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yaku-soba · 3 years

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i’ve seen this film before (this is an old story)

༶•┈┈ oikawa tooru x gn!reader | angst

༶•┈┈ general m.list

tags/warnings: angst (with an okay ending), swear words, oikawa doesn’t become a pro, kinda college au, author was listening to the folklore album and also mother mother while writing this, i think that’s warning enough

word count: 1.48k

a/n: this was originally supposed to be some sort of prose poetry for my poetry sideblog but it didn’t work out so </3 also, trying out a somewhat new writing style hehe :3

“someone has to leave first. this is a very old story. there is no other version of this story.”

― richard siken, war of the foxes

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

it goes like this: you fight over something small (it's never just something small), and after a while with whom the fault lies doesn't matter anymore (a double-edged sword: the fighting and the screaming and the shouting and the mocking).

it goes like this: radio silence, no missed calls, no unopened texts. oikawa, a character study: lover becomes roommate becomes a shadow you see slipping out the door if you wake up early enough. take-out ordered for one, a bed too large and cold. blankets that swamp you.

it ends like this: you cave first (you always cave first). oikawa is too proud to apologize and you are too tired and it is easier to brush all the broken pieces of each other under the rug (it's old, you don't remember where it came from, only that it's the colour of mold and smells like mothballs, despite your best efforts) and pretend the we are fucked up, we are fucking this up away. you hate the way this story ends, there is no other ending to this story.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

"tooru," you say, and the click of the door as he shuts it behind him rings like a gunshot. "do you know what day it is?"

oikawa is breathtaking, as always. "no," he says, casting his eyes to the moldy rug at your feet and then away, off to the side, "what day is it?" oikawa is breathtaking, and as always, he's a bad liar.

you smile, make no effort to pull it to your eyes. "it's pasta day," you answer, and it's as hollow as the ring-pop he gave you as a promise when you were younger (when you had thought you were in love; when you were in love).

he nods. "thanks for cooking dinner." he chucks off his shoes and socks in an act of practiced nonchalance.

there is no pasta day.

"welcome home," you tell him belatedly. he hums, says nothing in return.

(stilted conversation: the second stage of a terminal relationship.)

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

once, you were young and in love.

it's been proven: youth and love makes one foolish.

the story, or the prologue - it goes like this: you meet oikawa at an impressionable age (the boy next door, the golden boy, the boy the coaches eye in a game, the boy all the girls talk about, the boy). he proceeds to make quite an impression on you (a burn from sparklers on a beach at a festival, a failed ollie that left a scar on your knee, bruised wrists from volleyball, the - invisible, but you know it’s there, just as oikawa knows - stitch over the exit wound in your chest). you grow up beside him and along the way, convince yourself that sticking with him is a natural progression (cherry blossoms bloom for only two weeks).

you and oikawa, him and you. it has always been the two of you. this story is very old, this story always ends the same way.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

you’re fucked up. you and oikawa, him and you - somewhere, along the way, you’d gotten fucked up. you don’t know who fucked it up first, it doesn’t matter anymore. (nothing matters but the brush of oikawa’s lips on your lips and the delicate flutter of his lashes and the rent that you cannot afford without a roommate).

oikawa is waiting on the couch when you come home (you came home later than usual - you’d seen him talking to a girl who had batted her lashes at him prettily the way he used to do to you). you shut the door behind you like a judge’s hammer, you slip out of your shoes and socks like water through earnest, cupped palms.

“late night?” he asks (no welcome home).

“yeah,” you reply (no i’m home). “i wanted to finish more of my project.”

oikawa hums, looks at you from beneath those damned lashes. “that essay?” he shifts, lifts his feet from the moldy-looking rug to sit cross-legged.

“yeah,” you say again. (you’d submitted the essay a month ago. you’re working on a presentation due in a week now).

“i ordered pizza,” oikawa says after a pause, “it should be arriving soon.”

you nod, step over the genkan and into the one-bedroom apartment. “thanks,” you tell him, “i’ll be right out.”

the bell rings while you’re changing into loungewear. you step out of the room just in time to see oikawa take the pizza out of the delivery girl’s hands - the same girl you’d seen touch his arm and smile (there is no home).

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

oikawa’s working part-time at a local diner that keeps long hours. you’re working on a degree.

here’s the thing: he could probably afford a one-bedroom apartment of his own if he’s smart about his money.

here’s the thing: you can’t.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

“someone has to leave first,” wakatoshi tells you over lunch, “richard siken said so.”

“who?” there’s a tear right down the middle of your carrot-heart.

“someone who left first, or someone who was left. does it really matter?”

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

here’s the point: oikawa with his long lashes and bedhead. oikawa’s sleepy smile in the mornings (you remember more than you know), the exact dip of his smile, the map you have of the lines of his palms.

the point is: oikawa staying out and not coming home (you stopped counting after the first month, but your heart still knows), waking up to a cold bed because oikawa started leaving earlier (to go the gym, he says). hesitancy in hands where there once was security, the subtle fall of a satellite out of orbit, the gradual fall out of the childhood familiarity of being young and in love. the point is -

the point is always oikawa.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

oikawa gets a new, better, actual job. he’s a volleyball coach at a high school, now.

you find out almost a month later, through takahiro and issei.

“oikawa’s confident they’ll make it to nationals this year,” issei says conversationally, sawing into his steak, “says his kids are promising.”

“what?” (you’ve seen this film before.)

“you know,” takahiro says, “the volleyball kids he’s coaching.” you did not know.

“ah,” you say anyway, fingers slipping around the fork in your hands and grasping onto the far edge of a cliff, “how could i forget.”

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

you finish your degree. you get a (relatively) stable job at a nearby design office.

here’s the thing: they pay you well for a fresh graduate. here’s the thing: you can probably afford a one-bedroom apartment of your own if you’re smart about your money.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

“i’m moving out,” you say the moment oikawa opens the door, “thank you for everything.” (despite everything, you mean it. he’s taught you so many things.)

he smiles (it looks the same as what you imagine you’d smiled like the day of your first anniversary). “okay,” he says, and you think that that’s that.

“i’m sorry,” he says after a moment.

“yeah,” you say, “i am too.”

“thank you,” he continues, eyes almost the same shade as the day he’d brought you on a picnic, “i’ll always love you, you know that, right?”

you do (you feel the same, it is not the same love as when you had been fourteen and sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen, but it is still love).

“me too,” you say because there is nothing else to say, “you’re important to me. you’ll always be important to me.” it’s true: he was your first kiss and your first love and your first best friend and the first person you’re leaving first.

oikawa smiles, and disappears into the bathroom.

you stare at the ugly rug at your feet.

“is this okay?” you ask the broken pieces of you and him (curled around the jagged edges of each other, thorn to petal, bruise to open wound), “this is an okay ending, right?”

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

here’s the point: oikawa as the boy you loved, oikawa as your youth, oikawa as a part of the past you will always hold close but not be held behind by.

a study in relationships: someone will always leave first, it is a very old story.

introspection and a universal truth: youth and love makes one foolish, being foolish is not always a bad thing.

the point is: someone will always leave first, sometimes people fall out of love, sometimes familiarity is not enough to hold them together.

an old story, another universal truth: someone will always leave first, it is not always a bad ending.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

as always, likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated!! :D do drop me an ask if you’d like to be added to my general taglist :”)

p.s if you liked this, it would Be Cool if you leave me an ask / scream in the reblog tags because it would satisfy my need for validation 💔💔

#oikawa tooru x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuucreations #oikawa tooru #haikyuu!!#kyouka writes

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hopeymchope · 3 years

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Parascientific Escape: The sci-fi “escape room” visual novel-style series nobody talks about

I can’t help thinking that Parascientific Escape would probably have an active fandom somewhere on the Internet if it wasn’t TRAPPED ON THE 3DS ESHOP.

I mean, it’s an escape room-centric visual novel-style sci-fi Japanese game that is clearly inspired by Zero Escape and very anime in its style. There are endearing characters, including optimal waifus/husbandos, plus a gradual buildup of an interesting fictional world full of political intrigue, its own countries, its own companies, and of course... psychic powers. Because you can’t have a trilogy of Japanese visual novel-style games featuring escape room puzzles without mental powers, now can you?

But as I said... they’re trapped as download-only titles for the 3DS. That’s fucking brutal.

Even so, there’s a pretty big 3DS/2DS user base still in existence. It’s not like they’ve never been translated or something, so at least we have the capability to play them. So if you look into them, what are you getting?

A basic overview: Parascientific Escape is a trilogy of anime-style games about solving escape room mysteries and tracking down evildoers via the use of psychic powers (obvious Zero Escape influences). There’s an overarching plot about a mysterious mastermind who believes it’s time for the recently emerged psychics of the world to take their place as the next evolution of humanity and get their own nation (obvious X-Men influences).

They don’t work very well as standalone stories; each story relies on information from the last one, culminating in a game that stars the protagonists of both parts 1 and 2 together as they finally unravel the motivations behind the events of the whole series and face off with the people behind everything. In addition, the escape room puzzles start out pretty easy in the first game build to be pretty frustratingly obtuse by the tail end of the third. And on top of all that, each game taken on its own only contains about 3-4 escape rooms. So when you bundle all three together, that’s when it all works as a single satisfying package.

Don’t worry about burning a lot of cash to play the whole series, however. The three games are $5.00 US each on the 3DS eShop and are usually on sale for $2.50 each these days. I got the entire trilogy for $7.50 US!

So let’s break down the gameplay and setup in a little more detail. Don’t worry; I won’t give any spoilers that go beyond the first five minutes of any game in the series. The twists and turns are part of the fun here.

The first game is Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas. You play as Hitomi Akeneno, a high school girl (because of course she’s a high-schooler) with the dual abilities of mild telekinesis and a type of clairvoyance that lets her peer past barriers or into the insides of objects. She finds herself trapped on a sinking cruise ship where some mastermind keeps systematically locking her into isolated sections while she’s trying desperately to escape.

I really liked how you could look inside of an object with clairvoyance and then use her telekinesis to manipulate the various switches and levers within, gradually pulling some object you need out from within a maze. I also thought it was clever how the solution to a new escape roomight require you to backtrack to a previous escape room to investigate some object or area that wasn’t relevant to that previous room’s original puzzle.

(One of the things I found most fascinating about this one is the ethical debate raised by Hitomi’s friend Chisono regarding how Hitomi got herself involved in all this. Chisono offers a perspective that is extremely unusual to see in most fiction. You can even say it’s pretty cold, but it’s not without having some merit to it. I don’t want to say too much about what I’m talking about, though; it’s better left as a surprise.)

The second title, Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective, almost seems standalone at first. You play as Kyosuke Ayana, a private detective and actual adult (!) who is 22 years old. A young woman shows up at his office and asks to hire him for protection. See, there’s a serial killer on the loose, and she believes she’s the next target.

We are swiftly told that Kyosuke was once in an accident that necessitated the replacement of his left arm and right eye. He volunteered to be a guinea pig for some very special prosthetics that granted him artificial psychic powers. As such, he now has “chronokinesis” — to the power to look back in time. However, he can only look back for five days, and he only has limited ability to move or manipulate the things he sees in the past.

Naturally, Kyosuke’s investigation winds up trapping him within some escape rooms that require use of his unique abilities to solve. Some of the hints at the proper timestamps or exactly where you should be looking when you peer into the past are a little vague, though, which can cause momentary frustration. Because I like to always be making forward progress, I actually preferred Hitomi’s telekinesis/clairvoyance powers from the first game. Still, Hitomi had some pretty basic puzzles in her rooms. I can’t deny that these puzzles took more thought.

Outside of the escape rooms, everything is undeniably a huge improvement. The first game presented strictly linear segments of storytelling between the rooms, but this one is more of an adventure game. You can choose where you go, select from a limited menu of things to do when you get there, and do all of it in any order you like. There’s usually a correct sequence order to progressing the story, but it’s typically pretty clear what the next step is, so it’s not like you’re just flailing about and trying a bunch of locations blindly. Besides, there’s no way to get stuck, so don’t stress it. There are even a lot of actions you can take that have no impact on story progression at all — they’re just there to generate additional dialogue that further develops the characters.

The tradeoff is that you actually get fewer escape rooms overall. The first game had four, but the second only contains three. This is also the first game in the series to introduce multiple endings; you get a number of dialogue choices throughout, and unfortunately, it’s far too easy to trigger the “bad” ending. There are guides online to help you trigger the Gold Star “true” ending, however. Just hit up GameFAQs. You might want to use the guide on your first playthrough, because I can say from experience that it’s annoying to have to replay all the dialogue sections just to make the correct choices. (Luckily, you can skip over any irrelevant sections of each chapter — including the escape room puzzles.)

In spite of my above whining, the second one is probably my single favorite story in the Parascientific trilogy. It’s a lot of fun.

The final game in the trilogy is Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon. Mysterious characters who were plotting offscreen for the previous two games are finally given faces, locations that were talked about extensively in both are finally visited, and the two protagonists of the first couple games finally meet and team up. It’s absolutely a culmination of what they set up in the first two.

The narrative jumps around from the perspectives of many different characters, but the most time is undoubtedly spent with Hitomi and Kyosuke. Sadly, there is no gameplay usage of Hitomi’s powers this time; the escape rooms are all done with Kyosuke, and they are more devious now than ever before. Personally, I found the next-to-last one to be incredibly obtuse and frustrating. I ultimately had to consult a video playthrough on YouTube for that. (The YouTuber in question didn’t seem to have the same issues figuring things out that I did. So I guess your mileage may vary.)

The “adventure game” segments make a return here as well, although they’ve also become a bit tougher to figure out. There are a couple of times when you might find yourself wandering the various location options, clicking on every possible action to try and progress. Luckily, there aren’t so many default options that you’re left flailing for very long. Even the longest period of clueless wandering lasted me a maximum of 15 minutes.

Once again, you have to make the correct dialogue choices if you want a positive ending. And once again, GameFAQs is your friend and co-pilot.

Ultimately, even the gated endings and occasional puzzle frustrations did little to curb my enthusiasm. I really had fun with these characters and their stories, I greatly enjoyed the majority of the escape rooms, and I was pretty satisfied with how it all wrapped up. The character designs/artwork get better and better as the series goes on. The selection of music tracks may be the same throughout the whole series, but I really dug on them, so I can��t complain. Do I have any other misgivings? Well, just one; the English localization is pretty sloppy. There are a pretty large number of typos, and the dialogue can sound stilted and awkward at times due to being a direct translation. It’s actually at its worst at the start of the first game. Luckily, after about 30 minutes of playtime, it settles in and finds its voice.

Seriously, they should really figure out a way to re-package these games for another system that doesn’t use the the dual-screen setup. Put all three of them together, and it’d easily be satisfying as a full retail release!

But for now, if you have a 3DS/2DS, they’re only $7.50 in total most of the time (and $15.00 at the worst). Do you like adventure game-style mysteries and visual novel-esque progression and, of course, escape rooms? You should give these a shot! And I hope these devs get to make games with bigger budgets and better localizations in the future.

