#Doug Dusty

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kyle Mantyla at RWW:

Joel Webbon is a Christian nationalist pastor at Covenant Bible Church in Texas and the founder of Right Response Ministries. Through his ministry, Webbon organizes events like “Blueprints for Christendom 2.0: Seven Doctrines for Ruling the World,” which took place earlier this year and featured militant Christian nationalists like Doug Wilson and Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers as speakers. Webbon also hosts a podcast called “Theology Applied,” which he uses to promote his far-right theology, as he did during a recent episode in which he declared that the American people have become such “degenerates” that the Constitution is no longer adequate and therefore they must be governed by a Christian dictator who “just rules with an iron fist.” Last month, Webbon delivered a sermon called “Why Many Christians Don’t Want A Christian Nation,” during which he laid out this theocratic worldview in greater detail, asserting that people are too stupid and cowardly to govern themselves and thus must ruled by a Christian leader who “comes in with a sword” and forces everyone to, at the very least, “pretend to be Christian.”

“The average person is a coward. They are,” Webbon declared. “And the average person is not intelligent. They’re not. And the average person is not a free thinker.” “Men must be governed,” he continued. “They must. That is absolutely true. Men must be governed. Now, ideally, men would govern themselves … but when you don’t have a populace that is capable of self-governance—when the fruit of the Spirit that is self-control has left the building for decades and nobody seems to have it—then men must be governed. And if they will not govern themselves, then someone else needs to govern them.” Webbon said that “must be governed” by someone who will “outwardly legislate in accordance with God’s law” and grant “special privileges and favor for his people.” When that happens, Webbon promised, it will influence all the weak, ignorant people in the nation to begin to identify as Christians and “start putting a Christian flag in their bio on social media because they’re not free thinkers, they’re not courageous, they’re not intelligent.”

Far-right Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon said on a recent edition of his podcast that “men must be governed” according to his far-right Christian Nationalist precepts.

[mvltisstuff]

What about a fic where reader is Evan’s sister and gets into a bad car accident? Lots of angst but also some fluff please. 🫶🫶

slipping through my fingers - e.b

summary: request :)

evan buckley x sister!reader (a lot of maddie too 🩶)

a/n: i have an eddie diaz oneshot in the drafts currently that i’ve been debating on posting. it contains a pretty sensitive subject, so i really wanted to get it right. it was inspired by another request, along with another show. i hope you enjoy this and i’ll keep on writing some more for you guys :))

y/n could say growing up with as the youngest buckley wasn’t the easiest task. the consistency of begging for attention was draining from the start. going above and beyond for just a grain of appreciation was the default in their house. she was repeatedly looked through, almost as if she wasn’t there due to her parents grief.

she had come after buck in a desperate attempt to be able to save david, but failed in the end. he was gone too soon, so therefore, y/n was almost like a chore. sure, her parents loved her, but she wasn’t the child they wanted. dealing with the discovery of why she wasn’t loved enough was just as bad as experiencing it. maddie was in boston with doug, and buck had gone onto his own adventures. meanwhile y/n was stuck at home with nowhere to go and no plans of leaving. she dreamed about it, though. she heard about buck moving to los angeles and immediately wanted to be with him. she was almost done with college, and after that, she packed up her diploma and degree and flew away.

life in california was amazing. she had friends, she was loved, and she had no reminders of the lonesomeness she felt at home. for once, she was able to make a home out of where she was. maddie was safe, and it felt like they were a fixed version of their family.

out of the pure intentions in her heart, y/n invited her distant parents back to LA. with maddie expecting a new baby, and the years of a few texts, there was a new hope that maybe things could be turned around. it wouldn’t change their childhood experiences, but maybe they could heal them. maddie was on board, but buck was still skeptical. their words were like knives and the scars couldn’t be helped. he showed up anyway, wanting to give maddie and her baby the opportunity to have a life with them.

they travelled six hours, and chimney and maddie were gracious enough to host a dinner for everyone. maddie received hugs and gifts as buck and y/n were kind of nudged away. when maddie got her baby box that her parents had from when they were kids, buck and y/n had just become dusty figures. they didn’t say anything, at least not about that.

an explosive speech from buck had ignited from the judgmental words from their parents, causing him to be begging for love and expressing his inner teenage self. he had removed himself from the dining room of the apartment, and y/n sat in her seat, slumped over with her head in her hands.

“god, can you guys please just do something other than reprimand us?” y/n breaks the awkward silence.

“we were just speaking, y/n!” says their father. “if evan wants to storm out, let him.”

“well, maybe he wouldn’t have stormed out if you didn’t nit-pick ever part of his life.”

“you invited us, y/n. i don’t know what you want us to say. you know what we went through-“

“and you think that’s an excuse? if so, it’s a shitty one and we all know it. no parent should have to say goodbye to a child, but no child needs to go unloved because they don’t care anymore. and you didn’t even bat an eye when he begged you to ‘love him anyway’. so if you want to sit here, and tear down everything we have build from your actions, be our guest.”

“you always defend your siblings, y/n. you guys have never once put yourself in our shoes!” their mother cries out.

“oh, trust me, we did. for over 20 years,” maddie breaks in.

“how do you think we feel, maddie? you all just packed up your stuff and ran away to leave us with nothing,” speaks their father, again.

“dad, i can’t… i can’t do this. everything i did, i did it myself. i made this life here for myself! so did maddie, so did buck. don’t go putting yourselves on a pedestal,” she begins to gather her things, and put hers and bucks dinner plates away for maddie and chimney.

“where are you going?” chimney says, trying to calm everything down and he’s definitely in the most awkward situation.

“chim, thank you for dinner and letting us come over. you’re welcome over to my place anytime. i’m sorry, but i’m going to see my brother,” y/n says, shutting the door behind her.

while maddie stays back, trying to pick up the broken pieces, y/n drives over to bucks apartment. she repeatedly calls him, making sure he’s okay and to say that she’s coming over. the roads were dark from the early sunsets of the fall, barely illuminated from the streetlights.

“buck,” she says into her phone. “i know you’re pissed off, and im sorry i arranged this. but i need to know you’re ok, so im on my way over. please call me back.”

she ends the voicemail and tries to put her phone back into the holder. it slips out of her shaky hands and onto the floor of the seat. she groans out, worried he would call her back and she wouldn’t be able to answer. she doesn’t reach down, but she looks at the phone on the floor.

a drunk, someone intoxicated with alcohol, must have been driving like a maniac. swerving through lanes with no warning and passing several signs. she tried so hard. she tried to move out of the way, but the spontaneous movements of the driver had confronted their cars head on.

the flash of white from y/n’s airbags flew out at her. the glass of her windshield was shattered, laying all over the dashboard and the seats. her head drooped onto her shoulder. the cuts on her face were stinging and the other pain in her body went unnoticeable due to shock. the soft ringtone of her phone was vibrating on the bottom of the car. the ringing in her ears caused the sound to be faded out, and she couldn’t even get it to call 9-1-1.

“maddie, hey,” buck says as maddie picks up the phone. “have you, uh, tried calling y/n? she left me so many calls and now she won’t answer.”

“no, i haven’t. she said she was coming to see you,” maddie replies, confused.

“where’s mom and dad?”

“the hotel, they left soon after her.”

buck pulls his phone away from his ear and the buzzing on his hand. y/n’s name appears across the screen. “oh, she’s calling me know,” he hangs up the phone and answers it to a bone-chilling sentence.

“is this evan buckley?” a deep, unknown voice asks in bucks ear.

y/n was awake in the ambulance, hearing all the chaos and jargon around her. she knew she’d never hear the end from buck, being a firefighter. she begged them to let him know, telling them repeatedly, “my brother works at the 118,” and how maddie is a dispatcher.

she was wheeled into the hospital on her stretcher, collar on and a big bandage around her waist for a massive piece of glass in her abdomen. “y/n buckley, 27, three-car pileup with an oblique fracture to the tibia and penetration wound to the abdomen, likely to not have hit any major organs.” and before she knew it, she was sped into the trauma rooms and given more morphine. she just wanted her brother and sister. not all these doctors or her parents.

buck picked up maddie on the way to the hospital, not thinking twice before smashing the gas pedal down. he ran through those doors like a strike of lighting, being seen in one place and somewhere else the next. he forced her name out to the nurse as maddie caught up to him. “relation to the patient?”

“brother, and sister,” he says, impatiently, both hands flat on the counter.

the nurse typed rapidly on her computer. “she’s in surgery, honey. but she’s stable.”

buck puffs out a sigh of relief as maddie grabs his arm, leading him to the waiting room. almost all of the 118 was in this hospital, like she was a firefighter herself. chimney had brought hen, and eddie had come as well as bobby. athena had told bobby, as she was the one who arrested the man who caused the crash.

buck tries to calm himself down remembers all the times he tried to one-up her and smiles at the memories. he and maddie exchange small and sweet memories of their little sister, as her life remains in the hands of someone else.

“hey,” maddie nudges him, trying to think of something to cheer him up. “remember when she stole 20’s out of our wallet to buy us christmas gifts?”

buck giggles a bit, “yeah, and then we tried playing tag, so we spun her around a ton of times and hid inside until she just sat there.”

“and then she fell down the stairs from being so dizzy,” maddie smiles.

“ruthless!” chim interrupts, sitting next to maddie.

“you know you two are what made it so hard to leave.”

“i know. imagine having to leave her all alone with mom and dad, though. she’s gotta be ok, maddie.”

“she will, buck. no one’s getting rid of her that easy.”

the doctor with a scrub cap on comes walking into the waiting room, followed by a few interns and others. “buckleys?”

maddie and buck shoot out of their seat first, and chimney and hen follow soon after like a train. “oh, my bad.” hen says, pulling her and chim back down to sit.

“what’s goin’ on, doc?”

“y/n will be fine. she had a fracture in her leg which we fixed up. she’ll need some help getting around, but she’ll be good as new,” the doctor informs.

they knew she would make it out, but hearing it being confirmed by the doctor made it so much more real. buck was speechless, not being able to mutter out any words. “can we see her?” maddie asks.

