#honestly the redesign has been a while coming because i fucking hate drawing it as it is

[beddhead-red]

I watched the Matrix & Reloaded. Resurrections tomorrow.

I fear a redesign may be imminent for Juno's outfit...

[woomycritiques543]

Honestly.

People cry and scream about people critiqueing HB or Hazbin for any reason whatsoever-

As if people were dogpilling a “real” person and they were “defending” them or feeling exhausted and sad that so many people are “unjustifyngly hateful” towards a real person by constantly sending bad faith criticism towards them-

When Hazbin and Helluva Boss characters….

ARE NOT REAL!

So if people want to say “Stolas is a bad person!” or “HB should have been written better” is that some “harassment you need to fight against!”?

No, because Stolas is NOT REAL!

He’s fictional, he’s a drawing with directions written by a person on a laptop! People are allowed to supposedly “dogpile” a cartoon show with fictional characters by pointing out plot issues to help themselves or other writers improve so they can try to write well-

Because that cartoon- is NOT A PERSON!

It’s a drawing on a piece of paper!

So do people need to go private as if they were wanting to dogpile a real person with insults and harassment? No, because in reality, those people are talking about not some human being they shouldn’t dogpile, but making a critique about FICTIONAL CHARACTERS!

It’s so fucking funny, because people will be saying mostly non-hateful critique while people in Hazbin or HB’s fandom will dogpile people with comments like “YOU NEVER DESERVED YOUR FOLLOWERS!” or “YOU’RE A [insert ableist comment here] or will be posting about how “criticism is bad don’t hawass my blorbos!”…. as a criticism post, towards the criticism… which is still criticism. Which makes said posts a complete waste of time, because it’s not even something important to talk about it’s just some random people disliking a cartoon clown! You really can just block and move on, hell, if anything causes you genuine distress- move on, dont harass people over material things such as “but I like this character!” or “it’s my favorite show!” or it just comes off as being selfish.

Being able to handle any different opinion at all is called being an adult. I swear these people wouldnt have been able to survive being one of the creators critiqued for the Sonic movie trailer.

-and you know what happened with that trailer?

People saw it. critiqued it. clowned on a fictional character, gave him redesigns: aka the exact thing the non-stans have been doing with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss since day one!

-and instead of pitching a fit about these people being "HATERS!" to "GO WATCH SOMETHING ELSE!" or "GOOD WRITERS DONT CRITICIZE OTHER WRITERS OWO!" the creators accepted the criticism, and gave movie sonic a redesign! The sonic movie improved and became 100+ million dollar hit! In fact, the film got 100+ viewers and made even more money in it's sequel!

While Vivziepop is slowly losing large sums of money because she lets her fans harass people over SIMPLE criticism. Same for her accociated that do the same. -and though the softcore porn will still bring in viewers temporarily, eventually they get bored of it due to the badly written plot and lack of plot direction and world building... and move onto Pornhub. In 9 days, the last episode had over 13 million, while for this episode, it has only 8 million and got only 1 million in a 6+ hours while episode 3 got FIVE MILLION in about six hours!

While anyone who just wanted a plot moves on immediatly after seeing just ONE episode, which is why HB has been losing over 9 mil viewers since day ONE! It’s just now noticeable because season two is causing them to lose viewers even FASTER and the losses have now added up a TON! Over 30 mil!, so you know what harassing people over basic feedback does? It makes you lose respect-

-AND MONEY!

So you either be a decent human to your fans, or you lose a dime!

It’s not kindergarten where you can cry about a kid liking the blur crayon and not the one you have, and it still be acceptable behavior. You’re an adult, most of you are even nearing your thirties yet here you are, excusing transphobia, ableism, and using whether people like a cartoon or not to fuel your bigotry and use that as a chance to harass them, or sending dogpiling or death threats over any critique at all. You cant force someone to like something, that’s just being a hateful asshole, not a “positive and nice fan!” when you’re bashing your keyboard with dogpilling and slurs towards random people you’ve never even met before.

Saying critique out of good faith and love for a show or to help other writers doesn’t make you a “hater” for doing it. A “hater” is being-

HATEFUL!

-as in dogpiling, harassment through public slander, and threatening people, aka what the standom has been doing since day one:

Being a HATER!

[girlbossminerva]

MERMAID HEEL GUILD SALT

Aside from all the other guilds, Mermaid Heel is a guild that only accepts those of the female gender as said by Millianna who said those two (Sho, and Wally) couldn't join even if they wanted to, and men acting as women would possibly fuck up the guild's reputation, honestly the feeling of an all girls guild just gives me life, maybe even fanfic ideas but aside from that.

These characters aren't all that needed or should I say are just around for Mashima to say he believes in feminism, he has another concept as to what feminism is.

One of the girls who is chubby, has the ability to... change her body with her gravity magic into the same body template used for all the others girls, and says, "Don't underestimate chubby power."

"Uh, you ain't even chubby in this form..." - Me.

Arana Webb, should have just been a spider girl, fast asf reflexes and a nice sense of style, but... oh god, oneshot, and shes out???

Where is y'all guild master??

Millianna got bigger tiddies, that's it. And a hoe-ified outfit, sorry if it sounds rude but her outfit before the seven year shit.

Kagura... WHERE'D YOU EVEN COME FROM???

And the little one, can barely remember her name uhh, guess your alright...

As a concept mermaid heel can be interesting to explore specially when, like me, you headcanon it being a sapphic only/majority guild but yeah, It's just Mashima kind of going "yes, I'm a feminist, now stop looking i how i overly sexualize every single female character under the sun." And just like most characters introduced in the gmg they don't get enough time to develop properly and fully outside of like kagura, which is debatable.

The chubby girl is Risley and FUCK DO I HATE THE WAY HER MAGIC WORKS. IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE, IF IT'S GRAVITY MAGIC AND IT TURNS HER SKINNY DOES THAT MEAN HER ENTIRE BODY IS BEING FORCED TO BE UNDER MASSIVE GRAVITATIONAL PRESSURE OR SOMETHING?? HOW DO HER ORGANS SURVIVE THAT?? It makes no sense, he should just admit that he hates fat people

Araña is my niche beloved actually, i have created her entire characterization in my head. First of all she's Hispanic (dominicana), second she's one of those people who are so chill that you can't help but also feel relaxed in her presence, third she likes crocheting and makes sweaters for her friends, and fourth she has a collection of pet spiders plus a prying mantis. Also yes, she's basically spiderman and she would have lasted longer in that damn battle.

I actually kind of redesigned millianna's outfit a while back, thought I did trace the oficial art cause my drawing skills are minimal. Is it great? No, but it does have more personality than the literal underwear she's put on post-time skip. And the little one that has farm girl vibes is Beth, she honestly is just there cause the teams are meant to have 5 people in them.

Now Kagura I do love, mostly because she's too gay to function when around Erza and I do love me some sword ladies, but thinking about her role in the story, she does suffer from the "not enough time to develop this" issue. She's just suddenly popped into the universe to kind of acknowledge again Jellal's crimes (which, is it necessary if that is all his character is about?) and half-heartedly attempt to talk about them but yeah, it was fucking stupid that suddenly simon had a sister, it would've made more sense if she was one of the enslaved kids or something.

[dr-astormylasthurrah]

DR:ASLH AMA (10/21/2020)

so today i decided to sit down and answer a whole bunch of questions on discord!

this DOES contain spoilers up through the end of ch5, just a warning! if you’re on mobile i’m so sorry.

Who is your favorite character?

THAT IS THE MEANEST QUESTION YOU COULD EVER ASK DID YOU KNOW THIS. This varies a lot depending on the day but usually... tied Chiyo/Tatsumaru. I love them both so much. I think Ryouji's my favorite to write, though. If ASLH were someone else's story, I think my favorite would undeniably be Chiyo, because I'm nearly always biased towards protagonists.

What’s been the most enjoyable part of the story process? Why?

Honestly? Getting to see how people react to it. It's the validation luv. Maybe it's selfish, but I really do like seeing how people are affected by my work LOL.

who is on what side of the pineapple on pizza discourse?

Likes it: Amal, Kanemori, Claude, Aster Neutral: Tristan, Tatsumaru, Sentarou Hates it: Ryouji, Chiyo, Ririka, Brendan Doesn't like pizza: Tiana, Hirono, Alexei, Tsukino, Iris Ryouji, Chiyo, and Ririka make fun of Amal.

For the trials of aslh, which trial has been your favorite so far? In terms of planning the case itself, plot beats, character developments, anything really. But which one still makes you lose it when you think about it.

That's a tough one, I don't like writing trials. I liked the structure of ch3, though. The way that the trial stops being "who killed Amal" and instead becomes "who is Aster". The Tatsu POV. The story title drop. And the way the execution just wrecks everything, immediately? Yeah, vibes.

