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brandonxdylan · 10 months

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Ranking the GAY EPISODES of Beverly Hills, 90210 - Part 1

Pride month may be coming to a close, but I didn’t want to let it slip by without doing a little something special. I thought it would be fun to do an overview of all of the gay-themed storylines from the series. There were quite a few of them over the years (although not as many as there were seasons of the show, which perhaps is saying something), especially considering for a show that didn’t have any significant queer content on a consistent basis, and certainly no gay regulars to speak of. These episodes run the gamut from throwaway fluff to pretty dark and heavy, and I’m going to rank them in terms of how effectively I think they handle the “gay” element (spoiler alert: not well), as well as how satisfying they are in terms of soapy drama.

I really tried to give these episodes a fair shake, knowing that it would be pointless to judge them for not delivering deeply nuanced takes in an era where we simply were not getting that on prime time network television. I feel like they still mostly fall short, but there’s enough good stuff in here to warrant some genuine consideration.

A couple of caveats before going forward. First of all, some of these episodes deal with some serious themes (AIDS, suicide, gay bashing), so consider yourself trigger warned. Secondly, this post is all in good fun, so lets not take it (or my hot takes) too seriously.

#8.) Crimes and Misdemeanours (Season 8, Episode 19)

Kicking things off, in dead last we have this dud from season 8, which has precisely one, single joke to offer, and still manages to screw it up. Steve runs into a woman at the Peach Pit, and while flirting with her, makes passing reference to Brandon, his “partner.” Obviously, he means business partner, but when she invites Steve and his “boyfriend” Brandon to lunch with she and her “girlfriend,” she clearly means it, and Steve somehow doesn’t think anything of it, and is all to happy to report to Brandon that he snagged them an awesome double date. At lunch, the two “couples” somehow get through the entire meal just beating around the bush, with the women (obviously lesbians by this point) clearly referring to Brandon and Steve as a couple, but these dummies of course don’t pick up on any of this out of sheer dimwittery and, I don’t know, super thick hetero-goggles or something. No, it’s not until Steve and Brandon are invited to the women’s apartment for dinner (which Steve expects to be an orgy, because of course he does) and they’re literally staring at the one bed shared by both women that either of them start to realize what’s really going on. Gay panic ensues, and the whole thing is played for laughs (not that there are any). I’m a sucker for these ridiculous sicomy setups involving misunderstandings and misplaced romantic interest, and this show can occasionally do them well (the luau episode from season 10 is a fabulous example of this, and also has some fun gay content - more on that later), but the problem is none of this is funny or surprising. Neither is it insensitive or exploitative. It’s just kind of stupid. The reveal can be seen coming a mile away, and the whole episode is just buildup to what I’ll generously call the punchline. A better show would’ve done a lot more with this, maybe playing with the concept of Steve seeing heterosexuality as the default, and being blind to other possibilities. Ideally, it also would have had more than one joke.

#7.) Comic Relief/Santa Knows (Season 8, Episodes 13-14)

David takes a job at a car wash, where he notices a bunch of his coworkers making very boring and unimaginative gay jokes about a young male employee named Ben who lives in the garage’s office due to the fact that his dad kicked him out for being gay. David confronts Ben’s parents in the hopes of getting them to see the error of their ways, but the interaction ends with Ben’s dad choosing to declare that “I don’t have a son,” rather than accept Ben for who he is. It’s really harsh, but in dad’s defense, David has very little tact, and it’s really none of his business considering he met Ben five minutes ago. In spite of this, Ben still holds out hope for a reconciliation. While his mom is somewhat more receptive than his dad, she still tells Ben that it’s for the best that he give his dad time to cool down. David once again intervenes, asking Ben’s mom - a woman who is very clearly deeply torn between her love for her son and her need to grant her husband the authority he commands - why she can’t just explain to her husband why taking Ben back in is the right thing to do, as if it’s just that easy. And that’s really the problem with this storyline. It deals with some really dark and emotionally complicated subject matter, and it’s just so glaringly obvious that telling this story from the perspective of a detached outsider is not the best way to approach it. Especially considering it’s David, whose track record for empathy and compassion is fucking zero. Give this to someone like Steve, which would allow him to experience some emotional growth alongside Ben’s parents, or Valerie, who has her own history of familial turmoil (though she does pop up later in this episode and isn’t much more helpful than David, so maybe scratch that one). All of this proves to be too much for Ben to take, and David discovers that he plans to slit his wrists. This is where Val gets involved, as she and David basically just berate Ben into not hurting himself, with Val insisting that she understands Ben’s particular struggles more than she actually does or possibly could. They both give him the “tough love” treatment which, hey, is maybe not what this kid whose parents openly hate him actually needs. Still, it all ends up somewhat happily because of course all Ben and his parents really needed was for someone from the gang to show up out of nowhere and yell at them a bit in order to figure their shit out. This is a story worth telling, but coming at it from the perspective of someone who has nothing to do with it doesn’t allow for much depth. And it really doesn’t satisfy as a soapy plot line either. Even that would require more of an investment from the viewer, and we simply don’t have time or reason to suddenly be all in on this character who comes out of nowhere for two episodes and then disappears forever. Ultimately, this story is just too bleak and depressing to be much fun, and too shallow to be emotionally satisfying.

#6.) Summer Storm (Season 2, Episode 3)

This isn’t ranked low because it’s a bad episode. On the contrary, it’s actually a pretty good episode from one of the show’s best seasons, and builds on one of the show’s most iconic storylines - namely, Brenda and Dylan. However, that doesn’t really concern us here. What does concern us is the B story, about how Kelly meets a cute volleyball player named Kyle. They flirt a bit and eventually go on a date, but when Kelly starts putting the moves on Kyle, he suggests they cool it. Spoiler alert, it’s because he (sort of) comes out as gay later in the episode. But even if he didn’t, Kelly’s reaction to this is really weird. She takes it oddly personally that he doesn’t want to get naked with her on the first date, and gives him the cold shoulder the next day. I haven’t watched these early seasons in several years now but I guess Kelly’s always been a pouty drama queen. Anyway, Kyle does eventually confide in Kelly, telling her that he’s tried to be into girls, and that he genuinely likes her, but that he knows they can’t be more than friends. It’s kind of cute, and Kyle’s conundrum is a pretty common one. Though it’s definitely possible to assume he doesn’t come out as fully gay because the show didn’t want to go too far, it’s also kind of nice to get a portrayal of a character in the process of figuring out his sexuality, without any clear resolution. That is how it works in real life sometimes after all. But considering this is such a minor storyline and the queer content is pretty tepid, it’s hard to rank this any higher than I have it.

#5.) Baby, You Can Drive My Car/Family Tree (Season 10, Episodes 8-9)

Dylan meets with a guy named Andrew, who is one of the directors of a local community centre for kids, in order to discuss making a hefty donation. Andrew makes passing reference to an ex-boyfriend, which prompts a discussion about how Andrew has to remain closeted among co-workers out of fear of losing his job. He knows that there are some bigots out there who would have some not-so-great feelings about a gay man working with their kids (that old chestnut), and his co-director is apparently one of them. Dylan tries to reason that “hey, it’s the 90s,” and that Andrew shouldn’t have to be closeted for those reasons. Andrew, of course, knows better, and while he agrees that no, he shouldn’t have to, the fact remains that he does. To demonstrate that at least he accepts Andrew for who he is, Dylan puts his arm around him in a playful (yet platonic way). Unfortunately, this happens in a dark parking lot and within the presence of a group of homophobes whom proceed to attack Dylan and Andrew with a baseball bat. While Dylan manages to wrestle the bat away from one of the guys (sure) and escapes with just a few bumps and bruises, Andrew doesn’t get off quite as easy. Dylan’s eager to spill details to the cops, but Andrew refuses, on the grounds that he not only doesn’t want to drag this whole unpleasant incident out any further, but he also doesn’t want to draw any more attention that might put him (and his job) at further risk. Andrew’s fears prove to be perfectly justified when, through circumstance, his co-director, Patsy, finds out anyway, and suggests Andrew take a (permanent) leave of absence. As is always the case with this show when there’s a Gay in trouble, a member of the gang makes it their problem to solve, and so Dylan confronts Patsy about Andrew being let go. Although Andrew specifically tells Dylan that he doesn’t want his help, fearing that pushing his luck with Patsy is just going to make things more public and humiliating, Dylan says that he can’t justify donating to a bigoted organization, and he threatens to pull his funding if Patsy doesn’t agree to hire Andrew back. She reluctantly relents, allowing Andrew to return to work, but she pulls her son from Andrew’s basketball team, and soon enough, more kids start to drop out for the same reasons. As things escalate, Andrew decides that if his presence is going to detract from the mission of the centre - to provide care and support for kids - then he should quit. However, Dylan swoops in with one more ace up his sleeve. He talks to Patsy’s son directly, and gets him to question whether he really is uncomfortable with Andrew, or if it’s just his mother’s influence that’s making him think that way. This works, and all of the kids who had previously dropped out assure Andrew that they not only want him there, but they need him there. All in all, this is a decent storyline, but it does engage with a few tropes that rub me the wrong way. First of all, it’s never not at least a little annoying to watch straight characters sanctimoniously decide that doing their version of “the right thing” is more important than respecting the wishes of the gay characters whose safety and livelihood is what’s actually at risk, and this storyline is a pretty egregious example of that. It also follows the usual 90210 pattern of having characters just badger others relentlessly until they conveniently get their way. Granted, this case gets a bit of a pass in that regard, because the tirade that Dylan fires at Patsy is kind of satisfying, and Luke Perry is a good enough actor to make it feel properly motivated and believable. We do love an ally king.

Watch for Part 2!

#beverly hills 90210 #queer #90s

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moririki · 3 years

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⤷ AN EIGHT-LEGGED PROBLEM

OIKAWA TOORU & SAKUSA KIYOOMI & HAIBA LEV & MIYA ATSUMU X READER -> 1.8K you save your boyfriend from a massive problem which is currently in the corner of your bathroom )

REQUEST -> n/a CONTAINS -> spiders, bugs, you picking up said creepy crawlies, hq boys being no! help! at! all! (but that's ok bc we love them for it), fanon-ish sakusa cos i haven't read the manga and he had like 5 seconds of screen time so i'm just going off of what i've read + seen, clear favouritism despite the fact that i know basically nothing about sakusa, manga timeskip spoilers in sakusa's MORI'S THOUGHTS -> haven't seen one where the reader is the one in the relationship who takes care of bugs so since i'm a #girlboss who throws spiders out of my room whenever i see them without breaking a sweat i'm writing that into a fun lil thing with the haikyuu boys that i strongly believe are scared of bugs. also besides the point but look at the pretty colour palette that their banners make fjfjfjdj will go back to writing the requests after this! inspiration just struck

❍ OIKAWA TOORU

-> omg this fucking guy

-> don't let his pride fool you this man HATES bugs with a burning passion

-> he'll never admit it though

-> between you and the aoba johsai team he would never hear the end of how the great king oikawa would cower at the sight of a moth doing laps around a lightbulb

-> so when you pretended not to hear the shriek that left your boyfriend when he saw something flying around the bathroom light and he declined your offer to get rid of the moth for him, this left oikawa in a pretty difficult situation

-> it was just him alone in the bathroom, trying to brush his teeth while eyeing the bug warily

-> you came in a few minutes later, getting ready to go to bed as well

-> "you know, babe, that moth's been there for quite a while," you teased him

-> oikawa hummed in response, his eyes never leaving it as it continued its circumnavigation of the light fixture

-> "oh, you know. who am i to kick someone out of their home? i'm no monster"

-> you almost snorted at how poor of an excuse that was, but ruffled your boyfriend's hair anyway

-> "i'll take care of it, ru, you just finish getting ready"

-> "but y/n-chan, that moth has feelings! don't be mean to it!"

-> you gave tooru a very blank stare at that

-> "so do you want me to leave you alone with your new friend?"

-> "......no"

-> "that's what i thought"

-> you went up to the moth, managing to trap it in your hands before releasing it from a window

-> oikawa shuddered as you came back to the sink, giving your hands a quick rinse before resuming with brushing your teeth like nothing had happened

-> "you're so brave, my love"

-> "anything for you, babe"

❍ SAKUSA KIYOOMI

-> bless this poor boy

-> so it's no secret that sakusa isn't the fondest of germs

-> and that extends to bugs and spiders too

-> besides a normal amount of disgust that he held for them, the thought of where the insects had been or placed one of their many feet on never failed to make his skin crawl

-> that's where you, his wonderful significant other, comes in

-> as much as he loves you, he just can't understand how you always stared at bugs with wonder in your eyes

-> you'd even pick them up, cooing at the way they crawled up your arm while sakusa just stared at you in disbelief with a can of bug spray in hand

-> tonight was one of those swelteringly hot summer nights

-> you know, the ones where the air seems to be still no matter how many windows you open and every insect in a mile radius is actively trying to enter your home

-> you were spending the night at your boyfriend's apartment, ready to have a relaxing night in with him since your schedules had finally synced up and allowed you both to enjoy a day off at the same time

-> it took months of trust before sakusa finally admitted to you how much he enjoyed doing skincare

-> so whenever you two spent the night together, you decided to start the evening with some face masks and idle binging of a tv show

-> against his half-hearted protests, you had insisted that sakusa wore a headband while this happened (one that had a very cute duck face printed on it)

-> just to keep the curls out of his face, of course

-> whenever he caught you sneaking a candid of him with facemask and duck headband on, he just shot you a halfhearted glare and threatened you to never send that to atsumu or the rest of the msby team

-> (you set it as your home screen instead)

-> anyways, i digress

-> so tonight you decided to cool down from the heat with a few facemasks and cuddling in your boyfriend's heavily air conditioned living room

-> but he kept all his skincare stuff in the bathroom, so you went to go get them as he set up a show to watch along with some snacks

-> you flicked on the light, going to his cabinet when something in the corner of the room caught your eye

-> there was a fairly large spider, desperately trying to crawl up the smooth tile wall

-> you decided to take pity on it and release it

-> but when you had it cupped safely in your hands, you decided to terrorise your poor boyfriend just a little

-> "hey, omi, look what i found!"

-> your boyfriend perked up at your signature nickname for him, though his eyes narrowed as he saw your clasped hands held in front of you

-> "no"

-> "but baby, you haven't even seen-"

-> "no"

-> you giggled at how defensive he had become

-> "come on, don't you want to name it? it's very cute"

-> "i want you to throw it out, y/n"

-> "alright, alright"

-> you took the spider to a window, releasing it back outside before heading back to the bathroom and grabbing a few masks for real this time

-> sakusa gave you the cold shoulder as you sat down next to him, humming as you gave him a face mask and putting it on without a word

-> "aww, baby, i'm sorry"

-> "..."

-> "i'll give you a head massage if you stop ignoring me?"

-> sakusa turned to you, his eyes narrowed in thought as he stared you down

-> the act soon broke, though, and he smiled against the sheet mask that was on his face

-> "it better be a good one," he huffed as he tugged the duck headband off, already sighing at the sensation of your fingers against his scalp

-> "omi, come on, what do you take me for?"

❍ HAIBA LEV

-> ngl lev gives off equal amounts of being terrified of like the tiniest spider or just finding bugs insanely cool vibes

-> it's funnier to imagine this 6-foot-something guy scramble away from a fucking crane fly in terror though so this is how it's going to play out

-> when you invited your giant of a boyfriend to your flat, you didn't anticipate just how small he made everything appear

-> he even towered in your doorway, having to stoop to step through into your hall

-> "woahh, i love your place!"

-> it was his first time staying over for the night, and lev was making sure to drink in every aspect of your interior design

-> you found it sweet of him, and watched as he stared in wide-eyed wonder at the little trinkets you had collected over the years to make your small apartment seem more like a home

-> you didn't expect him to scream at the top of his lungs and practically run back to you, though

-> you jumped at the sound, watching as he scrambled away from your lamp and pointed back at it with a shaking finger

-> you squinted at it, making out the very menacing form of a crane fly as it bumped into the lampshade and continued on its path

-> "lev, you big baby," you giggled, heading to the kitchen to grab a glass and trap it

-> "y/n, don't leave me alone with it!" he yelped, and you rolled your eyes at his antics

-> you came back, smoothly capturing the insect and throwing it out of a nearby window

-> lev was sat on your couch the whole time, hands covering his eyes as he curled in a ball

-> "is it gone?" he asked, and you you giggled at how childlike he was acting at the moment

-> "it's all good, baby" you smoothed his hair and lev gratefully leaned into your touch, a sigh of relief leaving him

-> "thank you, y/n"

-> "i'll get rid of all the bugs in the world for you, lev"

❍ MIYA ATSUMU

-> gives off the vibes that he used to eat bugs as a child i'm sorry but

-> have mercy on his soul lmao

-> so twins are supposed to be identical right?

