#and the brothers seem really well-coordinated which is super cool
Text
newfound respect for Mikazuki
#i thought he was kinda off but then he unleashed his Big Cool Move and now i understand why he was the former captain of the First Unit#also his eyes are really pretty they look kinda like solar eclipses if they made the sky blue instead of pitch black#in fact he has a whole moon motif going on now that i think about it. the hilt of his sword as a phases of the moon pattern#he's not a favorite but he's cooler than i gave him credit for#ALSO OODENTA WITH THE FUCKING THUNDER THING? HELLO#and Yamanbagiri seems to have an inferiority complex but he shouldnt because he looks badass in that cloak#and also took out a monster with one fucking strike#and the brothers seem really well-coordinated which is super cool#i wasnt looking forward to meeting the First Unit after Tonbukiri's injury but now i really like them and think they're super cool#Honebami... something's up with his arc (in a good way). if they focus more on the First Unit he's definitely going to be the main event#him alongside Mikazuki of course#normally i dont like when anime have so many characters but this one has it organized pretty well (also it's based on a video game so)#ah! im ranting! good that means im still into it even tho the big energy is gone :)
1 note
·
View note
Text
On what her crew wants to see Mer!Luffy wear:
In response to an ask from @sideeffectsofwriting:
1) What do each crew members or even others like seeing Luffy wearing? Or want her to dress up in?
Thanks so much again for sending this in! Here’s the thoughts of some of the crew, up to around Alabasta:
Ace: Honestly doesn’t usually think too much about clothing for Luffy, since he knows she doesn’t care about it much. Ace likes accessorizing, but knows from experience that Luffy is very prone to breaking/losing most things she can wear. It’s only after he sees Luffy try on his necklace, and sees Nami pick out clothes for Luffy in Ace’s colors that he thinks...Oh, oh, that’s actually really nice...He kinda doesn’t know how to put it into words though and feels weirdly confused/embarrassed when he thinks about it, so he mostly just shrugs. (everyone else on the crew: you’re feeling possessive, that’s what that feeling is, Ace)
Sabo: Unashamed and very open about liking it when Luffy wears his clothes. She’s basically swimming in his tunic, and it reeks “Boyfriend Shirt,” which he’s very proud of (Ace looks painfully interested in this look, and Sabo sighs and explains to his brother that in order to experience the Boyfriend Shirt, Ace must, in fact, first have a shirt for Lu to wear). He likes her in most other things too, from her usual vest to the cute and/or sometimes sexy things Nami picks out, but Sabo admits to being partial to wearing matching things. He’s the type to very proudly wear matching couple outfits (of course he’ll get one for Ace too, the three of them must do everything together after all), and he drinks the tears of jealous rivals with his tea.
Thatch: He kinda feels lame having an answer like this, when honestly Luffy’s cute in everything, she’s kinda his definition of cute...but since this is specifically asking for a preference: he likes seeing her in bikini tops. She’s a mermaid after all, can’t really wear much on the bottom, and there’s something exceptionally romantic about her wearing something that sings to the more traditional “Mermaid” aesthetic, and it’s a nice gap from her usual outfits. So many cute bras out there to compliment her gorgeous crimson tail, and lovingly embrace her lovely assets...He would also be very, very interested in seeing her in something a little more mature like lingerie but knows Ace would have his head so is wisely keeping his mouth shut.
Deuce: He’d say he doesn’t care, but that’s a cop out so...he’s gonna say it makes him feel weirdly more aware of her when she’s wearing more normal, concealing clothes, like a shirt. Maybe because he’s used to Whitebeard’s nurses being all over him, but the usual “sexy ladies” look doesn’t really do much for him, and he also kinda shrugs off visible cleavage like Lu’s regular very open vest. But there’s something about seeing her in a casual shirt, looking like a normal girl and not an extremely powerful pirate, the hint of her body through the way it stretches the fabric that...well. Ace, stop glaring.
Zoro: He likes how Luffy looks after a victorious battle. He always feels this feral pride when he sees her as the dust settles, her clothes ripped, shallow cuts and bruises visible on her bared skin, muscles shifting with restless energy as she comes down from an adrenaline high despite her eyes still being alert. It reminds him why he chose to follow her, and it’s hot. (Sanji: that isn’t a clothing preference!!!)
Sanji: Sanji wants to say a lot of things here, because he has a lot of thoughts about how adorable Luffy would look in a variety of things, including but not limited to a bikini (what, that’s already been said?!), a maid outfit, a school girl uniform, a dancer outfit, a wedding dress--but, because he’s never had the honor of seeing any of those...he admits he has a weak spot for seeing Luffy in clothes stained by food that Sanji cooked. Which, okay, objectively he knows that it’s pretty nasty, but she’s such a messy eater and...it makes him feel sickeningly warm inside, to see all this evidence of how much she enjoyed his work, and then being able to get close to tenderly wipe it clean, all while she looks content and full...
Nami: In a crew full of uncivilized men, and poor Luffy who grew up surrounded by them, of course Nami has to take it upon herself to introduce her to fashion. And of course Nami thinks Luffy should wear what she wants! But, her captain’s apparently never worn a bra, and doesn’t know anything about having proper support for her chest, and okay fine she’s rubber so maybe she doesn’t need it but...Nami doesn’t so much have a particular type of clothing she wants to see Luffy wear, but she DOES very much enjoy when Luffy wears things that Nami’s picked out for her, because Nami puts a lot of thought into what things she knows Luffy would look amazing in, and what she hopes Luffy will also find comfortable enough to wear. Nami likes it when she sees Luffy look jaw-dropping gorgeous because it’s what Nami coordinated for her, and yes there is a lot of undeniable very personal possessiveness, but also, gentlemen, she’ll take those tips now thank you...
Usopp: He was going to say he strongly prefers to pass on this question, as he only ever Looks Very Respectfully and look ok he doesn’t want reason for the Terrifying Big Brothers give him Scary Glares...but actually, y’know what, he does having something he thinks Lu looks really great in. He drew and designed the ASL Pirates jolly roger, y’know? And Luffy once casually mentioned that she really likes it, and it makes her feel so awesome and proud of her crew, and it’d be cool to see it on other things too...so the next island they stopped at, Usopp grabbed some fabric paint, and whipped up a shirt with the jolly roger and a few little artistic details. And Luffy’s face when he handed it to her, and she tried it on...That’s a good memory, one that he doubts he’ll ever forget.
Chopper: Chopper’s still learning about merfolk, and he knows frustratingly little about them and is constantly pushing himself to learn more so his lack of knowledge never ends up putting him in a situation where he can’t properly treat Luffy. But one thing he’s always so worried about, is how cold Luffy gets. He already feels kinda concerned for humans in general, they’re all so hairless! But Luffy gets especially cold, and seems to be partially cold blooded and gets chilled super easily when she’s not active and, as a mammal with a very thick and warm coat, Chopper’s always so worried that she’ll get too cold, especially when she sleeps. So it really reassures him when he sees her bundled up in something thick and fluffy, like a fur coat, because she seems like she could really use it.
Koala: Koala would love to see Luffy wearing some more traditional Fishman Island outfits. Koala knows Luffy knows basically nothing about her heritage, and doesn’t want to force it on her but--Fishman Island is so incredibly dear to Koala, and she knows how beautiful and vibrant the culture is. She knows Luffy would look stunning in mermaid dancer outfits, mermaid prayer outfits, mermaid formalwear, anything and everything that was specifically designed for her people...and not just the feminine things too! Luffy would look amazing in fishman karate gear just as much. It’s a mix of both Koala really, really appreciating the aesthetic mental image, but also the representation of Luffy learning more about Fishman Island.
Vivi: Vivi knows very specifically what she ideally would like to see Luffy wear, because she gave it to her already. Or rather, she put it inside Sabo’s bag the night before the ASL pirates fled Alabasta, with a note that it’s for Luffy, fully aware that the more careful older brother would hold on to it for her until there’s an appropriate occasion. It’s a traditional Alabasta outfit--specifically, a royal one. In fact, pulled from Vivi’s own wardrobe, and she knows it’s only meant to be worn by royalty, but she wanted Luffy to have it, and knows her father would support her, after all Luffy and their crew did for Alabasta. It’s an outfit not unlike the one Vivi wore when she waved at the crew as they disappeared--but in crimson and gold, with hues of rose, and Vivi couldn’t help but associate it with Luffy. She knows Luffy will look amazing in it, and knows that the world will know that Luffy has Alabasta’s support should she ever choose to wear it in public.
❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀
~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~
#YukiPri replies#OnePieceMermaidAU#One Piece Mermaid AU#genderbend#text headcanons#longpost#long post#sideeffectsofwriting#See even my answer to this part alone got so long it needs to go under a cut ^ ^;;;;#and it's not even the full final crew...
149 notes
·
View notes
Note
the pokemon company be like *thinly-veiled misogyny*
To be honest, the sexism isn’t even really thinly-veiled if you think about it. Like off the top of my head:
— Professor Juniper was our first female professor, and it took until Gen V to get her. But whereas all the other professors got to stand on their own without needing anyone else, Professor Juniper had to have her father come in to provide answers to various plot occurrences that she didn’t know. IIRC, she also inherited her practice from him, which was also something that the male professors before and after didn’t have to contend with. It’s a miracle that this was averted with Professors Magnolia and Sonia in Gen VIII, both of whom are women.
— Speaking of female professors being screwed over, in Gen VII we’re introduced to Professor Burnet, whose practice specifically focuses on ultra wormholes and disturbances in space-time (which makes sense since she was previously working on the Dream Radar). Given how much of the plot concerns ultra wormholes, you would think that she would be the main professor of the story, or at least play a big part. But you’re wrong! Instead she’s only in one mandatory scene, and then is basically never heard from again. Meanwhile, Kukui shows up all the goddamn time even though his goal (to create a League) is literally meaningless in the scope of the overall plot. (And even that could have been cool if it had delved into the socio-political ramifications of what overthrowing Alola’s current system of government for another one would mean, but now is not the time to get into the failings of Gen VII’s plot. I’ve gone through that enough times.)
— Back to Gen V for a second, we’re also given two rivals in the first of the Unova games: Bianca and Cheren. While Cheren, the male rival, is taken seriously and has it talked up over and over how great of a battler he is, Bianca has her Munna stolen from her halfway through the story and spends the rest of the game talking down on herself and ultimately deciding that her father was right and she really is not cut out to be a Pokémon Trainer. Keep in mind that Bianca was the first mandatory female rival in the games, because while May could be a rival in Gen III if you played as Brendan, if you chose to play as her, both rivals (Brendan and Wally) were male. So on that note, our rivals so far look like:
Gen I: Blue Oak (male)
Gen II: Silver (male)
Gen III: Wally (male), optional May (female), optional Brendan (male)
Gen IV: Barry (male)
Gen V: Cheren (male), Bianca (female), Hugh (male)
Gen VI: Shauna (female), Tierno (male), Trevor (male), optional Serena (female), optional Calem (male)
Gen VII: Hau (male), Gladion (male)
Gen: Hop (male), Bede (male), Marnie (female)
So, let’s see. We only have two mandatory female rivals (Bianca and Marnie), as well as two optional female rivals (May and Serena). Meanwhile, we have twelve mandatory male rivals, as well as two optional male rivals (Brendan and Calem). To cap this off, while the mandatory male rivals (outside of the useless Kalos ones) are always treated as strong, competent battlers who have important roles in the story, our two mandatory female rivals, well . . .
Bianca: See above
Marnie: Gets battled a whole grand total of two times and has basically zero impact on the plot despite the fact that her brother is the only Gym Leader who didn’t give into Rose’s vision for how Galar should operate and use Dynamax evolution
And even when it comes to the optional ones, since Brendan is treated as the default MC by TPCi, that means May is the one who gives up training to go be a professor like her dad. (Which is the exact thing they basically did to Bianca in Gen V, except she studies under Juniper instead.) Serena at least keeps battling if she’s the rival, but jeez.
So to say there’s definite gender inequality where the rivals are concerned is a bit of an understatement.
— Moving away from the rivals, let’s talk about villains! We didn’t get a female villain until Gen VII with Lusamine, and even then she wasn’t allowed to stay a villain because I guess Game Freak doesn’t want to accept the fact that women can be evil, too. Moreover, all of Lusamine’s achievements come from the men in her life, and all of her motivations revolve around her husband. To spell it out:
- She inherited the Aether Foundation from her grandfather / father, without having founded it herself like we’re at first led to believe.
- Her husband Mohn was the one who discovered how the ultra wormholes work, not her. IIRC, he was also the primary researcher behind Type: Null’s creation.
- The reason why she does what she does is because she’s looking for her missing husband Mohn, with an added dash of “women just go crazy (and abuse their children) without their husbands!!1!!!” thrown in for flavor.
Compare this to Giovanni, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, Colress, Lysandre, and now Chairman Rose, all of whom formed their own organizations (Giovanni inheriting his from his mother is anime only and does not pertain to the games at all) and had their own goals and desires, versus relying on someone else for those goals and desires. And as if Lusamine not being allowed to form her own organization and have her own goals for her own sake wasn’t bad enough, they then had to go and make it even worse in USUM by turning her into a damsel in distress in the Rainbow Rocket plot, depicting her as not only less capable as the male villains, but also less capable than her male subordinate. Gag me.
— On that note, Oleana is sorely underappreciated by basically everyone except the Twilight Wings writers considering she’s the only reason anything Rose did got done, yet got none of the credit for herself. Damn shame.
— Stepping away from the games for a moment, Generations was a hot mess in terms of sexism. First of all, they only ever used the male MCs, pretending that the female ones didn’t exist at all, even in cases where the female MCs are vastly more popular (e.g. May, Dawn, Hilda). Second, most of the episodes focused on male characters from the series, and the ones that didn’t were either there so they could disrespect the best character in the series by not giving her the episode she deserved (Zinnia), or were told from the point of view of a male character despite that it was supposed to be a female character’s story (Emma). And lastly, there was whatever the fuck that mess with Cheryl was. It was animated in a way that made it look like an anime not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. Like honestly, what the hell.
— Leaf has been consistently and constantly disrespected all over the franchise. Despite there allegedly being four trainers who left from Pallet Town (counting Ash) in the anime, Leaf has never been seen or mentioned even once throughout the two decades that anime has been running. They had an opportunity to show her in at least a cameo form in the 20th anniversary movie, but they chose not to do that either, adding yet another disappointment from that movie to the list. She had no appearances in Origins, no appearances in Generations, they didn’t do what they should have done in HGSS by making her the rival atop Mt Silver if you chose to play as Lyra, she wasn’t a skin for Pokémon Trainer in Super Smash Bros. until Ultimate, I’m pretty sure they never made an Amiibo for her either, they replaced her with her Special counterpart in LGPE and her characterization absolutely bonkers to boot, and back to Masters, SS Leaf doesn’t have the Main Character designation for the theme skills that SS Red has, and is also routinely left out of any story bits that feature Red or Blue. It’s a miracle she was even included in the Battling Legends event or whatever it was. As far as TPCi seems to be considered, Kanto only has one main character and that’s Red.
— Oh and speaking of Iris, they gave her the Gym Leader theme designation instead of the Champion designation, instead choosing to act like Alder is Unova’s only Champion when he, no offense, didn’t really fucking do anything in Gen V. :’) We hate to see it.
— In the current run of the anime, the two boys (Ash and Gou) have gotten to go around and have adventures for ~50 episodes while the girl (Koharu) has had to stay home and go to school. You can argue, “She wanted that!” all you want, but you have to remember that she only wants what the writers tell her to want, and the writers said the boys get to have adventures while the girls stay home. She finally has an Eevee and will presumably go on adventures now, but we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t get me wrong, I like Journeys and I love Gou as a character, but it is absolutely a Choice to not have a female lead present in the adventures at all and it’s one that the writers deliberately made for whatever reason.
— On that note, let’s look at Ash’s female companions, shall we?
Misty: A Gym Leader who has a vague goal (water pokémon master) and is largely out of focus during her run as a primary companion. She had no rivals or in-series (as in, concrete ones she could accomplish before leaving the main cast) goals of her own.
May: A coordinator. Does have rivals and has a story, which is nice, but battling isn’t her focus.
Dawn: Another coordinator. Even more focus than May (she was written as a deuteragonist), but also not primarily focused on battling.
Iris: A battler (her Gym Leader / Champion Status is written out) who actually does get decent focus and a cool arc surrounding her connection to dragons.
Serena: A performer, which is a girls-only career path that doesn’t have battling in it at all, unlike contests. Does have a goal, but much of her character is written around her crush for Ash and at the end of the series she says that he is her goal.
Lillie, Lana, Mallow: Honestly I didn’t watch enough of SM to have an opinion on how these three were handled outside of hating how Lusamine didn’t get to be a villain in the anime either.
Koharu: See above, she’s only just now getting to be involved with things.
Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with being a coordinator (and we do see male coordinators too, such as Drew and Harley), and I think that both May and Dawn are wonderful characters. But it does make me feel some kind of way that the female characters were often given the “girly” sidequest while the male main character got to go for the Gym badges, especially since AG and DP went on for a good chunk of years. None of the ladies so far have been treated as badly as Serena was (that performer stuff is just nasty, I’m not sorry), but again, it’s a deliberate choice and something to think about, especially since I feel the only reason they didn’t go that route with Iris is because of her Gym Leader / Champion status in the games.
I could probably think of more examples of the casual sexism in the series if I thought about it, but this is just from the top of my head. As you can see, there is a lot. All of this being said, and I’m putting major emphasis on this since I don’t want anyone to get it twisted—
I love Pokémon with my entire heart, flaws and all. It has been my hyperfixation for 22 years and that is not going to change any time soon. So DO NOT even dare suggest that I hate Pokémon, or shouldn’t play it, or anything like that. I will be playing Pokémon on my deathbed and nothing and no one will stop me.
But that being said, I criticize because I care. Because I wish it would do better. Pokémon is for everyone. It’s for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, and people all over the gender spectrum. But the treatment of its female characters and the abundance of favoritism shown toward the male characters leaves a lot to be desired (though at least girls are at the table, whereas trans folk are relegated to background NPCs and nonbinary folk are nowhere to be seen :/). I think Pokémon can get better—Magnolia and Sonia felt like a proper apology for how Juniper in particular was shafted, not to mention Burnet—but it’s got a long way to go.
(And also, yes, you’ve understood this right. Twilight Wings is the only anime series to not fuck up at all when it comes to sexism. You go, Twilight Wings. Four for you, Twilight Wings.)
#pokemon critical#pokemon criticism#pokemon negative#let me know if I should use any other tags#long post for ts#stabbymattress#the treatment of Ash's female companions from best to worst has been:#Dawn - May - Iris - Misty - Koharu - Serena#and the Alola girls somewhere in the middle ig I honestly didn't watch enough of that series to know
119 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Chapter 6
Please feel free to message me about possible corrections. If you can, consider supporting the creators by purchasing the official releases here.
← Previous || Index || Afterword →
The Postal Company and the Auto-Memories Doll
The current times were labeled as the era of postal business flood.
Within a continent that congregated small countries, the people who operated in the mail industry competed ruthlessly against one another. Putting it very simply, the situation of postal companies throughout the continent was of stealing each other’s customers.
Clients chose their mail agency of use and requested deliveries on their own. The reasons for the choices would be fees, deliverable areas, and of course, even the postmen’s degree of courtesy was a subject of deliberation. Taking all of those into account, they would pick one postal company from somewhere.
At present, as the management structure of postal corporations was becoming devoted to carrying the side-business of amanuensis “Auto-Memories Dolls” rather than only delivering mailed items, others were unable to establish a position in the market if their work leaned towards the latter. The more the competition increased, the more obvious the differences in services would become, and, as the superior and inferior ones would grow evident, the losing side would inevitably close down their company.
Within such harsh rivalry, in a certain country named Leidenschaftlich, located in the continent’s southern coast, there was a postal agency so-called CH Postal Service had boomed its name throughout the industry. Although it was a newly introduced company that had but a few years since being founded, its reputation was exceptional. The degree of customer satisfaction was high, and there was abundance of re-users.
On a general view, there were two motives behind its good results.
The first one was that the CH Postal Service had no restrictions to its areas of delivery. Should a client desire, it would deliver to any part of the globe. Of course, fees were imposed for remote places, yet that was the first attempt in the industry of pulling such a feat. Even existing postal agencies disputing for a leading position in the industry had determined delivery areas. The CH Postal Service delivered even to regions of conflict, therefore being a great help for customers whose family members or lovers found themselves in battlegrounds. Its patrons increasing in numbers was something logical. However, succeeding in doing such a thing as though it were extremely natural was terribly difficult for ordinary companies. The CH Postal Service was in condition to go anywhere for a client’s sake, as it had assembled the personnel and system capable of making it possible – therefore, it had managed to do so.
The second reason was that there existed a top star in CH Postal Service, who had come into sight in the Auto-Memories Doll business like a comet. Seeing her walk around the city would cause people to do double takes at her looks, and hearing her voice would paint their cheeks red out of fascination. She was a perfect beauty that seemed to have come out of a mythological legend. As of late, a play that the famous dramatist Oscar had written using her image had been announced and gained popularity, making her renowned even outside of the industry as per synergy.
People probably envisioned just what type of woman she was. Mostly, their expectations were betrayed in good ways. She was a woman that surpassed the categorical components of imagination.
Her name was Violet Evergarden.
The largest trading place of the continent was a port that served as a gate from and to the sea. It was a national interest of Leidenschaftlich’s, as well as a trigger for wars. Countless other countries had attempted to invade it, seeking its abundant resources and a privileged location.
Although the city was at financial ease with the prosperity of its economy, scars of old battles remained in some places. The symbols of long military service from the past had not been etched solely in protection walls or stone-paved roads. It could be said that the fountain built in the capital Leiden during the celebration of Leidenschaftlich’s hundredth anniversary was its most well-known marking.
Consisting of a total of nine goddess statues holding water vases on their shoulders, it worked in a way that groundwater poured out them. Despite it being a gem made by a nationally employed artist, the goddesses had their necks chopped off. It remained unfixed, for the sake of not letting anyone forget Leidenschaftlich’s disgrace in authorizing the invasion of another country’s castle town.
In spite of being a major commercial nation, it was a military state. There were armed soldiers amidst the lively cityscapes even during times of peace.
The members of the CH Postal Company had such country as their home.
“Oh, what’cha doing?”
“My.”
“It has been a while.”
Under a beautiful autumn sky, a group that rarely gathered met in front of the headless goddesses’ fountain. They were two women and one man.
“If it isn’t Cattleya and V. Have you come out to welcome the great me, unable to wait for my return?”
Leaving his motorcycle parked by the roadside and heartily eating grilled chicken was a postman clad in a glass-green shirt. His slender boots of cross-shaped heels gave out a devious sex appeal. Hidden behind sandy-blond hair, his light blue eyes were provocative. His unmanly, soft facial features were not gentle. It was Benedict Blue, who worked at the CH Postal Company.
“What’re you saying? I’m gonna ask again: what’re you saying? T-There’s no way I’d come pick you up! I just went out shopping as an errand for my beloved President. Violet, say something too. To this platform shoes man. Nobody called for you.”
The one who spoke as if to smooth things over with a moody voice was a beautiful woman of gracefully wavy dark hair. She had amethyst eyes and an hourglass shape. Brimming with enough sensuality to enslave the opposite sex, her body was enveloped in a carmine dress-coat with a waist ribbon, yet was about to burst out of it. She was Cattleya Baudelaire, who also worked at the CH Postal Company.
“You two, you are being too loud out in the street.”
Reproaching the duo with a voice of silver bells was an elegantly beautiful girl dressed up like a porcelain doll. Said person had a hairband made of embroidery lace sitting on her hair as it spread out in waves and was wearing a one-piece with plenty of such lace sewn to it, along with a chiffon trench coat.
“V.”
“Violet.”
She was Violet Evergarden, the top Auto-Memories Doll of the CH Postal Company, whose blue eyes enthralled those who looked at them, as did the emerald-green brooch sitting on her chest.
Benedict and Cattleya turned toward Violet, changing the addressee of their impressions in unison.
“What’s up with you?”
“Really, Violet, you’re pretty fired-up. You’re letting your hair down? Are you on a date?”
Pressed on by the two, the Auto-Memories Doll that the CH Postal Company had pride in, Violet Evergarden, cast her gaze to the ground. “Lady Tiffany... someone from my home arranged everything, but is it that strange?” Her voice sounded slightly embarrassed.
Cattleya observed Violet with a gentle look. “It’s not strange. You’re cute enough not to lose to me. Are you going to see the major?”
“Yes. It is still early for the meeting time, so I was going to buy a book for me to bring along.”
“That’s great; you’re looking forward to it, huh! Hey, she doesn’t look weird, right, Benedict?” Cattleya rejoiced without restraint.
“Tch,” Benedict clicked his tongue.
It had truly been a long while since the three of them had last gathered. That was only natural. At the CH Postal Company, everyone worked industriously every day. There were sporadic occasions in which they would be grouped on duty, but that was only when they managed to miraculously coordinate their schedules. They were mates who had been hired by their president at about the same time, so to say.
Benedict threw away the bones of the meat he had just eaten onto the road, peeking at Violet’s face while licking off the oil remaining on his hand. “Hu~n, well, isn’t it fine? Nice work.”
Although their faces were close, Violet stared back at him with her huge orbs without bending backwards.
Benedict flatly thrust a fingertip at her forehead in-between one big eye and another. “But the one who gets to walk you around gotta be me. As your older brother part, I can’t accept my little sister part getting eaten down by an old man. I’m better. ‘Cause I’m young and cool.”
It could be said that someone who had the nerve to say such a thing so imposingly was quite a rare type even amongst humanity.
With an aspect of irritation, Cattleya interjected, “A third party is gonna be telling you this, but Mr. Gilbert is super wonderful, is an adult man and I know Violet’s head-over-heels for him, so you’re the one who’s uncalled-for here!”
“What does ‘head-over-heels’ mean?” Violet immediately reacted to the term she was unused to hearing.
“It’s like being obsessed. Didn’t you say that the major was the only one for you?”
“I did say that, indeed.” Her brows furrowed as if she were troubled, her blue eyes slightly moist. She was most likely “embarrassed”. Perhaps becoming unable to say anything else, Violet wound up turning her face away.
The feeling of affection for that awkward girl, the envy towards her happiness and the complicated emotions from having a friend taken away by a man traveled across Benedict and Cattleya’s minds. Therefore, in order to dismiss it all, the two silently decided to ball their fists, pushing and kicking Violet left and right.
“Shit. Don’t go acting cute. You’re just a battlefield maniac.”
“Really, it pisses me off. You’re as strong as a bear! But you’re adorable.”
Perhaps not feeling any pain, or perhaps trying to figure out how to deal with such a situation, she resigned quietly and accepted the unwarranted violence. As seen from the sidelines, it looked like something close to bullying, but Violet was actually the one with highest combat capacity amongst them. When the physical strength of the three was put together, that sort of thing was no more than playing around.
“Listen, don’t let him touch you carelessly, all right? This is amazing, though. You’re like a fluffy dog. Cattleya, you try touching too.”
“Hey, don’t you go carelessly touching her with those hands either! Even the insolence of getting meat juices on a maiden’s hair has a limit! Stop it!”
“It’s fine, ain’t it? It’s not like I just got outta the toilet.”
“Eh, does that mean... you never wash your hands!? Right? That’s what it is, right? No waaay! Violet, hey, come here. Benedict, don’t you get near us! It’s my turf from beyond this point! I’ll beat the hell out of you for territory violation if you come over!”
As Cattleya swung her legs, enveloped in Suède boots, to draw a line on the ground, Benedict opposed to it in a level as low as the next person, not losing to her. He picked a dead branch from the root of a roadside tree and did the same as she had. “Haah~? Then I’ll make everything beyond this point into my turf! Speaking of which, the way to your beloved president’s head office is behind me, so don’t you go back to it either!”
“Ah~, that’s unfair! It’s. Not. Fair!”
“It’s not unfair~! You’re the one who came up with it first~!”
