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yanderechuu · 3 years

Note

do any of the teachers ever notice the things happening to y/n? (i headcannon Mic and Midnight as yanderes that would give advice to 1A lol)

yandere!Class 1A x fem!reader

[2.1K]

Summary: Aizawa is the first one you approached in regards to your certain predicament.

Warning: nonconsensual recording

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Aizawa suspected something wasn’t quite right by the moment he saw you entering the class a minute before the bell rang, all haggard and teary-eyed, though you tried your best to obscure your disposition. He always knew you to often be in a state of discomfort whenever you were compelled to socialize, especially with your classmates, but now - you looked as if you reached your limit of holding the weight of the world on your shoulders, crashing down all at once as depicted on your crestfallen expression.

And when you showed up in front of the faculty room, timidly soliciting his presence, his suspicions were only further verified. Even with a pending question regarding subject matters in your mind, you weren’t one to approach a teacher to inquire about it, and if you did it was because the teacher was the one who would ask your attendance; never the other way around.

Present Mic was the first one to acknowledge you. He stood up from his office chair, waving at you comically. “Yo, (l/n)! Having trouble with English again?”

You never had a problem with his subject; he only insisted that you’d come to him in regards to that. “N-no, not really. May I speak to Aizawa-sensei?”

“Talk with me instead!” He enthusiastically spoke and headed over to you. “Come on, what’s the matter?”

“It isn’t your place to ask that when I’m here.” Aizawa interceded, clearly unimpressed by Mic’s antics. He failed to see the latter’s displeased countenance. “(L/n), what is it?”

You avoided eye contact with him, averting your view to the ground - that was alright. You were always like this, and he didn’t mind. Nothing out of place except for the fact that it looked as if you were about to cry any moment now.

“Can we- can we, um, talk somewhere more private?” You asked quietly.

His brows raised in wonder at your request. Nevertheless, he didn’t decline you, only nodding lackadaisically before heading towards the teacher’s lounge, where you followed him suit. He flicked the door tag to ‘occupied’ and entered the room after you, when he told you sit on the three-person sofa situated not quite on the farthest left of the space. Then, he settled himself on the chair across you.

“Well?” He asked, expectantly.

But you had once again your head above a thick cloud of anxiety. You knew that after the event with Momo in the girls’ locker room - where you had injured her against your will because she had been violating your personal space - your homeroom teacher kept a cautious eye on you in case you’d re-enact that incident. And it wasn’t just that incident that made him look at you like you were a criminal on the loose, either. Your classmates found and did a lot of ways to place you in Aizawa’s naughty list just so you wouldn’t snitch on their abusive (they’d call it affectionate) behavior on you.

That didn’t erase the fact that you were nevertheless his student; he cared for you no less than he cared for his other pupils, yet you were just too ignorant in figuring that out. All that mattered to you was that you’d voice out your current concern to him, but with your insecurities holding you down it seemed it would be more difficult than you had primarily foreseen it to be.

“I-I,” you stammered out, fiddling with something inside your pocket, “u-um, you see, t-there’s this, I mean, I can’t-”

He grew increasingly frustrated with your constant stuttering, and although he did understand your shy nature which largely affected your conversational habits, he only had so much patience to deal with it.

“I don’t have all day.” He stated, glowering at your form in mild irritation. “If you’re going to keep doing that, talk to the wall.”

You abruptly halted in speaking after that, only looking down on your lap, staring wide-eyed, grief-stricken at the revelation that perhaps he really did not want to heed any of your words because you were just that bad of a student that he had decided you were not worth much the effort to concern himself with. And maybe he was right - that your words didn’t matter because you didn’t matter; that there were more affairs he better be tending to than yours; that you were only making a big deal out of this when it truthfully wasn’t.

Oh god, you felt like vomiting. Self-deprecation was getting the better of you.

He stood up and sauntered to the exit, not bothering to spare you a glance. “Come back to me when you actually know what you want to say.”

It was a matter of seconds when you ran to him, pulling him back rather harshly by the grip you had on his sleeve. He turned around due to the force to see your head still hung low, avoiding his gaze as always - only, your shoulders were quivering sporadically, and occasional sniffs were heard from your person.

“P-please, sensei...” you voiced out, shaken and horrifyingly delicate. “I-I’m so scared. Please.”

While he looked at you with contracted irises, countenance now alert from your unexpected disposition, you pulled your trembling hand out of your skirt pocket, nervously disclosing to him from your palm a small, black device with a tiny yet prominent lens.

“M-my room,” you heaved, “I-I saw this i-in my room, m-my closet, while- while I was dressing up, and I don’t know how long it had been in there but it probably already caught me bare and-”

You broke down in a flurry misery and shame, allowing yourself to fall to the ground but you didn’t - Aizawa seized you in his arms, his gentle, fatherly arms that could only do so much to console you from the horror of your reality. And he held your head as you cried on his chest, one little thing he could do after ignoring your situation and letting you think that your significance was less than the rest of his other students. At that moment, you were just so little, so fragile, so naïve he’d keep you in his pocket if he could. Why would someone do something as debauched as illegally recording your innocent self?

“I’m sor-sorry,” you sobbed, “I’m really telling the truth, p-please-”

“Shh, it’s okay. I don’t doubt you.” He reassured. Why were you apologizing? Were you that insecure of being a nuisance? No, no, you never were. Not to him. He reached for your hand to take the cursed device. “Since when did you find out?”

“J-just this morning.” You responded.

“Alright. Do you want to rest? This must have taken a huge toll on you.”

But you still had classes ongoing. Then again, you didn’t feel like looking at the faces of the prime suspects who possibly did you dirty, even when you knew that you’d have to eventually interact with them to get notes of your missed lessons. You were so tired from summoning the lot of your courage to confront your teacher regarding your problem, so you probably wouldn’t have the energy to listen to class discussion. Aizawa finalized your decision by pulling you up and guiding you towards the office of Recovery Girl who, after being briefed of your predicament by your homeroom teacher, welcomed you with a warm smile, telling you to make yourself comfortable in one of the beds in the infirmary.

He then made his way to 1A classroom, a newfound swelling of rage and disappointment in his chest, both forwarded to his class and to himself because only now did he realize that perhaps you were often so restless and apprehensive in the presence of your classmates because they did things that made you bury yourself in the deepest parts of your shell as a last attempt to revel in a sense of safety. Your timidity was not entirely derived from your own nature; it was also due to the maltreatment you were receiving from your classmates. Halting his steps by the classroom door, he looked through the glass window, seeing the class focusing on Midnight’s lecture.

Well, not quite. He could tell that your classmates were visibly affected by the lack of your presence, glancing at your desk from time to time as quiz papers were being passed behind - so they were in the middle of a test, he guessed. But that wasn’t his concern.

In impudent manner, he walked in amid Midnight’s talking, disregarding her face’s sudden morphing into vexation as the students gave him a look of confusion.

“Eraser, what are you-” she was rudely interrupted as Aizawa took the test reference papers from her hands. Something about Modern Hero Art History, he read. He faced his class with disdain, stating,

“Until someone confesses their crime of hiding a spy camera on (l/n)’s dorm room, all of you are receiving failing marks on this test.”

Quite suddenly, the class burst into violent upheaval, gasping, perking, some allowing the dreadful news of your situation to sink in, others letting out noises of complaint before actually taking consideration to the main point of Aizawa’s statement. Midnight stared at him in disbelief, but did nothing to stop his measures.

Momo abruptly stood. “I-is (y/n) okay? We should go check on her!”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Aizawa said. “All of you are suspects. You’ve no right to see her.”

“She probably just made that up get back on us for whatever fucking reason!” Yelled Bakugou.

“Yeah?” The male pro-hero disingenuously mused. He then picked up the spy camera and held it for everyone to see, before setting it down the teacher’s podium. “This was found on her closet. Would she risk recording herself naked just to prove that point?”

Noise died down thereafter, setting their sights solemnly at the device, the class collectively having the same thought in regards to the spy camera.

(Why hadn’t they thought of that? It could have been easier to check on you that way, since you almost always confined yourself in the privacy of your own room.)

“So? No one wants to speak up?” Aizawa asked, though expected the silence.

“Aizawa, have them approach you after classes. It’s embarrassing this way.” Midnight intervened.

“Well that’s the point. Get them exposed to the entire class, so everyone could realize how much of a perverted bastard one of these to-be heroes are. Good values, my ass.” He replied, not bothering to filter rather colorful vocabulary. “Where’s your dignity?”

He let a minute or two pass for the perpetrator to reveal themselves, but soon it became apparent that whomever they were refused to admit to their crime, willing to sacrifice the grades of the class for the sake of anonymity. That would be deemed useless, anyway, because Aizawa was already set on figuring out whom they were, no matter the extent he’d go to in order for that to happen. He’d expel them at once.

But he didn’t have the power to expel someone outside of his class.

“I guess that’s it for your test.” He sighed, disgruntled, picking up the small camera and sauntering his way out of the classroom after giving Midnight a look that he was dead serious with marking all of them a failing score. She stared at him in uncertainty, nonetheless abided by his decisions, albeit hesitantly.

Upon ascertaining his absence, Midnight turned to Class 1A, amusement and humor dancing on her seductive countenance.

“Naïve, hormonal teenagers,” she mused, “the closet, really? Couldn’t you have chosen somewhere less conspicuous?”

None of them bothered to tell her that they were truthfully unaware of the incident.

===

Hagakure Toru, stealth hero, entered your room silently in the nude, the only proof of her movements being a tinier, different spy camera she’d brought along with her. No, not the closet, you might find it again. It looked so painfully obvious on the desk, too, and neither in the bathroom due to its pale white interior.

But on the pencil holder situated atop your nightstand would do. You barely moved it, anyway, only having its purpose served as a decoration; something to fill the vacancy of the bedside table. After a few adjustments in camouflaging the device with the environment and making sure the lens displayed the area of your space, Hagakure checked its concealment one more time, before mechanically heading outside and back to her own dorm.

Her body collided almost violently with her room’s door, snapping her out of her trance.

“H-huh!? Weird... how’d I end up in my room?” She asked, receiving no answer from particularly anyone.

But Shinso Hitoshi could provide her one, if only he weren’t outside, staring at your terrace from five stories down your room, a gratifying smirk donned on his features. Now, the only thing he had to do was dismantle and relocate the gadgets wirelessly connected with the camera Aizawa had confiscated.

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bibliocratic · 3 years

Text

litany An exploration on endings. Or: all the ways it could have gone wrong and right.

jonmartin, spoilers for 200, content warnings in the tags

This is not what she thought victory would feel like.

Basira’s fingers tense and smart with overexerted aching when she stops to stretch them out. There is a geography of broken blood-vessels under the bruising that lies puddle-splotched over her hands which scrabble and claw talon-bent at the rubble. They are scored with scratches and tears where her exposed and dust-ruined skin has snagged on fractured brickwork.

She uncovers a foot first, as she pushes up and over the twisted mental of a window frame with an exhausted clatter. A trainer, the white doused with mud, the trailing laces caked stiff and russet. More heaving and hauling, her breath purging from her faster now – maybe, maybe, maybe, but she has lived too long now to believe in miracles. Overturning a fire-blasted section of what could have been once part of the imperious and grand stone stairwell, she reveals the leg the trainer is attached to, pulverised and off-angled by the weight of the collapse, the fabric of it drenched in soot. She peels back a cascade of plasterboard with a grunt, and there is a twisted pelvis, shattered ribs caved in under an acrid-smelling jumper. She’s not surprised at the dull punch of revelation, when she digs out hunched shoulders, coils of hair turned grey-white like swans’ down with the dust.

Martin is obviously dead. She hopes it was quick, fears it was not. His body lying stringless is curved around something, clutching it to him with his bruised and broken fingers. It takes many minutes of labouring, her spine seizing with complaint, sweat pooling at her brow and under her arms, but eventually she reveals Martin’s tender quarry, bundled up against his chest, blood-soaked from a wound long congealed. His own long and bloody fingers clenched and moored into the weft of Martin’s jumper.

She doesn’t need to check his pulse. She is cursed with enough sentiment to do so anyway. Crouching for a moment in the thick of the settling devastation, the fug of dust coating her nostrils, before she murmurs ‘I’m sorry’.

As she stands, she takes off her coat to lay it over them respectfully, the only shroud she can offer.

When her voice is composed, its cracks flattened out, she shouts the others over to tell them to stop searching.

The knife does not go in easily. There is force behind its thrust, a manic wave-shock of hysteric intent, and Jon’s lips part in a gasp as skin and sinew and flesh split. The noise wrenched from Martin is soiled with ruin, tremulous and saw-toothed, and he will never be able to forgive himself.

Jon’s eyes close. Peace of a sort granted to Magnus’ last and most beleaguered of Archivists.

And then they open. All of them, like the unfolding back of petals during blossoming, a meadow’s expanse of sight flowering on his face.

“No,” Martin whispers, the refusal almost lost over the tumult of the building around them. He pulls the knife out, and it drips onto the floor, making damp the material of his trousers. “No, nononononono.”

The wound presses together like lips, and then it is gone.

“I think it’s too late for that, Martin,” the Archivist says in that calm and reasoned voice of his.

It is a surreal, poorly-rendered mirror of before. A way the record of the world has slipped, juddered aground in a repeat. For all they have both changed, outgrown the casings of the people they were, for all they have endured both together and apart, it is a sick homecoming of sorts to stand again a second time round at the entrance to his hospital ward.

She’s brought supermarket flowers bunched in plastic, the last of a bad crop and too late to get the freshest, the stalks of baby’s breath drooping, the petals on the carnations mottled slightly and past their glory days. Jon lies submerged in sleep, the focal point in a placid storm of machines and wires. This coma chemically induced with no inkling of the supernatural, a last-ditch effort by the doctors to reduce the swelling on his brain. To give the body a chance to heal from the damage sustained during the collapse, his frame bludgeoned and punctured like a shrike-caught mouse, the smoke that has snarled like brambles in his lungs. The almost comically neat wound punched into his chest, nicking his heart.

She hopes his sleep is dreamless.

It takes him weeks to wake up.

“… Georgie?” he finally gasps out on an otherwise uneventful Thursday. His vocals are ribbed and scored with smoke damage. He’s sluggish as he blinks and turns and groans at the complaint of his body around him. “What – er?”

“Hey Jon,” she replies. “Good to have you back with us.”

She lets him acclimatise. Without his glasses, he squints and peers owlishly, like an inquisitive bird, absorbed by the novelty of his environment, the mundanity; the hospital-blue curtain that’s been pulled back around his bed, missing a few rungs and so hanging lopsided in places. The wilting flowers on the side table. The IV needles threaded into his arms.

“Did it work?” he asks finally.

“We think so.”

Georgie doesn’t add more. The conversation is one she knew they’d have, but it still feels like stepping out on frozen water. She is waiting for it to give beneath him, for the drop and drown in the unmoored cold.

His relief muddies in increments. His brow crinkling with a frown, glancing around again at the other beds. Their occupants dredged up and out and recovering from their private terrors, bringing the lessons of their landscape with them.

“Where - ?”

He looks up at her. The ice cracking.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Jon,” she says.

“We made it. L-look, see, we’re – I don’t know where we are exactly, b-but that doesn’t matter, does it, because we’re together, yeah? We’re together and that’s… that’s what we promised.”

The blood is drying on his trembling fingertips, the crevices of his palm, and it flakes off like decaying leaf-fall. The front of his clothes is clogged and sodden, the slick slow to harden. The weight in his arms is making his shoulders scream but he can’t let go.

“We – we did it,” he repeats hollowly. Desperately. “We did it, s-so you can come back now. You can come back. Together, you promised.”

The winds of this new world blow as cold as the old one did, and it is Martin’s only reply.

“It’s for the best, Martin,” the Archivist says.

“Shut up,” his furious watcher snarls. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t play st – Like him! Like he would! Using his voice.”

“It’s my voice. It’s me, Martin.”

Martin doesn’t respond to that. Their arguments are cyclical as roundabouts. He tells Martin he loves him. Martin tells him to fuck off.

The place where Jonah Magnus met his End, crumpled up on the dais of the Panopticon, has been cleared of blood. It distressed Martin to look upon, as evidence of his ascension rather than his capacity for brutality, so the servitors saw to its removal. The body he gifted to the mulch of the bone gardens, and the wailing growths flourished beautifully with the nutrients it bore.

The screams beyond the walls of the Panopticon cut off faster as he hastens them towards the End. He observes a world in its twilight. There is still torment, and it is unendurable and unfair but it will end under his reign, for good and for ever, and he will ensure that there is no more.

“You don’t have to stay,” the Archivist says. Considered. Gentle. “I know… seeing me like this is not what you wanted. I want us to be together while it ends, but I won’t force you.”

“And how is it any better out there?”

“It’s not,” he admits. “Here, I can keep you safe. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy.”

“Well, you fucked up there then,” Martin snaps.

His anger is righteous and flint-spark, makes barriers that almost waylay his grieving. He looks at him, and for a moment, his gaze shakes. He will see nothing less than he expects to see, a man, unkempt from travel, a bit grubby. Coarse hands he has held, lines he has attempted to smooth. In many ways, this makes it worse.

