#shinee has just had me in a chokehold for over a decade now | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

marinette-buginette · 7 years

Text

Turn Loose the Mermaids(Part 30)

AU belongs to Taulun

Well this chapter is somehow filer-ish and I don't really like it but welp. Thanks to @miracujess for being my beta and dealing with my shit

First | Next

Chat Noir came to the conclusion some things never change: Kim has always been an impulsive idiot, Nino gulps down at least two bottles of rum since the day they met, and Chloé still screamed louder than a banshee. At least this time, it was for a good reason. Afterall, it wasn’t everyday the most feared pirate of the Seven Seas bursted into your cabin.

“Take her not me!” Chloé kept screaming while pushing her cousin in front of her as a shield. Sabria was her name, if he recalled correctly.

Chat rolled his eyes at his old friend’s antics. Ignoring her shrieks, he went directly to the huge jewelry box on her vanity. Opening it, he began to take out the different pieces from it.

“This looks like it was made by a blacksmith, not a goldsmith. Neptune, did someone make this and thought it was a good idea?” he scoffed as he kept throwing the jewelry he found unsatisfactory over his shoulder. He knew very well Nino was by the door, catching them in a little satchel while chugging down some rum, most likely. “This is decent —hm, never mind, this is making my eyes bleed. Who actually pays good coin for this eyesore?” Chloé kept shrieking, though, if he had to be honest, now it sounded more as if she was offended by his comments about her taste in jewelry rather than shrieking out of fear.

“Oh, these are actually pretty. I’ll take them,” he announced while putting the pair of earrings in his pocket. “It was very nice making business with you, lady.” He gave her a two fingers salute and exited the cabin, leaving Chloé still screaming. Serves her right for all the times she put him in chokeholds back when they were kids.

“This is going well,” Nino remarked while they looked around the deck. Most of the soldiers that were on guard were dead, and what was left of them were fighting a battle that was already lost. “I can’t believe we got so lucky to rob the ship the princess was on.”

Chat rolled his eyes and snorted. “If the idiot who thought putting the sole heir of the throne on a bilander with the idea that pirates wouldn't attack it is also in charge of the general schedule and routes and naval tactics of the royal fleet, then I’m not surprised at all we live in such a prosperous time for piracy.”

His eyes scanned along the ship then shifted towards the horizon. Just in time to notice three shapes far off in the distance. Raising his voice, he ordered, “Everyone retreat!”

The pirates moved swiftly, carrying the haul and leaving an almost deserted ship with a deck bathed in blood behind. “Change the sails and catch the western wind, we need to move fast.”

The crew began to move around as Chat glanced over his shoulder. If he had to make a wild guess, they were three brigs. He rolled his eyes. What a poor strategy, to make three warships tail a small merchant vessel to only make sure it doesn’t get attacked by pirates. Please. Chat knew something important was aboard the ship when he saw the royal flag flying high and proud. As if anybody would think it was a simple small merchant ship when that thing fluttered in the wind. Chat felt himself relax as the speed of La Coccinelle picked up and the course changed. He was sure the brigs won’t try to follow or engage them in combat. They had better things to do. For example, taking care of the shrieking princess and bringing her home safely. Chat tapped the pocket where the earrings were. Hopefully Marinette would like them,

Her eyes were glistening; she had never expected to see this place again. It was a such a twist of fate, if she had to be honest. When Chat had announced there is a small island where they will stop for a night, she never would've imagined it would be this particular island. The crew got off the ship, and, settling on a small beach on the western side of the island, made a campfire, singing and drinking. And while singing along with the crew had become one of her favourite hobbies, she had other plans for tonight. Especially when she looked out the cabin window and saw the island. Chat was rather surprised when she insisted they had to go on the island, too. He had meant to take her, but he didn’t understand where all the enthusiasm came from. Not until they reached a small clearing with a little waterfall and a makeshift hammock. My island, that’s how Marinette referred to it. Chat looked around the small clearing, the place that Marinette told him used to be her shelter for decades, every night when her legs appeared.

She was toying with some things in a little chest that was hidden behind the waterfall: er little treasure she used to collected in her baby days. Se played around with a colorful feather. So many things from that little chest seemed too banal right now, after she had read books from the human world. Her heart almost longed for the aura of mystery these simple objects carried once upon a time, when she had found them on ship wreckages. She tickled Chat playfully with the feather, making him sneeze, and giggled when he gave her the stink eye. Putting the feather back in the chest, she extended her hand.

“Walk with me?” she requested and her husband immediately took her hand and stood up.

It was peaceful on this side of the island. Only the two of them, the birds and the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. Marinette sighed, content enjoying the peace.

