#ask saint

[saintofanything]

hey did i ever poke u abt that sidgeno loredump bc when/if ur free 👀 👀 👀 i would love to hear your retelling (<- asking bc im watching the pens game rn :) theyre not losing ur honor :) i forgot what this felt like (silly) o damn fuck they got a goal rescinded i shouldnt have said anything (silly))

sooooo let me start this off by saying i am not the sidgeno expert, not even close, BUT i've got the highlight reel and the essentials of the lore.

love is real and it was invented in pittsburgh: 8771

sidney "sid" crosby, center, #87: the number one draft pick of his year and arguably the best 200ft player of all time. child of god. youngest captain in NHL history (a feat he now shared with other 18yo captains). if i talk about him too much i'll cry.

evgeni "geno" malkin, center, #71: the other head of the two headed monster, one of the best players of all time, criminally underrated and one of the funniest, most charismatic players to grace us with his presence. drafted 2nd in 2004 to the pens. a physical and emotionally-driven player. also he's 6'5".

"At first, it was an arranged marriage. Thanks to the way the ping-pong balls bounced in the NHL draft lottery process, Crosby and Malkin were thrust together into the Penguins lineup about 10 years ago whether they liked it or not. As it turns out, they liked it.” [x]

[below the readmore, do be the lore]

FIRST THINGS FIRST: BREAKING HISTORY

the NHL, in its history, has had several "lockouts" where the players union and the league itself cannot come to terms and thus the season is delayed or paused.

in the 2004-2005 season, for the first and only time, an entire season was cancelled. they did not even award the stanley cup, which was the first time that had happened since 1919.

AND OUR PROTAGONISTS WERE SUPPOSED TO START PLAYING TOGETHER IN THIS VERY SEASON. THE FUTURE OF HOCKEY WAS LITERALLY AT STAKE, OUR LOVERS ARE SEPARATED BY THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, A LANGUAGE BARRIER, AND GREEDY FUCKHEADS.

sid crosby had been drafted #1 as the coming savior of the penguins franchise, and geno malkin had been selected from russia to join the cause and was supposed to make his NHL debut, but the lockout kept him stuck in russia.

the lockout end is in sight but geno is under pressure from his hometown team to sign. geno doesn't want to, but he gets strong-armed into it, and immediately regrets it. he wants to be in the NHL.

so escapades ensue that would be more at home in a cold war film. geno and his agent, on an away game in helsinki, flee. they hide out, get to a US embassy to apply for a via, and like thieves in the night, abscond to los angeles. he then made his way to pittsburgh.

geno met sid on his first night there and they fell in love at first sight.

"I just always liked him from the start. Always have. Always will." - Sid

"Pittsburgh is lucky to have Sid. We are all lucky for Sid." - Geno

THE TWO-HEADED MONSTER

for their careers, these two fuckers have been attached at the hip both by breaking milestones and by breaking their bodies. they were affectionately named "the two headed monster" for their ruthless domination on the ice, with their relentless ferocity at puck control as well as their borderline telepathic plays. they would, rightly, not always be on the same line (they work best as special teams together) because of how good they both are as centers. they're puck-hungry and shoot-happy and smart as hell when it comes to hockey IQ, sid is the master of 'little moves that add up in a big way' while thinking ten steps ahead, and geno is the 'opportunistic stalker' waiting to pounce and if he can't pounce he bodies them until he scores anyways. they are THE duo of their era!!

their legacies are deeply intertwined, a fact both of them are very happy about. both of them see the other as family, with geno seeing sid as like an uncle to his son nikita, and sid deeply invested in keeping geno as a pen for life.

tale #1: the stanley cup photo

they won the stanley cup 3 times!! 2009, and then back-tobacks in 2016/2017. their spiritual predecessors, mario lemiuex and jaromir jagr, had taken a photo of them holding the cup, and it became part of penguins legacy, two of the most important players in the franchise.

geno was adamant they get a matching picture, but in the chaos of the first cup, it was missed. the second time - a long awaited win in 2016, after recovering from sid's horrific concussion and geno's knee injuries - they forgot again. geno, on the day of game 6 against nashville, ordered a staff member to take a picture of himself and sid "no matter what" and they did :)

tale #2: "me three years superleague" [8771]

hockey has a tradition - last on, last off. this ritual is both superstitious and a sign of respect. shenanigans about this are rampant, including rock-paper-scissors and trying to trick opponents in order to be the one to leave last. sid crosby, superstitious king, is notorious for his inability to be chill about his routines.

anyways, sid went last. until geno came along. sid offered rock-paper-scissors, but geno hit him with "me three years superleague" meaning he had been in the KHL (russian pro hockey) for 3 years to sid's single year in the NHL. sid, because it's geno, accepted - and from that day forward, they do a special fistbump. sid goes, and geno follows. the last on. always. [except for weird times like the first game of the season and then we LOSE superstitions are REAL!]

tale #3 "putting down a mutiny"

okay so during sid's concussion, he was out of play for a while. like, over a year. and during that time, in 2011 specifically, the question naturally came up of whether or not someone else should temporarily replace him as captain (as the practice is typically for an 'A' [alternate] captain to take the place until he returns) but this means they'd be OFFICIAL captains.

