#jay’s design is just the outfit i remembered most from watching as a kid and the newer design i haven’t finished yet

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

I've seen you mention on some posts that Ninjago had an affect on your relationship with being Asian, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts you wanted to share on the subject of Asian representation in Ninjago.

Feel free to disregard if the subject is too personal.

This is absolutely fine! In fact I’ve been itching for an excuse to talk about it for a while, because this show deeply influenced my writing growing up, and honestly I'm sick of most of the people getting noticed for discussing it being white.

So, I think Ninjago’s Asian representation is garbage. It’s not unique: there was a common trend in 2010’s kids’ media to make everything cooler by including Ninjas or, more generally, Asians Doing Martial Arts. I remember it being in media as distant as Club Penguin and many Flash games back in the day, as well as worse cartoons I don’t bother to remember the name of. I’m fairly sure adult-geared Kung Fu movies also had a hand in this, but I didn’t watch those as a kid.

But Ninjago’s particularly bad in that they’ve kept doing this for over 10 years, and it’s baked into their story.

Everything from them not checking up how ‘ninjutsu’ was spelled, to them not actually making the characters have Asian skintones in that one anime segment, to that one time they based Nya’s outfit off a clearly named Cheongsam from Pinterest and called it a Kimono? It all just reeks of people who wanted to make a quick buck of an entire continent’s ‘aesthetic’ and the mysticism around it, rather than portray them as actual people.

There’s a really great website by someone (who I can’t remember the username of) detailing all the Orientalism of the show up until about season 10. It dives very deeply into how the design language of Ninjago always seems to be based in making the actually ‘Asian’ parts of the show evoke more of a feeling of East Asia than actually being accurate to any one culture, and a lot of inaccuracies and why they arose.

A poignant point it raises is that any time we get a cool character or place, they’re always portrayed as more western-coded and ‘civilised.’ Jamanakai Village is poor and the villagers are rude. Ninjago City is civilised and clearly closer to what white people are used to living in. Lloyd is this world’s destined saviour, and he is blonde. There was *one* Asian voice actor on the VA team. And 2/3 of the Ninja team is white-coded by name.

Some my own observations over the years also include:

Jay’s ‘yin to my yang saying’ being completely made up.

That intro to… season 7, I think? Where the Ninja fight off some slave-drivers whipping people working a rice farm. Which never gets brought up again.

Nadakhan’s entire design is the only bit of South-Asian rep we get for the first few years, and his mythology is inaccurate to how actual Djinn work, and he’s acknowledged by the creators to have a sexy voice and be an absolute creep.

Having enjoyed Monkie Kid, I think Ninjago’s Asian rep is fundamentally unfixable. It was built to appeal to a western audience that simply thought the concept of ninja were cool, and thought of Asia only as a conglomerate where people had powers and did cool fight sequences or were otherwise savages. And also where the entirety of South Asia doesn't exist.

Like, I've tried to make an AU where I overhauled things completely to be better rep, and you just can't do it without breaking the show in half. Half of a character's name comes from Japan, and the other half from China. You're going to be losing something whatever you choose (shout out to Koko from the movie), and it gets uncomfortable to think about real quick, especially when the show's strongest suit is its characters.

As a kid who was part of a diaspora, Ninjago definitely didn't help my fucked up viewpoint of being cool only if I passed as white enough and viewed my parents' country as a magical but ancient land rather than part of reality.

[un-pearable]

Jay AND sonic. Blue guys w/ electricity motifs..

You’re losin’ speed! You’re losin’ your flow! —But inside me is a power you’ll never know Then let it out; it’s inside you! —Better all stand back, ’cause I’m coming through! Endless Possibility, Sonic Unleashed

BLUE GUYS WITH ELECTRICITY MOTIFS....

+ a few more assorted versions bc why not :]

[felikatze]

i’ve finished skybound. hoooo boy. you know how this goes. s6 you are. a season.

after the finale i can 100% understand why people have mixed feelings abt skybound

there were. A Lot of things i liked. the beginning was a bit slow (again) (maybe i need to understand what “rising action” means) but once jay encountered nadakhan it really picked up from the sheer “what the fuck just happened” factor that kept me watching in morbid curiosity.

this season feels like. an apology letter to nya, for how she’s treated in earlier seasons. there’s the media aspect of her being viewed as “the girl ninja” by the general public that feels deliberately meta, and i think this is. generally done well? to a degree. in a lot of her statements on this nya comes across in a very “not like other girls” way, but the intent to do good with this is still there.

a detail i really liked is that everyone keeps ther s5 gi, but nya is the odd one out design wise, since hers takes inspo from the s1 zx (?) gi. i REALLY liked that she only gets a matching gi in episode 8, which is when she is (for once, finally) emotionally honest with jay, about how frustrated she is at her lack of agency. she’s always been this way, but following her tough independant girl persona (likely put on out of this frustration, and a want to not be defined by men) she’s never honest with her feelings to any of the guys before this (most felt in s3, lmao). it’s only here, when she chooses to be one of the ninja that she’s truly part of the group, which is symbolized through her changing outfits to match them.

this. goes downhill from there. the finale is urghhhhrhrh. so. we have this arc about independance, about putting up false fronts out of frustration, of wanting to not be defined by others. and what happens? she gets fucking fridged. are you kidding. the whole marriage plot just feels yikes to watch (though nya shares that feeling, lmao) and i think it would’ve been wayyyy better if it didn’t succeed, but that’s not climatic enough, i guess. nooooo, we have to completely rob nya of agency that she clawed for the past two seasons so jay can dramatically save her. feminist statement alright. like. oh my god. they were doing so good and then THAT. nya gets to deal the final blow to the big bad in s5 by herself and now she gets brainwashed. even the s2 finale did her better than this.

like cmon man.

LIKE YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD addressing how nya has been treated and how this is unfair and how she deserves more than to be kai’s sister or jay’s girlfriend and THENNN.

moving on.

jay this season. i love him. i’m going to hit him with a hammer. the anxiety disorder rep i deserve. jay has anxiety i have anxiety. i know this.

HE’S SOOOO. GODDDD. again (gestures at episode 4). it’s nice to have the general undercurrents of his character brought to the forefront like this. he was never over nya he was never over his upbringing. he’s always been self-conscious and to have this go soo disastrously wrong is tasty material. episode 4 killed me in my sleep i was so baffled. my guy retconed his own backstory (perhaps?? i remember reading he actually IS adopted regularly too but no one tells him abt it) and it’s so fucked up man. that moment is soo  fucked up. i love it.

the one v one scenes of nadakhan with the ninja were reaaaally good. suspenseful and total trainwrecks. he totally just bamboozled kai and it was fun to watch zane fail to outwit him (because he forgot pixal is a separate person from himself rip. wait pixal technically also gets fridged this season-). man those scenes were just FUN.

also nadakhan calling him out and then ed calling him out on hiding behind his jokes and how jay has always been the super anxious pessimistic one despite being the comic relief. again. anxiety disorder if you get it you get it.

it’s vry nice to see chivalry at the cost of women’s agency portrayed as cringe loser behaviour that jay needs to get over. again ep8 is the highlight of the season i think. it really gave both nya and jay a place to shine. nya going “It’s my future too” is SOOO GOOD. jay learns to really listen to nya and what she wants and she’s honest to him and herself that she still does want to be with him and he still wants to be with her and it’s sweet. the reversal at the end where she protects him plays into it well but (gestures at finale and clenches teeth)

other things. i thought ep9 where jay assembles a crew of sidecharacters was cool and sweet. i liked seeing those bozos again, and jay having confidence in himself thanks to his dad telling him off. good moment.

the jay / cole friendship this season. SUPERB. they are BESTIES. cole is just super supportive of jay. i love that. i’m really glad that s4 just ironed that out for good. “I’m not just his friend, I’m his best friend.” GOOD SHIT MAN. they had a LOT of great moments like cole being the first to see when jay’s hiding his encounter with nadakhan. “I know you too well” GOOD SHIT MAN!!!!!!! LOVE THIS DYNAMIC!!!

THE LOVE TRIANGLE IS DEAD I CHEER FOR IT’S DEMISE. cole flat out has forgotten about it which is hilarious. he forgot “what got between jay and nya”. bro it was YOUUUUU. well whatever good for him.

lloyd getting tomorrow’s tea x2 was a really fun gag and smart choice to have him be the cryptic advice character. also he looks exactly like his dad. fun times.

i liked the development of nadakhan’s crew. they really just wanted a home, and not power or whatever. i think it’s fun to compare jay and clancey (?) since they’re kinda similar. clancey is the stuttery blabbering comic relief of the crew, similar to jay, but clancey is more undervalued for it. it being clancey specifically who secures the black widow’s poison and tells it to jay feels significant here, since that way clancey and jay both gaining confidence in themselves and their own value mirrors each other.

nya is fun to compare to dogshank (is that how you spell it?) for their couple scenes explicitly doing so. “We fight like girls, not like cowards!” that’s a good line. dogshank is kinda like how nya becomes, situation wise. dogshank is well respected in her group, she has her own thing going, being the strong burly one (atypical depiction of femininity! nice touch! similar to how nya is kinda butch as hell ngl), but dogshank is still proud of being a woman, and not afraid to show it (see that one scene where she’s playing harp.) feels significant for this comparison that it’s dogshank who manages to ultimately capture nya.

twas fun how nadakhan’s crew turned against him cuz he just did not give a shit about them lol. like how clancy loved his position, low as it may have been, and never wanted a wish. this complacency is shattered when he’s forced to make a wish, and he realized he was never valued at all by nadakhan. flintlock (godddd how do you spell these fuckers) is also cool in how the fuckin. psychosomatic. properties of wishes are explained (his aim sucks now because he believes it sucks now). ALSOO how the seeds of doubt came up through jay telling the truth and essentially copying nadakhan’s underhanded negotiation tactics to fuck with flintlock. THAT was also a cool scene i liked it.

to summarize. episodes 1-3. kinda meh. episodes 4-8. really good. season finale. bro what are you doing <3 clumsy but well intentioned handling of feminist themes that fall short because the finale plays into long established sexist tropes. ending the season on jay and nya kissing being broadcast on television after it was public perception that made nya bury her feelings seems kinda bad taste, though. anway. i’m going to sleep.

[crystallinee-waters]

Please do it for Jarley and Violate

Imagine your OTP has achild together: Joker/Harley:

1. Who goes to the baby,when it cries in the middle of the night? Always Harley, but J did it once (it was the first time he actually looked at Jaylie, and she became a ‘person’ somehow in his eyes, rather than a thing/concept.)

2. Who takes thematernity/paternity leave from work, when the kid is born? Harley, as the club/underworld/crime sprees are too dangerous to bring an infant to.

