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egcdeath · 1 year

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spectator sport

pairing: joel miller x reader

summary: you and joel are the most competitive parents in your daughters’ soccer league. as it turns out, it’s not so easy being enemies when your daughters become best friends.

word count: 4.8k

warnings: canon divergent (no apocalypse yay!), rivals(?) to lovers, they don’t really like each other at the start but they also kinda do?, fluff, realizing feelings, domestic moments, yearning, allusions to a divorce

author’s note: tlou is an angsty masterpiece, but sometimes all i want is a little lighthearted fun. is this the most in character thing?? no! is it more fun to imagine malewife joel in a world without cordyceps? well… you tell me ;)

part two / series masterlist

“You got it, Chlo,” you cheered from behind a spray painted white line on a cleat-beaten grassy field. You balled your fists as you anxiously watched your daughter chase after the ball with a ferocity, herding it closer and closer towards the goal.

Your daughter had always had a passion for soccer, having watched professional matches with her father since the moment she could comprehend the game, and playing as soon as she could walk. Chloe had leaned even further into the sport following you and your ex-husband’s somewhat messy divorce, which left you in charge of bringing her to practices on Tuesdays, and games on Thursdays. It wasn’t like you minded much, you were always happy to support your daughter in whatever brought her joy.

“Pass it! Pass it!” a loud, masculine voice interjected as the man next to you shouted at your daughter.

Joel was not exactly your favorite parent on the team. While most of the parents enjoyed his presence, with his oddly wise advice for the girls and vocal support of the team (it also helped that he was quite easy on the eyes), something about the man had always thrown you off. Maybe it was his stubborn demeanor, or the way that he found a way to argue with you during every single game, without fail.

Now, as far as soccer parents went, you weren’t the worst. You had your moments of snapping at a shitty referee after a particularly rough week at work, or possibly being a little too enthusiastic when something bad happened to the opposing team, but somehow Joel always managed to do or say something that provoked you just enough to go back and forth with him.

Chloe glanced over in his direction, briefly losing her footing in perfect time for a member of the opposing team to snatch the ball right out from under her.

There was a collective groan from some of the more intense parents on your side, and you openly glared at them for indicating their disappointment with your daughter’s performance. But this wasn’t their fault. It was Joel’s.

“Great call out there,” you spat, shooting daggers in Joel’s direction as you took a few steps closer to where he was standing.

“Oh please,” you could practically hear the roll of his eyes in his words as he prepared to defend himself from your vitriol. “You think I wanted that to happen? I’m rooting for the whole team, not just my child.”

“I am not just rooting for my kid,” you delivered the statement a little too genuinely considering that the truth was probably closer to the opposite. “But you’re acting like you wouldn’t have felt the same way if it was your daughter.”

“I wouldn’t, ‘cause I understand that we’re probably gonna win,” Joel responded casually with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well, we would’ve had a much better shot at that if you weren’t so dead set on yelling shitty directions at the girls. Maybe leave that to their coach?”

“Hey, don’t curse! You’re forgetting there are kids around,” one of the fathers interjected, sounding far more offended than he needed to be.

“Shut up, Mark,” you and Joel said at almost the same time, voices overlapping. Your little spats were yours and yours only, and you’d thought it was common knowledge by now not to interfere when any of the parents were getting into it—but especially with you two.

As usual, your little back and forth seemed to go on and on. It had reached the point where you weren’t even really sure it had anything to do with the game as much as it had to do with the text you’d received from your ex just a few hours before the game, and whatever bullshit Joel had going on in his own life.

As much as you’d like to say you had self awareness, week after week the other parents shared knowing looks and snickered at your spectacle, yet being the laughing stock of the game didn’t deter either of you.

This week’s argument was no different.

To be quite honest, you hadn’t ever really paid attention to those who treated your spats as their mid-game entertainment. Right now, all you could think about was stupid Joel, shouting something stupid at your daughter, making her lose her focus, and miss out on a moment.

Well, maybe you two had too much tunnel vision, as an uproar of cheers from your side pulled both of your attention from each other, and to the celebrating team on the field. Particularly, Chloe and Sarah high-fiving as they jogged away from the goal.

Awkwardly the two of you clapped, cheering the names of your respective children. You didn’t miss the slight flush of red on Joel’s cheeks after missing the sight of his daughter working with yours to score, but you would be a liar if you didn’t admit that you felt the slightest hint of embarrassment too.

The game wrapped up soon after, with a quick discussion with the coach before the children were dismissed back to their families. As you waited for Chloe, you didn’t miss the newfound camaraderie between herself and Sarah, with the girls seemingly laughing at something as they made their way over to you.

Despite whatever negative feelings you may have had towards Joel, you were always happy to see your daughter happy, and if that meant you may have to tolerate the father of her friend, maybe, just maybe, you would stop treating her games as an arena for your shouting matches.

——

As an involved parent, you were no stranger to school fundraisers. For the most part, you would enter a raffle and sit through a catered dinner as the school choir butchered school-appropriate songs, or purchase a handful of chocolate bars from whatever kid was knocking at your door. However, for this fundraiser, Chloe insisted that you volunteer.

It was a simple bake sale occurring during school hours, and you had the day off. How bad could it really be?

Apparently, really bad.

Just minutes after you arrived and began to set out the cash box and assorted baked goods, an unwelcome presence joined you, immediately bringing an uncomfortable tension into the atmosphere. If you knew when you signed up for this event that you would be working with Joel Miller, you could guarantee you wouldn’t have been so eager to register.

“Oh, hey,” you tensely acknowledged after a moment, glancing up at the man who was joining you, then back down at the bagged brownies in front of you.

“Hey,” he responded just a second too quickly, then went silent as he seemed to feel out the awkward tension in the room. After a few seconds of heavy silence that felt closer to an hour, he finally added, “Any ways can I help out?”

Joel gestured to the table where you’d been organizing some of the baked goods. “Is there a method to your madness? Or just…” he trailed off awkwardly.

It was obvious that he hadn’t expected to be working with you, likely not enthused to be spending a good portion of the day in such close proximity with someone he clearly did not like being around. The situation was almost comical—spending hours in a school with someone that you weren’t sure you could spend five minutes with without breaking into explicit argument. Obviously it would be inappropriate to argue with him in this setting, so you reasoned that for the duration of your shift, you could at least attempt to be cordial.

“Uh, they just want us to keep twenty items out at a time,” you shrugged. You could be cordial. You could just give Joel instructions, then only interact with him when need be. “And to keep gluten free items in this basket. Other than that, everything is set up. The first lunch period’s in about a half hour, so we won’t have much to do until then.”

“Got it,” Joel nodded, pulling out a rather squeaky chair before taking a seat next to you.

The following few minutes could only be described as painfully awkward. You could cut the tension with a knife as you attempted to scroll nonchalantly on your phone, and Joel uncomfortably rubbed his hands on his jeans. This was going to be a long afternoon.

“So, what made you decide to help out today?” he asked out of the blue, drawing your attention away from your phone and over to his face.

Okay, you could handle small talk without getting into an argument. Besides, it’s not like you had anything to argue about. And to be frank, were your arguments really ever anything of substance? Sure, sometimes you both had done something slightly annoying or antagonistic, but your arguments never really felt that serious.

“Chloe knew I had the day off and pretty enthusiastically suggested I come help,” you shrugged as almost a means to shake some of your nerves out. “How about you?”

“Pretty similar on my end. Sarah thought it would be a great idea for me to come in today and help out.” Joel looked at you, then back down at his watch, as if he didn’t want to maintain eye contact for too long.

What a strange coincidence. Both of your daughters suggest you come to their school and work together on something.

You bit back whatever emotion it was involuntarily forming on your lips as it occurred to you that there was not a chance in Hell that this was accidental. Sarah and Chloe seemed to be quite close—you rarely heard a story that didn’t involve Sarah these days—and it was not unlike your daughter to plot schemes to try to fix relationships, a trait you and your ex-husband know a little too well. Clever, clever girls.

“What are the odds this was on purpose?” you asked, finally not restraining your entertainment by this whole situation. How ridiculous. And ironic. How ridiculously ironic.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say quite high,” Joel pressed his lips together and shook his head to himself.

And while you’d rather have your child just communicate to you that you’re embarrassing her at games, or that she would prefer you to be at the very least amicable with her new best friend’s father, at the end of the day you couldn’t really blame her for pulling off an elaborate plot. Besides, your feud with Joel was silly and unnecessary, and part of you had always wondered if you hadn’t spent so much time arguing with him, if you two would actually get along.

“If they did plan this, which they most certainly did, we have some smart kids,” you chuckled softly. “And maybe for the sake of them, we can attempt to be… friendly?”

Joel nodded slowly, “I can do friendly.”

A truce. Although the tension between you could still be cut with a knife, it felt nice to agree at the very least not to start a war at the little table.

”Can we really blame them for setting us up?” you pondered aloud, “I mean, who would want their best friend’s parents to be enemies?”

“We’re enemies?” Joel asked with a lift of his brow.

“Well,” you paused. You weren’t really enemies. Despite all of the heated arguments, more times than not, Joel provided you a pretty safe outlet to vent your feelings without many repercussions. “Maybe… rivals?”

Joel shrugged, “Maybe. I know for certain I don’t see you as an enemy. Although, I apologize if I ever made you feel that way.”

Was Joel… apologizing? First, working together with the man, and now an apology. Maybe you should’ve gone and visited your psychic after all, with the unpredictable way your week was turning out.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted, sounding quite genuine. You still weren’t completely sure that this was some weird joke, or that you’d woken up in a parallel dimension. “For always stirring the pot during games. It’s really quite-“

“Joel, it’s really not an issue,” earnestly and without a thought you interrupted the apologetic man, not wanting him to feel the guilt of being solely responsible for your little tussles. “I don’t take anything you say during games seriously. But I also want to apologize. It’s probably not the best to find little things to argue about every week.”

“I just wanted to be clear that I don’t hate you or anything,” he emphasized.

“Well I don’t want you to think I hate you either. If we’re being honest, it’s been pretty nice to be able to inconsequentially blow off steam every now and then. If anything, you’re doing me a favor.”

The corners of his lips turned up and into the slightest smile at your admission, and suddenly it had felt as if a weight had lifted off of your shoulders, and a bit more of the tension had dissolved in the room.

“No hard feelings?” he offered.

“None. Maybe the opposite,” you teased.

“Well, you know what they say about love and hate…”

“Now that may be a step too far.”

As it turned out, you and Joel made a pretty efficient bake sale team. Joel helped the kids pick out their baked goods, and you cashed the kids out. Sure, it wasn’t the most complex operation, but it felt nice to be in such a comfortable rhythm, especially considering the majority of your professional work you did alone.

By the end of your shift, you were far less displeased with your situation. In fact, one might even say that you enjoyed spending your afternoon at the sale with your daughter’s best friend’s father. Maybe Chloe and Sarah’s plot to force you together wasn’t so terrible after all.

Maybe Joel wasn’t so terrible after all.

——-

Every year, Autumn means one thing in your town: the annual fall festival.

It was honestly impressive the way that the entire community would go all out to put on such a large event in order to adequately honor the season, although part of you was convinced that the whole weekend-long event was an excuse for kids and adults alike to indulge in candy apples and Oreo turkeys and show off unnaturally large pumpkins.