#parascientific escape #parascientific escape: gear detective #parascientific escape: cruise in the distant seas #parascientific escape: crossing at the farthest horizon #3ds #2ds #3ds games #2ds games #video games #visual novels #Kyosuke Ayana #hitomi akeneno #escape room games

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recurringwriter · 3 years

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Whenever I write scenes, I’m worried that it feels flat, like watching a character go through a list of actions without any feeling. So any thoughts on how to effectively integrate emotion into action?

i think that's something that every writer struggles with, and the best ways to get more comfortable with it are probably to read (and make notes on what sentences suck you into the action/make you feel something) and to just practice writing. the former can be frustrating, because if you're absorbed by the action you forget to make notes, and reading 'like a writer' is something that you have to practice, too.

more direct advice that i hope is useful to you:

sentence structure - change up the length of your sentences, and the starting word of each one. if you keep beginning sentences with 'he fought/he jumped/he leapt/he saw' it feels stilted and stale. try beginning with an adjective, 'red blood flowed to the ground', a verb 'leaping towards the fray--' or even an adverb 'heavily, he fell'. adverbs are Allowed, contrary to popular belief. there's a reason they exist, and that's to add a modifier to a verb that doesn't quite get the point across. moderation is always key, but don't be afraid to use them when you feel that your available verbs aren't strong enough. beginning with a short sentence, then a slightly longer one, then a full description, or vice versa, can also give a sense of importance or urgency as needed. my examples are all heavy-action, but it works for smaller things, too. just describing a character stepping into the kitchen can be interesting if you mix up the sentence length.

visualization - try to fit yourself into the mind of your character. for brief transitional passages it's fine to be distant, but when you want the emotion present try to think of how your body would feel in that position. would you sigh? would your lungs fill--if so, how does the air feel? is it sharp, cold, humid, what? what are your steps like, how do your muscles feel? what does the character's body say that they aren't?

action words - use words that give a sense of feeling. 'stumbling' is very different from 'falling'. combine with visceral, familiar sensations, again, how your body would feel when you're experiencing that kind of emotion. grounding an emotion in a character makes it relatable to the reader. so fear isn't just the threat of danger looming, it's the hesitant steps, the churning of the stomach, the opening and closing of palms. i tend to use breathing a lot as indicators of emotion, i'm... not sure if that's good or not. but it's what i do. happiness can be in a grin, or a little shimmy of shoulders as you sidle closer to someone. if you're uncertain of a word that feels flat, look into the thesaurus and savour other options, see which one gives the right emotion for the scene. connotations are a tool for you to use. i think that's the common advice i've seen: 'don't just think about writing What the character is doing, but also How they are doing it'. that ties into everything else: why, and where, and when. integrated.

lastly, practice is the best. don't give up because it feels flat. write it out anyway, and you'll find that you'll learn the flow with time. designate a block of time to write--if you stop after each sentence it can be harder to find a rhythm (but not impossible). even when you do know (somewhat) what you're doing, and what looks good, you sometimes have to break past an initial uncertainty by dragging yourself through basic actions and into a more confident writing headspace. flavour can be added to the initial sentences later. read lots and you'll internalize a lot of what you see, and then write. hard as it may be, reread what you've written. you will likely get a scrunched-up unpleasant feeling inside. that's good--it means you're recognizing that something isn't living up to how you want the writing to look. rewrite what makes you unhappy. you're learning, and improving with each word you write.

try to have fun. explore different scenarios, use characters that you think are funny or sad or that you want to be. make lists of action words if it helps. divide them up by emotions--positive, negative, angry, sad, etc.

#long post #writing #writing ask #emotion #action #i'm maybe too hungry to be thinking clearly #all i can really think of is practice. feedback helps. probably holding your action up to a comparable scene?#definitely reread. it might not be as flat as you initially think. if it is then play with structure and verbage

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duchessofferia · 3 years

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Isn’t she just delightful?

Catherine of Aragon has one of the more fascinating media legacies of anyone in the Tudor period, not in terms of how her image has fluctuated over the years, but because of how notably it hasn’t. Other hardcore Catholics of the Henrician court are inevitably vilified in stories from Protestant perspectives - Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Jane Seymour and above all else Mary I, to name a few. “Protestant perspectives” doesn’t just refer to reformation texts, it includes books from the perspective of Protestant figures; usually Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, and more recently Thomas Cromwell with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall books. Despite her unwavering faith in both the Catholic Church and her own position, Catherine’s reputation has, up until the past twenty years or so, remained close to stellar; her marriage into the English monarchy at a young age did well to divorce her from her parent’s religious persecutions, and her death some fifteen years or so before her daughter took the throne kept her from being tarnished by association to Mary’s resurrection of medieval heresy laws.

As a Tudor queen, Catherine has largely gone down in history for her irreproachable conduct, even after that history began to tilt towards the side of a religion she opposed - she is known for her charity, her piety, and her belief in her husband’s good nature no matter how vile his behavior grew to be, even at the expense of her own self image. According to Chapuys (who in this case there is no reason to disbelieve) she went to her grave questioning wether Henry’s actions after their divorce was her fault, wondering wether, if she had given him what he wanted, he may not have felt the need to break from Rome, mistreat their daughter and execute two men - one a long term friend and one his own grandmother’s religious advisor. Catherine is a noble figure, she is a tragic figure, she is most of all a dignified figure, and in Tudor media she is always given at least a sympathetic nod if not a complex or three dimensional portrayal.

The key phrase there, though, is as a Tudor queen. Whatever else she was, Catherine was decidedly not a modern woman, just like all of her female peers living five hundred years ago were decidedly not modern women; her unflinching religious beliefs, her many attempts at producing a male heir and her devotion to her marriage are admirable traits of a female noble of the sixteenth century, less so of a twenty first century wife or businesswoman. She was a product of her time, and modernized or semi modernized Tudor media’s attempts to portray her - specifically the brand of modern Tudor media that sets out to depict Anne and Henry’s relationship as one of Sexy High Romance - always end up turning Catherine into a misogynistic caricature of herself, historical legacy be damned. The blog anneboleynnovels describes it best:

“Catherine’s greatest hurdle has been not Protestant novels, but modernized ones. These are the one subgenre in which her character at best is severely degraded and at worst is completely unrecognizable. It’s not surprising that it should be like this — finding modern corollaries to Anne and Henry, whether in an office, a Hollywood mansion, or a high school, is doable. As for most of the people who surrounded them, while some some people are harder to wrench into modern poses than others, it’s relatively easy to cut and alter those characters to make them work better in a modern setting. Catherine, however, is completely lost here. She needs to exist, or else the central conflict disappears — but she simply doesn’t have a real modern equivalent, at least not in the kinds of societies that modernizers write about; her determination that God had put her in her position and that she had to safeguard her daughter’s legitimacy, and thus her inheritance, is impossible to convey fully, especially since Henry’s historical behavior — taking a presumed inheritance from Mary, forcibly separating the two women, and confining them in residences of his choosing — can’t be precisely replicated in a modern novel without making him at best a creep and at worst a criminal. In neither case would that Henry be an appealing love object for a modern Anne, so his behavior is inevitably made more standard — he’s simply a wealthy man divorcing his wife of twenty years, and instead of taking her settlement and moving on, his wife just refuses to let go.”

As the post on Catherine’s fictionalized history points out, attempts to judge her through a modern lens, particularly in stories that center around that grand, not-at-all-murderous love affair of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn inevitably fail to produce a balanced assesment. Susan Bordo’s highly modernized study the Creation of Anne Boleyn treats her like a footnote at best and a self righteous fool at worst, while the Catherine of Suzannah Dunn’s The Queen of Subtleties is disgustingly nicknamed “Fat Cath” (stupid cow, how could she let herself go like that after six pregnancies?) and features its leading lady, another ahead-of-her-time portrayal of Anne Boleyn, going out of her way to condescendingly paint Catherine to the reader as vengeful and delusional. Anne of Hollywood and Anne and Henry present the worst portrayals, one a hideous, deliberately unsympathetic drug addict and the other a teenage psychotic forced on Henry by his father, leading her poor, brow beaten boyfriend by the hand.

That’s not to say it would be impossible to write a well rounded modern Catherine of Aragon, but most modernized Tudor novels simply don’t care to try and make her well rounded; she exists solely to be the convenient road block to Anne and a whitewashed Henry’s happiness, a flat example of the Hysterical Woman trope rather than a Queen, a mother, or a politician. It isn’t Anne Boleyn’s fault that this happens (she can’t exactly object) but this version of Catherine never fails to rear its ugly head in Tudor media that aims to portray Anne, literally or figuratively, as a “woman of the future.” Since that reading of Anne has gained momentum over the years, this Catherine inevitably does so too.

What makes the Spanish Princess so unbearable is how blatantly Emma Frost is trying, and egregiously failing, to flip the script on this. Whatever her personal dislike of Anne Boleyn, she is very obviously trying to take this fictitious version of Anne Boleyn that has sprung up over the past few decades - that of the rebellious, sexy, pseudo feminist Modern Woman™ - and apply it to Catherine of Aragon, who was neither rebellious, a feminist or, after six pregnancies, five infant deaths and a battle with heart cancer, all that sexy. The intimacy and very real affection she and Henry shared in the early years of their marriage is stilted and unemotional, replaced by an absurd number of sex scenes and a very out of place “warrior kween” nickname. It isn’t enough for Catherine to organize a massive military campaign and give a speech to an assembly of soldiers while heavily pregnant, real life accomplishments of hers which have gone largely unacknowledged - no, the Catherine of the Spanish Princess needs to literally fight in battle, pregnant belly armor and all, subtly implying that her many miscarriages were the result of her own behavior, never mind the fact that Henry’s later wives had miscarriages as well. The deeply devoted friends Catherine actually had, one of whom served her for decades and risked royal punishment to be with her on her deathbed, are either erased entirely or put into invented conflicts with her. Her relationship with the only one of her children that survived infancy is perverted into a cold, uncaring motherhood, marked by disappointment and a refusal to even hold her daughter, let alone personally teach her Latin, commission scholars to write books for her, and request those same scholars take charge of her education.

In place of all these details, the things that make the historically minded audience love Catherine in the first place, several sordid aspects of Anne Boleyn’s fictional representations are assigned to Frost’s Catherine of The Upside Down: the ~unnatural~ blowjobs and poorly designed French hoods, the general air of cattiness, the excessive nudity, the hatred of her daughter, the inability to sexually please her husband, and the weird sense of anger at all the women in her life all stand out as hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s less flattering portrayals, but so too do the clear attempts to pander to a feminist audience and sell itself as new age and progressive.

The fouler examples of Catherine as a modern woman aren’t yet the prevalent perception of her; a gaggle of misguided twenty first century books isn’t enough to erase the near spotless reputation she’s maintained for half a millennium. But the Spanish Princess fails to depict a more positive modernization of Catherine because it’s lazy in the attempt - it sees the habit of trying to turn sixteenth century queens into anything but sixteenth century queens and tries to replicate it by taking a handful of theatrical trends and having their protagonist perform them. Those trends have been apart of Anne Boleyn’s portrayal in the media for so long it wouldn’t be that strange to see her acting that way on screen, no matter how historically inaccurate they may be, but to assign them to someone with such a vastly different public history as Catherine is just jarring. She wasn’t like that, nobody thinks she was like that, Tudor media has always known her as being not like that, and the result is something that’s confusing at best and outright offensive at worst. It’s not fun to watch, but it’s interesting to examine, broader context in mind.

(Also credit to @queenmarytudor for that image of Meg and Mary, and seriously, check out anneboleynnovels. They’re great.)

#the spanish princess #Catherine of Aragon #the Tudors #henry viii #also I should say that I am not in any way a historian and you should take what I say with a massive grain of salt #this is just what I think

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

Text

Parental Advisory [18+]

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Ass Worship

Summary: You bring Frederick Chilton to meet your parents over a weekend. Chilton is rude them. You do him in the ass at your parents’ house.

This oneshot stands on its own, but it’s also a side-story from the A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss universe, which has a gender-neutral reader. So this is either pegging or penis depending on how you’re interpreting the reader! (And since even I am not sure, it’s going for the Ass Worship square in @thatesqcrush’s Kink Bingo instead of pegging or anal)

*There is no weird parent voyeurism or whatever, the walls are thick in this house OK? They’re just there for the awkward social interaction of bringing home a pompous douchebag XD

5,059 words

“That went quite well,” said Dr. Chilton, voice smooth and velvety with confidence as you settled into the guest bedroom upstairs.

You grimaced, and quietly shut the door behind you. When you didn’t answer, he looked over to see a teeth-gritting expression plastered on your face. He raised an eyebrow. You tried to coax your face into a genuine smile, but only succeeded in stretching the corners of your mouth more tightly until you looked like some kind of face-eating killer-clown monster.

“Did it not go well?”

“Ummmm...” you stretched a long vowel and scratched the side of your neck to fill the pause as you made up your mind on exactly how to explain this to him.

His velvety confidence broke and he closed the distance between you in a quick stride, taking your shoulders and searching your eyes with worry etched into his brow.

“Tell me.”

“Frederick, you can’t just tell people it’s obvious they come from dirt because of the length of stitches in their hem!”

“That is not what I said—I observed the indications of working-class design popularized by the—”

“Frederick!”

“I was showing interest in their cultural heritage.”

“And you thought that was the way to do it?!”

He quieted. “They were not fond of me, then?”

“As first impressions go, it was pretty bad.”

“Shit.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed—a floral lavender comforter matching the rest of the room, tucked crisply around the sides as if it had never been slept in before, which it hadn’t. Frederick rested his elbows on his knees and let his forehead sink into his hands.

He was worried. He had only been dating you for a year, but you were different than his usual flings. For one thing, you had stayed with him for an entire year. You were affectionate and honest. You didn’t care about money. If he made a snipe about you being a hot mess, you would mock him right back for caring too much about appearances. It was, he eventually discerned, because you hadn’t come from a wealthy family, and never envied those who did. You were actually happy with who you were and scorned the idea of status symbols—like his car, his watches, his house, his Montblanc pens—whose only purpose was to display wealth. It annoyed him at first, but then he wondered, if you were not after him because he was a wealthy doctor, what did you see in him?

He was still figuring that out. If possible, he would like to spend a lifetime figuring it out—he even planned to ask you to move in with him—but he may have just ruined that.

***

Dr. Chilton’s poor impression began hours before he even met your parents. Since you were just going home to family, you wore a plain t-shirt and jeans. Despite your specific instruction to dress casually, he wore a suit. And so, the first thing your parents saw when they opened the front door was a pair so mismatched, it looked like an illicit student-professor affair.

He then handed them a very expensive bottle of wine as a gift—but, as was Frederick’s habit, it was too opulently out of your parents’ price range to be interpreted as anything other than boasting. Your father grumbled, “Thanks,” in a way that Frederick seemed blithely unaware meant “fuck you.”

