#He still let me take more photos though so kudos

[tj-dragonblade]

[FIC] Past the Wit of Man (or, Bottom's Dream)

Fandom: The Sandman Pairing: Dreamling Rated: M Word Count: 3657 Tags: comedy, attempted comedy, comedy devolving into feels, identity reveal, sex worker Hob Gadling, advancing my Men In Lingerie agenda, long-haired Hob Gadling agenda, stretching timelines like taffy, Desire and Dream get along AU, but Desire is not actively in this, Dead Boy Detectives comic spoilers mentioned, miscommunication, Dream of the Endless finally uses his words, happy ending

Notes: Kudos props and huge thanks to everyone in the Mr Sadman discord who creatively interpreted a snippet I posted of something else and launched the whole idea of Hob working for a supernatural escort service; this would not exist without y'all and your beautiful brainstorming. ❤️

This fills the August monthly @dreamlingbingo prompt Identity Reveal, replacing square A2 (creature: Veela) on my bingo card

Summary: Hob is nicely settled in a new career and a new identity and does not expect to see his Stranger until 2089. The universe, apparently, has other ideas.

On AO3

~ "Your client is Dream of the Endless. He is extremely ancient and extremely powerful, an underpinning concept of the universe. Absolutely terrible about loosening up and letting himself relax."

"Don't think I'd be much good at relaxing if I was an underpinning concept of the universe either," Hob jokes, opening the profile that the Agency rep has just airdropped to his phone and thumbing through it.

The rep, a foppish vampire with curly white hair and impeccable fashion sense, arches one elegant eyebrow at him. "Apparently his most recent girlfriend dumped him quite harshly and his sibling has arranged this booking on his behalf; he's—and I am quoting here—'absolutely incompetent at managing his own happiness'."

"He knows he's been booked though, right? I'm not gonna catch the fallout because no one told him what kind of appointment this is?" It's only happened once, a prank played on a shy ace nixie by her well-meaning but ill-informed friends; all the same, Hob does not care to repeat the experience—particularly with someone potentially more dangerous.

"He is very much aware and in agreement, yes. We promised him our top companion." The rep dimples at Hob, a smile of saccharine sincerity that shows only the barest hint of fang. "And that's you, sweet Nick."

"And that's me," Hob agrees matter-of-factly, frowning at his phone, then turning it to show his guest. "No photo?"

The rep glances at the screen and makes a commiserative noise. "Oh, yes. Unfortunate, that. Cameras have a very hard time with this fellow, something to do with his general relationship to reality." His tone takes on a simpering air of great melodrama. "We were forced to use an artist's rendition instead! Tragic, really; it doesn't do him justice."

"Huh," Hob says, turning his phone back and studying the cartoony hand-drawn image. Guy looks like he's got some sort of steampunk insect for a head, dark and bolt-laden and bug-eyed, with a trunk that's strongly reminiscent of a disembodied spine. "Dream of the Endless, you said? Looks more like a bloody nightmare."

The rep gives an exaggerated roll of his shoulders, as if shrugging off his delivery duty now that it's done, and turns to leave. "Well whatever the case, an Endless is far above the average client, darling. Give him your best."

"'Course." Hob grins. "That's why you brought the assignment to me, after all."

"Just so." The Agency rep gives a lazy wave in parting and Hob closes the door, still scrolling through the profile as he makes his way to the kitchen.

"Dozens of titles and names", he murmurs, glancing through the list of them. "King of Dreams and Nightmares, alright. Contains the entire collective unconscious of every living being in. Every…universe…?" He shakes his head. "Has never taken a vacation ever. Bested Lucifer Morningstar and oversaw the reassignment of Hell—okay, wow. Billions of years old." He whistles, a long sound of awed disbelief. "Maybe I throw in a free massage for this guy; sounds like he could use it."

He shakes his head again, pockets his phone, carries on with getting breakfast together.

Bug-headed workaholic foundational concept of the universe. Won't be the weirdest client he's ever serviced.

~

It's been ten years since his stranger showed up late for their meeting and smiled so openly and named him friend. That had been their longest meeting yet, lasting all afternoon and on into the evening and it wasn't until the Inn had started closing up for the night that they wound down. His stranger had spoken briefly of the missed appointment in 1989, making clear that something at least mildly traumatic had kept him away and also that he did not wish to elaborate, and Hob had let it go. There was so much to tell of his own century past, his friend remarking with interest on a great many of his stories, and it was enough. His stranger, his friend, had come back, and they'd had a lovely long meeting. Perhaps in 2089 he would be comfortable sharing more of his own story, but even if not, Hob didn't mind. He was confident once more in the friendship he'd declared back in 1889 and willing to coax it out bit by bit, meeting by meeting. He had all the time in the world, after all.

Within a year of that meeting he'd wrapped up his teaching career, arranged for ownership of the New Inn to transfer to a 'relative' in the States who'd keep it running the next few decades, and started searching for a new career for his next identity.

He stumbled quite by accident into the broader supernatural world after being stalked by two dead teenagers helping that de Rais creep who wanted to steal his immortality. It all turned out fine in the end but opened Hob's eyes to exactly how much the supernatural had integrated into the modern world around him. And once old Hettie clued him in to the existence of a certain Service Agency catering to supernatural clients, his next career path was all but decided. What was he going to do, not seize the opportunity for fantastical sexual exploration when presented with it? Life was for living! Werewolves, vampires, sirens and fae and merfolk, the occasional ghost and even an extra-terrestrial or two; scales, feathers, tentacles, knots—Hob's shown them all a good time and earned a stellar reputation among the Agency's clientele. He doesn't plan to do it forever, but he enjoys exploring new avenues and stretching his limits and 'Nick Bottom' is the perfect persona to let him do so.

And now sweet high-priced in-demand Nick has been booked to rebound-fuck an uptight concept in humanoid form who looks like something straight out of a nightmare.

Hob can't wait to completely take this guy apart one orgasm at a time until he's a boneless puddle of satiation and send him home afterwards a brand new man.

Concept. Entity. Whatever.

~

The booking is scheduled for the following day and when the time comes, Hob is fresh and clean and set up in the Agency's most lavish suite. He's let his hair grow the last few years, sports a proper Hozier-like mane at this point, is wearing it down for this appointment. His beard is several weeks old, trimmed to artfully-scruffy perfection and well-groomed. He's lounging on the bed in a short open silk robe and a pair of lace panties that hug his hips and leave most of both arse cheeks exposed, a popular outfit in his repertoire sure to please the classiest of clients with the most discerning taste. Both pieces are a matching vibrant cobalt blue that complements his skin tone beautifully. He's wondering what fucking a concept is like, idly massaging his dick now and then to keep it primed, when finally there's a peculiar displacement of air and then a figure in dark robes with a weird spine-trunked bug-eyed head is standing in the middle of the suite. He's taller than Hob and inhumanly rail-thin; the robes plunge deep from the neckline, displaying milk-white skin without a hint of chest hair and clavicles that beg to be nibbled on. He's in profile, angled slightly away, and Hob has the distinct sense that this is a deliberate pose meant to make an impression, to instill awe and possibly fear in him.

So Dream of the Endless has a flair for drama, got it.

"Hello," Hob greets in his best breathless-and-sultry tone, rising from the bed to approach his client. He layers in a suitable amount of awe, pitching his voice toward 'smitten' with a subtle ring of sincerity to support it. "Oh, wow. You must be Dream of the Endless; I'm so delighted to get to meet you! I'll be taking care of you today; you can call me Nick."

The guy, the concept, Dream of the Endless, he goes stock-still as Hob speaks, and it's like the air in the room pauses with him. He turns, slowly, until Hob is face to face with his…oh, possibly that's a mask, then; the bug-eyed lenses are somewhat translucent in the light though Hob still can't see beneath them.

"There has been some mistake." The voice is deep and distorted through the helmet-mask, bone-rattling in an almost-pleasant way and, somehow, somewhat…familiar? "I was meant to be meeting with 'Nick Bottom'." The quotes around the name are audible.

"That's me!" Hob says, raking a hand back through his hair and shaking it to settle around his shoulders attractively, flashing his most charming smile. "At your service, love, whatever you need. I'm here to make sure you have a very good time, and—"

"Hob Gadling."

That draws him up short. He's currently Robyn Gadrin for tax-paying purposes in the outside world, but the Agency wouldn't give out his current identity let alone his true name, so how—

Hob's brain is babbling insistently about the note of familiarity in that voice and he finally lights on why as Dream of the Endless reaches up to remove his helmet.

Hob finds himself staring at the slightly-more-than-human-but-still-very-familiar face of his Stranger, his centennial touchstone, his friend.

Everything about his reality tips a little bit sideways, dominoes crashing one after the other in his brain until all that's left is that awful ringing alarm tone that features in emergency broadcast alerts on American telly.

Between them, the silence stretches awkwardly, until finally Hob breaks it, the first thing that comes to his tongue spilling out while his poor brain is still rebooting.

"Six-hundred some-odd bloody years, and this is how I learn your name?!"

~

It is five minutes later. Hob is sitting on the side of the plush bed in his short silk robe and lace panties, clutching a bottled water and seriously considering availing himself of the bar in the next room because his emotions are all over the place. His Stranger—Dream of the Endless, apparently—is seated next to him. His eyes are not the blue that Hob is used to, are fully black with actual stars winking in and out of them; it's gorgeous but uncanny. He's currently not looking at Hob, has got the weird bug-spine helmet gripped tightly in both hands. Which are still so pretty, Hob can't help noticing, his fingers longer and more spindly than normal, splayed wide around the curve of the helm, nails painted black. Or maybe not painted, maybe they just are black.

Pretty, regardless.

Not a helpful thought at this juncture.

It's not like he'd thought his Stranger was actually human, obviously, and okay yes the possibility of meeting up with him via this particular career choice had crossed his mind once or twice, might've featured in a private fantasy or two; but also he'd never seriously imagined it because it felt so entirely implausible that his prim and lofty Stranger would ever engage in something so mundane. So casual.

Apparently, Hob was wrong about that.

He's not sure how to feel about it, either.

The smooth inhumanly-pale chest on display in the plunging vee of those artfully-draped robes is also not helping anything.

His Stranger—Dream— moves slightly, glances at him with those starry eyes, flexes those pretty fingers on the helmet. "I will. Arrange. For another. To take your place, Hob, you need not—"

"Now hold on a minute," Hob interrupts, sudden direction presenting itself for his floundering emotions to flow. "What do you mean, 'arrange for another'? What's wrong with me?"

Dream, his name is Dream of the Endless, Dream looks perplexed. "Our. History—"

"Oh yes, our illustrious storied history wherein we have met all of seven times before now and, may I remind you, you took offense to my suggestion that we might be friends until you'd had time to digest it properly, yes."

"Eight."

"Eight?"

"I visited your dream, before undertaking a daunting journey from my realm to another. We shared wine. You gave a most thoughtful toast."

"I. Okay." He remembers that dream, yes; he remembers the wine that followed him out of it, and now with the knowledge that his Stranger is apparently King of all dreams and nightmares suddenly it all makes brand new sense. But he will process that later. "Eight. Still not a factor in my ability to do my job."

Mostly. It is his Stranger, after all, and it's not like he hasn't ever wanted—

"Sex would be. Awkward," Dream insists, and Hob loses it, never mind he'd half-thought the same thing until a second ago; Dream saying it makes him refute the assertion with everything he's got.

"You dare," he says, setting aside his water.

Dream boggles at him, cosmic eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.

"You. DARE. To disdain my professional services just because we know each other?!"

"Hob— "

"No. No, your booking was very clear that you were to have the very best, and that. Is. Me. So you will not be re-booking with another companion on the grounds that our acquaintance makes it 'awkward'; if you mean to partake of the services you've hired you will partake of them with me."

"My sibling."

"What."

"My sibling hired your services. Did they know—" He's half talking to himself and Hob sighs, forcefully pulling the conversation back on track.

"Yes, right; your sibling booked you and here you are. Did you want to get laid today?"

"You need not be so crude about it."

"Forgive me. Of course. Did you come here hoping to have a sensual skillful sexual experience with a stranger intent on your pleasure with no judgments or expectations placed upon you in return?" He makes a valiant effort to rein in his sarcasm. "Because I can still provide that. Minus the bit where we're not strangers."

Dream looks positively miserable, a sodden wet cat of a man in sex-appeal robes hunched on the edge of the decadently-plush bed, and there is certainly an understandable element of embarrassment to the situation but Dream is taking it so seriously. Hob is not surprised, exactly, but christ—he's more than willing to follow through never mind any feelings he may or may not want to admit to, and Dream is the one who'd agreed to the booking in the first place. You'd think he could handle this hiccup with a little more grace.

"It was my intent to. Do, as you say," Dream says at last, and Hob sighs.

"Is that still what you want, then? I promise I'll take good care of you." He's actually really warming up to the idea, not that he was cold to it to begin with. It's his Stranger after all. He's been willing to say yes for centuries. "They really did book you the best, and I would love to show you how well-earned my reputation is—"

"Hob—" Dream sounds pained, gives an artfully-dramatic shake of his head. "My wants are. Manageable. If no one else is available. I cannot simply engage with you so frivolously—"

Hob leaps up from the bed, stalks a frustrated few steps away and whirls back, spreads his arms. "Am I not appealing to you, Dream of the Endless?" He tosses his head, shakes his hair back, gestures at the blue silk and lace that he knows looks absolutely spectacular on him. "Would you like me to change clothes? I have a dozen more ensembles I'd be happy to put on if you'd rather peel me out of one of those. Would the Prince of Stories prefer roleplay? Golden-age pirate, biker bad boy, Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth, cowboy, librarian, Starfleet officer—I'll dress however you like." He's fired up, he's…it feels like anger but it's more like alarm; he is absolutely not about to let a colleague fuck HIS Stranger if Dream's looking to unwind. Not with all the thoughts he's entertained the last couple centuries, not when Dream is looking so entirely miserable about the whole experience. Hob wiggles his bare toes in the plush carpet, forcing a deep breath; he is jealous and possessive and protective all at once and has no idea how to safely navigate this storm to get Dream what he wants without pissing him off.

"Your…clothing becomes you greatly, Hob." He's sneaking a glance as he says it, like he's not allowed to look but can't help it. "Your clothing is not at issue."

"Then what is?" Hob rakes a hand back through his hair, frustration fizzling, careening toward concern. "If you're truly that put off by me, I'll let it go. But you're here, for sex, which you did say you wanted; this is my job and I'm good at it and you clearly need—" Someone to take care of you, he'd nearly said, and while Dream has been giving him so much leeway in this conversation he thinks that might be one straw too much for this particular camel's back.

Nice to know he appreciates Hob's hairy chest and his dick in blue lace, though.

Dream levels him with a look that almost puts him right back to 1889, and Hob has half a second to start panicking before Dream closes his eyes, draws himself up, sets his bloody weird helmet on the bedside table with a soft leathery clunk. When he opens his eyes again, they are resolute, resigned, the eyes of a man headed for the gallows despite the stars winking hopelessly in their depths.

"I do not wish to be intimate with you. When you view it as simply a job. I. Would like—but not. If it is a transaction. If I am merely a client."

Oh. Oh.

Oh shit, really?

Impossible.

Really?

"You want. You want it to mean something?" Hob is embarassed at how small his voice comes out.

Dream closes his eyes, something like shame written all over his beautiful otherworldly-pale face. "I had thought. At our fifth meeting. That perhaps there was the possibility of. Attraction, between us." He opens his night-sky eyes again, meets Hob's resolutely. "Had we not been interrupted…" He shakes his head. "I pondered the idea until next we met, anticipating the possibility of. Seeing, where we might have come to. But you named what was between us friendship, you named me lonely; I perceived your words as mockery and acted accordingly. I spent the next century with a surplus of time to wander my own thoughts. They turned to you, Hob Gadling, with regularity. As I expressed when last we met, I regret leaving our previous meeting so abruptly, so harshly. Your friendship is of great value to me. I am content to let it remain friendship, in the interest of keeping it. But I am unwilling to engage with you, who named me 'friend', as I would a lover when I have yet to fully bury the wish. That you might have been my lover in truth."

Hob is desperately trying to keep from bluescreening again and while he's focused on that, his mouth runs along without him. "You never even gave me a name, but you wanted us to be lovers?"

"I am. Aware, of how foolish my wishes—"

"No, oh no. Dream. Love." He absolutely cannot let him think that. "All you ever had to do was ask."

Dream looks at him, starry eyes full of misery with the faintest spark of hope underneath, glimmering with unshed tears. "I. Could not—"

"That was then. Water under the bridge. What about now."

Dream shivers, his more-than-human face wary and pleading and resigned all at once and the last of the fight drains out of Hob. He approaches gently, until he is directly in front of Dream on the edge of the bed again; he half straddles Dream's lap with one foot still on the floor and a bare knee sunk on the mattress beside him, threads both hands into Dream's hair behind his lovely ears, tips his pale face up.

"Ask me now. Please."

Dream's hand settles above his bent knee, a gentle, tentative touch; his eyelashes flutter, and the sound that leaves him steals Hob's breath. That hand travels softly around to grip the back of Hob's thigh, slides hesitantly higher, and then it's Hob making the helpless noise as Dream's fingertips card beautifully through his leg hair, run up beneath the short robe. Dream's spindly black-nailed hand caresses up over his exposed arse cheek, squeezes, and all the while Dream's beguiling uncanny eyes are fixed on him, wet and wondering, full of blossoming hope.

"Hob Gadling." His voice is hushed, almost reverent. "I should like to have you, as my lover. If you are amenable." His face is tipped up, so close between Hob's hands, and Hob.

Hob's shaking. He's actually trembling, pent up, a little scared; daring, as he leans down and his hair falls around them both, hoping—

He brushes his lips to Dream's.

He kisses his Stranger, his friend, his touchstone.

And Dream of the Endless, who is all of those things, kisses him back.

It's nothing like he might have imagined, and ten times as wonderful, and over before he realizes he's ended it.

"Do you mean it." His voice is breathless, the words spoken directly against Dream's mouth. It's a stupid question, in light of the entire conversation gone before and the hand still on his arse, but he can't help asking. This entire turn of events is just too good to be true.

"Yes."

But true it is, apparently, and Hob's heart soars.

"Then. Dream of the Endless. My Stranger. My friend." He presses soft kisses to those plush pink lips between each moniker, dizzy that he's allowed. "Let me add another title to the list, darling. Take me to bed; the suite is ours 'til tomorrow. Let me learn how you would have me. Let me show you how I would treat you. And let me, at long last, name you mine."

