around for a month or so. They’ve been giving her scraps. No one’s come looking for her. She’s friendly, just a little shy.”

“Likes you, though.”

Shepard grins. “So do you. See? You already have something in common.”

To hell with coffee. Kaidan’s powerless against that grin and always has been. “We should find a vet. Get her checked out. And we’ll need some food. Supplies.”

Shepard takes a deep breath.

“You already got stuff, didn’t you,” Kaidan says with a sigh.

“Maybe? Good coffee, right?”

Kaidan laughs, joins him in the stall and sits down against the wall, hand extended. The dog approaches, carefully, but not fearfully, tail wagging steadily.

“Haven’t had a dog since I was a kid,” Kaidan murmurs.

Shepard moves to sit beside him, sticking his right leg out with a grunt.

“You two also have something in common it seems,” Kaidan says with a raised eyebrow.

“Her scar is a lot more badass than mine.”

The dog, apparently convinced she’s in good hands, curls up at their feet and puts her head on her paws.

“She’s quiet,” Kaidan observes.

“She’s had a long day,” Shepard replies.

“More than one, from the looks of it.” Kaidan peers down at her, ruffles her ears. “Looks like you need a break, huh? Somewhere good and warm to sleep.”

She whines, wriggles a little closer to give him easier access for petting.

Shepard runs fingers through her fur, then hooks an arm around Kaidan’s waist. “So it’s okay? We can keep her?”

“Name one time I have ever been able to resist you.”

He considers this. “So you’re saying I wasted the coffee ace I had up my sleeve.”

Kaidan takes another sip. “Oh, no. I’m putting this newfound knowledge to good use. You’re fucked, Sam. You don’t know it yet but you’re going to spoil me rotten.”

Shepard nuzzles his neck. “Don’t mind spoiling you. Even if your taste in coffee is atrocious.”

The dog gets back to her feet, nosing at them curiously. Shepard rubs her head.

“So what should we name her?” Kaidan asks as the dog flops down and rolls onto her back, legs sticking out in all directions.

Ok. Definitely friendly.

Shepard tilts his head. “Mako.”

Kaidan groans. “Fuck your tank.”

“I loved that tank. And besides, she runs like it drove.”

Kaidan laughs and rubs the dog’s belly. “Ok. Mako, then. But she’s not sleeping in our bed.”

“Deal.”

Two weeks later, Kaidan wakes up to the sun streaming through blinds they’d forgotten to close the night before. He squints, grumbles, and rolls over into a wall of grey fur. Mako cranes her head to look at him, eyes wary as she gauges how long she’s going to be allowed to keep her spot.

“Why are you here,” Kaidan grumbles. “This is not the kind of cuddling I had in mind.”

She licks his nose.

“Sam,” Kaidan complains.

When Shepard replies it’s not from his side of the bed but the doorway, where he stands holding Kaidan’s favorite mug.

“I made you coffee,” he says with a grin.

#mshenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect #my fic #scarletthalloran #ALL THE FLUFF #SO MUCH FLUFF

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness

Welcome back my Scottaholics! We’re moving right along fun and fancy free just a few days later from Book 2 to 3. Which fits: As I mentioned in my review of book 1 I first encountered Scott, Ramona and Wallace in a free comic book story, and VERY intrigued, bought volumes 2 and 3 from the same comic shop after reading it in line.. or maybe I went there again later and bought them. My brain is a foggy sinkhole. Point is I was hooked from then on out, and bought the next three volumes as I came out, and through the internet because by then i’d leanred to use Amazon. Ironic given Ramona’s work for them is not only iconic to the series but plot important in volumes 1 and 2. As is Scott’s package toss in the movie. But the story of my long wait for volume 4 can wait for February. Point is it was these two and Free Scott PIlgrim are the ones I poured over again and agian, obessing over as a teen and the ones that stick in my brain the most. But even with that last time the exaustive process of covering it exposed a LOT of volume 2′s weakness: While it has a lot of iconic scenes, including Scott accidently convincing a man to skateboard himself to death, the Ramona and Knives fight, the envy call, the flashback, and is still very enjoyable..it also feels the most like a collection of loose events out of the books. Good stuff and character and tone wise better than last time.. but not quite as narratively strong. The series was GETTING there, the art was solidfiying into it’s final form, the characters were in the right place, SCott was more likeable.. but it hadn’t quite hit it’s stride yet. Three guesses when it did and the first two didn’t count. Infinite Sadness is one of my favorite volumes, along with 4 and 6. And while part of that is nostaliga and a personal connection.. the bulk of it is just this volume being even BETTER on the re-read. I picked up subtle bits that I didn’t notice before that only enritched the experince, the pacing is sublime, the character work is top notch and compelling, the art work is finally crystlalized into what the series is known for, and would only get even better as it goes, and the fights are some of the series best. This is one hell of a story and I warmly invite you to join me as I break it down after the break.

Previously on Scott Pilgrim: Scott defeated Lucas Lee, the second Evil Ex, met Luke Wilson, and prepared to go to his ex girlfriend’s concert despite this being a terrible idea to discuss a gig. It was there he and Ramona found out Envy’s base player Todd, the douchenozzle who she cheated on Scott with, is also the douchenozzle Ramona cheated on Lucas with.

So we open.. exactly from that moment, with Scott and Ramona starring wide eyed while the band plays in an utterly dazzling sequence that’s been brought up a notch in the color remaster. Also one of a handful of moments that was barely touched from page to screen, with only slight adaptations to make it better on screen, and the addition of Metric’s now iconic “Black Sheep”. And when reading the scene.. I couldn’t resisit turning black sheep on as it matched it perfectly.. so yeah have the Clash at the Demonhead performance from the film

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So while that worms it’s way into your head, let’s talk about the character designs for Clash Of the Demonhead, since volume 2 is the last time in the color editions O’Malley really talks about character origins and stuff. I could’ve missed something of course, we’ll see as we go won’t we. I just saved it for here as the Volume 2 review was running a bit long as is and while their shown on covers and on the back cover of the black and white edition, they don’t show up in person and in their full glory till the last panel, hence saving it for here where Envy and Todd are the main antagonists and Lynette is... plot relevant.

Envy was based on the front woman for the band Metric, Emily Haines, designed much like hanes to be a tough, confrotnational, sexy woman, his words not mine, who’d gone through a lot of change in a few years since according to him, and i’m willing to take his word for it since I don’t know the band outside of the one song he picked for the movie, a lot of the bands songs are about that. And honeslty it makes me want to check them out more, as does how awesome black sheep is I can’t belivie I took this long, and is supremely intresting as I hadn’t realized there was a good reason there wasn’t just an original song written for clash at the demonhead. I mean if you base your character on the frontwoman for a band why NOT use one of their songs.

Speaking of band, Plumtree’s drummer, Lynette Gillis, was the inspiration for Lynette Gycott, though the final version of her is more cold and robotic and less like Gillis than initially envisioned.

Finally Todd..was based on Scott, and while he evolved out from that a bit especially in powers.. the concept basically stuck as Todd is a stronger, dumber, more agressive and douchey version of Scott whose mistreatment of women is far more deliberate than Scott’s untetional douchebaggery.

So after some interview segments for some sort of documentary on the band with the crowd, we cut to our heroes after the show, all standing around and being nervous. Stephen’s first words are “Decent show eh, told you they were good”.

Admitely re-reading this one and answering a reader question, unrealted but it got me to thinking, made me realize Stephen wasn’t AS much of a dick as I thought: I didn’t think about the fact Scott and Envy’s blow up cost him their old band which was close to singing, and that Scott both as revealed in volume 3 and in bits here, was kind of a dick towards the end, intitating the breakup while drunk and belligernt and saying a facepunchingly dickish comment we’ll get to. So he wasn’t BLAMELESS and it’s understandable Stephen dosen’t hate her as much. She was friends with his horrible albatross of a girlfriend and didn’t break his heart.

However.. he’s still an asshole and deserve jeff blim’s theatrical fuck you up there. He still ignores Scott’s pain, or the fact that most of the breakup WAS Envy’s fault as we’ll see. We’ll get into it in full obviously but for the cliffs notes so I can yell at a fictional grumpy closted canadian man: She slowly drifted away from him, treated him like he had no say in a band he helped found or took his feelings into account in the record deal, and cheated on him with Todd and possibly another guy. And as seen here she used her fame to bribe her ex and friends into showing up just so, as we see, she can torture him and his new girlfriend a bit. Envy is not a good person and Stephen is ignoring that and his friends VERY obvious emtoinal turmoil. Especially dickish since by this point Scott has clearly swallowed his pride and agreed to a show with someone who really DEEPLY hurt him for Stephen and Kim’s sake.. and he’s not even remotely greatful for it clearly. The only reason he’s not the biggest asshole left in the building is because Todd, Envy and Julie, queen of bitches, is in there.

So after a save point gag that goes nowhere, Envy shows up to take the group back stage... awkward, uncomfortable and very intentional silence insues to makes Scott even more sweaty and nervous and Ramona visably and understandably annoyed. Knives tries to talk to her hero but gets ignored because Envy’s a bitch.. and so’s Julie who not only joins in the shunning of a fucking teenager who clearly loves this band, but also is clearly trying to conversationally surgically attach her lips to Envy’s ass. Her toadying is obnxoious as you’d expect and as transparent as you’d expect, trying to drudge up old nostalgia while Envy’s clearly barely intrested, and the only thing that makes it more tolerable than normal Julie is Envy clearly barely tolerates this and likely is only going with it because she could be a useful minon in the future.

Thankfully this is broken up. Unthakfully it’s by knives shouting her most iconic line:

Given Envy is shown to not be the best person.. her response is to have her cyborg goon belt knives in the face

Which leads to an even better line seconds later

Envy then to just .. complete the circle of being a bitch has NEil take knives out then mocks her when Julie explains why knives and neil were even here. And it’s VERY telling that even Julie, who was must minutes from humping envy’s leg and begging to go with her when she leaves, is visably put off by Envy’s attitude. So while Ramona is understandably fucking done with this, as even she has some shred of sympathy for the teenager who tried to stab her a day ago, Scott has to take a minute to have a flashback. We see two brief bits of Scott with Envy, at the start of their college band Kid Chamelon where they were all happy.. and shortly after the breakup where Scott is miserable, in the middle of the street, sadly saying their name while saying “I’m so alone”.. explaning that desert bit from volume 1.. and making it ten times more painful. Nicely done Brian.

So with Knives gone we get our usual character age intros and descriptoins, my favioritte being Stephen “wants a damn buritto dammit” which I can relate to and thankfully got it monday. He also does show a bit more of his noble self as, things have escalated to the point even he can see Envy has some sort of evil scheme planned and he walked right into it so he asks what her ulterior motive is. Julie pipes up with “She dosen’t NEED ulterior motives she was written up with in spin!”

So Envy grills Ramona a bit clearly trying to make her squirm..though at least when Julie TRIES to jump in she shoots her down, like some asshole pulling a yappy dog on it’s leash hard. Eventually Scott flips out and .. well I don’t want to overpanel this review but this is just.. quotes cannot do this justice.

The result.. is the reveal Todd is psychic due to being a vegan and he throwing scott through a wall with telkenisis, kyle!

It’s explained he has these powers because he’s a vegan and even was top of his class at the vegan academy. Citation... needed. Not because of his power but because Todd may be one of the stupidest beings that’s ever lived. And I once had a friend whose other friend told me, since they’d be going to diffrent high schools and he was trying to pass off his mummies curse of keeping him from destroying himself with his own stupidity, tried to run into a wall to loose weight. No I don’t get how this would’ve worked but having known the guy I guarnatee he was arrogant and dumb enough at the time to try it. Nowadays I assume he’s much better... I assume. You.. you’d have to be to have survived another decade.

Todd is also THAT kind of smug dickhead. Thankfully I haven’t met one in real life or online, as the two vegetarians I have known, one of my best friends micheal and my uncle drew, the former of whom now also eats fish and the latter of whom gave it up once he moved to places he could get meat that was raced humanely easier, but who I still respect for having that amount of self control. But Todd is a clear parody of the type of vegan and vegetarian who think their better than everyone.. by thinking he’s even BETTER than regular vegans because not every vegan can take the strain of psychic powers, with Kim naturally sniping at him.. then flipping him off when he says “don’t get snippy babe” and is very lucky he has psychic powers as otherwise he’d suddenly be wondering where his dick is and why kim’s holding a broken bottle.

Brian also pokes fun at the old 90 percent of your brain trope. You know the old one that claims you only use 10 percent..

But it’s only because your only ACTIVELY using it and the rest is simply other functions. But hey we got Deathstroke out of that claim so good enough. Todd claims it’s because the other 90 percent is curds and whey. This might be the greatest use of this outdated trope in human history. No.. no.. it is. It exactly is.

Envy brags that’s why he can’t beat him having clearly traded disappearing up her own ass for disappearing up todd’s, Julie was also crammed up there, it was getting crowded. Envy claims to have been with todd since age 11.. which.. is more.. delusion than anything and she brushes off Ramona rightfully pointing out that’d mean he cheated on her with Ramona as Rammy trying to distract her and trying to smack talk SCott more who has another flashback.

SOME YEARS AGO.. I DUNNO 5? 5 YEARS AGO?

We see Scott’s first meeting with Envy, who was rooming with Julie. Julie, it might shock you.. has not changed at all in 5 or so years. She’s seen bitching at her roomate Natalie V. Adams, the future Envy, for not wanting to get drunk and high and for hanging out in her room with all her anime posters and stuff. As you can tell, she’s a vastly diffrent person at this point, a nerdy interverted otaku and as you can probably guess now the flashbacks have started at the top, we’ll be seeing how she became the sexpot rockstar she is now and how that drove a wedge betwene her and Scott. Julie SHOCKINGLY does not take this well and as Stephen to kil lher if she ever becomes friends with her. I mean I would but If I could travel into fictional works I certainly woudln’t be wasting my time murdering Julie. I’d be asking kim out and trying to get into some cool video game ablities myself. I ain’t got time for that bitch.

Next cut Julie is ... even worse as she’s calling Scott some “jerky jerky ladykiller”, pointing out he’s hooked up with recurring background characters Sandra and Monique. Now GRANTED, Scott could’ve hurt them and Julie could be right for once.. we’ve seen he has a history of being an insenstive douche by pure accident. But.. from the sounds of it given his encounters with Sandra and Monique were both in seperate ladies rooms, as in casual hookups I assume are common in universities. As long as he used a condom and dind’t lie about being in it longterm, who the hell does it hurt. Same if he and Natlie ended up being that. He’s not a “ladykiller” if he got busy on a washroom sink. He just had casual sex in an awful location and given Scott is both horny and stupid freqently, I could buy he either inittated it clumsily and sandra and or monqiue went for it, or one of them thought he was cute and wanted a quick one with him and it just never went anywhere either due to lack of intrest or Scott being kind of a moron. I don’t buy he INTENTIONALLY hurt anyone, he MIGHT of hurt Sandra she seems kind of ditzy and might’ve not realized it wans’t serious.. but it just entirely sounds like a casual, consesual one time hookup with two seperate women. And as long as he wore a condom and repsected their needs what the fuck is it Julie’s buisness. BEcause their here freinds? I mean they told her but they weren’t expecting her to play dick sheirff with scott probably. And Natlie is not her buisness: their not really friends.. she’s just trying to ruin Scott’s day. I honestly get the sense she only hates Scott because she can’t get rid of him, Stephen won’t dump him as a friend and he fucked her friends once. Which makes me hate her MORE. Natlie/Envy however also calls bullshit and thinks Scott’s much too awkward to be a ladykiller. Accurate. I mean he’s good with women and gets dates easily, he’s just not inteitonally leaving them high and dry. He’s just not great with empathy.

Scott snaps back to the present and gets pissed.. and we get the real reason for the outburst as he shouts “You you ass! She USED to be NICE!”. It’s very clear that Scott blames Todd for Envy’s change into an cold and cruel person. But .. that’s not on him entirely. I do think Envy’s cattier, more cruel “play with prey like a cat with a mouse” personality at this point is due to Todd feeding into her worse impulses.... but the flashbacks make clear even before she saw him again she was slowly changing as a person for better, gaining a drive and passion for music.. and for worse, shutting scott out cheating on him and generally not carring about anything but her career, especially Scott. As much as he wants to belivie it she didn’t MAGICALLY change into a bitch overnight and beating todd won’t fix that. She became what she is as a choice. Todd just made what she became worse.

After the predictable result of Scott getting flung into the air and falling back down, he has another flashback and we see the next phase of their relationship: Scott, Envy and Stephen playing in a band for Stacey and Wallace (!), whose hair is certainly a... choice. And the two falling in love and julie grilling scott on if he and nat are a couple because why stop making me wish for a bus to hit you NOW Jules?

So we then get ANOTHER iconic line and another scene that was perfectly translated into the film

Comic gold no matter the medium.. Brandon Routh just nailed it and I watched the scene again before writing this just out of curoisty. Flawless stuff. Check it out

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I will say however that while Movie!Envy’s response of just quickly covering is pretty funny.. I prefer the comic’s envy’s utterly baffled and pissed off “What are you talking about Todd?”. Even she can’t fathom what the fuck just happened. But since it’s late and Todd’s brain is pretty fried, Envy calls for everyone to get some sleep and they’ll regroup tommorow at 1pm at Honest Ed’s. Honest Ed’s WAS a famous discount Store in Canada that sadly closed in 2016, making what ‘s about to happen to it here sad in hindsight. It was known for big sales, big spectacle and i’ts larger than life owner who sadly passed a few years after this volume. But god bless him for giving this series one of it’s best settings. More on that when we get there for now FLASHBACK

Back in College, we see Nat’s change into envy as she sells all her stuff for some bitching new boots and cd’s and during sex with Scott asks him to start calling her Envy. Their still somewhat happy, as the next flashback has Scott remembering their 8 month anniversary and her playfully mocking him as the girl.. before we get a much starker one of him telling her he loved her and her not responding.. and looking at him.. more.. bored than anything.

