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notcorrect-persona5 · 3 years

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In Defense of Yosuke’s Parents

I’ve seen so many posts about Yosuke having bad parents which really surprised me because I didn’t get that impression at all. I’ve been meaning to make a post in defense of his parents, but I’ve been working on a Yu analysis. After I saw @personuhh’s post I thought I’d offer an alternative perspective. I’ll be addressing some of the things they brought up first, and then I’ll get into additional evidence. I have edited this post since I originally posted it because I I wanted to elaborate and reword some things.

My Response

You’re right, Yosuke does take on way more responsibility than a part-timer should. However, I don’t think that’s his parents doing. It seems like Junes is extremely understaffed. In his social link, Yosuke says his dad was “bugging him to find helpers.” I volunteer at a small location of a large church (much like the Inaba branch of Junes), and I have been asked to find more volunteers over and over again because they’re desperate for more help. It’s a lot of work and not enough people. Additionally, both Yu and Chie come in to help due to the lack of staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Hanamura helped out too as Teddie’s under the impression that Yosuke’s parents are always together (which I’ll talk about later).

On top of that, Yosuke mentions part-timers ditching work and slacking off. When an employee doesn’t show up, Yosuke (and Teddie) are often called in because their managers know they’ll show up. People who are reliable are given more responsibility, period. It sucks, but if someone needs help they aren’t going to ask someone who they don’t see as dependable. I volunteer at church every week, and I have been asked countless times if that’s okay because they don’t want to overwork me. Every time I say I don’t mind, and I assume Yosuke would have the same reaction if asked. Not only is it Yosuke’s natural instinct to help people, but he was kind of a pushover before the events of (and at the start of) Persona 4. In his third awakening, Yosuke says he was overworked and taken for granted. That’s not okay, and it’s a huge problem, but Mr. Hanamura isn't the cause of that. Mr. Hanamura is the general manager; his job isn’t to create the part-timer’s schedules.

It’s true that Yosuke tries to work out the problems of other employees and listens to their complaints. There is no indication that Yosuke was told to do this, and I don’t know why he would be. In his social link, there are two girls who act as if he has more power than he does. They demand a raise, ask him to give them the day off, and assume he has knowledge about another employee’s schedule. Yosuke says he doesn't have the power to help them, and in a manga page he says “I may be the manager’s son, but I’m still just an employee.” Yosuke is doing much more than the average part-timer, but he isn’t being given the responsibilities of a manager.

As for the Junes concert, Mr. Hanamura did not tell Yosuke he was going to be fired. Yosuke came to that conclusion himself. Mr. Hanumura did not ask Yosuke to find a solution or ask Rise for help. Yosuke only asked Rise for help because he was scared of moving again. I understand how the phrase “awfully nice for some reason” could come across as odd, but I don’t think he meant his dad isn’t usually nice. In the Persona 4 Manga that scene is translated as “My Dad’s been extra nice to me” meaning his dad is nice, he’s just being extra nice, and I’m not surprised. Yosuke was extremely unhappy when he moved to Inaba. Despite trying to hide his feelings, you can see in The Magician that he didn’t do a very good job of it. And now that Yosuke is finally happy, they might be forced to move again. Of course, Mr. Hanamura would feel guilty. Oftentimes, when people feel guilty, they start acting nicer - unnaturally so - to make themselves feel better. Chie (who is already very kind) even does it after she and Yukiko spend Yosuke’s money on clothes for Teddie. Yosuke notices the shift in her attitude and tells her that he’s worried. It’s the same reaction he had toward his dad’s behavior.

The only reason I bring up Chie is to show an in-game example of someone being overly nice due to guilt. What Chie did was wrong, that’s why she feels guilty. The reason Mr. Hanamura would feel guilty is his job may have to move his entire family again. The cause of their guilt is different, but they are responding the same way.

I don’t think Mrs. Hanamura not wanting her son to own porn is unreasonable. My mom doesn’t like magic, so I wasn’t allowed to read or watch Harry Potter growing up. Similarly, a friend of mine wasn’t allowed to watch iCarly. As for Mrs. Hanamura burning Yosuke’s porn in Arena, that’s the third time (that we know of) that she’s seen his porn. I assume she’s told him she doesn’t want him looking at pornography, but he continues to do so anyway. Burning his magazines may seem dramatic, but she was likely just frustrated that he kept disobeying her.

I don’t think Yosuke’s parents are the reason why Yosuke wants to be seen as manly. I haven’t seen anything that implies that. I think Yosuke’s desperation to be seen as a man comes from Japanese society and his fears regarding his sexuality.

Mr. Hanamura came up with this slogan because they were selling jinbei's which are traditionally worn by men. It’s a play on words. This isn’t the first time Mr. Hanamura has come up with a cringey slogan.

It seems Mr. Hanamura has that stereotypically “dad humor” which is typically associated with positive father figures (it’s not always). Yosuke saying his dad is still saying the “MANsoon” slogan gave me reminds of kids being like “Dad, that’s a bad joke, stop”, but the dad continuing to make his bad jokes regardless. It’s very Disney Channel and sit-com like.

I don’t remember Teddie saying he watches violent war movies with Mr. Hanamura, but I don’t see how that connects to the idea of Mr. Hanamura pushing Yosuke to be a “more masculine, traditional, unshakable, unemotional man.” The idea that only those types of men watch war movies is the type of thinking Kanji’s and Naoto’s shadows were trying to address. I don’t think Mr. Hanamura cares about being that type of stereotypical/traditional man because of his relationship with Teddie. Teddie is not very masculine (he even says so in Persona Q, screenshot will be later), and he isn’t hiding it.

This exchange is from Kanji’s Persona 4 Club Profile. Teddie went to the store to buy female clothing, and he asked Kanji to make him a dress (the one from the cross dressing pageant). He already owned his “Alice dress” before the cross dressing competition, and I assume he’s worn it. In Arena, you can see the dress is hung out in the open in their bedroom. He also wears hair clips.

This is not “masculine behavior” yet the Hanamuras don’t seem to have a problem with it. If anything, I’d say they’re pretty open-minded. If they disliked that way Teddie behaved, Teddie would change himself to fit the way they want him to be. I mean, the kid literally grew two new bodies in effort to get people to like him. Due to Teddie’s low self-esteem and need to be loved, he takes any sort of criticism to heart and does his best to act the way others want him too. In Persona Q, Yukari says he’d be cute if he was quiet, so Teddie stops talking.

In Persona Q, Teddie says he’s realized that to steal hearts he needs to be manly. He gets this realization from Koromaru. He did not think this prior.

Teddie saying Koromaru gave him this realization means the Hanmuras never said anything to him about his less masculine behavior.

As for the song lyrics you posted, I don’t really think that means anything. Yeah, people often relate to the music they listen to, but they don’t have to relate to every lyric or even song. My favorite artist is Taylor Swift, but I don’t really like romance. I don’t relate to most of her songs, but I still jam out to them. I could be super wrong about the song thing though because I’m not a huge music person.

My Own Additional Analysis (with some elements of response)

In this section I’m going to talk about Mr. and Mrs. Hanamura’s character and personality, their relationship with each other, Teddie, and Yosuke.

Let’s start off by talking about their personality. They seem to be very carefree people. Yosuke has less than average grades. In the Persona 4 Animation, he didn’t even show up to one of the exam days. Academics is extremely important in Japanese society, yet his parents don’t seem to be pushing him to get better grades. Considering how carefree Yosuke can be, it makes sense that he may have gotten that trait from his parents.

Yosuke’s family is pretty wealthy. It’s mentioned more than once. They also live in a pretty big house (you can see it in The Magician), Yosuke’s cell phone seems to be a newer model, and he has a large, flatscreen TV in his bedroom which wouldn’t be very common when the game took place. Despite this, Yosuke works for his own money. He complains about being broke and needing save up. I think the reason why Yosuke has a job despite being well-off is because his parents want him to have work experience and grow up to be a hardworking person, so he can succeed in life. It makes me think that hardwork is important to them.

Due to this conversation, I think Mr. Hanamura is a very honest man. Yosuke says he was surprised his dad was against selling gas masks, likely because from a business standpoint, that’s a really big missed opportunity. I think it’s also worth noting that ATLUS talks a lot about how people naturally fit into the masses, including the main characters. That’s why it’s surprising that his father is going against the masses. Although he’s losing money and has faced many hardships running Junes, Mr. Hanamura refused to do something that was against his moral compass.

In Persona 4 Drama CD #1, Junes is closing down half of the electronics section due to a lack of sales. Despite this taking place in March, Teddie panics and hopes to sell a TV set in a month in exchange for keeping the TV they enter the TV World through where it is.

Yosuke isn’t afraid to ask his dad two huge favors with a not very good reason (side note: Yosuke had to lie because the truth is that’s the TV he and his friends used to go into the TV world and fight shadows). Despite Yosuke’s best efforts, his father says no. He doesn’t really have any choice but to close part of the electronics floor. Junes is losing money by keeping it open. I think Mr. Hanamura gave him the vouchers because that’s the only other way he can help. Teddie made a deal that if he sells one TV set by the end of the month, they’ll keep the TV that leads to the TV world. He’s trying to advertise the TV set by promising other surprise items coming with it. These Junes vouchers are part of those surprise items.

It’s no secret that many of the shopping district families despise Junes and the Hanamuras. Many horrible things have been said about their family, yet Junes still teams up with the shopping district in the YasoInaba Case File to help keep them afloat. Whether or not this was Mr. Hanamura’s idea, he’s the one who has to approve it, and he does. Despite being treated horribly by them, he still wants to help the shopping district. Junes teaming up with shopping district might be a good business move, but they didn’t really need to do that. The problem is that Junes is taking away the shopping district’s business. Junes doesn’t need to team up with the shopping district to do well. The two of the teaming up benefits the shopping district way more than Junes. It doesn’t do much for Junes other than the shopping district maybe not hating them. At the end of the day, the shopping district families would still shop at the shopping district to keep their businesses afloat, so Junes isn’t getting a lot more business.

When Teddie came to the real world, Yosuke offered to take Teddie home with no hesitation. He didn’t think it would be a problem with his parents or show any concern about how he would convince them. I think this goes along with them being pretty carefree as well as showing that they’re kind and generous people. Not everyone is willing to take others in like that. Yosuke’s also comfortable with asking his parents such a huge favor.

Teddie talks about Yosuke’s parents in a really positive light, and I would say they treat him like their own son. For example, on January second Teddie says, “I got New Year’s gifts! Yosuke’s mom and dad gave them to me!” (edit: Someone said “notice how Yosuke doesn’t say the same thing.” He doesn’t need to. It’s Japense culture to give younger family members gifts for new Year’s. Yosuke saying something would be the equivalent of, “omg my parents gave me a birthday present!!” It would have been weirder if he did say something then. Teddie is excited because because this is his first New Year’s. He’s never experienced this before. Also, Yosuke did get New Year’s money. He talks about saving it on 1/10 when walking to school).

I think I remember Teddie saying he watches movies with Mrs. Hanamura, but I have no idea where he says that. There’s a 50/50 chance I made that up and convinced myself it was canon, so don’t take my word on that one.

Teddie breaks A LOT of rules at Junes. He steals topsicles, rode a handi mover through the store, slept on both a display bed and the floor of electronics department, been yelled at for eating samples, been chased by store security, and Yosuke had to monitor Teddie during his late night shift because they didn’t trust him to work alone. Teddie’s a terrible employee, yet he hasn’t been fired. I think the reason for this is he’s basically the manager’s son. I do want to say that just because they consider Teddie as their own child doesn’t mean they treat Yosuke as anything less. I haven’t seen a single thing that has implied that there is favoritism going on.

Yosuke and Teddie act a lot like brothers (Naoki even suspects that they're related), and Yosuke’s parents seem to treat Teddie like their own son. He even wears their family crest in offical art. I looks like ATLUS wnted the four of them to be a family. And If that’s the case, it wouldn’t make any sense for Mr. and Mrs. Hanamura to be bad parents.

Additionally, if Mr. and Mrs. Hanamura treated Yosuke badly, and Teddie noticed, I think Teddie would say something.

The second Yukari said something slightly mean about Yosuke, Teddie defended him. He doesn’t like when other people say mean things about Yosuke. Not to mention conflict really stresses him out. If Yosuke’s parents treated him badly, I there’s a chance Teddie might see the problem.

I think it’s also worth noting that Yosuke’s parents have a really healthy marriage.

This quote implies that they’re rarely apart and get along really well. A happy marriage doesn’t automatically equal a healthy household or good parents, but it really increases the likelihood.

For context, Yosuke is talking about Teddie in this picture. I’m not from Japan, so I don’t know if most families there eat breakfast together, but my family - despite being very close - does not. We all eat and start our day at different times. In my mind, eating breakfast together is a very domestic thing to do. Even the phrase “Hanamura family breakfast” screams domestic to me.

This conversation gives me the sense that Mr. Hanamura has a great deal of trust and respect for Yosuke. I mean, I don’t think he would accept Yosuke’s idea if he didn’t. Adding a kid’s menu would be pretty exspensive. Not only do they have to print the kid’s menu, but they have to design them, create new menu items, and depedning on what’s on the menu buy more food or ingredients. That adds up, and if it isn’t successful then they’ll lose money. Mr. Hanamura has to approve that idea, and he’s putting in trust that it’s going to be successful. Also, Yosuke is comfortable enough to “push really hard” for his idea.

All in all, it is my personal opinion that the Hanamurs are a really close family. It would make sense for ATLUS to go in that direction to create a contrast to the Narukami’s, after all. That being said, neither headcanon is wrong. It just comes down to how we interpret the very little information we’re given.

#yosuke hanamura #teddie persona 4 #persona 4 teddie #teddie #not a quote #analysis #persona 4 #p4 #Hanamura bros

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snowstark · 3 years

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pay attention.

by @moodystark and @snowstark

Summary: Five times Bucky uses Tony’s credit card and one time Tony uses Bucky.

AO3 LINK

for @buckybarnesbingo

Ever since Bucky Barnes had moved into the tower, he couldn't help but notice Tony Stark. Of course, it was expected to see the man considering it was his tower after all, but there was something about him that made Bucky want to know more.

Maybe it was the way Tony Stark was the most sarcastic person Bucky had ever met, or how the man clearly had no self-preservation. Either way, Bucky was hooked and he had a plan to get Tony to pay attention to him, quite literally.

It all started when Clint taught Bucky how to play Mario Kart. The communal living space had a few different gaming consoles that they all shared and the Switch was no different. However, Bucky decided that he wanted his own so he could play other games. Of course, he wasn't about to spend his own money on something so expensive so he went to Tony.

Walking to the lab, Bucky opened the door, not even questioning it when JARVIS let him in. "Hey Stark, will you buy me a Nintendo Switch?" he called, making his presence known.

Tony didn’t even look up from his work, too focused on the holographic screen in front of him. “Mhm, yep, go for it, big guy,” he called back, then had the audacity to kick Bucky out of his lab.

Not the response Bucky was looking for.

A week later, Bucky was sitting in his room playing Animal Crossing on his brand new Nintendo Switch when the second idea came to him. Asking Tony for the Switch hadn't gotten him the attention he wanted so he figured he would have to ask for something even more expensive. He was sure this would work.

Saving the game, Bucky made his way to the living room where everyone was watching some TV show he wasn't interested in. "Hey Tony, do you think you could get me a first edition copy of The Hobbit? It's expensive though," he asked.

At Bucky's question, a whole group of heads looked at him, with Steve asking just how much a book could possibly cost.

"A hundred...thousand," Bucky replied, rubbing the back of his head with his hand, keeping his eyes on Tony to see his reaction.

Tony shrugged. "If it means a lot to you, Barnes, go for it. I wipe my ass with a hundred thousand."

End of discussion.

Tony didn't miss the way Bucky not-so-subtly stomped off to god knew where. In response, he called it a day and headed down to his lab.

He snapped his fingers, sliding a screen away from him, and said, "J?”

"Yes, sir?"

"If Barnes buys anything interesting... I want you to tell me." That was probably a breach of privacy, but whatever. The guy was swiping his card like it was his birthday, so it was warranted.

"Obliged, sir."

Bucky was happy with his copy of The Hobbit, don't get him wrong, but he was feeling defeated. If a hundred grand didn't get Tony's attention, what would?

Over the next few weeks, he came up with a couple of different ways to make Iron Man notice him. First, he started out by no longer asking Tony for permission. Obviously, the man had more money than he knew what to do with, so Bucky figured he wouldn't even notice if some of it went missing.

He did feel bad spending Tony's money recklessly, but the Harley he purchased was well worth it. Besides, Tony didn't even flinch when he told him that he had used his card to buy it.

The next time he used Tony's card, Bucky decided to get a bit weird. Like, purchase a life-size cut-out of Iron Man kind of weird. In his search for the cut-out, he also managed to stumble upon a bunch of merch, so he added two t-shirts, sweatpants, a pair of boxers, and some socks to his cart, all embroidered with Iron Man on them.

There was no way Tony wouldn't pay attention to that purchase or Bucky when he wore the items around the tower. Plus, the boxers made his ass look good.

Tony laughed when he saw what Bucky was wearing for the first time. He patted Bucky's shoulder. "If you wanted a signature, sweetcheeks, you could've just asked."

It was adorable, really, how Tony was turning a blind eye to all of Bucky's efforts.

And evidently, frustrating.

And maybe—just maybe—seeing that flash of yearning flit across Bucky's face was what kept Tony going.

After months of trying to get Tony's attention, Bucky decided to make one last purchase. If this one didn't work then it would be clear the man wasn't interested and he would leave him alone.

The purchase wasn't just any purchase though. Bucky had decided to look at spanking paddles, scrolling through multiple websites to find one he felt would get Tony's attention.

Finally, he came across one that was perfect.

An expensive red leather paddle with the word "Mine" engraved into the leather. It wasn't the kind of paddle where the words were marked into the skin with each spank, but Bucky figured the phrase alone was good enough.

All of the Stark Pads had Tony's bank account information attached and so, with no hesitation, he hit "purchase," not even bothering to ask JARVIS.

Tony had been alerted to his purchase immediately. He expected Bucky to buy a few interesting things but he hadn't expected this.

He had been working in the lab when JARVIS told him: "Sir, Mr. Barnes has made a purchase that I have deemed interesting."

"And what would that be, J?"

Tony grinned, expecting it to be something harmless like another book, but boy, was he wrong.

"It appears he has purchased a spanking paddle made of leather, Sir."

Tony's grin fell off of his face, a groan making its way out of his mouth. "A spanking paddle, really Barnes?" he wondered out loud.

"There's something else you should know, Sir. The paddle has the word "Mine" engraved into it."

Bucky Barnes was trying to kill him.

__________

For a few days, there was only radio silence from Tony, and certainly no sight of him. That was disappointing. Bucky had thought the last purchase would've earned him some well-deserved attention. And, well, he supposed there was no more to it now. If Tony had gotten the hint, he would've come to see him about his latest purchase for sure.

That was until Bucky came back to the Tower with a Starbucks drink in his hand to see Tony waiting for him.

Tony flashed him a grin. "Hey, soldier. Good walk?"

A mute nod from Bucky, but his heartbeat picked up.

Tony sauntered forward, hands clasped behind his back. He tilted his head, appraising the man in front of him for a few moments, then drew out the very paddle Bucky had ordered a few days ago from behind himself.

Bucky froze.

Tony smirked.

He looked down at the object in his hands, turning it over to expose the word MINE. "Very nice choice," he commented lightly. "You have good taste."

Sputtering, Bucky was silent for a moment before speaking. "Yeah well, didn't think you cared for it much," he grumbled. He felt like a child standing there in front of the man he had worked so hard to gain the affection of. So sue him if he was a little grumpy about the whole situation.

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, so now you're giving me an attitude?" He shook his head, chuckling. "Look, Barnes. What do you want from me, huh?" He flipped the paddle over in his hand, then stepped closer to Bucky, tilting his head. "I can't know if you don't tell me."

"It doesn't matter, Stark. It's obvious you aren't interested," Bucky replied, starting the walk toward the elevator that led up to the Avenger's floors.

“Like hell, it doesn't matter." Tony yanked Bucky back by his shoulder and held the paddle out. "Tell me what this says."

Bucky paused, staring down at the paddle even though he knew exactly what it said. "It says "Mine."

Tony leaned closer. "Now tell me what it means."

"I want to be yours, if you'll have me," Bucky spoke softly, swirling around the straw in his cup.

“I said, tell me what it means.” Tony stared Bucky down.

"It means I'm yours and I-I want you to spank me… Sir," Bucky stuttered, tacking on the last part.

"That's what I thought." Tony quirked a brow. "So then where the hell do you think you're going? I mean, you used my card to buy this, and you're not even gonna let me try it out? What a waste of money."

“Up to your room?” Bucky asked hopefully. He was beginning to think he had this all wrong and Tony was just mad that he had bought the paddle using his card.

Tony grinned, and it was shark-like and hungry. “Bingo.”

It took them about 0.5 seconds to make their way to Tony’s floor, and the moment they stepped out of the elevator, Tony snapped his fingers and pointed.

“Get over the arm of the couch,” he ordered, twirling the paddle in his hands. “Time to pay your debt, sweetcheeks.”

Bucky let out a laugh before following Tony's instructions, bending over the arm of the couch. He wasn't nervous about the man using the paddle on him—Bucky could handle pain. He was more excited than anything else, finally, he was getting the attention he had been craving.

"Greedy," Tony muttered under his breath, then slapped the paddle against his palm, making Bucky jump—which, good.

Bucky's lips parted in a silent gasp of surprise when Tony laid down a smack without warning, making heat bloom in his cheek.

Tony grinned. "What, you like that?"

"Wouldn't have bought it if I didn't like it, doll," he replied cheekily, feeling more secure of himself now that it was actually happening.

Tony paused. "What'd you just call me?"

Bucky frowned, turning his head to face Tony. "I'm sorry, do you not like that pet name? I won't call you it again."

Tony stared back at him, then said softly, “Wrong name, pal. I’m not doll. I’m Daddy.”

Bucky shivered at that.

Calling Tony Daddy? Yeah, he could do that.

"Yes, Daddy."

"There you go." Tony felt a rush of satisfaction at that, and he rewarded Bucky silently with a small whack of the paddle that he knew had to be louder than painful. "You know, it's not my first time paddling a brat."

"Not a brat," Bucky mumbled, blushing lightly.

“No?” Tony’s eyebrows shot up, and he landed another crack, hard enough for Bucky to really feel it this time. “That’s not why you bought ridiculously expensive items on my card, huh?” Crack. “Not why you tried to goad me into doing this.” Crack! “I mean, was it worth it? Are you pleased with yourself?”

"I-I'm sorry Daddy. I just wanted y-your attention," Bucky gasped, whining each time the paddle made contact with his backside. The description for the paddle had been accurate when it said it would sting.

"Yeah? Are you enjoying it now? Because you definitely have my full attention." Tony paused, then ordered, "Get your pants and boxers off. I wanna see how red your ass is."

Bucky made quick work pulling down his pants and boxers, letting out a little laugh when he realized he was wearing the Iron Man boxers. A little shiver went through his body once his ass was exposed to the cold air in the room.

Although Tony had gotten a few decent swats in, Bucky's cheeks were only slightly colored, his jeans taking the brunt of the spankings. If this was how it felt to get the man's attention, Bucky was more than happy to continue his antics.

"Brat," Tony muttered under his breath. He rested the paddle on Bucky's left ass cheek, then pinched his right one, hard. "You're not learning a single thing, are you?"

Bucky yelped at the pinch. "I don't know. Maybe you should spank me again just in case," he sassed, wiggling his ass teasingly.

"Maybe I should," Tony agreed. He brought the paddle down in a harsh swing, the crack echoing throughout the room. "Maybe I should paddle your ass red until you're crying and your voice is raw from begging me to stop. Maybe I should paddle you to make sure that you learn some fucking manners. Or maybe I shouldn't paddle you at all, because that would just be rewarding your bad behavior."

"W-Whatever you want, Daddy. I'll be good," Bucky promised, focusing on the warm heat radiating throughout his ass.

“I know,” Tony purred. “I know you are. Gotta pay me back somehow.” He paused and rested the paddle on Bucky’s ass. “You ever done this before, Barnes? I mean, don’t we need like, a... safeword, or something?”

“The 1930s were kinkier than people expect,” Bucky commented before pausing to think. “Safewords are important. Mine is Brooklyn. Have you ever done something like this?”

“Yup,” Tony said shortly. “We’ll both stick with Brooklyn. Easier that way.” With that discussion done, he brought the paddle back down. “I’m gonna paddle you until your ass is red and you’re crying your throat raw for forgiveness.”

Bucky wanted that more than anything. “Please, Daddy?” he whined, pushing his ass against the paddle.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Tony snarked. “And because you deserve it.”

That was the last thing he said before properly getting into it, kicking Bucky’s legs apart before widening his own stance.

Bringing the paddle down over and over again onto Bucky’s ass brought a loud crack that resonated throughout the entire room. He kept going until Bucky’s ass was red, and he didn’t miss the way his cock was starting to chub up.

