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miksterrr · 2 years

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Sincerely, your only child.

hyper fixations rule my life.

another ninjago fic.

cross-posted on ao3

TW: TW: Strong language (a bunch of f-bombs, sorry) Talk about not getting a childhood, mentions of abuse and bullying, talking about abandonment, mommy issues, letting down. Extreme misako bashing. (I think that's it- uh please let me know if there's anything else! also prolly cringey and a bunch of dialogue so)

like 1.8k words i think.

“Lloyd!” Cole’s voice was heard throughout the bounty, “Your mom’s here!”

Today was one of those rare days where Sensei Wu let them off with just morning training. Which, in retrospect means that training will be worse tomorrow, but for now the team enjoyed the day off, all relaxing in their own ways. Zane’s reading up on new recipes to try, while Jay and Kai are playing video games. Nya’s working on upgrading the bounty even more, and Cole’s cleaning up the deck of the bounty, because well, someone had to, and surprisingly enough, he didn’t mind cleaning all that much. Meanwhile, Lloyd was laying down in his bed, just finished with his shower, and ready for a midday nap.

Lloyd immediately perked up. He jumped up from his bed and rushed out of the shared room, almost tripping over his borrowed (stolen from Nya… listen, she’s very muscular,) grey sweats in his hurry. Nonetheless, the blond made it to the deck in one piece, a grin stretching over his face. “Mom!”

“Hello, Lloyd.” Misako smiled, arms raised for a hug. Which Lloyd all but crashed into, relishing in the rare affection given by his mom. She gave him one squeeze before letting go. “How have you been, son?”

“Good!” Lloyd beamed, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “I have so many things to tell you!” It’s been a few months since Misako's last visit. During that time, the ninja defeated the usual baddie or helped out at some charity event. Nothing too big, which was surprising, in a way, but the team wasn’t taking it for granted, enjoying the easy time before the new villain of the month showed up.

Misako gave her son a tight smile, though she was glancing around the deck of the bounty, not looking at Lloyd, at all. “That’s very good, hon.” She sighs when she can’t find whatever she was looking for. “Do you know where your Uncle is? I have to talk to him about some of my findings.”

“Oh.” Lloyd murmured. He bit the inside of his cheek and crossed his arms. “I haven’t seen him since this morning.” He responded, looking down… and wow there were a lot of chips and cracks on the floor. One too many fights or training incidents.

Misako let out a breath through her nose.“Of course.” She clicks her tongue, glancing around the bounty deck one last time. “Looks like we’ll have to go find him.”

“We?”

“You said you had so much to tell me!” Misako smiled, turning towards the door that led to the underbelly of the Bounty, where most of their living space is. “You can walk and talk, right Lloyd?” It wasn’t a question. Misako started walking away before Lloyd could answer.

Lloyd stared after her for a second.“Wait- Mom!” Lloyd called, jogging to catch up with his mom, Nya’s sweats still too long for him, almost making him fall flat on his face, again.

“What is Lloyd?” Misako’s pace didn’t slow.

The blond stammered. “Uh, well… I just…” Lloyd sighs, rubbing his face, gnawing on his already cracked lips. He played with the strings of his hoodie. (the hoodie used to be cole’s.)

“Spit it out Lloyd. I don’t have that much time.” Misako huffed, glancing into every room they passed, and so far, every room has been empty. No sight of the old man. Misako’s mouth was set in a hard line. Clearly getting annoyed at both Lloyd and not being able to find Wu.

“I just thought…” Lloyd trailed off, glancing at the greying woman, he hesitated, before sighing. “Last time you were here you promised that the next time you were here- this time, you said we could spend all this time together.”

Misako paused, before groaning, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Sorry kiddo, you know how my work is, I don’t get a lot of time off.” She sighs, ruffling Lloyd’s hair. Her nose scrunching when she realized his hair was damp from a recent shower, wiping her hand off on her beige pants. “Surely, you get that.”

“I do, but-”

“Where is your Uncle?! I swear his old age is making him more elusive.” Misako interrupted.

“Mom!” Lloyd stomped his foot, the noise echoed through the cabins. Misako’s thin eyebrows furrowed. She turned to look at her son, hazel eyes hard. She gave Lloyd an expectant look. Lloyd only groaned, trying to get his words together. “I- well- ugh!”

“Lloyd, stop wasting my time. I need to find your Uncle.” Misako huffed, turning back to start looking for Wu again.

“Then stop wasting mine!”

“Lloyd!” She glared at her son, a warning.

Lloyd only scoffed. “You always only come back for Uncle Wu! Not me!”

Misako rolled her eyes. “You’re not a kid, Lloyd. You shouldn’t need your mother.” She reprimanded, crossing her arms.

“Wow.” Lloyd snorted. “Bold of you to call yourself my mother.”

“Lloyd Montgomery!” Misako nagged.

“It’s true!” Lloyd gave a low laugh, shaking his head. “You abandoned me, mom.”

Misako huffs, grabbing Lloyd’s wrist in a bruising grip and pushing him into the closest room. Lloyd yelps, stumbling. He takes a second to regain his balance before turning around to see Misako closing the door behind her. “What the hell?!”

“That is no way to talk to your mother, Lloyd.” Misako growls.

“Really?” Lloyd rolls his eyes.

“I am your mother!” Misako gapes.

“You’re really not.”

“I gave you life!” Misako retorted.

“You gave me half your DNA!” Lloyd shot back. “Nothing else. I don’t have your personality, or your style, and certainly not your morals.”

“Lloyd Montgomery-” Misako bites out, nose flaring.

“What, mom?” Lloyd asked, toneless. He was done with Misako. “You abandoned me. You left me at Darkley’s, and never looked back.”

“You know I had to! I couldn’t carry a child around with my work.”

“You just didn’t want to care for me.” Lloyd sniffed. “You aren’t worth my effort anymore, I don’t know why I miss you when all you do when I see is make me wish you were still away.”

“That is hardly fair, son.” Misako huffed, crossing her arms. She stared down at the blond, almost accusingly.

“Is it?” Lloyd scoffed. “You were once the god that kept me standing, mom. But it turns out it was just the idea of a loving mother that kept me standing, not you.”

Misako’s hazel eyes widened, mouth open and closing, as she tried to form a response. “Lloyd, honey… I-” She sighs. “I have no words.”

“Like always.” Lloyd scoffs.

“Son. I wish I could’ve taken you but-”

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “Just stop mom.” He closes his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek. “We’ve been through this, time and time again.” He huffs, trying to move towards the door. “In a few days, you’re just going to leave again with empty promises of returning and spending time with just me.”

Misako's eyes widened, moving to grab Lloyd’s wrist. “That’s hardly true- you’re being unreasonable Lloyd.”

“What’s ‘unreasonable,’ mom, is that I don’t know my own birthday!” Lloyd mocked, trying to get his wrist out of Misako’s unusually strong grip. Misako stayed silent, her eyes were wide and she was mouthing something to herself. Lloyd raised a brow, his movements stilled, coming to a realization; “Fuck mom.” He breathed. “You really have no idea, either. Do you?”

Misako stammered, grip weak. “W-well… the labor was very long, and with everything that was happening with your dad, time just got warped, and well-”

“Do I even ‘legally,’ exist, mom?” Lloyd asked, his jaw tightening as he stared down Misako. “Do I have a birth certificate, mom?”

Misako sputtered, “I uh… I’m sure… somewhere you have one.”

“Holy shit.” Lloyd whispered, breaking his mom’s grasp. His hands came up behind his head, gripping his hair. “I don’t exist.” He blinked, breathing coming out in gasps. “Well- obviously I exist, but not legally, huh?” Lloyd started pacing back and forth, a low laugh escaping him. “The government has no record of Lloyd Garmadon.” He swallowed, face going blank. “I am every criminal's dream.”

Misako let out a small giggle. “I suppose so.”

Lloyd made no sign of hearing her. His brows furrowed, his forehead creased, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to formulate his thoughts. “That’s why you left me at Darkley’s.”

“W-What… no, Lloyd, hunny. I-”

“You what mom?” Lloyd scoffed. “Everywhere else would’ve given me a birth certificate. But all Darkley needed to hear was that I was a Garmadon.” Lloyd rolled his eyes. “Uncle Wu would’ve questioned you… that’s why you never told him.”

“I was trying to save you!”

“From what?!” Lloyd cried. “I was a child! I didn’t need saving! I needed protection!”

“Stop being overdramatic.” Misako huffed. “I was saving you from-”

“From yourself?” Lloyd interrupted. “Because honestly, that makes sense, mom.” Lloyd sniffed, rubbing his face. “You hated me before you even knew me.”

“Fine.”

Lloyd turned, looking Misako up and down. “Fine?”

“I abandoned you, you’re right.” Misako nodded. “You know, babies are born with blue eyes, and then over time it changes.”

“What does that have to do with anything-”

“You were born with red eyes, Lloyd.”

Lloyd gaped. “I was kidding before.” He murmured. “About you hating me before you even knew me. I-” He licks his lips. “I was right.”

“I wouldn’t say that I hated you-” Misako tried.

“You left me because I had red eyes. Because of genetics.”

“I thought the great devour’s venom affected you too.” Misako tries to defend herself.

“I was a baby!” He growled, fists clenched at his sides.

“And I was scared.” Misako sighs.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “I thought all parents are scared of their first child.”

“I wasn’t ready to be a single mom. Especially-”

“Especially with your job, I know.” Lloyd rolled his eyes, “Try getting better excuses, mom.”

“Son-”

“I am not your son.”

Misako rolls her eyes. “Lloyd Garmadon-”

“I’m not a Garmadon, either.” Lloyd rose a brow, challenging his mom to realize what was going on.

“L-Loyd-”

“No. If I was a Garmadon I would’ve been raised by you, mom. Or I would’ve been raised by dad.” Lloyd nods to himself, “You know who raised me, when you were too scared?” He stares his mom in the eyes, cold green meeting guilty hazel. “Kai Smith. Nya Smith. Cole Brookstone. Zane Julien. Jay Walker.” He announced each name, slow and sure, voice strong. “They raised me. They taught me that blood doesn’t mean family, mom.” He spat, ‘mom.’ “They taught me everything. They taught me how to live, mom. Where were you?”

