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sepicriting · 11 months

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yandere twins introduction

―wherever you go, whatever you do, they'll always trail behind.

directory: part two here. contents: yandere male x gender-neutral reader. yandere female x gender-neutral reader. only reference to reader/darling is 'you'. implied murders.

notes: finally finished their introduction! they've been sitting in the back of my mind for a long while now.

You might've been a little scared. Your recent transfer to another university left you feeling lost, especially since you didn't know anyone. At the very least, you were well-off enough to afford a dormitory on campus.

And your first week went by great! You were able to somehow befriend numerous friend groups and floated between each. It wasn't long before your name was passed around and people were vaguely familiar with you. By the end of the first month, everyone knew you. You were being greeted in the hallways, given free things for your acquaintanceship, invited to any and every event... People were so comfortable with you that even gossip presented itself freely.

Of the idle chatter, one topic caught your curiosity: A pair of twins had just begun attending a month into the semester. You were curious, though you didn't have faces to tie to the names people gave you. The Mihailovs twins.

The circumstances around them seemed somewhat intriguing as you heard offhand comments here and there. Something about their origins, their sense of style, and the hyperbolic rumors of a murder caused by one of the twins.

So you decided when you could try to at least figure them out. The opportunity to meet other classmates was also something you kept at the forefront of your mind with academics, though it wasn't very difficult to keep track of as long as you kept your priorities straight.

You first meet the older twin of the two, Vitalina, after participating in a debate in one of your classes. While you were trying your best to give your contributions, Vitalina was on the opposing end keeping her head cool and hung low. It was kind of weird, but that wasn't the only odd thing she did during class. She spent half of the lecture playing mostly cards, always alone. Sometimes, she was joined by other people who wanted to connect, but she seemed reluctant to spend time with anyone.

It wasn't until later that day in the library that you found her doing homework all by herself. She didn't seem to realize that you'd approached her at first, as it took her a minute to finally look at you. She stilled upon noting your presence. Surely, you didn't see her gazing at her homework like some of the words were written in an alien language and she couldn't read them, right?

Her eyes narrowed as you offered to help, slowly nodding before she looked back down. "...Yeah." Her tone was soft. She slid her paper towards you, her gaze remaining distant. With her consent in mind, you took a seat beside her.

You didn't realize it then, but you sealed your fate.

With your help, Vitalina was steadily able to keep up with her classes, and in the process, you were able to learn a lot more about her. You discovered that she had the tendency to be bored and detached from the things she became interested in, thus explaining a lot of her weird behaviors during lectures. However, the funny thing is that... She started to take an interest in you.

The changes were subtle at first, increasing inch by inch, enough for you to be unable to register them until someone else pointed it out while you were doing pair work for a class.

Over weeks, Vitalina had begun to act strangely — or, normally, which was why it was unusual. Her hair, previously always unruly, was combed and taken care of. She dressed differently, more feminine and neat, posh. It wasn't the same as before, but she seemed to be in a better state now compared to when you first met her. She talked more. She was smiling a lot, making small talk, and laughing along with you whenever you shared jokes with her during your only shared class and your time together in the library. She insisted that only you called her Lina, her nickname.

There was one thing, however, that seemed to remain consistent since the day you met her; She never showed interest in anyone other than you. Sure, it was obvious that you and others began seeing her as a popular girl after the changes, but she never seemed to care. She was completely indifferent to it, only keen on keeping you close for as much as she could help it.

You wouldn't have any idea of the disdain she felt towards your other friends. She seemed to start thinking that you wouldn't come back to her once you realized how much fun you would be having if you kept hanging out with them. She didn't like how your attention wasn't on her alone.

She couldn't have that— No, she really can't stand the idea of that!

It was why she suddenly started to chat people up. To you and everyone else, it was an overnight change. But to her, it was a necessary step in the long run that she made sure she took the social reputations of others in her control. That way, if anyone were to do anything unsavory to threaten her current relationship with you, she would be able to simply pull a string to ensure they'd never think of approaching you ever again.

She never stopped going to the library with you throughout all this, making up excuses as to why she still wanted to keep your quality time together. She even convinced you to go shopping together from time to time, as she just never bothered to hang with anyone outside of school and the events you both were invited to. It was just too hard for her to make conversation with new people.

And thankfully for Lina, you understood where she was coming from, so it was often you two together. It was peaceful that way, her neediness appeased knowing that you had time for her and you stuck to it.

Then her brother ruined it.

Try as Lina might to hide it from him, he wasn't blind to the hours she spent prettying herself up for you. At night, he could always see light shining from underneath her door. If she forgot to close it, sometimes he could make out her soft curses whenever she messed up during eyeliner practice.

She wouldn't do this for herself, no. Varis knew better than that. If it were the case she'd have done it ages ago, so there had to have been a reason for her dedication. It wasn't long for him to figure out the cause of that dedication was you. And from what he observed during his time sifting through the pictures Lina took with you after he hacked her phone, you didn't seem to be aware of it. It wasn't enough for him to watch you through a digital screen though, he felt as though he hadn't discovered all he needed to know about you before deciding if you were a good or bad influence on his twin.

He wanted to observe you from up close.

It was a bold move on his part to sit directly beside you while his sister was on the other, he was sure he could feel Lina glaring hatefully his way when she realized it. You, on the contrary, were struck by the physical similarities between the two.

Lina was pretty, yes, but Varis could be a model. It was strange to you that he somehow succeeded in being more alluring.

And as much as Lina wanted nothing more than to strangle someone of her blood, she didn't want you to think negatively of her so all she could do was sit tensely as Varis proceeded to make small talk after introductions came out of the way. Much to her chagrin, he never left after, opting to study in the library for a change with the excuse that the apartment was starting to feel stuffy. He didn't expect himself to like spending that study time with you though, considering he was never interested in socializing with anyone.

When the time came for you to bow out, the two had offered to walk with you to your dorm before they left for their apartment. The walk home was silent, one-sided tension could be felt. And the minute they entered their home, Lina's first instinct was to grab the nearest object and throw it to her brother.

After living with someone for so long, you'd grow to predict their actions, as Varis displayed when he caught her hand before she could let go of the flower vase. When her strength was unmatched, her verbal yells came next. How could he?! How did he know about you?! Was he trying to take you away too?! Does she have to destroy her brother?!

"Lina," Her shoulders tensed. Eyes glinting with near-murderous intent, glaring and mentally cursing him. "I'm not taking anyone." She didn't realize his other hand had gone to take something from behind him until the object taken had glinted in the dim light of their living space, a knife finding itself being pushed into her grasp. The implications were present, she could kill him right now.

It's so hard for her to outright kill someone, unlike him.

Sucking in her breath, Lina pushed Varis and pointed the edge his way. "Try anything funny and I won't forgive you." His eyes narrowed, holding up his arms in a lackluster manner, expression blank. She was trying so desperately to keep you away from him.

Why? What was it about you that had her so wrapped around your finger?

You and your effects on Lina were the only thing that occupied his mind when he retired to bed that evening.

The day after, he sought you out. He wanted to know you without Lina's presence, see what about you made her want to stick to you like glue. Why did she want you as her partner? What would happen if he involved himself further? He wanted to make sense of everything; he had a feeling this wasn't going to be the last time he found himself face-to-face with you.

The more time he spent around you, the more he began to be aware of this one growing feeling. A selfish desire to keep you all to himself, creeping up with no way to stop it. He couldn't explain it. He continued to pursue your time and attention, trying to pinpoint an explanation.

Somewhere along the way, the need for knowledge slipped away, and what replaced it was the rush of being with you. And fuck, now he knows. Now he knows why Lina had been acting strange, why she's changed, why she's so desperate to mold herself into someone you could desire. He understood, now all that was left was this feeling of yearning.

If Lina was doing her best to keep others away from you, he was making sure to erase those who he deemed a threat.

Slowly, people around you trickled less and less. Sudden decisions to relocate, disappear into another city with some friends in tow, and a few students turned up missing. It might've started to feel worrisome to you, but Lina was always there to chat you up and take the occurrences off of your mind.

It was because she knew who was behind all of it that she was able to keep calm. Had it been anyone else or an unknown party, she would've swept you along to a much safer place.

When Lina finally confronted her brother, ready to fight; Varis could only keep seated, relaxed. During the time she spent unable to face him, he had been contemplating. He didn't want to kill his sister if it ever came to that, his parents would know and people might catch on. While he was able to outrank her in strength, she would still be able to leave evidence on him. And if she succeeded in killing him instead, she would have difficulty disposing of the body privately.

You would inevitably find out, either way. You would come to hate them both if you did. That's why he an another idea in mind. "I know a way to get what we both want." His words struck his sister dumbfounded yet guarded, he took her inaction cue for him to continue and explain.

The next time you saw either of them, they were together. It was a surprise, given that both often spent time with you separately. When they noticed you, they'd glued themselves to your side in a matter of seconds. Lina had wrapped her arms around one of yours with a sweet smile, while Varis blankly towered comfortably over you with a hand around your shoulders.

Everything went by smoothly during the next few times you hung out with them, not a single ounce of hostility shared between either. You weren't incredibly dense enough to pick up on the fact that the twins had their disagreements, so you were simply glad they'd set aside whatever was driving a wedge between them.

In turn, they were both teaming up to spoil you little by little. Lina's always inviting you over to places to try new things together, while Varis always somehow keeps himself physically close and acts as a source of comfort. You'd receive gifts of things you needed or were running out of, and it essentially came to the point where the three of you were always together even on campus.

It was only a matter of time before they would decide it was time to whisk you away.

And they'd make sure you would have no reason to refuse.

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iviarellereads · 26 days

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Wheel of Time full series spoiler thoughts on TDR 25-34

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

Ha, he DID set up the hedgehog that gets Perrin and Faile later. That's adorable.

And also, Chesmal FUCKING Emry. She who might have been another Semirhage.

I believe the justification for Lanfear urging the girls on to Tear is that she wants Rand to be absolutely equipped to take out Be'lal and she might even expect Ishy. She believes she can handle Rand from there. Do you think she was right? What grade would you give her on the plan and the execution thereof?

Some of the visits while the girls are scrubbing DO seem obvious in nature, but what was Verin's game? She was always playing 12 dimensional chess even when she did the simplest thing…

Fun to see the Aiel trick of finding what you need in TAR, performed accidentally, a couple books before it's mentioned.

If this reread and really having to dig into more of the times that the characters, the three I named in my chapter 29 bit in particular, are lying to themselves or the reader… if this is how I start to not hate Mat's character, I'm gonna have to seriously consider quitting the fandom. (That's hyperbole and a lie, I have trouble hating Mat's character ever since the show made him a wet cat instead of a Han Solo.)

So many double, triple, quadruple fakeouts to make you doubt your opinion of anyone in this series. The Gray Man in Sheriam's bed… to what purpose? Was one of the Forsaken scaring her off the tasks assigned her by another? Was she trying to brush away suspicion on herself?

I do love that Laras gets shown to be actually really good later. Well, as good as one can be, working in a system like the White Tower. We get the line about her not being party to breaking a woman's spirit here, true, but she's still coming off as so strict and kinda hateful. Seeing everything she does later, helping Siuan and Leane to escape, and offering to help Egg, and I'm sure she knew more about Verin's request for sweet tea than either of them ever let on.

Good to see that Mat's roguishness still only holds charm for me if I apply his show backstory and characterization. I haven't fallen THAT far as to be a book-Mat fan yet. (I kid, I joke, I make funnies. Some of my good friends are Mat lovers. But I'm just not destined to join y'all.)

“Next you could try telling the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks he should marry the Amyrlin Seat.” Well it's not quite predicting what will happen in the end, but Egg is still very much caught up in the fantasy of being with Galad, so it made me grin anyway.

I don't particularly care for Gaul, really, I'm far more interested in what Bain and Chiad have going on, but hooray for a fan fave showing up. I do feel for everyone who mourned that this first appearance's show adaptation was changed to Aviendha. It's more important to establish her as one of the extremely core characters who actually really affects the plot later, but Gaul gets so little in the story besides lurking next to Perrin for the remaining 11 books, and they took away his intro. ;~;

I will not hear any Faile hate in the comments, though. My poor knife wife queen whose character was mostly assassinated by being only seen through Perrin's nose for her first six books.

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #twot #wot book spoilers #wheel of time full series spoilers #wot full series spoilers

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live-love-laugh-lesbian · 6 months

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helloooo how are youuu!!

omg so real with rainbow dash and aj?? i saw this poll and she was the least liked and i was appalled how can someone NOT like applejack???????

im sure your gift receiver will love theirs!!

i mainly drink coffee for the caffeine andnrnsnf but i like the flavour too! id much rather drink a coffee with good flavour and not as much caffeine rather than one woth bad flavour but pure caffeine yk?

and fun fact!!! electric violins are a thing (but maybe you already knew that and i misunderstood?) theyre really cool sounding anything electric sounds awesome to me tho so maybe im biased akfjjrsjfj

okay three careers: id be a games designer, animator and an author! i want to pursue all of those in my one life but that seems unrealistic ajdjrjsjf i really wish i did have three lives to pursue each of them!! and your careers seem so cool!! my mums a teacher and she respects the ta's that help special needs kids so much!! and honestly i do too!! ooh medicine!! medicine was fascinating to me as a child i always either wanted to be a fashion designer or work in the medicine industry!! and we are SOOO twins with animating ajdjejsjf i love art and also yours is sooo good omg your velvette art>>>>>>>>>> akkdjejsd

for me!! dogss but im biased bc a) my mum had three dogs and my aunt has dogs and dogs in family so im used to being around them <3 and b) a dog didnt try to kill me!! (i will not elaborate ajdjrjsjfn) and omg your cats sound sooo cutee and i love how so many cat owners i know are like 'yeah shes unhelpful but shes cute!!' because honestly thats so valid ajdjrnsjfjr

oh yeah i totally get warm colours sorta stuff! my fav colours are either grey or lilac ajdjrjsjd so aksjdjsjd

hmm see this is hard because id love to control fire just bc itd look cool ajdjrjsjfj but also i think mainly air? bc if i hate someone i can just mess their hair up /j ksjdjejsjd but i think airs cool! but also lile fire because it looks cool but im biased bc im a fire sign so i think im supposed to be loyal to fire ajdjrnsnf but if i had to choose one, probably air! what about you?

and my question to you: what is the best compliment youve ever gotten and whats your fav way to spend a day off?

byeee!!!! this is so long sorry ajfjrndnf

-swiftie spring exchange anon

So first you don't need to apologise for length!! I love long messages XD

I think people like her the least because she's like..."normal"? She doesn't necessarily stand out as much as the others do, and I get the impression that makes people pay less attention to her :( But she's lovely!! She's a loyal friend, hardworking, and I love her family relationships too!! I'm super close to my siblings and love seeing those bonds in media XD

That makes sense!! I imagine coffee is like tea, wherein some is just like...a better taste. Okay sure I only do herbal tea, but some herbal teas are better than others XD

I did not know electric violins were a thing!! Worldview changing news right there. (sincere in a mildly hyperbolic way) I need to know what other electric instruments exist now however...I want an electric saxophone. Do those exist? I need to find out. (Okay turns out YES oh my god I love it. Some of them feel faintly cursed but that's ok I love a cursed instrument.)

It's cool how much we have in common X'D If you wanna keep talking post exchange I'd be up for that! Tbh at one point I too wanted to be a games designer...I tried to make a visual novel once. I did not have the patience for it. (It's funny cause my job requires a lot of patience, but then often I do not have patience?? I joke that my job uses up my patience but tbh I think it's just a different type of patience. Explaining concepts to a child repeatedly feels different from learning to code or play an instrument. I imagine there's many people who have the patience for the latter who would not for the former.)

I ALSO at one point wanted to go into fashion design - specifically, wedding dress designs!! I basically went from STEM careers to art careers then settled in education XD If I could do all three I would. But for now I'm satisfied with art as a hobby and education as a job. My mum also works with kids, but like, early years so before school aged XD I guess I sort of take after her in that regard.

Re: dogs and cats! My uncles both have dogs XD I think I'm kinda wary of dogs because I know many poorly trained dogs. But then like...one of my uncles has the most chill dog ever? Kinda a dumb dog too. They got burgled once and on camera they found that the dog had been awake and the burglar just stepped over the dog. She's just a very docile dog that doesn't feel a need to get worked up over things XD

I am very sorry about the cat trying to kill you tho!! Some cats can be vicious, to be fair. My two are very sweet thankfully - a black and white one who is 5 in October, and a tabby who turns 2 in May! The older one is generally more chill, she just likes to sleep and cuddle and judge others. And then the younger one wants to run around and cause trouble (nothing major, to be fair, worst she does is steal my post) and play all the time lol. She also wants to cuddle a lot, but she finds it hard to sit still long enough.

Fun fact I am making a pair of lilac trousers atm XD They're corduroy and I'm gonna add sequined hearts on afterwards.

Ooh which fire sign? I'm a scorpio XD I'd probably go for water. As a kid I wanted to do earth because I was a fan of Toph from ATLA, but I think I'd find water easier...am I looking at ATLA to decide? Yes. Yes I am. But yeah I think water! Also if I could control water I could swim maybe...

My favourite way to spend a day off is basically art, time with my sister (and friends, but usually I have to text because we live a few hours apart), and then a date with my gf. I like a bit of gaming too (found out Stardew Valley updated so been on that today after I finished work). It's also less energy consuming, so it's nice to use light gaming as a break inbetween art stuff. Providing it's single player games. I am extremely competitive when it's multiplayer, woops. My family and I once ended up contacting a monopoly helpline because my uncle and I got into such a debate over one of the rules lol. And as for compliment...not really sure? Sometimes I have people ask me where I got my clothes, or ask if I got them from specific brands, and that feels like a compliment because it means I made something that looks at least vaguely professional XD Honestly compliments on my art always make me happy. Oh, and compliments professionally - whenever a child or parent has positive things to say about me I'm like :D. I think I just like to know that others appreciate the things I can do? What about you??

My turn for a question...do you have a "bucket list" of sorts? Like are there any things you wanna do in life in particular? And do you think you'll get those things done?

#swift spring exchange anon

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pascalpanic · 4 years

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Benny’s Girl (Prequel to Before The Next Teardrop Falls)

Inspo: Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield

Pairings: Benny Miller x f!Reader, later Frankie Morales x f!Reader (in Before The Next Teardrop Falls)

Summary: Benny’s new girlfriend is everything Catfish wants and more. Too bad it’s his best friend’s girl.

W/C: <4k

Warnings: language, sexual content, pining ohhh my word pining.

A/N: HI FRIENDS <3 I absolutely loved Before The Next Teardrop Falls and I LOVE writing pining, especially with my Frankie baby, so I decided to make a prequel to it! This fic is based on Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield, which I absolutely ADORE. you can read this as a stand alone or you can read it as a prequel, I think either one works well!!

Sometimes, a spark seems to appear where one never existed. It’s common enough; it’s the reason most relationships fizzle out before they can become something explosive and fiery. One thinks that the dynamite is going to explode and take off in a bright shower of colors, when in reality the lighter never truly lit the wick.

That’s what happened between you and Benny Miller. You’d loved the guy, really, but not in the way you thought. You still do. It’s just that the both of you were lonely people seeking something more than your past had given you. The two of you were hopeless romantics. Maybe that’s what started the relationship.

You’d met in a way typical for the younger Miller brother. You’d been at a bar with some friends who were desperate to get you laid. The same could be said for Benny, who was there not with his brothers-in-arms but the man he’d defeated in the ring that night. Nick and Benny were good enough friends, close enough that losing to the other was rarely a sore spot.

He’d spotted you across the bar, thought your laughing face was beautiful and your smile as you locked him was magnetic, drawing him to you before he could stop himself. Natural attraction. You introduced yourself. He told you his name was Benny. You asked why his hands were taped, he explained that he was a professional fighter, you’d made some snarky joke and you ended up talking for the rest of the night. One of your friends left with Nick. You and Benny stayed until the bartender shouted that it was the last call. You wrote your number on his taped palm and he saved it.

You went on two bar dates before he decided he needed to introduce you to his best friends. They were like brothers to him, they knew everything about him and he knew them inside and out. You went to the same bar as you’d met at, and you met the men he’d served with in his Special Ops days.

Santiago, known as Pope for some godforsaken reason, was a charmer. He’d kissed your hand after shaking it, complimenting you and making small talk, finding connections and building on them. You’d laughed at the man’s joking advances, and flirted right back. Benny squirmed lightly, but you kissed his cheek and assured him you were just playing along.

William, Will, Ironhead, was Benny’s older brother. He’d given you a warm clap on the back and shook your hand, telling you that you were brave for putting up with the rascally guy. You had to admit, it was fitting. It was clear that they’re brothers: they had the same furrow to their brow, their blue eyes widened in reaction to anything, they had a similar habit of tipping their head back to laugh when something was especially funny.

Frankie Morales, Catfish, was the last one you met and most definitely your favorite. He was quieter than the other guys, sat back while the other men made the noise. He was the punching bag, taking the brunt of the hyperbolized jokes- how Catfish hadn’t slept with a woman in 10 years, how he was the loud one of the group, how he was the one you had to look out for when he was drunk. You knew none of them could be true. He had a sweet smile and gave you a nod when you introduced yourself. He and Pope had some kind of banter between the two of them, albeit a banter you couldn’t understand as someone who didn’t speak Spanish.

Throughout the night, you found yourself more drawn to Frankie. He had a beautiful laugh, would pull his ball cap down a little lower when someone made a joke about him. He was the one who’d expose a lie Benny or Santiago took. He nursed one beer while the other men got rowdy, and you’d done the same. It seemed that the two of you found kindred spirits in each other over the course of the night, while Benny and Will and Santi smacked each other around and took an obnoxious amount of trips to the bathroom.

When it was time to head out, you’d hugged each of the men goodbye. It was already clear that you fit in just like one of them, even if you didn’t have the past experience that bonded the men. You hugged Frankie last. He was the best hugger; he wasn’t ridiculously ripped like Benny, firm and awkward like Will, or flirtatious like Santiago. He was strong but soft. The man was definitely a hugger, you could tell, and it was comforting for the brief moment or two you were in his arms.

Frankie put his cap on your head teasingly, covering your eyes, then stole it back and gave you a pat on the back. “Ben’s a wild one. Good luck with him,” he teased and walked off. You had to admit, his ass had a nice curve to it as he walked off to his beat-up truck. “Call me if he does anything stupid and I’ll beat his ass for you,” he called over his shoulder, prompting Benny to flip him off and put an arm around you. He simply laughed and got in his car.

Frankie became your favorite of the group. The two of you are the ones teasing each other exclusively and sitting quietly while the other men get crazy. Frankie tries sips of the cocktails you order, excitedly making grabby hands when the bartender sets it down. He always lets you steal some of the food he orders when you’re at the bar longer than normal. He shares your affinity for classic rock and when the bar blasts AC/DC, it’s Frankie who screams the lyrics to Thunderstruck with you while the others cover their ears. Santiago joins in sometimes too, but the country-loving Miller brothers never quite know all of the words like Catfish does.

