10-23-2019, 10:52 PM
//long post! tl;dr at the bottom, but i encourage people to read the thread oop
"How do you just fuck up a perfectly good pie like that? If Gordon Ramsay knew what abomination you had birthed here today, he'd would kick your ass in a fraction of a second."
Grungy dollops of cold pie whizzed through the air, having been shot out of Stocking’s mouth in a projectile-like fashion. Her lustful taste buds clearly preferred cuisine which had at least some effort put into the cooking process, judging by the feline’s nauseated gasps and pants. Assuming that her intense glare - burning with pure, total, unrelenting hatred - wasn’t enough of a giveaway already, Leroy could make an educated guess that Stocking did not enjoy his cooking. Not one bit, not at all. In fact, the cur could’ve sworn that at this exact moment, her baby blues metamorphosed into the eyes of Satan himself. If Delilah, Malphas, Aya, and Morgan were elsewhere instead of the active heart of town, a life may have met an untimely end that day. And the life in question wasn’t Stocking’s.
The fallen angel’s embittered retort was not the sole event of its kind. Every empty-bellied Tangler who gathered around the appeased chef would leave as sick as a dog (save Morgan, who was ironically the only other dog present), and got rather uppity about it afterwards (save Morgan, again, who was cool as a cucumber as always). Their resentment had no negative effect on his mind. After all, it was what he aimed for. It was scarcely a week (plus a few days into his stay in the swamp, and the majority of Tanglewood’s populace already hated his guts. Wherever the mongrel went, he brought a nasty attitude, as well as ill intentions. He did not do so unknowingly, either. And no attempt was made to better his ways. One might wonder why someone such as the male, who’d been offered a second chance at life after losing it all in the previous one, basked in the public’s hostility towards him. Why relish in people’s antipathy? What was there to gain?
In truth, the mutt’s rude tude was simply an effort to build up a name for himself. In the end, he came off more as a callous jerk than a bad boy, hence the effort was one in vain.
Forevermore did the tag of ‘jerk’ stick. No matter the trials and tribulations he experienced in the pursuit of altering it, he was a jerk. No matter the amount of heroic deeds to his name, he was a jerk. No matter the hefty supply of instances where he proved a heart did indeed beat inside his ribcage, Leroy Starkweather was a heartless, mannerless, emotionless jerk.
August 11th, 2018. The date of the grand chicken pot pie feast, which ended in enough gut-wrenching Tanglers to rival flu season. A year ago, give or take a few months.
Ofttimes, the now-Proxy’s train of thought summoned memories pertaining to that day. The backlash to his offensive dish piqued the canine all those months ago. Oh, how his peers gagged, insulted, and fretted in response, tickling his ego whilst their complaints drowned out the atmosphere’s ambient noises.
Looking back on it automatically equipped his maw with an irked snarl. He’d changed so much since then. But despite the adjustments he made to his behaviour, those who surrounded him, even those he deemed as close allies, looked down their snouts at him, as if he were nothing more than a dying slug in the mud.
That’s how he saw it, anyways.
The wall looked the same as ever. Unchanged since the first time his eyes cast their inadequate gaze upon it. Seldom he found entertainment inside the Roux family household - Selby’s swamped schedule rarely conceded enough free time for the medic to make visits throughout the day, and Crow more often than not had leader beeswax in need of attending. Only come nightfall, when the father and son duo commonly returned home, did Leroy’s day, consisting of haphazardly lounging about on the hut’s cool floor, become marginally compelling. Until nightfall, though, was about twelve hours of lonely nothingness.
October 11th, 2019. The fourth consecutive day since his debilitated limbs carried him through the doorway that connected the outside world and Crow and Selby’s abode. Five days since fresh air, interaction, proper food…
Proper food.
The male, previously sprawled across the building’s flooring in an unnatural manner, shot upwards into a seated position.
“You know what?” he murmurs to himself eagerly, “I should learn how to cook.”
