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son-fuori-di-me · 3 years ago

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"I had no idea I could change someone's life."

One Shot. Word Count | Around 3300. Description | <French female pov> you're visiting Rome for the first time, and you casually meet Damiano David the day before the Circo Massimo concert. The conversation takes a unexpected path.

Content | Real talk. No romantic development. * Expect French idioms and italian approximations from automatic translators

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"Bordel, c'est immense !" ("Holy cow, that's big !") I said, looking at the Circo Massimo.

It was my first time in Rome. Knowing Italy a bit, I expected a hell lot of sun, a delicious bunch of ice cream for each meal, and tons of pretty things to snap with my phone. Well, that was the plan for my first two days there. Cause Saturday would be a very different day. Saturday would be Måneskin day.

I've been waiting for so long to do this trip. And what a blast it has been for now. Took only a bag, my external battery, some makeup and my favourite clothes to finally discover this astonishing city. This was my first solo trip. I've always travelled with my family or my ex, but never on my own. For once, I could decide what I wanted to see, what I wanted to eat, when to take a break. And as there are plenty of things to see in Rome, i wanted to enjoy every second of my trip. I could focus my last day there solely to the Måneskin concert happening that Saturday night. But as I didn't want to leave anything to chance, I decided to precisely organize my last day, so I could visit a bit more - a get a last fantastic meal before the concert.

I got myself a gold pit ticket. I guessed that would mean I had a special queue. So on Friday night, as I was back from a late tour in town, I decided to watch more closely the Circo, to check for the entrances, and see how I could sharpen my organization and schedule for the next day.

"J'espère que je vais pas avoir à poireauter toute la journée, avec la chaleur qu'il va faire." ("I hope won't have to hang around here all day tomorrow, the weather's gonna be hot as hell")

It was almost 10 pm. I was getting closer to the Circo, trying to read the boards, but all was written in italian and didn't seem to concern the concert. And a year fangirling over Måneskin clearly wasn't enough to become fluent. I saw no sign mentioning "gold pit". So I decided I would ask around, with Google translate ready in my phone in case I couldn't find anyone speaking English.

I saw a guy sit on a bench, smoking. He was dressed in an ugly dark sweater, with the hood over a cap. He was either a drug dealer or a hobbo. My instinct as a girl living in Paris got the uphand and I decided to ignore the guy and try to find a woman instead, or maybe a group of locals, to get me the information I wanted. Unfortunately, after a good 20 minutes walking around and asking people, no one could tell me how to make sure I find the right queue for the concert. I was about to give up and head back to my airbnb and I saw a silhouette still sitting on a bench, near the Circo. It was the same guy from earlier. "Bon, je tente, s'il est trop chelou, je me barre." ("Well, might as well take the risk, if he's too much a weirdo, I clear off quickly.")

"Scusi, do you speak English ?" i said, getting closer to the guy, but still from a good distance in case it turned wrong.

"Pretty good. You need something ?" He was searching something in his pockets and reached his pack of cigarettes. His voice was deep, but gentle. He did look funny but didn't sound dangerous - i still didn't get too close as I hate the smell of smoke.

"Do you know well il Circo Massimo ? I'm going to a concert here tomorrow and I want to make sure I find the right queue, but they haven't installed any sign yet". I asked, showing the structure of the stage behind me.

"Cute accent, where are you from ?" he answered, completely ignoring my question.

"Well, I'm French. So, do you know il Circo ?" I preferred to quickly repeat my question to let him know I wasn't interested in whatever he was trying to.

"Ah, Bonjour ! I speak a little French !" He said, now reaching for his lighter.

"Yeeaaaah cool, but how about the Circo ? I'd like to be here early enough, but I don't know wh-" I froze as he lighted up his cigarette. It was brief, but with the spark, I saw his face for a second.

"Hm ? You don't know what ?" He asked, with a smirky voice.

"Mais naaaan ?" ("Dont tell me -") I let out that typical French astonished sound without thinking. "You gotta be kidding me !"

He laughed as I was getting a little closer, staring at him. With one hand, he was putting his lighter back in his pocket, with the other, he lifted a bit his cap. It was him. It was Damiano.

I felt my spine shiver with that uncomfortable sensation of being around someone famous. As a journalist, I had my lot of interviews, so I knew there's no point in changing behavior around such people. But I still was flabbergasted to see him.

"Sorry, I didn't recognize you. Well, gotta say you're not dressed in your best outfit !" I chose the strategy of sass, to hide how impressed I actually was.

"That's my favourite sweater you're seeing me in, and I'm smoking hot in it" He said with a smirk, getting into the sassy game.

"Time off before the big day ?" I asked, completely forgotting about my initial request and switching to my interview mindset when I'm super focused about the conversation. "Shouldn't you be having a great night of sleep, to recharge your batteries ?"

"I don't feel like going to bed" He said, having no idea how the conversation would soon turn. Fortunately for him, I wasn't working in the music media industry. "That's quite a stage we're gonna play on."

I didn't know why he was talking to me about all of this. I didn't dare to ask him either. I just enjoyed the moment.

"Well, the Eurovision song contest was bigger, wasn't it ?"

"Hm, don't tell me about it, I still don't know how I managed that."

He suddenly had a strange tone in his voice. It didn't sound like the radiant and confident Damiano you see on Instagram stories or on TV interviews. I remembered where I heard him like that. In the 2019 documentary "This is Måneskin", the making of Il Ballo Della Vita album, in the sequence he's arguing with Vic on a train, as he tells her how anxious he can be get sometimes.

"Well, you did, didn't you ?" I put on a more serious voice. "And you had a ton more of pressure, representing your whole country ? So how a concert here in your home town could be worst than performing in front of all of Europe - not to say the whole world ?"

He was still smoking, listening in silence.

"Or maybe it isn't about how big the performance is but about performing in itself ? Why are you performing ? Why are you putting on a show ? All those fancy clothes and that makeup, who is it for ? For people to love you ? Or for you to love yourself ?"

Mais qu'est-ce que je branle ? Il va se barrer dans deux secondes, là c'est sûr (What the fuck am I doing ? He's leaving any second now.) I got a bit too excited about being able to share a few words with him. What's gotten onto me ? Well, let's go then.

"What is it you're running after ? Or running from maybe ? Some complex to compensate ? With all that smudge and confidence, that wouldn't surprise me."

He sat back on the bench. As he inhaled a deep breath of smoke, I saw a smile on his face. But I also saw his hand holding the cigarette shaking.

"Are you a psychiatrist or something ?" He simply said, as if he was trying to keep his voice as steady as possible.

I hesitated to tell him the truth. I was sure he would walk away the second he would know my actual job. Et puis merde, autant tout dire. (Well, fuck, might as well be honest.)

"Nope, I'm a journalist." I admited, as he looked right back at me with a surprised look. "Pretty much the same. We get appoitments with random people, listen to their life, observe their body language, and tell them our whole opinion about all of it, which might very well shape how they perceive themselves from now on."

"Only difference is that you don't have to keep anything secret. Right the contrary."

There. This was it. He was gonna leave now, for sure.

"Before you go, did I hit any truth ? Don't worry, I'm not in the music media industry, I won't write anything from our conversation." I hoped this information would save me a few more seconds with him.

He didn't answer right away. He didn't leave either. He kept looking at me, still smoking his second cigarette in a row now.

"Whatever it is you write about, I guess you must be good at it" he finally replied. "Cause you did score a few points."

Another short silence broke. As a fan, I was obsessed with his music, lyrics, and attitude. But catching a glimpse of what lied behind the glamour definitly caught my interest. I wanted to know more.

"Why are you here ?" I slightly deepened my voice, getting back to my interview tone, and kept on going with this as if that was usual business for me. "It's half past 10. You play on Rome's largest stage tomorrow. You surely better should be in bed, or be about to, before the big day."

In that moment, I had the upper-hand in the conversation. He was sat on the bench, I was on my feet in front of him, and therefore above him. Not the best approach to get someone's trust for an interview, but with a personnality like Damiano's, you gotta put your own show.

"I actually don't sleep much before big events like these" He finally answered, accepting his condition as an interviewee. "I don't sleep much at all."

"You're tend to insomnia ?"

"Not really, I just got used to 4-5 hours of sleep, that's it."

"Even during tours ? Cause this all sold-out European tour for Teatro d'Ira must have been exhausting".

"You have no idea, bellezza."

"So tell me." From there, I decided to change my strategy and sat on the ground, still in front of him, but giving him the upper-hand, to put on a more trustful atmosphere. "How are you doing ? And I don't mean, like casual 'yay, fine', I mean : how are you doing ?"

I still have no idea of my tactical move of giving him more space to express himself worked, or if he understood right away where I was leading him, but in the end, he still didn't seem bothered by this conversation we were having. In fact, it looked like he was enjoying it.

"I'm... content, I'd say." He paused, and I didn't interrupt him with another question this time. "I know I'm going through the life I wanted. The music, the tours, the praise. It's all I could have ever asked for."

D'accord, très bien, mais ? (Okey, very good, but ?) I stayed silent, but I couldn't help anticipating what he was saying.

"But surprisingly, sometimes it's still... unfulfilling. Like I can never be satisfied".

Repressing some Hamilton's lyrics from my mind, I innocently pretend I didn't fully understand what he meant - another journalistic technique, to get someone to repeat themselves with other words in order to get them deeper into their reflexion.

"What do you mean, "never be satisfied" ? You're on top of Spotify chart list, your albums are now platinum successes, you're winning awards. How is this not satisfying ?"

"It's just... What are all those things for ? Money ? Fame ? Yeah, I like those but..."

"Typical Capricorn" I muttered, to slide in the conversation that I actually knew pretty well my subject - my subject being him. He chuckled.

"Damn really ? Let me guess ? Aries ?"

"Pisces+Taurus, actually. So what, you don't like being famous ?" Getting back quickly into more questions - another technique to keep control over the rhythm of an interview.

"It's not that I dislike it. It's just... not always as fun as I thought it would be."

"What part of the job ? The writing and composing ?"

"No, that's the best part." He reached for a third cigarette. It was almost 11 pm now. "Vic, Thomas and Ethan. Måneskin. They're the best thing that ever happened to me".

"Then what, you feel like a fraud ?"

"Hell, no ! I'm exactly where I should be." He claimed, with a light pride tone.

"So, if you're proud of what you create, and if you love the people you create that with, then what is the matter ? If life is about getting the Bare Necessities, it seems like you got it all." Hitting with a universal - and musical - reference. Shoud do the trick.

"Hahaha ! Lo stretto indispensabile, si ! But life isn't that easy." He said laughing, as I felt he started to let go of the tension. "In real life, you get judged all the time, and people try to dismantle you, and spread rumors."

"I didn't think you'd be one to listen to people's comments about you".

"I'm not. I stopped giving credits to those. But it's still here, you know ?"

"From what I see, you're keeping it real, with lots of wisdom. I can't quite grasp what seem to bother you."

He paused, looking at his feet for a few seconds.

"I'm afraid it won't last." He finally confessed. "I'm afraid it all ends as quickly as it all started. I'm afraid people get bored. I'm afraid I become a caricature of myself. I'm afraid I can't write new songs. I'm afraid to be a shooting star, you see ? Very bright, but gone in a flash."

"Like, to be an Icare ? Or may I say "Ykaaar" like on your Instagram ?"

He chuckled again.

"Huh, I'm that obvious ?"

"Yeah, even a bit over-the-top, if I may dare say so."

"Well, I've always related so much with this mythological figure. I mean what's wrong with aiming for the Sun ?" He said, pointing a hand to the dark sky above us. From his attitude, I could tell he was way more relaxed than in the beginning. He even took his cap and hood off, so I could now see his face more clearly. His eyes were glittering. "Burning your wings... What's that morale supposed to teach us ? Be modest ? Be moderate ? Che noia !" (How boring !)

"Well don't be !" I felt almost like scolding him. "There's nothing wrong with seeking big dreams. As there's nothing wrong with this feeling of being outrun by your life. Savour the moment. Every second of it. It's because you can't know how long it may last that it tastes so good, so thrilling ! And you actually already are ten steps ahead ! Writing songs like ´Torna a casa' or ´Coraline' at, what, 19-20 years old ? You're the real deal, dude. And even if later on, you get blank page anxiety or write just good-enough songs, it's okey. You got plenty of time to make mistakes. Take the leap of faith. Failing and being a failure aren't the same. You learn, you grow from it. It's okey to doubt yourself, but please, don't ever doubt all the love and support you get."

I paused, hoping I didn't do too far and missed my point. But in a way, I could also feel I got it right. He was looking at the Circo, his eyes even more sparkling than before.

"I..." He got up, standing on the bench, looking as tall as a statue from my perspective. He came down and took a few steps. I got on my feet, starting to feel concerned about what I just said.

"I didn't know I needed to hear that." He finally confided. "I always wanna reach perfection. I'm aware I can be authoritative, sometimes even harsh, on the band. I can't accept to be a failure. But love and support, that, I can't get enough of."

I didn't respond. There was nothing to add. This instant felt like an hour. The wind was slightly blowing through the length of the Circo in front of us. His hair reflected the gentle light of the moon, only showing her first quarter. He broke the tranquility of the moment, turning and taking a few steps in my direction.

"Grazie mille" he said, his arms opened, calling for a hug.

"But, you're very welcome" I said approaching him, softly putting my arms on his back as he put his over my shoulders. The second before his face disappeared from my vision, i noticed a tear on his cheek.

"You've completed reset my mind. I feel like I can start all over again. I was anguished, trapped by my anxiety. But it's all gone now. You've changed me. Thank you, thank you so much" He affirmed full of hope, his voice shivering.

"Wow, well. I had no idea I could change someone's life." I answered, trying to hide how moved I myself was from the conversation.

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It was almost midnight now. We kept talking for a while, comparing life in Rome and Paris, exchanging what was our best concert experiences. But he still needed to get back home to rest before the concert, and I didn't want to arrive too late at my airbnb - even if I could have spent the whole night talking with him. Yet, to enjoy our last few minutes together, he offered to walk me back to where I was staying. It was just a 15 minutes walk, along the Tevere river bank.

"So tell me." he asked with a smirk. "How does the Bare Necessities go in French ?" He started to muffle the melody.

"Oh no, you don't expect me to actually sing it ?"

"Hehe, you got me into a therapy session, so I can get a little song from you, no ?"

"Damn, you. This is blackmail !" But drunk on the moment, I took a deep breath.

"Il en faut peeeeeeu pour être heureux, ("Look for the baaaaare necessities,") vraiment très peu pour être heureux, ("the simple bare necessities") il faut se satisfaire du nécessaire !" ("Forget about your worries and your strife")"

I started dancing along, if I had to be ridiculous, might as well utterly be. But he actually followed my lead, clicking his fingers.

"In fondo, baaaasta il minimo, ("I mean the baaaaare necessities") sapessi quanto è facile ("Old Mother Nature's recipes") Trovar quel po' che occorre per campar ! ("That brings the bare necessities of life !")

We kept on singing Disney songs for a few minutes as we walked at a slow pace - I was shocked he never saw Tarzan and immediately made him promise to watch it as i told him Phil Collins recorded all the songs in five languages, including Italian. When we finally reached my destination, we exchanged a last timid hug as farewell.

"Well, I'll see you on stage tomorrow." I told him as I crossed the street.

"And I'll look for you in the crowd !" He shouted with the brightest smile on his perfect face.

** the end **

#maneskin #damiano david #maneskin imagine #damiano david x reader #maneskin x reader #my writing

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sssn-neptune-vasilias · 4 years ago

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RWBY vs Comic

Alright, I said I was gonna do this back when the comic first started getting published but I got so frustrated reading it that I couldn’t actually keep up with it enough go through with it. I think I stopped around issue 4 because that was when I just got angry and threw my comic back into the plastic. I figure now’s as good a time as any since I’m actually rereading it now. My whole issue with the RWBY DC comics is that they’re super canon divergent but somehow still canon material. It’s so frustrating that this is the case because we’re supposed to take into account things that happen in the comic as gospel- things like Adam revealing he’d always been genocidal, Bumbleby’s bottlecap, Weiss’ zoo animal arc, etc, but a lot of these different story arcs don’t make sense in our current canon. So I’m gonna talk about them because why not.

Issue #1:

The first issue actually isn’t that bad- mostly because it’s just an intro to the series- but there are still some huge inconsistencies between the comic and official canon.

These two panels are a fucking mess.

1) Ruby was passed out when she was delivered to Patch by Qrow. She’d just used her Silver Eyed Warrior powers for the first time, hurt Cinder, frozen the dragon, and passed out. We were literally forced to listen as Qrow carried Ruby out of the rubble and back home, because she was unconscious. But the comic has her just arriving back home all on her own. “I came back to my dad’s house.” No you didn’t, you literally woke up in your bed after what must’ve been days of being unconscious.

2) We know Blake didn’t get to Menagerie on a little wooden boat. We all watched the episode. It was a decent sized ship with multiple crew members, dozens of passengers, and literal armaments designed to destroy Grimm. Sun can’t hide in a robe for 3+ days on this boat. This boat wouldn’t have survived a Grimm attack in the first place. Idk why they decided to draw this boat instead of just drawing the Pride the way it was designed in the first place, but whatever I guess.

RNJR didn’t tell Taiyang they were leaving. Ruby and her team just left. There was a whole scene dedicated to showing the shock and horror on Tai’s face as he saw Ruby’s letter and ran out of the house hoping to catch up to his daughter before she left. Also not as important but still relevant, RNJR left during winter. There was snow on the ground. I don’t see no snow in this panel- that tree looks real green. That last issue is mostly a nitpick- who cares what season they left in tbh. But the fact that they just wrote this panel into the comic despite the fact canon shows Taiyang had no idea of Ruby’s departure- and the fact that Ruby’s departure is actually really important to a bunch of later scenes in this show is really fucking weird.

Issue #2:

I know we know next to nothing about Raven Branwen, but holy fucking shit do I wanna believe this is ridiculously out of character for her. You’re telling me that Raven actually did come visit Yang and Tai and Ruby, but the one time she ever made her presence known to any of them was to berate and terrify Ruby the one time she’d learned anything about Summer?! Like BRO. This is so fucked up! This is too fucked up! This is straight early 90′s level villainy right here. What was even the point behind this?! This scene tells us that she felt so negatively about Summer Rose that she was willing to break her silent cover just to disillusion Ruby for no other reason than to tell her she was weak. Which makes no fucking sense because when we finally meet her during season 5 Raven has nothing bad to say about Summer at all! What did Qrow say to her after they spoke? “Hey sis why the fuck are you flying around your ex’s home scaring his daughter who just lost her mother? You realize you’re talking shit about the woman who raised your child too right?” Like, this is so wildly terrible, that if we’re meant to take this into account, I don’t see how anyone who reads these comics could say anything positive about Raven ever again. This is strike one, two and three for her entire characterization.

Issue #4:

I’ve said it already but fuck this boat.

Not so much an issue with the comic as it is with RoosterTeeth’s sometimes sloppy storytelling, but we really need an exact age on Adam. Is this man a pedophile? We know Blake is about twelve here, meanwhile- besides looking maybe a little scrawnier- Adam looks the same as he did during the show. How old is this kid right here? Fifteen? Seventeen? Was he 20 during the events of volume 1? Was he 25? I really dislike this specific problem RT has created because at no point during canon were we led to believe that Adam was significantly older than Blake or our other characters, but here in the comic we’re getting huge pedo vibes. Idk if this was RoosterTeeth retroactively trying to throw Adam’s character even further into question but... Idk man, RT y’all need to hurry up and carbon date this kid because I’m really not liking this.

I’m not gonna harp on the whole “Adam as a revolutionary vs Adam as a genocidal maniac” issue again. Most of y’all already know where I stand on this and have either made up your minds that either, yes, Adam’s sudden change towards being genocidal after being forcibly conscripted by Cinder doesn’t make much sense, or, no, Adam’s behavior is entirely in line with what little we’d seen of him up to that point in the story. I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinions on this issue, I’ve got about a dozen other posts for that. My issue with these panels specifically is that this is the moment Blake discovers Adam is genocidal. This is the moment Blake realizes that Adam never wanted peace, never wanted coexistence, never wanted what the White Fang actually wanted in the first place. He wanted Faunus supremacy- a goal entirely removed from the White Fang’s goal of equality between Faunus and humans. This is the moment Blake realizes that his ideology is so far from what it is she herself wants. If this is correct, why does Blake never mention this AT ALL when she’s talking about Adam. When the conversation comes up during season 3, she specifically states that Adam’s change was gradual. Not that he’d been hiding who he really was from her but that he’d become a completely different person from the man she’d originally known. I recognize that a lot of people say that this could be explained away as evidence of Blake’s abuse- oftentimes abusers don’t even realize just how monstrous their abusers are, even after they’ve escaped from said abuse. But this is just such a monumentally larger issue than manipulation and abuse. Adam is outright saying that he wants genocide! He’s not trying to hide it, he’s not trying to lie, he’s not trying to manipulate her! He’s telling her explicitly that he wishes he could kill as many humans as possible. But during the Black Trailer she’s still asking Adam about the crew members as if they hadn’t had this conversation hours ago! During season 2 she’s drawing him in her notebook as if she misses him! During season 3 she’s explaining that he’s simply misguided! This is apologia of the umpteenth level that is absolutely inexcusable. If I’m honestly supposed to be made to believe that Blake knew Adam was genocidal from before the events of the Black trailer and season 1 but still had feelings for him... I’m sorry but I’ve lost any and all respect for her entire character. You can’t have feelings for someone who’s genocidal- who you know is genocidal- and expect sympathy. No amount of abuse would forgive someone for having feelings for Hitler.

I recognize the comics aren’t supposed to be a shot for shot recreation of the show, but what the fuck is this panel? The frame of Adam dismembering Yang was such a good, amazing, impactful frame. The black and red framing, the yellow of Yang’s hair and weapons, the red of Adam’s sword. Why would you not even try to recreate that?

Leaving nitpicks for the end, really wish they hadn’t used “sunflower” here. That’s Yang/Ren. But again, the comic is made by people who aren’t in the fndm and don’t interact with the RWBY community at large in the first place, so of course they wouldn’t know.