Back in the present our heroes try to wait out the rain under a bank thing, can relate to the times i’ve visted the city and came out to rain, and when that fails Kim says she’s off and will see them at practice and tells Stephen to blow her when he asks her if she’s going to Honest Ed’s, then seems genuinly confused if he pissed her off before heading home. Swing and a miss stevie, swing and a miss.

Scott is hungry and sorta drags Ramona, whose not in the mood for anything, over to Pizza Pete’s a nearbye eatery. It’s there they happen to run into Other Scott... Other Scott is another guy named Scott. He dosen’t do much in the books. But the name Other Scott is objectively funny and he is objectively nice so he’s fine in my book and I applaud the movie for using him as Wallace’s love intrest. Though I wouldn’t be REMOTELY suprised if they were fucking in the books too. And of course with him is Wallace himself, who really is just.. entering this volume in the most Wallace way possible.

A little drunk, eating some cheap but good food, with a million dollar style and in just the exact right place at the exact right time. If that’s not Wallace Wells, I don’t know what is. Wallace and Other Scott were clubbin, not a huge suprise given Wallace has his own deep and complicated social life we never see and Wallace is naturally a little bit absolutley livid when he finds out Scott went to see Envy’s show anyway despite you know, putting him in a misery coma. Who do you think has to clean you and feed you when your like that Scott? Elves? Well I mean .. Wallace MIGHT be an elf.. but he stilld soen’t want to do either of those things. He breifly gets sidetracked by the fact that Scott is wearing his shirt.. maybe. I mean he wore it the other day but given their living situation it’s honestly hard to tell. Ramona reminds him of his priorites

That’s part of the fun of rereading these again so soon after rereading them in december: I’m noticing tons of little moments like this I didn’t really before. The two explain things, including Ramona pointing out Scott’s extra stupid around Envy. I mean it’s a bit mean to point out given this is clearly a lot for him.

Wallace brushes it off and promises to help him train like a true pal before being prompted to talk about this new boy he picked up Mobile.. who we wont’ see in person for a while but Wallace is clearly head over heels for and begs Scott to let him have the apartment.. or more accuratley Ramona, whose clearly not in the best of moods with Scott, to take him. His sales pitch is immaculate

So she agrees and a friendship is forged based on mutual hatred and being someone’s dipping sauce bitch. I’ve forged longer lasting friendships on far less. Also Wallace forgot his keys but wisely banked on his Gladstone Gander esque luck to help him out.. seriously i’m convinced he has a lower yield version of that. Or God wants to bang him but can’t because his penis is so powerful it CAN SPLIT A MOUNTAIN IN TWAINNNNN. You make the call.

So they sleep it off, and Scott heads home early next morning.. and forgot he gave wallace his keys. Thankfully wallace finds him, and even got him donuts for when he came back, what a guy, makes you cry and I did. He also shows off a new trick about using your chi to dust rain off you. Turns out Mobile is psyhich which.. dosen’t come into play but for vallad reasons: Scott assumes Mobile can just.. give him psyhic powers and training but a) he and Wallace JUST met and while they’ll remain together for the rest of the series, it’s a big ask to have him help train his best friend to fight a man as dumb and chisled as a mountain, and B) “It dosen’t work that way” meaning scott’s probably not psi adept and even if he can be taught, there’s not NEARLY enough time for him to get good enough at shielding himself from Telkenisis in time given Todd’s already fighting him today and has two other oppprotunites afterwords to beat his ass to death. There’s just not enough time. So scott collapses with a donut in his mouth.. are .. are we sure this isn’t just a more attractive more sucessful canadian alternate me?

We flashback to when Wallace met Envy and since i’ts post-becoming envy, it dosen’t go well and he hates her immidetly, and expects Scott to break up with her asap.. which while bitchy.. actually woudl’ve been a good move in the long run. And “Bitchily phrased but a good move in the long run” has apparently always been Wallace’s go-to move.

In the present Wallace helps Scott , who thinks everything sucks, realize it does not, with the help of fresh bacon and perspective, helping him avoid thinking Envy is “back” when she’s just vistiing and somewhat forces him to admit it’s not happening again nor should it. And implicity your both with other people, you’ve moved on, stay moved on. ANOTHER Flashback, this time with Envy asking Scott how he and Wallace met after dinner with Scott’s parents. It’s the story we’ve been hinting at since.. uh last volume.

And indeed it is somewhat gay! Behold! The origin of a friendship to piece the heavens or .. something like that. I’m tired.

It’s a quick breezy story that honestly both explains a lot and is what you’d expect; Wallace taking an intrest, Wallace presumibly realising Scott is straight off screen but deciding fuck it I like this guy let’s be pals instead, and jjust sorta showing up at his house. But since it’s Wallace and he and Scott both love gaming.. it just stuck. And it’s easy to see why. Scott’s a bit of an introvert and Wallace is a ton of an extrovert. Wallce is nice, naturally charming and endlessly cool, and as you can see it took him probably just an afternoon to go from freaking scott out for showing up randomly, to Scott talking the guy up and clearly being the bosom buddies they are now. The two just ballance each other out well. Wallace need’s scott’s weirdness and general heart, and Scott needs Wallace to keep him from running into the brick walls of life via his own stupidity and conflict avoidance. It’s what they do, they make it a two player game.

So later that day, and some off screen training later, presumibly to the song Two Player Game despite the fact it didn’t exist yet, our heroes (Scott, Ramona and Wallace), Villians (Envy and Todd) and other not so much evil as just cretionus assholes (Stephen and Julie) arrive. It’s also clear that Envy just made up the challenge as she went and I fucking love it, just saying they’ll run to the back, try and kill each other and no psychic powers, with Scott’s own handicap being “He isn’t a surivivor” which earns a rightful you unebleiviable bitch from wallace and a just ast rightful “fair enough” from Scott.

Stephen wonders what the deal is and Julie’s answer is... I don’t.. I can’t unpack this.

Meanwhile Wallace says “I hate her so much” Which I THINK was meant for Envy, but as a teen I interpited as being for Julie. Then again it being BOTH is entirely possible given no one can stand Julie for more than five mintues other than Stephen. And that’s because he’s still in the closet and hasn’t come out as bi or gay and thus sees her as a safe option or he really sucks with his taste in partners. Or a little from collumn a , a little from collumn b. So yeah Scott wants a Strategy and Wallace has.. nothing other than “Well he can’t use his powers so.. use that. I guess.. I dunno. I’m hungover” though Ramona warns he can’t go long without using them without freaking out. So gooood? I’m starting to think Kim is the most useful member in his crew for this fight.. and she’s the one who decided to nope out of it because she didn’t want to watch his ex pick him apart mentally and her muscly new boyfriend pick him apart with MIND BULLETS. Wallace isn’t really helping this go round, though he’s still a treasure, Ramona is trying but dosen’t have much, and Stephen thought bringing Julie was in any way shape or form a good idea. Which really sums up their entire relationship so it’s not surprising, it just makes me question why the two are friends at all.

No really, out of Scott’s three close friends.. this friendship feels the most like two guys who just used to hang out but have no real reason too other than convience. Wallace would go to bat for scott.. with an actual bat.. to Envy’s skull. He just dosen’t want to go to jail.. again. Kim pines for him, pun intended, and also does care, she just dosen’t show it because scott’s kinda a moron parade and an insenstivity brunch rolled into one. So she sticks around even though it hurts to. Stephen.. lost his big shot in part due to Scott (Though Envy’s pushness and lack of consideration for his feelings didn’t help), his shrew of a girlfriend hates him and he’s not that good at bass... and I just got it. While Tornoto’s a big city , he’s probably not sure if Kim would be doing this without Scott. He’s.. entirely still his friend because he needs a bass player and kim’s a damn fine drummer whose hard to replace. I just got it.. it makes him a self serving douchecanoe for only being someone's friend because he needs a bass player even though he doesn’t like him, but I at least GET IT now.

So the rush into Honest Ed’s begins and.. my god this whole sequence is sublimely redelcous. It feels like what would ACTUALLY happen if two guys fought for the reasons scott and todd are fighting: just two idiots dinking around in a discount store. Scott dosen’t even last a few seconds before shouting in response to Todd’s taunts “We are all dead”, tripping while looking for eyeware and well..

Meanwhile Todd starts to break down while shouting FATHEERRRRRRR like all good psychics. As for how long this beautiful nonsense has been going on....

Oh and if you thought it hadn’t gotten redicously hilarious enough... wait till you see what’s next.

No words.. should’ve.. sent a poet.. got a tubby asshole who reviews comics, disney shows and disney comics instead....

So we then get a montage in todd’s head with his SHOCKINGLY OLD dad telling him he dosen’t have the willpower to be a vegan.. Lynette telling him she’s his for the taking and Envy will never know as she opens her shirt, and

Gideon.. showing he not only consults the league but confriming what the audience and scott realized: He’s behind these assholes.. but it also shows how much. He’s actively coaching them.. and granted we KNEW the exes were in contact with one another given Lucas was having an understandable sigh about Matthew.. but this shows Gideon isn’t just some player and this isn’t some automated service. He brought them all together. The how ends up being hilarious, and we’ll get to that but while it was obvious he was the final boss this is a nice and terrifying bit of clarification. As for what happened next.. well Todd freaks out with his powers from not using them

Really sad in hindsight.. but still really funny despite the horrifying concidence. So yeah our hero declares victory but dind’t really when and things just kinda end. This segment went basically nowhere and acomplished nothing. .but was still really fun, with great lines and is one of the most memorable and awesome scenes in the series. It also shows the series growth between volumes: Last volume had a lot of cool moments.. but no real plot structure, just a bunch of things that needed to happen to get here. With Volume 3.. things are VERY tightly plotted, and even a fun but kinda pointless diversion like this... still fits in perfectly, giving us a second Scott and Todd fight to build him up, showing off just HOW powerful Todd is, and fleshing out the tofu headed douche a bit. As we’ve seen this volume still has it’s little slice of life moments the series does well. their just well put into a very compelling and fast paced plot, one we’re fully invested in as we see Scott’s torment and Ramona’s mounting anger at envy’s bullshit. It helps that Envy and Todd are the second best big bads of a volume behind gideon himslef in the fimale, with Roxy close at their heels if you were curious. Envy just oozes ego and superiority and is fun to watch every time, while we see moments once in a while that show she’s still human underneath even if she acts like a goddes.. and is admitely one of my types but that’s enough of that. She provides a nice contrast to ramona, also being standofish and mysterious but wheras ramona is clearly mysterious out of shame for a past she’s not proud of Envy is out of a past.. she has no reason to flee from and was never that bad.The only part Envy kept was Todd which was an objectively bad decision.

Todd meanwhile like all the exes as I re-realized.. is a mirror to scott. Each one has a piece of his worse traits amplified and expanded. So far Patel has been scott’s dorkyness, expanded from

To being a giant showy hipster douche desperate to seem cool and important. Lucas is scott’s afabliity and laziness taken to just outright avoiding a fight.. not nearly as bad as the others given he still has one of Scott’s best qualities with no drawbacks. But Todd.. is probably the ex that mirrors scott the second most. Besides both being base players with shaggy hair, both are delightfully stupid, both have a lot of charisma besides that and both are extremley good in a fight. But noticably.. Todd zigs a lot where Scott zags and the simlarites sort of stop. While both are objectively attractive, Todd is more conventinually chisled while Scott is more adorable, expertly reflected in the movie by having former Superman Brandon Routh opposite former George Micheal, Micheal Cera. Todd’s ablities are mental while Scott’s are entirely in martial arts and later swordplay. Todd has a rough relationship with his dad who never supported him and constnatly doubted him while Scott’s parents fully support him and love him uncdoitoinaly and despite his protests and annoyance with them.. it’s clear he still cares about them and loves them. And most damingly.. Scott treats people like garbage sometimes.. but it’s because he’s oblivoius. He’s a finaical burden on Wallace, cheated on Knives, gave Kim no closure, blew up Stephen’s chances at the big time, and in general can be kind of a dick.. but NONE of that is intetnional. It dosen’t make it okay, the books make that clear.. but it’s why we can still root for him: It’s something that can be fixed. Scott hurts people a lot but he lacks gneuinely malicious intent. He leaves a lot of pain in his wake.. but it’s because he’s socially inept, and again and I say this as someone with atusitim myself, defintely on the spectrum , so he dosen’t GET he’s hurting people unless they tell him. Something that will probably not shock you but I relate to and has happened to me in the past, hence while i’ll clal him a douche or stupid, because he’s both, I do sympathize with the guy as the whilrwilnd of descrution is just him being so intent on being seen as a good person and moving past things he can’t see the wreckage in ihs wake, and the series is about him growing past that mindset.

Todd.. is just an entitled dick who KNOWS he’s probably going to hurt people but does the things anyway because he thinks as a rock star he can do whatever he wants. As a Vegan he’s superior so he’s allwoed to do WHATEVER he wants. He’s so obessed with making his dad not see him as a failure he’s developed an Ego that can only be visualized properly using well.. Ego

That’s what his ego has become. He’s so up his own ass his head is coming out of his mouth somehow. He’s so in love with himself he’s probably googled “How to make a sexy clone of yourself”. He’s scott’s oblivoiusness and selfishness, but with genuine intent. He’s scott if he KNEW what he was doing was wrong.. and said fuck it anyway i’m a rockstar baby. Todd, is EASILY what scott could’ve been at envy’s side had they not broken up.. successful.. but an utter bastard who only cares about themselves. Anyways we cut to practice that night were Stephen is spiraling and Kim declines going to the show.. not for the obvious reasons of wanting to avoid another round of “watch Envy tourture scott before Todd beats his skull in with his psychic powers”, but because she has a date. Lucky bastard. The guys are naturally as tactful as you’d expect about this and suggest she’s doing a collage or puzzles before she shuts htem down and they awkardly recover and I laugh my ass off.

So Scott and Ramona head out, trading some talk and what have you and having some Sushi, not going there often because they can’t afford it.. but it’s cool Scott swipied Wallace’s card. When pressed on his douchebaggery Scott assures her.

We’ll get more into this next time, but needless to say Scott’s mooching is finally becoming a plot point next time. Speaking of next time on the way to the show Ramona realizes “Wait why the hell are we doing this” and convinces Scott not to go as they can relax, have a night off, cuddle and stuff, and then Scott can fight Todd tommorow at the big show. Why DO they need to sit in with two assholes who are only inviting them to fuck with their heads some more. Well okay one asshole while Todd is okay with all this he probably just mubled some “sure whatevers” while trying to solve a rubix cube while Envy outlined her plans to him before rearanging the stickers so he could win.. I Mean with his mind so it’s sitll a little impressive but still.

So they TRY making out, complete with being in their undies.. but it just dosen’t work as both of them keep picturing Envy’s face and that’s not good for either of them.

AND it was at this point fucking tumblr.. ate an hour’s worth of work I just did. Probably not something you need to know or care about but something that pisses me off greatly as I was approaching the end of the review and now have to either retype or entirely rethink what I JUST spent a while working hard on.

And this time I mean it. The only reason i’m not giving up and shelving this review for a bit.. is ithat i’m a stubborn bastard who refuses to give up that easily and who needed to vent about this to somewhere.

So Ramona finally comes clean about Todd.. and in a nice moment admits to cheating on Lucas with him “It wasn’t very nice but I wasn’t a nice person”. It’s a small thing, something I didn’t notice before.. but it’s actually a big step given how guarded Ramona is to admit to doing something this bad. Last volume, just a few days ago time wise, she lied entirely about this and probably has no idea Scott knows already. But she’s being honest, telling him the truth so he’ll be prepared for what’s coming and know the full story. The full story is they were both little shits who raised hell together till Todd disappeared for a while. He shows up as you’d expect, dickishily interupting class before explaning Dairy Scientests kidnapped and experimented on him. He also says this

So he proves his love. in the most badass and horrifying way possible: BY MAKING ONE OF THE TWO BIG NOTICABLE CRATERS ON THE GODDAMN MOON.

One of the series best jokes. Ramona also takes a hard pass to learning about envy and asks about Kim... not for any reason.. just thinks sh’es nice. It’s not like she wants to make out with her face.. a lot. Just.. girl things. SHUT UP. She’s also unsatisfied with Scott’s piss take version of his relationship with her. Closing out the chapter, Knives.. has somehow climbed a huge pile of billboardsi n the middle of tornoto.. which would be awesome.. if it weren’t such a beautifully sad image.

Whelp my heart just exploded with pain at this poor girl whose lost the love of her live, which is a goood thing mind you but dosen’t mean it dosen’t hurt less, her faviorte band and her highlights all in the span of a month. Moving on as we approach the final act, we get a brief scene as Todd orders some Gelato, which is itallian icec ream, very not vegan and Envy does not relaize this. Todd however rants about being a rock star, being so above people and as for the rules

We also get this lovely bit

And then they make out and i’ts treated as a big shocker despite.. us.. finding that out several dozen pages ago. We know already.

Back at Scott and Wallace’s place, Ramona shows up with cool new blue hairdoo, which I agree with Wallace is awesome and admits she changes her hair up every couple of weeks.. someething that in the color version we do see better. We also get a gag that no longer makes sense as he asks if that’s her natural haircolor and she says yay and the caption admits this was funnier in black and white. Eh one or two jokes for some really pretty colors is a fair enough trade.

