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thankskenpenders · 7 months ago

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The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

#tkp post #tlsc #tlsc beginnings

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drchucktingle · 7 months ago

Note

On your blog you've talked about dealing with chronic as a result from the stress of masking your autism.

It's a bit of a different situation, but my little sister (who we've begun to suspect has adhd) has been experiencing chronic pain in her arms and legs. I may be totally off base, but I was wondering if a similar stess might potentially be a factor in her pain.

If you're willing, would you mind talking about how your pain affected before you found a way to manage it (I tried searching your tumblr, but not much came up, so sorry if I'm asking a question that's already been answered)?

Thanks either way, I love your books. Love is real!

sure buckaroo GOOD QUESTION. i have had chronic pain in some form or another for LONG TIME in a number of STRESS RELATED WAYS. in past it has been cracking teeth from clenching dang jaws while i sleep and things like that, but a few years ago it was FULL ON BODY PAIN AND TIGHTNESS like every muscle was clenching up. went to the doctor over and over all kinds of dang specialists and it was very difficult to figure out what was going on. eventually landed on a sort of nebulous trot of STRESS but i can get more specific.

there are several things about me that you would never know just from looking or even talking to me for long times. i am a bi buckaroo, i am a non-dysphoric trans buckaroo, i am an autistic buckaroo. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS IS EITHER HIDDEN AUTOMATICALLY OR I AM SUCH AN EXPERT AT HIDING THAT IT IS SECOND NATURE

autism presents its trot in many ways, so my words do not apply to all, but my version is EXTREME ORGANIZATION AND ENDLESS WORK ETHIC. in way of freud (which is a silly way but sometimes good for symbolism talk) i have what you would call an OVERDEVELOPED SUPER EGO which is a double edged sword. i can write 100s of books at an incredible pace, but also feel like my body is constantly collapsing in on itself

this is not really something i consciously think about much, but eventually these health problems started creeping up. it was all from carrying this mystery tension in my body, because while it feels EASY for me to mask i believe all that tension goes somewhere and it stores up and stores up and stores up.

so i think the HEALTHY way that i have found to deal with this (i think of it as releasing the steam valve a bit so the boiler does not break down) is ART. this space where i am allowed to be CHUCK TINGLE and write without obsessing over the spelling or punctuation, or to loudly express my queerness, or explore gender, and to let my neurotypical mask down DIRECTLY RELIEVES my chronic pain because it literally makes my muscles relax.

when i started out this ARTISTIC TROT as chuck i used a LOT of metaphor to keep my privacy, with different words or different versions of people for different things, and buckaroos found this very funny. as a way to express myself artistically i also liked this metaphor trot a lot, but i have also found that the LESS metaphor i paint over my life as chuck, the better it is for my health. if you have noticed, i talk less about some of the parts of my life that were metaphors, or maybe you have seen that my voice has relaxed a bit in interviews, or that i carry myself a little differently over time, this is partially why. (there is another artistic reason that was a planned trot from the beginning and it has to do with my feelings as a young autistic buckaroo of not fitting in on this timeline, but we can dive into that later).

anyway, as PRACTICAL ADVICE i would say that FINDING A SPACE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF WITHOUT FEAR OR MASKING has been the number one trot for me. that can be a pink bag over your head writing hundreds of erotic shorts, or that can be just laying on the ground howling your heart out, or doing whatever stim you need to do.

i will also say that ONCE I REALIZED IT WAS MUSCLE TENSION getting a physical therapist helped a lot. because there are two sides, you have to start releasing steam from the steam valve, but at the same time youve also gotta start HEALING THE DAMAGE. so i think stretching and techniques like that can be very helpful.

hope that helps buckaroo LOVE IS REAL

#chuck tingle #tingleverse #buckaroo lifestyle #chronic pain

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kaiser1ns · 5 months ago

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#. PINK BOW, MY HEART GOES POW !

featuring 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 ıllı. takiishi chika, endo yamato

fluff + slight suggestive. just you wrapping a pink ribbon bow around their bicep, the sight makes you insane.

TAKIISHI CHIKA

You have been dying to try this trend, even had a dream of your boyfriend being all adorned with cute little bows in his hair. But, now you sit in front of him with pleading hands and eyes, holding light pink lace as he just stares at you, a little blankly as he sits on the couch with his arms outstretched and the tank top he's wearing doesn't help at all. You try not to jump on top of him and start kissing and hugging him because he looks so hot, so incredibly hot.

"Please, please, please." you would never beg to a man, but right now your needs were getting the better of you, you had to do it and see it. It would look so cute, with him having a pink ribbon around his bicep. "I will let you do whatever you want, just please make my dreams come true!"

"Fine," he put one of his shoulders forward to you, not the first time you touched him there, nor would it be the last, but right now you just wanted to die. For some reason, you really loved his arms, especially at night when he was holding you close and couldn't let you go, nor did he want to. Once you enter his world, you can't leave. That was the golden rule in your relationship, as strange as it was at times.

You almost couldn't believe that he let you do such a thing, he is like a genie granting you the greatest wish in your whole life. Quickly moving to sit beside him, unable to stop the squeaks and the giggles, you carefully placed the ribbon against his skin, smoothing it out as you started tying it into a bow. The sight of that pink ribbon on the muscles of his arms was so cute that you could hardly contain yourself.

He watched you, without any visible emotion on his face, as you fussed over getting the bow just right. To him, it was just a piece of fabric, nothing special. But to you, it was a symbol of how the most innocent and smallest things could make your heart swell with love for him.

“Oh my God, you look so cute!” you literally screamed, hands over your mouth, sitting back to admire your piece of art. Grabbing your phone immediately to start snapping pictures, capturing every moment from every possible angle. “Baby, you are just so adorable, I’m going to cry.”

He was so confused, just a ribbon can make you behave like a little kid with a sugar rush, obsessing over something as small as a bow. “Why is this making you happy?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” you teased, setting down your phone aside and leaning closer to him, heart beating so loud and so fast to the point it may burst at any given second. Poor Chika doesn't know that he can give his girlfriend a heart attack, just by being him. “It’s just my way of appreciating you and your beautiful and strong arms that keep me safe, day and night.”

“It’s just a bow, wrapped around my bicep.” he let out a sigh, shaking his head slightly, “It's nothing special, but if you say so.”

But you weren't paying attention to his words anymore, instead, you focused on how close you were to him now, just inches apart but you could feel the heat and the warmth radiating from his body. You wanted to do more than just look at him and without thinking, you sat on his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck, resting your head on his shoulder. You didn't miss seeing the tattoo, on the back of his arm as you smiled softly when you turned to look at his face now, the need to be close to him was overwhelming.

“Why don’t we just cuddle?” you whispered, looking him through your lashes, nibbling on his cheek. If he was cute, then he didn’t know what you were. “Just you and me, and that pink bow that ties us together.”

What magic did you put on him to soften around you? The arm with the ribbon, wrapped around your waist as he relaxed. It ties us together, you say. He smirked, then he should also tie you later, to see what's so exciting about this lace, to show you how much he loves you too.

ENDO YAMATO

It was his idea for you to tie a ribbon to his bicep, and it's probably the best thing he has come up with. Endo didn't have such sculpted and tight muscles before, yes he was strong, but now... You were drooling at the sight of his buffy and tattooed arms. He knew what he was doing, he always did. Sitting on the kitchen counter, he was between your legs and you took a deep breath — you just had to tie two ribbons to both of his biceps. How easy is that, right? Wrong. It wasn't easy at all, especially the way he looked at you, so smitten like you were the only person in his world, knowing full well you weren’t but you sure took a large of his heart and mind.

“Doll, you just have to tie them, take a photo, and make it your new wallpaper,” he says like it's that simple, yes you're going to make the photo your new wallpaper, you can't help but do it. He smiled sweetly at you, a little playful even, and you took the two pink laces from his hands without hesitation. "I'll make the prettiest ribbons so you won't want to take them off."

"Your wish is my command," you first grabbed his left hand giving it a light squeeze before tying the lace into a cute ribbon. You met his eyes for just a moment and blushed slightly as you began tying a ribbon around his right bicep. "You have very gentle hands, you know that?"

Yes, of course, you do. ”Do I? Maybe I’m just extra careful because I don’t want to ruin this perfect canvas,” you replied, cheeks warming at his compliment, trying to focus on the ribbons and not how his muscles tensed beneath your touch.

Once you were done, he couldn't resist flexing his muscles again, and you could see the lase straining, almost ready to snap. “First, let me take a photo, then you can flex as much as you want,” you said, quickly grabbing your phone. You took a couple of photos, capturing the contrast of the delicate ribbons against his inked arms. But then you had another idea. “Yamato, hug me.”

He didn’t need to be told twice, wrapping his arms around you, the bows stood out even more. Only your face was visible, his was resting on your shoulder, but you smiled for the camera as you took a selfie. And just like that, you had your new wallpaper.

“You can let go now,” you teased, but Endo had no intention of letting go. Instead, he swept you off, lifting you in a bridal carry like you were some feather. “Wouldn't dream of it, sweets,” he murmured, eyes now telling you something else. “Now, how about I show you just how strong these really arms are?”

You were shocked by how easily he handled you, but you trusted him completely into letting him take the lead. His strength wasn't just physical—it was the way he could make you feel safe and excited all at once, just by telling you sweet nothings like it was his second nature. Your heart raced, cheeks getting ever redder as he carried you towards the bedroom, knowing full well that he was just getting started.

taglist :: @maruflix

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foodfightnovelization · 9 months ago

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ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight

youtube

Holy chips! It's an exciting time to be a Foodfight! fan, because ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight is finally out! This really is THE definitive documentary on the insanity behind the movie, and it finally answers the question of just what was going on behind the scenes during production. Since I helped out with research (and I even get a short line of dialogue at 45:19) I've already seen everything that was shown off, but had to keep quiet until all the interviews were conducted and the documentary was finished. But now it's out and everything has been made public, the cat's out of the bag (the Fat Cat Burglar?) and I can talk about all the production material that's been shared.

Before I get into any of that though, I'd highly recommend you watch the documentary for yourself. It's insanely well researched and put together, and having worked together with Ziggy Cashmere (the documentary's creator) I know how hard he dedicated himself towards making this all possible. If it weren't for him, the most interesting Foodfight! discovery would've been finding the novelization, and we would have never gotten any real insight into how this movie came to be. It's also a documentary that really speaks for itself- I don't want to say too much about what it reveals since it's all expressed far better through its narrative and the interviews with people who actually worked on the project. My favorite is the interview with texture artist Mona Weiss- she tells such horrifying stories about how she was treated by Larry and other crewmembers, yet does it all with a sense of humor that makes it clear she's enjoying getting to talk about her crazy experiences. It's clear Foodfight! was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and there's nobody to blame for that but Larry Kasanoff himself. The movie was rotten from the top down and despite the countless talented animators and artists working on it, nothing could fix the fact that it was fundamentally mismanaged in the worst way possible. I think the quote from producer George Johnsen summarizes it best: "Foodfight! was a good idea that unfortunately lost its way during production. The technology, the art, and the direction were not in sync. Many very talented people gave their all to make the picture, but more understanding of process from the top was needed for it to succeed."

But if you saw the documentary, you already know all that, right? So instead, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes material that's finally been shared! You can find everything I'll talking about HERE on archive.org-

It's worth following the link and checking it out for yourself- there's so much it'd impossible to discuss everything. Artwork, storyboards, bloopers, models, a nude render of Lady X, an interview with Larry Kasanoff, the list goes on and it's still being updated! Despite the documentary already being out, people who worked on the movie are continuing to share new material! It's pretty incredible- for the past year I've ran this blog all I've really had to discuss are two tie-in books, and now there's so much Foodfight! material I can't even keep up with it.

I mean LOOK at all this, isn't it fantastic? The character art by Jim George showing off just how much better these designs originally were, the countless environments showing off just how stunning Marketropolis could've looked as well as the strength of the core idea "what if a supermarket came to life at night", and insanely detailed storyboards for a 7-minute pitch reel that was used to sell the movie to investors. Normally, I'd be ALL OVER this because it's all just incredible, but there's something far, FAR more fascinating than any of it.