Issue #5:

Why does Blake seem so ooc here. Like, the fact that she’s trying to make Weiss feel guilty for “cheating” in a “win by any means necessary” free for all match is really??? Weird??? When we know Blake isn’t above using underhanded tricks herself considering what she did to Reese during the tournament and her Semblance in general??? But whatever, that’s mostly a nitpick as well.

Issue #7:

My issue with this story is that it ends with Yang like, wistfully thinking of spending more time with Blake. But this is before she even put the prosthetic on. This is before she even got to talk with Weiss after meeting up with Raven. This is so early on in her healing process that I find it extremely difficult to believe that Yang is fondly remembering any time she spent with Blake. When Ruby talks to her during 3.12, she was angry that Blake had left her! Abandoned her! And then in the conversation she has with Weiss that happens after this event in the comic she’s still frustrated with Blake for leaving. So like... did she suddenly forgive Blake just a few weeks into her recovery and then relapse back into feeling like she’d abandoned her? Wtf is this?

Issue #9:

I know she’s obviously supposed to be drunk here, and we barely got to know her during the short scenes she had, but like... she never struck me as this kind of person. To literally forget how old her daughter is? Like...???? The same woman who was so perceptive she was able to recognize that Whitley was acting out because he’d felt lonely and abandoned by his sisters? Doesn’t know how old one of her children is? This is silly.

This isn’t the same woman we met during season 7. This isn’t the same quick witted woman who immediately directed Weiss to the cameras she’d hidden around the house when it was time to spring the trap on Jacques. This isn’t the same woman who was so honest when she admitted to her own faults just a few short months after this scene supposedly took place. You could argue that the events of this comic are what led Willow to become the person we meet later on, but like... That’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of offscreen growth you’re expecting me to just assume has happened. These aren’t the same people. This is ridiculous.

Issue #12:

This seems so ooc for Sun. Why is he literally begging her to run away and not face a problem when his entire relationship with Blake up to and past this point is him teaching Blake to love herself enough to face her problems head-on in the first place? This is so weird and gross imo because it just feels like they’re warping Sun’s character to make it look like Yang is the only good influence in her life when that’s simply not the case. Every conversation Sun has with Blake from season 1 to season 6 is him telling her that she deserves happiness, love, and to forgive herself. There are multiple songs about this aspect of their relationship! Sun has helped Blake grow just as much as Yang has. Why is Sun taking this approach to manipulate Blake into staying silent about something that’s bothering her? On top of that, Sun’s never been the brightest banana of the bunch anyway, why the FUCK is he smart enough here to recognize that if Blake tells the truth and makes those people feel bad, that they’d draw more Grimm? He’s never been this intuitive before. It really feels like they made him smarter than he normally is just to make him scummier than he’s ever been so that we could feel that Blake’s relationship with Sun is less than her relationship with Yang. Awful writing and characterization from the RWBY DC team here

Issue #13:

This is so wrong and despicable and manipulative and terrible. Again, this isn’t the same woman we met in the show.

Willow never made excuses for herself or her actions like this. Not once during the entire time she was on screen did she do anything like this. She knew she wasn’t a great mother and she took full responsibility for her actions- and inaction- I don’t know WHY she’s trying to excuse herself here. This is more Cruella De Ville than it is Willow Schnee.

I’m not gonna explain how lumping this “prized menagerie” story with “Faunus slave labor” story together is godawful but just recognize that it’s Black History Month and this plot point they decided to write in is not MLK approved.

Anyway, that’s the whole RWBY DC run. All in all it wasn’t the worst adaptation of an established series, but goddamn. I’d rank this up there with Eragon or Percy Jackson or the end of the Soul Eater anime or something. This is such a slap in the face by people who obviously only ever skimmed through the show for the explicit purpose of writing this series that I’ve read fancomics and fanfiction that handle canon better than this. It’s really frustrating too because this comic run is like, beloved by certain people in the fndm who are only in this for the ships, and people who refuse to see anything wrong with this series ever. The healthy servings of Bumbleby and crumbs of Monochrome and White Rose are apparently enough to make people go “fuck all the inconsistencies, this comic is great.” Cannot express how much these people make me wanna slam my head into a wall.

I did this just to highlight all the issues I have with the run, but I’m sure other people have other issues with this comic than I do. Have fun in the comments I guess.

#RWBY #RWDE

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thedumbguywithaheart43 · 3 years ago

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Boomlord weird adventure

Chapter 8 what time is it?

It was early morning in the omnispace void. Boomwood had gotten to the kitchen to start brewing coffee as the footsteps of a yawning purple hair woman enter the room."morning Twilight."Twilight mearly gave him a wave before sitting down. Looked at her noticing the look on her face. To be honest she looked exhausted.'ah shit'he quickly poured a shot glass of the Cuban coffee and handed it to her. She stared at the coffee for a minute."I appreciate the gesture but I doubt this is going to do much for me."good Lord gave out a chuckle."Twilight trust me this is Cuban coffee any more than this and you'll be wired."He gave out a chuckle before Twilight downed the shot, unsurprisingly her face scrunched up. This was probably the most bitter thing she ever had."bleh! Why would you drink something so bitter!"Boomlord shrugged."honestly I only drink it for the caffeine. If it helps I think I have some orange juice in the fridge."Twilight just looked down rubbing her head . Not long after the other girls walked in each of them heading into the fridge grabbing various fruits mostly apples. Pinkie pie was the only one who grabbed something else, looks like she found the flan and was in heaven."oh my Celestia this tastes so good!"At least she wasn't breaking the fourth wall again.

2 After everyone ate they all headed to the living room again."ok girls this is it we are heading to the next world. Now before I go this mission is not meant to be dangerous however the world we're entering can be a bit chaotic so be prepared for anything."The rest of the girls nodded they likely had assumed as much from the previous conversations."so where are we going anyway"dash blurted out as boom pulled out his pen."yeah I'm with Dash partner id hate to go in blind."Aj took a step forward to make her point."we're going to a place called ooo I spent a lot of time there and it's the only place I can really say I have friends anymore...."booms voice got deep as a sorrowful look overtook his face for a minute. This was enough to make Applejack back off. Twilight in particular took a mental note of this.'guess friends are a touchy subject for him.' boom grabbed his notepad An drew another circle, in the center he wrote °adventure Time 1°as always the golden electrical ring formed with a blackened middle. Boomlord jumped into the portal and when he landed his feet were on solid ground. Solid green grassy ground. He surveyed the area around him noticing he was in a grassy clear field however the ends of what looks like old nuclear bombs stuck out overtaken by the grassy plains. The girls enter next each of them still in their same outfits however 4 of the girls had notable changes to them . Twilight and rarity each had a sword at their side. Twilight sword with a sleek and purple short sword with her cutie mark on the hilt. Rarity sword on the other hand looked as if it were made of blue crystal with a white metal hilt her cutie mark also on it. Fluttershy and rainbow Dash had also had the return of their wings which Dash took this opportunity to fly up into the air a bit doing a few loops and swirls."Hell yeah I missed this!"boom couldn't help but smile."Real fly girl up there."a few of them awkwardly smile."so where's our destination?"Twilight asked giving him a quick grin knowing that he's trying his best to make everyone feel better about being in a strange world."we're going to see princess bubblegum at the Candy Kingdom."and just like that he found himself lying on the ground being pinned by pinkie pie."DID YOU SAY CANDY KINGDOM! A KINGDOM MADE OF CANDY IS THIS PLACE PARADISE O.M.C O.M.C."Twilight practically had to pry pinky off of him ."yes the entire Kingdom from the trees to the ground is made of candy including the people."He started to brush himself off as pinky smile only widen."but please don't eat the Candy people or I will probably have to stop you"pinky reluctantly nodded.

3"rainbow do you mind taking an aerial view try to find the place that looks like it's surrounded by Pink cotton candy trees.... Well because it is surrounded by Pink cotton candy trees."boom called out before stopping looking at the ground a large Shadow now loomed over them. It was Spike. All the ponies turn to look back in both shock and horror. Spike mostly remain the same with one slight difference... He was absolutely Giant. His whole body in total was about the size of a two sorry house and his wings could probably cover all of them with ease."oh yeah I forgot dragons are huge here but at least he still looks different from them normally they're just Giant tube dragons with big ass butts."The ponies/girls stared for a moment but in silent agreement they chose not to address it not that Spike would mind he was too busy checking himself out."oh crap I'm HUGE you guys look so small from up here!" It was the most adorable giant grin in the world. Rainbow decided now was a good time to take him to the air as she being flapping her wings disappearing above the clouds. Surveying the land below she was able to make out what looks like pink trees and a large structure that looked somewhat like a castle."guess that must be what I'm looking for."she kept looking around noticing in One direction was a rather large tree that almost looks like it had Windows in it and in the opposite direction she noticed tall mountains made entirely of ice."heh heh heh what do we have here"a voice from nowhere stated in a malicious tone from behind her. Is she turned to look behind her she saw a giant monster with a bat like face and long blue limbs with crooked nails.'OH SHIT'at this point rainbow Dash started nose diving down towards her friends with the creature in pursuit who was maliciously chuckling the entire way down. The rest of the group saw the creature and the girls had various reactions. Applejack rarity and Twilight look like they were getting ready to fight with rarity and Twilight pulling out their swords. Fluttershy and Pinky had decided to stick near Spike who is now using his wings to shield them.Then there was boom standing out in the open as dash passed him and he just smiled. Apon seeing him the creature stopped a look of surprise on our face."hey Marceline it's been a while"the creature began to shrink taking on a human form she had pale white skin and incredibly long black hair which reached down to her feet a simple jacket and jeans and her ,guitar-axe strapef to her back and a nice big floopy hat which covered her in a shroud of darkness. She give out a wide smile revealing her fangs before wrapping her arms around boom giving him a hug."holy glob dude!your back it's been like 4 months!"he returned the embrace from his old friend as the rest of the girls started to calm down noticing that whatever that thing was it seemed friendly at least now it did."oh that's right."he turned to the girls and dragon."everyone this is my old friend Marceline... The vampire queen"a few of the girls jaw started to drop."your freinds with a literal blood sucking vampire?"Marceline shrugged at Twilight comment."actually it's just the color I'm after."Marceline started floating on her back around them."so boom what brings you and your new friends back to ooo."Boomlord got quiet."I found it Marcy.... I found the Rose fire and they're here because Twilight here"pointing at the slightly flustered purple pony girl."is the key to everything."Marceline stopped moving for a moment the words settling in her mind."oh we need to get to the Candy Kingdom right away then."then without word Marceline started floating off towards the direction of the Kingdom and boom followed along with the girls and the giant dragon...... Yeah that might be a problem.

4 After a few hours of walking they all managed to reach the candy kingdom with Spike deciding to hide in the trees to avoid unwanted attention. Pinkie pie look like she was about to go crazy or more crazy."o.m.c so m-much candy!"she was practically foaming at the mouth."look pinky just eat the sidewalk or something just please don't start eating random people I don't want to deal with any drama today especially because we need the princess's help."the pony started walking forward into the rather nice town and to boomlord credit every building and every person was made of candy, And many candies citizens passed by. Mr cupcake crunchy punch bowl guy."wow this is actually really fascinating I can't help but wonder what they're DNA is like how do candy people procreate do they need to breathe or eat its quite fascinating"Twilight then begin rambling about a whole bunch of science jargon that boom did not know but he found himself listening to every word she spoke it wasn't until arsenaline tapped his shoulder that he snapped out of his trance."I see you found a real good friend~"she whispered in a teasing tone."w-what no she's just um cool you know for someone who was a horse the other day."Marceline rolled her eyes."horse or not you always did have a thing for a Smart ones~."boom felt his blood pump. "Oh you're one to talk."Marceline then backed off she knew how far she could go before boom would made her regret it. After a while of walking the group then found themselves at the castle as a pink cared and pink skinned princess in a long pink dress noticed them."oh my! Boom you have returned and with.. many female companions huh"princess bubblegum gave a smirk."oh don't you start now too!" Boom was probably going to say more before pb gave him a warm hug."so I assume this has to do with the rose fire."bubblegum look down at him and while she kept a smile her face was full of worry."yeah Twilight here um it's kind of a long story."bubblegum nodded."it always is."about an hour had passed after this meeting and boom had explained to Marceline and bubblegum how we came to meet the girls and discover the fire leaving out the parts where he burned himself or threw a skillet at Twilight."interesting I'll probably have to run a few scans on Twilight then with her permission."Twilight nodded."good we'll start by using the rejuvenation tank to monitor your body and vitals while I conduct a few scans"boom notice that she was pointing to the large tank filled with water and knew that this meant that Twilight was going to have to strip down which he then took his cue to leave. "I'll be back soon gonna check on stuff."and before anyone could say anything he left the room.

(oh and before I forget I'll be opening asks for boomlord and Friends so if they appear in the story feel free to ask them a question ask box is officially open)

#mlp fandom #adventure time #fanfic #writing #pinkie pie #twilight sparkle #applejack #rainbow dash #fluttershy #comedy #slightly saucy

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alfredosauce50 · 4 years ago

Text

What makes me human [Cyberpunk! America x reader 10]

Wordcount: 5,809 Rating: T for strong language and mild violence “Can’t you see that none of this is real? You’re living in the past, dumbass! It’s all a dream! If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll regret it!” Chapter synopsis: Half-dead, Allen falls into a strange realm of existence. It's nothing he's seen before, but it feels awfully familiar. He soon learns he's stuck in the past, and it's all in his head. He'll do whatever it takes to wake up and save Alfred from his demise he once played a part in. The reader is referred to as she/her.

Songs to listen to while you read (in order as found in playlist): 2049, Ghost in the shell - Original mix, Something about us, Cloudy day, L, The voice in my head. I have indented song titles throughout the chapter so you can change accordingly. Starting now:

2049, Ghost in the Shell - Original mix

“His condition is stable. He’s in a coma, but he’s gonna be fine.”

“A coma? For how long?”

Where were the voices coming from? Was there one person or two people speaking? He couldn’t tell. But his interest quickly changed to another subject.

Am I dead?

With whatever brain activity he had left, that question was the only thing he heard repeating in his head like a broken record.

He couldn’t see anything, let alone feel anything as he drifted into an abyss of nothingness. In fact, it was so empty, he couldn’t even say it was darkness he was engulfed in. Just nothingness. Was this what people experienced before walking over to the other side? Or was he going to be stuck here forever? Allen couldn’t tell. Not when there was no concept of time in this strange realm of existence, anyway.

His eyes shot open. It took a few moments for his vision to adjust, but he came to realize he was sitting in his car. Huh. Was that all a dream? Whatever it was, it had escaped his mind so seamlessly, he couldn’t remember anything. Leaning forward to peer out the window, he was greeted with an onslaught of neon lights. Neon signs, holograms, and posters surrounded him from all angles and heights. At least that told him he wasn’t far from home. Turning to the front, he attached his hands to the wheel. Now, to get back.

If he drove around for a few minutes, he’d surely pinpoint his location relative to Arthur’s auto shop. Revving up the engine, he heard it purr to life. As a small grin stretched over his lips, he pulled out of the cul-de-sac to move to the main street. “I missed you too.” He murmured, never letting his gaze stray from the road. Eventually, he made it to a familiar intersection. Before he could pass through it, he stopped and found himself staring at what looked like a police chase coming to an end.

A helicopter hovered over a car stopped in the center. Over the fierce thumping of its blades, he heard a grungy voice barking out orders through a loudspeaker. He couldn’t make out what it was, but it didn’t look like they were followed. Not when the occupants in the vehicle were immediately shot upon stepping out–collapsing to the ground after a rain of machine gunfire blew them apart.

“Jesus Christ…” He mumbled under a frown. “Poor bastards.”

After they all dropped like flies, the helicopter took off in another direction. And just like that, they were gone.

The police in Twilight city were ruthless as always. Quick to action, and yet, just as dismissive. But it wasn’t his business. So long as he played his cards right, he wouldn’t have to deal with them. Making a right turn, he breathed out a sigh as he made a detour. He never liked using alleyways. There was no saying if he’d run into a couple of weirdos in places like these. Speaking of weirdos, there was a couple of men huddling around a corner. It piqued his curiosity to see them so interested in whatever it was they surrounded. Or more accurately put, who they surrounded. A girl. Slowing to a stop behind a tall bundle of crates, he leaned over to the right to get a better look. She was shaking in her boots, and her lips were trembling as she struggled to respond to the questions thrown at her. And how old was she anyway? 10? 11?

“That doesn’t look good.” Allen narrowed his eyes.

He climbed out of his car.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket, he approached the group slowly. But when one of the men took a hold of her shoulder, adrenaline surged through his veins and he burst into a sprint. When he got close enough, he grabbed said man’s shoulder before throwing his fist back. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Punching him square in the face, he sent him hurtling towards the ground.

Immediately, his cronies responded by pouncing on the newcomer for giving one of their buddies a black eye. After a few minutes of violent tousling, he managed to beat them all into submission.

Leaving them groaning and wincing in the dirt, he gave his hand a rough shake. Phew. He hadn’t had a good fight in ages. Giving his bottom lip a light tap to find a small blotch of red on his fingertip. And he won against three people too, escaping with only a busted lip. Before he could gloat about it, he glanced around to find the girl. Where did she go?

Assuming she ran away, he shrugged and moved back to his car. If she wasn’t here, then he wouldn’t be obliged to help her any more than that. But upon nearing his vehicle, he spotted a small pair of feet poking out from the back. Then, they proceeded to shuffle back to become completely concealed. Breathing out a chuckle at that, he rested his hands on his hips.

“I can see you.”

No response.

“You can come out now.” Making his way around the trunk, the child buried her face into her knees upon realizing she had been discovered. A light frown downturned his features at the sight of her shaking like a leaf. “Man, am I that scary?” He murmured, lowering himself to his knees. “Hey, kid. I’m not gonna hurt ya. I was just passing by. I promise I won’t do anything.”

She kept her face hidden, but her trembling seemed to calm.

“Well, if you’re not gonna say anything, I’ll be on my way. Just make sure to move out of the way so I don’t run you over.” Standing up on his feet, he turned his back to her. Before his fingers could do so little as graze over the car handles, a faint voice piped up.

“Wait!”

Allen grinned and spun on his heel. “Yes?”

She stood up slowly, but kept her head low to avoid his gaze. Without removing her hands from her pants, which she was clenching at, she opened her mouth again. “Could you maybe… Tell me where the train station is? I got kinda lost.” The way she spoke was soft, breathless even, and more so than Allen’s who just beat up a bunch of no-good-doers.

“The train station?” The redhead questioned. Not that he didn’t know where it was. In fact, it was only a few blocks down, but he had to think twice about sending a ten-year-old off to wander the streets around here. The same streets a police shootout just took place, and the same streets where she was approached by a couple of hooligans. “How about I drop you off? I’m not in a hurry. I dunno if you wanna walk around by yourself after what happened.”

He said it before, and he’d say it again. This city was an absolute shithole.

“R-really? But I’m not sure…” The enthusiasm faded as quickly as she lit up. “I don’t know you.”

“And I don’t know you either.” Allen hummed. “So you’re just as dangerous to me as I am to you. Sound fair?”

The girl furrowed her brows.

“That doesn’t make sense. You’re way older than me.”

“Oh yeah? I’m only eighteen though. Lemme guess, ten? Twelve?”

“Thirteen.” She answered, relaxing just a touch at the sound of his age. At first glance, one would have assumed he was in his early twenties, but she was relieved to know she was wrong. “Are you still in high school?”

The man blinked. Was she warming up already? “Nope. I finished nearly a year ago. But that doesn’t mean I sit around all day with nothing to do.” He opened the car door to the driver’s seat. “You’re lucky I was out and about to get your ass out of trouble. So what do you say we keep it that way?”

The ride there didn’t take long, much to Allen’s surprise. By the time his GPS revealed that they had arrived, he had slowed down near the curb in front of one of the tallest skyscrapers in Twilight city. Sliding the window down, he poked his head out to give his surroundings a gander. The blinding lights of the liveliest commercial center forced him to squint, but he could still tell this was the city center. And that only meant the residential lots were a little further down.

“You sure this is the right address? There’s nothing but malls and stuff around here.” He shouted over the bustle of people crossing the streets and pounding of music.

“No, this it the right place. I live right there in that building!” Climbing over to the side, she pointed at Matsumoto Optics.

Exchanging glances with the said building, then the girl, he gave his head a light shake. “What do you mean, you live right there? Nobody–” He paused, feeling dread settle in his stomach. “Wait a sec. What was your name again, kid?”

“(F/N) Matsumoto. My dad actually owns the whole plaza.”

He paled.

“Holy shit.”

Why did it feel like a gun was pointing at him?

Because there was one.

Whipping his head to the window next to him, he found himself staring straight down the barrel of a gun. While his heart broke out into a pounding frenzy, he came to notice that his whole car was surrounded by men in suits. Bringing out every kind of shootable weapon that existed, his blood ran cold at the sound of more than twenty firearms cocking at once. From every angle there was, he was aimed at by something. “Fuck.”

“Put your hands where I can see them!” One of the men demanded.

Allen threw his arms up. “Alright, alright!”

Glass shattered. A hand shot through the broken window and hit him in the back of the neck, hard. “Gh-!” It knocked him out immediately. Then, his unconscious body was dragged out of the car with next to no grace.

So much for following orders.

When he finally came to, all he knew was the throbbing pain in his neck, and the rope burns around his arms and wrists. Since they were tightly bound together, he could only blink away the fuzz in his vision. This day had to be the longest yet. All he remembered was waking up in his car completely disoriented, then saving a middle-schooler from a bunch of creeps. Where was this place? An office of some sort? How did he wind up here again? All he could do was speculate as he continued to kneel on the carpeted ground.

“My daughter told me you saved her from a group of ruffians.” A low voice began, forcing him to look up. My daughter? Did that mean he was Matsumoto? The Takahiro Matsumoto? The most powerful person on the planet? The person whose name he heard every minute of the day from slogans? His suspicions were confirmed when he found himself gawking at a beast of a man, who stood a little over six feet with a long gray beard.

