#and only because ben and co. wanted to do it and through no help of wb

[batfleckgifs]

BEN AFFLECK THE ACCOUNTANT 2 ‧ 2025

[losers-clvb]

p*rnstar // soldier boy

summary: on camera, ben fucks you like he hates you, because he does.

content: smut, honestly too many warnings to list, proceed with caution

word count: 5.1k

note: please god let me into heaven.

masterlist

----

“Together, as a united front, we can work toward an equal future. Again, a special thanks to Vought and Mr. Soldier Boy-,”

“Ben is alright, sweetheart.”

Of course the son of a bitch couldn’t keep his mouth shut through the end of your speech. And that little pet name? How fucking demeaning was that when you had reminded him many, many times to not call you that. You tried to hide the annoyance you immediately felt ping through you, thankful for the intense media training you had gone through.

“Thank you to Vought and Ben,” you let the name slip out dripping with venom disguised as honey, “for contributing their time and money to this cause.” You smiled out at the crowd of women and children alike.

“Oh, it’s no bother. I love the ladies!” Ben leaned into the podium, hand sliding against your hip to keep you from stumbling. You wouldn’t have stumbled if it weren’t for him pushing you over, but you couldn’t do much about that in the moment. You hid the elbow jab you gave him. The blow was met with a dazzling smile from Ben.

You hated the way the crowd laughed and cheered at him. Could they not remember how just a month ago you were seething at the misogynistic nature of the man? He hadn’t changed that quickly, despite the story Vought was trying to spin. They had all but threatened you to allow Soldier Boy to co-host your rally. Though, your final breaking point had been the very generous donation to your charity for domestic violence survivors.

You had been under the impression that Stan Edgar had Soldier Boy on a tight leash. The truth, to your displeasure, was the complete opposite. Ben practically ran the place, walking Edgar like a dog any chance he could. You were quick to fight back with him, but the murderous look he would give you back made you shut up before anything truly bossy came out.

“I hope to see you all again! Long live the American spirit!” You called out before yanking your body from Ben’s hold. You managed to keep your storming reined in until you were back into the lobby of the hotel you were staying in. You huffed out a pissed off breath and stepped into the elevator. Forcefully pushing the button for your floor, you caught a glimpse of Ben sauntering his way toward you.

“Oh, hell no.” You mumbled, clicking the “close door” button so many times you were sure it would break. The doors were so close, barely an inch of space between them, when he stuck his hand to stop them.

“No.” You said, glaring at him. He only smirked back at you and let the doors close with him inside.

“You’re a bitch, you know that?” Ben asked. You couldn’t help the small gasp that fell out.

“You’re a fucking dick.” You seethed, staring at the screen with the floor numbers. The elevator was moving far too slowly. You wished you had a floor closer to ground level, but that was frowned upon by security.

“Woah there, sweetheart!” Ben exclaimed, turning to you. “Your loyal bunch of sheep know you speak like that?”

“Shut up.” You were tempted to hit a button for a closer floor and climb the stairs the rest of the way.

“I’d bet all you need to get that attitude out is a good fucking.”

You whipped your head to him, looking at him like he was crazy. He had a challenging look in his eye, like he was waiting for you to take the bait. No. No way were you going to lower your standards just because it had been approximately ten months since your last orgasm.

“Yeah,” he chuckled out, eyes raking up and down your body. “You just need a nice, big cock in that mouth to keep it quiet.”

“Well, what a shame there isn’t any around.” You shot back. It was a weak argument. You had heard… rumors about his many hookups. He was well endowed and he knew it.

“Doll, if you wanted a peek you could’ve just asked. No need to come for a man’s dick size.” He locked his gaze onto the swell of your breasts. “I bet you’d look so fuckin’ pretty with cum painting that face.”

“You’re a damn pig.” You gritted out, your eyes lighting up with hate when you looked at him. His face shifted from cocky to full of pure rage. He was sick of your shit. He would have never let any other woman talk to him like that, but it was fun to mess with you. Until now, when he just wanted you to shut the fuck up. He grabbed your face in his hand, gripping it just enough to make you whimper.

“You talk to me like that again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” He spat out at you. You were watching him with wide eyes and, fuck, that fear he saw in them got him rock hard. He sniffed, the coke from earlier messing with the nerves in his nose. With that sniff came the overwhelming scent of arousal. He knew it wasn’t from him -- he had gotten used to his own scents.

“You fuckin’ whore, you like this.” He scoffed out, adjusting his grip on you. He wasn’t lying. Despite the strong, feminist persona you put on for your voters, you loved to be dominated. You wanted to be thrown around and marked up and degraded like an animal. You hadn’t ever admitted it aloud. The closest you had gotten to fulfilling your sexual desires was a small spank during a drunk hookup in college. You had managed to get yourself off during the comparatively vanilla sex, but you knew there had to be something better.

Ben was ready to give you that something better.

He smashed his lips into yours, the fingers that had once been digging into your cheeks loosening. You kissed back without really knowing why. You hated him. Maybe that’s why you were so into it.

Ben pushed you into the wall without breaking the kiss. He groped onto your breast, playing with the plush like it was his own personal stress ball. You moaned into his mouth.

The doors opened with a ding. He pulled away from you, but you had no time to catch your breath before he was grabbing onto a fistful of your hair.

“C’mon, slut.” He growled, dragging you along with him. You whined out. Your lipstick was smudged and the hair Ben didn’t have in his hand was tangled within itself. You looked a mess. Thankfully, the hall was empty.

Ben quickly unlocked and opened his hotel room before shoving you in front of him. You stumbled in, almost falling to the floor while he made sure to lock the door behind him. No one was getting in tonight.

“Get on your fuckin’ knees.”

The rush of finally getting what you needed distorted your thinking and you followed his orders. You fell to your knees, bracing yourself with your hands on your thighs. You remembered being in a similar position last Sunday at church. This was the opposite of holy, but Ben was going to have you screaming his name out like a prayer by the end of it.

You followed his movements as he walked further into the room, then past you. You missed the spark of an idea fly to him when his eyes landed on his smartphone.

“Eyes on the fuckin’ ground, sweetheart.” He demanded, waiting until you looked away to swipe up the device. He clicked around until, finally, he had the thing recording. He propped it up, right where he knew it would scan the entire room.

Satisfied with where this was going to get him, he turned on his heel, peeling off the top half of his supe suit. You dared to look up when you heard his movements and your eyes latched onto his abs.

“Did I tell you to look up?” He growled and grabbed your hair again, shoving your head to the floor. You whimpered and stayed like that, forehead kissing the floor, still on your knees. You heard a shuffling, then something soft being thrown. A sharp pang of your hair being pulled made you moan as Ben pulled you back up. You were panting out breaths when you came face to tip with his cock. It was hard and leaking precum already.

“Open that bratty mouth.”

You dropped your jaw and stuck out your tongue. Ben smirked at your willingness to get a cock in your mouth and shoved it right in. You gagged when his tip hit your throat. There was no warming up, no getting used to the length before it was being pounded into your mouth. You shut your eyes to keep you from crying at the sensation.

“Hey!” He snapped, slapping your face to get you to open your eyes. You didn’t need a mirror to know the skin was turning red. “You look at me when I’m in you.”

You immediately tried to speak, but choked around his dick.

“What was that?” Ben taunted, pulling your head back enough to let you try to speak before slamming back into your throat. He continued a few times before allowing you some air. You gasped in a breath.

“Yes daddy.” You choked out, throat raw from the constant abuse.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Ben used his thumb to collect the few tears that had fallen, then shoved the digit into your mouth. You sucked up the salty taste, taking his thumb in to the knuckle. “I’m your fuckin’ daddy.”

He pulled his thumb out and replaced it with his dick, continuing his violent thrusts. You cried out in pleasure and let him take what he wanted. Drool spilled out of your mouth, soaking your blouse. You kept your eyes on his the entire time.

He watched you with a wicked smile on his face. Pure hate and lust dripped in his eyes, making you want to look away. You didn’t dare move your eyes, even when he held your head down for a longer amount of time, his length slipping down your throat. You gagged and brought your hands up to his thighs to ground yourself. Your manicured nails dug into his leg. Thanks to his durability, you didn’t break skin.

“Givin’ your mouth a proper job.” Ben groaned when your tongue ran across a vein. You hummed in response, agreeing with him in your submissive state. He yanked your head back again, listened to you huff for air, then shoved you right back into it. He pushed you down hard and held you, running his tongue across his teeth when he felt you fighting back. You strained against him, willing your eyes to stay on his.

When he spilled into your throat, you were thankful. He had gotten what he wanted and you could look back on this moment later with your hand between your legs. He shifted your head back, bending down to get closer to you.

“Open.”

You did as he asked, showing him that, yes, you had in fact swallowed all of his cum. He smiled proudly.

“Good slut.” He patted your cheek. It had some bite behind it, not as much as the earlier slap, but just enough to make a sharp breath fall out of you. You waited for him to tell you to get out, to shove you out into the hall with spit covering your chin.

He wasn’t finished with you yet.

“Get the fuck up.” He growled and wrapped a hand around your throat, dragging you to your feet. All pride was gone from his eyes. He was angry again and ready to show you just how much power he had over you.

You were standing on shaky legs, half from the way he had pulled you up and half from how wet it was making you. You looked up at him, the height difference giving him more power. He flicked his eyes down to your soaked chest. The light fabric of your blouse had gone sheer.

Faster than you could process, he pulled it apart, buttons flying in every direction. He forced it off of your arms. He brought himself down to your level, arms wrapping around your waist to keep you from wiggling away. You felt a flash of pain that quickly melted into pleasure. He had bitten down on your shoulder. There wasn’t any blood, but you were sure the indent of his teeth would linger.

“I can tear you apart with my teeth.” He grumbled against your skin, almost threatening to do it. You were ready to speak, but he bit down again, this time on one of your breasts, pulling the cup of your bra down. Your hands shot to his biceps and he chuckled darkly. “Your blood would taste so damn sweet.”

You moaned out with another bite. It was almost directly on top of the last, only tilted slightly to the side. This was unlike anything you had felt before. The sting of the bite woke you up but the pleasure directly after made you melt. You were already grieving the end of this, not because you would miss Ben, but because no other person would ever know about your list of kinks. It was too risky to just give out.

Ben sank down your body until he was on his knees. Somehow, it didn’t give you any sense of power over him. His face was level with your stomach, level with the vital organs that lay under the skin. If he really wanted to, he could have ripped through the skin and killed you right there.

“I’ll have to settle for this pussy.” He pulled your pants down on one side, exposing your hip before he bit it. You could see the damage now. Sure enough, the skin indented in a perfect cast of his teeth, glowing an angry red. You nearly lost it at the sight, a moan escaping when your legs collapsed under you.

“Fuckin’ pain whore.” He let you fold over his shoulder while he shimmied your bottoms off, pulling your underwear along the way. He stood with you still draped over him, your heels falling from your feet with a thump. You gripped onto his ribcage out of fear of him dropping you. You liked the biting, but a concussion may be too much.

He dropped you on the bed like you were a bag of flour. You tried to catch yourself with your hands, but the force still knocked your head to the sheets. His fingers trailed up your leg, but instead of landing on your core, they continued up. You whined when he grazed against a nipple, the sensitive bud already hard. He brushed two fingers along your jawline and you held your breath. This was soft, nothing like the animal who was marking you just a few minutes ago.

Smack

Your head turned to the side with the blow. You cried out, but the same fingers that had caressed you held a tight grip on your chin, making you shut up. Ben yanked your head back to facing him.

The sneer on his face when he pushed into your mouth made a noise whistle out from your throat. His fingers dug deeper, covering themselves in your saliva. You gagged when they hit your gag reflex, though you should have been used to something in your mouth by that point.

He quickly pulled his fingers from your mouth and moved them between your legs. He spread your spit into your folds, circling your clit with his middle finger. It wasn’t really needed. You were already soaked, practically dripping, from everything that had happened beforehand. You shifted your hips in hopes of getting more friction on you, but the movement was met with a slap on your clit. You squeaked out, making him snort a laugh.

“You really are a filthy fuckin’ whore, you know that?” He smacked down again, pulling a louder noise from you. “I’ve never seen a pussy get this fuckin’ turned on with a few smacks.”

You didn’t have the brainpower to tell him it was more than a few smacks that had gotten you to this point. You clenched your hands into fists with another hit, trying your hardest to not move. You just wanted him to touch you. God, maybe he was right; you really did need a good fucking.

“Mmm, just like that.” He hummed when he stuck two fingers into you, causing you to clench down with his words. He pumped his fingers in and out of you, curling them in just the right way to get you mewling.

“Doesn’t feel this good with your own, does it? No,” he chuckled again, “you needed a real man to get in here and wreck this pussy. Not one of those sniveling, ‘feminist’ pussies your generation calls men.”

He dropped his head to wrap his lips around your clit, suckling on it. You couldn’t bother to respond to him, head thrown back in ecstasy. You were already growing close to your release, far faster than you knew possible for yourself. He laughed into you, causing another moan to fall out.

“Who fuckin’ owns this pussy?” He asked, thumb taking his lips place on your clit. You huffed out, trying to find a way to answer, but his ministrations on you clouded your mind. When you didn’t spit out a reply, he smacked your clit again.

“Fuckin’ answer.”

You sucked in a breath, swallowing down another moan.

“B-Ben.” You stuttered out.

Smack

“Try again.”

“S-,” he curled his fingers up into your g-spot, cutting you off. You groaned.

Smack

“Spit it out.”

“Soldier Boy.” You rushed out. You hadn’t forgotten about calling him ‘daddy’ before, but you had forgotten how much he had liked it. You thought this would be the right answer, his supe name to give him the sensation of real power everywhere.

Smack

“Dumb fuckin’ whore. Get it right or you’re not comin’ tonight.” He dropped back down to swirl his tongue around your clit. You pushed your fists into the mattress underneath you, arching your back.

“Daddy…?” You finally bit out, but it came as more of a question. You waited for the next hit, but what you got instead was so much better. He picked up the pace of his fingers, licking through your folds and over your clit.

