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beatleszeppelin · 3 years

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You're A... Inexperienced Chapter 2

Summary: On watch one night you find out some thing that Daryl has never done. And you offer him some experience.

Category: Friends to Lovers, Eventual Mild Smut, just a good ol’ time

Paring: Daryl x reader (second person)

Warnings/Includes: General Walking Dead grossness, Smut (but not in this chapter), swearing, use of weapons, non-graphic hunting, mention of past child abuse, (let me know if you see anything else)

Word count: 3k

Chapter 1 Masterlist

Chapter 2 Naked in a Lake

The next few days were fairly uneventful. Seeing Daryl only in passing. He stayed outside when you were in; you stayed outside when he stayed in.

Not even shifts brought you together. Since the fall of Woodbury, there have been plenty of new people taking shifts to give you all a break.

Most of your time was spent helping with the kids in the library when Carol was too busy doing important things to “babysit”. Or you occasionally helped out at the farm on the south side of the prison. Rick and Hershel had started it over the past few months, and already it had yielded some fine meals.

Those meals were also made courtesy of Daryl, who went out into the woods on the daily, not going far, but far enough to be out all day and come back with a belt full of squirrels and rabbits by night. You had no idea how he did it or how far he went, but he seemed to be used to the days of solitude, in nature alone.

That was all until he planned to go out a bit farther, only for a couple days, but that was more that he had been gone in a while, more than anyone had been alone for a while. When he shared these plans, you decided that you would go out hunting with him, you know, because there is safety in numbers, (and you were dying to see what he spent so much time doing everyday).

So when morning came, and it was time to leave you brought your bag and followed him to the gate. He squinted at you being blinded by the morning light that rose over the prison. “I’m coming with you, is that alright?” You asked him knowing that he couldn’t argue. You awaited his response, but it never came, instead he had the gate opened and held his arm out like a gentleman letting you lead.

You guys walked past the spikes that guarded the outside of the gates, just as the queens guards once did outside of Buckingham palace. Kicking rocks and dust clouds along the path, walking went fairly slow. Not much to say, not much to do this early in the morning. You hadn’t even waited for Carl and Carol’s shift, which normally signified morning, to start before you had left. (You were sure he had said good-bye to them, Rick, and Judith the night before though. He was good like that.)

When the sun, which was barely peering over the land when you left, had risen enough to give you a long shadow, stretched out in front of you; you decided it was time to eat. Taking the backpack off your shoulders, and unzipping it when it was in front of you, you pulled out a small loaf of bread. You broke it in half and handed some to Daryl. He gnashed into it like a rabid dog, grunting a thank you in between bites.

You nibbled off bites as you walked, trying to savor it as something to do. The scenery of trees and a dirt path was getting old. You couldn’t understand how someone could go out along this path all day every day.

It was hot, too. Hot and sweaty. By mid-day you felt as though you were dragging, lifting your legs in a pedantic manner. Daryl’s hair was stuck to his forehead, and he had stripped his poncho, just left in a cut off flannel. He seemed to be perfectly fine in the heat though, barely even touching his water.

You wonder if he stayed outside a lot before as well. There’s something about him that makes it so hard to imagine him in his house, in a domestic setting. Did he do the dishes, and make himself food? Was his room clean, did he make his bed every morning before work? Did he have a job? What did he do? But you know that wondering these things will only pass the time, because there is no way he’d ever casually mention his previous life.

People had tried guessing, to no avail. Beth’s new boyfriend, Zach, was the leader of the guessers, being followed by the children, and you’ve even discussed it with both Michonne and Carol before. It would really take something special to make him confess his stories to someone, who knows who could get that close to him though.

You spent the majority of your walk picturing him in an office setting, wearing a tie and answering phones. Or at a gas station glaring at little kids who try to stuff candy bars up their sleeves, scaring them into obeying the law.

Mechanic seemed to fit best. Not a sleazy mechanic that finds more things to break to get

some extra cash, but one that spends day and night tracking down an original piece to some old beat up motorcycle. He wouldn’t charge extra for labor, cause he’d be doing the thing he loved most. He would treat each bike as his own, tirelessly making it perfect until the finishing pieces were in their exact place, like the sprinkles on a sundae.

“Gonna cut into the woods, right here.” He nodded, directing you.

“Oh yeah, sorry,” you said, snapping out of your little daydream. “Ya’ okay?” He ducked down, meeting your eyes though his hair.

“Yeah, I’s just thinking.”

“‘Kay, just watch out in here. Can’t make too much sound.”

You walked through the dense forest, making as little noise as you possibly could. Heel, toe; heel, toe. Only cracking branches and crunching leaves every few steps, listening to Daryl’s deep steadying breaths in between.

He taught you how to lay traps, and snares; different knots and when to use them. By the end of the day you could set your own, with the reassurance that he would help kill whatever you caught. No matter how many walkers you would kill, and how much bad shit you’ve seen. It still felt weird killing animals to eat.

The trapping, and mapping out your paths came to an end as night fell. The darkness made it too difficult to achieve the superb knots you were tying, and the sub par snares that Daryl would set, so you two decided to call it a night, sleeping in shifts back to back.

The next day went the same, but it was now time for the actual hunting. You left the killing to Daryl, using your lack of a silent long range weapon, like the crossbow as an excuse. You guys sat up wind, and out of the line of sight of any animals that may pass. It was quiet, and you understood why he liked it.

Hunting wasn’t all killing like you had imagined; hunting was 99% sitting quietly in nature, 1% killing.

You can’t lie about the fact that when a deer came into sight, you closed your eyes and didn’t open them until you heard the click of the trigger on the crossbow. You didn’t want to see the animal die, but you can’t feel bad about how many people that deer could feed.

Daryl took care of the dirty work, cleaning, and “prepping” the deer to be taken home. You sat by and watched.

Once the task was complete, you started back for the prison, hoping it would cut some of the time of the walk back tomorrow. This time was cut short by the approaching darkness of night.

You two set up a small camp to spend the ever closer night. And with cans on strings, as tripwire, and your backs to each other, you two felt it was safe enough to get some rest, that was until the cans rattled.

The sounds of metal clanking, shook you from your not so deep sleep. You whipped around to see a walker reaching over your barricade of tangled fishing wire and old soda cans. It stumbled over and grabbed Daryl's boot, luckily he tied up his pant legs with cords to keep from being scratched. You scrambled over to a half awake Daryl and pulled his knife from his pocket, stabbing it into the undead's brain. He nodded graciously as you handed his knife back. You both sat still in the early hours of the morning, breathing heavily until your adrenaline died down.

Your eyes stung from lack of sleep, but it was nothing compared to how Daryl looked. His eyes were puffy, and had dark purple craters around them, and what little you could see of his eyes were bloodshot. His hair stuck up in every which direction, the bangs that normally cover his face, were defying gravity, and exposed his forehead.

“You can sleep, but let's face each other this time,” you planned.

“You sure?” he said groggily.

“Yeah, if you saw yourself, you’d be sure too.”

He scoffed, and pulled his vest out as an acting pillow, tucking one arm under it, and laying his head down. He fell asleep shortly, and you watched.

The expression he made was soft, and innocent, less like a child and more like a puppy that tired out running in a field all day. He subconsciously held his thumb to his mouth. He breathed heavily through his mouth, with quiet snores escaping occasionally.

You didn’t sleep at all that night, you couldn’t let anything disturb the peace. You weren’t tired, though, you actually felt like you had gotten a full night’s rest.

The two of you started home at the crack of dawn, with dull yellow light illuminating the grass you stood on. You took to the woods for your trek home, rather than the long road you took to get there.

Halfway through the day you happened upon a lake that looked beautiful, a direct juxtaposition to everything you had been used to seeing. The water sparkled, and light refracted off the ripples in every which direction. Birds made chirping sounds that echoed through the dense forest, and made a song through the trees.

Daryl grabbed a plastic bottle, and some of the sandy silt that covered the edge of the water, making a makeshift water filter. As he did so, you took off your shorts and threw them aside, wading into the water. The water was greenish, but you could see your feet, and the dust clouding around your steps. The water was warm enough to not give you the chills, but cool enough to be refreshing.

Once the water hit your hips, you took your shirt off and threw it a few feet away from Daryl, joining your shorts, and shortly after your bra. You watched him finish his contraption and fill it.

“Should have some water in an hour or so…” he looked up and saw you, then quickly looked back at his bottle.

“Maybe we could catch a fish or something, too,” you said, smiling at his back. “You should join me in here.”

“Nah” he shook his head.

“Yeah, when was the last time you got cleaned up?”

“I ain’t gonna, someone needs to be a lookout.” He looked up at you, standing his ground. “Anyway, I gotta piss.”

He started walking away and you yelled to him, “Yeah, sure you do, Dixon.” You splashed his way, but he had already walked behind the trees.

A noise came from your left, behind a couple of thick trees. Two walkers stumbled out, slipping on the sandy hill. You didn’t have any weapons on you, and getting back over to your clothes seemed like a death wish. They were closer to the clothes and things than you were. Daryl didn’t even have his crossbow with him, it was in the pile next to the water filter.

You yelled for Daryl, hoping he’d get back before the walkers could reach you. You yelled again, and it drew their attention. They were about at the edge of the water now, and you were fucked… but a whistle came out of the woods.

Daryl showed up and whistled loudly to catch the attention of the dead walking toward you. It worked. They started toward him at a slow pace, and you ran over to the pile of stuff. You picked one off with the crossbow. Daryl tripped backwards on a rock, and the walker stumbled towards him, wishing to bite into the leg that was trying to kick it backwards. He grabbed the rock, lifted it over his head, and smashed it down onto the walker, and hitting it again smashed his head open, covering Daryl in it’s blood. He leaned back and dropped the rock. He took a second to catch his breath.

“Hey, thanks” You said to him as you were naked and dripping like a wet dog.

He sighed and raised his eyebrows. Which you will take as a “no problem.”

Daryl’s hair dripped with blood, guts, and rotting chunks of flesh. His shirt was wet, red, and sweaty. The muddy sand covered his pants and hands, leaving him dirtier than before.

“I guess you have to join me now” you said, still mostly naked.

He begrudgingly kicked off his boots, and slid his vest off down his shoulders, letting it drop on the floor. He started walking to the edge of the water, when you had to stop him.