except this question was no longer just being posed by the media....but by players on the penguins. so the story goes, a meeting was held within the locker room involving two camps of players: 4 in favor of replacing sid (brooks orpik, jordan staal, craig adams, matt cooke) and the 4 vehemently against it (pascal dupuis, marc-andre fleury, arron asham, and of course geno)

during the heated conversation, geno ended it with "Sid is the fucking captain." and then walked the fuck out like a boss. end of story, geno's loyalty is the stuff of legend. he even fought one of the mutineers (adams) during practice over it. alas, the rumors and speculation persisted, and the team had had enough.

so in 2012, most of the penguins players used tape to put the letter 'C' on their practice jerseys for their captain. geno taped a 'K' because it's kapitan in russian. sid's the fucking captain.

tale #4: bonded pair do not separate

this covers a few instances, but basically, geno being underrated and sid being the GOAT means sometimes people who are not sid and geno need to be reminded of how the world works.

for example, when the pens GM at the time said that only sid was untouchable during trade season, sid - who does not normally involve himself in player negotiations - laid down the law that geno was also untouchable: "It's me and Geno."

during geno's rookie years, he told his friend/teammate/interpreator sergei gonchar that he wanted to play "only for Pittsburgh, always with Sid." and has kept true to that promise through tense negotiations.

and sometimes that means being paid a little more. the "crosby cap" in the unofficial-official rule that nobody is allowed to be paid more than sid, and nobody is allowed to wear a jersey number higher than his. his contract is $8.7mil, but to keep geno, it was going to have to be higher. sid responded "does that mean we get to keep him?" because he does not give a fuck about money. he proved that again by signing an extension this year for 8.7mil again despite the fact he's the face of the franchise, captain, and s tier player because he cares more about the team and franchise than he does money. geno too, he's consistently taken "team friendly" deals instead of leaving to be paid as a superstar.

"He's a Pittsburgh Penguin forever, like me." -Geno, talking about Sid's extension.

during 2022 management was not sly about taking shots at geno, lowballing him during negotiations and basically telling him to take it or leave it. fuck you ron hextall u flyers plant u nearly killed this franchise and we're going to be paying for ur fuckery for years to come i wish lil nikita had high-sticked u it would have been KARMA. it took the combined efforts of sid, kris letang, and coach mike sullivan to assuage geno. and when hextall, under collusion from the new management, wanted to break up the Big Three (aka keep sid but break up letang and geno) during an interview sid gave a not-so-thinly veiled threat: "I think they know how I feel." and after a very, very dramatic rest of the season hextall and burke and pryer were fired :) geno has admitted he nearly left the pens because of them but now has reaffirmed he'll never leave and half-joked that he'll play as long as sid does or until his body gives out on him. jesus christ geno could u be any less subtle.

kris letang, geno malkin, and sid crosby are the longest tenured teammates (going on their 20th season) in north american sports history. penguins mate for life.

"The penguins are us [Kris, Geno, & himself]" -Sid

more incoherent rambling:

they just love each other so much man. geno has shrines to sid in all of his houses and jokes that his son's favorite player is sid, he thinks sid is the best player and the best person, he is fiercely loyal and both of them have a habit of brushing aside their own records and milestones for the other. sid is a very private person but clearly loves geno and gets this dopey, sweet smile and light in his eyes when reporters ask about how many of their milestones are linked together as much as their legacies. sid can, has, and will threaten anyone who even thinks about trying to take geno away from him. sid thinks it's funny he knocked geno on his ass during practice one time and how geno tries to give him another concussion by shooting pucks at him during power play practice. their hugs across the years are pure joy and it's a miracle they didn't fucking hurt each other in some of those flying leap tackles. that time they hosted a bunch of kids and geno was joking they werent chanting his name except then when they were on the ice he was hyping them up for sid's chant, and when asked who his best friend on the team is sid immediately pointed to geno and coach sullivan was yelling about how it was a set up. and when geno first came to the US and couldnt speak english, they could still speak hockey together. about how geno is almost half a foot taller than sid and spent years being known as "the bully" and still he always differentially leaned down when sid is talking on the ice. how they find each other in cellies and look for each other first when theyre on the bench and celebrating. geno chanting "MVP" loudly when sid was doing media and sid laughing about it. geno has penguins hats made with sid's name on them (and his own and tanger too!) and he wears them all the time. geno fucking with sid all the time because he's hilarious and sid not only tolerating it but laughing with him.

quotes that make me want to gnaw my own arm off:

"Win. For Sid." -Geno

"I gotta take my teammate, Geno. Yep, have to." -Sid, when asked who he'd pick #1 on his fantasy team

"My favorite is Sid." -Geno

"I'm thinking selfishly, but I can't wait to play with him." -Geno

"I'm so thankful that I've had the opportunity to play with him all these years and share so many things with him." -Sid

"We grew up together." -Sid

it's not sunset, but late afternoon

these fucks are old in hockey years. most players last 5 years in the NHL. they're at 20, and have a few more years left in them. and their relationship is one of the most special in the league, and in hockey history - few players stay on a team for life, few are so impactful to the game. they're both going straight to the Hall of Fame, they have personal hardware and 3 cups between them and plenty of records in both the league and franchise, and they've done it together. we only get them for a little while longer, so let's enjoy it ♥

[aghostsdestiny]

