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crystalk17 · 3 years

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This is my super late submission for the MCYT gt gift exchange. I am really sorry for it being so late. I hope it is up to your standards!!!

This gift is for @leetlezeetle

Their promt: Giant dragon hybrid kidnaps a tiny/human to watch its young while they hunt.

As soon as I read this I thought "OMG PHILZA!!!"

So here is a fatherly, Giant, halfbreed dragon named Philza. Who kidnaps a young knight in training named Tommy. Maybe he can handle the young ones? Or maybe he will become the next meal. Who knows?

Tommy remembers the first day he was brought here. The teen was working on his stances and swings. Not even hours ago his face was shoved into the dirt by Dream. "You will never be a true knight. You can't even strike down Niki and she's a woman!" Tommy felt a heavy boot across his back shoving his body and pride even further into the mud. "You will quit or be killed."

Picking his body up the young-looking blond whipped the mud all over his front and face. If he was rebellious he would flick it at the superior, but now was not the time. After cleaning the brown thickness from his eyes he saw Dream holding his silver sword out to him with one hand. Tommy didn't say another word, even though so many were boiling under the skin to be screamed out. With a swipe of his hand, he grabbed the sword storming off.

Now he was in the field making sure he was perfect. Every swing of the sword, every shift of his body, had to be just right or he would restart with a deep growl. He would not leave until he got this perfect.

At least that was the plan.

Instead, he swung the sword jutting it straight out. The invisible enemy crippled back from the fatal stab. He was holding the wound begging for mercy.

"No foul creature. This is your last day on earth." Sliding his foot back he prepared for the final blow. Ramming the sword forward with such speed he had to close his eyes. He knew this was not the correct way to stab someone, but he was just practicing and he would try again. He expected the sword to slide through air. He would open his eyes and he would be holding his sword with one hand straight out and a perfect stance with the ghost enemy on the ground. But...but...he struck something.

Opening his eyes just a peek, his blood ran cold. Standing inches away from him was a black dragon with dark green scales sprinkled in. He thrust his sword forward hitting only the beast's clawed hand. The beast was humongous. Tommy had to look straight up into the air to even see the Creature's surprisingly blue eyes. What startled him, even more, was the fact that if the dragon wasn't looking its head over Tommy then he wouldn't even be able to see his eyes very well.

He could feel his body freeze. It didn't want to move. He felt the sword drop from his hands when the creature got even closer sniffing at his head. His hair flew up a bit then landed on top of the sweat already traveling down his face. The ground seemed to be shaking...oh wait that was his feet shaking back and forth. His pupils went wide when the blackish dragon nudged him with its claws. Maybe to see if he was alive?

Faster than he thought the creature could move, its clawed hand struck out grasping the young knight. It easily encompasses the human hiding it from the world. Tommy's whole body was encased by leather and claws that were larger than his own body. Was he seriously getting kidnapped like a princess? For what seemed like five minutes, most likely longer, Tommy banged against his rock-hard prison. He looked down seeing the monster made the mistake of allowing him to keep his sword. As if it was an instinct he grasped it in two hands and shifted his body forward. One. Two. Three hits. Even a stab and nothing happened. He wouldn't be surprised if he looked at the to and it was bent. He was going to be here for a while. -------------------------------------------------------

That very day was three months ago. On this very day, Tommy was sitting on the dusty ground of a cave, light reflecting off the walls from the fire he built. There was always plenty of food and the cave even had a small stream running through it. He was always surprised no other creatures tried to claim this area as theirs, but at the same time, he understood why.

Behind him, the sound of running feet hitting rock made his head turn. At this point, he was used to this. Looking outside it seemed about that time when the young ones started to stir.

"You can't catch me!!" Running up behind Tommy a child with short brown hair and a rugged jacket came into view. The child decided to run right behind Tommy's back even though his body was way too big to be covered up by the teen. The child looked like he could be a very young adult in stature, but in fact, this was a young halfling.

Two other forms came running out, but instead of humans like this child one was an actual dragon the size of a horse and the other human-looking but with dragon features. These three were young dragon halflings. Tommy found out through experience and reading in books halfling children had no control over their body. The younger they were the more dangerous they were.

When halfling babies are born they are very small compared to their parents. They are the size of a human, some can even be the size of a human toddler. As they got older their bodies morphed into the proper size. This is the exact reason why most halflings do not survive. They have dangers around every corner because of their vulnerable size and accidents do happen between the older halflings and their young. Throughout the years, the children would get used to their shifting abilities, so it wasn't uncommon for siblings, like these three, to look completely different.

The human-looking child keep moving back and forth so he was covered up by his 'shield'. The human with dragon features was trying to get around the sitting human to get to his sibling. With every movement, Tommy flinched a bit because the dragon halfling had claws that were digging into him every time he touched Tommy's skin while trying to get around him. He knew it was an accident, probably didn't even think about it, but he had to learn.

"Michael" he winced once more as his claws touched his shoulder. "Michael." he raised his voice a bit more to get the child's attention. The volume seemed to get his attention cause he froze in his actions. "Michael. What did we talk about playing."

"To be careful." Tommy watched as the pink flaps he had for ears drooped down showing he was upset.

"Yes, kid. You unlike your brothers have claws, wings, and these cool horns." Tommy grabbed one horn and shook the child's whole head making him smile. "I can't have your dad coming back and I'm filled with holes from your claws. He would kill us both. Just make sure next time-"

As he was talking the third child jumped right on top of Tommy. The Third was a black dragon like his father but had specks of dirty yellow scales on him. Somehow the third child learned to turn into a full dragon, but couldn't control turning back very often. He was the size of a horse and as heavy as one. "Tubbo! Tubbo get off!" Tommy was using all his strength to push the little dragon off, but all it accomplished was a face full of dragon licks.

This was how it was every single day. Tommy was left in the cave with three halfling children named Wilbur, Michael, and Tubbo. Every day it was him watching as the three played tag or roughhoused with each other while their father was gone. Who was the father? That was the black dragon who kidnapped him three months ago. Every day the giant black dragon would go out hunting, leaning poor Tommy to watch and protect his young. At first, he hated it and wanted to escape himself, but after a few days of being stuck here, the seventeen-year-old fell in love with Phil's children. Anymore he couldn't picture it any differently.

"Tubbo this is the last time I'm asking. Get off." his face was drenched in dragon slobber. The most he could do was push against the black dragon's body but he wouldn't budge. All it accomplished was the young one started to nuzzle and push up against his face to show affection. Michael ran behind Tommy's head and put all his weight on the human's arms. He was pinned to the ground and he was not going anywhere. His legs would flail up and down, but that was about it. He couldn't even do this much in fear of kicking one of the halflings.

"Get off!" Through his shouting and torturous affection, Tommy heard wood breach at the opening of the cave. The three children must have heard it too, because all three of their heads whirled to the opening as well. Tubbo started to growl and Michael's eyes grew wide. Tommy could feel the young dragon slowly stepping off his body, but he had to be ready for action now. Gently pushing him all the way, Tommy grabbed his sword from the ground. This was why he was brought here. His job was to protect and help with the young ones when their father was gone. All this training had to come into play. His heart started to beat faster as he watched the three halflings hide behind his body as if they weren't bigger than him, as if he could protect them from whatever dared to come into a dragon's den. His grip tightened on the hilt as his eyes glared at the opening. Tommy put one hand out to assure the young ones behind him.

Tubbo started to sniff the air, then his tail wagged like a dog's. He was excited about something. He ran forward with a determined speed. Tommy tried to reach out and grab his neck, but he was just dragged forward when the pup ran at full speed. Tommy dug his feet into the ground, but it didn't seem to help.

Tubbo came to an abrupt stop, flipping Tommy's body onto the ground. He frowned in irritation. He couldn't even stop a running five-year-old, how was he supposed to protect these guys?

Walking into the entrance of their hidden cave was the same black dragon who grabbed him all those months ago. With the creatures massive body in full view Tubbo ran full speed towards his father wagging his tail. Tommy had to just release or be dragged with him. He watched as the dragon very carefully dropped a dead cow, probably stolen from the villagers. The sheer black beast very carefully nuzzled Tubbo with the end of his snout getting a small squick in response.

Michael and Wilbur ran over, but straight to their dinner. Tommy watched in disgust as the two would burn the carcass with their fire than eat the pieces they tore off like hamburgers.

"Not hungry?" a deep rumbling voice asked with a surprising gentleness to it.

Tommy's scrunched up in disgust. "I'll stick to my berries and properly hunted meat. He looked up to see where a black dragon was standing was now an adult half breed human. The half dragon was smaller then the dragon form, by 20 feet to be exact. He still had black dragon wings, his tail, razor teeth, even his claws on his hands, but everything else was the perfect imitation of a human.

Tommy grabbed his sword to head out and find his own food. He would allow the family their time and he could practice with his sword. He marched to the opening when the tail curled around him blocking his path. In irritation, he looked up at the smug blond-haired male who looked 30 with horns. He had his wings tucked away, but Tommy knew they were there. He attempted to climb over the tree truck-sized obstacle until it started to move dragging him closer to the half-breed.

"What! I'm just getting food unless you want your protector to starve." The tail didn't stop herding him until he was right back to the other three dragonlings. Tommy knew he didn't need his sword so he let it drop while he yelled up at the beast. "This isn't funny Phil."

"You know I appreciate you right?"

Since he was close enough now, Phil gently picked the young knight up with two fingers. He could feel Tommy squirming, but both knew nothing would happen.

"If I didn't think you could handle yourself, I wouldn't have chosen you to watch my young."

Tommy looked back in those deep blue eyes before he spoke. "Yeah well... I know."

Phil put the human back down beside the other three. He curled his tail closely around the four. His four kids.

#mcyt #leetlezeetle #gt #dragon #knight #Tommy #philza #gift

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miraculouswolf99 · 3 years

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Breaking Into The Watchtower Part 2

Part 2, and the final part, of my Miraculous-Justice League crossover. Prepare for a long one, readers.

*****

After recharging, the masked teens all gathered back in front of the heroes. Since the ones that had used their powers had to recharge, their power effects lifted from Dr. Fate and Superman. It allowed both heroes to be free once more. The Justice League and Young Justice all returned to their seats. If Wonder Woman was honored to meet them, then they should hear them out before deciding what to do with them.

The group was about evenly split to be on either side of who seemed to be the leaders of their group. The ladybug and butterfly girls as well as the wolf and black cat boys.

“Introductions would certainly be the best way to start,” the ladybug girl said. “My name is Ladybug and I am one of the leaders of the Miraculous hero team of Paris. Right next to me is my partner, Cat Noir.”

The black cat boy nodded at the heroes.

“My name is White Wolf and I am the co-leader of the Miraculous team along with Cat Noir, Ladybug, and my partner Beautifly,” the wolf boy motioned to the butterfly girl when he mentioned her.

“Pleasure,” she nodded to the heroes like Cat Noir.

“With us are all of our team members,” Ladybug motioned to the rest of the heroes. “To my right is Vulpix, Emerald Shell, Queen Bee, Tigress, Lady Unicorn, and Shadow Cat.”

“To my left is the rest of our team,” White Wolf says. “Viperion, Ryuko, Ocean Mage, King Monkey, Gladiator, and Bunnix.”

All of the other heroes nodded when they were introduced.

“For three years, Paris has been terrorized by a terrorist known as Hawkmoth and as have come to personally ask for your help,” Beautifly says.

Ladybug then stepped forward and took the yo-yo off of her wait. She opened it and typed in a few commands. A hologram appeared out of it, like the holographic screams and projectors that the league uses. Ladybug put her yo-yo on the ground so that the others could use their weapons/communicators to control the images that are seen. Cat Noir took out his staff and used it to punch in a command. The hologram then showed images of a few of the miraculous. The most well-known ones, such as the ladybug and black cat as well as the moth/butterfly.

“The miraculous are an ancient set of jewelry enchanted and bonded to gods known as the kwami,” Ladybug explains. “Each piece, along with the kwami that it is bonded to, represents a specific aspect of magic. Creation, destruction, illusion, protection, and more. But that is specifically the miraculous of ancient China, where most of our miraculous come from.

“The miraculous that are used by myself, Beautifly, Tigress, and Gladiator use miraculous that originate from ancient Greece,” White Wolf says. “Our representations are more general but also more specific at the same time. Mine represents Winter’s Hope, as in the hope that comes when you know and hope about how the frost protects the earth before it gives way to the flowers of spring. Beautifly’s represents Spring Love, coming from the original belief of flowers and Spring being associated with love.”

“My miraculous comes from the mystical creature miraculous, where each represents a magical creature and what their core is all about,” Ocean Mage said. “Mine is the miraculous of the mermaid.”

The Justice League paid close attention to what the group was saying. Most of Young Justice was looking at Kid Flash, who was glaring at the teen heroes. He was probably itching to yell at them that “magic wasn’t real” because of his extreme disbelief in it. But the Flash was next to him and making sure that he did not let his former sidekick’s delusions interrupt the Miraculous Team.

“So, it would be a magical threat, right,” Aqualad guessed. “That would be the only reason why the miraculous would be called into action, correct?”

“Exactly,” Beautifly answered the Atlantean.

Cat Noir punched in a command into his baton and the hologram changed. It now showed an image of Hawkmoth.

“He looks like a Mexican wrestler reject,” Red Hood said.

Most of Team Miraculous had to hold their hands over their mouths to stop them from bursting into laughter and ruining their aura of seriousness.

“This is the terrorist that we have been fighting,” Cat Noir says. “He showed up about three years also, almost four. He has been using the stolen butterfly/moth miraculous in order to turn unsuspecting people into superpowered villains.”

“How can he do that,” Flash asked, curious. “What exactly is the power of his miraculous?”

“The power is originally known as Empowerment,” Cat Noir said. “The miraculous are not meant to be used for evil, so Hawmoth has turned the power into Metamorphasis. He uses it to sense those that are feeling intense negative emotions and takes advantage of them in order to turn them into his villains. Anger, sadness, betrayal, heartbreak, anything negative.”

“His goal has remained the same for the entire time that he has been active,” Viperion says. “He desires to obtain the ladybug and black cat miraculous.”

“What is it about those two that he specifically wants them above all the others,” Black Canary asked them.

“The ladybug and black cat are the most powerful of the ancient China miraculous,” Ryuko tells the league. “They’re the complete opposite of each other with the ladybug being creation and good luck while the black cat is destruction and bad luck. When you combine them, the person wielding them is given the power to bend reality in order to make a wish.”

“So this guy is terrorizing your city just to make a single wish,” Green Arrow raised an eyebrow.

“Must be something that can not be obtained any other way or he is just really desperate for a quick solution,” Red Arrow said.

“If it was a simple wish, there would not be much of an issue,” Ladybug says. “But because the ladybug and black cat need each other to balance the other, the wish itself would also require balance.”

Viperion was the one to put in the next command. How he was able to do that with a harp, none of them ever asked. Three more images appeared, replacing Hawmoth’s. Pompeii, the Black Plague, and even the Salem Witch Trials.

“All of these things were caused by a wish,” Superman sounded skeptical.

“There are many examples of magic throughout history,” White Wolf says. “You just have to know where to look.”

Vulpix took his turn to speak. He used his flute to point at specific images when he was talking about them.

“In Pompeii, someone wished for their family to not be killed by disease,” Vulpix said. “But that ended up causing a volcano that wipes out a majority of the city and most of its population. A man’s wife was sick and he wished for her illness to go away. But then the illness spread since it left one person and turned into a plague. Last was a miraculous holder that was deeply afraid of being discovered and wished to never be accused of using magic. But then dozens upon hundreds of innocent people were convicted and executed during the witch trials.”

“The balance is why the wish is so dangerous,” Emerald Shell says. “Everything that is wished for usually ends in disaster. Even those with pure intentions are not spared. But since Hawkmoth definitely is planning on using the wish, it is either for something extremely wrong or just extremely selfish. Either would end in hell on Earth.”

“It’s so hard to believe that a wish could do all of that,” Black Lightning was shocked.

“Magic does that,” Beautifly says. “It makes the impossible turn possible.”

“If it is the miraculous of ancient China that Hawkmoth wants, why not use the others you have access to,” Red Tornado asked. “It is the logical choice to keep the miraculous that he desires out of his reach. You do have access to the ancient Greek miraculous, given White Wolf, Beautifly, Gladiator, and Tigress.”

“We wish it was that simple,” Lady Unicorn said.

“The problem is that the powers of Hawkmoth’s miraculous can only be undone by the ladybug miraculous,” Ladybug says. “And since the ladybug and black cat have to balance each other, both have to be active at the same time or neither of them can be active. I am the only one that can purify his akumas and then fix all the damage that they cause with my Miraculous Cure.”

Queen Bee typed a command into her top. A video replaced the images of the disasters that the wish caused. The video was from the Ladyblog and it was of the first akuma attack. It showed Ladybug casting her first-ever cure and everything being fixed by it.

“This was only the first of Hawkmoth’s attacks,” she said.

“There is also the added issue that the Greek miraculous also have a wish tied to the most powerful ones,” White Wolf says.

“They do,” Wonder Woman did not know about the Greek miraculous since neither she nor any other Amazon came into contact with them.

“As we have said, the wolf and butterfly miraculous are each themed by elements of Winter and Spring,” White Wolf says. “So you know that would leave the other two seasons. Those two exist in the power of Summer’s Heart for the songbird miraculous along with the Wildness of Autumn for the panther miraculous. Combining all four seasons gives the same wish ability as the combined ladybug and black cat.”

“But there is still the balance issue even with a different set of miraculous,” Tigress added. “Magic always comes at a price. That is the universal law of magic.”

The Justice League all nodded, most of them understanding the price that could come when you use magic. The Young Justice team remembered Zatanna explaining her powers to them when she had first met them. She had said that the power of her spells usually has to come from within, meaning that the more powerful spells would seriously drain her energy. Plus, there is also the known fact that Dr. Fate was never controlled by who wore the helmet. They were like a coat that the lord of order would put on in order to be active. Zatara was still in there but the price he paid was only being able to see his daughter once a year.

“So, what exactly is it that you need from us,” Batman asked the teens.

He was surprised to have heard about the villain in Paris before. Sure, he rarely ever left Gotham unless it was an international emergency, but this was a serious problem. If this villain, or any villain, got their hands on the miraculous, it would be a complete hell on earth. Lord knows what disaster would happen if the Joker made a wish.

“We actually have been requesting help for years,” Queen Bee glared at the league. “Ladybug has called, Cat Noir has called, even the mayor of Paris has called. You all brush us aside and have even told us to stop calling the League to trick them with ‘such an unrealistic prank.’ It’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”

“While Queen Bee could have been a bit more diplomatic, she is correct,” Ryuko says. “The miraculous are not so unrealistic when you have magic-users like Zatanna as a part of the League while also having Dr. Fate, whose helmet inhabits a lord of order that possesses whoever wears the helmet. That is not unlike the miraculous, only slightly different.”

Guy Gardner looked particularly embarrassed by that. That made the rest of the league realize who had been ignoring their calls for help, waving it off as a prank. You would think that someone with a powerful piece of jewelry himself would believe in the miraculous.

“As much as it pains us to admit, we no longer know what to do,” Cat Noir says. “Hawkmoth has been growing in power ever since Heroes Day almost two years ago. That was also the first time that his partner revealed herself.”

Vulpix was the one that typed in the command this time, into his flute. The hologram changed to show Mayura. The elegant woman looked even more dangerous with her fan allowing only access to her deadly gaze.

“This is Mayura,” Emerald Shell said. “She appeared on Heroes Day and foiled the closest time that the team had ever come to defeating Hawkmoth. She wields the peacock miraculous, which grants the power of Emotion, which allows her to make inanimate objects into guardians. Only they are now called sentimonsters. They are a monster created by a person’s negative emotions just like Hawkmoth’s akumas. While she is not as common as Hawkmoth, the two of them do combine their powers to give akumas a powerful allie.”

Emerald Shell typed in a command and pictures of some of her sentimonsters appeared around the image of Mayura. The moth creature that she usually gives Hawkmoth, Refleckdoll, the lollypop monster, and Feast.

“Why does she not appear as often as Hawkmoth,” Martian Manhunter asked.

“From our own research, and from what our kwami have told us, the peacock miraculous is broken,” Ladybug says. “In an effort to repair itself, it takes away the energy and life force of the person using it. Each time that Mayura transforms, she is risking her life.”

“You think she would actually risk her life just for Hawkmoth to succeed,” Captain Atom asked.

“Mayura has shown to be loyal to a fault,” Shadow Cat said. “The fault being that she is loyal to Hawkmoth. We also suspect that whoever she was had also allowed herself to be akumatized into Catalyst on Heroes Day in order to give Hawkmoth the needed power-up that he needed to do what he did.”

“What exactly did he do,” Green Lantern (John) asked.

“Catalyst gave Hawkmoth a power boost that he used in order to use his power on a massive level, allowing him to become Scarlet Moth,” Beautifly says. “He akumatized almost everyone that had previously been victimized by him. Dozens of his akumas flooded the streets while more of his akuma waited for others to feel negative emotions to infect them as well if they were not under the control of the mind-controlling akumas like Darkblade or Queen Wasp.”

Queen Bee shifted a bit at the mention of her second akuma form, but she got her composure back quickly.

“Hawkmoth had been able to accomplish that when he used a previous akuma to create an illusion of Ladybug being akumatized and killing Cat Noir,” Gladiator said. “All those people feeling the same negative emotion of fear and hopelessness was what allowed him to akumatize so many people at once.”

He typed in a command and the image of Mayura and her sentimonsters were replaced by a clip of what had happened during the parade played.

“And ever since Heroes Day, Hawkmoth has been getting a lot worse,” White Wolf says. “His akumas used to be a lot easier and were relatively harmless to even those affected by them. Like Princess Frangrance only hypnotized those that smelled her perfume and Silencer only took people’s voices. But then you compare that to Syren and Stormy Weather, both have caused natural disasters. Hawkmoth is getting deadly in his desperation for the miraculous.”

He typed in a command and the image changed to show the range of akuma that have happened over the years. Harmless ones like Mr.Pigeon, deadly ones like Queen Of Hearts, and natural disaster ones like Syren.

“We can deal with the akumas,” Ladybug says. “But with Hawkmoth constantly sending them out, we have no time or energy to put toward finding him and taking him and Mayura down for good.”

“Do you have any suspects,” Nightwing asked.

“We had a promising suspect in fashion designer, Gabriel Agreste,” Ocean Mage said. “He lives a secluded life away from people, butterflies are pretty common in a lot of his designs, and there was also that a lost grimoire had also been found in a secret vault by his son.”

“But we had to cross him off the suspect list when he was akumatized,” Tigress says. “But even our only suspect for Mayura puts him right back in the suspect pool.”

“You mean his assistant, right,” Red Robin was looking at the holographic screen over his glove, same as Oracle. “Nathalie Sancoeur.”

“She had had multiple doctor’s appointments ever since this Heroes Day you told us about,” Oracle continued for him. “And every time it is for the same thing. Dizziness, fatigue, constant headaches, and multiple coughing fits.”

“Yes, she is his assistant,” Shadow Cat answered. “She has also shown that she is incredibly loyal to Gabriel no matter how inhumane the things that he wants his son to do are. His diets and constant photoshoots should never be given to a teenager.”

“He also has a motive,” Cat Noir looked to be the most reluctant out of all of them on this topic. “Gabriel Agreste’s wife vanished about six months before Hawkmoth appeared and many assume that she is dead by now. He could desire to use the wish to either bring her back or to bring her back to life. Either would probably cause the balance to cause something horrible to happen.”

“If you suspect those two, do you also suspect Agreste’s son, as well,” Red Robin asked.

“That is the thing that we want to avoid,” Shadow Cat says. “Most of us know his son or have met him because he was targetted by an akuma. Adrien is known as the Sunshine of Paris. There is no way that he is involved even if those two are behind it.”

“We also do not want it to be true because that would also mean that Mr.Agreste put his own son in danger by sending akumas after him,” Lady Unicorn added. “It would also mean that Adrien would probably have his life destroyed if those two really are behind the attacks.”

“I am sure that he would greatly appreciate you all standing up for him,” Wonder Woman smiles at the teen heroes.

Robin had been staring at the group the entire time. He was not only the only blood son of the world’s greatest detective, but he also had a trained assassin’s eye. He noticed things that others didn’t. Like there was an unspoken bond and closeness between the black cat boy and the wolf boy. The other obvious couples seemed to be the horse and tiger girls as well as the dragon girl and snake boy. The fox and turtle boys were also definitely together.