“Good girl.” He muttered into your pussy. You felt yourself push over the edge, falling into your release. He smiled against you when he felt it.

“Daddy owns this pussy.” He proclaimed while pulling himself up. You were panting on the bed, body relaxed and mouth slightly open. He pushed the fingers he had used into your mouth, making you taste yourself. Your eyes fluttered shut while you took them in and his other hand found its way to cradle the back of your head.

“She tastes good, yeah? Like fuckin’ honey.”

You moaned in response. A string of spit connected his fingers and your lips when he took them back, eventually breaking and falling to rest on your chin. You were feeling euphoric now. You had gotten the best fingering of your life, though you weren’t going to ever tell him that. With the smirk on his face, he already knew it.

You shifted yourself onto your hands, shuffling your way off the bed. You were going to have to make the walk of shame to your room. Thankfully, it was just down the hall. You hoped there wouldn’t be much security, then remembered if there were, they had heard everything. You looked around the floor for anything to cover yourself.

Ben walked up behind you and you nearly melted back into him when he kissed your neck. His hand snaked around you to grab one of your breasts, thumb flicking across the nipple.

“Did I say we were fuckin’ done?” He growled into your ear before picking you up with just the one arm. You sucked in a breath before he shoved you face-first into the duvet, ass up. You turned your head to the side, facing the desk. You saw his phone, propped up suspiciously. You narrowed your eyes and tried to bring yourself up, but his hand pushed your head back down just as he entered you.

You cried out at the stretch. It felt so fucking good.

He didn’t pause to let you acclimate to him, instantly pounding into you. Your hands shot out to grip the sheets. You needed something, anything to keep you focused. Your brain was quickly shifting into shut down mode, the imaginary percentage ticking down with every thrust.

“You’re such a fuckin’ whore, you’d take every fuckin’ load right in here.” His fingers found your clit, rubbing it for a few moments before he gripped your hips with both hands. You moaned and squeezed around him.

“You’d let me knock you right up.” He chuckled. “Fill you with so much fuckin’ cum that you’d be drippin’ for days.”

You fought to keep your eyes open. If you closed them, if you took your eyes off of the cell phone practically winking at you, you would forget everything. Was he fucking filming this? If so, why?

Smack

He hit your ass, making you whine. His hand lingered, soothing the skin.

“Yeah, I know you fuckin’ like that.” He slid his hand from your ass to your back, putting pressure on the middle of your spine. Your upper body pressed into the mattress, bending your back in a way you didn’t know possible. Ben was practically on top of you now, pounding into you at a relentless pace. Your eyes fluttered shut for a second before you opened them back up.

“You wanna walk around like that? With my cum in ya? Shake hands with the president while I’m seeping out of you?”

You gasped out a breath when he dug his hips into yours. You couldn’t hold yourself up anymore. Your fists released the sheets and relaxed out. Ben noticed your lack of strength and chuckled.

He wrapped an arm around your torso and pulled you up, holding your back against his chest. His thrusts didn’t slow the entire time, making you moan. His hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing down just enough to still allow you some oxygen.

“Mmm,” he hummed, nipping at your neck, “who owns this pussy?” He asked again, whispering into your ear.

“Daddy.” You moaned, holding your eyes open halfway.

“Say it again.”

“Daddy,” you breathed out, eyelids drooping a bit more. Your eyes were slits now, but you still had them open. You still had some of your thoughts.

“Again.” He growled. He was fucking with you now. He knew you were close to being brainless, and he loved to hear it all.

“Da-,” you mumbled, but your eyes finally closed when his cock hit your g-spot.

“C’mon, baby, I know you can say it.” He taunted, slamming his hips up. He knew that you couldn’t, but God did he savor every sputter of noise from you. You were completely incoherent. You couldn’t think of anything but him driving into you.

“What, too dumb to talk?” He asked, voice full of faux sympathy. You couldn’t bring yourself to answer, the only noise coming from you being your whimpers and heavy breaths.

“Mmm, so much better like this, sweetheart. Keepin’ that bratty mouth shut.”

He felt your body shiver with your incoming orgasm. He tightened his grip on your throat, grunting at his tightening balls. A noise, part scream, part moan, tore from your throat when you came, your body going numb after you came down from it. Ben smirked as he poured into you, fucking up into you a few more times to keep his cum inside you.

He let you fall to the bed, a hand still holding your hips up while he pulled out of you. He sniffed, that nerve acting up again, and walked to his phone with a victorious expression. He had gotten exactly what he needed to destroy you, but for an extra cherry on top, he snatched up his phone and brought it over to your wrecked body.

You were laying on your side, body completely limp. He directed the camera over you, scanning every inch of your body. It was all there; the bites, your messed-up makeup, fingerprint-shaped bruises on your hips. And finally, the real star of the show, your puffy core dripping his release out.

“So fuckin’ pretty like this.” He mumbled just enough for the video to catch as he wiped up the escaping cum with two fingers before shoving it back inside. He ended the recording, throwing the phone into a nearby armchair.

Ben settled into bed next to you, back leaning against the headboard while he puffed away at a joint. He wasn’t technically supposed to smoke in the hotel room, but who was going to stop him? Surely not you, who had curled up next to his thigh and fallen into sleep, your body spent. He smirked at the sight, bringing his hand to brush hair out of your face.

“Fuckin’ whore.” He bit out, face twitching into a sneer before he slid down to sleep beside you.

----

“So fuckin’ pretty like this.”

Ben’s voice rang out from the speakers. You swore out, looking down at the tiles of the floor.

“Turn it off.” You demanded, pacing the floor. Your finger was stationed between your lips, teeth biting away at the nail.

“That was all of it, ma’am.” Your PR agent spoke out, earning her a sorrowful look. You had sat through the whole thing slack-jawed, flinching a few times. You had remembered that night -- how could you forget? -- but you hadn’t know it would be forever memorialized on video. You definitely didn’t know that it would be leaked to every fucking media outlet who would take it.

The morning after, you had woken up bleary-eyed to an empty room. Your ripped clothing hadn’t even been left behind, courtesy of Ben, you assumed. You had made a quick call to the only person you could trust -- your best friend, Lindsay, who had come within the half-hour, despite being a good hour away.

You had vowed to keep everything that had happened secret, never to be discussed. Unfortunately, you had received a call just that next day, informing you that you had a brand-new tabloid headline written just for you:

Self-proclaimed ‘feminist’ congresswoman and her offensive kink?

Now you had to deal with a mix of your angry supporters and Soldier Boy’s incel fanboys sending you hate.

It was all a mix of emotions. Some thought you had lied about everything, all the equality you had fought for, and others -- the ones who had hated you before all of this -- degraded you for existing. You caught a few defending you, who applauded you for being able to get some good sex. A few claimed to wish they were you, though you don’t know if you would wish this situation on anyone.

You were freaking out. You paced the floor and felt the eyes of everyone in the room on you.

“Get that fucking asshole on the phone now.” You snarled. No one had to guess who you were speaking about. They knew you hated Soldier Boy, plus his smug face was still up on your computer screen.

“Ahh, movie star! Watched the film yet?” His voice rang out confident from the other side. You refrained from smashing the phone down.

“You fucking dick.” You seethed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t talk like that, sweetheart. We all know what happened last time you did.” He chuckled.

“Why?” You asked, and you knew he didn’t need any context for what you were asking. You weren’t his lover, you weren’t even his friend, but this, this was taking things to another level. You didn’t know he would play so dirty.

“I told you not to fuckin’ mess with me, bitch.” He growled into the phone before the line went dead. You waited a moment before placing your own phone down, fingers gripping the desk behind you. Of course his feelings were still hurt from your little speech about his harassment the month beforehand. You flexed your jaw before an idea popped into your head.

Your attention shot to your PR agent and she flinched, but a smile was breaking out across your face.

“Get Lindsay here, right now.”

----

“Baby, I love you so much!”

Ben’s voice cried out from your phone speakers. You were giggling away at the video, though you had already watched the thing at least a hundred times.

See, what Ben and all those other assholes in his team failed to know about was the weapon you held in your grasp. It wasn’t a gun, not a knife either. It was all so simple; a shapeshifter.

Your best friend Lindsay was a B-grade supe, a fact hidden from pretty much everyone. She couldn’t hold the form for longer than an hour, but you didn’t need longer than that to get your work done.

It took no convincing to get her to shift into Ben and get into bed with you -- you were very close with each other --, where you two made your own movie; Ben sobbing when he came. Then came his own headline:

Soldier Boy and high-profile congresswoman in love??

It wasn’t as scathing as yours, but you knew it would hit his fragile ego in just the right way, maybe even knock a few of his fans out of their obsession. You had no qualms about sharing this video with the world. He had started this war; you were trying to end it.

The second before he cried the words out again, the video paused with an incoming call.

“You bitch!”

“Baby, I didn’t know it was gonna be a double-feature!” You smiled with the words, listening to his breathing quicken in anger.

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you. You hear me? You’re fuckin’ dead!”

“Ah, ah,” you tutted, throwing a condescending tone on, “that’s no way to talk to your girlfriend.”

It was really more of Vought’s idea. They thought it would be appropriate given the circumstances for you two to be a couple, at least for the rest of your campaign. They knew there was no getting rid of you, and if they didn’t agree to this, you would smear them and Soldier Boy through the mud.

“This means nothing. Watch your fuckin’ back, bitch.” Ben growled.

“Love you too, sweetheart.” You purred out the pet name before hanging up.

When he saw you again, the sex was just as good, if not better, than the first time.

[safination]

Masterlist

|ao3 link here|

The universe you will read from Hazbin Hotel/ Helluva Boss all belong to Vivziepop. I have no legal claim over her story. This work of fanfiction will closely follow canon to the best of its ability.

Partners in Death...and Life

Summary :After a seven-year absence, you find the man you were married to in life, not only back in town, but also helping . . . *checks notes* . . . the Princess of Hell run a hotel aimed at rehabilitating sinners who were sent to the bad place for a reason.

|Part 1: Radio's Not Deadl |Part 2: Radio Will Be Dead if He Doesn't Explain Himself| |Part 3: Not Everything You Hear From The Radio Should be Trusted| |Part 4: The Radio Stars’ Co-host Just Wants To Do The Dishes| |Part 5: Glimpse of Me and You: Part I| |Part 5: Glimpse of Me and You: Part II| |Part 6: Radio’s Last Broadcast| |Part 7: Me and You in Eternity| |Part 8: The Calm Before the Fall| |Part 9: The Vow That Binds Me| [Finale]| |Part 10: After The Glimpse [Bonus]|

The Competitors

|The Wrong Competitor|

TLDR: The Hazbin Hotel decides to hold a masquerade party. Despite his better judgment, Alastor sends an invitation to his wife even if he’s aware of Vox’s attendance, who’s keen on competing with Alastor for his wife’s attention….If only Alastor knew how much you and Vox would gag at the idea of him flirting with you. It’s not his wife’s attention that Vox competes for. It’s not even Alastor who he’s competing with. Actually… Alastor isn’t part of the competition.

|The Actual Competitor|

TLDR: Why is Alastor competing with his wife for his best friend’s affection? Actually, why is he competing with his wife? What’s even weirder is that…it seems Alastor will also have to compete with his best friend for his wife’s affection. + A fluffy lazy morning because I say so.

For Your Heart

Harana – a traditional form of courtship done during the night where men will go to someone’s window with an instrument, usually a guitar, along with some of his friends to sing. TLDR: Sometimes all you need is a guitar and a song to catch hearts…and well, Alastor has a guitar and a voice perfect for singing. The beginning, the middle, the end, and the new beginning with a guitar and a song (feat. Ben&Ben) |Part 1: The Beginning| |Part 2: The Middle| |Part 3: The End| |Part 4: The New Beginning|

Alastor |Smell of Rain Through The Window Pane|

TLDR:  Acid rain stings, and destroys everything it touches. Still, Alastor decides that it’s a good day for a walk because fate made him your husband. So, surely fate would find a way for him to hand you this umbrella because you always seem to forget to bring one. Alastor will find a way to hand you an umbrella, even with the deal preventing you from seeing him.

|The Second Time Around|

TLDR: Alastor prides himself in being a gentleman, yet here he is now, living with his not-really wife but still his wife without rings around your fingers. It’s time he changed that.

|Darling, I'm an Overlord|

TLDR: Alastor's worried you'll be late for dinner, but he promised to be patient, and such control deserves an award [Suggestive]

|Smoke and Shadows|

TLDR: Someone is bothering you. Alastor intervenes.

|The Tell|

TLDR: It's been seven years since you've last seen Alastor, and here he is pretending he doesn't have a tail that tells you how happy he is to see you

|The Only Temptation| |My Sweet Temptation|

TLDR: Alastor's rut is being drawn out by a doe who is definitely not you, but weirdly enough or not so weirdly enough, he only seems to crave you.

|Mistletoe Deal|

After seven years, Alastor finally decides to show himself to you. He can't stay for very long, but maybe a deal underneath the mistletoe could buy you a night with him, and him alone

Adam

|Brining The Rain To You|

TLDR: It doesn't rain in Heaven, but sometimes all you need is that one, special person, and maybe, fake rain isn't so bad after all.

|Sweet Sinner O' Mine|

TLDR: Adam finds you with a guitar, and some bonding ensues. Also, size difference.

|Mother of Mine|

TLDR: After Alastor's death, you find a young child. Cold and frightened, maybe you'll find a family together.

|Little Things|

TLDR: There are days when Alastor just doesn't want to be touched, and you totally understand that. You're on your best behavior to not touch Alastor. Surely, with such an attentive partner, no misunderstanding will occur.

|You, Me. and These Idiots|

TLDR: It’s cold, and Alastor has blankets to spare.

|Our Little Adventure|

TLDR: Car ride to destination unknown

|A Moment to Worship|

TLDR: Alastor received a pretty, new scar from his battle. As someone intimately familiar with every single expanse of his skin, you'll just have to introduce yourself.

|Big Four Edition (❤️💙💚💛/ ❤️🦅🏹🐯) + One Extra|

[emberphoenixisgoingtolive]

Nublar Six's study habits

in honour of me hitting the halfway mark through my exams, here's how i think the nublar six would study and the grades they get!!