3. Whose name (ordesignation, like “mom” or “dad”) is the child’s first word?  *checks fanfic* It was Dada. I think.

4. Who is more protective?Or overprotective?Harley is the moreprotective one but also not. She is much closer to her parentalinstincts than J but her parenting style is also very laissez-faire. Sometimes Jpicks up a danger that Harley has completely overlooked because she isscatter-brained and he is more calculating, or just more aware of things. (e.g. she does not see the harm in her daughter playing with knives or bullets at the age of two, but J does.)  In certain places such as theunderworld/clubs, Harley is definitely the violently-protective parent and J is more laid-back until an incident actually happens, then shit really hits the fan.

5. What language they speakto the baby? Do they title their child “young man” or “young lady”, or do the typicalbaby-talk?J spoke “villain monologue” to Jaylie since she was six months old, Harley mostly spoke baby language until her daughter was twelve. In conclusion, Jaylie’s vocabulary is… conflicted.

6. Do they buy the childevery toy it desires? Or they don’t spoil their child? Jaylie is and was a spoiled kid. Harley gave her literally anything she asked for since she was a baby, and she learned to throw tantrums to enforce it. J did not yield, however, but he still gives her lots of gifts, like he does to Harley.

7. Are they immune totemper tantrums the child throws, eg. when they dont want to buy them a toy insupermarket? Harley always gives in. J gets annoyed - he might throw a tantrum in return and even blow up the supermarket to make a point - but in the end… Jaylie gets her way. She gets the dog and the friend and the acid bath. (Jonny Frosts always yields, too. Ivy is annoyed and confused at this mess.)

8. Who is more likely tomake ice cream for breakfast? Harley all the way. (Or Frosty if he’s on duty.)

9. Who does the thing withpicking up and swinging the kid around? J. He can also throw her very high into the air.

10. Who cooks for thebaby?Frost, actually, because Harley can’t be trusted with that (or can’t remember to do it very often, actually.)

11. Who reads bedtimestories? Both! It was something they genuinely enjoyed, making it dark yet exciting - and they have a favorite nursery rhyme: Who Killed Cock Robin (no shit, this is a legit nursery rhyme for kids.) Harley’s favorite is: It’s Raining, it’s Pouring (which is also legit very ominous.) I had so much fun researching this.

12. Who picks outfits tokindergarten for the kid? No kindergarten. Harley picks all the outfits.

13. Who makes the child bemore self-dependant and who makes everything for the kid? J’s mere presence in Jaylie’s life taught her how to survive from an early age, and be alright on her own, however that sounds. She learned how to manipulate, use charms or wits or make herself invisible if the situation required it - she did get a lot of life skill from that unstable yet affectionate connection (I could delve deeper into the psychology of Jaylie - her attachment style, for example) She also mentally survived tough situations, such as being kidnapped at an early age, due to knowing which expectations J had of her, so it served her. He is the most laissez-faire parent of them all - like Harley he often doesn’t recognize danger until Jaylie is in the middle of it.

14. Who enjoys watchingkids movies more? Harley!! She loves it. She and Jay usually have long cartoon marathons.

15. Who looks more liketheir child? Harley is the most similar to her at first glance, but Jaylie resembles her father more, with her eyes and facial features.

Violet/Tate:

(I actually never fully pictured this so this was a bit hard. I’m assuming Tate is still dead, or alive,  and Violet is still alive?)

1. Who goes to the baby,when it cries in the middle of the night? Both of them, but Tate especially. He hates the sound of his child crying.

2. Who takes thematernity/paternity leave from work, when the kid is born? Considering Violet must still be alive, and older, she does.

3. Whose name (ordesignation, like “mom” or “dad”) is the child’s first word? I think Violet’s name - Mommy.

4. Who is more protective?Or overprotective? Considering they live in the Murder House, there are going to be a lot of shit around to keep an eye on, with everyone wanting a baby, so I think both of them would be very protective. Tate would be his usual violent self to ensure the safety of the baby, killing if he had to.

5. What language they speakto the baby? Do they title their child “young man” or “young lady”, or do the typicalbaby-talk?I think they would speak very normally to their child, no baby talk at all, considering how serious they are.

6. Do they buy the childevery toy it disires? Or they dont spoil their child? Tate would spoil the child, but Violet would be a bit more restrictive.

7. Are they immune totemper tantrums the child throws, eg. when they dont want to buy them a toy insupermarket? Tate always gives in, he can’t stand the tantrums. He would do anything to make the child stop crying.

8. Who is more likely tomake ice cream for breakfast? Both of them, mostly Tate.

9. Who does the thing withpicking up and swinging the kid around? Tate!

10. Who cookes for thebaby? Both, Violet? Or Vivien or Moira or Nora or Hayden - the list goes on.

11. Who reads bedtimestories? Violet, mostly, trying to give their child a sense of normalcy. But also Vivien or Moira or Nora or Hayden.

12. Who picks outfits tokindergarten for the kid? Violet.

13. Who makes the child bemore self-dependant and who makes everything for the kid? I think Tate and Violet both would try to make their child as self-dependent as possible.

14. Who enjoys watchingkids movies more?Tate. Violet absoultely can’t stand it.

15. Who looks more liketheir child?I feel both a son or daughter would look really like Violet, but especially if they had a boy.

 (Gosh, I wanna write this now…)

Thank you! ~

[hannahmcne]

Can You Hear Me?

Ben is only seven when he is diagnosed with meningitis. He wakes up one morning with a high fever and a headache and can’t keep anything down the entire day. The servants and his parents in Beast’s Castle assume it’s flu until his mom comes in the following morning and discovers that Ben won’t wake up. A doctor is called in, and they get him on a small weekly prescription to see if things will get better by week out. On a Saturday, two months before he turns eight, Ben is rushed to Auradon Central Medicare and formally diagnosed with meningitis.

At the time of his admission, the two outside layers of the meninges that protect his brain have swelled up and fluid is gathering inside his skull, leading to him not being able to stand light and having trouble keeping conscious. The nurses and doctors arrange a set of IV’s that send a steady range of antibiotics straight into his veins, an oxygen mask to regulate his breathing throughout the night, several dozen steroid and anti-inflammation medications he has to take by mouth during the day when the oxygen mask is off, and many other things. Meningitis isn’t a surgery-fixable case, so Ben is left to fight it off by himself.

Looking back, Ben can’t remember the exact specifics, but he does remember waking up one morning, squinting around the room as nurses rushed in with water, food, and medications, and thinking that things sounded rather fuzzy, as if he was underwater or had earplugs in. Then, suddenly, if his mom says something to him, he can only hear half of it. Doctors quickly catch on to the problem and bring in Ben’s first audiologist, who tests his ears and declares that Ben is almost 100% deaf in his left ear and steadily increasing towards deafness in his right. By the time he’s eight, his ears are no longer working.

Ben slowly recovers, but his hearing doesn’t. Those first few nights back home are horrible. People forget, try calling to him, get angry when he doesn’t answer, and then are embarrassed when they remember. His parents get someone to come and teach him sign language, but for the first weeks, he struggles to write what he wants to say to his parents as they wait, fidgeting, for him to express his thoughts. Many times, Ben finds himself sitting in the quiet of his room, tapping silently on the windowsills and walls, hoping by some miracle he’ll hear more than just the memories of what the sound was.

The years pass. He learns to read lips. Exhausting? Yes. Necessary? Equal yes. He slowly starts to make friends again. At first, people are nice to talk slowly while he tries to associate movements to meanings, but soon they start talking just as fast as ever, and Ben’s head spins, trying to make sense of everything everyone is saying. He learns to follow conversations by following people’s eyes when they turn to listen to someone else speak and practices daily in front of a mirror with a transcribing device, making sure he can still be understood even though he can’t hear anymore.

People say he’s a great speaker.

His friends describe him as a great listener.

He guesses he’ll never really know for sure.

He’s Auradon’s future leader, born to listen to the kingdom and fix their problems, and he can’t even hear anything. He wonders if his future wife will have a problem with the idea he’ll never once hear her muttering to herself or singing to anything. He wonders if his future kids will make jokes to their friends about how their dad never listens to them or something.

At the age of sixteen, Ben makes the decision to bring over villain kids from the Isle of the Lost in order to start a re-integration process that will start to heal things between the Isle and Auradon. And yeah, there is lots of fear in doing something like that. What if he picks wrong? What if they start to destroy Auradon? What if they just plain don’t like him? He picks four to start with, figuring it’ll be easier to connect with a smaller group first, and sets about work. Soon enough, the first four names are down. Mal, daughter of Maleficent, Evie, Daughter of the Evil Queen, Carlos, son of Cruella De Vil, and Jay, son of Jafar.

Arrangements are made, parents are notified, and the new students are set to arrive on a Tuesday to the Auradon Prep front circle. Fairy Godmother invites the band(Which is a division Ben appreciates a lot more than the other students, given he can’t hear the horrible beginning practices) down to welcome the new students and Audrey gets herself excused from her class to come down and be with him as he welcomes the new kids.

On the day of, Ben can feel cold sweat dripping down his back as he stands, baking in the mid-afternoon light, waiting for the limo to appear down the road. Audrey’s arm is looped through his, his suit is sticking to his arms, and his hands are shaking. She leans her head on his shoulder serenely and then he sees her start moving her lips out of the corner of his eye. He whips his head around to follow her words as best he can.

“…be nervous,” She is saying. “They’ll love you. Everyone does.”

“I didn’t catch that first part,” He tells her with a sigh. He hates how she likes to talk with her head on his arm. It’s hard to see her. She can’t expect him to know a word she said if he can’t see her, right?

Fairy Godmother puts a hand on his other arm gently and points down the driveway. Ben sees a glimpse of a black hood and his breath catches. He pulls his arm out of Audrey’s and takes a deep breath, rubbing his hands on his suit.

The limo comes to a stop; the door opens. There’s a minor scuffle, but then all four stand in front of him, and then Ben is relaxing because he can see teamwork here. He can see curiosity and wonder and chocolate smeared on Carlos’s cheek. There’s definitely hope. He picked right.

“It’s so, so good to finally meet you all,” He declares, stepping forward with a smile. “I’m Ben.”

All of the VK’s eyes rest on him, and he can see their expressions softening just slightly before their eyes jump to the person next to him and he can see walls going back up again. He turns to see what’s wrong and watches Audrey’s lips form the words: “soon-to-be-king!”

He lets out a nervous laugh, mentally kicking himself in her behalf, and adds: “This is Audrey!”, which is another mistake as Audrey stops the conversation to declare that she’s a princess.

Evie steps forward, and she’s mumbling. He has no idea what she’s saying. She’s barely moving her lips as she speaks, and he’s at a loss. He turns to Audrey, hoping she’ll have caught on(Fat chance, because out of all his friends, Audrey is the one who ignores the fact he can’t hear the most) to the fact he is clueless, and he watches her mouth curl into a sneer as she replies: “The Evil Queen has no royal status here, and neither do you.”

Oh. Oh. Why, dear lord, would she say that?

“Audrey,” He grits out, turning to the side. “Can you just… chill?”

Audrey blinks in surprise. “I am chill,” She protests, wrinkling her brow up.