“Is there anything else,” Superman asked.

The teens shared a look with each other. It seemed that this part was probably something that they had discussed before. Ladybug nodded to Cat Noir. He typed in a command and the image of a civilian girl appeared.

“Why does this girl have sausages on her head,” Red Hood asked.

Most of Team Miraculous did not even try to hold in their laughter this time. But they had to soon get back their composure since this was a very serious situation.

“This is Lila Rossi, daughter of an Italian diplomate,” Ladybug said. “She has been akumatized almost fifty times. She is mostly akumatized as Volpina, which is a poor copy of Vulpix and his powers. But she also has been akumatized into Chameleon, which is an akuma that can shapeshift into anyone or anything that she kisses, as well as Miracle Queen, which can create illusions that can hypnotize people. We believe that she is working for Hawkmoth since Volpina is the only akuma that could have created the illusion on Heroes Day.”

“Why does that make her a suspect,” Green Arrow asked.

“Because I didn’t purify Volpina’s akuma that day,” Ladybug says. “And since Hawkmoth had to akumatize another person into Catalyst after the illusion that was created, that meant that she was akumatized and didn’t tell anyone.”

“There is also that the mayor’s daughter, Chloe Bourgeois, sent us this,” Queen Bee types in a command.

Next to the image of Lila appeared a video that was obviously taken on a cell phone while a person was hiding. It showed Lila running toward an akuma and literally jumping up to snatch it out of the air. She then placed the akuma into the necklace that she was wearing and actually smirked as a glowing butterfly outline appeared over her eyes.

“Because of Chloe’s previous reputation of being a bully and a spoiled brat that likes getting others into trouble, she knew that only we would actually believe her when she gave us this video,” Ladybug says.

“There is also the fact that Lila is a pathological liar that puts on a sweet and innocent front that makes it almost impossible for people to see her as the horrible person that she really is,” Emerald Shell of all people basically growled.

“Lila has spent years telling tall tales about being Ladybug’s best friend,” Vulpix said. “As well lies about musicians like Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale, comic book artists like the writers of the Miraculous Adventures comic, fashion designers like Style Queen and MDC, as well as Adrien Agreste himself. Anyone that has ever called her out has had their lives ruined.”

“More research into her revealed that at every single school that Lila has ever attended, there has been either a suicide, a deadly accident, or a person getting greatly injured,” Viperion says. “All of them have been about kids that were once popular and loved, but their lives went to hell once Lila attended their schools.”

“You believe that this Lila girl is behind all of these things,” Superboy asked.

“We connected everyone that we could that was connected to her past victims,” Gladiator said. “They all said the same thing, that Lila came to the school with tales of grand adventures and their friend or child realized that she was lying. Then she would start whispering lies about these kids to all of her loyal listeners. She would make up stories about them bullying her, threatening her, stealing from her, talking behind their backs, anything that she could think of.”

“She would turn everyone that she could against them,” Ocean Mage crossed his arms. “Friends, teachers, principals, even family. There were those that killed themselves over the bullying they received, but it was actually worse for those that were too strong for that. Lila would then either cause an accident that would kill them or injure them in a way that broke them even further.”

“Take a look at this,” Tigress made an image appear of a kind-looking boy that looked to be from Spain from the background of the image. “This is Mateo Santiago. He went to the same school as Lila when she was in Spain. He was once a popular boy that had a gift for singing. He won countless youth singing contests all over Spain. When he heard Lila’s tales, he did his research and found her to be a liar. But just like all the others, she turned everyone but his family against him. But Mateo remained strong and did not let her or anyone get to him, confident because of how much he performed in front of others. So, Lila took that away from him.”

“See, Mateo was allergic to fish,” Beautifly took over the story. “It gave his throat a bad reaction, so he stayed away from it to keep his vocal cords safe. But one day, Lila managed to get into his locker and pour fish sauce all over his lunch salad. So when lunch came, he had an allergic reaction. He was taken to the hospital and the procedure that saved his life also damaged his vocal cords. He would be mute for the rest of his life. All of that because he knew Lila was a liar and tried to expose her.”

“Lila has been trying to do the same in Paris as well,” White Wolf says, making an image of a Chinese-French girl be exchanged for Mateo’s. “This is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Lila’s latest victim. See, Marinette is a fashion design hopeful and has already designed for those like Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, Adrien Agreste, and even been noticed by Style Queen herself for a simple hat. Since she has her own connections, she knew right away that Lila was a liar.”

“You may notice from any research that you do that Vulpix, Emerald Shell, and Lady Unicorn have not always been those that wield the fox, turtle, and horse miraculous,” Cat Noir says, making images of three previous holders appear next to Marinette’s picture. “This is Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Pegasus. They were the previous holders of those three miraculous.”

“Did something happen to them,” Red Arrow asked.

“Lila happened,” King Monkey crossed his arms. “These three used to be friends of Marinette’s. Especially Rena and Carapace. But then Lila came along and Marinette tried to expose her. Lila managed to sway half of Marinette’s class into being her attack dogs to attack Marinette even if Lila looks even the slightest bit upset.”

“Marinette is a sweetheart,” Shadow Cat added. “She was the class president, got some of the best grades in her class, does charity work, babysits, helps her parents in their bakery, and has always bent over backward to help others. But Lila took most of that away with her lies. She probably would have destroyed Marinette if not for her having loyal friends.”

“Marinette has been the victim of physical, mental, and emotional bullying for years because of Lila,” Cat Noir looked ready to hiss. “But she remains positive the entire time. She’s transferred classes, has gotten a new phone number, and even uses a secret identity when she designs to keep Lila from claiming her designs as her own.”

“Lila has also chosen to act as a spy for Gabriel Agreste,” Ladybug’s fists were clenched tight. “She has used her lies to get close to him and he uses her to try and separate Adrien from ‘bad influences.’ Which is basically just Lila using more lies to try and isolate Adrien so that he would only have her. Adrien actually stays away as best she can, especially since she is sexually harassing him, but his father always gives them photoshoots together. She constantly threatens him by saying that with one word, Adrien will be back under house arrest by his father no longer letting him leave the house.

“Between her causing akumas, being akumas, Hawkmoth, and Mayura, we need help,” Beautifly says. “There must be something that you can do to help us.”

The league all shared looks with each other. These heroes have obviously been doing a great help if Paris is still standing, but they also look so tired and in dire need of their help.

“We’ll help,” Robin tells the heroes before the league actually answered.

#crossovers are the best #CrossOver #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fandom #original character #original heroes #original miraculous #lila salt #i hate lila rossi #i love salt #alya salt #nino salt #ml salt #part 2 electric boogaloo

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

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You’re doing a LoK rewrite, correct? Would be really interested in hearing how you plan on fixing Suyin’s character and the Lin-Suyin conflict because……. oh boy. Man there’s a lot to unpack there. This is what happens when we don’t let Toph just raise her fucking kids for the sake of pushing a stupid as hell narrative about working women and single motherhood.

I am indeed!

In... you know, the way I'm doing most of my big potential projects, in that I have a folder with some documents that have plot notes and... some day I may actually get full, finished fics out of them (h2o AU is in there, as is my voltron!atla fusion AU, and uhhhh my book 3 atla rewrite, and a few other things), so... but I will say that the docs I have for my LoK rewrite so far amount to roughly 4.2k words of just Plot and Character Notes, which may some day turn into words of Story, hopefully.

ANYWAY, POINT IS: yes, this exists, and I have Many Many Thoughts.

Including how the Gaang kids would shake out! Cause I know I'm doing Zutara, and maybe Tokka???? Although I don't wanna just leave Suki out either... maybe a throuple??? Or Sukka having an amicable breakup before Sokka and Toph get together--maybe she already has Lin by then, and Sokka helps support her through the grief of losing Kanto???? Idk honestly, I haven't actually figured any of that out definitively yet except that Aang was perfectly happy to settle down with an Air Acolyte from one of the rebuilt temples because he grew up and out of his crush on Katara pretty easily once he hit puberty and matured a bit.

UHHH none of which is actually an answer to your question, because it's a valid one! Which is why I've been sitting on this a while (10 days I'm so sorry) bc I haven't made any solid decisions but I've been letting it percolate around my head a bit. And the more I think about it, the more I really like the Sukka -> Tokka idea (and I don't want to kill off Suki since the kids all deserve their awesome Kyoshi warrior auntie in their lives, and also I want a Sukka kid to be besties with Iara [zuko and katara's youngest] so maybe she gets with someone else after she and Sokka split? I could be talked into Ty Lee/Suki actually, the more I think about it....), but obviously having a stable father figure and a Toph who is... not what LoK made her out to be will dramatically change the Beifong family dynamic.

That said, I think I actually have a solution. (I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do.) Toph has Lin with Kanto--and he passes away when Lin is two or three, which is why she has very few memories of her father. (Although none of this 'she doesn't even know his name until she's 50+ cause Toph didn't tell her daughters about their fathers' bullshit.) Sokka is there for her through it all (all of the gaang is, of course, but you know that it sometimes just hits different when it's someone you're also starting to fall in love with, especially when there are older and much more deeply buried feelings there that are now resurfacing, because at least in my version Toph was deeply in love with Sokka when they were teenagers, but he was in love with Suki and she also loved Suki so she didn't want to mess up anything about their family or the group dynamics by making her feelings anyone else's problem), they fall in love, get married and have Suyin.

(Sokka may jokingly refer to it as a shotgun wedding, but the truth is he wanted to propose well before he found out she was pregnant, his attempts just kept getting messed up in increasingly comedic fashion.)

Throughout all of this, Republic City has been established, Sokka is Chancellor, Toph is something of a defacto police chief--mostly because, at the time, no one else was willing to volunteer, and she jokingly offered to whip the law enforcement, but unfortunately everyone else at the meeting took her seriously. However, she is also the founder of the probending league, and basically her feelings about law enforcement are complicated and she actively discouraged her kids from joining the force which is part of why Lin did. How else do you have a teen rebel phase with a parent like Toph? (Which, in this instance, means tough and firm but fair, with a 'you break it, it's up to you to fix it' attitude and very little desire to actually control her daughters and their behavior.)

Ah, but here's the rub.

Suyin is ten years old when Sokka dies, and Lin is sixteen. I'm not sure how he's killed--maybe by Yakone, to tie it into my plans for Amon and book 1. (Note that I'm not sure when the Yakone bloodbending trial happened in canon, but it doesn't matter. The timeline I'm gonna build will be completely different post-comet, and I'll eventually write it all down so that I can keep things straight.) Which would incidentally provide excellent means of having Katara have a very personal stake in the Amon conflict, and perhaps color the fight between him and Iara, but I'm getting off track. And I think Sokka being killed by Yakone, and Toph being unable to protect or save him, or deliver her own brand of justice to avenge him (because Aang is there to stop her and.... shit probably got ugly, I suspect she didn't talk to Aang for at least twenty years after Sokka's death--and this isn't to say I think Toph is particularly violent or murderous, but in that moment, she absolutely wanted to kill the man with her bare hands, and however much she may have regretted it afterwards, she took a very long time to forgive Aang for stopping her in the first place), is what results in Toph stepping down as police chief.

She didn't withdraw from her daughters or fuck off into the swamp or anything (words cannot express how much I hate that part of her canon history), but she did grieve for a very long time. Lin, meanwhile, felt like it was up to her to keep her family together, while also feeling a desperate need to... prove herself, I think. And because her mother was so adamant that she not join the police force, that's exactly what she does. I think Lin completely misread Toph's intentions, too, and believed that the discouragement was because her mother didn't think she had what it takes, when in reality I think Toph was scared of Lin losing herself in the job like she herself had begun to, and eventually coming up on something she couldn't change or fix and making the same mistakes she had.

(I think Toph and Lin have communication issues largely because they are both headstrong and willful, but where Toph thought she was giving her daughters the room they would need to make their own way, what Lin desperately craved was direction and she felt like that was something her mother simply couldn't understand.)

Suyin, on the other hand, fell in with a bad crowd like in canon. I think that what she desperately needed was attention, similar to Lin craving direction, and Toph was trying so hard not to be her own parents that she went a little too far in the other direction and Suyin began to feel like it didn't matter what she did, her mom wouldn't care, or get angry, or discipline her, or anything. Lin and Suyin butted heads a lot growing up, too, especially after Sokka's death, because Lin tried to rein in her sister's behavior and this was met with resistance and derision because Suyin felt like Lin was trying to be both mom and dad and she was neither but her big sister would never admit to being just as lost as she was and it made her furious.

So when Suyin is sixteen, and Lin is twenty-two and new to the force, The Big Rift happens. Lin catches Suyin and her gang, tries to apprehend her, gets a scar on her face in the ensuing conflict. But instead of abusing her power and sending her problem child off to her mother before fucking off to the swamp to avoid the consequences of her actions, Toph tries to actually fix things. Suyin cools her heels in prison for a while, because she was paralyzed by guilt at the time when she hurt her sister (a few inches lower and she could have slit her throat), and was still there when Lin's backup arrived.

Uhhhhhhhhhhh..... I'm so sorry I rambled for so long, BUT THE UPSHOT IS: I think Suyin learned a bit about culpability and taking responsibility for her own actions, Toph realized that her daughters had different needs than she did at their age (and I think a lot of the problem was that grief clouded her own ability to connect with her daughters, and in trying to not be her own parents she lost sight of how to be the parent her own daughters needed), and Lin, I think, had to realize that she had never fully processed the loss of not one but two fathers and had turned to her job in order to avoid actually confronting the grief that had overshadowed her childhood.

However, she did not forgive Suyin, at least not right away--and she wasn't forced or expected to. Suyin understood that she crossed a serious line, she took her lumps and did her time, and no one shamed Lin for her anger. I think, as a result, she had less reason to hold onto that bitterness, and perhaps by the time the story actually begins, she and Suyin are on much better terms, though I haven't worked it out exactly yet.

UHHH yeah I went on for days lmao. All of this is subject to change, too, depending on the needs of the story whenever I get around to actually writing it all down, BUT these are my initial thoughts, at least.

#atla #lin beifong #toph beifong #suyin beifong #tokka #lok rewrite #lok rewrite notes #precious-metal-girl #asked

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jonroxton · 3 years

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can you talk about chlark beyond chloe? personally i think it's weird that the writers kept adding kisses and weird romantic moments without any pay off. i don't know much about the fandom back then but i think the writers were baiting fans since clark/chloe seems to be the second most popular ship after clex. second i personally think chloe would never be happy with clark or anyone tbh and she doesn't seem like the type of person who would have kids so the finale was weird to me.

this got looooong :)

0. it WAS weird, and the choice to never not once go for it with them was to the story's detriment. I'll get into it a little later on in this post.

Re: shipping in sv fandom. there was definitely drama (clana was HUGE when the show was airing and every ship was basically derailed by it lol) but I stayed in my clois lane with a small circle of fandom friends much like I do now. a good measure of clois fans were fans of lois and clark from other mediums, come to sv just for lois and clark, myself included. we were pretty insulated as a fandom even back then. I do remember seeing more Chlark after the S5 finale (when Chloe kisses him goodbye), but those dropped off after Jimmy was introduced right away in S6. The most drama I encountered was with Chloisers: Chloe fans who believed wholeheartedly that Chloe was Lois. They hated SV!Lois and were convinced she would die so Chloe could take her name and job and place by Clark's side, thus a Chlark endgame. this was a popular theory amongst that fandom even into s9, when the clois ball started to roll for true.

bait and switch

a lot of Chlark is rooted in this notion that chloe WOULD be the best thing for Clark, the ideal Lois, the true best friend, the human hand guiding him through Earth's troubles. she would be could be the BEST possible lois archetype for Clark. it's not a wrong interpretation. she was specifically written as a lois-and-lana-proxy (teenage lana is a reporter in some AUs and even some as an adult as a tv correspondent) and she's given many lois-ish traits (tenacious, secretly crushing on clark and in denial), but this interpretation is deeply flawed. first, because lois does eventually enter into the picture and she has her own defining traits that, when compared to chloe, make chloe seem much shallower than realized. secondly, within the complete context of the story, her position in the greater narrative is not as ~the one who got away, the way it did very early on in S1-S4, but one who clark tolerates.

they're friends because clark is forgiving and chloe has staying power. their friendship is riddled with insecurities and unknowns the characters create for themselves. their dynamic is defined by conflict, not resolutions. this is not made easy by the fact that chloe is such a strangely written character, but ultimately she is positioned as a counter to clark achieving his happiness. not a thematic narrative foil but an obstacle clark eventually relents to.

2. and it has been so from the get-go

S1 is the best season for them and the single season which actually considers Clark's side in this dynamic. everything about them later on can be explained with how they are in this season. and that's the problem. when they're 14 it's nice teen angst drama and works perfectly to establish the dynamic. when they're 24 it's at best a pattern, at worst regression. we expect certain behaviors, dismiss them too, when it's children, at least I do. clark and chloe never move beyond the dynamic they establish in s1 and early s2. in essence, clark and chloe remain children around each other. they have many discussions in the later seasons that make at least one appear petulant.

so S1 clark has just been told the greatest secret of his existence and he imprints on lana hard that same night (right AFTER jonathan tells him, he meets lana at the graveyard and talks to her for the first time EVER, a lot of childhood imprinting going on in SV). all of s1 follows clark's heartache over lana, watching her from afar and figuring out a way to be near her. this pain is exacerbated by the fact that he believes he caused her her greatest grief: the death of her parents via the meteor shower which he arrived in.

here the first beat of the chlark dynamic is established: chloe's job and passion – the wall of weird and her pursuing the meteor infected oddities of SV - directly affects clark in a negative way (he's suicidal for much of s1-s3). so her crush on him is countered with her unknowingly causing him great grief. om top of that: clark becomes part of this passion of hers and she eventually begins to pursue him as a story to be uncovered, very superman yes. here tho, it causes nothing but strife for them and paints chloe in an awful light (and clark too, highlighting his refusal to open up). I personally enjoy this aspect of them in s1. bc they're so young I give em a free pass and it's a good conflict playing around with old superman tropes, but it makes for a fraught friendship.

3. the second beat

is that neither chloe's crush on clark, nor his asking her to stop pursuing his truth, do anything to stay her. her tenaciousness becomes intrusiveness and inconsideration (many of her accomplishments irt the daily planet are directly bc she betrays clark). she simply will not listen to her friend and does not believe his livelihood and autonomy is worth losing a story over. this is literally the opposite of comics/live action lois lane, who in various versions drops the clark reveal story to protect him. this passion turns vindictive pretty early for chloe, who eventually pursues stories about clark out of jealousy and entitlement (against lana also).

4. the third beat

is that clark doesn't ever see chloe as romantic prospect except this time in s1. the tornado trapping lana pulls him away from any solidifying of the clark/chloe dynamic, and that's that. but we know clark was willing to go for it in early s2 when he apologizes to chloe about running off on her. it's chloe who decides not to go on with the relationship. clark is visibly confused, but also 15 so he can't see that chloe is putting on a brave front to protect herself from clark running off again. I liked this too as it's another play on superman tropes, but my sympathy for them stops here.

5. and stays here

these beats are the entirety of this dynamic. everything about chlark can be distilled down to their childhood. it's why I don't hate them completely, bc I have a lot of love for kids who hurt in such a way and that time is never easy. in s8 (I think its s8) when we get a flashback to when they meet as kids (more imprinting!). little tenacious cute chloe kisses insecure clark bc of the funny awkward tension, acknowledging it, and then immediately takes it back because they're better as friends. (also they’re like 11 lol)

every single romantic moment with them is undercut either by chloe herself, or by the presence of other storylines/romances the writers wanted to pursue. the lack of integrity in chloe and the lack of interest in clark, regardless of how sincere their connection or how messed up, is a central part of their dynamic that needs to be reconciled with their friendship. and its exhausting bc there is never a point they are ever truly comfortable around each other.

6. to a fault

knowing the secret doesn't change chloe's methods. it doesn't make chloe clark's great confidante. if anything, it complicates matters for both because their relationship then becomes about the greater good and clark's great destiny. everything chloe does becomes about that, which in theory sounds awesome, but is executed much the same way as s1!chlark: by reiterating behaviors that highlight the negative aspects of that loyalty and the negative aspects of their characters.

the single time they do actively examine what this loyalty means and how chloe's hero complex complicates things for chlark is with s8 and davis. she protects davis with the skills of subterfuge and secrecy she developed as clark's friend. and it costs her jimmy and a lot of her personal integrity as a character. tho ironically it makes chloe the strongest she's been as a character. this is the first time clark is forced to view chloe as an enemy and he never quite recovers from discovering the dark depths she’s willing to go to.

it's an arc dealing with the established beats: how far chloe is willing to go for a kryptonian (very far), how much she's willing to do for him (A LOT and all of it illegal), and what it costs her (jimmy). it deals with her jealousy (always second choice) and her motivations (uncovering the truth). this great want that she struggled with for years is turned on its head and examined, revealing just how weird and dark her hero complex is because obviously davis is not clark. davis/chloe served to highlight more than any other arc how it's really too bad that clark never saw her that way, because she has so much love to give and when channeled, it's a great force. only it's a great force for evil. clark has to confront that it’s not just lex but his other closest friend who is willing to go so far. they backtrack hard in s9 and s10 but they keep this underlying wariness in clark towards Chloe throughout. it’s not anything new, but it’s no longer subtext that clark doesn’t fully trust chloe.

7. And that's the rub

in the end. chloe and clark have many storylines they're in together and chloe's important.... to develop clark and as a counter to clark. clark never instigates anything, not once, for 9 years! when the show did give us Moments TM, clark is reacting, not actively making choices to connect to her. if anything, clark is incredibly awkward about chloe when they become intimate. he doesn't seem to know what to do with her crushing on him (the elevator scene is a great one to show just how awkward chloe makes him feel). more than that. clark never tells her his secret. and later on, chloe doesn't tell him half the crazy wild shit she does to protect him bc she knows he would disapprove. I still hold that the only reason they work is bc clark is a forgiving character and would give her chance after chance after chance. that's the watsonian explanation, but the doylist explanation is that the writers just never cared to explore them beyond this point.

8. and what was beyond that point?

they would've been a great counter to lexana in S6 and early clana (clark finally having a gf who knows). it’s playing the clark/Chloe as a straight lois/clark proxy before actually pursuing lois and clark. it could’ve been the precursor to davis and caused an even more personal conflict! the kiss at the end of s5 was their chance. they could've written chlark devolving much the same way lexana did in s6 (or not). but again. the writers never went that far and clearly never wanted to. it kept chlark forever in this stage of childhood friendship always on the brink of collapsing, tittering either way. it's also tough to speculate bc clark's just not into her. in fact he becomes more and more wary of her, to the point where he believes she can do horrible things, and he's right. the stories continually make their methods complete opposite.

they go out of their way to show chloe realizing how happy clark is with lois. and even play a joke on the fandom by literally turning her into lois and seeing the sparks between her friends. it's almost... cruel but it does serve to show how clark is when he's smitten and he's never looked at chloe that way except during the dance when they were kids. other unrequited dynamics have at least some spark from the desired, but nil from clark. clark is into chloe in late s1, but she shuts him down, and when he seems to be into her again (damn that s5 kiss was a good one lol), she shuts him down again. it's just a weird writing choice all around, and that they kept nuggets of it throughout the show is the thing I cringe at most whenever I rewatch.

9. bait and switch 2

with hindsight it is definitely ship baiting and that sucks for that dynamic bc without it their friendship would’ve been the stronger, or at least not full of so much negativity. all it did was remind everyone that chloe’s been duped since she was a kid and that clark is both stupid and strange for never noticing and letting her get away with shit just bc she’s the most loyal. I don’t ship them and even I get frustrated lol

#mystuff #smallville #superman #anti chlark #sayruq #my meta

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carriagelamp · 4 years

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~ Queer Lit 30 Day Book Challenge ~

I decided to do this challenge I came across for June! Originally it was designed as a “day-by-day” thing, but my June was way too hectic to do a write up every single day… so I decided to make a nice compilation for the end of the month instead!

This is perhaps not the “purest” form of the challenge but I wanted it to be personal for me. Growing up when I did and where I did, I had very little exposure to queer books, especially age-appropriate queer books. That being said, there’s some books on this list that are really only “queer” by technically, or through a secondary character rather than the main character. I debated whether to include these but finally decided that, yes, I would. I owe it to myself. Even though some of these books that aren’t “as queer” as other, they were (or are) really important to me as a queer person and my journey is understanding that, so I wanted to acknowledge them!