He snorted and rested the paddle on Bucky’s ass. “Look at you, getting off on this. Who would’ve thought? The big, bad soldier, about to blow his load because he’s getting his ass beat.”

"Daddy," Bucky whimpered, digging his fingers into the couch. Not only did he have a thing for spanking but he had a thing for humiliation and degradation as well. The combination of the two was almost enough to send him over the edge, especially when it was Tony fulfilling his kinks.

Taking a deep breath, he worked to stave off his orgasm, not wanting to embarrass himself further by coming so quickly and untouched.

Unfortunately for Bucky, Tony quickly realized exactly what he was doing, and made it his goal to get Bucky off, because he said with a grin evident in his tone, “I bet you could even come untouched from this.”

He laughed when Bucky let out a small, low whimper, and crack went the paddle. “See? I knew it. God, you’re so fucking filthy, Barnes. Daddy’s gonna make you come, right fucking now.”

Bucky let out a loud moan at that, digging his fingers into the couch even harder as he pushed over the edge into the white-heat of orgasm. His cock twitching, releasing his load onto the side of the couch.

He hadn't come like that in a long time and couldn't recall a time where he had come untouched. Breathing hard, he slumped forward, resting his entire weight on the furniture.

“Well, would you look at that?” Tony sounded simultaneously fascinated and turned on.

Bucky turned his head to watch and flushed when Tony ran his fingers through his come before bringing it up to his mouth, sucking obscenely.

He grinned when he caught Bucky staring. “What? I’m cleaning up your mess.”

Fuck.

Bucky groaned, running his hands down his face. "Fucking hell, Stark. You tryin’ to kill me?" he asked, pulling his boxers back up, hissing at the feeling of the tight fabric over his ass.

"What happened to Daddy?" Tony retorted, then ran three of his fingers through the mess again and held it out to Bucky, sending a shudder through his entire body from head to toe. "Now it's your turn. I can only do so much for you when you’re the one who made the mess, honey."

Bucky happily took the three fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean, all while maintaining eye contact with Tony. Releasing them with a pop, Bucky leaned in closer to Tony before whispering in his ear.

"Thank you, Daddy."

Tony's lips parted in a silent groan, and he closed his eyes momentarily before looking at Bucky. "I think we've done things a bit backward, soldier. What d'you say to being treated to dinner by me?" He raised an eyebrow. "Italian sound good?"

"Sounds perfect, although I'm sure I'd eat anything you suggested," Bucky commented playfully.

At Tony's eye-roll, Bucky looked around the room, smirking when he noticed his metal arm had torn the fabric in the height of his orgasm. “Hey Daddy, can I use your card to buy a new couch?”

#winteriron #tony/bucky #tony x bucky #buckybarnesbingo2021 #bucky barnes #tony stark #buckytony #tonybucky #my fics #van 💗💗#dom!tony #sub!bucky

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mocha-sim · 4 years

Text

i feel like writing out more headcanons so here goes

(long post warning)

Megami

She’s struggling to find something she’s not naturally good at just to feel the sense of learning and improving

She enjoys the respect and admiration of other students but wishes they wouldn’t fear her so much

Aoi has been her best friend since they were little and is very protective of her

Initially she isn’t attracted to Taro and just wants to protect him from Ayano, but starts to fall for him both over shared interests and over the fact that he’s one of the only people to see her as a person instead of some higher being

That one friend who’s always ready for the camera, even when she’s not

She has an interest in engineering and likes to study it in what little free time she gets

After she becomes CEO she makes an attempt to repair her relationship with her brother by offering him a position in the company. He refuses, runs off with his share of the inheritance money and then sends multiple assassins after her

Taro

He reads all kinds of books but his favourite genre is psychological horror

He also likes cheesy romance novels. Hanako and Taeko like to tease him about it

Taeko is his twin sister who didn’t make it into Akademi and attends a different school. He and Hanako are much closer and though she’s never spoken up about it, she always feels left out

He has suspicions that someone is stalking him but doesn’t have any evidence and doesn’t want to sound crazy/paranoid

By the time week 10 rolls around he’s 100% sure that he’s being stalked and sits awake in his bed at night, watching the window, chugging caffeine to stay awake with a baseball bat by his side

If the weather is bad he’ll go and read in the library. He’s good friends with Kuu

Budo is like a brother to him and is usually the first person he talks to about his problems. (Hanako is very important to him but she always overreacts)

Shiromi

Her family is the most important thing to her and insulting them is one of the few things that can genuinely piss her off

She had an occult phase and got super into doing tarot cards/palm readings. She’s still interested in it but not enough to consider joining the occult club

Being Kaga’s half-sister means that she spends a lot of time around the science club members. She hangs out with Homu and Meka on weekends

The three of them grow the closest in their third year after the other science club and student council members have graduated

Her whole mentality is “life’s too short”, which is why she acts the way she does and is always looking for something new or interesting. She got it from her parents

She loves candy and is always on the hunt for a type she hasn’t tried before

She’s good with kids, partially because she babysits for families in her area a lot

Very very social and extroverted, but she has a hard time reading social cues sometimes and her lack of expression is off-putting to a lot of people

One of the shortest students in school, but she doesn’t let it get to her

Aoi

She places a lot of her self-worth on her physical ability, which is why someone beating her in a fight would leave scars not only physically but emotionally as well

She sees people who are aggressive or willing to do amoral things as a necessity to stopping troublemakers and criminals

She’s into heavy metal

Last year she spent pretty much all her time around Megami or by herself. She almost joined the sports club but couldn’t stand any of the other club members

She has trouble making friends and feels sort of lost and alone after Megami goes away for nine weeks

Shiromi is the only council member who made an effort to talk to her and one of the few students who was never afraid of her

One day Budo just came up and started talking to her. Now they’re friends. When anyone asks how they became friends Aoi replies with “he just kinda never went away”

Secretly afraid of heights but would never admit it

She can’t flirt at all but Megami is always trying to act as her wingman when she shows interest in a girl

Akane

She squints because she can’t stand the cheap fluorescent lights and who can blame her

Still has stuffed animals and isn’t ashamed of it

i’m just going to say it: i hate the idea of her secretly being an “eeevil” edgelord character but i do want her to have more depth than just “the cute nice one”

She’s a genuinely good person who struggles with bad/violent thoughts but pushes back against them. She sometimes worries that these thoughts make her irredeemably evil and feels guilty for them

Kuroko and Shiromi are both protective of her and she thinks it’s the sweetest. Kuroko has noodle arms and Shiromi weighs maybe 90 pounds soaking wet, but it’s the thought that counts

She’s afraid of Aoi and tries to avoid her

She likes to make jewelry and made friendship bracelets for the other council members. Shiromi wears hers openly and proudly, and Kuroko wears hers under her sleeve

She won’t outright say that she has a favourite among her admirers, but it’s Daku simply because he doesn’t get into fights over her like the others

Kuroko

She’s extremely focused on living up to her rich and successful parents

Her family puts a lot of pressure on her to be constantly working or studying, which left her with little to no social life before Akane and Shiromi came into the picture

She thinks that the only reason Aoi made it onto the council is because of her close relationship with Megami

Akane got her into a band she likes and now Kuroko listens to their music when studying

She likes reptiles and has a pet snake

Her sleep schedule is fucked beyond repair

She has trouble outwardly expressing emotions because of her upbringing and sees it as a sign of weakness

After finding out that Shiromi’s parents give her so much independence, she took it upon herself to watch over Shiromi and keep her out of trouble. She sees Shiromi’s parents as failures who can’t care for their child properly

Akane is the only other member of the council she really respects as a fellow adult. She’s also the only one Kuroko will confide in

Info

Her real name is Ayame Yoshida

Outwardly she thinks of her father (the journalist) as a loser who can’t support his daughter or himself, and doesn’t deserve a thing from her

Inwardly she still loves him and leaves him a share of her money for food and to pay the bills, but since she feels she can’t rely on him she’s built up walls and doesn’t really communicate with him

She used to be friends/partners in crime with Shiromi in middle school, until Info “disappeared” sometime during her last year

When she found out Shiromi was attending Akademi she offered money if she would lend her skills to Info’s work, but Shiromi refused

She has some anger issues

Also sort of a god complex

She secretly likes to play video games on the computers when she’s not doing her work

Outside of mission mode she still operates an assassination business which extends far outside of Akademi and even outside of Buraza. Ayano just isn’t one of her assassins

Kaga

He does want to take over Saikou Corp, but he also has genuine feelings for Megami and wants to impress her

He just doesn’t understand exactly how to go about pursuing her and messes it up a lot

Yaku and Horo are good friends of his, Homu is ok with him, and Meka straight-up hates him

His mother re-married after divorcing his father and had a daughter with her new husband. He sometimes feels like he’s not really part of the family and that his parents love his half-sister more

He used to have pet rats. Now he has pet mutant rats that his parents made him promise to never ever show to the public

Sometimes he takes apart others’ stuff without asking them first. He once dismantled Akane’s bike while she was over for a sleepover with Shiromi. Akane cried and Kuroko yelled at him

He hates cats because of a past experiment involving a cat gone wrong. It looked something like the Cats movie

Yaku and Horo respect his dedication to science but really want to get him outside more

The Aishi Twins

Ayano joined the student council and Yanagi (Yan-kun) joined the art club

The two of them haven’t exactly gotten along since they were kids, but they tolerate each other

Ayano can’t stand Megami or Aoi and treats both of them with a sort of cold faux-politeness. Megami does the same to her. Aoi will snap at her any chance she gets

Yanagi, being the second child born, doesn’t suffer from the Aishi curse but being brought up in a house with Ayano and Ryoba still fucks him up. He doesn’t really see any value in the lives or well-being of others

Ayano kills, kidnaps, and tortures to meet her goals. Yanagi does it for the thrill

While Ayano is interested in Taro, Yanagi doesn’t have a specific person as his goal and does whatever he feels like at the time

Neither one of them ever meets Taeko face-to-face, but if they did Ayano would take an interest in her as well since she’s Taro’s twin

Outside of using the art club as a front for his “hobbies”, Yanagi is genuinely a pretty good painter. He has a similar vision to Borupen and is the only one he really gets along with

#yandere simulator #yansim #megami saikou #taro yamada #shiromi torayoshi #aoi ryugoku #akane toriyasu #kuroko kamenaga #info chan #info-chan #kaga kusha #ayano aishi #yandere kun #yanagi aishi

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dessiekarma · 4 years

Text

My Harem is Entirely Bad Boy Types (Kirisaki Daiichi x Reader) Pt. 9

Chapter 9: Finally Seto’s Getting His Allotted Chapter with the Protagonist! All the Other Guys Got Their’s!

“Do you really think it’s her?” Hara asked pushing the phone Furuhashi, who was scrutinizing it just as heavily.

“It looks like her but you know…really different.” Seto said zooming in on his own phone.

“Do you think she’s seen it? Is that why she’s not at practice this morning?” Hara said before answering his own question. “I’m pretty sure this was sent to everyone at Kirisaki Daiichi and then some.”

“Well that proves it then doesn’t it?” Yamazaki sounding angry. “We spend all that fucking time defending her and for what if it was all true?”

“We don’t know that it’s all true.” Seto urged halfheartedly.

“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one! Remember what that lady said about her not being a good girl and how she even agreed she wasn’t always a good person? Then the fact that this mystery thing went down in middle school that she never tells us about. Or the mystery Touou thing that she also never told us about. Top it all off with this picture of her from her first year and its kinda obvious that Mei wasn’t lying!”

Yamazaki had been stewing in these feelings ever since the day he walked her home. He found it hard to see her the way he once had. He’d thought maybe she was different but her confirmation and the new evidence blasted around the school proved she was the same as everyone else. The same as Mei, the same as all those other girls who threw themselves at Hara…maybe even worse.

The evidence in question was a picture of (Y/N) sitting on the train with one tan legged crossed over the other. Her skirt was too short to pass school uniform regulations and her sweater baggily hanging off her shoulder. Her hair was a golden honey colour accented by big glossy lips and way more cleavage than most people would find acceptable.

To top it off she was leaning her head against the shoulder of a much older man in a suit. Even with all assumptions aside it was pretty clear to all of them that this was a compensated date.

“Okay so what if she wasn’t lying? I guess it all makes sense with what she said about (Y/N)’s ‘hobby’ but what does it matter?” Seto asked running his hand threw his hair. “She knew she was good looking so she spent some time with old perverts for money. I mean the only reason most girl here don’t do it is because they already have money.”

“And she does too, clearly! So, what reason would she have to be doing this kinda thing?”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen the way salary men go all out for a young girl’s attention. They devote a lot of time and effort to it. Can’t say it wouldn’t be nice for a milf to fawn over me like that.” Hara gave a shrug and chewed his gum more intensely.

“You know most of those types of guys are married right?!”

“Yeah so what? It’s a man’s job to be faithful to his wife, not the other woman’s.” Furuhashi offered.

“Oh of course you would have that opinion.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying it’s pretty convenient that the ENGAGED guy in the group is trying to justify cheating.”

“Just the way it’s convenient of you to suddenly side with your bitch of an ex after realizing your perfect little payback wasn’t what you expected. I know Mei still has you licking her boots but don’t take it out on our manager.”

Yamazaki looked as if he would have something to say in return but he only grit his teeth and slumped into the bleachers.

“Besides a girl as cute as (Y/N), no way she would have to have done more than flirt for money. I mean not that I care what she did or didn’t do. I’m just saying sometimes those paid dates are pretty vanilla. Men just want to be seen with cute girls on their arm.”

~~~~~

“What? Are you making fun of me, Seto?” (Y/N) said looking totally heartbroken.

The young man sputtered and choked on his words realizing exactly what the hell this sounded like. When (Y/N) hadn’t shown up to school yesterday and today he knew the only way he would get to ask what he’d been meaning to was to go to her place.

He would have thought with the amount of times he rehearsed how he was gonna say it and with everything going on, that he would have caught his mistake.

I have this thing that I need to be bring a date to. I was wondering if you could be my girlfriend for the day. I’ll even pay you!

Stupid stupid stupid.

“What I meant to say is I told my brother and the outfit. You owe me a favour but it’s a lot. So I can give something else. Ya know the Seirin and shit I can’t breathe.”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes slightly but smiled and shook her head softly.

“Come in.”

“To your house! But you said you live alone.”

“So, what? Furuhashi and Yamazaki have stayed over plenty of times.”

Seto wanted to pry on that but didn’t want to come across as accusatory. Walking into the guest house he was greeted with a slightly messy but overall welcoming space. Watching her gesture to the couch, the tall male took a seat and tried to get his thoughts in order.

“Do you want something? A water, soda, juice?...Espresso?”

“Plain coffee would be nice.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.”

Seto nodded and watched her disappear from his peripherals. Looking around the room he was surprised with how humble everything looked but thinking it over he shouldn’t have been too surprised. (Y/N) was a surprisingly humble girl for apparently living a lavish lifestyle.

A chuckle almost left Seto’s lips as he noticed several anime figures on various shelves. That was more like what he was expecting. Curious, he got up to take a closer look at the stuff decorating her living room.

In particular one shelf held several framed pictures. The largest made a smile come to his face. (Y/N) appeared to be no more than 3 or 4 years old. She was holding her fingers up into a peace sign, hugging a huge stuffed Pikachu tightly.

The picture right next to it however made his heart feel heavy. (Y/N) was probably eight years old in this one. She was hugging a little boy about the same age who was lifting up a baby girl. Everyone was smiling brightly in the picture but none more than a frail woman sitting in a wheelchair behind them.

They were clearly in a hospital and the woman was very clearly the reason they were there. Thinking about it, thought (Y/N) always referred to her parents as a unit making it sound like they were both around…her mother was hardly mentioned on her own. Everything was always about her dad and maybe this was why.

“Being nosy?” The young girl said coming up behind him with a hot cup of coffee.

“It’s not being nosy if the stuff is on display. You were a cute kid, these your brother and sister?” Seto asked hoping more for an explanation of the woman in the picture.

“My cousins. So, did I give you enough time to calm down and tell me what you came here for?”

“Actually yes. (Y/N) I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was making fun of your situation.”

“But you do know about it?”

“I’ve seen the picture yeah.”

“I don’t know why I even let it get to me so bad. It’s a really old picture! Once I started dating my ex, I stopped going on paid dates.”

“It’s really not my business. You’re still the same person to me.”

(Y/N) smiled up at Seto’s genuine words.

“Well now for what event am I playing your girlfriend?”

“Ugh I really wish I hadn’t worded it like that. Look remember the whole Seirin interview shit, I told you I would cash in the favour later. Well I’m cashing in big time. My brother is debuting in this K-pop group and it’ really important to him that I go to his banquet. My mother was making this huge deal about me not being able to find a date so I lied and said you were my girlfriend.”

. . .

“Your brother’s in a K-pop group? You didn’t bring that up when you told me your parents were celebrities!”

“Look I’ve lived my whole life with people talking about my brother forgive me for not wanting to give one more person a reason to gush.”

“Fair enough. So this thing is black tie?”

“Wait…you’re actually gonna do it?”

“Yes.”

“But I thought. I just figured this was kinda gonna be a big thing to ask for. Like I know you owe me a favour but I figured I was gonna still have to throw in some other incentive here.”

“Huh why?”

“Well because you’re just you and look at me. I don’t know…have you ever dated a guy like me?”

(Y/N) seemed to be thinking it over in her mind for a bit.

“No, my ex was kind of an airhead and I was never in a serious relationship before that. So, I guess you could say I never really dated a smart guy!”

“That’s not what I meant.” In his own opinion (Y/N) was a solid eight on a regular day and could easily be a ten when she fixed herself up. But he at best was a five in the right lighting.

“You’ve done a lot for me and the team. You tend to be the voice of reason. Plus you sang with me when I was trying to get comfortable at KiriDai. I think I can help you be comfortable at your family’s dinner party.”

“Ughh are you sure? I mean I know I was the one who asked but I just…I feel kind selfish now asking you to do this when I know you got a lot going on right now.”

“Ehh I see it as a good distraction. The guys heard of everything going on, I assume?”

Seto’s mind instantly went to Yamazaki’s weird bitch fit but decided to not worry (Y/N) about it for the weekend.

“Yeah, I mean we are wondering what’s going on but you don’t really have to explain anything to us.”

“It’s not an exciting story or anything. I was both rebelling and needed the money. It wasn’t some costume in the picture…I was really like that back then.”

“Still people shouldn’t judge you by your appearance.”

“I was a pretty big bitch back in the day, too. You know that guy I beat the shit out of in the cafeteria? Yeah that used to happen on a daily basis. Sometimes to people who were talking about me but sometimes to people who even looked at me wrong. I drank, smoked, slept around, stole some boyfriends, all the kind of things you’d expect that cliché to do. I guess there’s no point hiding what a piece of shit person I used to be.”

“Well in my opinion…good people do bad things.”

(Y/N) cocked her head to the side questioningly before smiling widely.

“So where is your brother’s party going to be at?”

“Ummm Okinawa.”

“OKINAWA! How long do I have to prepare?”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“…I change my mind you do owe me.”

“That’s fair what do you want?”

“I was just about to watch this anime. Watch it with me?”

“You want me to watch anime with you?” Seto asked raising a brow. He’d seen like two episodes of pokemon when he was younger. “I guess. What’s it about?”

“Don’t worry about it! Just umm are you a sentimental person?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh good, then you can console me when I’m crying my eyes out.”

~~~~~

“Heh not sentimental my ass. Your eyes are still looking puffy from yesterday.” (Y/N) snorted as she fixed her hair in her compact mirror.

“They are puffy because I was asleep on the flight! And I already have ugly narrow eyes to begin with.”

“You were crying harder than I was!”

“You’d seen it before! She disappeared and I wasn’t prepared for it!”

“Sure sure. Also, I didn’t miss that self-deprecation. I like your eye shape, it’s alluring.”

“What?! Shut up.”

“Seriously, it’s like constant bedroom eyes. Society is just too on the hype train for big wide bright eyes when narrow sleepy eyes can look just as good.”

“Can you really talk about society pressure when you work for New Face? Those models are caked in makeup. The company name literally implies you need a different face.”

“Why do you think I only ever use Me But Better? You can enhance what you got instead of thinking you NEED to change everything you already have. I work for New Face because I have to, not because I agree with their ideals.”

“I guess. Oh shit here we are.” Set ran a hand through his hair for what was probably the hundredth time. “Fuck I’m nervous. Okay so you remember everything we talked about so that our stories match up?”

“Yes yes. We met at basketball, not a lie. We’ve known each other for almost a year, not a lie. I gave you chocolates for Valentine’s Day, not a lie. You thought I was beautiful and asked me out.”

“Not a lie.”

“What?!”

“I did ask you to be my date, here didn’t I?”

“I guess but you didn’t have to say it like that!” (Y/N) stuttered out.

Seto smiled. He was surprised and amazed that someone like (Y/N) who described her past the way she did could get so easily flustered. It just sort of confirmed what he already believed, that she was pure of heart…a good person who’d done bad things.

“Aren’t you gonna open my door?” (Y/N) said knocking her scarf covered cast into the car handle.

“Oh fuck you’re right. My dad would disown me if I wasn’t the perfect gentleman.”

With that (Y/N) stepped out of the limo and took Seto’s arm. Instantly he was cursing himself for asking her to do this. It didn’t look right. He always came to these things alone and then to just show up with this gorgeous girl. It had “I flaunt my money to get dates” written all over it.

“Don’t be so tense. Everything is going to be fine.” (Y/N) whispered giving him a reassuring smile.

With a deep breath the two walked into the building. Instantly both felt overwhelmed. (Y/N) by the sheer number of celebrities and important people. Seto by his brother’s eyes instantly meeting his and perking up.

“Was he waiting for me? Brace yourself.” Seto whispered just in time as his older brother came barreling through the crowd. His eyes were big and lit up like a child meeting his new puppy for the first time.

“Little bro! Is this her?! Wow it is, isn’t it! She’s gorgeous! Hey how much of the family inheritance did you give her? Just kidding! So what’s your name!?”

“Forgive my older brother he is going for the hyperactive quirky member of his group. The type that very closely verge on annoying. Joo-won this is (Y/N), my girlfriend.”

“Annoying!? You’re so mean!”

(Y/N) was shocked by the banter between the two males. First of all, Seto’s brother was one of the prettiest men she had ever seen. More masculine than Reo’s feminine beauty but softer than Aomine’s rugged handsome face. On another note she was surprised by how well the two brothers got along and how much they seemed to genuinely care about the other, despite the jabs.

She had unfairly made a few judgements on Seto’s brother based on the few things she’s heard.

“Mom and dad are gonna be so excited!”

“About what, son? Oh my, Ken! I hadn’t realized you arrived already. You were supposed to text us the moment your plane landed. I trust the limo driver found you anyhow.”

(Y/N) was utterly starstruck yet again. Seto’s dad was 100% dilf material, straight daddy born of your deepest fantasies. He had told her that his dad was a pretty famous Japanese actor back in the day but she didn’t realize she was gonna be spending her night watching every movie he’d ever been in. And when he locked eyes with her she was sure she would die.

“Oh my goodness Joo-won, where did you find this beauty?”

“You know mom said I wasn’t allowed to bring a date! She said it would make potential fans think I’m taken.”

“Then perhaps she would like to be my date.”

“Actually Seto-san, I am Kentaro’s date! It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

“(Y/N), this is my father Kenjiro Seto. Dad this is my girlfriend.”

Mr. Seto appeared taken aback for a moment and looked at his youngest son, who timidly wrapped an arm around (Y/N)’s waist and pulled her to him.

“When my wife and son told me our little one had a girlfriend, I didn’t expect someone so radiant!”

“Did you expect me to show up with a tanuki in a dress?” Kentaro mumbled angrily.

“Don’t take it personal son. You just never showed much interest in dating and the dates we sent you on never went well. We were beginning to entertain the thought that perhaps ladies weren’t your type. But that would have only been much harder. Men who enjoy the company of other men are held to a higher standard.”

(Y/N) found herself frowning at that underhanded remark. She made a point to lean her head on her teammate’s shoulder and lace her fingers through his.

“You seem so picky, Ken-chan. I suppose I’m lucky, I caught your attention at all.”

Joo-won and his father looked at each other in disbelief. She sounded so genuine in her words and seemed so comfortable with him. As much as Joo-won wanted this to work for his brother and wished him all the happiness in the world he couldn’t help but worry this girl was after something other than his brother’s love. And he didn’t know if he could stand to see another woman tear him down.

“My baby! There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Some people wanted to meet and speak with you.” (Y/N) felt her hand suddenly gripped harder. “Kentaro, I didn’t know you had arrived yet. So glad you made it here without a fuss. Though we would have appreciated you accompanying us to Korea to see your brother’s official debut with his group.”

“I don’t need to be there for the whole group. I’m here because this is for him. Besides I had school yesterday.”

“Ever the studious one. Good it will serve you well to be able to start a company or some other thing to support yourself. Oh and who is this?”