Martin turns away, and the Archivist lets him go.

He needs time and they have more than enough of it now.

He is inconsolable when they dig them out. A horrible, anguished keening like he’s being struck, a gasping that violently gags and stoppers in his chest. His face twisted, blotching, his eyes swollen, and the picture he makes is ugly, rent-open, decimated, bawling into the body he’s crushed up against him. Rag-doll limbed. Ashen.

They can’t make him let go. His cries transform and degrade into wails, garbled wordless, the horizon of language lost. They aren’t even sure if he knows they’re there. The sound pouring out of him is frenzied, delirious and anguished by surviving the unsurvivable alone. He fades hoarse through the ruin he has made of his throat and then he just weeps into Jon’s chest, and still he will not let go.

Melanie’s the one that stops him using the knife the first time. Wrestling it from his grip more out of surprise than shock at Georgie’s shout, and her anger is poisoned with her panic, throwing it to one side and hearing it clatter, snarling that I’m not going to fucking bury both of you, you hear me, don’t even think about it, fuck you, you think this is what he would have wanted, you think we want to lose you too?

Martin doesn’t reply.

They are not fast enough to stop him the second time he tries.

There are two men, strangers to these parts, who moved into the village from elsewhere like seeds caught on breeze. They plant their roots in uneasy soil. They talk to no one, versed in polite but guarded pleasantries, their greeting smiles to-the-point and weathered like coastal walls to withstand even the most inquisitive of questioners.

The one who is tall has the pared-down appearance of someone who has lost a lot of weight through some wasting that gnaws upon him. A gauntness that accentuates the furrows and gulleys and crags of his face, worsens the snow-stark white of his hair. The one who is short has been formed naturally sharp in features, although the brown of his eyes is mellow, prone to distance and otherwise unremarkable. The rumour mill, that tumbles in cycles of chatter that rolls from suspicious to musing, supposes some great and devastating fire to account for the injuries on his hands and the exposed skin of his face and neck, the pocked divots like scattered spark burns, ragged scars from shrapnel of some kind.

The one who is short limps on a sturdy walking stick, fashioned from an oak branch divorced from its tree in a storm. Any travel ventured upon is slow and demonstrably an effort. His free hand clasped in the hand of the one who is tall, who decks himself in layers even in the mildest of weathers, whose eyes are biting as hailstones, awashed grey and framed with bruising as though his dreams are rarely kind.

They re-painted the outer walls of their house last summer, when the temperature wallowed sticky and dense and glorious. The tree in their garden has fruited its first pears, few and stunted but a start that promises better crops come next year.

There is the hope that the strangers are happy.

If they are, it remains nobody’s business but their own.

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wits-writing · 3 years

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What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

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Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

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“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

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brekkerbybrekker · 3 years

Text

Let Me Help

(Just some Kanej fluff involving a sore leg and sad Kaz confessions)

His tell is obvious as Inej hears him climbing up the stairs. His pace is slow and he’s leaning heavily on his cane. It was a bad day.

Inej is sitting in the window sill when Kaz enters the room, damp from the rain. He crosses the room wordlessly and sits down at his desk in a huff.

“Why are you wet?” Inej asks, innocently enough.

“I’ve been all over this damn city gathering supplies for the next job,” he struggles out of his wet jacket and vest, “apparently no one around here wants to work anymore but me.” He considers, then adds, “and you, of course. Then again, if I noticed you doing your job, you wouldn’t be doing a very good one.”

She ignores the compliment, “what new job? I wasn’t aware.”

He turns his face slightly away from hers to avoid her eyes. Another tell that most would ignore. “Well, there’s nothing specific yet, just being prepared.”

Kaz stands to hang up his wet coat and gloves, and winces slightly every time he takes a step, “And this weather is not helping,” he adds, begrudgingly. Obviously hating for anyone to see him struggle. A small part of him resenting her for her presence in his space.

“Why are you working, then?” She moves closer to him, perching on the edge of his desk as he sits back down. His head falls back against the chair back. His eyes are red rimmed and shadowed underneath. His skin looks sallow and pale. “You look exhausted,” she concludes.

“Too much to do, too little time,” he replies. Deflecting.

“What needs to be done?” She pushes him. He is exceptionally dodgy tonight, his nerves on edge. He sighs and closes his eyes. “Tell me, maybe I can help?”

“There’s nothing you can help me with.”

“Try me.”

“Jordie’s birthday is this week,” he answers instead.

Inej doesn’t speak, so caught off guard by this sudden admission. Instead of responding, she gives him time to continue.

“I spent an hour standing at the harbor like a sentimental fool because I have no grave to visit.” He opens his eyes and stares blankly at the wall behind her.

“I don’t even remember the day, that’s the worst part. I just know it’s this week. A 20-something-th day. And I’ve tried to remember, and I’ve looked into records, but there’s nothing. There’s no trace of him.”

“You’re not a sentimental fool for paying respects to your brother,” Inej says. His face is hardened, no trace of the softness that should come along with his words, not in his face or his tone.

“No, but I’m a sentimental fool for missing him.” Again, the candidness of his speech is shocking. And last year, would’ve been something she’d have never expected him to admit. After Kaz finally told her about Jordie and everything that happened, it’s like he is relieved to have someone else in the know. Someone to be honest with. He doesn’t look sad, he looks angry. At himself, she supposes, but also everyone else. Everyone that took so much from him, everyone that has those things that he doesn’t have. He kneaded his bad leg absently.

“Let me,” she says instead of replying. He looked like he was going far away, and she didn’t think before she said it, didn’t consider the impact of her words. The intimacy of the gesture. She just wanted to distract him. It’s just so difficult to give comfort to a person who doesn’t know how, or can’t, accept comfort.

“Let you what?”

“Your leg. I know how,” The offer felt awkward coming out of her mouth, but there was no taking it back now, so she just barreled on, “Everyone in my troop did, since injuries and knotted muscles were common.”

“I’m fine,” he responded, automatically, too quickly.

“No, you aren’t,” she sighs, “it’s worse tonight. It’s actually a little insulting that you think you could get away with lying about that to me.”

“It’s the rain,” he mumbles, then gets up to limp over to his bed.

“No matter what the reason is,” she tries, softer, hoping he picks up on her meaning. “I can help.” Please, let me help somehow.

He meets her eyes for the first time since she offered. Underneath the grimace that’s permanently plastered on his face is something like fear.

“I don’t have to touch your skin,” she adds, quietly.

“I know, I’m familiar with the process,” he snaps, then sighs. He reclines back against his pillows and headboard, swinging his legs onto the bed. He nods, curtly, and says, “Okay, then. Do your worst. I expect you’re going to add this to your timesheet?”

She rolls her eyes at his weak attempt at comic relief and walks over to the edge of his bed, plopping down on the mattress cross-legged, next to him.

“This might hurt more at first, but eventually, it will hurt less,” she tells him.

“Sounds promising,” he grumbles, and throws an exaggerated arm over his face indignantly. (Embarrassedly, she thinks, though he’d hate to realize that.)

She reaches toward his leg and she stops when he grabs her sleeve. “It’s particularly sore today,” he admits, uncomfortably. And I have never let anyone do this and I don’t know what to expect, goes unspoken.

“I’ll be careful,” she says, and he releases her arm.

She begins to work out the tension in his leg, gently at first, since he immediately hisses at her first application of pressure, cursing and muttering “that doesn’t feel careful” under his breath. She smiles in response.

His leg is knotted with tension from the day and also from the tension that’s been building up in him from the moment she touched him since he is apparently using every ounce of willpower in his body not to recoil from her touch.

Eventually, after the awkwardness and pain subsides some, they both relax into a more comfortable rhythm. Her, applying more pressure than before, him wincing occasionally but refusing to say anything or really even breathe differently to give her any indication of pain or relief.

The only sign she got that he wasn’t completely regretting his decision to allow her to do this was a forceful exhale when she changed what she was doing to target a different muscle that was almost a sigh.

“See? It helps,” she boasted.

He didn’t reply, and she continued.

Bit by bit, he relaxed into her touch. She didn’t look at his face, her cheeks hot at the suddenly reality of the situation now that they weren’t picking at each other. She was touching him and he was okay with it. At least, okay enough. And she was sitting on his bed. With him in this compromising position. In this room that only she is entrusted with being in. Doing something only she is entrusted with doing, whatever that means. Instead of dwelling on any of those facts, she just went through the motions of massaging, just like she would for another member of her troop. She was so lost in this process that she didn’t notice his breathing change at first.

His body had gone slack next to her, his breathing deeper. She looked up at his face which was still covered from the nose up by his arm. His free hand crossing his stomach, fingers occasionally twitching. He’s asleep, she realizes, (and much more quickly than a normal, not sleep deprived person would be, she adds mentally.) Her heart tightens a bit at the sight. His face was softer in sleep, jaw unclenched and mouth not pulled into some sort of frown. She feels like she’s seeing something she shouldn’t, that Kaz wouldn’t want anyone else to. She wonders if she’s still included in that “anyone else.” He trusts her with his life and his secrets, but does he trust her with this?

Moving unnoticed is second nature to her, so getting up without waking him isn’t difficult. She considers tossing a blanket over him if it weren’t for the surety of that both waking him up and mortifying him.

She cuts the light and leaves out the window, unnoticed, only looking back at him once... or twice. Kaz doesn’t stir.

#Kanej #kanej fanfic #kaz brekker #inej gafha #kaz x inej #six of crows #I’ve been caught on this idea of Inej massaging Kaz’s leg #it just seems like it would be the natural progression of touch for them #like it’s touch with purpose AND Inej is basically an athlete #anywho enjoy this I guess

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drabbles-of-writing · 3 years

Text

Reverse Au! Dump

Don’t mind my idea dumping here. Brain decided to have fun while I was at work and I have too many wips as it is, so… Thought I’d ask before I dumped, experience. Used morningmark’s comics as a base, so if you want reference. Now this isn’t all that well compiled, but here it goes.

Magic in the Other World is varied as it is crazy. So many styles over the generations and not a lot of organization. There are some that try to categorize it all, but that works as well as you’d expect. Some were lost, some erased, some weren’t passed down/recorded because “the power is all mine! Ahahaha!” It took a lot of time and collaboration, but eventually a sort of system was installed to help out. Still a lot of work to do, but its a step forward. Nowadays the term Wild Magic is generally reserved for those that aren’t all that well documented and understood.

Some Magics are very powerful and desirable, but also tend to be very high risk/high reward, kinda pass/fail, pretty literally Do or Die most times. So not a lot of people can use those or are even willing to. Story says this one guy named Odin hung himself on a massive tree by his own spear for nine days, no food water or rest in constant pain before he could unlock the secret of Runes. But it’s also said he gouged out his own eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom so…

There are lots of different ways to channel magic too: wands, staves, jewelry, certain gems, familiars, potions, enchanted armaments, chants, scripts, etc. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages and play into a Witches’ style. Every Witch has at least two methods of spellcasting. Only children have one. Haven’t thought of how Luz gets her Palisman though. Maybe its one of those magic Artifacts like Dr. Strange’s cloak, Elder Wand, Thor’s hammer, or a Green Lantern’s Ring. Something that can’t be recreated because the secret is lost, materials no longer exist, too hard/dangerous to make, accident that can’t be recreated, etc. Happens more often than people like.

Camilla is sometimes called the Blue Witch. She’s a healer by heart and trade, but push her and she will become a one Witch Battleship. Bismark who? Aaaaand she just deleted a whole battalion. And the fortress behind them. Hide me. There are the very rare occasions, like count on one hand rare, when someone near and dear to her heart is in trouble that she takes up her other job. She’s especially terrifying when she decides to torture, those who know how to heal the body know best how to break it. Many shades of Blue, some are very close to Black. She doesn’t necessarily hate Humans exactly, but doesn’t have the highest of regard from past experiences.

Luz has training and is a proficient Witch for her age. Camilla and her father were adamant about having a general knowledge/skillset alongside her specialized skill. Jack of all trades and a master of none, still better than a master of one. She has gone through the system for her magic with varying success. Oracle magic? Zero talent. Bard classes? She can play an instrument, but can’t sing at the same time. When she does sing she tires too hard and messes up. It’s only when she doesn’t try, like absently singing along with a song or playing by her heart, that she’s good at it. Beasts? Can use them, but would rather play with them. Bleeding heart and all that. She does have a good handle on healing magic partly due to Camilla drilling necessary skills into her and partly osmosis. Her father arranged for some CQC lessons from an old friend of his which the girl loved. You get the idea. It wasn’t until she discovered Glyphs that she found her niche and her skills took off. Glyphs are one of those ‘eccentric’ or 'archaic’ styles since they haven’t been used in so long after being lost and are barely understood. She still has a long way to go, but she is on her way.

Luz never really had much in the way of friends, partly cuz of high profile parents which leads to certain pressures and a target on her head, partly because of her magic style and personality, and partly because of the trouble been going on. Luz grew up her whole life with this tension of a group of anarchists trying to burn society that’s just trying to do the right thing. The anarchists started small, but have been a growing problem the past few decades with talk how to 'reshape the world’ in not a good way. Anyone with critical thinking skills can tell this is a bad idea, but they are too brainwashed to notice. They harass anyone who doesn’t follow their rhetoric and attack anyone who even questions them. Luz’s parents put a real kink in a lot of their plans for years, which makes Luz guilty by association.

Luz got caught in one of those sudden larger scuffles and was accidentally chucked/blown through a portal created by an attempted tactical retreat that went off course. Hence why she can’t go home because she hasn’t learned how to do portals yet. Those are high level anyway so how did these guys pull it off so easily? Luz has a hard time blending in obviously. Learning how to use a phone was a fun endeavor. Internet was a trip. Luz is amazed how these people can do all this cool stuff without magic. Keep a low profile sure, she can pass off as a weird out of town kid. Keep the beanie on, underperform in gym and stuff because some things don’t change, like genetics. Someone sharp eyed will see discrepancies. The Beanie has a small Glamor spell built in that covers her witchy traits but she forgot the ears which is why it sits like it does. Luz can erase memories in case she has an accident, but it’s less of a 'remove my face from this picture with a scalpel’, and more of a 'lemme just hack off the past hour or three from your brain with an axe.’ If she tries to take any more then she starts burning into some more dangerous territory and those Wiped are groggy and disoriented for a while after already. Then the magic attacks start happening and her heroic instinct/anti-bystander complex kicks in and there goes that. It runs in the family so Camilla isn’t surprised in the slightest when she finds out.

“Oh titan, why did you curse me with another me?” “I’m right here Mami!”

Eda has a shack very akin to Grunkle Stan. Lots of junk that Lilith can’t believe that people are dumb enough to buy. She’s also involved in some not so legal dealings on the side. Well, Eda isn’t actually hurting anybody and the tax dollars she should be paying would only go towards some politicians’ next yacht or another pointless overseas 'investment’ instead of where it’s supposed to go so. Eda does give some good intel on occasion and a place to vent so Lillith overlooks her. Lil’s more of the secret police for witches and a petty crook isn’t part of her job anyway. Eda understands Luz’s predicament and is willing to help. The cover story is that Camilla work in hospitals and has to work crazy hours while her dad passed away so is living with Eda for a while. King is that kind of critter that grew up weird and acts like ten different animals all the time.

Gus is the nerdy kid who infodumps on everybody, even if they’re not listening. Loves anything fantasy/sci-fi related and plays Minecraft too. A good kid at heart, but needs some social skills. Keep him away from anything more sugary than tea. Luz learned a lot listening to him. Not all of it is entirely useful, but still. Some of his ramblings give her some good ideas for magic and stuff, like putting Glyphs on cards.

The Blights are the cool rich kids obviously, and have some discipline and social issues. Big family name makes them intimidating for normies and a meal ticket for the unsavory. These kids need real friends. They decided to act out to get some attention from the parents who then decided to ignore them. “If you’re going to act like a child tantrum, get treated like one.” Ed is perfect for Drama classes, if he were allowed to partake. Can’t decide what Em is great at, hacking perhaps? Amity’s car is an inheritance from the only family to treat her as such Twins aside, even if she’s too young to remember it. She only remembers that she has feelings surrounding the car. All three of them were pretty impressed with Luz for standing up to them, calling them out on their shit, and not giving a crap about their family name. Being treated like a normal person is pretty weird. Can we get her to do that again?

Amity tried dating Boscha once, didn’t work out very well. Boscha is still hurting over Amity’s comment of “I’d rather go date the new weird kid (Luz) than go back to you.” It’s one of the reasons she goes after Luz. She has that kind of Bud personality from Spider Man, feels lesser and so acts out so much.

“Wow, this new Witch is amazing. Not as cool as the original Witch.”

“What is it with the Witch with you?”

“Oh, she’s a hero. Looks out for the city and the little guy. She inspires me. Makes me want to be a bigger person. *sees Luz* What’s up Luz-er?”

And that’s what I got right now. I know there was more, but it’s lost to the void right now. Might come back later, maybe not. Lemme know what you think.

............