More info about the books and the challenge under the cut!

Day One: First Queer Book You Remember Reading

Color by Taishi Zaou and Eiki Eiki

Remember how I mentioned a lack of available, age-appropriate queer books? I was one of those kids who was definitely exposed (probably too young) to queer manga/yaoi. It wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, especially as a wee ace teen, but it was the best I had at the time and it meant the world to me at the time, to see same-sex relationships even if looking back on them is very “YIKES”.

I’m sure I read others before this, but Color is one of the first that I really remember and which I a) actually owned and which b) wasn’t completely repellent in hindsight! I haven’t reread it in probably over a decade so I have no idea how it stands up, but at the time it read like a much more “realistic” account of two teenagers developing a crush and starting a relationship and as a questioning teenager it really helped me realize that this was a real, viable option.

Day Two: Queer Book That Reminds You Of Home

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

I hummed and hawed about this one for a long time because honestly I tend to read books that make me feel far from home. I decided to go with The Witch Boy though because it’s a story that challenges gender norms and stars a large family out in the woods, running wild and exploring magic, and honestly it gives me vibes that remind me of vacationing with my extended family. We’re also partially ginger and inclined to run wild in the woods. If we knew magic we’d have used it for sure.

This book is about 13 year old Aster, who lives in a family where the women all become witches and the men all become shifters. Aster, however, has no interest in shapeshifting and instead finds ways to study magic and learn the arts of witchcraft while constantly being pushed out by his female relatives… though everything might change when a new danger, that may or may not be connected to Aster studying magic, begins to appear.

Day Three: Queer Book That Has Been On Your TBR Too Long

Beneath The Citadel by Destiny Soria

That was an easy choice, this has been sitting on my bookshelf for months, staring at me accusingly every time I enter my room. I’m really excited to read it (Magical heist? Rebellion? With an asexual protagonist? Yes please) but for some reason I have not gotten around to it. Some day, baby, some day.

Day Four: Queer Book With A Name Or Number In The Title

George by Alex Gino

George is an absolutely charming middle grade novel about a child named George who the world perceives as male… but who knows she’s definitely a girl. The novel begins when her class decided to put on a play about the novel they had just read: Charlotte’s Web. George is desperate to play Charlotte, her favourite character, but isn’t even allowed to try out because it’s a “girl’s role”. George and her best friend struggle with how to handle this problem and manage George’s secret amid elementary school and home drama.

This book is really adorable – it was a nice, easy, cozy read for an adult, and would also make a great read aloud to elementary-age children if you want to introduce them to transgender characters.

Day Five: Queer Book Where The Protag Has A Fun Job

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris

Not actually a queer protagnoist, but a queer side character who plays a major role in the series. Mister Vernon, one of Leila’s fathers, has arguable the coolest job: he’s a retired stage magician turn magic shop owner, which is complete with large rabbit, hidden room, and tons of fascinating gadgets to help a young practical magician learn their trade. He is hands down one of the neatest character in the series and is a major catalyst throughout the series.

The first book follows Carter, a runaway orphan who practices street magic to get by, as he runs away from his horrible uncle and winds up meeting a gang of magic-loving friends in a small town. Hiding from his uncle is only the beginning though, and the mysteries surrounding the town and Mister Vernon become thicker and thicker as the series goes on.

Day Six: Favourite Queer Graphic Novel

Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu

There’s lots of fantastic queer graphic novels out there, but I have to name Check, Please! as my favourite (and not just because I’m Canadian and am legally obligated to at least show interest in a hockey story). Check, Please! is the friggin cutest story about Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater and avid baker, who joins the Samwell University hockey team. The story is told in the form of Bitty’s vlog as he recounts the bizarre quirks of the Samwell hockey team, his struggle to overcome his fear of checking, and his growing crush on the team captain, Jack. Seriously guys, this is cavity-inducing sweetness and you can read it all online for free, here on tumblr @omgcheckplease or at its own website, checkpleasecomic.

Day Seven: Queer Book You Often Reread

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Another book I haven’t reread in years, but this was the first queer novel I ever read (and owned!) so I read it obsessively, first the copy from the high school library and then my own copy (which is, let us say, well-thumbed by this point). It was pure fluff, in an aggressively diverse, relentlessly accepting, rainbow-coloured high school and it was exactly what I wanted in high school, and it still makes me happy whenever I remember it. It’s a straight-up high school romance, pretty traditional to the genre, but it has the most delightful supporting cast you could ever ask for. Maybe I should reread it again this summer…

Day Eight: Queer Book With A Happy Ending

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

This was a bit more of a “yeah it was fine” book for me, but honestly… queer people deserve some average, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies. As far as my normal reading preferences go, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies are my bread and butter. And this one has a cute sapphic romance to go with it. It’s about Denna, a princess with a dangerous secret: she has a magical Affinity for fire, despite being betrothed to the prince of a kingdom that aggressively prosecutes and fears magic-users. So now Denna is in a strange land, trying to hide her increasingly volatile magic, solve an assassination that rocked the kingdom, and deal with the growing connection between her and the prince’s wild sister, Mare. It has court intrigue, a murder mystery, horses, and lots of confused sapphic pining so it’s totally worth picking up if you want a light summer fantasy adventure.

Day Nine: Queer Book With (Over) 100 Pages

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

I decided to try to get as close to 100 pages as possible! River of Teeth is a 114-page novella that I haven’t quite finished (work and covid stress happened) but which I am fucking losing my mind for. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s peak alternative history, about queer hippopotamus-riding cowboys in Louisiana during the early 20th (late 19th?) century. Like… I don’t know how to emphasize how unbelievably cool this book is. Genderqueer demolition expert with a giant crush and a penance for making things blow up and attempting to poison guests when they’re bored?? Check. Gay gunslinging hippo-riding cowboy with an angsty backstory (and also a giant crush)? Check. Sexy, fat, badass lady con artist with an albino hippo that she spoils? Check. Like damn guys. I’m not done the book and I’ve already bought the sequel because I know the second I pick it back up I’m not gonna stop until I’ve ploughed through it all. This book is the epitome of “refuge in audacity” and “rule of cool”. Is it over the fucking top? Absolutely but that’s the point.

Day Ten: Favourite Queer Genre Novel

The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare

I’ll be honest, I’m a little shaky on what counts as a genre novel (isn’t… everything… a genre??) so I decided to interpret it as “slightly trashy YA supernatural fantasy” because that sure is a hella specific genre I’m weak for.

I really thought I was done with the Shadowhunter novels, I thought they were a goofy series I left behind in teenagerhood that I could look back on with amused indulgence. And then I found out that there was a novel specifically about Alec and Magnus and! Oh no! Ding dong I was wrong. I fell back in hard because listen… I love them. They were one of the first canonical same-sex relationships I ever read about in an actual novel, they meant a lot to me then and still mean a lot to me now. I have nothing to say to defend myself here except that this book wrecked me and I can’t wait for the sequel.

Day Eleven: Queer Book You Love In A Genre You Don’t Read

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connel

I am very rarely a slice-of-life / romance genre sort of person. I like my stories cut with a heavy dose of fantasy, scifi, action-adventure… something. So a graphic novel that’s not only a romance, but one about an unhealthy relationship and infidelity is like… super outside my usual range of reading material. But it was very much worth the read! The art was stunning, and the complicated emotions it tapped into really touched me. I’m very happy to have read it, and was so damn satisfied by the end.

Day Twelve: Queer Book With A Strong Sense Of Place

Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller

Linsey Miller is one author I very actively follow, I love her works and they always have very distinct, complicated worlds with unique societies and magic systems. Belle Révolte was her latest book and followed a prince-and-the-pauper type of story, in which wealthy Emilie des Marais is determined to learn noonday (magical) arts in order to become a physician, someone who can actually work to make her home a better place… but this is not something a proper lady would ever be allowed to do. So she flees her finishing school and meets poor, but magically gifted, Annette Boucher and offers her the chance to switch places. Annette goes back to school as “Emilie” and gets to hone her skills at the midnight arts while Emilie will use her name to sneak into medical school and fight her way up the ranks to physician. This is a challenging enough task, with rebellion roiling just beneath the surface and the country about to slip into a arrogant war that threatens the lives of hundreds…

Day Thirteen: Queer Book That Really Made You Think

Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

This is a four book manga series that is completely breath-taking. It’s touched by magical-realism and completely drowned in visually stunning metaphors and symbolism. Seriously, I’ve reread these books multiples times trying to digest how the wide variety of symbols overlap and contradict and compliment and challenge each other. I still haven’t really gotten a solid handle on it, it’s very fluid, so yeah… definitely makes me think.

The story starts with Tasuku Kaname who believes he may have just been outed as gay by a high school friend, and feels like he’s watching his entire world crumble around him. He is seriously considering taking his own life, when he runs into the mysterious woman “Someone-san” and winds up leading him to a drop-in center that’s run by a local non-profit, and is also a hub for a number of queer people in the community. The books follow Tasuku as he grows, learns, makes mistakes, and confronts his feelings, along with a number of other members at the drop-in center. It is completely beautiful, optimistic, but also quite stark and harsh at its look at homophobia and transphobia in modern Japanese society and how it can effect people in different ways. I just bought book four and can’t wait to read it and see how everything ends.

Day Fourteen: Queer Book That Made You Cry

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Holy shit guys. Listen. Listen. If you don’t read any other book on this list, please consider reading The Marrow Thieves. It is hands down the best book I’ve read so far this year. Another book that doesn’t have a queer character as the protag, but as one of the main supporting characters and listen, his story fucking destroyed me as a person. That romance just… aaaaaaah. AAAAAAAAH.

Anyway. The Marrow Thieves is a Canadian dystopian novel. It takes place in a post-climate change world in which society has been ravaged – partially due to the wildly different and extreme weather patterns, but also through a strange disease that has spread through the population that has left people completely incapable of dreaming. Now unable to rest, process their lives, and dream of a future, people are being driven insane and only one group appears to be immune: North America’s First Nations people appear to be unaffected. And so they begin to be harvested, rounded up and collected in “school” in order for people to suck the marrow out of them to give to white people afflicted by this disease. The Marrow Thieves follows a First Nations boy named Frenchie as he flees the recruiters and tries his best to survive in this post-apocalyptic like wilderness, banding together with other First Nations people who are heading north, where they hope to find communities of their own people with whom they can shelter and start to rebuild their lives.

It’s a YA level novel, not very long, and such an insanely good read. I cannot emphasize enough PLEASE GO READ THIS BOOK.

Day Fifteen: Queer Book That Made You LOL

Mostly Void, Partially Stars by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Nightvale always makes me laugh and it was a lot of fun to get to read the transcripts of the episodes. I’m a sucker for novelizations/transcripts of shows. It was a nice nostalgia trip and gave me an excuse to go back and relisten to some of my favourite episodes too! If you’ve never gotten into Nightvale… hey, it’s a classic! Podcast is fucking stunning if you’re into podcasts, and if you’re not but would enjoy a weird, queer, eldritch horror comedy then try the book! It’s the first “season” compiled in text form, exactly how it’s heard in the show.

Day Sixteen: Queer Book That Is Really Personal To You

Jughead volume 1 by Chip Zdarsky et al

Including this one because gee golly it sure did make me want to fight a lot of people for quite a while. It was one of the first stories I ever found/read that had an explicitly asexual main character… (and a character I already really loved! Which I now got to feel an even stronger connection to! It was so fun and validating!) so it was super awesome how like half of tumblr decided for a year there that this was apparently a cardinal sin. Imagine… one single version of old, long standing comic series deciding to retcon a character to represent a heavily under-represented community… imagine being so fucking angry about that that you decide to start a hate campaign on the internet. So much fun to live through that as an ace person. Anyway, these comics were nothing amazing but I sure do love them aggressively out of pure spite, even now that the aphobia on tumblr has died back down I will hold this to my chest and adore it.

Day Seventeen: Favourite Queer Book Sequel or Spin Off

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Honestly do I even need to say anything here? Is there any queer person who hasn’t read Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue series? If you are someone who hasn’t read it yet… go do that?? Absolutely stunning, one of my all-time favourite book series. It’s the perfect combination of hilarious and goofy, intense action, heartfelt character development, and a dash of “wait was that supernatural or??” This sequel was fantastic, this time focusing on Felicity, Monty’s sister, and her quest to become a physician despite being a woman in the 18th century. Awesome look at femininity, feminism, asexuality, and race. (Also… OT3? OT3.)

Day Eighteen: Favourite Queer Book By A Favourite Author

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

One of those “ehh is this technically queer? Not really but close enough, it is in my heart” books. It was one of the books I read as a teenager when I was still beginning to seek out and try to explore queer lit in so much as I could.

Terry Pratchett is, hands down, my favourite author, and though he doesn’t tend to write explicitly queer literature, his exploration of gender through allegory is top fucking tier. Everything to do with the dwarves in his series is fascinating, and a really great challenge/critique/exploration of gender, and this is the book that takes it to the next level (and brings in at least implicitly queer characters). It’s about Polly Perks, who lives in a small, war torn nation, choosing to join the army in order to find out what happened to her brother. However, as tradition dictates, she can’t join as a girl… so she disguises herself as Ozzer, a young man. There’s a lot of twists and turns, and as always Pratchett delivers fantastic humour and just absolutely delicious satire.

Day Nineteen: Queer Book That Changed Your Life

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

This was the book that made me realize that I, as a queer teacher, could have queer kid lit in my future classroom. Maybe a comparatively small revelation, but a really important one to me. It made me realize that this didn’t need to be something I kept a secret in my professional life and which could really positively influence children, especially queer children. It was the first queer children’s book I ever bought.

Day Twenty: Favourite Queer Book Series

Candy Color Paradox by Isaku Natsume

Alright… I’ll admit it, this isn’t actually my favourite series, but I’ve used my favourites in other spots. And this is a good one! Definitely more of an actual “yaoi” than the other manga I’ve included (here there be sex) but it has a very different vibe that what I’m used to from that type of manga. The main pair are actually both capable, mature adults, with careers they actively care about, and who get together in the first volume!

The rest of the series is less about them angst-ily toeing around their relationship, and much more about them learning to grow as a couple and balance their work and relationship and society. It’s funny and sweet, and I really enjoy these two losers. It’s a very low-stakes enemy-to-friends-to-lovers story, in which Onoe (a reporter) and Kaburagi (a photographer) are paired up on a news story they’re supposed to dig into together. What starts as a bickering rivalry gradually becomes respect, friendship, and love~ Onoe is a gremlin of a protag, so he’s a treat to follow.

Day Twenty-One: Queer Book That You Recommend A Lot

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

To repeat myself: Linsey Miller is awesome! This is my favourite book of hers, the first of a duology. It’s kind of like an intense, edgy Tamora Pierce novel with murder. In this world, the Queen has a team of assassins known as the Left Hand. They’re an elite group that keeps the Queen safe and does the dirty work that needs to be done to protect the kingdom and keep the encroaching nations at bay. When the assassin Opal is killed, a contest is announced to find the new Opal. People from all over come to complete for the honour of being one of the Queen’s royal assassins, including gender-fluid thief Sallot Leon. Sal has some deep motivations to become Opal that go beyond a loyalty to their kingdom, but they’re going to have to survive their competitors if they even wants a chance at it… (Sal generally goes by either she or he in the books, but I’m using they in this instance since it’s in a more general sense.)

Day Twenty-Two: Queer Book That Made You Take Action

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Uhh, I don’t really have any books that made me take action per se, but this one sure gave me a lot to think about. It’s about deep sea mermaids who originated from the pregnant slave women tossed into the ocean to drown during passage to North America. From those dying women, this race was born and were taken in by whales, raised and protected until they could descend into the deep ocean waters, to form their own safe society. Their collective past is so painful though that as a species they’ve developed a very short term memory. But a people can’t live without any ties to their roots and so one of them, the Historian, holds all the memories for their entire species and shares it with everyone once a year so that the community can be connected to their ancestors before once again returning the memories to the Historian for safe keeping. Yetu, the current Historian, is so overwhelmed by these memories, that she can no longer take it – she flees her people, her responsibilities, and her pain and escapes to the surface instead...

Day Twenty-Three: Queer Book By An Author Who I Killed Is Dead

Cybersix by Carlos Trillo

I cannot emphasize enough, this is not actually a queer comic, it is in fact a very homophobic, transphobic and sexist comic written by a horrible person.

That being said, he’s dead and I own it now the TV series was essentially about a genderqueer superhero and a very confused bi biology professor who has a crush on both personas. I had a passionate crush on both personas as a child, and I will cherrypick this comic until I die in order to enjoy the only kickass genderqueer/genderfluid noir antihero I’ve come across. I am valid and I am not open to debate or discussion. Do not read this comic it’s horrible (but consider watching the show).

Day Twenty-Four: Queer Book You Wish You’d Read When Younger

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

This is such an incredibly soft story with the nicest art. There’s so much understanding and compassion in it and its exploration of gender and self-confidence and being true to yourself would have been very reassuring to me as a child, especially by late elementary/middle school.

Day Twenty-Five: Queer Book In A Historical Setting

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

A retelling of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship from childhood to the Trojan war. So yeah, you can imagine that this was also a candidate for Day 14 :’) I haven’t read this one in years but god it was lovely and emotionally destroyed me as a person.

Day Twenty-Six: Queer Superhero Book or Comic

Overwatch: Reflections by Michael Chu and Miki Montillo

I don’t really read superhero stories very often (the comics have always driven me a little bonkers, trying to find a way to enter the totally unapproachable Marvel/DC canons, and the MCU burnt me out years ago for every other sort of superhero story) so this is the closest I can get. Tracer’s a superhero yeah? Anyway, I, like every other queer person in the Overwatch fandom, lost my fucking mind when this dropped for Christmas a few years back and officially declared Lena Oxton not only the face of the entire franchise but also a lesbian. It’s an adorable little comic and Tracer’s girlfriend is a sweetheart.

Day Twenty-Seven: Favourite Queer Children’s Picture Book

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack

There’s a number of sweet queer children’s books that are popping up these days, but this is my favourite just because it’s less about “explaining the gays to children” (though those books also have their place) and more of a cute little fantasy adventure in which the actual protagonist is gay. It’s about a prince who sets out to find himself a bride who can help rule by his side, but it quickly becomes clear that he isn’t interested in any of the girls. Instead, when a fire breathing dragon threatens his kingdom, he meets a brave knight who fights along side him. It’s very supportive and the art is lovely.

Day Twenty-Eight: Queer Book That Made You Feel Uncomfortable

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

This is a book with an asexual protagonist that I was originally really excited for. I know there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy this book and connected with it, but it didn’t do it for me. Maybe because my expectations were too high, but the protagonist’s experience with asexuality was vastly different than my own and the narrative voice ended up rubbing me wrong (and let’s be honest, slice-of-life romance is NOT my usual genre at all). So it’s not “made me uncomfortable because it’s Bad And Wrong” more just… totally vibed wrong with me. Maybe the perfect book for other people but definitely not for me, I had to return this one unfinished because it’s portrayal of asexuality just made me so deeply uncomfortable.

Day Twenty-Nine: Queer Book That Made You Want To Fall In Love

The Gentleman��s Guide To Vice And Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

This book had to make it on here somewhere, and honestly it could have gone in a lot of different spots, but I chose to put it here because the relationship between Monty and Percy is so incredibly sweet and authentic it really does make you want something like that. TGGTVAV (for anyone who has somehow not heard of it) takes place in the 18th century, and is about Monty, his best friend (and crush) Percy, and his sister Felicity going on a final “hurrah” tour of Europe before Monty's father finally tries to pin him down in England and force every part of Monty that’s deemed “unacceptable” out of him. So Monty intends to live this summer up… until everything goes off the rail and the three of them are suddenly fleeing across the continent with assassins at their heels and a strange, stolen artifact in their possession.

Monty has a lot of growing to do in this novel, and that’s one of my favourite things about it. For his and Percy’s relationship to ever have a chance, Monty needs to learn and change and actually communicate with other people, and it makes the relationship feel strong. Not a fluffy, surface level romance that often happens in YA but something built from the ground up by two friends who really want to make it work. Ahh, it’s lovely. One of my favourite novels.

Day Thirty: Queer Book With Your Favourite Ending

My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame

A two-book manga series that was completely stunning. It deals with queer relationships and homophobia in a very stark, real-world manner that you don’t often get in manga, while still being incredibly loving and sympathetic. The book is about Yaichi, a single father whose estranged brother (Ryoji) recently died. One day, a Canadian named Mike arrives, introducing himself as Ryoji’s widower. Mike had come hoping to visit his late husband’s homeland to try to get some closure, and Yaichi ends up inviting Mike to stay. The whole story looks Japan’s societal biases, through Mike’s experiences, Yaichi’s thoughts, feelings and prejudices, and those of his daughter who adores Mike.

Seriously, this is one of the kindest, most earnest looks I’ve ever seen to internal prejudices that critiques them without demonizing the person who feels them. Instead it lovingly embraces grief, growth, and love. This series made me cry multiple times, was good enough that even my straight brother practically ordered me to go out and buy the second book when he finished the first, and the ending was just *chef’s kiss*

Honourable Mentions

A few books I really wanted to fit on my list somehow but couldn’t quite manage it, so here: All Out an anthology of historical fiction short stories about queer teens. The Tea Dragon Society series and Princess Princess Ever After, graphic novels by the amazingly talented Katie O’Neill. Heartstopper a webcomic turn graphic novel by Alice Oseman about a pair of rugby players. The Different Dragon a cute picture book in which the boy has two moms and which is about accepting different ways of being. And Lady Knight a part of Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series because because Kel is word-of-god aro(and/or ace) and I’ve adored that series and Kel since I was about thirteen so by god I’ll take it.

Now for those that wanted to do their own challenge, I found it on @gailcarriger’s blog.

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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IN-DEPTH: How Did Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Become Japan’s Hottest Domestic Franchise?

At this point, it’s safe to say that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of the biggest franchises this decade. The manga series sold more than double what One Piece did at its peak in 2020, the Mugen Train anime film has outgrossed Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning Spirited Away to become the king of the Japanese box office, and the franchise is estimated to bring in 270 billion yen to the Japanese economy by itself this year.

Looking at all of that, there is no question that Demon Slayer is the hottest domestic property in Japan right now. But how did it get here? Let’s examine how the little manga series from new author Koyoharu Gotouge became a cultural phenomenon in Japan.

Demon Slayer’s History with Jump

Before the Demon Slayer anime started, the series was running in Weekly Shonen Jump, one of Japan’s top manga magazines. The series started in Jump on February 15, 2016, and had modest success, with around 3.5 million copies of the manga series printed and sold as of February 2019, just a few months before the anime premiered in April 2019.

During Jump Festa 2017 — an annual exhibition for series being released by Shueisha in Weekly Shonen Jump and their other manga magazines — the first chapter of Demon Slayer was given out in a sample booklet alongside other new series that had started in 2016, such as THE PROMISED NEVERLAND. Outside that sample booklet though, Demon Slayer barely existed in the mind’s eyes of attendees, with gazes glued to NEVERLAND and BORUTO as the new hot series.

It wasn’t until Jump Festa 2020 (held in December 2019) that Demon Slayer got some time in the spotlight, with the Aniplex booth doing its best at showing off the series that had become such a hit over the previous summer.

Demon Slayer at the Aniplex booth during Jump Festa 2020 (photo: Daryl Harding)

Even though the collected manga volumes weren’t selling as much as one might expect from the now behemoth of a series, Demon Slayer was slowly gaining traction among fans, but wouldn’t really break out until just before the first episode of the TV anime aired on television in Japan.

The Outside Influences Brought into Demon Slayer

When the Demon Slayer TV anime was announced in June 2018, it was revealed that the studio Ufotable would be adapting the series. The Aniplex-affiliated studio is widely praised for their work on the Fate franchise, which has culminated with the Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel] film series. Ufotable-produced works are known to already be event-type series, and with Demon Slayer being their first Weekly Shonen Jump adaptation, it was a series to look forward to on that point alone.

First Demon Slayer TV anime key visual (source: Anime Eiga)

Just before the series premiered in April 2019, it was also revealed that popular singer LiSA — who was then mostly known for her work on the Sword Art Online openings, including the wildly popular theme to the Ordinal Scale anime film “Catch the Moment” — would be singing the opening theme for the series, with the first preview of the song at Anime Japan that year. LiSA went on to have a solo concert at the Yokohama Arena on the last days of the Heisei era in April 2019, selling out the 17,000 capacity hall.

