#was gonna post this one first but then i realized the jorts line wouldn’t make any sense

[loremaster]

also jumped on the maid dress bandwagon. just for funzies

[princeasimdiya12]

You Too Can Be a Hero! Over Thinking the Potential of Captain Underpants

Hey guys. So this is gonna be a random post for something that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now. And it’s only now after I saw @jackie-sugarskull recently discuss how Mr. Meaner is somewhat nicer in season 3 along with @clownnoise bringing up how Meaner being the Jockbro Hero “Sergeant Boxers” is a parallel to Krupp being CU. This is something of a theme that I’ve thought of for the Captain Underpants series that I feel would be interesting to focus on if the series, whether movie or animated series, decided to take character development more seriously.

The theme in question? How teachers and faculty members can turn from heinous antagonists to admirable heroes.

With this theme, the focus wouldn’t be so much as the boys hypnotizing the faculty into become wacky heroes to save the day (although that would be a fun concept to explore) but more along the lines of figuring out why they’re teachers and faculty members at Jerome Horwitz in the first place. Considering their disdain for children and wanting to oppress and bully them, why would they pick that type of job in the first place? Dav Pilkey provides effective commentary in his books that explains how adults become these miserable, hyper-obsessed jerks who feel frustrated by their own dreary lives. And feel the need to lash out and take out that frustration on children as it’s the only viable outlet they have to feel some type of control in their lives. It’s a good explanation as to why there are jerk-hole teachers who are cruel and sadistic when it comes to teaching, but it doesn’t explain why they’re there to begin with. Not every teacher or faculty member has the exact same reason for taking that job, but wouldn’t being part of a school mean wanting to help children? Wouldn’t their prime motivation stem from wanting to teach children and help them grow? To make a difference in the world by inspiring the next generation? 

With this particular theme, the first thing in becoming a hero is to learn why they wanted to be a hero in the first place. So it would be interesting to learn more about the faculty members alongside Krupp, who has the most character depth out of the other members, and why and how they ended up as teachers to begin with. From here, we as the audience would see them less as one dimensional monsters who we want to see tarred, feathered and pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes, but as real people that we see in real life or that we can relate to on a personal level. Each member would have their own reasons for taking the job and would question if it’s something they genuinely enjoy or if they’re better off leaving the job to pursue something else. And with so many teachers and faculty members at Jerome Horwitz (this isn’t even counting the ones from the books) there are tons of routes to go with whether they can discover their inner hero or not.

And there’s already been some groundwork regarding how the teachers have more depth if you consider the series. Throughout the episodes, we know more facts about the teachers/faculty we spend time with and how they’re more dimensional then they let on. Along with Mr. Meaner who displays alot of fun quirks, there’s also Miss Anthrope who has her moments of kindness throughout the series. While she mainly shows it to Krupp, it does she that she has the ability to grow and develop. And of course there’s Mr. Ree who is one of the few faculty members that the boys can turn to at times of crisis and has a cool and complicated past. He’s even willing to drop his experiments to help the kids with a camp play as the Bathroom Hero “Colonel Urinal”. If that doesn’t show how much he cares about kids then I don’t know what does. There’s also Jerry Citizen who became the Justice Hero “Judge JORTS” who proves to be incompetent at both teaching and crime fighting. And while he is a good guy at heart, neither of these professions suit him; this is reflected as we never see the guy after his episode debut. 

Along with fleshing out these characters and discovering who they are, what matters most in the end is that they remember why they became a teacher or a janitor or a secretary. What was that spark that made them want to take that job in that first place. Once they find it, they’d reignite their old passion and realize what they wanted to do in the first place. They’d make more of an effort to befriend their students and treat them with more compassion and understanding. 

The only problem with this theme would be that it would defy one of the core concepts of Captain Underpants. That concept being how children such as Dav himself often faced oppression and misery at the hands of teachers who either didn’t care about them or wanted to torment them for funsies. And we’ve seen this theme throughout all of the CU Books as there’s always mention of George and Harold having to put up with their school’s abusive bullying and apathy. Either they or the other students being made fun of or having to suffer because of the faculty. And while Dav’s personal narrative being reflected and parodied in his work is completely understandable and relatable, it is a narrative that needs to be tweaked and adjusted due to modern times.