“you can, she’s still sedated from anesthesia and intubated, but cynthia, here, can lead you to the room.”

seeing y/n’s fragile and hurt body on the bed was an agonizing sight. maybe if buck hadn’t stormed out, she wouldn’t be in this bed and have come across that driver. maybe he could’ve driven her home. all the ‘if’s’ and ‘maybes’ in bucks head were floating through, thinking it’s his fault. he always takes the blame for these situations when it is completely the opposite.

buck sees tragedy every day, and maddie hears it. maddies only sister was in the small hospital room with a tube down her throat. she needed y/n there to help her, and her baby needed her aunt. buck needed his little sister, the one always there for him and forever will be. the thought of her not being there scared him to death. even though they see get rushed into the hospital or sent to the morgue every day, it will never prepare you from seeing your favorite people in that position.

buck stumbled over to the chair by the side of the bed, pulling it out for maddie to rest her aching feet. he walked to the other side of the bed, sitting down and grabbing lightly onto y/n’s hand like he was scared to break it. “i don’t know if we should say something. let her know we’re here, you know.”

“she knows, evan,” maddie says, meeting bucks eyes with her own. “i know that.”

buck smiles and looks down at y/n, her chest rising and falling with the hissing of the tubes and machines. he observes the iv’s and cuts and fresh new bruises. he wants to kill whoever did this, but at the moment, his only concern is the well-being of y/n.

so, for the rest of the night, maddie and buck didn’t move from their spots once until she was awoken and the tube was removed. they held her hand, and when y/n was awoken, she knew she was safe from the hands that were tangled with hers.

[soft-persephone]

Hangover at a Bookstore

Doug Renetti x Fem!Reader

T // WC: 2.2k // fluff. first encounters. love at first sight // masterlist

Doug was. . . Somewhere. 

He put the heel of his hand against his head. The other he used to block out the sun from his eyes as he walked. 

He needed to stop drinking. 

Not completely, but it was time to stop letting it get on top of him. It was almost a problem, so he shouldn’t have to self correct too much. 

A few people were walking up to him for a laugh and a farewell. 

“Alright,” he smiled, clasping someone’s hand and giving a quick pat on the back, “yeah, see you tomorrow.”

They were never going to see each other again, but that’s what you do when walking out of random bars at who knows what time the next day. 

He needed to find his car. 

Jingling his keys in his pocket, he continued on his quest. 

Right turn it is. He has time. 

It was at the end of the block. Lucky him. 

He pulled out a cig, lighting it as he made his way down to curb the headache. 

Before he could even pull at the door of his car, he saw you walk by. Your nose deep into a book as you walked along the street. Your hair was big and curly but not too big, framing your face perfectly. The sun casts a dewy glow on your skin. Your jeans fit your body just right in all the right places. He didn’t get a good look at your shirt or the rest of you, the jacket you so stylishly wore, kept the rest of you hidden as well as the knitted bag you carried on your shoulder. 

He put out the cigarette, stomping on it. With a quick  look at his reflection in the car window, he ran a hand through his hair, a just as quick breath into the palm of his hand, and an even quicker sniff under his arm, he followed you.  

Keeping at a pace where he could see you but not close enough for you to notice him. 

It was too early for a lot of people to be about. Just old married couples making their way to a quick Saturday breakfast, plenty of time to beat the morning rush. There might have been a pastry shop somewhere around here that just flipped the open/close  sign on its door. 

Where could you be going?

The eyebrows on your head scrunched together before you looked up. Apparently satisfied, you continued walking, and reading. Determined to continue with whatever story you were lost in just as much as you were with getting to your destination. 

He paused, stalling at the corner of someplace as you crossed the street. 

He watched as you finally put the book in the bag at your shoulder and walked into a shop. 

The sign was worn but he could figure out one of the words on the window spelled books. 

A bookshop.

He grinned and made his way across the street and into the shop. 

The little bell jingled above his head. 

He  gave the clerk a  quick nod. He didn’t wait for their polite response as he usually would. He’s  too anxious to find you. 

The isles were close and crammed together, the smell of the store was diary dusty and papery, but not a paper paper smell like Tina’s Family's stationary shop. It smelled like whatever it smells like when a bunch of books in a room. 

Shouldering his way into one particular isle, he could see you on the other side. 

As if by fate, a book he’d already read was staring at him from above. He grabbed it and made his way in front of you. 

You were so enamored with looking at the books on your side, you didn’t notice him. 

“You should read this one,” he stuck it out from between the shelves, “it’s really good.”

You bewilderedly blink before letting out a surprised laugh, but the smile on your face was oh so worth it as you looked at the book and back to him.

“What? Who is that? Why would I read a book about,” you grabbed it, scanning over the back and then the front, “a coach of some sport?” 

“Well that's just rude,” he quickly made his way over to you, more than aware of the fact that he didn’t know what to do with his arms. Should he lean against the shelf? What if it  falls?. “It’s my favorite, and you should know better than to judge a book by its cover.”

He put one hand in his pocket and pointed towards the book with his other hand. 

“Well excuse my surprise,” you smiled at the book and looked back up at him, but thinning your lips, just a tad to hide it from him, but he saw it the first time. He’d make you smile at him for real next time, “I just don’t typically go for memoirs or biography-self-help-life-books from basketball?” You flipped the book over, “football coaches?”

“I’m not helping you out with that one. I guess you’ll have to read it.”

You tapped your fingers on the book. Still trying to hide that smile. God, he needed you to stop doing that. 

“Well, if you really want me to read it. I think you should sell me on it better. I just. . . “ you put a finger on your chin, “I don’t think it sounds like something I’d be interested in. I’m not sure.”

You push the book back into his chest with a thud. The sound resounded around the little shop. 

He could work with that. 

“It’s not the sports that makes this book worth reading or about the team he coaches, whatever kind of team that may be,” he slyly added, making you bite your lip with a nod, “but about the drive.”

“The drive?” You animatedly interrupted with a rose eyebrow. You were really listening to him. He grinned. 

“Yes, the drive, the work ethic, the grind, doing what it takes to stay the best.”

You huffed out a laugh.

“And what’s so funny about that.” He crossed his arms as you picked up a book before putting  it back down.

“I don’t think I need a book about moxy and hustle.”

“Well I very much think you do,” something about that made you laugh. It wasn’t a full laugh like he wanted, but you were smiling now, not hiding it, and it was because of him. He chuckled with you, “everyone needs some more hustle in them.”

“Keep telling me about the book.” 

So he went on and on, giving you  his best pitch.  Probably the greatest pitch he’s ever had all week, and the hardest, but he got you. 

“If I read this book will you leave me alone.” So it wasn’t the best sale, but it was a sale. He could still be proud of it. 

“Debatable,” he said without hesitation, “but if you have to give me a book to read, we’ll call it even.” 

“Okay,” you held out your hands towards him, “Wait here.”

He rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. More than aware of the watch on his wrist and how he’s had it for years. The lone old and pathetic ring on his right pinkie, barely shining. He needed to get it cleaned, polished or something. His frumpled polo and the wrinkles at the ankles of his pants. 

Did he still smell like yesterday?

“Here.” You gingerly placed the book into his outstretched hands. Your smile almost  bashful as you did, but as he blinked it looked made up. That it might not have actually happened.“it’s my favorite.”

You abruptly turned. Done with the conversation, the interaction, with him. 

Fuck. 

You made your way to the clerk and he followed after you. It was over already. The unfortunate turn beginning in his mind, when would he see you again? How soon should he come here to see you? How to not look so pathetic or desperate as he did?

“Just these?” The clerk asked you, stamping a pocket in the back of the book. 

“And this one.” You tapped the biography Doug gave you, making a smile pull at his lips. 

“You sure?” He squinted in disbelief, “Where did you even find this?” 

“It was on the shelf.” You said it matter of factly, but nothing could hide the smile on your face or the twinkle in your eye. 

Doug couldn't pretend there wasn’t a growing sense of pride swelling in his chest as you smiled. 

Taking your books, you put them in your bag and walked toward the door, before you walked out you turned towards him. 

“I hope you like the book.”  You said it with such finality. Your face was changing. It was something unreadable. The smile he’d grown to love seeing on you was becoming a distant memory, almost a dream.

“It’s okay,” he licked his lips, fighting the sudden wave of nerves, “ I know where to find you if I need something else to read.”

With the smallest hint of a smirk, you walked out the door without a word. 

Fuck, he needed to see you again. 

-

“You can read?” 

Doug peered over the top of his book at Richie with a frown. “Very funny,” he drawled sarcastically, “a makeup artist, photographer, and now comedian, maybe I should give you a raise.”

Richie scoffed and went back to whatever he was doing. 

“Looks like he’s not the only one with jokes.” Tina added in out of nowhere. 

Good ole Tina. He can count on her for anything. 

“Why are you reading,” she pushed the book towards him, so she could read the title on the cover, “is this poetry?” She questioned disapprovingly. 

“No,” he defended, “it isn’t. It’s a book.”

“About what? And since when do you have time read?”

“It’s about regular book stuff.” He tapped his fingers along the spine in thought, “except it’s super depressing and shit, but. . . It’s good. I like it.”

Tinna nodded. 

“That’s really good.”

Doug couldn’t help but smile. 

“Maybe in between chapters you can find the time to do your actual job.” 

And there it was. Classic Tina. 

It wasn’t a big book by any means. The thin little paperback was anything but intimidating, but that didn’t stop the little guy from trying. The depressing little book packed a punch. 

Sure he could follow the story, know it was sad and that the racist shit was bad, but the overall meaning of the thing? The conversation it was supposedly starting. He hadn’t the slightest clue. 

He might need a few days to think about it. 

Did he have time to think about this book after he read it? 

On any other day for any other reason he would have read the damn thing and been done with it, but as far as he was concerned, this book was his key to you. If he could understand this book, find someway to get all smart or emotional or whatever the fuck and impress you, he’d be set. 

He’ll think about it as much as he possibly can. Hell, he’ll think about it in fucking sleep.

The book’s spine was cracked beyond imagination. He had to be careful or else it would probably snap apart. The little paperback had seen better days. There were highlighted lines of yellow, faded away and barely recognizable, but still there. From the looks of it, they had to be from a college student who definitely didn't pass whatever class they read this book for. The halfhearted lines of black that followed held terrible notes and obvious observations even a High School dropout like him could notice on the first crack. 