At some point in the few month relationship, you earn your nickname of Queenie. It’s from teasing Santiago, and the one who bestows the title upon you is Will, the most stoic of the group. It’s an honor, you tell them all, laughing. You call the shots, and everyone follows. Even though Benny is your lover, Frankie is your second-in-command.

When Frankie does allow himself to get drunk, he’s the most fun of the group. He’s extra lovey, telling the men how much he appreciates them. He tells stories the other men won’t about their Special Ops days, about the stupid things Will did when they were abroad. He’s shamelessly goofy and funny and falls all over the men. You even convince him to do karaoke with you once.

Benny is an overgrown class clown, but he won’t do karaoke, no matter how hard you begged him, called him baby and pressed soft kisses to his face. He wouldn’t budge. Tonight was a rare night that Frankie drank more than one round. “I’ll do it!” He shouts excitedly, eyes lighting up. “Ooh, c’mon, it’ll be fun. We’ll be so good at it.”

You, unfortunately, were not good at it, but you had the time of your life with Frankie. On that barely-raised platform, the two of you sang Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart, completely out of tune and out of sync. You were giggling the whole time, especially at Frankie’s falsetto on the little “woo-hoo”s.

The two of you tumbled back to the table after, you giggling and falling into Benny’s arms. “Did you like it?” You cooed, sitting on his lap.

Benny laughed genuinely, pressing a kiss to your face. “Sure did. That was fantastic. Maybe you’ll have to sing just for me sometime, huh?” He teases.

Frankie sits alone on his barstool at the end and downs the rest of his beer. He flashes you a quick smile when your eyes meet his and he retires early for the night.

You and Benny had sex a couple of times. He was good at it, good enough. You enjoyed the way his lips moulded to yours, the way his thrusts were quick and fast and properly angled. From a technical standpoint, he should’ve been perfect. It was all you wanted, but there was no real connection behind it. The moans that trailed from your lips were small and soft, and the louder ones were never genuine. He always made you orgasm, at least, but it was slow and dull, the kind you’d wring from yourself with just two fingers.

The two of you had fun together. You went to the county fair, you got boisterous and drunk at bars, you did everything two twentysomethings are expected to do in a relationship. After every date, you had a small sad smile on your face as you got in your bed and distracted yourself with something on your phone. Something about it wasn’t right: you didn’t connect soulfully, in some mystical and spiritual way where one can read the other’s mind, in the way that movies and books and legendary romances felt some kind of supernatural force that pulled the strings and led them closer. It wasn’t what you needed, but it was what you wanted, and so you hung on a little longer.

Benny felt the same, but he was too afraid to disrupt the balance. He’d rather be mediocrely happy than alone again. He liked having a girl to squeeze water into his mouth and wipe his sweat after a fight, someone to slide his dick into while her lips met his skin. He didn’t want to lose that, even if he was slowly realizing that he just wanted a friendship with you.

You hung out with him and the other men more. You realized that he wasn’t your boyfriend around them, more of a sibling, teasing and nudging. There was no affection, no romance, just the playful aspect of him. That was fine, you told yourself, until you realized that it wasn’t, it couldn’t be.

By principle, Frankie is not and refuses to be a jealous man. That changed when you came into the picture.

Something about you is absolutely magnetic to him, more than the way Benny was drawn to you across the bar. Sure, he’s been attracted to many girls, but he wants you. He yearns for you. He makes a joke at the table and it doesn’t make anyone but you laugh, but he doesn’t give a shit that Benny and Will and Santiago don’t find it funny, because he gets to watch the way your eyes glimmer and your mouth falls open and your chest heaves with the beautiful ring of your laughter.

He loves that you hug goodbye, because he gets to pretend for a moment that you’re his and he is yours, that he can press his lips to your soft skin and call you his girl. But you’re Benny’s girl, and he’s okay to live like that. He’d rather have you as a friend than not have you at all. Even if he dreams about you at night, even if you live in his head on repeat, saying his name. Frankie, baby, I want you, I want you…

One night, in his sleep, the sound of those words echoed through his head. He’s never heard you say them, but his unconscious brain assembled them like a beautifully haunting jigsaw puzzle that made all of his blood run south.

Dream-you is standing in the doorway to his bedroom, wearing just his t-shirt. Dream-you smirks, walks closer, climbs over Frankie and presses her lips to his and her tongue delves into his mouth. She lies down onto him and grinds her hips to his and laughs and laughs and he presses his face into the curve of her- your- neck, smelling your perfume and grinding his hips back against dream-you’s. “All I want is you, Frankie,” dream-you mumbles and bites his lower lip. He shivers and dream-you coos his name, lines herself over his aching member and just before she slides down, he wakes up to a dark and lonely bedroom with a half-hard dick.

You and Benny joined the gang the next night out. He couldn’t meet your eyes. He listened as you fussed over Benny, heard you call him baby and steal his beer with a giggle.

“What the fuck has gotten into you, Fish?” Santiago asked when you’re in the bathroom.

Frankie shook his head. He pulled his cap lower and finished his beer, then poured another from the pitcher on the bar. “Slept like shit last night.”

You’ve decided that it needs to end, so you asked Benny to meet him at your favorite bar. He agreed, and wanted to invite the boys, until you asked that it be just the two of you. It hurts that he has a glimmer of hope that you’re about to end things. If you don’t, he will.

You walk in with an apologetic smile, sitting across from him. “Hey, how was your day?” You ask in a soft voice. You’re unconsciously trying to prepare yourself to let him down gently.

He shrugs a little. “Uneventful. Yours?”

“The same. Listen, Benny…” you start and trail off, looking away.

He takes one of your hands and looks at you, his eyes understanding. “Hey. I think I know what this is about.” He reads the sadness in your eyes like a book. “We need to be done. I get that. I agree.”

Your face finds a soft smile as you look back at him. “Really?” You ask.

“Yeah. I have something to ask.”

“Shoot.”

He takes your hand and presses it to his lips softly. “Will you no longer be my girlfriend and just go back to being my friend?” He asks.

You nod excitedly, laughing. “Oh my god, yes, Benny. I’d love to no longer be your girlfriend.”

The both of you laugh at the irony in your words, and he sets your hand down. “Thank God.”

Later that night, Will, Frankie, and Santiago find their way to the bar. Of course they do. They come over to your booth, sliding in and pretending to love up on Benny. “Oh, are we interrupting a date?” Santiago asks with a fake pout.

You chuckle and look at Benny. He gives you a small smile and a nod. “Actually, no. No more dates between Benny and I. We’re over,” you say and breathe a sigh of relief.

Frankie’s blood runs cold. He must be dreaming for him to hear this. It’s only ever in those dreams that he hears the words he wants the most fall from your lips, words like these. Words that indicate you’re no longer Benny’s girl. “You two seemed so happy,” he murmurs in confusion.

Benny senses it all clicking. Frankie has liked you all along. He’s smarter than the gang gives him credit for. He can read his friends easily, and Frankie is the easiest of all of them to understand, with those big brown eyes that give everything away. It’s gotta be, he thinks. You probably don’t like him back, as anything more than a friend, but Frankie is in deep shit now for you. He nods, looking at Fish and shrugging. “We just didn’t work. We’re still gonna be friends though. She’s one of us, isn’t she?”

The men all cheer in agreement and it calms your frantically beating heart. The worst is over now. And goddamn, does Frankie look cuddly tonight in that flannel, you think to yourself. You slouch down against him two beers later and discover that yes, he’s as comfortable as he looks.

You’ve been single for a year now. Benny still texts with you daily, as do the other men. He sends you shitty Facebook memes that seem more like a dad would post. You realize that it’s for the best that you and Benny are over, with a chuckle. You can be much more honest.

It pains you to realize it, but you’re crushing hard on your ex’s best friend. Frankie Morales is everything you need and want and desire. His big arms wrap you in a hug every time the two of you say goodbye, and every time it feels like it lasts a millisecond longer. That neither of you want to let go.

Frankie feels the same, even though you don’t know it. He has that haunting dream once a week, the one where you kiss his neck and call him baby and it makes him yearn every night at 2:00 in the morning, staring at your Instagram page and thinking he should text you and see if you’re up. Not as a hookup, not anything like that. He just wants to talk to you.

You tease Frankie about his chronic insomnia. How he sends you random texts late at night. “Have you considered melatonin?” You ask.

“I have weird dreams. It’s not the falling asleep, it’s the waking up,” he admits, looking in the opposite direction of your face.

Some days, Frankie thinks you feel the same. He notices the way your eyes linger on his face, the way you always sit next to him in a booth. The way your phone’s lockscreen is a photo of the two of you being stupid at some function. You’ve become best friends, Frankie has to admit, but sometimes he thinks there could be more. But then you say something offhanded and he has to throw the notion away.

One night at the bar, when it’s just the men and you’re nowhere to be seen, Frankie takes Benny and guides him into the bathroom. His blonde brow furrows in confusion as he looks at Frankie. “Yeah, Fish?”

His hands rub together nervously and he looks down, before fidgeting with his cap and looking Benny in the eye. “You and Queenie… that’s all in the past, right? There’s nothing between the two of you?”

A smirk finds his face. “I knew it, Frank! I knew it from the night her and I broke up.”

He frowns. “Is that why?” He asks hurriedly. “Oh shit, I didn’t break the two of you up, did I? Jesus, Ben, I’m-”

“No, you dumb fuck,” he laughs and shakes his head. “I just saw the way you looked at her after it happened. Crazy in love. You totally are.

Frankie’s face turns red and he takes off his hat to adjust his hair. “Do you think she might like me too?” he asks, quietly. As if you could hear him somehow.

Benny nods, excitement in those bright blue eyes. “Hell yeah she does, Fish! You’re her fucking phone lockscreen. Girls don’t just do that.”

“I don’t know, man, we’re best friends. That might not mean shit.”

The blonde puts his hands on the brunette’s shoulders. “Listen to me, Frankie. I’ve known you’re into her for like a year now. I know she likes you too. It’s time, you gotta ask her out.”

“Really?” He asks, brown eyes widening. “I don’t think so. That could fuck everything up,” he says, the anxiety in his voice.

“Trust me,” Benny nods. “It won’t.”

Frankie’s grinning ear to ear. “Alright. Tomorrow night, I’ll ask her to meet us here, but it’ll be just me. I’ll ask her out, how does that sound?”

“That sounds fuckin’ amazing, man!” Benny exclaims. “I’m happy for you. She’s a great girl and you’re a great guy.”

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” he asks, wringing his cap in his hands.

He nods. “Go for it, Fish.”

- Frankie never gets the chance.

The next night you float into the bar, absolutely on cloud nine. You’re grinning ear to ear and it only widens when you see Frankie, rushing over and hopping on the stool. “Hey Fish,” you coo and kiss his cheek.

Frankie’s stunned. “Hey. How was your day?” He asks hesitantly, looking at how flustered and happy you look.

“So good,” you laugh. “I actually got asked out. Like, on a date. This really sweet guy, friend of a coworker. His name is Sam.”

Frankie’s sure you can hear the crack that echoes inside his ribcage. His heart splits in two and to hide a quivering lip, he raises his glass to his lips and takes a swig of his beer.

You continue to talk about him, noticing his silence. “How was yours?” You ask, frowning a little at how tense he is. You rest a hand on his upper arm.

Frankie does his best not to flinch from your touch. “Not great,” he chuckles and clears his throat. “I kinda fucked something up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you pout and stroke his arm softly. “Can I help you with it? Do you need to talk about it?”

He shakes his head quickly, standing from his stool. “No, just a personal thing. Hey, I’m gonna run and piss, the other guys will be here soon. Order something, it’s on me.”

Frankie’s gone into the bathroom before you can even process it. You frown a little but the smile returns as you order the drink and think about Sam.

Frankie locks himself in a stall and texts the other men.

D-SQUAD 🚁

Frankie: mission aborted. You guys need to come to the bar now so I don’t look like a chump.

Benny: what happened?

Frankie: a guy asked her out today. she’s taken now I guess

He stares at his phone and sends one last text.

Frankie: and don’t you dare mention it to her. make her tell you first.

He slides his phone in his pocket and leans against the wall of the bathroom stall, letting out a deep sigh. This is all shit. He’s a coward, and he should’ve done something sooner.

He finally returns and sits next to you on a barstool. There’s a smile on his face that you’d notice was plastered if your mind wasn’t so wrapped up in your day. “So. Tell me about him. I’m happy for you, you know that?”

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @softly-sad @blo0dangel @luxurybeskar @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy

#frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #frankie catfish morales #frankie catfish morales x reader #catfish morales #catfish morales x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #triple frontier fanfiction #triple frontier #benny miller #benny miller x reader #garrett hedlund #santiago garcia #santiago pope garcia #pascalpanic

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

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Season One of “Adventure Time”: Short Episode Reviews

At the start of 2021, I had this idea to write up a book wherein I reviewed every episode of Adventure Time, condensing my thoughts down into a few paragraphs. It seemed easy enough at the time —I could knock a season out in a week, no prob, I thought — but it turns out it was quite the challenge. Part of this was the difficulty of boiling everything down into a few coherent paragraphs that didn’t just repeat the ideas that “This episode is wacky. This episode is bad.” (I was also dealing with untreated ADHD, so that probably didn’t help.) Even though it was a hurdle, I still got through seasons 1-4, and I thought I’d post my reviews here. Maybe one day I’ll do something with ‘em, but for now, enjoy!

Season 1, Episode 1. “Slumber Party Panic” (692-009)

Airdate: April 5, 2010

Production Information: Elizabeth Ito and Adam Muto (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Synopsis: Princess Bubblegum accidentally resurrects a violent mob of candy zombies, which leads to Finn doing the unthinkable: He breaks a royal promise to Bubblegum.

Commentary: It is always a delight to remind people that Adventure Time—a show that would go on to win a slew of prestigious awards and be lauded by critics as one of the smartest kids show that has ever been made—begins with Princess Bubblegum “add[ing] three more drops of explosive diarrhea” to a scientific mixture with which she hopes to bring the dead back to life. This elision of a macabre topic like the resurrection of the dead with a poop joke is in many ways emblematic of the sort of humor upon which Adventure Time was built, and while “Slumber Party Panic” might not be the season’s best episode, it does a solid job introducing the odd, madcap energy that would allow the show to flourish in its youth.

The plot to “Slumber Party Panic”—storyboarded by future series director Elizabeth Ito as well as eventual showrunner Adam Muto—was hammered out well before the show’s mythology was set in stone, and so some of the more hyperbolic plot points from this episode (e.g., the dramatic revelation that candy citizens explode when scared, or the fact that the Gumball Guardians are also the nigh-omnipotent Guardians of the Royal Promise, who can stop and reverse time itself) had to be ignored in later seasons. Nevertheless, the main characters’ personalities are all firmly established, allowing them to play off one another in a way that does not feel forced or misguided; Jeremy Shada and John DiMaggio, in particular, have excellent chemistry, breathing whimsical life into Finn and Jake right off the bat. All things considered, “Slumber Party Panic” is a fun entry and a solid preview of the silliness that was to come. (3.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 2. “Trouble in Lumpy Space” (692-015)

Airdate: April 5, 2010

Commentary: “Trouble in Lumpy Space” is a Ito-Muto production that introduces us to Lumpy Space Princess, the loquacious and dramatic drama queen who was destined to become one of the show’s breakout stars. A sentient blob of “irradiated stardust,” Lumpy Space Princess is an alien valley girl parody voiced by none other than series creator Pendleton Ward himself, and this episode does a commendable job illustrating the character’s immaturity and her ridiculously inflated sense of self-importance. This makes for good entertainment in and of it itself, but what really bumps this episode up a peg is the vocal delivery of the cast. Adventure Time always excelled when it came to its voice acting, but in this episode it is obvious that in this episode Jeremy Shada, John DiMaggio, and Pendleton Ward had extra fun playing around with their ridiculous “lumpy space” accents.

Aesthetically, this episode is quite the sensory experience. Lumpy Space itself is a hauntingly beautiful alien dimension of dark magenta skies and purple, pillowy clouds; it is a right shame that the show very rarely made use of this unique environment, considering how pleasant it is to look at. The episode’s soundtrack is also deserving of recognition, with much of the background music—especially the vapid pop tune that plays while Finn, Jake, and Lumpy Space Princess hitch a ride in Melissa’s car—recalling the elastic hyperpop that electro-wizzes from PC Music produce. The tunes add an extra dimension to the whole experience, helping to sell the idea that Lumpy Space is a silly but alien otherworld. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 3. “Prisoners of Love” (692-005)

Airdate: April 12, 2010

Production Information: Adam Muto and Pendleton Ward (storyboard artists); Craig Lewis and Adam Muto (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Ice King! Beginning the series as a cartoonishly incompetent antagonist, Ice King would grow into one of the show’s most well-developed characters. While “Prisoners of Love,” being the character’s debut episode, sees the Ice King still in his one-dimensional “wicked wizard” stage, there are hints even at this early juncture—like the character’s dramatic insistence to pluck out a yogurt chip from his trail mix, or his spasmodic attempts to play the drums—that the Ice King is more than just a textbook baddie. Is he evil? Judging by his actions, it often looks that way, but there is also a deep sadness to him that makes even his worst behavior somewhat pitiful.

But as pathetic as he may be, Ice King’s lecherous habit of kidnapping princesses is completely unacceptable (Princesses, Adventure Time would like to remind us, should never be married against their will), and by episode’s end, Ice King receives his just desserts—a feminist-fueled kick to the face, courtesy of Finn the Human. The moral of the story is clear: Poor old Ice King might just be lonely, but that does not excuse him for acting like a frost-bitten incel. (3.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 4. “Tree Trunks” (692-016)

Airdate: April 12, 2010

Production Information: Sean Jimenez and Bert Youn (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Tree Trunks” introduces the audience to the eponymous character, voiced by Polly Lou Livingston, an eccentric octogenarian with a pronounced southern drawl whom Pendleton Ward knew growing up in Texas. Despite Tree Trunks appearing as a sweet old pachyderm, much of her dialog is riddled with double entendres and subtle sex jokes that go over the heads of children, and as such, she is something of a divisive character in the Adventure Time fandom: While some viewers find her hilarious, others find her decidedly off-putting. In this episode, however, storyboard artists Sean Jimenez and Bert Youn strike a decent balance between the character’s funny and creepy sides (case in point: The scene wherein Tree Trunks, in the gawdiest of makeup, tries to seduce an evil monster with her “womanly charms and elephant prowess”). The major exception to this overall balance is the episode’s decidedly morbid conclusion, which features Tree Trunks exploding after tasting the crystal apple. This was perhaps the show’s first non sequitur ending, and almost certainly left an indelible imprint on the minds of viewers young and old alike. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 5. “The Enchiridion!” (692-001)

Airdate: April 19, 2010

Production Information: Patrick McHale, Adam Muto, and Pendleton Ward (storyboard artists and story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: According to the annals of cartoon history, the initial storyboard for “The Enchiridion” was whipped up by Ward and his crew members to prove to Cartoon Network that Adventure Time could be developed into a full-fledged series. This was almost certainly a stressful task, which necessitated that Ward et al. dissect the pilot, determine what elements worked, and then infuse those elements into a new storyboard. As a result of this “open art transplant,” there are quite a few analogs between the pilot and “The Enchiridion!”—e.g., the wacky dancing, the dream sequences, the ridiculous language—but this episode does a solid job of emulating the style of the pilot without wholesale duplicating it.

In terms of plot, “The Enchiridion!” is a fairly predictable adventure story, but it is one with enough clever variations that prevent the whole affair from dragging or being too boring; standout scenes include Finn and Jake having to deal with granny-zapping gnomes, and the D&D-inspired reverie in which Finn is tempted to slay an “unaligned” ant. The episode is further buoyed by several fun guest stars (including Mark Hamill, Fred Tatasciore, and even Black Flag’s Henry Rollins) that sprinkle a little additional energy on top of the whole thing. Given the exuberant fun of the episode and the way it easily introduces us to supporting characters like Princess Bubblegum, it is intriguing why the producers did not choose “The Enchiridion!” as the series premiere. That question aside, “The Enchiridion!” is one of the season’s stronger episode and an excellent place to start if you want a crash course in what made early Adventure Time so unique. (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 6. “The Jiggler” (692-011)

Airdate: April 19, 2010

Production Information: Luther McLaurin and Armen Mirzaian (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “The Jiggler” opens on a fun, hyperactive note, with Finn singing “Baby,” a catchy song coated in layer upon layer of sweet, crisp autotune. But soon after Finn and Jake discover and “adopt” the titular creature, the affair quickly devolves into a cartoonish snuff film of two dullards accidentally torturing a wild animal; the whole thing is made worse by the high volume of bodily fluids excreted by the Jiggler. Thankfully, Finn and Jake are able to return the Jiggler to its mother before it keels over, but this victory is undermined given that the whole situation was Finn and Jake’s fault to begin with. Perhaps it is best to view all of this as a cautionary tale: No matter how cute a wild animal may look, you probably should not take it home and make it dance for you. (2 stars)

Season 1, Episode 7. “Ricardio the Heart Guy” (692-007)

Airdate: April 26, 2010

Production Information: Sean Jimenez and Bert Youn (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon, Adam Muto, and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Ricardio the Heart Guy” introduces the titular villain, the brainy-but-sleazy heart of the Ice King voiced to perfection by the sonorous George Takei. Given how arrogant the character acts even before his true intentions are revealed, it is not much of a shock that Ricardio is a rotten egg, and this lack of mystery drags the whole episode down to some degree. Nevertheless, Takei’s histronic performance injects into the episode a funny sort of melodrama, with is further reinforced by Casey James Basichis’s sparklingly dark score, which mixes in elements of opera alongside the usual chiptune blips and bloops to emphasize Ricardio’s pretentiousness. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 8. “Business Time” (692-014)

Airdate: April 26, 2010

Commentary: On the surface, “Business Time” is but a silly parody of corporate culture that sees Finn and Jake become the veritable CEOs of an adventuring firm. It is a silly little set up, and the show has good fun poking fun at business-speak and the deleterious effects of rampant corporatization. At the same time, by relegating Finn and Jake to the sidelines near the middle of the episode, “Business Time” does itself a disservice by focusing not on the wacky shenanigans of the business men, but rather on the mundanity of Finn and Jake’s “managerial life.” It all comes together in the end, when Finn and Jake are forced to jump into the fray and destroy the Business Men’s vacuum robot, but the noticeable lag there in the middle of everything throws the pacing of the episode off.

But while “Business Time” might not be the strongest first-season entry, it has gained respect in the fandom for being the first episode to underline that the Land of Ooo exists in the far future after some sort of nuclear holocaust. In an interview with USA Today, Ward explained that this was a natural development that he had never planned: “[When] we did [the] episode about businessmen rising up from an iceberg at the bottom of a lake … that made the world post-apocalyptic, and we just ran with it” (X). Considering how major the post-apocalyptic trappings would become to the show’s mythology, it is a bit startling to learn that it was added in on a whim. Regardless, it was an inspired choice that added a tinge of sadness to the story of Finn and Jake. They were not just frolicking in some fantasy world; they were frolicking in the ruins of our world, long after nuclear war had devasted the planet. Is it bleak? Absolutely! But this bleakness contrasts nicely with Adventure Time’s colorful surface, resulting in a deeply rich ambivalence. Not many shows—let alone children’s shows!—have managed to fuse such extremes into a workable whole. (3.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 9. “My Two Favorite People” (692-004)

Airdate: May 3, 2010

Production Information: Kent Osborne and Pendleton Ward (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: Almost all the first-season episodes that we have considered so far have placed a heavy emphasis on comedy. The point of these episodes is to make you laugh, and anything beyond that is gravy. “My Two Favorite People,” in contrast, may be the first that is grounded on a solidly emotional foundation, and while the episode is very funny, it is primarily interested in telling the poignant story of two brothers and a gal they both like. If anyone has ever found themselves caught up in a love triangle—whether real or, as in the case of this episode, imagined—Jake’s actions, although immature, will likely feel relatable. It is a cheesy cliché, but the story’s strength is that it all feels so real (which I recognize is a funny thing to say about a cartoon dog and his unicorn-rainbow beau).