DAMN you weren’t lying when you said you had an info-dump this is *chefs kiss* you got me intrigued now

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missinghan · 4 years

Text

broken umbrella ⤖ han jisung

❖ genre : high school au; fluff

❖ word count : 1,6k.

❖ warning : explicit language

❖ summary : a typical day in your life starts with having candies poured over your head and ends with breaking han jisung’s umbrella.

❖ note : I wanted to write smth dumb okay-

one.

Jisung gives his desk a harsh kick, one that does no good in releasing his inner storm, only to wince in pain later because he’s an idiot.

Classes have been somewhat less than boring these days, partially because his mind is occupied with thoughts of you half of the time and partially because…well, more thoughts of you. Oh wait, today is a little different than usual considering the fact that you did not give him a proper response.

To what?

Putting it simply, he woke up early this morning to go over his routine more thoroughly—styling his hair, making sure that his tie isn’t sloppy-looking, and spraying himself with his brother’s cologne. He doesn’t usually care for any one of those things until junior starts and you show up. Call him desperate, or delusional, or childish even but it truly felt like fate when you two first encountered each other.

“Yeah right, fate,” Hyunjin snickers loudly, swirling a strawberry-flavored lollipop inside his mouth. “You meant when you fell on your ass on the bus the other day and you accidentally grabbed her collar?”

Jisung feels his cheeks heat up thanks to his friend’s less than necessary comment. “Shut the fuck up, you’re just jealous.” It was great. Not only did he fall head over heels for you, but he also left a bad impression.

Back to the point. All of his hard work this morning is reduced to nothing because of the rain. His hair is messed up, his uniform looks sloppy, and his shoes are covered in mud from skipping through puddles. Not to mention, he showed up timely enough to be there when you opened your locker, having various candies and sweets poured down your head, scattered all over the hallway.

Yeji should have told him you didn’t like sweet things yesterday, damn it. Because he’s never seen you giving him that look before. The look that makes him believe you will make him experience torment and pain, begging for the mercy that never comes—make his life a living hell basically.

“How did your plan go, by the way?” His friend asks out of boredom.

“Fantastic,” he replies under his breath when everything is, in fact, not fantastic.

Hyunjin tilts his head. “Did she know?”

“Know what? That I’m in love with her? I mean I wasn’t trying to be subtle or anything-“

“No, did she know that it was gonna rain today?”

Shrugging, he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose in exhaustion; forty-five minutes periods should be illegal. “Why does that matter?”

“Hey, Han!”

Jisung turns his head to the voice and sees Felix sliding the door to his classroom open, uneven breaths as if he’s been running for his life while holding two umbrellas in his arms. He glances at his friend’s state with a grimace, head cocked to the side in confusion. Luckily, no one really spends recess in class except for loners like himself anyway. “What are you doing?”

“Y/N didn’t bring an umbrella!” The freckled boy exclaims with excitement, only able to coax an amused hum from Hyunjin. “But you have an umbrella, and it’s still raining! Which means…?”

A comical silence falls upon the three of them. It takes Jisung approximately five taps of Hyunjin’s finger on the table to fully process his friend’s point. Realization lights up in his eyes like a candle but dies down with a pout on his face. “But she can just go with her friends?” he says with expressive hands, though a little disappointed.

“I’m not gonna half-ass it if I plan on helping you,” Felix gives the two umbrellas, a white one and a pink one, in his hands a slight jerk, looking oddly proud.

This time, Jisung catches on immediately; his eyes go wide in shock as though his friend has committed the greatest sin. “Yeji and Lia are so gonna kill you.”

two.

“Did you bring an umbrella?” Lia asks while hopeless rummaging through her stuff. “I swear with my own eyes I saw myself putting one in my bag this morning.”

Yeji shakes her head in defeat, tugging at the straps of her backpack. “I was pretty sure I brought one too. I even used it to walk to the bus stop this morning! Someone must have taken it during recess,” she sighs, dreading the pouring rain and grey clouds.

It’s raining again. It’s only been raining today, the weather forecast did predict that it’s most likely going to last for a whole week too (not that you bothered checking). You don’t mind the rain, though. You like the fact that they make the world appear mistier, hazier like a fever dream.

What isn’t good about the rain is the fact that your parents won’t be too happy to see you come home looking like a wet rat. Or the fact that you’ll probably get a really bad cold, and that won’t be pretty during midterms week. Or the fact that most students are absolute idiots and didn’t bring their own umbrellas either. Everyone is shoving each other for space under the canopy at the main gate so the rain won’t soak their clothes.

You’re not having it. At all.

“Yeji, Lia. I’m going home,” you purse your lips together and take a breath.

Lia frowns at your particular solution. “Already? But you’re gonna get wet.”

“My house is a ten-minute walk away. Shouldn’t be too bad,” you say lowly in faint annoyance, eyes squinted from the discomfort of lack of space; these students have no manners whatsoever, you’re getting claustrophobic.

With a determined huff, you pull the zipper of your jacket up and throw the hood over your hair. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Shadow suddenly looms over the top of your head, warmth radiates to your clothed arm. In the corner of your eyes, a familiar face comes into view and forces a heavy exhale from your lips.

“Hey, do you wanna go with-“ Jisung pauses midway when you take off running, shattering his fantasy of living in a drama into bits without mercy. “Y/N! Wait up!”

three.

“Come here! Or you’ll get sick!”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“Y/N, stop being so stubborn! You’re gonna catch a cold!”

“It’s none of your business.”

After walking down several blocks down the road, past nothing but empty plazas and mostly closed café, you even take an extra U-turn, going through a skeptical alley just so Jisung will get tired and stop following you. Your effort doesn’t not prevail so you give up eventually, deciding to take the proper turn to head home before it’s too late to prepare dinner.

The poor boy can feel the rain drizzle down his black umbrella before falling onto his windbreaker, soaking through the fabric to stain his senses with a chilling sensation. He has already calmed every racing thought that ceases to ease his erratic heartbeat but no matter how hard he tries, there isn’t one second where he isn’t thinking about your well-being.

“Hey,” he calls out; when you turn around, he’s closing his umbrella and tossing it to the ground, leaving it to graze the tip of your shoes. “Take it and go home. I won’t bother you anymore.”

You roll your eyes before picking it up, mercilessly letting it flop right in front of him. “I don’t need it.”

Jisung clicks his tongue in irritation, not caring that droplets are falling from his head and his skin is crawling from the cold. Somehow, he’s starting to become baffled for no reason. Perhaps it’s because of your nonchalance about the current situation; you shouldn’t be so apathetic when he’s genuinely worried sick for your health.

His eyes are heavy with rain droplets so he blinks them away before glaring at you slightly. “You need it more than I do. Would you please stop acting irrationally, take the umbrella and head home? The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.” His leg jerks up to kick at the innocent object; still isn’t enough to relish the turmoil hurling his innards.

He brushes past you, shoving your shoulder a little while expecting you to finally accept his offer. To his dismay, you once again grab at the poor, poor umbrella, and throw it at his leg with more force this time. When it drops to the ground with a small thud, his heart pauses awkwardly in disappointment.

The sun is going down by the second but you can still see the faint outline of his scowl. “Go home, Jisung. It’s getting late,” you remark coldly, stuffing your freezing hands into your pocket.

With a loud groan, he marches back to where you two were originally standing, a curse word lingers on the tip of his tongue. But he manages to swallow it back down before gently tugging at the sleeve of your jacket. “Take the umbrella at least,” he voices softly, the crack more evident than anything at the end. “Look, I know I’ve been nothing but a nuisance since we first met. I just really like you and I care for you okay? Go home, Y/N.”

“Please.”

You look at him after moments, your once hateful eyes finally glinting with something else other than general distaste and annoyance. It only takes one glance of his tired eyes to pierce through your phlegmatic front, leaving your raw emotions out in the open. Before Jisung can say another word or take notice of the rare warmth creeping in your gaze, you take his hand in yours and pull him toward a nearby apartment complex to not wait out in the downpour any longer. By the time that you’ve released the grip, he’s still staring into the nothingness, eyes slightly wide in shock.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you gonna go home?” he blurts out finally after snapping out of it.

“This is my apartment complex. But I must have dropped my card somewhere. So I can’t go inside.”

A sigh. “Is anyone home right now?”

“My phone is dead.”

Jisung perks up and his hand fishes inside his pocket. “You can use-”

You inhale deeply, looking away. “Enough is enough, Jisung. Go home.”

“You broke my umbrella,” he mentions, blinking rapidly to bat the droplets away from his eyelashes. “I can’t go home like this.”

Few beats of silence later, a middle-aged woman dressed in a beige trench coat walks past the both of you, two high school students pathetically standing under the canopy like wet rats; she swipes her card against the security lock and the glass door pops open without much effort. Sparing you the last look, she’s probably thinking ‘kids these days’ before heading inside with a roll of her eyes.

Jisung hurriedly skips over to hold the door open for you, motions for you to walk in with his head. To his surprise, you comply but bring your steps to a halt to situate yourself in front of him. His lashes are wet and heavy; that’s when you realize how soaked you both are and how terribly cold the temperature it’s getting. Your hand reaches out to brush the raindrops away softly, shaking his heart to the core.

The silence is graceful in the wake of the moment, the rain in the background just makes everything that much more cinematic. However, Jisung isn’t in the right mind state to fanboy over the fact that his drama fantasy is one step closer to reality. He wishes to cling to this moment forever because he just can’t get enough. He can never.

“I’ll get you a towel,” you pull away calmly, thinking how cute he sort of looks when his cheeks are three shades redder. “And a new umbrella.”

His smile has never been brighter, you notice. Even when he’s out in the brutal cold and completely drenched from head to toe. And wait...have his eyes always been so pretty?

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potterbite · 3 years

Text

falling slowly

five times people found out about eddie changing his will, seeing right through him, and the one time they both admitted what it meant. on ao3

Sometimes, Eddie’s confused when he’s called rude— or on one memorable occasion; a motherfucking shitface —because most of the time he only wants to make other people happy. Sure, that’s not always healthy either, but rude? No. So whenever it happens, it puzzles him a great deal, never quite understanding exactly what was done or said wrong.

On this occasion though, he has no problems seeing how he’s at fault.

“Are you being an ass on purpose or is it for my benefit alone?” Ana spits, and he can’t really blame her for looking as if she wants to punch him in the face.

The thing is, he’s been meaning to end things with her for ages— since before the shooting six weeks ago —but he can never find the right moment. Or, rather, timing is right but the words get stuck in his throat, fire burning through all of them until nothing but ashes and a fresh smile remains.

The irritation he feels for himself bleeds through onto her, staining their conversations, all of them becoming stiff, sometimes as if two strangers talked. And he wants to get out of there, and he wants to stay with her forever just to bask in the easiness of it all, and he wants to kiss her to not have to say anything at all, and he wants her to end it so he doesn’t have to.

So when she took a stray potato from his plate and said, chewing, that maybe she should spend more time with Christopher in case Eddie ever had to work late, because that way she could help, and wouldn’t it be useful if the boy knew her better— well Eddie just lost his head completely.

“Why? Carla or Buck can do that.” He heard the tone of his own voice, the acid not quite coming through, and he had wished it did. The coward in him had made him frown down at the empty plate to avoid meeting her eyes, instead looking at the remaining sauce for the two pieces of potato he’d saved for just that. Ana had taken them without asking. It wasn’t a big deal, and he didn’t mind sharing his food, and he was full anyway— but damn it, he had wanted those last potatoes for himself.

She laughed at his words, soft and easily. “Is Buck honestly the best option? He seems reckless.”

And at this, something had flashed before Eddie’s eyes, red and dangerous, and the words tasted like bile even before they left his lips. “Buck is Christopher’s legal guardian if something ever happens to me.”

This sentence acted as some kind of catalyst for their first— and only —fight, vicious words thrown back and forth in a battle neither seemed to win, but both wanted to end.

So no, Eddie couldn’t blame Ana for calling him an ass. It’s also the very thing that casts him back into the correct plane of reality, a place where he prides himself in being a decent human being, someone his son can look up to.

He forces himself to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Her mouth opens and closes a few times. “W-what?”

“I said I’m sorry. For what I said and for not telling you.”

“I’m sorry too.” Her shoulders sag, and just like that this is the end between them and he knows he’s a coward for letting it be. “And for what it’s worth, you really should tell him.”

Abruptly, as if they’ve mutually agreed upon it, they go to the hallway where he reaches for the jacket he hung there an hour earlier. “I never wanted it to end this way.” This is the truth.

“Me neither.” He can’t tell if she means it or not.

“And I have told him,” he continues as he opens the front door, feeling the breeze from the warm night on his face. He’s about to let go of the handle when Ana’s hand closes over his.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She closes the door before he has the time to think of something to say— but honestly there’s nothing more to add.

***

Eddie doesn’t tell anyone about the break-up. Not immediately anyway. It’s not that he regrets it, or feels sad about it; he’s not even all that remorseful about the way it went down.

But almost a week later, it comes up when he and Chimney are alone in the kitchen, the others dozing by the tv.

“Hey, Maddie is feeling better so I thought that maybe you and Ana want to come over this weekend? You can bring Chris.“

“Ah.” He scratches himself by the ear to buy some time, which is probably what tips Chim off.

“Wait, are you not - ?”

Eddie flicks his eyes around the loft, but no one is close enough to overhear them anyway. “Nah, we broke up last week.”

“I’m sorry man.” Chim puts a gentle hand on his left shoulder and gives him a smile. “Are you okay?”

Eddie nods, because he is. “Yeah. It hasn’t been all that good since before the shooting to tell you the truth, and then we had a major fight after I told her that Buck will be the legal guardian of Chris if anything should happen to me.”

Almost a full minute goes by where Chim just stares open-mouthed at him, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do or say so he stays still, afraid of the gleeful surprise on Chim’s face.

Finally, Chim blinks a couple of times. “Can I be there when you tell Hen?”

“Why?” Eddie frowns deep, not at all what he expected Chim to say.

“Trust me. She can say what I can’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

At this, Chim gets a sympathetic smile on his face. “Oh, I know you don’t.”

And he goes to join the others.

***

To his credit, Chim doesn’t appear to tell Hen what he and Eddie discussed. Unfortunately for Eddie, this means that he doesn’t get a chance to understand what Chim meant. Well, technically, he could just tell Hen and find out for himself, but he did keep this quiet for more than a year— and it was never an active choice, he just didn’t feel as if someone else needed to know, not even Buck at first (which, looking back, might’ve been an oversight on his part)— so speaking up about it now, without being prompted, seems strange, the words falling flat on his tongue.

However, not even three days after telling Chimney, the moment presents itself in the form of Buck.

Eddie, Hen and Chim are eating, their shift about to start, when Buck practically throws his entire body towards an available chair, slamming his ankle into one of the table legs, followed by some loud cursing.

As Eddie practically hears the collective eye roll from Chim and Hen, he chuckles. “You know, some of those words are illegal.”

“Ha ha,” Buck groans in response. “Don’t worry, when I have to raise Chris by myself, I’ll make sure he knows them all. I take my guardianship very seriously.”

There’s a thump, and Eddie looks at Hen; the fork is dangling in the breeze of her open mouth, the food that was obviously just on it lying in the middle of her almost empty plate.

“Say what now?” One of her eyebrows is dangerously high up on her forehead.

Buck looks comically from her, to Eddie, to Chim, and back again. “Um, yeah,” is all he replies.

Sadly, this means Hen turns to Eddie instead, and he really wishes it weren’t so but he can feel himself shrink under her gaze. “Are you telling me you made Buck the legal guardian of your kid if something happened to you?”

“No, Buck told you that,” he jokes, but not a muscle in her face reacts. “Yes, that’s what’ll happen if I die.”

She looks thoughtful— scarily so —as her eyes flits between him and Buck; Eddie can almost feel Chim vibrating in the chair next to his own.

“I should’ve caught on sooner,” she says eventually.

“What?” Eddie’s dry mouth asks even though he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Buck, apparently, is more interested in eating than this conversation and starts picking stuff from Eddie’s plate. Somehow, Eddie doesn’t care.

Hen smirks, and points a finger between him and Buck, and Eddie can feel his eyes bulging, feel the strange beating of his heart in his own ears, the sweat starting on his palms, and Hen’s smirk turns into an actual smile.

She doesn’t elaborate, and when Buck looks up from the platter less than a minute later he seems oblivious to the exchange that has happened.

As the bell goes off and they head toward the truck, Eddie dries his hands on his thighs and drowns out what’s going on inside his head; he’s too scared of all those things he already knows to be true, almost spoken out loud in words he does not yet have.

***

By the time they get back to the station, Eddie has already figured out he needs to tell Bobby about this; it’s only a matter of time until someone slips up and Eddie really wants to be the one to tell his captain this. Not that he thinks it’s a big deal, but he’d feel weird about it if Bobby heard it from the probie.

He knocks twice on the doorframe to Bobby’s office. Both of them have taken a shower and had something to eat, enjoying the blissful quiet between calls.

Bobby looks up at Eddie over the brim of paper he’s holding. “Eddie! What can I do for you?”