-
Every footfall atop the library’s oaken floor was accompanied by a shrill creak. The building’s antiquated walls barely stood on its foundation, making the construction’s age very evident. Another element of the joint that indubitably showcased its age was the books that decked the withered shelves. Those paperbacks and bestsellers were way past their hayday. Pages stained by water, fire, and hell, even blood weren’t that hard to spot. Some books had handfuls of pages torn out in a delirious fashion, others contained text incomprehensible thanks to the passing of time. Yet, the factor that demonstrated the book repository’s desertedness the most was just how dated the publications happened to be. Of course, Leroy couldn’t understand any of it due to him being illiterate and all, but the images of what the world might look like in the future in that one book always mustered a hearty guffaw out of his system. Additionally, there were wartime propaganda booklets, faux studies that proved the planet’s flatness and assured the safety of using DDT, and instruction manuals for 50’s automobiles. An upgrade to the building's contents wouldn’t be that bad of an investment.
Luckily for the Proxy, recipe books had existed at the time of the island’s forsaking. Meaning that more than a few lay dormant amongst the library's shelves. But due to the discourteous reality of him lacking the capacity to read, the task of determining a cookbook from a random novelette presented itself as an arduous challenge.
A chance happening. With his gaze glued to the bookshelves that stuck to the walls, he couldn’t catch sight of the book on the ground in front of him. As a forelimb extends itself to take a step forward, it fortuitously launches the book through the air. By the time his focus shifts to the book that he'd kicked, it had just finished tumbling a good few metres away. Just narrowly could his Amber peepers see the publication’s cover - illustrations of different foods. Milkshakes. Roasts. Soups. Wild excitement began pulsing through his bloodstream. The male failed to contain his excitement, as a zealous chortle escaped his throat while his legs scrambled over.
The ingredients wouldn’t be that hard to come by. The farm had poultry, eggs, and lots of other stuff. This was going to be a fucking blast.
A lanky paw turns the cover, allowing his vision to fall upon the first page. More images of vintage cuisine, along with text he couldn’t quite read. The next page was relatively the same, except the images seemed to be a bit blurrier. It didn’t concern him too much - he’d seen pages in much worse condition, anyways.
But, something wasn’t right.
Something REALLY wasn’t right.
The corners of the page became fuzzier, and when his vision drifted in the direction of his paws, they were fuzzy, too. And with the force of a locomotive, Tanglewood’s Proxy was thrown off all fours, barreling into the floorboards causing a thunderous clamour. His noggin collided against a sturdy bench as he fell, dispatching waves of atrocious pain throughout his body.
His limbs felt about as structurally secure as marmalade, and half as functional.
He wanted to cry out.
He couldn’t.
His vocal chords refused.
He wanted to run away.
He couldn’t.
His limbs refused.
A low whine was the most he managed to muster. And it was the saddest excuse for a whine he’d ever heard. If his brain operated properly, he’d likely make fun of himself for it. Strength exuded its way back into his body, yet only a meager amount of it. Just enough for Leroy to maneuver his neck into an upright position without feeling too much discomfort.
For starters, his entire face was numb. The muscles inside the hound’s mug went all droopy, as did his facial extremities. The world was nothing but distorted outlines. Breathing devolved from a steady, consistent pace to intermittent, choppy bouts of it. His heart rate went from a pitter-patter to a series of heavy thumps.
Fear.
A similar event had transpired last December. Beck had informed him it was a stroke. A blood clot. Something potentially fatal.
Fear.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die. Not now. He had people to look out for. He had Crow to look out for.
Nothing left to do but give up. Very slim was the chance an outside source overheard the pandemonium that was his collapse - he couldn’t remember if anyone was inside the library by the time he’d arrived a half-hour ago. A final groan ushers out of his throat before the cur’s noggin slowly fell back to the floor.
And he began to cry. The unkempt hair that cloaked his cheeks became marinated with salty moisture as gloppy tears fell from his eyes.
All he’d hankered for was to cook up a dish to sate everyone's appetite; furthermore, to demonstrate that compassion and clemency still prevailed within him, in spite of his hurtful words and apathetic ways; Leroy still cared. Now, the only taste he registered was the bitter taste of hopelessness. It was all but sweet or savoury, certainly not anything to tickle his palette. He couldn’t imagine death tasting any better, though.