I also feel like ch4's trial deserves a special mention because of how I wrote it while I was sick with the flu, and yet if you ask me that was still probably the most emotionally intense trial- wait I forgot ch2- and ch5- y'know what, forget it. At least it's on par!

If you could change anything about aslh on any level, what would it be & why?

In general, I think it needed more planning. I'm a very on-the-fly planner and writer, but there were a lot of unknowns I didn't consider until late-game that made it hard to bring up and resolve cleanly. It could also probably have used a little bit more clarity with regards to the lore - things like "how does the memory replacement work" weren't decided until super late in the project. I didn't have a backstory for Tatsu until I wrote ch2 or ch3, so before that point their scars were much less extensive and I think they were cut-shaped instead of burns? That was kind of important for at least continuity's sake, and it irks me.

Also, Hirono deserved better. I didn't plan out her arc as extensively as the others (she was, pre-story, the last survivor to be locked and she had traded with Kanemori), so she sort of stagnated in the story. Which wasn't a bad thing, because not everyone's going to get shoved off a balcony or watch their friend get shot, but it kind of sucks that the most "defining" moment she had was that Ririka and Iris died, neither of which she actually witnessed, or the name confession in ch4 trial which kind of got brushed over. Like all the rest of the survivors have Big Defining Moments, except her.

To be honest, ASLH is the first huge writing project I've ever completed, so there's a lot of things I could have done better. But it was also the first huge writing project I've ever completed, so I'm cutting myself some slack there.

What's your philosophy, or even your strategy when it comes to character design? What do you go for first or emphasize, where do you think you could experiment more?

Most of my designs are based around a core "ooh I want to try this thing". Sometimes I take character inspirations, sometimes it's a cool garment, sometimes I'm just redesigning characters. I mostly emphasize clothing, patterns, and colors, but I also reuse a lot of the same clothing styles and patterns. I could definitely experiment more with shape language and silhouette - usually, that's like the last thing I think about, but one of the more important things to have in an ensemble cast. Mostly, though, I just like drawing clothes.

What do you think is the crowning moment of aslh? Like if someone asked you what would be a moment that gets to the heart of the story the most. What would it be?

DEFINITELY the ch5 execution. Like, the emotional resonance? The narration shift? The drama of it all? Peak ASLHcore.

what factored most into your decision-making progress? why did you decide this death order and this mastermind(s)?

My decision making process is entirely me sitting in a fugue state mumbling out details that I need to fix and then sporadically sitting bolt upright and screaming a parallel or tangent I've pieced together.

The mastermind question is easier to put together - I'd always had in mind that this was going to be a revenge game, and that one mastermind was so difficult to take seriously it wasn't even funny and that the other decided to bail halfway through. So I built the characters around that. The points I usually pay attention to with fangan planning (these days) are: ch1 is to establish the status quo and tone of the story, ch3 is to overturn the status quo, and ch5 forces ch6 to happen. So the ch3 case revolved around Sen dying, and then I was like "how can I fuck up the status quo more" and killed Amal and Aster too.

The biggest factor in my decision making process is "what would be really cool". I tend to make a lot of decisions that fuck up the structure of what a fangan "should" be because I think it goes hard as hell when we throw out rules that the characters are unaware of anyway.

was there a draft of aslh that looks drastically different from what we ended up with?

Great question, and fuck you for reminding me!

ASLH actually started as a bullet point fangan called What Tempestuous Despair. It was a much more international cast until I was like "fangans are supposed to be mostly Japanese casts!" and changed a bunch of characters' nationalities, which in hindsight was dumb. Ririka, Kanemori, Tsukino, and Iris were victims of this. Also Amal was the protagonist and I am SO GLAD that didn't stick they are SO DIFFICULT to write the POV from.

I've spoken on a few occasions about how the cast itself changed, and I never got around to plotting out arcs (other than "Amal learns to trust people and allows themself to truly grieve Rin after holding everyone at length for so long"), but some assorted things:

The cast had a bunch of characters who were swapped out. Included in this tally are Rin Matsumoto (whose personality was recycled into Hisaichi, Ryouji's cousin, and their name was recycled into Shuichi's school friend), Leon Mercury Kahahawai (who’s in CYAH), Haywire Asturias, Puck Ganka (who’s also in CYAH), a few characters/designs who I ended up giving away... And also Hayato Kikuchi.

Iris was always a killer, because I really wanted her to have a downfall-that-wasn't-a-downfall-but-rather-a-reflection-of-the-true-self arc. This was always a lategame case so I'd have time to establish her as terrible. Originally, she killed Leon.

Tiana was also always a killer. I think he killed Hayato via electrocution, so as you can tell that's always been around in some form or another.

(Tristan killing Chiyo in ch5 in the current version, btw, was specifically to mirror Tiana's murder. While Tiana killed to get themself out of the KG, Tristan killed to get everyone else out.)

who was considered for mastermind throughout making aslh? what would their reasons have been?

The masterminds have never changed, except that the characters for them didn't exist back in WTD. But the personalities of the characters they replaced were about 1:1 anyway, so yeah basically they've never changed.

what is one thing you really loved about the beta and what is one thing you really hated about the beta

One thing I really loved about the beta was the ch3 case (which I've spoken about at length before), but other than that... honestly Tiana? Tiana's the one character that I had fully developed as of WTD, they just sprung into my head completely materialized. Their entire personality and design somehow stayed the same since conceptualization.

One thing I really hated? I would say "all of it", but specifically, we don't talk about white Tristan. That was so bad. I was trying so hard to design him so that he'd look nonthreatening and I was like "why is this so hard" and then I changed his ethnicity and I was like "oh right, white gamer boy characters just have cursed energies" and moved on with my life.

what would be an ideal day for tiana murdock. what would make them happy.

An ideal day is honestly one where they get a lot done. They're not one to relax or know what to do with free time, but they get a lot of satisfaction out of being productive, so if they manage to finish a lot of work and not end up exhausted? They're happy. They've probably gotta work on learning to enjoy their free time. They do like traveling, though, and- oh my god I should make them friends with Tsukino.

What would the cast's careers be if they lived to be adults?

Chiyo: Elementary school teacher and scifi author! Really wish I'd leaned more into the fact that she loves scifi, honestly. Amal: Journalist, probably, except they'd actually take classes in it this time instead of just writing op-eds constantly Tatsumaru: LIBRARIAN TATSU TRUE ENDING!!! Sentarou: Freelance pianist/composer. I have this whole headverse where he and Alexei are somehow friends with Claude, and together they plot to kill Enji Sekisada. Or Claude and Alexei plot to kill Enji and Sen sits there with his head in his hands. Iris: In universes where she's able to reconcile with academia, she works in ecology + chemistry. In universes where she doesn't, she's a florist. Aster: SERIOUSLY depends on the AU because every time I try to put Aster in a normal AU they're different. Jokes about becoming a flight attendant to travel with Tsukino. Claude: Secretary. No, seriously. May have something to do with killing Enji Sekisada. Hirono: Photojournalist! Photography reminds her of Ekuko. :') Alexei: Veterinary assistant for a specialized bird clinic Tsukino: Pilot, obviously Brendan: Mechanical engineer but sometime around age 30 has enough stress to just quit and become a college professor instead. Tiana: Museum docent, he's coworkers with Laurent Sinclair thanks Ryouji: He's... not sure. In normal AUs does take up food service for a while before getting uncomfortable with his family and quitting. In ASLH canon, he skips this step and goes into law with the intent of helping other killing game survivors sort out their lives. Tristan: Web designer, still makes a few games on the side with his friends. Mostly point and clicks because he ain't about this life Kanemori: Volleyball coach, because he knows a lot more about that than soccer honestly

what part of aslh was the hardest to write?

Deadly life. Always. I can crank the chapters out really fast, but I hate the case part of fangans and they're painful to plan.

For each case, what is your out of universe reason for wanting each person to die when? Like not counting the motives or anything, but why you wanted each person to die then?

- Brendan: He was the OC I had the longest. He had to die. Goodbye you little shit. - Kanemori: He was actually a survivor originally, and Hirono was the ch1 killer for the same "OC longevity" reason but then I realized I don't have anything for Kanemori to do. So... Sorry dude.

- Claude: Y'all ever notice how no one... EVER... puts plot relevant information in ch2s? Anyway. - Tiana: As discussed, they've always been a killer. Putting them as a killer here was a good balance - far enough from ch1 to build up their relationship with Tristan, but also not so far into the story that it conflicts with the general endgame fall-apart-ness.