While most school systems still suffer the same issues as in Dav’s era as a child (unappetizing cafeteria food, school bullying etc.) you can’t help but notice that teachers and faculty of today are making more of an effort to have a better relationship with the student body. They want to understand their students better, they are willing to help them with emotional issues at school or at home, they’re willing to change their curriculum to help a student understand it better and offer aid to students who have disorders like ADHD or autism. There’s been a positive change with the school faculty wanting to make school fun and safe for children. While the work may be hard and difficult, the teachers do care about them. Not to mention how this is briefly reflected in the Dog Man series where George and Harold get a new teacher Miss Chievess who is actually friendly with the boys and is making learning fun for them.

And that’s not to say that every teacher/fm will actually be good at their job or desire to help children. Some like Miss Ribble, who in her two seasons on screen and book appearances hasn’t displayed any positive character depth or quirky traits, can serve as examples of teachers who are just plain horrible and can’t be redeemed. They would remind us of what can become of a teacher who loses their way or genuinely enjoys tormenting kids. Naturally they would be called out for it by the narrative and would serve as a warning for both the kids to look out for teachers like Ribble and for the adults not to become Ribble.

To conclude, I feel that the theme of teachers/faculty reevaluating their reason for being at Jerome Horwitz and becoming heroes again would be fun to explore in the Captain Underpants series. Although it’s kind of unlikely that the show itself would delve in serious character development writing given it’s track record, I do feel that there’s alot of potential with this particular theme based on the modern era of children and their new relationship with school. I mean this whole series was founded on the idea of turning a cruel, vile-hearted principal into the lovable Waistband Hero “Captain Underpants”, so why not take it a step further and make them into heroes who don’t go away after being splashed with water?

And those are my two cents for the day. If you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said, or would like to mention something about this topic, you’re more than welcome to reblog this post with your thoughts.

[sevenfists]

drawerfic #3: Amuse-Bouche

I wrote the first scene of this over the winter and got stuck, then took a stab at finishing it a couple months ago. I still didn’t really have anywhere to go after that first scene. Food? Food is a theme. 2.7k, nothing explicit. Thanks to @sparcck for the title, by far the best part.

Sid kind of stopped giving a fuck after the second Cup win, and he turned thirty right after the third and decided his capacity for caring about anything other than hockey was officially nil.

It was a great feeling.

He fucked a bunch of guys that summer, pretty indiscreetly, and the rest of the time he trained, played golf with Nate, and received a series of inscrutable text messages from Geno.

“What does ‘you’re a snack’ mean,” he asked Nate.

Nate choked on his organic quinoa salad. “What the fuck? Who said that to you?”

“Geno,” Sid said. He scrolled down. “Then he said I’m a whole ass meal. There’s no punctuation in there, so I’m not sure if he means whole-ass or ass-meal.”

“Uhh,” Nate said. His eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. “Malkin’s texting this to you?”

“Yeah,” Sid said. “Why?”

“Who told him that?” Nate demanded. “How the fuck does he know that?”

“One of Gonch’s daughters, probably,” Sid said. “Does it mean something?”

“I’m staying out of this,” Nate said. “You can Google.”

Sid Googled. According to Urban Dictionary, Geno was hitting on him.

Well. Okay.

Sid had never turned over that rock because of all the many, many reasons it was a terrible idea to do anything with Geno that wasn’t directly proximate to hockey, but his summer of not giving a fuck apparently extended even to teammates. Geno was hot, he had been Sid’s work spouse forever, and what had been unthinkable when Sid was twenty or twenty-one seemed like the natural end result now. What was the worst that could happen? All of the dire scenarios he had lovingly envisioned crumbled apart like a really good croissant, the kind made with so much butter you could almost see the shine on it.

He texted Geno a peach emoji, largely to see what would happen.

Geno replied two days later, when Sid was lying on his couch debating the equally appealing options of jacking off or fishing.