Oasis... Osiris... mhmm. 🫶

[cartoonsaint]

you mentioned how hlvrai is an interesting form of storytelling and i think thats part of why it got big- same with taz and other dnd podcasts- people like the authenticity of it. theres no big writers rooms working to make it "perfect." its all very in the moment. the actors arent actors- theyre not reading off a script. everyone whose playing a part are equally a part of the storytelling process. everyone is making the script up in the moment, and things happen either to immediately make their friends laugh or make their friends go 'holy shit thats awesome' or (my personal favorite) to give their friends the opportunity to do something cool!

its an honest form of storytelling that we're kinda losing with the way media is so sanitized and washed out and forced to be marketable. like, i struggle explaining hlvrai or dnd podcasts to my friends when they ask what kind of content i watch, because theres really no comparison to it (unless they also engage with that type of content). its like people sitting around a campfire telling stories, just to pass the time and engage in creativity. and i think thats why people like them, theyre just fun and real.

i got a little rambley but overall: i think hlvrai and these types of media are popular because theyre honest

i think there's truth to this, yeah!!! :) there's a lot to be said for stories where the storytellers are present/visible, esp when they're all close-- it's like being invited into their warm, fun little friend group for a little bit, even if it's just to observe. it's a kind of antithesis to the wave of polished and soulless media that has become more and more of the stuff out there in the past ten years (spotless set design, everyone is beautiful and no one is horny, reliance on the Save the Cat method, i don't have enough links to sketch this whole thing out but yes: the number one word is marketability). these are lonely times; stories told by real people in real-time are a breath of fresh air, especially when there's the doubled wild cards of 1. wtf are my friends going to pull out of their asses next and how do i keep this balloon-story in the air oh god and 2. dice-rolling/weird g-mod stuff à la the helicopter heap, etc. it's great fun to see people up against these odds who manage to pull together a semi-cohesive story anyways :)

i don't think we're really losing this kind of story-telling, though it is becoming less visible in a marketability-lowest-common-denominator-blockbuster-content-production kind of way. but you're right that these kinds of practices trace back to telling stories around a fire, or while spinning thread or sharpening flint-- it's deep in our core as human beings. our lives are very different from those of our our ancestors 50k years ago but in the grand scheme of things, we've barely barely changed. we still want those stories. we still want to tell them, too. even as inhuman companies beyond our individual grasps manipulate things far above us, try to distract workers from too-long days at work with stripped-down marketable manipulative garbage, there will always be people making weird, niche art: friend groups who stream goofy improv together, people who write thousands upon thousands of words about their OCs even though only 3 people read it, toby fox in his basement, DnD podcasts with fewer than a fifty listeners, stick figure webcomics updating every day, pre-teens scribbling about sparklewolves in their composition notebooks and shyly sharing a little bit with the other weirdo in their class.

but yeah. especially for those of us who don't necessarily have the energy to create as much as we'd like, story-telling that has the foundations visible, that is honest about what it is and where it's coming from, that has at its core the desire to make one's friends laugh-- it's great! it's fun! it's a good antidote to the big polished crap :)

[saintoflostmonsters]

This is just so unfair to Jake, he literally has no advantages here, everything he can do, Danny does better

I actually answered this last year when they had this as a community DeathBattle on DBC but buckle up:

In terms of power set they're both pretty similar, but Jake's training, endurance and resistances to supernatural abilities may make this a closer fight than you believe.

Duplication: Danny struggles to make one clone of himself even at e.o.s but after Jake learned the multiplication skill he had no trouble making 5+ copies

Cryokinesis: Taking into account s3 Danny's ice powers Jake still has him beat with Dragon fire, stated in the show to burn through anything not supernaturally immune to it like the Huntsman's cloak

Flight& Endurance: We see Danny's speed output at 200mph during the show but Jake is canonically faster topping out at 299mph to dodge the boulders being thrown at him in battle. Danny has the stamina to fly across roughly two states continuously before collapsing due to exhaustion but Jake did multiple laps around an island roughly the size of New York (the state) and still had energy to protect himself in a fight.

Strength: Again, in canon Jake is specifically mentioned with a strength output between 10-20 tons during s2 while Danny caps out around 1-2 if I remember correctly.

Possession: Jake is shown to be immune to ghostly possession in s2, also even if he weren't immune, Danny in canon struggles to possess other supernatural entities.

Experience: While Danny has experience with Dora and Aragon (both canonical dragon shifters in his universe) and Jake has experience fighting ghosts in the field, Jake has the benefit of having a direct mentor in Lao Shi, rather than always relying on trial and error learning from things he's seen his enemies do like Danny does (duplication from Vlad, the ghostly wail from Dark Danny, inorganic possession from Technus, etc), which naturally leads to faster growth in terms of ability

Skills: Both Jake and Danny are shown to be incredibly athletic and maneuverable due to their experiences in battle. Jake, however, has the advantage in knowing actual magic.

Equipment: Danny's thermos is useless against non-spectral entities (unless used as a bludgeoning tool) and Jake has a skateboard, which is great for mobility but otherwise, nearly useless here too (again, unless used as a bludgeoning tool)

Other Powers: Basically Jake's fire breath and dragon claws (both shown capable of harming ghosts as I mentioned above) vs Danny's ghost ray (concentrated energy that can hurt non-spectral entities)

The point I'm trying to make is: counting Jake out or lowballing his abilities isn't as safe a bet as you'd think it is which is why, again, I'm excited to see what the DB team has cooking for the battle. I don't care who wins but I want them to put on a show and I want people to give Jake his respect.

