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itsbenedict · 4 months

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Games I Played In 2023 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 4/4)

This last part, I'm going to go over the games I played but didn't finish in 2023, for various reasons. None of these because they were bad, really- I'm still in the middle of most of them. Just didn't have time! But here's my impressions anyway:

[1] - [2] - [3] - 4

Fire Emblem: Vision Quest

This is a hack of Sacred Stones that I played just because I had a hankering for Fire Emblem and wasn't going to stoop to playing Heroes or Engage. It delivers pretty well, I think! It's challenging and fun, if a little dull on the story end.

The main innovation here is... just, an atypical willingness to give the enemy's rank-and-file mooks special weapons, actually. The map design is generally really satisfying and challenging, because... you really can't just throw your strongest guys into the middle of the enemy and let them crash against their defense stat. Enemies routinely carry things like weapon-triangle-reversing -reaver or -slayer weapons, or hammers and rapiers and things that deal massive bonus damage, or these unique-to-the-hack gem weapons that double down on weapon triangle effects. You've got to be really mindful of exactly which units you're putting yours in range of...

...but you can't just take it slow, because almost every map has some kind of timed objective, and you've got to be advancing at a decent clip or else lose out on rewards. Moreover, you've got to be careful about which enemies you kill, because... the shop at base never sells better than D/C-tier weapons, enemies rarely drop weapons, and you almost never receive gold as a part of the story progression. Your only real source of income is using the party thief to steal gems from enemies that don't drop them on death, and she's pretty fragile, so every map has a secondary objective of "nab all the stuff you can sell for money so you don't literally run out of weapons to use because you're broke". You really need to approach every map with a plan.

It's not... great on story and character, honestly. It's doing something, but the character writing's just a touch too flat to carry the story. It's faithful to other GBA fire emblems in that respect, I guess- it's maybe a cut above those, for the most part? Doesn't really have an eye for comedy to give texture to the serious-mans-fight-serious-war stuff. I think it's trying to do, like, a subversion thing, where the hook is that you play as the map-1 Generic Ugly Bandits, forced by circumstance into heroism? But they don't really lean into that enough.

oh also the main character's name is "Storch". which sounds like something the Game Grumps would name Link in a zelda game.

Void Stranger

Man, Zero really wanted me to like this game. And, like, I kinda appreciate what it's doing, it's clever, but I just...

Void Stranger, on the surface, is a gauntlet of a few hundred block-pushing puzzles.

It has a unique gimmick where you can use a magic wand to pick up floor tiles and place them elsewhere, which it uses in a lot of really clever ways- the puzzles are definitely well-designed and reward you for sneaky lateral-thinking solutions. But it's a gauntlet of a few hundred block-pushing puzzles.

It's clearly doing some crazy mind-blowing The Witness or Tunic-esque mechanics-hidden-in-plain-sight stuff where the nature of the game transforms when you realize the significance of that one strange geometric shape, or learn a bizarre rules interaction that opens up what's possible. But it's a gauntlet of a few hundred block-pushing puzzles.

It's got a story- but I put like ten hours into the game without it managing to hook me. There's some mystique to the true nature of the mysterious videogame dungeon you're exploring that I never learned much about- but also, every few dozen block-pushing puzzles, you'll get to take a brief rest and watch (or sometimes play) a brief cutscene wherein the player character is serving as handmaiden to a headstrong rebellious disney princess type. It didn't really manage to go anywhere interesting after a gauntlet of 160-something block-pushing puzzles, but maybe does after a few thousand more.

Also, there's a lives system, and no save system, and if you run out of lives you have to start the gauntlet of hundreds of block-pushing puzzles over again. Which also happens if you [spoilers], or accidentally [spoilers], and I'm given to understand that the real game is the really cool metagame of doing multiple runs of the game over and over after learning new mechanics and secret truths about the game's structure. After the fourth time I died slash accidentally triggered a reset by screwing around and lost all my progress, I lost patience with replaying the same gauntlet of a few hundred block-pushing puzzles and dropped it.

Sorry, Zero- I just don't have the patience for it. You should probably just tell me about all the cool shit it does.

Pokemon Infinity

This is a Pokémon fangame! It's... kind of nothing to write home about- it's just polished and has good QoL and a lot of fun regional forms. I'm pretty far in- beat the last not-a-gym-leader and am about to embark on the bog-standard Evil Team Wants To Do Some Kind Of Apocalypse Evil By Controlling A Legendary Pokémon So Go Take Some Time And Stop Them Before Doing The Elite Four segment of the game.

The thing that stands out about it is how much it feels like it really could just be an entry in the mainline franchise from an alternate timeline. As mentioned, it's very polished, and the writing has exactly the same kind of inoffensively uninteresting tone as most real games in the series. Very authentic, with a lot of effort put into nailing the feel.

(The only big mechanical addition is the way it does HMs- they exist and control the progression, but you don't actually have to teach them to your pokemon to use them on the field. You get Fly pretty early on, and as long as you have a pokemon that could use Fly, you can just Fly with them from the party menu without wasting a moveslot. Very appreciated.)

Unnamed Space Idle

Ugh. I'm only really posting about this as a mea culpa- I kicked the idle game habit for all of a month and a half before getting hooked on another one. This one's annoyingly well-designed, with a shitton of different mechanics and ways to optimize your build for different objectives. There's always some low-hanging progression fruit you can pick by respeccing some stuff, and it's paced out to introduce new systems the instant the existing ones start getting old. The balancing and timing of it is pretty immaculate... for the purpose of getting me to check in and waste time on it every couple hours. Huge addictive time sink- keep a safe distance.

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

You may have noticed that the title bullet point is not a link to a store page or something, unlike the rest. That's not because I don't want you to find the game- it's because much like Fate/Stay Night, the sequel Hollow Ataraxia is fucking impossible to find a way to purchase legitimately. Big thanks to Tulip and Wise for providing me with a copy. It's a whole process.

Anyway- FHA is a sequel to FSN, which I've mentioned on here before. FSN had this whole dark and complex plot about mages fighting a secret shounen battle war except the war was sort of fake and a conspiracy and you had to figure out what was really going on... and FHA is weirdly doing the same thing, except replace "shounen battle" with "slice-of-life omake collection".

It's very strange. It's like... "hey, thanks for playing our very serious and dramatic game! now that you've done that, how about you relax with some hilarious vignettes about all your favorite characters from that game just kinda hanging out and doing wacky anime hijinks, instead of trying to kill each other? don't worry, nothing sinister is happening in the background! this is just a fun video game! don't read into it! for the love of god, DON'T REĄ̴͕͈͓̮̘̘͌̆̇͗̕̕̚D̷̡͚̰̤̱̝̰̣͙̼̙͍̬̻̈́́͛́͝͠͝ ̸̮̭̙̳̯͍̤̣͎̖̺̊̌̔̄̇̉̽̀͐͘I̶̢̛̻̦̙͚͔̻͖͙̞̺͖͑̇̈́̌̾̑͌͝N̶̢̛͙̭̫͆͆̽̑̈́̇̎͛͛̔T̴̨̨̡̰̘̮̺̝̠̬̼̗̬̝̜̼̒̋̿̔͐O̵̢̻̟̮̩̘̖̙̖͍̒̅͑́̎̏̍ͅ ̶̨̙̱̥̣̙͔͔̫̰̲͎̣̘̹̭̰̒͐̽̐̆͂̎̏̂̍̂͑̚͝I̷̢̡̧̛͙̤̠̦̖̩͂̆̈́̔͊̽͒͐̃̽͑͗͘T̵̡̨̪͕̘̲͔̮́̚͝!!̶̡̧̧̟̮̜̻͔͓̜̩̟͖̼͓͕̑͛͌̀̃̐̊̑͗̋̅̀́̔̓́͂!"

But yeah, there's a whole-ass actual sequel going on here, except the veneer you're trying to decipher the truth of is goofy romcom nonsense instead of super sugoi battle anime nonsense. It's doing a lot of sneaky stuff, and I'm pretty sure I've twigged to a couple of the big twists already, which fills so many of these scenes with delicious dramatic irony.

I haven't finished it yet, though, mainly because when I have the wherewithal for visual novels lately, I've been working through...

The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass

I mentioned I'd started on this last year, and I've now sunk over 60 hours into it and have finally managed to finish chapter one.

This VN is long, and it is dense. It's an ontological mystery type thing about people trapped in a facility where Weird Time Shit is happening... and fuck almighty they are doing everything but explaining how the Weird Time Shit works. There's a magic egg that works as a time machine, but how exactly its time travel powers work, mechanically, is the central mystery of the story. And the game just bombards you with incident after incident of weirdass time travel and teleporting going on, each more impossible than the last, and you're supposed to, like... grope around blind-men-and-the-elephant-style, using all these weird incidents as clues to how the time travel has to work.

Except, clearly, at least one of the characters, probably multiple characters, already know how the time machine works and are hiding that fact, while actively attempting to misdirect and obscure what they're doing with the time machine to try and throw off other time travelers. So the actual whodunit mystery of who- uh, murdered some people, there's murders that occur- is this whole other layer of complication where you can't exactly trust that any given instance of time machine behavior isn't some elaborate ruse.

So this is, obviously, catnip for me.

But it's taking fucking forever- I can't just read this thing and absorb it- I have to stop every five minutes and pace around the room and lay down in the dark and focus on time travel logistics for half an hour. SO MUCH insane shit happens! Like nonstop! And every time someone suggests a plan for testing or investigating the latest insane shit, that becomes the staging ground for new insane shit! It's so, so fucking complicated, and every new piece of evidence comes with a dozen caveats and additional mysteries! It's fully bonkers and it's eating my brain.

As long as it's been taking me to work through this... I feel like the game could benefit a bit from being a little slower-paced, giving the cast some room to do things other than dig themselves deeper into impossible time travel logistics from time to time. Some of this stuff needs time to settle! It's exhausting. Static and unexpressive character portraits and kinda flat dialogue writing make it all the more difficult to focus and take in what's happening, and honestly the VN format makes it kind of harder to consume. It'd be a lot easier to follow along with the logistics if, like, the game was in 3D and we could look around and see how people were moving.

Still, I'm gonna keep at this one. It's got its hooks in me and won't let go, and I'm really impressed by how meticulously it manages to lay out its stable time loops without giving the game away for this long. Wild stuff.

Alright, that's it! That's everything I played in 2023. I still want to go on an in-depth mega-rant about how furious I am at all the stupid little things in Horizon Forbidden West, but that's for later. For now... onward to 2024!

[1] - [2] - [3] - 4

#game rec #the sekimeiya #pokemon infinity #fire emblem vision quest #fate/hollow ataraxia #not gonna tag the other two for reasons

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valancietrinit · 11 months

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said i wasn't gonna do this bc i have some irl stuff to deal w before i can really take on another project, but i'll put this out there to gauge where interest is sitting

expansion on fic premises below the cut

option 1: harrow/kiriona/ianthe; left in charge of varying aspects of the empire post-ntn, following alecto nabbing jod for a tour of the universe (threat); sort of court intrigue; much sexual tension; nobody is truly happy w this arrangement but the girls look stunning + sulky anyway

option 2: modern setting, sort of post-htn au; gideon uses newfound nepotism to kickstart dormant rockstar dreams; a la sir chloe's "michelle", writes a song abt harrow that blows tf up + encounters info that harrow might actually be dead + feels really bad abt it all; later finds out harrow is not dead + just found out abt the song + is heading to her location (ft. cam&pal + corona&ianthe as fellow musicians/bad influences)

option 3: fresh out of the psych ward, harrow is staying in crux's hunting cabin to deal w her issues abt her parents' deaths six months earlier; aiglamene (who crux left in charge of making sure harrow's not dead every week while he fucks off somewhere else) breaks her hip, so gideon is delegated the job of weekend check ins + grocery runs + picking up harrow's meds; shenanigans ensue

option 4: harrow is an og lyctor brought to a war front to help the Cohort break through enemy lines; gideon escaped the ninth at age 16 & (4 - 5 years on) is now reasonably highly ranked; they work together in battle & then harrow recognises gideon's eyes...

option 5: griddlehark phone sex fic; ft. corona & ianthe shenanigans + background cam/pal/pyrrha; heavy on the comedy, light on actual plot; rep for butches w/ bad knees & goth's w/ no fashion sense

option 6: cam/pal/pyrrha; canon divergent post-gtn exploring canaan house redux; still tossing up whether this is a modern-setting fic or not; pyrrha pov; cam&pal scheme like absolute nerds to seduce pyrrha & she does not notice bc she is a professional

option 7: g1deon pov; non-linear narrative following his final hours in melbourne w/ the suitcase nuke -> his 1v1 showdown w/ varun; probs back to back pain & comedy; if it ends up containing smut, it will probably include john, + g1deon/pyrrha (/wake as well, let's be real)

#tlt #the locked tomb #val writes fic #val og posts #poll #wip posting #griddlehark

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wiw3 · 2 years

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I Caught It, Did You Catch It?

I’m currently watching Norm MacDonald’s comedy special entitled “Nothing Special” that he recorded and had published posthumously and it is wracking me. To anyone who hasn’t watched it, I recommend you do, as knowing nothing about Norm’s private life, and only knowing the truth that he’d secretly battled an illness for the last portion of his life, even knowing just that, I regret not learning more, infinitely.

Watching the special, I thought I’d look a little eager and weird if I updated my blog twice in one day. But it’s my house, and it’s my coping mechanism. I suppose I decide how often it truly gets updated, hm?

There’s nothing but love in my heart for the family of Norm MacDonald, not that they care what some fat blogger thinks, but I try to spread positivity here and I positively had a meltdown while watching it. After a month of my own life being pretty shit and terrible, and June 1st marking the beginning to new hopes for me, I needed it. I needed Norm sitting and calmly making jokes to himself.

It perfectly begins a calm serenity to the hectic month I’d just had, that all seemed to end with me being fired. I realize now that with the job gone, my income source has gone with it, which is a stressor. A lot of problems have disappeared with it, too. I no longer wake up loathing to get in the shower to get in my car to spend nine hours doing something that doesn’t fulfill me.

I’m making people happy, but it’s not large enough yet. It’s not the scale I need to reach in order to truly feel achieved. Baiting the carrot and then tempering the burnout when it inevitably comes isn’t a mindset, either, though many workaholics like to think of it as one.

The thing is, though, I’d caught something while I was watching that I think most, hopefully a lot of you caught too, if you’ve seen it, and it’s a small footnote bit done after his wonderful joke on airplane anxiety, in how his mother wouldn’t recognize his remains after a plane accident due to the carelessness of the collectors and the futility of attempting to recover remains from a plane accident.

He looks into the camera and softly says “I guess none of us really knew him when you get down to it.”

I had to pause the special and just look stunned for a second, and immediately go tell someone about it, because it affected me that much. I saw it in his eyes, a kindred feeling of being misunderstood, across a generation, across mortality, a person connected with a person...

As much as it would feel wistful to end it there, I feel like that might upset some people because I took it upon myself to self-righteously critique the final works of a dying man. And I think that we need to realize how parallel left and right brain thinkers run... I think Norm would’ve wanted people to have mined something of value from that special. Maybe it was simple, and he just wanted to make people laugh, but that look in his eye, that one-hour-thirteen-minute-seven-second-remaining mark that begs to be looked at, begs to be seen, begs to inspire.