It was a child-like action for members of society to take. Violet, the youngest one, regarded them with interest as if she were watching a dispute between animals of a new species.
That was a short-lived period of peace before an uproar occurred.
At the same moment, in the same country, within the same city, time flowed peacefully inside the head office of the CH Postal Company, nobody aware of the nightmare that would approach them a few minutes later.
The business firm was erected in an alley away from the main street, projecting itself in the very sense of the word over rows of small shops. It consisted of a spire with a light green, dome-shaped roof and a weathercock on display, a deep green roof that spread out as if to surround said spire, and outer walls made of red bricks that had been sunburned into a tasteful color. The iron plate on the arch-shaped front gate made known the name of the company with letters printed in gold.
Should one open the door, a cheerful-sounding bell would announce the arrival of a customer. Upon coming in, one would soon find the counter, which was the sector where the reception of postal items took place. The building had three floors, with the first being the reception desk, the second being the office and the spire in the third one being the president’s residence.
No matter how far it was from the main street, the building was quite expensive. Its owner – an individual referred by the members of the CH Postal Company as “President” and “Old Man” – was drinking black tea with brandy at a balcony that had an unbroken view of the city.
“I’m so brilliant that it’s scary.”
He was a lady-killer good-looking enough to display self-indulgent behavior. His age was around the thirties. He had droopy grayish blue eyes, red hair grown slightly long, a manly build, and although he was not young, he had soft facial traits that exuded sophisticated simplicity. His appearance seemed to earn the envy and jealousy from other men of the same generation as him. His leather boots shone lustrously without a single stain, polished perhaps out of obsession.
“President Hodgins!”
The one who had yelled into the room was a girl of innocent features. She was the possessor of velvety, evenly cut lavender-gray hair that stopped above her shoulders. She had large eyes, a small head and a petite body. It was still the physique of a young child, but the heterochromatic orbs from behind the glasses she wore bore a stunning suspiciousness that was mysterious even. She was a person who the word “lovely” fit perfectly.
“Please say so after you’ve finished work!”
However, her conduct had presence as the secretary of a self-centered chairman.
Hodgins retorted mildly, “Little Lux, what I need right now isn’t brutal working hours but relaxation time feeling the gentle autumn air and drinking tea.”
“Even if you say that with a nice voice, it sounds like nothing but running away from reality! Please; if you at least put the stamps, I’ll bring you as many cups of tea as you want! Tomorrow is the deadline! We have to clear up most papers today and submit to the concerned parties in lots of places tomorrow! It’s the Flying Letters all over again!”
“You’re already my Miss Secretary through and through. I’m so happy. You used to look like a scared little rabbit when you arrived here, but aren’t you a fine working lady now? This feeling that I was the one who raised you is exceptional, huh?”
“President Hodgins! Please! Take the stamp! If you hold it, I can move you to stamping it... I’ll also read out the documents to you...”
“Then, Little Lux, doesn’t it make no difference if you’re the one doing the stamping?”
“I’d do it if I could! All that’s left is the stuff that demands the president’s confirmation, so just get on with it!”
“That ordering tone with formal language coming from a teenage girl is giving me unbearable creeps... Hm, Little Lux, hey. You don’t look bad with a shirt-blouse and a long flared skirt, but why don’t you try changing your outfit? I think I’d recommend a black apron dress over a puffed sleeve shirt, black tights and red enamel shoes.”
“Please listen to what I say!” The figure that had once been worshiped as a demigoddess at the headquarters of a cultist organization was absent in Lux Sibyl – what was there instead was the figure of a half-crying subordinate attempting to convince her vain superior.
Lux had been working serious and untiringly ever since being brought over by Violet and hired into the CH Postal Company. Perhaps having incorporated a methodical personality, she was now entrusted with even the duty of president’s secretary, yet she always had a hard time with said easygoing president.
The competence that the man named Hodgins had for business was unquestionable, yet his self-amusement principles were extreme and he would not stop fooling around even when having piles of work to do. Keeping his day-by-day in check was Lux’s role. In worse times, she would have to search for him and pick him up at brothels in red-light districts.
“If you don’t put the stamps, the one who will die isn’t you, President, but myself.”
Lux was tired of it.
“No way. I’ll put the stamps. I’ll put them, I’ll put them. Don’t make such a depressed face. Little Lux, you’re too pessimistic. Also, you take everything too literally. I told you that eighty percent of the things I say are random, right? Poise yourself more at ease. Let’s enjoy everything. Even the troublesome stuff.”
“President... you seem like you’d say this even if you had a hole opened in your stomach... I’m jealous.”
“Thanks. I’m the type that grows through getting compliments.”
She had wanted to convey something that was no compliment, yet it did not turn into words as Lux wound up having her attention stolen by something else. Lux’s golden and reddish heterochromatic eyes caught a strange thing in the skies against the beautiful cityscape that was visible from the balcony.
“President Hodgins... Over there, something is...”
At the same time as she spoke, Hodgins forcefully dragged Lux’s body, held her up and jumped to the end of the room. Lux was squeezed tightly against Hodgins’s chest, not allowed to even scream or raise her voice in confusion.
A few seconds thereafter, the sound of an explosion ensued.
“Do you not hear some sort of noise?” Violet’s leveled voice eventually came between Benedict and Cattleya, who were having a scuffle fight. Her blue orbs were looking up at the sky, sighting a black object that passed by in a flash.
And it struck one of the classy buildings among the cityscape of Leiden.
“The head office is under attack!” No sooner than she said so, Violet bolted from the place. She slipped through people standing still with their mouths open, their attention taken away by the explosion sound that had reverberated through the idyllic early afternoon.
“No way, no way! Eeh?! What about the President!?”
“Get on, you idiot.”
Benedict had mounted on his bike before long. After whispering lowly, he swung a hand around Cattleya’s back, all too easily lifted her up, sat her on his knees and simultaneously turned on the engine, taking off.
“Wai—! Doing that all of a sudden is scary! It’s scaryyy!” Cattleya shouted, clinging to Benedict’s neck.
“Move! Move! Y’all are in the way!”
A young woman who was selling flower bouquets with a mobile catering fell on the spot, the horse of her carriage letting out a neigh. Ignoring the situation of the traffic in the street, Benedict rampantly chased after Violet. He gradually got closer to her figure, which had already become the size of a bean grain.
Benedict stretched out his hand. “V!”
Violet had been running at an astonishing speed, but upon hearing Benedict’s voice, she nimbly hopped onto his motorcycle. The two of them, who had a mutual understanding without the invitation of “get on”, exchanged words while paying no mind to the scandalized Cattleya.
“That sound was of Leidenschaftlich style artillery.”
“Did you see the cannonball’s firing position?”
“There is no mistake that it came flying from the west side of the city. Look, smoke is coming out of the head office’s third floor. If we suppose that it was shot from somewhere just as high, we can restrict the location, right?”
“It struck Old Man’s apartment, so there’s too many suspects.”
“How can you be so calm!? The President might’ve died!” Cattleya glared daggers at Benedict and Violet, yet the expressions that two had on were different from normal times. She quieted down without thinking.
“No way we wouldn’t be worried, right...!?” Benedict spoke even for Violet’s part.
The motorcycle that the three of them rode let out a roar while going up the slope.
Caught under a bookshelf, Hodgins was straddled over Lux with his hands so as not to squash her. Lux looked up at him, dumbfounded.
“Little Lux, you can... you can take it slow, but sneak off from under me.”
The glass of the windows had shattered and scattered all over the place. The president’s desk, which was an order-made one designed by a master craftsman, had been smashed to fragments. The carpet had turned into ember and the room was starting to envelope in flames.
“President Hodgins... I-I’m sorry!” Lux crawled out, attempting to somehow lift the shelf with her powerless arms. However, it did not even budge.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Man~, I’d been skipping push-ups lately so this is taking a toll on me... Heave-ho.”
The instant he put on strength and lifted the bookshelf all at once, he rolled away and escaped from being crushed. He was the bearer of a considerable muscle strength.
Hodgins stood up and looked around the room. The look in his eyes was no longer the earlier one of a slacker chairman.
“Sorry; you okay?” Only the gentleness in his voice was the same as always.
“Why are you apologizing, President?”
“‘Cause this was an attack aimed at me, no matter how you think of it. If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t have any excuse to give your parents.”
“I don’t have parents.”
“That’s right. Then, I wouldn’t have any excuse to give you. Now, we gotta check if the other employees are all right...”
“Anyhow, let’s go downstairs; we’ll both burn to death if we stay like this!” Making a snap decision, Lux ran to the stairs that led to the lower floor.
Planning to go down through the balcony’s emergency stairs, Hodgins desperately called out to her, “Little Lux! Wait up!”
However, before Lux flew out the door, it opened automatically. Hodgins saw a brusque arm stretching before his eyes and taking ahold of Lux. She was dragged into the darkness and her frame disappeared.
“Little Lux...?”
By the moment that Lux reappeared before Hodgins, whose lips twitched, there was as a muzzle aimed at her temple. The one who pushed her forward while holding onto her shoulder was a man clad in a completely black suit. Six other men dressed the same way revealed themselves in succession. Hodgins’s gaze gradually became grimmer.
“How do you do, Claudia Hodgins?” The man referred to Hodgins by the name that he made sure not to call himself by. It was the name his parents had come up with while convinced that he was going to be born a girl.
Breaking into a distorted smile, Hodgins replied, “You’re truly one refreshing shitface, Salvatore Ridaudo.”
Salvatore smiled sarcastically as well. His hair was fixed with balm to the point there was not a single disheveled thread. He was the possessor of wood-brown droopy eyes, thick lips and skin as pale as wax.
“So, what is it you wanna do by shooting a cannonball into my office and thrusting a gun at my secretary?”
“My, good job figuring out that it was our doing.”
“I have a rough idea of it, but can’t you tell me… Mr. President of the Salvatore Postal Company? All that comes to me is that my academic background in the Military School was below yours.”
“How modest... What are you, an up-and-coming entrepreneur whose name everyone knows in the mail business nowadays, talking about? It’s very obvious what I’m after, right? The Salvatore Postal Company and the CH Postal Company. Two agencies competing for deployment in Leidenschaftlich. The fact that the other party is a nuisance certainly applies to you too, but I’m the one who’s been in this industry for the longest time. I can’t contain my frustration. Your way of doing things is... Anyway, I want you to obediently come with us. I wish to have a talk at a quiet place. If you do that, we’ll go home without inflicting a single injury on this cute lady and the rest of the employees.”
For someone running a postal firm, he was a disturbing individual. Calling him an underground chief would be more frankly agreeable. The men in all-black under his control did not seem to be respectful individuals either.
“Think you’ll get to live in peace after doing something like this? The military police’s coming over soon.”
“Seems like you have contacts in the military, but I myself have strong connections too. The military police monitoring this area won’t move an inch. I had them promise that they’d pretend not to hear anything the whole day, no matter how much noise we make. Claudia... Excuse me; is it okay to call you by your first name?”
Hodgins gritted his teeth to the point they let out a creak. “Go ahead. It’s the name that my beloved parents gave me.”
“Then, Claudia. If we keep talking so leisurely, we’ll both scorch. I want you to come along with us on your own feet.”
“Got it, I’ll go over there. But leave my secretary here.”
At those words, Salvatore went blank. He cast his gaze at Lux, who – perhaps from too much fear – had tears naturally welling up in her eyes, and broke into a smile that was rather merciful for an enemy.
And then suddenly punched her on the cheek.
His eyes open wide, Hodgins’s expression visibly dyed itself in rage. “You...! You laid your hand on a woman!!”
A man from the back gave her support as she seemed about to fall to her knees.
Side-glancing Hodgins as he shouted angrily, Salvatore wiped off the blood on his fist onto the sleeve of one of his subordinates’ suit. “I loathe women who think things will somehow work out if they cry. Sorry.”
His voice sounded as though he had not an ounce of pangs of conscience.
By the time that the trio had arrived, the people of the neighboring shops were helping put the flames down together with the firefighters.
Seeing that, Violet whispered quietly, “It is almost as if they knew there would be fire, isn’t it?”
Indeed, just as she said, the fire department’s performance was too well-executed. Thanks to it, only the third floor of the CH Postal Company received damage.
“You three! Over here!”
As they turned around upon being called, they found uniform-clad office workers of the CH Postal Company standing outside with burns showing and in a horrible state. A middle-aged man, presumably the oldest of that group, was waving his hand.
“Anthony, everyone, you okay? What’s all this?”
Anthony, the section manager of the reception desk at the CH Postal Company, had genteel facial features. He spoke with a demeanor and manner of talking that matched said features, “Every employee who attended work as of today is fine. However... the President and his secretary Lux have been taken away.”
“No way!” Cattleya let out a cry similar to a scream.
Benedict looked at Violet. She blinked several times. Her long eyelashes swaying widely displayed “shock” amongst her scarce emotions.
Her hand reached out to her brooch and gripped it tightly. “Who... and where... is the culprit...?” she asked in a low voice, still gripping it and not letting go, “Who... and... where?”
Her tone was an absolute zero.
It was so low and cold it went to the point of making whoever listened to it hallucinate that their temperature had dropped for a second. The air about her was bizarre, further enhanced by her usual robotic aspect.
Only one person moved within that freezing atmosphere. “V,” echoed the affectionate nickname by which Benedict alone called her.
Violet turned her head to the side.
“It’s okay.” That was a tone so gentle it was unimaginable coming from Benedict. “I’ll do something about this no matter what.”
Those words were almost like the ones that a true older brother would tell his younger sister.
Violet’s eyelashes once again flapped flutteringly. “I will do it.”
“You can’t. If we’re doing something, we’ll do it all together. Your plans for later gonna be okay?”
“The plans... No problem; Major will understand. Besides, Major would probably order me to rescue President Hodgins and Lux.”
Perhaps unamused by Violet’s attitude in demonstrating unwavering trust, Benedict ruffled her hair roughly. “Ah, that so?”
Her feathery, wavy streaks expanded even more. Unlike earlier, Violet protested with a “please stop” using her normal voice. The instability that had given a glimpse of her former self as a girl soldier was concealed and everyone in the surroundings exhaled relieved sighs.
“Hey, enough; I’m gonna ask about the rest. Anthony’s troubled, ain’t he?”
Having her shin kicked, Violet finally nodded.
Anthony resumed speaking, “The perpetrator is the Salvatore Postal Company. Its president who has the looks of a vampire and his followers dressed in black did this to the office… I tried to notify the military police with a detailed report of the circumstances, but they would not listen. It seems Salvatore has enormous support. I can’t think of anything other than information manipulation.”
Meaning that Hodgins and Lux had been taken by Salvatore and their whereabouts were unknown. It would seem that the employees left behind were first and foremost concentrating themselves on digesting the situation.
“When departing, President Hodgins told us, ‘I leave the rest to you’.”
“I’m so glad! They’re okay for now, huh!” Cattleya patted her own chest and welled up with tears.
“Salvatore’s the place that dispatches those postmen with black uniforms? If I’m not wrong, their head office was in Leiden, yeah? Those guys once went claiming a boundary to delivering territories, so I beat them into a pulp. Could it be… this was my fault?”
“Eh, what? The name sounds like a tongue-twist so I can’t remember just by hearing it one time. Salva… Sal… Salfa…”
“'Salvatore’, Cattleya.”
Imitating Violet, who pronounced it slowly, Cattleya uttered it as well, “'Salvatore’, 'Salvatore’… okay. Gotta be able to say it right. They’re the ones we’re knocking off into hell, after all. Well, when does the blood festival start? Of course, we’ll settle the accounts, right? We’ll go save the president and Lux, right?”
It was a crude statement, yet the people present nodded at Cattleya’s suggestion with an aspect that bore no sense of displacement whatsoever.
“Please pummel them.”
Benedict broke into a villainous smile at Anthony’s request. “Oh. We’ll do that. Old Man will be fine even on his own but we gotta save the midget.” Benedict vigorously hit his own chest with his fist.
Anthony let out a breath of relief at that attitude. “You three, what should we do, then? Should we call over the other employees? The Salvatore Postal Company owns countless branch offices, even abroad. Is this all right?”
Violet said after raising her hand, “We shall seize them simultaneously. In the national offices, there should be a spot by the windows with nothing but the reception desk. The three of us will take it over… However, the priority is to strike the head office first. Let us suppose that the location the two were kidnapped to is where the leader is. Depending on whether the people at work recruited as combatants are available, please notify them that we are seizing our neighbor agency, the Salvatore Postal Company. Hold a transmission for the combatant employees to grasp the entirety of the situation. We will entrust the information convergence… to you, Anthony.”
“Understood, Violet.”
She was the expected of a former warrior. With that, the chain of command was made clear.
Looking at Violet, Benedict asked, “V, ain’t you kinda coming back to being a soldier?”
Violet had on the same composed expression as always, yet the things she said were uncouth.
“I am not. However, counterattack for justifiable motives is permitted even during travels. We are merely going to resolve a quarrel between fellow post offices. The third floor is the one burning, right?”
Violet had a reason for confirming that.
The trio stood in front of a thick iron door inserted unnaturally in the red brick wall at the back of the building. As Benedict squatted on the spot and dug up the ground, a small box covered in dirt appeared within not even a few minutes’ time. Inside it was a bronze key. Once he reverently brought it into the keyhole, the door greeted the visitors while ringing out a rusty sound. They took a built-in lantern and went down the stairs in the thin darkness. Soon, they arrived to their destination.
The basement illuminated by the faint light stored equipment that should not possibly be gathered in an ordinary company. They were firearms, swords, spears, axes, bows, shields and other fighting tools of all kinds. Even if that were the president’s hobby, such assortment of goods was not something an amateur could attain.
“He saw something like this coming and was getting himself ready, huh. He’s got actual self-awareness that people have a grudge against him,” Benedict said as if in admiration.
“Ah~! President got the tonfa that I said I wanted! The whip too!”
“One fist’s more than enough for you, ain’t it? Don’t go taking any more dangerous weapons other than that. V, what’cha picking? We got this opportunity so I’m gonna take the ones I’ve never used.”
“I...” Looking around the hidden weapons of the CH Postal Company, Violet reached a hand out to something wrapped in a tattered rag set against the farthest wall. “I have decided that this will be my weapon. Benedict, Cattleya.” Violet raised the object that was as tall as her with hand movements that did not allow one to perceive its weight. “Let’s go as discreetly as possible.”
The three stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“Impossible, ain’t it? I’m pissed.”
“Impossible, isn’t it? With this group, that is.”
“So that is really the case.”
As the result of a discussion, they arrived at the conclusion that leaving the enemies half-dead without killing anyone was passable.
Salvatore Rinaudo stared down at Claudia Hodgins. The person he detested was currently on an imported bear leather carpet of his personal choice, feeble and with wrists tied.
They were in a room encircled with black furnishings. The fact that said room was decorated with the personality of its owner was apparent one way or another. There were portraits of himself and bookshelves with double glass doors that did not seem to be opened often. There were also butterfly specimens and vases filled to the brim with fresh white flowers. Quiet violin music was playing from a gramophone, but it did not relieve the restless atmosphere in the slightest. Having her cheek punched and swelled, Lux Sibyl was seated on a chair, but one of Salvatore’s underlings had a gun thrust at her head.
Lux was constantly concerned about the outdoors. From the balcony, she could see Hodgins’s office at just the same height in the far distance. Black smoke rising from it, the structure of the CH Postal Company’s headquarters and of that building were awfully similar.
There was one more thing to note about the balcony. It was the artillery that seemed unlikely to have been placed there as an antique.
“Shall I tell you the reason why I despise you?” He stretched his arm as though to embrace Lux, caressing her, who had her right cheek swollen, almost as though soothing a pet cat.
As the cheek that had been hit still throbbed, Lux shuddered as if in pain upon the touch.
“Above all, it’s you yourself. You were born to a well-off merchant family, and used to belong to Leidenschaftlich’s army. Even though you were promoted up to the rank of major, you quit the military immediately after the Great War ended and founded a post office next, succeeding splendidly at it. People like that do exist, huh? The kind that can carry out anything just fine no matter what they do. In most cases, they stomp over others’ efforts with the sole of their shoes. And with a nonchalant face, to boot. I may have all this, but I’m one of the people who face hardships, so I detest those like you.”
“If me being superior is a sin, then go complain to God.”
“My second reason for hating you is that you rebel against the principles and rules that our predecessors established. ‘The CH Postal Company delivers to anywhere’? You make me sick.”
Hodgins shot Salvatore’s hand a blazing glare. “High quality at a low price for the costumers... That’s the basics of business, isn’t it?”
“Won’t you just crush those who can’t do the same if you turn this into a standard?”
“You get tripped up because you sit on your hands like that. Y’know, I just happened to think back when I was a soldier that a post office like this would be great and am simply making it into a reality. Letters that can be sent to any sort of battlefield. Postmen who can deliver them. Auto-Memories Dolls who can come to you if you so wish, even if you live at the heart of a sea of trees. What’s so bad about doing something I like with my own money?”
“There are still other bad things... What’s that building? Isn’t it almost like claiming that you’re going to replace the Salvatore Postal Company? The fact that only the weather face stands high up is also irritating.”
Salvatore’s hand moved from her cheek to her silver hair, which emitted a glossy luster.
“Don’t touch my secretary... Yeah, that’s right, I declared war on you. I’ve known you before getting into the industry. You’re all over the country I protected, doing stuff that doesn’t favor it.”
“What, for example?”
A bundle of hair picked by Salvatore’s fingers flowed in-between them, producing a smooth sound.
“The fact that you’ve been selling weapons behind the face of post office... You were selling national weaponry abroad, weren’t you?”
“We’re a postal company that has gentleness and courtesy as our selling points, so we do deliver anything that people request. However, I don’t recall delivering anything to the North.”
“That’s not the issue. Even if you didn’t sell anything to them when battles were going on, it takes just a bit of thinking to figure that this kind of stuff makes rounds, right? It was so unbearably weird... How come the enemy had weapons made in Leidenschaftlich? How come my comrades were getting shot by the enemy with them and dying...? I finally got to investigate that mystery after the war.”
Lux’s had her hair forcefully pulled and her neck bent backwards. Her scarf was taken off, her collarbone peeking from underneath her blouse.
Salvatore took the gun from his underling and pointed it at her chest. “If you know this much, you also know that part of my proceedings went to the military, don’t you? It’s not something that I alone wished for. Some people from your country, which you’d devoted your life to, merely wanted to increase their retirement pay a little. Isn’t that a commonplace story? Can’t you drop the moralist act? It disgusts me.”
“I’m no moralist—hey... how many times do I have to tell you not to touch...”
“Claudia, it’s not like you have a respectable life style either, is it? You wagered your whole fortune on war gambles and earned a large sum, wasn’t that it? Funds gathered from gambling are a hotbed for underground organizations and black market groups. With those funds, they sell off weapons, drugs and abused women and children. Even if you’re on the side that just milked it out, from the moment you placed a bet, you also made rounds and became someone’s assailant.”
“That’s why I said... I’m no moralist! I did all of it because I wanted to. You and I are both pitch-black at heart. But y’know, my secretary over there is a respectable girl. Didn’t you hear when I told you not to touch my secretary?! If you get anxious unless you’re touching something, just hit me or whatever!”
Perhaps because such statements rubbed him the wrong way, Salvatore did as Hodgins proposed, leaving Lux and kicking Hodgins’s face with his shin. Crimson hair swaying, Hodgins collapsed onto the floor.
Regardless, he grinned. “Thanks; should I take my clothes off while we’re at it? It’d get you excited, right?”
Salvatore grabbed Hodgins’s collar with rage. “How filthy. Your company is your human nature itself. I’m a victim. I want you to give me back the clients, routes and everything that you’ve stolen from me. I think being a soldier suited you better than being a businessman. Lying on the ground like this is fitting of you. Why... I’m just going to have you write your name on a document. Promise not to trespass my routes... It’s hard to do stuff with you loitering around. Lots of stuff, you see.” He let go abruptly, Hodgins’s face banging onto the floor.
“President!” Lux’s tear-mixed voice leaked.
Hodgins immediately raised his head and smiled at Lux. He went as far as winking at her.
Salvatore harshly told his underling to call over the official scrivener who would bear witness to their contract. He most likely intended to crush Hodgins’s post office through leaving behind a legal document with unequal contents.
“Tepid; you’re tepid.” Hodgins’s tongue licked off the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “Compared to back in the battlefields, you really are dull...” As he coughed curt and subtly, his voice reached Salvatore. “My company isn’t just mine.” Hodgins looked out the window. He checked if something was coming and waited for it.
“Salvatore Postal Company identified ahead,” Violet whispered.
Benedict was driving his motorcycle, Cattleya behind him. Holding onto Cattleya’s shoulders, Violet was standing on the edge of the passenger seat. Running through the cityscape in the early afternoon, the motorcycle carried not only three people but also uncovered armament.
“Hey~, there’s a huge tacky cannon in the balcony~.”
“All~ right, I was thinking about forcing our way through the front gate but change of plans. V, go off on that balcony,” Benedict said with a lightheartedness that one would invite another to go shopping with.
“Understood. Cattleya, please give me support.” Violet took into her hands a thick, long cylindrical object that had been placed on the motorcycle’s luggage carrier. It was something that could be called both a rifle and a rocket launcher. She rested it on her shoulder atop the running vehicle and determined her target.
Once Cattleya clung to her legs as to secure her body, Violet shot without mercy. Explosion sounds echoed throughout the city of Leiden for the second time that day.
“Impact confirmed.”
Pigeons fled into the sky, the townspeople darting their eyes about in search for the source of the noise. Meanwhile, the motorcycle that the trio was riding on gradually drew closer to the Salvatore head office.
“Sca~ry! But ama~zing! I also wanna shoot tha~t!” Cattleya shouted in joy upon seeing the balcony destructed.
“Won’t let ya no matter what.”
“You cannot no matter what.”
Benedict and Violet shook their heads in sync. Both comprehended that it would be dangerous to let such a naïve woman hold onto firearm.
“What’s with that~?! I also wanna go wild big time~! Isn’t it okay?!”
“Then, let Cattleya be the first to charge in. Please be contented with that.”
“What’re you deciding on your own? The first at anything’s gotta be me.”
“You follow me from behind. ‘Cause the one who’ll save our captive princess of a president is going to be me. A~hn, wait for me, President! Where are you!?”
“You... As if such a huge dude could be a princess. What kinda princess is that?”
“If you were as tall as the President, you wouldn’t have to wear those heeled shoes, huh.”
“You’re wrong! That’s not why I wear them! It’s because they’re cool! You... Imma make you cry later! I’m dropping by your place today, so get ready for it!”
“Yo... Yo-Yo... You idiot! What’re you saying in front of Violet?!”
Silently listening to the exchange between the two, Violet slowly took from the luggage carrier the handle of the weapon jutting out of the tattered cloth. “Then, I shall take this opportunity and go.”
They had no idea what opportunity she was taking, yet Violet nimbly jumped midair after saying nothing but that. As she landed on the ground, the motorcycle also stopped right in front of the head office with good timing upon scoring an ostentatious drift.
“Here I go, Major.”
The one taken into Violet’s blue eyes was the Salvatore Postal Company – a building that looked exactly like the CH Postal Company. Although it was a weekday, a “closed” sign hung on the door and five postmen clad in black frock coats stood by the entrance smoking cigarettes.
The stunning woman, the man mounted on a motorcycle and the beauty behind him appeared before their eyes. Ashes fell down in lieu of their surprise at the mystery trio.
“Wh-Who’re you?!”
While the men froze on the spot at her exposed unpainted face and moonlight-colored hair, Violet swiftly tore off the tattered cloth wrapped around the weapon in her hands. A battle-axe of a size unfit for swinging around in a city road revealed itself.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am an Auto-Memories Doll from the CH Postal Company; my name is Violet Evergarden.”
The name of the battle-axe wielded by that woman as ominously beautiful as a witch was Witchcraft. It had a silver blade, and the red rain that it dyed itself in from the number of people it had killed was a manifestation of its ill-omened existence.