“My Two Favorite People” is the first episode that really features Lady Rainicorn as a mover of the plot rather than just a fun side character, and it is a wonderful showcase for her. While a handful of later installments—namely season four’s “Lady & Peebles” and season eighth’s “Lady Raincorn of the Crystal Dimension”—would try to highlight Lady, “My Two Favorite People” is arguably the character’s funniest episodes, thanks in large part to her use of a universal translator, which allows the other characters to understand her. To some, a device such as this may seem like a cop-out, but storyboard artists Kent Osborne and Pendleton Ward cleverly preempt this criticism by making the device’s only useable setting one that gives Lady the voice of a great-great grandfather. Lady’s “old-man voice” is an episode highlight, and it makes many of the character’s lines (e.g., “Come on my darling! Wrap your legs around me!”) both hilarious and unsettling. (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 10. “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain” (692-010)

Airdate: May 3, 2010

Commentary: During the production of season one Ward exerted considerable effort trying to shepherd the show’s crew in a coherent direction, all the while responding to critiques levelled by dozens of Cartoon Network executives. Many of these critiques were contradictory, and in the process of creating something that he was proud of while also appeasing everyone around him, Ward very nearly went bananas. The experience provided the bedrock for “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain,” and to anyone who has been given the arduous task of pleasing a whole slew of prickly critics, the episode will be immediately relatable.

In terms of the show’s budding mythology, “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain” is notable because it firmly establishes that Finn was adopted as a baby by Jake’s canine parents, Joshua and Margaret. This plot point was likely guided less by worldbuilding and more by humor (perhaps playing on the whole “raised by wolves” idiom). Nevertheless, this decision would have major ramifications for the show’s overarching narrative. Finn’s nature as the only human in Ooo was no longer a silly afterthought—it was now a mystery. Just who is Finn the Human, and where did he come from? These questions would linger for seasons, finally culminating in season eight’s touching miniseries Islands. (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 11. “Wizard” (692-020)

Airdate: May 10, 2010

Production Information: Pete Browngardt, Adam Muto, and Bert Youn (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Wizard”—co-storyboarded by Pete Browngardt, an artist who storyboarded on Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack before creating the divisive Uncle Grandpa for Cartoon Network—is an absolute bonkers installment that throws logic out the window by giving Finn and Jake magical powers. It is a plot setup almost guaranteed to be fun, and you can tell that the writers likely a good time coming up with increasingly asinine magical powers (e.g., “endless mayonnaise”).

But underneath all the distraught dust motes and captivating new hairstyles, “Wizard” also has a degree of depth, reading like a biting commentary on higher education-industrial complex in the United States. It does not seem coincidental that the strategies employ by Bufo’s scam wizard school are strikingly similar to those used by predatory colleges, which offer students a worthless degree alongside thousands of dollars of debt. The parallels are made stronger when it is revealed that all those whom Bufo has tricked are reluctant to upset the oppressive status quo, because they believe “newfangled thinking will get [everyone] killed”; this eerily mirrors those who downplay the student loan crisis, arguing that “that’s just the system works.” Finn will have none of this, however, and by episode’s end, he—channeling his myriad wizard powers and the vigor of “youth culture”—proves that if a system is broke, it has got to go. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from that. (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 12. “Evicted!” (692-003)

Airdate: May 17, 2010

Production Information: Sean Jimenez and Bert Youn (storyboard artists); Adam Muto (story writer); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Evicted!” is considered a classic by most Adventure Time fans for one simple reason: It introduces the audience to Marceline the Vampire Queen. This iconic undead rocker chick managed to steal the spotlight whenever she appeared in an episode, and eventually she became one of the show’s more well-regarded characters. Given all this, there is some irony to the fact that in her debut, Marceline is the antagonist who steals our heroic duo’s beloved Tree Fort. Marceline is therefore similar to other season one baddies in that she tests Finn and Jake’s patience before engaging them in direct combat. But Marceline is set apart from other foes in how Finn and Jake defeat her—namely, that they do not. In fact, she pounds them into the ground almost effortlessly! Besting Finn and Jake is no easy task, meaning that while “Evicted!” might showcase Marceline’s nastier side, it nevertheless does an excellent job emphasizing how much of a badass she is; this goes a long way in explaining the character’s huge popularity.

But Marceline alone cannot an episode make. Luckily, “Evicted!” is further bolstered by several excellent design choices, including a bevy of fun background critters whipped up by character designer Tom Herpich, a slew of colorful background designs courtesy of Ghostshrimp and Santino Lascano, and a killer soundtrack. Regarding the latter, the stand-out tune is inarguably “House Hunting Song,” a comically overblown ballad detailing Finn and Jake’s arduous quest to find a new place to live. The song, sung mostly by Ward with a few lines delivered by Olson, is an emotion-laden earworm guaranteed to wiggle its way into your brain. (I mean, how can you not love a song that blames the murderous tendencies of vampires on simply being “burnt out on dealing with mortals”?) It very much is the blood-red cherry on top of everything, which helps to make “Evicted!” one of the season’s strongest episodes. (5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 13. “City of Thieves” (692-012)

Airdate: May 24, 2010

Commentary: “City of Thieves” is a workable if somewhat forgettable mid-season entry. The episode’s main strength is its titular setting, a bizarro municipality where theft is the law of the land. Unfortunately, the city is nothing more than a silly plot device, and the episode itself never really rises above “fine.” (2.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 14. “The Witch’s Garden” (692-022)

Airdate: June 7, 2010

Production Information: Adam Muto, Kent Osborne, and Niki Yang (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: If you think the idea of Jake sassing Ooo’s cattiest witch is funny in and of itself, wait until you see this episode’s visuals. From Jake’s grotesque but silly “manbaby body” to the abject horror of Gary the Mermaid Queen, “The Witch’s Garden” is replete with several memorable character designs that make it a satisfying entry. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 15. “What Is Life?” (692-017)

Airdate: June 14, 2010

Commentary: Giving Finn and Ice King a son is not a move that I thought Adventure Time would ever make, let alone in the first season, but here we are. The bouncing baby boy in question is actually a clunky robot named NEPTR, voiced to sadsack perfection by comedian and musician Andy Milonakis. If you had told me prior to this episode that Milonakis could give a sentient microwave a sense of pathos, I would have never believed you, but in “What Is Life?” he does a commendable job conveying NEPTR’s pitiful nature. As for the episode itself, “What Is Life?” is a solid entry that introduces viewers to several recurring characters (one of whom being Gunter the penguin) while offering us a peek into the Ice King’s sad, lonely mind. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 16. “Ocean of Fear” (692-025)

Airdate: June 21, 2010

Production Information: J. G. Quintel and Cole Sanchez (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Oceans of Fear”—storyboarded by Cole Sanchez and J. G. Quintel, the latter of whom would go on to create Regular Show for Cartoon Network—is in an interesting installment that establishes Finn’s fear of the ocean, reminding the viewer that even great heroes will be forced to deal with irrational phobias at some point in their life. The character designs in this episode are quite amusing (with the standout being Finn’s grotesque “fear of the Ocean” face), and Mark Hamill, as always, does a wonderful job, using his trademark “Joker voice” to give the Fear Feaster a delightful air of villainy. But as with “Business Time,” many of these elements are upstaged by the episodes’ post-apocalyptic trappings. In fact, when I watched the episode for the first time, I paused it in several places, asking to myself, “Is that a wrecked battleship? Is that a bombed-out tank? Why are there ruins of a city underwater?” It is an understatement to say that this episode is positively littered with rusted debris and centuries-old detritus that testifies to Ooo’s traumatic history. For eagle-eyed fans hoping to piece together Adventure Time’s mysterious mythology, this episode is an absolute hoot. (3.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 17. “When Wedding Bells Thaw” (692-013)

Airdate: June 28, 2010

Production Information: Kent Osborne and Niki Yang (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: One of the first episodes to team Ice King up with Finn and Jake, “When Wedding Bells Thaw” is a goofy lampooning of bachelor parties and the institution of marriage in general. Although the episode ends on a fairly predictive note (spoiler alert: Ice King tricked his fiancée into marriage), seeing Ice King get along with our heroes is charming, and in many ways it presages the Ice King’s future character growth. The episode’s strongest part is the short dialogue-free montage near the middle depicting Finn, Jake, and Ice King getting into all sorts of “manlorette party” shenanigans; this sequence is made all the stronger by Tim Kiefer’s chiptune score, which enlivens the party with a burst of synthesizers and electro-drums. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 18. “Dungeon” (692-013)

Airdate: June 28, 2010

Commentary: If there is one episode that feels like the entirety of Adventure Time’s first season distilled down into 11 minutes, then it would be “Dungeon.” An episode replete with outrageous monsters and wacky action, “Dungeon” is a high-energy installment that pays homage to the sprawling world of table-top gaming; indeed, it is not hard to imagine storyboard artists Elizabeth Ito and Adam Muto reaching for a D20 or a well-worn copy of the Monster Manual whenever it came time to block out a new scene. Stand-out moments from this episode include Finn’s encounter with the Demon Cat (famous for having “approximate knowledge of many things”), his visitation by a “guardian angel,” and the deus ex machina ending that see Princess Bubblegum swoop in to save the day. (“Get on my swan!”) And amidst all the silliness, “Dungeon” even manages to sneak in a sweet little message tucked snuggly in between all the wacky monsters about the importance of recognizing your weaknesses. (4.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 19. “The Duke” (692-023)

Airdate: July 12, 2010

Commentary: For most of season one, the audience is presented a version of Princess Bubblegum that is bright, effervescent, and totally nonthreatening; the monarch, it seems, is as aggressive as a marshmallow. But in “The Duke,” this all changes, and we finally get to see the princess’s darker, authoritarian side. Unhinged Princess Bubblegum is quite a sight to behold (as is the sight of green-and-bald Bubblegum), but it adds another layer of to the saccharine sovereign, setting her up for substantial character development a few seasons down the road. (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 20. “Freak City” (692-008)

Airdate: July 26, 2010

Production Information: Tom Herpich and Pendleton Ward (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Freak City” introduces the audience to Magic Man, a deranged and flamboyant Martian wizard known for meaninglessly harassing the citizens of Ooo. Although the character’s backstory would be fleshed out in later seasons and eventually come to play a major part in the mythology of the series, this episode was storyboarded well before these developments were dreamed up, meaning that here, Magic Man functions as a simple (albeit funny) villain-of-the-week whose nihilistic tendencies clash wonderfully with Finn’s optimistic worldview. Finn is so used to dividing the world up into “good guys” and “evil guys,” but his run-in with Magic Man is proof that morality is far more confusing than he would like to believe. The main problem is that Magic Man is not really evil: He is clinically insane—a violent psychopath—who does not care about his actions impacting others. No climactic fight or eleventh-hour pep talk is enough to fix him.

On top of this rather weighty consideration of morality and mental instability, “Freak City” contains another, more straightforward message about the power of teamwork and how people should work as one to overcome common problems. Storyboard artists Pendleton Ward and Tom Herpich have quite a bit of fun taking the idiom literally by forcing Finn and the other denizens of Freak City pile on top of one another to function as a single, grotesque being that is capable of fighting Magic Man. While “Freak City” loses some points for espousing rhetoric that folks who are depressed can simply will themselves out of their funk, it makes up for these deficits elsewhere with its character designs—ranging from the inside-out bird to the two-headed monster that Finn groin-strikes—which are all bizarre in the best, most creative way possible. (3.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 21. “Donny” (692-018)

Airdate: August 9, 2010

Commentary: A rather forgettable protagonist and only a smattering of memorable lines make “Donny” the season’s weakest link. The episode does get points for introducing us to “whywolves” (“Creatures possessed by the spirit of inquiry—and bloodlust!”), but they are not enough to completely save it from mediocrity. (2 stars)

Season 1, Episode 22. “Henchman” (692-021)

Airdate: August 23, 2010

Production Information: Luther McLaurin and Cole Sanchez (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: While “Evicted!” depicted Marceline as an apathetic asshole, “Henchman” starts to soften the vampire queen by showing that her evil exterior is an elaborate facade, and that deep down she is really just a prank-loving trickster—or, as Finn puts it, “a radical dame who likes to play games.” This might seem nothing more than a subtle tweak, but it does wonders for Marceline’s characterization; by episode’s end, as Finn and his vampiric “master” chat quite cheerfully in a field of strawberries, it is clear that the writers are setting up Marceline to become a legitimate pal to Finn and Jake, rather than just an avatar of chaos who drops in every once in awhile to shake things up. This was a wise decision, as it provided Marceline with the chance to grow into a hero in her own right with whom the audience can happily cheer along.

Since “Henchman” is predicated on Marceline pranking Finn, storyboard artists Luther McLaurin and Cole Sanchez have a great deal of fun mocking up outrageous scenarios that seem evil at first glance, but are revealed to be quite benign. Perhaps the funniest of these situations is Marceline raising an army of undead skeletons only to throw them a concert, and the vampire queen’s demand that Finn kill a little dimple-plant, which looks like a cutie before it turns into an Audrey II-esque abomination from John Carpenter’s darkest nightmares. (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 23. “Rainy Day Daydream” (692-002)

Airdate: September 6, 2010

Production Information: Pendleton Ward (storyboard artist); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: “Rainy Day Daydream” is a beautiful representation of creativity in its purest form. Channeling his love of multilevel video games and Dungeons and Dragons, solo storyboard artist and series creator Pendleton Ward uses the pretext of Jake’s imagination affecting reality as an opportunity to bounce from one ridiculous plot point to another to great effect. The whole thing feels like an exercise in jovial spontaneity, and while “writing the story as you go” can sometime result in disjointed or sloppy final products, here Ward makes it work, using the approach to illustrate the almost limitless potential of imagination. Another strength of the episode is the way it throws dozens of ridiculous obstacles at Finn and Jake without the aid of equally ridiculous visuals; in fact, almost every hindrance in the episode is invisible to both Finn and the audience, and we only learn what is going on thanks to Jake’s narration. The fact that this approach works and is not boring is a testament to Ward’s skills as a storyteller and dialogue writer. (4.5 stars)

Season 1, Episode 24. “What Have You Done?” (692-027)

Airdate: September 13, 2010

Commentary: In addition to providing us with another glimpse of Bubblegum’s dark side, “What Have You Done?” also serves as an interesting meditation on morality and preemptive punishment. As earlier episodes have confirmed, the Ice King is a creepy little deviant, but is it right for Finn and Jake to imprison him without a cause? This is a real legal question, and the show handles it in a surprisingly sophisticated way, concluding more or less that the writ of habeas corpus must be preserved. Of course, this is all undermined to some degree when we learn that the Ice King actually is to blame, but thanks to some quick thinking on the part of Finn, our heroes are able to save the day without having to turn to the carceral powers of the state. (And people say Adventure Time is not sophisticated...) (3 stars)

Season 1, Episode 25. “His Hero” (692-026)

Airdate: September 20, 2010

Commentary: Who is the greatest hero ever? If you answered, “Finn!” it is obvious that you have yet to see “His Hero,” for the correct answer is Billy, of course! Lou Ferrigno guest stars in this episode as the aforementioned defender of Ooo, enlivening the character with his distinctive voice. As for the episode itself, storyboard artists Kent Osborne and Niki Yang—with an assist from the ever-dependable Adam Muto—produce some of their best work this season, filling each scene with witty dialogue and zany shenanigans. Arguably, the episode’s pièce de resistance is the short montage of Billy’s past achievements, which plays alongside a song, sung by Muto, extolling the hero’s greatness; energetic and wacky, the song in many ways typifies the “chaotic heroism” that defined the show’s first season.

Like many other first-season episodes, “His Hero” ends with a counterintuitive “anti-moral,” stressing that while a commitment to non-violence might seem subversive on the surface, it is actually an ineffective way to make the world a better place; instead, the episode argues that direct physical action—i.e., beating the snot out of monsters and bad guys—is necessary if heroes want to save people from oppression. This may all come across as contrarian silliness, but I would argue that it is profoundly radical, rejecting “common sense” ideals about peace that really only help those in positions of power. (Side note, if the kids who grew up watching Adventure Time turn into a bunch of revolutionaries, I think we will know the cause.) (4 stars)

Season 1, Episode 26. “Gut Grinder” (692-024)

Airdate: September 27, 2010

Production Information: Ako Castuera and Bert Youn (storyboard artists); Tim McKeon and Merriwether Williams (story writers); Larry Leichliter (director), Patrick McHale (creative director), Nick Jennings (art director)

Commentary: Much like “Ricardio the Heart Guy,” this episode suffers due to a lack of a solid mystery; from the start, it seems obvious that Jake is not the one responsible for the robberies. Furthermore, the reveal that Sharon is the one behind the robberies comes with almost no dramatical weight, since we have no idea who she is. The whole thing is forgettable, which is a shame given that this is the season finale. (2 stars)

(Huge shout out to @sometipsygnostalgic for reading over these a few months ago and offering feedback. Also, I want to thank @j4gm for posting his “Slumber Party Panic” review, which made me remember these write-ups!)

#adventure time #atimers #season 1 #season one #reviews #finn #jake #finn the human #jake the dog #marceline #pb #bubblegum #princess bubblegum #marceline the vampire queen #ice king #pen ward #pendleton ward

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harrysbbby · 4 years

Text

The Rule of Benefit - Part 1

My new series is here! It follows JJ and his friends-with-benefits co-worker Bridget “Jett” Moore. One simple rule: no feelings allowed.

Words: 3k+

Warning: smut. this is also my first time writing it. so it's probably terrible. so apologies in advance. but otherwise enjoy.

gif by @rudypankows

It wasn’t uncommon to see Jett’s nose buried in a book, even at work. Sat behind the large wooden desk, her head only lifted when the phone rang, or someone approached the desk. Working at the Kook Club was easy: good hours, great pay and the opportunity to do whatever she liked during the down times. With all the guests checked in for the night, and everyone seated in the dining room, Jett knew this was the perfect time to finish her extra credit essay.

JJ was stood in the doorway to the dining room, watching the girl read, captured by her ability to unfalteringly concentrate.

“Quit slacking, Maybank!” the duty manager called from near the kitchen. JJ quickly collected himself, rushing back through the kitchen doors to get his orders.

It was a few hours later when JJ finally approached your desk.

“Hey pretty girl, soup’s up.”

Jett’s head lifted out of her book to meet his blue eyes. She smiled. Working with JJ made the Kook Club bearable. He was funny, charming and not to mention hot. He would make her laugh by making silly faces through the dining room doors as he walked past or would make her smile by bringing her left over deserts from the kitchen.

“Oh, hey there pretty boy,” the terms of endearment had resulted from a regular. The small, sweet but very rich middle-aged lady visited the club twice weekly at a minimum. She always called Jett ‘pretty girl’ and JJ ‘pretty boy’. Jett was convinced she was hitting on him, the way she would grip his bicep when ordering at the bar. JJ, on the other hand swore that she was into girls, supported by his observations of how she would linger at the desk when she would check in for a long weekend stay. So, they became a bit of a joke, but then the nicknames stuck. Jett didn’t mind. She quite liked them. “Did you say something about food?”

“Yep,” he smiled, leaning on the top of the desk, “Soup’s up. Literally. Chef made us soup with the leftovers. Want me to grab you some?”

As if on cue the girl’s stomach growled. She hadn’t even noticed the time passing by as engrossed in her book. It had been hours since she’d last eaten.

“Yes please,” she pouted at him, raising her hands in a begging motion. He laughed at her ruffling her brown straight hair. She scoffed, frantically trying to put it back into place so as to not look disheveled at the front desk.

“Coming right up, milady,” JJ curtsied as he walked away. Jett laughed at his actions just as the phone rang. JJ looked back to her over his shoulder. She was speaking animatedly on the phone. JJ always admired her work ethic. He would never admit it to anyone, but he saw Jett as almost an inspiration- to get out of their lives, out of The Cut. She smiled at him and shooed him towards the kitchen. JJ saluted and disappeared behind the doors.

He retuned moments later, two bowls of soup and a plate of bread perfect balanced on his experienced hands. Jett was typing away on the computer, when she saw him approach. She quickly moved her textbooks out of the way, allowing JJ to place the food in front of her.

“We busy?” he motioned towards the screen where she had just been typing furiously.

“Yep, major group booking. We’re employed for the foreseeable future,” she grabbed the spoon he had collected for her, diving immediately into the soup. She hummed in delight, “It may be scraps but damn Chef really knows how to make them taste good.”

JJ hummed in agreement, a soup doused piece of bread filling his mouth. After swallowing most of it he started to speak.

“What’s for?” he grumbled out over his mouthful of food, pointing to the book that had been thrown aside for their lower-class feast. Jett laughed at the way JJ had asked her, covering his mouth as if it made him anymore polite.

“AP History,” she responded, “extra credit work.”

“Wow must be nice to be smart,” JJ joked, mouth now clear of food. Jett smiled softly.

“Quite boring, actually,” her voice was a lot less excitable as it usually was. JJ had noticed her change in demeanor of the past few weeks, “even worse when you’re poor and need it to get into a good school.”

“Amen,” JJ chimed, shoving another unnecessarily large piece of bread into his mouth. Jett grabbed an acceptably sized piece, dipping it into her soup. JJ rid his mouth of food completely this time before asking her, “are you okay? You’ve seemed a little off lately.”

So, he had noticed, Jett thought. She sighed placing her spoon against the side of her bowl.

“My, uh... my boyfriend broke up with me two weeks ago,” she said sadly. She noticed JJ’s concerned expression, “it was kind of mutual, I guess. He moved to the mainland. I guess I’m just kind of lonely.”

JJ nodded at her explanation, surveying the melancholy look on her face. He had always found her hot but had never made a move because of said boyfriend. An idea sprung to mind.

“My friends and I are having a party on Saturday. You should come, escape your studying for one night.”

Jett peered up at the boy’s pleading expression. Her internal war was overpowered by his puppy-dog eyes and pouty lips.

“Fine,” she relented, causing JJ to throw his arms up in the air, “it better be a good party, pretty boy.”

“They always are.”

***

JJ was right. Pogue boneyard parties were fun. Jett used to come with her ex-boyfriend every now and then. They would scrounge up some free booze, get a couple hits from some random’s blunt and blindly walk back to her house and have the most amazing, hazy sex.

Jett adjusted her shoulders, shaking the thought from her mind. She couldn’t be hanging onto the nothing he had left her with. She would have to move on and forwards, no matter how hard it was.