Oh, by all things holy he did not want to die.
"How do you just fuck up a perfectly good pie like that? If Gordon Ramsay knew what abomination you had birthed here today, he'd would kick your ass in a fraction of a second."
Grungy dollops of cold pie whizzed through the air, having been shot out of Stocking’s mouth in a projectile-like fashion. Her lustful taste buds clearly preferred cuisine which had at least some effort put into the cooking process, judging by the feline’s nauseated gasps and pants. Assuming that her intense glare - burning with pure, total, unrelenting hatred - wasn’t enough of a giveaway already, Leroy could make an educated guess that Stocking did not enjoy his cooking. Not one bit, not at all. In fact, the cur could’ve sworn that at this exact moment, her baby blues metamorphosed into the eyes of Satan himself. If Delilah, Malphas, Aya, and Morgan were elsewhere instead of the active heart of town, a life may have met an untimely end that day. And the life in question wasn’t Stocking’s.
The fallen angel’s embittered retort was not the sole event of its kind. Every empty-bellied Tangler who gathered around the appeased chef would leave as sick as a dog (save Morgan, who was ironically the only other dog present), and got rather uppity about it afterwards (save Morgan, again, who was cool as a cucumber as always). Their resentment had no negative effect on his mind. After all, it was what he aimed for. It was scarcely a week (plus a few days into his stay in the swamp, and the majority of Tanglewood’s populace already hated his guts. Wherever the mongrel went, he brought a nasty attitude, as well as ill intentions. He did not do so unknowingly, either. And no attempt was made to better his ways. One might wonder why someone such as the male, who’d been offered a second chance at life after losing it all in the previous one, basked in the public’s hostility towards him. Why relish in people’s antipathy? What was there to gain?
In truth, the mutt’s rude tude was simply an effort to build up a name for himself. In the end, he came off more as a callous jerk than a bad boy, hence the effort was one in vain.
Forevermore did the tag of ‘jerk’ stick. No matter the trials and tribulations he experienced in the pursuit of altering it, he was a jerk. No matter the amount of heroic deeds to his name, he was a jerk. No matter the hefty supply of instances where he proved a heart did indeed beat inside his ribcage, Leroy Starkweather was a heartless, mannerless, emotionless jerk.
August 11th, 2018. The date of the grand chicken pot pie feast, which ended in enough gut-wrenching Tanglers to rival flu season. A year ago, give or take a few months.
Ofttimes, the now-Proxy’s train of thought summoned memories pertaining to that day. The backlash to his offensive dish piqued the canine all those months ago. Oh, how his peers gagged, insulted, and fretted in response, tickling his ego whilst their complaints drowned out the atmosphere’s ambient noises.
Looking back on it automatically equipped his maw with an irked snarl. He’d changed so much since then. But despite the adjustments he made to his behaviour, those who surrounded him, even those he deemed as close allies, looked down their snouts at him, as if he were nothing more than a dying slug in the mud.
That’s how he saw it, anyways.
The wall looked the same as ever. Unchanged since the first time his eyes cast their inadequate gaze upon it. Seldom he found entertainment inside the Roux family household - Selby’s swamped schedule rarely conceded enough free time for the medic to make visits throughout the day, and Crow more often than not had leader beeswax in need of attending. Only come nightfall, when the father and son duo commonly returned home, did Leroy’s day, consisting of haphazardly lounging about on the hut’s cool floor, become marginally compelling. Until nightfall, though, was about twelve hours of lonely nothingness.
October 11th, 2019. The fourth consecutive day since his debilitated limbs carried him through the doorway that connected the outside world and Crow and Selby’s abode. Five days since fresh air, interaction, proper food…
Proper food.
The male, previously sprawled across the building’s flooring in an unnatural manner, shot upwards into a seated position.
“You know what?” he murmurs to himself eagerly, “I should learn how to cook.”