I see Norm when he looks at us, in that one moment of sincerity as a creator who just wanted to make you laugh. It brings me to happy-tears with inspiration and I grab it and run with it, because that’s what he would’ve wanted... I nabbed the inspiration that he was trying to instill within me as a creator, and the love he was trying to send... and the thing that works about it is that it makes Norm an evil genius to me... He pulled it off. Norm found a clean way to offer love to the world selflessly that could never be paid back to him in any way.

So when I feel tears welling up in my eyes again just letting my heart bleed and mourn and feel pain for something, someone I didn’t know, but still lost, as we mourn that, and miss him, I’ll ask... I caught it, did you?

#tw #potentially triggering #norm #norm macdonald #eulogy #death #death news #celebrity deaths #love #comedy #writing #connection #inspirational #blog post

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deadlinecom · 4 months

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zillapiner · 2 years

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Jean smarts children

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN PROFESSIONAL#

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN SERIES#

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN TV#

Smart was later cast in a leading role as Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, in which she starred from 1986 to 1991. After beginning her career in regional theater in the Pacific Northwest, she appeared on Broadway in 1981 as Marlene Dietrich in the biographical play Piaf. “Our favorite thing in the world,” she says, “is to make each other laugh, and make other people laugh.Jean Elizabeth Smart (born September 13, 1951) is an American actress. And her Hacks co-star Einbinder always gets her going. And as the three of them are finding their new normal as a family, Smart is finding new ways to laugh.

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN TV#

I mean, I’m gonna have my children, obviously, but they have their own lives.” Her older son, Connor, is interested in film and TV sound editing, her younger just got accepted to a great high school. “I just assumed we would grow old together, and now I feel like I’m just going to grow old alone. Losing her husband “was so shocking on so many levels,” she says. “A million years ago, I had two separate psychics tell me I was gonna live to be 98, so I’ve decided I’m going to live to 98. “What are you, nuts?” She says old age was foretold to her, sort of.

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN PROFESSIONAL#

So now that she’s hitting her professional prime, what else is good about being 70? “Ha ha! Nothing!” She cackles. “I felt like the universe was rewarding me for being true to myself.”

#JEAN SMARTS CHILDREN SERIES#

About 24 hours later, she was asked to audition for the juicy role of a crime matriarch in the second season of Fargo, the gritty FX TV series inspired by Joel and Ethan Coen’s hit 1996 movie. So after much deliberation, she decided to pull out. The deal put her on hold for over a year and a half, and production still hadn't begun. “I wasn’t getting offered things or auditions.” She took on a role she wasn't crazy about for a comedy pilot. “Then I went through a little dry spell,” she says. The two were married for 34 years, until Gilliland passed away suddenly last March.įollowing five successful seasons on Designing Women, Smart made the most of the next two decades, winning Emmys for a recurring guest role on Frasier and as a regular on Samantha Who? and nabbing Emmy nominations for her role on 24. So the producers said, ‘Will you come back whenever there’s a critic here? You got the audience going!’” She and Gilliland wed in 1987, at her co-star Dixie Carter’s rose garden in Hollywood. It was not a great play, but I’m a good laugher. “He would riff on something to the point where I was gasping for air, you know? He had that kind of mind.” She asked him for help with a crossword puzzle he invited her to see a play he was doing, “and I went to see it three times. Smart met her husband, actor Richard Gilliland, when he played Potts’ character’s boyfriend on the show. She recalls how she and her co-stars ( Dixie Carter, Delta Burke and Annie Potts) “would get weird questions from reporters, like, ‘Oh boy, what’s it like with four women on a set together?’ I finally said to one guy, ‘Would you ask the guys on Barney Miller that question?’” “There really wasn’t a show like that,” Smart says of the series about strong Southern belles running their own interior design firm. She thrived in the spotlight, performing in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, regional theater and on Broadway, then was off to Hollywood, where she secured guest spots and short-lived series roles-until she broke out playing sweet-but-scattered Charlene Frazier from 1986 to 1991 on the hit sitcom Designing Women. But drawn to the stage during her senior year of high school, she decided to major in drama at the University of Washington. Smart initially saw herself pursuing a service career, perhaps in nursing, social work or veterinary medicine. Her mother, Kathleen, was a homemaker and a seamstress who would make beautiful clothes for her kids her father, Douglas, worked as a high school history teacher and took on extra jobs selling encyclopedias door-to-door, painting houses and teaching night school. Her parents, who served in World War II, were both funny and taught her a strong work ethic.

#Jean smarts children

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jesse-eisenberg-interview · 13 years

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Oscar Nom Jesse Eisenberg on His Fave Band: Ween!

The Social Network star explains why he loves the one-of-a-kind Pennsylvania prank-rockers.

February 7, 2011

If you call Jesse Eisenberg a Weenie, he’ll have no choice but to agree with you.

The 27-year-old actor, who recently nabbed an Oscar nod for his rapid-fire portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, told SPIN in 2009: “My favorite band is Ween. I know every lyric.”

So while doing research for an upcoming book on Ween’s 1994 albumChocolate and Cheese for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, author��Hank Shteamer caught up with Eisenberg and asked the talented New York City native to elaborate on his enthusiasm for all things Ween. Here’s what Shteamer learned:

How did you get into Ween? Jesse Eisenberg: It was really strange and related to [Chocolate and Cheese], actually. Like, ten years ago I was acting on a television show [short-lived FOX series Get Real], and every week, something very, very dramatic had to happen, because it was an hour-long drama. So for one week, my character got spinal meningitis, which did not carry over from the previous week or to the subsequent week. So the guy who was my stand-in, who’s still one of my best friends, gave me this album, Chocolate and Cheese, because the second track is “Spinal Meningitis.” We were listening to it as a way to just bring some levity to the episode, which was a little overdramatic. I also thought the song was really great, and I started playing it at my mom’s house and she got pissed-off every time that song came on ’cause she thought it was disgusting.

But the album was incredible; I’d never heard music like this before. I never really liked comedy songs, and Ween has a great way of never making specific jokes — you can’t really tell where the joke is lying. But beyond that, musically they were just fantastic. And since then, I have gotten every album that they’ve made. It’s the only band whose albums I buy. I’m not into music — the only music I like is musical theater, but I have every Ween album.

Do you have a sense of what it is you’re responding to in Ween that you’re not finding elsewhere? They don’t appease the audience. Also, when you write a musical, all the songs have to have something a little different, because you have to hear them in one night, in one experience, so you try to change it up. You have a song that’s like a rag song; you have a song that’s a little more jazzy; you try to do some different time signatures in songs. But most albums don’t do that. Well, I don’t really know — I don’t know enough about music, but it seems to me like Ween basically does that to the extreme. They have songs that come from so many different genres and they’re only held together by their personality, because the songs don’t reflect each other musically; they don’t reflect each other in theme or lyric, and it doesn’t even sound like the same instruments or vocalists, even though they are. And yet, they’re held together by something else, by some kind of broader spirit or something: a feeling.

Would you mind going through Chocolate and Cheese song-by-song? Sure — I looked it up and I’ve got it right here.

“Buenas Tardes Amigo” My girlfriend’s boyfriend prior to me, he made a short film in college using “Buenas Tardes Amigo,” and he shot it in black-and-white, and she showed it to me three years after we were dating and I remember I was very threatened; I thought it was so cool. And she was in it — it was just, like, her walking somewhere, in Indiana.

“Roses Are Free” Someone once told me that Phish covered “Roses Are Free” and that Ween stopped playing it on tour as a protest.

It was kind of the other way around. Ween was not previously playing it, and when Phish started covering it, Ween started playing it almost to reclaim the song. [Laughs] Wow, that’s pretty funny.

“A Tear for Eddie” Because it’s an instrumental, I recorded my own version to learn how to use GarageBand a long time ago. I tried to do every track: the guitar and the drums and the bass, so I had a really bad version of “A Tear for Eddie” on my computer.

Do you still have that around? No, it was on my old computer and everything crashed — this was probably, like, six years ago.

That’s too bad. Yeah. [Laughs] Well, not really — it was terrible.

“What Deaner Was Talkin’ About” / “Freedom of ’76” / “Baby Bitch” “What Deaner Was Talkin’ About” was the only song I was allowed to play for my little sister, and she loved it. She was, like, seven years old, and she would sing “What Deaner Was Talking About,” ’cause it was pretty much the nicest song with the least profanity on the album, in addition to “Freedom of ’76,” which is maybe the best song on the album. I don’t know — what do you think?

For me, “Baby Bitch” was always the one. It just seemed like such a devastating song — like it was coming from such a raw place. Right, yeah, there’s anger there, but it’s also a really beautiful song, and then they lace in lyrics that are very explicit, and that’s them — they’ll do that. I think my favorite song is “Chocolate Town” [from Quebec]. It’s so sweet and melodic and then they start cursing in the middle of it, and it’s a little jarring, but you don’t notice it until a few listens in. It’s like with “Baby Bitch” — you would never notice what they’re saying.

“Candi” That’s the only song I never really got into. There’s usually, like, one song on each Ween album that I kind of skip, like on their last album, they have “The Fruit Man.” Yeah, I don’t know — I can’t get into it, but I appreciate that it’s there. It’s kind of like an intermission, if you want to look at it as a musical.

“Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?” “Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?” is a perfect example of how you can’t really place the joke, and I like that in comedy as well: You can’t really place the joke, but you just think the spirit of it is funny. And “Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?” is the perfect example, ’cause it’s really not funny; in fact, it’s the opposite — it’s pretty depressing. And yet the idea that that’s something to sing about is really wonderful because… why not? Why not sing about that? Why sing about losing your girlfriend on the subway? And why isn’t this as sad? I mean, it sounds even sadder. And the music is fantastic: Not only don’t they emphasize jokes with their music, they’re not trying to achieve seemingly one outcome or one reaction. Even the songs that are funny aren’t funny in a way that’s easily categorized.

“The HIV Song” That song is almost the definition of irony, but you can’t really call it irony, because — I mean, okay, they’re trying to pair circus-like music with, you know, the most frightening thing in our society, at least at that time. It almost reaches the definition of irony, and the description of it would probably sound ironic: this kind of happy, circus-like music. But that’s not what they’re going for, and that kind of sums up Ween: They’re not going for the obvious irony. It’s impossible to tell if they’re going for any kind of irony, because the music is so odd. It’s not just that they decided to pair up circus music with interjections of “AIDS.” They’re doing something else, and I can’t figure out what it is.

Do you have any thoughts about the album cover? No, except that the first building I lived in, in New York City, I was in an elevator, and I was wearing a Ween sweatshirt, and the guy in the elevator said, “You know –I own that belt [from the Chocolate and Cheese cover].” I said, “Really? How?” I think he said he was friends with somebody, friends with the guy who made the belt. But he didn’t listen to the album. I was so interested in this, and I remember he didn’t really care about the album that much; he just thought the belt was funny and he thought the woman who was naked was funny. Aesthetically on one hand, you think [the cover] is a parody of something, but you can’t really place exactly what it’s parody-ing, and yet you get the sense that they’re joking around, that they’re kind of self-aggrandizing, in a knowing way. What do you think?

I guess I viewed it as: “Because we can.” Like, “We’re on a major label, and if we want a nude woman on our album cover…” — it’s almost like a teenage fantasy. It’s so extremely clichéd…And yet at the same time, it’s kind of hard to point to exactly what they’re mocking, or if they’re mocking.

The message really comes through when it’s combined with the music. It would be one thing if the music had a machismo to it, but there’s nothing on the album that’s even remotely – Misogynistic. Yeah, I was going to say, if you listen to the music, you would think these guys would be feminists, like politically these guys would be so opposed and disgusted by putting that on the album. That’s the other thing: You can’t ever place their politics. As you attempt to categorize things and put them in their place so they’re more digestible, Ween never lets you do that.

You can’t parse out a message. Dean Ween told me that an HIV-positive activist who was talking to kids about AIDS told him that she loved “The HIV Song.” [See here for an excerpt from the bookdealing with this incident.] Oh, wow…

It’s like they leave this blank slate where people can put what they want. Right, exactly. But it’s not a blank slate ’cause there’s nothing there. It’s a blank slate ’cause it’s just theirs.

Do you remember the placid fishing portraits inside and how they contrastwith the cover? They’re in, like, small boats, aren’t they? I remember those, yeah. They’re so incongruous: this ridiculous, misogynistic cover and inside they’re like these peaceful guys, and then the music is alternately peaceful and aggressive. Again, by constantly changing their aesthetic, I guess that turns a lot of people off; they’re not easily digestible. But it’s a constantly changing aesthetic. If you know them and really like them, you can kind of see that the aesthetic is consistent.

One more thing: They dedicated the album to John Candy. Oh, right, how strange. I don’t know. I mean, on one hand, I would think they must be mocking celebrity, but on the other hand, maybe they really liked him? I don’t know. They’re not from the same area. What did you think?

It’s not too much of a stretch to see them enjoying his movies. But I think it’s to Ween’s credit that you could take something like that about ten different ways. Yeah, exactly, and the guy is a comedian, so it’s not like they’re just mocking an empty celebrity. It’s really strange. I don’t know. His name’s “Candy”? Maybe they were doing something about candy. I can’t imagine that’s what it is. But again, they have an aesthetic you can never predict. It’s like the senator talking about porn: I know what it is when I see it. Kind of like Ween: I know what it is when I see it, but I couldn’t predict what they’re gonna do.

SOURCE

#jesse eisenberg #2011

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saipparn · 2 years

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‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Wins Thursday Ratings With Milestone Episode; ‘Bull’ Steady In Series Finale

Grey’s Anatomy celebrated it milestone 400th episode with a Japril return, numerous doctor exits and primetime victories.

ABC was the top network on Thursday night with Grey’s Anatomy delivering both the evening’s highest demo rating and largest audience. The long-running medical drama’s dramatic two-hour Season 18 finale snagged a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo and 3.97 million viewers, easily topping all the other titles. Grey’s ticked up from the preceding week but still fell behind its season opener (0.7, 4.63M) in October. From the 8-10 p.m. slot, Grey’s easily bested repeats on CBS and NBC.

Also bested by Grey’s was the latest episode of MasterChef: Junior on Fox (0.3, 1.80M), which ticked down in the demo. The network then concluded freshman Welcome To Flatch with an hour-long finale that nabbed a 0.1 demo rating and 0.68 million viewers, slipping from the previous week. For comparison, the comedy premiered to a 0.2 demo rating and 1.03 million viewers back in March.

Though it aired repeats for the first two hours of primetime, CBS bid farewell to Bull after six seasons. Read about how they wrapped the drama here. The finale, which banked a 0.3 demo rating and 4.04 million viewers, nearly matched its October season premiere (0.3, 4.13M). When Bull debuted back in 2016, the series delivered a 2.2 demo rating and 15.6 million viewers.