After that, Chilton began observing things like bargain-bin Sherlock Holmes, and generally being Chilton. He mentioned that their entire house could fit inside his garage. After a few minutes of stilted conversation he said, in not a flattering way, that he could “see where you got it from now.”

You hadn’t expected the first meeting between your elitist doctor boyfriend and your down-home parents to go well, but you had hoped he might lean more toward the charming side of his charming asshole spectrum, just for today. He had a way of getting under everyone’s skin at first, including yours. But he was sweet, underneath his WASPy upbringing, and you were sure they would see that.

When Frederick excused himself to the bathroom, your father immediately let out the complaints he had been barely containing for the last hour. “So that’s not going to last much longer, is it?” he snorted, leaning forward in his La-Z-Boy recliner. “How do you stand it? Did you hear him correct me about searing steak? As if that dandy would know the first thing about grilling.”

“He’s right, you know,” you said. “Searing doesn’t lock in juices, it just adds flavor. I Googled it.”

“Now he’s corrupting my own child!” your dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “You gonna be a know-it-all now, too?”

“As if I wasn’t already,” you challenged, hand on your hip. Your dad wasn’t wrong, though, so you laughed it off and shook your head. “I know, I know. That’s just how he is. Once we got into a disagreement about how ‘pajamas’ is pronounced, and he wouldn’t let it go until... Well, I just started using the word sleepwear.”

“And he wears double-breasted suits,” your mother chimed in behind her hand.

“Oh? What about it?”

“They’re so sleazy!” she cried.

“They are?” If this was some sort of well-known fashion knowledge, your parents never passed it down to you. You always thought Frederick looked good in whatever he wore.

“I don’t know what you see in that pompous little twerp,” your dad sighed heavily, then grinned. “I bet I could pick him up with one hand and toss him out the window.”

“Dad!”

“Bet he screams like a girl,” your father roared with laughter, slapping his knee.

“Oh, he does,” you said with a cold, tight smile. “And if you lay a hand on him, you’ll be singing like a girl, you get me?”

The laughter stopped, and you found yourself in the most intense familial staredown since Thanksgiving 2008. Your father’s eyes silently growled, “You would threaten your own father?!” and yours narrowed and hissed, “I will if you threaten my boyfriend!”

Your mother broke the silence with a patient, pleading voice. “I get it. He’s rich, and he’s not bad looking. But you know you don’t have to marry for money. Your father and I have enough, and I thought you were doing well for yourself working with the FBI.”

“You really think I’d be with someone for money?” you said, mouth agape with bewilderment. Sometimes you wondered if these people knew you at all. “He’ll grow on you, trust me. Just… try to ignore the condescending shit that comes out of his mouth. It becomes endearing eventually.” Footsteps creaked on the second floor, announcing Frederick’s imminent return. You put on your sternest kindergarten-teacher face and pointed across the living room at your parents. “Both of you, behave!”

***

You stood beside him and tenderly ran your fingers through his thick brown hair—a gesture he adored, reserved for evenings at home and mornings before grooming so as not to ruin his perfect coif. He closed his eyes and leaned into the comforting sensation, grateful that you were, at least for the moment, not upset with him.

“I was trying to be friendly,” Frederick explained, his voice sounding as much like a whining child justifying why he had tracked dirt into the house as it did like a man.

Your gentle fingers clenched tightly in his hair and tugged down on the back of his head with enough force to make him look up at you, eyes opening wide with surprise. You narrowed yours.

“You weren’t trying to get them to like you, you were trying to prove that you were superior to them. It’s what you always do,” you growled.

He stared back at you for a few beats, trying to decide whether to be offended, chastised, or turned on. With your fingers curled roughly in his hair, controlling his head with a firm grip, he knew you were not truly angry. You were slipping into character, playing a game at ‘punishing’ him, which he could stop in a word if he wanted to. But the evening would be more fun if he gave you more to punish him over.

“I did no such thing,” he huffed. “If your parents confuse intelligence and culture with condescension, that is hardly my fault!”

Your lips crashed down on his with a snarl, shutting him up as your tongue invaded his mouth to stop his from wagging. The kiss was bruising at first, an act of dominance, but his loud, muffled moans into your mouth and his soft, yielding lips coaxed you to slow down and enjoy it. Your grip in his hair grew softer again, turned into gentle caresses, and your kiss grew deeper and more passionate. Fuck if you didn’t love it when he was bratty. When you finally broke away, his face was flushed and there were stars in your eyes. You slowly sucked the mingled saliva off your lower lip while you appraised him.

“You are a very rude boy, Frederick,” you said, a long, predatory smile slowly slanting over your lips. “Aren’t you?”

He swallowed, obediently staying seated but leaning forward with anticipation. “Yes.”

You threw a leg across his lap, straddling him, and pushed the center of his chest until he was lying flat on the bed. You followed him halfway down, caging him in with your arms and staring down at him with mock anger. His cock was already twitching under your thigh, and a wave of arousal washed over you, making it hard to keep up your performance. But you wanted to see him squirm.

“Rude boys need to learn their place.” You lowered your mouth to his, but stopped an inch before kissing him. He tried to tip his head to meet your lips, but you sat up, grinning with the feeling of power over him as he whimpered with disappointment. “Nope. You were a bad boy today, Frederick. You haven’t earned another kiss yet.”

“What can I do to make it up to you?” he asked, his voice already heavy with lust.

You thought about it, stroking your chin. “You always act like you��re so much better than everyone,” you observed, reaching between your legs to idly stroke his growing bulge through his pants. His hips jerked, pushing his cock into your palm. “What would your high-society friends think if they saw you with your ass in the air, begging for a lowly commoner to fuck you?”

His adam’s apple bobbed sharply. He liked the idea. He liked it a lot.

“I want you to strip for me,” you ordered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “Then I want you on all fours.”

Normally he wouldn’t have hesitated, so when you looked down and saw tension, not arousal, in his eyes, you were concerned.

“Will your parents hear us?” he asked, a blush creeping up the sides of his neck. “I was hoping to walk away with at least a neutral review from your family, and I assume being overheard in the throes of passion will not result in favorable points.”

You smirked devilishly. “Then you’d better be quiet.”

***

After a few minutes for each of you to shower and prepare, you had Frederick just as you’d asked. Naked and on his knees. “That’s my good little slut,” you praised, running your hand over his ass and giving it a light smack—not enough to make much noise, but the light contact was enough to make Frederick whimper softly with need. “Such a beautiful ass.”

“Touch me more,” he breathed.

“Good boy, telling me what you want, but you have to be more specific. Where do you want me to touch you?”

“Anywhere,” he whispered with such honesty it was heartbreaking. He really didn’t care, so long as you were touching him. It made you want to forget everything else, hold him as tight as you could, and never let him go… but this was punishment.

“I see,” you tutted. “First you’re rude and arrogant, and now you can’t make up your mind.” You let your hand trail off, and he whimpered louder the moment you broke contact. You stalked a circle around the bed, taking your time to just enjoy the sight. It was only a double size bed, so unlike the monstrosity Frederick owned, you could easily prowl around the entire thing as you appraised his form like he was displayed on a pedestal. “You really are handsome,” you purred, eyes gliding over his broad shoulders and muscular arms, bulging with thick veins bulging all the way down to the backs of his hands. He wasn’t especially tall and seemed so bookish in his suits, but those biceps could crack your head like a walnut, and you’d let him. But he glanced up and met your eyes with a pathetic, questioning look that told you he didn’t really believe you. You could tell him over and over again how perfect he was, but for someone with such a big ego, he was remarkably insecure. Then again, maybe the two went hand in hand.

You finished your circuit and finally stepped up to the edge of the bed behind him, welcomed by the sight of his shapely ass with his tight hole eagerly waiting for you, his weighty balls hanging below, cock already standing in rigid defiance of gravity.

“Now that’s a pretty picture,” you let out a throaty growl of appreciation, and couldn’t resist running your hands down the rounded curve of his ass cheeks. “I can’t wait to fuck this perfect ass,” you moaned.

He breathed deeply, shuddering as you climbed onto the bed behind him, the front of your thighs pressed against the back of his. “Thank you. Thank you,” he whispered as your hands roamed over his back and sides. You dipped one down his soft stomach, smoothing over the raised scar and fine hairs that grew coarser beneath his belly button until you found his cock. It was already rock hard. You took its velvety skin in your hand and gave a few lazy strokes just to hear him choking on his breath, to feel his body tense and go slack at the same time. You brought your fingers to your mouth and tasted his salty precum, closing your eyes as it sent blood surging between your thighs. You licked each finger with a loud wet noise, and hummed as you savored it to be sure he knew what you were doing. When his hips shifted, trying to grind against you, and he whimpered a lusty, “Please,” you knew it had worked.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” you asked, voice thick with arousal.

“Y-yes,” he stammered, shifting back to grind his hips against yours.

“Say it then, Doctor Chilton. I want you to tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what will make you feel good. I want to hear you beg for it, remember?”

“Please?” he whined more desperately. You didn’t give an inch.

“Please what?”

He groaned miserably, and didn’t answer. As strong as his need was, he hated being vulnerable enough to ask for what he wanted out loud, and it didn’t help that you had goaded him earlier about begging. Now he was going to deliberately be stubborn. But you were patient. Before the night was over, he would beg.

“You know,” you pondered aloud, spreading and kneading his thick cheeks, “if you have one thing to feel superior about, it’s this ass.” You gave it another light smack, and he jumped. “It’s so big, and I love—” you cut yourself off, ducking down and kissing the inside of his thigh. You kissed all the way down to his knee, and all the way up until you were moving his balls aside, gently toying with them in one hand so you could press your lips to the juncture of his leg and hip. His breathing was coming out harder, more erratic, but he was still managing to control his voice until you switched legs and gave a sharp nip to his thigh that made him yelp and clap a hand to his mouth. You teased and marked his thighs until they were shaking, then dragged your teeth up his buttocks and gave him a firm nip. Now you really got into it, moaning as you sucked on his flesh, leaving stinging red marks all over his pale ass cheeks. He groaned with pleasure, but stubbornly kept his hand over his mouth, denying you what you wanted—hearing him beg for more. It was a battle of wills he could only win for so long.

“Too bad,” you pouted, dragging your fingers slowly up the sensitive flesh between his balls and his ass. You licked a broad swathe along the same path, and his muffled whimpering and the writhing of his hips was like music, spurring you on. “I really want to finger that perfect ass of yours, but if you can’t tell me that’s what you want...” The tips of your fingers found his tight entrance and circled it slowly.

A long whine came from deep in the back of Frederick’s throat, and finally he panted out, “I… would like you to—please.”

“To what?” you asked, feigning innocence.

He snarled with frustration, squeezing his eyes closed as he answered, “F-fingers!”

“That’s not a very polite way of asking, but it will do for now.” You poured lube over his ass and worked it in until everything was nicely slippery and circled his entrance again, teasing circles that slowly spiraled toward the center, finally pressing a fingertip inside him.

“More… please…” he whimpered. You complied, building up slowly, sinking one finger into him, then once he was babbling frustrated demands for more, stretching him open with two. Pumping your fingers, you curled them down toward his stomach to stroke that tender bundle of nerves that made him cry out with pleasure, toes curling, when you found it.

“Quiet now,” you warned, pressing a chaste kiss to one of the hickeys you’d left, “You don’t want anyone to hear.” The strangled sounds he made into the mattress as he struggled to keep quiet were almost enough to send you right over the edge. Even though you were focusing entirely on his pleasure, it was a turn-on for you, too. “You feel so good, taking me like this,” you cooed, your voice only cracking a little. “So tight.” Wet noises filled the room, and the huffing of his breath came harder. You reached between his legs and barely touched his burning hot cock when his will broke.

“Please—please fuck me,” he panted, ragged and hoarse like he would die if you didn’t. “I want you to fuck me. Oh, god, oh, god. Please!”

“What a good boy, begging so pretty for me.” You slowly removed your slick fingers from his core, and he looked back at you, eyes pleading for you to fill him again. You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly, almost stern, on the cusp of complete victory and he knew it, but was too lost to care anymore. The urgent flames of his arousal burned every muscle in his body, and he would say everything he knew you wanted to hear if it meant he could come.

“Please, please fuck my ass. I am sorry for being rude. I was bad. I know I am rotten and do not deserve you, but please, I am begging you to fuck me.”

An aching pang twisted your heart and took you out of the moment and any desire to torment him. You bent low, pressing your body over the length of Frederick’s back, grasped him by the chin, and twisted his face to lock eyes with you. “You deserve me, Frederick,” you said, voice steady and serious. “You are not bad. You are wonderful, and I love you. I wasn’t trying to… I wanted you to feel humble, not undeserving. You deserve to be loved. Do you understand?”

He nodded, and leaned all his weight onto one arm so he could draw your head down closer and kiss you, fervent and warm. It was a little quick and desperate, all wet tongues and sliding lips, but with a loving softness to it that melted you. “Please,” he urged, “if you make me repeat positive affirmations now before you will fuck me, I swear—” He glowered petulantly, though it was a thin performance. It didn’t escape your notice that he cut his sentence short, as there was no actual threat to fill in the blank of what he swore. He would patiently endure any torture you threw at him, and you both knew it.

You chuckled at his adorable defiance, kissed him lightly on the nose, then ruthlessly pushed his shoulders down into the mattress. He fell with a satisfied moan of anticipation. “Look at this,” you pronounced, as if you’d just walked in on the scandalous scene. “The great Doctor Chilton with his ass in the air, begging to be taken by some nobody. How shocking, simply shocking,” you teased, elongating each syllable the way Frederick did when he was being particularly snobby.

“Please, please fuck me,” he pleaded, voice pitifully small and helpless, half-smothered against the mattress, playing his part as if his depravity were on display to his peers.

Your voice dropped a quarter octave and took on a hungry edge. “I could never turn down such a desperate request from such an esteemed gentleman.”

Frederick had been waiting a long time, and moaned loudly as you finally pushed inside of him, not bothering or not aware enough to control his volume. The pace you set was deep and steady, not punishingly hard, but not languid and easy, either. Sliding in and out of his tightness, you gripped his hips, and angled yours to hit the sweet spot inside him. You knew the moment you’d found it—suddenly, he could barely contain his whimpering and moaning, babbling nonsense as he began to fall apart.

“You were trying to prove you were better than everyone today, weren’t you?” you leaned over him and hissed in his ear as you thrust.

“Yes,” he admitted, his voice strained and panting, so close to his release. He was drooling onto the blanket.

“What have I told you about being humble?”

“To… try it?” he struggled to answer, voice jostling as you thrust into him harder, his hips rocking to push against your thrusts, deepening the penetration.

“That’s right. Because you’re not better than anyone else, are you?”

“…No,” the answer tore from his throat in a shameful gasp.