= Started: 8/21/24 Drafted: 8/27/24 Posted: 8/30/24

If you're looking for a spicier take on this concept, @delta-pavonis has you covered: Dossier 54392 - please, give it a read, it's delicious.

(and here, have a post-script-y epilogue-exchange of sorts that did not quite fit:)

= "You chose to name yourself Nick Bottom?"

"What better name for a callboy to the supernatural than the bloke who got unwittingly embroiled in a fae lovers' spat and ultimately survived the entire encounter unscathed? Feels pretty relevant to me. Empowering, a bit?"

"Nick Bottom was less 'empowered' than simply lucky, perhaps."

"Perhaps. I'll not turn my nose up at good luck, either. But a name like Bottom in this business is also too good a pun to pass up, and I figure old Shaxberd would approve."

"I believe he would, indeed."

"The irony being that fully half of my clients want me to top them, heh."

"I do not wish to speak of your clients while you are in bed with me."

"Got better uses for my mouth, have you?"

"Other sounds I would prefer to hear from it, yes."

"Fair enough. Why don't you tell me what you want, Mr. Sandman, and see if I can make your dreams come true."

"Must you be so cliché?"

"You love my clich—mmph—"

"Stop. Talking."

"Yes love."

(Dream will tell him about commissioning A Midsummer Night's Dream at some other time 💖)

= Nick Bottom's lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream that lent themselves to the title: I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was and also The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream

[flowerpotmage]

Tight Grip, Broken Dam (14)

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You don’t question it anymore, when Miguel appears in your bed at night. He’s not there for sex, no, you’ve never even kissed—though you would be lying if you said you weren’t open to the idea of kissing him. He’s there for comfort. For rest. If only it could stay so simple.

Pair: Miguel O'Hara & GN!Reader

Notes: for chapter: sex dreams, soup, superheroing (now with less peril!)

Word Count: 3.3k

Read this chapter on Ao3 here. If you like my work, please consider leaving kudos there as well! You do not need an account to do so.

Dr. Parker approves your return to Spidering on a Wednesday.

You’re practically buzzing when he does, having been crawling out of your skin stuck in a cycle of gyms and training courses and mundane work for the paper. It doesn’t help that the latest news stories have all been about your disappearance, and have now moved on to theorizing over the likelihood of your death.

You can’t remember the last time it felt so good to put on your suit.

Your body cuts through the crisp night air as you swing through tall city buildings. You stop a mugging, a purse thief (who even does that anymore?), an attempted robbery, and a potential car accident. People cheer and gasp when they see you swing by, hands scrambling for phones to take photos and videos.

It’s a busy night. Petty criminals emboldened by your previous absence act with a particular fearlessness you haven’t seen since the early days, and you bounce from place to place like a video game character chasing quest markers, your path chaotic and messy.

You stop to rest for just a moment on top of a bank and let the sounds of the city roll over you.

Your watch pings: it’s Miguel.

“Hi,” you answer, beaming under your mask at the little bust of him floating above your wrist.

“Back on the streets?”

“More like rooftops,” you joke, lifting your mask so he can see your face. He smiles when your own grin comes into view. “Doctor Parker gave me the all clear.”

“Right,” he says, pausing hesitantly. “How is it?”

Your grin slides into a much softer smile. “It’s going great. I’ve already helped a lot of people tonight.” You pause. “They weren’t sure if I was… still around.”

He nods, understanding.

Sirens call you from a few blocks over, your head jerking up to track their distance. You look back down at your watch.

“I should go get that,” you say, smiling apologetically as you turn and start walking across the rooftop. “Will you… will you be at the apartment tonight?”

“Do you want me to be?”

You pause. Of course you do. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He smiles, half a smirk. “You just want someone to have dinner ready for you when you get home.”

You laugh, pulling your mask down. “I’ll see you later.”

He chuckles, ends the call, and you jump out into the open air over the street.

You’re all over the news the next day. Headlines of City Spider Lives! and Spider Returns and other such variations dot the papers and fill screens. You even trend on TikTok.

Gwen arrives around noon to borrow your washing machine and catch up, when you’re on your couch doing research for your next piece for The Bulletin. The temperature has been dropping, so the balcony doors are closed and you have a blanket across your lap, dressed in one of Miguel’s overnight shirts and a pair of sweatpants.

“Whose shirt is that?” she asks, greetings exchanged, and piling her things into the washing machine.

You blink, looking down at yourself, and glance over the back of the couch into the hallway. Your fingers run over one of the folds over your stomach, the fabric soft and warm. “Uh.”

Gwen turns to look at you with a raised eyebrow, a cheeky grin in place.

“None of your business,” you say, turning back to the laptop balanced on your thighs, legs stretched out like a bridge to the coffee table.

You hear the lid of the machine close, the clicks and beeps that announce it turning on. Gwen swings over the back of the couch to land next to you, graceful as ever.

“So I guess the pair of plates on the dish rack are none of my business too?”

You shoot her a halfhearted warning glare and she holds her hands up in surrender.

“Alright, alright,” she says, dropping her hands into her lap. “I’ll leave it alone, but I want you to know I’m happy for you.”

You grumble something noncommittal, face warming. Miguel had been in your apartment again last night—you’re struggling to clearly remember just when the last night without him was—and had stayed for breakfast this morning.

You had cooked for him, for once. Pancakes, with fruit.

“Is this all you know how to cook?” he teased. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I know how to cook other stuff,” you laughed, and turned to look at him.

Your usual positions were reversed, you at the stove and Miguel seated on the other side of the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. He smiled at you, forearms folded on the counter as he watched you.

“Cereal doesn’t count.”

“Oh, shut it,” you said and turned back to the stove, pretending that your skin wasn’t tingling under his gaze.

“Whatcha working on?” Gwen asks, pulling you back to the present.

“Some filler piece on an animal shelter,” you say. “I’ll get something better soon, now that I’m not ‘sick.’” You lift a hand to draw quotes in the air around the word.

“Hm.”

And you do, when you go into The Bulletin later that afternoon. Ellison delightedly informs you that he’s acquired press passes for an event celebrating donors to the city’s oldest art museum, and even gotten you a plus one.

“That’s pretty big,” you say. “But not normally enough to get you this excited.”

It’s true. Ellison, normally friendly, albeit marginally stressed on nearly every occasion you’ve seen him, is practically bouncing on his feet as he grins.

“Well, the Spider is back.”

“I’m not–”

“I’m not trying to get you to cover the Spider, calm down,” he says. “Karen’s taking it.”

Shit.

Your lungs freeze for a moment. It would be one thing for a colleague to cover your after-hours life, but one you’ve befriended?

“Karen, huh?”

Ellison nods. “We’ve gone long enough without a reporter on this. She’s had success with other vigilante characters before. Daredevil, Punisher. Spider’s probably the safest of the lot she’ll ever meet.”

“Can’t argue there,” you say, half mumbling, mind already racing through how you’ll manage to keep Karen in the dark, because you know with her tenacity she’ll corner the Spider sooner or later.

Miguel slips into your apartment through the balcony. It’s late, so he figures you’re probably asleep—which is why he’s opted to portal to your rooftop and scale down the building for the quiet, mundane entry instead of the far more obtrusive route of portaling straight to your living room. Of course, he could just sleep in his own home, but…

The sliding glass door clicks shut under his hand, white noise of the city now shut out. Turning, he scans over your living room—laptop dark on your kitchen counter, couch blanket unfolded and laying haphazardly on the cushions.

You’re working more again. That’s good.

He turns to your bedroom door, cracked open as if inviting him in, and opens it slowly. His caution is rewarded; you lay there, sleeping, the back of your head the only part of you visible from under the small hill of blankets.

The sight warms his chest, sparking his smile to life.

Miguel’s shirt isn’t on the chair where he left it, so he goes into your closet to get one of the others that had found their way to your apartment and stayed there. He changes there, in your room. He knows you won’t wake if you haven’t already, and so there’s no worry of you catching him stripping from his suit at the foot of your bed.

Not that he would mind you seeing, he realizes with a start. Not just as a fantasy, but really, actually seeing him like this, here, in this moment.

He swallows; turns his head to look at you as he holds his shirt in his hands.

Deep asleep.

Even with this revelation—of fantasy versus reality and the way it sends his mind spinning—his whole being softens at the relaxed expression of your sleeping face, the soft sound of your deep breaths.

He slips on his shirt, his pajama bottoms, and walks around to his side of the bed. Lifting the cover, he slides in beside you. There’s a pause, where he wrestles with the impulse to kiss your face or your hand on the pillow, and instead of pulling you close to his chest under his arm he rolls over to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling.

Sleep comes, eventually.

“Miguel,” you whisper. “Fuck, please–”

You’re under him, face turned to the side on your pillow as he kisses your shoulders, your spine.

“Okay, okay cariño. I’ve got you.”

He lifts himself up on his hands above you, a hand planted on the mattress by your waist and the other finding its place on your skin, sliding across hips that roll and shift against the mattress, searching for any of what he’s denied you thus far.

“Lift for me, sweetheart. There you go,” he praises when you arch your back for him, lifting your hips to give him access.

You’ve been moaning and whining so quietly this whole time, the sounds sweet as sugar and rushing straight to his cock, making his mouth water.

“Miguel,” you plead. “Please…”

“I know, I know mi vida,” he soothes, stroking himself and sliding against your opening. “I’ve got you.”

When he slides in it's so fucking perfect that he can’t help but groan, the sound deep and straight from his soul.

And then, in a change that only makes sense in dreams, you’re above him, pulling his hair back and riding him as you lick his neck. His hands grip your hips, and—

Miguel wakes, skin hot and a weight on his chest: you’ve cuddled up to him at some point in your sleep, a leg hooked around his, dangerously close to–

Mierda.

It's not even dawn yet, going by the lighting and the clock on your bedside table.

He’s had dreams about you before, of course, but this… He closes his eyes, willing the ache between his legs away, using all of his will to not shift his legs wider to provide room and relief. Shocking hell though, it’d be easier to calm down, for his racing heart to slow, if you weren't right there—

Your arm around his middle tightens, then loosens, an unconscious hum escaping your throat.

That’s it. He needs to get out of here. It’s not easy, disentangling himself from your sleeping body without waking you, but somehow he does it, his hardness finally giving up and softening.

It comes back later though, after he’s made you breakfast and left and is in the shower in his own home, the dream rising unbidden behind his eyes. He indulges in the images, brow furrowed and panting softly as he wraps his hand around himself and lets the images in his head play through past the moment he woke.

“Shit, shit!”

You scramble from the couch to the stove, where the lid on a pot of soup is starting to rattle as the contents inside boil over. You turn down the heat, remove the lid, and stir the contents—slowly, slowly it simmers down.

You’re making soup for Miguel, a surprise to prove his teasing remarks wrong. You've dug out an old recipe from your aunt, one she got from your grandmother that you’ve been told your mom loved growing up. It's something you make every fall when the air starts to get that little bit of bite to it—and you think Miguel will like it too.

The soup is saved, thankfully. You ladle the steaming hot contents into a tupperware after changing—Spider suit under your clothes, a comfortable shirt and loose jacket—package the two containers into an old tote bag with napkins and spoons and then portal to HQ.

It’s gray in Miguel’s dimension, the skies overcast and disproportionately bright: the sort of overcast that hurts your eyes more than a clear sunny day, the sun behind the clouds turning the sheet of gray into cold diffused light. Even the climate-controlled space that hosts Miguel’s Spider Society has a hint of the chill from outside—far easier to keep the building cool at this altitude than to heat it, apparently.

Soup was the right call.

You make your way through the weaving beams and paths, swinging through the open space on your webs before landing at the entrance to Miguel’s lab.

“Whatcha got in there?” Lyla pops up, eye level with yours.

“Soup.” You raise an eyebrow, a hint of a smile on the corner of your lips.

“Sure hope you didn't spill any on your way in,” she teases, flickering from one spot to the next to remain in front of you as you walk further into the dark hall, circling a pointed finger at you. “With all that web-slinging.”

“Of course not. I used the good tupperware.”

Miguel isn't at his multi screen platform this time, but in one of the side nooks, working on something you can't see on an old-school tablet.

“Guess who's here!” Lyla pops up near Miguel’s hunched frame.

Miguel lifts his head to look at Lyla, then straightens in his seat as he turns to look at you over his shoulder, creased eyebrows relaxing into something softer, more open.

“Hi,” you say, unable to help the smile that spreads on your lips as he turns to face you more fully.

“Hello,” he says, then raises an eyebrow, nodding at the tote bag on your shoulder. “What’s in the bag?”

You shrug the bag off your shoulder and walk forward to join him at the workbench. “Whatcha working on?”

He hums, turning to continue facing you as you walk closer and come to a stop next to his seat. “I see. Information for information, huh?”

You chuckle. “Soup,” you say, pulling the containers out and answering his earlier question, turning to look at him.

He’s smiling at you, still seated in his chair, and your stomach flips. An image flashes through your mind, so fast it almost unbalances you; Miguel wrapping an arm around you and pulling you in for a one-armed hug, leaning his head against you in a moment of pure, warm affection, and you kissing the top of his head. Nothing far from what occurs in your home, or your bed at night, but… never here.

Miguel turns to look at the soup you’ve placed on his workbench, the clear lids steamed opaque by the food inside.

“You made this?”

“Contrary to your very firm opinion, I can make food other than cereal.” You nudge his shoulder, pushing gently with your hand. “Family recipe.”

Miguel looks at you again, pushing his tablet aside. “I should get another chair in here.”

“What, just for me?”

He hums in affirmative as you take a seat on the workbench, pulling out two spoons and the napkins you packed.

Your face heats, cracking open the lid on your meal as Miguel cracks open the lid on his.

You nudge his arm with your knee. “Your turn. What are you working on?”

Miguel raises an eyebrow at you, lifting a spoonful of soup to his mouth. He gives a surprised hum. “This is good.”

You shake your head, smile only somewhat rueful at his avoidance of your question. “I told you I can make food other than cereal.” You look down at your own container, held in one hand as you perch on his workbench. “It’s a family recipe.”

It’s Miguel’s turn to nudge your leg with his arm. “Thank you for bringing it.”

“Of course. You’re terrible at feeding yourself at work, so…” You trail off with a teasing shrug, laughing when he nudges your leg again, this time in playful indignation, and devolving into laughter when he raises a serious eyebrow. “What!”

He places the soup down on the bench, standing up and leaning over you, saying your name in playful warning. “You didn’t even have groceries in your fridge before me.”

Your face flushes, heat zinging from your crown and your toes to meet in your stomach. The laughter bubbles to a stop in your throat as Miguel towers over your seat on the workbench surface.

You swallow. “Two things can be true at once.”

His eyes flick between yours. Everything freezes, even your breaths, and you try not to blink for fear of losing the fragile moment—whatever it might be—and then Miguel lowers his eyes, a swift downward stroke past your lips, and steps to the side to sit on the bench next to you.

“Alright, alright,” he says. “You make a fair point.”

You’re glad he doesn’t have super hearing, because your heart is thundering as you zero in on your little thing of soup to ground yourself. Miguel is equally silent for an extended moment—did he feel it too?—and when your racing pulse has slowed but the heat lingers in your face, he speaks again.

“How’s work?”

“I’m finally getting good assignments again,” you say, taking a small spoonful of your soup. “I get to go to a gala, write about all the big wigs and how much money they raise for whatever charity.”

“I’d like to read your work sometime,” he says, between his own spoonfuls. “If you don’t mind.”

You look over at him. He looks at you.

“Sure.”

Miguel smiles.

It’s easy to slip back into old routines. When you’re not working from home then you’re out as Spider, and when you’re not doing either of those things you’re wrapped up in bed and sleeping your long days away.

Miguel has to return to old routines as well, long days and nights at HQ and as the Spider-Man of his dimension. Even on the nights you don’t see him you know he visits, the bed warm when you wake up and food on the stove waiting for you.

Tonight, a week into your return, you’re out in the city once again. It’s a slow night, the air cold and crisp with the impending change of seasons. Bikers rumble past on the street below, one last ride before the weather changes too and leaves the streets too slippery, too dangerous.

You have your mask pulled up over your nose, exposing just enough to eat the hot slice of pizza bought with cash from a small spot near Hell’s Kitchen. A small thud behind you has you dropping the last few bites and pulling down your mask, spinning to face your surprise guest.

He stands there, every inch covered in deep red body armor, even his eyes hidden behind glassy red lenses that shine back a funhouse mirror reflection of yourself. The shade of red he wears is just this side of too warm to be reminiscent of blood and instead calls to mind rust and flames. Every angle of his body is tense, straight, lines culminating in two small points on the fore of his helmet-mask: the horns of the devil.

You watch as his head tilts slightly, chin tipped down as if lifting his ears.

Then you speak, uncomfortable with the silence of waiting.

“Daredevil.”

The reaction is instant, his head lifting and tilting like a dog who’s just heard an animal outside.

“Spider. Welcome back.”

You narrow your eyes under your mask, examining his changed posture: more confident, just a degree more relaxed, disarmed.

“Thank you.”

Silence falls again, the space between you interrupted by the low whistle and whoosh of a cold breeze.

“Am I on your turf?” you ask, just a shade apprehensive, joking to ease the strangeness of this encounter.

That almost earns you a chuckle, and certainly earns you a grin. “No. You’re more than welcome here.”

“Hm.” You smile under your mask, tilting your head as you drag your eyes over him. “Thank you. Cool suit.”

His grin remains, spreading wider. “Thank you.” A pause, a gesture of his hand towards you. “Yours too.”

The silence lingers again, the both of you sizing one another up in a new way.

“I should…” You point your thumb over your shoulder.

Daredevil nods.

“Nice to meet you,” you offer, shooting a web off to the taller building across the street. He gives another nod, and you're gone.

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[f1crecs]

'Megaverse Monday - Week Eight

if your fic is on this list and you don’t want it to be, please let us know and we will remove it immediately, no questions asked. we have contacted most of the authors on this list, but sometimes people fall through the gaps - just pop us a message🤍

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did you know that this fandom has one of the highest percentages of a/b/o content? join us as we celebrate the fandom’s incredible omegaverse works every ’megaverse monday. 🤍

Charles/George/Max

nsfw: Let Me Go Home by anonymous | E | 23.5k

Charles wakes up in a different reality where everyone has a scent and he is something called an omega. Why I liked it: This fic is a perfect description of what I would imagine it being like to wake up in the omegaverse. Charles is understandably confused and seeing it all through his eyes is hilarious at the start but quickly turns more concering when diving in to the struggles Charles faces as the only omega in F1. The relationship between Lewis and Charles, with Lewis acting as the unofficial guide to omegaverse, is very sweet and it is impressive to see the author take a rare pair like charles/max/george and actually make it work.