This year was no different, and as tradition, you and Chloe hauled yourselves down to the festival. It just happened to be your luck that as you were exiting the car, a pickup truck pulling into a parking space caught Chloe’s attention.

“It’s Sarah!” your daughter informed you, practically skipping over to the vehicle. You followed after your daughter (who just so happened to be much faster than you) as she pulled her friend into a hug the very moment she popped out of the car.

Joel hopped out as well, glancing at your children who already seemed to be walking off towards the fair, then back to you.

“How are you?” he asked, fidgeting with his keys as he put them into his pocket. It was clear that despite deciding not to feud anymore, things were still a little fresh and weird between you two.

“Good, good,” you trailed off, nodding slowly as you slipped your hands into your own pockets and began to follow the two girls. Somehow, Joel ended up walking next to you as you trailed behind your daughters, and a light tension filled the air.

Despite feeling slightly more comfortable with him after your shift together at the bake sale, it was clear that there was still some strange awkward energy between you two. After all, you had only made amends around a week ago, and prior to that, the majority of your interactions had included some sort of verbal altercation.

Walking into the fair, you maintained a less-than-comfortable silence as your daughters chatted and led the way to the field, filled with booths and stations as far as your eye could see.

After a bit of aimless walking around, Chloe suggested a stop at a cornhole station. Watching your respective children play from the sidelines, you couldn’t help but crack a smile at the pure, unadulterated joy coming from your daughter as her and Sarah bantered with each other and tossed little bean bags. After ending with a tie, the pair began to walk away from where they were standing before pausing in front of you and Joel.

“You guys should play!” Sarah suggested enthusiastically, looking up at her father with an animated look in her eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Joel trailed off and glanced at you as if he wanted to check how you were feeling on the matter.

Sure, you didn’t have the upper body strength of someone who did construction for a living, but you were confident in your ability to kick some ass at corn hole.

“C’mon, mom. And you too, Joel. It’s fun! It’ll be fun!” Chloe, ever the instigator, egged you on.

“Alright, alright, since you insist,” you played up your reluctance, but happily accepted the red beanbags your daughter offered you. “It’s on, Miller,” you said as you approached the boards.

“Just you wait,” he shot back, matching the overconfident, cocky persona you’d seemed to put on. “Before I embarrass you, I’ll be polite and let you go first.”

“How kind,” you playfully rolled your eyes, but focused long enough to toss the pack not too hard and not too light, and it slid on the board before landing in the hole. “What was that about embarrassing myself?”

Heckling Joel was unsurprisingly quite easy, considering the majority of your interactions prior to the past week had consisted of taking blows at each other. What you didn’t expect was how naturally the banter between you flowed when both of you were able to acknowledge that what you were saying really wasn’t serious at all.

“I think that was called luck. You still have plenty of time to embarrass yourself,” Joel didn’t even miss a beat as he tossed his bean bag with ease, landing right into the hole.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t impressed by his aim, and that your confidence hadn’t slightly faltered. For once in your life, it was possible that a man wasn’t over exaggerating his capabilities.

“Not bad, Joel,” you brushed his accomplishment off as you went to toss your next bag. This time, you weren’t so lucky, and your turn ended with your beanbag on the side of the board.

Chloe and Sarah dramatically reacted from the side, cheering or whooping whenever they saw fit. In a weird way, it was like your roles had been reversed. You and Joel were no longer the overenthusiastic spectators.

“What did I say? Luck,” Joel tutted. “Look, girls. I’ll show you how a real expert does it.”

Turning his back to you and the board, Joel attempted to toss his bag through the board, yet as he turned back around, he found it in the grass between your two boards.

You, Sarah, and Chloe erupted into laughter at the irony of it all, so much so that Joel couldn’t even help but to join in.

“Great job, ‘real expert’. Can you teach me your ways?”

You were somewhat stunned with the speed at which the ice had broken between you and Joel. Just a few minutes ago walking into the fair, you were nervous that the evening would be tense and awkward, yet here you were, teasing and laughing right along with each other.

Once your laughter subsided, you both tossed your last bags, with you making it in and Joel missing. After a gratuitous moment of celebration, Joel walked over to you and extended his hand for a handshake. You took up his offer, and firmly shook his hand.

“Good job out there. You were a worthy opponent.”

“Thank you, Joel. I could say the same, but I won’t. Y’know, since you lost.”

This received a giggle from your kids as Joel abruptly dropped your hand, feigning offense. Maybe it had just been a long time since you’d received any physical affection at all, but the loss of his brief grip stirred something strange deep inside of you.

Ew. No.

You could barely tolerate this man a week ago. Sure, he wasn’t terrible to look at, and your daughter had seemed to take a liking to him, but you’d be remiss if you hadn’t thought about all of those charged arguments you’d had during soccer games. You had only just recently considered him to be anything more than a nuisance.

“Where to next?” Joel asked, pulling you out of your head as the girls began to chatter and move in the direction of whatever booth had caught their eyes.

That was a train of thought for another time. Maybe you’d let yourself think about it tonight night, as you attempt to fall asleep in a bed that’s far too big for one person and far too cold without someone else there. But not here, where the situation felt like a live wire, and a little too real for your liking.

——

For the most part, Chloe’s soccer hobby took up more time than it gave you. The time it took going to practices, games, and tournaments quickly added up, on top of working an absurd amount to make sure that you could pay the mortgage and club fees on time and keep your child happy. The one exception to this general rule were team dinner nights—a night where you didn’t have to worry about spending an hour or two in the kitchen, giving you far more free time to do whatever you wanted.

This time around, Joel was hosting the dinner at his place. Clearly, Chloe was excited to be spending the evening at her closest friend’s home, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t the slightest bit curious to see what his place looked like.

And maybe, just maybe, you were the slightest bit excited to see Joel again.

“Can we just go over early?” she requested as you checked the nearly done cookies in the oven. “Can I go over early to hang out with Sarah? Please?”

You practically could hear the puppy dog eyes in her voice, and when you looked over to her, she was indeed looking at you with a somewhat convincing sense of desperation. It was never easy for you to say no to your daughter, which she unfortunately knew. This time was no different.

Sighing softly, you conceded, “have Sarah ask her dad if you can come by.”

Chloe cheered as she dashed off to the other room, seemingly reaching out to her friend who very quickly responded, as your daughter was back in just a few minutes with confirmation that she could come by any time.

Quickly pulling the cookies out from the oven and throwing them into a container, you packed Chloe into the car, and hauled her over to her friend’s house.

Chloe grabbed your Tupperware and skipped to the door, politely knocking and waiting patiently as you stayed seated in your car, just to make sure your daughter got in okay. As if she was awaiting Chloe’s arrival (and she most definitely was), Sarah pulled open the door the moment Chloe had put her knuckles to the door and welcomed her friend in.

A somewhat muffled voice from inside called something out, leaving Sarah to relay it back to you: “Before you go, my dad wanted to know if you wanted to stop in for a drink?” she called out, just loud enough for you to hear from your open window.

Any other day, you would’ve said no. But for some reason, coming in and checking in just felt right today—so that was exactly what you did. It wasn’t like you and Joel weren’t in friendship territory with each other.

While the girls ran off upstairs, you made your way to the kitchen to find a very stressed-looking Joel. He was in complete disarray as he checked the oven twice, then the fridge for something, then stirred something in a pot.

“Hey, you alright?” you asked right off the bat, setting down the container of cookies your daughter had given back to you onto his countertop.

“Yeah, fine. Just didn’t think about how I was gonna cook all of this in time,” he moved away from the stovetop and towards a cupboard to grab you a glass. “Now what would you like to drink? I’ve got some coke, some juice, something a little stronger…?”

“Just water is fine,” you hummed, awkwardly standing by the counter. “Joel, do you want some help? You know, four hands are better than two. And I’m pretty competent when it comes to reading and following a recipe.”

“Please,” he barely let you finish speaking before he spoke, and desperation was practically dripping off his tone as he passed you a glass of water.

You weren’t sure you expected him to say yes, but you were somewhat surprised when he agreed anyway. He didn’t exactly seem like the type to accept help, let alone ask for it. Joel must’ve been even more stressed than you initially picked up on.

“Of course. What would you like me to do?”

“Uh, if you could just cut up some of the fruit that would be great,” the man ran his hands through his hair as he approached the fridge once more.

You nodded and walked over to the cutting board where it was clear that Joel had begun to attempt cutting some fruit up, but had been interrupted by one of the many pots on the stovetop or dishes in the oven.

Although you didn’t necessarily envision your evening being spent in a frantic Joel Miller’s kitchen, you weren’t particularly mad at it. It didn’t take long for you two to fall into that easy collaborative rhythm that you seemed to always have when it came to working together. Maybe you weren’t too bad of a team after all.

By the time the doorbell rang with the first family, you and Joel had just finished up, and your daughters had just about finished setting up the table in the dining room and on the patio. Taking you by surprise, Joel reached out for a high-five, which gave you a hearty laugh as the two of you tapped hands.

“I appreciate your help,” he remarked. “You saved my ass tonight.”

By all means, dinner was a success. Parents and children raved about how good everything was, and conversing with Joel and the other parents was surprisingly easy—despite you not noticing the knowing looks that a few of the more gossipy moms frequently shot each other.

Luckily, a few families assisted in cleaning things up after dinner before heading out, cutting the time you’d need to spend helping with cleaning pretty significantly. As the night wound down, it came as no surprise when Chloe asked if she and Sarah could hang out for just a bit longer. It’s not like an extra hour would kill you, especially not when Joel was pulling out a bottle of white wine and suggesting sitting out on the patio in the pleasant Austin autumn weather.

As you got settled into your seat, Joel poured you out a glass before pouring himself some. You sighed contentedly, happy with a rather pleasant evening, but tired from the stress of the day.

“Thank you for helping me out. There’s no way in hell I could’ve done this without you,” he confessed, peering deeply into your eyes. He looked at you for just a moment too long, the attention bringing a warmth to your face.

“I’m always happy to help anyone,” you smiled shyly under the pressure of his intense look before taking a sip of your drink. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t be happy to help Amy. But I’m always happy to help you.”

“Well, I appreciate you,” Joel paused as he drank. “And I wouldn’t help Amy either.”

The two of you shared a little laugh before a rather comfortable silence filled the air. The two of you looked up at the sky, gazing at the stars that seemed to be shining a little more bright than usual.

“I’d like to repay you somehow,” Joel said, breaking the silence as he continued to keep his eyes fixed on the sky.

“Mm, that’s not necessary,” you hummed. “Dinner was plenty. It was great, and Chloe and I will definitely be enjoying our leftovers.”

“It’s necessary to me,” Joel paused as if he was contemplating even saying the next words. “Would you let me take you out sometime?”

It was clear that he was looking right at you, nervously anticipating your answer.

You cracked a slight smile as you turned your head towards him, “That would be nice,” you nodded. “I think that would be really nice.”

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matrixbearer2024 · 2 months

Text

Enough With The Schemes!

