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prettygirl-gabi · 2 months ago

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Tension

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Rating:General Audiences

Warning: Fluff, heavyyyyy angst, arguring, happy ending

Category:F/M

Fandom:Seventeen (SVT) (boyband)

Relationships: !idol Dino x !idol f reader

Summary: What happens when you are the only girl member of svt, but you only but heads with Dino....

(I wanna establish that y/n has been a member since the beginning as a pr stunt, but the fans liked have a girl member in the group)

Trope : work frenemies

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Hiiiii everyone who is reading! Welcome to the thirteenth installment of my new mini series called "Oi! Not this again!" They do not have to be read together or in order! I hope you all enjoy!

It started like any other day—a regular Tuesday morning with Seventeen rehearsing, voices overlapping, the faint smell of sweat and cologne filling the room. Everything was in motion, and yet I found myself anchored to the spot, glaring at Dino. Our usual standoff, fueled by some unspoken rivalry, like clockwork.

Ever since I joined the team, there was this weird tension between us. It wasn’t that we hated each other. No, hate is clear-cut, direct. This was… messier. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to punch him or kiss him, and that uncertainty scared me.

“You’re not in sync,” Dino snapped, cutting through my haze, as if sensing my thoughts. He turned to me, his eyes sharp and critical. “Again.”

I rolled my eyes. He was always so damn nitpicky about the choreography, like he had something to prove. To me. To himself. To the group. I wasn’t sure which.

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” I shot back, my voice harsher than intended. “I’m doing fine.”

“You’re dragging the rest of us down,” he spat, not even trying to hide his frustration. His jaw clenched in that way that made my stomach twist. Why did he have to look so good when he was angry?

“I’m not dragging anyone down,” I retorted, stepping forward, close enough to see the slight sheen of sweat on his brow, the rise and fall of his chest. “Maybe if you stopped micromanaging everyone, we’d get through this faster.”

His lips twitched into something like a sneer, and for a second, I thought he was going to say something cruel, something that would sting. But instead, he just scoffed and turned away, muttering under his breath, “Whatever.”

I hated this. The constant back-and-forth, the biting comments, the way he got under my skin. It was exhausting, and yet, I couldn’t stop. There was something about Dino—something infuriating and magnetic, like we were stuck in this endless dance of tension, neither of us willing to give in.

The rest of practice passed in a blur, with Dino’s words ringing in my ears. I was distracted, my focus shattered. It didn’t help that every time I caught a glimpse of him, my heart did this stupid flip, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to beat faster in anger or something else entirely.

By the time rehearsal ended, I was done. My muscles ached, my head throbbed, and I just wanted to get out of there, away from him, away from this. But of course, fate had other plans.

“Hey.” His voice cut through the silence of the empty studio, and I froze, my hand hovering over the door. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to look at him.

“What do you want, Dino?” I asked, my voice cold. Distant. It was easier that way.

“You’re still mad,” he said, not a question, just a statement, as if he already knew.

“I’m not mad,” I lied, my hand gripping the door handle tighter. “I just don’t want to deal with you right now.”

He laughed, a bitter sound that made something inside me clench. “Right. Because we’ve been getting along so well lately.”

I couldn’t help it. I turned then, my eyes narrowing as I faced him. “Maybe we wouldn’t be at each other’s throats all the time if you weren’t such an arrogant ass.”

His eyes darkened, and for a moment, I thought I’d crossed a line. But then he stepped forward, his gaze locked on mine, and the air between us felt charged, electric.

“Arrogant?” he repeated, his voice low, dangerous. “You think I’m the problem here?”

I swallowed hard, my heart hammering in my chest. “You act like you know everything, like you’re always right, and it drives me insane.”

He was closer now, too close, and I could feel the heat radiating off him, smell the faint scent of his cologne. My breath hitched, and I hated myself for it. Hated that he had this effect on me.

“Maybe I wouldn’t act like I know everything if you weren’t so stubborn,” he shot back, his voice tight. “You never listen. You never let anyone help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can handle myself.”

“Right,” he muttered, his eyes flicking down to my lips for a split second before returning to mine. “Because you’ve been handling it so well.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him to screw off, but the words caught in my throat. Because suddenly, everything—the anger, the frustration, the months of tension—it all came crashing down on me. And before I could stop myself, I reached up, grabbed the front of his shirt, and yanked him down into a kiss.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle. It was raw, desperate, filled with all the things we’d been too afraid to say. His hands gripped my waist, pulling me closer, and for a moment, everything else faded away. There was no rivalry, no frustration, just the feel of him against me, his lips on mine, and the overwhelming sense of relief that came with it.

But then reality came crashing back, and I shoved him away, my chest heaving. “This doesn’t change anything,” I whispered, my voice shaky.

Dino stared at me, his eyes wide, like he was just as shocked as I was. “You’re right,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

Over the next few weeks, things between us shifted. The arguing didn’t stop—if anything, it got worse. Every conversation felt like a powder keg, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. But beneath all that anger, there was something else now. A heat, a pull that neither of us could ignore.

One night, after another particularly brutal rehearsal, I found him sitting alone in the studio, his head in his hands. Without thinking, I sat down next to him, the silence between us heavy.

“I’m tired,” I admitted quietly, breaking the tension. “Of fighting with you. Of pretending like I don’t—”

“Like you don’t care?” he finished, lifting his head to look at me, his expression softer than I’d ever seen it.

I nodded, my throat tight. “Yeah. Like that.”

He sighed, leaning back against the wall, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I just… I don’t know how to act around you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

He glanced at me, a small, bitter smile on his lips. “You drive me crazy,” he admitted. “In the worst way. And the best way.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Dino…”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” he said quietly, his voice raw. “I don’t want to keep pretending like this is just… nothing.”

I swallowed hard, my mind racing. For the first time in months, there was no anger, no frustration, just the two of us, sitting in the aftermath of all the chaos we’d created.

“I don’t want to pretend either,” I whispered, my heart in my throat.

He turned to face me, his eyes searching mine, and in that moment, everything clicked into place. All the fighting, all the tension—it was because we’d been running from this. From whatever this was between us.

Slowly, tentatively, he reached out, his hand brushing against mine. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I let myself fall.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t easy. But for the first time, it felt real. And that was enough.

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‐Thank You For Reading!🩵🩶

-prettygirl-Gabi✨️🎀

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aliskzoo · 1 year ago

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To Atone for your Sins

“Well darling, all we want to do is help you. Don’t you think they deserve it?”

Homicidal outbreaks, drug littered streets and more menacing people than ever are starting to leak through the cracks of the city walls. And you don’t want a single bite of it. So, when one of your new found friends gets himself caught up in trouble, will you pick up old habits to help, or will you crawl back into hiding?

This story will include scenes of violence and graphic themes, some instances of stalking, and other themes that some viewers may find uncomfortable. I will always specific what is in each chapter, but this is just an overall warning for the rest of this story.

Genre: Action, angst, mature.

Pairing: Ateez, some skz members as well cause why not~

Chapter One: Fuck Fate

900+ words

Warnings// swearing, alcohol, men being weird, kinda talk about religion but not really. Don’t think I’m missing anything. And yes this is based in a strip club.

Authors note: hiiiii, so this is the first chapter for my first series ha. Any and all feedback is very much appreciated. Also the chapters will get larger in terms of words and length, this first chapter is just kinda an introduction to the oc. Enjoy :)

I don’t remember much before this.

Well, that’s a lie. But for the sake of my own sanity, and new identity I ignore it.

All the nightmares, the anxiety…. the guilt.

One person shouldn’t have to go through so much. But I guess fate had other plans for me.

You know what, fuck fate. It landed me here, surrounded by old rich men, willing to spend all their life savings on one night of mediocre pleasure. Around other girls, who are either incurable alcoholics, walking drug mules or are too innocent for their own good. So yeah, fuck fate, or fuck whatever God that runs this absolute shit show of a world.

The girls are ok though, as much as I judge them, they’re all nice. But this place just seems to suck the life out of people, drowning all the bearable moments in copious amounts of average liquor.

This bar seems to either only use the money they get on more alcohol, like we need anymore, or the god damn lights that are blinding me on this rickety old stage. At least my set is nearly over for the night, maybe I should go check on Chuck, he’s always got more money to give me. And maybe I should check on-

“Lucy!”

Shit, I’m just standing here aren’t I. Dammit, now I’m gonna look like an-

“Lucy!”

I did it again didn’t I?

“I’m comin’ Mary, don’t get those lace panties in a twist.” I say as I come off the stage, instantly feeling the temperature difference as I move away from the lights.

“Don’t come at me with that attitude honey, you were just standing there for a whole minute! If anything you should be thanking me for saving your ass-“

“Don’t you have a set to start Mary?”

“Oh shit!”

Oh Mary, if anything she’s just as bad as me when it comes to rambling on. Except I seem to enjoy doing it in my own head, on stage, in front of an audience of paying customers, embarrassing the absolute shit out of myself. But hey, the more I do that, the more pity money I get so I can’t really complain.

As I walk from backstage onto the floor, I spot one of my favourite regulars sitting at the end of the bar, sipping his usual gin tonic. “Why is he one of your favourite customers?” you may ask. Well, because he gives me his money and DOESN’T except me to suck him off. Crazy right?

“Look who’s here on his only night off!” patting his shoulder and letting it linger there juust a little, circling around him to the other side of the bar and picking up the liquor to give him a refill.

“To see my favourite girl of course!” He yells, drawing attention from the greedy men in the audience, some of which who HAVE asked me to suck them off.

“Now now Jisung, no need to get all possessive of me”

“I can’t help it Lucy, you’re a gorgeous girl, and sweet let me tell ya. These greedy fuckers don’t deserve a single second of your time!” God, he really knows how to flatter a girl doesn’t he?

The conversation slowly went into Jisung explaining his day as I cleaned up behind the bar. Every now and then looking up to see him in his own little bubble, explaining his day with his whole body. God he really should be some kind of performer, maybe I should ask if he wants another job? Although he’d probably say no to stripping.

“-I swear Lucy, this guy was HUGE!” He continued, stretching out his arms like he was trying to show me how big the dude really was. He has a thing for over exaggerating.

“Well there’s no chance he’s bigger then you.” That’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever said, but it still makes the tips of Jisung’s ears turn pink.

“Ha, uhh- I mean, obviously! Just look at these guns-“ this is probably the 100th time he’s flexed his arms to me in the last hour, but I gotta say he is quite the looker.

The night from then is kinda boring, I had to go back and forth from the stage and the bar. Had a couple private sessions, which jisung wasn’t too happy with, but besides that it was pretty quiet, typical for a Tuesday night.

And finally, I’m clocking out and leaving this shit hole for a whole 10 hours. The last thing I wanna do right now though is think about the long shift I have tomorrow. Walking out of the ridiculously hot bar and into the crispy air of the night is a feeling I will never get over. A breathe of fresh air, literally. God I can’t wait to pass out when I get home, just wanna block out the rest of the wor-

“LuCy! Lucy!”

Oh for fucks sake!

“Yeah Craig, why aren’t you onto the next bar? We closed an hour ag-“

“Help me- help me please, Lucy I’m begging you”

“Craig seriously, I’m not in the mood for this bullshit again”

“No I’m serious! Lucy please, I need a place to sta-“

“NO! Nope, not happening”

“Bu-“

“Go home to your wife and kids Craig.”

And with that, he was off. Running through the alleyway, stumbling over garbage cans and his own feet towards the street and out of sight.

Why do customers seriously think that the pity party they throw is gonna get them in to our beds. It ain’t our fault their wives find out their spending every penny on strippers and alcohol. God I hope I don’t wake up in the morning, I don’t wanna deal with Craig’s whining bullshit at the asscrack of midday about how I should’ve let him come home with me. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

#ateez fanfic #ateez #kpop au #kpop scenarios #hongjoong #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #san angst #song mingi #wooyoung #jongho #skz scenarios #bang chan #skz jisung #changbin #lee minho #ateez angst #skz angst

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 5 months ago

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So, I went back tonight to the club that I hear they call the Jongleurs of Canada (well I’ve heard one person call it that, and it was John Hastings, but he is uniquely positioned to know, there aren’t a lot of people who’ve experienced both as much as he has), because John Hastings was doing a second weekend in a row, and I enjoyed him so much last weekend.

I have already admitted that he absolutely killed me with crowd work last week; I went in ready to judge anything that felt too “optimized for social media”, because I know I like his actual material but I also know he seems to be pivoting to more of the other stuff (I get that impression from his 2023 ComCom interview in which he admitted he’s hired a guy to manage his social media algorithm feeding, and his recent YouTube special that was club sets and crowd work from several different venues cut together, though to be fair it was funny). I went in last weekend, heard him do a whole set that was mainly crowd work with a few jokes thrown in every once in a while, I laughed so much, came out saying I should be less judgemental about shit like that because it was fucking great. It helps that he’s very good at it, though. Several other comedians were on before him, they also did a lot of crowd work and mainly simple jokes that didn’t tie together, and… well, it’s not always good.

I did get the impression, last week, that he’d planned to do a bit more material than he actually got in. I got that impression because he said a couple of times that he had jokes but kept getting distracted by the crowd, but it’s hard to tell how true that is. Normally I’d automatically assume it wasn’t true and was just something he was saying to engage the crowd (“You guys are so cool that I can’t even do my jokes, I just want to talk to you!”), but in this case, that crowd was fucking weird. There was so much going on in it. He did keep seeming like he was about to jump into something, and then he’d encounter another audience member who had some engaging story, and he’d have to pursue that. So I thought, maybe he really does have more material than this, and I didn’t get to hear it because he was too busy grilling the guy who got engaged to high school girlfriend after a car crash (it was much funnier at the time than it sounds now). I went back tonight to see his second weekend, in the hopes that I could hear some of the jokes he curtailed last week.

I went looking for that tonight, and he really delivered. I was right – last week’s crowd was at least a bit of an anomaly. This week seemed like more of a normal audience – he talked to a few people in it, managed to find a joke to make about a few of them because any comedian can do that with anyone, but there wasn’t anything special. This meant that this time, he was able to move on from talking to the crowd and tell us what he’d written.

The set was still very heavy on crowd work compared to a regular comedy set, and he still made me laugh repeatedly with the crowd work, even though there wasn’t anything really special about the crowd this week, so credit where it’s due, he is clearly very good at that stuff. But it was lighter on the crowd work than last week, which means he was able to get a little bit further into prepared material, and it was so good! He had so much good stuff! A few things I’d heard before, but a bunch of other things I’d never heard before, even though I’ve now heard all his Bandcamp albums and seen his recent YouTube special.

Fresh material, and it wasn’t all small, self-contained things! There were segues! There was one bit where he told a funny story about his friends, that built into a list that he related to himself, and then he told several stories from there that all related back to the list! Structure! That is structure! Structure, in the Jongleurs of Canada! Callbacks embedded slightly further than skin deep! And so much potential for how it could go further, I could see aspects of the list where he must have stories that he didn’t hit.

I didn’t even realize how often I listen to stand-up WIPs while drafting in my head the way I think they should structure the full show – I didn’t realize how much I do that until tonight, when I found myself automatically doing it repeatedly. There were all these threads, and he connected some of them in ways that downright delighted me because a connected thread is a rarity in the Jongleurs of Canada, but there were other threads that he just left and I kept thinking, I can see where he could pick that up and tie it back in. The finished show could have that thread all the way through it. He has all the pieces here of something that could be so great.

And then I remembered he’s not doing that. He’s not trying to build an Edinburgh hour, at least as far as I know. As far as I know, he’s trying to build another special like the one he put on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, where he cuts together crowd work and individual jokes from different club sets in different venues, with no real theme or structure. I might be wrong, I don’t know what John Hastings is doing with his life. But signs point to him doing that again. And that’s fine! It was good! I enjoyed his YouTube special (although it annoys me that he called it “The Times They Are a-John Hastings”, when “The Times They Are John Hastings” scans so much better and matches the original song title – it’s just occurred to me now that maybe that was meant to be the joke, and I missed it), it was fun. But it could be more.

And I know he knows how to do more! He has two Edinburgh hours on his Bandcamp page – titled “Adventure” (2014), and “Bootleg from 2017 Edinburgh Show” (2017, obviously) on this page – and I liked them both a lot. I enjoyed everything on that Bandcamp page, but those two shows are the best ones by far, I think. The ones where he did a whole hour that makes sense instead of cutting stuff together. I know he knows how to do it, he’s done it at least twice (I’m pretty sure more times, they’re just not on Bandcamp). And he could, but he’s not, because of Tik-Tok, and that annoys me.

I realize there’s an argument that it’s messed up if I sat through a really enjoyable club comedy night, tonight, and didn’t enjoy it properly because I kept thinking “Why isn’t this an Edinburgh hour?” But I honestly didn’t do that. I had a great time. I laughed a lot, I promise (at the headliner – not so much at the other acts). It was just a tiny thing in the back of my mind that kept sort of automatically sorting his ideas into an order that makes sense, I kept catching myself guessing how he’ll present this within the finished show, kept thinking if it’s this good in little pieces I can’t wait to see the recording of his finished show, and then I had to remind myself that it won’t work that way. It’s habit more than anything else at this point; I’ve heard too many Edinburgh hour WIPs where that is a logical way of looking at them, I’ve got used to seeing every show that way.

Honestly though, it was so much fun. John Hastings has good jokes and funny stories, even if he isn’t going to wrap them all around one theme and perform them for an hour every night for a month in a hill-ridden Scottish city’s darkened room. I had a great time, both last week and this week. I should possibly learn to get out of my head a bit when it comes to comedy and just let it be what it is. That might be the lesson from these last couple of weekends. Let comedy be what it is. It's fine.

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takara-kaneko · 4 years ago

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I know I request a lot now so take your time. It could you do a part 2 to the mc leaving one? Good or bad doesnt matter, just some closure about if they’re capable of changing and get mc back? Maybe building up mcs confidence again bc now they’re hesitant to start planning parties again.

Surprisingly, I’m still here! Pandemic life has been really getting to me, haha, but I am still here! I’ve been working on this fic for a while, and it has become much larger than I had first anticipated, but I hope that you enjoy it nonetheless! If you haven’t read the first story, then click Here!!