U valid))

Urban Dictionary didn’t help him out too much that time, and anyway Sid was sort of losing patience with Geno’s weird Russian mating rituals. When are you back in Pitt?

9 Sept, Geno replied.

That wasn’t too far off. Okay. We’ll talk when you’re back

??)))

Get in Geno’s pants, Sid entered into his calendar.

He considered that gauntlet pretty well thrown, and he didn’t worry when a couple of days passed after the 9th of September came and went. Geno was probably sleeping off his jet lag. But when he saw Geno at the golf tournament he expected a few meaningful looks, or maybe even a subtle pat to his ass when no one was looking, and instead he got the same Geno as always, flirting with no real intent behind it. He fondled Sid’s golf club, knocked his head against the brim of Sid’s cap, and wandered off to talk to Horny.

Maybe Geno had downgraded him from a snack to—what was smaller than a snack?

He tried again when the golf part was over. Geno was holding a plate of finger foods, strawberries pierced with toothpicks and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Sid hadn’t even realized there were hors d’oeuvres available. Geno loved free food and would pile his plate high even when he wasn’t hungry.

“You busy later?” Sid asked, real smooth.

Geno squinted at him. His mouth was full of mini quiche. “Busy?”

“You could come over,” Sid said.

“Uhh,” Geno said. “For what?”

Sid considered the possibility that Geno didn’t know what he had been texting to Sid all summer. On the one hand, Geno seemed very likely to call Sid a slut. On the other hand, Natalie Gonchar was growing up sneaky, and Geno’s grasp of English slang was limited to what he heard in the locker room. If Sid had to go on Urban Dictionary for it, Geno probably didn’t know it, either.

“Never mind,” Sid said, and Geno shrugged and speared another quiche.

No big deal. He would just have to be a little less discreet.

The trouble with Geno was that Sid liked him. He showed up and worked hard, didn’t leave tape on the dressing room floor, and had made it blindingly evident over the years that he would back Sid up without question. He didn’t even make Sid pay any fines that he himself hadn’t administered. Loyalty was one of Sid’s favorite traits in a person. Geno was also funny, much smarter than he pretended to be, and he looked fantastic in a suit.

In other words, he was essentially perfect.

Sid was good at keeping his eyes to himself in the locker room, just as a basic survival technique, but he let himself start looking at Geno now. Geno mostly seemed confused at first, which supported Sid’s hypothesis about Natalie, and then surprised, and then, after a few days, shyly pleased. Geno had largely outgrown his shyness when he learned English, and seeing him turn pink and duck his head made Sid feel like they were kids again, only this time Sid was going to get what he wanted.

Geno’s pleased blushing was Sid’s green light. He upped the ante from some discreet locker room ogling to blatant staring in the showers, complete with careful tactical positioning. Geno always hit the showers before Sid did, out of his gear and into the change room while Sid was still suffering through a useless post-practice press scrum, which made it easy for Sid to situate himself at the next shower head over and drag his eyes along the entire soaped-up length of Geno’s body.

“Nice work today,” he said, staring at the frankly jaw-dropping curve of Geno’s ass. Hockey was full of good asses, and Sid considered himself something of a connoisseur, but Geno’s was remarkable even in the crowded field of the NHL.

Geno didn’t respond. Sid reluctantly tore his eyes away from Geno’s ass. Geno was flushed all the way down to his nipples. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and met Sid’s gaze.

“You wanna come over?” Sid asked.

“I’m busy,” Geno said, which was a blatant lie. He was probably just going home to watch people play video games on YouTube.

So he wanted to play hard to get: that was fine. Sid could be patient.

He tried again a couple of days later. Jen had bullied Geno into talking to the press for once, and he was still undressing when Sid made it into the change room after his own scrum, standing at his stall and working his shorts down over his ass.

Sid stopped and watched, being as obvious about it as he could. Geno ignored him, but his ears turned red, which was a good sign.

“You looked great out there,” Sid said.

Geno stepped out of his shorts and straightened and turned to face Sid, his eyebrows raised challengingly. “Out there, or in here?”