-> anyone who spends more than a few minutes around the miya twins know that that's a complete fucking lie

-> and you've had the misfortune of being friends with them for a very long time

-> like your mums were friends and you were all born around the same time

-> you've been pulled into their shit before you could walk or talk

-> so you're well aware of just how different these mfs are

-> even though they were both absolute bastards, osamu always had a slightly more mellowed out approach which would always end up with atsumu getting the blame for what they got up to

-> especially as a child, osamu loved to terrorise his twin with the unwilling help of you

-> one of the ways was through osamu exploiting one of his twins' fears

-> that being bugs and spiders

-> he always cackled at the sight of atsumu screaming and trying to run away from him due to the spider he was holding

-> as they both grew up, this became less of a frequent thing for osamu to do

-> you also somehow started dating atsumu, but nobody could exactly pinpoint a moment that signified a beginning to your relationship

-> but since you're dating the world's biggest manchild in disguise, and osamu gets annoyed with atsumu quite easily, you would have to swoop in to rescue him from time to time

-> recently the twins had been getting a little snappy with each other, and it had yet to sort itself out

-> from what you had heard your boyfriend was in the wrong this time, but you still listened to him whine and rant about it

-> you were going to the inarizaki school gym to say hi to your boyfriend and best friend before practice started, only to see absolute chaos unfolding

-> with kita yet to arrive, the twins were effectively unleashed and that much was clear with the way atsumu was practically screaming his head off as he ran around the gym

-> your eyes took in the rest of the players- aran had his head in his hands, suna was snickering with his phone out to record the newest miya twin fight, and osamu's deranged laugh could be heard above everything else as he chased his brother, hand held out in front of him

-> only one thing was capable of making atsumu scream like that, so you already knew what was happening

-> atsumu quickly spotted you hovering in the doorway, and made a beeline to where you were

-> his eyes were panicked, and you were quick to wrap him in a hug as you shot osamu a nasty glare over his shoulder

-> literally this lmfao

-> "that's enough, 'samu"

-> your best friend paused, before a smile spread across his face as he dangled the centipede in front of him

-> "you know it was rubber, right?"

-> you felt your boyfriend tense in your arms and you bit your lip to stifle a small giggle

-> but at least they would be back to normal by the end of today

back to the menu - ,, 🕷 ·˚ ༘ ꒱

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sixeyesgojo · 3 years

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Why do you love Gojo so much? I’m sorry if this question has been asked before

Anon, don't worry about asking twice or even three times...

Are you prepared for this answer though? I don't know how long this answer will be... I'll try to keep it rather short though because otherwise it would entail a full analysis of Gojo's entire character...

TL;DR: Love me a man who's a little yum yum, a little cray-cray and uwu uwu.

Manga spoilers?

The superficial aspects I really like in fictional characters: appearance (especially the hair), the strength and teasing attitude. Gojo just happens to have all three of them.

If I take a look at my MAL favorite character list, I have 9 characters on there and 4 of them have white/silver hair. And yes, all of them are super strong in their respective verse, so at this point the formula is "white hair = strong" in my head.

Gojo is also a tease. I like that about him because he's not over the top where it's just mean, unless he's talking to an enemy or someone he hates.

His confidence is something I admire and long for because I lack it. His sweet tooth is also something I personally vibe with because I, too, have an insatiable sweet tooth.

On top of that... a character voiced by Nakamura Yuuichi-san? How can I say no?

On a rather deeper level?

From the first moment I got to know this man called Gojo Satoru, I just knew that his cheerful character hid something deeper. (Most of the characters I'm drawn to do.)

And of course, my hunch proved to be right: Gojo Satoru is such a deep, complex and multi-faceted character. He's also one of the few characters that are not defined by the series but instead, he defines the series. It's shown in the fact that the enemies wouldn't make a move just because he exists.

On the one hand, we have the goofy teacher that annoys the living hell out of Megumi simply by being himself and regularly giving Ijichi a heart attack. He also seems to be super cocky and pretty close to having a God complex or something like that (before you ask: no, I do not believe Gojo has a God complex but that's a post for another day... maybe).

That's what we all see at first.

On the other hand, if you dive deeper into his character, you'll quickly notice some other things.

First of all, he's a "shitty teacher". Gojo sucks at traditional teaching, alright? In that aspect, I think Utahime and Kusakabe do better. If you think about it though, Gojo does not suck at teaching at all.

He simply nurtures his students in his own, sometimes twisted, way, with the intention of bringing out their highest potential for growth with each mission or task he assigns.

He uses uncommon methods for this but not before making sure the students are as safe as you can be as Jujutsu sorcerer. After all, he treasures his students a great deal (as can be seen in pretty much every interaction he has with Yuji and also when Yuji dies).

I've said he strives to nurture his students' growth, yes, but he's also respectful about it: He expects great things from Megumi, yet doesn't train him but instead waits for the younger one to approach him.

Yuji is a different matter in this case. Gojo - as busy as that man is - takes in the student without judging him for being Sukuna's vessel and chooses to personally supervise his growth as a sorcerer when he didn't have to - it just adds one more burden onto his already stuffed plate - yet he did. Because he cares. He cares about not unnecessarily throwing another life away (Yuta + Yuji). And he cares about Megumi's opinion or else he wouldn't even ask?

As much as caring Gojo goes, he's also very much capable of being unhinged and feral, if there is need (Shibuya).

He doesn't seem like your typical shonen anime hero that protects people/is on the side of 'justice' "because it's the right thing to do", but rather, he recognizes the faults within this so-called 'justice' and tries to uproot the cause of it. He's capable of thinking and judging for himself and chooses to constantly go against orders that he doesn't think are appropriate - the execution of Yuta and Yuji are one example. Another one would be him and Geto deciding to call off the merger (and you know how important that was), should Amanai Riko express the desire to live on as a normal teenage girl.

Moreover, the drastic change in character is what makes him interesting as well.

At first, he's a cocky teenager who thinks of himself oh-so-highly, with every right. For the longest time, he believed he was undefeatable, only to be proven wrong in a battle against Toji, a man without cursed energy.

This fall from graces shakes him to his core because what? He's been defeated? And thus, he enters a mindset he probably never experienced before: instability and vulnerability first cloud his mind - and he's not capable of processing it at first, leaving him in a delirious state, to the point where Toji questions himself: "Is this man high?"

On top of all this, his best friend 'betrays' the side he is on and defects; that's gotta be a huge blow mentally... and then he has to finish of said friend as well.

That didn't go without consequences.

After Geto's defection that ultimately lead to death in later years... for the first time in Gojo's life, he displays a weakness that is exploitable, used against him in Shibuya.

His fall from grace is a fall from being the strongest to 'oh, maybe I was wrong'.

Gojo went from being a teenager with no apparent goal to being an adult that wants to change the world to one where his (already deceased) best friend can laugh from the bottom of his heart.

On a more personal note:

Generally, his (pretty easy-going) attitude just makes me happy and has actually brought me comfort in harder times.

Obviously, this manchild is also my biggest muse. I have written fanfiction for other fandoms before but I have never published them but Gojo just makes it so easy, I'm having a lot of fun with his character. Plus, without JJK and Gojo, I wouldn't have come to Tumblr at all and therefore, wouldn't have met the wonderful people I call my friends now 💕

All in all, I love the tragedy in his character as the strongest but his unyielding resolve of staying strong, being strong, being the best he can be. The cruelty he, without a doubt, witnessed over and over again, yet he stays kind and caring throughout all of it. Oh, how easy it would be for him to simply destroy everything? "But nobody would support a mass murderer," he is so big-brained for this.

I don't think there's a single aspect of him I do not love? I really adore this man so much.

And yes, this was rather short and I am sure I missed multiple things but I do hope my answer helped.

Maybe, MAYBE, I will post a full one on another day. But that one would be long as fuck...

#nie answers #anon #why i love gojo satoru #musings #kind of?#gojo satoru #gojo #jujutsu kaisen manga spoilers #manga spoilers #gojou satoru

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dercolaris · 3 years

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The Puppet Show

Fandom: Resident Evil Village

Characters: Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moerau, Angie, The Duke

Relationship: Donna Beneviento & Salvatore Moreau (Friendship)

Genre: Friendship, Hurt and Comfort

Word length: 2269

Warnings: No warnings

Status: Complete

Short summary: Salvatore Moreau often roams the village at night. One evening, he meets Donna Beneviento and her doll Angie.

Have fun!

The moon was unusually bright in the black sky, shrouding the forgotten village in an almost mystical glow. Salvatore blinked a little bit, looking up at the twinkling stars with the greatest effort. It was an extremely rare sight. The Lord smiled dreamily and lost himself for a moment in his own world of unfulfilled wishes and hopes of a simple man. A strong tug in his stomach made the doctor flinch. Less than ten seconds later, the black-haired man vomited a gush of green stomach acid across the muddy ground. Salvatore wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at his grotesque reflection in the resulting puddle. He grunted softly. What had the parasite made of him? The man clenched his crooked teeth as best he could and averted his eyes from the horrific sight in the liquid. He walked on through the village, constantly trying not to be discovered by the surviving residents. They would just laugh at him again or scare him away angrily. The doctor still hadn't come close to gaining the respect that the other counts had practically inherited. Despite the fact, Alcina and Karl in particular regularly complained about the lack of obedience of the common people. Incomprehensible. Salvatore snorted angrily. The arrogance of the two families often left the black-haired man speechless. None of them seemed to remember that they too were once part of the community and that their high position was achieved solely through their hard working ancestors. The man dragged himself through the night, occasionally throwing curious glances into the surrounding houses. He knew exactly where the living villagers were hiding in the darkness. They mostly sat with their heads bowed at the sparsely set dining tables and prayed together to a god who no longer existed. They became less every day. One after another was dragged away by the horde of wild lycans. Salvatore trudged to one of the boarded-up windows and peered through a crack into the interior of the house. A couple he knew from the old days sat at a broken door in the completely demolished kitchen. The woman's head was on the shoulder of the presumably sleeping or slowly dying husband, their hands tightly clasped together. She silently cried a few tears into her partner's dirty clothes. The Lord felt his heart grow unexpectedly heavy in his chest.

He had sincere pity for these people and sometimes wished that there could be some other way than to shamelessly exploit them for the ongoing experiments with the parasite. Mother Miranda had, of course, explained the necessity to him several times, but a little bit of doubt remained in his good soul. He stepped away from the window as quietly as possible and continued on his way. As is so often the case, Salvatore did not alert the lycans on patrol. These people deserved at least one night's rest in intimate togetherness. The doctor passed the ceremony area and took the opportunity to greet the obese trader. The merchant grinned contentedly and called happily to the walking Lord: “Good evening, Lord Salvatore. Where are you going right now? It's extremely rare to see you out here in the cold.” The black-haired man chuckled a little. He scratched his flaky skin and replied calmly: "You know that the villagers don't particularly like me, Duke. So for better or worse I'll have to postpone my walks into the nights if I want some peace and quiet.” The overweight man laughed out loud at this remark and took a drag on his stinking cigar. The Duke nodded in false understanding. Fortunately, he was extremely well disposed towards the black-haired man and saved himself derogatory comments about his appearance. Probably just out of sheer greed for money. As long as the customers paid reliably, it didn't matter what they actually looked like in the end. The trader replied in a good mood: “Absolutely understandable, Salvatore. I wish you a nice walk and you know where to find me if you should need something.” With these words, the Duke turned back to his favourite pastime. He bit the fragrant chicken leg in his bloated hand and tore out a piece of the tender meat, chewing contentedly on his late supper. The Lord gave him a short wave and strolled on through the unusually bright night.

At least one person who voluntarily exchanged a word with him. Salvatore finally reached the small river on the edge of the village. The silence of the place made the surroundings seem almost peaceful. How deceptive. He was just about to sit down by the clean water for a while and enjoy the moment of peace when he saw a figure wrapped in black on the jetty. The doctor was clearly surprised. He stepped cautiously closer, quickly spotted the little doll on the slippery wood. Her white dress moved in the light wind of the mountains and gave the false impression that it might be a lively little girl. Her owner, however, did not move at all, at that moment she appeared more lifeless than any of her impressive creations. Donna was a gifted and extremely talented doll maker, but her love for the little girls made of wood was clearly going too far. In general she was a very difficult person, which actually wasn't the poor woman's fault. Mother Miranda had told him in a secret conversation that the lonely Countess on the jetty was not really able to interact with the environment due to some mental illness and had been in compulsive self-isolation for years. The unexpected death of her parents had probably completely driven her insane at the time, so that Donna escaped into her own little world. Salvatore smiled sadly at the thought and slowly trotted towards the hooded doll maker. She apparently did not react to his approach, but the doll suddenly turned to him. The doctor stumped heavily onto the jetty and greeted them in a friendly manner: “Ms. Beneviento. What a pleasant surprise. I am probably not the only lost soul who wanders around the village at night."

The woman didn't move, but the wooden figure clattered slowly towards him. A female, squeaking voice came from the doll's mouth: "We don't like the other villagers, Moreau." The black-haired man giggled at this statement and nodded cautiously. He came to stand next to the Countess, panting, sucking air almost helplessly into his no longer properly functioning lungs. It was always a torture to move with this disfigured body. The man coughed lightly and calmly replied: “I really can't blame you for that. I feel the same way, Angie.” The doll began to giggle at the direct address, her mouth falling wildly open and closed again. She circled his massive figure and then returned to her owner. The wooden figure hopped onto the Countess's lap. This still sat like a pillar of salt on a large stone on the pier. Salvatore fell silent for a brief moment. How do you have an appropriate conversation with a mentally ill woman? He frowned, slightly puzzling. After a while the doctor asked hesitantly: “For once, may I keep you company for a while? I am now more than tired of the constant loneliness of my existence and miss interpersonal conversations.” The doll looked at its owner, who still did not move. They somehow seemed to be engaged in some kind of silent conversation. Finally, Angie turned back to the visitor and answered in a childlike voice: “If you can help me collect some materials, you are welcome to stay with us. Donna is also happy, even if she just can't really show it right now." The addressee perked up his ears. Salvatore smiled happily and nodded eagerly. He scratched his deformed chin and inquired curiously: “With pleasure. You said materials, yes? What exactly are you looking for here on the river bed?” Angie laughed triumphantly and slid elegantly from the silent doll maker's lap. She pointed with her woody fingers at a small basket at the end of the dock. The black-haired man looked inside and saw a multitude of elongated plants.

The doll suddenly appeared next to him and began to explain eagerly: “We mainly need reeds, because Donna wants to carve a new friend for our family tomorrow. She would like to make her an own basket out of the plant.” The doctor smiled a little and nodded in the affirmative. The wooden figure laughed overjoyed, then pointed to the bank with the wild reeds. Salvatore looked at the doll for a while, then carefully picked it up in his slippery arms and approached the wet stones of the embankment. His fingers gripped the first pipes, carefully trying to snap them off. The webbed feet made this undertaking more difficult than necessary. Angie herself helped the Lord by keeping the plants that he had already collected in her tiny hands and commented every now and then about the very good quality of the reeds. The black-haired man listened to the child's voice. He was really impressed. This rare company was giving him an incredibly well feeling in his heart. It filled the man with a long-forgotten ease that had long been lost due to his mutation. He snapped off another plant and mumbled softly to the doll, which had meanwhile sat on his back: “How many should we still take, Angie? I am not familiar with the art of braiding and I have to rely on your experience.” The wooden figure giggled mischievously and looked into its own little hand. She counted the reeds between her fingers, then seemed to consider. After a while she called out, louder than planned: "Two more and we've had enough, Moreau." The man chuckled and leaned back toward the plants. He said with amusement: "Well, if you say so, it will be true. I will get them for you." He took the desired number of reed and broke them with a bit of difficulty. In the end he handed the doll his harvest. She gratefully accepted the reeds. Together they returned to the doll maker, who actually lifted her head slightly this time.

The black mourning veil hid her face as usual, but Salvatore thought he had seen a small smile under the hood. Angie hurriedly hopped down from his hump and proudly presented her harvest to her owner: “Look, Donna! Is that enough? Yes, it is surely enough. We can use it to weave a beautiful basket for our new friend!” The Countess said nothing, just remained silent and motionless on the stone. The doctor rubbed his rough hands. This woman was really mysterious. Nevertheless, he had the feeling that she did not meet him with rejection, as it usually happened in his case. The black-haired man suddenly felt the pressure in his stomach again. He took a few deep breaths. Now was clearly the wrong time to vomit acid in front of a very kind lady. Salvatore successfully fought the nausea and spoke slowly: “You certainly want to weave the basket at home, don't you Ms. Beneviento? I can escort you back if you wish. The sun should come up in about an hour and I would like to make sure that you arrive safely at home.” Her head moved a little again. Despite this slight movement, the lively doll at his feet replied again: “Would you really do that, Moreau? How attentive! Donna would appreciate it very much. Come on, let's go home before they see us. I don't want to meet these annoying villagers.” The doctor held out his hand to the woman on the stone. Ignoring the help, she got up herself, then bent down to take Angie carefully in her arms. She walked leisurely up the path. Salvatore bowed his head a little disappointed. Perhaps she found him too repulsive after all and didn't appreciate his presence. Before he could think about it any further, he felt the doll maker's gaze on him. She had turned slightly to him. "Are you finally coming, Moreau?" Asked the doll with an almost mad laugh. This question literally made the Lord's eyes shine. He released himself from his rigidity and trotted quickly after the woman. Together they hiked to the house of the Benevientos. When he got to the front door, Salvatore came to a stop, panting heavily. This whole walk was more exhausting for him than he thought.