Darius:

extremely studious

studies in Kenji’s/Brand’s room. cannot focus without being in the proximity of another person

works almost to the point of burnout before Brand/his mother/one of the N6 drag him to a theme park or aquarium to unwind

tutors Kenji on science subjects despite being two grades younger than him (Darius is three grades ahead science wise)

hosts virtual study sessions with the others

makes very detailed flashcards (digitally because his handwriting is terrible)

gets mostly A–A* but probably a B or C student in sports

best subjects are the sciences, particularly biology, and maths. he is so good at stem subjects. nerd [affectionate]

Brooklynn:

never actually learned how to study in all her years of homeschool

studies at her kitchen table (her bedroom is her sleep space)

the others teach her how (except Kenji cos he has no clue how to study either)

learns extremely quickly and gets mostly As with a few Bs and A*s

one of those annoying people who are good at everything (Yaz hates it)

her best subjects are the humanities–type stuff (geography, history, religious studies, economics, life skills etc) and english

Yaz:

pretty studious; probably has the most consistent studying habits out of everyone

very used to studying in unusual places because of fitting studying in between all her track events (she’s studied in locker rooms more than libraries)

has weirdly small writing

usually studies by doing practise questions

has one (1) google drive folder where she keeps all her revision material

can Not be listening to music while she studies

mostly As, A* in sports (obvs), and a few Bs

overall good at everything except english. it’s her worst enemy. analysing literature texts makes her want to flip her desk.

Sammy:

decent at studying but only because she does everything she can to make it more fun

her notes are the prettiest notes you’ve ever seen

ratio of actual notes:random doodles about 50:50

writes in gel pen with big, loopy handwriting

highlighter all over her notes

listens to music or life beats while she studies

carries around every book under the sun, “just in case i need it!!” even if it makes her backpack weigh about 20 kilos (45 pounds)

usually gets Bs and a few As

best subjects are english (she helps tutor Yaz ofc) and other languages. she’s fluent in Spanish, she might as well take it for the easy A

Kenji:

hates studying. would honestly jump down the stairs to get out of an exam. has done so once or twice

also has to have someone else near him or he won’t focus

very reluctantly has to ask one of the Bowmans to sit with him while he studies (they are all more than happy to oblige)

usually studies in the kitchen while mama Bowman is making dinner or doing her own work or smth

mama Bowman was a pretty good student and i hc she has a healthcare job of some description so she could help Kenji with the sciences

used to be a C/D student but since living with the Bowmans he becomes a B/C student

Ben:

hates studying. hates school. writes detailed rants on why the school system is fundamentally broken instead of actually studying.

doodles Bumpy in the middle of class in his notebook and thinks about running around the jungle

has to be forced into studying by the others. Darius has to bully him over video call

if he has to study it’s outside. being indoors suffocates him

gets As in biology, bare minimum grades needed to study paleontology and otherwise does Not Care

best subject is biology. everything else he hates with a passion.

[sunny44]

What about us?

Pairing: Lewis Hamilton x ex!Reader

Warnings: mentions of loneliness, sadness, breakup, co-parenting and maybe more

Summary: Where Lewis hasn't been himself lately.

Next Chapter

Lewis and I met when I was working in the media department at Mercedes, I wouldn't say we fell in love at first, but he was definitely the guy I loved most in my life.

But unfortunately not everything we love stays in our lives forever.

We dated for 3 years and then when 2021 came, he was so devastated that the title was taken away from him that our relationship didn’t last.

He was so out of himself that u didn’t recognized him anymore, I seem like the man I love was taken away from me when he lost that day.

So that when we decided to go in separated ways.

But 3 months after i found out that u was pregnant with our daughter and we had to get our path together again. He said to me the day I told him about my pregnancy that I saved him for making the stupidest mistake of his life because he was about to retire from formula 1.

The internet already new that we weren’t together anymore but they just discovered my pregnancy when he posted about it.

We obviously will have a connection for the rest of our lives and I am extremely happy that we manage to be in good terms or co-parenting would have been harder.

I would be lying if I said it was easy because it wasn’t, the fact that we are separated makes Harley's schedule and routine harder than would be if we were together.

Today is Harley’s 3th birthday and I’m was going crazy with everything, she wanted a formula 1 themed party and it was all thanks to her father who got her addicted to the sport.

So here I was running around my apartment to decorate everything while she was with Sebastian and his wife.

Kika is here with Pierre and the other boys helping me with the party.

Lately he was kind of absent, he obviously came to see Harley but when I tried to talk to him, Lewis answered as little as possible and my messages he didn't even answer.

I had been trying to get him to help me with her birthday but now I was worried that he wouldn't come.

I hope he is only busy now in the afternoon because I will kill him if he doesn't show up.

We live in Monaco so some of the drivers came since they are all passionate about Harley.

This includes George, Pierre, Sebastian, Charles, Carlos, Daniel, Max and Lando.

Max and Lewis were not biggest fans of each other, far from it, but Benjamin his son was best friends with Harley so we met occasionally. And above all they treated each other with respect so we had an acceptable relationship for the sake of our children.

And Lewis hated that Harley adored Uncle Max.

The party had been going on for two hours and nothing came of him, I didn't know whether to be worried or angry.

"Mommy, where's Daddy?"

"I don't know my love, he should be here soon." She agrees a little discouraged but runs to where Ben and Max were.

"Anthony do you know where Lewis is?" I asked his father who was talking to my parents.

"I don't know darling, he said he would be a little late but he would come." I sighed in frustration. "I'll try to call him."

"Thank you."

He left to try to call his son and I went off to try to concentrate on distracting Harley with play.

…

He appeared in the middle of the party and I sighed with relief when I saw him coming through the door with Angela with him, Harley ran up to her father and I was happy to see her smile.

"How nice of you to come." I hugged Angela and she smiled.

"You've done well with the decorations." She said and I thanked her. "Can I talk to you? I want to take advantage of the fact that he's distracted by her."

I looked at the two of them and Harley was talking non-stop and he was listening attentively.

"Sure." We went into the kitchen where no one was around. "Is everything all right?"

"I'm not sure, I'm a bit worried about him."

"What happened?"

"I arrived at his apartment today and everything was a mess and he was asleep on the sofa." I was surprised because he rarely slept during the day and his apartment was always spotless. "I tried to talk to him but you know how he is, Lewis doesn't open up easily but he ended up saying that he wasn't happy and that he missed you both a lot."

"But we're always here."

"I think he misses a family." I sighed because I understood his feeling. "You know that he loves you both more than anything in the world and I remember when you were together he was planning to marry you, have children and have you live in a more secluded house so that you wouldn't be swallowed up by the media but from one moment to the next his plan became just a dream."

"I understand."

"And the only thing that's kept him going over the last few years is that little girl and the fact that you're her mother because that's what's kept you in his life. But he hasn't been the same for a while."

"I've noticed that he's been acting strange lately, he doesn't talk to me directly and avoids me whenever he can."

"Because he knows that you know him like the back of your hand and that you would know what was wrong with him." She takes my hand. "I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel guilty or anything, but I wanted to ask you to talk to him and try to help him in any way you can."

"All right, I'll talk to him after the party."

...

I said goodbye to the last few people and the only ones that were still around was Max, Ben and Lewis

"Buddy it's about time we go home." He says trying to talk the boy off the trampoline.

"Not yet Daddy, wait a little longer." He says short of breath from jumping around.

"If you don't mind I can take him to your apartment later."

"All right, thanks." He said goodbye and went home.

They kept jumping on the trampoline while Lewis was inside grabbing the trash.

After 10 minutes Bem said he was tired and i asked Lewis to watch Harley while I take him to his father and when I came back I could hear them in her room.

"I've missed you so much, Daddy." She says, already lying on her bed.

"I missed you too baby bear." She smiles tiredly and closes her eyes. He kisses her forehead and stays there for a few more minutes until he sees that she's asleep.

"Hey." He smiles as soon as he sees me outside her room. "I'm sorry I couldn't help, I got caught up with some work stuff."

He was lying but I knew it was juts for me not to worry about him.

"It's okay, I sorted it out." He smiled and went back into the living room. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Maybe because I know you better than you think." He sighs. "You don't have to tell me what it is, but I want you to know that I care about you."

"It's just that everything's been a bit too much lately."

"What do you mean?"

"The constant pressure at work, the media, the fact that I'm not there for you two every day. Everything." He turns to me. "I just don't know how much I can take anymore."

"Lewis..."

"I miss you, and I miss us, I miss Harley and this feeling that I'm good at what I do has been haunting me."

"But you are good."

"Apparently not so much because I can't even stand on the podium." I sighed. "I don't expect you to understand but I don't think I want to do this anymore."

"What do you want to do then?" He looks at me. "You know that Harley and I don't care if you're a driver or not, we care about you too much to worry about whether you're still in Formula 1 or not."

"It's just that I've lived this for so long that I just wish I could be with you every day without worrying about having to catch a flight to the other side of the world."

"I understand and I'll support you in whatever you decide.

"Thank you." I sat down on the sofa and nudged him to sit next to me, which he did, resting his head on my shoulder. "You know I love you, don't you?"

"I know, I love you too."

"But I love you in a way that..."

"I know, and I love you the same way." He looks at me. "I understood what you meant from the start."

"And what does that mean for us?"

"I don't know but we don't need to find out today, we have plenty of time." He smiles and we lie down on the sofa.

Bonus scene!

Yourusername instagram post

Liked by @lewishamilton, @susiewolf, @cherlesleclerc and others 293629

@yourusername I still can believe my baby is turning 3 years old today.

I’m so happy that I’m your mama and that I’m able to watch you grow and turn into this beautiful little girl.

I can’t imagine my life without you and I’m grateful for having you in my life.

Thank you @lewishamilton for making me a mama and for giving me the best gift anyone could ever give me.

Happy birthday sweet girl, mama loves you so much 🩵.

Comments have been disabled

Guys I have so many ideias for another chapters of Lewis being Harleys dad so if you guys want to read the next chapters let me know so I’ll tag you guys.

[randomthefox]

Oh my God fauxteurs never change. Years pass, video games explode in popularity as a medium, and yet, somehow, their underlying attitude of "We don't need to play the games because we're Making Art(tm)" still remains. Why are they like this in the year of our Lord 2025???

Worse, why do people keep letting them get away with it? Wouldn't you be embarrassed to publicly announce "Yeah, I never went back to check with the source material, my own memory (which is faultless, even when I'm stressed out from deadlines and there are now more ways of playing video games than ever) is good enough substitute, w/e"?

That interview you just posted is giving me flashbacks to Ben Hurst and co's. excuses for why they changed so much of the source material for their show. Apparently anyone creating for this series who is over the age of 40 is physiologically incapable of borrowing their kids' game console for one afternoon. It's the only explanation that makes sense.

How long does it take a newbie to play through Sonic 1? A couple hours? A day? A week, maybe? Even if they were completely bad at the game and couldn't beat it in time, couldn't they have just watched a Let's Play on their lunch break or something?

The fact that they took this approach to their SA2-inspired film as well is an extra slap in the face because SA2 is already misremembered and misinterpreted enough as it is. Stuff like this just gives people the impression that SA2 isn't a worthy game on its own merits; that it's only good for hollow vibes and fanservice. Lo and behold, guess what happened to the third film!

"What did we already remember moreso than going back and playing?"

You know that saying about how you could accomplish more if you spent the same amount of time just doing the thing as you did thinking about doing the thing? This is what this stuff reminds me of. Fauxteurs wouldn't need to hem and haw about remembering the game in perfect detail if they just actually sat down and played the goddamn game for an afternoon.

Jesus Christ Almighty, it's like Patrick and the lid. Play the game, Patrick. No, the game. The game, Patrick. Play the game you're adapting.

(...I'm also getting flashbacks to Bloober Team's head guy saying they would rely on their "perfect memory" of the game in order to make the SH2 remake. girl help)

It is absolutely insane how people have zero respect for Sonic as a franchise, and video games as a medium as a whole, that they'll defend the writers admitting that or even say that it was a good thing. I JUST GOT A FUCKING REPLY ON THAT POST FROM SOME SNOT NOSED LITTLE SHITHEAD PULLING THE "OH SO YOU WANT THE MOVIES TO BE ONE TO ONE WITH THE GAMES???" LINE ON ME BEFORE YOU SENT THIS. People LEGITIMATELY just HATE Sonic and that is why they think this shit is okay, or even laudable.

I say it again: IMAGINE the writers of a movie adapting a book said that shit. But because it's a movie based on a video game, it's fine. Because who even cares it's just a stupid video game anyway.

It makes me so legitimately angry not because they did it, not because they admitted it, but because the comment section is INUNDATED with people defending them or even praising them for it. That COMPLETELY FUCKING IGNORING THE VIDEO GAMES is a GOOD thing when making an adaptation of a video game.

Nobody would EVER say the shit they're saying about this movie is it was, like, a new Harry Potter movie or some shit. Imagine someone making a live action film out of Berserk and them saying "yeah I never read the manga, I'm just making this movie based off Vibes." It absolutely boggles the fucking mind that people think this shit is acceptable just because it's a video game.

And yeah that's the thing that always gets me. People always say something like that. "Oh I'm just going based off my memories. From what I can remember, this is what happened. If I recall correctly. Ect ect."

And I'm like that Louis CK skit about Pig Newtons.

I'M NOT EVEN USING MY MEMORY. I'M LOOKING AT THE FUCKING CUTSCENE. IT'S ON FUCKING YOUTUBE. FOR FREE. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU???

Writing a fucking adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 should be the easiest fucking job on the fucking PLANET. You can literally just look up the fucking game script online, copy and paste it into your word doc, slap it into your email and send it to the studio. JOB DONE, COLLECT YOUR PAYCHECK. The story ALREADY FUCKING EXISTS. Why do you even NEED to try and remember ANYTHING? Memory should not be a fucking factor the story was ALREADY FUCKING WRITTEN.