“Look, I don’t know what Alex or George did to get you this upset, but I’m sure whatever it was, they didn’t really mean it. You know how alphas can get.” “ Alphas?! ” Charles yelled and Lando winced. “No, seriously, did you hit your head? What’s going on, Charles? Do you need me to call Pierre? Lewis? I can call Carlos or, or Yuki too if you need–” “Why would I need you to call any of them!?” Charles snapped, feeling himself start to panic. Why were they all acting like this? Why were George and Alex called alphas and he was called an omega? Why did the idea of that rankle at his nerves? Why did the thought of Lando calling any of those people actually bring him comfort? “Charles– I think– maybe you should sit down–” Lando said, a worried look on his face. “No! I’m fine! Don’t call anyone, just… just be quiet!” Charles yelled and ran his fingers through his hair, scratching at the base of his neck irritably. Lando stayed silent, though his phone was still in his hand, almost like a threat. Okay , Charles thought, this was real, and this was not a prank.

Logan/Oscar

nsfw: I'm talking opposite of soft (I'm talking wild, wild thoughts) by @madlovve | E | 2.1k

Logan is a newly signed alpha F1 driver with money to burn. Oscar is an OnlyFans streamer, omega and dom, who critiques and humilates alpha dick pics in a bored drawl. Logan discovers he really likes being humiliated by Oscar. Oscar's characterisation, at least his online persona as perceived by Logan, is so spot on here. He sounds almost bored as he makes his way through the freely submitted photos, and is far too creative to pick on their size. That understated way Oscar has of expressing himself is perfect for this sort of story.

“Everyone’s favorite, the January dick humiliation stream is also on Friday, and my submissions for it open tonight. For the low, low cost of €150, you can hear me tell you what you already know; That your dick isn’t satisfying and that your knot would leave me looking for someone better.” Oscar’s final pronouncement got Logan’s attention immediately.

Charles/Max

nsfw: we have to keep trying by @drivestraight | E | 12.6k

Max has been taking suppressants for years, to the point where it's become dangerous for him and he must experience a rut. Charles notices and takes care of him. Over the course of the narrative, partially told in flashbacks, we learn the reason why Max has been suppressing his ruts for so long. The mutual respect and affection between Charles and Max, even though they have not been a couple for years, is a shining example of how to write exes. Max is especially miserable, but he always respected Charles's decision and gave him his space. The reason for Charles's decision is revealed late in the story, and the entire perspective shifts. This story really benefits from repeat readings (as I just discovered when I re-read it for this review).

“You were the only one who knew that I was an omega,” Charles says, running a hand through his hair, screwing his eyes shut. “If I was to—get over you. I couldn’t let you have that. I just couldn’t. And the alphas I dated. I couldn’t let you be the only one who— I had to—I had to get over you somehow.”

Esteban/Fernando

nsfw: Ambiramus by @estiebestieban | E | 91.5k (wip)

AU, historical fantasy setting. Omega Esteban's father has sent him off to be married to an alpha he has never met (Max Verstappen). His escort on the long journey is an alpha named Fernando Alonso. What I liked about it: This fic hits a lot of my favourite romance tropes including bodyguard trope, and it also really interrogates the social position of omegas, especially high society ones like Esteban and the stifling constraints on their freedom, including reproductive freedom. The supporting cast of other drivers is fantastic, including secondary pairings Yuki/Pierre and Valtteri/Guanyu (that last pairing has turned out to be a runaway favourite among fans of the fic.

The liquid inside these is coloured green. Green, like the shade of moss in autumn. It does not bubble when Yuki shakes them, but the light hitting them through the cracks of the carriage makes it seem as if the potion inside is crafted from jewels themselves. “What purpose have these?” Esteban asks, and he takes them from Yuki’s hands with a soft smile. Yuki once more stares out of the window, as if he is done with the conversation, as if he has no more words to speak between the pair of them. “They are made for Omegas to take, especially Omegas such as yourself. A sip before you lay with any Alpha, just a sip, do not be greedy, and you will not fall pregnant with his pup.” Yuki said. There’s a smile which seems to tug on the corners of Yuki's mouth, even when his eyes are still fixated on the world passing them by. “What you would ask for is strength, but you do not need such a thing, for you have that enough. What you need is the ability to control your own faith. Even the most powerful witch cannot re-write the stars, but this should suffice for you.” Esteban is silent. Stunned as he looks at the vials in his hands one final time before he tucks them away in the satchel he had borrowed from Fernando. “Thank you.” he whispers finally, taking no note of the breaking of his own voice. Yuki shrugs, a mischievous smile now blooming on his features. “It was what you needed, and that is exactly what I provided.”

thank you to @lydia-petze and @frickinsweet for compiling this week's list 🤍

[crimsonblackrose]

.

I wonder if the gave the guy who kinda bullies Kreese the same type of banana boat car that Mr. Miyagi drove and then gave Daniel on purpose.

I think it's supposed to be yellow but with the filter they put over it I'm not sure. No, I pulled up a shot I took of the banana boat and it's the same interior and everything.

Kreese's mom killed herself.

Kreese I was bullied and the worlc was cruel so I became a bully and cruel myself.

Everyone is back to white belt. And there's a bunch of kids now.

There's also a new girl.

Which is wild to me. What parent would be like, oh man there's so much violence right now with karate, a kid got put in a coma, let me enroll my kid in karate. ????

Lol and this is from your pale friend demetri. 🤣 Carmen, I adore you. She also listened to everything Demetri said, like don't leave it near the window because the plastic isn't uv resistant. Such a Demetri little caveat. Looks like an issue of Dungeon Lord, which Demetri loves but no clue if Miguel likes it.

That's from the LaRusso's.

Where's sensei? Well he was there, he bashed his head into a corner of a metal paper towel dispenser because he had no other way to see you, talked to you before he was caught and kicked out again. Now he's trying to find his son.

How far away is this place that Shannon's at that Johnny fell asleep? Though who knows, dude might just be exhausted from punishing himself.

Daniel keeps advil in the glove compartment. Daniel, you live in LA why would you keep medication in the glove compartment. Medication is affected by temperature. With the LA heat, that stuff probably doesn't work as much any more or it's changed.

Yoga, painting, trays of breakfast. Nice rehab: Malibu Canyon Recovery.

Lol I mapped it, it's only 16 minutes away from Reseda. Johnny's just exhausted.

She totally thought Daniel was dropping of his partner for rehab.

Shannon's journaling, Amanda sent her lavender essential oil helped with her insomnia. She's also going to kudos and concerns and has a life coach. She wanted to look for Robby but was advised against it.

man this must suck for Johnny. Daniel at his core is someone who wants to help people and he's helping pretty much everyone around him, but spent so much time fighting Johnny when Johnny wanted to just run his business. Like Daniel was Daniel at his core in episode 1. With the car. But between that and this point, except for the occasional run into each other because we have to via Amanda, the don't get along.

Johnny don't knock it, it's working for her, let it work. Plus 99% sure it's not her money but Daniel's.

Johnny's vacation idea was a monster truck show and he loved Truckasaurus.

They're bickering, they always bicker. I'm glad Shannon stood up for her rehab though.

Kreese you are too giddy about this trick. Bert named him Clarence. Rip Clarence.

This is messed up Kreese. Bert should've taken that hamster and run. But he uses it to weed out the kids from his dojo with soft hearts, which is pretty much all the new kid kids I spotted.

It is a pretty snake. But still, messed up Kreese.

Poor Bert. He's been kicked of teh team.

Hawk is the new Miguel. But like Kreese's Miguel at least for the moment.

Kreese decorated with war photos, military photos and a grenade????

The interior of Tory's apartment looks an awful lot like Johnny's and Carmen's apartment interiors. She's in apartment 2.

Tory's mom is on dialysis

Apparently the reason why Tory isn't in more trouble is because she's taking care of her little brother and mom. And she's already working doubles. She also has a probation officer and this guy is such a creep. He essentially is saying pay rent or sleep with him which she's still a minor. She's got community service hours, probation and studying for her GED.

Robby's 'friends' are in juvie and I think they're there because of their fight with Daniel. RSP is the name of the place. They're now scared of Mr. LaRusso and I guess not so much of Johnny because he showed up already beaten up.

They'd scam people at Tech Town in Panarama City.

I hate that the doctor had this conversation with Miguel's mom on the other side of his window and not somewhere private like his office.

Johnny being annoying with the corn nuts. 😂

A lead, what are you Tango and Cash, movie recommendation I guess from Amanda.

I love that Johnny knows the reference but thinks he has to lean over and talk to Daniel's lap to say hi to Amanda.

Johnny: I'm not lying to your wife for you.

And we've lost 1 corn nut in Daniel's car.

Kreese is going to let Tory attend classes for free. How very...Miyagi/Daniel of him.

Betsy's abusive ex's name was David. I really want to know which college he's supposed to be attending, but I can't tell with the letterman.

Lol David punches his friend.

young kreese to betsy: Need a lift, then back to modern day with Johnny getting gas with a sign that says lift. I see what you did there.

Daniel's to good for gas station food. I have no clue what Johnny asked for, almost looks like a churro.

Hey look at that, Amanda told Daniel to tell Johnny something and he actually did.

amount of corn nuts lost in Daniel's car: unknown as the whole bag hit Daniel in teh face and they flew behind him as Johnny peeled out of the gas station.

And Johnny broke Daniel's mirror. Bud, even if he's got insurance, Johnny that's still arguably a hit and run because you hit someone else's car, and insurance probably won't cover it because you were driving on the wrong side of the road when it happened. Sure, you're covered arguably by permissive use, but still, that was technically a hit and run.

Another great fight scene! Daniel's got the brain cell because this time Johnny's on papa bear mode, of where is my son.

Johnny pushes Daniel out of the way, but that also means the guy with the chain can fight Daniel.

Another guy goes for Johnny's neck, but this time with a chain. Whose keep score? I lost count. Third time? Fourth?

Hey look a sucessful: Duck. Daniel ducked and Johnny hit a guy with a wrench, which ow.

Oh hey, Daniel's in his first choke hold of the series.

Amazing team work.

Yes, Johnny should've stopped, but at the same time Daniel you didn't stop when you thought Sam was in danger or calm down even when Johnny tried to ask you to.

Johnny is right, you included Johnny on it. Saying you can't believe he taught kids isn't fair. This is his son. You'd do the same for Sam, you literally did before. And Johnny is going through it. Saying look how Robby turned out isn't quite fair to Daniel because again, what happened to Miguel was an accident. But this...

That's a low blow Daniel. Uncalled for. Which Daniel like instantly realizes because Johnny just completely crumples at that and takes the van, now his van because he never returns it, and leaves.

Sometimes Daniel's just...mean.

This is one of those moments where I go: GO GRANDPA KREESE GO!

Also whoever did the transitions, while I saw what you did last time, hate this one. Hate it so much.

I want to know what the arrangement is? Free rent? Or just a buffer for this week.

That is a terrible lunch Miggy. A cheese hot dog, beans, carrots, green beans and something red.

Johnny kept his hospital bracelet from last time so he could sneak in.

Surprisingly 100% the truth. He also got into a fight with two guys in a parking garage, but he also did take on the paper towel dispenser.

lol he's just listing them off. Couple goons at chop shop, paper towel despenser, some dudes in a parking garage. Guys just picking a fight with everything and everyone.

😭😭😭😭 He did what he was taught, showed mercy and now he might never walk again.

MIGGGYYYYYY 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Robby's eating with Shannon. Looks like he's eating a half eaten sandwich. Poor kid probably hasn't eaten in days.

Awww the way Robby curled in on himself, scared then made himself smaller when he saw Daniel.

Robby, again, accident. Any one of the other fights could've ended up even more terrible. You didn't realize the railing was right there. You were scared and terrified and horrified but what happened.

First thing he wants to know after apologizing and promising to pay Daniel back for the van is to ask if Sam is okay.

I do appreciate that Daniel tells Robby that everyone's worried about him, even his dad. and then apologizes to him and promises to help him. that he talked to a lawyer and tries to explain the reduced sentence, but of course Robby hears the police coming first and feels betrayed. "You just kept me talking so I wouldn't leave."

Daniel promises to visit every day. But that trust is broken.

Johnny had multiple classes of students he trained and cultivated, and Kreese has kicked all but these ones out.

Kreese calls Betsy Doll-face.

He's off to basic training in Monterey (about a half hour away)

Kreese monologuing very quietly while all the kids are shouting. 😂I get that it's supposed to be them listening to it, but with how loud they're shouting, I kinda doubt they'll hear him at his conversation level of speaking rather than speaking louder.

[thesandsofelsweyr]

REMEMBER JASON TODD?

《 READ ON AO3 》

Joker reminisces to Batman about one of the happiest years of his life: the year he spent breaking Jason Todd.

《RATING》 Mature 《WORDS》 1,865

《CHARACTERS》 Joker, Jason Todd/Robin (Arkhamverse)

《TROPES》 Hurt No Comfort, Jason Todd Needs a Hug

《WARNINGS》 Graphic Depictions of Violence, Underage, Torture, Mindfuck

《NOTES》

I somehow got possessed by a death-worshipping garbage clown and wrote this Jason Todd torture-fest 🃏

If you enjoy the read, please consider reblogging 💚

《 ALSO ON AO3 》 (comments & kudos there are much appreciated!)

Remember Jason Todd? Ugh, what a whiner. Always complaining… We’re both better off without that loser.

I gotta confess though, Bats. Screwing around with his little-kid mind, digging around in his grey matter, stirring it up until Toddy made me look almost sane—that was the happiest I’d been in a long, long time. I’d thank the boy for that, if his brains weren’t splattered all over the basement of Arkham, huhuhu.

Ahh, the memories. I tortured that poor kid for nearly a year. Shattered his ankle, knocked out a few teeth, yanked out a few more, broke a few ribs—well, probably all of his ribs, after it was all said and done. Let’s face it, that pretty red armor of his could only withstand so many beatings before it started wearing down and losing its Bat-tested, Bat-approved effectiveness. Near the end the boy was practically begging me to take it off of him! But, hmm, now that I think of it, that was probably more about his shame over being such a miserable embarrassment to his Batdad and less about its ineffectiveness when I was bashing his skull in with my trusty, rusty crowbar.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes! I even invited a few of my fellow inmates down to take some shots at the little punk who’d terrorized them at Batman’s side. Man oh man, did those guys hate your jilted sidekick or what? I found myself a teensy-bit envious of all the fun they were having with the kid, especially after seeing Bane slam Toddy’s body into that concrete foundation so hard that I’m pretty sure he left a Robin-shaped dent.

Oh Batsy, you should’ve seen our boy’s face! I’m still kicking myself for not including a photo with your consolation prize. The video I sent you just didn’t do him justice. Your enemies collaborated on a masterpiece, they really did. Vibrant reds and pinks, rich purples, blacks, and blues; so battered and broken, his features all askew—Picasso himself would be in awe of their bloody canvas. They must’ve broken his beak at least a dozen times. By the time they were through with him, you wouldn’t even have recognized the little guy.

But c’mon, be honest. We’ve been buds for so long, you and I. You can trust me with anything—Clown’s honor. Tell me, did you even try to find the kid? I never bought the “World’s Greatest Detective” charade, but you gotta admit Batsy, I made it pretty easy for you. I stashed your Boy Blunder in the most obvious place I could think of. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you for wanting to delete ol’ Jason from your history. He was a real piece of work, fighting me tooth and nail every chance he got, spitting on my hospitality and me. More of a “rabid dog” than a Robin, if I do say so myself. And that mouth of his, ugh! His mother would thank me for the beatings I gave him if she heard half the things he said to me. A real blight on the house of Bat, that one. This new Robin of yours seems more in line with your legacy. Maybe I’ll get my hands on him someday, tenderize him like I did Toddy, huhu.

Well, whatever your reasons, you gave me ample time to get my creative juices flowing. I’d been itching to try out some new ideas that had been floating around my noggin. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Rack. Sadly, I wasn’t able to procure that particular device for our little bird’s cage, but I’ve always been good at improvising. I read somewhere about this rather nasty technique they used during that delightful period known as the Inquisition. Ahh, the good ole days… when torturing people was a paid profession.

With the help of my pal Boles, we tied the boy’s arms behind his back then strung him up by the wrists. Some Arkham orderlies were kind enough to provide me with some weights, which I tied to his ankles. Must’ve been painful because that was the loudest I’d heard the boy squeal since he dropped in my lap! The pitiful thing was wriggling and writhing like a worm on a hook. I left him dangling like that for a few hours since he seemed to enjoy it so much. Tehehe.

That little device of mine ripped his arms clean out of their sockets, yet the bird still refused to break. He was as defiant as ever, cursing at me between sobs. Talk about loyalty. He was ready to die for you. How do you inspire that kind of devotion from these brats? It’s the car, right? Gotta be that fancy car of yours. Hmm, I should get me a Jokermobile of my own someday. Anyway, Junior wasn’t the sharpest Bat-tool in the Bat-shed. Six months of suffering and he was still convinced you were coming to rescue him. I tried to tell him that you’d moved on with your life, found yourself a new partner who wasn’t such a loser, but he refused to believe me. We’d reached an impasse.

But then—here’s the best part of the story, ooo it gives me chills just thinking about it—then you gave me a gift. You actually did replace the kid with a new one. BWAHAHAHAHA, now that’s my brand of cruelty, Bats—I always knew you had it in ya! After everything I’d done to that poor boy, all it took was a photograph to break your bird into a million little pieces. Yes Batsy, a photo of you and his replacement gallivanting around Gotham, saving the city from crazy men like me.

Oh how he bawled after I showed him that photo! And that was even before I beat him senseless with his favorite crowbar. I pressed that photo into his palm before I left him bleeding on the floor of his cage, and, God love 'em, the dumb kid was still begging for his Bat-daddy to come save him from the evil Clown. “Please forgive me, Batman. I tried to be the partner you wanted, I swear I did. I’m so sorry I disobeyed you. Please don’t let him punish me again. I’ll be a good boy for you, I just wanna come home. Wah-wah-wah, boo-hoo-hoo.” If only I had a heart, it would’ve been broken by his pathetic pleas. But I don’t, so I kept beating him for good measure.

