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esamastation · 3 years

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necer0s: Stardew Valley x AC crossover? Desmond retires to a very different Farm than the one he grew up in maybe?

When Desmond ended up in Stardew Valley, he'd quietly, and probably a bit arrogantly, figured that he'd probably be the weirdest thing about the whole thing. You know. Aside from the fact that he'd found himself in a quaint little coast town of some nondescript nationality after his death, which was pretty weird, he figured that being an assassin and all in this quaint little coast town, he'd be the weirdest thing.

Yeah not even close.

There's a local wizard, for one. There's a witch that occasionally curses crops. There's a mysterious train that never stops at the local train station, but sometimes drops valuable stuff. A hot spring that no one manages and doesn't cost anything. A mine full of monsters and apparently more valuable stuff you can just… mine. By hand. If you want to.

And there's a Farmer that everyone secretly thinks might be some sort of minor deity.

"I mean, that's just the Farmer," comments Abigail, the daughter of the local general store owner. "It's sort of always been like that. Well, I don't know, there was an old man, the Farmer's Grandfather who used to run the Farm, but the old folks say he wasn't like the Farmer. The Farmer is just. You know. The Farmer."

The Farmer owns the biggest plot of land in the town, which is filled to the prim with all sorts of crazy stuff like slime hutches and ancient fruit vines and stuff. The Farmer's house is some sort of infinite expanding dimension. The Farmer can carry half a dozen tools with them at all times. And several tons of worth of goods. The food they make has magical properties. One summer, they made several million in profits just to see if they could. The Farmer is, unquestionably, the wealthiest person in the town. Everything they own is made of iridium. Whatever that is.

"They give everyone gifts. Usually edible stuff. I think it's just because they can," Abigail says, thoughtfully. "The amethysts are my favourite."

Desmond waits and then says, awkwardly, "That's. Cool."

"I think the Farmer's looking for some farmhands," Abigail adds.

The Farm is even more impressive up close. The Farmer is…

Desmond isn't quite sure, actually. But they build him a house? And immediately begin to upgrade it. The house, which looks like just a little cottage on the outside, is on the other end of the enormous Farm, nestled in a little copse of trees and right beside a coop full of rabbits. It's, by far, the best thing anyone has ever given Desmond. But also. What?

"Are you sure?" Desmond asks slowly, eying the house. It must've cost a lot. Right? Houses cost a lot. Even if you are the wealthiest minor deity in the town, houses are a big deal. Right? Though what does he know – the Farmer has two small fortresses in their Farm where they breed actual monsters, so… maybe the value of things in this place is relative.

The Farmer shrugs their shoulders like it's whatever, and then points him to the tool chest. Time to get to work, apparently. Except…

Except there isn't that much work to do. The entire Farm is automated. There's iridium sprinklers everywhere, the crops are harvested by invisible little nature spirits, apparently – the only plot of land that needs to be harvested by hand is in the greenhouse. The barns and coops are automated too. It's all kind of neat, because Desmond can't see any actual farm machinery around – there's not even a tractor in the place. And he's pretty sure the sprinklers don't have any hoses, which is a bit weird, but okay.

Then the Farmer shows him to the various store houses, filled with kegs, barrels, furnaces and – chrystalariums? And geode crushers. There's slime egg presses and incubators. Recycling machines. Statue of endless fortune which apparently produces an infinite amount of wealth – and perfect birthday gifts for everyone in town.

"Recycling machines," Desmond says flatly, while the Farmer shows him the signs pointing what produces what and which chests the produce needed to go. The Farmer has whole chests full of precious gemstones and entire stacks of copper, iron, gold and iridium. Yeaah…

"Okay," Desmond says. "I'll… sort your stuff for you, no problem."

The Farmer gives him thumbs up, hands him a probably incredibly valuable incandescently brilliant gem stone, a small allowance of million g and promptly heads off to a tropical island.

Well… okay then.

Desmond minds the Farm – or rather, the various mystical and not so mystical machinery – more or less alone for the next week, while the Farmer does whatever it is they do in Ginger Island. Which is apparently a tropical island full of parrots and coconut trees and yet is somehow less than an hour away from Stardew Valley. The mental gymnastics Desmod does to try and figure out how that works, with Stardew Valley having a full on snowy winter season and all…

Yeah, probably best left be, that. Stardew Valley – and apparently the surrounding lands – work by their own rules. Ginger Island is no different. According to Pierre the Grocery store owner, the Farmer is renovating… everything there. With walnuts.

"Golden walnuts," Pierre says.

"Right," Desmond nods, like that makes any sense. "Golden walnuts. Gotcha."

As the island is renovated, the people of Stardew Valley begin making daily trips there to enjoy the beach and the sun – as though the town itself doesn't have an incredibly nice beach as it is. Well, guess there's no beating a tropical beach. With mermaids. There's mermaids? Yeah, there's mermaids. And apparently pirates.

Cool.

"You know, since the Farmer is spending his time on Ginger Island, maybe you should do some of the quests on the notice board," the town Mayor, Lewis, suggests. "There's only so much to do on that Farm, right?"