“Apologies for you are in the middle of work, but could you allow us upstairs? Ever since our company’s president and secretary disappeared into your agency, we have not known of their whereabouts.”
As she held onto it, illuminated by the afternoon sunlight, her frame gave off quite a sense of misplacement.
“If you will not listen to our request, we shall exercise brute force based on the guiding precepts of our company.”
But as she wielded it, her figure looked appropriate. Rather, it was the contrary.
Raising the gigantic battle-axe blithely, Violet pointed the blade at the men. Instead of opening their mouths, the men took pistols out of their coats and pants and aimed them at Violet.
“The guys from the CH Postal Company are here! Don’t let them pass no matter what!”
“Violet!” Cattleya’s scream reverberated through the city roads.
However, the beautiful Auto-Memories Doll moved at the same time as the opponents readied themselves, dealing a preemptive strike in the blink of an eye. “Negotiations broken.”
A single blow from the battle-axe brushed away the postmen. It was an attack that did not cut them and merely struck their vitals using blunt weapon essentials, yet it caused three of the men to hit their heads against the outer wall of their company and collapse.
The remaining two men, who had dodged the appearance and disappearance of the axe, frantically aimed at Violet and pulled the triggers. Without any change in her facial expression, Violet twisted the battle-axe around and repelled the bullets with its blade. Switching hands, she pointed the tip of the handle at the opponents. It produced a ringing noise.
“Please forgive my rudeness.”
The flower bud ornament decorating the tip of the handle flew out together with a long chain. It knocked the two men’s pistols off their hands. She did not give the men, who held their hands down due to the collision, any opening to straighten their postures. This time, Violet rammed the battle-axe’s arm against the surface of the building’s wall and anchored it. While extending the chain and spinning midair, she dealt a flying kick to the face of one of them, made his face into her stepping stone and roundhouse-kicked the man next to him. There was no hesitation or mercy in her series of actions.
“Bu-But I was supposed to be the first one!”
“That was me!”
Indignant, Cattleya took a sack fastened to the luggage carrier, which contained her weapons. After thorough indecision between the tonfa, whip and other armory, the one she had chosen were iron knuckles.
Before anyone noticed, Benedict’s hands were gripping two pistols. He disabled the safety catch with practiced hand movements. “V! Don’t get too serious! If you’re angry, I can get angry for you!”
As if the people inside the Salvatore Postal Company had foreseen that someone would come raid it, postmen peeked out from the windows of the floors above with rifles in position. Bullets from Benedict’s pistols pierced their arms as he spoke, creating a rain of blood splashes.
“If this is the emotion called wrath, I want to rid myself of it quickly. Cattleya.” Violet pointed with her finger at the rocket launcher that had no more remaining ammo to Cattleya, who had put on her iron knuckles.
Agilely grabbing its handle with one hand, Cattleya threw it with heightened rotation speed after drawing it back once with much vigor. “One, two, the~re!”
Together with her adorable shout, the rocket launcher struck the postmen who had turned up in the upstairs floor, breaking through the window glass. Its destructive power was the same as a bullet shell.
The one who had flung it jumped up and down on the spot as if delighted. “Kyah~! I hit them~!”
It was not a deed that an average person, let alone a young woman, could normally manage. She was the possessor of tremendously strong arms.
“As expected of the Stupid Woman – or more like the Stupidly Strong Woman.”
“Shut up, Platform Shoes Man.”
“Ah, you on?”
“What, are you?”
The ringing of the chain on Violet’s battle-axe Witchcraft drowned out the duo’s little quarrel. One of the men screamed and threw himself out the window, falling onto a flowerbed in front of the company.
“Benedict, Cattleya. By the looks of it, the President and Lux are unmistakably inside this building. President Hodgins told me that he imitated Salvatore’s agency when our company’s office was under construction. If that is the case, then the highest position is probably the uppermost floor – the third floor. I am counting on you to follow the procedures.”
The two nodded in reply to Violet’s words.
“Let’s kick their asses at once and go celebrate.”
“We’re bothering the neighbors, after all.”
Before anyone realized, the city had gone quiet.
The Salvatore Postal Company was located in a completely ordinary shopping street in the city of Leiden. However, the passersby had fled within a few minutes, and the shopkeepers of the nearby buildings, as well as the buildings next to those, had closed their shops’ windows – the so-called display windows – and pulled down the iron shutters.
The fast action stemmed from their understanding that the city had become involved in the maelstrom of a fight. It was a particularity of citizens from a country that had long been shutting off invaders ever since its foundation. The people were silently waiting for the conflict to end.
“Well, then, let’s go in.” Violet’s figure as she gave the command with a clear voice was different from usual.
Inside the chairman’s room at the top floor of the Salvatore Postal Company, the scenery visible from the balcony – an autumn sky where cirrocumulus clouds drifted high up and Leiden’s cityscape – had looked like it was inserted in a picture frame. Yet such beauty was something of a few seconds before, and now the artillery enshrined in it had received great damage from a sudden explosion attack, smoke rising from it.
Once ornamented with delicate sculptures, the rails were crumbling, and the balcony was in a state where one could fall straight to the ground if they put a foot on it. If the artillery were loaded with ammo, it was most likely not the only thing that would have been destroyed.
In that situation of settled chaos, Salvatore Rinaudo’s pale face went even paler and his mouth fell open as he spaced out, while Claudia Hodgins bit the inside of his cheeks to kill off his own laughter and trembled in opposition.
“What have they done?”
“Ahah—AHAHAHAHAH! Aah, I can’t anymore! Can’t hold back! This is the best!” Hodgins convulsed with laughter upon looking at Salvatore’s face. “What you so surprised about, Salvatore? Isn’t that what you did to us? Well, but... you wouldn’t think we’d do the exact same thing as you, huh! There’s no helping it! Ahahahah!”
Even Lux, who had all along been shaking with a darkened face, lit up with a sparkle of hope and laughed a little.
“Is this the work of you people from the CH Postal Company?”
“Who else is there? Our corporate philosophy is ‘an eye for an eye’.” Hodgins was in such a good mood that he seemed like he could break into song right then.
A few of Salvatore’s underlings went down to the floors below. Gunshots and screams soon echoed again. The fact that the screams had come from Salvatore’s subordinates increased his anxiety and impatience.
“They’re doing this even though you might be injured... What kind of training do you use on them?”
“Basically a principle of liberalism. Most of the personnel I gathered back when I was building my company happen to be guys with nowhere to go that I coaxed and took in... Don’t know if my preferences are biased, but it turned out that lots of them were absurdly strong fellows. The ones who’re here right now are definitely two of the Auto-Memories Dolls that were off-duty and... probably a postman that was scheduled to return to town today. They’re elite of the finest kind even among us. Salvatore, since it’s you, weren’t you supposed to investigate me through and through?”
“Your company’s employees are former soldiers and mercenaries, right? If that’s the case, so are our postmen...”
“They aren’t just former soldiers and mercenaries. Benedict is an ex-mercenary who had the nickname of ‘Battle-Hungry Freak’ in another continent. Cattleya was a boxer. She has arms so strong that no one can beat her by using force. And that beautiful girl whose name you can even say everyone knows in the Auto-Memories Doll business... my adorable Little Violet, used to be Leidenschaftlich’s most powerful female soldier. It’s in the past, though.” Hodgins smiled at Lux. “By the way, my secretary is a former demigoddess.”
“‘Leidenschaftlich’s most powerful female soldier’?”
“Didn’t your patrons tell you anything? Well, she was treated as a secret in a way, so it isn’t impossible for civilians not to know about her. The military went as far as creating a troop just for her and made her work for them, but they never gave her recognition or ranks. She didn’t have a surname back then and it seems people just called her ‘Violet’. My friend found and raised her... She was the leading figure of the Great War in the shadows.”
Salvatore reminisced to the photos of Hodgins’s employees whom he had made his underlings investigate. One that had been engraved in his mind remarkably vividly was a beautiful woman. She was a girl of exquisite, suave facial features. Even if one declared her to have been the strongest female soldier, nobody could believe it right away.
“How did you make a woman like that yours?!”
“She’s not mine.” Hodgins smirked defiantly. “And she doesn’t belong to the military anymore either. From the very start, she... Let’s stop here; telling this story to you is a waste.”
The battle’s tune gradually grew closer to the top floor. By the looks of it, the fuss was escalating to a direction where even angry yelling was ensuing. It seemed the owner of the voice was a young woman. Even amidst gunshots, the conversation between those two people did not cut short.
Hodgins’s smirk deepened, Salvatore’s face becoming grim.
“You guys, give polite greetings when coming in.”
Salvatore’s underlings readied their guns all at once. The tension reached its peak, everyone inside the room paying attention to the door. However, it was time.
“Lux, please cover your eyes,” a beautiful voice that did not match such a place, which had converted into a battlefield, could be heard from behind the staff members.
A black lump jumped from the balcony. It looked like a beast at first. A stunning and terrifying beast that moved its limbs gracefully and trampled over its enemies.
No matter how much the “hunters” who had taken notice of the beast’s existence made bullets rain on it, its feet did not halt by a single inch as it bared its fangs. It steadfastly ascertained the battlefield even as it danced in the air, wielding its weapon with astonishing precision, bringing everyone to the ground.
“A-Aaaah!!”
The arm released from the battle-axe pierced and gouged the shoulder of the man who had been thrusting a gun at Lux. The beast swung the battle-axe and stationed Hodgins and Lux to behind itself.
Salvatore took a few steps back, and exactly two factions stood in position separated at his right and left sides.
“Major Hodgins, we apologize for the wait.”
“I’m always telling you that it’s ‘President’, aren’t I, Little Violet?”
The beast – rather, the woman – shot a cold glance at the one that she perceived as the enemy.
“You—What are you?” Salvatore vented his confusion at the sudden intruder who held onto the completely red battle-axe.
She had white and smooth skin like that of porcelain dolls. Her blue eyes were as glass balls. Her hair of gold seemed to waft with a sweet fragrance. The girl was beautiful to a rare extent, but that was not the only thing that made one’s eyes widen at her.
A living legend that Salvatore did not know was standing there.
“Violet.”
The loveliness he had seen in the picture was concealed by a shadow, a turbulent atmosphere similar to madness surrounding her instead. An air of lethargic strategizing as to which of them would move first flowed by, but the stagnancy soon shattered.
“PRESIDENT———! LUX——!”
“OLD MAN!”
Callings could be heard in unison from outside the room. The massive door was then broken through as if it were as thin a paper sheet. The one who stepped onto the door as it collapsed with a tremor and entered the room while holding by the collar an enemy that she had defeated with her silver iron knuckles was Cattleya.
“Aa~hn! You two~! Found yoou!” She tossed the prey that she had nearly killed toward Salvatore and his group. Being able to fling a human being as if they were an object meant her arms were simply that great as blunt weapons.
Following her, a gun barrel appeared first, and after bullet sounds ensued, Benedict revealed himself. It was a shot meant for delivering the finishing blow to Cattleya’s offensive.
Shooting the legs of all the men in black except Salvatore, Benedict clicked his tongue at the gruesome scene inside the room. “What’s this? Hasn’t V eaten out most of them?” Together with a sigh, he threw away the gun he had been holding, taking out another one. “Old Man~, we’ve left only this important-looking old dude~.”
“Lux! Violet is protecting you, right? President! You’re tied up!” Cattleya ran towards Hodgins, who lay on the floor. Without cutting them with a knife, she ripped off the ropes that had been restricting him using the iron knuckles and embraced him boldly.
Hodgins patted her back with taps and hugged her lightly. “Sorry, Cattleya. Didn’t my adorable young lady get hurt?”
“I didn’t!”
“Atta girl.” Hodgins left a kiss on Cattleya’s forehead with a pop.
Cattleya’s cheeks flushed red and she turned her back to him looking embarrassed, stamping her feet onto her happiness on the spot.
Benedict tore Cattleya away from Hodgins and stood between them. Contrary to being angry, he aggressively hit Hodgins from face to torso, confirming that the latter was alive.
“Ouch, ouch, what’s this? A new way of expressing love?”
“You’re fine, huh, Captive Princess?”
“You were worried about me, Darling?” Hodgins merely replied with frivolous talk to Benedict’s cynicism, looking delighted.
Briefly biting his lip, Benedict faced the ground. Hodgins had a feeling that the eyes Benedict had directed at him before casting them downward were moist, and was inwardly surprised.
——Huh, could it be he really was worried?
“Hey, Darling. Benedict.”
His sandy-blond hair rubbed into a mess, Benedict finally resisted energetically as if to say, “Quit it”. Nothing that resembled tears could be seen in his eyes anymore.
“Who’s that ‘Darling’, Old Man...?!”
“Could it be you were pretty worried about me?”
He was fully convinced that Benedict would deny it.
“I was. Don’t make me.” Yet the latter directed his sky-blue eyes straight at him and said, “I was hella worried. Don’t ever make me worry again no matter what!”
As it was much too blunt, after Hodgins was taken aback, his face slowly turned red. He had anticipated they would come save him, but right now was his first time learning he was cherished to that extent.
“Ah... that so? S-Sorry, okay?”
“Damn... Don’t go getting kidnapped when you’ve got that huge body! Is Captive Princess #2 all good?”
“Fairly. Little Lux needs first-aid...!”
Violet undid Lux’s binding. The latter’s body, which had been trembling in fear, and the sound of her heartbeats, which had grown noisy, were regaining their calm.
“Thank you, Violet.” Enduring the pain in her cheek, Lux smiled at the friend who had come for her rescue. “I thought you were some noble prince.”
Violet furrowed her eyebrows as if troubled. She then resentfully held Lux’s hands and helped her up. “My apologies for not being able to protect you. But I will not let you go through terrifying times anymore.” Just like a knight, she made Lux retreat to behind her.
Albeit gripping his gun, Salvatore remained unable to fire a single shot at the mere three people who had taken control of his company. As he shifted his gaze to the side, he could see his underlings collapsed and moaning in the open corridor. “There was supposed to be... fifty of them,” once he opened his mouth, his voice shook.
“Ah? Your minions? Even if the numbers are big, it’s no use if the quality sucks. Actually, were there that many of them? I was counting, but... Stupid Woman, how many did you take down?”
“Stupid Benedict! Erm... ten. I probably beat up about ten people.”
“I got twenty. The rest was V, huh?”
“I simply came here by climbing the outer walls, so other than the beginning and now...”
“Didn’t anyone run away? The math ain’t adding up.”
They were chatting carefreely, yet the contents of the conversation were the number of people they had defeated. In addition, there was an overwhelming difference in combat power, for they were unharmed and not even their clothes had scratches. That was also a difference in corporation power.
Biting his lip as if in frustration, Salvatore barked at Hodgins, “They came late, and that’s why you’ve lost! I already had you write the contract! The official scrivener went to submit the contract we exchanged to the government office so that it’d serve as a demonstration of formal legitimacy. It’s probably already been accepted... Take your leave as you please. But I’m billing you for the internal damage caused by your subordinates and the injuries they inflicted on mine!”
Salvatore had intended to wreak both psychological and bodily pain on Hodgins for a while, instilling terror on him and making him lose the will to fight back, but now he had given up on it. What he desired most – the unequal contract – was in a state of legal effectiveness. As long as he had it, regardless of what anyone could say, the fact that Salvatore had the advantage would not change.
“Salvatore Rinaudo. What’re you on about?” However, Hodgins had a facial expression that denounced he was helplessly puzzled.
“As I said, your company can no longer enter our routes...”
“So?”
“No matter how much brute force we used, that’s nothing in the face of a validated official document!”
“Again... so what? The papers were indeed filed. Seems like they also were submitted before help came. What of it?” Claudia Hodgins, president of the CH Postal Company and former major from Leidenschaftlich’s army, generally had an easygoing personality, as well as a cheerful and frivolous attitude. However, he was now glaring at Salvatore without breaking into a smile, letting a glint shine sharply in his eyes. “Isn’t it a matter that’ll be solved if we crush down your company?” He rolled up his shirt’s sleeves and took off a wristwatch that one could tell was a high-grade product. Next, he squeezed the strap with his fingers so that the watch’s case would be on his knuckles.
Anybody who was used to fighting knew. If one was battling without a weapon, the object called wristwatch was an overly useful thing.
“Salvatore, if only you hadn’t hit Lux, I wouldn’t be this angry.”
Salvatore fired at Hodgins when the latter swung up his hand, yet it did not even graze him. Oddly enough, the bullet that had failed to kill a person shot through the middle of the forehead of Salvatore’s portrait sitting inside the room.
“S-Sto...” The word that Salvatore uttered were the end of it.
The fist swung by a 194cm-tall man who weighted 85kg struck into Salvatore’s face with a wind-cutting sound. As his nose was broken without mercy, Salvatore shed a large amount of blood. A few of his teeth tumbled onto the high-quality carpet as well. He had convulsions for a moment, but eventually became completely motionless.
“Did you kill him?”
At Benedict’s question, Hodgins put his ear against Salvatore’s chest, shaking his head after simply checking the other’s heartbeat. “He’s alive. Let’s leave him be.” By the instant he turned around, Hodgins had gone back to his usual self. “Everyone, you did well. I’m so happy; my employees sure are the best. And I’m also the best for having chosen you!” Hodgins sang praises gesturing exaggeratedly, embracing the employees who had come for his aid all at once. He then came closer to Lux’s side, planting a kiss on the cheek that had not been punched. “I’ve made you go through a lot, huh. I’m really sorry, Little Lux.”
“No, I’m the president’s secretary, after all.”
Seeing as she did not appear too bashful, that sort of kiss was likely not a rare action. As the thread of tension broke, Lux crumbled and shed large tears. Hodgins frantically apologized again.
“That’s not it... I’m frustrated... It’d be great if I were like everyone else, and also had strength to protect the president. If I hadn’t been taken hostage, things wouldn’t have turned out like...”
Cattleya gently caressed Lux’s arching back as she was unable to stop crying. “What’re you saying? Lux, you have it good exactly because you’re a normal fragile girl. Ah, but it’s not like I’m not normal either. I’m strong and pretty, but I’m a super normal girl...”
“Cattleya, what you say is inconsistent.” Violet handed Lux a silk handkerchief.
Perhaps due to their heights being about the same, despite their faces not resembling one another and their body types being different, the figure of the tree as they nestled close to each other strangely made them look like sisters.
“Seeing girls huddling together is kinda nice, right, Benedict?”
“Old Man, just hurry and do something about this place.”
“Should we huddle too? Shall we?”
“Don’t play around and give the instructions!”
As Benedict dealt him a strong lateral kick to the rear, Hodgins ceased joking. “Eeh~, then, all dismissed...! That’s what I’d like to do but I have a request. Anyone who doesn’t have any plans for later, please help me destroy Salvatore’s company!”
“He~y, Old Man.”
“What is it, Mr. Benedict?”
“You haven’t checked things out so you don’t know what’s been made of it, but we left the international offices to the rest of the fighter staff. The guys who stayed at the main office contacted them. Since it’s those fellows... they’ll take them out without worries.”
“Amazing! But we don’t have fighter staff! It’s not like I hired you with that intention! Well, since there have to be people who can go into battlefields, I didn’t not have that intention, but...”
“From the very start, that was our purpose, President Hodgins. So that there will not be such happenings after this, we believed that laying waste to everything and thoroughly annihilating them was a good plan.”
“Scary, scary. Your expression is getting scary too, Little Violet. Smile! It’s ruining your cute face!”
“President~! I want you to buy me a new choker after we’re done. Look~! The pearls on it got torn off... It was my favorite too.”
“Okay, Cattleya. Be it chokers, clothes or anything, this uncle will buy it for you!”
“Hum... President. What should I do?” the non-fighting staff member Lux tightly clutched her skirt, looking nervous.
“Little Lux, let’s go back to the head office. I’ll have you be treated there too. It’s all right; everyone in the head office contacted the other employees, so there should be people gathering there. It’s safer than you coming with us. Benedict, take Little Lux to the head office, and then regroup.”
“Roger; leave some for me to mess with too.”
“We aren’t sharing cake slices... Now, Little Violet and Cattleya are going with me to crush the branch offices just like this. Let’s decide on the rules for one. No hitting girls. Hitting bastards is fine.”
“Understood.”
“‘Ka~y.”
The members of the CH Postal Company continued their strategy meeting without paying mind to the people that they had defeated lying on the floor. When they were done at last, they exited the building while making so that those of Salvatore’s postmen who had stood up once again would be beyond recovery.
Lighting a cigarette, Hodgins started walking with it in his mouth, and everyone followed him as well.
On that day, within Leidenschaftlich, gunshots echoed throughout several areas of the capital Leiden, yet no one attempted to keep them under control. Additionally, the military police did not make a move regardless of how many reports it received.
The nocturnal darkness deepened late into the night.
The lights were brightly lit in a bar at the corner of a business district. “Fully booked for the day,” said the clumsy letters on a paper pinned to the menu board in front of the shop. The figure of a seductive female dancer was drawn on said board. By the looks of it, that was a place where people enjoyed shows along with their meals.
The voices of people laughing pleasantly and lively music could be heard leaking from inside the bar. It seemed to be the feast of some company. The men and women were at a one-one ratio. Their ages varied and all of them differed in skin, hair and eye colors.
Even amongst them, there was an attention-catching few.
A young man was displaying splendid steps on a table with heeled boots that looked like womenswear. The dancers swayed their bodies together with him and danced purely as they pleased.
On another table, a beautiful woman was smiling while arm-wrestling with a man of fiendish facial features and plentiful muscles. Seeing as she twisted his arm in a matter of seconds, it could be that he let her win on purpose. However, the man who had lost rubbed his seemingly hurt arm with a strangely believable face.
A silver-haired young girl with a big gauze on her cheek was playing a card game with a blonde person of terribly tattered appearance. It was most likely poker. She looked troubled for not being able to read the other’s expression. While everyone else was emptying bottles of alcohol, only the two of them were making cups of tea into their nighttime company. Each was fixated with their own victory, playing in earnest.
“Ah~! I won~! I won enough to buy a kinda nice pair of shoes! Ah, Lux, aren’t those winning cards?”
“Women who can dance sure are great. V, you suck at playing this, don’t you?”
Benedict, who had had enough of dancing, and Cattleya, who had grown tired of arm wresting, came to sit at the peaceful table as if to intrude on it.
Lux put the cards that she had been hiding up to her lips on the table. “Want to quit poker, Violet?”
“That is right. The cards in our hands have been busted by a third party, after all.”
They did not have the will to get angry. If anything, Lux was so happy for being able to return to that trifling daily life with her companions that she wound up laughing. Perhaps due to the spot where she had been hit aching when she laughed, she arched her back with an “ow, ow, ow”.
“Are you okay? Is it not better for you to rest already...?”
“Yu~p, but I think it’s safer to be with everyone for the day... President Hodgins is here too so I can’t go home.”
Cattleya quickly reacted and looked at Lux’s direction with momentum. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve decided that I’ll be with the President today. See, it’s because the President’s home was in the company’s top floor. We have nowhere to sleep tonight, right? I also had that experience with being kidnapped... He was worried and got me a room at a hotel in the city. It seems President Hodgins will also be staying in it for a while. Until this mess is over, I’ll also be working from there. We’re going together today, so I have to wait for him.”
While Violet replied agreeably with a, “That is reassuring”, Cattleya became beet-red. One could tell from her face what she was imagining. She grabbed Lux’s arm and shook her violently. “You! Do you get what you’re saying?”
“E-Eeh? Our rooms are separated, y’know?”
“Cattleya, Lux is injured.”
“Not a chance. Dunno how many years it’ll last, but not even he is that shameless.”
“Hey! Don’t meddle into a girls’ talk!”
“Ah, you’ve said it. Then don’t barge into when I’m talking with the Old Man no matter what.”
Since another fight had decidedly began, as an accustomed form of coping, Violet and Lux left the two and started their conversation afresh.
“Speaking of which... Violet, are you okay? You’re dressed pretty cutely today... Could it be you were going to meet up with that person... with Mr. Major?”
The moment she received such question was exactly when Violet’s gaze had fixed on the bar’s entrance. “I am fine.”
Someone was heading her way.
Perhaps due to having come in a hurry, said person was out of breath. His sweat-dampened forehead was a proof of the efforts he had been spending until arriving there. He was caught by Hodgins and came to a halt, but even so, he aimed at and went toward her as fast as possible.
That person had soon spotted Violet from the bar’s entrance, and Violet had frozen in place the instant he had arrived as well. It was almost as if there were gravity between them that drew one to the other.
Violet stood up naturally and rushed to him.
——Ah, Violet.
Lux could tell.
——I see, so that’s how it is.
Anyone who was close by would be able to tell.
——The two of you are already like that.
After all, it was as though the air about her had changed completely the moment he had appeared.
“Colonel.”
The one standing there was Colonel Gilbert Bougainvillea from Leidenschaftlich’s army. Perhaps because he was on an off day, he wore only a jacket of fine tailoring and a shirt. Inquisitive stares from the people making a ruckus in the bar fell upon him all at once.
“Violet.”
After all, he was a man rumored within the company for moving the army in order to protect Violet. His existence was made known during the hijacking incident of the Intercontinental train, after which a year had passed not too long before. Of course, that was a story only told internally and Hodgins was publicly regarded as the main leader of such strategy.
The members of the postal company who had gathered up to save her had seen in person the man who came running while carrying her princess style. Back then, they had also witnessed Benedict being entrusted with Violet, his mouth open as if he had grown senile.
“Colonel, my apologies... I ended up breaking our arrangement.”
Her cottony hair was ruined. The outfit chosen for her and that her body was clad in had become like ragged cloths. Everything she had prepared for him had been reduced to misery today.
Nevertheless, seeing her dressed-up caused Gilbert’s heart to beat louder.
“You...”
“You look beautiful” was what he had started to say, but upon noticing a stare of pressuring quality to a fierce extent from the side, he trailed off.
Benedict seemed extremely unamused. He clicked his tongue as their eyes met.
“Anything the matter...?”
“Not really. There any law that says I can’t look at the bastard who snoops into V’s general area every once in a blue moon ever since that incident like he’s a rare sight?”
“You helped me out holding onto Violet back then. I’m grateful... And, I don’t know about any such law, but if it’s about putting up a watchdog act, I’m the one on top.”
Something like an electric shockwave ran between the two of them. Benedict remained not toning down his distrust regarding Gilbert until now, peeved by that man who seemed like he could become a love rival for Benedict’s significant other had he been in the same workplace as them.
“This was the curtain rise of their muddled battle!” just as the two had opened their mouths again, Hodgins cut in with a foolish commentary.
Silence. The two simultaneously glared at Hodgins as if looking at something deplorable.
Hodgins himself broke Gilbert and Benedict apart, coming in between them, putting his arms around each and laughing stridently, “Don’t fight for me! Man~, I wanted to try saying this once.”
“Shut up, Old Man!”
“Stay away, Hodgins. You’re reeking of booze.”
It was a conversation with a magnificent explosive power. By the looks of it, Gilbert and Benedict did not seem like they would get along, but their attitude towards Hodgins was similar.
“Old Man, tomorrow will be terrible for you if you drink too much. You’re at that age, aren’t you?”
“Darling... you’re saying that because you’re worried about me, right?”
“Hey, stop. Stop. I’m not a woman.”
As Benedict stepped away from Hodgins, who was attempting to give him a kiss, Gilbert and Violet were at last able to lock eyes with each other again. Violet had a face that denounced she had gone through a hellish time.
“Any injuries?”
“Minor ones. The same level as scratching a knee.”
“That’s good...” He was truly saying so from the bottom of his heart. Seeing Cattleya and Lux anxiously observing the two of them, Gilbert spoke further, “You too, any injuries? Aah... you need a medic.”
“No, no, I’m okay.”
Lux had already received treatment, yet it seemed like her wound might open the next day.
Perhaps always carrying it in his person, Gilbert took a fountain pen and small notebook from his jacket’s inner pocket, handing her a paper sheet that contained a certain address within Leiden. “This is the clinic where my home doctor is. You don’t need to pay if you give my name, so go there another day. You’ll probably need painkillers for a while. Even in the hotel you’re staying at, please give my name to the hotelman if you need anything. We’re on friendly terms, so he’ll treat you well.”