“Mother this is my girlfriend, (Y/N). (Y/N) I’d like you to meet my mother, Young-Mi Seto.”

Consider (Y/N) intimidated. How the hell would anyone be okay being surrounded by a family of Greek gods. They were so attractive she was beginning to feel just a tad insecure. Honestly Kentaro might have had a better fit asking Reo to be his date!

“I’m very thankful to have the chance to meet the whole family. I promise I am being very good to Kentaro, as he has been with me.”

“I can see that. What a beautiful dress! It’s Zuhair Murad, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is actually! Thank you!”

“You must have very expensive tastes.” The woman said with a not so subtle up and down glance at her son.

“Not at all. This was actually thrifted.”

“Humble…cute. Come along Joo-won, Kenjiro, we have an interview to give!”

(Y/N) watched as the three walked off. Turning to her date she could see his jaw was clenched. If his parents were making these sorts of comments in front of his significant other…she couldn’t imagine what the rest of his life had been like.

With their wide eyes and ivory porcelain skin, it was clear her teammate was the odd man out in the family. Finally, all of his self-deprecation made sense.

Reaching a hand up she placed it gently on his cheek caressing his gorgeously sculpted cheek bone. She felt him tense again and thought he would jerk away from her. To her surprise he turned into her touch and placed his hand over her own.

As if it came naturally to him, he brought his lips to her hand and kissed her palm. (Y/N) felt a light rose colour dust her cheeks and smiled.

From a distance the boy’s father watched the interaction before turning away.

~~~~~

“What do you mean, it was a simple error!?” Kentaro rolled his eyes as his mother went off on the catering staff. “I specifically said nothing citrus. My baby is allergic to citrus and it was a simple task. Keep oranges, grapefruits and LEMONS off the menu!”

“Bmom ithhs okay. Really I can breathhe juthht fine!” Joo-won said around his swelling tongue.

(Y/N) scurried in with a cup of ice cubes and handed them to the grateful male who proceeded to pop several in his mouth.

“No, it’s not fine! You are fired!” The woman yelled pointing an accusatory finger at the waitstaff. “And you…oh my poor baby. We can’t have you perform for you guests like this. However, they are expecting some form of entertainment. Perhaps I can go up and sing one of my old-”

“Assthhk Ken! He can sthing sthhho good bmom!” Joo-won said pointing at his brother excitedly.

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about.” Kentaro said giving his brother a clear ‘stfu’ look.

“Yeah I alwayths hear you sthing in your room when you think no one can hear! And I thaw that video of you sthinging with your girlfriend! Ohhhhh you guyths can do a duet! It would be thuper cute and an easthy way to introduth her to everyone!”

“Ohh Joo-won I don’t think they want t-”

“That’s an amazing idea!” Seto’s father spoke up with a grin. “Come on Young-Mi, don’t you think we should take some time to show off our youngest boy?”

“No, I’m perfectly content being the disappointment child.” Kentaro said slinging his arms around (Y/N)’s shoulders and resting his chin on her head.

His father frowned at that comment while his mother only continued to fume as she thought of alternative ideas. Finally the woman threw her hands up in defeat.

“You and your girlfriend have to be ready in 20 minutes!” The woman said firmly before walking out the door, back into the party.

“No! We don’t want to do it!” Kentaro turned to his brother and father raging. “What the hell guys!? You didn’t even ask me! Let alone my girlfriend! What if she has stage fright!?”

“You will do just fine son. Go on think of a song and practice while you still got time.” The older male quickly sauntered after his wife.

Joo-won simply gave his brother a smile and small shrug.

“You don’t have to do this (Y/N). I’m so sorry I got you dragged into my family bullshit.”

“Hey, I came in here with the ride or die mentality. So, what are we gonna sing!?”

Kentaro was amazed that she was so willing to go along with the idea.

“Shit I have no clue. A love song! People loved it last time, what’s a real tearjerker we can throw at them?”

Both teammates looked at each other with wide eyes as the same idea came through their minds.

~~~~~

Kentaro swallowed hard as he looked out at the crowd. Sitting on the stool with his guitar he knew this time around wasn’t in his head that all eyes were on him. Even (Y/N) gave him her full attention and she sat on the stool directly across from him.

“Whenever you’re ready.” She whispered reassuringly. Her smile grew wider as the first notes of the song echoed in the room. And when his voice came out clear and perfect (Y/N) remembered just how amazed she was the first time she ever heard it.

Kao o awashitara kenka shite bakari (Whenever we saw each other all we did was fight) Sore mo i omoide datta (Still those are wonderful memories too) Kimi ga oshietekureta da mou kowaku nai (You taught me so much; I’m not afraid anymore) Donna fujiyuu demo shiawase wa tsukameru dakara (No matter how difficult my life is, I can grasp happiness)

The two locked eyes with each other before taking in a deep breath and singing in unison.

Hitori demo yuku yo tatoe tsurakute mo (I’ll go on alone, even if it’s painful) Kimi to mita yume wa kanarazu motteku yo (I will always carry that dream I had with you)

(Y/N) swallowed thickly. She heard so much emotion in Kentaro’s voice. It felt as if they had sang this song to each other a million times. So of course, she could only hope to match that pure tone in her own solo.

Zutto asondereru sonna ki ga shiteta (I thought we could play forever) Ki ga shiteita dake wakatteru (But I know that’s just what I wanted to believe) Umaretekita koto mou koukai wa shinai (I don’t regret being born, anymore.) Matsuri no ato mitai samishii kedo sorosoro ikou (Like the end of a festival, its sad but we have to go)

She felt her voice crack with emotion as that lyric hit hard. ‘I don’t regret being born, anymore.’ Scooting her chair closer to his she placed her hand on her friend’s knee. (Y/N) didn’t know if she would be able to finish the song without her voice cracking or just breaking down sobbing. The tears that trailed from her eyes betrayed her conviction to keep her composure.

Megutte nagarete toki wa utsuroi da (Time changes as its webbed and flows) Mou nani ga atta ka omoidasenai kedo (I can’t remember clearly anymore but,) Me o tojitemireba dareka no waraigoe (If I try and close my eyes..I can hear someone’s laughter)

Strong hands grabbed her face gently and his thumbs were placed tenderly over her quivering lips. (Y/N) stayed silent as Kentaro finished the song’s final lyric, surprising her as two lines of water cascaded down his face.

Nazeka sore ga ima ichiban no takaramono (Somehow that’s my most precious treasure)

The room was deafeningly quiet for a second before a thunderous applause could be heard. Turning towards the crowd the two performers were shocked to see so many others with tears in their eyes as well.

(Y/N) almost laughed at Joo-won looking absolutely in pieces with both hands pressed tightly over his mouth.

“Think any of them know that song was from the anime we watched last night?” (Y/N) said turning to Kentaro, who was already staring at her.

“You cried more than me this time.”

“Yeah but you still cried.”

“Because you made me sad.”

“Why?”

“Because you were singing like you’ve felt every word.”

The two followed each other off the stage and were immediately bombarded by this man in a nice albeit ‘loud’ suit. He gave (Y/N) a once over before doing the same to Kentaro before nodding his head excitedly.

“Yes yes you two would be perfect!”

“I’m sorry sir, perfect for what?” (Y/N) asked taking the initiative.

“I’m a talent manager! My company has been looking for a good duet! You guys are it! Duos have fallen out of style decades ago but we think they could make an amazing comeback and you two would fit the image we are going for.”

“And what image would that be exactly?” Kentaro asked with a brow raised.

“The song you sang, it’s about lovers reincarnating and remembering the time they spend with each other in past lives. That’s the shtick, lovers across decades! The couple has been reincarnated and fall for each other in every lifetime. The way you guys sing…its like you’ve been lovers for a millennium. Everything is almost perfect we would just need to do a few cosmetic touc-”

“We aren’t interested.” Kentaro said pulling on (Y/N)’s hand to lead her away.

“Come on now be reasonable! Just a double eyelid surgery, a little nose job and maybe some whitening treatments.”

Now it was (Y/N)’s turn to look offended.

“Excuse me! Who do you think-”

“(Y/N), it’s okay he wasn’t referring to you.”

“I kn-”

“Oh yes that is just like my youngest!” The boisterous voice of the boy’s mother caught both their ears as she spoke to a group of her friends and colleagues.

“We had no idea your young son was just as talented as his older brother! Why have you been hiding him, Young-Mi?!”

“That boy has never wanted the star life! It’s just not his thing. All the glamour and self care just fell to the wayside for him. We tried to take him to have that unsightly blemish removed from his forehead when he was nine but he threw a fit! But that’s Kentaro for you, the voice of an angel but a face made for voice acting!” The woman laughed loudly along with her friends who followed in suit.

Kentaro visibly flinched by those words and was about to steer (Y/N) in the opposite direction before she pulled from his grasp and stormed up to the group.

“Why would you ever think that would be okay to say about your own son?” The girl asked calmly but with a clear tone of disgust in her voice.

The group she walked up to blinked owlishly and waited for the older woman’s retort. The Korean woman didn’t miss a beat as she smiled largely.

“You found a good one, Ken! Look at her jumping to your defense but we joke like this all the time, right sweetie.”

“Yeah.” Kentaro placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders and whispered into her ear. “Drop it, let’s go.”

“But you are clearly bothered by it! A mother shouldn’t treat her child that way.”

“Ohh a bit of parenting advice from a little girl I’m sure has no children of her own.” Young-Mi laughed into her palm. “You know you don’t exactly make a good first impression right honey?”

“I was about to say the same.” (Y/N) spat back which seemed to take the woman a second to recover from. Clearly she wasn’t used to being talked back to.

The shutter of a camera went off, but the two women didn’t back down from their staring contest.

“You really don’t know how this works do you? I’ve seen girls like you come and go. Girls who want what they can get from my son. They agree to these dates in hopes they get a taste of the finer thing, get spoiled with gifts and eventually marry into riches. But when the money belongs to the parents, that’s usually who you should try to impress.”

“I’m with Kentaro because I want to be! You’ll find I have plenty of my own money I don’t need yours or your husband’s.”

“Then what is it? Huh you want to merge businesses?”

“I don’t need any ulterior motive to want to be with him! If you must know I’m the heiress to New Face, a company that has held no interest in taking on spokespeople over the age of 40.”

Young-Mi was clearly fuming at the young girl before her mouth dropped open into a small o-shape that merged into a laugh.

“You’re the one New Face has been hiding in shame for the past few years. Yes, most of us have heard about the ILLIGITEMATE makeup heiress that should be lucky anyone who would have inherited New Face is either infertile, disowned, or dead.”

Very audible gasps were heard from the room and Kentaro felt an almost sob rip through (Y/N)’s body as he began to pull her back. To his surprise that sob turned into laughter.

“You really are that much of a stereotype? The beautiful face with nothing underneath, tearing down anyone anyway you know how? Trying to live her life through her children! Your career ended before you were ready and pushing your kids is the only way people don’t forget your name! Maybe you would have been more memorable if you strived to be more than a pretty face! Clearly you weren’t that good of an actress, otherwise you’d figure you could ACT like you give a shit about your son-”

(Y/N)’s head snapped to the side as the older woman put all her force into her palm and struck her across the face.

“Mother! You went way too far!” Kentaro yelled out at the woman, pulling (Y/N) behind him to protect her.

“Young-Mi, that’s enough! You’ve had too much to drink!” Seto’s father said finally making his way into the crowd to pull his wife away. “Ken, (Y/N), I apologize greatly.”

“Don’t apologize, Kenjiro! Who is she to speak to me like that!? Your son brings in this little brat and we’re supposed to treat her specially in hopes she won’t leave him?!”

“…You don’t get it. You don’t even realize” (Y/N) mumbled, tears running down her red bruising cheek. “Your son, this one right here, he’s amazing and you don’t see that just because what? He doesn’t look like you or your perfect little family? Did you know he’s so smart, musically gifted, an amazing basketball player?”

(Y/N) clung onto her teammates hand tightly.

“But he doesn’t see anything good…and it’s because of you. Do you know how hard it is to unlearn the negative things parents put in your head? And it’s not enough to tell yourself its not true…so I’ll tell Ken-chan every day that he’s one of the most amazing guys I ever met, inside and out. And I hope I can help undo what years of you has done to him.”

“Let’s go.” Said male pulled on the girl’s wrist. “That’s enough, (Y/N).”

She couldn’t tell if he was angry at her or not. o, she remained silent as her friend pulled her through a staring crowd and out the door. The only breeze blowing through the air was hot and wet, making the fabric of her dress stick to her skin. He continued to pull her along the sidewalk. She didn’t think he even knew where he was trying to go but it wasn’t the time to ask questions.

(Y/N) expected Seto to scream at her, to tell her she was out of line. It dawned on her yet again that she was still meddling in her friend’s lives without asking. An internal debate in her mind was arguing that she was right in intervening and the other voice said she should have kept her mouth shut.

It wasn’t like Hanamiya’s situation. That was so secretive, the problems between Makoto and his mother had to be dug up. Young-Mi had made it everyone’s business when she put her comments out there. Just because it was uncomfortable to say something didn’t mean she shouldn’t have said it. Someone should have a really long time ago.

The girl gulped lightly as Seto’s feet came to a halt on a bridge overlooking the water. In the time it took to get here it had been decided that she didn’t regret speaking out, maybe just regretted how it came out.

The tall male turned to her, his face completely red and (Y/N) knew she was in for a fit of screaming. Closing her eyes, she braced herself for his rightful anger instead she felt his long arms wrap around her.

Her eyes snapped open as Seto held her tightly to his body.

“Eighteen years of those comments, of those parties, of those people laughing at my expense and you are the only one who has ever spoke out for me.” Seto mumbled into the girl’s hair.

Without a second thought she clung onto him just as tightly.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or made anything hard for you in the future. But it wasn’t right, I shouldn’t have had to be the first person to ever say anything. Ken-chan, it’s not true, all these bad things you think about yourself…none of it is true. What’s inside matters but to me you are really handsome!”

(Y/N) was surprised yet again when Seto cupped her face between his hands and drew his face in closer to hers. Her breath caught in her throat, her lips parting slightly. But instead his forehead pressed against hers and he sighed softly.

“Thank you…for everything.” Finally pulling away he gave her a genuine smile before his face morphed into a sheepish look. “So, not your fault but our flight back isn’t until tomorrow and we were supposed to stay in the same hotel as my family but I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

“That’s okay! I can buy us a hotel room for the night!”

“You expect to find a hotel room last minute in Okinawa at this time of year?”

“Sure, if you know where to look!”

~~~~~

Seto could feel himself sitting stiffly as he drowned out the sounds of the shower running. It was purely for convenience sake that (Y/N) dragged him into a Love Hotel. When she’d made the suggestion, he insisted in calling around first to see if there weren’t any available rooms at a proper place.

Of course, they hadn’t found anything and even this location had proven to be a bit of a problem. For starters there was only one room available, though he knew it would seem odd for the two of them to have gotten separate rooms at this kind of hotel. Secondly, they questioned if (Y/N) was underage, which was totally the right thing to do but 1. They didn’t need shit to fall through right now and 2. Nobody bothered asking his age.

“Ken-chan, you okay?” (Y/N) said making the male practically jump out his skin.

Turning towards her didn’t help much as she was drying her wet hair in nothing but a tank top and shorts. Her skin was glistening and when he looked closely, he noticed a droplet of water fall from her hair only to roll down her shoulder, over her collar bone and between her breasts. Swallowing all the saliva that had pooled in his mouth, Seto tore his eyes away and spoke.

“It would seem that they don’t have any spare cots or mats anywhere in the hotel so I decided to take the carpet and you can have the be-”

“No, that’s fine! Sleep with me!”

Seto felt his face burn red and turned away from (Y/N) so she wouldn’t notice. Without intention he quickly turned on the defense.

“That’s not really appropriate. Believe it or not I don’t make it a practice to come to places like this or other sleezy stuff like sleepin-” Seto’s words faded off as he heard how accusatory that sounded.

Looking back at (Y/N) he saw her with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring down at her barefeet. He had been defending her behind her back for days only to go and passive aggressively slut-shame her to her face, calling her sleezy.

“I’m…I’m not dirty or sleezy, you know.” (Y/N) pushed her hair behind her ear before giving him a small smile. “But I won’t push you to sleep anywhere or do anything you aren’t comfortable doing. Goodnight Seto.”

Ouch back to last names.

With that the girl bounced under the covers and turned to give him her back. Seto sighed, wanting to explain but also not wanting to expose himself. She would think he was 100% pathetic, especially someone so sexually liberated like she was.

Pulling off his shirt, he grabbed a pillow and chucked it onto the ground ready to just call it a night.

What am I a little bitch? He thought to himself before he could make his way onto the floor. This girl just stuck her neck and her company out on the line to tell his mother off. How the hell was he gonna let her defend him and then not even try to apologize for hurting her feelings?

“Hey (Y/N)? I’m really sorry I said that. I don’t think that people who get around or come to these plays are bad people or anything. I promise it wasn’t meant to be a jab at you.”

The girl didn’t even twitch to acknowledge him. Turning his body completely towards her, he frowned.

“I know that sounds like bullshit but please just look at me so I can explain. I can’t leave you feeling this way about me after all you did for me today.”

Still nothing and now Seto was beginning to get mad. Crawling closer to her. he tried once more.

“I’m apologizing here. You don’t have to accept it but at least acknowledge I’m here. There’s no way you’re asleep already! (Y/N)!”

With that Seto flipped her onto her back and found himself hovering above her, his hands on either side of her surprised face. The earbuds in her ears were apparent now, as her phone laid discarded beside her with the YouTube video still playing.

Neither said anything and Seto’s body was suddenly frozen, only his eyes flickering all over. Taking in the way (Y/N)’s hair rested into the pillow, the way one strap of her tank top was falling from her shoulder. He could see her chest rising and falling quickly and suddenly grew very aware that he was in nothing but basketball shorts. However, instead of moving like a normal person, Seto remained awkward and stiff like a board.

…And speaking of stiff.

Seeing (Y/N)’s face suddenly burn red and seeing her eyes widen snapped him back to reality. Flipping off her of, Seto planted his face into the bed and slammed a pillow over the top of his head. She totally felt that, and nothing even happened! What was he? Thirteen?!

A gentle touch on his back only made Seto sink deeper into the bed and really just pray the earth would swallow him whole.

“Hey, it’s okay it happens. I, umm why were you on top of me though?”

“I was trying to get your attention to say sorry for being insensitive. I don’t actually think bad of people who have a lot of experience that was just…. insecurities coming out.”

“…I understand. Trust me, I’m the queen of saying the wrong shit at the wrong time to the wrong people! I’m glad that you don’t think that way of me though. It was confusing me why you would say that when you were so understanding when you came to my house.”

“Yeah I’m just really stupid and can only succeed in embarrassing myself in front of the only girl I have been around this long.”

(Y/N) remained silent and Seto only now noticed that her hands had been kneading at his back muscles. A soft groan escaped his lips when she hit a certain spot.

“The tension there, tells me your nervous. Do I make you nervous?”

“Ugh it’s not because of you, I’m just never really around girls and they just kind of make me nervous.”

“Hmm…you don’t have to answer this but well you know about my sex life. Ken-chan, have you ever been with a girl?”

Seto felt like a computer that got the blue screen of death. His mind was making an atrocious screeching sound and he was 99% sure that was his internal screams. (Y/N) really just did that, she really just asked him if he was a virgin.

The audacity! The lack of tact! How uncouth! How dare sh-

“No.”

And of course the rest of that just ran out his mouth like a coursing river. Damn her for being really easy to talk to.

“Ahh okay! That’s why you were nervous sharing a bed with me! Don’t worry I won’t try anything! I just want you to be comfortable.”

“Don’t start treating me like a girl just because you know I’m a virgin!”

“Virginity isn’t a gendered thing! I’m not less of a woman because I’ve lost mine and you aren’t less of a man because you haven’t lost yours! Mine wasn’t a big deal to me.”

“Mine isn’t to me either. I’m not waiting for marriage or for a special someone or shit like that…it just never really happened. I usually just have a single date with a girl and it never gets past that point.”

“That’s fine! Things happen for people in their own time.”

“Yeah I know! Joo-won has been telling me that shit for years! I don’t care about having not done it just not having the opportunity to have done it? That doesn’t make sense, I guess I just want girls to find me attractive enough to want t-”

Seto’s eyes grew wide as (Y/N)’s hands grabbed his face with a level of dominance and pressed her lips onto his. If he thought his heart was racing before, he was about to go into cardiac arrest now.

Seemingly as soon as he realized he could kiss back the girl pulled away.

“Why did you-” He began.

“I ummm caught in the moment. And on the bridge. I thought you wanted me to… Do you want me to stop?”

“No!”

~~~~~

“Kentaro, you finally made it home.”

Seto cursed to himself, having been caught coming back into the house. Turning to look at his father with a clear ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ expression didn’t save him from his dad beckoning him closer.

“Where’s mom?”

“She took Joo-won to get his hair done. And before they get back, my son I really need to talk to you.”

“Look I already know that you’re gonna say I shouldn’t have brought (Y/N) around and that it embarrassed the family and we were rude-”

“No no, this has nothing to do with my future daughter-in-law. She’s quite the firecracker and I simply adore her! She has more of a backbone than you do.”

“What?!”

“Look, it was about time someone put Young-Mi in her place. She needed to be brought down a few pegs. In that same vein…quite a few news articles have come out criticizing your mother, in fact she received a call from the CEO of Me But Better this morning. Some representatives had been talking with her about having her endorse their products and perhaps do a collaboration. As you can imagine, a brand that sells self-love didn’t want to work with a woman who openly mocks her son.”

“Wow I didn’t know mom would lose work because of it. If (Y/N) really is the heiress to New Face I’m sure whoever she is inheriting was furious with how mom spoke to her.”

“I believe you are right. It wouldn’t surprise me if some calls were made to convince this new company to cut the deal. However, don’t feel too bad for your mother. She is riding off Joo-won’s coattails happily for the time being.”

“Well good for her, she deserved to have at least one son she didn’t hate.”

“Ken, your mother doesn’t hate you. She hates herself and you remind her of that every day.”

“What?”

“You look like her and she can’t stand it.”

“Dad, I look nothing like mom or you for that matter.”

“Well now you did get my sculpted cheek bones and jawline! No matter, Kentaro what I show you here it goes to the grave got it?” Kentaro tilted his head in confusion as his father produced an old student id and handed it to him.

Looking at the image the girl looked relatively pissed off. Her narrow eyes, tanned skin and wide face read very clearly as a girl who was conventionally below average on an attractive scale.

But just above her right eyebrow, not as centered as his own, a large dark mole caused the male to quickly look at the name on the ID.

“This is mom!?”

“Yes, but promise you’ll never bring it up! She doesn’t know I found this in a box of her old stuff!”

“She looks so plain! She’s like a four!”

“Yeah I know! Now you should be lucky you got some of my good qualities to balance you out!”

“So, she never told you that this was what she really looked like?”

“No, she got all her surgery before she began her career as an entertainer and definitely before she traveled to Japan. You and this ID are the only proof that she was once the girl in the picture.”

Seto stared at the piece of plastic then looked back up at his dad. He had seen pictures of his dad at all points in his life. The man was naturally a ten. He couldn’t help but wonder…

“Dad if she looked like this when you first met her wo-”

“Nope. I know what you’re going to ask me, and my answer is no. If your mother had come up to me like this, I wouldn’t have dated her.”

“Wow dad that’s actually pretty douchy.”

“I wouldn’t have been rude to her but…once I got to know her, I wouldn’t have tried pursuing her. She wasn’t an ugly duckling with a heart of gold; there was no seeing past her appearance into an amazing personality because she doesn’t have one. I grew to love her the longer I was married to her but in the beginning, it was all physical attraction. You are totally different in that aspect. Don’t think you’ll lose (Y/N) because of your looks, because you’re actually a good guy inside.”

“Yeah well…I’m glad I get everything a little more now.”

“Son, I am so sorry that we haven’t been the best parents. But look at you, even without us, you’ve accomplished so much. A star athlete, straight A genius with a beautiful girlfriend.”

“Dad…since we’re being honest here. (Y/N) isn’t my girlfriend, she’s the team manager. I wanted her to pretend to be my girlfriend so I could prove to mom that I didn’t need to pay or threaten anyone for a date. She��s just a really good friend who did a lot for me this weekend.” Seto coughed into his hand, trying to stifle down a blush as his mind drifted to last night’s events. “A whole lot.”

His dad didn’t miss any of the telling signs in his son’s explanation. He also remembered everything from the party. There was no denying it…his son was in love. But the girl…the girl seemed to be the type that needed to be told that outright to pursue. And that’s where he knew his poor son would finally sink or swim.

“Well for the first time in your life, let me be a good father and give some advice. Get on it…now. A girl like that doesn’t stay on the market long, no matter how much money or how good looking you are.”

“I know, my whole team is after her.”