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

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The NAB Honors Lucy & Miltie

April 10, 1988

On April 10, 1988, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) initiated Lucille Ball and Milton Berle into their Broadcasting Hall of Fame. The awards were announced at the Annual NAB Convention. Ironically, the ceremony was not broadcast or recorded. Although the Award had been bestowed since 1977, Lucy and Uncle Miltie were the first television broadcasters to be so honored. Previously, the recipients were all radio broadcasters, although fittingly, the first award went to CBS Chairman William Paley, along with Lucy’s pals Bob Hope and Jack Benny, for their radio programs.

Two weeks earlier, Ball and Berle were photographed together at the March 28,1988 Friar's Club Roast honoring Liza Minnelli's Lifetime Achievement in Entertainment, held at the Century Plaza Hotel. (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante / Getty Images)

After Ball’s passing in 1989, he said he and Lucy had dated casually in the 30's, when she was a Goldwyn Girl and he was doing stand-up on the comedy circuits. Later, Miss Ball and Mr. Berle's wife, Ruth, became close friends. After viewing footage of their work together, Berle said of Miss Ball: "I was amazed... at the rapport we had. You could tell we liked each other personally. A lot of it was ad libbed."

A 1952 regional TV Guide touted the fall return of Ball and Berle’s TV offerings.

The following year, the new National TV Guide put Lucy and Berle on the totem pole of TV icons. Both Berle and Ball hold their sponsors products: she, Philip Morris cigarettes, and he a Texaco gas pump.

Although Lucille Ball guest starred on Berle’s Show “Texaco Star Theatre” in 1948, Berle was off sick, replaced by Walter O'Keefe filled in for an ailing Milton Berle. Berle’s absence delays the first meeting of superstars-to-be Ball and Berle until 1950, when he hosted...

“Show of the Year: Cerebral Palsy Telethon” ~ June 10, 1950

(Photo, left to right: Gabby Hayes, Roger Clipp, UCP Poster Child, Jane Pickens, and Dennis James.) The telethon was broadcast live from New York City with remotes from Philadelphia. Lucy and Desi were in New York City on their ‘vaudeville tour’ designed to try-out material for “I Love Lucy” and prove to the network and sponsors that they had good chemistry together.

After this chance encounter, Berle and Ball went their separate ways building a TV empire: He for NBC, she on CBS. It was more than a decade until the two TV stars performed together in...

“Milton Berle Hides Out at The Ricardos” (LDCH E11) ~ September 25, 1959

This was one of the last episodes of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” with Berle essentially playing himself, promoting his new book “Earthquake” and, of course, dressing up as Mildred.

In return, as was common at the time, Lucy and Desi did a show for Milton Berle on NBC....

“Sunday Showcase: The Lucy-Desi Milton Berle Special” ~ November 1, 1959

Lucy and Desi play the Ricardos (although no mention of Little Ricky or the Mertzes), filmed at the Rancho Mirage Casino Hotel in Las Vegas.

In between the two specials was a televised all-star tribute to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on her Diamond Jubilee. Both Lucy and Milton were on the dais, as were many more celebrities. A similar program was aired the following year with Lucy in attendance, Milton Berle was not involved.

Six years went by before their next collaboration, this time on “The Lucy Show” with...

“Lucy Saves Milton Berle” (TLS S4;E12) ~ December 6, 1965

Milton Berle disguises himself as a drunk to do research for a role. He tells Lucy Carmichael that he is Milton Berle’s twin brother and Lucy vows to get even with Berle for neglecting his brother.

“The Milton Berle Show” (S1;E1) ~ September 9, 1966

Lucille Ball helps Milton Berle kick off his new variety show filmed at the Hollywood Palace. Despite much hype, this new ABC-TV show lasted just seven episodes.

Meanwhile...

“Lucy and John Wayne” (TLS S5;E10) ~ November 21, 1966

While Lucy is waiting for Wayne in the studio commissary, Milton Berle makes a silent cameo; nothing more than a walk-through, to great audience reaction.

In his final appearance on “The Lucy Show,” Berle brings along his real-life wife (and Lucille Ball’s friend) Ruth Cosgrove...

“Lucy Meets the Berles” (TLS S6;E1) ~ September 11, 1967

To earn extra money, Lucy Carmichael takes a job working as Milton Berle’s secretary. When she hears overhears Berle rehearsing a love scene with actress Ruta Lee, she jumps to the conclusion that he is being unfaithful to his wife!

“The Ed Sullivan Show” (S23;E1) ~ September 20, 1970

Ed Sullivan hosts the ‘Georgie Awards’ for Entertainer of the Year, from Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Berle and Ball are on hand to present awards. Lucy gets to present one to her ‘kid’ Carol Burnett.

“The 23rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards” ~ May 9, 1971

Broadcast on NBC from the Pantages Theatre, hosted by Johnny Carson. Lucille Ball is not nominated, despite the fact that there were only three nominees in her category. Gale Gordon lost to Edward Asner (”The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) and the “Here’s Lucy” writers were nominated for “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (HL S3;E1) but lost to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Lucy attended the Awards with her husband Gary, her daughter Lucie, and her son-in-law Phil Vandervoort.

Milton Berle was also in attendance, photographed here with Jimmy Durante.

“Zenith Presents: A Salute to Television’s 25th Anniversary” ~ September 10, 1972

This was a 90-minute special on ABC TV taped August 9 to August 12 in Los Angeles. It featured clips from show’s from television’s past. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is also 25 years old and honors a select group of people who have made an impact, had popularity, proved longevity, and demonstrated substance. Ball and Berle are both recognized with a silver medallion on a plaque.

During the last season of “Here’s Lucy,” Berle makes a guest appearance...

“Milton Berle Is the Life of the Party” (HL S6;E19) ~ February 11, 1974

Lucy Carter’s parties are a bore, so she calls a telethon to make a very low bid on Milton Berle to attend her next soiree.

“The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Lucille Ball” ~ February 7, 1975

When Lucille Ball is roasted, Berle is there to turn the spit!

Milton Berle: “Lucille Ball has emerged as the sex symbol for men who no longer care.”

“The Annual Friars Club Tribute Presents a Salute to Gene Kelly” ~ January 5, 1976

Lucille Ball and Milton Berle joined Cyd Charisse, Janet Leigh, and Frank Sinatra for “The Friars Club Presents a Salute to Gene Kelly” on NBC. Also in attendance was Natalie Wood and fellow Hollywood hoofer, Fred Astaire.

“NBC: The First 50 Years - A Closer Look” ~ November 26, 1976

A four and a half hour extravaganza that naturally featured Milton Berle, but somehow also included CBS star Lucille Ball, four years before she would make the leap to the peacock network.

“CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years” ~ November 28, 1976

Milton Berle stands in front of the iconic Brown Derby restaurant to introduce a clip from “Hollywood at Last!” (ILL S4;E16) starring William Holden. The building was razed four years later.

“The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Danny Thomas” (S4;E2) ~ December 15, 1976

Back at Dino’s Vegas rotisserie, it is now Ball and Berle turning the spit on Danny Thomas.

“A Tribute to Mr. Television, Milton Berle” ~ March 26, 1978

One good tribute deserves another. Lucille Ball joins the cavalcade of stars honoring Uncle Miltie.

“The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Jimmy Stewart” (May 10, 1978)

Meanwhile, back at the roast pit. Lucy and Milton fling affectionate barbs at their pal Jimmy Stewart.

“Sinatra: The First 40 Years” ~ January 30, 1980

Lucy and Miltie are just two of the many honoring ‘Old Blue Eyes’.

“Bob Hope’s 30th Anniversary Television Special” ~ January 18, 1981

A retrospect of Hope’s first 30 years on TV. Celebrating with Hope are Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, and many, many others.

“Bob Hope’s Women I Love - Beautiful But Funny” ~ February 28, 1982

A look back at the women Hope has worked with over the years. More than 60 of Bob’s co-stars are presented in studio segments, as well as television and film excerpts. Since Berle is the only other male in the credits, I’m banking that Mildred, not Milton, showed up!

“The Television Academy Hall of Fame” ~ March 4, 1984

Lucille Ball and Milton Berle are among the first group inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, along with Barbara Walters, David Sarnoff, William Paley, Norman Lear, and Edward R. Murrow.

“Bob Hope’s Unrehearsed Antics of the Stars” ~ September 28, 1984

Lucille Ball tells Bob Hope - with a fair amount of embellishment for comedic effect - about her audition for the role of Scarlet O’Hara in the 1939 film Gone With The Wind. Milton Berle is also along to share some bloopers with Hope.

“Bob Hopes Buys NBC?” ~ September 17, 1985

Lucille Ball and Milton Berle have cameo appearances in this Bob Hope special. The premise has Bob staging a telethon to buy NBC, his adopted network, in an hour-long variety special of music, dance, and comedy. Lucy and Berle met on a telethon in 1950 and it was also the premise of his 1974 “Here’s Lucy” appearance.

“The 38th Primetime Emmy Awards” ~ September 21, 1986

Lucy and Milton are presenters in an evening that was memorable for honoring her friend and co-star Red Skelton.

“AFI Life Achievement Award: A Salute to Jack Lemmon” ~ March 10, 1988

The AFI gives its 1988 Life Achievement Award to Jack Lemmon. The audience is full of celebrity friends, including including Milton Berle and Lucille Ball.

“Happy Birthday, Bob: 50 Stars Salute Your 50 Years at NBC” ~ May 16, 1988

Singing an original song, this marks Lucille Ball’s last “performance” on television before her death. Berle is also on the show to salute Hope.

“The Princess Grace Foundation Special Gala Tribute to Cary Grant” ~ October 19, 1988

Cary Grant died in 1986. Due to his close friendship with Princess Grace and her family the proceeds from the evening benefit the foundation named in her honor. Milton Berle is there and Lucille Ball attends with her husband, Gary Morton. This was the last time that Lucille Ball and Milton Berle were seen on the same program before her death in April 1989.

In 1989, the NAB Hall of Fame for television inducted Ernie Kovacs (posthumously) and Sid Caesar, both of whom had been guest stars on Lucy’s programs.

#Lucille Ball #Milton Berle #Uncle Miltie #Mr. Television #TV #CBS #NBC #Lucy #The Lucy Show #Here's Lucy #The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour #Texaco Star Theatre #National Association of Broadcasters #NAB #TV Guide

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nabwastaken · 1 month

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is this anything

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see-arcane · 4 years

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While I was reading your Jon Becomes a Teacher post I had a thought. Imagine you're part of the stranger, yeah? You nab a kid and go to school, all happy and confident cuz that was easy as fuck, and the kid's teacher is THE Archivist and he's Looking at you and he Knows and you now know to savour the last few hours you have alive bc he is Very Angry

While that would be a badass moment, I like to think Jon would also Behold any eldritch fears the students are experiencing well before the axe could fall and goes to them:

“Something’s wrong that you think is crazy. Impossible.”

“Y-yeah.”

Mr. Sims gives them paper and a pencil. He’s doing that thing with his eyes again. Like a stare, but more.

“Could you please write it out? I promise I won’t laugh. I won’t show it to anyone.”

“You’ll think I’m insane. Or lying.”

“I really won’t.”

“Couldn’t I just tell you--?”

“You don’t want to do that.” The Stare turns up higher. Insistent. “Please, just write it.”

The kid writes it out. Mr. Sims reads it, taking a long, long breath.

“It lives in the auditorium, doesn’t it?”

The kid stares. Mr. Sims Stares.

“Yes.”

The kid never mentioned the auditorium in their statement.

“Hmm.”

Mr. Sims turns his head to face where the auditorium stands on the other side of the building. A huge, shabby cave of squeaky seats and tatty stage curtains. That’s where it lurks. The thing that has been whispering since the kid joined the drama club that it could play their life better, that their face would fit better on its own, that everyone would like its interpretation once it pulled the costume of the kid’s skin on...

Mr. Sims gets up.

“You’ve got a ride home?”

“With my friends, yeah.”

“I’d like a Look at them before you go.” The kid doesn’t argue. Just leaves the classroom and finds their friends, and pretends not to notice Mr. Sims giving them a hard Stare too. But he relaxes. “They’re fine.” He gives the kid an awkward smile. “It’ll be fine.”

Above the smile, Mr. Sims’ eyes are lambent. The kid could swear that there’s a double-image there--that there must be something wrong with their eyes.

Because for just a moment, Mr. Sims looks like he has as many Eyes as he does scars.

The kid goes home.

The next day in class, Mr. Sims asks the kid to stay a moment. From his desk, he pulls out what looks like a drama mask; the languishing face of Tragedy. Its eye holes have been wrenched open far, far too wide, its morose frown stretched into a terrified, agonized rictus. As if it had been peeled from the head of someone--something--that had died in pure, blinding horror.

The kid remembers the thing’s face: a parody of Comedy. A good-humored grin pulled into a cruel leer, softly laughing to itself as it whispered to them about how it would feel for it to finally zip their skin on.

Around the edges of the Tragedy mask there are scraps of what look like leather, as if it had been torn off a sheet of cowhide it’d been firmly glued to.

But it isn’t leather.

Mr. Sims taps the mask which was never a mask between its eyes.

“This was all that was left besides the head itself. Already burned that bit. I’ve found it, ah, adds a little catharsis when you get to rid yourself of these things personally.” Mr. Sims pulls out a gold lighter inlaid with a spider web. “If you’re interested.”

The kid gawks. Then opens the room’s window a few inches to let the smoke out. They burn the thing’s papier-mâché face in the trash bin.

“You don’t smoke do you?” Mr. Sims asks, putting the lighter away.

“No.”

“Good. Never start.”

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ladyartemesia · 4 years

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Boyfriend Material

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Fluff/Comedy • Smut • Friends to Established Relationship • (sorta) Slice of Life

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 2400

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. MINORS PROHIBITED. I DO NOT CONSENT TO ANY INTERACTIONS WITH PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 18. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Warnings: sexual content and a messy (but ultimately harmless) ex

THIS IS A HEADCANON FIC

This means the story is told in bullet point format. This is the first time I have ever written a story like this. It was something new to try and I really hope all of you like it!

Requested by Anon Lisa: I really hope you like it! So sorry you had to wait so long!

Thank You: to Ana @xjoonchildx Donna @taetaewonderland and Lindy @ppersonna Every time I don’t feel good enough... you convince me that I am. And a huge thank you to the angels in the BTS Smut Hub. You guys are a one in a million group.

You meet Jungkook through mutual friends...

He doesn’t open up very easily and prefers being around people he is already comfortable with.

When you first start hanging out - he notices you. But he’s shy and he’s not really looking for anything…

So he checks you out now and then and for the most part you aren’t on his mind until-

One night you and the crew are hanging out and he says something - and then he wishes he hadn’t because it sounds ridiculous but then - randomly - unexpectedly - you get it.

He’s kind of shocked that you understood what he meant immediately.

That rarely happens… even with his best friends…

He thinks about it a lot.

He pokes around the group for scraps of info about you.

But like… not OBVIOUSLY.

(Jimin figures it out immediately and starts inviting you to more things.)

When you guys hang out again, Jungkook makes a point to engage you in conversation more… to see if (maybe) you can understand him again.

He wants so desperately to be understood. Words aren’t always easy.

But if there is a person who gets him…

You talk for 10 minutes.

Then it’s 30 minutes…

Now it’s been two hours.

And it’s easy.

Oh my GOSH it is so easy.

Why is this so easy?!