But naw. It's just Sonic. Who cares. What, do you expect the movies to be one to one with the video games or something? That'd be boring and dumb and you're stupid and an inferior sub human life form for wanting that. Shut up and eat your slop.

[deja-yu]

Co-workers - Choi San Chapter 2/3

Genre: mostly fluff (😈)

2.2K

Read chapter 1 here - Synopsis: San quickly becomes your work bestie but neither of you want to end up as 'just friends'

Checking yourself in the mirror you feel nervousness bubbling under your skin, it’s not like you were really close with anyone else in the office besides San. Though only Ben was really bugging you the others weren’t really nice or welcoming. And with the way San’s face soured last night when you brought it up didn’t reassure you at all. Speaking of San, your phone lights up with his caller ID, “Hello~ I was wondering if I could use the knowledge of knowing where you live to pick you up? I am just getting my car”. 

-

“Was it true what Wooyoung said? About the karaoke incident?” he remains silent but sends you a glare. Laughing, you poke at his reddening cheeks, “Have a drink with me! Wooyoung said you get silly drunk and I’m bored”. Offended he rolls his eyes at you, “I don’t and I’m not drinking, I still need to drive us home”. It makes you laugh even more, continuing to tease him as the colour on his cheeks darkens. But he is smiling at your antics, finding that you yourself get a little silly drunk. The conversation between you two has been hushed, sitting next to each other at the quiet side of the table, quiet because everyone else was huddled together on the other end playing a variety of games. It had surprised you that San’s words were true, you had finished half your plate when most of your co-workers words started to become slurred. “Hi Y/N?” you look away from San to find Ben leaning in from the seat across. You yourself might be slightly too buzzed to deal with this. So the way your face drops gets entirely missed by you (and Ben) but San snorts, looking away and hiding behind his hand at the reaction you had. “What?” you had lost your ability to be nice to him a drink or two ago. “I… did you want to... I live nearby” he is so dumb, that’s all you can think about right now. Anger slowly bubbling over your pot of patience, how many times were you going to have to say no before he gets it. “Leave me alone” clenching your hands to somewhat remain civil. San’s hands come to rest on top of yours, “If you don’t stop this I will help them report you to HR”. This does the trick Ben finally gets up to go back to his original seat, not before looking slightly surprised and then annoyed. A sigh of relief leaves you, “Thanks, I think I was close to getting my point across by punching him” San laughs “I could tell, but HR is a big threat especially if you have someone backing up your claim” smiling you feel butterflies as he pats your hand one last time before pulling away. “You want me to take you home?” nodding he hands you your coat and you both say goodbye which goes mostly unnoticed. You hesitate a bit, not sure if this would be brought up Monday but San tugs you along “They won’t remember trust me”. Following him back to his car you feel the tension of the worries you had for this night slide away.

Thanking San when he opens the door for you, you let out a big sigh of relief San chuckles before he closes the door after you. Once he takes his seat his hand taps your knee, “Can I treat you to some ice cream before I drive you home?”. The way you perk up at the offer makes his heart stutter for a moment, trying to ignore it by gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. 

Shifting slightly in his seat, the ride became silent once you joined the drive-thru line. You were content with watching through the window but San wasn’t doing so well next to you, glancing over from the corner of his eyes every now and then. Wondering if he should strike up conversation again or let you daze out the window some more. He could tell you were still a tipsy. Advancing in line, he was the first to break the silence. Asking what kind of ice cream you wanted. “Oh uhm…” squinting slightly you wondered why they would make the lettering the absolute smallest size possible. Without thinking you lean closer, hand coming with you to rest on the console between the seats, too bad San has to drive forward slightly and the sign is now next to him. In the effort to adjust accordingly you don’t realise you're not hovering over the console till your hand comes down on his thigh. Like touching hot coal you shoot back into your seat, “vanilla” San chuckles and ends it with a scoff, “You didn’t even look, hurry up and decide before we have to move again” giving him a look you lean forward again, this time making sure you put your hand on the console. But this night wasn’t going in your favour because San was looking with you at your hand, both lifting your head at the same time and for a moment sharing a breath. But San is quick enough to continue moving his head to the menu, you however linger a moment so he clears his throat and nods towards the screen. Face flushing you try and read the words but all your brain is focussed on is San and the words seem foreign. A honk behind you makes you jump slightly and San sucks his teeth in annoyance to the impatient car. You regain enough focus to read ‘snowmans desert’ and pick that with a rushed breath. San does raise his eyebrow at you while you take your seat again but drives up to the order station. 

“You alright?” he questions while continuing to queue for the pick up window. “Yeah! I just.. Am getting a little tired, the drinks are wearing off… sorry” you still feel a little groggy but it wasn’t a lie you were tired, he didn’t have to know that the longer you two spend together alone the bigger your crush on him was getting. He watches you for a moment, clearly thinking of a reply but another honk from behind notifies you two to move forward in line. You giggle at the annoyance washing over his features as he mumbles under his breath. He doesn’t have time to say what was on his mind as the window slides open and he receives two ice creams. One being two scoops in a cup and the other a plastic snowman cup, you could barely see the ice cream through the sprinkles and you just stare at it for a moment as you keep it in your lap. San stays composed for about 1 minute as he pulls out of the drive-thru before he starts laughing, “You didn’t look did you?” stammering you confess that you indeed did not, he just laughs harder “It was stressful!!” trying to defend yourself but you can’t help but smile as well at the silliness of getting a kids menu cup. 

The ice cream itself was still good so you have no further complaints. It takes a moment before you notice San struggling to drive and scoop the ice cream from his lap. “You want me to help?” Hands already reaching for the spoon. How you could barely keep it together while leaning over 10 minutes ago to now casually grabbing the ice cream from his lap and holding out a spoonful for him was making San’s head spin. With some hesitation he opens his mouth so you can feed him, giggling as he leans in slightly while keeping his eyes on the road. “You don’t mind?” he questions with a quick peek your way, “I usually keep the food when i am in the passenger seat, it’s the first time i’m spoon feeding someone though” he shakes his head while chuckling, “Oh I actually spoon fed lil kids before so it’s like that”. He laughs louder this time “Are you calling me a child?” humming you feed him another spoonful “A really big one”. A chokes slightly before swallowing “You're still drunk right?” instead of answering you just hold up your hand leaving the tiniest amount of space between thumb and pointer. 

-

San stops in front of the building and you hesitate a moment before turning to him, “Are you up for a movie?” he chuckles, reminding you of what you said before about being tired. “I know but I will just be bored by myself and I want to do something fun this weekend that doesn’t involve work” “Do I not remind you of work?” teasingly you look him up and down, “If you change into something else than a freaking suit for once I can work with it” scoffing he looks down at his outfit “This is business casual, I don’t even have a tie on” staring at him with a blank expression he starts pouting and mumbles another defence. “Alright, well the car park is right there if you change your mind, I have some sweats that should fit you” getting out the car as he chokes on air trying to get you to wait. By the time you press the elevator door San is knocking on the lobby door behind you. You walk in front of the sensor and laugh at how he is panting slightly “You’re so mean! There were only spots all the way in the back” a small pout on his lips as he says it.  

-

“You have to ignore the mess” kicking off your shoes as you say it before walking into your home, San follows behind. “I’m sure I have some stuff that would fit you. Just take a seat and I will be right back. Or do you want to shower?” he is looking around and when his eyes meet yours they crinkle as he smiles, “If it’s alright? I smell like the restaurant”. 

You can’t help but laugh when 15 min later San appears in your living room with the oversized clothes you got during an old work trip. “I’ll be quick, you can grab a drink if you want from the fridge or I made some tea” You point to the two cups on the coffee table, one empty the other still steaming. 

A quick shower later and you're on the couch going through the movies available. “Oh I have been wanting to watch this!” finding a newly added horror movie, “Didn’t want to watch it alone” turning to San he is chuckling “I don’t know if me being here will be of any help” With a tilt of your head and concerned eyes you ask if he wants to watch something else. “No, we can watch it” , turning to press play you pretend you don’t hear his deep sigh, “You can hold my hand if you get scared” you tease him as you get comfortable. He scoffs, “If you couldn’t watch this movie alone then don’t act all brave now”. 

After 20 minutes neither of you is pretending to be brave as you both yelp and scream at the story unfolding on the TV. “Why did you want to watch this” San whines, you find him pouting and it makes you chuckle. Like you promised earlier you hold out your hand for him and you can see how he is moments away from slapping your hand away but a loud bang from the TV has you both jump. San grabbing your hand instead which makes you laugh out loud. “Alright I’ve had it” going for the remote you manage to snatch it away on time and hold it away from him. “You agreed so we are finishing it!” grabbing your hand again he starts tugging you close, playful glint in his eyes but you’re not one to back-down from a fight. Struggling to worm away as which causes him to try harder, grabbing at your legs to pull them onto the couch and effectively dragging you closer like that while you choke out laughs. “No!” you are both laughing as you continue to fight back, wiggling away slightly just for him to crawl over on top of you. Finally managing to grab the remote from your outstretched hand he looks down at you with a victorious smile. It is only now that both your laughs died down that you notice the position you’ve gotten in. You can see his adam’s apple bob as his eyes seemingly darken slightly. “I should get going” disappointment evident on your face as he moves back and gets off the couch (and you). “We can watch something else” he pauses for a moment, eyes going from the pout you’re giving him to your slightly disheveled hair. You feel bold and though you can’t blame the alcohol anymore you do say it anyway “We don’t have to watch”, you can hear him suck in a breath “I don’t want us to do something we will regret” silence follows his words you can only mutter out a soft oh. 

Taglist: @brown88

[cassiaorsellio]

Your fave is problematic: Hissera, since she got more votes than her dad somehow

pinging @fantastic-mr-corvid because crow asked for the same. I'm genuinely baffled at that result when she's arguably the coughing baby to everyone else's hydrogen bomb.

YFIP: OC EDITION | CHARACTERS

YFIP: HISSERA TREVELYAN

nepo baby. arguably, after datv, one of the most famous nepo babies in thedas. did she get put in charge because of her father? even she doesn't know but the optics sure is something considering glastrum calls her "the remnants of the inquisition."

can and will get into fights. lies and says "i didn't start them, but i did finish them" to her father (she absolutely started them: see, the fight at the beginning of da:tv.) anything can be an improvised weapon. bar stool? yep. bottle? yep. good old fashioned headbutting? absolutely. sometimes it's about the direct approach.

accidentally released a pair of sadistic blighted ancient elven 'gods' while trying to interrupt a ritual from her dads' ex-coworker. fellas, we're 2 for 2 on trevelyan protagonists for interrupting solas' rituals with these levels of consequences, this has got to stop happening.

"look at this! i bet this came in handy. you have to hand it to the ancient elves, they love their statues. such craftsmanship, handmade from stone." somewhere, the iron bull sheds a tear of pride for reasons unknown, and all of her friends are not amused.

really, really likes the dumb puzzles we all hate doing in these video games. why are you like this, girlie.

not beating the ben-hassrath allegations laid at her feet by her best friend's mother. she'd encouraged taash to explore their qunari heritage on their terms much like she was doing - it was something she could support them through - but shathann was not pleased and (rightfully) supsected that hissera might have been ben-hassrath. and like....no, she isn't.... but both her biological father and her dad were. if dad trained her a little bit to help her navigate being adopted into a noble circle then what of it.

girlie why are you beefing with your dads' ex-co-worker. you should be at the club, not trolling an elven god lmao!!!!

actually wanted on several counts of theft, murder and destruction of public property but somehow has not been arrested yet even though she's [checks notes] a 7ft2 and rather ostentatiously dressed qunari in minrathous. i smell nepotism.

forgot to tell assan big stretch when he did a big stretch one time and now she's forever cancelled (until she feeds him more treats and she is forgiven) :(

once riled up manfred and assan asking for treats and left davrin to deal with the consequences with just a shit-eating grin and a "well my work is done <3 have fun davrin <3". we love this little shitstirrer.

let an entire city get blighted even though it had no formal militia to help fight back a blighted dragon :/ instead went to a more well-defended city in part because of revenge (venatori took priority over literally everything else in that moment lol)

fought [checks notes] an aspect of her dads' ex-co-worker's ex-lover for fun when she could have easily talked her down and then proceeded to not even use her. in fairness though, i think she was justified in not going down that route after she found out The Truth

punched the first warden when she probably could have talked him down. action first, thoughts optional.

gets told off for yapping too much by her co-worker's ex-co-worker (hezenkoss was right to tell her to shut up tbh)

would 100000% be part of the "git gud" crowd in the fromsoft community i fear. if only because she parried elgar'nan into oblivion.

[isalisewrites]

Honestly, i dont understand jkr views at all, from her harrasment to trans people and people who is actually a cis women but in her eyes is not a women because she didnt "look" Like a women in jkr eyes and the latest one her apparently hating aces, like why would it bother her some of us didnt want to have s*x with strangers (her word) or just didnt want to have sex at all? How would it even effect her?

I saw an interesting tiktok the other day. A woman said: "You don't understand the behavior because you wouldn't do it yourself."

It doesn't make sense to us because we wouldn't spew such hate.

I've seen the hate we HP fandom people get. I saw a bunch of tags that said we should kill ourselves. How does that make anyone different than her?

It's missing the fucking point here.

We're supposed to be better than her. We NEED to be better than her. Dividing ourselves with hate will only weaken us.

I don't have the resources (money or health) to fight anti trans bills on the world stage. Or homophobic bills. Or racist bills. Or sexist bills. I am but one person with health issues that limits my ability to do simple daily shit, like getting my goddamn dishes done. But I can write something that brings someone else a little joy. That is something I can do and I take it seriously. I take Marcus' trans story in Terrible, But Great very seriously.

I don't spend my time hating on others. I spend my time bringing something to life.

Now... I can analyze JKR and her behavior and make some calculated assumptions. To be clear, none of it justifies her behavior. I just find it helps just a little to see what drives people to do horrible things.