Eddie, not knowing what to do with his hands, puts them in the pocket of his pants and takes a few steps into the room, making sure the door is closed. “I - uh, I wanted to talk to you about my will,” he starts.

Bobby nods, opening a cabinet next to the desk to look through some folders. “Have you changed it again since last year?”

Eddie just gapes. “What?”

“I have the copy in here somewhere,” Bobby mutters to himself. “Aha! There it is.” He presents the paper to Eddie, who accepts it. Sure enough, there’s a copy of the will he wrote after the last accident.

“I didn’t know you had this.”

“Your attorney sent it to me. He figured since you gave me the old one, you’d want me to have the new one as well.”

Eddie nods.

“What did you want to tell me about the will?” Bobby looks so concerned that Eddie can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes him.

“Nothing. I wanted you to know about Buck, that's all.”

“Ah.” Those soul gazing eyes locks onto Eddie and he squirms. “I already know.”

Lost for anything to say to this, Eddie sinks down to the closest chair and they sit together in silence until he no longer feels as if those carefully constructed walls he built to contain all he has inside for Buck is crumbling down around him. Soon he’ll be standing in the ruins of a former fortress and the only one left to tell is Buck. Eddie’s just not sure he has the courage.

***

Chris was the first one Eddie told, before he even signed the papers or anything. It just didn’t sit right with him to take this decision away from the boy. For weeks and weeks Eddie thought about the best way to bring it up, trying to come up with replies for all plausible scenarios.

It was a Wednesday when he finally took the plunge.

“Hey buddy, can I ask you something?”

Chris had nodded happily. “What Dad?”

“If I didn’t come home one day, if something bad happened to me, how do you feel about Buck taking care of you?”

Chris didn’t even think about it. Instead, he frowned deeply. “If you’re not here, why wouldn’t I live with Buck? He always takes care of us.”

Eddie had almost laughed with relief, not having foreseen this easiness at all. He ruffled Chris' hair and said, “No, you’re right. I agree.”

They didn’t talk about it again.

***

It’s been almost three weeks since his break-up with Ana, and he still hasn’t told Buck. By now, he’s probably the only one that hasn’t figured it out, but Eddie doesn’t mind. In fact, he steers clear of relationship talk when they hang out; he doesn’t want to hear about how fantastic Taylor is, or what new adventures they’ve been up to.

Strangely, it’s Bobby of all people that tells Buck. Or maybe Bobby tells Eddie, he’s not really sure.

They find Bobby cooking when they start a long shift, all of them gliding towards the whiff of glorious food.

“What’s the occasion?” Buck asks as he steals a green bean.

“Nothing really. Just a happy meal with family.” Bobby stirs the giant pot and adds some spices. “With all the break-ups happening around here, I’m almost worried it’s contagious so I figured we needed an easy dinner together.”

Eddie stiffens, but curiously enough so does Buck, shoulders rigid and face neutral. Instead, it’s Chim that speaks next. “What do you mean? Who else has broken up?”

“Well, Pannikar and his boyfriend, Eddie and Ana, and now Buck and Taylor,” Bobby says, gesturing towards each of them in turn. Everyone nods, as if nothing he said is brand new information.

“You and Ana broke up?” The words are almost as quiet as a whisper, meant for Eddie alone while the rest set the table.

Eddie nods. “You broke up with Taylor?”

“Yeah. Or we both did, I’m not sure.” He gets a deep frown between his eyebrows and the tips of Eddie’s fingers itch to smooth it out. He doesn’t. “We’re still friends though.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck tilts his head a little bit to the right, gazing at Eddie as if he’s a riddle to solve.

Eddie shrugs. Of course, he knows very well why he didn’t say something to Buck but he can’t tell his best friend that— or can he?

Acting on pure impulse, he takes hold of Buck’s hand and drags him away from the kitchen, down the stairs and into their bunk room. He closes the door behind them, leaning on it, and turns to look at the other man; Buck is standing just out of arm's reach. In Eddie’s stomach someone is dancing the conga in circles, begging him to get the hell out of there before he says too much and ruins it all. He ignores this, swallowing hard.

“Here’s the thing. I’ve been waiting for the right words to come to me, to figure out how to tell you what is apparently very obvious to everyone else. I mean, if I just mention how I changed my will, they all get this look in their eyes, and I know they know. And I don’t understand how you still don’t when I feel as if it’s written on my face.”

Buck is silent, and Eddie can’t even be sure his ramble made any sense whatsoever. He rests the back of his head against the door, waiting for Buck to say something, anything. The urge to get out of there is overwhelming, but the sound of Buck’s breathing is as well— harsh and quick breaths, shallow and full of emotions Eddie can’t place.

“I broke up with Taylor because I think I’m more into you than her,” Buck blurts suddenly, his eyes widening as if he never meant to say any of it.

An urge to laugh bubbles up inside him, but he presses it down. “Buck.” The other man’s eyes snap to his. “I made you the sole guardian of my kid if I die.”

Eddie can’t tell who moves first— maybe they drift at the same time, two planets on a collision course — but somehow they meet in the middle, lips crashing together until it feels as if they’re fused together as one. He nibbles gently at Buck’s bottom lip, a gesture that makes Buck practically purr in response; Eddie can feel the vibration of it underneath his fingers, lying in a soft grip around Buck’s throat.

In retaliation— reward? —Buck shuffles them back until Eddie hits the wall with a soft thump, and the quiet groan that escapes him is out of his control honestly. He can’t believe he ever thought that what he had with Ana was enough, not when this has been here the whole time, just waiting beneath the surface for someone to make the first move.

When the alarm goes off, they don’t separate immediately; instead they sigh apart, Buck letting his forehead fall until it meets Eddie’s.

“We really should talk about this,” Buck says, and he’s so close that his breath sends shivers across Eddie’s body.

“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, opening his eyes to meet Buck’s. “But there will be plenty of time for that later.”

(When they get to the truck, Hen smirks at the pair of them when they get in. Eddie pointedly ignores her, but when his gaze lands on Buck he has to bite the inside of his cheek so as not to smile wide enough to crack his head in two.)

(They get around to talking. Later.)

#buddie #buddie fic #911 #my writing #i am weak for some good old 5+1 fics #911 on fox

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blitzturtles · 3 years

Text

Title: Shock

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

Pairing(s): BruAbba

Summary: “Bucciarati,” Abbacchio calls from his place on his knees, just off to Bucciarati’s left and nearest his head. The ground under them is cold, almost entirely made up of old brick. It digs painfully into Abbacchio’s skin, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Notes: I've been awake for 22 hours, and I'm suffering (and so is Bruno. 😊)

“Bucciarati,” Abbacchio calls from his place on his knees, just off to Bucciarati’s left and nearest his head. The ground under them is cold, almost entirely made up of old brick. It digs painfully into Abbacchio’s skin, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Bucciarati, you need to wake up. C’mon,” he shakes the younger man by his shoulder but gets no response. His fingers frantically search for a pulse, while his mind is already putting together the worst possible outcome. He can’t even breathe a sigh of relief when he finds the thump-thump, thump-thump of a heartbeat under his fingertips. The fear is too suffocating, and all he can do is reach for Bucciarati’s face and hold it gently between his hands.

“You have to wake up, Buc-” Fuck formalities, “Bruno. I can’t do this without you.”

He holds his breath for what might be seconds, might be minutes, but finally-- finally-- Bucciarati cracks open those bright blue eyes of his, though they’re far duller right now. Abbacchio doesn’t care. They’re as beautiful as they’ve ever been, and it’s an improvement to the stillness of before.

“Fucking scared me,” he whispers, dropping his head enough that his hair falls in a curtain, hiding the tears that spill freely now. He can’t keep doing this. He’s not supposed to have to do this. Bruno’s retired. Or mostly retired. Enough so that he shouldn’t be bleeding out, surrounded by debris from one hell of a blast.

While he’s caught in his own head, Bruno-- bastard that he is-- reaches up with a hand to try to tuck some of Abbacchio’s hair behind his ear. “Sorry,” Bruno all but chokes out. His voice sounds like someone tried to strangle the life out of him.

Damn near close enough, Abbacchio thinks bitterly, but he can’t stay caught in his own head when Bruno is right there, offering him a weak smile and an apology. As if any of this is his fault.

Bruno ruins it, of course. He tries to get up, but he’s barely able to move at all, much less support his weight in any way that matters. He frowns when Abbacchio presses a hand against his chest and holds him there as he speaks,

“Giorno’s coming. You need to- not move. At all,” Abbacchio explains. Or doesn’t, but he’s not about to run through the list of injuries. It wouldn’t be comprehensive anyways. He has a vague idea of what might have happened internally and an unfortunately vivid one of all the damage done on the surface. It’s a wonder that Bruno’s skin doesn’t match Abbacchio’s from the sheer blood loss, but it’s a damn near thing.

Bruno opens his mouth to argue with him anyways, but he gets cut off by a chorus of his name being called only a few meters away. He turns his head with a wince and a strangled sound that he only barely bites off in time to avoid it escalating into a scream. It tears at something inside of Abbacchio all the same.

“Bucciarati!” Giorno repeats, all but slamming down onto his own knees beside the man.

Abbacchio winces in sympathy, but he watches the kid assess the damage and then come to the same realization that Abbacchio had: Bruno’s dying. Again, but there’s still blood pumping through his veins and breath in his lungs, painful as it may be.

Giorno brings his hands together over Bruno’s chest and calls for Gold Experience, who does much the same. “This is going to hurt,” he says as a warning before Bruno’s suddenly lurching forward.

Abbacchio grabs him quickly, with a few, select curses of his own spilling past his lips. Bruno thrashes against him; the pain is too great for him to attempt to put on one of his braver faces. The shock probably isn’t helping. He had no chance of steeling himself against this, and the adrenaline is long gone.

An eternity passes before the golden glow dims into a nothingness, and Giorno sits back on his haunches with an anxious look on his face. Bruno’s still now, eyes closed. There are tear tracks and his lip has a smear of blood running from the corner and down to his ear. Giorno curses when he sees it, but does nothing more than gingerly wipe it away. The damage is already gone, apparently caught by stand before user.

Abbacchio absently brushes Bruno’s bangs out of his eyes and pets his thumb over sweat-soaked skin. It takes another minute for Bruno to blink at them with a familiar daze. Gold Experience has a remarkable way of making you feel like a truck’s run you over with none of the physical damage to show as proof.

“How are you feeling?” Giorno asks and catches himself wincing at his own question.

“Better,” Bruno lies through his teeth the way he’s wont to do when he wants to be reassuring. “Thank you, Giorno. Leone.”

“I’m going to go- check on the others,” Giorno says, a bit stiff and unsure. He doesn’t want to leave Bruno yet, but the upset is getting to him.

“I’ve got him,” Abbacchio cuts in before Bruno can answer. “Go on.”

Giorno nods and pushes himself up to his feet.

Abbacchio waits until he’s turned on his heels and taken several steps before he adds, “Giorno!” The kid stops almost mid-step. It would be comical, if not for the situation. “You did good.”

“Oh,” Giorno turns to look at him. He blinks, slow and lost, “Thanks.” He moves a little faster after that, whether he’s truly in a rush to check on the others or desperate to get away from Abbacchio and his stunted attempts at praise remains to be seen.

Abbacchio shakes his head. His focus turns downward, where Bruno watches him with something that might be pride. “Don’t,” he says as a warning, and the bastard that he calls his partner smiles a little wider. It’s unfortunately infectious and does a lot to sooth Abbacchio’s aching chest. He gives Bruno another minute to recover before he starts trying to pry him off the ground. Sticky Fingers appears midway through their attempt, and things go a lot more smoothly from there on.

By the time they’ve made it a few steps, there’s suddenly a blur of orange and black in front of them with something held in his hands. A familiar green shape that Narancia holds out to them. “We thought Coco Jumbo would be easier,” he explains without quite looking at them. Afraid, undoubtedly, of what he might find.

“Ah, thank you, Narancia. That would be- preferable,” Bruno answers with the gentle tone he reserves for his brats. It’s wholly endearing the way he puts on a brave face and steadies his voice as much as he can.

“I can-” Abbacchio starts, reaching for Coco Jumbo with one hand while Bruno remains propped against his side and partly supported by Sticky Fingers.

Narancia cuts him off, “I’ve got it!” His words come out a little too rushed, but he coughs and clears his throat before he continues, “I mean, you can both get in.”

Abbacchio hesitates but eventually decides to focus on helping Bruno instead. This way he can keep an eye on him, in case Giorno missed anything. The kid’s good, but he can’t be expected to be perfect.

They settle on one of the couches. Bruno with his head in Abbacchio’s lap, and Abbacchio petting his fingers through his hair. It’s already mused from earlier, but that doesn’t stop him from making it worse now. The skin underneath his hand is warm with a bit of color slowly returning to Bruno’s cheeks. All that’s left now is a proper night’s sleep-- or maybe two or three after such extensive injuries. It takes Abbacchio a moment to realize that Bruno’s already getting a jump start on rest, but he doesn’t stop carding his fingers through Bruno’s hair.

He doesn’t move them, even when they get home. He might have a crick in his neck later, but it’ll be worth it. It’s not often that Bruno sleeps this deeply. Besides, Abbacchio’s not sure he can do the same. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees a stillness that sends his heart racing. He can keep watch a bit longer.

#bruabba #bruno buccellati #bruno bucciarati #leone abbacchio #giorno giovanna #narancia ghirga #jjba #jjba part 5 #golden wind #vento aureo #jojo's bizzare adventure #blitzwrites #blitz

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itsallmightbitch · 4 years

Text

Covert Ops For Dummies

Possibly Part 1? Depends on the interest in a Part 2. I curse my best friend for a thousand years for making me watch this show and basically facilitating a brand spanking new addiction. I fucking love this skinny scarecrow man.

Pairing: All Might/Toshinori Yagi x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Nothing really. Smut abounds. Toshi is insecure as fuck about his body. That’s about it.

Word Count: 8000+ (I um... I might have gotten carried away...)

Summary: You and All Might go undercover, only to wind up stuck in a coat closet for most of the mission. Toshinori is insecure and you’re horny as all get out (and determined to make him see what you do when you look at him).

*gif isn’t mine but is oddly appropriate for this story?!?!???!!

Covert ops with a man who quite frankly defied the laws of stealth, was going exactly the way you’d thought it would. Go you. You were practically fucking psychic.

Not that you were subtly bragging to yourself about being right but… well.

You were.

When you’d been paired with him by an oddly amused Aizawa earlier, you hadn’t thought much of it. You spent most of your time together anyway, so why not work while you were at it? It was a simple job. Get in, get out. Bust down some doors, take some names, kick some ass-

“What the fuck do you mean, undercover!? How is this-” you gestured frantically at All Might, perched precariously on a nearby desk- “In any way, going to go under anything!?”

The man in question laughed and the desk creaked worryingly as it shook along with him.

“You worry too much! I can be stealthy when I want to be, kid!” his voice boomed and the glass of the window rattled in it’s frame from the sheer strength of it.

You levelled a look at him, unsure if he was joking or not.

Standing across from you both, arms crossed and a sleeping bag bunched around his waist- was the mastermind of this future fuck up.

“You two won’t need to be stealthy,” Aizawa explained, his tired eyes sparkling with amusement at your absolutely horrified expression. Neither you nor All Might were built for sneaking through windows after all. “We know it’s not exactly your… strong point,” he said, clearing his throat and then and there, in that little classroom in UA, you learned that Shouta Aizawa actually did have a goddamn sense of humour.

Go figure that it was at your expense.

“You two get to be the diversion.”

Your eyes went wide and one twitched.

“Oh God, how is that better!?”

Everything had gone about as well as could be expected with Mr. Save the Day on your team. Although you, very begrudgingly, had to hand it to him. He did know how to keep a crowd’s attention when he needed to- and if it had been mildly arousing watching him make your suspects cower in fear at the same time then well, that was your business.

All Might and the absolutely appalling mass of muscles that made up his left arm, shifted a little and jostled you into a nearby pile of coats. This resulted in a mouthful of faux fur and a coat hanger in your spleen. Your feet dangled off of the ground, your body suspended against the wall by the sheer size of him.

You grunted in pain, indignant, then elbowed him hard in retaliation.

“Sorry!” he said and now your elbow was aching as well as your spleen. It was like hitting a boulder.

On top of the lack of room to breathe, the heat was almost unbearable. He was like a walking, talking space heater and normally you wouldn’t mind. Really. But being crammed into such tight quarters with zero warning was already making your head spin and the heat wasn’t helping matters.

Your mind drifted without your permission.

It wasn’t the way you’d ever imagined being pinned down by him but- oh, for fuck sake don’t think about that now.

You willed yourself to behave, groaning out loud.

He took your noise of frustration in a different way.

“I know it’s not an ideal situation but I’m sure we can turn this around,” he beamed at you optimistically but since you couldn’t move your arms particularly well, you couldn’t flip him off. He ignored your lack of response and sullen silence, instead craning his neck forward towards the door. He had to shimmy a little and brought you along with him- stuck to his side as you were.