“Kiddo-”

Lloyd shook his head, lips pursed. “I am not your kiddo. I am not a Garmadon. If anything, at all, I am a Smith-Brookstone-Julien-Walker.” The blond nodded sure of himself. “And now, I know that you aren’t worth my time.” Lloyd moves to leave, stepping past his mother.

Misako tried to grab at Lloyd’s wrist. “Lloyd, please-”

Lloyd all but side-stepped her. “I’m done.” He sounded numb, apathetic to her sadness even if he was swallowing down his own sobs. Lloyd moved to the door, hand on the handle, he pulled it open, and before he left and closed it completely, he gave his mom one last glance. “Goodbye, Misako.”

Uh, if you liked it I hope you enjoyed, if you didn't well, okay. still getting the grasp on short stories again... i'm a poet, y'all understand? sorry for weird formating and all that, thanks for reading :)

#ninjago #lloyd garmadon #lego ninjago #cole brookstone #kai smith #zane julien #jay walker #lloyd ninjago #fanfiction #ninajago fanfiction #i literally forgot to tag #wtf man #misako bashing #lloyd garmadon angst #lloyd garmadon needs therapy #uh #idk what else #this is big dialouge based #i'm a poet okii

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turanga4 · 2 years

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Hi!!! 💞, 💥, and 💋 for the ask game <3

So many cute emojis! I am thrice blessed.

Emoji ask game here.

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language? Hmm...prolly, the characters. Being true to the characters, even if it's just to the idea of the characters I have in my head, showing something interesting in how they connect to themselves and one another. Plot whut plot, and my grammar is terrible. Worldbuilding...meh. I do spend inordinate amounts of time crafting and refining my language, trying to hone in on the BEST possible word or phrase to carry an idea in a way that sounds nice. But none of that matters if the characters aren't "real."

💥 find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

Ah yes...the one I evidently drop-kicked very swiftly off the face of a cliff.

I confess I'm a bit salty about this, because I did it the same week I did a hinny piece, and honestly, I think this piece is so much stronger in terms of concept and craft than the hinny piece, but White Wizards In Luv got exponentially more attention than this one, which features Kingsley Shacklebolt explicitly NOT gettin' tail. I like Corridors because I think it's neat and important to tell stories that aren't simple reciprocated love between the Main Characters, and there's a couple lines in it that I especially enjoy, including this description of how Kingsley, in retrospect, sees the opportunities he DIDN'T seize for pursuing a relationship with Sirius Black: "Little nudges, little chances, little gifts left on the ground."

💋 when you leave comments on a fic, do you want to hear back from the writer? It's...nice. But I don't expect it. I remember that I genuinely used to be like HOLY HOLY SHIT SHE SAID THANK YOU TO MY COMMENT LOOK LOOK RIGHT HERE AT THIS AO3 PAGE HASHTAG NEVER WASHING THIS PHONE AGAIN. I still truly love it if the author responds to my thoughts with their own--explains, for example, why exactly they made a craft move that I'm celebrating. But ultimately, I want the writer to do with my comment whatever feels best to THEM.

#ask game #fan fiction writer #cute emojis are da best

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mary-goore-ask-blog · 1 year

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What was it like? *she gently stroked their back through the blanket.*

the first time i sprained my ankle in the moshpit, which was kinda embarrassing, but the performance was awesome. second time i brought nihil with me, but he had to leave mid-performance because he got overwhelmed. in retrospect, i prolly should've gone with him to make sure he was okay, but they started playing deathcrush so i had to stay. third time...wasn't really as fun anymore. it was after dead's passing. i was doing kinda bad back then, i guess. *they rambled, taking a sip of the soda once in a while*

#asks #ghoulettka

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crossguild · 2 years

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not a knock on the producers who made w359 like, fresh out of college, but u can really see their inexperience wrt storycraft in the protagonist-centered morality. the protagonists express ideas that the narrative clearly wants us to buy into, and then the story undermines its own messaging, especially when it comes to kepler, who kinda feels like they wrote with a lot of intention of depth but never really capitalized on it within the story itself

just off the top of my head:

eiffel talks kepler down from the mutiny in the final face-off with minkowski by saying (paraphrased) 'hey, i know you're supposed to be relentless and stubborn, but you have to know when to back down' yet eiffel celebrates minkowski's relentless stubbornness and inability to ever back down, & the narrative repeatedly rewards her for it

the dear listeners shut down kepler by basically saying 'violence doesn't give you power' and then they. immediately commit violence to take him out of the picture. we're supposed to like the dear listeners because they're on the side of the hephaestus crew, yet we learn soon after that they have genocided whole planets out of existence, and they either don't consider that an act of violence, or they think that they're allowed to commit violence because they have some higher moral authority and no one ever comes back around to that?? that whole plot is just dropped?? we're not even gonna address how kepler was 100% in the right about how even if they aren't aggressive, their existence beyond the paradigm of human existence means that humans will come to harm because of their benevolent curiosity?

lovelace is portrayed sympathetically, if not in the right for engineering events to let the jacobi outside the module be incinerated in a solar flare, but kepler killing someone he knows to be an alien clone who comes back is probably considered the worst thing he does in the podcast. ofc, we as an audience have more information than lovelace does, so i don't hold that against her or anything but like. we never look back on that? we never go back to think about how the clone WAS a person, and how setting him up to die might have emotionally affected lovelace and how she might've felt about the moral ramifications of doing it after she finds out about all the alien clone stuff?

seems kinda odd to me that kepler, who's been rightly knocked around by the narrative for prioritizing mission success over individual people, ends up dying as a direct result of embracing the themes of the show. he takes a moment to reaffirm the value of humanity, the producers point out that he's trying to give rachel every out to defect to the other side, he even shoots her nonlethally to give her more time to think about it-- and as a result of the one time he chooses to offer someone else a measure of grace, the one time he's open about his motive, the one time that he openly expresses that humanity matters-- THAT's the action for which he ends up dying? that says to me that he should've stuck to his guns and been a ruthless asshole to the end, cause then he might've lived. the death felt convenient, like the crew didn't want to deal with a complicated ending, so they wrote him out on a decently high note. which i liked. but in retrospect it felt contrived and also thematically off-base

it all basically sends the message that the protagonists aren't the protagonists because they choose to do the right thing, but rather that the thing is right because the protagonists choose to do them. even if the antagonist does a good thing or is right, it's not because they're not the protagonist. w359's prolly my favorite fiction podcast, but imo the narrative care given to eiffel, minkowski and hera is just missing for anyone who shows up after, and anyone who switches to their side just never has to deal with the fallout of their actions.

the protags' moral failings are played off as a joke (eg minkowski drugging her crew), but the antagonists' crimes are treated with the narrative gravitas that they deserve... and while it doesn't significantly diminish my enjoyment of the podcast, i sometimes do hold it up against other media that i love, and it makes me appreciate the way morality is framed in those stories so much more

#wolf 359 #i am gonna chalk it up to them being pretty young when they wrote the show #jacobi really just does not at any point #have to deal with murdering hilbert huh

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fuck-customers · 4 years

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one of my coworkers (calling her J for convenience) was complaining abt ‘equal pay’ again, as she is want to do

this time it was abt how courtesy clerks gotta do a lot of labor-heavy jobs-- namely cart-wrangling-- but not everyone the store hires is able to do the same amount of labor. like apparently there’s one 80yo dude up front that they still force to do carts, but given his age, he obviously can’t keep up w/ the fast pace of cart-wrangling. thus, overall front end productivity drops, and some other clerk has to pick up his slack. clerks are only supposed to spend 2hrs at a time on carts, but many of them have to spend 3hrs or more at a time. so, according to J, this older gentleman shouldn’t be getting the same pay as the other “harder”-working clerks b/c he isn’t as productive

now to be clear, my internal response to this situation was that every human person should be getting livable allowances for existing, beyond the wages they get for work. thus a fucking 80yo man should be allowed to retire w/o threat of destitution, and NOT be forced to work at all. but when ur trying to radicalize a conservative, it doesn’t rly help to open with, “you should care about people”

SO my ACTUAL response was, “I genuinely don’t care if my coworkers get the same wage as me, even if they’re not doing as ‘much’ as me? if they’re here and working, then they deserve the same pay as me.” and my other coworker jumped in with, “exactly! it’s about the effort, not the result,” which I was so very thankful for b/c I’m not v good at articulating my thoughts on the spot. I continued with, “I especially don’t want an 80yo guy doing carts-- I’d gladly do carts FOR him to keep him out of that job! it puts a lot of strain on your heart, it’s not healthy for him!”

so J just spluttered a bit and was like, “well, you guys are nice! but not everyone agrees with that, and wants pay that reflects the amount of work they do! I mean I’m nice too, I would offer to do carts for him too,” (here’s where I had to try RLY hard not to roll my eyes like, oh do u care? u care enough to complain abt him but ok 🙄), “but it’s still not fair that he gets the same pay as other people that do twice as much work!”

and I didn’t rly know what to say after that so I just let it go (again, not very good at confrontation or like... verbal talking). but in retrospect I prolly should’ve just asked why she was mad at individual, fellow workers just trying to get by, instead of corporate for not paying us ALL higher wages, or the front end for not hiring more workers to lessen the individual workloads. eh, maybe next time

#submissions #fuck co-workers #fuck retail #submission

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weaselbeaselpants · 4 years

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I have a lot to say and not enough time to say it. It hurts, but ya’ll know what this is about so if you want my full fandom retrospective opinion thing guys, here.

I’ve been following Vivienne’s art and career since I found her on dA in 2009. I’ve basically grown up with her and have a wide range of opinions up and down her collective work. I must stress that I do not know her as a person and no matter how critical I get in my personal time if I somehow met her in real life or converse with her online again (like, back in the day we went back and forth. She was pretty nice to me), I’d be humble and congratulate her for her success.

Critique does not, EVER equate to attacking people.

But

the reason I don’t call myself a VivziePopVivzmind-fan is the exact same as to why I don’t like the proud use of ‘anti’. Let me try and explain -

The vast majority of Viv fans are just that: fans. Viv’s one of their favorite artists and they’re happy for her and obviously defensive when some mouth breather pops into their fan discussion calling her and all of them trash. Quite a lot of the Hazbin fans I know in my circle of friends are all pretty accepting and agree on the problematic notions and implications of her work.