Poor kid. 

But there these notes and passages annotated by an illustrious navy blue ink. For every heartbroken event that happened, there was little sentence that made it hurt that much worse. Every sentence underlined in that color felt that much more important to read. Could it be you?

Or were you the really smart one in red? Those striking lines and notes felt beyond him, leaving him more confused about the book. They made him feel like he wasn’t reading the right one or reading the book wrong. 

Were you a teacher? Were you somehow this pretentious? He hoped not, but he would be lying if he said it wasn’t a deal breaker. Tina was smarter than him on her worst day. What’s it mean to have another smart woman around?

“Why did you make this order?”

He turned the last page he was reading, an index card falling in his lap. 

“Because we needed it.” He folded the ear of the page he was on, picking up the card in his lap and reading it. 

“We don't have the money for this.”

“It's a problem when the check bounces and they call, Tins. I won’t worry about it until that day. We’re good for now.”

In neat little writing, in navy blue ink: 

Let me know what you think.

 And your number.

[shelby-fangirl00]

No More Hiding-One Shot

Martin x Reader (based on the movie ‘Retreat’) (told in first person pov)

Summary: Martin and y/n put their lives on hold to mend their broken marriage. After spending a few nights in a cottage on an isolated island, a simple fight over dinner evolves into an unavoidable argument.

Warnings: SMUT (18+, MINORS DNI), strong language, angst, mentions of miscarriage.

____________________________________________

“Nothing?” My leg shook uncontrollably from my place on the couch. Goosebumps covered my skin.

“Generators completely fucked. Ya try Doug again?” Martin panted out, rubbing his dusty hands on his blue jeans.

“Still nothing.” I mumbled. He sighed in frustration, throwing his head back and rubbing his hands down his face in frustration.

We sat in between an uncomfortable silence for what seemed like minutes. We’d been married for several years. Everything seemed too sensitive to mention, so what the point in talking?

He finally went for his coat on the rack.

“I’ll get some wood’n get a fire going. We could heat up the soup from last night?” He half-asked me, arching his eyebrow up in question.

I shook my head and headed to the kitchen, choosing not to look in his direction. As I walked away, I could feel his eyes on me, watching. Not another word was spoken before I heard the door slam behind him.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my cheek hard enough to leave a sore behind. I couldn’t cry, not tonight. I felt too exhausted to do much of anything. Everytime I looked into his eyes, I fell apart all over again. Not because of what he did, or rather didn’t do in these past few months, but because I missed my husband. I missed our conversations, his jokes and questionable opinions on things. I missed his touch. I missed his laugh. I even missed our pointless arguments because at least we both cared enough to fight.

We didn’t even do that anymore. This dreadful grudge inside of me was still clenching onto the past.

He hadn’t tried to touch me in months. Not since before the miscarriage. I still seemed fragile to him, easily broken.

He’d stopped trying but so did I. I was too heartbroken to even offer. I feared that I forgotten what his touch felt like.

I inhaled sharply as the door swung open minutes later and Martin grunted inside, his arms full with firewood. He plopped them down onto the rug beside the fireplace, rubbing his hands together and kneeling over to get started. He didn’t acknowledge me, but I never acknowledged him either.

I worked to pour our leftover vegetable soup into an old rusty pot. Filling it to the brim, my hands shakily clung to the handles. I turned towards the living room and just as I did, myself and the pot slammed into the back of Martin, causing me to falter back and hit the counter. The pot smashed to the ground with a loud crash and spilt out onto myself and the kitchen floor.

“Fuck!” I yelled, almost startling Martin. He was frozen in place.

“Jesus, Martin! Did you not see me and this massive fucking pot behind you?!” My hands flew up over my head in frustration.

Martin rolled his eyes before folding his arms over his chest defensively. My eyes flew down the rolled up sleeves of his fuzzy blue sweater. The tendons in his forearms flexed.

“Oh fuck off, y/n. That wasn’t my fault. You weren’t loo-

“Yes-yes it is your fucking fault! Jesus Christ, will you ever learn to take responsibility for your shit actions!!?”

Martin’s body froze as his eyes pierced into my heart. I instantly regretted my choice in words. The double meaning was obvious to us both.

Instead of biting back at me with anger, his shoulders softened and he stepped closer into me, touching his chest with mine. His lips practically hovered over my own. We hadn’t been this close in months.

The cage of butterflies resting in my stomach break wide open. His heady scent filled my lungs and my eyes fluttered shut. I missed him so much.

“I just can’t do this back and forth with you anymore. I-I just want my wife back. We came here to work on our shit and I want to do that. You have to let me in again.”

My heart shattered in my chest as I watched tears well up in his eyes, something I saw so rarely. Tears stained my own cheeks at the sight. His chest heaved.

Do you want me back too?” He practically whispered, scared of the tears that threatened to fall down his face.

His fingers touched the tips of my own and my body ignited. I hadn’t realized until this moment that our skin hadn’t touched in so long. He waited for me to say the words, to give him access to myself once more. His eyes bored into my own with such longing and need. I held his gaze with my own exhausted one.

“Oh course I do, Martin. I-I lov-

My words were cut off by his supple lips crashing harshly into mine. All the doubts and hesitations I had before washed off of my body. I had forgotten how good it felt to be pressed against his warm body, to feel his skin on my own. I couldn’t help but melt into his arms.

His hand krept up, squeezing my face. Just as he did so, I opened my mouth, allowing him full access to me. He greedily took it, pushing his tongue gently into my mouth. We both sighed in relief at the sensation.

Pulling away, he fought to catch his breath as he searched my eyes for any sign of discomfort. There was none. I smiled softly up at him.

His eyes lit up, making my heart sore.

He pressed his forehead into mine, still holding my face in his hands.

“It’s been too fucking long since I touched you.”

His words sent a familiar heat between my legs that I hadn’t felt in ages.

“I know…I know we have so much to work through, this doesn’t make any of it go away. But I fucking need you right now.”

I pulled him in by his neck, suffocating him with my lips. I felt him chuckle, smiling into the kiss. His mouth quickly caught up.

Before I knew it, Our sludge covered clothes were quickly disregarded as we undressed each other hastily in the kitchen.

I broke the kiss, staring down at his exposed body that I hadn’t seen in so long. He was slender but trim. Tanned skin and freckles scattered all over his chest in that annoyingly perfect way.

It was in this moment, standing there in my bra and panties, I realized how much of an effect pregnancy had on my body and how little he endured physically. I wasn’t the same woman he used to be in love with, both physically and emotionally. Everything had changed me.

Becoming more aware of how quickly this had all escalated, I crossed my arms over my stomach, attempting to hide as much as possible from him. I sought out his approval, always.

Seeing nerves wrack through mg body, he stepped closer, running his rough hands softly against the newfound stretch marks over my belly and hips that Ive never let him see.

“You’re even more perfect than I remembered.” He suddenly kneeled down in front of me, holding my hips in place as he kissed over the marks softly.

Every kiss sent a shiver up my spine. I smiled softly, brushing his thick hair back with my hands. He hummed into my skin.

Then his eyes met mine.

“I needed to be there for you and I wasn’t. Will you let me be there for you now?” He whispered as he fisted the fabric sitting at my waist, pulling it down to my ankles and gently lifting my feet up to step out of them.

He sighed in satisfaction and licked his lips slowly, staring between my legs. I squirmed anxiously under his stare.

“Relax, love.”

My head fell back in a sigh as his mouth disappeared from under me. He kissed against my slit before tracing his tongue up and down, collecting the wetness of my hole onto his tongue.

My hands fisted in his hair as I leaned my ass against the countertop. Without stopping, he pushed my leg up and over to rest on his shoulder, giving him more access to my pussy. He turned his head into me more, groaning at the taste. I pushed him into me even further with my leg.

“You taste so good” he mumbled out, never stopping as his tongue became more erratic, flicking up and over my clit. His single finger teased my hole, pushing it in just far enough to leave me wanting more and then removing it completely again.

“Please…” I didn’t even know what I was begging for at this point.

“Tell me you want me baby, tell me how good i make you feel.” He pulled away to moan out.

“I want you inside of me, Martin please” I gasped as he shoved his tongue in and out of my pussy without warning, swirling it around inside of me.

“Then come for me baby. Let go for me. Then I’ll fuck you.” He grunted out more harshly this time. He was always dominant in bed and I had missed being his ‘good girl.’

So I came as quickly as he demanded it.

His tongue didn’t relent as my leg squeezed around his back, shaking uncontrollably. White dots blurred my vision as I came hard as fuck on his mouth. He forced my hips into his face, holding them hostage until I was completely spent.

Once my legs relaxed again, he wasted no time to stand up and release his hard cock from his briefs, fisting it in his hand as he smiled deviously. His chin glistened with my juices that he didn’t bother to wipe off. Instead, he grabbed my face harshly and shoved his tongue down my throat, forcing me to taste myself. His hand wrapped around my throat as he did so.

“Turn around and bend over the counter.” His voice scared the shit out of me in the best way. I must’ve not moved quickly enough for him, because he grabbed my waist and roughly turned me around and pushed my chest into the cold countertop. My tits smashed down onto the counter, making me whimper.

He ran his hand down my spine and grazing down my ass, until his fingers reached my pussy again.

His fingers massaged my clit softly before smacking my pussy with his palm. I gasped at the sensation, my eyes shooting open.

“Spread your legs.” You did at an embarrassing speed.

“Do I give you what you need?”

“No.” I lied. Of course he did. But I wanted him to fuck me senseless, needed it. I wanted to wake up sore and bruised from him.

He chuckled lowly at the challenge. Without warning, he slammed into me, making me yelp.

“Did you already forget who owns this pussy? Did you forget what purpose this cunt serves? Me. All mine, yeh?”

When I didn’t answer fast enough, he leaned over my back to hook his two fingers into my cheek, pulling me up by my mouth. I cried out, drool running down my chin as he fucked into me harshly.

I was immobilized. He had full control over my body and I loved every second of it. My body rocked back and forth to the rhythm of his thrusts.