There's over 200 different machines Desmond needs to empty and some which he needs to refill every day, and that's without counting the tappers on the trees he'd just discovered the other day. And the Farmer had forgotten to say anything about the fruit trees, which had been filled to the bursting before Desmond had realised he should probably harvest them. He wouldn't call it a little bit of work.

"Yeah, okay," he says. "What do people need then?"

Someone named Gus wants 20 copper ore.

Well… okay then. Sure. Why not? The Farmer is bound to have some laying around. The guy has literal stacks of gold bricks just lying around – he wouldn't miss a bit of raw copper. Right?

Apparently, he needs to mine the copper ore himself, otherwise it doesn't count, for some reason. Also, the mines are full of monsters. And it turns out that Assassin training did not teach him how to deal with little cute blobs of slime that want to kill him.

Yeah. It's the most fun Desmond has had in a while, though he has no idea what is even going on anymore. There's a dwarf in the mines. Literal dwarf.

They sell him bombs.

Desmond has just had his unconscious body dragged from the mines by the local homeless man when the Farmer returns from Ginger Island, a shade darker, with new gems on their sword and a whole bunch of new stuff. Apparently, they found so many golden walnuts that they managed to renovate the whole island? Which is… okay. Desmond is almost getting used to it. That's how things work here. Apparently. It's fine.

The Farmer puts up an enormous stone statue of a frog in the orchard and then brings Desmond a perfectly cool and perfectly preserved Pinã Colada as a souvenir. Somehow, despite having travelled all the way from a tropical island to the Farm, it still has ice in it. It hasn't even melted.

Yeah, Desmond muses, taking a sip. This place is alright.

---

Then Desmond realised he too can suddenly carry over half a dozen farming implements around and that he’s got an inventory of several tons worth of stuff and that he is on the way of becoming a Farmhand.

#fanfiction #crossover #prompted #this was fun #crack

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sour-heart-treats · 4 years

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Hurt/comfort with Sparklemint? perhaps with Sparkling getting overwhelmed with having to be the one to help so many other cookies that show up there?

Ah, how soothing it was to finally have a break. Mint would let out a breath of relief as they entered the closed bar that belonged to his dear Sparkling. The bartender always greeted him with a smile and a chilled glass of apple juice. Originally it was some sort of cocktail, but it slowly shifted from there, to cider, to juice... Perhaps it was from the mild concern of Mint himself being such a lightweight? Mint himself paid no mind to it, only noting it as something to be on the side of the wonders of his suave, composed love.

Though, as he gently pushed his way through the doors of a building sported the 'Sorry, We're Closed!' sign, Mint could nearly immediately parse out that something was amiss. The typical lights that were still alight when the violinist entered had no more light than a starless sky, entirely devoid of the typical warm atmosphere that he'd grown so used to. Sparkling himself wasn't even at the bar that he cared for so attentively. Mint's brow furrowed as he cautiously closed the door behind him, locking it as he was told to so, and making his way through the dark.

Well, not entirely the dark, Mint always had his phone's flashlight handy. Tapping the feature upon his device and letting the room be lit with its light, the musician wandered onward. A nervous laugh escaped him as a passing thought made him believe for a fleeting moment that he was a part of some horror movie. It wouldn't be the first instance of him waltzing through some dark place where some unknown fear seeped in. It was entirely unjustified, but these types of things always had a way of crawling into him.

Up to the counter, it was tidy as always, yet there was nothing more on it. It was not very notable in and of itself, but the fact the bartender wasn't around was unnerving. With how often Sparkling was behind it, the plateau of drinks felt... Empty. With a sigh, Mint took strides to go behind the counter and push onward. Behind it always stood a fanciful door to the proper storage, and even further back, the residential rooms where the tapper lived within. Going through such a crowded place, stacked with keg upon keg of decadent beverages, Mint could feel the anxiety within him sink into despair. He couldn't place his reasoning, but... It just felt natural to feel this way, as disconcerting as it was.

Shaking his head, Mint pressed on further into the residential room that Sparkling always rested within. The door opened gently, creaking as light flooded Mint's sight. Finally, he could shut his phone's flashlight off and set it away-

Or he would have, if his mind had not gotten stolen away by the sight of Sparkling upon his bed, surrounded by a multitude of drinks. The violinist knew Sparkling was one for recreational drinking, but never so much- and never without some sort of party to accompany him or give reasoning to such an action. And yet? Here Sparkling lays, clearly not entirely there, as his eyes seemed dulled and vacant when staring back into Mint's own sparkling orbs.

"Heyyyyy..." Sparkling's voice slurred, his waving motion lacking much less precise movement that the bartender was known for. Mint shook his head, a frond or two falling from his face that he had to push back as he approached the other with concern. He knew he had a reason to be worried, but he didn't expect it to be this. "Sparky, what in the name of the stars above are you doing? You shouldn't have drank this much!" The shrug from the other gave the musician a mix of anger and intensified worry.