Lux acted uncertain when accepting the paper. “Ah. Thank you very much. You’re very generous... Could it be... that the hotel reservation... Mr. Bougainvillea, erm... Colonel Bougainvillea, was made by you?”
After glancing at Hodgins, who was entangling himself with Benedict, Gilbert nodded. “That thing asked me for it. I can’t say this aloud but I’ve also disposed of... the documents submitted to the government office in the name of your company. When I use my influence in places outside of my jurisdiction... I end up losing one card that I could otherwise use in the event of an emergency, but...” Perhaps as if remembering something, he furrowed his brows a little and chuckled. “Hodgins took care of Violet. I also won’t spare any efforts for you all in case something happens. If there’s any worrisome matter, it can even be through Violet, but do tell me.”
“Y-Yes.”
Cattleya and Lux mutely let their cheeks dye pink. Was there any girl whose heart would not throb at Gilbert as he displayed adult-man-like reliance in a different way from Hodgins?
“Colonel, you’re so cool.”
“Colonel, you are wonderful.”
No, there was not.
For whatever reason, the two had their fingers interlaced in front of their chests and were striking the same pose.
Gilbert replied levelly, “You aren’t my subordinates so you don’t need to refer to me by my rank.”
Violet pulled the hem of Gilbert’s jacket ever so lightly. “Colonel, hum... would you like to sit down? You must be tired.”
“Aah, no. I’m sorry but I’m taking my leave. You too, Violet. The two are at the Bougainvillea house and we’re making them worry. I already contacted them to say I’d bring you back, so come along. It stopped by a place a little far away, but I have a carriage ready, so let’s walk there. Miss Lux. You... were together with Hodgins for today, right? Miss Cattleya, what about you? We can send you home if necessary.”
“Y-You know my name?! Mine?!”
“Of course; I heard it from Violet. So, what will you do?”
Perhaps due to extreme happiness at that, Cattleya slapped Violet’s back with quite strong vigor countless times, making merry. “I’m fine! I’ll be here with everyone until morning today!”
“It’s probably better if you’re in big numbers. Well, my apologies since we’re in the middle of a pleasant talk, but I’m taking her along. Thank you... for always being so close to Violet. Let’s meet again somewhere else. Please let me at least treat you to a meal.” Gilbert all too naturally took off his jacket and placed it over Violet’s shoulders. He began escorting her away just like that.
“Ah! Bastard! Hold on! V is my little sister part!”
“Everyone, good night. Benedict too.”
“Wait! V~! Hey—Old Man!”
Binding Benedict’s arms behind his back, Hodgins sent Violet a wink. It was true that he was drunk, but his tactic was probably to keep Benedict away from Gilbert. He might have been paying for the sin of making the two of them miss out on the time they had to spend with each other because of his kidnapping.
Hodgins and Gilbert merely exchanged short goodbyes such as, “I’ll call” and, “See you”.
“Benedict’s had an overwhelming defeat, huh.”
“Old Man!”
“Man, he’s rivaling you... but he’s also not.”
The two young women left behind spoke while still staring at the bar’s entrance.
“To be honest, the President told me a lot about Violet’s past after that incident, and I didn’t not wonder if someone like him was okay for her... but, when you meet him, y’know...”
“Yup, its different when you get to meet him, right?”
“It’s because he really did cherish her that he made many mistakes, did his best to take back a lot of things, and now they’re like this, huh,” Lux whispered, deep in thought.
Treading through an autumn night in which the nocturnal winds were gelid robbed the two a little of the body heat provided by the warm interior of the bar. Violet, who Gilbert had put his jacket over, looked at him with only his shirt on as if to question him.
He soon noticed her gaze and their eyes met. He then smiled at her. “Aren’t you cold?”
Just from him simply throwing those words at her, as Violet was still unused to it, her heart raced. “No; Major, what about you?”
The times that the two of them met up were still at a point where they could be counted with one hand, and during such instances, the restraint brought about by his long absence would manifest itself in the form of agitation. From the perspective of others, that could almost not be perceived. After all, her facial expressions were generally emotionless.
“I’m fine. I’ve run around and sweated a lot today, so I’m still warm.”
“My apologies, Colonel.”
“It’s nothing to apologize for. I did that because I wanted to. Violet. It was also for Hodgins’s sake.”
“All right, Colonel.”
“Let’s walk a little slower. Once we get on the carriage, the way home will last a blink of eye.”
“Is that bad...?”
The one who had made the request was Gilbert, and the words Violet was about to say wound up dying out before they could take form. That was because he sweetly added, “I don’t have enough time with you”.
“All right, Major.”
Her eyes spoke more eloquently than her expressionless self. Violet’s blue orbs were glued to Gilbert’s emerald ones.
“I want to chat a little too. Is everything okay with that young man called Benedict?”
“By that, you mean...?”
“He seems to favor you.”
“He has another woman that he fancies. It seems they are in a relationship, and they themselves are hiding it but everyone around them knows.”
“That so?”
“Yes, he is... in an older brother-like... position regarding... my person, he told me.”
“Told you? That man?”
Their eye and hair colors were certainly similar, and the man could be said to be an androgynous beauty, but his speech and conduct were much too different from Violet’s.
“He himself was saying so.”
“Aah, he indeed called you his ‘little sister part’... Should I interpret that as him showing affection for you...? But it doesn’t look like we will get along very well.”
“Is that so?”
“It will probably be difficult.”
As Violet had heard the story of Hodgins and Gilbert’s past, she estimated that such assumption would be disproved. Gilbert and Hodgins were also a duo that one would not think got along well.
“It seems he’ll get in the way when I’m with you.”
Since Gilbert made a face as if he had swallowed a bitter-tasting bug, Violet did not voice her opinion in the end. “Major.”
“What is it?” As Violet called him, the middle of his brows immediately softened.
“If you had managed to meet with me as planned today, where did you intend to go?”
“Aah, I had actually made an arrangement for us to go horse-riding.”
“Horses.”
“You can ride army horses, and I think long rides aren’t bad if it’s on fine autumn weather days... Did you not like it?”
“Colonel, there is nothing that I dislike if I am in your company.”
“That answer makes me happy, but I do believe I want to learn about your tastes little by little. Kukuh.”
As Gilbert suddenly laughed aloud, Violet tilted her neck. “Is something the matter?”
“You... probably haven’t noticed it, but you’ve been mixing up ‘Major’ and ‘Colonel’ when referring to me.”
As he had been promoted from major to lieutenant-colonel and from lieutenant-colonel to colonel, it could be said that referring to Gilbert with a lower rank was terribly inappropriate.
Violet corrected her posture and apologized again, “I... am sorry. My apologies, Colonel.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m not angry... Ever since you were little, you used to call me that. The first word I heard from you was this one, too. I’m saying that if you can’t get used to it, I don’t mind the ‘Major’.”
“‘Colonel’... Colonel, I will not mistake it anymore.”
Her figure as she attempted to memorize it, in order not to forget it, was lovably stubborn. Gilbert caught a glimpse of her past self from that immature aspect of hers.
At the beginning, the two of them had had an inept exchange. Almost like how children would do it, they had told each other their names.
“Ma... jor.”
“Can you understand what I’m saying, Violet?”
“Major.”
After learning words and coming to know discipline, she had become his weapon.
“If that is Major’s order...”
“It’s not an order...”
“If... it is your desire...”
He had wound up loving the girl-weapon.
“Major’s eyes are here.”
“I wonder... what this is called.”
It had been a one-sided love.
“I will become your ‘shield’ and ‘weapon’.”
“I shall protect you.”
“Please do not ever doubt this. I am your ‘asset’.”
Even so, he had loved her.
“I love you!”
“I don’t want to let you die! Violet!”
“I love you, Violet.”
The girl-weapon had wept that she did not understand what she had been bestowed with.
“What is... ‘love’?”
No one had taught her about it.
“What is... ‘love’? What is... ‘love’? What is ‘love’?”
“I do not understand, Major...”
She had also not understood why he had said such a thing to her.
“What is... ‘love’?”
She had searched for the meaning of those words and for him, who had disappeared, encountering them by chance at last.
And so, they had reached the present time.
“Violet.” Gilbert took her artificial fingertips as she stood still.
Her index finger made screeching sounds.
“Since we’re at it, won’t you call me by my name?” He pointed her finger at himself.
The fingertips that used to be soft and have body temperature in the past did not anymore. The same applied to one of Gilbert’s arms.
“I am Gilbert. Gilbert Bougainvillea.” He pointed at Violet next. “You are Violet. Violet Evergarden.” He moved the finger both ways, saying, “Gilbert, Violet... Gilbert, Violet.”
The two who had ended up with mechanical part had grown and changed. They were not parent and child originally. Not siblings, either. They had also ceased being superior and subordinate.
“Lord Gilbert.”
At Violet’s predictable response, Gilbert smiled bitterly. “The ‘lord’ part... isn’t necessary.”
He had supposedly spoken gently, yet Violet showed him an aspect of disconcertment. “My apologies... Have you... come to hate me...?”
“No. I don’t know how to feel anything but affection towards you... It appears that...” while thinking that it was also valid for himself, Gilbert stated, “hum... you become insecure about it every now and then, but I’ll never hate you.”
“How come?” Violet asked.
How great would it be if he were able to show the insides of his heart to her? Presenting with a form that “this is love” would be so simple. However, it was due to not being able to do such a thing that people uttered words to proffer their love.
“Because I love you most.”
Violet started searching for that term within the sea of words embedded inside her. “‘Love... most’...” As they rolled out of her tongue, what appalling yet passionate words those were.
There was no other sentence more fitting of Gilbert Bougainvillea.
“Love me... most?”
“I have eyes for nobody but you. You’re the only one I’m fond of.”
“That is... to love most?”
“I will hold you dear for eternity, and continue to love you.”
She did not ask “That is... to love most?” a second time. Violet’s cheeks were rose-dusted, her heart started palpitating to the point of aching, and her field of vision blurred. She was unable to look at Gilbert’s face. Unwittingly, she cast her head down, yet he wound up peering at it. The distance between their faces was just about enough for them to kiss.
It was currently nighttime and the two of them were alone in that place, so whatever they did, no one would be looking. Maybe they could manage to keep it a secret even from God.
“I had a phase of... liking you... then I fell in love with you, and now, it turns out I love you the most. Do you understand?”
“Does it never diminish?”
“The affection?”
“The love.”
“I wonder. But I don’t want that to happen and will probably reconfirm whether I do love you numerous times, so it’ll likely intensify, not decrease. You fill me up with it.”
“With love?”
“Yes. The reason why I believe I love you is because you granted me that feeling.”
Violet Evergarden, who had been learning and copying from him – from people –, was able to take in the meaning of those words.
“I do that to you, Major?”
Again, her manner of referring to him had changed. Gilbert thought it was fine either way.
“You do that to me.” Gilbert silently planted a kiss not on Violet’s cheek or lips but on the fingertips that he was holding onto.
Silence.
Those were artificial fingers. She was unable to feel anything from them. Her arms were gone, and would nevermore return.
Placing a kiss on such a spot could transmit nothing.
Even so, he had deliberately kissed it in an affectionate manner. For some reason, that action – Gilbert’s feelings – caused Violet’s eyes to grow hot as if burning and produce tears.
Violet attempted to stop them. Those were incomprehensible tears. Why were they flowing at that moment? They would definitely trouble the man in front of her.
Nevertheless, tears were already pooling in her moist eyes until, finally, a single drop spilled down. Sure enough, the round tear that had fallen from one of her eyes left Gilbert distraught.
“Violet.” Seeing her reaction, he promptly let go of her fingers. “I’m sorry.” He stepped back, raising both hands as if to have her understand that he would not do anything else. “I’m really sorry.”
Violet did not answer. She stared at Gilbert without even wiping off the tear as if spacing out. Her attitude was not of anger. Her aspect was not of sorrow, either. He had no idea what she was thinking. She had the gaze of someone who seemed to be having a dream.
The two of them had lived separately, and he had thought that her facial expressions had become richer ever since they had reunited, but once she clammed up, he could not read her. Her lack of expression and well-featured doll-like traits did not allow Gilbert to study her emotions. However, the one thing he could fathom was that his action just now had been foolish.
——What am I doing?
He had told her that he would wait however long it took. The kiss on her fingers might have been a violation to that promise. He should have been the best gentleman for her, but he may have lost that right.
When she was by his side, she was unbearably endearing. The love towards her that lit up within his chest wound up overflowing.
“I swear I won’t do it anymore...”
The army colonel of Leidenschaftlich was losing face in front of the girl he was enamored with.
“Violet...”
What face was he making now? What did she think of it?
“Major, I...” Violet called him with her wind chime voice. She grabbed onto Gilbert’s fingers and took one step forward. The distance between them had shrunk once again. And then she took another step.
She was close enough to be embraced by Gilbert.
“Violet...”
“Major... please.” Violet peeked into Gilbert’s eye.
The emerald-green orb that had unchangeably borne beauty, kindness and a little bit of loneliness ever since they had first met was right there. Violet was now reflected in it.
Violet was inside his world.
“Do not swear so.”
Gilbert’s eyelid blinked at her straightforward words.
“Please, do not swear... that you will not do it.”
Seeing tears well up in Violet’s eyes once again, Gilbert impulsively reached an arm out to her. He caressed her golden hair as if to soothe her, earnestly listening to what she was attempting to tell him.
“Major, you explained it to me, right? That to love is to think of wanting to... protect someone the most.”
He wiped her tears with his fingertips.
Violet entrusted her cheek to his hand and shed more tears. “This has... applied to me since forever.”
She was attempting to replenish her lacking life. Rather, the truth was that the two of them could have done that from the moment they had met, for it was almost as if they made up for each other’s unskillfulness, but they had missed one another countless times and had not intersected well.
Violet’s chest was now being filled up with a warm feeling that she was experiencing for the first time.
“It always, always has, since long ago. I merely... did not know it...”
——This loud throbbing in my chest, this ecstasy, the fact that I end up swayed by your every action...
“I...”
——...the reason why I cried that I wanted to be by your side and asked you not to leave me anymore...
“Major... I...”
——...the reason why I am crying now...
“I, as of now...”
——...is that, once the “like” and the “love” fell and piled up like snow, and I became unable to melt them down, I had wanted to let you know that I wished the same to be valid for you.
“...have a feeling that I...”
People would declare it as if offering a prayer.
“...understand it better than before.”
“I love you”, that is.
#violet evergarden#fyeahvioletevergarden#violet evergarden gaiden#kyoani#kyoto animation#gilbert bougainvillea#claudia hogdins#benedict blue#cattleya baudelaire#lux sibyl#akatsuki kana#takase akiko#novel#my translation
496 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Edges - Ralph Anderson x Reader (The Outsider)
@wltz-bby @happyskywhale
Author’s Note: Requested by a sweet Anon 🥰 Thank you for requesting-!
So I thought this was gonna be really short and then I just... did this all in an evening.
I’ve put you in book setting of Flint City and DA Bill Samuels again, sorry 🙈
Also Ralph is an Autumn/Winter baby now, I don’t make the rules.
Featuring a super obscure reference from Episode 8 of ‘The Outsider’
Disclaimer: The Outsider not mine / gif not mine / lyrics not mine / AU no Derek or Jeannie here
Premise: Ralph Anderson could count on himself to say the wrong thing, only this time it’s two days before the birthday you’ve spent all month planning for him. This time he’s not sure if ‘sorry’ is going to cover it...
Words: 4403
Warnings: Swearing / slight sexual connotations / drinking / AU
______
If life's a puzzle there's a piece for the night we met
Next to the one where you drove me home
If life's a puzzle there's a piece for our first kiss
And it's connected to a summer song
And nothing else fit baby before this
Love was a struggle
So all I know is baby that if this life's a puzzle
You are the edges, you're holding all of me together
You are the edges making the bigger picture better
Before you I didn't know where to start
You rounded up the pieces of a broken heart
Might take a little time to figure out what the rest is
But you are the edges, you are the edges
If life's a puzzle there's a piece for our first fight
It's bright red and it fits just right
Next to the one shaped like sorry
On a long ride home from a birthday party
And nothing else fit baby before this
Love was a struggle
So all I know is baby that if this life's a puzzle
You are the edges where everything ends and it begins
You are the edges and we're gonna fill this whole thing in
Yeah
Before you I didn't know where to start
You rounded up the pieces of a broken heart
Might take a little time to figure out what the rest is
But you are the edges
---
It was a stupid thing to say. He regretted it as instantly as it came out of his mouth. It was watching the light leave your eyes, all your excitement was gone – just like that.
The day was getting later, and he’d had a hard one at work. With two days until his birthday Ralph really wanted nothing more than to have a quiet night in and forget about everything. You, who had spent the last month or so planning his birthday out, could not have had a more opposite feeling. It wasn’t exactly a big secret; you were going to dinner with all your closest friends, and then you’d hired out almost the entirety of his favourite bar to have people come and go as they pleased to wish him happy birthday. And you’d extended that out to pretty much all of Flint City, and your families. So, tonight’s exciting information was that his brother just so happened to be in the area and had promised to drop in. Now, Ralph doubted that would actually happen, but for you to even get hold of Johnny – yet alone get a verbal agreement – was its own achievement.
But Ralph was tired, he didn’t care right now, and if he was honest… he wasn’t even sure he wanted a big party with the way he was feeling. So when he just kinda nodded along with an “Uh huh.”
And you’d read him and said, “Babe, what’s wrong?”
You’d been hit with the very knee-jerk reaction of, “I don’t even want this party! This is all your idea! I just wanna have a quiet birthday!” That not only got increasingly loud, but also angrier.
Leading to silence that made Ralph wish he’d just bit his tongue. Then he’d tried to stumble through something else to make it better, but he’d only succeeded in making it worse – and pretty soon you’d been crying and had not only run from the room, but also the house…
That was two nights ago, and sitting at his desk on his actual birthday, you hadn’t been home yet. Well, not that he’d seen. Ralph knew he’d overdone it, but he wanted to apologise to your face, rather than over text or call. Besides, he’d actually called your mobile more than a few times yesterday and every single time it went to voicemail. He didn’t want to tell any of his friends that anything was up, and in fact they were just as excited about tonight as you had been.
Every time someone called out a cheerful ‘Happy Birthday!’ to him Ralph had to smile and say ‘thank you’ gracefully, even though he was even less joyous about it today than he had been when you’d run out. Eventually Ralph gave in and gave you one last call. Voicemail. Again. There was nothing for it then, other than to hunker down and do his work until he could drive home and get ready for tonight.
Yune was the one to tap his desk eventually and snap him out of it, “Yo, birthday boy – it’s go time!”
“Oh man, just let me finish this report…”
“Uh uh, no way!!” Yune dragged Ralph’s chair away from his desk, and hoisted him up by his arms, “Out! Out! Out! We’re getting rounds in before dinner, I’m buyin’… or Samuels is buying, whatever-! Someone is buying that ain’t you!”
Ralph couldn’t help but laugh, “Okay! Okay! Can I shut my computer down at least-!?”
“I’m watching you, type another sentence and I’m gonna pull it out of the wall, and you won’t get the chance to save it!” Yune grinned.
“Geez, I wouldn’t put it past ya either…” Then Ralph remembered, “Hold on, are you going right now?”
“Well, yeah, but our fancy DA won’t be there until a little later – why?”
“I… gotta get changed, first.”
“Cool, I’ll wait in the car.”
Ralph laughed again, “Alright, sweet!”
Yune tapped him as they walked back through the precinct, “That’s to make sure you don’t skip out on me! You can’t leave me alone with him, I’ll go insane!”
***
They managed to get a few rounds in before Samuels appeared – during that time Ralph tried to forget that the other reason he wanted to be home was to check for signs of you, still nothing – and the DA looked as ticked off as usual.
Yune led off, arms folded, “Go on then, which one of ‘your boys’ is giving you jip this time.” Bill Samuels had changed out of his suit too: nice shirt, nice jeans, good black leather jacket – he gave Yune a look to shut him up and turned his unimpressed face on Ralph.
“I hear you’re in a lot of shit!”
Yune’s expression was unfathomable, “It’s his birthday man, what the hell!” Although when his eyes flicked back to Ralph, the detective looked guilty.
Ralph swallowed thickly, “She told you.”
“Yeah, she’s been at my place for two days – she won’t tell me everything, but you’ve clearly upset her!” Yune raised an eyebrow, Ralph of course hadn’t told anyone you’d had a falling out. It would make sense for Bill Samuels to know everything though, and for you to go to him. He was your best friend in Flint City, your parents lived out of town so there wasn’t really anywhere else you could have gone. Ralph should have used his detective skills to figure that out �� in fact it probably wouldn’t even have taken a detective.
“What the hell-!?” Yune smacked his arm, “What happened!?”
“It was stupid, but she can’t say I haven’t tried calling her to apologise! She won’t pick up my calls!”
“What did you say-!?!?”
“I told her I didn’t want this…”
Samuels put a hand to his forehead, “After she’s just spent a month planning it out?”
“I know! It was late, I had a bad day at the office, I’m an idiot, can we move on?”
Bill and Yune gave each other the same look before the DA cleared his throat, “Well after all that, I hope she turns up!”
Ralph sighed, turning back to the bar, “Me too.”
Yune could only grimace before quickly changing the subject, “Another round guys? What you having?”
***
All things considered; Ralph did actually find himself enjoying his birthday evening. You didn’t turn up to the meal however, and after a few reassurances that ‘she’ll be here!’ both from his friends to him and also him to those who joined the three of them, everyone just kinda lapsed into silence about it. Not before Yune had hissed at Samuels to text you.
“I can’t force her to come Yune-!”
“Well, can we just put the guy out of his misery already?”
“Ralph’s a big boy, he can handle it.”
“Yeah okay, and whatever he said to her he shouldn’t have. But she set all this up… it’s a shame for her to miss it.”
You didn’t reply to the text, but Bill did indicate that you’d read it.
When they all arrived at the bar it was done up with banners and streamers, people were already waiting to celebrate with Detective Anderson and seemed to want to buy him round after round of drinks. Ralph just allowed himself to get lost in it all.
Turning to the others with a slight smile, “Well, at least we know she was here.”
It was nice to see old friends again, and you really had done a brilliant job with coordinating things, digging out people’s contact details and inviting them over from miles around. What struck Ralph the most was how happy they all were to be invited and to see him. The more he heard people say that, and talk about how sweet you were over the phone the more he beamed.
“She- she’s really somethin’!” Ralph agreed, with a humble smile, only wishing that as he said it he could pull you closer and watch you get shy, burying your face in his jacket to hide the cute way you would blush.
Ralph even received a call from Holly Gibney to wish him the best,
“Happy Birthday Ralph!”
“I knew you wouldn’t forget.”
“I didn’t. But Y/N called anyway to invite me over. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”
“She seems to have called the entire world to wish me well, Holly!”
“Doesn’t surprise me!” She laughed gently, “Give her my love too, Ralph.”
“I will. I promise.” If only he could see you to do such a thing.
Things got later and he, Bill and Yune were back sitting at a bar chatting about nothing in particular. Including Ralph and Yune summing up cases that were heading Bill’s way and him rolling his eyes, “Brilliant. This sounds so exciting.” And the other two bursting into laugher at the look on his face. At least they were glad to see Ralph having a good time. Making the most even out of a bad situation.
***
When you arrived at the bar it certainly was late in the day, groups of people you’d invited all off talking but all still here for him. You were glad of that; it was important that Ralph realise just how much he meant to people – even those outside of Flint City.
You couldn’t help but smile as you continued to look around – the owners had let you come in early and spend your morning putting everything up (and also venting your frustrations) and, now it was bustling with people, Ralph’s favourite bar looked even better. Those people who had spotted you were already thanking you for their invites and commenting on how lovely the decorations were. You were taking all of that very much to heart.
‘Worth it in the end, wasn’t it, Ralph Anderson?’
You’d fought with yourself all evening – on the one hand you were scared that he really didn’t want to be here, and that he would just upset you all over again if you turned up and he wasn’t enjoying it, or he was only acting like he was enjoying it. Perhaps Ralph wouldn’t even have turned up at all – although you’d imagine Yune Sablo would have dragged him across town, no excuses. Part of you wanted to stay away out of spite – but then you didn’t want to be spiteful towards him on his birthday. You weren’t sure you could face him over dinner though, so that you’d had to skip and just hoped everyone would forgive you later. You also wanted to make sure that people were here before you turned up, because the ease of conversation between you would be better when the focus wouldn’t be on the two of you as the birthday boy and his significant other.
Now to find him…
Ralph was not the first of the three of them to spot you; Samuels was the one who offered you a small wave across the bar before nudging him.
“Huh?”
The DA just nodded and Ralph swivelled on his chair, before his lips parted. You were standing a little way away, and Ralph couldn’t describe you as looking anything other than flawless. Hair and makeup done, your dress was perfect – just the right length to be modest yet show off your legs, sleeves and shoulders in pretty patterned lace, in your hands was a card and present. You stood out in stark contrast to everyone else in the room. You caught his eye and smiled softly, but were clearly waiting for him to come to you.
Yune pushed his back, “Go get her, Tiger.”
Ralph almost told him to shut up, especially as Bill decided the joke was worth laughing at, but instead slipped from his stool and crossed the room to you.
“You’re here.”
You nearly giggled, “It’s your birthday, Ralph Anderson, of course I’m here.”
“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”
“I won’t lie, I had to talk myself into it.”
His head bowed, “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you, we all have bad work days – I should have known that too.”
“No, no. This one is on me, I won’t let you blame yourself.”
“Okay, well…” You stepped forward, closing the gap between you, and stood up on your toes – sometimes you loved that he was so tall, sometimes you’d damn him for it - brushing your lips to his, before Ralph pulled you in for a real kiss. Sweet, gentle and apologetic. You knew you had an audience; you didn’t really care. “Happy Birthday.” Sinking back to height you held out his gift, “I hope you like it.”
“Thank you.” Ralph took it from you delicately, already chuckling, “Is this what I think it is?” It was so obviously record shaped that he didn’t see how it could be anything else.
You gave a shrug, “You’ll have to open it won’t you.”
“If this is ‘The Original Washington Square’ I’ll kill you!”
“Uh, careful, Detective, there’s a whole bunch of witnesses!”
“And a DA and a police lieutenant, but I’m sure we can cover it up if I can get them on side.”
“Samuels? Good luck!”
He continued laughing, turning it over in his hands, “Can I open it?”
“Isn’t that what gifts are for?”
He tore carefully through the paper, and then started laughing: The Original Washington Square by The Village Stompers, indeed. “I can’t believe you found it-!”
“Took some digging, but some people I know came through.”
“Near mint… Aw, Y/N.” Ralph enveloped you in a hug, “I really… really don’t deserve you.”
You squeezed him tight, happy to once again be in his arms, “Now don’t you start-! Happy Birthday, darling!”
You both stepped back, and he took your hands in his as best he could, “Do you want a drink, or something?”
“Actually… I know it’s the party I set up, but I came here to steal you away, Mr. Anderson.”
“Oh?” He smiled, “Stealing? You’re walking a fine line there!”
“Thought as much!”
Ralph turned back to the other two, “Can I say goodbye?”
“Mhm.” You ushered him back to them, and at least you watched the three of them banter together before they both hugged him, wishing him the happiest of birthdays – and something that was obviously suggestive by the way he shoved Yune’s shoulder – before they waved him and you off. Ralph draped his arm around your shoulders with a gentle smile, “Alright, you’ve piqued my interest, where are you taking me?”
“Ahhhhh… It’s a surprise! Use your detective skills, and you might just figure it out!”
***
Ralph recognised the road you were taking out of Flint City at least – it was the one you needed for the main road to your parents place, so wherever you were taking him, it was easy for Ralph to see how you’d discovered it.
“We’re not going all the way out to your folks, are we?”
You smirked from the drivers side, “Why? Nervous?”
“Not unless you’ve told your dad I upset you two days ago.”