[saintofanything]

i am sad and i am dooming about the pens. help?

we are down two rlly important players. braz has been instrumental for the second line. and raks is a top winger, so losing both of them at the same time has been really hard on the team to adjust both emotionally and play-wise, so muse has been trying diff combos which means they need time to get new synergy.

we also lost cookie (acciari) mid-game, which meant that our forwards were EXHAUSTED by the end there

i love our goalies dearly but unfortunately we needed a save there. 3 of those goals were saveable, but the pens also just...kinda didnt play hard for a few minutes and it cost us. it happens, but we outplayed them the majority of the game! we have DOUBLE the shot attempts!

sometimes there are games where we do not deserve a point (the last two OTs) but we claw our way back, it's just the name of the game where sometimes we lose ones we should have really won

EK first goal!! EK with a 96mph shot!! kindel first multi-goal game!! sid and geno still on track for points-per-game!!

i jinxed us by saying i didnt wanna go to OT

refs were not giving us calls unless they absolutely had to including one at the end there that could have tied the game in the last minute

full moon

in conclusion:

[cartoonsaint]

got this ask the other day; removed username from it but wanted to answer anyways:

you're fine! tbh my response to that anon was originally much longer bc, YEAH, their comparison was homophobic, immoral, and literally straight out of the conservative playbook, but eventually i decided that even if i laid everything out extremely plainly they would not understand it (demonstrated poor reading comprehension, presumed inability to own up to mistakes and comprehend nuance, etc) so. haven't heard back from that person yet; fingers crossed that the short version got through to them at least a little bit.

i respect the fact that you felt the need to speak out about that anon's message— that's quite noble of you and pretty telling of your character (/positive, obvi). i am a little surprised to see the take "Shipping benry and gordon from the half life funny series is weird as fuck" here, on the blog i use to reblog dozens of pieces of fanart of those two characters and occasionally advertise the thousands of words i've written about them? but sure, let's talk about it a bit.

first, please think with me for a moment and compare HLVRAI to The Adventure Zone: Balance, where its early episodes are clearly just some folks roleplaying with funny voices and trying to make each other laugh. over time it becomes a story in which every member of the group is invested, the characters take on personalities and traits of their own, and its reach expands past the pretty insular group for whom it was originally broadcast. the first act of HLVRAI was just some friends noodling around in front of, what, a hundred people or summat? and the last act was broadcast live to thousands and has over two million views on youtube. in between the first and last acts it developed a lot, not just in plot and breadth but also all of the characters (in the commentaries, for instance, wayne speaks multiple times about the choices he made for gordon as a character). i lurked in the TAZ fandom early on for months before it became impossible to keep tracking the tag and i certainly saw some weird opinions but i never, NEVER saw the same kind of opposition to ~shipping~ like the weird takes i still sometimes catch sight of about hlvrai. there was an understanding that the characters were not their actors; shipping them was fine. not sure what the difference is here, but i'd like to understand.

i took a look at the first few pages of your blog and bc of that i'm blocking out your username, but in trying to follow your logic i met with a few obstacles: you seem to be fine with shipping the characters from the show romantically, given you've reblogged bubby/coomer and created benrey/tommy art. i also see that you've racebent gordon and featured him in fancomics, so i assume the issue isn't with treating gordon as a character, but specifically with putting him in romantic situations?

so i guess my question is: what's the difference? why is romance where you draw the line? you clearly see gordon as a character distinct from his actor. maybe i'm just aro and not clear on where the line is that makes something romance anyways, but i'm having trouble discerning the difference between playing with a doll, making up traits about its character, making it interact w other dolls etc -vs- making the dolls kiss. like… you're still playing with a doll. from the perspective of people who don't play with dolls, it's all weird. as long as you're not hurting anyone else with it, who cares?

i don't know you, so maybe this advice will be entirely useless to you, in which case feel free to ignore it. but i do want to generally caution people against drawing a line around themselves and declaring everything outside of that line "weird" (or gross, or immoral, or etc etc etc). "i'm not like other girls" is internalized sexism; "i don't make being gay my whole identity, unlike those other gay people" is internalized homophobia. even outside of major issues like that, there are always going to be people who look at your interests, your hobbies, and your very self and declare it BAD, even if you try your hardest to fall in line with what they believe to be "good" or even "acceptable."

if you'll permit me to soapbox: trying to be what those people want you to be is exhausting, painful, and often harmful to you as an individual. i know that it's easy to be judgmental when you've been judged, and that it feels good to decide that x makes you better than those other people, but from my own experience i can tell you that you'll enjoy yourself a lot more if you care less about that crap.

being a fan of a relatively niche machinima series is weird. making fancontent for it is weird. shipping the characters (either just about them holding hands or wondering how they'd mess up w each other in bed) is weird. so is being a fan of ANYTHING. human beings are weird about stories!! it's part of the human condition! enjoy it. try to worry less about the people who consider "weirdness" a flaw, and try not to be one of those people in turn.