The delicious sounds of our skin slapping together and his panting made my walls squeeze around his cock.

Thank god he couldn’t see my face because I looked completely fucking wrecked.

“Martin!” I tried to yell out with his fingers holding my mouth open, but it just sounded like nonsense.

A slap echoed off the walls of the kitchen as his hand punished my ass, finally releasing my face, making me gasp at air.

“Fuck, I forgot how good you feel inside of me Martin.” I moaned out, grasping at the counter for something to hold onto but finding nothing.

“I’ll never let you forget what my cock feels like again, ya hear me? That’s a promise.”

I groaned out at the sound of his voice. God, everything about this man was sexy, it was so unfair!

He pumped in and out of me so viciously, hitting every spot that no other man had before him.

His thrusts became sloppier and his fingers clenched down on my hips. Then he pulled out suddenly. I whimpered in response.

“Face me, on your knees now. I wanna cover that pretty face with my come.”

Without hesitation, i fell to my knees. I placed my hands on my thighs and straightened my back.

He tugged at his cock harshly, making my heart stop and my pussy throb again.

I closed my eyes and stuck out my tongue. A loud groan left his mouth followed by warm shots of come landing all over my tongue and cheeks and eventually dripping off of my nose.

He chuckled at the state of me. It would be humiliating if I wasn’t practically vibrating from the encounter.

I felt him kneel down in front of me. He wiped my eyes clean along with my cheeks. I licked my lips greedily before smiling up at Martin.

He smiled proudly back at me, caressing his hand against my cheek before lending me a hand off of the floor.

“Now, help me clean up this mess you made?” I said cheekily, winking at him.

He rolled his eyes before shooting a dazzling smile at me, almost making me melt all over again.

We both dressed and dropped back down, helping each other clean up the mess that both of us made.

I’m shite at ending these things, sorry:/

Taglist:

@lyarr24

@forgottenpeakywriter

@casa-boiardi

@tigernach575

@crabat-the-queen

@adaydreamaway08

@everysage

@yurmomsawh0r

@delusionalxoxo

@trixie23

@star017

[replicant1955]

Photo

The frame is dusty

Like I am, unkempt with age

But your eyes still smile

Untouched by time’s

Relentless decay

Youth has gone

And darkness gathers

(Sonnet in the wings)

The stage is emptying

But your eyes still smile

At me.

Doug

[slasherhoe87]

Slashers reaction to s/o who likes bdsm? Preferably Michael, Bo, Hannibal, and Norman Bates

I love your first fanfic! It's so sad and cute 😭

Hey. Thanks for enjoying my previous fic. I'll gladly do your request but I hope you don't mind... I have to skip Norman as I have only watched Psycho once or twice and don't know his character well.

Slightly NSFW / GN!reader

SLASHERS WITH A S/O INTO BDSM:

MICHAEL MYERS (OG/Peepaw):

Michael stared at his bowl of delicious, creamy, homemade, herby tomato soup you had put in front of him a minute ago

This was gonna be good

He was just about to bring a spoonful of the thick, aromatic goodness to his lips when he felt a pair of eyes boring into the side of his unmasked face

Lowering his spoon back down into his bowl he slowly turned his head towards you to return the stare, letting out a grunt in aknowledgement

You looked nervous, uncertain as you sat on the sofa

After a minute of you not being able to get your words out, Michael huffed in annoyance and scooped up the soup again

Just as the red deliciousness was about to finally grace his lips you spoke up

"I want to try something in the bedroom with you" the words came out tentatively

You hoped Michael would be open to the idea of BDSM - he certainly liked it rough enough to begin with... but you never know

Michael dropped his spoon again and bored his eye/s into your own, both curious about your desire and frustrated at him not getting enjoy his damn soup

He tilted his head as a go ahead for you to proceed

"BDSM... it is something I really enjoy aaand I want to experience it with you. But if you don't think you'd enjoy that then its okay, no worries" you smiled at him as your index finger traced absentminded circles on the arm of the sofa

You desperately hoped he would want to try it out with you. You had an itch only a dominant male like Michael could satisfy

Although Michael had never experienced BDSM, he knew what it was about and what it all entailed. And to say he was surprised that his sweet s/o had a penchant for more extreme sex?

His cock grew as hard as a rock instantly

To have you bound, restrained, helpless and so at his mercy and whims - bringing your quivering body to orgasm with pleasure and pain... he was practically salivating at the mouth

Michael turned back to his bowl of soup and finally started eating, his mind delving deep into dark, sinister sexual thoughts about you

Before he focused back on his soup you saw the dark, heavy and heated look in his eye/s. You smiled to yourself - the seed had been planted and now it need only take root

Little did you know that later that night Michael did not leave the house to kill, he instead stalked towards the direction of Doug's Hardware Store which conveniently sat right next to Kinkdom Adult Toy shop - two places which housed everything he would need

BO SINCLAIR:

When you had told Bo that you wanted to be restrained and at his mercy, bound in the now unused and dusty chair that sat in his little lair beneath the shop his eyebrows skyrocketed to his hairline

You? His innocent, sweet little y/n?

His body instantly responded - white-hot heat bloomed and pooled to the pit of his stomach and groin

His gaze darkened and he pinned you with his heavy stare

But he had to be sure you meant it, because if you did then you had to know what you'd be getting yourself into with him

Bo leaned back against the kitchen counter as he looked directly into your big doe eyes. "Shit, baby... you sure? Really sure? Don't be teasing me with the prospect if you ain't 100% sure about this"

You assured him that you indulged in BDSM regularly before you had become a part of the Sinclair trio and that you craved his ruthless touch. Craved his fingers and tools that would drag you to both heaven and hell

Bo stepped towards you and firmly grasped your jaw in his big hand, his aura of dominance engulfing your eager form

"Well then darlin', let's go to our lair and fix it up some - don't want our playtime ruined by dust and dirt"

As you swept the floor of his 'play room' and the two of you discussed your safe word and what you would and wouldn't feel comfortable with your nethers clenched in anticipation for tonight's blissful torment

HANNIBAL LECTER (OG/MADS):

You were both spent, laying draped in one another's arms in his king sized bed, luxuriating in post-coital bliss when you brought up the topic of BDSM and how you wanted to indulge in it with Hannibal

Hannibal was only somewhat surprised by this revelation as you had already shown him you enjoyed more extreme sexual escapades in the bedroom next to vanilla love-making

Initially he thought that it would be him to bring up the topic but it mattered not anymore as he was most pleased by your admission

The following evening Hannibal took you by your hand down to his somewhat forbidden basement

He did not forbid you from entering the basement as you knew of his "meat" eating tendecies - he only asked you to use caution as there was dangerous equipment and machinery about

Your curiosity turned to intrigue when he stopped the both of you before a previously hidden black metal door

"Are you ready to see what awaits you behind this door, love?" He asks with a subtle cheeky smirk

You eagerly nod, practically bouncing on the balls of your feet. Your eyes widen to saucers and you gasp as Hannibal pushes open the heavy door and flicks on a light switch that envelops the dark room in sinister red lighting

You trace your fingers along the well-made heavy BDSM furniture which no doubt cost thousands to have made. Every contraption, tool, toy and furniture piece fit for the darkest of carnal pleasures sat proudly in the room

Hell's pleasure room indeed

Hannibal stood back, hands in the pockets of his well-tailored trousers, a pleased smile gracing his elegant features

Hannibal's dungeon was everything you could've hoped for and more

Your body grew taut, your nipples hardening and your nethers moistening as your imagination ran wild with the thoughts of what painful delights Hannibal would inflict on your bound, submissive body

Walking back over to Hannibal you pulled him down for a searing kiss before the two of you stepped back further in to the room to discuss the what your body would be enduring by Hannibal's unforgiving hands

[freevoidman]

McFly July 16🌲 - Paradox

[Roleswap!AU where young, upstanding mad scientist teenager Emmett Lathrop Brown travels back to the past to try and save his friend and father figure Marty McFly.]

“Run this by me one more time, kid.”

Emmett barely restrains a hysterical peal of laughter hearing Marty—a younger, breathing Marty McFly—call him kid again. He’s not sure what expression crosses his face, but Marty huffs. “Look, I’m sorry. Maybe the future me is better at all this fourth dimension stuff, but I’m barely grasping you’re from the eighties, let alone the whole paradox thing.”

“No no no, I’m not frustrated, it’s just… this is normal for me, in a situation that feels extraordinarily abnormal.” Emmett runs a hand through his hair and looks around the surprisingly bare living room. Emmett is used to navigating mazes of the busted-up amps, dusty guitars, scratched-up vinyls, all while carefully side-stepping the aging sheet music littering the floor (how many times had he warned Marty that leaving so many stray pages was a slipping hazard, only for things to end the way they did?). Now the living room is sparse, furniture laid out so… so neatly. There’s a nice suede couch, a few arm chairs, a tiny TV, bookcases, a record player, all of it spaced out in a way that would make Emmett’s mom's home-interior instincts squeal with excitement. 

The Marty he knew would never have such a standard-looking living room. Granted, he lived in an old garage, and everyone in town knew that the old McFly Manor burned down in ‘62, but Emmett always imagined that if Marty had a house, it would be just as wild as Marty is—was.

(Emmet is resolutely not thinking about what happened. He’s currently preoccupied with worrying about what is about to happen, in regards to the paradox brewing, with him situated in the epicenter.)

Patting himself down, Emmett takes out his notebook and flips to a blank page. He grabs a pencil from the coffee table and sits next to Marty on the couch. “Alright, so, imagine…” Emmett draws a straight line across the page, “That this line represents the flow of time. I’m from the future year of 1985.” Emmett writes his year on the right side of the line, “We’re in 1955.” Again, the current year, this time on the left side, “And, between these two, I was born in 1968.” Finally, his birthday, written between the other two years.

“Simple enough so far.”