- Amal, Sentarou, Aster: This case sprung into my head entirely materialized. Like, this was the one that BUILT the story, so it didn't change much. Mostly I just thought it'd be narratively fun to kill off the deuteragonist, the mastermind, AND the ??? in one go. I didn't plan for Chiyal to be a thing so when that became a thing this chapter got better/worse.

- Iris: I always wanted her to be a killer to really expose that "she's not a good person" stuff (she was more of a snake in WTD), but she didn't become a victim until when I was actually writing. She was supposed to have a trial and then I got sick of writing her. Whoops. - Ririka: I had arc ideas for everyone else, and it could have gone either way between Ryouji and Ririka getting that "close to my best friend who is now dead"... in the end it went down to gender balance in survivors. At the time it was Ryouji or Ririka + Kanemori + Tsukino + Tatsumaru, but then once Kanemori got swapped to Hirono just... yeahhh Ririka got stuck in ch4. Sorry. - Alexei: Special shoutout, he was supposed to die in ch4 as just an "oh no this is what happened, how sad" but then it was super narratively unsatisfying and now he's alive.

- Chiyo: For the sake of pain. But like, poignant, meaningful pain. I don't believe in making plot decisions just because they hurt, they've also got to mean something. Considering that a major theme of the story is "death before its time is a complete tragedy", and Chiyo's motifs include death... uh. Yeah... yeah. When it came time to ask myself who'd die in ch5 for this motive, well. I miss Chiyo. - Tristan: Meant to mirror Tiana's killing in ch2, as stated above, had the "selfish kill vs selfless kill" thing. Look if you're going to have a duo in a fangan and don't get to make cool dichotomy/theming what's the POINT. Ended up surviving because when there were only four survivors, there were... really no stakes for the ch6 trial.

- Tatsumaru: I just wanted them to be alive. I didn't know WHY, exactly... I just knew I needed them to live. So. I guess they're alive? Also I thought it'd be really interesting to have a killer protagonist, and a remorseful killer protagonist. - Ryouji: To be honest I didn't have a solid arc for him, aside from Ririka's death I'd decided I was going to figure it out as I went. And I guess I did? I love him. And not gonna lie, since Tatsu became the protagonist and Ryouji's still pissed at them, the perspective/dynamic became VERY INTERESTING. - Tsukino: Originally in beta!ASLH, her schtick was "gilded exterior with a heart of jerk with a hidden, smaller heart of gold" but that didn't transfer over to ASLH itself. Then when I realized "oh shit Tsukino wants to be a hero" it was all over. At first her arc was very "tone yourself down and stop rushing into things" which wasn't... ideal, I think you can still be enthusiastic and upbeat while being mindful and that was not how I had gone about it lol. Fun fact, Tsukino's survived every draft of ASLH, including the beta one - I think she and Amal were closer friends in that. - Hirono: See Kanemori, I just thought she had more survivor potential than him. The problem was that by the time I made the decision to swap them, everyone else was sort of locked by necessity, so Hirono became a survivor by default. Again, I didn't quite have an idea of what she was going to do other than get leeched off of by Iris. Ririka wasn't even part of it, we just had that cooking thing in 2-3 and Ririka was like "this is my problem now" and I was like "what?" so now we're here.

What's everyone's coffee/tea/other preferences?

Coffee: Tiana, Tristan, Brendan Tea: RYOUJI, Tatsumaru, Chiyo, Iris Hot chocolate: Claude, Sentarou Soda: Amal, Ririka Soda but only fruit flavored: Tsukino Water, thanks: Aster, Kanemori, Hirono, Alexei

What was the hardest decision to make, writing wise, for aslh? Like you wanted the story to go one way, but you couldn't force it, or a scene you felt you needed but was difficult to decide upon, anything like that?

Hm... okay see the thing is I'm generally pretty good at writing on the fly so if I make decisions I CAN force them to happen, so there's really not too much that comes to mind. Mostly this happens with trials - I make outlines for my trials and drag my cast along with it. Except they tend to go off-topic, and then I have to drag them back on topic. And sometimes the points don't make sense when you go out of order so I have to ad lib stuff. Ch4 trial was the most off-script one, it was supposed to be a lot slower and made more sense but then the cast just went out of order and I was bonking my head against the wall trying to get it to make sense.

The only real thing I had consistent difficulty with is locations. I did not fucking plan any of this shit and hate making maps so much- oh my god I need to do the ch6 map still.

who would deliberately salt their coffee and who would accidentally do it

Deliberately: Tristan, Tiana, Tsukino, Hirono Accidentally: Kanemori, Amal, Sentarou, Chiyo, Brendan, Iris "Why?": Claude, Alexei, Aster, Tatsumaru, Ryouji, Ririka

[greenninjagal-blog]

Idle Threats

Wow, this was not supposed to be this long, but hopefully it makes up for all the not writing I’ve done for the past month :)

Word Count: 8041

Pairings: Platonic Deceit and Logan. (With background LAMP)

Summary: No one has ever stood up for Dee so he decides to do it himself, in front of the class, in front of the brand new substitute teacher. And he almost regrets it. 

Quick Taglist: @felicianoromano @jemthebookworm @holliberries @stricken-with-clairvoyancy 

Read on AO3 || Master List 

Dante Ethan Ekans hates every single teacher in his school. Three years into his high school career and he had come across every single teacher—every single one of them—and he hated them all. He had sat through every lecture, done every assignment, battled in every single class discussion. He had done everything the school system had asked him to do.

And he is still staring at a low D average in all his classes.

It should have been impossible: the grading system was set up so that as long as students just showed up they were receiving a C grade.

And well, Dante had always been proving the impossible, possible. He had survived his own birth, survived the car crash that killed his father, and survived the worst of his mother’s psychotic tantrums. He had dragged himself to school with bruises on his wrists and broken fingers wrapped messily in old bandages that made his handwriting into an atrocious disgrace just so that he could at least get an education, get a chance at a scholarship, get a chance to leave town.

And he is in his third year of high school, the year most colleges start to look at prospective students, and he is getting a low D average and he couldn’t do a single thing about it.

It’s like the entire teaching staff had unanimously decided “hey, you know that kid whose face is all messed up with the burn marks from the car crash at age six? Let’s just ruin his entire life by grading him unnecessarily harder than everyone else in the school, turning a blind eye to when the other students mess with him, and loudly announcing how he needs to do better on his essays if he wants to get better grades in front of the whole class.”

Dante—and fuck if he hated that name. No one was called Dante anymore—had done everything he could to get his grades up. He studied twice as hard and twice as long as everyone else. He had swallowed his pride and asked the teachers for help (and been told to pay more attention in class) and for extra credit (and been denied). He had tried to argue grades and been sent to the Detention room for vulgar language and an attempted assault on a teacher (which was a blatant lie).

Not to mention that one asshole of a teacher, Mr. Walker, who had told him that not only was make up for females, but his use of cosmetics was an unacceptable cry for attention. Dante then had to stand there in front of the class with his cheeks burning red and his peers snickering as he told the teacher that he wasn’t wearing any make up, and that the burns on his face were the real deal, and that he couldn’t wash it off even if he wanted to.

So Dante Ethan Ekans—Dee for short; Dee was what his friends would call him, if he had any—has no hard feelings when he heard that Mr. Walker had been in a bad car accident and would not be back for the rest of the school year. What a complete shame that would be. How would they ever move on?

Apparently, there’s a substitute coming, one of those long-term ones that only ever dropped by for times of emergency. Dee had overheard the head of nutrition (a sweet, mother-like man that all the lunch ladies adore named Patton Hart) and school resource officer (who Dee doesn’t know the name of and kept far enough away from. He doesn’t need to be any closer to any law enforcers than he already was) talking about the teacher: about how strict he was, about how the kids had no clue what was coming, about how Mr. Hart should redesign the menu with the majority of the student’s favorites because this week was going to be rough with a capital R. They both had laughed after that, and Patton had caught sight of Dee and asked him if he needed anything in the kindest tone Dee had ever heard.

(He had run after that, had run as fast as he could without making it seem like he was running away. The last thing he needs is anymore people to look at him with pity, with cruelty, with smug better-than-you expressions that appeared the second Dee dared act vulnerable. The last thing he needs is to open his mouth and tell the truth.)

Dee isn’t expecting anything amazing to come out of the substitute teacher. He expects it to be another beanpole old lady who snaps anytime someone made a noise and confiscates phones on whim and assigns them all worksheets that were to be done and handed in by the end of the class period, no exceptions.

He’s usually one of the first into the science room because the class he has before it is Math which just down the hall, but he’s barely out of the room when Mrs. Johnston’s shrill voice slices through the student chatter.

“Ekans!” She screeches, “Ekans! A moment!”

It’s not a moment. It’s never just a moment with her. The bell rings and the halls empty and Dee stands in front of the math teacher for another three minutes listening to her tell him that he’s been doing his math the wrong way and if he doesn’t start doing it the way she taught in class she’s going to have to dock him more points (like there’s more to dock him in the first place), regardless of the fact he doesn’t understand the way she’s been teaching and his way is actually based on how a college professor explained it on the YouTube series he looked up for help.

He can see into her classroom, the one that’s filled with obnoxious freshman who are lounging around while they wait for their teacher to be done berating Dee. He can see the way they all point and snicker and make fun of the half of his face he can’t do anything about.

“And now you’ve made me waste time for my next class, Mr. Ekans.” Mrs. Johnston says, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry,” Dee says robotically, and his hands tighten around the strap of his backpack. “It won’t happen again, Ma’am.”

But it’s a lie, because it always happens again.

But it’s a lie, because he’s not really sorry at all.

Because she might have missed the first few minutes of class, but she controlled the rate the students learned. Dee felt his own nails tear into his palm as he opened the door to the classroom where the new substitute was-- the one who’s voice was already droning on about what they were learning, already through the roll call, already letting the whole class know he was not going to tolerate any monkey business at all.

Dee glances at the teacher, who in turn does not break his lecture, but nods to him and to one of the several empty desks in the room. He’s young, nerdy looking, but Dee can’t think of anyone he knows who would have the guts to say it to the man’s face. He had a cold look about him, like he didn’t know how to smile and wasn’t in the mood to learn.

Dee throws himself into the closest empty chair, keeping his head down and tries not to make too much noise when he picks through his backpack for his notebook for the science class.

He’s so focused on not disrupting the teacher, not causing anymore eyes to fall on him, not helping the already terrible opinion the man has of him, that he wasn’t even paying attention to who he was sitting next to until it’s far too late to change seats.

And he finds out when sees another body drape over the desk to his left out of the corner of his eye and Dee freezes on the spot. He’s not hearing a single thing the new teacher says, not hearing whatever he’s mentioning about the quick technical drawing he has on the board, and definitely not hearing the notes he should be taking down. His tongue grates against his teeth as Kyle slides his chair an inch his direction with a weasel-ish expression on his face.

“Hey, Ekans,” Kyle murmurs just loud enough for Dee to hear.

Dee refuses to look at him, but it’s not like he’s seeing anything in front of him either. His fingers squeeze his pencil, and the soles of his feet rest firmly on the ground, like it can keep him from moving at all.

“Ekans,” Kyle says again louder, but not enough to stop the teacher. “The boys and I took some notes for you.”

They aren’t notes. Dee can see the header so neatly written on the top of the paper, so innocently telling him it’s a list of reasons no one likes him and what to do about it (and worse). It’s not original, its not new, and Dee stubbornly refuses to give him the satisfaction of taking it.

Dee can hear the rest of his friends, the idiots, the dicks, and those two girls who never had anything nice to say, snickering behind them and further left. He can see a motion that looks like one of them nudging each other, and he feels the familiar kick of someone’s foot against his chair.

He wants to say he’s used to it.

He doesn’t think lying to himself is healthy.

Lying to everyone else? Yeah, sure, he’s been doing that since middle school. He’s drowned in his fake apologies for things that weren’t his fault and his torn himself apart to appease people who need to feel like they’re better than others just to keep his own mind sane.

Honestly, he’s a little sick of it—all of it. He didn’t ask for his face to be the discolored mess that it was, didn’t ask for his mother to sometimes lose her mind, didn’t ask for everyone around him to be assholes. He remembers, vaguely, the doctor who had treated his burns (one of them?). At six years old, he can’t even put a face or a name to the form, but he can still hear the voice in the back of his mind telling him he’s lucky, so very lucky.

He could have lost an eye. His arm. His life.

Dee hasn’t felt lucky since then.

The foot kicks his chair again, Dee jerks. Someone laughs. The teacher says something about a test with a pointed clip to his tone. They settle down long enough that the teacher turns away and rambles on about the schedule he’s going to keep them on, blah, blah, blah.

Kyle leans over again. “Ekans—”

“Shut up,” Dee hisses. He regrets it a second later. Because there was a metaphorical door there and Dee had just flung it open and allowed Kyle to walk on in.

“Damn Ekans,” Kyle snickers, “You don’t have to be such a little bitch about it. Does your brother know your such a little bitch?”

Dee’s hand tightens on his pencil.

“Maybe we should tell him,” Kyle muses.  Dee doesn’t have to look to know the expression on the other’s face. “He goes to Mind Elementary, right? Just down the road?”

Dee counts backwards from Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.

“It would be super easy just to sit down and have a chat with him. I wonder if he knows how big of a freak his brother is? I bet he’s too stupid to—”

Dee does not make it to six.

“If you so much as look at my brother, I’ll put you in the goddamn hospital,” Dee says.

The room seems to breathe for a second. Dee glares at Kyle and his stupidly pleased weasel face and beady green eyes that look like forest moss eating the carcass of some animal. The room seems to breathe for a second and Dee realizes with a fiery anger it was because no one was speaking.

The teacher had stopped. Which meant that everyone’s attention is on him.

“Mr. Ekans,” The substitute says a hand reaching up to adjust his glasses, and Dee flinches. “Is there something you would like to add to my lecture?”

It wasn’t even fifteen minutes into the class, and the man already knew his name. Kyle grins sharply, smugly. Two of his friends do an underhand five in the seats behind them. Dee thinks he hates everyone in the room at that very moment.

“No,” Dee says, through gritted teeth, “sir.”

The teacher hums. “Interesting, could that be because Mr. Phillips was providing an ample distraction in the middle of my class time?”

That was the moment that Dee realizes he had gone to school with Kyle for three years and had never heard his last name before.

After all, Kyle was every teacher’s favorite. If they didn’t know him from his numerous club activities (drama, art, debate, every honor club you could think of), he often brought them presents on the first day of class and was invited over for dinner every Saturday evening within the first week of class. No one addressed him by his last name.

The substitute teacher didn’t look pleased to be the first. Neither did Kyle.

And frankly, neither did Dee. (Because it wasn’t like it would last. It wasn’t like by tomorrow all of Kyle’s misdeeds would be forgotten and this teacher--this temporary teacher--wouldn’t be wrapped around Kyle’s finger like all the others.) Dee’s stomach clenched at the thought, a bit of envy, jealousy, anger clawing up his throat and making the burns from so long ago itch.

“Well?” The teacher says—and no, Dee checked, he had not written his name on the board. “Mr. Phillips?”

“I was just offering him the notes.” Kyle says, “He came in late. I was trying to be a help and he threatened me!” He looks at his friends who all nod earnestly like Kyle isn’t lying through the skin of his teeth.

“Curious how I do not believe that,” The teacher counters. “This is my classroom, Mr. Phillips. If I thought Mr. Ekans needed notes, I would have provided them to him. Additionally, your actions have caused more harm than good as I am now wasting more of this class’s time, and seeing how this is the last class of the day, I only have your attentions for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes.” He stops for a moment, his eyes darting between Dee and Kyle in a way that Dee does not like.

“Perhaps this is for the best.” He says suddenly, “It would do well to get this out of the way now. Both of you, up here.”

Dee freezes.

Kyle hisses under his breath and heaves himself out of the chair with false gusto. He makes a gesture to his friends that carries a round of giggling up to the front of the room.

“Mr. Ekans,” The teacher says. “That means you, too.”

In no way shape or form is Dee at fault here. He knows he’s not. Kyle and his friends have been picking on him for years and getting away with it and leaving charcoal rocks in Dee’s stomach from every encounter. Standing up feels a lot like striking a match and the entire trek up to the front of the room feels like lowering it to the rocks.

Dee’s face is already burning by the time he side by side with Kyle again. He stares stiffly at the whiteboard, glaring at a smudge of black marker from the last class.

“I am not your normal teacher,” The substitute says. “A lot of the things that were condoned in his class will not be in mine. You will not talk when I talk. You will not be on your phones unless I tell you to. You will not pass notes. You will not make idle threats—”

Dee isn’t sure what comes over him, but that charcoal fire in his stomach explodes outward and engulfs his entire body. For a split second everything turns red, every noise of all the twenty-two other students in the class fades to nothingness, and Dee turns sharply to the side.

Maybe its because Dee had a little bit of hope buries somewhere deep in his mind. Maybe its because he knew that teachers weren’t supposed to pick sides or hold prejudices. Maybe its because Dee spent a whole ten years being “lucky” enough that he survived everything thrown his way just to let another teacher turn a blind eye to the students’ interactions.

Maybe its because Dee was just so very tired of the smug look on Kyle’s face.

His fist connects before anyone realizes he even moved. Kyle yells, and he goes crashing to the floor. Dee’s knuckles pulsate with pain, and he pretty sure he tore the skin off on when it scraped Kyles stupid teeth. Several kids scream.