There are even multiple drafts of the script (one from 2005 and one from 2007 respectively) and normally I'd be insanely fascinated by those too, making extremely detailed posts explaining the differences between the drafts and how they compare to the novelization, but there's something else that was found that blows ALL of this out of the water and is easily one of the most monumental lost media discoveries of ALL TIME.

youtube

That's right, a rough cut of the ENTIRE movie from 2005 has been found, containing nearly ALL the completed animation from earlier on in production. I mean, that's mindblowing right? We first got sent this around a month ago, a little while before the documentary came out, and I literally stopped everything I was doing at work to just sit and watch this. This is the closest we're ever going to get to the "original" version of Foodfight! after all- only 7 minutes of footage was ever actually made before they switched to mocap, made solely for the aforementioned pitch reel, and this workprint contains practically all of it! On top of that there are some great storyboards in here, as well as some truly hilarious ones cobbled together from 3D renders, and the plot is far better than what we ended up with, a lot of the more inappropriate jokes being absent. This rough cut is actually pretty similar to the novelization in that regard, and it also contains scenes that we'd previously only read about in there.

For example, in the novelization there's a snowmobile chase through the mountains, with Brand X soldiers on snowmobiles and a heavy avalanche close behind. This scene was completely left out of the movie itself, but in this workprint it's here! ALL the previously novelization-exclusive scenes are included, and this rough cut is seemingly based on an even earlier draft of the script than that- here Brand X are still defeated by a flood, whereas by the time of the novelization it'd been changed to a lightning storm. There are SO many exciting differences in this workprint, the snippets of original animation we get to see are SO good, and it's SO much better than the movie itself that I think it by far deserves the crown as the DEFINITIVE version of Foodfight! There's so much in it I want to discuss, that there's no way I can fit it all into this one post...so stay tuned, because in the next few days I'll be doing a FULL analysis of the 2005 workprint, pointing out all the extra brand mascots not in the finished film, and generally just gushing about how amazing it is.

I mean, this is it. Just take it all in for a second- the original footage was considered lost media for over a decade, and now it's practically been found in its entirety, embedded in an early cut of the whole movie...isn't that just phenomenal? All the mysteries have been unraveled, all the questions have been answered, and now we can relax, take a deep breath, and watch Foodfight!...the REAL Foodfight! Make sure to enjoy it, and join me next time for my analysis!

#Youtube #foodfight #dex dogtective #lady x #daredevil dan #polar penguin #rotten behind the foodfight

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mischiefmaker615 · 22 days ago

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Chef's Choice

Over the past time of having tumblr, i have collected my personal favorites- stories that i always get drawn back to when i need inspiration, something to read, and/or something to enjoy with whatever mood or situation that needs tending LOL (not in order and there are so many others i love!!)

Thought it be best to introduce you to some of the greats out there :D

“Seems like the prince of Asgard is seduced by a mortal woman”

By: @fictive-sl0th

(OMG i absolutely LOVE the doctor themed stories with Loki XD ya never know what direction it's gonna end up ;) )

A Coveted Bride

By: @magicbystarlight

(i absolutely LOVE jealous Loki, anything in the realm of dark theme and possessiveness XD we don't judge here. it's an enquired taste and darling, you cooked!!)

Duplicitous *Long Snake Moan*

By: @darkficsyouneveraskedfor

(everything you write, i got to read! truth be told, we didnt ask for but we absolutely needed!!)

Pinned Down The Rite

By: @lokisgoodgirl

(come on, just by the titles alone you know it's gonna be good! everything you've written, i've fallen in love with each detail, nothing is rushed and personalities are captured beautifully! i've caught myself gasping out loud in public with some of the stuff you bring us and i absolutely love it!)

Overstimulation Welcome Him Home More Between His Thighs

By: @sarahscribbles

(had me drooling in kinktober!!! just the title alone, i hit favorite so i could read it when i got time and darling, you didn't disappoint! so many stories just draw my attention and every aspect of them is truly perfect!!! i need more!!!)

thirty seconds

By: @muddyorbsblr

(what i would give to be in the readers shoes!! omg i loved this!!! hit all the right feelings and i cant help but reread this far more than thirty times LOL)

The Chambermaid

By: @wheredafandomat

(i want Loki to step on me!!!! i wouldn't mind slave life if it meant serving him LOL gods this was perfect!! i always loved maid x Loki themed stories, keep them coming!!)

Kinktober Day 16

By: @suguru-getos

("we listen and we don't judge" *cough* i love me some CNC! seems like a very hidden kink topic so i got positively excited when i saw this mentioned in your writing and just HAD to read it Lol kinky indeed!!! truly my favorite fic of yours so far!)

Overtime Safehouse Conquer Close Quarters

By: @cleo-fox

(I'm pretty sure all of tumblr knows who you are Lol i have enjoyed EVERYTHING you've come out with; your plots, details and character embodiment, Loki is on point!! i cant even fathom where to begin on making storylines this deep with all the bells and whistles. you are truly an incredible writer!!)

"I can do….terrible things to you."

By: @oh-look-at-her

(i can't literally do anything but bow down to you and get up only when given permission LOL truly a damn good time reading your work!!)

Firestarter

By: @delaber

(who doesn't love a good enemies to lovers story Lol can't tell you how many people i've shooed while i was in the middle of reading this XD)

Frozen Stiff Happily Never After

By: @simplyholl

(tbh i struggle finding REALLY good Jotun Loki fics and absolutely fell in love with this one!!! thank you for letting me die in peace now Lol had me giddy and blushing!!)

Have Mercy

By: @mochie85

(you captured his hot and pain in the ass personality so well!!! i LOVED this went through all the emotions on this one!! kinda like an enemies to lovers story Lol why cant it be me!!!)

A Tales of Tangled Desires

By: @angelremnants

(i fell in love with the part one, not expecting for my request to be answered but i got a part two and absolutely have become obsessed!! i love your writing so much and thank you for the prayer being answered! Lol)

And The Gods Made Love

By: @thefairywithboots

(thank you for my request being answered!! anything you publish, i cant get enough of and love the pure art like pace you take to form every inch of your story!!)

Plus One

By: @societyfolklore

(EXACTLY what i needed to start the new year ;) thank you!)

Mission Accomplished

By: @asgards-princess-of-mischief

(i love the whole "there's only one bed" scenario LOL this was absolutely perfect!)

Handcuffed Together

By: @anonymousfiction211

(it's in the title LOL this had all of my emotions :D it was fun, hilarious and incredible sexy!! truly loved this!)

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barblaz-arts · 26 days ago

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I know you've been making a lot of art of it lately, but out of curiosity, what's your opinion on Hazbin Hotel in general? I'm referring to both the show and the fandom here. Just curious.

God. What a loaded question. Are you ready? Bcuz I'm fresh from Vaggie discourse on twitter and I have a lot to say.

I think that Hazbin Hotel seems worse than it is for people who know the fandom but haven't actually watched the show. Honestly, I think it's a fine show. It isnt super incredible and I'm not gonna sing praises about how deep and thought provoking it is or whether it's an artistic masterpiece. It never tried to be that and was never advertised as such(to my knowledge) anyway. I just had a lot of fun. Like, yeh sure the cussing in the dialogue can be a bit much, especially in ep 1, but there are different writers in other episodes, so it gets better. It can be super crude yeh, but I grew up watching things like the Scary Movie franchise and other dumb american movies (yes, i was too young for them. yes, i still watched them), so it's pretty tolerable for me. It also helps that Charlie is the main character. That's one of the main reasons why I watch HH but dont watch HB. It's probably a fun show, but without a sweetheart like Charlie to balance things out, I'd just get tired of the sex jokes and mean jokes.

Compared to my last hyperfixation, I think I have more things to love about Hazbin Hotel, believe it or not. With Netflix's Wednesday, I had already been an Addams Family fan for a while and hung on because I loved the family and eventually Enid and wenclair. The show itself was honestly meh... so far! I'll give season 2 another shot.

But with Hazbin Hotel, it catered to a lot of things I've always loved. Found family with a bunch of misfits? We didnt get to see it much bcuz of the fuckass 8-ep per season format we have nowadays, but its fine its there! The juxtaposition of a kind hearted woman in a harsh world? Love love Charlie for that, I watched the show in the first place because of her. A canon lesbian lover with a "fuck the world cuz my world is you" type of love for the protag? Fuck yes. How very Pearl-from-Steven-Universe of Vaggie. And the music? The music is soooo good. I didn't know the songwriter prior to watching, so I was nervous about the songs, but I knew most of the theater actors they cast(still cant believe Jeremy fucking Jordan is Lucifer) so I figured even if the songs are mid, at least the performances would be topnotch. And they were! But the songs were a pleasant surprise. Sam Haft did real damn well. I still listen to the soundtrack to this day.

The fandom, however, is probably the worst one I've been in. And I've been in a lot in my big age... Just... lacking media literacy, and based on the replies I get when I say something on twitter, it seems a lot of them lack reading comprehension and just plain emotional intelligence too.

There's a lot of criticisms about this show that I honestly think is fair. Pacing, character design, overuse of the F word, whatever. But in my opinion, claiming that Hazbin is a male-centered show is an unfair misconception that is mostly the fault of the fandom.

Bcuz, sure, the male characters are uber popular. Alastor, Vox, Lucifer, Angel Dust and the many web of ships they're involved in went trending every few business days. But come on now. How often does a fandom even have their main protag as the most talked about character? This has been going on for ages. Just because the boys have the most merch and fics and fanarts and thirsty fans doesn't mean that they had the spotlight for most of the show itself. It only meant that they were the ones the viewers paid attention to, in a fandom filled with people drooling over the next tumblr sexyman and toxic yaoi ship of the month.

But if you actually look back at what the show gave us so far, the boys didnt outshine the women. I actually think the women got to do more and be more as characters than the men did. Let's take a look at the male characters.

Alastor was not in all the episodes. In fact, he was MIA in two out of the eight episodes. In all the episodes he was in, he was a mere side character. His purpose in season one was to stir the pot and be the intriguing mystery that occasionally quips. But he was not the one whose deeper thoughts were explored and whose character and goals was challenged THROUGHOUT the show, merely alluded to at the VERY END of the season, which is hardly him taking the spotlight away from Charlie. If you merely looked at the fan content of him, you'd think he were a father figure to Charlie(or a love interest. whatever) and that he has developed a soft spot for the Hazbins deep down in that cannibal heart of his. But if you pay attention to the show, he never had even a meaningful one on one conversation with the Hazbins. The only time that happened is when (a)he threatened Husk's life (b)when he constantly mocked Charlie while she was down in the dumps and used this as an opportunity to manipulate her and (b)when he told Niffty watching the crew sure can "make one sentimental", even tho he had taken no prior opportunity to bond with them! There's no foundation for all the fandom's claims that he could be redeemed bcuz of a budding fondness for the group, but that's all you see of his fan content(aside from the horniness). I dont have any problem with his lack of an actual relationship with the Hazbins bcuz I believe redemption for him is not what the show is going for, but it's frustrating to see people interpreting it that way BUT not seeing how horridly developed it would be if that is the case, meanwhile they turn around and say that Vaggie and Chaggie as a ship "had terrible development".

Then we have the male Vees. Vox was only ever in episode two, and was essentially a youtube reactor in episode 8. He was in ep 4 but had no speaking lines. We only know of his obsession with Alastor and the toxic relationship he has with Val. Val, meanwhile, is merely shown as the sex obsessed fiend behind Hell's sex industry and Angel's abuse. They did what they needed to do with minimal screentime. It was fine, but that's IT. Despite what little CANON gave so far, you have hundreds of people writing essays and fics and fanarts about them being complicated characters. But to reiterate, this does not mean that they are bad characters or that they don't deserve the fame. But to say that these men are better written within canon than the women is such a bold statement when most of the depth they knew of these characters were lore drops given before the show and their own speculations as they dug into the shallow soil of what the show has so far.