“Because of my invention, I traveled back through time from 1985 to now, 1955.” Emmett draws a large arch over the line to connect the two years. Marty nods along and Emmett, as much as he loves his friend (even this version who has only known Emmett for less than three hours), he’s relieved he doesn’t have to explain the very basics of time travel to him. Marty had never been a big sci-fi fan, but travel was his area of expertise, what with touring and all in the past (future?). “My parents were supposed to meet today at my grandmother’s boutique when my father fell through the display window. My mother tended to my father, which is how they got properly acquainted outside of simply attending high school, and that eventually turned into them dating, getting married, and having me in ‘68. However, because of Fleabag Needles—”

“‘Fleabag Needles?’ Isn’t that one of the high schoolers? What’s his name, Doug something?”

“Yes, Doug Needles. And as for why we call him that… well, everyone does.” Well, not everyone, just Marty and Emmett. Emmett because the man has been a constant thorn in Emmett and his mother’s lives since he was born, and Marty because Doug has filed countless noise complaints against him. 

1955 Marty seems to at least agree with his future self’s annoyance. “Can’t say it doesn’t fit him. Always hated having to tutor his ass at guitar, he couldn’t even do basic taps.”

“Regardless, because Needles crashed into me instead of my father—which is how he ‘fell’ through that window, apparently—that means my mother tended to me instead of my father.”

“Right, so your parents never met.”

“Which means they don’t fall in love, they don’t get married, and, most importantly in this conundrum, they don’t have me.” Emmett erases the date of his birth. “Now, here’s where the paradox comes in. If I’m never born, that means I never invent time traveling, which means I never go back in the past, which means I don’t interfere in my parents’ first meeting—”

“Which means none of this should be happening?” Marty throws out, gesturing between them.

“Precisely! My current existence here cannot be possible, so the universe is attempting to correct that aberration.” Emmett erases everything from 1955 onwards. He sees Marty’s eyes widen out of his periphery—good, he understands the gravitas. “However, it can’t do that and have the same series of events play out, so once I’m erased, it’s possible that my interference with my parents never occurs, therefore I will be born, and this will play out again.”

“So… the universe trying to, uh…” Marty winces and tries again, “Look, kid, I’m not going to call you an ‘aberration,’ but is that why you keep flickering?”

Emmett’s lip purse at the reminder of his looming non-existence. Marty was about to chase him off his property for being a ‘crazy stalker nerd’ before Emmett suddenly keeled over and went transparent. The rockstar ushered him into his house and did his best to help, but there’s nothing you can do when the time continuum has decided that you’re a walking talking paradox. Luckily it stopped, unluckily Emmett doesn’t know if that was a one-off or if he was going to fade in his sleep. “Yes. I imagine that the only reason I haven’t been completely erased yet is simply a delay in the time stream’s machinations. After all, I’m not born for another thirteen years.”

“How long do you think you have?”

Emmett shrugs. “A week? Perhaps less. All of this is theoretical, even with my recent experiences. Here’s what I can tell you for certain: unless I can get my parents together before whatever time I have is up, I will be nothing more than a faint memory.”

Marty’s eyes darken. The irony is not lost on Emmett that they’re discussing his eventual non-existence (he refuses to use the word death, not only because that’s not an entirely accurate use of the word, but because the word brings to mind his friend riddled with bullet holes, bleeding out on the pavement) when the whole reason this ordeal is happening was because Emmett was willing to create a paradox to prevent what happened. 

He thought he’d managed to input the coordinates in time, but it was all lost in the rush of escaping the Libyans, having to do crazy maneuvers through the parking lot just to ensure the Delorean wasn’t too damaged to make the jump. He only wanted thirty minutes—less, even—just to warn Marty but instead jumped thirty years. Even with his own fate laid out in front of him, his limited time before corrections are made, the wrinkles in time pressed out by the universe’s uncaring hand, Emmett wants to tell Marty what will happen more than anything. 

Perhaps fading is some form of universal karma. After all, if Emmett fades, is never born, Marty will never be in danger. This will be nothing more than a crazy week where a boy showed up on Marty’s doorstep and told him an unbelievable story. Maybe he’ll be mentioned in a song later down the line, or maybe the timestream will destroy anyone’s memories of him, just to err on the side of caution.

But that look in Marty’s eye tells Emmett a different story. It’s the same look Marty has whenever Emmett comes over with bruises from his bullies, or when Edna followed him all the way to Marty’s garage to call him a slacker, or when Biff Tannen came by to taunt the ‘failed musician’ about his own failures. “That’s not going to happen kid, not on my watch.”

I know, Emmett wants to say. Marty’s never let him down before. He’s practically been his father figure ever since… well, ever since his actual father passed. But instead Emmett holds his tongue, nods, and tells Marty where he hid the Delorean so they can retrieve it. As he sits in the passenger seat of Marty’s car, he silently vows, we’ll change each others’ fates together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*shows up to a fandom event 16 days late with a can of Pepsi-free* 'sup.

I learned about this event literally the week it started because I was browsing Ao3, saw the prompt list, and my brain went crazy. Huge thanks to @mjf-af for making this, not only because it's super cool, but because the event and the prompts literally dragged my writer's blocked brain kicking and screaming into work. I've been struggling to write anything all summer and now I have a whole 60 prompts that I've been thriving with.

This was the only prompt I managed to write ahead of time since I've been playing catch-up, so I decided to post this here on it's proper day-of instead of hoarding it until I've caught up. I've been posting my other contributions on Ao3 in batches, as that's my preferred site of fanfic posting lol. You can check out my fills for days 1-8 by clicking this link, as well as any future contributions! I'll probably be working on these things well into August haha.

[commsroom]

it feels meaningful to me that the wolf 359 finale presents hera at her most physical - where she can be seen the way she sees herself, and occupy the same space in the same capacity as eiffel and pryce, during that confrontation - while it also has eiffel's mind treated as something mechanical. in some way, it's equalizing. both eiffel and hera have had someone actually go inside of their minds, occupying a physical space - in both cases, an AI specialist searching through their memories.

the way those two settings are presented: the neutral space in hera's mind is a beach - water as memory is a point in the sound design - something natural, fluid, changing - a memory is never exactly the same each time you remember it, you can never step into the same river twice, etc. - stormy, unpredictable, volatile. it's about nature, and about the nature of the stories we tell ourselves.

eiffel's mind is the storeroom from raiders of the lost ark - of course, a pop culture reference. arguably, this is influenced by pryce's machine, and presents similarly to the space created by the dear listeners - i.e. that it's just the space where eiffel expects what's about to happen. but it fits with his lack of internality and self-reflection - his memories are pushed to some dim, dusty corner of his mind, boxed up so he doesn't have to unpack and confront all of the parts that make up the history of doug eiffel.

hera has nothing but self-reflection, in contrast - if anything, her problem is that she can only exist internally, and getting out of her mind - literally and figuratively - is necessary for her personal growth and mental wellbeing. and with that in mind: when hera purges eiffel's mindspace, it's represented with the sound of a storm.

[fuzzyhenry]

Doug being a dog

This is Doug, a mid-50s fellow who lives a life of solitude. He spends his days operating heavy machinery at the local salvage yard and his evenings downing canned beers and shouting at his old boxy television. Tonight, he lounges in his ratty wife-beater and faded boxers, a can of malt beer in one hand, the remote in the other.

I phase through the window, unseen and unfelt. I hover above Doug, admiring the sweaty sheen on his brow, the slight redness in his cheeks from the alcohol, the unkempt beard that hides the double chin quite poorly. It's a picture of middle-aged abandon that calls to me more than any other.

In an instant, I swoop down. A jolt goes through Doug. His beer can slips from his hand, spilling lukewarm beer onto the threadbare carpet. He groans, shuddering as his eyes roll back. For a moment, his body tenses, as if in some unseen struggle. Then his eyes flutter closed, his body goes limp, and the once-rowdy man is quiet. He's asleep now, but his body... oh, his body is wide awake.

Now, I'm Doug, or rather, I'm in Doug. The feeling of physicality, of being bound within human flesh once again, is intoxicating. His heart thrums in my - his - chest, a rhythmic symphony that underlines the grandeur of the human experience.

I stretch Doug's arms, chuckling at the not-so-admirable 'beer belly'. I run my hand through his chest hair, coarse and thick. The sensation is magnificently grounding. I flex his leg, feeling the weight and strength of his muscles.

Turning to a dusty mirror hanging skewed on a wall, I admire my new 'self'. Doug's flushed face, his twinkling eyes hidden under bushy eyebrows, the rough beard. I pull up the grubby wife-beater, revealing a furry belly, and let out a hearty laugh. The sound echoes in the small house, a symbol of my delight. "Alright, Doug, let's have some fun now," I murmur, standing up from the recliner. His body's a bit wobbly, a bit unsteady, but that's part of the charm. "He's Doug, huh? What if Doug were a dog?" I muse.

Hauling off his wife-beater and yanking down his boxers, I'm now fully exposed. His body, heavy and moist with sweat, thrums with the exertion of the possession activity. I turn around on the spot, just like a dog would before settling down, and I lower myself onto my haunches.

Now, sitting on the grimy carpet like a loyal pet awaiting his master's command, I throw my head back and unleash a hearty, "Woof!" The sound reverberates through the quiet house, a perfectly surreal backdrop to the silent night beyond the walls.