Vox x CollegeStudent!Reader

A/N: Ngl I kinda had this in my drafts just because I didn't know how it'd ever fit into the story but I decided to fix it up and post it after @vespers-night-sky's fanart for the "Get Off My Screen" Series- the direct continuation and reader's death is in the works folks, I've just been trying to figure out the pacing ahsojskqjds- I am not gonna be a Hazbin Hotel episode jkjkjk Anyway, thank you thank you THANK YOU ALL for the support with the series and think of these little things as filler episodes before the big reveal. Anyways, as usual- happy reading and I hope you all enjoy! The series in it's entirety can be found on my blog under the #Get Off My Screen Series

You didn't know how much more of Vox's shenanigans you could take.

First it had been the wallpaper war-

Until now you couldn't stop his face from being a permanent fixture to your devices-

But it was fine, he could have that!

You lamented over not having [Favorite Fictional Character Name] in your backgrounds anymore but you know what it was fineeeee-

You honestly couldn't tell if having his glitchy grinning face was an upgrade or cringe central.

Then he figured out how to absolutely lag out your computer at some point.

You seriously wanted to punch his monitor head from frustration because of it.

Especially when he had the nerve to laugh at your irritation-

This asshole-!

Now, he was absolutely blowing up your phone and devices with memes or just anything under the sun.

Not that messing with the notification settings would help-

Because somehow he'd figured out how to completely bypass those too.

If this was why that Alastor guy and Vox had a tiff you could practically relate.

Your phone just continued to buzz and vibrate on the table next to you.

Not that you could be fucked with it at the moment trying to cram a paper your professor assigned last BLOODY MINUTE!

That was of course until the Vox desktop companion grabbed the cursor and just didn't let you have it back.

As much as you tried, the darn thing only emoted angrily and refused to give you back the damn arrow.

Your eye twitched as you tried to maintain your cool, only to get up from the desk and scream obscenities to no one in particular.

The day had been a particularly bad one and you really just couldn't deal with Vox's bullshit right now.

"Helloooooo! HELLOOOOOOO?! Earth to (Y/N)! Pick up your fucking phone!!!"

Oh for the love of god he better not have changed your ringtone too-

You rubbed your face in an attempt to calm down before finally checking your phone.

Honestly you expected it to be something really stupid, but seeing what his messages were about made you feel slightly guilty for ignoring him the whole day.

Vox grew used to the routine you both had, so it was no surprise that your sudden inactivity drove his anxiety up the walls.

Poor guy thought of all the worst possible cases that could've happened to you-

He'd greet you in the morning and you would always reply afterwards while eating breakfast.

Save for the times you'd gotten sick or just felt under the weather.

After all, you had classes in the morning and he had broadcasts to air.

You also hated being tardy, similar to how he saw punctuality as something extremely important.

The two of you would intermittently chat within the day and tell each other if you had work to do so you both could leave each other alone for a designated time.

Vox often didn't adhere to this, but he'd always keep his distractions to a minimum if you asked.

Actually neither did you, sometimes you'd be the one spam sending him anything you could think of just to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Then you would wish him a good night's rest and he would eventually reply back with a silly gif or emoji that bode you the same.

He just grew used to it, the familiarity of your companionship in his monotonous day to day.

So whenever something fell apart in the routine you both had, Vox couldn't help but worry that something happened to you.

Whether you'd gotten sick or just anything worse-

It didn't sit well with him when you didn't reply to his morning message like you often did.

Constantly checking his phone for any updates from you to find nothing.

Zilch, none, zero.

The worrying feeling only grew as time ticked onwards.

Even at your busiest you would still shoot him a memo saying that you were.

Which only made this radio silence-

Haha see what I did there-

Worse than it really was.

So what did Vox do?

Absolutely blow up your phone and devices trying to get your attention.

Only when he realized you were doing something on your laptop did he let the desktop companion he made for you interfere.

Not that he even really understood what he'd stuck his hands into.

"What the hell even happened to you today? You didn't even reply to any of my fucking messages! I thought something happened to you!"

"Well SORRY I couldn't reply to your terminally online ass. I was busy dealing with my shitty assignment workload."

The TV overlord quickly picked up that you weren't in a pleasant mood.

The way you typed was just a dead giveaway.

Glancing up at his schedule, Vox notified his secretary to cancel a few of his meetings before he replied to you.

"Anything I can help you with? I'm free for a good few hours."

You were taken aback by his offer, every time Vox would help you he didn't even bother asking.

He just straight up started editing whatever you were working on no matter what you said.

Who was this guy and what did he do with Vox-

"You aren't trying to bullshit me are you? Cuz I'm not in the mood."

"I can tell dollface, let me guess- your shitty professor again?"

You ended up ranting about the abruptly given assignment and just a bunch of other things that slowly ruined your day.

Vox just agreed with you here and there, shooting one word replies or emojis to show he was still listening.

All the while he made the desktop companion let go of your cursor and he looked over your work.

Wow your writing was still absolutely shit-

"So now I've gotta submit this fucking paper before midnight or I'll get a 40% deduction."

"Don't worry about it, we can finish this in an hour. Anything else?"

It was an economics paper you were struggling on and this was Vox you were talking to.

You shouldn't have been surprised that he already knew his way around the topic.

You glanced up from your phone and already saw him editing your essay.

Why didn't you just ask him for help sooner??

"I think I can handle the rest. Thanks anyway, mind if I put on some music while I write?"

"As long as I get to pick some of the songs."

"Deal."

It shouldn't have done anything really.

You shouldn't be having this funny feeling in your gut.

A fuzzy warmth that bloomed because Vox was so quick to drop everything and help you.

Even if it was just something minor like your paper.

Still, you couldn't help but smile as you put on some relaxing tunes and typed away alongside your favorite digital companion.

Just like that, you both melted back into the usual cycle of talking and working.

A casual harmony that you were more than happy to just live in for the moment.

BONUS:

Both you and Vox were just casually chatting by the time his secretary called him away for the scheduled broadcast.

Of course, you wished you could see what he was actually doing but stopped before you could say so.

Instead you just wished Vox well in the broadcast.

"Of course doll, and you know me! I'll be just fine."

Well, his broadcast was going fine-

Until his screen suddenly glitched and randomly played a tune from your playlist.

Had he forgotten to unlink himself from your devices?

It took a few seconds for Vox to compose himself but his show thankfully went on without another hitch.

You on the other hand?

You were just having a personal concert in your room to unwind while waiting for Vox to come back.

So it came as a surprise when the song you played randomly paused and made the Bluetooth disconnect sound.

You didn't connect it to anything-?

Though your questions were eventually answered when Vox blew up your phone again.

This time you couldn't help but laugh.

You were friends with a demonic overlord sure-

But it was hard to fear him when he was such a doofus.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin vox #vox #vox x reader #hazbin hotel vox x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin vox x reader #vox x you #Get Off My Screen Series

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chironshorseass · 4 months

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what bugs me most about the pjo show is that i know they could’ve done better. i knowwwww they could’ve been as faithful as they wanted to the books. for anyone saying “oh, but it’s an adaptation! it isn’t meant to be the same so stop whining that they took stuff out or that they’re adding things in different order!” well yes, i agree that adaptations aren’t meant to be a carbon copy of the source material for the simple fact that it’s adapting the source material into a different medium (television), yet it’s just that! a form of adapting the things that are unable to be channeled from, say, a book—or on the contrary, adding things that make sense for television but couldn’t be channeled into the books otherwise…all of this in a faithful manner. a good adaptation is one that stays true to the source material by properly adapting its themes, characters, symbolism, context, pacing, and the overall story/plot so as to not only be seen as a sort of love letter to the fans, but also to reach a wider audience.

just look at the hunger games! the movies are so faithful to the books to the point that most of the scenes are taken straight out of the books, dialogue and all. and they’re movies, aka less runtime than a freaking tv show and they still did it better. did the hg movies have to take a few scenes out? yes; they have only so much time to tell the story as it is told in the books. did they resume things, like the games themselves? also yes. but did most of the important scenes and character moments stay in the movies? also also yes. again, THESE ARE MOVIES!!!!! a medium much more limited than a freaking tv series with multiple episodes that have enough run time to add even more scenes from the books than what could be possible in a 2 hour (max) movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and yet they STILL changed so much that rly had no business being changed other than that the writers decided they felt like it because…..a lot of it im not even sure. and the worst thing of it all is that freaking rick riordan took part in script writing yet so much of the source material has been watered down???? they make a whole ass episode about a monster fight with the majority of the scenes from said episode not even present in the books instead of sticking to the perfectly good source material???? and by doing so they delete the small details that are very much integral to character development and plot???? huh???? the math isn’t mathing. don’t get me wrong, i do like some changes, but then i think: at what cost do they add these things when there was a perfectly good narrative without it? like, at what cost do we get the whole turning to gold sacrifice scene if they’re gonna take out all the fun details that make the lightning thief the lightning thief? for example the silly water park merch and then annabeth displaying her spider phobia and her mortification at going to the thrill ride of love with percy and then being broadcasted to olympus. this is just one episode, but they’ve been doing it in all of them. and u know, it’s not that i don’t hate-hate most these changes. again, what bugs me is that this was supposed to be a faithful adaptation. again, it’s a tv series, with so much more time to develop everything from the books. rick is behind it, who apparently hated the movies for how unfaithful they were. the cast is great. and yet…the script is so mediocre. the spark is lost. character traits are looked over in place for weird pacing and even weirder changes. if the hunger games could do it, then surely a pjo tv series could as well? apparently not? i really really Don’t Get It.

#pjo adaptation #pjo tv show #pjo tv crit #i wanted to Not Talk about the show but i have so much to say #i’ve given up i’ll keep ranting

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verysium · 6 months

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『01』呪術廻戦: jujutsu kaisen recs

五条悟: gojo satoru

i know you still think about the times we had by @saetoru

satoru will always comes when you call him, he just never thought you’d stop calling. notes: satoru is so desperate and pathetic here it is just delicious; has the right amount of angst to cause tension but a good ending to soothe my poor heart; traditional rich boy and disapproving mother/father scenario but implemented relatively well; miscommunication and feelings of inadequacy; reader realizing the extent to which satoru loves them

pretty eyes by @quirklessidiot

in which the right eye is mine and the left eye is yours and when we meet for the first time, you see your own eyes staring back at you. notes: takes tragic star-crossed lovers to a whole new level; riddled with parallels and symbolism; idea of illness and loving someone at their worst; right person, wrong time at its finest; fate being unnecessarily cruel; surprising moments of humor

minazuki by @quirklessidiot

In which Y/N L/N is placed under a union she has no choice but to partake for the sake of her survival. notes: this series needs to be scientifically studied; it is just that good; halfway in and i fell in love with the reader instead of gojo; strong and somewhat morally grey characters; dark themes around femininity in a patriarchal society but concept was executed flawlessly