“Jett!”

She turned to see JJ by the keg, arms waving enthusiastically in the air. She headed over to him allowing him to pass her a cup filled with cheap beer.

“Hey, how was your shift today?” Jett asked him, bringing the cup all the way to her lips, taking a long sip, peering over the rim at the boy. He licked his lips, watching as her chocolate brown eyes stared at him. He cleared his throat quickly.

“You know, the usual. People being dicks, dicks being people.”

She threw head back emitting melodical laughter from her lips. JJ’s mouth turned upward into a smile. She brought the cup up to her lips once again, still giggling.

“That’s very accurate of our clientele,” she said eyeing his smile, taking another large sip from her cup. Her drink was nearly gone already, the liquid heating her insides.

She didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the fact she was a horny and recently single, but JJ looked different. She had never noticed how blue his eyes were, or how deep the dimple in his right cheek ran or how the curve of his bicep was so prominent. She quickly took another sip, finishing up her cup.

“Refill?”

Since she didn’t know anyone, JJ took the liberty of introducing her to his friends as they sat around one of the small bonfires, some of “JJ’s cousin’s good shit” being passed between them. At least that’s what Kiara had said. Jett knew of Kiara but had never properly met her before. She was of course familiar with her family’s business. Kiara spoke passionately about the harms of single use plastic as she passed the blunt to Pope. He was someone she already knew. He was in most of her classes, also vying for a scholarship like her’s. He bypassed the blunt, passing it to Jett. She took a long hit, before passing it to JJ, who was explaining to Kiara and Pope how he and Jett worked together at the country club. He passed the blunt to Sarah. Sarah was someone Jett knew. Her family’s presence at the club was a hyperbole. It usually meant a decent tip to be shared among the staff, and the few conversations she had had with Sarah were pleasant, but her brother was a different story.

“Oh, yeah I thought you looked familiar!” Sarah exclaimed, coughing slightly as she passed the blunt to her boyfriend, who’s lap she sat on.

John B took a hit before passing it back to Kiara, who was still chatting to JJ. Jett watched as John B grabbed Sarah’s head turning it towards him. She smiled seductively as he pulled his lips forward to meet his, smoke transpiring between the two of them. Jett cleared her throat abruptly.

“I need another drink,” she announced, leaving the group of friends to make her way back to the keg. As the liquid pour into her cup, she saw and arm lean against the keg, essentially trapping her between whoever it was and the metal. She knew exactly who it was.

“Rafe,” Jett said dryly, bringing her cup up to her lips and taking a swig as she turned to face up at the boy.

“Bridget, right?” he asked, leaning down to be at eye level with her. This brought their chests closer together, causing Jett to lean back, placing her hand which held her cup up against the boy. “I heard you’re back on the market.”

He winked. It caused a frown to spread over her face, rolling her eyes as she pushed past him.

“I’m not for sale,” she heard one of the other Kook boys (Kelce maybe? She had seen him in the club a few times) whistle boyishly before bursting into hysterical laughter in Rafe’s face. Ignoring their antics, she made her way to a log further away, facing out at the ocean.

She stared out at the water, watching the waves tumble over and over. She reminded herself she needed to move on. She needed to be like the waves, take on the tumble, pick herself back up and get ready for the next. Jett was brought out of her thoughts when the sounds of skin flying across skin. She turned to see a tall, tanned skinny girl stomping away from JJ who cupped his hand over his cheek. Jett couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her lips, which caught the boy’s attention. He walked over to her, taking the spot next to her, rubbing his redden cheek gently.

“What was that?” Jett asked amused. JJ huffed,

“Tourons. Apparently, I got with the wrong one and now I’m out of bounds with just about all of them.” Jett let out a puff of laughter at his dejectedness, before they lulled into a relatively comfortable silence. But JJ sensed something was up.

“Why’d you run off before?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” dismissed Jett, keeping her eyes trained on the ocean, eager to avoid JJ’s gaze.

“Yes, you do,” he countered, shift his body to face her. “Back there with John B and Sarah. Are you jealous?”

“Maybe,” Jett spoke quickly, now staring down at her cup. Was she really about to pour her heart out to JJ Maybank, her coworker? It was almost as if the alcohol itself whispered ‘yes’ to her as her mouth projectiled words without her control, “I don’t know. I miss having that; someone to turn to constantly. To touch you. Do things with. I guess I’ve just got an itch I can’t scratch.”

JJ remained silent, eyes scraping her body. They mainly focused between her hands and her lips, detailing every move she made as she spoke.

“That was too much information wasn’t it?” She threw her head back in frustration.

“That’s exactly what the right amount I needed to hear.”

Her brows pulled together in confusion, turning to face the boy for the first time. His eyes held a deep hunger and she could practically feel the heat radiating off him. She swallowed the lump of nervousness in her throat as he continued.

“You clearly have a problem no one else can fix. And I clearly have been exiled from Touron one-night stands. So, I propose a solution,” JJ stood up, hands gesturing enthusiastically as he spoke. “You and me. Sex. No strings attached.”

“What?” Jett asked incredulously.

“It’s perfect! We both get what we want.”

She mulled over his words silently. She had to admit it would be convenient. She would finally solve her loneliness and would avoid the feelings that hurt her before.

“So, we’d be friends with benefits?” she asked, standing up, placing her hands delicately on his forearms, tracing back and forth. JJ smirked.

“Yeah, reckon you could handle it?” he asked queitly, leaning closer to her. Jett, flicked her hait back over her shoulder, looking up at the boy, hands still flowing softly across his skin.

“We need to lay some ground rules.”

“Absolutely,” JJ agreed. “This is not exclusive.”

“Done,” Jett settled. “No sex at work,” JJ went to object but, she brought a finger to his lips. “I need that job, pretty boy.”

He finger remained on his lips, causing his eyes to grow darker. He nodded in agreement.

“And finally, the most important rule of benefit: no feelings allowed.”

“Deal,” JJ whispered, pulling her hand away from his lips and pulling her in for a kiss. Jett dropped her cup half-filled with alcohol to the ground, wrapping her arms around his neck. She moaned into his mouth.

“Do you wanna--” JJ motioned over his shoulder.

“Yep,” Jett answered quickly allowing him to lead her away from the party.

They stumbled into the Chateau, leaving sloppy kisses along each other’s necks. JJ lead her into the spare room, shutting the door and pressing her up against in. Jett threw her head back against the wood, allowing JJ to explore her neck, sucking on the soft skin. She tugged on his hair, letting out a throaty moan. Keeping her hand his hair, she used it to spin them around, pinning JJ to the door. His eyes widen in surprised, then anticipation as she slipped to the floor in front of him. She grabbed his belt undoing his pants quickly. Above her she could hear JJ’s breathing quicken as she pulled down his pants and underwear.

“Calm down pretty boy, gonna take good care of you.”

And with that she took his dick into her hand, pumping a few times before licking form the base to the tip. The moan that left JJ’s mouth was animalistic. His hands immediately flew to Jett’s hair, entangling themselves into it, pulling her closer towards him. Her head bobbed quickly, causing more grunts to escape from his lips. Jett could feel spit running down her chin as JJ pushed himself further into her mouth.

“Fuck, Jett. When did you get so good at this?” he asked, the sound of his head lightly thudding against the door as he screwed his eyes shut. She smiled sultrily, releasing him from her mouth, pumping his length as she looked up at him.

“Always have been. You’ve just been missing out.”

With a growl he picked her up by the sides, carrying her to the bed, flinging her across the sheets. He made quick work of ridding her of her shirt and bra. His mouth attached to one boob, his hands massaging the other. Jett’s breathing quickened as she held his head to her, hips bucking up desperately. She whimpered needingly, craving his touch. He detached his lips, kissing slowly up her neck.

“Patience pretty girl,” he whispered quietly. The hand that had been flicking at her nipple slid down her body and into the waistline of her shorts. He began to rub small circles over her clit. Jett let out a loud moan, hands instinctively coming over her mouth. With his free hand JJ grabbed her hands, placing them above her head. “Wanna be able to hear you.”

This caused an even louder moan to escape her lips, as JJ moved her panties to the side, easily slipping one finger in. Jett felt euphoric. JJ was already pleasing her better than her ex-boyfriend, and he had barely begun. She thought she could get used to their arrangement. He added another finger and began to pump faster. In contrast, he placed sweet kisses along her jaw, liking the feeling of her moans vibrating along his lips.

“JJ, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna... ugh!” her eyes were screwed shut as her mouth was opened in a silent cry. JJ smiled against her skin, before retracting his hand. Jett’s body relaxed as he placed a kiss on her lips. He stood up ridding himself of his shirt and other items of clothing and she did the same.

She scooted back on the bed as a now naked JJ crawled on top of her, ripping open the condom wrapper with his teeth. He placed it over himself, lining himself up. He leant down next to Jett’s face.

“Ready to do this?” he asked her. She placed her hands on his shoulders and nodded.

“As I'll ever be.”

JJ pushed himself inside of her, their moans mixing in the hot, sticky air. He waited a moment before picking up his pace. Jett’s legs wrapped around his waist as she let out breathy groans. Her nails scrapped down his back, causing him to moan into her neck.

“Shit,” he cursed, his motions keeping a steady pace. He snuck a hand in between them to rub her clit.

“Oh my God, JJ,” she cried. She pulled one leg from around his body, slowly bringing it up to place it over his shoulder. JJ hesitated for a moment but seeing the look of sheer pleasure on Jett’s face, continued. The new angle elicited even more cried from her lips, her nails raking along his chest. JJ grunted, highly turned on by the girl beneath him. He wasn’t going to last much longer, and neither was she. His fingers worked quickly on her clit as his hips continued to meet hers. They yelled each other’s name in unison as they met their highs, JJ completing with a few final strokes.

He pulled out, disposing of the condom before collapsing next to her. They were both sweaty messes, puffing heavily. Jett let out a breathy laugh, wiping the hair which was stuck to her forehead with the back of her hand. JJ pulled the covers out from underneath him, allowing Jett to crawl under with him. They laid next to each other, staring up at the ceiling still catching their breath.

“That was--” Jett started breathlessly.

“Yeah” JJ agreed.

She could get used to this.

Tags:

@downbytheouterbanks @thesailbells @sexualparkour @maybankxcameron @mileven-reddie @nikki082489 @treestarrrrrrrr @mynamessusan @kristinaxilliano @love-bean @lauraxwndrlnd @jjsthumbring @obxmxybxnk @lovelymaybankk @http-cherries @belledutchess @wicked-laugh @jjswhore @sspidermanss @fandomobsessedlife @dolanfivsosxox @whenyouregrungeaff @poguestyleskye @iknowrocknroll567 @kingdomheartsfan109@dangerouswhispersblog @hopelesswritingxd @marveloucnco @riverdaleserpent04 @yeetingcelery @babyhoneystvles@ravngers @k3nz-doodl3 @famousstarsandkelly @readysteadygo23 @finelinetrack @sha-nah @silverstarsandsuns@awkwardnesshabitat @annedub @a-wade @ineedmorestyles @averagxfangirl @shreyaodedra06 @silverstarsandsuns@jjmaybangme @kisssmefree @shawnssongs @p0gues4l @hannahufflepuff @lovelymaybankk@tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar @softstarkey @kiarasflowr @drewstarkey @tcmhollnd @myrandom-fandomlife @jjtheangel @jjmaebank @masintahin @o-b-x @stilinskiandsuch @jellyfishbeansontoast @tessisawriter @cutiecolbsss@my-soul-is-the-moon @sunshinemadds @kisssmefree @certainstatesmantoadartisan @lefthandwritings @poguecollins@disagreeable-pink @tytheguyudontno @helplessquotess @taaniesha @obx-beach @thegeekyblondegirlwholovesstars@lcil123 @teenwaywardasgardian @sortagaysortahigh@jeyramarie @ellystone @classygirlything @marauderskeeper@rudyypankow @ssjiara @bluebirdsbluebells @lavenderpope @rretrophilee @kitluvs1 @outerpogues @maaybanks@maebanks @thelocalpogue @heyhey-heyward @popcsheyward @maybe-maybanks @pixelated-pogues @thatsme-johnbookerroutledge @maybankdreams @maybankiara @pogue-writings @honeymendesx @faded-blue @smiithys@justpeachykeeeen @justcallmesams @danicarosaline @free-pool-trash @saturnspack @velyssaraptor @no-shxt-sherl@saphira1412 @raekenliar @pancakefancake @imuniqueperson123 @marveling-avengers @lus-shh@hmspxgue @winterdameron @lolitstiana

#jj outer banks #jj x reader #jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank fanfiction #jj smut #outer banks #outer banks fanfiction #outerbanks #obx #obx fanfiction #obx fandom #rudy pankow #rudy pankow fanfiction #Rudy Pankow x reader #jj maybank x oc #the rule of benefit #the rule of benefit oc

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missturtleduck · 4 years

Note

hi i saw ur requests were open and i would love if u could do a sokka x reader :) where reader is really shy and he likes to tease her and flirt with her to see her all flustered but she denies him actually liking her bc she thinks it’s just his personality to be funny like that. but then there’s the classic oh no there’s only one bed thing? thank you!

Ooooh I loved writing this! Tropes? Love them. Fluff? So fun, so sweet. I hope you enjoy, anon, and have a very happy holiday! <3

Teasing

Sokka x shy!Reader

It was a well-known fact that Sokka was a tease.

Now, he wasn’t a tease in the common sense, more that he took some joy in being a so-called comedian. Y/N seemed to be the person in their gang that got the brunt of his teasing. Every time he came up with some sarcastic quip, she would laugh along with everyone else – though most of the time she was the only one who found him funny – but then there were the other times.

She had been sparring with Zuko, who was surprisingly adept with swords for a bender, when Sokka had come by whistling with faux innocence. As he took a seat on the floor, his eyes were trained on the fight. Feeling his blue-eyed gaze boring into her, she felt her entire body flush. Steadying her breathing, Y/N pushed down the flustered flutter bats inhabiting her stomach. A frustrated cry escaped her lips as she pinned Zuko’s blades to the floor with her own.

“Sokka,” She breathed out, hating how hot she felt. “Sokka, w-what are you doing?”

He grinned. “Just enjoying the view. You know, I always thought red was Zuko’s colour, but you are boasting a lovely shade today.”

Absently, Y/N put a palm to her face, only becoming more flustered as she realised her skin had in fact became darker. As the blood rushed faster through her body, she looked desperately at Zuko for some reprieve.

“Sokka, are you here for any reason other than being a complete clown?” Zuko said, sighing in pure exasperation even as Y/N had him pinned.

The boy ignored him completely. “Has anyone ever told just how adorable you are? Because you really are.”

“Sokka,” Zuko said again, his voice less patient. “Go away before we make you.”

“Alright, alright,” He tutted, hands in the air as if in surrender. “I’ll leave you two to your dance lessons. Call me if you fall; I’ll come and catch you.”

Waiting for him to be out of earshot, Y/N groaned, dropping her sword and freeing Zuko. Her entire face was on fire. Sure, it was a metaphor, a hyperbolic one at that, but if Zuko decided to shove his ignited palm in her face, it would not manage to be as hot as she was feeling now. It might be slightly less sweaty. Ew.

Lowering herself to the ground, she sat, stretching out her aching limbs, pouring water over her roasting head. Y/N, needless to say, was mortified by Sokka’s teasing, but when was she not? She was somewhat shyer than her female friends; Katara had this maternal instinct about her that kicked into overdrive as soon as someone seemed needy. It was honestly scarier than the Avatar State. Toph was just... Toph. The girl was at least four years younger than Y/N and utterly terrifying, approaching people and situations with no fear. Then there was Suki. Suki had a knack of getting people to like her, being the loveable, charismatic leader, she was.

And that left Y/N.

Y/N struggled being heard in many a conversation. Ask her to take a compliment? No. No. Not happening. No thank you. Her shy demeanour was labelled cute by a few different people, though they all seemed to be joking – especially Sokka.

“Do you want me to sort him out for you?”

Y/N looked up, meeting Zuko’s very serious gaze for just a moment before staring at the ground. “No, it’s okay. He’s like that with everyone.”

“What?” Zuko frowned, slumping to the ground too. “What are you on about? He doesn’t flirt with everyone!”

“That wasn’t flirting!” She insisted, feeling that bashful flush creeping in again.

“He was just teasing, like he does with everyone!”

Zuko’s lips quirked. “He called you adorable.”

“Yesterday, he called Momo adorable.”

“He said you flushed was your colour.”

“And he said that red was yours, sunshine.”

“Oh, Y/N, I’ll catch you if you fall!”

Y/N stammered. “He could have been talking to either of us!”

There was some silence between them. Y/N didn’t usually mind sitting in silence with Zuko, who was just as awkward as her most of the time. However, the wide, toothy grin like a catgator’s was highly disconcerting.

“Zuko, I don’t know what you’re seeing, but he wasn’t flirting,” Y/N said finally, quietly commanding. “He’s just messing around like he usually does.”

The prince sighed, suppressing his mischievous grin. Raising his swords, the pair charged each other again.

✦

In the midst of a war, there wasn’t much space for fun. With the constant movement between the Western Air Temple and many significant locations to build their defences after the Day of Black Sun, Y/N found she hardly had time for anything other than training and strategizing. Sure, she may be considered meek when compared to her peers, but her mind was sharper than her blade.

After watching Aang master firebending, Sokka masterminding a prison break, and Katara nearly murdering a man – all with Zuko’s help – she had some whiplash. She might even say that she had been somewhat blindsided by them, but she didn’t particularly mind. It was when they moved onto Ember Island, however, that Y/N found there to be an issue. In all the excitement, or terror, of being separated from Haru and the others, and possibly murdering Sparky Sparky Boom Man, the gang ended up hiding out on Ember Island.

Spirits, did Y/N love the sunshine. The sand? Not so much, nor the swimsuits. Nevertheless, she much preferred it to Aang’s beloved ancestral temple.

“Okay,” Zuko said as they all collected together in the house, “So there’s a bit of an issue.”

“Fire Nation?” Katara asked, eyes narrowing.

“Worse,” Zuko said, voice grave. “There are seven of us, and only six beds.”

The teenagers all looked between each other with varying looks of embarrassment and disgust. It was Toph who spoke first.

“Well, I for one do not want to share a room,” She scoffed, stomping her foot – a reminder of her power. “I can already hear all of you when we sleep on the ground. I am not missing out on my chance for a quiet night of sleep.”

“That seems fair,” Zuko hummed as he pulled a hat off of a dresser. “Everyone else, unless they have some reason why not, will put their name in here.”

Sokka whined, pointing his finger at the heir of the Fire Nation. “Fine! But they should get the biggest bedroom.”

Y/N swore Zuko smirked. “Done.”

Sat on the floor watching him write names, the group waited anxiously to see who would be sharing a room at least for that night. Mixing up bits of paper, he seemed to be building up some bravado, akin to a showman about to pull a jackalope out of a hat.

“Sokka.”

The boy cursed under his breath as Zuko continued on with his little show, the piece of paper disintegrating as easily as a leaf floating in a breeze.

“And Y/N!”

She met Zuko’s eye, entire body hot, sending a psychic message along the lines of sprits, no, Zuko, no, please, Zuko, don’t do this.

Despite the fact that Y/N knew Sokka was only joking with his teasing, somewhere along the line she had ended up falling for it – for him. It was sudden and violent, the way a meteor crashed through the atmosphere, roaring, brilliant, and completely obliterating anything in its path. Currently, Y/N was that metaphorical meteorite, burning up and crashing into the earth.

Since Zuko apparently couldn’t read minds, she chanced a glance at Sokka. She expected some sort of joke, a quip, anything. Instead, he was deadly silent, stony in his face, staring too at Zuko. Was he blushing, or was she making it up in her head? This question soon slipped from her brain as she those baby blue eyes were staring straight at her.

Tui and La, Agni, spirits above; he hated her.

“Cool!” She said, though it came out more like a squeak. “I’ll see you tonight, I guess.”

“Y/N, we have the entire day before- “

She cut Suki off. “Yep, busy today! Busy, busy, busy. Plenty of strategic planning to do before the big day!”

And she was gone. Even Aang, renowned creator of the air scooter, had never seen a person move so fast, and Y/N wasn’t even a bender. In her haste, she didn’t catch the sly looks, nor the disapproving one courtesy of Katara. She definitely didn’t catch the shy grin on Sokka’s face, muddled with complete embarrassment. Getting as far away from the house as possible was her current goal, and she achieved it with insane speed – and longevity.

For an entire day, Y/N managed to see none of her friends, excluding Appa and Momo. Her animal friends seemed very concerned and very interested in her noughts and crosses diagrams in the black volcanic sand of Ember Island. It was only when Yue began to rise above the horizon that she thought it would be safe to come out. With what felt like a walk of shame, she trekked back to the beach house, a sleeping Momo cradled in her arms like a baby. Even Appa, who had been occupied with all sorts of made-up games throughout the day, was beginning to sway, eyes drooping, weighed down by sleep. Settling them down in the warm sand, Y/N climbed the wooden stairs.

Being quiet used to get her everywhere unseen; it didn’t work that night. Wordless, her friends’ good night wishes falling on deaf ears, she entered the biggest bedroom, alone. Falling face first onto the bed, she muffled a frustrated scream into one of the too many decadent pillows adorning it. Heaving herself onto her back, Y/N groaned dramatically with the effort it took. This bed was so soft. She tried to think of a more comfy, luxurious bed she had ever been on – and failed. The four-poster frame was casting odd shadows across the dark room. It felt especially lonely.

She felt especially lonely.

Sitting up, a low rumble filled the silence. Her stomach was apparently rather unhappy with the distinct lack of food during the day. Y/N had forgotten about that. She weighed up the options; go out and face embarrassment, or skip dinner for the first time in her life. Fortunately, she needn’t think long.

“So, everyone’s going to bed, and I remembered you hadn’t eaten.”

Sokka.

Of course.

“Oh,” Was all she could manage, mentally kicking herself for her utter lack of articulation. “Th-thanks, Sokka.”

Flicking on the light, the shadows no longer seemed odd, nor did the room feel lonely. There, in the doorway, stood Sokka. He was pretty – something that always took Y/N by surprise even though she saw him every day. Sure, he hadn’t grown into his gangly limbs yet, but he was getting there. His shoulders had gotten broader, his arms larger from training. She couldn’t help but imagine how comfy he’d be to lie against, how warm his hold would be.

“I brought snacks?”

Opening her mouth only to close it again, Y/N felt like a fish thrown mercilessly out of water. Instead, she managed a timid pat on the bed. He was slow to react, slower to move, and she only felt more inadequate. Whatever Zuko thought he saw at the temple was wrong.

“Wow, this bed is soft,” Sokka gasped, bouncing lightly on it like a small child. “It’s like sitting on a cloud!”

Y/N couldn’t stop the giggle that passed her lips as she took a slice of fruit from the platter he had brought in. For the briefest moment, infinitesimally small, Sokka ceased with his childish antics and just looked. Brightening, he seemed to thrive – delight – in her laughter, continuing to goof about with the numerous pillows and posh looking decor.

“Whoa.”

Y/N looked up at him from her laughing, stomach aching with joy. “What?”