[cartoonsaint]

Frenrey fairy tale?

these 1500 words are brought to you by doing the wrong thing on a saturday, a late espresso followed by an early whiskey, and remembering how much i like werewolves even if this isn't quite that. rated T. contains swearing and smelling people ur attracted to. i'm doing these out of order whoops :)

Once upon a time there was a strange and magical forest, one so dark and deep that everyone in the lands simply called it the Black Forest. In that Black Forest were all manner of terrible creatures, tin-men doppelgangers and homunculi grown in fire-blackened trees and woodsmen with the glowing eyes of monsters whose true names we dare not speak. It was a magical place, but a terrible one, and over the course of this story we'll come face to face with many such terrible beauties and alluring horrors.

But before all that, there is a man in a red riding cape so old and faded one would be better off calling it orange. He carries a basket containing a gleaming, magical gem, one whose properties he has been studying for quite some time now, but he's reached the end of what he can do in his humble cottage; to finally, fully uncover the stone's strange secrets, he must bring it to test in a chamber deep, deep in the Black Forest. He walks quickly and attentively through the woods for he has heard tell of the danger of this place, though he knows not what awaits him on the path.

"mleuh mleuh mnahhh," Benrey mutters, tuning out the narrative and stretching his arms above his head experimentally, finding it not so easy in the form this dimension has given him. That's kinda new. Otherwise he's got it: fairy tales, Gordon doesn't know shit as per usual, Benrey's the Big Bad. He knows his role.

Anyways, looks like Benrey's really not human this time. He picks at his teeth with furry, paw-ish hands, considering. At least his teeth are sharp— feels like he's got big ol' fangs, which he always likes. He snaps his mouth open and shut a few times, enjoying the intimidating click of his teeth. Nice. Bet Gordon'll shit his pants, ha.

Before long his big ears swivel towards the sounds of his favorite loser making his way through the woods. Benrey pulls his dark hood up, hoping his fangs will gleam in the shadow it casts. The wolfish tail he's got wags, low and slow, predatory, as he gets in position behind some trees and watches for one of his best friends to make his first appearance so Benrey can introduce himself.

It takes longer than he expects— but hey, enhanced senses is a rad perk, Benrey'll take it— but at last, Gordon comes striding through Benrey's neck of the woods, not quite on the path (ooo, cheater!) and in a rush as always. He still takes the time to greet the birds and animals and shit, though, tossing smiles and friendly "howdy!"s at every dumb creature he passes. God, he's such a dork, Benrey likes him so much.

In the end Benrey's a bit too excited to wait for when he's supposed to enter the story. He steps out before Gordon can pass and finds, to his delight, that this time he's huge compared to good ol' Gordon. Benrey's so busy thinking about how he could probably pick Gordon up with one arm if he wanted, what the fuck, that's amazing, that he completely forgets to say his lines til Gordon's already retreating backwards.

"hey," Benrey says hurriedly. Can't fuck the story up this early, shit.

Gordon slows, stops. He stares warily up at Benrey from under his orange hood, clutching his basket close, and Benrey notices that even though the guy's clothes are fairy-tale-weird at least he's not in horribly uncomfortable armor this time. That's good, Benrey hates to see him uncomfortable when it's not Benrey's own doing.

"Hey," Gordon says, and there's a beat as Benrey realizes suddenly that with this particular story's form he can actually smell Gordon— sweat from the man's quick-paced walk through the woods, magic, a little bit of fear, and that tantalizing smell that Benrey gets a whiff of every so often when he's gotten close to his most favorite person in previous stories: that human scent that he can only categorize as Gordon, close and stressed and laughing, best-friend-worst-enemy-lover-killer-et-cetera, one of the only beings in all the universes' universes that Benrey would bother facing this same awful sad story for over and over.

Fuck. He sniffs a few times, savoring. That's gonna be distracting— Benrey's never had to deal with senses like this before. He looks down at Gordon, for once cute and relatively small, watching Benrey back and clearly reacting just to Benrey's presence even though he's trying to hide it, his gaze green and as untrusting as it always is at this point in the story.

Then Gordon shifts to the side, like he's thinking about just walking around him and skipping this whole encounter, and at once Benrey internally panics. His line! No time to come up with something relevant, he'll just borrow from a different story.

"can i see your. passport?"

Gordon stops. His gaze turns incredulous, his emotions so stupidly visible on his face, and Benrey tries not to grin too wide. Cute.

"My passport?" Gordon says. "What the fuck is a passport?"

"huh?" Benrey says back, leaning in and trying not to be too obvious about the fact that his nostrils are definitely quivering. It's not fair; Gordon always smells so good and now it's so much more noticeable. "iunno. whatcha got there, friend?"

Gordon immediately covers his basket with his cute little cape, defensive. "None of your business," he snaps. "Look, man, I'm kind of in a hurry. If you could just move out of the way—"

"no can do," Benrey says lightly, stalking closer and enjoying the way Gordon tenses. "s'my neck of the woods to guard, thanks. what's a squishy lil human doin all the way out here, anyways?"

Gordon stiffens, shoulders tensing, and Benrey admires how they look under his cape. He'd love to get that off of him this time if he can manage it— he hardly ever gets to see the guy without one shitty armor on or another. But then the scent of magic fills his nostrils and he realizes that Gordon's snuck a hand up to Benrey's chest, pressed against his dark cloak, a hand that glows with strange green magic that very nearly matches Gordon's eyes.