21: only by @tenjiiku

“What do you want, Satoru?” You do not use his last name or any honorific to address him despite his age. He was older than you by a few years — but certainly did not act the part — so you do not think he deserves your respect. Your host father told you he does — something about his being from a prominent private school as an educator, which you cannot possibly fathom being the truth — but only in front of you is Satoru Gojo an inane, odd man with a need for clean, dry-cleaned clothes that, for some strange reason he has conjectured in his equally baffling mind, that only you can provide. He smiles at you, placing his cheek in his hand. “You.” notes: this fic embodies the duality between gojo and satoru; he is easy-going until he isn’t and you realize he actually has a considerable amount of depth; the plot twist did it for me; satoru being a loud-mouthed tease but secretly harboring feelings

soulswap by @orphxus (impxria)

this is where the evening splits in half, love or death. grab an end, pull hard, & make a wish. notes: short but realistically describes everything wrong with jujutsu society; poetic voice; gojo being serious for once; disillusionment and tragic hero archetype; being the strongest yet being unable to save anybody; geto would read this fic and feel seen

両面宿儺: ryomen sukuna

nocuous by @quirklessidiot

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? I knew how this was going to end but I’m still terribly hurt by it.” notes: the heian era setting is so complex and established even through dialogue and subtle description; reader strikes me as older and able to deal with sukuna’s chaotic nature; sukuna being an absolute menace is sending me; tragic angst but almost didn’t notice it due to how beautifully the images are presented

avīci by @rotpeach

Several years ago, Satoru Gojo was involved in the exorcism of a uniquely stubborn curse. The official report states that one of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers was recovered from the scene, and nothing else. Only the two of you know the truth. notes: gore, gore, and even more gore; boy was this fic a wild ride; imagine a work that condenses the ugliest and most revolting parts of human nature yet presents them so elegantly you start questioning the blurred lines of morality; cannibalism, violence, and love triangles; japanese mythology & folklore; heian period references; cursed spirit reader tries to grapple with the idea of self after being created for the sole purpose of serving others; themes of existentialism, identity crisis, obsession

#fic recs #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #gojo x reader #sukuna ryomen #sukuna x reader

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inventedfangirling · 3 months

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My friends i watched love for love's sake and I swear i don't have a fckin clue where even to start.

I know a lot has been said about the show already and i know a LOT more would be said about in the future, but i just can't help adding my own two cents to one of the most thought-provoking, moving and brilliantly executed pieces of art i have ever seen.

I'm not gonna go on about just how much I loved Tae Myungha's character and how he is one of the most interesting people I've seen on screen in a long time. I'm not gonna talk about how unbelievably squishable Yeowoon is and how his duality totally ruined me that I need him to get into my pocket and NEVER leave. And oh I need him to put Myungha in his pocket while at it. I'm also not gonna talk about precious 'of course i'm gay, i've always liked girls, you don't know how to be loved' Sangwon is to me, cos if i start I can promise you I will most certainly never stop.

So for the sake of the rest of this post, I'm moving on. (NOT REALLY THO)

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE all the interpretations that people are coming up with, LOVE LOVE LOVE the show for filling in the gaps but LOVE it more for still leaving room for pretty thought-flowers to bloom around.

You know those artworks or puzzles that have something obvious hidden in a maze of confusion and haze until somebody points out the pattern, you zoom out and realize wow it was this clear all along?? That's a LOT of what watching the show felt like to me. The pattern being how inexplicably inter-connected Myungha and Yeowoon are. Not because they are each other's blorbos, but because why they are eo's blorbos. Why they don't care for each other from a sense of sympathy, but from empathy, despite not knowing the depth of their connections explicitly.

Eventhough we do see glimpses of it from the start, it only gets more clear later how Myungha and Yeowoon really are mirror versions of eo. How the first time Myungha sees Yeowoon he's stopping him from killing himself, and then we later find out that Myungha ends up killing himself. How both of it was triggered by a series of disappointments in life, starting with a troubling family and ending with a grandmother who passes away. Of how both of them seem to really have no one else to call their own in the world. Of leading very lonely depressing lives, that seem to never have a glimpse of hope. How both of them seem closed off, but inside they really are so fragile it hurts to perceive the depth of their feelings. It all comes and hits you once you've taken the whole show in and have gotten a few 1000 seconds to think about it.

We start off with myungha's character wanting to make his blorbo's character happy, and he's in it cos he cares about him, he doesn't have to think about himself. A 'pathetic' character experiencing a lot of pain, what's not to love, Myungha thinks, not realizing that it's his own mirror self that he is feeling so much for. Myungha sees Yeowoon's problems as someone from outside and is therefore able to objectively look at it, and approach it proactively, taking so many steps to help him, my favourite (and arguably most important) of which is the effort he puts in to help form yeowoon a friend circle. Something that he couldn't do for himself cos he never even considered a possibility of that. Why would anybody want to be around him? He ruins everything right?

And then to go on despite believing that, to falling in love, to deciding to choose to save both his grandma and yeowoon, finally FINALLY taking control into his hands even if for a bit to say what he wants, to spending the last few days together, to breaking up cos he just thinks the worst of himself, cos he doesn't know better. And then to the eternal darkness, where moments before leaving, just like in his real life, he realizes he wants in, he wants to live, he wants to love, but more importantly this time, he wants to try being loved. Even if it's difficult, he wants to try.

I love how eventhough the show is heavily Myungha focused, we get meaningful dynamics with multiple characters. Round eyed gasp inducing moments dont just belong to the two mains but also to sangwon whose line to myungha post the stalker incident just ruined me and really set the tone for whatever the show was later revealed to be all about.

I love how complicated the narrative got while still telling a more or less coherent story, how in hindsight, a lot of it makes even more sense now. How as Myungha gets closer to yeowoon his self-hating tendencies manifest in the form of debuffs and errors, because of his own brain's inability to perceive himself as somebody deserving love. His childhood trauma and the numerous rejections life has given him, because of the kind of person he turned out to be because of those rejections, all appear to stand in his way of happiness, as if he can't help being a bundle of sadness and a harbinger of problems. Even as he says he doesn't believe in destiny or fate. Or as we initially are made to believe in the game as, yeowoon's happiness, when in reality this was never about yeowoon at all. Yeowoon never existed in the first place and in "real" life, he never does.

I was blown away by how Myungha is in fact no longer in the mortal world but that fact doesn't hurt as much as that he would have to leave a world where he could finally feel happiness, feel loved, feel cared for, even if he consciously tried avoiding them. They still came to him, they still cared for him, they still fiercely wanted to protect him, (Cos he is just a tiny meow meow, who has been hurt a lot in his life, who wouldn't wanna caress and nurse him back to health HUH) just as much as he wanted to protect them.

And coming to the question of what's the game, where is it happening and who orchestrated it? It's definitely set in the afterlife or the limbo between life and the life after. It could be the author friend doing it, or the author friend has given myungha's brain the power to control the game OR of course the possibility that this has all been happening in myungha's head the whole time.

Whatever it is, the whole point has been to take Myungha from a person not wanting to live his life, feeling so devoid of love and happiness, to a journey of love and friendship, of the importance of fostering connections, of making efforts, of helping others, but equally of letting others help you, of putting your hand out and asking for that help. And in my head I love it most when I think of it as entirely Myungha orchestrated. Of it being a desperate cry of pain to himself, from himself, to save himself. Yeowoon and the game and the missions and all of it was for him to see himself in ways he never allowed himself to be seen as, to take care of himself in ways he never has, to love himself like he has never known to. To finally run towards himself, even if pathetic and sad, the Cha Yeowoon of the game, the person waiting at the end of the finishing line was the Tae Myungha in him all along.

You know that tumblr quote 'do it for her' but its about your future self, right? Myungha rooting for Yeowoon is sort of like that? When he's protecing him, he's protecting himself? When he's cheering for him, he's actually cheering and rooting for himself? When he's loving him, he makes space and place to love himself?

I just love the idea of a (self) love story.

Eitherway Yeowoon x Myungha supremacy.

Extreme(ly accurate?) Interpretations apart, Love for Love's Sake is truly one of the, if not THE finest (self) love story I might have ever seen.

As a person who avoids fics/books with mcd or shows with tragic endings, it felt absolutely revolutionary to me that my biggest joy and relief came from the fact that the main character is dead (the thought of myungha having to leave the game was too much to handle) and he gets to live in this game where he has a cute boyfriend, a supportive, caring friend group and his grandma back. it wasn't the game that was temporary or non-existent, it was actually his life outside. And that's not bad? Cos this is a story and Myungha isn't real, but as real as he is, he got his happy ending.

The show taught us to love, to see love, to be loved and to share that love. It told us that maybe the afterlife is a videogame simulation where we all get to live in friendship and love forever, with our blorbo and our friends. There are a lot worse lives to live. And I'm glad he found it in himself, enough love, courage and hope to write himself a better one :')

#love for love's sake #love supremacy zone #bless this show #tae myung ha #cha yeowoon #korean bl #myungha x yeowoon #kbl #already 2024 favourite #i'd be shocked if anything could beat it #this is ofc just my own interpretation #meta #love for love's sake meta #okbai i have to post it now or i will be writing for EVER

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just-another-author-i-guess · 1 year

Note

Ppppft!!! Elliot casually entering in Judd's room at the worst possible moments, yes please!! I like to think that Judd put all those signs in his door mainly because of his dad 🤣 Elliot and Diane embarrassing Judd is everything i need in this life, hopefully in front of his crush lol 😈

This has been stuck in my head literally the whole week— it’s too good not to write seriously 🤭

Tags: fem! Reader, mentions of sex? Like a lot of mentions, also masturbation, also cockblocking lol, but as I keep saying this is big mouth fanfic what do you expect, Nick and Jessi being jealous boggles my brain, it’s too funny, Elliot Birch is an actual menace, he also has no regards for privacy, it’s his house so he can enter whatever room he wants ig, author had way too much fun writing this

I based this on my first big mouth story, read it HERE

Author’s note: I’m cackling. I loved writing this so much omg— why is it funny tormenting the characters so much 🧍🏻‍♀️anyways, I did my best with Diane and Elliot’s dialogue,, but it’s hard lol. I hope you find it as funny to read as I did to write, and also, ig I kinda lied bc the third and fourth reason technically doesn’t have anything to do with people barging into Judd’s room. But he does get embarrassed, and I needed a good title, sue me. No but seriously, I hope you like this haha

Four (4) reasons why Judd has ‘keep out’ signs on his door

Word count; 4,7K

Reason one (1)

The air in Judd’s room was warm, and humid, and seemed to have stilled once the two of you collapsed on the bed, worn out from an intense round of fucking.

He barely bothered covering himself, instead he threw you a somewhat sweaty shirt he had been wearing beforehand and pulled the covers up enough to just barely cover his hips. You accepted it with shaky hands and a worn out smile, almost purring as you slipped into the garment and burrowed yourself under his covers as well.

Between your legs, now resided a slowly cooling and increasingly sticky mess, still leaking from you as you turned in the bed. However, your boyfriend never made a move to get up and fetch a towel. He did reach out an inviting arm, though, urging you to scoot closer to him. You did so with a hazy look on your face, nuzzling into his neck and inhaling.

You listened to his heart beat wildly, his blood bump and felt so, so content. You heard him relax as well, a deep, low, grunt of a sigh as he settled in, clearly as ready for a nap as you were.

With the humidity and the stillness of everything, it was too easy to close your eyes and bask in the feeling of sleepiness. You were right there, on the sweet, blurry edge between sleep and consciousness when a series of rapid knocks broke through the silence.