“Even the playboy with the hair?” His dad said flaring his fingers out over his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Yikes. Well make your confession quicker and better than theirs! And you know, regardless of who she ends up with…keep her around. She’s a good girl and I can tell she’s the type of friend you’ve been needing for a long time.”

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moseswilhelm · 5 years

Text

Now that you’re all gone, I’ve got a few squishy bits to air out. I don’t feel normal. Whether that means quirky or broken or eccentric depends on the day or hour or seconds between the particular anxiety of waiting on someone to respond to a long string of text. Internally, I’ve cycled between deciding if I am alien, demon, mutated evolution, a plaything of God, a challenge, or just plain old mentally ill. We can guess the healthier option, but there isn’t much use or fun using that.

Knowing you’ve lacked socialization in your youth doesn’t really mean much in trying to solve that problem in the same way that knowing you were just shot won’t help close the wound. What I am trying to say is I wasn’t socialized when I was young and that consistent distant feeling from your peers comes from that. Hearing that you think differently, or have an interesting brain is a nice little compliment albeit a little condescending. Unfortunately, you can’t really monetize excellent explanatory metaphors without the true meat and potatoes of capitalist society: focus. Arguably, effort and hard work and all that, but the measurement of how much you’ve put into something gets a bit blurred when you’ve somehow acquired detail knowledge of the economic turmoil that initiated the Pontic Wars. Someone please give me money for that. Easily an entire week got a bit lost in trying to understand centralized economies in the classical era and not one person paid me. Outrageous. I think writing was my way of trying to accomplish that level of usefulness that we are all trying to achieve. I knew that whatever I went through as a kid helped me develop an approach to understanding things in a unique way, but this is arguably not even useful to myself let alone the world as a whole. Unfortunately this hobby/career is top tier ADD nightmares and require a level of focus and drive comparable to Stephen King just ripped on coke. I neither have the proclivity for weird child orgies and dog monsters or coke. Well thats a lie, coke suits me just fine but my scantron has enough bubbles filled out and I’m already late turning in my “how much of a trainwreck are you” buzzfeed quiz. I see you, red squiggly telling me that “thats” needs an apostrophe. Fuck off, this is art and I refuse to change. Hey, what do you think happens when you’re told that confidence has to come before... y’know... actually being proud of yourself? Arrogance and self-absorption, obviously. You learn very quick that empty confidence is just as meaningless as no confidence, so to kind of fake it you have to really inflate things you have no right inflating and they are inflated on a scale comparable to those around you. Which is arrogant! Its awful! People can do different things at different levels and still be valid! Confidence is valued at an extremely high level to the point where the confidence to present yourself is a bit more important than the character you are supposedly proud of... evidenced plenty by the folks in the public eye known specifically for their charisma and yet somehow failing to actually be a person worth being around. That said, it can get tangled up in actually being proud of yourself. Shocking, I know, but you can’t really lump people who have characters worth being proud of to those just decent at faking it. Faking it. I know imposter syndrome is a thing. I am certainly not really alone in the concept of “oh god I’m faking it” so I won’t really pretend I have some magic insight on the concept (I’m lying I’m absolutely going to present myself as someone with Answers welcome to the fucking show) but when does “holding it together” and “how you present yourself” become imposter syndrome. “Hi this is me who has to be this way in order to balance between seeming different enough to stand out but not so different that you feel disgusted at the concept of change, nice to meet you” I mean what the fuck is a person anyways. Thats not a question. Not even a rhetorical one so if you answered aloud in your head I’m sorry but my psyche is not emotionally prepared for audience participation right now so clam up. Finding yourself is always a precarious as hell phrase because that often means one of two things: 1. Learning not to care about how others feel about who you are, despite all evidence of existence point out that this is the absolute most important aspect of your life 2. Presenting the parts that you were afraid to present to people. Look, I get it, you can’t please everyone and I’m not really here to talk about how to please anyone. In fact, I’m not even here. This is a lucid dream you’re having in your chair and shortly you’ll wake up and not remember if you were sleeping at all. Its fine, you’re fine. You have to please someone though. I think we underestimate the value of the tutorial level of life regarding this. You are given a set amount of people who are, usually, just going to be pleased by your existence. This always sets up your expectations of how that looks, how it feels, and how important it is. I mean imagine if right now I decided to criticize the immense value society puts on children. You’d hate my fucking guts! “Look at this asshole, kids deserve to be cared for” To be clear I don’t disagree with that. I think a lot of the current “you are valid” rhetoric is based on the concept that adults deserve to be cared for as well. This sorta rounds off my point that attention and reassurance is an important part of being cared for. In my opinion, this gets overlooked very often in favor cheap performative actions like hitting a heart button and oh my god I’m like a baby boomer writing for the new york times okay hold on I promise this isn’t a cynical criticism of millennials. People want to be heard. Importantly, people want to be understood. Spicy hot fucking take. Its a bit more than “this person knows who I am” although thats precisely how its framed. People want to be cared for, and this means knowing the... other person knows who they are caring for. Ah holy shit this is why I use metaphors. You have a snickers bar and you are hungry. Congration, you done it. Its the middle of the day and you never had any breakfast and frankly your bank account could use a break from pleasuring Starbuck’s atm reader so you somehow found the last snickers bar in a box you bought off of impulse bought off of Amazon and immediately regretted because it was gone two days later. Or so you thought. As you threw away the cardboard you hear the tell-tale tumble of a forgotten rod of peanuts and caramel that must have gotten jammed in the back of this thing. It was, however, 7am and you had to get to work and maybe having bubbleguts while dealing with people is not your recipe for a good day so you throw it into your purse or bag or whatever the fuck and move on. “Lunchtime” rolls around and as you do the mental gymnastics required to find the conclusion that food=energy in between bouts of fury over why your workday insists on starting at 8am and how you can’t seem to cope with falling asleep early enough for that not to matter, you remember your snickers bar. Reaching into whatever bag you put it and coming to the horrifying dread of realization that you left this bag in your car in fucking July, you find the sweet sugared respite in a corner. Squeezing it a bit just to test, you are surprised to not find it in the horrible (and yet delicious) state of melted confectionary. Your stomach grumbles a bit as you fidget with the perforated candy wrapper, vaguely thinking to yourself that it might be interesting to read the ingredients as you eat this thing like that isn’t going to fill you with inexplicable Eldritch dread. Nobody needs to know they are ingesting something that might have been made in a facility that also processes every other nut you can think of, delightfully shortened into “tree nuts”. I wonder if anyone has cross referenced all the allergen warnings to deduce which candies are made in the same factory, or if that information is just freely available. What if we kissed in the snickers production facility??? haha jk but...? Anyways, as your mind cycles through a list of stale memes you manage to unsheath this uncut chocolate delight from its wax(???) plastic prison and proceed to take your first, and arguably best, bite into this lunch. Your teeth sink softly into it, as you would expect. In fact, expectations haven’t really filtered into your skull soup you call a brain, so all manner of things can just slip through your recognition. Not this, however. Instead, fireworks of electric signals screaming “BITTER POISON” shock your brain from its previous state of vaguely functioning. Now you truly see the color of light, feel the air cocooning your skin, the squirm of your organs in your belly. Full panic ensues. You are not human, you are animal, and you have taken in a poison thing. You spit it out right there on your lap. You stare at the sad and ruined chocolate mutant nestled grossly in between your legs as your brain high fives itself for saving your life before frantically scouring your subconscious for whatever Vine gives it enough dopamine to not just fucking kill yourself right here. What happened? The fugue of panic washes your perceptions with a mixture of justifications for this travesty. It probably just went bad, but that didn’t taste spoiled (you consider yourself a mild expert having scraped clean many an old collection of halloween candy collections in August the year after the fact) so maybe it melted and rehardened? Baking stuff is weird so maybe that broke down some of its components. You pick it up (holy shit that is slimy. Of course its slimy, just touch it) and its insides look fine. I mean, how often do you examine the insides of a partially chewed bite of snickers? No weird colors. The remaining chocolate lasagna brick also looks exactly what you’d thought it be. You jokingly think to yourself that maybe you had a stroke but despite the apparent hilarity of that possibility you do the smile thing in the selfie camera of your phone. Everything seems fine, but now you’re getting mad that some turn of events has just ruined your perfectly good slab of sugar and fat that surely would have made the rest of the day bearable (and full of indigestion) Now that is a metaphor.

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theveryworstthing · 6 years

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Another patreon kelpie story.

Margie went in with the boxes and the packing tape once the police were done with the mess on the shore. The family would be flying out tomorrow, and she felt it was kinder to have everything already boxed up and ready for shipping before they got here. Less for them to worry about in their time of grief. Less time for strangers to wander the bloodstained grounds.

Such a shame. He had been so nice to her. It was refreshing having one of them treat her like like a person instead of a quirky prop for their ‘Life-Changing Scottish Adventure At The Kelpie’s Cottage’.

The young man hadn’t been the first to take interest in the kelpie. It was big local news for a while,as any unglamored fae openly walking round modern Scotland would be. Not that everyone didn’t believe there were fae still among them (there was strong evidence for it in the fates of the people who didn’t) but there were definitely less of them and they were usually not feebly nosing through bins at the park.

Usually.

She still remembered the day her father drove them all out to the edges of the fenced off area to get a look at the orphaned creature. It was sickly and small, all bones and pathetic whiffles from its oddly thin snout. Thick twitching tendrils sprouted from where it’s mane and tail should be. Its actual whip-like tail curled between its legs in a terrified spiral. It was Wrong. Not wrong like a fae is naturally wrong, but wrong like a hermit crab pulled out of it’s shell with a pair of pliers and held under a magnifying glass. She knew what a kelpie was supposed to look like. Her grandma had yellowed polaroids of beautiful horses hiding their hooves in tall grass and pacing the lake shore near her childhood village. Their manes were so long that they trailed the ground like curling veils braided with delicate strands of seaweed, and their fur was so black that the sunlight gave them an iridescent sheen.

They looked like the sort of creatures that could entice a person into a watery grave.

The gangly young creature by the river sneezed so hard it fell down and proceeded to lay there, whining.

She had asked her father about the obvious discrepancies in majestically tousled manes, but he could only guess that it had been either inbred from the remaining illusive kelpie stock or crossbred with something wandering in from stranger waters or a genetic throwback. Either way, something went pear shaped there. Or, thinking outside the box, that could just be how normal unglamored kelpie foals looked. Difficult to tell what’s normal with fae.

They had watched for a while before her father took the cooler out of the trunk and handed them hunks of chicken meat to throw to the pathetic thing. You weren’t supposed to. The local government’s official stance on the kelpie was that nature should be allowed to take its course. It would never survive comfortably as it was (they assumed), so obviously not of our realm (they hoped), so trapped in its current form (they were pretty damn sure). Better to let it die peacefully.

More objection to this ruling had been expected at first, but since it seemed abandoned anyway and being brutally murdered by a kelpie is inconvenient at best, most people weren’t keen on the population getting any help. Margie’s family was out there though. Her grandmother had taught them all to never be rude to the fae, and watching one of their infants die in a dumpster certainly seemed in the realm of rudeness to her father. If any foolish mortals met an ironic magic-based death over this one, it wouldn’t be his kids.

The chicken meat stuck to the kelpie wherever it touched. It was like the translucent gray skin hid tiny grasping mouthes that latched onto the flesh and slowly sucked it into the hollows between delicate newborn ribs. Margie watched, fascinated, as the kelpie’s breathing evened. It lay still for a few more minutes before gathering the energy to rise to it’s feet and awkwardly shambling towards the river. It looked back at them once before sliding into the water trailing bits chicken carcass.

The land was under her father’s ownership within days of the town finding out. They fed it. Their problem.

Margie carefully packaged the laptop in another layer of bubble wrap (the police had taken the phone they fished out of the mud). It would be a shame to lose whatever data the young man had collected on his short stay. For the researchers that came here that always seemed to be the most important thing. People left the cottage with all sorts of missing bits but they always said that the stay was worth it for what they learned from observing a real, live, unglamored fae up close. She didn’t know if the dead felt the same way, but she was always careful to get their notes back home and there hadn’t been any (new) ghosts yet so she assumed she was doing something right.

She’d grown up watching the feeble monster toddle around the riverside, and took over upkeep of the cottage after dad started having back problems. The fae had never filled out into the enchanting stallion with my little pony hair of her childhood daydreams. Some of its angles had been smoothed down with regular feedings, its tendrils had bloomed into curling fronds, and its peach-fuzz fur had grown in dark, but it still looked…like that. It had never learned to use glamor either from what they could tell. Sometimes they’d see a little flicker of change, a slight shift in eye shape, a pinky momentarily sticking out of a hoof, or a wave of black iridescent fur that rippled down it’s body and disappeared in a shudder. It was even worse when it really went for it. She saw it once, tucked away in the river reeds when she was twelve. It sat on the ground staring straight ahead while it’s skull shifted from something almost horse to something almost human. The bones clicked as they rearranged and she couldn’t help but liken it to someone patiently turning the keys in a car that refused to start. The engine sputters, and for a moment a little of a waifish boy seems to congeal out of the beast. Its form reverts on the next breath, and it flopped to its side panting. Nothing more grand than that though. It could also talk a little, but only very rarely and only very softly and only for very important things. It coughed a lot afterwords, like the effort hurt it’s throat.

When the researchers came asking if they could stay in the cottage and observe it, her father agreed (after getting a lawyer friend to whip up some release forms). The family needed the money and what ill could come of knowing more about the amphibious monster horse you are raising on your property.

The answer was some ill. But not enough ill to stop people from coming.

Watching over the kelpie was about the same as watching over any large, dangerous, intelligent, predatory animal that humans are compelled to treat like a domesticated house pet. Beyond feedings, passing comments, and polite inquires about its health, Margie’s family didn’t really bother the kelpie unless it got their attention. It wasn’t eating the townsfolk (at least nobody anybody liked) and it seemed to have it’s own hobbies evidenced by the intricate stick configurations and stashes of waterlogged found items lining the riverside. They’d grown up neighbors to the fae and knew that minding your business was a very underrated survival tactic. Other people…

It was easy enough to walk the newcomers through proper distance during feeding time but harder to keep them from getting too emotionally close to keep hold of common sense. The kelpie was a fae after all. While it didn’t seem to have the classic fae thrall, it had an alien beauty and a strange scrappy charm about it. It was an orphan, one of the last of its kind, who must navigate a realm not it’s own, deformed without the natural powers its kind wield with ease, who struggles to communicate with those around them because people fear it. That’s empathy gold. In fact, most of Margie’s job consisted of long stretches of house repair and internet surfing boredom (she’d joined a forum for people living on cursed or haunted properties that was surprisingly lively and sociable), punctuated by short bursts of panicked running toward the screams of a flailing person with one hand engulfed in horse (?) flesh. A person who usually thought they had completely earned the kelpie’s mercy through their newfound understanding of the fae world and wanted to give it a friendly pet away from her warning gaze. Surely it would accept them. They were so reverent after all. They honored the fae, and that’s why they came here. They, the chosen humans brave enough to part to veil and seek understanding with these amazing creatures. Who even cared for this beautifully broken specimen. Not like these scared yokels. Truly they were of one heart.

Margie saw how the kelpie watched those people. She doubted it felt the same way. She doubted they ever really asked it.

She turned up her music and tried not to think about the young man, pretending she was used to how awful all this was. She needed to have a talk with her dad about this whole situation.

She didn’t hear the door creak open until it was too late.

The kelpie stood on three legs in the open doorway, the fourth leg held up in front of it with trembling effort. She stared at it as the hoof tried to violently untwist itself from the shape of a human hand. It stared at her as it forced it’s twitching fingers to grasp the key in the door and work it free. When it finally managed the task, it shuffled over and dropped the keys in her lap.

The room smelled like blood.

Margie slowly picked up the spare cottage keys and watched the spasming hand unravel in relief.

“He. Dropped…them.” The kelpie muttered. “Can’t let things….in……dangerous things. Outside.”

Margie sat still. It was so close to her. She couldn’t run. Holy shit she was actually afraid of it. She’d have to reach underneath it for her iron knife. Holy shit she’d never really processed how afraid of it she’s been. Ever since that first time she had to hack a stranger’s finger off to free them. What if she slipped and ran face first into it? She imagined the flesh peeled off her cheeks by the tiny mouths hiding under the kelpie’s skin and tried not to hyperventilate.

“Thank you,” she said instead, her voice adrenaline calm.

The creature nodded and leaned closer until she could feel one of its tendrils brush her arm. It was like moist velvet, and it stuck to her skin briefly before moving away. The key began to cut into her hand as she gripped it tighter.

“Sorry abouthim. You. Liked……but he found…let it-” the kelpie turned its head as a series of short sharp coughs tore through it’s chest. It looked exhausted.

“Lock. Door.”

Margie nodded.

The kelpie turned around and left the way it came, Margie as close behind as fear would allow. She watched it slink towards the dark overgrowth of the river until it was far beyond the police tape and out of sight.

She managed not to collapse until everything was closed and locked.

#kelpie #mermay #short story #long post #blood #injury #body horror #fae

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

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RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 The More the Merrier

This is a re-posting from October 9th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Hello, moon.

Will we ever learn what happened to you? Not in this episode! That ominous shot (countered with the oddly soothing sound of crickets) is just to situate us before we pan down, revealing the gang making their way to the meeting with Lionheart. And honestly? I kind of love everything about this composition. Let’s tick things off:

We have Jaune and Ren mirroring each other with determined expressions and clenched fists. They’re ready to kick ass if need be.

Same with Ruby and Nora except they look like they’re out for a casual moonlit stroll—with the added bonus that Nora is manically thrilled about this adventure.

Yang is pretty blasé. Been there. Done that. Survived worse.

Weiss? The embodiment of “Ugh I could be home right now instead of walking around in this heat this had better not mess up my hair.”

Oscar looks way out of his depth and is hanging back from the rest, as we’d expect given that he’s a farm boy joining a group of elite fighters that have had years to bond without him. It’s Awkward New Kid Syndrome with a side of extreme danger.

And then there’s Qrow. Out in front. Suspicious looks all around. Iconic hunched shoulders. Really wants to put his hands in his pockets but the animation isn’t quite there yet. Behold, everyone. Our leader.

For real though, jokes aside I honest to god love this opening. It’s quick and from a practical standpoint sets up only that they’re heading somewhere as a group, but if you take the time to actually look you’ll see each of their personalities shining through. We might bitch about RWBY’s faults, but there’s a whole lot of love poured into this series and more often than not you can see it in the details.

Ruby pauses then to take in Haven tower—always one to appreciate beauty even when things are bleak—and then hangs back until Oscar has caught up. It’s a wonderful little moment between them because there’s no dialogue and ultimately none is needed. He doesn’t stop for reassurance, but he could. Ruby gives him that option and waits until Oscar passes her before continuing herself. The whole scene is heavy and poignant. There’s nothing but music until they arrive inside and Lionheart breaks the peace with, “Why hello. There… seems to be more of you than last time.”

Yeah. You can hear the fear in his voice. As if the rest of this setup didn’t already scream “TRAP, TRAP, TRAP,” He’s gotta be super suspicious in his greeting too. Leading them out here in the dead of night. Lionheart up on the podium—both figuratively putting himself above them and literally keeping himself out of harm’s way. Then the first thing out of his mouth is a worried comment on their numbers? Suspicious, suspicious.

Qrow: “Oh you know what they say. The more the merrier.”

He did the title thing! Love that.

Except the delivery makes it clear that Qrow is also suspicious as hell. No one has drawn their weapon yet, but the fight has already started. Qrow and Ozpin know that this is no simple meeting. Now Lionheart knows that they know. A quick shot reveals both his fear and the fact that he came with a weapon of his own:

Qrow tries to continue the charade by asking what’s up with the council and Lionheart is so bad at acting casual it’s actually painful to watch. He wants to know why they all brought THEIR weapons while hiding his own behind his back. As if they in any way failed to miss him standing there with it in full view for the last thirty seconds.

I can’t with this guy. He's just so bad at being bad I almost feel sorry for him.

(Although, as we in the U.S. have certainly discovered the last two years, the incompetent ones are often the most dangerous…)

As said, the fight has already begun. While Qrow and Lionheart trade subtext Yang checks out their perimeter, immediately picking up on the raven that just happens to be chilling on the banister. A simple, whispered “Mom?” and Qrow has his weapon out and a shot off, barely missing Raven as she swoops down beside Lionheart.

Can we appreciate that reaction time for a second? I feel like between Ozpin’s Super Secret Magic and Qrow’s self-deprecating drinking the fandom tends to forget that he’s easily one of the most powerful fighters we’ve seen to date. He demonstrated that in his playful spar against Winter, keeping Tyrian on his toes while also ensuring that the kids were safe, and here as he responds blindingly fast to a one syllable word. A few seconds later Raven calls him out for missing or, just as likely, deliberately missing since he doesn't want to kill her—yet. Which makes it all the more impressive that he can aim and achieve the results he wants in such a short amount of time. You 100% do not want to fuck with Qrow.

A nice cut using Lionheart’s back and Raven becomes human once more. In the realm of ‘artists paying careful attention to how their background characters act,’ Oscar is uncomfortable but isn’t even looking at the threat—almost like he’s listening carefully to something the rest of them can’t hear—while Nora looks downright floored. “They really are magic,” she says to herself, solidifying with evidence what they'd been told a few episodes back.

Okay. Rant time. I still don’t buy these reactions. Really not great on the world building front here. I mean, we’ve had Pyrrha who controls magnetism, Ren who manipulates emotions, Yang has a Hulk mode that includes changing eye color, Blake can create clones of herself, Weiss is basically a necromancer, Ruby turns into rose petals, give him an episode and Jaune will straight up heal a girl, and Nora herself can store/release electricity. Why is turning into a bird so incredibly shocking? It would feel way more natural if they saw Raven and Qrow’s transformations and went, “Okay… so that’s their semblance?” and then Oz has to explain about the difference—being born with an ability vs. being granted it—which is cool and there’s surprise that that’s a Thing, but their reaction to the ability itself is still pretty meh. Because they’ve literally seen weirder.

We’re given no indication as to WHY a bird transformation instinctually reads as more impossible than transforming into rose petals, other than “one is magic and one is not because we say so.” There’s no justification behind the characters’ ability to recognize magic when they see it, especially given the incredibly wide range of abilities RWBY has shown us over the years. Either attach more overt rules to semblances (obvious boundaries where the viewer understands what is and is not possible) or make Ozpin’s magic look radically different. In this world summoning storms and turning into birds doesn't read as radically different. Hell, in many ways Dust, an incredibly common commodity, is more powerful than this supposedly gasp-worthy magic. Why be impressed with Raven summoning rain clouds when Weiss can create powerful winds in her fight against Flynt with just a bit of Daddy’s money?

But anyway. I digress.

The verbal sparring continues. Oscar still isn’t making eye contact. Raven spouts more of her excuses, Salem can’t possibly be stopped, we're all out for ourselves, blah blah blah. Ruby emphasizes that they’ve already done the impossible, but they only achieved that because they were working together. Separation and a pessimistic attitude is exactly what Salem wants. Ruby wants Raven to join them.

And take a gander at that contrast between sisters. As I’ve said before, Ruby is the classic full-of-heart protagonist who believes that almost everyone can be redeemed. As we’ll see in a second, the exemption to this appears to be Cinder. Her murder of Penny and Pyrrha highlights her irredeemability in a way that overshadows Raven’s—and even Salem’s—more nebulous crimes. The bigger your actions are the harder they are to conceptualize. The smaller and more personal they are the harder they are to forgive. Paradoxically, it’s easier for someone like Ruby (and the fandom…) to shrug off Raven’s actions because as of yet she hasn't felt their repercussions as intimately.

Yang though? She has. And in this moment she’s not ready to forgive.

Raven refuses of course and tells Ruby she sounds just like her mother. (Give us flashbacks of Summer!) She summons a portal where a fireball flies through, hitting Ruby square in the chest and allowing the whole evil gang to join the party. We get a closeup on Oscar as he and Oz recognize Hazel, locking them inside while the White Fang sets up their bombs.

Hazel: “No one’s getting in… and no one’s getting out.”

Because RWBY, for all its dark storylines, is still hella cheesy at times lol.

Weiss: “So this was all just a trap?”

Ren: “It appears so…”

Ah, naive little children. If only you were watching from our fourth wall perspective you would have realized it was a trap more than an episode ago! Too bad.

We learn that Lionheart was the one who secured Team Bad a place in the Vytal festival. Not only that, but he’s been passing information about huntsmen and huntress whereabouts to Salem. That’s how they were all murdered and Qrow’s realization of this—after spending all that time looking for them and hoping against hope—is definitely a kicker. “I couldn’t find any of them… because you let her kill them.”

Keep in mind, most of those people were Qrow’s friends.

Jaune, as we’d expect, is at his breaking point. Pyrrha’s murderer is standing right there and, as he says, rubbing their faces in how many people she’s killed—“All with that damn smile on your face!” We’ve had all of two instances of RWBY cursing and it’s definitely needed here. I appreciate that his tears and his anger are basically a call to arms. Most everyone draws their weapon as soon as he's finished speaking. Qrow’s still trying to keep the peace, but Jaune’s very existence is a walking testament to exactly how much these people deserve to be brought to justice.