Let Me Go Part 2 (Good End)

Zen 🎭

He was in his dressing room, changing out of the costume of his most recent character. The performance was a success, and he had been receiving so many compliments by the audience and the cast alike. But he didn’t really feel happy. Hell, he hadn’t been happy for a long time now. Not since MC left.

Without thinking, he pulled out his phone and unlocked it. Staring at back him was her contact photo, with an empty text bar below. Zen had written up so many drafts, each giving a different apology, and each begging for forgiveness. But he never sent them to her. Not until everything within the RFA was fixed; not until he had fixed everything.

It has taken some hard work, but he was finally believing that things were the way they should be. The RFA was making strides coping with their loss of Rika. Many, himself included, were really starting to move on. Maybe it was time for him to message.

With bated breath, he began typing. “I don’t know if this is too late, but I’m sorry. For everything. I don’t expect your forgiveness, nor do I deserve it… I’m just… trying to repair what I’ve done. I’m trying to fix me. MC, I love you, more than I can express in a text. I hope you know that.”

His finger hovered over the ‘send’ button. It had been months, did she really want to get something from him now? Would she even care, or has she already gotten over him? Zen shook his head, trying to ignore his thoughts. With nothing to lose, he sent it. As it was delivered, he heard a chime from outside his door, followed by a soft curse.

Curious, Zen approached the door and opened it. There was no one in front of him, but as he looked out, he saw a figure walking away from him. A figure that had haunted his thoughts and riddled his dreams. Zen stepped forward a few steps and reached out to her, a painful expression painting his face.

“MC! MC, wait...”

She stopped but doesn’t turn back to him. “I watched the show…” He strained to hear her, she was almost whispering, “You were really good, Zen.”

Zen had to restrain himself from approaching her. From wrapping her in his arms and refuse to let her go ever again. But he couldn’t do that to her, she had every right to leave him and never return.

“I didn’t know you were going to watch it. I could’ve gotten you tickets.” He didn’t really know what to say. He was being awkward, Zen knew he was, but so long as she continued to talk to him, he couldn’t ask for anything more.

MC still didn’t move, almost frozen where she stood. “I didn’t know I was either. A friend of mine got tickets and she didn’t tell me where we were going until I saw you on stage. And I…” Turning her head towards him, he could see the tears falling from her eyes. “...I realized how much I’ve really missed you, Hyun.”

There wasn’t even a moment to think before Zen was in front of her, wiping away the tears on MC’s face. “Jagi, please don’t cry, I don’t deserve your tears. I’m the one who caused you to leave.”

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in the crook of her neck. If she was really going to be out of his life, he wanted one last memory of her. Her scent, the feeling of her on his skin. Anything he could, he wanted to remember.

“I’m so sorry, MC… I’m so sorry.” A sob escaped Zen as he stood there, gripping the love of his life.

“Did you mean it?” She whispered into his chest, “Your text, do you really mean what you wrote?”

Zen stopped a moment. Did she really not think that he would change everything if it would give him a chance to get her back? “Baby, of course, I do. I would do anything, anything, if it meant that you would still be here.”

MC sniffled a bit before taking a few steps back. More than anything, Zen wanted to hold on, wanted to have her stay and be with him. But it was her choice, and he refused to take that away from her. As he released her, Zen clenched his jaw to restrain his want to grab her hand.

She looked up at him, her lip quivering. “I can’t… I can’t just come back like nothing ever happened.”

Zen nodded. Yes, he knew that this would be the answer. After all, he didn’t deserve her, even for the time he actually had her. To get MC back was just-

“We have to start over.” She declared, pulling Zen out from his own thoughts in a flash, “From the beginning. I need to know that this is real, not something you’ll say to get me back and it goes back to the way it was before. I can’t do that again and I-”

MC’s words are cut short by the feeling of Zen’s hand caressing her face. He looked at her, with nothing but pure euphoria. “For you to be in my life, even if it’s just as friends, I’ll do whatever you need me to. If you want to restart, I’ll just...”

Taking a few steps back, he reached out his hand for a handshake, “Hi, my name is Hyun Ryu, stage name Zen. And I am hopelessly in love with you.”

Trying to fight back the tears, she reached up and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m MC. And I have missed you every second you have been out of my life.”

Yoosung ⭐️

These past few months had been a really rough time for Yoosung. Not only having to deal with the regular stresses of his life, but he also had no idea how to do it without depending on someone as capable as MC.

He had decided to focus entirely on school, even considered dropping out of the RFA, but at their refusal, he explained what happened. The weight of their actions dawned on them. The whole group pledged to work on this mistake, without much pushing from Yoosung. They all seemed to miss MC, even if it isn’t as much as Yoosung did.

But with the RFA making steady progress, Yoosung decided to get a hold on his life, passing all of his courses this year with flying colors.

Part of him wanted to call MC, tell her all the good things he accomplished in his strides to become better, but with only time he’s heard from her was the reply to the text he sent the night she left; he didn’t feel he deserved to talk to MC. He didn’t want to bother her. She likely never wanted to see him again, and he couldn’t blame her.

But with finals finally done, Yoosung felt like it was time to reward himself for his success. There was a limited time expansion for LOLOL and Yoosung had just saved enough to get it. He went into the game store, excited to finally get to play it.

Getting in line, he couldn’t help but stare at the hair of the woman in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he probably would’ve thought that it was MC-

Wait. Was that MC? She had the same beautiful locks, the same frame, but it was hard to tell from the baggy sweatshirt she had on. He stood, awkwardly staring at the girl in front of him, trying to build up the nerve to just poke, maybe brush into her so she’d turn around?

No, no that was stupid… What if it was her, what then? ‘Oh hey MC, nice to see you again? I haven’t been a happy a single moment since you left; I need you in my life.’ Yeah, Yoosung tells himself, that’s a horrible plan. If it was her, she probably wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.

He pulls out his phone to look at her last text, “And my heart to you, Star.” Sure, she said that, but did he actually deserve that? Wasn’t what he put her through enough? But even so… he wanted to see her, even just once. He glanced back down at his phone, at her ring that has become his keychain and made up his mind.

“Hey, sunshine.” He said, enough for the girl in front him, but not loud enough that it was directed toward her. He watched as she flinched, dropping her phone in the process.

Yoosung went for it, apologizing as he did. Picking up the phone, he freezes. On the lock screen was of him, happily hugging the love of his life. He remembered that photo, it was the first time MC told him that she loved him. It was one of the happiest moments in Yoosung's life.

A pair of hands met his, taking the phone. Yoosung almost tried to keep the phone to keep looking at the photo, but it’s not his phone, so he let the other hands take it. Standing back up, he was face to face with MC.

Status: Frozen

Yoosung had no idea what he was supposed to do. Should he talk? Wave? Maybe just ignore her…? What? no! Swallowing thickly, Yoosung stuck his hand out to wave at her.

‘I’m such an idiot’ Flashed through his head, but he had to push past it.

“Hey, Sunshine. You… you look really good.”

She looked down at her sweatshirt and baggy pants and laughed softly, “I haven’t taken a shower in two days, I needed to get to a high enough level to be able to play the DLC. I don’t have you to carry me through those high-level missions anymore…” MC trails off, looking away from him.

“Are you kidding?” Yoosung said, surprised, "You were much better than me when I started. You’ll be one of the top members on the server in no time! You’re already at ranking 137, that’s incredible to only have been playing for a few months!”

At his words, MC’s eyes widened. Yoosung realized how weird his statement must’ve been. Who keeps track of their ex-girlfriend’s gaming status? Him, definitely. There were times Yoosung wanted to offer her the legendary gear he had collected, but could never build up enough courage.

Clutching a strand of her hair, MC sucked in a breath, “Well… How have you been? Classes going well?”

Yoosung nodded shyly, now embarrassed and not sure what to say with her finally in front of him, “Yeah, Finally passed with some of the top grades in my class! Your study guides really helped me out, though I missed working with you on them.”

“Well, you seem to be getting along fine, so you can’t be missing much.”

With furrowed brows, Yoosung caught MC's hand as she was about to turn away, “MC… I have been doing these things for you. For how much you pushed me and supported me. For me to fail when you left, would be the ultimate proof that I never should have had you in the first place.”

MC opened her mouth to speak, but Yoosung persisted, not allowing her to say something that couldn’t be more wrong, “You think I’ve just moved on, but I still haven’t, I swear that to you. Instead, I’m trying to be someone you’d be proud of. Improving my grades, becoming more independent. Even the RFA is trying to change to make it more welcoming to you, if you’d ever think about coming back to me- us. Come back to us.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, needed to say. But just as he opened his mouth to speak-

“Miss, you’re next.” The cashier said, gesturing to MC. Hesitantly, MC released her hand from his grasp and left him alone. He watched as she conversed lightly with the attendant checking out her game. With a smile, he returned her change and a bag with the game inside. Yoosung reached out to talk to her again, but the man calling him caught him off guard. He glanced over towards the man, then back to MC, only to see she was gone.

With a heavy heart, he reached the man and bought his game, not even reciprocating the attendant’s excited comments about the DLC. Exiting the store, Yoosung was trying not to cry. (He needed to get back home before that happened) So as he went through the door, he didn’t see the figure standing beside it until they had grabbed the back of his shirt. But he was sad, he was angry, he was ready to throw down. Imagine his surprise when he turned, fists formed, only to be face-to-face with MC once again.

“Sorry to scare you!” She squeaked, putting her hands up in surrender.

The sadness in his heart immediately changed to relief as he looked into her serene eyes. Everything was right with the world once again.

MC stood there, mustering up the courage to ask the one thing has had been wanting to say since the beginning of their conversation. “I was uh, just wondering if you would like to… You don’t have to say yes, but I’d like you to.”

Even though nothing was actually explained, Yoosung still had a slight idea of what she was trying to say, “I’d love to work together to beat the next few levels with you, MC. Superman Yoosung is always here for Eternal Sunshine MC.”

She nodded at him, tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes “I think I’d really like that.”

Jumin 🍷

“Just reporting: Has the famous CEO bachelor finally found his date to the upcoming charity ball?”

With a sigh, Jumin turned off his smartphone. Despite their engagement was never announced publicly, reporters everywhere were trying to pin down who was the 'next woman' to be Jumin’s girl now that he was seemingly single. What they never accounted for was that he had no other plans. MC was the only woman he believed could ever understand him. And in these few months, that point became even more airtight. Not even his father truly understood the pain he was going through. He found himself wanting nothing more than to just work and stay home, avoiding everyone.

But he did have to go to this charity ball. He had made a large donation, albeit in the company’s name, to the organization. After all, it was one that MC supported the most. It meant the world to her, so he’d give it as much support as he could.

Jumin exited the limo and easily ignored the flashing lights of the cameras around him. Ignored the passing questions and remarks from the reporters. All but one.

“Have you finally found a replacement for your ex-girlfriend?”

It took all he had not to turn back to the reporter. MC could never just be replaced. There was no one in the world like her. So with gritted teeth, he entered into the building.

For Jumin, entering the room immediately calmed his nerves. Looking around the scenery was like a breath of fresh air when such a feeling was so foreign to him recently. He couldn’t spot anything in particular that could make him feel that way, but the whole place just felt so comfortable.

Glancing at the people, however, there was someone that stuck out among the rest. A woman in a sleek, black dress, carrying a glass of champagne as she laughed with the man across from her. Anger flared in the back of his mind as he watched the smile that graced her slender face. As the man touched the soft skin on her hand. No one should touch his MC-

But she wasn’t his anymore, was she? And he no longer had a say on who she talked to, not that she would have completely listened to him anyways.

Even as he was thinking this, Jumin found himself nearing them. Seems his subconscious was wanting to see her once more. Wanting to get that man’s hand off of her. But would she even want to see him?

Not stepping any further, he began watching her again, trying to commit every feature to memory. But she caught his eyes for a moment before turning back to the target of her conversation. With a small handshake, she turned and headed towards him.

Unprepared for this conversation, he picked up a glass of champagne from a tray passing him by and drank at least half of the liquid in one gulp. He noted the smile on her face as he did it, which he found interesting. But there was no time to think about it as MC was already on him before he knew it. “Jumin, it’s a pleasure to see you could make it out here. I take you were the one behind C&R’s large monetary donation?”

Jumin was still frozen, unsure of what to say. She seemed happy. And she was the one to come to him, not the other way around. Surely she actually wanted to speak to him or she wouldn’t have come to him, right? He coughed lightly and looked into her eyes, “Yes, I remember you speaking so highly about this charity, so when the opportunity arose, I made sure to contribute. The RFA’s funding should be coming here too from the most recent party, as well.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” MC nodded, gesturing vaguely behind her, “I spoke to V a moment ago, he came to represent the RFA.” Puzzled, he looked at her with a curious expression. MC understood and smiled, “I’m now one of the leading positions within the organization. I’m their event coordinator, so I get the list of attendants, as well as how much they donated. Both C&R and the RFA’s were very generous, I must thank you.”

While it was unexpected, Jumin wasn't surprised. MC was very talented and capable of greatness. He smiled at her, and nodded slowly, “I’m glad to see you’re still making a name for yourself, MC. You’re a talented woman, they are very lucky to have you here.”

A blush spread across her face at his words. She looked down at the ground for a moment before gazing back at Jumin. There was so much he wanted to say, but here and now wasn’t the right time. He leaned in closer to her, his breath brushing past her ear, “May I speak with you a moment?”

She nodded slowly and followed him to the corner of the room, away from the crowd. Not that he truly noticed them in the beginning, as everything else seemed to fade away when he is with her. But in their isolation, he could feel his heart swell. Jumin wanted to hold her hand, kiss her, tell her how much he missed her, and loved her. How much he prayed she would come back. But none of that actually came out, all he could do was close the distance between them and wrap his arms around her affectionately. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes as he held her against him.

Jumin shakily sighed as her hands gripped the fabric of his suit, “Oh, how I’ve missed you…”

In a quick motion, she pulled away from him, but only enough to look at him with a scrutinizing gaze, “You actually missed me?”

“Without a doubt, I have longed for you every moment you were away. Did you think otherwise?” He looked at her, feeling a mix of curiosity and worry.

MC shook her head, her smile falling as confusion began to cover her expression, “If you missed me, why haven’t you tried to bring me back? A message, a call… anything? You’ve been silent this whole time… Even V talks to me more than you do and we both know how hard he is to get in touch with.”

Sliding his hands down to hold her hand, Jumin tried to put his thoughts into words. “Because I don’t deserve you. You were perfect and I was… flawed. All of us were. I didn’t want you to be brought down because of us. You had left for a good reason."

“Jumin,” She said softly, “I am far from perfect. I left you instead of trying to work with you on it. And when you never called... I thought you hated me-“

Without wasting a moment, Jumin leaned in to connect his lips with hers, cutting off her next words. Hate her? He never once held the smallest amount of anger towards her, the thought of it was revolting. Separating their lips just enough for him to speak, he leaned against her forehead, “I could never hate the woman I’m hopelessly in love with.”

She closed the distance between them, sealing the two in another kiss. They embraced in the corner of the room and began to dance before the music even began to play.

Saeyoung 🚧

Every day was just like the last. Get up, work, finish the job, sleep. The only variation was when Vanderwood would show up in the day. Ever since MC left, he had been coming over more often, complaining that he had to clean up after him more now that MC wasn’t there anymore.

Though it was really to make sure that he was okay and to force him to eat.

And he was right. Once she left, Seayoung fell right back into his bad habits. Not eating, barely ever sleeping. He was nothing more than a slave with survival as his only goal. To live long enough to see those he loved living a happy life without him.

But it was odd, he wasn’t able to track MC here recently. She was on the CCTV still, trying to talk to him through it ignoring the strange looks she got for shouting and gesturing at a surveillance camera. But in the world of binary numbers, it was almost like she turned into a ghost.

With a sigh, Saeyoung turned on his system to continue working on his newest assignment. Maybe it was a good thing, to never be able to see her. Then he’d never be reminded of all the reasons he should never have made her leave.

`ALERT: VIRUS DETECTED`

The words covered the page. Not knowing what had happened, he knew one thing. He had been hacked.

Saeyoung froze. How did… it wasn’t possible. With crossed brows, he began trying to get around the evident hacking that had infiltrated his servers. All the information he had on this comp-

“Oh, no... God, please... No.” He muttered, remembering all of the photos he had of his brother and of MC. If his ineptitude put either of them at risk, he could never forgive himself.

But as he broke deeper and deeper through the firewalls that were placed, he noticed that the hacker had a lock on everything but the photos of them. It didn’t make sense, but it was almost completely untouched.

As he clicked the folder, their photos appeared on screen, untouched, perfect. Except, there was one addition, a video with a black screen.

Holding his breath, Saeyoung opens the video. It shows a blank screen for the longest time until a simple 6 words appeared.

“CAN’T AVOID ME FOREVER! LOVE, 606”

As his mind began processing the words on the screen, Vanderwood entered the room. For a moment, Saeyoung was worried he’d yell at him for the state of his computer, but his partner only looked at him with a knowing grin.

“MC said that you can either spend two hours unlocking your computer or come into the living room to talk with her for ten minutes.” He stated, trying not to look as amused as he really was.

With a sigh, he looked away from Vanderwood, "There really is no way around this, is there?” His friend didn’t reply, only shook his head. Saeyoung stood up, sticking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and walked out of his room.

There she was.

Just a few feet away.

His heart broke just seeing her beautiful face and wanted nothing more than to go to her and apologize for all that he’s done. But he didn’t. Instead, Saeyoung walked passed her and sits across the room, as far as possible. Without a word. “You’ll release my computer?” He asked coldly, staring at the ground beneath her seat.

MC nodded, before realizing he wasn’t looking at her. Chuckling lightly, she couldn’t help nodding again, “Yes, I will. You know me, I stick to my word. Other than the hour statement I told Vanderwood, it would’ve taken longer. But if you had chosen the hard route, you would’ve realized how much harder it really was after two hours went by and come out anyway.”

Withholding the want to look at her, Saeyoung ran his hand through his hair. “How did you manage to get into so much of my software without my noticing?”

“When I left, I had wondered if you really didn’t know what you were doing, or if you were just pushing me away again.” She sighed, taking a moment before continuing, “So I hacked in far enough to see your code, and then set up a virus to the video input of your computer. Then I spoke to the CCTV and waited. 15 seconds. That was all it took until you opened it to see me speaking. And as long as that was up, my virus got through. I really didn’t think it would actually work, so it was really helpful you would only focus on me when the videos were up. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

He could hear Vanderwood laughing from the kitchen, but decided to ignore it. “Why? Why interfere in my work?”