Judd groaned, clearly on the cusp of sleep himself— voice even raspier than usual. Besides mumbling a few threatening words under his breath, he didn’t move to open the door or even care to call out to whoever was knocking. It would most likely be Nick, anyway, coming to bother you and he would set the world aflame before he let his stinky little brother see his girlfriend half naked.

None of you even had time to register it, before the door rattled, opened and a much too cheery Dr. Birch stepped through.

You froze— wide eyes searching Judd as the crease between his eyebrows became deeper and a murderous expression overtook his sleepy face.

“Dad.” He rasped. “Get the hell out.” He was quick to tuck the covers around you, especially your still very wet crotch and ass, completely disregarding the fact that he was butt naked himself. You shrieked as he suddenly rolled you in the sheets— grateful nonetheless as you came to face Elliot Birch, the man completely indifferent to the two of you and your nakedness.

“Oh, my sweet Judd!” Mr. Birch exclaimed, ignoring how you both looked very much like you wanted him to leave. “How magnificent is it, that you feel comfortable sharing your nude self with me and Y/n?”

He clasped both hands over his heart, dramatically, and Judd somehow turned even paler than he already was. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like; “I am going to fucking murder you.” And darted for the floor where he had thrown his jeans.

“Oh noo! No need to feel ashamed, Judd, I’ll take my pants off too!—“

“— no!” A choked out yell escaped you too quickly. Your face felt hot, and you didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that you were beat red by now. You did not need to see Judd’s dads bare ass after already already being embarrassed beyond belief.

Dr. Birch chuckled and smiled warmly at you. “Setting your boundaries, I see. I’m so proud of you Y/n— my son has such a strong willed girlfriend!”

Your cheeks burned. “Uh, right. Thank you, Dr. Birch,”

“Call me Elliot!”

Judd scoffed behind you, finally getting his pantless situation under control. “Fuck off, dad. Now. I mean it.” Even he was a bit too stunned to come up with a proper threat.

Elliot sighed, smiling. “Oh, I will, I will! I’ll leave you two lovers alone in just a minute! I do have a little favour to ask you first, though, Juddy,”

“What.” Judd deadpanned, the tips of his ears colouring slightly at the horrific nickname.

“I have this tag still on the back of my shirt, you see, I would have taken it off before trying the shirt on, but now I appreciate it so much I didn’t want to take it off myself— Ah, it holds such good memories of this morning!”

This morning in particular, Nick tried to hit on you and Judd threw a milk carton at him.

Judd sighed, deeply, and looked a bit like a feral bull. “You are such a fucking pussy, dad.” He growled, but still walked towards his dad with intend to help.

“Thank you! That is such a beautiful organ,” You kinda wanted to snicker, at the absurdity of the whole situation, but kept your mouth shut. Judd worked quickly, ripping out the tag and throwing it at his dad.

“Why the hell didn’t you ask Nick?” Judd grit out, coming to sit on the edge of his bed by your feet. He put a protective, soothing hand on your leg under the covers.

Dr. Birch laughed. “Because you’re so strong! And I love you, son,”

Judd visibly clenched his jaw, you had no doubt that if this continued a vein would pop on his forehead. “I hate you.” He countered.

“And I validate that feeling! You have such a way with words, you should think about being a writer, don’t you think so too, Y/n?”

“Get the fuck out.” Judd snarled before you had to respond— thankfully. You smiled awkwardly at Mr. Birch, as if trying to confirm Judd’s words but in a much politer way.

He smiled. “Alright, alright! Have fun, you two, and be safe!” He said over his shoulder, as if it wasn’t obvious that the two of you had just very much had your fun, and sauntered towards the door, closing it gently behind him.

Reason two (2)

Unfortunately for Judd, he didn’t have his own bathroom in the house, having to share two between his family.

Around the shower, was carefully placed a plethora of different pastel coloured shampoo and body washes— all of which belonged to Leah and smelled like a candy crush fever dream. Judd sorted through them roughly, pushing most of them over in his search to find the all-in-one and shampoo for dyed hair he usually used.

As he showered, working the shampoo into his hair and revelling in the warm, steamy water spray, Maury appeared; ‘You’re taking a shower for Y/n, huh?’ The hormone monster drawled. He was bored; checking his nails as he made himself comfortable on the toilet outside the shower.

Judd grunted. It was true, you would be over in a bit and he didn’t want to smell like the raccoons. “Why are you here?” He demanded.

The monster chuckled and held up his hands in defence. ‘It’s not my fault you can’t stop thinking about Y/n.. Ahh, remember last week when she sucked you off in the shower? Why’s she not doing that right now? Let’s call her,’ Suddenly Maury had Judd’s phone, and was waving it around.

“Fuck you. Let me shower.”

‘No, let’s fuck Y/n!’ Maury countered enthusiastically. ‘And besides, y’know that’s not how it works,’ He grinned mirthfully, slithering around the glass wall of the shower to point a long, clawed finger at Judd’s cock— sure enough it was rising to attention. ‘You gotta jerk off. C’mon, give me a good show!’

Judd could have punched Maury— and he had actually tried that before, just for the monster to disappear and reappear behind him with a smug look. So instead of drop kicking his hormone monster, he promptly ignored him and turned around to face the water spray.

‘Nuh-uh,’ Maury grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around— he shook the monster off with a deep growl. ‘Think about Y/n’s nice, biiig tits, ah~’ Maury shuddered, but continued. ‘Remember how they looked all wet, uhhh I bet she’d let you blow your load all over them next time,’ Maury was unrelenting, an increasingly deepening blush spread over Judd’s face and ears and he let out a strangled groan.

“Shit, fine!” He hissed and the monster whooped in victory.

Judd was quick to tip his head back and grab his dick with a closed fist. He sighed through gritted teeth as he got to work— swiftly and quite roughly pumping himself as Maury cheered him on. He closed his eyes and let his jaw go slack, imagining it was your hand around him and recalling the alluring noises you made whenever he was pleasuring you.

His release build steadily, hand movements getting more frantic and his breath sped up. The spray of water only seemed to get hotter, and the steam in the room became more dense. He leaned forward— spreading his hand out on the wall in front of him to get a better angle, and keep his balance. Now his head hung low, and he panted open-mouthed as he tightened the grip around his cock and sped up his movements again. He was so close, just a few more pumps and—

The bathroom door flew open and Judd all but jumped out of his own skin. He had locked the door when he first entered, right?

‘Nooo..! Elliot, get the hell out!’ Maury yowled— appearing on the other side of the shower and trying to push out the intruder, who unfortunately was Judd’s dad. Elliot could neither see nor hear or feel the monster, so Maury’s punching and shaking left him completely unfazed as he continued further into the room.

Judd’s eyes shot open, slack mouth turning into a frightening scowl as he heard his dad sing to himself. Elliot sauntered about the bathroom— humming a song about lotion and browsing through the cabinets.

“Don’t mind me, Juddy!” He yelled over the water, as if it was a most normal occurrence to walk in on your 18-year-old son taking a shower.

Maury slithered back into the shower. ‘Let’s kill him. Now. And then we can tend to your little.. problem after,’ He suggested, glaring at Elliot’s shadow through the shower window. Luckily, it was steamy enough to only show silhouettes, so Judd could at least maintain a bit of dignity.

Judd grunted and nodded in agreement, turning off the shower. “Get the fuck out,” He rumbled, low and threatening.

“I can’t find my lotion anywhere! It makes my skin so soft— just the way your mother likes it,” Elliot tutted, completely ignoring Judd’s orders.

“I’ll fucking skin you alive. Get out.” Judd repeated, this time raspier, raising his voice. The steam from the warm water was slowly dissolving— leaving the glass in the shower clear enough to reveal most of Elliot to Judd and vice versa.

Elliot chuckled warmly. “You have such a poetic soul, son. It’s such a shame you don’t write more,”

A cross between a deep growl and sigh escaped Elliot’s oldest son. “What the hell are you talking about.” Judd said, and though it sounded like a question he didn’t actually want to know the answer.

Dr. Birch turned to his oldest, now fully visible behind the shower glass and said; “Your creative potential! Ohhh! You should write Y/n a love letter, she would love it—“

“— Fuck no.”

Elliot’s eyebrows creased, and his facial expression turned earnest. “I know you’re very good at pleasing Y/n with your body—“

“—Dad, shut up—” Now Judd was really embarrassed, he had both hands covering his privates, but was still very much butt naked in front of his dad, a reality that didn’t fail to make a blush creep over his ears and cheeks. The fact that he was also still rock hard, didn’t help at all.

“— But!” Elliot continued, pointedly ignoring Judd. “You should do something romantic for her! Something with your heart! You should always show a woman how much you love her, Judd,” He reminded, a gentle smile on his face as he watched his son grow increasingly embarrassed.

“Okay. I don’t care. Get the fuck out.” Judd deadpanned. He had let his facade slip for just a brief moment— before covering his appalled expression up with a vicious glare.

“Oh, but I still need my lotion—“

“— I’ll gut you and fill you with your fucking lotion if you don’t get out.” He snarled, strained and deep and his look made it clear it was definitely not up for debate.

‘Boo! Get the fuck out, Elliot!’ Maury added in the background, throwing a shampoo bottle at the man.

All he did was chuckle at the threat— shrugging his shoulders. “Alright, Juddy, I respect your boundaries. It’s important to acknowledge such things,” He smiled and relented his search for lotion. He continued humming obnoxiously, however, as he left and softly closed the door behind him.

Reason three (3)

You gasped, puffy lips parting to make way for the eager sound. Judd had roughly thrown you on the couch, slotting himself between your legs and ferociously attacked your neck as soon as you had walked in the door.

Finally, finally, the two of you were alone— in fact, you had the whole house to yourself. Leah was out, Mr and Mrs Birch had taken Nick out for dinner which left you and Judd the perfect opportunity to fuck on the living room couch. And you barely got a saying (not that you minded) before Judd was putting that plan into action.

Scrambling to put your hands under his shirt, you clumsily felt him up— lightly scratching at his abs just how you knew he liked it. He growled, heavy and husky and bit hard on your neck in retaliation.

A strangled whine escaped you and you pulled at his shirt— you needed it off. You felt him grin against your throat, just the slightest twist of his mouth as he scraped his teeth against you.

“Use your words, baby,” He breathed, cruelly dragging his teeth so slowly against your sensitive neck and grinding into you— so you could properly feel him.

It was so unfair, he knew you’d have no chance of responding when he started palming at your tits, squeezing one in each hand.

You tugged harder, pulling Judd closer to you in the process. “Off.” Was the only thing you were able to whine.

He licked a long stripe up your neck— tasting you to the best of his ability before he obeyed you. He sat on his knees between your legs, and you watched him with a flushed face as he pulled his shirt over his head and discarded it on the floor somewhere.

Connie, who previously had been banned to the floor where she sat and watched the two of you intensely, stood up— her mouth dropped cartoonishly, hanging on the floor as her tongue lolled out.

‘Sweet mother of jeebus! Look at those strong, delicious abs..! Lick them— c’mon lick them, hurry! Lick them till he’s all you can taste, sugarplum!’ She cried, and it wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

You couldn’t help but oblige. You sat up, the way your legs were placed allowing you to straddle him and push him backwards on the couch. To your utter bamboozlement he let you, allowing you control for just a moment as a self-satisfied eyebrow-raise came to his face.