He yells that he’s going to make Cinder pay for what she did and then comes the most brutal line in all of RWBY.

Cinder: “Who are you again?”

Damn. They’re never gonna top that.

Perfect characterization though. As the audience it’s easy to forget who knows who in a big ensemble cast and, more importantly, who cares about who. From Cinder’s perspective Jaune is a nobody she's barely met. Why would she remember him? If she’d instead made a taunt about his dead girlfriend most of us probably would have just shrugged off the plot-hole, but paying attention to details like this is not only, a) satisfying but b) wonderfully vicious. Way to twist the knife here.

Jaune attacks as we knew he would but Cinder easily blocks him. Ruby joins the fray only to be stopped by Emerald—“You’re not getting near her.” (Love the devotion.) Yang pairs off with Mercury to settle an old score. Raven orders Vernal to take out “the heiress” (rude, she has a name) and in another excellent nod to the switcheroo that tricked both the team and a large chunk of the fandom, she casually throws out that Vernal doesn’t need to use her power to kill a kid.

Good excuse too. Considering, you know, she doesn’t have any.

No more fake outs. Qrow attacks Raven head on with the announcement that they’re not family anymore. Harsh, but deserved. Raven’s “Were we ever?” smells more like denial. We also get a good look at their similar, but differently balanced color schemes.

As their fight takes them out of frame we stay with a rather terrified Weiss. To her credit though she holds her ground against Vernal, assuring her that she’s “more than a name.”

Finally, Ren and Nora—ever the perfect duo—are left to fend off Hazel. He’s one of those real asshole villains who has a “code” that they follow. He doesn’t want to fight two kids half his age and power level… but he has to. Just like he has to keep pursuing his misguided revenge against Ozpin. And he, like Raven, feels the need to announce to the world that this isn’t what he’d prefer. It’s just how things are! Totally out of his hands, I’m sorry to say.

We’re seeing a trend with the villains and their justifications, yeah?

With everyone paired off Ozpin-Oscar (I need a portmanteau for them…) sneaks over to confront Lionheart. Lionheart goes from telling this supposed stranger to get himself out of the fight while he can to attacking him with a rock-lava-energy blast thing in like five seconds flat. Of course, our two favorite BAMFs block it with ease and we get the RWBY equivalent of,

(x)

Holy shit this kid blocked my hit??

Beautiful.

The second the cane comes out though everything makes sense and we get another stellar line of “Not quite” when Lionheart identifies him as Ozpin. I really love that they let Oscar handle the first half of this battle. Yeah, it’s a little flimsy that he’s able to take on an adult after just a few weeks of training, but we also don’t know how much he and Oz are already sharing. Fighting might come naturally to him now in a muscle memory sort of way. Regardless, he kicks ass and I’m loving it.

“You found Qrow,” Lionheart says. “How?” implying that he might have been doing even more work than we saw to keep those two apart. A voiceover from Ozpin wonders what happened to his former ally. The fact that Lionheart knows all the details of Ozpin’s reincarnation tells us that yeah, they were really, really close.

That knowledge is dangerous too. Realizing that Ozpin “couldn’t have had that form for long” Lionheart gets over the debilitating shock of fighting, you know, Ozpin. We hear him rationalizing in the wonderfully creepy manner of the desperate that this is just a boy in front of him, a boy soon to be Ozpin, and if he delivers the kid to Salem he’ll “finally be free" of her. Sounds a lot like Raven thinking that the relic will protect her; a lot like a hurt Tyrian muttering that she’ll forgive him.

RWBY does a good job of reminding us in small ways how utterly terrifying Salem is...and what that fear drives people to do.

This would be the (supposedly) perfect moment for Ozpin to take over. Oh no! Lionheart is all serious now! Oscar is worried! But the only thing Ozpin does is tell him to “fight.” I’ve heard a lot of people in the fandom claim that Ozpin is a monster for his possession, culpable for something that’s outside of his control. But Ozpin has no desire to take over people’s lives like this and—unlike Hazel or Raven—it really is out of his hands, to say nothing of the fact that he does all he can to actually achieve what he thinks is right. He can’t keep himself from merging with Oscar, but he can give Oscar as much agency as humanly possible, including here. The only times we see Ozpin take that agency away is when it really is for the greater good (they can’t afford to hide on a farm forever) or when Oscar is well and truly in over his head, like after the fight with Hazel goes on too long. Taking over Oscar at that point is to save his life, akin to forcing someone out of the way of a blast.

But we’ll get to that.

We come back to the fight between Weiss and Vernal as Weiss tries to buy herself enough time to summon her knight. Vernal easily cuts through her summoning though… which is kind of a relief? In that RWBY (usually) knows when to limit new powers. If Weiss had no real limitations on her summoning—the time it takes, the energy it requires—we’d be wondering why she didn’t just summon a whole, super-powered army every time they were in a spot of trouble. Too many shows (Supernatural...) craft crazy powerful characters and then conveniently forget about that power when it would too easily solve a conflict.

Also, check out that smile from Vernal.

We segue to Cinder and Jaune. Kudos to Jaune for holding his own one-on-one! He really is Pyrrha’s student. Remember what other kid managed to hold her own against a freaking Maiden, at least for a time?

Emerald won’t let Ruby get anywhere near Cinder. She “owes her everything" after all. But she’s willing to indulge her (so to speak) and summons up a mirage of Cinder to fly at Ruby. That and the resulting attack startles her enough that she sets off Crescent Rose, the bullet narrowly missing Weiss.

…Portent of things to come.

Because we’re back on Weiss and it's becoming clear to the viewer why we’ve been focusing so much on her in this battle. A shock from Vernal’s weapon rips out a scream from her, draws Jaune’s attention, and Cinder cruelly asks if he’ll “let her die too.”

Gotta have the fake-out first though. Deciding to take him seriously, Cinder charges with intent to kill and the head-on strike triggers Ruby into remembering Pyrrha’s death. Her silver eyes instinctually go off, blinding everyone and halting the battle.

Emerald knocks her out fast but even those few seconds was enough to effect Cinder. Apparently once you’re struck by that kind of power your body remembers it. She’s down on her knees, clearly in pain, and Jaune takes the opportunity to get a strike in, managing to clip the half-mask she wears.

And yeah. Cinder’s pissed.

Partly from getting caught in one of Ruby’s blasts again. Partly because a “nobody” like Jaune managed to hit her. Awful when that power you sought isn’t as perfect as you were promised, huh? Jaune makes the mistake though of declaring that he’s not important, only his friends are… and Cinder knows exactly how to make one of the good guys suffer.

Why just kill him when you can instead kill the girl he was worried about moments before? Why grant him peace when you can vividly recreate the trauma of Pyrrha’s death instead?

We have just enough time left in the episode to see the team’s shocked faces, watch Cinder’s weapon disappear, and then we cut with Weiss in mid-fall.

It’s a brutal combo of content and editing. Thanks, Rooster Teeth! I hate it!

We all know how things turn out though… so that's some kind of comfort. Until next time!

Other Details of Note

When everyone enters Haven tower we see this statue… and honestly I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Something something it’s a maiden guarding a Maiden relic. Something something broken chains and freedom. Something something Atlas-esque imagery of holding up a world…you get the idea. It’s symbolic.

Cinder calls Qrow “little bird” and Lionheart “lion.” Always something wonderfully creepy about villains with a penchant for nicknames.

When Jaune first charges Cinder we pull back behind the chain on the statue and see it sway from the force of his attack. It’s quick and subtle, but an excellent visual detail to show us how strong he’s gotten. Pre-Fall of Beacon Jaune never would have managed that kind of force.

For all its faults in places, I enjoy how much this fight makes use of space, especially when it comes to Weiss using her glyphs. It’s not perfect or as complex as what we might have had with Monty, but I think the team is improving in their choreography overall.

Yes, Jaune is well over his schoolboy crush on Weiss---something I'm pleased about---but it still hits hard to have her as the victim here. Out of every team member Cinder could have targeted she chooses the one other girl Jaune might have had legitimate, romantic feelings for. In an alternate timeline, so to speak.

So the whole “villain walks slowly towards the person they’re gonna kill and everyone who normally has superhuman reflexes doesn’t move an inch” trope is crazy annoying, right? Just putting that out there...

#rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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katzenflocken · 5 years

Text

LA Times

I went to a Halloween party in October and I wrote down my experience in my phone.

A month or so ago I had made the decision that I wanted to attend a Halloween event and ultimately I decided on scream in Edmonton. I had bought the pre-sale ticket without actually knowing who was playing since there was no lineup details but this didn't concern me because I just wanted to go have fun and listen to some jams with cool people. I had calculated the cost of bus and hotel and came up to roughly 700 for a comfortable trip with all the best food/mixed drinks at the show. I had already had my own party favors so this was one of the reasons why I wanted to keep it local in Alberta. But then the lineup got released and I only seen one artist that was potentially going to be "okay" after listening to their SoundCloud. I was feeling very on the fence and on top of that, the party only went until 2am which was making it real hard to justify a long boring ass bus ride for a short night of mostly lame edm music. (No offense to the edm enthusiasts out there)

After some Olympic tier mental gymnastics of being so sure I wanted to go to Scream, I got curious and went to the handy dandy Resident Advisor and looked at shows in Alberta then Vancouver, even Toronto. I didn't see any events I was interested in and I left it at that. Then I got the brilliant and brave idea to possibly venture outside our borders, and a few clicks later I stumbled upon louisahhh's upcoming events and noticed she was playing a show along with boys noize and tbh, it was a no brainer. I had to make this happen. After a few calculations, it was literally going to cost the same as going to Edmonton (600 cdn) but with more spending money required in American. So naturally it was 💯 percent the logical choice. The event was called Minimal Effort which was an all techno show with 4 stages. Like holy shit! This event was most definitely calling my name.

I had told family and a few friends and some them ask me why? I've already vacationed once or twice this year so why a third time? I really don't know why, there is no reason. I just like doing these things. It is true that given the current situation, I better to avoid these such things. but the idea of letting someone's words prevent me from doing something so fun and exciting yet so doable drives me mad. In fact this very idea is what makes it so evident that I am in control of my life. I create the reality I live in and why should I let others shape it for me with manipulating opinions. I would argue I am not living to die, I am dying to live. Personally I don't think it's very odd or strange to do exactly what you put your mind to, so it is in such a context that I wanted to make this trip. I hope people see what I do and feel encouraged or empowered. If I can do it you can too. But everyone isnt me and is open to their own opinion.

So my passport is lightly damaged, a few months after I got it I washed it lol whoops. I've been using it since without incident and it expires pretty quick in early 2019 so I felt confident I will make it on the plane and I did! I flew air Canada btw and their service was very meh. There was also some meean turbulence, other than that it was boring. Planes suck ass and I can't sleep on them. I had bought a roaming plan so I can text and use Google maps like a real Traveller. This was the best decision of the whole trip actually, so get ur phones working guys!

Upon landing I was very nervous because I literally didn't want to pay a lot of money to get downtown where my hostel was. But I asked this Tony hawk looking guy he gave me the rundown and to take the skyaway bus which was like 9 dollars. Hella life saver! I got downtown and got Subway spicy chicken wrap at Union station. Now I taxi'd to my hostel... It was near or in the ghetto. When the man dropped me off it was dark and these yuuuge dogs were jumping at me from the other side of the fence, confirming my suspicion that this is in fact the ghetto. I find the property next door and these dudes are smoking outside, I got their attention and they said to go upstairs and talk to "Champaign". In my head I instantly thought a black drug dealer... But then I was greeted by a slim easy going japanese dude with a samurai ponytail who spoke poor English but still had a friendly vibe. Turns out he is the cook/caretaker. I came on the night they had a dinner party that they hold once a month. Pay 10 dollars and you can eat the food that he was cooking. Champaign cooked for a army and I felt like an asshole because I literally came with a belly full of Subway. I had a few snacks and met the other Traveller's/Tennant's that were residing here. In that exact moment I felt like this is exactly where I needed to be. I was not alone and I was amongst other human beings like myself and we were all brought together by an unknown force all so Champaign can go to bed we knowing no one went to bed hungry. I actually passed out after midnight. Kinda lame but tbh I was wiped out from that hectic almost frantic trip to this hostel. The toppest compliment I give to any hotel/hostel is that this place had the best mattress, apparently they were italian (I asked lol).

Saturday (party day). My goal in the afternoon was to adventure and have a decent meal but it was getting off to a slow start due to me not figuring out where I wanted to go. I was recommended business district and looked up reviews but it was all meh. I want that yummy and probably unhealthy local food locations. The guy also said to take an Uber. Which I was like uhhhhhh iduno man... Maybe. Then as I was just getting ready to leave, this korean guy named Sam asked where I was going and he said "you should check out Korea Town, it's dope!!" And I looked up places and he said "no go here!" And I was like okay. Then he said he'll come with me and show me around after he finishes the laundry. Like a good lad I waited and in between he looked at me and whispered "hey do you do... Stuff" and there are a lot of implications there lol so I had to ask like what? And he pulled a little baggie and my reply was "yeah I like stuff" then did it and the kid lit up like a Christmas tree. He was mad hype folding the towels and then him and Champaign blazed downstairs.

One of the most fascinating yet mundane happenings was that I installed Uber on my phone. While those guys were blasting off I went ahead and gave the Uber a good historic first whirl. Little did I know my life was about to change in that exact moment. In 2 minutes after selecting where I wanted to go the driver was there. Holy shit! The cool part was that I only paid 8 dollars to go to the opposite side of the downtown. I wish I can expand on what I did, but tbh all we did was just walk and talk. It was great because it made me feel more immersed in to the city. Kind of like you had to be there type of experience. Then it was food time, he pointed out a Korean joint and I got a meal and he didn't order anything and then like 10 sides came and then 6 more little plates for the main dish. I told Sam he can have some because this is absurd. As we were eating, I slowly gazed around the place and everyone was just a little bit chubby. Sam told me Koreans don't waste their shit and eat as much as possible... Plus it's America lol. After eating like an animal and totally ruining my white shirt we went to get smokes and the line at 711 was almost way too long. Sam pointed out that everyone was powerballin' it... Then upon paying for the smokes and soda I said "one Powerball please". I had caved in and joined the race. We took an Uber back and the driver was a Mexican mom. She was cute in a grandma kind of way and we talked about there should be a "good news" radio because it's so scary listening to the radio. We laughed and laughed some more while Sam had fell into a Korean BBQ coma.

We get back to the hostel, Sam goes back to work and I have about an hour to get ready/nap before the party. Sam asked if I needed party favors and I took him up on his offer, because I hate asking at parties because it's so sketchy. At this point of the trip I realized everything is going 110% right. Sometimes I feel like I am just lucky because I always find myself in surprising situations and that now it's almost normal to me. My body and mind was totes ready to party, then I almost forget... I have stickers!!! I always have some in my bag and I grabbed at least 50 of them. People always love that shit, plus it makes everything more fun by adding another layer to the party... Lol get it? Layer?!? Aaanyways the one girl showed me how to work the door lock, basically it's an app that registers my phone to the deadbolt... What a game changer! Technology huh?! What a cool place! Then the Uber came and took like 4 dollars to get there, I think I can get used to this LA lifestyle if I ever had the chance. The dude dropped me off and I was proper nervous, made sure to hide my shit good and have my ID, ticket and game face ready because there was like 8 security in front... Also I am a pretty nervous person in general, I may seem cool and collected on the outside but on the inside I am a scared little shaking Chihuahua barking internally.

So I finally made it! All my hard work payed off! The weird thing was the guy didn't even look at my ticket, just my ID. Any Yahoo off the street could have walked in. Butt fuck it, I am here and that's all that matters. Imediately I get a beer... 8 dollars. The shit I put up with tbh, the price I pay for fun is worth it but my goodness is it painful. I wander around the theatre and it is nicely large and open. Not hot!! Can you believe that? The other stages weren't bad, too much to take it all in tbh. I settled at the main stage which was the first one you sent me when you walk in. The first artist playing was a chick, she played some good jam actually so I quite enjoyed her set. The only thing that led me to believe she doesn't actually make music and only is a DJ, was that every track she played I knew. Which is expected from shows like this but she didn't play anything "original", it's not a bad thing but if I was to critique her I'd be disappointed because I am the type of person to be wowed and I like to seek new material. I went for a smoke and met this couple dressed and Vegeta and Bulma, hella rad. They were cool, totally forget their names tho. Met this Mexican dude too who was a little short had crazy contact lenses and had a friendly chat. he was rolling which was cool because I wish I was, I even asked him but he was fresh out. The party started picking up too and louisahhh's set was about to play and I am 3 beers deep so I gotta step up my game. And guess what!? It's Modelo time homie!! Met a dude in a headdress and took a pic with him to piss off other people who are against that bullshit, as long as they are respectful about it I think it's awesome... so @ those who are trying to be offended on purpose, fuck you. Went to the bathroom and dropped my Modelo and the worker watched me do it and didn't say anything and swept it up. I went back to get another normal beer because the Modelo was 9 dollars. They mind as well get the lube ready because they are already fucking me dry. I had run out of party favors at this point because I only had a little but that's not why I am here so I accept that fact and I am just glad to be here. The dancefloor was sticky but as more spills happened it was less annoying and more people came, it made it more bearable lol if that makes sense. The sound was definitely worse at the front of the stage so I found that sweet spot 15 feet back in the zone where the speakers were pointed. 7/10 audio, it's no pk system but hey I don't mind too much! Louisahhh was stepping in and she had a super neat outfit going kind of future/madmax like. Her hair was excellent if I might add. I've always wanted to catch her set but never had the chance until now. I could say it was what I expected, which was basically the same set I've heard her play on other sets I heard from her. It's not a negative but mental gymnastics aside she could have spiced it up some more by playing new shit, like I said. I am just glad to be there.

After louisahhh played her set Boys Noize had stepped in and he opened up with that one song he always does lately lol I forget the name but let me tell you, my body was ready! The "wares" I had bought off Sam at the hostel were already used up but I didn't need any, my body was tingling from the energy in the room. I met the maddest group of lads in the crowd and I gave them a handful of stickers to help me distribute. They loved it! I was also doing "rogue" work by slapping stickers on people without them knowing. The funniest ones were the Dealer and Wasted stickers. The lazers and lights in this place were magnificent. Production was nearly top notch 7.8/10. it's a theatre but they used it as well as they could. I want to describe this experience more but going to a party is the purest chaos you can experience. It almost can't be explained, only witnessed. I honestly love being social at these events. In real life I can be very shy or unwilling to exchange or talk with others. It pains me really, I just love people and I want to make genuine friends but I feel so reluctant to meet new faces because I don't really click that well with others. I know that I am unique and sometimes strange, I am sometimes don't give a fuck but I tend to be antisocial because of paranoia that other people won't like me when they get to know the real me. When I attend rave parties, I tend to feel more free and open because I know the people in attendance are also there for the same reason I am. Obviously this may or may not be a healthy life style but it is very fulfilling in a very emotional way. I may not have that many real life friends but when on the dancefloor everyone is my friends lol that sounds like the gayest shit ever but it's true. Anyways party is still bumping and it's 6 am and I am wiped out, boys Noize played some of the best tracks I heard at awakenings I noticed. Kind of the same shit really. But it was LA so more mainstream crowd. I leave the club and it was so fucking foggy outside, like a horror movie. 2spooky4me. I hit up Uber like 4 blocks away because it was just too crazy in the front of the theatre. I got this younger driver about my age and we talked about McDonald's lol she was fun then I get back to the hostel hungry as fuck. Eated bread and smonked some herb and hit the hay.

Next morning I hung out in the common area. Watched friends and watched Champagne die from smoking weed lol he was my favorite. Cool hostel tbh very home like. I had few hours to myself before my flight so I decided I wanted to go to little Tokyo. I had to say goodbye to the hostel, the guys downstairs gave me a donut lol and I got into the Uber. The guy talked about the dodgers game like I actually give a heck about sports. He dropped me off at the entrance of Little Tokyo. This was actually the most wholesome part of my trip. The first sight of the Japanese style outside mall was kind of exhilarating because LA is mostly just the same everywhere. The buildings and decorations were very refreshing and it was a feast for the eyes. Such beauty. As I continue to explore the small but busy space I feel this feeling of wonder and excitement, it made me feel less hungover if I am being honest. The world I was seeing in that moment was powerfully moving and rich with happiness. I wanted to stay forever. In the centre there was an open space where an older Asian man in a scooter and an array of instrument s in front of him. He had a little sampler Casio and hi hats and maracas. It was like a scene out of the movies where you see those cute moments because he was playing to this couple from China that were standing in front of him and you can hear them talking to the Man in between singing lol, they gave him money to play that song from toy story "skies of blue" or whatever it's called and then at the end he pulled out the maracas and hit them on the cymbals with style. I filmed a little bit of it actually. I ended up eating sushi and chicken katsu outside on the deck and just enjoyed the experience. Alone. Fucking sad actually that I couldn't share my emotion with someone else but I really enjoyed the place. I shop in the anime store and gift shop, got a few things for friends and family then had to rush to the airport. I got to Union station and shuttle to the airport right on time. Slightly early since the flight changed to a later time. I walked around and had some beer and wings then got on the plane. Nice cozy airport experience. My dad picked me up and he was working in siksika that week so I slept in his trailer. It was cold as shit and I was late for work the next day like nothing ever happened lol. Just a quick weekend trip, no big deal. Travelling is so so so much fun, I want others to read or see my adventures and feel somewhat inspired to take more risks and go on their own adventures. Its good to open your eyes and free yourself of your surroundings, especially on the reserve. There's a world out there and there's more to life than the bullshit drama that happens here. I look at the world in wonder and amazement, I know it's a sick and sometimes dangerous place but I make it my world by appreciating it for what it is. Everything is kind of all right. Sometimes I wish I didn't exist but I don't want to die either, doing these things remind me that life can be great so I hope I don't come off braggy or I am acting "too good". I make minimum wage yet I still do all this cool stuff. It's not hard to do, just literally set your mind go and do it . I chase my dreams while others think "what if" lol but yeah do more fun shit guys!!!!

#travel #los angeles #america #little tokyo #boys noize #louisah #airport #journal #adventures #rave #party #friends #strangers #bread

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romaniassexdungeon · 6 years

Text

Shattered Romanticism of a God - Chapter 7

Summary: Tino hadn't expected a lot of things. He hadn't expected the relatively unknown band he was reviewing to actually be good. He hadn't expected its lead singer to be absolutely gorgeous. And he certainly hadn't expected to spend the next few months falling for such a wonderful man.

Sorry for the unexpected hiatus. Uni hit and I have a lot of other stories to update, but I’d like to keep updates for this more consistent from now on, and not just because this is the fic people actually read. Honestly, I don’t think this fic is gonna be amazingly long. Like, more than twenty chapters, but I doubt I’ll reach thirty. And yes that’s short for me! I’ll get it done, though. Bully me if I don’t. Oh, and I went back and changed Belgium’s name to Isabel because that’s the name I use for her now.

Gunner - Denmark /// Adriaan - Netherlands

Read the full fic on AO3 and FF.net

My ko-fi

“Oh, what a lovely day!”

Tino was perfectly happy to converse with his dog in public, and did so freely as he strode down the street, ignoring the stares and glares for daring to disturb the peace, with pointless rambling to an animal of all things. What did he care? Kukkamuna was a very good listener.

“I hope you have fun today,” he just continued, “but try not to make a mess of uncle Berwald’s house - we want to stay on his good side.”

She yapped in response, and not one of those sarcastic yaps she give before taking a dump on the hall floor the moment they came in from their walkies despite having a whole hour in the park to do so, but a genuine yap like she would actually behave. Maybe she knew what was at stake here?

It was really a lovely day though: the sun shone in its crisp autumn beauty and there was no sweltering heat to leave him sunburnt within five minutes. That was always nice. Unfortunately though, it was a little too early in the year for those nice crunchy fallen leaves to tread on, and Christmas was still four months away. Four whole months and yet there was so little time to prepare. What was he like? Eduard could probably answer that for him. The police also had a file to describe what he was like too.

For some reason, even though Berwald was in his twenties and probably couldn’t afford a house, being the lead singer of an unknown band, Tino was certain the guy lived in one. A neat house with freshly cut grass and white shutters. Detached or semi-detached. With an enormous kitchen, so big it had one of those islands.

He gasped at the concept. They could boink on the island!

Except he didn’t have a house! Berwald had explicitly told him he shared a flat with Gunner, and sometimes Tolli would sleep on the sofa if he wanted to run away but not permanently and was just trying to make a point. The other three band members could also often be found practising or passed out in various rooms. Tino thought the noise and bustle sounded fun, but Berwald had admitted he’d prefer a bit of quiet now and again. And a tidy flat for once.

He’d even mentioned he was a little jealous of Tino living alone; he could keep his flat tidy and sleep in peace.

Oh sweet, innocent Berwald.