“What, NO!” You said haulting him, “You are not still wearing your socks.”

He took off his socks, and his pants. He walked into the lake, a couple feet in and the water hit the bottom of his shirt.

You never took Daryl as the type of person to not be okay with taking his shirt off, but here he was: standing in a lake with his shirt on, contemplating whether he should take it off or not. He stood there for a couple seconds before looking at you, and when you gave him a reassuring smile, he took it off. He looked good with it off, you didn’t see a problem, until he turned around.

He whipped around fast to throw his shirt on land, and as he did, you saw his back. He was covered in scars. Yeah, some could be new, from fighting, from surviving, but you take it he’d been surviving for a lot longer than the rest of you had.

The slashes that riddled his skin were old. He could have gotten most of them when he was still a kid. You swallowed hard, he turned and faced you but neither of you met each other's eyes. He got quiet. And as his hand pensively rubbed the back of his neck, as he thought about what you must think of him.

“Hey, come on in the water’s fine,” you said to ease the tension.

It seemingly worked, because the next thing he did was dive under, swimming to you in a second. The water rippled along the path he had swam, and broke around his emerging body. You met his eye. He nodded to you as a thanks, and you shook your head back at him in a no problem kind of way. This practice had become routine, it was easier than constantly owing thanks to the other person for some trivial task such as saving their lives.

He broke eye contact and looked down, “Still gotta piss.”

You snickered. Then stepping back a couple of feet you gestured for him to go right ahead.

He looked at you, head cocked a little, and then the realization hit and his ears turned bright red. He turned around, and you got a better look at his scars. Some were short slashes, some longer, and others crossed over each other. You couldn’t fathom the person that would hit a child, let alone Daryl; Daryl was sweet, and could never have done something that deserved this treatment.

He finished up and faced you, but didn’t meet your eyes. You got a look at him, the man that just pissed in the pool in front of you, his ears were red as well as his cheeks making a bridge across his nose. The blush trailed down to his upper chest in splotches, like watercolors splaying out.

He chewed the corner of his thumb and said, “Ya’ know, I used to piss the bed as a kid.”

“I mean we all did,” You said. “Come here.”

He complied, “Nah, I mean ‘til I’s like 8 or so.”

“Bend over,” you told him.

He leaned back and you started washing his hair for him, detangling it with your fingers, and picking things out of it like you were monkeys.

“I remember a couple times it happened, had to sneak out late at night and do my laundry in the bathroom, so no one’d hear me. But this once, my dad wasn’t home so, I didn’t get… but my mom had this whole ‘nother way of doing it. She took my clothes. Pinned me down, Merle helped. She put a diaper on me, made me sleep outside.”

“When you were 8?” You cupped some water and dumped it over his head.

“Uh huh, made me wear ‘em to school, too. Under my clothes. Said if I took ‘em off she’s gonna tell my dad, so I didn’t.” He went back to biting his thumb.

“That shouldn’t have happened to you,” you said, moving to wash his shoulders.

He shrugged, and flinched away when you ran your finger over a scar on his back.

“You know, stress and trauma cause children to start wetting the bed later on in childhood, it's called enuresis, it wasn’t your fault,” You splashed water on his shoulders, noticing the freckles made by the sun.

“Done?” He asked, standing up straight.

“What?”

“Am I done?” he asked and shook his hair out like a dog.

“Yeah, you’re good.”

Daryl quickly made his return to land, you however stayed in the water until the filter was done giving you each a bottle. Every once in a while you catch him glance over at you floating naked in the lake, but his eyes would quickly divert.

#daryl dixon #daryl x reader #twd fanfic #twd #daryl dixon fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic #the walking dead #tw past child abuse #I love the lake scene

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voxvulpina · 3 years

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LITERALLY EXACTLY

also ppl who will scream about how dabi is ONLY a victim (not also an abuser now) and has done nothing wrong (Or is just expressing his pain or whatever bs i saw), are the loudest when it comes to hating endeavour, as if a man realising he was a cunt and is working on fixing himself and making it up to his family (who he understands can still hate him btwww) is to blame 100% for a grown man who decides to kill people rather than get help for his daddy issues. Like yeah dabis got trauma coming out his ass but blaming endeavour on his behaviour is ridiculous, man is in his 20's!! He can chose to not attempt to kill his own family (who are also victims of the same man LOL) aND I would love to see more of overhaul, im a sucker for redemption arcs BUT I'd just love to see how he's handling things, he's such an interesting character, his dependance (is that the right word? He wants his dad lmfaoo) on pops even now is sooo interesting!! Like ppl will excuse shigaraki due to afo grooming him but not even blink at, yeah maybe a child growing up in the fucking yakuza wasn't good for him>

PREACH, ANON, I AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS 100%

Would you believe Dabi used to be one of my favourites? His rabid fans put me off him entirely. 🤧 Yes, he's traumatised, yes, his dad was absolutely awful, and I understand why he feels so betrayed and angry. But he's not just a victim, he's also a murderous psycho who'll burn everything and everyone in his path (including his own family) just to hurt his father. And you can't simply pin the blame on Enji and absolve Dabi of responsibility for his heinous crimes. That bears saying, same as Enji apologists ought to admit he effed up BAD and is the main reason Dabi came to be. But there aren't nearly as many Enji apologists as there are Dabi apologists, which is why I eventually stopped going into the Dabi tag around the time of the big reveal, when it was brimming with poor-little-Dabi posts and furious rants against Enji and against Hori for giving him a redemption arc.

Oh boy, I could talk about Chisaki for hours. I was one of the few who was absolutely certain he'd be brought back into the story, and I KNEW he would be desperate to fix his dad. I didn't foresee his mental health being as poor as it now, but it makes sense – he said it himself, he's got absolutely nothing left except Pops (...who isn't going to be too happy with him, if he ever wakes up...).

I've always found it annoying how most BNHA fans don't realise that the crux of Chisaki's character is his attachment to his father...most people make it out to be his supposed aversion to Quirks (which I think is just an expression of his own self-loathing, because actually, he only considers people as useful as their Quirks. He even NAMED HIMSELF and his two subordinates after their respective Quirks). Or his germaphobia, which is something he developed later in life – he was brawling with his schoolmates no problem as a kid, and we're shown a panel of what appears to be a teenaged Chisaki, shirtless, maskless and gloveless, who's clearly just used his Quirk in a physical fight and is staring at his hands, with someone's body parts splattered on the floor. No, what's always been there and really defines him is his devotion to his dad and his determination to protect his "family" at all costs. It's a twisted devotion ("Chisaki's warped compassion", Horikoshi calls it). I wonder though if the boss considered Chisaki his son in return? He never called him "Kai", only "Chisaki", which potentially adds a layer of insecurity to their relationship, on Kai's side.

I would love for Chisaki to get some amount of redemption and fully understand the pain he's caused Eri and his father. I think "Overhaul" is very clearly dead at this point, but Chisaki still hasn't really grasped the magnitude of what he did, and I hope he will at some point. I realise his dad (should he wake up) can't really be expected to forgive him... but I can't help hoping that he will 😣

Anyways, sorry for the essay, I'll shut up now. But thank you so much for piping up, Anon! 🥺♥️

#kai chisaki #overhaul #endeavor

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Prince of Wishful Thinking: A Tom Lucitor Retrospective and Character Study: Part 1: Firey Little Shit

Star Vs the Forces of Evil is a .. complicated subject for me. When it started it was somewhat hit and miss but the premise was intresting: Star Butterfly is a magical princess, having just got her families ancestral wand.. and a few days later, or a jumpcut in the actual episode later materials revealed the actual time span, sets everything on fire and is sent to earth. There she meets best friend and, to my delight that eventually turned into “OH GOD JUST END THIS WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY SHIT ALREADY” I haven’t seen since the likes of Ross and Rachel that warrants it’s own damn article, and gets into various shenanigans while battling a gang of “monsters”, a general term for most non-mewmans on Mewni, lead by a spoiled king, Ludo, who wants the wand.

Things got turned on their head quickly, as “Mewnipendance Day’ revealed that the Mewmans (Humans in all but name really) took mewni by force, using magic to cast the monsters into poverty, which as the series and “Magic Book of Spells” would reveal, caused a cycle of death and bloodshed with no defendants. It changed the show for the better, as the plot, while heavy handed is a necessary one given these prejduice filled times we live in and how well it’s crafted. And it’s into the show slowly coming into it’s own a new character was introduced: He had been announced by the crew in the show’s press junket was in the title but took most of season 1 to show up... and he’d end up being one of the sho’ws saving graces as it dived into bullshit and go through one of the most through character arcs of the show. HIs name was Tom Lucitor, Star’s obsessive demon Ex-Boyfriend, and this is his story.

THE MAGIC BOOK OF SPELLS

Before we get there though, we have to take at rip down side material mountain... this time to the Magical Book of Spells. The Book of Spells was a real life verison of a book we’d seen in the show itself that recorded the previous queens of Mewni’s spells and held Glossarcyk, a magical being who assited the queens throughout the decades. The real version was used to tell each of the Queens, even the three we see on screen’s stories.. star included. As such it not only gives us some, if sadly not enough, more of his actual relationship with star pre-series, but also the full background on his kingdom’s relationship with hers. See while the Butterflies control the majority of mewni, their Kingdom isn’t endless and there are half a dozen others, most of which aren’t really that fleshed out. But The Lucitor’s are somewhat of an exception: The Lucitors rule the underworld, basically Mewni’s hell where all sorts of skeletons, demons and ghouls exist. You know funny little ghouls.

I had to. Anyways the Lucitor kingdom also has Mewmans, due to some demons kidnapping a bunch years ago. Whoops.