-
Every footfall atop the library’s oaken floor was accompanied by a shrill creak. The building’s antiquated walls barely stood on its foundation, making the construction’s age very evident. Another element of the joint that indubitably showcased its age was the books that decked the withered shelves. Those paperbacks and bestsellers were way past their hayday. Pages stained by water, fire, and hell, even blood weren’t that hard to spot. Some books had handfuls of pages torn out in a delirious fashion, others contained text incomprehensible thanks to the passing of time. Yet, the factor that demonstrated the book repository’s desertedness the most was just how dated the publications happened to be. Of course, Leroy couldn’t understand any of it due to him being illiterate and all, but the images of what the world might look like in the future in that one book always mustered a hearty guffaw out of his system. Additionally, there were wartime propaganda booklets, faux studies that proved the planet’s flatness and assured the safety of using DDT, and instruction manuals for 50’s automobiles. An upgrade to the building's contents wouldn’t be that bad of an investment.
Luckily for the Proxy, recipe books had existed at the time of the island’s forsaking. Meaning that more than a few lay dormant amongst the library's shelves. But due to the discourteous reality of him lacking the capacity to read, the task of determining a cookbook from a random novelette presented itself as an arduous challenge.
A chance happening. With his gaze glued to the bookshelves that stuck to the walls, he couldn’t catch sight of the book on the ground in front of him. As a forelimb extends itself to take a step forward, it fortuitously launches the book through the air. By the time his focus shifts to the book that he'd kicked, it had just finished tumbling a good few metres away. Just narrowly could his Amber peepers see the publication’s cover - illustrations of different foods. Milkshakes. Roasts. Soups. Wild excitement began pulsing through his bloodstream. The male failed to contain his excitement, as a zealous chortle escaped his throat while his legs scrambled over.
The ingredients wouldn’t be that hard to come by. The farm had poultry, eggs, and lots of other stuff. This was going to be a fucking blast.
A lanky paw turns the cover, allowing his vision to fall upon the first page. More images of vintage cuisine, along with text he couldn’t quite read. The next page was relatively the same, except the images seemed to be a bit blurrier. It didn’t concern him too much - he’d seen pages in much worse condition, anyways.
But, something wasn’t right.
Something REALLY wasn’t right.
The corners of the page became fuzzier, and when his vision drifted in the direction of his paws, they were fuzzy, too. And with the force of a locomotive, Tanglewood’s Proxy was thrown off all fours, barreling into the floorboards causing a thunderous clamour. His noggin collided against a sturdy bench as he fell, dispatching waves of atrocious pain throughout his body.
His limbs felt about as structurally secure as marmalade, and half as functional.
He wanted to cry out.
He couldn’t.
His vocal chords refused.
He wanted to run away.
He couldn’t.
His limbs refused.
A low whine was the most he managed to muster. And it was the saddest excuse for a whine he’d ever heard. If his brain operated properly, he’d likely make fun of himself for it. Strength exuded its way back into his body, yet only a meager amount of it. Just enough for Leroy to maneuver his neck into an upright position without feeling too much discomfort.
For starters, his entire face was numb. The muscles inside the hound’s mug went all droopy, as did his facial extremities. The world was nothing but distorted outlines. Breathing devolved from a steady, consistent pace to intermittent, choppy bouts of it. His heart rate went from a pitter-patter to a series of heavy thumps.
Fear.
A similar event had transpired last December. Beck had informed him it was a stroke. A blood clot. Something potentially fatal.
Fear.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die. Not now. He had people to look out for. He had Crow to look out for.
Nothing left to do but give up. Very slim was the chance an outside source overheard the pandemonium that was his collapse - he couldn’t remember if anyone was inside the library by the time he’d arrived a half-hour ago. A final groan ushers out of his throat before the cur’s noggin slowly fell back to the floor.
And he began to cry. The unkempt hair that cloaked his cheeks became marinated with salty moisture as gloppy tears fell from his eyes.
All he’d hankered for was to cook up a dish to sate everyone's appetite; furthermore, to demonstrate that compassion and clemency still prevailed within him, in spite of his hurtful words and apathetic ways; Leroy still cared. Now, the only taste he registered was the bitter taste of hopelessness. It was all but sweet or savoury, certainly not anything to tickle his palette. He couldn’t imagine death tasting any better, though.
Oh, by all things holy he did not want to die.
tl;dr:
