#〖 I DON'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS 〗REL. JACK

[cheapshrimpysheep]

First Date - Savanaclaw

SUMMARY: What would your first date with him be like? I know first dates might not go so well, but let's pretend these are different. ;)

CHARACTERS: Leona Kingscholar; Jack Howl & Ruggie Bucchi

TAGS: Fluf; GN Reader; Flirting; Kissing

WARNING: Spoilers from Ruggie's Gala Couture Lines

WORD COUNT: An average of 630 words per character.

Heartslabyul / Savanaclaw / Octavinelle / Scarabia / Pomefiore / Ignihyde / Diasomnia

COMMENTS: Maybe I went slightly further on Leona's part. Don't worry, don't run away from fluf that much if you don't want to. Jack's and Ruggie's parts are cutest because they are cutest too.

I hope you enjoy ;)

Leona will never ask you out on a date out of free will. You have to be the one to tell him to do it! Why? Because for him to spend time with you in his room chilling and things like that are enough. Why take you to a restaurant if he can get someone to cook for you and bring you the food? Why take a walk in a park? Can't you guys just keep sleeping in his bed? So, the only way is if you annoy him enough.

“Herbivore! I'll pick you up at seven. Be ready.” he just told you, one day. You ask him where. “Didn't you want a date? So let's go out to dinner.” You smile but also raise an eyebrow, waiting for him to say a certain thing. “What? You were the one annoying me to go on a date and now you want me to pay too?”

“You were the one who invited me. And I don't know where we're going. Also you have more money than me by far.”

He sighs “Fine, fine, stop whining. I’ll pay.” He smirks “But you better behave. Oh, and make sure you wear something nice. They don't let anyone dressed sloppy in.” you look him up and down “For your information, I know better than you how to dress acceptable for some places.” he says with all his smugness. “You just need to dress a little formal, no need for fancy clothes.”

When you arrived at Ramshackle Dorm, there was a box waiting for you. You didn't need to look for clothes for the date, they were right there. When you open it, there were beautiful clothes, exactly the style you liked. Either a dress or a shirt and pants, depending on what you would prefer to receive. (He know, I don't) And matching shoes and accessories.

“I hope you don't make me for this.” you tell him when he arrives to pick you up. He smirks: “It's not the first time I've donated clothes to those most in need. Look at Ruggie.”

“I'm pretty sure these clothes don't fit you.”

“I never said I just donated my clothes. Now, are we going or not? We have time to be there, you know?”

It was a relatively expensive restaurant, with excellent cooks and food, beautiful decor, well dressed waiter. And Leona still insists on saying that he only did it so you would stop bothering him with a date? How stubbornly proud!

Tho, it was a different experience always be reminded that you were the date of the Prince of Sunset Savanna. The waiters sometimes treating him as "Prince Kingscholar" or even "your majesty". Every now and then you would notice people at other tables looking at the two of you and talking to each other.

“What?” he says when he notices your slight discomfort with the looks of others. “Don't tell me you're embarrassed to be dining with a prince.” He smirks, as always. “You know they're jealous of you, right?”

Despite the attention, dinner went very well. When it came time to pay, he didn't even look at the bill and simply paid with his card. And as you were leaving, he made sure to put his arm around your waist. To further instigate the murmur.

“You know” he says, with you two back in Ramshackle “when I pay for Ruggie's stuff, he reciprocates by doing some of my housework.” he lifts your cheese with one finger. “What are you going to do for this date?”

You can choose: do some of his housework like Ruggie OR grab Leona by the collar, kiss his lips and see where it leads and if in the end it's enough to pay off your "debt".

If he gets the opportunity, or waits for it, Jack will want to take you somewhere with snow. Since this is his natural habitat and this will allow him to have more ideas to make you happy.

If you like snowboarding or skiing: you'll have fun together, maybe even do some racing. If you're not too proud, he'll let you win a few times or try to finish the descent side by side with you.

If you don't know how to ski or snowboarding: he’ll happily offer to teach you. Do I need to say his tail is wagging like crazy? He is an extreme sports guy. But he'll go easy on you, respecting your time to learn. He is the type of tutor who will be proud of you for your efforts and progress. He just wants you to have fun, not to learn quickly.

If you get cold, he’ll always be ready to hug you or, in a critical case, give you his coat and take you somewhere warm. And that warm place could be a cafe with hot chocolate on the menu. Hot chocolate with marshmallow and whipped cream. Maybe those same marshmallows shaped as hearts, if the owner knows Jack and wants to mess with you two a little bit. If that happens he will blush.

When he notice, or you notice and point it out to him, that started snowing, he'll ask you if you’d like to go on a walk with him. Don't worry, it's not a hike, it's really just a stroll. He takes you to a park. The scenery was white and brown from the snow that covered the ground and the bare trees. If there is a lake, this one will be frozen over.

He’ll put one of his hands in his pocket, but the one next to you is out. And you two are very close to each other. You give him your hand and he reciprocates by intertwining his fingers with yours. He needs a few minutes to not turn completely red when he looks at you, like this next to him. He walks so that you are slightly ahead so his tail doesn't hit you as it swings.

The walk with Jack is pleasant, but maybe there will come a time when you want to make a snowman with him, for example. “Um? Really?” He does this with his younger siblings, but he still sees this as kind of a child's play. But if you show that you really want to do it, he will eventually give in to make you happy. And if you say you've never made one before, then he'll give in even faster.

After the two of you finish the snowman, you pretend to step back to enjoy the work you two did. And as soon as you find him distracted you throw him a snowball. “Oi!” he looks at you behind him. You laugh and he smirks. “Ha ha. So, you want to start a battle with a pro? I admire the courage!” Obviously he's not going to give it his all, he doesn't want to hurt you.

At some point you will hide behind some tree or bench. But when you get up again to throw him another snowball, you don't see him anymore. He appears behind you and hugs you trapping your arms. “Hey! That's cheating!” You say.

“According to my siblings all's fair in love and snowball war.” He tells you. All's fair in love, hum? He's not squeezing you too hard. So you manage to turn a little, your faces close enough for you to kiss his lips.

He was taken by surprise. And maybe that kiss won't last that long because you're in public. But when you go to a more private place...

Ruggie is broke. Probably as much as you. So he must have postponed your first date as long as he could until he could do something worthy of a date. And that is: a picnic. The only thing he has to pay for is food. One of the things he loves most. But he’ll still try to convince you to pay for half of the stuff. After all, the date is also yours.

He made the food. Because cooking is cheaper than buying ready-made food. Don't be surprised if when you meet him to go, he knows where, he has not one but two picnic baskets and asks you to carry one. He knows that he himself eats a lot, so he takes extra food to make sure there's enough food for both of you. Since he's not picky about food, to the point of eating anything, he only cooks things he knows you like. This way it will be good for both of you.

He will take you to a field surrounded by a sea of colourful flowers. If there are dandelions among the flowers, he’ll nibble on them. As soon as he finds a good spot that won't ruin any flowers he spreads out the picnic blanket and starts setting things up. Lucky for you he gave you a basket to carry. This way, you were able to slither inside a little something that you bought for him. But you'll leave that for later.

Despite how much he likes you, when he eats he only focuses on the food. So it's only in moments of break from eating that you two chat. As you two speak, he picks up one flower at a time and starts to intertwines them. You ask what he’s doing. “A Flower Crown. I used to make this to the neighborhood kids back in the slums. Do you want me to teach you how to make one?”

You end up making each other a Flower Crown while talking. Yours might be a little crooked if this is your first time making one. But he will love it anyway. You used a lot of dandelions to make his crown. And he used his favourite flowers and/or colours. The one he made for you was practically perfect.

“Don't be upset if I eat my crown. Shye hee hee.” He says seeing so many dandelions when you place the crown on his head. It ends up going around one ear, but it's not wide enough to go through the other. It's cute. He puts the one he made on your head. “Heh heh. Cute.” he comments. “Look who’s talking.” you answer.

“Are you still hungry?” you ask.

“What kind of question is that? I'm always hungry. The only thing able to make me full would be a banquet for three entire kingdoms. Shye hee hee.”

You put your hand inside the basket you carried and pull out a rectangular box. “Oh, I was just wondering when you were going to get me those donuts.” He says and you look at him. “Sorry, but you can't fool a beastman's nose. Awww, don't be sad. At least I waited until you took the box out.”

You open the box, still a little sad that you couldn't make it a surprise. He leans towards you, kisses your cheek affectionately and hugs you from the side, which was a trap in disguise. “Awww. The date was going so well. Don't be sad now. Come on... laugh with me.” De does not use his magic on you, instead he attacks you with tickles.

You, trying to escape his tickling, end up lying down and he lies down beside you. When he stops the tickling attack, this will be your opportunity to attack him with a kiss on his lips that are so close to yours.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

#Twisted Wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #disney twisted wonderland #twst imagines #twst wonderland #twst fluf #Twisted Wonderland Fluf #Leona Kingscholar #Leona Kingscholar x Reader #Leona x Reader #Jack Howl #Jack Howl x Reader #Jack x Reader #Ruggie Bucchi #Ruggie Bucchi x Reader #Ruggie x Reader

[ms-demeanor]

how do i find a laptop that won't immediately break when (not if) it slides off the tray on my lap while I'm reaching for a pencil or something? I thought I was buying something relatively robust with my current laptop but it's gotten damaged twice in two years, even though I was trying hard to be careful. Any tips on where to shop for something more durable?

Anyway your tech explainers are very helpful, have a good day!

Generally speaking, laptops are built to be lightweight, not durable.

If I had unlimited money to spend on a computer, I'd get a Panasonic Toughbook maxxed out on all the specs and I'd end up with a computer that cost more than some cars I've owned and would be totally worth it. I actually own two 20+ year old toughbooks that are totally worth it and Large Bastard owns several (we paid between 0 and $100 for each of these), but those are all old enough that they're dedicated to a single task like programming radios, not useful as modern computers. A new Toughbook starts at around $2k and goes up to obscene prices.

This is a laptop that costs more than any car I've ever owned, and will survive a fall of fifty feet and can be used fairly effectively in a thunderstorm.

Because laptops are built to be slender and small, they don't have a lot of room left in them to flex or to pad against drop damage. If a laptop is sliding off your lap and onto the floor, that's probably a fall of at least two feet, which will be enough to significantly damage most laptops because they are not meant to withstand falls.

If you are certain that you are going to end up dropping your laptop, you need to look for ruggedized laptops.

There are low-end ruggedized laptops for students, these are typically chromebooks and I wouldn't recommend them because they are chromebooks and also they tend to be really underpowered.

Toughbooks are the highest, high-end ruggedized laptops. If you've got the money for them, you can't do better, and there are some that are decent when compared to similarly priced slim laptops.

The Dell Latitude 5430 Rugged is somewhere in between those two options; it's expensive but not extortionate and it's not the most powerful computer in the world but it'll do laps around a chromebook.

But if you're looking for a thin, lightweight laptop that is going to survive a fall, I'm just going to recommend that you upgrade your warranty to include drop protection and anticipate it breaking. Laptops aren't designed to survive falls.

Laptops that are in metal cases tend to do a little better in falls than laptops in plastic cases. Laptops with nothing plugged in during a fall are less likely to get damaged than laptops with USB or power jacks in use.

Good luck, and you have a good day as well!

[bubbles-lounge]

Their younger sibling

Summary: You were Jade and Floyd's younger sibling. They had been quite protective of you most, if not your entire life, and the only other person you knew was Azul. It annoyed you a lot as their protectiveness stop you from having friends but maybe this might be a turning point. Since your parents had a business problem/trip that would take awhile away from home and didnt want to leave you alone, your parents managed to get you into NRC(Probably through bribery) and now you were searching in Octavillne looking for your brothers or Azul.

A/n: Part 2. Sorry for not posting much been ill a lot for some reason and school(when I can actually go in). I hope you enjoy this small piece of writing I've done, have a nice day and remember to look after your beautiful self!

It had been around a year and a bit since you had seen either of your brothers or Azul, you were pretty excited to see them again. The headmaster had put you into Octavillene and now you were looking for them. Anyone you had asked about the location of your brothers or Azul they gave you a shocked or pity look. You knew that your brothers were scary to many people and the power Azul had but still, you hadn't expected people to find them scary enough to throw pity at people who wanted to find them.

You shrugged it off as you entered Octavillene, you wondered a bit before and met some pretty nice guys, their names being ace, deuce, yuu, jack, epel and sebek. They seemed relatively nice, maybe this may be fun for you and maybe you'll make some new friends! Or maybe it will take a dark turn and they'll become like your brothers, just romanticly. You entered a place called monstro lounge, you sat down and as you were doing something on your phone you felt someone pick you up you looked at the person to see Floyd!

"Little elver!! " Floyd hugged you tightly with one of his large smiles.

"Hey big brother! " You hugged him back just as tight (eel strength) reciprocating his large smile.

Floyd picked you up and spun you around excitedly. People were staring mainly at you and seemed shocked, not that you really paid attention to, you were too happy seeing your big brother again!

Jade came out to see why Floyd stop doing his work and to see what all the fuss was about. Jade goes towards Floyd spotting someone in his arms, as jade comes closer he recognizes the person to be you. Jade stops Floyd from spinning as you now regain your balance, Jade whispers something to Floyd as Floyd picks you up and takes you somewhere.

"Hey big brother!! " You look over Floyd's shoulder to Jade as you shoot him a smile of yours.

Jade gives you a small smile back before responding

"Hello elver. "

Floyd kicks open a door as someone makes a fuss over what Floyd did before questioning why a person was over his shoulder, Floyd puts me down onto a couch with a sudden yelp emitting from the persons throat. I look at the person.

"Hey, zuzu! "

You look at Azul using the name your brothers started calling him before you joined in on calling him it.