The doll maker opened the locked door with an ornate key and turned to her companion. Angie had meanwhile jumped off her arms and run into the house, talking loudly to the other dolls. The man smiled sheepishly and spoke politely: “Thank you very much for your precious time, Ms. Beneviento. Perhaps you can come and see me in my private property one day. I have an old television at home and I know some very good movies that you might also like. You can think about it, Ms. Beneviento.” Suddenly, the Countess became very stiff. As if in slow motion, her arms were raised and she took the veil from her head, showing her beautiful, pale face. A sprawling organism pulsed on her forehead to the beat of her heart. A smile crept onto her thin lips when she replied very quietly: "Donna." Salvatore forgot to breathe briefly. The Countess slowly raised her right hand and held it out to her companion. He carefully took her hand in his, lowered his head slightly and breathed a kiss on the back of the fragile hand. Salvatore replied happily: "Of course, Donna."

#Resident Evil 8 #Resident Evil Village #Donna Beneviento #Salvatore Moreau #Moreau #Beneviento #Donna #Salvatore #Friendship #Angie #Doll Maker

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sammysera · 3 years

Text

What happens in Madripoor, stays in Madripoor (SHORT READER X BUCKY ONE SHOT)

Synopsis ~ It’s winter! You have lived in the outskirts of Madripoor your whole life and met Bucky partial way through, he was busy off saving the world until he had to come back. As he walks in the door your heart flutters, reminding you of the forever-teenage-crush you seemed to have on him, his personality, his eyes, his laugh, his hairs, his lips, You both decide to spend a bit of time together away from the crowds of avenging, what’s the worst that could happen?

Warning: profanity, drowning/death, mild sexual content, blood, murder, knives,

Word count: 3254

This has only other been posted on my Twitter. It should NOT be posted on any other accounts apart from @/imgodbtchesmrvl on Twitter and this tumblr.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The cold gusts rushed through the cracks of the window, begging to be accepted into the warmth of my home. Door creaked to the rattle of the wind’s pushes and shoves trying to get in and infect my home with the spiteful bite of raw frost. My body draped over a small coach in the corner of the living room in front of a dark-screened TV was my hands nestled book pages between each finger.

My breath was short. The tensity of the book’s situation increased, pokes and prods of the cold dotted my skin heavily beneath my thin sweater. Dancing through the pages of the book my eyes glued to the lettering, each printed meant something which helped to create this world of murder, in the simple nook of my two hands.

Blood splattered, knives thrown, glares of the dead and skulls of the living crept images into my mind of the entirely different century and world, sat between my palms. Rattle.

I tilted my head as my eyes slipped to the small handle of my front door. Blasting wind impacted the thing for the hundredth time in the last hour so my head shook away the thought of entry, the creep of reading this mysterious dark, world in front of me didn’t help the anxious-confidence of curiosity bugging my mind. Rattle.

I tilted my head as my eyes slipped to the small handle of my front door. This time I shivered as my right hand removed itself from the small portal in my hands and scratched up my bookmark off the couch, beneath my right thigh. I never removed my eyes from that blasted door handle, they stayed locked onto the threat. The bookmark noted the chapter of the book I reached prior to the interruption and I placed the paper-back down on a miniature grey table beside my current seat. Rattle.

My irises still locked onto that handle, I shifted upwards and still not unlocking my gaze I grabbed a little knife from the table beside me. You see, being the best friend one the one and only Winter Soldier doesn’t necessarily gain you any more confidence that you’ll “always be protected”. No. In fact it did quite the opposite, it exposed a weakness. One which could be exploited, especially is said-weakness had no defence techniques and was incapable to do a thing to defend themselves. On the other hand, there is me, Buck taught me basic ways to defend myself from predators and weakened parts of the body that could help me to take someone down if I needed to. Rattle.

My body thrusted against the wall in series with the door as the handle clicked. Shit. The wooden opening creaked as it threw itself around the hinge in an anti-clockwise, slow, manor. My body shivered to the hug of the frosty wind. Footsteps started to sound as a dark body started to enter the frame. I shot my knife towards it but their arms performed an ‘L’ shape, blocking my attempt, my eyes slowly looking upwards.

Bucky ‘Buchanan’ Barnes.

“Bucky.” I smirked at the tall, handsome loveable-stranger. “Hey, Frosty.” His relentless grin stole his features hastily, suddenly he thrusted himself forward onto me- shocking me I slipped backwards onto the hard, wooden floor and he fell directly on top of me but his hands slammed down either side of my head.

My eyes widened, glistening into his. I felt my heart start to palpitate at the sight of his features directly over me, just an inch or two from my own face. His chiselled jaw laced with a thin dark stubble, thin lips parted but soft, lower lip grinningly bitten slightly by an upper tooth, pearly whites staring back at me as his smile revealed at my flustered face. His eyes never left my own from our first conversion of words when he arrived.

Hesitantly his body came down on top of me, throwing a wave over my own body, of desire for my ever-long crush to just kiss me. As his entire body lie over my own, my legs already spread from the fall with his own placed between them, he halted. Mouth beside my ear.

“A little weak on our defence, huh?” He groaned into my ear, his deep voice soothed the tension of my yearning body. A little laugh left his voice as his body lifted upwards and he settled between my legs, one knee led flat and the other pointed upwards, he never let the grin leave his face as a large hand offered help to my own.

I grabbed it and smiled as we stood up together and he ripped me into a hug, squashing our body together. My body relaxed under the handsome scent of his, pine from the woodland next to my home, cologne, gun powder and fire. The best scent of all, all of this combined. Buck’s large arms engulfed half of my body and he smiled into my hair, not saying a word, just living in the moment of current affection.

I pushed my arms around his waist and cuddled into his solid chest, his muscles were easy to feel through his thin shirt, how could he be wearing such a thin shirt in this weather? I blushed a little again under his groan of joy from our glued bodies. I missed this. I missed him.

Finally after five minutes we parted and he gripped my shoulders with his humongous hands, I smiled at the hold, his eyes stared through into my soul and I felt almost naked from that gaze of his, “How are you?” I smiled a bit more at the question, “Better now that you’re back, Buck.” I patted his arm and he let go as I left for the kitchen, him plodding his large soldier-body behind me.

“I assume you’re hungry, Bucky?” my head turned as I started to walk backwards into the kitchen, making it through the doorway then turning back so I would walk forward to the fridge and pull out some ingredients for one of my best recipes: a sandwich.

“If you wouldn’t mind making me something too, I’d appreciate that.” I looked up to the super-soldier as he plopped his body into a breakfast-bar chair in front of the bar while I shifted around in front of him making two sandwiches for the both of us.

-=-=-

Time skip: 4 hours later.

catch-up: after the last few hours of talking we discussed life, love, The Avengers, how Bucky was, how I was, what we want in future. We talked about so much half of it I couldn’t even remember. But we decided that now we are going to go out in the snow to just have some general fun. It didn’t snow a whole lot in America this year so when Bucky came here, to Madripoor, he was wanting to at least enjoy the bite of snow at his skin while he was here.

-=-=-

I shot down the hallway of my little bungalow, darting past Bucky’s door and he chuckled at the sight of my body running round the smallest home he had to ever of been in, as if it was some sort of incredibly important emergency.

“Seriously, you can chill out Frosty, it snows here about two-foot a day in winter. It isn’t like we are going to miss it.” he cackled lacing his foot with a dark thick boot when I jumped in front of him. I grasped both of his shoulders and made him look directly into my eyes as I explained, “No you don’t understand, tonight’s sunset is going to be the most gorgeous one of the year. You need to see this one.” My face flourished emotionlessness as seriousness stole my features. Again, a cackle left his mouth while he stood up, placing a thick coat over his torso and zipping it shut to encase the heat of his body.

I nodded to him, eyes wide in question of if he was finally ready to leave and he returned the nod which indicated for us to go. I squealed, almost launching out of the front door and I creased the perfection of the snow which had settled on my front-door-step.

As I placed one foot into the candy-floss-snow my feet raced through the infinite acres of snow and I raced my body through the trees of the woodland placed in front of my bungalow, running from the calling of Bucky’s voice to stop. I giggled at my head start and hid behind a tree, circling a ball of snow into a snow-ball.

Footsteps crept closer alongside heavy breaths and more calls for his ‘Frosty’. My hand laced my mouth to stop a little giggle escaping at his confusion of where I had hidden, as his back turned towards me I ran out and launched a fist of snow into the centre of his back.

He spun around, a smirk gaining his features at the sight of me running away from him, no more snow in hand. His body thrusted towards me at a heavy speeding pace while I ran directly towards frozen lake I know of local to the woodland. As I shoved branches out of my path, hearing the gaining footsteps I chose to take a detour from my original path.

Before Bucky realised, I managed to take an arm of snow and climb up a tree, I was then sat up on a thick branch draping across to entwine with another arm from another tree halted proudly upwards, my eyes chased Bucky’s movements below me. A small smile flourished on my face, watching Buck struggle to find my where-a-bouts.

He spun in circles directly below me, his jacket creasing over his muscular arms, his dark hair being discoloured by the snow falling on top of the short locks of hair, his stubble starting to also discolour. He started to sputter as some snow must have landed on his lips or in his mouth and he slapped his face over trying to get the snow off his stubble and out of his mouth. Forcing my laughter to try to contain itself even more.

My self-control started to lack as I giggled aloud a little bit but not enough to make him notice my location.

He paused for a moment, squinting in the distance and a breeze overcame the air, dancing his hair forwards allowing from him to use this as an excuse to then run his hand through his hair and pull it from his eyes, this act, although not intentionally flirtatious or arousing, caused that same prior desire for him to just kiss me and be with me returned to my feelings and thoughts.

To contain this, at least for right now, I encased a ball of snow in my hand and swung back my right arm, preparing a throw down towards the back of Buck’s head. Perfect shot. Perfect aim. Perfect target. Perfect everything. I swung it but as my arm came forward and released the ball of frozen water, it slapped into the direct centre of Bucky’s face and I gasped.

Eyes widened.

Buck’s hand and cyborg moved upwards towards the snow encasing his features and as he wiped it off I released the loudest laughter I had ever had. My laughter captured Bucky’s attention and his face shot upwards towards me, allowing me to admire his beauty through tears of laughter.

While cackling uncontrollably I suddenly lost my grip, grabbing some snow on my fall down through the air instead of a branch. Everything was in slow motion.

“NO!” Bucky’s voice bellowed as my body dropped from the branch of the tree and my hand grabbed a fist of snow.

Falling.

Bright images of my parents drowning in the local lake appeared in front of me, I relived each and every moment of that trauma within seconds that felt like hours. The experience of not being able to save them engraved my memory and this must have been my “white light” that everyone talks about seeing when they die.

My hair danced in the pull of gravity versus the light-weight of my hair, it flowed upwards and my body fell through the layer of frost-bitten air, slowly getting closer and closer to the white-bedded grass.

My eyes closed.

Warmth.

My eyes opened and I felt two arms wrapped around me. One under my upper torso and the other under my two legs, shock overcame me as I was sure this was the moment I’d die. My eyes turned to look at my knight, Bucky.

Bucky grasped me in his arms, worry embedded his features as he let go of a breath and closed his eyes bringing his forehead forward into my own, he was scared. Scared he’d lost me. Scared he was going to lose me. “Don’t ever do that again Frosty.” I giggled a bit and brought my forehead upwards. Our mouths centimetres apart, lust for kissing his claimed my mind as we both looked at each other’s lips, my eyes slowly looking up into his, “I planned on doing this everyday, darling.” I smirked and pulled away, shooting out of his arms and running towards the lake.

As I launched from his arms I saw a slight grin claim his lips again, replacing the worry he once had. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the snarky comment and sarcasm which claimed my personality like slave, or whether it was because I called him ‘darling’.

My thighs pounded against each other as I slid across the opening and onto the ice, I locked down onto one knee, skimming across the soft ice allowing it to slide me as far as it could. I turned in circles across the ice hearing small cracks as I danced, I slightly caught Bucky appearing through the opening and standing on the verge of the ice, smiling at the sight of my let-go.

Dancing allows my body to let go, I love to dance. It sets my soul free and I love to do it on this lake, when its frozen, or in this opening to honour my parents. They loved my dancing, they loved me dancing. Bucky loved to watch me dance. I’ve seen so many smiles lace his face whenever he watched me dance, it made me feel alive to see him enjoy watching me do something I enjoy. It only made me love him more.

I turned in a circle, several times. Feeling the gushing wind spin out from my speeding rate of turns and and I brought my arm down, a hand gripped my right waist and my left hand. I looked into the depths of who had taken my hand.

Bucky sincerely smiled and started to dance with me. We rushed around the outskirts of the lake, spinning and turning, so many moments where all we did was lose ourselves in each other’s glistening eyes. The snow only emphasised the aura around us. We both love winter so it only feels absolutely perfect whenever we are together in this weather and season.

Bucky looked deep into my eyes as I stared into his with an equal smile, his ocean-eyes glowed even more in the shimmer of white around us. He spun me round and I fell into his right arm as he brought me down towards the ice with my leg hung upwards in the air, his face following my own.

Our faces, almost parallel following each other at every moment. He brought me up, an even deeper and emotional smile gathered across his entire face, his stubble creased under one of his numbered smiles.

Bucky doesn’t tend to be joyful too much because of everything he went through so whenever he is around me I tended to do whatever I could to make him smile. Even if it meant doing something incredibly stupid, as long as a smile graced his features, thats all that matters.

I stood directly opposite him and he spun me before bringing me back down into and identical position to our last, except now our faces were directly parallel. My leg strung up in the air again, assuming a dance pose.

His deeper emotions surfaced, “I don’t know why it took me so long to do this.”

I tilted my head at his comment and he thrusted forward. Our lips crashed, perfectly. We kissed, our lips smothered each other passionately and there wasn’t a single regret in that moment from either of us.

If passion could be physically shown, there would be mass fires surrounding our bodies as they pushed together under the heated love through our simple kiss.

Bucky’s hand clenched my ass jokingly and I chuckled at his cheeky grab as he chuckled at my laugh. I pulled my arms around his neck and tugged him closer as our bodies brought upwards. Never once did our lips part.

Buck’s arms wrapped around my lower back as mine stretched around his lower neck and his little laugh escaped, parting our lips from the struggle of reaching completely around his neck.

“Who’d have thought such a short-ass would be the one I fall for?” he giggled down to me.

“Who’d have thought you’d finally kiss me?” I chuckled back at him sarcastic and not once did my smile hesitate or leave my lips.

“Hey, this is 2024. You could have been the one to kiss me.” He replied with a sarcastic-serious face, cupping my right jaw.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for old fashioned.” I returned the sarcasm and he pushed his lips back onto mine.

“I love you, Frosty,” his words pulsed through my mind on loop. I couldn’t get enough of those four words in his voice, from his mouth.

“Happy birthday” He smiled more and pulled out a small burgundy box. I looked at the box then up to him and slapped my hand onto his torso lightly with a wide smile of joy from the comment of his love. I didn’t need some sort of gift, I just wanted his love.

“Bucky, I-”

Crack. My eyes widened. Crack. My eyes looked into Bucky’s, fear overcoming. “love”. Shatter.

My body was engulfed by the cold wet. As I fell, I couldn’t even finish the four word sentence I aimed to tell him. Would this be my death? Is this how I die? I saw Bucky’s eyes start to fill with tears as I fell and when I dropped through I was smashing my hand onto the thick ice.

I couldn’t swim.

I pounded and pounded and pounded, but nothing. Deafening silence.

I watched Bucky’s eyes drain of the passion that once resonated, now all I could see were tears. Panic. Sadness. Anger. Fear. He dropped to his knees, letting go of the burgundy box as it hit the ice beside his knee.

Time passed slowly, but I felt the life paling from me hastily.

My hair flailed around my head, beneath the surface I was screaming but I didn’t want to show Bucky that fear. If I showed fear, he would be scared. I don’t want him to be scared. He forced his fists into the ice but it wouldn’t give. He just kept punching, his knuckles growing scarlet.

I just smiled. One of his tears dropped onto the surface of the ice. I started to fall from the surface of the ice.

“I love you.”

Darkness.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! This was originally inspired by a simple prompt I got on twitter and was mucking about making a mini commentary-short-story but then morphed an idea in my mind!

Let me know your thoughts <3

Thank you for reading!

TWITTER: @/imgodbtchesmrvl

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wondernimbus · 4 years

Text

ottery st. catchpole — cedric diggory

pairing: cedric diggory x female!reader

request #1: Hi! Do you mind writing a Cedric x reader fic where y/n loves and is the best baker? She hands him a treat and he finds himself slowly falling for for her (idk smth really cute please!) Thanks :))

request #2: Can you write Cedric and the reader sharing their first kiss together? 🥺

a/n: decided to combine two requests since i thought they’d work well together!

The muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole was a fascinating place.

The first time Cedric had gone there at age eight, he'd thrown on an odd assortment of muggle clothes: a pink strawberry-patterned shirt, overly large bell-bottoms from his father's closet, and a pair of flip-flops. He learned quickly that that was not the kind of attire that would get him unnoticed by the Muggles—rather the opposite, actually, as he earned odd stares everywhere he went. But there were no "ordinary" Muggle clothes in his closet and nor did his father, so the next time he went to the village and came across a clothesline hanging unguarded outside of a Muggle house, he snatched himself two shirts and a pair of jeans and made sure to leave a thank you note under their door.

Free to wander the village without skeptical stares of Muggles following him everywhere, curious, eight-year-old Cedric made sure to explore every inch of it from the park to the chapel to the tavern.

But his most favorite, perhaps, was the bakery.

It was a quaint little place, tucked away in the corner away from the bustling main road. Its battered sign read "Old Corner Bakery", and underneath it there was a window display of the most delicious, succulent-looking pastries Cedric had ever seen in his life. It looked—though he would never let her hear him say it—even better than the ones his mother would make at home.