His sharp tone cut into MC, but she only smiled at his harshness. “Because I wanted to see you, Sae.”

She.. what? He had outcasted her, tore her down, and made her feel worthless. And she wanted to see him? Saeyoung was at a loss for words. It took a moment for him to speak again.

“There’s no reason for you to see me again. I don’t have closure or anything for you. You’re better off-“

“That’s not what I want.” She interrupted. Taking the moment of silence between then, she stood up and approached Saeyoung, sitting next to him.

He wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t. One glance and he knew all of his walls would break.

“Then what do you want?”

She placed her hand on top of his, trying not to lose her composure as he moved his hand away from hers. “I want to be with you again.”

Saeyoung couldn’t help the scoff that came out of his mouth. “I thought you made it pretty clear you didn’t. Isn’t that why you left?”

While every word he spoke felt like a dagger in his heart, his face remains stoic. “I needed time. And I got that. This was never a permanent deal unless *you* make it one.

“Then consider this our official breakup. Clean my computer and leave.”

MC turned her head away from him for a moment, no doubt to wipe away her tears again. “I don’t believe it.”

“Well, it’s true!” He shouted. “I don’t care about you, now leave me alone!”

As she goes to refute his words, nothing but a small whimper came out. She placed her hand on his once again, not allowing it to get out of her grasp. With tears in her eyes and a reforged determination, she stared at the man she loves. “Then look me in the eyes and tell me that. Tell me you don’t feel an ounce of feelings for me, and I’ll leave.”

The quivering of her voice ripped through him in ways that bullets never could. But if he didn’t do it, she would be dragged down with him. Gripping his hoodie tightly, he lifted his eyes to reach hers. To tell her one last time to leave him and go live the life she was meant to live.

But as he stared at her tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes, the words he wanted to say disappeared, and Saeyoung began to do the one thing he didn’t want to do- speak from the heart.

“I never want you to cry, MC. Don’t you see that… That you’ll be hurt by staying with me, and you’ll cry. And I can't take seeing you like that. I can’t tell you I don’t care, but I will ask you to leave, one last time.”

Unable to look anymore, he dropped his eyes, staring at their conjoined hands until something lightly touched his forehead. Feeling her lips on his skin sent shudders down his body as tears formed in his eyes.

“I have cried more time since I left this house than I would have in a lifetime by your side. My love, nothing hurts worse than being apart from you.” She could only whisper, the sounds getting stuck in her throat. “Please, Sae, please let me back in.”

Saeyoung looked back up, into MC's red-rimmed eyes. How could he ever refuse her? With a simple nod of his head, Saeyoung reached for her, clutching her tightly in a breathtaking hug. And MC’s hold was just as strong.

Maybe he was wrong. Could this time be the good route, the one where he can actually be happy? Saeyoung didn’t know, but with the feeling of MC in his arms, he doesn’t see how life could get any better.

. . .

After hearing the conversation, Vanderwood stood awkwardly in the kitchen, wondering when it’s would be okay for him to come back out.

I really hope that you guys enjoyed it! It was a pleasure to write your requests. If you have any ideas, feel free to drop a free request!

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appples · 4 years ago

Text

Oh, Cats (7/10)

pairing: Aizawa x Reader (OC)

genre/warning: 18+

words: 3,135

summary: An average girl with a cat quirk starting over in a new city, as typical as usual. Until it’s not. You drop into someone’s life unannounced and not necessarily wanted.

You swore up and down every day leading up to the performance that you objected to the whole thing and that you did not want to be the lead in a cat idol group at the school festival. Who had even come up with this idea in the first place? It has to be Mic and Midnight. Only those two would encourage you to play up your cat features in such a provocative way. None of that mattered the moment your eyes met Shouta's in the crowd. You regretted nothing. He was looking at you as if you were glittering amongst the lights, like a prism emitting a rainbow. At that moment, it felt as if nothing else existed outside of you for him while you danced.

Honestly, Shouta never seemed like the sort of person to enjoy idol groups. It was incredibly surprising to see him there, not working but participating. Although calling it participating would be a bit of a stretch, he mostly stood quietly with his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His eyes traced the hem of your layers of ruffles as they left soft reminders of your movements while you glided across the stage, seeming more cat-like than ever. You almost missed the beginning of the next dance before you broke away from blushing at Aizawa, instead now diligently performing the moves you had been practicing for weeks. It was your standard idol type show with lots of jumping and cute dancing, including the addition of cat-like details and emphasis. One thing, unlike other idol shows, was Midnight was in charge of costumes, and that didn't leave much to the imagination with how tight and short the dresses were. Aware that if you threw your hip too high when making a turn that a select few members of the audience would see under all those ruffles, and that's just what you did as you turned away from Shouta. Adding a cheeky, playful smile with a flash of your fangs. By the end, the whole audience was cheering along, and you left the stage with a roar of applause. Midnight came up to you as you walked backstage,

"That was amazing! You had the crowd going, especially someone in particular" she threw her arm around you and jested. You couldn't bring yourself to meet her eyes, instead opting to look down in a feeble attempt to hide your embarrassment.

"I…I had a lot of fun" you raised your head, but you knew better than trying to fool Midnight. She could see what you were and were not saying.

"I saw you make good use of the costumes" She smirked, thinking about how she saw you dancing for Aizawa. "It's okay if you don't want to admit it, but I'm always here for girl talk," Midnight winked at you and departed for the change room. Despite her leaving, you could still feel someone nearby, turning around to find Shouta making his way towards you. You gave him a shaky smile as you both made eye contact again; it was difficult to tell who was blushing more.

"You guys put on a great performance. The crowd loved it"

"T-thanks! I've never done something like this before, so I was nervous," your ears twitched as you laughed anxiously, hoping he didn't overhear Midnight.

"You didn't seem nervous at all." There was a long silence punctuated with the sound of your tail moving as you scrambled to find something to say. "Are you going out with everyone tonight?" Aizawa saved you.

"I hadn't answered yet, are you?"

"Same for me," this was a lie. He had adamantly declined to attend until he saw you on stage. "Would you like to go together?" Your heart was racing.

"Okay! Sure!" You beamed at him, resulting in one of his rare, genuine smiles. "Just give me a few minutes to change, and we can head out," Aizawa nodded. You ran off, nearly skipping towards the change room.

"Shouta, You should have said there was no time to change so she would wear that outfit all night. Because I'm betting, it may have been one of the reasons you changed your mind on the invite" Midnight winked at Aizawa as he moved away from her sudden presence, glaring at her. The pair had known each other since attending UA themselves, and by this point, in their friendship, she knew just how far to push him and how to handle his grumpy demeanor.

"You changed quickly," Aizawa huffed.

"Oh, don't be like that. It's painfully obvious. You're not fooling anyone."

"Stop, you don't know what you're talking about."

"Jesus Christ Shouta, it's getting to the point where I'm starting to think you believe your bullshit. You are allowed to be happy; you know that...right? No one can be the hero all the time-" he cut her off.

"You're wrong," he stared at Midnight. The sadness in his eyes never left after the work-study incident as a UA student. Silence filled the space between them, neither wanting to bring up the reality of their memories.

You saw Aizawa and Midnight talking as you exited the change room, although neither looked to be in a good mood. Tepidly you approached, not wanting to get in their way,

"Hello?" You tried to play it casual but ended up sounding confused and high pitched. Both teachers took notice immediately. Whatever was happening between them quickly melted away. Midnight was the first one to jump in,

"Okay! So, do either of you have the address?"

"Is it the usual place?"

"Mhm, usual arrangement for rooms if they're needed too."

"Alright, I should have the address already. Is there anyone else that needs a ride up?" Your heart sank a little but was also relieved you wouldn't be alone with him for such a long period. Midnight noticed your disappointment.

"Oh, don't worry, everyone is accounted for already," Midnight sneered, almost getting away with her lie until Mic walked up behind the trio.

"What's this I hear, you trying to leave me behind? I'm the life of the party!" Aizawa shot daggers at Midnight, but she just kept smiling.

"Oops, my mistake. I will see you guys there! Try to get there before that storm rolls in" She pointed overhead, taking off before anyone had the chance to question her.

The three of you made your way over to Aizawa's car, Mic diving for shotgun before you even had a chance to consider it. Happily climbing into the back seats. Car rides were always enjoyable for you because it was another way to take all your surroundings in a different setting. Aizawa speedily took off once everyone was settled. First, making his way off campus and then through backroads, you didn't know existed in the city. Mic couldn't make up his mind today on what he wanted to listen to, subjecting everyone in the car to only hearing about the first thirty seconds of each song. Both him and Aizawa were chatting on and off, although it was mostly Mic talking at Aizawa. You were happy to stay out of the conversation and watch the scenery change from a rainy suburban to a rural area with trees lining both sides of the street, gently swaying in the wind.

"Can you please just settle on a song and let it play? You're starting to give me a headache" Aizawa never took his eyes off the road.

"What are you talking about? I'm just trying to find the right tunes for that perfect main character vibe" Mic readjusted his shades before realizing how dark out it had gotten. Fishing out his regular glasses, he swapped them.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" It was sounding like Aizawa was already done with Mic before the night really started. You smiled as you continued to listen to the two butt heads.

A loud bang from the rear of the car silenced the pair. Rapidly the vehicle dropped to the right, sending it into a fishtail spin. Startled, Aizawa momentarily hit the brakes triggering the car to lock up. Rain still falling heavily, the automobile slid across the compromised surface. Everyone in the car ran through a scenario if they could use their quirk to get them out of this situation but unfortunately, none of them had anything that would help. All three screamed and held onto something. The car when headfirst into the ditch, landing with the loud crash and sound of compacting steel.

"Is everyone okay?" Aizawa took charge of the situation. You opened your eyes, not even realizing you had closed them when the car crashed.

"All's good here." Mic shakily quipped.

"I-I'm okay too." You looked up into the rearview mirror and caught Aizawa looking back at you, "But you're not Shouta!" The seatbelt held you, prisoner, as you tried to lean forward. Mic looked over to his friend.

"Dude, are you okay? Because it's not looking the way."

"It's fine. It's superficial." Aizawa pushed his hair back out of his face and took a look at the bleeding cut on his forehead. He pulled out wipes from the center console and cleaned up the blood that had ran down his face. Looking into the mirror again, he saw your concern and spoke directly to you, "I promise, I really am okay." You still had your suspicions.

"Uhm, I can help you with that. It's a little weird, though."

"I don't understand. What do you mean by weird?"

"My quirk gives me some very mild healing abilities, but I hate telling people about it. To use it, I have to lick the affected area." No matter how many times you explained it, it still made you uncomfortable.

"Probably a good idea to deal with this before anyone else sees it," remarked Aizawa. The three of you got out of the car and inspected the damage; the vehicle was staying exactly where it was for the evening. You gave Shouta a tug on his jacket arm,

"I need you to come down lower. I can't reach you" Aizawa dropped down to one knee before you, his face at about breast level. Trying your best not to think about how it felt to run your fingers through his hair again as you moved it out of the way and tilted his head up before leaning down to drag your tongue over his cut. Instantaneously you saw it begin to disappear and let his hair fall back in place. Mic had pulled out his phone and gone to work to locate where the trio was exactly,

"Hey, we're actually not too far from the place. It's saying it's a ten-minute walk tops, but does anyone have an umbrella?" It was pouring rain, and everyone was already soaked through. Your ears angled backward in disapproval.

"Yeah, there should be a couple at least in the trunk" In fact, there were two. Aizawa handed you one and took the second for himself and Mic. It made you laugh a little watching two grown men trying to share one umbrella while you had room to share. You neglected to say anything for the duration of the walk.

Before walking through the door, you can hear Midnight, who had obviously been there a while. As the three of you entered the establishment, the entire table of school faculty erupted in cheers. A few exchanging bets made if and who would show up out of the three of you. Presumably, the owner of the business came over right away and began speaking with Aizawa. As they continued discussing the accommodations, another employee quietly ran upstairs with stacks of bedding, towels, and yukatas. Taking off your soaking shoes felt like a relief until you noticed your socks were equally as wet and very likely to make a mess. Soon the host motioned for the three of you to follow him upstairs, where he led you to the rooms.

"Unfortunately, we only have one double room left, but there is another room with only one of your coworkers occupying it."

"That's fine," Aizawa curtly replied, "We can decide who sleeps where," he said as he extended his hand for the room keys. The hoss graciously hands them over, indicating which key is for the empty room and the already occupied room before retreating back downstairs to continue helping with the table of rowdy teachers.

"I'm still absolutely soaked," you remarked as you shook the remaining water off your tail and ears.

"Here, take the vacant room and get changed." Aizawa handed you the key before turning back to Mic, who had a very quizzical expression across his face. Without hesitation, you took the key and headed to the room. Everything was quickly stripped down to your underwear, and those promptly came off as well. All of which you managed to spread out methodically in hopes of drying them before tomorrow. You took the folded yukata into your hands and observed the material's intricate pattern before proceeding to follow the steps of putting on the garment. Once dressed, you opened the door to find both Aizawa and Mic still standing outside. Attempting to apologize for taking so long, Mic waved you off. You smiled before joining the others.

"Finally! Come over here. I have a seat for you!" Midnight stood up and leaned over the table as she shouted at you once you were in her sight. Laughing to yourself and wondering how this night would go, you made your way over and sat next to Midnight. Opening her mouth and leaning, you braced yourself for a barrage of questions that never quite came,

"You looked soaked when you got here. I bet you're not wearing anything under that" Midnight lacked volume control on a good day, and that was only amplified after a few drinks. Naturally, the whole table heard. There was no chance for you to hide the redness in your face and bristling of your tail. More footsteps were coming down the stairs,

"Leave her alone Midnight, she's too sober for your teasing," Aizawa said in his usual flat tone. But Midnight was right. You weren't wearing anything. Making eye contact with Aizawa was almost too much. You had to look away in a panic when you realized he likely saw all your clothes laid out in the room.

"Oh common, don't be such a grump here too." Midnight jested, but Aizawa seemed to take no notice, proceeded to sit in the empty seat next to you. A round of drinks for the table was ordered while you were changing, and you were now presented with a glass. Mic seemed to arrive without your notice, signaling a loud resonating "kampai" from the entire table before taking a long, generous drink.

It was becoming more of a rare occurrence for you to drink, which had its benefits, but at times like this, it presented several drawbacks. There was no chance you had at keeping pace with your peers. By the time you were on your third drink, you had lost count as to which drink everyone else was on. Feeling the warmth inside from the alcohol and couldn't stop yourself from smiling all night. Laughs were being had all around, and you swore you caught Aizawa smiling and even laughing a little without a trace of sarcasm. You hadn't realized until then that he had tied half his hair back, likely when he changed earlier. His smile radiated when his face wasn't obstructed. Some pieces had fallen out of place, and all you wanted to do was push them back, tucking them behind his ear.

Mic leaned onto the table, audibly sighing and drawing out his phone in an exaggerated way. Everyone gave him their immediate attention.

"I took some great pictures tonight." The first photo to appeaser was one he had taken during the idol portion of the festival. Shouta leered at him.

"Oh my God, look at Sho's face!" Midnight cackled and made her way over to inspect the photo closer. You were a little drunk and slightly confused; obviously wanting to see what the fuss was about, you leaned in. Mic was able to get a photo of Aizawa watching you while you danced, both you and Aizawa completely unaware until now. Seeing the documentation of Aizawa’s reaction to you sent you into a flurry of embarrassment. Trying to hide your face, you went to sit back down, but thanks to the alcohol, your balance was gone. To regain your equilibrium, you reached out, inevitably placing your hand on Aizawa's inner thigh without realizing it. Slowly you returned to your seat, still unaware of where your hand was but noticing that someone else was holding it in place. For a while, neither of you made eye contact, simply enjoying the warmth of holding each other’s hand. Finally, you looked at him. He carried the same stoic expression as always, but you swore there was a hint of a smile curling at the edge of his lips. Soon you gave his hand a light squeeze before withdrawing yours, and standing up, the drinks had finally made their way through, and a bathroom break was needed. To get to the washroom, you had to pass over Shouta but were entirely unsure how given the awkward seating set up. Instead, he stood up as well and moved out of the seating area, giving you room to exit comfortably. You smiled and silently nodded in appreciation. Despite having shared intimate moments together and working together for a few months now, small interactions like this still made you shy and awkward.

Returning to the table, you were happy to take in the scene of your coworkers smiling and laughing, forgetting about the harsh realities of their jobs and the world you all inhabit. Aizawa stood up and let you gracefully sit back down before returning to his seat. It was comfortable spending time with your faculty. Several of them were incredibly outgoing and happily carried the conversations for the night, allowing you to interject and be a passive member of the table. The more drinks that arrived, the louder Mic, Midnight, and a few others got. For you, sleepiness began to wash over. As it took its hold, your ears drooped, and you felt yourself wavering, slowly falling to the side. Your head fell on Aizawa's shoulder, tail gently curving around him. Totally unsure about what he should do, he gently positioned you that allowed you to partially curly up in his lap like a cat. Giving you a gentle pet behind the ears before returning to the table conversation.

Soon people began retiring to their rooms, Aizawa taking the opportunity to carry you to your room.

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chrismerle · 4 years ago

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what’s up i spent way too long typing up a post about my thoughts on P5S, and it isn’t even all encompassing. i guess if you’re curious about anything i didn’t mention in this trainwreck just ask.

my spoiler-heavy thoughts/pseudo-review below the cut

THINGS I LIKED:

The characterization, broadly speaking. If you, like me, loved the Thieves in P5/P5R then you’ll be pretty happy with them here. There are a couple moments that made me roll my eyes (lookin’ at you, hot springs) but on the whole, the main cast are unchanged.