He definitely needs to talk to you more.

Talking to girls is NOT EASY but with you - it’s different somehow.

So you talk more.

Eventually you exchange numbers.

Now you talk every day.

And if you don’t talk he’s … kinda sad.

Because talking with you is not only easy…

It’s fun.

It’s freeing.

And the longer he talks - the more he notices things...

Little habits… the sound of your laugh… the way your smile makes his chest jump...

The way he wants to kiss you-

He wants to kiss you?

OMG HE WANTS TO KISS YOU.

Suddenly everything is hard again and he ignores your texts for two days.

So you get pissed and drive to his apartment.

You do understand him.

And you have a good idea what this is about.

So you look GOOD.

Like real good.

It’s time to nab yourself a bunny boy.

Jungkook opens the door still wet from his shower.

You momentarily forget why you’re there and also your name.

(Though he helps you out with that one by saying it.)

After that you waste no time.

You take him gently by the hand, lead him to the couch, and have him sit.

Take a deep breath.

(His eyes are HUGE.)

“Kookie… I’m doing this for your own good.”

He gulps.

And then you straddle him.

His mouth drops open and he lets out THE MOST adorable little gasp ever.

So you kiss the ever-loving-heck out of him.

You kiss him like it’s an Olympic sport.

And it isn’t long before he’s kissing right back.

Hands grip around your backside ramming your dampening center into him.

You moan VERY loudly.

“Jungkook I would really like to be your girlfriend.”

His hands are creeping up the back of your shirt - edging ever closer to the hook of your bra.

“I-I want that too. You should - you should be my girlfriend.”

“Awesome. Kiss me again.”

The bra goes flying across the room and hits a traumatized Jin in the face.

“NOT IN THE LIVING ROOM OH MY GAWD-”

You scramble off Jungkook’s lap and dive under the blankets piled on the couch.

Jungkook is fire engine red, but he’s also giggling ridiculously.

Jin hangs your bra on the fridge with a magnet and storms back to his room.

So you’re dating now.

And honestly it’s-

Awesome.

Jungkook is so soft for you.

Because everything is new and shiny and you smell so good and kissing you is THE BEST.

You guys decide to go a bit slower physically because intimacy is not something that either of you take lightly (to each their own and all).

But that doesn’t mean you don’t kiss.

You kiss a lot.

Jungkook discovers he has a strange thing for marking you up.

Like he seriously loves to see his hickeys on you.

He never understood why that was a thing-

Until now. Now he totally gets it.

Because that’s his mark. That’s where he has been. And you showing it off is kinda hot.

You love it though and more often than not, you mark him up right back.

Which leads to a VERY awkward dinner one night when his parents drop by the apartment unexpectedly and his mother gasps “Sweetheart what happened to you?!” in a voice just dripping with maternal concern.

Ok. So you got a bit carried away.

And you want to crawl into the dishwasher and die.

No big deal.

Still his mom actually likes you a lot. (And - you discover later - she knew exactly what happened to him. There is no question which parent Jungkook inherited his devious streak from.)

Jin forgives you for the bra incident and only threatens to tell your friends about it once a week.

The first month of your relationship is filled with adorable little milestones-

Meeting more friends.

Learning each other’s food preferences.

Jungkook teaches you how to do laundry correctly.

(You were apparently doing it wrong.)

(You had no idea there was like a ritual geez-)

You like to snuggle up next to him and read while he plays Overwatch.

Jungkook blushes every time you hold hands in public.

Telling all your mutual friends you were dating was a sweet moment.

They noticed the two of you getting closer - so it wasn’t a huge surprise.

Apparently Tae and Jimin have been teasing him about his crush on you for weeks.

A crush he vehemently denied all the way up to the day you started dating.

Jin pretends to be shocked every time you guys are affectionate.

Namjoon forgets that you’re dating twice and has to be reminded.

Your PDA is definitely understated

Hand holding and heads on shoulders - maybe the occasional peck on the cheek or the lips...

Jungkook is private and although he likes attention (from others) in general - he wants it when he wants it and on his terms.

You are somewhat similar in this regard.

Every day you’re with him, he’s more sure that this is something real.

Something permanent.

Your relationship is not without the occasional wild moments.

Like the first time you give him head.

He had some thing he had to go to and needed decent dress clothes.

Most of his wardrobe was either suburban goth chic or just full snuggle gear so you dragged him to the local Kohl’s.

By the second outfit you’re basically dying.

WHY IS YOUR MAN SO FINE THO?!

…yeah you wanna taste that cock.

He comes out in another outfit and YOU CAN SEE IT.

There is an outline.

This is torture.

Sweet creamy muffins and scones - he is BUILT.

You need to taste it.

You might actually expire if you can’t.

Jungkook jumps (and makes a little noise) when you crawl underneath the dressing room door.

He’s shirtless.

Oh mercy he is SO SHIRTLESS.

Your mouth is actively watering.

His eyes are huge again.

He does the huge eye thing a lot.

“What are you doing?”

You ignore him and dive for his pants.

He yelps and falls back against the corner

“Keep quiet Kookie I need this!”

“Wait - What do you - oh -OOOh my GO-”

Long story short - you’re both banned from Kohls for life.

Worth.

You guys planned your first time together.

He was gonna take you out to a fancy restaurant and you were gonna buy fancy lingerie and the whole thing was gonna be so romantic (and fancy).

Jungkook is actually really romantic.

Those boots he wears tend to confuse people.

But he’s an old soul

And he has this planned out - down to the smallest detail.

You only get your first time with someone once.

...But life doesn’t always go according to plan.

You’re walking to Jungkook’s apartment when Tyler jogs up beside you.

Go away Tyler.

You don’t say these words out loud.

You don’t say anything out loud.

Tyler is your ex and if you said actual words to him, it would violate your vow of never speaking to him again.

Tyler - however - is thick as a brick.

“I miss you.”

“...”

You walk faster.

“We were good together, right?”

Wrong. Please disappear. You break into a light jog.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

Don’t hurt yourself. Thinking really isn't your strong suit-

“I want you back.”

Oh good grief.

You’re basically sprinting now.

Annnnd he’s still keeping up. Curse your short little legs.

The doors of Jungkook’s apartment building are IN VIEW.

If you can just get to him-

“Hey, did you hear me?!”

Oh not good.

There are few things men like less than being ignored.

No matter how many times you tell men (of this particular viral strain) that you literally - in the purest sense of the word - do not want to share air or conversation with them again for as long as you roam the earth-

They never quite seem to get it.

“Tyler. I don’t think about you. Not at all. I’m happy - and your absence is a huge part of that.”

Tyler blinks.

Oh sweet mother of molasses - he’s crying.

And you are actually really hungry. Why TODAY?! He couldn’t have bothered you on a day you didn’t skip lunch?

OH - now he’s reeeaching for y- EEP!

“Tyler - you’re snotting all over my shirt - so could you please-”

You roll your eyes - ready to metaphorically shake your fist at the universe.

When you see something.

Someone.

Jungkook.

He’s watching some other dude slobber all over you with this soft broken expression.

And you see red.

Annoying you is one thing.

But he hurt your baby’s feelings.

It is ON.

“GET OFF TYLER OR I SWEAR BY MY PRETTY PINK NOTEBOOK IMMA CALL YOUR MOM!”

Tyler and all your books go flying backwards. (You’re pretty strong when you want to be.)

You step on him as you run to Jungkook.

Jungkook was feeling kinda of vulnerable and confused and maybe even a little angry when he first arrived on the scene.

But watching you literally walk over that babbling tool to hurl yourself into his arms is honestly hilarious and he’s snorting by the time your chest collides with his.

You don’t let go of him till you’re inside the apartment.

You never want to see that look on his face again.

He was clearly ready to be hurt.

But then he trusted you instead.

And LAWD.

It was so sexy.

Too sexy to just let go.

You need this man inside of you like 5 minutes ago.

You’re already unbuckling his belt.

You have to get his skin on yours.

It’s necessary like air and food and gummy bears.

Clothes hit the coffee table - the couch - the TV-

And oh he feels like heaven from the first thrust…

Just like you knew he would.

Also - not that Tyler would know this - but-

Apparently you ARE loud during sex.

Also apparently - Jin was napping in his bedroom.

And thought you were being murdered.

And came to save you.

And immediately regretted his life choices.

“OH MY GO- YOU HEATHENS - NOT IN THE LIVING ROOM-”

Poor Jin.

Soon you start spending the night at Jungkook’s apartment once or twice a week.

At first everything is really classy and curated.

You style your hair in a pretty braid and brush your teeth before bed, and wear your cutest pajamas, and then you “fall asleep” serenely on your back like some sort of cursed Disney Princess.

Similarly, Jungkook crawls into bed next to you smelling faintly of deodorant and fresh laundry.

He is careful to share all cover and pillow space equally.

By week four of co-sleeping all of that is out the window.

Your hair is in a messy bun and you’re wearing one of his shirts.

You tend to steal most (all) of his pillows to cuddle under your various limbs.

Jungkook is shirtless.

He’s learned that if he wants any covers or pillows - he HAS to beat you to the bed or you will be sleeping atop them all like Smaug.

Similarly, you have learned that if he beats you to the bed - you need to wrap one corner of the covers around your wrist and hold on for dear life, because as soon as Jungkook loses consciousness, he begins to cocoon himself in the bedding-

Which ends with you waking up in the middle of the night freezing next to a human burrito.

The first REAL fight you have is terrible.

It happens right after Jin and his girlfriend get engaged. They buy a house so you and Jungkook move in together.

Honestly neither of you can remember what the initial disagreement was about.

But things got intense.

Feelings were hurt.

Jungkook storms out of the apartment in the rain.

You hear the door slam

… and you just sit in the living room and sob till your chest hurts.

You wonder idly if you’ve crossed a line.

Then he calls you 20 minutes later.

“Baby I’m sorry. I don’t care about any of it. I - I don’t want to lose you.”

You can hear him crying on the phone and your heart shatters into a million pieces

“Where are you?”

There’s a long pause-

“I don’t actually know. I just… started walking. I’m-”

The car keys are already in your hand.

“Drop a pin. I’m coming.”

Oddly enough... this is the moment you know...

You and Jungkook…

This... is it.

The real deal.

Your heart does a funny little dance.

The deal of a lifetime…

In every past relationship - a fight like this would have you searching for a way out.

But right now...

All you can think about is a way forward.

You’ve told him you love him before, and you honestly believed you meant it.

But it’s different in this moment.

When you see him standing there in the rain - looking so lost and alone - something deeper and stronger rises up in your chest.

This is love.

You’re out of the car and shouting his name and when he turns - you can see everything you’re feeling mirrored back in his eyes.

Real love.

His arms wrap around you as his body shakes with sobs against yours.

This is what matters.

Only this.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Endnote: This is my first headcanon fic. Pretty please tell me what you think? I promise it will make my whole day. Feedback truly does inspire me to keep writing.

#jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook smut #jungkook scenarios #bts #ficswithluv #networkbangtan #bangtanarmynet #btscreatorscorner #bangtanidx #heartsforbts #magicshopnet

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collectivefandomstuff · 4 years

Text

Title: Night at the (National History) Museum Status: Complete. Chapter: 1/1. Fandom: DC/Batman Rating: T Warnings: Crude language (cursewords, including the c word). Beta: No beta we die like Jason Todd Pairings: None. Word Count: 7k+ Genre: Humour/Comedy Characters: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne. Summary: Tim finds himself having, once again, been dragged into the social event of the season. As he slowly dies of boredom and the physical exertion of not rolling his eyes, he bumps into his fellow prisoners brothers and they decide to do something about Bruce’s tendency to trick them into going to these things. Excerpt:

“We could call in a bomb threat?” “That’s imaginative.” “Ok, then we get paintball guns and go to town.” “Also unhelpful.” “No, wait! That’s actually a good idea!” “Really Dick? You don’t think people are going to ask questions if the Waynes start literally hunting socialites for sport?”

------

Tim could think of 677 places he would rather be right now, and those were just the ones he had thought of in the last twenty minutes.

He forced a smile as Mrs Schrijnemaker prattled on about her husband’s recent business success and wondered how on earth he managed to get fooled into this every damn year. Gotham Natural History Museum’s annual fundraising shindig was the social event of the fall season and last year Tim spent all of November and December thinking up excuses not to go again this year and yet here he was, one year later and stuck in the same unbearable mixture of polite nonsense and badly hidden insults. The only difference was that this year you got to experience 5 hours of excruciating boredom in a mask. Tim would love to meet whatever ditzy trophy wife who had gotten onto the board through the generous contribution of her aging husband had come up with that idea. A masquerade. In Gotham. The only saving grace was that the idea was so stupid that it nearly guaranteed that a villain would show up, and then they could cut the night short.

“You know,” Mrs Schrijnemaker cooed, eyes sharp with the shrewdness of the truly wealthy, “your family should really consider changing your supplier. If a box or container breaks all the merchandise inside could be damaged or lost. Good packaging cannot be overestimated.”

Tim made a polite noise of agreement. He would rather be in the dumpster behind Al’s 24 hour diner than here. 678. He would rather be at a frat party at Gotham U than here right now, and he would rather be fighting a horde of Ra’s annoying subordinates than be at a frat party. 679. 680.

“Tim!” he blinked and refocused his gaze on-

“Richard,” Tim greeted smoothly. Thank god. The old Robin code of conduct still held true. Rule #4: A robin shall never leave another Robin to their fate at a social event.

“I’m terribly sorry Miss,” Dick said to Mrs Schrijnemaker. His smile was charming enough that she didn’t notice that he probably called her Miss because he had forgotten who she was. “I’m afraid that I must steal my brother away from you.”

“Oh, certainly,” Mrs Schrijnemaker had quite lost the glint of steel in her gaze, growing flustered as Dick gave a jointy little bow and a wink while he gripped Tim’s arm in a steely grip.

“Great,” Dick chirped, “come along Timothy.”

Tim let himself get half-steered, half-dragged across the ballroom, stealing another glass of champagne from a waiter along the way. They headed to the nook over by the southeast corner, a tried and true hiding spot, where Dick rounded on him. His big brother had a look in his eyes that usually meant he’d seen something truly traumatic -like that time Bruce taught them the Charleston -but was commonplace during nights like these.

“Thanks for that,” Tim said, “I think I might’ve perished from intellectual starvation if I was left there much longer.”

“I can’t believe I got tricked into this again,” Dick whispered, “every damn year.” He slipped around Tim and skilfully nabbed a tray of mini sandwiches from a passing waiter.

“How did you get roped into it?” Tim asked.

“He schaid,” Dick began, speaking through a sandwich. He swallowed. “He said that Khloe Kardashian would be here.”

“Again?”

“Look, I know ok? I don’t need you to shame me for falling for the same lie twice.”

“Three times, Dick. You’re forgetting Aspen.”

Dick’s expression soured.

“Oh my god I had forgotten about Aspen. I am so putting fish in Bruce’s bed-”

“I’ll help,” Tim said drily, glaring out at the sea of masked people. He could almost taste the fake laughter and supressed dislike on the air.

“How did he make you go anyway?” Dick asked, picking through the tray.

“I’m not even sure.”