“I did no such thing!” You laughed, “It’s just up here, don’t worry yourself.”
“As a detective…” Ralph craned his neck, there weren’t many lights up this road to tell him much of anything, “…dark secluded places out in the middle of nowhere tend to get my back up.”
“Well thank god I have the FCPD’s finest with me.”
He chuckled, and you saw the pink dust his cheeks, “Alright you, I get it.”
When you pulled into a side road that Ralph didn’t even see coming, he was glad that your truck was built for off roading, “Yeah, now I’m getting real nervous!”
There was a faint glow just up the track and soon you turned again as a tiny collection of quaint looking buildings came into view.
Ralph squinted at the sign, “What… is a stargazing ranch?”
“Bet you didn’t know Flint City was anywhere near one.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It is a stargazing ranch. Is what it is.”
“…You’d be so helpful in a police interrogation.”
You beamed across at him, “You’re welcome!”
You continued on a little way until you came upon another little collection of guest huts, although you were paying more attention to the sky.
“Look, Ralph! Look at them!”
Well at least he knew now that stargazing was literal. “Where are we?”
“You can stay here, but it’s mostly for avid stargazers. Ah, the things you can find on the internet.”
“…Right well,” he cleared his throat, “what made you think of this?”
“I watch you out in the garden sometimes, but you can’t see them as well there. And I just… wanted to get you alone for a little while.” You parked your truck up, “Your birthday isn’t over, either.”
“Are we… staying here?”
“Mhm. Don’t worry about clothes and stuff, trust me, you’re covered.” You opened the truck door, “I just need to set up, hold on a second…”
Ralph undid his seat belt but waited patiently, giggling to himself at how crazy this seemed to be as you rummaged around in the back of your truck. The tailgate went down and you hopped up and down in the bed for a little while, before you appeared at his side.
“I’m gonna need that record and your accompaniment now.”
“Can I get out?”
“If you close your eyes and trust me.”
“This is where I get murdered isn’t it?”
“Oh yes.”
He laughed, hopping out of the truck, closing his eyes obediently as you took his hand and led him around the back.
He heard the flicking of a lighter – Ralph wouldn’t be surprised if it was his own and you’d done a little too much rummaging in his drawers for it – and then sparks, making his eyebrows furrow.
“Okay.” You breathed quietly and turned back to him, “Happy Birthday, Ralph!”
He opened his eyes slowly, and what came out was a mix of ‘Oh!’ and ‘Aw!’. In the back of your truck you’d set up blankets and pillows to make a comfortable fort for the evening, there was a small cooler for drinks, and a record player. That explained why you wanted the one he was currently holding. But the centrepiece of all this was a cake, three layers of his favourite type with his favourite frosting, inscribed with ‘Happy Birthday Ralph’. Complete with sparklers and-
“What is that?”
“Oh it’s a fountain… I thought it looked cool!” The shower of blue and silver sparks certainly was something to behold, and Ralph put his hand over his mouth for a second to stop grinning like too much of an idiot.
“Oh, Y/N… You didn’t have to-”
“YES. YES I did! How can you not understand that? You’re an idiot, Ralph Anderson but you mean the world to me. Heck, without you I don’t know where I would be! And I was SO mad at you! SO mad that you couldn’t see how much you meant to people that they would want to turn up to these things and tell you how much they loved you!! But it took me two days to figure this all out so staying with Bill was kinda a blessing but… Oh, Ralph… I know you think you’re one man to the world but you are the WORLD to so many people. And my world could not exist without you.”
He was looking at you very seriously, and all of this was hitting him very hard. Ralph swallowed, fighting back the urge to let at least one tear fall as he wrapped you back in his arms, “Oh… Y/N… I’m…”
“Don’t tell me your sorry, I know that… I know.” You wound your arms around him too, “Just… please tell me you realise how much you’re worth?”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of your head and smiled, “Sometimes… I think I do. And you’re for sure going to kick it into me.” Ralph pulled back, “I guess I should blow those out and make a wish, huh?”
“Yes. You should, but no telling!”
Ralph blew the candles out and you let him cut the cake into neat pieces before you both clambered into the back of your truck. He slid the record from its sleeve and set it up on the player, settling back with you Ralph held you in his arms again. You listened in silence for a little bit, content to just eat cake and crack open some drinks in each other’s presence.
“Did your brother turn up!?”
“No.” He laughed, “I admire your trying.”
“Unless he turned up so late that you’d left!”
“I hope they gave him hell!”
“Oh my god! You think they know who he is to do that?”
“He doesn’t look so different to me!”
“Don’t know about that, you’re certainly more attractive.” You raised your eyebrows at him.
“Oh, we’re gonna trash talk my brother all night?!”
Then you both ended up cracking up once more and Ralph turned his attention to the cake,
“Okay, this is SO good – did you bake it!?”
You blushed horribly, “I should pretend I did. But no, I just ordered it.”
“Oh… I’ll forget I asked.”
“Haha! I appreciate that!” He studied your face for a moment, before leaning in and kissing you suddenly, making you gasp, “Wh-”
“Frosting.”
“You are… not as smooth as you think you are!”
He cackled, “Yeaaah right, you should see the look on your face!” You shoved him, though knew you were at least a little flushed.
Then you did settle back to watch the stars, “Y/N, I know I’ve said thank you a few times tonight but, honestly, your planning is impeccable.”
“So… Detective Anderson is telling me he had a good birthday?”
“Yes…”
“Wow. Not bad when he didn’t want it!”
“HUSH!”
“I’m holding that over you for a long time, babe, get used to it!” You raised your can with a smile and took a sip.
“Just let me thank you!”
“I am letting you thank me, gosh, to think you’re usually the one winding me up so easily.”
“All I want to say is, thank you for making this such a great birthday… I only wish I hadn’t been such an idiot and you could have shared it all with me.”
“Oh, was dinner good?”
“Really good.”
“I’m glad, it came highly recommended. I was busy up here; don’t worry I did eat. I guess I was worried you wouldn’t want to see me anyway.”
“Look I’m just… I’m glad we’re here, now.”
You smiled gently as Ralph brushed his lips to yours again, “Me too.”
You continued to snuggle together under blankets until the record side needed to be changed and then, as Ralph skilfully flipped it, stayed that way until the record ended. You were happy that the sky was cloudless and that the stars were particularly bright. You’d worried about that all day.
“Well,” he looked to the record player, “That was money well spent!”
“Oh! I’m not done with you yet…” You rummaged around behind you, and pulled out another box, it made sounds every time you moved it and Ralph once again didn’t need detective skills to know what was inside.
“You got me another gift?”
“Mhm.”
“…Look I know I’m old, but I’m not sure I’m ‘puzzles as a hobby’ old.”
“Don’t be so rude and open it! You don’t know what it is!”
His grin only told you that this time it was his tease rattling you - as it should be in his opinion - and once again tore the brightly coloured paper from the box neatly. Ralph paused for a second, looking at the picture that the pieces would create. Then looked to you questioningly.
“Well, there’s not a picture of us in your office, and you always said this one was your favourite. So, when you’re between cases or you need to take your mind off a case… you can work on your puzzle and after you put the pieces together, you can frame it and put it on the wall-!”
“You’re crazy.”
“99% of the time, yeah. What’s your point?”
But Ralph was beaming, “It is my favourite. But you could have just got me a framed photograph.”
“Too easy, Mr. Anderson. I wanted to give you something to do! Also there’s some cheesy line about completing me in there too, but I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud…”
He placed the box down and cupped your face in one of his hands before leaning to kiss you into silence again, “Don’t worry,” these words were said between kisses, “I know exactly what you meant.”
You wrapped your arms around Ralph as these short sweet kisses continued, and the wind cut in just the wrong direction, forcing you to shiver.
“Oh, someone’s cold.”
“Well…” You jerked your head behind you, “There’s a whole ass hut back there we can go get warm in.”
“Get warm, or get warm?” He questioned, without a hint of suggestiveness crossing his face; smooth one Ralph…
“Well…” You thought on it for a minute, “Think that should be birthday boy’s choice.”
“Ahhhh… Then I’ll just have to keep you guessing!” He winked, guiding you back to the tailgate you tidied a little before carrying things inside.
You were right, it didn’t take long to get a little fire going and for it to warm up nicely. Ralph stood, and admired his handiwork before he turned to you,
“Well, you did put on a nice dress just for me…”
“Meaning what?” Although the smirk on your face was playful.
“Meaning I shouldn’t waste the opportunity to love on such a kind, beautiful girl when she did so much for me today.” He crossed the room before sweeping you up into his arms.
You pointed across the room, opposite to where he was taking you, “Alright, Detective Anderson, bedroom’s that way.”
Ralph kissed you once again, slow and full of promises, “There she goes again.”
“Happy to help, birthday boy.” You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, with a wink, kissing his cheek once more.
As he turned on a dime, you still in his arms, he gave an embarrassed ‘we won’t talk about this’ clear of his throat.
Well, you wouldn’t tease him about his detective skills just yet. You knew he was about to put them to good use.
---
Thank you for reading!! Thank you for requesting! 🥰
#Ralph Anderson x Reader#Ralph Anderson#The Outsider#hbos the outsider#the outsider hbo#Ben Mendelsohn#That Premise is... misleading at best but it's the one I wrote out.#190#10 UNTIL 200!!#ONE-NINETY!#I'm SCREAMING!#I tried to make her less Harmony but it's a Harmony/Ralph song#...She's Harmony I can't lie. Just taken out of all her own context#Anderson and Andersson Detective Co.#AU!Harmony#Harmony#Also - I just... are HBO trying to tell us that Ralph is 46?#Because that's what I just did the calculation and got?#SO either they've fucked up Derek even more than I thought#Or Ralph is 46.#...I really am NOT going through 10 hours just to find the face of dereks grave stone again but if someone can tell me how old he was...#...when he died that would be aces#And when he died?#I think I remember it being 2018? And the show is set in 2019?#So if Derek was (book canon) 14.... then Ralph's age is#16 (age his mum died) + 15 (years later when Derek was born) + 14 (Dereks age) + 1 (2018-19)#Which is 46!#If anyone read this I will be surprised but it's worth putting it in here.
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
Personal Astro Verse Part 2 - Main Characters
Atom/"Astro"
Atom is one of the world's most advanced robots, frequently referred to as "The Child of Science." He's packed to the brim with incredible abilities, both physical and mental, while also being kind, compassionate, and essentially human. He's considered practically perfect, making him the best candidate to bridge the gap between humans and robots.
...Once you get to know him, however, you'll find he's not much different from any other kid his age. He goes to school, plays games, and argues with his siblings just like the rest of us. In fact, he's kind of a huge nerd. He gets very excited about science (Which field? All of them) and can frequently be found at the Ministry of Science either helping Prof. Ochanomizu or the other scientists there. As a hobby, he's also quite fond of Entomology (the study of insects) and Malacology (the study of gastropods like snails, slugs, etc.) and has a fairly sizeable collection of various bugs and snails. Unfortunately, he doesn't have nearly as much time for hobbies as he'd like.
Having so much expected of him has made him into something of an overachiever with a perfectionist complex to boot. He tries to keep it all under wraps so as to avoid worrying anyone, but his tendency to completely stress out whenever failure becomes even a remote possibility, or his tendency to get overly wrapped up in his pet causes often betray that "I have everything under control" exterior he likes to push. While he means well, he tends to come off as being a little bossy because he feels like he's expected to always be the most mature person in the room, and generally acts as the straight man in contrast to his siblings. However, he's not completely above engaging in shenanigans with them or unleashing some Grade A Snark(TM).
Though he may not be as perfect as everyone seems to think, he's still a very kind, responsible, all around good kid with a strong sense of justice. He'll always stop to help someone in need, supports those he cares about, and stands by what he thinks is right, even if no one else agrees; which more than earns him his status as a hero.
Fun Fact: Once, a news headline referred to him as an "Astro Boy" in order to sound catchy and attention grabbing. He was confused at first, but everyone around him agreed that "Astro" sounded really cool, so the nickname stuck to the point where he tends to get called that more than his actual name. Many adults in his life still call him Atom, though.
Uran
Uran is Atom's little sister, built for him as a birthday present. However, she seems to make a point of defying all expectations such a description would create about her. Though she was built for him, she's very much her own person. Though she's a little girl, she's a huge powerhouse in her own right. Though she's cute, she's also a huge tomboy. She doesn't want to be put into a box.
The one thing she is most proud to be though is a little sister. It means she can get away with more mischief since she's young and cute. She also considers it her sworn duty as a little sister to do everything in her power to get on her older brothers' nerves. In fact, it's probably her favorite pasttime, next to Robotting (essentially robot wrestling), and she often combines the two to get surprise attacks in on her siblings when they least expect it. She gets many complaints that she doesn't act "ladylike" as a result, but all those do is make her rowdier out of spite.
She's incredibly honest with herself and others. She'll tell you exactly what she thinks, even if it sounds blunt (and most of the time, it is). If she feels like she's gone too far, she'll apologize, but usually she defends herself as calling it like it is. She may be blunt, but she's very perceptive, often noticing things about others that they've yet to notice about themselves. This gives her sort of a knack for dealing with animals, and also frequently makes her the voice of reason in emotional matters.
Though she may seem abrasive or bratty, she's by no means a bad kid. She does have a softer side and genuinely loves her brothers as much as she loves annoying them. Her emotional intelligence also makes her a good source of honest wisdom and support. Her heart is definitely in the right place at least (...for the most part).
Fun Fact: While she thought her Robotting career was over after her brief stint in the professional ring, the standards have since changed a bit to be less deadly (i.e., no more permanent destruction of robots who lose matches). There's even a junior Robotting league now, and she's basically the champion of her school's team.
Cobalt
Cobalt is the oldest, being a prototype of Atom. He's just as powerful, and the two could even be mistaken for one another at a glance, but that's where the similarities end. He lacks all of the special abilities and was initially deemed defective due to imperfections in his electronic brain and scrapped as a result. While Atom is essentially perfect, Cobalt is very, very flawed.
Despite all this, he's generally a pretty happy, goofy kid with his head frequently in the clouds (which is fitting given that he likes aviation and really wants to fly--). He's very optimistic and refuses to give up, even if it flies in the face of everything else, and is the type to find humor (however corny) in even the worst situations. He also has a lot of faith in people and is very trusting of everyone he meets, even if it's obvious he shouldn't be. This hasn't worked out for him yet, but he continues on anyway. At the very least, he gets along well with his siblings. He tries to be a responsible big brother, but he tends to get undermined a bit (either by others or himself) and winds up being a part of the shenanigans anyway.
While he is genuinely a pretty positive person, he's also got a cripplingly low self-esteem and an inferiority complex to boot. He genuinely believes he's stupid with no real strengths of his own. However, that’s hardly the case; he merely has some coordination, memory and focus issues. In fact, he's actually a very creative thinker, and while some of his thoughts may seem out there, he's very good at finding unconventional solutions to problems (which works well as he doesn't like to fight). But like most with low self-esteems, he doesn't give himself enough credit.
Though he's not always appreciated enough for it, he still continues to do his best to be kind and help people in need, never giving up hope that things will get better. His unyielding optimism is frequently a source of inspiration for his siblings, even if he doesn't realize it.
Fun Fact: Cobalt is my favorite and I’ve already written about him at great length, so if you want more Cobalt Facts then check out these posts
Chi-Tan
Chi-tan is basically Shrodinger's Super Robot Baby in that you have no idea if he still exists unless I decide to make him relevant for joke or plot purposes.
Where does he go when he’s not relevant?
Don’t worry about it.
He’s fine.
Probably.
18 notes
·
View notes
Photo
It’s been just a little over a year since “Liberty Biberty” became a part of our cultural vernacular, but that’s when Tanner Novlan garnered national attention as the tongue-tied, clueless, narcissistic actor in Liberty Mutual’s line of popular commercials. “I had seen the series they were doing of Liberty Mutual commercials in front of the Statue of Liberty,” Novlan relays. “And yes, people do come up to me all the time and say, ‘Liberty Biberty.’ It’s so fun that everyone can relate to that obnoxious actor. He was so much fun to play. When you get BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL, you’re like, ‘Wow, this is a career-changer,’ but for a funny little commercial like that, you never think [like that].”
Novlan auditioned for B&B in March and landed the part but couldn’t start, or even talk about it, until the soap began production over four months later due to the coronavirus pandemic. “I don’t know their old way of filming, so this is my new normal,” the actor relays. “Being the first production in North America to be back, it was amazing. It’s like, ‘This really is the new normal.’ It’s been such a unique process but it’s been amazing how all the producers have come together to figure this out and put forth these groundbreaking guidelines, making things safe and efficient and being able to work around all of this and keep everything alive. They’ve come up with some really creative ways of making shots work, but also feeling natural. Yes, we have to socially distance. We always are wearing our masks so we’re very cautious in that manner, but when you get into the scene and you’re reading opposite Jacqui [MacInnes Wood, Steffy], even if she is off camera, the connection is there, and I think it comes through.”
Novlan is thankful that he had some inside knowledge of how things worked at B&B, since he’s the real-life husband of B&B alum Kayla Ewell (ex-Caitlin). “It’s so perfect to have someone who has already been a part of the family to walk me through this,” he says. “She’s great for advice, and not just on work stuff. She gives me advice all the time on life. Listen to your wife. It’s always a good idea [laughs]. But with this team, I feel like I can ask any questions, and everyone was welcoming and straightforward.” Novlan and Ewell’s real-life love story sounds like it could be part of a soap, too. “It was technically kind of a setup because we both starred in this music video for an Australian band [circa 2009],” he relays. “The band is called Sick Puppies. It was one of their first hit North American releases. The name of the song was called ‘Maybe’ [which can currently be viewed on YouTube]. So, that’s how we met, on this music video at 3:30 in the morn- ing in the high desert [of California], which is where I met the woman of my dreams. We were very professional on set, but there was definitely something special about her — and I held her sunglasses for ransom. We were shooting outdoors and locations were changing and the makeup lady accidentally took our sunglasses home with her. The next day she called and said, ‘I have your sunglasses.’ I went and picked them up. I saw hers sitting there and thought, ‘I’ll give these to Kayla,’ so I snagged them and I said to her, ‘Lunch and your sunglasses?’ Luckily she took the lunch, probably just to get her sunglasses back.”
The rest was history, and the duo has worked to navigate the demands of their chosen profession. “The job sometimes involves distance and being away from one another, and there is also the time away that certain projects can require,” he points out. “It can be difficult sometimes but the trick is, we try very hard to make sure our schedules coordinate so we can be with each other. We have a two- to three-week rule where if one of us is away working for that long, you have to fly out and see the other. It’s almost like a must. And with our new baby, Poppy, we’ll definitely make sure that’s the case. But that’s the beauty of a having a great job like B&B. Luckily, I’m here. I’m local in L.A.” Novlan’s mom, a B&B super-fan, couldn’t be more thrilled about her son’s new gig. “My hometown has 500 people in it,” he explains. “I come from a very small farming community so even just coming home was a shock to her, but she’s cool. Kayla is so down-to-earth that none of that mattered. But believe me, my mother is chomping at the bit to come and visit the set of B&B as soon as COVID [passes]. That may be the real challenge, like, ‘Mom, you can’t wander onto the set. You’ve got to stay over here.’ That’s going to be a great day when it happens.”
Novlan credits his mother’s influence for getting him from Saskatchewan to Hollywood. “My mother was originally from Sacramento so I always thought it would be great to come and work in the U.S.,” he explains. “I started doing some print work in Canada so that’s how I originally came down, but I fell in love with acting as my immigration papers were being processed. I went to acting class here but I never could I have imagined having a career in film. But when I came down here and got a taste of it I was, like, ‘Wow. I’m hooked. This is it.’ ” But he admits he had no idea what he was in for. “My first job was a commercial for T.J. Maxx, back to school,” he recalls. “It was the first audition that I had ever been on and I got it and I thought, ‘Well, this is easy!’ I quickly learned there’s a lot of training that goes into it. So, I came here quite green but over the years, I’ve been able to call it a career.”
Over the next decade-plus, Novlan landed high-profile roles in MODERN FAMILY, ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, the TV rom-com MY BEST FRIEND’S CHRISTMAS and the upcoming PUCKHEADS.
He’s up for a ROSWELL comeback, schedule permitting. “There could be a chance that we might see Gregory again,” he notes of playing the caring brother of series regular Tyler Blackburn (Alex; ex-Ian, DAYS et al). “I know ROSWELL has been picked up for a season 3, and the character has been pretty well-received from the fans, as well, which is always amazing and such an honor. You never know. It was a great experience, but right now, everything is about B&B. Even with COVID, we’re finding a really nice groove with maintaining safety while keeping that classic B&B look. It’s been pretty smooth, I’ve got to say. How lucky am I?”
“Sinn” City
B&B fans have dubbed Steffy and Finn “Sinn”, which is just fine by Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Steffy). “I told him this character is his own,” she says. “He’s not a recast, so I told him, ‘Make it your own and have fun with it. Even though we are eight feet away from each other in scenes, feel free to play with me. Let’s connect as much as we can in these scenes.’ He’s been great. He’s been absolutely wonderful on set and taking direction very well — and he’s a fellow Canadian so, of course, we hit it off immediately. He’s a really sweet guy and he can keep up with our pace. I think the fans will really like him.”
Just The Facts
Birthday: April 9 Hails
From: Paradise Hill, Saskatchewan, Canada
My Girls: Married to Kayla Ewell (ex-Caitlin, B&B) since September 12, 2015. They welcomed daughter Poppy Marie on July 16, 2019.
What The Puck? “I grew up playing hockey, and I like to play hockey once a week with a group of actors. We have these really intense games.”
All The Right Steff: “It’s time that Steffy meets a man with a new set of values, and a new version of what passion and love can bring. She just had her daughter and I think she’s ready. Finn seems to have her best interests in mind, and I think that’s a good thing for Steffy.”
Finn In A Nutshell: “Helping people is in his nature but he can get a little too involved, and that can also get him into trouble.”
Grandma’s Boy: “My grandmother is in Canada in a nursing home and the last FaceTime I got was from my mom asking me to help set up grandma’s DVR. They’re very excited about this, and it’s nice to know that my grandma gets to see me every day — and, she’s super-proud that I’m a doctor!”
#tanner novlan#gregory manes#fingers crossed he'll be back#roswell new mexico s3#bold and the beautiful#rnm cast interviews#i hope his mom gets to visit the set#and how sweet is that his grandma gets to watch him on tv every day#my heaaaart
15 notes
·
View notes
Note
I in response to your flamethrower comment, they have a cooler on Boiling Rock, which mean they have pretty good cooling system if the air outside is so hot. That means they know how to liquify some gases, assuming they just aren't hauling huge chunks of ice or something. So they probably do have the technology for flamethrowers(maybe). But from the show, they just seems to prefer chucking flaming rocks, which tbh, is easier.
You’ve unlocked my brother’s and my “cannons? Cannons?? WHY AREN’T THERE CANNONS????” discussion with a partial side of me crying at my screen about “what is the state of chemistry in this world at this point, ATLA, ANSWER ME.”
This is going to be long.
~~~
Some quick Googling:
A good portion of modern flamethrowers work by having pressurized gas pump out a liquid fuel which is ignited.
So what does this mean within ATLA?
1) They can pressurize gas. Apparently people have figured out how to compress air since the mid-19th century. This is around the time period I’ve been pegging ATLA to reflect so that works out.
2) They can mass produce stuff on an industrial scale. Hi, I’m still not over how Zhao hauled over 100 warships to the North Pole. THE LOGISTICS OF THAT. THE SCALE OF THAT. COORDINATING ALL THOSE ORDERS. THAT’S LIKE BRINGING THE ENTIRE SPANISH ARMADA TO BRITAIN.
But the navy does prove the Fire Nation has the ability to produce standardized equipment and parts. A ship needs so many rivets. There are harbors in the Fire Nation entirely dedicated to building and repairing these ships and they must be doing super interesting things to the social fabric of the nation. Also, Jesus, where are they getting all this metal from. Where are they getting all their fabric from for the uniforms. If the Fire Nation ever loses its colonies, a lot of people would be foaming at the mouth with anger.
Anyways, check that off too.
3) They want to use them. Which.
~~~
The presence of benders must really mess up the advance of technology. Bad enough that irl, before the West came smashing in, the Far East had barely any interest or initiative in developing these kinds of technology. To be fair, they weren’t constantly murdering each other through wars the way Europe did. But still. How do we clear out this mountain for our tunnels? Get an earthbender. How do we filter this water? Get a waterbender too. How do we set these people on fire and wreck psychological devastation upon the enemy by burning all their cover? Get a bunch of firebenders.
No extra equipment necessary. No oil fuel needed. No hauling around supply chains that aren’t food. If they’re around, just grab a bunch of benders.
But what about the nonbending population? Personally, I’ve always felt that benders are a minority of the population, though an elite minority. If earthbenders were all over the place, Master Yu would not be able to get away with his scamming that easily. Nonbenders are going to need tools when there isn’t the requisite bender conveniently around.
(Jesus, the social tension that must be constantly shimmering over this dynamic and its effects upon the job markets.)
And frankly, in war? There will be times where sheer quantity overpowers quality. Longbows can devastate crossbows, thanks to superior range. But if the longbows aren’t there? Tons of people quickly trained with crossbows and other ranged weaponry are going to start winning.
Emergencies like war are like a super fuel to rapid invention. Nothing motivates people to figure out tool and processes like the threat of thousands and millions of your people dying every day.
So where the fuck are the cannons.
~~~
Here’s where my brain keeps smashing against the limits imposed by the audience ATLA is intended for plus the pure reality of storytelling. ATLA works very well partially because it doesn’t go into all these details. There aren’t many filler episodes. It stays on track with the narrative. It doesn’t veer off into tangents. And I love it for that.
But why does the Earth Kingdom suck so badly at responding to the Fire Nation?
(There are plenty of easy valid answers. My primary justifications are a) Aang is the protagonist and thus warps the narrative around him and b) one hundred years of on and off war kills the best and the brightest of all the militaries.)
Benders can only throw rocks so far. That throw is only going to have so much force behind it. Excellent benders can move incredibly heavy weights, so presumably with smaller rocks they can sling those very fast. But its still not a cannon.
The most powerful catapults and trebuchets could throw up to around 1000-1500 feet.
During the American Civil War, a cannon used can hit something a mile away. During WW1, artillery could hit something 80 miles away.
The key inventions necessary include a) an ability to bore precise rifling, b) at least gunpowder in mass quantities, and c) different types of shells to taste.
(Side note from the brother: The Fire Nation might not have the natural resources for all the gunpowder necessary to hand out rifles to everyone plus feed all the artillery. I counter him with the fact that the Fire Nation made significant territorial gains into the Earth Kingdom continent and they were not losing that territory. Anyways.)
If the Fire Nation navy is able to shoot out grappling hooks from their ships, I honestly canNOT understand why they still use trebuchets. Those things require so much open space around them for the arm to operate and get top ranges. You might as well set up a bunch of cannons in that space. Want a fireball of death still? Put blasting jelly or other fire-starting materials within the shells. Hey, they definitely know how to make bombs for their airships. Buddy.
For god’s sake, they figured out hydraulics and maybe gyroscopes for their tanks. WHY ARE THEY STILL USING CATAPULTS. THAT’S STUPID.
~~~
Here’s what’s not stupid.
The use of new technology will always ruffle the feathers of members among the old guard.
The use of this kind of modern technology will fundamentally change the entire nature of war.
And these kinds of changes? They reverberate through society. Benders are no longer the only cream of the crop among the military. If the social hierarchy depends in part on bending ability, which I bet the Fire Nation’s been using for the last century plus, then this technology is, literally, revolutionary.
And that’s not pretty.