Wait a minute, this guy was old? And this… Built? “If she hadn’t, you wouldn’t have woken up.”

Allen tensed.

“… Right. Well, I’m sorry for whatever I did. I didn’t know she was… A Matsumoto.” He breathed. “If I did, I would’ve let her ride the train herself. Didn’t think putting her in my car warranted a death sentence.”

“But you are alive, boy. And she is too, thanks to you.” The older man graciously responded, giving his head a firm pat. Then, he lowered his gaze to meet the other’s eyes. “I see an unwavering sense of justice from you. There were three men you had to fend off to keep her safe, and you only managed to let them hit you once.”

“…”

“You have talent.”

“… Thanks.”

“If you haven’t noticed already, I want to recruit you.”

The redhead had to do a double-take. Were his ears playing tricks on him, or did he actually say–

“You wanna… Hire me?”

Matsumoto nodded. “Like I just said. You have the skills to be a bodyguard, and we are in urgent need of one.” An ominous light glinted in his dark eyes as he opened his mouth again. “Did you ever wonder why there was a job opening?”

Allen gave a nervous laugh. On second thoughts, maybe laying low in Arthur’s auto shop was the better option. “Thanks, but no thanks. I was just lucky today, and I’m not a pro. I think you’re better off hiring somebody else–”

The other hardened his stare at him. “We have an elaborate training program to prepare you for your duties. I see no reason for you to reject.” With a swift flick of his wrist, he beckoned over a few men who had been standing on the sidelines. “These gentlemen weren’t half as good as you when they began. Now, they are the best any secret service has to offer. Their combat skills are impeccable, and their instincts refined to perfection.”

When he sensed he had fallen right into a trap, he wasn’t wrong.

“I wouldn’t imagine it to be hard for them to locate anybody residing in this city. Even your friend, Arthur, the British mechanic.”

Seeing that Allen was now at loss for words, he smiled.

“I believe it would be in your best interest to work for me, Jekyll.”

That same day he was recruited, his induction took place. And boy, was it a lot. By the time they had finished, night had fallen. Fortunately, he could treat himself to a hot dinner in the dining court before retiring to his room. He couldn’t say being given his own condo was unexpected, but when he stepped inside to become completely immersed in luxury, he was faced with a rude awakening. Up here where the air stretched thin over the blinking lights of Twilight city, he was reminded how out of place he was.

All his life, he was at the bottom. He grew up a street rat before he was taken in by a kind mechanic. And he taught him everything he knew. Never did he imagine he would ever be this high up in the clouds, working in a high-ranking position under a man comparable to God. And the longer he lingered on this reality, thrusted to him without his say, the hotter his eyes felt. There was no saying if he could go home again.

And that meant he wouldn’t be seeing Arthur anytime soon.

The next morning, he woke up the groggiest he’d ever felt in his life. Squinting at the window that happened to take up his whole wall, he was graced with a hot orange sunrise. It cast a pinkish haze over everything in his sight like a filter, but he was far too exhausted to appreciate the scenery. He checked his phone. 6:23 AM. Twenty missed calls and twelve text messages. Crap. He’d call him later. He needed to figure himself out first.

Giving his face a cold splash of water, he rubbed his eyes clean. Lifting his head to the mirror, he found himself staring at his reflection, which of course, stared right back. Did he always look this young? He snorted. What was he thinking? Of course he did. He was only eighteen, after all. Sliding himself in a dress shirt and pants, he finished off the look by throwing on a black blazer. Then, he gave his appearance a hard stare. “… Nope. This looks stupid.” Leaving the bathroom in a white tank and bomber jacket, he ventured out into empty morning halls to find the elevator.

Once he made it to the third floor, he began his journey to the training dojo. The walls were a beige white, the floors a polished wood, and there were shoji screens everywhere. He was washed over with a strange sense of déjà vu. But considering this was his first time here, that couldn’t be the right phrase. Jamais vu was more like it. He was here with the impression he’d never been before, but he somehow knew that was a lie.

And it was a gut feeling so strong, it was kind of eerie.

He couldn’t understand why he was feeling this way. And not being the thinking type, he chose to brush it off. He had enough to worry about already, so the last thing he wanted was to overthink a foreign environment. Maybe some exercise could clear his head— and that was exactly what he’d be doing today. His rigorous training program.

Entering a spacious room, he stepped inside to feel his shoes sink into soft tatami mats.

“Don’t even think about taking another step in here with those shoes on, Jekyll.”

A very rigorous training program.

***

Something about us, L

It had only been a few days since arriving here at Arthur’s, but you were slowly regaining your strength. With every new morning, you awakened with more energy than the last. Perhaps the small light of hope of seeing Allen do the same was what urged you to become an early riser. But like yesterday, and the day before, that hope was shattered at the sight of him unconscious in bed. He didn’t even move an inch.

Nearing his side, you lowered yourself to your knees and reached out to his cheek. Talking to him while he slept had become routine to you. You’d tell him about your day, everything you did, and all your conversations you ever had. If not, you’d reminisce the past so he wouldn’t feel left out. He never interrupted, and let you run off on tangents until you were sick of talking. “I really hope you wake up soon, Allen. I feel like… I’m talking to myself here.” Your voice was soft with a heart-wrenching kind of sadness, but you refused to linger on it.

After all, how could you expect him to wake so soon? You knew how strong he was, but it would be selfish to want something impossible. So you forced yourself to leave the room, figuring you would feel better if you focused on something else. Little did you know, someone had been lurking in the halls during your visit.

Alfred had his back pressed up to the wall outside while you dropped by, and he heard everything. And not even from just this morning. Everything you ever told Allen, he listened in on too.

He knew better than to infringe on your privacy, and hear things that were better off left unheard. But he kept finding himself hiding outside in the hall, doing it again and again—even Arthur had caught wind of it.

He heard footsteps clunking against the metal floor, but he never bothered to turn to it. Usually, Arthur would’ve kept on walking. But not today he didn’t. “If you like her so much, you should just tell her.” He’d murmur.

Alfred whipped his head to him with his eyes widened ever so slightly. But he visibly eased seeing it was just him. And rather than denying his claims, he tore his gaze away. “I can’t.” His brows were furrowed for creases to form between them. Arthur was almost taken aback, having never seen him so frustrated.

“Why not?” The Brit responded, resting his back against the wall beside the man. “It’s painful seeing you loiter out here all day. I’d say I felt sorry for you, but you’ve been eavesdropping on her for a while.” At the sound of that, the other’s cheeks flushed red. So his guess was right on the mark, after all. “She’s coming out right now. Might wanna make a run for it while you still can.”

“Guys?” Another voice joined, forcing the two men to spin around.

The mechanic bit back a snort. “Too late. I’ll be in the garage.” He whispered. Shooting you a brief smile, he turned on his heels to leave. “You two have fun now. I have lots of work to do today.” With that said, he disappeared to do exactly that, but not without a few chuckles under his breath. For the many years he knew the guy, he never found anything he wasn’t good at. There was nothing he couldn’t do. Looking over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Alfred with a hand on his neck, laughing nervously.

That perfect track record was finally ending, it seemed.

At least he wouldn’t have to watch him fumble around with his feelings for long. You and Alfred were planning to leave in a few days to God knows where, to do God knows what. Frankly speaking, he didn’t know what you were doing, hanging around such a shady guy like him. That was right. You two arrived with your bodyguard Allen, who was half-dead then, and barely clinging to life now. What the hell happened? Wouldn’t your father be concerned?

Maybe he’d ask Allen himself, if he’d awaken anytime soon, that was. For now, he’d stay on the sidelines and help Alfred repair his missing Mantis blades as he’d requested. He was restless without them, frequently interrupting his work with, “Are you done yet?” until he finished for the day. Arthur narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue, shutting the garage door behind him. Whatever you two had planned, he couldn’t imagine it to be legal.

***

Cloudy day

A few months had gone by, and he was finally getting settled in his new workplace. But there was no saying when he’d ever be forgiven for it. Not that he could even explain himself. What was he even supposed to say? I saved a girl from a bunch of creeps and put her in my car to take her home but she wasn’t just any girl and turned out to be the daughter of Matsumoto himself and now I’m being threatened to work for them because they know where you live. That surely wouldn’t fly. Especially when he went through all that just to be a glorified babysitter.

He just knew Arthur was buried up to the neck with work, now that he was alone. Breathing out a sigh at the thought, he rolled his head to the said girl sitting by a cherry wood coffee table, whose nose was buried in a book.

“You ever get bored reading stuff all day?” He began, stretching his arms across the backrest of the couch.

She shrugged. “Sometimes. But I have to study, otherwise I’ll fall behind.”

Allen nodded, stretching his lips into a flat line. “Fair enough. Well, I did just graduate high school, so if you need any help with… Math or whatever, just let me know.” Surely, seventh-grade level wouldn’t be too difficult for him.

“Mm… Thanks, but I don’t think you can help me with what I’m doing. This is like… College level stuff.” You gave him a sheepish smile, to where he gawked at you in response.

“Wow, you a genius or something?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“You’re just being humble, kid. It’s fine to be proud of yourself, ya know. ‘Specially now, cuz it gets kinda annoying when adults do it.” Allen grinned, hopping up from his spot to give her hair a ruffle. She could only hang her head to hide the embarrassed pout on her lips. Fortunately, their height difference let her do so.

“Thanks, I guess…” It was only when he pulled his hand away did she look up again. In her line of vision was a chest of drawers, and she reached out to point towards it. “Also, could you mind checking if my USB’s in there? I think I left it in one of the drawers yesterday.”

The redhead spun around. “Sure, no prob.”

Pulling out one of the compartments, he rummaged around random bits and bobs until he caught sight of said USB. Besides the connecter, the storage disk was fairly long and flat. This thing could’ve stored hundreds of terabytes of data if it could. That translated to hundreds of computers’ worth of information. Picking it up, he held it in his fingers to give it a brief study. Before he called over to you with his lips separated ajar, he found himself entranced by it.

But what was so interesting about something as common as a storage disk? For some reason, the small object in his hand resonated with him. It was… So familiar. As if he’d seen something like this before. Or perhaps, it reminded him of something he forgot about. Problem was, he didn’t know what. And it was a gut feeling so strong, he couldn’t seem to shake it off.

The voice in my head

That night, he was called to his superior’s office for a security briefing. Appearing through the tall double door, he walked in with his hands in his pockets. Situated deep in the room, and just by the window overlooking the blinking lights of the city, was his desk, and the man Matsumoto himself. His chair spun around to reveal a bearded man well into his seventies with a light scowl on his face. “I expect you to wear the uniform suitable for these occasions, Jekyll.”

Allen blinked before rubbing his neck. “Right, sorry. Forgot.” In all honesty, he considered showing up in a black tie and all, but it wasn’t the most comfortable fit in the world. “So, what’dya call me in for?”

The other clasped his hands together and gave him a firm stare. “Even in my company, you have moments of… Stepping out of line. Breaches of discipline.” He gestured to his attire, letting it do the speaking. “I may overlook some inconsistencies in exchange for your services, but there is one rule you must not break under any circumstances.”

Silence fell in the room so you could hear a pin drop. It gave Allen some room to think–to guess what his superior was going to warn him about. A secret basement that locked up human guinea pigs he wasn’t supposed to stumble into, perhaps? But that was ridiculous. So he stayed quiet, prepared to listen intently to the man. Surely, his guess was far from reality.

“There is a… Basement a few floors beneath the lobby.”

Allen froze. He’d heard this before.

Otherwise, how else could he guess that he’d say this?

“I keep my most prized possessions in there. Personal vehicles and upgrades. Nothing goes in and out undetected. So don’t even think about stepping inside.” He couldn’t believe a word he said, as calm and convincing his tone was.

Allen had an idea why.

He sensed something was off the minute he came here. It was all so obvious–the familiarity of the dojo halls, the USB, and even his face in the mirror. He’d seen it all before. Previously, he’d brushed it all off. But he couldn’t deny it any longer now that he had this conversation, a conversation he already had. So if his intuition was right, that meant he could guess what was actually in the basement. And there were no fancy sports cars to speak of.

He gritted his teeth as his tanned complexion began to pale. Then, his stomach began to churn.

“… Are you unwell?”

He lifted his head and shook it. “Nah. Just lost in thought.”

“You may lose yourself in the emptiness in your head as much as you desire, but not in my presence. If you don’t have any questions, you are dismissed.”

“Yessir.”

Turning on the spot to leave, a deep frown downturned his features now that he wasn’t facing him anymore. Something was terribly wrong. And he was about to confirm it. A couple of hours later when the whole building fell quiet, he snuck down to the basement floor through the elevator. And while he ran through the pitch-black halls to the door in the end, he couldn’t get this thought out of his mind. He’d definitely done this before, too.

Swinging the door open, he was greeted with a familiar stench of death. But he didn’t have time to gag. Running to the two pods, he never bothered turning on his night vision. He trusted his body and his muscle memories to guide the way. And it was the right call, because he found himself standing by the pods in no time. Lifting up one of the hatches to find a mummified corpse, he stared with an unreadable expression.

He wasn’t even surprised. And that was really telling, considering he would’ve vomited at the sight. But this only solidified his suspicions. This wasn’t new.

Nothing was.

Turning to the other pod, he fiddled around the latches for a minute or so before giving in. This one couldn’t be opened, not without proper authorization. Okay, this was new. He didn’t remember this pod being locked. So he jabbed his fingers into a couple of buttons, unable to resist his curiosity. He couldn’t leave any stones unturned. Thankfully, his rapid button smashing eventually did do something to reveal what was inside.

The glass that was previously fogged up cleared.

Inside lay a man. A blonde. His skin was flawless in save for the outlines of removable plates. He was a cybernetically enhanced individual, but not one he wasn’t already acquainted with.

“We put him to sleep for fifty years…”

“By the time he gained his consciousness, we turned him into a killing machine.”

“Even to this day, he remains my greatest creation.“

Fragments of his memory began to play in his head. All until he could remember the name of the sleeping figure. It was Alfred. And he had yet to wake up to go on a killing rampage, or in other words, the first time they’d ever meet.

Allen eventually retreated back to his condo. The first thing he did was go to the bathroom and splash cold water to his face. If he wanted to figure out what the hell was going on, he needed to clear his convoluted mind first. Either he was a psychic or stuck in another reality. But he wasn’t bright enough to be a psychic. And interdimensional travel wasn’t invented. Yet. So what could it be?

While he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his wet fingers, his train of thought was interrupted by a voice. And it sounded just like his, but deeper.

Glancing up to the source, he found himself staring at his own reflection in his mirror. But he came to realize it wasn’t him–rather, it was an older version of him. They had the same face, eye color, and hair, but the person who glared back at him had sharper features, and a more defined jawline. Unbeknownst to him, it was the subconscious of his present self.

“What the hell are you doing?” He hissed.

Slamming his hands against the mirror, the loud bang caused Allen to jump. “Can’t you see that none of this is real? You’re living in the past, dumbass! It’s all a dream! If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll regret it!”

Allen dug his hands through his hair, and before he could even question him, panic overwhelmed his system. Not that he needed to, because everything he was just told made perfect sense. “W-Wake up? But… But how?”

“What do you think genius? You have to die!” The other screamed. “If you don’t wake up soon, Alfred and (F/N) are gonna get away with the chip! You can’t let him put it in his head! The Soulkiller will destroy him!”

Fuck.

He felt himself tense up in all reality as more memories flowed back to him. That was right. He was in a coma after being stabbed by a katana. He remembered how desperate he was as he fought to stay awake, all so he could warn Alfred he was falling into a trap. But he failed, and wound up in another realm of reality. His dreams. And if he didn’t wake up soon, there was going to be hell to pay.

Shoving his hand into his jacket, he pulled out a gun.

Then, he exchanged wary glances with his subconscious, who nodded at him.

He cocked it. “If you’re wrong… And I die in real life…” It wasn’t like he had anything to threaten him with, though. “Let’s hope I don’t.” Sliding the gun into his mouth, he screwed his eyes shut. Then, he pulled the trigger.

Shooting up with a loud gasp, he finally awakened from the longest trauma-induced sleep he’d ever had. Almost immediately, he heard somebody else let out a scream of genuine fear. “Ah–!” By the foot of the bed he was laying in was Arthur, and he’d fallen right out of his chair. “Jesus fucking Christ! If I’d known you’d wake up like that, I would’ve sat further away!”

Standing back onto his feet, he was never fast enough to stop Allen from sliding himself off the bed. “Hey– watch it! You can’t move right away!”

“How did I get here?”

Arthur stepped back as his friend loomed over him. “Well–I’m not sure how you fell into a coma, but it was Alfred and (F/N) who brought you in.”

Thank god. “And where are they now?”

The other shrugged with a look of defeat. “I don’t know, honestly. All I know is they’re doing something dangerous. Alfred wouldn’t leave before I helped him install a new set of mantis blades.”

“Fuck!” He hissed, feeling his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. Bile was even rising in his throat as he reflected on the possibility that Alfred was already dead. “I was too late. I was too fucking late.” Shaking his head as heat accumulated behind his eyes, he paused for a moment, letting hot tears of frustration run down his face. Then, he gripped Arthur’s shoulders when he was hit with an epiphany. With the slim chance they only left recently, he still had time.

“How long have they been gone for?”

The blonde pondered for a moment, but the concern in his eyes never faded. “Only a week, give or take. Why? What’s wrong?”

Before Allen could breathe out a sigh of relief, he was gripped with a panic-inducing sense of urgency. “That means I can still save him!” If he remembered correctly, the Soulkiller virus needed at least two weeks before the damage became permanent. So if he could somehow find you both in seven days, he could save Alfred. “No questions. I’ll explain in the car! We have to find them as soon as possible!”

He would’ve been dead if it weren’t for him.

So in return for saving his life, he’d do anything to save his too.

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bobawriteslove · 5 years ago

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Helpless (Pro-hero) Kirishima X reader pt. 2

Warning: Intense fluff That night you laid in bed staring at the ceiling. You began to wonder if (f/n) was right, maybe you should give dating a chance. Experience the ups and downs about being in a relationship, but then again you don't need to rely on someone else to make you happy. Your thoughts kept you awake the majority of the night until you finally crashed around 3 am. The following morning, your friend's voice echoed throughout your house waking you up. You groaned in irritation as you sat up in your bed rubbing around your bed hair. She opened your door looking directly at your bed. “Oh good (y/n) You’re awake! Get dressed, they're going to be there in an hour!” (F/n) pulled your blankets off your body exposing you to the cold. “Up and at em’ we need to get you all pretty for Mr. Riot!” You sighed getting up from your bed walking to your bathroom to wash up. The clothes (F/n) picked out for you were surprisingly not as revealing as you had assumed them to be. You got dressed in a pair of dark blue ripped jeans, a white blouse that tied on the end exposing just a bit of your stomach and a pair of brown knee high boots. You hated to admit it but you looked damn good with a little bit of effort. Styling your hair into a half up-half down look curling the ends. You didn't bother with a whole bunch of makeup, just simple eyeliner and gloss. You came out of the bathroom revealing the clothes. (F/N)’s eyes lit up at the sight of you. “Holy shit (Y/n) you look cute--no not cute. Sexy. If I was a guy I’d definitely try to fuck you.” (F/N)’s complement was a bit extreme but you knew she meant well. You actually felt confident in the way you looked. But you’d never tell her that cause you’d never hear the end of it. (F/N) pulled out her phone searching something up. “So from your place its only a 20 minute walk. If we wanna get there earlier than the rest we should head out now.” She grabbed all of your essentials including her own rushing out towards the front door. You followed closely behind her heading towards the mall, evidently by the time you arrived there was around a line wrapping around the building. (F/N) groaned in defeat looking at the time. “They beat us here?! How, there’s no way! They must have camped here all night.” You eyed the crowd of girls whose faces were buried in their mirrors as they prepared for the event. The amount of makeup caked up on their skin made yours crawl and itch. (F/N) dragged her feet towards the back of the never ending line, tears about to spill from her eyes. You reached a hand out grabbing her arm catching her attention. You quickly dragged her out of sight towards the back of the back gate. You pulled back the clipped metal ushering your friend inside. “Okay we’re gonna have a serious talk about this later but for now I.FUCKING.LOVE.YOU!” Laughing to yourself you went through behind her carefully closing it back up to look complete. You brought her to the back door of the wall and it was busy enough at the right moment for you to sneak inside without catching any attention from the patrons. The two of you walked to the event section, it was relatively empty which allowed you to find a place to rest your legs on the indoor fountain. You were surprisingly tired, meaning you used a lot more of your energy than you anticipated.(F/N) took her place next to you staring at you suspiciously. “So (y/n), we gonna talk about it?” “Hm, talk about what?” you answered casually as you people watched. “You know what! How did you know about that secret passageway?” “Oh that, well remember when i was trying to buy that new fighting game? I didn't feel like waiting on the line that day and I discovered it when a bunch of boys cut the wire. Guess they didn't feel like waiting either. So when I saw how sad you were it reminded me of where it was and I snuck us inside.” (F/N) hugged you tightly, practically suffocating you in her chest! “Who's my precious little criminal!” She squealed out. “You went through with it too, that makes you just as guilty as I am!” you said in a gasped voice. “Oh hey I guess you’re right---WHO’S MY PRECIOUS LITTLE PARTNER IN CRIME?” she cooed at you. You rolled your eyes, shrugging her off. You couldn't help but laugh at her nickname for you. “What time are they supposed to be here again?” “I think the flyer said between 2 or 3 o'clock, so they should be arriving any moment now--” As if on cue the sound of screaming girls echoed through the halls. You covered your ears watching as a sea of girls flooded the entrance to the mall. You and (F/N) stood on the fountain trying to see over the horde that was only growing in size. The only thing visible was a blonde and red fluff among the crowd. (F/N) squealed pointing in their direction. “IT REALLY IS THEM! WE GOTTA GET OVER THERE” You felt a bit more determined now that the odds of getting to them seemed nearly impossible. The crowd began to move towards the staircase, you grabbed your friends wrist again hopping off the fountain rushing to the staff only escalator. It was much faster than the regular stairs that were currently being occupied. The two of you made your way around the crowd, luckily the crowd wasn't too aggressive but it was obvious that no girl wanted to lose their spots in front of the stage. The small staging area upstairs was set up rather nicely but it was meant to keep some kind of order among the girls. The staff only allowed 4 girls at a time to go up on stage to meet the boys, even exchanging the gifts they brought. The lines were moving pretty quickly and it was almost your turn. The wait wasn't bad at all, but it seemed like the girls in front of you didn't feel the same way. They were becoming extremely rowdy as the girls before them took their time carrying on a conversation longer than what was allowed. Soon the girls before you began to shout absurdities towards the girls on the stage which caused them to respond back resulting in an argument. Most of the girls cleared out, backing away to give the girls some space but you and (F/N) stayed put. You weren't worried about the fight turning physical because that would cause a bigger issue for the rest of you. You worked too hard to lose your spot now. (F/N) stood close by but unfortunately the fight took a turn for the worse. You tried to move out of the way stepping up on the stairs to the stage , the girls fighting pushed and shoved each other even landing a few hits here and there. However you were caught in the crossfire and were pushed off the staging area, you fell towards the crowd of girls at the bottom making the scream, You braced yourself for impact, closing your eyes tightly. The sound of your friends voice and a loud “fuck” echoed in your ears. You felt yourself being engulfed in a tight embrace, you head being tucked into a shoulder and shielded from behind. You and your savior hit the ground rather hard but you didn't get a chance to feel it due to the person cushioning your fall. You looked up and gasped, getting a good look at their face. Bakugo stared down at you grinding his teeth angrily. “Stupid women.” He winced in pain as he stood up turning to face the girls who started the fighting cracking his knuckles. “Listen here you idiots, you pull something like this again and you’ll have to answer to me you got that! AND THAT GOES FOR THE REST OF YOU!” He smashed his fist to his palm activating his quirk. The girls behind the ropes squealed completely ignoring what just happened. He walked off leaving you on the ground as he walked towards the stage. Your eyes followed him as he ascended. Kirishima looked at his friend before hopping off the stage himself walking over to you reaching a hand out. “Are you alright Miss?” It took all your willpower to now gawk at him, he was gorgeous up close but you pushed the thought to the back of your mind grabbing his hand to pull yourself up. He helped you with no effort, his muscle rippling as he assisted you. He scanned over your body for injury as he spoke softly to you. “I'm sorry about him, he’s not too great at consoling a victim but at least you’re safe now. Unless you require medical help?” Your friend watched from behind him giving you the ‘I told you face’ wiggling her eyebrows. You turned back to him giving him a friendly smile which shocked him a bit. “I’m fine, thank you Red Riot.” “Ah--” He gave you one of his boyish smiles in return rubbing the back of his neck. “You can call me Eijiro okay, What’s your name?”. You suddenly forgot how to speak and fumbled to find your words which made him laugh loudly. “Relax! Breathe, everything's cool.” You took a deep breath with his help finally introducing yourself.