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AnimeJapan 2019 Trailer

Music can be a huge element in propelling the popularity of a series in Japan. Some of the biggest anime over the last decade was supported by their opening and ending themes, which kept the anime in people's minds. Demon Slayer’s opening theme “Gurenge” became such a hit in its own right that it dragged the rest of the series along with it. This formula worked to bring Your Name to the forefront of Japanese pop culture in 2016 — you couldn’t go anywhere in Tokyo without hearing Radwimps. And the double whammy of “Gurenge” and “Homura” (the theme for Demon Slayer: Mugen Train) has helped the series achieve even more success.

Rounding out the series was the star-studded voice cast who all have their own fan bases. Voicing Tanjiro is Natsuki Hanae, who was best known at the time for Ken Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul; Zenitsu is voiced by Hiro Shimono, who voices Connie in Attack on Titan, and the boar himself Inosuke is voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, who voices Kirito in Sword Art Online. Nezuko's voice actor Akari Kito, who largely played side characters up until her casting in Demon Slayer, would become a well-known name and go on to play many more lead roles after the series became popular.

On paper, the breadth of talent involved in Demon Slayer far exceeded that of just any TV anime series. The production committee, led by Aniplex, was banking hard on people giving the series a try before the first episode had even aired. And it worked.

Topping the Film Charts before the First Episode Even Aired

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train has topped the film charts since it first premiered on October 18, 2020, but it’s not the first time the series has been in theaters. Prior to the TV airing of the first episode on April 6, 2019, the first five episodes were shown in eleven theaters across Japan starting on March 29. The screenings were dubbed “The Bonds Between Brother and Sister” and topped the mini-theater rankings, with over 10,000 people going in just the first three days.

Ironically the press release from Aniplex announcing that the screenings were being extended in early 2019 said the “excitement for Demon Slayer is at its peak!” If those screenings were anything on the mountain of the popularity of Demon Slayer, they’d be right near the start of the trek.

“The Bonds Between Brother and Sister” Visual

Due to the immense popularity, the two-week special screenings were then extended for another week at all eleven cinemas, which were coming in at Number 1 on the mini-theater rankings (for screenings in less than 30) for the two weeks it was originally scheduled for.

It’s no surprise then that just after these screenings had finished, and during the early broadcast of the anime on TV, that the production committee ordered the Mugen Train arc — which directly follows after the ending of the first season — to be produced as a film, according to industry sources.

Demon Slayer’s Evolving Popularity Throughout Its Airing

Hiroyuki Nakano, the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump, spoke to Nikkei Entertainment in the March 2020 issue of the magazine on the slow success of the manga series, explaining that “normally the number of sales of a series increases gradually during the broadcast, but the number of copies sold of Demon Slayer exploded when the broadcast ended.” Nakano alluded to streaming services helping the anime series escalate the popularity of the original series by giving people the accessibility of being able to catch up on the show the next day via services like Amazon Prime and Netflix, who streamed the show weekly in Japan.

Gone are the days where an anime fan would have to record an episode of a late-night anime series because it aired early in the morning. With streaming services on the rise within Japan, that night’s episode of Demon Slayer could be watched the next day on the way to work or school, on the train, or on the toilet.

“I felt that the way people interacted with anime had changed and that we had entered a new phase,” Nakano explained, discussing how Demon Slayer’s rise in popularity was due to the evolving ways of media consumption.

This helped the series when the famous Episode 19 aired, blowing away all expectations of what an anime could do in animation. If Demon Slayer wasn’t already part of the modern anime zeitgeist, that one episode — which trended worldwide on Twitter after airing — propelled the series to the forefront by word-of-mouth. Inside Japan, people couldn’t help but talk about the latest episode of the series, treating it like prime-time event television in the same vein as Game of Thrones would have been in the west.

Demon Slayer’s success has also been well documented since the anime finished airing on September 28, 2019. The manga series has broken all records to become the most-sold series for a year, the Mugen Train sequel film is now the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, and has given Japan the honor of being the third country to have a film reach US $300 million in a single market during its initial run.

Why Does Demon Slayer Resonate With Japanese Audiences?

How Demon Slayer became popular is one thing, but why did this one series, when many others have the same level of talent behind them, become the cultural phenomenon it is today? In December, Oricon released the results of a survey given to Japanese people on how well they know the series, and if so, why did they like it so much.

An astonishing 97.6 percent of the 3,848 respondents, who ranged from teens to the elderly, said they knew of the series, with 40.5 percent of people saying they knew it well. Of those who knew the series, they described how they liked the world setting and had sympathy for the characters. A male teenager said that he “was fascinated by the story of the main character growing up while struggling with various difficulties,” while a woman in her sixties enjoyed “the storytelling and LiSA's powerful voice.” A woman in her thirties remarked that she “never thought I'd be talking about anime at my age with my 60-something mother.”

All through the responses, Demon Slayer is bridging the divide between generations, with each generation taking something out of the story that Gotouge has crafted.

The top-notch action scenes and relatable characters draw in the younger crowd, while more middle-aged people get a kick out of the family bonds that weave throughout the story, and the aesthetic of the entire series gives older people a sense of nostalgia, also known as “Taisho romance,” but without it being overly melodramatic about the era. Even kids are going to the schoolyard to reproduce the breathing techniques seen in the series. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga joined them when he made a cheeky reference to Demon Slayer’s breathing techniques while speaking to the DIET in November.

The accumulation of these points has made Demon Slayer a cultural touchstone, one that could only be born out of Japan. Even if the world wasn’t in the current state it is in, the Shonen Jump series would be just as big in its homeland, if not bigger, with more people going to the theaters and traveling to the areas that influenced the series.

Living in Japan at the moment means living in a world surrounded by Demon Slayer. From billboards promoting the film to masks people wear, you can’t go outside (not that people should be!) without having the series in your eyesight. And with how good the series is, and how many people are enjoying it, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba deserves its time in the sun.

Demon Slayer masks being sold in Harajuku in December 2020 (photo: Daryl Harding)

Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daryl Harding

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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bucketsofgiggles · 4 years

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To Be There

Steven Universe Future fanfic, a missing scene from "Growing Pains", from Greg's POV. Greg tries to be the best father he can, considering the circumstances, as he also grapples with the idea he hasn't been the best father. AO3 link in the reblog.

As Steven shrunk back down to normal size, Greg quickly reached out to pull his son into an embrace. He's relieved when Steven accepts it readily, considering what he had just recently been through. And there was clearly much more going on that Greg wasn’t aware of.

“ How am I supposed to live my life when it always feels like I’m about to die? ”

Those words kept echoing. What exactly had led Steven to feel such a way? How had he, as a father, not noticed such a drastic change in his son?

There’s a quick nock on the door, which causes Steven to tense in his arms. Rubbing his son’s back, Greg turns his head to see who walked in. Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran stands just inside the room, shutting the door behind her, a stack of papers in her arms. She meets his eyes as the door shuts and the initial look of fury the doctor gives him makes Greg jump. While her professional face slips back on quickly, Steven still notices.

“You okay, Dad?” His voice is muffled in Greg’s shoulder and he spots Dr. Maheswaran’s eyes soften at the question.

“Yeah, Schtew-ball, it’s just Dr. Maheswaran.”

“...Without Connie?”

Yeah, that’s gonna be a sore spot for a bit. “Yep, just her.”

She doesn’t move when she speaks up. “Take all the time you need, Steven.”

Steven takes a few more big, shuddering breaths, squeezes his father tightly for a second, then breaks away. He rubs his eyes slightly as he looks around Greg for Dr. Maheswaran. “I’m ready now.”

She nods in response. “I have some questionnaires I need you to fill out. Please answer them honestly,” She states, crossing the room to Steven and hands him the papers and a pen. “I’m going to speak to your father in my office for a bit, so please wait here until we return. Feel free to put your regular clothes back on.”

Steven nods and heads over to a desk in the corner of the room, gabbing his clothes along the way. He glances over the top sheet of the stack. Greg didn’t get a chance to see what kind of “questionnaires” they were exactly.

With Steven’s back turned, Dr. Maheswaran levels Greg a withering glare. Whatever she wants to speak with him about in her office, it can’t be good. Greg swallows hard as he turns to follow her out of the exam room. He turns back in the doorway.

“Steven, please text me if you need anything, okay?” He glances up from the papers, and gives his dad a ghost of a smile as he nods. Greg doesn’t miss the way his face falls as he turns back towards the papers, his narrowing eyes storming as he reads.

Following Dr. Maheswaran to her office, he is very much reminded of his school day trips to the principal. But there are two very different factors now: A. Greg hasn’t the foggiest idea why Dr. Maheswaran is so angry at him and B. His son is involved somehow. Has Steven been hurt? Was someone hurting him? Why didn’t Steven tell him? Or the Gems?

They walk in, Dr. Maheswaran shutting the door behind him, and silently indicates for him to take a seat. The office is just as meticulous as Greg expected, with not a single piece of paper or chart out of place. The filing cabinets are clearly labeled, the textbooks and journals on the selves are in alphabetical order by author last name, and her screensaver is the same family picture from the Maheswaran’s New Years card. The only personal effects are her medical degrees and licenses hanging on the wall and a few framed pictures of Connie and her husband on her desk. She quickly sits down behind the desk and tents her hands, obscuring her mouth but leaving her furious eyes well exposed.

“So, uh,” Greg desperately tries to break the tension. “How did your exam go-”

“Greg Universe, please explain to me how your teenage son has never been to a doctor before?” She doesn’t yell, but her tone is withering. Greg feels himself slide down in his seat in shame.

“Well, uh, the lack of health insurance sure didn’t help.”

“There are programs to help with that, especially for single parents.”

“Yeah, but how was I supposed to explain Steven to any doctor? You gotta realize he wasn’t born in a hospital, or even in a…” Greg fumbles on his words, cursing the way his cheeks burn with embarrassment. “You know, typical way.”

“Well that’s why he seemed confused when I asked for his social security number. Does he even have a birth certificate?”

“No…”

“Has he even been vaccinated?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe in them! But with his physiology, I had no idea how they would react-”

“ Greg Universe ”

“Look, things were chaotic! My wife was dead, I had a newborn son who isn’t even fully human, I was alternating living out of my van and crashing on a friends couch, without health insurance! And do you think if I had taken him in and said ‘Hey, here’s my newborn son with a gemstone stuck in his naval. His mother was an immortal alien being who fought a war to defend the Earth thousands of years ago, and died to give birth to him. I’m raising him alongside her fellow alien friends who also have gemstones stuck in their bodies. Oh, and I didn’t even have the type of gemstone right at the time because his mother lied about who she was to escape her horrible home planet! ’ How would you have reacted?”

“It did take me witnessing Steven in action to fully believe it," Dr. Maheswaran shrugs a bit, her face relaxing slightly.

“Look, I did strongly consider it multiple times, but I was afraid of how they’d treat him. Plus, Steven never got sick or injured. Never. Not even those non-stop sniffles little kids get. Not a cold, not a fever, not a stomach bug; he was exceptionally healthy his entire childhood. Heck, he never even scraped his knees!”

Dr. Maheswaran sighs at that. “That actually leads well into one thing I found that we need to discuss.” She turns towards her computer screen, shakes the mouse to wake it up, and starts typing and clicking rapidly, leaving Greg clueless as to what she meant. Did Steven get hurt? Was he sick? After all these years and all the various incredible things he’s done, it seemed almost comical.

Then Dr. Maheswaran turned her screen around, and any thought of this situation being a comedy died. It's an x-ray of an upper body labeled “Universe, Steven ''. He didn’t need a doctor’s trained eye to see the various cracks and fracture lines running throughout Steven’s skeletal system, spiderwebbing through his ribs, spiraling down his upper arms, and some truly large and painful-looking breaks to his face.

“H- how?” Greg sputters, though he knows the reason - Steven’s healing powers.

“It seems that Steven’s Gem half is able to instantaneously heal any physical injury, major or minor, he experiences. The bones set and re-heal from the moment they break.” She hits the arrow keys and a few more images scroll past: His arms, legs, back, close-ups of his face, hands, and feet. All of them have some healed fracture lines on them, evidence that despite him never saying a word, Steven had been getting severely hurt for years. His son was getting this badly injured and Greg never noticed. Despite the horror gnawing at his gut, he couldn’t look away.

“Now, this is unprecedented in the medical field. Miraculous, even. And every test I ran on your son came back negative. Steven is physically a perfectly healthy teenage boy, even with his injury history.”

“Well then, that’s good, right?”

Dr. Maheswaran sighed. “These kinds of injuries...some of them only occur in cases of severe physical trauma. And Steven listed for me a number of incredibly severe, repeated instances of traumatic experiences he went through as a child. And then he indicated to me that that wasn’t all of them. I know his upbringing and heritage is...unusual, but he still has human anatomy and a human mind. And any human, especially a child or teenager, who went through that number and level of traumatic experiences for as long as he did is going to experience some mental effects.

“The questionnaires I gave Steven before we left the room were diagnostic screeners for Adverse Childhood Experiences, Major Depressive Disorder in teens, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in teens. And I might not be a psychiatrist, but I can say, based on my exam and conversation with Steven, that I am 98% certain of the PTSD diagnosis and 95% on the depression diagnosis. Those screeners are just a last bit of confirmation, as well as further evidence for his chart. Mr. Universe, your son is experiencing major mental health challenges.”

Greg stares at the doctor, slack jawed. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he feels a tear trace down his cheek. He goes to brush it away, and finds his hands are shaking. “I-I don’t...how did I not see?”

Dr. Maheswaran gives Greg a look of sympathy for the first time. “Honestly, I don’t think Steven even realizes just how much an effect all his traumatic experiences have had on him. That’s not at all uncommon, especially in cases like his where multiple traumatic events were experienced.” Greg groans, and Dr. Maheswaran pulls a box of tissues out from behind her desk and hands them to him. “Steven has experienced so many traumatic events that his body and mind have almost gotten used to being in mortal peril. But now that he no longer isn’t experiencing that, his body isn’t used to dealing with much more minor forms of stress, so it does what it’s used to; preparing for a potentially deadly scenario.”

And Steven’s words finally make sense. Steven has spent years realistically believing he might die, and now it’s all he’s ever known. All those Gem missions, over all the years… Greg had let him go. Greg had allowed Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl to take his son out on various dangerous, potentially deadly missions multiple times. And he stayed back, not wanting to get involved in a world he didn’t belong to. And even when he began to express concerns about it, Steven and the Gems all reassured him that things were fine. Steven had seemed fine . And Greg knew in his heart that if he pulled Steven away from Crystal Gem business, if he forbade him from going on missions, Steven might not have forgiven him.

Greg wonders now if he should’ve risked that anyway.

“So, what do I do now?”

“We can help your son. Rest assured, you are not alone in helping Steven deal with this. I will take on the role of Steven’s general practitioner. There is an excellent child psychologist in this hospital, Dr. Jeanne Greenlow, who I will refer Steven too, and I will make sure she fully understands his...unusual background. Unless something is indicated on the screeners I gave him, I expect that Steven will go home with you today.”

Dr. Maheswaran stands up, walks over to Greg, kneels down so they are at eye level, and places a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes have softened considerably, and the touch on his shoulder is fully comforting. “What you can do for Steven, right now, is take him home and be there for him. That, as his father, is the best thing you can do for him at this moment.”

Greg can tell that in every aspect of Dr. Maheswaran’s behavior, from her posture to her expression to her vocal tone, she was not speaking as a doctor, but as a fellow parent. Some of the panic that’s in him dies down as he meets her eyes. “I will, I promise.”

She nods, then stands up. “Let’s go see if he’s done.” Greg agrees, getting up and following her out of the door and back down the hospital hallways. His mind still swarms, but he pushes it all aside for now. He needs to focus on Steven, on what he needs, on being the best father he can be. Which is apparently going to have to be far better than what Greg has done so far.

As they approach the exam room, Dr. Maheswaran stops, spins around, and gives Greg another hard look. It’s not nearly as severe as some of her earlier ones, but it still makes him shudder a bit. “You need to discuss this with the Gems. Promise me you’ll do that.”

He blinks, slightly shocked. “Of course, I promise.”

She spins back around, takes a deep breath, puts on a much more soothing face, and opens the exam room door. Greg follows quickly enough behind to see Steven, now dressed in his regular clothes, sitting on the exam table, phone in hand. When his eyes meet Greg’s face, his pupils shrink and Greg realizes it’s obvious he’s been crying. Another pang of guilt hits him for making Steven worry again, so he puts on a smile as he walks over to the table and sits next to Steven. Almost instinctively, Steven scooches close and Greg puts his arm around his son. Knowing the news Dr. Maheswaran is about to break to him, Greg figures more hugs are better.

“Did you finish the questionnaires?” She asks, her tone far more gentle than anything she used with Greg, which does not at all make him angry. If anything, he’s grateful to Dr. Maheswaran for how well she’s handled this situation. Steven nods, handing her the stack of papers. “Great, give me a few minutes to put your answers into the computer.”

As she heads over to the desktop sitting on the corner desk and begins typing, Steven lays his head on Greg’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” His voice is whispered, creaking slightly.

“Don’t apologize for anything, Steven. Absolutely none of this is your fault.”

“It’s not good news, is it?”

Greg sighs. “No, but it’s not the end of the world either, kiddo. We’ll get through it. I’ll help you get through it.”

They sit, silent only for the sound of typing. After a few more minutes, Dr. Maheswaran gives a little hum at whatever pops up on her monitor, then turns towards the two of them. Her eyes are soft and full of sympathy. Greg pulls Steven closer as she approaches, sits down close to Steven, and begins to explain the diagnoses. She tells him everything she already told Greg in her office, and that she’s already sent his chart with a referral note to Dr. Greenlow’s office.

“Once the referral is processed, your father will get a call from her office to schedule an appointment.” At this, Dr. Maheswaran gives a pointed look at Greg, with the unspoken and he will pick up that phone call and make the appointment clearly in her gaze.

“Wait, why does Dad need to make the appointment? I could do it.” Steven asks.

“It’s protocol, as you’re still a minor in the eyes of the law.”

Greg can see the refutes brewing in Steven’s brain, up to and including his dismantling of a millennium-long, multi-galaxy, tyrannical rule, but he’s clearly too physically and mentally tired to make the argument.

At the end, Dr. Maheswaran gives Greg a polite handshake, and then, after a moment's hesitation, pulls Steven into a hug. Though she whispers, he can still make out the words she says to Steven. “I know things between you and Connie are...difficult right now, but she wanted me to tell you that she’s ready to talk whenever you are. She’s okay with waiting because she wants you to be comfortable first. So, don't push yourself, okay?"

Steven pulls away, wiping a tear from his eye. “Thanks, Dr. Maheswaran.”

“Of course, Steven. Feel better, and please, reach out if you need to see me again.”

Greg and Steven agree and they leave the room, Greg grabbing the duffle he had dropped outside the exam room when he spotted Steven through the window. It had just a few days worth of clothes and essentials, but he had more of his stuff still at the car wash, and he could use Steven’s washer and dryer for laundry. He had to leave the van with Sadie and Shep; they had dropped him off in front of the hospital and went on, the tour still tentatively on unless they heard otherwise from him. He would have to call them, but decided it could wait until tomorrow.

Steven pulling the Dondai keys from his jacket pocket answered the question of how to get home before Greg could ask it. But as they got to the parking lot and approached the car, Steven stopped short.

“Do you want me to drive?” Greg asked.

“...Yeah, I’m a bit tired.” Steven said, handing the keys over.

Greg got the car unlocked so Steven could sit down, threw his duffle in the trunk, then got in and began driving back towards Beach City. The ride starts silent, Steven staring out the window blankly. Greg has never been the one to ride in silence; it makes him uneasy to not have some music in the background. After checking the tape deck and finding it empty, he fiddles with the radio until he finds the radio station Shep had stumbled upon, which plays a lot of soft, acoustic music. It had been good post-show calm-down tracks, and Greg feels that it would be best after everything that had happened. He knows he’s right when he glances at Steven and sees him smiling softly, fingers tapping along on the window.

They approach the house, and the pair get out of the car, Steven grabbing Greg’s duffle for him. The two enter, Greg calling out a “Hey, we’re home. And by we, I mean I’m here with Steven.”

“The Gems aren’t here,” Steven says behind him. “Little Homeschool field trips, they’ll be back tomorrow."

“Well, then it’s just you and me, lil man. Like the old days.”

“Yeah, like the old days…” Steven replies, a little wistful. “You sure you’ll be okay on the couch?”

“Yeah, my back ain’t that old yet,” Greg states, but the little pang that he feels when he says that argues otherwise. But Steven doesn’t need to know that; the last thing he needs to feel is guilty.

“Okay. I’m gonna uh…” Steven starts as he climbs up the stairs, but his voice trailing off soon turns into a groan.

“What’s going on?”

“I forgot I left my room a mess.”

Greg climbs up the stairs, and manages to push down the sound of shock he feels climbing up his throat. While not meticulous, Steven did like to keep his space orderly and clean (although Greg figures Pearl had no small part in that). So the complete mess - cartons of melted ice cream, dirty bowls stacked on top of each other, clothes strewn about, bed unmade - of his son’s room was quite shocking. Greg only feels more guilty at not noticing something sooner; the seriousness of this was made all the more clear.

He spots Steven’s shoulders sag as they take in the state of his room, and Greg knows he needs to make things as easy on him as possible. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Schtew-ball. I’ll clean this up. You go grab your pajamas and go downstairs to get changed.”

“But, Dad, it’s my room and my mess. I should handle it.”

“Steven, it’s okay, you’ve had a long day. I don’t mind helping you out a bit.”

There’s a few seconds before Steven sighs, telling Greg he’s won. “Okay, but let me take the bowls downstairs and wash them, if I’m going to head down anyway.”

Greg decides not to argue, knowing Steven will feel better by helping a little bit. He was never one to let others do a job he felt responsible for. As he grabs his pajamas and the bowls and heads back downstairs, Greg wonders if that’s partly what led to all of this. The task of picking up the room allows him to not dwell on that thought.

Once he’s done, Greg heads downstairs, Steven’s bedding in his arms. As he turns the corner into the living room, he sees Steven on the couch, scrolling through his phone, the bowls and spoons lined up perfectly on the drying rack by the sink. “Hey, the laundry room’s still on the hand with the warp pad, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Figured it might be good to give your sheets a wash, but if you gotta warp me up there-”

“No, no, that’s okay. Honestly, they probably need it.”

They quickly head up to the laundry set-up outside and throw Steven’s bedding in the machine. When they warp back down, Steven’s stomach rumbles.

“Been a while since you ate?”

“Yeah, and it was mostly ice cream…” Steven says, making his way over to the kitchen. Greg follows as Steven looks through his cupboards and fridge, shoulders shagging as he mumbles different meal options under his breath, accounting for prep and cook time and if there’s enough for two.

“Hey, Steven,” Greg finally interrupts the third time Steven debates the box of pasta. “Let’s just call Fish Stew Pizza for dinner and have a pizza-and-a-bad-movie night, like we did when you were a kid. Sound like fun?”

Steven glances at the cupboard again, then grins at him. It’s not nearly as large as Steven’s typical smiles, but it’s the largest he’s given today and Greg’s heart is full.

Steven goes back up to his room to go through his movie collection while Greg calls Fish Stew and places their typical delivery order. As he finishes, the ordering process elongated by Kofi getting on the line and catching up, Steven returns downstairs with one of the Boomerang Blade movies. Greg would’ve gone with whatever Steven wanted, but he definitely can’t say no when he sees the smile still on his son’s face.

They move Steven’s bedding to the dryer and start the movie, curling under blankets at the foot of his bed. About 20 minute in, there’s a knock at the door.

“That must be the pizza, I’ll run down and get it,” Greg says as Steven reaches to hit the pause button. He makes his way back downstairs and opens the door for Kiki, holding the extra large box in her hands.

“Hey, Mr. Universe! Didn’t believe you were in town when my dad mentioned it. What happened to the tour?”

“Oh it’s still going on, but uh…” Greg glances up the stairs. Steven certainly wouldn’t want Greg telling Kiki, or anybody else for that matter, about his PTSD diagnosis without his permission. “Steven had something come up so I decided to pay him a visit and help.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” She says as Greg hands her the money. “Tell him I said hello!”

“Will do, have a good night!”