Wee Todders was much more pliable after it finally sank into that thick skull of his that you’d abandoned him. I gotta be honest with you, Bats, you made it so easy for me to make him hate you after that, it almost felt like cheating. Still a rootin’ tootin’ good time though. For me at least. Can’t speak for our dearly departed boy toy.

No wonder you dumped his half of the dynamic duo on my doorstep. Talk about rough edges! Took some blood, sweat, and tears (his, not mine) but I eventually sanded him down and hollowed him out; sculpted him into a partner in crime worthy of the Clown Prince of Crime. Had to teach him some manners first, though. Clearly Emily Post wasn’t included in your crime fighting curriculum. Did no one bother to teach the child any words beyond the four-letter variety? Well, I trained him to address me properly: “yes sir”, “no sir”, “please don’t hurt me sir”—that sort of thing. I find that negative reinforcement works best when it comes to naughty little boys like him: electrocution, sensory deprivation, barbed wire bondage, blunt force trauma, starvation, force-feeding, puncture wounds, power tools, waterboarding, acid trips, acid burns, regular burns, stabbings, stranglings, even good ole fashioned paddlings. By the time I was done with the brat I had him thanking me for yanking out his fingernails with red-hot pincers. 

Jason was some of my finest work to date, if I do say so myself. I transformed your rejected Robin into a perfect pet. The boy was mine, body and soul, but I wanted to make sure he never forgot who he belonged to, who made him who he truly was, made him realize that potential you tried to snuff out. Let me tell you, he was none too happy about being branded like a bull. You’d think the kid’d be more grateful after all the time I spent hunting down a J-shaped branding iron just for him. He didn’t carry on about it for long though. By that point just the sight of my toybox had him cowering in a corner, shivering and whimpering like a kicked puppy with his tail between his legs. 

Speaking of puppies… I even had a collar made for my darling boy, in case my signature on his sweet cheek wasn’t enough. A red leather collar to match that red leather getup. What an adorable sight that was! Him, bruised and scarred from head to toe, down on all fours, staring up at me with those blown out baby blues, full of tears and fear, and dare I say, even affection. That poor kid’s psyche was so twisted by the end that he was clinging to me, clutching at my suit, begging me not to abandon him like you did. Hil-ari-ous! Bless his widdle heart, he was such a good boy by then. I rarely had to punish him but it was just so dang fun I couldn’t resist. I did so well with the little laddy, it got me thinking maybe Harley and I should have a few tykes of our own for me to abuse. But nah, you seem to have so many to spare, I’ll just stick to your brood. Lord knows I don’t want to get saddled with child support—oh the horror!

We had some good times, y’know? Little Toddy-woddy was like a son to me, he really was. He hated you so much it made me one proud papa. It’s a shame I had to put him out to pasture with a bullet through his brain, but he was becoming such a bore. He just didn’t scream as much as he used to—that collapsed lung of his probably had something to do with that. And he was so obedient, so submissive, so utterly desperate to please me… (yawns) If I wanted a vegetable, I would’ve made him a vegetable. This is a nut house after all. Got all the tools I need for a lobotomy right here at home. No, I wanted that ball of wildfire, that feral foul-mouthed urchin I fell in love with! I guess since I’m being honest here, I have only myself to blame. I suppose it’s a lesson to learn for my future bird boy endeavors—you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs (and legs) after all.

Welp, no use crying over spilled brain matter! If it’s any consolation to you, my pointy-eared pal, I’ll never forget the kid you gave me and that magical year we spent together. No really, I have a jar full of teeth and fingernails to remember him by! hehehehehehehehe 

[alexhornefan]

I've always been scared of fish Specifically sharks, because of watching Jaws when I was to young. I'm hoping I was 10. I think I might have been 15. I trod on a dead fish a couple of years later and it floated to the surface and stared at me. I still have a residual fear of the sea. I'm more than happy to devour fish, mind. Just don't want them to eat me.

I trained to be a journalist That was my fallback, but I couldn't take anything very seriously. I had a brief stint as "People's Journalist" for the West Sussex Gazette; I'd do golden-wedding anniversaries and pet deaths. I was always looking for an angle; it wasn't great.

I don't think I was ever confident But most of my nerves went the very first time I ever did stand-up, at university. I had about six months of failing to turn up, walking past the [venue] door; that first hurdle is a lot bigger than the others, and once I'd done it, I couldn't not do it again.

My taste in comedy hasn't really developed since then Harry Hill is still my favourite comedian. I have pretty unsophisticated tastes; I enjoy the videos on You've Been Framed a lot – I don't think there's much that's funnier than people falling over. I prefer that to Bill Hicks.

I don't like going to the theatre I can never get past there being people on stage pretending to be something else. I like a film, but I'm always aware in a theatre that I could stand up and push them off something.

I'm under no illusions: I'm not at all musical My band [the Horne Section] are very keen to tell me that. I had piano lessons for six months and got nowhere. One of the gimmicks of our show is that I slag off the band, in a warm way, but they do let me know I can't actually sing. I have a go, though.

I was quite serious about breaking the world's oldest man record And I still would like to do it – I think there's still the kudos there – but the more I learn about what I'd have to sacrifice, like not eating sausages… I think I'd like to break the record, but still eat sausages. So I'm now aiming more for 82, and I kind of want to have a lifestyle where my body will deteriorate by that age. If I'm still clinging on in my nineties, then I'll go for the record, but I don't want it enough to change my life.

I'm scared of not having a beard I was unbearded when I got married and I think that's right: I think you should look very different in your wedding photos to how you look now. I've had it for about eight years, so my children [aged four, two-and-a-half and seven months] have known me only as a bearded man. I'm worried about what's underneath – that I've either got a very weak chin or a very fat chin.

I wasn't into bird-watching until I spent a year competing with my dad He's not a twitcher, he's a birder – there's a lot of difference. Twitchers are like trainspotters, bird-watchers are connoisseurs. I'm quite proud that my bird-feeders are always full. We had siskins in the garden, and that genuinely gets me as excited as almost anything in my life.

I'd love to be a fugitive – ideally for something I hadn't done Or even just be dragged into an interrogation just for a bit of excitement. I'm by no means busy every day and I think I've been recognised as a comedian once where I live, which is ideal, as I spend a lot of time out with my children. So I'm happy as I am, but a bit of excitement, one mistaken identity, would spice it up.

Source

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

I finally finished my Mondo jacket!! Ah, it only took me 7-ish months, and I abandoned my desire to add decorative gold buttons to the sleeves like in canon, but still! It's done!

I got my older brother to model the jacket for me, since he's much closer to Mondo's build than I would ever hope to be, ha. Luckily my brother is also a Danganronpa fan (and, in fact, is the one who got me into Danganronpa. I only watched the Game Grump's playthrough since my brother had played the game a month or so before and had been talking about it a lot. If not for him, I definitely would have given up on the game, ha) or else he'd never have agreed to do this for me. Honestly, I'm still surprised he agreed at all, so thanks brother!

Anyway, I'm super happy with how this project worked out! I've had the leather duster for years, since I was obsessed with Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I was younger and found this duster at my local Goodwill for a reasonable price. However, I never wore it and it was just gaining dust in my parent's closet. When I realized I could make Mondo's jacket with it, I was super excited! I love big craft projects, so this was right up my alley. I obviously did all the painting (which was SO MUCH FUN HAHAHAHA), but I also added some decorative gold buttons to the left side of the jacket (which you can't see here, unfortunately), as well as spray painted the inner lining with purple fabric spray paint. I also sewed the collar by hand, which was SO FUN TOO, WOW, I LOVE POKING MYSELF WITH SEWING NEEDLES BECAUSE FAUX LEATHER IS THE HARDEST THING TO SEW THROUGH BY HAND HAHAHA.

Aha.

Finally, I also made the belt face from air dry clay that I covered with silver leaf, and then put resin on top to keep it from breaking. I posted about it on my Tumblr back around January or December when I made it the first time, if anyone was curious about that.

All in all, this was a lot of fun! I wish I could make Taka's uniform, but I think that would require actual sewing, and I don't have a sewing machine or space for one, unfortunately. I also know very little about sewing clothes. I messed up the collar at least three times, oof. I may buy his uniform online, though, if I can find somewhere to wear it. Maybe a convention sometime. My brother could dress as Mondo and we'd have to portray a platonic Mondo & Taka siblingship. 😅😅 Also, it's too bad I didn't have this jacket back in November when I met Bryce Papenbrook, Makoto's voice actor. That would have made for a nice picture, ha.

(Also, just a note, the jacket itself is genuine leather, I just used faux leather for the collar since it was cheaper than buying real leather and it looked almost the same.)

[arabidfangirl]

Thoughts on Mile and Apo after the KinnPorsche World Tour Manila show:

First, let's talk about their looks...

Apo is the human personification of this meme:

He's so pretty in real life. Like, I know he's already so good-looking in photos and videos but nothing compares to him in person. I literally gasped when I saw him. His beauty is unreal.

Excuse my shitty mobile's camera (I also had to zoom in for this) but I just had to share this man's face.

Mile's physique is so... He's broad. He might not be as broad as he was pre-KP but I finally understood why he looks bigger than Apo even though they're practically the same height. His waist is tiny, too. Kudos to whoever's styling him because his pants do his ass and legs so much justice.

Also, he's really pale. It's funny because he looks like Edward Cullen in my videos because the spotlight on him just created a glare for my camera.

Trust me when I say I made so many attempts at trying to get him to look less glare-y in this video.

Second, let's talk about their stage presence...

Apo was truly born to be a star. The charisma just oozes out of him. I can't pinpoint how exactly, but I just know there was a point during the show where I just had to stop recording to stare at him in awe. I've met celebrities up close and personal before but this was one of the few times I was truly starstruck.

It makes KinnPorsche the Series even more special because the world would've lost this presence from its screens.

Mile, on the other hand, reminds me of that quote about Marilyn Monroe being able to switch her persona on and off. By that I mean, Mile knows when to turn on the charm so all eyes are on him and he knows when to dim it so he doesn't steal the spotlight from others. Like, I don't know how else to say it. I mean, obviously you'd still see him on the stage but it's like he's giving you permission to look away from him for a bit.

I don't know, man... But it does make me curious how'd things would have gone if he decided to pursue his rockstar dreams.

Lastly, let's talk about MileApo...

I'm gonna be real. When I went into this (the concert), I didn't expect to feel the same level of kilig (or giddiness) I experienced watching the show. I figured a lot of those feelings came from the post-prod additions, like background music and romantic editing. Yes, Mile and Apo have chemistry. But that can translate differently when you see them in real life.

(Lemme just give a quick example. I have been a TayNew fan for years. I think they have great chemistry, specifically romantic chemistry. But when I saw them earlier this year, I realized that their "real life" chemistry was very bro-coded. Like, they're really good friends who are very comfortable with each other.)

So imagine my surprise when I realized that Mile and Apo's chemistry off-screen is just as striking. There's a fondness in their interactions with each other that I would posit as something akin to domesticity. There's something so wholesome about it, something so safe and secure... It's hard to put into words but it was like looking at a warm hug shared between two people who've found comfort in each other.

Again, I don't know... This was just my observation. I mean, I'm also a firm believer in the concept of a soulmate doesn't have to be a romantic partner, just someone who makes you whole. It looked like that to me. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it.

[deducingcircumference]

Fic: The Science of Deduction, the Art of Seduction Chapter 1

Rating: G (this chapter only)

Tags (for this chapter only): Canon-typical violence

Summary: At twenty-four, Mouri Ran is a journalist at a national newspaper. Kudo Shinichi is one of the best detectives in Japan. They have never met.

When they do, sparks fly — the kind that burn down a city and everything in it.

Author’s Notes I am hugely grateful to @mirrorfalls and @gisachi​ for initial brainstorming and cheerleading, as well commenting on intermediate drafts. Some of the phrasing is directly theirs. Thank you! This is for both of you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

RAN

“Toast for breakfast again?”

Ran fixes her father with a glare. “Who went to the racetrack yesterday, got drunk because he lost, and forgot to bring home the rice?”

“I thought we still had a little left!”

“I used it for today’s bentos,” Ran retorts.

“I didn’t realize we were that low,” he grumbles back. He dumps his natto onto a slice of toast and takes a big bite.

Ran sighs. “Don’t forget tonight, okay? And the vinegar.”

“Got it, got it. Leave it to me.”

Her father goes downstairs to the detective agency after breakfast while Ran washes up. Then she heads to work, two train transfers and a ten-minute walk. Her phone begins to buzz as the escalator disgorges her from the heated station and into the morning chill.

“Hello? Mom?”

“Good morning, Ran. About lunch tomorrow, I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule. I do know this is the fourth time—”

“Fifth.”

“Fifth. But there’s a client who absolutely needs that time slot. I’m sorry, baby.”

“Okay, okay,” Ran sighs. “I get it, Mom. We can have lunch the same time next week.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you then.” Kisaki Eri hangs up.

The newsroom of the Asayomi Shimbun is housed on the fourteenth floor of a massive office building. Some of its thousand-some staff are already there, taking calls, typing up articles, or just flitting about when Ran enters.

“Great work on the Kirima-Kona engagement article, Mouri-kun,” says Ran’s managing editor, a thin, blonde woman named Santemillion, passing by as Ran’s hanging up her coat. “We highlighted it in this morning’s section,” she says.

“Thank you, it’s an honor! Um, did you think about the article I pitched?”

“Yes, it’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t quite fit in Culture and Society. You should tell the Moroboshi-san about it, though,” she says, meaning the Crime editor, “I’m sure he can find someone to follow up on it. You should be focused on cracking the Matsubishi infidelity story, anyway. It seems like you’re getting close.”

Ran hitches her smile higher. Culture and Society is mostly celebrity gossip and breaking scandals, and it’s true that she’s good at weaseling information out of secretive celebrities and tight-lipped scions. But writing for Culture and Society notoriously leads to only more of the same, and she already feels like she’s been writing the same three articles since she started.

She scans a copy of the morning edition when she gets to her desk. The lifestyle sections are in the back, but she flips through the first few pages first. On page five there’s a photo of a grinning man under the headline, “Heisei Holmes Does It Again!”

The smile in the picture is the most cocksure she’s ever seen.

-

SHINICHI

The house is quiet when Shinichi wakes. It’s always quiet.

He brushes his teeth, notes that there are cobwebs in the corners of the bathroom. Which means there are cobwebs in the dining room, the living room, the parlor, his parents’ bedroom, the spare bedrooms, and probably his own, too. Everything but the library and the kitchen.

He scoops up the Asayomi from his doorstep on his way to his car, a sleek black hybrid. The agency is a short drive away, and he gets there the same time Hattori does. The latter jostles Shinichi with his elbow as Shinichi unlocks the door.

“You’re late, Kudo!”

“So are you,” Shinichi retorts.

Hattori moved from Osaka after losing a bet — although the man keeps insisting he let Shinichi win that deduction battle. To which Shinichi always responds that a pair detective agency in Osaka wouldn’t do half as well, anyway.

Their shared office is smaller and more cramped than befits two world-class private eyes. Most of the room is taken up by three squashy armchairs facing each other around a small coffee table, all a little too close for comfort, not that any guest has ever complained. Their two desks are squeezed next to the outer wall, which is mostly window, looking out onto the buildings across and the street below.

Shinichi pours himself a coffee from the sectioned-off kitchenette and sits down at his desk, opening the newspaper to find an article about himself, with quotes he’d given a few days ago. It’s rather flattering. They always are.

On a whim he flips to a random page in the back, one of the ones he rarely reads, the culture and entertainment and sports sections. His eye lands on the highlighted article in Culture and Society, about the engagement of a restauranteur and an actress.

Shinichi reads the whole thing, then pitches the entire newspaper away in disgust. It skids across his desk and cascades into the wastebasket.

“You fine there, Kudo?”

“Who writes this garbage? What a waste of paper! Anyway, you have a lead for that extortion case?”

-

Hattori’s lead is an auctioneer by trade. They trail the man to a grand hall and stand at the very back of a large audience in their tuxedos and cocktail dresses, as their target calls for bids on a calligraphy piece, a Ming Dynasty vase, and an impressively ugly abstract sculpture. Shinichi’s eyebrows raise as the price on the sculpture reaches thirty million yen.

“Thirty one million, do I hear— gkh!”

The auctioneer clutches at his chest. His eyes bulge. He slumps onto the podium.

Shinichi and Hattori leap onto the stage.

It’s a thrilling case, involving a gang of robbers, cyanide ice, extortion, and of course, string and duct tape. They solve it in record time. After the murderer’s confession, Megure pulls Shinichi out to the back lot for some more questions, and Shinichi is happy to provide.

As he’s about to head back in, hand on the doorknob, he stops. There are voices on the other side. One is Hattori’s.

The other says, “Wow, that’s incredible, Hattori-tantei! To think that duct tape can do that!”

The voice is a woman’s — sincere, eager, bright — and it jars every single one of Shinichi’s nerves.

On the other side of the door, Hattori demurs politely, but he sounds both smug and pleased. “Ain’t it, Miss?” Shinichi catches.

“Of course, would you mind going on record with this?”

A reporter. Shinichi swings the door open just as Hattori’s harrumphing, “Ah — sure, but Kudo’s the one you wanna talk to about this one—”

The woman on the other side is younger than he expects, brown hair bound up in a long ponytail, semi-professional attire of a blouse tucked into slacks. She’s holding a notepad and a pen, and currently has shining violet eyes turned toward Shinichi’s partner. Shinichi’s irritation spikes.

“Press isn’t allowed here, whoever you are. Besides,” he adds snidely, “he’s taken.”

“Here he is now!” Hattori says. “Be nice,” he says to Shinichi.

He doesn’t have to remind Shinichi of that. Shinichi can handle the press. Shinichi is amazing with the press. Shinichi can charm interviewers in his sleep. But this overeager, cloying reporter sets him on edge.

She swings around to face him fully, and he sees that she’s only his age — and that she’s absurdly, unacceptably beautiful.

As his mind almost blanks, she asks angrily, “Do you always assume the worst of people?”

He pulls himself together. “I don’t assume,” he says simply. “I know. For example,” he begins, taking in her neat but old clothing, her bare fingers, the faint scent of bleach in her clothes, “you live with your father, who is a habitual drunk, and do most of the housework.”

The act of deduction steadies him. Her eyes widen as he steps closer. The usual response. He puts his hands in his pockets, remembering the way her gaze skittered around the chalk outline of the corpse.