Despite you know, kidnapping a bunch of their people, the Lucitors and Butterflies ended up close allies. This is thanks to the efforts of Mewni’s ambassador, Jushtin who was supposed to be Mewni’s first King to wield the wand... but his mom was pressured into having a sister. Said sister Solaria, to not mince words, was a genocidal monster who slowly descended into madness and tried to kill all monsters declaring outright war on them, but things were tense at first and they needed allies. So the Lucitors, along with the Cloud Kingdom of the Pony Heads which are exactly what they sound like, helped turn the tide. So things were cool for a few decades, and then we get to the reign of Rhina the Riddled. Rhina, who the book all but says is aromantic and likely asexual as well, was shoved into an arranged marriage with John Roachely, a second cousin who had no impact on the Lucitor side of the Genepool whatsoever and thus Star and Tom aren’t really related at all. I bring this up only because if I don’t tackle the incest allegations, someone will try and use that against me. I’d say i’m being paranoid but i’ve seen the rabid shippers use far less to attack Tom, so no. Rhina, to make things go smoother, cast a spell to make her love him.... it didn’t work longterm and, to get him to leave her, cast a heart break spell on him.. which LITERALLY broke his heart, and thus she was left a widow and the demons were not happy about her you know, whoopsie daisy murdering one of them likely set up with her a bridge between both sides and soured things for a while. Now you may all be asking: “Kay, intresting.. but what’s all this game of thrones but with flying pony heads, so better game of thrones, stuff gotta do with tom?” Well wait no more. Luckily for me, Star has a section in the book, and thus she spills the tea on her first metting with Tom. The two met at the Silver Bell Ball, an annual ball where the royalty of Mewni gather and the princes and princesses all dance once each as a good will gesture. The reason I went through the Rhina stuff is I’m guessing Star, who attended the ball every year according to the book and likely since at least she was old enough to dance, didn’t meet Tom earlier because his parents hadn’t been on good enough terms to bring him till he was 13, and River and Moon, Star’s parents, had succeeded in winning them over. The book nor the series dosen’t outright say this but given what we see later and what we have, it’s what i’m going with. We’ll get more into Tom’s personality when we get to his first in series appearance, but being a charming young man, and the first person her age at the ball Star found remotely attractive, they quickly set up a date for the boardwalk in the underworld for Cornshakes, because Mewni loves corn as much as I love Galarian Meowth. He looks so adorably homeless. But naturally if a snowball can’t last in hell, a shake can’t either, but even melted corn can’t ruin their good time and Tom even buys star a gift. I bring this up because said gift is star’s signiture devil horn headband. (Though Star is quick to announce she isn’t one of those annoying people who comes back from a trip thinking their a local). A real steal too at 14.99 or your second born’s soul. Most demons go for the first born, it’s a classy change of pace. The two eventually end up making it official, and star even gets a helpful pamphelt about Demons’ love of mascera, their anger and their tendency to tell their mom’s everything... the latter two will actually be really important as we go. But due to Tom’s anger as we’ll find out, the two end up breaking up and frustratingly we don’t learn the exacts just star was sad.. and that said depression lead to said kingdom distruction and the rest of the series. And since I covered the premise of the series above we can basically scoot right onto Tom’s first apperance.

BLOOD MOON BALL

Before this ep, Tom made a small cameo in another ep when her magic mirror, basically portrayed as working as a person sized video phone, accidently called him when she said call Mom. As a nice little bit of foreshadowing Tom flew into a rage at her preparing to hang up on him , even though it was a wrong number and they’d been broken up for a few months at this point. But it’d be an agonizing wait for Tom. I was curious about the character, given not much had been revealed, I missed the episode with his cameo, and the animatic for BMB’s first scene was released months before the episode came out and was really funny and intresting. Said scene has Tom making one hell of an entrance, landing from the sky in a cool carriage with a skeletal horse, floating in and catching eyes and floating up to Star’s desk in class to ask her out with the moon.

Star.. has no interest and shoves tom, hilarious as while they just cut to the front of school, she had to have been mildly shoving him all the way from her class up a hallway, and outside. And passing Jackie, marco’s crush I bring up because why not and Janna, Star’s future close friend who we’ll get to more later, since he did earlier and they now have to go from oggling tom to wondering what the hell their seeing. She also tells him to take his dead horse back, which leads to one of my faviorite gags of the series as said horse says “Wait, I was dead” and later, mid conversation about her going to said Ball, randomly interjects with “why didn’t you tell me I was dead?” That poor poor horse. You should come live with me. I don’t have a car, I could use a skeletal horse and I would tell you if you were dead man. Hit me up. But Tom tries to convince star he’s changed, he’s got an anger managment bunny, a counselor Brian (voiced by my guy Stephen Root, who you may better know as the voice of Bill Dautrive, the mayor in Amphibia or Bud Gleeful), and he’s doing fine.. then Marco goes and Karate chops his hand off, thinkign he was a danger. Tom gets really angry, to Star’s horror, which tells me she saw this sort of thing a LOT: tom getting this level of pissed at someone and likely leveling either them or everything around them. Thankfully Brian calms him down and Star introduces them and Tom , like the gentleman he is , gives her a bell to take her to the ball and time to think. Star, impressed by him calming down and trying, takes him up on it over Marco’s objections and worries about her safety, including the amasingly radar busting line “Never go with a predator to a second location” and the dance is on. As it turned out, Tom toned things down, ,less death and murder and more prom, to try and impress her and is annoyed when Star turns down his corsage.. which is a live spider. Which i’m generous to her on because spiders scare the shit out of me unless their pokemon. Seriously look at this sweetheart:

Who could be terrified of that face? Such a sweetie. Anyways, Tom is angry about it and his anger only increases when he wants to dunk himself and star in unicorn blood.. because while on earth dumping blood on someone makes them go on a psychic rampage you brought on yourselves, in the underworld is just a teen dance thing. But since one of Star’s best friend is a unicorn, something Tom has no excuse for not knowing as Pony is close to her and a princess in her own right and he had to have met her in his months dating star, and gets pissy over.. and star catches him having to pet his therapy bunny over it and walks off annoyed to get some punch.

And it’s with this Tom’s problems become apparent: He has charm, grace.. but he isn’t really TRYING to change, nor does he see WHY Star hates his anger. Sure he has a counsler, he has coping mechanisms things that would actually HELP him get better.. if he WANTED to. He dosen’t want to control his temper, he dosen’t want to get better he just wants Star back, and that’s why it’s not working: He’s making an effort, but it’s for the wrong reasons and without trying to tackle the root of his issues. He’s just trying to take the easiest way out, which is a problem that will crop up again next time. His second one is easier to illustrate when his plan becomes clear: turns out there’s a magical binding curse thing, it was clarified more in Season 4 but I feel no reason to leave it vauge here, and tom wants to bind his and Star’s souls together forever. He later admits he assumed she knew about that going in.. but it still dosen’t excuse his actions entirely and brings us to that flaw I was building towards: He’s selfish. He changed the ball to impress star, he shoved a corsage on her she didn’t one, got ANGRY, visably angry, at her turning down something he shoudl’ve known just by having dated her before would be a non-starter and worst of all he wanted to bind her to him forever without asking, just assuming she agreed by going. Star can be selfish at this stage too, especially this early on.. but underneath it she cares about people, even if she sometimes goes about it in the same fashion tom does here, she comes from a good place. Really both of this seems to come from them being royalty: both have had privlage their entire life and been insulated from a lot of things.. and Tom being raised in an environment where anger is normal and he gets whatever he wants from two loving parents and an army of servants, probably meant he never HAD to think of anyone else and as the series goes on, never had any friends except a Dog that we never see and probably sadly died. My theroy is Little Lord Fooleroy got ran over by Deatruk, the truck what runs over people, but i’m stupid like that. This winds up costing Tom his soul binding thing as Marco in disguise, being goaded by.. something that’s never remotely explained seriously what exactly the fuck was that creepy deep voice to crash the ball, ends up dancing with her. Shippers squeed, this was probably used in a jillion AMV’s.. and Tom naturally is pissssseeeed and ready to flambe Marco... until star takes him out with zero effort. They go home, Star berates Marco for not trusting her , end of episode.. oh and they speak in unison for a quick gag but i’m sure that won’t be important. As you can probably see her Tom was origianlly supposed to be a recurring pain in the backside for our heroes, showing up to win back Star, pull some “Nice Guy” Crap and then get his ass kicked most likely.. but after the end of Season 1, it was a fairly short season, the writers for whatever reason, and for the better decided to have Tom slowly change a bit.. but since him becoming a better person would be abrubt he has to do one lass dickhole thing first...

MR CANDLE CARES

And now we’ve come to Tom’s worst act, the thing that had he not fixed it the way he had at the end, made him an outright villain. Star and Marco have meetings with the new guidance counselor, who gives eveyrone else great career trajectories but for Star and Marco? Star gets a rather overbearing lecture on how she has to be queen when she grows up and probably shoudln’t date Marco and should be picking a future husband, ewwww, and Marco gets the unitetinonally, given Tom probably knows only about enough about earth to concot this scheme, offensive career path as janitor.. for an honor roll student with a bunch of extracurriculars. Yeah but Tom’s accidental racisim aside, while what he did to Marco was petty , what he’s trying to do to Star is creepy, basically using someone else to gaslight her into trying to get back together with him. But as noted above, Tom is selfish and as I haven’t noted yet he lacks some empathy.. so instead his advice sends Star spiraling not helped by her mother, Moon, basically telling her she has no choice in being queen and being happy dosen’t matter.. because Moon was kind of a dick at this stage. So while star gets a punk makeover and prepares to do something terrible to prevent her miserable future, Marco decides to confront candle and, as I didn’t even try to hide, Tom is behind this. Granted Tom wasn’t great at hiding it either, it’s just star was understandably concerned about her future and too distracted by that to pick up on how weirdly intrested Mr.Candle was in her dating life. But no i’ts Tom who is, and Marco baits him by pretending he and star are “Smooch Buddies”.. something the trailers for Season 2, and this episode was pretty early, used as a bait and switch, but I’m okay with it as most could probably tell something was up by the delivery. Naturally this proves to be a terrible idea, and i’d say it’s the dumbest thing Marco ever did if Season 3 didn’t take a sledgehammer to his character, but that’s an essay for another day, and Tom takes Marco back to his place to murder him... but Marco stands strong and Tom challenges him to a battle to the death, with Marco choosing ping-poing. Tom naturally destroys him.. but Marco uses the game to point some things out: After calling tom out for bascially cheating, since his powers give him the upper hand, Tom talks about Star doing the same, basically making up her own rules as soon as she looses. Marco then uses this to make tom see what a butt he’s been: The ping pong thing is just another example of how Star functions, doing whatever she wants and going her own way. It’s why being forced down the path of queen scares her so much, it’s responsiblity and rules and no fun as far as she can tell with no benifits. It’s why she rebels so much.. she can’t be told what to do.. which Marco makes Tom realize means he can’t control her, nor would he want to, and that he’s made a huge mistake. Tom forgoes killing Marco, and the two rush to star who’s on the edge of cutting of a mermaid’s tail to prevent her from ever being queen.. but just can’t do it. Star can be selfish, the above cheating shows that.. but she’s a good person deep down. Tom admits what he did.. and throughly apologizes for it, agreeing basically to let Star go and stop trying to force her back with him. Star does punch him for good measure, deservedly so, but they part on good terms and Marco reassures Star when she’s Queen she can rule her way, and they hug.. and notably Tom dosen’t get the least bit upset. Mr.Candle Cares is a good second ep. I’ve made no bones about how this is the worst thing Tom did: The controlling stuff at the ball was just selfish, the blood moon thing while not GREAT was asbent minded selfishness. This... it nearly broke star and ruined her future. However it comes from the same place as Blood Moon and his reaction at the end shows he simply didn’t consider star’s feelings.. and likely realize he HADN’T been. it wasn’t Marco’s fault they weren’t together, it was Tom’. While the Apology is a minor thing, it’s still a step in the right direction. As I said had he NOT backed away here he probably never would’ve gotten better or even if he tried, gone so far in trying to get star back he couldn’t walk it back. Here he hit his lowest point.. but thanks to Marco, he had a chance to turn it around before it was too late and grow as a person. This is where Tom gets compelling: he goes from a spoiled selfish douchey rich kid, to someone who clearly WANTS to be better, but has issue, social and otherwise, that make it an uphill battle. And with that we get to tom’s penultimate apperance for Season 2, and his last full one...