And so one day, Cedric, oblivious to the workings of the Muggle world and the fact that their currency was very much different from theirs, walked through the door, marched right up to the counter where his tiny head only barely peeked out from, and held up a single golden galleon. "One of those, please," he told the old lady behind the cashier, pointing at a mouth-watering custard tart on display.

The old lady reached out for the galleon, baffled. "What is this?"

"For a custard tart," replied Cedric, handing it to her.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said in wonder, holding the galleon up to the light. "Good grief, is this real gold?"

Cedric frowned, puzzled. "It''s a galleon."

The lady's face fell. Scowling, she handed it back to him. "So it's a toy," she sniffed. "I would tell you to scram, but I've seen you pass by here ogling at my pastries once or twice before. I'll give you one for free. What was it you wanted again?"

Cedric, although a little confused by how she wouldn't take his galleon, beamed in delight. If it was for free, he wasn't going to complain.

And so Cedric walked out of the bakery a few moments later with half a custard tart in his hands and the other half already snug in his stomach. He wondered to himself if all Muggles were like this; if he went to that shop near the town square, would he get more stuff for free?

He tried, and needless to say, failed.

The next day, Cedric came back to the bakery bearing two sickles. As happy as getting free food made him, something about exploiting an old woman's kindness didn't sit right with him. If she didn't want the galleon, maybe she would take a sickle instead.

But when he walked through the bakery doors, he found that the old woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, in her place behind the cashier, there was a little girl about his age.

"Welcome to Old Corner Bakery!" she beamed, childish face shining brightly. "How may I help you?"

Cedric drew towards her, a pout on his face. "Where's the old lady?"

"The old lady?" she asked. "Oh, you mean grandma!"

He nodded.

"She's in the kitchen—baking, you know. I handle customers like you when she's too busy and I'm not doing homework," the little girl explained, grinning.

"Oh," said Cedric. "In that case, I want a cauldron cake!"

She tilted her head to the side, brows furrowed. "What's that?"

"A cauldron cake," he repeated. "Have you not got those here?"

Bottom lip jutting out in thought, the little girl scratched her head and hopped off of the stool she was apparently standing on to look over the cashier; as soon as she did, she disappeared behind the counter and into the kitchen. "Grandma!"

The familiar voice of the old lady replied, "Yes, dear?"

"Do we have cauldron cakes?"

"What?"

Cedric waited patiently by the counter, hands fiddling with the two sickles he held in his hands. "Cauldron cakes, grandma!" the little girl yelled louder.

"Never heard of 'em!" the old lady replied from the kitchen.

A moment later, the little girl was clambering back onto her stool behind the cashier. "I don't think we have those here," she told Cedric, and then, in a curious tone, "They sound delicious, though! What are they?"

A wide smile stretched across Cedric's round face—he looked as though he'd been waiting to be asked that for centuries. At a rapid pace, he began to gush, "They're chocolate cakes shaped like cauldrons and they've got melted chocolate in them and sometimes my mum uses this spell so that the chocolate doesn't run out and you can keep eating forever. She takes off the spell sometimes, though, because she says if I keep eating I'll get as fat as dad."

The little girl giggled, but then, with her eyes wide, asked, "Did you say spells? Like magic? The kind wizards and witches use?"

Cedric's eyes grew as wide as, if not even wider, than hers. He took a quick step back and cleared his throat, eyes darting around the bakery in panic. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that she was a Muggle—he'd almost revealed the secret of the wizarding world to her and defied his parents' warnings!

"Um," Cedric stammered, stuffing his two sickles back into his pocket. "Nevermind. Sorry!"

And just like that, he dashed out of the bakery, leaving the little girl staring after him, thoroughly intrigued.

—

Cedric did not go back to the village the next day under the irrational fear of accidentally revealing the wizarding world's biggest secret; that magic existed. Obviously, an eight-year-old wizard letting such a thing slip to yet another eight-year-old Muggle would little affect the wizarding world, but Cedric, childish and oblivious as he was, did not want to take any risks.

And so it took him a week before he mustered up the courage to go back into the village. He hadn't been planning to go into the bakery—he only hoped to catch a glimpse of the pastries by the window—but he found that the little girl was sitting outside on the front steps, munching on a piece of bread.

Mere seconds from legging it, the girl looked up and their eyes met. "Hey!" she called out, perking up. "I know you!"

Cedric froze from where he stood several feet away. He thought it'd be rude to bolt when she'd already noticed him, and so he walked forward tentatively, half-expecting her to start badgering him with questions about wizards and witches and magic. But she only patted the empty space next to her and beckoned him to sit down, that same cheery smile on her face that Cedric had seen a week ago.

He sat next to her on the stone steps, crossed arms propped on his knees as he turned his head to look at her. She was tearing the bread she held in her hands into two halves, the other half of which she handed to him.

"Thank you," said Cedric, taking it.

"You're welcome!" the little girl replied, face positively glowing with the warmth of a thousand suns. Taking a bite out of her now considerably smaller chunk of bread, she tilted her head and said, "I don't think I've ever seen you at school before."

He took a bite out of his own, eyes skittering away to look at the pavement. "My parents teach me school stuff at home," he told her. It wasn't a complete lie, although he guessed that the things that she learned in her Muggle school were a stark contrast to the magic he learned from his mum and dad.

"Oh, that sounds fun!" the little girl said, beaming. "Don't you get sad, though? Not having any kids your age to play with? Assuming you don't have siblings."

"I don't," replied Cedric through a mouthful of bread. It was some sort of strawberry crumpet. "I'm an only child. I suppose it does get lonely, sometimes, but that's why I go out here—to the Mugg—I mean, the village."

She nodded, mouth moving to form an o shape. "Neat. So you don't have homework?"

He shook his head. The girl's shoulders slumped and a frown quickly found its way onto her face. "I wish I didn't get homework," she said sullenly. "They give us a whole stack of it over the summer. I hate it."

Cedric bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't quite like the frown on her face; something about it made him feel unsettled, like something had gone wrong in the world. He nudged her shoulder with his. "It can't be that bad," he said, offering her a tiny smile. "There's.. there's worse things than homework. Like—I don't know—losing ekleksiti or whatever you call it.. or unintentionally fumbling with the Quaffle and messing up your team's goal.."

"You mean the football?"

"Yeah.." Whatever that was.

She giggled, turning to smile at him. "You're funny."

There was something about her tone of voice—along with the overall aura that she carried—that awfully reminded Cedric of summer days playing Quidditch outside with his family and warm wind in his face and lying in the grass seeing the clouds drifting above him.

It was that feeling that made it easy for Cedric to forget almost immediately about his illogical fear of exposing the magical world. It was what had him smiling back at her, round face just as bright and filled with the kind of mirthful innocence only children would have.

—

Cedric came back to the bakery the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. Both the little girl—who he learned was named [Y/N]—and her kind, albeit slightly cranky old grandmother, grew fond of him. The latter would make sure to bake him his favorite custard tarts, and [Y/N] would sit with him by the front steps of the bakery, talking about every tiny thing their brains came up with.

"Have you got a favorite movie?" [Y/N] asked him one day.

"A favorite what?"

"A movie. Don't tell me you've never seen one!"

Cedric scratched the back of his neck, abashed. "I don't think so. Is that a Mu—I mean, what is it?"

Looking utterly astounded, [Y/N] began to ramble on about moving pictures and fairytales and stories.

"I've seen moving pictures—but you're telling me they don't talk to you?" quizzed Cedric dubiously.

Frowning, she nodded. "The pictures talk to each other. Sort of. Although it would be cool if they talked to us, don't you think?"

Still trying to wrap his head around the concept of images that don't talk to you but talk to other images whilst following a story of sorts, Cedric rubbed his forehead. "This is giving me a headache."

[Y/N] giggled, shoving the last of her custard tart into her mouth. "Let's go see one one day! A movie, I mean. It'll be fun!"

Prying his palm away from his face, Cedric nodded and couldn't help but grin right back at her. The excited gleam in her eyes shone with the promise of more than just one day seeing a movie; it glowed with the promise of a friendship that would last for a long, long time. That gleam of promise was reflected in Cedric's own gaze, and rest assured it would stay there in the rest of the years to come.

—

Three years seemed to pass by in a blur of endless chatter, ridiculous inside-jokes, and shared pastries out by the bakery's front steps. The pair grew and their friendship did so along with them. Cedric learned to grow cautious about what he had come to call his "magical secret", although he suspected that [Y/N] had started to grow skeptical along the way despite her never bringing it up.

When his letter from Hogwarts arrived, Cedric knew that he had to tell [Y/N]—that, or make up some excuse. Or perhaps invent something akin to the truth, but not quite.

And so it went like this: "My parents are sending me to school."

[Y/N]'s eyes widened. They were sitting in their usual spot out by the bakery's stone steps, identical biscuits in their hands. Out of nowhere, she smacked Cedric's shoulder; he turned to face her, clutching the spot where she'd hit him. "What was that for?" asked Cedric, eyes as wide as hers.

She smacked him again, bouncing with the excitement of a five-year-old child waking up on Christmas day. "That's great!" she squealed, stuffing her biscuit in her mouth and chewing frantically. "I can introduce you to all my friends and we'll get to see each other everyday and not just on the weekends!"

Cedric's heart sank. "Um.."

"And we can do homework together and I won't have to walk back home alone and—"

"[Y/N], I'm not going to your school."

She paused. Her face fell and drooped into a frown so disappointed that Cedric had to tear his gaze away. "What—where are you going, then?"

He scratched the back of his neck, lips pressed together in a weak grimace. "Somewhere far."

[Y/N]'s brows were furrowed. "Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere in Scotland, I think. I'll be back home for the summer, though."

Her shoulders had slumped, and so had Cedric's. The disappointment was evident in the sulky lines of her face and it was making Cedric feel all sorts of things he normally wouldn't feel around her; incredibly downcast being one of them. He'd known this day was coming one day or another, and so would the day he'd have to leave and not see her for several months—the day that loomed only a week from then.

"When are you leaving?" asked [Y/N], gaze fixed on the pavement, a pout on her tiny face.

"Next week," replied Cedric.

He couldn't bear it. He poked her side, which immediately led to her jumping up and frowning at him. (He'd discovered over time that it was a big tickle spot of hers.) Once he'd gathered her attention, he said in a quiet voice, "I've got a secret. Do you want to hear it?"

Still looking somewhat sullen, she nodded. [Y/N] would never pass up a chance to discover some big, mysterious secret, no matter her mood.

And just because he wanted to cheer her up, along with the fact that he knew he couldn't keep this from her—his best friend of three years who knew everything about him from his favorite pair of socks to his biggest fears—he leaned in, eyes wide, and whispered in a hushed tone, "I'm going to a school for wizards."

She drew back, brows pulled in together in the middle in pure incredulity as said, "You're joking."

"No," said Cedric, grinning. And then, in that same hushed voice, "You have to promise me you won't tell anyone, okay?"

Still looking utterly bewildered, [Y/N] nodded slowly, gaze locked with his.

"I can show you magic, if you like."

At this, her eyes grew wide and a moment later she was nodding excitedly. "Where? When? How?"

"Right now!" replied Cedric, relieved at the smile that split her face and replaced the disappointed frown from before. "Wait here, okay? I'll be back!" And then he sprang to his feet and dashed off.

Cedric was true to his word; he came back half an hour later bearing a mysterious purple package in his hands. [Y/N] was still sitting patiently where he'd left, and she looked up at him calling her name.

"What is that?" she asked, hands reaching out for the box, which Cedric handed to her. Turning it over in her hands, she saw the words "Chocolate Frog" written across the paper lid in shiny golden letters.

"Open it!" Cedric urged, sitting down next to her.

And so she did. Carefully opening the lid of the octagon-shaped box, she let out a loud shriek as a chocolate-colored pair of squirming frog legs poked out from behind it. Out of surprise, the package fell from her hands and onto the pavement, but Cedric's instincts were quick; he hurriedly hopped off the steps to grab the package, hands firmly clamped around it as he brought it back to her with a wide smile on his snickering face.

"Guess you don't scare easy, huh?" he grinned, teasing. "It can get away if you don't hold onto it as soon as you open the package. See, watch."

Heart still beating rapidly, she leaned over with wide eyes and a curious gaze, watching as Cedric carefully opened the lid. He caught something that, sure enough, looked like chocolate—but it was moving in his clasped fist.

"A chocolate frog," said [Y/N], eyes the size of golf-balls.

"Yep," said Cedric, bringing the still struggling treat to his lips and taking a huge chunk out of it. "Don't worry—it's not an actual frog. Just shaped to look like it."

Gobsmacked, [Y/N] stared as he handed her the bottom half of the chocolate frog, the legs of which was still squirming. "That's—woah," excitement bubbling in the pit of her stomach at having witnessed actual magic (albeit in the form of the so-called chocolate frog), she brought it to her mouth, where it instantly stopped moving and dissolved into a creamy mess of delicious chocolate.

Eyes glinting with the same elation that was in hers, Cedric sat down next to her and pulled a card out of the box. He handed it to her.

[Y/N] stared down at the small card in the palm of her hands. "Woah," she said again, voice a stunned whisper. Imprinted on the card was a photo of an old man whose beard stretched all the way down to his waist. He was wearing sparkling magenta robes and looking straight at her, a gentle twinkle in his wizened, old eyes. An odd name was emblazoned under his picture—"Albus Dumbledore"—but then he reached up to adjust the spectacles on the bridge of his nose, and [Y/N] let out another surprised gasp. "He moved!"

Cedric was grinning. "Magic, I told you!"

Exhilarated, [Y/N] looked back down at the card in her hands. The old man—Dumbledore—winked at her through his half-moon spectacles. "Is he—" she swallowed, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart, "Is he a wizard?"

Cedric nodded, beaming. "And so am I."

For a few seconds, [Y/N] could do no more than open and close her mouth in pure shock. All of this was a lot to take in—but perhaps her being of the mere age eleven helped, because while the ordinary Muggle adult would have downright refused to believe it, an imaginative young girl like her who had yet to discover the world took the news kindly.

"I'd show you more magic," Cedric said bashfully, "But I don't really know how to yet. That's why I'm going to Hogwarts—the school I was talking about, you know—so I can learn how to use magic. Spells and potions and all of that stuff."

At this, [Y/N]'s lips once more drooped with the threat of yet another painful frown, but she picked it back up with a small smile. "Here," she swiveled around to face him on the steps, knees knocking with his. Holding her pinky finger up between them, she said, "You promise me you'll write, okay? And you have to tell me about all the stuff that you learn there and all the other wizards and witches you meet—there are witches, right?"

Cedric nodded, lips pressed together in a tiny smile as he laced his pinky finger through hers. "I promise. Expect there'll be owls knocking on your window every week or so."

Her eyes widened once more. "Owls?"

He grinned. "We use owls to send letters and stuff around."

"Oh. Neat."

They broke out into a fit of giggles. "Okay," said Cedric, pulling his pinky finger away. "But you have to promise me you'll keep it a secret."

[Y/N] nodded earnestly, a look of the utmost seriousness crossing over his face as she pressed her palm to her chest like she was swearing an oath. "I'll take it to the grave with me, Ced," she said, eyes sparkling. "Trust me."

—

And trust her he has done, for the past few years of his life. Cedric would leave on the first of September every year, but not before bidding her farewell and promising to write at least once a week. To make up for the time they've lost, he would spend almost every day of the summer and winter break with her. His parents understand; he has long since told them about the Muggle girl at the bakery who his heart has grown close to. And perhaps it is his parents who first notice when the friendship that he has with her begins to blossom into something else. Something more.

"Out to meet with your friend already?" asks his father upon catching Cedric already on his way out of the front door. It's his first day back home from his fifth year at Hogwarts, and he has barely even finished unpacking his bags.

Cedric grins. He is a young man of age sixteen now, no longer the tiny eight-year-old boy he once was when he first met [Y/N] all those years ago. And yet despite all that has changed—despite his broader stature and the fact that he now towers over his father—he is still the same compassionate boy he has always been; the one who has always had a love for pastries and a certain girl at the bakery, although he doesn't quite know it yet.

"She's waiting for me," says Cedric, oddly exhilarated. His heart beating with the anticipation of seeing her for the first time in several months, he waves a brief goodbye to his father and dashes down the hill leading to the Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

He goes down the same path he always has; past the small patch of trees at the foot of the hill, through the town square, and finally, in front of the bakery. The door is propped open as though it has been waiting for him to enter, and voices waft out onto the street from the inside.

A smile already having found its way onto his face, Cedric takes the front stone steps two at a time before stepping inside.

"Be careful, grandma—oh, no—no, let me do it."

"It's fine, I can—Cedric, dear boy, you're back!"

A tray of freshly-baked cookies are set aside on the counter before a familiar elderly Muggle woman rushes at him and envelops him in a hug, mitten-covered hands wrapping themselves around his middle—the farthest she can reach him at his tall height and her own short legs. Cedric meets [Y/N]'s gaze over her grandmother's shoulder; she is leaning on the counter, lips pressed together in a barely-suppressed smile as her eyes shine with the kind of light that reminds Cedric of everything good in the world.

It takes a while for [Y/N]'s grandmother to stop fussing over him. When she does, she disappears behind the kitchen with the promise of coming out with a fresh batch of his favorite custard tarts.