Your wings sagged uselessly behind you, squished into a corner that they had no business being in.

Toshinori squinted out of the spaces between the slats on the wooden door as if he could bend light itself and see around fucking corners. You bit your tongue.

Knowing him, he probably could.

He shifted again, without much thought. You, on the other hand, almost died. Thick fingers brushed over your thigh as he moved his hand and all of the blood in your body rushed in two different directions. One half reddened your cheeks and the other half slammed home between your legs and throbbed deliciously.

Jesus. If either of you shifted in just the right way-

He must have realized because his fingers snapped away as he made a fist suddenly, eyes darting everywhere but at your face. You felt his breath stutter in his chest and he cleared his throat and moved his hand as far away as he could in such tight quarters.You didn’t know whether to curse him for being such a gentleman or not.

“It’s a little cramped in here, huh?”

“You know, I hadn’t noticed.”

Yes. When in doubt, default to sarcasm. That always ended well. But he was unaffected and just fucking chuckled instead, all throaty and low so that he didn’t alert any of the guards outside.

Your ovaries screeched. One fainted.

Half the words you’d been about to say turned into pathetic sounds instead so you simply swallowed them back again.

You needed to put a bit of distance between you before you simply climbed around him and wrapped your legs around his waist for a place to sit. Hissing, you shifted from side to side, wings twitching helplessly in the cramped space. If you could roll your shoulders in just the right way-

“Are you alright?” he whispered, looking alarmed at your sudden frantic movements. You grunted out a yes as you tried to find a way to move your arms properly. He didn’t seem convinced.

“I’m trying to put my wings away before we both suffocate.”

“Oh.”

It took a bit of concentration to ignore the feeling of being practically plastered to his side, but eventually, your wings disappeared with a little whoosh of air and you dropped slightly further towards the ground without their friction on the walls holding you up.

The relief was real. At least two of your limbs could now breathe again- even if the rest were still stuck in this closet. The extra wiggle room was a gift from God as you inhaled actual air. As a bonus, you could now finally turn your scathing gaze on Toshinori.

Bright blue met your eyes and he blinked owlishly back at your expectant ones.

“Is that better?”

“Toshi,” you said, as patiently as possible even though he was being terribly dense. “You could help, you know.”

He paused for a moment- then wiggled as far away as he could. Which by your estimation was about three millimetres. You couldn’t even face palm as your hands were still stuck to your sides.

“Jesus- Shrink down, you big oaf! Your muscles are taking up precious oxygen!”

This closet was definitely not built to contain over five hundred pounds of thick ass muscle. His head was even brushing the ceiling. Eyes comically wide, he looked down at himself like he was actually surprised that it hadn’t crossed his mind to do so already.

He was so not adorable. Not even a little bit.

“Oh right.”

Suddenly you had a face full of smoke instead of muscle and you dropped to the floor without warning. You almost fell against the door but you caught yourself at the last second with your hand on the wall beside it.

Your body sighed in relief at the sudden space and you inhaled dramatically, stretching your arms out, grateful for the blood flow to your extremities. At least now you wouldn’t lose a hand.

A short, wheezy cough from the other side of the closet had you wafting the smoke away, frantically trying to send it towards the little vent instead of the door. The last thing you needed was someone thinking the place was on fire.

After so many months of trailing around after All Might, it was now far less jarring to see him going from one extreme to the other. From the hulking, muscular hero you’d been plastered against moments before, to the walking scarecrow who was now silhouetted in a cloud of smoke.

So when the room finally cleared and left just Toshinori in all of his skinny, hapless glory, you didn’t even think twice about it. You were far more concerned with your ability to finally move your arms again.

The non-reaction was a vast improvement from the stream of expletives you’d let out the first time you’d seen the transformation. It barely even registered as a difference these days. He was still Toshinori. A little clueless, always earnestly sweet and unfairly invading all of your sexual fantasies.

The norm.

But still, even now, those sharp eyes of his watched your expression closely.

For what, you weren’t entirely sure but he mustn’t have found whatever he was searching for because he suddenly laughed, rubbing the back of his neck with one big hand.

“Sorry kid. Must be getting forgetful in my old age,” he said and flashed you a sheepish grin. His hero outfit hung on him, at least seven times too big for his skinny frame and it would have looked comical on anyone else. Not him though. The damn thing still suited him.

You ignored the traitorous, evil thundering of your heart in your chest.

Fuck.

How could he be so impossibly sexy without even realizing it? You swiftly turned away to stare out of the slats like he had done earlier, pretending not to smile. Maybe he did realize it but just had no idea of the effect it had on you. It didn’t even make sense, when you actually sat down and thought about it. Which you had done, many, many times.

He was older than you.

An out and out good guy with a saviour complex.

Skinny, almost worryingly thin- in this form anyway.

On paper, he wasn’t your type. Not even a little bit. But fuck if he didn’t elicit a sinful ache between your legs whenever he was around. He made you disgustingly flustered, even if he was doing something as simple as handing you a stack of papers to grade.

And now you were stuck in the worlds smallest coat closet with him.

If Aizawa was wrong about this fundraiser then you were going to choke him to death with his own scarf.

You could feel Toshinori’s presence behind you, as he silently tried to adjust his uniform to make it fit a little better.

Until you’d followed him up the stairs earlier, it hadn’t been going as badly as you’d thought. He was a decent actor, given the circumstances and it might have had something to do with keeping up a ruse as big as his for so long.

You’d been given the low down that morning. Big shot money man- who had built his fortune on the back of the Number One hero’s smiling face. It wasn’t the sort of thing that either of you would usually deal with but… this one seemed to have a personal ring to it. Cue his hero outfit and a fuck ton of screaming fans.

All Might’s fans of course- not yours.

You’d pulled up at the front gates of the lavish eight bedroom house, just outside the suburbs- and watched with absolute glee as Lanius Snow (con man, ringleader and all around asshole) looked like he was about to have a heart attack out of sheer fright.

But Toshi played dumb as instructed, the atmosphere had relaxed- and all the attention had turned to the guest of honour and away from any potential heroes who may or may not have been sneaking around upstairs. Even the security that had been dotted around were fawning over All Might like school children, asking for autographs and pictures and all around ignoring their posts.

You may or may not have nudged a few of the more eager ladies out of the way once or twice as well.

Totally not your fault in a bustling crowd like that.

All Might had taken the attention in his stride. You had slunk behind him after the first ten minutes, happy to be out of sight and out of mind.

The evening had progressed and you knew that Snow was becoming more and more agitated by the second, talking frantically into an earpiece whenever he thought he was out of sight. None of the guards had earpieces and it was clear that the security down in the main hall was only the tip of the iceberg.

Then everything had escalated when All Might had insisted on being his usual heroic self and had point blank refused to leave the hard work to just Eraserhead. Even when you reminded him that the police were on standby around the corner, it hadn’t deterred him in the slightest.

“Toshi! We’re supposed to be distracting the guests! Eraserhead told us heroics weren’t necessary, remember!?”

You had tugged at his suit in vain as he’d marched up the stairs, checking for guards as covertly as a seven foot mountain of a man could.

“But you also heard Snow earlier,” he’d murmured. “Extra security? Drones? Eraserhead didn’t mention any of that in the briefing earlier. Which means he might be in over his head. It won’t hurt to check on him.”

And so he’d surged onward with you trailing unhappily behind him, unable to stop him and bound to have his back.

You hadn’t even been able to contemplate what was happening when a hand had yanked you sideways moments later and you were suddenly in the dark, pressed against All Might like you were about to become very familiar with him.

A flutter of excitement in your stomach had made you clench your thighs together, thinking that maybe, just maybe, ‘checking on Aizawa’ had just been code for ‘fucking you in a closet’. You wished. As much as you might have enjoyed it, Toshinori was nothing if not a gentleman. He never would have dreamed of doing something so crass.

The big guy got flustered if you just touched his arm. He’d probably flat out faint if you offered to suck his dick.

Another security detail walked past, laughing between themselves and in the narrow sliver of space you could see out of, a glint of metal told you that these men were all heavily armed.

Charity fundraiser your ass.

“It’s a fundraiser for children with disabilities. The people who organised it have promised a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ for these children to meet All Might if enough money is raised,” Aizawa had explained, his voice it’s usual monotone but his eyes flashing with unusual emotion.

You had turned to Toshinori curiously, head cocked and eyebrows raised at his sour expression.

“Let me guess. You’ve never even heard of such a thing?”

He shook his head and you fumed, fists clenching.

“Bastards.”

“Tonight is supposed to be for those kids and we’re stuck in a closet being useless. They’re using your big, dumb, friendly face to fill their own pockets and I’m not even allowed to punch the mastermind in the dick,” you grunted, pushing away from the wall, suddenly angry at how useless you were currently being.

And at the gall these people had.

Taking the God damn Symbol of Peace and twisting it into something vile for their own gain. You wondered how long it had been going on. Weeks? Months? By the look of this lavish house, you’d bet years. So many children’s dreams crushed because they thought that they hadn’t won some phoney competition. Parents wondering if perhaps they had only donated more, given more that they didn’t even have to give...

In your sudden angry outburst, you didn’t watch your steps and stumbled over a pair of shoes that you’d kicked out of the way earlier. Toshinori’s big, warm hand on your arm steadied you. Your fingers wrapped around his skinny wrist and you breathed out, using your grip on him to pull yourself closer.

For a guy who looked like a strong wind would blow him over- he was certainly sturdy. He barely moved, despite your tugging.

“I know,” he said solemnly and his voice was hard in a way that he just couldn’t achieve when he was All Might. “I detest the thought of the hero I try to be, being used as a front for crime. The thought of disappointing those children-”

He looked away from you then, past your shoulder to the door. You squeezed his wrist, warm skin under your palm making your heart stutter in your chest.

“So, I couldn’t just sit still and smile for those people down there… I had to do something proactive. Do you understand, kid?” he asked and tilted his head to the side, looking almost imploring. He needed you to understand why he’d pushed on when you told him to stop. Just like he always did.

You supposed you understood, just a little.

You nodded, lips twitching.

“Then…” he said, a sly grin stretching over his face. “Does that mean you’re not angry at my ‘big, dumb, friendly face’?”

Biting back a laugh, you let go of his wrist and pushed his head to the side playfully. All seven feet of him swayed gently when you did, like bamboo in the wind, as he rolled on the balls of his feet. You must have been a little too close for comfort because you caught the tinge of pink in his cheeks even in the dim light coming from the door.

“I suppose you are a hard man to stay angry with,” you teased and patted his gaunt cheek affectionately. Standing on your tiptoes, you brought your face closer to his, ignoring your usual carefully observed boundaries. “But don’t think you can get away with pulling me into closets in the future, Toshi. You have to at least take a girl to dinner first.”

You made sure he saw when your gaze dropped to his lips and you noted his Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed- hard.

Bringing your gaze back up, you didn’t even have time to wonder where your sudden bravery had come from because your eyes locked with his shockingly blue ones- the same eyes that often invaded your fantasies at night.

Something heated and electric shocked your system and all of your inhibitions flew out of the window, waving their panties as they went.

Your head swam, excitement causing a rush of adrenaline.

“So-sorry! I-I didn’t mean to imply anything!” he almost squeaked, his voice reaching an octave you didn’t think it even could and you smiled up at his red face with a wolfish grin. His body was rigid, like you were about to murder him and it did something funny to your stomach thinking about just how adorably nervous he was from just a little flirting.

It often confused you.

Men and women fell at his feet all the time. All he had to do was step outside and he had phone numbers and offers of ‘coffee’ coming out of his ears. Usually, he took it all in his stride. A few winks here and there, oozing confidence and a hearty laugh while giving them a gentle brush off. It was like night and day compared to the man in front of you.

As of right now, he was rubbing his arm and trying his damnedest to keep his eyes on his feet.

Now, you were no fool and you certainly weren’t a liar. Especially not to yourself.

You couldn’t deny that when he was all buff and muscular, he could make your pussy throb with pleasure with just a look. He didn’t even have to be in the same bloody room as you. All you had to do was happen across a picture of him and you could be ready to go in under fifteen seconds- ten on a particularly good day.

Not that you’d ever tell him that. With his stupid grin and the way he looked like he could snap you in half with his hands. The way he towered over you and the way you just knew that he was packing some serious heat.

Oof.

You pulled in a shaky breath, swallowing back the drool that threatened to spill over.

Thank fuck it was dark in here.

Yet, with all that being said, there was something about him when he was just his regular, skinny self. All sharp angles and rough edges- with his hair a constant mess no matter what he did to it. Toshinori with his sad smile and electric eyes, shoulders sloped under the weight of the whole fucking world. You wanted to share some of that burden sometimes. Make him smile again, like he should be able to.

If you wanted to do that by riding him into the ground then so be it. Who were you to question your own methods?

His hands would still look phenomenal wrapped around your thighs, you decided. He still towered over you and damn, you couldn’t decide which version you liked more sometimes.

Choices, choices. You were practically like a kid in a candy store.

“Maybe I like it when you imply things,” you said, voice nothing more than a purr. Jesus, where had that come from? Oh well. You were on a roll now. Might as well see where this took you-

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said suddenly, expression stormy and his sad voice like a shock to your system.

Your brain screeched to a halt, brakes on as you tried and failed to fit his tone into the situation you’d thought was building.

“Um, do what?” you asked stupidly.

Toshi’s expression hardened, his eyes not meeting yours any more and trained instead on a loose thread that he was tugging out of his pants. The soft frown turned into a scowl and he looked as though he wanted to simply barge past you and back into the hallway- anything to get out of the situation.

But guards were still patrolling and you certainly didn’t want to be caught trespassing so it was a no go.

You hadn’t thought that he would be bothered by your flirtatious banter- and you’d felt braver here in the dim light when it was just the two of you. Had you spooked him that much?

It wasn’t like you hadn’t flirted with him before. In fact, it was pretty much becoming your favourite past time. Stroking a hand over his muscular arm. Standing way, way too close to him. Touching him in public where you knew he wouldn’t be able to escape and would have to stand there, red faced and blushing like crazy.

“Pretend,” he murmured sullenly, fidgeting harder as he fought the urge to flee from the situation.

His expression was almost pained, like this was genuinely hurting him. You, on the other hand, still didn’t have a clue what was going on. What were you pretending about? Your brain, which had been switched to ‘horny’ mode for the last few minutes, tried furiously to gain some traction.

“Toshi, I don’t understand. Pretend to what? Explain it to me like I’m an idiot.”

He scratched his forearm roughly, shrinking in on himself as much as a seven foot tall man could. You had a horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. He took a long, shaky breath. In. Then out. Like he was readying himself for a battle that you didn’t even know was coming.

“You don’t have to pretend that you- ya know… find me attractive. Like… like this,” he said, his voice trailing off until it was so soft that anyone else might have struggled to hear him. Hell, even you had trouble- with only the sound of your thundering heart in your ears and of the world crashing down around you.

Your throat went unbelievably dry and you gaped helplessly. How did you even respond to something like that? It took a long moment of uneasy silence before you managed to find your voice again.

“But Toshi… I flirt with you all the time,” you managed to say, your brow creased. If it was possible, he shrank away even more, like you were shouting and not whispering. He hid his eyes behind his hair, either too cowardly or too embarrassed to meet your gaze and then shrugged, not answering.

But his body language told you everything you needed to know.

“You flirt with All Might,” he whispered.

Oh. Oh!

Holy fucking shit, you’d never realized it before. Not to be self deprecating but you were one dumb motherfucker. You’d always had so much fun making him blush when he was All Might. Breaking down that hero visage to remind yourself that he was still him under all that bravado. You’d never felt the need to do it when he was smaller.

When he was Toshinori… everything he did made your idiot heart skip a beat.

“Toshi… Look, I’m not going to lie to you, okay?” you said and then waited until he looked up before continuing, refusing to have this conversation with the top of his stupid head. “I find you really, really attractive when you’re All Might. I can’t deny it.”

You gave a dumb, embarrassed laugh because hell, you’d never thought you’d be admitting your attraction somewhere like this.

That seemed to be what he’d been waiting for, though.

He openly flinched, head twisting to one side as if you’d punched him. His jaw set, teeth gritted and that sad expression made your stomach twist painfully. Was this what he’d been afraid of the whole time? Why he always searched your expression every time he changed from one form to the other?

“I can change back, if you like,” he offered, in quite possibly the saddest voice ever. You went pale- practically felt the blood leaving your face. What had this man even been through that he thought no-one would want him the way he was? That they would only want the muscle bound hero that smiled all the time? You could have kicked yourself for feeding the dark part of him that thought like that.

Did he honestly think that you would only shower him with affection when he changed back? That he was only worth something when he had fucking muscles?

A cluster of emotions welled up inside you without warning and with a huff, you promptly slapped him upside the head.

Hard.

“Ow!” he yelped, forgetting himself and where he was for a moment. “What was that for!?”

Suddenly, he was the confused one- staring down the barrel of your anger with wide eyes.