He did eventually find the block of flats, still disappointed in how normal it was. Regular flats with little white balconies. Something told him the one dripping with hanging baskets and beer can decorations was where he’d end up, and it really was a shame it wasn’t possible to make a bet with himself because he’d obviously win. And lose.

But if he started arguing with himself he’d just be proving that judge in Copenhagen right, so instead, Tino rang the doorbell.

He waved pleasantly to an old couple as he waited, the two shuffling along, hand-in-hand, smiling at him and each other. It gave him hope, seeing old people happily in love after all that time, after having to live with someone and their habits and farts and smelly socks for so long. Maybe he’d have that one day. With Berwald. Or Tony Kakko. Or any member of Sabaton.

But preferably Berwald.

Speaking of which, he looked beautiful as he answered the door. Maybe Berwald had an endless supply of turtleneck jumpers, because he was wearing one yet again, a deep blue beauty. Tino had never seen him in jog bottoms before, though.

“Hey, Berry,” he greeted, “look, I’m on-time and everything!”

“Didn’t doubt ya,” he gave one of his beautiful smiles. Kukkamuna yapped a hello and jumped up at his leg.

“You’d be surprised how many people do,” he smiled back as he was lead into the hall. ”You know, based on a mountain of evidence.” Berwald didn’t reply, but Tino swore he saw the hint of a smile as he closed the door.

“Sorry I don’t have a pie to give you,” he said as they climbed the stairs, “but the last one I made burnt so it’s probably for the best.”

Berwald definitely smiled at that.

“Then there was the chocolate mousse that was more like chocolate milk,” he continued, since his lack of cooking was so fucking hilarious to most people, “and all those crispy black pizzas. And that soup I burnt.”

“How-”

“I forgot it was on the stove and all the water evaporated out of it. All I was left was this clay-like thing. Like, some gross paste.”

“Y’tasted it?”

“I was a broke student.”

Berwald patted his shoulder, letting him into a flat that had recently - but hurriedly - been cleaned. Clearly. Tino was glad he wasn't the only one trying to make an effort. He could see what touches were Berwald’s and what were Gunner’s, or at least he guessed the shelf of carefully put together lego sets of various landmarks belonged to the Dane. Not to stereotype, but they probably did. There was also a death star model that would’ve made Eduard weak at the knees. The cookbooks probably belonged to Berwald.

“So which one of you collects boats,” he asked, bending down to admire the shelf full of them. He especially liked the little ones in bottles.

“Gunner,” said Berwald, taking his coat, “we both collect things.”

Tino turned to him with a smile. “Oh? And what do you collect?”

He shrugged. “Books. Swords.”

Tino’s eyes widened. “That’s hot. Really hot. And pretty badass.”

Berwald almost smiled at that. “Mm, Gunner ‘n me, we dun have a lot’ve money cause of hobbies. ‘N alcohol.”

Their job was singing in a band with a total of six fans. And Tino thought he was bad at budgeting.

“Have you considered not buying swords?”

Berwald looked absolutely horrified.

“Or CDs,” Tino glanced past him at yet another shelf, “then again, I like a man with a massive CD collection.” Did that sound suggestive? Alluring? Or just weird and creepy? Still, what kind of music did Berwald actually listen to? He knew he was being nosy, but Berwald absolutely fascinated him, and since trying to get the guy to talk about himself was like pulling teeth, he might as well snoop while he could.

“You don’t mind if I have a little peruse, right?” he said with a wink. Berwald shrugged and left him to it, setting about making a pot of coffee.

The first thing Tino noticed was that a sizeable chunk of the CDs had been recently removed, from the top shelf, a band or singer beginning with ‘A’, he suspected, given that Berwald had alphabetised his collection. He could see some odd choices of music just from a glance, so what was particularly embarrassing about this one band, since he’d taken the time to hide it from him?

He had a Sarek CD, for Christ’s sake!

Besides that, there seemed to be every metal band he'd heard, plus a few unfamiliar albums that looked more folk in nature.

“Interesting tastes,” he commented, picking up a Gloryhammer album.

“S’Gunner’s,” Berwald mumbled, shuffling up awkwardly next to him.

“Figured.” He didn’t know if the man was lying, but he could well believe Gunner listened to songs about space wizards and evil unicorns. He and Christopher Bowes gave off the same chaotic energy, now that he thought about it. “I’m guessing he’s also the Alestorm and Ninja Sex Party fan. What a man.”

“Like ‘em too,” Berwald mumbled. Tino raised his eyebrows and turned to him with a wicked smile.

“I never took you for a pirate metal fan.”

Berwald shrugged. “Grew on me.”

Tino would like to grow on him too. He decided not to even wonder what that was supposed to mean. “Where is Gunner anyway?”

“Adriaan’s. Guitar practice.”

“I thought Adriaan played bass.”

“Big guitar.”

Tino smiled.

“Ye can stay for dinner,” Berwald mumbled after an uncomfortable silence. Tino just thanked him, deciding not to mention that had been what they’d already decided over the phone. They fell back into awkward silence.

Tino played with his jumper, glancing around for something - anything - he could talk about. He spied a room just past Berwald’s arm, door shut. “Oh? What’s in there?”

“M’workshop!” Berwald, ever so slightly, puffed out his chest.

“Where you practice singing and… triangle?”

He blushed slightly. “Writing.”

Tino perked up at that, bristling excitedly. “Like, original songs?” Berwald nodded. Right! He forgot the guy wrote the band's songs. “Songs you’ve recorded or are still writing?”

“Both. All stages.” He covered his face with a hand. “Lotta crap.”

“Would it be okay if I was the judge of what counts as crap?” Tino asked sheepishly, “I mean, after all, we’re all our own worst critics. Actually, for me it’s Eduard. And this one Norwegian guy who comes on my blog to pick apart everything I write, just because I think Finnish metal is better.”

“Vidar?”

“You know what? I think it could be.” Tino brushed against his arm ever so lightly. “So, your workshop… if you’re okay with that, of course!”

He nodded, “please…”

Though he was bristling with excitement, he waited for Berwald to actually let him in, rather than barge in. He wrote a lot of angry poetry as a teen, and if his mum or cousins had just barged in and read them, he’d… well, he’d have cried and wrote another angry poem about trust. He was going to respect what looked like Berwald’s private space for private songwriting.

Then, when Berwald tentatively lead him inside, he forgot all that upon spying the name of the first song he saw. And the second.

“‘I want to fuck Thor’?” he picked up a scruffy sheet of paper, raising an eyebrow. “‘Odin is my daddy’?” He was in love.

Berwald was definitely blushing this time, and buried his face in his hands. “S’Gunner’s songs!”

“Oh! Well Gunner is a creative genius!” He scrolled down the lyrics, still clearly in their rough stages, but funny nonetheless. He had to laugh at a few lines. “I love them!”

“I wrote them! Gunner can’t write shi-heck!”

Tino smiled at him. “Look, I’m not gonna judge you for anything! I know you’re a dork; you don’t have to impress me. You think I’d judge you for writing something funny and weird? Look at me.” He paused. “You were writing a funny song right?”

Berwald just. “Jus’ thought it would be a laugh.”

“Mmm, honestly there’s no need for boundaries in metal. Go for it! I mean, what’s the point in writing metal if it doesn’t piss someone off, somewhere?”

Berwald smiled ever so slightly at that. Tino smiled back.

"Wanna show me some of your other songs?"

He nodded, almost shaking with excitement.

“And anyway,” Tino said through a mouthful of potato, “then Érzsebét had to explain to me that Boney M sang the original version of Rasputin, and wasn’t a cover band.”

Berwald raised an eyebrow, looking at him judgmentally. It was the same look Eduard gave him, sometimes. Often.

“I’d just heard Turias’ version first!” he insisted, “I don’t listen to a lot outside metal! I’m not an idiot, I swear!”

“Never said y’were,” Berwald waved a hand. “S’cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Tino mumbled.

“Y’are. Very. It’s cute.”

He pretended to scowl, but couldn’t. He’d just spent an hour or so talking about his various internet fights like some loser, and Berwald thought he was cute? Him? Tino? The guy who corrected people’s grammar online despite English being his third language and him not actually knowing the grammar that well? It was just fun to make people mad when he couldn’t come up with a decent argument.

It hadn’t all been talk of himself though! He wasn’t that vain, and didn’t really like talking about himself and being the centre of attention, it was just that - sometimes - Berwald left him struggling for conversation.

Berwald had talked about his music, and even some of his more serious songs, the more personal ones. It was clear he had a passion for it, and he explained - or tried to anyway - that singing and songwriting let him communicate more easily. That he didn’t have to think as much and could actually say how he felt. Ironically, he was having trouble with the song he was writing about the topic. Tino understood.

“You think I’m cute?” he asked sincerely. Berwald shrugged. “Well I think you’re very cute too. Like a teddy bear.”

Berwald smiled and mumbled something into the collar of his turtleneck. Tino smiled and took his hand, squeezing it gently. They looked into each other’s eyes a little too long, and Berwald quickly looked away.

“S’late,” he mumbled, “why not stay t'night?”

Tino blinked. “Uh, sure, yeah! Grounds sate- er, sounds great!”

“I’d offer you Gunner’s bed but,” Berwald pulled a face, “wouldn’t touch it. Can’t do that t’ya.”

“Wouldn’t he be coming back at some point anyway?”

Berwald shook his head. “Nn. Staying over at Adriaan’s. Got the place t’ ourselves.”

To themselves, huh?

“Me and Kukkamuna would really appreciate it,” he said, “she loves you.” He… okay it was a little early to be seriously calling it love, but he did like the guy. A lot. And he wanted to spend more time with him. But what did Berwald mean by him staying the night? Were they gonna do… stuff? All jokes aside, he found himself thinking it was maybe a little too soon. He wasn’t even sure they were dating, though that would be one hell of a confirmation.

“I- I like you too,” he added. “You’re sweet. And good.”

Berwald smiled behind his hand, wiggling ever so slightly, like a happy worm.

“Got a tent,” he mumbled with a shrug, “could set it up in here. Be fun.”

“Ooh! I like camping! Especially when it’s all cold and rainy outside and you have to snuggle up for warmth, especially if you get snowed in like 'hey, might as well make the best of it!'” People usually looked at him like he was mad when he said that, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was some ancient mammal instinct that made him want to burrow somewhere warm and safe, or maybe he liked having an excuse to cling to someone like a lamprey. He wasn’t one for closeness or even being touched, but, on occasion, he liked to snuggle.

Sometimes, he just needed a bit of warmth, but it had to be with someone special. His cousins, his mother, or maybe Vidar if either of them were feeling drunk and emotional, and maybe - quite possibly - Berwald. Anyone else, and he’d probably retreat into his own skeleton.

“Sounds cosy,” Berwald agreed. He actually agreed with him on that?

“And you?” he tried - Berwald clearly liked camping, so maybe it would be a topic he actually talked about. Actually, that was unfair. He apparently loved talking about his work, and his favourite bands. And sword collecting. He didn't think he'd ever been more turned on than when Berwald had showed off all the ornate swords hanging in his room. “What’s your favourite part about camping?”

“Pitching a tent by a lake,” he shrugged, “watching the sunrise o’er the water, sitting with a coffee and some pastries.” He smiled wistfully, resting his chin on a hand. “With a special someone. Romantic.”

Tino nodded. “Yeah, romantic…”

Berwald shook himself slightly and stood up, presumably to get the tent. He paused at the window behind Tino and chuckled. When Tino looked around, he saw that it was pouring rain.

“Cosy weather!” said Berwald excitedly.

“Yes! Perfect for staying over,” Tino grinned, “and snuggling up with you.”

He hated the rain, so was pretty glad he and Kukkamuna could stay over. If you were going to have ‘bad’ weather, you might as well make it snow. Snow was fun and crunchy and the perfect temperature to lie in. Rain just got you wet and cancelled plans.

Actually, he did love cancelling plans, a lot of the time. And rain wasn't so bad when he was inside and warm. It did make a comforting sound.

He blushed and dipped into his bedroom, returning with a tent bag and Kukkamuna, now awake from her nap on his pillow. He smiled as the tiny dog ran around him, jumping up excitedly. He’d never seen her take to someone so quickly before. Berwald loved her too, that much was clear; he smiled so freely around Kukkamuna, like it was impossible to hide anything from her, least of all his adoration.

Tino wasn’t in love yet, but he was as close to it as a person could get.

“Want me to help with that?” he asked. Berwald shrugged. So a ‘yes’ then?

Tino jumped up and, after standing around awkwardly awaiting instructions, began feeding poles through their respective holes. He wasn’t that good at teamwork, but they got the thing set up without wanting to kill each other.

“Hey,” he began as Berwald arranged a duvet and pillows inside the little two-man tent, “wanna hear something funny?”

“Mm.”

“About what I said earlier, about only listening to metal bands and thinking all their songs are the original. Around the same time I first started thinking about writing a metal blog, I made an angry post on some forum complaining about Britney Spears ripping off Children of Bodom’s song, ‘Oops I did it again’.”

Berwald’s mouth twitched upwards.

“And you know the internet, they can always let a mistake go,” he had to laugh at himself, “it did teach me to always research before I write, though.”

Berwald was smiling at that, collecting soft blankets from around the room to add to their little nest.

“And don’t even get me started on the time I, in a room full of Swedes, started referring to ABBA as a cover band, doing disco versions of famous metal songs-”

Berwald laughed at that. He actually laughed! The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, hiding his laugh behind his hand. The sound - so gentle and faint, but there nonetheless - warmed Tino’s heart and left him clutching his chest, and smiling like a mad idiot. It was the most beautiful sound!

Forget everything, Tino might actually be in love.

They sat in the tent and talked for hours, Kukkamuna between them, dozing happily as the two lazily stroked her fur. Berwald talked about the things he and Gunner got up to at university, including starting a band, whilst Tino talked about growing up in Finland, and all the shenanigans he and his cousins got up to. All throughout, he wondered if Berwald was going to make a move, but he didn’t. He wondered if he should make a move himself.

But he didn’t.

Eventually, he fell asleep in Berwald arms, and that was enough for him.

#sufin #aph sweden #aph finland #hetalia #Hetalia Fanfiction #aph fanfiction #hetalia fic #finsu #shattered romanticism of a god

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stereksecretsanta · 6 years

Text

Merry Christmas, @classy2shoes!

I tried to go in a million different directions but I finally decided on something rather light hearted. I hope you like it.

Read on AO3

***

First Impressions

Ten years ago Stiles Stilinski made a vision board for class that included high rise buildings, ivy league colleges, and an assortment of law enforcement badges. Four years ago Stiles found himself at the wrong end of a gun and a pair of teeth. Three and a half years ago Stiles made the very sound decision to run away and start living a minimalist life style while doing his damnedest to avoid the very law enforcement he’d once pinned to his vision board. At the very least his childhood had prepared him to recognize “the law” in its many forms with little effort.

Stiles currently found himself on the outskirts of a town called Beacon Hills. It was bustling enough that Stiles could lose himself in a crowd but close enough to nature that he could go off grid relatively easily. He’d gotten himself a nice little cabin at the edge of a nature preserve so that he could deal with his furry little problem. After that he’d established himself around town as a harmless, possibly Canadian, oddball that looked a little ruff but was ultimately harmless. The Winter of Patchy Beard had been kind and humiliating at equal turns. Now though his growth was even, his hair was a little longer, and he was starting to fill out his basket of flannels.

Now he just needed to get a handle on fishing. Stiles shifted from foot to foot and tucked his elbows closer to his sides. He’d cast at least a dozen times now and still hadn’t managed to hook anything. It was getting colder every day and it was looking like his plan to stock up on jarred fish was a bust. In the week he’d been doing this he’d only managed four fish total. The guys down at the bait shop had insisted that this was a great little spot. Stiles hadn’t heard a blip in their heartbeats either. He was considering that maybe his furry problem might be sending out serious predator vibes and scaring away the fish.

He was just about to pack it in when he picked up the sound of splashing. And not the rapid splashing of an animal sprinting through water. No, this sounded like a person wading through. He tensed instinctively and looked towards the sound only to see Beacon Hills’ own Derek Hale. Stiles tensed even further, his fingers nearly cramping around his pole. Hale was sopping wet, covered in mud, and entirely naked. His usually stern face was looking more severe than ever. Water trailed down his matted hair and over his filthy chest in a way that Stiles would normally drool over.

Today Hale didn’t look like he’d stepped off a photoshoot but rather out of a torture dungeon. He looked like the last survivor of a forest based slasher. He looked like he’d just survived a mob hit.

Just as the thought crossed his mind Hale looked up at him. Even at this distance he looked menacing. Stiles instinctively bowed his head and focused back on his fishing pole. He listened carefully to the sounds of Hale making his way to shore and then into the woods. Since moving to Beacon Hills Stiles had only seen Derek Hale twice. He’d heard about him plenty though. The Hale family was money. Old money. Money with a capital M. No one knew that much about them other than the fact that they owned about half the town, and a lot of property in New York.

They also owned the only other house on Preserve property. Stiles had seen it once in human form but had always given it wide berth while in his small fox body. Something about it had always screamed ‘CAUTION DO NOT PROCEED!’ and thus far his animal brain hadn’t steered him wrong. Human Stiles always assumed the Hales were a family of organized criminals. He’d yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

But they hadn’t kicked up a fuss about his little cabin or his daily strolls through the preserve so he’d firmly decided to let it go. As long as he didn’t see a murder he was one hundred percent willing to believe they were rich on oil or something. Stiles sighed and reeled in his line. He hadn’t caught anything today and he didn’t feel like leaving himself out in the open anymore. He packed up his pitiful bait box, flung his pole over his shoulder, and started the trek back to his cabin.

That night Stiles couldn’t get the Hale family out of his head. Specifically Derek and Stiles was man enough to admit it maybe had something to do with his resting bitch face and effortless model look. He was a big boy now and he could admit to petty attraction. Derek Hale was a prize of a man. In looks at least. The jury was out on whether or not he was a mob enforcer. He certainly had the muscle for it.

In the morning Stiles’ mind was still on Derek Hale. There was an annoying itch in the back of his head demanding he scope out the house in the woods. The more rational side of himself insisted this was a very bad idea and went to chop wood instead. It would hopefully tire him out and with the nights getting colder and colder Stiles didn’t see the harm in a surplus. Since the bite he’d found himself at odds with his brain. His standard ADHD seemed to have gone a little haywire. He was more prone to hyper-fixation then fits of mania. On the plus side he didn’t need to reread instructions twenty times anymore. He could follow through with most simple tasks by muscle memory alone. But God help him if he caught scent of something interesting.

He hoped desperately that chopping wood would keep him from running off to play detective. So he shuffled outside with a thermos of coffee and picked his ax up from his porch. The week before he’d taken down two trees. After chopping them into more manageable logs Stiles had called it. Now those pieces were piled messily around the back of his cabin and Stiles finds himself wishing he’d been a little less of a bum about it.

“Next winter. I’ll do it right next winter.” Stiles set his thermos a safe distance away and pulled up a few logs to get himself started. He kept a careful ear on the pile in case it fell apart but otherwise buried himself in the repetitive chopping motions. It was easy to zone of the rest of the world out this way. His focus narrowed down the swinging motion of his arms and the thunk and crack of each new log. Soon enough the cold drained out of him and he started to sweat through his flannel shirt.

He managed nearly the whole pile before his senses went haywire, something primal deep inside of him screaming 'PREDATOR’. He let his ax fall into the stump he was using as his base and took a calming breath, scenting the air. The hair of the back of his neck prickled and his body was thrumming on high alert aware of every little thing around him from the moist puffs of air he was breathing into his chest to the crinkling of leaves around him as the wind gently shuffled them around.

Stiles knew someone was behind him, standing at the edge of what he considered his lawn. He tightened his grip on the ax with one hand and tipped his head to better hear the stranger. “Can I help you?” He pulled the ax from the stump and turned to face Derek Hale. He was dressed this time, clean and wearing a stylish leather jacket. Stiles felt equally like he should be bearing sharp teeth and running fast and far. Fight or flight at its finest. Stiles couldn’t pin down why though. Sure the Hales might be criminals but he’d dealt with plenty of those as a desperate teen runaway. None of them made him fell like a spooked animal. What was Derek Hale hiding behind his pretty cheekbones?

“You never came to see us.”

“Huh?”

Derek tipped his head to the side gesturing in the direction of his property. “You never came to see my family.”

Stiles flexed his fingers on the handle of his ax. “Sorry? Was I suppose to? This cabin isn’t technically on the preserve. The realator says some old guy owns it; lives down in Miami now.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Stiles huffed out an annoyed breath and rolled his shoulders. “Then you’ll have to tell me what you mean because I’m confused.”

“It’s common courtesy to introduce yourself to the local pack if you plan on living this close. We left you alone because we thought you were passing through. But you’re not, are you?” Derek is staring him down like he’s a particularly dense dumbass and Stiles can’t bring himself to be offended. Pack. Derek Hale said pack.

“Are you…”, Stiles pointed at him with his ax, “are you guys…not human?” He almost whispers it, afraid of how it sounds out loud. Thus far Stiles hasn’t voiced anything about himself. Not since he had a conversation at gun point with a blond nutjob. He’d been too afraid to ask questions or look into finding others like him.

Derek takes a step forward. It feels aggressive and Stiles scrambles back in instinct. He’s back to gripping his ax like a weapon but he has no intention to fight. His brain is fully in run mode now. He’s rooted in place by sheer force of will. “Why are you here?”

“I live here. I moved into this cabin, like people do when there’s a reasonably priced place available.”

Derek starts stalking forward, scowl set firmly in place. He looks like a predator zeroing in on its kill. Stiles backs up until he hits his house and swings his ax up over his shoulder like he has a shot at cutting this man down. Derek yanks it out of his hands and tosses it aside. Then he leans in close, sniffing at Stiles’ neck and hairline.

“Dude…”

“You’re new.”

“Uh?” Against him Derek is still, obviously still smelling him but not making moves to do anything further. Stiles wiggles and shimmy’s until he’s able to step to the side and away from Derek. “I’ve been here almost a year now. I came up just after winter so…” Stiles lets the thought trail away.

Derek’s face pinches, he takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes up to the sky like he’s telling himself to be patient. “Newly bitten. You’re not born like me.”

“Oh…yeah. Four years ago about.” Stiles shrugs his shoulders like it’s no big deal but his heart is racing. If this guy is a shifter there’s no way he doesn’t hear it but Stiles can’t help himself. Until the bite feigning nonchalance was his go to.

Derek turns to him, steps back into his personal space. “And where’s your Alpha?”

“Alpha? The thing that bit me? Dead. A hunter was tracking it. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And this hunter? He just let you go?” Derek raises a brow and the cocky look on his face tells Stiles this could go south fast.

“I knew his daughter. We were friends at school.” Stiles licked his lips and started jiggling his leg. He didn’t like to think about the Argents or about the dual life they obviously had. The implications use to keep him up at night. Stiles let out a breathy chuckle. “He uh…he made me breakfast once. Gave me rides home from school. We hugged once.” Stiles shrugs and grins at Derek. He ignores the tears stinging his eyes and stubbornly refuses to let them fall. There were times, early on, when Stiles wondered if Chris wasn’t crueler for letting him go.

The stare at each other for a few seconds. Stiles focuses on the sound of the leaves skittering arcross his lawn and the birds nesting on his roof. In front of him Derek is stoic. He’s staring Stiles down with an unreadable face. Stiles isn’t afraid anymore, not really. Derek is like him in a way. The first he’s ever met. Even if this doesn’t end well at least he knows he’s not alone. There’s hope.

Derek breaks their staring contest to look off into the woods, in the direction of his house. “Come to my house tomorrow. Around noon.” Derek shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking away, narrowly missing bumping Stiles’ shoulder. “We’ll answer your questions then.”

Stiles listens to him leave until his steps are indistinguishable under the wind and general wildlife. Only then does he turn to look at his pile of split logs. They’re scattered everywhere as Stiles had just let them be where they fell rather than stack them up as he went. It would be smart to stack them now while there was a lot of day left. He stared down the mess he’d made for a while before chuffing and tossing the ax into the mess as well and heading inside.

The rest of his day is a waste really. Stiles’ mind is racing at the idea of another shifter being so close. A whole family of them, a pack. Chris had explained a few basics to him before yelling at him to run. Stiles had held on to every little tidbit of their brief conversation but refused to look online for anything else. He tried to stick to actual books in case someone was trying to track him. Sure, some nights he thought he was being way too paranoid but most nights he felt justified. He started out as an underage runaway with his DNA spread all over a gruesome crimescene. At the mercy of a very famous hunter.

He spent the day waffling back and forth about what he should do. Which meant he packed half his clothes and almost shaved three times. But he also cleaned up his canning jars and aired out a couple of Sherpa throws. He wanted to stay in Beacon Hills, he really did. His animal hind brain just wasn’t so sure. The back of his head kept buzzing, sending warning signals through his body 'PREDATOR, NOT SAFE. RUN. RUN. RUN.’