You sank your teeth into his shoulder, and he cried out with pain and pleasure. “You’re a dirty slut who likes to be dominated, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

“And you’re perfect just as you are and don’t need to prove anything to anyone, aren’t you?”

“Ye—” he almost answered, but then his hips stuttered in their movement and stopped.

“I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he breathed. His hips began to move again as his confusion cleared, meeting yours as they crashed against his muscular ass.

“I think you’re perfect,” you smiled, feeling his muscles tense as his climax neared. “And you would never contradict me, would you?”

“Never.”

“Good.” You sat higher again to get a better angle on his prostate and took his dripping cock in your palm, stroking in time with your thrusts, overwhelming him with sensation. His whole body convulsed beneath you. He shoved a pillow into his mouth just in time to keep the entire house from hearing his lung-shattering wail, his back arching as he painted his seed over the pristine lavender blankets, coming so hard he nearly came on his own face. You slumped down over him, and he reached for your hand, his fingers laced with yours.

His back rose and fell with each panting breath as he slowly came down from the high, both of you exhausted and sweating and pleasantly sleepy. You rolled over into a more comfortable position to spoon him. The hairs on the back of his neck were soft and ticklish against your nose as you nuzzled him, pressing gentle kisses all along his neck and under his jaw, feeling his pulse surging hot beneath your lips. He groaned softly in the aftermath, melting in your arms. Longing to have more of you to hold onto, he flipped over so he was facing you, wrapping his powerful arms around you snugly, burying his face under your chin. His hair was a mess, partly stuck to his forehead with sweat with one giant cowlick on the side he had pressed against the mattress, and you couldn’t resist running your fingers through it to muss it up more. More happy noises came forth, and a few wet, sucking kisses clung to your throat.

“I love you,” he murmured, and the sound vibrated up your neck.

“Fuck, I love you so much,” you whispered back, wrapping a leg around him to pull him even closer, his spent erection pressing into you. You could feel the stickiness of his release smearing over your leg, but at this point, you were both going to need a shower anyway. “I love you.”

For several minutes you just lay there recovering, warm in each other’s embrace, softly whispering praises. Finally, he pulled back, an ocean of green eyes gazing back into yours with a question in them. He pondered it for a long while, and finally, instead of asking, declared, “Tomorrow, I shall correct my mistakes. I run an entire hospital of psychopaths; I can manage to make your parents like me.”

“Why are you so worried about what they think?”

“I do not care what they think. I worry about what they think and tell you. They… are important to you. If they disapprove, it may sway your feelings. Not right away, perhaps, but that familial bond will gnaw at you day by day, like a rat chewing through bone, until you share their negative opinion, and…” he shrugged, his eyes glassy, “…I will lose you.”

You caressed the side of his jaw and neck, thumb stroking his cheek, and peppered his face with kisses. Smoothing your palm down his shoulder, you pulled yourself close until your forehead knocked against his. “Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you, Frederick. Nothing. I love you. I don’t care what they think. It’s not like I’m just now discovering that you rub people the wrong way,” you chuckled. “That’s part of what makes me love you. You can be… officious. It takes time to get to know you. But I have never regretted a single minute of it. They’ll come around.”

His surrounding arms tightened around you possessively, quietly affirming that he understood.

Circling your hand idly over his back, still damp with sweat, you admitted something you hadn’t told him. “I was more nervous about what you would think of them,” you said, and he pulled back to pin you with a stare demanding an explanation. You squirmed under his gaze, cheeks heating up. “I didn’t want you realizing I’m complete born-and-bred trash.”

“I was already well aware of that, darling.”

A low growl stirred in your chest. “Still rude,” you snarled gleefully, rolling him onto his back, pinning his shoulders down, and biting his neck. He yelped and scrambled into a sitting position, taking you with him until you fell off his lap to the side.

“S-sorry!” you gasped, afraid you had bitten him too hard for him to balk so dramatically, when he was usually willing to play along with anything. A split second later, you realized it wasn’t pain on his face. His lips were curled as if he had stepped in something slimy. Or rather, rolled in it. Which he had.

“Eeuughh!” he shuddered.

“Since when are you so squeamish?” you asked with a sultry look to remind him of all the times he had licked himself off of your fingers.

“It was cold,” he shot back.

And kind of everywhere. He came a lot. And none of it had been intercepted by any orifices, so his full load was painted across the blanket like a Jackson Pollock.

You thanked your lucky stars that the guest bedroom had its own half bath stocked with washcloths, so you didn’t have to venture into the hall while sticky with sex. But after cleaning yourselves up and changing into sleepwear, you stared with dismay at the floral-patterned blanket you and Frederick had ruined.

“I do not accept responsibility for this,” Frederick said. “Having sex in your old bedroom was your idea—I cannot be held accountable for ruining your childhood memories.”

The speed at which Frederick shifted to weaseling out of blame overwhelmed your ability to keep a straight face—you smirked, snorted, and gave in completely to a belly-shaking laugh. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at you sideways.

“Frederick...” your shoulders bounced, “Does this look like a childhood bedroom? My parents moved after I graduated college.”

“Ah.” The tips of his ears turned red with embarrassment. You recalled how impersonal his own bedroom—and entire house—was, and your heart ached to think that he couldn’t even recognize that an ordinary childhood bedroom would be cluttered with forgotten toys and old posters. “That would explain the lack of baby pictures.”

“You can ask my parents to show you the photo albums,” you said offhandedly, and smiled at the way he perked up with genuine interest.

“I have been curious what species of gremlin you evolved from...” he smirked.

“My parents would love it if you let them show you the family albums. I will be mortified, but they’ll love you for it.”

“The key to their hearts, as it were?”

“You know, yeah. It might actually tip the scales. It might even make up for this,” you gestured at the blanket which the bodily fluid and lube stains were definitely never washing out of.

He sank down onto the edge of the bed and covered his face with his hands. “Fuck.”

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags:

@beccabarba / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @da-po / @madamsnape921

#Frederick Chilton x reader #Frederick Chilton #Raúl Esparza #Hannibal #my writing #thatesqcrush kink bingo

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365days365movies · 3 years

Text

January 26, 2021: The Expendables (Epilogue)

...

Let’s just get this over-with. Spoilers ahead or whatever.

Review

Cast and Acting

Yeah, OK, it’s exactly what you’d expect from this roster. Just to repeat it, this film features Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Steve “Stone Cold” Austin, Eric Roberts, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And if you look at that...you can guess how the acting in this film is. You can’t see past these actors into the characters, they’re mostly just playing themselves. Now, that’s not to say that this is bad; it’s just not anything stellar. If I was to call out performances, it’d be Statham as the runner-up (he does well with his romantic crises), and ABSOLUTELY Mickey Rourke, who somehow not only disappeared into the role of Tool, but also happens to be THE ONLY PERSON I CARE ABOUT IN THIS MOVIE. I mean that, he’s a complete character with a haunted past, and Rourke actually does a great job with his few scenes. And so, for the cast and acting...6/10. Crews and Couture are also pretty fun, by the way.

Plot and Writing

Again: you get what you’d expect with this movie, and honeslty...3/10. Yeah, it’s the most standard “badass mercenary” plot EVER, and the writing is so peppered with ‘80s style one-liners that it feels like Sylvester Stallone wrote this movie...which is because he did, alongside storywriter David Callaham. But Callaham, who has DONE THINGS I LIKE (Godzilla, Ant-Man) wrote the story; Stallone wrote a lot of the script for this movie, and it feels extremely dated sometimes. Yin Yang? REALLY? Jesus. 3/10.

Directing and Action

SHAKY CAM. GUUUUUUUUUUH THE SHAKY CAM. And outside of that, the direction was OK, I guess. Definitely feels like an ‘80s movie, almost like Sylvester Stallone himself dire-you know where this is going. And what about the action? Explosions are cool, I’ll give you that. The knife and gun stuff is very hindered by the REALLY bad blood effects, holy shit. And the hand-to-hand? It’s weirdly not great. Feels fake, feels stilted, and the choreography honestly isn’t amazing. Which, given the people in this movie, is a miracle? Like, wow, this should have been FAR better. 4/10.

Production and Art Design

Um...5/10? Had an environment, but somehow no atmosphere? This film felt empty. This film made me feel empty. Sets, props, and clothing existed, sure, but I can’t say they were stellar. Honestly, they were just kind of...there. Average. Nothing to write home about. So yeah, 5/10.

Music and Editing

Yeah, I genuinely don’t remember the music in this movie. Not to mention the fact that it was weirdly quiet at some points? Composed by Brian Tyler, who has DONE THINGS I LIKE (Transformers: Prime, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Power Rangers), it just isn’t memorable to me...AT ALL. Like most of this movie. As for the editing...eh, it was OK? Shaky cam may have been an issue, but that isn’t the editor’s fault. Nothing here to report. 6/10.

48%. I FEEL...NOTHING.

This movie...this movie hurts. How? HOW CAN THIS MANY ACTION BLOCKBUSTER STARS BE IN IT, AND I DON’T LIKE IT? For God’s sakes, I LIKE LAST ACTION HERO MORE THAN THIS MOVIE. This is my lowest scoring movie this month. Which is AMAZING to me.

I just...I’m so disappointed. I need something to pick me up from this, I’m SO let down. Well, guess I’m just gonna have to move on to the next of this set: the constantly recommended action movie. Sure. Whatever.

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Alice Bolin, The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime, Vulture (August 1, 2018)

The “true-crime boom” of the mid- to late 2010s is a strange pop-culture phenomenon, given that it is not so much a new type of programming as an acknowledgement of a centuries-long obsession: People love true stories about murder and other brands of brutality and grift, and they have gorged on them particularly since the beginning of modern journalism. The serial fiction of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins was influenced by the British public’s obsessive tracking of sensational true-crime cases in daily papers, and since then, we have hoarded gory details in tabloids and pulp paperbacks and nightly news shows and Wikipedia articles and Reddit threads.

I don’t deny these stories have proliferated in the past five years. Since the secret is out — “Oh you love murder? Me too!” — entire TV networks, podcast genres, and countless limited-run docuseries have arisen to satisfy this rumbling hunger. It is tempting to call this true-crime boom new because of the prestige sheen of many of its artifacts — Serial and Dirty John and The Jinx and Wild, Wild Country are all conspicuously well made, with lovely visuals and strong reporting. They have subtle senses of theme and character, and they often feel professional, pensive, quiet — so far from vulgar or sensational.

But well-told stories about crime are not really new, and neither is their popularity. In Cold Blood is a classic of American literature and The Executioner’s Song won the Pulitzer; Errol Morris has used crime again and again in his documentaries to probe ideas like fame, desire, corruption, and justice. The new true-crime boom is more simply a matter of volume and shamelessness: the wide array of crime stories we can now openly indulge in, with conventions of the true-crime genre more emphatically repeated and codified, more creatively expanded and trespassed against. In 2016, after two critically acclaimed series about the O.J. Simpson trial, there was talk that the 1996 murder of Colorado 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey would be the next case to get the same treatment. It was odd, hearing O.J.: Made in America, the epic and depressing account of race and celebrity that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, discussed in the same breath with the half-dozen unnecessary TV specials dredging up the Ramsey case. Despite my avowed love of Dateline, I would not have watched these JonBenét specials had a magazine not paid me to, and suffice it to say they did very little either to solve the 20-year-old crime (ha!) or examine our collective obsession with it.

Clearly, the insight, production values, or cultural capital of its shiniest products are not what drives this new wave of crime stories. O.J.: Made in America happened to be great and the JonBenét specials happened to be terrible, but producers saw them as part of the same trend because they knew they would appeal to at least part of the same audience. I’ve been thinking a lot about these gaps between high and low, since there are people who consume all murder content indiscriminately, and another subset who only allow themselves to enjoy the “smart” kind. The difference between highbrow and lowbrow in the new true crime is often purely aesthetic. It is easier than ever for producers to create stories that look good and seem serious, especially because there are templates now for a style and voice that make horrifying stories go down easy and leave the viewer wanting more. But for these so-called prestige true-crime offerings, the question of ethics — of the potential to interfere in real criminal cases and real people’s lives — is even more important, precisely because they are taken seriously.

Like the sensational tone, disturbing, clinical detail, and authoritarian subtext that have long defined schlocky true crime as “trash,” the prestige true-crime subgenre has developed its own shorthand, a language to tell its audience they’re consuming something thoughtful, college-educated, public-radio influenced. In addition to slick and creative production, highbrow true crime focuses on character sketches instead of police procedure. “We’re public radio producers who are curious about why people do what they do,” Phoebe Judge, the host of the podcast Criminal, said. Judge has interviewed criminals (a bank robber, a marijuana brownie dealer), victims, and investigators, using crime as a very simple window into some of the most interesting and complicated lives on the planet.

Highbrow true crime is often explicitly about the piece’s creator, a meta-commentary about the process of researching and reporting such consequential stories. Serial’s Sarah Koenig and The Jinx’s Andrew Jarecki wrestle with their boundaries with the subjects (Adnan Syed and Robert Durst, respectively, both of whom have been tried for murder) and whether they believe them. They sift through evidence and reconstruct timelines as they try to create a coherent narrative from fragments.

I remember saying years ago that people who liked Serial should try watching Dateline, and my friend joked in reply, “Yeah, but Dateline isn’t hosted by my friend Sarah.” One reason for the first season of Serial’s insane success — it is still the most-downloaded podcast of all time — is the intimacy audiences felt with Koenig as she documented her investigation of a Baltimore teenager’s murder in real time, keeping us up to date on every vagary of evidence, every interview, every experiment. Like the figure of the detective in many mystery novels, the reporter stands in for the audience, mirroring and orchestrating our shifts in perspective, our cynicism and credulity, our theories, prejudices, frustrations, and breakthroughs.

This is what makes this style of true crime addictive, which is the adjective its makers most crave. The stance of the voyeur, the dispassionate observer, is thrilling without being emotionally taxing for the viewer, who watches from a safe remove. (This fact is subtly skewered in Gay Talese’s creepy 2017 Netflix documentary, Voyeur.) I’m not sure how much of my eye-rolling at the popularity of highbrow true crime has to do with my general distrust of prestige TV and Oscar-bait movies, which are usually designed to be enjoyed in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons as any other entertainment, but also to make the viewer feel good about themselves for watching. When I wrote earlier that there are viewers who consume all true crime, and those who only consume “smart” true crime, I thought, “And there must be some people who only like dumb true crime.” Then I realized that I am sort of one of them.

There are specimens of highbrow true crime that I love, Criminal and O.J.: Made in America among them, but I truly enjoy Dateline much more than I do Serial, which in my mind is tedious to the edge of pointlessness. I find myself perversely complaining that good true crime is no fun — as self-conscious as it may be, it will never be as entertaining as the Investigation Discovery network’s output, most of which is painfully serious. (The list of ID shows is one of the most amusing artifacts on the internet, including shows called Bride Killas, Momsters: Moms Who Murder, and Sex Sent Me to the Slammer.) Susan Sontag famously defined camp as “seriousness that fails,” and camp is obviously part of the appeal of a show called Sinister Ministers or Southern Fried Homicide. Network news magazine shows like Dateline and 48 Hours are somber and melodramatic, often literally starting voice-overs on their true-crime episodes with variations of “it was a dark and stormy night.” They trade in archetypes — the perfect father, the sweet girl with big dreams, the divorcee looking for a second chance — and stick to a predetermined narrative of the case they’re focusing on, unconcerned about accusations of bias. They are sentimental and yet utterly graphic, clinical in their depiction of brutal crimes.

It’s always talked around in discussions of why people like true crime: It is … funny? The comedy in horror movies seems like a given, but it is hardly permitted to say that you are amused by true disturbing stories, out of respect for victims. But in reducing victims and their families to stock characters, in exaggerating murderers to superhuman monsters, in valorizing police and forensic scientists as heroic Everymen, there is dark humor in how cheesy and misguided these pulpy shows are, how bad we are at talking about crime and drawing conclusions from it, how many ways we find to distance ourselves from the pain of victims and survivors, even when we think we are honoring them. (The jokey titles and tongue-in-cheek tone of some ID shows seem to indicate more awareness of the inherent humor, but in general, the channel’s programming is almost all derivative of network TV specials.) I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but in its obvious failures, I enjoy this brand of true crime more straightforwardly than its voyeuristic, documentary counterpart, which, in its dignified guise, has maybe only perfected a method of making us feel less gross about consuming real people’s pain for fun.

Crime stories also might be less risky when they are more stilted, more clinical. To be blunt, what makes a crime story less satisfying are often the ethical guidelines that help reporters avoid ruining people’s lives. With the popularity of the podcasts S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons, there were conversations about the ethics of appropriating another person’s story, particularly when they won’t (or can’t) participate in your version of it. The questions of ethics and appropriation are even heavier when stories intersect with their subjects’ criminal cases, because journalism has always had a reciprocal relationship with the justice system. Part of the exhilarating intimacy of the first season of Serial was Koenig’s speculation about people who never agreed to be part of the show, the theories and rabbit holes she went through, the risks she took to get answers. But there is a reason most reporters do all their research, then write their story. It is inappropriate, and potentially libelous, to let your readers in on every unverified theory about your subject that occurs to you, particularly when wondering about a private citizen’s innocence or guilt in a horrific crime.

Koenig’s off-the-cuff tone had other consequences, too, in the form of amateur sleuths on Reddit who tracked down people involved with the case, pored over court transcripts, and reviewed cellular tower evidence, forming a shadow army of investigators taking up what they saw as the gauntlet thrown down by the show. The journalist often takes on the stance of the professional amateur, a citizen providing information in the public interest and using the resources at hand to get answers. At times during the first season of Serial, Koenig’s methods are laughably amateurish, like when she drives from the victim’s high school to the scene of the crime, a Best Buy, to see if it was possible to do it in the stated timeline. She is able to do it, which means very little, since the crime occurred 15 years earlier. Because so many of her investigative tools were also ones available to listeners at home, some took that as an invitation to play along.

This blurred line between professional and amateur, reporter and private investigator, has plagued journalists since the dawn of modern crime reporting. In 1897, amid a frenzied rivalry between newspaper barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, true crime coverage was so popular that Hearst formed a group of reporters to investigate criminal cases called the “Murder Squad.” They wore badges and carried guns, forming essentially an extralegal police force who both assisted and muddled official investigations. Seeking to get a better story and sell more papers, it was common for reporters to trample crime scenes, plant evidence, and produce dubious witnesses whose accounts fit their preferred version of the case. And they were trying to get audiences hooked in very similar ways, by crowdsourcing information and encouraging readers to send in tips.

Of course the producers of Serial never did anything so questionable as the Murder Squad, though there are interesting parallels between the true-crime podcast and crime coverage in early daily newspapers. They were both innovations in the ways information was delivered to the public that sparked unexpectedly personal, participatory, and impassioned responses from their audiences. It’s tempting to say that we’ve come full circle, with a new true-crime boom that is victim to some of the same ethical pitfalls of the first one: Is crime journalism another industry deregulated by the anarchy of the internet? But as Michelle Dean wrote of Serial, “This is exactly the problem with doing journalism at all … You might think you are doing a simple crime podcast … and then you become a sensation, as Serial has, and the story falls to the mercy of the thousands, even millions, of bored and curious people on the internet.”

Simply by merit of their popularity, highbrow crime stories are often riskier than their lowbrow counterparts. Kathryn Schulz wrote in The New Yorker about the ways the makers of the Netflix series Making a Murderer, in their attempt to advocate for the convicted murderer Steven Avery, omit evidence that incriminates him and put forth an incoherent argument for his innocence. Advocacy and intervention are complicated actions for journalists to undertake, though they are not novel. Schulz points to a scene in Making a Murderer where a Dateline producer who is covering Avery is shown saying, “Right now murder is hot.” In this moment the creators of Making a Murderer are drawing a distinction between themselves and Dateline, as Schulz writes, implying that, “unlike traditional true-crime shows … their work is too intellectually serious to be thoughtless, too morally worthy to be cruel.” But they were not only trying to invalidate Avery’s conviction; they (like Dateline, but more effectively) were also creating an addictive product, a compelling story.

That is maybe what irks me the most about true crime with highbrow pretensions. It appeals to the same vices as traditional true crime, and often trades in the same melodrama and selective storytelling, but its consequences can be more extreme. Adnan Syed was granted a new trial after Serial brought attention to his case; Avery was denied his appeal, but people involved in his case have nevertheless been doxxed and threatened. I’ve come to believe that addictiveness and advocacy are rarely compatible. If they were, why would the creators of Making a Murderer have advocated for one white man, when the story of being victimized by a corrupt police force is common to so many people across the U.S., particularly people of color?

It does feel like a shame that so many resources are going to create slick, smart true crime that asks the wrong questions, focusing our energy on individual stories instead of the systemic problems they represent. But in truth, this is is probably a feature, not a bug. I suspect the new true-crime obsession has something to do with the massive, terrifying problems we face as a society: government corruption, mass violence, corporate greed, income inequality, police brutality, environmental degradation, human-rights violations. These are large-scale crimes whose resolutions, though not mysterious, are also not forthcoming. Focusing on one case, bearing down on its minutia and discovering who is to blame, serves as both an escape and a means of feeling in control, giving us an arena where justice is possible.

Skepticism about whether journalists appropriate their subjects’ stories, about high and low, and about why we enjoy the crime stories we do, all swirl through what I think of as the post–true-crime moment. Post–true crime is explicitly or implicity about the popularity of the new true-crime wave, questioning its place in our culture, and resisting or responding to its conventions. One interesting document of post–true crime is My Favorite Murder and other “comedy murder podcasts,” which, in retelling stories murder buffs have heard on one million Investigation Discovery shows, unpack the ham-fisted clichés of the true-crime genre. They show how these stories appeal to the most gruesome sides of our personalities and address the obvious but unspoken fact that true crime is entertainment, and often the kind that is as mindless as a sitcom. Even more cutting is the Netflix parody American Vandal, which both codifies and spoofs the conventions of the new highbrow true crime, roasting the genre’s earnest tone in its depiction of a Serial-like investigation of some lewd graffiti.

There is also the trend in the post–true-crime era of dramatizing famous crime stories, like in The Bling Ring; I, Tonya; and Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, all of which dwell not only on the stories of infamous crimes but also why they captured the public imagination. There is a camp element in these retellings, particularly when famous actors like John Travolta and Sarah Paulson are hamming it up in ridiculous wigs. But this self-consciousness often works to these projects’ advantage, allowing them to show heightened versions of the cultural moments that led to the most outsize tabloid crime stories. Many of these fictionalized versions take journalistic accounts as their source material, like Nancy Jo Sales’s reporting in Vanity Fair for The Bling Ring and ESPN’s documentary on Tonya Harding, The Price of Gold, for I, Tonya. This seems like a best-case scenario for prestige true crime to me: parsing famous cases from multiple angles and in multiple genres, trying to understand them both on the level of individual choices and cultural forces.

Perhaps the most significant contributions to post–true crime, though, are the recent wave of personal accounts about murder and crime: literary memoirs like Down City by Leah Carroll, Mean by Myriam Gurba, The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick, After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry, and We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Grey Carlisle all tell the stories of murder seen from close-up. (It is significant that all of these books are by women. Carroll, Perry, and Carlisle all write about their mothers’ murders, placing them in the tradition of James Ellroy’s great memoir My Dark Places, but without the tortured, fetish-y tone.) This is not a voyeuristic first person, and the reader can’t detach and find joy in procedure; we are finally confronted with the truth of lives upended by violence and grief. There’s also Ear Hustle, the brilliant podcast produced by the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. The makers of Ear Hustle sometimes contemplate the bad luck and bad decisions that led them to be incarcerated, but more often they discuss the concerns of daily life in prison, like food, sex, and how to make mascara from an inky page from a magazine. This is a crime podcast that is the opposite of sensational, addressing the systemic truth of crime and the justice system, in stories that are mundane, profound, and, yes, addictive.

#true crime #adnan syed #media #ethics #The Way We Live Now #culture #andrew jarecki #james ellroy #criminal justice #detective fiction

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zdbztumble · 4 years

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GUNDAM WING review

For how much of it appears on this blog, Pokemon is more “comfort food” entertainment than a great passion of mine, and the same was true when I was a child. Back in my late grade school days, the two shows that dominated my thought, my viewing schedule, my play and my early writing were Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing. Like a lot of kids, I can thank Toonami for that. But while I’ve checked in on Dragon Ball, off and on, since those days, I haven’t seriously revisited Gundam Wing since it left Toonami years ago. Sharing OPs with a friend on Discord led to the Wing openings coming up, however, and with the series being free to view on Crunchyroll, I thought I’d give it a rewatch.

There’s no subtle way to put this - Gundam Wing does not hold up to my childhood memories. It’s a mess of a show that frequently falls short of its own ambition. But it remains an enjoyable - even admirable - mess.

The single biggest reason that Gundam Wing is such a mess - the single biggest reason for nearly all of its flaws - is that it’s too short. At 49 episodes (two of which are given over to a clip show recap halfway through), the show isn’t long enough to contain all the story it wants to tell. By way of demonstration, and for those who don’t know/remember the series, I tried to summarize the basic plot of the series in just a few paragraphs here.

Look at that. Look at all that text in a basic outline. That was me paring away all but the most essential details needed to understand what happens in the series. Now imagine trying to fit all of that into 47 episodes while also including character interaction and development, action sequences, aesthetic elements, and a good chunk of essential information being revealed via backstory and vague insinuations only fleshed out in the OVA and manga series.

Things start out promisingly enough, with the action beginning on Operation Meteor and the initial conflict emerging gradually. But it doesn’t take long for the brevity of the series to work against the intrigues happening within it. To say that the show falls into “tell, don’t show” would suggest that it gets across more information than it actually does. Narration opens most episodes with some degree of recap, and occasionally within episodes, but this device is established from the first episode and is usually effectively used in the context of ongoing action. The problem spots are where the show neglects to tell or show almost anything.

Because the series is so short, and because all screentime is spent with either the series leads or the major supporting characters, there’s never an opportunity to showcase the state of world and colonial affairs, and little opportunity taken to describe them outside of the opening narration. Consequently, any feeling of oppression, subjugation, or desperation for the colonies - and thus, a sense of what the Gundams are fighting for - isn’t present at the beginning of the series, and doesn’t ever really emerge. There is some sense of danger towards the end of the series, but it results from the various conflicts that happen within the show, not the state of affairs from the initial premise. Earth’s condition is similarly underdeveloped; if anything is showcased on Earth, it’s beauty. Characters will occasionally talk about the desperate straits of the Gundam pilots, and the pilots themselves will take developments like the targeting of the colonies or their betrayal to heart. The VAs and the animation are strong enough to sell such developments, but the lack of world-building to support them does hurt the series.

But it’s the developments around the Sanc Kingdom and Relena’s relevance to the story suffer the most from the show’s failure to show or tell. After Zechs liberates the kingdom, Relena’s installation as its ruler is set up but never depicted. Relena’s outreach to other nations, and her building up support for total pacifism, is also never shown, and barely discussed. She and Zechs are never even seen to have a conversation until near the very end of the series. There’s plenty of discussion of how inspiring and charismatic Relena is, and why she should be heeded and protected, but with none of the work behind that charisma shown and little of it discussed in detail, there’s little emotional resonance to be had here. Relena’s efforts as queen of the world are slightly more fleshed out, but when Zech’s declaration of war against Earth happens in the same episode - happens, if memory serves, less than a second after Relena makes significant inroads - the notion of Relena as an effective spokeswoman for pacifism is severely undercut by the series’ own haste.

Beyond the plot, all of this naturally damages Relena’s character. Relena begins the series as a somewhat bratty, somewhat depressed girl often neglected by her family due to her stepfather’s job, who finds Heero’s sudden presence in her life a vicarious if dangerous thrill. The murder of her stepfather and the revelation of her true identity further shake her out of teenage ennui and move her to take part in the great events of her time. Like the show itself, it’s a promising beginning, but because Relena’s greatest achievements are glossed over - and because, being a pacifist and a diplomat, she can’t be involved at the point of action - Relena ends up spending a lot of time on the sidelines, looking grim or worried. Worse, when the final conflict between Treize and White Fang emerges, Relena is completely ineffectual at trying for peace with Zechs, and any opportunity for her to use the soft power of her (brief) reign as ceremonial monarch to further the cause of peace isn’t taken, leaving her largely irrelevant to the finale. Relena is less a full-fledged character in Gundam Wing than a solid concept for a character that couldn’t grow to fruition in the time allotted.

The same could be said of the series protagonist, Heero Yuy. In his case, there is at least a bit more told; his scientist mentor describes him as a kind-hearted young man whose devotion to his mission has rendered him a dangerous assassin, Relena instinctively latches onto what kindness and idealism she can sense in him, various characters are inspired by his skills and his devotion to his mission. But there’s little to no evidence of the kind-hearted young man underneath the child soldier, at least not in the initial episodes. We only see the cold-blooded Gundam pilot, and that pilot has the worst starting luck out of any of them, from his Gundam being brought down to his attempts to destroy it failing. His willingness - even eagerness - to die for his cause comes up so often in the beginning of the series that it ends up losing its punch. But being the series lead, and getting more screentime by dint of being a Gundam pilot, Heero does ultimately get fleshed out more than Relena. His remorse over inadvertently killing the Alliance pacifists and his blunt but pragmatic advice to the other Gundam pilots do let his softer side emerge later on. His struggle to find a reason to keep going in the fight in the middle of the series - something multiple characters go through - is rather muddled (not helped by some obtuse and stilted dialogue, another major fault in the series), but he comes out of that mess resolved to protect Relena and defeat White Fang - so much so that he not only unites with the other pilots, but designates Quatre Raberba Winner as their leader instead of himself because he recognizes what’s best for the team. The series ultimately benefits from his being the main character because of developments like this, but the journey is more awkward and choppy than it needed to be, and his romance with Relena and rivalry with Zechs are never fully convincing even if their basic mutual interest in one another is.