HOWEVER, there’s a vocal minority in the VivziePop fandom that were and still are toxic. Their specific interest in Viv back in the day was toxic...and now that she’s moved on into a successful career I doubt they’ve gone away, considering the things I’ve heard. These people - they’d flood Viv’s comments sections and stuff with messages like they were talking to her when they weren’t and they’d unironically call her a god in a way that feels like gaslighting, ex: “I’ll NEVER be as good as you Viv! My art is just sooooo unpopular oh god you are incredible no one will ever like you as much as meeeee”. It made me uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around her because these people took Viv’s role in their lives so seriously and their demand for her attention...it struck a nerve.

These same fans have been around long enough to see actual shitlords - the likes of Kiwifarms and tapatalk wikis - come in and actually harass Viv. Viv’s been sent revenge porn by sick freaks who think they’re funny and believe she deserves it. No. In my non-name fan bystander opinion, Viv’s got some shit to work on, but no one deserves raperevenge porn. EVER. It was genuinely bad and yes Viv and her base have every reason to NOT TRUST these communities. Unfortunately, when these incidents happened, these particular fans took it upon themselves to gatekeep the fandom and act like Viv’s unofficial guard against any kind of decenting opinion of her, all without her say so.

((to the critics who will be all “but Viv or Faust said THIS to their fans-”, like I said, Viv’s far from perfect but regardless of how much she prolly wanted people to side with her I’m gonna guess that she didn’t want people sending transphobic death threats to DollCreep. Again, and this is coming from a bystander here, I have a feeling Viv knows about some of the toxicity but doesn’t know how/want to address it - which is a conversation all it’s own.))

This particular breed of VivziePop “fan” holds so much toxicity in her fandom(s). They aren’t the only cause, but they’re there. They feel entitled to her attention and her approval. They creep me out. Having spoken to other much-less critical admitted fans of Viv around me, these fans appear to creep everyone else out and put the rest of the fandom on edge. They’re gatekeepers. They’re creeps. Like the bronies and SU fans of yestertodayyears, they know harassment exists and that people have crossed the line - so they think any means is necessary to prevent that is automatically good. I could pile together all the incidents and folks who’ve had bad runs ins with this aftershock of Viv-obsession, but I do have a life of my own and this post is already stupid long so I’ll just list out the biggest examples and provide receipts when asked.

Critical blogs have gotten RAPE and death threats because they don’t like Viv’s art. HonestZoophobiaCriticisms, a blog I interracted with back in the day, def got one. Now Viv’s opinion of crit-blogs is that they’re “bad takes” but I can assure you she doesn’t want that shit being said on her behalf.

I’ve seen young artists get blacklisted from sites and forums cause they so much as post a redesign. Viv and co get told through the grapevine that someone’s making hatespeech and so preemptively block said person (prolly cause they’re in the middle of WORKING and can’t deal right now) only to find out after the fact that no, it was just a kid drawing their version of her characters. There’s serious miscommunication issues within the fandom about who’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and once you get the actual staff involved in this game of telephone you’re begging for trouble. The problem acknowledged, however, it’s souly from the “Viv never did anything wrong camp”. No word is said about how ugly the fandom is under the surface it’s all one type of person’s fault and not complicated’. Blah

I’ve only ever had ONE obsessive ‘fan’ who’d stalk me, mock me, and then redraw my art just to get attention from me. That shit fucked with my head. As a follower hundreds of miles away from Viv who’s agreed/disagreed with her through the years - I absolutely believe her when she says she hates ‘creeps’ and that she doesn’t want anyone in her fandom spreading hate on her behalf. It’s the one thing about her I’m POSITIVELY sure of. Whether she believes that said underlying harassment exists and/or is even a problem within her fandoms is anyone’s guess. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to write stupid blog entries like this, talk about fandoms and media and how they and the real world affect one another, and rb fan art I like. I’m cautiously optimistic fan with a side of salt.

Mixed opinions and critique within a fandom CAN and SHOULD exist. Hazbin Hotel has been greenlit by a studio! It has a product line of merchandise you buy. Helluva Boss is getting eight more episodes this coming year (yeeee:3yeeee). Two of Viv’s properties are now products. Nothing is immune from critique. And in critique you will find a lot of people who are not ‘nice’. Critique or analysis doesn’t have to be nice. There will be, in Viv’s words’ ‘bad takes’ on her writing. Maybe they will be actual CinemaSins-styled bad takes or maybe Viv is just mad that people don’t love and feel inspired by her characters the way she wants them to - it’s a fact she’s going to have to get used to.

((TBH, I’m pretty sure she’s already realized that criticism of all types need to exist. It’s just that, again, her and the SpindleHorse staff are kind of overwhelmed by all matter of takes and opinions coming their way they kinda can’t deal weeding out the fair ones from the assholes, so she lumps them all together.))

Shitposters, ironic fans, unironic fans, critical fans, just critics of Hazbin and Helluva CAN and WILL exist. They should exist and not feel threatened by the megafandom. There are people out there who are one step further and rightfully bothered by Hazbin/Helluva’s use of incorrect symbols, portrayal of certain topics, and the response by creators. These people have strong opinions and are actually disgusted by Viv. They deserve to exist too and should not be vilified because, like me, they’re commentary doesn’t consist of anything personal towards the people at Spindlehorse or the fans of her works. They can rant, they can be professional, they can be petty and they can be fair. But they will exist. You have to deal with it.

I am an ADD/OCD ridden autistic woman with serious anxiety issues who has no one to talk to half the time and so only HAS my fandom to communicate with. But that’s just it - it’s a fandom. A community. You have to learn to not think souly of yourself and of others in a community. A fandom doesn’t exist just for you or any one person. You have the right to be angry and defend or be offended. And it’s in the spirit of that that I ask, prrraaaaaay even, that I please

NOT BE CALLED AN “ANTI-ANTI” for not liking the moniker?!

I DON’T TO BE AN “ANTI”. Not ironically, not unironically. ‘Anti’ should be for politics and shit like pedophiles, necrophiles, nazis, serial killer stans, Trump, racists, antisemites, terfs, animal abusers, rapists, and antivaxxers. Anti should only come into critical media analysis when these ethical issues follow suit IN TO fandom discussion. ((EX: Anime and MLP proudly waving their cp and non-con into the public eye; Hazbin appropriating cultural symbols which are not satanic; Basically anything that concerns John K or Butch Hartman.))

If your DNI list unironically consists of the entirety of one fandom: CONGLATURATIONS! You have done the exact same thing these particular creepy Viv fans have done: monopolize the conversation. And yes, people I’m referring to, IT’S STILL A PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU’RE FIGHTING RACISM/SEXISM/HOMOTRANSPHOBIA.

There are hundreds of Vivziefans who ARE more critical, accepting of faults, interested in discussion and especially rewrite and redesign stuff who would LOVE to engage with you and give you a follow. There’s hundreds of people who no doubt agree with you!

But the thing I’ve seen these very proud AntiHazbinVivzieHelluvaWhatever blogs do is lash out at fans for continuing to like Viv and consume Viv’s art in a healthy way. What the actual fuck is your problem?

I get it. Say a crazy Hazbin fan gets on your case for even SUGGESTING Viv could be homophobic ((”SHE’SBIANDWORKSWITHGAYPPLblahablahblah”)). They get in your face, make some callouts, try to rile up support against you, leave disgusting harassment throughout your social media? Absolutely ban worthy. After that it’s perfectly understandable why you don’t want to engage with anything HHHBZPVivzierelated because you’re so fucking tired of being labeled an abuser or “just jealous” for having an opinion on a show you don’t like. I’m with you!

But,

A fan agrees that something in the canon is bad or that Viv did something they don’t like?

A fan likes your silly shitpost meme?

A fan asks if they can like Hazbin and follow you at the same time?

A fan does fan art of something you don’t like?

If your response to any of these ^^^ things is to get LOUD and accusatory, Vivsplain them about how they’re an absolutely awful person to ever question YOUR opinion, or just block them without a second thought? You’re a petty, vendictive shit and you also need to learn to let things go. I’m sorry but you do. As I already said, Viv’s work is a brand at this point, not just the work of a singular person. As such, there are gonna be mixed opinions and you can’t judge every single one of these people by what they like. You’re a shitty critic with a shitty attitude and yes that will demean the value of what you’re saying. This is bad because, if you’re trying to point out how Angel Dust’s abuse IS handled terribly; gay rep in Viv’s work is weak and terrible; the show appropriates closed practices; the fandom makes excuses for predatory artists and creepy behavior and individuals who have sketchy pasts - I’M WITH YOU. WE NEED TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT. JUST BECAUSE THESE ARE ADULT CARTOONS SET IN HELL MEANS THERE SHOULD BE ANYTHING CLOSE TO 2013 PONY-TUMBLR. <<<---- this shit is as important to me as it is to you and I really don’t like being called an abuser or apologist for saying “hey maybe blowing up at ppl for the shows they like ISN’T the way to go about this”.

But I have, just like the good old days of 2015 Zoophobia of yore, been blocked because I admit to being tired of ‘Anti’ being equated to ‘critical’. Same with hater.

Critical DOES NOT = Anti+Hater. I’m fucking tired of people saying it does and I’m tired of people taking up the term as some weird form of fandom reappropriation. It’s stupid.

Tl;dr: Once upon a time, I was in a budding fandom for something I liked made by an indie artist I watched on dA. I wanted to be a bigger fan than I was already, but was told by toxic people within said fandom that I couldn’t be part of it for reasons they’d made up in their head about my ‘motives’ against Viv. My admiration for Viv or what I liked about Zoophobia didn’t matter because I thought the story was really rushed and people weren’t being truthful with how they really felt about it - ergo, I HAD TO GO.

Flash forward 8 years later- My opinion of Viv’s body of work has changed but I still find myself in love with her style and some of her characters. I want to be on a forum or service that gives a healthy look at the problems there are with this series and fandom...and I’m met repeatedly by petty bs where people are again at each other’s throats. And yes, I do think it’s causing more harm than good especially when you insist there’s a “x person shouldn’t be trusted” mentality when fighting actual fucking racist, xenophobic, predatory bullshit.

#vivziepop #vivziepop critical #vivziepop drama #hazbin hotel #hazbin critical #hazbin hotel critical #critical hazbin hotel #anti anti #antis #anti hazbin hotel #cause I want both sides of this debaucle to see this and I'm tired #K?