Half sitting up, he now had the perfect position to ground up into you and you immediately lost what little control you had. Two large hands enclosed around your hips in a lock tight hold—starting a rhythm in which he could press your hips down on his.

He kissed you then, a tingling feeling erupting in your lower stomach as you tasted the Jack Daniel’s on his tongue. He licked into your mouth with newfound fever, swallowing your desperate yelps and moans— one hand wandering from your hip to your shoulder where he started to push the strap of your tank-top down.

You arched your back, pressing into him, and he took the opportunity to roughly squeeze your ass. In retaliation, you reached a hand down— roughly squeezing his cock through his jeans.

He groaned, a throaty, baritone sound. “You bitch..!” He cursed and then he was pulling your hair— suddenly pulling you back from his mouth with a harsh tug so he could position you in a way that allowed him to abuse your neck some more.

He bit you so hard it was sure to leave marks, red and swollen bite marks that would sit on your neck for weeks like an obnoxious neon sign. You sighed and started working his belt—fighting to get it off so you could get your price quicker.

However, just as you were done popping the button on his jeans, the front door clicked and swung open.

“No, dad! You’re embarrassing me—“

“— You used to love your father’s hugs, Nick, what’s wrong?”

“Nothings wrong, mom, but I’m a man now. I don’t want hugs.”

“Awww, please, Nicky. Let me give my little man a hug,”

“No, dad, leave me a— Judd?” Nick walked further into the room, in an attempt to escape being coddled by his dad— but came face to face with you on top of his older brother instead.

Judd’s grip on your hair immediately loosened, Connie cursed and tried to close the front door before Elliot and Diane could enter— you sat up, mortified and corrected the strap of your top back to your shoulder.

“Nick.” Judd stated, barely bothering lifting his head to look at his brother. You, however, stared the tween down wide-eyed. “Fuck off, we’re busy.” He grunted. The very same sentence he said whenever Nick would brother the two of you in his room.

You watched as Nick’s fists clenched, his face going through multiple shades of red till it landed on an angry glare directed at his brother. “Judd, you're such a slut!” He yelled, voice crack audible and was that.. tears in his eyes?

“Are you going to cry, you little prick?” Judd cackled— sitting upright all the way so his chest was pressed to yours.

“Now, Nicky, what are you slut-shaming your brother for?” Dr. Birch waltzed through the front door along with his wife— as if this moment couldn’t get any worse. You moved to get off Judd, but when he grunted and held your hips down, you noticed he was indeed still incredibly hard and you would need to sit still, so as to not expose his boner to his family.

You felt hot, too clammy as red colour spread from your chest all the way to your ears— like a kettle heating.

‘Yeah, fuck this. Sorry, sweetheart, but I cannot deal with this today! You’re on your own!’ Connie patted your head, slowly backing away and into a portal that would take her to god-knows-where and throwing you a ‘peace out’ sign. Wow. Such support.

“Look at what he’s doing to Y/n!” Nick accused, waving his arms at the two of you.

You didn’t know it was possible, but Dr. Birch frowned, looking down at his son. “Now, Nicky, it’s never okay to slut-shame someone, especially not when you’re witnessing such a beautiful moment! Judd is just sharing an intimate moment with Y/n, nothing to be ashamed off,”

Judd stiffened under you, he was tense, you were tense, both of you embarrassed beyond belief. Your ears burned bright red, horrified.

Your boyfriend let out a warning growl. “Shut the hell up, dad—“

“— Oh, Y/n! It’s so good to see you!” Then it was Diane talking, she walked towards the two of you on the couch with a warm smile. You couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes— not when you were literally sitting on Judd’s boner, so instead you buried your head in his shoulder.

“Good to see you, too, Mrs. Birch..” You muttered, feeling Judd’s hands tighten around you.

Diane tutted. “Oh, Y/n, no need to be embarrassed. I’m glad you both feel comfortable having sex under our roof, and you are more than welcome to,”

It was an attempt to soothe you, yet it sounded so warped coming from your boyfriend's mom’s mouth.

Judd heaved a long sigh. “We have.. shit to do. Leave.” He said, sounding equally as mortified as you felt.

Mrs. Birch chuckled lightly. “We’ll be upstairs, Juddy. You two just enjoy yourself, and Y/n, please stay for dinner!” She hummed— you wanted to cry.

You kept your head burrowed into Judd, listening as Mr and Mrs. Birch’s footsteps resounded towards the stairs, yet one pair of feet remained.

“Get the fuck out, shitface.” Judd deadpanned.

“I’m allowed to be here, it’s my house too!” Nick was defiant, pouting at his brother.

Judd’s jaw clenched— Nick would definitely come to regret this later. “You have a second to leave before I come over there and rip your beady eyes out, you fucking creep.” His voice was low and carnal and it was clear he meant business— that was no empty threat.

Nick paled slightly, but before he could even begin to find the right response, Diane called from upstairs; “Nicholas Birch! Go to your room and leave your brother alone, now!”

At that, Nick complied immediately, secretly relieved to get a free ticket out of the situation before Judd would beat him to a pulp as he flew up the stairs.

Reason four (4)

You were sprawled out on Judd’s bed, a raccoon curled on your lap and Connie laying on her back by your feet. She was watching Judd intensely as he worked out— occasionally commenting on his grunts or groans as he lifted the heavy weights.

You didn’t bother entertaining her, gently stroking the raccoon while scrolling on your phone. The animal chatted to you, small hands wavering about as it chittered. You thoroughly enjoyed moments like this, when you and your boyfriend could co-exist quietly and in peace. Judd was lying on the floor somewhere, having moved on from the weights to instead practise his pushups. The two of you would probably go out later, after the rather excruciating last few interactions you had with Judd’s parents, the two of you decided to skip dinner with them for the time being.

Your phone was hooked to Judd’s speaker, as he had graciously allowed you to play music for him while he worked out. The raccoon in your lap seemed to enjoy your taste in music as well- tail swaying softly to the baseline.

Catching your hormone monster from the corner of your eye, you saw how she stiffened and suddenly sat up. Her hairs stood up, ears turning down as she surveyed the room— she turned to say something to you, but right before the sounds escaped her, three shy knocks came to the door.

Judd, who was now doing crunches, sat up fully to fix you a blank stare. He gestured towards the door with his head and raised eyebrows, you pouted but got up. The raccoon in your lap protested as you softly shooed it off— it scurried off under the bed to hide from whoever came to disturb you. Connie followed closely behind you, slinking after you like a shadow as you approached the door.

Opening the door, you were already quite ready to fight off Nick or Mr. Birch, but what you didn’t expect, however, was your sister standing there and wringing her hands with a nervous expression.

“Uh, Jessi?” You didn’t even know she was here, actually you hadn’t seen her since yesterday evening when Judd picked you up from your dad’s.

Connie raised a hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Oh sweet child..’ She muttered, studying your sister from over your shoulder.

Jessi took a step back, startled, when instead of her crush she came face to face with you in pyjama shorts and one of Judd’s shirts. You bend over a little, to be more on level with her. “What are you doing here? Do you need a lift home, or something?”

She gaped at you, clearly losing track of whatever she was going to say. You watched, a bit concerned, as gears turned in her head. Then, you felt something, someone, else at your side. You wrinkled your nose as Judd came up besides you— his sweaty palm enclosing around your waist as he pulled you to him.

You wanted to comment on it— tell him to shower before he got his sweat all over you, but he beat you to it; “Hey Y/n’s sister Jessi.” He grumbled, granting the tween a downwards glance.

Jessi looked positively constipated, and also a bit like she was going to puke. You freed yourself from Judd— dropping to your knees and gently holding Jessi’s shoulder. “Jessi-bear, are you sick?”

Connie followed you closely again, this time appearing behind your sister, clutching her closely and spreading a palm over her forehead to feel her temperature. ‘She’s down with a baaad case of Judd fever!’ The monster exclaimed, slightly shaking Jessi, whose blush had now risen from her neck all the way to her ears— colouring her face completely red.

You sighed as your sister seemed to boot up again from her temporary lockdown. She quickly stepped back from you, and you realised she was holding something behind her hands. Connie noticed it too; ‘Aw Jessi.. So cute, but sad. Very, very sad. Actually kinda pathetic, you better let her down easy, Y/n, sugar.’

“I am not Jessi-bear! And I’m not sick! Just.. Just regular, old, fun, Jessi..” She waved you off, and you stood back up— slightly surprised by her outburst.

You tried, and failed, to hide your grin. Apparently, Judd thought your sister's awkward demeanour was funny as well. “Okay, regular, old, fun Jessi. What do you want?” He said, raising a brow at the flustered tween.

She swallowed thickly, and you fixed Judd a glance that meant ‘don’t be mean’. He retaliated by shrugging and wrapping his arm around you again. Jessi’s blush somehow grew more vivid— she looked a bit like a cat on edge as she dared a glance up at your boyfriend.

“I was just, y’know, strolling by–” Connie clasped a large paw over her mouth, shaking her again. ‘–Stop talking, baby! Stop talking!’ She howled, though Jessi didn’t seem to hear or even feel her.

“This hallway has such interesting architecture, did you notice that?” She finished off, fiddling with whatever she had behind her back and making a point of staring at the ceiling instead of Judd. Your boyfriend in question only grunted, keeping his intense glare on Jessi.

Sighing, you said; “It doesn’t. It’s a hallway. Look, if you need a lift home I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes, but shouldn’t you hang out with your friends or something instead? I’m sure Nick is looking for you,” You hinted, but all you got from Jessi was a vivid glare.

“Yeah. Actually, you’re right. I was just dropping by, but I’m actually really, really busy, so..” She shifted on her feet, turning to leave and accidentally exposing you to the thing she had been holding.

Judd’s eyebrows drew closer together, in a full on scowl. “Is that my shirt?”

You snorted. “Oh my god!” You stared at your sister in bewilderment, trying to decide whether it was funny, gross or awkward beyond belief; You settled on a good mix of both.

Immediately, the garment slipped from Jessi’s hands and she paled. “I-I-I found it like this! I just wanted to return it!” She could have puked, breathing speeding up as she fought off the hyperventilation and stared at the two of you with a horrified look that meant you had definitely caught her red-handed.

“Are you stealing Judd’s shirts? I knew I had a bunch of them, did you seriously take them?” You asked, now mortified. Judd let out a series of low, cackling laughs as you watched your sister tear up. She opened and closed her mouth, fighting to say something but ultimately gave up— running off down the hall as you watched her retreating form with bewilderment.

You’ve reached the bottom🧍🏻‍♀️thank you for reading this far, haha, I hope you enjoyed it. The last one was heavily inspired by that scene in the new season were Jessie walk in on Judd and his girlfriend(?), I just saw that and needed to write something similar

I’m now on my winter break, and I’ve got a lots of idea for Judd content for y’all this week so look out for that!

With this story, I literally need to add this meme; reblogged to me by @raccoon66

Thank you so much lol, it’s literally the best thing ever 🙏🙏

Tags: @dlfvrr , @bxbyyyjocelyn

#big mouth #judd birch x reader #judd birch #judd birch smut #big mouth x reader

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thankskenpenders · 10 months

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Sonic Prime: "Season 2"

Eight more episodes of Sonic Prime are out! They're labeled as "season 2" despite just being the next eight episodes of the first (and presumably only) season, allowing Netflix to market it as multiple seasons without having to give the cast and crew raises. They love doing that shit to their original cartoons. Ugh.