I hoist a chubby leg up next, just like a dog would, and I start to pantomime licking it. I drag Doug's broad, coarse tongue along the length of the hairy limb, my laughter punctuating each exaggerated lick. The taste of perspiration, mingled with the faint hint of grease and motor oil, is potent. "Oh, we're not done yet," I say, a devious glint in Doug's eye. The house is my stage, and I'm the sole performer in this bizarre, one-man show. I throw my hefty body down on all fours. Doug's knees and palms press into the worn carpet. His hairy back is level, his rear end slightly hoisted - a perfect imitation of a dog on his daily walk. I begin to move, every motion exaggerated. I crawl on all fours, the creaking floorboards under fat, hairy palms and knees adding a rhythm to my movement. Doug’s naked body shuffles around, with his considerable behind swaying with each forward motion. Down the narrow hallway, past the modest kitchen, around the worn-out dining table, and back into the living room. I cover every possible surface, from the front door to the last nook and cranny of his humble dwelling. I even pause occasionally, sniffing the air dramatically, cocking Doug's head as if hearing some distant, dog-like call. I pant heavily, playfully wagging the imaginary tail, my belly jiggling with laughter at the ridiculous spectacle I make. Feeling the heady rush of the bizarre game, I take it a step further. I stumble towards the closed windows, peering out into the quiet neighborhood. Then, lifting my head, I mimic a series of barks, "Woof, woof, woof!" Each sound echoes through the room, a robust confirmation of my playful antics, a middle-aged man masquerading as a suburban canine. After my performance by the window, I saunter towards the kitchen. Noticing the refrigerator, I smile with a devious intent. I throw open the heavy door and the musty aroma of leftovers wafts out. Half-eaten sandwiches, remnants of cold Chinese takeout, a piece of cake - the fridge is a treasure trove. I dive in, literally. I don't bother with hands; I'm a dog, after all. Lowering my face to the plate, I begin to wolf down the food with a voracious appetite. Mouthfuls of sandwich, slurps of noodles, a big bite of the cake - I devour everything directly with his mouth, my laughter muffled by the food. The crumbs scatter on the fridge's shelves and the floor, falling from Doug's scraggly beard and landing on his protruding belly. Doug's heavy-handed chewing and savage eating style mimic that of a hungry animal, making the scene even more hilariously absurd. (part1)

[kitkatpancakestack]

did you ever read or see the movie 'holes' if so, madney as the kissin' kate and sam storyline wherein'  ------>"Katherine shoots and kills the sheriff. She becomes the outlaw "Kissin' Kate Barlow", so named because she leaves a red lipstick kiss on the cheeks of the men she kills. " <------ ie Doug is killed by maddie with chim (the sam to his kate) helping her out and them having shenanigans thinking they're gonna go to jail it can be comedy or dark lolol don't take this prompt if it doesn't spark or you're like what's holes?

Teenie you KNOW I loved this prompt and again so sorry it's taken me so long but literally for the last two weeks I've been doing nothing but writing and reading I'm LIVING. I want to make this a whole fic so bad so who knows lol.

ilysm babe and I hope this lives up to your expectations <3

“Mornin’ Sheriff.” Doug jerked at the sound of her voice, peering up at her through a dark fringe of hair. The town jail was eerily quiet for a mid-afternoon. Maddie reckoned it must have had something to do with the unrelenting sun beating down, the cloying stench of sweat and listlessness pervading the dusty streets. She slipped her finger through the knotted ribbon under her chin and tugged it loose. “Maddie.” Doug jolted into a sitting position, running a hand through his hair.  She smiled, slid her bonnet off her head, and dropped it to the floor. “You still want that kiss?” A lazy, smug grin spread across Doug’s face, rippling over his features like the lake where he’d shot Howard. A knot formed in her throat at the thought, strengthening her resolve. The bastard in front of her leaned back in his chair, content, like he’d won, like he knew he would win all along and they would always end up here. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Maddie thought, repeated to herself like a mantra. Only, it had warped in the time since that moment on the lake. The Lord moves through me and I am the Lord. I giveth and I taketh away. Doug raises his eyebrows at her, expectant. She lifts the gun in her hand and relishes the spark of shock in his gaze before pulling the trigger.

I'm always taking little drabble/ficlet prompts (even if I take ten years to respond to them lmfao) so feel free to drop them in the inbox anytime!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kyle Mantyla at RWW:

Naturally, Webbon’s comments generated some controversy, which prompted him to double down during his livestream podcast on Wednesday. “My hometown and my neighborhood, my state, is being flooded with non-citizens, and then even those who are citizens … are still worshiping false gods,” Webbon griped. “They’re not American in any sense of our heritage, and primarily I’m talking about that being a problem as it pertains to religion.” “They worship other gods,” he continued. “They are Hindu. They are Muslim. They are Jews. They are not Christians.” Webbon said that he and his fellow white Christians have a “civic duty” to ensure that their children and grandchildren “have the privilege of growing up in a country that bears at least some semblance to the country that you got to grow up in and is not completely decimated by pagan gods and foreign people from foreign lands.”

[...] Webbon is a militant Christian nationalist who believes that the American people are too degenerate, stupid, and cowardly to abide by the Constitution and therefore must be governed by a Christian dictator who “just rules with an iron fist” and forces everyone to, at the very least, “pretend to be Christian.” Under such a dictator, Webbon wants to see the Apostles’ Creed added to the Constitution; abortion, pornography, no-fault divorce, in vitro fertilization, and birth control outlawed; and women banned from voting. In addition to serving as pastor at Covenant Bible Church in Texas, Webbon is also the founder of Right Response Ministries, through which he organizes events like “Blueprints for Christendom 2.0: Seven Doctrines for Ruling the World,” which took place earlier this year and featured fellow Christian nationalists like Doug Wilson and Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers as speakers.

Christian Nationalist pastor and founder of Right Response Ministries Joel Webbon has a delusional belief that too many non-Christians (by his standard) living in his neighborhood is a “sign of God’s Judgement.”

[sofiasfanartcollection]

Wanted to share some Hypno-potamus headcanons; this gets kind of long

-- Hypno loves animals and is knowledgeable about many kinds and their care. He also loves kids. He used to work as a babysitter and at a zoo (where he met Doug) and put on a lot of magic shows for kid’s birthday parties before his career as a magician became more serious.

-- After being mutated, Hypno went on something of a rampage and the theater he had been performing in partially collapsed. Doug didn’t survive and Hypno blames himself for this :(

-- After initially stealing some animals from other magicians, Hypno began rescuing doves/pigeons that were injured or sick or had escaped from pet stores or lost or released for weddings etc. He also rescues abandoned domestic rabbits from parks and from over-filled shelters.

-- He keeps his animals in a pocket dimension of sorts (kind of like Lion’s mane from Steven Universe but with plenty of air) that he can access through his hats or coat. Inside there are little grassy islands surrounded by a very shallow and still body of water that doesn’t get you wet and stretches on with no visible end and is full of reflections of stars. There’s no stars in the sky though, just a dusty calm pale blue like right before dawn breaks. 

One island has a huge tree, filled with perches for his doves and pigeons. Another has roomy enclosures and shelters for his rabbits. Another has a building, larger on the inside, elegantly furnished, where he keeps his magician’s tools and things and a library and extra wardrobe. (Yes, this is OFMD inspired.) There are plants from New Zealand growing on the islands and things are lit by bioluminescent mushrooms. The pocket dimension is a warm and comforting place, though Hypno found that if you stay there too long you begin to forget things. He used to spend a bit too much time there before befriending Warren. Now he keeps a little cupboard full of things to remind himself about life outside in case he loses track of time. 

-- The “doom hats” from “Hypno! Part Deux” would have made the school and children disappear into his pocket dimension, and he wouldn’t have left them there. (April believed that the energy inside the hats meant that they were deadly, but I think that if the hats had been supposed to kill people, Hypno wouldn’t have been able to survive a direct hit from so many of them, which he did survive.)

-- Hypno has mixed feelings about having actual mystic powers. On one hand, he finds them amazing, and he is formidable in a fight, but on the other, he wonders sometimes if he is a real magician anymore.

-- It was Warren’s apartment. When Hypno finds Warren that night they meet the second time, Warren had been lost for a while. Hypno offers to bring him home. Once there, Warren’s landlord shows up and Hypno hypnotizes him into thinking Warren had already paid his rent. Warren thinks having Hypno around would be useful, and Hypno doesn’t want to go back to his own place because it feels too empty without Doug :( so they decide to be roomies.

-- They start to become friends after “Evil League of Mutants.” During that episode, when Draxum has gathered them all, Hypno has his guard up, with the “who do I have to cut in half…” line and largely ignores Warren. He worries about what the other mutants will think of him, and is intimidated since they are dangerous villains. But after the fight and losing to the turtles, Hypno finds Warren and apologizes. Warren is, as so often happens, injured, and though he will regenerate, Hypno wants to help and treats him gently. Some of the other mutants mock them, but Hypno sticks up for Warren and tells him that he realized Warren means more to him than the opinions of the others and asks if he’d like to be friends. Warren accepts his apology and his offer of friendship.

They are genuinely kind to each other and come to love each other very dearly.

-- Hypno is bisexual/fraysexual (so on the asexual spectrum) and biromantic. Warren is a gay-oriented aroace (he experiences aesthetic and alterous attraction to men). He’s not always comfortable with romantic terms of endearment hence the “roomie,” “conjuring compatriot” etc.

-- Their relationship is a bit complicated. Hypno falls in love with Warren romantically and Warren loves Hypno, but not in quite the same way. Eventually they end up in a queer platonic relationship or qpr. (I’m aroace and being in a qpr is  one of my dreams so I want it for them.) They are in a very happy and healthy relationship and love each other very much.

-- Hypno’s had a bit of a soft spot for the turtles since “Stuck on You,” showing some concern for their wellbeing. However, he viewed them as enemies and was willing to try and kill them at times. (This violence was in part due to Draxum’s ooze, though this does not make Hypno innocent.) After “Hypno and Warren Sitting in a Tree,” Hypno cares more about the turtles. He makes a fashion montage magic trap for them in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle,” deciding that trapping them rather than fighting them would be his new initial response to the turtles messing with his plans. His second response was running away. He doesn’t get his rings out, potentially deadly weapons, until his third attempt, and when he’s basically cornered. (I enjoyed the realistic-feeling character development.) By the time we get to “Battle Nexus: New York,” Hypno takes his role helping Donnie seriously and without showing any ill-will towards the turtles. He actually is openly reassuring and happy for them when they reunite. 

-- At some point after “Battle Nexus: New York,” Hypno decides he really doesn’t want to hurt the turtles and stops using deadly force in their fights.

-- In the movie, Hypno is irritated by the turtles’ interference but in his fight with Leo, he doesn’t take his rings out at all and doesn’t complain when Leo jumps on his shoulders for a moment when the car is cut in half by Mikey. (I think Leo didn’t take that fight seriously because he didn’t feel any real threat from Hypno and Warren. And since Hypno and Warren had no idea what kind of artifact they had stolen, they didn’t guard it with any extra desperation.) 

-- After the movie, Hypno is devastated by the damage caused by the Krang and how many people got hurt. He and Warren start to lose interest in crime.

-- They will eventually befriend the turtles and grow to be their bi and gay uncles. 