And then he and [Y/N] are left alone in the bakery, where Cedric wastes no time and hugs her as close to him as he can. He wants to tell her that he'd missed her—terribly so—but he knows that she knows, and so he just holds her to him and hopes that the words come across alright.

A moment later the two of them are outside of the bakery, sitting on the same stone steps they've perched themselves on so many times before.

"So let me get this straight: you intentionally didn't write about the fact that there was a mass murderer inside your school because you didn't want me to worry?"

"Well, the matter was taken care of—"

"And there were soul-sucking demendoids or whatever you call them roaming the castle and you didn't mention it to me in your letters because you—"

"I didn't want you to worry, yes."

[Y/N] stares at him, deadpan. "And I suppose if you suffer a horrible death you won't care to write to me either because you don't want me worrying."

"Well, if I were dead, I'd hardly be able to write to y—"

"Oh, you get my point!" says [Y/N], rolling her eyes, but she's laughing as she shoves him lightly on the shoulder. Sighing dramatically, she shakes her head. "You learn a few magic tricks and suddenly you cut me out of your life."

Cedric scoffs, but his annoyance is only about as convincing as [Y/N]'s, as he has a smile of his own on his face. "I leave a few details out of my letter and suddenly you want to end our friendship."

"I don't want to end it," protests [Y/N]. "I just don't want you keeping out the bad stuff from your letters just because you don't want me to worry. If anything, I want to hear more about the negatives than the positives so I'll know that I'm not the only one having a hard time."

Cedric raises his brows, the smile on his face drooping as he angles his head to look at her face from where she's leaning on his shoulder. "Why? Tough time at school?"

She shrugs, shifting a little. "Kind of. It's ridiculous, actually. My best friend—well, second-best, since you're first—thinks that her boyfriend," she makes a face, "likes me. She didn't talk to me at all during the last few months of school and I highly expect she'll still be an arse about it when we come back after summer. Rubbish, really." Cedric has fallen silent. When she looks up at him, she finds that there is a frown on his face, so immediately she reassures him by saying, "You don't have to worry, Ced. I've got other friends. Better friends—wizard friends. Or friend. Just the one."

Cedric raises his eyebrows at her. His mood has dampened a little; it shows in the disappearance of the crinkled smile lines around his eyes and the way his lips have tugged down.

"Oh, come on," says [Y/N], sitting up straight. "Don't look so bummed. I've told you it's not a big deal."

He looks away, and then, quietly, "I just don't like the idea of you having a hard time."

A grin slowly stretches across her face. A moment later, she starts laughing. "Always so caring, aren't you?" she teases, reaching out to poke his cheek.

Cedric rolls his eyes, clutching her hand and prying it away from his face. "Whatever," he mutters, making a face at her. She giggles and does one right back, and just like that, they're laughing again.

It's incredibly easy for the innocent, youthful part of Cedric to come to the surface during times like these, when he sits down in front of the bakery with his best friend at his side as they return to their naive, childish shelves and bond over everything and nothing with all sorts of pastries clutched in their chubby hands. Cedric finds that, no matter how much time has passed, [Y/N] still feels the same: warm and comforting and reminiscent of home.

—

Time passes as it has always done, and sooner than both Cedric and [Y/N] would have liked, the day of September comes looming above them a mere week away.

They are on one of the many hills surrounding the village of Ottery St. Catchpole—their favorite one, actually; the one that has a perfect view of the village if they sit at the very top, which is what they are doing. The night sky looms above them as they do as they have always done: talk. And whenever they lapse into silence, they bask in the comfort they have always found in one another.

At present, they are laying on their backs on the grass. Usually, they'd be pointing out random shapes they each notice in the clouds, but it is nighttime and only wisps of smoke from the village chimneys drift across the dark blue canvas. There are only a few stars visible through the pollution hanging in the air; "I could count them all on one hand," says [Y/N], arm stretched upwards as though reaching for the sky. "Bit sad, really. I remember when we were kids there were still a lot of them. Sort of."

Cedric, with his gaze similarly glued to the stretch of sky above them, lets out an exhale. "We can see the stars at Hogwarts," he tells her quietly like they're sharing a secret, which, in a way, they are. "We don't even have to go to the Astronomy Tower to see them—when we look up, they're right there. Right above us. It's.."

He trails off.

"Ethereal?" [Y/N] suggests, tone hushed.

Cedric nods. "I wish I could take you to see them, but. You know."

"I'm a—what was it you guys called us lame, non-magical folks again?" she rolls onto her side to face him, arm tucked underneath her head as her eyes narrowed playfully.

"A Muggle," Cedric says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "And that doesn't make you lame. It just makes you.."

"Non-magical," she snorts.

"Doesn't matter," mumbles Cedric, shifting to turn on his side as well. "You've got a different kind of magic." And his tone is teasing, but there's a hint of underlying emotion hidden beneath that he wonders if [Y/N] picks up on.

"And what's that?" [Y/N] asks, feigning a haughty look. "Is it my—let's see—supernatural charms? Or my mystical beauty?"

Cedric laughs. "Something like that."

Facing her, mere centimeters away, Cedric sees that moonshine is dancing across the skin of her face; he sees the very stars they were speaking of gleaming in her eyes, and all of a sudden the atmosphere changes and he can't quite breathe properly.

The look on his face doesn't go amiss. The playful smile on [Y/N]'s face falls and reveals underneath it something more—something that has Cedric's heart beating wildly in his throat and his lungs seizing up in his chest.

Ethereal, Cedric thinks to himself as his gaze locks with hers and he finds himself drowning in the sea of constellations inside her irises. The stars at Hogwarts hold no competition to those which he sees in that moment in [Y/N]'s eyes. He wonders if they have always been there, waiting to be noticed, or if they have only just surfaced now.

And then Cedric finds himself leaning in and somewhere in the middle, she meets his lips with her own.

They pause for a moment, as though giving each other time to pull away if they want to, but neither of them do. And he really can't quite tell who moves first—him or [Y/N]—but they let each other's lips begin to whisper over one another's in gentle, slow carresses. They string up, unhurried and soft, one kiss flowing into the next with endless patience and want, and [Y/N]'s lips are inviting and alive and Cedric almost doesn't want to pull away, but he has to, eventually, and so he draws back, eyes blinking open.

He wonders, for a moment, despite the fact that she'd kissed back, if he had gone too far. If he had crossed the line that had always rested between them that made the difference between friendship and.. whatever this was.

But then familiar crinkles appear around [Y/N]'s eyes as she smiles at him. "I believe I've discovered my magic."

Cedric takes a brief moment to respond. Letting out a quiet exhale, he keeps his gaze fixed on hers as he furrows his eyebrows a little and asks with a tiny smile of his own, "What's that?"

She grins and jokes in a hushed, almost theatrical tone, "Seduction."

Cedric's face relaxes into a proper smile and he leans forward, pressing his mouth against [Y/N]'s for the second time. He feels the happy curve of her lips and feels his own curving up in response until they aren't really kissing anymore; just smiling against each other's mouths.

Ethereal, Cedric thinks to himself again, not for the first time that day. Absolutely bloody magical.

—

The muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole was a fascinating place, but perhaps the reason why Cedric thought so was not because of the buildings and the bustling streets themselves, but because of the little bakery owned by a Muggle grandma and a girl whose heart Cedric knew even better than his own.

When the first of September comes around and brings with it the inevitable need to say goodbye, a pair of friends bound together by the passing of time sit on the front steps of the Old Corner Bakery, joking and talking and making promises to write. [Y/N]'s grandmother has insisted on Cedric bringing along snacks in case he gets hungry during the train ride, hence the paper bag full of custard tarts he clutches in his hands.

"I think she loves you more than I do," says [Y/N], watching her grandmother disappear back into the bakery, weeping.

Cedric laughs. "Tell me something I don't know."

And then suddenly it is time to say their farewells, and Cedric is hugging her goodbye but it doesn't feel like enough, so he pulls away, places his hand on the back of her head, and presses a kiss to her forehead. He would press their lips together but he knows that will make it harder to say goodbye, so for now, he settles for this.

"You promise me you won't leave the bad stuff out of your letters, okay?"

"You can count on me."

So Cedric waves goodbye to her with the same gleam of promise from all those years ago sparkling in his eyes like stars that have yet to die out. He can't promise to stay, but he can promise that he will come back—and he will. He always will.

a/n: whether or not cedric comes back to ottery st. catchpole next year is entirely up to you (cough triwizard tournament cough)

#harry potter #harry potter oneshot #harry potter oneshots #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #harry potter x reader #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #cedric diggory oneshots #cedric diggory oneshot #cedric diggory imagine #cedric diggory imagines #cedric diggory x reader #cedric diggory

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odissey061 · 3 years

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Parenting with(out) you [pt. 2]

I didn’t specify very well in the last chapter, but the reader was a member in an organization similar to the Haunting Dogs (for the ones who read the manga), but with the difference that this organization was subdued to a politician, so their missions could also be like kill x person. She is a skilled killer and a very good fighter you have no idea about how many scenarios played in my mind with a Mafia!Dazai x Killer!reader. Dark couple power, guys--.

It’s also implied that the reader and Chuuya were friends when Dazai worked with the Mafia and when she escaped from her boss, Chuuya offered her a shelter (the first time Chuuya appears in the anime, he said he just arrived in Japan after spending some time in the east)

[Mild smut]

The gif has not plot purpose: I juast wanted admired once again this hottie in a white suit

Your first encounter with Keiko… didn’t go very well: you teared up as soon as you saw her, but she hid behind her father’s leg, refusing to see you. Of course, Dazai told her that there was the possibility she could see you for the first time, but it was like three month ago and in the meanwhile the kid started to believe she was not going to meet you. For the first month, she saw you as a woman who wanted take away from her the only parent left. She only changed her behavior with you when Dazai scolded her harshly, because she said she hated you and she didn’t want to see you again. That was the first and the last time Dazai slapped her.

Hearing those words, you started to cry too: you know it wouldn't be easy to make Keiko accept you in her life, but still… From another room, you listened to Dazai saying “I know is difficult for you; but she is your mother. I already told you that she didn’t leave us because she wanted, but because she was forced” and also “I just want the two women of my life to love each other, can you do this for daddy? ”.

Then she came into yours and Dazai’s room and she sat on the bed, close to you. Keiko gazed at you for a long time, then she spoke:”You have the same hair as me and also your face is similar to mine. Daddy says that we can both understand him the most and that my character is really similar to yours when you meet for the first time. Are you really my mommy? You are not trying to take away my dad away from me, right?”. “No, of course not. I love you so much, Keiko. I’m sorry for disappearing, but I didn’t want to put yours and Osamu’s life in danger. I’m so, so sorry, Keiko”.

Then you showed her your wallet: there was a folded photo of your daughter with Dazai. Only then Keiko understood you really were his mother and you were with her. She hugged you, crying, and begged you to don’t leave her again. “I will do everything in order to have your pardon” you said and with that words you firmed your own end. But we are going to see this later.

When you started to work at the ADA, you requested to be Yosano’s partner, due to your ability: you could force someone else to do what you wanted, but you had to hurt yourself and the more lethal the wound, more control you had. You and her became friends really fast since you were the woman more close to her age. Sometimes you helped her in her laboratory and other times you carried on a case alone.

You two often spent time together out of work and you accompanied her to go shopping under the other members of the Agency’s blessing, of course, but you refused whenever she proposed to you to drink together, saying that somebody was waiting for you at home and she teased you about your lover. Well, she wasn’t completely wrong, but you were talking about your daughter. (Neither you or Dazai told your coworkers you were in a relationship and you also had a child).

At work, nobody knew that you two were engaged: the smarter ones understood that you and Dazai weren’t completely strangers, since you entered at work and left it at the same hours, really often you spent your breaks together etcc…; but they couldn’t imagine you were actually engaged (and you were parents!)

Let’s answer one of your questions: how did Dazai behave with you at work? Apparently, he treated you just like a colleague, but he subtly showed only to you how he cared for you. Dazai’s love language at work was impossible to notice until you knew him: every morning he left a cup of your favorite drink on the lab’s table, he was always slacking off or ignoring his work free when you had breaks and he spent them with you and he always searched for your eyes and smiled at you when you were in the same room (when you were in the lab, he often gazed at thee closed door. Kunikida seemed to have a super effective radar for when Dazai was distracted about you: every time he hit his head with the pile of documents he ignored). And he also loved caressing your hand when he passed by the spot where you were, or when you casually brushing his hair please, ask me to write something about this point T-T. His gestures were discrete and small, but they were there. you still preferred them to that time he made love to you in his study when he still worked for the Port Mafia cough cough.

You preferred to maintain a professional facade at work, but sometimes, at the first occasion nobody was looking, he took you in an unused room at the floor to spend some time with you alone ;). You two usually kissed for a long time, even if you seldom indulged in more carnal acts. You protested everytime, but Osamu insisted with his usual dramatic act that it was impossible to resist when you were so cute in that outfit. He also used the excuse that at home you had no privacy since Keiko was glued to your side, even when it was time to sleep much to Dazai’s mild annoyance since he couldn't do anything with you because Keiko slept between you and your boyfriend in your bed.

Speaking about your relationship, Yosano was the first who suspected that you and Dazai were engaged. In the Agency’s bar there was the rumor, between the maids, that Dazai had found a s/o, since every morning he bought for them a cup of their favorite drink. A day, you, Osamu and your respective partners went there to have a meal and a maid was thanking this Dazai’s s/o for existing, because thanks to them nor her of her colleague were harrassed by the question of committing a double suicide together. With a mild anger in your voice, you asked her to be more specific and for every word spilled by the maid, Dazai’s face became paler. needless to say, that night he slept in Keiko’s bed, as your daughter was with you. Yosano connected the dots and she understood you were something more than colleagues, but she kept your secret.

But how did the Agency find out you had a daughter? That’s a fun story. Remember when I said that the quote “I’ll do anything for you” doomed your downfall? Well, the little rascal (your kid) took this really seriously. This wicked brat listened to you talking with your boyfriend about you abandoning her and she exploited that to steal your attention: were you talking with Dazai on the sofa? She sat between the two of you, saying that she wanted to play with you. Were you working at home? She cried so much loudly that you gave up what you had to do and the list went on. It took a while to Dazai to realize that his daughter was stealing you away. You were fooled by Keiko’s angelic face, but Dazai knew this little devil too much well to be tricked. (He was one fours surprised for the cleverness she showed and three fours annoyed by it. Dazai, what did you expect from your own daughter XD). Having said that, a day Keiko feigned to be sick in order to spend more time with you, but you had to work and the babysitter wasn’t available, so you thought bringing her to work was a good idea (spoiler: it wasn't).

The first ones to see you with Keiko were Atsushi, Kyoka and Kunikida. A few seconds later came Kenji and the Tanizaki’s siblings. They all were fooled charmed by your daughter and they started to play with her, complimenting how cute she was. Then Naomi said:”Somehow, she looks familiar” and, after staring at her for a while, they all agreed, trying to understand who the father was. Kunikida shivered for a second noticing how similar she was to Dazai, but he couldn't imagine Dazai having a lover, let alone being a father. You heard a crash behind you and when you turned you saw a very much shocked Yosano who held in her hand a cup handle and Rampo with the open mouth as he was eating a candy. Your partner knew your relationship with Dazai, but discovering he was also a father shocked her too much, Rampo probably understood everything when he saw Keiko.

Atsushi wondered:”But who is the father? Does he work here too?”. The poor, naive Atsushi, didn’t have the slightest idea and you couldn't even have the time to answer, that Keiko jumped off Kenji’s lap, screaming:”Daddy!!”. All the members turned to see Keiko clinging to Dazai’s leg. Kunikida’s lenses audibly cracked, some of them felt the urge to sit and Yosano had to assist a couple of faintings. Some seconds passed in the utter silence as they tried to metabolize the shock, then they started to assault you and Dazai with questions.

The sight of Dazai lifting up his daughter was a sight to behold and eventually they accepted the fact that Dazai is a father. the image of Dazai giving a esquimo kiss to his daughter, holding her in his arms, has me melting on the floor. “How old is she?” Naomi asked and you answered:”She’s four years old”. She thought about it for some seconds:”But if she’s four that means that you and Dazai met when he worked with the Port Mafia, isn’t it?” and luckily Yosano was quick:”There are some things that are private in a couple. Now let’s work that we already lost enough time”. She saved you before the questions became too personal.

Dazai and Kunikida left the office for a mission and you went in the lab with Yosano, telling Keiko to don’t come in, since the room was full of lethal weapons. Feeling abandoned, she cried as loudly as she could, thinking that you’d rushed over she used the same technique at home when you are with your boyfriend. It worked every time. But you didn’t. Rampo decided to take care of her: he shared his candies with her and he asked her to help him to resolve his cases. Keiko quite enjoyed staying with him.

After a couple of hours, when Dazai came back to the office, all of your colleagues kicked you three out, begging you to take a stroll with your child. Above all the experience was traumatic and the shock too huge for them, but what surprised them was that even someone like Dazai could have a family and be a good father. It’s murmured that that day, when Kunikida went at home, he declared:”After four years of being Dazai’s partner, I asked to the Grim Reaper to take me, but he said “no, you have to suffer a bit more” and he placed Dazai’s daughter on my path”.