“No, you’re not,” He shakes his head. “So just stop.” He turns back to the villain kids and moves forward, out holding a hand. “I’m Ben, I’m going to show you around and I’m going to be here to answer any questions you have. You can come to me for anything – anything at all.” He shakes the hand of the first villain kid, who he suspects is Jay from the insignia on his jacket, and then the next in line, who stands slightly forward as if she’s the leader. The wing applique attached to her shoulders make him suspect this is Mal, daughter of Maleficent. Evie is obvious. She has apple jewelry and recently declared herself a princess if he suspects correctly. And that means the last boy is Carlos de Vil.

There’s a short introduction of the area by Fairy Godmother, and the band heads out. Ben turns to Audrey. “I think I’ve got it from here,” He tells her as clearly as he can. “I’ll come to find you later.”

Probably to break up with her. He’s sick of her attitude.

As he leads the Villain Kids into the front of the building, he keeps turned around so he can keep track of any conversations they’re having. They don’t say much, which is good, and the first time Carlos moves to ask something, he raises a hand that immediately draws Ben’s attention and has him mentally sighing in relief.

As they pause in front of the Beast’s statue and the four watch him turn it from a man into Beast, Mal turns with a little smirk pulling at her mouth and asks: “Does he shed much?” And even though he can’t hear her voice, he can tell it’s filled with sarcasm and humor. His response pleases himself too.

“Yeah, Mom won’t let him on the couch,” He replies. And Mal’s expression catches because she clearly didn’t expect an Auradon boy to get her Isle sarcasm. All of the Isle kids exchange little looks as he smiles, and he can already tell that this is the start of something great.

The boys immediately get in with tourney, which is great, because it’s something he gets into as well. His teammates have to tap him on the shoulder and relay any direct instructions that are for him, but overall it doesn’t require lots of communication and is fun for him. Lack of communication is another reason he enjoys swimming. Meanwhile, Evie debuts a few Isle designs, slowly starts letting people buy things off of her, and then suddenly she’s the number one fashionista in the school and people are commissioning her for outfits and accessories. Mal draws a lot, he notices immediately, except she doesn’t sign up for art class until he convinces her to do it with him. Then, eventually, she becomes top of the entire program and the teacher sends one of her Isle-inspired pieces to a country gala where Ben’s parents actually text him a photo of it to get his opinion. Ben, meanwhile, learns how to use a dot to make a 2D picture.

And so he and the VK’s are friends. When they come up to talk to him, they clap him on the shoulder so he knows they’re there and he tells Evie to speak up so he can always understand her, and things are good. Really good.

Until suddenly they’re not.

________________________________________________________________

“Ben!” Mal raises her voice and her hand to wave across the room as the young King enters the lunchroom(He’s the king now, and neither Mal nor her friends really felt like ruining his big day to steal the wand, so now their plans have become a ‘Distant Maybe’ (Aka, probably not)). She keeps her hand raised for a few seconds and then brings it back down when Ben doesn’t reply. She stares at her fingertips numbly as Evie, Jay, and Carlos duck their heads a little in confusion.

“That’s not the first time he’s done that,” Evie mumbles, pushing her plate away and setting her mirror down on the table.

“Maybe he’s getting annoyed with us?” Carlos suggests in a hollow tone, setting his elbows on the table and his chin on his elbows.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Mal murmurs as she watches Audrey raise an

arm from a different table and call for Ben. He sees her arm out of the corner of his eye and turns to smile and wave before he goes to sit down beside Chad Charming, who Mal doesn’t like, Lonnie, who Mal only likes a little, and Audrey, who Mal could watch burn alive and not care. Audrey looks over at Mal with a little smirk as Ben starts to talk with them, and Mal averts her gaze, acting as if she doesn’t care that he’s not sitting with them again. Acting as if it doesn’t hurt that he’s ignoring them.

Jay pushes his plate back too and stares at the table for a few seconds. They all completely miss Ben turning to search around the room from his table and trying to wave when he sees them.

________________________________________________________________

Mal is standing at her locker when she hears footsteps approaching from the other side, which the door is blocking. She closes her eyes. The footsteps are light, so she knows they are not Ben’s, but it is the fact that someone is trying to impersonate Ben that has her heart aching. Nothing good can come out of this.

She shuts her locker door and meets the eyes of Princess Audrey, the King’s girlfriend. And then she leans against the lockers and keeps her face blank as she waits for the girl to state her case or scoff and leave, as she usually does.

“Aren’t you going to say good morning?” Audrey demands after a while.

Mal raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?” She asks.

Audrey scoffs. “It’s never a good morning when you’re around. Ben really is just too trusting.”

Mal slumps internally. She really doesn’t want to hear this right now, but she can’t turn and walk off without showing Audrey she’s getting to her, so she stands there without a single flinch.

“I mean, sure, his mom fell in love with the big nasty beast who turned out to be a prince, but with my mom, the evil fairy was just the evil fairy. Your mother, remember?” Audrey sneers. “Doesn’t look like there’s been much change between generations.”

An arm appears out of nowhere, separating Mal and Audrey, and Mal looks up to see the very cross face of the king himself as he pushes Audrey away from Mal. Audrey’s face falls away into shock. “Ben,” She squawks. “How much did you-”

“I saw it all,” Ben snaps, dropping his backpack on the ground and taking his girlfriend by the shoulders. “And that’s it. I’m sick of your attitude towards me, towards everyone else, towards the people I like… everyone. We’re not your doormats, and I hate how you think you’re entitled to brathood because you’re my girlfriend. This is it. We’re done, Audrey. I’m breaking up with you.”

Audrey crumples, tries to grab at his sleeves, but he’s turning away, already gone. He turns back to Mal with a concerned expression, reaching to put an arm around her shoulders, and Mal can’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

“Are you okay?” He whispers, tugging her chin up a little so he can see her face. “Listen… it’s not true what Audrey said.”

Mal pushes him away. Something about this isn’t correct. He can’t ignore them and then swing around full circle to try and fool them that he cares about him. “Just go back to ignoring us,” She snaps. “We already deal with everyone else hating us – we can deal with you too.”

Though it’s disappointing… he seemed so genuine and funny.

Ben’s arm drops from around her and he repeats: “Ignoring you,’ as if it’s astounding to him. Mal rolls her eyes. She doesn’t understand why he’s pretending now, of all times. She turns her back to him and strides off with her shoulders back and her chin held aloft. She can hear Audrey starting to cry behind her and thinks, at the very least, Audrey is finally getting what’s coming to her.

________________________________________________________________

There’s a light knock at the door that evening. Carlos has mastered his game and is searching on the internet for a new one to begin while Jay cleans his tourney stuff off in a corner and Evie sketches her heart out in a design book, trying to find her next big creation. Mal is reminiscing Ben’s arm around her shoulders and squeezing her eyes shut as she recalls what it was like to hear Ben break up with his girlfriend. And since she’s the relatively least busy, she’s the one who gets up to answer the door when the second knock comes, more persistent and meaning it’s not Ben behind the door.

She slides the lock and uses her toes to swing the door open. Over the threshold is Doug, who is probably going to end up being Evie’s boyfriend, she thinks. Evie stands up with a smile when she sees him and waves. "Doug!” She greets. “I didn’t know you were coming over today.”

“Hi, Evie,” Doug smiles and waves a little. “I, erm, am actually here on Ben’s behalf and – wait! No, don’t close the door!” He jams his foot into the frame as Mal moves to swing the door closed at the mention of the King’s name. Evie sits down with a scowl as Doug opens the door with a sigh, steps in, and closes it. Mal goes to sit back in her place on Jay’s bed without a word or a flicker of emotion. Everyone else looks away with similar expressions of disdain as Doug takes a deep breath against the door.

“Ben said that the four of you think he’s ignoring you. I’ve, ah, come to clear things up with you in case you don’t feel like talking to him.” He swallows, and then Jay speaks up from across the room.

“Man, we get it, he doesn’t like hanging around the villain kids. We get it.” He sighs, sounding dejected. “It’s just a little disappointing because he’s the one who brought us over.”

“Ben is deaf,” Doug corrects with a shake of the head. “He hasn’t been able to hear anything since he was eight years old. So, if you’re trying to get his attention from across a room or walking by him in the hallways, you need to make sure he’s able to see you so that he can read your lips.”

The room is silent. Then, slowly, Jay straightens up, looking mystified. Carlos looks like the heavens have reopened. A revelatory light comes into Evie’s eyes, and Mal gets up and turns to stare at Doug. “He… can’t hear us?” She repeats.

“100% deaf,” Doug confirms. “That’s why he has to have people speak slower or ask them to repeat things. He doesn’t even know what he sounds like. He practices speaking with a transcriber in the morning so he can make sure people can understand them. So, he hasn’t been ignoring you, he just had no clue you were trying to talk to him.”

“But he went to Audrey’s table when she called him,” Mal frowns, recalling Audrey’s smirk as the king joined them. “And he didn’t look at us at all.”

“Were you sitting somewhere he could see you?” Doug asks. The four VK’s fall silent again. Mal leans back into the wall. Ben is deaf. He can’t hear. That makes so much more sense.

“Why didn’t anyone tell us?” Carlos asks, running his hands through Dude’s fur at his side.

Doug shrugs. “I don’t know. We all thought you knew. I was actually pretty surprised when Ben asked if I could come to explain things on his behalf. I didn’t know that you didn’t know.”

The silence stretches out with each of them taking in the revelation. Then Jay, across the room, heaves a sigh and goes: “Oh,” and the other three chuckle in relieving humor.

________________________________________________________________

Mal makes the first attempt at conversation with Ben the next day, as she spots him down the hall, walking with Chad. She pauses at her locker, screws up her courage, and then sticks out a hand and waves it. Ben doesn’t notice for a second, so she keeps her hand out, and then suddenly his head snaps in her direction. He blinks for a second, taking in the fact she’s trying to get his attention, and then his entire face brightens. He claps Chad on the shoulder, bids him goodbye, and hurries over to her with his entire face beaming, completely happy that she’s speaking to him again.

“Hi!” He greets her.

“Hi!” She smiles a little in spite of herself. He goes to open up his arms for a hug before he appears to remember that the VK’s aren’t as open to affection as the Auradonians. But Mal accidentally opens her hands up and so they stand there awkwardly before he puts a hand around her and gives her a hug from the side. She kind of… lets her arms fall into place around him and he laughs, a bubbling sound that she feels rise up in his chest and it makes her feel a lot happier than she’s been lately.

“I saw you trying to get my attention,” Ben smiles. “Do you need anything? I’ve missed talking to you.”

“I’ve missed talking to you,” Mal smiles, shutting her locker even though she still needs to grab her textbook and head to class. He keeps an arm around her, which makes it hard to draw away the arm she has around his back, but she does let her left arm drop. In her hand is her sketchpad with her pencil stuck into the spiral ring. They start wandering down the hall aimlessly together. “Doug explained… things to us. We’re sorry that we thought you were ignoring us.”