Stilted dialogue more than absent material is what most works against series antagonists Zechs and Treize, though Zechs’s lack of scenes with his sister and an abrupt jump from Sanc Kingdom spokesman to genocidal avenger are an issue. The philosophical notions that pepper Zechs’s and Treize’s monologues and conversations - the nature of war, the value of soldiers’ sacrifice, mankind’s natural proclivities, the possibility of peace and what it would take to achieve it - are all fascinating, and I’m still amazed that a show that spent so much time on these subjects was put in an afterschool block bound to attract younger kids back in the day. But for every speech that’s thought-provoking and emotionally resonant, there are three that are a chore to sit through and a puzzle to comprehend. Granted, the Crunchyroll subtitles for this series aren’t the best, so that may partly explain and excuse this problem. But especially in the middle of the series, where allegiances shift and motivations collapse, having the principle antagonists be so difficult to understand isn’t ideal.

Then there are the plot holes - mostly characters who somehow survived apparent deaths with little to no explanation - and characters who just don’t work. One of them is unfortunately a Gundam pilot - Chang Wu Fei, an arrogant misogynist wrapped up in his own ideals of combat who resists any teamwork or even temporary alliances with his fellow Gundams until the very end of the series, and is an unreliable partner even then. None of this would make him a bad character - one hardly needs to be likable or relatable to be an effective and compelling presence in a story - but Wu Fei has virtually no chemistry with the other Gundams, or any character, when actually does interact with them, except for ex-Alliance soldier Sally Po. His standoffishness and stoicism are traits shared by Heero and Trowa Barton, making his seem redundant, and his professed ideals of combat are muddled by bad dialogue. His great rivalry with Treize is also on shaky ground; they only interact twice in the entire series. But Wu Fei is at least comprehensible; Dorothy Catalonia, a Romefeller spy who takes an almost sexual delight in war, is not only obnoxious and intrusive when she appears in the second half of the series, but her motivations seem to swing wildly, her allegiances impossible to follow, and I sorely wish she had died by the end of the series.

With all of those faults laid bare - I did say the show was enjoyable and admirable in spite of everything, and indeed it is. Wu Fei may be redundant and Heero only a partial success as a character, but the other three Gundam pilots are well-realized, so much so that I’m baffled to see various critiques of this show imply that they’re static and one-note. Duo Maxwell is essentially the same person at the end of the series as he was at the beginning, but he’s a wonderful source of levity in the series, and he does have his trials and his low points that contrast well with his typical personality; his moments of anger and despair are some of the best in the series for selling the stakes of the conflict in the absence of proper world-building. Trowa, while much less emotive, goes through a significant journey, with his sibling-esque relationship with circus performer Catherine far more emotionally satisfying than either the Peacecrafts’ bond or Heero and Relena’s romance.

And then there’s Quatre, my new favorite character from this series. I didn’t take a great deal of notice of him as a kid, but rediscovering his story has been my favorite thing about this rewatch. A bright, gentle, and friendly personality, disdainful of violence but prepared to fight for a worthy cause, driven to despair and madness by the loss of his father and the ZERO system, only to emerge as the repentant leader of the Gundams, instrumental in bringing them together as a unit and binding them to Relena’s ideals; of all the pilots, he sees the most growth and change, and all the essentials to his story actually make it on screen. He also has the allegiance of the Maganac Corps, a group that doesn’t have a great deal of importance to the series...but they do have a cool name and cooler mobile suits.

And if Relena is somewhat lacking as a female lead, Gundam Wing does have Sally Po, military doctor turned guerrilla fighter and stalwart Gundam ally, and Lucrezia Noin. For a character that could easily have just been Zech’s love interest, Noin sees a degree of growth throughout the series to rival Quatre’s, moving from OZ instructor to Sanc Kingdom defense captain to the instigator of the Gundams as a unit, working to defeat the man she loves. The show also avoids sexualizing any of its female cast, so - a point for that, I guess.

The designs of the Gundams are all unique (as are their abilities), and some are downright beautiful. The other mobile suits are varied as well and easy to identify, making combat easy to follow. The quality of the combat - and the animation in general - is hit and miss, but it’s never atrocious, and when it’s solid, the end result is some great shots and action. The series also boasts a fantastic soundtrack, with lovely instrumental themes and two great opening songs (though why “Rhythm Emotion” was brought in with only ten episodes left to go on the series still baffles me.)

All this contributes to Gundam Wing being enjoyable, but what makes it admirable is actually the stilted dialogue and overstuffed story that bring it down. To attempt a series that ruminates on the nature of war and the various philosophical positions around its necessity or lack thereof, of the chances for real peace, for the evolution of humanity if were to move into the stars, and the interpersonal conflicts between various characters, would be a tall order for any series, and not the easiest thing to make into visually compelling animation. That Gundam Wing made the attempt at all shows ambition and aspiration on the part of its writers and staff. As I’ve said at length here, it was frustrated by its short running time and the weaknesses of story elements and characters, but an ambitious mixed bag - even a failure - that aims high is a much more admirable (and interesting to watch) affair than a success that aims low.

And, in its failures to get certain elements across, Gundam Wing shows enough of what it was trying to do that I, at least, can forgive some (not all) rough patches. Characters like Heero and conflicts like the Gundams’ basic fight for the colonies still work despite their flaws. And the final run of episodes, where White Fang and Treize clash and the Gundams work around the battle to save the day, are incredibly strong. It’s a finale that surpasses much of the content preceding it, and if it would’ve been improved by that content being better, it still works because the intent of that earlier content can still be perceived.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering Gundam Wing, and I’d like to check out the dub again when I’m in a position to renew my Hulu subscription. For now, though - there’s a certain waltz to attend to...

#critique #review #Gundam Wing #film school training at work #commentary #z's crits

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fullmetaldevil-blog · 4 years

Text

Batim Stitched AU: Halloween Birthday Bash ch 4. Fin

Wow~ The end has come and bringing fun and games to light, but all things must come to and end this Halloween night.

SINdy and Confessional belong to @trashboatprince

Angel Henry, Bendy, Alice and Boris (Errand boy AU) all belong to @inkspottie

Bendy (ITT AU) belongs to @soniccrazygal

Beast Bendy (BBendy for short from Family AU) belongs to @doberart

Fate (Broken Cycle AU) Belongs to @vespavespa

Shadow and Ben (Shadows of the Studio AU) belong to @zanzaflux

On with the show~!

The moon hid in and out of it’s curtain of clouds with a pleasant crisp chill to the night air. The streets were bustling with groups of parents and children armed with flashlights and treat bags pacing throughout the hills seeking out homes offering candy. Pumpkins and gourds lined homes sporting many designs carved into them with small candles offering up their little light to the night air. Some homes had fog machines placed in random locales casting a low fog over some areas with a few older kids hiding out in the bushes jumping out at random passerbys.

Allison was thankful she encouraged the toons to all wear some sort of long sleeve as while it wasn’t exactly cold, it was cool enough to want to be dressed a little on the warm side. Shadow helped pull the cart while Allison told the cat which way to go as she wanted the first stop to be grandma’s house. They stopped at the base of the home with Benny eagerly running to the familiar home and carefully opened the gate before continuing further in. At the toons sudden motion, the others soon gave chase and caught up to their friend as soon as he knocked on the door calling out ‘trick-or-treat’

Janice could hear the cluster of children in front of her home as she had decided to camp out in the living room to deal with the visitors throughout the night as the elderly ladies were already asleep. She got up from her couch and grasped onto the candy bowl by her doorway and opened the door. She nearly jumped at the sight of a cluster of devils all wearing bee costumes, while one looked questionably like a shark, as well as a few other characters dressed in costume as well. She thought she was losing her mind as all of the presumed children in front of her strongly resemble toons, but the only ones she knew were Benny and Bendy. A look of confusion crossed her face as she took in the children before her.

Benny noticed the look on Janice’s face. “Hi Ms. Janice!” the toon chirped gaining her attention.

Janice looked down at the toon before doing a double take realizing it was little Benny. “Hey sweetie.” she bent down to give the toon a one arm hug which he happily squeaked in her embrace. “Trick-or-treating tonight?”

“Yep. It’s my first time.” Benny eagerly grinned at her.

“Oh in that case, let me get the good stuff.” Janice let him go and retreated back inside the home before coming back with an arm full of king size chocolate bars. “I have enough for each one of you, but what do we say?”

Benny’s grin couldn’t possibly get any wider, but somehow it did as he held out his bag. “Trick-or-treat and thank you!”

Janice laughed before setting a bar in Benny’s bag with the toon stepping aside to let his friends all get theirs. Everyone lined up with each saying trick or treat along with their thanks while Allison and Henry watched from the edge of the property. Janice spotted the pair and walked out of the home and up to them.

“So I see you’re chaperoning tonight.” Janice hugged Allison. “And hello sir, nice to meet you, my name is Janice.” the caretaker looked at Henry who stood next to the actress.

“His name is Henry” Allison spoke out gaining Janice’s attention. “He can’t speak, but he’s helping me keep an eye on the kids tonight.

Janice chuckled at watching the toons chat with one another “And I see you have a good number of them. Why are they all wearing two costumes?”

“Oh they aren’t wearing two costumes, the only one doing that is SINdy. They are all toons.” Allison gestured to the group earning a shocked look from Janice, but before the caretaker could ask, she decided to clarify. “See it’s Benny’s birthday and I invited all his friends who happen to be toons like him and his uncle.” she gestured to Henry. “Over to celebrate and to go trick-or-treating, they aren’t from around here which is why you’ve never seen them before.”

Janice nodded in understanding before she turned towards the home. “Well I best not keep you all here as you still have a good walk ahead of you. It’s good you started early so you can get the most candy.” She waved to the toons. “Good luck to you guys and Happy Birthday Benny, be sure to pop by tomorrow when the ladies are up.”

The toons waved and thanked her before they hastily retreated back to the cart to continue their journey down the road. Their travels were fruitful as the toons happily waved their bags of candy. BBendy and Shadow were both enjoying themselves as even they were getting candy since people thought BBendy was a guy on stilts and Shadow was a dressed up dog. Neither Allison or Henry were about to clue in their unsuspecting neighbors and opted to let them believe that little fantasy of theirs.

Eager to get to the next set of homes as a little cul de sac set up a multi house haunted corner full of scary characters and lots of candy, Benny darted ahead of his friends whom were chasing after the eager toon. The plushtoon rounded the corner only to let out a shriek in fear falling on his butt as a masked figure jumped out at him brandishing an ax roaring at the toon. The little demon dropped his candy trying to scramble away as the masked individual laughed at the frightened toon as he was sent crying running back to Allison attaching himself to her leg. The masked individual gladly helped himself to Benny’s bag and ran before the remainder of the toons had a chance to react.

“B-Benny sweetie what happened?” Allison tried to calm the crying toon as he refused to remove himself from her side.

SINdy caught up to his friend and nudged Allison to get her attention. ‘Someone wearing a costume jumped out and scared Benny. He then took his candy.’

“But what could have scared him so?” Allison said in a low tone as she repeatedly rubbed Benny’s back trying to soothe him. Alice joined her in humming to the toon trying to calm him down. She was silently thankful Alice’s voice was similar to hers as she could focus on Benny for her as she tried to find out what happened.

“It was an ax” Fate frowned at the sight of his friend. “I think the motion of the guy jumping at him and the ax is what scared him.”

Fate’s words tugged at Allison’s old memories of Benny’s earliest days of him fearing Joey and the man's choice of weapon in trying to kill him was an ax. It was the sole reason why Tom kept his ax well out of sight of the toon as just seeing one put Benny on edge or would he would flee in fear.

Henry’s Bendy scowled at the scene before him. Everyone was having a perfectly fun and enjoyable night and then someone had to ruin it. He noticed the other Bendy and Shadow were both staring off in a particular direction, seemingly transfixed on where the individual ran to. A little thought crossed his mind as he remembered a little unique trait that the other Bendy had. He gently eased himself away from Henry and walked up to the other toon.

“Bendy, you can see the souls of people correct?” the toon nodded. “Then can you ‘see’ where the guy went to?”

Bendy realized what Henry’s Bendy was getting at and focused on the soul of the individual that frightened his friend. Sure enough, he saw that the soul had fled to one of the backsides of the buildings and seemed to have joined in with a few others. Their souls had a sickly glow to them as the group clearly wasn’t up to any good and if he had to guess, Benny wasn’t their only target tonight.

“I see them” he answered Henry’s Bendy earning a mischievous grin from the toon.

“You can?You know where they went?” the demon eagerly rubbed his hands together. Bendy nodded at the toons response before Henry’s Bendy’s grins got almost impossibly wide as he began to take on his ink demon form.

Henry tapped his foot on the ground crossing his arms at the transformed toon with the other Bendy following suit and transforming into his ink devil form unfurling his wings. ‘Now what exactly do you think you’re doing?’

“Well Halloween is a day where the demon’s come out to play.” Bendy turned to face the direction that the Ink Devil had pointed at. “I say we go play with them a little bit as a ‘thank you’ for messing with our friend.”

Henry pinched the area between his eyes shaking his head, he wanted to say ‘no’ but at the same time, karma does come back around. He was about to give his answer when Allison spoke up.

“Just don’t get caught.” The actress looked at the group with clear intent on her face gently passing Benny to Alice. “Don’t get caught, and don’t hurt them.”

The demon’s faces all turned maniacal before the group split up. Ink Devil took to the skies, Henry’s Bendy disappeared into an ink portal while Shadow and BBendy split up. Boris rounded up the bags the demon’s left behind choosing to hang onto them for them and brought them back to Allison and Henry.

Alice looked down at the curled up demon in her arms, she let out a small sigh in gratitude as he wasn’t shaking anymore and seems to have calmed down. She balanced the toon gently in one arm and rested her hand between his horns rubbing them. “Feeling better sweetie?” Her answer was a small nod as a pair of mismatched piecut eyes met her own. She gently set the smaller toon down for while Benny stayed nestled between her and Allison.

Allison chuckled at the silence of the evening looking at Henry who was focused on the direction the demons scampered to. “I only shudder to think what they are gonna do.”

Henry turned and nodded in agreement before he noticed that SINdy was the only Bendy toon that didn’t go to terrorize their evening nuisance. The angel grabbed his halo stretching it out and waved for SINdy’s attention.

‘How come you didn’t go?’ the angel lifted a brow in confusion.

‘Well Confessional wanted to go, but I wanted to keep an eye on my friend.’ the cardboard demon frowned at the angel. ‘I felt it was more important to watch over my friends rather than to go after the sinner.’