“Because you’re being an idiot, Toshinori!” you hissed softly. “Yeah, I want to fuck you when you’re all big and muscular. Just like every other person on the planet who has eyes.” The use of the words ‘I want to fuck you’ seemed to catch his attention more than the rest of the sentence but you let his blush and tense posture slide because he was only human, after all. “It just so happens that I also want to fuck you when you’re- well.”

You gestured to him from head to toe.

“You. You moron.”

Red faced and annoyed, you crossed your arms over your chest and chewed on your bottom lip. How could you possibly make it any clearer to him?

The silence was thick in the little coat closet, your words still ringing in the air.

“Um… really? You’re not just saying that?” he asked, his voice still small but with something hopeful tucked away in the back. Your anger softened.

“You’re more to me than just your body, Toshi” you said after a long moment. “I like you.”

“But that first time, when I changed- I thought-” he argued, like he was trying to convince you that you didn’t actually find him attractive.

“That first time, was the only time I’ve ever reacted. And I reacted because I was surprised. You almost gave me a heart attack,” you shook your head, a smile pulling at your lips. “I don’t flirt much with you when you’re like this because I’m not vying for your time like I have to when you’re All Might. It’s just you and me… like this. And I like it that way. I don’t need to make you blush to get your attention,” you shrugged, slinking closer to him.

He shut his dumb mouth then and while he was still a little skittish, he didn’t take a step back when you invaded his personal space. Instead, he let you snake your way close enough to him so you could lay a hand on his chest- eyes trailing over his sharp features and resting on those big sad eyes.

“I wasn’t turned on when I was pressed against All Might,” you murmured and he sucked in an uneven breath, his fingers twitching at his sides and his lanky body curving towards yours. Without much thought behind the process of what you were doing, you laced your fingers through his and tugged his hand to your body.

The first shock of him touching you was electric and you shivered- guiding his hand down, over your breasts and then across your stomach until you met the waistband of your pants. Nuzzling his jaw, you smiled when he returned the gesture and rubbed his cheek across the top of your head.

His breathing was fast, heavy and you might have worried about him over exerting himself but he seemed fine for now, so you let him enjoy the moment.

You could take a wild guess and say this was the most action he’d had for a while. Not that you were faring any better. Your brain still hadn’t caught up with whatever the fuck your hands were doing.

Fingers still tangled with his, both of your breaths caught when you slid his palm underneath the denim and then down further- under the elastic of your panties. You let him go on his own then, having given him enough encouragement by now. Besides, you were busy trying not to pass out, lightheaded and giddy as you were.

He made a strangled noise, twisting his head down so that his forehead was pressed against yours and he could look at your face like you were personally gifting him the crown jewels.

He murmured your name, questioningly.

“Touch me?” you replied, trying to keep the desperation out of your voice because the hand that you’d often fantasized about was now cupped over your aching pussy, pressing lightly like he was afraid that he was going too far- even though you’d given him the clearest ‘GO’ sign you possibly could. “Please.”

“Okay,” he said, voice wracked with arousal and despite the bagginess of his clothes, when you chanced a glance downwards you could see his erection outlined- eagerly way ahead of his brain. “Okay,” he choked out again, nerves making his whole body tremble.

One long, rough finger, finally slipped between the lips of your pussy and you drew in a sharp breath. Your hands came up to grip his biceps and the sinful groan he let out caused another rush of arousal to seep out of you. He found you soaking and hot and without needing prompted further, he added another finger to rest inside- barely nudging your clit but causing enough friction to make you whine needily.

“That’s what you do to me. Not your muscles. Not your quirk,” you said, breathless, as his other arm snaked around your back. His fingers splayed wide between your shoulder blades. “Not your fame. Just you.”

“Fuck,” he moaned pathetically and without warning, he was moving. Your pants were off and your back was against the wall, legs wrapped around his slim hips before you had a moment to draw in breath. He pushed upwards and pressed his middle finger all the way inside you. You almost saw stars, shivering weakly against him and you opened your legs further to give him more space. With the added fact that you’d never heard him swear before, you were practically melting in his arms- your nails biting little crescents into his skin through the material of his suit.

Your hips bucked, wanting more and so you voiced your desire softly.

“More Toshi,” you urged, breath coming in pants. He nodded. He pulled his finger out and you felt another teasing your entrance before he pushed back in, stretching wider the second time. Then again. And again. And-

“Hnng,” you managed.

You muffled the next pleased sound that escaped you against his neck, then pressed a kiss to the curve that led to his shoulder.

Honestly, you should have been ashamed at the state you were in with just a few tentative pumps of his fingers but that combined with his proximity and your long time crush was almost too much. His cheeks were still pink, his mouth open as he rocked his palm against you and you found yourself on the brink of an orgasm far too quickly.

You nuzzled him, your nose brushing against his and his hot breath ghosting over your lips. The noises you were making were obscene, coupled with the soft wet sounds of his fingers sliding inside of you on repeat.

He sought out your gaze and held it, his hand bunching up your shirt at the back as he slipped it under. The skin on skin contact was divine.

The heel of his palm pressed upwards, sliding against your clit and you jerked hard in his embrace, inhaling a harsh breath as your fingers tightened their grip on him.

He stopped all motion immediately and you pulled back from where you’d been laying sloppy, open mouthed kisses on his jaw.

“Toshi?” you said, blearily, wondering why the pleasure had come to such an abrupt halt.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, concern in his voice.

“What? No!” You shook your head from side to side almost comically. “No, no, no. Keep going,” you urged and he nodded, swallowing thickly. The delicious motions of his hand continued then, rocking back and forward over your swollen clit and dipping his fingers deep inside- hitting places your smaller hands could never dream of reaching.

“So good,” you purred, nearly delirious with lust. You dipped your hand down and palmed his cock through his pants and he grunted obscenely in your ear, breath scorching. His thighs twitched as you traced the length of him- impressive and hard under your fingers. “I always knew you’d be packing,” you laughed, drunk on the atmosphere in your own personal bubble.

You felt him smile, felt his shoulders shake lightly and your heart soared.

There he was.

“Kiss me?” you asked, all wanton and breathy. Here you were already hitting third base and you hadn’t even kissed him yet. He obliged, albeit tentatively at first. His lips found yours, warm and surprisingly soft. You tangled a hand in his hair, keeping his mouth on yours and rocking your hips lazily in pursuit of your orgasm.

He bucked helplessly against your hand when you squeezed and when he groaned into your mouth, it gave you the perfect opening to slip your tongue in to meet his.

You kissed him long and deep, until he hit a sweet spot and you had to pull away to breathe hard. You were so close. So, so close…

“I’m gonna come,” you said, before cupping his face so you could simply revel in his expression as you did.

“You are?” he asked, gaze lingering on your well kissed lips as he tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. Oh, you would definitely have to do something about all that self doubt in the near future- but as of right now you just flashed him a wicked smile and clenched your muscles around his fingers.

All the while, the knot of tension in your stomach balled tighter and tighter.

“Oh yeah, Toshi,” was the only response you could actually form because he suddenly sped up his movements, rocking his hand back and forth until you were just- right- there.

The cry of his name was choked in your throat and your legs trembled with the effort of staying around his hips- although he had the foresight to wrap his free hand around one of your thighs to keep you up. Your muscles fluttered frantically around his fingers and through the wild haze of your orgasm you could only anticipate what it would feel like with his cock inside you instead.

The thought sent another spasm through you and you shook softly, holding onto him for dear life.

There was a long moment where the only sound in the room was of you trying to get your breathing back to normal.

Gently, Toshi pulled his hand away- leaving you feeling dreadfully empty, his nose tracing your cheek as you leaned into him. Your hand fisted in the front of his shirt and honestly, all you wanted to do was curl up against him for the next twenty four hours and reassure him that you’d just had the time of your life.

But, you were still in a closet and he was still hard, so instead, you tugged his hand to your mouth and wrapped your lips around the fingers that had just been inside you.

Keeping your eyes locked with his, you silently revelled in the sheer embarrassed arousal on his face. You ran your tongue between his fingers, and his eyes grew heavy, lips parted and his breath hitching.

Reaching between you, despite the awkward angle, you found his cock straining eagerly against his outfit. The moment you ran your fingertips along the length of him and stopped at his head, he growled low and long in his chest and buried his face into the curve of your neck.

The fingers of his free hand dug into your ass as he held you aloft- backing away a little to give you more room while you refused to release his other hand from your mouth.

You sighed around his fingers, already imagining that they were his cock instead and he must have been imagining it too- either that or he was far more pent up than he’d ever let you know. You only had to suck softly and palm his cock a few more times before he was shuddering against you, panting and groaning as he came.

You finally let him go with a wet pop, letting him shake and spasm in your arms while you laid soft, unassuming kisses to the side of his head and muttered sweet things in his ear. His breath was hot against your neck as he slowly regained his senses- to a certain extent anyway.

Not enough to break away from you just yet.

“Sorry,” he managed, his voice hoarse. You shook your head, thumb tracing circles in the baggy fabric that separated you.

“For what?”

“Made a mess,” he said, giving a breathy, shy laugh that was music to your ears. You pressed a kiss to his palm, then brought his hand to rest over your cheek. You leaned into the warmth of it, enjoying the sweet way he was staring at you It was a far cry from the terrified expression he’d worn earlier.

“Next time you can come inside me. Then you won’t have to worry about the dry cleaning.”

He almost collapsed against you, trembling as he hid his blush against your neck.

“You have to stop saying things like that kid. This old man might just keel over if you do.”

There was nothing but warm affection in his voice when he said that and for once, you realized he wasn’t being hard on himself. Just playful. With you of all people. Granted, you had just made him come in his pants after he’d given you a spectacular hand job.

You’d expect a little of his confidence to return in the afterglow- even if you knew you still had a long way to go before he was back to himself.

“Hmm, you’d better not. I expect at least a thousand more orgasms like that before you get a break,” you said, resting your arms around his neck to play with his hair. Almost as though he was testing your boundaries (ha, they were long gone) he tentatively nuzzled and nipped a few light kisses along your jaw, his hands settling on your waist. It was nice, being this close to him without him stammering and making excuses to bolt.

“Only a thousand?”

“My bad. A million?”

He was just about to steal another kiss from you when-

“Are you two quite finished in there?”

Like deer caught in headlights, both of your heads swivelled around towards the door- wide eyed and suddenly flushed with acute embarrassment as the realization dawned on you.

Was that-?

“I have to let the police up here eventually and I doubt either of you would enjoy being caught in a closet doing… whatever it is you’ve been doing. I could hazard a guess if you like, though,” Aizawa’s dry voice drifted through the slats in the door. “I could hear you both down the hall.”

Before you could stop yourself, nervous giggles erupted from your throat.

You muffled them in Toshi’s neck while he gaped stupidly in the direction of the door, and swiftly forgot what words were and how to use them. It took him a moment to find his voice again.

“Shit,” he finally muttered but he made no move to release your legs from his waist- frozen to the spot and possibly about to die from all the blood rushing to his face.

You got your shit together fairly quickly though.

“Give us a moment, please Eraserhead,” you called out, still grinning like an idiot despite being caught doing something so out of character. For both of you. “Tell them it’s still dangerous up here or something.”

“Shall I say there’s a banshee?”

“Just do it, you jerk,” you grumbled and you heard Aizawa grunt something in agreement before his footsteps faded down the hallway. Had you really both been that loud? Just how long had Shouta been standing guard exactly? You’d almost call him sweet if you weren’t so mortified. You could only guess how Toshinori felt.

“Hey, lover boy. Come back to me,” you patted his cheek and brought his attention back you swiftly. His eyes found yours and you practically melted, forgetting what you were going to say and tugging him in for another kiss.

He murmured your name against your lips after a few seconds, breathless and warm.

“How can you be so calm?” he asked, cupping your cheek and looking at you in confusion.

“I’m still on an orgasm high, I guess,” you answered honestly. It would hit you properly later you were sure, but right now Toshi was still achingly close between your legs and you were still giddy from coming so you could hardly feel much of anything other than satisfaction.

“Oh,” he laughed shyly, finally lowering you back to your feet at long last. Your legs felt like jelly and you held onto him for support.

You felt his eyes on you the entire time you were shakily pulling on your underwear and then your pants and you might have felt a little bit of a confidence boost at the hushed noise of loss he made when you were fully covered up again. You couldn’t resist the sudden urge to slide yourself against him- sighing contentedly when his arms came up to wrap around you.

“Want me to stand in front of you until we can leave?” you asked, amused, kissing his Adam’s apple and he swore again, seemingly only just remembering that he’d come in his pants like a teenager.

“I don’t think it’s too bad… I think my underwear got the worst of it.”

You cocked your head to the side, finally looking up from where you’d been finding new places to kiss on his neck.

“You wear underwear with your hero outfit?”

“You… don’t?” he asked, clearly confused.

Waggling your eyebrows at him, you flashed him a sinfully cheeky grin.

“That’s something for you to think about the next time you see me in it, isn’t it?”

He groaned loudly, tugging you closer and laying a kiss to the top of your head. The affection wasn’t at all unwelcome. How long had you been wanting this exactly? It felt like forever. You revelled in the sudden change in him, despite still being his skinny self. His shoulders weren’t as sloped now and his expression was almost playful.

You couldn’t wait to see what he would look like when you got him into a bed- could barely focus on anything other than the thought of stripping him bare and riding him long and slow until he knew, for sure, that you wanted him just the way he was.

You opened your mouth to tell him as much.

“If you two don’t come out of there now, I’m coming in.”

That was Aizawa’s teacher voice and you both sprang apart, muttering apologies through the wood. With a cough, you were suddenly half propelled out of the opening door by hard muscle- All Might behind you now instead of Toshinori- and came face to face with Aizawa.

“Eraserhead,” you said meekly, your bravado suddenly wilting under his unamused stare. All Might ducked under the door frame behind you, his face beet red and looking everywhere but at the irritated pro hero. It was almost comical but you swallowed the nervous laugh that threatened to bubble up.

As subtly as you could, you shifted in front of him- just in case his underwear hadn’t been as effective as he was hoping.

“How… um, how much did you he-”

“Everything from ‘Ow, what was that for’,” he answered before you could finish. Ah yes, when you’d slapped the back of Toshi’s head and he’d forgotten himself. Your eye twitched and All Might made a choked noise that sounded like he’d started to think of something to say . You opened your mouth to speak, but Aizawa brought a hand up and cut you off abruptly. “It might be none of my business but, how long has this been going on?”

You cocked your head to the side. Not the question you’d been expecting admittedly but…

“Just ah, it’s just been the closet. So far,” you tacked on quickly when you felt All Might tense slightly. He relaxed though, his fingers brushing yours behind your back. You could practically feel his eyes on you, curious and warm. You resisted the urge to grin like an idiot and wink at him.

Aizawa grunted out a noise of... approval?

“Good. Just making sure. Go home, both of you. We’re basically wrapped up for the night.”

With that, he nodded and turned on his heels to walk away- leaving you both to stare after him. You only found your voice when he reached to top of the stairs and before he could disappear out of sight, you managed, “Wait! You’re not mad that we got distracted?”

Aizawa paused, an unsettling and unfamiliar grin spreading across his face.

“Hizashi owes me a rather large sum of money, thanks to you. What’s there to be mad at?” he said, in an oddly upbeat voice. He continued on his journey, disappearing from view as you gaped at his back. But he had one more thing to throw back over his shoulder. “Oh and you might want to wrap a towel around your waist if you’re going to use the front door, All Might. There are eagle eyed reporters everywhere.”

Well.

Fuck.

#all might x reader #toshinori yagi x reader #bnha #all might #smut #BNHAFF

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mtraki · 3 years

Text

Brain chemistry is messing with me... got me in the bad feels looking at dark roads... So let’s try and drag ourselves out of it through hyperfixation! It’s time to rant about Agent 47′s brain chemistry-- specifically all the serums and antidotes that artificially change it! (It’s a rant... I won’t take up space on your dashboard scroll if you don’t want to see it, but if you do, please check out under the cut. Spoilers for the comics and Hitman Season 2-3 are unmarked...)