They stood in companionable silence for a glorious moment, content to hide even though both of them were experienced enough to know that too soon they would be found by some glitzy socialite with more plastic under their skin than personality.

Tim glanced around the room, trying to scope out which vulture might be swooping down to feast on their flesh. As far as he could tell, there were no villains in attendance yet. Maybe they wouldn’t show up at all. And wouldn’t that be ironic? The one time he would welcome a Poison Ivy appearance with glee, and she stays home to water her plants. He studied a group of sweaty middle-aged men in various stages of corpulence, all dressed in nearly identical tuxedos and black masks. Looks like they had invited the Historical Construction Society; this was shaping up to be an extraordinarily dull night. His eyes slid to the left.

Or maybe not.

“Is that Jason?”

“What?” Dick’s head snapped up and followed his gaze. “Where?”

“By the Historical Contruction Society.”

“The what?”

“They’re called something long and pretentious, but they always talk about things like which nails were most commonly used for building houses in the 17th century”

“Oh, the Screw Screwing Club.”

Tim filed that name away for further use. Dick always was good at coming up with a good pun.

“To the left,” Tim instructed, “moving towards the bar.”

“That is Jason. What is he doing here?”

“Maybe he’s going to rob us?”

“Oh please let that be it,” Dick said, munching down another sandwich without taking his eyes off their brother, who was weaving through the throng without issue. That wasn’t unexpected, since no one knew who he was even without having half his face covered.

“I’m texting him to come over here,” Tim said, already tapping away on his phone.

“Ask if he brought his guns”

“Contemplating suicide?”

“Mrs Sanderson has groped me five times already. She deserves to be robbed.”

“Ladies and gentlemen: Batman.”

“’m not Batman anymore.” Dick groused, poking at a sad little sandwich with tuna filling.

“He’s on his way.”

They retreated further into the nook to where they were partially hidden behind a curtain in an effort to stay unnoticed a bit longer.

“Who is here tonight anyway?” Tim asked, eyeing a lonely olive that was rolling around on the tray.

“Hell if I know,” Dick replied, “I was shanghaied into this last minute. Through deceit and lies.”

“Damian?”

“If he couldn’t get out of it. I haven’t seen him.”

“He’s probably hiding,” Tim said, “he’s still small enough to fit in the vents.” Lucky bastard.

“I wish I was still small enough to fit in the vents,” Dick sighed longingly.

“I’m sure Zatanna can resize your body to fit your intellect,” said Jason’s gravelly voice from the other side of the curtain. Dick made an indignant noise.

“Get in here.” There was a brief struggle between Dick, Jason, and the Curtain and then they were all snugly shoehorned into the small alcove.

“Hey.” Tim said conversationally, giving in and picking up the lonely olive.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Jason deadpanned.

“Why are you here, Jason?” Tim asked, popping the olive into his mouth.

“I’m supporting natural history.”

“Please tell me you’re up to something,” Dick said, shifting to peek out from behind the curtain. “I think Mrs Sanderson is actively looking for me now.”

“’fraid not,” Jason said, “I was blackmailed.”

Tim thought this over as he slowly chewed the olive. If Bruce had enlisted Jason, he must be really worried about a villainous attack. Fantastic. Maybe they would get out of here before Dick had to resort to jumping out a fifteenth-floor window to avoid Mrs Sanderson, like he did two years ago. That one had been hard to explain to the press.

“I thought you didn’t like olives,” Jason said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I don’t,” Tim replied, “and I don’t have a napkin to spit it out in.”

“So...?”

“So.” Tim replied and kept chewing.

“Jeez Tim, you look like a real boy, but then…” Jason shook his head.

“Enough about the olives,” Dick hissed, “Jason, you have to help us run interference.”

Jason snorted.

“Nah. Sucks to be you but that’s not my problem.”

Maybe Tim could get away with spitting the olive out into the curtain?

“Well, something has to happen,” Dick said urgently, “did Bruce think there would be an attack?”

Jason shrugged.

“Dunno.”

“Someone needs to do something,” Dick said lowly, “I can’t take a one-hour lecture about 15th century door frames right now.”

“The Ancient Architecture Assholes are here?” Jason asked with distaste.

Tim finally gave in and swallowed the olive, grimacing as it went down.

“And the Palatetologists,” he told them, trying to drown out the taste of olive with champagne. It did not work.

“Who?” Dick frowned.

“You mean Palaeontologists?” Jason questioned.

“That’s what I call those guys who keep talking about the mouth feel of caviar.”

“The smack-talkers,” Dick said knowingly.

“The culinary cunts,” Jason supplied.

“Yeah. Those. They’re here too, and at least one of them recently tried pitahaya.”

Dick shuddered.

“Well, sounds like you both have a lot of people to chat with, and I woudn’t want to keep you,” Jason said, grinning maliciously.

“If you leave us to our fate, I’ll-” Dick started.

“We could do something.” Tim interrupted, suddenly inspired. Of course! With Jason here, it would be a piece of cake.

“What?” Dick turned to him.

“We could do something to make the night more bearable. Jason will help.”

“No I won’t,” Jason protested, crossing his arms.

“You’d get to fuck with rich people,” Tim told him.

Jason’s eye twitched, like his mind was at war with itself. In the end, his hatred of rich people won out over his need to be contrary.

“Fine. What’re you thinking?”

Tim considered their options.

“We can’t do something dangerous, or anything that can be traced back to us, because Bruce would have our heads. But if we cause enough trouble, he might decide that we’re more of a liability than an asset and then-” Tim smiled sharply “he won’t invite us next year.”

Dick made a noise that Tim had only ever heard him make when eating s’mores. Utter delight.

“So what are we doing exactly?” Jason asked, leaning in.

“Ok,” Tim said in a low voice, “hear me out…”

Phase One: Triple Threat.

“Our first step,” Tim said, “should be to cause as much disruption as possible without alerting Bruce. That means social guerrilla warfare. This room is a minefield. All we need to do is purposefully take a wrong step.”

Tim watched from the corner of his eye as Dick sidled up to a gaggle of middle-aged business wives. The group turned towards the oldest Wayne heir like a flower towards the sun. Good. Now, for his part. He took a deep breath and stepped forward into the direct line of sight of one of the Screw Screwers. The man, a portly fellow in his fifties, honed in on Tim like a heatseeking missile. Excellent.

“Is that you, mister Wayne?”

“I’m afraid so,” Tim said, switching on the polite facial expression his mother had chiselled into him as a child, “though I fear the mask is hindering me from identifying you, mister…?”

“Dennis,” Mr Screw- uh Dennis filled in for him. Figures this guy would have a first name for a surname.

“Mr Dennis, of course!” Tim said good-naturedly. “How are you?”

“Oh quite well, young man, quite well,” Dennis replied and Tim had a feeling he was itching to get through the polite greetings so he could start talking about buildings. He also had a sneaking suspicion that this was that one club member who said everything twice. “And you?”

“I am doing very well, thank you.”

“Good to hear, good to hear. Say, have you heard about the reconstruction of the old windmill?”

Windmills. God rest Tim’s fragile psyche.

“Why I did hear about that. One of your colleagues mentioned it. Fascinating project.”

“Oh, did they now, did they now?” Dennis said absently. “Yes it is fascinating, they’re using blueprints from the original-”

Tim forced himself to look interested as Dennis Two-Times droned on about the original wood and ironworks.

He’d rather be dealing with Bart when he hadn’t eaten for four hours. 681.

“-and of course they’re using wooden bolts, as was the custom during the 1760’s-”

“Wooden?” Tim interrupted. Dennis looked a bit shocked, maybe he wasn’t used to people showing signs of intelligent life during his monologues. “Your good friend said they would be using steel.”

“What?” Dennis squawked. “No, you must have misheard. That would be completely inaccurate for that time period.”

“No, no,” Tim said, taking secret pleasure in mimicking Dennis’ speaking pattern, “I’m quite sure. Steel bolts and maple wood. That’s what he said.”

“Maple wood?!” Dennis exclaimed indignantly. “Maple?!”

“Yes, yes,” Tim said, “Maple.”

“That cannot be correct! It cannot! Who did you speak to?!”

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you,” Tim said apologetically, “we got caught up in discussing the mill before we had exchanged any pleasantries. He did say he was personally involved in the project, if that helps?”

“What?” Dennis couldn’t have looked more insulted if Tim had told him that he thought hinges in the 16th century were made of cheese. “He said he was personally involved? Personally?”

“Yes, yes, personally.”

Tim could almost see Dennis’ widened eyes over the mask.

“I shudder to think that someone involved in the reconstruction would operate under such misconception! Shudder!” Dennis said.

“It is a worrying thought,” Tim said agreeably, “a worrying thought.”

“I must investigate this at once. At once! I apologize, young mister Wayne, but I must leave right away. I apologize, but I must!”

“I understand completely,” Tim told him, “completely. Historical accuracy is so very very important. Very, very important.”

“Yes, quite right! Quite right! Very, very important! I bid you goodnight, mister Wayne.”

“Goodnight, goodnight, Mr Dennis, Dennis,” Tim said, since he was pretty certain that Dennis wasn’t listening anymore. Instead, the older man was hurrying away, a sheen of sweat on his forehead from the mere anticipation of a confrontation about the maple.

Tim glanced around the room for his co-conspirators. Dick were over by the windows now, talking to a few high society ladies, all of whom looked completely captivated.

Splendid. Operation scandal was a go. Tim estimated that they would have at least one massive marital argument within ten minutes. He also made a mental note not to piss Dick off too much; his knowledge of the dirty secrets of Gotham’s upper crust was terrifying when weaponized.

A man slipped by behind him. Jason, he concluded from the “mission complete” that was whispered in his ear. Tim ambled away towards the dancefloor so he could get a better view of the buffet. At the end of it stood a cluster of men -the palatetologists, easily identified by their wispy moustaches and corduroy suits. Ah corduroy, the fabric of hipsters and men who think their careers never reached past middle management due to “an oversight”. Based on the tenseness in their shoulders and the thin lines of their mouths beneath the wispy moustaches, the smack talkers were having a pretty intense argument. Excellent. Jason’s pick-pocketing skills were still as sharp as ever. Later, he’d have to ask his predecessor what he put in the one with a red bowtie’s dinner that made the man turn puce in disgust as he argued with the one who was wearing pants that were too short. He was pretty sure short-pants were one of the ones who’s food hadn’t been tampered with since his plate was considerably more empty than red bowtie’s.

A collective gasp drew his attention away from the culinary cunts and over to the other side of the ballroom, where Ennis Ryan was dripping onto the floor from the drink his new trophy wife just threw in his face. Someone behind Tim let out a breathy “oh my lord”. He thought it might’ve been Mrs Kraus.

“You pig!” Mrs Trophy-Wife Ryan screeched. She obviously hadn’t seduced him with her creativity. Ennis looked like he couldn’t pick between being surprised or enraged. Mrs Trophy-Wife turned on her unseemly high heels and marched out before he could reach a decision. Ennis glanced around, probably concluded that staying wouldn’t make the situation any less damaging to his reputation, and promptly followed her.

The hall exploded with scandalised whispers before they had even made it out of the door.

Tim’s innate sixth sense twinged with the feeling of being watched. He turned and met Bruce’s gaze head on. Their magnanimous patriarch looked suspicious, but not yet angry. Tim gave him a smile and a shrug and let himself get dragged into a conversation about Mrs Friedman’s grand nephew. A boy of endless potential, apparently. One could marvel that such a genius hadn’t managed to get into a decent college. Over Mrs Friedman’s shoulder he saw Dick shoot him a wink from over by a gathering of W.E. employees.

Phase one: complete.

Phase two: Escalation through Reinforcements

“For the next phase, Dick and I need alibis or else Bruce will make us immediately. So, you and I have to go hang out with whatever ignorami he’s entertaining at the time.”

“I hate being near B at these things. He always deflects everything on me.”

“Which is why we have to end up there ‘accidentally’ and ‘against our will’ or he’ll get suspicious.”

“What about me? I’m guessing I’m doing the deed?”

“Yes. But you won’t be able to do it alone; we need another sibling.”

“Damian.”

“Yep. Someone needs to go on a vent safari.”

“What about Cass?”

“She pulled patrol duty.”

“You mean she cheated.”

“Well yeah obviously.”

Tim saw Dick slip back into the ballroom through a side door, which meant that Damian had been located and lovingly coerced into joining the mission. Now, they just had to wait for Dick to purposefully interact with someone who would drag him over to join the cluster of people around Bruce. They called them B-traps; a small subset of Gotham high society who worked as an immediate shortcut to Bruce. Ten minutes ago, Tim had accidentally on purpose ended up near Mrs Zhuk, a woman who lived in a delusional world wherein time talking to Bruce immediately correlated with societal standing. A few years ago she had noticed that bringing one of the Wayne children over to Bruce gifted her with a substantially longer amount of time in his presence, and ever since she had become a high ranking player in the B-trap club. Hence, Tim had now spent roughly nine and half minutes watching Bruce nod along as Mr Fitz, a man who was so determined to keep the presidency of the board of the Natural History Museum away from Mrs Giannotti that he straight up refused to die, prattled on about the new exhibit. It might have been more bearable if he was talking about the actual history, rather than the shipping costs. Or if he actually remembered what the exhibition was about.

Less than two minutes after Dick had re-entered the hall, he appeared at Bruce’s elbow along with Mr Gauthier, who was the target of an ongoing bet among the Wayne kids regarding when he would give in and declare his unfortunate crush on Bruce out loud. Tim took a moment to appreciate Dick’s choice of trap, since Gauthier was a genuine distraction to Bruce, who was already eyeing the balding trader with well-concealed alarm. Tim gave Dick a suffering look for B’s benefit, trying to look as miserable as possible while keeping up a polite façade.

All players were officially in position. Perfect. Tim glanced around the room, feigning disinterest in a way that would make Bruce think he was trying to find an escape route. He couldn’t spot either Jason or Damian, which meant that they were out of Bruce’s line of sight as well. Good. Seeing one of them interacting with someone would raise immediate red flags.

“So what exactly is it that the Demon child and I are supposed to be doing?”

“Well, by this point we should already have caused mayhem on the social level; in the next phase we target the big bads: business and tradition.”

As Mr Fitz stumbled his way through another complaint about tallies in a monotone voice, Damian should be making his way to the back rooms. At this time of night, the true sharks of Gotham’s business world would have emigrated out of the public eye in order to fully embrace their stereotype by talking shop over whisky and Cuban cigars. Jason wouldn’t have been allowed to set foot inside that room, but there were few things more enticing to the self-appointed “Mad Men of Gotham” (Tim would rather get shot in Tanzania. 682.) than trying to get company secrets out of the supposedly naïve son of their monetary overlord.

Damian’s mission was to act the unexperienced son playing at being knowledgeable in company affairs, trying to keep up with the real deal. In the process, he would be dropping a comment about the Dynamo merger; an incredibly secret business deal currently taking place among some of the top companies in the city. Damian, the poor child, would have accidentally outed a multi-million dollar secret to a room full of people who either knew and did not want anyone else to, or didn’t know and were getting screwed over by their friends and business partners.

Jason, meanwhile, was to head over to the east wing.

“You want me to go for the court ladies?!”

“I did say we were going for tradition.”