Anyway! Last time, I gave the show some leeway because it was still finding its legs. This time, though? We're now two thirds of the way through the series, and sadly, I think it's time to accept the truth:

While there are parts I like, a lot of this show... kinda sucks?

This multiverse sucks and Rouge was robbed

Previously, I noted the pattern of each universe spotlighting a different friend of Sonic's (Tails in New Yolk City, Amy in the jungle world, Knuckles in the pirate world) and predicted that, hopefully, Rouge would get her time to shine next. And with 16 episodes left, surely there's time to explore new worlds that are more interesting than the jungle and pirate worlds. Those were just the warm up act. Right?

...Right?

Nope! That's it! There are no more worlds.

This multiverse show where anything is possible really is just about another Eggman-controlled dystopia world, a jungle world, and a pirate world. That's all they came up with! Just those three, and two dead worlds that don't really count - one a featureless wasteland, the other a ghostly echo of the original Green Hill dubbed "Ghost Hill." (Sonic's friends appear here as holograms stuck repeating a single line each. It gets old immediately.)

The jungle and pirate worlds and their inhabitants being so overwhelmingly generic becomes unforgivable the moment you realize this is all we're gonna get. It just leaves me wishing they'd thrown this whole concept out and finally made a normal Sonic cartoon with no twist in its premise. A few of the new takes here are good, particularly Nine as a darker riff on Tails, but so many of them don't feel anything like the fun characters they're supposed to be. They're stock cartoon characters wearing the Sonic casts' skins.

I'll admit my bias is showing, but god, Rouge is REALLY done dirty by this setup. The normal Rouge we see in the first episode is so fun for how briefly she appears, but then in all the other worlds she's reduced to a generic action girl with zero personality. What's her purpose, exactly, when every AU version of Amy is ALSO a straightforward action girl? It drives me absolutely insane that they gave us a PIRATE ROUGE and she doesn't care about treasure. They do nothing with this! How!!!!!!!! She's just never gonna get her turn. It's so obvious that Rouge is only in this show so that they can have another girl, but you could swap her out with another character like Blaze and it'd make no difference.

Speaking of the pirates, though...

The way things play out in the pirate world is so stupid

Previously, with the Paradox Prism shard within reach, Captain Dread Knux was regressing into his old obsessive personality. I'm fine with this. Sonic and Dread both want the shard, they're gonna fight over it. Obvious stuff. But the actual impact it has on the story is maybe the stupidest bit of writing in this entire show so far.

Basically, while fighting a couple of the Eggmen and their robots at sea, Sonic has to briefly run over to the enemy ship to fight them and grab the Paradox Prism shard while Dread and his crew remain back on their ship. Dread goes "Oh my god, look! Sonic's abandoning us! Traitor!" While Sonic is... like 200 feet away. Still in clear view. Fighting the guys who are trying to kill them. Retrieving Dread's beloved treasure for him.

And yet, Dread's crew buys this! And when Sonic runs right back over with the shard in hand, they're all like "HOW DARE YOU BETRAY US" and turn on him.

It's just. What?!

This isn't a huge part of the "season," but I highlight it as maybe the worst moment of the show's character writing. I'm reminded of Thorn Rose's backstory from last time, where she was depicted as suddenly snapping one day when she saw her friends pick one too many berries in the jungle. Sometimes a character just needs to pivot for the story to work, and they aren't really interested in getting there smoothly.

The Chaos Council fucking sucks

I tried so hard to like these guys, but they drag the show down so much.

The choice to have a team of five different Eggmen really just means that Eggman has been split into five one-note characters. Four of them revolve entirely around the most trite, predictable, boomer-ass jokes based on their ages. The teenage one is whiny and just wants to play video games. The young adult one is a vegan hipster who does yoga. The old one is cranky about all the whippersnappers and has a bad back. The baby is a baby. These are jokes that would've been tired if this show aired 20 years ago.

The odd man out is Mister Doctor Eggman, the middle-aged one with a toupee who's the stand-in for regular Eggman. But even he kinda sucks. The other four all being one-note joke characters means that he has to be the straight man of the group, so he's just very dry and serious and plot-focused without any of Eggman's fun eccentricities. He's neither particularly funny nor particularly sinister, which is just about the worst place for an Eggman to be.

He doesn't even have any incompetent robot lackeys to bounce off of, because the unfunny alternate age Eggmen fill the quota for bumbling secondary villains. But also, like... Orbot and Cubot are in this show! They were in the first episode! Where are they? God, I never thought I'd miss them so much...

But, okay. It's not ALL bad.

The highlights

There's a recurring theme here, which is that the best episodes are the ones where Sonic is pitted against a foe who can match his speed and they just let the animation carry it.

The first of the new episodes is mostly about Sonic fighting Shadow, and BOY is their fight fun to watch. Said fight happens because Shadow blames Sonic for shattering the universe and doesn't trust him to fix things. Shadow wants to restore their world, but he refuses to see the various AU counterparts as the same people Sonic once knew, and he doesn't really care what happens to them. Ultimately, though, he begrudgingly accepts that Sonic really is the only one who can hop between dimensions for Plot Reasons, and therefore lets him go try to do things the nice way. He sadly spends most of his time waiting around in the void between worlds, but in the last episode of the batch he and Sonic get to team up against the Chaos Council's forces and it's very cool.

As far as recent interpretations of Shadow go, this is a good one. He's a great foil for Sonic, which just makes me wish he could travel with Sonic to the different worlds. He's cynical and overly pragmatic in his approach, but his points aren't entirely wrong. His anger feels justified. They even let him have some snark! And Ian Hanlin is really great in the role - definitely a contender for Shadow's best voice ever. He just sounds so natural.

The other speedster Sonic fights is Chaos Sonic, the Chaos Council's take on Metal.

He can talk! Deven is basically doing a Jaleel impersonation for him? People are very mixed on this.

The idea behind Chaos Sonic is to turn Sonic's obnoxious smack talk and zingers back around on him, and I don't hate this idea, even if a lot of fans find him annoying compared to Metal Sonic. (Some comparisons have been made to Archie's Shard, but I assume this is a coincidence.) Like the rest of the script, his dialogue certainly isn't anything to write home about, but the fights he gets into with Sonic and co. are so damn fun and dynamic that I have to like him. I also like how expressive his eyes are on his dome screen face, and the animators have a ton of fun with the fact that his torso and head can rotate 360 degrees.

Unfortunately, he's destroyed at the end of his debut episode. I'm praying he gets rebuilt, because this show desperately needs better villains than the Chaos Council.

Again, the animation in Prime is maybe the best animation in any official Sonic media, period. I just wished I liked the characters and worlds enough to be invested in more of the fights. It's hard to care about the dozenth group battle against the generic Eggforcer bots and the baby in his Fisher-Price mech.

The note we end on

After fighting a giant glowing replica of the normal Eggman for... some reason? Episode 16 ends with Sonic and Nine getting into an argument over what to do with the Paradox Prism shards. Sonic wants to restore his original world, but Nine still wants to create a new, better world out of the one that's just an empty wasteland, believing he doesn't belong anywhere else. Nine angrily runs off with the shards, and Sonic is distraught as he realizes that Shadow was seemingly right about how he shouldn't trust Nine.

I kind of like this conflict, mostly because Nine is the standout character of this show. But my main problem is that we don't know what will happen when everything is fixed.

The logical assumption is that the alternate worlds will just... stop existing, right? That must be the idea if Sonic and Nine are treating restoring the original world and creating a new one in the Shatterverse as mutually exclusive options, right? If the Shatterverse disappears, will Nine and the rest all stop existing, too? The show seems unwilling to discuss this possibility, so I'm left not really knowing what the stakes are in this conflict. Nine becomes a whole lot more sympathetic and Sonic becomes a whole lot more monstrous if restoring the world will erase most of this show's cast from existence, but the thought that this could even happen doesn't seem to have crossed Sonic's mind. Sonic seems to want to take his AU friends back to the regular Green Hill - he at least wants to introduce Nine to his normal friends - but like... he can't really do that, can he? They're not gonna have four Tailses running around.

I don't really know what direction this is all headed in. I guess we just have to keep watching, even if I'm past the point of accepting that this show is mostly very mid.

It's just frustrating that everyone else working on this show is clearly giving it their all while the writers at Man of Action phone it in for so much of its runtime. The scripts drag this show down so, so hard. There are moments and episodes I like, but you have to slog through so much mediocrity to get there.

#tkp post #other media

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gwenllian-in-the-abbey · 2 months

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Anyone who thinks that Rhaenyra calling Helaena "my sweet sister" means anything positive about their relationship or about Rhaenyra's feelings for Heleana needs to go back and re-read the main series (or read it period, because trust me you will understand F&B a lot better with ASOIAF as context).

In ASOIAF "sweet sister" is that phrase is used disparagingly the vast majority of the time. A quick search reveals it is used 82 times, and the character who uses this phrase by far the most is Tyrion when speaking about Cersei (an example from ASOS Tyrion I):

There are also multiple examples of Jaime using it about Cersei too, especially when he's unhappy with her (a random example from AFFC Jaime V):

Other people also use it referring to Cersei, again sarcastically. "Your sweet sister did X." Which makes sense! Cersei is pretty notorious and people gripe about her to her brothers pretty often.

Beyond various people talking about Cersei, the top offender is Viserys, who uses it quite a bit when addressing Dany, usually with a bite of malice (AGOT Daenerys I):

Interestingly, Viserys later calls out to his "sweet sister" when he is begging for his life. I can't imagine that reminding her of all the times he threatened her with those same words helped his case very much.

There's one instance of Arya using it about Sansa when she is giving an insincere apology (AGOT Sansa III):

Here is Theon using it about Asha (ACOK Theon V):

Lysa also uses it about Cat, and her feelings about her "sweet sister" at this point are pretty negative (ASOS Sansa VII):

You get the picture. At the very best, it's used with a fond sort of sarcasm, at worst it's actively spiteful. You can count on one hand the number of times it is used sincerely in the whole entire series, and really there's only one instance, from Edmure to Cat, that I would read as 100% sincere without even a tiny hint of sarcasm. F&B doesn't have anyone's POV to indicate the tone with which Rhaenyra said those words, and although it's possible this might have been the second time in the whole of ASOIAF that we were meant to treat those words as unquestioningly sincere and loving, I think this is a bit like the discourse around "sharply questioned." Those words, in-world, tend to carry a connotation beyond their surface meaning. It would not be something reassuring to hear terms for surrender given using the phrase "sweet sister," and in fact, given that we have no other indication that Rhaenyra has any sort of relationship with her siblings whatsoever, Helaena would be entirely justified in interpreting her words as spiteful or sarcastic. After all, if you're using a quote from the book to speak to Rhaenyra's intentions, the character you're referring to is book!Rhaenyra, who is not shown to be an overly nice person. Even by the most charitable reading, we can safely assume that those words were included by Gyldayn in his history knowing that in-world readers would read them as insincere. They are not intended to portray Rhaenyra and Helaena's relationship in a positive light.