“I didn’t know you could get prettier,” He said, brows furrowed, eyes sparkling.

She turned mute in an instant, feeling that all too familiar flush again, only this time it was close – more intense. Silent, she took another piece of fruit, eating it in moments, anything to give her time. “You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”

He frowned. “What? No. I’m not- “

“It’s okay if you are!” Y/N insisted, her smile plastered on and her heart aching. “I know you joke about with us all, and it’s just how you are. It’s not a bad thing, and I know you’re just joking and- “

“Y/N,” Sokka said, almost incredulous. “I’m not joking. I have never joked about that kind of thing with you.”

She stopped dead. “What?”

It wasn’t a question – well, not to Sokka at least. That one word was her address to the universe. It was astonishment, frustration, incredulity, sheer joy, so many emotions all wrapped into one simple word. The moments that passed between that word and their locked gaze spoke a thousand more words, sang a hundred more emotions.

“You didn’t know?”

Her head was empty. “Prettier?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Sokka chuckled weakly, moving the platter to the side.

“Prettier,” Y/N repeated slowly, looking up at him, “As in I was already pretty?”

“Erm, yes?”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Tui and La, yes.”

Oh.

“Okay,” She said, testing the waters, “And you like it when I blush?”

“Yeah, you look cute,” He admitted, sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Looking down, bashful, she recalled training with Zuko. “The word you used was adorable.”

No words came in response to that, only a gentle hand on her cheek. Guiding her face up, Sokka looked at her and saw her. Y/N could see him reaching for words that danced in his mind and away from his grasp, so many more pretty, teasing words he could say. But he wasn’t teasing, not really. He certainly wasn’t when he pressed his lips to hers. It was sweet and easy to melt into; she didn’t need to be shy, not with him.

They shared more sweet kisses, laughing under the moonlight in that fancy bed they got to share. Fruit, a bed, kisses; they shared them all, drifting into an easy sleep as the moon began to slip away into daylight. Basking in the prospect of a lazy morning, they made the most of it.

They weren’t even mad when they found out Zuko rigged the entire thing.

#atla #fic request #anon request #sokka x reader #sokka x shy!reader #the beach #sokka #platonic zuko x reader #fluff #aang #katara #toph #suki #oneshot #missturtleduck

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heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 3 years

Photo

Alright, so once again, this is the most recent post I could find vague blogging about me on her tumblr in regards to this specific issue so I don’t know where all the “Wow! heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon DID THAT?!” Anons are coming from here, or how those anons are aware that you even tried to submit me something, unless you’re just sending them to yourself to try and stir more trouble but just ....

Leanne, Leanne, Leanna Leanne.... I feel as though I must para-quote Gene Wilder’s character in Young Frankenstein here because just what is the matter with you? Like do you not understand the concept of hyperbole at all? Don’t you know a joke when you read one?

The entire reason I screenshot that ask this way was to show case the fact that color and formatting of the ‘t”, on what I didn’t know happened to be goth day just happened to match both the obnoxious eye sore color palette and theme of your tacky little blog, Princess.

The whole coincidence gave me the willies, so I was just making a funny, honey.

Although, apparently, you can’t comprehend my humor or my kindness because now isn’t that part of what got you into this mess in the first place?

“Luna” is for long time mutuals only. Don’t pretend like we’ve ever spoken more than twice, and don’t pretend like you ever gave a damn about my well being when you can’t even get my disability right. My correct name and minority status is written all over my blog. And to think you’re the one who bitched and complained to me about being called “Honey”.

I only found this on your blog because I have no way of responding to your original Submission even if I wanted to now because Tumblr seems to have eaten it (which, to that I say good riddance) and the only reason I found your Twitter is because it’s exactly the same as your gmail address due to the fact that you’re that basic. There wasn’t anything “random” about it.

“I would never send hate for no fucking reason...” Ah, but by that logic you would dish back hate to someone if you had a reason. So why would you like, concern troll me and chastise me for hate trolling someone when they gave me a reason?!

“And then to say that you that I would hack into your account? WHY??????? Why would I do that? I dont even know HOW to do that! YOU ARE TEARING MY HEART EMOJI APART LUNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Again, honey, please calm down and teach yourself how to form a coherent sentence, learn the concept of what a hyperbolic joke is, leave your fandom(s) and get a freaking life.

I thought you were my friend too until the night you pulled that shit with me, respect that I blocked you and frick off.

And for the love of God, stop “joking” about writing smutty fanfics between you and Al and getting “married” to him and delete all of Angel’s pictures from your blog why don’t you!

Your obsession with all of us is beyond unhealthy.

“I know that you have reason to listen or believe me...” Honey, I know that when you were typing this your little crocodile tears were hitting the keyboard so hard that you couldn’t even form a coherent sentence and you need to shut the fuck up. (Also SIDE NOTE of how Cletus and Striker are like, the worst Helluva Boss characters to have “taste” in: Some sleazy little man baby and an ever only slightly cooler and more tolerable Wild West Reincarnation of Toffee, I should have known you were like this. Oh and that Vampire Chick from RE7 everyone including yourself is into right now is like if Eclipsa was a freaking Fairly Odd Parents Pixie and Meteora would have her daughters for a snack, both figuratively and literally. Die Angry About it.)

I had two whole interactions with you and I wanted to beat that bunny fursona of yours down with a tree branch Lilo and Stitch style the second you hopped into my ask box that night and 4 days later you gave me an excuse to. I only found out about the shit that you were putting my friends through when Orn started vague blogging to me about what you were doing to them after I exposed you as a snake in the grass arse little bitch and they had no reason to try and White Knight you.

In starlatte27’s case she was just tagged to help attack me by the same stalker that you were going out of your way to defend and latte blocked me before I could even so much as figure out who she was, meaning we didn’t even have an “altercation”, her existence to me personally at that point was merely a blip that served to cause me more disorientation and stress, but I knew she was just as much of a bitch as you were before my friends did and now you’re both causing them immeasurable harm in comparison to what I was put through and you both need to delete your blogs after you apologize. NOBODY WANTS YOU TWO IN THIS FANDOM!

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in reading you reiterate your excuses for your racism and gross mistreatment towards my friends to me, nor do I care for your off putting arse attempting to have some sort of petty, infantilizing, paternalistic, para-social relationship with me!

Angel and Al, may I add, haven’t been online in weeks because of you and starlatte27, and now you’re only trying to get to me because I’ve still been available online and you’ve been bored. And if I had the capability and privilege of doing anything other than sitting, I can tell you that I certainly wouldn’t be in front of a computer right now if I actually even had the option not to be ether.

And for your information, being able to meet Angel and Al, at least out of all this mess in the first place, has been the only good experience that I’ve had within in this fandom thus far and their presence on my dashboard only makes my day brighter, I willingly shared my experiences with them to let know they’re not alone in all this shit.

Stop being a sleaze to Angel just because he’s more attractive than you and clearly not white passing, and delete all his photos from your blog.

Stop being a skeeve to Al and stop making “jokes” about marrying him and your jokes about smut because that’s actually beyond the conception of “cringe”.

Stop infantalizing me and acting as though you have some weird parental para-social relationship over me or some shit when I’m freaking three years older than you are, apologize to all three of us before deleting your accounts and dropping off the internet why don’t you and then leave all three of us the fuck alone!!!

I can tell how the little twit whom said this to me the other day has certainly never met you.

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boldly-ho · 4 years

Text

Another Life - Chapter 20

Fandom: What We Do in the Shadows

Pairing: Vladislav x Reader

Series Rating: E

Word Count: 2172

Chapter summary: I hate chapter summaries. It’s chapter 20. If you’re here, you’ve made up your mind to follow the story no matter what the summary says, anyway.

A/N: I’m so, so sorry for the delay. I had a family emergency in Iowa after the derecho. (It’s all ok now, though, thankfully). Then, of course, when I got back to the land of electricity, I spilled water on my keyboard and had to order another. So here it is, two weeks late, but fully intact. Enjoy! As always, this is cross-posted to AO3.

Your glove filled with dishwater as you submerged it in the full sink, hunting for a fork you’d dropped. You grimaced to yourself as you pulled the full, wet glove off of your hand and dumped the soapy, rust-colored water back into the sink. You’d heard Deacon say it before, and he was right: This was bullshit. You made a mental note to propose to your flatmates that everyone wash their own dishes immediately after use, and replace it on the chore wheel with something, anything, else.

These bloody dishes shouldn’t have to be your responsibility. Wasn’t this a biohazard?

“How did it go tonight?”

Deacon’s sneaking into the kitchen used to startle you. Now, you were used to it, always half-expecting to find a vampire behind you when you turned around.

Reaching into the bloody water with your bare hands, you pulled the plug, letting it all drain away. You wiped your hands on a dishcloth you assumed must have been white at some point as you answered, “It was fine.”

You had gone out earlier this evening. It was only a grocery run, but it still felt fairly momentous. It had been the first time you’d been out after dark since the night you’d almost been killed. Eaten. As none of your flatmates had accompanied you, you wore your silver cross pendant outside of your shirt, keeping any potential vampires at a distance.

It had actually been Viago’s suggestion to wear it visibly unless you were with them. You weren’t entirely comfortable with displaying the necklace, but you weren’t entirely comfortable being eaten, either, so you did what you had to do. It had made you feel secure enough to venture out, though you could practically hear your heart pound with anxiety the entire trip. But now, safe at home, having done it once, you felt confident it wouldn’t be so scary next time you went out at night.

Baby steps.

“Did you wear your necklace out?”

You nodded in response. “Any fun plans tonight?” You didn’t overly care. What his plans were. You would be going to bed in an hour or so anyway. Mostly, you just wanted to change the subject. You knew Deacon meant well by asking after you. But it felt odd, his checking up on you. Deacon was hardly a comforting person. Your friendship with him wasn’t tender. You cared about him, of course, but your friendship was built on laughter, goofing off, and general immaturity. His caring tone was enough to drive you mad.

He shrugged. “I don’t know about fun. Vlad and I are supposed to go out and get some victims. We should go soon, though, since I’m meeting Jackie in a few hours.”

You still hadn’t seen Vladislav tonight. Glancing at the time, you remarked, “It’s getting really late. Is he still sleeping?””

Deacon shrugged again. “Maybe. He sleeps in sometimes. But if he doesn’t wake up soon, I’m going to leave without him.”

“Go wake him up, then.”

“No way. You’ve woken up Petyr, right?”

You nodded.

“Vlad’s worse than that.”

You thought back to the time you woke up Petyr and decided there was no way that was true. You shrugged off his hyperbolic explanation and offered, “I’ll go wake him up.”

Deacon snorted and rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

As you went upstairs to Vladislav’s room, you smiled to yourself. That had felt better. Normal. That was how you and Deacon were supposed to interact with one another.

You knocked gently on the bedroom door. You were trying to wake him, not scare him half to death… again. “Vladislav?” you called softly. There was no response. You knocked again, calling slightly louder, “Vladislav?”

You pushed the door open, expecting to find him sleeping away in his black coffin. Instead, the room itself was unrecognizable. Granted, you’d only been in there once, on that night you were sneaking around, but you were fairly certain the room had been different. For example, you remember there being objects in there. A coffin springs to mind.

Now, there was nothing but red silk and velvet as far as the eye could see. And the eye could see quite far. You’d only been in here once, but you knew the room hadn’t been this big. The whole house was barely this big. And up in the far corner across from the door, you saw Vladislav laying on the ceiling, three of the most gorgeous women you’d ever seen– succubi – writhing on and pawing at him, among other things. Though the sight was jarring enough, it was nothing compared to the sound. A mixture of masculine and feminine moaning, sighing, and heaving breathing assaulted your ears.

Your eyes widened as you registered what exactly they were seeing. “Oh my g-“ You stopped yourself from saying the g-word before you caused your flatmate- and possibly the succubi?- to have a negative reaction. “Sorry!”

You pulled the door shut quickly again, feeling your face reddening. How did this keep happening? At least the last time it happened, you’d walked in before anything had started. And it was only the one succubus. Not so, this time.

The door swung open again, revealing Vladislav is his trademark, post-fuck red robe. You kept your eyes glued to his face, and to his immensely tousled hair, in order not to see anything more that you shouldn’t. Though, it was unnecessary, as you could see in your peripheral vision that the succubi were gone and the room was back to normal.

“Sorry!” you said again, though it came out more like a squeak, your heart still hammering in your chest.

“What?” he asked, ignoring your apology. He seemed as nonplussed as always, not at all acting as if he’d just been interrupted mid-orgy.

“How did you…” you trailed off, now fully looking past him into his apparently size-changing bedroom.

“How did I what?”

You met his serious gaze and dropped your question entirely. “Deacon wanted to make sure you were awake. For finding victims together.”

“Right. I forgot. Tell him to give me twenty minutes.” With that, he returned to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving you alone again in the hall. You heard the moaning resume, now loud enough to be heard through the door.

You returned to the kitchen, picking up haste until you were practically speed walking through it. Your face was heated and you were flustered, naturally. That’s not a great way to great Deacon, though. You entered through one door, saying quickly to your flatmate as you passed, “He’s busy. Twenty minutes,” and exited out the other door, never looking up from the floor as you did so.

You sprinted back up the stairs to your own room, passing a concerned looking Viago on the way, as Deacon’s uproarious laughter echoed in your ears.

At least someone found it funny.

“Ooh, where are you going all dressed up like that? Got a hot date?” Dawn teased.

You rolled your eyes. You couldn’t remember the last time you had a hot date. Literally.

“Not unless you’re talking about yourself. We were supposed to hang out tonight, remember? Hit up some bars? It was your idea.”

She threw you a bewildered look. “Yeah, but I didn’t think we should anymore. Especially not you.”

You returned the look. “Am I missing something? Again?” You’d meant the last word as a joke, but it ended up feeling like a knife twisting in your gut. Still too soon to joke, you surmised.

“Girls are going missing in Wellington; girls who look like you. Mostly from clubs and bars. They think it’s a serial killer. How have you not heard about this?”

“What!”

Dawn tapped away at her phone before turning it towards you, pulled up to a news article about the topic at hand. You snatched the phone from her grip.

“When did this happen?”

“News broke two days ago. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. But people have been disappearing for two weeks now.”

“I wonder why two weeks…” you said quietly, more thanking aloud than speaking to Dawn. You actually turned to her and added, louder, “Glad we haven’t been out in the past two weeks.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

You scrolled through the article. Five women missing in two weeks. Three last seen in clubs, one last seen walking in Wellington central, and one that was reported missing after not showing up for work. Horrifyingly, each of them looked like you. Same skin color, same hair color, same eye color, similar height, similar build...

And you were about to go out clubbing for the night. Goosebumps formed on your arms and legs. This surely constituted a good reason to keep up with current events if ever there was one.

You wondered, momentarily, if this had anything to do with you, or, at the very least, the you from your forgotten year. Probably not. How could it? These disappearances had only been happening for two weeks. You’d begun to remember things much longer ago than that. It was just a horrible coincidence.

You’d just have to be careful going out from now on.

Still, you thought back to the missing person poster that had nearly bowled you over when you’d seen it. She hadn’t looked like you, but it did seem odd that you may already have a connection to a missing person…

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Viago hissed under his breath, though his voice still floated up from the lounge.

You stood at the the top of the stairs, around the corner in the hall, and just out of sight. You had been on your way downstairs, but Viago’s hushed voice had startled you. Thinking he must have been talking to you, you opened your mouth to answer him before shutting it once more when someone else downstairs replied.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vladislav was unaffected, monotone, and seemingly uninterested. Still, you got the impression that he knew exactly what Viago was talking about.

“Are you trying to be a jerk? With our heightened hearing, I could hear trying to wake you from all the way downstairs. You just let her walk in on you like that, and don’t say otherwise. Were you just being an exhibitionist or were you actively trying to upset her? What the hell is the matter with you?”

You. They were talking about you. You weren’t sure whether that weakened your right to eavesdrop or strengthened it. You stayed put.

Vladislav dropped any pretense of ignorance and answered coolly, “Humans become infatuated with vampires all the time.”

You felt your heart sink. It wasn’t disappointment. It was embarrassment. You really didn’t think you’d categorize sometimes-attraction to your flatmate as infatuation, but you felt slighted and humiliated that it was so openly discussed and disregarded when you weren’t present.

Viago scoffed. “Really?”

“What would you call Katherine?”

“Hey, now! Don’t be a dick.”

You weren’t sure if Deacon had been present the entire time or if he had just walked in. Either way, his defense of Viago told you that bringing up this Katherine person, whoever she was, was hitting below the belt.

“So you are just trying to be a jerk,” Viago sighed. “I don’t know why. Even if humans do fall for vampires all the time, it’s not as though vampires often fall for humans.”

Silence from the lounge.

Eventually, Deacon snorted, breaking the silence. “I think you guys just need to fuck.”

Viago sighed.

Vladislav remained silent.

“I don’t know whether that little stunt tonight was meant to piss her off or turn her on, but either way it was incredibly stupid, even for you.”

“Hey!” Vladislav protested.

“You’re different with her. You were so kind to her after you rescued her from that other vampire. I never saw you treat the Beast that way, not once.”

The Beast?

Vladislav scoffed. “The Beast would have never welcomed such treatment from me anyway.”

“Maybe. But I never saw you offer it.”

“Y/N is my friend. She was traumatized. You’re reading too much into things, looking for subtext where there isn’t any. This is real life, Viago, not one of those big, ugly books you always have your nose buried in. So what if she walked in on me having sex? You’ve all walked in on me having sex before! I have sex a lot! You’re making something out of nothing.”

“Either way,” Viago said, “We all have to live together here, Y/N included; so you can’t go around purposely antagonizing people, no matter what the reasons are.”

“The reasons are that he’s horny! I say you go upstairs, walk into her bedroom, and tell her you’re there to fuck. Her legs will open before your sentence is finished.”

You heard a soft, hollow thump, as though someone had hit Deacon upside the head. You recognized the noise from all the times you had hit Deacon upside the head. You smiled softly.

#what we do in the shadows #wwdits #vladislav #vladislav x reader #another life #al fic

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toziers · 5 years

Note

can you explain what's going on right now? i keep seeing big IT blogs talking about some discourse or something but i have no idea what they're talking about other than it involves you lol

alright i like. i truly do not like having diScOurSE out in public because i’m not one to air out my dirty laundry 24/7 but seeing as how it was brought into public against my will i feel like the least i can do is clear up the situation for those who’ve been seeing the posts.

i’m putting this under the cut bc it’s long. tws for some biphobia, brief mention of transphobia and, at the end, a rape mention.

so if you don’t know: hi, i’m migz, i’m an it fandom blogger. its okay, i know, its really cool. part of my shtick here is that i like to turn normal thirst tags into works of art for the sake of comedy. perhaps you’ve seen some of my highlights from my “fhg” tag - perhaps your brain has been spared. either way, it became kind of “my thing” around the third or fourth week (mid nov) of me having this blog. at first, i tagged just about every ask i got mentioning the thirst tags with “bill hader” - they had to do with him, so why not tag him? it would draw more like minded people! about two days into that i got a message asking me to tag my nsfw. i am a big dumb idiot, and apologize for not initially doing it. i havent had a following bigger than like 10 in several years and completely spaced on basic etiquette. so by the end of november i was tagging everything applicable with “notsfw” and “bill hader”.

now you’re caught up.

on december 1st i got this message from user billhaderanti:

now i want to start by saying i absolutely was in the wrong here. i didn’t even think about how many people were being subjected to the asks i was getting - especially ones who had no idea they were all jokes. i don’t track the bill hader tag, so it just didn’t even occur to me - that’s ignorance on my part, and to anyone who was subjected to the terrors of me before my tagging system: i am genuinely sorry. i relay the same sentiment in my response, though you can tell i’m on edge.

and they replied:

clearly they Were offended by it but thats.. not the point. at this point, im feeling Really weird about the whole interaction, but still understanding, because again - i GET it. i know my posts are gross - that’s the point. it doesn’t make it excusable, though, which is why i understand why people are offended. so i responded with the only solution i Knew would keep us both safe and happy posting on our own blogs.

so i thought this would be the end of things! i’d been pretty anxious lately already since i’d started to receive anons telling me i was gross and whore-ish for thirst posting in this way (i delete all of those, so if ur thinking about sending one, i guess no one’s stopping you but it won’t be seeing the light of the dashboard). i’m unsure if it was immediately or a few hours later, seeing as how i have a bad concept of time and the post-dates are right on the edge between nov 30 and dec 1, but i went to their blog - because anyone who has been on the internet knows the opportunity to vague post is near irresistible. and...what do ya know

fair! it’s their blog. however i am an emotionally fragile egg girl and immediately got freaked out. the odds that they were the only one who thought this were low. and, again, i’ve been very open on my blog about how important it is to respect boundaries; my posts are absolutely prone to breaking those boundaries people have created for themselves.

so i made my own, semi-vague post, letting my following know (and i’m pretty sure i’d answered asks about it before, but this is going to be long enough w/o me searching those up too) that i understood if they wanted to block me or unfollow or whatever - people need to create their own safe spaces. the tension is pretty clear in the tags, i’m not trying to hide that. i felt that the way this woman slid into my dm’s was pretty abrasive (just my opinion/how it made me personally feel) and i let myself be a lil emotional about it in the tags of my post.

alright! maybe this is the end. maybe we both go our separate ways and post happily on our own blogs... except it’s not the end. later in the day (some of this was happening like 1/2am, so now its Day day, i believe - again, not good w time passage lol)

clearly, i’m upset. my groupchat double checked that i didn’t get too emotional in my response - did i mention im anxious about discourse lol - and apparently.. it did the trick. she didn’t message me again. great. it was over.

at this point, i decided i needed to make an even bigger change. so a few days after i’d calmed down i created an entirely new tag for my thirst posts so if people hadn’t already hidden the notsfw posts or just blocked me outright, they’d have a third option to escape the madness. at this point, id had my blog about 6? weeks, but there were still 2k posts for me to sift through - some of them were completely untagged. i also had to do it post by post, because one of xkits features - the mass re-tagger - was getting blogs deleted for some reason, and i wasn’t going to do that. so i spent a few days going through all 2k+ posts, adding the “fhg” tag.