"Please, at least try and use your words. Why? Did you at least ensure you didn't drink too much to become poisoned?"

"Haaa..." Sparkling grinned with a lopsided smile as he reached out to Mint's shoulder, accidentally brushing against the other's chest- a major discomfort area for the poor musician- before actually reaching where he was supposed to hold. "Y'know, I reaaally take a lot of bullshit... Peeps come up to me like 'Oooooh I got so many probleeemmsss' and I just sit there. Nothin' said, annmm- They disappear after a whole while. I jus'..." The bartender's smile drooped, as if he had mildly sobered up, or... Just got struck with the emotions he was attempting to forget. "I'm soooo tired, Mingy-" A mispronunciation it seems- "I wanna forget an' just sit here without all that bullllll..."

Sparkling leaned forward, leaving his face to lay right against the area Mint despised touch to at all. It didn't hurt, but there was still aspects of his identification that always caused discomfort when prompted to attention. Even so, he wrapped an arm around the drunk cookie, the other wielding his phone even now. A number is dialed, the screen now appearing dark in the room's brightness.

"Let's... Let's get you some help... We'll talk more when you're sober, dear..." He may not be the best with words, but giving physical help is the least the little musician can do.

#sparkling cookie #mint choco cookie #mint choco x sparkling #sparkling x mint choco #cookie run #alcohol warning #anxiety warning #substance use warning #angst drabbles

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itsthesinbin · 4 years

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god i love the four corners farm so much. easily one of the best farm maps imo, in terms of design. it’s just... SO nice for ppl like me that like to put their farms into like sections.

i already have a plan for how my farm is gonna be. the area around my house is gonna be crops (and the fall fruit trees bc those are my favorite, but i only have two of each fruit tree rn. i plan to plant more of the fall trees later). ill have to figure out where to put me beehives tho.

the top left is gonna be ranching + the other seasons’ fruit trees leading to grandpa’s shrine. I can just fence off the exits to that part so i dont have to make a BUNCH of fencing, and pigs get a HUGE area that’s almost unbroken to look for truffles. PLUS it has a respawning hardwood stump!!

bottom left is gonna be fish, since it has the pond at the bottom. Crab pots and fish ponds. i plan to have a Few fish ponds bc.... Feesh. i plan to use the good expensive fish like sturgeon, lava eels, blobfish and super cucumbers (i got sturgeon growing and already got cucumbers full). BUT i also wanna use other ones for their other possible items + bc i just like them. like the spook fish and the void salmon!

bottom right is gonna be processing. i got a small tree tapper farm + wood farm. a little processing area that has preserves jars and kegs. at the very top of that area has my wood processors (charcoal kiln, wood chippers) and my furnaces. eventually im gonna get rid of the processing area w the kegs and put a shed there to turn into a winery. either put preserves jar in there too or make it JUST kegs and have another building/area for preserves jars.

the middle area w the greenhouse is gonna be my crafting area! i got a crafting bench w a chest behind it that i plan to dress up later.

aesthetically, i prefer the forest and mountain farms bc they’re really pretty. BUT for actually designing a farm in the ways i prefer to do (bc i got a system), the four corners farm is by far the BEST thing to come out.

#mod talks #stardew valley #long post

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sometimesiwritetoo · 6 years

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Tales of Carbuncle Farm - Chapter 6

Chapters: 6/?

Pairing: Noctis/Prompto/Luna

Rating: T for immature humor

Warnings: None

Summary: Luna, Noctis, and Prompto may not have thought whole “let’s run away” plan all the way through. But either way they had a farm, some seeds, and no where else to go so they might as well try to make Stardew Valley their new home.

Check it out over on AO3!

In midsummer Noctis laid down the sandfish down into the box near the broken fish tank. He’d patiently worked at the fishing bundle as Luna requested, asking Prompto for money when he spotted one for sale, and managed to fulfill every request. He expected a junimo to pop up from the hole, somehow carrying a furnace or a precarious stack of seeds as a gift. A junimo did pop out dragging a stack of dish o’ the sea piled on top of one another, but after he collected the stack several popped out of the woodworks right under his feet. Turning the dangerous floor into a carpet of grass like creatures. Noctis panicked, almost dropping the stack in shock.

Just as quickly as they appeared they disappeared, leaving Noctis confused. After a moment he decided that it was a strange, thirty second long hallucination. He carried the plates out of the center happy that he’d managed to find dinner.

In Insomnia, Regis went to bed as he always did. Sitting heavily down and struggling just a tad in getting the sheets up over his chest. He’d hadn’t slept as fitfully since Ignis and Gladio returned without his son, but that night he fell into a deep sleep quite suddenly. As he lay resting a trail of apples slowly crossed under his door into the room. They trailed up the bed and into the sheets where they gathered around the ailing king. A group gathered around his knees and began repairing the bone. Another group patched his frail lungs. Several purified the bile that slowly ate away at his blood, and others soothed his aching back.

When they were done they trailed back outside, leaving the room exactly as they found it. Several hours later, as the sun began to rise, the king woke up feeling very strange. He didn’t feel the mind numbing soreness he typically felt when he typically woke. When he stood up he didn’t need to reach for his cane. His knees did not buckle under his own weight. Pain did not shoot down his spine. He checked to confirm that the wall was still up. That his city was safe. Walking quickly to confirm with his glaive that his city was safe.

Noctis was completely unaware of what transpired that night. He laid on the end of the bed furthest from the wall and slept heavily. In the morning he was the last one up and came out as both Luna and Prompto were harvesting tomatoes.

“Guess what?” Luna said. She bounced up when she saw him, “We have enough for the expansion!”

“Really?” Noctis was almost excited enough to bounce as well. He’d been eating meatball subs once a week since they’d arrived months ago. It was about time they got a kitchen even if it was only to microwave meals.

“We’re going to go up and order it at nine. And then we’re getting beers!”

“Finally, I’d been waiting for a drink since we started.” He teased. He stepped in to help harvest the melon.

Robin was absolutely thrilled to see them again. And she was even more thrilled to note down their preferred expansion and Prompto’s appliance list. It was quite long and Noctis didn’t know exactly what most of them were. He wondered if the expansion took so long because it was actually expensive or because Prompto needed a walk in fridge. But he didn’t say anything, because he’d long accepted that Prompto was the only person equipped to actually manage the whole operation.

“Perfect. I’ll get on it straight away.” Robin said. She snapped the book closed with finality. Prompto passed over the cash and gave her instructions on where their hoard of supplies were on the farm. They then headed down the mountain to the saloon for one of the last few meals they’d need to eat there.

Gus poured them all a beer before starting on making their pizzas. He had a selection of craft brews available, but they stuck with a generic, big name brand. The end of summer was approaching and they did have to save for that period of fall when they had nothing to produce.

They talked through lunch occasionally about the expansion, but also about other things. Willy had invited him to a big fishing trip during the winter, and Luna was slowly learning how to identify mushrooms to forage. Pleasant conversation. Conversation that made Noctis realize how much he enjoyed living in Stardew Valley. He didn’t think he’d enjoy living in a small village in the middle of nowhere.

They split up after lunch, Luna went to forage for berries and mushrooms up the mountain while he and Prompto headed back to the farmhouse. On their way back Prompto went into Pierre’s for a few giant bags of malt, oats, hops, and yeast. Pierre had a worker deliver it to the farm in an hour and from there Prompto started working on something with one of the large kegs he’d built. Noctis didn’t know what it was exactly. It seemed to involve a bunch of the stuff they bought and boiling a bunch of water. Noctis tried to keep himself entertained by watching the weather forecast for the week. In the rain big catfish came to the surface, and he wanted to catch a couple to fry up in their new kitchen.

“What were you doing?” He asked when Prompto came in later that night.

“Making beer.” Prompto said. “I kinda want to see how it’ll go.”

“So we can have beer every night?” He asked hopefully.

“No, so we can make money. I’m taking Luna’s advice and expanding our “brand”.” He flopped down on the bed next to Noctis and turned the tv to livin’ off the land.

“So you sell it,” Noctis rested his head on Prompto’s shoulder. “First here and then further and further. Then in eight months half of the glaive is spending fifteen luciennes on Carbuncle farm beer.”

“Maybe.” Prompto laughed, “It would be funny if the Kingsglaive got drunk on our beer and started a bar fight again.”

“Finally, we can be the reason Gladio walks around with a black eye for two days.”

“Yeah, get him so numbed up he doesn’t even notice the pain.”

“He doesn’t notice pain normally either. He told me himself. He only feels hunger. It’s why he almost ate Crowe’s hair that night.”

“Who ate who’s hair?” Luna asked. She toed off her shoes at the door.

“Gladio ate Crowe’s hair.” He answered.

“I can see why all the women love him.” Luna said sarcastically. “I put some spice berries in preserves jars. We’re not selling them they’re mine and I will eat them all.”

She flopped into bed and they all quickly fell asleep to the sound of the TV. Noctis, like always, looked forward to waking up late and going out fishing. But he quickly ran into a hurdle when he was woken up before the sun even rose to an incessant hammering sound. He heard a creak and a tear as a wooden plank two feet from him fell to the ground outside.

“Wow. She was eager to get started.” Noctis complained. He rolled out of bed to head outside only to trip on a pot that was on the floor. “What the hell?”

“It’s that damn pot again!” Luna complained she grabbed it without helping him up and threw it back in their closet. “I swear we are haunted.”

Noctis pushed himself up and followed Prompto outside to see Robin happily hammering away at the west side of their home.

“Oh don’t mind me!” She said. “I’ll be done in a few days.”

“I forgot exactly what an expansion would entail.” Luna sighed. “Come on, let’s grab our watering cans. We should follow her example.”

Noctis focused on watering the vegetables while Luna checked on her preserves and Prompto checked on his beer. Luna quickly canned one of the jars that was full of a berry mix then set them aside to label later. Prompto didn’t seem happy with whatever he saw with the keg and left it alone.

They headed out to buy seeds at nine. Prompto bought some radishes and significantly more wheat than before. They then they grabbed food and headed back to plant the seeds. Noctis separated from them to chop down some trees and make room as their farm expanded, but his axe was not nearly sharp enough to make it through the giant stumps nor was his pickaxe strong enough to smash through the boulders. Some rows ended up getting planted in a separate area that he cleared.

Robin did not let up or take a break from her work. She carried on well into the evening when Noctis would’ve gladly been in bed. He appreciated her work ethic but did not enjoy waiting for the hammering to stop so he could sleep. When she was done there was a large hole in the wall and a foundation for the expansion had been laid. Which meant that when they went to bed there was a nice, cooling breeze.

“We should ask her to leave it like this.” He said. “It’s kinda nice.”

“Say that in the morning.” Prompto said, before he ducked under the covers.

Noctis didn’t understand what Prompto meant by that until he woke up in the morning with thumb sized mosquito bites littering his arms. They were annoying and he had to immediately resist scratching at them. Luna was not so wise. By the time they made it outside her arms were very, very red from her furious itching. Prompto caught up with her and slathered aloe vera all over her before she could make it worse.

Prompto retrieved the syrups from the tappers he installed and set about building two separate bee hives. Those went to a far corner of the farm, a safe distance from their house.

“Do we really need those?” He asked.

Prompto shrugged. “If we’re going to have a kitchen it’d be nice to have some honey. It’s only a small one.”

“If those bees attack I’m blaming you.”

“Bees don’t attack Noct.”

“They did when I was five!”

Prompto laughed as if his childhood trauma of being chased through a garden by a single bee was funny. “They wanna eat you. I bet royal skin tastes delicious.”

“Shut up Prompto!”

Prompto got up close and poked at his cheek. “They want your skin Noct. They’ll surround you and gnaw at your flesh.”

“Shut up!”

Noctis ran to the other side of the farm and Prompto followed yelling about the bees coming for him. He attempted to get away from it by climbing a pine tree, but it was low and Prompto grabbed at his waist to pull him down.

“You’re going to hurt yourselves!” Luna yelled.

“The bees will hurt us Lu!” Prompto yelled.

“Get him off of me!” He yelled.

They got into a small scuffle before where Prompto pulled Noctis from the tree, making him fall flat on his ass. They went about finishing the rest of their chores then piled inside to watch the fortune teller predict misfortune for an unlucky viewer Robin left soon after the sun fell and by then it looked as if things were halfway built. Noctis could see several cabinets built out and outlets for the appliances were installed. He fell asleep with Luna laying on his shoulder, cutting off circulation to his arm.

When he woke up his arm had pins traveling up and down his arm that were fairly annoying. Both Prompto and Luna were gone and he rolled out of bed to get to work only to face plant when he tripped over the pot again.

“What the hell?” He yelled. Luna was close enough to hear him and she came in as he fumbled the pot back into the closet.

“Was that the pot again?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He shoved the door closed. It was starting to get on his nerves, tripping over that pot over and over again.

“We’re haunted I’m sure of it.” Luna announced. She reached into the closet and pulled out the bag she’d packed when she left. Noctis had thought it was emptied, but Luna instead pulled out some sage and lit it with an old, half empty lighter. “If this doesn’t protect us then we’re in trouble.”

Noctis ran out of the house and let her do whatever witchcraft she felt like needed to be done. Prompto was outside checking on his beer, looking content at whatever reading he got from the sample. He then got to the slow process of filling the individual glass bottles by using a small spout at the end. The filling went slowly and every once in a while it overflowed and spilled to the ground. But when Noctis checked back at noon Prompto had rows and rows of 750ml beer bottles.

“Oooohhh.” Noctis held one up. The color was a light amber through the clear bottle. “These look good.”

“I hope they are. I’m gonna do what Luna did and give it to Gus to sell locally for people to try. The next round I’ll sell through the bin.”

“Don’t give it all away.”

“We can keep twenty.”

“Fifty.”

“No.”

Noctis frowned and crossed his arms. He didn’t spend weekends in debate lessons to not get fifty, large sized bottles of beer from his brewmaster boyfriend.

“I promise I won’t wander away.”

“That’s not a promise you can keep.” Prompto firmly rebutted.

Noctis hunkered down, he had to make Ignis proud and win this. “It is a promise I can keep. I’ll lock the door and hide the keys.”

“I’ll let you keep twenty-five beers.”

Victory. A minor one, but still a victory. “Thank you, I love you.”

Prompto gathered the bottles up into his bag while Luna made him up some questionnaire cards and a few labels. Prompto then headed to town like a beer santa claus, ready to give all the adults their summer presents.

“You know Lu, if Prompto can make beer from the wheat then we can totally make wine from the fruit.”

“Noctis no. We’re out in the middle of nowhere. You don’t need to be getting lost in a forest.”

“Why do you two just assume that I’ll always wander off when I’m drunk?”

“Because Ignis found you in the dumpster of the Cactuar Sandwich Spot.” She deadpanned. “You don’t even like them.”

“There were extenuating circumstances!”

“No there weren’t!”

“Yes there was!” Luna rolled her eyes and walked away from him. “I just can’t remember them! Who do you believe, Ignis or me?”

He eventually had to flee to the great fishing frontier when Luna pulled out the melons to start on some melon jam. It was time for work and therefore time for him to do what he did best. He arrived at the pier just as Willy locked his shop up to prepare for a night of fishing.

“Got kicked out?” He joked as Noctis put some tackle on his line.

“You could say that.”

“Hehe. Been there. Datin’ ain’t easy. It’s why I’m married to the sea.”

“It’s not so bad. I needed to come out and catch dinner anyway.”

“Ya got that kitchen you wanted?”

“It’s in development.”

“Hmmm.” Willy unlocked the front door of his shop and headed back inside. Noctis waited comfortably outside for him to return. He pulled up a broken CD and some algae while he waited which he put to the side to throw away.

Willy came back after a few minutes and handed him a worn notecard. “Mah papi loved to cook. That was my favorite recipe. Make it and tell me what you think.”

The recipe card was faded, but Noctis could still make out the words that made up the simple recipe. Some butter, clams, milk, and flour. Noctis thought it actually might be a little good.

“Thanks!”

He quit fishing to look for clams on the beach. They typically littered the shore near the main peer and the peer next to it. Noctis didn’t leave until he had a bagful of them and several rainbow shells. Before whatever valuable shells he found would end up being sold so he decided that he’d keep the few he found as he headed back home.

The house looked almost completely finished when he arrived, but there were still tools strewn about and partially cut wood on the ground. The appliances inside were still disconnected from the power supply and Robin had left for the day. He set the clams in a box for storage then headed inside.

After another night sleeping with no draft draft he woke up late to a complete lack of hammering noises. He sat up to see Luna fiddling around with the stove while Prompto unboxed some cast iron pans.

Noctis wasn’t expecting for there to be so much space. Their home was easily doubled, maybe even tripled, from the small cabin it once. The east most wall became a doorway the opened up out into the kitchen area with enough space between the door and the kitchen to be called a modest living room. The kitchen itself was spacious. The stove was a thick slab of stone over several burners and the fridge was a walk in that could fit all three of them. The wall opposite the oven had a counter made of two inches of wood. Noctis didn’t know what they’d do with so much space, but he was sure they’d all find a use for it.

He wanted to try everything out but there was too much work to do. Preserves had to be packaged and sold and Prompto had gotten the majority of the beer survey’s back. They were overwhelmingly positive so Prompto brought out two other kegs and got to work making another two batches of the amber brew he made and one of a white beer.

“You picked this up quick Prom.” Noctis commented as he tried to avoid doing chores. “I guess that’s to be expected? Since your parents were farmers.”

“Well that and they made beer.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but it was more of a basement project,” Prompto set a giant bucket of water over a makeshift fire he’d made.

“They had you help brewing basement beer as a kid?”

“Yep.” Prompto said casually. Lucis’ drinking laws were so strict that the maids had to fill his wine glass with grape juice at functions until he was twenty. A dignitary bought him wine for his nineteenth birthday and his father had immediately yanked it from his hands once they were alone. Noctis couldn’t imagine being allowed in the same room with unsealed alcohol as a kid. Granted he likely would’ve immediately drank himself sick.

“Did you ever partake?”

“Once in a while.”

“Why didn’t you invite me over?”

“Because my parents said that if I did then they’d disown me!”

“No they wouldn’t’ve!”

”Yeah, well, I didn’t want them to get pissed.” He said. “Remember, I had to live with ‘em.”

Noctis did not try and argue with that. Prompto’s parents were an interesting duo. He knew they had few rules, but those rules were stricted. Decent grades, no trouble with the law, nothing too shocking. He also knew that they had been refugees from a small village far north in Niflheim’s territory. They were different, but Prompto never complained about them.

After the work was done they all split up for the day. Luna wandered off to forage for some green onions and Prompto hit up the mines for more ore. Noctis decided to stay back and attempt to get a head start on dinner.

He sold a few foraged red mushrooms for a small pack of eggs and some oil. He figured that would make a decent meal with a melon that had yet to make it to the preserves jar. He took that back home and pulled out a small, thick pan from one of the cabinets.

Noctis had seen plenty of people crack an egg into a pan, but he’d honestly never done it himself. He attempted to crack it on the pan like he saw Ignis do many times and smashed one out of six of the eggs on the side. The yolk oozed out all over the new stove.

He cleaned it up best he could and tried again. The second attempt he cracked it and opened it up with both hands. It mostly ended up in the pan and he turned the burner on when he realized that the egg was in a cold. Soon the egg was stuck to the bottom of a ripping hot pan and no amount of scraping could get it up.

That pan went into the sink. He found another and he remembered to oil the bottom and kept it over the heat. The egg landed in the center causing hot oil to splatter and stain his clothes. It then quickly went from raw to charcoal black. Eggs four and five were down the drain before Noctis realized that he had the heat on too high.

The sixth egg was the only one edible. It’s yolk cracked on impact, but after some maneuvering he had a plate of partially scrambled eggs on his plate. He celebrated his victory by taking a big bite only to realize that he’d forgotten to season it.

He ended up sitting alone in an empty saloon as Gus cooked on his lunch. Watching Gus work on cooking, the easy way he handled so many complex things at once, made him feel more depressed about his complete inability to fry a fuckiing egg.

“What’s got you down kid?”

“Nothing important.” He sullenly sighed.

Gus slid a sandwich in front of him. Another daily special. Noctis almost actually did throw it away, but he was hungry and there was work that needed done.

“Don’t say that. If it’s important to you than it’s important.”

Noctis sighed again. “I tried to cook today and all I did was make a burnt mess.”

“Really now? What’d you try to make?”

“A fried egg.”

Gus tutted. “You kids today. No one taught ya how to cook an egg?”

“Nope. Someone was always around to do it for me.” He felt pathetic just saying that. How did he end up so unable to take care of himself? Well, he knew the answer to that, but it was even more depressing than the question.

“Well why don’t ya come ‘round and I’ll show ya?”

Noctis looked up. Gus looked serious. “Really?”

“Yeah sure. Eggs are the most important ingredient in cooking.”

Noctis shuffled around to the bar’s front kitchen. It was a modest size, there was a station with from vegetables already chopped up and some dough was portioned out in a tray. A small set of burners were in front and the pan used to warm up the meatballs sat in the sink. Gus pulled out a carton of eggs and set a clean pan on the stove.

“Now, cookin’ an egg is like makin’ love to a woman. You gotta be gentle.”

“Ok… I’ve, uh, never done that before?”

“Ah, don’t be shy. You three alone up on that farm, I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“No I do not. Please use another metaphor.”

Gus laughed at that. Then he walked Noctis through frying a single egg and making a simple omelette. The impromptu lesson lasted half an hour and he got to eat some of the eggs and take the daily special home. When he arrived Prompto was smelting some steel outside. Through the window he could see that Luna was in the kitchen, but he couldn’t see exactly what she was doing.

“I didn’t know there was steel down there.” He commented as Prompto pulled out a big steel bar.

“Oh yeah, I found loads of other stuff down there too.” Prompto nodded towards a pile of things. There was some quartz, a frozen tear, and a big hunk of topaz. “I hit the jackpot today.”

“Wow, this is great. We need to plan another trip together and get more stuff.”

“We should.”

“Hey, what’s Luna doing?”

Prompto’s face dropped. “She’s cooking.” Prompto’s voice was suddenly strained.

“What’s she making?”

“Roasted chicken…”

“Cool, it’s been forever since I’ve had that.” Noctis helped Prompto smelt the last bar and organize their little smelting station.

They puttered around a bit before dinner. Prompto checked his beer and the preserves Luna had going. Noctis checked the few tappers they had and found one full of pine tar that he kept to store. Neither of them really needed to do any of that, but it was a good way to spend time until Luna popped her head out the window and called them both in for dinner.

Noctis ran in first, then stopped at the door. The chicken that was on the table was not nearly what he expected. When Ignis made chicken it was always brown with the legs trussed up with mashed potatoes and some sort of vegetable that he never ate. This chicken that Luna made was none of those. It was pale near the top while the tips of the legs were somehow black.

“Looks interesting Lu.” Noctis tried to say convincingly. He didn’t sound convincing to his own ears but Luna seemed content to pull out a big knife and get to work carving. He and Prompto sat down as Luna clumsily hacked away. She separated the legs revealing a red inside that set off warning bells in Noctis’ head. But he didn’t know enough about cooking chicken to really say anything.

“Uh, Lu.” Prompto said. “How long did you cook this for?”

“An hour.” She said.

“Then why is it pink inside?”

“Oh, well I cooked it low so that it was rare. Since you said you liked rare steak. I’ve never had rare chicken before so I wanted to try it.”

That sounded wrong. But Noctis didn’t get a chance to say something before Prompto reached over and bravely took the plate of half cooked chicken while Luna still wielded her knife.

“Hey, what are you doing?” She demanded.

“You can’t eat raw chicken Lu.” Prompto said. He unceremoniously dumped the entire thing in the trash then placed the plate in the sink. “We’d all get really sick.”

“What? Since when.”

“Since salmonella. Let’s just go to the saloon and we can all attempt something tomorrow.” He said diplomatically.

Eating at the saloon wasn’t too bad again. It was a Friday and most of the town was inside dancing to the music and having a good time. They all bought some beer and tried to ignore the fact that this was likely the seventh pot roast dinner they’d had in a month. When they were done they were all able to play pool with Sebastian, Abigail, and Sam. And Luna seemed to have calmed down enough to actually enjoy it. They’d figure everything out tomorrow.