Greg makes his way back up the stairs, balancing the box in one hand, and spots Steven’s eyes the moment he re-enters his room. There’s a level of fear and embarrassment in there. “Was that Kiki?” Greg nods as he sits back down on the floor, putting the box between them. Steven grabs a slice and stares at it a moment. “Did she say anything about you being here?”

“Yeah, but I just said you had something come up, so I decided to visit.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope,” Greg pauses as he takes a slice of his own, and takes in the concern on his son’s face. “I won’t tell anyone about the PTSD or anything else that happened today without you being there or without your permission. But,” he interjects when the relief starts to flood Steven’s face. “Dr. Maheswaran wants us to tell the Gems. And honestly, I agree with her. At least Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. They raised you, they were around you for a lot of what you went through, you still live with them. They need to know what’s going on.”

Greg holds his breath while Steven processes what he just said. He hates pilling it all on now, but it needs to be said and discussed and the conversation led there naturally. With the Gems out until tomorrow, they need to plan out how the conversation will go.

“You’re right,” Steven finally says. “They need to, should, know what happened.”

“Right. So, how do you want to handle it? Do you want to do it on your own, do you want me to do it?”

There’s another pause as Steven thinks. Greg hates putting stress on him, especially after everything, but it’s better now than throwing him into a situation tomorrow he’s unprepared for. “Can we both do it? Together?”

“Of course, Schtew-ball. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

There’s another small smile, and it stays as Steven turns back towards the TV and unpauses the movie.

They go through the movie and the pizza, Steven taking care of more than half the box himself. Greg lets him; that Gem-stress response looks like it took a lot of energy. Once the credits roll, they venture back up to the laundry hand to grab Steven’s bedding from the dryer, then warp back downstairs. As Greg passes the kitchen, an idea comes to him.

“Hey, do you mind making your bed? I’ve got to do something real quick.”

“Uh, okay, sure.” Steven says, then heads upstairs. Once he’s around the corner, Greg runs to the cupboard, rifling through and- Ah ha! He thought he spotted the hot cocoa packaging. He grabs a mug and some milk, warms it up, and stirs the cocoa and marshmallows in until it looks perfectly soothing. As quickly as he can without spilling, he makes his way up the stairs to see Steven smoothing the corners of his duvet.

His eyebrows raise at the mug. “I still have hot cocoa?”

“I spotted the box while you were looking through earlier. A hot drink never made anyone feel worse.” There’s a little grin as Greg approaches the bed and Steven climbs in, old routines coming back despite the years. Steven sips and they chat a bit more about the day and what has to come tomorrow. Soon, Steven starts slipping himself more under the covers, his blinks becoming longer.

“Get some sleep, Schtew-ball. You’ve had a long day.”

Steven makes a noise of agreement as he fully lays down and rolls onto his side, facing away from Greg, and it’s like they had just done this yesterday. He carefully reaches a hand out towards Steven’s curls, and rubs them as he begins to sing softly. Comforting nostalgia fills him as the time passes Steven’s breathing becomes more even, both slipping into a routine from way back when he was really little. Even if his son is older, and bigger, bringing peace to galaxies, the curly haired teen sound asleep in bed was still Greg’s little boy. He would always be there to support him, to love him.

Guilt pangs deep in Greg’s chest. He didn’t support him, not enough, not this time, not so many times before. Steven might be calm now, but there was tomorrow to face, and the days after it. There were so many unknowns and how to handle them seemed insurmountable if Greg thought about it too hard.

Who knows how challenging they must feel to Steven, who responded to stress as though he could die.

But those were all tomorrow things. So all he could do now was reflect on the awful father he had been.

Years, years, of unending trauma had been inflicted on his kid and he hadn’t noticed the effects, hadn’t even stopped to really ask if Steven was okay. He acted like he was doing fine, and Greg had believed him. And after everything he’d been through over the past six years, Greg had left his son alone so he could, what? Relive his glory days traveling the country? What kind of a father was he?

Greg groaned as he recalled his earlier phone call with Steven. He had probably called to reach out, to talk at least about his failed proposal to Connie, and what had Greg done? Ignored the strain in his voice and joyfully talked about the tour being extended. Made his son feel that pulling him away from the tour would be burdensome. Gave him another excuse to not talk about his feelings. Took away another social support, and left him to face this alone.

How was he going to make all of that up to Steven?

He couldn’t believe Steven wasn’t angry with him. He would be if the roles were reversed. But Steven had been so relieved the moment Greg walked into the hospital room. And he had given him some genuine smiles throughout the evening, and seemed to enjoy everything Greg had done. What Dr. Maheswaran had told him, speaking parent-to-parent, went through his mind again.

He looked back down at Steven, still soundly asleep. Greg knew his son well enough that he’d forgive his father’s mistakes, tell him it wasn’t a big deal, that he should forget about it.

But Greg wasn’t going to forget his failings, nor forgive them quite just yet. He hasn’t yet done enough for forgiveness. But he will. To be the father he promised Rose and himself he would be before Steven was born, he will be there for his son. He won’t let his son face this alone anymore.

“ How am I supposed to live my life when it always feels like I’m about to die? ”

Greg Universe was going to help his son live again.

#Steven Universe #Steven Universe Future #SU #SUF #Steven Universe fanfic #Steven Universe Future Fanfic #SUF fanfic #Growing Pains #my fanfic #i've been a fan of SU for 5 years and this is my first fic for it #this was initially a drabble but i wasn't satisfied with it #too much telling over showing #so i told and now it's my longest one shot whoops #long post

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perihelionicarus · 4 years

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Alright, it’s long story time. I read a whole bunch of accounts of ex-cops yesterday, and they were all TOO similar to how my experience in cadets went. I think (I hope) I can shed some light from the inside about how easily corruption happens in a space like that. While you read, think about how similarly the police system works.

If you have no idea what cadets is, think of it like a junior military (ages 12-19). You get discipline training and drill training and classes about how the military works, but there’s no obligation to go into the military after. A lot of people do, though. A lot of them also go on to become cops. I was in cadets because you could get your pilot’s license without having to pay for it.

The way a cadet squadron is organized is you have commissioned officers (COs), who are actual military members and sort of oversee the whole thing. Then reporting to them are non-commissioned officers (NCOs), who are the kids, usually in their older teens, who pass a bunch of tests and stuff and achieve the rank of sergeant. At this point you become one of the “leaders” and are in charge of cadets, who are divided into sections and aim to work their way up to NCO.

Our squadron was famously pretty hard-ass about the NCO/cadet dividing line. Once you were a NCO, the other NCOs and the COs would make you delete your friends off Facebook who were cadets, and you had the “privilege” (eyeroll) of learning the NCOs’ first names. The phrase I heard a lot was “don’t fraternize with cadets”.

My friend who I went to high school with was promoted to sergeant before me, and had to delete me off Facebook. She pulled me aside at school, though, and warned me not to become an NCO. I asked why. She wouldn’t tell me at first, but after a while she confessed there was “initiation”, yeah, a fucking hazing process and the other NCOs would treat her like garbage if they found out she told me. I later found out they didn’t like her anyway, because she had spoken out and fought back during the hazing. Also because she told one of the other guys not to smoke weed while she was in the car.

I went ahead anyway, because I wanted my pilot’s license and the higher your rank the better your chances of getting on the course. I got promoted to sergeant at 17 at the same time as two other cadets.

I honestly can’t remember too much of initiation, because I’ve long since stuck it in a trauma box in my mind. I remember it involving tying our belts around our eyes, being shoved around, forced to say things, dance, and it ended with us being herded into a car and brought to someone’s house (at which point it was over). You have to realize though that I went into it fully prepared for it because my friend had warned me. I can��t imagine how scary it was for the other two who were with me.

After that, we learned their first names. They suddenly treated us like their best friends. The worst part? It worked. We were part of the inner circle.

We were then privy to the email chains. It was so long ago I don’t remember specifics, but it got pretty fucking racist, sexist, and any other -ist you can think of. We weren’t all white or straight, not everyone outright made racist statements, and it never got n-word bad, but it was still awful and we were all complicit in that the rest of us never called it out. And if you made fun of your own groups? Your respect level shot up. (I might even still have those emails, since I rarely clear my inbox).

We also basically had a no-narc policy where if one of us did something wrong--gave a kid contradictory orders, didn’t back down if we incorrectly scolded them about uniform etiquette, singled out and humiliated someone--the rest of us would not report it to the COs. But the number one no-narc policy was about initiation.

We had another initiation in the dead of winter, when three new sergeants were promoted. Their initiation was similar to mine, but they were also forced to strip down to their t-shirts while it snowed outside. One of the boys (he was only 14!!) got fed up, ran out, and called his mom to take him home. Another boy finished initiation, but was crying. For the coming days and weeks, we treated these two like less-than, ignored them in meetings, and generally treated them like shit, until they got fed up with it and reported the whole initiation thing to the COs.

I say ‘we’ throughout this whole thing because even though only 3-4 of us (out of 15-20 of us) were the perpetrators, the rest of us were fully complicit in our silence. We knew it was wrong but still allowed for it to happen. A lot of us were “good people” and treated the two boys, not to mention other cadets, just fine. We allowed ourselves as a whole to become a corrupt body because of “one or two bad apples”. Sound familiar?

Our punishment for initiation was a stern talking-to, a couple people (the ‘most guilty’, I guess) getting demotions, our parents being called, and being told to stop excluding the two boys who had reported it to them. That’s all. We were all still NCOs, and still in charge of a whole bunch of kids. My mom, notoriously strict, didn’t even give a shit. She was proud of me for not being a weakling for once. Really, staying silent was the weakest possible thing I could have done. The strongest people among us were the boys who reported it despite the threat of being ostracized by their peers.

I aged out of cadets shortly after, so I don’t know if initiation happens anymore. It stopped for a while as the COs kept a scrutinizing eye on us. But before I had even been promoted, initiation had happened for years, so it may well have started up again. That’s a lot of corruption that went unpunished. We were told that to be an NCO is to be a leader, and that integrity was to do the right thing even when no one was looking. We passed these sayings among ourselves, all believing we were the paragons of doing right. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a really sinister high you get from being liked by a group of people that hates everyone else. It’s something I’ve been incredibly wary of ever since. In cadets you are given camaraderie within the NCO body, and power over other cadets. Recipe for disaster.

My point here is that I am 100% sure this is what happens with police. I don’t know if they do hazings, but I would not be surprised in the least. No matter how “good” they are, they power inevitably trip. They lose sight of what they’re supposed to be doing. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism all run rampant. Their bonds with each other overshadow their supposed “sworn duty”. Every single cop is complicit in this; complicit in their actions and ESPECIALLY their lack thereof. All the ones who want to and do speak out are immediately ostracized. They’re organized by fear and not much else. There is no such thing as a good cop, just as there was no such thing as a good NCO. And it is no coincidence the sheer number of NCOs who later go on to the military or the police.

It’s been almost 10 years, but to this day I’m ashamed of the way I acted. I’ve told this to maybe one or two people in my life. I’m sharing the story now because now is the time to see how easily “a few bad apples” can fuck up a whole organization. Google some of the memoirs of ex-cops, and you’ll see just how similar this is and just how easily that happens. So let me reiterate: power corrupts. There is no such thing as a good cop.

#long post #very long post #someone let me know if i'm swerving way out of my lane here but cops are garbage and i need yall to know why #I know I'm preaching to the choir but I've seen some members of the 'some cops are good' crowd on here and mmm nah #I was on the 'some cops are good' side until a few days ago when I started reading and remembered just how easily cadets fucked me up #not that im like naturally a good person but i certainly never had bad intentions and yet. here we are #sh*t percy says

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a-marlene-s · 5 years

Text

Futuristic Miraculous: Part 1

Couple: TerRI, Terry Mcginnis x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug/Batman Beyond

Genre: Salt, hurt/comfort, friendship, and possibly more.

Summary: With her childhood friends close by, Marinette knew she could take on the world, even when dealing with a certain lair. It all first started with taking a job for being Jagged Stone’s personal designer and that resulted with her being in Neo-Gotham. All the while Terry is facing the fact he is the new Batman and dealing with all the past Robins wondering what Bruce was thinking in taking in a new kid into the cruel world that is of Superheroes.

Terry McGinnis x Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Futuristic

Tag List: @battysorciere

TerRi Sever: https://discord.gg/2qCNdjs

Age List:

Bruce: 60

Dick: 43

Barbara: 42

Jason 39

Tim: 37

Damian: 34

Terry: 16

Marinette: 16

Penny R.: 32

Marinette refused to cry or look away as her classmates waiting to be picked up to go to the local airport. She could see many of them sneering, glaring or just giving her looks of pity. Then there was Lila… just giving a look that reminded Marinette of a cat that caught the canary.

At her right, Nino held back a snarl that threatened to escape his lips at the sight of Liar mocking his friend. At Marinette’s left, Kim is trying his hardest to hold back his own anger at what was happening. It’s completely unfair how things had turned out for Marinette. She had done everything she could for this trip to happen Neo-Gotham and for it to blow up in her face has become the last straw for her.

Marinette tried so hard to take the high road that the only thing she got out of it is broken friendships. Along with just seeing how depressing the world could be. It has been well over a year since Lila came to Paris and destroyed her life to the best of her abilities. Unfortunately for the Liar, Marinette has two best friends that managed to see through the lies and are now stand by her side through it all. Even going as far too foregoing Neo-Gotham for her.

With everyone’s back turn, Lila took the chance to send a menacing smirk to Marinette before boarding the bus with the rest of the class. Marinette’s eyes narrowed as everyone ignored them as the bus drove off, leaving them in its dust. This hurts.

Not as much as seeing the hurt in their faces when Lila’s reign over them comes tumbling down.

“Kim, Marinette, Nino, I have your work packets for the year.” Ms. Mendeleiev approached the three students with three large packets of work. “I stapled my contact information in each packet. I will have the rest of your work on my website by the end of the month. The packets should be more than enough until then.”

“Thank you, Ms. Mendeleiev for your help.” Marinette thanked her instructor as she and her friends took their respective packets.

“If it means undermining, Miss Bustier, they by all means.” Ms. Mendeleiev snorted, she looked at her students, seeing the determination in their eyes. “If I was your homeroom instructor… things would have never gotten this far, I hope the three of you know this.”

“We know, Ms. Mendeleiev.” Marinette smiled sadly before she started to smirk. “I suppose we should be heading to the airport too if we want to catch our flight.”

“Penny said that a limo will be picking us up as soon as we give her a call.” Nino mentioned.

“Yeah, let’s call her! I want to see the looks on their faces when they see us flying first class!!!” Kim laughed.

Ms. Mendeleiev could only shake her head before she turned on her heal to leave. “Keep up with your work and keep me posted on your work.”

“Thank you, Ms. Mendeleiev.”

-.-

Tim drank what feels like his hundredth cup of coffee in the past hour, it might as well be his hundredth cup of coffee at this point. He was supposed to be in Paris for just a simple and much needed vacation. But of course work has to come first before anything. This resulted with him waiting in the airport with a bunch of high school students that are to go back to Neo-Gotham with him as part of an exchange program set up by his associates and his old Alma mater.

Now… this wouldn’t be an issue. The actual issue being the fact that the one that did most of the work to make this program possible isn’t even here. Tim doesn’t buy that whole, ‘disciplinary actions’ and all that other crap the teacher tries to shove down his throat. He ignored the rest of it and had emailed the associate that had put this together to send him the report from the missing student.

What Tim read made him wonder what the hell is going on in Paris. It makes it appear that they made the poor girl do all the dirty work and pushed her out of her own project at the last minute. As much he wants to forgo this trip, he has to keep up appearances as a CEO. Plus, who knows… maybe the kid will finally get a break from them.

Win-Win? No… it’s a lost for the girl that did everything she could to get her class to go on this trip. For nothing on her end.

“I happen to know Dick Grayson’s daughter, Mar’i Grayson! We are the closes of friends you know~”

Tim’s neck nearly snapped when he turned his attention to one of the French students. Once look over, and he could tell right off the bat she’s lying. First off… he knows all of Mar’i’s friends, safety precautions and to weed of anyone that wants to use her for connections. Second… this brat never spends a single day in the Manor and knew his own kids!!!! Tim guesses that the fact no one recognize him and assumed he’s some random employee that was supposed to be their guide or something.

Otherwise, the liar wouldn’t be spinning her tales otherwise.

“Why the hell are you here!!!”

Tim turned around to see three teens talking animated to a pink haired adult that is showing them a pamphlet. Considering they were all in the waiting terminal to catch the next plane, the four were blissfully unaware of their surroundings. That was until Miss Bustier approached the group but the woman that was holding the pamphlet pushed the teens behind her. Whatever was said by both adults, clearly made the teacher go on edge and the pink haired woman to smirk smugly at her.

With a heavy sigh, Tim drowned down his hundredth cup of coffee and headed towards what he suspects to be trouble.

“Marinette, Nino and Kim are under my supervision.” Penny stated, her expression neutral to hide her contempt. “I have their parents’ permission, the school is notified and that is all you need to know.”

Bustier’s mouth went agape at the woman’s words, even more so at the sight of her student’s smirks that were directed her way. Those three were supposed to be back at the school, not here in the airport. Not being here, waiting for the same plane as they are. She shook her head and tried to say something when it was announced that their flight is about ready to board, informing everyone to get to their spots.

“We must get going.” Penny said, pushing past Bustier and the rest of the students that decided to surround them. “We to get in line.”

Kim and Nino took hold of Marinette and pushed through the crowd as it appeared their fellow classmates were not planning on letting them through. The last thing they needed is more fuel to the fire by having Marinette being singled out for something she didn’t do. Again. Marinette for her own part, ignored the glares and everyone’s attempt to get her attention. As of now, they are not worth her time.

Marinette did however stick out her tongue out at Lila when she caught the other teen glaring at her. Might as well have some fun for now.

Tim, who had been watching, watched as the Marinette Dupain-Cheng be pulled away by her friends by her… friends? Classmates? Whatever she considers them, considering how majority of them were not comforting the now crying Liar. The Liar kept crying on and on how Marinette supposedly had stepped on her foot on purpose.

“Miss Bustier, is there a problem?” Tim asked, causing the French teacher to suck in a deep breath. Ah, she forgot about him. Figures. “Well?”

“Just a miscommunication is all.” Bustier tried to say.

“I assume that was Miss Dupain-Cheng?” Tim asked, raising an eyebrow at Bustier. “The one that is supposed to be dealing with disciplinary problems?”

“She chopped off Lila’s hair!” One of the teens seethed out as she tried to sooth the Lair’s tears away. “And she just stepped on her foot.”

Tim looked at Lila to see that her shoes were scruff free, her hair… well, it’s in a bob. He could only shake his head. Oh, how much he wants to cancel this trip. He’s close to doing it too. Taking in a deep breath, he looked back at Bustier. “Far as I am concerned, she is not part of this trip. You have no control over them. You, however, have control over the rest of your students. Now go get in line, we are about to board.”

-.-

Tim sat in his first class seat, asking the stewardess for a large cup of coffee. When he gets back home, he’s going to apologize to Bruce for all the shit he ever pulled on him throughout the years. This doesn’t include his own kids, but that is beside the point of it all. He had to deal with a bunch of whiny teens that are going on and on how the evil Marinette getting first class seats while they all have coach. Evil this, evil that, and here he was talking with said evil person, chatting away on her dream of becoming a fashion designer and how the Jagged Stone has hired her personally to design his clothes while he’s on tour.

It also helps that the woman from earlier, Penny Rolling is Jagged’s agent and confirmed her story. From what Tim could summarize what had happened was that Lila Rossi had cut her own hair to the point it was unsalvageable and blamed it on Marinette, claiming the designer did it. No one took Marinette’s side except for her two friends, Kim and Nino.

Despite the fact that Marinette was with Kim and Nino when this… accident had occurred, no one bothered to listen to reason. This caused Tim really regret not canceling the trip for the other Parisians. That was until Penny made mention that there was no point in going up against the girl… at that instant. If the girl wants a to be the center of attention, oh, she will get it.

Tim couldn’t help but laugh at the agent’s words before he quickly sobered up. Despite the fact Marinette and her friends are still going to Neo-Gotham, but they won’t have the same experience as the others… although, thinking further into it, it wouldn’t be all that great of a trip for them if Rossi keeps trying to sabotage them at every step.

At least they found a way to enjoy their time in the city…

“Excuse me, Mr. Drake…?”

Tim looked up at one of the stewardess to see her holding a note. “Is something the matter?”

“You have a message from one… Dick Grayson” The stewardess replied uncertainty, handing over the note to Tim.

Tim took the note and a raised eye brow. He watched as the stewardess scurry of before looking down at the note. Unfolding it to see what was written on it only caused both eyebrows to shot up.

Check the Neo-Gotham news!

Tim pulled out his cellphone and turned it back on. By the time his phone had booted up, he was bombarded by many missed texts, lost calls, and many news notifications all stemming from his home city. When he went to check on the latest text, he got another notification from a news station he follows.

Tapping on the notification and the headline of the article has him quickly making a group call with all the former batboys.

Tomorrow is Here, The Return of Batman!

“Okay, which one of you did it. Which one of you is the new Batman… What did you expect, Jason! I haven’t been in the same country, let alone continent… I don’t know, Damian! Bruce prefers to be alone and hardly bothers to talk to anyone outside of the family… Thanks Dick… Let’s get this straight, whoever this new Batman is, is none of us… That’s what I thought.” Tim pulled his phone away from his ear as Dick, Jason and Damian started to argue among themselves on whatever is going on in Neo-Gotham. Apparently, there’s a new Batman and they have no clue who took on the old mantle of the Dark Night. Or as the Tomorrow Knight as people are taking to call him as now. Taking in a deep breath, Tim put the phone back by his ear. “I’m on a plan heading back home. I’ll talk to Bruce about this… What do you guys mean you won’t be here until then?… Just get here as soon as possible.”

-.-

Terry double checked that he has all of Bruce’s medications counted before placing them all in a small plant along with a sandwich and a steaming cup of tea. If he’s going to be dubbed Bruce Wayne’s part-time assistant, he might as well play the part. He has nothing against it, the old man is giving him the opportunity in becoming the new Batman. Plus, but the looks of it, there was really no one there to help Bruce as often as needed. Mainly making sure the guy doesn’t have a heart attack by doing the simplest of tasks… like saving him.

Terry shook his head as he picked up the tray and headed towards the room where Bruce is with Ace. Taking in a deep breath, he made his way to his new mentor.

Pushing the door open, Terry caught Bruce putting something away in his coat. He raised an eyebrow but made no comment. For all he knew it was other medication Bruce doesn’t want him to know about. “Remind me to go grocery shopping later. For a rich guy, your pantry is pretty bare.”

“Alfred used to keep the place stock…” Bruce briefly mentioned, reaching over to Ace to scratch his head. “Tim mainly just whatever he thinks is best for me…which isn’t much.”

“Tim?”

“One of my sons. You will be seeing him often as he pops by to make sure I’m properly taking care of myself.” Terry could hear the eye roll Bruce did at the mention of taking care of himself. “If you see a thirty something year old male that looks like he’s on the verge of collapsing… it’s him.”

“Is… is this the same man that took over Wayne Enterprises?” Terry enquired, placing the tray on a small table next to Bruce’s chair.

“He is. Out of my four sons, he took the most interest in taking over the company.”

“Got it.” Terry grumbled, taking a seat opposite of Bruce. He watched as the older male take his sandwich and eat it uninterestingly. A thought popped through his head suddenly, causing him to tense. “All your sons were past Robins and the occasional Batman… right?”

Bruce eyed Terry suspiciously before nodding, taking another bite from his food. “Your point?”

“Did you tell any of them about me?” Terry asked.

“I did not. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them barges through that door… right about now.”

Slam!

The doors of the room slammed open to reveal a very sleep deprived male, frantically looking around for who knows what. When his eyes landed on Terry, his slowly blinked over to Bruce and back at Terry before leaving the room. An awkward silence filled the air when the sound of the front door being slammed open and shut.

Terry looked over at Bruce just to see the man still munching on his sandwich. “Who was that?”

“That would be Tim.” Bruce said without missing a beat.

Terry looked taken aback at that statement. The same guy that’s supposed to look after Bruce, the same guy that looks like he’s going to keel over? Yeah, no. Tim looks like he hasn’t slept in months and is need of a proper meal. “…And he now the head of Wayne Enterprise?”

“I’m one of the chairmen.” Bruce stated.