“You’re terrified of dead bodies, so either you’re not a crime reporter, or you’re new to the beat.” She’s wearing an expensive wristwatch, at odds with the rest of her person. “Your mother is the wealthy one, but she doesn’t have time for you, and blows you off with expensive presents.” Behind the reporter’s back, Hattori’s doing something strange, flapping his hands at Shinichi like a wounded duck, but Shinichi ignores him. “So,” he continues, musing, “she can’t care much about y—” and it’s then he realizes he’s missed something big.

Professional-level martial artist, his brain supplies, as the room sails past and agony bursts from somewhere around his solar plexus. He goes straight through the police tape, lands on his ass, and skids three more meters across the stage.

“Kudo!” Hattori shouts, running over as Shinichi doubles up on the floor, gasping like a fish. He hears stomping footsteps.

“H-hey, neechan,” Hattori’s voice says nervously from somewhere above him. Then Hattori gulps.

He looks up. The reporter looms over him, her expression ominous.

But suddenly her face softens and she’s eye level with him, crouched down. “Are you alright?” She sounds genuinely concerned.

What does she think? He’s on the floor clutching his ribcage, and she’s the one who hit him!

“Let me see,” she says, and hands push gently in the area of his wounded middle. While Shinichi clenches his teeth against each pat, she says, “I’m Mouri Ran. Reporter for Asayomi News. You’re Kudo Shinichi, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture in the paper.”

Shinichi’s brain works. “Mouri… Ran?” He tries to remember where he knows that name from, but the pain is making it hard to think. Then he remembers. “Gossip. Pointless… drivel.”

When her hands withdraw and her brows lower thunderously, Shinichi realizes he’s made another mistake. He flinches, squeezing his eyes shut.

He waits ten seconds. Twenty.

Something pokes his cheek. “Hey, Kudo.”

Shinichi cracks open an eye. To Hattori’s mirthful mug; the man looks like he’s trying his best not to laugh. The violent reporter — Mouri Ran — is nowhere to be seen.

“Those were some… interestin’ word choices there,” Hattori says.

“She’s gone?” Shinichi mumbles.

“Stormed out,” Hattori says, offering a hand to help him to a sitting position.

Shinichi takes it. His middle hurts, a lot. “Good riddance,” he wheezes.

-

RAN

Kudo Shinichi. An arrogant, heartless, high-handed bastard.

She looks him up in the Asayomi archives as soon as she gets back. There are eight clippings, dating back twenty-four years to a birth announcement in Culture and Society. She reads all of them and learns that both his parents are minor celebrities, that he grew up jet-setting around the world, and that he’s made a name for himself as a private investigator after coming back to Japan.

“Ooh, handsome, isn’t he?” another Culture and Society reporter gushes, breezing in from nowhere to plop down at the table Ran’s spread the clippings out on. Suzuki Sonoko, one-time heiress to a mind-boggling corporate empire, now Ran’s fellow newswoman and best friend. (“I like gossip!” she’d said of her career choice, grinning.)

“If only he were anything besides handsome!” Ran returns. A thought occurs to her. “Have you met him?” Sometimes Sonoko knows the rich and famous, just by dint of being rich herself.

“No, but I saw him at a KID heist once! Are you doing a piece on him?”

“As if! Who’d want to report on this egomaniac?” Ran flips to another clipping that’s just half a page of Kudo Shinichi’s cocky grin.

“Hmm,” says Sonoko meaningfully. Then, “Well, he is good-looking.”

Ran looks up from her idle consideration of Kudo’s cheekbones. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, all kinds of celebrity connections come in handy in Culture and Society, right? Just, like, don’t get hurt.”

It takes a while for Sonoko’s meaning to percolate. When it does, Ran almost whites out from mortification. “He’s the smarmiest, least-deserving jerk I’ve ever met,” she says flatly. “I want nothing to do with him!”

“Sorry, sorry! Whatever you say!”

“Anyway,” Ran continues optimistically, “It’s not like I’ll ever see him again, right?”

Sonoko giggles. “Well, you never know!”

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

More author notes: That’s Chapter 1! I make no promises regarding an update schedule.

NSFW chapters will be posted solely to AO3, but all updates will be announced on Tumblr.

AO3 link is in the reblogs, to keep things SFW for ShinRan week.

Have a good day!

[dailylogyn]

Logyn Meta: Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the Marvel Comics

Photo Source (by Sexy-Salmon): https://lokisergi.tumblr.com/post/70164902295/siege-loki-problems-it-almost-looks-innocent

Other Logyn Meta’s: https://dailylogyn.tumblr.com/tagged/logyn-meta

Did you know Sigyn was in the Marvel Comics long ago? Did you know Loki had a wife? 

Oh...that’s probably because Marvel wanted you to forget their terrible writing mistakes concerning this great Norse Couple. 

Let’s dive into this exploration of history where the Marvel writers realized they fucked up on telling a perfectly good couples story, and in the process, setting off a spark of rebellion that caused some retconning and a group of fans to demand justice for both Loki & Sigyn -- not just as a couple, but as their own individual beings. 

#JusticeforSigyn #JusticeforLoki #JusticeforLogyn

Where it First Began (Meeting & Marriage of Lies):

In September of 1978, Thor #275 came out featuring the first appearance of Sigyn, Loki’s wife from Norse Mythology. She was introduced as a beautiful Asgardian Loki had randomly come across while looking into a crystal ball inside his castle, wanting to find some companionship to fill his loneliness. 

However, when Loki came with riches and jewels to offer her in exchange for her hand in marriage, Sigyn outright rejected him, stating she would never take someone as vile as him, even stating she was already engaged to an Asgardian Warrior part of Odin’s guard -- Theoric. 

Unable to accept this, Loki came up with a plan to have her fiancee killed during a mission, resulting in the Trickster taking on the disguise of Theoric in order to take Sigyn for his own. Despite having slightly suspicions of her lover being more romantic than before, Sigyn didn't notice that her lover wasn’t exactly who she thought he was.

Now comes the day of the wedding as Odin marries the happy couple. This was when Loki finally revealed his true self and what he had done. Odin tried to null the marriage, but it was against Asgardian law for even the High Father to do such a thing. Hence, Sigyn accepted her fate as Loki’s wife. This caused Odin to name her the Goddess of Fidelity. 

Where it’s Heading (Cargo of Incantation-Fetter’s Arms):

Loki being Loki, he did some shit that ended up with him being imprisoned in a tree by Odin, something that infuriated Sigyn, resulting in her trying to take control over Donald Blake to use over the All-Father as a way to free her husband from his punishment. However, it didn’t work out, resulting in a bunch of other crazy shit happening and putting Thor on their trail.

After Balder was killed, Loki was put on trials for his crimes and received yet another punishment that Sigyn had to protect him from -- having burden over the fact she was “the evil’s wife.” Just like the classic Norse tale, she holds a bowl over his head, shielding him from snake venom and leaving to empty it momentarily when it became full, resulting in Loki cursing her. 

Also, Loki and Sigyn had a child -- Narvi, but they died young, being used as the binding to imprison Loki (following the Norse myth too.) 

Some more crazy shit happens and now Odin has shackled Loki to Sigyn so he doesn’t cause anymore trouble. Loki of course is not pleased about this one bit. Having had enough of this, he went to Odin demanding to be released, only resulting in him being banished to an outpost. 

There Just Might be Hope????:

Some more shit happens again, resulting in Loki being stuck in an astral form and bound to a suit of armor so he could reside in Asgard thanks to Sigyn. A fight happens with Thor, Loki and Mephisto, putting Sigyn in danger. This is when for the first time ever, Loki ends up having a tender confession of love over Sigyn, asking Thor to save her since he could not.

It’s unknown if this is just Loki putting on an act or being real, but you know how the Trickster God can be. 

After the battle, while Loki had released Sigyn from her marital vows, his wife swore to always be there for him when he needed her.

And that’s the last we see of Sigyn’s regular appearance in the comics in 1996. She makes a cameo in Avengers: Unleashed #1 in 2019, but it’s nothing more than a flashback to her time of helping Loki. 

A Hypothesis & Notes on their relationship in comics:

The whole entire plotline consisting of Theoric and Loki killing him in order to obtain Sigyn is just something most of the fandom doesn’t like. Not only does it objectify Sigyn, but it makes Theoric a Pointless character to introduce anyway, only used as a tool for means in which Loki can get Sigyn, when honestly, he could have done so in a different way.

I like that they stick with Sigyn being the faithful wife of Loki (that’s who she is), but they honestly don’t give her any agency in this besides that trait alone. The writers don’t even let Sigyn be her own damn person! She is SO MUCH MORE than Loki’s loyal wife. SHE IS A FREAKIN GODDESS! I know there is more we can do with her.

Instead of pulling the ‘woe is me, my husband is evil and I’ll just go along with it’ card, something else could have been done. LIKE LITERALLY, ANYTHING ELSE! We know Loki can be a troublemaker, but Sigyn knows how to deal with his shit. She isn’t some damsel in distress here! It’s another reason Loki likes her.

Couples can bicker in times, it’s normal in marriages and relationships, but to have Loki whining about how much of a burden Sigyn is is just....WHY? I mean, you went after the woman and killed another guy for her. This is what you wanted! *shakes head at writers*

I will give them kudos though for some of the stuff near the end when Loki actually starts displaying his true feelings of love towards Sigyn. And sadly we only got a little taste of that...and we aren’t even sure if it was an act or Loki being real.

THE FACT THAT SIGYN ISN’T EVEN IN THE COMICS ANYMORE SINCE 1996. She’s only mentioned, but it’s just as a tale, not as an actual person who USED to be his wife. They literally killed her off. EXCUSE ME! #JusticeforSigyn (We’re still waiting for her in the MCU...)

NORSE MYTHOLOGY TIE-INS:

There were some moments in the comics between them that they writers took from Norse Mythology with them. Thought It’d be important to list.

Loki’s Punishment of snake venom dripping onto him while Sigyn holds a bowl to collect it and shield him.

Narvi being Loki & Sigyn’s son who was killed and his insides used to bind Loki for his punishment.

Sigyn being Loki’s wife. 

DIFFERENT WRITERS, DIFFERENT CHARACTERIZATION:

As is the case with everything out there, if you have different writers working on the same project, there is bound to be a difference of characterization and interpretation, resulting in OOC moments or just something completely different altogether. After researching and pondering on this subject, I FULLY believe this is what has happened with Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the comics. Let’s take a look at the evidence I’ve found:

For the comics Sigyn’s creators were Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tom Palmer. 

Loki’s creators for the comics were Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, Violet Barclay, and honestly, many others.  

My favorite quotes on them from the comics:

Wait? Despite the crappy writing, I actually have quotes I like from the comics? GASP! I call these the only positives from the comics of their relationship. 

“My Sigyn-- the love of my immortal life...” — Loki, Thor Annual Vol 1 #19

“Aye-- For only Sigyn, of all in the realm eternal, feels love for Loki. And among all Asgardians, only for Sigyn does Loki feel...” — Loki, Thor Annual #19

“Sigyn loves me-- just as she is the only thing in the nine worlds that I truly love.”— Loki, Thor #483

Photo Source: https://www.zerochan.net/1262293#full

Fandoms Wish for MCU & Future Appearance Justice:

Fans would like to see Sigyn make an appearance, not only in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), but also the Marvel Comics once again. They would like to see Loki & Sigyn’s characters done justice with proper writing, especially regarding their relationship with each other. 

This is why there is plenty of fans out there writing Fanfiction, making Fanart, Roleplaying and even Cosplaying them, giving their interpretation’s of what their relationship would be like. This is THE VERY REASON this blog and @sigynappreciation​ was created to help spread awareness and unite fans who feel the same way. 

These characters are very near and dear to our hearts. Some of us even worship them in our religions. We would like to see their relationship grow and portrayed in a way that helps fill the pieces of the missing puzzle to how they came to be in Norse Mythology. 

CONCLUSION:

Although their relationship in the comics usually leaves fans grimacing, at least we got to have it explored. Who knows if Marvel will ever touch anything with them ever again, but at least it’s brought together a small community that continues to go strong -- and honestly, that kind of unity is what Loki & Sigyn would want. 

So imagine to your hearts content! Draw that fanart! Write those fanfictions! Dress up in that cosplay! Be those characters! But just remember, you have a family here to love and support you. 

SOURCES:

Sigyn’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Sigyn_(Earth-616)

Loki’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Loki_Laufeyson_(Earth-616)

Sigyn on Marvel Universe: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/sigynthor.htm

Logyn on the Shipping Wiki: https://shipping.fandom.com/wiki/Logyn

Loki & Sigyn’s relationship through Media: https://www.alehorn.com/blogs/blog/norse-mythology-loki-and-sigyn

[juuten]

For You | Tenma Sumeragi

@chewie-santatoast​ says:  Merry Christmas! How about ‘secrets’ with Tenten? ❤️💚🤍🧡

Aimee replies: Hello! Thank you so much for requesting! Sorry I couldn’t greet you ‘Merry Christmas’ during that time :< That’s why I wish you a very advanced Merry Christmas! Also, stay safe and healthy!

This fic really took me a while to finish mainly because I needed to revise/shorten lots of parts. But surprisingly, I didn’t stray away from my initial idea when I thought of secrets and Tenma.

Anyway, the story takes place before Act 2. I hope this story will make you smile :D

For ‘A December with You’ event.

Today, Summer Troupe made sure to have the living room for themselves.

Fairy lights hung on the walls, painting the living room with an orange glow. Blankets and pillows surrounded the coffee table with a plate of onigiris on it. However, a winter’s night would never be complete without steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Muku delicately placed three mugs beside the onigiris, Yuki setting down the other two.

“Mr. Triangle!” Misumi grinned at the familiar triangle drawn on his cup of hot chocolate.

Muku grabbed his cup and giddily sat on his star-patterned blanket. "Mine's a crown!"

"The bear's almost like mine.” If one looked closely, a small smile dangled on Yuki’s lips.

Tenma reached for his mug and peeked at what Kazunari drew for him. "Is this a bonsai?"  

"Yep yep!" Kazunari sat on his spot in the living room. Then he winked and made a peace sign. “Kazunari Miyoshi’s latte art, everyone!”

Tenma's lips curled upwards. "Not bad." 

"Yippie! Now everything's set," Kazunari clapped his hands, "Operation ‘Tenten Living as a Non-Celeb: Christmas Edition,’ start!” 

But before Kazunari had the chance to show off his plans, the doorbell rang. Muku, being closest to the door, set down his mug and stood up.

"Who is it?" Muku said as he opened the door.

A brunette man wearing a gray suit smiled at him. “Good evening and advanced Merry Christmas, Muku-san.”

“Ah, Igawa-san! Likewise." Muku politely bowed.

Igawa set down an enormous sack on the ground. It looked like it was about to burst at any moment. "Please accept these gifts for the MANKAI members. Sumeragi-san and I chose them with utmost care." 

Then Igawa placed a thick scrapbook on Muku’s hands. "Also, please give this to Tenma-kun."

Muku obediently nodded. "I will! And thank you so much, Igawa-san!"

Igawa bowed and bid farewell before driving off. Muku secured the scrapbook under his armpit. Then he rolled up his sleeves. Pulling the sack with all his might, he trudged towards the living room.

“Mukkun, are you- Woah! Where did that super-duper big sack come from?” Kazunari’s eyes became as wide as saucers when he saw the boy set down the sack beside the Christmas tree. 

“It’s from Igawa-san and Tenma-kun's parents. They're gifts for us," Muku said in between pants. Tenma made a mental note to call his parents later.

Misumi put a familiar yellow triangle with a Santa Hat on Muku’s palms. “I'll give you Mr. Triangle Claus!”

Muku giggled and said thanks. When Muku returned to his spot, he presented the scrapbook to Tenma. “Tenma-kun, Igawa-san said this scrapbook was for you."

Tenma looked at him with confusion. Igawa always dropped off gifts from fans at his house while he delivered the important ones to the dorms. The gifts for the members were certainly one of those. However, the scrapbook was questionable. He was sure his parents did not make this; their careers always ate almost all of their time. Igawa was possible. However, Tenma knew managing his schedule was currently hectic. He always received more offers for both acting and modeling during the Christmas season. 

Suddenly, another potential person popped inside his head. With wide eyes, Tenma said, “Muku, who did it come from?"

“Um…” Muku flipped the scrapbook. He stumbled upon some initials at the far corner of the scrapbook. “There’s (First Letter of First Name) (First Letter of Last Name) written at the bottom.”

Within a blink of an eye, Tenma grabbed the scrapbook from his hands. All of the Summer Troupe members looked at each other in mild bewilderment.

Kazunari was the first one to recover as he playfully nudged Tenma’s arm. “Hey, Tenten, who’s (First Letter of First Name) (First Letter of Last Name)?”

“S-someone I'm close with!” 

Yuki suspiciously eyed Tenma as he drank his cup. “Hm…” 

Tenma fidgeted under his gaze. “Wh-what is it?”

Yuki placed his cup on the coffee table. Then with a menacing look, he said, “If you don’t tell us who they are, I’ll make you wear that rabbit costume again on Veludo Way. This time, alone.”

Misumi grinned. “I want to see rabbit Tenma again."

“That was supposed to be a one-time thing!” Tenma protested.

“Maybe the money-grubbing yakuza will increase the budget for costumes if I tell him the hack will advertise MANKAI Company this Christmas.” Yuki tapped his chin in thought.

Tenma grumbled. He was always careful to not expose your relationship with him when he was barely prepared. But now that his reputation (dignity) was on the line, he could not remain tight-lipped. Letting out a defeated sigh, he said, “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

Tenma breathed in before saying, “The initials stand for (First Name) (Last Name). It’s my girlfriend’s name.” 

“Someone managed to date the hack, huh," Yuki said.

“What do you mean by that!” The man in question violently reacted.

"Hold up, fam. Since we're on this topic," Kazunari wrapped his shoulder around the orange-haired man and shot him a grin, “we should look at the scrapbook together!"

Tenma glared at Kazunari. “No way. And this isn’t part of your operation or what in the first place!”

"It's fine, it's fine!" When Tenma still had a scowl on his face, Kazunari clasped his hands and pleadingly looked at him. "C'mon, Tenten! Please!" 

Tenma hugged the scrapbook to his chest. He knew he was doomed to be teased once he showed the scrapbook. Knowing you, you put lots of pictures he was unaware that you took them. Nevertheless, this was a risk he would rather take instead of wearing a rabbit costume for the whole Veludo to see. Besides, he trusted that his members would never leak his and your private lives to the public. 