YEEHAW! a brand new tagging system, no more hopping into the bill hader tag (minus one or two really funny, not super explicit asks, like the bill hader farquaad meme), and, tbf, i’d completely put this woman out of my mind. i don’t seek out drama and do my best to stay in my lane. yesterday, i checked my activity for the first time in awhile since id put out a couple new original posts that had started to get traction and i Love reading tags. i noticed a mutual had @’d me, and realized i havent checked my @’s in...ever, maybe. i see a post from my good pal billhaderanti.

since i dont follow them and never check my @’s, i’d completely missed it. however, once i did see it, i was horrified. id gone through all that fucking work to keep my blog My Blog and also respect everyone’s boundaries and it still hadn’t been enough. i’d been awake for almost 24 hours and went. a little crazy. and i didn’t reply immediately because i just had no words. i sent it to my friends because i... i just wasn’t going to be able to figure it out myself.

there’s a lot to unpack in this post alone, but whatever, i’m gonna put my own grievances with the immaturity of 1. making a callout post to begin with when i’d been nothing but civil 2. making a callout post about something as (in the grand scheme of Life) minor as some tags where i refer to a someone’s genitals as a “whack pack” and 3. making a callout post in such a rude way - aside. at the end, she calls me (and whoever else!) a demonic mlw (man loving woman, we assumed, and then later confirmed with a post further back on her blog).

which - yeah, we started scrolling. at first we were looking for more vague blogs, and then we just...started finding things. billhaderanti is a self proclaimed lesbian separatist, which... fine. but it’s already pretty clear that this woman hates me on some level simply because i am a bi woman (demonic mlw, remember!) which is just. damn man i can’t believe we are still fighting the biphobic fight lol. so the more we scrolled, the more we uncovered - and not just the biphobic / vaguely mtf transphobic things they posted (or put in tags), but we also found that they had their OWN thirst tags. certainly not as hyperbolically comedic as mine, but they were there, talking about his body and his person the same (and, frankly, a bit creepier for other reasons) as mine.

there’s one post in particular that snatched my wig in it’s creepiness - and i say creepiness in the sense that it feels personal. like this woman feels like she knows bill to some degree where she can say these things. my tags have always had a sense of distance, as they’re written for humor. and maybe this particular post was written for comedic purposes, but it doesn’t read that way, and if it WAS, then she has no right to call ME out for MY comic tags and posts.

i’ll let it speak for itself, mostly because i don’t want to read it again.

i also won’t be going through her blog again to find the posts with biphobic and other Interesting:tm: tags because there are plenty and i just really! want to be done with the whole ordeal! her blog is public and i’m sure you can all find it and look to your heart’s content.

feeling a bit feral and a bit pissed off now that we knew the depth of how rotten this woman’s vibes were, a couple of my pals made a post or two similar to what my tag’s are like except turned up to eleven (if possible) - and tagged them with “bill hader” (and notsfw!!). yes, a bit childish, but at this point, the entire situation was childish, and making jokes was truly the only way we were going to get through it. another vague post went up on her blog soon after.

talking down to us, calling us children, and then for whatever reason calling us virgins... whatever, weird post. around this time most of us (est) went to bed, because it was nearing 3 or 4 in the morning.

and then today happened. i woke up fresh and ready for the day after a wonderful 4 hours of sleep and found that jane had made an incredibly intelligent post in response to the situation. i won’t ss it, but i’ll LINK in case you missed it. attached there in the reblog is my own response. i think they can speak for themselves.

after that, things were kind of jumbled, since i wasn’t online a lot and when i was i was Not checking my activity simply because i was afraid of what i’d see. for the most part, it ended up just being support (which i am very grateful to all of you for - it means a lot that you all enjoy my content to any degree).

there was some more vague posting from both “““““sides”””””” of the “““““argument”””””” - mostly just people restating the fact that this is a public space and we should All be aware of how we effect others. i still hadn’t heard directly from billhaderanti, so i assumed we’d all be dropping and disengaging and moving on. i still wasn’t blocked, though, so who really knew what would happen.

eventually, it culminated in this last post. tw for mentions of rape

i’m going to start by saying that

1. there are nearly no teenagers that were involved in this. im turning 23 in january and most of my friends are 20+. maybe one or two are 19.

2. none of us sent any sexually violent asks - most of us didn’t send asks at all. i believe one or two of my friends admitted to sending asks however they assured me their nature wasn’t bad; as far as i know, everyone remained civil in whatever went on (again, unclear to me as to what was being sent; no one was actively posting or talking about it. if billhaderanti wishes to elaborate, they can, but i don’t have anything to put in).

3. before i finish this, i would like to apologize to billhaderanti. as a comedian - not just my stupid tags, i mean in real life, too - i know that humor can hurt. it’s not always funny, it’s not just stupid hahas. sometimes things that are supposed to be jokes just hit people differently and cause bad things. i recognize that. i never meant to trigger you (if you’re reading this) or cause you any severe mental/emotional harm. i apologize for my humor bringing up your trauma, and i never meant for that. regardless of my own thoughts and opinions about the nature of my posts/the thirst tags themselves, they hurt you, and i’m sorry.

anyway, i’m going to wrap this up (i’m bad at endings, what can i say! steven king and i took the same writer’s class!). if you read all this... sorry. i probably won’t be taking any asks about it, because i find the whole “drama” of this to be stupid and rooted in some seriously biphobic issues this fully grown woman has.

tldr; i attempted to contain my blog so this woman could exist and function safely on her blog, but it wasn’t enough for her, so she called me out, and then some of the fandom called Her out for being biphobic and mean and overall just immature about the situation. as of now, she’s yet to block me, though her and her wife have blocked a few of my friends. her wife continues to clown on my friends. this post was made for clarity’s sake. the end, i’m getting a drink.

#discourse #biphobia tw #transphobia tw #rape tw #ok goodbye im done with this im back to #only posting gay clown movie #Anonymous

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negasonicimagines · 5 years

Text

Hyperbole

request: “Could I request a fic where Reader is an accident prone person and keeps messing up trying to be a hero and is portrayed as a villain but has good intentions and keeps trying to explain that they aren’t bad and Ellie is the first person to believe them and then they get close cause of that???” + “I would like to request a fic where reader is new to the school and is having trouble with bullies and classes and Ellie finds them having a break down and a ton of angst and general hurt/comfort ??? Sorry if this is a lot”

synopsis: When everything you say comes true and people do whatever you say, you have to watch your words. You do the best you can, but sometimes you get too comfortable and forget. No one believes that your intentions are pure… Until one day. Even after that, though, life isn’t perfect.

author’s note: These requests seemed to fit really well together, I hope y’all don’t mind that I combined them! Sorry if the ending isn’t the greatest, I kinda pushed myself through some writers’ block with that one so it wasn’t perfect.

warnings: Nothing that isn’t standard to X-Men. (No incest while Wolverine creepily watches, though, so I guess this has less content warnings than X-Men.)

Since you found about about your mutation around four months ago, all you’ve ever wanted is to help - but when you asked that bank robber to just stop and he collapsed dead, you were immediately labeled a villain.

“You don’t understand, I’m trying!” You told the Avengers at the time - they approached you first - but because you told them that, they didn’t understand and may never.

Sure, there’s times when you’ve been able to do the right thing. You can coax a cat down from a tree by simply saying “The cat in front of me is safely in its owner’s arms,” and perform other such small acts of kindness, but they never seem to outweigh the major fuck-ups that have you written off as a bad person.

Until today.

“We just want to help you, Hyperbole,” Professor X himself says, rolling towards you.

“Stay back!” you warn, and his hands freeze on the wheels.

You look at your World History teacher, dead on the ground. You’d told a friend that her brain’s the size of a pea, and it was so.

“I didn’t mean to,” you tell them. “It was an accident.”

“I’m sure it was,” Cyclops scoffs.

“It was!” you protest, eyes welling up with tears. You hate this - you hate being on the run from your parents because you off-handedly said they’d kill you when they found out about that quiz you failed a couple months ago; you hate that your best friend still eats worms after you joked she eats like a bird, you hate all of this and just want it to go away. Your powers don’t work on paradoxes, though, so it’s not as simple as saying “I’m not a mutant anymore.”

“How?” a girl asks. She’s one of the newer ones, closer to your age. You can’t remember her codename.

“Negasonic,” Colossus warns. Right, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, like the song.

“Well, everything she says comes true, right? So if she says it was an accident, then it was. What happened?”

“I said that she has a brain the size of a pea. I- I wasn’t even thinking about it,” you explain, shocked that someone is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt. “People do what I tell them to do, too. So, when I told Professor X to stay back because I didn’t want to hurt him…” You gesture to the man.

“Your first kill…” the professor breathes, looking to you in realization. “You told him to stop.”

“Yes, I just wanted to help; wanted him to stop robbing the bank,” you agree, nodding eagerly.

“And the Empire State Building?”

You choose your words carefully, not wanting to repeat the incident: “I said that there was a stray mutt the size of the goddamn Empire State Building wandering around New York. Next thing I knew, Thor was striking the Empire State Building with lightning and the Fantastic Four were wrangling a giant dog. It was an accident, it’s always- It’s often an accident.”

“Thank you for reminding us all that it’s important to give our fellow mutants the benefit of the doubt, Miss Phimister,” Professor X commends the drop dead gorgeous girl who believed you. “What is your given name, Hyperbole, and can you make it so that I can move closer?”

“You can move however- You can move as you choose to move,” you tell him. “My name is Y/N. My name is Y/N L/N.”

Professor X suggests to you that you do your best not to speak until you get into the habit of speaking carefully on the flight to the school, and you practice his advice, communicating in writing, gestures, and with Ellie, texts. You’ve been at the school for about a week, and she’s your only friend so far.

Y/N: Thank you for believing me.

Ellie rolls her eyes. She cares for you in her own way, but that doesn’t mean she’s not annoyed that you’re constantly thanking her. It makes Ellie feel… Chivalrous, and a strange feeling bubbles up in her chest when you gaze at her in that way you do.

“It’s not a big deal. It’s rough having a mutation where it’s easier to hurt others than to help them. I get it, that’s all.”

You give her an insistent look. It’s easier to talk with her over text, so at least there’s that. If you had to talk to her verbally, you’d be a blushing, stuttering mess. With this, all you have to do is shoot her some expressions and type whatever you want to say.

Y/N: It’s a big deal to me.

Her resting face (translation: scowl) intensifies, and her cheeks turn a little pink with what you assume is frustration. You don’t want her to be angry enough with you to abandon you, so you quickly apologize.

Y/N: I’m sorry.

Her eyes linger on her phone screen a little longer than it takes to read the message as she sighs, annoyed expression fading.

“It’s fine. I’ve just got P.E. next period, not looking forward to it.” It’s true that she doesn’t enjoy the strenuous physical activity that is training, but what she’s truly upset about is how absolutely perfect you are. The only reason she vaguely stands a chance is because you’re too nervous to put yourself out there, for some reason.

Against her own selfish desire to have you for herself, Ellie says: “You should try to make friends in your next class. Some okay people are in there, they just don’t know you’re… You.”

You nod - not sure what she means by that - and the both of you finish your lunch in silence before heading off to your separate classes.

You don’t actually go to your next class, though, fucking off to the roof of the school. The judgmental glares and unintelligible whispers you’ve received this week drive you nuts; you just can’t stand it all.

You miss home.

You run back inside before you’re any more tempted to do something that Ellie might regret - you know she only bothers with you so that neither of you are completely alone - dashing down the stairs until you find your shared dorm, eyes blurred with tears. You sob and sob, not sure how long it’s been but all of the sudden Ellie is there.

She doesn’t say the things she “should,” she knows. She doesn’t shush you and tell you everything’s okay, because she’s always thought that was stupid; telling you to shut up and that your problems don’t exist as a method of comfort is ridiculous.

“What’s going on?” Ellie instead asks, and you weep more because you can’t just tell her without potentially fucking up again. “Right, dick move, okay, uh… Just- Just let me know what I can do when you can.”

Her presence alone is comforting when it comes to coping with all of this.

You continue to sniffle and shake, but your tears subside and you’re able to write on your whiteboard.

Everyone hates me

“I don’t hate you.”

For now but once I fuck up

She grabs your hand to keep you from continuing to write, and you could drown in the depth of her eyes.

“The more you worry about that, the more likely it is to happen. Trust me.”

Okay then I have you for now but that doesn’t make me any less stupid

“What do you mean?”

I tested into that stupid AP English class and I don’t understand any of it at all

“That doesn’t make you stupid, it’s AP. You can get a class change, you just have to talk to the teacher.”

TALK

...Accompanied by a glare before you erase the board.

I just fucking hate it here I miss my real life I miss my real friends and my parents

“Your… Real friends?”

You know what I mean

She scoffs. “Yeah, I do.” Her expression’s illegible, but your best guess is done with you.

And then she walks out.

You know you’ve fucked up, but you don’t follow her. You don’t deserve her friendship, you don’t deserve any of this - good or bad. You don’t deserve anything.

You lay back on your bed and just stare at the ceiling. You wish you could just stay like this, silent and not hurting anyone. Not even yourself. You’re drenched in misery, sure, but you’re in so deep it almost feels like nothing; like those last moments of drowning before everything slips away.

You can imagine what your friends would say to this:

“Come on, I’m eating worms and you’re the one who’s depressed?”

“Seriously, calm down, Y/N. You’re so overdramatic.”

Sure, they’re not the greatest friends, but they were all you had and you feel you owe them for that. You miss them. As you think about it, though, you realize that Ellie hasn’t said anything like that. She listens to you. She relates to you.

You can’t believe what you reduced her to, even if you didn’t do it consciously.

“Hey.” She’s back. Why is she back? You don’t deserve her. You don’t sit up. “You’re not supposed to have shoes on the bed,” she remarks. You don’t even scoff, which tells her your funny bone isn’t working, which tells her you feel even more like absolute shit than you did earlier.

She kicks off her shoes and takes yours off for you, laying next to you on the bed.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her, and she tries not to let her shock show. Your voice is raspy with lack of use, so you clear your throat. “I’m sorry,” you say again, now stifled by your throat tightening. She’s been here for you the whole time and you weren’t even careful about what you said in writing. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too. This is… An adjustment. For both of us, honestly. I should’ve been more patient.”

“You’re already more patient and understanding with me than anyone else.”

“So?” Ellie asks, head turning so that she can look at you better.

“What do you mean, so?” You scoff, smiling in confusion as you face her. “You don’t- You don’t often invalidate my feelings, that’s already more than I’m used to and more than- More than I feel I deserve.”

“Getting better already,” she notes, the ghost of a smile on her face. “And what I mean by ‘So?’ is that even if I’m not a complete asshole all the time, that doesn’t make me a perfect person. No one is.”

“That’s fair,” you admit. “But-“

Ellie looks at you pointedly and you blush, turning back so that you’re flat against the pillow. She feels something warm inside as she observes your side profile, and not the typical fire of anger that she feels when looking at a person because everyone’s just so fucking obnoxious and- She wants to kiss you.

She turns back to look at the ceiling, like you’re doing, cheeks on fire as well. The tension is awkward, to say the least, but there’s something intimate about just laying here together. She pulls you closer, not on top of her but nestled in her side. You adjust to the position, but don’t say anything, instead balling up part of her loose tee shirt in your hand that happened to rest on her stomach.

“Hey, Y/N?” Ellie nervously starts, and your eyes hesitantly cut up to her. “Do you wanna go see a movie or something, sometime? Together?”

“Sure?” You’re confused and slightly disappointed, you’d expected a more serious question - for better or for worse.

“I- I meant, like, together, like…”

“A date?” You ask, and the fruit appears in your hand. You offer it to her, and she shakes her head, failing to hold back an amused smile. You whisper something about it going to someone who needs it.

“A date,” she agrees. “And- And maybe neither of us will go on dates with other people?”

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” you wonder, unable to contain your glee. A blush spreads across your cheeks and a smile spreads across your lips.

“Yeah,” she confirms - clearly a little embarrassed - and you know that there’s at least one thing your lips can do that won’t cause damage. You rise up to her level from where she had you tucked under her arm, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

You return to your original comfortable position quickly, of course, as to not make out with the wrong part of her face; however, she pulls you back in for a kiss in the place you do want to make out with - at least, the one on her face. You respond eagerly as her fingers tangle in your hair before you eventually part, sitting up.

All you have to say is: “Wow.”

Ellie nods.

“Like… Wow.”

Ellie nods again.

“I’m the one who’s not supposed to be talking, so please say something-”

“Something,” she blurts.

“...Before I fuck up and do something like that.” You huff out a laugh. “Maybe- Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I really don’t- Don’t want that kind of control over you. Over anyone, but definitely not someone I’m dating.”

“I trust you. And- And I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I’m sure you’re aware that that means a lot coming from me. Don’t worry.”

You wish she was the one who was able to make you do whatever she wanted so that it’d be easier for you to not worry.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she reassures you, and you can’t help but break down again. Sure, you’re happy that a hot girl with a fantastic personality is now your girlfriend, but that doesn’t cure you; doesn’t make you feel like you deserve it. Only one thing can free you from what you are, and you’re not that daring. “I- Uh, I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, face hidden in your hands, and she wraps her arms around you. It’s a bit awkward, sure, but the embrace is appreciated.

“Sorry- I’m sorry, I just- I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeatedly apologize, sobs garbling your speech.

“No, no, don’t apologize. It’s hard, I know it’s hard. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” she consoles. “I’ve got you.”

“But- But what if I…?” You remove your hands from your face so that you’re able to meet her eyes.

“You won’t,” she says, sounding like she truly has all the faith in the world that you won’t. You’re not entirely reassured, but…

This is enough. She is enough, more than. You nod, and she pulls you closer now that you’re not shielding your face. The both of you recline on the bed for-

For you’re not sure how long, but long enough for you to feel at least better, even if things aren’t perfect; even if you aren’t perfect, and yet everything’s perfect.

That’s an idiom, though, not a hyperbole.

52 notes · View notes

quinnybee-writes · 5 years

Text

Title: Fire Meet Gasoline

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Rating: T+

Part: 6/?

Story Summary: A chance encounter between a villain and vigilante leads to an unwise deal made between unlikely allies; an unwise deal made between unlikely allies ends in a final stand neither would have ever dared to take on alone. Together, though, they just might have a fighting chance.

Part 6 Summary: Favor number two tests the patience of one and the mettle of another, leaving uncertainty about both in its wake.

Part 1 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 2 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 3 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 4 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 5 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 6 on AO3

I swear to god if if I have to sit through one more meeting where I get voluntold to pick up another department’s slack in the same sentence as management trying to cut my intern’s hours I’m going to chug a two-liter of Surge and burp so loud I bring this whole mfer down with me.

Shouta stared at his phone, his sleep-addled brain trying to make sense of whether Yamada meant the text as a threat or not. He’d been catching a quick power nap in the back of his truck during his lunch hour and had been most of the way asleep when the rattle of his phone on the metal floor jolted him awake again. Not helping his attempt to dissect the meaningless hyperbole was Yamada’s follow up text of lmao it u along with a gif of a cat trying to jump from a bed to a dresser and falling halfway with the caption “parkour!”. He wouldn’t put it past Yamada to be the type to threaten in one breath and quote a meme in the next, but he couldn’t wrap his brain around why Yamada would be sending him incriminating evidence via text message during work hours.

Two new messages came in quick succession as Shouta was trying to puzzle things out.

Oh my god

Those were supposed to go to my sister holy shit

So not an admission or a threat, just an idiot with a cell phone. Shouta groaned, eyes rolling back in his head in disgust at how much energy he had wasted on taking Yamada seriously yet again.

forget it Shouta sent back.

Cute cat pic for ur trouble? Yamada replied along with a picture of a gangly black cat with bright yellow eyes. The cat was sprawled on its back in a pile of kibble and the shredded scraps of a cat food bag. Shouta snorted, grinning a little in spite of himself at the self-satisfied look on the cat’s fuzzy little face.

cute he texted, trying to distill as much exhaustion and disinterest into the single word as possible.

That’s Ai-chan. She’s a monster, but she’s my monster <3

So what are you up to? Break from work?

Shouta sighed, rubbing his temples. It was impossible to freeze out someone who was so willing to keep the conversation going without outside input.

trying to catch some sleep before afternoon deliveries Shouta replied as pointedly as he could.

Oof. Busy night?

do you need something? Shouta asked, stabbing the send key a little harder than he really needed to. There was a short, offended pause from Yamada’s end of the line; Shouta could picture him looking down at his phone with that little not-quite-pouting moue he always made when things weren’t going his way.

I guess not.

The curt punctuation seemed to signal Yamada had finally gotten the point, just in time to exhaust the last of Shouta’s free time before he had to get going again. Shouta put his phone into his pocket and made a point to not check it again until he was walking home. Waiting for him was another gif, this time of a pair of hands vigorously shaking a bottle of Surge, followed by a message that just said Oh goddammit. Shouta rolled his eyes and deleted the thread without replying.

The perceived slight only kept Yamada at bay for a short time, however. Now that he’d gotten a taste of the man’s texting habits Shouta had to wonder how Yamada managed to get anything done. No matter when his breaks were during the day it seemed like Yamada always had some new meme or gif or general workplace complaint to gift him with in the meantime, whether it was before dawn or after dark or occasionally both.

do you actually have a job or do they just pay you to bother me? Shouta finally asked as he waited at an interminable red light several days later. Yamada had been on a spree that morning, flooding his inbox with an illustrated play-by-play of Ai-chan’s newest misdoings while Shouta had four straight hours of back-to-back deliveries.

Excuse you, Yamada texted back loftily, I am an integral part of station management! Who occasionally may or may not take extra long bathroom breaks to avoid getting roped into being more integral than I already am.

my bad. clearly you’re just doing your part to prevent asahi radio from being razed via belch Shouta replied, snorting out a laugh before he could stop himself. He paused, frowning. That was both new and unwelcome.

Yamada sent back a long line of laugh-crying emojis followed by Look who grew a sense of humor just in time to drag me!

don’t act like you know me.

Yeah, yeah. Scout’s honor, I won’t tell anybody you’re actually funny.

Shouta scowled, dropping the phone onto the seat next to him and pulling through the light as it finally turned green. Despite the chilly weather he rolled his window down to get some airflow on his face. He hadn’t turned on the truck’s heater yet but his cheeks already felt way too warm.

Shouta spent his next day off drinking too much coffee at the cat cafe while he tried to reign in the chaos that his computer desktop had become. His phone buzzed on the table beside him and Shouta swiped in the passcode with one hand while the other was dragging a huge load of defunct backup files to his computer’s trash. He’d sooner walk into traffic than admit it to Yamada, but having a passcode on his phone was turning out to be less of an inefficient hassle that he’d always thought it would be and did make him less anxious about putting it places that weren’t his pocket or his hand.

As if waiting for the thought to cue him in, the alert was for yet another of Yamada’s early-morning memes. This time it was a gif of a kitten trying to stay awake before it wobbled and flopped out of frame. Yamada’s accompanying caption read That midweek feeling hitting hard today along with an emoji of a sleeping face with a snot bubble.

it’s monday Shouta texted back.

When you work 24/7 it’s always midweek, Yamada replied.

implying you work at all. still not convinced.

I resent that, Aizawa. It takes a lot of skill and determination to shovel this much shit and still have spare time to be a full-time pain in the ass.

Shouta almost allowed himself a laugh at that, but the air caught in his throat at Yamada’s next question.

So, do you do all of your important hero research on the public wifi at kitty cafes, or is today a special occasion?

What do you mean? Shouta asked warily.

Behind you.

Shouta turned slowly, dreading what he knew he was about to see. Yamada was standing on the sidewalk outside, grinning at him over the top of his cell phone. He gave Shouta a little wave before sauntering in and up to the counter. He chatted amiably with the baristas as they made his order. Shouta frowned to himself, trying to work out the quickest way to pack up his belongings while disturbing as few sleeping cats as possible. The moment came and went too quickly, however, as Yamada came over with two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Black with one sugar, right?” Yamada said. He slid one of the steaming mugs in front of Shouta. “That’s what they said anyway,” he added, nodding up towards the counter.

“What are you doing here?” Shouta asked coolly. Yamada frowned at him.