“My names (y/n)” “(Y/N)?” he repeated back to you. “Yeah.” “That’s beautiful--I mean cool! Anyways, I better be going but um, are you gonna be alright (y/n)?” Your friend signaled over his shoulder for you to pretend to be injured and you shook your head at her. He leaned back into your view and looked at you with genuine concern. “So you’re not okay? “ he questioned. Your eyes snapped back to his concerned red ones. “Oh no! I mean, I’m fine.” “Oh okay, for a second there it looked like you said you were still hurt?” “No I’m okay, thank you for asking!” “Well alright. I’ll see you on stage okay. Try not to fall again”

He escorted you back to the line with your friend who was pretending to be as casual as possible. She looked at you and dramatically threw her arms around your body. “Oh my baby! Are you alright?” you arched your brow at her acting and sighed going along with it. “I’m fine. You can rest easy now.” He nodded leaving you two to talk things out. The girls who started the fight were removed from the mall allowing the two of you to walk up for your turn officially. You watched as your friend ran over to Bakugo wrapping her arms around his neck. He pulled away from her body with a blush on his cheeks. “Let go of me, you dumb ass….” “Aww come on, I’m just really grateful that you saved my best friend's life!” she finished kissing his cheek. He continued to pull away from her advances in disgust. “I couldn’t give a rats ass! Let go!” You and Kirishima watched the scene unfold shaking your head at your friends' antics. You pulled out your phone in which he took it from your hands holding it above your heads. He wrapped his arm around your waist pulling you closely. “Here let me do it. I’m taller anyways.” he leaned down closely pressing his head against yours smiling brightly.You blushed but smiled a bit as he snapped the image. The sound of Bakugos groans caught your attention. Your friend continued to grab him by his shirt collar to kiss his cheek as she took her own photo. You held in a laugh, turning your attention to your phone that was in Kirishima's hands. He was busy typing something in before turning it back to you. You looked at the screen in shock. You looked back up at him and he turned his face with a clear blush matching his friends.You saved the number on the screen and tucked your phone into your back pocket. You grabbed your friend's arm pulling her away from Bakugo who wiped the lipstick off his cheek shuddering. The two of you exited off the stage, your friend blew him a goodbye kiss as you dragged her back to the water fountain. “So?” You heard her say. “So what?” “Did you have a moment with him~” (F/N) leaned in closely to your face poking your cheek. “Ah, kinda...you especially had a good time didn’t” “BUT YOU DID HAVE A MOMENT!!! I TOLD YOU” You pulled your phone out scrolling through the contacts showing her the new addition. She screamed wrapping her arms around you bouncing up and down. “I’m so proud of you!!!” You tapped her arm realizing that this was the moment she would never let you live down.

#Kirishima Eijirou #kirishima x reader #kirishima x you #mha x reader #mha imagines #kirishima scenario #reader insert #bnha x reader #romance #bnha imagines #katsuki bakugo imagine #bakugo

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makeste · 5 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 261: Wakey Wakey

Previously on BnHA: The heroes decided that the only way to beat the villains was with an insane winner-takes-all gambit involving two simultaneous attacks, one on the Pliff base in Gunga Mountain, and the other on a quaint little hospital in Jakku that just so happens to be where Ujiko is keeping his Noumuraki in cold storage along with all his other evil science junk. We still don’t know what the fuck is going on in Gunga, but over in Jakku things are shockingly not really going according to plan! First Ujiko was stabbed by a Noumu space slug and melted away into nothing because HE’S A FAAAAAAAKE. Then a bunch of other Noumu came running out of the morgue to distract everyone while the real Ujiko scuttled about his lab in a panic in his lab and literally called the heroes “THOSE MEDDLESOME HEROES” because he is literally a cartoon villain, only with the evilness cranked up to 11. Thankfully before he could warp away and escape, Miruko, a.k.a. the queen of this entire arc, busted down the door and crushed John-chan like a bug (RIP JOHN-CHAN) and took hold of my heart and was all “THIS IS MINE NOW” and I was like “okay” and now she’s gonna kick Ujiko’s ass????! Or so we can hope anyway?

Today on BnHA: Well Miruko almost kicks Ujiko’s ass, and he almost doesn’t manage to punch in the activation code for his High End Noumus, and we almost manage to be spared the chaotic scene where they all come to life and wreak havoc. But unfortunately “almost” is as close as we get, mainly because every single other character decides to hang back in the hospital entrance fighting a bunch of nobodies rather than bothering to help Miruko out. Everyone that is, except Crust, who provides some assistance by (a) not mentioning to anyone how there’s a whole other tunnel that leads out of the lab and goes DIRECTLY OUTSIDE TO WHERE MY CHILDREN PRESUMABLY ARE, and (b) arriving at the lab and then not really doing anything else at all except shouting a bit. So apparently this is what we’re working with. Thankfully Miruko is somehow still alive, because it looks like she’s about to have to fight these guys pretty much on her own. Unfortunately Ujiko takes advantage of all the chaos to abscond the fuck out of there. And so the chapter leaves off with one of those “record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation” moments. Fun times.

so Ujiko got a new name last week; he is now Garaki Kyuudai. you can read all about the meaning of the name on Caleb’s twitter if you feel so inclined. so we are now moving on, and we’ll see how many times I forget this new name and have to go back and look it up (ETA: at least twice so far)

so hopefully today will be the day when we finally discover just how and why everything is going to go terribly wrong, because it’s getting stressful bracing myself for that shoe to drop every damn week. if you’re going to put my kids in terrible danger than GO AHEAD AND PUT THEM IN DANGER ALREADY THEN. please. I can’t go on like this

holy shit you guys

see, now this is the kind of fanservice I can get behind. too bad I can’t really focus on that at all right now because

well then. it’s only the thing I’ve been simultaneously anticipating and dreading ever since the start of the My Villain Academia arc! don’t mind me guys. I’m just gonna. sit here nearly frozen but also kind of vibrating/pulsing ever so slightly

OH NO MIRUKO WHAT DID YOU DO

holy shit you guys. I RECOGNIZE THAT BIG BLACK DOOR FROM BACK IN MY KHR DAYS. ONLY BACK THEN IT WASN’T A DOOR AT ALL, BUT A WALL. A GLORIOUS AND TERRIBLE WALL WHICH SINGLEHANDEDLY BROUGHT ONE OF THE STRONGEST CHARACTERS TO HIS KNEES DURING A DO-OR-DIE “HEROES INVADE THE VILLAINS’ LAIR” ARC VERY MUCH LIKE THIS. oh my god. and now he has returned, after all these years, to once again fuck up the heroes’ plans at a critical and devastating moment. curse you wall

also did we really need to see this

Horikoshi: “you know what I haven’t drawn yet that I’d really like to draw. brains. just some brains splattered around all messily. children love that almost as much as they love dead dogs”

ffsdsdlfkjl YOU KNOW WHAT WE ALSO DIDN’T NEED TO SEE, HOLY CHRIST

A FLASHBACK TO UJIKO “COMFORTING” A BLOODIED JOHN-CHAN AFTER A SUCCESSFUL TEST RUN OF HIS NOUMU CAPABILITIES, OR WHATEVER THE HELL THIS IS. DID YOU GUYS ASK FOR THIS? I SURE AS HELL DIDN’T. I HAVE NO REAL WAY OF KNOWING THIS FOR SURE, BUT I’M GONNA GO OUT ON A LIMB AND SAY THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WANTED TO SEE THIS. LIKE, I CAN’T SAY THAT WITH CERTAINTY, BUT ACTUALLY I CAN THOUGH

ugh. anyway. “just Noumu Arc things,” Horikoshi says with a shrug. listen you son of a --

meanwhile if Ujiko gets all angry and tearfully sics all of the High Ends on Miruko in his rage, I will... actually I’ll sit here not being even remotely surprised at all, but still freaking out though. damn it, this is why I need that freaking shoe to drop already like I said. that thing is just sitting there like a loose snack in a malfunctioning vending machine and I’m standing here cursing and thumping on the glass and asking if anybody has a quarter

GODDAMMIT I DON��T NEED TO HEAR HIS FUCKING EULOGY FOR HIS PET MONSTER WHICH USED TO BE AN INNOCENT LITTLE CHILD UNTIL HE MAIMED AND TORTURED THE HUMANITY OUT OF IT

is that freaking All for One in the top right panel. YOU’RE ON MY SHITLIST TOO MISTER

looooooooool :’)

lol I think we finally got that shoe loose folks. sob. go ahead and activate them you crusty old fuck

also are these things in the little tubes... quirks??? like what the hell

so now Ujiko’s screaming (I guess if he’s upset we can take that as a good sign?), and meanwhile Miruko is all

still smiling even now. god how I love her. “I’LL FIND OUT IF I KICK HIM” GOD MIRUKO WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A FEMALE HIMBO. LIKE WITH LESS PEJORATIVE CONNOTATIONS THAN THE ORIGINAL “BIMBO” AND WITH MORE OF A “SOMEONE WHO’S REALLY HOT AND COULD CRUSH YOU WITH HER PINKY AND IS ALSO A FEW ICE BRICKS SHORT OF AN IGLOO” KIND OF VIBE TO IT. HERBO??? OR WHAT ABOUT... SHIMBO

anyway Endeavor is all “catch him” which is some great fucking advice coming from someone that hasn’t even made it inside the morgue entrance yet. what fucking good are you. at least he fried the space slug

but unfortunately that hasn’t quite solved all their problems yet

honestly though, he should still go after her. like, screw all the rest of this. get your priorities in order!! she just said there were a ton of REALLY STRONG-LOOKING!! Noumus over there too, and meanwhile she’s the only one there because none of these other dinguses seem to realize that if you want to stop the fucking Noumus you need to stop the guy in charge. otherwise they’ll just keep on coming!!

you know what, forget what I implied a couple paragraphs ago about Miruko being a few twists short of a slinky. she may have a straightforward “hit first and ask questions later” approach to things, but it’s increasingly clear that she’s still in possession of this team’s one shared brain cell right now

(ETA: the more that I think about this the madder I get. I count at least seven heroes in this shot. you’re telling me you couldn’t spare a single one??)

ooh we’re cutting to Mandalay!

she says the last of the civilians have just been evacuated from the hospital! I don’t know why she’s yelling this to them out loud and not thinking it at them like in the forest arc but whatever. the evacuation part got me thinking about the kids and now I desperately want to see how they’re doing but first we have to wait for this High End situation to finish spiraling out of control I guess

-- holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay so this guy, who was the closest behind Miruko -- I forget who he is but I remember he was one of the top ten... goddammit let me look it up... okay yeah, he’s Crust, the number six hero, whose quirk I don’t think we know yet -- anyway so he’s running down the corridor and, well...

first of all he says hmmm way too much. but more importantly he just confirmed that at least one of these corridors leads directly outside. without passing through the hospital at all. implying that the Noumus can bypass the squad of heroes entirely and escape to rampage out on the mountainside

so the one job that the heroes had today, which was to make sure that none of the villains escaped, has already proven a failure. there are Noumus outside. and who else is outside in the mountains of Jakku right now, you guys? EXACTLY

meanwhile this fucking boomer hasn’t even bothered to say this part out loud so that the other heroes can hear and realize that there are potentially escaped Noumus on the lam! like it would be nice to maybe mention that so that they know their plan has sprung a leak and also so that Endeavor can WARN HIS FUCKING INTERNS JESUS CHRIST

anyway so Crust has stumbled upon a group of Noumus and is attacking them and still not revealing a thing to his pals, thanks so much!!!

and now Miruko is leaping at Ujiko so that means ladies and gentlemen it’s finally TIME FOR SOMETHING BAD TO HAPPEN!

WHY IS THIS TAKING A WHOLE FUCKING PAGE

no fucking duh?? holy shit. he may be an evil genius but he’s really not that great at thinking on his feet

-- oh shit?!

A WILD RAY OF HOPE APPEARS?? looooool are you serious? that must mean that they’re so fucking powerful the heroes wouldn’t stand a chance if they were activated. so despite all appearances, Horikoshi is actually not throwing them to the wolves just yet and there is still a thin layer of plot armor surrounding them!

--but what the hell IS HE TURNING THEM ON ANYWAY?!

sob, he is. holy shit he’s gonna sic a High End on my wife and it’ll be the strongest fucking thing we’ve ever seen and meanwhile Ujiko will be watching all “hur hur it’s not even using 10% of its power” fucking fuck me

WHAT THE FUCK

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THERE’S ANOTHER WARPING NOUMU JESUS

so he just left?? but turned the Noumus on first?? so now they have ten fucking hours before these things get strong enough to level the whole fucking planet are you shitting meeeee. and did he just leave Tomura there too or did he also warp him out?

wait a sec no he’s still there. lol what the fuck. so did Mocha-chan create a duplicate of him then and that’s what Miruko kicked?

I’m so confused lmao

(ETA: still confused tbh. but we have bigger fish to fry!)

but anyway. this is what we came for though

wakey wakey. hey can someone go slap Endeavor and all those other heroes for me for deciding it was more important to battle the “small fries” out in front rather than give Miruko some fucking backup so it wouldn’t be all on her to stop this shitclown from remote activating his unstoppable army of death? fucking Mic could have ended this whole show with one shouted “YODELAYHEEHOO~” down this echo-y corridor for fuck’s sake!! Aizawa could have stopped Mocha from using her quirk! god damn! I hope you’re all happy!!

LMAO HOLY FUCKING SHIT

THAT’S THE SCARIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN?! HAHAHA MY HEART IS GENUINELY RACING, I’M DEFAULTING TO MY “HAUNTED HOUSE LAUGHTER” INSTINCT IN WHICH I KEEP LAUGHING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS TOO FUCKING TENSE AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO

LIKE, THE ONE NEARLY BIT HER FUCKING FACE OFF BEFORE SHE KICKED ITS BITEY HAND IN HALF, BUT MEANWHILE THE OTHER ONE IS TRYING TO GRAB HER ENTIRE HEAD WITH ITS MASSIVE FUCKING HAND ATTACHED TO AN ARM THAT’S LITERALLY AS LONG AS MIRUKO IS TALL, AND THAT HAND IS BIG ENOUGH THAT IF IT CLOSED ITS FIST HER HEAD WOULD LITERALLY POP LIKE A GRAPE HOLY SHIT?!?!

NO THANK YOU I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BUT THAT’S ALL RIGHT I DON’T WANT IT TAKE IT BACK PLEASE

oh thank fuck I think Miruko escaped?? or they just threw her into that wall, at least. well still better then getting your head crushed

and now these two are trying to talk because fuck me I forgot high ends can fucking talk

“h...hero...” took me a second to figure out what they were saying there but damned if that didn’t send a chill down my spine!

also Miruko really did kick its hand right the fuck off, god I love her. even if it is instantly growing back

you guys I literally can’t stop laughing lol

HAHAHA WE’RE SO FUCKED!?!

ALSO IS THAT ONE GUY CRIMSON RIOT?!!

hmm lol maybe not. idk though he just gave me that vibe

LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ALL ARE LOL

THEY JUST WANT TO KILL THEM ALL THAT’S SO GREAT. THIS IS ALL SO WONDERFUL THEY KO’D MIRUKO IN 0.4 SECONDS AND NOW THEY WANT TO “GO BERSERK” WHAT A GRAND TIME WE’RE IN FOR

LMAO ARE YOU SERIOUS

FUCKING CRUST OUT HERE LIKE TROY WITH THE PIZZA BOXES. DO YOU WANT TO JUST TURN THE FUCK AROUND RIGHT NOW BOY. NGL IF THEY RIP YOUR HEAD OFF I’M NOT EVEN GONNA DO ANYTHING EXCEPT ROLL MY EYES. WATCH HIM NOT SHOUT A WARNING TO THE OTHERS EVEN NOW

(ETA: I s2g though. hello?! is your headset broken???)

and he’s being greeted by this big guy with a gear head and a weird lumpy spine

somehow at first I thought that first lump on his back was an “R” symbol because I’m bad at interpreting images, so now I want to call him Rusty because I’m also bad at coming up with nicknames on the spot. I’m sorry Rusty

anyway so Rusty and Crust are immediately getting into an argument and meanwhile Ujiko is just SITTING THERE BECAUSE HE CAN, NOW

because Endeavor, Aizawa, Mic, and the others all decided it was more important to abandon their most important target in favor of trying to contain the comparatively harmless redshirt Noumus in the lobby. which is also pointless, because they’re not actually containing shit, because there are other exits besides for just the hospital! which they would fucking know if Crust was capable of relaying vital information instead of strategically saving his breath for more important things like sarcastically calling this Rusty guy “clever”

in conclusion the heroes have all picked the absolute worst time to collectively shit the bed and I’ve had it with them and they all need to retire, except for Miruko. and the kids. who are now soon to be directly in the line of fire thanks to this shitshow

LMAO HORIKOSHI YOU PIECE OF SHIT SOMEHOW I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO PICK THIS WEEK TO ANNOUNCE A BREAK YOU GLEEFUL LITTLE TROLL

and two weeks from now is when I’ll finally be watching the new movie though, so I don’t even know how that’s gonna work lol. guess that’s why they put the extra day in February this year. ah well

anyway! so Miruko is still alive and more reminiscent of Katsuki now than ever, which is fucking great because Crust so far has been exactly as useful as you would expect some stupid old guy with the name “crust” to be, sigh. anyway I’m glad to see my girl’s spirits haven’t been dampened

meanwhile Ujiko straight up did leave Tomura there, which is interesting lol. and so now it looks to be Miruko and Crust (with the latter’s contribution extremely in doubt) versus Rusty, Jester, Max Rebo, Girl!Noumu, and Noumu!Riot. I’m strangely not worried for Miruko because I have decided that she’s invincible, and because Horikoshi has graciously nerfed these guys a bit (please accept my dripping-with-sarcasm “gee thanks”, Horikoshi)

but I am however worried about my three sons over on the edge of town who are about to be waylaid by god knows what. not to mention all my other kids 80km away! how will their day be ruined? we shall see!

#bnha 261 #miruko #ujiko daruma #garaki kyuudai #crust (bnha)#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste spoiler recap #makeste reads bnha #I half expect crust to pull out his money clip that he got at the haberdashery #and throw it at the noumus while screaming 'street smarts!!!' at the top of his lungs #then he chews up the tab of alka-seltzer that he carries with him at all times #thus creating a foaming-at-the-mouth appearance that makes him look like he has rabies #now he's thrown them off his rhythm #then he grabs a telephone book and beats them with it #anyway how this guy got to be number six is a mystery for the ages

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aatsms · 5 years ago

Text

My Turn To Fix You (Connor x Reader)

This is my first fanfic that I have ever written so pls be nice! I know it’s long but tbh I wrote this mostly for myself lol. It basically follows the story of a CyberLife engineer (the reader) and our boy Connor! I plan to write multiple chapters for this if anyone actually becomes interested lol!

Chapter 1

Work at the station had been more intense than usual these past three weeks. Protesters had been extra violent in Detroit, protesting against the manufacturing of androids. They usually took their anger out on the police androids in the streets. You guess it made them feel more powerful to rough up an android that was supposed to act as a type of authority. You thought it was kind of pathetic and pointless to cause so much damage to android simply doing its job. It also gave you a shit ton more work than usual since you were the CyberLife engineer working at the Detroit PD to repair any police android that might need it. Police androids are only used for basic police work, such as giving tickets, stoping pick pocketers on the street, and staying alert of anything that might be suspicious or threatening. They don't even carry a gun or weapons, serving more as an extra eye for cops on duty. Connor, the RK800 that works with Hank, is the only android that acts as a fully working detective, able to have a weapon and upgraded with CyberLife's most advance technology.

You had to admit, he was incredibly impressive. When you had received the blueprints and manuals on his wiring before he first arrived at the station, you found yourself actually a bit overwhelmed. He barely used any parts that were similar to the ones that most androids used, and his wiring was so intricate. He was the most advanced model of android you had ever seen. It took you a few days to get comfortably familiar with his systems so you would be prepared to fix him up if ever he needed it once he arrived. You figured you would be seeing him a lot since he was the only android in the front line of dangerous work.

Tonight is the first Friday in a long time you can remember being able to actually leave work on time. It was honestly a miracle. It seemed there was always paper work that needed filling out or an android that needed tending to. It was nice to be home on your couch, under a warm blanket, with food that wasn't takeout for a change, and all by 11:30. You were swiping through an article on the debate of weather android police dogs should also be used in police departments. It seems unlikely. At least until it is confirmed by CyberLife that they are reliable; that they can't disobey their orders or even go deviant. (If that's even possible for android animals.) You were thankful either way because android animals would require you to become familiar with a whole new type of engineering. Learning the ins and outs of Connor was enough.

It was pouring rain as you were reading. The occasional crash of thunder and lightning was almost comforting to you. You began to dose off to the sounds of the familiar Detroit weather outside. You were suddenly jerked awake by a loud crash of thunder. Or at least that's what you thought woke you up. Standing in the frame of your front door was the RK800 android from the station. He had forced open the door, breaking the lock, and was completely soaked from the rain. He was hunched over, clutching his torso. His LED was flashing bright red.

"Connor?! What the hell are you doing here?!"

"Sorry for the unannounced visit y/n. I hope it's not an inconvenience."

You were suddenly aware of the massive flow of blue blood seeping from his midsection. He could barely stand. You rushed over to help him stay upright.

"Oh my god Connor what happened?!

"Do you think maybe we could talk about the details once i'm not losing an unsafe amount of thirium?"

"Right, right, right." You were trying to take deep breaths and not panic. He really looked like shit. "I have a room in the back with a workbench and a whole bunch of extra android parts and emergency thirium. Let's get you back there fast."

You put his right arm around your neck to help him stand and used your other hand to apply pressure to the general area where he was bleeding. Based on the amount of blue his shirt was drenched in, you could tell he was wounded in multiple places. You quickly helped him as he limped to the back room.

You shoved aside half finished diagnostic reports and old projects off the work bench and helped Connor onto it. His entire shirt was now covered in blue blood.

"Connor, you're going to need to take off your shirt for this one. I can't even tell where the hell you're bleeding from!" He began to undress as you frantically searched for your crate with supplies to perform a blue blood transfusion. You were not used to having to repair androids at your own house. This was the first time anything like this had happened. You were wondering how the hell Connor even knew where you lived.

Finally, you found the crate with the supplies you were looking for. Quickly, you turned around, looking directly at a shirtless Connor on your work bench. You weren't sure why, but you felt yourself freeze for a moment, taken aback by the android sitting in front of you. You couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was about him that was so intriguing in that moment. Maybe it was the fact that he was in such incredible shape. You weren't sure why you weren't expecting him to be so ripped. "I mean of course he is." you thought. "Why wouldn't CyberLife give their newest super weapon abs y/n??" You chuckled to yourself a little under your breath at your own thoughts.

"Is everything alright y/n?" He seemed more concerned about you than the flow of thirium leaving his body.

"Ya sorry, I just... I don't know. Let's get you fixed." You shook away your thoughts and began to focus on the task at hand.

You immediately began work on him, having to use his shirt to wipe the blood from his abdomen so you could get a sense of where all the blue blood was coming from. You discovered 4 bullet holes. "Holy shit Connor what were you doing?"

"Well, my mission didn't go exactly how I expected" he managed to huff out. You could tell the loss of thirium was starting to catch up to him. God only knows how long it took him to find your house after he was shoot.

Once you cleaned up enough of the thirium to see what you were doing, you began to work on assessing the damage and removing the bullets. You also decided to try to get some answers.

"You must have really pissed someone off for them to have shot you 4 times."

"Well I imagine getting caught while dealing 20 pounds of red ice would be rather aggravating."

"20 pounds?! How do you even come across 20 pounds if red ice?"

"That's why I was put on this case. They want me to find out where exactly these dealers are finding so much red ice."

"Alright Connor, i'm removing the first bullet now. Be ready to apply pressure."

His LED flashed a quick red as you removed the first bullet. He barely flinched, letting out nothing but a silent grunt. You proceeded to the next bullet.

"You're lucky you got here so quickly. Any longer and there would have been nothing I could do. How did you even find my apartment?"

"I knew I wouldn't be able to find you in the precinct because I overheard you talking to detective Reed that you were planing on getting home early tonight. I knew my mission tonight was dangerous so I saved your address in my database in case of emergency."

You let out a small laugh and smiled up at him. "You're lucky you were listening in."

"My programming requires me to be listening to any conversations happening around me within a 20 foot radius."

You thought about what he just said as you finally reached the second bullet. You and Reed were on the other side of the precinct, opposite of where Connor's desk is, when you told him your plans of leaving early. Connor was at his desk, definitely farther than 20 feet away, when you were talking to Gavin. Was Connor....trying to listen to your conversation? Why? You shook the thought from your mind.

"Okay, next bullet out in 3..2...." You removed the second bullet right under his rib. This time he had to brace himself slightly by grabbing the edge of the bench. You put your hand on his shoulder.

"You good?"

"Yeah" he huffed as he placed his hand over yours on his shoulder. "Move onto the next bullet, i'll be fine."

You were amazed by how calm he was, considering you were on the edge of having a full fledged panic attack. Quickly, you moved to the spot of the third and fourth bullet. They were relatively close to each other.

"Thank god they didn't hit your thirium pump. It's hard to find those parts for a standard android, let alone an RK800. I don't think I even have one that would fit your model here in my office."

"You're smart y/n. You would have figured something out."

You tried to convince yourself you believed that statement. Connor seemed to have a lot of confidence in you. Probably too much you thought.

"Last two Connor. I'm gonna take both out at the same time since they're right next to each other. Get ready." You pulled the bullets from his waist with one last tug. He let out a sharp whine, clenching his eyes shut and grabbing your wrist as you removed the last bullets. His grip on your wrist was surprisingly gentle and warm. You forgot that the flow of thirium through his body allowed for him to give off at least some body heat. CyberLife really knew how to make these androids seem so human.

He slowly let go of your wrist, as his LED circled from a wild red back to yellow and then to blue. You let out a sigh of relief. Finally the hard part was over. All that was left to do now was transfuse some blue blood back into his body, and check to make sure none of his parts or wiring was damaged from the shots. He's able to heal over the wound himself with prosthetic skin.

"My diagnostics program is telling me that there doesn't seem to be any major problems. Only minor motor function issues that can be fixed with a system reset."

"You're lucky Connor. You could have been done for shit." You finished setting up your equipment for the transfusion. Thank god you were done. It was now that you realized that you were sweating. You were used to being under intense pressure, that was part of your job most of the time. But never had it made you this stressed. Connor could have been gone....and it would have been your fault.

You sat yourself down on the center on the floor, laying your legs straight out in front of you and placing your hands behind you for support. For what felt like the first time in the past 20 minutes, you were finally able to catch your breath. You shut your eyes and began to take deep breaths. It was finally over.

"y/n, I noticed that the situation has caused your heart rate to increase rapidly. I'm sorry for any distress I might have caused you. It wasn't my intention." Connor was not knelt down beside you on the floor. His LED was circling yellow from scanning you.

“Of course you didn't, it's not your fault Connor. If anything i'm thankful you got here before it was too late."

He now sat down across from you, sitting perfectly in a criss-cross position. You both sat in silence for the next few seconds, taking the opportunity to rest after everything that just happened.

"Thank you y/n."

You lifted your head to look across at him. It felt like he was staring right into you. You knew he was an android, but the sincerity in his eyes seemed so real. You couldn't help but feel like he meant it. You gave him a warm smile. "No problem Connor." You started to get up from the floor. "And besides" you smirked, "it's kinda my job to save your ass."Connor looked up at you from the floor, the little light on the side of his head circling with blue. "So" you sighed. "What now?"

Connor swiftly stood up from the floor.

"I learned some critical information for Hank and I's investigation tonight, however I doubt he would appreciate a visit from me so late."

You started to clean up the supplies, parts, and thirium from your workbench as you talked to him. "The precinct is always open, you could go there and file everything in the database until tomorrow morning.

"I need to conduct my system reset before I do anything. If too many of my basic functions are down, my programming won't allow me to do much."

"How long does this reset take?"

"Four hours." Connor seemed annoyed with his answer

"You could just do your reset here. If for some reason anything goes wrong or I somehow missed something when fixing you up, you're right here."

He seemed to be considering what you were offering, his LED flashing yellow. "That would seem to be my best option. I hope you don't mind" The sincerity was back in his eyes.

"It's not a problem at all. Plus I'd rather be able to keep an eye on you for the night."

Connor made his way toward you at the workbench, reaching for his jacket. It was then that you realized Connor was still shirtless. You weren't sure why, but you felt slightly embarrassed as he come closer to you. He seemed to notice something was off. He turned to look at you, his face only inches away from yours.

"Is everything ok y/n?" he asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.

You turned your head back to look straight in front of you instead of looking at Connor.

"Ya sorry I...I was just thinking that maybe we should get you some clothes until I get yours washed." You glanced at him with a nervous smile, trying not to look at his bare chest. Even though he was an android, you still felt you needed to be respectful for some reason. Connor turned to look at his once crisp white shirt now covered in a milky blue.

"I would definitely appreciate clothes that aren't covered in my own thirium."

#dbh #connor #connorxreader #dbhfanfic #dbhconnorxreader #cyberlife #cyberlifeengineer #detroit #androidxreader #connordbh #hankdbh #detroit become human #chapter one

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iesorno · 4 years ago

Text

We spoke to Adam a little while ago about his influences and inspirations and found his answers intriguing, so we decided to dive in and dig a bit deeper. We just kept on going with it all until we ended up with a mammoth interview going into every corner of his mind, from practice and accessing his creativity, to grafting to make a living outside of the norms of the mainstream.

I think it’s a fascinating look into the practice, experiences and the will to succeed that powers Adam, as well as a window into the wider world of underground creators.

WARNING – GORE and some SEX

You can find Adam here

webstore youtube facebook

ZL – Hi Adam! Thanx for agreeing to this interview, hope you enjoy it.

Let’s get introductions out of the way. For anyone that doesn’t know, can you tell us your name, where you grew up and where you currently live?

AY – My name is Mr. Adam Yeater. I grew up a swamp rat in Florida and traveled around a lot. I finally settled down in Arizona as a desert rat. I went from one Florida to another.

ZL – For a little bit more background. You clearly enjoy underground and mini comix, so how did you first find out about them and what were you interested in before you started reading them?

AY – I discovered zines through the early Death/Grind Metal scene in the 90s. There was no internet so everything was done via snail mail. I used to get so much great printed matter. Demo tapes, fliers for bands, albums and review zines. I eventually started my own zine called Subliminal Message. We lived in Ohio in a shit hole little town. Trying to get high, fighting, reading comic books, listening to Metal, Punk Rock, Hardcore Rap and skateboarding.

I was a very industrious broke ass 14 year old kid. I found a way to get some of the mainstream metal record companies to send me promo stuff for their bands for review. I was getting stacks of stuff in the mail. The record companies were mailing backstage passes to me! My mom thought I was running a mail scam.

I once did a phone interview with Chris Barnes when he was in Cannibal Corpse. Chris called for an interview and my mom picked up the phone. He was like “Are you a fucking kid? Holy shit! I usually do interviews with old dudes?” We talked for an hour and half about Metallica selling out. It was amazing. I idolized these weirdos and was getting to just hang out with them.

I did an interview with Cro-Mags right when the original singer got out of prison. I did an interview with Entombed for my high school newspaper! I even interviewed the Goo Goo Dolls when they were on Metalblade Records just for the hell of it. Those metal bands were my heroes. They treated me as an equal and I was this punk kid. They all encouraged me to keep at it. I was getting first hand knowledge of trying to make a living as a creative in American society from them. The good and bad.

ZL – What did it feel like the first time you ever spoke to one of your heroes? It must have felt pretty excellent, right?

AY – It was awesome talking to those bands, it was a real rush. I would get so nervous. I got to hang with some of the bands before and after the shows. All these dudes just embraced me as one of them. I am super tall, so I looked a lot older than I was. I was also a big nerd for the metal scene so I was turning them onto all this other new stuff I was getting. I think they saw me as an oddity. Then we moved to Tucson where there was no metal scene.

ZL – Is that why you stopped making your zine then, moving to Tucson?

AY – Yeah, moving from Ohio to Arizona. The scene was pretty lame in AZ. No bands would come through Tucson at the time. So I ditched the ‘zine and started a Grindcore band with some friends. We did pretty well for a local death metal act. We played shows with Napalm Death and smoked a ton of weed with Sadistic Intent, that was cool.

Lots of drugs and drama, bandmates stealing from each other. . . even more drugs. It was a very fucked up time in my life that I am happy to have survived.

ZL – At what point did you get back into zines and start to think that self-publishing comics was something you could do or that you were good at and wanted to do more with, to just keep going and going and see how far you could take it?

AY – After the band and metal zine I started printing my own mini comics and comic books. I really got into self publishing and art because I had nothing else really. My last “legit” job was as a janitor before I decided to do art and publish full time. I figured I would rather starve as an artist than starve scrubbing shit off toilets. Art is the only thing I have ever been really good at. So I just keep doing it.

ZL – Circling back to get a bit more from your background for a minute, what first turned you into a comic reader and from there, did you move to be a collector or fan, if that distinction makes sense!! And where in all of that did you start making your own comics?

AY- I was into comics a lot when I was young as a collector and fan before I moved into extreme music. I was keeping up with the medium but was focused on the death metal band I was in.

After the band. I was doing paintings and fine art for quite a while. I had also done comics on the side but my fine art was doing well. Then the housing market crashed and nobody was buying art for foreclosed homes.

Luckily I had been doing an extreme comic strip in the metal ‘zines and in the mini comics I was doing. I saw that a local comic convention had started. So I printed them all up and booked a table. I sold out of my first printing and a bunch of art. That is when One Last Day started.

ZL – How did that feel, selling out of books like that? I’m guessing it must have been quite a boost as you carried on and set up an online store! What was the convention like, if you remember at all, did you have a good time there chatting and meeting fans and creators? A lot of people talk about how much the community at a convention matters to them, was that important to you at the time?

AY – It was a real boost. From that little bit of seed money I have been able to keep the ball rolling and have kept printing comics ever since. The comics scene in Tucson in the early 90s was really small and bare bones. It was me and like 2 other indie guys actively printing their own comics. I have encouraged and fostered so many people to make their own comics since then. Many writers and artists from the Tucson scene are now in the mainstream and indie comics system.

The couple who started the Tucson Comic Con have been the best thing for our local comix and art scene. Rather than neglecting local and indie comics they embraced and promoted them. I was so lucky to be in a place where the local comic convention focused heavily on independent comic artists.

I see kids that I taught inking classes to that are now publishing their comics on Amazon. Kids that now give me their books and thank me for all the support and inspiration I gave them. It is humbling. Before the ‘rona I was leaving 1000s of mini comics all over town instead of fliers for the last 15 years. It has exposed people in this town and state to my art and a world of comic books they never knew existed.

ZL – Speaking of coronavirus, I’m wondering how much that has affected your income currently? Do you rely heavily on con sales or do you have a whole set of ways to get sales, which is a terrible way of asking that I’m really interested in how you generate sales for your work, what venues and sources and what sort of percentage of sales comes from them. Have you got a regular set of fans that buy everything, are you using email communications, just facebook?

AY – In today’s art and comics world every successful artist has to be a little bit Andy Worhol and a lot of P. T. Barnum. Otherwise nobody will give a shit about you. So I have a ton of different ways to move my stuff. The website is my main hub but I do small zine fests and shows whenever I can. I have been doing OK but had to switch gears during the crisis. My online sales picked up so that helped a lot. I also have new books coming out all this year. I think that helps too.

Comic conventions at one time were a really good source of income when I first started doing them. I was making great money. Every year it has become progressively less of a viable option for creators like me. The big comic shows are just pop culture festivals. The last few years a lot of the larger shows could care less about indie comics. Table prices and entry fees are way too high for a self publisher or upcoming creator to make any money. Especially out of state shows. Hotel, travel, etc. Because of this I was only doing smaller zine/comic shows and focusing on my online sales already. The virus was a great reason to really focus on my online presence.

ZL – I first saw your work through a facebook group, one of the indie comics groups that sort of specializes in small press superhero and space operas, and I was wondering whether you think those groups help the creators reach more readers, or whether they are all more community pages as in it’s all people that want to make comics and they’re all working to support their own bubbles? (Obviously I’m exaggerating a little, they often have horror and then there’s oddball work that pops up, but there do seem to be a lot of big boob bad girls and massive muscles in some kind of genre thing. )

AY- I look at social media differently than most. I talk shit about comics on it but I have never used it as a political soapbox or a place to talk about my “personal journey”. I post my art and comix. That is it. I speak through my art. I like to “post and ghost”. I feel I am a healthier person for it.

This year I have slowly been taking my art off all the platforms. They are not an unbiased purveyor of ideas. Like the original internet was intended for. Social media is making us all sick. Scientifically proven sick.

I have grown to hate the self imposed censorship imposed on social media by advertisers and cancel culture. We as artists should have the right to dictate our expression by taking risks. Without having to worry about some simp nerd in Silicon Valley shadow banning or blacklisting us.

These leeches profit heavily on ALL of us. Especially artists. They work to infringe on our rights and hinder our freedom to express. The platforms are privatizing our existence. Fakebook and the Twits are just digital emotional vampires.

They should be paying you a fee to use your content and sell it to their stupid advertisers. They make billions off you and you know what you get, a little dopamine for that “like”. Wow, sweet trade off. Not!!

We all need to stand up in some way as artists. Post fucked up art and weird shit all the time! I wanna see a sea of artistically drawn dicks and vaginas. Shitposts, and fucked up memes on my “news” feed. Random acts of artistic defiance. We need confrontational art more now than ever! I want to see original artwork that pushes against cultural dogmas and shitty societal norms.

Instead I see oceans of fan art and trash pop culture mashups. Useless e-rage and cat pics. Art without confrontation is just advertising at this point.

ZL – Now, that’s an interesting one, because there are two sides to the argument on this and I sort of flop wildly between the two without any great reason. I can see why social media is not going to allow seas of dicks – they are easy triggers to SEE, so they’re easy to switch off to maintain acceptability, it seems pointless to me, but is important to a lot of people, so… There’s also the issue of managing genuine freedom to express and people posting images of tentacles raping 6 year old girls and how you manage to monitor that, so it’s just EASIER not to try and figure it and blanket ban it all.

What I think calls bullshit on their motives for me is that they’ll censor that, but allow neo-nazi lies or channels where people openly spout homophobic, racist or sexist bile. There’s a stinking dichotomy there that calls a lie to their talk of community and keeping us safe from damaging content.

I certainly wouldn’t want to have to be the poor sod that sifted through all of this stuff to check it though!

Pippa Creme and the Pearl Necklace – Dexter Cockburn

Equally, with work like yours or – to call in someone else I follow who is always getting bumped from facebook – Dexter Cockburn – who does some great porn comics. I see these things as being completely ok and not deserving of banning, but seeing cape comics and how innately sexualised and soft porn like the women are made to look, that makes me feel very dubious, it seems wrong in that context, as it’s so pervasive and so unspoken and clandestine.

AY – Exactly. It is weird how the mainstream sexulizes it’s heroes. The guys look just as bad. It is a form of repressed erotica. I think it all looks so funny. Balloon shaped breasts or the massive man bulge. There is a big market for that stuff so more power to them.

It just seems erotica in comix is ok for some and not others. The censorship online is selective. Dexter is a comix friend of mine and a great example. The guidelines are so ambiguous and filled with jargon it becomes nonsense.

I totally get censorship for criminal reasons. That is a no brainer. What I saw was not that.

I saw the platforms actively destroy the online followings of some extreme horror artist’s I was following. Some of us had built large fan bases on Myspace and brought our fans over to FB with us. When FB started shutting accounts down it crushed a lot of those artist’s online communities and sales. A lot of artists had to start all new accounts with different names causing them to lose 1000s of followers. Some just gave up or stopped posting extreme art all together. They are still doing it to some of the Ero Goro artists from Japan. It is really fucked up.

ZL – That’s part of the curse and benefit of social media though, they give and then they take away when you’ve made them successful. I do wonder what we can do about that though, maybe they should migrate back to Myspace, maybe the whole retreat to mailing lists is the answer? I don’t know, we need community spaces but we need them to not go dark and end up being hiding places for crime or the dark web. What do you do about it, eh? Maybe you should start curating work into new mail lists and have link sites for different peoples’ interests!!

AY – I like that idea. I have always wanted to do a monthly brochure of underground creators. Like a double sided mailer. I might do one for the Smalll Press Express to hand out at shows. Getting the word out is why I do the YouTube channel. Nobody is shedding light on the best part of comics. The odd, voiceless, strange and marginalized. I think anything that promotes the underground scene and unites indy comic artists is good. I feel every little thing helps. We are all in this sinking ship together. The mainstream comics people keep poking holes in the boat. The indy creators have to keep bailing it out.

ZL – Moving on from that unanswerable conundrum… Is community important to you and comics? Is publishing and buying and communicating with other creators a way of building a place in the wider world for the kinds of things that you enjoy and the kind of things you want to make?

AY – What community. The comics community?

It just saddens me so much lately. The internet and social media had so much potential to dissolve physical, cultural and social boundaries to our communication around the world.

Instead most people have developed the attention span of a gnat. I doubt anyone will actually read all this. So I am just gonna lay it all out. How I see it as an outsider looking in.

There is a massive world of art and comics that is ignored in the west. It is where I exist as a creative. I work with toy making friends in South Korea and send comix pages to Artizines in Spain. Send instant messages to slap sticker artists in Japan. All in a few seconds!! This used to take weeks, even months via phone and mail. Many here just take this shit for granted.

I had a “stick poke” tattooist from Taiwan ask if she could use one of my mini comic images in her little shop. How sick is that!! I live for that!!

I have worked with 100s of the most creative and amazing artists from all over the world. I have had enough love and inspiration from the global art community to last me two life times!!

The American comics community is a weird story. My books sell well. My fans are awesome. First time readers always come back. I do really well at every comic convention I have ever done, even small ones. I have printed, sold or given away thousands of my mini-comics, floppies and magazines. All over this crazy earth.

Somehow I have largely existed as an outsider in Western comics. Other than a few supportive cats in the southwest comics scene like Brian Pulido. I feel like they largely just ignore my comics. I have had a few pros refer to my work as ‘zines’ as a sort of insult.

I started Blood Desert as a big middle finger to the whole corporate comics crowd. The main character is stuck with a permanent middle finger. Good luck co-opting that sucktards.

When I complete the World of Knonx series I wanna only make comics that are a massive fuck you to that whole unimaganitive self indulgent English centric corporate comics world. I wanna make comics for shitheads all over the world like me.

Most of the comics in the mainstream indie world are leftovers from that hokey auto-bio movement. All of them are still pining over Crumb and Pekar to this day.

Who knew making super boring comics about your masturbation habits and history no one cares about would be considered as works of high literary art. I guess it is an easy claim to make when the critics also work for the publishers of said high grade comic “art.”

That is just the indy crowd. At this point most people’s knowledge of modern comics comes from dopey stupor hero comics and movies that are made for mouthbreathers by ex-television writers.

These books are made by “Professional” comic book writers that get top billing over a bunch of lazy artists. These are the same “professionals” who waste their time all day on Twitter and YouTube race baiting each other and blathering nonsense about politics. Somehow they can never seem to get books out on time or any real work done. Go figure.

Can we all just agree that the comics Youtubers are totally obnoxious. Normal people do not care about all your dumb nerd drama. The “comics news” channels love to foment drama in the industry to make money off of more views. They live to promote division among creators. Mind numbing 4 hour live streams of inane political blather. Interviewing the same old industry jobbers about some dopey superhero comic they made 20 years ago. Effete dorks gushing jizz in their whitey tighties over their wonton nostalgia.

These formerly bullied nerds bully each other constantly online. Doxing, Blacklisting, Censoring, Attacking and Canceling each other. Bunch of grade school kid popularity bullshit. I want absolutely NO part of either side’s dysfunctional cult. These sad people must love to live in a heightened state of anxiety.

There are 100s of amazing prolific working storytellers chomping at the bit to talk about and sell their titles. Why not interview and promote these creators. Artists who choose not to engage in either side’s petty childish games. Those creators are largely ignored or admonished for not taking sides.

The industry seems to only want to dwell in nostalgia? A Nostalgia that actually hurts creators. I really wanna talk about Alan Moore.

Let’s all wax about the greatness of Watchmen ONE last time and finally let it go. Watchmen is the comic book Alan Moore won’t even have in his house because of the disdain he has for the American comics industry.

Comics culture could care less about Alan. They talk about his work gushing with praise. Then they call the man a nutter behind his back.

The majority of the comics press treated him like a clown and discounted his opinions at every turn.

Watchmen, the comic they keep in print just so Alan does not regain any of the rights back.

By promoting and working on Watchmen in any way they are all pretty much saying fuck you to Alan. It is just accepted by everyone. “Oh well! We should just keep screwing this dude cause we all really love those characters.” It is shameful.

Shall I go on about the other creators that were screwed by this “industry”. Seigel, Shuster, Kirby, Finger, Simon and so many more.

The House of Morons track record with creatives is just as terrible. It would take all day to list the Big two’s transgressions against their freelancers.

All their Editors in Chief make millions while their freelancers get crumbs.

Or maybe there is hope in the price gouging comic book store owners. They did nothing but complain about Diamond and the Big 2’s scams non stop for years. Then they still lap up everything they do or make like pablum. Accepting and still embracing this constant abuse. Over and over and over. I wonder if the majority of store owners are into BDSM?

Should I bother mentioning all the sex predators that the major comics companies have been covering for?

So now after a long career and all my hard work building a loyal following I am supposed to kiss ass and play nice as a potential artist for them. I am supposed to work on shit I don’t care about? I get to beg for a job doing interior pages for less than minimum wage and no healthcare? No thanks. I am busy building my own worlds not piggybacking on the stolen worlds of others.

The US comics “industry” is kind of a total joke to me at this point.

ZL – It sounds like you are existing as part of a community though, maybe not an American comics community, but an international underground art community, does that seem fair to say?

AY – I was actually becoming a big part of the community for a popular comics Youtube channel for a minute until I was excommunicated. The two creators that host the channel constantly espouse to be a bastion for indie creators. As Maury Povich likes to say…” that is a lie.”

The channel blacklisted me because of a mini comic I did showing cartoon portraits of accused sex predators and general jerks working in the American comics industry.

I am not part of Comicsgate or any other stupid comics cult. I am not a lecherous ogre who harasses women at comics shows. I am a boring family man who makes weird comics. I speak through my art not by posting constant drama online.

I made a mini comic that someone didn’t like. That was it. Instead of finding out my side of things related to the matter these hosts just booted the videos my comics were featured in off their channel. They also had admins remove my posts off other platforms related to them. I was blatantly censored by these “artists.”

So looking back I think it had nothing to do with that mini comic. They have featured sexually violent work like Vigil’s. My stuff is tame in comparison. I feel they were threatened by my output and my dopey little youtube channel. Which is laughable.

I have worked tirelessly my whole career to support marginalized creators in my community and around the world for over 20 years.

At this point I would rather work with the people who get what I do and dwell in quiet obscurity rather than work with these kinds of self-serving troglodyte hacks that are so prevalent in the medium of modern mainstream comics and the art world.

Most of these “pro comic artists” are just glorified fan artists with a little bit of stylized skill. I think that’s why all their books are so derivative of all the other stuff in the mainstream lexicon. They dwell in constant nostalgia and their work is proof of it.

I actually feel sorry for them. To have so little faith in yourself that you have to try to take down other artists is such a sad pathetic way to live.

One thing you can count on with some artists and comics creators. Their egos are as fragile as glass.

Comics culture in the US is steeped in all this kind of nonsensical dogma. It has become an idiotic cult of reactionary clones with Youtube and Twitter accounts.

ZL – Thinking about that wider world of community and how there’s always been an underground arts community and sometimes people travelled through them, often linked to universities or small art publications. Do you feel like that community is something that is now easier to achieve and to curate for yourself with social media, but it involves a lot of effort and commitment to do that and that’s why it takes those in a scene, those dug into that creative feeling, to do that kind of curation?

AY – I guess It is easier to find new stuff now, but there is a lot of oversaturation online. Lots of skilled but boring fan art. Way too much fan art online.

All the crowdfunded stuff is pretty boring and derivative of the mainstream comics they say they hate. Plus there is a high failure rate. Very slow/low delivery rate on those projects that nobody likes to talk about.

I kind of wish the companies cracked down on all the IP theft at shows and online the way they do obscenity. Before the pandemic the comic conventions in the states sucked for indie creators because of all the fanart.

ZL – Yeah, that seems to be a big issue all round, but it’s also tricky as a lot of indie creators make bucks doing commissions of existing mainstream IP. I also think that the move from mini comics and zines to pop-culture sources and attempts to be as professional as professional comics has done a lot of unspoken damage. Yeah, sure, you get a lot of a crowd, but how many are BUYERS?

AY – That is why I stopped making any kind of fanart about 15 years ago including commissions. I think fan art and commissions are a crutch for artists to lean on.

To me it shows a lack of ability to tell stories or have faith in their own creations. They are too afraid to go all in and only make and sell their own comics. They wanna draw cool spidey pin-ups not tell stories with art. There is a huge difference between the two kinds of artists.

The best Mangaka spend their whole careers telling these long form epic stories. We should aspire to that aesthetic not do a bunch of cool variant covers.

It is easy to draw an existing IP. The design and imaginative work was done for you. You are just a human copy machine. It takes a lot of time and faith to go all in on your own ideas. I think a lot of artists try it and just give up and fall back on selling fan art at shows.

I do great at shows without any fan art. You don’t need it. I think selling fan art actually hurts indie creators. They are selling books for our competition.

If you just offer people something new and different and work hard to sell that work they will buy it. I offer people something that is unique. Not just another Deadpool print or sketch.

ZL – Do you see yourself as part of a comics lineage, either style or approach wise? Do you feel it’s important to leave your own mark on the world, hence the making of items rather than posting online, or are you interested in building a space for now or are you trying to just get out what needs to be got out to keep your brain quiet?

AY: Comics lineage is less of a thing now because of oversaturation in the medium. Everyone can make and print their own comics now. So the key is to have your own style of storytelling. I don’t like the autobio comics genre but at least they know how to tell a story.

That’s why I think physical media is still very important. An artist is not curtailed by the formats of printing anymore. You can adjust your style to any kind of printing process now. It used to be the other way around.

Aesthetically I want my work to be as beautiful and be as prolific as Osamu Tezuka was. Dark and creepy as Hideshi Hino‘s. Confrontational and cooky as Mike Diana‘s. With a mad dose of the dark action of a 2000AD Magazine.

Boiled Angel – Mike Diana

ZL – I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the Mike Diana obscenity case and the outcome of that ridiculous situation? It was big, even in UK comic magazines at the time. I remember them telling him that he wasn’t even allowed to draw AT HOME and that they would be coming in to check that he wasn’t drawing! So, I guess there’s that as a check to what we were saying about social media silencing creators, it’s not like it’s a new phenomenon, sadly.

AY – I started getting into making fucked up comics at the same time as him. I was making One Last Day which is nowhere near as extreme or pornographic as Mike’s stuff, but it was really violent. His case scared me into being real careful who I sent my books to.

ZL – When did you first encounter Mike Diana’s work, then and what’s so inspiring about it?

AY- I have seen more of his work recently. I like the absolute absurdity of it. It was so hard to get out here in the west coast unless you ordered it. I am not a big fan of pornographic or cheesecake comics. I do like some of the cruder stuff that is just too weird to be arousing. The work exists more as a piece of weird art rather than porn in some odd way. I have not gotten to read a ton of his stuff. He is actually a big fan of mine on Instagram. The punk rock kid in me loves seeing a block of “likes” by Mike. I have mailed him a bunch of my comix for trade.If he is reading this “Yo man! You gotta mail me some of your books!” Heh!

ZL – I’m also intrigued to know how you found out about 2000AD as my understanding is that it’s not well known over in the US. What’s your favourite strip from there?

AY: I got a huge run of the re printed 2000AD and Dredd comics from a comic store when I was 13. I really love the old Rogue Trooper strips the most. They were some of the best sci fi war comics made essentially. Those artists were all emulating those old Action war comics they were reading

Rogue Trooper – War Machine by dave Gibbons and Will Simpson

Rogue Trooper – War Machine is a work of comics art. It definitely inspired a lot in my Blood Desert series. “The Fatties” stories in the early Judge Dredd strips are some of my all time favorite comics. I have read them a hundred times. It is just so nuts. I love that line between absurd and gross.

The Fatties – Judge Dredd

ZL – Oh yeah, those early works were really UK punk as punk can be! I’m surprised you like Rogue Trooper more than Nemesis though, Pat Mills and especially Kev O’Niell’s art is extreme as extreme art gets in comics back then. You mention in many interviews I’ve read that Japanese comics, particularly horror comics, have been an influence. How much influence do you see from Japanese horror comics in small press and self-publishing circles, it’s something I see a lot of in the creators I follow for sure, but I’m wondering what your experience is?

AY – I follow the underground Japanese scene pretty well. I am pen pals/friends with some of the newer japanese horror artists. It is funny. They all wanna get published here and I want to get published there.

There are huge barriers in Japanese comics for Westerners. I would kill to get World of Knonx published in Japan. It is specifically designed and made for a world audience. It needs no translation. Manga publishers should be more open to Western comic artists the way we have.

I have grown very weary of all manga flooding the market lately. Most of it is just nicer formated versions of reprints of that older stuff I read in the 80s. It is not the weird upcoming stuff you see on the shelves.

The American publishers bend over backwards to reproduce a lot of Manga but largely ignore American artists working at the same level of productivity. It has become a one way street.

ZL – I see that a lot of publishers seem less inclined to have cartoony horror, they seem to have decide it must all be cheesecake or more realistic, I mean, you’re not going to see the likes of Shaun McManus on Swamp Thing art chores nowadays, which seems absurd because cartooning lets you play up emotions or gore without it getting all pornographic and seedy. I wonder if part of it is that as well, they want everything in that style. It’s also something that’s changed in horror as well. You think about something like Saw and how realistic those horror movie effects are compared to, say Friday the 13th, it’s changed what horror is. You could laugh at those things, not so much Saw, they’re far more EARNEST and wanting to show things REALISTICALLY.

AY- Yes! Exactly. I have been embracing the cartoon aspect of comics very heavily. Cartooning is dying in comic books not just in the horror scene. Comics have lost the ability to move the fans to a desired emotion.

I think it has to do with the industry’s reliance on writers. Artists are usually more creative and experimental than writers. Artists think in images and writers think in words. Writers can hammer out stories all day. The storytelling artist has to really think about every panel in a conscious way and how it will move the story. Images should drive comics not inane narrative. I should be able to understand the story in a comic by just looking at the art. If not then both the writer and artist have failed. Being able to type does not automatically make your stories interesting. Kirby’s cartooning made all those comics great not Stan and his stupid dialogue.

Personally I don’t wanna spend 12 hours drawing the perfect building in a panel that no one will care about. I wanna move the story. Cartooning creates a fluidity through the pages that perfect structure loses. Manga is great at moving you through a story in that way.

ZL – So, in all of the ways you make things and with all of your feelings about being a part of US comics and international makers, what place do you see your new youtube videos playing into what you do? Is it more boredom relief or is it a way of pumping up awareness of the community you enjoy?

AY: I do the YouTube channel for fun and to shed light on independent creators. I also wanna try to create a new narrative in comics. Not just regurgitate the one fed to us by reactionary corporate comix culture.

ZL – Why the trash talking of something at the end? I ask because I have this pet theory that there’s a strong link between people doing underground comics currently, especially over the top gross out ones, and wrestling and I’m wondering whether that’s a bunch of nonsense I’ve made up, or whether this is like the trash talk between wrestlers, a funny sort of way to make a point about something, to build some low stakes drama? Or, is it a way to disarm a serious point by making it funny!

AY: A little bit of both I guess. There is some carney action to all creatives who do it for a living. I think a long life as an artist hardens you.

Comic book artists could learn a lot from Tattooists. Talk to a hardcase who has been making money everyday drawing. The one doing it in your hometown the longest. That is someone who can teach you a lot. They have had to put up with so much stupid shit from customers and society. They have a confidence and respect for their trade few artists do. They have real confidence that is inspiring. They won’t even fuck with some stupid walk-in. They are not gonna deal with some kid who wants a shitty Mickey Mouse tat. Some hokey fan art commission bullshit. People pay them good fucking money for their original style, skill and creativity. Comic artists conceded all that when they settled for being what amounts to storyboarders for ex-TV writers.

Artists have to always remember Western society devalues you at every turn. You really have to learn to sell your art and self. Your skin better be real thick. You hear “no” and that “you will fail” constantly! You will work your ass off just to barely make it in most creative fields.

ZL – Yeah, that really comes with the territory, especially if you’re coming at it from an underprivileged background, art seems to still be a very middle class opportunity and still seems to need strong patronage to make a living, so if you’re aren’t populist or aren’t from the right background you need to get money from somewhere else or learn to live cheap.

AY – Starting out it is always a struggle in any field but comics has kind of embraced and even fostered failure among it’s creatives. A perfect example. No one with the talent level of Tim Vigil’s should ever be living in poverty. Which he pretty much is. If Tim started in tattoos he would probably be pretty set by now. Instead he chose to work in comics.

ZL – You seem to be really knocking out your comics and developing an amazing backlist. I remember sharing a video where, I think that you were drawing a page from The Lottery, where you were filling in your spot blacks with this chunky dip pen nib and that just seemed like it would take a long time to get work done! So, I’m wondering whether you’ve changed up a gear and started doing lots of work, or am I just in circles where I’m seeing you pop up and you’ve been constantly busy for a long time?

AY – I mainly use a brush for large areas. Sometimes a fat nib. I have had the same process for the last 10 years. I have always had a pretty good work ethic with my art but my tools are just that. Lots of trial and error for the first 5-10 years. I had no one to help or any training. I am a lot faster at inking with some modern stuff but it is still the same process it has always been. I try to only work full time M-F 9-5. I love creating so much I get addicted to it. I will draw 18 hours straight if I am not careful.

ZL – What inspired you to get making, not necessarily the style you make, but the actual circumstances behind you getting yourself together to put out comics instead of just sketching or posting online? What is the difference for you between posting online and publishing?

AY – Posting online is just a form of promo to me. Online is so ephemeral. I feel printed comics and animation is the best way to tell new stories and get them out. Period. It is hard to say what inspired me to start creating. I can tell you how I create though.

I have always hated the idea of needing drugs, a muse or constant inspiration as motivation. It is not a sustainable model. It is a crutch for lazy artists to lean on. We all can learn skills and borrow from influences to make pretty art but real creativity comes from our imaginations.

Clive Barker said it in interview after interview for years! He spoke of how fostering the imagination is being lost and even stifled in today’s world. He stressed the utmost importance for working artists and children to have an active and focused imagination. He is the greatest living horror artist of our age. The Poe of our time and everyone completely ignored him!!

Well I didn’t! I would meditate and do mental exercises daily for years to try and imagine whole working worlds. Clive was 100% right. I don’t get artists’ block or any of that shit.

This is gonna sound super new age but it is the best way to explain it. With short meditation techniques I can light the fire of creativity instantly now. It can keep me awake some nights if I let it. My mind’s eye fills with the most moving and colorful images you could ever imagine. I have learned to embrace it and snatch stuff from the ether. It’s like a true form of art magick. When I break into the astral plane of endless creativity it recharges my inner being and overwhelms my soul with love, and joy. I am flooded with new ideas constantly. The Buddhists actually have a name for this place but the name escapes me.

ZL – I remember reading that Moebius, Jean Giraud, the French comic artist took a similar approach, that he drew all his Moebius strips in a semi-conscious state of meditation, so it seems reasonable for you to do the same!

AY – Exactly! I have read that and felt a kinship with him. I think Jim Woodring works in a similar fashion as well.

ZL – Yeah, I’ve read that about Jim Woodring as well.

Looping back a second to The Lottery, I really admire the style of character design, the shapes you put down on the page, that I’ve seen in that. I’m guessing, from what you’ve just said, that much of these things arrive semi or fully formed? How much planning do you put into character design and story content and then could you give a general idea to how you approach a story and what you’re trying to achieve with your stories?

AY: Like I said prior, the initial ideas will come like a flood or in pieces. I will mentally “hang on” to my favorite ideas and build a story around them. Once I get most of it all sorted out in my brain I will do some general super loose thumbnails of a story or idea or the whole book. Sometimes I will start with a one shot style story and expand on it. The one shots will inspire more stories or ideas for other worlds as well.

ZL – I know we touched on this earlier, but I’d like to dig deeper into whether you’re making money and what sort of sales you’re achieving, because, you know, I’m just damn nosey! More seriously though, I think part of making and why people cease making is an unrealistic idea of what can be achieved within an arena. The amount of people coming into comics and underground comix all thinking they’ll end up on Adult Swim or bankrolling a comfortable life always saddens me. You know they will get worn out banging their drum to sell 10 copies and lose hundreds because they completely over print.

Which is a very tortured way of asking whether you make money from your comics or, at least break even? Are you happy to tell us numbers of sales and if not exact amounts of income, what sort of percentage of your income comes from your comic sales and for context, the kind of lifestyle you currently live?

AY: I grew up pretty poor. I was out on my own at around 17 with zero money. So it has not been an easy road for me in art and comics. I am not complaining, I have made good money off my comix.

I print modestly with print on demand services. I can print a few copies up to a few 100 at a time. It just depends on demand. You don’t need to have a warehouse of stuff. I focus on the stuff that does well.

It took a long time but I am in a great spot on my own. Because of the virus a lot of the mainstream crowd are kind of sitting around with their dicks in their hands. While I am hammering out stories. I am 100% owner of all my titles. I am not an LLC so a corporation can’t get my “creative content” without my direct consent.

Luckily I don’t really need them. I have done the math, I make way more per page and book then I ever would with a publisher. I can create, print, promo, mail and repeat. I have no need for censors, editors, publishers, stores, mob run distro or other middle men. They are all just standing between me and making the profit from my books.

No one will admit it, but the Cerebus model is still the best model for creators to sell their comics. If you are serious about ownership. More people should have the same faith in their work as Dave Sim does. Only without being a total jerk.

ZL – I’m guessing your politics don’t mesh with his, but I think Dave Sim is definitely someone who has lessons for self-publishers and creators alike. If you were going to pass on any of his advice, how would you summarise what you’ve taken from his example?

AY – His politics aside he was pretty cantankerous in most of his interviews but he was not afraid to speak his mind. Everyone is so afraid to speak up in fear of never getting or keeping that “sweet corporate comics gig”.

Dave was right about a lot of stuff. If you can’t stand up for your own work then who will? Before I started reading all his interviews I thought he was just a jerk but now I kind of get his anger. I could only imagine what the mainstream tried to pull back then when they saw he wouldn’t play ball. What’s worse is nothing has changed really. All the shit he was raving about in comics is the same or even worse.