Ben ducks down a little to continue watching her mouth as she looks to the ground, and the thought occurs to her: if Ben is to read lips, he has to see said lips move. She brings her head back up, allowing Ben to straighten his neck as well. “Sorry,” she apologizes.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ben shakes his head. “I honestly thought you guys knew. I was a little concerned when you all stopped coming around to hang out and Carlos and Jay would break off during tourney practices, but I just kind of hoped you were starting to feel a little more at home here and were trying to branch out.”

Mal shakes her head. “We had no idea,” She sighs. “I do think, in hindsight, that Audrey realized we didn’t know. There were times we’d try and get your attention and you wouldn’t notice, and she’d try right after us and look over to make sure we got the memo.”

Ben frowned. “I’m sorry about Audrey,” He shook his head. “She got bad leading up to coronation, but after it was over, she was just insufferable. I’ve been meaning to break up with her for a while. When I came up to talk to you and saw her saying that stuff… it really was just the last straw.”

Mal hums and suddenly, she’s not sure how, they’re out on the grounds and their arms are still around each other’s backs, and they’re just chatting like two old friends. He gestures down at her sketchbook. “Have you done anything new recently?” He asks.

“Loads,” Mal affirms, holding it up. “I’m almost out of room. Having you gone gave me lots of angst time.”

“Oh, we can’t have that,” Ben laughs, rolling his eyes. He holds his hand out for the book. “May I?” He asks.

She hands it to him and then watches his face grow brighter as he opens it and starts flipping through from where he last saw her working. He stops to flip back at some of his old favorites – a rose is, notably, one he is always enchanted by – and she can see in his eyes how impressed he is with her recent work.

“You really like art a lot, huh?” She asks. He doesn’t answer, and Mal mentally kicks herself before she waves a little hand in his face, waits for him to rip his eyes away, and then repeats the question.

“I do,” Ben affirms, glancing back at the picture as he speaks. This one is of Jay on the tourney field, diving into a catch in what feels like slow motion. “Art needs no words.” He glances back at Mal to make sure she isn’t saying anything else before they stop beside a tree and take a seat at the base of the trunk. She wraps her arms around her legs and watches him flip through.

No words, meaning he doesn’t have to follow the conversation. Mal watches him continue looking through her work. A little bell goes off in the back of her mind. You have class, something reminds her. Your textbook is in your locker.

She can be late – it won’t be anything anyone wouldn’t expect from a villain kids, after all.

Ben puts his finger down on a self-portrait she’s been working on, with different parts of her personality and the Isle itself detailed into her outfit and features. In her eyes is a curling dragon, under her arm is a spellbook, her friends have images on her arms, and the Isle skyline is worked into the base of her jacket and into the hemline of her jeans. “This is amazing,” He breathes. “You are so incredibly talented.” Ben looks up to see if she’ll respond, but she doesn’t, she only shrugs, and he goes back to admiring the portrait.

“I want to commission you to do anything we ever need ever in the palace,” Ben breathes, leaning back into the tree. Mal laughs a little and then waves her hand a little. His gaze snaps back to her as she starts to speak.

“Is it okay for me to ask what being deaf is like?” She asks. “I mean, you seem to fit in really well – we seriously had no idea you were deaf – but what do you think about it?”

Ben frowns. She can see a little hurt in his eyes, but something tells her that it is not her fault. He folds the pages of her sketchbook back over the binder, leaving her portrait visible so he can keep stealing glances at it, and takes a deep breath. “It’s hard,” He admits. “By this point though, I’ve been without my hearing for half of my life, so I’m used to it.”

“What don’t you like about it?” She asks.

“Trying to listen to other people is hard,” Ben confesses. “Especially when there’s more than one. I get massive headaches trying to figure out what everyone is saying and jumping from person to person. And then there’s the fact I can’t be called. My parents and I use sign language at home, but almost none of my friends know any, so I can’t use it here.”

“Is sign language easier?” Mal asks.

Ben nods. “Yeah. Reading lips can get exhausting. Especially when you have people who have their faces hidden or when they mumble or even if they have lots of, like, braces stuff in their mouth. It’s hard. I couldn’t understand what Evie was saying the first few times she talked because she was trying to do that thing where you talk without moving your face.”

Mal bursts into laughter. That annoys her when Evie does it – she can’t imagine how Ben refrained himself from slapping her. Ben smiles and leans back into the tree. “There are also the things I miss that make me sad, you know? Like, I haven’t heard the national anthem in years, and whenever it’s played, I just have to stand there awkwardly, waiting for everyone else to indicate it’s done. I can’t hear waterfalls or birdsong or everyone screaming at the end of a tourney match. When I grow up, I’m never going to hear my wife sing or my kids cry or anything.”

Mal’s smile fades and she touches her ears lightly as if to make sure they still work. “That’s awful,” She mumbles, trying to imagine a world of complete silence.

Ben leans forward, looking confused. “Did you say something? I couldn’t catch that.” He squints at her mouth.

“Oh, sorry,” Mal takes her hand away. “I said 'that’s awful’. I wish there was something I could try. A spell or something…” She trails off, thinking of her mother’s spellbook in her locker. The chances of her mom having something in there seem minuscule, but she can always check.

“I’ve learned to live with it,” Ben shrugged. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask me, or can I finish looking at your drawings now?”

Mal gestures for him to go on, and he looks down and continues examining her portrait, completely blown away by the small details she’s included into herself. Mal smirks a little as she watches him trace the pencil markings with his eyes, and then slowly reaches over the uses her nail to flip a few pages forward. She pulls the pages up and Ben gasps when he sees the picture that she’s shown him. It’s of himself, though it doesn’t have much detail, yet. She’s doing one for all her friends. This one has Auradon Castle running along the bottom of the page as Ben stands in a tan shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, looking over his shoulder a little. One eye if shaded and detailed with a little library swirling around his pupil, but the other is just circular markings that will determine the placement of his other features.

“Woah, I look good!” He exclaims, tracing a finger down his sleeves. “You make me look really good!”

Another laugh spills out of her throat. She can’t help it. He just makes her laugh. All the time, whenever she’s with him, she’s laughing.

Ben puts his arm around her and she leans into his side as he flips back and forth between her portrait and his, occasionally glancing through the other three. “When these are done, I want them,” He declares, and doesn’t look down to see if she’ll protest.

Evie finally messages her a 'where are you?’ and Mal knows the gig is up. Ben begrudgingly hands her back her book. “I’m going to have to get you a new one,” He declares, leading her back to her locker for her book.

“I’ll just get one from the school,” Mal shakes her head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I’m going to get you a really good one with lots of high-quality paper,” Ben decides, moving his hands to accentuate his words. “And then we’ll have to get you a lock so no one comes to steal your artwork.”

She’s laughing, again, as she opens her locker and takes out her textbook and spellbook and a couple of other books. Then she shuts it again and they stand there in the sunlight for a little while. Ben’s eyes flicker from her face, checking to make sure she’s not talking, down to the sketchbook, and she knows he’s thinking about those drawings.

“I better get to class,” She finally says, heart falling a little. “I’m already late.”

“Are you free on Friday night?” Ben asks, eyes drifting up to meet hers.

Mal tilts her head to the side. “I think so,” She affirms. “Are you hoping to come around and see everyone?”

“Do you want to go on a date?” Ben asks, crossing his arms and leaning against the lockers.

Mal’s mouth goes a little dry before her smile grows even wider. “Yeah,” She agrees, nodding her head in case her words somehow don’t travel over to him. It’s entirely possible, as her face feels a little numb. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

“I’ll make some plans and come talk to you about them later,” Ben decides. He puts an arm around her one more time, and then they bid each other goodbye, and he goes one way, and she goes the other.

________________________________________________________________

Mal, Jay, and Carlos slam a torrent of books down in front of Evie and Doug as they sit in a hidden corner of the library with completed Chemistry Homework and advanced theory books open in front of them. Evie looks over, startled, as the table rattles a little and a passing librarian pops her head out to frown at them. “What are you doing?” She demands in a whisper.

“Look,” Mal gasps, holding up the thinnest manual of all the various books they’ve dropped onto Evie and Doug’s workspace. It’s a manual depicting how to perform basic conversations in sign language. “Ben knows sign language, and he said almost none of his friends know it. If we learn it, then not only will it be easier for us to talk to him, but also no one will know what we’re saying. It’ll be like Isle code, but with Ben.”

“Oh!” Evie’s eyes light up and she begins to skim the stack of various sign language dictionaries. “That’s completely brilliant! So, is it a surprise?”

“Yes,” Carlos nods, picking up one about various foods in sign language and opening it to a random page. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t botch it first.”

“Guys,” Doug tries to break in carefully, but Jay cuts in.

“This stuff is like, super easy, too. To say 'hi’ you just wave. Simple!” He exclaims, searching through the manuals for one he likes.

“Guys!” Doug calls for their attention. They turn to look at him and then watch as he rattles off a complicated pattern with his hands. Mal’s mouth drops open. “I’m Ben’s only other friend who knows sign language. My dad taught me it. And, by the way, you aren’t going to be able to remember everything in all of those manuals just by reading through them and practicing once or twice. What if you start with conversations, and we can all practice together, and then generally add in things like sports and families and food?”

He has a point, Mal concedes. Jay and Carlos and Evie are all nodding along to his words, so Mal sighs and picks out one large dictionary and the one manual about basic conversation. “So, start here?” She asks.

Doug puts his hands in the air, palms facing outwards, and shakes them back and forth. “Start here,” He instructs. “This is the sign you use to get someone’s attention.”

Helpful, Mal immediately pegs it. This is very, very helpful. They all look a little strange, shaking their hands at each other in a corner of the library, but she feels a little accomplished already because this is something she can use besides holding her hand out forever and hoping he’ll notice her from a distance.

The journey has begun.

________________________________________________________________

Evie walks into the girl’s room a week later to find Carlos sitting on her bed with Dude and Mal finishing her homework on hers. She shuts the door behind her and flips the light on and off twice to get their attention before holding her hands up, fingers splayed and facing the ground, and flipping them upwards. 'What’s up?’

Carlos stretches his shoulders a little before he responds by flexing his index finger as if he’s trying to grab something in front of him, rubbing his knuckles together like there’s something in between them, and then touching his middle finger and thumb together before snapping. 'I need to wash the dog’.

Mal flexes her fingers on her left hand before tapping her wrist against the back of her right hand. 'Homework’. She says. Then, shaking her finger in the air and pointing at Evie, 'Where were you?“

Evie spells out Doug’s name and holds up a new manual out of her bag. Mal smiles proudly. That qualifies as a conversation. They’ve just completed a basic conversation. She balls her fists up and gives them a little shake of triumph before turning her eyes back to her homework. She feels so, so close.

________________________________________________________________

Eventually, it gets to the point that they’re all in remedial goodness together, and they’re signing across the desks instead of talking verbally when the Fairy Godmother gives them a 'discuss this’ assignment. The headmistress watches from the front of the room as Evie, Mal, Jay, and Carlos all move their hands and faces with dramatic, yet silent expressions. Mal recently learned the signs for 'be quiet’ (Crossing one’s hands a little underneath their chin and then moving them apart) and she’s overusing it a little bit as Carlos insists that the answer is 'C’, not 'A’.