"Little elverrrr~, your still gonna call Azul, zuzu? " Floyd said with a over dramatic whiny voice as Jade chuckled before nodding in agreement. I simply shrug my shoulders as Azul clears his throat before saying

"(Name) what we you doing here? As far as the school goes you shouldn't be here? " All three of them look at you in curiosity at Azuls words now letting them realize the fact you shouldn't be here with all these other people

"Mum and dad are going on a long business trip or problem and they didn't want me staying back at home alone they found a way to let me stay at NRC while they were away! "

They all look at each other in shock that their parents didn't tell them before, they look at you as Floyd flops down next to you and wraps an arm around your shoulders.

"Hey little elver, you don't go talking to others but us mkay? They are a lot of bad people here at NRC. "

Jade and Azul nod in agreement as you look at them dumbfounded. The people you had met here so far seemed relatively nice though? You voiced your concerns to your brothers, Azul had to leave to go and sort out something out side and said he'd be back.

"But the people I've talked to so far seem quite nice.. Although one if them was rather loud they were still nice enough? "

You watch them carefully as they faces seemed shocked.

"Elver you talked to some of the others here, before you found us? "

You nodded as you swore your brothers faces looked unhappy maybe even sinister, but it was too quickly gone for you to be certain, you pretty sure though it happened... Right?

"Little elver, who were these people? "

Your brothers grins looked almost sinister as their face expression was unreadable,which was unusual from Floyd. You explained you had talked to the first year group, you explained how they seemed relatively nice. What you didn't mention was that you planned on talking to them again later after you'd talked to your brothers and Azul.

"Elver the people here aren't what they seem. Your better sticking to me and Floyd, we wouldn't want our little sibling getting hurt, now would we Floyd? "

"Of course not Jade~"

You shook your head at you siblings protectiveness,could it be called that anymore? Wasn't it more than that? as a octavillene student came in and said Azul requested their presence back in the lounge. He flashed you a pity look and left just as quick as he had arrived. Your siblings look annoyed at the thought of leaving you now they had you back in their grasp.

"Ne little elver don't leave the VIP area okay? Me and Jade will be back we just need to take care of some business. "

You nodded at them as they left. The momment you couldn't hear them you found another way out and slowly and stealthily made your way out the lounge. Sure you loved your brothers and you enjoyed seeing them and Azul again but you hadn't really had many friends your entire life and now was your chance as you searched for the first years you met earlier and the one you got their number off. Your think his name was yuu?

#✿yumi ideas✿ #platonic yandere twisted wonderland #platonic #yandere twisted wonderland #platonic yanderes #platonic leech #platonic yandere jade #platonic yandere floyd #yandere jade leech #yandere floyd leech #yandere azul #yandere first years #yandere yuu #yandere ace #yandere deuce #yandere jack #yandere epel #yandere sebek

[auteurdelabre]

Bravo, Take a Bow! Part 3 Dieter Bravo x f!Reader

story summary: As a struggling actress you’re amazed when you land a role in an indie film you’re dying to be a part of. What you’re not expecting is to develop feelings for your mega famous and often exasperating co-star Dieter Bravo.

tags: Soft!Dieter, Masturbation (f),

rating: 18+ (for future chapters)

Series masterlist

Part 3 - The Table Read

The contact negotiations are over several weeks later and you have officially been hired on by the production. You're being paid a decent amount but not anywhere near to what outsiders assume film actors make. It'll be enough for rent for the rest of the year plus enough for a decent down payment on a new car as this one is getting older with frequent replacements being needed. 

The real hope is that this role will springboard into a career. One where you can count on the money, even if it's not in the millions. Just enough to keep you going, enough to get you sponsorship deals and able to buy a house. Enough fame to parlay it into a decent career. Enough that people won't have to ask what you do, they'll know who you are. 

You're sitting on your sofa reading "An Actor Prepares" when there's a screech from Carlee's room. You flinch but assume that this is another OnlyFans fulfillment. But then her bedroom door bursts open and she's shoving her phone into your face. The headline is from TMZ and has a photo of an irritated looking Dieter walking to his car. 

Dieter Bravo signs on for untitled domestic drama.

"So he's officially hired on," you say trying to sound casual. "Cool."

Carlee gives you a light punch to the arm before tracing her long pink nail under the headline. 

Co-star is relative unknown and lists your name. Actually seeing your name there in black and white gives you an instant thrill. You let out a small shriek and throw your book to the ground excitedly. 

"I wasn't allowed to say anything!" You insist when Carlee shoves you, your cheeks flushed happily. "I could have been sued!"

"I can't believe you got it," Carlee says and you hug her when you see her lash line is wet. 

Your brother is similarly affected when you call him later that night after texting him the article. You can hear Jack getting choked up on the other end of the line. 

"Finally they see what we did all along," he insists. 

Your nephews insist on talking over each other in excitement asking when you're gonna be on the TV. You just tell them they'll have to go to the movie theatres next year to see you and they all burst out cheering. 

Filming starts in two weeks which is just enough time to tell "That Place" who wishes you good luck and laments that they'll miss you.

You've invited a few of the girls from the restaurant to the bar, all of them over the moon and excited to see your success. Charlotte is taking care of her grandkids but when you'd arrived for your shift there was a bouquet of Daisy's from her garden waiting for you. 

Now you're all huddled around a table, shots raised in the air. 

"To Hollywood!"

Shots are thrown back, selfies taken. Dancing is brief because you fucking hate dancing, but you still attempt it, feeling good with the liquor going through your veins. 

As a handsome man comes to deliver what is your sixth or seventh round, Carlee surges forward informing him that the drinks should be comped because:

"SHE'S GONNA BE FAMOUS! SHE'S DIETER BRAVO'S NEW COSTAR!"

"Shut up!" You call out to her, blushing furiously when the server hands you your drink with a charming smile.

"In that case this round is on me."

"You don't have to do that!" You insist, your face flaming. 

"My pleasure," he says, winking and sauntering away. 

The girls collapse into laughter around the table as you watch him leave. You feel tipsy and happy, that sweet spot behind drowsy will come for you. 

Carlee excuses herself to go dance with a tall blonde man and you watch her go, always amazed at how natural she looks in any scenario.

"What's he like? Dieter Bravo?" Tiffany asks, her eyes glazed. "He seems fucking nuts."

You think back to his supportive words. His professionalism. The way he rescued you in that last scene when you felt yourself unraveling.  

"He's much chiller in person," you observe thoughtfully. "He was really nice actually."

He kisses nice.

You think back to that chemistry read. The way that Dieter backed you against that kitchen counter. The way his mouth and body felt against yours. 

"I heard he keeps a vial of cocaine on a necklace around his neck all the time," Daisy whispers loudly, moving onto water. As she wipes at her smudged eyeliner. "That's what TMZ said."

"Dunno if that's true," you say with a drunken shrug. "He wasn't wearing a necklace that day...I don't think."

"Hope you remember us when you're famous," Daisy muses as she and Tiffany lean against each other and break out into an off-tune version of "Welcome to Hollywood."

You lean back in the booth, eyes drunkenly half shut thinking that you'll never forget this moment or these people.

Never.

//////

The table read is today and you're exhausted. For the last two weeks you have been eating, sleeping and breathing the character of Cecelia. You've made heaps of notes in your small book that you carry with you everywhere. 

You arrived early to the hotel, one that's not as upscale as the one before. But it's nice and its parking is just as expensive. 

"One day I won't care about the cost of parking," you tell yourself as you swipe your credit card through the meter. "One day I'll just valet everywhere." 

You're early by at least twenty minutes but you’re already armed with a coffee and a water bottle so you stride in, following Gwen’s instructions for where to go inside. 

You reach the room filled with moving figures. A large table sits in the center of the room. There are only about twenty chairs which is rather modest. If this was a bigger production, if this was a marvel film they're would be much more pomp and circumstance, many more tables and a fresh spread for breakfast. 

The director, a serious looking man in his forties with thin framed glasses smiles at you when you approach. His name is Karl Sands, famous amongst the indie film sect. He wears backwards caps and jean shorts that reach past his knees. He's often wearing a tan overcoat that reaches his ankles. 

"So nice to meet in person," you tell him, shaking his hand. "I'm so excited to be playing Cecelia. Your script was-"

"Hey thanks! Go on and take a seat up be right over there," Karl says in that lazy drawl you immediately clock as Californian. "I won't be long."

He turns back to a young man with braces who looks stressed. 

"And soy in this one Bernie or I have to send it back, man and I don't wanna do that ya know?"

"Yes sir," Bernie says nodding. 

You feel relieved when you see Jan walking towards you. Turns out she's not just the casting director; she's also the script supervisor. On smaller productions like this it's not uncommon. 

"I'm so glad to see you," you enthuse, returning the hug she gives you.

"You were made for this part," Jan gushes. "Everyone who saw the video thought so."

"I'm just so glad I got the opportunity."

"So are we," Jan gushes. 

You're introduced to several writers, a producer, the assistant director, the script supervisor and you cannot possibly remember all the names and you're so thankful that everyone has paper name plates in front of them. A harried looking Bernie hands you a paper name plate with Cecelia in big letters, and underneath your name in sharpie. You thank him and grin before slapping it on the table in front of you.

A tall handsome man enters the room a short while later, warmly greeted by Jan and directed to the table. You think he looks familiar. He takes a seat near you giving a small wave when he reads the paper name plate in front of you. He places his nameplate in front of him and you read his name. Gary Owens.  

"Hey I'm Gary," he says with a wave. "I'm playing Oliver."

"The other man," you say with a sage nod of your head. 

"I've been called worse," Gary replies and the two of you laugh. 

You can't help but find him impossibly attractive with his light eyes and tanned, skin. When he smiles he looks boyishly handsome. You realize belatedly where you know him from - he's big in the theatre world in LA. He was in the latest production of Hamilton. 

Dieter still hasn’t arrived and you find yourself nervously tapping your pencil on your notebook. After a moment you pull out your phone. You've been instructed by Gwen not to post too much regarding production on your socials. No script, no identifying landmarks. Today is just a bird's eye view of your Starbucks drink beside a pad of paper and your favorite gold pen. 

You smile to yourself, captioning it "first day at work. #excited #actinglife"

You only have about 300 followers, mostly fellow actors you've met during auditions and friends from back home.

A few more of the actors file in and you meet them all, giving waves. The group chats amiably for a bit and you can't help but notice that Dieter isn't here yet. Call time was nine and it's almost ten. 

You lower your phone when you hear a ruckus coming from behind the closed door of the hotel room. 

"I told you I'm not fucking doing it! Those things fuck with brainwaves!" 

You recognize Dieters baritone voice through the door. He continues having an argument with what sounds like a very tired woman. 

"Guess the rumors are true," one of the writers (Max? Matt?) Murmurs to the man next to him who in return rolls his eyes. "Let's just hope he's sober."

"Fucking diva," the blonde replies. The group titters and you see Jan standing next to Karl making a concerned face. You think it's a bit unfair to judge Dieter on what could just be a bad day.

The door bursts open and suddenly the mood shifts. 

Dieter has an entourage that follows him into the room. You find out later it's his PA and two publicists. One of whom you recognize as the tall serious woman from last time. 

You're not surprised to see him wearing his trademark sunglasses. He's also wearing high top sneakers and bare legs under a huge green jacket that hits him mid calf. 

He glances around the room of people, waving and smiling as if the explosive conversation outside never happened. 

"Hey everyone, so sorry I'm late! Agent double booked me. Had to do some fucking BuzzFeed vid. Anyway I'm here, let's make a movie!"

There's something about Dieter that screams Hollywood. Maybe it's the megawatt smile, or the way he just exudes this casual confidence. Whatever it is, you can see just by glancing around the room that everyone is charmed. 

Even Max and the other men who had been bad-mouthing Dieter only moments before look awe -struck. The actors who had moments before been giggling now stare up at him with wide eyes.

You smirk at the hypocrisy before you feel his eyes land on you from across the room. 

"Hey Sudsy," Dieter grins, lowering his sunglasses as he calls over to you. The entire table glances over at you in confusion. You hear a few "Sudsy?" murmurs go around the table and you flush. 

"Hi," you reply tersely. 

In many ways you're very thankful for Dieter because if not for him you wouldn't be sitting here making an actual movie. But at the same time you’re mortified every time he brings up that fucking commercial. 

He walks around the table and takes a seat right next to you, crowding you and you hold in a frown as he nearly spills your coffee when he throws his notebook onto the table. 

He takes his sunglasses off completely, shrugging off his jacket to reveal a purple velour tracksuit top with green plaid shorts underneath. 

"Big day," he says, tilting back in his chair to look at you. His breath smells like spearmint, you assume from the mints he's cracking between his teeth. You think he must do it to cover up the smell of tobacco smoke.

"Yeah. I'm really excited."

"That'll pass," Dieter scoffs quietly, popping another mint into his mouth and crunching loudly.

You look back at your phone, unsure of how to act. It's not like you and Dieter are strangers but you're definitely not friends. You scroll through your Instagram feed as everyone in the room is directed to take a seat at the table. 

"You post a lot?"

You notice Dieter looking over your shoulder at your feed and you turn the screen off, shrugging. "If I feel like it."

"You feel like it now?"

"Huh?"

"Take a pic of us," he urges, motioning to your phone. 

You hesitate, looking into his face. He's never struck you as a person who likes having his photo splashed all over the place. He always looks pissed during candid paparazzi shots and he doesn't even have an Instagram account as far as you can tell. And yet he looks eager for this. 

"Uh, okay."

You raise the phone, turning the camera to face you. Dieter tilts his head against yours, smiling broadly. The younger person inside you who grew up watching his movies gets a little excited at the physical evidence of your meeting. This is Dieter fucking Bravo after all and you're making a movie with him! 

You raise your hand and flash a peace sign to the camera. Dieter does the same only winking and you snap the photo. You look like you've been friends for years, the way your heads tilt towards one another, the smiles look genuine. 

"We're hot," Dieter tells you with not an ounce of humility in him. You give a small smile.  

"You want me to post it?"

Dieter nods. "Yeah."