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f-nodragonart · 6 years

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alright, so I saw HTTYD3 the other day, and I have a few thoughtsss abt it and the franchise as a whole. below the cut for spoilers

HTTYD3 is..... a strange conclusion to the series....

while I wouldn’t say I had necessarily high hopes for this film, considering how the 2nd was handled, I was at LEAST expecting more than we got here

tho I suppose the main reason I was expecting more was b/c I know the overall plot for this trilogy was more or less planned out after the 1st film came out. the director-- Dean DeBlois-- knew how this was all gonna go down b/c he only agreed to a 2nd film if it could be made into a trilogy. I’ve known this for at least 8yrs, so I was expecting careful planning and execution if he was so excited to do EXACTLY 3 films

in retrospect, this may have been what ruined the continuations. I’m p sure HTTYD1 wasn’t guaranteed to continue into a series initially, so it was made as a mostly standalone film. I think the following films were stunted by their need to fit into an overarching storyline, b/c if you look at the trilogy as a whole, it feels very much like the climax hit in the 2nd film, while the whole 3rd film was simply a wrap-up of the plot

and that’s what rly ruins this film for me-- even more than the Light Fury (which I will get to). Grimmel seems like a gr8 villain on paper (the guy who eliminated practically all Night Furies?? awesome!!), but in practice he isn’t very threatening. I’m p sure he doesn’t actually kill a single dragon in the whole film, nor does he even rly threaten the safety of any humans. he mayyyy have killed that one dragon that charged him at the very beginning b/c there was a discretion shot over the dragon’s head, but Grimmel literally never used deadly arrows in the rest of the film, so I can’t guarantee he didn’t just tranq the dragon instead

like, every scene where I thought there were going to be actual stakes leading to an actual climax, everything was just resolved a few moments later. oh no the main gang got trapped w/ the Deathgrippers! oh, they all escaped just fine. oh no, actually Ruffnut was left behind!! oh wait, Grimmel isn’t threatening her in any way, so she’s prolly gonna be fine

like, hell, if he at LEAST gave the implication that he had every intention to eliminate any obstacles, but was simply being held back by those side-villains he was working with, he would’ve been SO much more threatening. maybe if he had gone to stab Ruffnut in that scene, but the other folks there were like, “WHOA Grimmel, she’s just a kid, cool it!!” I would’ve LOVED a sort of Jumba reveal like, “Hiding behind your little friend won’t work anymore! We got fired this morning~” where all bets are off in the final battle and Grimmel’s strategies turn strictly deadly

on that note, it would’ve been fun to utilize the Deathgrippers’ poison to emphasize this point. like, make it clear that dosage levels change the effect of the poison, where a small dosage may simply paralyze or knock out, while a large dosage can kill. sadly this isn’t how the poison was used-- instead it was some vaguely-defined substance that in one instance could knock out a dragon completely, while in another could be used as a mind-control serum? what???

at the very least, the Deathgrippers themselves are VERY cool. prolly my fave dragon designs in the whole franchise, right after Toothless

my biggest worldbuilding complaint is actually something that transfers over from the second film-- Alphas.

I don’t think I’ve talked abt this much here, but I fucking HATE this stupid Alpha thing the 2nd film introduced. like, the power that the queen dragon had over all the other dragons in the 1st film was already a big stretch I didn’t particularly like, but this Alpha thing rly breaks any and all suspension of disbelief for me

like, the dragons in these films are designed to be incredibly unique, both physically AND behaviorally. there are water dragons designed for an exclusively aquatic lifestyle, tiny dragons that scuttle around the underbrush in little packs, ENORMOUS dragons that seem to live solitary lifestyles, dragons w/ 4 limbs or 6 limbs that must be separated by millions of years of evolution, etc. etc.

there’s just. there’s NO good reason ANY single dragon (any single SPECIES of dragon) should be considered an “Alpha” to ALL DRAGONS, when there’s no realistic indication that these dragons are even socially/physiologically bound to one another in any significant way. these are UNIQUE SPECIES built to live their UNIQUE LIVES in UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTS/SCENARIOS. sure, they may be social enough to intermingle, but why in the world would they all be grouped together??

like, if we’re rly gonna go for a “hivemind” approach, here, then what are the roles of each species? “hivemind” groups can be compared to a superorganism, where each caste performs a certain task comparable to an organ system, so what do Nadders do? Zipplebacks? Monstrous Nightmares? I mean, they HAVE to be built for a specific task in this scenario, b/c why else would each species be designed so differently??

not only that, but “Alpha” is such a Western human concept that rarely ever applies to the rest of the animal kingdom-- not actual “hiveminds” (go to the “swarm intelligence” section), and certainly not the wolf packs alphas are popularly associated with

hivemind simply doesn’t work here. it’s like saying all mammals are bound by a planet-wide “packmind”, and that there’s some “Alpha Mammal” out there we all have to answer to. it’s goddamn ludicrous

but ok, let’s give this hivemind idea the benefit of the doubt-- who’s to say that this HTTYD planet has to be bound by the same rules as our Earth? so let’s say that HTTYD dragons are bound by “packmind”, ok sure

but the packmind present here isn’t even consistent w/in the narrative!

when Valka first introduced the Bewilderbeast as the true “king of dragons”, the implication was that leadership is some kind of species-specific thing-- like only Bewilderbeasts (and possibly Red Deaths, to a lesser degree?) could be Alphas. alright, fair enough, that’s one way to approach the worldbuilding here. maybe this one species is very rare across the planet, and they feel an instinctual, almost parental pull towards other, smaller dragons

but then Toothless becomes alpha, so that theory is thrown out the window, and we come to realize this is a social thing. OK sure, that’s another approach to packmind. individuals compete, and the most capable takes on the role of Alpha

but then you realize it rly isn’t JUST a social thing b/c.... Toothless glows now. and Alphas in general are shown to have not JUST influence over dragons, but straight-up MIND CONTROL

WHAT. THE FUCK. DEFINES. AN ALPHA.

like, ok, physiological changes can make sense, our physiology is actively influenced by our environment, emotions, etc. I’ll even be forgiving and say that Toothless’ glow is an understandable, physiological change due to being Alpha.

but if Alpha truly is a social/physiological role rather than a species-specific role, how the HELL does the straight-up mind control work? are all dragon species capable of it, but they have to get the Alpha role in order to use it? why is it straight-up mind control in the first place, that’s not even very practical? what is going on?????

and now we finally get to the problems this brings up in this final film, and how they complicate the problems we see b/t Toothless and the Light Fury in terms of design

see, Toothless is STILL the only black Fury in the whole franchise (besides his kids maybe, but we’ll get there). we only see the main Light Fury and two other Light Furies, but not any other NIGHT Furies

after Toothless goes Alpha, we don’t REALLY know what of his new traits are typical to a Night Fury, and what traits have been influenced by being Alpha. who’s to say that his glow isn’t simply a Night Fury thing he had to grow into, for instance?

so we get to one of the most egregious things in this new film-- to me, at least-- where Toothless gets fuckin........................................ lightning powers.......................................

HELLO??????????????????????????????

is this an Alpha thing? can alphas control lightning? or is this a Night Fury thing? the Light Fury certainly seemed surprised by it, so it seems that at least females can’t do it!!

at least if it was an Alpha thing, I could give this the tiniest of passes and say, “oh, Alpha-ness affects each species of dragon differently, so they unlock species-specific powers when they go Alpha.” it’s fucking DUMB, but at least it’s SOMETHING. but this rly feels like it was meant to further highlight male/female differences, and give Toothless a decidedly more “masculine” power compared to the Light Fury. which makes no goddamn sense in terms of sexual dimorphism, so it’s automatically more dumb than the Alpha explanation. we’ll never know for sure which reasoning it is, but either way I hate it.

and NOW we finally get to the meat of what ppl have prolly wanted to hear from this-- my thoughts on the Light Fury in-context

well, sadly, as folks have pointed out to us over the last few weeks, our aquatic theory was blown out of the water. the Light Fury (I’m just gonna call her LF for convenience), nor any of the other dragons in the “Hidden World” were any more aquatically-leaning than any of the other dragons in the film. Grimmel himself smacked cold climates out of the running for Furies, so LF’s not even white for arctic camouflage. all signs point to........ *sigh*............. ~~*sexual dimorphism*~~

the especially shitty thing is that there could’ve been a cool, semi-explanation for this, since Night Furies as a whole seem to have camouflage abilities. maybe LF just prefers to be white, or she goes light in certain scenes (like when they’re on the beach) to match her environment, but is actually black like Toothless. it still wouldn’t explain away her dainty build, but it’d at least be SOMETHING. but no, she’s dainty and white b/c ~~~feeeeeeeeemaleeee~~~

which is actually rly confusing, b/c this tweet suggests that LF actually IS a unique variation on the species, but almost nothing in the movie indicates such. the one scene that rly stuck out for this was when Grimmel saw the Light Fury for the first time and IMMEDIATELY was like, “A female?” now u could argue that he’s so familiar w/ Furies that he can tell at a glance the sex of a Fury even in just a few small details, but what this scene implied to me is that female Night Furies are obviously and recognizably white-- thus that Light Furies are actually just..... Night Furies...

the only thing that convinces me that LF rly is a subspecies rather than just a female Night Fury is that Toothless’ and LF’s kids turn out all patchy, which wouldn’t make a whole lotta sense w/ sexual dimorphism. now u could argue that juveniles of a lot of species usually have to grow into their adult coats/patterns, or maybe even that Night Furies start out unisex/nonsexed then grow into a sex depending on hormones (or could even change their sex over their lifetime!). that would actually be interesting lore to make up for some of the shitty dimorphism!

but I get the feeling that these hatchling designs are supposed to be the designers’ get-out-of-jail card, like, “see, their kids are CLEARLY hybrids, so this explains away LF’s design as a subspecies, so u can’t actually get mad at us for it!!!” despite the fact that there’s no real explanation for why she looks like...... that. the coloration I can see for that weird technicolor Hidden World, but the smoothness? the daintiness? only an aquatic lifestyle could’ve saved that for me, and that was trashed hard

there’s just no good reason for a Light Fury subspecies to look the way they do, and there’s even less reason for female Night Furies to look that way, so either explanation is trash

so y’know. real nice to see HTTYD continue their tradition of crappy treatment of their main female characters. Valka’s sudden decline from a strong, mysterious warrior, to a damsel in distress when she’s revealed to be feeeeemaleeeee in the 2nd film. that HORRIFIC, “but THIS is a KING,” line in that same film. Astrid’s unrealistic nosedive into love straight from apathy in the first film. actually, Astrid’s presence in the whole franchise feels.... some weird kinda way to me, but I can’t rly put my finger on it. someone else will have to deep-dive analyze her for me b/c I can’t rly get a grasp on why I don’t like her much as a character, but something feels off abt her, esp after she falls in love w/ Hiccup...