Pride swelled in the parents' hearts before SINdy felt himself being pulled into a hug by Allison. “And I thank you for wanting to make sure your friend was ok.”

SINdy happily wiggled in Allison’s grasp. He wanted to go after the sinner, but his friends are more important to him, and besides, he knew that the other Bendy’s wouldn’t just take it lying down and do something about it. Allison felt nudging as he looked next to her side to see Benny leaning against her and she scooped him up hugging both him and SINdy.

Allison stayed that way hugging the two toons until they hear a loud cluster of shrill screams as a group of young teenage boys burst out from behind one of the houses screaming about monsters. The actress looked up from the two boys as a gleeful look graced her face as the boys were clambering over each other and and tangling themselves up in Halloween props trying to get away before they broke free and tore down the street screaming. Benny looked up to see his mother's face as while he knew she was always a sweetheart, he could have sworn he saw a set of devil horns on her before realizing it was a trick of the light off her antenna bandana.

“Have fun boys?” The actress asked as the demons returned to the group with both Henry's Bendy and Bendy shedding their larger form reverting to their toon states.

“We got the sinners, but we weren’t able to recover the candy. Only the bag.” Bendy frowned as he held up Benny’s now empty bag.

Benny gently grasped onto his empty bag with a small frown before he sighed turning it into a shadow of a smile. “At least you guys were nice enough to get it back. I can always replace the candy.”

The toons felt bad as their friend lost his candy and bowed their heads in guilt. Shadow murmured quietly before trotting up to boris and reclaiming it’s bag and returned to Benny. The toon looked at the large cat confused before shadows mouth split open and it gently bit onto a candy bar lifting it out of it’s bag and dropped it into Benny’s.

“Shadow you don’t have to-” Benny started before the cat growled at him and lifted a few more pieces of it’s candy dropping them into his bag.

Shadow gave Benny a quarter of it’s bag and soon found Benny’s arms wrapped around its neck hugging it with the toon whispering his thanks over and over. The cat purred and gently nuzzled it’s companion. It felt bad that they couldn’t get the candy back, but it’s not like it would really eat the candy it got for the holiday. If anything it would just give it’s candy to Junes girls back at home

While the inky cat was giving some of it’s candy to Benny, both Bendy’s looked at their bags and then at each other. BBendy grunted rolling his shoulders at the contemplating toons before striding past them and reclaimed his bag from Boris. He waited for Shadow to step aside before reaching into his bag and pulled out a few pieces and dropped them into Benny’s bag as well. Once he was done he turned his head towards his 2 smaller iterations snorting at them before walking over to Henry and sitting down next to the man.

The larger demon’s actions spoke volumes. ‘If I can share some of mine, then you can share some of yours’.

Both Bendy’s sighed and soon found themselves being nudged forward by Fate with the group approaching Benny. Each of them pulled out a portion of their candy giving it to the plushtoon with words of apology. Boris and Alice happily gave Benny some of their candy with Alice giving the toon a small hug asking him if he felt better. Boris had to almost peel Benny off him as the cartoon wolf gave him his king size bar as some chocolates preferring to keep the lollipops for himself.

Benny was so happy that his friends were willing to share with him to make up for his loss. He carefully slipped out of his costume and made sure no one was around before transforming into his Ragdoll form. His threads laced about the area gently pulling all his friends except Shadow who opted to lean against the demons side, to himself wrapping them all up in one big hug. “ThAnK yOu EvErYoNe.”

The group all laughed at the sudden group hug while Allison checked her watch. “All right boys, it’s getting pretty late. We should head home.” she called out of the bundle of toons earning various ‘nooos’ and ‘do we have to?’

Henry held up his halo ‘She’s right. We still have to walk back to Benny’s house and then head home from there. People generally stop passing out candy past a certain hour as the children tire out quickly.’ The angel gestured around with the toons realizing that the streets were now very quiet and that most of the houses had their lights off.

SINdy let out a small yawn before quickly covering his mouth looking at Allison sheepishly. She laughed before scooping up the cardboard toon as well as her own and helped them into the beehive cart. Shadow got the hint and trotted back to the harness and slid it’s head through it and managed to get itself in the reins. Boris was content with walking with Henry, but he helped Alice sit atop the cart while Henry’s Bendy was more content with riding on his creators shoulders. BBendy was showing signs of tiring as he whined slightly and sat down on occasion. Allison felt bad as she didn’t know if the cart was strong enough to support the weight of the demon given the fact that only she and Shadow were moving the cart.

Fate smiled and gently grasped onto the large demon as well as onto the reins of the cart. “Henry can you grab onto Bendy please?” The god looked over the angel with Henry looking at him confused. He didn’t question the golden Bendy and grabbed onto BBendy’s arm. Once Fate was certain that everyone was in contact with one another he glowled slightly and snapped his fingers.

------------------------------

Tom stretched in his chair he set out in the front of the house as he glanced at his near empty bowl. He was surprised by how many children braved their long driveway to the house as their home wasn’t exactly welcoming looking at night. He set the bowl on the seat of the chair and lifted it up to carry it inside when a flash of light lit one side of the house briefly.

“What the hell?” The mechanic set the chair down and looked towards the source of the light.

Allison, Henry and the rest of the toons were all standing on the side of the house with a few of them looking around confused. Henry’s feathers were puffed up from the travel and Allison was wide-eyed immediately spinning her head around at her surroundings. The woman clearly baffled at the movement and the familiarity of her surroundings.

‘Honey?” Tom called to her attracting her attention

Fate grinded widely “And we’re back.”

Allison was shocked at the sudden travel by the little golden Bendy, then again he is a god so at the same time she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. Part of her was thankful that Fate was able to transport them all home as she was feeling pity for BBendy who was tired but still had to walk. She was taken out of her thoughts as she felt something nudging her side as BBendy was gently nuzzling her making gurgling sounds that vaguely sounded like ‘thank you’.

“You’re welcome big guy.” Allison laid her hand alongside the demons jaw and gently scratched him at the base of his horns. “I hope you had fun. Don’t be a stranger and have a good night.”

BBendy nodded and stepped away as Fate came up to the actress. “It was a pleasure to meet you in person and I hope to see you soon. I’m gonna take BBendy home for ya Henry.”

Henry nodded ‘Thanks, My toons are getting tired so I’m gonna have my hands full.’

“My door is always open Fate, thanks again for coming.” Allison lightly hugged the golden Bendy.

“Nice to know, but I don’t use doors. Just set out enough glitter and I’ll come running.” the toon beamed at her before gently grabbing onto BBendy and with the snap of the fingers and a small flash of light they were gone.

A yawn broke the brief silence as Henry’s Bendy yawned and clung sleepily to his creator getting a small chuckle out of Henry as the man readjusted his hold on the toon. ‘I guess it’s time for me to head home.’ The angel looked back at Allison and held his hand out. ‘Thank you for inviting us over and I apologize again for bringing the toons, but I’m glad they all had fun at the end of the day, even if there was a little mishap in the end.’

Allison accepted Henry’s hand and pulled the angel into a one arm hug as to not crush Bendy in his arm. “You’re welcome. I’m just glad that Benny has such good friends like you to where he calls you family. If you’re family in his eyes, you’re family in mine.”

“Which means you needs to visit more.” Tom came over and patted the angel on the shoulder.

A warm smile crossed Henry’s face as he lightly cleared his throat. “T-Thank you.” he softly spoke.

Alice looked at her creator worried about him speaking since it’s excruciating on his throat, but she knew he meant it. Henry cares about the little plushtoon and Benny cares for him in turn. In a way they all were an estranged family spread across multiple worlds. She gently slid off the cart with Boris catching her and she peered inside the cart to say goodbye to Benny only to see both Benny and SINdy sound asleep. Henry looked over at her and began to walk to the cart but she waved him off and pretended to lay her head on a pillow asleep, the angel getting the hint.

‘I see the boys are all tuckered out for the day.’ Henry feigned laughing before looking back at Allison and Thomas. ‘Thanks again and good night to you and your family.’

Allison watched as Henry’s halo dripped a bit of a golden fluid that he collected in the palm of his hand. Boris gently took Bendy off Henry’s shoulders allowing the man access to his other hand that he used to draw what resembled a door on the side of the wall. To their amazement the door shifted turning from a drawing to a real door. The angel waited a moment before resting his hand on the doorknob.

‘Let's go home’

He opened the door revealing a tunnel as Alice stepped in first followed by Boris. Henry looked back at Allison and Tom nodding slightly before he stepped through and shut the door behind himself. The door stayed solid for a time before it reverted back to a drawing and faded away leaving behind a blank wall.

“Well Ma’am, it’s been a pleasure” Bendy strode up to Allison shaking her hand as well as Toms.

“Likewise Bendy. Don’t be a stranger.” the actress smiled at the toon.

“I’ll see you around everyone. Thank you for inviting me and happy birthday Benny.” the toon beamed at his sleeping friend before he pulled out a book.

The book floated in the toons hands before it opened to reveal a bright light engulfing the toon. Bendy’s black body began to turn gold as it seemed to melt away as it spiraled around the book and disappeared into it’s pages. Once the swirls of golden ink was gone the light faded with it and the book slowly dissipated into a mist before vanishing altogether.

The stillness of the night had been restored as all the demons had returned to their homes say for one little straggler. SINdy was sound asleep next to his friend in the cart earning a soft smile from Allison as she scooped up both sleeping toons out of the cart and quietly asked for Tom to put the cart away. Shadow freed itself of the harness and helped Tom push the cart back into the garage while Allison retreated inside to put the toons to bed. It wouldn't sit well with her to wake SINdy and ask him to go home. There was no harm in letting him spend one more night.

Allison entered the home and headed straight for the couch which had been folded up and put away with all the blankets stacked neatly on top of it. She was thankful the toons were children sized as she carefully slid SINdy’s night shirt on him and set him on one side of the couch before dressing Benny and set him on the other. Just as she finished dressing her toon and covered them both with a blanket she heard soft murmuring and looked to see shadow looking at her with its head bowed.

Shadow felt bad that it’s creator hadn’t come for it yet, it had hoped that it would be going home around the time everyone else was going home. Then again, neither it nor it’s creator had any clue as to what time it was in Benny’s world when it got dropped off. It sat on its haunches at a loss as for what it was supposed to do. Allison motioned for Shadow to come to her for which it obliged, it soon found the actress scratching it behind it’s stubby horns.

“It’s ok Shadow. If you have to spend another night here that’s fine. I’m sure Ben will come and get you first thing in the morning.” she reassured the ink cat. “There’s enough room on the couch so you can rest.”

Shadow murmured softly before gently headbutting her in her stomach purring before it carefully climbed atop the couch as to not disturb it’s sleeping occupants. It used it’s tail to gently lift SINdy and his blanket while pulling Benny with its forepaws as it laid the two sleeping toons against it’s side with itself acting as a pillow. Allison fetched a small blanket and covered the inky cat and toons while the cat curled its tail around them protectively.

“G-night Shadow” Allison whispered petting the cat before heading into the kitchen to enjoy a little relaxation time before heading to bed.

Tom entered the kitchen and set himself up a cup of tea as he relaxed in the chair inviting Allison to join him for some idle chatter about the days events. The couple swapping stories about their dealings with the toons and how much fun they had with their respective personalities. Allison had to admit it was cute seeing Benny’s energetic and playful side that he mostly shows when he’s around Bendy. Seeing him behaving more like the toon he’s supposed to be brought a smile to both parents face. They could hardly believe that their toon knew so many interesting characters from other places and the light hints about other people who the toon had heard of by never met. It made them realize that what they thought was a small studio family between them, their Henry and fellow survivors was in truth part of a much larger family spread across several worlds.

Meanwhile Shadow barely laid it’s head down to settle in for the night until movement next to it caught it’s attention. SINdy slowly got out off the bed before turning around and retucked Benny and Shadow back in their blankets. The ink cat tilted its head at the sudden movement from the toon before noticing that the toons eyes were very different. The cat felt like what he was looking at was a different being in its entire.

SINdy rested his gloved hand over his chest above his heart and gently removed it without disturbing it too much causing the toons form to melt into a large puddle. Shadow was alarmed at the sudden action and wanted to inspect the spot before the puddle rippled and bulged upwards taking a large shape. The black mass settled into a cape like form before opening and settling down upon the shoulders of a full grown man with pointed ears and long curved horns that curled downwards like a rams. The man's pale complexion and glowing yellow eyes drifting in a sea of black smiled down at the inky cat with a single finger over his mouth quietly shushing to feline.

“It’s ok. I’m just here to have a lIttle talk and then I’ll let his body rest.” the man spoke to Shadow before turning and heading towards the kitchen.

Allison and Tom were both enjoying their tea with Tom listening to Allison recounting the incident with Benny and the masked teenager. Naturally Tom was angry as he wanted Benny’s first Halloween to be a fun one with his friends and it left a bad taste in his mouth that the kid frightened the toon so easily with an ax. The mechanic still blamed himself over the toons very real fear of the tool as it was the weapon of choice by Joey when the man tried to kill him. A scowl formed on his face at Allison’s words, but it soon morphed into alarm at the appearance of a tall horned man in their kitchen.

“Who are you?!” Tom immediately rose from his chair on the defensive at their intruder.

“Nice to meet the both of you in person.” A smile graced the man's face as he took a slight bow calmly. “My name is Confessional. I’m sure you’ve heard quite a bit about me from Benny and SINdy.”

Allison was shocked at her sudden intruder until the man spoke his name. Confessional. A demon that Benny had told her that resides within SINdy who helps keep and eye on the toons, a being that is seldom seen yet is always there.

“N-Nice to meet you Confessional.” Allison cleared her throat finding her voice. “ Um... would you like to join us?” she gestured to the table.

“Why thank you.” Confessional nodded as he fully entered the room.

Tom had only briefly heard of the name Confessional from Allison when she was giving him the list of visitors, but the demon never showed up. He had assumed that Confessional would be a sort of Bendy toon like most of Benny’s friends or maybe vaguely resembling the Ink Demon, but a human male with horns? He was not expecting.

Confessional took the offered seat as Allison got up to fetch him a mug to set him up with some tea. All the while Confessional waited patiently while the charm at the base of his neck that strongly resembled an eye seemed to stare at Thomas making the man slightly uncomfortable. He had no clue how the toons seemed to enjoy this man's presence as he was very intimidating. He had a calm demeanor, but it was like the charm that resembled an eye seemed to stare into ones soul.

“Here you go.” Allison set down a mug filled with hot water and a floating tea bag. “There a little cream and sugar if you want any.”

“Thank you.” Confessional waved his hand slightly as he wasn’t interested in the additional items. He gently squeezed out the tea bag and set it aside before taking a sip of his tea.

An awkward silence filled the air as neither Allison nor Tom knew what to say to their sudden guest. To say that Confessional was a little intimidating was an understatement as the couple lightly fidgeted while the demon helped himself to some tea.