Friendenemies:

Tom shows up again and while Star tries to shoo him off before she has to get the shooing broom, Tom reveals he’s not there for Star but Marco. See he feels bad about you know, trying to kill him twice and wants to take Star’s Marco out tonight he’s gonna show him what he’s all about, he’s gonna get jacked up on some cheap champagne and let the good times all roll out. Marco understandably does not want a night out with a guy who was creepy to his best friend and tried murdering him twice, so Tom uses a bribe: tickets to the Mackie Hand, a martial artist that Marco is a huge fan of, film festival that Marco failed to get tickets to. With some encouragment from Star, who while not wanting to date Tom sees he’s genuinely making an effort, Marco agrees They hang out in Tom’s carriage which goes by tardis logic, if only, and to the creator’s credit, just so, and the two soon bond, finding a shared love of both Mackie Hand and the pop band love sentence, and Marco genuinely earns tom’s respect when some shades wearing piles of smug challenge our heroes, which Tom now counts as at this point, to a race, Marco agrees... then has them do nothing while the idiots speed up and get arrested and we get the blessed image above. The good times get interrupted though when it’s time for the marathon but tom locks him inside. And no this isn’t the start of some angry makeouts, as it turns out this was part of tom’s anger management therapy, but once again his propensity for the easy way out means he fails at it and burns up the tickets.. but Marco is more upset that Tom lied to him and pretended to be his friend and like mackie hand, though the love sentence thing was real> The whole thing plays more like a breakup than the end of a blossming friendship, which ties into how this episode got people shipping Marco and Tom with each other.. and rightfully so. While I don’t really ship it myself, I can see why as it has great chemstry and a great dynamic. Tom’s behavior here is part of why I say he has social issues, something I can relate to as a cave troll living in my mother’s basement: Tom dosen’t seem to have any real friends. Oh sure he can charm people, he has servants, two loving parents, and a screeching grandpa whose on the wall of my own personal heroes along with Ric Flair, My Mother, Stan Lee, Peter David, Rebecca Sugar and many more, but he dosen’t have FRIENDS. Star seems to be his first relationship and the first thing resembling a true friend he had, so while his behavior was a tad creepy it makes sense why he clung to her. And that shows here: He tries superfically bonding with marco, faking an intrest, giving him gifts, partying.. but it’s both forming a genunine connection over something, Love Sentence, and just sharing some memories that ended up making them friends. But yeah after Marco sings a sad pop ballad, or part of one. Tom decides to do a three point grand romantic gesture and raises Mackie Hand from the dead, and when Mackie isn’t allowed into his own film festival he fights the ticket guy and tom and marco watch and while they say they hate each other, the two’s friendship is forged. Marco finally has a friend outside of two doofuses and .. does Janna count? I dunno. She’s less of a friend and more of a gremlin who steals his things constantly while being actual friends with his bestie. Before we close out this leg there’s one final episode for season 2 with Tom in it to cover and dive into: Naysaya.

Naysaya comes literally just before the mid-season finale and Tom sadly disappears for the rest of the season, though he’ll be back and in greater numbers in Season 3. I’m not covering it full because it’s not a full on tom episode, he only has a short cameo, but he is important to it and his one brief bit shows off his character. In short Marco is finally asking out Jackie Lynn Thomas, his crush and a great character in her own right who sadly all but vanished from the show shortly into season 3 after something we’ll get to in passing next time, but got some great closure and was revealed to be Pansexual, so good for her. Marco had been building up to this for the last two seasons: first realizing thanks to time shenanigans he never made a move, then actually talking to her, and then not only telling her how he felt but realizing he didn’t know her but he’d like to. So now he’s ready to ask her out but every time he tries, written or spoken, it comes out as his most embarrassing secrets before the little neck tumor man comes out up there and does it for him. Thanks to Janna, local roustabout mentioned above, who after teasing Marco as is her usual response to anything with him, uses her knowledge of the spooky oooky to find out what that thing is: a Naysya, a curse born creature that spills it’s target’s most embarrassing secrets at whoever they try to court. Naturally, given Tom was an insanley jealous ball of asshole until a few episodes ago, it’s his fault though showing his slow growth, while he’s entirely suprised Marco asked no one out since the ball, says the guy who did two schemes and a shenanigan trying ot get star back, he’s also sorry and assumed it’d worn off or he would’ve told him sooner, and tells him how: he has to let all his insecurities out> Marco nearly withdraws over this due to being 90% insecurity, but eventually buckles down and tells jackie every embrassing thing about him and.. it works. Naysaya leaves and he and Jackie go out on a group date. And with that Tom is gone for a while but he, and this retrospective will be back. I owe a huge debt of grattitude to @jess-the-vampire, a dear friend, and wish her a happy belated birthday. She was a willing and helpful resource and worth a follow. And if you want more stuff like this, comics reviews, and what have you, feel free to follow or comisson me. Until next time, keep the home fires burning.

#star vs the forces of evil #tom lucitor #tomtober #star butterfly #marco diaz #janna ordania #jackie lynn thomas #naysaya #blood mooon ball #startom #tomco

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monsterywriting · 5 years

Text

Werewolf Boyfriend (Mordecai) - pt 8 (epilogue)

AN: I’m so so sorry I’ve been dead basically this whole month my life has been seriously crazy… it felt like every week was some new problem cropping up. First I had exams then finals and then I had a very sudden death in my family that really just took a lot out of me.

I’ve had half of the ending for Kai done for awhile I had just been slowly but surely chipping away at it.

I’m also taking summer courses starting in June. So, my current plan is to 1) rewrite the chapters I currently already have up for Maledos while also 2) working on new chapters for dear ol’ Mal. Hopefully this gives me some time to get back on schedule and put out some new stories!

So, without further ado, the last chapter for Mordecai. Enjoy-

word count: 2,586

“Nervous?” You asked as you popped into Kai’s bathroom in his parents’ guest house to grab your lotion, Kai buttoning up the fifth shirt he’d tried on in the past hour.

“Terrified,” Kai corrected you as he pressed a quick kiss against your forehead before turning back to the mirror.

You huffed a quiet laugh as you spread lotion on your legs, “Hey, I survived your family’s fancy schmancy luncheon. You can survive one evening with mine.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t dating, then,” Kai pointed out, walking out into his bedroom to grab some shoes from his closet, “and this is both of our families together in one space…”

You smiled with a small eye roll before you walked out of the bathroom after him without answering. You knew the true reason Kai was so nervous was the bit of news the two of you had to break to both your parents.

After a few more minutes of watching your boyfriend scan his wardrobe for the umpteenth time that night, you clapped your hands together to draw Kai’s attention to you, “Well, I’m dressed, are you ready?”

Kai groaned as he turned and threw his arms over your shoulders and went limp on you, muttering about how he couldn’t decide on an outfit. You were barely able to brace your legs and hold the two of you up as Kai’s full weight attempted to take you down.

“Get up,” you grunted as you pushed Kai off of your shoulder by his face, “What you had on earlier was fine.”

Nearly twenty minutes later, you and Kai were finally getting into your car and heading out to the venue where Kai’s parents were holding their 40th anniversary party.

You had yet to see his parents since coming back down to Newport for the summer as they had been spending time with Kai’s oldest brother and his family out of town, so this would be your first time seeing them since spring break.

Kai had eventually decided on a simple off white button up shirt with black fitted slacks and mahogany-colored dress shoes, though it took some threatening that you would leave without him to get him to choose.

By the time the two of you arrived at the venue, cars already filled the parking lot. Amongst the rows of expensive cars, you were able to make out your parents’ old station wagon, Asriel’s beloved Tesla, and even Kay’s new model Toyota.

Parking as close to the entrance as you could with how late the two of you were, you and Kai dashed towards the entrance, hoping no one had noticed your late arrival.

Inside, the venue was packed as people mingled with each other, and the two of you fortunately went unnoticed as you made your way through the crowds, Kai’s hand finding yours so the two of you wouldn’t be separated.

You caught the eye of Kai’s parents first, waving as best you could to catch their attention without drawing the attention of others to you.

Denise beamed as she practically dragged Isaiah over to the two of you, engulfing you into a tight hug that caught you entirely by surprise.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Denise practically beamed as she let you go before giving Kai a glare and whispering loudly to you. “Kai never used to call home until the two of you started dating. I probably wouldn’t even know what he looked like right now if it wasn’t for you.”

You only smiled and ducked your head awkwardly as you insisted you hadn’t done anything in particular.

You tended to call your family fairly often, always video calling someone every evening, from your parents to your aunts or any one of your cousins. Not even getting into your family’s very crowded group chat.