"Any specific hashtag?"

Dieter smiles, looking ponderous. "Sunglasses emoji?"

You smile nodding. "Sure."

You apply a filter to make the image look slightly washed out before typing in the caption: 😎 #dieterbravo 

"Do you have an account to tag?"

"Used to," Dieter shrugs. "Got to be too much." 

You post the photo before turning off your phone. Attention is drawn to the head of the table where Karl is announcing the outline of what to expect today. 

"Okay so first we're just gonna do brief introductions and go through the script summary," Karl tells the table. "Then we'll do a quick ten and come back and do our first official reading. Everyone excited?"

Everyone around the table claps excitedly, you loudest of all. Dieter gives the table a small slap as his form of applause, his rings clicking against the mahogany. 

With that Karl and the lead writer Jeff start in, going over the themes of the script, the tone, and more. You listen fascinated because if you hadn't pursued acting you'd always thought of being a screenwriter. 

About an hour and a half later they finish and you're exhilarated. Hearing from the writer why he wrote what he did and how he was inspired makes you connect even further with Cecelia. Karl gives a wide smile at the end of the table. 

"Alright take ten everyone."

Dieter is out of his seat before the sentence is out of Karl's mouth. The serious woman goes to follow him, tapping away at her phone. But Dieter is quick, ducking out of the room as she ambles slowly after him. 

You take a sip from your water bottle before standing. You turn your phone back on when you head out the doors, grabbing a coffee from the table against the wall on your way. You want to stretch your legs and think about what you've been listening to. That's a lot to digest. 

As you walk through the automatic doors of the hotels front door glance at your phone, wanting to update Carlee on what's going on. Your Instagram is still open and refreshed. Your eyes widen as you see the follower count. It's gone from 300 to over 4,900. The photo of you and Dieter has so many comments you just keep scrolling. 

A blue checkmark account sticks out to you in your new follower count. With disbelief you realize Haley Braccken now follows your account. So do a handful of beauty and fashion influencers. 

Holy shit.

You stand outside the hotel, eyes closed against the sun, drinking in its warmth as you scroll through the comments. 

"Having fun yet?"

You glance over your shoulder to see Dieter half hidden behind one of the large pillars at the entrance of the hotel looking relaxed, a cigarette hanging from between his lips. He's shielding himself from the sun and from any potential paparazzi. You also think he's hiding from the serious publicist. 

You walk over to where he sits, sipping your coffee. One leg is crooked and pulled up next to him on the bench as he scratches at his ankle. 

"I am actually," you admit with a broad smile. "Still kinda surreal but... Amazing."

"I remember that feeling," Dieter muses, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. You watch smoke curl around his full bottom lip. "Kinda. Can I give you some advice?" 

"Sure."

"It goes really fucking fast really fucking suddenly. One day you're trying to scrape together rent and the next day you're on the cover of magazines having people kissing your ass and telling you how wonderful you are," Dieter takes another drag. "Make sure you don't get so caught up that you miss everything."

This is shockingly coherent and even more shockingly sage advice from a man who you thought was a few marbles short of a full set. You exist in companiable silence, contemplating what he's said. You wonder if acting is even fun for him anymore. If it gives him that same feeling of joy and enchantment it gives you. 

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Why did you sign onto this film?" You come to sit next to him on the bench, your coffee nestled between your thighs. "It's obviously a small production. They won't be paying you nearly as much as one of those cliff beast movies. So why?"

"I don't always get the chance to be a part of these kinds of stories," Dieter explains. "I wanted to make something that meant something, not just some pretentious Oscar bait. I wanted to do something serious."

"You don't strike me as a particularly serious person," you muse.

"That's why it's called acting, Sudsy," he replies with a wink. You give an exasperated sigh. 

"Can you stop calling me that?"

Dieter looks horrified at the very thought. "Why?"

"Because it's embarrassing and I hate it."

Dieter takes another deep drag of his cigarette, appearing to be thinking deeply Finally he exhales the smoke, his mouth twisting in amusement. 

"Nah."

You both return to the room a few minutes later. Dieter is immediately whisked into a conversation with his publicists and you retake your seat. 

You can't help but glance at your follower count which has now climbed to over 8,000. You shake your head in disbelief before silencing the phone and dropping it back into your purse. 

Karl calls everyone's attention and you feel Dieter slide into the chair next to yours. He looks grumpy and you surmise it's about the endorsement deal he was screaming about this morning. 

If you were closer to him you'd ask if everything is okay. As it is you simply focus on what Karl is saying.

"Alright actors grab that water and get prepped. We're starting now."

The read through. All the actors bring out their scripts, some like Dieter putting on reading glasses, others taking long sips from their water bottles. Like you, all have pens raised and ready to make changes and notes. 

Jan begins to read all of the exterior notes, the background and you see your lines highlighted in pink on the page before you.

It’s all so exhilarating and you’re so excited that you feel breathless. Your hands are shaking with anticipation. You feel your body tensing. A strange cold going up your legs. Almost as if you've been dunked in ice water up to your navel. 

Fuck. No. Not now. Not here.

A panic attack. You haven't had one in years. You have this under control with medication most of the time. But right now your hands tremble so much that you thrust them into your lap, willing them to stop. 

Please no no no no no no.

You're sweating. You can feel the damp at your temples starting and you can assume that if you looked under your t-shirt you'd see that your chest had broken out in a blotchy flush. 

Calm down. Take a drink of water.

You reach for your water bottle but when you see your hand trembling you shove it back onto your lap. Dieter is watching you out of the corner of his eyes and you feel your face flaming as you realize he saw the quaking of your hand. 

I look like a fucking amateur. Actor who gets nervous when she's about to fucking read her lines.

You can see your lines coming up on page two. The ones you highlighted and practiced for days. Jan is reading the description of the scene, it's all leading up to you and Dieter.

Fuck what is everyone going to think when-

You feel a broad hand reach under the table and reach into your lap. Long fingers lace through yours and give your right hand a reassuring squeeze. You aren't expecting the contact and you blink over at Dieter. He's giving you an encouraging smile, tilting to your ear. 

"You got this Sudsy," he murmurs softly. "Deep breath."

Whatever your preconceived notions about Dieter Bravo were they are officially erased in that moment. Yes, he calls you Sudsy and he's a bit obnoxious at times, but he's been impossibly sweet. He's giving you kindness. He's giving you support.

You give him a small smile and lick your lips. You feel his hand loosen and go to retreat but you stop him, tightening your hand in his and lowering your voice to a tight whisper.

"Just... Wait?"

Dieter blinks before nodding. You grip his hand tightly in yours; very thankful that no one can see what's going on under the table because it looks like something it definitely isn't.  

"Alright," Jan says. "Interior shot, hallway, daylight. Cecelia walks in the front door carrying shopping bags. Levi is heard off-camera." 

You swallow. "Levi, are you home?"

"I'm in the kitchen."

"Interior kitchen. Cecelia enters," Jan reads. "Close up on Levi. He looks like a man beaten down by life."

"The guests will be here soon."

"I know," Dieter says before swallowing his mint. 

"Cecelia is agitated as she lowers her shopping bags." 

"You said you would clean the kitchen up."

"What do you call this?" Dieter asks. "You think I'm washing dishes for my own amusement?"

"You said it would be done before I got back," you say with irritation. "We still have to set the table."

You feel more confident. More set in the scene. And now you squeeze and release Dieter's hand increment by increment under the table. 

"You're more than adept at doing that yourself," Dieter says, slowly pulling his hand from your lap back to his own. He pauses. "I dunno I don't think that sounds right."

"I agree," Karl says. "Too clunky. We'll work on that."

A few of the writers nod and begin making notes in the margins of the script.

The scene goes on like this. Tension mounting between the characters. Then it's into the next scene and the next. It's exhilarating imagining this all happening. Reading it linearly with all the voices present is exciting. 

There are a handful of sensual scenes. One taking place in a cabin in the woods as a last ditch effort to rekindle their relationship is particularly intense. You can admit that is the only scene that gives you pause when you think of filming it. As you and Dieter read through those lines you're thankful you're no longer gripping his hand in yours. 

There's a forbidden kiss scene with your old flame and Gary shoots a smile up at you from his spot a few seats away that you return, swallowing the galloping of your heart. 

And then before you know it, it's five pm and Karl notes this is a wrap. He tells you that rehearsals will begin next week. 

Dieter is gone before you can say goodbye or even a genuine thank you.

///

Carlee is bouncing off the walls when you get home that day, desperate to hear all about the experience. You tell her everything, skipping over the hand hold. Carlee would just read into it.

"This is so cool!" She squeaks. "I've already got your Oscars dress designed in my head."

You laugh, trying to imagine what crazy piece she'd create for you. You decide that tonight you'll take care of dinner as a thank you to Carlee for all her help. 

Later that night you relax on the couch, the TV playing something low in the background. Carlee has gone to bed, leaving you to scroll through your Instagram feed, shocked that one little photo with Dieter has taken your follower count to over 10.2k. 

You have a bunch of emails from Gwen. Apparently there are already deals for sponsored posts on your account and she's setting you up with a social media manager. You frown at the idea of someone managing something that you intended to be more authentic.

You go back to the photo of you and Dieter from today, still in awe that a man you used to watch on screen at the movies is your new costar. He's nothing like you thought, nothing like the tabloids like to paint him as. You're thoughts drift to his hand holding yours today. It's almost like you can hear him...

"You want me."

You tilt your head to see that you're not losing your mind. The tv is playing one of Diete'rs movies, the one that got him an Oscar. The one where he plays a country priest torn between duty to the cloth and his desire for a fellow clergyman played by Hugh Jackman.

You never actually saw it. It had seemed like Oscar bait from the first ad and you hadn't bothered spending your time or money on it. By the time it won the Oscar you weren't even that interested. 

But now, seeing Dieter on his knees in prayer? 

Fuck. He looks hot in this.

Seeing him dressed as a priest sending desperate longing looks across the church at Hugh makes you squirm on the couch as you keep watching. You find yourself immersed quite quickly in the story of two men torn about by circumstance and time. 

His voice is doing that husky, rumbling thing when he and Hugh find themselves alone in the chapel one night, rosary beads clutched tightly in their fists.

"I shouldn't want this," Dieter rasps. "But I can't help myself." 

His dark eyes are narrowed with intensity and when strides forward and he captures the lips of the other priest played by Hugh in a searing kiss you let out a soft sigh. 

Your hand is sliding down underneath the front of your jeans before you even realize it. You touch yourself through your panties, shocked at how wet you already are. 

You watch Dieter's own hand slide down the front of his co-stars cassock onscreen and you bite your lower lip to keep from moaning out loud. The two of them look so sexy, full mouths and deep groans.

Hugh grips the back of Dieter's neck, deepening the kiss and you hear Dieter let out a soft whimper that hits you straight in your core. You curl two of your fingers inside, fucking yourself in time with the men onscreen. 

Fuck it feels good. You can hear Dieters voice on the screen, urging the other man to disrobe and by the time the two men are shirtless and tangled on a cot you're bucking into your palm, cresting on the edge of a rippling orgasm. 

"It's wrong," Hugh's character moans against Dieter's tongue. "So wrong, so sinful."

You’re rocking against your hand and your fingers, gripping the couch with your free hand, praying Carlee doesn't come out of her room. 

"Please," Dieter groans as Hugh kisses down his jaw. "Show me how to be good." 

That sentence in Dieter's dark baritone sends your hips jolting up from the couch against your palm, rutting there as stars explode behind your closed eyes. 

As you come down from your orgasm with heart hammering and cheeks flushed you're very aware of one glaring fact:

You are so fucked. 

#dieter bravo smut #dieter bravo #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter x reader #pedro pascal dieter #pedro pascal smut #fanfiction #fanfic #smut #slow burn

[fcralbandit-blog]

TAGS

#〖 THE NEXT GUY WHO TELLS ME IM SHORT IS GETTING KICKED 〗THREAD #〖 BIG GUY 〗REL. KRIEG #〖 FALCONER 〗REL. MORDECAI #〖 YOU'RE SO SMALL; AND THAT'S COMING FROM ME! 〗REL. TINY TINA #〖 COMMANDER FIREHAWK 〗REL. LILITH #〖 YOU'RE NICE BUT I'M... NOT INTERESTED 〗REL. ELLIE #〖 I DON'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS 〗REL. JACK #〖 DO THIS LIKE A FAMILY 〗REL. FIONA & SASHA #〖 CATS ARE PRETTY COOL 〗REL. TIM #〖 MY BEST BRO 〗REL. RHYS #〖 YOUR NEW BANDIT BRO! 〗V. 002 #〖 ACCOUNTANT ACCOUNTED FOR 〗V. 001 #〖 CRUNCH THE NUMBERS 〗AESTHETIC #〖 I'M DEFINITELY STRAIGHT. TOTALLY. 〗REL. MOXXI #〖 I'M FERAL NOW 〗OOC. #〖 BLOODBALL EVERY WEDNESDAY 〗REL. BRICK

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

Prompt idea: Danny and Jazz are related to Barbara Gordon.

Maddie Fenton is Jim Gordon's wife's cousin, which makes her kids Barbara's second cousins. Jim doesn't want to alienate Babs from her maternal relatives so they paid a visit on Jim's day off... Or at least Jim wished it was a day off, Jim took one look at the safety hazard and child endangerment of a home and decided then and there his taking these kids home with him, batman be damned. (And he still hasn't heard about the holiday depression, hate crime and blantant war cry yet). There are day's where Jim wonder's if it was the right call to bring this kids to Gotham, the kids sure think it is!

hmm, so to start I'd say that similar with Vlad, Maddie and Jack kinda just ghosted their families. not intentionally but once they became a couple, brain cells kinda faded and they're either off inventing or being totally in love. you have to be the one to put an effort in to stay in their lives and not everyone has the time or energy for that. add that they're ghost obsessed and obnoxious, and were already skating the line of legal before they got together and the Fenton's aren't talked to much. actually that could explain why they so easily believed Dani was a cousin. they have extended family they just don't pay enough attention to it to know what going on in it. the only reason Aunt Alicia had Maddie present for her divorce was that Alicia called her. they tend to forget you exist until you remind them. likewise with Vlad contacting them. they probably just lost track of time until he reminded them ‘hey we used to be friends >:)’ and then it was like no time had passed to them even though it's literally been years.