I'm not gonna speak about Angel and Lucifer. Because I think they were characters who were legitimately well-explored so far.

Now onto the women. So many of them were given the opportunity to have their characters challenged or given the agency to push characters and the plot forward or give you intrigue about implications of what's to come for the characters and the plot. I've talked a lot about Charlie and Vaggie. So let me talk about the other, terribly underrated women of Hazbin.

Velvette and Carmilla were the ones who advanced the subplot in the war against Heaven. Because of Carmilla's love for her family despite being a demon, an angel was killed. It gave Heaven the excuse to escalate things, but it also gave Charlie hope later on in the season that they're not powerless. Carmilla was also the first demon shown to make selfless actions that is contrary to what is expected of demons, making it proof that Charlie's belief that demons deserve a second chance isn't unwarranted. She's an interesting character, as an overlord who hangs on to power but clearly has morals. But how often do you see people writing essays about her? Eating up the fact that she's a powerful overlord but would sacrifice anything for her daughters? If Carmilla were a man, hundreds of girlies would be drooling over the crime boss who has a soft spot for his daughters.

Meanwhile, Velvette got to demonstrate why exactly she's an Overlord despite being the youngest demon in there. She's calculating and observant. She gives off a haughty vibe and constantly boasts about how she's young and fresh, but she isn't naive. During that meeting, she paid attention to Carmilla and Zestial's relationship. In order to find out who killed the angel, she riled everyone up, and when she got the feeling it was Carmilla, she mocked Zestial so that Carmilla could slip up. By playing these Overlords who are older and more experienced than her, Velvette showed what exactly her asset was to the Vees and why she's a threat, something that Vox and Val have yet to be given the opportunity to do when they were busy eye-fucking Alastor and literally fucking Angel. But in fan content about the Vees, Velvette is almost treated as an after thought to the boys...

Then we have the Seraphs. Not only were their designs gorgeous, their dynamic and presence as characters had impact to the plot and main characters.

Emily is a much needed character to show that this story isn't meant to tell you that Heaven = bad; Hell = good. There is good and bad in both, and it is so important for the protags to know that they have an ally in Emily who represents the true virtues that heaven is supposed to uphold. And I love the confrontation she had with Sera when her own view of what's right and good was challenged. We got to see the strength of her character and started the seeds of what could be heaven's acceptance of Charlie's goals.

Sera is such an interesting character to me. She was also important to show that not all angels were sadistic like Adam and Lute, but not in the same way Emily was. I have no idea so far which direction this show would go with her. But I'm intrigued by the fact that she seems to be driven by fear, unlike Adam and Lute's cruelty. She knew Lucifer and was there when he was cast out for his disobedience. Whether everything she's doing is to prevent that from happening again remains to be seen, and I'm looking forward to this kind of subplot for her.

And then Rosie! I really really look forward to seeing more from her. Spoilers aside, something I barely see people talk about is how interesting it is that Rosie is every bit the leader that Charlie hopes to be. Rosie is able to be a respected overlord in her own faction without needing to sacrifice her love for showmanship and music and her positive disposition. When we were officially introduced to her, they show how she seems to care about actually taking care of her people, not JUST ordering them around, by talking to them personally and giving advice. That's exactly what Charlie wanted to do for her people, isn't it? The hotel to Charlie was what the emporium was to Rosie. They have a lot of similarities that could set up for Rosie to be the one to teach Charlie in becoming a leader. Now whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but it is rather compelling.

So yeah! With all that said, I really dont think this show ignores its women at all. Just because a bigger part of the fandom gravitated towards the men doesn't necessarily mean its a misogynistic show so far. But if certain people are claiming that the women are badly written, then I hope they also own up to the fact that their blorbos are just as shallowly presented within the show, maybe even more so. Which wouldn't even be a bad thing! Since when did a show or character have to be amazingly written for a person to like them? That's just no fun at all. All I'm saying is... Fuck this fandom's double standards, hiding behind claims that it's the writing's fault when the problem is they couldn't be bothered to think about the women.

#asks #long post

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voidpacifist · 29 days ago

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viktor headcanons

[modern-ish edition + meljayvik because I cannot resist, also I'm desperate to see more unhinged little ideas about him outside of being everyone's favorite blorbo. we should fear that man and this is my thesis]

learned a weird amalgamation of martial arts and self defense as a kid due to growing up in zaun. despite being in what was considered the "safer" part of the underground, his mother worried he wouldn't be safe on his own. his core strength and arm strength are absolutely ridiculous

in fact, one time he was hooking up with a fellow academy student, and by the time the whole affair was over with, he was hardly breaking a sweat while the other person was trying to catch their breath. he became somewhat of a local legend at frat parties because not only can he wear someone out for hours but, allegedly, he's real freaky with it too

knows the exact monetary value of different human body organs on the black market. whether or not this is from experience is something jayce and mel are unable to determine. vi is also knowledgeable of this and has traded tragic backstories with him in detail

has had to kill a man before, and tells this to jayce frequently to win petty arguments (jayce never actually believes him, even though it is fully and one hundred percent true). it doesn't work on mel

jayce and mel have a secret chart written of how many substances viktor has tried and with how much frequency. weed is at the top of the list, with alcohol being shockingly low. in spite of coming from a slavic background, viktor didn't learn how to hold very much liquor without feeling ill, but for some reason is fine with the illicit psychedelics that grow naturally in the undercity near the runoff tunnels. so far the list is nearly half a page long

will not hit anyone with his mobility aids but will ABSOLUTELY find ways to blackmail and hustle his way out of embarrassment. he learned the blackmailing skill from mel, and frequently looks to her for information since she somehow knows the most about the student body

extremely morbid sense of humor. jokes about being fatherless/motherless behavior and then hits you with, "I would know :]." mel is an honorary member of the motherless behavior banter, considering her own mother disowned her shortly before she came to piltover

taking care of one another is equal parts give and take with him, jayce, and mel, but it's never in a way that demeans each other or exploits each other's weaknesses. for example, viktor hates being carried or manhandled without consent and finds it incredibly patronizing if someone assumes he needs help without just asking him (common sense, but the student body is full of ableist sharks). if he's having a bad pain day or is finding it hard to move, he and jayce (or he and mel, depending on time and place) have a system for getting him to or from somewhere without drawing much attention and even have specific "I need help but don't want to be stared at about it" phrases

father's half of the family is slavic and mother's half of the family is romani. cannot follow a recipe unless it has specific measurements, but can improvise ANY stew or potato based dish with little more than his nose and a few kitchen tools. jayce can improvise any dish, but will always somehow overdo the spice if it calls for spice. mel is happy to try any and everything they make (on her birthday, she's spoiled with their attempts at making the ethnic food from her family, and she'll never tell them but she's very touched by their efforts)

owned ONE pet in his life and it was a hamster. instead of freaking out over it's death, he studied it's body post mortem until his father declared it a biohazard and forced him to dispose of it

learned most of his chemists knowledge from a disgraced former academy professor, but taught himself everything else he knows (if he couldn't get access to it in school). including, for fun, how to preserve and analyze body parts. he initially wanted to be a surgeon or biomedical engineer, but then stuck with chemistry (specifically regarding infectious diseases) to try and find a cure for the grey

shows up randomly at jayces or mels dorms at strange hours in the evening/morning. the first time he showed up at mel's, she thought a burglary was being attempted. he made it out with a bad knock to the head, but she did make him tea in the aftermath as an apology (he hated it but drank the whole thing anyway)

gets stoned with jinx on the weekends, since she's the only one who can find him good, ethically sourced weed. he pays her back by teaching her things he's learning and researching at the academy

meljayvik + caitvi + timebomb dates but they have to find a way to rent out the whole place because each and every one of them has Some Kind of History with the other academy students even though jinx and ekko are still a couple years shy of college age

viktor threw up at the distinguished innovators competition because jayce did first. it was a whole disaster. they spent hours after the ordeal hyping each other up on gatorade and pure adrenaline. it was the physically worst jayce has ever felt around viktor but far from the worst viktor has ever felt around jayce. this was just days after the two of them met mel, and she spent the rest of the evening forcing them to sleep or eat something that wasn't "pure chemicals." somehow, this ended in a heated debate between herself and viktor about the validity of gatorade as a substantial meal. he still refuses to admit he lost

I've said this before and I'll say it again: he has a closet full of ramen. mel takes from his stash often

can run on caffeine and very little sleep to the point where he is physically incapable of resting like a normal human being without feeling drained. flu season is absolute hell

showed up to one of his lectures shirtless once because he was in a hurry. fed everyone who looked at him funny the most outrageous sob story about how "weak" he was, then laughed about it with mel and jayce like an absolute sociopath for days about it. jayce did not find it altogether very funny. mel and him still joke about it

beat vi in an arm wrestling contest before he got sick. still almost beat her after his diagnosis too, but still took the betting money anyway. she'll never admit she's slightly terrified of him, but it shows

can wield many different kinds of knives but is terribly clumsy when it comes to other weapons like clubs and swords and staffs. tapped out of adaptive sports within his first week because it was "boring him." spent the next month teaching martial arts to his fellow disabled peers until the board made it an official extracurricular

turned sky down in the nicest but most insane way possible. nobody knows what happened or how, just that they ended up spending MORE time together after the fact and that it involved illicit activities. the rumors were insufferable for weeks. and wildly funny

(please feel free to add more, I'm gonna start a collection)

#arcane #viktor arcane #arcane viktor #viktor #jayvik #melvik #meljayvik #mel x jayce x viktor #arcane headcanon #arcane headcanons #arcane lol #viktor headcanons #jayvik headcanons #meljayvik headcanons #cannot believe that wasn't a tag to begin with wtf ??

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fallstaticexit · 3 months ago

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Ahhh it's been 65 years, and I feel kinda crazy that I've had this sitting in my drafts for like 2 months. Assuming most readers of Missing Moments are also The Art of Being Seen readers- there's some hefty lore here that will come into play later.

prev/ next

Olive: Time to move on, right Kia?

[phone pings]

Nancy: Hello darling. Do you have a moment to talk?

Olive: Who’s this?

Olive: I don’t recall saying yes.

Nancy: [sighs] It feels so good to hear your voice again.

Olive: I only answered to tell you to block me.

Nancy: I would never.

Olive: Even though I asked?

Nancy: Well. I am incredibly selfish.

Olive: Why did you call me?

Nancy: I would like to see you, Olivia. Please.

Olive: I’m not for sale, sorry.

Nancy: I know. I wouldn’t want to meet on those terms again. If I could do it all over, I would have asked you to have dinner with me when I met you. I would have courted you properly, Olivia.

Olive: [scoffs] You would have gone to a strip club and asked a stripper to have dinner with you? Seriously? When would we have ever met under any other circumstance? It’s been made very clear to me how different we are. The only way this would have happened was if it were a fairy tale.

Nancy: What matters is, I have met you. I’ve experienced you and I can’t go back. My husband- my ex husband- he signed the petition for our divorce. I came out to him- officially. It’s over.

Olive: [stunned] That’s- that’s great. I am so happy for you-

Nancy: I’m leaving all of it. I’m starting over. All I want is you, if you’ll have me.

Olive: [sighs]

Nancy: Let’s just have one dinner and after we’ve talk, then you can decide. There’s so much I want to say, but I want to look you in the eyes as I say it.

Olive: One dinner?

Nancy: One dinner.

Nancy: May I see you tonight? I’ll send my driver and I’ll cook for you at my place. Anything you like.

Olive: Tonight is fine.. sure.

Nancy: [sighs happily] It’ll be hard not to kiss you the moment I see you-

Olive: Not too much, lover girl. It’s one dinner and I’m still very annoyed with you about all this, ok?

Nancy: Yes, my love. I’ll see you tonight.

Olive: And don’t look at me like that. It’s just dinner and a conversation, ok? I am not going to sleep with her ok?

Malcolm: Well. Now I see why my mother was so willing to ruin an entire empire over you. Those mugshots did you no justice.

Olive: What is this? Where’s Nancy?