"Not so squishy a human, actually," Gordon says, clearly very pleased with himself. oh my god, Benrey thinks, nerd! "Now, are you gonna move outta my way? Or are we gonna have to do this the hard way, human?"

Ooo, so Gordon's not human either, that's interesting. Benrey grins at him, relishing the way Gordon blanches slightly— Benrey's teeth must be gleaming, that's awesome.

"oh, uh," Benrey says, reaching up to the hood of his own cape. "i'm not human, actually."

He whips the hood off, revealing a wolfish face that has Gordon's magically glowing eyes widening. Benrey grins, showing off his sharp teeth, and Gordon's pretty mouth forms a nice, wet little "o." Fuck yeah, he loves when Gordon starts out a lil spooked by him. He leans in, expecting the smell of fear to be coming off his fav guy in waves—

But it's not.

Benrey has just a second of confusion— he's gone through this story so many times, he's pretty sure he knows how Gordon's supposed to react at this point— before Gordon steps forward. His hand is no longer glowing but he raises it anyway and Benrey feels his big ears flatten in uncertainty— this is not how the story is meant to go— before that hand lands, unexpectedly, on Benrey's head.

Baffled, Benrey stares at Gordon. Gordon's green eyes are huge, his pupils large and dark. And then Gordon rubs at the spot behind Benry's weird big ears.

"mmmmhoh," Benrey says, and sits flat on his haunches, stunned by how nice that feels and then even more stunned by the way a grin splits his best friend's face way, way, way ahead of schedule.

"Who's a good boy," Gordon says, smiling brilliantly, and it's not just the fucking phenomenal sensation of Gordon's hands scritching behind his ears that has Benrey melting. "You a lil doggy? Huh? Good doggy? Huh? Huh?"

"uh," Benrey says, and then Gordon's other hand comes up to scratch under his chin and he whines. It'd be more embarrassing if it wasn't so, so, so good. "...yeah sure bro."

"Yeah?" Gordon says, smiling so wide and fond that Benrey almost can't believe it. "You good? Who's a good boy, huh? Who's a good boy?"

"mmmmuh," Benrey says, his tail thumping traitorously against the ground. "...me?"

"You!" Gordon says, smiling so wide as his clever hands soothe over Benrey's head and neck so nicely. Oh, no. Oh, no. "Yeah, it's you! You wanna come with me to deliver this crystal, huh? You wanna be Gordon's friend and come with? Be a good boy?"

Well, what the fuck is Benrey supposed to say to that, especially with the delicious smell of comfort and happiness coming off his best friend in waves, his smiling face, his uncommonly friendly smile, his horribly, amazingly dexterous hands?

"uh," Benrey says. "...sure ok man why not."

It's not that the story doesn't happen in this dimension, nor that the adventure falls flat. But this time, for once…

Benrey and Gordon live happily ever after.

[cartoonsaint]

stray kittens, frenrey, pls?

sorry this took a bit, i’m a dog person v.v however now i own a cat so i have a bit more ammo to work w :) here's roundabout 2.3k words, Not a Game AU, bit o Frenrey, rated T and features some minor PT.SD, some an.x!e.ty, some dancing around being attracted to each other, some casual touches imbued with meaning. also a benrey who might be a touch cleverer than canon indicates... but hey, maybe not, who knows? certainly not gordon.

“C’mere, c’mere! Here kitty kitty! C’mon, please, I’m not gonna hurt you, it’s okay— here—”

Gordon whistles, then immediately feels like an idiot— that’s dogs, not cats. Indeed, the lanky kitten under the table just shrinks further away, eyes wide and sparse gray fur bristling. It continues to pay no attention to the high-quality treats Gordon’s been desperately tossing closer and closer to it in an effort to tempt it out.

“Come on, pleeease, the vet said you need it,” he begs, but the ratty little kitten just backs itself further into the corner. “Ugh, what’s that, that one thing you’re supposed to, with cats, uh— is it— pspspspsps—?”

 “yo,” comes an unexpected voice from above, and Gordon bangs his head on the underside of the chair.

“Ow, fucking— what the hell, man,” Gordon complains, craning his neck to peer out from under the chair up at his… at Benrey, the bane of Gordon’s existence, the asshole who once upon a time got his hand cut off, and his best enemy turned weird roommate. At this angle all he can really see is the guy’s sweatpants and fuzzy blue socks.

“you were talking about playstation,” Benrey says.

“...What? No I wasn’t, I— shit, no no no, wait—”

But it’s too late; the rangy kitten has already used his moment of distraction to dart past Gordon’s open, grasping hands and disappear somewhere into the house, where he’ll have to hunt it down and start this whole process all over again.

“Goddammit! That’s twenty fucking minutes, wasted— thanks, Benrey, that's just great—”

“what are you doing?”

“What am I— I was trying to give one of your stupid strays its medicine, but you scared it off,” Gordon snaps as he shimmies out from under the table (and manages to bang his head again). “Ow, fucking— god. Now I’m gonna, gotta track it down again, which is probably gonna take forever, and spend another twenty goddamn minutes trying to—”

He stills, staring up at his roommate. Benrey blinks at him peaceably. In the wide pocket of his sweatshirt are a few kitten-sized lumps, with one’s sleepy little face poking out over one side. There's another kitten curled up fast asleep in his hood. The mangey one, the one Gordon just spent all that time trying to coax close enough to grab, has curled around Benrey's shoulder, its dark paws placed delicately to avoid stepping on its sibling. It's half-hidden behind Benrey's head, watching Gordon with obvious distrust.