The new characters. Sophia and Zenkichi are great. Sophia is precious and Zenkichi straddles a very fine line of ‘realistically out of the loop, but gives as good as he gets.’ I don’t even care how silly their costumes were. Sophie looked like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, though I did like her little emoticon visor, but also she had no pants. Wolf’s mask was badass but the fact that his stupid pointy hat was riveted to the top of his stupid disco high collar killed it and I wanted to see someone grab his hat and pull it back to see it fling back into place like a drinky-drinky bird. Even so, the characters were great, and when I noticed that all the attacks for Sophie’s initial pseudo-Persona had question marks after them (Kouga? Dia?), it made me laugh, and Wolf’s a good all-purpose party member because he hits like a fucking truck and nothing is immune to Almighty. Plus in some of his post-battle dialogue he calls them all ‘kiddos’ and they consistently call him Gramps.

The gameplay. I mean, yeah, it’s VERY different than P5, but you all know that. And hey! The game no longer immediately ends if Joker gets knocked out (unless he’s the only one left in the party, obviously). It ran pretty smoothly, there’s something weirdly charming about the other Thieves showing up perched on cover points, and the only consistent issue I ran into is that in segments where the camera gets forced into a certain angle, it can switch back so abruptly at the end that you accidentally go walking right off a ledge.

I’ve never really played a Dynasty Warriors-type game before, so it took me a Jail or so to get used to it, but then I was just cackling as I mowed down swarms of Jack Frosts like a weed-whacker in a flower field with a knife the size of Joker’s torso. Honestly, it took me the longest to get used to the fact that the circle button became the all-purpose ‘interact’ button than anything else.

Actually, that’s a lie. It took me the longest to get used to the fact that if I left a Jail, I wouldn’t be losing any time. I’m very used to Persona games having the calendar constantly counting down, which wasn’t the case here.

The story, broadly speaking. It had some hiccups and some issues, which I’ll get into, but for the most part, it was fun. I’m...not going to outline every detail of the story here, but it felt very P5-y and I enjoyed it.

THINGS I LIKED BUT THAT NEEDED WORK:

The writing. It was a little inconsistent, beyond just the usual weirdness that I have accepted comes along with Persona games. (//patiently clicks through numerous conversations of the gang going ‘did this super obvious thing that this memory threw in our faces happen? Let’s debate about whether the most likely answer by a huge margin is the answer’ and several conversations of ‘are we sure this person is bad? We saw them playing nice, like literally every other villain we’ve faced’) A lot was great! Like, the bit with the Okinawa locals breaking into the RV while the kids hide in the bushes? Genuinely unsettling! Akane’s Jail and the fake Thieves was fun, and seeing Zenkichi scuttle from hiding place to hiding place without Thief powers was funny, and his Shadow’s glowing eyes watching him before becoming his Persona was both badass and unsettling. The realization that EMMA was actively lying to Konoe was nice. Character interactions were great and I loved that Sophia went with Ichinose at the end. There was a lot that was good. But there were also a lot of missteps.

Like, it kind of felt like the direction for the writing changed partway through. It started out as if each member of the Phantom Thieves was going to get their own time to shine, identifying and empathizing with a Monarch. Ann realized she could have been Alice. Yusuke realized he could have been Ango and also saw redeeming him as sort of like redeeming Madarame by proxy. Mariko was a link to Haru’s childhood and her father. The ghost Jail on Okinawa lured Sophie in and by the end she realized how much she meant to her friends ryuji said fuck. Akane was Zenkichi’s literal daughter. And then it went to Konoe and then EMMA, so Ryuji, Futaba, Morgana, Makoto, and Joker didn’t get a chance to shine in that regard. The switch from ‘a Jail for everyone to identify with’ to ‘whelp here’s the decoy and the end boss’ felt like they came from two separate drafts of the script, and it’s not like they had to watch the time; I got through P5S in about a third the time it took me to get through P5R. It took me about 35 hours. Considering the game kind of relies on you having played P5, they already knew their target audience has a longer attention span than that.

Owada was talked up as kind of a big deal, but he had like two scenes on-screen and otherwise was an entirely off-screen character. There’s a lot of mid-combat dialogue that is very difficult to focus on, which was sort of annoying when some of it was actually relevant. Ichinose’s reveal as a villain is very info-dump-y.

Plus, Joker wasn’t utilized particularly well as a silent protagonist. He’s got more implied personality than basically any other Persona protag. Which means he’s actually pretty expressive throughout the game, but I can probably count his lines of dialogue outside of combat with fingers left over. No one expects Yu Narukami to actually react to anything, so it doesn’t feel odd when he doesn’t. But the combination of Joker being reasonably expressive and having a demonstrated personality means you’re perpetually EXPECTING and WANTING him to say something about the shit going on, and when he doesn’t it feels like mentally missing a stair.

THINGS THAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The cut corners. Like, a lot of things just seem lazy. There were scenes that really should have been included that weren’t, like how the Thieves escaped from the hotel after the police showed up; it cut from Zenkichi warning them and getting arrested to them arriving at the temporary hideout, so we never even got to see how the Thieves reacted to realizing the cops were outside. Requests to bond with the other Thieves only got a couple of text boxes, when they could have shown a tiny scene of them hanging out like they had all over P5. Rather than having Sae actually on-screen for her brief scene, the camera instead very unnaturally switched to an angle as if it was from her point of view, which was literally the only time the camera did that in the entire game. All of the Sentries look the same from Jail to Jail, instead of being unique to each Jail. Igor is completely absent for the entire game, and other than a throwaway ‘my master can’t be here’ from Lavenza it’s just not really acknowledged.

The missed opportunities. Like, there is no way to look at this except to assume that Joker was a horrible friend to literally everyone in this world state. Like, I can pass off the fact that everyone has their baseline Personae as being because they haven’t had access to their powers for a while, but when you combine it with the fact that NONE of Joker’s other confidants show up or even know he’s back in Tokyo, it leaves little to assume except that in this world, no confidants got maxed out. On top of that, the Personae are all basically pointless. They could be Pokemon or Stands or Digimon or fucking YuGiOh cards, and it wouldn’t make a difference; NOTHING about the game says ‘these entities are integral to this world and important to these characters.’ Also they could have had Akane actually realize who the Thieves were and it would have been hysterical, but that’s just my personal sulk.

The Requests. I liked the Mementos missions in P5/P5R. They felt like they had a point. Requests in P5S are all basically just fetch quests. ‘Go to Location A, fight so many of Enemy B to get so many of Item C. Turn in Request.’ Hell, one of them bugged out on me, I swear. There’s a Request to teach Zenkichi how to cook a simple meal, and Haru gives you a recipe including beef. I had no beef on me at the time, because if you want SP restoratives you gotta cook a fair amount and I used it, and I could find literally no beef in the city I was in at the time so I had to abandon the Request. On top of that, outside of getting food or a few moments where another character specifically asks for Joker’s attention, character-specific Requests mostly replace the ability to bond with the other characters individually.

The restoratives. Or, more specifically, the disparity between HP restoratives and SP restoratives. There’s essentially one cookable recipe to restore SP for every four recipes to restore HP. Even if I stopped at every store and vending machine, I’m pretty sure there were a couple cities where I could find NO SP restoratives for sale, while most stores and vending machines had at least two or three HP restoratives. And while it is true that you can go in and out of a Jail whenever you please to restore SP, that doesn’t help you if you run out during a boss fight you weren’t expecting (mini-boss encounters are virtually identical to regular monster encounters) or during one of the times where you CAN’T leave the Jail for reasons XYZ.

The final boss, and not just because I died and had to start over a few times. As a concept, EMMA could be cool, but in reality she just seemed like the writers threw Yaldabaoth and Maruki in a blender and poured the results into the game. Like Yaldabaoth, she is a false god who seeks to control humanity, claiming it’s what they want. Like Maruki, she seems genuinely deluded into thinking it’s for the best and that she’s not doing anything wrong. Her Jail looked like a slightly sci-fi reskin of the Depths of Mementos. The shtick with the multiple platforms and getting to actually SEE an all-out attack at the end were nice, but for the most part the fight itself was nothing special. Ultimately, EMMA had nothing unique going for her except her name.

Plus, EMMA’s entire rationale was that the majority of humans want someone else to control their lives for them, essentially out of convenience. And she’s presented as being more or less right, but that just being one of the hurdles of being human. It seemed a little dour and far-fetched. Like, the Thieves repeatedly point out that struggling allows people to grow, and they’re right, but in my experience, I’ve never actually met anyone who, upon hitting a roadblock, decided ‘Jesus take the wheel.’ Considering the greed with which her weird tentacle arms snatched up the solidified Desires, the pettiness of the complaints she used as a “gotcha,” and the fact that she just kind of reiterates her ‘people want to be controlled’ point over and over, I think it would have felt a bit more true to life and given her more agency if, instead of presenting her as largely correct, it instead acknowledged that everyone at some time or another hits a wall and wants someone to tell them what to do and had her capitalizing on those individual brief moments to hook people in, despite her having reams of data that for most people, those moments are temporary.

#persona 5 strikers #persona 5 strikers spoilers

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littleeyesofpallas · 4 years ago

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The other day i had a kinda drunken rant I went on with a friend that I had wished I could’ve written down. But today I read an article about the shift in hollywood marketing from star power to IP and character driven power instead: the idea being that an original movie used be able to draw crowds with the basic idea of “your favorite star as <insert role>” but we’ve moved more towards the appeal of familiar franchise names like “from the creator of XYZ.” But I think this is an interesting place to draw the line because it does go back to that drunken rant. So, here I go again... this is gonna be lo~ng and boring (and this is the shortest possible version) and without pictures, but god knows i have no idea what i would put to accompany this super tangent-filled tirade, so I guess just buckle up...

(I apologize now for all the weird side subjects that I’m going to name drop but just not take the time here to go in depth with.)

I don’t even remember where my drunken rant with my friend the other night started so my first obstacle is finding a place to even begin with this because it has so many entry points and none of them are any closer to where this all ends than any other so like.... whatever... Shakespeare.

It’s a super complicated thing but in the first era of professional english theatre that Shakespeare ushered in (from the mid-late 1500s to early-mid 1600s) there were strong strong associations with theatre and prostitution. Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like, maybe it was elitist slander against the revolutionary accessibility of the arts to the poor as self debasing, maybe it was the church being really angry about literally everything all the time, maybe it was a little of all of that... But either way the persisting notion was that a theatre, established or travelling, was a place one could ostensibly go to pay for sex with the troupe’s actors. of course at the time women weren’t a part of that profession, and while they may have been as much a part of the theater going demographic as anyone else it’s hard to pinpoint how much of the already vaguely defined theatre sex trade they patronized --Point being when we talk about theatres prostituting their actors we’re talking about male theatre goers paying to have sex with male actors, and predominantly those young boys playing female roles. In most classic academic circles this is either wholly ignored, brushed aside/glossed over, or sloppily chalked up to “homosexuality.” But there’s a lot more nuance to that... which is part of the big mess of stuff I’m just not getting into here...

But this is where I draw my line of connection to Kabuki theatre. Kabuki somewhat infamously had similar practices as all-male theatre and as duel industry for theatre and prostitution. And as a parallel development it seems to make sense... In England and Japan alike, you have a group of people who by nature of their jobs charm people and constantly move from town to town. Even if a community or government thinks what they’re doing is wrong, by the time they can take notice or do anything to stop them: they charm, they fuck, they leave. But unlike Shakespearean theatre, kabuki has a slightly more convoluted history of development.

See, Kabuki started with Izumi-no-Okumo, a shinto shrine maid (ironically also in the 1500-1600s cusp, same as shakespeare) and although a lot of her personal history is lost to time you can imagine the basic development here: a shrine maid tells the myths, she tells the myths dramatically and with with character voice, then all that but with props, and costume, and then dividing roles into separate actors, and collecting donations for the shrine as regular practice anyway but hey look people donate more when they’ve come for a story they enjoy... and then oops you’ve invented theatre. Also on account of this being started with shinto shrine maids, the form naturally took an all female slant.

Whether it started with Okumo herself or not, as theatre became an established form, and a lucrative one at that, non shinto affiliated women quickly seized the chance to make a living outside the bounds of common peasantry, and with the growth of travelling theatre as an industry that same side venture of prostitution developed. But here’s where it gets interesting...

Due to things that, again I won’t dive into here, the untaxed revenues of prostitution painted a target on the backs of kabuki actresses, and women were eventually outlawed from theatre. The art form was of course immensely popular however so to keep the gravy train rolling the theatre form continued but now with all young-male casts, to retain the feminine aesthetics of female kabuki. This did absolutely nothing to stop the rate of prostitution however, so they outlawed it again and replaced the young boys with grown men. This still didn’t stop the prostitution but there was other stuff going on in Japan at that point and legislative attentions were pulled elsewhere.

And here’s my weird little take away from this... it’s not like Kabuki theatre suddenly went from being popular with horny straight men to horny gay men in a seemless and perfectly balanced transition. (and granted japan at the time was a lot more open about their grasp of sexuality compared to now and to the west in general) so presumably a lot of these thirsty theatre goers were just overwhelmingly indiscriminate in their tastes in fucking actors... But stick a pin in that, we’ve got a tangent to go on!

So around this same time Japan was having kind of a second rennaissance: japan’s high arts culture had first really risen to prominence in the heian period right before the long long descent into the civilwar we all know and lover for all its flashy samurai drama. When that 400-ish year civil war finally ended and then stabilized under the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, the art scene finally had some room to breathe again, and among many other things ukiyo-e wood block prints saw a huge explosion in popularity. And part of this tied into Kabuki theatre, as an extremely popular genre of prints were actor portraits and theatre scenes. Actor portraits in particular are kind of culturally fascinating, because they weren’t simply prints of character illustration, they were frequently labeled with both the character played, the story they featured in, and the name of the actor playing them. moreover, despite the reverence of classical art historians now, these weren’t fine art at the time; they were mass produced, affordable and disposable. In major cities, everyone went to see theatre, and everyone bought, kept, and even collected actor portraits. As theatre seasons and troupes came and went actor portraits came to occupy and kind of cultural value space a lot like American baseball cards in how prestige, rarity, and trading became an entire subculture in and of itself within the sports/theatre community.

Now we see how Japan had created this thriving popular/mass culture, and celebrity culture for itself. And while the notion of a “parasocial relationship” wouldn’t be formulated and explored until the 1950s-60s in the wake of things like Elvis fever and Beetles mania, that brand of one-sided relationship where you as an audience member form a “relationship” with a celebrity that involves collecting information about their heavily curated persona is exactly what japan stumbled into some 300 years earlier. And in fact Japanese pop culture would maintain a lineage of parasocial relationships during the intervening years (in a way the deification and worship of the emperor as a god-king was a kind of parasocial relationship in the way a secular monarch doesn’t quite achieve) So it’s no surprise that when Takarazuka Revue opened in the 1910s as a new modern all-female theatre form, it attracted a familiar old brand of horny theatre audience --one that maintained a very nebulous relationship with the now much more stringent notions of gender and its relation to sexuality.

taking this tangent a little further, Japanese pop culture has always shown this interesting, self-aware approach to the parasocial relationship dynamic that western cultures seems to lack. I remember that when the 1990s put boy bands briefly into the spotlight, the thing that sunk them in the American eye seemed to be this weird sense of betrayal that the boys werent some garage band rags to riches story, and they didnt write their own music, or make their own dance moves, or even sing live at their own concerts. America seemed to be repulsed by this notion of a manufactured pop hit. Japan however (and Korea soon to follow) seemed to thrive in this instead; there was no pretense that J-pop idols weren’t manufactured, and in fact they took pride in the rigors of having been hand picked and raised to stardom --of course they were scouted and trained, because the idol could’ve been any of millions but it was them who got picked, it was them who sang the best, performed the best, climbed the charts, and fought to stay there. Stardom wasn’t an art form, it was a contest, and they were WINNING.

And the manufactured nature of that J-pop idol business model is what gave rise to Hatsune Miku (in fact there were multiple attempts in the 1980s to design and market a wholly fictional pop idol, but if anything they were too ahead of their time and lacked the technology to really sell the idea in its best form) because when your entire product is about making and curating your performers’ public persona, to the extreme level at which them having their own lives actually starts to contradict their stage persona and hurt their marketability... why bother projecting the persona onto a real person? Why not just cut the human component out all together and just market the persona for what it is? And for Japan I think that kind of relationship was one that they were culturally always just a few steps away from being ready to accept anyway, so it just took a little persistence.

Then came the anime waifu thing... Dating sims, and body pillow marriages, etc... and I think the pretty unanimous impulse to turn this into a enormous joke (and lets be real who could blame anyone for that) overlooks what actually happened here: paraosocial relationships in the purest form, with the fleshy middleman removed and with it the lie, not less false but somehow now false yet honest. A bizarre paradox to be sure...

But now lets back this up... Kabuki theatre. Prostitution. The change from women to young boys to men, and the almost hilarious unflappably bisexual audience who embraced it. I don’t think it was a component of sexuality as any historians who have looked at that time period bothered to conceive of it. Because even in an early japanese mass culture scene, the relationship was between the audience and the persona, and not the audience and the actors; The audience was always in love with the characters in their collectible trading prints, with their 15th century waifus, and they paid to have sex with those personas regardless of the bodies or real people involved.

...

okay, so, I typed all that out weeks ago and then just left it in my drafts, not even really intending to come back to it. And now that I’m here, I don’t know that I had a point to this when i went on my drunk rant. But i guess if there was any kind of a take away from this, it’s that I find that people have a lot of trouble separating personal identity from gender, from performance, from social dynamics... and in western culture, especially within recent history/memory, that’s kind of understandably hard to untangle. But historically people’s sexuality and sense of attraction have basically always been based implicitly on attraction to an idea made manifest in a persona first, and a body to match it only secondarily to that;

Society’s abiding dedication to forcing you into a gendered box, and to box gender into a narrow range of performance, is equitable to screeching fans being “in love” with celebrities they’ve never met and convinced that the steady feed of curated marketed personality traits constitute “knowing” those celebrity strangers. The idea that the person and the persona are the same is a lie told to sell product. Gender is just the brand. You’re the rockstar. Fuck marketing.

#long ass rant #who is this even aimed at #what do i even tag this with

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753398445a · 5 years ago

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I think I’ll start liveblogging Harley Quinn now

Maybe before I start I should say what I want to see this season? Definitely no more Joker - I’ve never found him a particularly compelling character and don’t think there’s much more they could do with him in this without either retreading story beats they’ve already covered or giving him his own storylines. I’d like to see Clayface developed more, and wouldn’t say no to the other members of Harley’s crew doing the same. And just like everybody else I’d love to see more Jim.

The episode is called New Gotham, and I’m guessing that means its establishing the new status quo. I’d make more predictions, but I’m pretty sure the promotional material has already told us what’s going down in the first few episodes.

We’ve got No Man’s Land confirmed, though I doubt anybody didn’t see that coming - the show was telegraphing it hard (I’m 90% sure that the earthquake being an 8.6 was lifted directly from Cataclysm, even).

I’m surprised by the lack of the show doing anything overtly political with the opportunity of the president being relevant for the first time - this show’s gone out of its way to espouse politics in the past and I’m pretty sure I heard that some of the writers of this are the same ones who worked on Powerless which would make them the same ones that called Trump a supervillain that one time. I’m not complaining, just because I don’t like the guy doesn’t mean I want shots at him shoehorned into a scene that’s meant to be dramatic, I’m just surprised.

It looks like season two has the same intro as season one, and I still love it.

That moment with the severed arms was great, and in fact it seems designed to establish the show’s comedy to anybody who didn’t watch season one (which would be a weird thing to do, but maybe the writers didn’t know what format the show would be presented in when they started making it and wanted their bases covered?).

I thought she was presenting the dude as food as well, and my only feelings on the matter were surprise that they’d resorted to cannibalism so quickly and curiosity about how enthusiastic/resistant each of them had been when the idea had first come up. Also I feel like something either unpleasant or very strange is going to happen to that llama or whatever it is.

I don’t know anything about sushi, so that joke about the spider roll was lost on me. Oh, its actually been three weeks. I assumed from the fact that water was still flowing from that hydrant that things had only just gone wrong. I also don’t know what Vietnam was like after the US left, but at least I don’t need to know anything I can’t glean from context clues to get the joke in this case.

I was hoping for a scene of Harley leading some sort of Goon (and now also Hench, I guess) Uprising back in episode three, but now’s good too. I feel like its not gonna go well because if it does that map scene becomes a lot less plausible. Okay, that went surprisingly well. I feel like that wouldn’t be how broadcasts work, but I’ll admit I don’t really know for certain.

God, Freeze just made a cool entrance. That pun was unintentional, and I don’t really have anything else to say about that scene but when I paused it had just switched to a view of Gordon so at least I’m about to get more of him like I said I wanted. I also enjoyed the comedy of that scene, but didn’t really have anything to say about it either. I did guess that the silhouette would be Robin just like in episode four, but I feel like that probably isn’t notable - like I said, the show did it already.

I hope ...Takeshi? becomes a member of the crew, I think just having a regular person around when all the comic book bullshitery happened would offer a lot of comedic potential. Or actually, just a little bit of comedic potential. The more I think about this the less funny it seems, and now I don’t want him to join the crew. Also when Freeze fired his gun I expected vines to block the blast because I forgot that in comic-land people can be frozen/thawed harmlessly (which is dumb, by the way).

Cheryl is disgusting.

(That deserved to be its own paragraph) Is the music that played when Jim was shooting the same as what played on the precinct's rooftop in episode six? I think it may have been, and if so that would probably mean its like, Gordon’s theme or something. Either way I like it. Also Twoface (Two Face? Two-face?) has good taste.

Jesus that was a sad moment (also of course Cheryl would work for Bane :P). At first I thought the waiter was poorly trying to do a french accent to appease Penguin, but the inflection on 'taking back' tipped me off. Now that I know to look for it, it seems he kept his normal teeth for some reason. Did King Shark just do the hand gestures when Dr. Psycho used his power? Because if so that’s adorable but also implies a lot of unnecessary planning went into some way of coordinating that.

Harley’s having a lot of fun as a pinball. HOLY FUCK I FORGOT THAT SHE WAS GONNA BITE HIS NOSE OFF! Joshua’s probably gonna come after her in revenge - you gotta end the bloodline, Harley. More seriously, I’m surprised they killed off The Penguin because I’m used to the iconic villains having plot armor, but I guess that a lot of them have actually died already and I just forgot (in my defense Scarecrow was the only one whose death didn’t happen offscreen). I wonder if by the end of season two Harley will have offed the rest of them? The only remaining scene with any of them in it that I can remember is the one of Mr. Freeze being mistaken for Beyonce. Also I suppose Joshua might’ve been in the Legion HQ when it blew up, we know he was there in Bensonherst and it seemed like he had made himself at home.

Ivy’s “Cool” was great. I haven’t said it on this platform before but I think it was a clever decision to have her as an audience surrogate instead of having the main character fill that role. Seems like the sort of thing that wouldn’t normally work, but it certainly did here. Also yes, apparently Harley is going to kill the other villains.

And it looks like we’re going to see more Bruce Wayne this season, which I’m not opposed to. All in all a pretty good episode, the only thing I’m not satisfied with was the lack of Frank and Kite-Man (hell yeah!), I feel like the former’s absence was pretty noticeable.

#harley quinn #harley quinn the animated series #harley quinn 2019 #harley quinn spoilers #liveblog #harley quinn liveblog #tw: politics #tw: death #tw: guns #Harley Quinn Season 2 Episode 1 – New Gotham

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ellaenchanting · 5 years ago

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Hypnovember Day 12: Stage

Somehow this story refused to be short. Even this version with all its’ extraneous details is abbreviated. Based lightly on the biography of one of my favorite hypnotists. Very lightly edited- may do another read through tomorrow am. Feel free to point out mistakes.

Curtain up on a handsome young man attending university in the 90s.

Brandon took a deep breath and looked at himself in the mirror. He could do this. He'd actually learned to enjoy the stage fright these past few months he'd been performing. It felt electric and helpful- a little reminder that he was alive.

He ran through his old confidence trick of imagining that he was Paul McKenna. He'd seen McKenna perform once back in first year. He was magnetic on stage- mesmerizing the audience well before he had even formally hypnotized anyone. As a shy, awkward, closeted kid, Brandon had admired how confident the hypnotist was. He held effortless sway over his volunteers and his audience. Brandon had wanted to be like that- feel that in control of something.

So Brandon began to teach himself hypnosis. The library had some books and he had some friends who were kind enough to let him try things out. Somewhere along the way, Brandon had gotten really good. One night after work at his bar job, he had even managed to hypnotize the owner’s girlfriend. She was a fun natural subject and they had worked really well together. The owner had been so impressed that he asked if Brandon ever did stage hypnosis. When Brandon said yes (a small white lie), the owner had offered him a slot for a show every other Tuesday night.

After the first month or so, doing stage hypnosis started to feel really great. Brandon had a routine and he mostly stuck to it, but the volunteers reacted differently enough that the show felt new every time. Brandon felt connected to his volunteers. And even though what they were doing was inherently silly, it was also magical and exciting and fascinating.

Brandon stepped out on the small stage and began his pre-talk. Like the rest of the show, It was a variation on the same old speech every week (one of the regulars at the bar counter always rolled his eyes when Brandon began) but the routine gave Brandon enough extra brain space to scan the crowd and take notes for himself. A ginger girl looked really engaged and was laughing at all the jokes right on time- she might be a good volunteer. A man in a hat had kind of slowly blinked when Brandon said "sleep" earlier- that could be a good sign. Or he might already be too drunk, Brandon thought, judging the number of beer glasses Brandon saw under him. Many audience members tonight seemed open and engaged. That would probably give Brandon a good selection of volunteers...

And then he walked in.

Brandon saw the guy from the campus GLBT club last week. The one Brandon had finally forced himself to go to. (Brandon had been frantically trying not to think about sex and sexuality issues for years, but this year he had finally started privately using “the g word” in his own mind when labeling himself.) Actually going to the club had felt really awkward until he began talking with a friendly guy there named Scott. Scott had drawn him out- asked him about himself and his interests. Scott told him a bit about his life too- he talked about being the only gay guy on the rugby team and how he had won the other players’ respect.

Scott had an easy laugh and an easy charm. Brandon had certainly felt charmed by him. Maybe a bit too charmed. Brandon felt the zing of a crush beginning to start. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that yet, though. Brandon had not mentioned the hypnosis thing to Scott- it felt weird and personal and he had already half-convinced himself that he was being creepy in response to Scott’s platonic friendliness. He didn’t want to scare him off.

He had never expected to see him here.

Scott smiled and waved at Brandon. It took everything Brandon had to keep his pre-talk speech going on autopilot. All of a sudden, he felt very exposed and very known. Like Scott had walked in on him masturbating or something.

Focus.

Brandon tripped up a little bit on the magnetic fingers test, but no one in the audience seemed to notice. He had a few people who seemed to be responding really well so far. (He studiously did not to look over at Scott.) Brandon channeled his enthusiasm into his volunteer call "So if you're ready to have the best time of all tonight, go ahead and come up on the stage!"

A few people came up- Brandon sold volunteering some more while trying to make eye contact with a few more possibles. It was always good to give himself options. He verbally encouraged volunteers to find and sit in the hypnotic chairs behind him. When he finally felt like enough people had volunteered, Brandon turned around

He saw Scott sitting directly behind him, smiling up at him expectanly.

Fuck.

Professionalism, Scott remembered. He kept on with his routine, doing some basic relaxation steps and then starting at the beginning of the line of volunteers with a series of quick inductions.

He got to Scott.

Scott was already looking spacey. He looked up at Brandon in the most open, trusting way.

Brandon felt something in him stir.

NO. He thought. Focus.

He took Scott’s hand in his and started his induction.

“Push on my hand.” Scott’s hand felt warm and rough against his.

“Harder” He looked so sexy when he was concentrating.

“Harder” He smelled so good.

“Now- SLEEP!”

As Brandon pulled his hand quickly away, Scott just..collapsed. Like a puppet with his strings cut. His eyes had rolled back and they had already started moving a bit under the lids. Scott’s mouth was hanging open. He looked debauched and so open and so gone...

NO.

NO NO NO

Focus

Brandon needed to stop himself. Thinking on his feet, he course corrected. “Let’s have a round of applause for all of our volunteers! Now- since we have so many excellent subjects up here, let’s say we make it just a ladies night tonight. We’ll use all and only female volunteers. What do you all think about that?!”

The crowd cheered in enthusiasm. Thank goodness. Brandon woke up all of his male volunteers and continued the show.

Crisis averted.

Scott came up after the show to shake Brandon’s hand and talk to him. Brandon somehow managed to touch Scott’s hand again and not blush, even with that strings-cutting moment still vivid in his head. Scott asked if Brandon wanted to meet him for a pint but Brandon declined, citing exhaustion. He already felt bad enough for lusting after Scott during the show- if he let his guard down Scott might notice something was off. He needed to go and sort himself out.

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

Brandon decided to give going to the GLBT club a miss that next week. He had been fantasizing about Scott all week- his big trusting eyes, his slack expression, what he could have made Scott do while he was under his power. He felt ashamed to actually go face him with those thoughts running through his head. Brandon took a walk and had a cold shower that night instead.

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

Scott was in the front row when Brandon began his next stage hypnosis show.

He had brought friends.

The group of girls, who had obviously already had a bit to drink, were cheering and rowdy. They weren't rambunctious enough to get kicked out, but they were certainly enough to rile the rest of the crowd up.

Brandon gave the first part of his pretalk then launched into his magnetic fingers routine. He decided to experiment and turn it into a bit of a group induction, continuing on into an arm levitation on the fly. After a few minutes of patter, he asked people to open their eyes and see how high their arms had gotten. A few people had arms that were floating a foot or two off their legs.

Scott’s arm was floating up at his head.

It looked like he was raising his hand.

Scott looked up at his arm with a kind of distant, happy surprise.

Brandon chose a few audience members to come on the stage who had experienced some success with the exercise. He purposely did not choose Scott. No need to put himself through that again.

He was just getting ready to put the last chair away when he heard:

“Scott! Scott!”

One of the drunk girls.

“Scott! Scott!”

Now all of the drunk girls.

“Scott! Scott!”

Then the rest of the audience, laughing a bit as Scott cheekily waved at them.

Brandon swallowed and steeled his nerves. “Scott, would you like to come up?”

The audience roared in response.

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

Brandon managed to keep his shit together through the beginning of the show and a few basic skits- pretending shoes were puppies (Scott made the most adorable faces), playing an imaginary piano (he had...agile fingers), and name amnesia (that confused look, though).

Brandon went right into the next skit.

“OK when I wake you up in a moment, you’re going to imagine you’re at the top of a tall mountain and it’s freezing up there- you’ll imagine that you’re so totally cold and every time I say the word cold it gets colder, every time I say the word cold you get colder...”

Scott was already shivering, doing brilliantly. So was the blonde in the red shirt.

Brandon woke them up, verbally encouraging their shivers and teeth chattering. The volunteers huddled together for warmth. Scott ran his hands quickly up and down the blonde girl’s arms to warm her up.

“And now, “ Brandon said, “the cold’s gone away and you realize that you’re not on the mountain at all! You’re in a hot place! You’re in the desert and the sun’s coming up and it’s getting hotter and hotter...”

Brandon kept his patter going on autopilot as he watched the group react, looking for what reactions to encourage. The blonde was fanning herself. The bald guy was going a bit red. And Scott-

Scott was taking his shirt off.

The drunk girls yelled encouragement from the audience.

Scott’s hands worked to throw his shirt over his head. Time seemed to slow. Brandon could see the muscles in Scott’s chest. He was sweating.

Brandon stopped dead in his tracks for a moment.

Scott moved his hands to his belt buckle.

Brandon raised his voice “And NOW the temperature is normal again. Normal comfortable temperature. And you can go ahead and stop what you’re doing and sit back in your seat, that's right..”

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

Brandon fled the stage as soon as the show was over. He made an excuse of needing to use the toilet. He stayed in there for 10 minutes to calm his nerves.

Scott was waiting for him when he came out.

Brandon made another excuse of checking on the other volunteers and left.

30 minutes later, Scott was still at the bar. Waiting.

Resigned and secretly pleased, Brandon walked over.

“Hey Svengali!” Scott said with a smile. “Did you like having me under your spell?” He winked playfully.

Brandon laughed awkwardly. Suddenly he was all out of words.

Scott came closer. “Seriously, though, that was a lot of fun. I felt really relaxed and playful. Being hypnotized feels really zen, y’know?”

Brandon found his voice, “Yeah, you’re a really talented subject. You’re really creative and imaginative and..willing.” Brandon looked down, his own words making him shy.

Scott’s mouth quirked at that last word. “Brandon, I don’t want to freak you out but- I’ve spent the last hour and a half focused on you. Really focused. And I was paying attention to what you said but,” he looked Brandon in the eye, “I could kind of tell you were focused on me too. Intensely.”

Brandon turned red. “I..I’m sorry, you must think I’m so creepy, I..”

Scott stopped him. “No Brandon, you don't get it. I wanted to be focused on you. I’ve wanted it ever since the club really- but especially since I saw your last show. Watching it kind of...helped me understand some things about myself. What I wanted. And I wanted you to notice me too. Why do you think I wore this shirt tonight?” He smiles teasingly. “I remembered your show last week. I knew I’d have the excuse to take it off for you. Did you like what you saw?”

Brandon nodded his head.

Scott nodded back, understanding. “You liked watching me take my shirt off. And I think you liked watching me be hypnotized, too. Following your commands. Acting under your spell.”

Brandon blushed at his quiet, involuntary moan.

Scott looked at Brandon’s with gentle compassion. He held Brandon’s hand in his for a moment and put a piece of paper in it. “I know you’re newly out and i don’t want to pressure you. I like you a lot, though, and, well- I think we have a lot in common. We’re...compatible, in a way. So if you ever want to hang out some time or go out or y’know, stay in together...” he squeezed Brandon’s hand and let go “...give me a call”.

Scott looked Brandon in the eyes one more time, then walked away.

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

Brandon angsted over the number for exactly one day.

On Wednesday night, he picked up the phone.

“Hey Scott? Hey, It’s Brandon. Listen, I’m working on some new ideas for my show. Would you like to come over and help me test them? Maybe on Friday? I’ll make you dinner.”

It was a start.

#hypnovember #m/m #stage hypnosis #this one ended up being long #and maybe confusing time-wise #apologies about that #it's a coffeehouse au #only with stage hypnosis

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msftbts · 6 years ago

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Personal stylist!Reader x OT7

(eventual) smut, fluff, slight angst & a bit of comedy here and there

Summary: You travel to Korea to start your new life as a personal stylist, expecting nothing more than to gain some job experience for the future, but seven sulky men make it difficult for you to stay in your lane and follow the rules. Will you stay faithful to your boss, or fall into the charms of another?

Notes: For those who were worried; i got a new laptop for my birthday, so I can continue writing again and let me tell y’all, the future chapters are _so_ full of drama, so enjoy the peace while it still lasts..

Warnings: mild cursing, alcohol usage

Taglist: @milk-mochi @ephemeral-mindset @the-wild-ego @kwitze-blog @in-overrmyhead @itsapparent @chocoflagcutii @leftflowerprunedonut @wildly-lost-lantern @knadiuniverse @treetops68 @ultrawheeze @xnxxdlesx @grumpy-doge

Don’t be shy to message/question/request me if you want to be added to the taglist to get notified whenever I post a new chapter! I update this au at least once a week.

I’m also taking requests for other writing ideas & if you want to discuss or ask questions about the plot of this story then feel free to! I’d love to hear your opinions and theories. Not gonna lie, I’ve been low-key stalking my readers and all of y’all seem so cool, I’d love to become friends.

(masterlist)

Chapter 4

As the loud music started playing, and the 50k people in the audience went crazy, you could sense the nervousness in the air. It was show time. You were in your room, but it felt like you were there in the crowd, as the bass caused the walls of your room to vibrate, and the cheering was shaking the ceiling. That, mixed with the adrenaline running in your veins, caused by the moment with Jimin, made you feel almost ecstatic, alive. Your first night had been a success so far. As the show was starting, you knew you had to spend most of the night trapped in your room, waiting for them to come there for outfit changes during the show, but Melissa pulled you out of your room to go explore behind the stage. She held your hand as you ran together through the hallways to right behind the stage to get a peek of the show. However, you were stopped in your tracks by a stage manager, who asked you where you were going. “We just wanted to take a look at the stage”, Melissa bribed and fluttered her innocent eyes to him. The manager was quiet for awhile, but accompanied you to the stairs leading to the stage. “You can watch from here, but make sure you do it when the lights are on the stage, so they can’t see you”, he introduced. You and Melissa looked at eachother excitedly, being surprised that the manager gave in so easily. You were hanging close to the stairs when the manager ran off somewhere. He came back with the members following him, looking all glammed up and ready for the stage, with microphone wires strapped up on them. The manager said something to his mic, and then lead the boys to the stairs. “They’re ready for you”, he said and the boys started walking up the stairs and onto the blacked out stage one by one. They didn’t seem like they noticed you next to the stairs, until Jimin walked past and winked at you. It was dark, so it was only visible if you looked into his eyes, but Melissa had also noticed it. “Did he just-”, Melissa said and turned to you. You were frozen in place. “Good luck out there!” Melissa screamed to the boys, jumping up and down out of excitement. When the lights turned on and the music started, you both crawled up the stairs and peeked behind the curtains to see a huge stage and a part of the insanely large crowd. The lights were flashing in your eyes, but yours were tightly glued on one person. It was so fascinating to see him switch his personality to a stage one, but you could tell he was in his element as he moved to the music and started singing. He transcended talent. You felt light-hearted, knowing he didn’t give up on you, even after your moment ended quite crummy. You still had plenty of time with him, it was only the first show of the many more to come.

The boys popped into the room throughout the show, dripping with sweat and you helped them change outfits quickly. You didn’t really have time for chit-chats. The boys who were once goofy and loud, were now dead serious and proficient, to the point where it was kind of intimidating. You didn’t even dare to open your mouth, unless it was you asking them to lift their arm so you can adjust their shirt. It was weird seeing them like this, but something about it screamed tempting. They were hot. You were sure everyone else thought so too, and the loud screams from the audience confirmed it. There was like a stigma between the boys and the whole world around them, leaving everyone breathless with the power of just their presence alone. Something about it made you want to fight the feeling even harder. You didn’t wanna be just another one to fall for their infatuation. Even if your work practically forced you to, you didn’t want to be one to kiss their asses. None of the boys expected you to, because they were still surprisingly humble, and felt almost awkward if somebody would do a favor for them. But the state they were in when working, made it easy to label them assholes. But they weren’t, no matter how hard you wanted them to, because it was easier to brush off any attraction towards them if they would have been. Even Jimin was oddly professional, his eyes looked hazy when you helped him get changed. It was like he didn’t even see you, because he was so caught up on his stage persona. His stare was empty, but you could tell there was a lot going on in his head, mind most likely rushing through the choreo. Once he was changed, he looked at himself in the mirror, brushed some of his hair up the way he often did, and rushed out of the room. You wanted to reach for his arm and pull him back, maybe to tell him good luck out there or ask him if he was alright, but you knew you couldn’t. You’re not allowed to. And you weren’t sure if he even wanted you to, he looked so cold that he would have probably just pulled his arm off you. You got your head back to the work, but couldn’t help the empty feeling in your gut.

The rest of the show went in the same patterns. The quick pace was physically challenging and it was impossible to not break a sweat. As the fireworks went off, meaning the show had come to an end, all of the exhausted boys ran into your room at once. You didn’t even have time to assist any of them with changing, when they had already stripped and rummaged through the boxes of their regular clothes. They were out of that room as soon as they were in, and you were left to pick up their sweaty, confetti covered performance outfits off the floor. You finished your work in peace, and gathered all of the dress bags. As you walked outside to bring all your stuff back to the van, you saw a glimpse of the boys getting into a taxi. You stood there watching as the car rushed through the crowds on it’s way to the airport, as a crew worker helped you pack the van.

You gathered all your personal stuff and left the venue with Melissa and other staff workers. Both yours and Melissa’s jaws dropped when you saw the private plane you’d be flying in. As you walked through the plane looking for a seat, you saw one free seat in front of Jimin. You stopped to consider sitting there, and just as he turned his head to look at you from underneath his oversized bucket hat, Melissa called you from the other side of the plane, gesturing you to sit at the seat next to her. You quickly continued walking, embarrassed that you almost ditched your friend to sit across Jimin, who clearly was disinterested. The plane ride went smoothly, you and Melissa sharing her headphones and listening to music, or leaning on each others shoulders while dozing off.

You were definitely not used to waking up in another country, when you finally landed in Tokyo, Japan. Tiredly, you walked through the airport with your worn out makeup from yesterday still on your face. You had completely forgotten about this part of your job, when the doors separating the arrivals opened, and you were faced with a huge crowd of paparazzis, fansites and fans, the flashing lights and screams making you feel dizzy. You covered your face as you were some of the first ones to walk in. You looked to your sides, trying to see where Melissa was to get some assistance from her, but noticed she was nowhere near you. You figured she was probably walking further behind, since she had stopped to go quickly get a coffee. You stood in place, waiting for her as all of the staff passed by you. The screaming intensified when the boys walked in. You noticed them being much more lively again, as they had probably prepared to greet the fans. You also noticed how Jimin’s smile was beaming, as he had taken off the hat covering his face. He was looking at you. A smile spread across your face, as you decided to walk with him, but when he walked towards to you, you felt his shoulder brushing yours as he just walked past you. You were left off with an ignored and defeated feeling as you watched him disappear into the crowd. You felt someone poking your cheek and you looked up to find Melissa with two cups of coffee. She handed the other one for you and you left the airport together.

You had a whole day free for yourself, since the next show would be tomorrow. You spent it mostly in your hotel room, but got out around dinner time, since you had promised to accompany Melissa for a fancy dinner downstairs, in the hotel’s restaurant. You decided to put a little bit more effort to the way you look, choosing a dress instead of your usual pants and shirt combo. For a stylist, you were oddly shy to wear any outstanding looks. Melissa had invited some of her other hair and makeup friends, and you sat at a big round table. You tried your best to socialize as much as you could, knowing this was a good chance for you to finally get to know other staff. And everybody seemed easy to get to know to. Normally this type of successful socializing would make you feel positively charged, but for some reason you felt drained, the recently happened events stuck in your mind. It was easy to cover it up by pretending to be listening to everyone around you, but in reality you were drifting off.

As the hours passed, most of your new friends had left to go back to their rooms to prepare for tomorrow’s new busy schedule, the only people left in the restaurant were you and Melissa, plus some other girl who went by the name Soomi. You were ready to go to bed, but Melissa pulled you to the side, bribing you to go for a few drinks with them into the bar. You only said yes, when she brought up how she would feel awkward to go there alone with Soomi. The bar was on the same level in the hotel as the restaurant and soon you were sat at the fancy wooden bar stools picking out your poisons for the night. Soomi was hesitant to buy all three of you some popular Korean alcohol, and honestly you were down for whatever, as long as it could numb your mind. After a few drinks, you had your head hanging loosely on your hands as Soomi and Melissa were giggling and having the time of their lives right next to you. You weren’t sure how much time had passed (or how many drinks you had downed) but it was surely enough to make you almost doze off. Melissa tapped your shoulder and told you they were going to use the bathroom, and as you lifted your head you saw how both of them looked down at you in pity, then looked at each other and tried to hold in their laughters. Normally you would have been offended, but this time you allowed it, you knew you were a mess. As they walked off, you turned back to rest your elbows and head on the counter. You felt someone sit on the stool next to you. “And what would it be for the gentleman?” The bartender asked the form next to you. “A manhattan please” there was a pause, “oh, and a water, please”. “Coming right up”, the bartender said as he turned around to mix the drink. You felt a light tap on your shoulder, and you lifted your head up slowly to see a glass of water being shoved to you. “Drink”, you turned to your side to see it coming from a familiar man sitting next to you. Your eyes were frozen on him, when it took your blurred out brain a while to figure out where you’ve seen this man before. “Had a rough night?” He continued. Fright washed over you, as you realized it was a man you were working for. Or more specifically, working with. You felt humiliated that he had to see you in a state like this, and the best option for you was to ignore him and leave the situation, or at least that’s what your drunken self thought. As you got up from the chair, you stumbled and almost fell, before you felt a pair of toned arms catching you. “I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t see me in a state like this”, you apologized as he helped you back onto your feet. “Don’t worry about it, you should just sit down for awhile and sip on the water I gave you”, he said and you sat down. “Thank you...What was your name again?” You said and realized how it came out much more slurred than you had meant to. He laughed. “It’s Taehyung, but you can call me Tae”. “Sorry, I must have ruined your image of me by being a drunk idiot. I’m definitely not as professional as you’d think”, you confessed, taking a sip of your drink. “It’s okay, I’m not professional either”, he smirked. “What are you even talking about? It’s like this beast took over all of you yesterday when the show started. You were all so focused on the show, I don’t think you were even human! So yes, you are professional”, you explained waving your hands in the air exaggeratedly. “A beast?” He laughed. “Yeah, it was scary. I was scared”, you said lowering your tone. “Well I don’t bite, unless you want me to”, he said his eyes narrowing. “Please, is that the best you can do? I thought the famous Kim Taehyung had more in him, than the overused phrase people in middle school used to say”, you rolled your eyes at him. He just scoffed and poured his drink down his throat all at once. “Is there a reason you’re sat here all alone almost blacked out drunk?”, he quizzed. “Hey, I’m not almost blacked out drunk!” You defended. “Not anymore, thanks to me”, he ran his hand through his hair. You wanted to call him an asshole for that, but you knew he was right, so you just swallowed your pride. “I was here with some friends, but I’m starting to think they left me”, you said stirring the glass in your hands. “Why would they leave you like that? I know I wouldn’t”, he responded. He was almost too smooth, making you want to push him away, but you were glad he was keeping you company. “I was annoying, I kept complaining about my miserable love life”, you scoffed. “Complain to me”, he said turning to you. “Oh you don’t wanna hear it, it’s stupid really. It’s so stupid that it’s not even love. I’ve just been so desperate that I turned nothing into something” you paused, “You know what? I think I just realized that now”, you said turning to him, maybe revealing too much already. “See, I’m already making you feel better”, he responded with a cocky smile. You smiled back. “I think I should head back to my room now”, you told him. “I’ll come with you, to make sure you get there without passing out on the way”, he smirked and grabbed your hand to pull you up from your chair. “Idiot”, you sighed.

As you finally approached your door and used the keycard to get in, he leaned on the wall and looked at you. “What? You’re not coming in, you know that right?” You teased him, but you were serious. “Too bad”, he smiled and scanned your body. He looked almost too happy to be turned down like that. But little did you know, he was just glad he got to spend even a fraction of his night with you. “Thank you, again..and sorry, again”, you said softly and stepped inside, closing the door between you two. Taehyung stood in place for a while smiling, before returning to his room.

Chapter 5

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years ago

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Episode 124: Lion 4: Alternate Ending

“Please tell me my destiny.”

We’ve had Ronaldo as a toxic gatekeeping fan intent on harassing the creator. We’ve had Lars as a disappointed fan whom the creator is desperate to impress. We’ve even had Navy as a false fan who’s only interested in robbing the creator’s spaceship (arguably a rarer breed than the first two). So now it’s time for the obsessive clue-hunter, who parses through the creation so deeply that the original meaning gets lost in the shuffle. And this time, our fan stand-in is Steven.

Lion 4: Alternate Ending is an episode about Steven trying to ruin Lion 3: Straight to Video. All the magic from that first glimpse of Rose Quartz threatens to be extinguished through overanalysis, to the point where his discovery of a new tape is met with dread instead of excitement. For all the Steven Universe fans that get frustrated by Steven not being as invested in the lore as they’d like, well, this is what happens when Steven gets as invested in the lore as you’d like.

To be clear, I don’t think Steven succeeds in ruining Lion 3, especially because the conclusion of Lion 4 manages to enhance its predecessor. I also don’t think it’s a bad thing that he tries: it fits his post-Storm in the Room state to tear through whatever evidence he's got to figure out why he was born, and it’s properly painful to see him so desensitized to the wonder of Rose’s tape that he’s reduced it to a possible decoded message. What better way to express how Steven feels than tainting a pivotal moment with his mother?

I’m super into stories where a mystery to the characters isn’t a mystery to the viewer: the core example is Cowboy Bebop episode Speak Like a Child, where our 2070s crew is trying to solve the case of a strange antique object that a 1990s audience already knows is a videotape (although a fifth of the way through the twenty-first century, we’re already getting removed from an era where modern audiences would know what a Betamax is, even as a cultural relic). Because the writers don’t have to try to fool us, we can focus more on how the characters tackle a problem instead of trying to beat them to the punch with our own deduction skills. I wouldn’t call Lion 4 the most concrete example of this sort of story, as it’s not impossible that Rose was leaving encrypted messages behind, but to me at least the “twist” that Rose’s tape wasn’t part of some dubious master plan is obvious enough that I can just enjoy the ride.

“Enjoy” is perhaps the wrong word, because while this is an excellent episode, it’s not a fun one. There are comedic moments, because this is still Steven Universe, but watching a kid at the end of his rope struggling to understand his place in the world is bound to be harrowing stuff. Steven’s determination is compounded by his solitude: the Crystal Gems are pointedly absent, as the last time he asked them for answers his dad got abducted to a space zoo and it’s easy to confuse correlation with causation. So it’s just Steven and Lion for most of the episode, and it’s telling that Lion answers Steven’s final cry for help by bringing him to see his dad. Some things can only be fixed by talking, and for all his strengths, Lion isn’t a great conversationalist.

Before we get to Greg, this Steven/Lion solo outing uses constant activity to sidestep the dullness factor that bogged down Steven’s Lion. After a strong first impression of Steven’s mental state as he scours Rose’s tape for clues, going so far as to try to find meanings in anagrams, Lion revs up the plot by retching up a giant key. I love that Steven’s first thought is the same as mine, and likely yours: the chest in Lion’s mane that we first saw in Lion 3, which unlike Bismuth remained a mystery (and it still is, because we never saw what Steven found in there between Change Your Mind and the movie). Even though the key is comically oversized, Steven ignores the obvious and keeps trying to make it fit. So right off the bat, we get two little stories about Steven looking for answers where there clearly aren’t any and doubling down despite the futility out of sheer desperation for the truth.

From here we get a montage of past locations a la Marble Madness and Warp Tour, accompanied by a gorgeous medley of location themes from Aivi and Surasshu; I will never not complain that we don’t get to have an album of their scoring, because this episode’s soundtrack is one of their best. Visiting the Armory harks back to Lion 2 as the tape did for Lion 3, and we also get a glimpse of Rose’s Fountain and Rose’s Room to continue our references to the many known areas tied to Steven’s mom. When nothing works, Steven pleads with Lion for more information, aware by now that the cat has some answers.

While I’m not huge on Steven’s Lion as an episode due to the aforementioned dull pace, it’s awesome to see our heroes return to where Lion was first found. Buddy’s Book already did a great job of reminding us of Lion’s desert home, but now it’s time to finally investigate the area further.

Jesse Zuke and Raven Molisee paired up for our last episode, leaving their usual respective partners Hilary Florido and Paul Villeco at bat for Lion 4. The ragtag team has so far given us rich visuals, with a particularly expressive Steven and Lion (crucial for the non-talking member of the duo) and a callback to the lovely settings of the past, but every aesthetic choice they make is topped by the desert run. It’s a beautiful shot, evoking the iconic ocean run of Lion 2, but Steven’s exhaustion (aided by Zach Callison’s beleaguered performance as he narrates his thoughts) tinges the scene with melancholy where there was once only magic. Steven’s desperation is no longer the frenzied need from when Greg was kidnapped, or even from the beginning of this very episode, but has been worn down to a weary determination that just breaks your heart. This is Charlie Brown after a yanked football too many; he hasn’t been thrown a single bone in his search for answers, and this might be his last chance.

I try not to include too many images in these reviews, because they can mess with the flow of the text, but screw it this shot is also amazing:

The pyramid-like structures leading to the locked door are the first we see of a new hidden getaway, and retrospect makes Steven’s plight even worse: as we learn in Legs From Here to Homeworld, all he had to do was touch one of them to get a major hint about Rose’s true identity.

It wouldn’t have solved everything, as Garnet would likely assume they were spoils of war, Amethyst wouldn’t recognize them, and Pearl would keep her mouth shut. And it would’ve ruined the pacing of the mystery for such a strange hint to be presented, so from a storytelling perspective it makes total sense to keep this in the backburner. And it’s not like it’s that weird that Steven doesn’t feel compelled to touch what seems to be a couple of statues when he’s spent the whole episode looking for a lock and it’s right in front of him and he just survived hours of desert travel. But knowing what we know now adds to the drama of how close our hero is to the truth he deserves.

In yet another bummer, Rose’s hidden landfill is worn down to the point where most of the walls had collapsed, meaning Steven didn’t even need the key. Which isn’t to say the key wasn’t important, as it prompts his trip in the first place, but it’s just one more way that the universe seems to be throwing unnecessary hurdles at him. In the same vein, Lion not only could’ve warped him to the destination as he mentions, but he could’ve done so without hacking up the key in the first place. But we’re long past the point where we should expect straight answers from Lion, so I forgive the big lug.

The first thing that came to my mind when Steven saw the dump wasn’t Amethyst’s room, although there are obvious similarities. It was Greg’s storage locker, the place where we first talked about Rose all the way back in Laser Light Cannon, the place where Greg expressed confusion about why a magic woman fell for a regular guy like him. And as frustrated as Steven is, this room is a wonderful unspoken answer to that distant question: among Rose’s many imperfections was that, like Greg, she was kind of a slob. It’s so nice to have a mundane flaw after nearly a full season of focusing on her as a liar and murderer, especially a flaw that reminds us of why she and Greg were so great for each other.

But yeah, Steven isn’t interested in subtext, and his tantrum is both realistic and reasonable. He finds the tape for Nora by accident, right after kicking some garbage in anger, and this is where that Speak Like a Child oomph comes in. It’s crystal clear that the tape was a backup in case Steven was a girl, but he’s so primed for lies and complications that the obvious answer eludes him and he suspects the worst. I honestly can’t blame him. If you learned out of nowhere that your mom killed someone, who’s to say you don’t have secret siblings?