Malcolm: I noticed our driver was heading this way, I figured I’d tag along. Sight see. Get in. Let’s chat.

Malcolm: I wonder if this feels like dejavu to my mother. She makes yet another thoughtless mistake and someone comes along to make it all go away. She has a nasty habit of that, you know.

Olive: Listen. I’m not feeling whatever family drama you all have going on. I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to Nancy.

Malcolm: I was raised by a narcissistic liar and a spineless coward. If I let this company fall apart, then wouldn’t it all had been for nothing?

Olive: [scoffs] So you want pity? I’m suppose to pity you? Give me a break.

Malcolm: Not pity, no. If anything, I pity you.

Olive: Is that right?

Malcolm: When it comes to success, you pale in comparison to your half siblings. You’ve financially crippled your parents in legal fees since your arrest and all you have to show for it is by shaking ass in a low end strip club in the Spice District. That’s right, I know alot about you Olivia Briar.

Malcolm: I know about that quaint little family of yours down in the country. I know about your niece’s struggling restaurant and her undocumented partner. Funny, he’s able to acquire loans under a fake name but there’s no records of a Noa Briar anywhere. I wonder what else your family is hiding.

Olive: [shaken] What is this about? Are you threatening me? What the fuck do you want?

Malcolm: I’m here to help you, not hurt you. One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned was the power of the dollar. I can make a lot of your problems go away with one deposit if you do just one thing.

Olive: [softly] ....What?

Malcolm: We’re going to turn around and park in front of your building. You’re going to go upstairs, pack up your things and then, you’re going to go back home to sweet old Henford. You’ll pay your parents back with the money you’ll receive from this arrangement and you’ll help your niece and nephew. All your problems - poof- gone.

Malcolm: All you have to do is walk away, and stay away. You see, my mother has a nasty debt to this family she still needs to pay. Don’t make it your burden.

#missing moments #the briar legacy #sims 4 simblr #ts4 simblr #sims 4 stories #sims 4 #sims 4 legacy #it's the evil villain monologue for me

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bluesidez · 10 months ago

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The Love Lab presents:

One Bite for You, One Bite for Me

💗 THIS IS MY 100 200 300 FOLLOWER SPECIAL!

pairing: Miguel O’Hara x AFAB!Reader

summary: One of the things you and Miguel bond over is delicious food. One day, you notice that your clothes aren’t fitting like they used to. Miguel is there to remind you how beautiful you are.

content warning: established relationship but they’re not married, 18+ so MDNI, non-Spiderman Miguel, LOTS OF MENTIONS OF FOOD AND DRINKS, weight gain, cycles, insecurity about body, alcohol, body worship, unprotected p in v sex (wrap it up 🫵🏾), cunnilingus, lots of praise, a little Spanish (if wrong please lmk)

credit for art + dividers: Me! + @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

a/n: This is actually the first fic I wrote when my Miguel hyperfixation came back in full force. I based it off of this video and a comment saying that girls are usually the ones that gain weight super quick in a relationship. Please know that gaining weight is not a bad thing, especially in this story. Relationship weight can be positive and food is here to nourish your body! Also know that everyone’s body is different. Our bodies will react to things in different, unique ways. If you’re ever feeling icky about your weight/health, please take a step back, breathe, and know that you’re beautiful no matter what. There are also sources out there that can help you if your thoughts overpower your heart. Please don’t hesitate to seek help.

word count: 4.3k

To all my food-lovers and fellow plus-size girlies, kisses to you! You’re beautiful!

SPRING 🥭

“Baby!”

You grinned as you heard Miguel’s shout from the front door. His voice had a giddy tilt as if he made a breakthrough in one of his projects.

“I was finally able to stop by the new Jamaican spot before they sold out and look what I got us,” Miguel says before he slides the take-out bags across the table. “Ribs, oxtails, rice and beans, mac, and your favorite…fried plantains!”

You quickly untie the bags, happy to have a break from your research paper, and immediately get hit with the smell of spices both sweet and savory. “Oh my god! That looks incredible.”

After frantically digging around for a plastic fork, you were finally able to pull a piece of meat off the oxtail. It looked mouth-watering and tender. One bite of the meat and you’re immediately groaning, slumped in your chair. You nod your head and scrunch your face, watching as the juice from the gravy soaks into the pieces of rice stuck at the bottom of the take-out plate.

“That is so fucking good, Mig. No wonder there’s never any combos left by the time you leave work.”

Miguel just watches you eat with a glint in his eyes, happy to see you so relaxed and enjoying the food. He reaches into the second bag, pulling out two bottles of juice, “And to make it better, I got their fruit juice, made fresh daily-”

“Passionfruit and mango flavor!” Your eyes got big as you jumped up and wrapped your arms around his neck. He knew how much of a juice fanatic you were, so this drink was just the cherry on top of the large ice cream sundae that was your generous boyfriend.

“Thank you, baby,” you giggled and gave his cheek a fat smooch. You patted his chest twice and moved back to set up the table, “Now, hurry and wash up so we can eat this before it gets cold! We’ve got shows to watch.”

“Entendido, I’ll be right back”

SUMMER 🍦

You and Miguel were walking hand in hand along the Cancun Hotel Zone, taking in all the sights. Miguel’s job had given him a promotion along with an extremely high bonus, so what better way to celebrate than to use his PTO and bring the love of his life on vacation?

Granted, the area you guys were currently in was a little touristy, borderline bougie, but it was all worth it when Miguel got to see your eyes light up as you watched the turquoise waves fade into white foam along the shoreline.

You wobbled a bit while clinging to Miguel’s side, a little tipsy from the frozen paloma you drank to pair with today’s lunch. It was a waterfront restaurant with a live band so the vibes were just right for a little bit of liquid fun.

The downside was that the two of you were supposed to meet up with Miguel’s family later that evening and while you were fine with the confidence boost you were sporting, you wanted to be more alert when speaking with loved ones. Plus, you needed to give a good impression to the relatives you hadn’t met yet. It will be nice to put a face to the names of Miguel’s childhood.

“What do you say we stop and get some ice cream?” Miguel suggested, chuckling at you when you grinned up at him, ecstatic over the proposed plan.

“You know me so well,” you said, arms reaching around his waist, face squished into the side of his chest. “I would absolutely love some ice cream. Cool me down from the inside.”

Miguel chuckled and kissed the top of your head. You were especially cute when you got like this.

FALL 🍕

“Baby, check this out,” Miguel shouted, finally returning to your table with your food.

The fair was packed full of people, especially due to the pop-up food truck festival happening that same week. You had never seen more people run to get fried turnip greens and loaded fries in your life.

Still, this was just another chance to hang out with Miguel. You really didn’t care where you went with him, as long as you got to see that pretty smile.

You look down at the table and see what he brought back. Before your eyes sat the most un-Miguel order ever: birria pizza and two walking tacos, one Hot Cheetos and the other Dorritos.

“Dorilocos, Miguel. Really?” you raised an eyebrow watching him try to steady the open chip bags over some spread-out napkins.

“Amor, don’t look at me like that! I had to get them because Gabriel kept talking my ear off about this new food truck that made them better than the ones we used to eat on our trips back home. I, for one, don’t believe that for a second, so what better way to test that theory than to eat it with my baby?” Miguel gave the saddest look he could muster and slid his hand across the table, trying to convince you to indulge with him.

“Fine, fine. Don’t give me that look,” you say, pulling off a slice of the pizza, making the cheese stretch as long as you can. “Just don’t complain to me from the bathroom while your stomach fights to digest something it hasn’t had in over a decade!”

Miguel pursed his lips while shoveling as much food as he could on one Doritto, “Shouldn’t I be the one telling you that? That’s a lot of cheese, babe.”

“Oh my god, some queso tears up my stomach one time and you can’t let that go, can you?”

“It was once and yet you were in agony about it for days. I think I’m allowed to remind you at least monthly.”

“Just eat your food and leave me and my iron stomach alone. We’ll see what happens between today and tomorrow,” you quip, pulling your phone out ready to record Miguel’s reaction to send to Gabriel.

Miguel takes a bite and just leans against the table, head slumped on his clean head.

“Dios mio, he was right. This can’t be happening,” he groaned, slightly annoyed that Gabriel wasn’t exaggerating. He was also shocked at the fact that someone even came close to getting the local snack right.

You giggled behind your phone, happy that his reaction worked in your favor. You zoomed in a little more on his face, capturing him smacking his lips and licking off excess sauce. He was so zoned in on his food that he didn’t even notice you with your phone up.

“Is it good, Mig?” you asked, mirth in your voice.

He looked at you ready to answer but his eyes snapped to your camera and started to whine, “Amor, please stop recording!”

With a small smile, you made sure to add the video to your folder full of Miguel. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You just look so cute, I couldn’t help it.”

Miguel just mumbled to himself while stacking up another chip, neck heated over the interaction. “Here, just try this,” he said, holding a nacho close to your mouth.

You opened your mouth, just barely getting the chip in. Cupping your hand under your head, you begin to hum, the flavors all tangy, spicy, and savory. “I don’t know what your childhood Dorilocos tasted like, but this is really freaking good.”

“Just know that this one is only slightly better. By 0.00001% to be exact,” he said, rubbing sauce off of the corner of your lips and licking it off. The movement was muscle memory for him as he always liked to watch your face when you ate food, especially when it came to any nostalgic or homecooked dishes you never tried before. It warmed his heart to see you find comfort in his favorite foods.

“Well, I can tell you it’s 100% better than the ‘Taco Tuesday’ luncheon my job hosted last month. Nothing but unseasoned ground beef, endless black olives, and store-bought guacamole for two hours,” you respond, shuddering at the memory of soppy taco shells and your coworkers complaining about how spicy the mild salsa was.

“On second thought, this is absolutely a step up. Was the guacamole name brand at least?” He asked, peering up at you with a twist on his lips.

“I’m pretty sure it was a grocery store brand, so no.”

“Damn.”

WINTER 🍫

You were at your apartment in your bed, completely covered under the comforter with a fluffy blanket on top.

It was snowing heavily outside and you were freezing. However, your heater tended to make your apartment feel like a sauna, so you kept snatching the blanket off only to put it back on minutes later. Plus, your cycle was here. Your cramps left you lying on your side, rolling back and forth between the cool side of the bed and the warm side.

Physically, you were exhausted, but mentally, you knew you had so much to get done.

Christmas was just around the corner but you still had so many presents left to buy and wrap. Your job was doing the dreaded Secret Santa gift exchange and you were stuck wondering what gift would appeal to the stuck-up director in the accounting department.

You and Miguel were also hosting a small Christmas party amongst your friends, and there was still food left to buy. To top it all off, you were worried about your gift for Miguel, wondering if a silly little apron saying “Kiss me, I’m Irish” would hide the fact that you spent a ridiculous amount of money on some new tech he was eyeing.

You heard the apartment door open and close.

Knowing it was Miguel, you groan out dramatically.

He opens the bedroom door and peaks inside, “Baby?”

You just groan out again, “Everything hurts, Miggy.”

He comes up to bed and sits on the edge, “I know, amor. I’m sorry.” He bends down to kiss your head. “Want me to plug up the heat pack?”

“Yeah,” you say, leaning into his hands. When he gets up to grab the pack, you whine at his absence.

“I know, I know. I’m coming back,” he says, voice soothing.

Instead of turning the pack on, he removes your covers and sits back down on the edge. You shiver a little bit and he’s quick to cover your body with his, rubbing the top of your head as he kisses your temple.

“Are you feeling too bad to eat something for me?” Miguel asks, the timber of his voice settling you.

You shake your head and lean in closer to him.

“I think I want some food,” you reply, squeezing his body. “I haven’t eaten anything yet.”

Miguel tuts as he sits up and pulls you up with him, “That’s no good, baby. You have to eat so you can feel better. Your body needs it.”

You groan again and put your face in his neck, not wanting to move.

“Come on,” Miguel says, rubbing you from your back to your leg. “I got you some soup and a grilled cheese.”