"Did you guys know that Ben also knows sign language?” The Fairy Godmother asks when they all settle down. Carlos is fuming in his seat.

“We know,” Mal nods, looking down at the portrait she’s almost finished of him. Hers is done, so is Jay’s, Carlos’s she has to fix Dude, and then Evie’s is falling behind just a little as she works on putting Ben’s parents into his sleeve and them – his friends – onto the other.

“He’s kind of the reason we’re all picking it up,” Jay explains, kicking his feet up on the table. “Now we can talk to him without his other friends being annoying.”

“Oh,” Fairy Godmother blinks in surprise. “I don’t think anyone’s ever learned for him besides his parents. That’s very kind of you.”

She turns back to the blackboard and Mal feels another surge of pride. She can’t wait to see the look on Audrey’s face when the Core Four get to talk to Ben without her knowing a word.

________________________________________________________________

One would assume that Family Day would be an extremely unpopular event for a bunch of teenagers, but everyone seems to get pretty down on the idea that their parents are allowed to visit. Ben tries not to talk about it very much at first because he’s afraid that they’re upset their parents won’t be there, but to be honest the four have kind of given up on their lives back on the Isle and are liking their Auradon lives much, much better.

Ben’s parents, the former King and Queen of Auradon, arrive in a polished carriage that Mal could spot from a mile away. Ben meets them at the gates and she watches as they greet each other with shaking hands and 'how are you’s that she can understand. After exchanging pleasantries with his parents, Ben turns and gestures her forward. She steps up, and Ben introduces her as his girlfriend (Bringing a thumb down from beside his cheek and then linking his index fingers together twice with either palm facing down.)

Belle and Adam’s eyes widen with shock and a little worry. After all, girlfriends either turn into exes or wives and having the daughter of Maleficent as either could get a little messy. But Ben is confident, explaining briefly about her, and she smiles as she pretends she can’t understand 70% of what he is signing.

Finally, Ben turns back to her with his bright smile and re-translates the entire conversation for her. She shakes hands with his parents and then his dad points Ben’s attention to where the Fairy Godmother is calling for him behind his back, trying to get someone to tap on his shoulder. Ben leaves, walking for the Fairy Godmother, and Mal makes eye contact with the royals before she lets loose a few signs of her own.

She touches her fingertips to her brow in a light sort of salute, holds a fist up with her thumb on the outside, then crosses her thumb over her first two fingers, and finally makes an 'L’ shape with her hand. 'I know Auradon Sign Language.’ Then, crossing her arms across her belly, making a motion as if she were flipping a word out to someone from her chin, and turning to point at Ben’s retreating back a little. 'Don’t tell Ben.’

Belle’s mouth drops open a little bit more and Adam straightens up in curiosity. “It’s a secret,” She whispers, leaning forward a little. “My friends and I are all learning to surprise him.” She points back to her boyfriend with a meaningful eyebrow quirk, crosses her arms again, and then touches the top of her head in that same salute. 'He doesn’t know.’

Queen Belle’s eyes fill with tears as Adam nods in the heaviest sort of approval he can muster. Belle gestures to them both and makes the motion to seal her lips closed. 'We won’t tell.’

________________________________________________________________

Mal can’t deny that she is very nervous as she, Jay, Carlos and Evie all sit at their lunch table together, but Doug has pronounced them mostly fluent and they haven’t spoken in each other’s company in a week straight now, so she figures it’s time to put their skills to use. She points to each of the four of them with a questioning look on her face. 'Who will start?“

Jay, Evie, and Carlos all point at her before Carlos signs, pointing towards her and then closing a hand by his forehead before linking his index fingers together in the same way you do for 'girlfriend’ and 'friend’. 'He’s your boyfriend.’

Mal acknowledges this with a deep breath and a nod and then looks up to see the person in question enter the room. She watches as he’s caught up in a group of other friends – Chad Charming, Lonnie, Jane, Doug, and even Audrey. She watches him get caught up in the conversation, looking a little dizzy as he follows everyone’s eyes to figure out who is speaking. Her hands are shaking a little, and that’s not even a sign.

"Go on,” Jay whispers. It’s actually a little weird to hear his voice after just listening to him sign the last few weeks.

Mal hesitates a second longer, and then puts her hands into the air and shakes them a little. Jay, Evie, and Carlos all turn and mimic her motion, and immediately, Ben’s eyes have left his friends’ and he is staring across the room at the table trying to get his attention. After all, that is the sign for getting someone’s attention, and he is the only deaf person in the area.

Evie beckons him forward with a hand. 'Come here.’

Jay gestures to the group, makes claws with his hands and brings them closer to his chest, taps his fingers on his lips, and then points to Ben. 'We want to talk to you.’

Carlos takes up the 'Come here’ sign as Mal puts the tips of her fingers together and curls them outwards at her sternum, a little like she’s presenting a gift, and points at her boyfriend. 'How are you?’ She asks.

Ben stares at them like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing for several seconds. Chad starts trying to talk to him, but of course Ben isn’t looking; he’s staring at their group and slowly bringing his hands up to cover his mouth as they all repeat their signs, trying to urge him to come over so they can really try out their skills. His eyes fill with tears and he stumbles a little. The rest of the group finally follows his gaze over to the VK’s, who start asking if he’s okay by flicking their index fingers out in concern. Mal gets a great sense of pride when Audrey’s eyes bug out and her entire left side of her face twitches. She’s probably seen Ben’s parents using sign language and knows exactly what she’s seeing, even if she doesn’t know what any of the hand symbols mean.

Ben brings his hands down and then starts his own signs. He points at them, brings a hand up to his face and spreads his palm out like something that blew up in front of him, and then repeats the signs for ASL. 'You learned sign language?’ He asks.

The group all signs 'yes’ as one and it’s at that moment when Ben absolutely breaks down. He has to sit down on the steps of the lunchroom as tears fill his eyes and fall down his face. People go absolutely silent around him as they watch the King of all Auradon wiping his eyes and trying not to make any sound as he cries because he has no idea what he sounds like when he’s sobbing this hard. Mal’s hands feel cold, and she’s not sure what to do, but Doug gestures them all forward and they slowly leave their seats to go crowd around him.

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?” Carlos hisses under his breath as they approach the area where Doug is awkwardly patting Ben’s back as the rest of his friends stare, dumbfounded, at what they just witnessed.

“I think he’s just blown away that we did it,” Mal whispers back. She sits down on the ground beside Ben, chewing on her lip a little, and makes the sign for 'okay?’. Ben watches her through his fingers and then sniffles and takes his hands away from his face to make an arc from his mouth outwards with one hand. 'Thank you’.

He repeats that sign with all of them, several times, and the lunchroom just kind of stays quiet despite the fact most of them have no idea what’s going on. He signs it until Mal finally puts her hand on his. Jay shakes his hands from side to side on her behalf. 'It’s nothing.’

“Did you all… learn sign language?” Audrey asks, dumfounded above them. “You know he can just read lips, right?”

Mal rolls her eyes at an angle so that she knows Audrey can see. Because it’s ridiculous that Audrey is the one pointing this out after she took advantage of Ben’s hearing to tease and mock the villain kids. She presents her palms, face-up, points to Ben, then pretends she’s tapping a flat surface with both hands, taps her fingers against her mouth, gestures to each of her friends, and finally holds one hand steady as she brushes the other past it in a small circle several times. 'Now you can talk to us easier.’

Ben watches her hands move and then buries his face in his knees, giving up on holding his sobs in and breaking down on the pavement.

None of them are quite sure what to do. Audrey looks absolutely offended that this is having such a big impact on Ben while Lonnie, Jane, and Chad look enchanted and a little impressed. Doug looks on proudly as the four villain kids exchange glances, trying to figure out how to comfort Ben. Gradually, Evie pulls some makeup wipes out of her purse for him to wipe his eyes and blow his nose with, Jay awkwardly claps Ben’s shoulder while Carlos continues signing for 'Okay?’. Mal wraps a single arm around her boyfriend’s back and pats his side carefully until he starts to calm down.

Ben tries not to shower them in affection because he knows they’re not used to that kind of stuff but he’s such an affectionate guy that it’s hard. He presses a couple of kisses onto Mal’s hairline and gives Evie, Jay, and Carlos more hugs than they’ve ever had before in their lives as students gradually rip their eyes away and go back to their lunch.

'You’. He points at each of them. 'Didn’t’. He brings a fist down from under his chin with a thumb up. 'Need’. He flexes his finger like he’s trying to scoot something in front of him forward a little. 'To learn’. He repeats the motion of something blowing up in his face with his palm.

Mal reaches into her pocket and unfolds the portrait of him, looking over his shoulder with Auradon around him and tourney bats sticking out of his chest pocket and she and her friends opposite from his parents, and this she presents to him by popping her hands out from her eyes into 'L’ shapes. 'Surprise!“

Ben uses the wipes Evie offered him to wipe the last of the tears away and then turns to Jay, on his far right. He points to himself, makes a heart shape over his heart, and then points to the star tourney player. Jay’s face falls away to amazement as Ben turns to Evie, who is next to Jay. He points to himself, makes the heart, and points to Evie, who sits down with a tiny thud and looks like she might tear up herself. Then to Carlos, whose hands start shaking at the motion. It’s something they’ve never been told before, really, all their lives.

Mal is last. She keeps a little sweet smile on her face as Ben repeats the motion one last time. She kind of wondered when would be the first time they would use this phrase for each other, and she thinks she likes this scenario much better than any of the cheesy things she’s been passing back and forth in her head. It’s a little inefficient to sign out the whole phrase – there’s an easier hand motion for this one – but she repeats it back to him with a smile. Pointing to herself, making a heart over her heart, and then pressing the tip of her finger into his chest, right over where he’s been making all his own hearts.

I love you.

(Bonus Scene)

She flips the light on and off three times when she walks into the study area to get his attention, and also because it makes everyone else jump and complain when their concentration is broken. She ignores the complaining as she walks across the room to him and puts her spellbook down on the table and signs 'How are you?’

As she finishes bringing her hand back down, he brings a flat hand down from his mouth at an outward angle. 'Good.’

She gestures to herself, presses her thumb and pointer finger together in a circle and flicks it upwards, points at Ben, then shakes a pointed finger beside her head, towards the ceiling. 'I found you something.’

Ben spreads his palms, face-up, and brings them towards and away from himself with a confused look on his face. 'What?’

Mal sits down in the chair beside him and begins flipping through her spellbook. It’s a little easier than signing because she’s not as fast as Ben and her hands aren’t quite as attuned to making the symbols yet (Also, she doesn’t know the word for 'spell’ yet). She quickly finds the page she thumbed down about twenty minutes ago and plants her index nail into the page before she scoots the book over across the table to show Ben. He wrinkles his nose in distaste, and yeah, she understands why. But then she points to the side note, which reads ’*Temporary for five minutes*’ and watches him relax a little. He clearly doesn’t get what she’s thinking at this moment, but his expression does lose the concerned edge.