I think he was really hated by the industry when he started speaking out about all the shadiness going on. It always felt the comics press started attacking his political stances after he started to state his opinions about the practices of some of these publishers. I don’t agree with him on a lot of stuff politically but he never backed down and stayed true to his ideals. I admire him for that.

Comics has a long sordid history of trying to silence voices they don’t want to hear. It has happened to me and many others still to this day.

ZL – How long has it taken to build up your back catalogue and what sort of tail end do you currently see on your titles, are we talking release and then forget it, sustained sales over months/years or occasional bumps when you get new titles out?

AY – It took 20 years to build the whole catalogue of large format stuff. I have printed 100s of different minis along the way. I now just mainly sell my larger format floppy and magazine stuff that does well continuously. I do have a goal to be able to fill a whole small magazine size comic book box with all my different floppy comics and mags.

ZL – And how far away from that goal are you?

AY – I have never actually checked. I would say I am well over halfway there.

ZL – How do your sales and income compare to where you thought you’d be when you first started making your comics or did you not really care about that, other than not losing money?

AY: It is a weird thing that exists in indie comics. It is like they are ashamed of making money.

You hear so much altruism in indie comics. “It is not always about the money man.” Tell that dumb shit to a career tattooist. They will laugh in your stupid face while they make $200 bucks an hour and drive off in their fully customized Dodge Challenger. While you stand there with a handful of comics and empty pockets.

We should look at indy comics like tattooing or a little like a one man touring metal band or rap act. People wanna buy my books for my nutty unique style. So, yeah I am doing better than I ever could have dreamed of in such a dismal backwards looking field. I would rather be like a Tech 9 or Frank Zappa in comics.

ZL – Last question, for you as a fan now, if you could get everyone in the world to read one of your books or series and a book or series by someone else, what would it be?

AY: Out of all my books I would say the World of Knonx series is my crowning achievement. I dumped every skill I have developed into one massive tale.

Park Bench – by Christophe Chabouté. It is one of the most amazing comics made in the last few years. It is one of the most beautiful comics ever made. It flows like water. It is the zen of comix. I cried the first time I read It.

Park Bench – by Christophe Chabouté

I only make silent or wordless comics. So that is mainly what I am into. It is more common in European comics. So I try to mainly follow works coming from there.

Comics should move us and excite us. Gross you out or move you to a new place emotionally. Not just be inane 80s TV sitcom serials. I am only interested in comics that exist and aspire to be comics. I have no interest in storyboards with dialogue.

ZL – Thanx for your time Adam!

AY- Thanks for this in-depth interview. It is not often I get to talk deeply about things in comix that I care about. I never really get to explain how I create or how I truly feel about the medium.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak my mind. To everyone who has ever supported me and my art. I truly frikkin’ love you all!!

all art copyright and trademark its respective owners.

Adam Yeater, underground comix creator, talks in depth about his practice, his work and how comics remains closed to many outside of mainstream companies #comics #horror #underground #selfpublishing #fantasy #inspiration We spoke to Adam a little while ago about his influences and inspirations and found his answers intriguing, so we decided to dive in and dig a bit deeper.

#comics #horror #illustration #interview #smallpress #zines

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drewwwbydoobydoo · 5 years ago

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If you're feeling up to it, why not just answer all of the 65 questions from the ask list?

Ok here goes haha

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? Yeah for sure, but at this point I just figure I can’t do a whole lot about it so I’m just rolling with whatever is the truth (basically the same thing as us maybe being in a simulation, I don’t think the answer really matters)

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? Like 4 or 5, I’m very scared of the dark tbh I get super paranoid sometimes

3. The person you would never want to meet? Mike Pence

4. What is your favorite word? Exuberance or effulgent

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? A maple tree

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? Bleh

7. What shirt are you wearing? A gray shirt from a hackathon I did last year

8. What do you label yourself as? A creative, a student, a future teacher, a lesbian, a human

9. Bright room or dark room? Bright room

10. What were you doing at midnight last night? Talking to my dad about child psychology

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? 18

12. Who told you they loved you last? My mom

13. Your worst enemy? The US government

14. What is your current desktop picture? A drawing that someone did of a mountain landscape

15. Do you like someone? Yeee my partner!

16. The last song you listened to? Rollercoaster by The Orion Experience

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? The dictator of the US

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? Same as #17

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? Same as #17, and I would just try to fix as many things that he’s done as I could lol

20. What is your best physical attribute? I really like my eyes! They’re gray and I think that’s pretty cool

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? I feel like honestly I would look approximately the same, or like my brother lol though we already look pretty similar. I’d just continue existing, idk I don’t think I’d do anything differently cause gender is funky

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? Yes! I can write in a whole bunch of different fonts by hand really easily (like I can switch between fonts without having to write slower or think too much about it)

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? Ok so like I’m really afraid of small heights but not big heights. For some reason heights like doing a ropes course or trapeze absolutely terrify me but I’m totally fine like on a tall mountain or in a plane

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. Maple tempeh with hummus, avocado, tomato and lettuce on wheat bread sounds 10/10 rn

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? I’d donate it to the Transgender Law Center

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? Hmmmmm I wouldn’t go on a plane because we’re still in a pandemic but theoretically if this were a normal time I’d probably go somewhere in Canada

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? I don’t drink alcohol so I’m good!

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Freedom of speech (with the exception of hate speech)

29. What is your favorite expletive? Asshat, mainly cause I think it’s kinda funny

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? My laptop, I have too many photos and files that I don’t want to lose

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Getting blackmailed by my brother

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! Canada here we come!

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? My cat, Clara. She was the absolute sweetest being that has ever graced this planet, and she was my only true friend for many years

34. What was your last dream about? The commune that I lived at last summer

35. Are you a good listener? I think so? I try to be, especially since I took some workshops in nonviolent communication and how to be a better listener and I think those were really helpful!

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? No but I probably should have been

37. Have you ever built a snowman? Yeah

38. What is the color of your socks? Light blue

39. What type of music do you like? Idk a lot of stuff I guess? Musical soundtracks, indie rock, pop-rock, etc.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets!!!

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Vanilla (boring, I know lol)

42. What football team do you support? Idk any sports teams :/

43. Do you have any scars? Yeah, many

44. What do you want to be when you graduate? I mean like theoretically I would love to be a painter but realistically I’m gonna become an elementary school teacher

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Bruh how tf do I choose just one??? Uhhhhhh honestly I would get rid of my uterus I don’t want it and it just causes pain

46. Are you reliable? Yeah, very

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? Which career path do I end up on?

48. Do you hold grudges? Yeah, only about big things though

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? I’d breed cats and rabbits together to create: cabbits

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? One time me and one of my friends were laying on the floor of our dorm’s common room and we were talking about a bunch of fucked up stuff we’ve done (like not necessarily bad things, but just like those weird, “are you ok?” kind of things)

51. Are you a good liar? Yeah actually! I don’t know how, but I'm a really good liar if I genuinely want to lie about something.

52. How long could you go without talking? A very long time. Singing would be a drastically different answer though

53. What has been you worst haircut/style? When I first cut my hair short when I was 16, it was just a very awkward length and I didn’t know what was happening

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? Yeah I actually baked one yesterday

55. Can you do any accents other than your own? I can kinda do a southern accent

56. What do you like on your toast? Vegan butter and roasted garlic mmmmm

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? Roman Sanders lol

58. What would be you dream car? I’ve always wanted a light blue convertible, like as long as I can remember I’ve had this very specific car in mind that I know I’d never actually buy but in theory would be very cool

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. Sometimes I sing in the shower, also I used to sit down while showering lol

60. Do you believe in aliens? Yeah, I don’t have any specific theories but I think there’s probably some other intelligent life out there

61. Do you often read your horoscope? Not really

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? E

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Dragons

64. What do you think about babies? Amazing, I was one once

This was fun! Kinda therapeutic tbh lol

#long post #asks #ask game #drew answers

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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793

write the year you were born and bold what you do

born in: 1998.

Millennial

Binging Netflix a lot: I’ve certainly been doing that recently with watching several episodes of Queer Eye or Descendants of the Sun, but I only have phases of it that come by very seldom. Always Snapchatting everything: I used to. I stopped using Snapchat regularly around 2017, when my depression was at its boiling point and I couldn’t keep the account up. In the end I never got around to reviving it even when I got better. Struggling with Instagram captions: I don’t have an Instagram. Always having to delete stuff because of full storage: Not because of full storage since my phone and laptop have a pretty large memory, but because I never like storing too much stuff on my gadgets especially if I don’t need a large chunk of them. Tl;dr I always delete stuff because I don’t want to end up with full storage to begin with. Eating out at a place you discovered on Instagram: No Instagram, but I do check out restaurants that are getting traction on other social media, like Facebook.

(holy crap, definitely not at all a millennial looking at my first few answers)

Used iPods/MP3 players to listen to music: Only up until high school. I have the Spotify app on my phone and laptop if I want to listen to my music. Wanted a flip phone before iPhones were invented: Yeah, because flip phones were popular first before iPhones even existed. I did get my flip phone for Christmas 2007, when I was 9. That baby could last a war; I once dropped it all the way to the ground when I was being tossed around on a fair ride and it turned out okay. Can’t help but post everything on social media: This was me as a teenager when I still felt like releasing everything about my life on Twitter. I’ve toned it down so much ever since then, and it’s been a lot better that way. Have/had/want acrylic nails: No/no/no. Always looking at the phone: Unless I’m with good friends that I want to be spending time with, I could never put my phone down, yeah. Use a bunch of hashtags: Ugh no... only much older people, at least where I live, bombard their posts with many and extremely long hashtags. It’s lost its original meaning so I never really use them anymore. Have tattoos or piercings: I have piercings on my ears. That’s it, though. Shop online: I’ve done it once or twice, but I prefer seeing and getting a sense of a product before I buy it. I only shop online if I’m too busy to drop by a store. Eat a lot of avocado/avocado food: I like dishes with avocado, and I’ll eat them every time, but I don’t get to encounter them often. Closet is full of unnecessary clothes: It has some unnecessary clothes here and there but my wardrobe isn’t THAT useless lol. I still like most of the clothes that I have. Get your food delivered: Yeup, especially if we’re in Skywalk and just waiting for our next class, or if we’re too lazy to go to the mall altogether. Love drinking coffee: Yes. I always wanna try out different kinds of coffee, too. Use public transport a lot: No thanks. Unless they fix up the nasty, neglected public transport here, I won’t feel sorry using my private car. Eat a lot of takeout food: Isn’t that kinda the same thing as delivered food though? Buy clothes or things you don’t necessarily need: Sometimes I’ll buy useless, novelty stuff just because I find them fun when I first see them, but I make sure it doesn’t blow up into an unhealthy habit of dropping my money on absolutely anything. Work out/go to the gym/want to be fit: No/no/no. Focus on self-love: Uh, I guess. I’m working on it and it’s looking like this these days, so there’s that. I address my self-destructive behaviors more responsibly now, too. Have at least one entertainment site subscription: I’ve never been subscribed to anything. Love traveling/traveled overseas recently: LOL no. My last trip was last August. Spend too much money: Shhhhhhhhhhhh

Gen Z

Spend most of your time online: Yeah, I’m constantly online and I think most of us are? Even if I’m not using my phone I’m connected to the internet and I’ll still get notifications from Messenger; I’m sure it’s the same with most people, unless they deliberately turn off notifications or have a spotty connection.

Procrastinate 24/7: For tasks I don’t enjoy doing as much. If I’m invested in something, or if I know that I can’t afford to procrastinate on a certain job, I do it early on. Consume too much tv/media content: People universally consume media every minute of the day, if not every second. You have your phones, television, newspapers, novels, billboards, music, signs, radio, etc. Know a lot about technology: Enough to get by. I can’t fix a computer or hack a website though, if that’s what you mean by ‘know a lot.’ Aware and accepting of diversity: Everybody should be, and the only exception to this is for people who support causes that hurt the marginalized. Binge Netflix: I already answered this. Enjoy creating things: I’m not very creative, so no. I like being crafty, but only if a head start has already been provided, like paint-by-numbers kits where I’ll know where the different colors would go so that the end product looks nice. Share a lot on social media: I already answered this too... I guess millennials and Gen X’ers are similar in a lot of ways, still. Prefer to do things digitally: For sure. It’s quicker, more instant, and more convenient. Also it saves me from having to talk to more people than I would like to interact with on a daily or weekly basis. Grew up in a digital world: Pretty much. We had several game consoles at home growing up, I spent my days watching TV, and by the time I was born my parents were already regularly using a computer, mainly to send emails because my dad works overseas. Talk to friends online more than in person: This would be accurate now, but before this whole mess started I was in school for most of my days and was always around people. I probably only spent eight hours at home everyday, and the rest of the time I was at school. Have met a lot of new people online: For sure. I’ve been on the internet since I was ten and I was exposed to social media from day one since the very idea of seeing other people who are also online fascinated me as a kid. I’ve jumped from fandom to fandom and joined a number of online communities in the last 12 years, so I’m constantly interacting with people from the internet. Prefer digital books to hard copy: I read digital copies more often now, but I do still prefer physical copies since the former can be distracting. I don’t have a Kindle, so reading books from my laptop or iPad will sometimes make me check social media from time to time. The books I’m mostly into (wrestling autobiographies) are never available here though, and I have had to digitally download 96% of the ones I’ve read; but I have no problems with that. Career-focused: Yeah, and I think the pandemic has strengthened that mindset further too. Prefer online shopping over physical: I’m not a serial online shopper so for now I’m not too sold on it and would rather go to a physical store. Idk, it might change though. Interested in things like fashion, beauty, and health: Kinda, no, and no. Watch a lot of YouTubers: Not anymore. I watch more channels that consist of a group of people than vloggers these days. Aware of world issues and want to help: In any way I can. Eat a lot of fast food: I don’t eat them an abnormal amount, but I do enjoy a Big Mac or Jollibee spaghetti every once in a while. People your age are Insta “baddies” and “influencers”: I mean this is more of an established fact than a sentiment I hold, don’t you think? I was born in 1998, so yeah I’m definitely a part of the general age range for today’s influencers and popular people on social media.

#survey #surveys

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fluffy-marshmallow-heart · 6 years ago

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Drake's Diary ch.25 -A Spot of Tea

The Royal Romance canon from Drake's POV

Words: 1619

I know you guys have been waiting, but it seems this is a filler chapter on PB's part. But it can still be fun. I believe things start coming to a head starting next chapter though! I hope you enjoy this in the meantime!

Master List (Catch Up Here)

Drake was glowering at a table all by himself. Another tea party. I can’t believe I’m at another tea party. What is with nobles and tea parties? Why can’t they have a whiskey party or a hearty food party? It’s always gotta be tea…

His thoughts were interrupted as he saw Emma walking onto the grounds, and his breath hitched as he took in her slim figure in a scarlet red dress, with lots of little detailing. She looks gorgeous. Wow. Make way for the Lady in Red.

He waved her down. “Rose! Over here. I thought I’d be stuck drinking tea alone.”

She grinned at him as she approached the table, and his heart fluttered at the way her eyes shined brightly directly at him.

“Sadly for all of us, that’s not the case.” Olivia sits down beside Drake as the tea house’s staff begins carrying trays of tea cups and pots to each table. As Emma joins them, he looks around for Hana, but sees her with Xinghai and her two noble suiters, Neville and Rashad, close to the royal party’s table.

Alrighty then.

He slid his eyes over to Olivia. “Hmph. Did Madeleine send you to sit with us exiles?”

“Not as such, but there was only one other available table.” She nods at said table, where Penelope is eagerly chatting with Kiara. Her voice carries over the word “poodle” and Olivia shuddered.

“Your company seemed…marginally preferable.”

“Olivia, It’s okay. You can admit that we’re friends.” Emma broke in.

Once again, speak for yourself, Rose. She is not my friend.

Olivia’s mouth fell open, and Drake thought he saw the hint of a smile. “I…I just find you less insufferable than Penelope.”

Ha. Yup, definitely was a smile in disguise. “Coming from you, that’s like a confession of love.

“We’re basically besties.” Emma laughed, as Olivia rolled her eyes.

A server approaches with a kettle and tray. She carefully adds tea leaves to the pot and fills it with water. The server drains the first infusion into a pitcher, and after filling the tea pot again, pours the pitcher’s contents over its closed lid.

“Nooooo! Not my tea!” Maxwell races over to the table, looking stricken.

Emma rose an eyebrow. “Relax, Maxwell. It’s part of the service.”

“Oh, good. I thought my tea privileges were being revoked.”

“Not unless you’ve committed tea crimes you haven’t told us about.” She teased

“I wouldn’t hurt a leaf! Except by drinking it!” Maxwell chuckled at his own joke while everyone else just stared at him.

“Where on earth have you been?” Drake demanded. Leaving me here alone, leaving Emma to fend for herself, letting Olivia sit down, I could just go on. I deserve an explanation.

Maxwell looked at him like he had two heads. “Looking into Tariq’s whereabouts! We got a tip that he’s somewhere in Los Angeles. Hiding deep undercover.”

Drake scoffed. “That figures. He’s off living it up in Hollywood while you’re here cleaning up his mess.”

“I’ve started calling any menswear store whose price tags start at three figures, but since we’re on opposite sides of the Pacific…they’re all closed right now.”

“Oh. Thanks, time zones.” Emma frowned, and Drake took her hand under the table. She gives him a grateful smile.

“Don’t worry, I left them a bunch of voicemails. I told every store that if they don’t call me back as soon as they’re open, they’ll face the wrath of House Beaumont’s lawyers! I think Bertrand would be impressed.”

A look of surprised crossed Emma’s face. “We have lawyers now?”

“The stores that I called think we do!” Maxwell told her happily

Squeezing her hand lightly, Drake turned to face Emma. “How are you holding up, Rose? Now that we’re finally getting to the bottom of this whole mess?”

She scowled. “I am ready to throw a party when this is all over.”

“Just say the word and I’ll make it happen.” Maxwell jumped in excitedly

Oh boy, here we go. We definitely don’t need another Beaumont Bash…

“Whatever you’re picturing is probably too much party.” Drake informed.

Maxwell gasped. “There’s no such thing!”

The server finishes readying the second infusion of tea and pours each person a cup.

Maxwell takes a sip and his eyes widen. “Wow. I though top-shelf wine had layers, but this tea’s undertones have undertones.”

Drake sniffs his cup and takes a tentative sip. “Huh. Strong stuff.” This really isn’t so bad for tea. But still…coulda been a whiskey party…

“Is that a compliment?” Emma gasped.

He shrugged. “You’ve got to respect a drink that doesn’t pull its flavor punches.”

“I think it’s delightfully full-bodied.” Emma agreed.

“I’m surprised you like anything that didn’t come out of a little mesh bag.” Olivia smirked.

Emma chuckled. “Tea bags aren’t half bad. And they’re convenient.”

Olivia shook her head in disdain. “I’ll take a proper cup of tea like this any day.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to need more.” Emma said, gesturing to the empty pitcher.

“Another!” Maxwell raises his tea cup over his head…

“If you break that, we’ll have to pay for it.” Emma acknowledged nervously.

Maxwell looks at her, then at his tea cup, and slowly sets it back on the table.

Holy shit. He actually listens to someone. I need to remember this for future reference. If anyone needs Maxwell to do something, just have Emma say it.

“Here. You can finish mine.” Drake handed him his cup.

“You’re a true friend, buddy.” Maxwell accepted.

Drake narrowed his eyes. “Don’t call me buddy.”

“You’re a true friend…friend?”

“My name is Drake.”

“Aww, look at you two. Getting along just like old times.” Emma teased them, obviously trying to get ahead of the situation and the dialogue Drake was sure he was about to start spewing.

Instead he sighed. “Yeah, yeah. No need to make a big thing out of it.”

“Are you sure? I’m feeling a group hug coming on…”

“There will be no hugging at this table.” Olivia’s voice cut through menacingly as she glared at the entire group.

“For once, I agree with Olivia.” I can’t believe I just said that. Can I take it back? No, damn, because then I would have to hug Maxwell…and Olivia…and Emma…okay, I’d love to hug Emma right now.

“…Maybe later.” Maxwell whispered loudly enough for all of them to hear.

Nope. I side with Olivia. 100% Team Olivia.

I’d better go check on Hana.” Emma announced abruptly, standing up and nodding towards where Hana is seated, as Neville and Rashad both stood and left their seats.

“I’ll keep them in line while you’re gone.” Olivia grinned.

Excuse me?? “Who died and left you in charge?”

Maxwell nodded in agreement frantically. “I didn’t vote for that!”

“I just expect everyone to be in one piece when I get back.” Emma makes her way between tables, not even glancing at them as she left.

I’m not even sure she heard us right now…

Olivia turns to Drake and Maxwell. “So, boys. Whatever should we do with ourselves? You can start by finding more tea. I do love more than one cup. Certainly one of you can handle this.”

“I uh…just remembered I have to go do that thing…” Maxwell started.

“Oh yeah, me too.” Drake chimed in.

“Oh, sorry, it’s really kind of private Drake. It’s the thing. In the place. That you…can’t go?” Maxwell darted away, and Drake’s jaw dropped as Olivia burst out laughing.

“I guess it’s you and me, commoner. And the tea. Go, shoo. Get the tea.”

“I’m not…getting…your tea.” Drake gritted out

Fucking Maxwell. I cannot believe he just did that!! Just leaving me here, again, alone, with fucking Olivia at my table. And he’s talking to Emma!! Damnit!!

Olivia begins speaking again, and Drake immediately tunes her out, watching Emma approach Hana and her father and wondering what they’re arguing about.

“I’m sure they’re not arguing about you, Drake. For some unknown reason, Emma has taken quite a liking to you. Hana’s got her own issues. She can’t handle them on her own, so she drags Emma along to help her speak.”

“Why would Rose be talking about me?” He questioned.

“I just she wasn’t. What, are you deaf too?”

Drake was about to return a snappy comeback when Emma plopped back down beside him.

“That could’ve gone better.”

He turned to her, full of worry. “What happened? We saw Hana leave.”

Emma sighed. “She and her dad got into a fight. She actually told him she wasn’t interested in Neville. I’m not sure if me being there made things better or worse...”