Jim's wife didn't make an effort to stay in contact with the Fenton’s. that part of the family wasn't even aware that the Fenton had children. after Barbara Sr. walked out on them (on Christmas too) Jim made an effort to track her down and keep the family together. his effort lead to him contacting the Fenton's and eventually trying to have a relationship with Barbara Sr. extended family. the kids deserved to have a family after all and he didn't think he was being a sufficient enough father with how much he had to work. so he agrees to bring the kids and visit, and see the portal that Jack raved about for twenty minutes. note, at no point in this phone call did Jim learn that Maddie and Jack had kids. so the family arrives and that's a surprise. the first of many bad surprised. because, speaking as someone who's seen his fair share of them, the Fenton house is like a mad scientist's lair. the weapons, the glowing liquids, the invasion of Fenton tech in every room, the ops center, and worst of all the actual lab that has a whole as portal to another dimension in it. equally concerning is that when he offered cook he found almost no uncontaminated food in the cupboard and was attacked by possessed ham when he opened the fridge.

when he finally meets the kids, Jazz and Danny, he starts asking some definitely pointed 'is this child abuse' questions, ones he asks kids he meets at work. Danny isn't trusting enough to answer beyond what amounts to 'I love my parents, get out of my house'. but Jazz has 'a finally I've been validated' moment and brings out the psych file on all her parents bad behavior, somewhat naively not realizing this will effect her parents custody over them. she kinda thinks everything will be solved if her parents enter therapy and counselling and calm down on the ghost stuff. it didn't occur to her she was describing criminal behavior to a cop. yeah. Jim Gordan has encountered too many super villains to let these kids stay here.

and sadly for the kids the law is really on his side. it seems almost like the Amity Police were waiting for a charge to properly stick on the Fenton's and once they could throw the book at them, they throw it hard. it becomes a whole thing. Jazz is smacked with guilt and regret. Danny is pissed at everyone; Jazz, Gordan, his parents, the cops. Phantom might actually be spotted trying to destroy evidence and get the Fenton's off but there's too much evidence and too much bias, and the closest to freedom the Fenton parents are going to get is a trip to Arkham. especially because every attempt they make to prove their innocence reveals more illegal stuff they were obliviously doing. it's a losing battle and a mess for everyone involved.

eventually the portal is properly shut down, their research was seized by the government, and Vlad comes around to gloat like an asshole even as he doesn't successfully get custody of the kids. because if Danny's parents are going to jail danny's going to make damn sure Vlad goes with them. which you know further complications. Danny doesn't directly reveal Vlad's secret, he just reveals the crimes, with Tucker's tech help and leads them towards the fact that Vlad's a meta and has a lab and a whole other portal in his basement. getting charges to stick to Vlad is a whole lot harder, and this time Danny is just flying around in the background, helping the police and making sure Vlad can't superpower his way out of the situation. the police end up concluding Vlad's powers are from ecto-contamination so anti-ecto weapons and shields work on him and are used to keep him contained. they don't know he's a halfa at least and he's not interested in revealing himself or Danny because that reveal would take him out of prison and onto a lab table. right now it's important that the government believe. he ends up in Arkham with the Fenton's wearing one of those belts that shorts out his powers and usually in a cell with a ghost shield. the guards have anti ghost tech added to their uniform. Jack spends a lot of time annoying him while there.

i know you said the kids are happy but i don't think they are. Jazz is wracked with guilt because she helped get her parents arrested and broke up their already broken family. Danny, as mentioned, is literally pissed at everyone. he was taken from his home and his job, he just lost his parents, his best friends are now a city away, he doesn't even have ghost to take out his aggression on. the government having his parent research is also going to be a major issue later, especially now that they know ecto-contamination can give people ghost powers. a lot of that is going on out of sight rn though. will a portal eventually be opened in Gotham? probably. will it effect the lazarus pit? absolutely. is both of these things going to be a problem for everyone? haha, yeah.

meanwhile you have Barbara dealing with the abandonment of her mother, and her father's abrupt adoption of two more kids. like she gets why they couldn't stay with their parents, she also saw that house. but adding two traumatized children to the mix isn't going to help keep their family together. especially when Jim is still working long hours and they're all just left alone in the house together. and James Jr. has sociopathic tendencies and was low key the reason his mom walked out. i think it's entirely safe to say they he doesn't want these two strangers in his house. Jim is still grieving about his wife leaving too and he is not in a good place to be taking care of kids. he's trying but he's not around enough and basically throwing himself into his work hoping things will be better when he gets home. he's trying to do right by them but he's also now a single parent supporting four kids. Jazz and barb do what they can to help by getting part time jobs but both want to go to college and leaving Danny and James alone in a house together doesn't bode well.

i definitely see Danny and James fighting hard and a lot. James basically just on principle and because they’re ages are close enough that he can get away with messing with Danny. Danny because he clocked James as a fruitloop from the beginning and doesn’t like being harassed. unfortunately James is manipulative enough that Danny ends up taking the blame for their fights and broken things a lot of the time. Danny receives the label troubled kid and it’s a whole thing, especially with his history of Problematic Behaviour at Casper. Jim tries to get Danny into counseling but the psych programs in Gotham are... yeah. it’s not super helpful.

i’m having a bit of trouble with the timeline because i don’t know when Barbara’s mother left or how old barb was. but canonically at least in the new fifty-two which is the timeline we’re using, Barb is the same age as Bruce. i’m kinda clocking her at 17 or 18 at the time they adopt Danny and jazz, making her and Jazz around the same age. they’re also adopted when Danny is around 15-16. i’m going to say James is a few years younger than Danny. Bruce adopts a 10 year old Dick Grayson when he’s 25, meaning Danny would be around 22-23 when batman gets his first robin. the age that Bruce became batman is a mixed number, most saying he was 26 in the new 52 beaning Dick was adopted before Bruce became batman? but the impression i got from most of the comics was he adopted robin after... unsure about that. we’ll say it happened the same year. Bruce was barely a year into superhero when he finds and adopts a child.

my point is, all the Robins are baby children to Danny. they’re tiny. they shouldn’t be doing hero work. even Dani looks around twenty now. infants. is it hypocritical of him to be treating these heroes as children when he himself was a child when he started fighting? yes and no. he is being that bitch about how young they are, but he doesn’t want these kids to have the kind of childhood he had. he doesn’t know how he survived being a fourteen year old super hero. technically he didn’t.

anyway i’m going to say Danny gets one quiet year where he gets to settle in with the Gordan's, read; hate everything and fight with James. then the government open a portal under Gotham (it’s the nearest major city to Amity and also pretty fucking haunted). so boom Danny is back to the hero biz, slightly rusty and in a new town with new rules. sneaking should be harder in Gotham, but Jim isn’t home enough to notice. Jazz and Barb are doing their best at college and worrying about the boys. Jazz despite her Ivy League dreams ended up sticking closer to Gotham just to look after her brother and to not fuck their budget all to hell. she dreams of maybe going to Harvard as a graduate student but that feels a long way off. the problem with sneaking out successfully is that James is a snitch and Danny has to make a deal with the devil so stop James from selling him out. James doesn’t realize Danny is Phantom but has noticed Danny’s scary eyes and basically concluded he has similar ecto-contamination to Vlad. he also recons Danny doesn’t want that secret out to anyone. note. this is very much a relationship where if Danny wasn’t a hero he could absolutely wreck James. like the only reason James gets away with so much bs is that Danny doesn’t use his powers on humans.

it should also be noted that a 16/17 year old Danny fighting ghosts means that Danny took to heroing in Gotham long before Bruce is. meaning Bruce has another role model. Danny's 'don’t use his powers on humans' rule, means that Danny isn’t doing as much to stop crime as the city needs. he’ll sometimes pop in and scare villains away from doing crimes. show up and spook would be muggers or rapist out of allies. occasionally possess and turn over bank robbers to the police. he’d prevent murders if he sees them. but he’s not really in control of the root causes and he’s rarely in the right warehouses, at the right time to see what’s going down or solve any major mysteries. he leaves the real crime investigation to the unfortunately corrupt police. he’s kinda too wrapped up in his own life to be super aware of the injustice around him. if he sees the problem he interferes but mostly it’s ghost fighting and high school for him

 and boy howdy is he wrapped up in ghost stuff. the government wouldn’t just have a ghost portal. they’d have ecto-contaminated people they’ve been experimenting on. some very sick, some developing ghostly powers, sorta like the spectra hospital episode. so Danny would have to deal with those types of characters. there’d be issues with the lazarus pit and league of assassins and he’d probably have to uncover a bunch of stuff about that and possibly get temporarily recruited. new portal probably means new part of the zone, so Danny would be getting new rouges on top of the old ones who swing by for old times sake. the Fenton’s and Vlad have been getting to know the people in Arkham and are probably going to break out at some point. the Fenton’s purely because they want to see their kids/ hear there’s ghosts in Gotham. Vlad to get revenge. also the Fenton’s are going to be fully labeled as villains at this point despite their relative naive innocence. they’re not actively trying to hurt anyone but if they supply Mr. Freeze with ectoplasm to help his wife and if they supply ghost weapons and some regular weapons to their other friends and end up doing wild research with the other scientist in Arkham well they’re just stacking charges. i do want a plot where Mr. Freeze’s wife successfully returns from the dead but as a mostly ghost and a lot of her personality has been lost to obsession. she’s his wife but not the woman he fell in love with. a whole oof situation that’s gonna fuck Mr. Freeze up and probably make him the Fenton parents enemy because they ruined her body. he can’t even have a second chance at this,.Danny’s down to help the new ice halfa (3 quarters? 75 cents? Danny would work on a quippy name later) and he’s sympathetic to mr. freeze and pretty much immune to the whole ice attack thing. so they kinda end up friends who fight when the Fenton’s are involved. Danny is trying to get Mr. Freeze to Jazz for therapy.

will this be a jazz is an Arkham therapist route? maybe? will this be an Arkham guard Danny route? sure if Jazz is there. he’d remain a full time ghost hero on top of that though. and when Bruce finally gets around to being batman and solving crimes, Danny’s would have been the established hero in Gotham for at least seven years. he’s far from a perfect hero by anyone’s definition. he fucks up a lot. but he’s the hero that’s there and enough people have stories of being saved by phantom that his reputation isn’t terrible.it’s not what i would call good, but it’s not terrible. Danny and Bruce are going to overlap a lot and i’m torn on Bruce’s stance on the hero because on the one hand, Danny is a hero. he’s doing more than pretty much anyone else is to save and protect the citizens of Gotham. but he’s not doing enough. he’s not attacking the problem or corruption. he’s not scaring villains straight. he’s too busy fighting ghosts. the ghosts definitely need to be fought, Bruce appreciates it, but sighting ghosts wouldn’t save his parents. you know what, Bruce likes him. he still became a hero because the ‘not enough’ stuff but he’s genuinely glad to have phantom protecting Gotham and he looks up to Danny despite Danny being younger than him. Danny is more tenured. this will definitely be a Danny’s in the justice league story, he gets to be a founding member. they end up working together a lot, two sides of the crime fighting coin.

it also doesn’t take terribly long for Bruce to figure out that phantom is Gordan’s troubled son. he ends up seeing a lot of himself in Danny the person and tries to adopt him despite Danny already legally being an adult and still considering the Fenton’s his parents. after that they just kinda end up as friends. adult friends who just happen to be superheroes on top of everything. now i’m imagining Danny running in the gala circles and it’s funny to me. you know Sam and tuckers careers are going to take off and they’re going to manage to join those circles, ironically only showing up to parties if Danny is there. people tend to sneer at Danny because he’s just the son of a cop, and has a record on top of that. but Danny, Bruce, Sam, and tucker are chaotic together.i also see Alfred as being so proud that Bruce made an honest to got friend that in his mind Danny can do no wrong. Alfred will spoil Danny whenever Danny comes over and Danny’s living standards were already so low that he’d be amazed at anything Alfred offered. Alfred becomes determined to fatten Danny up.not that Gordan doesn’t feed his kids. but single dad cop budget is very different from billionaire budget. i didn’t know i needed Bruce to have an adult friend/ sorta mentor until this. i mean he has the other supers, but this feels a little more equal because Danny is already established and vetted before Bruce becomes a hero. just the fact that they live near each other makes is easier for Bruce to have consistent friendship with Danny.

now lets add big sister barb, except she and Danny don’t know each others secret identities. she gets the impression that phantom is familiar but initially writes it off as her hearing about phantom from jazz and Danny because that’s where the ghost was originally from. note: people assumed phantom followed the portal to Gotham. no one connects it to Danny, especially because the first year Danny is in town he doesn’t really advertise his superhero persona as being around. he still goes on late night flies, but even if someone spotted him they’d write it off as imagining things. but so it takes time for them to find out that they know each other as civilians and it becomes a whole thing. i could imagine both of them going to jazz for help and jazz looking at them, knowing full well who they are, and not realizing that they don’t know who the other is. and it’s a whole comedy of errors. barbs thinks phantom knows jazz because they were from the same town, Danny thinks Batwoman knows jazz because they’re both collage age and jazz is a genius. somehow they come out of this interaction still not knowing each others identity. Bruce also becoming friends with Babs and inviting her to galas, and Babs and Danny attending together as siblings unaware that both their connections to Bruce came from being superheroes and not from the fact that they’re Jim Gordan’s kids. sibling teasing ensues alongside some healthy suspicion and “Danny, please don’t embarrass me” “i’m going to do nothing but embarrass you because you said that.” i’m here for the chaos. i’m here to put off their secret identities being revealed for as long as possible just so when the reveal happens it’s as dramatic as possible.

is it going to be when Babs gets paralyzed? i think it’s going to be when Babs gets paralyzed. Danny will also go feral on the joker for hurting his sister. and it’s a whole different ball game then the joker is used to because Danny has powers. everyone got to used to Danny holding back. the joker isn’t prepared. so jokers hatred of Danny is going to become a thing for a while. joker teaming up with the Fenton’s because they still hate phantom could also be a thing. oof. nothing is easy ever. at some point James is also going to return to the plot knowing more about Danny’s secret than he should, possibly accompanied by Vlad. just a lot of potential drama and chaos to be had.

uncle Danny, being a thing with the Robins would also be cute, since he’s significantly older than all of them. i can see him solemnly giving each kid the “don’t be a teenage superhero speech” and all of them ignoring it and becoming heroes anyway only to years later realize, yeah Danny was right we shouldn’t have been teenage superheroes. Jason ends up fully adopted by Danny after he returns from the dead. like similar powers and this guy had my best interest in mind back before i knew what my best interest were. Danny probably being able to help cure the pit rage either through ghost zone stuff or contacting his villain parents. sounds like a plan. Danny being very anti murder but totally down with Jason just leaving his family after everything? a mood. Danny being a go between Jason and Bruce but not selling Jason’s location out. there’s some drama there. Danny and Jason vibing over trying to murder the joker. hell yeah. Dick trying to be the oldest sibling and use older sibling rights but being over ruled by cool uncle Danny. Steph and Danny bonding over villain parents. Dani visiting and being a cool older sister. Jim unaware that most his family are superheroes. Damian meeting and falling in love with Cujo and tolerating Danny because of this. Tim having an alarmingly large stalker file on Danny and just being a Phantom fanboy in general. the puns.

this got away from me - Hestia

#dpjl #Danny Phantom #batman #jim gordon #gordan adopts au #barbara gordon #danny fenton #the fact that i can keep going #goddamn #hestiawrites

[five-rivers]

Prompt:”Is there anything you would like to explain young man” preferably a continuation pig your ghost zone/earth fusion fic

Danny made the split second decision that he wanted none of this.

He ran.

It was easy for him to run. He knew this city. Knew it better than ever, since the merge. Every angle, line of sight, and warp of space was known to him with the ease of familiarity and reflex of long practice. Portals opened for him and shadows hid him. He knew exactly how to step out of sight. How to be invisible without actually becoming invisible.

This gave him time to ponder the words of the ghosts the Chicagoans had brought with them. Ponder, and reject.

Just because the merge happened on his birthday did not mean it was because of his birthday. It was a coincidence. Unrelated. Not his fault. He'd been over this. He'd gotten over this.

It didn't take him long to get from the mall to the center of the outdoor portion of the market fair. The main body of it was held in what had become a large clearing in the middle of town, although it had long since spilled over, into the adjoining streets, a patchwork of green grass and trees, lavender moss, five different kinds of asphalt, brick, and antique stonework. Some of the bricks held remains of windows in them. There had been a rumor that a building had been crushed to make room for it all, at the beginning of the trouble, but the building in question had eventually been located two dozen miles to the east, none of the residents the worse for wear.

After that, it was only a matter of weaving in and out of all the shoppers until he got to the tent his parents set up on market days. He waved to Jack, who was manning the front desk and cleaning a rather intimidating and violent looking tool that Danny knew to be, surprisingly enough, just a vacuum, and pushed through the flap into the tent.

Safe. Mostly. Rumors spread by out of town ghosts or not, there weren't a lot of people who would antagonize the Fentons. Although their (admittedly softened) attitude towards ghosts was becoming progressively less acceptable, they were the main reason Amity Park and Elmerton were doing so well.

(Danny had heard some dreadful rumors about other cities. Certain people did not take the apocalypse well at all.)

He leaned against the wall of the building the tent was built against and sighed. Outside, he heard the familiar sounds of Ember checking the tuning on her guitar and restarting her performance.

"Danny? Is something wrong?"

It was probably too much to hope that no one had recognized him. That didn't mean anyone would come after him, but...

"A case of mistaken identity, I think," said Danny, picking himself up off the wall.

"What kind of mistaken identity?"

Danny made a face. "I don't even know. The person looked kind of sketchy, so I got out of there."

"Do you think they're likely to find you again? Or come looking for you?" Maddie's hand strayed to the grip of a all-purpose stun blaster she kept in her boot.

Things might have been relatively peaceful in Amity Park now, years after the event, but immediately after the apocalypse there had been anarchy. From humans and ghosts both. A great many people were armed at all times, and it paid to be vigilant against threats to oneself and one's family.

"I think so. It was pretty out there, so I don't think they were entirely in their right mind. But there are going to be rumors now." He tugged at one of his longer strands of hair.

"That's good, if that's all," said Maddie, relaxing marginally and gesturing at the workbench in front of her. "Will you help me with this? We got some same day refill and repair orders already this morning."

Danny nodded. That was, after all, one of the reasons he was here. He let himself get lost in the repetitive motions of refilling ectoplasm charge capsules for small ecto-armaments. It was soothing, to a degree.

There was a bit of a thump from the front, loud enough to be heard over the ambient noise of the market fair. Both Danny and Maddie looked up.

"I don't know who you think you are," came Jack's voice, filtering back through the fabric of the tent, "but you can't come here and start throwing baseless accusations around about my family."

"It isn't baseless," shouted a dismally familiar voice. The Baxters never were going to give it up, were they? "You freaks are the reason we had ghosts in Amity Park to begin with! How do we know your portal didn't decide to go ahead and fracture all of reality?"

"We never dealt with anything of that power level, and it wouldn't have done that anyway!"

"So you claim, but it isn't as if there's anyone else around who could check-"

"Please, we're only looking for some information, and have no association with this... person. We represent the government of the Greater Chicago Area, and-"

"Oh, you're a customer, then! We have many models to choose from, if you're looking for protection against ghosts, whether they be the sentient variety or mindless ecto-scum! What kind do you have in mind? Big? Medium? Small? Intimidation, or something easily hidden? Or maybe you're just looking for something to get those nasty ectoplasm stains out of your clothes?"

As Jack went through his version of the standard sales pitch, Maddie stood up and pulled open the tent flap. Danny winced as he saw the faces of the Chicagoan woman and her companions, Dash Baxter's father, a large crowd of curious bystanders to whom Jack was utterly oblivious, and, across the street, the cohort of ghosts that had accused Danny of being a prince and then 'blessed' him.

"Hey! It's you!" shouted one of the Chicagoans, pointing at Danny.

The crowd quieted for a moment.

"See!" crowed Mr. Baxter. "See! He's the one they said was responsible for this."

"That's not what we said, sir. Perhaps you could leave, this is a matter of national, no, global importance, and," she turned to look at Danny, "we must talk to-"

"What, exactly, do you want with my son?" asked Maddie, icily.

The Chicagoan's leader, the man, swallowed. "We we informed, by what we believe to be a reliable source, that a person in this town... er. Has significant influence over ghosts and can be negotiated with regarding the current state of the world. A ghost king of sorts."

"A reliable source? Ha!" said Jack with a scoff. "I hope you don't mean a ghost. Even the smarter ones exist for nothing but trouble. And they hate us!"

"There was a ghost king here," said Maddie, "but that was years before the merge with the Ghost Zone, and he didn't stay long. I am also," she said, wielding the word like a knife, "unsure of what that has to do with my son."

"He was indicated by our contacts as a person who might be connected to this ghost king."

"That's nonsense," said Maddie, Jack nodding along.

"Still, we must insist-"

"You aren't insisting anything about my children, you-"

"Excuse me? Doctors Fenton?"

They broke off their conversation to look at the newcomer.

"I've just come in from near Henry's Hill," she said. "An elemental pool came in overnight."

"They aren't elemental pools. They're ectoplasm-matter integration points. Ectomat points. Integration points. Pools of transmutation, if you must. Ectoplasm isn't made of normal matter, so calling it elemental is just-" She sighed, cutting herself off. "How big is it?"

The argument had been abandoned. Integration pools, no matter what you decided to call them, could be dangerous. From a distance, they appeared to be simple pools of ectoplasm, but they were much more than that.

Anything nonliving that made contact with one would be dissolved and remade as something both material and ectoplasmic. Stronger ghosts could resist to a degree, and from what Danny had observed, it seemed to leave ghost cores alone, but weaker ghosts were vulnerable. Even then, with living things, they would be infused with ectoplasm, although Danny couldn't call them half ghosts.

The results tended to be... unpredictable.

"It was a few meters across when I left." She swallowed. "It was in the goat pasture. We let them roam during the summer, they..." The woman clutched at the hem of her shirt. "Some of them were missing."

That could go a lot of different ways. Many of them were not good.

"We need to finish the orders we already have," said Maddie. "We should be ready to go in an hour. You'll have to guide us there."

"You have something you can do about the pools? Something to negate them?" asked the Chicagoan.

"It doesn't work all the time," said Maddie, adjusting her belt. "But what we can do is take care of anything dangerous that comes out of one." She regarded him rather coolly. "If you want to see, come back in an hour. Danny, make sure the Speeder is prepped."

"Got it," said Danny.

.

It took a few hours to get to Henry's Hill.

By the time they got there, the sky had decided to be stranger than usual, broken into tiles like in a mosaic, the moon smeared across the sky in all its phases even as the sun burned pink and yellow from an inscribed disk. Better than red. The red sun was rarely a good omen. The red sun was for storms and fires and mist that didn't clear.

But a worse omen was the presence of the Chicagoan's and the ghosts who had decided to proclaim him king.

He really needed to figure out what they called themselves, but he didn't want to talk to them again, for obvious reasons.

"Danny, stop daydreaming," said Maddie. "Keep an eye out for ecto-goats. Jack, help me set up the perimeter for the shield."

The transmutation pool was large. Big enough to be called a pond, big enough to swim in, assuming it was a respectable depth. It had formed around the trunk of a large oak tree, and little green lights drifted above its surface. The oak tree had glowing green veins stretching up through its bark, which was a deep, dark color. Its acorns were oddly pale. The grass around the pool was purple.

The air smelled of decay and rain. Danny licked his lips. It felt like there should be more moisture in the air.

(Sometimes, Danny got the urge to wade into one of the pools. To sink in. He resisted.)

There was no sign of the goats.

"You'll probably have to burn the tree," said Maddie.

"I know," said the woman who had fetched them, wringing her hands. "But you can get rid of it, right?"

"It's big," said Maddie. "I'm not sure we have enough. We might have to wait it out."

"But the earth and air elementals," started the woman.

"Earth and air are not elements," said Maddie. "We're more than equipped enough to handle those, if it comes to it."

"Rot and petrichor, my prince," said one of the ghosts. "Don't you feel it in the air? Can't you taste it?"

Rot and petrichor. Decay and rain. Danny grimaced, and deliberately looked away.

"This moment was made for you, my prince. To confirm you in these blessings, as you should be confirmed in all blessings."

"I'm good, actually," said Danny.

"Don't engage with those no good spooks, Danny boy! They're just here to stir up trouble!"

Danny rolled his eyes. Still on the 'no good spooks' thing. Typical.

The shield went up with a fwoop and an electric crackle.

"Still no sign of the goats," said Maddie. "We might need to make this a real hunt."

Gosh, Danny hoped not. Odds were, the ghosts, ahem, the goats, the ghostly goats, weren't any more aggressive than normal goats. It wasn't like the personalities of the things involved changed.

But goats, hm... Actually, that might be problematic. He didn't have a lot of experience with farm animals, so... Yeah. Goats. They didn't have the best of reputations, did they?

Still, the way his parents went after elementals and mixed organisms made him uneasy. The few humans to accidentally slip into one of the pools had just been declared 'abnormally ecto-contaminated,' and Danny didn't have any evidence of ghost powers, but... Yeah.

Yeah.

Maddie finished setting up the integration negation delivery system, sticking the barrel of the gun through the shield. She sighed at the negation fluid capsule she had just filled, calculated to negate the estimated amount of ectoplasm in the pool.

"This will deplete our reserves," she said. "It'll take a while to make more of this." She slid the capsule into place and fired. Quickly, she pulled the barrel out of the shield and braced.

Ectoplasm splashed from the pool, staining the grass purple where it landed. A moment later, there was a flash of light that strained at the shield.

When the light faded, the insides of the shields were green smoke. Slowly, that began to clear as well, until it revealed a empty hollow full of purple grass where the pool had once been. The oak tree, less supported than it had been, now that many of its roots were exposed, creaked ominously.

At least, that was probably all the humans saw.

Danny rubbed his arms. Ectoplasm, much like normal matter, didn't just disappear. Not completely. In the past, it might have returned to the Ghost Zone, but not anymore.

And whatever was in the pools wasn't just disappearing either. Some of it was getting converted to energy, energy which might eventually be turned back into ectoplasm, but the rest was just going somewhere else.

The world was still changing. His parents were only slowing it down.

(Sometimes Danny wanted them to stop. There wasn't anything wrong with being between one world and the other. Especially since there was only one world now.)

The scent of ozone built in the air and ectoplasm seemed to leak from it, back into the pool, refilling it.

"That... has never happened before," said Maddie. "We have to take notes!"

Danny sighed. This would take a long time, then. The ectoplasm would either have to be absorbed by the grass, or the ectoplasm would have to dissolve the earth and stone beneath it, or the air above, for the purpose of turning them into 'elementals.' They wouldn't have any intelligence, at least at first, but they would, eventually, like most other things made of ectoplasm.

"My prince," said the spokesperson of the ghosts, "if you truly desired this pool of recreation to be gone, you need only command it to assume a form that suits you."

"I'm pretty sure I can't do that," said Danny.

"It wouldn't hurt to try, would it?" asked a Chicagoan.