“I’m pretty sure those women are vampires.”

“Only in a truly emotional sense. Are you saying you won’t do it?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I’ll do it!”

Going for the court would mean making a splash in the deepest pond of the society set. These ladies were neither trophy wives nor women whose husbands got lucky in a business venture. They were old blood Gothamites, wrought from iron and the blood of the unworthy and led by the second most terrifying woman Tim had ever met: Mrs Eleanor Payne. Mrs Payne, who had been widowed longer than most of the Gotham society set had been alive, had a personal vendetta against the Wayne family. In part this was due to Bruce’s unsightly “Brucie” persona, who was an offense to everything Mrs Payne stood for. The rest of it, though, was entirely centred around the fact that when she introduced herself as “Mrs Payne from Gotham”, people always asked “Mrs Wayne, was it?”

As such, no known Wayne child could have exacted this part of the plan. Thank you benevolent Alien gods for the unknown one.

Tim wasn’t sure exactly how Jason planned to offend the old ladies, but he wasn’t worried. The most important part was that he insinuate that he had been invited to this event due to a new outreach program that intended to diversify the invitees to events such as this, spearheaded by the Upper Gotham Women’s Society. UGWS was, in fact, a rival organisation to Mrs Payne’s Gotham’s Women for the Upholding of Traditional Values, previously the Daughters and Wives of Gotham Society. The UGWS had been founded by a crafty business wife who had been denied membership in the GWUTV, the DWGS at the time, and their ranks were filled with all the women that Mrs Eleonor Payne thought were a blight on high society. She once referred to them as “an organisation of ignoble characters, inhabited by women of undesirable nature” completely unprompted during a speech to a children’s charity. The mere idea that they would start shipping in actual low lives to these events, never mind the implication that they would have the clout to succeed, would be enough to set her on the warpath.

Tim really hoped Jason would dust off his dormant Crime Alley dialect. He also made a mental note to hack into the surveillance cameras and get it on tape.

Mr Fitz had now talked himself into a circular argument about… Tim wasn’t actually sure what it was about but it sure was mind-numbingly boring. Mrs Zhuk was making very obvious attempts at catching Bruce’s attention, all of which failed because Bruce was involved in a sort of very slow dance with Mr Gauthier, wherein the later would creep closer while Bruce subtly stepped away. They were well on their way to clear a complete circle around the group. Dick was smiling into his champagne and nodding along to Mr Fitz and Tim was casually pretending to be so involved in the circular monologue that he couldn’t hear Francis Klein trying to get his attention to his left. No plan in the world would be worth listening to Klein talk about stocks for the next thirty minutes.

Bruce had just shuffled past Tim under the pretence of grabbing another flute of champagne from a side table when there was an almighty crash from over by dance floor. The crowd turned as one to see two men, one obviously having just punched the other. Tim would have been tempted to think it was another victim of Dick’s gossip campaign if it wasn’t for the sheer mass of corduroy surrounding the pair.

Apparently, mouth-feel discussions could get pretty violent. Who would’ve thought.

Tim used the distraction to look over at the Screw Screwing Group. They had not yet reached fisticuffs level of ire, but they sure looked angry. He had heard raised voices from that area every now and then for the last 40 minutes.

A frazzled looking woman who Tim thought might be an event coordinator rushed forward to handle the situation. Tim watched as she helped the man off the floor and tried to herd the company of thin moustaches away from the rest of the guests. Suddenly, there was a quiet voice right by his ear:

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

Bruce.

Tim kept outwardly calm, replying in an equally soft tone:

“Not me. Strange things have been happening all evening. I think there might be an outside threat.”

This caught B’s attention. Tim wasn’t stupid enough to think that Bruce bought it entirely, but his suspicion towards his children tended to lose out to his loyalty towards JUSTICE. Before Bruce could demand more information, Dick appeared by them, speaking in a low, hurried voice.

“Jason just clocked someone shifty going into the kitchen. He’s investigating, requests back-up.”

Tim could almost hear Bruce grinding his teeth.

“Fine,” Bruce said, “both of you go. But if you’re up to something I will bench you indefinitely.”

That might work if any of the obedient ones actually lived at home, but there was only Damian in the manor these days and whenever Bruce tried to bench him, he ran away to Blüdhaven. Tough break, B.

Tim and Dick excused themselves and hurried away towards the kitchen. If Jason had texted Dick, that meant that phase two was officially handled and it was time to bring out the big guns.

Swell.

Phase three: Go out with a Bang!

“So we play puppet-masters with the cliques. Then what?”

“I’m glad you asked, Dick. After phase two all we have to do is make a big enough fuss to get them to close early.”

“Why don’t we just do that immediately?”

“Because we want to show B that we can cause a lot of damage without being noticed just by being at these things.”

“Yeah, but if we do it right away we can go home.”

“Jason, do you not want to fuck with rich people?”

“…no, yeah, okay we’re doing this.”

“So what kind of fuss are we causing?”

“I don’t know. Jason, this is your area of expertise. Well, yours and Damian’s but he’s not here right now.��

“We could call in a bomb threat?”

“That’s imaginative.”

“Ok, then we get paintball guns and go to town.”

“Also unhelpful.”

“No, wait! That’s actually a good idea!”

“Really Dick? You don’t think people are going to ask questions if the Waynes start literally hunting socialites for sport?”

“No, not that. The paint thing. We can put it in the sprinkler system, pull the alarm, and then make it all out to be an anti-fur animal rights protest.”

“Re-inventing the old pulling the fire-alarm strategy, huh? You know, I’m actually impressed Dickie.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Well, Timberly, I don’t care for it.”

“Thought so.”

“You guys are the worst. I wish Damian were here.”

“Whatever. We’re going with Dick’s sprinkler idea. It’ll help get Damian on board too, since we’ll raise awareness for animal rights.”

“So who finds the brat?”

“We don’t have time for stupid questions, Jason. Campbell is heading this way and I cannot take another conversation about his golf handicap.”

Tim and Dick managed to slip away through a combination of vigilante techniques and blatant lies and snuck into an unused corridor near the kitchens. Jason was already there when they arrived and Tim thought he looked a little pit-mad, but that might just be left over adrenaline from fulfilling his childhood dream of insulting Mrs Payne.

“Where are we at?” Tim asked, while he pulled out his phone to check the time. 21:47. Good.

“The court ladies are enraged,” Jason reported gleefully, “they’re filing a police report. Oh, and one of them suggested calling the national guard and no one in the group actually said no.”

Huh. Looked like Tim would be able to enjoy the fallout from tonight for a full week, at least. The Sunday paper would be one for the scrapbook.

“What about Damian?” Dick queried. Jason leaned back against the wall.

“He set off the business drones a while ago. The fallout should hit the stock market by tomorrow.”

Hm. Maybe two weeks.

“He outed the Dynamo deal?” Tim asked.

“And something about the new FDA guidelines that hasn’t been made public yet.” Jason added.

“Oh that,” Tim said, “that was a good move. That should hit the ones who weren’t affected by Dynamo.”

“Apparently.” Jason shrugged. “Anyway, the little brat is accessing the sprinkler system as we speak. We just need to get the paint over there.”

“Well, that’s our job.” Dick turned to Tim. “Do we have the paint?”

“Yeah,” Tim replied, “The Titans got it to Gotham and Steph left it be the west entrance a few minutes ago.” Dick gave him a dubious look.

“You called the Teen Titans for this?”

“No. I texted them. We needed a lot of paint.”

“So,” Jason said impatiently, “Dick and I get the paint to the lil’ demon.”

“Yes. The way there should be cleared out, especially with all the drama going on. Make sure to send Dick ahead to scout, though.”

“Ok,” Dick said, looking at his watch, “we get everything ready by 22:30. Then it’s your turn.”

“Great. I’ll hack into their system and schedule a message to be shown on all screens at 22:30. Their fire alarm is old-school though so someone has to pull it.”

“I’ll do it,” Jason said, grinning.

Tim felt like they were probably working their way through Jason’s childhood bucket list right now, and he was weirdly okay with that.

“Good,” Dick said absently. He gave Tim a pointed look. “So what about Bruce?”

Tim pursed his lips. That was the most unstable part of this plan.

“I’ll handle Bruce.”

Jason and Dick exchanged a dubious look. Which, rude.

“You sure you can handle B on your own?” Jason asked.

“Or go down trying,” Tim replied.

The three of them contemplated that for a moment.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Dick said finally, “let’s get going.”

There was only one way that Bruce, already suspicious, wouldn’t notice that three of his sons were missing. Jason and Damian maybe, but not Dick. He was too noticeable to be lost in the crowd.

So, the only real strategy would be to distract Bruce to the point where he didn’t look for them. Tim had already texted their noble patriarch to tell him that the suspicious activity was handled and it wasn’t a major threat. Now all he had to do was live up to his reputation as the boy who can lie to Batman.

Actually, Dick had done him a favour in this regard. There were a total number of 14 people in Gotham society who could throw Bruce off his game, and one of them was already doing the personal space tango with B over by the buffet. In Tim’s experience, Bruce needed at least four of these people to keep him occupied, so Tim was going for five. Mr Gauthier was already in place, which left Tim with the unenviable position of getting another four to go bother Bruce.

He entered the ballroom, quickly scanning the crowd for one of the legendary 14, and was immediately accosted by Mrs Sanderson who he did not have time for right now. As she talked at length about how big he’d gotten (he saw her last week), he spotted Mr Tobias Engel, who was definitely living up to his name today.

Tim excused himself, pretending that he needed to use the bathroom, and quickly swerved around some guests to get to Engel.

“Mister Engel!” He greeted.

“Yes?” Engel was an older man, gangly and white of hair, and sported a rather impressive moustache. He was also unusually sharp and interesting for someone who was part of this crowd, which is why all the Waynes took any chance to talk to him during these parties. An interesting conversation was hard currency in here, to the point where Dick had once physically swept Tim’s legs out from under him to get to Engel first.

“Timothy Wayne.” Tim introduced himself.

“Yes, I’m quite aware.” Engel told him with a hint of amusement.

“Ah, you never know with these masks,” said Tim, “I am glad to have caught you before you left. I actually had a favour to ask.” Normally Tim would spend some more time on pleasantries, but time was of the essence here.

“Yes?”

“Last time we spoke you told me about the suggested reform for the Gotham school system. I was intrigued, so I mentioned it to my father.” Tim said. This was actually true. “He was interested, but I’m afraid I couldn’t do the proposal justice.” This wasn’t true. “And I was wondering if you could speak to him? I would love for him to back the project, but…” he trailed off, making a face to convey that certain parents take the words of other adults much more seriously than that of their children. Engel made a thoughtful noise.

“Well, I can certainly have a word with Mister Wayne. Is he around?” Engel glanced around.

Tim helpfully pointed Bruce out and sent Engel on his way, safe in the knowledge that Engel wouldn’t tell B that Tim had sent him; the man was smart enough to read the subtext of Tim’s query. Not smart enough to know the cause for it though.

One down.

Tim swiftly made his way through the throng, rebuffing various attempt to pull him into a conversation, until he spotted-

Bingo.

Miss Leila Auclair. Auclair was one of those daughters of powerful men who had somehow held onto the vapidness and incredible confidence their teenage years well into their twenties. She had decided that Bruce Wayne was the grand knight of her fairy tale at 21 and pursued him with enough fervour to warrant a restraining order, though none had been filed, which Tim was thankful for currently. She was surrounded, as per usual, by a gaggle of women her age who were essentially interchangeable with one another.

“Ladies,” Tim said smoothly as he stepped up to them. The gaggle turned to him like a single being, smiling and greeting him with over-the-top enthusiasm. A Wayne tended to have that effect.

“Are you having a nice evening, Mister Wayne?” One of them asked. Tim thought she might be the daughter of Ernest Lewis, a business partner of Wayne Enterprises.

“I am now,” he said cheekily, practicing everything Dick had thought him over the years, “though I must say you are all being very greedy, keeping your lovely company to yourselves. Lord knows my father could use some of it. He hasn’t as much as seen a charming young lady all night. I think he might consider dating Mister Fitz if he is left alone much longer.”

And that’s all it took for Leila to immediately leave the group. She really wasn’t all that bright.

Two down.

Tim extracted himself from the girl-gaggle as quickly as possible, under heavy protests. He promised to return, a bald-faced lie, and walked away very quickly.

So, only two more to go. So far, Bruce seemed too occupied juggling Gauthier and Engel to notice something was amiss, and Tim had already planned who to use as number four. Stepping quietly between the backs of two men who both smelled like sweaty shrimp he spotted a golden opportunity if ever there was one.

Francis Klein and George Campbell. It was as two for one combo.

Tim felt almost elated as he approached them, a feeling he was certain none of them had ever elicited in another human being before.

“Mister Klein, Mister Campbell,” he greeted, smiling politely.

“Mister Wayne,” they chorused back.

“We were just discussing how the golf club’s finances have taken a hit recently, due to the new parking restrictions.”

Oh. Economics and golf combined. So that’s what they were talking about. Tim had assumed they were both just monologuing at each other about numbers and golf respectively in a sort of awkward facsimile of an actual conversation.

“Fascinating,” he lied with gusto, “actually, Mister Klein, I came to find you because my father was asking about the quarterly reports. Would you mind speaking to him about it?”

Klein straightened, as if the sudden sense of importance had given him a purpose that his life had previously lacked. Which, maybe it had.

“Well, then I must go speak to him at once!” Klein exclaimed, already peering around for any sign of Bruce.

“That would be splendid,” Tim said, “he is over by the bar… probably talking about his golf game.”

And that’s four. Tim watched as Klein and Campbell hurried away, both almost buzzing at the prospect of discussing their favourite subject. He was pretty certain that neither of them would stop to explain who sent them; they really weren’t those kinds of people.

Strictly speaking he had already succeeded with his mission, but Tim had already had number four planned and, frankly, he didn’t want to give it up. So he went hunting. A quick look at his phone told him that the time was 22:21, and he had nine long minutes to set another dog loose on B.

Was he enjoying this a bit too much?

He swerved right when old Nancy Simmons, renowned bigot, tried to physically catch his arm and drag him into her group. Tim would rather be alone in space eating those disgusting dried army food packs Bruce bought for long missions than talk to her. 683.

No, he was enjoying this the appropriate amount.

He finally spotted his target at 22:24, holding court in the way that only Mrs Payne could. She was surrounded by a crowd of scandalised women and a few incensed men. All of whom probably owned a monocle. For tax purposes, or something.

Tim stepped straight into the lion’s den and sent his best thousand watt smile at Mrs Payne.

“Mrs Payne!” He kept smiling as Mrs Payne fixed him with a withering, hateful stare. “I heard there had been some issues with an invitee from the Upper Gotham Women’s Society.” Mrs Payne opened her mouth, doubtless to lecture him for his rude behaviour, but Tim was on a deadline and he did not have the time. “I just wanted to offer my condolences. I know that my adoptive father backed the project, and I am appalled to hear that it caused any sort of offence.”

Mrs Payne froze. Her eyes were doing some sort of mad dance as she processed the reality of her two greatest enemies joining forces to let riff raff into her high society events. After a moment that lasted an eternity she spoke, in a measured voice:

“Thank you, Mister Drake.”