You had hardly noticed Kai falling into the same routine until his occasional texts to his parents became calls even longer than your own.

Denise had been shocked to know Kai shifted around you at first, but soon she warmed to the idea of you being comfortable with Kai being a shifter.

“Don’t bother, she’s been bragging to everyone who listens her son has the best girlfriend,” Kai’s father interjected, a playful smile on his lips as Denise scoffed and slapped his arm half-heartedly.

You chuckled at the interaction as Kai groaned, though you missed his comment as you saw your parents making their way towards the group.

You squeezed Kai’s hand reassuringly as he stiffened next to you before letting go to embrace your parents.

Whatever introduction Kai had planned flew out the window as your mother pulled Kai into a hug just as tight as the one Denise had given you earlier, and he still looked dazed as your father hugged him in greeting as well.

Laughing at Kai’s startled expression as he took your hand once again, you thought back to your own first meeting with Kai’s parents.

Denise had awkwardly shook your hand and quickly moved on. And you don’t even think his father even said anything to you at the time, though you learned the man was just painfully shy. Even more so than Kai.

After quick introductions and the usual small talk about school, you and Kai quietly snuck away from your bonding parents to an empty table to sit, Kai leaving you to grab some drinks. The two of you had long decided to wait until the end of the night for your announcement, but you knew this wait was what was driving Kai insane.

After a few minutes of scrolling through your phone to pass the time and Kai still hadn’t returned, you sat up and started to look around.

You caught his eyes near the bar, surrounded by a couple of guys that appeared to be around the same age who you figured were his old friends from the east side. They were all in line for the bar, which was much longer than you’d expected.

You sat back into your chair, ready to go back onto your phone when an all too familiar voice sounded in your ear.

“Hey, stranger,” Kailani greeted you, pulling out a chair and sitting next to you, “How’s being back?”

“It’s been really nice,” you answered honestly, “Kai’s been showing me around the east side. I never realized it’s like a miniature city within a city.”

Kay chuckled at your obvious awe, nodding in agreement with your observation, “Yeah, I guess we’re more used to it after growing up there.”

Suddenly, Kay frowned, the bridge of her nose wrinkling as her eyebrows furrowed, and began to look around, “By the way, where is my brother?”

“I think he abandoned me,” you joked as you pointed to where Kai was currently talking to the same group of men he had been with earlier, now much closer to the bar than he had been when you last looked.

“He hasn’t learned by now to bring his own drinks to family events?” Kay scoffed as she pulled a water bottle from her bag and took a large swig, “i have a couple more so just tell me if you want one.”

You laughed, partly in bewilderment, with Kay. The two of you had gotten closer since you and Kai first announced that you were dating. Apparently, she’d been rooting for the two of you to get together since spring break, hence her sudden invitation for you to go camping with them. And as you got to know her better, you learned that while Kay may initially come across as somewhat pretentious, she was actually very caring and sweet.

As the two of you began talking, Kay told you some of the more embarrassing episodes in her and Kai’s lives.

“They really thought you two were rabid Pomeranians?” Breathless giggles escaped you as you gasped for air at Kay’s retelling of the time she and Kai chased some teenage trespassers in one of the many parks in the east side on a dare as kids.

“Oh yeah,” Kay said, “We were in so much trouble once the news came out and they figured out it was us. Our mom was beyond livid, and dad just found it absolutely hilarious. And Kai always hated being the center of attention, so us getting caught was literally his worst nightmare.”

“I still can’t believe you convinced Kai to go after them, though,” you wiped a tear from underneath your eye as your laughter died down.

“Yeah, I ask myself that every day,” Kai grumbled as he pulled out the empty chair on your other side, setting down your favorite drink in front of you and an empty cup next to himself.

“Kai always was the follower growing up,” Kay mused, easily dodging Kai’s hand swatting at her from over you.

“I was coerced against my will,” Kai exclaimed, draping his arm over your shoulder and giving you puppy eyes as Kay stuck her tongue out at him.

It was then you noticed one of the young men from the bar earlier come up to the table and sit across from you in front of Kai. Soon, the rest of the group were all seated at the table around you.

“These are my friends,” Kai explained as you introduced yourself to each person as they arrived, “we all grew up together in the same neighborhood.”

You struggled to remember everyone’s name so quickly, but after a few minutes of repeating everybody’s name to yourself, you were almost certain you had it down packed. Kay also seemed to be close to everyone, which you figured was pretty obvious since she and Kai were pretty close in age.

The rest of the evening was spent with Kai’s friends and Kay, and you were eventually joined by Asriel, with most of the conversation comprised of stories about about all of them growing up together, and you learned most of the memorable stories were pretty embarrassing for Kai.

“It always took weeks before Kai would even be able to talk to any teacher,” one quipped, “Even in high school he wouldn’t talk that much to anyone else.”

“Or what about that time he fainted during that one presentation?” Another recounted.

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Kay frowned as she turned to you, “Kai got picked up early but my dad left me there. When I got home Kai was just lounging in the den watching TV in his underwear with the whole house to himself.”

“You all are the worst and I hate you all,” Kai growled, but you saw the corners of his lips twitch as he struggled to hold in his laugh.

As the time went on, everyone slowly began to leave. Soon, you, Kai, Kay, and Asriel were the only ones left at the table.

The hall was similarly empty, only a few dozen compared to the couple hundred earlier. After splitting up, Kai found his parents and you caught yours just as they were leaving.

Once the six of you met up again in a quiet corner away from most of the other guests, you took a long sip from your water bottle Kay had given you as you planned out what you were gonna say.

“Did you want something else to drink?” Denise asked you, “it’s an open bar… you don’t have to drink water.”

“Oh, no thank you, I’m driving tonight,” you answered politely before swiftly changing the subject, “Actually, Kai and I had some good news to share…”

You looked up at Kai, who looked down at you in surprise as you deflected to him before he finally started speaking.

“Oh, uhm. Well I- we- uh… were- well, we’ve been together for- ahem- but-” Kai fumbled over his words as he stared at your parents, which you definitely weren’t expecting. Nor were you expecting the words that came out of Denise’s mouth as she interjected.

“Oh, christ, you’re pregnant!” She exclaimed, her voice cracking as she sounded on the verge of tears.

You didn’t know if you wanted to laugh or cry as Isaiah looked at Kai with a textbook expression of fatherly disappointment and your parents’ jaws dropped as they both went through every stage of grief. Glancing around, you saw some people had definitely heard Denise’s outburst and were staring.

“I’m absolutely not pregnant!” You raised your voice above Denise’s moaning about how she wasn’t expecting and your father’s yelling, patting Kai on the back as he started choking at his mother’s startling conclusion, “we’re moving in together!”

All noise seemed to stop at once as the information sunk in. Their relief was soon overtaken by concern as everyone began raising their objections to the two of you living together so soon.

“Both of our leases are ending and [Y/N]’s roommate graduated this semester,” Kai finally recovered enough to speak, “So last month we were looking at apartments and found one for both of us. The lease is already signed and everything.”

“It would be better to split the expenses,” you added, “and it’s much better than most apartments out there.”

One by one, each of your parents gave in the more you and Kai explained your decision, though the fact that the lease was already signed and would be expensive to break was the main driving force in their reluctant acceptance.

By the time you and Kai made it back to the guest house, you both were beyond exhausted.

You showered almost as soon as you arrived, only throwing on one of Kai’s clean shirts as you didn’t feel like digging through your luggage for pajamas. The shirt almost reached your knees anyways, though.

When you opened the bathroom door, only the light from the bathroom illuminated the bedroom, and you saw Kai sprawled across the bed. The only sign he was still awake was his left ear twitching as he heard you walk up to him.

You flopped on the mattress next to him, careful not to undo the towel wrapping your head and resting your cheek on Kai’s bicep.

You squeaked when Kai suddenly grabbed on to you and pulled you on top of him, planting sloppy kisses all over your face.

Kai was always cuddlier whenever he was half asleep, but it was rare for him to be so touchy-feely before bed. You soon had to bite back moans as Kai moved his ministrations down, nibbling just at the base of your neck.

“I thought you were tired?” You giggled as Kai’s cold nose tickled you, a barely audible hum from Kai your only response.

“ ‘M up for now,” Kai said, his voice still obviously raspy with sleep.

Soon, Kai finally found a comfortable spot in the crook of your neck and relaxed into you, a contented sigh escaping him. You chuckled to yourself at your boyfriend’s antics. Kai was always so cuddly whenever he was drowsy, and you usually woke up in a tangle of limbs whenever you slept over.

“I love you,” Kai murmured, his breath evening out as he finally fell asleep.

Your smile broadened into an outright grin as you knew Kai meant it, tired or not. You whispered the words back and laid your head back, your mind filling with thoughts of your future and a warmth spreading in your chest. Your own exhaustion dissipated and you decided to simply enjoy your present time with Mordecai, unsure when sleep finally did overtake you.

#monster boyfriend #exophilia #Werewolf boyfriend #werewolf #male monster

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maliciouslycreative · 4 years

Text

So I’ve mentioned a lot of times over the years that I used to be fandom famous in a small anime fandom and I spent a lot of my time running damage control to an anti however I’ve never actually recounted the whole tale for you all. Buckle up and crack open a lemonade because we’re going on a journey (more under the cut).

The year is 2004, I’m 17, and in my final year of high school. I wrote a lot of fanfic back then, mostly for anime fandoms and around the time I joined Gaia I started posting my fanfic “Several Blows to the Head” which became unexpectedly extremely popular. But before I go forward I feel I should give some back story because some of you will probably get extremely confused very fast otherwise.

For those of you who don’t know about gaia online let me give you some history. Gaia was pretty much THE SHIT back in the mid to late 2000s. It was an anime themed forum website where you had a little avatar you could dress up.You gained gold by posting, playing mini games, posting in polls, or even just browsing in general. There were hundreds of subforums and in each of them a tonne of active threads. Another feature was the guild system. Basically anyone could create a guild which was pretty much your own themed subforum that the guild admin could decide the rules and who was able to join as long as they still followed Gaia’s ToS.