anyways, all those specific critiques in mind, here are my synthesized thoughts on the trilogy:

I’m tempted to call HTTYD1 a practically perfect film. the plot is solid and takes the “boy and his dog” approach in a new direction, most of the characters feel real and relatable, there’s so much unique charm in the world/aesthetic/characters/etc., and most importantly it has so much heart that shines through every interaction (particularly b/t Toothless and Hiccup) and the general theme of the film. I think my only real complaint abt this first film is how quickly Astrid flips from feeling nothing for Hiccup to being in love w/ him, that was p ridiculous

HTTYD2 has a lot of faults. a LOT. a lot of weird sexism involving the Valka and the comparisons b/t “kings” and “queens”, weird motivations for Valka, a lot of weird racism involving Drago (which didn’t rly transfer to the 3rd film so it didn’t feel relevant to this discussion earlier), and absolute NONSENSE Alpha plot convenience. however, even if HTTYD2 lacks in plot/worldbuilding (and, more disappointingly, appropriate handling of certain characters...), it still has all the heart and charm of the first film imo. this film is absolutely BURSTING w/ emotions b/t different characters (Stoick/Valka of particular note, of course), and most every scene hit hard enough to stick w/ me longgg after I’d seen the film. it’s far from perfect, but I think the heart and charm can make up for a lot of its faults

HTTYD3 is. not great. the plot isn’t bad on paper, but in practice it lacks any real stakes due to a fangless villain. for as much as I hate the Light Fury’s design and the heavy sexism associated w/ her whole plot, I would honestly say it’s the flat villain and lack of any real stakes that make this film most unenjoyable. this fear of real stakes scooped out all the heart that should transfer from the first two films, leaving a rather empty film where even the emotional moments (like the reverse callback to Hiccup first touching Toothless’ face) don’t hit nearly as hard as they should, nor do they stick w/ me at all after leaving the theater. the only thing I’ll give this film is that it at LEAST has the charm of the original characters to carry it (Hiccup and Toothless are still great, Ruffnut’s imprisonment was prolly my favorite scene in the film, etc.), but that’s not rly saying much when the film SHOULD be able to stand on its own and not simply rely on the crutch of already well-loved characters to pull it thru

-Mod Spiral

#httyd #httyd3 #how to train your dragon #how to train your dragon 3 #mod spiral #reviews

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allthebestyo · 7 years

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So I mentioned many moons ago that my Lyme doc accidentally discovered I have this genetic disease, G6PD deficiency. At the time he discovered it he had been wanting to put me on IV vitamin C, but ascorbic acid in doses that high can cause severe hemolysis (rupturing of red blood cells) (which can be fatal) in people with G6PD deficiency. So he always runs a G6PD blood test before putting any of his patients on IV vitamin C just in case. He told me not to worry about it, though, he rarely sees it come back positive.

When my results came in he said no vitamin c for me ever and I’d obviously never eaten fava beans before. I said no, I hadn’t, and asked how he knew. Apparently if I had eaten fava beans at any point in my life I would have known I had this disease because I would have wound up in the hospital or dead. Because aside from ascorbic acid, fava beans are the strongest trigger for hemolytic crisis in people with G6PD. In fact, for a long time it was thought that fava beans were the ONLY trigger for hemolysis in G6PD, so the disease was actually first called favism. My lyme doc himself told me not to sweat it, just make sure I avoid synthetic vitamin C and fava beans from here on out.

But of course I went home a researched it like crazy and discovered that there are lots of doctors who have been insisting that there are far more triggers, like NSAIDS, various meds & ALL other beans. I told my parents they needed to get tested for it because I got it from one of them and it would prolly behoove them to know if they have a potentially deadly allergy to a certain kind of bean, if not all beans.

Mothership has been complaining about chronic bloating problems for my entire life. So instead of going to the doc she decided I most likely got it from her and went ahead and cut all beans out of her diet to see what happened. Surprise surprise: all of her chronic stomach issues completely went away. So I felt like her little n=1 sure added to the case that ALL beans are likely in fact bad for people with G6PD.

So, the point of all of this being: this new study finally verifies that!!! ALL legumes are triggers. Crazy!

But now that I’m reading up on all of this again it’s making me realize there might be a chance that this could also be playing into a lot of my food issues (in addition to the mast cell shit, still convinced that’s at play, too). G6PD is an enzyme which has the main role of helping cells convert carbohydrates into a form they can use, after all. I obviously can’t tolerate ANY carbohydrates and when those G6PD blood test results came in my doc said he’d never seen values as low as mine. Normal range was over 200, mine was 1.

Not to mention before all my stomach issues started I had been a vegetarian for well over a decade. My main source of protein was beans. If I had this disease and was eating tons of beans I was probably keeping my body in a near-chronic low level hemolytic crisis. Which sure would explain the current state of affairs. It’s also something that is common with all the others I’ve met like me who can only tolerate meat: we all discovered that we used to be vegetarian/vegan. Correlation doesn’t equal causation but it sure does raise a giant red flag.

Mothership is currently awaiting her G6PD test results, but her new doc was so convinced she has it that he went ahead and started her on glutathione. (G6PD reduces glutathione) And sure enough, she says it is the one med/supplement he’s put her on that’s made the most noticeable difference. On the days she forgets to take it she’s so run down she can barely function. So she asked him if I should be on it, too, and he said without a doubt.

As soon as I recover a bit financially I think I’m going to start seeing him as well. He seems to know way more about G6PD than any other doc I’ve encountered and while most of my reading on it is waaaaaaay over my head, I do understand enough to see that there could be a huge connection with my food issues.

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robotnik-mun · 7 years

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Robotnik Art Historia- Part Four: Age of the Eggman

Welcome one and all to the Robotnik Art Historia, where we examine the visual depictions of Robotnik over the years! Well beautiful friends, we’re close to the end here, and it’s rather appropriate given that the particular ‘era’ of the books covered here is where things really began to end for the old Robotnik, with a new Robotnik emerging to take the place of the old- Robo-Robotnik, an early one shot villain, who after devastating his own Mobius was moving in to the current one in order to re-live the thrill of conquest. Uploading his consciousness into a body modeled after the modernized Eggman design from Sonic Adventure, he would take over as central villain to the book, and usher in a time when SEGA would finally start exerting more and more control over the book in order to align things more closely to the games, having decided that they wanted a more consistent depiction of their mascot and his world. To sound off that declaration, an adaptation of Sonic Adventure would become the first major plot after issue 75. Afterwards came what I like to call ‘The Dark Ages’.

Now, for each person, when and why ‘The Dark Ages’ started up is a matter of interpretation. Personally, I place the deterioration of things as happening after the Sonic Adventure adaptation finished- this is era that would give us Green Knuckles, the Love Triangle, Freedom Fighters In School, and the thrice accursed art of Ron Lim (more on him below). It was an age of uneven storytelling and even more uneven art. Yet despite having long since been permanently killed off, Robotnik managed to linger on all the same. Fittingly, this era would feature some of the crappiest art of Robotnik yet, and at the same time would signal his temporary return to the books... in what was probably one of the worst Sonic issues ever.

19. Chris Allan

A former regular on the Archie Ninja Turtles comic, Chris Allan theoretically should have been a perfect fit for the book, having demonstrated more than enough skill in drawing anthropmorphic animals that would qualify him to handle Sonic. Unfortunately, Allan was a rather prominent example of what I call ‘Sonic Complacency Syndrome’- it’s when an otherwise skilled and competent artist’s abilities turn to complete shit when they try to do Sonic. It has felled more than a few, and serves as a good illustration as to why it takes effort to do this shit right- Allan’s Mobians were poorly, poorly executed, and try as he might he could never quite get them right. He was selected to illustrate the ‘Tales of the Great War’ stories, which helped to flesh out the (underwhelming) details of the Great War and how Robotnik came to be Warlord. While his Mobians were sub-par, he managed to do a pretty good job with Robotnik. There was nothing in particular that stood out about his take on the guy, but given how the rest of his work ‘stood out’, that’s prolly for the best.

19. Frank Strom

Frank Strom’s enduring legacy on the Sonic Book was the creation of the Dragon Kingdom and all the characters associated with it, including the infamous Monkey Khan. Frank Strom before working on Sonic was heavily involved with DC’s Looney Tunes comics as a writer, and worked extensively in Adult Comics. When it came to drawing for Sonic, he was.... not really all that good, at least when it came to Mobians. He had more luck with humans, including Robotnik, and was among the few to draw the guy before he had the bionic earsa nd eyes. While there is nothing especially bad about how he drew Robotnik, there’s something very... off, about the way he looks. Bit of an uncanny valley thing going on there. And as many before him did, Strom is yet another to draw Robotnik with a bulbous nose. Out of all the features that artists drawing the guy seem to mess up, it’s more often than not its his nose- which is ironic, given that this design has the least exaggerated nose out of any Robotnik and Eggman out there.

20. Suzanne Paddock

Susan Paddock is a bit of a mystery- she has only two Sonic works to her name, only one of them being a proper story, and I can’t really find much of anything about her career outside of the hedgehog. Still, the one story she illustrated for was perhaps one of the most out there ideas in all of the book- a story where Sonic winds up in a rules obsessed zone and has to clear his name with the help of a lawyer Sally Acorn called “Sally McAcorn”. Yeah, that’s not dated or anything (for those of you who weren’t children of the 90s, Fox in those days had a comedy tinged lawyer show called ‘Ally McBeal’, best known for birthing the ‘dancing baby’ meme of the early internet).

Anyway, Paddock’s art style in general was really weird, and her depiction of Robotnik was no different- in this Zone an AI called ‘J.U.D.G.’, at some point in the past there was an organic Robotnik, and just... look at him. He has teeny tiny T-rex arms! And his body looks like it was glued onto his legs! Damn this was a weird ass story, and I’m still not clear if it was meant to be implied that the past Robotnik became J.U.D.G.E or not... yeah in addition to being weird, this was a crappy story in general. It was also the last time Robotnik in any form would appear in a Super Special, as between this stinker and the even worse ‘Naugus Games’ the line was cancelled.