She had always liked the Drakes. Their name was entirely dissimilar from Payne. As such, she tended to refer to Tim as one or the other depending on her current opinion of him. She was unnaturally calm as she turned to the group, asked them all to please excuse her, and stalked off in Bruce’s direction.

Tim snuck out of the group, grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and ambled towards the exit, set on finding a good vantage point to watch Bruce get Splatooned.

He spotted a familiar group on the way, who were huddled together and having a very heated debate. He distinctly heard Dennis exclaim “completely unacceptable!” from within the herd.

“Completely!” Tim echoed merrily as he passed them.

He spotted his brothers sidling in through a side door across the room and raised his glass at them. They waved cheerily. Well, Dick and Jason did. He was pretty sure Damian rolled his eyes beneath the mask.

They spent the countdown watching Bruce try to get away from his admirers while getting completely eviscerated by Mrs Payne. At 22:28, B finally pieced it together and looked over at his brood with the icy eyes he usually reserved for when he wore the cowl.

Still, that was too little too late. At 22:30 on the dot, Jason pulled the fire alarm and every sprinkler in the room went off, dousing the finely dressed guests in neon paint, as the message “fur is murder!” flashed from every screen. There would probably be a few guests who wouldn’t get caught in the mayhem, since they had limited the colour spectacle to the main hall ballroom, but in all almost every member of the Gotham Society Set would be washing neon pink, purple, and yellow out of their hair for a week.

As a spray of neon rained down them, Tim, Dick, Jason, and Damian watched Mrs Payne lose her shit for the first time and It. Was. Glorious.

“Do you think he’ll still make us come next year?!” Dick yelled over the blaring alarm while Jason was catching colour in his hands and rubbing it on Damian’s head. Tim laughed.

“And give us one year to plan?!” He replied, jumping out of the way when Damian tackled Jason to the floor. “No way!”

“Uh, guys?!” Jason said from where he had Damian pinned to the floor. “Incoming!”

They looked up to see Bruce marching their way. Tim could almost see the cloak billowing around him.

“I have a safe house in Brazil!” Jason shouted over the cacophony of noise. It was an unusual show of empathy on his part, and really, who were they to argue? After all, when Batman comes for you there’s really only one thing to do.

They ran.

#Fanfiction #fanfic #batfam #batfam fic #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne #i do not know how to tag this at all #rating: t #tw language #batfamily fic #7k+#5-10k #humor #oneshot #I gave a language warning b/c microsoft word straight up told me my language was offensive #also all obscure facts about windmill construction are made up #I am not invested enough to look them up

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allsassnoclass · 2 years

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hello!! if you are still taking prompts how about "I really need to use this practice room and I thought it was empty because the light was off but it turns out you were taking a nap. sorry for waking you, you good?" for. cashton? if that doesn't work for you feel free to choose another ship! love u xx

college au! college au! college au!

alrighty this was sent all the way back in may but i hope you like it!

Calum is never coming to the music building at 4:00 pm the week before finals again. He typically comes at around 2:00, because that's when he has a practice room checked out for, or late at night right before the building closes, when everyone who lives off-campus has already retreated to their house or apartment. He's only here because he missed his usual slot multiple times this week due to a group project in a different class and now he desperately needs to practice before tomorrow's lesson. If he shows up to his lesson with no discernable progress for the third week in a row, his teacher is probably going to stage another intervention, and he doesn't need that.

He just needs a few more hours in the day. Five, probably. He would like five more hours in the day, because he's running on an average of four hours of sleep a night and has no time to relax on top of jazz combo practice, choir practice, the intramural soccer team he's single-handedly carrying, all of his classes, homework, lessons, and practicing. If he wants to practice today, he has to do it now. He has too much going on tonight to come back to the music building later.

Unfortunately, it seems like every single student in the music department has decided to use the practice rooms right now. Calum was hoping to nab one of the grand piano rooms, since only students taking piano lessons have access and the pianos in the other practice rooms and typically slightly out of tune, but they're both taken by people leagues more advanced than him, if the snippets of pieces leaking through the doors are any indication. The other practice rooms on this floor are all occupied as well, lights on in the rooms and doors closed.

Calum has never had to go to the upper floor before. That probably means that he's not practicing enough, but it still feels daunting to take the stairs to the top, even though it's an identical floorplan to the level below. Hopefully the pianos here aren't terribly out of tune, otherwise it's going to be a rough practice session.

All of the practice rooms on this floor have their doors closed as well, with brass, strings, and voices coming from every room except one at the end. It's dark, and Calum's heart leaps. The afternoon (and Calum's entire career as a pianist) might be saved yet.

Of course, life isn't so kind. Calum throws open the door, flicks on the light, slaps his piano books down on the music stand in the corner so he can take off his backpack, and then realizes that there's someone else in the room, stretching his arms over his head with a groan and slowly sitting up on the piano bench.

"Oh my gosh," Calum says, face already flooding with heat. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was in here. I saw the light off and thought..."

He trails off, even more mortified now that he's taking in the familiar light curls and distracting arms. They haven't been formally introduced, but Calum watches Ashton Irwin practice with the improv comedy troupe every Wednesday night on the quad, and they're both in the same choir. Calum knows him well enough to know that he'd like to make out with him and go on a date or two or seven, which makes everything about this even more embarrassing, because he doesn't know if Ashton is even sure of his name. Ashton is a junior who makes everyone laugh and has leagues of friends. Calum is a freshman who is scared to talk to people.

Ashton blinks up at him groggily, then waves him off.

"It's fine," he says, yawning.

"Were you... taking a nap?" Calum asks. That certainly seems like what was happening, but Calum can't fathom why someone who isn't even a music major would choose to snooze on an uncomfortable piano bench and take up precious practice room real estate.

Ashton ducks his head and smiles sheepishly.

"Yeah," he admits. "You can have the room, though. I should probably get up, anyway."

"No, I can go," Calum says, even though for the sake of his music career he definitely cannot. "You were here first."

"Nah, it's a practice room, not a nap room," Ashton says, standing and stretching again. Calum takes the opportunity to stare shamelessly, because Ashton is still too sleepy to notice.

"Why were you napping here, anyway?" Calum asks. "Are you okay?"

Ashton waves his hand in the air vaguely.

"Oh, you know," he says. "It's that time of year."

Calum nods. He doesn't know why Ashton wouldn't choose to sleep back at his apartment or in one of the comfy chairs in the drama building, but he understands what this time of year will do to people.

"I have a class later and didn't want to go all the way back to my apartment," Ashton elaborates. "This is the only place I could get to that's dark. Of course, piano majors typically barge in on me."

"Seriously, I'm sorry," Calum says, sure that his cheeks are noticeably red at this point. "I didn't realize anyone was here and all of the other practice rooms are taken."

"Like I said, I should probably get up, anyway," Ashton says, waving him off. He grabs his backpack from the floor, grimacing from the weight. "You need the room more than I do. You have to do a jury this semester, right?"

"Yeah," Calum sighs, rubbing the back of his neck where tension is already building up. He didn't realize how physically detrimental stress was to his playing until his professor told him that stretching before he practices will help his playing and it worked. If he had the time and money to get a proper massage, he'd be the best pianist in the world. "We have to do one every semester that we have lessons, which means I'll be doing one every semester I'm here."

Ashton hums in sympathy. Calum tries not to think about how terrifying it's going to be to get onstage and play while all of the piano instructors sit and judge him. Being a music major sucks.

"Well, I'd better let you get to it," Ashton says. Calum scrambles for another conversation topic to keep him here, but comes up with nothing, so he steps aside to allow Ashton access to the door.

Ashton pauses in the doorway.

"Hey, Calum?" he asks. "The improv troupe has our last show on Saturday. Are you going to be there?"

Calum's heart aggressively thumps at the fact that not only does Ashton know his name, but he knows he attends the improv open sessions, as well.

"Yeah, of course," Calum says. "Wouldn't miss it."

Ashton grins so wide that he's taken aback by the force of it.

"Good," he says. "After each show, a group of us usually goes to Steak 'n Shake. You could tag along, if you want. I have room in my car."

Calum's heart aggressively thumps again. Is this a date? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he'd be an idiot not to accept it.

"Yeah!" he says a little too enthusiastically. Ashton doesn't seem put off, just smiles wider. Calum takes a deep breath in an attempt not to look like an over-eager middle schooler. "That'd be awesome. I love Steak 'n Shake. I mean, as long as everyone else is fine with it."

"Oh, yeah," Ashton says. "They won't mind. You're cool."

Calum has never been called cool in his life, but he'll take it.

"Cool," he repeats.

"Well!" Ashton says, clasping his hands together. "I'll let you get to your practicing. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see you!" Calum replies. Ashton closes the door behind him, leaving Calum alone in the room. He stares at the door, then chides himself for being silly and sits down on the same piano bench that Ashton took a nap on. The first scale warm up reveals that the piano is, in fact, out of tune, but Calum isn't nearly as annoyed about it as he should be.

He has a maybe-date with Ashton Irwin on Saturday, and it'll take more than an out-of-tune piano right before finals week to wipe the smile off his face.

#my writing #cashton #drabble #fun fact this situation happened with me and antonio #antonio and i were aquaintences at that point and tbh i don't remember why he was napping there but i was mortified to have woken him #he was in my cast for my one act i directed though :)#and i love him dearly because of it #he's kind and funny and gives the vibes of a 1940s gangster who time traveled #he also has a single out. it sounds like something frank sinatra would've sung #anyway! hope you like this taylor #it's so old it's from your old blog #i really feel like now is not the best time to post lol but i'm really bad at sitting on completed fics #and i finished this last night so i've already had it lying here completed for over 12 hours

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flowerbeom · 4 years

Text

Double Pepperoni | LJB

Part of The Pleasure Chest | A GOT7 Cringe Collaboration

Lim Jaebeom x Female!Reader Genre: College AU, Crackhead Comedy Smut Rating: Mature. So very mature. Warnings: Bad puns, Swearing & Explicit smut scenes. Word Count: 4k

Concept: to: [email protected] hey cass, its me. your best friend. or what’s left of her. remember that kinda hot but kinda gross pizza delivery guy? the one with the nose ring and always smelt of cheetos? yeh, he’s looking less gross these days. what?! don’t judge me. desperate times call for desperate measures. it has been 154 days since i’ve had sex. shit’s dire here man.

A/N: If you lean into how bad this is purposefully meant to be, you’ll really enjoy it.

All GIF credits for this series go to @defsenses.

Day 97

📧 to: [email protected] hey cass! yes my phone is still broken, and i have no idea when im going to get a new one cause im broke from visiting you in another goddamn country - so just suck it up and reply to my emails like the good best friend you are. fuck i miss you already! why the hell did you have to be smart and shit and get into that international program and go to college in Seoul of all places! do you know how far away that is?! 16 hours cassandra! 16 fucking hours on a plane with no leg room, subpar food and a middle aged balding man snoring next to you the entire time so you get no sleep on a 16 hour flight AWAY FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND. it was really good to see you though, can you thank mrs kim again for me - you really struck gold with that housing sitch you got - especially your roommate! that fine ass college freshman you DID NOT allow me to fuck! yeh yeh whatever, i get it - how the hell are you meant to look mrs kim in the eye again when your childhood best friend who you talked up to be an angel fucked her only son on the fold out couch. yes i get it, stop rolling your eyes at me. either way, its still the dry season down here. miss you, love you. bye.

It’s funny how jet lag after coming home from a holiday feels almost identical to a hangover; it’s a painful reminder that something that was quite enjoyable is over. The headache feels almost the same, along with the cotton mouth, hunger, dehydration and utter disappointment and resentful emptiness that the fun you were having is completely done - but only one makes you hurl your guts out at the smell of orange juice. Condolences to those who are unlucky enough to hurl in both instances.

Either way, that’s where you found yourself - Thursday night, half unpacked suitcase lay in the middle of your living room, eyes bloodshot and staring blankly at the television; an all consuming headache pounding between your temples. Lucky for you, you knew a sure fire way to get rid of it without painkillers. Insert Mr. Pene Falso. No literally, insert it. You didn’t call your vibrator Fake Penis in Spanish not to insert it. And in case anyone hasn’t caught on yet, an orgasm legitimately helps get rid of a headache. Try it next time.

As ever, positioning is important - preparation is key. Sweatpants pushed down to your ankles, one leg completely fished out. Sideways lean, cushion under one elbow, completely bare leg propped up onto the couch; allow for maximum spread when those pre-orgasm hip rolls start. Set Mr. Pene Falso on one, there is no need to go hard straight away - ease into the session, let the endorphins build. You have been deprived of a real penis for a while, so you know you’re eager; but a little self control will yield the most delicious of results.

You will run the long race to Destination Stimulation and you will bite that bottom lip as your eyes roll back into their sockets as your long awaited, slow built, easy increase of settings on Mr. Pene Falso brings home the most delectable of orgams. It will not be a dry night, no sir. So lower that beautiful vibrating, bright pink silicone wand onto your clit--

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

Who the fuck..? Your eyes snapped to the front door, your hand clenched around your vibrator just millimetres away from your clit. A small loosening of your grip dropped the angle and the tip of your vibrator dipped against your clit, sending shockwaves through your body. A gravely moan escaped you; your focus immediately brought back to the task at hand. Literally.

Ignore it, it’s probably no one important. That’s what you told yourself, shaking your head and leaning back against the couch once again. You licked your bottom lip at the enticing notion of self-induced euphoria. Spreading your legs further than before, you corrected your grip and pushed Mr. Pene Falso into you. Your head dropped back involuntarily, your teeth marked your bottom lip and those pre-orgasm hip rolls started slowly. It felt devine, finally some release; a little bit of pleasu--

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

“Who the fuck?!”

“Pal’s Pizza!”

Tossing Mr. Pene Falso aside, you yanked on your sweatpants, wiped the one bead of sweat off your brow and stampeded to your door.

“You got the wrong house, buddy!” Ripping it open, your rage was greeted with a face you had not seen in a long time. Your eyes blew wide, as the eyes of the man before you narrowed; complimenting the smirk etching across his face. The ever familiar smell of cheetos, weed and pepperoni of years passed filled your nostrils and nostalgia wasn’t a word you wanted to use in that instance, but repressed memories were being dug up nevertheless.

A few moments of stone-cold silence passed before a subtle hum started to invade your auditory peripherals. Leaving your eye-line, Mr. Pal’s Pizza leaned sideways, throwing his smirk into the apartment behind you and directly onto the bright pink silicone wand still vibrating on your couch. All colour drained from your obviously stiffened face.

He scoffed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your alone time. Mind if I join you instead?”

Day 106

📧 to: [email protected] hey cass did you know that there’s a woman in Georgia, who due to a rare disorder, experiences hundreds of orgasms a day? she’s just persistently aroused and will climax any time, anywhere - even in the most obscure of places. whereas I cannot even have one, in my own goddamn apartment. because you will never guess who delivered a pizza to the wrong house last week. Crusty Jae. Yyu heard me. Fucking Lim Jaebeom from high school! Who by the way, still looks like a tryhard 2006 Skaterboi with his stupidly baggy jeans, Stussy t-shirt and bad haircut - or lack thereof who fucking knows. AND he still smells like damp. No no, he doesn’t smell damp. He smells like damp. Like the idea of damp. but istg i could still cut myself on that jawline of his. and come to think of it, I haven’t had pizza in ages. miss you. love you, bye.