"...Okay," Gordon says, low and barely daring to breathe. "Okay, Benrey? The cat— the one on your shoulder?"

Benrey turns, wide and obvious, towards the kitten. Gordon internally screams but the animal doesn't budge, just presses its cheek against Benrey's. "yeah?"

"Can you— I need to give it medicine, its fur is all fucked up. Can you— please— carefully— get a hold of it for me?"

"oh. sure yeah," Benrey says, and easily grips the back of the kitten's neck. He tugs and it follows obediently, practically pouring into his arms like a liquid so he can hold it cuddled against his chest like it's a baby. Its face is all scrunched up and it’s purring loud enough that Gordon can hear it from several feet away.

"How the fuck— y'know what, it doesn't matter. Just—" He scrambles to his feet, fishing in his pocket for the medicine he’s supposed to put in its fur. "Just, hold it still, I gotta—"

But the cat tenses the second Gordon gets up "Nooo, shit, hey, it's okay!" Gordon says, but the thing practically fucking flips out of Benrey's loose hold and catapults past Gordon— which makes him kind of scream a little bit— to tear past him and out into the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, his scream draws the attention of the rest of the kittens as well. Within three seconds they all go from fast asleep to springing past Gordon in a mass exodus. He flinches and part of him considers bolting, too, but none of them are leaping at his head and all the lights are on so there’s no reason to be scared. He's fine. Everything's fine.

He repeats that to himself, clutching his chest as the last sounds of claws skittering on hardwood come to an end.

“bro,” Benrey says, looking mildly surprised and a bit disappointed. “you scared ‘em.”

Gordon lets out a strangled laugh. “Yeah, right, fuckin'— me, I scared them. Sure. Okay.” He leans against the wall, catching his breath.

Benrey frowns at him. “you good man?”

“No, I—” Gordon groans. “Yeah. Yeah, just gotta try and… get that one again. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” He waves a hand to indicate as such, but even to him it just comes off looking weak and tired. Great. He abandons that to pinch the bridge of his nose instead.

Okay. He should probably take a break from this for a bit, but he’s a bit worried that if he does he’ll just keep not doing it. He’s got the motivation now, he ought to use it—

“you’re too loud.”

Gordon drops his hand to stare incredulously at Benrey. “I— what the fuck, I’m just standing here, man, what do you want me to—”

“bbbbb,” Benrey says. “no, you— cats. you’re too loud. makes ‘em nervous.”

“What?” Gordon blinks. “Oh. They— oh.”

“and,” Benrey says, and bites his lip. “you— uh, move kinda. scary. s’like, uh… like you’re gonna get 'em. they don’t wanna be got.”

“Yeah but I, I gotta got them. Get them,” Gordon corrects. “It— that one’s got, fuckin’, flea allergies or whatever. It needs— I have to get it so I can give it its medicine, it’s all gross now.”

“yeah but you’re,” Benrey says, then frowns at Gordon in a way that Gordon will later identify as contemplative. “...hmh…”

“What.”

Benrey doesn’t say anything, his gaze drifting past Gordon into the living room.

“Dude, what.”

Benrey glances back at him, expression unreadable. “yo, you wanna play my game for me?”

“...What?” But Benrey’s already padding past him, going for his PS4. "What do you— play for you? You, you mean with you—?"

"mh, maybe later bro." Benrey snags the controller off the couch and fiddles with it, television screen flashing in tandem. Then he looks at Gordon from under the shadow of his hat, holding the controller out to him. "do this part for me please?"

“Why?” Gordon asks, but he’s already collapsing onto the couch and accepting the passed controller. He's still a bit suspicious, of course, but Benrey’s always got something new and weird to play, and Gordon figures if he's gonna take a break from chasing cats he might as well enjoy himself. “You stuck?”

“sure.” Run, jump, crouch— the controls aren’t exactly intuitive but Gordon gets the hang of them pretty quick. “there— the bridge. you gotta use the rope on it. s’puzzle.”

“Got it,” Gordon says, skimming the text on the screen. He’s pretty sure he sees how it’s supposed to work, too, but actually doing it will probably be a bit tedious. He figures out how to access the inventory and pulls out some rope, testing what the game will let him do with it. “Hey so yeah, how the fuck did you get them to sleep on you? They, like, basically all hate me. I don’t get it.”

“...wha?”

“The kittens, man.”

“oh.” Benrey’s standing off to the side, his back to Gordon as he watches him progress. “they’ll only fall asleep if they trust you.”

Gordon snorts. “Yeah, I got that, but why do they trust you?? Like, I was the one who decided they could come inside in the first place! I’m the one doing their vet stuff! What the hell are you doing that I’m not?”

“chill,” Benrey says. “they’ll like you. you’re hot.”

On screen, Gordon’s character accidentally unselects the rope it was halfway through weaving on the first set of stones; he’s gonna have to start the puzzle over. “Shit,” Gordon yelps, which isn’t really the right response, but he’s sort of just been blind-sided here— fucking Benrey, what the hell, he knows they have an unspoken rule about not talking about this kinda stuff. “Wh, what does that—? Benrey—”

“SUN,” Benrey says loudly, still facing the screen, his shoulders all hunched up. “idiot, i meant the—they wanna warm, they wanna be warm, and you’re— duh. cats wanna be warm and you’re— uh, you’re warm. like… like the sun. so.”