Dee looks back at the teacher, meeting his somewhat surprised gaze with his own angry one.

“There,” Dee spits, “It’s not an “idle” threat anymore.”

So he finds himself sitting in the front office hands jammed in his pockets and shoulders up to his ears. Part of him wonders if he can fold into himself until nothing exists. The secretary running the phone and letting parents in to pick up their kids, keeps side eyeing him, as if he’s a circus attraction she can’t quite believe is real.

Dee’s head is still ringing with the teachers voice telling him to take the quickly scribbled note and go to the Vice Principal’s office, but the edges of his adrenaline and his anger keep him from feeling the paper cut and the bruising on his knuckles that surely was coming.

He tries to convince himself he’s sorry for doing it, but if Vice Principal Joan tells him to apologize to Kyle in person Dee might have to take a short walk off the roof.

It had felt…good. It had felt great. It had felt a lot like a mistake too.

There was no way he was getting out of this one, no empty promises to do better could make up for assaulting another student. Not to mention that substitute teacher most definitely hated him now, and rightfully was about to join ranks with ever other teacher in the school.

VP Joan was going to suspend him, and then they’ll call Dee’s mother, and then Dee was never going to get into college, and he was never going to leave this town, and he was never going to overcome the scarring on his face that he had been so damn lucky to survive in the first place.

“Dante Ekans,” A voice calls from the hall of offices where all the staff had desks. Dee only recognizes VP Joan because of their face in the school newsletter and sometimes on the papers. They did a lot of fundraisers like kissing a pig if the students raised “X” amount of money, or one dollar to buy a strip of duct tape to tape them to the wall.

Dee goes with them into their office. It feels cluttered, but there is enough space for Dee to sit down and VP Joan to look stressed. Papers, mugs, several action figures Dee vaguely recognizes rest on the desk. There were awards on the walls and teaching certificates along with superhero posters Dee thinks probably aren’t the most professional until he sees it was signed by the cast of the movies.

“So,” The VP says, “Want to tell me what happened?”

The answer is no, Dee does not want to tell them what happened. Because even when Dee tells the truth, even when he lays down his words barren in front of the judges, even when he cries or yells or shows any validating emotion, his scarred face makes him appear less trustworthy. It happened before where Kyle said what he wanted and the teachers decided that must have been what happened and that Dee had lied and made everything up in yet another desperate cry for attention.

So, no, Dee doesn’t want to tell the VP what happened, because he’s so sick of being turned into the bad guy when he’s not. (Okay maybe punching the guy was a bad example here. Maybe Dee just wants to keep himself from digging a bigger grave with this one).

Dee stares at the wood grain in the VP’s desk and lets the silence hold out. It’s comforting in a way.

VP Joan taps their fingers on their side of the desk. If Dee shifts a little he can see the little blue unfolded note that the teacher had sent him with, and although he doesn’t know what it says, Dee knows it probably bad.

Like “Student Ekans interrupted class with a threat against unarmed peer and then acted upon said threat. Suggested course of action is immediate expulsion” bad. Or something worse.

“Mr. Ekans,” VP Joan says, followed by a sigh, “Fuck this shit.”

Dee blinks at the sudden language—language he’s pretty sure is not allowed in the school. Most of his teachers get after him for that (especially the ones who can’t get him with anything else. His last English teacher was a fan of cutting him off mid book discussion whenever he used a swear, until Dee just began to hold his tongue completely.)

“Look, I don’t know what you did that Logan needed you out of the classroom.” VP Joan says, “And I don’t really have any work that a student can do, uh, legally. Why don’t you go see if Patton—uh Mr. Hart to you—needs any help.”

Dee stills, “What?”

VP Joan holds up the blue paper, and the black scrawl that reads “Please entertain Mr. Ekans for the rest of the block” makes Dee’s eyes cross slightly.

“I’m not…in trouble?” Dee says. It sounds like a dream, like saying the words out loud will make the reality crack and fall apart.

“Should you be?” VP Joan asks, “Don’t answer that. Dr. Ackroyd and I go way back, but I’m still surprised he agreed to fill in here for the rest of the year. We need a competent science teacher, so I’ll turn my head to whatever complex puzzle he’s solving.”

Dee doesn’t understand what that means. He really doesn’t care either.

“Don’t forget your bag,” VP Joan says as they usher Dee out of the office and towards the cafeteria where Patton Hart might be found. “I’m sure I’ll see more of you, Mr. Ekans, but until then have a good day.”

It’s ridiculous, Dee thinks, like its part of a dream. Maybe it is? Maybe Dee punched Kyle and Kyle hit him back and he hit his head on the white board marker tray and now he’s hallucinating.

But he doesn’t think hallucinations were this real: he can hear the sound of each teacher teaching, laughter from some of the rooms, and the muttered conversation between two teachers who have a free period this block and don’t spare him a glance. He can hear the sound of the tape ripping as a couple of students hang posters on the walls for Cheerleading tryouts, can feel the sturdiness of the tile floor under his feet as he tries to catch the reflection of the artificial lights on the polish, can smell the lemon cleaner from the trolley outside the bathrooms that signifies they’re being cleaned at the moment.

He finds Patton Hart sitting at the only table left set up in the cafeteria. He’s laughing leaning forward with a bottle of Windex and a rag at his elbows, but it looks like he’s already cleaned everything that needs to be cleaned. Standing next to him is the resource officer, and Dee still doesn’t know the man’s name. It wasn’t like they talked very often. Still, the man looks smug and happy, and absolutely thrilled that he managed to get a laugh from the nutritionist.

Dee slows his pace, a half step for every real step he could be taking when he realizes that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s supposed to say. At best? Mr. Hart would set him up with some busy work to do, like cleaning lunch trays maybe (where there any of those left?). At worse? He’d demand to know why Dee wasn’t in class, and then drag him to said class and Dee would get to be the middle of a commotion all over again. Perhaps it would be better if he ran for the bathrooms and hid there until the end of the day. Then he’d sneak out with the rest of the students, avoid Kyle, pick up his brother, and make it all the way home before anyone stopped him.

His shoe scuffed the ground when he goes to turn around. His heart jumps to his throat, when both the staff members pause to look at him.

“Hey, kiddo!” Mr. Hart says, “You need something?”

The Resource Officer shifts to put his hands on his belt. Dee tries not to watch too intensely. His mouth dries up again, and he tries figure out what combination of English words isn’t going to ruin this chance to walk free of consequences. He hates that he remembers a time when he wasn’t afraid to talk to people, hates that he has to swallow the lump in his throat and fight the urge to stare at his shoes while his fingers tear at his bag’s straps.

“VP Joan,” Dee says finally, “sent me to you.”

“Me?” Mr. Hart blinks, pointing to himself. “Hmm, that’s not normal. Did they say why?”

Answering the question is a straight forward thing: VP Joan said that he had nothing for Dee to do, so he sent him to Mr. Hart. But Dee also knows that will lead the conversation to why he was sent to VP Joan in the first place and he really doesn’t want to tell anyone else how he managed to dodge the repercussions of decking another kid by some type of miracle and have that change.

The silence holds on a second, two, three, too long. Dee’s head drops to stare at his scuffed up converse (an ugly yellow pair that he had stolen from a GoodWill bin in the outer parking lot of a shopping complex late one night two years ago, which he had worn until they were a dusted brown).

“Kiddo?” Mr. Hart asks

The Resource Officer shifts again, “Wait, I know you!” He raises a hand casually turning back to Mr. Hart, and hopefully missing the way Dee’s shoulders tense. “He’s got Walker for last block.”

Mr. Hart claps his hands and turns back to Dee. His eyes sparkle behind his black framed glasses. “Oh, that means you were in Logan’s class! That’s amazing! He’s a great teacher!”

“Hardly!” The Resource Officer scoffs. “Logan probably scared them all out of their minds! He’s the worst!”

“Roman!” Mr. Hart hits him on the arm, “You take that back! Logan is the sweetest teacher this school is ever going to see!”

“Of course, you’d say that, Pat!” The Resource Officer- Roman?- says, “You never had to be tutored by him!” For a man who could probably bench press three “Logan’s”, Dee thought it was a little weird how he shuddered unpleasantly. Although that was not as weird as trying to make sense of what the two adults were talking about.

Honestly he wasn’t sure they were talking about the same person at all: The teacher-- Logan, Dr. Ackroyd (that’s was VP Joan had said right?)-- was stern and stiff and, sure, a little scary, but then again Dee didn’t exactly have stellar experiences with any other adult either. Still he couldn’t see what about him was “the sweetest teacher in this school”.

And the fact that Dee had been in his class for about ten minutes before he was sent right back out. He still wasn’t convinced the teacher wasn’t planning some big, huge, insurmountable class project to give to Dee as a punishment for punching such a nice kid like Kyle.