#the blah blahs#long post#as much as this drives me crazy#i'm glad ATLA didn't do this#ATLA is not a military story#i'm not kidding#Aang could have been COMPLETELY obsolete by the time he woke up#if the EK and FN were super dedicated to massacring each other the way Europe was#however this would make benders within the respective armies#also obsolete#so you know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#but yeah i've been thinking about this a lot#because frankly given the FN military industrial capacities#where are the rifles#and more importantly#WHERE ARE THE STEAMPUNK AUS#Anonymous
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Finding Harmony - Ch 4 Getting Closer
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
Luka gave Marinette a few days of space, and then showed up outside of the school and took Juleka, Rose, and Marinette out for ice cream after classes one day. The girls were a little stiff with one another at first, but Luka teased them enough that they all ganged up on him for revenge, and it was worth the ice cream smeared on his face to see them all relaxed with each other again. Marinette’s horrified reaction when he showed her the picture of his disassembled guitar had him cackling every time he thought of it for the rest of the day.
“How can you laugh? It’s your guitar, it’s in pieces!” she cried.
“Because I know it’ll come together again,” he said, chuckling. “And it’ll sound even better than before.”
“Ignore him,” Juleka muttered, looping her arm through Marinette’s and tossing her hair. “He likes to make people think he’s deep and cool but he’s really totally lame.”
“He’s a sweetheart,” Marinette said with a fondness that made his heart skip. “But yeah, he is pretty silly sometimes,” she teased, looking back over their shoulders at him.
He must have been giving her some kind of soft look, because she turned back quickly with reddening cheeks. Rose giggled, nudging Luka with her elbow before jogging up to grab Juleka’s free hand. He felt a comforting warmth in his stomach as he looked at the three of them. He’d had a gentle talk with Juleka, nothing invasive or confrontational, just warning her that Marinette felt alone and ignored right now, and reminding her how Marinette had stood by her when Juleka felt that way—reminded her also that Marinette was planning this whole design and photoshoot to make up for something that hadn’t been her fault in the first place. Luka still didn’t know the details of what had happened at the school, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to pry or interfere in Juleka’s life. He just hoped that if Juleka refocused on the truth of who her friend was, on Marinette’s heart, then whatever other craziness was going on would roll past them.
Despite the ice cream outing, it felt like he hadn’t seen her in forever when she finally called him back for a fitting.
“You know,” Luka called over the screen as he pulled his jeans back on, “I could just come over when Juleka does, it’s not that hard for us to coordinate.”
“No, I don’t want you to see each other until the shoot!” Marinette called back.
Luka rolled his eyes, though she couldn’t see him. “Why? I’m her brother, not her date.”
“I know, but it matters to Juleka what you think, and she’ll be able to tell if you like it or not. It’ll give her a confidence boost right before the photo shoot.”
“That’s admirable, Marinette,” Luka sighed as he came around the partition, “But its not worth burning yourself out over. You have so many responsibilities as it is.”
“I’m not,” Marinette protested. “I mean, yes, I do have a lot of responsibilities—more all the time, it seems like—but that’s not the same as this. This is me doing something I love for people I care about. It’s not draining, it’s energizing! Really, if you both came at the same time then one of you would just be standing around waiting half the time anyway. It’s more fun like this.” She carefully laid the pants she had just finished marking and pinning on the desk, and then turned back to him. “Okay, that’s all I needed for my stuff. Let’s go upstairs and I’ll see if I can finish yours before you leave.”
The body of Luka’s guitar, stripped and sanded and lacquered with a base coat of black, with the space for the pick guard carefully taped off, was securely strapped to an easel on Marinette’s balcony, since she had (reasonably) refused to paint on the swaying deck of the Liberty, and the smell of the paint would have been overwhelming in her small room. She wouldn’t let him see the work in progress, but he was happy to park himself in a lounge chair and play his mother’s guitar while Marinette worked on his. She’d had it for a few days now and it was almost finished.
Luka had to admit, watching Marinette work was one of his favorite things ever. Not only was her concentrating face super cute, she became so focused that she forgot the self-consciousness that was the root of most of her awkwardness. Despite all her initial protestations and “are you really really sure you want me to do this,” now that she was into the task, she was confident, capable, and captivating. It made him wonder about the woman she would grow into one day, once she left the drama and awkwardness of her teenage years behind.
Without his realizing it, the tune he played slid into something warm and low and a little wanting. Thankfully she was too engrossed in her work to realize how closely he watched her, and he caught himself before anyone else did. Face heating, Luka set the guitar aside and stood up.
The absence of the music made Marinette look up. “Just need to move for a minute,” he told her, stretching his back and then his fingers. “How’s it going?”
“Almost done I think,” Marinette said, surveying her work thoughtfully. “Just a few more details to go. I don’t want to overdo it.” She waved him off when he tried to get a look. “None of that, it’s so close now you might as well wait. I hope you like it,” she fretted, a little uncertainty returning. “Maybe we should have done a kittycorn design instead…”
“Marinette, I love Kitty Section, but this is for me, not for the band, and the design is perfect. I know I’m going to love it. Do you need anything? I could go get us something to drink.” As he moved around her toward the hatch, he paused and frowned, stepping back closer to her. “The back of your neck is turning red.”
“Oh, I should have thought of that,” Marinette groaned, reaching back with paint smeared fingers. Luka caught her wrist. “Don’t, you’ll get paint in your hair. Hang on, I always have some sunscreen.” He went to his guitar case and pulled out a battered tube tucked into an outer pocket. “With the sun on the water I’m pretty much always covered with the stuff.”
“That’s why you always smell like the beach,” Marinette muttered, studying her work.
“Well, I do live on the river.”
Marinette snorted. “We both know the Seine doesn’t smell anything like a beach.”
Luka chuckled. “Fair point. Do you mind if I put this on you?”
Marinette blushed, but didn’t have much of a choice since her own hands were both flecked with paint. “Please.”
“Sorry, my hands are kind of rough,” he muttered as he dabbed the cream carefully along the back of her neck between her pigtails. “Does it hurt?”
“No, I didn’t even notice.”
“Good, hopefully we got it before it got bad enough to cause you a problem.” He couldn’t resist leaning around her slightly and adding, “Should I do your face too? You look a little pink.”
“Now you’re teasing me,” she grumbled, turning a little pinker. “But you probably actually should.” She turned toward him and lifted her face. “Go ahead.”
Luka smiled to himself a little ruefully when she called his bluff, but his hand was steady as he dabbed the sunscreen on her little nose and smoothed it over her cheeks with his thumb. The slow smile she gave him didn’t help his composure. “Now who’s pink?” she giggled, and he grinned back.
“You got me. You’re just too cute, Marinette.” Luka actually caught himself leaning in toward her and stepped back quickly. He really wanted to kiss her and the way she looked at him made him think maybe she wanted to kiss him too, which was not helping his self-control. Luka took a deep breath and turned away, settling back in the lounge chair and picking up Anarka’s guitar. He launched into the most complicated riff he could think of, as Marinette turned back to her painting.
The charged moment ebbed away and they lapsed back into their comfortable camaraderie as Luka played, and Marinette painted. “Do you think you’ll finish today?” he asked, glancing at the sinking sun. “It’s fine if you need to keep it another day.”
“I’m done,” she announced.
“You’re done? I can look?” Luka hopped to his feet, and Marinette stepped back and waved him toward the easel.
The blue striped snake with its red head and tail slithered up the side of the guitar, following the curves, against its background of white blossoms, the centers just tinged with pink. It fit the body of the guitar beautifully and the colors popped against the black. “I put a little more blue in the snake just so it wouldn’t blend too much with the black,” Marinette said thoughtfully as she wiped her hands. “I think it worked.”
Luka put his arms around Marinette and lifted her off the ground. She yelped and giggled. “I love it, Marinette, it’s amazing. You’re amazing.” He put her down and bent to kiss her cheek, but she turned her head and every nerve in his body lit up at once when he felt her soft lips under his, her fingers tangling in his shirt to keep him there. His hands moved on instinct while his brain was still locked up, flattening against her back to pull her closer. Luka’s eyes fluttered shut as they both shifted slightly, lips sliding across each other until they fit together perfectly. It only lasted a moment before Marinette gasped against his lips, and pulled away, clearly realizing what she’d done.
He stared at her, trying to put himself back together, and her eyes widened with horror and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Luka, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking—I mean, I wasn’t thinking, it’s just, you were so close and you’re really cute and I—I do really like you but I didn’t mean to—”
Luka held up a hand between them to stop her, but it was another moment before he felt composed enough to speak. “It’s okay, I understand. I wanted to kiss you too, so—the moment got away from us and that’s okay.” He took a deep breath, and tried to smile. “But let’s try not to let it happen too often, I don’t think my heart can take it.”
“Right,” she whispered, fingers still over her lips. “Sorry, Luka.”
“Don’t be, I liked it. It was a good kiss.” He winked at her and she giggled.
“It was,” she agreed, and then sobered. “But I shouldn’t have done it while my feelings are so messed up, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Forgiven,” he said simply, and turned back to his guitar. “I can’t wait to get this home.” He nudged her arm. “Sign it for me?”
“But—”
“Please.”
“What if I sign the back?”
“Marinette, sign your art for me, please.”
Reluctantly she chose a detail brush, and, after studying the design for a moment, delicately painted a small Marinette in the curve of a branch of blossoms.
“Now it’s perfect,” Luka grinned.
“What happens now?” Marinette asked.
“I need to put a clear coat on it and it’ll need to cure for a bit, and then I can finally put it back together and play.” He grinned. “So when people ask where I got my sick custom paint job, what should I tell them?”
Marinette shoved him lightly. “That it was a one-time deal because you’re my friend. Clothes are one thing but I don’t think I could do this too often, too stressful.” She wrinkled her nose. “And smelly, even up here.”
“Well, if you ever need some extra cash, let me know and I’ll pass your name around. People would pay good money for something like this. I’m just as happy to have a one-of-a-kind, though.”
“Better hold off on the praise until you make sure it still sounds right,” Marinette fretted, and Luka squeezed her shoulder.
“Don’t worry so much. I wouldn’t have let you touch it if I didn’t have complete confidence in you.”
Marinette gaped at him. “You said you could just refinish it again if it didn’t work out!”
“I did say that, and it’s technically true,” Luka laughed. “But I sure as hell don’t want to. It’s a lot of work.”
Marinette pouted, and Luka had to physically turn away from the sight now that he knew what those lips felt like.
She shouldn’t have kissed him, but in retrospect Luka blamed himself as much as her; he’d been hovering in her space lately, indulging in more physical contact than he probably should have. He’d always known she was attracted to him, and now, when she was in a headspace where she felt neglected and rejected, cozying up to her was just asking for pain. He could hardly fault her for giving into the impulse, he’d nearly done the same earlier. He was human, after all, hanging out with a cute girl that he really, really liked, and meditation could only do so much. Luka sighed and resolved reluctantly to keep a little more distance from now on, before he did something he ought to regret.
Naturally, Juleka chose that day to pick at him when he got home. “So, been making any progress on all these Marinette dates you’ve been having?” she asked, and he winced.
“They haven’t been dates, and...I’m not sure. Something feels different, but...” Luka shook his head. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. I’m just trying to be a friend she can count on. Honestly I’m not even sure she’s up to dealing with a guy in her life right now.”
Juleka snorted. “Don’t be stupid.”
“What?” Luka looked at her, and she tossed her bangs back to look at him.
“Marinette needs people to love, she can’t help it. She’s at her best when she’s caring for other people,” Juleka said, turning her face forward again, “It has to be a two-way street though, and that hasn’t been happening lately, in a lot of her relationships.” She looked down, twisting her hands in her lap guiltily. “And with Adrien,” Juleka continued, “She’s just...wasting energy that she really, really needs for other things. And...I think she might be figuring that out now.”
“What do you mean?” Luka asked, frowning.
“I’m not saying she’s moved on,” Juleka said cautiously. “But I’m saying she might have figured out she needs to. This whole...finding herself quest that she’s on...I think that’s part of it. I think something happened that she doesn’t want to talk to the rest of us about.”
Luka wanted to ask why she thought so, but had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him.
“How are you feeling about the things she wants you to wear for the photos?” he asked instead.
Juleka smiled broadly. “They’re awesome.”
“So feeling a little better about this time?”
“There won’t be so many people this time,” Juleka said. “Marinette has the whole thing planned out ahead this time, and she walked me through what she wants to do. And…” She bit her lip.
“And?” Luka prodded gently.
“And I...talked to Rose. About the panic attacks. So she knows what to do now.”
“That’s great, Jule.” Luka reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m glad you decided to talk about that. I know that’s a big step.”
Juleka shrugged his hand off, blushing. “And you’ll be there, so it’ll be fine.”
“Love you too, sis.”
#quickspins#finding harmony#backlog#lukanette#i am lukanette trash i admit it#luka couffaine#marinette dupain-cheng#miraculousladybug#miraculous ladybug#ml fics
32 notes
·
View notes
Text
Like her brother, Android 18 usually displays a cool and confident character, especially in battle, although her sarcastic humor is the most prominent trait of her personality. This is demonstrated when Goku takes notice of her assembly with the Dragon Team at the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament, leading to the retort "Look, he noticed. How cute." (in Japanese she says "Took you a while idiot!"), as well as saying "Spare me" when Krillin reveals to Goku that not only have they married, but also had a child. Shortly after this, she is asked by the World Tournament Announcer if her real name is legitimately "No. 18", to which she responds "My father was pretty dull" (in Japanese, she replies that "It doesn't matter" before tossing the number at the World Tournament Announcer). Although she isn't characterized for this, 18 can be very curious if she is really interested in something, to the point of activating her comrade Android 16, and wondering what present she will give to her husband Krillin during a dispute of a wish with the others using the Dragon Balls. She often expresses herself in her cool and downplayed manner well into her marriage with Krillin, often smiling in a somewhat subdued fashion that conveys her very laid-back personality, in Super, however, she is often seen smiling. However, 18's sense of humor is not always tactful, as she jokingly expressed to Future Trunks that she wanted reimbursement for him killing her alternate universe counterpart, much to Future Trunks' displeasure. This is a rare instance where Android 18's humor was anything but tactful, as per her usual timing. This failure is likely due to Android 18 being unaware how murderous her counterpart was and how much Future Trunks had suffered because of it, as she likely would have been more sensitive had she known the full extent of the destruction and suffering caused by her and her brother's counterparts. She is also shown to be rather prideful, though not to the same extent as her brother had been during the Imperfect Cell Saga.
As an older sister and delinquent, and later as a wife and martial artist, Android 18 is shown to be outwardly commanding, insisting that she and her brother 17, and later she and Krillin, have to make strides to improve the family's financial situation, insisting Krillin to join the Tournament for the prize money, forcing Mr. Satan into a deal about giving her 20 million Zeni to the point of destroying his property and multiplying the prize money a hundred-fold, wanting Shenron to grant her wish for a present for Krillin, and initially saying that she would only fight at the Tournament of Power if she gains money for it although she later decides to enter because she suspects that the tournament is not really a game. In Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors, Android 18 is hinted to dislike driving solely because of Android 17's insistence on driving around aimlessly without anything better to do. However, 18 still exhibits some of her sensitivity and even protective side, especially towards her twin brother, daughter, and husband. This is in stark contrast to her alternate self from Future Trunks' timeline, where she is a murderous sociopath who cares for no one but herself and her brother though this is mainly due to the fact that Future Dr. Gero had altered Future 17 and 18 to hate humanity, which never occurred in the main timeline. 18 also possesses a vast distaste if not outright hatred of violence against children, to the point that after witnessing Lord Beerus's attacks against Gotenks she lost her temper and proceeded to assault him, despite his decisively superior power. This is likely due to her instincts as a mother and fondness for her friends' children despite being frequently annoyed by the underage Super Saiyans. Unlike her brother, she, like Goku and any other fighter, sometimes has the tendency to let her guard down during battle, allowing her opponents to take advantage, primarily because of her cool and laid-back attitude, as demonstrated by Shosa in the tournament.
Like her brother, she developed hatred towards Dr. Gero for modifying them against their will, though interestingly, she still uses the name No. 18 instead of her original name Lazuli and in the dub even sarcastically refers to Dr. Gero as her father (as he was the one who gave her the name No. 18) when asked about her name during the World Tournament. It was this shared hatred of Gero that convinced 18 that Cell was only imitating 17's voice to trick her. Though she lacks her future counterpart's sociopathic and murderous personality, she does share her counterpart's love of shopping and interest in fashion, as well as taking care in maintaining her appearance and dislikes having her clothing or hair damaged in battle. In the anime, she is shown to dislike Chi-Chi's Chinese dresses while trying her clothes when the Androids come to Goku's House looking for Goku. This is in contrast with her future counterpart who had no problem with the Chinese dresses she tried on while shopping for clothes during The History of Trunks special, showing that she and her counterpart apparently have different tastes in fashion.
By the time of Dragon Ball Super, Android 18 seems to have grown kinder and compassionate, is often seen smiling and is closer to Krillin and Marron compared to Z, where she is shown always folding her arms and looking withdrawn from the characters (like Vegeta and Piccolo, with the former before being accustomed to earthly society), only smiling when she sees her daughter and participating in some activities with the characters, like in the God of Destruction Beerus Saga, she participates in the bingo tournament. When she encounters Future Trunks after so many years, she is shown to be more kind and friendly to him than the last time they met, giving him a fist and joking about her future self's death. Android 18's close relationship with Krillin had led her to want to give a present for him, which she wanted to use the Dragon Balls to wish for a present, when Bulma told #18 that having her and Marron is better than having any present, she was struck with flattery, causing her face to blush, implying that she really loves her husband, and even cheers for him during Universe 6 and Universe 7's baseball match. In addition, she also ended up joining the Tournament of Power, not due to money, but because she suspected from both the increasing prize money, Goku and Gohan's increasingly desperate offers to have them join, and Gohan's serious disposition that the results if they lost the tournament would be very severe. However, she is cold towards her brother after reuniting with him for the tournament and tells Krillin not to force it when he tries to break the ice by initiating a friendly conversation with his brother-in-law. She also threatened to kill her brother if he mispronounced Marron's name as "Maron" a second time (however this may be due to it reminding her of Krillin's ex-girlfriend Maron, or it could have been a sanctimonious, empty threat), indicating that she and her brother have grown distant since the Imperfect Cell Saga.
Despite this, both siblings are still capable working well together as a team during the Tournament of Power and even strategize together to take advantage of their infinite stamina. Android 18 also nevertheless still deeply cared for him, as she was very distraught when he seemingly killed himself to save Goku and Vegeta along with Universe 7. In Xenoverse 2, she states she has been working with Krillin on attack coordination and that it reminds her of the old days fighting alongside her brother, though notes that she and 17 would never actually try and attack deliberately together, as they simply just naturally had good timing due to being twin siblings. However she notes that it is not the same with Krillin as she needs to focus more on Krillin and use more concentration when coordinating her attacks with his, though she doesn't mind it really.
However, she still at times retains some of her original cool nature, as evidenced by the Peaceful World Saga, where she offhandedly mentioned that even the likes of Krillin could beat Wild Tiger after seeing Pan beat him.
In the events in Dragon Ball GT, Android 18 has a very close attachment to her now older daughter, Marron and protects her when she is in danger. When Krillin was killed by her brother, Android 17 due to Hell Fighter 17's control, Android 18 emotionally cries over her husband's death despite being a cyborg and admitting she loves him as she shows her vengeful rage to her brother for what he had done. When she confronts her brother for the second time, she smiles at Goku due to his friendship with her husband as she assists him to avenge Krillin's death.
Relationship with Krillin
Android 18 and Krillin's relationship began as a mutual yet unspoken attraction despite their meeting as enemies in battle, as she spared his life and gave him a kiss on the cheek. It is unknown if Krillin had feelings before this kiss or if he developed a crush on her from that point on. Afterward, by the time he could have shut her down with Bulma's remote control device, Krillin's feelings had already progressed to the point that he chose instead to smash the controller and warn her of Cell's approach despite the danger this presented to the world. Just before her absorption, 18, after hearing Krillin being knocked away by Cell, attacked Cell in a fury and denounced the latter as a monster, despite being rendered temporarily blind earlier due to Cell's use of Solar Flare. Following the battle with Cell, Krillin used the Dragon Balls to remove the bombs implanted in 18 and 17 in a selfless act he believed would allow them to live happily together. 18 angrily corrected him on the fact that 17 is her brother, not her boyfriend, before leaving, flattered by Krillin's feelings.
Krillin's courtship of 18 beyond was not shown but it is clear, by the time Majin Buu surfaced, that 18 had consented to marry Krillin and even had a daughter with him. Despite openly requesting to improve her family's financial situation, 18 inwardly admired her husband intensely, once stating that he was "So cool" as he flew away. She is also seen tending to his wounds after his mock-fight with Goku with a gentle smile on her face. As parents, both 18 and Krillin were shown to be intensely protective of their daughter Marron. In the Majin Buu Saga, Battle Of Gods Saga, and Resurrection F saga examples were shown of one or both of them focused on who will protect their daughter before major battles.
It has been shown that 18 is an emotionally supportive wife, offering kind words and wisdom to Krillin in his moments of self-doubt, such as when Krillin wondered if giving up martial arts was the right thing to do, but when Marron walked up to and smiled at them, 18 told him as she tended his wounds that he was exactly where he belonged. 18 also can be playful and works well with Krillin in many situations, both in combat and in leisure. One humorous instance of this was seen on the Lookout, with 18 helping Krillin in a card game against Master Roshi, with 18 giving him directions from behind Roshi's back through head gestures.
18 is shown to have a somewhat difficult time expressing her affections towards her husband, as she intended on one occasion to use Shenron to wish for the perfect gift for Krillin. Upon receiving a heart-to-heart conversation from Bulma, 18 realized that she and Marron were all that Krillin needed to be happy, bringing 18 to a new level of understanding towards her husband, deeply touched by Bulma's words and kindness towards her. 18 is also known to worry about Krillin's safety due to his job as a police officer, as he has been known to suffer bullet wounds despite his superhuman conditioning and abilities. 18 is clearly devoted and dedicated to Krillin's happiness and well being due to this tendency of hers. However she does have a bit of a jealous streak as shown in the Bio-Broly film when the researcher Nain hugs onto Krillin as they fly her and her colleagues to safety as Mei Queen Castle fills with Culture Fluid, Android 18 notices him blushing as Nain hugs him causing her to coldly push Nain and Krillin away while telling them to hurry up and go, though neither are hurt by this. This jealous streak also implied by her reactions to Zangya's comments about Krillin being cute in the Budokai Tenkaichi series. It is also implied in the Dragon Ball Super anime she may be aware of Krillin's ex-girlfriend Maron, given she angrily threatens her brother when he mispronounces her daughter Marron's name as Maron.
In Dragon Ball FighterZ, Android 18 is torn emotionally when Android 21 (when overcome by her evil persona) orders her to fight with Krillin though she agrees to prevent Android 21 from attacking him. She orders the soul inside her not to kill Krillin and they manage to defeat Krillin without killing him though Android 21 loses control of her cravings, forcing Android 18 to have the soul inside her link with Android 21 to stop her from eating Krillin. After subduing her, they leave Krillin behind to learn more about Android 21 who Android 18, 17, and 16 resolve to help overcome her evil side. After 21's fission into her good and evil halves following the death of 16, Android 18 is relieved when Krillin arrives to save her and the good Android 21 from the evil 21. She is touched when Krillin admits he realized she had gone easy on him when they fought and correctly assumed she had own reasons for helping 21. She is not surprised when Goku and Krillin want to help the good Android 21 stop her evil counterpart. Android 18 is also shown to have developed animosity towards Frieza for his murder of Krillin in the past, which even extends to the Clone Friezas as she convinces the good 21 and her brother to help her avenge Krillin by killing a Frieza clone they encounter much to good Android 21's confusion as she recognizes that Android 18's desire to avenge Krillin by killing a Clone Frieza is itself irrational as it is not the true Frieza. Presumably, she would hold similar animosity towards Tambourine as well as Super Buu (though in Super Buu's case, it would likely be greater as he killed both her husband and daughter, as well as 18 herself). Though Android 18 loves her husband, in a special conversation between Krillin and Yamcha in which Yamcha mistakenly assumes that Krillin has a thing for female Androids due to Krillin agreeing with Yamcha that 21 is attractive, Android 18 overhears Yamcha's careless remarks, causing her to comically seethe with anger and glare sinisterly at both Krillin and Yamcha who are so terrified they do not dare turn around and instead focus on fighting the enemy, hoping that 18 will go easy on them afterwards. However, Krillin himself is shown in FighterZ to love Android 18 and is enraged when he sees her injured in the Super Warrior Arc and Enemy Warrior Arc, to the point he is willing to bravely confront the likes of Perfect Cell (and Frieza, the Ginyu Force, and Nappa in the Enemy Warrior Arc) and is shown to be protective of her, though he can be overprotective as he is reluctant to allow her to work with her brother, 16, and Android 21 because he was not trusting 21, owing to her association with the Red Ribbon Army, though after she holds back against him he, understands she had her reasons for doing so and ends up coming to her rescue when she, 17, and good 21 confront the evil 21, having learned what was going on from Dende while staying on The Lookout.
Dragon Ball GT showed an, even softer side of Android 18. When 17 returned in a brainwashed state and attempted to compel 18 to join him, Krillin was able to break the mind control. 18 was distraught enough over her husband's subsequent death to attack her own brother in a rage and it was a combined attempt to avenge Krillin that helped 18 and Goku finally put aside their differences and become friends.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ten Good Things for the weekend trip + Five Good Things for today!
1. It started hailing out of nowhere, and we were all very delighted by the weirdness of it, even having grown up in an extremely hail-prone place. Dad and I ran out to the balcony and caught handfuls of tiny hailstones, then brought them in to dump into Mom’s hands (she thought we were bringing her herbs from the little garden or something and was hilariously indignant when we just dumped ice water on her).
2. I brought cookies across the border from a very cool bakery near where I live and had been told it was all shortbread, but then some of the cookies were very very spicy cardamom??? Amazing!
3. We went to a new restaurant we’d never been to before right on the harbor and watched the sailboats come in and park. Parking a sailboat at a crowded dock sounds like the world’s most expensive game of dominoes waiting to happen, so it was awesome to see the precision involved!
4. My brother had just picked up a bunch of new sets of D&D dice and he and I messed around with them for a while, test-rolling (very important quality control) and swapping tales of DMing. He had a very cool idea for a puzzle-based boss battle that I may have to steal for my own campaign...
5. Dad has apparently been ensuring that there’s a fresh vase of cheerful-colored flowers on the living room table at all times, and the bright oranges and reds of this weekend’s offering were just stunning when the sun shone through them.
6. Leaning way out over the balcony to try to find a rainbow during a sun shower, Dad and I could only see the very end of one sticking directly out of an otherwise unassuming neighborhood. Like, yes, this particular intersection is now A RAINBOW. Very good.
7. After growing up entirely landlocked, some quite choppy water on the crossing (”choppy” as in “people were falling when they tried to get up and walk”) taught me that I’m not in fact especially prone to seasickness, which is great to know! It felt like an oddly soothing roller coaster. Bizarrely entertaining.
8. Speaking of, nobody sat next to me on the boat on either leg of the journey! Lots of room to stretch out and read a book.
9. Mom and Dad got very giggly picking out what amounted to couples’ cosplays based on what kind of wig Mom’s going to buy. They were looking at Buzzfeed rankings of the top wigs on various TV shows. Amazing.
10. The kitties were very skittish while I was gone, and I was worried I’d get home and find they’d completely reverted to their near-feral terror of humans, but the second after I walked through the door, Hector snuck slowly out to look at me... and immediately rolled over and started purring, and didn’t stop until he fell asleep that night. (Clara also came out quickly for pets and cuddles!) Awesome care while I was gone made all the difference. <333
And for today!
1. Actually had a thoroughly enjoyable conference call, for once! I was worried because everyone had already discussed all the topic ideas I was interested in, so when the conversation came around to me, I had to just make up a completely improvised topic for a seminar. But it really took off, and my co-coordinator for this particular seminar turns out to have such oddly specific expertise that she can actually be one of our panel of experts! Really cool that it worked out so well. (Also, one of my best friends got admitted to this program, and the random number generator placed her in my peer mentoring group! Very elementary school “the teacher wanted to separate us but the randomizer still put us together!” moment.)