The focus of the rant is thus: “Exactly what did Ether’s antidote do?” ‘That’s easy, MT,’ I hear you tell me, ‘It brought back 47′s memories that were wiped by Ort-Meyer before he escaped the lab.’ Forgive me, strawman Reader, (but as always, thank you for your faithful engagement) but I don’t think it’s that simple... Maybe because I overthink things, or maybe because the details aren’t adding up... Let’s discuss. In the cutscene in HITMAN 2 (Hitman Season 2) ‘Long Shot’, Olivia and Lucas provide a syringe from Ether Biotech Corporation. According to their information, Ort-Meyer’s estate and his research were granted to the corporation (through Providence) after his passing. The syringe is supposed to be an antidote to what Ort-Meyer used to wipe 47′s memory. Using the syringe, 47 is able to remember Janus, the first Constant of Providence, so they can go get his info on the Partners... and kill him. ‘Yes, MT,’ you say, ‘so it’s easy. The answer is right there.’ Well, please bear with me... In the next cutscene ‘Gifts and Curses’, our leading ladies Diana and Olivia are doing the real work (tracking Janus’s coffin) while our lads are being moody. Lucas asks 47 if he’s all right and 47 says, “It comes back in flashes. Fear. Anger. But like it happened to someone else.” Later, in ‘Precautions’, Lucas and Diana talk about how Lucas has feelings about the things he’s done, and 47 does not-- a parallel is drawn between these feelings and “having a conscience”. In ‘The Ark Society’ mission, on the Isle of Sgàil, as you’re marching Arthur Edwards, the Constant you are abducting, to the harbor, he’ll fish around for information by giving some of his own. For the purposes of my rant, there is an exchange I want to focus on: Edwards: “...Your murdered him [Janus] to get to me.” 47: “Not just that. He had it coming.” Edwards: “Interesting. It was my impression that you were cured of such... sentiment. The ‘good doctor’ built his serum specifically to target the seats of your emotions. Has Miss Burnwood’s sense of justice rubbed off on you, I wonder?” This is where I feel the need to stop and point out that there are TWO DIFFERENT SERUMS at play here, that were forced on 47 at TWO DIFFERENT TIMES in his forgotten past. This is shown in the comic series. SERUM #1) This serum was given in 1989, after 47 and 6 failed to take over the Institute. 47 sacrificed himself so 6 could escape (though he was presumed dead) and instead of being killed like he expected, due to pressure from Janus (who spoke as Constant for the Partners of Providence) Ort-Meyer instead used a serum to stifle his and the remaining clones’ emotions. This one was an injection to the neck (like the antidote). Here are his exact words: “I gave you something most people lack: a true purpose. And you cast it aside. For some misguided dream of freedom. Why?” “It’s that storm inside you. All those feelings I fought so hard to lock away. Raging, driving you. So now I must wipe them out entirely. A small chemical insult designed to target the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the cingulate gyrus. The seats of emotion. I’ve just sawed the legs off them. Do you understand, 47?” “Your memories remain intact. But now they’re a series of events with no significance.” The effects of this serum were devastating. With the singular exception of 47, every other clone more or less lost the will to live. They died of starvation, dehydration, infected bed sores... losing any and all motivation for anything. Meanwhile, 47 became an apex predator of murder, stating that the opportunity to complete the assassinations handed down by Providence through Ort-Meyer were the reason he went through each day. He had a hand in the deaths of a good number of clones, either via poisoning or smothering. SERUM #2) This serum was given in 1998 (that’s nine years after the first one) after Providence demands Ort-Meyer give them 47 as the only success of his very expensive perceived failure. Ort-Meyer gives this serum, without the permission of Providence, very specifically so that 47 will not remember him to assassinate him. This serum is given orally, and through a hose and pump apparatus. Here are his exact words: “I only need one more day, and a moment alone.” (This is included strictly to point out that 47 must have escaped that exact same day) “I raised you as my own. Taught you everything you needed to thrive in this fallen world. And now I have to take it all away. You would come after me. It’s the only way I can be free from having to watch over my shoulder for the rest of my life. It feels like drowning at first. Don’t struggle. I’m going to make you perfect. Now you have all the potential in the world.” 47 wakes up later to the voice of Ort-Meyer over the intercom. He implicitly trusts the voice, as he knows nothing else. He knows about the existence of nothing outside of the room and the voice. He starts making associations as he goes on, and points out that he understands how some things work (”The mechanics of breathing, the science that makes remotely operated restraints possible.”) and the justifications behind their existence (”Somewhere deep down, I even understand the need for them.”). As he makes his escape, he observes that their is familiarity in the sensations of killing. Out in the world, he continues killing on his own for about a year, claiming that his work is his only indulgence and that he doesn’t need things, friends, or stories. He does also claim to have a few stray memories that haunt him-- elicit emotional responses in him (which we also see in Absolution with the whole “doctors” flashbacks). Edwards should not know about the mind-wiping, and his dialogue does not betray that he does. Lucas apparently knows about both, but I’m going to attribute this to “Lucas became personally invested in learning what happened to 47 specifically after learning he was alive and working for ICA, so put the pieces together once he stole the data from Providence” because he wasn’t around for either serum. Meanwhile, Edwards doesn’t have many reasons to worry about 47 until he starts trying to use his past as a lure for Diana. Because his angle is to eventually reveal that it was 47 (AND 6... they were on the job together, per the comics) who killed her parents, and the fact that that juicy reveal would hurt that much more if he could reveal it as something 47 knowingly hid from her... I don’t think he’d go out of his way to discredit Janus’s reporting on the situation that only the first serum was given, and something else happened that allowed 47 to escape into the wild. Janus is apparently Edwards’s beloved mentor, after all. ‘MT,’ I hear you say, ‘You’re rambling. What’s the point here?’ The point is that 47, a man who does not mince words, makes the observation, when asked, that he remembers fear and anger. These are the things that stand out to him in his memories. The emotions. This is in violation of the first serum’s properties as well as the second. Now, why is this happening? Perhaps the first serum has an effective lifespan, and perhaps it’s wearing off. Perhaps 47′s human (arguably superhuman, per some sources) brain is adapting to make necessary associations despite the “chemical insult”. Or... was this antidote supposed to also be an antidote for the first serum? It is noteworthy that 47 starts behaving in ways that suggest more emotionally-driven motivations after the antidote is given-- at least it seems that way to me. This seems especially the case at the very end of HITMAN 3 (Season 3), ‘Untouchable’, when 47 is confronted with his guilt, with his feelings about what he perceives Diana’s thoughts and feelings to be, and with his choice in the end concerning Edwards in the final confrontation. No matter what he chooses, he owns his choice and all the baggage and consequences that come with it. At the very end, in the cutscene 'New Deal', he tells Diana that he isn’t ‘Agent 47′ anymore. That he chooses this path because he can. Perhaps I’m very much misunderstanding the themes, here, but 47 not remembering his past never struck me as something that held him back from choosing something else. It has always been his inability to connect with others in any way outside of infiltrating their spaces and killing them... with very, very few exceptions... that has kept him from choosing a path outside of murder-for-hire (perfectly executed, of course ;) ) So I’m left at the end with the conclusion that 47 is now able to operate as his own conscience because he now has a... mostly usable independent sense of morality-- which requires a certain level of empathy. So... again: what’s the deal with the antidote? Is it two-in-one? This would be fine, (Okay, not really, I would then have to rant about how this only makes sense as a convenient plot device because for which person BESIDES Agent 47 would such an antidote be useful unless they also work with the first serum... and oh boy IMPLICATIONS... I know we keep crashing their stock but can we crash their production too?) except the antidote is only referenced as working to return 47′s memory... and his ‘warmer’ dialogues through the end of 2 and into 3 with his allies is simply treated as matter of course-- nobody points it out. I don’t know if this is a problem with my perspective, the writing, or what... But it seems like Lucas knows and doesn’t know about both serums at the same time (he comments specifically about 47 remembering things... but not him behaving more emotionally engaged)... Or like the games smooshed both serums together while the comics had them separate. This isn’t like the whole “we don’t talk about Absolution though we do wink and nod that it mostly happened in canon” thing. The comics were written as a companion for the HITMAN: World of Assassination trilogy! I know how I’m treating it for 'Monstrous’ (because if I don’t, I’ll go crazy and rage-quit the fic) but it still bothers me... Anybody got any ideas? Nuggets of lore I missed? Am I the only one stressing out about this??

#my mic #agent 47 #hitman #lucas grey #world of assassination #MT is ranting #I know I overthink #13th #April #2021 #April 13th 2021

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simul16 · 3 years

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The Curious Case of the Original Women of Ravenloft (or Loose Canons Can Be Dangerous)

For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore, but they are not canonical for the D&D roleplaying game. -Jeremy Crawford Those among us who are fortunate enough to become shepherds or stewards of the D&D game must train ourselves to become art and lore experts so that we know when we’re being faithful to the game’s past and when we’re moving in a new direction. We decide, based on our understanding of the game’s history and audience, what artwork or lore to pull forward, what artwork or lore needs to change, and what artwork or lore should be buried so deep that it never again sees the light of day. -Chris Perkins There is a very simple statement to be made about all these stories: they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. - Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder"

There's been a bit of a stir in the D&D community over some comments that Jeremy Crawford made at a press briefing prior to the D&D Live event about how only the information published in a WotC Fifth Edition D&D product is 'canonical' for D&D. There was enough of a reaction that Chris Perkins, self-described as "one of the D&D Studio's principal game architects", published an article on the WotC site (linked under Perkins's name above) explaining this statement and explicitly calling out what it means when discussing an intellectual property with a long-standing and vast catalog of lore, where that lore is one of the primary positive features of that property.

On the surface, it seems pretty straight-forward. Crawford's comments focused on not overwhelming partners with lore requirements when producing peripheral products like novels and video games so that they can focus on producing their product rather than meeting arbitrary lore requirements (not that this seems to have helped the most recent video game product release). Perkins mentions this, too, explicitly evoking R.A. Salvatore's novels and how Salvatore (perhaps infamously) used to incorporate elements into his stories that were outright illegal according to the D&D game rules (such as Drizzt's dual-wielding of scimitars, only made legal in 5e, or his creation of Pikel Bouldershoulder, a 'mentally challenged' dwarf who believed himself to be a druid and even eventually displayed druid-like abilities, even though dwarves in the D&D of the era of the Cleric Quintet series, where Pikel appeared, were not allowed to be druids). Perkins's comments also refocused the discussion on players, DMs, and their games, making the point that every campaign develops its own canon, and that the version of the Forgotten Realms run at a given D&D table does not perfectly match either the version of the same world run at a different table, or even as presented in the official published campaign sourcebooks.

This position is easily defensible; I even presented it myself in a response on Twitter to Perkins's own comment on an event in the Acquisitions Incorporated campaign he runs and records for online consumption. A restaurant that exists in the Forgotten Realms of Acquisitions Incorporated might have been shut down for health reasons after a shambling mound attack in a different campaign, or a previous party of PCs might have made a disastrous error during the war with reborn Netheril that led to the fall of Cormyr, with the coastal area of the former kingdom being absorbed by their rivals in Sembia while the interior lands were allowed to be overrun with monsters migrating out of the Stonelands (which makes for a nearly ideal 'starter zone' for a new 5E Realms campaign, IMO).

But just because there are benefits to such an approach to canon doesn't mean that it's the best way to approach canon, particularly with respect to a property which has had a long lifespan and is expected to have an even longer one. There are plenty of ways to criticize such an approach, many of which have been brought up by other commenters:

In any long-lasting intellectual property, there is a core of fans that are devoted to the lore and canon of that property -- see Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. 'Loosening up' the lore not only convinces your existing super-fans not to continue to support and evangelize your property, but also prevents the creation of a new generation of such fans to continue your property's life into a new generation of fans.

Since much of what is on offer in a published sourcebook is the current 'canon' (despite Perkins's statement that "we don't produce sourcebooks that spool out a ton of backstory", the reality is that much of the content of sourcebooks like the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is setting material: i.e.: "backstory"), if you're not going to stand up for the lore of prior editions, and by implication make it clear that future editions aren't going to be beholden to the lore of even this edition, then why get heavily invested in the lore at all? (This ties into the above point, as the fewer people who get invested in the lore of a property, the fewer evangelists for that property you will produce.)

If you have any Organized Play for your game (which D&D does, as does so-called 'living card games' which are based on an advancing storyline), loosened canon makes it easier for those authors to produce content, but simultaneously makes it harder to incorporate the content that players enjoy into the overall game. In addition, the later stories can't take into account all of the potential outcomes that a given group might have taken through a given adventure, so in effect, this turns all adventures into "railroad plots" with respect to the larger campaign narrative, where the best outcome is assumed for each adventure and thus the PCs don't really have the ability to influence the overall metaplot. (This gets complicated, because it necessarily involves different campaign outcomes contesting with one another to become the 'canonical' outcome, which is itself pretty challenging. Regardless, one of the attractions of a 'living campaign' is that the campaign in theory adapts to respond to the actions of the players; a 'living campaign' that doesn't do this is no different than a traditional scripted campaign.)

Perkins's final point in his essay, though, seems just as important to the current 'administration' as any of the other explanations, and that's the quote referenced at the top. In effect, what Perkins is saying is that the 5E team wants to be able to take what they consider 'good lore' and keep in in the game, while revising or outright eliminating 'bad lore'. Again, this seems like a defensible position, but it also has a flip side: it assumes that your changes to the lore are not just lazy or arbitrary, but are made consciously and for specific reasons. This could work well if you actually follow through on your intention, but given the realities of publishing on a schedule, it's inevitable that some amount of lazy or arbitrary decision-making will occur, and in those decisions, you can inadvertently (or allow someone without your knowledge to deliberately) make decisions that harm the canon. The statement seems reasonable, but as we'll discover below, it's actually fundamentally dishonest.

With that in mind, let's explore...

The Curious Case of the Original Women of Ravenloft

The original Ravenloft setting as released in the early 1990s, like the game studio that released it, contained a lot of old white guys, and it didn't necessarily get any more diverse with time. The early 3E Ravenloft product "Secrets of the Dread Realms" by Swords & Sorcery Studios lists eighteen Domains of Dread, half of which were unambiguously run by old white dudes. Depending on how you want to define 'old' and 'white', you could even add a few more domains to the list (such as Verbrek, ruled by the son of the former old white dude darklord, and Markovia, depending on whether you consider Markov to still be human enough to qualify as an old white dude). Only five domains were ruled by female darklords, and one of those (Borca) isn't even wholly ruled by the female darklord. Comparing the darklords of Secrets of the Dread Realms to that of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft points out just how much of a priority it was for the 5E team to increase the diversity of darklords in the setting.

Curiously, though, the female characters retained from classic Ravenloft don't appear to have been changed in a manner that fits Perkins's explanation of what they consider when deciding what to bring forward from older lore, as in nearly every case, the character became less interesting and possesses less agency in her current 5E presentation than she did in her original pre-5E incarnation.

Jacqueline Montarri

Let's begin our survey with a character who technically doesn't yet exist in 5E lore, and thus by Crawford's definition doesn't exist in lore at all. It might seem odd to begin my presentation of 'female characters deprived of agency by their 5E presentations' by starting with a character who wasn't presented, but on the other hand, being removed from canon and thus from existence could be argued as the most severe loss of agency possible for a character.

Jacqueline doesn't exist in 5E because the organization she founded, the Red Vardo Traders, doesn't exist in 5E. In older editions, the Red Vardo Traders was both a legitimate trade company as well as a criminal organization engaging in smuggling, assassination, and other crimes, and are based in the Barovian town of Krezk. The version of Krezk presented in Curse of Strahd, however, makes no mention of the Red Vardo Traders, choosing instead to present Krezk as a small village dominated by the Monastery of Saint Markovia*, a location that does not exist in pre-5E Ravenloft. The Red Vardo Traders were founded by Jacqueline for a specific purpose, and thus both their legitimate business operations and their criminal pursuits are but shells for their true purpose: to find Jacqueline Montarri's head.

* - Saint Markovia himself was initially presented in the late 3E reboot adventure "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft", as one of the inhabitants of Castle Ravenloft's crypts; Markovia was changed from a man into a woman as part of Curse of Strahd, and the Sanctuary of First Light, the largest church of the Morninglord in Ravenloft pre-5E and placed in Krezk by its developers, was re-written in Curse of Strahd as the Monastery of Saint Markovia.

Montarri sought the secret of eternal youth, and in doing so, consulted with the Vistani seer Madame Eva to find it. Eva originally resisted, but finally revealed that the secret rested within the library of Castle Ravenloft, and Jacqueline, out of a desire to be the only possessor of such a secret, out of a need to do evil, or perhaps both, murdered Eva before departing for Strahd's castle. Unfortunately, Jacqueline's infiltration of Castle Ravenloft attracted Strahd's attention, and she was captured, turned over to the villagers in Barovia, and beheaded for her crime against Strahd. However, some of Eva's fellow Vistani asked to take custody of the body, explaining that the woman had murdered their leader, and Jacqueline eventually awoke -- wearing Madame Eva's head. She since learned that she could 'wear' the decapitated heads of others, and cannot survive long without one. Jacqueline's body has not aged, but her head ages a year for each day she wears it, requiring her to continually murder (and possibly assume the identities of those she murders) to survive while she searches for her original head, the only thing that can break the curse that Eva's kin placed upon her.

That's a pretty amazing backstory, and one I'd think would be very worth including in a new Ravenloft setting, save for one problem: Madame Eva's death. Now this isn't actually a big problem in the context of classic Ravenloft: both Eva herself and her tribe of Vistani were known to have a 'curious' relationship to time (former Ravenloft writer John W. Mangrum explicitly called Madame Eva a "time traveler" when it was pointed out that Eva's continued existence in Ravenloft canon suggested that she had not actually been killed), but it did cause confusion among those with a more static approach to continuity. Since Eva unambiguously exists in 5E Ravenloft, being referenced in both Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, it appears that the decision to jettison Jacqueline and her Red Vardo Traders comes mainly from a desire to untangle that confusing bit about Eva actually being dead but still walking around.