Mr. Hart stood up from his seat looking directly at Dee, “Come sit down, kiddo! Are you hungry? There’s some left ice cream sandwiches from lunch this week that I’m going to need to throw out before the weekend.”

Dee very much doesn’t know what to do. He’s not sure he nods, but Mr. Hart disappears into the cafeteria kitchen anyway so that Dee and the Resource Officer are left alone. Dee’s fingers ache whenever he moves them, so he takes extra special care to use his non-dominant hand to shrug off his backpack. The burn scars on his forearm and on his shoulder blade work in tandem to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

When he looks up, Resource Officer Roman is staring at him. His brain whirls with something to say, something defensive that will get the adult to keep his comments to himself, and please, please, don’t ask about them. But everything that comes to mind is nasty and ugly and he can’t say it to someone with a taser on their belt.

For a room that could fit upwards three hundred students for lunch, Dee feels trapped and claustrophobic.

“So,” The adult says, “What’s your name?”

“Ekans,” Dee says immediately. He stares down at the table.

“That’s…that’s a terrible name, kid.” The Resource Officer says. “Did your parents pick that one out or--?”

“Dante Ekans,” Dee says sharply, and squeezes his aching fingers tightly because the pressure overrides the pain even if its just for a second.

“Ah! Dante! Like the Poet! Writer of The Divine Comedy!”

Dee sinks lower in his seat, “Yep.” The centuries old text of a guy traveling through hell and purgatory and idolizing a guy that had been dead even longer than him. Like he hadn’t heard that one before. It was just another reason to hate his name.

Mr. Hart chooses that moment to come back, bouncing on the balls of his feet, sliding on the freshly polished floor, and those curls of his dancing. Resource Officer Roman immediately forgets all about Dee and Dante’s Inferno and all those things that adults like to think when they saw him. It’s a relief.

Kinda.

Mr. Hart sits down right next to Dee, ignoring his previous seat completely. Dee’s shoulders bunch up to his ears, he’s sure, and the way his mouth dries out is far from expected. But the man just hands him an ice cream sandwich that the cafeteria sold for a dollar during lunch shifts, and Dee takes it.

(He’s had one before, like once. For his birthday last year where he borrowed a single dollar from his mother’s and bought himself one birthday gift. It had been sticky and too sweet and the chocolate had clung to his fingers and he had thrown half of it out, but Dee had loved it. His mother had screamed when she found the money missing, screamed and tore his hair and Dee hadn’t said a word.)

Dee takes his time unwrapping the treat, part of him upset that if Mr. Hart knew why Dee was there, he wouldn’t be giving him a free ice cream sandwich, part of him wishing desperately he could save it and share it with his brother, part of him wanting to shove the entire thing in his mouth because he deserved it for having put up with this stupid shit for ten years.

“What nothing for me?” Resource Officer Roman asks petulantly.

Mr. Hart smiles at him innocently. “Oh, I have something else for you Ro! It’s just gonna have to wait until after work!”

“Oh yeah?” The Officer smiles, leaning in closer, “And why is that, my dear Pat?”

“Because you can’t eat and work, silly!” Mr. Hart laughs, “What if there’s an emergency? You’d show up all covered in ice cream…!”

Dee takes a large bite of the ice cream sandwich and silently presses “f” to pay respects for the resource officer. The obvious flirting seemed to have absolutely no effect on the man between them, and Dee wasn’t sure if it was the innocent nature of him or if he was trying to let the officer down nicely.

“Ah, my dear Pat,” The Officer says, “Always looking out for me. What would I do without you? Die, surely!”

Mr. Hart laughs, the freckles on his cheeks glow. Dee glances at Resource Officer Roman’s face and is not surprised to see the blatant “smitten” expression. He looks like some anime character seconds before the “heart eyes” started. It’s almost embarrassing. Dee takes another bite of the sandwich.

“Ah, I thought I’d find the three of you here.”

Dee chokes on the bite of the sandwich.

Resource Officer Roman jumps, letting out a yelp that was surprisingly high pitched for a man of his stature. Dee coughs to dislodge a glob of chocolate breading that got stuck  when his throat closed suddenly in a panic. The only one who doesn’t seem a little bit startled by Dr. Logan Ackroyd’s appearance is Patton, who jumps up from his seat and leans forward on the table with literal stars in his eyes.

“Logan!” He cries happily, “It’s been so long!”

“Too Long,” the Substitute teacher agrees, and Dee is uncomfortable with the amount of warmth in his expression—its a stark contrast to how he had looked in the classroom, to how he had looked at Dee. His hand pulses again, his fingers twitching in the pocket he had refused to take it out of since he had sat down.

“Logan,” Resource Officer Roman says, with a sniff of distaste that’s clearly artificial. “I can’t believe they let you back into the country.”

“Roman,” The teacher responds, the warmth sizzling in the air. “Your mother says hello.”

“When did you see my mother?”

“Yesterday, I helped her grocery shop. She called me the son she wished she had.”

The Officer flaps his hands, with a noise that sounds stuck between offended and flabbergasted. Dee feels a bit of the ice cream drip down his palm.

There’s a bizarre feeling in the air, a tension? No that wasn’t right. Dee can’t place the reason for the electricity in the air that the teacher had brought, buzzing and sparking between the three of them. Mr. Hart doesn’t seem to have a bad thing to say which meant that Resource Officer Roman had every right to hate the man at the other end of the table (since he was obviously hitting on Mr. Hart, ugh). But somehow the words and the tone don’t match at all. There’s no jealousy, no thinly vailed hatred that Dee was so adept at noticing.

(If he’s honest, he thinks the Resource Officer is eye fucking the substitute Teacher right there in front of him and that even more terrifying than the alternative.)

“I see you have both entertained Mr. Ekans, here.” The teacher says turning to Dee with a sharp piercing gaze. Dee stomach drops out.

Here it is. End times. Dee finds himself sinking backwards like he can hide in from the words that are coming. The burns on his shoulders sting with a phantom pain that’s all too familiar, and not at all real. He stares at the half melted ice cream mess in his hand because it’s easier than meeting the accusatory look of his teacher who was going to hold him accountable for injuring the “perfect” student.

“Don’t you have a class to teach, Calculator Watch?” Resource Officer Roman says, “Unless you murdered them all already. Bored them to death at fourteen! Tragic!”

“Your snide comments have no equal, Prince.” The Teacher shoots back, “They are sixteen and seventeen, and I left them for a mere moment to talk to Mr. Ekans. They believe I am picking up more worksheets for them to do in the coming weeks.”

No one says anything for a second, and Dee feels it in his bones the way the attention shifts. All three adults are looking at him, and he feels the need to defend himself in any way that’s possible. What could he say? That Kyle was a douche? A bully? Like any of them would believe that. Dee was the one who had threatened and then assaulted the other. Not to mention he looked like the bad guy in everyone’s stories. Short of the fangs, he was the monster that hid under kids’ beds.

(And he wasn’t thinking that just because once he had seen several of his brother’s friends run off screaming as he approached him in the pick up area of the elementary school, because he couldn’t blame a couple eight-year-olds for being scared.)

Dee’s mouth is halfway open with some half baked, insincere apology he doesn’t mean and hates to say when Dr. Ackroyd speaks.

“I came to ask how your hand was fairing.”

Mr. Hart’s head tilts to the side. Dee glares at the other side of the room and wishes he had slid into the restroom when he had the chance to. Cowardly? Maybe. But he’s never met anyone who liked facing consequences either.

“Kiddo?” Mr. Hart says. “What happened?” He sits back down, causing the table to shake and Dee to squeeze the rest of the ice cream from between the chocolate breading and onto the table.

“There was an altercation in my class,” Dr. Ackroyd says. “Mr. Ekans ended up punching another student.”

“Oh dear!” Mr. Hart cries, and Dee for the life of him can’t figure out why he suddenly grabs the rag at his elbows and gently cups the ice cream mess that is his out-reached hand. It’s the wrong hand, but Dee’s brain short circuits in the second their hands touch. (He’s not sure why that happened either and refuses to give a second to think about it.) Why was Mr. Hart trying to help him? Didn’t he see that Dee was the villain making threats and acting on them?

“I didn’t even notice! Are you alright? Do you need ice? A bandaid?”

“Am I gonna have to write a report for this one?” Resource Officer Roman groans, “Why are you trying to give me extra homework again, Logan? We graduated years ago!”

“If I remember correctly, you got off a minute and a half ago, Roman,” the Teacher says, placing himself in the seat directly across from Dee, “So therefore, no, you will not have to write an incident report for this event. Additionally, those extra homeworks were the reason you graduated at all.”