“Both,” Sid said. He took a step closer, encouraged.

“Hmm,” Geno said. He moved in, looming suddenly the way he could, naked except for his shower slides, coming in hot and backing Sid up against the door, his hands braced on either side of Sid’s head.

This wasn’t really how Sid had imagined this going, but he wasn’t opposed. He set a cautious hand on Geno’s hip that became less cautious when Geno stared down at him and didn’t pull away. Sid could smell him, sweaty after skating, and the scent of it made his mouth water.

“You watch me,” Geno said.

Sid put his other hand on Geno’s other hip and tugged him in. “You don’t like it?”

Geno breathed in and out. His mouth was inches away from Sid’s, and Sid realized his heart was pounding, like he was nervous or something. Geno’s dark eyes dropped to Sid’s mouth and slid away, and darted back up to Sid’s eyes. “Sid,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Sid said. “I think you like it.”

Geno didn’t reply. He ducked his head to nose at Sid’s ear and then hovered there, breathing, probably waiting to see how Sid would react.

Sid felt like his whole body was made out of fire. He tilted his head to the side encouragingly, giving Geno more room to work. Geno rubbed his nose against the sensitive skin behind Sid’s ear, and then replaced his nose with his mouth, layering a few soft toe-curling kisses along the line of Sid’s throat.

Geno sucked lightly, and Sid was about to grab him for real and take full advantage of the empty change room when Geno pulled away and stepped back.

“Need to shower,” Geno said, a little bit sheepish, running a hand over his head.

“Seriously?” Sid said, pulse throbbing in his temples and his groin. “You’re just gonna—”

Geno grinned, showing roughly three quarters of his teeth. “Bye, Sid,” he said, and shuffled off toward the showers.

“Oh my God,” Sid said to the empty room. Geno was a tease.

He held a cookout a few days later, before the season started. It was a good excuse to have Geno over; he couldn’t wriggle out of anything Sid pitched as team bonding. He had the A. He had to at least show up and eat a burger.

He showed up wearing those dumb camo jorts that Sid liked way more than he wanted to, and a Penguins cap jammed backwards on his head. Sid watched him take a lap around the back yard, filching crudités off everyone’s plates and saying something to Phil that made Phil’s voice rise in an outraged yelp. Business as usual.

Sid was manning the grill and wouldn’t abandon it even to pull some smooth moves on Geno. But he didn’t have to: Geno drifted closer, eating and yapping, and Sid caught his gaze and tilted his head in a come-here gesture, knowing that Geno would probably contrarily ignore him. Like a cat, he never wanted to come on command.

This time he did, although he took a long circuitous route to prove that he was only coming over because he wanted to and not because Sid had summoned him. He sidled in next to Sid at the grill and took the tongs from Sid’s hand and clicked them together a few times, grinning. “You need help?”

“I’ve got it under control,” Sid said, helping himself to a long look at the way Geno’s well-worn shirt clung to his shoulders and chest. He took his summer training way more seriously now than he had when he was younger, and it showed.

“Good, feed me,” Geno said, and relinquished the tongs.

Sid rolled his eyes. “Burger or hot dog?”

“Mm, hot dog,” Geno said, and stood right there to eat so that Sid was forced to watch as Geno expertly fellated the hot dog, bun and all.

“Taste good,” Geno said, after he had eaten the last bite, and flashed Sid a shit-eating grin and wandered off.

The party wound down as night fell. Sid took all of his grilling shit into the kitchen and found Geno in there scraping the last of the guacamole out of the dish with his finger.

“You’re disgusting,” Sid said, more amused than actually disgusted.

Geno sucked his finger into his mouth. He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “I don’t waste.”

“Well, help me clean up,” Sid said, which was Geno’s cue to invent some excuse about how he’d left the oven on at home. Sid had attended a lot of parties with Geno over the years, and he’d never once seen Geno do any cleaning up.

But Geno stayed. He helped Sid load the dishwasher and put leftovers away, standing too close, smiling a lot, brushing his fingers against Sid’s way more than he actually needed to.