2. After stressing all night about having to get Hector into his carrier for his vet visit today (it’s a new carrier but I couldn’t figure out the dang toploading mechanism) I got him into the carrier on the first try! In contrast, last time I had to cancel his vet appointment because, after an hour and a half, I still couldn’t get him into the carrier. (He did Super Great at the vet’s office today!)
3. Today’s lecture in class was really fun! Less than half of the class showed up (hey, they’re seniors and the quarter’s almost over), but the ones that did were really excited about the material and participated a bunch. We talked about relatively cutting-edge radar technology, too, so they got to have that glimpse into really immediate research-relevant discussions, which doesn’t happen as often as it should at the undergrad level.
4. We hired a new admin staff member to help coordinate the graduate program (she did exactly this job for fifteen years in another department, so we’re really lucky to have her), and we threw her a welcome party, complete with fresh-baked banana bread! She was really nice, and joked that now I can finally feel like I’m no longer the new kid on the block.
5. The professor in the office next to mine is finally back after flying planes for Science for the past three months! She seemed pretty stressed (now comes the fun part of “what the hell happened to all the data that looked so good at the time”), but relieved to be back. She has to go out again for three months next winter and the winter after that, though! That’s a huge time commitment. Regardless, I know she loves this stuff, and it’s so great that she’s back. Once things have calmed down a little, I’m going to suggest we start merging our research groups for occasional group meetings, since I’m already coadvising one of her postdocs and on the committee of one of her Master’s students. Collaboration!
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
Title: Manor-Dad lets me drive the Batmobile Chapter 6
Summary: The Batkids think Bruce is dating Batman ft. Jason being the best big brother ever to Tim
AN: BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME. Yeah I updated!!!
Jason felt pretty shitty for the first week Tim was staying with them. He knew the sharp claws digging into his throat and head as well as nausea accompanied by them were all symptoms of jealousy trying to establish its place in Jason’s heart. He was sixteen for crying out loud. He should be above feeling jealous of a thirteen-year-old, who, most of the time, wasn’t even trying to get anyone’s attention. It was almost pitiful to witness Tim startling every time some addressed him because he wasn’t expecting anyone to really ask him about his day at dinner.
And yet Jason was hiding away in his room because he couldn’t stand Bruce paying attention to someone else like a spoiled little brat. He would have gone to the Cave, but Alfred had banned all of them from sulking in there. He figured it was only a question of time until Alfred got Batman to switch into civilian clothes and stay in the manor.
Groaning, Jason buried his head in his pillows.
Don’t be jealous of the new kid, don’t be jealous of the new kid, don’t be jealous of-
The door creaked.
“What’s up, Little Wing?”
Dick.
Right, it was Saturday morning. Of course Dick would be here.
“Nothing,” Jason replied, but even to his ears, his voice sounded wobbly.
Dick honored his horrible nickname and took Jason’s annoyance as an invitation. He let himself fall down onto Jason’s bed and stretched like a cat, taking up all the space. He stayed as silent as a bat while he waited for Jason to gather his courage. It was dumb, but when Dick wasn’t being a dick, he had this annoying quality that made you want to talk to him. He was good at giving advice that didn’t boil down to “money” or “batarangs” or random actually helpful bits about social cues. Jason knew he could trust his brother, he had kept his mouth shut about Sheila for months after all.
“I’m jealous,” Jason finally admitted. It was strange to say it out loud
Dick laughed. “Of my charming good looks? Don’t worry, you’ll get there.”
Jason rolled his eyes but cracked a small smile nevertheless.
“Not of that, Dickhead. And I’m already taller than you anyway.”
“Lies! Slander! How could you even just attempt to break my heart like that?”
Dramatically, Dick put his right arm to his forehead and closed his eyes, reminiscent of a shocked Victorian lady.
“Uhu, just consult the measurements on the kitchen entrance door. I’ve officially surpassed you.”
Even if Jason couldn’t really believe it. Leslie had estimated his height when he’d first gotten to the manor and back then it had seemed like he’d be lucky if he ever reached Dick’s height. Personally, Jason was blaming that alien plant fertilizer goo he’d gotten dosed with a couple months ago for his growth spurt, but he sure as hell wasn’t telling anyone that. Except for Alfred, in case he ended up growing flowers instead of hair.
“But no, I’m jealous of the kid.”
“Tim?” Dick asked.
His voice wasn’t judgmental or anything, but Jason still felt like apologizing.
Jason groaned and fell back on his bed. “I know! It’s stupid! But Bruce has been busy with him practically the whole week! I know it’s ‘cause they have to get his guardianship finalized and everything, but still. And he’s so smart too! Even Batman’s noticed! I lived in this house for weeks and I didn’t figure out the big batty secret, but the kid did it from a distance!”
“You know, I was pretty jealous too when you showed up.”
Jason definitely hadn’t known that. Honestly, Dick’s sunny attitude around Jason had almost freaked him out the first times he interacted with Dick.
“What?”
Dick shrugged easily.
“I mean, I wasn’t talking to Batman at all. And then there was you spending so much time down in the Cave with him. Of course, I was jealous. You were all cute and tiny and knew basically everything about Gotham already. I swear, I had to study boring maps for months and you already knew Gotham’s streets.”
“How did you deal with it?”
“I considered your situation and I tried to get to know you. Figure out your interests and stuff.”
Jason frowned.
“Wait. Was that the reason you went everywhere I wanted with me? Passive-aggressive exposure therapy in a mall?”
Dick grinned mischievously. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
X
Surprisingly, it didn’t take much to get Tim talking about himself. After reassuring him that, yes, Jason didn’t have anything more important to do and no, Bruce really was expecting Tim to decorate his room, Tim could not be stopped.
He talked.
So much.
About skateboarding, how much fun the keyboard was, his more challenging school classes, photography, Pokémon, his favorite comics, exciting facts he learned, the heroes conspiracy blog he was apparently running, and Robin.
Whenever they were alone, Tim would talk about Robin.
The sky was blue, the sun was hot, Timothy Jackson Drake didn’t shut up about Robin.
He got super excited and cheerful then, retelling Jason cases he had actually worked and wondering about how all the cool gadgets worked and just Robin.
Tim’s case of hero worship hadn’t gone unnoticed by the manor’s other residents either, but Jason wasn’t sure if Alfred or Bruce understood the way Tim talked about Robin. Like he was more than just a vigilante, like the role was a symbol.
“Batman needs Robin,” Tim said seriously. “It makes him better. I mean, Batgirl and Nightwing and Magpie, you’re all amazing! But it’s not Gotham without the Bat and his Robin, right?”
Tim looked unsure, but Jason realized the kid understood it.
And then Jason began to think.
X
Barbara couldn’t believe it took over a month for her to finally get to meet one Timothy Drake in person. She had researched him, even exchanged a few words with him over the comms once, but she had yet to actually meet the kid. Even Dick had met him, and he lived in Blüdhaven.
But Barbara had finally managed to clear enough time in her busy schedule – she was coordinating two vigilante teams and operating as Oracle after all – and driven up to the manor. If she used her time there to update the Bat-Computer as well, then that was only her business. She wasn’t a workaholic and she had a life outside of her duties when they allowed it.
She had the work-life-balance figured out, honestly.
Tim was a cute kid. A bit shy at first, but he warmed up to her quickly enough. Jason must have expected it because he was grinning when Tim started chattering about video games.
“So, what do you think?” Jason asked.
“He’s a good kid.”
“Aaaand?”
“You’re being awfully noisy. What do you want to know?”
“Batman talks to you about my training, doesn’t he? How much longer until I can go solo?”
Barbara leaned forward in her wheelchair. “What do you think?”
Jason deflated. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been ready for it for ages. I haven’t needed B’s back up in a long while, but imagining him being halfway across town is… unsettling still.”
Barbara nodded slowly before replying.
“Honestly? You’ve been ready for two months already at least. Batman just has a hard time letting go. He’s never really been without one of us for a very long time.”
“Right,” Jason said. “Which is why we can’t leave him alone.”
“What are you thinking?”
Jason pointed at Timothy, eagerly throwing batarangs at a target.
“He said that Gotham, that Batman, needs Robin. I’m thinking we should take advantage of the kid who already knows our secret and has a hard time falling asleep when we’re out.”
X
Bruce knew something was up, but he allowed himself to live in blissful ignorance a little longer. He let Dick sneak forensics lessons into Tim’s self-defense classes, allowed Jason to teach Tim about the various gangs ruling Gotham.
It wasn’t like these bits of information weren’t useful, the every-day citizen just didn’t particularly need them.
And Bruce definitely wasn’t thinking about who did need this knowledge and more.
Tim Drake was his ward for as long as his parents weren’t in Gotham. Nothing more and nothing less.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Bruce could see Alfred observing him while the kids (“I’m a twenty-year-old woman, B.” “And I remember babysitting you as a teenager, your point?”) bickered about some movie.
Ignorance was bliss, that was a lesson Bruce had learned early on. And sometimes you were allowed to indulge in it.
X
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tim asked from where he was sitting on Jason’s bed.
“Absolutely,” Jason replied, grinning way too cheerfully for six in the morning. He’d only gotten back from patrol two hours ago, he shouldn’t be so awake yet, or so Tim thought, yet Jason looked like he could take on the world.
“But we’re breaking one of The Rules.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. They’re more like guidelines than rules. Besides, Aunty Diana and Kate already agreed to help us. This is a surefire plan.”
Tim honestly wasn’t so sure about it. He wanted to trust Jason, but what if Bruce and Batman didn’t think it was funny to be tricked into a date?
“But-“
“Jason’s right, Tim,” Barbara’s voice echoed from the laptop sitting on Jason’s desk. “Besides, the worst that will happen is that you get grounded because Bruce and B are caught up in the romantic bliss that was relaxing on Valentine’s Day in Paris.”
“That’s right!” Jason said. “We’re setting up dates for them at least twice a year if we can. It would be suspicious if we didn’t try to get them away.”
Tim pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head on them. “If you say so… I still don’t get why we need both of them out of Gotham for so long. Can’t they stay here?”
“I do say so, Timbit. Just you wait, they won’t know what hit them. And if they stay here, they’d just take their paperwork to bed.”
“Eeww.”
X
Bruce absolutely knew what hit him. Diana and Kate were good actors, they had to be if they even just wanted to operate as vigilantes, but they didn’t even bother to hide it from him.
“It’s cute,” Diana said. “How much they try to make their parents happy.”
“Very funny. What if something actually happens, though?”
“Then your Super-Bro will pick you up from Paris,” Kate replied. “And ten years ago you were working alone. Now you’ve got me and Dick and Jason and Babs to look over Gotham. We got this.”
Her words would have been more encouraging if they weren’t followed up by her narrowly avoiding a brick being thrown at her.
Nevertheless, he still pretended to buy WE having an emergency in their Paris branch and one of Gotham’s smuggler rings operating from Paris as well.
The kids’ happy expressions were worth it.
X
Dick felt maybe a little guilty for lying to Tim. It was true, they tried to give Bruce and Batman some alone time once in a while and Valentine’s day was perfect for it. This time though, they needed the two men away so they could properly get to Tim.
Truth be told, he’d been skeptical when Barbara and Jason had pitched the idea to him. Training Tim and giving him a home was one thing, bringing him into the active side of the vigilante life a whole other deal.
The longer he watched Tim though, the more could he see it. The teenager was smart, dedicated, skilled and – like Jason had said – he knew what Robin meant.
Though, seeing him be questioned about the law, recent gang activity, weapons, the Justice League, and various Gotham residing companies by Babs all while sparing with Jason, made Dick pity Tim.
Dick’s Robin training had been way more relaxed, but he also hadn’t had three older siblings.
X
If not for the fact that Jason had made Tim’s favorite smoothie for him, Tim would assume the older boy was trying to murder him. It was day three of their spontaneous ‘sibling-bonding weekend’ and Tim was pretty sure his whole body was dying. He had never had to think or work out this much. He was sore all over. The training mats he was lying on were becoming his favorite spot to be, right after his bathtub and his bed.
“And how do you feel?” Dick asked.
“Like Superman decided I was a threat and went several rounds in the ring with me because I couldn’t recall that the Kryptonite is locked with a special key, and three different locks behind the secret entrance-“
“Woah, woah, Timbit,” Jason interrupted. “That’s enough trivia. Didn’t think you could learn this much in three days.”
“Mhm,” Barbara muttered from the desk of the Bat-Computer. “You own me fifty bucks.”
Tim frowned. “Wait. You bet on this?”
“Oooh, yeah. This has been two months in the making?” Dick glanced at Jason, who nodded in confirmation.
“Yeah, putting together a time table for three days wasn’t fun, I tell you, but the results are pretty amazing.”
Jason smiled and dropped down on the mats right next to Tim to mess up his sweaty hair.
“Urgh, gross,” he cursed and rubbed his hands on his sweat pants.
“But- why did you do this?”
The three heroes in front of Tim shared a look and Tim got the distinct impression that he was missing a big piece labeled ‘context’ in bright neon colors here.
“Your parents will be back in a few hours,” Barbara said.
(Tim wondered what it meant that his first instinct wasn’t to think about his own parents but-)
“I guess that means it’s time,” Dick said and walked over to the display cases in which the various Robin uniforms were kept. From in-between them, he pulled forward a small gift-wrapped box.
“Catch!” He shouted and threw it in Tim’s direction.
Heart beating fast, Tim jumped up to catch it. The package wasn’t bigger than his palm and surrounded by Christmas themed paper.
“Christmas? Really?” Jason snorted, but Dick just shrugged.
“Didn’t have anything better at home. Go on, Tim, open it. If you want it, it’s yours.”
Carefully, Tim unwrapped the gift, revealing a cardboard box. He could feel the others’ stares on him but didn’t dare look up. They had put a lot of thought into this and spend so much time with him. He couldn’t disappoint them.
Tim opened the box and came face to face with a shiny black and gold emblem.
“What…?”
“You said it yourself,” Jason said. “Batman needs a Robin and I’m not putting on the green tights again.”
“What Jason means,” Dick added, “is that we really can’t be responsible for Batman running around without a talented little pipsqueak cracking masterful puns. So if you want to be Robin, you have our blessings. You only need to convince the other two overprotective idiots of this house.”
It took all of Tim’s strength not to burst into tears right then and there. He was thankful though that Jason and Dick dragged him over to Babs for a group hug.
X
Bruce didn’t even know why he had assumed it would end differently. Tim had been skittish the whole week and Bruce had watched the Cave’s security tapes, just to make sure they hadn’t tried to hide an explosion from him again.
“I‘m fairly skilled in a multitude of martial arts now,“ Tim began his speech.
“No,” Batman replied.
At the other end of the Cave, Nightwing and Magpie were supposed to be sparring, but they couldn’t be listening in more obviously.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Tim pouted.
“You’re not becoming Robin, Tim.”
Tim crossed his arms and held his chin high. Batman recognized that stance instantly, he did it fairly often himself. Maybe Clark had been right when he said that it was freaky to work alongside his kids because they all had the same body language during missions.
“I already talked to Bruce and he said that Batman needs a Robin.”
Honestly, what was it with his children lying to him?
Nevertheless, Bruce couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Did he really?”
And Tim had the audacity to nod, all serious like he wasn’t lying straight to Bruce’s face. His poker face was pretty already, not too many cracks in the mask. The kids had done an excellent job training and it would be a shame if that training went to waste.
So, Bruce really couldn’t argue against Tim, could he?
100 notes
·
View notes
Text
“Attack of the Killer Robotos” - BassRock short oneshot fanfic
By: Jixie
Fandom: Mega Man Classic
@bassrockweek: May 15 - Zombie
Rating: G
Words: 1770
There was always a sort of order amidst the chaos. For all the trouble and destruction Dr. Wily caused, he also had some sort of compulsion to do things a certain way, using certain patterns. Set zones. Defined attacks. Eight Robot Masters. The winding path through Skull Fortress.
Order amid chaos.
Which is what made this so weird.
It was… unpredictable. Haphazard. Disorderly. Mega Man knew Wily's patterns and habits like the back of his hand, but he never truly appreciated just how predictable the mad scientist was until now, when everything was— well— the best way to describe it was 'on fire'. Mostly on account of all the fires.
They had been waiting to hear from Wily, either bragging about his latest plot, or begging and simpering about how he'd lost control over it, but so far it had been radio silence. Mega Man did his best to stop the robots running amok and rescue civilians and put out fires, both literally and figuratively.
The last thing he needed was Bass showing up to brawl. He never knew if Bass was going to be on their side or in Wily's corner— it was 50/50— and their relationship was pretty nebulous, so Mega Man wasn't sure where he stood with Bass at any given time.
Lucky for him, Bass wordlessly went after the berserker robots instead of hassling Mega Man.
They fought separately for a while, until Bass shot down a Potton delivery drone that was in Mega Man's blindspot. He used that as an opening. "Thanks! Let me guess… Dr. Wily's latest scheme got out of hand?"
"Yeah."
"Another virus?"
Roboenza had caused advanced robots to go wild, while less complex ones simply ceased functioning. This time, everything had come to life, from smart blenders to self-driving vehicles (traditional and flying) to robotic vacuum cleaners.
"Nah." Bass hesitated, because it would help if Mega Man actually knew what was going on. But at the same time, Wily was still convinced he could regain control of the situation, in which case it was better if he left his rival in the dark.
He was still on the fence when Mega Man's face scrunched up in amusement, clapping a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh and failing miserably. "Oh my goodness, is that… is that a commode?"
Blinking in surprise, Bass glanced over his shoulder, then slowly turned around. Shambling down the road was, in fact, a computerized auto-toilet.
"Oh for cryin' out loud!" Built for consumer use, a single shot was all that was needed to dispatch it, but Bass unleashed a series of rapid fire shots until the hapless appliance was reduced to scrap. "Does EVERYTHING need to be a robot? Sheesh!"
***
Everything being a robot was the problem, really. They fought their way through hordes of air conditioners units, portable terminals, coffee makers, automated tellers, electric bikes, water efficient washing machines…
…and robo-pets, unfortunately. Bass was not-so-secretly enjoying the mayhem, but even he seemed ashamed of having to put down the robotic beasts.
He decided not to fill Mega Man in on the details. It wasn't a virus. It was a remote-control satellite, only somehow Wily had bungled the command codes. Instead of making the world's machinery his loyal subjects, it had turned them into mindless attacking zombies.
But hours dragged on and it was obvious Wily hadn't got a handle on the situation. Even more worryingly, he hadn't heard from him since leaving the fortress.
While they fought to restore order, Dr. Light scrambled to figure out what was going on and how to fix it, Roll and Auto offered support, and Proto Man…
Proto Man showed up, having been off doing his own secretive machinations, tossed energy tanks to the other two, and while they refueled, took a moment to appraise the situation. "Why don't you take this fight to Dr. Wily?"
"I don't think Dr. Wily's in control," Mega Man replied, glancing at Bass. "I'm not sure stopping him will stop this," he gestured at the scene of destruction that lay before them.
"Couldn't hurt to try." The tone in Proto Man's voice suggested he knew more than he was letting on.
Chewing at his lip, Mega Man shot Bass another look. "What do you think?"
If nothing else, they could probably force Wily to shut off the satellite signal. On the one hand: mayhem. Bass didn't exactly want to stop. On the other hand: the whole thing was pretty ridiculous, there was no end in sight, and it was weird that Wily hadn't been in touch.
"Fine."
With that Bass teleported, and Mega Man facepalmed. "Darn it, you know I can't just beam directly into Dr. Wily's fort!"
"Hey, listen." Proto Man threw an arm across his back. "I'm sure Bass never mentioned anything, but this whole disaster ruined our plans."
"What? What plans?" He didn't like the sound of this. Particularly the ‘our’ part of it.
"We were going to catch a movie—"
"A movie? ‘We’? As in… the two of you? A movie?" Mega Man made no attempt to hide his disappointment. "Like a— like a date?"
His brother laughed. "No. Like a ‘trying to teach that idiot normal life skills'. It was going to be a group outing."
"Wh— a group— what group?" He was both relieved and increasingly confused. He'd never met any of Blues' friends. Had Bass? Did they have mutual acquaintances?
"Rock," Proto Man said firmly, turning so that they were face-to-face, planting both hands on Mega Man's shoulders. "Rock." He sounded tired. "Invite. Him. To. The. Movies."
There was an unbelievably awkward pause, and Mega Man gulped loudly.
"O-oh. Right."
***
Mega Man was surprised to find Bass loitering outside the fort. Something was wrong— Bass couldn't teleport inside either.
So they fought their way in the old fashioned way. The badniks inside were just as erratic and violent as the household appliances had been. Not knowing the cause of all this, Mega Man started joking around, making wild, increasingly preposterous guesses for what hare-brained plot Wily had this time.
"Is he trying to scare the public by turning their dishwashers and street sweepers against them, terrorizing them into surrendering and begging for mercy?"
"No."
"Let's see… he wanted to ruin Dr. Light's day because he won the Aperture Scientific Achievement award last week, and because he's a super-villain Dr. Wily didn't even qualify."
"No."
"This is an elaborate cover while he builds a third King, even though the last time—"
"Don't mention that name around me."
"Ummm… he's trying to collapse the economy, to start up a corporate conglomerate monopoly for all consumer gadgets?"
Bass groaned. "Please stop talking."
"He just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
"No."
One of the weirdest things about all this was the complete and utter lack of Robot Masters. They got through the maze pretty quickly and found the massive arena where, under normal circumstances, Wily would attack with a massive war machine.
It was startlingly empty.
"Where is he?"
Mega Man did a double take. "You don't know?"
Gesturing for him to follow, Bass made his way deeper into the fortress. If Wily wasn't around, what was the point of trying to keep his plans secret? He guided Mega Man to one of the main control rooms, explaining the whole satellite hacking scheme along the way. Calling up Roll, Mega Man used the nearest terminal to create a network link that would allow Dr. Light to download everything he needed directly from Wily's computers.
They waited in silence, Mega Man not willing to leave until Dr. Light was good to go, and Bass unwilling to leave his rival unattended in the fortress.
"Sooooo," Mega Man said, trying to sound casual. "Did you catch the latest Revengers movie?"
"Nope." He then mumbled something about how he was supposed to, and scuffed his foot on the floor in frustration.
Weaving his fingers together, Mega Man offered a small, hopeful grin. "I haven't had a chance to see it yet, either. M-maybe after things are wrapped up here, we could go check it out…?"
It earned a derisive snort, but then Bass shrugged. "Sure, whatever. I don't care."
"Cool." Trying to hide the feeling of glee, he clapped his hands behind his head. "I wonder how they're going to resolve the whole Eternity Jewels story. It's been so hard avoiding spoilers!"
They were in the midst of debating if Atoman's screen adaption was better than the comic version when Roll called in with the all-clear.
"I'm going to go back and help Proto Man handle the zombie-bots until Dr. Light can shut off the satellite." Mega Man hesitated. "Did you want to…?"
"Nah, I gotta find out where Wily got to."
They went their separate ways, but in the middle of a surprisingly intense battle with a commercial impingement oven— able to launch projectiles from its conveyor belt with incredible speed— Mega Man received a text with a set of coordinates.
Catching his look, Proto Man nodded in understanding. "Go, I have this."
They led him to the grounds outside of Skull Fortress, where a desperate, shrieking Dr. Wily clung halfway up a tree, feet scrambling against the trunk, surrounded by three small robotic lawn mower units.
Bass stood in the distance, arms crossed, wicked grin on his face. "Hey," he said as Mega Man approached. "You don't think Dr. Light could shut down the signal to everyone except these guys, could he?"
"Maybe…"
Dr. Wily switched tactics from berating and cursing Bass to pleading with Mega Man.
"We really should help him."
Tilting his head, Bass tapped his chin and pretended to be lost in thought. "I dunno, I think he could use another half an hour up there."
Mega Man laughed. He should help Dr. Wily and take him to jail, he really should.
"…I think I'm going to let you two work this out," he said finally. "Uh, Leitersburg Cinema, 7:30?"
Glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes, Bass shrugged. "Assuming the projectors didn't go nuts, too."
"Oh, shoot!" Mega Man hid his face in his hands. "You're probably right."
But with all the attacks Wily had done over the years, most businesses had contingencies and bounced back pretty quickly. "Think they'll be up and running again by next Thursday?"
"I guess?"
"Fine. It's a date."
He knew that Bass didn't mean a date, rather that they had an agreed appointment…
…but he couldn't help wearing a stupid, goofy grin for the rest of the day.
--
-A/N: Special thanks to @s-uranet for suggestions and brainstorming.
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
lily liveblogs “terminator: dark fate”, part 2
“It’s raining men (and women)”.... hallelujah? Or not, as the case may be.
(For those just joining us, part one is here)
I was kinda hoping they would run the credits after the title, but I guess filmmakers... don't do that anymore, because we all have short attention spans these days?? Some of that is George Lucas's fault, I know, but tbh I kinda enjoy the creative ways in which filmmakers USED that space occupied by the opening credits... like how The Karate Kid uses it for Daniel and Lucille's road trip between Jersey and California, how it establishes how many friends Daniel had, the importance of his bike, and the whole "putting the car in neutral" and rolling it to get the engine going AND the motif/promise of the pool... all in a minute or two. Magical. I kinda miss that compared to earlier films.
Anyway, highway at night in what the screen tells me is Mexico City 22 years later. Okay, then. There's ice... and then lightning crackling on the road edge, which can only mean one thing -- a visitor from the future!!
There's a woman making out with her boyfriend underneath the highway, and she says "Oh, my god," and the boyfriend thinks it's all his doing, LOL. Sorry, dude, not today.
THE SPHERE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY OVERPASS, HOLY FUCK, WHO SET THOSE COORDINATES?? It's a good thing the spheres destroy everything around them, or else this movie would be very, very short.
As it is, Grace falls naked from a great height, banging on supports as she goes down. Ow. Great way of showing she's not quite human.
Of course the watching girl goes over to help while her boyfriend sits there slack-jawed until she shames him into going along. They pick her up and carry her towards their car, only for the police to show up and demand to know what's going on. They think that they're drug dealers (?) and don't believe that she fell from a bridge.
"I love it when it rains naked ladies," says the cop, which is movie-speak for, "I'm an asshole about to get my ass kicked and the audience is going to cheer while it happens".
He grabs her, and Grace sees his gun, and goes for it. Yup, he's down. She's got some sort of augmented vision like the Terminator though anyone who's seen the trailer knows already she's on the side of good.
Grace takes out all the cops completely naked, and I love how this scene is filmed because it's so not focused on anything sexual and it's not sexualized at all, at least for the male gaze that I can tell. It's just... a naked woman kicking ass without obsessing over the fact that she's naked, and it's so goddamn refreshing.
The boyfriend thinks she's amazing. His girlfriend walks over and hugs him. Grace strides up to him and compares her bare foot to his boot. "Don't thank me yet," she says in a deadpan.
Cut to Grace wearing his clothes driving away in his car as the boyfriend stands around in his boxers and yells for her to go to hell. And I like this because it's so much more effective this way to leave the details in the reader's head and show us the results. The girlfriend steers him away, and he starts blaming her, for getting them involved in the first place. Fuck you, dude. I hope she dumps him that night, too.
Cut to Dani in the street somewhere, carrying flowers and chatting with a tamale vendor. We learn from this that she always has flowers -- an association with life and spirit, and not letting the grind get you down. I approve.
Dani has a brother, Diego, who wants to be a pop star, and a father whom she reminds to go to the doctor. Caretaker of the family! Of course they have a dog, named Taco. I'm sure this will be relevant later. I hope Taco survives. Diego tries to chat up a neighbor named Julia, and I'm sure this will all end tragically. I hope she survives.
Dani and Diego leave just in time... for another naked person to drop from the sky in a glowing electric sphere! What are the odd??!
Okay, I don't remember the spheres forming ice in previous films, but it's a cool detail that it makes all the laundry on the lines freeze and shatter... so it's gotta be SUPER COLD. Like, liquid-nitrogen levels of cold.