21. J. Axer

Jeffrey Axer was one of a number of artists on the book who started out as a fanartist, and easily one of the most well regarded- bringing to the book an incredibly detailed anime-influenced aesthetic, he was responsible for some of the most gorgeous artwork to grace the early 2000s era of the book. Which is why its such a crying shame that the only times he got to draw Robotnik 1.0 where in a pair of Pro-Art pieces, both of which were miscolored. Seriously, why is it so hard to remember that his eyes are red against black??? Why??? Ah well- Axer’s Robotnik was cool looking, taking much of the SatAM Robotnik and making it fit into the anime aesthetic very nicely. I especially dig the fang-like eye teeth and attention paid to his cheek bones.

22. Ron Lim

Hooo boy, Ron Lim... I still wonder if he was a victim of Sonic Complacency Syndrome or if he just didn’t give a shit. Either way, Lim was a former Marvel hotshot who was particularly well known for his work on Silver Surfer. I am convinced that the reason he got the job at Archie was purely on the basis of having been a big name at Marvel, because lord almighty his artwork was just horrendous. Well, that’s not entirely fair- Ron Lim is in fact a very skilled artist, but the problem was? He was a poor, poor, poor fit at Sonic with a near total inability to even vaguely grasp the kind of style you’d expect for a Sonic book. What was worse though was that despite how awful his work on the book was, Ron Lim stuck around for a long, long time, to such an extent that he was practically the main artist for the book for much of the early 2000s. Yeah, not fun times.

Naturally, his touch of dung extended to his art for Robotnik. Much like Penders, Lim struggled to reconcile the realism he was used to with the toony exaggeration required of the book, and ended up failing on both counts. Ron Lim’s Robotnik as an end result was a stubby, wrinkly looking guy whose appearance made it seem as though he had been sculpted from butter and was in the process of melting. Not helping matters at all was the fact that the story he appeared in was one of the very worst of the series, and a personally despised one. Lim’s Robontik is noteworthy in that it might be the most realistic looking of the various attempts at drawing Robotnik... this however was not a good thing, as much like Penders, Lim’s Robotnik was caught in an awkward area between realism and tooniness, and executing neither well. Still, this wasn’t the worst drawn Robotnik on the book. That distinct honor would go to the next on our list...

23. “Many Hands”

Many Hands. A name which will live in infamy. Okay technically ‘Many Hands’ wasn’t a person but a bunch of people, but twice this name has popped up and twice the end result was just odious. Look at this. Just... look at this. Do I really have to explain why this is awful? He looks like a deflated baloon, his shoulder pads are all wrong, and the coloring and shading is just *garish*. This is probably the worst drawn Robotnik in the entire series, and given all the shitty art that came before and after that’s REALLY saying something.

24. Dawn Best

Another of the ‘New Wave’ of fanartists-turned-pro that hit the book in the early 2000s, Dawn Best was a much anticipated addition to the books, having made a name for herself in fan circles as a superb artist. She showed a great deal of promise, much of which was unfortunately squandered thanks to Ken Penders’ absolutely abominable inks making a hash out of the bulk of her art. While he slowly improved down the line, the damage was done. Regardless, Best remained pretty popular. She only managed to draw Robotnik once- her take on Robotnik was an especially chunky and brutish looking specimen, with a shaggier and more unkempt mustache than most. As I say far too often than I like, its a shame we could not have seen more from her... both regarding Robotnik and in general.

And thus we bring this chapter of the Historia to a close. Well friends, it’s the beginning of the end now- after this there will only be one last post to this artist retrospective, as we exit the Dark Age of the book and enter into what was a bright and shiny renaissance- the Flynn Era!

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie #Robotnik Art Historia

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im0nwpa-blog · 7 years

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Probably the Best Sex of My Life

Wow. Alright, about 4 months ago I got out of an almost 4 year relationship that was.... well bad. Both of us got out of control and it was mutually abusive (DRUGS ARE BAD). Anyway, it finally ends.

Now, I am pretty timid. It takes a while to open up to new people and I don't really do large gatherings. Unless it's something nerdy like Magic the Gathering night or a LAN party, because I am a) a nerd and b) kind of... lived more than the average comic book shop denizen. Without going too deeply into the way overthought philosophy I have created: I am a hedonist and pursue pleasure, and in order to know if something is pleasurable you have to do it, so if it is safe - or consequences acceptable - then I'm game to at least try. This isnt something I broadcast too heavily, but I do find myself frequently in interesting situations while pursuing pleasure with innately poor autonomy.

It was at one such gathering for MTG Night that I met a girl we'll call Tess about 5 years ago. Something about a combination of huggy bombs, this girl totally fitting my type, and boosted confidence because of the environment I made a total fool of myself because I am terrible as a "pickup artist" of any kind. I dont really know how I've gotten with most women I've been with, it always kind of just happens (or lets be realistic, I had drugs and/or money, low standards, and an addiction to sex).

To describe Tess, she is very thin and tone with small perky breasts, brunette hair, a constantly sing song voice, and an incredibly lovable personality. Very much so a rural, Christian girl who loves her kin and prays before bed, but stills gets down because there isnt much else to do and Jesus forgives. A innocence seemingly beautiful in its purity that I can never help but wanting to show the other side. At least I thought.

Obviously she me down that night, but was really cool about it. We remained friends and humg out/smoked pot from time to time. As our comfort grew, we both became more open about more personal aspects of our life. Mostly that Tess loved sex and had a diversity of partners. I think half of it was an attempt to get my ex gf to dump me. In retrospect it would have made my life easier but thats life: theres a low for every high.

Flash forward to about 2 months ago. Tess wants to fuck a guy with a strapon. She really liked fingering a guy, now she wants to fuck one. Uncharacteristically, I saw I'm down. Fresh out of a relationship, curious, so why not. We still havent ordered the strap, but I think Tiff kind of assumed I was joking.

It comes up a few times, but still no real plan or action. And then last night happened. I get a message around 9pm:

Tess> You should come pick me up at midnight.. we'll go hang out at your trailer for like an hour.

Im0> I can prolly swing that :p

Tess> Be here at midnight!

I picked Tess up from her gas station job. We both admitted we were nervous. I told her this was probably going to be embarassing as I hadn't been laid in a while.

I should note here that for a while I have called my friend Tess a slut. Because she is and that's awesome. If there's informed consent from all parties you do you homegirl, men don't get shamed so women shouldn't either: own that fucking word. We aren't entirely PC people.

We arrived at the trailer and smoked a J to calm down, and it was a little awkward at first, but very quickly we fell into a groove. I had wanted to do this for years. This woman, in my mind gorgeous. I may have had an trusive fantasy or two. All I can say is somehow the fantasy couldn't touch reality.

She laid down on the bed and I awkwardly started teasingly asking her questions running my hand up and down her petite frame as I began teasing and nibbling her neck. She immediately let out a little moan and pushed her hips into me. I teased her, asking if she had been fantasizing about this to which she replied with a coy maybe.

I lifted up her shirt a little and kissed around her tight stomach, making sure to gently graze her panty line. Slowly I pulled down her leggings and underwear another moan escaped her lips.

I let my hands run up and down her long tan legs.i continued my nibbling and kissing on her inner thigh. Her back arched and she tried to shove her pussy toward my face. I sat up, pulling away from her already very wet pussy.

I scooped her up to me and took off her shirt and kept up my assault of nibbles and kisses. She could stop grinding against my leg.

Tess likes dirty talk, I knew this from her stories. I have some experience as a switch. I played with her nipples while commenting on how she was even sexier than I imagined. Her reply was a moan and arching of the back.

"You really like it when I say you're a slut, huh?" Her moans and increased breathimg tell me she does. "You are so fucking wet. I could get you to do anything right now, couldn't I slut?" Among the moans I hear a distinct "MHMM".

I finally make one last teasing run from her neck down. I tried to touch every bit of skin with my lips and tongue. Finally all that is left is her clit. I gently swirled my tongue around it and took it into my mouth and ever so gently suckled. Instantly she was bucking and moaning, loudly! Looking up from between her legs, her dripping pussy soaking my chin, and she came. I suckled just a few seconds longer before sitting up:

"That was so fucking hot. You really are a slut, your pussy soaked my face."

Her response was to pull me down to her, begin sucking on my neck while wrapping her legs around me and wildly humping me.

"Do you want me inside you?"

She let out an exasperated "Yes!"

"Not yet!" I said with a grin. I pushed her hands down and again began sucking on her swolen clit. Teasingly I worked a finger inside of her pussy. Even as turned on as she was, she was very tight. I rubbed those little ridges that are on the "top" and sucked on her clit.

Now I fucking love giving orgasms, and like to think I am a quick study. This girl came so rapidly and so many times I can't really describe it. There was already a wet spot forming on the bed when I finally asked, "Well, wanna see if my dick really is thick, my slave."

She could barely manage a "Yes," in between moans.

"Then beg for my dick slave Tess. Tell me exactly where you want it."

I slipped off my shorts as she breathlessly begged for me to shove my dick into her slut pussy. After watching her buck and squirm and beg to my satisfaction I slowly slid my remarkably averagr cock into the tightest pussy I have ever felt. Every time she orgasmed, which was seemingly with every stroke, shed slam our hips together and shake as her pussy clamped down on my dick. Wel alternated myself on top, sitting, and her on top.

I was in awe of how sexy she was. When I let out a growl she immediately pulled me down on her and squeezed mh dick in her velvet vise.

"Do you like my growling?"

She couldnt halt the moans, but she could nod her head yes while it was buried in my shoulder. Her mouth biting hard trying to suppress one of those super loud moans.

"You can be as loud as you want here, slut. Its kind of cute how you sound like wounded prey, whimpering and breathing so fast."

I slid my hand up to her neck, not doing a blood choke but still firmly placed. I whispered in her ear, "You're my toy now," and let out long low growl and started fucking her hard and fast, slowly gripping the sides of her throat.

This is when something I've always wanted to happen did. She squirted. This has always been a kink of mine. I stopped dead and she kept bucking up, slamming me into her and just shrieking. I began to feel the signs of cumming so I stopped and pulled out. Her hips continued to buck hopelessly.

"Do you swallow, Tess?"

"I can," she replied breathlessly.

"Good," I said as I laid back, "I want you to suck all of your pussy juice off my dick slutslave."