“Oh,” Gordon says weakly. “Right, no, I knew that, I just— right. Yeah.”

Gordon directs his character to go collect the fallen rope and climb back up to the bridge. On the way he spots another set of stones, one that might be more efficient to start at. His character spins on its heel and heads towards it while he checks his inventory— looks like he should have enough rope, but now he's wondering if there's an even better place to begin this task. He narrows his eyes, trying to see across the ravine, but the game's got a ton of fog up. Should he try to get around to the other side and see if there's more information from that angle? Is Benrey even sure he's supposed to be doing this particular thing right now? What if—?

Benrey sits down on the couch, so close to Gordon that their thighs are touching. Gordon's character drops the rope again while Gordon himself nearly jumps out of his skin.

"What the fuck? Benrey—"

"stop freaking out. s'just a game," Benrey says, and sudden white hot rage flares to life within Gordon. If he's starting that shit again— "look, you start there and it'll be easier to get to the next one. you're doing it right, s'fine."

Oh. Embarrassed, Gordon settles. Of course he just meant… "The, this first one, here?"

"yeah."

"Right, got it," Gordon says, and maneuvers his character over to that set of stones. "Sorry, I thought—"

"s'fine. chill."

"I am chill," Gordon says, immediately irritated all over again. "I just don't wanna waste my time doing pointless bullshit if there's a better way to do it—"

Benrey's hand lands on Gordon's bouncing knee. Gordon jerks. On screen, his character walks directly off the stone it was standing on. "Wh-wh-I, uh, d-dude—"

"your leg was bouncing," Benrey says, and even though Gordon’s been kinda suspicious of how shiftily Benrey’s been acting the past few minutes, when Gordon looks at him now there's no trace of deception or shit-stirring on his face. In this moment he's just also a little annoyed, as well as confused, like he doesn't get why Gordon's making such a big deal out of things.

And… well, maybe he is blowing this all out of proportion. Sure, the feeling of Benrey's hand is warm with only Gordon's sweatpants between them, but it's not unusual for two roommates to occasionally touch. And he knows Benrey finds the leg-bouncing a little much, even if it's taken a while for Gordon to realize it. And Benrey's already turning back to the game like the conversation is over, even though he still hasn't moved his hand, so… So if Benrey can be chill about this, then so can he, right?

Gordon swallows and tries to refocus on the game.

It's… kind of easy, actually. This particular bit is fairly repetitive but still pretty engaging— Gordon has to focus or he'll attach the rope to the wrong stone and the whole thing will fall apart. It steals most of his concentration away, and what's left feels weird talking when Benrey's gone quiet. The pressure of his hand on Gordon's knee remains but lessens over time until Gordon barely remembers that it's been resting there in the first place.

When he’s just about done with weaving the rope into a bridge he starts wondering what else there is to do in this game. He glances to the side, already opening his mouth to ask Benrey, only to go tense-still.

The mangy-looking kitten, the one that Gordon spent twenty minutes trying to coax into approaching, is standing on Benrey's lap, watching Gordon. It’s got one paw lifted above Gordon's own leg, like it was planning on stepping onto him before he spotted it. Now its ears flick back and it leans away, its little body tensing up in unison with Gordon’s.

It takes incredible effort for Gordon to not just say “oh fuck” out loud, but the memory of Benrey’s voice echoes in his head: “you’re too loud. makes ‘em nervous.”

So Gordon closes his mouth, swallows, and tries to remember what else Benrey had said. Something about how he moved…? Gordon consciously loosens his shoulders, taking as subtle a deep breath in and out as he can. He feels stupid doing it but, well, Benrey must be doing something right to get all these strays to trust him…

Slowly, the kitten shifts. Its ears come forward (that’s good! Even Gordon, with his non-existent knowledge of cats, is pretty sure of that) and slowly, tentatively, it places one dark little paw on Gordon’s leg. Gordon tries not to boggle at it.

Then, decisive, it settles there neatly, about half on Gordon and half on Benrey, and tucks its legs beneath it. After a while of watching the warm little animal and taking calm, consciously measured breaths, its eyes close.

At last, Gordon licks his lips and whispers to his— his whatever, whispers to the man beside him. “Benrey,” he says under his breath. “Benrey, look, you were right, it—”

But he looks up and finds that Benrey has fallen asleep, too, his head lolled against the back of the couch. Gordon blinks.

Unbidden, he remembers something else Benrey had said: “they’ll only fall asleep if they trust you.”

Gordon looks between Benrey and the kitten.

Then he turns back to the game, interrupting his character’s idle animation to see if there’s more to do in the area. He figures the kitten’s medicine can wait for a bit. He’ll let the two warm beings on the couch beside him rest a bit more.

At least for a little while. He’s gonna need to go pee eventually, after all.

got to actually use this joke, yay :D i've got 2 more prompts in my inbox— one i only have small ideas for and the other is close to sth i wanted to write and put up on ao3 anyways, so may take a while. will probably open back up for prompts soon-ish but we'll see! anyways thanks for reading <3!