Tenma unwrapped his arms from the scrapbook and placed it on his lap. “Fine. But no taking of pictures or videos.” With that, everyone sat closer to Tenma. 

Tenma’s heart pounded as he opened the scrapbook. A photo of a smiling couple sitting on a flowery meadow filled up the upper part of the first page. Below the picture was a handwritten caption that said, "First date planned by Yours Truly ☆." Then at the bottom of the page, there was a colored drawing of the meadow. Tenma's eyes widened in astonishment. Your illustration looked the same as he remembered. The difference was you put a dried sunflower at the center above the flowery meadow and drew its stem.

"(First Name)'s drawing and design are totes amazing! Kudos to her!" Kazunari said, which Tenma replied with a proud 'of course!'

Muku turned to the orange-haired man with excitement gleaming in his eyes. "Tenma-kun, what did you do on your first date?" 

"Did you find triangles with her?" Misumi asked.

"Only the Trianglian will do that there," Yuki commented.

“We had a picnic, talked and took some photos. Then, uh...” Tenma scratched his head, trying to remember any fascinating but not too embarrassing moments from his first date. "We also played Twenty One Questions.”

“So what do you do?” Tenma asked the moment you proposed this game.

“We just alternately ask each other twenty-one questions and answer them. The questions can be about anything at all!” A mischievous glint passed your eyes, which you covered up with a smile.

Your boyfriend seemed to be unaware of it as he smirked. “I’ve handled many interviews, so this one’s easy.”

“It’s still your first time playing this though. That’s why I’ll start asking you.” You intertwined your hands with his. Then with the most serious face you could muster, you said, “If you meet an alien who lands in Japan, what is the first thing you will give them?”

You tried to hold back your laughter when you saw his dumbfounded face. He was so confident seconds ago, and now, he was a flustered mess. 

You brushed your thumbs on his hands to help him relax. “It’s only a hypothetical question, Tenma-san. You don’t need to think too much about it.”

“Still, how did you even come up with that question?”

You wagged your index finger. “It’s not yet your turn to ask a question.”

“I can’t ask at all?!”

“That’s a question, Tenma-san.”

Tenma groaned, making you laugh. Then he scratched his head. “I’ll give the alien a map of Japan, I guess.”

You frowned. “I don’t know if they can understand our language though.” Then you shook your head. “Well, a map’s still a good choice!”

You squeezed his hands. “It’s your turn to ask a question, Tenma-san.”

Now that Tenma paid attention to it, you still used an honorific for him. It was progress compared to the early days wherein you called him by his last name. At that time, it was so awkward for him; it felt like you two were co-workers instead of lovers. But even now, he wanted you to be comfortable with him. With those thoughts, he said, “You know you could drop the honorific, right?”

You nodded. “I know. But I can’t just casually call someone who I really respect and admire.”

At the corner of your eye, you saw a pair of bloomed sunflowers near your side. You unclasped your hands from his and plucked the sunflowers. Giving one to him, you said with a tender smile, “To my sunflower who I adore.”

Muku tightly hugged his pillow to his chest. “That’s so romantic of (First Name)-san!”

“Yeah… but then she asked another random question for the game.” Tenma sighed at that. Then he looked at the next page. Red painted his cheeks as he saw a stolen shot of him eating your homemade sandwich.

“The sandwich is a triangle!” Misumi grinned.

“You’re right, Sumi! It is!” Kazunari patted him on the back. 

Meanwhile, Yuki pointed at the picture and said, “Hack, you eat like a kid. Look at the crumbs on your mouth.”

“It only happened during that time! Besides… (First Name)’s sandwich was delicious,” Tenma murmured the latter part as he munched on an onigiri.

As Tenma continued to tell what happened in the other photos, his gaze softened. He never thought that he would enter a romantic relationship and last this long. After all, school and his career demanded so much of his attention. But this scrapbook proved him wrong. It carried the many memories both of you made. If he had to choose his fondest memory of you, it would be you watching his performance. Tenma beamed with pride whenever he saw you laughing, crying, or overall getting hooked alongside the audience. It meant that Summer Troupe’s efforts paid off. Moreover, he got to express his gratitude towards you through his acting. Nonetheless, the ambitious actor would never stop improving and showing you the best performance. 

As Tenma flipped to another page, a photo fell out and landed beside Kazunari’s lap. The latter looked down and picked it up. Kazunari stopped chewing his onigiri, his jaw dropping in surprise. 

“OMG! Tenten, you look super cute!” Tenma had no time to react as Kazunari shoved the photo to his face. Tenma grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand out of the way. 

“Kazunari, what-” 

The orange-haired man froze. Out of all the pictures, why did you include this one in the scrapbook? It was a photo he definitely could not show to anyone without stripping his dignity away. But you were an exception since you begged for it as your birthday present. Still, you owning the photo did not mean you could put it without letting him know first! Anyone else could see it the moment the scrapbook landed at the dorm. And news traveled fast in a dorm with many people.

Misumi giggled. “It’s baby Tenma.”

“He doesn’t have the ‘Ore-sama’ air around him yet,” Yuki said as he stared at the photo.

Tenma snapped out of his trance and snatched the picture from Kazunari. "Oi! You don’t need to see it!” 

Misumi tilted his head in wonder. “But it was in the scrapbook.”

"Yeah, but still!" 

Then Muku noticed the black ink on the back of the polaroid. Tugging on Tenma’s sleeve, he said, “Tenma-kun, I think there’s something written at the back.”

Tenma begrudgingly flipped the photo on its back. He immediately recognized your handwriting that wrote the following message:

I hope your true friends will see all of your sides that I love, including this one. 

P.S., Merry Christmas, Tenma-san! I hope you like my gift ♡ 

Tenma covered his face with his hand, trying to fight off the smile forming on his lips.

[bao3bei4]

kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms

OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire 

large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.

anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.

the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.

yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right. 

this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.

they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)

it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one. 

you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked. 

at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.

let’s see what they actually did. 

twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.

so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction. 

for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere. 

anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015. 

but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found. 

also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you. 

however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom. 

so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people. 

the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right. 

however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.  

basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age. 

however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible. 

this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses. 

let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/

also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad! 

anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare). 

exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.

Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever. 

archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about. 

first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story. 

the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.) 

anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.

but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf. 

ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes. 

first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god. 

the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.

at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.

the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)

there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair. 

this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah. 

okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010. 

this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it. 

this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.

anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu. 

for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video. 

moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.

anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories. 

for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.

vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably. 

chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious. 

we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to. 

we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended. 

i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see. 

i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down. 

out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not. 

after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place. 

there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)

sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine! 

anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them. 

what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.

it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.

but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.

it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.

anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.

at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.) 

obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.

let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:

there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.

in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.

but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad. 

this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again. 

this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies. 

anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.

[popculturebuffet]

Don Rosa: “The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros!” or City Slickers 3: The Crystal City

Saludos Amigos, the Ride of the Three Caballeros returns! After some time off to take care of other seasonal commissions and to finally get the life and times fo scrooge mcduck back on a steady pace, everyone’s three favorite chappies in snappy serapes are back for another go round.  This time i’ts back to comics one last time as we take a look at “The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros: which was the penultimate story from Duck Maestro Don Rosa, and as a result the final one set in present day, as while the next one would have a wraparound segment, it’s a flashback tiding up the one last bit of Scrooge’s past Rosa hadn’t clicked into place yet, and thus we’ll get to that eventually as part of life and times. And honestly it serves as a fittng and satisfying conclusion to Donald’s story. 

The geneisis of this one is rather simple in comparison to “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!”. Don Rosa REALLY enjoyed writing TTCRA, wanted to have another adventure with Donaldo and his boys, and given the previous story was a huge hit likely had no trouble convincing his publisher. And since he set the first story in Panchito’s home country of mexico, it only made sense to have the next story in Jose’s home country of Brazil. Adding to it Rosa specifically wanted to avoid using the amazon rainforest this go round, as to him pretty much every story involving Brazil focused on the massive and wonderful rainforest. And while a great setting, Rosa knew there was much more to the country and wanted to show it off. And to his credit.. he’s 100% right as i’ve seen dozens upon dozens of stories set in the rainforest but not nearly as many set ANYWHERE ELSE IN BRAZIL. If their lucky we get to see Rio, but that’s about it. So kudos to Rosa for wanting to display more of a beautiful country and show it had more to offer than merely it’s biggest attraction. As for what treasure they’d be after, the lost city of crystal stuck out to him, having been described in a goverment document that was so degraded when it was found there wasn’t much left to go on and searched for by a famous explorer who was the basis for indiana jones whose name I forgot but we’ll run into his name again later. So yeah not as much setup here and what tiny bit is left can be covered when we get to our villian. So with all that out of the way, let’s ride on!

We open with Scrooge firing Donald and throwing his ass out on the street, berating him for screwing up and then telling him to be back early tommorow to make up for his firing. Then Gladstone literally walks all over him becausae he’s a jackass, and Daisy then shrieks at donald for you know, being stuck on the floor, having messed up the shirt she ironed for him without.. actually you know asking for context, HITTING HIM, then telling him to pick her up for dinner at the ritz. 

It’s like this intro was perfectly designed in a lab to piss me off. All three of the characters who on a good day ar excellent but on a bad are outright monsters, at their worst, treating Donald like crap, i.e. the reason to call them monsters, and generally abusing him for flimsy reasons. And again Daisy HIT DONALD. No that’s not right, she shoryukened his ass! She upercutted him! God damn. And her just casually doing that is played for laughs. In a lesser Rosa story this would only get worst and be “oh haw haw”.. instead... to my delighted suprise.. this is all treated seriously. Yeah really. Instead of being treated for laughs like normal, and not being a dark enough work comedically to make it work like say It’s Always Sunny, Donald is seriously depressed, beaten down phsycially and mentlaly and when the boys, who’ve been present for all of this and tried to help him up off the ground, ask why he takes this.. the answer is pretty damn bleak. 

Just.. holy shit that’s dark.. and I applaud Rosa for not only recognizing this isn’t always funny, but for actually tackling it. And I will grant Donald being a butt monkey CAN be funny, especially when it’s caused by his own ego. It’s the basis of his entire career. It’s good stuff. My issue has been more that Rosa sometimes dosen’t get that either some aspects have aged poorly, even by the 90′s, and thus dosen’t adjust them or play them more for drama, sprinkling a bit of that in with the comedy. So to see him do that HERE, to acknowledge in some way his own faults and do something with them.. i’m very proud of him and it warms my heart that he could do something like this that shows he could grow and change, even SECONDS from the end of his career, but with no intention of ending his career at that point or even after finishing his next and last story. It just ended up happening that way and as such this story carries even more weight as for all intensive purposes, this is the final tale of Donald Duck for Don Rosa’s Barksian universe. This is the last big tale before whatever triggers Scrooge’s retirement, the last tale he wrote in the here and now. And while not perfect for some reasons we’ll get to from a character perspective? It’s a pretty good note to go out on. 

Anyways Donald somehow makes this SADDER by mentoing, when Huey, Dewey or Louie tries to make him smile that he hasn’t smiled in some time before sadly loping off to make their dinner before buying daisy’s. 

Yeah... I just.. I need a moment.... Here’s my asistant iwth an important message

Okay i’ve regained my composuer.. and yes I will be shwoing that off at every opportunity. I have generous friends. Now where were we? Ah yes with their uncle in a depression hole, can relate, they figure he needs a nice gift to get him out of it. The boys think he needs friends.. and of course the boys come to mind, though the fact their on the other end of the contient proves a problem.. but Huey, Dewey or Louie has a solution and takes the boys to the Woodchucks because of course they do> Their primary go to for anything is the guide which to be fair contains the entire sum of the world’s knowledge in a guidebook. 

So the boys, with the other two likely filled in on the way, plan becomes clear when they stop by Woodchuck HQ and talk to the guy in charge of the badge department, which ahs a fun acronym because of course it does, this is one of Rosa’s faviorite running gags and mine as well.. I just don’t have it in me stamina wise to type the whole thing out. Point is the boys ask that Donald be used as courier for a special shipment of badge’s to Rio. The authority guy is understandably a bit reluctant to give a non-woodchuck this duty, but the boys remind him that in a previous story, not sure if it’s barks or rosa’s, Donald apparently not only found the last remaning pieces of fort duckberg but saved them from the mill. As a result the Fort, which was the original HQ of the woodchucks until Scrooge threw them out, was apparently rebuilt. So the guy in charge is more than willing to not only give donald the duty, but an open ended plain ticket, i.e a vacation. The Nephews do have to guilt him a bit more to get donald a condsensed pamphlet based on the brazil chapter of the guidebook which at this point seems like overkill. Just.. buy him a guidebook boys. IT’s a bit much to ask that a portion of your heavily guarded and protected text be given to your uncle for a vacation and seems like a tad of a stretch but the gag, including the boys getting badges in guilt and convincing, makes it work. 

So after the boys set off to telegram the rest of the Cabs, we cut to donald arriving in rio, passing christ the redeemer on the way

The Rio Woodchucks greet donald and take the package for him, giving him new orders to go by cable car to the observation deck atop Sugar Loaf Mountain. This is a real mountain in Brazil and frustrated Rosa because he couldn’t find any pictures of what the station looked like in the 1950′s, despite as he put in his notes having eager fans from the region, researchers and other contacts try to find it, settling for having vintage cable cars pulling into modern stations he got from photos from said contacts. If I hadn’t said it before i’ll say it now the man is a BEAST when it comes to getting things acurate, only bending it if it helsp the story and still making sure his drawings are as accurate as possible. It’s one of Rosa’s most adimirable traits. 

Donald took a Donde, some form of streetcar there, hanging on the back and .. uh I have no words for this..

Donald Duck ran into a horse and it farted in his face. Just... why though. This horse naturally is Senior Marteniz, with Panchito currently being thrown out of a cable car for trying to put his horse in there which is fair. What isn’t is people having an issue with his hat. I mean.. people wear hats. I know it’s a bit big for the tight fit of the cable car but still it’s a bit weird to throw a strop about anywhere outside a theater or sports place where he’d be actively obstructing people’s view. And it appears to be the same weirdly crazy asshole.. Imean again the horse thing is resonable but calling it a “crazy hat” I mean yes it’s a big hat.. but ... you you do know mexico exists right? And sombreros? or other cultures at all you weirdly specific douche? 

At the top, after a quick and funny hat swap gag, Panchito reveals the triplets called him here.. as did Jose who assuemd it was  lovely senorita.. who uppercuts him. And it’s STILL more reasonable to uppercut some rando hitting on you, if not by much, than Daisy’s Domestic Abuse. Anyways the three put things together and Donald realizes via flashback the boys hoped his smile would return and said he’d have help. 

Donald, being utterly beaten down by life, apologizes.. but it turns out the boys needed this as much as he did. Jose’s night club career is flopping hard, with his agent unable to get him bookings and Panchito has barely scraped any money together for his ranch dream from last time. It’s a nice touch: That the boys , while having more exciting careers have just as much strife as Donald does and as much problem. It helps make them feel as real as donald, as characters with their own lives and adventures outside of him and their own wants and needs and it really helps the story come alive. Jose however has some suggestions to escape their blues. 

But Panchito suggests instead they go for some adventure and go diamond hunting in the plains of brazil, which the two agree to.. and Donald’s a big gung hoe about carving his way through human flesh.. just jesus man.. get a therapist. Your Ducktales counterpart did and he seems mildly well adjusted. So the adventure is on.. and they all toss their hats.. off a mountain. First thing on the provisoins list hats.  Before we head on I just wanted to point out even though most of my audience here is likely unaware the movie exists that this Comic honestly reminds me of the 1991 comedy City Slickers starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby. If your struggling on the name Daniel Stern, think Marv from Home Alone. 

No.. the RIGHT marv. I may not be a huge fan of Home Alone but we respect Daniel sterns in this house. And yes if you didn’t know French Stewart played Marv in one of the sequels now you do. And i’m sorry you know that. 

There we go. Right Marv and Wrong Dad from Christmas story. Back on point City Slickers is a terrific comedy I finally saw a few weeks back about three friends all facing mid life crisises, with Billy Crystal being unsatisfied with his career and undsure WHY he does, Daniel Sterns having cheated on his shrewish wife with one of his employees whose also now pregnant, and Bruno Kirby being a ladies man whose faced with the prosepct of settling down, go for a weeks vacation to a cattle drive, as Brunos character tends to set up these trips but this time they actually need it. They encounter cows, assholes and a cowpoke named Curly. It’s pretty good. 

But yeah they both feel kinda similar, if with far less drama and crumbling marraiges on the cabs end because you know, this is for children. I’m pretty sure it’s just a concidence but given Rosa’s love of film, even if it’s more 30′s and 40′s films, and how the City Slickers seems right up his alley, I wouldn’t he suprised if he saw it and simply took some slight inspiration from it. Either way the similarity makes me giggle a bit. Again the plots aren’t all the same but the basic setup is about the same, complete with the main character’s family making sure he goes. It’s a bit of a stretch but I thought it was pointing out and while this review is comissioned, how I go about it isn’t so if I want to take a few paragraphs to compare this to an excellent comedy you should defintely see with two underated actors, maybe three i know nothing of bruno kirby other than the man had horse allergies and thus had to take heavy medication every day so good on him, and a lot of fun. 

So our premise and pastiche firmly in place, our heroes fly out to the frontier to adventure and Donald even thought ahead on them needing two more mounts and bought them from the local farmer for 100 bucks: It turns out their a llama, who jose takes and an old ox which donald reluctantly takes and wonders how to steer.. which I just got the double pun. Nice touch.

So our heroes head on with Donald expressing suprise they aren’t in the jungle like the movies, Jose correcting him, you get the bit he’s going for. But as they travel Donald not only breaks out the pamphlet but also , once jose mentions finding el dorado, casually mentions he and Scrooge already found it in columbia, and when Jose incrediously mentions that maybe he also already found the lost mines of the incas.. turns out yeah they did that too. Dont’ know if it was a barks or rosa story for either, since I didn’t check that part of Rosa’s notes, but it brings the scene into greatness as the boys not only belivie donald and figure he’s not pulling their legs.. but marvel at his life. And it’s here Donald smiles a bit.. he’s already got his smile back realizing that as miserable as his life can be.. he’s still seen and done things no man, even his globetrotting pals, has sever done before or sense. Found long lost places, solved mysteries and rewrote history.. sometimes literally sometimes in the “found things that changed historical knowledge” sense. Point is.. he realizes he has more to his life than he thought and maybe it isn’t so miserable after all. 