Bonus head-canons inspired by his voice actor:

He’s good at imitating sounds and likes to make sound effects.

He likes pineapple on pizza.

He loves dinosaurs, and his favorite is a stegosaurus.

[sl-newsie]

Spelled: Carlos de Vil x Sanderson Daughter Masterlist (Part I)

Magica Sanderson is the daughter of Sarah Sanderson and the Evil Queen's huntsman. All her life Magica's lived in Sherwood Forrest with her father while her heritage has been kept secret, but what will happen when a magic accident sheds light onto her powers? Perhaps being sent to Auradon Prep along with a few other new VKs will change her life forever...

[aftermidnightfmk]

Guests

Part 1: January 16, 2025 through April 10, 2024

Tumblr limits posts to 100 links, thus the necessity of splitting of the Guests page into parts. It is inconvenient, yes. Click here for a list of all parts.

Alphabetical by last name, unless they don't have a surname, in which case, good luck.

Looking for the host? Try the Taylor Tomlinson tag.

Is a name misspelled? Link broken? Dear god, please tell me.

Please note: “kill” choices are (usually) not tagged. Therefore the links below may not be inclusive of every guest’s appearance on After Midnight.

A

Marcella Arguello

B

Maria Bamford

Suzi Barrett

W. Kamau Bell

Doug Benson

Ashley Nicole Black

Flula Borg

Wayne Brady

Guy Branum

Matt Braunger

Kurt Braunohler

Sophie Buddle

C

Reggie Conquest

Kelsey Cook

Affion Crockett

Whitney Cummings

D

Jon Daly

Chad Daniels

James Davis

Bianca Del Rio

E

Billy Eichner

F

Jackie Fabulous

Fortune Feimster

Jourdain Fisher

Chris Fleming

Ron Funches

G

Jon Gabrus

Megan Gailey

Lisa Gilroy

Vanessa Gonzalez

Chris Grace

Max Greenfield

H

Rob Haze

John Hodgman

Robby Hoffman

Pete Holmes

Sandy Honig

Rob Huebel

London Hughes

Brendan Hunt

I

J

Josh Johnson

Joyelle Nicole Johnson

Zainab Johnson

Anjelah Johnson-Reyes

K

Amir K

Moshe Kasher

Jackie Kashian

Laurie Kilmartin

Joel Kim Booster

Kyle Kinane

Nick Kocher

Nish Kumar

L

Lauren Lapkus

Natasha Leggero

Thomas Lennon

Dan Levy

Riki Lindhome

Loni Love

M

Marc Maron

Jack Martin

Mae Martin

Brian McElhaney

Wendi McLendon-Covey

Liz Miele

Will Miles

Amy Miller

Kel Mitchell

Arden Myrin

N

Aparna Nancherla

Purple Necktie

Dustin Nickerson

Tig Notaro

O

Jerry O'Connell

Atsuko Okatsuka

Taylor Ortega

Haley Joel Osment

P

Adam Pally

Caitlin Peluffo

Dewayne Perkins

Pink Foxx

Esther Povitsky

Jeff Probst

Q

R

Chloe Radcliffe

Mary Lynn Rajskub

Adam Ray

Caroline Rhea

Rob Riggle

Phoebe Robinson

Matt Rogers

Giulia Rozzi

S

Nico Santos

Anna Seregina

Jason Sklar

Randy Sklar

Dusty Slay

Dulcé Sloan

Kevin Smith

Blair Socci

Beth Stelling

T

Carl Tart

Jordan Temple

Chris Thayer

Vinny Thomas

Sarah Tiana

Greta Titelman

Paul F. Tompkins

Shane Torres

Zach Noe Towers

Irene Tu

U

V

Milana Vayntrub

Melissa Villaseñor

W

Trevor Wallace

Matt Walsh

Reggie Watts

Mo Welch

Maggie Winters

X

Monét X Change

Y

Z

Sasheer Zamata

Jenny Zigrino

Zach Zimmerman

[canmom]

Comics Comints 3: Animal Man

Previously on Comics Comments: [The Incal] [Solo Levelling]. (Yeah this name is kind of terrible isn’t it? Part of me is like ‘for god’s sake change it’ and part of me is like ‘commit to the bit’.)

I think you could say I tend to like three different sources of comic. One is webcomics. The second is manga (and also manhwa). The third? Comics written by a wizard in the 1980s.

You see, most of the real ‘classic’ comics from this period are by some sort of wizard. Alan Moore? Famously a magician and really looks the part. Grant Morrison? Chaos magician. Alejandro Jodorowsky? Read the last first post in this series lmao.

It’s not actually all that surprising since comics are an incredibly densely symbolic medium which give you a pretty direct line of attack on the collective unconscious, if you believe in that. Being a wizard is probably pretty good training for writing interesting comics. Or maybe Alan Moore’s success just kicked off a fad of trying to find more British wizards to move comics off the shells at DC - pretty much Morrison’s own account of their introduction into the world of comics.

And that brings us to...

Animal Man

(1988-95, written by Grant Morrison, pencilled Chas Truog, Tom Grummett and Paris Cullins, inked Doug Hazlewood, Mark McKenna, Steve Montano and Mark Farmer, coloured Tatjana Wood and Helen Vesik, lettered by John Costanza and Janice Chiang, covers illustrated by Brian Bolland... phew...)

So. Animal Man! Basically the story as Morrison tells it in the intro to the collected edition is...

In 1987, at the height of the critical acclaim for Alan Moore’s work on SWAMP THING and WATCHMEN, DC Comics dispatched a band of troubleshooters on what is quaintly termed a “headhunting mission” to the United Kingdom. The brief was to turn up the stones and see if there weren’t any more cranky Brit authors who might be able to work wonders with some of hte dusty old characters languishing in DC’s back catalogue. As one of those who received the call that year, I had no idea who I might dig up and revamp. On the Glasgow to London train, however, my feverishly overstressed brain at last lighted upon Animal Man. This minor character from the pages of STRANGE ADVENTURES in the ‘60s had always, for heaven only knows what murky reasons, fascinated me and, as the train chugged through a picturesque language of Tudor houses and smiling bobbies on bicycles, I began to put together a scenario involving an out-of-work, married-with-children third-rate superhero who becomes involved with animal rights issues and finds his true vocation in life.

You can read the full introduction here. It’s pretty funny.

In fact, Morrison is leaving out a little of the story. The ‘headhunting mission’ took place after Alan Moore decisively cut ties with DC over issues related to royalties (particularly for merchandising) and a proposed age-rating system. He stopped writing for them after finishing the last few issues of V for Vendetta, and DC went looking for someone new to fill his niche of ‘left-wing British guy, good at prose, wizard��. Along with Morrison, they found...

Jamie Delano, who was approached by DC as the writer of the Swamp Thing spin off Hellblazer; Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, who collaborated on the Black Orchid limited series, as well as the famous and acclaimed Sandman; Peter Milligan, who launched a new Shade, the Changing Man series; and Scottish creator Grant Morrison, whose pitch of an Animal Man series was approved. Later British creators to work on American comics include Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Paul Jenkins.

This also comes in a time when American comics are getting more and more literary aspirations: complex characterisation, more naturalistic dialogue, less emphasis on superheroes. Which can perhaps also be attributed to Alan Moore. The ‘British invasion’ might be compared with the rise of gekiga in Japan in the 60s and 70s, although here the change was happening not in alternative magazines like Garo but the most mainstream comics. Putting in a pin in that, because I need to learn more about this period.

I came to Animal Man knowing really only one thing: that it gets increasingly metafictional, culminating in an arc where the protagonist goes and meets Grant Morrison themself. This does indeed happen and it’s cool! But before that a bunch of other stuff has to happen to set up the thematic significance of this metafiction...

What follows: a lot of art and story breakdown.

Morrison is a very interesting figure who I’d like to learn a lot more about. I thought of them as another example of the ‘spend years making sequential art instead of transitioning’ archetype, but it seems maybe a little more complicated than that - I think I need to do more research before I try and say anything definitive about the many noticeable ways trans girls figure in the imagination of comics from this period, and it doesn’t factor much in Animal Man compared to say Doom Patrol.

Indeed, main character Buddy is an almost parodically Normal Dad, a blonde white man living in an American suburban house with a white picket fence and... well, 2 children, not 2.5, but you know.

Into this world comes all sorts of weird stuff because it’s a Grant Morrison comic, and a lot of the humour in the earlier parts of the comic comes from the idea of shining a look at the fringes of the DC universe away from the central superhero battles, with a local low-tier superhero making TV appearances and becoming a minor celebrity. I think ‘everyday life in a world where superheroes are real’ has been done a lot since then, but it’s done well here. Being a superhero for Buddy starts out as just a day job; obscure superhero teams from Morrison’s encyclopedic knowledge of DC comics history are made into obscure superhero teams in-universe as well.

I don’t read American comics nearly as often as I read manga and webcomics - working on filling in the gaps there - so it’s hard for me to comment on Truog’s art in contrast to other comics. Which means what strikes me is probably more traits of ‘American Comics’ than this one specifically, but what ho...

The immediate thing I noticed is the immense anatomical precision, particularly when it comes to drawing muscles - something I’d also been struggling with at the time I read it so I was paying attention lol. Peter Chung made an interesting remark in an interview which I’ll quote here...

I think a lot of illustrators realize—and you see this a lot in American comics as well—that if you draw costumes realistically, it's very difficult. You end up spending all your time trying to create believable drapery. So the tendency is to draw skin-tight costumes that mold around the body. This allows you to use the body more. You see this with classical sculpture, and dancers. You try to use the expressive qualities of the human body more—that's why sculptors prefer to work with nudes, as opposed to trying to make the clothing look accurate. Otherwise you end up concentrating on the clothing and not the person. 

Fairly early on, Animal Man’s outfit is updated to include a leather jacket, and there’s a solid sense of how to handle the cloth. Here’s an action scene from fairly early on with Buddy fighting against a rat monster created by the tragic villain B’wana Beast (more on him in a bit)...