“I never thought I’d share this place with anyone. It was my little safe paradise, where no one besides myself was supposed to be. And this island was the only thing that knew my secret.” A soft smile appeared on her lips. “But that’s changed now.”

Chat smiled down at her, squeezing her hand. The moonlight gave her dark hair a blue reflection. Like the ocean. Like her eyes. Oh, how he loved her eyes. And her smile. And… everything about her really. He seemed to realize every day, again and again, just how much he loved Marinette.

Then Marinette stopped abruptly and began tugging his hand towards the ocean. “Come with me in the water. Please.”

He nodded, following her steps. How ironic was that? Willingly following a mermaid in the water. It was an amusing thought, especially when he hasn’t thought of her as “the mermaid” for a long time now. Marinette. His wife. His love. His love that has just jumped on him, making both of them go under the water. Chat tried to keep the air in his lungs, until he heard Marinette giggle.

“Open your mouth, silly,” she said, letting herself float in the water, her dark hair surrounding her as a halo. “Don’t you know? Kissing a mermaid let’s you breathe underwater.”

Chat opened his mouth to answer, realizing a second too late his mistake. But there was no sensation of drowning and his lungs didn’t feel like they were burning. He felt perfectly fine, even with all the water he was swallowing right now. He looked at Marinette, unsure of what to say. She just shook her head and swam to him, pulling him into a kiss. Chat wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. And even though the water was warm, Chat felt warmer with Marinette’s lips on his. They could stay like this for a while. The night was young and, for once, it felt like the whole world was at peace.

The room was dark, because even thought it was still day outside, the afternoon sun barely filterering through the thick curtains of the office. A tall figure satin a chair, his cold blue eyes scanning the document in his hand. With a tired sigh, he put the paper down. He won’t have time to read it properly anyway, if the booming steps coming from the hall were a sign of anything. The doors of his office were slammed open as King André marched in followed by six guards.

“Your Highness.” The man stood up, managing a court bow.

The king didn’t even bother to reply. “Unacceptable! Inadmissible! Humiliating! How dare they attack my daughter and rob her?! My daughter!”

The taller man stood silently, letting the king throw his hissy fit while stifling his urge to roll his eyes. The incompetence of this man is exactly what brought the kingdom into the miserable state it is in, with those lowly scums roaming the seas without a worry in the world. And it seems he only took a stand when his little brat was affected. Typical. If this incompetent fool of a monarch would have listened to him since the beginning they wouldn’t be in this situation to being with.

“I want Chat Noir caught. I want to see him hanged before my own two eyes for daring to attack my daughter,” the king finished his rant, spinning on his heels to face the taller man.

A faint smile appeared on on the man’s lips, yet something almost cruel shined in his cold blue eyes.

“As you command, Your Majesty.”

#miraculous ladybug #marinette x chat noir #marichat #TML #my writing #turn loose the mermaids

208 notes · View notes

ladystylestores · 4 years

Text

Homebound with EarthBound | Ars Technica

youtube

EarthBound got a nice Nintendo Power push. But in retrospect, Nintendo of America, you could’ve tried a lot harder with this trailer.

Give me 10 minutes. I need to defeat five giant moles so the miner can find the gold… which I need to get $1 million and bail out the rock band… who can arrange a meeting with the evil real-estate-developer-turned-mayor I need to beat down.

My partner doesn’t get it, which I completely understand. When I first tried EarthBound, I didn’t either. The now-cult-classic SNES title first arrived in the United States in June 1995. And I, a nine-year-old, had no chance. I craved action as a kid gamer, and that largely meant co-op, multiplayer, and sports titles (a lot of NBA Jam, Street Fighter, and Turtles in Time). Nothing about EarthBound, particularly when only experienced piecemeal through a weekend rental window, would ever speak to me. As one of the most high-profile JRPGs of the early SNES era, it embodied all the stereotypes eventually associated with the genre: at-times batshit fantastical storylines; slow, s l o w pacing; virtually non-existent action mechanics.

Frankly, I wasn’t alone. Based on its sales, not many gamers seemed to understand EarthBound, and it’s not clear Nintendo did, either. What on Earth does the trailer above say to you? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company again and again (and again) tried to find a hit JRPG in the States without much success. Nintendo literally gave away games like Dragon Warrior—as a Nintendo Power pack-in—and still couldn’t find an audience. Even the heralded Final Fantasy franchise struggled initially, as Nintendo brought it stateside with a big, splashy map-filled box that no one seemed to care about in the moment.