In the end he fell asleep on the couch under his little pile of throw blankets after eating ravioli’s straight from the pop can. It smelled even worse in the morning. Which drove him to make a good breakfast. The entire time he tended the bacon in its pan he thought to himself that this could be his last good meal in a while. Life on the run didn’t lend itself to good homecooked meals. Stiles piled his plate high with crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, and fluffy misshapen pancakes. Just because he could, he covered his entire plate with syrup and put a splash in his coffee too instead of sugar.

Once he’s done he washes his dishes, drying them even, before putting them away. Stiles walks through his little cabin, running his fingers across every surface. The animal part of him is delighted to be leaving his scent in every inch of wood. The human part of him is sad, wistful. If the meeting with the Hale’s goes poorly he may never come back. And who knows when he’ll feel safe enough to settle down again?

Only when his home is thoroughly drenched in his scent does Stiles pull on a heavy coat and head outside. He stands at the edge of his porch and looks out into the woods to where he know’s the Hale house to be. Derek hadn’t given him the impression that this would be a painless visit. Were’s or not they still seemed like criminals. “Okay Stiles. You can do this. You’re just going to have lunch with the neighbors. The scary, half animal, possible mob boss neighbors. No big deal.” He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders, and steps off the porch.

For trips into town Stiles has a beat up brown crown royal. It’s a horrible car. The suspension sucks, the back seat is nearly torn to shreds, it whines like a dying animal if you go over 30 mph but it never got reported stolen. The owners were probably glad to be rid of it. Stiles had stolen it two states over and drove it like a saint to make sure he never got pulled over. He tried to use it sparingly though. So it stayed put and Stiles walked to the Hale’s. He felt like it was more appropriate this way, to meet other’s like him on foot and by himself.

When he makes it to the clearing in front of the Hale house his whole body is thrumming with tension. He can practically feel his fur standing up on end. He wants to shift and bare his pointy little teeth to say he won’t be messed with. Stiles tries to shrug off the sensation as he draws closer. The closer he gets the easier it is to hear that it won’t be a small lunch. The house is teeming with heartbeats. His own is going a mile a minute no matter how hard he tries to calm it down.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Stiles knocks on the door. It’s a weird thing to feel, knowing that every living thing in that house is focused on the door. On him. He listens carefully to the footsteps coming closer. They sound different than Derek’s, more graceful. There’s a swoosh of fabric with each step.

A woman opens the door. She’s smiling and already holding her arms out for a hug. Stiles is taken aback. He’d been expecting a Black Widow type not a beautifully aging housewife. Before he can think to move she’s hugging him close, tipping his head against his shoulder like he’s a child. “Welcome to our home. Derek told me all about you.”

“Uh?” Stiles holds his hands stiffly in a very 'don’t shoot’ gesture. He’s not sure what the etiquette is on touching people in other packs. He’d rather not have his fingers chewed off.

The woman tuts at him and squeezes a little tighter.

“You shouldn’t be all alone. You poor thing you must be going crazy with questions.” She pulls back, just a touch, with her hands still holding his sides. She looks at him like a mother sizing up a child who’s been away at school. “We’ll talk about all that after we eat.” She steps back and gestures into her house. “Come inside, it’s all ready. You can sit with Derek.”

Stiles coughs into his hand so he doesn’t have to speak and gingerly steps inside. It’s warm and nothing like he expected. Instead of cold modern designs and weapons in plain sight it looks more like a Better Homes and Gardens spread, after a minor earthquake. The furniture is plush and covered in mismatched blankets. The coffee table is beautifully carved from cherrywood but it’s covered in stuffed animals and coloring books. The entertainment center is holding haphazard piles of games and DVD’s. From what Stiles can see of the stairs there’s a rich maroon runner that’s rucked up in places like a dog’s been tugging on it.

The pieces are all there, the bare bones of a gorgeous house, but it’s covered in stuff. Loads of stuff like a daycare center. Stiles jerks as a hand comes to the small of his back but the woman just laughs it off. “I’m sorry about the mess. We cleaned up this morning for you but…”, she rolls her eyes and waves her free hand, “children.”

“Uh yeah. No problem. It’s…I don’t mind.” Stiles shoves his hands into his pockets and lets himself be steered into the dining room. It’s much cleaner than the living room even though the table is groaning under the weight of the food laid out on it. Stiles stops short, leaning back into the woman’s hand. The whole pack is there staring at him like he’s about to take his place on one of the platters. There’s two empty seats, one at the head, and one next to Derek.

The woman gently guides him to his seat, scratching her nails through his hair and Derek’s as she heads to her own. “Stiles I’d like you to meet my pack. My name is Talia. I’m the Alpha and this is my family.” She takes her seat at the head and smiles fondly over the table, clearly happy to see them all sitting in one place. Stiles looks around the table, face slack. No one is giving off particularly hostile vibes. They seem interested, like he’s a shiny new toy, but some of them seem a little bored or embarrassed. The silence stretches on until Derek kicks him in the ankle.

Stiles jerks, nearly falling from his seat into the boy next to him but rights himself with a cough. “I’m Stiles. I don’t have a pack. I didn’t even know there was a pack here.” He looks down at his plate, suddenly uncomfortable with this many eyes on him. “I got bitten a little while ago and I’ve been looking for somewhere to stay.”

“Derek said a hunter let you go? He just let you run off?” It’s a young woman, she’s got dark hair and eyes. Probably Derek’s sister by the age of her. Stiles nods sharply.

“I knew him, his daughter. I didn’t know about werewolves or werefoxes. I was just out for a walk. I guess he felt sorry for me.”

“Or maybe he thought you’d slip up.” The man who speaks has sharp blue eyes and slicked back hair. He makes Stiles’ metaphorical hackles rise. “Maybe he was expecting a bit of a hunt.”

Stiles fights the urge to rise to the bait. The fox in his mind is snapping about like an angry puppy. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know because I took his advice and ran.” He’d like to think that Chris felt some remorse, that letting him go that night really was a mercy. An act of kindness to his daughter’s goofy friend. It quiets down after he speaks and Talia starts passing around plates to break up the tension. There are bowls of stripped and shredded meat passing every which way while everyone assembles their fajitas. Stiles helps himself to a heaping side of rice and seasoned black beans. He mixes it all together beside his folded tortilla while he waits for the chicken to get to him.

He happily takes the bowl of shredded meat from Derek, the smell of food momentarily over taking any lingering nerves. He scoops in a healthy amount then passes the bowl along. He takes two strips of steak from the next bowl just because but passes along the pork without looking. He hasn’t had food like this in a while. He tends to stick to quick, barely seasoned meals. Without a thought Stiles tucks in, taking a massive bite that has his cheeks bulging out like a chipmunks. He groans around the food and shimmy’s in his seat as he chews. It’s good. Way better than he thought he’d be getting.

He feels a little kick to his ankle and looks over at Derek. The look of shocked, borderline disgust has Stiles chewing a little slower. His face heats up as he casts a quick glance over the table. Almost everyone is staring at him. Stiles’ is suddenly aware of his heavy, scraggly beard and unruly hair. He knows he looks like a recently cleaned hobo. It makes it easier for him to distance himself from life before. But now it feels a little absurd. He really should have shaved. Stiles swallows the massive bite in his mouth and coughs to clear his throat.

“Sorry. It’s very good Mrs. Hale. I don’t cook like this anymore.” He looks down at his plate and doesn’t let his eyes wander. Beside him he feels Derek go back to eating so he does as well, this time at a slower pace. Around him conversations start here and there until it seems like it’s just noise. His ears perk here and there but he doesn’t join in. When his plate is nearly empty Derek bumps him with his elbow, then points to the bowl of chicken. “No thanks.” Derek shrugs and helps himself to some more rice.

“So Stiles, I’m sure you have questions. Why don’t you go upstairs and clean up. Then we can talk. I’ll try to answer as best I can. Alright?”

“Sure. Thank you Mrs. Hale.”

“Talia.”

“Uh…yeah, thank you Talia.” Stiles neatens up his plate and silverware to keep his hands busy until Derek gets up.

“I’ll take you.” It sounds genuine but his face is pinched like he has a particularly bad tooth ache. Stiles accepts the invitation regardless, if nothing else it gets him away from the table. Better the enemy you know and all that. The general look and feel of the house makes him feel like his mob boss idea was a little stupid. But the thick, heady scent of wolves keeps the fox inside of him skittish.

Derek leads him upstairs, stepping over the crumpled runner like it’s an everyday thing. It’s quieter upstairs and Stiles feels like he can breathe a little easier. He follows quietly behind Derek until they get to the bathroom. “You looked overwhelmed.” Stiles snorts. “A little.”

Derek lets out a deep breath through his nose and nods. “I’m sorry.” Stiles watches the clench of his jaw as he says it and the serious look in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Well, I did actually. I thought you were going to cause problems.” Derek steps closer to him, so close Stiles can make out the pretty flecks of color in his eyes. “I didn’t realize you were scared until I got close.” Derek runs his hand across the side of Stiles’ neck. His hand is warm and soft. The little fox thats been yapping and twitching all afternoon settles. Derek’s thumb comes up and brushes through his thick beard. Stiles blinks slowly.

“Can I shave?”

“What?” The moment’s broken. Derek steps back and frowns at him.

“I,” Stiles coughs and starts scratching his beard, “I wanted to know if I could borrow a razor?”

“Sure.” Derek heads into the bathroom and rummages under the sink until he pulls out a razor. He passes it over then digs out a small pair of scissors. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Yeah.” Stiles holds the razor to his chest but doesn’t back away while Derek passes. His arm brushes across him and Stiles savors the passing warmth. He waits until he’s sure Derek is downstairs to start cutting away tufts of beard. Scent doesn’t cling to metal and plastic very well but Stiles can tell the trimmers are Derek’s. It sends a little thrill through him to be using it. Since he’s been on the run he hasn’t really allowed himself to think about guys. He hasn’t stopped masturbating but actually thinking about someone in particular? Not in a while. Derek is hot. And he has the added bonus of being a shifter too. No awkward glowy eyes to explain during sex.

When the hair is gone Stiles keeps his eyes on the sink, wetting washcloth and rubbing it across his face. Once the cloth cools down Stiles finally looks up at himself again. His hair is still long, curling gently around his ears. His eyes have bags under them. But he looks clean. He looks young. Stiles takes a deep breath and starts cleaning up his mess. It’s weird, stepping out of the bathroom. He knows everyone downstairs must have heard the razor and he can’t really explain why he needed to do it. He just felt ashamed maybe. Of himself and how different he is. He wrings his fingers together the whole time he heads down the stairs. To his relief no one watches him come down even though he knows they know. Everyone is scattered around in groups. The kids are at the table again, coloring. Stiles tips his head to listen for Talia or Derek because he can’t see either of them.

“This way Stiles.”

Stiles perks his ears and hears another 'this way’. He casts one last look over at the kids before turning past the stairs, down the hall, and into an office. There’s bookshelves built into the walls and stained wingback chairs scattered around. The desk hugs the wall in an L shape. Talia is sitting there in a soft, suede rolling chair. Derek is beside her in mustard yellow wingback.

“Have a seat. Just pick one. They’re clean I swear but my children never could keep food off furniture.” Talia casts a playful scowl at Derek who looks off into a corner like he’s been chastised for this a thousand times over. Stiles grabs a faded pink chair and drags it over. “You look better.”

“Thanks.” Stiles takes a deep breath and starts drumming his fingers on his knees. “I don’t really know where to start.”

“Just ask. The first thing that comes to mind.” Talia smiles and waves her hand encouragingly.

There’s a million things he wants to ask. Why is he a fox when Chris said he was a wolf? How do hunters operate? What’s a pack structure like? If there are born shifters what are the odds he’ll pass it on? Instead he asks this: “Why were you naked in the woods?”

Derek purses his lips and slouches down in his chair like he’ll be able to slide away from the look his mother is giving him. “Again? Derek we’ve talked about this.”

“There was no one around Mom.”

“Stiles was around.”

“I thought he knew.”

Talia sighs and pushes her hand onto the side of Derek’s face. He looks embarrassed so whatever it was wasn’t malicious. “Some werewolves can achieve a full shift. It’s usually a born werewolf. I can do it and my two oldest can as well. Derek,” she looks over him with a wry smile, “likes to shift and catch fish. Like the little pup he is.” She ends this sentence with a pinch to his cheek. He allows it even though his face is burning red.

Stiles can’t help but laugh. Once he starts he can’t seem to stop. There’s still a lot he needs to know. There’s still a lot of scary stuff out there and in his future but this is good. He can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief. He ran right into another pack of shifters. Good people who all lived together and sat at a table for meals. People who let their moms pinch their cheeks and liked to play around in the water. He laughs until he can’t breathe. The he sits back up and rubs his hands across his face until he can breathe properly again.

“Sorry. M'sorry. I just…”

Talia leans forward and places her hand on his knee. “I understand. We were born into this. The bite is a gift to us but for others…I know that things must have been really hard for you. I’ve only just met you but you’ve kept to yourself. You haven’t caused any problems and you seem to have excellent control. I’d be happy to welcome you into my home, and my pack, whenever you’d like.” She pats his knee again before sitting back in her chair. Beside her Derek’s face is still pink but he looks serious. Stiles finds himself staring at him, maybe for longer than appropriate.

Talia graciously doesn’t comment and they get down to the questions. Stiles starts slow because he doesn’t know where to start but soon enough his questions are running into one another until he’s not really getting full answers at all. Talia and Derek are taking it in stride, answering as quickly as they can and not getting frustrated when his mind jumps track in the middle. The next time he finds himself pausing Talia stands and rubs her hands across his shoulders. Stiles looks up at her and feels a pang of longing. She doesn’t look anything like Melissa but her expression is dead on.

“I think we’ll stop there for today. You can come back any time but I think you should process what we’ve talked about already before trying to absorb more.” She ruffles his hair for good measure and leaves. Then it’s just him and Derek.

“You looked like a failed mob hit.” As soon as it’s out of his mouth he regrets it. He scrunches up his face and slumps back in his chair. Of all the things to say.

“Really?” Derek snorts kicks lightly at Stiles’ foot. “I thought you were a serial killer.”

Stiles starts laughing again, softly at first, then full belly laughs as Derek joins in with him. It’s hard to reconsile this happy looking Derek with the severe looking man he’s seen around town. When the laughter tappers out Stiles leans forward, elbows on his knees, and starts rubbing his face again. It’s weird after so long. He feels like he’s making a fresh start.

“It suits you. The shave.” Derek is leaning forward too. Stiles can only descibe his eyes as intense. And pretty, very pretty. Here in this office, surrounded by the smell of happiness and flowers Stiles feels brave enough to flirt back.

“We can’t all grow them as good as you. I’ve gotta say, even with the resting bitch face I found myself intrigued.” He chuckles and licks his lips. He wanted to say something smooth, maybe segue into a date proposition. But he’s out of practice. Not that he was any good before. Derek doesn’t look overly impressed but he doesn’t look angry either. Stiles is willing to take that as a win. He doesn’t want to go home. Not just yet, not now that he’s got a chance to talk to Derek. He just doesn’t know what to say to keep the conversation going. It’s been a long time since he’s had to do more than give pleasantries.

“You were trying to fish? The other day at the creek.”

“Yeah, trying being the key word.” Stiles licked his lips again and shrugged. “I was given many talents. Fishing was not one of them.”

“I could teach you.”

“With a pole I hope.”

Derek clucks his tongue and tips his head back over the edge of the chair. His arms are crossed over his chest and Stiles savors the way his muscles bulge. He rakes his eyes over the long line of his throat and the sharp cut of his cheek.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing you run around on all fours. Tell me, are you a Twilight style werewolf or more like Harry Potter? I could get behind either I just want to know how seriously I’m going to take you afterwards.” Stiles laughs and shyly nudges his foot against Derek’s. He can see him rolling his eyes.

So it’s not a date. But Stiles isn’t ready for that. Honestly he’s not sure he’s ready for real human interaction. The past year has been good for keeping him sane but he hasn’t been social. And not even twenty-four hours ago he thought Derek was a criminal about to gut him alive. Still, it’s a start. Even if this whole thing crashes and burns at the very least Stiles can say he put himself out there.

“Let’s try with the pole first. I wouldn’t mind seeing how you handle that.” His smirk is challenging and Stiles feels a smug spark of hope. Looks like Derek’s putting himself out there too.

#classy2shoes #stereksanta17 #*fic17 #*gifts17

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keptin-indy · 7 years

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Dresden Files: Salem 14

Adler makes a bad decision and everyone deals with the fallout for two sessions. Also I put way too much detail into documenting a bluebooking session because it’s cute.

Previous installments

Sanya asked if they wanted help smiting the demon, but Adler pointed out that they had to find her first and asked for her number from Conan, saying he was going to set up a meeting via anonymous tip. Baz suggested going to the same warehouse where they had killed the witchhunter, since they knew it was out of the way enough for murder. Sanya did not want to know this story, but in fairness, neither did Baz and he’d been the one doing the murdering. Sanya insisted they find another way and Adler said that if he had one, he would love to hear it and was all ears...then proceeded to make that statement literal. Sanya asked what manner of creature he was and Adler said that he didn’t know except that he was someone who wanted to make things better and give Baz a break. With no other viable options, Adler called the woman’s cell from a payphone, telling her he had a tip on her dead partner, then gave her the time and place for a meeting. She very reasonably sounded terrified and asked how he got the number, etc, etc, but he gave no more information. The group plus Sanya headed over to the warehouse early to prepare, all armed for battle, with Conan in a ski mask “just in case” and with his blessed bullets, and Sanya kitted out with his Sword, an assault rifle, and a kevlar vest with a cross painted on it. Baz warned him that proximity to wizards tended to break more complicated guns, but Sanya said he’d chosen a Kalashnikov for precisely its ability to keep going no matter what. Baz asked if Sanya knew any other preparations they could take in a short time, and Sanya said that he had a landmine in his checked baggage, but not much else (making Baz very happy that he would never be on a plane himself). Ath, the living sword, brought a knife and then proceeded to arrange the boxes and crates in the warehouse to his liking. Adler turned into a creature that at first glance would appear to be a dog, but that could unfold into one of his horrible claw monster forms. Baz and Adler took point, standing in the middle of the warehouse, while the others hid amongst the boxes and waited for the woman to arrive. She eventually did, armed with pepper spray and looking exactly as terrified as a lone woman in a warehouse with a large man with an equally large sword and dog would be. Seeing this, Baz tried to backtrack, telling her he would stay back, far away from her, and just wanted to talk. He asked if she knew her partner had been a demon, which she denied, but Evelyn, watching from where Baz could see her, gave him a thumbs down to indicate she was lying and Adler tried to get between the woman and the door, causing her to bolt for it. Ath toppled the precarious tower of boxes he’d set up earlier, blocking the door, and the woman begged to be let out. At her rising distress, the ground started to tremble - evidently she was a practitioner, powerful but untrained, and directing all her raw energy downward into the earth. Evelyn came out and tried to salvage the situation and calm everyone down, but with no easy way to tell if the woman was a demon trying to lower their guard, Baz asked Sanya what would happen if someone tried to look at a Denarian with the Sight. Sanya told him that the last guy who’d tried had run away screaming, so Evelyn - knowing that Baz was the better combatant should this provoke a fight - volunteered and opened her third eye. The first thing she noticed was that there wasn’t a Denarian sigil on the woman, but the lack of something was an extremely unusual and slightly suspicious thing to notice so immediately, especially when the less noticeable characteristics included skin like cracked marble and a definite sense that she was both unstable and influence by the infernal. Evelyn closed the Sight and told the others she wasn’t a demon. Baz apologized for scaring her, but told her that the person she was looking for was very dangerous and they had to be sure. The group asked her some questions, but didn’t find much other than that she was searching for Bennett because she loved him even though he was a demon. Evelyn offered her professional services, Adler turned into a much less terrifying fluffy dog, and Ath snuck out to get coffee and donuts. Baz told her that they had killed her boyfriend and that he’d been sucking away people’s happiness and killing them with despair. She was horrified; to her, he’d been nothing but kind, teaching her how to control her magic (though Evelyn didn’t think this was the whole story). Baz told her she could get training from the Witches in Salem, but she said she might just want to move on, since the town had nothing but bad memories for her now. Ath came back with his comfort food, surprising Baz, who hadn’t even seen him leave. With the tensions now soothed, the ground tremors stopped and they all headed away from the warehouse. Baz and Evelyn gave her their and the Witches Circle’s numbers in case she needed anything, and Ath gave her some money for a hotel room in apology for the panic they’d put her through. Seeing everything so nicely resolved, however, Adler was unable to resist adding a touch of mystery, turning to the still slightly distraught woman while still in dog form and telling her that things were not always as they seemed. Her tenuous calm shattered, the woman ran screaming and the tremors returned as a full-blown localized earthquake. Adler immediately realized he’d made a mistake and turned into a bird, flying around the area to alert people and direct emergency services to anyone hurt in the quake. Thankfully, there were only minor injuries and property damage, but Adler felt responsible for all of it, and went through a lot of effort to arrange for a hippie healer witch to take care of the worst injury - a broken wrist - because he was avoiding Baz out of guilt.

The next day - New Year’s Eve - Adler showed up on Baz’s doorstep as a dog after not having come home at all the night before. A worried Baz asked where he’d been and Adler said there was a spot under a nearby bridge that was excellent for feeling shame because bad dogs didn’t didn’t get to sleep in the bedroom (yes they do, said Baz, with much experience). Adler continued that he was lucky there’d only been one broken bone and that he’d found someone to heal it, leaving Baz mystified as to what was even going on. Adler didn’t think he deserved his position as Baz’s boyfriend and Baz must surely be disappointed in him. Baz was mostly just confused and told him to maybe not creep out people who’ve just been through trauma. Adler finally turned into a human and immediately brightened up. He explained that he’d arranged the healer because he felt responsible for the earthquake and didn’t want his first act as Baz’s "equal partner” to be making Baz fix a mess he had caused. Baz told him he’d hoped his first act would be going somewhere for New Year’s with him and Adler told him that’s why he’d come back when he had. Baz suggested they get werewolf tacos and talk more, [so they relocated to the Howling Wolf Taqueria where Adler explained that when he took on animal forms, he frequently also took on some measure of how they thought, which had led his dog-brain to believe that he had been a Bad Dog and should be much more ashamed than the situation actually warranted. Once he turned into a human, he saw things much more clearly, though he did worry that Baz would think less of him for running away and not knowing how to handle the extra relationship aspect of these kinds of problems. With that cleared up, the conversation wandered around, first to Conan and his willful ignorance of both the supernatural and Baz’s sexual orientation, then to whether or not they wanted to be open about their relationship and if it was polite in the modern era to publicly announce one’s dating status and the difficulties in doing so when you couldn’t use a computer. Baz realized he would have to tell his mother, who had always been a little leery of Adler, and Adler suggested that it was only fair that Baz meet his mother sometime, as well. Baz recounted the story of when Conan had asked out Sylvia Rowland and been soundly shot down, which turned into telling Adler what the Rowlands had been like, understandably still a delicate subject for Baz. Adler felt bad on Baz’s behalf and regretted that he was taking all three of their duties on himself, but Baz pointed out that with so few Wardens left, he was the only one around to do it. Baz apologized for bringing the mood down on their first date, and Adler briefly panicked that he should have put more thought into what he looked like for such a momentous occasion, but Baz pointed out that he’d put a lot of effort into choosing his human face and Baz was pretty fond of that. Adler said that even the Winters had liked his face, hence the stealing of it and Baz asked what the story had been there. It was pretty simple, the Winter Court had cornered Adler in an alley and demanded he join them, then they ganged up on him and beat him when he refused, with the troll carving his face off to make a statement. Carving his own face off later to make the same statement had been much less unpleasant, as he viewed that as suffering for his art rather than torture. Adler was surprised that he didn’t mind being in constant danger for other people’s sake now that he was working with a Warden; he was just an actor, not a real hero. Baz told him that being a “real hero” was just method acting as one until it became the truth. Adler was thrilled by this bit of wisdom and said it validated his entire world view and if it were appropriate to glow in public, he absolutely would. The two made plans to go to a dance party for New Year’s where Adler could glow all he wanted and no one would notice. Baz laughed that he had his own little disco ball and Adler wrote him a napkin coupon for one emergency disco party “just in case”.]