Scott however once again bitches about his hair, despite Ramona pointing out to him and Wallace that.. there’s like dozens of haircut places within walking distance. I remain unsuprised thier that oblivous. But to shut her boyfriend up she agrees to cut his hair and while they do asks what Envy’s actual name is.. scott’s response .. is pretty heartbreaking “Natalie. She stopped liking it. Then she stopped liking me. So Scott shows up with his NEW HAIR CUT.. aka his old one just trimmed up a bit, but the one you see in modern merch and the game. A bit shaggy but not as long. Scott reassures Stephen whose spiraling with panic that it won’t be the same as last time and they’ll have fun. Kim, understandably and having not been told anything, wonders what “last time was”. After everyone chimes in Kid chamelon i’ts time for another FLASHBACK.. as you were probably expecting by now.. but this time I added some proper effects to spice it up.

So we find out more of whta drove a wedge between the two: Envy slowly but surely took a tryanical death grip on the band, adding some guy named Joel on the drums, possibly the same guy from Crash and the Boys, and bumping Scott to bass, without asking him or Stephen about this and just sorta.. demanding it. While her intetnions are understandable, she just wants the band’s best sound.. her actions are still head tiltingly obnoxious, and clearly show she had not studied rock history yet as usually taking absolute control of the band and ignoring your band mates is the easiet way to destroy a band. Sometimes it’s just envy, pun unintneded but welcome, but yeah.. it’s no wonder they didn’t last. Scott is also shown to be more and more uncomfortable with the band going from a fun thing he did with his friend and girlfriend.. to something that could make him famous.. something he’s very transparently not ready for and dosen’t want. And it makes sense: he was just a dumb college kid in love.. he didn’t start the band for fame or glory.. he just wanted to have fun. Same with his current band. And while in the PRESENT his lack of ambition can be obnoxious and will be a problem in the next volume, here.. he’s still in college and sudeenly got thrust into a career he dosen’t want with a person who no longer loves or respects him. It’s understandable that he’s a nervous , miserable wreck.

So in the present, Stephen is throwing up and asking for julie and Scott.. is a dick and ignores him. Were it anyone else and any other relationship currrently int he books I would actually give a shit. So he wonders around a bit, running into some teens who are intrested in him, word travels fast apparently, Julie, who for once displays a human emotion of concern for Stephen or the closest she can, and thankfully Wallace, Stacey and Micheal,who now has a spooky skeleton ring from the future and badly needs his own spinoff. Stacey TRIES to pump her brother up.. but it’s clear he’s in no good mental place for that and trudges off while Wallace, man of the year, worries about him. One GOOD THING about the astronomical setback that happened is in the orignal draft of this.. I forgot to talk about Stacey. Despite promising to. So here it goes: After this Stacey.. just sorta vanishes from the series. She’s still around and while not super promient gets a decent amount of screentime in the finale, she makes cameos before then. But from this book on she’s no longer a main character like she was in the first two books. There she had several scenes, lots of focus, and her own mini arc in the first one about Wallace stealing her boyfriends. There’s. an actual reason for this as O’Malley regretted naming her after his sister and thus basically stopped writing her unless he had to, sticking her in once in a while to assure fans he hadn’t forgotten her but removing her from the main plot. That being said while his reason is weak.. I dn’t think it’s the ONLY reason she slid into the background. The main cast already had 6 characters, and on top of that this volume heavily focuses on Envy, the next adds Lisa Miller to the mix, and every volume frmo this one on has increased focus on the ex of the week, building them up more as characters and giving them way more screen time. Stacey.. really didn’t have a unique niche or roll in the sotry the other 5 non-scott leads didn’t: Knives filled out the position as the baby of Scott’s friend group, Ramona and Wallace served as better voices of reason, Kim and Wallace had better chemistry with Ramona and thus worked better as her friends, and Stpehn. did nothing she did but still at least had a part to play as band leader and the only one of Sex Bomb-Omb with ambition. Stacey is not a bd character and DID deserve to still be way more prominent.. but her move to the back let Kim take her place and rightfully so. And not just because of the crush on kim thing, Kim’s just more compelling and tha’ts an objective fact. Still would’ve been nice to learn more about Stacey though.

Scott then frees his girlfriend from a conversatoin with Sandra and Monique, as Julie bitchily told both about Gideon which Envy told her about, because as your every couple of paragraphs reminder, Julie is a piece of shit. Scott then orders them some alchols, breaking his usual teetotling and runs into kim, hollie and joseph. with Hollie here to see the band and .. Joseph here to see todd. At least h’es honest.. for this volume. Anyways, our happy couple soon split off for a bit and while we bounce back and forth.. i’m just going to cover what hapepned with each seperately as SOMEHOW tumblr once again ate a good hour’s worth of work, this review is already a day late, and I have both abother one and a dental apointment today. So in short

Ramona and Kim: Kim fills Ramona in on her past.. via tone down, seemingly contridctary, and as we’ll find out later the true version of what happened: She was with Simon, he was a dick, Scott showed up he was also a dick, things happened. I guess. Ramona is disapointed, though Kim does provide some crucial info on her moving to tronto.. and reuniting with scott.

It honestly.. explains a LOT of why Scott is the way he is what happened with Envy. He saw Envy change entirley as a person.. and thus feels changing as a person , and smoking, is a sign of something bad.. when really it just means.. your changing. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst but we area LWAYS changing and it took me a lont time to realize that. The two are distracted from this though by Todd sloppily making out with Lynette in front of everyone.

We’re also reintroduced to Crash and the Boys, now redubbed the boys and crash, and seemingly playing music without intsturments. The thorughly lovely and rediculous explinaton for this and their new gloves and goggles, i’ll save for in a bit.

Scott and Envy, Scott and Knives: Scott goes out to get some air.. only to find Envy, who despite menally tourturing him for a few days insits they talk like regular people.. Scott wisely counters with “Nat when did we ever talk like real people” and while saying he won’t get to call her that again, it still chips down her walls for a second and shows that a bit of who she used to be, loath as she is to admit it, is still there.

Scott then spots knives... and has a moment of truth. And a hell of a series of reaction panels

It’s a VERY good scene.. that i’ve written about TWICE now but regardless, it shows Scott.. genuinely changing. Ignoring his past actions, running away from them and trying to pretend he never fucked up once... that’s been his go to. It’s his main flaw and hte one that takes the entire series to deal with as we’ll get into. And it’s here.. he faces it for the first time. He’s scared of knives at first.. but realizes.. he genuinely hurt her, and she’s where she is, cold, alone, and huddled in an ally lost and confused, because of him. Sure Envy hurt her.. but so did he.. and what’s worse. he did it just like Envy hurt him. Not thinking of her as a persona nd throwing her away when he didn’t need her. And so after books of build up.. he finally takes some responisblity and talks to her. It’s WHY the books work: Sure scott’s a dick, and remains a bit of one throughout, but.. he means well, isn’t inteitonally a standoffish prick, and slowly grows PAST this, and tries to be better, for Ramona.. and just because it’s the right thing to do.

So Knives reflects on the past few weeks, admitting that it’s been unbearably painful.. but she can’t and won’t go back to who she used to be. She’s lost her innocnce and all that, been dumped by the “love of her life”, been punched in the face by her faviorite drummer and treated like dogshit by her faviorite artist. Todd did nothing for once but gets no credit because of who we’re dealing with here. Point is.. it was a lot and while sh’es not HAPPY.. she’s greatful for it. Scott however.. steps up, saying what Envy did was wrong, she deserved better.. and finally, after how terribly he broke up wit hher.. apologizes for how he hurt her. And while Knives takes this as hope they’l get back together, Scott continues to be very mature, especially for his usual behavior, telling her no, it won’t happen, to give neil a try as whle she is dating him because he looks like Scott he’s not all bad, and that wallce was right: she was too good for him. And while Knives isn’t ready to accept it.. Scott did the right thing. Good for you man.

So while he, and later kim and stephen seperatly, get ready, Ramona.. runs into Envy. Whose oddly nice for ahlf a second.. before bringing up Gideon and giving Ramona a barrage of insults, clearly trying ONCE AGAIN, to knock her down and wreck her. Thing is while Scott clearlya nd understandably has baggage with Envy is easy prey for her manipulative elephant dung, Ramona. isn’t. All Envy’s done is piss her off more and more with each act of high school level mean girl bullshit... and sh’es done with it.

FIGHT’S ON. This Volume.. is honestly where Ramona really comes into bloom, pun intended, as the duetragonist of the books. While the book IS about Scott getting his life together and their relationship and he’s still her hero.. the books are also about RAMONA growing as a person, her own flaws and past, and the climax of all of them.. is just as much about her as it is scott. And this book has her own flaws come into play: Just like Scott she runs from the past, from who she was, and only faces it when needed, which will become more apparent as we go. But at the same time, we get to see far more of her personality as a result as her mysterious facade continues to drop. She’s prone to getting upset, but also clever and witty and knows her limits, knowing that going to that second performance would’ve just done no good and knowing herself very well, something Scott has genuine trouble with. She’s strong, sarcastic and knows who she is and what she wants and this volume finally brings that into focus. Not only that but her fight with Envy, is just as warranted, climatic and awesome as Scott’s fight coming up, as no one has stood up to envy due to her fame.. but Ramona.. dosen’t care. Someone’s gotta stop her, and Ramona’s taking up the job. And the awesome looking hammer.

That being said taking up a giant hammer against a beloved celebrity dosen’t win you any point, so Ramona finds herself discouraged, even if Envy can very clearly handle herself. Thankfully she gets some encouragment from exactly who you’d expect.

And Wallce.. turns out to be pretty useful. At least in this one fight. His shouting not only gives Ramona her fight back.. but keeps distracting envy, leaving her wide open. The tide turns though when Wallace has to pee, and Envy uses the distraction to knock the hamme rout of Raona’s hand and prepare to flatten her. But once again.. someone save sher in the knick of time.. and this time it’s the LAST person you’d expect, as Knives gives the hammer a flying kick.. and then crashes into a wall, and when Ramona, understandably not getting this since she tried to turn her into swiss cheese earlier this week, asks why, Knives admit’s she just wants Scott to be happy. Knives has grown too, and while she’s still obessed with Scott and waiting for themt o break up.. she’s no longer going to try and wedge her way in. If Ramona is what Scott wants, tha’ts what he gets.

All three are distracted by well.. this...

State of your outfits mates. Though that line is iconic. But serously the outfits are hilaroiusly and reaslitically mismatched. Kim’s home made and overdone gothica lolita outfit that dosen’t match her AT ALL, goth yes , poofy goth no. Stephen’s johnny cash outfit he clearly had lying around and Scott’s Dad Suit.

That being said.. still the best looking one of the three. But Envy takes advantage to regrab the hammer and try and murder the two of them.. but Scott sees this.. and well... you get it by now, one more time. Bake me away toys!

So we get the final weeks or days or whatever of the relationship. In a nice parallel to Scott playing Ramona a song he does the same for Envy.. who both questions what this is for then is confused why he’d do something so sweet. Next scene is her getting a call while their cuddling in bed from some guy she idntiefies as Jason and.. barely disguises is clearly cheating on Scott with. and could possibly be todd I dunno. After that we get to Kid Chamelon preparing to sign a deal and Envy.. trying to press Scott into sginging it, ignoring his obvious discomfort, and then casually threanting to replace him. While Scott does give us a face punchingly dickish comment about “How he started this band to meet chicks and maybe he met the wrong chick”... he’s still somehow in the right as while he’s being a manic dickhead... Envy has ceased seeing him as a person or even something she cares about and tells him to get a hair cut and leave.

We then get the breakup itself as Scott goes up to envy.. and she tells him to get out of her life. ack in the present, Scott’s grown enough to realize he has to stop her and does so.. by touching hte back of her knee which.. uhhhh.

So yeah.. he beat her with an orgasm, and that looks oddly hot. And i’m moving on before that last part of the sentence sinks in. Envy, once she recovers, orders Todd to do a murder on them, but Todd’s not there and Ramona, naturally, brags about him having cheated on her. Envy.. denis.. this.

I .. don’t have time to unpack that. This review is late, I have two other reviews to get to today. Time for ANOTHER flashback.

This time it’s Envy teling a story bok verion of her and Toddd’s relationship. It’s a real poetic and well done sequence. In a nuthsell: Envy and Todd were best friends and deeply in love as kids until todd moved away i’m guessing sometime in middle school. Deeply depressed, Envy sailed through life as sort of a ghost, TRYING to find another connection like that, but failing. Todd returned after she graduated though, and gave her a symbol of his love.. a hole on the moon. Yes another one. And they both promised to never waiver as he went off to the vegan academy. Clearly Envy did with Scott... but it paints her ambition in another light. One where she wanted to be big and bold enough for him.. but slowly carved out her old self to do so.

And as is obvious it was pointlness: not only did Envy love someone else.. but Todd never cared as much as she did. As Ramona points out, and relcutnantly because even she feels a little bad about this one, he did the moon trick with her.. and this time Envy CAN’T deny it.. becaue the evidence is right there.

And of course Todd.. makes his case even WORSE by picking that moment to come out of the bathroom, sipping up his pants, with panties on his head, and with Lynette following right after him. Envy.. tries to murder Lynette, her go to, but LYnette teleports out. Because she can do that. Though Envy does hit her cyborg arm so she looes that and the panties and Ramona offers to mount it at her place if Kim takes the panties, but kim admits she wasn’t scrapbooking, she said she was and was just making the dress. Horay, as ramona puts it “Col se can still be friends. Right.. FRIENDS.

Envy TRIES to cave Todd’s skull in, get some therapy woman, but Todd naturally tk’s it away but despite being the king of all assholes DOES care enough not to fight her. Envy... plays nice then knees him in the nuts like he fucking deserves. Todd then returns to being the once and future douchebag by TK’ing her into the crowd and bragging about it.

Scott dosen’t take this well, even after everything and the final fight begins. They have a bass fight.. but like the game i’ts redicuously one sided since Todd both is a skilled bassist compared to Scott.. and is still using his psychic powers lest you forget he’s a bastard man.

The Boys and Crash however show up to even the odds.. and their trainig is the reason they can play music without insturments as they can now manipulate pur sound. Fucking beautiful. But even they aren’t enough and Todd swats them aside.

While poorly is a bit harsh.. the vegan police show up, which is awesome, though the movie got thomas jane for one of them and had that high five so they win. But yeah.. while this is hilarous.. and the scene with them is great.. it’s also the weakest part of an otherwise near perfect book. It just feels a bit anti clmatic that after all this build up.. Todd is just.. beaten with a sloppy depower. The boys and crash would’ve still been a cop out, but it would’ve been a freaking cool cop out. The thing that saves it is afterwords Scott still gets an epic finish: after they devganize him for the gelato earlier, scott headbutts him epicly and wins. He gets money and.

A 1-up, which understandibly terrfies him but will come in hand in a few volumes. Trust me. Scot checks on everyone. Ramona’s fine, Envy is not and breifly blames scott before he points out Todd was a no good cheating dickwad, and Kim is obviously fine as nothing happend, but him asking is a nice bit of charcter growth. Kim asks about kinves but she’s okay and neil is helping her. But theshow must go on and since the headliners are dead (don’t worry he’ll respawn), in parts unknown and in emotoinal apocalypse, someone’s gotta play.

So our heroes have the show of their lives, and crowd reaction is mostly positive with Jospeh noticing htier levels were horrible, a hint for next time, and the crew interviewing everyone.. including a mysterous gentleman having a beer, who has no commenta nd walks away.

Gideon.. was here the whole time,but he’s not ready for Scott JUST yet. Still a really damn cool tease for the final boss.

So we close the next day, Scott and Envy sorta make up, with both apologizing for their behavor and while Scott gets no closure, envy promises to return.. and makes good on it. But.. that’s for the finale. For now Scott’s girlfriend and best buddy give him a moment to baste in his pathos, before heading off. And in a nice bit of metaphor, the clouds part, and our three amigos walk off into the sunset and a bright future. Three down 4 to go. Next time: Lesbian Artist Ninjas! Side Stories! Scott Gets A Job! The Band gets a producer! Kim gets a decent apartment and a boyfriend! Lisa returns! See you in feburary.

Until then if you liked this review, spread it around andi f ther’es a comic you want me to cover, my comissions are open. Until the next rainbow, it was a pleasure.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim and the infinite sadness #ramona flowers #wallace wells #kim pine #stephen stiles #neil nordgraf #envy adams #todd ingram #lynette gycott #julie powers #other scott #monique #sandra #college #comics #Brian Lee O'malley #oni press

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zuffer-weird-girl · 5 years ago

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Hey, Could you do a overhaul scenario Dedicated to the song "Kiss it all better" By he is we?

ANGST 😈 *maniacal laugh*

Tartarus was such a cold and cruel place... Of course it had to be that way, it imprisioned the worst and most dangerous villains of all Japan on there.

One of those prisoners had the once young leader of the Shie Hassaikai, his villain name was once Overhaul, the same of his own quirk... but his actual name was Chisaki. Chisaki Kai.

He sits in his cell

and he lays on his bed.

Sorrow and emptiness enveloping his entire body and mind as the events pass through his head, like a torturous flashback he was obligated to watch over and over again.

They didn't know why he did all of that... they just told and assumed he was a heartless and some type of bastard monster... but no. He had his reasons for all of he had done. The bullets... the experiments... all of them had purpose.

Not only to give Pops his gratitude, bring the Shie Hassakai back to their glory days... no. It had another reason... one that was permanent craved on his heart and soul to remind him of how useless he was on that night of years ago...