In an interview years ago, JKR was asked, "What vice do you most despise?” JKR responded with: “Bigotry.”

JKR is the loudest bigoted person I've seen in online spaces. I feel like she's louder than even right wing MAGA or people like Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro. She is so exceedingly bigoted.

So, if she despises bigotry, yet is bigoted herself... That leads me to believe that she hates and despises herself. JKR is not a happy person. Her vitriol is not sourced in love or happiness or in someone who is well adjusted and working through their trauma. JKR is not well.

And if the black mold in her house is real, this is a HUGE indication of this factor. If black mold is growing in her house and she's not taking care of it, that tells me this woman is dysfunctional.

I'm sorry, even my dysfunctional ass would be like, ALL HANDS ON DECK. WE GOTTA GET THIS SHIT OUT. Black mold is DEADLY. That is a HUUUUGE health hazard. I would kick it into high gear and get that taken care of, no matter how much I'd have to push my body beyond its limits. You don't fuck with black mold and JKR is letting that shit grow freely? Good lord. She can afford to get it taken care of!

JKR is not well. JKR is not happy.

And it shows.

She is a horrible person. I do NOT say this to justify her behavior at alll; it merely helps illuminate her and removes power from her. I'm saying that her cruelty isn't worth anything. It's coming from a sad, pathetic place. It's disappointing to see an influential, wealthy woman use her power for evil, but unfortunately she's one of many doing this. JKR is a problem, but she's not the only one hating on transpeople and the queer community. I'm so tired of seeing powerful people being so awful.

The only thing we can do is curate safe spaces in open defiance. In real life and online. For some, it means leaving the HP fandom altogether. For others, it means creating content that is a direct FUCK YOU and creating content that lifts the spirits of others in dark times.

I don't think about her when I'm writing Harry Potter fanfiction. I never think about her. I'm only reminded of her when I catch someone talking about her latest bullshit on twitter.

Instead, I'm thinking about how to write a beautiful, memorable story that I wish I could've read when I was younger. I wish I'd had Harry Potter fanfiction that could've safely exposed me to the concepts of being gay or trans or asexual or whatever in a kind, gentle manner.

I didn't have that, so I'm making sure to leave it behind for the next generation.

Isa

[starsthatlinethesky]

Wind Breaker Ships And Yellowjackets Ships That Remind Me Of One Another

Spoilers For Yellowjackets And Windbreaker Manga!!!

LottieLee & SuoNirei:

Literally can not even explain how much these two remind me of one another. Nirei is so Laura Lee, a character that is used to represent light and faith during harsh times. Suo is so Lottie in the way that he would try to find a way to bring comfort to the group and to Nirei even if that meant having faith in something that he didn't understand. Suo and Nirei, just like LottieLee would hold hands when the plane was going down. Also if something were to happen to Nirei (Like my beautiful princess Laura Lee) he would be a guardian angel to the rest of them and gently guide them to the afterlife. Suo would also see Nirei in his final moments and even if Nirei tried to convince him to leave, he would so pull the line: 'I don't want to leave you yet." You could even say that Nirei getting hurt at Keel being a turning point for Suo, is the same as Laura Lee's death being a turning point for Lottie.

TaiVan & TsugeKiryu:

Oh where do I even begin? Two well-meaning characters who were close to one another before everything happened. But the longer they spend out in the woods, their bond is surely and slowly tested by the circumstances. Kiryu as Tai, who has always taken comfort in Tsugeura's optimism and strength during their hardest moments. Tsugeura would find comfort in Kiryu's ability to stay calm and collected when times get tough and his contribution to keeping everyone level-headed. However, after everything in the woods, they would break up to try and move on from everything that happened but would spend every day of their lives haunted by the fact that the two of them were the only ones that could understand on another.

TravNat & SakuSugi:

Enemies to lovers. Both have something that they want to prove to themselves and to others. Sugishita and Sakura would become the hunters of the group to try and provide for everyone, and they would bicker all the way through. But as time goes on they would grow closer to one another and develop an understanding between them that no one had ever had before. Also, Nat reminds me of Sakura so much it's not even funny (the hair, the sass, the way they both desperately try to hold onto the one thing that has ever made them feel safe.)

Coach Ben/Paul & UmeTsuba:

Umemiya while out in the woods is constantly thinking of Tsubaki, and regrets not spending more time with him or being there for him when Tsubaki asks. And like Coach Ben, he starts seeing Tsuabki and even pretends to have phone calls with him in order to try and keep himself sane. Tsuabaki on the other hand is constantly regretting not saying more, not demanding more as he waits everyday to hear news about Umemiya.

MistyNat & SugiNirei:

Hello Dork x Tough Person ship. While Nirei is nowhere near as insane as Misty is, he does share that desire to be needed and dorky tendencies. Sugishita would be annoyed by the dorkiness like Nat is. But like Nat would also seek Nirei out for advice and help because he understands that without someone with knowledge like that they would be utterly fucked. Nirei would also appreciate and be dvoted to Sugishita as a way of thanks for providing to everyone similarly to the way Misty is to Nat.

JackieShauna & SakuNirei:

Waiter! I'd like an order of co-dependent best friends who have a bond so much deeper than friendship but because of their own fears and society, they can never be defined as more! Sakura and Nirei, literally look at each other wishing that they were what the other was. Sakura wishes that he was as friendly and welcoming as Nirei was, and Nirei wishes that he was as strong and as needed as Sakura was by others. Their bond is inseparable but as they spend more time in the woods (just like Jackie and Shauna) resentment begins to build up between them and they eventually have a big blowout argument that leads to Nirei going outside. Because Nirei was always the one reaching out, just like Jackie was and he just wanted Sakura to come to him instead. Sakura doesn't go out and get Nirei because he thinks that if he goes outside all his worst fears will be confirmed that Nirei does not like him or want him around anymore. And ultimatley just like Jackie, Nirei is left out in the snow and Sakura will spend every second of the rest of his life thinking about him, mourning what was and what could've been.

[yasperapologist]

Get to know your author

I was tagged by @deaddeerdonoteat

1. How many works on Ao3?

Three! We've got Turn Back Time, my time loop longfic, Where it Starts, a prequel set in high school, and Best-Case Scenarios which is basically just random fluffy drabbles.

Frankly, that's 3 more fics than I though I would ever post. It's been about a year since I discovered The Afterparty and promptly became obsessed with the show. I got the idea for an Afterparty time loop fic and started scribbling down random thoughts on my phone's Notes app—mostly because it felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get the words out of my head. I thought it'd be cool if I ended up writing something I could actually post, but I didn't actually expect to follow through. The only other fics I’d written were a few little one-shots/drabbles for a different fandom close to a decade ago. I had read a lot of fanfic but never attempted a project of this scale. Now I have 35k words published, close to 100k more in my draft, and 20+ chapters planned out?? It blows my mind. And honestly I don't think I would have gotten to the point of hitting ‘publish’ without all the encouragement from the Ben Schwartz Cinematic Universe discord folks ( @benschwartzcinematicuniverse, @deaddeerdonoteat, @slimeybee, @flingmetothemoon, and some others who I don't think are on tumblr??? I am so bad at matching tumblr URLs to discord handles).

2. Total Ao3 word count?

About 40k.

3. Top 5 five by kudos?

Just the three, lol.

4. What fandoms do you write for?

So far just the Afterparty. (If I ever run out of Afterparty ideas, I might dip my toe into Space Force.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, comments make my day and I respond to all of them!!! Possibly with lengthier responses than anyone wanted, lol.

6. Fic with the angstiest ending?

I've never written anything with an angsty ending, and I personally don't plan to. My approach is basically: I'm not into writing angst for its own sake, although there are some stories that are impossible to tell without it. Turn Back Time is one example. There's a lot of angst in there, not because I like making the character suffer, but because the entire premise is about engaging with the real emotional aftermath of the events of Season 1. But when all's said and done, I like happy endings. I joke about being a Weenie Hut Jr. writer in that respect.

7. Fic with the happiest ending?

Hard to say. They all kinda take place in the same universe. And Turn Back Time is the only one with like, a real over-arching plot. All pretty happy endings, I promise.

8. Do you get hate?

No, everyone has been very kind. (I think it helps that the fandom is so tiny. You want Afterparty fic? There are max like 3 people who write it, so you're stuck with our limited seasonal menu. 😂)

9. Do you write smut?

Nothing I've published, but I started writing a Brett/Xavier enemies with benefits fic as a joke and it somehow turned into something serious and now I have a 30k word draft??

10. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, though @deaddeerdonoteat and I sometimes come up with silly Brett/Xavier dialogue that I think deserves to see the light of day.

11. All time favorite ship?

If we're only looking at The Afterparty, it's gotta be yasniq. I am a sucker for a best friends to lovers story. All time, any fandom? That's a really hard question to answer. (I'm thinking about like, a graph where the X-axis is "how much I believe in the ship" and the Y-axis is "how much I enjoy the ship" and then there's a third dimension/Z-axis of "how much content exists for the ship" and it's very hard to find something that checks all 3 boxes. But 1 or 2 out of 3 can still be fun.)

12. WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't have that many WIPs and the ones I do have are fairly likely to get finished. It's basically just Turn Back Time (which is most of the way done and I have extremely concrete plans to finish), my dumb Brett/Xavier story, and maybe a couple random sequels or oneshots that can exist in the same universe but don't have an over-arching plot (e.g. Chelsea Starts a GSA). OH, and there’s ia Yasniq covid quarantine fic. Decent odds I'll finish that one, though it might take a while.

13. Writing strengths?

Research/dedication to canon (to a degree that I can admit is obsessive). You would not believe the stupid shit I've looked up because I didn't want to get a peripheral detail wrong. I have a folder on my computer with dozens of reference photos from the show that I look at when I want to confirm details about the set. I tried to map out the layout of Xavier's mansion in MS paint (a task which I think is actually impossible). I researched the history of Hungarian-Jewish immigration when deciding on a backstory for Yasper's parents because he made an offhand comment in S1E1 about having visited Hungary many times. “What would Yasper/Aniq have been doing in the early days of the pandemic?" somehow turned into me researching PPP loan eligibility criteria.

Also I think my writing is pretty funny?

14. Writing weaknesses?

Indecisiveness. MAJOR indecisiveness. (See the fact that I’d been working on Turn Back Time for over six months before I started publishing it.) Also maybe over-use of em-dashes and semi-colons.

15. What are you working on that you haven’t posted any of?

I think it's all stuff I mentioned earlier in the post. (Mainly the Brett/Xavier enemies with benefits fic and the Yasniq lockdown fic)

---

In terms of tagging people... I am also bad at matching ao3 usernames to tumblr URLs so I can't remember who writes fic, but anyone is welcome to do this and say that I tagged you 😂

[popculturebuffet]

Supermay! What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? (Patreon Review for Brotoman.EXE)

Hello all you happy kryptonains and welcome back to supermay, a month long tribute to all things man of steel. This week is a two parter as we look at one of the best superman comics of all time, one of the best one shot issues of all time and one of the best deconstructions of "Why don't heroes do whatever they want and kill whoever they want" of all time. I'm not softballing it: this issue is fantastic. We'll also be looking at it's adaptation later this week, the DTV film Superman Vs the Elite.

For now though we're focusing on the original story. What's So Funny... was originally published in 2001 in Action Comics 775, written by Joe Kelly and drawn by Doug Mankhe and Lee Bermejo.

For those not familiar with him Kelly is a comics legend, having helped define deadpool with his first solo book and coming back to the character quite a bit without the dimnishing returns creators sometimes have. He also founded animation studio Man of Action and is one of the co-creators of both Ben 10 and Generator Rex.

Kelly wrote superman for a 5 year run, a nice stretch all things considered and one I wish, like most of 90's and 2000's superman would get recollected. Or at the very least hopefully is on dc universe infinite. It's not AS good as having collections out there, but it's something. But if his stories are anywhere near this good, i'd love to see more of them.

Kelly wrote What's So Funny as a direct response to another book DC was publishing at the time: The Authority. The Authority were created by emotinally abusive grooming coersive dickhead Warren Ellis and entirely good dude Bryan Hitch. I bring up the latter because Hitch seems genuinely kind and deserves his flowers... and the former because it shouldn't be forgotten. Ellis hasn't genuinely atoned, deserved to loose everything he did, and while his talent shouldn't be forgotten, it's only because his talent is WHY he was able to do this. If we suddenly go "Oh he always sucked", it undercuts HOW he was able to do this. Most people he abused were fans of his and it's worth remembering he was talented.. and must ALWAYS be remembered what he choose to use said talent to do to people. I won't go into details as to avoid triggering those of you who have been simiarly abused, but if your curious go to somanyofus.com. What testimonals I have read are heartbreaking.

As for the Authority itself, it was a followup to Ellis' run on storm watch, a book created by Jim Lee about a UN Sanctioned super team that Ellis helped transform, adding in some new creations of his own to revitalize the team. The book was a critical hit and loved at the offices of Wildstorm, the company that published stormwatch and would soon be bought by DC. The problem was it wasn't selling, and Ellis, both feeling bad they were keeping the book around just because of him and wanting to take things up a notch, reconfigured the team into the authority.

The Authority was a massively powerful team, assembled to face massive threats like an army of supermen dispatched by a mad dictator, a colonliast alien-italian empire that wanted to take earth, and God itself who turned out to be an elder god wanting to restore earth to factory settings. Hitch's art made things feel BIG and cinematic, his specality, and helped show just how big comics could be alongside other works before it (JLA) and after it (New X-Men).

The team had swagger, cool powers.. and most important to this story.. no problem with killing. The team carved their way through armies of enemies, killing whoever they had to and in the first two arcs comitted mass murder: Midnighter, the team's batman and biggest asshole, drove their ship through a country just to get at the first arc's big bad, while the Doctor, their magic man and only able to get away with the name because Doctor Who hadn't been revivied just yet, killed all of alternate italy to destroy an alien empire. These steps weren't taken lightly and were only taken because otherwise more death would follow, but it was clear the team weren't meant to be good guys: simply the only ones who COULD do the job.