"It might, actually," said Maddie, looking away from her notes. "Ectoplasm is psychoactive and there's a lot we don't know about this phenomenon, even three years later. Danny, can you help me with this?" She gestured at the ectometer she was trying to balance on her knee.

"Sure," said Danny.

This was when the goats decided to make an appearance, sheering out of invisibility and charging the crowd. Danny pushed Maddie out of the way of a goat's curved, glowing horns and was borne backwards, into one of the shield generators, which promptly broke.

Danny tumbled, following his usual 'oh, no, I'm just a weak human, I can't possibly fight these mutant goats, no matter how good I am at other ghost-related things' act, and rolled right into the transmutation pool.

Ah.

Hm.

He shouldn't have done that.

"Danny! Quick! Get out of there!"

He stood up quickly, but it was like the liquid in the pool had turned into putty. It didn't want to let him go. It wrapped around him, almost lovingly.

Danny really didn't want to know what prolonged contact with this stuff would do to him.

"Get off!" He shouted, a whisper of his wail leaking into his tone.

The liquid lost viscosity, collapsing again. Danny stood there dripping for a moment, then dragged himself the rest of the way out of the pool.

He dragged a cape woven of purple grass, wildflowers, and tiny mushrooms with him. His clothing was completely different. More formal. He still wasn't wearing shoes.

(The liquid ectoplasm sunk into his skin, leaving him dry. Behind him, he could feel the transformation pool evaporating, forming a cloud elemental many feet above. It would rain, soon, and there would be ectoplasm and other things in that rain. The hollow that once held the pool would contain mushrooms that glowed and glimmered and spread.)

"Um," said Danny.

"Ha!" said the Chicagoan's leader. "You said you weren't anything special and didn't know what we were talking about, but is there anything you want to explain now, young man?"

"No," said Danny, he turned back to his parents. "Can we go home now?"

"Quick, Danno, strip! We need to decontaminate you!"

Danny looked at the crowd of strangers and acquaintances.

"No."

#danny phantom #ask #answer #prompt fill #rot and petrichor #this is late late late #prompt

[hitoshisbabygirl]

Author's Notes ♡: hello hello! Welcome to another BNHAREM collab! This theme of office/work au just gave me so many ideas for some other characters I’m excited! Anywhooo I enjoyed writing this fic out a lot and surprised at how long it is actually! I tried to do a bit of progress between the reader and Shinsou but it might seem a bit jumpy, it’s over the course of a few months jump betweeneach scene!I hope you guys enjoy and check out the others fics too!! ~ bunny ❥

Warnings : NSFW! Tying up (only a little?) , pet names! (Kitten slut and princess!) oral (f! receiving) and I think that’s all!

Word count : 5.5k (another big boy!)

Paring(s) : Shinsou Hitoshi x F!reader

Summary : Falling for your boss was a feat in itself, but what happens when he wants you for himself the same way you do?

Enjoy ♡

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Working as a pro heros assistant has its perks and stressors, especially when the one you work for is the spitting image and personality of the one Mr. Shouta Aizawa ; aka Eraserhead. Quiet, tired, sarcastic but a joy to be around when the two of you could be alone , his sarcastic jokes and overall tiredness with whoever bothered him who wasn't his assistant was a fun thing to hear, especially knowing how he is. Becoming his assistant came as an odd thing too, from him saying he sees how much she worked and seeing the work she was capable of was the catalyst for him asking for her name and for her to be moved to be his assistant. And that's how [ ] found herself speed walking her way to her bosses office, tea , a bottle of water and some type of sweet muffin in her one handed tray and his files in another. Trying not to drop anything as she got closer to his door she pushed the door as hard as she could with a healed foot, sighing in relief as she was able to put everything down without incident. Hearing the door creak after she entered [ ] turned around to face her violet haired boss, a lopsided smile on his face as she straightened up “ H-hello Mr.Shinsou I have everything out for your meeting ; There's the food you requested and all of your files and documents about the the next briefing mission!” Smiling at the taller male his own smirk widened as he shut his door and strolled passed her, the smell of cologne and body wash waving over her senses.

“Thank you [ ]. You always take good care of me, '' Hitoshi said as he sat at his desk and started to open up the files, sipping the tea she brought him. Trying not to let that phrase make her skin tingle with pride [ ] started to leave, letting him be him with his work [ ] headed to the door before Hitoshi looked up and saw her leaving “Oh [ ]” he called out as she turned around , crossing her hands over her skirt that rose on her legs ``Y-yes sir?” “You look pretty today, as usual.” and there it was, the usual complimenting that [ ] wasn't used to. The compliments picked up within a few months of [ ] working with Hitoshi, the two starting already with a good work relationship from the beginning to a more comfortable friendship at work balance. For some reason [ ] couldn't help but notice she was the only female around him that he acted like this with, not comments towards her other female employees, he barely spared them a look as he saw them in the halls or gave them a small answer back to their cheery comments. But when he came over to see [ ] it was a different energy, he was more friendly, he talked a bit more about things he enjoyed and even laughed some! [ ] never even noticed the difference until some of the other workers said they were happy she had joined them because she made their boss more relaxed and calm as opposed to tired and snappy. Shaking her thoughts away she noticed Hitoshi was still looking at her, head resting on his hands as he looked her over before looking at the mess of papers under him “You ordered them for me huh? What did i do to deserve such a wonderful assistant.” He said as [ ] felt the praise make her chest swell. “I try sir” , giving her another smile as he sat back in his chair. “I have another meeting this week I'd like you to sit in on. You're smart and can help me with notes on the lesson if you wouldn't mind?” opening a shut eye Hitoshi saw the confusion then joy that ran through [ ]’s eyes “I'd love to Sir! It'd be an honor to sit in and help you!” She said as he gave him a smile he was selfishly enjoying only for him “ Great. And you can call my Hitoshi [ ], no need for honorifics when we’re pretty good friends now hm?” giggling [ ] shook her head “Sure thing Hitoshi '' Ah there it was for him, the sweet sound of his name on her lips. Watching as she bowed and left he couldn't help the raging thoughts running through his head as his meetings for the day proceeded as planned.

The next few days were odd to say the least. After his meetings Hitoshi was more quiet, slipping in and out of his office without interaction or barely a glance at even his closest friends. He didn't tell [ ] what he needed, more of a list he left the night before and gave her small but barely there smiles when she brought them to him or even brought snacks as his days drained on. This was the boss shinsou she heard of , not the hitoshi she was accustomed to. One day as [ ] sat in her room across the way from her said boss she heard a call for her, someone saying that Mr.Shinsou was needing her. Nervous about what he could need from her when he's already in a bad mood she headed up to his office before knocking softly, hearing a grunt ‘Come in’ from the other side. His office was relatively dark, just the natural light coming from the gian window from behind his grand desk. And sitting at his desk was a sight to behold. There he was, long curly purple hair tousled around as his rolled up sleeves of his normal office clothes laid tightly against his forearm, the few top buttons of the dress shirt opened to reveal the hard muscles built up as a pro hero should have. A face of tiredness, irritability and overall done was evident on his features, but as soon as his eyes met [ ]’s they seemed to have life comeback to them “Ah, you got my message” He said, his voice was laced with sleep, if the darker than normal bags under them wasn't even enough. Even with his sounding half asleep [ ] couldn't help the fluttering she felt from hearing him sound more...rough around the edges than usual “Y-yes i did , seem like you're tired sir can i help with anything?” Now having the man turn fully to face her she saw the look in his eyes , an almost mischievous glint in them as he rolled his shoulders ``This might be an odd request but..mind helping me stretch? I've been keeping up with field work and in the office too but with it all I seem to be overworking my body, I'm sore all over and not getting sleep is well….doing its damage” he huffed out a laugh as [ ] tried to hide the shock and excitement of his questioning. Being that close to her boss, a man she's come to not only admire but has caught a bit of a crush on asking her for help? But she thought it over ‘ I'm his assistant , its what im paid for’

Strolling over to him she gently put her hands on his shoulders and pushed, hearing the male under her groan as he laid back into her gestures “Fuck...I knew youd be an amazing masseuse..” he grumbled under his breath as he laid father back, sliding his shoulders deepeer into her hands as [ ] tried not to let herself to be affected with her bosses words “Dont be shy [

], you can push harder on me , I won't break y'know..” Hitoshi joked as she laughed, pressing her nails into his shoulders as a sinful moan was ripped from his throat. Feeling her face heat up [ ] just rubbed the knots from his shoulders, suppressing a squeal as the sound the violet haired man made increased. Rubbing over the back of his neck and shoulders all of the main knots she felt seemed to have worked out. Softly she stepped away from him and called out “I-Im all done sir, unless you need more?” hearing him groan as he stood she was faced with dark eyes looking her over “Those little hands of yours did wonders for me sweetheart, i should have you be my physical therapist too” laughing [ ] pushed his chest and crossed over the side of his desk to the chair that was across from his “Oh please it was nothing but me trying to loosen up your muscles!” crossing his desk as well Hitoshi came behind his assistant, placing his much larger hands on her shoulders ``Well why don't I return the favor, you've been helping me with all this paperwork and now being a masseuse for me...it's the least I can do'' he whispered in her ear as she let out an involuntary whine , feeling his hands tighten with his warm breath hitting her ear. Taking his thumbs Hitoshi did the same, rolling her muscles out of being tight and wound up, but making sure to do more teasing than [ ] expected. Every so often he whispered “Is that okay?” or some type of small praise, making sure to acknowledge . He was drawing it out on purpose, making sure to move closer to her with every push, or have her whimper with a hard roll or pinch of his larger fingers. Just as she had done he pulled away , but not before rubbing up her arms and giving that same lazy smile “Well I hope i was able to compete with your expert massage” Still overwhelmed she just shook her head and agreed , letting their eyes mingle longer before the phone ringing broke the silence. Sighing Hitoshi went back to his seat, picking the line up before answering “Hello this is Mind Jack” rolling his eyes the man answered, pushing his rolling chair side to side as he was listening to whoever called. [ ] could see how tense he was starting to get, those same shoulders sinking back to their tense state as he continued to drain on with whoever was on the other side “Yeah...the back was the way they seemed to bring in other collateral. Taking a pen from his desk and scrap paper [ ] wrote ‘I can leave and get you some tea if you want it’ and slid it to the violet haired male, his eyes glancing to the paper and back to hers. Snorting he took the pen and replied ‘You're too cute. I'm fine.’ frowning she wrote back ‘But you look stressed again :(‘.

Before she could slide it to him the sound of him yelling shocked her “Well of course there's a problem , no ones keeping a proper tab on him!” Jumping slightly at his hand hitting the wooden desk [ ] covered her squeal, looking up to see the furious eyes of the intimidating man soften before he pointed to her, curling his finger for her to come closer. Hesitantly she did, getting very close before he patted a thigh, shocking the girl. Before she could question him he slid the paper back to her “im sorry :(, mind sitting down with me? Could use a different set of ears for whatever this shit he's telling me...Unless you're uncomfortable, consent is key here and i'm not an opportunist :)’ Smiling at the small note she crossed over his leg to sit in his lap, hesitantly placing her weight down before hearing the older sounding man say something “One second Shin, gotta go get some files and the line was silent. Pushing the speaker and setting the handle down on the holding phone, Hitoshi rubbed at his forehead “This is a pain….I guess the lead we hand on a drug distributor is true but no ones properly following him..I might need to leave the office to follow from higher ground” He spoke up after sensing [ ]’s eyes on his closed ones ``But you should be resting ‘toshi not overworking” [ ] said as she felt his hand wrapping around her waist “God you're too good for me woman, sometimes I wonder how I can keep my composer around such a good girl'' Straightening her back [ ] felt her face heat up , a tingle running though her spine as he continued, getting closer to her ear “Yknow, you're always on edge with me, why is that pretty girl?” Whimpering she felt his hand stroke the mesh of her stockings “Always wearing such cute little outfits...you're like a doll” holding in her breath she gasped when she felt his fingers pinch her thigh “You still didn't answer me [ ]...” Clearing her throat she spoke up “You're just a bit intimidating is all sir..hitoshi” shr admitted as he chuckled , tightening his grasp on her waist “So I intimidate you huh sweetheart?” moving his hand away he just laid back, giving [ ] rome to breathe “You can relax,, I'm used to others ebing a bit scared of me so it's not that big of a surprise.” chuckling, he continued “ You don't have to stay on me , I was just being selfish with you”

Feeling a bit sad at his wording, [ ] turned herself around to look at him, and immediately regretted it. He looked perfect, body sprawled and relaxed on the leather office chair, a similar button up, this time black , was still left open , leaving his neck opened to see. The lazy tired look he always radiates was there, being a sense of calm from him. Since he was in the office he now wore more jewelry , a set of plain titanium bands fit over his fingers. That casually was scrolling his phone. Feeling herself staring too much [ ] cleared her throat and whispered “Well I like you...so I like it up here” And that phrase snapped Hitoshi from his scrolling “What did you just say?” realizing her open thought to herself actually was heard by him she froze, starting to rise from his lap “Ah nothing just-” “[ ], what did you just say to me..” grabbing her arm before she could get far enough she was jerked back to his face. Questioning eyes stared back at the nervous and faltering ones that stared back. “I said I didn't mind being on your lap..” She said as he smirked “But why?” Looking away from his piercing stare she let out a small snort “Well because its kinda comfy” The smirk on his face turned into a grin “That's not what I heard kitten try again” Feeling the heat spread to her face she tried to pull here arm from him only for him to hold it tighter “I..didn't say anything else” clicking his tongue he got closer, putting his nose close others “You said you liked me, or maybe my own thoughts are starting to take over” “What do you mean Hitoshi..?” Flicking his eyes to hear he realized what could happen so taking in a breath he continued “If you don't say it then I will...I like you [ ], the months you've been working for me has been the best time for me...I'M selfish with you..and i want you all to myself..I'm the boss here afterwards, so no ones really gonna question if I decide to make you mines”

Gasping at his confession [ ] tried to hide her face until a hand grabbed her chin “But if I was wrong hearing what you said then..I won't push it” Letting her face and arm go he leaned back in that chair, looking at her. Sucking in her own breath [ ] looked at him and spoke “Yes, I said I liked you, and I do, I've had one since the third week here and now its been months, I enjoy being your assistant, I like being able to make you happy and I...really enjoy being around you..” Meeting his eyes again she saw his smile before he put his phone down “Well with that squared away.. Why don't you come here kitten” By dropping his voice and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt [ ] felt like she'd just opened one of the best and scariest doors she could imagine. That was, until the phone rerung. Side eyeing it Shinsou still held a hand out for her, pulling her swiftly to his lap before answering “Yes Sir?” he started again but this time his hand traveled south, rubbing up and down the back of [ ] as he listened to the man on the other side of the phone. Something he said made the boy grab her waist hard, causing her to let out a sound of discomfort. Hearing that the violet haired male looked at her before whispering a soft “Sorry” and pulling her closer. [ ] saw what he meant ; the senior officer was all over the place, no one knew where anything from the heroes’ agencies were, all the papers, notes and documents on the case seemed misplaced or missing pieces and parts.