Donald also mentions the local waters are filled with stuff and the other Cabs mounts quickly climb on his continuting the gag of the Cabs assuming donald’s some big expert by accident. For me personally it varies in how funny it is, sometimes it’s grating othertimes it’s genuinelly pretty good, your mileage will vary. We then get a page and a half of slapstick with various animals and this gag repeated and it’s eh. Not bad, and there’s a REALLY great visual bit where donald gets squeezed by an anaconda and not only is he comically and tightly squeezeled, but it takes a few panels for it to wear off. Other than that not bad stuff but nothing especially new or really that funny. 

Our heroes soon find a pit trap.. and a capybara in said pit trap.. which I also give myself credit for recognizing on sight. Who dosen’t like a good capybara? Their basically a large brazillian rodent if you were curious. Donald asks what can they do and hte boys take it as a secret test of character, and not just donald being kind of lost and decide to help free trapped animals instead of treasure hunt which Donald, much like his entire life, just reacts to with “what what are we doing now?”. But they manage to free the greatful Capybara and we get this inspired bit. 

Naturally the sheer confusion of seeing this as well as being confronted with the relaly bizzare nature of his world, i.e. having both a rodent whose an old friend and one that’s clearly just a regular animal causes Donald to fall into the hole. He’s soon found by the natives.. and here we get one of the worst aspects of this story and one I honestly didn’t expect to encounter given Rosa’s research: Calling these indgeinous people’s.. “indians”. Yes really. 

We were in 2004 by this point, and even in the cultural cesspool of the early 2000′s, a time where micheal jacksons actions towards children were used for reams of jokes and where R.Kelly got off for the same just because “he makes the good musics”. What i’m saying is even in this time in history, we knew better than to use the term indian and I remember distinctily the term native american being in my text books even at this point as a kid. So Rosa, a world traveled knowledgable adult.. has no excuse for this, not even “It was the 50′s when this was set and they’d used this” as while he had Scrooge being mildly racist in “The Empire Builder from Callisota”, he didn’t you know, have scrooge use the fucking n word or other slurs during the story because you know that’s racist and he knows it’s racist. I’m coming down so hard on him because I expect BETTER. I can, even if it bothers me and I will give out about it, KINDA ignore the daisy stuff because domestic violence against men wasn’t as wellk nown, so while it dosen’t play well and I won’t pretend to enjoy it I can at least understand why rosa thought this was funny when it isn’t> This? The man clearly should know better, should know to use correct terms, and is usually better about this, but just isn’t here and for one of his last stories it’s REALLY depressing to see a man I have a ton of respect for fail this badly. It’s just a small element of hte story but it really sticks out badly and says bad things about an otherwise good man. Even a good man can really fuck up and Don.. honestly really fucked up even when, normally his portryal of indigneous people’s is really good.. and is for the rest of the story. This is just a really bad if really easy to miss bit I feel he deserves some flak over it. He knew better. This story proves he knows better in other ways and knows indgenous people deserve resepect. He just dosen’t show it in his laungauge and it’s disheartaning. 

Anyways, the Natives drop donald off with their cheif.. who turns out to not only speak perfect english, but has a rather nice modern setup and clothes. He’s the son of the former cheif whose dad, using a secret crystal city with a rich mine, paid for his son to go get an education in the US and hopefully bring back knowledge for his people. Instead all he learned was to be a greedy selfish asshat who calls his own people “savages”. This is what i’m talking about: While the indian thing is bad and Rosa should feel bad.. the rest of the story does treat these tribal peoples with genuine grace and care, as our main villian is shown as one partly because rather than respect his culture and simply use thenew knowledge of the outside world to help his people by educating them, bringing back new techniques and medcidnes while mixing it with thier old culture, the bastard prince simply wrote them off as savages and used his new learnings to rule them and get them into trapping, a buisness i’ts later made clear at the end of hte story they don’t like and only followed him because he’s their chief. And it dosen’t even come off as them following him as chief because their stupid, mainly just because of tradition and knowing they can’t escape him and he’d just find htem and find some way to cowtow them. The tribe here are innocent victimes forced into a life they don’t want by an asshole who became a colonizer instead of a hero and leader to his people and simply wants to sell them out as soon as possible to fiance a fancy and comfy life for himself.  The bad guy here is recycled from Rosa’s pre scrooge work, and works well here and honestly.. is a good villian and a good antagonist, something Rosa struggled with sometimes when not just using what barks made. He’s a chillingly realistic villian: someone who would step on where he came from instead of helping it and again treats these people as simple victims forced to be minons by circumstance and as the end of the story shows, and we’ll get to that, not nearly as stupid or “savage” as this cruel bastard thinks. And naturally being a cruel bastard, Chief, since his name isn’t given, plans to ransom donald as he naturally has no hangups about selling people AND rare animals. Thankfully Donald’s only a prisoner for a bit as Donald’s ox makes a back door and with the help of their mounts the boys free all the trapped animals and escape.. with Senior Martinez accidently taking the Chief’s necklace. Turns out that’s the sigal that signals his right to rule, so he figures if the tribe finds out it’s missing they’ll rightfully dump his ass and tells them to give chase, which the cabs find out about via a wild parrot. It’s better not to ask. 

So our heroes head into the wilderness to loose them and find a rocky slope, making their way up to some more plains. They now have both a high vantage, and a place to set up camp so do so. They also found out Martinez took the necklace, and now know why the chief is after them, but Panchito decides to keep it for now till they can figure out what to do with it. SO over the camp fire Donald decides that if they can find this lost mine that the Cheif’s dad used to go to,  they won’t need to look for diamonds the hard way and Jose’s skepticism is rebuffed by the fact that Donald’s found plenty of lost cities with scrooge.  So donald brings up the legend of the crystal city, with the guy who found it being colonel percy fawceet, and brings up more adventures you get the bit by now. Point is he mentions a crystal arch lighting up at night to ward off intruders.. and sure enough our heroes happen to be right by it, complete with a crystal road that simply had been covered by shale over the years. Donald decides to get some rest and head out in the morning, with a valid explination as to why not to worry about hteir perusers till then: It’s so dark that even if they left a trail, they can’t follow.. which the evil cheif agrees to though he finds the trail they dug up, pointing as an arrow and now realizing his dad’s treasure was real, plans to naturally exploit the hell out of it.  So the next morning, bright and early, our heroes have built a raft, and are greatful they looked in first as the waters are stalked with dangerous predatory creatures. How htey haven’t all killed each other, I do not no, but it looks cool so i’ll shut up now. So our heroes leave their mounts behind and head in up the stream via the raft and find the massvie and awe inspiring lost city.. as for why it hasnt’ been found they soon figure out why: THe stream in is dangerous, and jose figures it was delebratly packed with dangerous animals, and thus few would think to go in there, and the only ohter way up is scaling the cliffs it’s build into, but as the cities built into the sides of said cliffs, no one can see it from a distance. It’s a birlliant way to justify just WHY something remained lost and somthing barks is tremendous at. Our heroes soon find though that the canal go deeper and approaches a water fall.. and thus jump off loosing their only way back and thus heading in deeper to see if they can find another way out. Meanwhile the Cheif has found the swamp and recongizes his dad mentoning it and being a greedy jackass, and suddenly realizing that maybe his people won’t want to loot the city their swarn to protect, tells them to guard the Cabs mounts while he goes on ahead. 

Our heroes journey deeper into the unknown and after coming across pick axes mine carts and the like find the mines of fear.. lit with crystals and with wall to wall gems. So they’ve sucessful founds the lost minds of ophir, set up by one of king solomon’s realtiives. The actual King Solomons Mines had been found in a barks story, naturally and is also likely the basis for the african mines level in the ducktales game. 

Donald being donald.. ends up sitting on a giant anaconda who swallows him whole as he dosen’t realize just how big the thing is when his pals mention it to him, and only escapes through Dumb Luck, as is the duck family way, lighting a match and causing the Anadonda to spit him out and run... unfortunately not only does Panchtio loudley announce he dosen’t have his pistols, The Chief shows up with a gun. Naturally he intends to plunder, because jackass you see, and intends to leave the cabs stranded, with the anaconda picking them off one by one when they inevitibly have to sleep while he’ll come back with inflatable rafts and boats to loot the rest. The cabs bemoan the fact that their fucked.. and then this happens. 

So with that Donald FINALLY snaps, tired of taking the world’s shit and determined not to be the looser everyone around him but his boys clearly think he is. Seriously Donald.. dump. her. ass. It’d also tell you to dump gladstone in a shallow ditch but given your love for hacking through human flesh and his luck I don’t want you to impale yourself. So thus.. Donald stops getting polite and starts getting badass.. shouting THAT’S THE LAST STRAW BEFORE.. .. welll...

Bad. Ass. Also who knew Donald was part Kree? Wait .. how though? Questions for later. So as Donald gives the asshole his RICHELY deserved asshole a beat down, the anaconda pops up and grabs the boat.. with Donald STILL fighting the Chief the whole time. Holy shit. If this is your last time writing a character in a lead role what a note to go out on holy jesus. The cabs however show their CLOSE to as badass with Panchito roping the anconda and Jose attacking it once it curls around.. and unlike last time where his umbrella was quickly disarmed, here the Anaconda eats the tip.. only for Jose to expand it and on Panchito’s command, hook the damn thing. I didn’t relaize till writing this up just HOW badass this story’s climax is.. just holy shit this is awesome incarnate. 

Donald ends up loosing the fight eventually as asshole whomps him on the head with the gems.. and sends donald flying, destroying the gate regulating the water thanks to freeing the anaconda. As a result asshole escapes.. for about five seconds till he drops over the falls, presumibly to his MUCH deserved death and even if he surivives, likely wont’ for long without anything to defend himself. Goodbye asshole, you were a good villian but you’ll be better tarantula chow. 

Our heroes are still stranded.. but Panchito notices the Anadconda escaping and well... he decides to equal donald in badassery. Again..words do not do this justice. 

Our heroes disembark, and find that the tribe has been held at bay by the noble steeds, and as I mentioned earlier, and why despite the frequent use of .. that word i’ve said enough already, this story isn’t too bad. The tribe, once free.. are perfectly intellegent and nice, only in the game because of tradition that asshole abused. Their going to head deeper into the valley on the offchance asshole makes it back so he can’t find them. So the tribe is free and seeing the emblem as the symbol of their opressor and not wanting it, they can likely make a new necklace honestly just without the gems, Panchito gets to keep it. So our heroes won, the adventure is over and our heroes head back to rio

In our final scene we get our wrap up with our heroes back in Rio to enjoy what’s left of their vacation.. which given the scope of events only two days of it have passed so far, so it’s nicely implied they have a day or two before Donald has to go back where he can just.. enjoy himself. Have an actual vacation now his soul is whole again. Our heroes went to the authorities, and it turns out the Chief was one of the most infamous trappers in Brazil, and is now again either dead or in no way shape or form easily able to come back into the country.. and when he does, he’ll now have every officer in the country on his ass.So in short he’s pretty fucked and i’m pretty happy about that.  Naturally our heroes dont’ get to keep the mines, because well... it belongs ina museum.. or to become a museum and cultural landmark and the boys know and respect that. But Jose and Panchito both still got something out of the deal: for starters they have their confidence back, as seeing tthey could keep up with donald after realizing what a legend their friend is restored their own weary souls. Meanwhile, Jose’s newfound fame as the man who found a new brazilian cultural touchstone means his agent was able to get him booked up for a year, while Panchito , after consulting with the good senior martenez, decided ot keep the broach, and use it to get their ranch. And Donald? What did he find?

Donald found his smile again. He’s found himself again. After letting life beat him to near death, to just a souless shell. he’s found the real Donald. He’s realized that despite Scrooge’s finaical abuses he lives a rich full life. It’s part of why I compared the story to city slickers. While Donald’s life is far worse off than Billys, like him he finds himself again after the rousing adventure. And who knows what his future holds? Given Scrooge’s grave picture, yes Rosa drew that, he probably does marry daisy and work for the old bat.. but maybe now he can fight back, refuse to let htem walk all over him and actually find a healthy relationship with daisy and with his uncle before his uncle finally retires to Goldie’s loving arms. I could be wrong, it could be same as it ever was just he gets angry again.. but I like to think of something better for our boy. A better life and one more fufilled and more happy and one where he finally finds his pot of gold. He may not of found it yet but well.. there’s always another rainbow and he realizes that now just as his uncle did years ago. Donald is finally whole again to find his hapniess and a better life. Maybe with daisy, maybe with scrooge, maybe without them. Probably without Gladstone because he needs to cut that tumor out of his life, but still, he’s found himself and sometimes that’s all you need to find your purpose. So with that warm thought in my head our heroes play us out one last time. Well not for the restrospective obviously but still. 

Final Thoughts; While I do prefer the previous story, on going through this again for the review, I did find this story utterly charming and a great way to send off our boys and Donald for Rosa’s work. While again that one word is very unfortunate and Rosa should’ve known better, otherwise the story is pretty imaculate, using history to build a thrilling story with tons of character and a tremendous arc for Donald. And as I said the villian is excellent and overally the story is pretty great. Maybe held back a bit by the racisim, but the rest of the story is so joyous, badass and well crafted, it’s easy enough to override the less savory aspects. Dosen’t mean they didn’t need to be noted it just means this story is magificent and as usual for Rosa’s work I recommend it. 

Next time on the Ride of the Three Cablleros: We go to Disney Juinor for Mickey’s Perfecto Day! ..... whelp at least it’s a short one. 

And if you’d like to comission your own review, their just five bucks, jsut direct message me, tell me what you’d like, and I will send you the link on my paypal and get to it asap. Thank you so much for reading and have a happy holiday. 

[novantinuum]

Tides of Renewal (SU one-shot)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: T (Mild TW for vague allusions to past suicidal thoughts.)

Words: 2500~

Summary: Now twenty years old and living on the other side of the country, Steven spends his morning relaxing on the beach, musing about his past, and having a chat with his dad.

Hi folks! This is actually my two-months-late “Happy Birthday, Steven” fic, ahah- amusingly, posted two months late to the day. I’m quite happy with how this short turned out.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. AO3 link will be provided in the reblogs. Thank you! <3

____

Tides of Renewal

Steven rises alongside the sun, but not by choice.

As he abruptly stirs, jerking onto his side under his tangled blanket, he soon realizes that he has little lingering memory of the nightmare that shook him from his slumber. Nevertheless, his heart pounds so hard it feels like it’s hanging in his throat. There’s feelings, faint impressions— someone’s blood (his, or hers?), Connie’s screams, a bubble of terror boiling from within— but that’s all he’s left with. The young man clutches at his sheets, struggling to catch his breath as is the norm most mornings. Dim light sneaks in between the edges of the curtains, offering a rough estimate of the time.

Once it’s clear his chances of sleeping in have become null and void, he entices himself out of bed with the promise of buying himself a muffin at the local coffee shop later today, a birthday treat. His routine is sluggish, but precise. He uses the bathroom, throws on his swim trunks and a thin cotton shirt, downs the pills he forgot to take last night with a quick swig of water, carefully runs his fingers through his long curls to work out the tangles, and slips his feet into the flip flops he always leaves lying right at the foot of his bed.

The young adult only takes his guitar, phone, and keys with him as he walks the mile distance from his humble studio apartment to the public beach. Around him, the world is at peace. The only sound intermingling with the gentle ebb and flow of the Pacific at this hour of the morning is the chattering of puffins that nest on the large rock outcroppings in the tide pools nearby. The edge of his lip quirks up when he finally crosses that sacred boundary— the sidewalk meeting the shore— and removes his sandals, reveling in the satisfying, grainy texture of sand squishing between his toes. Hah... the beach. Funny, that. All his traveling these past years, from mountains, to prairies, to sprawling suburbs to wooded forest towns, and it only succeeded in deepening his childhood love for the familiarity of saltwater air and tourist-filled boardwalks. Still, the secluded, rustic charm of Haystack Cove is a far cry from the Beach City he grew up in. Different people, different sights, different types of seafood sold at the markets. This place feels like a home all his own, appropriately distant from the Gem influenced settlement he’d left behind.

He crosses the fine grained sands towards his favorite sitting spot, a hefty stone jutting out from the ground, its surface buffed to a glossy finish over the years by the high tides. The water’s still distant this early in the morning, glimmers of sunlight sparkling off of the foam and spray. Yawning, he plops himself down on the stone and lifts his guitar into his lap. He strums a few random chords as a warm-up before settling into an experimental melodic sequence.

As he plays, the early morning breeze teases at the ends of his shoulder-length hair, untied and let free in all its curly splendor. It’s still quite chilly, but with the sun peaking over the horizon behind him and not a cloud in sight, the air’s bound to heat up in no time. Steven inhales deeply, soaking in the salt and light and pushing away the shadows lurking at the periphery of his mind, that twitching, exhausting anxiety that never quite seems to leave him alone these days. Unfortunately, functional does not mean carefree. While far fewer in number then when he was a teen, he still runs into plenty of moments where he’s struck blind by particularly painful reminders of his past, his gem snapping into overdrive in an instant. He’s a bit better at coping in these moments now, and walking himself down from panic attacks, but deep-rooted traumas don’t simply melt away. With that in mind, at this point he suspects he’ll likely have to deal with a mixture of therapy and meds for the rest of his life. That’s fine, though. If that’s what it takes to be at peace. He’s thankfully reached a point in his recovery where he’s more than willing to work for it.

Startling him out of his roaming thoughts, his phone chimes to life, touting the same cheery ring tone he had as a kid. He gently sets his guitar down in the sand and fishes his cell phone out of his pocket, a silent bet as to who’s calling rising within his mind. Sure enough, his dad’s contact photo proudly greets him. Hah— he called it. Steven stifles a giggle as he hits accept and lifts the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Dad!”

“Hey, Schtu-ball!” his father chimes from the other side of the country, three hours ahead. He hears a faint shuffle over the line, and then the beginnings of guitar accompaniment as the man begins to sing:

“Happy birthday to you~!”

Dad ends the line with a resounding vibrato, and a few extra jazzy chords for good measure.

“Heh heh, thanks,” he says, bashfully blushing at the attention, and gazing across the loose sands as if ensuring the secret of his birth hasn’t swelled into a nauseatingly public affair like half of his birthdays had since the start of Era 3. “Gotta say, the impromptu guitar solo pushed that to a whole new level. You just get up?”