This changed with the following run, and I read both Ellis' run and the first two arcs of it's followup for proper context. I ddin't necessarily half to and Brotoman didn't ask and was honestly shocked I put in this much extra effort... but I realized if your going to disect a work calling out the other work, you need to have a fresh understanding of what it's fighting against.

So Ellis' run was followed up by comics legend Mark Millar. Millar seems to be a nice guy nowadays, fun to be around, lvoes the buisness, keeps going simply because he can and with one of the largest creator owned rosters of characters around.

In the 2000's though and for most of his career.. Millar was the king of the edgelords. he was the threw it on the ground guy as an actual tangible person. Millar's idea of adult storytelling was some genuine political comentary idaes.. mixed with a lot of sex and violence for the sake of sex and violence, using senstive topics like sexual assault simply to seem "edgy". So naturally the Authority went from "assholes to a point but with limits" to every last one of them saying edgelord shit, mowing down everyone in their path and LOVING it, and fucking everyone they could because Mark Millar likes ot scream

In your ear while doing nothing to prove he's not a 13 year old boy in a grown up's body. And please note I would gladly review Millar's shit as much as it frustrates me, but will never cover anything by Ellis as long as he lives, as I do not want to give that fucker any more attention than I have to, despite my reactoin to reading the first arc of the authority under him being a resounding

To give you an idea of what I had to put up with dialouge wise, here's a samping from the first four issues of Millar's run.

There's more and the bad guys are even worse, but i'd rather not throw that in here on the grounds that I LIKE you guys and I don't want to throw unecessary edgelord bollocks in here that might trigger some of you who've geninely gone through things Millar brings up just to seem more "adult".

So that's where the authority were at, and it's impressive that things escalated so much in four issues less than a YEAR before What's So Funny was published> It's why I read what I did: It's what would've been out there and while Ellis' run had likely bothered kelly, given how the Elitie are depicted and how their leader acts, it's clear a LOT of it came from Millar's work. I mean you have to be a specail brand of douchebag to get a response to your characters being the worst less than a YEAR in.

The bigger reason for this response was how fans reacted: Fans.. LOVED the authority and as tends to happen when you get a shiny new "edgy" team, some asked: "Why doe we need those other guys? If we have heroes willing to kill, topple governments and swagger all the while, why do we need some guy in tights telling us not to?" Superman was seen by some as outdated and as a result was the target of one of the oldest arguments in all of comics: should superheroes keep doing what they do, or should they take the world and force it to be better or else? It's an argument that NEVER seems to go away.

Proving this, DC had just done a story like this 5 years ago with Kingdom Come, which explored both heroes who are worse than the villians and what happens when the heroes take over. And before THAT marvel did Squadron Supreme in 1985, showing what would genuinely happen if a justice league equilvent took over the world. It'll always be a questoin to be had because readers will cycle out and the next batch will ask the same questions. So join me as we look at the answers, see WHY Superman needs to stand against this and why his methods, despite being questioned every couple of years, stand the test of time and the test of someone who had a dream he didn't like.

We open with Superman flying to Libya as superman flies to stop a superterror attack.. in this case a giant gorilla wielding a giant gun and I will pay adam wingard 5 dollary doos if the next Godzilla X Kong Film involves Kong pistol wipping a giant monster with a shot gun. Just saying.

At any rate clark arrives.. to find something truly horrific.

I give artist Doug Manhke a LOT of credit... despite having only a spread to work with he shows just how horrific this is.. and that's WITHOUT giving anything away about who did it. All we know is suddenly a group with a lot of power saved the day.. but also dropped a giant monster corpse on a city, left said city in ruins, and massacred what was , in all likelyhood an animal who had no say in being made into a giant cybernetic monstrosity. I mean this IS the dc universe with an entire ape city. I could buy Grodd or someone like him growing giant and giving themselves some cable armor to go do some murders, it just comes off more like someone super sized an ape afte rloading it up with hardware and relseaed it on a city and instead of rocgnizing the beast was simply a wild animal, those responsible brutalyl murdered it.

We soon find out who as Clark hears back from the rest of the Daily Planet crew as competing paper the Star, based on the paper Clark worked at in the earlier stories and that grant morrison would bring back for their action comics run, published a gushing story about the four monsters responsible: The Elitie, a super powerful superteam whose leader, Manchester Black even gave a statement "Trust me the old ways are dead in a year you'll love me for this".. then he cut the general he gave the statment too's legs off. It's a great intro: without meeting the guy we instantly know the deep level of prick we're dealing with, and how he'll do a casual violence simply becaues he wants to. Two thousand soldiers died in this attack along with the actual target. Also Jimmy gives a VERY poorly aged joke about watning to shoot the staff of the daily star, which is in character but still feels entirley messed up especially since Columbine had happened at this point. Jesus Jim.

As for who wrote this puff piece that would be Jack Ryder.

For those not familiar with him, Jack Ryder is a "Journalist" and I say so in the loosest terms as in most apperances he's just trying to get attention, being eerly similar to the wave of reactionary assholes we'd see in that decade. He's also the superhero the creeper, a split personality of his who wears a giant boa, cackles and is both awesome and criminally underused by dc. Seriously why they don't use this guy more I don't know. Jack gets more apperances and they can find another strawman or make one.

At any rate Jack's not here to be creepy but to praise terroists while his other self facepalms on the inside. He and clark have debate that is less than civil... and it's telling that clark , who does try to be calma nd kind even when he's pissed off, is absolutely FURIOUS at jack propping these assholes up

Now what I really like about this scene is Jack is an asshole. He make sa mocking joke before maknig an actual pointa nd dowplays all the innocent people who died. And the ape. Seriously someone feel bad an ape died. Why is it just me.

But he raises one valid point while talking directly out of his ass: "And three months later it would happen all over again"> Jack is wrong about..e verything else. Entirely. Seriously creeper needs to get a body seperator machine asap.. but he's right this shit is cyclical and people want a fix. Even 23 years later.. the world still feels broken. Kelly doesn't like the authority.. but he gets WHY people like them: Their a power fantasy, a group of people killing all the big bad dictators, putting corrupt presidents in check and trying to fix a broken world. Their methods are horrible.. but in a time that' scomplciated, unfair and frightening.. it's so easy to cling to someone who seemingly has the answers. It's why so many people flock to the right: turning to hate is sometimes the easiest solution.

We get a brief interlude with president luthor where we find out just HOW powerful these guys are. one of them, coldcast blinked and it shorted out satilites. As Amanda waller put it superman would need a jetpack and a space shuttle to even come close to their power

Naturally Lex's position.. is to let it lie. He plans to turn them into cat food, his exact words, if they so much as touch the US.. but for now their fighting other metas for respect.. and given their clearly gunning for superman and badly outclass him.. well Luthor can't resisit seeing how it plays out, letting the leitie have their fun for now.. and seeing if he can get a dead superman out of the deal. He dosen't say that directly.. but he's sure as hell thinking it as hard as he can.

The Elitie aren't resting on their laurels either, releasing a manefsto that amounts to "do bad shit and we'll fucking kill you". Superman talks this over with Steel.. but it's clear their getting to clark.. and the one thing he says makes it clear why "Do you think the world's moved on?". IT's a powerful statment: Clark himself is wondering if this is what people WANT now, if he's outmoded and if he' sreally making a diffrence.

He dosen't have time to answer as a crisis in Tokyo happens .. and Clark gets to be front and center to meet the Elite this time. Sadly.. Clark can't do anything. His body start's slowing down and we later find out it was coldcast of the elite, having done so to stop an army of geneticly engeneered samurai from massacring toykyo... so the elite massacre them instead. And after a good 15 or so pages of setup.. we finally get a look at the future.

They clockwise from the center; Manchester Black, the groups leader and mouthpiece and powerful Telekenetic, Coldcast, electric man whose deisgn was really not thorught through whatsoever and looks racist as hell, Menagre, a woman combind witha colony of deady creature and the hate, a japanese man merged with a demon that give hims a bunch of magical powers

What's intresting is rather than go 1:1, the elite compress the members of the auhority down from seven people to four so before we move on here's who they represent on the Authority

Manchester Black: Manchester is a combination of the authorities leaders: Founder Jenny Sparks and her successor Jonathan Hawksmore. Sparks is the spirit of the 20th century, had no real fliter and was never all tha tpolite, while Hawksmor was modified by aliens to become one with cities, able to travel between them effortlessly, and was also a jackass in a leather jacket who was dismissive to everyone> both gave grandose speeches and had no respect for anyone else who wasn't on their team. His powers are all him, likely because the electric poewrs were already livewires thing (and thus ported over to another member) and jack's powers were creatively specitic and somethign that might not work on superman, able to have cities eath people alive.. and given Superman's a good dude they likely woudln't.

Coldcast: Electric dynamo. Again that design what the fuck .Seems to be a combo of Jack and Jenny power wise, able to manipuate the ground in addition to electricity... I say seems as I had to look pu their power sets as the story isn't very speciic about them and Manchesters is only known to me because being a telepath and telekenetic are key to later stories starring the guy.

Menagere: Seems to be a comination of the team's two other female members; the Engineeer, a scientest with nanites in her blood that can shape into anything and swift, a woman who can grow claws and has wings, simply combingin the living hive nature of the engineer and making it more biological like swift.

The Hat: The only one that's honestly.. pretty much the same person from the authority just with a diffrent name. The Hat is based on the doctor, an ex drug addict and voice of the earth itself, latest in a long line of doctors who can do whatever he feels like really. That's not hyperbole: the doctor can bend reality and the rest of the authority all had weaknesses: Swift is fast but not super strong, the Engineer can only make things up to the the point her body has enough blood to still function, Hawksmoor's powers only work in a city, Apollo has to have a solar charge built up, something their dimension traveling spaceship dosen't provide, etc. The Doctor's only issue is if someone can cut him off and when that was done in Millar's first arc it still made no sense. It's also why I gather while the rest of the authority keeps coming back now their a full part of the dc universe, Jenny, who was dead, is even getting a mini series in august, the Doctor is just too powerful to bring back without finding some new check and ballance for him that isn't just "he's an ex addict", as we're more senstive to addiction these days, as we should be.

There's two notable omissions: Apollo and Midnighter. Apollo and Midnighter are the book's breakout stars by a wide margin, having been the first to be succesfully integrated into the dcu and being fan faviorites from the word go. The two are stand in's for superman and batman, but still distinct enough to work: Both are a bit darker given their background being raised by manipulative bastard among all manipulative bastards Henrey Bendix and both have unique power diffrences that set them apart: Apollo , as established, charges up his powers with the sun and what he can do is dependant on how much charge he has... but to compesnate for having a bigger reliance on the sun, he can shoot energy and thus wipe out an entire crowd of enemies with one shot and keep going. Midnighter meanwhile has a combat computer in his brain, is a few steps ahead like batman and has regenerating nanite blood, being essentially what happens if batman and wolverine became the same person.. again, and had less restraint.

The two are also married. Yeah, in the 90's, edgelord as they could be... we had two openly queer characters. Not only that the rest of the team accepted them: they'd crack jokes about the two's relationship, but no one genuinely cared the two were gay and given this was the late 90's, that's a HUGE statement. And i'll give credit where it's due: I may not like MIllar's run and only read what I absolutely had to... but he DID end said run with the two getting married and thankfully even with ellis being the worst. if your curious about the two I highly recommend Steve Orlando's run on Midnighter and it's followup Apollo and Midnighter, integrating the two into the dc universe.

So why would they leave out the two biggest characters on the roster? Simple.. their based on Superman and Batman. Having a golden god around kinda undermines the Elite's whole "Take a seat grandpa the new kids are here", gimmick, and if you throw in a batman type guy... it begs the question why Clark dosen't bring in Batman. And while pitting the elitie versus the justice league WOULD'VE been intresting, it wasn't something they had time for: Kelly wasn't writing JLA yet, and while having them appear in superman's book isn't out of bounds.. they had one issue. And my guess is they were squeezing said issue in before they had to start the build up to the big "Our Worlds at War" crossover that year, which started in august. The fact this story happened before that with Kelly presumibly already having stories planned, in less than a year, is a miracle in itself, so I get Kelly didn't really have time to loop in the rest of everyone and thus he trimmed the authority down to four elities for time's sake

And even with a small group... none of them are really fleshed out here aside from Manchester. I had to look up their powers because they got filled in in later stories. Here their just vauge and powerful. It's one of the stories few weakpoints: the rest of the elitie are just jackasses on a power high and that's all their personality is. It dosen't hurt the story a lot as that's all the story really needs and Manchester Black is such an engaging and despicable shithead that you only really need the one ring master for this circus, but it is something I look forward to in the movie, which has the time to flesh this out Kelly simply didn't have here.

Like I said though.. Black is engagin. He's thorughly vile here... but in a way where you get WHY people are trusting this asshole: he gives cleverly worded speeches, takes out bigger bad guys, and generally has a swagger to him. He still has the charm that Sparks and Hawksmoor genuinely had.. but he also has the asshole turned up a notch, again whY I feel that this story is a response to millar: Jenny and Jack were dicks under Ellis.. but Millar just has this very specific brand of dickishness in his characters , especially his mouth pieces, that Kelly captures REALLY well with Manchester. He's a swaggering asshole who answers to no one else and would stop a man from saving lives simply to try and prove he's outdated.

He also gives supes a tour: like the authority, the elite have a ship that's sentient. Unlike the Authority's ship, which is at best a lost child the team basically adopts when they realize it's alive and spend time gently coaxing when they need it to leave earth orbit and face it's abandonment issues, Bunny, the Elitie's hq.. is enslaved by them. They found out it was sapient, found out she didn't like what they were doing.. and cut out her heart to make her more compliant.

Superman understandably isn't here for a tour, he's here to stop them.