She eagerly complied and toom my whole cock into her mouth. It hardly fit (small mouth) but somehow she managed to cause a ripling sensation along the whole thing. I made her look me in the eye while she sucked my dick.

I spun her around eager to taste her pussy again while she sucked my cock. I noted how her juices dripped from her pussy. I gently pushed against her mouth making my cock go just a little further down her throat and told her how her pussy was dripping. I took her clit into my mouth and buried my face into that warm, wet cave. She had been opened up by my dick, but her legs immediately began to shake. I suck on her clits while running my nails dowm her back and burying my nose in her pussy. My entire face was absoluter covered in her juices when she began to shake and squirted again all over my face.

She began working her tongue around the head of my dick and I experienced a sensation I never have before. The intense pleasure of orgasm with no ejaculation. She kept me in that wonderful state for what seemed like forever before climbing on top of me, looking me dead in the eye and desperately saying, "I need your cum. Now, please."

There was a look of true desperation in her eyes. We were both totally out of breath and covered in all manner of nodily fluids. She rode my dick like a woman possessed. Even now every 7 or 8 thrusts I'd feel that clamping and she'd shove my dick deeper into her to keep it from being forced out.

Now, I kind of have a creampie/preg risk fetish. Newly discovered in the last year. We had agreed I would pull out, but at this point she was just begging me to cum, so I asked where she wanted me to.

She responded breathlessly, "Anywhere." And begind grinding me faster and even harder. I was in ecstasy. She was bucking me so hard and screaming as she came over and over again.

"God I'd love to fill your tight littlr slave pussy with cum."

Another blast of wetness meant that she had just squirted at the thought of me filling her pussy with cum. She collapsed on top of me, totally exhausted.

"Let's get you a drink, and I want to bend you over the couch."

She got up in an almost mesmerized daze and walked the hall. I am reasonably certain this is when she hit subspace. She took a few drinks of water and without being told bent herself ovet the side of the couch.

"Do you really want me to fill you pussy with my cum?" I asked as I lifter her ass up and slide my dick back into her pussy. She whimpered and pushed me deeper into her.

Coming Next Part 2!

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sulfurousdreamscapes · 8 years

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It was the morning I was going to get the bow. Made from the wood from the Tha'syl forest, it would be the first bow I would use in my whole life that wasn’t a hand-me-down. The entire previous night, the song of the Cleric had been ringing in my ears. I went to sleep humming it, and I woke up humming it. I’d heard it only once before, when we made camp, on our quest to retrieve the goblet of the elven queen. And yet, it had remained lodged in my head like a fly in a spider’s web. I’d devoured it, and now it was a part of me: every note, every sound, every plucked string of the harp, every beat of the drum.

“I don’t really know if I’m ready for this,” I said, kneeling before my mentor, the old elf Dorannir. He conferred the bow to me, and I didn’t really have much choice in accepting it.

“You’ll never be ready for it if you keep wondering,” he said, “I spent a good deal on having this made, just for you. You deserve it, more than anyone else I know.”

“Even more than Tele'zica?” I asked. The very name made his face drop, and I fell sorry for bringing her up. “You know I would rather not have to think of her,” he said. I nodded and apologised. I felt the bow in my hands. I drew the string and fired at a blob of goo jumping around near the trees. It died instantly. Satisfied, I retrieved the arrow, and also some of the gold the blob had left behind.

I had an MP3 of the song. Yeah, that was a different era—YouTube was too unknown, and you didn’t have Spotify or Pandora to stream songs from. Back then, you searched high and low on the Internet for songs. And this song, from the MMO? Oh, it was rare. I found it on a file sharing tracker: a private one. It was like my little treasure. I played it over and over again. That probably explains my obsession with it.

Dorannir had been moved by the song too. Or well, that’s what I called him most of the time, but his screen name was Sugi49. The 49 stood for the year the People’s Republic of China was founded. He’d admitted that he’d had questionable taste in screen names as a kid. Any way, he had some video editing program, and he was working on a video for the song. It would have lyrics, and graphics and even animations and stuff. I think you kids call it ‘lyrics video’ nowadays.

“I know what you’re wishing,” I said to him over MSN Messenger, “You wish Tele'zica was here to hear the song.”

“Yeah,” he replied. He sent a nudge, which shook the entire chat window around. He knew I hated that.

I knew the full lyrics to the song by now, and I’d sung it a few times. Sugi49 wanted to hear me sing it, but my voice was too terrible for that.

I played the recording back. My microphone was terrible, and it picked up a lot of noise. All in all, it sounded like my voice was coming out of a shoddy radio. With a beating heart, I searched online for a host to upload it on (again, you have to remember that this was a time before Google Drive, Vocaroo, Dropbox and all these fancy services). I didn’t find one, so I told Sugi49 that I’m going to send it over MSN Messenger. And I did. And on my speed, it was going to take four hours to send one audio file. I sighed.

“It’s not really very good, and the microphone is bad too, so like, don’t judge it too much, okay?” I said.

Sugi49 lol’d. “I just hope neither of us have a disconnect. Then we’ll have start the transfer all over again,” he said. Ugh, I thought—disconnects are the worst.

I spent the next hour reading the MMO’s official forums. It was our own little community. A little hidey-hole from the rest of the world. I say this in retrospect, of course. Back then, it was just there—just so obvious, that I never even questioned it being there for me. I wouldn’t have used the term ‘escapist fantasy’ then because it just sounds so patronising. Like I’m a fucking child who needs escapist play to feel good about myself.

And then, on another lazy refresh, I saw the thread. It was Dorannir’s thread about the lyric video he’d made. “What the fuck?” I said to him over messenger, “You didn’t show me first?”

“Surprise!” he replied.

The video had been uploaded to this new video uploading site that was starting to pick up popularity. It was like Photobucket for videos, you could say. They called it… YouTube.

I started playing the video, and it took ages to buffer. I decided to leave it on buffer and left the computer. I helped mum cook, and she was glad about that, for once. I was glad I could make mum happy. Even though she’s a bitch most of the time.

When I returned, I hit play on the video. The video wasn’t really special, you have to understand. It was actually quite bad in comparison to what gets made today. But Sugi49 had poured his everything into it. It was full of effects. There were images from the game: wallpapers from the official site, key art, concept art, loading screens, even a screenshot or two. Sugi49 had used almost every transition and every effect available in his program. There was that old-timey-movie effect, there was the black-and-white, there was the shredder transition.

The song was ethereal, and Sugi49 had used imagery from outside the game, too. Clouds, forlorn-looking elven girls, full moons shining over the sea. There was an album cover, too. The band was Nightwish. He loved them, but I only got into metal much later.

And of course the video stopped buffering midway through. So much for waiting an hour for it to load.

Sugi49’s video blew up on the forum. No one had really made a lyrics video for this specific song from this specific MMO before, so it proved to be really popular, and a lot of players with internet connections far better than mine praised him for his effort and how cool the video was and asked him if he was going to make more.

He didn’t talk to me much that day. Of course he didn’t. He was too busy talking to people on the forum and answering private messages. He didn’t even show up in the game. I tried playing a bit myself, using my new bow, but I couldn’t bring myself to hum the song anymore. I didn’t even like being a Cleric class and using the bow. I wanted to punch the Cleric ‘Sister’ who sings the song in the game. It’s a stupid song.

I asked Sugi49 on Messenger if he listened to my recording. He said my connection dropped during the transfer and it was interrupted. I started the transfer again. Meanwhile, an anime episode I had on download finally completed downloading, so I hit play. As a side, I feel like the long downloads from back then really meant something. When you’ve had to spend days for an episode, weeks for a series, a month or two for a game, you start to treat them as something special. It’s almost like spending money on entertainment, except not.

I left a comment in the forum. “Nice video, Dorannir,” it said. Nice and simple. He never thanked me for it. Fine, I thought. I’ll just listen to J-Pop and anime themes. Fucking Sailor Moon cared more for me than Sugi49.

I didn’t really know what came over me to hate Sugi49’s popularity. It was like he’d been torn away from me. He’d become famous and now he probably didn’t care about little ol’ me. It was so stupid, but I couldn’t shake it off. Mum asked if I’ll help her cook. I told her I’m not feeling up to it. She said something passive aggressive. I sniped back. We argued. Also, fuck Sugi49.

In the evening, I asked him if he’d listened to my recording. He said he hadn’t. Then he checked, to make sure. Nope, the file download had stalled at 42% for some reason, and it wasn’t moving beyond that. We waited half an hour to be sure, and then cancelled the transfer. “This is never going to work,” I typed, and deleted a sad face emoticon before sending the message.

“Prolly not,” he said.

“Enjoying your new-found popularity?” I asked.

“Yeah sure, why not,” he replied.

“Well, there are people who don’t enjoy popularity, you know. Or like, there’s impostor syndrome, if you’ve heard of that,” I said.

“Ugh, so many PMs,” he said, “I give up answering all of them. Brb, gonna get some lunch.”

I played the recording of my voice again. And again. My own ugly voice singing to myself. I wanted to get on a boat, ride out into the middle of the ocean, and drown the damn recording. I’d let it sink to the bottom of the ocean floor only after I was sure it was dead. Unfortunately, digital data cannot be drowned.

That, and I’m scared shitless of open bodies of water.

Call it prophecy, call it a vision from the future, call it what you will. I realised how little all of this matters. I won't be playing this game forever. It's not even particularly huge, so it's almost likely going to be shut down at some point. Will Sugi49 and I still be friends then? Will the forums continue? Probably not the latter—those will be shut down with the game. The roleplays, the fanfiction, the discussion threads and polls, all gone. All the comments praising Dorannir and his mighty lyrics video would disappear into the aether of the internet, only to be resurrected in some Internet Archive page—if anyone cares to look.

It made me sad.

I messaged Sugi49. "Sorry," I said. "What for?" he said almost immediately. "I don't know, just sorry, I guess," I said. He sensed that I was having a pretty profound time right now, so he chose to accept the apology.

"Can you upload that audio to YouTube?" he asked me. He helped me put the audio into a video container with a basic title screen and a graphic of the game. It was kinda cool. I set it for upload, and sighed, almost certain that my connection was going to drop, or the upload was going to stall, or someone was going to bomb my house, or I was going to die in a flood, or something.

I went around looking at some fanart. and that's when I got a message from an excited Sugi49. "You won't believe what just happened," he said. I disagreed, but never mind. "Tele'zica just messaged me. She said the video is great. She's alive! I don't believe this," he said.