She makes grabbing motions towards her chest, then uses two fists facing foward with the thumbs out to make a motion of knocking against something, and then gestures to the spell. 'Want to try it?’

He shrugs, clearly not sure what to think about it, and so she holds her right hand up. He takes it in a firm clasp like they’re about to have an arm-wrestling match, and then Mal guides him through the series of claps and snaps that completes the second part of the spell. "Cambia Corporum Meum Corpora Sua Nominavi.” She declares, and then there’s a dizzy rush where all the lights in the room seem really intense and she loses the feeling in her fingertips, but then all is normal and she’s still blinking over at Ben, not daring to hold her breath as he leans forward.

Ben’s brain is busy. She stays silent as she listens to him examine himself, make sure nothing bad happened to either of them, and glances suspiciously over at her to see if it worked. She can hear his thoughts just like if he was speaking, but his mouth isn’t moving at all. 'Did it work?“ He thinks, furrowing his brow.

'I don’t know,” She replies, making sure she’s not moving her lips along to the thought so there’s no mistaking it. “Did it?”

Ben’s. Brain. Shuts. Off.

She gets it, on some level. This is the first time he’s 'heard’ anything outside of his own thoughts, and it’s a very, very real and intense moment for him(for both of them, really). But it’s still odd to watch everything behind his eyes die and his mouth fall open as he stares at her, wondering if he really heard anything after all.

'You’re cute,“ She tells him, trying to prod some feeling back into his numb existence. 'I like it the most when you smile. When you smile and you’re in the sunlight, it’s like you’re the literal embodiment of sunshine. I don’t know why you’re going for someone like me, who likes shadows and hiding away from people, but I’m always going to be grateful for you.’

Ben takes his hand away from hers carefully and feels his ears, making sure they’re still off and useless and deaf. Mal decides to try something else. She tries to remember what his parents, Belle and Adam sound like, and as she replays little snippets of things they’ve said in their tones and voices to Ben, she watches his eyes fill with, again, more tears.

She doesn’t have many good things that Audrey has said, so she carefully skirts around Ben’s old girlfriend while replaying Chad talking to Lonnie about a school project, Doug whistling 'Heigh-Ho’, Carlos shouting in joy as he completes a level, the rush of the crowd after Jay won the last tourney match, Evie singing in the shower, and she even takes care to replay several things that he’s said to her so that now he knows what he sounds like. He doesn’t think a single thing to her as he sits back, taking it all in and trying to memorize everything she presents as she does.

She tries extra hard to remember what the national anthem sounded like when it was played at the tourney game last week but can only remember a few bars since she’d been busy talking to Evie and Jane. Next time, she promises herself, she’ll pay extra close attention so she can share it with him.

The five minutes ends. Mal knows when it does. She can see Ben listening harder and harder as he gradually goes deaf again and is left to his own thoughts. She lets her own mind go slack and stops trying to feed him sounds and voices and then they both sit in silence while he processes everything, wiping his eyes occasionally to keep tears from falling. It’s just a really long, comfortable silence where neither of them moves and he’s just kind of staring off into the distance

Finally, his hand twitches on the table. Mal reaches over and puts her hand on top of his. He swallows, and it’s like the spell of silence is broken. She brings her other hand down from her mouth, and then popped her hands out from her eyes into "L” shapes. 'Good surprise?“

He gestured to himself and then, pressing his index and middle fingers together, rolled his wrist up by his forehead. 'I can think-hear you.’

She struggles with all of the signs for her next sentence; not all of the words she knows the signs for, and so she ends up mouthing a little as she moves her hands. She tips her hands up and down like scales, points to her spellbook, shakes a pointed finger beside her head, slams a fist into a palm facing up, and then taps the side of her ear. 'Maybe there’s something to help – like a hearing aid.’

Ben takes her hands to keep her from signing anything else and leans forward to kiss her cheek. "This is already fantastic,” he whispers slowly, focusing on the feel of the words in his mouth now that he knows how he sounds saying them. “Thank you for showing me.”

Mal smiles a little and then makes a bold motion, acting like she’s grabbing something from her chest and presenting it to him. He laughs, and she relaxes into this perfect portion of her life.

[larksinging]

aaaand here is a gift for @rorykillmore ‘s birthday! you didn’t say what you wanted which is good because i made you something completely fucking ridiculous instead. i call it “villanelle suffers”. also uh cw for graphic deaths

(also shoutout to jay for helping me brainstorm a bunch of this)

meeks!! i know its been a weird and difficult year, and you’ve been putting into so much hard work and dealing with a lot. i dont know if anything i alone can do can pay you back for all that, but i hope at least this can brighten your day a bit! you deserve it. and to get a bit sappy, you’re one of my best friends, and my life has greatly improved for knowing you. anyway i hope next year is more settled and all that hard work pays off!!

“Ah, quite the opposite. I’m here to congratulate you.” Konstantin sits down next to her on the couch. “I didn’t even have to tell you to make that last one an accident! Good job.”

Villanelle realizes she has two options: tell Konstantin the truth, or take credit for the freak accident.

“You know me, I just want to make you happy,” She replies in a sing-song voice.

“...Officials now believe that the incident started because of a mechanical failure in the pulley system, which caused it to snap and set off a chain reaction that sent the three elevators at the Delta hotel plummeting, killing twenty-three people.” 

“Whoa,” Villanelle hums between mouthfuls of popcorn. “How terrible.”

The droning of the television doesn’t quite drown out the sound of Konstantin entering her apartment. Villanelle pretends it does and ignores him. He lingers near the arm of her couch, looks between her and the TV, and then grabs the remote and shuts it off.

“Hey, I was watching that!” Villanelle throws some popcorn at him. “That’s very rude.”

“I didn’t take you for the sort to watch the news,” Konstantin brushes himself off.

“Half of it nowadays is fake. So it’s like watching a soap opera!” Villanelle waves a hand dismissively. “Anyway. You have a job for me? You didn’t come here to watch TV with me, I guess. Too bad. I ‘borrowed’ Devil from my neighbor. It looks terrible.”

“You’re really selling this,” Konstantin responds dryly as he pulls a postcard out of his pocket. “But you should really get some rest. This one’s big.”

That’s curious and exciting enough that Villanelle can’t quite think of a good quip when he leaves.

By “big”, it turns out that Konstantin did not mean that it was exciting or dangerous, but that literally it was a bigger body count than usual. Five whole people this time!  

Cursory research shows that they’re all a bunch of nobodies. No, literally! Most of them are college students from the same college. The only interesting thing about them is that they’re the five survivors of the weird elevator accident that was all over the news.

It could be some weird insurance fraud kind of thing. It’s gonna be real suspicious if all the survivors happen to die. But it’s not Villanelle’s job to care about that kind of stuff.

The first on her list is Jay, engineering, who she watches from across the street at a cafe. She notes them by their major because otherwise they blend together like the boring as of a B movie.

Right on time, exiting the building, there he is. She’s got a couple ideas in mind, most involving stabbing, but... then he takes a slight detour and goes over to a nearby payphone.

“Who even uses payphones anymore?” She grumbles to herself and gets up to find a good position to hang around in wait. Might as well lurk at nearby wall and pretend to look at her phone. He seems pretty serious about whatever call he’s making.

Villanelle’s there for barely more than a minute when the edge of the phone booth starts to spark ominously. She blinks, and before she can process it, he starts convulsing like he’s being electrocuted. She, and a few other shocked passersby watch in confused and terrified silence. Some smoke rises off his shoulders.

With no warning, he launches backwards and through the glass. It shattered and he sprawls out on the sidewalk below, blood starting to seep from cuts on his face and embedded glass in his shoulders and arms. Someone in the crowd screams. About five people reach for their phones, either to call for help or take a picture. Someone else rushes to his side, feels his wrist, and then (pathetically) starts trying CPR. Too late, Jay’s clearly dead.

Well. That works too.

The footsteps this time have a definitive lack of stomping, which means that Konstantin must be in a good mood. Great! Because Villanelle didn’t want his grumpiness to interrupt her painting her nails.

“If you tell me to hurry up, I’ll throw paint at you,” She warns. “Five is a lot! I’m working on it.”

“Ah, quite the opposite. I’m here to congratulate you.” Konstantin sits down next to her on the couch. “I didn’t even have to tell you to make that last one an accident! Good job.”

Villanelle realizes she has two options: tell Konstantin the truth, or take credit for the freak accident.

“You know me, I just want to make you happy,” She replies in a sing-song voice.

“O.K. Cool. Keep up the good work.” He gives her a thumbs up.

“Please never do that motion with your hands again. You doing that is -- ugh.”

The next one on her list is Charlie, art major. The first thing Villanelle notes about her is that her outfit is terrible. It’s like what a hangover would look like as clothes. Artists!

Villanelle tracks her to a mall. The parking garage is just a bit too full right now, but maybe she’ll stalk her through the mall until she comes back.  She watches the girl enter the elevator (haha, ironic) heading down to ground level. Too bad there’s a couple other people in the elevator. That’s fine, Villanelle can just take the stairs.

Just as she turns to head down the stairs she hears a faint commotion. Someone in the elevator bumps into Charlie just as the elevator springs into motion. As she stumbles towards the door, something snaps and the elevator jerks and falls. Charlie’s positioned conveniently enough so that her head is separated clean from her shoulders as the elevator plummets. The freed head bounces along the floor and rolls almost to Villanelle’s feet.

The screaming from the elevator (which sounds like it’s stopped the next floor down, not crashed, now THAT’S ironic) is the perfect soundtrack to Villanelle’s disbelief.

“Wow,” She says, “Just like that movie! Genetic!”

-------

Bizarre accidents aside, Villanelle is not about to lose her momentum. The last three survivors all end up congregating on the beach. Villanelle, with a pair of new designer sunglasses coming out of her next paycheck, listens to their hushed conversation from an inconspicuous distance away. Who talks in hushed whispers about something serious at a beach? Seriously?

“I’m telling you, what if death has a plan, and we messed it up?” One of them, who Villanelle remembers as Billy, philosophy, is drawing something in the sand. “We were supposed to die in those elevators, but we didn’t.”

“Because of your... vision, or whatever?” Tommy, film, rolls his eyes. Villanelle also rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, because we got off. And now it’s coming to hunt us down one by one. If we can just see the signs, maybe...”

Villanelle doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, because a stray gust of wind blows sand into her face. She sputters even as some paper flies behind her to where they’re sitting.

“This is-- ow.” Villanelle glances back to see the last of them, Sara, dance, toss a book down. “Papercut. Anyway, this is ridiculous. Death isn’t stalking us. Get real.”

“You tell them,” Villanelle mutters to herself. Except she gets drowned out by some seagulls squawking ominously, which is weird, how can that obnoxious noise sound ominous?

“I’m going for a swim.” Sara stands up pointedly. “You two can keep making up nonsense.”

“Sara, wait--” Billy reaches out, but she’s already heading down the beach.

In the water, it’s easy enough to bump against someone with a concealed knife. So Villanelle stretches and languidly rises to her feet. Sara’s already wading past the shallows as Villanelle follows her. Except the shape of something cresting through the water slows her, and she watches the events unfold in dizzy shock.