Dee glances at the clock in the corner, surprised to see there’s still twenty minutes of class left. Did the Resource Officer really get off early? Dee had never heard of that, but then again, he had never cared before either.

“It’s the other hand, Patton.” The teacher continues.

Dee gets the feeling he’s being analyzed. Mr. Hart coaxes Dee’s other arm from his pocket, and it stings where the lip of his jean pocket rips over his knuckles. He has to turn so that Mr. Hart can look at his fingers and the black nail polish on his nails where his mother hadn’t been able to scrub it off. But it’s turning away from Dr. Ackroyd and his calculated stare and for that Dee is grateful. He hides in his shoulder.

“Mr. Ekans,” The teacher says, “Might I inquire what possessed you to acquaint Mr. Phillips with your fist in the middle of my class?”

The word “no” is at the top of Dee’s tongue, clicking against his front teeth valiantly, although the silence is preferable. Somehow, he doesn’t think he could win a game of silence against the gaze of the teacher. Somehow the silence seems much more dangerous than speaking the truth.

But before it gets out, the Resource officer is suddenly right next to them, “Did you just say he punched Phillips? Like Kyle Phillips?”

Dee doesn’t have time to even panic.

The man is already turning to him a grin lighting up three-fourths of his face. “It’s Official, Dante Ekans! You’re my new favorite student!”

“Roman!” Mr. Hart says, “You can’t pick favorites! Kyle is--”

The Officer leans back with a scoff, “I’ll stop you there, my beloved baker! I had to hold you back from physically fighting his mom at the last PTA meeting!”

“Yeah but—”

“You wanted to burn their house down!”

Mr. Hart sticks his tongue in his cheek and bites it. “Their entire family is just so awful to everyone.”

Dee imagines what it would be like if Mr. Hart had burned down their house, if Kyle had lost his dad, if Kyle had been just as disfigured at Dee was. He hates it, he hates the smug feeling in his stomach, because he knew better than anyone how much life sucked and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Shouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Dee hisses where Mr. Hart’s rag rubs over his knuckles. The scraps were red, but at least it didn’t look like they were bleeding. He must have ripped the first couple layers of skin off, but that’s all.

Dee stares off in a direction where no one else was. It was easier than looking at the adults. The words caught in his throat, warbled and stuttered and barely more than a mumble.

“He started it.”

Did he sound like a five year old? Yes. Most definitely. Absolutely.

“I see,” the teacher says. He folds his hands deliberately in front of himself, in a fluid motion that Dee watches like a hawk without turning his head back. The tone gives him pause, because Dee can’t find any amusement in it, any hint that this new teacher is just humoring him because he wants a laugh or why-ever any of the teachers that ever listen to him do.

“I assumed as much from his attitude during my class. I’ve already set aside time to speak to him and his mother about his inexcusable behavior.”

Dee freezes as the teacher goes on to talk about proper class etiquette. He doesn’t hear a word after “inexcusable”. It makes his chest hurt, his eyes burn, and his scars itch. Its uncomfortable, its wrong, its different. Because no one has ever called Kyle’s behavior bad. The floaty feeling from earlier comes back (without him realizing it had been gone) and Dee is certain that this is somehow a twisted dream.

A twisted dream he wants so bad to be reality. A dream that Dee doesn’t want to wake from.

“—of course. If instances continue at this pace I would be obligated to—”

“You’re serious.”

The words plop out of Dee’s mouth and land on the table between him and the teacher in some type of ugly blob. He hadn’t meant for it to be so weak, so pathetic, but his tone to wobble somewhere between the four syllables just so much that the teacher’s mouth snapped shut and Mr. Hart’s gentle hands paused from examining his knuckles. Dee wants to take it back, wants to yank the words from the air and pretend they were never there.

Dr. Ackroyd adjusts his glasses and their eyes meet for the first time. Dee thinks it’s a lot like staring into the galaxy, into the great expanse, and knowing that it was also staring back at him.

“I’m very serious. I wear a necktie.”

It sounds like a joke when he says it, and maybe there’s a flicker of his lips that tells Dee is alright to laugh at it.

Dee feels like crying instead.

“I think you’ll find I’m not like your other teachers, Mr. Ekans.”

Mr. Hart smiles at that, smiles the whole conversation, smiles like the sun is shining and the birds are singing and global warming isn’t gonna end all life on Earth by the time Dee is thirty. He lets go of Dee’s injured hand and Dee finds he misses the warmth and the gentle touch. “I have some bandages in the back. Ro, can you help me?”

The Resource Officer makes some noise but the nutritionist takes him by the wrist and drags him into the kitchens. Dee thinks the man is too gay to have really protested anyway.

The teacher and him sit silently as the echoes of their voices, of Mr. Hart’s laughter fades until its just them in their own little untouchable bubble.

“Mr. Walker, your previous science teacher, left me several notes about his classes.” Dr. Ackroyd says, “As well as the grades.”

Dee itches the burns on his neck, a little angrily. He doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. It’s midway through the year and there’s very little he can do to bring his grade up as far as it needs to go for science alone. Not to mention English, Mathematics, and History.

“He mentioned that I might find you to be a difficult student, but I disagree with that assessment.” Dr. Ackroyd prompts Dee to look at him again, “I get the impression you are a very bright student, Mr. Ekans, and very few people choose to see that part of you. I’ve met a lot of students in my time teaching in the United States and abroad. Most of them get by with less than a fourth of the effort than you’ve most likely put in. However, I can’t change the grades that your teacher has already declared for you.”

He pauses, “I can however enter a grade that hasn’t been posted yet.”

Dee dares to let his chest fill with that unfamiliar feeling, that whimsy mystical emotion everyone called hope.

“As it happens, you have a 62.45 percentage in this class as of right now. Mr. Walker was notoriously slacking when he entered any of your grades, so many of your grades are resulting zeroes from missing work, including the midterm from last week.”

The midterm that Dee had finished five whole minutes before everyone else and handed into to Mr. Walker directly. The one that he’s sure the teacher had finished grading before the end of school bells had rung.

Dee hangs on the teacher’s words, too desperate for the chance Dr. Ackroyd was offering to be embarrassed about how pathetic he was acting. He was starving and this ridiculous teacher was dropping him breadcrumbs.

“So, if you are open to recreating the work that has gone missing and putting time aside to retake a midterm I will provide, I would be more than happy to enter in the missing grades.”

“You’d…you’d do that?”

Dr. Ackroyd seems surprise that Dee would even have to ask.

“Of course. I see no reason to withhold grades as long as you put in the effort, Mr. Ekans.”

Dee doesn’t care if it’s a dream. If its fake. His knuckles hurt, his chest constricts, he’s not sure he can make words even if his life depended on it. A lump forms in his throat, thick and heavy and dangerous. Because that’s all he’s wanted, all he’s needed since he was six: just someone to treat him like everyone else.

Not Lucky. Not pitiful. Just Dee, by himself, putting in the effort for the education he needed.

“Just please, if you could refrain from making anymore, ah, serious threats against the rest of the student populace.”

And that’s all it takes for him to break.

Mr. Hart comes back hand in hand with Resource Officer Roman and they find Dee attempting to forcibly remove an onslaught of tears from his face before the bell rings to release the students, and Dr. Ackroyd appearing as incredibly uncomfortable as possible as a slew of confused apologies tumble from his mouth.

And all either of them do is smile.

Dante Ethan Ekans hated every single teacher in his high school.

(Except one. And a Resource Officer. And a Nutritionist.)