Mid-evening, Sanya called Baz from the airport saying that his flight had been delayed again, which meant that something was still up. Baz called up the others and they all met up with Sanya at the Estate and headed downstairs to the magical map of Boston they had set up to track cultists. Without a sympathetic connection to anything demon-related, there wasn’t much they could do with it. Adler’s sensitive ears picked up a strange keening or singing from outside and he told the others to stop talking. Most of the others also caught snippets of it, so they headed upstairs, but it didn’t seem to be coming from any discernible direction. They made a circle out toward the bay and then back toward downtown to try and find its source, but Ath and Conan realized that it was coming from multiple places, all of them patches of bare earth. Baz drew a magic circle in the dirt and used it to pinpoint the epicenter along the banks of the North River. As they headed in that direction, they could see that the landscape had been changed and more and more of those bare patches of dirt had grown abrupt and jagged rock outcroppings. The quality of the music changed as they got closer to a large plateau of rock and they realized that they could now hear it through the air as well as the stone. It was evidently coming from a dancing figure on top of the plateau, who they recognized as the woman from the warehouse - only now she had a second set of glowing eyes set in her forehead. Sanya called up asking if she would please stop, the city was nice without all the new rocks. She didn’t stop, so Adler flew Sanya up while Conan and Ath used their superhuman speed to climb the cliff face. The woman responded by shooting a fist of stone at Sanya, staggering him before the rest of the part could even get to them. Adler returned to pick Baz up, then Evelyn, and the two swordsmen engaged the demon, though she focused entirely on the Knight of the Cross, the Denarians’ traditional enemy. Ath jumped between her and Sanya, taking a blow meant for the Knight, and so she retaliated by shaking the whole plateau violently. Evelyn tried to push the demon off the cliffside with a gust of wind, but she was too solidly anchored to her creation. The others used all the means at their disposal to take her down, Conan shooting her between all four eyes, Adler raking across her face with sharp claws, and Baz countering her earth magic with his own, but she was largely unconcerned and called up an even more powerful quake, knocking Baz and Evelyn off the plateau. They landed hard on the ground and didn’t get up. The others, enraged, redoubled their efforts until finally Conan brought her down with a well-placed shot which knocked her head against the stone spear she had created, Baz had thrown back at her, and Adler had driven further into her. Sanya and Ath immediately searched for her coin, which turned out to be in a secret pocket against her skin. Sanya wrapped it in the remains of his shirt and thanked Ath for protecting him, telling him that he’d noticed Ath was afraid of him and that he didn’t have to be. Ath told him that was completely untrue but didn’t elaborate. Conan and Adler rushed down to Baz and brought him groggily around. Dazed, Baz asked about Evelyn and attempted to heal her, but was too injured himself to even move over to her. He put himself into a healing trance and Adler called his hippie witch friend to look after them. Around them, the town of Salem was riddled with outcroppings and spires. The random rock spurs had destroyed several buildings, though they’d taken the magical path of least resistance and avoided wards and strong thresholds. Conan asked Sanya what to do with their prisoner and Sanya expressed hope that she could be reasoned with and eventually rehabilitated, but warned him that once she was awake, she could summon the coin at will and start the fight all over again.

#Dresden Files: Salem #dresden files rpg #actual play #livejournal replacement #game

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animalsoffarmsanctuary · 7 years

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Marge: Left To Die, She Instead Found a Better Life

Marge’s story is sadly similar to the stories of so many pigs — those raised on both industrial farms and small farms.

A very scared Marge who has no idea what fun her future holds.

She was used as a breeding sow, producing baby after baby to be taken away and sold for meat. Marge was very depressed. Marge was also very overweight.

And then something strange happened.

The farmer who had been breeding Marge and taking her piglets once again took those piglets, but this time he left Marge all alone, in a horrible pen full of mud. For days, she just stayed there — with no food, no water, and no babies.

Marge at her foster home, showing us her house.

This central New York farmer, who had kept many animals over the years and promoted himself as a producer of artisanal goat cheese, had been the subject of a previous investigation by the local SPCA. In one instance, officers had found the bodies of several slaughtered farm animals rotting on the man’s property, but because the animals’ wounds were consistent with commonly accepted slaughter methods, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute him on cruelty charges.

In 2012, the farmer moved to a rental property and brought Marge with him, continuing his pig meat farming but no longer making cheese or raising goats.

Marge at her foster home, getting ready to leave. Looks like she had busted through a few of the fences here, since there are gates tied to them. Silly Marge.

He was not making enough money to keep from being evicted, so he took the last babies he could sell and he moved on. According to the SPCA, he’d attempted to sell Marge, but no one wanted this overweight pig who could barely walk. A potential buyer who lived nearby had made a very low offer to buy Marge, and the farmer replied that he would rather see her rot than accept such a low price for her. And so that is what he did.

Not so sure about a trip in a trailer (even though the straw sure was nice) — a very frightened Marge about to start her new life at Farm Sanctuary.

When the property owner realized that Marge was still there after the farmer’s eviction, he did feed her for a time, but grew tired of doing so. So again, for days, Marge went without food and water.

A very round girl when she arrived, Marge walking off the trailer.

At that time, animal control officer and former Farm Sanctuary caregiver Kate Walker removed Marge from the farm and put in a foster situation. We had no room for her — no extra pen to house an adult pig at our New York Shelter, because we’d just taken on a large-scale rescue — so during this period, we attempted to find a home for a very large, and by now clearly sweet, Marge.

After a while, with no home located for her and finally an opening at Farm Sanctuary, we decided that this very special pig needed a place to be, so we brought her here. And from the moment we met her, we knew we had made the right decision (and if you ever met Marge, you would agree).

Large and in charge, and really eating a lot of grass. Marge was not a fan of her diet, and attempted to eat any plant life she could find. She still lost so much weight, however, as you will see in the photos below.

She made friends in her new home, but it took a while — now, she’s best pals with Socks, an older male pig. (Socks was actually very hard on Marge at first, and she was forced to steal straw from the barn and make a bed for herself on the porch — but soon they worked it out, and now the two are seen spooning each night.)

This is where she used to sleep — outside of Julia’s pen on the porch. But not for long (although she comes back and visits her former bed during the days now).

And of course, she went on a diet — a significant decrease in food intake so that her beautiful body would not continue to break down. She is super spry now, and very, very active. All of our pig residents are kept on a restricted diet, since if left to their own devices, they grow far too large — like our pal Marge had prior to her rescue.

Marge is easy to photograph because she is always happy. She has a bit of a mud beard in this photo — which is not unusual.

And now Marge loves the outdoors. Like most pigs who were raised indoors, she now loves to spend most of her time not being inside. She is super active and spends tons of time with chickens as well — because she is the queen of rooting. Chickens love a rooter, and they will happily follow behind her picking at bugs, seeds, and worms that she has uprooted from the soil. Add exercise to diet and you have a winning recipe.

What a smile. Marge looking out of her barn gate at her new world. What a happy life!

Marge is also a big talker — she loves to talk, and will respond to her name and then continue the conversation. She really is quite the personality.

She loves to chat and always responds to her name.

She loves the mud — even more than most pig people, she is a freak over it, and in the summer she looks more like a chocolate-covered pig than the pink girl that she is.

Quite the mud bather, Marge takes her time in the mud and spends hours on hot days just soaking in it. She is the Mistress of Mud.

She is an escape artist, and loves it when interns or new staff members are unaware of this special skill set. During the warmer months, she will stay close by the gate to her pasture, and if you hesitate — say, while trying to bring in a wheelbarrow or something else that causes the gate to remain open a little too long — bam! Marge is free. She doesn’t go anywhere, really — why would she? She is finally home.

“This is my fence at my home and I am happy.”

And she has the most beautiful eyes. There is no way you cannot see who she is when you look into those intelligent, thoughtful eyes.

Her eyes have always been beautiful, but you can see a big difference in her expression. The picture on left was taken when we were bringing her to the sanctuary, and the picture on the right is all we ever see now!

And the thing that is the most incredible is the level of love she has for humans. She went virtually unnoticed by them in her earlier life and was used as a breeding machine — not the best relationship. But today, she is happy and knows that she is loved and appreciated.

To know her is to love her.

And knowing this amazing pig, it is impossible to understand how one could walk by and not notice the happy, loving, talkative, silly individual that she really is. She is funny. She is muddy. She is Marge.

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Marge having fun in the pasture.

Please share Marge’s story. Together, we can increase awareness that every pig is someone, not something. With your support, we can continue to promote compassionate vegan living through rescue, education, and advocacy efforts. A compassionate world begins with you!

#pigs #animals #animal rescue #pig #vegan #new york shelter #Marge

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annoyingcherryblossomnight-blog1 · 7 years

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How To Make A Tanzanian And Kenya Rooster Tikka Recipe By Twinomugisha Charles

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The dry season, from July to October, is one of the best time to visit Mombasa because the temperatures are milder and the air is not so humid. Lamu archipelago is another peaceful and exquisite place to visit. Mombasa, Kenya is a well-liked vacation spot for many vacationers wanting to soak up some African sun on among the most stunning beaches on this planet and discover the character, tradition and history that the town has to offer. All travellers to Kenya should visit their private physicians or health clinics four-eight weeks earlier than departure. The park is a forested mountain rising up out of the encircling desert. This vaccination is to be taken no less than two weeks earlier than you make that trip to Kenya. That is notably important when you're visiting the highlands elements of Kenya like the rift valley, Mount Kenya or Mount Elgon since there have been several reported instances in these areas. When it was announced that President Mwai Kibaki had received the election by simply 230,000 votes (out of 10,000,000 constituents) widespread political fury unfold throughout the nation - and violence broke out. Overseas foreign money resembling US dollars, British pounds and Deutschmarks can be exchanged at banks, bureaux de change and authorized inns. Make full use of the view level and go to the Euphobia forest. It boasts a big fowl species and The Big 5 that is Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and the Rhino which provides you every purpose to journey to Kenya. The everglades comprise giant viewing towers which might be devoted especially to wildlife watching otherwise you could be a bit more daring and take a canoe trip in croc-infested waters. If for some motive, either of these programs of motion fail, and you have a coverage with us, then we would provide reimbursement for unused travel and lodging, under the phrases of a Kenya journey insurance policy. As you get pleasure from game viewing within the limitless plains of the Mara reserve, you'll have an opportunity to see the big 5(lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, buffalo) and make your tour a real African safari. For those planning a variety of journey by public transport or trekkers, a backpack is advisable. One of the vital vaccinations that you simply cannot miss to take before you journey to Kenya is the malaria vaccination as a result of a lot of the components of Kenya are wetlands whereby a whole lot of mosquitoes breed and contracting the malaria illness is really easy. Emails may also be sent from lodges, as can faxes and telexes. There are also many coastal attractions together with sandy beaches, marine parks and coral reefs. For walking safaris or recreation viewing on foot clothing must be of neutral color, and white, vibrant or vividly patterned clothes avoided. Subsequently, all journey to the country was advised in opposition to, and lots of people wanted to claim on their international journey insurance coverage, which was confusing given the unusual circumstances. Additionally do not miss the Mombasa Marine Nationwide Park, the Moi Avenue gateway arch, dhow cruises and the seashores. Phone companies: Public pay telephones (card and Coin) are automatedphone cards may be purchased from publish places of work or international call workplaces. For viewing sea animals, the very best places embody the Channel Islands off the coast of California. It has a tropical climate and receives perfect sunshine throughout the year, allowing travelers to go to the nation any time of the yr. On the Tsavo National Park, (the biggest Park in the nation), you will discover massive herds of Elephants, volcanic hills and rivers. There have been efforts by the federal government of Kenya to try and eradicate Malaria by providing free drugs and this may actually assist in reducing this illness. A peaceful tropical island with a fascinating historical past, which might be explored in the winding streets of its medieval stone city, a World Heritage Site partly as a result of it being the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa. Indignant people went to the streets after evidence of election fraud by the present President, Mwai Kibaki. Kenya's excessive tourist season is between January and February and June to September. This board markets tourist locations domestically and internationally has played a great position in enhancing this sector. The nice and cozy and calm open waters make this an excellent place for rookies to take diving classes from the licensed operators on site. There are lots of locations to see on the mainland of Mombasa Kenya. Safari's can take you through the likes of Masai Mara National Park, Amboseli Game Reserve and Mt. Kilimanjaro to view lions, leopards, cheetahs, wildebeests, zebras, flamingos, black rhinos, giraffes and elephants. From April 2009 to November 2009, the vary has been approximately 1USD: KES74.00 to 1USD: KES80.00. Most banks supply more aggressive rates than inns however the quite a few overseas exchange bureaus out there in Mombasa will most likely give you the best charges with no commission charge. The Kenya Worldwide Convention Heart which is situated in the coronary heart of Nairobi city is an ideal place for meetings, conferences, cultural exhibitions and special occasions. Jomo Kenyatta International airport-The airport is about half -an -hour drive from Nairobi city center. Jomo Kenyatta airport additionally connects regular flights to Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Safari's vary from less expensive options beginning around $500.00 for an 8 day excursion to very luxurious safaris costing as much as $9,000. Bank cards- All main worldwide cards are accepted. The yellow fever vaccination can also be a should to be taken by vacationers to the nation since yellow fever outbreaks happen often. Studies have proven that almost all African sport animals are in a position to see vibrant blue over some other color. Another space great for water animals is Glacier Bay in Alaska. In addition to land excursions, you too can take a sea kayak across the park and see coral reefs, fish, dolphins, whales and sea turtles. It's at all times advisable to analysis your vacation spot and what could also be required of you before you plan your trip in order to avoid a situation the place you might be unprepared for certain situations. So there isn't a must travel throughout the entire nation simply to experience the culture of the assorted communities. The small town of Marsabit has basic amenities including a bank, petrol station, post office, airport, eating places and outlets. Within the United States, national parks are the perfect place to start. cheap hotels huntington beach Though every traveler must make up his own mind, this text offers background info so you may reach your own choice. Tourists may also watch Dolphins on the Kisite marine Park whereas on Dhows or watch Turtles on the Kiunga Marine Nationwide Reserve. Nationals of certain countries might require a visa to enter Kenya and it is advisable to test together with your native Kenyan embassy or consulate to substantiate this. A small daypack is ideal for carrying cameras, journey paperwork and primary everyday gadgets. For those planning prolonged treks or camping expeditions, a basic medical equipment can also be a good idea. So, in case you are lazing on the white sand beaches of exotic Mombasa or gazing at the world's biggest wildlife spectacle, the annual wildebeest migration, you're certain to get pleasure from a world-class expertise. Four climatic zones exist: tropical, equatorial, semi-desert and desert. Wildlife has made this East African country one of the favorite tourist attractions on this planet. There are no restrictions on the amount of overseas foreign money that may be introduced into Kenya, but taking out greater than 500,000 Kenya Shillings requires written authorization from the Central Bank. The most important international airports embody; Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Moi International Airport and Eldoret Worldwide Airport. Mombasa is on the same time zone as the remainder of Kenya. Most of such safaris would invariably be the budget kind. The nation is called after Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. Use our customized Kenya Travel kit to print records of all this data. Sibiloi Park is Situated on the border of the Kenya and Ethiopia. Mombasa locals use rickshaws (tuk tuks), matatus (minivans) and boda boda (bicycles) to get around the city. Throughout your stay here in Kenya, your lodging will probably be in the perfect lodges, hotels and luxurious tented camps the place you can be served scrumptious meals and drinks. Swahili is the official language of Kenya and is spoken by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Mombasa. Hospital: Nairobi and Mombasa have good hospitals offering a casualty service. Banking: foreign foreign money might be modified at banks, international foreign money bureau or hotelsBanks are open from 9am-3pm Monday to Friday and 9am-eleven:30am Saturday of each month. The dual national parks of Tsavo, totalling 10 million acres of wilderness, form Kenya's largest National Park, which make it supreme for those who enjoy solitude; of the 2 Tsavo West is visited extra; other than the wildlife and birds, go to Lugard Falls, the volcanic Mzima springs and a unique underwater observatory.

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luckybouquetnachous-blog · 7 years

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Travel Insurance And Kenya's Election

The tourism trade is the largest supply of earnings to Kenya after agriculture. Another area nice for water animals is Glacier Bay in Alaska. Along with land tours, you too can take a sea kayak across the park and see coral reefs, fish, dolphins, whales and sea turtles. It's always advisable to analysis your destination and what could also be required of you before you intend your journey so as to keep away from a state of affairs where you are unprepared for certain conditions. If you are travelling extensively throughout the country just remember to bring suitable baggage. American Categorical, Visa, Master Card and other effectively-identified playing cards are widely accepted at ATMs and major institutions all through Kenya however you will need to ask who you're paying in the event that they take such cards prematurely. A superb high quality pair of Binoculars are essential for efficient sport viewing. Each sunglasses and an excellent quality sunscreen (rated SPF15 or greater) must be used. Whereas a zoo positively has it's place in animal watching, it doesn't compare to seeing animals in their very own pure habitat. Indignant people went to the streets after evidence of election fraud by the current President, Mwai Kibaki. Kenya's high tourist season is between January and February and June to September. This board markets tourist locations regionally and internationally has performed an awesome role in improving this sector. Try to head for the Cottar 1920 Mari Safari Camp, the place the 22,000 acre personal concession homes only 12 visitors, but it surely's well value it, and no luxury adventure journey to Kenya should miss a visit to Cottars. Kenya has over forty parks and game reserves the place you'll have a unique alternative to observe the most magnificent wildlife in Africa. There are numerous tourism authorities-owned bodies which have played an important function within the fast development of tourism in Kenya. The Kenya Nationwide Parks are protected by the Kenya Wildlife Service and the money charged from the entrance charge is used to cater for wages, park improvement and upkeep. Self drive-in Kenya most worldwide automobile rent firms operate in Kenya. Mombasa is not a particularly unsafe city but you should be cautious when strolling alone and after darkish. You possibly can even have a personal safari and visit all the top destinations within the nation and even travel in a small group. The everglades contain massive viewing towers which can be devoted especially to wildlife watching or you is usually a bit more daring and take a canoe ride in croc-infested waters. If for some motive, both of those programs of motion fail, and you have a coverage with us, then we would provide reimbursement for unused journey and accommodation, underneath the terms of a Kenya travel insurance policy. For those planning lengthy treks or tenting expeditions, a basic medical package can be a good suggestion. So, if you're lazing on the white sand seashores of unique Mombasa or gazing on the world's biggest wildlife spectacle, the annual wildebeest migration, you're certain to enjoy a world-class expertise. On the Central Business District, you'll be able to go to the Kenya National Archives where you will peruse by way of most of the documented Kenyan facts, this contains the famous folks, historic events like the development of the rail line from Mombasa to Uganda. All travellers to Kenya should go to their personal physicians or well being clinics 4-eight weeks before departure. The park is a forested mountain rising up out of the encompassing desert. This vaccination is to be taken not less than two weeks before you make that trip to Kenya. Malaria is the most common kind of illness that is transmitted by mosquitoes and the Kenya highlands are probably the most liable to the sort of illness so it is best to just be sure you are covered. Kenyans are indignant due to evidence of election fraud by present Kenyan President Kibaki. But there is additionally the choice of looking at this as a chance to meet new folks and make mates. Activities are possible going to be scheduled so that each one who desires to take part must take part at the agreed scheduled time. The Masai Mara game reserve is one of the most popular safari destinations in Kenya. Your physician or private physician knows you better and so you should make a point of consulting him or her to advise you better on a very powerful vaccinations that you should take earlier than you travel to Kenya. One space this has affected essentially the most is Kenya's beforehand buzzing tourism industry, and is one that is easily the nation's largest source of foreign revenue, totalling an estimated £500,000,000 per year. From April 2009 to November 2009, the range has been roughly 1USD: KES74.00 to 1USD: KES80.00. Most banks provide extra competitive charges than lodges but the numerous overseas change bureaus accessible in Mombasa will in all probability offer you the most effective rates with out a commission charge. Nationals of sure international locations may require a visa to enter Kenya and it is advisable to examine along with your native Kenyan embassy or consulate to substantiate this. A small daypack is right for carrying cameras, journey paperwork and primary on a regular basis objects. Attempt to get a personal deal, with simply the 2 of you touring, quite than being part of a giant group, and ensure that your journey is commensurate with the luxury you are seeking: a minimal of business class flights, and firstclass rail and street journey where it's concerned. Some components of the nation are extra weak to illness outbreaks and so you must arm your self with the necessary injections. Mombasa enjoys a pleasant tropical local weather all year long with the most popular months between December to April hitting a maximum of 31C and the cooler months between July and August with highs of 27C. The obvious benefit and cause for anyone to hunt out a lot of these safaris is the cost factor. cheap flights multiple destinations Odinga has refused to call for a cease to the riots, saying that if Kibaki would step down or allow a global investigation, the riots would cease automatically. International currency resembling US dollars, British pounds and Deutschmarks could be exchanged at banks, bureaux de change and licensed inns. Make full use of the view point and go to the Euphobia forest. It boasts a large bird species and The Massive Five that's Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and the Rhino which provides you every reason to journey to Kenya. So there isn't any have to journey throughout your entire country simply to experience the culture of the assorted communities. The small town of Marsabit has primary services including a financial institution, petrol station, submit office, airport, restaurants and retailers. Within the United States, nationwide parks are one of the best place to start out. Use it as a base for a trip to Lamu Island, which was once a base for the slave trade, and on which the one means of travel aside from foot is by donkey. The Corcovado Nationwide Park in Costa Rica is a superb rain forest that comprises over a hundred,000 acres of land and 5,000 acres of marine habitat. Sights in Kenya ranges from gorgeous landscapes, the Indian Ocean white sandy beaches and the memorable mountain snow-cape peaks of Mt. Kenya. In an effort to meet your purpose, your safari will likely be undertaken by a talented information and a marketing consultant assigned to your personal automobile from the time of arrival until you depart. Inhabiting these numerous landscapes and wilderness areas are Kenya's world-famous wildlife, which could be seen from horseback, 4x4 vehicle, verandah or on foot. Though most people want to go on guided safaris, others desire fishing and nature walks, or even just to lie by the pool. Telephone services: Public pay phones (card and Coin) are automatedphone cards may be bought from submit workplaces or international call workplaces. For viewing sea animals, the perfect places include the Channel Islands off the coast of California. It has a tropical climate and receives preferrred sunshine throughout the year, allowing travelers to go to the country any time of the yr. The major international airports embody; Jomo Kenyatta Worldwide Airport, Moi International Airport and Eldoret International Airport. Mombasa is on the same time zone as the rest of Kenya. Most of such safaris would invariably be the finances sort. The country is called after Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. At first of a year, Kenya might generally anticipate to be welcoming a whole bunch of vacationers a day - the latest fall out decreased the numbers right down to a courageous few who had determined to disregard the inevitable warnings from the foreign office about travelling to the country, which was then positioned within the 'civil unrest' listing of places not to visit. The Kenya Tourism Improvement Corporation is liable for tourism amenities growth in numerous fields akin to; direct funding, enlargement of present services, improvement of facilities within the industry. There are lots of different reasons why you need to journey to this nation. Visas: most guests to Kenya require a visamultiple and singe entry visas can be found. Unfortunately the big game, the lions specifically, are in grave hazard in Nairobi Park due to the motion of humans, so reap the benefits of the opportunity to see them within the wild when you can. Conversely the plain downside of such a safaris is that you're within the company of individuals that are strangers to you. Other Africa greatest-identified nationwide parks embody the Amboseli, Tsavo and Lake Nakuru which are all located in Kenya. You can even do it in style, however make sure that your value is all-inclusive since the extras for the flights and safari journeys will be high. Throughout your keep in Mombasa, I recommend always requesting for bottled water to drink as opposed to the faucet water which is typically questionable. Moi international airport -The airport is about 10 minutes from the town heart allow an extra half -an-hour to your journey to the south coast because of the ferry crossing. You can get pleasure from these, and extra, with luxurious adventure journey to Kenya, land of the Luo, Kalenjin, Turkana and the famous Maasai warrior race, as the title is appropriately spelled though we shall use the extra widespread western spelling of Masai. The type of luxurious you possibly can experience on these trips is unbelievably high, and journey journey to Kenya is not all safaris and dwelling tough. The lengthy coral seashores and the Malindi Nationwide park are the highlights of this stunning Island. Most of the instances they are dearer but you could nonetheless get an excellent deal if you e book early. Nevertheless, it is the game reserves that most individuals go to Kenya to see, and that adventure vacationers to Kenya are significantly taken with, so take a aircraft experience over the Meru National Park and land close to Elsa's Kopje - a rocky outcrop on Mughwangi Hill within the Meru Park, the place Elsa was released by Pleasure and George Adamson back in 1958. Four climatic zones exist: tropical, equatorial, semi-desert and desert. Wildlife has made this East African country one of the crucial favourite tourist points of interest on this planet. There are no restrictions on the amount of international forex that can be introduced into Kenya, however taking out greater than 500,000 Kenya Shillings requires written authorization from the Central Bank. To this point there have been 600 deaths and a few 250,000 folks (greater than the alleged 'majority' of Kibaki) fleeing their houses. Hotel invoice payments- This can be often be paid in shillings or convertible overseas forex. There are common worldwide flights into Mombasa's Moi International Airport but more options are available for flights into Jomo Kenyatta Worldwide Airport in Nairobi, from where you may hook up with Mombasa. There are many fascinating actions on the beaches and on the mainland, the place there are several cities which might be both cosmopolitan and deeply steeped in the coastal culture and historical past. Additionally bring the generic names for these drugs in case they need to be changed regionally. The Amboseli National Park is Located on the foot of Africa's highest mountain (Mt. Probably the most popular nationwide parks in Kenya with a variety of lodging; the landscape is dominated by Mount Kilimanjaro and the park is known for its big game and scenic beauty; fowl life is plentiful.

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