“Did you get the stuff for the hot chocolate bar? For the party?” you whisper.

“Mm hm. Jumbo marshmallows included.”

You nuzzle his neck before you look at him, “Carry me to the kitchen?”

He makes a swift move to wrap your legs around his body and hike you up.

He gets up and holds you close, heading to the kitchen, “Let’s get some food in you, yeah?”

SPRING 🍇

The short spring break trip that Miguel surprised you with has been lovely. Miguel woke you with kisses down your body, taking you to the hilt with his mouth alone. You had to muffle your cries as to not disturb the neighbors in the inn. As his tongue danced inside of you, you gripped his hair with one hand and his head with your thighs. Miguel wouldn’t want it any other way.

After his first course, Miguel treated you to breakfast on the balcony. You two enjoyed looking over the horizon as you ate yogurt parfaits and fluffy omelets.

Later on, the two of you enjoyed a few tours of the vineyard and the city. The sights were beyond compare and the atmosphere was serene.

“Thank you so much for this Miguel,” you say, interrupting the silence.

“Anything for my lady,” he says back. “You’re doing great work this semester so you need the break.” Miguel stopped and turned to you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

You leaned up and kissed him, hands warm on the sides of his face.

You both started to makeout for so long that Miguel forgot about the massage he had planned for you before tonight’s farm-to-table dinner.

Needless to say, he laid you out on your bed and oiled your body down. Your head was in your arms as rubbed his hands up and down your back. His hands were heaven and you felt like puddy by the time he flipped you over.

After he massaged your inner thighs he pounded you into the mattress. Something you’re sure the hired masseuse would never be able to do.

Miguel joked and called it the Miguel Magic Massage when you asked if he offered this special regularly. The price? Being his cariño, his amor, his sweetheart.

By the time dinner started, you were glowing. You felt adored and the courses were amazing.

Miguel made sure everyone knew you were his. His hand never left your thigh the entire meal, staring down the older men sitting at the end table who were looking a little too long at the dip of your dress.

You were oblivious, feeding Miguel bites occasionally and humming at how fresh and delicious everything was.

After the last course was over, the men came to you all’s side of the table quickly. All of them started to make conversation with you, plugging in their businesses, and stuffing their business cards in your hands.

It was as if Miguel was invisible. He scowls deeper when they let out hearty laughs at something you said.

“Are you fellas here with your wives?” Miguel asked loudly, completely irritated. “My wife and I have really enjoyed our time here. It’s a beautiful place for couples.”

Some of the men went red in the face flustered at Miguel catching their scheme. Others just scowled, pissed off at being interrupted.

None of them could answer his question.

You looked at Miguel, eyes heavy and relaxed.

“You gentlemen have a great night,” you said, putting your hand in Miguel’s as he guided you to the exit.

“Your wife, huh?” you asked, core on fire. It was hot watching Miguel get so worked up over you.

“Baby, they were looking at you like you were some fresh meat. Like I wasn’t even sitting there,” he grumbled.

“One of them already offered to bring me on a cruise. He’s staying right next to us,” you say, standing outside your room as Miguel swipes his card at the door. You walked your fingers up his chest, heated over the grit you could see from his profile.

He was oh so upset.

“He’s next to us? Right here?” Miguel asked, voice low.

You nodded as you bit your lip, arm around his neck.

Miguel picked you up and dragged you to the bed. You giggled a little to yourself as he plopped you down. Mission accomplished. Silently, you thank those older men. If it weren’t for their overconfidence, Miguel wouldn’t have been tearing at your clothes like he us right now.

Miguel kept you up almost that whole night, making sure that the neighbors heard your cries. Those old geezers were sure to know his name by the next morning. Buying you a ring wasn’t enough. He needed a bat.

It was all worth it to see the tired and flushed looks of their faces when you all checked out the next day.

SUMMER 🍯

“What the fuck,” you mumble, looking down at the pair of jeans you were trying to put on.

It was early morning. You had a family reunion that you and Miguel would take a bit of a drive to get to.

You made sure that everything was packed the following night. Some clothes to stay for a few days, a few snacks for the road, a book for you to catch up on, and even a crossword puzzle book for Miguel.

You planned ahead. You were diligent. So why is it that when everything else is going right, your pants decide not to button up?

You pulled at the flaps once more, trying your hardest to connect the button with the hole. It fails as they slip from your grasp. You try again, sucking in your stomach as much as you could. You get the button to snap in this time, but it’s digging unbearably into your skin. The zipper fights against you as you try to pull it up.

You huff out in frustration and the pants snap open again.

Defeated, you let out a watery sigh and look in the mirror.

Your stomach was bigger than you last remembered, fupa a little more prominent. Your thighs were also a little thicker, the jeans hugging them a little tight. Your breasts looked a little big in your shirt. The family name stretches a bit more across your bust than the original design intended. Even your face was a little chubbier than normal. When was the last time your jaw was like this? High school?

When did you get like this?

You felt your throat start to burn, a sob building in your system. You’ve always been fine with your body, loving the dips and curves. Adoring your flaws and finding beauty in what society decides is not worthy.

You knew this. You knew that you were beautiful. Why was it so hard to get that thought into your conscience?

You felt the tears roll down as you peeled the jeans off of your legs. They were especially tight at your hips and you wondered how you even forced them past in the first place.

You didn’t know what to do. It was so hot outside, so you needed something comfortable, but those jeans…you had your mind set to wear those jeans.

You rummage through your closet in frustration, pushing and pulling the clothes across the rack.

By the time Miguel found you, you were squatting in the closet, hot tears covering your face.

“Babe, it’s been almost 30 minutes and we need to head out before the work traffic starts-”

Miguel stopped in the doorway as he noticed the state of the closet, “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? ¿Que pasó, cariño?”

You wipe furiously at your face, sniffling loud as you hear Miguel push clothes to the side to get to you.

“My pants don’t fit. I don’t think anything else will fit either,” you say, stuttering out your words as Miguel gets to your side.

You let him pull you up into a standing position. You felt defeated.

Miguel looked at you and wiped away the tears that you missed. You feel horrible as your face scrunches up again, tears forming in your eyes.

“No, no, no,” Miguel says, hugging you close. “Listen to me. I know that this feels like a lot, but this is normal. Your body will always change with you. You’re still the same beautiful, gorgeous woman I met years ago and that’s not changing because you got some extra hips, baby.”

“But Miguel,” you say, voice so sad. “I feel like I just got those pants. And. Nothing else in here goes with this shirt. I’m scared that nothing else will fit-”

“And if that’s the case, I’ll buy you new clothes,” Miguel says, pressing kisses over your face. “If these clothes mean that much to you, I’ll take you to the gym. Let me work out with you, but until then, I’m loving your body as is.”

You stare at Miguel, heart beating at his revelation. He stared right back at you, daring you to question or challenge his words.

“Don’t beat yourself up over something like this. If anyone has ever let you feel insecure about your body, they’re an ass, let me deal with them. If I ever do anything to make you feel insecure, tell me. Yell at me. Question me, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s not me.”

He hiked you up on the closet island in the middle of the room. You shiver a bit as your naked legs hit the wood.

He leans closer, placing his hands on the side of you, “Now, let’s think. Don’t you have a pair of cargo shorts that match the ones I’m wearing right now?”

You whisper out a yes.

“Would you be ok with wearing those? I’m sure they fit perfectly.”

You say yes again, head leaning onto his. You could accessorize it perfectly. It would make a great couple’s look.

Miguel knew this much, he just had to get you to see it.

“I love you, ok?” he says, voice clear.

“I love you, too. Thank you,” you say.

“Anything for my girl,” Miguel says. “My beautiful girl. She’s just for me. I can’t believe it.”

Your heart beats faster as he starts to kiss down your body.

“Her face is so lovely.” A kiss to your cheek and your lips.

“She’s always working so hard.” A kiss to your neck and your collarbone. He pulls your shirt over your head.

“She makes me so happy.” A suck to your breasts as he unclasps your bra.

“Her body is beyond comparison.” A trail of kisses down your stomach, your belly twitching as his breath twinkles on along your skin. “Soft. Amazing. Irresistible.”

“Her thighs are my earmuffs.” A caress to your inner thighs. Your legs snap a bit, ticklish at his ministrations.

“Miguel?” you whimper out.

“I have to relax you before this ride. Can’t have you upset,” he says, kissing his way up your thighs to your panties. “May I?”

You nod your head, fingers grasping at nothing but then a flat surface.

Miguel was swift. He pulled your underwear down and kissed at your clit. You could only hold tight as he pulled your body forward and dove in.

It wasn’t long before you were shaking like a leaf. Miguel sucked at you for minutes, pulling a long orgasm out of your system.

He kneaded your thighs as you trembled around his tongue, humming as your legs squeezed tighter. That was the queue for him to go further, so he added his fingers to the mix, moving his mouth up so that his fingers could pump in and out of you.

It took all of your strength not to let your body drop off the other side of the island.

“Miggy, please,” you wailed. You wanted more.

Miguel looked up at you whining above him. You pull your legs up, holding your hands under your thighs, practically begging for him.

Miguel kissed up your body again. He was swift with removing his clothes. You still had to have these clothes fresh for later and Miguel was about to wear you out.

He moved to push himself inside of you, grunting as you gripped him.

He replaced your hands with his and pulled your legs up by his head. You balanced yourself on the island as he slowly started to thrust.

“So good. Just for me,” Miguel said, watching as your body moved with his movement. “Perfect. And all mine.”

You remained quiet, whimpering softly as he dragged against you.

“You heard me, hermosa?” Miguel said. “You’re beautiful. C’mon. Say it for me.”

“I’m,” you stopped, mind foggy. You didn’t know how you were supposed to respond when he was going so deep.

“Say it.”

You cried out as he snapped harder, “I’m beautiful.”

“That’s right baby,” Miguel praises you, bending further to give you a kiss. “So amazing.”

He praised you until you finished, squeezing at any of you that he got his hands. By the time he was done, your arms felt like jelly from holding you up.

He carried you to the bathroom for a quick shower, never stopping his reassurances of you.

You guys made it in the car an hour and a half off schedule, but it was worth it for the uplifted way you carried yourself throughout the day.

It was worth it to see you happy and healthy.

By the time you made it to the reunion, it was like you were born anew. You greeted your family with smiles and laughter. Miguel couldn’t help but to cheese watching you do your thing.

He felt his heart soar as you caught up with family. Your smile was the biggest as you were out on the floor line dancing your heart out. He was right up behind you when Outstanding came on. The song was really a declaration of how he felt about you.

You giggled as he crooned in your ear.

“You light my fire,” he sang, swinging your hips in time with his.

“I feel alive with you, baby,” he spins you around to him, a smile on his face.

“You blow my mind,” he pulled you out and back in.

“I’m satisfied,” you squeal as he spins you in the air and puts you back down to keep dancing.

Outstanding. You really knock him out.

Another season where Miguel adored you more.

Another season where Miguel wanted you to be forever his.

Another season where he made sure he fed you well.

Another season of you making his heart pound.

Another season of your love reaching to the fullest.

Miguel was excited for the next season with you.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading! 💗

Any likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated. Let me know how you feel! 🥺🧁

Until next time,

-Lauro 💗

#love lab fics 🧫#to the lab testers 🩻#miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara x fem!reader #miguel o’hara x plussize!reader #miguel o’hara x chubby!reader #miguel x reader #x plus size reader #x chubby reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara imagine #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x fem!reader #spiderman 2099 x you #spiderman 2099 x reader #miguel spiderverse

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tr1nd2de · 3 months ago

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Captain Marvel is disconcerting

I was looking at wonderjanga's post (Marvel and YJ) and I realized how disconcerting it is to see Captain Marvel going from a powerhouse to a person unqualified to be an adult.

Captain Marvel has always been someone very wise given the wisdom of Solomon, however it is not uncommon to see that the man. doing something very good, but it's disconcerting. And the league...doesn't understand how someone who not only acts like a child can change so quickly.