Drake’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, good for her. It’s about time she told her parents to lay off.”

Olivia tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Interesting. It seems she’s discovering a backbone.”

Maxwell sauntered back over as well, and guests start rising from their tables as the servers clear the tea trays away. They begin forming a line into the garden with King Liam waiting at the front.

Emma watched with curiosity. “Where’s everyone going? Are we line-dancing now?”

Olivia blinked. “This is a court, not a barn.”

Maxwell shook his head. “I think we’re just supposed to pay our respects to King Liam before we leave.”

Ugh, I just want to go. “Leave it to the court to turn saying goodbye into a ceremony.” He grumbled, getting up and leaving the table. Everyone else can say their goodbyes. Drake is heading back to the hotel to find himself a nice hard drink.

We’re leaving for New York tomorrow. Back where everything began. Back where we met. Back where…Back where Maxwell chose her for Liam…Yup. I’m hitting the bottle tonight.

@annekebbphotography @carabeth @gardeningourmet @eileendannie @dancetothestoriesinyoursoul @alesana45 @thequeenofcronuts @zigortega4life @drakewalkerfantasy

@hrhdes @drakewalkerisreal @akrenich @feartheendlesssummer @moonlightgem7 @i-miss-trr @noey718-blog @snyggflicka @rhymesmenagerie @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @crookedslimecreatorpasta @be-still-my-aching-heart

#drake's diary #drake x emma #drake walker fanfic #the royal romance fanfic #drake x mc #drake walker #the royal romance #choices the royal romance #playchoices #choices stories you play #trr drake #trr fanfic #choices trr #trr

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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The Extremist #3

I'm disappointed that this half picture doesn't match up exactly with the half picture from Issue #2.

It's probably good I didn't post any of the blurbs that tried to bribe him with a handjob in the backroom of the Portland Comic-con.

Anyway, let's see what happened in "July, Nineteen Ninety-Three"! I'll try to baby it up so Tumblr doesn't shit its diapers.

Peter Milligan begins this issue all Peter Milligany.

Remember that this was written in 1993 when Peter Milligan makes mention of how a person could, at some point, be alone in anything. But also imagine now how the death of an intimate would go in 2019. Back in 1993, Judy is surprised to find that she's whisked away from her grief for long interludes by the bureaucratic machinations of a death in a capitalist democracy. This same kind of thing probably still happens except with more texts and emails and less phone conversations and driving to speak to people in person. But also imagine the non-bureaucratic side of death. We probably have far less close intimate contacts in our physical space now than we had in 1993, at least by percentage when compared with all people we would consider contacts (intimates who now live in another part of the world, people we know only from online, friends of friends we've maybe met once but now sometimes interact with over social media). In 1993. it would be phone calls and personal visits with flowers and cake or cookies. In 2019, you probably receive a deluge of crying emojis and people replying "*hugs*" to your post about your world crumbling beneath you as you try to stagger on with your remaining years bereft of the person you thought you could never live without. I suppose there are plenty of apps where people could send you cakes and cookies so I suppose it wouldn't be too terrible. Should I create an app that sends cakes and cookies to people when they've lost a loved one? It wouldn't cost anything. You'd just have to send me a small cake and some cookies with every use of the app! I can't wait to get extraordinarily fat! The journey is going to be so worth it!

Grief is a savory, selfish feast.

Peter Milligan has a way of expressing potent, terrible truths in such a casual manner that most people probably don't even notice them. There's an almost expressible power in believing you're experiencing something that nobody else has or will ever experience. Or just in knowing that you lived a part of your life unknown to your closest friends and family. I cherish, greedily, the moments of my life spent alone and far from those closest to me and I parcel them out as stories in only the most meager of manners. Hell, I've probably told more about myself and my experiences here on this blog exactly because I know my friends and family don't read it. I might say this every commentary until this series is over but I still don't know if I understand the point of the overall plot. But I do understand that the plot is a way for Peter Milligan to be Peter Milligan. I understand the need for a framework to say things you want to say. Or to just put scenes out there that you don't want to bother encasing in some kind of larger whole that you're less interested in. So here's another scene Peter Milligan had to have thought about and then needed a place to mention it:

Of course people still get horny for their dead partner! But how often does anybody talk about it?! Maybe it's common and I'm just consuming the wrong kinds of media. Alex Trebek never once asked a contestant if they jerk off thinking about their dead spouse!

Netflix's Dead to Me has some pretty frank discussions about the loss of a spouse but while Christina Applegate talks about being horny and wanting to fuck somebody, I don't think she ever says she masturbates thinking about her dead husband. If the point of this story is about dealing with loss, I'm beginning to get it. And that would completely explain why I missed it at twenty-one. I'm only three pages into this issue and it's kicking me in the face with existential issues. Was I too dumb at twenty-one to understand any of this or just too sheltered to really feel it? Maybe I was just too fucking young. Judy finds the key to Jack's Extremist apartment. After looking around the place, she thinks, "It was like having Jack die all over again, but this death seemed more profound. 'I never knew you,' I thought." It's an easy statement to point out that nobody ever really knows anybody. But once, because Jim Starling wrote a terrible run on Stormwatch, I wrote an entire rant about how we all hide our innermost dark secrets from even the greatest loves of our lives. I was essentially asking how can we know anyone if we won't even let those closest to us know our most vulnerable thoughts and terrible crimes (I don't mean crimes in the law and order sense! I just mean like that time you put your finger in your ass and then made sandwiches for your friends and they all got sick and you didn't do it on purpose but you made the connection and nobody must ever fucking know! You know, those kinds of crimes. But not that specific one! I totally just made that one up for effect). So I could repeat myself or just link to the rant or just (and — Spoiler! — this is the choice I'm going with!) move on to page five of this comic book. Judy discovers an old diary written by The Extremist (but not Jack!). Then she finds some of the tapes he burned and salvages a few. She hears Jack speaking about murder and getting pissed on and, most appallingly, calling her "poor dull dead little Judy." She smashes the place up, finds The Extremist's gimp suit, and tries it on thinking, "What the fuck?! Maybe I'll feel sexy and start speaking in sex metaphors!" Then the phone rings. And I suppose the rest is history! And by history, I mean Issue #1! Except I'm only on page seven so maybe I'm jumping the gun. I guess we need to learn how Judy met Patrick and why she decided her life would be better by going out at night murdering people until she comes hard in a leather suit. Oh, I hope that last sentence wasn't too adult for Tumblr! A bunch of pages are taken up by the plot stuff that I apparently paid the most attention to in 1993 and which is the least interesting part of the story (so far!). Patrick "accidentally" runs into Judy and he pretends he doesn't know who killed Jack. He offers to help her find out if she'll pose as The Extremist and do murders and blow jobs for him. Judy is all, "What the hell! Maybe I'll understand Jack a little more! Maybe I'll know why he needed a boring piece of shit like me when he was having such fantastic fuck and murder adventures!" No wait. That's what I would say. Judy just wants to find out who killed Jack and to, maybe, feel a little closer to him. I don't think she's as amped up as I would be about the loads of indiscriminate sex and murdering of the most perverse perverts. The main story ends with Judy making her first kill. She learns that her problem was that she was always living in the past and the future. So even if she had wanted to kill somebody in the moment before, she'd be all tangled up in the past and whether the person deserved it and maybe some of it was her fault and perhaps she's been too hasty with her murder decision. And she'd also be lost in the future like how the person will stop existing and how she might wind up in prison and how the victim's guts are going to be hell to clean up off the floor. But in the moment, she can just satisfy the need without consequence or conscience! She discovers it's a thrill! Well, I could have told her that! I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was ten! Never worry about what the orc did or if it deserved it or if it has family or if you're actually the asshole raiding its lovely home! The actual issue ends with Tony, the black guy on the stoop, sitting in The Extremist's apartment listening to Judy's tapes. He's just finished the last one where she says she's going off to kill Patrick and he's completely caught up in the drama. He wants to know who killed who just as badly as, well, not me but I'm sure some readers were on the edge of their seat at this point. The Extremist #3 Rating: B. I don't find myself caring about the framework. But Peter Milligan has thoughts and those thoughts are well worth the admission price to this story. In a way, this is just an extension of his run on Shade the Changing Man. It's almost the same story if you squint your eyes and unfocus your vision and punch yourself in the genitals. Patrick is the guy on Meta who was pulling the strings to get Shade to go into the Area of Madness and eventually Earth (I forget his name! I bet it was Patrick!) And The Extremist is Shade and Kathy too (they both have similarities to both Judy and Jack, so I don't mean to say either Shade or Kathy is essentially one or the other). The Extremist has crazy missions where they kill and fuck just like Shade and Kathy had! I think. I mean, probably! And Tony is just Lenny in someway that I haven't spent any time thinking about but they were the only characters left!

#The Extremist #Peter Milligan #Ted McKeever #DC Comics #DC #Vertigo

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fae-fucker · 6 years ago

Text

Review: The Murder Complex

by Lindsay Cummings

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate. For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

There’s a video on YouTube where Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings try to promote Zenith and their favorite books by speculating about what sort of books Andi would enjoy reading.

Lindsay, being the humble creature that she is, says that Andi would enjoy this book. Why? Because Andi would recognize Meadow’s methods as similar to her own? Because Andi would enjoy reading an edgy “thriller” because she too is edgy? Or even because both Andi and Meadow are beautiful waifish white girls with silver hair who don’t particularly mind killing people?

Actually, no, you absolute fool. Sasha speculates on why Andi would enjoy this book (because of the title and how both Meadow and Andi have … uh … something … in common) and tries and fails to give Lindsay a way out. Lindsay admits to not listening, occupied with her book, which she lovingly strokes while staring into the camera.

I think this says a lot about Lindsay herself, Andi’s personality (or rather, lack thereof), and most importantly, the content of this here book.

This review contains spoilers and discussions of potentially triggering topics.

The Writing

I don’t have much to say here. Zenith was far, far worse when you just compare the prose. It’s simple, bare-bones, and straight to the point. Perfectly mediocre and not memorable at all. It flows well enough, and if it weren’t for uuuh everything else in this book, I’d say it’s a quick and easy read.

It does get very melodramatic and edgy at times, but that is to be expected, and since the melodrama mostly avoids getting too purple or lasting too long, I will officially give Cummings the “I could read your book mostly without cringing at the words” award.

The story is told from Meadow and Zephyr’s POVs, and I’d have to disagree with other reviewers who said that their narration was too similar. I mean, it wasn’t spectacular and they definitely had some overlap in expressions, but I could tell that Cummings was making a conscious effort to make them distinct and for me, it worked (mostly past the first half of the book where both of them just mope around and sound very similar), so I commend that.

The Characters

Now, while Andi OH SHIT FUCK I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO THAT THAT WASN’T A BIT I LITERALLY JUST TYPED ANDI INSTEAD OF MEADOW

Now, while Meadow and Zephyr are distinct, that doesn’t really mean they’re good characters, yea? Honestly, they’re pretty much the only ones who get any type of development and the only ones who can, paradoxically, turn off their edge and just be normal people every now and then.

Meadow is supposedly this Strong Femail Charactor who does Bad Things for Good Reasons. And … I mean, yeah? Like, I don’t remember ever feeling like she obsessed over a man, and her motivations were always either keeping her little sister safe or surviving or figuring out the mystery around their society and how it ties into her own family. As far as YA heroines go, Meadow isn’t terrible. But she’s not exactly interesting, either. She’s always collected and rarely loses her cool, she displays few emotions outside of anger, and is generally cold and downplayed to the point of having barely any personality traits. I guess it’s sort of on purpose? But there are ways of making a character subtle and still interesting, and Meadow just feels like somebody packaged a Strong Femail Charactor right out of the factory without slapping some paint on her first. Idk, I guess if this is what Lindsay was going for then she did a good job, but personally I prefer my protags to be a bit more … more.

I will apologize to Meadow for calling her Andi, though. Andi is a lot more smug and obnoxious and has fewer reasons to be.

Zephyr is a harder to define because I’m pretty sure he’s intended to be more colorful than Meadow, but he comes off as even more generic than her. He’s a convincing enough teenage boy at times, because he lusts after Meadow like a puppy and thinks in super dramatic and poetic prose about how perfect and beautiful she is. But outside of that, he just sort of exists and the plot happens to him? He has no consistent personality traits and no flaws that he has control over. He’s partially brainwashed to murder on command and he’s like, sad about it, for a second, but accepts it pretty quickly and swears to help Meadow out for … reasons? Idk I guess he’s in love with her or whatever. The blurb implies he wants to keep her from discovering the truth but he pretty much helps her from the start.

He’s perfectly non-threatening — a boy next door type if next door was a war zone. Most of the time I wonder how many hands he needs to count all his braincells. One? Or mayhaps two? Whatever happens he just sort of rolls with after a chapter or two of angst and he ends up feeling like he’s a crutch for Meadow, a non-character there to fill the role of the snarky sidekick whose personal conflict is a minor subplot, which is admittedly fairly unusual in YA, but for a co-protagonist isn’t ideal, as one might imagine.

Koi is Meadow’s overprotective older brother who wants to beat up Zephyr for reasons and refuses to chill. And yes, that’s his name.

Periwinkle/Peri is Meadow’s younger sister and Meadow’s Moality Pet. And yes, that’s her name.

Meadow’s dad is an abusive asshole dad who is Too Hard On His Children but whose lessons Turn Out To Be Helpful in the end. No, it’s not his name but I can’t remember what it is and can’t be assed to look it up because he’s just Meadow’s dad. Oh and he likes torture? While Meadow acknowledges her dad is fucked up he’s still treated as this wise authority figure who gives good advice and is only a result of his environment. Society is evil, so that’s why he treats his children like shit and teaches them how to murder good. It’s to protect them, see?

Talan is Zephyr’s best friend and teenage sex worker who lost her child and now is vaguely suicidal but it’s supposed to be charming and quirky??? Talan is the only major character to die brutally for shock value and she seems to welcome it. Tbh she was the only interesting character in the whole book so I actually felt bad when she was killed off like that.

And then there’s a bunch of other characters but what’s the point of me telling you about them since they’re all generic as hell and only exist to spout exposition at Meadow and her boy toy.

There was another character I liked well enough, but only because she was the only PoC and her name was Sketch, which is a pretty neat name, but she didn’t have much of a personality except “snarky hardass” and was basically a Deluxe Edition of an existing “snarky hardass” character. She appears only in the late chapters of the book and is there to get brutalized for the sake of our two white protags. She didn’t die though, so there’s that?

The Plot

Alright, alright, I guess I have to write something.

I honestly have no fucking idea what the plot was. The blurb pretty much tells it all: Meadow meets Zephyr, they fall in love (?), Zephyr goes all Terminator on her ass and she’s like ??? and then uh … turns out Meadow’s family/dead mom are involved in the Murder Complex, which is the thing that’s making Zephyr and other random people kill others when remotely “activated” and so now they gotta find out what the heckity heck is going on, I guess?

It’s a clear enough plot but the motivations are a little weak, especially on Zephyr’s side. One would think he’d like to get rid of the whole “murder on command” thing in his brain but he seems to be able to fight it off easily once he meets Meadow and he’s more focused on helping her for reasons.

Yeah, I’m … I’ve already forgotten large chunks of the story so that should tell you something.

The “Worldbuilding”

O SHIT HERE COMES THE JUICY PART OF THE REVIEW.

*clears throat* Here we go:

The Shallows, Night Siren, the Initiative, Catalogue Number, Commandments of the Shallows, Creds, the Perimeter, the Silent Hour, Before, Rations Department, Pirates, the Dark Time, the Pulse, the Pin, the Red train, the Blue train, Wards, the Leeches, the Graveyard, the Survivors, Rations Hall, Initiative Headquarters, Wards of the State, the Gravers, NoteScreen, Evaluator, the Catalogue Dome, the Pit, Cred Orb, the Furnace Room, the Library, Sellout, the Hospital, the Believers …

Holy shit I don’t think I’ve gotten all of the Important Names yet and I’m already tired.

Y’all. This is the worst case of worldbuilding laziness I’ve seen in a while, and I’m someone who absolutely hates worldbuilding and will let authors get away with minimal effort. This? This is awful. And the thing is? I get it. I might’ve forgiven this because coming up with names is HARD and we humans usually go for the obvious anyway so this makes some amount of sense.

The problem is the fact that there are some words and concepts that are PERFECTLY REGULAR (i.e. the Hospital is literally just a fucking hospital) but still capitalized for no goddamn reason other than it being an attempt at sounding all sci-fi and dystopian without any actual effort. Everything blends together and the concepts are so generic and so MANY that it just becomes noise and you’re forced to simply roll with it and stop trying to actually imagine what anything looks like or where it’s located or how it works.

*takes deeep breath*

Speaking of how it works, let me tell you about the main premise. Basically, there was a war, a big war that tore the US apart like Lisa tears apart Johnny. Those who survived the war were infected with a plague, creatively named the Plague, that threatened to wipe out the population. One 20-year-old scientist cured the Plague, along with literally everything else, including death. Thanks to “nanites”, humans can no longer die of natural causes. This leads to overpopulation, and to stop this, the person who invented this all-cure comes up with another absolutely brilliant idea: let’s make MORE humans, but these humans have brains that are programmed to kill on command. Who gets murdered is chosen at random each and every night in a lottery, and survivors have to clean up dozens of new corpses every morning. (Meadow mentions the death rate is now 300 people per month.)

Yeah. I know. The same brilliant scientist who CURED DEATH not only fails to reverse the effects of their own invention, but decides that factory printing brainwashed humans who are then released into the world to also consume resources along with their victims is the best course of action?

Also, there are old people in this book. How are they still aging? How do you cure death but keep the aging? Why do you kill random people for shits and giggles instead of offing the semi-sentient sacks of flesh that the old people are bound to become as their bodies grow and decline but refuse to die? Surely you need young people to work in your factories? If resources are scarce, why keep old people alive past the point where they can contribute to society? If you have the technology to make remote controlled brains, why can’t you yank those bad boys out and just put them into robot bodies?

Why did nobody consider sterilization? I know this is a dangerous and sensitive topic that a white author probably shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but if you’re ok with writing indiscriminate murder and pretend that shit wouldn’t become very racist very fast, then you could do the same with sterilization. You can’t tell me that the nanites are so good they could grow you a new uterus. Evidently they’re not good enough to heal bullet wounds or stab wounds or else your little “murder complex” wouldn’t fucking work, would it?

I’m not saying these are “better” options than murder lottery, because these are all terrible things, but I am saying that they’re definitely more logical and profitable if you’re an evil government. Compared to making new people from scratch to kill your already existing people, anyway.

There are also implications of this all being a lie to control the population so that the “Initiative” can remain in control, along with the usual shitty YA dystopia thing where it’s implied that Earth is fucked and we’re out of resources.

This whole thing is a mess of half-assed concepts that are never explored but just sort of jammed together into an incoherent mess. There’s a big war, there’s a big plague, there’s senseless murder, there’s an evil government, there’s child soldiers, there’s brainwashing, there’s a rebel Resistance, there’s climate change … There’s even an Aptitude Test or whatever that never comes back despite being very angsted and exposited about in the opening chapters. It’s like Lindsay read all the YA dystopias that came before and couldn’t pick a gimmick and just went for all of them.

Oh I haven’t even mentioned the funniest part of all this: the swearing. As with Zenith, Lindsay has no problem describing gory murder and calling female characters “sluts”, but actual human curse words like shit and fuck? Don’t be silly. This is CHILD AND PUBLISHER FRIENDLY. Shit is now “skitz”, “fuck” is now “flux”. Can you imagine reading this fluxing bullskitz? WE NEVER EVEN FIND OUT WHAT THESE WORDS MEAN OR WHY THEY WERE REPLACED, SINCE THIS TAKES PLACE RECENT ENOUGH THAT MEADOW REMEMBERS GOING TO BASEBALL GAMES.

Oh and there’s also ChumHead, which, you guessed it, is never explained.

I guess now we know who to blame for “fike” and “starshined”. Oh and there are swears related to the stars in this book as well. I think Lindsay needs to get off that SJM juice.

The Edgy

Allow me to feed quotes into your gaping brain mouths. Not a lot of them because most of my notes are just me going WHAT at the concepts and the names more than the phrasing.

Every night, I stay awake for as long as I can to keep my nightmares at bay.

Scars are trophies in the Shallows. They show we know how to cheat death.

In a paragraph before this one, Meadow mentions that nanites heal everything but leave scars behind for reasons, and it happens to everyone. So why would they be a status symbol?

It’s the moon. The moon that reminds me of the moonlit girl.

My moonlit girl. She’s the cure to my nightmares, the one thing that helps me feel safe when I can’t even trust my own dreams to harbor me.

Spoken like a real teenage boy, Zeph. Would you like some tissues with that spunk?

I hold the door open for [Talan], but she shrugs past me and opens the other one. Always independent. Never taking help from anyone.

Hi is this a Feminism?

I find two leather thigh sheathes and strap them to my legs. I slide two knives into them and stand, slinging the bow over my shoulder. […] Feeling angry. But feeling strong.

Convenient sexy makeover includes leather knife pockets and a cool but completely-impractical-due-to-the-existence-of-enemy-guns crossbow. I also want to mention that the book calls crossbow ammo “arrows”, when they’re usually referred to as bolts, but go off.

The Conclusion

The Murder Complex is a book that straddles the line between mediocre and bad. Its biggest flaw is how boring and shallow its ideas and characters are. Which basically means its biggest flaw is everything about it. I can’t say it was so bad it’s good, but I can’t exactly call it terrible because I’ve read far, far worse. It’s mediocre writing about bland characters angsting and murdering their way through a convoluted plot that’s based on worldbuilding as solid as half-eaten ham standwich found in a rainy alleyway. It’s not fun or entertaining to read and there’s nothing to get outrageously mad about.

In the end, I don’t think you should pick this up unless you’ve somehow read every other book in the world and this is the only one left. Don’t waste your time on this, not even as a joke. Don’t make my sacrifice be in vain.

#book review #repost #the murder complex #i'm pretty sure i'm the only person who's ever read this book

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