“I was on my way to the post office to mail a couple things and empty the station P.O. box and saw you in the window,” Yamada said. “I figured we could sit and chat since we both have a minute.”

“You just kind of assume you’re welcome wherever you decide to be, don’t you?” Shouta said.

Yamada snorted. “If that’s the worst thing someone tells me about myself today, I’ll count it as a win,” he replied, toasting Shouta with his coffee cup. He invited himself to sit down in the only chair not currently occupied by cats. “Wait, is that a spreadsheet with my name on it?” he added with sudden interest, arching his neck around to peek at Shouta’s screen. Shouta slammed the lid of his laptop shut, feeling his face heating.

“Do you need something?” Shouta asked, trying to redirect the conversation and get Yamada back on his way as quickly as possible.

“Just caffeine and conversation,” Yamada shrugged. “Is it illegal to ask someone about their day?”

“Implying you care about whether or not you’re doing something illegal,” Shouta replied curtly. To his annoyance Yamada just chuckled and shrugged.

“I mean, you’ve got me there,” he said. “So, what are you working on?” Yamada added, lowering his tone just slightly.

“Catching up on some things,” Shouta said, intentionally vague. “Organizing research. It takes longer when you’re doing it on your own.”

“I bet,” Yamada agreed. “Would probably save you some time and effort to have a permanent back door into places you’re not supposed to be, huh?” He said it with a too-even speculation that set Shouta instantly on edge.

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Shouta said.

“I know people who know things,” Yamada said with a broad, conspiratorial grin over his coffee mug. “Keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is a lot easier when you can tell which is which.”

Shouta felt a frisson of discomfort run up his spine at the implication of where Yamada considered him to be on that spectrum. “I think I liked it better when you were threatening me,” he muttered. “Don’t make more of that than there is,” he added quickly as Yamada’s smile grew cheeky and he opened his mouth to comment. Yamada did his annoying little not-quite-pouting pout and let out a quiet “hmph” at his joke being preempted.

“In any case, you probably don’t need me to tell you how to crack a secure password,” Yamada said. “Even when they’re clever they’re usually related to either the one who sets them or the thing they’re locking up, or they’re something pseudo-random cooked up by a number generator. Sometimes they get stupid-clever and try to do all three.”

“Mmn?” As bored as he was trying to sound, Shouta couldn’t help taking mental notes on what Yamada was saying. Yamada was a flippant trouble-maker from the word go but there were moments where he displayed actual talent for the things he claimed to be an expert in.

“Oh yeah,” Yamada said. “They’re trying for layers of security, but too many moving parts makes passwords way easier to out-think. Codes are only as smart as the people who write them, y’know?”

“And you know how smart they are?” Shouta asked, trying to keep his tone casual as he goaded Yamada into staying on a roll. Yamada caught his drift a little too well, however, and the sharp, meaningful grin came out again.

“I know people who know things,” he said again. “I’d be willing to let you in on a few trade secrets for the low, low price of a certain five-letter word beginning with ‘f’.”

Shouta snorted. “Hard pass.”

“Well, I tried,” Yamada said, shrugging. He checked the time on his phone and sighed. “That’s about my lot, I’m afraid. Gotta get back before the world ends.” He stood and stretched with a groan. “We should do this again sometime. Maybe talk less shop.” The offer seemed oddly genuine and Shouta wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.

He tried to get back to work after Yamada left, but his concentration had been thoroughly broken. He bought another coffee and turned on some neutral background music; his brain, however, was no longer in the mood to stare at a screen and try to riddle out what his new sub-folders should be called. Finally Shouta dislodged the many cats who had taken up residence in and around his lap and packed up his laptop to see if fresh air on the walk home and a change of venue might help get him back on task.

Shouta nudged his apartment door closed with his heel, scooping the mess of envelopes out of his mail bin. It was mostly the normal jumble of junk and bills, but amongst the shuffle was a thin white payroll envelope with his name and address on the front in too-familiar spidery handwriting. Just going to empty the station mailbox indeed, Shouta thought with a groan. Yamada was way too fond of theatrics. He tossed the envelope onto his sofa without opening it and delayed paying it any attention until he’d put everything away, showered, and had a lengthy play session with his cats. If it was unimportant enough for Yamada to not just hand it over when they were in the same room together, Shouta told himself, then there was no need for him to bend over backwards to pay attention to it the instant he got home.

Finally his excuses ran out and he tore the envelope open. Inside were two pieces of paper folded separately into sharp thirds. The first was a handwritten note on Asahi Radio letterhead that read:

Aizawa-

I need a favor. I have a line on something but doing it alone might be tricky. You’ll just be the go-between, nothing dire. Meet me Friday, 9pm sharp.

-M

Also included was another of Yamada’s meticulously notated hand-drawn maps, at the other end of which was a complex of storage units bordered on all sides by a spike-topped chain link fence. Shouta peered into the dark, abandoned-looking guard booth, wondering if the first step to tonight’s goings-on was having to find his own way inside.

“Hey, you made it!”

Shouta turned to see a dark-haired man slouching up towards him from the other end of the sidewalk. He eyed the man warily, about to say he had the wrong person, but stopped as he stepped into the light and raised his sunglasses with a smirk. Yamada had stuffed all of his hair under a short, spiky black wig and a black and green snapback, slicked down his mustache and covered it in a thin layer of skin-colored makeup to blend it in with his face, and buried himself in baggy jeans and a jacket that made him look both heavier-set and a few inches shorter than he actually was. The only things that gave him away were his sharp too-green eyes and his unmistakable grin, full of crafty smugness at Shouta’s open surprise at his appearance. Yamada did a full turnaround of the odd costume, ending the twirl with a dramatic pose.

“Not a bad look for me, huh?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

Shouta snorted. “You look like a washed-up pop star who’s trying to pretend he still has to avoid the paparazzi,” he replied flatly.

To his surprise Yamada let out a burst of full-throated laughter at the remark. Shouta wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Yamada laugh in genuine amusement before now, only the occasional mocking chuckle or triumphant snicker. He had a loud, whinnying kind of laugh that tapered off into short bursts of wheezy, hyena-like giggles behind his hand as he remembered himself and tried to tamp it down.

“Okay, cynical,” Yamada said, still coughing through the last of his laughing fit. “Everyone’s a critic.” He rolled his eyes and gave a flourishy “well, what are you gonna do” kind of shrug. Shouta scowled at him.

“What are we doing here?” Shouta asked, doing his best to ignore Yamada’s grandstanding despite the growing burn of annoyance creeping up his face.

“Just a quick jaunt into my evil lair,” Yamada said cheerfully. He punched an entry code into the number pad next to the guard house, then pressed his thumb to the scanner underneath. The keypad flashed green and beeped an affirmative, and a small portion of the gate swung inward. “C’mon,” Yamada said. He motioned for Shouta to follow him as he led the way through the rows of squat cinder block units to one in the very back left corner of the lot.

“People with money can afford secret basements and underground boltholes wherever they need them,” Yamada said over his shoulder as he bent down to unlock the door of the unit, “but the rest of us have to make do with what we’ve got.” He lifted the door just high enough for himself and Shouta to duck under, then set it back down with a clatter. The unit was pitch-black and humid inside and smelled like a mixture of burnt-out electrical parts, solder, and partially cured epoxy glue. “I’ll get the lights, one sec,” Yamada said. Shouta heard him scrabbling along the wall to find the light switch, then a click. A fluorescent shop light flickered and buzzed to life above them, flooding the unit in intense blue-white light. Yamada turned to Shouta and spread his hands wide. “Taa-daa! Welcome to the inner sanctum.”

It looked more like a high school shop room that had sublet space to a thrift store. The left wall had been covered in a cluster of flat-pack bookshelves, their shelves bowing under a jumble of storage boxes labeled things like “radio parts-LIVE”, “speaker wire”, “tape--sticky”, and “tape--magnetic”. The back wall was one long anchored shelf divided into slots that held overstuffed file folders bundled together with rubber bands and binder clips. The only wall not covered in shelving or projects was taken up with a butcher block work table and a cork board with scribbled notes and schematics pinned to it.

“Kind of rinky-dink, but it gets the job done,” Yamada said fondly. “Anyway. First things first, did you happen to wear the stab vest I gave you?” he asked over his shoulder as he ducked under the work table and retrieved a box marked with today’s date.

“Yeah.” The assurance that his part in tonight would be “nothing dire” had put Shouta on high enough alert that he’d forced himself to put pride aside and opt for personal safety instead.

“Thank god. So, basically what I need is for you to be my stand in while things get underway tonight,” Yamada said. “I’d go on my own, but the meeting place is kind of a...no-go area for me right now due to certain people who frequent it.”

“And you’d rather send me in looking like you instead?” Shouta asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Yamada stared at Shouta like he’d started speaking French.

“What? God, no, what gave you that idea?”

Shouta sighed, silently counting to ten in his head as his patience frayed. “You just said I’m supposed to be your stand in.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, poor choice of words. Think stunt double, not body double,” Yamada explained. “I just need you to be a good-faith warm body, I’ll be handling the rest with this.” He reached into the box and pulled out something that looked like a cold weather mask had been extruded into a large funnel shape at the bottom edge. Shouta looked from it to Yamada, who was beaming in obvious self-pride.

“Which is…?” Shouta prompted.

“Which is your half of a two-way radio with a built in broadcasting speaker,” Yamada said, turning the top edge inside out to show Shouta the wiring and speakers sewn into it. “At first I thought maybe I could just have you memorize a script and I’d step in if things got too off-book, but you’re not very good at lying under pressure so I wasn’t sure that would fly,” he continued. Shouta wasn’t sure if that was meant as an insult or not. “So instead, we have this to work with. I can use this--” Yamada pulled up his sleeve to show a tiny microphone taped to the inside of his wrist-- “to talk to you or talk as you, depending, as long as I stay within ten or twelve feet of you at all times.” The last part he said in one of his uncomfortably accurate impressions of Shouta’s voice.

“And that’s why you’re dressed like that?” Shouta said.

“Exactly. I’ll have to be close enough to you that the receiver can pick up the signal, and it’ll be way easier to read the room if I’m, y’know, in the room.”

“If you were going to put on a costume and go anyway, why didn’t you just do that and go on your own?” Shouta asked.

Yamada frowned and waved a finger at him like he was scolding a child. “Eh-eh-eh. No questions asked, remember? You know as much as you need to know, and you don’t need to know any more than that. Now stand still so I can get you wired up.”

Shouta grudgingly stood with his arms straight out from his body as Yamada turned him into a human switchboard. With a combination of strategic placement and gaffer tape Yamada ran a long wire with an audio jack on one end and a battery connection on the other from Shouta’s waist up his left side to just under his collar bone. Another wire ran the length of his inner arm from shoulder to wrist and ended in a loop with a switch on it that fit over the first knuckle of his thumb. All he had to do, Yamada said as he taped it all down, was press the switch when he needed to talk to Yamada and let it go when he was finished. “Y’know,” Yamada said, “like those cheap walkie-talkies you used to play with as a kid.”

“I ended up making this a lot bigger at the bottom so that we can hide all of our crimes under it,” Yamada muttered as he slipped the mask over Shouta’s head. He was back in the extreme focus mode Shouta had seen him slip into before, attention laser-focused and the corner of his mouth between his teeth as he connected all the wires and power sources underneath. He pulled an earpiece up under the mask by its wire and stuck it in Shouta’s ear before reaching up to fuss with Shouta’s hair and make sure it was hiding everything sticking above the mask. Shouta shivered involuntarily at the touch, barely resisting the urge to pull away. “With the right top layer all of this should be more or less invisible,” Yamada went on, frowning appraisingly as he took a step back to examine his handiwork. He rummaged through a few things in the box and surfaced with a heavy black zippered jacket. “I had to guess sizes, but I think this one should be close enough.”

Yamada unzipped the jacket and held it out so that Shouta could shrug into it. Shouta eased the jacket on, trying not to disturb the network of wires all over him. Yamada zipped it up almost to the top, open enough to seem casual but still high enough to cover all but the face portion of the mask and its contents. It wasn’t a terrible fit other than being slightly short in the sleeves and restrictive around the shoulders. Shouta bent and twisted his arms, trying to stretch it out without doing damage to the electronic infrastructure. Yamada untied the audiojack end of the main wire from Shouta’s belt loop and stuck it into a small cheap-looking disposable cell phone.

“This should have enough battery to keep a recording of the whole thing,” Yamada said. “Can you give me a quick mic check to make sure everything’s hooked up?”

“Uh. Testing,” Shouta said.

Yamada seemed to like what he saw in the waveforms on the phone’s screen. He smiled in satisfaction before stretching a piece of tape around the back of the phone and carefully taping it into place in Shouta’s pocket. “If we head out right now we should get there early enough to do a few on-site checks,” Yamada said, checking the time. “Shall we?”

The two of them walked a few blocks from the storage unit to a cramped, dim little pub. Yamada walked at tailing distance behind Shouta the whole way, testing the range on the homemade gear by giving Shouta directions to where they were going. The audio was relatively clear if they stayed within Yamada’s estimation of ten or so feet; after they hit closer to the twelve-foot mark it got fainter and fainter until dropping out completely as they reached about fifteen feet. Again Shouta had to wonder why, if they were essentially going to be handcuffed to one another anyway, Yamada couldn’t have just gone undercover by himself.

“Grab a drink at the bar and go sit at one of the high-top tables,” Yamada said as Shouta opened the bar’s door and made his way in. “That’s where he’ll be expecting you.”

“Any advice on how to recognize whoever I’m supposed to be meeting?” Shouta muttered back under his breath.

“No idea, he said he would find you. That’s pretty standard for a meeting like this,” Yamada added before Shouta could protest. “Nobody wants to get jumped outside before negotiations even get underway. Think of it as a blind date, but nefarious.”

Shouta sighed loudly, making sure he hit the switch so that Yamada would hear him. Yamada’s never-ending supply of bad metaphors was the last thing he needed right now.

“Calm down, Aizawa,” Yamada said. “Remember, all you have to do is sit there and look pretty, I’ll handle the talking.” There was a short fizzle of static as Yamada entered the pub and made his way to a secluded booth in the back corner. “Still read me?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. What’s your poison?”

“Pardon?”

“Beer? Wine? Shot of whiskey to settle your nerves?”

“You really want alcohol anywhere near all this equipment?” Shouta asked, bewildered.

“It’s just for show, who goes into a bar and doesn’t order anything? You shouldn’t drink anything they serve here anyway, their bartending is a bad joke,” Yamada said dismissively. “I just need to test the audio output and make sure we’re good to go before the main event.”

“Then just do it,” Shouta said shortly. “Didn’t you just say you were going to handle all the talking?”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Yamada muttered again. His usual flippant chill had gained an undertone of cranky tenseness that was less than reassuring. “Can I get a bottle of Sapporo?” Yamada said aloud in Shouta’s voice. Shouta just managed to turn toward the bartender in time for the question to seem natural. The bartender, a smirking woman with long brown hair held back in a red ribbon, gave him an appraising once-over. She seemed to be unimpressed with what she saw.

“Sure,” the bartender said. She reached into a cooler under the counter and came back with the bottle of beer, popping the lid off before placing it on the bar in front of Shouta.

“Thanks,” Yamada said, far more cheerfully than Shouta had ever said the word. Shouta nodded his own thanks and went to go sit at one of the high tables in a cluster near the front. He drummed his heel on the bottom rung of the bar stool. The bar was basically empty and silent other than the bartender’s phone playing lo-fi swing music from a speaker dock behind the bar. Otherwise it was just Shouta and his undrinkable beer killing time.

“Ohshit.” The words came out as a single noise hissed violently in Shouta’s ear, making him jump.

“What?” he hissed back, avoiding the curious look the bartender was giving him.

“Remember how I said there were some people who made this place a no-go area because they want to kill me?” Yamada said, sounding like he was talking through his teeth.

“Yeah?”

“That’s them coming in. Don’t look at them! Have you never been undercover in your life?” Yamada whisper-shouted as Shouta turned to look over his shoulder at the door. Almost immediately he snapped his head back around, trying to be as casual as possible about pulling the jacket’s hood over his head as he saw Takeshiro and his wife coming in and sitting a few tables away.

“You know them?” Shouta asked, hopelessly hoping Yamada actually meant someone else who was still outside.

“Ye-ep,” Yamada said, distaste drawing the word out several syllables longer than it needed to be. “They’re still kind of sore about a certain scene in a certain alley you might be familiar with.” He scoffed, then hissed, “Wait, you know them?” as Shouta’s tone dawned on him.

The alleyway. Shapes in the dark played back in Shouta’s head, fuzzy from time and panic but falling into clearer place with the new context. A short, stringy figure barking orders and bailing when things got complicated; the other taller and stocky and silent with a plant-based Quirk protecting him. Shouta gritted his teeth, annoyed by how clear the connection seemed now that it was right in front of him.

“Takeshiro works on the night crew in package processing. Takes a lot of sick days now that I think of it. I’ve never actually spoken to his wife but I’ve seen her at office parties before,” he said quietly.

“His wife? Ew,” Yamada said.

“You’re telling me they’re villains?” Shouta asked, ignoring him. Yamada snorted.

“So-called. They work for an egomaniac middleman called Seguchi. Hebiko is Seguchi’s left hand, and Takeshiro’s hers.”

“What did you do to make them want to kill you?”

“Their boss did something stupid with information that wasn’t his and got busted. I had nothing to do with it,” Yamada retorted tartly.

“Right, sure,” Shouta said. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“Nah, shouldn’t be,” Yamada said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “This is why I planned things this way. No reason to bail out before anything happens.” Shouta was about to protest that it made a lot more sense to leave before there was a problem rather than scrambling when they were in trouble, but Yamada spoke first. “Heads up, you’ve got company.”

“So you’re Null.”

Shouta turned to see a lanky man with brownish hair and a narrow, rattish face standing slouched behind him with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his grubby jeans.

“Potentially,” Yamada replied. “You’re Raimaru?” His impression of Shouta’s voice was dead-on, which was bad enough on its own, but there was something just slightly off about his intonation that made Shouta’s skin crawl.

“That’s what they call me,” the man said. ”Getcha a refill while we talk?” he added, nodding at Shouta’s obviously untouched beer.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Shouta fiddled with the neck of the bottle to make it seem less like a static prop on the table in front of him. Even if Yamada had been against the idea of giving him a script to follow, some guidance on what to do in general might have been nice. He felt stiff and awkward, like a puppet whose puppeteer only had a vague idea of how natural movements worked.

“Suit yourself,” Raimaru shrugged. He ambled off to talk to the bartender, seeming to be doing his best to chat her up as she mixed his drink.

“‘Null’?” Shouta muttered to Yamada.

“Short for ‘nullify’, like your Quirk. Get it?” When Shouta just sighed in reply, Yamada added defensively, “Well, I had to call you something, didn’t I?”

“Did you?”

“What did you want me to say, ‘oh by the by you’ll be meeting my friend Shouta Aizawa, he’s thirty, single, a Scorpio, and lives in a single-occupancy uptown with three cats’?” Yamada retorted.

He technically had a point and Shouta hated that the most out of all the things he hated about this evening so far. Yamada had no time to gloat over the win, however, as Raimaru came back and dropped onto the stool across from Shouta.

“Kind of a hassle, having to be the face of cleaning up all of your boss’s bad behavior, huh? From what I’ve heard he’s got plenty to go around,” Raimaru said. Shouta privately agreed with the sentiment, but Yamada snorted instead.

“I get paid to go where I’m told, not to pass judgements,” Yamada replied stiffly. Shouta resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the defensive bluster. Raimaru laughed for him.

“I dunno about that. There’s plenty of judgement to go around if you want some,” Raimaru said. “Seems like the only books he can get into these days are peoples’ bad ones.”

“You think he gives a damn about anyone’s books other than his own?”

“I’m just saying I know a glorywhore when I see one. He spends all of his time making deals and playing nice and then suddenly people higher than him start going to jail,” Raimaru said. “Happened to Fukawa, happened to Seguchi, happened to Iwata. Hell, everyone knows he snitched and got Hanajima back in the day but Hanajima got shanked in prison and all his men scattered so nobody talks about him anymore.”

Shouta squirrelled the names away to research later, though other than those names Raimaru had said precious little to convince him that he knew much of anything besides Yamada’s surface reputation. So far his assertions had been vague at best and his “work, am I right?” tone was suspiciously chummy, like he was trying to nudge “Null” into letting something incriminating slip out.

“Why is any of this relevant?” Yamada asked. He sounded equally short on patience with Raimaru’s unsubtle attempts at currying favor. Raimaru gave a slightly passive-aggressive shrug.

“There’s a storm coming. A big one, one that’s gonna hit hard and rewrite a lot of rules about who’s in charge and who’s got a boot on their necks. You’re not gonna be in a great spot if you’re working for the Bird, so I thought you’d wanna know there’s better options,” he said. It was the first thing he’d said that sounded like he actually knew what he was talking about and it was not a reassuring change. Yamada, however, seemed unfazed.

“What, some new jumped-up ‘super’ villain with big plans for a criminal utopia?” Yamada said, unimpressed. “Seen ‘em come, seen ‘em go, nothing of value was lost. You asked me to come here because you had something valuable you wanted to trade. Is that still the case, or should I head out and stick you with the tab for wasting my time?”

“So, that’s a ‘no’ from you?” Raimaru asked, still grinning like someone had wired the corners of his mouth behind his ears.

“I didn’t hear a question being asked, but…” All of a sudden Yamada’s voice trailed off in a fizzle of static. Shouta tensed. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Yamada, who met his eye with a look that was not quite panic but was very, very close to it. Yamada tapped his ear questioningly. Shouta twitched his head to the side in a negative. He saw Yamada mouth “Shit!” before his attention snapped back to the problem in front of him as Raimaru let out a short chuckle.

“Never a good idea to use radio signals around me,” Raimaru said smugly. “They usually end up a little...dead.” He casually brought the hand that had been under the table to rest on its surface. It was holding a large pocket knife, which he casually flicked open and closed as he spoke. All of the plastic had been stripped off of the knife, leaving behind just the blades and metal guts holding them together. As Shouta eyed it, the blade began to glow a smokey orange around Raimaru’s fingertips.

“I think we’re done here,” Shouta said, trying to match the off-cadence way Yamada had been using his voice all night.

This only seemed to egg Raimaru on, however, as he cranked his Quirk up another notch. Shouta felt a static prickling like the kind before a huge lightning strike setting the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck on end. A tinny shrilling feedback noise whined through his earpiece, making him jolt and hiss in sudden pain. Shouta gritted his teeth and set his own Quirk on Raimaru instead. A hasty decision, it turned out, as a sudden crash of noise hit him all at once. Yamada’s voice half-shouting in his ear was interlaced with loud snaps of static as the equipment reconnected. Shouta winced at the onslaught, clapping a hand to his ear before he could stop himself. The moment of distraction was all Raimaru needed.

“So the Bird’s doggy wants to bark, huh?” In one fluid motion Raimaru threw what was left in his glass in Shouta’s eyes and hooked a foot under the bottom rung of Shouta’s stool, yanking it from under him. Shouta toppled to the floor, landing hard on his ass and elbows as he futilely tried to catch himself as he fell. He blinked hard, tears streaming as his eyes burned with whatever had been in that glass. Raimaru grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him partially upright.