Even though the stories he creates while alone are as simple as a child's, they can be so different from the stationery he hands over to Batman. In his paperwork there is nothing but extremely perfect text. No spelling mistakes that indicate that the papers that Marvel writes for himself, have indications that they are made by the same person.

(not that this applies to me, spelling mistakes are just the basics)

Then comes the drawings, which are so different from each other. Marvel felt comfortable drawing at the end of a meeting, and the drawing was deplorable, done in a way that reminds someone who has never drawn so much in his life, even though he apparently lived as long as Diana. So Marvel, after returning from a mission, takes a painting and paint, which not even the league knew were in the tower. And draws a never-before-seen work of art, in a way that is quite innovative, just because Dinha jokingly asked that she should earn a reward from the big red cheese, for helping him make a wardrobe with normal clothes from this century.

(The painting must be worth a lot of money, and Dinah is perplexed that she got a piece of art, just because she picked out some clothes for Marvel)

(This idea also came from wonderjanga’s post (Marvel Wearing C.C.’s Clothes)

I can imagine how disconcerting it must be for Batman to try to understand Marvel, he always acts like a child most of the time, but when he asks Marvel to give an insight into the plan, Marvel describes an extremely efficient military tactic that Batman himself hadn't thought of.

Marvel was chosen to be YJ's den mother, just because Red Tornado and Black Canary were on a mission. It was supposed to be something simple, right? Give the teenagers a break. We sent Marvel so he could distract the team and they could rest. So it was extremely disconcerting for the league to see Marvel trying to get all the teens on their toes in an experimental combat class. Marvel usually acts like a child around the league, so why does he act like he should here? being a serious person in passing the oral lesson and giving useful tips to YJ

Which brings us to the next question: why when Marvel fights, he fights in such an incredibly sloppy way. Superman has seen Marvel hold back from biting his opponents. In practically all the fights so far it has been like this, Marvel doesn't seem to be taking this seriously, so one day Hawkgirl gives Marvel an ultimatum, either he learns to fight properly or he won't go on missions for a while. So Marvel, seeing that he has no option to deny or flee, he fights. Using the same fighting art as Diana, it was quite efficient, let's say, it's a bit scary to see Marvel fight seriously.

This idea also came from a post by imnotditzy ( Billy and Marvel have very different fighting styles.)

It's disconcerting to everyone that Marvel acts like a child, but in reality he is extremely efficient in everything he does.

Batman is having trouble dealing with Marvel's contingency plan, especially after he discovers that the supposed demigod is nothing more than a 13-year-old child. It is extremely disconcerting that such power was given to a homeless and orphaned child. At least now the league understands why Marvel acts the way it does. And all attempts to send him to YJ are vehemently denied. expelling Marvel is also not an option since, as the saying goes: he will not stop doing his job as a "champion of magic" and hero.

So even though it's disconcerting, the league now has a 13-year-old capable of going head-to-head with the most powerful beings in the world and beyond. And OH, his last name is Batson.

#billy batson #captain marvel dc #dc #shazam #batman #justice league #superman #Wonder woman

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miley1442111 · 8 months ago

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(part 8) choices in hindsight- a.donaldson

-------------------------------

summary: eleven years later.

(dw there are more parts after this :))

pairing: art donaldson x reader, patrick zweig x reader

warnings: angst, feelings of disappointment and depression, hurt, cheating, loneliness, etc.

PART 8 of 12

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Eleven years later….

You sat beside the umpire, your opponent smashing her racket in frustration as tears fell down her face. You were tired. Every bone in your body ached, your muscles were tense, your skin felt too tight.

Your mind was worse. Playing tennis since you were a little girl does that to someone. Being in the public eye does that to someone, being alone does that to someone.

“You fucking bitch!” She shouted. “You fucking bitch!”

You didn’t care about it, the match was done, and you’d won. As usual.

You hated tennis. You hated your life. Your lonely, empty life.

-------------------------------

“How about a challenger? To boost your motivation?” Your manager, Michael, offered.

“I’ll do whatever,” you shrugged.

Michael stopped in front of you, stopping you from walking. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m fine,” you plastered on a fake smile. “Just tired.”

“In what sense?” He asked. He’d always been able to see right through you. You rolled your eyes.

“In the sense that I’m completely alone and I’m sick of knowing that I’m a winner while I feel like a failure!” You exploded. “Tashi and Art got married. Patrick isn’t anywhere near as good as he was. I have no friends. I have no family. I have nothing but a bunch of cold, metal trophies, and a team who don’t care if I want to play anymore. All they care about is my game. And I fucking hate tennis!”

Michael stared at you, face hardening. “You really had to do that in front of everyone?” He asked. You looked around. Your team was around you, but so was your next opponent.

“I’m not exactly worried,” you snarled.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Go win the match, then we’ll let you have some alcohol and you can drown your sorrows.”

“Fuck yourself!” you shouted as he walked away.

“How can I do that when you’re constantly fucking me over anyways!” He shouted back.

-------------------------------

Back on the court again. Another subpar player against you.

HIT. You’re worthless. HIT. You’re awful. HIT. You’re nothing. HIT. You deserve to be lonely. HIT. You deserve to be alone. HIT. You deserve to feel worthless.

HIT. Be better. HIT. Be stronger. HIT. Be more.

HIT.

“We have a winner!”

-------------------------------

“Come on!” Lily shouted from beside him, her eyes on the court as you won, yet again. She’d seen her mother do it so much she was turning it into a catch-phrase.

“She’s pretty good, right?” He chuckled, his eyes never leaving you. He didn't want to let himself admit it, but god you looked good. The white tennis outfit you had on was practically making him weak in the knees, as well as the 'I don't give a shit' attitude you carried with you. You were simply leaning in your chair, a drink in hand as your opponent screamed to her manager about how unfair playing against you was.

I mean she wasn't wrong. You were the top female tennis player and you were practically unbeatable. You were incredible.

“She’s amazing!” Lily smiled. “When does she play again?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered. He had your schedule memorised.

“Can I meet her?”

Art shook his head. “She and mom have a complicated history.” Also, I’m still madly in love with her.

“How so?” Lily asked as he walked with her, hand in hand to the concessions stand.

“Well, back in college mom and her didn’t get along because mom couldn’t beat her-” he started but he felt Tashi beside him.

“You’re lying to Lily now?” She snarked.

Art felt his skin go cold. “No. It’s true-”

“I beat her,” Tashi nodded. “Dad used to date Y/n as well, isn’t that right?”

Art nodded and Lily looked up at him.

“That’s weird,” she confessed. “Why did you break up?”

“I was in love with mom,” Art lied and kissed Tashi on the cheek, the entire display looking awkward and rehearsed. His regret and resentment grew everyday. He’d never regret having Lily, but he regretted everything he did to you, and letting you get away.

“That’s gross!” She squealed, shielding her eyes from her parents kissing.

“Alright peanut, what do you want?” He asked, moving up in the line and getting ready to order.

-------------------------------

HIT. Train harder. HIT. Work harder. HIT. You deserve nothing.

The ball hit into your side and you groaned out in pain. “Fuck!”

You let yourself rest on the ground, not even bothering to turn off the automatic ball-throwing machine.

“Hi,” a familiar voice smiled at you. Your eyes opened to find Patrick Zweig over your head.

“Hi,” you mumbled, getting up.

“How are you?” he asked, following you as you began to hit the balls again.

“Fine,” you grunted out. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he smirked, watching your figure as you bent to hit a ball. “Very good.”

“Your dad give you a job yet?”

Patrick’s fantasy was broken. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “No, not yet.”

“Too bad. You’d make a much better corporate asshole than the piece-of-shit tennis player you are.”

“Tread easy,” he chuckled, a touch of pathetic begging in his plea. You just rolled your eyes and continued on your exercise.

“How about you go fuck yourself, Patrick?” Tashi scoffed from the stands, Art beside her.

“How can I go back to that when she fucks me so well?” He joked. HIT.

“Leave her alone Pat,” Art sighed. HIT.

“Why are you defending her?” Tashi questioned, turning to Art. HIT.

“She is right here in case you don’t see her,” Pat defended. HIT.

“Pat we fucking know-” Art started, but it just ended up in Tashi talking over him to the point that Patrick started talking over both of them in the argument.

HIT. HIT. HIT.

“All three of you can fuck off!” you screamed. “I never want to see your stupid face again Patrick, Tashi you can stop flaunting that you got the love of my life, and Art, go be a dad or something! I don’t care anymore!”

All three of them turned to you with various faces. Patrick was smirking, happy he’d finally pushed your buttons to the extreme. Tashi looked awkward and caught, maybe even guilty.

But Art. Art looked at you like you’d hung the stars just for him, then tore it all down in front of him. His beautiful blue eyes filling with tears as he finally got to hear you admit that he was the love of your life, only eleven years too late.

“I’m content with being alone, as shit as it is. I suggest you all move on from me now,” you sighed, grabbing your bag and walking off to find you manager.

“See you at the challenger!” Patrick called after you. The ATP Challenger Tour.

The same one from eleven years ago.

Where everything fell apart.

You got that familiar sinking feeling in your stomach.

-------------------------------

art donaldson masterlist :)

navigation for my blog :) (criminal minds, obx, the bear, marvel, top gun, the hunger games, challengers :)

people who asked to be tagged :)

@fkaams

@emily-b

@yourmommycallsmemommy

@hrtsj1m

@januarycolor

#art donaldson smut #art challengers #art challenge #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson #challengers 2024 #challengers movie #patrick zweig smut #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig #tashi duncan

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drchucktingle · 1 year ago

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never actually blank

i have been talkin on this alot during my book tour but wanted to put words here for any buckaroos trottin around the internet.

questions chuck gets asked in signings or Q AND A sessions have WIDE VARIETY in their way, but theme that comes up over and over is: 'i wish i was a creator but i cannot find success in this way' or 'i wish i was a creator but my mind is blocked'

bud, you ARE a creator. we are all HERE TO CREATE it is our natural state of being. we cannot help but create.

buds might say: 'but i have not painted in months i have no inspiration left'

as far as chuck is concerned this is missing the incredible vastness of what CREATION is and what ART is. the art of a painting is not just about oil on canvas. it does not end at the border or the frame. the ART and the CREATION is so much more than that and sometimes we can numb ourselves to this way. the months spent pining for inspiration are just as important as the brush you pick. what you had for breakfast that day is just as important as the colors and hues. every misstep or big win along the way IS THE ARTWORK.

your art is not just your painting, it is the mixed media piece called your life. you are creating thoughts and ideas and dreams. in a physical sense you are creating heartbeats and breaths and even words vibrating through the air saying 'i cant think of anything to paint'

BUD THESE ARE ALL VALID PIECES and together they make something incredible and unique and POWERFUL. how deeply moving it is to exist here on this timeline, adding yourself to the even LARGER piece that we are all constructing together as we push back against the empty spaces and fill the cosmic void with our love.

so do not be discouraged by writers block or a blank canvas. a canvas is never actually blank and you are writing with every moment that you trot through.

i cannot speak for YOU, but whenever i let the artwork of this timeline flow around me, the more my specific pieces like writing or drawing come into focus.

bud we are building a masterpiece with every second of our lives, sometimes tragic and sometimes glorious. just gotta step back a bit and give it a look

#chuck tingle #love is real #art theory #buckaroo theory #writing #painting #tingleverse

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eunxhan · 5 months ago

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Ꮺ Anon Requested ⨾ Polyamory/harem relationship with head over heels bottom subs,, one is a cute shy guy who loves m reader so fucking much he doesn't mind getting cucked and stuff as long as it pleases reader,,another one is a hot sexy model who's very proud of his body, always taking care of himself so you'll praise him when you fuck him, taking care of his hair well so you can easily pull them,,, kinky sub who's into wild plays, totally devoted to reader and would do literally anything like damn.. Another cold aloof kind of man,, people are intimidated by him and he's all strong and one man army stuff.. Yet when it comes to reader he's just a mess like damn,, all these pretty, smart, strong subbies also has reader's personal brand on his skin,,, they're so head over heels they do anything for reader's acknowledgement,,,

Ꮺ Eun Replies ⨾ Oh my, It is lovely to see my sweets still active. I have been thinking about this entry the moment I came back in this platform. How I've missed all of you.. I did wrote them separately but I decided to write and post another where they all meet in the future. But anyways, what should we name these three?