The anime I was into was (Bakuten Shoot) Beyblade, which at the time was an ongoing series. For those unfamiliar with the series a bunch of teenagers use battling tops possessed with the spirits of ancient mythological creatures and even gods to fight each other. Let’s just say it wasn’t winning any awards for amazing writing but it was a lot of fun and I LOVED my small corner of the fandom. It was pretty much your average shonen series of the time which meant that it had a main cast of 5 male characters (with a female lead added in the second season) and then very few minor female characters. The only actual canon ship was only made canon in a post canon addition to the manga that was not even released outside of Japan. So I bet you all are coming to the same conclusion that yes, there was incredibly bad shipping drama. The breakdown of shipping pretty much looked like this

10% slash

70% canon male/OC

20% canon male/canon female

Now to resume our story. I joined Gaia and headed over to the anime forum and found the main Beyblade thread. I posted an introduction and in it made mention that I was a fanfic writer and I liked slash. This was when I met C. I’m not going to drag her name as all of this went down over a decade ago and I hope that she’s grown as a person since then. If any of you are REALLY resourceful I mean the threads still exist. You can go find them and see just how awful it got.

C was a year older than me and apparently the authority in these parts on all things Beyblade. She was also a writer but in her own words did not write fanfics, she wrote and posted novels. She was pretty well known in the canon/OC circles and had a pretty enthusiastic following.

So when I came in to that thread and introduced myself I opened a can of worms. I was told that we did not discuss slash ships in this thread because it was not canon and it made some people uncomfortable. And ok, I can see that. It was cool. I was there to have fun and chat with people. I mean anyone that wanted to chat slash I could add on YIM, MSN, or LJ. However, 2 things started driving the knife into the wound.

It was not ok to talk slash but it was perfectly ok for C to discuss in depth her fanfics because it was an OC and obviously did not contradict canon as the stories were post (a currently unfinished) canon

People kept recognising me because my fanfic was exploding in popularity. So people kept bringing up slash and I’d get dragged into it as my fic was usually a catalyst for discussion.

To keep things from escalating us slash fans decided to make our own thread to talk Beyblade slash. Now, there was some divide in the slash fandom and people pretty much shipped only Kai/Takao or Kai/Rei but for the sake of everyone’s sanity we put our shipping differences aside in the thread and aimed to make it a positive space for everyone. I mean, most of us were multishippers so we tended to just be excited to read anything that wasn’t one of the 9000 OC fics we had to wade through to find any slash.

Whenever people would come into the main Beyblade thread now if they happened to mention slash they would get an extremely cold message from C if one of us didn’t manage to intervene first and direct the new member to our other thread.

The other crux of the problem was Kai. Kai was probably the most popular character in the English fandom and Kai was C’s favourite character. She had an extremely specific idea of how people should interpret Kai. If anyone came into the thread and made a post like “I LOVE KAI <3 <3 <3” she would be rather unkind to them making back handed comments about how the person only liked him because he was attractive or a “bad boy” or that if they didn’t have anything to add to the thread they should leave because we didn’t like spamming in the thread. If we ever started character analysis on Kai then C had to have the last word. After all she shared some characteristics with Kai and obviously that meant that she therefore knew him the best.

You all can probably imagine how well conversations went in this thread. I did my best to kindly welcome people to the thread, redirect them when they needed to be, and tried to calm down discussions when they got too heated. And if things got too bad in the main thread we’d just move to the slash thread and be super excellent to each other. There were days where C became so unbearable that her friends that didn’t even ship slash would come into the slash thread to hang with us because we were just really nice.

She was also extremely pushy with her fics. Whenever fanfics would come up shed be the first to suggest to anyone that they should read her novels. She even tried it repeatedly on the slash fans. Being completely fed up I one day made her an offer that if she read one of my fics I’d read all of hers. I didn’t even specify which fic. So she could’ve chosen one of my under 5k fics and I would have agreed to read like 200k worth of her fics. She never agreed to this in all the years of me dealing with her.

The worst part of it all was we couldn’t even really report her for harassment or anything because she was friends with a lot of moderators. The last thing any of us wanted was to get banned over some petty grievance since we’d lose all our hard work to making our avatars look fabulous.

If the whole mess in the forums wasn’t bad enough there was 1 Beyblade guild and guess who the guild admin was. The atmosphere in said guild could best be described as… tense. Anyone that wasn’t one of C’s rabid followers ran under the constant fear that they’d be booted for saying something that didn’t agree with her narrow view of things. My best friend and I were honestly surprised that she even allowed us into the guild. But she probably couldn’t afford to outright deny us as I was a pretty prominent writer in the english slash community then and my friend was also a prominent writer and artist.

Eventually we got tired of walking on eggshells constantly so some of the other slash fans and myself pooled our resources together and I created a second Beyblade guild. Our message was simple, we were just there to be a safe haven for ALL fans of the series. We were expecting pretty much the people from the slash thread and then maybe a handful of other people to join.

The entire fandom on Gaia over the course of a couple days abandoned C’s guild and joined ours. Whereas before we created ours hers was on a steady traffic decline our guild was BOOMING with posts.

Unfortunately the oldest mail I have is from 2007 on Gaia so I don’t have any screenshots of this but C was understandably upset that we’d sniped her entire user base. We did try to smooth it over with her saying that that was never our intention but it ended with her sending me a message that literally said “ok, you win” and this is something I still think about over a decade later. It forever shifted how I perceive antis.

My whole time in fandom I’d just been here trying to have a good time. I didn’t intend to become fandom famous. I didn’t intend to be in charge of one of the most active Beyblade forums at the time. I wasn’t trying to change C’s mind or fight her. And this whole time she’d thought I’d been fighting against her because we had different views on the series.

The last episode of Beyblade G Revolution aired in September 2005, her guild officially closed in 2006 and the fandom eventually started drifting into other things. I stayed active in it until probably 2008 when personal stuff drew me out of fandom and then officially took a leave from fandom in 2009 when my best friend passed away. I don’t know what happened to C but I know she was still writing her novels at that point. Whenever I see fandom drama brewing I always think back to her and how frustrated she used to make me and then I think of the “ok, you win” and I’m just left feeling sad for her and people like her. I just don’t understand how people can let their hearts be so consumed by hatred and self righteousness that it poisons their entire fandom experience. I guess that’s a conversation for another time.

One final comment that I would like to make here since I didn’t know where to fit it in above is that my one friend was completely DONE with C one day and we were talking to each other and she was like “she acts like her fics save lives in Africa!” and honestly this is the most perfect description of C’s attitude. Like good for her for believing in her writing but there is sometimes a point where you need to chill out with self promotion.

#fandom drama #long post #man i kind of wish i had screenshots of stuff that went down #because it was absolutely wild #and this is why i don't get involved in fandom drama any more #like this shit made me eternally tired #also y'all are welcome to rebagel this and tell your own tales #malicious musings

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uncomposed-witing · 5 years

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What Makes a Hero pt 4

Finally got around to getting this next chapter done. Finals have been killing me so sorry for the delay. (y/n) finally gets a small interaction with UA! leave some comments in the notes if you want the story to head in a certain direction! Enjoy! :) The next morning (y/n) woke up to the soft clicks of handcuffs tightening before the cold metal kissed her skin. Eyes flashing open she yanked her hands towards herself pulling Kurogiri next to her face.

“What are you doing?” she seethed through clenched teeth.

“We’re about to head out. I’ve been asked to move you to the other room,” he explained calmly.

“And what are these for then?” she asked shaking her wrists to add emphasis, the chains clanking against each other.

“Shigaraki said to put them on as an extra precaution.”

“So not only am I still injured and barely able to move,” she said indicating her broken rib and ankle. “I’m also going to be locked into my personal torture chamber and be handcuffed?”

“I know its not ideal--”

“Not ideal!” (y/n) yelled. “I swear when I get my hands on him---”

“You’ll what?” Shigaraki stepped into the room. “You can’t do anything to me. But I can do whatever I want.” Looking her over he added “Maybe we should get a muzzle for her as well… she’s looking a bit rabid”.

(Y/n) lunged for him but was stopped by Kurogiri holding onto her handcuffs. Sighing he opened a warp gate and she was immediately locked into the light room. As the light invaded every sense and blinded her with pain, she could vaguely make out the sound of people walking past until she was surrounded by silence. The light quickly drained her of all her strength and instead of fighting she curled into a ball on the floor and closed her eyes.

After a little bit the light didn’t hurt as much. Blinking open her eyes, she noticed the lights in the room were off. People were muttering outside her door.

“It’s out in every room.” a voice said.

“It must be that warp guy’s quirk. It’ll probably come back as soon as they’re back and the gate closes.” a second voice responded.

“Should we be worried about (y/n)? Now that the lights are off?”

“Nah, she’s fine. That room keeps her pretty comatose plus she’s injured and chained up. She might as well be dead in there.”

Grunting they both walked down the hallway. Slowly, (y/n) sat up, hissing at the pain throughout her body. Crawling over to the door she couldn’t believe her eyes. The door was unlocked. Shigaraki forgot to lock the door since she was warped in, and no one else bothered to check. She shakily rose to her feet, gripping the doorknob to support her weight. This was her chance. Turning the knob she froze. ‘What if it didn’t work? What if she was caught trying to escape again?’ She shuddered before steeling her nerves. She was done being a prisoner. She would escape or die trying.

Easing the door open she looked out the hallway. No one was there. She walked down the hallway until she was in the bar. The warp was still open! Hobbling over towards the gate she stopped when she heard the voices from before.

“How’d you get out?!” it was the same villain who challenged her in front of all the recruits that day.

“You’re really annoying, you know. What’s your name anyway?” she asked turning around to face him.

“Kai, Shigaraki’s going to kill us if he finds out she got out.” said the other henchman

“Ah, Kai. Well, I really don’t have time for you…”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Kai laughed while forming a whip of boiling hot water at her. It wrapped around her torso.

Screaming in pain, she quickly formed a wall of darkness and flung it out towards them slamming them into the wall. Turning around she stepped into the warp gate just as a knife lodged into her shoulder. The strange feeling of being warped washed over her until she stood in a domed building. Fighting was happening all around her. Her attention was snapped to All Might and Nomu except Nomu was...losing. He was rapidly taking hit after hit and having no time to regenerate. Suddenly he was hit with a punch that threw him straight out of the building.