You also wondered how Chuuya would react to a mini Dazai? you sadists. You, Keiko and Osamu were in a luna park to spend some quality time together as a family. Both yours and Dazai’s guard was very high, considering your past works, especially when Keiko was with you. Recently, you heard news about a child kidnapper, so you were even more anxious, but Osamu reassured you: nobody was so stupid to kidnap the daughter of an ex Port Mafia director and of an ex agent. Right? No

All happened in a second. The park was really crowded and in a second you were holding Keiko’s hand and in the next one she was no longer by your side. Surprisingly, Dazai was the most scared one: he told you before that the reason he stopped to think about suicide was Keiko, so he was really attached to his daugher (more than a normal parent). But the moment of fright and bewilderment was really brief and in the next second, both you and Dazai analyzed the situation with utmost rationality. You watched in Dazai’s eyes and you shivered: they were ruthless, without a shred of magnanimity, just like whe he woked under Mori's command

But the kidnapper was doubly unlucky: he kidnapped not only Keiko, but also Elise-chan. When Mori knew that she was kidnapped, he sent Chuuya to retrieve her. His orders were: make sure that guy regretted turning against the Mafia (you know, usual Mori stuff).

He found the kidnapper hideout and he killed him without any problems, but the troubles for him had just started. As soon as the man was dead, ten kids or more ran away from that place (Chu Chu instructed them to go to the nearest police station), but a brunette kid stayed there.

Keiko, to put it simply, fell in love with him as soon as she saw him using his ability. Osamu didn’t mention at all he was a mafioso (he wanted to show to her daughter only his best sides), but he talked about his ex partner. She clinged to Chuuya’s leg with adoranting eyes. Chu Chu was a bit creeped out: why was that child not scared? She was kidnapped, for the God’s sake

Chuuya tried to push her off, but he miserably failed. He gazed more carefully at Keiko and with dread, he admitted that she somehow reminded him of his ex partner, but that was only a coincidence, right? Elise asked her:”Why weren’t you scared?” and Keiko answered:”Because I know that mommy and daddy will come soon”. Then she looked at Chuuya, trying to remember how her father called him and she said:”Chibi-chan?”.

And the cruelty of reality hit Chuuya like a thunder: not only that wasting bandage garbage was still alive, but he also reproduced! He wanted to die, no, better: he wanted to kill Dazai once for all. But the final stroke arrived with the next question:”Do you want to marry me? Daddy told me to ask this question to a very special person”. Being proposed by Dazai’s daughter… in what other wicked ways his ex partner did try to send him to the Creator?! That was even more successful that putting a bomb in his car

Luckily, you and your boyfriend arrived at that moment. At the sight of his daughter clinging to the person he hated the most, Dazai almost had a stroke (to Chuuya’s happiness). As soon as Keiko saw you two, she runned in your direction (Chuuya was two times happier).

“You bastard, what did you say to her abou-” he started to yell at Dazai’s direction, but you interrupted him:”Thank you Chuuya for saving our daughter”. And you hardly hit Dazai's stomach with your elbow, so that he thanked Chuuya too.

In Chuuya’s mind something activated and he came to the general comprehension of what happened four years ago and why you met him some time later; but he didn’t say anything about it. He changed the topic:”You are the only woman in the world that can handle him, so be sure to be by his side”. That sounded almost like a blessing, but you didn’t dare to say it. “It’s what I intend to do”.

And walked in different directions, then Keiko yelled:”The next time we see again, tell me your answer” and you were almost sure to hear Chuuya trip to the ground. “What question have you asked?” you wondered half curious and half amused and she smiled dreamly:”If he wanted to marry me”. This time was Dazai’s turn to stumble on his steps. You laughed so hard that you stomach hurt, but you couldn’t stop, Osamu glared at you with a look of betrayal.

For the whole walk to your home, Dazai kept telling her how Chuuya was a bad person, but Keiko retorted that someone as beautiful as Chuuya couldn’t be a bad person. For a second Dazai glared at her with a sad smile, wondering if she would have told the same thing after he confessed to her all of his crimes. Knowing his thoughts, you tightened the grip of your hand on his, smiling:”For Keiko, you are the best person in the world, no matter what you did in the past”, then you added with a cheeky smile:”even better than Chuuya, I bet”.

After tucking Keiko in her bed, you and your boyfriend retired in your bedroom. Dazai whined:”My daughter, my sweet, beloved and innocent daughter… How could she propose to another man? Especially him. She broke my heart: until yesterday she wanted to marry me. What did that slug do to her?”. You chuckled:”Are you sure it’s his fault? When we arrived it seemed like Chuuya was shocked too. I admit too that he’s beautiful”.

At those words, Dazai’s body froze, but you didn’t notice it, too focused on changing yourself for the night. “You and him seem to be well acquainted” his voice was somehow restrained and it was just your impression, or Dazai was jealous? “Not really. When you were in the Port Mafia we met only twice, but after my escape, he saved me. I had a high fever, no place to stay and I didn’t eat in the last days. I was probably on the verge of death. He took me in his home and he helped me to get better”.

In your stream of words, you didn’t notice that Dazai’s mood changed. In the Port Mafia he was possessive and he get jealous really often, but at least he vocalized it in his words or by action; but this Dazai was different: since once you got together, he never showed any sign of uneasiness, probably because now he knew that there was no possibility that you could fall for someone else. But Chuuya was the exception and knowing that he was by your side when you rejected his help, fueled his insecurity. And in the next second, you were under him, his hands already on your pajamas.

Notes: if you are curious about certain aspects in this AU, you can always ask me

You lost your occasion to say:”Nothing that you imagine happened, really”, because his lips were already on yours, kissing you until you didn’t have any more oxygen in the lungs. That night, Osamu kept asking who you loved not really for reminding you but for himself. He made love to you all night along, coaxing an orgasm after another one from your body, hungry for your love. You were quite sure that the both of you have been quite vocal and you hoped to don’t wake up Keiko. After he washed you, you took his face in your hands, saying only two words, a single question, Osamu gazed surprised at you for a while, then he smiled, answering your question with three letters: yes.

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breadknight-likes-things · 2 years

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Bread's Game Journal 04/28/22: Boy, That Scott Pilgrim Game Has Aged Weird.

The year is 2010, I am still a teenager working at the local amusement park. I am not paid a lot, but I bought and read every volume of Scott Pilgrim, the movie is coming out, and I couldn't be more amped! I even bought and played the fantastic tie in game, with excellent music and impressive sprite work to spare, I have a great time with it all. Years later, it's delisted, and quickly the Scott Pilgrim movie tie in game becomes a holy grail for a lot of people. The year is 2022, I just finished playing Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World with a friend of mine on my Nintendo Switch, and it's.....not great. I am no longer having all that good of a time! So yeah, my revisit of the Scott Pilgrim game didn't exactly go as I had hoped it would. Somewhere along the line my brain must have simply forgotten the cheaper aspects of this game, and boy are there a lot of them. To lead off with something positive, what I said about the music and sprite work holds true. As a piece of visual and musical art, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World holds up beautifully! The problems arise when you get down to actually playing the thing. Most notably, this game is brutally difficult, and explains itself very poorly! I guess we all must have forgotten this, because I can tell you that I sure did. What looks outwardly like a classic Beat 'Em Up game is in fact this awkward pseudo action RPG, that has very little chill. Me and a friend went through the game on a pretty direct path, and even though I remembered that you're supposed to spend the money you pick up on food for extra XP, by the last few levels we were severely outpowered by even the basic enemies. Making matters worse is the enemies tendency to exploit the fact that this game inexplicably doesn't have any kind of grace period after being attacked, unlike many other in the Beat Em Up genre, we would get combo'd down pretty fast by random mooks and be dead before we even really had a chance to respond to what was happening, it made for a lot of frustrating moments in a game I really remember being a lot more fun than this! This post doesn't really have anywhere to go, other than voicing some frustration with a game that's aged a little worse than I think a lot of us assumed it had. It's compounded by the fact that it's become this kind of holy grail after it's initial de-listing. I guess after all this time, I was hoping for something to bring me back to that fun time. Instead this just reminds me that we omit some things from some of the classics we like. Except the things I like, of course. Those are flawless.

#video game #video games #ps4 #funny #bread's game journal #xbox one #game journal #videogame #games #scott pilgrim #scott pilgram vs the world #nintendo switch #nintendo #switch #ps5 #xbox series x

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musings-from-mars · 3 years

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@nuts-and-dolts-week - Day 8: Bonus Day!

For Bonus Day, with some inspiration from the FS discord, I gave myself a little challenge to create a story that somehow integrates every prompt for Nuts and Dolts Week! And this is the result!

This has been such a fun event to be a part of, and not only that, this is the first ship week I’ve ever completed! That may not be a huge accomplishment but I’m still super happy 🥰 Thank you to Bio for running this event and to everyone who created content for it, you’re all so talented and sensational!

You can read all my other NnD Week submissions on AO3, maybe kudo and comment if you are so inclined~ Hope you enjoy, thank you so much for reading!

Nuts and Dolts Week 2021 Stories - MusingsFromMars on AO3

Tomorrow they would graduate from Beacon, but tonight, they would have one more picnic in the Emerald Forest.

With a basket full of food and treats in the crook of her elbow, Ruby walked along with Penny down the familiar hillside trail, hiking into the forest towards what they had begun to call Their Spot. The sun at this point was almost set, bathing the partly cloudy sky with a bright orange hue. An evening picnic might have been unusual to most, but to the couple of soon-to-be huntresses, it was perfect.

Since this would be the last time they’d have a picnic like this together, they both went all-out with their preparations. Penny had dressed in her favorite white flowery dress and sun hat, and even had cute sparkly pink lip gloss, eyeliner, and green eyeshadow (all courtesy of Belladonna Cosmetic Services). Ruby had gone even more formal, wearing a white button-up, black suspenders and bow tie, and a red skirt. Weiss had remarked to her that this was a bit much for a picnic, but Ruby assured her that this was perfect for the occasion. Weiss couldn’t be blamed for not knowing all of her plans, after all. In fact, no one else knew what Ruby was planning for this evening.

Tucked securely in her shirt pocket was a small velvet drawstring pouch. Inside it was a ring, Penny’s ring. Ruby had made it herself. Even though her area of expertise was weapons crafting and not jewelry design, she was happy with how it turned out. She even felt confident that Penny would love it, too. Ruby had made it with her in mind, after all. And tonight would be the night that she would give it to Penny and ask her to marry her.

Ruby felt oddly calm about her plan right now. She had imagined herself being really nervous and unable to keep quiet about her plan for long, but now that they were on their way to the very spot she would propose, Ruby felt confident and at ease. Maybe that was the effect Penny had on her. Ruby always felt more comfortable whenever Penny was nearby. It was as if seeing her happy and safe was enough to put everything in perspective. How bad could a problem be if Penny were there for her?

Once they arrived at Their Spot, Penny unfurled the blanket she’d had tucked under her arm, spreading it out over the grass. From here, the thick treeline blocked out the setting sun, leaving them surrounded by soft shadows and gentle warm hues from the dusk sky.

This was all routine by this point. Penny would lay out the blanket, they’d both sit down and open the basket, and Ruby would start munching away at a sandwich while Penny made some tea (using a kettle, the water they packed, and her ability to hold anything in her hand and superheat it, of course). Penny enjoyed making tea this way because it made it easy to smell the complex aromas. While Penny’s tech advancements still didn’t allow her to taste, she at least had made a breakthrough and could now smell things, and tea was one of her favorites. “I am brewing lavender chamomile,” Penny said to Ruby. “It is the tea we had together the first time we had a picnic here.”

Ruby finished her bite of sandwich and smiled. “I love how you can remember little details like that.”

“I remember most everything,” Penny said. “Though our first picnic is certainly easy to recall. It was a lovely occasion.”

“Besides us starting a minor forest fire with Weiss’ electric kettle,” Ruby recounted with a laugh.

“And that is why we use this method now.” Penny nodded to the kettle, holding its underside. “It is much less dangerous.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t be trusted around hot surfaces,” Ruby said with a giggle, then took another bite of sandwich. “Do you…” She began, but recalled her manners and swallowed her food before continuing. “Do you remember our first date?”

“Of course,” Penny said with a grin. “The one you essentially had to force me to go on.”

“I didn’t force you, did I?” Ruby asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I was certainly nervous about raising the ire of General Ironwood,” she recalled. “But I am quite thankful you did convince me to go to the arcade with you, even if the General was cross with me.”

“You got so many tickets!” Ruby remembered.

“The patterns and rhythms of those arcade machines were not very sophisticated. They were easily exploited for maximum payout.”

“I still have that big plush frog we got as a prize somewhere,” Ruby remembered. “What did we call him?”

“Mister Bumpy Butt.”

“Mister Bumpy Butt!” Ruby said with a grin. “Because he had—”

“—bumps on his butt!” Penny finished for her.

“I still say he should talk to his frog doctor about that,” Ruby joked.

“Indeed, butt bumps could be a sign of underlying illness.”

Ruby snorted and laughed, leaning over and lying her head on Penny’s shoulder. “Gods, we’re so weird.”

“Yes, but I enjoy being weird with you,” Penny replied, smiling as she leaned her cheek against the top of Ruby’s head.

“As do I,” Ruby agreed.

As Ruby took another bite of sandwich, Penny’s kettle began to whistle, and she retrieved two mugs from the basket. One mug already had a few sugar cubes sitting in the bottom. That was Ruby’s mug, of course. Penny filled both with hot tea and handed one to her. No matter what kind of tea it was, Ruby always had to drink it with sugar (much to Weiss’ and Blake’s horror). She took a careful sip and hummed happily. “Perfect as always, Penny.”

“Why thank you,” Penny beamed and set the empty kettle aside. She cradled her mug with both hands and enjoyed the smell of the tea as steam floated from the mug and into the air. She watched as Ruby sipped her tea, then asked, “Do you remember about a couple years before we met properly in Vale, you had accidentally met me when I was still in development at Atlas Academy?”

Ruby’s eyes went wide, and she had to make sure to swallow her tea lest she choke on it before answering, “I almost forgot all about that!”

Penny grinned and nodded. “You know, my father almost deleted that conversation from my memory for fear of ‘contamination,’ but then figured he had advanced my software far enough to the point that my interaction with you might be beneficial. And it turns out it was!”

“How so?” Ruby asked curiously, sipping her tea a bit more carefully.

“I think back to that meeting, and the way I remember it, from that day forward I had so much confidence when meeting new people. I admit, it took me a while to really understand that I might have been, well...forward with new acquaintances, but I think because you, the first ‘stranger’ I ever met, were so nice to me, it made me so optimistic about meeting new people.” She smiled at Ruby. “And that’s why I have so many friends now. All thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me and my insatiable curiosity,” Ruby added with a giggle. “But that’s honestly really sweet. I’m glad I ran into laptop you all those years ago.”

“That laptop was not the most aesthetically pleasing chassis to inhabit. I mean, I had very little physical self-awareness at that point, but looking back on it…”

“Yeah, you’re way sexier now,” Ruby joked.

“Precisely!” Penny agreed wholeheartedly, once again making Ruby laugh.

The sun had fully set by now, and stars began to dot the dark blue sky. The daytime warmth still lingered, but a gentle breeze began to slowly whisk it away.

“Ruby, look at me.”

Ruby blinked and looked her way, surprised by the suddenness of her request. “Huh?”

Penny only stared at her in the face, not offering an explanation. A few seconds later, she smiled and nodded. “Yep. Quite similar indeed.”

“What?” Ruby asked.

“Your eyes,” Penny said. “They look so similar to the moon when it is dark out.” She looked over Ruby’s shoulder. “But I have never gotten to make a side-by-side comparison until now.”

Ruby turned and looked the same way and saw the shattered moon. It had been just behind her head from Penny’s view. Ruby giggled and looked back at her girlfriend. “You’re so sweet.”

Penny smiled wide, her green eyes practically glowing with happiness.

“You know,” Ruby began, leaning a bit closer to Penny. “I don’t think I could compare your eyes to anything.”

Penny tilted her head to the side a bit. “Oh? How come?”

“I’ve never seen anything like them. They’re just so bright and shiny and green.”

Penny blinked, then her cheeks glowed a faint green. “You mean my eyes are incomparable?”

Ruby hadn’t realized her own romantic turn of phrase, but she smiled and nodded. “Yeah, exactly! There’s nothing in the world quite like your pretty eyes.”

Penny smiled, then leaned forward and kissed Ruby’s cheek. “You are so sweet.” Then her eyes went wide, noticing something else behind Ruby. “Oh, the fireflies!”

Ruby gasped and turned her head quickly, and sure enough, the night’s first lightning bugs were beginning to emerge, darting about and glowing. More and more appeared, blinking in a constant array of light like a visual symphony.

“It has been so long since we have seen so many,” Penny said with delight. “Oh, I am so happy they appeared tonight. You know it is almost as if they knew this was our last picnic here, because at this time of year their numbers typically begin to dwindle due to the changes in weather…”

Penny was once again infodumping about insects and Ruby’s heart swelled with a familiar adoration. She wanted to kiss her so bad, but that would mean interrupting Penny as she talked about the temperature preferences of flying bugs. She held off her desire to tackle her into the grass and pepper her face with kisses until later. In the meantime, she set her tea aside and propped her elbows on her knees, all while watching those aforementioned incomparable eyes as they followed the flights of nearby fireflies as she continued.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Penny’s voice began to trail away, and she turned to look at Ruby. “Oh, I have been talking for quite some time, huh?”