Focused on listening to the man on the phone as well, she felt herself start to lay on his shoulder to better hear him, slightly curling up on her boss's lap. Gently a ring clad finger slid under [ ]’s shirt, the cool metal cooling off her burning skin. Still buzzing off his confession she decided to be a bit bold, jutting her hip out so he’d have a hand full of her thigh if he wanted to. Still talking to the man on the line, Shinsou threw her a look, raising a brow before taking the invitation to the now more exposed flesh. “Now Hitoshi-kun I think we could work on a few different ways to trap him, I can send some undercover men to join you in his apprehension, this is our fault for losing him and if we come up with a good enough plan we can begin to execute it!” Humming in agreement Shisou felt himself becoming distracted by his assistant who was whimpering at his ministrations, fingers tightening on his shoulder as she let him rub over her hip, down to her ass and squeezing , before with every touch going lower. “Sure sensei lets..work on some places that we could..potentially set up” feeling the ghosting lips of [ ] on his neck Shinsou slid his hand lower to cup over her cheek , a warning that he'd go lower. Pecking a spot on his neck was the push, the same ring clad fingers going between her skirt and pulling the mesh from her core, causing her to gasp out. Smirking as she got back was a kiss to her temple before he rubbed just his knuckle against her core that was starting to weep. Signing out in content she couldn't help herself, knowing that he still was on the phone with the man fumbling to write up things to fax over she grabbed the sides of his shirt to smash their lips together, a grunt falling from the violet as he groaned, dipping in to kiss her deeper until he heard his name “Hitoshi-kun?” Breathlessly he pulled away from the kiss, seeing [ ] pout as he grinned, stuffing a finger inside of the hole he made and pulled her soiled panties from her lower lips ``Ahem , yeah i'm here sir, sorry just had my assistant bring me some papers and I got distracted” Licking at his lips he continued to talk to the chief while rubbing her little bud casually talking to him as he faxed over details.

An agonizing half an hour later they were done and so was his teasing. As soon as the chief said he'd call later and they hung up [ ] was on him, trying to kiss him as he slipped his fingers out and away from the mess dripping between her legs ``Well well well, the kitten can be bold when it comes to being teased'' Letting out a high pitched whine she when to kiss him again but he moved, going for her neck. “Patience sweetheart, I'm not even gonna do anything.” Pulling her up higher on his lap and cradling her waist his lust filled eyes looked over her heaving chest and wide eyes looking at his “You okay? I didn't mean to scare you with how fast we were moving” Shinsou rasped out at her. Feeling heat creep up her neck she shook her head ``'m fine, great actually. Just very um..needy” Laughing at her words he leaned up to kiss her cheek “Well I hope you know i'm not done with you...I’ll let you finish those papers that were sent over...maybe if you be a good girl I'll give you more hm?” Teasing her Shinsou ran his lips over [ ]’s , the gap keeping them apart almost nonexistent as he licked at her lips , starting another deep kiss. Letting his fingers run over her hips he pulled her tucked shirt out more, unbuttoning the ones closest to him as [ ] did the same, not stripping themselves bare but just enough skin for the two to feel each other.

Letting one hand pull up her skirt and one wrapped around her throat Shinsou could feel the heat radiating from her clothed lower half that was runting over his straining hardon. Slowly he grabbed her hip to stop her rocking. Before pulling away from the kiss, both breathing hard against the other “H-hitoshi...you're a tease” clicking his tongue the male gave her a look “If anything you're the tease kitten, rutting against me like that..and then kissing my neck? Naughty girl you wanted my attention and now that you're getting it you wanna whine about it and beg about it not being enough. I promise i'll give you more kitten, I promise you I will...I really wanted to give you a proper date and be able to show you I don't want you as something quick and damn sure not easy.. but at this rate...I'll end up pounding you on this desk like the little brat you are until you learn how to listen [ ], who knew you'd get bratty if you're not being stuffed and begging for more” Kissing her cheek Shinsou let her sigh and start to semi get dressed to get the papers ``You still could take em on a date though…” She said softly as his eyes watched her smooth and fixed her skirt “That I will do” Laughing [ ] awkwardly tried to pull the stockings she had underneath the tiger to fix the hole he made. Watching her struggle was now Shinsous task as his assistant pulled and tugged, soon hearing another rip as she struggled “Take them off” Blinking, [ ] faced him “H-Huh?” “I said take them off, they'll be off soon anyways” Pointing to the clock he was right ; they only had a bit more left in the office before they'd be going home for the day. “O-Oh yeah..But what about-” “If you're nervous I'll walk you to your car, you don't have to worry about feeling exposed” As i f he was reading her thoughts Shinsou spoke, making [ ] feel her heart rise in her throat “Okay...well uhm thank you sir” feeling even more heat in her chest she left out and did as such, feeling the cool air of the building raised goosebumps on her skin. Sighing, she grabbed the stack of papers on the printer, starting to work on them for her teasing boss.

Sticking to his word Shinsou did walk her to her car, a pleasant conversation falling between the two “Well,” her boss started “It looks like we’ll be up to more faxing tomorrow, I’ll see what we’ll need tonight. Thanks for listening in too, oh and for my massage” Giving [ ] a smile he opened her car door for her and turned to leave before feeling a hand grab his wrist “Wait!” Looking back at her he saw how beautiful she looked ; hair a bit disheveled, shirt and skirt not as neat as it was before their little...break. “Yes [ ]?” she didn't understand it, it was like nothing happened . He was the calm and level headed boss instead of the teasing and fierce lover she had hours ago “Well...nothing, it's nothing” Knowing what she was going to ask he stepped closer, pushing her back against her car. Taking his hands and gently placing them on her hips he pushed himself impossibly closer, just until their lips were over each other “Oh don't worry that wasn't a fluke. I told you kitten, I'm not an opportunist , I wanted you to be comfortable before I even attempted to admit my feelings for you, especially in that way” Giving her a soft peck he pulled away “Goodnight [ ] i'll see you tomorrow yeah?” and with that he started to head for his own car.

The following day [ ] made it a point to dress a bit more risky. Wearing a deep v cut and slit up the thigh black dress that was still acceptable for work with a long sweater she came in early to work on all the filing that would need to be done. Hearing a rep on her door she looked up to see one of the other girls come in “Ouuu look at you, whos the lucky person?” Laughing [ ] continued to order “Ah whatever do you mean?” The girl, Mina, came closer. “All of your outfits are cute or a bit womandly but this, this is a minx in disguise , like you're gonna go on a fancy date but really worried about the desert afterwards if you catch my drift.” Laughing with her best friend [ ] shook her head “I wanted to switch it up, honest!” Giving her a questioning look Mina laughed at herself “We’ll see, I bet Mr.Shinsou will enjoy what you're wearing” Eying her pink haired friend and about to ask why she said that they heard someone else open the office floor door.

“Ah hello sir! Welcome in!” “Good Morning Mina” Oh, OH it was the man of the hour, Shinsou entering the place. As he walked by he too, was out of his usual attire; still ring cladded fingers but a more civilian look going on. Skinny black jeans and a t-shirt help reveal the mass that a pro hero could be. Sure he wasn't a super hulk but he was very well built , long hair pulled into a messy bun. Looking up she saw Mina mouthing the words “He's a hunk” and fanning her face. Waving at her and giggling she heard his office door reopen “Ah Mina, would you mind helping the lower floors until the rest of the team gets in, they seem to have messed up your guys parts. You too [ ]” The both of them looked at the papers that were supposed to come in to them and sure enough ; they had “Yeah i'll go! I know [ ] has more important papers to fill out!” Cheerfully she headed out , leaving the floor empty to her and Shinsou “[ ]” “S-sir?” Glancing up from the papers she saw him leaning over the door frame, eyes studying what he could see of her outfit through her sweater “C’mere..” was all he said as he slinked back into his office. Nervously she left the papers at her desk and headed into his, hearing the soothing jazz in the background “Shut the door too” Pushing the heavy wood until it shut she laid against it, looking at her boss who sat at his desk. “So..how's all the paperwork going?” Nodding her head she let out a soft “Good” before letting the quiet jazz fill the room. Leaning forward and taking a sip from an iced coffee he pointed to the door “You can lock it too” Sucking in a breath [ ] twisted the lock, hearing it click as the room now seemed a bit suffocating. “Whats up sir?” Sighing, Shinsou stood, stretching before he strolled over to her “ Now Kitten..didn't I say we didn't have to do honorifics..” feeling like a deer in headlights she started to move backwards until she hit her back on the door. Smirking he pushed his hand against the frame, trapping her between his arms “R-right...sorry ‘toshi” The smell of the same body wash and cologne took up her air and made her knees feel weak “That's a good girl, now come, sit and i'll show you what we’re gonna be working on” Following shakely behind her boss she saw he was messing with his capture gear behind his desk “Ah the reason i'm dressed so down today is for that very reason; we were gonna go initiate a look around for our guy..trying to see if anyone who works with or knows him is around then i'll take them in for questioning” Nodding her head [ ] fiddled with the weapon , rubbing the fabric “it's so interesting how soft it is” Flicking his wrist the fabric moved to wrap around her wrists and tightened, causing her to gasp “sorry , I couldn't help it” Stepping behind her Shinsou pushed his hips into hers and pulled her up to his chest “toshi...whatre-” “Shhhh, quiet princess..it's time to show you how I can handle you” wrapping his fist around the two straps he used the leverage to keep her tied up before he placed her on his desk. Starting a searing kiss the two of them made out on it, hips pushing into each other as shinsou drew out her sounds. Pulling away heaving the two of them smiled at the other “Fuck..can I?” Rubbing at her colthed slit and starting to bite at her neck, not knowing where to start with her he asked for permission “Y-yes please , please touch me” Smirking against her neck he sucked a few marks before moving lower to her heaving chest to leave more marks. As he got to her thighs he made a show going between them “Shit love...you just had to dress like

a little slut huh..you knew I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off of you..” biting at the thickest part of her inner thigh, before sucking another mark there.

Pushing her dress higher he sucked in a breath at the sight. She was wearing full laced panties, the pair thin enough to see everything she had to offer. Letting out a low whistle Shinsou kissed against the heat of her pussy, bathing in the moan of his assistant. Pulling off her panties and looking up to the heavy breathing [ ] he winked at her before sucking at her clit. A loud moan ripped from her chest as she tried to widen her legs to give him more room. Enjoying himself by making her cry , Shinsou moaned over her lower lips before sucking harshly at her sensitive bud. As pleasured whining fell and tumbled from [ ]’s lips he pulled away, stuffing a thick finger in her sopping walls. “C’mon love, let loose for me” “T-toshi! Please..” Feeling her mind get hazy with a push of a button in her walls. The coil in her stomach felt tight and rapidly getting tighter before she came, runting her hips against his fingers that continued to pump in her “Good girl..thats my sweet kitten” Overwhelmed by all the simulation [ ] looked up the the dark look of her boss who untied the ends of his capture gear. Pulling at the fabric he laid her over the desk and started to rock his tip against her sopping core. Wrapping a hand around her throat he leaned down to push their faces closer as he started to enter into her slowly. Trying to help ease the stretch Shinsou kissed her hard, shushing her loud sounds as he started to bottom out. Once he did get to bottom out the two of them sighed in content , eyes looking at each other “[ ].....I promise i'll be gentle I can't hold back anymore..you're mine you understand?” He growled out.

Clenching over him [ ] agreed, arching her back into him “Im yours Hitoshi...mark me” And with that he started a brutal pace, holding her hands with one of his own while the other held her thigh open. As the two groaned and moaned against each others lips [ ] felt herself clench hardr as another wave of an oragsm filled her mind. Seeing her tired and fucked out face filling her senses, Shinsou grinds, rubbing a pair of fingers over her clit “I'm such a close kitten.. ‘M gonna fill you up, can I?” Panting out to her he tightened his gear over her wrists as her pleasure teary eyes found his “please..inside Im on the pill its okay!” Feeling a shiver go down his spine he sped his hips up, going to fill her up as he started pumping his cum in her fluttering walls , a weak spasm was her wall's response to his fill. Letting her eyes fall shut [ ] felt shinsou breathing against her neck as her still tied hands reached to rub his back. Feeling him start to kiss her neck [ ] let out a content sigh “Hey..[ ]” he called out as she hummed “Once You recuperate we’ll go for round two...Im nowhere near done with you”

#my hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #bnharem collab #shinsou hitoshi x reader lemon #hitoshi shinso x reader #shinsou hitoshi #shinsou smut #bnha smut #f!reader

[velvetgoldzine]

a decadent spiral has received an incredible sixty responses to the interest check!!! thank you so much, everyone- your feedback is incredibly valued. we averaged a 4.7/5 star rating for interest in either participating or buying!

charts, descriptions, and notes under the cut. 