Like Grace's sphere, this one drops its inhabitant off in mid-air, but the Terminator is able to do a beautiful leap and land on his feet like a cat. He looks like a marble sculpture here - beautiful, smooth, polished, muscled grace. Hot damn. There is absolutely no emotion on his face as he stands up, and even without the music cues, you know right away something is wrong.
There's a woman staring at him when he turns around. And now he looks friendly... earnest, helpful. "Good morning," he says in Spanish as he reaches out to touch the jacket she has in her hand, and it spills up out of his skin HOLY FUCK THAT IS CREEPY AND AMAZING at the same time.
The woman FREAKS OUT and he SMILES at her ever so slightly, and--
Cut to a busy city street. Unlike the highway where Grace appeared, this in the middle of the city, with lots of apartment buildings and traffic. Dani and Diego are on a bus.
Cut to Dani's father answering a knock on the door while Taco the dog barks hysterically. I know, I know, I'm so sorry, Taco. There's the Terminator, and he's so charming and earnest in his plaid jacket, looking for Dani. He claims to be a friend. Her father is shocked. "That's strange. Her friends call her Dani..."
"Dani?" repeats the Terminator. "Yes, of course." AND HE SMILES... fuck. A TERMINATOR THAT CAN MIMIC HUMAN FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND SHOW EMOTIONS I AM NOT PREPARED FOR THIS.
(but it actually makes PERFECT SENSE for reasons that will be explained later [kinda] in the film!!!!)
Cut to a factory. Arius Motors. Dani and Diego going in to work as cars swing by on the line. There are robot arms and it's all very timely and metaphorical. Somebody goes by on a bicycle INSIDE THE FACTORY and I have no idea how that works, but okay.
Diego's station has been replaced by "a new guy,"--an orange robot arm. Dani asks the supervisor what's going on and he says, "The future," and the manager wants to see Diego in his office. Dani goes in his place, the supervisor says no, Dani pulls out her hair tie, and goes anyway. THIS IS WHY SHE'S THE LEADER OF THE MOTHERFUCKING RESISTANCE, Y'ALL, she’s ALREADY taking no shit from robots.
Dani's father shows up at the factory claiming his kids forgot their lunch and can he come in? Poor dad is definitely dead. I hope Taco at least survived, but I doubt it. Meanwhile Grace is approaching and just leaps over the turnstile like it's no big deal and I LOVE IT. Then she follows a security guard into a corner and mugs him for his uniform and it's all so goddamn quick.
The security guard tells "Dad" that he can't come in without a helmet and vest, which is bullshit, because most of the employees don't wear them, but whatever. Grace keeps walking. How the fuck did she dress so fast, but she looks great. She's got a jacket awkwardly covering her gun, and it's not subtle, but no one seems to notice.
Dani is arguing with the boss, who is... American? At least he's speaking English. She's trying to keep her brother's job, but he's all "well, he's not as good as you are," and Dani is Not Having It. She threatens to tell them that machines are coming for ALL the jobs, and god, I love her so much because EVEN WITHOUT TERMINATORS MESSING UP HER LIFE, SHE WAS GONNA GO PLACES.
"Dad" goes to Dani's station and she isn't there, but he talks to Diego. (I don't know how he knows so much, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty.) The Terminator makes that lame excuse about bringing lunches, and Diego is confused, because Dani already took care of that--
Then Dani shows up and the lunch morphs into a gun, and I'm not sure how they did that, because wasn't the morphing stuff not supposed to MAKE GUNS--ok, maybe he took the security guard's gun and morphed the lunch OVER it as a cover with his polyalloy bits--but FUCK this dude is SCARY--and points the gun at Dani as she and Diego stare--only to have his head blown open as Grace fires.
Grace keeps shooting as Dani screams, and grabs Dani before she can get to "Dad". Grace is way better at explaining things than Kyle Reese: "That is NOT your father. That was a machine that sent here to kill you. " It helps that the Terminator has lots of metal bits exposed at this point, and rapidly shifting back to normal. Come with me or you're dead in the next thirty seconds!"
Dani doesn't buy this, but she runs as Grace shepherds both her and Diego away.
And that back arch as the Terminator sits up and regenerates back to his "original" persona--which, I'll note, he DIDN't steal from anyone in our present; it was the one he came with UNLIKE the T-1000 in T2--and it's scary as hell. And even watching him run, and leap--it's not human. It's a predator disguised in human form. Well done, filmmakers.
I like how they show Grace's augmented senses here, and how she has the extra warning to shove Dani and Diego out of the way when the Terminator goes flying for her. He slices her cap off with arms that are suddenly sword-knives, and she swings a mallet at him, knocking him flat--and flinging him into a wall when she hits him again. She is really fucking strong, and I've never seen a woman be this strong before and it's AMAZING.
She hits him on the head over and over again, and then he starts crawling up the mallet towards her and it's so creepy HOLY FUCK and then he sends her sprawling and pops the mallet back out of his head OH MY GOD.
Grace starts using a piece of car siding as shield because she lost her weapon, keeping herself between the Terminator and Dani at all times.
Diego crushes him with a machine--I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, FILMMAKERS, NICE CALLBACK. Unfortunately, it doesn't take, but it does give them some breathing room. Meanwhile, Grace is tired and out of breath, and visibly overheating. The perfect time to introduce herself to Dani!
Grace explains the situation on the run, and throws Diego into the truck they steal outside when he hesitates. I gotta hand it to her, she's doing this whole thing pretty well.
Diego sees her arm. "Are you a machine too?" "No I'm human, like you!" They don't believe her. "No, I'm augmented." THIS IS GOING TO BE A THEME, OH MY GOD. More on this later. Grace can argue with them AND hotwire the truck at the same time. #goals.
They bust out of the factory. The police immediately go after them, not sure how that worked, and Grace says "Oh, shit," seconds before the Terminator (now revealed as the Rev-9) busts through the wall with a truck and a... snowplow? I guess it's for moving stone and metal bits around the factory? Whatever. It's a lot. The police cars go flying.
Somehow Grace manages to drive AND explain backstory at the same time, which I admire, because I can barely talk and drive at the same time.
There's a lot of civilian casualties, mostly due to the Rev-9 snowplowing everything. They end up going backwards up the highway off-ramp and onto the highway. The Rev-9 busts through more things and loses the snowplow. It's a bad day to be driving in Mexico City, let's just say that much.
Grace gets the first "FUCK!" of the movie, as the check engine light of the truck comes on, so Dani gets to drive while Grace makes improvised weapons out of rebar. Oh, wait, Dani can't drive, so Diego gets to do it. (Hahaha, I guess Dani's going to learn how to drive soon because METAPHOR)
Graces eases off her jacket so she can blow off steam and leaps into the back of the truck, yelling for Dani to put her seatbelt on OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE. I love it.
She targets the Rev-9 and throws. He doesn't even flinch at the first one and catches the second one. She stabs him several times through and then he grabs the rebar and moves the polymetallic alloy portion of himself onto the front of the truck while the metallic Terminator skeleton drives.
[COMBINING THOSE TWO PARTS IS REALLY CREEPY AND ALSO THE BEST DECISION THEY COULD HAVE MADE 10/10 APPROVED]
It looks like the skeleton is laughing at Grace, but I think that's just his resting bitch face, lol.
Grace changes tactics and shoots for the tires. The Rev-9 jumps and throws a rebar back at her and Grace deflects it so it misses Dani. Then the truck is dragging the Rev-9's protoplasm while the other half crashes and Grace has to fend him off. Rev-9 takes this opportunity and slashes at the tires with his sword-hands. Grace kicks him off and he gets run over, but it won't take. Diego crashes the truck as the tire blows and Grace rolls and takes a bad fall onto the pavement. The Rev-9's skeleton crawls out of the flames.
DANI WORE HER SEATBELT SO SHE'S FINE WHILE DIEGO DIDN'T AND IS INJURED OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE THE DETAILS FUUUUUUCCCKKKK. Like, Grace knew Dani had to wear her seatbelt BECAUSE SHE'S FROM THE FUTURE AND OLDER!DANI TOLD HER TO DO IT! And younger!Dani DID IT! OH my GOD! (either that or they really are just that drift compatible)
Oh, no, Diego has rebar through him, he's not going to survive AAAAAAAAH no whhhhhhyyyyy
Meanwhile, some poor motorist tries to help the Rev-9 and is murdered for his troubles. sigh.
Grace has to pull Dani over the body of her dying brother seconds before the Rev-9 smashes into the car and everything explodes in fire. Dani tries to run to Diego and Grace holds her back. Grace makes Dani run.
All of the Rev-9's protoplasm is oozing back towards the skeleton in liquid dark smears on the ground and it's so creepy FUUUUCCKKKK
Oh god HE WALKS THROUGH THE METAL HIGHWAY GUARD LIKE IT'S NO BIG DEAL HOW CREEPY CAN YOU GET FUUUUCCKKK
And then the skeleton starts throwing rebar at them from the other SIDE fuuuuckk. this movie so isn't subtle, because there's the machine part and the human-looking part, and they're both working together as one, and this is a METAPHOR, we're meant to see the Rev-9 and Grace as FOILS to each other AAHHHHHH and the Rev-9 is also a SYMBOL OF WHAT HUMANITY CAN BECOME IF IT MELDS WITH AI, AHHHHHHH
Can I just note here that the skeleton part DOES NOT HAVE A ROUND HEAD THERE IS IN FACT A GAP WHERE ITS BRAIN SHOULD BE AAAAAAA
"When they start to kill me, run," Grace says to Dani. But... AN SUV pulls up, knocks the skeleton flat on its ass as the human part of the REV-9 just stares in dull, placid confusion.
next up: my fave returns!
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
spn rewatch | wendigo
I’m gonna be real upfront right now. This episode scared the piss out of me when I first saw it. I’m sorry but a crazy fast, perfect hunter who can move faster than you can blink and eats human flesh to survive and can mimic a person’s voice to lure you to them?! I WAS TERRIFIED! It didn’t help that I had just moved into our new house, which is on five acres of land with about four of those acres being nothing but woods. But, for real, I know some of the effects aren’t as good as they could be by today’s standards but I actually loved and was terrified of this episode the first time I saw it, which kind of amped up the scary factor from the pilot for me.
Okay, here we go.
So as if we needed to further cement that this is taking place in glorious 2005, you’ve got two guys playing games on their Nintendo DS’s (RIP pre-Glee Cory Monteith, the only person who could’ve competed with Jared vertically) and then Tommy recording a video on his Blackberry, somehow magically having it perfectly level with his face despite not being able to see the screen as he records. Like seriously that’s the supernatural activity they should be investigating.
Okay but so some of the wendio effects later in the episode are not so great but in this first scene, I think they made some pretty solid choices of just relying on the whole concept of “less is more” and giving mostly scary sounds and rustling trees and making you more afraid of what could be in the forest than creating a scary visual to throw at you right off the bat. Solid scary intro scene.
The cemetery scene. Totally classic shoutout to Carrie. I had just gotten into Stephen King when I started watching Supernatural (honestly I was delving into all kinds of horror themed things at the time) and I’d seen Carrie for the first time not too long before this. Which means not only was I super scared by the jump scare (because I’m still jumpy as fuck to this day), I was also SUPER proud of myself for knowing what they were trying to reference there. I definitely thought I was cool for getting that one. Now, not so much. But the scene still makes me jump.
I really do like the ways they’re kind of trying to establish how the brothers care for each other. Like you know right off the bat in the pilot that their relationship is rough at best and that there’s some pretty obvious toxic masculinity on Dean’s part at least but like you can still see that Dean’s concerned. He’s got his own way of showing it but he’s worried about his little brother.
Side note: just remember that they both had a seriously messed up childhood and the fact that either of them are as close to normal as they are is impressive. Like I think all things considered, they’re pretty well adjusted. Kind of.
This episode is kind of outside the norm compared to future episodes with how Sam and Dean both handle the case when they first get to town. The fact that Sam just wants to go straight to the coordinates John left them while Dean’s the one saying “maybe we should do a little research first” is bizarro. But it also kind of helps show just where Sam’s mind is at at this point. He’s not coming to this as a hunter taking on a case, he’s a man with a vendetta and the next step he needs to take is finding John. He’s fueled by anger and grief and guilt and that kind of reflects when he seems less concerned about what’s going on in the woods and more interested in just getting out there ASAP.
Okay, just like they couldn’t pass as US Marshals, the guys seriously do not look like park rangers at all. Like you guys aren’t even trying come on. And good on Haley for being suspicious even if she did seem to buy into their story for a bit.
BABY HAN SOLO!
I totally did not realize that was Alden Ehrenreich playing Ben until I saw his name on screen at the beginning of the episode. He looks so so so young in this ohmygod. Also think I’ll need to keep a list of like all the crazy celeb cameos of people who got famous after being on the show. Or were already famous but I totally forgot popped up.
For our next super underrated guest star scene of the series, Shaw - the old man who’s parents were taken by a “grizzly” back when he was a kiddo in 1959.
Like seriously, it’s one scene but Donnelly Rhodes (RIP) does an amazing job with the scene and like it kind of leaves me with chills whenever he says that whatever it was didn’t break down the door but unlocked it. Like that’s still hella spooky to me. Also, I still don’t totally understand why the wendigo left him behind. Like you’d think for a monster that is going to have a big ass meal before hibernation would want as much meat as possible. Like yeah a little kid wouldn’t much but he’d be something right?
Also that’s a gnarly scar like how did he survive that.
So Dean talks about it being possibly a skinwalker or a black dog but like looking into what those both actually are I honestly don’t understand why he would think that based on what they know about the attacks. Like black dogs are death omens and skinwalkers wouldn’t be able to do the kind of damage that’s being done considering everyone’s just like “oh it’s a grizzly”. So like I dunno, I guess this might’ve been the writers tossing out references to other creatures to make it sound like Dean knows a bunch but like neither of those would be my first guesses for this case.
Kind of just like “early installment weirdness” but whatever. It’s not a big deal, just me nitpicking.
Okay so Roy is kind of a jackass but like he knows what he’s doing for the most part and he totally doesn’t buy the guys story about beng park rangers for one minute. So like I can respect that. And like if it would’ve been an actual animal attacking people, he might’ve survived but oh well.
I do like that Haley just goes ahead and calls bullshit on the park rangers story before they even go on their adventure but Dean’s whole “it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman...ever.” is just kind of cringey.
So all the traipsing through the woods and the “I’m smarter than you” staredown between Roy and Sam is not super interesting but I do like that 1 - we get to see Sam being angry and being emotional in a more volatile way because that’s not often the case as the show goes on - and 2 - we get our iconic line of “saving people, hunting things, the family business” and the whole idea that they’re not supposed to meet up with John but do the jobs he doesn’t have time for while he’s hunting for the demon that killed Mary.
I don’t think I really realized why John would leave them coordinates and the journal when he didn’t plan on actually meeting up with them when I watched this as a kid. I just kind of shrugged it off as like a necessary plot device for the show to progress, didn’t really see it as anything with a deeper meaning. And I think it’s fair that you can’t read too much into after an episode and a half because there’s so much that we don’t know yet about the boys and John and their story and all of that. But like looking at it with the knowledge of their lives and everything, it’s a lot heavier moment to me. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
Okay so the rest of the episode is just encounter monster, piss off monster, get kidnapped by monster, track monster, kill monster. Kind of standard, not super exciting like there’s not a lot to talk about. Dean with his molotov cocktails is kind of fantastic.
The trail of M&Ms is fun and yes better than breadcrumbs. Sam immediately becoming invested in killing the monster once Dean’s been taken gives me all kinds of feels because I love when these two go into protective brother mode. And Dean all banged up with bruises and cuts and dirt is a look I probably shouldn’t like as much as I do but that’s a conversation for another day.
The wendigo does look a little cheesy when you get better glimpses of it because early 00s special effects so it’s definitely for the best they keep things pretty shadowy for the end of the episode. Not the worst looking monster of season one and still scary enough, to me at least.
So this is the episode that seems to start the trend that if there’s a girl involved and her life gets saved by the Winchesters, one of them is going to flirt with her and get some kind of physical affection before they leave town. It doesn’t happen every episode but it happens enough that 26 year old me is rolling my eyes. 14 year old me had no issues with Sam and Dean getting smooches because look at them. But now I’m kind of like this seems a little unnecessary but whatever. It’s not the worst instance and all in all, I actually really liked Haley. I liked the whole Collins family. They were some solid guest characters and I feel like the scenes where Sam and Dean are interacting with them individually does a good job of kind of fleshing out their characters a bit more. It gives a chance for some necessary exposition without feeling too forced.
All in all, solid episode. Scary monster, intensified my fear of the woods, gave some good scenes, iconic lines. Does it have some cheesy moments? Yes. Is it the best episode of the series? No. Does it still scare me when I watch it? 100%.
BODY COUNT: 3 humans (Brad, Gary, Roy); 1 wendigo (our first corporeal monster - also like I’m curious about who the wendigo was before it changed, like how long has it been in the wilderness, how did it wind up at Blackwater Ridge, how it wound up this far west)
RATING: 7.5/10 - yep, I’ll say it. I think this episode is better than the pilot. Not by much but the characters feel a little closer to who they become throughout season one and I feel like you get a better feel for them than we did in the pilot. Also the wendigo scares me more than Sarah Shahi in a sexy nightgown I’m just saying.
#supernatural#supernatural rewatch#dean winchester#sam winchester#watchingspn#so i don't know if anyone's going to read this#i'm literally just rambling into a google doc and then sharing it#also idk if it's better or worse having screencaps in there#i'm figuring this out#idk what i'm doing#i hope someone enjoys my rambling#season one#1x02
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
[Translation] TsukiPro Yaminabe Drama Track 3 - GOOD DAY
Here’s the third track of the Yaminabe drama CD Vol. 1~! Like I said, they’re all pretty independent stories so, posting track 4 before track 3 won’t make us miss anything big XD
This time, the story is about Tsubasa, Koi, and You having a fun day shopping and them talking about their units and leaders and all that stuff~
It’s very cute and light-hearted~
Thank you again to Deea for the files~! Again, please do not ask her for the files as per her request, thank you!
※ Please don’t re-post the English translations without permission. Please just like/reblog them instead ^^
Under the cut, enjoy~!
Track 03:
[GOOD DAY]
[0:00]
KOI: (singing) Shopping~ Shopping~ Today is a fun shopping day~
YOU: Koi, don’t get too excited! You’ll trip, y’know?
KOI: Ah but man~ Today’s a fun shopping day, isn’t it~?
KOI: And I get to do it with these members finally! It’s obvious that I’d get excited~!
TSUBASA: Right~?
YOU: Even you’re saying that, Tsubasa?
YOU: Well, I guess it’s better than being gloomy on a precious day-off.
TSUBASA: Exactly~ Let’s enjoy this!
YOU: (chuckles) You’re right.
KOI: The three of us who love shopping have finally arrived here! In Tokyo’s Shibuya!
TSUBASA: Alright then, what should we buy~? Let’s shop ‘til we drop!
ALL: Yeah!!
YOU: Hm? (laughs) These clothes would look good on Hajime-san!
YOU: It’s got a wide neckline and it looks simple so he’d probably like it, huh?
KOI: Hey now! I wish you’d ask me first before trying to decide for Hajime-san!
YOU: Are you his manager/
KOI: No, I’m not~ As the one in charge of Gravi’s fashion—Ah!
KOI: This shirt would definitely suit Shun-san.
KOI: It has this weird kind of collar and yet it looks so refined and elegant. How do I put it…?
KOI: Shun-san’s pretty… noble…
YOU: Ah-ah~ It’s painful for me to admit but, it’s true.
YOU: Hey, if you’re not letting me choose for your leader then, don’t choose for my—Well, I don’t mind.
YOU: Just do whatever.
KOI: Please don’t give up on him that easily…!
YOU: Sorry, sorry. I was surprised so I couldn’t retort quickly.
YOU: He’ll wear whatever you ask him to wear so there’s a lot of possibilities.
KOI: Well, I guess that’s true…
YOU: Right? Plus, for me, I’m more interested in coordinating outfits for Kai rather than for Shun.
KOI: Heh~ Kai-san…?
YOU: Yep! Like for example… (You looks through some of the clothes) Ah! Here, this one would definitely suit him!
KOI: Which one, which one? Uwah! That’s so flashy!
KOI: It’s like a sea or red leather!
YOU: But, don’t you think it’d suit Kai a lot~?
YOU: That guy’s got a good build so even if he’s just standing, he stands out, doesn’t he?
YOU: If he’s gonna stand out in any way, why not go all out, right?
KOI: Even if you say that… he’d stand out too much in that…
KOI: If I see a 180 cm tall guy in his 20s walking around the street in a super red leather jacket… I-I’d panic and try to avoid eye contact…
YOU: Okay… Let’s make Arata wear it then.
KOI: Arata…?
KOI: Ah, no good, no good. The only image that comes to mind is him looking like a mysterious hero.
YOU: Ah… That’s true…
TSUBASA: (laughs) Do you guys do that often?
KOI: That?
TSUBASA: Coordinating for your members. Like, talking about what they’d wear or what they’d look good in.
YOU: Sometimes, yeah. Isn’t it interesting?
YOU: I mean, it might not look good on us but since there are 12 people, someone might actually suit it, y’know?
KOI: Exactly! The possibilities are endless.
KOI: Don’t you guys do it, Tsubasa?
TSUBASA: Me? I’m…
TSUBASA: Now that you mention it, I do think about it sometimes.
TSUBASA: Like, “This would definitely suit Rikka,” or “Oh! This color is so Dai-chan~” and stuff.
YOU: See~? Isn’t this just a saga for each unit’s fashion director~?
TSUBASA: Eh, for real~? I didn’t notice.
KOI: Rikka-san and Shu-san were excitedly talking about this when we were shopping the other day, too.
TSUBASA: Oh, for real?
KOI: Yep! Though, it looked like they were just going home from work that day and we met in the studio.
KOI: We all had some time before our next work so we all went to kill time at the nearby shopping mall~!
YOU: Ah… Koi, you really have a wide array of friends, huh.
KOI: Pretty much~! That’s one of my charm points!
KOI: I’m light on my feet and I don’t refuse when I’m invited~ I think that I can go along with any kind of atmosphere and that I’m pretty friendly~!
KOI: My goal is to make not only 100 friends but 1000!
YOU: (with a sarcastic tone) You can totally do it. Good luck, good luck. (slow clapping)
TSUBASA: What a forced cheer…
YOU: Though, I don’t think that I’d lose to Koi or Tsubasa when it comes to making friends.
YOU: I can get along well with someone even when meeting them for the first time.
TSUBASA: Eh? Me? Did I do something to you?
YOU: You totally did! See? You don’t even remember~
YOU: We did the usual introduction and then after saying, “Nice to meet you~” you went:
(You’s flashback begins)
TSUBASA: Heya, senpai!
TSUBASA: Is it alright to not use honorifics~? I’m older than you but, I wanna get along with you as your cute kohai and cute friend~
TSUBASA: Just kidding~
(flashback ends)
YOU: Remember? I thought you were pretty straightforward~
TSUBASA: Eh…? Did I really do that…?
KOI: Oh, you totally did~! That’s why I was able to talk casually with you, too.
KOI: It was a relief! It makes me feel so anxious when using polite speech with someone older.
TSUBASA: (laughs) Well, it’s thanks to that that we can shop and laugh like this with no problems, huh~?
TSUBASA: It was a great move from me then!
YOU: True, true. Though, I’m surprised you can say that when you forgot what you did. (smiles)
TSUBASA: No doubt~
TSUBASA: Ah, Koi. By the way, how did the shopping with Shu go? I’m interested.
KOI: Eh? Um… If I remember correctly, that day… He seemed to be acquaintances with the attendants at a branded shop and they were talking.
KOI: And then, when I took him to an unbranded stationery shop, he got so moved.
KOI: It seems like he’s never been to a shop like that before, he said.
YOU: Uwah…! I feel like I can totally imagine it.
TSUBASA: Right!?
[06:00]
TSUBASA: Oh!
KOI/YOU: Huh?
YOU: What’s wrong?
TSUBASA: Ah, no. I was just thinking that I wore something like that for a photo-shoot the other day.
YOU: Eh? For real? Which one? (You looks closer at the clothes)
YOU: Oh-ho-ho~ That’s some pretty good stuff, hey~!
KOI: Eh, for real?
KOI: Uwah! That’s such a great coordination!
YOU: Ah~ How nice~
TSUBASA: Nah, even if you sound jealous… It was really only a rental and only used for the photo-shoot.
TSUBASA: I didn’t get to take it home, you know?
KOI: Oh, is that so?
TSUBASA: Yep, yep. There are a lot of times when we wear jackets and suits for our photo-shoots so, we use any kind of brand for clothes.
TSUBASA: What about you?
KOI: What about us…?
TSUBASA: Don’t you wear stuff like that, too?
KOI: The latest set of costumes I had to wear was…
TSUBASA: Hm?
KOI: An overall.
TSUBASA: Well, idols wear that sometimes, too.
KOI: A hat with rabbit ears and a ribbon!
TSUBASA: Was it for Easter?
KOI: A mascot!
TSUBASA: H-heh…
KOI: Stop that! Don’t look at me with those eyes, please! I’m not a comedian, I swear!
TSUBASA: I’m just joking~ I just thought that you’ve worn a variety of things~
TSUBASA: Isn’t that nice? Anyone can look cool wearing a suit and a jacket but, there are only a few who can look good in what you wore, y’know~?
YOU: Oh! That was a nice follow, Tsubasa~!
KOI: Shut it, You! We’ve been wearing suits lately too, you know?
(they continue walking)
KOI: Ah, You, Tsubasa, let’s turn right at the next street.
YOU: Eh?
TSUBASA: Why on such a narrow road?
KOI: It’s fine, it’s fine~ You’ll see when we get there.
KOI: See?!
KOI: Ta-da~! This is a shop I recommend.
TSUBASA: Oh~ What a nice looking café!
YOU: Hm~?
KOI: (to the attendant) Ah, three people, please.
KOI: They said we can sit wherever we like.
Oh…! This is so stylish!
KOI: Right~?
YOU: So, there was a shop like this here? It feels completely different from the other side of the road.
YOU: Hehe, I feel like we can talk easily here.
KOI: That’s right! Look. Isn’t it interesting how each sofa at the tables have a different shape?
KOI: It’s fun to think about where to sit next time you visit~ It makes you want to try sitting on them all, right?
TSUBASA: You have the image of someone who’s good at looking for hidden places like this, Koi.
TSUBASA: I’ll try to bring someone here next time, too~
KOI: (chuckles) I got praised~ Thank you very much!
TSUBASA: Alright~ As thanks for showing me this place, this big brother right here will treat you~!
KOI: Alright!
YOU: Nice~! Then, I’d like some—
TSUBASA: (laughs) You sure don’t hold back, do you~? Well, I don’t mind.
YOU: Koi, what do you recommend? I’m pretty hungry so I’d like something to eat, too.
KOI: Ah, if that’s the case… How about the pizza at the back of the menu? It was delicious~
TSUBASA: Oh, pizza sounds nice! Then, I’ll… order some of this, too~
YOU: Oh, you’re going all out, huh~?
KOI: Maybe I’ll have some pizza, too… We walked around a lot so we’re pretty hungry, huh?
TSUBASA: Go for it, go for it! We got what we wanted already so, let’s take it easy here for now~
YOU: Yep!
KOI: Yeah!
==END==
※ Please don’t re-post the English translations without permission.
If you enjoyed this, please consider buying me a ko-fi here to support my work if you want. (o^▽^o)Thank you!!
#tsukipro#tsukipro yaminabe drama cd#solids#tsukiuta#okui tsubasa#kisaragi koi#haduki you#drama cd#solids translations#my translations#okay!!! the three of them getting along is cute~!#the fact that koi is friends with rikka and shu is so adorable!!
81 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
missbigstar
Missstar00
therealtorquent
Could You Turn the Music Louder
runningtrader
Run free and trade
speer43182092
Untitled
sabethc
Sabethc