The sound of the front door being slammed open reverberated throughout the seemingly quiet manor. Stomping all the way to the room Terry and Bruce are in. Tim came back, staring at Terry with a wide variety of emotions. “Who are you? Did Bruce adopt you? What’s your backstory? What’s your name…?”

Terry looked taken aback, he looked over at Bruce, hoping for some sort of help. Nope. The old man just took his medication and used his tea to drink it down. “…”

“Well?” Tim questioned, storming into the room. He now stood in between Bruce and Terry, waiting for the teen to answer his questions. “Who are you?”

“His father used to work for Wayne Enterprises.” Bruce butted in, emphasizing on a particular word.

This only caused Tim to raise his hands into the air in defeat as he caught drift on Bruce’s meaning of the words, used to. “Great…. He did take in another one… If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to my brothers.”

With that, Tim one again left the room leaving being a very perplexed Terry and annoyed Bruce.

“What the hell was that?” Terry questioned.

“…He gets like that whenever he’s off his coffee.”

-.-

Marinette, Nino and Kim did their best to ignore how Neo-Gotham gave them the creeps. It was clear the city needed massive cleaning up when it comes to crime. From what they had gathered, things had deteriorated since Batman had hung his cape for good. Shortly being followed by his former sidekicks. Since then, crime has risen to the point it makes them wonder if the city will ever be crime-free.

Maybe they’ll help while they are in the city for the time being.

“Spots On!”

“Shell On!”

“Show Time!”

-.-

Tim sat in front of the computer mainframe inside the Batcave, on a multi-line video chat with Dick, Barbara, Jason and Damian. “You know him, Barbs?”

“Terrence ‘Terry’ McGinnis has multiple run ins with the GCPD. Even serving a three-month stint in juvie for running with a street gang.” Commissioner Barbara Gordon said, her expression stern and not at all liking the fact that Bruce had managed to find someone to take over the mantle of Batman.

Jason whistled at that. “Damn. What this kids’ home life like?”

“His father was murdered the other night… in order to keep him quiet.” Barbara said, her eyes narrowed down onto Tim. For his own part, Tim wanted to earth to swallow him up. “Something about one of your business partners, by the name of Derek Powers, was creating a formula and one Warren McGinnis was a part of the research division of it.”

Once more, Tim slumped further into his chair as he thought over the business deal he had with Derek Powers. It was nothing out of the ordinary really. They both had something the other needed, and Powers just wanted to use the Wayne’s Labs for further research on a formula. Nothing out of the norm really! This has been done multiple times with different companies in the past. But it appears this time around… it was anything but the norm.

“Powers had Warren killed. Terry found out, and wanted payback. What’s new?” Damian rolled his eyes not at all amused by the entire situation. “I just want to know how he managed to get the suit.”

“Bruce is refusing to tell me anything and all of you know how he is.” Tim said, fixing himself back into the seat before he had the chance to fall off it.

“Does he gave a family?” Dick asked quietly, almost being talked over by Jason demanding Tim to demand for more answers.

Once again, Barbara answered. “He’s now living with his mother and had a younger brother.”

“Do they get along?” Jason asked.

“They do. More so after Terry’s return from juvie.”

“You know something…” Jason mused, he wasn’t facing the screen anymore, paying more attention to whatever was on his phone. “If I didn’t know any better…”

“Which you don’t.” Damian butted in.

“Shut it squirt!” Jason shot back.

“I’m not a child anymore, Todd!”

“That’s enough!” Dick said, breaking up a possible fight. “No more fighting. We’re not children anymore.”

Jason tsk’ed but continued with his train of thought. “The kid looks a lot like Damian when he was around that age.”

At this, everyone turned their attention to Damian who’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, nearly choking on a beverage he was drinking. “Let me assure you, I am not like father who sleeps with random women.”

“…You got to admit… Terry has Bruce’s chin…” Dick pointed out.

Silence…

“Who wants to bet Bruce didn’t wear a condom?”

A sharp ring interrupted any possible bets, Tim reached up and started to figure out what set off the alarm. Pulling up a screen that showed something… really, really… really odd. “So… a ladybug, a turtle and a monkey walked into a movie theater that’s being held up in gun point…”

TBC.

If anyone wants to be part of the tag list, don’t hesitate to ask

#TerRi #Terry x Marinettte #terry mcginnis #marinette dupen chang #ml #batman beyond #dc #crossover #batman #ladybug #miiraculous laadybug #maribat #Part 1

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shitty-reviews-by-me · 4 years

Text

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is one of the best shows I’ve seen

This is your spoiler warning.

Note: I started writing this forever ago when I actually finished the show, but my procrastination is deadly, so I only got through the paragraph on Zuko before waiting like a month to pick it up again.

Note 2.0: I know that there are comics that continue the series where it left off, but I haven’t read any of them. All of this will be based soley off of atla.

I started watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for two reasons. One, I remember seeing parts of episodes here and there as a small child, and I found what I saw intriguing; and two, my boyfriend just really, really loves it. When it showed up in the Netflix Spotlight I knew I was going to watch it, but it ended up taking longer for me to get to it than I originally expected. I procrastinate doing things I want to do just as much as things I don’t, but that’s another story.

I’m going to keep the actual review short. The show has been finished since 2008 and there is probably not much that I can say that hasn’t already been said. Besides that, I mostly just want to talk about my opinions because I have a lot of them.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is great on all accounts. All of the characters were interesting and complex. The plot was extremely complex, but easy to understand by anyone, no matter their age. In fact, when I made my grandma watch the first episode, it seemed like she kind of enjoyed it. Of course it is also possible she said that to be nice and was really thinking “what the fuck” the entire time. I haven’t found a single person say they don’t like “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Honestly I don’t know what else to say, I’m sorry, I just really want to talk about my opinions.

Let’s Talk About Zuko (because I love him)

I mean just look at him. How could he not be your favorite. Zuko is probably the best developed character in atla, and I’ll be honest, I never saw him as a “bad guy.” I mean, he was certainly a villian, but he wasn’t a bad person. In the first few episodes, Zuko is already painted as a sympathetic villian. We learn that as a young teenager his father banished him, sending him into a search for the Avatar. A search that was seemingly destined to fail. It is important to remember that Zuko was a CHILD. His family turned on him and all he wanted was join them again. Zuko’s actions were overall understandable.

Now Let’s Talk About Azula (she deserves better)

Azula doesn’t get as much sympathy as Zuko for obvious reasons. When the show ends her fate isn’t as clear as all the other characters. We get to see Ozai rotting in a cell, but Azula’s last scene is her having a complete mental breakdown after Katara managed to best her in combat. I’m sure the comics cover what happens next for her, but again I haven’t read them.

I’ve seen tons of people calling Azula a psycho, and an irredeemable monster, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Like Zuko she is just a child. She is only fourteen years old when the events of atla take place, and is the product of manipulation and abuse from both of her parents. She deserves a redemtion arc. There are videos and posts that will explain Azula’s psyche better than I ever will be able to, but I’m gonna try anyway.

I would like to make it clear that I do not believe Ozai deserves redemption. He was a grown ass adult who abused and manipulated everyone around him. While Azula also abused and manipulated the people around her, she did so as a child, following her father’s example. In addition to that, we know that Ursa’s belief that Azula was a monster hurt her. Ursa never showed that she believed Azula could be a better person, and therefore why would Azula be choose to be kind and good when her father rewarded the abusive tendencies she developed? One of the big differences between Zuko and Azula’s upbringing is that their mother believed in Zuko. She believed he could do good in the world but failed to show Azula the kindness she showed Zuko.

The cycle of abuse is very real. Pretending that Azula is just some psycho, and not a child following the pattern of behavior she saw growing up is immature. There is no question that she regularly did horrible things, and I don’t even think that her friends, Ty Lee and Mai, or Zuko should forgive her if they don’t want to, but she does deserve a fresh start. Let’s be real, Azula would need a lot of therapy to even get to a place where she could potentially be redeemed or forgiven.

In summary, people need to stop writing Azula off as an irredeemable psycho.

Kataang: Thanks I Hate It (just hear me out, okay)

Kataang vs. Zutara is such a huge debate, and trust me, I’ll get into Zutara, but right now I want to talk about why I don’t like Kataang in a list format.

Their Age Difference-- I think sometimes adults writing teen/preteen characters completely forget what it’s like to actually be those ages. Aang is twelve (I get that he’s technically one hundred and twelve) and Katara is fourteen. While two years really isn’t a big age difference, especially as people get older, it is a little weird when the the people are twelve and fourteen. When I’ve brought up this age difference to people I’ve always heard the argument that Aang is mature for his age and that’s why it works. That is a faulty for a number of reasons. First of all, the claim that someone is mature for their age is used to justify inappropriate relationships by pedophiles all the time. Secondly, it could be argued that Katara is mature for her age as well, so there is no way their maturity is equal. My final point, there’s a good chance Aang hasn’t even gone through puberty yet while Katara is definitely well on her way on that front. Maybe that sounds weird, but males start puberty between the Ages of nine and fourteen, which means there Aang is at a pretty average age to START puberty. Females start puberty between the ages of eight and thirteen which means she’s well on her way. Like I said, puberty sounds like a weird thing to bring up, but a lot of maturity come from going throught puberty.

They Made Such Good Friends-- Aang and Katara had such a good friendship throughout the show. It could have been a great example of a platonic friendship between a straight cis guy and a straight cis girl. Instead we got the male and female lead end up together, just like they do in everything else.

No Evidence of Reciprocated Feeling-- While obviously Katara must like Aang because otherwise she wouldn’t have kissed him, I don’t think there was very much evidence leading up to that moment that Katara had any sort of romantic feelings towards Aang. Throughout the series she says she only sees him as a good friend, almost as a brother. I will admit, there were hints here and there. In the episode The Fortuneteller, Katara is told she’ll marry a powerful bender, and in the end of the episode she realizes that Aang is an extremely powerful bender. In the secret tunnel her and Aang kiss/almost kiss (I can’t remember exactly), and in that moment it seems like maybe she could have feelings for him. Other than various small moments there isn’t a lot of evidence that she liked him. I think the evolution of Katara’s feelings should have gotten more attention because the kiss at the end felt a bit like it was out of nowhere.

It’s A Missed Opportunity-- There are so many cases in real life of cis men thinking their entitled to a romantic relationship with a woman because they’re friends, or she was kind to him once. Because of the young intended audience for the show, it could have been great to show little kids that it’s okay if romantic feelings towards someone aren’t reciprocated, and that it doesn’t have to ruin a friendship. Also that no body is really at fault when that kind of thing happens. It would have been a good lesson but obviously it didn’t go that way.

I haven’s seen it, but I know that in Legend of Korra you find out that Aang and Katara ended up getting married and having children. I think that still could have happened if they ended atla as friends. It could have been them developing feelings for eachother as young adults.

This ship has potential but I wish they did it differently in canon.

Zutara Isn’t Ideal Either

Honestly my biggest problem with this ship is the fact that many of the people who ship it don’t take into accout the fact that they both (particularly Katara) have trauma because of the other person. Zuko spent months hunting down and intimidating the gaang. Like I said he’s redeemed himself but that shouldn’t just brush the terrible things he did under the rug. Katara threatens Zuko’s life when he first joins the gaang, and I can’t blame her for that. She doesn’t know whether or not he’s really changed.

Like Kataang this ship has potential, but it shouldn’t be romantasized beyond the limits of what is possible.

In Summary

(wish i could give credit to whoever drew this but i don’t know who it was)

I could write a book on all of the opinion I have about this spectacular series. However, I’m exhaused and want to go to sleep. I will not be proofreading this, sorry.

Legend of Korra was just put on netflix and I’m sure that once I watch it I’ll have a million more things to say.

I don’t know how to end this, so uh... Peace?

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gravecinema · 4 years

Video

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Why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Important - 05/09/2020

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a very important piece of fiction. No, I’m not talking about the groundbreaking television series that premiered in 1997, ran for seven seasons, and spawned a spin-off that ran for five (I’ll get to that some other time). I am referring to the redheaded step child of a movie from the early 90’s that came before it. The movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the most important vampire movies ever made. I will also say that it is pretty clearly not the best vampire movie ever made, but it’s impact on the genre continues to be felt on the big screen, and most importantly on the small screen, even to this day.

Released in July of 1992, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was directed by Fran Rubel Kazui, and the screenplay was written by a then young unknown writer named Joss Whedon. The concept that Whedon had come up with was brilliant. After viewing many monster movies before where the young blonde girl walking alone in an alley would get killed by a horrible monster, Whedon thought it would be a pretty fun idea to see a movie where the young blonde girl was getting stalked by a creature like a vampire, and it would instead be the girl that would turn around and kick the vampire's ass. It was a brilliant concept that Whedon would later explore and perfect in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, however, the movie adaptation of his work would first prove to be a flawed, but still entertaining, execution of the concept.

The main plot of the movie is of course about a young blonde girl named Buffy, played by Kirsty Swanson, who is told that she is one of the rare chosen ones who has been gifted with the powers to fight and slay vampires. Guided by her watcher Merrick, played by Donald Sutherland, Buffy learns and trains how to slay vampires, while also receiving help from a rebellious young man name Pike, played by Luke Perry. Rutger Hauer plays the main vampire Big Bad Lothos, with his vampire minion Amilyn, played oozingly well by Paul Reubens, who has a scene stealing death that continues even into the credits. David Arquette has the fun role of Benny, who is Pike’s best friend who gets bitten and turned into a vampire in the first half of the film. There’s even a quick cameo by a very young Ben Affleck.

Now, to address the major criticism of the movie, the main failing of the movie is one of direction. The script was good, the cast was decent, and the concept was solid, but Kazui’s direction just didn’t mesh well with the original intent and tone of Whedon’s story. Whedon even expressed his frustration while they were making the movie in a behind the scenes video, saying of the movie that “It was funny when I wrote it.” Whedon was so frustrated by how much of his vision was being mishandled and re-written, that he eventually left the set during production and never came back. This frustration would later lead to Whedon wanting to explore the concept further on his own terms with the eventual television series on the new WB network. The television series would later go on to become the best genre television show of all time, but as I said before, that’s a topic for another discussion.

One major thing about the movie that really stands out to me every time I watch it is just how slow the fight scenes are. It looks like everyone is fighting in slow motion and have little actual skill when it comes to fighting, even though some of the vampires are supposed to be hundreds of years old, and should know how to fight. This makes it hard to take the action parts of the movie very seriously. If you ever want to see how not to do an exciting fight scene, then watch this movie.

There was clearly an evident clash of styles and ideas with the writing and directing when it came to making this movie. Kazui wanted the film to be lighter in tone than what was written in the script. Kazui appeared to want to make a seemingly funny and not very serious movie that happened to have vampires in it, while Whedon wrote a serious vampire movie that also happened to be funny. Whedon obviously had the better and right idea, since the serious and darker moments of the film tend to carry more weight and interest for the viewer, while the humorous elements seem to fall flat and a bit out of place. Most genuine laughable moments tend happen because of how bad they are.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t a few scenes that don’t give me a chuckle. Future star movie David Arquette’s charisma shines through whenever he’s on screen, and he does a terrific job at playing the recently turned vampire of Benny. He and Luke Perry have great chemistry together whenever they are on screen, and they share some of the film's most genuinely humorous scenes. The most laugh-out-loud moment of the film also has to be when Buffy stakes Amilyn, and Paul Reubens then proceeds to improvise the single greatest vampire death scene in all of cinema. The humor of Buffy is there, but it ultimately just wasn’t brought to its full potential with the film.

The darker elements of the film also have their place, even if they are downplayed more for a lighter overall tone. In Whedon’s script, Merrick was originally supposed to kill himself to prevent from being turned a vampire and revealing to Lothos who the Slayer is. The dream sequence of Buffy with Lothos also has a nice eerie feel to it that I wish was dialed up more through the film than in just this one scene. The big vampire fight at the dance in the climax of the film was also supposed to result in Buffy burning down the school gym. This detail, while omitted from the movie, would later be included in the television series as Whedon would retcon the backstory to his original script.

There is one aspect of the film that I think is truly perfect, and that’s Kirsty Swanson’s portrayal of the main character herself, Buffy. She plays the ditzy blonde valley girl stereotype very well, which is exactly what Whedon was going for in his original concept. While Sarah Michelle Gellar would prove to be the perfect Buffy for Whedon’s later television series, Kirsty Swanson proved to be the perfect Buffy for what this film wanted and needed her to be. She has her blonde California valley girl moments, but she also shows a strong personal character growth throughout the film. Swanson would also receive the film’s only award nomination, which was for Best Actress for the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. Not exactly the Academy Awards, but still the only form of recognition that the film received upon its release.

Even for all the rewriting and adlibbing that Donald Sutherland did on his own to his watcher character of Merrick, he is still a great actor who plays the part well enough, even if he had little respect for the material. He maintains that older presence of a mentor that Buffy needs, and is one of the few serious and less comedic parts of the film. Donald Sutherland also hated the title of the film, so he was probably doing everything that he believed to make the movie better than what he thought it was, and the director would let him do whatever he wanted. It wouldn’t be the first instance of someone dismissing Buffy the Vampire Slayer just because of the title alone.

For all of the movie's missteps, they serve to illustrate how a movie of this genre should not be handled and can later be improved upon in the television series and other works of the genre. The good aspects of the film also show what can work in the genre when it’s done right. The first season of the television series would also experience some of these growing pains when trying to find just the right balance of horror and comedy. The importance of this movie is that it is essential in laying the groundwork for future vampire stories to come, and the high-school-is-hell metaphor. It basically further helps to define the teen vampire genre that was started with The Lost Boys in 1987 and continues to this day.

The movie is always going to be overshadowed and overlooked by the vastly superior television series, but it still holds an important place in the history of the vampire genre. While the more lighthearted take of vampires in it may have prevented it from becoming a true classic, it also makes it a good movie for younger kids to watch and to be introduced to the genre at a young age. This is a very important aspect of the film to remember, and it cannot be overlooked. It was a favorite of mine to watch when I was a younger kid growing up, and it certainly led me to the superior works of the genre, including my favorite television show of all time. Without this movie, we would never have gotten the great television series of the same name, and for that reason above all, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie will stand the test of time as being significantly important to the vampire genre.

#buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #review #video essay #essay

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theonewiththefanfics · 5 years

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Hawkins’ Charm (Part 7/?)

Synopsys: They had gotten out of Hawkins. After all the shit that had happened, all the heartache and pain, Billy and the Reader had gotten away from that hellhole, building their life in California as he had dreamed. But when Max’s graduation rolls around and they go to celebrate, it’s as if the Upside Down was just waiting for all of them to return. And it has a bone to pick.

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x f!Reader; platonic!Steve Harrington x f!Reader

Genre: angst, lil bit of fluff

Warnings: blood, mentions of injuries and death, fighting, swearing, mentions of sexy times, but not smut

Word count: 3337

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CONDONE BILLY’S ACTIONS AND THE THINGS HE’S DONE! THIS IS BASICALLY AN AU, WHEN REALLY LOOKING AT IT! SPOILERS FOR S3! READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!

It was like the air had suddenly been sucked out from the world, leaving him a heaving, dizzy mess in the void. His dad. His old man. The person that was supposed to love him unconditionally but had been abusing him since he was a little kid was the one the Mind Flayer was using as a host. “I’m gonna kill him,” Billy seethed. “Did he touch you?” he doublechecked every inch of Y/N’s body. “I’m gonna fucking murder him.” “Billy, he didn’t do anything,” she put a hand on his cheek, and he practically melted, taking in a shuddering breath and nodding. “I didn’t even see him. I’m alright.” “Was he,” he gestured vaguely around, “you know, possessed when we went to his?” Y/N shrugged. “I don’t know, but he was by the time that whole thing at Tina’s happened. But Billy… he knows… about Clara. I tried to keep them out of my head but,” her chin wobbled, and Billy had to keep his composure. “He’s so strong,” Y/N whispered. “Like, not to say what happened to you wasn’t horrible and painful and bad, but he’s,” she shook her head. “He’s so fucking strong. I don’t know how we’re gonna stop him. If we can stop him.” They thought the Mind Flayer might have evolved, they knew it could, but with the way El had struggled against the small piece inside of Y/N, she couldn’t even imagine what battling against the full force of that thing would be like.