Just as Billy shouts Sara’s name, a shark leaps from the water and drags Sara under. The water bubbles up red and someone behind Villanelle screams. After a few seconds, Sara actually does resurface and stumbles out of the water. Villanelle winces at the bite wound on her leg. Sara manages to limp back onto the beach when a rogue blast of wind hits. Nearby beach goers, still watching Sara, hold onto their hats as a beach umbrellas is ripped from its post. The umbrella goes spinning in the wind, gaining momentum. And then comes to a dead stop by impaling Sara.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Villanelle says.

“You lied to me,” Konstantin accuses.

“Whaat.” Villanelle doesn’t bother to get up from where she’s sprawled on the couch. “I did not.”

“You did,” He counters. “Those were all accidents. You didn’t actually do your job.”

“Oh. That. Okay, maybe I did lie.” Villanelle cranes her neck to look up at them. “But they’re dead either way, so does it really matter?”

Konstantin raises a finger to scold her, then hesitates and lowers it. He sighs. “Okay. Well. The Twelve aren’t angry, but they’re not going to pay you if you’re not actually the one doing it.”

“What! It’s not my fault the freak accidents are beating me to the punch!”

“Then get more clever about the last two. I know you can.” He turns and waves as Villanelle crosses her arms and pouts.

“Stupid... death, or whatever.”

This time, okay, this time she’s not gonna get one-upped by random acts of violence. Villanelle tracks Tommy to the library where he’s studying late into the night. Much better. There’s lots of quiet little opportunities for murder and ways for her to manipulate the situation.

For example: she’s put a wet floor sign in front of the bathroom on the ground floor so that he’ll be forced to go to one that’s more remote. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Perfect.

The corner of the library outside the third floor bathroom is perfectly quiet and dark. Lots of narrow corners to catch him where nobody else will see. Some of the books might get some blood on them, but… That’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make.

There’s a noise from inside the bathroom and Villanelle is just about ready to explode. But no, it’s fine, he emerges a moment later grumbling with wet shoes and a sizable trickle of water coming from the bathroom. Something must’ve broken, but it wasn’t his head!

Before anything else can happen, she turns around a corner to block him between some shelves.

“Can I help you?” He asks, glancing between her and the direction of the bathroom.

“You could... no, you know, I’m not really in the mood for clever lines.” She just shrugs and pulls out a knife. It spooks him enough that he turns and darts back. “Hey!”

He slips on a nearby puddle and bumps into one of the shelves, which sways and then collapses in his direction. It takes a moment of coughing for Villanelle to see through the dust that it kicked up. The shelf has him pinned face-down on the floor, but from the way he’s struggling he’s still alive.

“See? That is what you get for running.” Villanelle sighs dramatically and walks around the toppled shelf. “This would be easy, they said. And now I’m going to have to lift this off of you. That’s not easy at all.”

She shakes her head to see that he’s just twitching occasionally. Uh-oh. She goes to work lifting the shelf off of him, which is a little easier with all the books having fallen out. She moves it just enough to get to a point where she can lift him up, and….

He’s dead. His face is dripping wet. Villanelle looks down at the puddle on the ground.

“You drowned in a puddle.” She shakes his corpse. “You drowned in a puddle! How could you.”

This time, Villanelle’s just taking a walk through a park at like 1am because someone is playing a cosmic joke on her and she hates her life and goddamnit shes gonna find somewhere that serves ice cream and/or alcohol at 1am. One of those is easier than the other.

What she gets instead is Billy, wandering through the same wooded park that she is. Due to an extremely convoluted series of events that might be called a narrative climax, she’s sure. Villanelle just kind of stops and stares at him.

“It’s you,” He gasps, “The specter of death. You’re death itself.”

“No,” Villanelle answers. “Well, yes. I mean, I am here to kill you. But there’s nothing weird and supernatural about it. Get a grip!”

Billy stares at her for another second, and then fucking books it. Villanelle just sighs because of course, and follows him. She’s going to get this paycheck, damnit.

Her heart leaps into her throat when their chase rounds a corner and he stumbles into a wood chipper. She watches in horror as he goes tumbling in head first, and she holds up an arm to protect herself from a spray of blood...

...Only an annoyingly sinister leaf lands on her arm. Oh. The wood chipper wasn’t on. She goes over and wrenches Billy free of it, but he manages to squirm out of her grasp.

“Come back here!” She calls. Her voice is drowned out by a loud creaking.

Her last target turns to look at her while running and, before both their eyes, one of the trees inexplicably leans and then comes crashing down. Villanelle’s mouth hangs open as she watches it fall directly onto Billy and the comically horrific crunch that follows.

A moment of shocked silence hangs in the air as the leaves all settle.

“I give up,” Villanelle announces. “Okay, Death. You win! Give a girl a break, geeze.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Villanelle confesses when Konstantin comes in.

His pace slows to a stop. Something churns behind his expression. Concern, maybe? The realization that she might need to be taken care of?

“I can’t be upstaged by freak accidents anymore!” Villanelle wipes a tear away. “Do you know what this is doing for my reputation? For my self-esteem?”

Konstantin’s choked laugh just makes her glare dramatically. “Don’t worry. Your next job is in Florence. Political. You love that kind.”

Villanelle perks up. “Oh, good! You always know how to cheer me up.”

Kostantin smiles. “Okay, but tell me one thing. Did a tree really fall on him, or did you just make that up?”

“Of course it did! Would I ever lie? Okay, fair. Would I ever lie that badly if it’s warn’t true?”

“Mm. Fair enough.”

[caisjunlis]

Flashback and Windowsills~ A Jayvie Drabble

It was a cold, winter night in Auradon. Sitting on a windowsill of the boys’ dorm room and wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, the daughter of the Evil Queen was gazing at the falling snow, lost in thought. Mal and Carlos were fast asleep on the couch. Jay had decided to take an impromptu shower about half an hour ago and when he joined her, his hair was dripping wet and he had nothing to cover his bare chest. “Looks like quite a spectacle you’re staring at Princess” She barely glanced up at him and picked up one of his T-shirts, laying on the floor before tossing it at him. “Put it on, before you get sick Jay” she said, reporting her attention on the snowy night. He scoffed and sat across from her, but he did put the shirt on, nonetheless. “I never get sick, E.” She was the one to scoff this time. “Yeah sure Jay, whatever you say.” He knew why she was in a relatively bad mood, it was Dizzy’s birthday and Evie could not even say it to the little girl. The bluenette’s heart still ached to be away from the people she cherished the most besides her friends. She was not ready to talk yet, Jay was not going to force into sharing her thoughts if she wasn’t willing to. So he sat there, with her, watching the falling snow. For a little bit before the silence was broken again.

“Maybe we should get some sleep. Just like them” He said, glancing at the two figures sleeping on the couch, of course he knew she would turn the offer down. She didn’t respond right away and he was getting seriously nervous, not knowing what to do. “I’m way too worried to sleep.” He had barely heard what she said so he cupped her chin gently, and the princess turned her head around to look at the thief. Eyes shining with tears, she gave him a faint smile. “She is alright Blueberry, Silver is there with her and so is Gil, I don’t really like the guy but I doubt he’ll let anyone hurt Dizzy. He likes her a lot too you know. She has that effect on people. Damn! I bet that even Uma likes getting those braids done at the salon.” And that was the line that won her over and made her chuckle; Uma could not stand Dizzy’s joyful babbling and was doing everything she could to avoid going to “Curl Up & Dye” In fact, Uma hated anything, or anyone that had even the slightest connection with Mal. Except Silver, for some reason, perhaps because the cyborg himself, was not fond of the purple haired teenager either. She reached for Jay’s hand and squeezed it tight, probably too tight but it’s not like she could physically hurt him, he was way too strong for that.

“I knew neither of you would actually sleep. I’m sure she knows you thought about her today, E.” Carlos’ muffled voice startled them both. Evie looked up to the boy, who was standing up, rubbing his eyes over his hand and making his way towards his two friends. “I’m sorry we woke you up Carlos” He smiled and sat on the floor, taking Evie’s second hand. “You know I can never sleep soundly anyway, especially when I know you’re sad.” She clutched onto Carlos’ hand tighter. Who could blame him? Cruella De Vil was born with the perfect name. Crazy, cruel, when furious, she could make your entire existence a living nightmare and this was a hell that was no stranger to Carlos. At some point, all their lives had been so miserable; they created a hideout, a place in which they could stay when things were getting too tough to handle. They all had their own beds, their own closets, obviously full of Evie’s creations.

It was John Silver, the cyborg pirate, who had the idea, he knew that the kids could not always stay at his house; it was big enough for him and maybe three kids. But he could not welcome 8 kids all at the same time, so he brought the idea up and found a rather old and empty apartment, right where the “Flying Rocks” sign was placed. He had bought most of the furniture, Gil had even helped build some of it, Jay definitely stole some stuff, Mal took care of the interior decoration and Evie kept designing and making new clothes. Carlos installed the electrical equipment with some help from Silver and in a matter of weeks; the Core Four had the perfect hideout. Evie had secretly made an outfit for Gil, as he did some major work with the beds and wardrobes. It was not much of course, but the gesture made the boy very happy nonetheless. He knew the Core Four weren’t fond of him, as he was close to both Uma and Harry Hook, but Evie and Carlos were always acting rather friendly towards him. Well, as friendly as you can be when your leaders hate each other.

“I miss the hideout, it was always warmer than the Castle” Evie stated, breaking the silence once again and wrapped the blanket even tighter around her body, letting go of the boys’ hands. “You’re always freezing, Blueberry.” Jay said, with a smile. Mocking a scandalized expression; she hit his arm lightly. “That’s not true!” Jay’s grin grew even wider. “Oh you want to bet on that? I seem to recall that the last time we had a movie night, you kept stealing blankets, just because you were cold.” She chuckled slightly. “Alright, I was indeed freezing that night.” She admitted it or at least a part of it, yes she was cold that night, but she kept burying herself under the blankets because she knew that Jay would eventually wrap his arms around her. He did, and pressed a kiss on the crown of her head. Like always it was either the crown, or the forehead. She remembered the first time he did that.

They were at John Silver’s house, before the hideout was built. They were spending time with the lonely cyborg, Carlos, Gil and Dizzy, simply playing some board game. Evie, Jay and Dizzy had won and Jay in his well known competitive nature, started showing off and eventually pressed a kiss on the girls’ foreheads. It was a sweet gesture,and Evie smiled at that memory.