Manchester isn't wrong: some villians don't play fair, the world itself dosen't, and so he raises the question of "why shoudlnt' we". The brilliant thing is while he has a point that the world is in rough shape... it's HOW he phrases it that points out the flaws in his philosphy: "Any normal person could do this if they had the chance".. but SHOULD they. Is it really okay to be a bad person simply because your going after worse people? And superman's answer is a very clear "No". More on that as we go but for now Superman gets sent to a superman themed car dealership for his trouble.

We cut to the Kent Farm, where we get pa revealing he decked a guy insulting clark for the incident. I like that it dosen't shy away from the fact that no, Small Town America is not immune to this kind of thought, giving into hate because it seems like the easy solution. But once again Kelly, rather than be super condescinding, gets into why people might buy into what the elitie are selling: the world is a scary place, and it's easy to buy into someone offering a quick solution, a band aid to the world's problems. To become the evil to stop the evil.

This story, while deconstructing him slightly, does get ot hte heart of WHY Superman is needed, in his worlds and in ours: He's an inspiration. As Pa points out.. clark shows them theirs a better way. That we can be better. Clark himself madea speech like this in JLA a few years before this, a speech I feel gets to the heart of the character and superheroes in general

That's what a superhero is. not a babysitter in spandex, not the cure to a wounded world... simply someone there to help humanity at it's lowest, when it needs them.. and to inspire the average person to be better. To try and make a bette rowrld even if it seems impossible. And note this dosen't mean ignoring rough shit in the world, both Supermana nd Wonder Woman have gone into dictatorships and saved civliians. It's not letting that consume you. It's hard, so very hard, to not let the world swallow you up hole.. but fighting that every day is heroic. To simply be and to be good to others. It's what makes these guys heoric: they may stumble from time to time.. but they get back up, and do good despite the world shitting on them, or people like Black telling them "your irrelvant". You fight because it's the right thing to do, because it's what you can do to help the world.

Pa is also sure clark can just.. kick the elitie's asses if it goes south.. but Clark isn't. It's not helped by the tide turning against him: while several citizens do doubt the leitie... many support them. An easy fix to hard issues. But the most chilling.. is the children

That idea that being able to kill somehow makes you better.

Supes still tries to take the high road, stopping the men in black, who in the dc universe apparently traffic aliens. He stops the aliens witht hem with water. no loss of life, no muss no fuss. The Elitie have been watching, and Manchester is utterly bored with this lecture, not taking it seriously and calling supes an idiot when he plans to have the league and the DEO haul these guys in. Black lets supes know these are super black ops people and will just be given cushy job training other guys to do the same. And superman.. just says he'll keep putting them away till they get the point.

Yeah while i'm on clark's side, and do think the elitei's solution of just.. killing them solves nothing, after all if these guys can be replaced, how does killing a few to send a message do anything? They'll just find more guys willing to do it despite the risk. But at the same time... Superman is smarter than this. We'll see that shortly. He knows better than to just "lock them up again". He'd have Batman look into it, then use the league to make sure these guys got the justice they deserved. He has on his team a telepath with global connections, a recognized ambassador, a king and a billionare and that's just people on the team currently. He can make sure these guys ar eheld acoutnable and find out and bust up who they worked for. Just.. phrase it tha tway instead.

Black isn't impressed.. but his repsonse shows he's somehow worse at this than just "keep beating them and hopefully they'll stop which has worked never times but i'll do it anyway": Have the hat Kill them all.. and their families. Superman naturally punches the hat before he can do this.. and Black decides this is more than enough justifacation to formally go after superman.

Honestly the more I think about this scene, the more I see it as a ploy: Dont get me wrong, given his actions I do think Black would slaughter someone's family as a message... but he does so right after superman genuinely tried to show them a better way, making it clear he hates the lecture and ONLY listned to try and prove some kind of point. He KNEW these gyuys existed, they created menagre.. but didn't do anything about them or give Superman actual advice. He just wanted to strut in and then try and undo everything clark did, all the live she didn't take, just so he'd have the thinest justifcation to pick a fight with superman one on four. As for why not just do this from the outset that's simple: Manchester Black CLEARLY wannted the smug satisfaction of breaking superman, of getting him to see his way, wether it was by sitting out or by being humbled. He wanted this fight from the second he swaggered up, and simply dragged it out this long to humilate superman. He knows this isn't just a battle of two blokes punching each other, it's a battle for the world's soul, a battle of ideals: Black's "kill ema ll and let god sort it out" pessimist versus superman "We have to let them be better on thier own and they can be" optimist.

Lois.. is less pleased, mostly because she's sure her husband is going to die. And I like how the art convey's this too: Lois has more faith than clark in anybody but you can tell by her eyes she's worried about her husband picking a fight with a team on the league's level just to prove a point, to possibly die for it. It's chilling to see lois, of all people, scared. But clark has to go: even if he dies for this, it's, like I said, a battle of ideals. If he backs down more people like those kids find killing fun, the easy way the only way, and the world gets even worse. He has to show the world there's a better way.. because if he dosen't everything he's fought for, everything he stands for slowly slides away and more good people fight and die to preserve his ideals.

Clark confronts them. Naturally they choose metropolis for this final battle.. and naturally Clark says "hell no" to that as he isn't going to put innocents in danger. Black agrees, though he has their ship broadcast it worldwide: he wants the world to know this was a fair fight.

Our fighters head for the moon. Unsuprisingly Clark tries one last time to talk them down. I'd call this suicidal... but it's also Supes. He'll try talking, try reforming people if he can. And it'd be weird if he didn't. The Elitie take this as you'd expect.. Manchester tk's him then they take turns beating himn while he speechifies again.

Superman is seemingly curbstomped, with Coldcast delivering some electricity to his brain , seemingly blwoing superman up real good.. but as the Elitie brag... a voice is heard

We then get one of the most bonechilling scenes in comics.. as Superman finally decides to play by The elitie's rules..

In only two pages for us and two minutes for the elitie.. the team is down, semeingly dead. IT's a terrifying display of just what superman CAN do: take the air away, rip your powers away, or just hurl you into space. We've seen plenty of evil superman stand ins do things like this, the viltrumites from invincible are essentially one long look at that, but seeing CLARK do it.. is something else. Something far worse.

Superman finishes the fight by seemingly lobotmizing black, taking out the section of the brain that give shim his powers.. and as black cries and breaks down.. Superman.. lifts the curtain

It's a brilliant twist that also puts all the pieces in place: Clark went alone.. because he had to make it beliviable, and the others were always on standbye. He likely told Bruce and the others what he had planned simply because otherwise.. they would've come to stop him. It's what Clark would want if he really crossed that line.

He simply disabled their powers for now: he gave Chester a concussion: he'll get his powers back.. but will be under tons of psy dampeners befor ehe can.

I love this display: it both shows WHY superman could be dangerous.. and why he isn't. It's easy to be vengeful... it's harder to try and inspire people not to, to keep dreaming ot keep trying to be better. It' sthe hard road but the better one: sure he could kill or take over the world.. but humanity isn't his to take. It's his to help inspire, to make us better by showing what the best of us can do with the gifts they were born with. Chester, like any villian vows he'll be back this isn't over... and clark's response to being told he's dreaming?

A simple powerful closure: superman is living for some lofty ideals .. but their ones worth aspiring towards, to neve rstop fighting for.. ever.

What's So Funny is an excellent story. It suffers here and there from it's short run time, but still serves as an excellent response to critics of superman while not trying to be patronizing. The grungy art fits the tone of the story and the climax is a thing of beauty. check this one out if you can find it

Next Time: It's Superman Vs teh Elitie. Yes again. This time on the medium sized screen as Kelly expands his story into a full blown animated film.

[carewyncromwell]

After reading your Friendship Drabbles, I have a question for you; Which of our Hogwarts friends that we’ve rarely seen paired up or even never paired up before do you think would be really cool to see interact with each other?

Ooh, now that's an interesting thought! Hmm...well, one I liked including in those drabbles was Murphy McNully, Badeea Ali, Tulip Karasu, and Rowan Khanna as members of a Wizards' Chess Club! I liked the Chess sidequest Jam City wrote for the first three, and it just seemed so logical for Rowan to be among their ranks too. Rowan and McNully in particular I feel would find a lot of common ground, especially since they'd be in the same house.

Speaking of Rowan, I also really like the idea of Rowan and Ismelda Murk getting on better in years 5 and 6, especially if Rowan is sorted as Slytherin the way mine is! I feel like after MC helps Ismelda with her crush on Barnaby, Ismelda would open herself up a bit more to accepting help from other people in her year regardless of how different they are from her, and considering that Rowan and Ismelda are both so interested in History of Magic, I could totally see them striking up a (whispered) conversation or two over an essay in the library or something. One of my heacanons that admittedly flies in the face of the game is the idea that it's Ismelda who ultimately takes over teaching her class History of Magic in Rowan's stead after their death in year 6, and in my personal version of the Circle of Khanna, Ismelda actually joined the organization not just because Merula invited her to, but actively out of wanting justice for Rowan.

I also think Chiara Lobosca and Nymphadora Tonks would have developed a very close bond over time, both before and after school. Not only are their dormmates who quite frankly could learn a lot from each other, but I love the idea that half the reason Tonks is so blase and accepting about her future partner Remus Lupin being a werewolf is because she met and fully accepted Chiara first. I also really like the idea that Chiara was the one who put Tonks in contact with Lupin and the Order of the Phoenix in the very beginnings of the Second Wizarding War.

Speaking of dormmates, Charlie Weasley and Ben Copper were good friends at school, you can rip that idea out of my cold, dead hands. In my headcanon, I actually imagine Charlie -- in true Weasley fashion -- becoming a bit protective of Ben after Merula targeted him so openly in their first year for his ancestry. When Ben went through his radical transformation in year 6 and hexed Charlie, the two ended up in a full-on physical fight, though they mended fences when they helped co-found the Circle of Khanna.

Ravenclaw dormies Talbott Winger and Andre Egwu, on the other hand? I'm sorry, these two were always trading sassy barbed comments with each other, I don't make the rules. ("You aren't seriously thinking of going out to Hogsmeade in those, are you?" "I'm not the one strutting about in purple and white-striped pants." "They're lavender-and-white slacks. And they are fashionable, compared to -- whatever hokey American ridiculousness you've got strapped to your feet." "I'm surprised the supposed 'King of Fashion' doesn't know what cowboy boots are.")

Finally I love the idea of Chiara connecting really well with Talbott! I wrote Carewyn befriending these two back-to-back in her fourth year due to how well their side-quest plot lines synced up (and honestly, their introductory TLSQ's were among the best in the entire game, IMO) and I just love the thought that these two "Lone Wolves" in MC's year could find some fun common ground despite their shared tendency to ward people away from them.

Another person that ends up close friends with Chiara in my headcanon is Jae Kim, though there's a bit more Jam-City-canon ammunition behind this. The game also included the ideas that Talbott was friends with Penny before MC and Talbott and Badeea connected through the Circle of Khanna, and I like the thought that Talbott kept in contact with both of them well after Hogwarts too. Even Merula and Tulip's game-canon fractured friendship, which I don't imagine healed that well at school, I personally like imagining improved after Tonks's death, when Merula and Tulip both took comfort from each other at her and Lupin's funeral.

[girderednerve]

fandomposting, mea culpa,

okay here are my dumb ideas for what should happen with the homoerotic priests from the television show i didn't like enough to watch the second season of. i might change my mind about this

okay just establishing the givens here but the sexy older priest who gets excommunicated & specializes in exorcisms that ben daniels plays is named father marcus. the other priest, who is younger & has a bright future in the church until he decides he's been called to do exorcisms instead, is named father tomás; marcus is about 20 years older than tomás and is also queer, which is great but also in context kind of funny because tomás gets the ashamed of his sexuality plot (wholesome love affair with a woman who is his age & not his parishioner) while marcus is just like, unbothered, being gay & keeping his vows ("well, the ones that mattered," according to him; at one point before his excommunication he describes himself as "married to the man upstairs")

i think there is a lot of underexplored potential in the confessor relationship, especially if we mess around with an AU where marcus doesn't get excommunicated so they can do a co-confessor situation. um. i'm not a catholic & i think in real life that religious leaders absolutely should refrain from developing romantic & sexual relationships with parishioners (etc) of any kind. okay but it could be sexy in fanfiction, in my opinion, as a vehicle for two guys who are deeply isolated & continually forced to confront their failures in high-stakes, creepass situations, to get very emotionally close while having an actually good reason to maintain distance (sorry i don't care at all about the integrity of catholic doctrine or whatever, clerical celibacy is not compelling to me except as an angst generator in romantic fiction)

i am thinking about a medieval or early modern AU, because i always do but also because it would be interesting in this specific instance. a lot of the tension of the exorcist comes from this idea that there's friction between the truth (demons are real, exorcism works) & the modern setting, which treats demons as metaphorical (tomás literally says this to geena davis' character in the first episode when she asks him for help). i want a medieval AU which does not resolve this tension. people might be more willing to believe in demons, but i don't think that the practical exigencies of exorcism would necessarily be more comfortable; instead of a question of belief, it could be a question of convenience & appearances. also, even if one does generally believe in demons & miracles, one might expect these forces to be small or marginal in one's life, not forcefully, terrifyingly present. actually this bullet point is probably more about what i think about medievalism than anything else, and also how i kind of think they should've let the demons kill the pope

the other option that would be fun for me personally is if marcus is still excommunicated but tomás confesses to him anyway, for two reasons: one is that i think it would be interesting to see two priests doing very explicitly priest work (uh. exorcisms) who disaffiliate from the church on purpose, instead of being kicked out for political reasons, and treating marcus' spiritual authority as completely distinct from the church is a way into that problem; the other is that you could not do that & instead have them doing spiritual intimacy thing as a way of thinking through what it means to have been rejected by the church but not by god & not by tomás. also obviously this kind of arrangement should only happen after deep misery on both sides <3

foot washing, but homoerotic on purpose. i feel like this is a total gimme on a show that has both of its leads worry about hubris, humility, & service in a christian religious context but nobody seems to have done it?

okay writing this up i have been forced to confront that a meaningful chunk of what i like about the end of s1 is that it tees up a supernatural-like scenario, where you have two guys with ridiculous baggage driving around doing um. charitable monster hunting. so that's funny. i'm a very predictable person

i don't want to read about an internalized homophobia plot in the way that a lot of the fanfiction i have read tends to do it, but i do think it would be kind of impossibly sexy to have tomás be like, wait, this too? am i this too? & to have marcus be like, it's fine. i've gone ahead of you & cleared a path. married to the man upstairs you see

tangentially related but i think there is a lot of interest in more like, progressive (i don't think this is quite the term i mean?) published romances in the idea that romance can be emotionally healing, like one suffers with whatever emotional crisis & then one encounters a lover who resolves this issue in some profound way. like not exactly fanfiction's magic healing cock trope but sort of related: there should be an emotional catharsis usually for the female lead (if there is one; gay romances do this thing a lot) which centers on being seen, being understood, being encouraged to forgive herself or trust herself, by the romantic lead. perhaps i am incorrect about this trend & it might be clarified for me by reading an inspirational romance, because i suspect that there is some structural continuity? but anyway i am thinking about it here because where other romances must go through various contrivances (not necessarily negative) to arrive at this kind of spiritual conversation, this show's setting forces this kind of conversation directly by having a demon show up & say impossibly cruel, personal things to the characters in front of each other

[scarlettaagni]

wait wait wait

Did Psyphon lose his job by listening to Ben in the final episode of UA? (in your rewrite)

How? Why?