But a quarter-century later, I can’t stop pushing the power switch on my SNES Classic to spend time with Ness and company. Part of it is me; I’m much older and, in theory, have more patience despite how things like social media and smartphones may be slowly destroying our collective ability to focus. People liked EarthBound better in 2013, too, when Nintendo finally re-released the game for the first time in decades on the WiiU Virtual Console. But part of my newfound appreciation is inevitably the timing of this recent play-through. The compounding pandemics of 2020 have changed the way we all approach the world; FOMO has all but evaporated. (Do I need to constantly doomscroll on Twitter to get all the depressing news as it happens? Should I plan a vacation so I can sit inside doing nothing particularly active somewhere more scenic?) In some ways, there is nothing but time, meaning an indulgent, leisurely, complex game suddenly offers a new value proposition.

More than any of that, however, all my time spent homebound with EarthBound—nearly 20 hours and counting despite a newborn and no work stoppages around the Orbital HQ—comes down to the game itself. To a subset of modern gamers, EarthBound‘s legacy may simply be introducing Ness to legions of Super Smash Bros. disciples. But on the 25th anniversary of this game’s arrival, it actually seems more suited for our current moment than ever.

My parents had no idea what kind of game I was renting at age 9.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Excuse me, what is happening here?

This cop has watched way too much Elliot Stabler in his life.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

At least the pro at the Onett Times captured the moment: “Police attack innocent boy!!” Evidently it was caught on videotape by a bystander and will air on the local news.

The Insane Cultists are obsessed with blue but really look like they prefer white.

Does Scientology involve beatdowns?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Why are the kinda crazy ones obsessed with having their name on the building?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

A plot for 1995, a plot for 2020

If it’s been a while or (like me) you never bothered in the first place, EarthBound takes place in a not-so-subtly veiled version of the US, literally called Eagleland in-game. Our hero (whose name defaults to “Ness” but can be changed as you see fit) grew up in the sleepy and seemingly mundane suburb Onett. Other “numbered” suburbs like Twoson soon follow.

Things are not as idealistic as they first appear. In these shining cities on various hills, an alien called Giygas has landed and seeped an evil influence into everything. You have to fight Runaway Dogs and Cranky Bag Ladies now. And post-invasion, every town has developed a problem for you to work through, each feeling eerily prescient in 2020.

In Onett, for example, bad cops feature prominently. Even after you rid the town of a pogostick-riding gang called the Sharks, you can’t just leave Onett because Captain Strong and his police force instead threaten to beat you down for trying. EarthBound originally came out within years of the beating of Rodney King, and it features four cops ganging up on a kid. Captain Strong literally attacks you with submission chokeholds. Nine-year-old me must have been confused if I even got this far, but adult me did a double take as society continues to grapple with the tragic deaths of Black Americans like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and Elijah McClain at the hands of police.

The cops of Onett merely come first, but that’s far from the only blunt observation on American life awaiting EarthBound players. In Twoson, your future friend and squadmate Paula has been abducted by a religious cult called the Happy Happy Religious Group. The group obsesses over turning everything blue, but, uh, they resemble a much whiter real-world analogue and maintain a similar disposition toward others (“Your existence is a problem for me and my religion,” says cult leader Mr. Carpainter before he attempts to dismantle you). EarthBound‘s creator Shigesato Itoi may have again been responding to events of his day, as the Boss Fights Book on EarthBound points out the game was developed during the feds’ siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

But with their character design and dialogue (“I think those who won’t paint everything blue are opposed to peace,” another says), the Happy Happy Religious Group probably doesn’t remind players of David Koresh anymore. Instead, my mind wandered to a much different modern-day cult, draped in white sheets or Stars and Bars, that pushes red on everyone instead. (As EarthBound’s subtle commentary-cherry on top, Paula’s “pray” ability during battle proves unpredictable and often detrimental if used.)

These storylines, rich in social commentary, come up again and again, and I’m barely approaching EarthBound‘s halfway mark. In fact, I just arrived in the big city of Fourside where a “regular unattractive real estate” developer named Geldegarde Monotoli has risen up the political ranks to become mayor. The guy’s name has been emblazoned on a big skyscraper acting as a de facto city hall. He takes political and economic advice from a privileged, bratty neighborhood kid. And Monotoli tries (and apparently succeeds) at both forcing police to do his bidding and manipulating the media in his favor—The Fourside Post’s lead story when I entered town was “Over 70% of Fourside citizens support Monotoli.” Hmm. Perhaps, as Cord Jefferson (a writer on HBO’s Watchmen) recently put it on a podcast: “History is prescient. The things we touch on are just things that have been complaints of my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents.”

Listing image by Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/38xBsre

#World Wide News

0 notes