The irony is that he definitely didn't believe this, but I did. I mean, why the hell would I care enough to not believe it.

"What did she say?" I offered some interest.

"Nothing, just 'great video'," he said, but soon after added, "She's asking me how I am and stuff now. She's really back."

"Good for you," I typed, and deleted it without sending.The upload was working, so I just stared at the progress bar for a while. It moved really, really slow.

Somewhere in the game, in a forest where monsters once roamed, I sat down next to the campfire. "It's nice to be alone," I typed in the local chat. There was nobody around. Just me, and the chat box. There will be a time when even I won't be here. And the chat box won't be here. We'll only remember it by screenshots—old photographs proving that it once existed, and that it displayed people's messages.

Everything passes? The bow I have, that Dorannir spent so much gold on. The graphics and sounds here. All gone, but still tormenting me in my memories.

So what happened then? No, my YouTube video upload failed. And then at one point, my computer broke and I had to get the hard drive formatted, so I lost both the audio of me singing and the video I'd made out of it. Sugi49 and I stopped talking daily, then weekly, then monthly, and now we barely say hi.

Nearly a decade later, his lyrics video is still up on YouTube, although the comments have stopped trickling in. I can always revisit that—until YouTube is gone too, I guess.

This post was delayed due to technical issues.

Today’s throwback story is about a really tall tower.

#writing #writers of tumblr #writeblr #story #short story #spilled ink #spilled words #words #daily writing

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nalufever · 8 years

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A Case of the Feelz

Brooklyn Nine Nine Jake X Amy Canonverse-esque Word Count: 1829 Rating: mildly mature

Warning: New to this fandom and first time writing for Jamy. Here’s my take (even though this prolly has been done already and better) on the events leading up to Amy and Jake in bed after their first official ‘romantic stylez’ date.

Summary: Alcohol was mighty fine for greasing nervous wheels - now had it been Amy or Jake who made the first move into bed? Sex was supposed to be off the table, but rules like 'no sex on a first date’ and things like piñatas, glow sticks and egg shells were so meant to be broken.

It was weird with a giant helping of delightful. Amy preened under the warm attention from Jake. A Jake on his 'best behaviour.’ A man full of himself; yet dorky and dosing his teasing with honesty. He was having a great time and it showed in the smile that never dropped from his lips. Was this the same guy who’d purposefully planned a terrible date after he’d won their 'most perps caught’ bet?

Dinner was an understandable blur. Four Kamikaze shots will do that to a person. And wine with dinner - well, wine for Amy and a disgusting array of sweet mixed drinks for Jake. Once the appropriate level of drunkenness was achieved, conversation became loud and never lagged. Jake made Amy laugh.

Debris taken away and final drinks in hand; Jake tossed down money to cover the tab. “This was prolly the best date you’ve ever had Ames.” He winked, enjoying the brief look of annoyance. As much as he likes Amy, he loves winding her up - every chance he gets. “Let’s get some air.”

“All right.” Amy gave Jake her most challenging look from down her nose. “I’m surprised at you detective Peralta. Not gonna try to take me home?”

“I remember your third rule and don’t wanna tempt you too much.” Jake rose from his seat and staggered behind Amy to assist her from her chair with a flourish. “We’ll have to cab it on account of how drunk you are.” He grinned and winked. “You’re so the type to have busy hands while I’m trying to drive.”

“You wish!” Amy pretended a look of outrage. “There’s no way I’d let either of us drive.” It would have been more of a stunning set down if she hadn’t also laughed. She slung her purse over her shoulder and lead the way out of the restaurant, head held high.

Jake about swallowed his tongue - Amy did things for the clothes she wore. Good things. She did things for his clothes too - his pants were strangling him. That hip swaying action; oh man, he could watch that for hours. Red dresses were now his kryptonite.

Stepping out onto the pavement, Jake offered Amy his arm. Gratified by how easy she accepted it, he beamed. “Ames, we should totally drink a toast to celebrate how awesome our romantic stylez date went.”

“Oh, it is over?”

“… It doesn’t have to be.” Jake nodded in time with the clack of Amy’s heels as they walked. “I’ll let you invite me over.”

“Let you?”

“All right.” Jake shot Amy a smug look which in retrospect wasn’t the smartest idea - but hell, teasing her was the best. He rubbed where Amy had punched his arm, doing his best to hide his wince. Damn, that was gonna bruise. Good thing he didn’t mind a little rough housing. “Since you insist!” He whistled and flagged down a cab, intending to open the door for Amy. She beat him to it and ushered him in - goosing him in the process and cackling madly to hear his yelp.

She swatted his arm again as he gave her address to the cabbie and assured the man that Amy was big tipper. As a modern man, Jake is all about sharing costs. Paying for a date doesn’t mean he’s entitled to anything either. Oh, he sure as hell hopes so, but he’s not anywhere near that foolish. On the other hand (and Amy’s hands look pretty good too) he’d 'put out’ if Amy asked, nicely mind you. He shares a smirk with the driver and downgrades his words to the truth; 'just ask.’

Longest most embarrassing cab ride over, Amy sprints from the car covering her ears as Jake adds more fuel to her blush. He’s telling the cabbie it’s awesome how eager she is for the sex.

His affable grin doesn’t drop one inch as she repeats from earlier, 'sex is off the table on a first date.’

He nods sagely as she stumbles a bit - when did the floor get so uneven? “Depends how sturdy the table is, really - or if you wanted a new one.”

Smooth, clever like always - but a bit nervous under that veneer? Amy wants to see Jake squirm. She wants to see lots of things. Naughty things - but she promised herself to take this slow. Jake was all kinds of wonderful mixed with smart and irrepressible. “I’ve broken a table before.” She arches her eyebrow and gives him her own Amy Santiago smirk.

Never at a loss for words long, (or ever) Jake nods and agrees in a humble tone, “That sounds like bragging. I’m gonna have to give a second opinion on that. Tell you what, I’ll let you have your way with me on any two tables you want.” As designed, this spins them into a conflict over which two tables Amy could live with destroyed. Jake doesn’t think Amy understands. At this point she has tacitly agreed to have wild physical intimacy with him and on doily encrusted tables no less.

This is fun for the both of them; open flirting - a bit of give and take. Jake gives the most outrageous statements serious delivery and Amy takes everything she hears and does her best to memorize. She’s delightfully drunk, riffing off on his absurdities and adding to them. It’s actually quite awesome how clever they both are. This is indeed the best first date. Hey - it’s kinda the second date between them - Jake did score more arrests, taking her out in that hideous blue dress.

This knowledge swims around in the simmering soup of passion inside of Amy. She laughs in the kitchen where she’s grabbing another round of drinks. Flirting is thirsty work. She goes back into her living room and plops down next to Jake who has flung his tie off lord knows where, but he looks like he’s thought of something he needs to take care of urgently in his own apartment.

“What’s the matter?” She doesn’t give him the chance to turn down the beer, placing the bottle on his knee - making him have to stop bouncing it.

He moves to grip it and nods. “Cool cool cool cool cool.”

Amy scoots closer, loving Jake’s red cheeks. “If I told you, you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”

He sputters, “That’s so old. Can’t you think of any newer lines?” How many drinks has Amy had anyway? His virtue is in dire straits. He wants to do the do, but they vowed 'not on the first date’ and dammit he was a man of principle. A dirty, lustful and horny man - but with a few selected important virtues. No going back on his word, no means no. Yeah, he’s not dead - he wants recreational stress relief more than his next breath. Santiago is all kinds of sexy.

“You know what we agreed at the start of the date?”

“Going halvsies? I’ll let you pay half now as a special favour.” Jake took a nervous gulp of his drink and then relaxed to see the amusement dance in Amy’s eyes.

She plucked his beer away and set it and her drink down on two doily coasters. So sue her! She liked doilies. Her tongue darted out and wet her lips. She narrowed her eyes at Jake. “We agreed no sex on the first date - but that -”

“But that doesn’t rule out things that lead up to sex!” Jake cheered. “I have the best partner, ever.”

“I will gray-cious, gray-cee-us - yes.” Amy gave up and straddled Jake’s lap. She paused. In that pause, that second - the Jake she knew as a wise-cracking detective shed some of his braggadocio and become a more honest version of himself. His want was clear to her; whatever she saw fit to give him. And Amy was willing to bet every last doily she had and half of her binder collection (she wasn’t that impaired to risk all of them) that it would be magical.

Amy set her index finger in his chin dimple. She gave him a soft smile and slowly lowered her mouth to his.

Jake liked this, ahem, a lot - and so did Jake Jr. He settled his hands on Amy’s hips and let himself arch up. She didn’t scream, slap him or jump off - so he opened his mouth and made it a two pronged attack.

One hand under her shirt directly on her flesh and the other digging into her pleasing derriere, Jake couldn’t hold in his moans. Santiago was a devil. Her tongue was busy gathering intel and then staged a coup - blasting all his remaining thoughts into the stratosphere.

Holy shit, Ames was on board and making a full press assault. Jake hissed more in pleasure than pain as Amy yanked on hair, forcing his head back. She ran her tongue down his neck and giggled. Giggled.

“What, do I taste funny?”

“Ooh! The name of your sex tape!”

Jake waggled his brows, “If you play your cards right, ours.”

Amy pulled on Jake’s shirt and unbuttoned the top couple of buttons. “Let’s take this to my room.”

“Heh, aren’t all these your rooms?” Jake joked, remembering the number one rule not to be broken. His grin turned into a smirk - man, Ames was a wicked kisser.

“Technically this is our second date.”

“Noice.” Jake kept Amy in his arms and sprang from the couch, huffing only a little. He wasn’t weak or anything, Ames was built sturdy. Stripping her would make her lighter and ditching his own clothes was the new plan.

On Amy’s sensible duvet, a gloriously naked Jake Peralta grinned down at an equally grinning Amy Santiago. She threaded her arms around his neck and pulled his lips down to hers. She might be under his body but she still held a position of authority. Amy speared her tongue into Jake’s mouth and destroyed what was left of his mind.

Did it matter who made the first move? Hells no. What was important, was the mutual desire raging out of control. It burned bright, a many splendored case of the feelz.

#brooklyn nine nine #brooklyn 9 9 #fan fic #jake x amy #jamy #mature #my writing #fluff/smut

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