“We gotta close the Gate,” Hopper said. “It’s our only option.” A murmur of agreement spread through the people in the cabin, Billy’s attention still on Y/N as she flinched when she reached for the glass of water Robin had offered. She practically gulped the whole thing in a second. Only then did Billy realize how thirsty he was too, but he could wait. “Is my mom,” Max’s lip quivered, making Y/N look at her, and Billy reached for his sister's hand squeezing it in comfort, something that just five or even three years ago he would’ve never voluntarily done. “Is my mom one of them?” When Y/N shook her head no, Max almost sagged to the floor in relief. “I didn’t feel her. He has a lot of others under his control – Tina, Tommy, Vicky, pretty much everyone else that didn’t leave the party that night… they drugged the punch and knocked everyone out, and then Neil helped them bring the rest to Benny’s where… ya know… they got possessed and shit…” Y/N groaned trying to stand up, but when her knees buckled, she opted for staying on the bed. “How does your back feel?” Robin asked, making everyone remember that before being possessed by a Mind Flayer, she’d been dragged away by a monster with knives for fingers. “Like a Demogorgon wanted to make a skinsuit out of me,” Y/N shrugged and hissed at the pain. Without it possessing her, she was back to herself, and it meant she was back to feeling things and not just ignoring the unpleasant itch in her back. Billy was instantly in action mode. “Okay, we need to clean those. Don’t want you getting an infection.” Joyce was immediately on her feet. There was an old bottle of vodka, she’d found in Hopper’s room from that day when she’d ditched their ‘date but not date’ to instead go to Mike’s science teacher, and she went to grab it. “Vodka doesn’t have an expiration date,” she muttered to herself taking a clean cloth as well. “Here,” Joyce gave both of those things to Billy, and Y/N sighed. “This is gonna hurt like a bitch,” he warned soaking the rag with the alcohol and reached for one of the leather restraint that had been wrapped around her wrists. “Yeah, I’m kinda expecting it to,” she grumbled and bit down on the belt. With one final nod, Y/N readied herself, and he pressed the cloth against her wounds. Searing hot pain erupted throughout her body, and for a second Y/N’s vision went completely white. She grabbed onto the sheets and fisted them between her fingers, holding back the scream. Honestly, she’d rather be possessed by the Mind Flayer than feel every single time the alcohol ate at her wounds. And oh god, when Billy had to peel away the scabbed over parts… Y/N thought she’d pass out. Hoped she’d pass out. Childbirth had been easy compared to the torturously slow movements as each crusted bit was ripped from the gashes leaving them open to the air. She spit the belt out to the floor and growled, “Hurry the fuck up!” “Sorry, sweetheart,” Billy murmured seeing Y/N’s face scrunch up as he dragged the cloth across the third out of five slashes. “But I gotta be thorough.” It dragged on for five more agonizing minutes before Billy and Joyce deemed Y/N’s skin would not rot and fall off her back. For the time being at least. She’d definitely need to see the doctor first thing in the morning. “I think these might need stitching,” Billy trailed a careful palm along the two of the deepest gashes. “Yeah, nope,” Y/N shook her head heaving and shuddering, and Joyce applied a compress to her back. It had some sort of a cold salve on it, and it instantly relieved her blazing skin. She’d been the only one smart enough to remember about El talking about Y/N’s wounds, so while everyone had gathered tons of tinfoil, Joyce had bought a first aid kit and some other things that she considered might be necessary. “Thank you for cleaning them up, but I ain’t letting you anywhere near me with a needle and thread,” Y/N smirked. “Wha- hey!” he exclaimed. Usually, he’d slap her arm playfully, but this time he opted out on it. “Do I need to remind you when you tried, keyword tried, to sow up Clara’s dress?” she gave him a pointed gaze and shook her head, smiling as Joyce muttered a ‘men’ underneath her breath. Steve who had joined their little group once the gross stuff was out of the way, crossed his arms and snorted. “What happened?” “I ended up having to throw it out,” Y/N gestured at Billy. “Because cross stitch is so hard.” “It wasn’t that bad,” Billy protested but accepted his defat and helped to wrap the layer of gauze around Y/N’s back. Immediately it got soaked and turned a scarlet color, but it was better than leaving the scabs on with millions of possible infections underneath them. And the red was a much pleasant color than the pitch black. “She’s just being dramatic.” “Frist of all,” Y/N hissed and pointed a finger at him. “I’m allowed to be dramatic. At least right now. Second of all, you managed to sow the dress to your jeans, and then, when I told you to just cut the thread off and pull it out, you cut a hole into the dress.” “It was a stylistic choice.” “Yeah for what, her third arm?” It seemed insane to be bickering about what were now minuscule things. A ruined dress. Billy’s inability to sow. Him being in absolute denial about it. Insane, but nice, given how the actual things they needed to worry about were the possible invasion of their world by an interdimensional alien, a Russian army opening up the Gateway between the two universes and her father-in-law being the main henchman. “How do we explain this to Clara?” Billy nudged his chin towards Y/N's back, and her eyes widened. “Fuck,” she swore under her breath. “I hadn’t thought about that…” There was no way she could just brush it off, and their little Terminator had to know everything. It had been an interesting enough conversation when she’d asked about her dad’s scars, but now when her mom would arrive home with a destroyed back was not something, they thought they’d have to deal with. “You might also wanna figure out what to say to mom,” Alex said as he stood to the side, arms matter-of-factly crossed over his chest. “What? Why?” Alex’s eyes widened. “Graduation’s in like a few hours, and you're gonna show up like that?” That’s when the rest of the kids also remembered Friday was just three hours away, and graduation only fifteen. “Oh, shit,” Max muttered sharing a look with Mike, Dustin, Will and Lucas. El hadn’t gone to a public school, having been taught by Hopper and then Joyce at home. “Well, we can’t go,” Mike said. “This is bigger than some fucking graduation.” “Hey, watch your mouth!” Hopper said pointing at the teen. He was still in the mindset of ‘keep the door open three inches’, no matter if four years had passed. “I think going might be our best bet,” Y/N butted in. “Or at least, you have to go.” “Not to be rude, ‘cause I know you went through some pretty dramatic shit,” Lucas said, “but Mind Flayer versus getting a piece of paper,” he made a gesture as if he was weighing the options with his hands. “The Mind Flayer wins.” Y/N shook her head and stood up, leaning heavily against Billy. “He still needs to keep up the appearances. I mean when Billy was possessed, he went to his job at the pool, so I can guarantee he’ll be at the school. And that’s when we can strike.” The thought of attacking the Mind Flayer and bringing the fight to him, instead of how it usually had been with it striking first, made everyone perk up and start talking, but Billy didn’t join in, even though he might have the most cause to. Instead, he tugged on Y/N’s palm making her attention flit just to him and look at his furrowed brows. It seemed as if the formulation of the words on his tongue were the hardest ever, but in the end, he got them out. “What did you mean by ‘the three of us…?’ When you said you wouldn’t let me taint the three… of you…” “I don’t know…” she shook her head. “I have no clue where that came from.” “Do you,” Billy swallowed harshly and wrung his hands together, “do you think you might be pregnant again?” That thought had crossed her mind, but Y/N didn’t think it to be plausible. Every time they’d had sex they’d been very careful, as they weren’t planning on having another kid. Sure, Clara hadn’t been planned either and turned out to be the best gift ever, but they were doing really well at that moment, so another gremlin would be quite jarring. “I don’t think so… I had my period right before leaving.” “Yeah, but we did have a lot,” he emphasized the word and smirked, “of fun at the motel in the morning. And when we got to yours in the shower… and before going to Tin-“ “Okay, you don’t need to recount every time,” Y/N chuckled feeling heat crawl up her body. “I remember, I was there.” “You better, otherwise, I’d need to remind you.” She tilted her head to the side. “I wouldn’t complain about that. Like at all.” A beat passed before she spoke again. “If it was though…” Y/N bit down on her lip. “Would you want it? Another kid? Would you want one?” Billy snorted cupping her cheeks and giving her a sweet kiss. “If you’d ask me to run through Hell barefoot, I’d fucking skip through it with a smile on my face.” “So, would that be a yes?” “You’re such a dork,” he shook his head, the affectionate grin never leaving. “Yeah, but I’m your dork.” He scoffed. “You better fucking be.” “We’ll figure it out…” Y/N nodded her head as if affirming herself they would. “If we get out of this alive.” “When,” he growled back. “When we get out of this alive. Don’t you dare talk that way.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just being realistic.” “Well stop it then.” He grumbled like a toddler being told he couldn’t have any more candy. “Be optimistic.” Y/N scoffed. “Yeah, because you’re not only Keg King, but the King of Optimism as well.” He watched her bring Nancy’s given shirt over her head and helped the woman let it slip over her body. Billy loved that body with every inch of his being. He loved each and every birthmark, scar and dip, and now it had been completely rearranged by some monster. There was nothing in the world that would make him think of Y/N as anything as beautiful, but a small part in his head screamed at how much he hated the rips that would scar over at some point. They had been his fault. His ugly marks on her gorgeous body. “Where’s uh where’s your ring?” Y/N asked, clearing her throat and bringing him out of the pondering. This was so not the conversation she thought she’d ever have. It was like they’d had a silent agreement to never take the golden circlets off, so seeing his finger bare, with a pale line around it, made her stomach churn. “When you were missing, I asked El to help find you. She needed something that had a connection to you…” he shrugged flexing his fist. “This was the only thing I could think of.” “And why haven’t you put it back on?” It seemed like the question completely shifted the mood, and Billy let out a sad chuckle. “ ’Cause I don’t think I should.” Y/N’s eyes widened. “What?” She could feel tears burn at the edges of her eyes, but Y/N was not going to let them fall. Instead, she cleared her throat and repeated the question in a much softer tone. “That day when we got married, I promised to protect you. I might have not said it out loud, but I promised it to myself.” Unlike her, Billy allowed himself to fully feel the emotions, a drop rolling down his cheek. “And I failed. How can I put it back on, how can I promise that to you, when I broke it in the first place? I know it wasn’t you saying all those things, that it was the Mind Flayer using my fears against me, but it had a point. I don’t deserve you. Or Clara. For years this whole life has felt like a dream, like a fluke that I’d gotten so lucky. And now I know it is, ‘cause there’s no way I could ever deserve you or your forgiveness.” Y/N thought she’d be sad and hurt by his words, but instead, she was just pissed. “Forgiveness for what?” “For this whole thing,” he gestured at her torn-up body. “Had it not been for me, you wouldn’t have been possessed by that fucker. Had it not been for me, we wouldn’t have gone to Tina’s. I wouldn’t have gotten drunk and pissy, and you wouldn’t have had to wander off into those fucking woods… this whole shit’s my fault…” Her lips were pursed into a very thin line before, Y/N nodded. “Okay, so answer me this – did you know the Gate was open?” “N-no,” Billy stuttered out not sure where the conversation was going. “Did you know the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer were back?” Once again, he replied with a soft ‘no’. “Did you have any clue any of this would happen?” her voice was getting louder with each word. Billy hid his face in his palms but shook his head no. “Then why are you punishing yourself?” “Because who else am I supposed to punish?!” he exploded jumping up. “You?! I was the one who put you in danger, I am the one with the shit father who’s even shittier now! All of your biggest problems in life have been because of me, and now whenever we’ll go to the beach, whenever you’ll take a shower, I’ll have to see those fucking marks on your back that you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for me!” Y/N was practically shaking as she stood face her husband, despite the tendrils of pain rippling down her back. “I did not sit by your hospital bed for two whole days while you were unconscious, I didn’t spend my last summer here with you in the ICU for you to say this bullshit to me,” she seethed and moved closer. “Now, you’ll listen to me Billy Hargrove, we’ve been through so much shit, it’s insane. I could write a novel about it and still, there wouldn’t be enough pages to tell the full story.” Her gaze was piercing, and he couldn’t pull his eyes away from Y/N’s. No matter how much Billy wanted to, it was impossible as every word found its mark, yet he still listened to her, still nodded along and let the tears slip down his cheeks, his wife’s soft thumbs brushing them away. “I did not go through childbirth, through doubting myself if I’m a good person, let alone a mother; I did not go through this shit, only for you to tell me that you don’t wanna wear that ring anymore, cause guess what? I’ve fucked up too. That day at the pool when we got into that huge argument and the whole Mind Flayer shit happened to you? I blame myself for that.” Billy’s mouth dropped open in shock. “But – but it’s not. You had nothing to do with it… it just happened, it was bad luck.” “Exactly,” a painful smile of relief made her lips pull up hoping he'd get where she was going with it. “I know it wasn’t my fault, I can’t control the Mind Flayer, but I still blame myself. Maybe if I’d been more understanding, maybe if I’d tried to work it out, it wouldn’t have happened... you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” His hands shook as he settled them on Y/N’s waist, pressing his forehead tightly to hers. He’d never even considered that she blamed herself for that summer’s events. He never even entertained that idea, ‘cause it was simply untrue, so he didn’t spend time on it. “You blame yourself for this, and I blame myself for what happened to you... even though it was neither of our faults... So,” Y/N let out a shaky breath, “put that fucking ring back on your finger, or I swear, I’ll serve you some divorce papers.” Billy chuckled, pulling back from the embrace to fish out the ring from his pocket, but not before pulling Y/N in for a passionate kiss. Fuck, did it feel good to kiss her again. “Yes, mam.” Beautifully, as if it was made to sit at the base of his left ring finger, the piece of jewellery slid on and stayed there. As it would forever. “I love you,” he whispered pecking her lips. “I love you too, dumbass.” “Whatever you say Mrs Dumbass,” he bit on his bottom lip and glanced down at her. “You’re an amazing person, by the way. And an even better mother.” Y/N mouthed a ‘thank you’ against his lips before caressing them again. “You two okay there?” Joyce asked peaking inside the bedroom as they stepped back from one another. Only then did they realize when the argument had started everyone else had left the room to give them privacy to work things out. Billy nodded, smiling over at Y/N. “Yeah, we’re alright. But I think we’ll be even better when we decide what to do with the whole Upside-Down thing.” “I think I have an idea,” Y/N sighed and, leaning heavily on Billy’s shoulder they entered the living room where everyone else was. Max raised a concerned eyebrow, thumb between her teeth, and when their eyes met, she gave the redhead a small but assuring smile, making her heart lift from her feet back to her chest, knowing that everything was okay between the two. Hopper opened his arms and then put them on his hips. “We’re all ears.”

Tags (crossed out wouldn't take):

Hawkins’ Charm tag list: @genius2050 @aiifandomsunite @ashleymarieriffle @littlefool-smalljester @infinitelycharmed23 @llcalumllhoodll @benevolentgemini @rxmanovbby @euphoniumpets @krazykatykat456 @believerofall @ccidk @babechief @meganmj @blackhood5sos @fml9603 @noodlenerd101 @universefinds @kuroidesuchloe @im-a-stranger-thing @grxxn-gardxns @springholland @beforethebraces @robinisourlesbianmom @queeneliza108 @neenaw-neenaw @lexisntthatweird @choicesismylife @mckenzie2020 @kcd15 @snuggleducky @reckless-sofia @didyouseetheflair @silver-winter-wolf @jay-ta-blog @hopeless-lovex0 @anyasthoughts @robinismyqueen @yeah-butyourenot-dacremontgomery @mcrganstarks @psychoticobsession @cutehipstergirl25 @sbfandom @mickmoon @jackyfrost01 @txhmine @dark-princess99 @morgangrice18 @changingmylifestyle367 @sweetdayme4427 @alowexpectation @sexyvixen7 @golddvstwoman @evelynfreakinaddams @sunfucked @sataninsatin @queenbbarnes @venomavocado @rangotangomango @psychosupernatural @sereiins @frickin-bats @bandsruinedmylife @thee-brunette-princess @queenskyster @aspiring-fangirls-world @gracethegeek9902 @katiexdacre @dreamwavej @escaping-reality21 @void-fire-rose @slvtherinseeker @paranoiadestroyah @arromite @jojo-buttercup @danarysstormborn @graveyard--baby--666

Forever tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @sweet-ladyy @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan @teenwolflover28

A/N: heya! Sorry for the delay on this part, but I had such a full weekend that I just didn’t have the time to write or post, but I hope you enjoy this part. The next one might be the last or close to that, but I have a few other Billy imagines in mind, so if you wanna be tagged in any of the future fics drop a message (whether Hawkins’ Charm tag list, Forever tag list (means you’ll be tagged in EVERYTHING or just Billy’s :) )

ALSO! HOLY SHIT WE HIT 6K!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! THANK YOU!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE THERE ARE SO MANY OF YOU THAT LIKE WHAT I CREATE AND IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME THAT YOU’RE STICKING AROUND :****

P.S. my tags are always open

P.S.S. what did ya think? :)

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chcfasher · 4 years

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okay i am so excited to get to plotting & interacting with all u cuties ! bare with me though , im also trying to study for a quiz i gotta take later tonight . anyways , i’m mia aka your resident masshole reporting for duty . i’m 20 years old ... will be 21 in june ( fingers crossed my Sad ass will be out of q*arentine by then ) . i go by she / her / dumb bitch pronouns & am very much so done talking about myself already . so lets get to my boy asher here who is ... how do you say ? a asshole ? a dirt bag ? a soft baby boi ? if you wanna plot & discord is easier for you shoot me a mssg @ 𝖒𝖌𝖐'𝖘 𝖜𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖊#9789 . lets goooo 💛

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒

full name: asher james bennett nickname: ash , aj birthday: march 25 , 1996 zodiac: aries hometown: madison , wisconsin ( click here to see his parents house / childhood home ) current residence: los angeles , california ( although he lives in the villa with everyone , before the year away he lived on his own & still owns the home , both because he loves the place and because it gives his family somewhere to go when they come out click here to see his house ) vehicle: 2017 jeep wrangler rubicon in black ( click here ) , 2019 maserati granturismo in red ( click here ) gender: cismale orientation: heterosexual , heteromantic relationship status: single ( it’s complicated ) family: tamara marie bennett-abbott ( mother ) , harrison charles bennett ( father , deceased ) , mason billings abbott ( stepfather ) , bradford sawyer abbott ( brother ) , stephanie anne bennett ( sister ) education: vocational highschool graduating from the culinary program , graduated ucla with a bachelor in management with a minor in food studies occupation: celebrity chef , tv personality net worth: 19.7m height: 5′11″ weight: 161lbs tattoos: left arm ( x , x ) , right arm ( x , x , plus the butterfly tattoo jack has ) , right hand ( x ) , right thigh ( x ) , left leg ( x ) criminal record: arrested ( x6 ) - simple assault ( x2 ) , assault and battery ( x1 ) , disorderly conduct ( x2 ) , criminal mischief ( x1 ) , criminal trespassing ( x2 ) , minor in possession of alcohol ( x2 ) , drug possession ( x1 ) drugs / alochol / smoking: yes , mostly marijuana though / yes / no moral alignment: chaotic neutral hogwarts house: slytherin theme song: righteous by juice wrld ( a look at his mental health and the way it he attempts to cope ) & i am by james arthur ( deep dives into his view on himself and how outside opinions of him have effected the way he sees himself ) & empty space by james arthur ( instead of being about a girl this really encapsulates how the loss of his father has affected his life ) traits: charismatic , well-intentioned , affectionate , loyal , jocular , reckless , immature , flippant , short-tempered label: politicians son , miscreant , fuck boy , broken bird , mr. misunderstood , mama’s boy , epicure hidden talents: drawing , singing , master at rubiks cube , skilled card counter ( blackjack )

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃

asher was born just eleven months after his sister stephanie , to at the time lobbyist harrison bennett & prosecutor tamara bennett . a menace as a child , he made dennis the menace look like a saint , basically . at first his parents hoped this was simply just a phase but as time went on it became very clear that if it were a phase it was going on for much longer than his parents had hoped . his sister immediately taking on the spot of prodigal daughter , while asher took on the spot of black sheep of the family . this didn’t mean that his parents didn’t absolutely adore both of their children , because they did . both taking on daddy’s little girl & mama’s boy respectively , early on .

around the time asher was seven both of his parents were up for office , his mother for district attorney & his father for u.s representative from wisconsin . the influx of cameras / eyes on the bennett family mixed with the level of stress both his parents were under completely put asher off from the world of politics . despite being in a family that had generational ties to politics on both sides . during a family appearance asher was captured on camera ( both video & photo ) putting up a piece sign behind his sisters head during a speech his father was giving .

[ tw: death , suicide , loss of a parent ] when asher was twelve his father went on a boating trip with friend , call it a boys trip if you will . two days into the trip news broke of his father being in a major boating accident where harrison was the only one on the boat & was dead upon being found . it later was confirmed by the coroner that his death was likely a suicide . the loss of harrison was hard on the entire family , it was easy to say it affected asher heavily having locked himself away in his bedroom for nearly a week only leaving his room to go to the bathroom & grab food that he’d return to his room to eat . later , when he returned to school he was suspended just in that school year three times . it was genuinely the beginning to the incredibly reckless version of asher , that we seen since .

despite his antics he played varsity football as a cornerback & varsity soccer as a midfielder . taking up sports at an early age , it was clear he was a born athlete who genuinely enjoyed a little competition . he also took an interest in culinary , he was very much so that kid standing on a step stool as he helped his parents in the kitchen . this interest turned into him attending a vocational / trade highschool instead of an ordinary public school , like he had in elementary & middle .

when he was fifteen he started a youtube channel where he posted cook with me videos weekly & vlogged his experience within the culinary program at school .

during highschool his mom started getting serious with a professor at the local university . asher , of course , hated the idea of his mom replacing his dad and it took nearly two years & an engagement for him to actually sit down & listen to his mom about the situation . it wasn’t until then that he realized , mason , was supposed to replace his father ... it was simply his mom not allowing herself to get stuck in one place in life & fall into a spiral . once he actually heard her side he gave the guy a chance . turns out the two have alot in common & get along very well . he’ll never replace his father but he respects him none the less .

before he’d even graduated highschool , asher amassed over 1m subscribers , made appearances on the ellen degeneres show & rachel ray show . this was around the time he realized he wanted to turn his hobby into something more than that & hell he was good enough to do so . when graduation came , he’d already committed to attending ucla as a business major with a minor in food studies .

soon after graduation he went on the show master chef , finishing as runner up , which was one hell of a feat given he’d been the youngest chef on the show . he enjoyed the experience & recognition the show gave him .

while at ucla he continued to play football he was so good he was receiving national attention to the point where nfl scouts were looking at him . obviously he was still too young to go into the draft but they let him know , this was something that was more than on the table . it was definitely something he loved hearing but at the end of the day , the nfl was never really the goal for asher . so toward the end of his sophomore season when he was suspended for the rest of the season for getting arrested & charged with drug possession & criminal trespassing he took that as the excuse not to return the sport the following season .

this was not the first time ( we know it was not the last *wink wonk* ) asher was arrested . from the end of his middle school days throughout highschool he’d racked up four arrests . his first one taking place in eighth grade & the only reason the misdemeanor charges actually went through were because his mom asked for them to in hopes that it would scare asher from acting out in such a fashion ever again . unfortunately , his actions were rooted in much more than teen rebellion having never accepting or being able to cope with his father’s passing . the charges & arrests that would follow his mom was able to cover up & kind of bury them . that way word didn’t spread like wildfire about her reckless son .

not even a full year removed from football & he’d accepted a tv show offer from food network . a show called asher’s kitchen a primetime half-hour show where a new chef would come on each week if they beat asher in making a 3-course meal they win bragging rights & $20,000 , if they don’t they go home empty handed . despite the shows constant high ratings asher grew bored of the show & left after only two seasons . the network tried to replace him but quickly learned asher’s personality was what really carried the show .

in 2018 , he went on to open his first ever restaurant the smoking goat an american bistro with an upscale vibe in the heart of los angeles . the place is literally his baby & if you can’t find him you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll find him there . whether it’s catching up with regulars or big name celebrities coming through the doors , or throwing on a chef coat and cooking up some of his very own specials .

around the time of his restaurant opening he started to let up on the youtube channel & it’s now been nearly two years since he’s uploaded & honestly has no intent on returning to the platform . in asher’s eyes , everything has a term limit & his youtube channels time was up .

𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗 / 𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐎 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

the timing of his amsterdam arrest was to say the least , horrific . not only was he in talks with several networks ( fox , cbs , netflix , etc ) to have his own daytime food-focused talk show but his mother was at the beginning stages of her 2020 presidential campaign , which she had since put a halt to and decided to continue on with her tenure as a u.s senator from wisconsin . with the headlines of his arrest spreading like wildfire , the internet resurfaced many of his earlier transgressions , the networks inevitably put a halt to going any further in negotiation & the political realm began to turn their attention to the kind of parent the senator was to have a son so ... out of control ? her opposition questioning how she could run a country if she couldn’t so much as raise a law abiding son .

upon his release from jail he took a jet straight home to wisconsin . with the realization of how much harm he’d done to the bennett reputation he made the personal promise to stay away from the media ( no social media , no tv , nothing ) & be the son the political world expected from a politician . his mother ( who is emulated mostly after laura baker from all american ) nearly begged him not to halt his life as a way of personal punishment for his actions . but after months back home & away from the limelight , asher could see the tides turning back in his moms favor & no big network offer ( and there were quite a few that came his way after the news of his arrest subsided ) could pull him back out into the forefront .

instead opening his second restaurant bennett’s , an upscale bar & grill in the capital city of wisconsin . he also began work on a cook book that’s kind of taken on a life of it’s own but he’s yet to be anywhere close to finishing that .

he has inevitably decided to come back & reunite with the bling ring a year later after his family sat him down & kind of had an intervention with him over his persistence to punish himself . claiming they feel he’s matured & gotten a good grasp on himself & that they don’t think he’ll fall into his bad behaviors again . ( spoiler alert: they’re going to be very wrong about this ... just saying / he’s going to return with the intent of being a better guy , being on the “ right track “ but lets be real it’s going to quickly spiral out of control as per usual ) .

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

as you can probably tell this boy is no good . he’s the guy your parents warn you about , i swear , he will get you into so much trouble & bask in the glory of being the one to give you such an adrenaline rush . he’s big on being here for a good time & not a long time . he just wants to have fun , at any cost . he’s extremely goofy , the kind of guy to whip out some mediocre wrestling moves on you for the sake of getting attention . he doesn’t take much seriously ... until he does ? what im saying is homeboy has one hell of a short temper and once he’s flipped his fuse , he basically blacks out . the reason for this is because no matter how happy & full of life he’d like to come off he has this deep well of anger that swells in him ever since he lost his dad . also a topic that can get him clenching his jaw , do not under any circumstances bring up harrison bennett . very much so a mama’s boy , though , catch him facetiming his mom once a day to tell her how much he loves her & see how she’s doing . he can come off very uncaring at times , it’s easy to say he’s probably one of the most misunderstood people around . he comes off like a douchebag , like someone who has little regard for others & don’t get me wrong he often is both of those things but he isn’t heartless ? when he has time to sit back and think about the damage he does ... it hits him like a mack truck & he goes into a pretty dark place of feeling like he’s a villain but he wants to be the hero of the story ? not very big on apologizing , verbally . if he says sorry you can bet a smug grin is following behind the words . instead he’s big on buying things & even cooking to show he’s sorry . probably not the best way to go about things but this is asher we’re talking about here . he is a flirt & will fuck anything . that’s all i have to say about that . onto his friends ? whew are his friends his world . he is a big proponent of bros before hoes & is an extremely loyal guy - to his friends . a true ride or die type a guy , he’d help he hide a dead body without any explanation at so what happened . a big move now ask questions later kinda dude .

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

BREATHE BY JAMES ARTHUR : he has a soft spot for her . he always has . she’s one of the only girls who doesn’t drool over him , they’ve never hooked up to any extent and that’s due in large part to her telling him from the beginning that the only way she’d give him a chance was if he straightened up his act & proved to her that he was worth her time . if there is a girl out there who can asher for the better , it’s her . but everytime she thinks she’s gotten him on the right path , she catches him either acting out or reverting to his fuck boy ways & getting with girl’s who he doesn’t have to put so much work into .

SAME SQUAD BY P-LO : let’s be real these three originated “saturdays are for the boys” . they’ve been boys for as long as they can remember . if you see one of them around you can rest assured the other two are in the vicinity . they’re the best of friends . they know everything there is to know about each other . all a bit reckless , but that’s what makes them such a fun trio . a very homiesexual bond takes place between these three & nothing & nobody could get between them .