A chuckle drifted through the air from the demon as Confessional set his cup down to look at the pair before him. “For starters I don’t bite, and second I’d like to give you my thanks.”

“For what?” Tom spoke as he fiddled with his mug, the eye charm still staring at him.

“For taking SINdy in.” The demon looked at Tom before turning his gaze to Allison. “You offered him a place of refuge that he may visit at any time should he need it. The studio isn’t a forgiving place as there are some… complications, on our end that make escaping the studio exceptionally difficult. While he himself can leave at any time, his perceived ‘father’ cannot. For him to be allowed to come and go from this place that gives him a mental break from the stress of the studio to replace it with a joy of being with friends, for that I am thankful.”

Allison’s gaze turned from the demon and to her mug in her grasp as she ran her finger along the rim. “He doesn’t deserve it. SINdy is a little sweetheart. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being stuck in that place.”

“Like how Benny had left there before.” Confessional bluntly pointed out as he leaned back in his chair. “You sympathize with him because you both feel guilty over what happened with Benny and how he had been left behind in that little room cause of lack of communication and trust. Then the studio collapsed imprisoning him and both of you in that place for 30 years.”

“D-did Benny tell you about that?” Allison softly spoke while Tom stayed quiet, but it was clear that regret was on both their faces. They both questioned how much Benny had told his friends about his past as there were some parts that he hasn’t even told them.

“My name isn’t Confessional for no reason. I’m a sin eater and I can see the sins of your past. I just want to make sure that you aren’t taking SINdy in as a way to make up for what you both failed to do.” the demon crossed his arms staring at the parents with both of them averting their gazes in contemplation.

The sineating demon had no intention of separating Benny and SINdy as they were best friends, but he wanted to make sure that Allison and Tom weren’t welcoming in the cardboard demon as a way to make up for their neglect to their plushtoon. Trying to solve one’s problem for one toon doesn’t make up for the mistake with another.

“I-I know I really messed up back then, and nothing I do now will fix it.” Tom’s words breaking the silence. “But he’s a cute toon and doesn’t deserve the hand that’s been dealt to him. What type of person would I be if I didn’t help those that needed it when I am able? I can’t fix what I did then, and Benny knows that, but I can do my best to fix the things within our grasp now and keep them safe. SINdy is Benny’s best friend and those two are like brothers. So if Benny accepts him then I, no, we accept him as our own and he has a place here, should he ever need it.”

Tom stared at Confessional with conviction, he may not have known SINdy for very long, but the toon grew on him quickly. Watching the little toons interact with one another was like watching two siblings laugh and play. Having a fellow toon that Benny could be himself around was more than what he could ask for. Benny spent so long isolated that he needed someone to help hold his hand and to push through life. His friends were able to fill in the gap that he and Allison couldn’t fill with needing to keep a roof over their heads, and for that he was thankful.

Confessional looked at both parents who both were looking at him with determination. He could see that they meant what they said and that SINdy was in good hands. A shadow of a smile crept across his face before he finished the last of his tea and set the mug down. “Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that SINdy is in good hands. I didn’t mean to give you both such a hard time as that was not my intent. I am in charge of the little demon and I value his well being above all else.”

“I understand” Allison smiled warmly at the sineater. “You’re his guardian when Sammy isn’t around and you just want to make sure the boy is happy. Any parent can understand the desire, we just want the little ones to be happy and safe.”

Confessional closed his eyes chuckling. “Well said. Anyways, thank you for the tea and allowing him to stay. I bid you two a good night.” The demon rose from the chair handing Allison the mug.

“Thank you Confessional.” Allison softly spoke.

“And thank you for trusting us.” Tom added in as the two watched the demon leave the kitchen and head towards the living room.

Shadow felt a presence approach it as it lifted it head to see the demon from earlier. The man held out a small heart before pulling it into his form, his body melted into an inky puddle before pulling together to form the familiar form of SINdy. The toon slowly crawled into bed and pulled the covers over himself nestling into the inky cats side before falling asleep. All the while Allison and Tom watched the sineating demon revert to his much smaller counterpart as he let the little toons body rest. The couple looked at each other decided that perhaps they too should call it a night and head for bed.

------------

The kitchen was full of hustle and bustle first thing in the morning with Allison practically tearing apart her pantry pulling out any item she could think of all the while stuffing them into a backpack. She knew that the studio wasn’t forgiving to SINdy and Sammy, but if she could make it a little easier on them then she was gonna damn well try. Small yawns and the sound of little shoes alerted her to the arrival of Benny and SINdy yawning as they were trying to wipe the sleep from their eyes. Shadow was gently nudging the toons towards the kitchen doorway as the little demonic sloths were dragging their feet. The little toons both mumbling smalls sounds of ‘good morning.’ as they were being herded to the kitchen table.

“Good morning boys, sleep well?” Allison pulled out a few packs of noodles examining them before setting them aside.

Benny opened his eyes to see the table covered in all sorts of canned items and packages of dried foods, the toon looked at the spread in confusion. “Allison, what is all this?”

“Well SINdy’s gotta go back home so I was gonna send him home with a little care package. After all, the only thing you get in the studio is the old bacon soup which I would hardly call a well balanced meal.” The actress beamed as she pulled out the last bag of dried fruits and laid it on the table.

SINdy looked up at his friends mother in shock. ‘You don’t have to.’ the toon began before he found a finger over his mouth with Allison looking at him sternly.

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” She pulled her finger away. “I have more than enough to spare that way it’s a little easier on you and you father.”

As soon as her words left her mouth she felt little gloved hands grabbing onto her leg and a little weight leaning against her before a sign floated up for her to read.

‘Thank you so much!’ SINdy was all grins. He didn’t expect for Benny's parents to send him home with a care package for both him and his father. Words couldn’t begin to describe how happy he was.

“Now Benny can you go to the linen closet and pull out a spare set of pillows and 2 blankets?” Allison gently patted SINdy on the head before trying to finish packing the backpack. The little cardboard demon happily clinging to her.

Benny did a mock salute before heading for the linen closet and began to rummage through it. He pulled out 2 fluffy spare pillows and 2 comforter blankets before hurrying back to Allison. “I got the pillows and blankets!”

“Thanks, now can you roll them up for me and use this to tie them down so it’s easier to carry?” Allison handed the toon two ribbons for which he and SINdy rolled the two blankets as tight as they could get them before tying them off.

The pair worked together to round up all the desired items and lump them together for Allison while she prepared the backpack as well as breakfast since she wasn’t about to send SINdy or Shadow home on an empty stomach. Shadow patiently watched and stayed out of the way while they worked while keeping a vigilant eye on the breakfast on the stove. It would occasionally make a gurgling sound to alert Allison as to the status of the eggs and bacon as to make sure they wouldn’t burn.

With a little teamwork the entirety of the backpack and heater were set up. SINdy couldn’t believe Benny’s parent’s generosity in giving him such wonderful gifts. He lifted the backpack up as tucked it behind himself making it disappear into his hammerspace along with the extra canned and dried foods that couldn’t fit into the bag. Allison watched in amazement as SINdy made all the items she was sending him home with disappear. She didn’t know he had a hammerspace.

“SINdy. I didn’t know you had a hammerspace.” The actress watched in amazement as he tucked away the blankets and pillows.

‘Yep, I have a hammerspace just like Benny, except mine isn’t internal.’ The cardboard beamed up at her

“Wait, doesn’t Confessional share the hammerspace with you?” Benny tilted his head. He could already imagine the look on the demon’s face at all the items suddenly appearing in his space.

A grey blush dusted SINdy’s cheeks as he lightly scratched the back of his head. ‘Yeah, I’ve gotten a few lectures about some of the items I keep in the hammerspace as he’ll complain about me ‘junking up the place’.’

“Well I bet he won’t complain if you give him some cake.” Allison reached into the fridge and pulled out a plate with two slices of cake on it as well as a canister full of cookies. She walked up to SINdy and handed him the items for which he stowed away. “There is a slice for your dad, as well as some cookies for the both of you.”

Allison was met with another hug from the little toon before she ushered both toons and cat to the table to eat breakfast. She watched as both Benny and SINdy got into a food eating contest to see who could eat their food the fastest with Benny somehow choking on his food. How he could choke with a nonexistent neck she had no clue, but was quick to the toons rescue with a glass of milk. Needless to say both toons learned to slow down and to finish their meal. Shadow softly gurgled in amusement watching the spectacle while enjoying its slices of bacon.

Bellies were satisfied and a glance up at the clock told SINdy it was time to head home or else his dad would worry, if he wasn’t already. ‘Thank you for having me Mrs and Mr. Connor.’ SINdy hugged Allison’s legs as well as Tom’s whom had just entered the kitchen seeking a breakfast.

“You’re welcome little guy, be careful at home.” Tom tiredly yawned as his hand searched for the coffee pot, one he obtained the pot he slunk away to the corner of the kitchen to fix himself a cup.

Allison accompanied Benny, SINdy and Shadow as they headed out the backdoor and began to make their way across the yard before the wall next to the door began to ooze ink. Shadow purred happily gaining Allison’s attention as she looked to see why the cat was making a happy noise only to see a very familiar dark door appear as well as a lanky demon stepping though.

Shadow trotted up to Ben and gurgled softly as he nuzzled it’s creators outstretched hand. “Ssssorry I’mm late.”

“W-wait a moment.” a voice caught Ben’s attention as he took his attention away from Shadow and to a woman standing before him along with the familiar plushtoon demon named Benny.

The woman looked at him in his unseen eyes. “I have something for you. Can you wait a minute?” earning a small nod from the demon.

Allison hurried into the home tossing open the refrigerator door startling Tom before grabbing the plate containing the last slice of cake. Tom watched her in confusion as she grabbed the last canister of cookies with the actress briefly explaining that Ben had arrived to take Shadow home. She hoped the demon would accept her gift and paced back out the door with her treasure in hand. She walked up to the lanky demon slowly and held out the canister with the plate on top.

“Here this is for you.” she held out the present to the demon. “It’s a thank you for letting Shadow come over.”

Ben looked at the canister and plate in the woman's arms, he wasn’t expecting them to offer him a gift as a thank you for letting Shadow come to their home. It felt strange to receive a gift for such such an act of simply dropping someone off, especially since he wasn’t the one staying. He slowly extended his gloved hand and Allison gingerly placed the canister and plate onto his hand allowing to demon to withdraw his gift. Ben looked over the plate and slice of cake seemingly wondering if it was a trick, he could recall in the past that every time there was cake he never got any as sometime always happened preventing him from enjoying the treat. His inspection was met with a light chuckle taking his attention away from the plate and to the woman standing before him.

“The cake is on one of my plates.” Allison gave a small hopeful smile to the demon. “The rule of thumb is that when someone receives a plate it means that they have to come back with the plate with their own food. It's an invitation to come to the house again.”

Ben looked at the woman before he looked at Shadow, he could feel twinges of optimism from the cat. Shadow was hoping its creator would return and perhaps visit himself. The constant light nudging from the feline finally spurred Ben to speak as his stillness and silence was making Allison fidget slightly. “Thhaaaank you.”

“You’re welcome Ben.” The actress smiled at him with Benny eagerly nodding.

The demon said nothing more as he waved to his portal with Shadow taking the hint, the ink Cat turned and nuzzled Allison, Benny and SINdy before trotting through the portal. Ben took a short glance at the trio before stepping through himself. The dark doorway closed up behind the demon as the ink that made the door seemed to be swallowed with it.

“Maybe someday he’ll visit.” Benny looked up at his mom who was studying where the demon and cat disappeared to.

“Maybe. Ben is very quiet and I can’t read him at all.” Allison looked down at the two toons looking up at her. “It will probably be a little while before he comes, which is fine. We all move at a pace that suits us and his is a little slower than most, and I can’t fault him for it. We really don’t know much about him so only time can tell.”

Benny and SINdy both nodded in agreement at her words. SINdy could feel Ben’s sins radiating from the demon almost like a veil hiding something within. Perhaps someday Ben will be able to shed what’s holding him back and be who he really is. Only time can tell as it seemed that there is a lot that the demon needed to sort out and he could only hope that he has someone who is patient and is willing to give him that chance. Everyone needs a second chance.

Benny gave a small hopeful smile to the wall where Ben and Shadow disappeared. He really hoped that someday Ben would be able to come visit for real rather than simply dropping Shadow off and leaving. He wanted to get to know the demon better as he was a walking mystery, but as Allison said, he moves at a slower pace than the rest of them. He hoped he’ll eventually warm up to them and visit as a friend.

The group stared at the wall a little longer before they slowly made their way across the yard to the heart of the ring of Weeping Willow trees that wrapped Benny’s play hut in a veil of browns and golds from the fall leaves. She brushed the living curtain aside allowing the two toons to slip inside with Benny unlocking and opening the door for them. The group entered the dimly lit hut before Allison turned on the lights casting a warm glow on the interior.

SINdy gazed at his portal before turning back to look at Benny and Allison. ‘I’d like to thank you again Mrs. Allison for allowing me to come over to stay for a little while for my friends birthday, as well as the gifts you’ve given me to take home.’ the little toon hugged Allison’s leg

“You’re very welcome sweetie. I can only hope that you’ll be careful over there and if you need help you know you can always come to us.” Allison gently rubbed the small demons back returning the hug.

SINdy slowly broke the hug and then turned to hug Benny. ‘Happy Birthday Benny and I’m sorry about the scare during trick-or-treating, but I hope you had a fun birthday.’

Benny beamed at his friend giving him a tight hug before letting go. “I had a lot of fun even though there was a little mishap, it happens, but I was glad that I was able to have all of you here to celebrate. It makes it even better knowing that Allison and Tom are allowing you to come over any time to play.”

‘I look forward to it, and can we make peanut butter cookies together next time?’ SINdy looked over at Allison with a hopeful expression.

“Sure sweetie. I always have some on hand. Next time I’ll show you how to make them.” The actress chuckled at the happy toon.

SINdy silently cheered hopping from foot to foot before he accidentally stepped on a pillow in his excitement throwing off his balance. He fell backwards into his portal with his sign following after him reading ‘Not again!’ before it disappeared into the ink stain leaving behind a startled Allison and amused Benny.

“Umm...Benny?” she looked down at her toon gaining his attention. “Will he be ok?”

Benny chuckled at his friends departure. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. That’s how he came across our world to begin with, a little trip down the rabbit hole and here he is.”

Allison looked back at the stain and the pillows before chuckling to herself. Benny has some amusing friends that even she had to admit that she was looking forward to them coming by again. With one swift motion she scooped Benny up into her arms lightly tickling him as she heading for the door.

“Let’s go back inside and harass Tom. That old dog needs a workout.” she laughed, Benny was instantly on board as the pair headed inside and sought out a father to a toon demon and husband to a demonic angel.

Allison had to admit that while the weekend was a little crazy with all the colorful guests, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

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