RESULTS

[image description note: all graphs/charts have the same background, a picture of the sky at nighttime with stars visible. the top of the image is a deep navy blue that fades to a purple, magenta, then peach as the sun rises. on the horizon, there are black silhouettes of plants. end note.]

ZINE PRODUCTION.

[image description: a pie chart of varying shades of blue titled “zine production.” it is split into three: for-profit has 5.1 percent of the vote, no profit has 6.8 percent, and free pdf + paid physical items has 88.1 percent. end description.]

a decadent spiral will have free downloads of digital files– i am currently planning on both EPUB and PDF formats being available. any printed books and merch, however, will be sold for profit for charity- this will be the cost of printing + shipping, and then a markup. a donation will be made to an lgbt charity (still to be decided which) when the sale period ends.

FORMAT.

[image description: a vertical bar graph titled “format.” there are fifty-two votes for digital files, and forty-five for a printed book. end description.]

we have more than enough interest to plan on distributing a printed book along with digital files! i'm currently in the process of finalizing formats and choosing a printer.

CONTRIBUTOR INTEREST.

[image description: a horizontal bar graph titled “contributor interest.” there are four rows: thirty people have marked an interest in contributing as an artist, thirteen as writers, nine as moderators, and forty-seven as potential buyers. end description.]

my original stretch goal for contributors was fifteen, and there are more than double that number interested!!! on a slightly less professional note, when i saw this i quite literally screamed. this is so exciting 🥺

depending on the number of people that actually apply, we may have to send out rejection emails so the project doesn't get incredibly overwhelming for the mods to organize.

and the fact that nearly fifty people are interested in seeing the finished product isn't something i'd even begun to imagine!

MERCH.

[image description: a horizontal bar graph titled “merch.” there are six rows: forty-eight people are interested in posters or prints, thirty-five in buttons, twenty-four in pins, twenty-two in keychains, sixteen in digital merch, and six are not interested in merch at all. end description.]

people are definitely interested in prints and buttons, so we'll likely prioritize those (and maybe stickers as a bonus?) as they're relatively straightforward to produce- enamel pins, keychains, and the like tend to take a lot of check-ins and test copies ordered.

SHIPS.

[image description: a pie chart of varying shades of purple titled “ships in the zine.” it is split into three: no ships has 1.7 percent of the vote, not the main focus has 37.9 percent, and yes ships has 60.3 percent. end description.]

the vast majority of people voted to allow ships, so they'll absolutely be allowed in the zine- creators will have free choice over whether their piece focuses on the relationship between two characters or not!

CHARACTERS.

[image description: a horizontal bar graph titled “characters.” there are five rows: jack fairy has six votes, the flaming creatures have three, curt wild has six, arthur stuart has three, and mandy slade has two. no other characters are listed. end description.]

this option is not indicative of the only characters that will be included in the zine- it's more of a guide for which characters we should make sure are featured in at least a few pieces, so if your faves aren't on here, don't worry! they'll still be in the zine. jack, mandy, and the creatures will finally be getting the attention they deserve though <3

INFORMATION THAT'S NOT IN CHARTS / GRAPHS.

SUGGESTIONS!

a playlist to go along with the zine

nonfiction pieces - on characters and their real life counterparts

gerard way

to respond:

i absolutely love the idea of a playlist! it will probably be a lower priority on the to-do list, but i think it'd be cool if each contributor picked a song or two to accompany their piece.

nonfiction pieces about characters will definitely be allowed. i'd like to discuss with a few other people if pieces about real-life counterparts should be allowed as fics about real people are definitely not- this will be clarified when guidelines are posted later today or tomorrow!

and to whoever wrote that they wanted to see gerard way- i will put a doodle of him in there somewhere i prommy.

#update #decadent spiral #the banner has alt text btw

[xtruss]

Goodbye Ted Dexter, Free Spirit, Cricket Thinker, Renaissance Man

The England and Sussex captain had aura, flair, majestic batting, and impossible glamour - and that was just on the field

— Mark Nicholas | 27 August, 2021

Ted Dexter batting in a ring of close-in fielders in Sydney, January 1963 Getty Images

I don't know when the Ted Dexter affectation started but I can guess. The last thing my father did with me before he died so young was to take me to see the 1968 Gillette Cup final at Lord's. This was during Ted's short comeback and when the great man strode to the wicket, I leapt about in excitement, cheering his name for all I was worth. He didn't get many but no matter, I had seen him live. That evening Dad bowled to me in the garden as I imitated every Dexter mannerism and stroke I had seen just a few hours before.

"There is about Dexter, when he chooses to face fast bowling with determination, a sort of air of command that lifts him above ordinary players. He seems to find time to play the fastest bowling and still retain dignity, something near majesty, as he does it." — John Arlott

I fell for the aura, and for the flair in those back-foot assaults on fast bowlers. Not for a minute do I think I saw the 70 in 75 balls against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith at Lord's in 1963 but I feel as if I did - the power, the poise, the sheer gall of it. Nothing, not even the Beatles, could drag me from the television screen when he walked to the wicket, seemingly changing the picture from black-and-white to glorious technicolor as he took guard. Frankly, much of the Test cricket of the time was pretty dull but there was a frisson, an expectation, with Ted, just as there is when Ben Stokes is on his way today. It was all too brief, he had retired for good before I started proper school.

The West Indians of the day - Conrad Hunte, Garry Sobers, Wes Hall - thought that innings the best played against them by anybody, though Dexter himself would modestly say it was just one of those days where everything came together and the bat swung freely in just about the right arc. He was well miffed to be given out lbw, however, insisting later that the DRS would have saved him. Who knows how many careers might have been changed by the sliding doors of the DRS.

The word majesty sits well with Dexter's batting, primarily because of the way in which he attacked through the off side off his back foot. This is a stroke so difficult to master that more prosaic batters choose to ignore it. It is no great surprise that Dexter thought Gordon Greenidge and Martin Crowe the two most technically correct right-hand players that he saw, citing their ability to stay sideways-on and to play the ball alongside their body as the prime reason for the accolade.

He was a huge fan of Joe Root and became near apoplectic during the England captain's relatively lean spell a while ago, when he became square-on to the bowler and was playing in front of his body. This niggled so much that he wrote to Root without mincing his words. Though at first put out, Root soon saw the kindness in a man of Dexter's age and knowledge who bothered to write, and therefore returned an email of thanks with the observation that he took the point. Who knows to what degree? It is enough to say that this year Root has batted about as well as any man could have done, and no one has enjoyed each of these innings in Sri Lanka, India, and now at home as much as Dexter.

One final appeal: Dexter (fourth from left) watches as umpire Charlie Elliot gives John Inverarity out off Derek Underwood, The Oval, 1968 Getty Images

For the best part of a year now, Ted has been banging on about Dawid Malan: simply couldn't understand why England didn't pick him to bat at three. He cited the hundred in Perth in 2017 and this year's big scores for Yorkshire before predicting near-certain success with the method that brought those runs. It is sad, indeed, that he didn't live to see the fulfillment of his prophecy in Malan's fine innings yesterday. He liked the look of James Vince and Zak Crawley too, cricketers who stand tall and play with freedom. He got a lot right, this man of Radley, Cambridge, Sussex and England.

Tall himself, strong, handsome and impossibly glamorous, Edward Ralph Dexter caught everyone's eye. With the golden Susan Longfield on his arm, they cut quite a dash and cared little for the sniping that came from those less blessed. The enigma in him - and how! - was often confused with indifference, and though cricket has remained his other great love, it was never the be-all and end-all for him - a fact that made his appearances all the more cherished and his company all the more engaging. It is remarkable to think that he first retired as far back as 1965, before returning briefly in 1968 to make a double-hundred at Hastings against Kent and be immediately recalled to the England team for the Ashes. In the brilliant photograph (above) of the moment when Derek Underwood claims the final wicket at The Oval, Ted is caught spinning to appeal for lbw with a face that smacks of a lifelong instinct for competition and achievement.

"Ted was a man of moods, often caught up in theories, keen when the action was hot, seemingly uninterested when the game was dull... a big-time player, one who responded to atmosphere, liked action and enjoyed the chase and gamble. Maybe this was the reason he was drawn to horse racing so that a dull day stalking the covers might be enlivened for him by thoughts of how his money was faring on the 3:15 at Ascot or Goodwood." — John Snow

Richie Benaud and Dexter in Sydney during the 1963-64 Ashes Frank Albert Charles Burke / Fairfax Media/Getty Images

And Snow would know for he was not the type to rise above those grey days of county cricket when the stakes were so low. Snow and Dexter, my first heroes, along with Jimmy Greaves and George Best, Muhammad Ali, the Beatles and the Stones - all of them important figures at 29 Queensdale Road, where the young Nicholas grew up with vinyl records and cared-for willow, narrow-grained and well-oiled for the garden Test matches that England forever won.

Much of the 1960s were about rebellion, revolution even, in response to the age of austerity. After the long and mainly drab post-war years, the young simply broke free and changed pretty much anything they could get their hands on. Music and fashion led the way, leaving sport's establishment to stutter in their wake. Only a few precious players could transcend the inertia, using both their talent and expression to delight the crowds and influence the young. Cricket was my thing, Dexter and Snow were the wind beneath my wings.

In Snow there truly was rebellion, against authority and the system it supported. This was not so in Dexter's case, though his free spirit and somewhat cavalier approach to responsibility gave the impression of one determined to ruffle feathers. From the outset he adored sport, worked harder than some might think at his books, and embraced diversions with the enthusiasm of a man who had more to do than could ever be done.

In many ways Ted was a contradiction: at once a conformist, as shaped by the early years of his life at home and school, and a modernist, whose lateral thinking did much to reform the structure of English cricket during his time as chairman of selectors. Richie Benaud observed that Ted's imagination and drive "will be of great benefit to English cricket in years to come. Equally, I'm in no doubt that others will take the credit for it." The rebellion in Ted was hardly radicalised but he loved to challenge conservative thinking, to take risks and to invest in his life as an adventure. Both on and off the field, this made for a terrific watch.

The best of Ted: Dexter on his way to 70 against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith at Lord's, June 1963 PA Photos

He thought the Hundred a good wheeze and admitted he would rather like to have played it himself. He was, of course, the original thinker about one-day cricket, supporting its conception as early as the late 1950s and then leading Sussex to the first two 60-over titles at Lord's in the Gillette Cup. He paid close attention to the tactics and convinced his men that following them to the letter would do the trick. Which it did. He pushed for four-day county matches 27 years before they were incorporated and he founded the idea of central contracts for England players long before other teams caught the bug.

He was proud of his part in the development of the spirit of cricket, applying golf's moral high ground to the game that made his name. Through his own PR agency, he became a pioneer in cricket's digital-technology revolution by inventing the system of Test match rankings that first announced itself under the banner of Deloitte and is now the ICC international rankings.

On a Zoom call a couple of months back, with tongue firmly in cheek, he said, "Having a rather high opinion of myself, I can safely say that had the rankings been in place sometime around the mid part of the 1963 summer, I would have been the No. 1-rated batsman in the world." We had special guests on these calls - Mike Atherton, Michael Vaughan, Ed Smith, Robin Marlar, Sir Tim Rice and more - all keen to share a drink, chew the cud and have a laugh with the game's most original and forward-thinking mind.

Champagne days: (from left) Fred Trueman, Dexter, David Sheppard and Colin Cowdrey celebrate after winning the Melbourne Test, January 1963 PA Photos/Getty Images

We cannot jump past golf without mentioning the game at the Australian Golf Club in Sydney when Ted partnered Norman Von Nida against Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. So enamoured of Ted's golf were they that Nicklaus suggested Ted follow him back to the USA for a crack at the tour. Player has long said that Ted was the best amateur ball-striker he ever saw and Von Nida just thanked him for securing the one-up triumph that day. Eighteen months ago Player told me that in their one head to head with each other, Ted beat him up the last at Sunningdale, receiving only four shots. "Little so-and-so," said Ted, "we played level!" They were due for a game last summer but Covid stood firmly between them. The last time I played with Ted, two summers ago now, he beat his age, shooting 83 round the Old Course at Sunningdale without breaking a sweat.

This was a man of Jaguar cars, Norton motorbikes, greyhounds, race horses and an Aztec light airplane that, in 1970, he piloted to Australia with his young family beside him, to cover the Ashes as a journalist. They flew 12,000 miles and made about two dozen stops at British military bases along the way.

Ted married the very beautiful Susan soon after returning from Australia and New Zealand in the spring of 1959. How she is hurting today. So too Genevieve, Tom and the grandchildren.

There was an eccentricity in him that was occasionally misunderstood but otherwise immensely appealing and it is with that in mind, that I turn to the man himself for the final word. It comes from his blog, which is a splendid read and will remain a platform for the family to share their thoughts about this husband, father and grandfather who brought us so much joy.

Dexter and Frank Worrell at a BBC interview with Peter West, August 1963 Harry Todd / Fox Photos/Getty Images

It was in my last term at Radley College when I had a hard game of rackets in the morning, scored 3 tries with two conversions for the 1st XV in the afternoon, was heard listening to operatic voices in the early evening, before repairing to the Grand Piano in the Mansion and knocking off a couple of Chopin preludes. "Quite the Renaissance man it seems" said my Social Tutor and I admit I liked the sound of it, if not quite knowing what it meant.

The Encyclopaedia Brittanica description of Renaissance man (or polymath) is as follows: one who seeks to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, in physical development and social accomplishment and in the arts. A point is made that you do not need to excel at any one activity. It is enough to tackle it seriously and see how far you get. I like the physical development bit obviously and I feel the social accomplishment bit is covered by my willingness to take on responsibilities all my life. Perhaps the arts bit is a bit shaky but a love for music, and particularly opera, and love of language - being fairly fluent in French, Italian, rudimentary German and Spanish - may be some modest qualifications."

Some different cat, huh. What a man. What a cricketer. Goodbye Ted, and thank you.