Day 114

“Seriously dude, you need to stop ‘delivering pizza to the wrong house’. It’s getting pathetic.” You feigned irritation despite taking the box out of Jaebeom’s outstretched hand.

“Bruh, I am not. The guy’s next door never answered. So you--” He shook back his overgrown fringe and shifted all his weight back, angling his pelvis towards you. His eyes traipsed up and down your frame, saliva clearly pooling under his tongue. “-- get a free pizza delivered by this handsome mug.”

You didn’t even try to bury the scoff that escaped you as Jaebeom dug two thumbs into his chest; a pungent smugness wafting from his stained Pal’s Pizza t-shirt. You practically laughed in his face. Yet he didn’t waver.

“You’re still the same overconfident creep from highschool, Jae.” Jaebeom faked offense, a hand slapped on his heart - leaving a faint damp hand print.

“And I still managed to nab all the ladies.” Sliding his tongue over his top teeth, he winked and you almost gagged. The fact that Crusty Jae, the school’s resident stoner, managed to have the highest body count by graduation is something that still baffled you. Something must have been seriously wrong with the girls who let that inside them. There were rumours of course, but you weren’t willing to explore any of them to prove if fact or not.

Lifting the lid, you inhaled a glorious whiff of mozzarella and pepperoni but caught Jaebeom scratching his head from the corner of your eye; little flecks of dead skin floated to the ground and you couldn’t help but focus on the flakes of what looked like parmesan on the top of your pizza. Horror ensued, visible in the quiver in your voice.

“You.. you don’t make the pizzas do you?”

Jaebeom smirked, and ran a clammy hand through his greasy hair.

“Nuh babe, I just deliver them.” He punctuated his statement with a wink and pucker of his lips. You were not comforted and turned away before he could see the grimace on your face. You dropped the pizza box onto your couch and fished a twenty-dollar-bill from your wallet and returned to the door to slap it into Jaebeom’s hand.

“Nuh baby, it’s free.” He insisted with a stupid slanted grin. You shook your head, pushing the money harder into his hand and away from your door.

“Keep the change.”

“Damn, thanks for the tip.” He smiled softly. Maybe he isn’t so much of a creep anymore.

“Want a taste of mine?”

You couldn’t have slammed the door in his face any harder.

Day 129

European. What about Lebanese? Kirby? No, too short. Continental? Way too long. But then again Kirby cucumbers have girth, and it’s not all about length. It’s how you use it. Would you go raw? Or would you wrap it? How sturdy are Kirby cucumbers? You’d obviously have to wash it first. Oh shit, could they poison you if it smooshes up while inside you? No, well you eat them so they can’t be too dangerous. How much lubrication would you need?

“Little to none if you’re warmed up enough.”

Cutting off your mental ramblings and ripping you back into reality, your head snapped towards the voice. Jaebeom’s voice. Of course it had to be Jaebeom. Why is he suddenly everywhere?

“Excuse me, what?!”

“Lubrication. You wouldn’t need any if you’re warmed up. Cucumbers just slide right in.” He said with total confidence as if speaking from absolute experience. If anything, the pompous smile was enough to tell you what he was saying was true. You tried to swallow and gasp at the same time, causing you to start choking in the grocery store.

“Wh-wait-what, I was saying all of that out loud?!” You prayed it didn’t say all of it out loud.

Are you really that delirious from lack of sex that your pathetically curious and completely comedic wonderings about cucumbers as dildos was said out loud in the grocery store?! Have you become that incapable of controlling yourself that you can’t even keep being a horny bitch on the inside?! Must you zone out in full stereo?!

Jaebeom giggled.

“Maybe. I heard from about ‘What about Lebanese?’.”

You froze, the hand gripping your shopping basket growing dangerously limp.

“So pretty much all of it.” Jaebeom laughed again and reached across you to pick up the thickest Kirby cucumber from the pile and dropped it into your basket.

“Think of me.”

“What!?”

His smirk thawed you completely, leaving you standing in a lukewarm puddle of distaste. “Later babe.”

Seriously, you needed to find every girl who fucked him in highschool and just ask them “WHY?!”

Day 147

📧 to: [email protected] hey cass he ran out of battery I have no spares I live in a wasteland of despair miss you love you bye

Day 165

ring-ring-ring

“Pal’s Pizza, can I take your order?”

“Hey Jae, it’s me. The usual please.”

“Stuffed Crust?”

“No thanks.”

“No probs. How about I stuff you?”

“Bye.”

“See you in twenty minutes!”

Day 167

📧 to: [email protected] hey cass I think I’m living in a permanent fever dream today in my tech drawing class my professor told me if I lick the tip I’ll get better results so I asked him, if i let him lick my tip would I get extra credit? HE MEANT MY PENCIL CASSANDRA, HE MEANT TO LICK THE TIP OF MY PENCIL SO I GET THICKER LINES what the fuck is wrong with me?! oh I know. it has been 167 days since I’ve had sex ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN DAYS and Mr Pene Falso still does not have new batteries. miss you love you bye

Day 175

You had never felt more accomplished in your life. In one hand rested your brand new phone, shiny and in-built with all the things to keep your easily distracted brain entertained. No longer did you have to make calls from the decrepit pay phone outside your apartment building. No longer did you have to sit on buses and pretend to like reading. No, you were reunited with the technology of your generation and you were ecstatic. Full time college and part time employment didn’t always meet the needs of your demanding lifestyle, but you saved enough to finally get a brand new phone.

And in the other hand lay two beautiful AA batteries. You know perfectly well what they were for. You were equally as ecstatic. But for some reason there was one person you wanted to talk to about it.

Your fingers dialed the number almost on their own; muscle memory taking over. It rang six times.

“Hello?”

“CASS!” So excited to hear your best friend’s voice you tripped on the corner of your rug; your body colliding with the couch.

“Holy shit, you finally got a phone. Took you long enough.”

“Shut up, I’ve been busy.” Rubbing the part of your shoulder that managed to miss abundant cushioning on the couch and hit the tiny piece of wooden framework beneath it all.

“Sure. Busy trying to get yourself off every chance you get.”

The fingers trying to unscrew the bottom of your vibrator halted; your bottom lip folded between your teeth - a pout formed in your silence.

“I--” Lost for words you resumed unscrewing the cap, placing one battery into each slot.

“You’re probably gonna go masturbate after you get off this call.”

The last battery dropped in with a clang, albeit muffled by Cass’s muffled laughter.

“You know I’m messing with you right?”

“..Yes.”

“Good. So how’s Crusty Jae?” She continued to laugh as you groaned.

“Dude, can you please explain how he managed to pull so much in high school?! Please! Am I the only one who doesn’t get it?!” Suddenly incredibly frustrated, you screwed on the vibrator cap with so much gusto that your grip accidentally turned it on; the abrupt buzzing ripping out a quiet yelp.

“You know his nickname used to be Double Pepperoni.” You scoffed so hard, you felt it in your ribs. “Nuh apparently he was packing.”

“What? Like what, like he always had slices stuffed in his pockets?”

“No, like p-a-c-k-i-n-g.”

“I highly doubt that flat-ass McGee is huge.” You smirked while Cass tried to stop herself from choking on laughter. “And even if he was, dude, I still don’t understand how that seemingly unhygienic mess can score so much.”

“Bro, I don’t know either. But from all the girls I’ve ever talked to about him, they all say that whatever he did to seduce them or whatever - their reactions were purely carnal.” You made a pathetic noise, like a dying car horn to highlight your skepticism. “Like apparently, he would do something or they would see him do something and they’d just snap. Fuck him once, have a great time but then refuse to ever bring it up again. Except to me.. Cause after all, it was Crusty Jae.. But that’s beside the point.”

“They’d just ‘snap’?”

“Yup. Like a fresh green bean.”

“Weird metaphor.”

“But you got it.”

“Sadly. I’m going to go now.”

“Happy Orgasm!”

“Fuck you.”

“Miss you.”

“Love you.”

“Bye!”

From putting down one electronic device to picking up the other, you settled into the couch cushions with Mr Pene Falso in hand - recharged and ready to go. Yes, you were obviously going to prove your best friend painfully correct by getting off as soon as you hung up that call, but honestly - fuck it. You deserved it.

Remember, preparation is key. Sweatpants pushed down your ankles, one leg completely bare. Hair pulled up into an overeager and messy as ever bun. Sideways lean. Mr Pene Falso, setting one.

It’s not meant to be pretty, the faces you pull while masturbating. And the sounds one makes, equally as carnal. But who the fuck cares. You’re doing this for you. And as those pre-orgasm hip rolls get more and more intense as your clit is vibrated right down to Destination Stimulation, you moan in pleasure for you know you are finally getting what you’ve wanted for so lon--

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

“Hey it’s me!” Your head snapped so fast to the door it cracked every bone in your neck.

“Jae!?”

“Yeh, can I come in please?”

“Oh come on, what the fuck!?” Fury swallowed you whole, Mr Pene Falso slamming into the ground in a fit of rage. “What do you fucking want, Jaebeom?!”

“Please, I need--” Jerking your pants back on, you charged at the door; ripping it open.

“Need what?!”

“-- to use your bathroom.” Sheepish eyes met your own; blown wide and shaking. Jaebeom stood before you, pizza delivery bag hung loosely in his hand; completely soaked from head to toe.

“Sorry, it’s fucking pouring outside and I delivered next door and I just want to dry off a little, that cool?”

His usually loose shirt clung to his body, every inch of his torso outlined. His hair, normally shaggy and overgrown, was completely pushed back off his face; slick and saturated to show every carved line of his face. Was his eyes always this piercing? Or was it only because it was in context with the rest of his beautiful face?

“So..?” Jaebeom reeled you back from your slow descent and you shook it off violently.

“Uhh yeh, that-that way.” Throwing a thumb over your shoulder to show him the way, Jaebeom slinked past you; a marginal waft of damp weed followed behind.

What has gotten into you? This is Crusty Jae we’re talking about here. You are not meant to find him attractive. Nothing about him is meant to be attractive. But there you were - standing in your hallway, dumbfounded as you watched Jaebeom take off his shirt and wring it into your sink. You tried to tear your eyes away from how broad his shoulders were, or how all the muscles around his waist tensed as he squeezed all the water out of his shirt. You couldn’t even fight off the shiver that crawled down your spine when you watched his triceps flex when he pushed his hair off his face. You swallowed hard when that shiver landed right between your legs.

“Like apparently, he would do something or they would see him do something and they’d just snap.”

He didn’t see you come up behind him but he felt the hand you placed in the middle of his back. Turning to face you, his eyes were as dark as yours were crazed.

“Sup.” His cheeto breath didn’t deter you.

“You’re a pal, right?” You swore you couldn’t sound any more desperate.

“Says so on my shirt.” You couldn’t quite figure out if it was Chipotle or Flamin’ Hot cheetos. But it wasn’t the time or the place. You had needs.

“Be a pal then.” Jaebeom quirked a lewd and curious brow. “Get me off.”

The speed of which he had his hands under your arms and lifting you onto the benchtop was frighteningly fast. Your shirt was pulled hastily over your head and thrown aside, your pants were torn down your legs equally as fast. You had no time to question, no time to doubt - not when Jaebeom’s mouth was on yours, his tongue rolling over your teeth as if searching for hidden cheetos in your cheeks. But with the way his thumb circled over your clit through your underwear, you weren’t going to complain. Go on, fish for those cheetos baby.

Through wet and messy kisses, your hands tracked down his chest; stopping at his belt buckle. Of course, you thought, it was one of those snap closure canvas belts - ridiculously too long and matched his ridiculously baggy jeans. Nevertheless, you snapped open the buckle, fished it out of the loops and his pants fell instantly to the ground.

Jaebeom broke away from your mouth, leaning back to make room for his hands to pull off your underwear; just to have his lips crash back into yours the moment the lace garment hit the floor.

“Conmg-do. Cone--. Con-” You mumbled against his mouth. Strong hands pushed against his chest; disappointed eyes flashed for a moment, before turning devious at the sight of your naked breasts.

“Condom.” He nodded and you swung around to grab one from the medicine cabinet. Rounding back to face him, you saw his underwear was on the ground, his very erect penis greeting you fully. Double Pepperoni…

He ripped the wrapper open with his teeth, slid the condom expertly onto his length and caged you against the mirror in one fluid movement. He waited, paused for effect if you will and you weren’t having any of it. One hand scratched into his hair, the other pulled on the chain around his neck.

“Oh, you want me to stuff you do you?” Said with total hubris.

“Like cheesy crust.” Who have you become?!

Jabeom’s heavy hands found themselves on your hips, pulling you down onto his dick. He filled you wholly, deliciously; throbbing against your walls so achingly good that you didn’t even care that you could feel crumbs of garlic bread that did not belong to you in your mouth.

He pounded you roughly; each thrust making you bounce on your porcelain sink. His hair, still wet, dripped onto your shoulder and down your back as his teeth marked your neck. Your bathroom began to fill with lewd and erotic noises, squelches and squeaks of wet flesh against wet flesh and some against hard surfaces.

Jaebeom snapped his hips harder and harder into you, moans tumbled from your mouth as the orgasm you have craved for finally rounded the horizon. He was merciless, relentless, completely determined to drive you home.

You yanked harder on the fist full of hair in your hand, ripping a loud and gravely groan from Jaebeom. Not one to be upstaged, Jaebeom shoved his hand into your hair, tangling his fingers into your bun and pulling down to expose more of your neck to him. His pace had not slowed down at all.

He marked your neck, sucking and biting on your flesh so gloriously that you began to mewl - high pitched and needy, and it’s what sent Jaebeom over the edge. His hips snapped harder, forcing his dick deep into you; hitting spots you had forgotten about completely.

Different colours were flashing behind your eyelids and you were close, so close.

And as Jaebeom neared climax, he tore his hand out of your hair. Though in his earlier fervour, got so much of it tangled around his fingers and stuck under his ring, that your whole body was torn sideways and off the bench.

Landing on the floor, shocked eyes watched Jaebeom ejaculate all over your sink as your own orgasm retreated away; shrivelling up into dust and blown away in the wind - his hand still stuck in your hair. How the fuck, wasn’t he wearing a condom, you thought, only for you to reach down and find it stuck inside your vagina, half hanging out. There was literally nowhere lower you could go. This, this is rock bottom.

“Haha, holy fuck. Sorry babe.” Jaebeom leaned down and carefully untangled his fingers out of your hair. Towels were passed around for hygiene purposes and you almost vomited when you saw cheeto crumbs wedged between Jaebeom’s butt-cheeks.

You weren’t really sure what happened after. You think Jaebeom said something crass. Or maybe he said thank you. In a crass way. Either way, he eventually left and the two hour shower you took still didn’t make you feel clean. Especially not after finding a half-dried pearl of cum on your toothbrush.

But there was one thing you knew for sure. You totally snapped.

Day 0

📧 to: [email protected] hey cass in the interest of our friendship and for the purposes of full transparency it has been 1 day since ive had sex and we will never speak of it again

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