“Yeah, but I like listening to you talk about fireflies, Firefly,” Ruby said softly with a smile, still with her hands under her chin, still resting her elbows on her knees.

Penny chuckled bashfully. “They are just such fascinating creatures.”

“Hey Penny?”

“Hm?” Penny turned, her eyes meeting Ruby’s again. With the moon reflecting off her eyes, they almost seemed to shine.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” Penny smiled gently.

Ruby reached out and took Penny’s hand in hers, then took a moment to look around. “Uhm, here.” She got to her feet, still holding Penny’s hand. “This way.”

Penny stood and followed as Ruby led her off the picnic blanket and onto the grass. They walked through the grass a few steps, fireflies floating about them as if used to their presence. Ruby stopped and faced Penny.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and despite the slowly falling temperatures outside, she was beginning to feel a little hot under her button-up. Here was the nervousness she expected to feel earlier, springing up just as she was about to do what this entire evening was leading to. She took a breath and fidgeted a bit with her bow tie.

“Are you okay?” Penny asked quietly, still holding one of Ruby’s hands.

“I’m...great,” Ruby said. It sounded like a lie, but it wasn’t. She felt anxious, sweaty, and absolutely fantastic all at once. “Penny, I… I have something to ask you. It’s important.”

Penny nodded, giving her her full attention.

Ruby took a breath and nodded. “Penny, when I told you that you are a real girl, I meant it. That day in that alleyway in Vale, I could see how unsure you were, how scared you were. And yet, when I assured you that you’re as real to me as I am to you, you believed me. I could definitely tell how happy that moment made you feel from how hard you hugged me, but...it made me happy, too. To know that I had said something to make you feel real…” Oh no, tears. Not now, tears. “And you believed me.”

Penny stepped a little closer and nodded. “Of course I believed you.”

Ruby smiled, but she willed herself to continue. “Then that day when I thought you were going back to Atlas. I was so scared because I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to see you again. I ran to find you, and I confessed to you right then and there that I loved you, that I couldn’t let you leave because I knew that you wanted to stay just as much as I wanted you to stay. And…” She was losing her fight against her tears, one escaping and running down her cheek as a smile grew on her face. “I said I love you. And...you believed me.”

“Of course I believed you,” Penny said again with a soft chuckle. She lifted her hand and gently wiped away Ruby’s tears. “I have loved you since the day we became friends.”

Ruby nodded and sniffed. “So have I.” She wiped at her own face, doing her best to compose herself. She wanted to get this moment exactly right. “And now we’re here tonight, for like the hundred-dozenth time. And…” She stared at Penny for a second, taking in a deep breath. She let it out slowly, then reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out the pouch. Penny’s eyes followed as Ruby loosened the drawstring, flipped the pouch over, and let a ring roll from the bag and into her hand. It was a shiny bronze color, with red and green gems embedded in a zigzag configuration all around the circumference. Ruby pocketed the pouch and held the ring between her thumb and index finger. She looked up at Penny and saw her eyes were wide, as if she were slowly beginning to understand.

“Ruby…?”

“And now I’m asking you to marry me,” Ruby said, chuckling with a grin. “Can you believe that?”

“Ruby…” Penny covered her mouth with her hand.

Ruby got down on one knee, holding the ring up to her. Her nerves were gone, replaced only with a blooming joy in her chest. She will never forget the look on Penny’s face at this very moment. “Penny, will you marry me?”

Penny proceeded to tackle hug her to the ground. Ruby grunted and laughed as her back hit the grass. “Yes!” Penny lied on top of Ruby and smiled down at her. “Yes, I will marry you, Ruby!” She kissed her, and Ruby hummed softly and wrapped her arms around Penny’s neck, deepening the kiss. Her nerves were a distant memory now. Now she felt like she was floating just like the fireflies around them, with the love of her life in her arms.

After their kiss, they both found their way back to their feet. Ruby was glad to have held tight to the ring both during and after getting tackled, and she smiled at Penny as she took her hand. “Well then,” she slipped the ring onto her, a perfect fit. “Just call me fiancée.”

Penny grinned and hugged her again, not tackling her but still squeezing tight. “I love you.”

Ruby hugged her back, happily sinking deeper into the embrace. “I love you too,” she whispered.

After reveling in this embrace for a while longer, Ruby opened her eyes and looked up, seeing the Beacon tower in the distance. In a lot of ways, this place had changed her life. She had fulfilled her dream of becoming a huntress and had made friends that she’d forever consider family. But at this very moment, she felt the most thankful for having met Penny. If coming to Beacon had changed her life, then meeting Penny was what made it brighter. She would never forget the years she spent here, but when it came to her and Penny, they had countless more memories to make in the future, together as real girls, as wives.

#rwby #nuts and dolts week 2021 #nuts and dolts week #nuts and dolts #fanfic update #ruby rose #penny polendina

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shurelyasreverie · 3 years

Note

Hello I hope you had a great day!

I have a small request for Lee sin or Master yi (or both!)

Imagine Lee sin being all serious, but he knows how to provoke the reader in a fun way! to try to hide the fact that he secretly likes you. 😳

And for Master yi I like to imagine you being like a "student", you help Wukong with the complicated teachings of Master Yi and always bring humor to the Wuju Master in the best way! leaving him confused with his own feelings. 💖💖

I'll write the Lee Sin idea since there's another Master Yi request but none other for Lee Sin 😊

Lee Sin x Reader: Distraction

Focusing on your duties and studies were becoming harder with a certain Shojin monk occupying your mind.

Word Count: 1329

It first started when Lee Sin asked you to aid him in mentoring a few new students in the monastery, telling you that it was beneficial in helping you become a leader and to also learn a few extra things from him. However it seemed less like a lesson for the students and more of a personal interrogation, whenever the students had a question, Lee Sin would immediately redirect it to you. Every time you stuttered or faltered, you would notice his lip quirk up for a brief second. When the lesson was over, you noticed how your eyes naturally followed his leaving figure. Trying to overlook whatever feeling was overcoming you, you continued your day as normally as possible.

The next case was when Lee Sin interrupted your sparring as you trained against a dummy. He provided constructive criticism which you respected and appreciated but his honesty was brutal. Every flaw in your technique was a weak spot your enemy could exploit, which Lee Sin explained with jarring detail. But before you could get too shocked, he entered a fighting stance and insisted that you would learn better battling him. Although he continued to exploit your weaknesses, leaving you sore and bruised by the end of the session, you couldn't help but smile through the pain.

The final nail in the coffin was when you were by the river near the monastery, gathering fresh fish as requested by the monks. Distracted in handling the fish that thrashed in the water, you didn't notice Lee Sin until he was right next to you. You yelled in surprise as he criticised how your awareness was lacking. You retorted that you didn't need awareness in the one safe place in Ionia before huffing and walking back to the monastery. As you walked back however, you realised just how close Lee Sin was when you noticed him. If he was any closer, you would've felt his breath against your skin, his warmth against yours.

You realised by then, you had fallen in love with him. In your mind, you let out a curse that you were certain would get you banned from the monastery if any monks heard you say it.

So here you are, a few days later, taking a deep breath as you kept your eyes closed in meditation. This method, a special technique taught to you by the Shojin monks allowed your soul to touch into the spirit realm. Although your eyes were closed, you were all-seeing, sensing every living thing around you. You embraced this connection to the other world, it took you a long time to reach this level of concentration.

“I know you're there,” you announced. Finishing your meditation, you opened your eyes to see Lee Sin standing in front of you.

“Ten paces,” he stated and you sighed in frustration. “Any closer and Noxians would've already speared you.”

“Thanks,” you stated, stretching the fatigue out of your muscles before getting up from the ground, giving him a mocking bow. “Fortunately, I don't need the spirit realm to see them coming. What about you, Lee Sin?”

He cleared his throat. Although his blindfold obscured the entire upper half of his face, you could tell his eyebrows were furrowing. “I have the dragon spirit. I am the living fire. And you?”

Although he wouldn't see you, a smirk naturally found itself on your face. “You're in an good mood today, joining in the banter and all. What brought it on?”

Lee Sin hesitated. “I thought you would need it. I sense your conscience is heavy.”

“What?” you turned to him.

“Usually you would sense my presence at thirty paces away,” Lee Sin observed. “However the past few days your connection to the spirit realm has weakened, it's been taking longer for you to notice someone's is around. Is something troubling you?”

“Nothing at all,” you said dismissively, turning your head.

Lee Sin tilted his head in doubt but you didn't say anymore. What could you say? You had been struggling with your focus as of late. Your thoughts were plagued by the very monk standing before you. You wouldn't dare admit it to him, though, there was no way he would feel the same. Although you worked and learned under the monastery, you didn't hold the title of monk, were they even allowed to pursue romantic relationships? Even if they were, Lee Sin was slowly mastering the fabled dragon spirit, whereas you were struggling to even get your meditation down pat. Lee Sin was naturally a serious man, but if you confessed, you might just be able to get him laughing.

“Lying won't put your conscience at ease.”

“I'm sure it's just a bit of a rough patch,” you admitted hastily. “I'll get over it, don't worry.”

“Very well,” Lee Sin nodded, his voice showing defeat. “But know, you can entrust me with anything if it makes you feel better.”

The voice in your head laughed at the irony.

“Thank you.”

Silence ensued as the two of you stood together. Your eyes remained locked on a dragon statue, the centrepiece of the meditation room. Intricately carved jade that had the dragon's serpentine body curl around the room, almost lifelike. Although the more you looked at it, the more you realised how it was a distraction. It didn't suit the humble atmosphere of the meditation room, it was far too bold and intriguing. Much like how Lee Sin distracted you as you humbly tried to go through your day to day life.

“Why do you keep bothering me?” You asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You know what I said,” you turned to him. “You always find a way to pop up in my day to day life. Either you do it on purpose or you are very, very lucky. It's quite distracting.”

“Do you not like my presence?”

“I didn't say that,” you hastily covered up, not meaning to offend him. “I'm just curious as to why I always see you around.”

“We are friends, are we not?”

“Oh,” you hid how your face fell. Even though you should be grateful for the assumption, you couldn't help but feel disappointed. “Yes. Of course. Uh, please, continue to bother me whenever you see fit.”

“Friends do not usually find each other distracting, or a bother. Distractions usually imply something else.”

You were grateful for Lee Sin's blindfold as you gawked at him. Was this man really expecting you to spell everything out and just admit your hopeless little crush? None of your years of training have prepared you for this challenge.

“I have to continue studying the ancient texts,” you said hastily as you stepped away from him, ready to head out.

“You are quite the distraction for me as well,” Lee Sin admitted. You stopped in your tracks, waiting for him to continue. “I hoped that being in your presence more would help me but it seems to have only worsened the issue.”

Once again you were left speechless. Were you overthinking things, reading too much into every word that came out of his mouth? Were you that desperate for him to reciprocate your feelings or did he actually feel the same way?

“There will be another sparring session tomorrow.”

“You want me to help out the students again?”

“There will be no students. Just us.”

You pondered for a second, wondering what the implications of this lesson meant. It went unspoken, neither of you seemed prepared enough to call it a “date” or call the two of you a “pair” but both of you seemed to flirt with the idea. To just be distracted by each other for a little longer, to be caught up in your thoughts and to only focus on him.

“I'm looking forward to it,” you replied, smiling. He smiled back.

#oneshot #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #league of legends #lol #lee sin #lee sin x reader #league of legends imagine #league of legends x reader #lol x reader #self insert #x reader #fluff #shurelyasreverie

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softsillytwsted · 4 years

Text

Among Us with the First Years

Yall guess who’s late to the party! I played a long session with my friends and it jump-started my writing.

Warnings: mentions of blood and violence.

General

First of all, the number one rule of this game is to keep quiet and stay anonymous until the next meeting, but no one follows this. For one thing, y’all are sitting in a circle while playing this so it’s hard not to talk

Ace also finds it extremely funny to mess with Deuce and Sebek

Then there’s Grim who can’t play and is instead back-seat playing on your lap. He is also honest to a fault so it’s obvious when you two are the imposter

Ace, Deuce and Epel are always down to play, but it takes Jack and Sebek some goading for them to join. Luckily Jack never backs down from a competition and Lilia encourages Sebek to ‘enjoy his youth’

You all usually play a quick game during lunch time or do sleepovers at Ramshackle and play all night long

ANGRY RANTS IN THE GHOST CHATS

The emergency button was pushed. “Speed run on Ace let’s go!”

Ace

Ace uses the red character with the cherry hat

He’s the best at this game hands down

This smooth talker is good at persuading people, especially Deuce, to his side

He can also start a harmless conversation while murdering someone in cold blood like a psychopath

Maybe because he loves playing tricks on people that he’s able to use sabotages to his full advantage

Although Ace is the best at the game, because he’s a little shit he’s on everyone’s hit list and will die if he’s not careful

Surprisingly enough, Deuce isn’t Ace’s favorite person to kill. It’s Sebek. Sebek’s reactions just make everything funnier.

Ace looked at the task bar. “It’s been silent for awhile now. Who’s not done with their tasks yet?”

“I’ve finished,” replied Epel, the pouting ghost.

“Same,” you chirped while Grim huffed in your lap.

“I finished too,” Jack, the ghost, responded as he hovered disapprovingly at the imposter in-game.

“I-I still got a few left...” Deuce muttered.

“I have a few left as well,” Sebek declared. You/Grim, Deuce, Sebek and Ace are the only ones alive.

“Well, I’m done,” Ace sighed. “Can you two hurry up? It’s getting kinda boring waiting around like this.”

Oxygen tanks have been sabotaged.

“Funny how this happens right after you said that!” Grim accused Ace. “Y/n! Get the top one, the top one! We’re not gonna lose this game!”

“Alright already! Deuce stop panicking and finish up your tasks. Ace or Sebek should do-”

The moment you reached your destination, you watched helplessly as Ace’s cherry red character slashed your character in pieces. Grim hissed in annoyance as you silently stared up at Ace. He winked at you.

“-the bottom one...”

Deuce

Deuce uses the dark blue character with the egg

Ace is the first person he goes after when he’s the imposter

Unironically likes to do the tasks and is the fastest at doing them

He also can’t multi-task. Focusing on his tasks while watching out for corpses and the imposter is impossible for him

Will literally run past a corpse 5 times before finally noticing it

This boy isn’t good under pressure especially when everyone is yelling at him. If the oxygen tanks or reactor is sabotaged, Deuce will bang on every wall before reaching it

Also can’t come up with a good alibi when accused

Epel pushed the emergency button.

“I believe Deuce is the imposter... when I was passing by I saw him standing still in the hallway and when I came back he was still there.”

“W-what? No no no I wasn’t! I was moving around! I’m not the imposter!”

“That sounds exactly like what an imposter would say!” Sebek barked.

“Yep, I definitely think Deuce is the imposter,” Ace chuckled. Ace doesn’t really care if Deuce was the imposter or not. The frustrated look on Deuce’s face as he tries to think of a way to clear his name fueled the ginger’s amusement.

“I don’t know, maybe he was just taking his time looking at his map like the last few games?” You tried to defend Deuce, but only Jack agreed with you.

“Nah let’s kill him.” Ace

“Ya.” Epel

“Ditto.” Grim

“Agreed.” Sebek

“...” Jack

And so Deuce was ejected into space where it was revealed that he in fact was not the imposter. He pouted at his phone, still trying to figure out where to go next. “I told you I’m innocent.”

“Cheer up Deuce! Next time should be better,” you giggled at him. Deuce perked up at your laughter and beamed at you.

“Thanks for believing in me back there. I can count on you next time right?”

“...Deuce did you forget the imposter is chosen at random?”

The imposter was later revealed to be Epel.

Jack

Chose the white character with the ski goggles

The second worst player in the game

Is the person who always enforces others not to group together, but when he sees two people in a room he will hover over the door to make sure one of them won’t kill the other

The boy has a hard time lying and faking doing tasks and everyone exploits this

The quickest games are when he’s the imposter and sometimes it’s over before he can even kill someone

When Jack is innocent: “Jack are you the imposter?” “No”

When Jack isn’t: “Jack are you the imposter?” Ears flat, tail lifeless “...”

This game gives him the worst existential crisis because a part of him wants to play with all his might but the other JUST. CAN’T. LIE.

You found Sebek’s cold body lying in the admin room. All hell breaks loose once you report the body.

“FINALLY SOMEONE FOUND MY BODY! I was getting frustrated when SOMEBODY keeps passing me,” Sebek shouts while looking pointedly at Deuce.

Deuce shamefully looks away.

“Alright let’s start with the usual questions,” you began and turned to Jack. “Jack are you the imposter?”

“...No.”

“Okay Jack’s out-”

“Hold it! We shouldn’t rule out Jack just because he said so!” Ace interrupted you with a scowl on his lips. Jack snarled at the accusation.

“Are you calling me a liar?” he growled out. Unperturbed at the 192cm wall of muscle who was bristling at him, Ace’s face twisted into a mocking smirk.

Well I ain’t calling you a truther. “That’s the whole point of the game! For all we know, you could’ve finally wizened up and are lying to us now!”

“...Ace has a point,” Deuce held his chin in thoughtful agreement. On the other hand, you and Epel were conflicted.

“I’d say we vote Ace out,” Grim said with a sly grin on his face. “I saw his character look at us funny.” The little monster still held a grudge against Ace for saying Grim sucked at the game. (”But it’s true! You’re paws can’t even hit the buttons!” “Shut up Ace!”)