“Yep! Bright and early. Garnet said you’d probably be awake by now, so I figured I’d call and give ya’ a good greeting to start the day. Lemme guess, you’re down there at the beach already? I think I heard waves.”

Steven’s glance lifts to admire the slowly rising tides, and the promise of each tomorrow that lies beyond. “Hah, you know me,” he says softly, taking a deep lungful of that precious salt-touched air he’s always adored. “I live for the water. Might force myself to go for a swim later before all of you come. Not sure yet,” he says, shrugging as he turns and squints in the wake of the steadily rising sun. “But my therapist said I should probably keep as active as po—“

“It’s your birthday. You do whatever makes you happy, bud,” his dad promptly reminds him, slight concern sticking to his voice. And yes, it’s practically a father’s job to worry, but his chest tightens with lingering guilt for pressing that upon him anyways. Ugh, this is because he said ‘force myself,’ isn’t it?

“Doing my best to,” he lamely offers, hoping it’ll at least end that segment of conversation. He twirls a stray strand of hair around his finger as he scours his memory for something new to offer. Thankfully, his mind quickly lands on the exciting email he received last night. He grins, knowing for sure his dad’ll love this. “Oh, uh- topic change, but I got that last job I applied for, by the way.”

“Oh? The taffy shop one?”

“Yeah! I start on Tuesday.”

“Wow, that’s- that’s awesome! They responded fast, then.”

“Yup,” Steven nods, popping the ‘p.’ “Honestly, it’s nothing much, just stocking and working the register, but it’ll give me some cash to work with.”

Some cash to finally pay for his own food instead of continuously bumming money off his dad. There’s no way he can handle full month’s rent on his own with this minimum wage job, (who on Earth could in this economy), but it might be enough to cover the smaller things. Groceries, electricity, internet. That sorta stuff. Fidgeting on the edge of the stone outcropping, his bare toes dig narrow lines in the sand. He hasn’t really had this discussion with Dad yet, but the mere concept of being wholly reliant on other people steers his mind uncomfortably close to the I’m a Burden Zone. He’d far prefer to feel like he has a stake in the game.

“I know you said you don’t mind supporting me,” he continues in a hesitant tone, twirling his finger through one of his curls, “but I still feel kinda bad—“

“Don’t. I’d rather you not have to stress yourself to the bone about money like I did when I was your age.”

The line shakes for a second. He’s pretty sure he hears the faint clink of a bowl meeting the counter from his dad’s side.

“Dad...?”

“Sorry, bud. Just putting ya’ on speaker. Figured I’d make myself some instant oatmeal,” he says, his voice sounding a bit further away from the microphone. “Goodness, though. Twenty years. That still boggles the mind.”

He gives a soft laugh. “You’re telling me. Could’ve sworn I was twelve just yesterday. And to be honest, it’s... it’s kinda weird sometimes, you know?”

“What is?”

“Being another year older. ‘Cause... well, uh...”

Steven grits his teeth, searching for the most delicate manner in which he can discuss these emotions. The feelings of his past are a really hard topic to dwell on sometimes, even in therapy, and even though he and his dad have long since had scattered discussions about what a poor mental state he was in then, he doesn’t wanna upset him too much.

“There were definitely days I assumed I wouldn’t have a future, or didn’t want one to begin with,” he continues, throat thick. “Back during all the conflict, before Homeworld reformed. And even after that, when I was... you know. And things are better, now, they’re definitely a lot better. But the idea of a ‘future’... even if I’ve got a job, a home, a girlfriend... it’s still weird to think about, I guess.“

There’s a brief silence on the line as this vulnerable admission sinks in.

“Yeah,” Dad replies eventually, clear sorrow in his voice despite how careful he thought he was in phrasing these matters. “I hear ya’.”

With a quick nervous laugh, he scratches at the nape of his neck, fingertips brushing against the thin, wispy strands of hair growing back there. “Geeze, sorry for bringing the mood down so quick. Didn’t even know I had all that on my mind until it spilled right out.”

“No, no! No need for apologies, I’m always here to listen. And in any case, I’m glad you’re in a better place now.”

Steven nods his head to himself in full agreement (momentarily forgetting that his dad isn’t actually here in the flesh to see this response). Sixteen and seventeen really, really weren’t good years for him. And even though he’s put lot of work into himself since then, he can’t help but constantly fear the possibility of relapse. His therapist told him a few sessions ago when he expressed this worry that... relapses into old thinking patterns can be common for people living with C-PSTD, and that it’s important for him to be cognizant of any unusual changes in his patterns and routines so he can quickly intervene with his box of healthy coping tactics, but... geeze. The dark, traumatic destinations his wandering thoughts end up stagnating in when the concept of relapse brushes his mind aren’t fun to acknowledge. It makes him yearn with deafening hunger for a simple switch he could flip, some magic cure-all for his brain that would stop him from having to deal with any of this awful shit in the first place— but of course, cruel universe this can be at times, those don’t exist.

“Speaking of that,” Dad speaks up again after clearing his throat, “how are those new meds treating you? You said last call your doctor was gonna change them, yes?”

“Nah, not change. There’s no need to change types,” he shrugs. “It’s just a dosage shift. And it’s fine, I think. I’ve been on ‘em for a few days, and there’s no problems so far. Brain's been treating me a little better.”

Nightmares aren’t quite as bad.

His energy isn’t totally zapped by noon.

The whirling, panicked trajectory of his thought patterns is a little easier to wrest control of.

All in all, nothing’s perfect, but he certainly feels a good deal more stable than before. Now, if only he can remember to consistently take his meds before he goes to bed like he’s supposed to instead of totally forgetting like he did last night and having to scarf it down when he sees that forsaken capsule in his pill box the next morning. Tsk, tsk.

“That’s real good to hear,” his dad responds to his news.

He flexes his knuckles against his lap, gaze reflexively drifting back towards the welcomed distraction of the tides. “Yeah.”

“Anyways, I, uh...”

“So, party logistics,” he cuts in with an overly cheery tone, changing the topic from his boring mental health crap entirely. “We should probably hash this out now. I know Connie’s planning on dropping around about noon. What’s your guys’ plan? She can probably send Lion to you after she gets here, if you want.”

“Yeah, that’d be best. Pearl said there weren’t any convenient warps nearby. Well, there’s one- but apparently it empties out into an active lava tube. And that’s not exactly Dad-friendly.”

“Aww, you mean you’re not filled with the intense desire to dip your hand into molten lava and shlorp it up like it’s soup?” Steven retorts, only barely holding back his laughter as he thinks of this absurd text thread he had going with Connie a few weeks back, wherein she sent him a video of some volcanic flows and told him, verbatim, that 'despite all logic and reason sometimes I can’t help but look at super viscous lava and think... forbidden s o u p, mmmm.’

“Not particularly, no,” his dad says, sounding thoroughly confused. “I’m- why are you laughing? Is this some sort of weird internet thing I’m not familiar with again?”

He wipes tears from his eyes as he tries to catch his breath. “You, ah- you kinda had to be there, sorry. Anyways, yeah. I’ll have Connie send Lion. I’ll text you right before, how’s that?”

“Sounds great! Can’t wait to see ya’, bud. I’m gonna let you go, now, okay? I can talk your ears off later. Go enjoy your morning. Love you.”

“Love you too, Dad,” he says, grinning. “Bye.”

“Buh-bye.”

Once his dad hangs up he sets his phone beside him on the rock and takes a deep, steady breath, trying to capture the full nuance of each diverse scent in the air. He may just be imagining it, but he swears he’s able to pick out the faint scent of taffy intermingling with the ocean saltiness and the hint of cedar from the nearby state forest. In the end though, whether it’s real or not it’s a welcomed reminder of all the possibility the future holds for him.

He’s twenty now. It’s a brand new decade of life. He’s got a new job lined up, a stable and loving relationship, a supportive family, and plenty of courage in facing the shadows of his past. Sure, so maybe he’ll never know with certainty what will happen— maybe he’ll relapse a little, maybe he’ll still have some bad days sprinkled amongst the good ones— but as he watches the tides flow in to greet him, he smiles... and resolves to just take this year as a renewal of his vow to care for himself as best he can.

[arda-ancalima]

Not only are there new Jedi Apprentice covers but there are a few for Jedi Quest and Last of the Jedi as well! Again, these are from Scholastic Asia and the rights are  “Disney Lucasfilm: Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines.” Still haven’t found a date or artist name, but let’s take a look at these!

(Press ‘J’ to skip this long post)

(when I say original covers, I mean the books in every language but Japanese. those covers are super rad though.)

Book one, drawing of Anakin from the original cover but without Darra and Tru, but nice blue theme with these books!

This makes Anakin look even younger, he’s just a baby!!

The number of times I’ve seen the original cover is greater than the number of times I realized these are podracers.

Oooh this is cool. :D Now I LOVE the original edits of Anakin, making him between Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen, but this Anakin has EXPRESSION the edit doesn’t. And the face in the background (Granta Omega I assume?) looks cool here with the stars.

I didn’t see book 5 (The School of Fear)

Again, while I like the originals with edits of the actors, this is just so cool and dynamic!

That’s all there was of Jedi Quest I could find, so on to Last of the Jedi, where the first book is missing.

Interesting how the drawings for LotJ imitate the change in style between the covers, so we’re going for this unique style to start with, centering Obi-Wan in his original pose, booting Ferus and Vader.

Yeah and here we are switching to the ‘photo’ style of the original but redrawn. Look at my son Trever!! He and Ferus look really good. Dex is bigger and a bit scary. Love the colors though! And just. Kudos for the attention to the original covers, I’ve never picked up on this much detail but maybe it was just because the library books were worn out.

YES YES YES!! This seems to be based on the Japanese cover this time, but giving Ferus a fancy cape and mostly redesigning Malorum. 

Creepyyy but very cool. Definitely inspired by the original but a different vision, and it looks really good with the black book and silver text. Really, great job to this artist for taking the stories and old art into consideration when making these, they’re so cool and have such a nice style.

That’s all I could find, let me know if you see any more around!

[alexseanchai]

Fanfic 2020 in Review

I got tagged by @kasienda @noirshitsuji and @marvelousmsmol and I am tagging whoever wants to play!

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

*filters own works to complete and updated in 2020*

1 - 20 of 57 Works by AlexSeanchai

nope. *adds filter to include only works of at least 1000 words*

unless otherwise indicated, these are all Miraculous Ladybug:

“don’t bake it lying down”, post-reveal Marichat vs Felix Graham de Vanily

“veracity”, canon divergence from “Ladybug” featuring Mister Bug and Verity Queen (so also Marichat, I guess)

“(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream”, in which Hawkmoth wins, for the thirty seconds or so before Emilie saves Ladybug and Chat Noir’s lives

“tell me you love me and make me believe it”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire ropes Ladybug into helping plan her civilian self’s escape slash social transition

“kingmaker, oathbreaker”, in which Hawkmoth wins and Emilie watches her son remove himself from the family

“stay and let me watch you break it down” (Twelve Dancing Princesses), a modern setting

“set a course for winds of fortune”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire has already escaped and Gabriel and Nathalie are trying to bring Gabriel’s son home

“we ground love in a hopeless place”, in which post-reveal Marinette’s attempt to remain resolutely not in love with her partner dissolves like sugar in coffee when they start a pun war

“ring the bells that still can ring”, in which Alya is deeply confused about why Adrien and Marinette are planning a wedding when last night both were single

“burning wishes at both ends (the cold wind and long loud wail remix)”, in which Gabriel made a monkey’s paw wish and Emilie makes another

“words cannot espresso”, in which Marinette’s OC roommate is justifiably worried for Marinette’s safety, and meanwhile Adrien takes care of Marinette

“the compromise of truth” (the chronologically second-earliest part posted to date of nine lives, snake’s eyes), in which Adrien tells his friends how he won some freedom and respect from his father

“At The Present Time”, the Ladrien/Ladynoir marriage proposal follow-up to @art-deco-shrimp‘s  “Your Presents Required”

“j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”, in which the events of canon must just have been a series of dream sequences, Marinette and Adrien both think, until they both arrive at Chloe’s Halloween masquerade dressed as themselves from the dreams

2) Number of words written:

ahahaha no. I am not counting all my scattered fic drafts and trying to figure out what I did and didn’t write in 2020. I refuse.

AO3 says I posted 162K in 2020. it is counting all of keeps you guessing (like any real love), which (a) I started posting in 2019 (b) is co-written by @galahadwilder​; it is counting all of my meta snippets collection, much of which was written in 2019; it is counting the Vimeo passwords for my vids. but I probably cleared 150K by a safe margin.

3) Your most popular fic:

“veracity” has a four-digit kudos count, wow, when’d that happen? this is also the 2020 work with the most hits and the most bookmarks, but “tell me you love me” has four-thirds as many comments as its nearest competitor.

4) Your personal fav:

“cannot break us, not with a thousand swords”, no question about it. this is the one in which Ladybug proposes marriage to Chat Noir via Princess Bride meme on Tumblr. (if you intend to download the work or otherwise to consume it with creator style off, you want the accessible version instead of the primary version.)

5) Your fav scene:

aaaaaaaaa

—okay so this is cheating and I know it, since Uncertain Humors (the one where Marinette/Adrien is both Orpheus/Eurydice and Theseus/Ariadne) is nowhere near finished, never mind posted (maybe I'll get “Sanguine” done to post on my birthday?)

but it is still my favorite of the year. as you might guess from that description of the story, this scene has content notes for character death:

Hell is a maze. Marinette walks.

This acrid passage has little to see but damp stone, seeming blood-stained in the dim carmine light. At about the height of her heart, the faintly glowing thread cuts through the not-clammy air; it ought to be pulsing at the same rate as the heart it's bound to. She might be able to see her own reflection if she looked down at the open sewage pipe, or at one of the puddles that now and again she splashes through, dampening the canvas of her shoes. She might see reflected what's behind her.

She remembers Mme. Mendeleiev lecturing on human physiology. In healthy humans old enough to have learned how, urination is a voluntary action: one may not know which muscles one tenses and relaxes in order to do so, and probably isn't paying attention to those details when one is doing, but one has conscious control over whether one does. Usually. Stress and anxiety mean some people are unable to relax the relevant sphincter muscle and others are unable to stop themselves. It's voluntary for cats, too: it's one way they mark their territories. Cat-boys have other ways.

There is a moment in every human life when all one's muscles relax at once. Some Parisians have had several such moments.

The thread is braided with itself around her left fourth finger, rows of tiny red half-hitch knots, and falls loosely over the back of her hand to loop twice around her wrist. She holds it wrapped between the fingers of her right hand to keep it at a constant tension, as though knitting with this insubstantial thread, so fragile for something two (two dozen, two million) lives hang from—too thin to sew with, no thicker than one strand of his hair. As she walks, she winds it around and around and around her wrist.

Between her ring finger and her right hand, it loops twice.

Marinette's shoe lands in a puddle she didn't see. The rainwater splashes soundlessly onto her bare ankle and on the stone.

(With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal— It's a very loud song.)

She walks on.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

where the firelight fades, no contest. this is the second story I’ve ever been able to stick with more than a couple hundred words past the 20K mark, but it’s easily the twentieth novel-length I’ve begun. (though also, you know that kedreeva post? well, 90K later, I’m less than 15K from completing this 10K fic! I think.) and I have been learning so much about long-form fiction.

there has also been a lot of weeping and tearing my hair. case in point: I just trashed the chapter 15 draft because I figured out the reason it wasn’t going anywhere! I can probably keep the first few hundred words of that draft without any editing, and another few hundred with some revision...

7) A line of writing you’re proud of:

from “j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”:

Everything about their partnership is fragments of sentences in the dream diary Adrien writes in ultraviolet pen. Disjointed flickers of thought even when examined under the black light he hides in the snack cabinet under packets of Super Yoyo sandwich cookies and bags of cheesy Monster Munch potato chips and boxes of petit écolier butter cookies (chocolat noir)—none of which explains the gym-socks smell. All fleeting incoherent flashes, invisible between the mundane lines of La Modification shelved at his bedside between Leroux and Dumas. None of it is solid. Adrien has more proof his room's haunted.

okay let me break this down for you!

* Adrien started a dream diary to make sense of the memories

* in invisible ink, in a book that (according to Wikipedia) is thematically appropriate and won’t (if Gabriel sees it) look like anything other than Adrien developing an interest in French literature

* shelved between Phantom of the Opera and The Three Musketeers

* look I didn’t come up with the name “black light”

* or “chocolat noir” for what English speakers call “dark chocolate”, or “petit écolier” (that is, “little schoolboy”) for that sort of butter cookie

* also not my fault that “chocolat noir” sounds remarkably like “Chat Noir”, which, attentive readers may have noticed, is not a name that appears in the story after the header and before Miraculous Cure

* I found the website of a store in Boston, Massachusetts that caters to French expats, and the yo-yo cookies and the monster chips were right there in the photos, y’all

* the snack stash and the black light live in the cabinet where, in canon, the Camembert lives; yes, that cheese smells in the real world like gym socks

* this story’s akuma was not able to affect anything but squishy human memory: nobody affected remembers anything about Ladybug or Chat Noir or Hawkmoth, not in any solid way, not even when they read news articles about the subject, and this includes Marinette and Adrien not being able to see or hear or remember their own kwamis—but you know what Adrien’s Insta post about his poltergeist and Adrien’s Insta post with the floating sock don’t show and don’t explicitly refer to?

* I love this paragraph so much (my housemates may have been lovingly mocking me over it)

8) A comment that touched you:

there are people (y’all know who you are) who said y’all are studying my style. I ded of blush.

9) Something that inspired your writing:

by volume of fic drafts that can be blamed on any particular person, the winner is probably @norakwami​

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

so that longest-story-ever-written record I set in 2007 with the 89.5K story that, till where the firelight fades, was the only story I’d gotten much past 20K?

I broke that fucking record!

and then I deleted the draft of firelight chapter 15 😭

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I’m starting work on a fantasy novel, a Sleeping Beauty retelling in which I explore (among other things) the economic consequences of the king’s ordering all the spinning wheels burned, and I want to make significant progress on that. and I want to not make my hands any worse; I kind of need those!

(breaking news alert: bodies fucking suck. so does giving yourself repetitive stress injuries in doing one and a half to two people’s worth of work for an organization that was never ever going to pay you more than one person’s worth of pay.)