Sid wasn’t made out of stone. There was only so much he could take. Geno was a flirt, he had been flirting with Sid for years without meaning anything by it, but he had sucked on Sid’s throat at the rink four days ago, and there was only one way to interpret that.

“Geno,” he said, and Geno looked over, a serving bowl in his hands. Sid got a generous fistful of Geno’s shirt and tugged him down, and slid his lips over the patchy stubble along Geno’s jaw. “Hey, G.”

Geno set the bowl on the counter and turned to face Sid. He cupped Sid’s face in his hands. He didn’t look like he was fucking around or teasing.

“You’re a whole meal,” Sid said. “You’re a buffet.”

“Sid, you talk too much,” Geno said, and lowered his head for a kiss.

Sid had three Cups, and he had largely stopped caring what other people thought. He wanted to play good hockey, and he wanted to fuck Geno, and maybe do a lot of other things with Geno, like everything, the whole enchilada, as Phil liked to say.

“Come over later,” he said to Geno before their first game of the season, and Geno smiled at him, somehow both cocky and shy. They lost that game, but Sid texted Geno from the parking deck before he drove home: Come over

Geno came over, and they had sex for the second time, their hands on each other, kissing and kissing until Geno came with a groan and Sid pushed him over onto his back and rubbed off on him. Geno wrapped his arms around Sid’s neck and his legs around Sid’s hips and it had never been like this with anyone else, he had never felt the way he did when he was with Geno.

“How was that?” Sid asked after, when they had cleaned up a little and were lying tangled together, Sid’s head on Geno’s shoulder.

“Eh,” Geno said, and wobbled his hand from side to side.

Sid hid his smile against Geno’s neck. “You’re an asshole.”

“I don’t pump your tires,” Geno said. “You get Sully for that, he loves you, think you best player—”

“Please don’t ever talk about Sully when we’re in bed,” Sid said.

Geno laughed softly and ran his hands over Sid’s back. “Okay. I promise.”

Sid started to drift off, warm and close in the dark of his bedroom, but then he remembered the question he’d been wanting to ask Geno for weeks. He turned his head to kiss the cap of Geno’s shoulder. “You still awake?”

“Mm,” Geno said. “Little bit.”

“Why did you text me that stuff this summer?” Sid asked. “You know. That shit about me being a snack.”

“Gonch’s daughter tell me,” Geno said. “You know. Natalie.”

“Yeah, I figured that much,” Sid said. “But why?”

Geno groaned. “Sid, it’s late—”

“No way,” Sid said. Geno trying to wriggle out of talking about it was a sure sign that he was embarrassed, which was a sure sign that Sid was about to uncover the delicious mortifying truth. He pushed up onto one elbow and looked down at Geno’s face, almost totally invisible with the curtains drawn. “Tell me.”

Geno’s exasperated sigh made Sid grin. “She think I have—you know, crush. So she tell me what to text you.”

Sid’s grin widened. “A crush.”

“Okay, I’m tired, let’s sleep now,” Geno said, and reached up blindly in the dark to drag Sid’s head back down to his shoulder.

Sid woke up first in the morning and went downstairs to make breakfast: turkey sausage, frozen blackberries that he thawed in the microwave, and pancakes, which Geno liked to slather with jam and fold in half like a taco. Geno had been curled on his side, drawn up into a surprisingly small huddle, and Sid had paused at the side of the bed to very gently kiss his temple and the curve of his cheekbone, feeling his heart melt like a pat of butter on a slice of hot bread. Geno deserved a good breakfast, and then maybe a blowjob before they had to leave for the rink.

He was plating the final pancake when Geno came into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Sid’s basketball shorts and nothing else, scratching at his belly. “Smell good,” Geno said, and came over to drop a kiss on Sid’s bare shoulder.

“The food’s ready,” Sid said. He turned his head to look up at Geno’s face. “And I made coffee, if you want some.”

“Good,” Geno said. His smile made Sid feel like he had hung the moon in the sky for Geno’s approval. “Let’s eat together.”