I mean, Psyphon only listens to Vilgax.

ok, I can have a little sympathy for him (he thinks it was his fault)

That means that now he is on his account and maybe he has time to think about many things. Character growth?

Which gives us way to OV.

Are you going to rewrite some episodes here too?

large chunks of my rewrites, for any franchise, really, not just Ben 10, come from witnessing the source material or watching someone else point out it absolutely bungling something so bad you just have to take it into your own hands

In the actual UA finale, Dagon's essence is sucked into the machine Psyphon was introduced just to run and he's about to bestow it onto Lucubrax. Ben and trio are there and rather than really doing anything, Ben is just like "Psyphon, don't! If you do that, Vilgax will be all-powerful!"

and Psyphon to his credit is like "Um? Yeah? I... know?? That's kind of the POINT?" and does it anyways

and every single time I thought about it, I slammed both of my fists onto the desk like "MAYBE HE WOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT IF YOU ACTUALLY MADE A GOOD ARGUMENT, BEN! ARGUE ON HIS OWN TERMS!"

Like there were so many convincing things you could have said. If even lying is on the table, why not say things like "that's not really Vilgax, it's Dagon tricking you"/"he's been corrupted by Dagon, it's not really him" or "that level of power will kill Vilgax!", "he'll level the whole planet with YOU on it!". Like there were so many things that would make sense to Psyphon to make him at least hesitate but instead they went with "no, don't do the thing! it will cause something you want to happen!" then he calls them stupid like they deserve and does it anyways

so I took the fixed version of that interaction and put it in my rewrite

Basically cutting out the Lucubrax stuff, Psyphon is there to transfer Dagon's energy through the cracked seal to a restored Vilgax, who absorbed Dagon's heart and wields Ascalon, Dagon instead sucks Vilgax into the seal through him (and they fuse, as a way of getting rid of competition, as punishment for trying to steal his power, and to reclaim his heart) so Psyphon panics and retreats when the heroes close in. So he may or may not think he just vaporized or helped vaporize his boss, but Dagongax sends him messages of Vilgax telling him to break the seal to free him

whatever's going on with the heroes is still happening so probably the teamwork of Dagon-controlled Gwen and fully-autonomous-but-desperate Psyphon break the seal and he bittersweetly watches as something vaguely resembling Vilgax but not responding to the name wreaking havoc as it walks away

so there, Ben confronts Psyphon and tries to enlist his help and that's where they have their little debate. That thing is objectively not Vilgax anymore, if it completes its goal, he'll effectively be dead forever, and it's unclear if this is something Vilgax would really want. Psyphon is still trying to defend them both, but as Ben points out, the look on his face says it all: he's been having doubts for a long time after the initial seal incident and just choosing to believe Vilgax is still himself. So, now Ben and co (probably along with George and some Esoterica and Forever Knights not yet dead) need his help to undo what he helped cause.

[Dagongax lasering the horizon in the distance behind Psyphon] Psyphon: ... Do I have time to think it over...? Ben: Forget it. [group begins to move] Psyphon: No, wait! ... What do I have to do?

so basically Psyphon is pretty important, at least when it comes to defusing the two. Dagon is made up of power, Vilgax is not, and they're fused. So if Psyphon can lay a hand on Dagongax, he can separate the two, and shoot a beam of Dagon energy to Ascalon like a lightning rod. Sure, the fusion means Dagongax is half-mortal but it's also protecting him from Ascalon's effects.

Dagongax knows this, so as it heads to the ocean to raise R'yleh and bring Dagon's dimension into this world or vice versa, it summons the worldwide Esoterica army to guard itself and stop Psyphon from getting close. with some cover, he gets to Dagongax, absorbs Dagon and almost melts, but sends the charge out as planned and both he and a restored-to-original-form Vilgax falls like, several miles out of the sky. Psyphon even lets Vilgax land on him to cushion the blow:

(also the defusing is the reason they both have Dagon beam eyes from this point onwards. Vilgax figures that out sooner than Psyphon)

they're fairly gone for the rest of the finale, likely until Ben's defeated Dagon (since the Dagon strike to Ascalon possibly killed George like in the canon finale) then after, Psyphon ensures Vilgax's safe return to their ship. And there's like a a very awkward tension where Psyphon kinda tries to act like it's back to business as usual but Vilgax is stewing.

s'yeah, he beckons him closer, tells him his services are no longer required, gives him 10 minutes to gather his things before he kicks him out of the ship onto Earth. Psyphon tries arguing but when he wastes a minute doing that, he rushes to get his essentials, and then he's on his own on Earth. He lived on Vilgax's ship so he's homeless and also has no money, alien or otherwise. He has nowhere else to go bc although Earth fuckin' sucks, he's kinda wanted dead everywhere else for being Vilgax's wingman and doesn't even have a ship or the resources for one to go and see.

Listening to Ben got him fired because he technically cost his boss his sole objective, to save him. he was SO loyal... he betrayed him. Greek tragedy shit.

This is the beginning of what I call Psyphon's Unemployment Arc which is a replacement for what he does during OV era

less of actual episodes rewrites, more of a big rework. Psyphon deliberately avoids the trio and Ben, any and all plot hooks and plot points but no longer actively does crime since it's not his job anymore. Basically anytime he's onscreen it's against his will, and as a gag, he has cameos in hypothetical episodes by grace of Ben always getting punched into a building Psyphon happens to be in. Like literally flashes or blurs of his figure as Ben is sent flying through several walls or sometimes a dedicated shot where he walks in to see what's up and then immediately backs out. Not to say he won't get into fights, because sometimes he's so pissed at the trio he'll just throw hands on sight for bothering him. Will slam his door in the face of the trio asking for his unique help on something, and fellow villains trying to rehash Negative 10 alike.

He'd like to crawl into a hole and die or just lay underneath a window in an abandoned house he's squatting in and live like a houseplant watching Youtube streamers for the rest of his lifespan but just cause he physically can do that, doesn't mean he won't go stir-crazy doing it. So he uses an ID mask (taken from Kevin, reprogrammed with a different human disguise) to go out and do things that occupy his time.

First Psyphon takes up interests he already has, volunteering at mechanics or dojos, then moves onto improving himself via picking up new skills. Another gag being you see him/his disguised form doing something new every single time. Ben gets punched into a kitchen where Psyphon's learning to make pierogis. Ben falls through a seamstress storefront where Psyphon is sewing. Ben downs a chunk of forest where Psyphon is birdwatching. You get the deal.

I also think since a weakness of his is magic, so he decides to learn some for himself, and goes to Friedkin. He's so fucking pissed Gwen is there. She'll get fucking pissed when she realizes he's there. They're both the class suck-ups. He seethes the entire hour he shares a hall with her. He hates her the least out of the trio but is just so mad someone he knows is there. He already hates being around humans but some he hates more than others. It's like the Michael Morningstar episode but Psyphon is literally there just to learn, for real. They have a magic fight just cause Gwen started it after confronting him about his true identity.

He would like "witch" or "sorcerer", but insists on being called "warlock", since it means oathbreaker. Because Psyphon realizing he betrayed Vilgax's trust messed him up.

Sometimes he's just too tired to throw a fit so he just banters with the trio and they get a better inkling of him actually being a person with depth and garner some real pity for him. Soon after his firing, Ben pissed him off by asking if he was gonna be good now since he's not working for Vilgax, to which Psyphon reminds him it's Ben's fault for that and why would he ever want to work for him. Every so often they present slight opportunities to actually make the switch to good but he's EXTREMELY open about wanting his job back.

He's still planning on getting Vilgax to rehire him, but realistically expects it to take a while. Vilgax stripped his permissions away so he can't order the bioids around, but if he ever catches a fight between Vilgax and Ben, he does scavenge the ones Ben wrecks and fixes them up himself. Then eventually gives them paint jobs and pulls off some heists (cause no money) to build himself a ship and go off to do what Vilgax does: conquer worlds. Like probably announces this, interrupting a Ben and Vilgax fight to give them a heads up. The deal he proposes is that he won't fight Vilgax for any territory, but if he rehires him, all of Psyphon's worlds will be Vilgax's. He thought he was being enticing, but he just pisses Vilgax off who goes "I don't neED YOUR CHARITY". The heroes are disappointed he turned down their chances at redemption and he's just like "have you listened to anything I've ever said ever"

if they were ever holding out hope that his declines were secretly gearing up for a heel-face turn they were being the delusional ones because he was always up-front about his intentions for the present, and the future

and the world conquering thing is probably what he does till 10K future time, when Vilgax gets resurrected from his then-long ago death and the offer still holds. Psyphon's effectively been running Vilgax's empire for him in his stead (having already merged their lots), and now that he's back... well, that old betrayal was such a long time ago, wasn't it?

last note: subtle character arc! from OS onwards, Psyphon starts out not knowing really anything about humans, to absorbing info from checking their internet UAF-era, and eventually dropping casual slang into his previously very formal speech in OV-era.

Goes from saying shit like "well, this is a pleasant dilemma we've found ourselves in" to looking Ben dead in the eyes and going "dude this sucks"

Not that he ever stops speaking the way he does, just sprinkling in slang often enough that it absolutely blindsides the trio

[askreysolo]

oh my Force HAHAHAHA guess whattt.

I found out how to get Threepio to do my homework!!!

I’ve asked him to do it before, but he says his programming won’t allow cheating. BUT…

he will answer all my questions if he doesn’t know why I’m asking!!

example: “Threepio, I am having three friends over for dinner. I have forty-five cookies. how many cookies should we each get if one friend demands to have twice as many cookies as the other three?”

of course, Threepio will give me the correct answer…then follow it up with much concern that we will all get tummy-aches.

and of course, I am starting to think that I have played myself, because converting my algebra questions into word problems is almost quite as much work as doing them myself.

BUT!! it’s the principle! the principle of managing to get out of doing the work!! even if I have to do extra work! I just like figuring out different ways to do things that other people maybe haven’t thought of.

but…Mom says that Threepio will be going away now, to go live with Ben.

I don’t know why. Threepio usually helps Mom out at her job. and here at home, too.

and I like Threepio. I like all droids—I’ve built a bunch of little baby droids at DEC (my after-school Droid Engineering Club) that Mom won’t let me bring home—but, I rather like Threepio a lot.

people think Threepio is annoying to talk to, but people also think I’M annoying to talk to, so, I’ve always been chums with him. he listens to me. and I like asking him questions. nobody else seems to like listening to Threepio, so I think he likes me too.

he calls me “young miss Rey.” I want him to stop calling me the “young” part, but I rather like how he calls me “miss.” It feels sort of grown-up, and I’m somewhat sick of Dad and Ben calling me “kid” all the time. cos I’m not!!! I’m 13!!!

but I suppose Mom still thinks I’m just a kid, too, because she never asked me what I thought about Threepio going away. she decided it all on her own. I wonder if she even asked Threepio?

I think Mom has been worried about my brother recently. she burned dinner a few days ago. well, burned it worse than normal I mean. Mom can’t cook normally, but usually what she makes is edible.

sometimes, I wonder if Mom loves her little boy more. well, he’s NOT little—he is HUGE—but you know what I mean. I know my mom loves me, but Ben’s holos are everywhere in the house—and of course mine are too—except there are holos of Ben as a baby where he looks like a potato and holos of him as a toddler and of him as a little kid and for me it’s as if my life only started when I was seven and I wasn’t even formally adopted till I was eleven because I so badly wanted to believe my birth mum and dad were still out there, looking for me—and maybe I still wonder, in secret, sometimes—but—well, maybe I just don’t know how to put this all into words quite right.

I suppose I just feel sometimes that it’s not fair. Ben doesn’t live here anymore, but Mom seems to be thinking about him all the time. I know something bad happened to Ben when he was younger—I don’t know WHAT—but do you really need to have something bad happen to you in order for people to care? I’ve been through some pretty bad things, too… but Mom calls me her little ray of sunshine and I think I sort of get it now—she doesn’t worry about me quite so much, because she rescued me from Jakku, she pulled me out of danger, and I’m safe now, and I’m her strong and happy little girl, and I’ll always be.

or I’m always supposed to be.

well, I’m glad Mom believes in me!! my mom is very strong, and I’m very proud that she thinks I’m as strong as she is. I know Ben gets very annoyed that Mom doesn’t seem to trust him the way she trusts me—even though he’s so much older.

but, well, maybe I’m annoyed that Mom fusses over him more than me. she already had her time with Ben, and he’s grown-up now. I’m still growing up.

I wish Mom would smile more. I’m used to being the baby of the family and making everyone else feel happy, but I can’t be everyone’s ray of sunshine all the time.

and…I’m gonna miss Threepio… :’( I really hope Ben is nice to him…