The contrast between harsh desert and soothing sunset is another treat for the eyes, readying is for a cooldown after two distressing acts. Greg’s excitement over seeing the old tape blinds him to Steven’s angst in a way that adds honest tension to the exchange, because he’s trying to give Steven a fun treat but has no idea how much anguish his son has been through to get to this point. To Greg, telling Steven the answers outright would be ruining the moment, but the wait is already killing the kid. In an episode without an external villain it’s such a clever way to present a final “confrontation” to overcome.

When we finally see the tape, it becomes even more apparent that it was a backup for a hypothetical daughter. Still, I love how the strange new version of a video we know and love is only half-seen, as we focus so much on Steven’s reaction at the expense of footage. Where he was once gazing at the marvels of a new glimpse of his mother, his eyes are now furrowed in frustrated concentration. As in Lion 3, he has a viewing partner, and Greg’s welling tears mirror those of Steven and Sadie from the first tape, highlighting that the Steven of the present isn’t feeling an ounce of tenderness.

Tears do come for Steven, but in the form of anxious release. When he’s told that he’s Nora, meaning he’s the person the tape was intended for, Steven still doesn’t get it and exclaims that he’s his mom and his sister; it’s sort of a joke, but boy is it rough to hear him slip that in some way he does see himself as his mom rather than his own person. So thank goodness he’s saying this stuff to Greg, who’s calm at first but leaps to the occasion when Steven frantically asks why he exists.

As is standard by now, Greg's got fatherhood down cold. He adjusts his tone to show he’s taking Steven seriously, but rather than jump in he sits his son down and lets him talk. He addresses Steven’s concerns gently but firmly, leaving no room for doubt that he’s loved and appreciated no matter what. He brings himself into the conversation by saying he changed his name, doing so not to turn the topic to himself but to reassure Steven that it’s okay to not be stuck on one identity. And just look at how perfectly our three main characters exist in the shot during this last talk:

Steven gets those happy post-tape tears after viewing the last part of the video, and our happy ending is earned, but it’s not a full victory. Rose still had issues, but at least Steven has gained some confidence back that she wasn’t all bad. He’ll go back and forth on how much guilt he feels for her actions, but at the very least he knows now that his decisions to try and atone for her mistakes are his to make, and not a mandate from a dead parent looking for an escape route.

Whiiiiiiich means that now he’s able to try and feign a sense of control over helpless situations by assigning blame to himself in new, exciting ways. Hey, it’s not like the show could’ve solved all his problems less than halfway through Act III of the series. Lion 4 thus doesn’t have the conclusive oomph of Lion 3, which closed a trilogy of Lion Episodes as well as the stage of the show where Rose was a well-realized but distant idea more than a full character. For all its strengths, Lion 4 feels much more like Just Another Episode. But that’s okay. It doesn’t owe the past a thing.

Future Vision!

Again, those pyramids return in a major way, because they’re not pyramids.

Greg talks about Garnet’s inability to predict things about Steven, which is an element of their relationship throughout the show but gets major focus soon in Pool Hopping.

Escapism blends the two big Lion Runs by setting it back on the ocean, but making the passenger an exhausted Steven facing one last ordeal before relief in the form of his dad with a guitar.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It doesn’t make the top twenty, it does make the top twenty-five. Just like Bismuth right before our hundredth episode, this doesn’t mean much now, but it will next time, because I’m expanding again to a Top Twenty-Five when we hit the big One Two Five with Doug Out.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

6. Horror Club 5. Fusion Cuisine 4. House Guest 3. Onion Gang 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(Kind of unbelievable to me that a Lion Sequel doesn’t have official promo art, but luckily we have discount-supervillain’s measured take on what Nora Universe would realistically look like.)

#lion 4 #lion 4: alternate ending #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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dontyoudarejudgemesworld · 5 years ago

Text

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far: Chapter Three

Alright guys, so this takes place after a bit of a time skip. While I know that time skips are like coma theories (as in a sort of cheap way out) this is meant to illustrate the sort of relation ship Bill and her 'uncle' are creating. It's a long one (6,000+ words) but gives some insight to the characters. I know not everyone is a fan of time skips but if I were to go from start to finish for this whole fic it would be longer then the whole Lord of the Rings series so forgive me. The next few chapters will all include some kind of time skip as the focus of them is more to establish and form relationships serving as kind of independent one shots instead of parts of the over arching story-line. I understand that this may be a bit unpopular but considering what's coming it seems the best way to structure it to achieve my end goal with out having it drag on forever. I told you this was going to get weird. Also as an aside, I know there were some grammar and spelling errors in the first two chapters, this is due in part to my normal Beta reader being unavailable (because adulting is time consuming). That being said I had a stand in look this over an took much more time in transcribing it so I hope most of the errors were addressed.

Once again it’s posted here on AO3. And now onward to the insanity.

~*~ One Year Later

Stan sat pantsless in the TV room wondering if this was what contentment felt like. Beside him on the floor sat Billie leaning back against the dinosaur skull staring at the trash TV that played across the screen. Murphy announced ‘you ARE NOT the father’ for the third time in a row and the young woman who sat beside him burst out crying as a man who looked like he should be selling used cars jumped up triumphantly to the jeers of the audience. Beside Stan, his ‘niece’ let out a sharp bark of laughter as she took a sip of her soda. He glanced at her and shook his head; she really was a strange one.

In baggy basketball shorts and a tank top, he could see the mural of tattoos she sported. The sleeve on her right arm was actually a bed of colorful flowers and vines with skulls woven in, macabre but beautiful if he was honest. On her left shoulder was a raven’s head that looked like it was tearing through her flesh that was a little to photo-realistic for his taste. She also had a peacock on her left thigh with a long flowing tail that curved around to end on her knee cap, and a small green dog robot thing from some cartoon or other with the word ‘DOOM!!’ in crude childish letters on her right ankle. Wild black curls spilled over her shoulders in an unkempt mane and dark circles around her eyes told him that she had spent too long at the Skull Fracture last night getting rowdy with the lumberjacks. “Told you, Stan that means you’re picking up the tab at Greasy’s,” she told him cheerfully and he let out an exaggerated groan. He should know by now that betting against her was a fool errand. Over the last year, he’d learned a lot of things about Billie. Like she had no fixed address just various post office boxes, and instead, she lived out of a duffle bag and motel rooms. She worked for herself and seemed to make pretty decent money though he had all but confirmed his suspicion that she toed a very fine line between what was legal and what wasn’t. In truth, she played it pretty close to the vest when it came to discussing her work but she’d let a few things slip and he was willing to bet that she was a bloodhound at least part of the time. Someone that loan sharks and crime lords used to find people that didn't want to be found. A dangerous and ethically ambiguous profession at best. And while he couldn’t help but dislike that idea he couldn’t exactly say too much on the matter, instead of taking some small comfort in the fact that at least she wasn’t a full-fledged criminal like he’d been. Maybe if she had kids one day they’d manage to be upstanding members of society, but something told him she wasn’t the settling down type. Overall throughout seven visits and quite a few calls they had developed a comfortable relationship. After the fourth visit, he’d broken down and invited her to just come to stay at the Shack instead of staying at The Twin Beds. Which he regretted almost instantly; Wendy and Soos had both noticed at once and plied him with questions. Fortunately, Billie seemed to have inherited his Ma’s snake tongue and smoothly lied that she was the daughter of an old acquaintance that he was helping out with a place to stay between jobs without batting an eye. Soos and Wendy had been a bit wary of her at first, but they’d come to warm up to her. She tended to help around the shop and was generally amicable flashing charming smiles and quick wit to win them over. He was fairly certain she’d won over Wendy by covering for her so she could skip out to hang out with her friends a few times but couldn’t prove it. And Soos’s natural good nature had caused him to warm to her quickly, especially when she started helping him come up with and build new attractions for Stan to take credit for. When he wasn’t leading tours and she wasn’t off drinking and brawling with the bikers of the town (a pass time she seemed to enjoy a tad too much in his opinion) the two of them usually spent their time watching trash TV in between runs to Greasy’s diner and the bar. Though after she’d started staying with him he’d discovered that the woman could cook. He’d told her at one point that she didn’t need to but she’d shrugged it off with a smile and that cool laugh of hers saying ‘I spent enough nights hungry and cold that it’s a pleasure to be able to make a decent meal.’ That thought had given him pause to wonder what exactly she’d been through; her mother certainly sounded like a piece of work, but it seemed like so much more. But as much as he wanted to know he didn’t ask. In fact, he hardly asked her anything about her past and she in return didn’t ask about his. Instead, they had found a strange sort of comfort in each other's company. Two broken people who had had hard lives that could spend time around the other without pretending to be anything more than they were. The first few visits they'd both been on their best behavior, Billie had kept her habits of beer and brawling to herself and he had cut back on the cigar and shoplifting. But after an incident involving Billie sucker-punching a guy for asking her if she wanted to come back to his room and put a smile on her pretty face after which Stan had declared it was time to leave snatching the guy's wallet as they fled they had come to a silent agreement that they didn't need to put on 'upstanding citizens' acts anymore. He had thought a few times that he vaguely remembered that this strange feeling of accepting each other for who they were was what family had felt like back when Ford and he had been children, but he couldn’t quite be sure. “Earth to Stan,” Billie’s smooth southern drawl broke through his thoughts pulling him back to find her head cocked staring up at him one brow cocked curiously, “You didn't hear a damned word I said did yuh?” she asked a smirk pulling on her lips. “Naw, I was too busy thinking how sick I’m gonna feel at dinner so I cant go to Greasy’s,” he told her to cover his sappy musing. She rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “The most expensive thing on the menu is 15 dollars. I know you're cheap but…,” she began only to be interrupted as an obnoxious commercial can on the volume raising ten octaves. “Are you completely miserable?” came Bud Gleeful’s voice. “Well I am now,” she growled putting one hand over her ear and glaring at the TV as the commercial played. Watching she cocked an eyebrow as Stan’s picture flashed up to be stamped with ‘FRAUD’, “What bullshrimp is this?” she asked incredulously, “That the chubby car salesman? He’s ten times the liar yuh are, how the hell does he have the gall to call yuh out like that?” “I know, right? At least my customers have some interesting stories to go with the junk I sell them,” he said indignantly, “And what’s worse is it’s working. He’s got his kid pretending to be psychic and the tourists are eating it up. Heck, even the locals are. Putting a real cramp in my wallet. I wish there was something I could do to hit him hard but nothing seems to be working. Even the Squid-abitt isn’t enough,” he railed shaking his head. Beside him, Billie cocked her head one eye squinted in thought as she stared at the TV. “What about someone who can talk ta the dead?” she asked and his head snapped over to her his eyebrows shooting up. “What? Well, yeah that would be a real money maker but who the hell do I know that can do that?” he scoffed as he took a drink of his soda, “Even I can't pull that off.” “I can,” she said matter factly and his face pulled into a look of bored skepticism. “Yeah, and I can teach a pig to fly,” he snorted and she looked up at him that sly smirk of hers slowly crawling over her lips. “Ya wound me, Stanford. I’m from the south where snake oil peddlers are ah’ dime ah’ dozen. Hell Bud’s one that’s why he’s pulling this off so well,” she told him in a slightly condescending tone, “Tell you what I’ll go double or nothing on Greasy’s. If I can give yuh a two-night show that will make more then you do in the same two days. That means two dinners at Greasy’s and braggin’ rights from now until the end of the world,” she challenged and he couldn’t help the lopsided grin that pulled at his lips. “Only if you get it up and running by Saturday,” he added, that would give her the rest of the night and tomorrow to prepare. Not to mention that those were the moneymaker days with tour buses on top of regular foot traffic. A challenge he was sure even she couldn’t pull off but she just grinned and put her hand out. “Prepare ta eat crow, Stanford Pines,” she told him as he grasped her hand causing him to let out a sharp hoarse laugh. “Even you aren’t that good kid,” he sniped unable to help the smug laugh that escaped him at the fire that lit in her eyes at his challenge. “Oh you’re fixin’ ta eat those words old man,” she warned as she hopped to her feet. “Hey what about dinner,” he barked as she turned on her heel to head up to the attic. “Time is money, Stanford. Order Chinese from that there place at the mall, card’s by the phone,” she snapped as she hustled off to get started. Watching her go he couldn’t help but smile. She really was something else, and he’d managed to get dinner without paying for it.

~*~

A day and a half…that was all he’d given her. And now he was thinking that had been too much time. The woman had to be some sort of witch. There was no other explanation as to how literally overnight she’d managed to pull this off. By Friday morning there had been flyers plastered all over town with the simple drawing of a closed eye with the words ‘Esmeralda. Two nights only at the Mystery Shack.’ And apparently, somehow everyone in town had heard the whispers about a real live gypsy that could talk to the dead by noon (he had a theory that Billie had somehow gotten Wendy to help her spread the word but once again couldn’t prove it). By Friday night there was a deceptively large tent set up around the totem pole that looked like it had come out of some storybook. It would have been impressive if he didn’t feel the impending loss breathing down his neck. His one hope was that she wouldn't be able to pull off the act; after all, she had become someone the locals recognized by now so they surely wouldn't buy it when they saw her. That was until he’d come downstairs Saturday morning to find a gypsy woman sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee. Her skin held an olive tint, her eyes a rich deep brown, and her curly black mane was held away from her face by a scarf. She wore a frilled white shirt that hung off one shoulder and a skirt made up of layers of gauzy material in a rainbow of colors with a coin skirt hung low on her hips. Bangles crowded her wrists and a few on her ankle making her every movement musical. Staring at her she flashed him a bright grin. “Good morning Mr. Mystery I’m Esmeralda and I speak to the other side,” she greeted him in an accent that was European but not too strong. Staring at her it took him a minute to realize that she was his daughter. What gave it away was the bandage on her left hand, it was neatly wrapped and wouldn't be worth much note if he didn’t see the slight bump where her extra finger was folded across her palm to hide it. Shaking his head he stared open mouth at her, she looked like a cliche and it was brilliant. The tourist would eat it up. “How?” he demanded his voice cracking in indignant awe causing her to chuckle. “Lots of foundation, contacts, and years of practicing a dozen accents,” she told him smugly in that outrageous but somehow totally believable accent, “You can always admit defeat now Stan and I will only demand one of my dinners,” she offered. “No way toots. You never call a fight early,” he replied and she shrugged as she took another sip of her coffee. Arrogance rolled off her and he let out a low grumble, while he could appreciate her confidence speaking to the dead was a tall order. He opened his mouth to say something to her when Wendy's voice came from the gift shop. "Stan a tour bus just pulled up!" Glancing at 'Esmeralda' she flashed a wicked smile as she stood in a rattle of bangles and rolled her shoulders. Looking him up and down she couldn't help the smirk that pulled at her lips. "May the best con win, " she laughed resting all her weight in on hip as she stretched. Stan couldn't help but let out a bark of laughter that rose in him as a competitive fire lit in him. "Age and treachery with overcome youth and exuberance every time, " he reminded her and she shrugged as she moved to slip out the back door. Watching her go he shook his head getting his cane and flipping his eye patch down, he had to admit having some competition was making the day a bit more exciting. The next 10 hours were a whirlwind of activity as a flood of tourists poured through. He spun his stories with a flare he hadn't felt in years as Esmeralda flittered about. He had to admit that she was good; adding some rustic flare to his stories telling of sighting of the Cat-a-peid in the 'old country' and backing up the claim that the magic crystal they sold were steeped in the mystical energy of the forest. Between the two of them, they managed to create a fevered excitement in the visitors who all but threw their money at Wendy. But even as he reveled in what were surely record profits he couldn't help but notice that all of Billie's help was a double-edged sword. Even as she hyped his attractions she filtered about reading palms and offering charms that she made appear from her skirt. Shiny rocks and crudely carved figures on a bit of string, things he recognized from the bulk supply warehouse he bought his own junk from. A ten here and a twenty there that she slipped away with a smile and an offer to come see her tonight as the spirts had many messages and perhaps one was for them. And he finally got to see her speak to the dead, at least that was what it looked like. Gravitating to a cluster of tourists she placed a hand on her temple as she closed her eyes. Letting out a humming sound she peered up at the curious group. "There is a woman. Older, matronly who wishes to speak to one of you. Some connection with the letter T, " she said softly as she hummed again pausing for dramatic effect, "A name or hobbies maybe. Teresa. Or Teapots. Or Tammy. Or trains...tarting. Tabatha, maybe. I'm sorry it's hard to hear her. Her voice is a soft one but warm like..., " he began only to have one if the men, a middle-aged guy speak up suddenly. "Thelma?" he asked suddenly, "My Mema was named Thelma, " he said excitedly and a murmur went through the crowd. Billie smiled softly as though listening to someone speak before nodding. "Yes, Thelma. She passed suddenly, but not unexpectedly right, " she told him and he nodded his face pinching ever so slightly with emotion. "In her sleep, but she was 98," he supplied and Billie smiled gently as she nodded. "She wants you to know that it was painless and she is at peace, " she told him kindly as she shifted as though leaning closer to someone to hear, "She says that you're worrying over something financial. A promotion or payment of some sort. You are concerned that it won't happen, that it keeps you up at night. You are sleeping and it worries her. Do you know what she's talking about?" she asked and he nodded silently the crowd around him starting in wonder. "Ye...yea. I know what she's talking about, " he choked and Billie nodded sympathetically, "She says that you don't need to worry. That it will all work itself out. She says to tell you to have faith, that God wouldn't have you face a trial you could not handle, " she said her eyes flattering closed once more, "She says she loves you and that you need to read for your own health." For a moment silence hung in the air before the man moved forward and threw his arms around Billie thanking her. Around them, the crowd had tripled in size and an excited clamor rose from them all talking at once. It was amazing and a total sham. He'd seen this sort of psychic before, they were all over daytime TV. And while he had no idea how they did it he knew in his bones they were fakes. But even so, the audiences ate it up including the one now swarming around Billie. "Oh she's good, " he growled as he stood watching her work the crowd telling them that she would speak to the spirits tonight and they were welcome to come, no latter than 7 and cash only for her small admission fee. She only asked 20 dollars so she could continue her travels. And every single one ate it up like starving men. She smiled at just the right moments and spoke just the right word. And that when it hit him. This wasn't her first time pulling this con. She was poised and practiced like she did this every day. This was an old hand to her, a well-practiced grift not some idea she"d randomly thrown out. He'd assumed she was just winging it, she was a PI not a psychic. At least she was now. Just like he was Mr. Mystery now. But before that, he'd been a lot of other things. And it appeared before being a PI Bill had been other things as well. In that moment he realized that he'd been played, that he'd assumed she'd been bluffing without knowing her tells. She was a con artist just like him, and he should have known. Betting against her was a fools errand, and not just when it came to daytime talk shows. She was his daughter after all, and it seemed some of his talents had passed on.