Granted, the need for an organization like the Red Vardo Traders is perhaps less significant in a Ravenloft where the Core doesn't exist and every domain is its own Island of Terror, but given that Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft still lists a number of organizations known to be capable of travel between domains, including two that they just invented out of whole cloth, it would seem as though making use of a pre-existing organization might have worked just as well. The other complicating factor is that Montarri is not herself a darklord; with the focus of the 5E Ravenloft experience on darklords as linchpins of the setting, having a compelling NPC who isn't a darklord (but who honestly could be made into one fairly easily, as her curse lends itself to a darklord's punishment and her formation of the Red Vardo Traders into her way of dealing with the limitations of being a darklord) would seem to detract from what the 5E designers were trying to do with the setting.

But this isn't the only or even the worst example of a female character deprived of her agency in the new regime...

Gabrielle Aderre

Unlike Jacqueline, whose elimination from Ravenloft seems like an editorial red pen taken to an otherwise merely irritating issue, anyone familiar with Gabrielle Aderre's backstory realized that her background would have to change significantly given the changes to the Vistani in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

In pre-5E Ravenloft, the Vistani were an exotic human culture of outsiders, driven by their heritage and abilities to make their own way within the Domains of Dread, and having developed mysterious abilities and customs to protect themselves from its dangers. Non-Vistani were viewed with suspicion, to the point where the Vistani had a specific word ("giorgio") for non-Vistani, and those who chose to breed with non-Vistani and their offspring were frequently outcast from Vistani culture. Female Vistani were often gifted with 'The Sight', a precognitive or divination ability, but the Vistani took great pains to ensure that no male children were born with The Sight, lest that child grow up to be a prophesied doom-bringer known as a Dukkar. (One such seer was Hyskosa, whose legendary prophesies eventually led to the Great Conjunction which nearly tore the realms apart.) Because of their separation from mundane society, more traditional settlements tended to fear the Vistani, especially their rumored skill with fashioning deadly curses when wronged, and though Vistani would often trade with such settlements, they were never truly welcome in them; ultimately, the Vistani would follow their wanderlust and move on, leaving even more strange tales and confusing lore in their wake.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft changed all that. Now, the Vistani are simply a sprawling human culture who "refuses to be captives of a single domain, the Mists, or any terror." Their abilities are no longer unique -- there are a number of Vistani who "possess the Mist Walker Dark Gift" that can be taken by any character -- though they are said to "understand how to employ Mist Talismans" with their "traditional magic". Instead of being seen by others as mysterious outsiders, now "the news and goods Vistani bring ensures a genuine welcome" from more traditional settlements, and only "more dismal communities view Vistani with suspicion"; likewise the Vistani themselves no longer refer to non-Vistani as "giorgio", nor do they seem to have any issues with those of mixed Vistani blood traveling or dwelling among them. Most significantly, the legends of the Dukkar no longer exist, with both male and female Vistani serving as spellcasters "with many favoring divination magic for the practical help if provides in avoiding danger." In fact, Hyskosa is no longer a lost seer prophesying the doom of the Dread Realms, but "a renowned poet and storyteller" who is alive and leads his own caravan of Vistani through the Mists.

Given all of this, Gabrielle's pre-5E backstory would need to change quite drastically. Gabrielle's mother was half-Vistani, and possessed enough of The Sight to prophesy that Gabrielle could never seek to have a family or tragedy would be the inevitable result. Learning to hate the Vistani based on her mother's incessant refusal to acknowledge her desires for a family, Gabrielle eventually abandoned her mother during a werewolf attack, fleeing into Invidia where she was captured and brought before the darklord, who sought to enslave her to command her exotic sensuality. Instead, Gabrielle made use of the traditional Vistani "evil eye" to paralyze the darklord, murdering him and assuming his lordship over Invidia. Not long after, Gabrielle was visited by a 'mysterious gentleman caller', after which she discovered she was pregnant, eventually giving birth to a boy who proved to possess The Sight. Delighted that she had managed to give birth to a Dukkar, she failed to realize how quickly the boy grew or how powerful he proved to be until her son, Malocchio, usurped her throne (but not the dark lordship of Invidia) and cast her out of his court. Though there are definitely some problematic things in this story, it's not so terrible that it couldn't still serve as the foundation of a tragic Darklord's origin.

In Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Invidia is detailed among the short descriptions of "Other Domains of Dread", and her pre-5E backstory has been utterly thrown out. There's no indication of how Gabrielle became darklord of Invidia, who the father of her child is, or anything from pre-5E lore. Instead, Gabrielle has become one of the parents from the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- a rich, bad mom convinced of her child's greatness and willing to accept anyone who supports that story while turning a blind eye to her child's misbehavior and cruelty toward his servants and teachers.

Pre-5E Gabrielle wasn't ideal, but at least she had a drive: she wanted a family, and refused to accept that her desire could not overcome the inevitable grinding wheel of fate. 5E Gabrielle arguably isn't even evil, just supernaturally deluded (ironically, her main flaw is her blind acceptance of the rightness of her own privilege), so it's not even clear why she rather than Malocchio is the darklord of Invidia. Rather than wanting a thing she can never have, 'modern' Gabrielle assumes she has a thing that doesn't exist, and is less a tragic figure desperately trying to assert her own agency than a deluded puppet, acting out a part in a drama that makes no sense. Granted, as we noted above, some degree of Gabrielle's old backstory would need to change to accommodate the other changes to Ravenloft lore as part of the 5E transition, but the decision to simply throw out the old Gabrielle and turn her into a character who isn't even aware of her own lack of agency in her situation is, in its own way, even more tragic than Gabrielle's original pre-5E story.

Isolde

Isolde is a fascinating character, because she was created after the Carnival, the group she leads in Ravenloft lore. In pre-5E Ravenloft, the Carnival was the Carnival l'Morai, run by a sinister being known as the Puppetmaster. The events that led to the Carnival breaking free of the Puppetmaster's influence are detailed in the 1993 Ravenloft novel "Carnival of Fear". Then, in the 1999 supplement "Carnival", John W. Mangrum and Steve Miller take the Carnival l'Morai and introduce them to Isolde, a mysterious woman who joins the Carnival and assumes the role of its leader and protector. Much of the internal story within the supplement itself involves the theories that many of the other characters have about who Isolde is and where she comes from, and how various aspects of the Carnival, such as the Twisting (a change that comes over those who remain with the Carnival for any signficant amount of time and seem to bring hidden or secret traits to the surface as exotic abilities or mutations), relate to her. In the end, though (spoiler alert!), Mangrum and Miller reveal Isolde's true backstory -- she is a chaotic good ghaele eladrin who voluntarily chose to enter Ravenloft in pursuit of a fiend named the Gentleman Caller (thus the Carnival supplement is also the origin of the Caller, one of the signature non-darklord villains of the setting). The Twisting is revealed to be a side-effect of Isolde's 'reality wrinkle'; as an outsider, Isolde can re-make reality in a short distance around her, and one of the ways she does this is by bringing someone's inner self out and making it visible to others. Honestly, if you wanted a domain or group whose underlying reason-to-exist seems tailor-made for a modern RPG audience, it would be one where having your inner self revealed to the world, one that you've been taught is freakish and strange, proves to be beautiful to those who accept you.

But that's not what we got in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, perhaps because of the book's insistence on page 6 that "Nowhere Is Safe". Instead of the 3E ghaele eladrin, Isolde is now just an eladrin, a 4E planar elf variant. Instead of entering Ravenloft and finding the Carnival l'Morai in need of a leader and protector, she was manipulated first by a powerful archfey into leading a fey carnival, then inexplicably decided to swap carnivals with a different carnival run by a group of shadar-kai through the Shadowfell, even going so far as to accept the intelligent (and evil) sword Nepenthe, who is the actual darklord of the Carnival.

Again, as with Gabrielle, some simplification of Isolde's backstory was probably inevitable, as the original backstory made use of very specific Ravenloft mechanics that the 5E version simply doesn't want to deal with (mainly Isolde's 'reality wrinkle' which drives the Twisting). But not only did the designers take a character who had explicitly chosen both to enter Ravenloft in pursuit of the Gentleman Caller and to take leadership of the Carnival to serve as its protector and changed her into a character who is manipulated into doing everything she does that gets her into Ravenloft (and leaves her no memory of how or why she got there), the designers didn't even decide to keep Isolde as the most significant character in Carnival, allowing the sword Isolde carries to take that starring role.

Oddly, a lot of the changes to Isolde's story are reminiscent of the classic Ravenloft story of Elena Faith-Hold and how she became the darklord of Nidala in the Shadowlands, which suggested to me that perhaps at one time the Shadowlands were not going to be included in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and the changes to Isolde's story were meant to be a call-out to what would be the missing story of Elena. But the Shadowlands also exist as an "Other Domain of Dread", so in the end, the changes to Isolde served no real positive purpose.

Interlude

It's worth taking a moment to contrast the characters above with the domains in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft that gained female darklords who didn't have female darklords previously:

Dementlieu, formerly ruled by Dominic D'Honaire, is now ruled by Saidra D'Honaire; it is hinted but not stated explicitly in Saidra's backstory that she is not actually related to the former darklord, but simply assumed the family name as part of her assumption of the rulership of Dementlieu, in which the Grand Masquerade must be maintained above all else.

Falkovnia, formerly ruled by Vlad Drakov, is now ruled by Vladeska Drakov; Vladeska's backstory makes it plain that she is a female re-skin of the original Vlad Drakov, himself a character from the Dragonlance world of Krynn. Other than her origin, which is now no longer tied to Dragonlance, her backstory is largely the same as her predecessor's, save that instead of the dead rising to battle Drakov's attempted invasions of their northern neighbor, Darkon, now the dead rise to reclaim Falkovnia itself from Vladeska's attempt to 'pacify' it.

Lamordia, formerly ruled by Adam, the creation of the mad doctor Victor Mordenheim, is now ruled by the mad doctor Viktra Mordenheim; Victor's hubris in his attempt to create life are matched by Viktra's attempts to defeat death.

Valachan, formerly ruled by Baron Urik von Kharkov, is now ruled by Chakuna; in one of the few backstories in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft that acknowledges a former darklord, Chakuna's backstory is that she had to become a monster (a were-panther, specifically) to defeat a monster (a panther who was polymorphed into a man as part of a revenge plot, fled from the Forgotten Realms into Ravenloft upon realizing what he was, where he was transformed into a vampire...look, not every convoluted backstory for the old Ravenloft darklords was necessarily a good convoluted backstory).

I'd argue that each of the darklords above retains her agency in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, but it's curious to note that each of those darklords seems to have inherited that sense of agency from her relationship to the male darklord that preceded her, sometimes literally (in the cases of Saidra and Chakuna) and sometimes figuratively (in the cases where Vladeska and Viktra are mainly female re-skinnings of the original male darklords). The designers clearly have the capacity to allow a female darklord to exercise agency and have drive and purpose to her existence, if that drive and purpose was inherited from or inspired by an original male character. If the character was a woman all along, though, then agency and drive and purpose are not really important to the designers, if they can fit that character into the specially designed hole the size of the concept they had for the new domain. Which brings us to the character who I feel was done dirtiest by the designers in moving from classic Ravenloft to 5E...

Jacqueline Renier

Jacqueline Renier is one of the original Ravenloft darklords, tracing her origins all the way back to the original "Black Box" campaign setting released by TSR in 1990. She appears in two different places in that boxed set -- once as the chaotic evil darklord of Richemulot in the Realm of Terror booklet, and in a portrait of the Renier family included as a handout in the box. The Renier family was actually an ancient wererat clan in the world they originally came from, and Jacqueline herself was the granddaughter of the patriarch of the clan, Claude Renier. When the Reniers fled into Ravenloft to escape the justice of their original world, they first appeared in Falkovnia, where they ruled the sewers until finally forced out by Vlad Drakov's troops. Fleeing into the Mists, the Reniers found themselves in the new domain of Richemulot, and Claude found himself the domain's darklord.

Jacqueline proved an eager student in the manipulative ways of her elders, however; both her grandfather, who maintained control over the clan through a combination of coercion and sheer force of personality, and her mother, who murdered Jacqueline's father seemingly only so that Jacqueline and her twin sister would not need to lose the Renier name. Jacqueline learned the game so well that one day she manipulated her own grandfather into his destruction at her hands, so cleanly that no one else in the family dared to oppose her ascension. Jacqueline was now the matriarch of the Reniers, and the ruler of Richemulot.

But 3E Ravenloft added a few additional wrinkles to Jacqueline's backstory. In the Ravenloft Gazetteers, it was revealed that Jacqueline's ambition to assume control of her clan and the domain of Richemulot were not just driven by a desire for power, but in the name of a vision of the future where wererats would reigns supreme over all other humanoids. She began encouraging migration into the largely undeveloped and underpopulated lands of Richemulot, while overseeing work in putrid laboratories to develop the Becoming Plague -- a disease that would transform humanoids en-masse into wererats under Jacqueline's ultimate command. In every speech Jacqueline would give about the glorious future of Richemulot, it was not the future of humanity she was referring to, but rather the coming age of the rat.

Jacqueline's backstory wasn't perfect -- as with other female darklords, she also got saddled with the 'she desperately wants to be loved and is terrified of being alone' trope -- but for the most part, this is a truly impressive backstory. And in our age, a domain featuring an ambitious politician pushing nationalism to motivate her partisans, only for that nationalism to not be what her partisans believe it is would seem to be an extremely fitting template for horror. It would certainly seem possible to re-write the few problematic aspects of her character with more modern tropes; make Jacqueline an 'ace' (asexual) but who still craves romance based on her upbringing and is both attracted to and terrified by anyone who might potentially prove to be her equal, and you've got what I'd consider to be one of the best darklords in the setting.

As you might expect, given Jacqueline's placement on this list, that's not nearly what we got in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Instead, Jacqueline was born as a noblewoman within Richemulot, and was quick to notice that the rise of the bourgeoise would threaten the power of the nobility and lead to their diminution in society. Jacqueline's grandfather was not the charismatic, sadistic mastermind of a clan of wererats, but an aging nobleman growing infirm in his old age, and he proved unable and/or unwilling to work to change things, so Jacqueline would need to be the person to reverse her family's fortunes and the decline of the nobility in society. Not by doing anything herself, mind, but rather by trying to find an organization of nobles working to maintain the supremacy of the nobility. Finding them, she learned too late that they were secretly a society of wererats when she was forcibly made into one of them, but she quickly adapted, rising to command both the rat and wererat populations before finally unleashing a plague -- the Gnawing Plague -- upon the populace. Rather than converting the population into wererats, the Gnawing Plague just killed them, and when the people begged Jacqueline and the nobles for aid, Jacqueline made helpful noises but did nothing useful (it's not recorded if she uttered the words "Let them eat cake," as she watched the peasants die). Her 'torment' as a darklord is that she wants to return to the privileged life she had as a noblewoman, but can't, as the need to supervise the creation of new, more virulent plagues and unleash them to keep the peasantry from revolting and overthrowing the nobility prevents her from building the kind of society that would actually support a thriving nobility.

Instead of a domain where we have seen the future and humanity has no place in it, we have a one-percenter using every ounce of her privilege to stay above the ranks of the peasants she despises. Instead of an intelligent, ambitious planner capable of executing long-range goals flawlessly, we have a vapid, shallow socialite yearning to return to her days as a debutante. As villains go, Jacqueline has fallen a long, long way from her portrayal in pre-5E Ravenloft.

Probably the most offensive part of the redesign of Richemulot as 'the plague domain' is that we've spent over nineteen months living through a plague of our own, and the kind of horror that is presented as Richemulot's primary adventure cycle, the Cycle of the Plague, bears almost no resemblance to the reality we've lived through. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft presents a world where common people are to be feared, and authorities abuse their power to heartlessly quarantine the sick to stop the disease from overtaking everyone, yet say nothing about the horror of those who refuse to accept that the plague exists, or who profiteer from bizarre 'cures' and treatments. The designers present Richemulot as an example of 'disaster horror', where "the world has fallen into ruin -- or it's getting there fast," when the domain could be an example of the most classic of all horror tropes: humans are the most horrible of monsters.

Thus, the final quote leading this essay. It's not my place to argue that the folks who wrote Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft are good or bad writers, and as Raymond Chandler noted, it's not really necessary. After all, "[t]he poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn't know what to be honest about." And ultimately this entire drive, to try to distance the product from the mistakes of the past by also distancing it from its successes, all while presuming that one can correct the deficiencies of the past without committing mistakes that, in hindsight, will seem just as obvious to our successors: that undertaking is fundamentally dishonest. The people writing, editing, and publishing Dungeons & Dragons today grew up on the old tropes that are now being rejected as no longer being relevant, as unnecessary complexity, as potentially harmful, without realizing that the harmful bits aren't just what was written down, but what was learned, such as a woman's motivation and agency meaning little unless they correspond with those of a man.

Yes, there's a lot of stuff published before 2014 that seems bad to us today that, for whatever reason, didn't seem bad to us back when it was published, read, and became part of our fictional worlds. But there's also no reason to assume that process ended in 2014. Update the lore where it's needed, but realize that the process never ends, even with the lore you're writing today to replace it.

#dnd

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