No one had noticed her yet until a teenager with red hair said, “Not another one”. Suddenly everyone’s attention was on her including Shigaraki. (Y/n) just starting laughing doubling over as his eyes narrowed at her and he bagan furiously scratching at his neck.

“How?!” He screamed.

Before she could respond her attention was grabbed by a blond student. “Tch. Just another dumbass for me to blow away.”

Turning away from him she smirked as she heard him yelling at her for turning her back to him. She faced Shigaraki as she yanked the knife out of her shoulder blood dripping down it and splattering on the ground. The blonde suddenly stopped yelling looking at the scene in front of him. She tossed it at his feet. She took a step forward but her broken leg gave out making her collapse.

Shigaraki was suddenly in front of her with his hand about to wrap around her arm and turn it to dust. She braced herself for pain that never came. Instead, he staggered back falling to the ground. She looked back and saw the pro heroes had arrived.

“Grab her!” Shigaraki shrieked, but as Kurogiri moved to grab her, she turned herself to shadow. Shigaraki was shot 2 more times before Kurogiri left (y/n) and grabbed him warping them back to their hideout.

Her body flickered back leaving her curled up on the floor. She looked down at her ankle and saw it hanging at an odd angle again. Her eyes fluttered closed. She was finally free.

Her eyes shot back open as she heard footsteps approaching. It was the blonde from before and a guy with red and white hair. Both were on guard.

“Back off. I’m really not in the mood to beat anyone else up right now.” She groaned

“Not in the mood?! You couldn’t hurt anyone in the state you’re in.” the blonde snarled.

“Bakugo…” the red and white hair boy warned.

Laughing (y/n) sat up before she spat out some blood. Ugh, she hated the metallic tang lingering in her mouth. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand she looked to the 2 boys. “Bakugo is it? Why don’t you be a good lap dog and just leave me the fuck alone? I’ve had a long day.”

He took a step forward small explosions coming off his hands but was stopped by the pro heroes telling the students to go outside while they dealt with the injured.

Laying back down she closed her eyes until she heard a female’s voice asking if she was dead.

“Well she’s not one of our students.” stated another voice.

Opening one eye she looked at the heroes surrounding her and sighed before closing her eyes again.

“I’m not dead. I’m not a threat. I just want some damn sleep.”

“Midnight…” a voice said

Suddenly a pleasant smell filled (Y/n)’s senses and her head became foggy.

#bnha #bnha x reader #my hero academia #katsuki bakugou #kirishima eijirou #todoroki shouto #shigaraki tomura #kurogiri #all might #midnight #bakugo x reader #bnha todoroki #todoroki x reader #kirishima x reader

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nycttophilic-a · 5 years

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Ryunosuke Akutagawa

=BASIC INFO=

FULL NAME: Ryunosuke Akutagawa NICKNAME(S)/ALIAS(ES): Mafia Dog, Rabid Dog, Silent Rabid Dog, Diablo, Black Cloaked Hellhound PRONUNCIATION(S): Ryuu-NOH-s-kay AGE: 20 GENDER: Male SPECIES: Human (ability user) BIRTH DATE: March 1 SEXUALITY: Biromantic demisexual =PERSONALITY= PERSONALITY: Selfish, cold, harsh, prideful, strong-willed, stubborn, emotion-driven, detached from others, blunt EMBODYING QUALITY/IDEA: A hate-driven man with far too much power at his disposal LIKES: Antique calligraphy and paintings, tea, figs DISLIKES: Plants, dogs, baths, broad beans, mandarins FEARS: Being weak, losing his sister, being worthless WEAKNESSES: acts before thinking and lets his emotions drive him, struggles to care about people, tends to go off on his own and do things without permission, has a bad temper STRENGTHS: Strong willed, strong fighting spirit, protective of those he cares about, won’t torture his enemies (if that counts as a strength...) SPECIAL/SIGNIFICANT BELONGINGS: His ability manifests itself in the black coat he wears, so he always has that coat on him. =PHYSICAL AND HEALTH INFO= HEIGHT: 5′7 feet WEIGHT: 110 Pounds BODY TYPE: A very slim frame and sickly appearance with his pale skin. He’s often seen with his hand covering his mouth while he coughs. This is because he has COPD, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, from living in the slums. JEWELRY: Doesn’t wear any PIERCINGS/TATTOOS: None SCARS/DISTINGUISHING MARKS: The tips of his hair are white, which is one way to pick him out of a crowd. He has many scars along his body not just from his “training” with Dazai, but also from living in the slums and trying to survive. =RELATIONSHIP INFO= RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Verse dependent PARENTS: unknown, deceased parents. He doesn’t even know who they are, and honestly, he couldn’t care less. Even if they were alive, he’d kill them for leaving him and his sister. SIBLING(S): Gin Akutagawa (Younger sister) – BEST FRIEND(S): N/A, verse dependent FRIENDS: (Ichiyo Higuchi), verse dependent ACQUAINTANCES: Kyouka Izumi, Chuuya Nakahara, Sakunoske Oda, verse dependent ASSISTANTS: Ichiyo Higuchi, lower ranked mafioso GUARDS: Ichiyo Higuchi ALLIES: Port Mafia PETS/SPECIAL ANIMALS: N/A, verse dependent – ENEMIES: Atsushi Nakajima, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, among others MAIN ENEMY(IES): The Guild, the Decay of Angels, the Armed Detective Agency, pretty much anyone who breathes... MOST HATED: Atsushi Nakajima =STORY INFO= STORIES THAT THIS CHARACTER APPEARS IN: Bungou Stray Dogs STATUS: Alive BACKSTORY: Ryunosuke and his sister, Gin, were born and raised in the slums of Yokohama. They didn’t know their parents and couldn’t care to try to remember them, so they had to look after each other. They lived with a few other children and struggled to get by. One day, Ryunosuke and the other kids overheard talk about a port mafia shipment to some of its lower members. The men caught the kids and beat them all to death, save for Ryunosuke and Gin, who managed to get away. To get revenge on the ones who killed the other children, Ryunosuke went to the spot where the shipment was supposed to come in, but all six men were killed by Dazai’s orders. The older offered the boy a place in the Port Mafia. Overwhelmed with respect for this male who had saved him and his sister from the slums of Yokohama, Akutagawa joined. He was fourteen. Dazai’s “training” was horrible and brutal. He constantly criticized Akutagawa’s technique and ability, calling him weak and worthless and quite often beating him senseless. All of this only made Ryunosuke want to become worthy in his mentor’s eyes, so much so that he became feverishly obsessed with that. To this day, he will kill anyone with no remorse if it meant proving his strength and worth. But that’s exactly why Dazai is so unhappy with him. Now, his face is feared all across Yokohama. – PLACE OF BIRTH: the slums of Yokohama PAST LIVING QUARTERS: The Slums CURRENT AND FUTURE HOMES: Yokohama – NATIVE LANGUAGE(S): Japanese LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Japanese, English, French, some Russian =TALENTS/OCCUPATION/EDUCATION= OCCUPATION/JOB: Mafioso BOSS: Ogai Mori TALENTS: Willingness to get his hands dirty, ability to kill with ease, his ability: Rashomon YEARS OF EDUCATION: No formal education LEVEL OF EDUCATION: No formal education =COMBAT= SKILLS/TECHNIQUES: he himself is mostly stationary in battle, unless he can move around with minimal effort due to Rashomon. He won’t perform hand to hand combat unless Rashomon is in its Demon Armor form, because then it can move Akutagawa around with no effort on his part. That makes it easier on his weak body. SPECIAL POWERS: Rashomon: an ability that can posses and be summoned from any article of clothing, but Akutagawa mainly uses his traditional black coat to summon his ability. It can cut and eat through anything and nothing can cut through it, save for Atsushi Nakajima’s tiger claws. Rashomon has many different forms, all fo which I am not going to list out and explain lol. WEAPON(S) OF CHOICE: He uses Rashomon 99% of the time, but he keeps a gun with him just in case he can’t. STRENGTHS: His ability is incredibly strong and can cut through anything, even space itself. WEAKNESSES: He actually has a very weak body, and so he himself doesn’t move around much and mostly lets his ability to the fighting. If he exerts his body too much, he could easily pass out. =VERSES= ~íf í tσld чσu whαt í wαѕ wσuld чσu turn чσur вαck σn mє?~ [Monster! Verse]—An AU where the world is humans/monster hunters vs. monsters. Akutagawa is a monster hunter who uses captured monsters in combat. He makes proper use of shock collars and beatings to keep his “pets” in line. He is feared among monsters and respected among humans as a hero that drives back the horrific beasts.

~ѕσund σf mч hєαrt; thє вєαt gσєѕ σn αnd σn~ [Band Verse]—A verse where Ryunosuke is just a normal emo guy who’s an excellent bass player. The only problem is that he doesn’t work too well in groups, or bands...

~í’m α crєαturє whσ‘ѕ up tσ nσ gσσd; í‘ll lσvє чσu líkє α vαmpírє wσuld~ [Vampire Verse]—This verse is very simple and the same for all of the muses that have it: the character is a vampire. This verse is very flexible, so if you have ideas please let me know so we can incorporate it into the thread!! But it’s nothing major, I just love vampires lol

~tαkє mє thrσugh thє níght; fαll íntσ thє dαrk ѕídє~ [Villain! Verse]—Affiliated with @siireniis‘s Phantom Casino. Ryunosuke used to be Dazai’s pupil as a child before the older male joined the side of the heroes and abandoned the boy. Years later, he was found on the street by the leader of the Phantom Casino, Zach Rhys. Now, Aku works for him and is incredibly loyal to him, and can be found as a bartender at the villain-exclusive casino.

~í‘m juѕt líkє чσu! чσu‘rє juѕt líkє mє!~ [Twin! AU]—An AU for Akutagawa rpers who love twin AUs like me!! Basically Ryunosuke has a younger twin brother, Tajomaru (I will play as Tajomaru..!! ^w^)

~í cαn‘t lívє α nσrmαl lífє; í wαѕ rαíѕєd вч thє ѕtrєєtѕ~ [Beast! AU]—An alternate AU where Ryunosuke is a member of the Armed Detective Agency, along with other changes. This verse will be extremely selective as I don’t know much about the Beast novel, so you guys will have to help me lol

~tσ α ѕєnѕєlєѕѕ вєαtíng; crípplєd αnd вαrєlч вrєαthíng; í tσrє σff mч ѕkín; í‘ll hαng frσm thíѕ nσσѕє~ [Reverse! AU]—A very dark and twisted AU that’s the complete opposite of normal. In this AU, Ryunosuke is a calm and well mannered boy training under Chuuya Nakahara in the Armed Detective Agency. He is often referred to by Atsushi Nakajima as his “pet”, as he is forced to do as the weretiger says—otherwise, he will kill him.