#prompto argentum #lunafreya nox fleuret #Noctis Lucis Caelum #promptisluna #promnoctluna #look ma I wrote

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chorusfm · 7 years

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Arcade Fire – Everything Now

When Arcade Fire won the Album of the Year Grammy for The Suburbs, it felt like the beginning of something. Six years on from Funeral, the record that made the band torchbearers of the critically acclaimed indie rock scene, here they were, finally being recognized on the big stage. The records they beat—pop juggernauts from Katy Perry, Eminem, Lady Gaga, and Lady Antebellum—were all more indicative of what the radio sounded like in 2010. But Arcade Fire’s victory showed that, maybe, the pop world was finally ready to embrace something darker and more nuanced. Maybe they were ready to let a rock band back into the fold. Looking back now, the Grammy win feels more like the end of something. Future Grammy winners didn’t sound or look much like Arcade Fire. Neither did radio stars. Instead, on 2013’s Reflektor, Arcade Fire started looking (and sounding) a lot like the pop insiders. Just like most of the other marquee acts that released albums that year—Daft Punk, Justin Timberlake (x2), Jay-Z, Eminem, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga—Arcade Fire made it clear that they were going for a capital-B Blockbuster. The rollout was excessive and overblown; the album was long and ambitious; the hype stretched on for months. And the songs…well, they didn’t have that much to offer, at the end of the deep, deep rabbit hole that Arcade Fire dug for fans. Writing for Grantland, Steven Hyden called 2013 “The Year Music Failed to Blockbust.” He wasn’t wrong, and Arcade Fire was at the center of it. In this context, Everything Now, Arcade Fire’s fifth LP, actually feels kind of refreshing—at least in concept. Reflektor stank because the songcraft wasn’t strong enough to hold the weight of all the ambition, hype, and endless song lengths. Everything Now has a comparatively lightweight and almost tossed-off feel to it. The title track apes “Dancing Queen.” “Chemistry” apes “We Will Rock You” and “I Love Rock and Roll.” The two “Infinite Content” tracks sound like one of those YouTube stars who sarcastically tries to play the same song in as many different styles as possible—the first version a double-time punk run-through, the second a country-tinged R.E.M. number. After Reflektor, where Win Butler tried to address isolation and consumerism in the internet age (or something like that) by stealing Bono’s faux-ironic characters from the 1990s, these more playful influences and experiments are a breath of fresh air. At least, they would be if the songs were any good. But somewhere along the way from that Grammy Album of Year win to today, Arcade Fire seem like they forgot how to write songs. Like Reflektor, most of these tracks don’t work as compelling individual works or as pieces of a larger whole. The difference is that Reflektor, for all its faults, still felt like an event. (And still had some gems: that album’s second disc, while jammed with songs that overstay their welcomes, is pretty solid.) Everything Now plays more like a B-sides record. There are a few worthwhile moments, but most of the runtime is devoted to songs that don’t go anywhere worth going. The brassy “Chemistry” is especially dire, to the point that it’s already been (rightfully) labeled as a low point in the band’s catalog. (To be fair, other first-half snoozers like “Signs of Life” and “Peter Pan” could be worthy nominees for the same title.) Reflektor took Arcade Fire’s sound from sweeping indie rock to something more electronic and pop-focused. Everything Now pulls back on the electronic elements, but still feels more groove and beat-driven than the first three Arcade Fire LPs. That’s not a bad thing by itself: the bassline on “Good Goddamn” is an undeniable foot tapper, and “Creature Comfort,” the best song on the record, achieves what it does thanks largely to a relentless drumbeat and a slick synth groove. But what made Arcade Fire great on those first few records was their ability to capture communal emotion through big, open-hearted melodies. Hearing songs like “Wake Up” and “Keep the Car Running” was like singing along to Springsteen anthems at a live show: putting your arm around the stranger next to you, shouting yourself hoarse, and battling dual impulses to laugh and to cry. It was triumphant and heartbreaking at the same time, with a level of earnestness that tends to turn bands into punchlines (especially in our cynical modern age) but instead earned Arcade Fire a spot at the head of the indie rock table. Everything Now never inspires that level of emotion. The singles get the closest: the big climactic “nah nah nah” section in the title track will probably play well in concert, while “Creature Comfort” is an energetic powder keg, a song that works despite Butler’s ham-fisted lyric about Funeral convincing a fan not to commit suicide. The slow and steady build of penultimate track “We Don’t Deserve Love,” is also beautiful, and is one of the few parts of the record that seems truly heartfelt. But most of Everything Now rests in the same slow-to-mid-tempo vein, with Butler’s voice rarely rising above his unremarkable mid-register. About half an hour through the record, you’ll probably wish that Butler would start bellowing and letting loose, the way he used to, but he never does. (Régine Chassagne, meanwhile, is limited to one lead vocal turn, on the acceptable but sleepy “Electric Blue.”) Robbed of those emotive moments that used to make Arcade Fire special, Everything Now is an exercise in waiting for a catharsis that never happen. Coming from a band that used to do catharsis better than just about anyone, that’s a massive letdown. It begs the question of how one of our generation’s most inspiring rock bands got roped into being one of its least compelling pop bands. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/arcade-fire-everything-now-2/

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