“Things could have gone better for you, but it looks like the Bird just likes making things difficult,” Raimaru said.

Shouta dug his fingers into Raimaru’s wrist, trying to wrestle himself free. Raimaru smirked, a violent shock sparking off of his skin and into Shouta’s arm. Shouta let out a bark of agony as his entire arm below the shoulder seized and went numb. Someone else’s hand, large and thick-fingered, ripped his back by the forearm, twisting his hand back and up between his shoulder blades. Shouta stiffened. He hadn’t heard Takeshiro or his wife approaching during the scuffle but it was obvious now they had him surrounded. He thought of the alley and the way they had closed ranks around Yamada, accounting for every avenue of escape except for a one-in-a-million outside intervention. Shouta darted a look over to Yamada. Their eyes met for a split second that lasted an eon. Yamada’s eyes were wide and his face had gone deathly pale as he took in the scene in front of him. He was frozen half in motion, caught between breaking cover to come help and his desire to steer clear of Takeshiro and Hebiko. Shouta’s stomach sank as Yamada dropped his gaze, hunching in on himself and pulling his hat down farther to hide his face.

“Last chance, doggy,” Raimaru said. “That signal was too weak to come from very far away. Point us in the right direction and we’ll let you go, no hard feelings. Otherwise we send you back to your master in pieces.”

He leaned in as he threatened, and Shouta took the opportunity to show him how close was too close. Shouta reared back, then rammed his forehead into Raimaru’s nose at full force. As Raimaru reeled back, Shouta slammed himself back into Takeshiro, sending the man spine-first into the edge of a table. Takeshiro grunted in pain and Shouta twisted away from his grasp as Takeshiro tried to catch himself. Raimaru sank his fist into Shouta’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him, but Shouta managed to activate his Quirk again before Raimaru could shock him. Shouta retaliated with a sharp hook, jamming his fist into Raimaru’s solar plexus with as much force as he could muster. As Raimaru doubled over Shouta grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed him face-first into the table.

“All right, ENOUGH!” the bartender yelled. She was floating above the bar with a warning look on her face, a thin metal pipe leveled at Shouta’s head. Shouta looked from her to Takeshiro and Hebiko, who had backed off behind their table again, to Raimaru, who was staring up from under his hand with undisguised disgust as he bled onto the table. Shouta took a moment to catch his breath, then released Raimaru. Not bothering to see if Yamada would follow, Shouta took the moment of peace to walk out of the bar.

The night air was cold and made his face feel closed in and sticky under the mask. Shouta jerked it down under his chin, sucking in a hard breath. The adrenaline in his veins felt like a cloying, choking compulsion to just run, escape, flee as fast as he could in any direction that would count as away. His lungs burned nearly as badly as his eyes, every new breath feeling like a sharp stab in the chest. A strange itching slightly farther down his abdomen joined the pain in his chest as he half-sprinted down the sidewalk. Shouta looked down and froze mid-step. The bare metal handle of Raimaru’s knife stuck out of his stomach at an almost perfect perpendicular angle, jammed in so far that the tip was pressing the rough kevlar of his stab vest against his flesh.

“Ho-ly shit that was a whole bunch of something.” Shouta didn’t look up from the knife almost in his gut as Yamada’s voice crowed out behind him. He felt Yamada digging in his pocket and retrieving the cell phone. “Could have gone better for sure, but also could have gone worse.” Yamada gave Shouta a cheery smack on the shoulder. “You and I make a pretty good team, huh? C’mon, let’s go find a nicer place to grab a bite and hang out until things die down.”

He paused like he fully expected Shouta to agree and follow after him, but Shouta was barely listening. His mind was still trying to process the knife handle sticking out of his stomach. The night “could have gone worse”? Raimaru had almost made good on the threat to send Shouta home in pieces while Yamada cowered in a corner booth, more worried about being seen than being helpful, and Yamada was congratulating himself for a job well done.

“Aizawa? Earth to Aizawa? Hey, are you okay? You’re shaking.” There was a note of real concern in Yamada’s voice as he reached out a hand to steady the trembling in Shouta’s body.

The idea of Yamada making any kind of physical contact snapped the last bit of sane civility Shouta had left in him. True fury, hot and fast and scraped raw by everything that was running through Shouta’s head, boiled over in his chest. He swung wildly at Yamada, hoping to make contact but hoping more just to fend him off as violently as possible. Yamada yelped and jumped backwards, hands coming up to protect himself.

“Whoa! What the hell--?” Yamada began, but Shouta was already swinging again. He wanted to make Yamada bleed, make him feel even half as agonized and afraid as he did right now. Yamada stumbled away from him, eyes wide in shock and confusion. His back hit the brick wall of a building and Shouta got right up in his face, Quirk blazing and teeth bared in a hateful snarl as he spoke.

“Let me be clear with this, so maybe you’ll hear it over the sound of your own voice,” Shouta said between clenched teeth. “We are not partners. We do not make a good team. We are sure as fuck not friends who hang out. You are a problem in my life that I am trying to solve. Get that through your thick skull and stop acting like we’re in this together.” He pulled the knife out and threw it violently at Yamada’s feet before turning on his heel and striding away as fast as his legs could carry him.

As soon as he staggered into his apartment and secured every lock and deadbolt on his door Shouta stripped down, dumping everything he’d been wearing in a heap in the entryway. Ignoring his cats’ cries for attention, Shouta went straight to the bathroom and ran the shower as hot as he could stand it. He could feel himself shaking now, the dregs of adrenaline making his legs weak rather than holding him up any longer. He sat down in his tub with the scalding water beating against his back, arms wrapped around himself. He looked down and saw a long irritated scratch rising on his stomach where the knife had dragged against him through the vest. Shouta let out a long, unsteady breath and closed his eyes. He’d been a vigilante for long enough to know that it meant going without any kind of help when things went from bad to worse to potentially lethal; until now not even his worst cases had shaken him like this. But those times he’d known the risk going in and taking it on had been his choice, which made all the difference. Yamada had known, though. Yamada had known they should have bailed as soon as their worst case scenario walked in the pub’s doors and he’d used Shouta as a human shield to try to get what he wanted anyway. Shouta gritted his teeth, nails digging into his palms as his hands balled into fists. He shouldn’t have expected anything less from someone like Yamada.

Never again, Shouta thought as he roughly toweled off. Yamada could keep his favors and his trade secrets and all the rest of it. He’d need all the help he could get, because as far as Shouta was concerned Yamada was on his own from this moment on.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #eraserhead bnha #eraserhead mha #present mic #erasermic #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #shouta aizawa #hizashi yamada #Fire Meet Gasoline AU #Quinny thinks she's a writer

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Justice Society of America #4 (1992)

Ultrahumanite exhibits all the characteristics of a man happy to be reunited with friends: cheerily laughing, bright happy expression, hands on hips, weirdly-shaped massive hard-on.

Forgive me for the erect penis joke but I felt it was in the tradition of Grunion Guy. You might find it funny if you knew how uncomfortable it made me to type it and how worried I was for a second that my mother might see it. But then I realized that if my mom saw it, it would mean my mom read Grunion Guy's blog, and then I almost threw up. That would be so embarrassing! Normally I would be on the side of the Justice Society of America because they are the good people with the good values. But how good are their good values if they are trying to stop a job creator and upstanding corporate citizen like Ultrahumanite who is just trying to run his Ultragen business the best way he knows how: with stormtrooper bodyguards to defend labs where they experiment on animal-human hybrids? Anything that hurts corporate profits is a bad thing for capitalism and the Justice Society of America should know that, being that they have "America" right there in their name. Although they also have "Society" in their name and that is a bird whistle for socialists. The bird whistle is the dog whistle of the left because it is more pleasant to listen to and it isn't aggravating or obnoxious and it makes the world a better place for everybody (except people who hate birds and probably own guns to shoot those stupid birds. Stupid birds. So dumb).

Oh no! Nobody warned these old timers that we aren't doing prison rape jokes anymore!

Wildcat has some great words of wisdom in that previous panel. It is the most scienciest science statement I have ever read (unless it was the mathiest math statement): "If X did not happen, Y would have happened! Thusly I have proved we are better than you! QED! In your face, Ultrahumanite!" Whenever I would lose a game of Dungeons & Dragons with my friends Bullpup and McGroover, I would say, "Oh yeah? Let's see you make a delicious sandwich!" Then they would back down and they would be all, "Yes, you are correct, Pickle Boy. You are the better friend with the most useful skills and we are only good at pretending to slaughter Kobold families for copper coins." That's pretty funny if you realize Dungeons & Dragons is about adventurers invading the lairs of creatures to steal their material possessions! Doctor Mid-Nite does not quip with the others because he might be dead. Do not forget these guys are really old! It does not matter how many muscles they have or what kind of cardio breathalyzer tests they can pass; they still have super old bones and a lifetime of clogged arteries. One slip or the slightest bit of extra exertion could mean Stroke City or Brokenhipsville for these cool cats! That is old person slang! It is very humorous!

Now they goof on his stutter? I am beginning to wonder who the real villains are in this story!

Look how happy the Ultrahumanite is! And these old guys have been nothing but bitter, cynical old winds from the butt! Plus he is a successful businessman and scientist who has created life! It sounds like he has turned over a new leaf now that he no longer has to steal bodies. I am not ignoring the laboratory full of hybrid creatures; I'm just going to assume that they were all volunteers until it is proven otherwise. You cannot go through life never eating the buttered bread that fell on the floor buttered side down! Ultrahumanite decides to recount his past for some reason. This made me laugh because I was thinking, "Yeah! They are old men. They cannot remember stuff from so long ago and also they have enlarged prostates!"

But which is actually worse: making fun of somebody's disability or sympathizing with Nazis? I've got some hard questions to answer!

Some things are unforgivable but one thing I think we can all agree to forgive is a hot woman who sided with the Nazis.

How does a huge ape body reflect the Ultrahumanite's desires? Please do not answer, "He loves to copulate with monkeys," because that's what I an suggesting by the question and you would look like one of those fools on Twitter who thinks they are hilarious by restating somebody's joke in a less subtle manner.

Ultrahumanite continues to explain how he became such a pillar of the business community. It is as boring as you would expect a PowerPoint presentation from a business man would be. That was probably the joke! Why is not the trademarked name "PowerPoint" two words? If you are going to bother capitalizing the second "P", you might as well just separate the words. Maybe it was somebody's online name when they were fourteen years old. It is always a smart decision to just run the two words together rather than separating them with an underscore. And it is easier to read when the second word is capitalized (as opposed to every other word capitalized or just the consonants. I do not understand young people). Nobody remembers to put underscores in when searching for a name online!

"Ultrahumanite! You are experimenting on innocent people, ruining the environment, causing unknown amounts of damage to the populace of every city where one of your labs operates but Ted Grant and the world just want to know one thing: was that hot Nazi body the real you because 'Rrrrrow!'"

You think I am making a joke but I don't joke about things that I don't joke about and one of those things is that Ted Grant has previously expressed interest in cultivating an intimate relationship with hot Nazi Ultrahumanite. Specifically, he said earlier that she "swept him off his feet." He only used that phrase so Al could make a joke about how they were hanging upside down so the sweeping off of feet is still happening. But I think, in his heart, he wanted to say, "She made me spontaneously become a man every time we wrestled. Is that okay under the Hays Code? Can I get away with that amount of innuendo?!" The Ultrahumanite has to go deal with The Flash who has literally suddenly appeared. Weird how the word "literally" is never actually needed when it is used properly. I guess using it in a hyperbolic and exaggerated fashion is really its only job. While Ultrahumanite is gone, Doctor Mid-Nite "double joints" his wrists to escape. I'm pretty sure Grunion Guy's wrists were double jointed by the amount of times he wrote about masturbating. He was a crude jerk but I still hope he rests in peace in that pauper's cemetery down by the toxic sludge factory. Doctor Mid-Nite takes on the guards while The Atom and Wildcat rush out to save The Flash who is The Flash and almost certainly does not need saving. While Doctor Mid-Nite is beating up the guards, he suddenly becomes a stand up comedian. Was I wrong to assume he was an actual doctor? Is that just his stage persona? I would tell you why his jokes were funny if they were but I cannot figure them out. Why is this an old joke (and if it is, why would he even retell it when it is nonsense): "I know you're out there because I can hear you breathing"? The Flash gets encased in some living green goo that absorbs heat and kinetic energy which might also be a definition of heat? I'm just a sandwich maker slash writer's assistant who has never once showed an ounce of curiosity about the real world so forgive me for languishing in my ignorance. At least I own a thesaurus. Back in Gotham City, Jesse Quick appears for a page or two to remind everybody that she exists. "Hello! I am the hot daughter of the infomercial guy! I have also deluded myself into believing a mathematical equation gives me super speed! It makes no sense!" Jesse takes some papers proving that Ultragen is breaking laws so the JSA has the right to beat the crap out of its CEO. For comedic effect, they have a little more confusion over Ultrahumanite's pronouns (which, to be fair, he has not expressed any preference for and doesn't seem to mind using whatever pronouns match the gender he seems to be expressing) before rushing off to punch her in the face. I don't know what pronouns to use either but she was a super hot Nazi so let's just go with that one.

See? She is a scientific genius!

At first I was all, "Oh, big deal! So The Flash is trapped in goo!" And then the Ultrahumanite was all, "You cannot breathe without oxygen!" And then I was all, "Oh no! I had not thought of that! Somebody save him, preferably an old guy from the JSA or I will feel cheated out of my hard earned buck twenty-five." I keep laughing at that previously scanned panel and how Wildcat and The Atom are hiding behind trees the way characters do in comic strips. So ridiculous! It is even funnier if you remember that they are old men! I bet you are laughing a lot more now! Doctor Mid-Nite arrives because he "smoke bombed" with his previous stand-up gig. Get it?! If you understood the play on the word "bomb" there and that I meant the fight against the guards when I said "stand-up gig," you would be cracking up like crazy!

Yeah. A smoke bomb! We all know that is where he keeps them!

The Flash breaks free and Doctor Mid-Nite punches Ultrahumanite in the nose, breaking it. Ultrahumanite is so vain that he falls to the ground, defeated! And that is when the Calvary arrives! That is funny because I used the wrong word and now you are picturing a crucified Jesus riding up on a horse to save the day instead of Green Lantern, The Flash, and Jesse Quick arriving on a Green Lantern construct! Justice Society of America #4 Rating: A. I have not read as many comic books as Grunion Guy but this one seemed pretty good in comparison to the ones I have read, like WildC.A.T.S. #1 and pick any issue you want of Youngblood. One more "What gender is Ultrahumanite?!" joke for the road!

Alan felt this was the kind of thing a heterosexual would say. It's funny because he "New 52" comes out of the closet later!

#Justice Society of America #DC Comics #DC #Len Strazewski #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan

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dukeofriven · 5 years

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From An Old Internet Veteran: Go, and Sin No More

I wish I could explain to young people how wild the internet was as it went from the ‘weird niche thing for lame nerds’ irrelevancy of the early 90s and the “Boy This World Wide Web Thing Sure Is Nifty”-style painful optimism that describes 97% of Western Culture between 1994 and 2002 to the ‘Mad Max But Statistically Less Australian” culture that was the internet from 2002 to around 2010. I come neither to praise this era of internet nor condemn it. I merely want understanding. I cannot polish a lumpen pile of rape jokes, Chuck Norris glorification, “ironic” racism, and numa numa fat shaming and say that it’s misunderstood comedic genius. Trash is still trash even if it wins a bunch of Emmys. But at the same time I cannot take you with me back to the 90s and get you to feel, on a visceral level, what it was like to live in a place where Bart Simpson was both promoted as a real and present danger to the moral upbringing of the world’s children and was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential icons of the 20th century. And because I cannot do that I cannot get you to understand how freeing it felt to be on the internet in that Mad Max era. Ten years before a yellow boy shouting “Don’t have a cow” while doing a pathetic kick-flip on a chunky skateboard was considered the potential downfall of humanity’s children, but now you could make something so risqué that the old-guard stuffed-shirt in 1994 would have died on the spot, his brain unable to consider anything so outside his moral world view. I cannot easily make you understand a time when nobody just said whatever it was they wanted, not just because they had no platform to do so but because the rigidity of social convention was so strong. Nobody ever had hardcore lesbian sex on Northern Exposure on prime time television. Nobody on the X-Files ever died by having their head smashed in a car door repeatedly like a melon until viscera spilled all over the pavement. You could not have made Game of Thrones or Steven Universe in 1995. Forget the graphics, forget the budget, you simply couldn’t do or say any of that on television for either kids or adults. The Mad Max internet changed that - changed the very firmament of what was acceptable in media for every genre and for every demographic. Is this a good thing? Not particularly. Is this a bad thing? Not particularly. If this sound frustratingly ambivalent that’s because it is: were we to go back and do it all again, knowing all that we know now, would we do it the same way? No. But then, we would not know all that we know now had we not learned it by making the attempt in the first place.

This poor comfort for someone who dives into some 2006 webcomic with a reputation of a Legacy Touchstone and finds it full of ‘jokes’ about their gender, or sexual preference, or the liberal use of the r-slur, or a kind of hyper-suburban comedic racial ignorance. I am not here to argue that that had any value merely because it was transgressive. But the same space that opened-up to let such ugly things out also opened-up places for marginalized groups to made themselves known, groups who never before had such public voices.

Imagine an apocalypse. Imagine society rebuilding in the ashes. Imagine how many false starts and missteps there would be and you begin to understand just a little of what that period was like. It was embarrassing. It was cruel. It was childish and stupid. But in living through it we grew up. Or, at least, those of us capable of growing up grew up, and learned, and learned to be better - learned what better was. And then we built new places where other people could learn too - and spread the gospel of being better. One of the things that always irritates me when it comes to young people talking about the past is the unexamined privilege of knowledge being at your fingertips. It’s more than just everyone carrying a wireless-internet connected computer in their pocket at all times. It’s more than just a Wikipedia with hundreds of millions of articles and a reputation for fact sourcing. It’s more than just a Google that works. If you never experienced it you cannot imagine what using WebCrawler was like in 1995 against Ask Jeeves in 2005 against Google in 2015 - or even Google between 2005 and 2015. Most people don’t go around thinking about SEO and search engine algorithms but maybe we should because anyone who wants to go “this info’s been on the internet since day one so people have no excuse not to know it” disingenuously argues that information search and retrieval has been consistent across the decades. There was a time - not all that long ago - when to look something up on-line involved getting the tacit agreement of everyone in your household to lose the use of the sole telephone for as long as you were web browsing. There was a time - not all that long ago - when ‘looking something up’ was to burden everyone around you with inconveniences, and while you were doing your web searches there was no guarantee what you wanted could be found with the primitive technology of the day. Do you know how much I’ve learned since joining Tumblr in 2011? On a fundamental level, both about myself and the make-up of our species in terms of social conception? I recently went through a bunch of old posts, removing those with broken links and meaningless content, but also shit that just embarrasses me now - mostly opinions from a period where I hadn’t yet had a chance to learn because the spaces in which to learn it did not yet exist. It’s not just things like communities for [demographic X] - it’s things like “communities for [demographic X] with an ability to broadcast their voices and have platforms able to network their ideas and audience halls able to receive them and a search engine to guide people to that community and a basic understanding that the community even exists in the first place.” And this does not even begin to touch on internet access, something that even now is not a universal thing, and for which getting angry about people’s ignorance reflects a bias all its own. I say all this because I think that a core tenant of cringe culture is a myth of universal access to knowledge and universal awareness of one’s own ignorance. I look back on old posts of things I said and I cringe with self-hatred - cringe enough to rip them down and stuff them in the trash. “HOW DID I THINK THAT?” and “HOW DID I NOT KNOW?” But why should I have known - what, in my life, would ever have put better ideas across my desk? That I can meaningfully speak now about privilege and intersectionality and historiography is because between then and now I was put in a place to learn these things. I was exposed to ideas that I had never before been exposed to, and was given the grace to learn. I am tired of the expectation that every aspect of our past selves should be held to the same standard as the present. (Yes, to all the disingenuous bad-faith trolls out there, I obviously and of course am advocating for complete and total uncritical pardon for everything in the past ever. Were you a neo-Nazi ten years ago? Water under the bridge without question because that’s obviously, obviously, obviously the sort of extreme outlier case I am talking about good on you for being clever enough to notice.) But for the non-dipshits out there who understand how to read without injecting insincere hyperbole into every argument, I want us to be kinder to our past selves when we have learned to be better. It’s okay that you used to like Sherlock - there were genuinely fun things about it, and it’s okay that you didn’t possess an expert grasp of post-graduate feminist critical theory when you were 21. Or 31. Or 41. More concepts of academia have filtered into mainstream consciousness than ever before - and in saying that we should remember the corollary that ten, twenty, thirty years ago that was not the case. We knew less, had access to less, and were exposed to narrower viewpoints than we are today. It is unfortunate - but it was not our fault, and we cannot easily blame ourselves for it any longer. Nothing makes my blood boil more than seeing people taking umbrage that... oh, Farmer Joe McSmithHead of Buttnut, Alabama in 1963 was ignorant of internal Chinese politics and said some untrue things about Chinese Communism. But the only thing Farmer Joe had to tell him of the outside world was a radio that played country music, a TV with four channels and strict content guidelines to only show pleasant, moral, and god-fearing content, and the three books in the Buttnut library, two of which were the Bible. There have, and will always be, certain moral lines so obvious that people of any era should always be held accountable to them. But above that, in the more trivial space of media consumption, absorption, and critique, we have to learn to be more forgiving - to ourselves and to others, so long as in the present we have changed. Did you use the r-slur a lot because it was practically a form of punctuation on 4chan and that’s where you learned the ways of the internet? Did you learn the harmfulness of this practice and cease to do it? Then I do not condemn thee - go, and sin no more. Did you and your friends used to make jokes about how Mexicans smelled because you saw Seinfeld do that in his standup and the whole TV laughed as though it was funny? Did you realize one day ‘wait a minute that’s actually super gross’ and stop repeating it? Then I do not condemn thee - go, and sin no more. Have you gone back to a beloved childhood property and found it’s full of woman-beating and weird views on homosexuality? Did you find yourself able to critique this beloved thing and did not defensively double-down on shielding it from all harsh words? Then I do not condemn thee - go, and sin no more. I will not allow us to dismiss the cruelty and hurt of Mad Max Internet Culture with a flippant ‘well that’s just how it was back then” but nor will I allow anyone to condemn us all as being consciously unfeeling, willfully ignorant, purposefully hateful. Some of us were. But some of us did not know, could not have known, needed to learn - and we were lucky enough to live in a time before cringe culture and cancel culture where we were allowed to have that opportunity to learn and grow. We need that today, for all young people who think themselves as woke as can be and ten years from now will look back and blush with shame for things they said and did in total ignorance. The sin is choosing to never change, not failing to change sooner.

#cringe culture #cancel culture #4chan #mad max #internet culture #the simpsons #bart simpson #r-slur #x-files #game of thrones #steven universe #Northern Exposure #chuck norris #jerry seinfeld #Alabama #communism #long post

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