“Feeling a little better Blueberry?” the former thief asked, seeing her smile a little. Evie nodded, and Jay took her hand one more time, Carlos looked at his friends, confused, was there something going on that he and Mal didn’t know about ? As far as he could remember, Jay and Evie had been rather close from the beginning, teasing and flirting with each other, but were they- No; The Evil Queen was a cruel woman, all their parents were, but while both Jafar and Maleficent were more prone to use physical pain, the Evil Queen and Cruella relied on other ways to punish their children, and manipulation was and had always been their favorite way of getting whatever they wanted from Evie and Carlos. The Evil Queen kept belittling her own daughter because she was way more beautiful than her and she surveyed Evie like she was some sort of prize that no one could afford to have. And while it was obvious Evie was suffering, she kept a proud face and stood strong, but for some reason, she always shared a lot more with Jay than with Mal and him. Not that it bothered Carlos, there were things that were better kept private and he didn’t need to know every single feeling Evie had. Could it be that they had a fling on the Isle that no one noticed? Besides Dizzy and Silver, these two could read minds, Carlos was absolutely certain of that. Dizzy, Silver and Gil… He wasn’t really fond of Uma and Harry but he really bonded with the poor Gil when they were listening to Silver’s endless stories. He did miss the Isle in a way. If only he could see them again…

“Carlos? Are you okay?” Evie had left her spot and kneeled right before his eyes. “Evie, I’m not having a panic attack, I’m fine.” Carlos spoke softly, almost sheepishly. Evie sighed, visibly relieved and hugged him. Carlos was no stranger to anxiety, nightmares from his life on the Isle, it got better, but they still happened quite regularly. “We should sleep, before we wake Miss Purple over here” Jay said, gesturing at Mal, peacefully asleep on the couch. “Or so they think” Mal knew she should have gotten up and comforted her friends but, what could she say? She didn’t know them like they did. If they wanted to talk about it, they would, and she would listen and even share some very poor, pre-made advice she had seen in the magazines Evie had lying around the dorm room.

But she couldn’t, it was their time to be alone just the three of them together, and that was something she wanted to respect. Yes, she was totally eavesdropping this conversation but she couldn’t sleep either, she had a plan. A plan that would take time, but Mal was adamant on making this work. And it would work. She was certain of that.

Carlos had gone back to bed, Dude curled up to his side and the boy’s slight snoring could be heard in the silence of the dorm room and Mal was mumbling random, inaudible words in her sleep. Evie and Jay had returned to the windowsill, but this time, the bluenette was settled against his chest, her fingers playing with a small, dainty, golden bracelet.

"I remember the day I offered you that thing" he gently took the piece of jewelry from her hands to examine it. She had taken care of it so well, it looked exactly the same as before. She slightly chuckled and snatched it away from the long-haired teenager. "I remember too, it was the worst birthday party in the history of the Isle Of The Lost !"

Jay clipped the bracelet back on her wrist. "It actually was perfectly fine until Maleficent showed up in all her rage and wrath, screaming at your mom for not inviting her." They both laughed quietly, Maleficent was quite a drama Queen, maybe even more than the Evil Queen herself. "You kept walking past the castle after that day, every day for 10 years. Why ?" Jay’s heart skipped a beat. He knew she would ask him this question one day, but he didn’t know what to answer. How do you tell a girl like Evie that your feelings for her are so strong they scare you ? The weight on his chest disappeared, she was sitting up, staring straight into his dark eyes, blue curls shining in the moonlight. Jay held her stare, and could feel his heart beating even faster than before. "I was just wondering when Blueberry would come out to play Save the Princess with me" he had tried to laugh it off, like he always does when he is embarrassed.

She raised an eyebrow, she wasn’t convinced. At all. "I know what you’re doing, but I won’t push you, J. You have the right to keep it to yourself, but I still hope I’ll get an explanation one day." His gaze had shifted towards the window. He looked like a sheepish little boy. She shook her head, smiling and settled back into his arms and intertwined her fingers with his.

"You’re my Blueberry, E."

"I know. And you’re my thief, J."

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Banned Horror Comics Rise from the Dead

Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s (all images courtesy of Fantagraphics Books)

The charges that Fredric Wertham made in 1954’s Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today’s Youth — that a relationship existed between comics reading and “violent forms of juvenile delinquency” — didn’t materialize out of thin air. The oft-vilified German-born American psychiatrist gets a lot of credit for a censorship campaign that had legs long before his articles and book were pinned to it. Critics and clergymen were blasting all kinds of comics as “objectionable” for years, singling out depictions of gun violence, gore, and a broad range of fare they deemed offensive. Church bulletins and hyperbolic magazine features laid the groundwork for a national panic over comics, but the war on the medium gained steam in postwar America, just as some comics became increasingly violent and grim.

“The debate over comic books hopped from the back of the newspaper to the front, section by section — from the book reviews and religious columns to the ‘women’s’ department to the hard-news pages,” writes David Hadju in The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. Ordinances criminalized newsstand comics sales in the late 1940s in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and more. “Comic Books Banned in Detroit as ‘Corrupting'” blared a headline in The Washington Post in 1948, when somewhere between 80 and 100 million comics were being sold monthly.

Wertham scored a seat before the Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency in April 1954. When governmental regulation loomed, the self-regulatory Comics Code Authority emerged that fall. A problematic and sweeping set of vanilla rules instituted to police comics’ subject matter and art, the Code sank publishers and killed off the kind of crime and horror books for which readers crowded newsstands. Hadju reports that by the early “pre-Code” 1950s, horror comics in particular had grown “ever more gruesome and lurid.” And they were everywhere.

“By the end of 1952,” he writes, “nearly one-third of all the comics on the newsstands were devoted to the macabre.”

From Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

Swamp creatures and animated but still-rotting corpses swarm the 40 stories collected in the new edition of Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s, a survey of grisly pre-Code comics that hasn’t been in circulation since 2011. While reprints of the prestigious and oft-imitated EC Comics titles over the years have cemented a sterling reputation for series like Tales from the Crypt, scholars Greg Sadowski and John Benson mine less-well-known ten-cent anthologies like Black Magic, Weird Adventures, and more, heralding a time when cheap four-color printing processes meant that an easily reproducible palette would be manufactured from hand-separated colors. These comics feel like dessert, and they should. Benson, an EC aficionado with his own fanzine to prove it, suggests we make-believe we’re adolescents of the era, “reading these stories slowly to savor every chilling moment.”

Yarns excerpted from Beware Terror Tales and others will read like nonsense to most folk. Their smudgy aesthetic will confound today’s devotees of Marvel’s digitally polished relaunches, too, while racist caricatures like the brown-skinned people and Haitian “voodoo” in 1952’s “Drum of Doom” haven’t aged well, either. But for every predictable zombie plot, there is a hallucinatory murder mystery like “Colorama,” penciled by artist Bob Powell in 1953.

Authored by Harvey Comics editor and admitted EC fan Sid Jacobson (who reportedly directed Chamber of Chills artist Howard Nostrand to just “copy” the work of EC’s illustrators), “Colorama” has Powell playing generously with perspective and color. The direction is clever for a disorienting first-person narrative about a colorblind killer, in which the cosmic swirls representing his protagonist’s blurred vision bump up against Powell’s realist urban backdrops and assured landscape drawing. Elsewhere, MAD cartoonist Basil Wolverton, whose absurdist productions had a clear impact on underground comix artists, crafts nasty bald-headed gargoyles for Weird Tales of the Future, their leathery olive-green skin flecked with innumerable short dashes that lend a convincing illusion of ripples of movement.

From Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

Ludicrous storylines aside, Four Color Fear‘s selection and archival research add critical context to a fascinating age for comics in North America. Benson’s insights reveal that the book’s frequent nondescript Iger Studio credit (an outfit founded by Will Eisner and Samuel “Jerry” Iger) likely refers to the sole work of an editorial powerhouse named Ruth Roche, who cranked out horror scripts and lots more for the publisher. Roche’s framework subsequently went to pencilers and inkers like New Jersey–born artist Jay Disbrow.

In an interview with publisher Craig Yoe that prefaces Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion, Disbrow connects his comics career to a consumption of Sunday supplements as a kid and remembers tiring of commuting from Asbury Park into Manhattan for inking and penciling gigs at Iger in his 20s. After a year, Disbrow traded up for freelance assignments as a writer, artist, inker, and letterer of horror and romance for Star Publications editor Leonard “L.B.” Cole. Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion culls mostly from this pre-Code horror work, specifically the creature-centric stories he did for supernatural- and suspense-themed anthologies Ghostly Weird Stories, Blue Bolt Weird Tales of Terror, and more.

“Cole wanted ghost stories,” explains Disbrow of his Star comics tenure. “I said to him, ‘That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. What we oughta be doing is monster stories!'”

Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion images( © 2017 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc.)

There’s no supplementary material aside from the interview here, and unforgivable book design decisions give way to tacky fonts and fake blood splotches in the margins. But Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion adds weight to the legacy of an artist best known for “jungle comics,” science fiction such as The Flames of Gyro, and the gorgeous, full-color “syndicate-type” webcomic called Aroc of Zenith that he started in his 70s.

Like a lot of Golden Age creators, Disbrow could’ve used a watchful editor. Loads of copy swallows up word balloons and captions, and lines and lines of the artist’s hand-lettered text are given little room for legibility. His figure drawing needed practice, too. The often wooden movements and overlong, flat-looking limbs rendered his humans even less likely to succeed in battle with the monsters he loved to draw. But the inventive layouts, sinister terror, and wealth of beasts here are things of beauty.

Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion images (© 2017 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc.)

Panels dart inward at strange angles in “A Stony Death,” allowing for worming gutters and the provocative inclusion of an odd center panel. “The Ghoul of the North,” like every creature here, is enormous amid puny mortals. Giant fanged ogres from “the bowels of the earth” terrorize a novelist in “The Insider,” while a red-eyed specter towers over his prey in “The Unknown Presence.” Cinematic shadows blanket caverns and crime scenes, and action bursts out from under audacious type in title-page headers as graphic design and vintage movie posters figure into these pages as frequently as Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon strips do. Disbrow’s action sequences are explosive, with hulking abominations reaching out from the back corner of a panel toward a helpless character in the foreground. All of your pre-Code goods are here: blood and guns and tentacles and stranglings and hell demons.

And then … nothing.

Fredric Wertham took aim at Star’s Spook and more in his book, and the company shuttered shortly after the Senate Subcommittee hearings on comics. In Disbrow’s talk with Yoe, he recalls the “comic book crash of 1954,” owing to the good Christians who gathered around bonfires to torch comics in Wisconsin and New York, and the tarring of publishers as Communists and smut peddlers. Although University of Illinois professor Carol Tilley would find that Wertham’s “research” relied on omissions and manipulated data, the campaign to censor comics took a terrible toll on the industry. Awash in publicity, the hearings and resulting Comics Code effectively crippled then-thriving studios. Publishers killed titles deemed disagreeable and sent their staff home. There were other factors, but suddenly, hundreds of comics professionals in the late 1950s would never work in the medium again.

“Unlike their rough counterparts in the Red Scare, the artists and writers caught up in the comic-book controversy were never charged with espionage, treason, contempt of Congress or court, or obstruction of justice,” writes Hadju in The Ten-Cent Plague. “What they did was tell outrageous stories in cartoon pictures, a fact that makes their struggle and their downfall all the more strange and sad.”

Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s is available from by Fantagraphics Books. Jay Disbrow’s Monster Invasion is available from Yoe Books.

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