~*~

Billie sighed as she she leaned against the support of the porch, a cigarette in one hand and a can of Pitt cola in the other. She felt like a whole new person after a hot shower to wash off the ton of bronzer and foundation she’d used to make her pale skin darker. It was nice to be out of that stupid heavy skirt and back in sweats and a t-shirt. Pre-dawn just started to brush the sky above the trees with thin lines of pinks and oranges the trees shadows stretched out like fingers of darkness trying to resist the coming day. It got light so early up here it made her feel like it was later (or earlier) then 3:30 in the morning. It really was beautiful though, like a Rob Boss painting. She had to admit when she’d first rolled into the little Organ town the year before she had found the picture perfect place a bit unsettling. It had been the plan to show up meet Stan and never look back, after all she’d never thought he would want anything to do with his brother’s vagabond daughter. Guess that’s what she got for thinking. It turned out her uncle seemed to want something to do with her after all, and surprisingly she wanted something to do with him.

After her research she had expected to find a cold logical man who had no room for sentimentality. While she knew scientific papers were written specifically lacking any emotion his had seemed extra sterile. Even the forwards to the where normally the researcher had some kind of tone had been devoid of anything to give her a glimpse of personality. But instead she had found a man who was the furthest thing from a cold clinical researcher. He was warm in a gruff kind of way and she liked it. It occurred to her that the time line of his published works ending and the Murder Shack coming into being seemed to overlap with Stanley’s death. Perhaps, the sudden change in profession had also been a sudden change in personality, grief was a powerful thing after all.

Or perhaps he’d simply decided that this strange little corner of the world was too wonderful to waste with his head buried in in books. And it was wonderful. And weird. Over her first few visits she’d began noticing strange shadows and odd movement in the trees. And while she’d written off the little men she’d seen rummaging in the diner’s dumpster and the Moth Man she’d seen batting at a street light outside the hotel one night to tricks of the mind and the local legends getting to her, she’d quickly realized there was something inherently odd to the place. Not bad just odd. But once she’d come down one morning to find Stan luring a walking camp fire out from under the porch with marshmallows she’d realized it wasn’t in her head. Instead she had decided that she rather liked this place, after all she was an odd person so she didn’t feel so out of place. It was like she could breath freely in this strange little town with her eccentric uncle.

Her uncle, that was still a strange thought. Billie had never really had a family, her mother had always been too busy being a drunken whore druggie to be anything else. And while she technically had four older siblings they’d all been to busy finding their own way to survive to bother with anything as trivial as bonding. Hell, after she’d been taken into state custody she hadn’t seen any of them for years, a few she still hadn’t seen even after all these years. It had always been her, she’d learned early to never depend on anyone else. Survival was the end game and others had always been passing acquaintances to her. But for some reason she kept coming back here, kept calling to check in on Stan. Perhaps, it was that he never asked any questions or judged her for smoking and drinking. Or maybe it was that she knew that the tired eyes and world weary voice she had was a mirror of his. Not that it mattered, she had come to really appreciate the time she spent with the old con.

It was a nice change of pace. Most people seemed to think that being a PI was like the movies; chasing down leads, sneaking around to get photos, and all that, but it wasn’t. While sure it had its exciting moments (especially when it came to some of her less than reputable clients) it was a lot of time sitting around and waiting for someone to show up. It was digging through mountains of trash and public records to find a lead. It was asking a lot of questions that never got answered to people who didn’t want to talk to you. Over all it was exhausting in more ways then one. She’d always spent her time between jobs partying or holed up in a hotel room getting stoned and sleeping, but now she found coming here to be a much better past time.

There was always some new creation Stan was working on or some project to help Soos with. She had found walks in the woods were eventful as she seemed to run across odd little creatures and weird rocks no matter what direction she went. Even when it was boring around the Shack she at least had company. And Stan sure made for interesting company. He was always ready to snipe at each other or make stupid bets over anything. Heck, the last two days had been the most fun she’d had in years. She had enjoyed watching the old con slowly realized that this wasn’t her first rodeo, though, she knew she had shown her hand and he wouldn’t fall for it again.

Then again even she was surprised she’d pulled it off. While the gypsy shtick had been something she’d acquired as a teenager the rest had been dumb luck. She was constantly surprised that for such a nowhere town Gravity Falls seemed to have everything. 24 hour copy shop to make the flyer? Yup, Shenkos beside the mall. Party rental shop with a thematically appropriate tent? You bet. Costume shop? Yup. Local teenagers willing to spread rumors and wield social media like a finely honed weapon for $20 bucks? Well, everywhere had those but Wendy was a sweet kid who seemed more then willing to recruit help. It just went to show that helping the kid ditch work a few times had been a good idea. Still, some how it had all come together and she’d been able to back up her cocky words. Even with the expenses she’d pull in over a grand in a weekend beating Stan by a hundred buck and some change.

So she’d won, though, since she had told Stan to keep it since it was his customers to begin with she had basically bought herself two dinners and some expenses but useless bragging rights. In truth, she didn’t need the money, she got paid well for her work and had nothing to spend it one. She didn’t pay rent since she refused to settle, and aside from weekly hotels, food, and smokes she didn’t buy anything really. So she had a huge bank account that she just let sit for when she decided to retire. Plus, she’d liked the idea of helping Stan out, if in no other way then sticking it in Bud’s face. How dare he call Stan a fraud when he sold junk cars at astronomical prices? A small self aware part of her knew that she had done it because she cared about the old man, but she just ignored it.

Shaking her head she snorted, she had to be tired to be getting all introspective and squishy. Feelings weren’t her bag, she’d just done it for fun. At least that was what she told herself. Shifting slightly she groaned, her body felt heavy and her eyes kept trying to close. She was exhausted two days and nights of putting on a show took a lot out of a woman. Not to mention, she’d had to strike the tent after last night’s performance so the rental company could pick it up first thing, and of course she and Stan had sat up counting out their respective earnings. Stad had recounted hers twice growling she’d padded them, before finally admitting defeat. The look on his face had been worth it.

“Alright kid, how’d you do it?” came a gruff voice and the smell of cigar smoke pulling her eyes from the trees. Looking over at him she flashed a smile earning a half hearted scowl in response and a dismissive grunt, “Come on out with it. It’s only fair I know how I got beat.” Smirking she let out a sharp bark of laughter.

“It’s called cold reading,” she told him causing one of his eyebrows to shoot up in question, “You size up a crowd; age, clothes, general stuff you know. Then you throw out a line; something vague enough to not be a definitive statement but specific enough to be convincing. One you get a bite you reel them in, double talk so they tell you everything but it seems like you told it to them and bam you talked to their dead aunt,” she explained as she took a drink.

“Sounds like it would be easier to actually talk to the dead,” he grumbled, “Yur Grandmother would be proud. So where on earth did you learn to pull that off? It doesn’t seem like somethin’ you’d learn for a party trick,” he observed as he took a long puff off his cigar groaning as he settled back on the couch. Shrugging she sighed as she moved over to sit next to him staring out at the dark woods tucking one leg under her.

“When I was round about 16 I ran off from the group home. I was tired of being passed around homes like a fruit cake at Christmas yuh know. So I landed at a traveling fair after a while and met the Amazin’ Jezabel. She pulled the same gimmick and taught me how since my weird hand gav’ ah bit of a witchy vibe. I traveled with them for a year or two, ‘fore getting sick of making her a ton of money and gettin’ hog spit in return. I went out on my own and was good at it,” she told him cracking her neck a touch of melancholy settling over her as she recalled the days she spent running the con at fairs all over the south, “I probably could have gone on with it, got one of those shows on TV, but after a while people started coming to me looking for real answers. Sure, stuff like this weekend is fine. Tellin’ people that their grandma loves them or their dog is always hangin’ around them don’t hurt nothin’ It makes them happy, but when you have people comin’ to yuh lookin’ for their missing kid offering their life’s savin’s for answers it changes the game. I couldn’t bring mah’self ta lie to them. I didn’t want to give ‘em false hope so I quit. I was tryin’ to feed myself not cheat desperate people, yuh know?” she finished before calming up. She hadn’t needed to say all that, and it kinda broke the unspoken agreement they had to avoid anything too honest about themselves.

Glancing over she expected to find him either half listening to her ramble on or looking at her with the inscrutable look of mild disappointment he got when she came in half cocked with a split lip from brawling with the guys at the Skull Fracture. Instead his brows were furrowed and the corner of his lips pulled down in a half frown. It wasn’t that he looked disgusted at her words more…saddened by them. For a long moment they just stared at each other before he looked away taking a drink of his own soda.

“What?” she asked finally ignoring the slight feeling of insecurity that his silence had brought on.

“Nothin’. I was just thinking about your Dad,” he said his voice slightly rougher then normal, “That’s impressive though. You got any other tricks up your sleeve?”

“Naw, nothing worth noting,” she said as she looked away from him resting her elbow on the arm of the couch and leaning her head on it. For a moment they were silent, sitting there smoking before her eyes slid over to him again.

“What about him?” she asked unable to stop herself. While she excepted that Stanley was gone, and he seemed to be a subject Stanford didn’t seem keen on she couldn’t help but wonder about Stanley. He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes knowing what she was asking at once. For a second she thought he wasn’t going to answer before he shrugged.

“Nothin’ really. Just that you’re a lot like him. He may have been a cheat and a liar but he never preyed on desperate people. He’d probably be proud of you for that,” he said as Billie barely suppressed the pleased smile that threatened to surface at his words, “Though if he’d have known about you’d you could bet you wouldn’t have even been in a position to have to decided who were acceptable marks,” he added under his breath like he was speaking to himself not her. Smiling she looked back out at the trees.

“Yeah well if that were the case I wouldn’t have been able to get some free meals and braggin’ right now would I?” she chuckled to break the heavy silence that had settled on them and she saw his lips twitch from the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, yeah live it up kid. You cheated and you know it. That was dirty trick, I wouldn’t have made that bet if I’d have know you were a professional psychic,” he grumbled and she chuckled as she finished her drink and stood stretching.

“I’m goin’ ta bed. I’m beat,” she announced with a small yawn, “You should get some sleep too, Stan yuh look like hell,” she added glancing down at him causing him to chuckle.

“You ain’t the boss ah me kid,” he grumbled as she couldn’t help the stern look that crossed her face causing him to laugh, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll finish then and head to bed,” he assured her waving his hand at her. Smiling she yawned again as she headed in.

“Night Stanford.”

“Night Billie.”

#gravity falls #stan pines #Stanley Pines #billie pines #lost pines daughter #gf #au gravity falls #the apple doesnt fall far #AO3 #gravity falls fanfiction #screaming pointlessly into the void #Mystery Shack #tent of telepahy #pines family #pines family bonding #ugh I suck at hashtags

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years ago

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Ghost Spider #2 Thoughts

Sigh...more of the same...

This premise gets worse the more you think about it.

I mean let’s talk about the most obvious thing that didn’t occur to me before. So Gwen needs to pick her entry points back and forth from Earth 616 carefully because her powers don’t work immediately after exiting a portal. To this end she chooses a spot she knows will lead to a bill board with poles jutting out she can grab onto before her powers kick in again.

...why not just open a portal on the ground?

Then you have the utter lack of world building.

It’s fair enough to presume that audiences are familiar with the world building of Earth 616. It’s been around for donkey’s years and it’s the basis for just about every media adaptation of Marvel ever, including the movies. Even if it’s far from a 1:1 similarity it is close enough that even comic book virgins can jump in and not be at too much of a loss. That’s particularly true for a Spidey series where the premise is to be relatively normal, the only fantastical elements demanding world building being the spider powers (which everyone on earth is aware of) and the villains, who often speak for themselves or are famous enough that you can presume knowledge from the audience.

But when it comes to alternate universes like Earth 65, which are specifically alternative to Earth 616, you do need to flesh some things out. And so far beyond Gwen is a super hero and not dead, nor is her Dad and Jameson’s son is an evil gangster not much world building going on.

More problematically is the fact that basic questions are never raised nor answered. Gwen says in Earth 65 she’s going to be late for a class in Earth 616. Is time synchronized though between universes? That’s a pretty basic question when dealing with parallel universes. In the Doctor Who episode ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ that question was answered almost immediately upon entry to the parallel Earth of that story, and the series at that time was trying to be baby’s first science fiction!

It’s not an unreasonable question to ask either given how from Spider-Man’s POV Spider-Verse (where he first met Spider-Gwen) was years ago but the first sentence of the recap page of this series states Gwen got her powers mere months ago.

Playing in the same ballpark as the bad world building is the ignoring of established continuity in regards to the Jackal. Now look, I could buy that Warren has gone so far off the deep end that he considers turning Gwen into a furry like him a good idea.

But...doesn’t Warren effectively consider his clones of Gwen as the real thing? Isn’t that the entire reason he cloned Gwen in the first place, why he set up the original clone of Gwen with a clone of himself to in a weird way live out his fantasy?

So why is he obsessed over this new version of Gwen, a version that for all he knows could just be another clone? In fact if you are Miles Warren wouldn’t that be the first thing you presume? It’s not like she has given any genetic samples he can test to confirm if she is a clone or not.

On the other end of this relationship I just realized how asinine it is that no one recognizes Miles Warren, especially at ESU. Sure once upon a time Warren’s identity was secret. Even after his presumed death in the 1970s Clone Saga his identity was a secret. But that all changed in the 1990s Clone Saga when he was arrested and sent to Ravencroft. At that point his identity became public knowledge. There were like SWAT teams after him for god’s sake! And it’s very difficult to believe that ESU, the place where he worked for years and then randomly disappeared from wouldn’t have heard about one of their staff members being a super villain. Especially a super villain who

a) Became a player in gangland activities

b) Was targeted by the Punisher...three times!

c) MURDERED one of their other staff members!

d) Was majorly complicit in an event that turned everyone in New York into spider monsters!

e) Attempted global genocide!

f) Seemingly died very publically

Those last two by the way? They happened on site of the Daily Bugle newspaper!

This isn’t even addressing how he was last seen Marvel Team Up 2019 where he was again arrested at ESU itself! This issue does nothing to explain how he went from that situation to this. Which I’m actually okay with as that was handled by a different editorial office. If you like that was Ms. Marvel continuity and this is Spider continuity.

Normally I’d let the other continuity errors slide but most of them are stories that are major major appearances by the Jackal and define his relationship with Gwen Stacy in the first place, which is the thing this whole arc is built upon.

But no. He changes his last name, and literally nothing else, and he goes unrecognized. Unrecognized in a school where Peter Parker is a teaching assistant (still don’t know when or where that happened)!!!!!!!!!!!!! How on Earth is he going incognito? Does he just make sure to stay 10 paces behind Peter at all times??????? Hell Curt Connors is working there too and he has to know that, he just saw Connors in Clone Conspiracy! In fact GWEN saw him in Clone Conspiracy, she saw multiple clones of him looking just like he did in issue #1 why was she not reacting to that?

My God it gets dumber the more I think about it because in Clone Conspiracy we last saw Warren blowing himself up and that was 100% confirmed to be the real Warren not another clone so who is this guy? Not to mention that story also depicted Warren wearing a Jackal costume not actually transforming into a human jackal monster.

Now me personally I think nowdays the latter idea should be the norm for the character. It never made sense for a middle aged man to get the better of Spider-Man, but his 90s Joker/Matrix look was just terrible. Having him transform back and forth though is a great compromise. But again how did we get here????????????????

It’s all just so poorly thought through!

Going back to what I said last issue about the lack of information given to new readers, this story goes along with that as far as the Man-Wolf is concerned. His treatment very much plays out as the latest issue in a run which would be fine if this was merely Ghost Spider #51-52 as opposed to ALSO being Ghost Spider #1-2. To treat this character who’s affecting subplots the way he is as though readers should just know who he is doesn’t make sense with a major relaunch. We haven’t even SEEN Man-Wolf in this series but we’ve talked a lot about him.

Remember show don’t tell?????????????

The same applies to the ramifications of his actions. He’s responsible for a bomb. What bomb? He almost killed Harry? Who is Harry? Gwen tells some thugs to leave her friends alone but its not until panels later that we confirm they are Man-wolf’s thugs, played initially as it was that wasn’t clear.

All of this is a non-issue if you read the older run but if you haven’t then it’s confusing and alienating.

And unlike what certain people might say it’s beyond unacceptable to demand that readers do homework to enjoy a comic they already paid for.

Lets change things up and talk about the two positives I have. The art continues to be nice, I especially like Benji’s look because it is very reminiscent of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane! And, as was common back when I was reading Spider-Gwen regularly, George Stacy continues to be the best character in this. The short scene in the kitchen was the best scene of the whole book and was genuinely endearing.

Okay back to the justifiable complaints.

So Gwen comments that she has to be subtle in order to keep her identity on Earth 616...but then towards the end of the book she enters a portal from Earth 65 into Earth 616 unmasked. This is stupid in general but extra stupid considering she knows her powers don’t immediately work upon exiting portals. So even if she wasn’t immediately spotted by someone or a CCTV camera she wouldn’t even have a spider sense to warn her of danger for a few precious seconds! Someone who’s life was upended by her identity being revealed (and was a public enemy before that) would be naturally wary of something like this. This isn’t even accounting for the fact that she knows she DIED in Earth 616 because one lunatic discovered Peter’s identity! Also if she can exits portals on roof tops why does she ever need to risk her neck over at that billboard?

The only other problem I spotted was that the colourist seriously screwed up Peter’s look as he has black hair instead of brown.

Besides all that the inherent problems of the premise from last issue still apply. Peter being a regular character. Gwen endangering her friends on Earth 65. The division between the supporting cast.

Ugh....this is gonna be a slog of a series isn’t it...

#Spider-Man #Spider-Gwen #Ghost Spider #Gwen Stacy #Peter Parker #The Jackal #Jackal #Miles Warren #George Stacy #Captain Stacy #Clone Conspiracy #Curt Connors #Clone Saga #Lizard

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