“That is suspicious,” simple, easily swayed Deuce agreed.

“Wait wait wait! How the fuck does that make sense?” Ace retorted. At the same time, Grim began smashing his paws at the screen and managed to vote for Ace. (“Hah! Take that Ace!”)

Deuce cast his vote immediately after, and Jack followed up while sending an amused smirk towards Ace. Epel was red in the face from trying to hold in his laughter from the silliness of it all. Eventually, he managed to vote for Ace.

Ace was ejected into space. Crew mates win.

“Lucky guess,” Ace grumbled under his breath.

Epel

Epel chooses the purple character and uses the straw hat

Has the most wins under his belt and is that one player that never gets killed

Epel usually plays it safe until someone riles him up and now he’s killing like he’s got something to prove

The master of vent assassinations.

Seriously. Usually when the first body gets reported, it’s been discovered that two other people have been killed already.

Tends to go on cams more than do the tasks

You, Ace and Jack were doing tasks in the electrical room. The lights go off and Epel’s purple character jumps out of a vent to stab you with its tongue. When the lights come back on, Epel is gone. Jack discovers your dead body and reports it immediately.

“It was Ace. I was in the same room with him and Y/n when the lights were off. Then he killed Y/n.”

“Hah? No way why would I do something that obvious?”

“So you admit you’re the imposter?”

Everyone votes Ace out. You discreetly squint at Epel for being so devious, but the lavender-haired boy only smiles sweetly at you in return. You were Epel’s first kill in this round, so after you finished your tasks you spent the rest of the game following him around.

You quickly realized that nothing was more frightening than Epel, a 156cm ball of fury.

You watched him hide in the medical room’s vent while Jack was being scanned. The minute Deuce, who stuck around to see Jack start the scan, left the room Epel jumped out and murdered Jack in cold blood. You saw Jack flinch as his character died, but he resumed his tasks without a grumble.

With only two people left alive, Epel stalked the halls to look for his last kill. He found both Sebek and Deuce in the cafeteria. One is at the vending machine, and the other is at the garbage disposal. Deuce finished first and spied Epel heading towards Sebek. “Oh Epel, did you finish your ta-” he watched as Epel’s character slashed into Sebek. The game ends soon after.

Thanks to Epel, the kill cool down was extended... again.

Sebek

Chose the lime green character with the horns (”THEY’LL NEVER BE AS MAJESTIC AS WAKA-SAMA’S”)

Living in the Valley of Thorns has him unfamiliar with technology in general so he’s extremely clumsy with the controls.

He also has a hard time navigating the area and is always hitting the walls and missing the doors

Also the slowest at doing tasks

Speaking of tasks, there was one game where he thought he finished all of them and he ended up giving the imposter enough time to kill everyone (”If the tasks are not all green that means you didn’t finish them!” “WHAT!?”)

Sebek is very mission-oriented and although he considers it beneath him to lie, he will to fulfill his objective

Will go the long way around to try and avoid his shifty friends

Absolutely fun to tease but not the worst at the game to be fair

“Wait so who did you see kill Jack, Deuce? Sebek or Hot Sebek?” you asked the teal-eyed teen.

“For the last time STOP USING MY NAME!”

“Quiet normal Sebek,” you shushed him. “Let Deuce talk.”

“It was the hot one... H-hot Sebek.” Poor Deuce tried so hard to contain his laughter as he spoke. Ace was already rolling on the floor and Epel was stifling a chuckle with his hand.

Sebek was fuming but stayed quiet while everyone else voted. Soon Hot Sebek AKA Ace gets ejected into space and the crew members win.

“We’re starting a new session and this time no one else will use my name. GOT IT?”

“Sounds good,” Jack said as he glowered at Ace. “I don’t understand why you would want to hide your identity. We should all face each other with everything bared - fair and square!”

“That is exactly right, Jack! Cowardly tactics should be frowned upon!”

Ace deadpanned, “Did you guys forget that’s the whole point of the game?”

#twisted wonderland #twst #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #Jack Howl #Epel Felmier #Sebek Zigvolt #Grim #twst scenarios #???#twst headcannons #?#why is everything i write inconsistent #inspired by the 4 hr session i had with my friends #tw// gore #tw// blood

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it. PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity. As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck.

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap. So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you.

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing.

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that. So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable.

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths.

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past.

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better.

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line.

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait. Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that. Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly.

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard. But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans.

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Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there.

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to.

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids.

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess.

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money.

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story.

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term.

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask.

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now.

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation. All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it:

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like.

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on.

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald?

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much. The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars. Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level. Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again. The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels.

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason.

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow.

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

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misseffie · 3 years

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So I finished ep 4 and I want to write my overall first impression. I haven’t read the books btw.

THE DARKLING:

I’m trying to get invested in the Darkling but I’m on ep 4 and I just... can’t. I guess you have to be attracted to Ben Barnes, and even though I know he’s gorgeous he never really did it for me.... Plus all the emotional beats of the story revolve around Alina and Mal. Yes, General Kirigan is mysterious and dark and sexy but what else is he? Meanwhile Alina and Mal leave me feeling hollow and broken when she erases her scar as Mal lies dying in the snow. I guess you have to have a thing for pretty and rich darkbois to like the Darkling. But it’s hard for me to feel anything for the fancy rich guy being lonely when the underdog character is out there risking his life and shit.

I also feel like the Palace storyline could REALLY benefit from some political intrigue. But it mostly feels like Alina and Kirigan + some background characters. I guess I thought it would feel more like “Sansa in King’s Landing” than “Sophie in Howl’s Moving Castle”.

If you’re going to make it exclusively about Alina and the Darkling then he has to be a captivating villain. But I’m just not invested in the Darkling. Not just as a romantic interest but more importantly as a villain. And that sucks. Because I love villains. But I guess I just like my villains really fucked up? I love characters like Cersei, Tywin, Joffrey (yes, I’m just naming Lannisters) or Azula. Characters you love to hate and hate to love. Who are irredeemable but also human. General Kirigan is more of a villain archetype than a character. It’s not even about shipping. Because I really want to like him as a villain and I can’t. He’s just.... empty. I hope he improves as he goes on and develops a personality beyond being mysterious. Alina and Mal might not be the most interesting characters to watch but something about them feels honest and human.

MALINA:

That said, I’m still not enjoying all the orphanage flashbacks. I feel like all those scenes should’ve maybe been shown at the beginning of episode 1 and then we could flash forward to 10 years later or whatever. If they’d done it like this then they could’ve also used that time in the orphanage for exposition purposes and world building. I feel like going from them lying in the meadow and talking about running away together to being smack-dab in the middle of a warzone would’ve been more impactful. And also you have the fun of guessing who the characters are. Imagine that first fight scene with Mal if we were also wondering “Hey! Is that the orphan boy?” and then we see them get reunited and we feel happy that they’re still friends 10 years in the future. And then Mal and Alina don’t have to keep making references to being “best friends” or to their past in the orphanage because we already know.

OTHER:

I really want to enjoy the show but so many parts just drag on for me. There’s too many romantic subplots which don’t really add to the plot. Yes, I’m talking about Matthias/Nina. I also want to like the Crows because they have the most fun scenes, but something about their dynamic just doesn’t... do it for me. And I usually LOVE when a merry band of outlaws form their own family - so it’s frustrating that I can’t get into their banter. I will say that Jesper is my favourite at the moment.

Maybe the last 4 episodes will change my mind about these characters and the story. At the moment, the most emotionally riveting story is Mal hunting the stag and Alina moving on from him because she thinks he’s forgotten all about her.

THE GOOD:

Magic:

I know this all seems very down on the show, but I promise you that there’s a lot that I did like. Mainly the way magic is presented. Whenever they have to cross the fold I get goosebumps. The mythical stag is cool af. The way some people can manipulate the human body is intriguing as hell. I love how magic is considered a “small science” that only a few can master. The world building also feels solid and interesting. There’s a real “sense of setting” in the way the characters dress. I feel like it could’ve been exploited more tbh. They could’ve made more use of the maps to explore different settings. I think the fact that the main character is a map maker should’ve been used more. They could’ve had an intro with a similar vibe to Game of Thrones except BETTER. Because it actually relates to the main character. Imagine if we saw a map being slowly created on screen!!!!! And then the fold being and inky darkness spreading across the map.

Race/Xenophobia and “The Chose One” trope:

I also really like the fact that Alina is mixed raced. I think it adds a lot of emotional turmoil to her being a “chosen one” character. I feel like people who said that it added nothing to the story haven’t grown up in a multicultural family. I really felt for her on a personal level. She’s meant to be the saviour to people who have never accepted her as one of their own. I felt her craving for wanting to carve out a place for herself where she didn’t feel like an outsider, where she could feel at home. I remember the anguish I felt when I was younger, knowing that I would always be considered “foreign” no matter where I went. Both sides of my parents family considered me the “foreign relative”. People would ask me if I felt more like one or the other. So Alina being asked “What are you?” over and over really struck a chord for me. It’s really a feeling of never being “enough” of a certain thing to ever fit in. You will always be a little bit of an outsider. I also grew up in a country with very little immigration at the time since it was just coming out of a dictatorship. So foreigners of any kind were a rarity. Kind of the same way Alina and Mal stand out so much among the homogenous Ravkan people - who have been isolated from the outside world for a while. So I understand the way Alina and Mal cling to each other. I also used to develop strong friendships with other kids who were also either mixed raced or multicultural.

I think making Alina mixed raced actually adds SO MUCH to the typical chosen one narrative. Because would you even want to be the saviour for these people who don’t even accept you as one of them? When Alina was writing about how she felt like a traitor to herself if she succeeded rang so true to me. Mal and Alina bonded over being outsiders and relying on each other. Who is Alina without that?

It also makes General Kirigan’s manipulation feel even more sinister because of how different she’s always felt. How much Alina has always craved to feel accepted. There’s a moment when he seems to question why she would want to be like other people. He claims that she’s not like other people, but he’s viewing it as “Alina being superior and special”, while Alina is just aching to feel welcome and at home somewhere. It shows how he can never actually understand how truly isolated she feels - despite using this to manipulate her.

Her being mixed-raced honestly elevated her story and her personal struggles with being a “chosen one”.

#shadow and bone #malina #shadow and bone meta #alina starkov

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365days365movies · 3 years

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January 19, 2021: Léon: The Professional (Epilogue)

Hey, look! An elephant in the room! We should address that, huh?

So, recently, actress and Léon star herself Natalie Portman was interviewed about acting in this movie, and she said that the movie itself was fine to act in. It was the response to that work from...y’know what, perverts - let’s not dance around that - that she wasn’t the biggest fan of. It changed the roles she was willing to accept, and her acting style in general. Which makes absolute sense for her to do.

But now, you may understand why this film is...awkward. Because let me clarify something: this is a good movie! But, especially with relatively recent revelations from Hollywood in the last few years, you know that some people enjoyed this movie in a WHOLLY UNACCEPTABLE fashion. Which is...well, again:

Because of that, this film was gotten a lot of negative attention, then and now. And, let’s also be fair here: I’m not a fan of the fact that Luc Besson put Natalie Portman in this...uncomfortable position in the first place. It’s a little squicky to be putting a 12 year-old in that context, is what I’m saying. Roger Ebert agrees, in the closing statement of his review on the movie:

But always at the back of my mind was the troubled thought that there was something wrong about placing a 12-year-old character in the middle of this action. In a more serious movie, or even in a human comedy like Cassavetes' "Gloria," the child might not have been out of place. But in what is essentially an exercise - a slick urban thriller - it seems to exploit the youth of the girl without really dealing with it.

.Yeah, I agree with that. But OK, if we take that uncomfortable aspect away from the movie (and it is possible to do so), then what did I think? Well, let’s get into that, shall we?

Recap

Cast and Acting

Strap in, this one’s gonna be long. Three parts, and a coda at the end.

OK, first I gotta talk about Léon, or rather Jean Reno as Léon. Here's the thing about these heroic bloodshed protagonists; they’re always these cold, reserved badasses with armored hearts that have been closed off by a personal tragedy, from when they were more innocent. But with Léon, we never see that tragedy; we have no idea what makes this man who or what he is. And yet, he still has dimension as a character, hidden depths within an unknown past, and also a surprising innocence injected into him. He genuinely enjoys going to see old movies, he’s teaching himself how to read, we only really see him drink milk, he cares deeply for his plant. And, before Mathilda, he’s lonely, and you actually feel for him? THis is, by the way, despite the fact that the first sequence of the film is him MURDERING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE. And despite that, I really did feel for him in the end there. And while the directing and writing take a part of this, GODDAMN does Reno do an amazing job! He perfectly portrays the nuances of this character, but puts on an incredibly badass demeanor when he needs to. Reno deserves more credit as an actor in the USA, because he’s astonishingly great in his movie, seriously.

And then...then there’s Natalie Portman. See, back in the wild, wild west of the ‘90s, child actors were ALL OVER THE GODDAMN PLACE. And the vast majority of them weren’t very good, let’s be honest. But in her turn as Mathilda, awkward preteen crush and all, Portman KNOCKS it out of the goddamn park with this portrayal. And by the way...THIS IS HER FIRST ACTING ROLE. Yeah. Holy shit. She’s brilliant, and I’m a little mad that she didn’t get an award nod AT ALL for this role. She’s fantastic, seriously, it’s insane. And yeah, her character and the dynamic with Léon definitely makes me uncomfortable...but maybe it’s because Mathilda is surprisingly believable, acting with a surprise innocence of her own. Seriously...amazing job to Nathalie Portman.

If Reno was understatedly nuanced and complex, and Portman was talented and emotional, Gary Oldman was BATSHIT INSANE. And holy shit, is he a wonderfully engaging and terrifying villain. This is Oldman dialed up to...eh, 8? You get him dialed up to 10, and I’m pretty sure you get Dracula. But he’s a HELL of a lot of fun here, honestly, if also extremely creepy and frightening. He steals every scene that he’s in, with his speeches, mannerisms, and affectations. He upstages, well...EEEEVERRRYYYYYOOOOOOONNNNNE!!!

And is everybody else in here good? Yeah, they are, but they’re completely drowned out by these three. The acting in this film is wonderful all around. 10/10. I mean that, 10/10.

Plot and Writing

If I had a single word about the writing, it’d be...French. There are some lines, ESPECIALLY Mathilda’s lines about love, that definitely sound more French than American. After all, this is a French film, and the writer is Luc Besson himself! And other than that...the writing’s fine. Plot’s fine, too, straightforward and all that. I really don’t have much to say about the plot, if I’m honest. And if I had one negative thing to say...yeah, the childhood crush thing is still super uncomfortable, honestly. Still, put in context, it’s a little bit better. And I should mention that, while it’s SUPER CONTROVERSIAL here in the good old US of A, this wasn’t nearly as big of a deal in France. And I should also mention...it’s mildly autobiographical. Yeaaaaaaaah, that blonde girl in the very beginning of the movie is actually Besson’s WIFE. You know...the 17-year-old, who’d known Besson since she was 12 and he was 29, and they started dating when she was 15, and the had a child a year later, before this movie was made. Y-yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

7/10 here, nothing bad, nothing great. Basically average heroic bloodshed plotline, with some...other elements.

Directing and Action

Fun fact: Luc Besson’s reception in his home country is mixed, especially early in his career. This is because his directing style is focused far more on spectacle and bombast than it is on emotion. Definitely more American in style than French. And this movie definitely has some of that, although it’s definitely not as crazy as some of the other movies on this list. But some of the shots here are weird, some of them here are crazy cool, and most of them are just great. But this movie still focuses more on emotion and character buildup and revelations, than it does on action. Which is great, but this is Action January, so how was the action? This takes off of the gun-fu genre, with essentially all of it focused around gunplay. And the interesting thing is, while these aren’t the most bombastic action scenes, its the emotion around them that keep you on the edge of your seat and invested. So, weirdly, this might be the movie that’s integrated the action scenes with the movie’s overall emotional tone the most seamlessly. Well...of the English language movies, anyway. Overall, 8/10 here!

Production and Art Design

START SPREADING THE NEEEEEEEEEEWS, because it’s New York, New York! Most of this film was filmed on location, and it shows! As someone who grew up going to NYC on a regular basis, it definitely feels authentic to ‘90s New York. Which, of course, it is. Costume design, for Mathilda especially, is good, although one or two of her outfits feels a little over-complicated at times. Still, no complaints, really. I love Léon’s tiny glasses, and Stansfield’s suit (plain as it may be). Really, this movie is simply an authentic feeling New York, and there isn’t too much else to say about that. 8/10 again.

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Music and Editing

Music’s definitely good, including this song by Sting that we hear at the end. Editing is mostly OK, although there are some weird cuts here and there. And...I’m not sure I have much to say about this category. Oof. Sorry, honestly, this is probably a sign of good editing, since it wasn’t obvious. And as for the music, I remember it...but it was mostly overshadowed by the events of the film itself. So...7/10?

80%! And I’m satisfied with that, honestly!

This movie is built to make you a little uncomfortable while watching it. But, I still believe that it’s a movie to be watched. Good action, prominent emotional development, great acting. This one’s good, and give it a watch!

Luc Besson, Luc Besson. You gave me a French English-language heroic bloodshed action movie about an older man saving a girl a generation or so younger than him, that also produced a well-known meme on the internet. More, please!

January 20, 2021: Taken (2008)

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