You can see how the cloth stretches at the elbow and bunches up on the inside fold. This also shows a few other aspects of the art: the shading is completely carried by hatching in the linework, with the colours being flat, either pastel or highly saturated. I think this is in part a limitation of the printing technologies of the time. There’s occasional use of screentone, as you can see on the top right panel there (which downscaling has turned into a moiré pattern...)

In comparison to manga, beyond the general differences in character design, it’s interesting to see what’s different in how action scenes are conveyed. The panelling is generally very regular and rectangular, but there will occasionally be layouts with figures overlapping the border. Some of the ways of conveying motion, like dynamic unbalanced poses, or replacing lines with perpendicular hatching, is also widely used in manga; some aren’t, such as the motion arcs you can see in the page above. There usually isn’t a lot of exaggeration or extreme perspective distortion.

I think the colouring weakens it. The colours mostly serve to separate out different volumes, but they don’t really convey much in their own right. Out of curiosity, I tried putting the page above through desaturate and threshold filters to see what it would look like uncoloured. Here’s a threshold, which is what the inked page would look like...

and here’s a desaturate, which replaces the colours with pure value:

So you can see having some values to separate different elements helps, but honestly I think I prefer it desaturated lol. Still, it’s much better than the overly rendered hyper-contrast style that became popular a decade later.

The other big thing that’s different from what I’m used to in manga is the large amount of narration accompanying panels, typically but not always first-person. This is apparently something Alan Moore is responsible for establishing with V for Vendetta. I think the potential drawback with this approach is that your eyes may go straight for the text boxes, and skip the drawings entirely.

There are absolutely good sequences though, such as when Buddy and his friend the physicist

Despite these small complaints, the art generally works very well. Where it gets interesting is later in the comic when things start to get very meta, so you get a character’s deterioriation represented by using unfinished art (sketches or uninked drawings), and later messing with the formal elements like panel borders. There’s a sequence where a highly advanced Buddy fights an evil version of Superman from another timeline during a massive reality breakdown provoked by a character who is aware of all the discarded storylines and timelines in the DC universe and wants to save them, and thus you get pages like this:

Animal Man’s villains are rarely ever especially villainous, and the tone of a lot of the earlier stories is Buddy finding out about the situation and trying to prevent a tragic outcome and usually failing. Morrison used the comic to some degree to soapbox for animal rights, with early arcs dealing with animal experimentation labs and sadistic dolphin hunters. At one point he even pops by the UK to help out some hunt sabs. But it’s more using this as a source for stories than something purely didactic, and leans into conflicts like Buddy’s ambivalence when his ecoterrorist allies kill a firefighter during an attack on an animal lab as part of a broader arc of his life going to shit; he is, superhero or not, just one man who gets swept up in larger events most of the time.

Speaking of larger events, Morrison’s run on Animal Man coincided with one of DC’s periodic massive crossover events called uhh (*looks up*) Invasion!. Basically a bunch of aliens show up, so Buddy’s helping fight them; then off-screen a ‘gene bomb’ goes off which scrambles Buddy’s powers. (This also played into Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol, which I’m still reading at the moment, so more on that in the future!) The storylines associated with this event - one about an alien artist who wants to terraform the Earth, the other about a washed-up suicidal supervillain - are both good, and ‘aliens show up’ is really not far outside the usual sort of things that happen in Animal Man, but it’s funny that Grant Morrison, at the time ‘just’ an up-and-coming new writer at DC comics, is now probably the only reason that this whole event is still remembered in 2022.

Anyway, let’s get into the metafiction stuff. The story is full of DC deep cuts, and Morrison seems to be very interested in how fictional characters are constructed, how they relate to their readers, how their stories are affected by the outside world...

The first movement in this direction is the story about Wile E. Coyote, which sees him rebel against God for creating a life of ceaseless violence for cartoon animals - only to be punished by incarnating him as a werewolf in the real world. Over the course of that story, Wile E. Crafty is run over, shot, crushed, and blown up, becoming a kind of Jesus-like figure whose suffering is supposed to save the animals. It’s a wonderfully batshit idea, and it works well in context - apparently this comic sold like mad so Morrison was encouraged to take it further. Animal Man’s role in this story - as in quite a lot of stories - is to witness Crafty’s death.

Thus over the course of Animal Man, we encounter a pair of aliens who find that the general trends in comic writing of the day - the emphasis on more complex characterisation for example - is increasingly straining the fabric of fictional reality...

The aliens stage an intervention to try and use Buddy’s memories to repair the timeline (or something??), but this ends up unleashing more chaos down the line, as more and more characters start attaining a fourth-wall breaking awareness. The next arc sets up some unexplained weirdness: a strange ghostly figure of Buddy attempts to communicate with his family, while meanwhile we’re introduced to the character of Highwater, a Native physicist who’s drawn into the mystery of an Arkham Asylum patient who seems to (for our outside eyes) have fourth-wall breaking knowledge.

So after the incident with the aliens, Buddy meets up with Highwater, and they go into the desert and have a peyote trip which leads to some fun imagery, hero gets power up. Meanwhile, government/corporate goons kill Buddy’s family. He gets back, and we find out the cause of the ghostly Buddy: distraught, he tries to time travel back to save them, but when his means of time travel doesn’t make that possible. The guy from Arkham Asylum meanwhile summons a bunch of DC characters from various discarded storylines and alternate universes; the aliens intervene, and Highwater ends up sealing it all off again, in the process becoming a mute Arkham inmate.

Buddy demands answers from the aliens, but they peace out; nevertheless he finds a strange door which takes him to a metafictional plane where he can - much like good old Crafty! - go and demand explanation from his creator. He soon finds discarded fictional characters in a realm where nothing can form stories, and is given a dying monkey with a typewriter that’s writing the comics script, and instructed to carry the monkey to the mythical city of ‘Formation’. (So I guess it’s still kind of animal related!)

But like all the other people Buddy couldn’t save, the monkey dies, and his journey takes him back to the start. After all this he finally gets to meet Grant Morrison!

The final issue has Morrison talking to both Buddy and the reader - giving acknowledgements, telling the story of their childhood imaginary friend Foxy, and explaining the craft of comics-making to Buddy and musing on the differences between comics life and real life.

Which is a fun little dialogue, because while it is drawing our attention to the constructed and arbitrary nature of everything in the story, it also at the same time has to function as a story. Buddy’s reactions - panicked incomprehension, questioning - have to continue to feel natural. Even though the comic is turning to us and saying ‘this man is fake’, it does its level best to cue us to think he’s real.

I like metafiction, but after you’ve handled the ‘character discovers they’re fictional’ scene, you need to figure out what it’s actually for. In this case, it’s part of the comic’s general theme of powerlessness and futility. Here’s the key page:

...which literally leads to a panel where Morrison turns to the camera and tells you to join PETA, something that hasn’t aged especially well. Morrison agonises a bit over why we use real death and suffering as entertainment - why they’d think about using their own cat’s death as material for this story - and then leaves, resurrecting Buddy’s family on the final panel.

So! Long summary over (thanks for bearing with me, I wanted to get it all straight in my head).

At this point, ‘fictional characters discover they are fictional’ is a pretty heavily done narrative, so you have to have some kind of very strong reason to use the device. I think that was way less true in the 80s - Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winters night a traveler was only published ‘79 after all!

In this case, its use is to provide a little reflective monologue on 1. living in a cruel and nihilistic world, in contrast to fictional characters who have a creator they can confront 2. Morrison’s position as an outside writer being pulled into the vast machine of the DC universe. Their intervention is... an interesting kind of critical, seeking to update rather than simply write out dubious past storylines, so the story acts as a kind of critical commentary on its predecessors. This is most apparent in one storyline which sees the old character B’wana Beast, a Tarzan-like figure who gets animal powers from a special helmet and is known as the ‘White God’, passing on his powers to a Black anti-apartheid activist. A lot of others simply deal with nostalgia, getting older, the world moving on and becoming more complicated.

Morrison describes their final storyline as an anticlimax. Which like... on the one hand, how could it possibly be? Buddy has uncovered the truth that no character in the setting can know. But on the other hand, by heavily emphasising everything is arbitrary, it does indeed dismantle the tension; there is no way it could be anything other than a final storyline.

Buddy spends much of his narrative under Morrison being unable to do more than stand by as terrible things happen around him. He tries extremely hard to be caring and empathetic, and this is often appreciated but rarely enough to save anyone. In the end he ‘realises’ that ‘he’ has even less power than that - he’s just an instrument of Morrison and whichever next writer (who would apparently choose to turn it into a story about quantum mechanical weirdness, but I stopped at the end of Morrison’s run) so not only are his efforts futile, even his motivation is also not under his control. All pretty solid as far as ‘pseudo-existential’ stories (in Buddy’s words) go.

And yet, as Morrison notes in their conversation, ‘Buddy’ will likely outlive Morrison themselves. To elaborate on that, we can see the figure of ‘Buddy’ conjured in our minds by the prompt of this book lasting as long as it continues to be printed, read, and iterated on - a meme, egregore, etc. etc.. This is the very hollow form of ‘life’ given to dead people who pass into memory, but it isn’t nothing; to create a character who’s not forgotten is quite an achievement.

Morrison’s theme of limited, even disabled characters for whom things never seem to go quite right is the whole impetus of Doom Patrol, so I guess I’ll pick up this thread when I finish digesting that one. Even so early in their career, they’re a very witty writer with a real knack for coming up with compelling, thematic scenarios and convincing characterisation. (Morrison had been writing comics in the UK for 5-6 years before that, so it’s hardly like this is the first time they wrote for a comic, but they were still younger than me at the point they began Animal Man.)

All in all, Animal Man is a compelling story that still holds up very well in 2022. If you want to read it, ComicExtra has the most complete collection of scans I found - scroll down to the 30th anniversary deluxe edition, which is annoyingly uploaded in reverse order.

Next up we’ll be doing a manga! I recently caught up with the absolutely delightful Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirohama, and I can’t wait to dig into all the brilliant techniques she’s using in the art of this manga. See you then.

[christinebrailsford]

Custom 8’0” Stubbie Squash with a dusty lavender tint and wet sanded gloss for Doug! . . #furrowsurfcraft #furrowstubbiesquash https://www.instagram.com/p/CnPcJGgpNzj/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=