Shakily breathing out, the memories of a distant past started to overtake the recent events... but yet, he thought those were the most painful ones...

~~~~~~~

"Ouch!" He snapped his head from the book he was reading to see his lover hissing, clenching her wrist with her other hand as she muttered some curse words.

He sighed out loud and got up from his seat, marking the page where he had stopped to grab the first kit aid nearby as he got back to the kitchen isle where she was located.

"Third time only this week." He said in false annoyance as she pouted with puppy dog eyes at him, those beautiful (E/c)'s eyes he came to love. He rolled his eyes while muttering to her to hand him the sliced finger.

"You're so clusmy... 19 years already, and can't even cut something without cutting yourself along with it." he commented nonchantly as he ignored her wincing when he applied some disinfectant on the injury before wrapping it up with a band aid.

"Yet you love me for it!" He deadpanned at her before rolling his amber eyes again, closing the first kit aid before arching a eyebrow when his girlfriend fake coughed at him to catch his attention.

She extended her wrapped up finger with shyness yet playfulness on her eyes as she whispered the words for only him to hear, ones he had nostalgia of and still cringed a bit.

"Kiss it better?"

"... no. Grow up." He muttered and cringed a bit when she grabbed onto his sleeve and stared at him with kicked puppy eyes again. He groaned at that and picked her hand on his gloved one, lowering his mask with a 'I despise you sometimes', before lightly kissing the area where he had just wrapped up.

The smile she gaved to him was what gave him happines, a feeling that he was always deprived of when she wasn't around....

~~~~~~~~~~~

He blinked up at the ceiling at remembering that one scene... he always used to complain when you sliced your finger accidentaly on a paper or cutting something... now, oh what he would do to do that again... Kissing slightly your injury again...

Feel you again...

The love of his life was you. No doubts... he had this feeling that you were The one ever since he was a child... and he lost it...

~~~~~~~

"Chisaki-kun?" A girly and childish voice echoed in the air, interrupting his muttering and sniffling before he looked up in both annoyance and shock.

"What do you want?" He hissed while looking at the opposed direction of where the girl was taking a seat next to him.

"I heard you got into a fight again..." she muttered with her hands on her lap before taking the courage to look up at him again "Are you okay?"

He looked at her with dead eyes while arching an eyebrow, the bandage on his left cheek evident while she cringed a bit.

"Right, stupid question... does it still hurt?" You asked in innocence while he scoffed, waiting for Pops to get out of that room as he talked with the principal and teacher.

He jerked a bit away when you touched his cheek, glaring at you as a warning for not touching again.

"It does..." you said sadly with furrowed eyebrows as he muttered for you to leave him alone... yet you didn't, noticing how he tightened his jaw as his eyes were slowly turning to pink instead of white...

You poked your fingers together before snapping them when an idea popped into your head.

"Can I try something? It maybe will get better a bit..."

He doubted that, the pain was bearable... but the one on his chest wasn't...

Though, when he felt the pair of your lips touching his cheek, right on the injury wrapped up, he felt all the cold on the room being replaced by a warm feeling... a rather good type of warm.

He looked at you as if you had grew three head while covering the place where you had kissed it... he felt his face burning up at not only by your action but also by that smile you gave him.

"I kissed it to make it all better." You said before you let out a chuckle "it's not very efficient but it does help a bit sometimes... so? Did it help?"

He didn't even blinked as his expression of shock was still permanent on his face... he couldn't even answer you since Pops had gotten out right on the moment his lips had moved to speak again...

"We talk tommorow then, bye Chisaki!" You waved at him when he looked a bit back while walking alongsides Pops...

He touched the place again, still finding weird the warmth that it brought to him...

'Kiss it all better' huh?

~~~~~~~~

He took a sharp breath as he remembered taht inep memroy in specific... metal arms and hands coming to covers his face as the most painful moment of his life started to replay all over it again.

The motivitation to him to have started to give it a end to those heroes.... the one day where he became that cruel and cold monster that everyone told that he was...

~~~~~~~~

An night out... he never was once a fan of those, but he couldn't help but attend to your wishes once or twice... after all, you were special to him. Dearest to his called cold heart.

"Such a great place Kai!" You chirped happily as you both walked side by side towards his newest car "But you know you didn't had to spend all of that on me you know?"

That little pout on your lips was just so adorable... it showed him how innocent, pure and a bit of a brat that you were. His loved one.

"Nonsense." He scoffed as he adjusted his black mask on his face "If you kept insisting like that over at least 2 weeks to go out, then the least I could do was to afford a place where it has their dignity."

Your giggles echoed on the empty street as the lights of the streets iluminated your path to his car.

He took slowly your hand on his covered one, thumb brushing over your palm as he didn't mind it to look at your smile to prevent a blush to spot him.

Just in the moment he went to take his car keys, his ears caught some suspecting sounds on the near alleyway. Arching his eyebrow at it he brought you close to the car muttering for you to stay back as he took a couple of steps to catch a glimpse of what was that.

Your giggles made him deadpan when he noticed what was exactly making the sound... a stray cat on the dumpster.

"Never expected that you would get protective of me due to a cat Kai."

"Shut your mouth." He growled before you widened your eyes at him... he didn't got why exactly that until he heard a 'click' right on the back of his head.

"Hands on the air yakusa thug where I can see them." A young man with a cape said arrogantly as he rolled his eyes but still complied...

He wasn't on the mood to deal with that kind of bullshit.

"S-Sir what's going on?" You asked shakily as another gun was aimed right to you after by the same guy.

"Shut it. Both of you are from some yakusa am I right? You two are coming with me!"

"Says the motive and we might think about it." Chisaki rolled his eyes before giving the guy a cold glare "We didn't do anything for this incopentent."

"I SAID NOT TO MOVE!" He clicked the gun and Chisaki still took a couple of steps to stand in front of you.

"K-Kai..." you whined silently while gripping on his black tshirt... he could sense it and see it how scared you were, and that pained him to no ends. He couldn't get on a fight with a hero, and he still didn't know one hundred per cent the anatomy of the human kind, so he had to be careful with his choices to not prejudice neither the Shie Hassaikai neither his lover.

"Listen." He growled "Whatever you gave as a excuse to scout us, it won't work without a motive or a proof. So let us go."

"You yakusas are always the same. Arrogant little pieces of shits with your dirty sluts to make you company!" His amber eyes grew dark at the man's words as he shoved hsi sleeves up.

"Do not insult my girlfriend in front of me you disgusting fucking piece of-" you quickly got what the young hero was trying to do, anger Chisaki to the point of attacking him to shoot him with a fucked up excuse of "self-defence"

"KAI WAIT-!" you pulled on his right arm to get him out of the way before the young hero shooted with closed eyes and trembling hand on you instead of Chisaki.

Both mens widened their eyes as the young hero dropped both of his guns and stared in horror of what he had just done while Chisaki shouted out for your name as he grabbed your body before it could collide to the ground.

Your breath was becoming quicker and shorter as Kai stared at where the bullet hat pierced your skin.

The man ran and that infuriated Chisaki to no ends.

"COWARD!" He shouted after the hero "GET BACK HERE-!" he moved a bit but you winced in pain... the warmth of your body was slowly fading away as he felt himself start to panick.

"K-Kai..." tears rolled down your cheeks as he ripped his sleeves in a effort to stuck the blood before grabbing his phone.

"Is alright. I'm calling back up. Be strong a bit for me (Y/n). Please." He dialogued the numbers but the call didn't last since Kurono wasn't answering for some reason. "DAMMIT KURONO!"

"K-Kai..." you breathed out before coughing a bit of blood as rain drops started to fall from teh sky "I-I-Im... n-not ready to... to g-go..."

"Stop talking nonsense!" He shouted while holding tight on you "You're gonna be alright..." his hand carresed your hair in a effort to comfort both of you "You're with me, everthing is going to turn out just fine... is my fault this, I take responsibility-"

"I-Is not... your fault l-love..."

"It is!" He shouted in anger as he got a message from his childhood friend apologizing for not picking it up, sending himself a message to help him.

"... Kai... you couldn't k-know that he w-was..." you coughed as more blood spilled out as he scolded you to stop talking...

"Kai... I-I..." with the little strenght you had, you gripped on the collar of his shirt to catch his attention, serious golden eyes now filled with tears that were mixed with the rain drops "I... can I-I have one... one last t-thing..?"

"Is not going to be the last..." he whispered but still was ready to attend your wish anyway...

"... kiss.. it... all b-better...." you were fading out of consciousness constantly but he managed to catch that, ripping the mask out of his face as he grabbed your face in his hands and crashed his lips on yours... your tongue weakly interlocked with his before your head dropped in a faint smile at him as your eyes closed slowly.

"No! Don't! DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES ON ME NOW (Y/N)! NOT NOW! DO NOT DARE TO-!" a disgusting sob caught on his throat made him lower down his voice pathetically as you rested your head on his chest.

"I'm... ready... no..w." he shook you a bit as he pleaded to god, to you, to anyone to not do this to him as he kneeled on the wet and dirty ground of the street...

Your hands and body were so cold now... his anger and sadness build up on him so much that with along with a loud thunder he clinged your body to his as his nails dig on your skin, screaming a bloody shout at the sky as the rain intensified.

When his throat was throbbing he had taken a pause to breath, your dead body still on his arms as a light of a car iluminated him from behind as he breathed in and out..

"Chisaki!" The voice of Pops echoed along with the rain that hitted the grounds... but Kai's attention wasn't on either of them... no.

The car's light iluminated the weapon that that hero used to kill his lover.

His gaze was murderous yet avoid of any life as he got up and carrying his girlfriend in bridal style... not caring for once on his life at how dirty he was with your blood and not even daring to explain to Pops whem the old man gasped at the sign of the dead body on his arms.

"Chisaki..." the elder muttered as Kai handed it to Kurono, which was driving the car, your dead body before making his way to crouch down on the ground, eyes not even blinking as he grabbed the gun and load it.

"... I will be back..." he muttered darkly before slowly walking on the path that hero had taken to run.

~~~~~~~

Years had passed since them and nobody ever discovered what had happened with that spefic hero... asides from him.

He tortured the son of a bitch. And when he was satisfied with the guy's suffering, he released him from the chains and gave him a chance to run for his life ... before shooting without any pity in the man's back. Overhauling the body without remorse or caring that if screwed up or not, since at that time he did not have that much of knowledge.

He felt his eyes grow heavier and heavier as the minutes grew by as one last memory helped him to ease his sadness... even for just a bit.

~~~~~~~~~

A choked and shocked gasp caught his attention when he was passing by the halls of his home... Taking a glimpse of the living room he saw you breathing in and out as some quiet sobs manifested.

He made his way and sitted besides you quietly with furrowed eyebrows but still monotonous eyes as you sniffled once or twice before noticing his presence.

"Nightmare?" He asked with an arched eyebrow as you nodded sadly. He sighed with a hand on his neck before he took the courage to mutter "Whatever it was, it's a irrational fear."

"Why is that?" You sniffled before you yelped at the flip on your forehead.

"Because if I'm with you, nothing neither no one is ever going to harm you idiot... understood?" You blushed at his words but soon nodded with a smile that left him feeling all warm again as he scoffed.

Just when he was about to lift up, he tensed when you grabbed his hand with puppy eyes looking up at him.

"Stay with me? Until I fall asleep again?" You asked shyly and sweetly... and he couldn't bring himself to even complain as he slowly took his seat on the couch again... allowing you to lay your head on his shoulder as he awkwardly wrapped one arm around you with a sigh.

Your breath soon slowed down, indicating him that you fell soundly asleep again... giving him the chance to smile and to take off his mask to place a sweet and warm kiss on your lips without your knowledge...

~~~~~~~

One lonely tear rolled down from his eye as he repeated the words to himself as the exaustion took over his soul and body.

"Stay with me until I fall asleep..."

#overhaul imagine #overhaul chisaki kai #overhaul x reader #overhaul #kai chisaki #chisaki kai x reader #chisaki kai #bnha writings #bnha chisaki #bnha villains x reader #bnha x reader #my writings #zuffer writings

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hideawayintheimaginationworld · 4 years ago

Note

Um... is it okay if I ask for a short story on how Matt and Spring Jr met Lefty? :\/\/

Matt couldn’t tell what was and wasn’t real anymore. According to the doctor who took care of him at the hospital, he had some sort of severe mental breakdown, that led to the stupid idea that a parasite was living inside him and he had to get it out by cutting himself open.

He did wonder how the hell he got to the hospital, as he remembered that gross little thing looking at him, then everything went dark—

No. No. The doctor said it wasn’t real.

He did also recommend therapy.

Like anything was wrong with him.

The more and more he did think about it, the more and more it seemed to be a nightmare. A bizarre nightmare, one induced by a form of stress, maybe anger psychosis, that was what the hospital psychologist said.

The only reminder was the scar.

The scar was itchy again, Matt had to resist the urge to scratch it like a mad animal, as it was both still sensitive and healing.

He hated looking at it, it reminded him of the thing. It wasn't neat either, in some spots it was darker and more jagged. He wore anything to cover it, baggy shirts usually fixed not having to look at it too long, he tried not to touch it at all.

Another negative? His job put him on leave.

Without pay.

The nerve.

Matt completely erased Springtrap, not wanting to work on the game anymore, he hoped there was another game he could work on at some point but most people hadn’t hired him onboard.

It was just a bad dream, he reminded himself, he popped two pills of a pain reliever in his mouth, not caring that he already had two before, and went outside for the first time in two weeks.

The only thing he wanted was alcohol.

It was the only thing that let him sleep now.

He had to drink himself into a comatose state to get any sleep that wasn’t disturbed.

Meaning he often woke up feeling gross.

He hadn’t seen Jason in a few days, considering how he did help, getting some groceries then left in the beginning, saying he needed to take it easy.

Like he could.

Life wasn’t easy.

He was picking out exactly what he needed and went to the checkout to pay.

“Daddy!!”

That couldn’t be.

No. No. He reasoned, it has to be some other disgusting brat calling for their father.

He was just on edge for no good reason.

He left the store, walking back to his apartment, he kept drifting into flashbacks of everything, it seemed too painful and real to be a dream.

But it couldn’t have been real.

“Excuse me?”

He would just figure out what the hell to do next.

“Excuse me!!”

Matt realised he was being addressed, he turned and saw a red-haired man with very pale skin, something that was strange was the golden eyes he had, they were almost the colour of a setting sun, entrancing in a way. Standing next to him was a teenaged boy, with messy blonde hair and green eyes, the boy stared at him looking kind of annoyed almost. They had been in the same supermarket Matt was just in, as they had shopping bags, the guy even had a backpack strapped to his back.

“Did you drop your wallet?” The man asked him.

“No I didn’t,” Matt curtly answered, hating this guy was stopping from getting home.

“Are you sure you didn’t drop it? I found a black wallet and I think it's yours,” the man was showing him a wallet that looked like his.

Matt reached to his pocket.

Fuck.

It was his wallet.

“Turns out it is, I'll take that,” Matt took it from the man, immediately opening it to check for any lost money.

“Fucking rude.”

Matt was completely taken off guard by the comment.

“What??”

“You're fucking rude,” The man repeated, “Didn't even thank me, I could have stolen your wallet you ungrateful prick.”

“Let it go, walk away...” The teenager grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away. Matt guessed that teen was his son, but they didn’t seem to share any characteristics, aside from both of them being lanky.

“I feel sorry for the people in your life, I've only known you for two minutes and I already hate you, imagine being your mother or some shit, she'd be ashamed of you, asshole,” The guy turned and walked away, the teenager followed him.

Matt huffed, how dare he.

“Daddy!!”

Again? Seriously??

“What is it?”

“Daddy! Daddy!!”

He had the awful realisation that wasn’t his imagination.

He saw the guy and teenager running back to him, Matt suddenly felt like he needed to run, so he did.

Unfortunately, the guy caught up to him quickly, grabbing his shirt collar and stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Shit! Look, I'm sorry if you feel like I was rude.”

“Hey Alec, look it was fauxpology, sound familiar?” The guy asked.

“Yep.”

“Alright, let's see what the rabbit says... I might have found you.”

Found??

“Let me go!!”

“Daddy!”

“You need to come with me.”

“No I don’t,” Matt struggled to pull away.

“Oh yes, you do...” The guy spun him to face him and pressed his hand against his temple.

“Sleep.”

Matt suddenly felt heavy in his legs, drowsy like he was pulling from reality.

Then everything went dark.

“Jesus you didn’t have to put the guy to sleep...”

“I felt like I had no choice...”

“So what are you going to do?”

“The same thing as anyone, I will offer help.”

Matt finally could open his eyes, he was looking at a white ceiling, he wondered if he was in the hospital again and the thought disgusted him.

He looked to the side and saw a blurry black shape, he blinked and it cleared.

“But he talked to you rudely honestly.”

“Well if my theory is correct... he's been through a really awful experience...”

“Lefty, picking up the broken souls everywhere.”

“Hello, Matthew, back with the living are you?”

Matt froze, the black shape turned around and he saw a very familiar golden eye staring at him.

“We need to talk about your son.”

“I don’t have a kid.”

“Explain this,” Matt realised it was like a bear, but a robot, an animatronic, like Springtrap, but he wasn’t so decayed, like he was modern and more aimed at kids, the animatronic turned around and turned back with a familiar sight.

“Hello, Daddy!”

Matt screamed, wanting to get away. Lefty had the little bunny.

The bunny that crawled out of his body, the dirty green fur and the big silver eyes, was looking at him.

“Explain why I found little Spring wandering around the street ten days ago with no adult supervision, covered in dirt, blood and some other strange fluid I couldn’t figure out... But I figured it out!!” The animatronic nodded.

Matt looked horrified, the way it moved was so lifelike like it was a person in the suit.

“The fluid was mucus... disgusting... but I've figured it out, you somehow... got a parasite... and you share DNA in some way.”

“Nah, he was pregnant.”

Matt heard a chorus of laughter.

“That's why you wear protection.”

“Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die.”

“Don’t make fun of him kids,” Lefty placed down the little rabbit.

“Lefty don’t bullshit, the dude was pregnant.”

Matt grumbled, but they had appeared to stop laughing for the most part.

“That's impossible, he's a male, but this is Fazbear Entertainment... that pretty much explains everything and anything... the same brand range that offers getting your body hijacked, losing your body parts, death robots on demand, doll alarm clocks and a mention for the dolls that like crawling in your mouth.”

“You're laughing at me,” Matt sneered.

“Oh, um, no, I believe you, I've dealt with these things before!” The robot answered, “Spring Jr is the less hostile... but you... no one would probably believe you, you most likely believed this was a dream... Spring recognised you somehow...”

“You brought it in public??” Matt asked, he'd be ashamed to have that thing around, and this animatronic seem to adopt him, “Who are you anyway??”

“He was in my backpack, as was another robot called Helpy, they were helping me shop... now my name is Lefty, Matthew.”

“How... how do you know my name?”

“Your wallet. Drivers License,” Lefty answered.

“Where am I?”

“This is my house.”

“Bullshit.”

“No it is, the kids will tell you.”

Matt looked around, he was laying on a sofa, he then saw different kids, he could see the teenager with blonde hair, but he also saw a teenager with brown hair with a strange dog sitting next to him, another teen with dark skin and a thick black hair, and two teenaged girls, one with black straight hair and the other more chubby... and missing an arm by the looks of it.

“They look like their mother’s probably...”

Everyone soured immediately.

“You're filthy,” Lefty said, “Did adoption ever come into your stupid head?” He gave him a knock on his head, “Is anyone awake in there??”

Before he had any time to recover, Lefty grabbed his shirt collar and held him up easily, looking at him with disgust, “Don’t you dare imply I do that, ever,” He dropped him down.

“Now... I'm offering you this... a form of therapy... technically Spring Jr is your kid. This is my offer, we can talk, you tell me how this happened, but you must take a part in fixing this, you didn’t just.... magically get pregnant—”

The kids were laughing again, this time they were almost howling, Matt growled, and he was ready to scream at the horrible teenagers, having a bad enough day, when Lefty looked at him with a demented face, his eyes were black and a sharp white pupil was glaring into his soul, making him shrink back and feel weak.

“You leave my kids alone, or I will make sure you never talk again.”

Lefty turned to them, “Kids, stop laughing for a minute... I understand it's amusing to you like a bad fan-fiction or whatever you call them... but Matt cut himself open to pull that thing out... it's trauma... while I wouldn’t normally...”

He turned back to Matt, “Conditions: You live here, you get help, understand?”

#Ask #Five Nights at Freddy’s #Fazbear Frights #FNAF In The Flesh #FNAF Matt #Lefty #Spring Jr #Writing Drabble #ailingamnemonicxsoundscreecher

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kelelamentia · 5 years ago

Text

Dogs are a Ladybug’s best friend

@ozmav

This came from @thebookwormfairy idea “What if Marinette had a Retired Police Dog as a Pet”

@realrandomposts and I discussed which Miraculous would be used and, while my initial thought was turtle, @realrandomposts was the one who came with the idea for the fox, and just fit better for this fic (And I want to tick Alya off), because Trixx would NEVER miss a chance to cause chaos via having a dog as a holder.

As for Trixx’s gender, the site basically told me it varied from translation to translation, so I flipped a coin; literally.

At a Gotham hotel:

Marinette couldn’t believe Captain snuck himself on to the plane! Actually, she could, he’s such a smart boy. But, how did he get past all that security? Never mind Trixx probably helped with that, he likes to cause chaos like that.

“Trixx, did you have a hand in getting Captain on the plane?” Marinette asked.

“Noooooooooo.” Trixx dragged out, trying and failing to look innocent.

Marinette sighed, running her hands through Captains fur.

“Besides he was going to miss you terribly so.” Trixx continued.

“And you would have missed him as well Marinette.” Tikki added.

“True…” Marinette agreed.

“And I know Captain never wants to leave his partner alone unless he has to.” Trixx said.

Marinette smiled, still petting Captain and him loving it, the Fox Miraculous; hidden by dog tags and a bandana, catching her eye. Marinette remembered how this came to be.

*Flash back*

Marinette was having an awful week; Lila spread rumors around the school about her, her classmates have shown to be more like sheep than classmates, Adrien wanted her to continue being a doormat, and Chat could NOT take the hint at the last Akuma attack and left her alone to fight so he could throw a tantrum.

Thankfully, Captain has proven to be the best and most loyal friend she could ever hope for. Marinette knows he would never leave her in danger just because he didn’t like what she said, he never believe she was petty and jealous of a person with such FAKE tales, and he would never ask her not to stand just for justice; being a former police dog.

That’s when an idea hit Marinette.

“Tikki, I have an idea.”

Tikki tilted her head in confusion, watching Marinette look over at her dog.

“Come on Captain, I’m going to introduce you to Master Fu.” Marinette said.

The worst the Master could do was say no, right.

With Master Fu:

“Greetings Marinette, Tikki” Fu welcomed.

“Hello Master Fu.” Tikki greeted.

“Hello Master, I hope you don’t mind but I brought my dog; Captain.” Marinette returned.

“I don’t mind Marinette; animals can be the best of companions and partners.” Fu smiled, holding out his hand for Captain to sniff.

Captain gave a cautious sniff, but accepted Fu; allowing him to give a single head pat.

“Why don’t we sit down, I feel we have much to discuss.” Fu offered.

“Thank you Master.”

Once they were seated at Fu’s low table, Fu began talking.

“What would you like to discuss Marinette?”

“Can a Miraculous be given to an animal?” Marinette asked.

Fu raised an eyebrow.

“May I ask what brought this on?”

Marinette steeled herself.

“First Chat Noir; he’s late or doesn’t show to battles, when he does he’s pretty much out of the fight immediately, he flirts at the worst times even though I’ve told him I’m not interested in him, he throws hissy hits on a regular basis, and he doesn’t see being a hero as a responsibility but as a game.”

“What of the other heroes?”

“The other heroes have proven that they see being a hero as game as well, they don’t look to see the truth went given no evidence, they like pretty words and offers of connections than working for it themselves and are unwilling to listen to reason when it’s something they don’t want to hear.”

Marinette looked Fu in the eye.

“I’m tired of fighting alone Master Fu.”

The last sentence bore a lot of weight behind it; and Fu heard it.

“I understand Marinette.”

Fu got up to retrieve the box, once he sat down again he started talking.

“You wish for Captain to stand beside you.”

“Yes Master.”

“Do you think he will be able to handle it?”

“Yes Master, he’s a former police dog, he probably has more training and experience than I do.” Marinette giggled.

Captain gave a small tail wag; he loved hearing his girl laugh.

Fu smile and nodded.

“Now it is possible for an animal to use a Miraculous, but the process is different.”

“How so Master?”

“Normally the Guardian would choose the hold, but in the case of animals; the Kwamii’s get to choose if they want to work with them or not, so I cannot guaranty anything Marinette.”

“I understand Master.” Marinette nodded.

“Good, first we must…”

Fu was cut off by a box shaking and jumping around until Trixx popped out. Once he was out he grabbed Marinette’s hand and began to beg.

“Please, please, PLEASE let me team up with you and your dog! This looks like it’s going to cause chaos and so much confusion! Please let me, I know how to speak canine, so I know when to transform and stuff, I get along really well with Tikki, my Miraculous can hang with his tags, and my charge up food is really easy. Please, please, PLEASEEEEEEE!”

Marinette couldn’t help but laugh.

“I have no problem working with you Trixx, but let’s see what Captain thinks.”

Marinette turned to her dog, he liked Tikki, but that doesn’t mean he’d like Trixx.

Trixx flew over to Captain; Captain gave him a sniff.

“Hi Captain, do you want to team up with me to protect your girl?” Trixx asked.

Captain was quiet for a moment, but eventually gave a gentle woof in agreement.

“Yes!” Trixx cheered.

Marinette, Fu and Tikki laughed as Marinette clipped the Miraculous on Captain’s collar; behind the tags, but that laughter was cut short by screaming and crashing outside.

“AKUMA!!!!”

Fu turned to Marinette.

“Go.”

Marinette nodded her head.

“Alright Tikki; Spots on!”

Captain gave a stern bark.

Once the transformation light died down Marinette could see what Captain looked like.

Captain wore an orange, black and white vest that was modeled after a normal police dogs vest; it had the fox tail symbol, in white, on the back and a ladybug symbol on the front where a police badge would be. Captain also had arm guards on his front legs that covered the top of his paws; they faded from orange to white, but Marinette’s favorite part was his mask. It was just a normal orange, black and white mask, but just looked so cute.

“Well, I can’t call you Captain, no matter how common that name might be.” Marinette said, looking at her dog. “How about…Hunter?”

The newly christened Hunter gave a soft woof in agreement.

“Come on Hunter, we have an Akuma to fight.”

And then they were off.

“Good luck.” Fu said as they left.

Where the Akuma was:

The fight with the Akuma, which Chat did not show up to, went smoothly. Hunter cast his illusion by howling and apparently, he could also sniff out the akumatized item, this made things so much easier. Ladybug didn’t even need to cast Lucky charm! They even did a ‘Pound it’ where Hunter bumped his nose against her fist.

But once everything was fixed by the cure, Chat showed up.

“Hey Bug-a-boo.”

“You missed everything Chat.” Her voice was hard, causing Hunter to tense up.

“Aww, don’t be like that Love bug, it couldn’t have been bad.”

Chat reached out to grab Ladybug only to be blocked by a snarling Hunter.

“What the heck is that?!” Chat exclaimed, back away from the costumed dog.

Ladybug smiled sickly sweet smile at Chat.

“This is Hunter the new, and permanent, fox holder and my new partner.”

“But what about Rena Rouge?! And I’M your partner” Chat demanded.

“She has been retired, and don’t worry about the Guardian; he’s already agreed to this. As for being my partner; tell me Chat when was the last time you showed up on time for a fight, didn’t get turned against me, or thrown a hissy fit and leave just because you didn’t get what you want?” Ladybug asked.

Chat couldn’t answer her, his mouth flapping uselessly.

“That’s what I thought.” Ladybug then turned to Hunter. “Come Hunter we should leave before your time runs out.”

Hunter gave a woof in return and jumped away with his girl, not before giving one last hard look at Chat.

*End flashback*

Trixx had been appalled by Chat’s attitude and was steaming while he ate his marshmallows, Tikki doing the same while eating cookies.

Marinette smile as she remembered Alya’s outrage at being replaced, and by a dog at that. But Hunter proved to the people of Paris how good he was and how great of a partner he was for Ladybug; Their ‘Pound it’ was all the rage in the internet and is now the most popular trick to teach your pet.

So here she was in Gotham with her super hero dog, which snuck aboard a plane, and two powerful little gods.

What was her life?

“Well, sulking around this hotel won’t do us any good; how about we go for a walk guys?” Marinette suggested.

Captain, Tikki and Trixx agreed; Tikki flying into Marinette’s bag and Trixx flew under Captain Bandana.

At a nearby Park:

Marinette felt so much freer at the park, the only thing people would see was a girl and her dog.

She was just throwing the ball she got for Captain when another dog, a Great Dane, came up and began sniffing Captain. Captain held still, ball in mouth, and let the other sniff; eventually Captain seemed to like the other dog and began leading them over to Marinette.

“Did you make a friend Captain?” Marinette asked, petting her dog.

Captain gave a slight wag of his tail and Great Dane’s tail was going so fast in was a blur. Marinette reached out her hand for the Dane, so they could get her scent; she was rewarded with a lick on her hand.

“Well aren’t you a sweet heart! Let’s find out your name.” Marinette laughed, before reaching for the Dane’s tags. “Titus? Well it’s nice to meet you Titus!”

Titus barked his hello, trying to get closer to Marinette’s hands for petting.

“Alright buddy, you want to play fetch with me and Captain while you wait for your owner?”

Titus barked again, this time jumping around in excitement.

“Okay, okay,” Marinette laughed before winding up the ball. “FETCH!”

Marinette let the ball go and both dogs shot after it; tussling a bit to be the one to bring it back. This went on for a while before Marinette heard a voice shouting.

“TITUS!”

Titus responded to the call and ran over to a boy about her age, a very handsome boy. Titus circled around the boy a couple times before running back to Marinette. Marinette could only guess that this was Titus’ owner. He made his way over to her.

“Hello Miss, I’m sorry if Titus caused you any trouble.” He greeted.

“Titus was no trouble at all; he was a real sweet heart.” Marinette assured. “My name is Marinette, and this is my dog Captain.”

“It’s lovely to meet you Marinette; my name is Damian, you’ve already met Titus.” Damian greeted, gently taking her hand and placing a kiss on the back; Marinette couldn’t help but blush.

Watching his girl blush at the new person caused Captain to step between the two, making both of blink.

“I’m sorry Damian; Captain doesn’t like strangers getting too close to me.”

“It’s fine Marinette; I should have introduced myself to your dog before invading your space. It’s understandable that he takes me as threat.” Damian said, slowly reaching out his hand for Captain.

Captain investigated the offered hand and gave Damian a hard stare. There was a tense moment before Captain gave a snort and walked to Marinette’s side.

“I think you’ve been approved of Damian.” Marinette said surprised. “He usually doesn’t like a lot of people; really it’s just me and my parents.”

“A high honor then, I will do my best not to waste it.” Damian stated. “I would hate to ruin my chance at talking to a beautiful lady such as you.”

The blush returned to Marinette’s face.

“T-Thank you, but I’m not much.”

Damian just smirked at her, making her blush more. Damian was going to say something when he noticed Titus sniffing at Captain’s Bandana. Marinette knew he was smelling Trixx.

“That is a very well made, where did you get this Marinette?” Damian asked.

“I made it myself; I couldn’t find anything in the stores that I liked.”

“Really? Might I commission you to make one for Titus?”

“You can, but I don’t have a lot of my sewing supplies with me in Gotham, so it could take some time.”

“Where are visiting from Marinette?”

“I’m visiting with my class from Paris; we’re here mainly to see Wayne Enterprise.” Marinette clarified.

“And they let you bring your dog?” Damian asked.

“They didn’t ‘Let me’.” Marinette looked over at Captain with a mock serious look. “Somehow, someone managed to trick the entire airport and sneak himself onto the plane.”

Damian gave a snort in amusement.

“Really?!”

“I know it sounds fake, but…”

Damian cut Marinette off.

“No, I believe you; I’ve seen animals be smarter than people before, but this very impressive. Your classmates must have thought it funny.”

Marinette wilted a bit when Damian mentioned her classmates; he noticed.

“What’s wrong Marinette?”

“You won’t believe me…”

“I’ve been told I very good at telling who’s lying, so please tell me.”

“There’s a girl in my class who doesn’t like me, and she made it sound like I snuck Captain aboard the plane on purpose just to get attention. I wouldn’t even know where to start on that!”

“It sounds like she’s done more than that Marinette.”

“She has…” Marinette sighed, she then gave a brief explanation to Damian about what was going on; he was not pleased.

“Your classmates are morons; large ones.”

“Yeah, they are. Hey Damian, do you know much about Wayne Enterprise?” Marinette asked.

“I know enough.”

“Do you think they let Captain in? I’d hate to leave him at the hotel tell all day.”

“I’m positive they will Marinette, the Wayne family is a very open-minded family.”

“Thank you, Damian,” Marinette smiled, before asking another question. “Do you know any nearby dog friendly restaurants are?”

“Of course, I’d be happy to show you. Perhaps you would let me join you as well.”

“I’d like that Damian; it would be nice to talk to someone with common sense that isn’t Captain.”

Damian chuckled and held out his arm; which Marinette took, and began to guide her to the closest café their dogs trotting along with them.

While at the café Damian got Marinette to open up a bit more about her classmates; Marinette didn’t know why she did that, she was just comfortable with him. And if Damian thought her classmates to be morons before, he though them to be outright imbeciles now.

“These people clearly have no brain cells Marinette.”

Marinette smiled at Damian, it was nice to have someone who can listen to reason.

Eventually Marinette and Captain did have to go back to the hotel, not before they exchanged number though.

“Can we do this again tomorrow; my class won’t be spending all day at Wayne Enterprise.” Marinette asked just before she left; surprising herself at her boldness.

Damian didn’t seem to have an issue with her request though.

“You took the request right out of my mouth Angel.”

“A-Angel?” Marinette stuttered.

“Certainly, you’ve shown your class kindness and patience when they don’t deserve it or you, so yes Angel; unless it makes you uncomfortable Marinette.”

“It’s fine Damian, just please; never call me Princess.” Marinette pleaded.

Damian clearly wanted to ask why but left it alone.

“Of course, Marinette; I will respect your wishes.” Damian nodded his head. “Now will you allow myself and Titus to walk yourself and Captain back to your hotel?”

“Sure Damian.”

The walk was made up of Marinette asking what Damian wanted the Bandana for Titus to look like. Once they reached the hotel they said their goodbyes.

“It was wonderful meeting Damian, you too Titus.” Marinette said.

“You as well Marinette, Captain.” Damian waved goodbye.

The next morning:

Marinette, Captain and the class set off for Wayne Enterprise, Lila being Lie-le the entire time on the bus.

“The Wayne family just loves me; they always try and make sure I’m alright.” Lila boasted.

“Wow Lila, do you think you could introduce me? I’d love to have an interview!” Alya questioned.

“Maybe Alya, they are a very busy family after all; we probably won’t even see them.” Lila redirected.

“Aww, that’s too bad.” Alya was disappointed.

Marinette, keeping a hand on Captain, resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Last night before going to sleep, Marinette looked up the Wayne family; ignoring all the pictures she didn’t care about those and found many things. Like, if Alya wanted an interview she could just request one, yeah there would be some restrictions but Alya doesn’t care for doing her own research.

Adrien just kept quiet, just as always.

The class reached Wayne Enterprise; Marinette and Captain at the back of the group and were greeted by a surprise in the lobby.

“Hi everyone, I’m Dick Grayson and I’ll be the one giving you the tour around the building.”

The entire air shifted; Alya was ecstatic, Lila could get her an interview right away! Lila was terrified, because this could go very south on her and she had no back up plans on being called out by one of the people she bragged about. Marinette was confused, why were people getting excited?

Marinette was never good with icons outside fashion and music, so she didn’t know the Damian she spent time with the day before was the Damian Wayne. So, when Damian got home he spoke with his family, telling them of a girl in the French tour would likely be using their names for gain. Nobody liked the idea of being used, so if the topic came up they would shut it down; Damian figured out from Marinette’s descriptions that the topic would come up from one person or another.

Damian theory proved true when Alya; the pushy, rude, ‘always right’, Alya raised her hand.

“Go ahead.” Dick called on her.

“Hi, I’m Alya; I’m friends with your friend Lila Rossi!”

Lila froze at Alya’s exclamation; going very pale.

Dick frowned, now knowing who the liar in the group was; but was inwardly smirking at the chance to call them out.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve NEVER met a ‘Lila Rossi’ in my life; whoever that is lied to you.”

Alya looked like her world shattered with that one phrase.

Marinette realized Dick must be an important person Lila lied about; which one Marinette wasn’t sure they all sound the same after a point. Marinette looked over at Alya and saw the devastation on her face; Marinette really hoped her former friend would learn from this and start fact checking.

Marinette started running one her hands through Captain’s fur, the motion keeping her calm; watching more horror appear on her classmate’s faces as Dick continued.

"I hope she didn’t use our name to take advantage of people and she continues like this she will be hit with a lawsuit.”

Lila blanched, a lawsuit would really be bad, but she didn’t know how to backtrack from this lie; she didn’t think a Wayne would be the one conducting the tour.

“Well, now that that’s cleared up we can begin the tour.” Dick said, clapping his hands together.

But in a desperate attempt to get the negative focus off her Lila tried to get Marinette in trouble.

“Look Marinette brought her dog! He can’t be here!”

Everyone turned to look at Marinette; Ms. Bustier was quick to say something.

“Marinette why in the world did you bring your dog?!”

“I didn’t want to leave Captain alone in hotel ALL day, what kind of pet owner would I be if I did that Ms. Bustier? And how did you not see me bring him onto the bus?!”

Ms. Bustier opened her mouth to try and reprimand Marinette more but was cut off by Dick.

“This is perfectly fine Ms. Bustier; we were warned ahead of time that due to some strange events, there would be a dog in the group today.”

Ms. Bustier could only nod, not being able to argue with Dick, But Lila was outraged by this turn of events.

“Who could have possibly warned you about her dog?!”

Marinette; as much as she didn’t like Lila had to admit, that was a good question.

“I did.” Came a voice off from the side.

“Hey, Damian.” Dick greeted.

“Hello Grayson,” Damian nodded, before approaching Marinette; Titus at his side. “Hello again Marinette, Captain.”

“Damian! Titus! I hadn’t thought you might work here!” Marinette said, “Which is silly looking back now, because you knew if Captain would allowed or not.”

“It’s fine Marinette.” Damian smiled at the sweet girl.

“Oh, hold on! I was going to give this to you later, but since you’re here now.” Marinette said as she rummaged through her bag, pulling out a yellow piece of cloth. “I managed to find some cloth and made Titus a Bandana, it’s nothing fancy but I wanted to see if he even liked it first.”

The Bandana was yellow with black thread spelling out ‘Titus’ in cursive.

“Its wonderful Marinette.”

“Thank you, Damian, can I put it on Titus now to see if he likes it?”

“Certainly.”

Marinette bent down to carefully tie it to Titus; who was holding still for her.

“There.” Marinette stood up.

Titus was then bouncing around her and Captain, braking and wagging his tail in happiness. Making Damian and Marinette laugh, as Titus did his best to get Captain to play with him.

While they were in their own little world the people around them watched in awe; Damian Wayne could smile, he could laugh!

Dick was grinning ear to ear, being very thankful the lobby had cameras or else there would be no proof of this happening.

Alya could decide between being hurt or confused; hurt by Lila’s lies or confused by the fact Marinette knew THE Damian Wayne.

Adrien was concerned; this was just going to cause more problems, why couldn’t Marinette just stay low?

Lila was seething, how is it that when she finally won over the class of idiots and turns them against Marinette, Marinette goes and somehow charms one of the riches and coldest people in the world! This could not continue. Lila slipped away; unknowingly catching Dick’s eye.

The rest of the class was just in awe of the sweet atmosphere around the two.

That atmosphere was broken when the sound of screaming and breaking began, a giant form comes busting into the lobby.

“Hello everyone, I am Arachnae and with no Ladybug or Chat Noir around, you all will be nothing but flies in my beautiful web.”

Arachnae was a human torso on a spider’s body, her entire form was covered in bright orange fuzz; head to the tip of each spidery leg. The form was also very clearly Lila; she had her face and hair and the necklace she always wore, but the one thing different about Lila’s is that she now had 8 eyes.

Dick was the first to react.

“What the %&$@!”

Arachnae let out a hiss and shot webs from her hands; the strands aimed mostly at the class and Marinette. The people that got hit were turned into little soulless puppets for Arachnae to play with and amuse herself.

Marinette jumped to dodge the web, hitting the ground running; looking for a place to hide, Captain at her side.

“Marinette!”

When Marinette dodged she threw herself away from Damian, causing him to worry, but his yell brought Arachnae’s attention to them.

“Ah yes Marinette, when I catch you I’m going to make you miserable! And your little dog too!”

Arachnae charged at Marinette.

“Damian run! She’s focused on me, go get help!” Marinette yelled, before she and Captain took off.

The chase began, with Arachnae destroying anything that got in her path. As she ran Marinette began looking for a place to transform, counting on Captain to guild her around Arachnae’s attacks. Eventually Arachnae ends up bringing the ceiling down and blocked herself from Marinette and Captain.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Arachnae screamed in rage. “FINE, I’LL JUST PLAY WITH MY NEW TOYS UNTIL YOU COME BACK! I KNOW YOU WILL YOU USELESS GIRL!”

Marinette looked around for a place without cameras and spotted a closet.

“This will have to do Captain.” Marinette said to Captain, as she closed them both inside. “Tikki? Trixx?”

“Ready!” They chimed together, flying from their hiding spots.

“Alright, now; Tikki Spots On!”

*Bark!*

With a flash of light Ladybug and Hunter were ready. Looking around she saw some vents she and Hunter could crawl though, so the cameras didn’t see her.

In the Lobby:

Arachnae had gotten most of the people in the lobby, except for three; Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, and Adrien, her biggest targets outside Marinette.

“Just surrender to me, it would make this all so much easier!” Arachnae hissed at the boys, sending more webs and puppet people at them.

Dick and Damian had managed to dodge webs, puppets and Arachnae; Adrien was hiding behind a plant behind Arachnae, but they were also trapped in the lobby and running out of options. Titus was running around, unable to get to Damian and Dick.

*Bark, Bark, Bark*

“Shut up, you dumb mutt!” Arachnae hissed, raising one spider leg bring it down on Titus.

“Titus!” Damian yelled.

Just as the Arachnae’s leg was about to hit a string from a ceiling vent wrapped around it and pulled. Arachnae was pulled with such force she toppled over, and two figures fell out of the vents.

“I don’t know how you got Akumatized outside of Paris, but that doesn’t mean you’ll win.”

“Ladybug.” Arachnae snarled.

“What? Not happy to see me?”

Arachnae gave a war cry and launch herself at the duo. Ladybug and Hunter jumped out of the way, Ladybug in the opposite direction of the people, Hunter grabbing Titus and bring him over to Damian and Dick. After dropping Titus off Hunter went back to Ladybug’s side; who was dodging Arachnae’s webs and people puppets, and bit one of Arachnae’s spider legs.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH” Arachnae let loose a scream of pain, she turned to Hunter. “You God awful waste of space!”

While facing Hunter, Arachnae left herself for a hit; but the hit wasn’t from Ladybug. A small black blur cut Arachnae across the arm.

Arachnae hissed at the contact, as Batman dropped down from another vent in the ceiling.

“Batman?! What are you doing here!” Arachnae growled.

“Really Lila?! We’re I Gotham, you’re causing trouble and you expect Batman not to show up?” Ladybug’s exasperated voice came.

“Shut-up! And it’s Arachnae!” Arachnae snarled, clearly humiliated.

Batman threw a few more baterangs that exploded into smoke bombs and ran over to Ladybug and Hunter.

“What’s going on?” Batman asked.

“That is Lila, she has been akumatized,” Ladybug started. “Not sure how outside Paris, but that’s worry for later, but we need to find the akumatized object and break it. That will make her lose any power she has.”

“What’s the object?”

“The only thing it could be is the necklace, everything else is just orange fuzz, but getting close to her is dangerous. If you get hit by her web, you’ll become her puppet and I rather not fight you Batman.”

“What are your names?”

“I’m Ladybug and this is my partner Hunter.”

*Woof*

The smoke was beginning to clear from Arachnae’s face.

“We better hurry before she…”

Ladybug was cut off by a voice.

“Don’t worry Milady I’ll help you!” Chat yelled, while trying to jump in, only to get hit by on of Arachnae’s webs.

“Not again Chat!” Ladybug cried.

“Does that happen often?” Batman asked, disappointed.

“More than I’ll ever truly admit to” Muttered Ladybug.

“Oh, this perfect! Or should I say purrfect?” Arachnae jeered, as Chat puppet now dangled at the end of her web.

Batman tried to cut the web by throwing some baterangs at it, but they just bounced off. Arachnae then sent a swarm of people puppets at them. Ladybug then had an idea.

“Batman, I need you to throw more smoke bombs.”

He did as he was instructed.

“Hunter!” Ladybug called out.

Hunter let loose a howl.

Once Hunter’s howl was done Ladybug grabbed Batman and ran behind a pillar. Once the smoke was cleared Batman carefully looked around the pillar and was stunned when he saw the figures of himself, Ladybug and hunter were still there; Moving, talking and just outright distracting Arachnae.

“How?” Batman was blunt in his question.

“Hunter can cast an illusion, but he can only cast it once before he’s on a time limit.” Ladybug explained.

“And you?”

“This; Lucky Charm!” Ladybug through her Yo-yo in the air and what came down was a bottle of peppermint extract.

Batman gave Ladybug a confused look.

“Lucky Charm only gives me what I need, not what I want.” Ladybug clarified looking around and spotted the sprinklers in the ceiling. “I have an idea; do you think you can cut the necklace off of her neck?”

“Yes.” Batman replied, catching on to her idea.

Arachnae just managed to destroy the illusion; disappearing in a puff of smoke, when Hunter and Batman dropped in front of her.

“Why won’t you do things MY way!” Arachnae screamed.

“Because your way is wrong.” Batman stated, throwing baterangs at her.

Hunter jumped at her spidery legs, barking and biting at them; because he was under her she couldn’t shoot webs at him, but his biting allowed enough distraction for Batman to try and target the necklace.

As the three battled, Ladybug made her way up to the sprinkler system; carefully hooking up the bottle. Once it was secured Ladybug dropped to the floor and pulled the nearest fire alarm; causing the sprinkler system to go off.

Since Lila was currently part spider, and spiders don’t like peppermint, she started to scream and curl herself into a ball.

Batman saw the opening and accomplished cutting off the necklace; which Hunter caught and brought over to Ladybug.

Ladybug broke the necklace and release the akuma, catching it with her Yo-yo and cleansing it.

“Bye, Bye butterfly.”

After she was done cleansing the butterfly, Ladybug turned to Hunter and held out her fist.

“Pound it.”

Hunter bumped his nose against her fist

As Lady was cleansing the akuma, and ‘Pounding it’ with Hunter, Batman turned off the sprinklers a brought back the Luck Charm.

“I’m sorry for the trouble.” Ladybug said taking the charm. “I really don’t understand how she did this.”

“Gotham’s use to damage.”

“It doesn’t make it okay, but don’t worry I have something for it.” Ladybug smiled, “Miraculous Ladybug!” Ladybug tossed the bottle in the air and it exploded into thousands of little sparkly pink ladybugs.

The ladybugs swarmed over everything, reversing all the damage, turning people back to normal and healing any injuries.

The barricade Dick, Damian and Titus were behind was cleaned up and put away, leaving two stunned people and a very happy dog; Titus bounced over to Hunter to say Hi.

“Holy Sh*t! How!?” Dick asked looking around.

“Magic!” Ladybug chirped.

A groan caught Ladybug’s attention; it was Lila. Ladybug made her way over to her.

“So, here we are again Lila.” Ladybug said in a scolding tone.

Lila tried desperately to come up with an excuse.

“It wasn’t my Fault Ladybug! Hawkmoth…”

Ladybug cut her off.

“Hawkmoth doesn’t have the power to akumatize someone in another country, let alone one across an ocean, or he would have been doing it from the start. Now how did you get akumatized Lila.”

“You can’t prove anything!” Lila tried.

“I can.” Batman said, pulling up some security feed on his computer gauntlet, he projected it for all to see.

The video was of Lila slipping into a hallway, clearly trying not to be seen by people, and when she was done double checking her surroundings; she pulled a little glass jar out of her bag. That jar contained a purple butterfly. Lila then opened the jar and let the akuma to fuse with her necklace; creating Arachnae.

The people from Paris gasped.

“I-it isn’t what it looks like…” Lila began.

“Really, because to me this looks like you are either helping a known terrorist or wanted the destructive power at your disposal for whenever you felt necessary.” Ladybug was disgusted, turned to Batman. “Gotham, America in general, are not my territory; how do you want to handle this?”

“The young lady is clearly a threat to people and has purposely tried to harm them; she will be facing justice.” Batman said pulling out a pair of hand cuffs.

“What?...No! YOU CAN’T! I’M THE DAUGHTER OF A DIPLOMAT! TWO OF THEM!” Lila tried to fight Batman off, but without the power of the akuma she had no chance.

Around this time the GPD showed up, Batman gave them a quick run down about what happened, and they took Lila away; Batman would be dropping by later with the evidence. A few stayed behind to take statements.

A frantic beeping was heard.

“I’m sorry Batman; Hunter and I have to return to Paris, out time is almost up.”

“Before you go can you tell how you got here?”

“The horse miraculous can teleport,” Even more beeping, “Thank you for your help Batman, come on Hunter.”

*Bark*

With that Ladybug and Hunter were gone through the vent they entered, leaving Batman and a disoriented Chat behind. Batman made his way over to Chat.

“How did you get here?” Batman asked, Chat clearly hadn’t come with Ladybug, so he needed to know.

“Uhhh…Got to go!” Chat just ran off.

Batman knew he was just going revert to civilian state somewhere in the building, he’ll look at the security feed later.

“Damian!” Marinette busted into the new repaired lobby with Captain right beside her.

“Marinette!” Damian yelled running over to her “Are you alright?”

“I should be asking you that! You were the one trapped with her!”

Batman was shocked to see Damian be sweet with a girl, with anyone really, and subtlety glance at Dick. Dick smiled and mouthed ‘Future girlfriend’ to him.

As Damian and Marinette were connecting, Batman noticed a blond boy run into the lobby; from the same hallway Chat ran down.

“Marinette, what were you thinking?” the blond asked running over to her and Damian, interrupting them.

Just as Adrien was about to reach her Captain stepped in front of her in a protective stance; Titus joined him, causing him to stop short.

“Adrien, what are you talking about?” Marinatte asked, standing behind her furry guards. Damian wrapping his arm around her for comfort.

“You caused Lila to be akumatized!”

“What! No, I/she didn’t!” Marinette and Damian yelled.

“Yes, she did, if Marinette has just stayed low none of this would have happened.” Adrien insisted.

Batman intervened before Damian could break the boys jaw.

“Young man we have proof that Lila Rossi voluntarily did the ‘akumatization’ to herself. This young lady had nothing to do with it.”

“B-But Batman; if Marinette hadn’t exposed Lila…” Adrien began, only to be cut off by Dick.

“Hey kid, I’m the one who called out that liar and are you insinuating that you KNEW that she was lying to her classmates?”

“W-Well she wasn’t hurting anyone.”

“Kid you need a lesson on toxic people; BADLY.” Dick shook his head at Adrien.

Adrien was about to say something when he felt a hand on his shoulder; he turned, it was Batman.

“Please return to your class, the police will take your statement.”

“What about Marinette?” Adrien tried, wanting the girl to came back with him and away from Damian and his dog; not that Captain would let him get close.

“I’ll be the one taking her statement, now please return to your class.” Batman stood firm in this.

“I’ll take him back Batman.” Dick offered, grabbing Adrien’s shoulder.

So Adrien shuffled away; being lead by Dick, continuedly glancing over his should at the group.

“Is this normal behaviour for him Angel?” Damian asked.

“When I don’t do what he wants, yes.” Marinette confirmed.

Damian made a face at her answer, but before they could farther into that talk Batman had a question.

“Miss can you tell me more about these ‘Akuma’ and what happened with Ms. Rossi.”

“Sure.” Marinette sighed, “But you’re going to need some back story as well.”

Batman nodded his assent and Marinette gave the entire rundown about what is happening in Paris and the amount of rolls Lila played as an Akuma. When she was done Marinette was out of breath but looked like the world had been removed from her shoulders. Damian had pulled her closer as she spoke, and Captain and Titus were trying to cuddle up to her.

There was a beat of silence before Batman spoke.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how the League missed what was happening.”

“It’s fine Batman, I know the League would never let us flounder if they knew what was going on.” Marinette assured, “Honestly I think magic had something to do with that, but I’m not sure WHY the mayor didn’t contact you.”

“It will be investigated, thank you for your time.” Batman then walked off to talk to an officer.

Once he was gone Damian turned to Marinette; who was still in his arms.

“Are you sure you’re alright Angel?”

“I’m fine Damian, I promise, Captain and I hid in a closet. Thank you for staying with me though, talking about akums and Lila just takes a lot out of me.”

“Consider what you told me yesterday and what you just told Batman, I think it’s a miracle that you were akumatized yourself.”

“I work hard not to be, but I should be allowed to feel bad without Hawkmoth trying to take advantage of me.” Marinette sighed.

A commotion of noise grabbed their attention, it was Marinette’s class; they were arguing amongst themselves.

“I really don’t wat to go back over there; that looks like pure drama.” Marinette groaned.

“Drama that could have been avoided if they had any common sense.” Damian commented, “Since you don’t wish to rejoin your class, and you’ve already given you statement, would you and Captain like to join Titus and I for lunch again? We’ll still be in the building and I’ll let Grayson know what’s going on.”

“That sounds wonderful Damian.”

Captain gave a small tail wag and Titus was just happy to spend more time with Marinette and Captain.

“Then it is agreed.” Damian said, sending off a text to Dick and then holding out his arm to Marinette. “Shall we?”

Marinette giggled and took the arm.

“We shall.”

Damian began to lead Marinette and the dogs to the cafeteria.

“I hope the Wayne family isn’t too mad at the problems my class caused.” Marinette commented, making Damian freeze in his tracks.

“Damian?”

“Angel I should let you know; because I would hate you to think I lied to you, but I am Damian WAYNE son of Bruce Wayne.”

“Oh.” Marinette blinked, “Well I hope you and your family aren’t too mad at my class.”

Damian’s was stunned, Marinette saw the look.

“Damian, clearly your family is important, but that doesn’t matter to me; what matters is that you are a good person. I’ve met other kids from important families, but they were terrible, and I wanted nothing to do with them. You’ve already proven to be a great person and that’s all I need.”

Damian gave a soft smile.

“Thank you, Angel, you truly are treasure.”

“So, your family won’t be mad?” Marinette asked.

“Nope, Gotham sees more damage than any other place in America, so the problems Rossi caused wouldn’t raise any more attention.” Damian explained. “The fact is was repaired by a hero from Paris will actually draw more attention.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed, now shall we continue to lunch Angel?”

“Definitely.”

So, arm in arm Damian and Marinette went to lunch; Captain and Titus trotting along with them.

End.

That was Dogs are a Ladybug’s best friend.

Also

Extra:

The Day after the Akuma attack:

Wayne Enterprise Employee - *Crying*

Bruce - *Very concerned* What’s wrong?!

WEE - *Still crying* N-Nothing.

Bruce – But you’re crying.

WEE- *Crying* I’m happy!

Bruce – Happy?

WEE - *Crying* Ladybug fixed everything!

Bruce - *Warry* Yes…

WEE - *Crying harder* We don’t need to redo all the paper work! Or do the added paper work for the repairs!

Other Employees nearby - *Start crying in happiness as well* No extra paper work!

Bruce - *Has no idea how to respond*…

Extra 2:

Before the trip to Gotham:

Alya – *On her phone* Ooooo a new interview with Ladybug

Alya clicks on the link

Interviewer – So Ladybug who is the new fox?

Alya - *Screaming* NEW FOX!

Ladybug – This is Hunter, he is the new and permanent fox.

Alya – PERMANENT?!

Interviewer – May ask what happen to the old fox?

Ladybug – You can ask, but I won’t give you an answer; I won’t let you take what happened and turn it into a hot topic.

Interviewer – I see…What can you tell us.

Ladybug – Hunter is my trusted partner, don’t be afraid he’s here to help you and me. Please give him the same respect you would gave me.

Interviewer – Of course! There has also been a talk about you and Hunter doing a ‘Pound it’ is it true?

Ladybug – This is true, would you like to see?

Interviewer – Yes!

Ladybug – Hunter!

Hunter - *Bark*

Alya – A DOG!!!!! I’VE BEEN REPLACED BY A DOG!!!!!

Ladybug - *Holding out her fist* Pound it!

Hunter - *Bumps nose against Ladybug’s fist*

Interviewer – Awwwwwwwwwww.

Ladybug - *Smiling* I’m sorry, but hunter and I have to go.

Interviewer - *Nodding their head* Thank you for your time Ladybug, Hunter.

Ladybug and Hunter leave.

Interviewer - *Facing the camera* Well there you have folks, we have a new fox!

Alya couldn’t watch the rest of the interview.

Alya – AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Extra 3:

Wayne House hold:

They were sitting down to dinner.

Bruce – So, Damian.

Damian – Yes Father.

Bruce – When will you be bringing Marinette over for dinner?

Damian - *Chokes on food* F-Father?!

Dick – Yeah little D, we need to meet your girlfriend properly!

Damian – Grayson!

Jason/Tim – GIRLFRIEND?????

Damian - *Turning red* She’s not my girlfriend!

Bruce - *Smiling* But you called her ‘Angel’.

Damian – FATHER!!!

Tim – When did this happen?!

Jason – What the h*ll did we miss?!

Extra 4:

Batcave:

Bruce - *Looking at the security footage*

Damian – Father, what are you looking at?

Bruce – Take a look.

Damian sees the blonde boy (Adrien, if he recalled) hiding behind a plant arguing with the air, before he was surrounded by a green light and reappeared as Chat.

Damian - *Not impressed* So he’s a failure on all fronts.

Bruce – So it seems.

Extra 5:

Adrien Hiding behind the plant when the Attack was going on:

Adrien – *Whispering* Plagg we need to do something!

Plagg – How do you plain on explaining how ‘Chat’ got here?

Adrien – No ones going to ask that.

Plagg – Yes, they will!

Adrien – No, they won’t.

Plagg – Your class may not, but there are others here that have more than one brain cell!

Adrien – Plagg! That was rude!

Ladybug and Hunter show up.

Adrien – *Dreamy sigh* Ladybug…

Plagg – And her PARTNER Hunter.

Adrien - *Not paying attention* Plagg I need to transform.

Plagg – Are you nuts! You can’t transform here! People will see!

Adrien - *Still paying more attention to Ladybug* Alright Plagg let’s do this…

Plagg - *Beyond frustrated* Kid!

Adrien – Plagg; Claws out!

Plagg - *Is done and wants a new holder*

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khaoticallykat · 5 years ago

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◇The Prince and The Punk◇

Paring: College AU!Ransom Drysdale x Reader

Summary: You and Ransom never seen eye to eye, during one class in high school you let him know how you really feel and from there it was pranks and bullying all on you. Until you finally went to college, forgetting all about Ransom until you happen to encounter him again, this time at his grandfather's, the famous novelist, Harlan Thrombey. With a research paper that needs to be done to make the grade, are you gonna put up with Ransom's shit?

Warnings: language, bullying.

Word count: 1.7k

A/N: omgggg this is my first time actually formatting a story for Tumblr and I just hope y'all like it. There's gonna be smut but that's wayyy later and maybe in a mini chapter. Thanks for reading 💖

Chapter 1. The Writing Writer

~Flashback~

You drummed your finger along the desk, pissed off and annoyed as you watch Ransom Drysdale, yes, him. The richest kid in school and the biggest piece of shit you've ever laid your eyes on. He was actually an alright guy, for the most part, but you you see beyond his pretty blonde hair, blue eyes and fake smile. He was made to look like an angel, one of those sculptures you see in Italy. He was flirting with your friend as all three of you sat at a table in science class, he has a girlfriend but almost every girl he flirted with, including you, but you harshly turned that off.

"Aw come on Lexi, you're so smart, just help me out?" He blinked his ocean blue eyes at her, she giggled and smiled, about to slide her paper over to him until you grabbed her hand.

"Lexi, don't you think Ransom should have been paying attention to the lesson rather than making goo goo eyes at you?" You asked, gritting your teeth.

"Aw Y/n, I can help him out, it's no big deal." She smiled, you loved her, you really did but even she was falling into the spell of Ransom.

"Yeah Y/n. She doesn't mind, but yet," he looked over at you, it sparked more a hatred in you, "yet you, seem to really mind me? What is it? You like me don't you? Want me all to yourself?"

You sighed, giving him a deadpan expression, "I rather eat razors and then shit them out, you're shitty and annoying and a fake." His smile dropped, Lexi covered her mouth, either in shock or to stifle a laugh. "You act like you're such a king here, having everyone bend to your whim but who are you really? You're a trust fund playboy and I really hope you don't breed, we already have enough shitheads like you in the world."

Everyone in the room was looking at you, clearly you weren't aware of your tone, even the teacher looked shocked.

But Ransom, deep down he should have hated you, but instead, he laughed. He laughed so loud and hard that his was was beet red and tears came down.

"Wow," he chuckled, catching his breath, "fuck you."

From then senior year was filled with Ransom knocking books out of your hand, spilling various liquids on you, thankfully it was tea, water or coffee, he even went as far as cling wrapping your car before homecoming started. You paid him no mind though, you were really good at that, ignoring him and going on about your day, your mom always said that children act out when they want attention and that was one thing you would never give him. He noticed just how much you really didn't care for him, it made him angry, he spent almost every day finding something to inconvenience you and you just brushed him off like dust.

He cornered you in a back room in the photo lab one day after school, you were cleaning up and helping out when the Jock pushed you in a closet, closing the door behind him.

"Oh great. My favorite person." You rolled your eyes, "get out of my way, I have stuff to do."

"You're not going anywhere," He growled, he smelled of sweat and dirt, he must have came from training. "You and I need to talk."

You sighed, shifting in the tight space that Ransom took up, "well I'm listening, but hurry up you stink."

"You're really good at ignoring me, just wondering how and why?"

"You mean how haven't I giving in to your antics? Because you're a child, you act like one and I don't pay attention to boys that act like children," You heard him punch the wall next to you, "just let it go Hugh, sometimes you can't get all the girls to suck you off."

You smirked and ducked under his arm, opening the closet door to see Ransom's two friends, Sam and James sitting on the desk across from the closet. They made eye contact with and quickly looked away, it was clear that they were uncomfortable with the situation. You packed your bag and left, leaving Ransom in the closet to deal with the fact that you just called him by his first name.

"You alright in there man? What'd she do, spit on ya?" James called from the desk.

Sam got up and dragged him out, "come on, don't let some chick ruin the rest of your senior year, after this, we got college girls to look at."

"You're right," Ransom laughed, "I can't fucking wait."

~Present~

After high school, you never saw Ransom, he was basically out of sight, out of mind. College was rolling around and you picked your major of psychology, you were lucky that the town had a college and it was easy to get into. You spent your first few months taking the classes required and studying, your teacher reminded you that the final paper was due months from now, to write a report on a literary author of the time. They assigned everyone an author, when your name came up, you got the author, Harlan Thrombey. The last name rung a bell in your head, but you couldn't tell why. Leaving class you notice many people were in the college colors. Right, football season. You saw some sororities gathered in the parking lot cheering, you didn't want to be part of any of them. You were almost to your car when you remembered why the last name Thrombey sounded so familiar.

Ransom Drysdale was on the back of a pickup cheering and laughing with other guys in their football jerseys, he soon forgot about you after high school. But through his dark, gold rim glasses, he saw you, the same as ever, he was really shocked to see that you even stayed in town, you were really smart, not that he would admit it. Stepping off the back of the pick up, he made his way towards you, you were walking at a fast pace, trying to get to your car before he could catch up and torment you. Ransom saw you get in your little grey Volkswagen and slam the door, locking it behind you. The engine stalled a few times before it finally came to life. Ransom was just getting to your car when you quickly pulled out, almost hitting him. You paid no attention to the speed until you reached the first green light off campus. Taking a deep breath, you looked in your rear view and chuckled, it was childish, but you were glad to get away.

Thankfully it was Friday and you wouldn't see him until Monday, throwing your bag on the floor, you sat at your desk fuming. If all places, why does Ransom Drysdale have to be in the same college as you? You opened your laptop and began looking up Harlan Thrombey, he thankfully had an email, writing out who you were, the nature of your email and a few other things, you clicked the 'send' button and waited.

Later that evening while you were reading, your phone pinged, showing you that there was an email from Harlan. He wrote back that he would be glad to have you over to study his work for your research paper and asked if you could come over Saturday. Doing a small dance of happiness in your room, you replied that you'll be there at noon.

The next morning you wore something that would look rather business casual, most of your clothing was on the darker side so it was easier to match items and stopped in town at the local donut shop before heading to Harlan's. Pulling up you saw a white BMW, the kind that was vintage, it probably ran better than your car double checking your bag once more for your notebook, tablet and charger, you locked your car and walked up to the brick manor. The place was absolutely gorgeous as you took a moment to wonder what the inside would look like. Suddenly two blurs came running up to you barking and sniffing, one was a black lab and the other a German shepherd. They both sat down and looked at the box of donuts you were carrying.

"Sorry, I didn't get anything for you," you frowned, slowly backing towards the steps, "maybe next time."

You rung the doorbell and waited, the dogs followed you and waited by you patiently with their tails wagging. A young woman opened the door, she looked about your age with dark brown hair and bright eyes, "you must be y/n," she smiled, the dogs rushing in almost knocking her over, "Harlan told me you were coming, I'm his nurse, Marta." She lead you into the house which wasn't bare in any area, there were decorations on covering the walls, either with paintings, books, it some strange artifacts. You followed her to the library where you saw Harlan, all grey hair but eyes were full of life.

"Ah, you must be Y/n," he said, turning his attention away from a man that sat in a chair, facing away from you, "I was just talking to my grandson about you, how he should be doing his homework but instead, he's talking of football and girls."

"It's nice to meet you mr. Thrombey," you smiled, walking over to him, "I brought donuts."

The man in the chair stood up, "I know that voice," he turned around, same damn smirk on his face like it was permanent, "ah, of course it's you, my favorite person."

God damned Ransom Drysdale.

You looked like a deer in head lights, "what the hell are you doing here?" You asked, taking a step back.

"Visiting my grandpa?" He said, "bring those donuts over here, I'm starving."

You thought it was a sick joke, but you can see it, the tiny resemblance between Ransom and Harlan. But here you are, trapped in a house with you high school bully. He made his way over to you and opened the box, he was still the same, no respect for personal space.

"I saw you yesterday, but you left," he took one of the chocolate covered ones, "me and you got a lot of catching up to do."

#knives out #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale #kat writes #TP&TP #The Prince and The Punk

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bananaink · 5 years ago

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KeGo December Day 4 - Shaking hands

“MIDORIYAAA!!”

Izuku startled and looked up from his notes at the loud scream in the distance. His eyes quickly surveyed the campus. No one was supposed to be on campus anymore, not at least without supervision which Izuku easily put himself above such silly rules. From his little hiding place behind an old hero sculpture - drowned in bushes - he could see the owner of that loud voice standing in the middle of the campus, hands cupping his mouth to accelerate his scream and whirling in a quick circle.

Confused, Izuku put his notebook back into his hiding place – a little hole he had carefully chiseled out of the sculpture and manufactured a lid for it to seamlessly close it – and tiptoed away from it before walking out of the bushes. A good distance away from the sculpture.

“What?!”, he screamed back and saw how the other boy turned around to face him. Kirishimas white sharp teeth almost blinded him as the redhead immediately came running for Izuku, arms pumping with every step. He had his work-out-cloths on and sweat rolling down is face and neck. Scorch marks on his arms and shirt indicated that he had probably been training with Bakugou and his usually carefully gelled-up hair was limping and bouncing ridiculously with every step. Izuku couldn’t help the amused twitch of his lips and tentative smile creeping over his mouth as the other boy booked it over the campus.

“Midoriya, this is amazing!!!”, he yelled in a way of greeting and Izuku could feel the short spike of unease when the boy didn’t show any sign of stopping himself. But Kirishima always stopped himself, no matter how short or abrupt or acrobatic. So Izuku waited and watched him skidding to a halt with spinning arms. His used sneakers dug into the ground in an attempt to slow down. Izuku snorted at Kirishima, who almost fell in his haste to redirect his speed and just eyed him amused when he finally ended his unnecessarily sprint to stand – a little bit too close – in front of Izuku. Panting.

“What? Did Bakugou finally bit Aizawa? I told him it’s the easiest way to get rid of his hovering.”

“No, what? Not that, I mean, he came close but-”, Kirishima shook his head and his floppy hair spikes looked like wind chimes. Izuku was just about to pull out a joke about them, contemplating if he even could joke about Kirishimas hair and how he looked because he was still figuring out what counted as a friendly tease and plain rudeness – but then Kirishima leaned forward, almost brushing nose with Izuku, burning bright-red eyes staring right into his soul, cheeks tinted red from excitement.

“You are amazing!!!”, he yelled right into Izukus face and Izuku in turn felt his brain shirt-circuit.

“Uh...”

Kirishima bounced in place, grin getting even wider and not in the slightest discouraged from talking more by Izukus less than excited response.

“You told me I could improve my mobility with redirecting and stuff, you, know? Lessening the hardening around my joints and stuff to be more mobile and it worked!!! You should have seen me, I jumped out right from under Bakugous hand and he fell flat on his face! I was so fast! I mean, he still kicked my ass which is like, encouraging, but this is the first time I ducked!!”

Izuku blinked in rapid succession from the onslaught of words and uttered another totally helpless: “Um. Okay.”

This time though Kirishima wasn’t satisfied with it and leaned forward again.

“I did as you said and It worked! It took you one second to look at my quirk and you just knew how to make it better!!”

Izuku flinched a little bit at that, remembering other people and other quirks he had looked at and known how to make better.

“Sorry?”, he said reflexively and Kirishimas face fell a little bit and he shook his head again.

“No no, this is great! This is super-great!!! You helped me!”

Izuku tried not to frown and get his stiff face to form a smile as his hands started to tingle and his quirk acted up. It roamed through his skin and reached out for something to latch on to, to grab, to bring forward – and suddenly Kirishimas arms and face hardened in the blink of an eye. Kirishima uttered a confused ‘huh’ and Izuku could feel the sharp edges under his hands and waves of the warm pulsing quirk washing through his body. The comfortable high of touching another quirk, feeling it, activating it and gently caressing it under his palms had Izuku gasp and they both stared down at their hands.

Kirishima held Izukus hands in sharpened fingers.

“AH! Sorry! I didn’t mean to-”, Kirishima yelped, almost panicked, and started babbling apologies but didn't dislodged his hands immediately, probably scared of cutting the other boy with a wrong move. Izuku on the other hand stared at their intertwined fingers and tried to process the touch. Ignoring Kirishima, he tried to remember when the redhead had even grabbed him? He hadn’t felt anything, not the terror of someone else having even just a part of his body in their hands. Touching him.

Kirishima was touching him and he wasn’t feeling scared at all!

Izuku reinforced his grip when the redhead carefully tried to pry his hands free and looked up again. He could feel his hands trembling, shaking with the new discovery.

“We are holding hands.”, he said, amazed and could feel Kirishimas quirk shift in his grasp. He wasn’t holding it captive, wasn’t prodding it to stay active or testing its limits, straining against Kirishimas natural response to shut off. It simply activated with a gentle brush of his fingertips and now blew warmth into his hands and arms and body and face. All while holding hands.

Kirishima made a nervous sound in the back of his throat and then awkwardly shifted. But his quirk stayed active. Izuku could feel it staying content, calm.

“Uh, yeah.”, the redhead laughed a little bit breathless and stiff because of his hardened chest. And Izuku – dizzy with the touch and how good it suddenly felt - couldn’t help himself. He looked down again, turning their connected hands around, flexing his fingers carefully.

“Sorry for activating your quirk.”, he said on autopilot because that damn quirk counselor, Aizawa had forced upon him, had told him he was supposed to say this. But he didn’t mean it. Not really. Not when it felt so good and warm and he could gently push his own quirk over Kirishimas and feel it roll up in his hands and gently turn down to a small simmer. Trusting him.

“Oh! This is new.”

Izuku looked up to see Kirishimas smooth, fleshy and soft skin, cheeks dusted with red color and eyes also staring at Izukus scared hands.

“My quirk just... I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I didn’t either!”, Izuku said and they met eyes. Somehow Izukus cheeks grew hot and warm and he itched for that hidden notebook to write this discovery down. But under those glowing red eyes full of amazement Izuku felt himself tense up – embarrassed, nervous, overwhelmed - and his quirk responded with the equivalent of slapping Kirishimas quirk over the head with a pan.

“UFF!”

The redhead stumbled a little bit as his quirk activated so suddenly and Izuku quickly let go before he could worsen it and accidently harden him too much again. Aizawa would be pissed if he found out that he had accidently activated Kirishimas quirk again, even without noticing that they had even been touching and-

Wait.

Just as Kirishima found his footing again, shaking himself like a wet dog coming out of a bath, Izuku surged forward and grabbed his hand. With a pounding heart he waited for the fear, the terror and flashbacks another person's warmth brought him, the shadows at the corner of his eyes, but nothing happened. Except for a very startled Kirishima looking at his hardened forearm and grunting. But his hand was still soft. Izuku marveled at that.

“Look! Look! How am I doing that?!”, he stressed and Kirishima – easily infected with excitement and knowing how hard it was for Izuku to control his quirk – squeezed his hand with a happy noise. It only made Izukus cheeks even hotter and a warm feeling unfurled in his chest. Kirishimas elbow poked out a little bit sharper than usual.

“I don’t know!”

“This is- I need to write that down!”

“Yeah, you should!”

“And I need to test it! Find out why I have control in the first place.”

“Sure, we can do that. I mean, I just finished training but I think I can manage a few more-”

“Let’s go to Aizawa.”

“Wait, what?”

Izuku pulled confidently at Kirishimas hand and his cheek twitched with a manic grin, glee and a weird fluttery but good warmth surging from the point of contact through his whole body. It made him invincible. Strong.

“I wanna show him!”

Kirishimas face had lost some color and he nervously pulled with his free hand at his own shirt. Izuku knew he was unnecessarily afraid of his guardian and gripped Kirishimas – still fleshy! - hand with conviction.

“Uhm, I don’t think that’s a good-”

Izuku turned around and pulled a spluttering Kirishima along.

__________________

Guys, I barely made it with my last braincells. This is getting hard, you guys. :’D

But that’s the point. Keep it going. So sorry if this feels choppy? I think it’s a bit choppy. But maybe because I’m tired and should be sleeping now :’D

As usuall, shout out to @banashee !!! Send her some love!

And this chapter is on AO3

Have a great day!

#imprint au #bnha au #writing challenge #midoriya izuku #Kirishima Eijirou #quirk usage #izuku has a quirk #and it's kinda bitchy at times #but not today #today we have soft handholding #because kirishima is the best to hold hand with!#my au #my writing #kego december #day 4 shaking hands #by the way #i think i also barely did the prompt justice xD

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theghostbeaters · 5 years ago

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my timeline of thoughts during my tlou 2 play through (bad and good and maybe even some silly) just let me vent because i can’t stop thinking about it tbh

- i was away from the internet for months because i didn’t want to be spoiled for anything, so when i started to play i had only the deceitful trailers to go by

- the beginning felt pretty normal for the last of us. they started you in the town and then on patrol for your hour of tutorial basically. i also remember thinking the recap of the first game was so nice because i liked seeing their younger selves in the new graphics

- abby was introduced, and like i said i had no clue what was going on because i had not been spoiled so my mind was going a mile a minute on wtf abby and co. were up to. when they spotted jackson my initial thought was maybe they do want joel and they will be the main antagonists? joel and ellie will have to fight them??? but because of the trailers, death of any sort wasn’t on my mind.

- i also had a very odd and pure hatred for owen’s voice, lol. i don’t know what it was but omg from the moment he spoke till his last breath i would always be like “why is he speaking like that??” in the back of my head.

- that scene happened. i’m a crier i’ll admit, but this was something else. I felt shocked, nauseous, numb. I don’t think I actually even cried till I saw the tombstone i was so taken aback by the way they went about this. I don’t care if they are fictional characters. It has been 7 years since the first game came out and almost 5 years that they released the first trailer for part 2. I did not wait this long, excited to see two of the most important characters to me in such realistic graphics get their fucking head caved in. at the very very least a fade to black and then to the tombstone would have gotten the same reaction you wanted from me, but it would have been done in a way less cruel way.

- i took about a 3 hour break. i could not get that image out of my head and it was really starting to upset me more then any media should. i don’t care or want to hear about any walking dead or apocalypse setting trope. it will never be edgy, deep, or meaningful to kill a favorite character in that manner. I want to state that again. In that manner. If they had killed joel in a more tactful way I could have possibly liked the game more.

-i remember thinking it felt forced. like the creators wanted this narrative so badly they seemed to go through hoops and hurdles to get there. there was a random horde that seemed to disappear as quick as it came, abby just gets lucky and has joel and tommy save her and then they go straight to the lions den? would joel from the first game be so quick to do that? Wait was she 100% sure just from two peoples names this was the guy she wanted? Ellie gets there just in time to see the final blow and then the others only get there just in time to miss everything and not be able to help? Whats going on??? This feels too structured and not genuine??

- going into his house was just as painful. i’m sorry but i’m going to bring this back up a lot- if they would had just killed him in a more tactful manner i would have praised the way these little scenes were done. grabbing his watch, ellie smelling his clothes, seeing the pictures of sara and ellie, looking at his workshop and seeing how well he can carve! I couldn’t appreciate it the way I wanted to because I couldn’t get that image out of my head. i was literally bawling the entire time.

-REVENGE TIME BEGINS:

+so the first scene was set: ellie wanted to go to seattle for revenge, dina was going to go with her, and tommy had already left. I remember having two thoughts here

+“please tell me its going to be more then ellie just going on a revenge spree and then at the end she doesn’t kill abby because morals / murder is bad / not everything is black and white kind of tropes.”

+and “i have a wild feeling tommys gonna be like the only person that makes it out alive. he did it in the first game somehow hes gonna weasel his way free in this one.”

-ELLIES SEGMENTS:

+the graphics are amazing the sceneries are some of the most beautiful i have seen in a game. and it didn’t stop there. every area was amazing. I think most can agree to this.

+i was determined, no matter what else the game threw at me i was going to see it through to the end and try very hard to visualize it the way the creators wanted it to be visualized. even if i didn’t agree or didn’t like parts, i figured hey the first game was so good this has to revive itself.

+i really liked the gameplay, it was a finer tuned version of the first game. i also liked the idea of the map and how it actively showed you different locations and crossed them out when you were done. but in the back of my head i was thinking “wow this would have all been so neat in the first game”. I shouldn’t be thinking about the first game. I should be enjoying this one.

+i was getting concerned none of the new characters were getting as much character development and love as some of the characters in the first one. I liked dina a lot, and by the very end of the game she did feel pretty rounded out (i especially liked her in the farm segment) but the beginning and middle seemed almost more focused on “this is ellies girlfriend” instead of “this is dina”. I felt the same with jesse. I liked him but nothing stood out as much as it could and should have. I got more from tess in the short amount of time she was in the first game.

+there were certain segments that felt way more horror like and scary then in the first game and I loved them a lot. The new enemy (shambler) was cool and the settings where they used red lighting looked amazing. I also really loved the new take on stalkers. They were way harder to find and I found myself on edge to get jumped by one during those sections. They funny enough reminded me of dead space stalkers and i thought they were an improvement from the first games.

+at this point i pretty much understood what the creators were going for plot wise, but i personally just didn’t think it was needed. 1) i’m confident the majority of hardcore last of us fans already understand the concept of how every character can be good and bad and that not everything is black and white. we didn’t need to see one beloved character die horribly and the other be in that much pain and lose herself to understand that. 2) did we not pretty much already cover this concept in the first game? but....better? you remember...the ending?

- ELLIES FLASHBACKS:

+ of course I enjoyed them. its what i needed from a sequel. its what the whole game should have been, at least for me personally. the birthday flashback was the highlight of the entire game. i needed it so badly after the mind numbing, emotionally exhausting, weird out of place plot was putting me through. I was glad to finally see how ellie felt about the ending of the first game. but trying to crunch all that in 4 cutscenes? I just don’t feel like it was enough. you basically gave me one scene per year of joel and ellies relationship and you felt like that was enough to let me digest almost 5 years they spent in jackson?

- ABBYS SECTIONS:

+call me an optimist or maybe just stupid i’m not sure but when it rolled over and said “hey take over and check out the life of joel’s killer” my first thought was okay so i was right they want a “”nothing is black and white”” narrative but maybe doing it this way will be new and fresh? I can get through this and enjoy it? .... Its just not a fully possible reality and how could it be? had it been the first game in the series maybe it would had worked, but of course no matter how hard I tried I just felt disassociated from abby because I was already close to joel and ellie. I understood her reasons. I understood the narrative you were going for. I understood the damn parallels. I’m not an evil person that would just laugh about what happened to her dad, but how can you not understand as writers that a huge majority might be able to understand it, but still won’t be able to enjoy it. It felt so pushed and shoved into my face that I couldn’t enjoy it if i wanted to because the game just kept screaming “LOOK AT THE PARALLELS THO!!!”

+abbys dad seemed forced and out of place too. when abby and co. first killed joel i didn’t even think fireflies tbh. I thought it was something he did before he met ellie, or something he did during the 5 years in jackson. like yeah i got it, its not the worse backstory in the world but when put in context to the first game it just doesn’t make sense to me to use as the narrative you want to portray in the second game. maybe i’m nitpicking here but from all the personal notes and all the tapes you can read and listen to about the fireflies in the first game it makes it hard to believe the majority of fans would care for the second games narrative at all. they already made their decisions. it at the very least just seems like bad salesmanship? but maybe they already knew that and thats why the trailers were all lies? (just my thoughts at the time remember)

+and oh god was the character development even worse for abbys friends. at least they tried to give abby a rounded character development that mirrored ellies but if you think ellies friends barely got character development, abbys friends got almost zero. I didn’t care about a single one. they felt so flimsy and husk like. “this is the boy she likes” “this is a medic friend” “this guy likes sex alot” “this is dog, so of course you like dog”

+I mean its great everyone was able to be so different. abby is muscular, ellie is a lesbian, there were many poc, dina is jewish, they brought in a trans character....but how can i enjoy any of it when more than half of these characters felt put in just to be there instead of well rounded characters you can appreciate for good or bad?

+the sex scene with her and owen was the scene where i personally felt myself giving up. it felt so much like this game wanted to be an HBO classic instead of just a video game that i felt myself detaching even more. (also whats up with owens voice??? lol)

+GROUND ZERO was a very good chapter. That shit was spooky in all the good ways, it felt a lot like dead space with the plastic everywhere, THE BIG ASS MONSTER HAD ME ON MY KNEES. The chase scene up to the actual boss fight was A+. Here is the one catch though - I forgot I was playing as abby. It felt more like just playing first person. Not a character at all. I don’t think that is how you want your game to be played, and no it wasn’t my intention.

+I wish yara and lev had gotten more screen time. the game was so focused on the abby vs ellie thing and shoving it down your throat that most the side characters got washed out, these two included. Their story was interesting and it would had been nice to see more of them instead of whatever the weird love triangle abby had going on with her two friends I couldn’t care less about. (i stg chances were given, but as i previously stated they felt more like husks of characters then fully rounded ones.)

+getting hunted by tommy was actually a pretty cool highlight of the game for me. and even for a narrative i didn’t personally like it was a good idea to do! it reminded me of the sniper section (but holy hell tommys a better shot lol) and david’s hide and seek section in the first game which i thought was very well done.

+this is when i went “oh maybe i was wrong, tommys gonna die. i give him a 20% chance of survival now that abby saw his face

-THEATER TIME

+why in the all out hell would you ever think it would be a good idea to tell the player to go after ellie? no matter what narrative? lmao. I died here the most literally for the soul fact i was scared there might be some kind of choice so i wouldn’t mash QTEs as fast as i normally would. and when i found out no, you just gotta power through it i literally found myself going through this 10 minute segment going “but i don’t want to do this”, “i really dont want to do this”, “do i have to do this?” “why do i gotta do this?” and yes i still understood your narrative but it doesn’t matter. it was just awkward.

+This is where personally I would have put the cali segment if I really wanted to go with a narrative I still say didn’t need to happen because we already went through it in the first game, and then the happy farm bit at the end.

-FARM

+i felt the game was going on too long and i was literally screaming at my screen to just end my suffering when i realized there was more after seattle. adding the extra PTSD scene just felt like an added fuck you towards the fans. I said it once, I’ll say it 1000x that scene with joel was seared into my brain already. I didn’t need that literal jumpscare. I already knew what ellie was going through dammit I was going through it with her! Let the girl and me for that matter have a bit of happiness after what you put us through!

+holy hell tommy fucking lived. he fucking lived. that mother fucker. hes the new telltales kenny.

-SANTA BARBARA

+I said previously this section should have some how been merged into the seattle ending. I couldn’t tell you how honestly, but keeping it dragging like they did was so emotionally draining. it didn’t give me any feeling but more sadness and torment for a favorite character that didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. ellie looked so skinny and sad here. and i feel like it was what the creators were going for? because abby ended up looking just as sad looking. The ending fight was so sad and pathetic. I felt bad for both of them and that is what the creators wanted right? but at what cost? most of your fans, if they even managed to play this far, so emotionally drained and tired that they end up hating the game or not wanting to play it again?

-ENDING

+so how do i feel now that i finished it? overall there were more cons than pros for me. as i said numerous times before this narrative is not new, this narrative was not needed. this narrative definitely shouldn’t have been lied about through trailers. this narrative was basically done better in the first game anyways. the ending did not give me “sad but hopeful”. it just left me empty and depressed. I don’t see myself playing this game ever again.

+If anyone was able to enjoy it I’m truly happy you were able to and these were all just my personal thoughts and opinions while playing the game. I don’t hate anyone that liked it, I don’t even hate abby. I just personally hate they wrote a narrative that felt so forced down your throat in all the wrong ways. I hate that I wasn’t ready for that joel scene because it still hurts to think about. I hate thinking about how sad ellie looked and how they were both treated. It just wasn’t healthy for me tbh is the best way I can put it.

#the last of us #tlou #tlou spoilers #the last of us spoilers #holy shit this is long i'm sorry #not that anyone will read it lol #but its just nice to write sht down sometimes #anti tlou2

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