CLOSE FRIENDS BY LIL BABY & GUNNA : they were once good friends , things spiraled past the point of their control , lines got blurred & then they were dating . the relationship as a whole was one no one thought would last . to give them credit things were good at first but after he cheated & she found out from a friend about it things started to go down hill . things only got worse when he was persistent in lying to her about the situation . she inevitably took him back & not too much later the arrest in amsterdam happened . before he was even released from jail , she was sent a video of him & one of his friends talking about sleeping with a prostitute . although it never happened the fact that was his intent was enough for her . his expectation was that because she forgave him before she’d wipe away the pain of him once again not having regard for their relationship & forgive him but she just couldn’t . when he came out to her forwarding the video to him , he decided to ignore the situation completely . the two have not had any contact for nearly a year & never really broke up or spoke about the situation .

NO FRAUDS BY NICKI MINAJ & DRAKE & LIL WAYNE : the perfect ride or die squad . the media likes to say someone in the trio is dating at any point in time but , that’s just not the case . these three are always getting into something . the true depiction of always having your friends back . they will lie for each other , fight for each other , anything to prove their loyalty to each other .

i also have some musing posts here , if you want to give that a look !

#𝓲. ‹ 🍾 › 𝓪𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓻 𝓫𝓮𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓽𝓽 ◟ INTRO .#bling:intro

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whitherliliesbloom · 4 years

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An Order of Dandelions

He could never forget the scent of caramel coffee in the air, or the sight of the gentle smile that graced her expression as she waved him goodbye. It was a call for him to visit again, an urge and temptation he would never refuse.

Modern AU ✿ Illya/Alphinaud ✿ 3,464 words

"A new cafe again, young master?"

He's used to hearing that question asked to him as the scenic view of the city passes him by, his hand idly stroking a length of fur upon his lap as he answers with nothing more than a firm nod.

His chauffeur may not understand it, but Alphinaud was a firm believer of expanding your horizons, trying something new, or some variation of the saying.

He could most certainly not hurt to afford spending his money on the same few chain coffee stores near the campus or his home, and just a few years back he'd even expressed his disbelief at his twin sister's insistence on eating out at those rustic fast food joints rather than the far more trustworthy alternative of five star french cuisine. A disbelief that prompted him to visit a rustic cafe for coffee once, and ever since that first visit, he'd become a devoted convert.

He was enamored by the modest settings of cafe, the more often than not extraordinary decor that put even the fanciest of restaurants he's seen throughout his life to shame. The prices for the food and drinks were extraordinary too - extraordinarily low for quality he'd consider no different from alternatives 5 times the price.

He'd gone from curiosity of a naive rich man's son to a full fledged cafe hopping addict now.

This time, his sights were set on a quaint little cafe he's heard his classmates mentioned once in passing during their lunch time conversations. They said nothing more than the bare minimum to get him curious - that the coffee was delicious, the decorations were pretty and that the barista was apparently nice.

A purr snatches his attention, and the boy turns his head to smile down at the cat that laid belly up upon his lap.

"I shall watch over Romeo as usual, young master."

"My thanks."

Brief words of thanks are punctuated by the sound of the tires braking against the asphalt as the car stops gracefully outside of the quiet little building.

Rows of potted flowers hung just above the window that would give passerby a glimpse into the seating area within. White wooden tables and chairs neatly lined up against the wall where even more potted plants decorated the rustic white planks, green vines taking the place of the ever popular fairy lights he's seen a good number of cafes use. And though the window gave a good view of the handful of customers already seated within, and the sheer amount of plant life that shared that space, the counter is obscured from view behind the wall. He’d assume there would be a short line of people waiting for their orders to be taken.

A small sign was parked right above the window, framed by what else but a wreath of leaves and flowers of every colour of the rainbow.

The Lavender Brew

A suitable name for one so obsessed with plants, Alphinaud thought to himself. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. He hasn't even stepped foot outside the car and he's already sold on the concept.

"Let me know if there's anything else you need, young master." The bearded man in the driver’s seat finally turns to speak to him, and Alphinaud flashes a smile of gratitude in return.

"I will, Pierre. I shall return shortly."

Much to the dismay of the blonde cat that had just been resting so blissfully upon his master's lap, he's quickly scooped up and dropped onto the back seat, evidently less than pleased as it let out a low pitched meow.

Alphinaud is used to the demands of his cat however, and has no regrets with opening the car door and closing it behind him without even a second glance back.

A bell chime greets his entrance into the cafe, and he's immediately hit by the familiar scent of coffee intermingled with floral notes he was less accustomed to. He notes with a low hum that he was right about there not being too many people waiting by the counter.

A display refrigerator he hadn't been able to see from the outside stood proudly next to the counter, housing a myriad of palm sized cakes and pastries along with handwritten cards noting the name of each dessert and their respective prices.

Eye catching as the desserts were, his attention is drawn to the chalk board on the wall behind the counter, where more of the same handwriting now listed a menu of drink items with their prices. Espresso, mocha and lattes he's very much used to.. a subset list of both floral and fruit juices less so, but it further adds to the naturalistic theme this cafe seemed so adamant to follow.

His line of sight breaks upon catching a flash of white at the corner of his eye and he turns his head back down to finally look at the barista.

Long straight white hair fluttered to and fro after the girl as she rushed from one end of the station behind the counter to the other, frantically preparing the orders of the patiently waiting customers who were far more interested in whatever was being displayed on their smart phones. A pink ribbon broke the monotone of her pure white hair behind her head, and he notes to himself with a small amount of amusement that the white patterns on the ribbon were of lilies.

When the lady finally turns around to hand the customer a take away cup of their order, a timid little 'thank you so much!' breathlessly leaving her lips, Alphinaud's eyes widen slightly in surprise.

Wide violet eyes that practically glisten in the light, almost porcelain-like light skin and a button nose. The woman's sense of dress is simple, but most suited for her. Coupled with how she stood more than a foot shorter than even he and her youthful appearance, he'd garner a guess that she was no older than him, and perhaps even younger.

If this were the very same barista his classmate had been speaking about, he'd have to very much agree with their prognosis about her 'cuteness'.

Alphinaud may be rich, but he most certainly isn’t entitled. At least, he’d like to believe he isn’t, a claim so many others of his age had throw thoughtlessly his way with zero regards of his feelings. And so he has always made it a point to emulate the behavior of what his father titled ‘commoners’. From occasionally picking up groceries for himself, to the now comfortable routine of standing in line at a cafe as he takes in the sights around him.

He quickly scurries to the end of the queue and attempts to make full use of his time waiting by thinking on what he’d like to order until his train of thought was rudely disrupted by the rough rattle of the bell as the door to the cafe opened.

“Hey, lady! This isn’t what I ordered!”

A man stomps in, pushing past the first customer in front of the counter to slam his disposable coffee cup onto the table. It barely makes a sound, but the anger in his voice is enough to contort the barista’s expression into one of unbridled fear.

“U-um-- W-What was it that you ordered again, sir?”

“I ordered a goddamn Americano, not Macchiato, idiot!”

There isn’t a single pair of eyes in the cafe that wasn’t directed towards the bellowing man now. Though the gazes of the patrons within the cafe had ranged from mild curiosity to annoyance, the trembling barista behind the counter had been left alone with a wavering stare of terror.

“I-I’m so sorry! I’ll prepare a Macchiato for you right away, sir!”

“I ain’t got time to wait for you to make another shitty cup of your brew! You’ve already wasted enough of my time making me come back here to tell you this!”

Hushed whispers passed among the handful of customers that had been waiting in line, presumably badmouthing the audacity of the man to quite literally scream in the face of a woman who seemed about ready to fall to the floor. Inaction and idle gossip however, has never quite been Alphinaud’s style; it was never the Leveilleur style.

“There must certainly be a better way to express your dissatisfaction than to yell at a lady like that.” The boy’s words pierces through the air, and the man directs his narrowed glare towards him.

“What’s that gotta do with you, kid?! Stay out of it!”

“You’re making a scene, sir. You claim that she wasted your time, and yet are you not wasting the time of everybody waiting in line yourself?” Unwavered, Alphinaud folds his arms across his chest. “I’m certain the police would say the same if we were to call them here.”

The threat certainly seemed to get through to the man at least. His eyes almost spitting fire out at the insolent teen who seemed to have no intentions of backing off. The boy’s well dressed, probably well to do.. if he were to lay a hand on him, then surely no good would come of it.

Finally stepping back, the man hurriedly leaves the cafe, though not without leaving a final signal of his ire by slamming the door. The sound of the door smashing shut, and the echoes of the bell as it noisily chimed for the next several seconds was enough to cause the poor barista to jump in her skin.

“Don’t let jerks like him get to you.” one of the customers, a woman with a freckled face and curly brunette hair waved her hand to catch the young woman’s attention. “He probably won’t ever come back, anyway.”

The sentiment seemed to be shared by the other customers, who were quick to turn their attention back to their own business after sparing a final sympathetic glance at the woman behind the counter.

Alphinaud hadn’t expected anything out of the incident, really. Such actions was only natural, or at least something that should be expected out of the future heir of a corporation. He could not hope to lead others if he did not have the courage to stand up for what he believed to be right, or at the very least defend those with a lesser voice than he.

It was but a small unpleasant blight during an otherwise uneventful day.

“U-um... Thank you so much...”

It wasn’t until the other customers before him had been served and the line in front of the counter had dispersed that he heard her voice directed towards him. It was almost like a whisper, a single light chime in the wind. The girl’s hands clasped together in front of her chest as she stared up at Alphinaud with glossy violet eyes.

The sincerity in her words caught him unaware at first, but he was quick to shake his head and flash her a smile as a return.

“You needn’t thank me. I just did what was right.”

“B-but...” the girl stutters, fingers now fidgeting restlessly as her eyes darts to the planks of wood beneath her feet. “You...you protected me.. from that man and...”

Protected certainly is an unexpectedly huge word to be using for something so trivial, but Alphinaud could only imagine what such a valiant act would appear to be in the eyes of a woman who seemed barely capable of keeping eye contact with others.

“And I am certain many others would have done the same if they had the chance, miss.”

The girl averts her gaze, hands falling apart to allow one to brush strands of white over her ear. There’s no one behind him in line, but she still makes an attempt to recall her professionalism all the same.

“W-well,” she begins, her voice almost a whisper for a moment, before it becomes louder. “What would you like to order, sir?”

Alphinaud leans back slightly on one heel as he considers, glancing briefly at the blackboard menu decorated with small chalk drawings of flowers and leaves.

“How about you surprise me?” he asks pleasantly with a smile. He catches sight of her name tag as he looks back to her. Illya. “And call me ‘Alphinaud’, please.”

A light dusting of pink rises to the girl’s cheeks as she shuffles her feet nervously, still not quite looking at him. Pale pink lips tremble as she attempts to choke out his name as requested.

“Y-yes...S-si-.. Alphinaud.” Somehow, something twinges lightly in his chest as he hears her say his name. Perhaps the floral scent of the cafe is getting to him. “My name is...Illya.”

Her expression turns into one of consideration as she turns away from him slowly. He doesn’t think to tell her he’s already seen her name.

The light hiss of steaming milk fills the air as Illya begins preparing him her brew, evidently having decided upon something. Her movement is swift, evidently familiar with her station as she mixes a concoction of what he can tell to contain milk and some powder together. A minute later, she brings him the cup, lightly settles it upon the counter, and names the price.

“Ah...I sh-should have told you earlier...I’m sorry -- “

“No, no, it’s quite all right, nothing to worry about,” he reassures her, already pulling out his card to pay. The payment terminal makes a light beep as he taps it. He spares her another smile as he folds his wallet away. “What is it?”

“A-a...caramel latte.”

Oh -- he’s never had one of those. But he did ask her to surprise him, and she certainly did. He picks up the steaming cup and takes a sip.

It’s -- sweet. Almost cloyingly so.

Somehow, he manages to keep a grimace from rising to his features. Alphinaud has never been a big fan of overly sugary drinks. He’s used to the dark and bitter richness of his usual orders, but telling her he’s not fond of it, especially after what had happened earlier felt a tad cruel.

His panic spikes when she, hesitantly, asks him how it is, and he has to pray that he’s managed to remain composed.

“It’s...good.” Relief washes over him like a tidal wave as he sees her pretty violet eyes light up. “It’s certainly surprising! I’ve never had one of these before.”

“I’m so glad.” The sheer sincerity behind her words is near enough to take his breath away, though why, he’s not entirely sure.

“I-Illya,” he stammers a moment, internally cursing himself, as he nurses his cup and takes another small sip. “How did you come to own such a quaint cafe?” Ordinarily, he wouldn’t attempt to make such conversation, but it doesn’t feel right to simply leave, and there’s nobody else waiting either way.

“Oh...” Illya trails off, her gaze averting yet again. “I-it’s -- it used to be my parents’. My mother put me in charge of the cafe after I graduated high school.. A-And since I’ve always liked flowers, I t-turned it into a florist shop as well...”

One pale eyebrow quirking in surprise, Alphinaud turns slightly to glance at one of the many displays of flowers and plants festooning the establishment. Now that she mentions it, he can indeed see that some of them have price tags attached.

From an assortment of potted cactus plants and flower, to smaller trinkets that he assumes to be mini terrariums.. it’s plain to see much love and care was put into the array of plants that was put on sale.

“What a wonderful idea! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cafe quite like this before. I think it’s very unique.”

Dusts of red returns to the white-haired girl’s cheeks full-force, though this time a smile accompanies it.

“I’m...glad to hear that. I-it’s not that great though.”

Silence passes between them as the young man takes another sip of his drink. For some reason, he wants to say something else. Illya looks unoccupied, perhaps a little out of sorts, as she stands at the counter. The other shop patrons are sitting at their tables, some engaged in conversation, others nose-deep in their phones.

It wasn’t that he was exceptionally chatty. But something about the girl compels him to want to take an extra effort at conversation, somehow.

Come to think of it, Illya looks about his age, doesn’t she...? Does she man the cafe the entire day...?

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” he asks her suddenly. She startles, eyes wide as she looks up at him from beneath her fringe of pale hair.

“U-um...I’m...twenty...”

Ah, so only a few months older than he is.

“Is that so? I turn twenty in about another 6 months myself.” he offers, since it’s only polite. “Are you...” There’s a brief pause as he rethinks his words. “In school?”

Whilst it’s common to begin university or college at the age of nineteen or eighteen..he’d rather not fluster or embarrass her if perhaps she’d started late...or had any difficulty...that’s simply not his style. And she’s already nervous enough.

“I...If you mean college... I never went.” Her gaze is downcast, shoulders tense in something that might well be shame. “I...my parents...we didn’t have enough...”

The hitch in her voice was almost enough to cause his heart to ache, and he can already hear a nagging voice in his conscious chiding him for being so foolish as to bring up such a sensitive topic.

“Oh. I see.” She doesn’t need to continue for him to understand. The taste on his tongue is sour, and he takes a mouthful of latte to soothe it. “I’m sorry.”

“I-it’s okay!” Illya quickly waves a hand to placate him. “I’m...I’m happy here. I-it’s all right.” For a moment, Alphinaud has the sinking feeling she’s trying to justify herself to him. But then --

“I’m happy that I get to carry on my parents’ hard work.”

The sincerity in her voice and expression is nearly enough to floor him, and he can’t believe he had been so self-centered and patronizing as to assume she might be...ashamed of working at a small little cafe filled with flowers. That soft, gentle smile --

He has to swallow around the strange lump in his throat.

“It’s certainly very admirable. I’m...glad I got to meet you here, Illya.”

He’s glad he wandered into this quaint little shop of warm drinks and pastries and flowers. He’s glad -- to have defended her, to have allowed her to send his preconceived notions and beliefs flying with those tiny hands of hers, for the warmth rising in his chest like a steaming coffee.

Illya’s violet eyes dart up to meet his, shocked. Before she can say anything else, there’s a light ring at the door as someone else enters the shop. Clearing his throat, Alphinaud gives the white-haired girl a nod and a smile.

“Thank you for your time today, Illya. And thank you for the...latte.”

He hesitates a single moment, and the girl is too flustered to say anything. There was a moment of silence between the pair as he waits, hoping for a response. He could not help the hint of disappointment he felt as he watched Illya avert his gaze, a hand moving up to comb strands of silky hair back behind her ear.

“Goodbye.”

Alphinaud turns, and just as he was about to fully step out the door he’d opened however, he hears her squeak out a question.

“W-Will you be coming back someday, Alphinaud?”

Like a javelin through his chest, he nearly stumbles from the skipping of his heart beat. Color rises up his face, almost dark enough to match the red of the roses that stood proudly among the display the shelves.

“Of course.”

Alphinaud dares to cast a final glance back, and immediately regrets his decision when she sees the bright smile that graced Illya’s face. Her hand raised, waving sheepishly at him.

He finally steps outside, but not even a gulp of fresh air was enough to steady the racing of his heart, nor did the impatient meows of Romeo who had peeked his head out the opened car window. The cup in his hand still feels warm, and yet it paled in comparison to the heat that filled his head.

Alphinaud raises the beverage up to his chapped lips, gulping in the last of the brew that tingled his taste buds and lets out a low hum at the tender sweetness. He feels immense regret at the fact that his cup was now empty, but that was simply all the more reason to pay The Lavender Brew a second visit.

He may well just have found his new favorite drink.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #alphinaud leveilleur #illya skawi #we've come so far #fanfic #alphinaud #modern au #mine #THANK YOU TO LAURELISMUN FOR HELPING ME WITH A GOOD PORTION OF THIS FIC #WRITER'S BLOCK IS AWFUL YO #especially when you're like studying for exams difnioffasdaiod #this has been rotting in my drafts for several weeks #glad to finally be rid of this garbage #other verses

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theyearoftheking · 4 years

Text

Book Twenty-Three: It

"Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

I’m just going to come right out and say it.

Orgy.

Pre-teen child orgy.

Weird-ass, icky, questionable judgement that I’m going to chalk up to years of drug and alcohol abuse... orgy.

Of all the strange and bizarre things Steve has written over the years, the child orgy scene in It might be the strangest one. I’ve read articles back and forth, and I know there was controversy surrounding whether or not to include it in the movie (glad cooler heads prevailed there!), but ick!!! Maybe it’s because my daughter is Beverly’s age, but ick!!!

I don’t think it belonged in the book. There were hundreds of other way the kids could have cemented their friendship, and shown adult status without sex. I mean, they already had a blood oath: what more do you need??

I know. This is such a small scene in the book, but it troubles me as a woman, a feminist, and most importantly, a mother. And as a writer, I’m also troubled that parts of it are written like a bad porn: “Something that will bring us together forever. Something that will show...that I love you all... Who’s first?”

Gag. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I loved reading It. The past and present chapters of the book flowed so fluidly, the character development was excellent, and Pennywise is terrifying. But this one part just keeps me from ever wanting to read it again. And then it had me questioning my own enjoyment of the book. Should I come down hard on this one for Steve’s tone-deaf attitude towards children having sex? Should I just ignore it and move along? Is it callus for me to enjoy the book, and still be bothered by the child orgy scene?

I think I finally settled on the last option.

Okay. We tackled the elephant in the room, now let’s move along to my half-assed review of the rest of the book.

I thought I had read It in the past, but when the book was delivered, I was shocked to see how thick it was. I was expecting a much shorter read. That was clue number one I had never read it. Clue number two was not really remembering the past and present story lines. So I’m going to assume I’m at that fragile, old age where I no longer remember every book I’ve ever read.

I have seen both of the recent movies, and thought they stayed fairly true to the book, and I liked their casting. I even imagined several movie characters as I was reading along. It was a solid book, and I flew through it in a little over a week. Not bad for normal reading standards, but a little long for Coronavirus reading standards.

Cue the Cardi... Coronavirus!

youtube

Sorry. I really love this video, and find myself yelling, “Coronavirus! Shit is real!” far too often.

So, for those of you who have been living under a rock your entire lives, It is the story of Pennywise, a murderous clown who preys on innocent children in Derry, Maine every twenty-seven years or so. Yes, he’s a clown, but he can also take the form of a spider, a werewolf, or whatever you’re most terrified of. “Glamour, he said, was the Gaelic name for the creature which was haunting Derry; other races and other cultures at other times had different words for it, but they all meant the same thing... The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind, and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of.”

So, It kills little Georgie Denbrough, and his older brother Bill lives with the guilt of Georgie’s death. Bill had been at home with the flu, but had made Georgie a paper boat he could play with outside, and race through the flooding streets. Bill feels if he had been there, Georgie might still be alive, and his parents might be far less vacant and depressed. That’s some serious guilt.

Bill and his gang of friends: Stan Uris, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon, and Ben Hanscom all band together and form The Losers Club after admitting they’ve seen It in some form or another. In addition to taking out a few psychotic child bullies in a rock fight, they also mortally wound It. They have a group orgy, and a blood oath to celebrate their victory.

The kids grow up, and all go their seperate ways until twenty-seven years later when Mike calls them all to let them know It is killing again. Stanley Uris kills himself in the bathtub, but the rest of the Losers Club all travel back to Derry to see what’s up. Richie is a California-based DJ, Eddie runs a car service and married a woman just like his crazy mother, Beverly is a famous clothing designer, Ben is a world-famous architect, Bill is an acclaimed writer, and Mike is the librarian at the Derry Public Library.

All of them have vague memories of their time in Derry, and barely remember one another. But once they get back in town, the memories and bad habits start flooding back. Eddie is back to sucking on his aspirator every few minutes (despite his asthma being psychosomatic), Richie can no longer wear contacts and is back to his dorky glasses, and Bill is back to stuttering, something he hasn’t done since childhood. Good times.

While the Loser’s Club is assembling and eating Chinese food together, Pennywise takes it upon himself to release psycho childhood bully Henry Bowers from Juniper Hill, the mental institution he’s been in for years. Sidenote... one of the meanest counselors at Juniper Hill is Koontz. Coincidence? I’m going with no...

Mike informs everyone It is back in action again, killing people, and they all made a promise to come back to Derry if It ever went on another murderous rampage. So, they head back into the sewers again to take It out once and for all. They succeed, Eddie dies, Beverly’s abusive asshole husband dies, Audra, Bill’s wife, is catatonic from the shock of the whole thing, and the entire town of Derry literally and metaphorically collapses in on itself. But on the bright side, It is dead, and there wasn’t another orgy. Huzzah!

The book is chock full of Steve tropes (chambray work shirts! multiple mentions of Shawshank prison! Happy Crappy everywhere!); and also a few mentions of past and future books. Loser’s Club member Ben Hanscom is a chunky kid, and he’s made fun of for his weight. At one point, he recants a traumatic locker room scene where kids are “fat-paddling” him. Yes, it’s as cringy as it sounds. The gym teacher finally breaks it up, and Ben describes, “...what he did was grab one of my tits in each hand and squeeze. Then he took his hands away and rubbed them on his pants like he’d touched something dirty.” This was basically the male version of Carrie: locker room torture and dirty pillows. I laughed way too hard at that. But unlike Carrie White, Ben grows up to be handsome, famous, and he gets the girl without starting anyone on fire.

Later on in the novel, Beverly is dealing with her abusive, crazy husband, Tom Rogan. After she beats the crap out of him and flees for Derry, he tries to track her down. First, he stops by her best friend’s house, and almost beats her to death before she tells him Beverly left for Derry. Tom Rogan is so evil and terrifying, I couldn’t help but wonder if his character planted a seed in Steve’s mind for Rose Madder. I saw a lot of similarities.

There were also a few Dark Tower references. The Turtle is mentioned throughout the book, and The Turtle is also known as Maturin, one of the Guardians of the Beam in the Dark Tower universe. #allthingsservethebeam

Later on, Bill is on his way to take on It and, “He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate...”

Could it be Blaine? Blaine is a pain!

There was also one Wisconsin reference, Beverly takes a flight out of Milwaukee. After several books with no Wisconsin references, it was nice seeing Steve give us the love we deserve.

Orgy aside, I really loved It (things you never think you’ll say out loud, or type for that matter). If nothing else, you have to give Steve credit for making creepy clowns a thing. At one point in the book, Steve writes, “The fears of children could often be summoned up in a single face... and if bait were needed, why, what child did not love a clown?”

Um, no children today, thanks to your sick ass!

Next up is Eyes of the Dragon, which I have never read before, and is slow going. But at least it’s short.

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 16

Total Dark Tower References: 16

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

Stay healthy and keep social distancing, my friends!

Until next time, Long Days and Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

#it #clowns #pennywise #stephen king #dean koontz #constant readers #cardi b #the eyes of the dragon #dark tower #maturin #the beam

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