#sweet sister discourse #helaena targaryen #team green #asoiaf #rhaenyra targaryen #fire and blood

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last-flight-of-fancy · 9 months

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hi hello i hope you don't mind but Special Interest Infodump Mode has been activated please keep hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times-

this explanation comes to us courtesy of Dark Road! You know, that cutesy little mobile game where literally the whole cast except the two protagonists dies. This is on brand bc the explanation has it's own fridge horror levels to it if i think too hard about it tbh.

So, worlds have hearts. We've known this since KH1, seen what happens to a world that loses its heart, and how they can be affected. It's rarely been expounded on beyond that however, aside vague allusions to the titular Kingdom Hearts being/harboring the Heart of All Worlds.

(which has. other implications now that i think about it but that's stepping into theorising territory. im sorry im trying really hard to stay on track honest)

fast forward to Dark Road, where we have a bunch of kids venturing out into the worlds for the first time, and as such have to have things explained to them (and thus the audience). NOW i will note here that KH looooooves unreliable narrators and characters imparting incorrect information without knowing it, so there is always the possibility that this could later turn out to be wrong, but currently I see no reason this would be the case and thus for now i feel safe in taking their words at face value unless otherwise contradicted.

Why are there no people? Because each world is alive, and after the Keyblade War sundering THE World into MANY Worlds, each needed to recover and restore what was lost; life, time, movement.

This bit here is important, bc as a result

All of this is the direct result of the Keyblade War of old. Even after so much time, the bits of worlds are *still* recovering, and I do think there's something to be said about how like... the repition between worlds and their apparent stagnation often *stops* after Sora visits them. I don't think it's because Sora's special(tm), but rather just because of who he is; the Dark Road kids are told never to interfere, and as a result the worlds they visit that Sora also visits later are exactly the same to Sora as they were 80+ years before.

But when Sora visits the same world only a short time after his first visit, things CHANGE. Hercules' story moves forward, Simba is having a crisis about being king, Jack Skellington has learned his lesson about Christmas and is on to new shenanigans. And that's only in kh2! in kh3 we see Twilight Town fill with people, barren Olympus expands into a full town (and there's more there too with BBS and how the Wayfinder Trio may have been Olympus' start towards restoring itself completely, and Sora's later arrival more speeding things along)

my point here is *connections*, which is a consistant and overarching theme of the series. Empty worlds are baby worlds, still healing and restoring from being broken away from the rest, and what helps along that healing? Being connected to others.

Which is to say that the keyblade weilder's doctrine of 'do not interfere' while most certainly well-intentioned (as Dark Road also points out, one persons darkness is anothers light, and morality is not a solid truth across worlds, so interfering is risky at best and dangerous at worst), the flip side to this is that without being connected, without that ''interferance'', the world's restoration stagnates and struggles. It will still get there eventually (the Tangled world seems to be doing alright for example), but chances are it might've been a little easier/faster if someone had done a little interfering.

tldr keyblade war broke the worlds and reset them all to zero. As the worlds heal time stops until it's People finally pop back into existance and their stories can resume. And that's how the invisible crowds in early kh games are canon.

#I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE INFODUMP MODE IS NOT ALWAYS GOOD AT BEING CLEAR #and also i kept slipping into speculation mode #im sorry i cant help it kh does this to me #its just so juicy #stop talking to yourself flight #kingdom hearts #meta

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dailycass-cain · 4 months

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2023 was another big stepping stone with Cass. The character was featured in A LOT of stuff this year amongst a few negative antics.

But unlike prior years the good really outweighed the bad. BY A LOT.

So let's take a look back one final time #CAINAISSANCE2023...

The year started STRONG with the release of Batgirls #14 aka the BEST solo story that involved the character this year.

I've gone in LENGTH on how AMAZING this tale was. If you haven't read it DO SO. You don't need any context but to just take in the masterpiece given.

Writers Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad gave artist Jonathan Case just this canvas of an issue to tell AN EPIC mostly silent issue.

If there's a tale Batgirls will be remembered for it'll BE THIS ISSUE.

I've lost count to just taking in the gorgeous art Case delivers here and just letting the actions and emotions tell the tale.

The only regret is well no full payoff to what is fully learned within this issue.

It just hits EVERY mark and is something any Cass fan CRAVED, but never got in Batgirl Vol. 1. Batgirls #14 was a worthy issue that should be talked about amongst fans of Cass for quite some time.

February gave us Cass's grand entrance to Ram V's Detective Comics run (#1069) and what an entrance it was! Literally, I can't let it go of how AMAZING it was.

And the run itself? It just keeps delivering as THE Batman book out currently.

It's a slow burn and when the run lays the payoffs IT HITS THOSE PAYOFFS. The series just ended an exceptional bi-weekly event that featured Cass and well, I'm extremely curious where this run goes with the character.

If anything, I just want MOAR from Ram V or a smaller secondary story involving Cass. But given the various characters he's been rotating and given next year is 2024 (more on that later) I'm keeping my fingers crossed for ALL OF THIS.

This run does work in trade but I digress you'd be missing the GORGEOUS covers this series has been shelling out. If anything BUY the single issues and read the run this way until you get to the present.

Or reread them like I've been doing. 😋

The early half of 2023 marked Cass's surprise return to an actual role in mega crossovers. She took part in the final issue of Batman vs. Robin being one of the random factors to stall the possessed Batman until ALL of DC's magical users came to cast it out of him.

The weakest of the crossovers the character was involved in I have to say was Gotham War. It was a nothing burger that made me swear off the Chip Zdarsky run of Batman completely.

Honestly, I feel more rewarded reading Tec more. Unless Chip pulls off a miracle turnaround in 2024.

But I digress Zdarsky was only half of the problems with the other being Tini Howard and yeah, if you were a Bat Family member who wasn't Jason Todd (how did that mini turn out to be more entertaining then the ENTIRE event?!)?

This story SUUUUUUUUCKED. Quite possibly the worst Batman event story since War Games/Crimes for me.

Sadly, the most disappointing stories I'd have to say are on equal ground in Beast World and Knight Terrors. As there was interesting concepts with Cass involving them, and both stories just go NOWHERE.

I feel more so robbed with Knight Terrors as the design for Cass within it went hard. It's just that you give us THIS design and tease us with this little nugget and give us NOTHING?

COME ON!

Beast World was a whole nothing burger as well, save the pretty art and a full confirmation that Cass's old NML is now canonically her defacto one again.

Even if we had it mentioned earlier last year and again in the best crossover event involving Cass...

WHICH WAS IN LAZARUS PLANET: DARK FATE #1. It gave us Alyssa Wong returning for a THIRD time to write Cass and they were joined by Haining on art which introduced us to the world of Xanthe.

That in itself led to a spinoff mini-series that had Cass in it with SPIRIT WORLD. It did more with the new character Xanthe and laid out their origins and powerset nicely while also laying some seeds for MAYBE future Cass stories.

Again, I feel like a repeating record on how GOOD this series was. Like, I can't wait for the trade next year to take it all in again. But besides the creative team delivering it gave us Dustin Nguyen AND Marcio Takara drawing Cass again OFFICIALLY AS BATGIRL!!

Even when this series ended, I STILL WANT MOAR!! Like what memories did Cass lose? What the heck happened with Spirit World twisting her memories of Batgirl Vol. 1 #72?! How will Xanthe be with the Jade Court?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!

Something else that left me with MANY questions was DCeased universe as even though the story ended back in April.

I still crave more starring Cass, because let's face it STEPH/TALIA DESERVE CLOSURE!! Cass could be the gateway to that.

Doing so would tie up the final loose ends as well. Let's see how Rose is raising her kid with Jason. Silent Olsen. Harley/Ivy. Ollie/Dinah. Jim Gordon.

But I digress. It gives us more Cazzam. We need more Cazzam.

But an alternate universe Cass just didn't pop up there we had a Cass show up in various other comics. Knights of Steel which also had me hankering for MOAR and Harley Quinn & the Legion of Bats.

I know some didn't like it, but me? I think it was LEAPS and BOUNDS better than what we got in the actual season of HQ.

Let us never talk about that season again…

Now something we SHOULD talk about more is the first actual appearance of Cass in a DC ANIMATED MOVIE!! Yes, Kai Li Cain from Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham.

I was blown away at the extended role they gave the character in the film (to the, "Oh right Tim is here and alive." role in the books).

Kai Li voiced perfectly by Tati Gabrielle gave a balance of innocence and reason with the batshit craziness this film throws at us.

Like, I really REALLY want a sequel. Just to see what she'd do now given full access to Bruce's fortune? Will she follow his path? I mean yeah we want steampunk Bat!

Speaking of which artists we need designs for this stat still!

It just adds that anchor where you want to see more of this universe and the characters that inhabit it. I mean that's the sign of a REALLY good Elseworlds. Where you want more and sometimes you get just that.

But with all this good came the sad, and that was the canceling of Batgirls. I know many were against the series (especially after #7-8), but the series found its footing with #9 and ran into something I hope more positively can be talked about it.

It's true failing wasn't the creators behind the series, more just elements outside that just slotted it's end (Batgirl movie getting canned making #7-8 more wasteful), Evil Oracle #4 aka the pitch, and just being something it couldn't be).

I'm grateful for each and every creator who worked on this book because it was a GIFT that I'll always be appreciative of.

I'll say it again, THANK YOU TO ALL! 🙏

And its spirit lived on in the Nightwing back up a few months ago. It was something that was TRULY needed after the garbage fire that was Gotham War. It gave us this Cass/Dick sibling stuff and GIVE ME MOAR!!!

Unlike the past where we'd be done, DC brought us back up giving us the current BIRDS OF PREY ongoing which has Cass in it.

Really the series is a revelation of giving us things I always wanted that I'd never thought we get. Cass with Dinah? CHECK.

Cass meeting Big Barda and the two having a bond? HELLS YEAH CHECK! Anytime that bond grows I squee even more.

Just give writer Kelly Thompson ALL the time and ideas she has to churn this out to the proper conclusion she has envisioned. Just give me fifty-plus issues of her, Leonardo Romero, and Jordie Bellaire.

Finally of course there was Batman: Wayne Family Adventures which gave us THREE banger Cass stories. One where she and Steph are a MENANCE (as they should), Cass scaring the crapbaskets out of EVERYONE and of course...

Season 2 gave us A LOT of things I wanted in general (her interacting with Damian) and just showing the world why I really really love this character. Why I talk about her daily.

Really as 2023 closes and 2024 is about to begin... Well, it's the character's TWENTIETH-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. 25 years of kicking ass and ripping our hearts out.

It's been a journey for sure.

really REALLY hope DC honors this anniversary and continues to mend the bridges burned all those years ago.

Give us that Omnibus. Give us a mini or SOMETHING to celebrate this character. If not, I'll take whatever Ram V and Thompson give us.

#CAINAISSANCE2023 may be over, but #CAINAISSANCE2024 will be the most important year yet.

25 YEARS OF CASS!! LET THE CELEBRATION BEGIN ON JANUARY 1st!

#cassandra cain #dc comics #cainaissance2023 #my thoughts #CAINAISSANCE2024 v

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