[Sequel]

[b0ne-marrow]

Valorverse - Ships

Welp. I wanted to doodle one of the "Crack"ships I came up with after watching the recent MLP movie, and started a doodle page where I was gonna add more ships and stuff that came to mind, as I saw another Crack-ish ship that I liked and debated on as well lol I moved some doodles and made them their own drawings (The Ocellus drawing I posted recently was one of them for example) and struggled to fill the page but I remembered one of the old ships I touched upon LOL. And without further ado I shall get to the ships. 1. Derpy x Kerfuffle This is the crackship I am talking about above, lol. I don't know where it came from, but I just find this ship dynamic really sweet. Both Kerfuffle and Derpy are adorable rays of sunshine and I only imagine their relationship as a goo-y mushy mess, lol. They met when Kerfuffle came to Ponyville to visit Rarity's boutique after the Rainbow Roadtrip movie. She had to mail something out while visiting and they just hit it off right off the bat. It didn't get romantic for a while, but they were always close, bonding over their cheery demeanors and shared (But vastly different) experiences as disabled ponies. I imagine Derpy to be really romantic and kinda like a Crow/Raven, finding little things that she loves and reminds her of Kerfuffle and giving them to her. (Also I struggled with Kerfuffle's leg on this so I'm sorry if it looks off. it was hard to translate it into my style of drawing legs, plus I redesigned it a bit lol. 2. Marble Pie x Sugar Belle Now this one came kinda out of nowhere lol. It was kinda spawned from a lovely headcanon drawing piece done by :iconItsTechTock: itsTechTock that you can see here!: https://www.deviantart.com/itstechtock/art/HC-Sweet-As-Pie-808490066 They, of course, didn't ship them and talks about something completely different, but my brain started thinking about them and thought they'd be really cute together actually, lol. I feel like in the Valorverse they met through Big mac, both of them being his exes. Sugar Belle just adores how shy Marble is, even though she's trying to help her overcome that. 3. Fluery Heart x Ocellus I saw this ship (Well, Flurry Heart. Fluery's the Valoverse's version of Flurry) in an adorable drawing you can see here: https://www.deviantart.com/peachydust/art/AU-NextGen-Carina-806723551 and I've liked it since, though I have a bit of qualms with it pertaining to my nextgen. (Mainly the age gap if I'm going to be right honest but age gap doesn't necessarily mean youKnowWhat's going on.) Fluery and Ocellus met on "official" princess duties. Princess Cadence has done all she can to strengthen the bond between Changelings and Ponies since the war broke out, and because of that there's been a lot of meetings between them and other leaders around the world. Since Fluery and Skyla are both technically princesses, she would bring them along (as well as her other children occasionally) with her. For similar reasons, Thorax and Chrysalis would bring Ocellus with them. Not really being a part of the political aspects of being Princesses, Fluery, Skyla, and Ocellus would often wander off and go do something else while the adults talked things through, though it took a while for Fluery to be interested in what they did. (I'll post a writing here at some point about that.) Soon enough they would become the closest friends, even making time to go see and talk to each other outside of meetings. Though Skyla didn't go with them outside of the meetings, and eventually had to attend them herself, she was the big sister of the group making sure they didn't get in too much trouble, lol. One day, as they're hanging out, Fluery happens to drop a particuarly funny joke that gets Ocellus really laughing, and she kinda realizes that wow... she's really cute when she does that and oh... she kinda maybe possibly has a crush on her BFF. Ah shit. Skyla totally gives her shit about it though cuz she knew since the beginning lol. I might keep this just a crush on Fluery's end, Ocellus not really picking up on it or not repricating her feelings. I'm not sure though. I do at least think it'd be hilarious if Ocellus didn't pick up on it at first, lol. 4. Pharynx x Tymbal(?), Feelings Forum Changeling I kinda hinted at this one in the Ocellus drawing lol. So I saw it in a stamp: https://www.deviantart.com/cascayd/art/Pharynx-x-Feelings-Forum-Changeling-Stamp-776221176 and at first, I just found it weird and not really my ship tbh but it really started growing on me after rewatching the episode they're in the last few days, lol. Total grumpy pants that's completely soft for a ray of sunshine/calm gentle person is just a trope I like lol. Tymbal knew Pharynx before the hive transformed and they were kinda close then. She wasn't nearly as hippy-ish and theraputic as she is now though, and was actually a hardcore fighter herself. She identified as a guy before the transformation mainly because most Changeling drones/guards did. She and him were great together in battle and were buds because of it. It broke her heart to see her friend struggle so much with the new changes in the hive, wishing she knew how to help besides with the Feelings Forum and Art classes that he hated. She really couldn't reach him until after his transformation. After that, Pharynx seemed to open himself up to getting help and and participting in other things within the hive. Only then was she really able to help, getting him to vent out his feelings in a more healthy way and particpate in the creative art classes there are. Suddenly, Pharynx finds that the icky and yucky feelings and frilly bullshit the changelings did together were a lot more tolerable when he did them with people he loved and was friends with. and eventually, with all the time they've spent together, they fall in love. and Pharynx fucking HATES it and how she makes him feel. He started getting feelings for her first, and he really didn't cope with them well at all. He'd kinda lash out at her, not being able to handle his emotions, but he eventually settled down and they get together with a decently healthy relationship. He still gets flustered though, she just melts his heart lol. 5. Pistachio x Star Tracker Honestly, I was just looking to ship someone with Pistachio. I think their nerdy attitudes combine really well together too lol. Some of Star Tracker's favorite moments with Pistachio are when he starts gushing about fashion or something else he's passionate about, and he just keeps blabbing and Blabbing and BLABBING and will talk to him about it for hours. He just loves listening to him and thinks it's adorable and cute to see how long he'll go. Being a guard when he grows up, Star really appreciates the little things and time they spend together. I guess this is when they're younger and first figuring their feelings out. Anyways i'm like brain dead I'm so tired so I'm going to bed, lol. I really hope you enjoy this doodle. Adopts should be coming next!

Posted using PostyBirb

[glassedplanets]

I love your AU redesigns for Suigetsu and Jugo, particularly Jugo. I mean, Kishimoto drew all of Taka very attractive (and it was notable how much more skilled their drawing is in the manga compared to the lukewarm drawing from Pierrot) but lbh he didn't put much thought into Jugo's outfit lol All these outfits are making me butthurt abt adult Sasuke's redesign (we're not even talking about Nart cuz they changed his FACE). Do you have any ideas of what you'd have liked for adult Sasuke's outfit?

taka’s post-series designs are some of the best, honestly, and i’m 100% biased because the shaved sides look for jugo AND karin is just (chef’s kiss)

you’re opening up a can o’ worms here and i’m sorry in advance, but – as far as sasuke’s adult design goes, imo it’s the lesser of two evils between him and naruto. (naruto’s is just a fucking tragedy. i hope whoever vetoed the absolutely fantastic (logical! sensical!) tales of a gutsy ninja design steps on a lego this week.) but! but. i have bones to pick.

the first major bone i have to pick with it is that it’s.. how you say.. fucking bougie. a VEST? a fucking COLLARED SHIRT? listen, sasuke is THE drama queen of the series and i say this with as much love as possible, but honestly, truly, frankly, all of his outfits have been stunningly pragmatic. forgive me for citing tvt here (i will do this only once more in this post) but they have a point:

even with the tiddies out shirt, it’s sensible. there’s a reason. he switches to a sleeveless shirt between killing orochimaru and the fight with itachi for the same reason. he goes back to simpler a short-sleeve shirt through the end of the series, similar to what he wore as a kid. it is FLAT OUT RIDICULOUS that uchiha “says exactly as many words as necessary” sasuke would choose to wear something as superfluous as a collared vest and a shirt. imo the general spirit of the design is alright – darker colors, purples, long sleeves, cloak – but get this fucking man a sensible shirt for once in his life. for ONCE. i honest to god like his fucking hobo cloak design more than the post-series/boruto design because it is ruthlessly pragmatic. also, i’m a huge fan of those armguards he wore at the start of shippuden, because they look fantastic. those can come back any day as far as i’m concerned. (gee, i wonder why i put them on his redesign for the au.)

moving on to my second and much pettier bone to pick, i hate. i HATE where he keeps his sword. this is one hundred percent a personal bias thing, because while the other normal kids in middle school and high school did things like band or volunteering, i was the fucking weaboo who participated in sword competitions on the weekends, and so unfortunately now i’m stuck Knowing Things about swords. (specifically katanas! even more unfortunate.) do you know how uncomfortable it is to get smacked by a sheath? get it off that goddamn fishing line so it stops bouncing around on his back because that has got to be painful and uncomfortable. even in this (early?) boruto manga outfit, it’s in a more sensible place. secondly, sensibility aside, the way sasuke keeps his sword throughout shippuden is flat-out really cool. no other character in the series who uses a sword does that! it’s unique and it stands out. it is, as you say, iconique, and it sucks to lose that. 

my third bone to pick is less petty and more just a weird personal bias thanks to a misunderstanding – here’s my second quote from tvt:

initially, when my interest in naruto got piqued again after… 10 or so years? for whatever godforsaken reason i decided to read what tv tropes had to say about sasuke, but i didn’t actually look up any visuals. so for a few months, i honest to god thought that sasuke was growing his hair out long long post-series, and i was honestly disappointed to find out that this meant he just looks even more like an emo kid of yore. long hair would be an interesting move, both to echo madara’s looks, and as a sign of movement away from having short hair as a kid/teen. 

my fourth and final bone to pick is more of a general one, but man, i wish he had scars. yes there’s magical healing, yes there’s no “need” to have scars, yes it’s mostly clearly just a stylistic thing, but i wish. give me facial scars and burn scars and little scars all over his hands from handling sharp weapons. there’s so much flavor to be added through scars. 

boy this got long but to tl;dr:

longer hair

less of a fancy cloak, more like what he wore near the end of the series

a return to how he used to carry his sword (which does have precedent, actually) 

a sensible shirt and no fucking vest