•◦✦────•◦ᘡᘞ •◦────✦◦•◦•

Ꮺ Disclaimer — NSFW.

Reader ⨾ MALE. YOU/YOUR.

Words used ⨾ 1578

Links ⨾ My Navigation

•◦✦────•◦ᘡᘞ •◦────✦◦•◦•

Let's say, you're an average guy with a typical 9 to 5 job. You couldn't care less about what anyone has to say or do to you, yet three men managed to catch your interest. One of them being Shy!sub. It's not like you guys have been together since childhood; you only met during middle school.

Shy!sub is incredibly shy and easily embarrassed. He tends to blush a lot, especially around you. Even the slightest touch or intimate gesture from you can make him flush red.

Shy!sub is used to your rantings while playing with him, and sometimes, you being a little shit happens to take your anger out on him during your calls. He never says or complains about it; he just listens or sometimes even apologizes to you.

Shy!sub enjoys playing video games with you, even if he's not very good at them and you call him out for jt. He just finds it relaxing and a great way to bond with you. He often cheers you on during your gaming sessions.

Not only does he enjoys gaming, Shy!sub has a secret love for romantic movies. He often watches them when you're not around, dreaming of the day you and him will have your own romantic story.

Shy!sub looks at you as if he's admiring a piece of art, even if you're just there yelling and getting mad about something ridiculous. You can tell that he wants something else. But if you call him out on something, Shy!sub hates confrontations and avoids them at all costs. He would rather keep the peace than engage in an argument, even if it means holding back his true feelings.

Shy!sub is the type of person who's too soft for people like you to handle. He does your chores because he knows you're exhausted from your job or school, and even cooks for you.

Shy!sub enjoys cooking for you, as he sees it as a way to show his love and care for you. He often tries out new recipes, hoping to impress you with his culinary skills. If you point something out or compliment his cooking, be ready to see him almost everyday in your kitchen.

He acts more like a boyfriend than a best friend. One call of his name, and he's dashing towards you like a loyal dog ready to do what you ask. With him basically living with you, Shy!sub can sleep easily. He is afraid of the dark and often sleeps with a nightlight on. He sometimes asks you to sleep with him when he's feeling particularly scared.

Shy!sub never admits this but he secretly loves it when you get angry, as it shows your passionate side. He often provokes you, hoping to see your fiery temper.

When both of you started to have some intimate moments, Shy!sub got even more embarrassed but he never stops trying to tease you with his every move. He basically lives with you now from how much time he spends with you. Everything escalated quickly when you got home and saw him wearing something he normally doesn't wear.

Shy!sub looks so damn adorable in his light bubblegum pink lingerie, but you decided to keep it in your pants and let him explain what he was doing. You could tell he was about to burst out crying when you walked in on him.

—

Shy!sub's eyes widened as he realized you had caught him in his new attire. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart raced, fearing the worst. The lingerie, a gift from a secret admirer, was supposed to be a surprise for You. But now, with you standing in the doorway, the moment had been ruined.

You, on the other hand, couldn't help but admire the way the lingerie hugged Shy!sub's curves, accentuating his hourglass figure. The sight of Shy!sub in such a delicate and feminine ensemble stirred something deep within you—a desire he had never felt before. But he knew the time was not right to act on it.

"It's... it's for you," Shy!sub managed to stutter, his voice trembling. "I wanted to surprise you. I thought you'd like it."

"Wow, I've never thought I would see this coming from you. Someone who is known to be easily embarrassed over everything." You could see the vulnerability in Shy!sub's eyes as you reply to him. It was a rare sight, and it tugged at your heartstrings. You knew Shy!sub's affections ran deep, and you couldn't bear to see him so distressed. So, with a smile, you stepped forward and gently placed a hand on Shy!sub's cheek.

"You look amazing," You said, his voice soft and reassuring. "And I appreciate the thought. But remember, you don't need to do anything to impress me. I love you just the way you are."

Shy!sub let out a shaky breath, relief washing over him. He leaned into your touch, grateful for your understanding. The moment, though awkward, had brought them closer. From that day on, You began to see Shy!sub in a whole new light. Your words and gentle touch calmed Shy!sub's nerves. The tension in the room shifted, and a new energy filled the space. Shy!sub's heart fluttered as your hand lingered on his cheek, your thumb gently caressing Shy!sub's soft skin.

Emboldened by your acceptance, Shy!sub leaned in, his lips brushing against yours in a feather-light kiss. It was a tentative move, a test to gauge your reaction. But you responded with a hunger that surprised them both. Your lips met in a passionate kiss, your tongues dancing and exploring each other's mouths. Shy!sub's hands roamed your body, feeling the contours of your muscles through your shirt. Your hands slid down Shy!sub's back, cupping his rear and pulling him closer.

The lingerie, once a source of embarrassment, now became a symbol of their growing desire. The soft fabric rubbed against your body, igniting a fire within you. Shy!sub could feel your arousal pressing against him, and it sent shivers down his spine. His mind were somewhere else as he softly groans in your ears, his mind tells him to beg you to do something more to him.

You both broke the kiss, panting and flushed. Your eyes were dark with desire, and Shy!sub's lips were swollen from your passionate embrace. The room was filled with a palpable tension, a promise of what was to come.

"Darling," Shy!sub whispered, his voice heavy with need. "I want you. I've always wanted you." he whined at the end. You didn't need to be told twice. You scooped Shy!sub into your arms and carried him to the bedroom, which made him more excited.

•◦✦────•◦ᘡᘞ •◦────✦◦•◦•

Confident!sub, a charming and flirtatious individual, utilizes his natural charisma and wit to captivate those around him. Easily drawing in his audience, he leaves them craving more of his company. His tactics to garner attention, however, are solely to attract the cameras. When it comes to you, his dearest, he's wholly devoted.

His sarcastic nature and high tolerance levels add an alluring challenge to his persona, making him even more magnetic. For you, though, his sarcasm serves as a playful means of aggravation.

Confident!sub is confident in his physicality, maintaining his desirable physique through rigorous workouts. Brands and designers clamor for him to be the face of their new products, well aware of his pickiness when it comes to endorsements.

In his pursuit of physical perfection, Confident!sub adheres to a strict regimen of body care. His routine, from head to toe, takes a full three hours, with shower time not even included. If you need the bathroom while he's in there, you'll have to resort to forceful measures.

During his photoshoots, Confident!sub teases you with his movements and poses. He'll gaze hungrily at you, performing his job with you as his little assistant, always present in the room. If you're absent, his temper flares. So, sad to say that you're always with him in and out.

A possessive streak emerges in Confident!sub when he spots you admiring other models. With him in the room, half-naked and expecting your adoration, he takes offense at your gaze wandering to less attractive individuals. If you curse at him for his tantrums, his anger intensifies, believing you should have been fixated on him.

Confident!sub is unfiltered in his communication, voicing his thoughts at any given moment. Be it day, night, place, or time, he'll share his uncensored musings. With a bored expression, he'll casually mention desires like you satisfying him behind a door post-shoot or gripping his hair. One time while you were having breakfast, he mumbled something about how he dreamed about you pounding him for a photoshoot.

Despite his outward confidence, Confident!sub harbors insecurities deep down. He worries that one day, his looks might fade, and he'll lose the adoration he currently enjoys. So with you having around him, he dares not to let you go. He hates it when you look at other models that he finds intimidating. Whenever you reassure him about his insecurities, expect not getting out of the bedroom for atleast two days.

Confident!sub hates being touched by strangers. He becomes uncomfortable and edgy when people he doesn't know try to touch him. He's only comfortable with you touching him. You should be lucky that someone like him allows you to touch him, his words not mine.

——

After a long and tiring photoshoot, Confident!sub was ready to unwind. With his manager having rented a hotel room for him, he of course invited you to join him, knowing full well what he had in mind. You, aware of Confident!sub's intentions, eagerly accepted the invitation.

In the privacy of the hotel room, Confident!sub wasted no time in expressing his desires. You pinned him against the wall, his hands roaming your body with a hunger that could not be satiated. With you, equally aroused, gripped Confident!sub's hair, pulling him in for a passionate kiss.

Confident!sub's hands slid down to your body, undoing your pants with a swift motion. He wasted no time in freeing his own arousal, rubbing it against yours before he could let you rub against his entrance. With a swift thrust, you entered him, filling him with your length.

The room was filled with the sounds of him screaming your name and the wet sounds. Confident!sub's moans echoed off the walls, a testament to his pleasure. You, gripping onto Confident!sub's hair, praised him for his skill and good looks, encouraging him to continue his plea.

Confident!sub, driven by your words, moving his hips at the same pace as you with a fervor that was almost animalistic. Your hands gripped on his hips, pulling him closer with each thrust. Him, lost in a sea of pleasure, could only hold on for dear life, his moans mingling in the air.

As you both reached your climax, Confident!sub's moans grew louder, your thrusts becoming more erratic. Him, gripping onto you tightly, felt his own release building. With a final thrust, you both reached, your bodies trembling with the force releasing.

•◦✦────•◦ᘡᘞ •◦────✦◦•◦•

Intimidating!sub, a formidable figure with a history in the military, bears scars on both his face and body. His imposing physique and commanding posture are enough to convey his cold and strict demeanor, deterring others from approaching him. Even children and pets are frightened by his aura.

Despite his chilling exterior, Intimidating!sub has a soft spot for his beloved. At the mere sound of his name, spoken by you, his defenses crumble. He prefers to reserve his genuine smiles for private moments, sharing them only with you.

In terms of protection, Intimidating!sub is unparalleled. His presence alone is enough to deter potential aggressors, as if he were a guard dog watching over you. His menacing appearance suggests he'd defend you with ferocity, ready to "bite" anyone who dares to bother you.

In private, Intimidating!sub reveals a sensitive side. He cries during movies or deep conversations, seeking your comfort. With his head resting on your chest, he finds solace as he weeps, trying to express his feelings or explain the emotions triggered by a film. He's known to shed tears privately if his actions upset a child or pet.

Intimidating!sub is an intellectual powerhouse, capable of answering nearly any query and solving complex mathematical problems in a matter of seconds. He's like a human calculator, with an uncanny ability to memorize information. This makes outings with him effortless, as you need not consult your phone for calculations or searches.

Eager for your affection, Intimidating!sub leans on your shoulder, a subtle request for attention. He demands your love, regardless of your current engagements. If he's bold enough, he'll wake you to share a tender gaze.

Embarrassed by his nocturnal desires, Intimidating!sub awakens from wet dreams, seeking solace in the bathroom. If he gathers the courage, he'll attempt to rouse you, his eyes pleading softly.

——

After Intimidating!sub woke you from your slumber, you noticed the flush on his face, a testament to his embarrassment. A soft whimper escaped his lips, "Please help me with this..." Your eyes followed his gaze downward, where you found his hardened length, throbbing and grinding against the material of his pants.

The sight was too enticing to ignore, and as he offered you a small, tender peck on the cheek, you decided to give in to his desires. You guided his hand to release his length from its prison, letting it spring free. The tip glistened with pre-cum, a clear indication of his arousal.

Intimidating!sub's eyes locked onto yours, pleading for your touch. You obliged, wrapping your hand around his shaft and beginning to stroke him gently. His breathing hitched, his face contorting in pleasure. You teased him, speeding up and slowing down your strokes, drawing out his pleasure.

As you continued, Intimidating!sub's body grew more tense, his hips bucking involuntarily. You could sense his impending release, and you leaned in, taking his length into your mouth. The sensation of your warm, wet mouth enveloping him sent him over the edge.

Intimidating!sub cried out your name, his body trembling as he came. You swallowed his release, showing no signs of discomfort. When you pulled away, he collapsed onto the bed, his body slick with sweat.

You climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, and lowered yourself onto his still-hard shaft. He gasped, his hands gripping your hips as you began to ride him. The intimacy of this moment, with the dominant figure now reduced to the bottom, was intoxicating.

•◦✦────•◦ᘡᘞ •◦────✦◦•◦•

@𝑬𝑼𝑵𝑿𝑯𝑨𝑵. Do not repost, plagiarize, translate, or adapt my work/theme without prior permission and/or confirmation.

#Eun.writes #Eun.asks #male reader #yandere male #yandere scenarios #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere x darling #oc x reader #yandere character #original character #yandere x male darling #yandere x male reader #yandere x you #original character x reader

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stormz369 · 3 months ago

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☕💖 Can I Get Your Number? ☕💖 Ch 17

Jason Todd x (f)Chubby!Reader

written with a female reader in mind, first person pov, no use of Y/N, will probably get NSFW later, let me know if there's anything else I should tag this with!

warnings/labels: racist microagressions, boundary crossing, and people in positions of power being scum, cursing wc: 2.4k

A/N: chapter concept was suggested by @scared-reader 👻 so if you like it thank them for the inspiring ask in the comments! (and feel free to submit your own if you've got an idea for me, you never know what's going to set off the unhinged writing monster in my soul 😅 )

Chapter Selection

Damian was at my apartment again. He'd come over after school, and the look on his face suggested there was something weighing him down. I got him set up at the table to do his homework, knowing he wouldn't be ready to talk until he felt his responsibilities were complete, and ordered pizza. While he worked, I made my grandmother's brownies.

An hour later we were sitting on the floor in front of my tv, eating pizza and brownies, drinking soda, and playing mindless video games. Between rounds, Damian finally spoke up; “... There's an art show for our parents at my school next week … Father couldn't make it last year, something came up at work.”

I frowned a bit; “That sucks! ... Well, I'm sure he'll make it this year, yeah?”

“... Probably not. It's a busy time of year for him...”

“That's not fair…”

“It is what it is.” On the surface he sounded nonchalant about it, but after months of getting to know each other I was starting to catch the subtleties of his mannerisms and tones. And when he said ‘it is what it is' I heard, clear as day, the ache of unexpressed sorrow; the kind of sorrow that makes you feel selfish and cruel for caring at all over something so seemingly trivial.

“... Well, I know I'm not a parent, but I am an adult in your life who loves … your art. Think they'd let me come?”

“... You want to come?” he didn't even try to hide the surprise in his voice.

“Of course, if you're ok with it. … I remember how disappointing it was when my parents didn't come to my after school stuff. … Felt like I was the only kid in the room without an adult gushing over my work. I knew they were proud of me, they were just busy, but … I wanted my interests to be their priority for just a few hours. It hurt, seeing everyone else's adults make time for them when mine couldn't, and I don't want you to have to go through that too. So if you're comfortable with it I would be honored to get to go to your art show!”

Damian blinked a few times, looking down into his lap, and nodded. “... Ok. … Yeah, you … you can come. … It's Friday after school, from 4-6.” His voice came out a bit sharper than usual, like he was fighting to get the words out at all.

I smiled gently, pulling out my phone. “It's going right in my calendar. Will you already be there?” He nodded. “Perfect, … can Jace come too, or should I take the bus?”

Damian considered for a minute. “.... I suppose Todd can come. … It would be difficult to use the city bus to get to my school…”

I nodded. “Thanks kiddo.”

He opened his mouth, frowning slightly; “... I … why do you keep calling me that?”

I cringed slightly; “Sorry Damian, I keep forgetting you don't like it. I like to give people affectionate nicknames, it’s sort of second nature at this point I guess. I'll do better, I promise.”

“... No, it … it's ok, you don't have to stop. … I'm still not Dami though.”

I grinned, nodding. “You got it, kiddo.” Right, only Jon gets to call him Dami.

He nodded once, smiling a little.

Tears filled my eyes. The lump in my throat made it incredibly difficult to speak, but I had to say something; he was staring up at me with those big, guarded eyes, waiting for my response. “... Damian, it's-”

“Perfect…” Jason's arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his chest.

Damian's section of the art show was filled with portraits of his family and friends. And right in the center, on one of the biggest canvases I'd seen outside of a museum, was a painting of the three of us on my couch; me and Damian facing each other with Jason in the middle, his hand on my knees, just like the time they'd spent the night. The casual intimacy of our poses and easy smiles on our faces were like a dream for the future, laid bare in front of us.

It wasn't as easy as the painting made it look, not yet, but maybe someday it would be.

I nodded, agreeing with Jason; “it's beautiful~ you're so talented! … is … is that really how you see me?”

Damian hadn't made me smaller; I was still round and soft in his painting, but instead of feeling insecure the portrait made me feel beautiful. The delicate, sweeping brush strokes that made up my body exuded warmth and tenderness. I wasn't entirely sure if it was my love for him that he'd seen and captured in the paint, or his own affection for me, but it was there on the canvas for all to see.

He tilted his head; “... I don't understand? That is what you look like.”

“Yeah, but … Damian, in a culture that teaches women that being big is bad, making a fat girl feel beautiful in her fatness is like the artistic equivalent of finding Bigfoot - there are people who say they have, but who actually believes them?” I smiled softly, looking into his confused eyes; “you’ve made me feel beautiful, Damian. … Thank you.”

Jason hugged me tighter, kissing my shoulder; “... good job, demon brat~”

Damian flushed a bit, obviously pleased, and for a moment it looked like he was going to say something, but before he could, a tall woman came up behind him. She smiled warmly, looking at me; “ah, you must be the panther tamer!”

Damian's entire demeanor changed in an instant, closing in on himself. I frowned, looking up at her; “excuse me? … Who are you?”

The woman ruffled Damian's hair, either not noticing or not caring about his grimace or minuscule flinch as she made contact; “I’m Mrs. Webster, Damian's math teacher! It's a miracle; ever since you've come into his life, our little wild cat here has finally retracted his claws! Finally dropping some of those nasty habits of his. I don't know what you're doing with him, but keep up the good work!”

“... So you did just say what I thought you said. … Ok, bet.” I pushed Jason's arms off me and stepped forward until she stumbled back, making sure I ended up between her and Damian. “First of all; don't ever touch him again. Anyone with two brain cells can tell he doesn't like it.”

She stuttered, stepping back more; “ah! It was just a hair ruffle-”

“Don't. Ever. Touch him. Secondly, he is a person, he's not a wild animal that needs to be tamed. What on earth makes you think that's an appropriate thing to say about one of your students?”

“Hey now! I just meant that his behavior has gotten better, it's a compliment!”

I continued to walk toward her, slowly backing her into a corner. “Shut. The fuck. Up. You were not complimenting him; you were othering him. He is a child in a foreign country with foreign, often contradictory culture; since coming here he has had to relearn everything about how life works and what's expected of him, and he has had to do it using English, one of the most obnoxious languages to learn, and probably the fourth or even fifth one he knows. He is expected to gracefully fold himself into an American household, go to an American school, and follow American customs; nothing in his life would have prepared him for any of that, but he has done it all, and he's done it while living under intense media scrutiny because of his family name. And on top of all that, he's also making all these life changes during one of the hardest parts of a person's development. He works hard every single day to navigate this life, often doing things he hates because they're expected of him, all for your comfort. Is it so much to ask that his teachers treat him with some basic fucking respect?”

She frowned, trying to interrupt me; “I was just-”

“No, I'm talking, that means you shut your mouth. That boy, that brilliant, brave, kind young man was ripped from the life he knew, the good and the bad in it, sent away from his family and friends, to a supposed land of freedom and safety, and when he gets here he has to deal with mediocre minds like yours calling him an animal and praising the people who care about him for their ‘good work' with him? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

I have done no work here; it is not work to meet him where he's at. It is not work to love that boy in whatever ways he's ready to accept. And it is certainly not work to treat him with respect. That is the bare fucking minimum. It is a joy and a pleasure to get to know him; he is a remarkable young man. On his worst day he is a better person than you are on your best. He is compassionate, and patient, and he is a good kid. How fucking dare you talk about him like there's something wrong with him being just the way he is? Who the hell do you think you are? What kind of racist shit-”

“Hey now! I am not racist!”

The side of my fist made contact with the stone wall above her head. I took a deep breath, growling softly; “tell yourself whatever you need to. But you are going to keep a few things in mind going forward. Number one; anything you say or do to Damian will get back to me. Number two;” I smirked, chuckling darkly; “I am not afraid of jail time. So, for everyone's best interest; you will respect his boundaries, and you will think before you open your ignorant mouth. Because if I find out that you or anyone in this school has more inconsiderate, racist ass bullshit to say about my kid, I will be back. And from that day on, you will not know a moment of peace. Have I made myself clear, Mrs. Webster?”

She nodded quickly, eyes wide with fear, and I gave her the most condescending smirk I could before spinning on my heel to return to my boys. I only made it a few steps before Damian ran straight into me, arms wrapped tightly around my waist. His face buried into my chest, and his shoulders were shaking. I was almost pushed back by the force of him throwing himself at me, but I managed to stay standing. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, one hand gently cupping his head, the other stroking his back.

We stood like that for a long while. I wasn't going to pull away first; this was the first time I'd seen Damian initiate physical contact with anyone, and I was not about to give him any reason to believe it had to stop before he was ready. He could have as much as he wanted for as long as he wanted it.

I looked up at Jason over Damian's head; I thought he looked a bit proud, leaning against the wall to watch us. He gestured to me that he was heading out of the room but would be back soon and I nodded, just continuing to hold the shaking boy in my arms. I ran my fingers through his hair gently, hoping it would soothe him, “... I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, Damian…”

He shook his head, slowly releasing me. He didn't look up, but I could tell from the wet spot above my heart that he had been crying. “... Can we go home?”

“Yeah, kiddo. Let's get you home.”

“No, I mean … your home?”

“Oh, yeah, you can spend the night at mine. You can spend the whole weekend if you want. … I'll tell your dad for you, if you want?”

He nodded, slowly taking my hand. “... Can we stop at the manor, so I can get a few things and feed my pets?”

“Of course we can.” I smiled softly, gently squeezing his hand, and led him out of the auditorium to find Jason.

Jay met us at the front office. “You're being swapped into Mr. Desantis's math class, Damian.”

Damian nodded, staring at the floor in front of him. “... Thank you.”

Jason nodded, looking at our hands; “... We ready to go?”

“Yeah. We're gonna stop at the manor so Damian can get some stuff, and then we'll all head home.”

Jason nodded, letting us lead the way. He walked behind Damian and over a bit, so the youngest Wayne was flanked by us. Damian watched his feet as we made our way to the car, smiling just a little. “... Are you really going to return if I tell you my teachers are still saying those things about me?”

I stopped next to the car, falling to one knee in front of him, and gently squeezed Damian's hands. His vibrant green eyes slowly met mine, and I had to bite back the rage boiling in my chest; he looked so fragile, like he expected me to say ‘no, you don't deserve it, take care of yourself'. “... Damian, if anyone says or does anything to make you feel inferior, I want you to tell them that you are not required to accept their mistreatment, and walk away. Then you call me. If I don't pick up it'll be because I'm still asleep or at work, you text me and then you call Jay, he will come get me, and we will come for you. Ok?”

“... You'd leave work?”

“... I feel like that's not as impressive as the fact that I'm willing to lose sleep over this, but yes; you are more important than work. I can easily get another job, what I can't and won't do is make you face their shit alone.”

He nodded slowly. “... Father said I'm not supposed to misbehave at school … We have the public eye on us…”

Jay growled softly; “I am certain that he didn't mean for you to accept that kind of bullshit from inferior minds. And if he did, he can take it up with me. You do not have to accept their cruelty. Not ever.”

Damian looked up at Jason slowly, nodding. “... Really?”

“Really.”

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#fanfic #fanfiction #dc fanfic #dc #jason todd #red hood x reader #jason todd x reader #first person pov #wayne family adventures #no y/n #damian wayne #multi chapter fic #Can I Get Your Number?

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