~hσld чσur вrєαth αnd cσunt thє dαчѕ; wє‘rє grαduαtíng ѕσσn~ [High School Verse]—A verse where Aku’s just a normal teen. He’s a junior and basically Dazai’s shadow. He idolizes him for reasons I honestly couldn’t tell you. Even though he follows him everywhere, when Dazai graduates Ryu will never reach the fear and control his “mentor” made.

like this post if you have read it and agree to it, please.

#~fєєl thє fєαr αnd ѕwαllσw вαck thє tєαrѕ; lєt wєαknєѕѕ díѕαppєαr~ [Ryunosuke Akutagawa]

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 6 years

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8 Films We Can’t Wait To See at The 2018 Overlook Film Festival

The Overlook Film Festival descends on New Orleans in just a few short days, and this year’s lineup is jam packed with horror films, interactive exhibits and panels. A 4-day celebration of all things horror, this year’s festival begins April 19, 2018 in America’s most haunted city: New Orleans, Louisiana. A city brimming with ancient voodoo and restless spirits, New Orleans is also home to a ghost said to be Stephen King’s inspiration for The Shining‘s Grady Twins. Ghosts aside, The Overlook Film Festival is the most incredible film festival you will ever attend, and you should absolutely make the trip out this year to immerse yourself in a mind-bending weekend full of kickass movies, and kickass people.

The 2018 line-up is full of movies every horror fan is dying to see, including A24’s upcoming Hereditary and Blumhouse’s surprise sequel Unfriended: Dark Web. Also making an appearance are festival favorites Revenge, Tigers Are Not Afraid, and The Ranger which our very own Stephanie Cole called, “a great genre remix that gets to the heart of why horror fans keep coming back for more“. We’re crazy excited to take-in everything Overlook has to offer but here are 8 Movies that may not already be on your radar.

Blood Fest

Director: Owen Egerton Cast: Robbie Kay, Jacob Batalon, Seychelle Gabriel, Tate Donovan, Barbara Dunkelman, Nick Rutherford, Zachary Levi United States, 2018When the most exciting horror festival in the country turns the tables on its zealous fan base by trapping them on the grounds and murdering them en masse, a group of teens armed with the knowledge of a thousand horror movies must fight their way through the bloodbath in this hilarious send-up of horror culture.

St. Agatha

WORLD PREMIERE Director: Darren Lynn Bousman Cast: Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courtney Halverson United States, 2018

Horror film impresario Darren Lynn Bousman, director of SAW II, III and IV, modern experiments REPO! A GENETIC OPERA and THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL, not to mention the groundbreaking ongoing immersive property The Tension Experience, brings to life his latest vision, a period piece concerning a troubled woman running from her past who finds herself kept hostage by a coven of vicious nuns.

Don’t Leave Home

Director: Michael Tully Cast: Anna Margaret Hollyman, Lalor Roddy, Helena Bereen, David McSavage, Karrie Cox Ireland, 2018 An American artist accepts a strange invitation to a secluded Irish manor to construct an original sculpture for a priestly painter whose work has been shrouded in a sinister urban legend involving the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl in this creepy, offbeat cinematic discovery from indie stalwart Michael Tully (SEPTIEN).

Ghost Stories

Director: Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman Cast: Martin Freeman, Alex Lawther, Andy Nyman, Paul Whitehouse United Kingdom, 2017 After stumbling across a long-lost folder of material from his childhood hero, Goodman, a TV investigator known for debumking psychic hoaxes, digs deep into three cases of ghoulish hauntings. Determined to find rational explanations, Goodman quickly realizes he’s in over his head. Featuring Martin Freeman, this spine-tingling anthology, adapted from the hit stage play, tells enough tales to keep you up for nights to come.

Good Manners

Director: Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra Cast: Isabél Zuaa, Marjorie Estiano, Miguel Lobo Brazil/France, 2017 A surprising, imaginative and engaging twist on classic genre stories told with a sophisticated cinematic technique, GOOD MANNERS begins unassumingly with a near destitute nurse becoming the caretaker for a wealthy, isolated pregnant woman exhibiting strange behavior. But soon her habits turn into a sleeping hunger that changes both of their lives forever.

Satan’s Slaves

Director: Joko Anwar Cast: Tara Basro, Bront Palarae, Dimas Aditya, Endy Arfian, Nasar Annuz, Ayu Laksmi, Egy Fedly Indonesia, 2017 When Mawarni, a famous Indonesian singer, dies of a mysterious illness, her husband and four children are left behind to pick up the pieces, only to discover that they are being haunted by a pack of rabid spirits headed by Mawarni herself. Technically billed as a remake of the 1982 Indonesian remake of Don Coscarelli’s PHANTASM, celebrated director Joko Anwar’s SATAN’S SLAVES is its own chilling throwback to 70s supernatural thrillers, packed to the brim with jump scares and iconic imagery.

What Keeps You Alive

Director: Colin Minihan Cast: Hannah Emily Anderson, Brittany Allen, Martha Macisaac, Joey Klein, Charlotte Lindsay Marron Canada, 2018 For their first wedding anniversary, Jackie and Jules retreat to a cozy cabin near a beautiful lake. The sudden appearance of Jackie’s childhood best friend sets off a chain of unlikely events that turn a quiet vacation into the deadliest game of cat and mouse in Overlook Alum Colin Minihan’s (writer of STILL/BORN) claustrophobic survivalist thriller.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

WORLD PREMIERE Director: Sonny Laguna & Tommy Wiklund Cast: Thomas Lennon, Michael Paré, Barbara Crampton, Udo Kier United Kingdom / United States, 2018 During a roadtrip to a convention for the 30th Anniversary of the infamous Toulon Murders, a comic book nerd, his new girlfriend and his best friend come face to face with a set of sadistic nazi puppets out for blood. A reimagining of the Charles Band classic, this uproarious horror comedy starring Thomas Lennon, Udo Kier, Barbara Crampton, Nelson Franklin, and Charlene Yi pays homage to the Full Moon features of the late 80s, early 90s.

The Overlook Film Festival run April 19-24, 2018 at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. Festival Passes and individual tickets can be purchased HERE. And if will be attending the festival this year, let us know on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and in the Horror Fiends of Nightmare on Film Street Facebook group!

The post 8 Films We Can’t Wait To See at The 2018 Overlook Film Festival appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

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Karamel Fic: Edging Toward Synchronicity (8/8)

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters: 8

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author’s Notes:

Tagging: @mon-kai-el, @actualpuppychriswood, @pwettypwita, @contygold86, @karamelizedlove, @kelbottumbles, @starcrossed-comets, @emarasmoak, @fangirlintheforest, @ships-sailing-in-the-night, @lostin-the-desert, @somos-poeiraestelar

And all I gave you is gone

Tumbled like it was stone

Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake

Thought we built a dynasty like nothing ever made

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

The scar I can't reverse

When the more it heals the worse it hurts

Gave you every piece of me, no wonder it's missing

Don't know how to be so close to someone so distant

--MIIA – “Dynasty”

Chapter 8/8

For three hours they went over the designs for the suit. Winn had seven designs in all, and together they were able to jettison some elements as impractical, too bold, or otherwise inappropriate, until the remaining ideas came together to create something both workable and aesthetic.

“I like the red,” Mon-El approves.

“It offsets Kara’s blue,” Winn nods. “I thought that would look nice,” he preens a bit.

“It reminds me of Daxam’s red sky.” His mind drifts back to last night’s dream and the vividness of it; the red sun over his head, the plum boscage at his fingertips. The crunch of the dead copper-blossoms beneath his knees as his wife’s blood poured through his fingers, his son’s life ebbing away inside of her. Mon-El’s heart races and his gorge rises. He covers his mouth with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate bid to keep from vomiting.

“It does?” Winn inquires, blissfully unaware of the other’s vexation. Mon-El plays off his nausea-induced stress as a yawn, which has Winn doing a double-take. “Am I keeping you awake?” he snarks. “Long night?” Off of a stern look from Mon-El’s steel-turned eyes, Winn gulps and asks, “Too soon?” Then, nodding, he turns back to his computer and answers his own question. “Too soon. I hear you. So what do you think about the boots…?”

“They’re a little too high,” he shrugs with one shoulder. “I’m not a pirate.”

“Kara’s boots are high,” Winn explains.

“She wears a skirt,” he argues, “the aesthetic looks better.”

“Especially with those legs,” Winn blurts, before he can stop himself. He cringes, anticipating a challenge of some sort or at least another steel-blue stare, but instead he watches out of the corner of his eye as Mon-El’s lips quirk up on one side.

“Especially with those legs,” he echoes, his voice turning husky.

“Oh-kay,” Winn drawls, wishing he could scrub the look of blissful recollection on his friend’s face from his mind. “So, we’ll cut the boots back to below the knee. I’ll have them lined with Kevlar to be safe…maybe add some steel toes.” With a look from Mon-El, Winn corrects, “Steel toes taken care of…check.”

“I don’t see a cape in any of these designs,” Mon-El points out, hoping his voice doesn’t sound like a pout.

“No cape,” Winn answers succinctly. “You don’t want a cape.”

“Of course I want a cape!”

“Trust me, you don’t. Kara’s cape is for aerodynamics. It helps with drag, she takes care of the lift. You don’t fly, so all you’ll get is drag. Not having a cape could mean the difference between making a 15 story leap and an 18 story leap. Cape is just going to weigh you down.” Winn’s analysis is succinct and doesn’t leave much room for arguing. He chuckles, “You learn to fly…I’ll build you a cape. Deal?”

Mon-El sighs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide his disappointment. “Deal.”

“Plus, this way all the ladies will get a better view of your ass.” Winn’s eyes widen, as Mon-El side-eyes him. “Did I say that out loud?” With a defensive shrug he spouts, “What? I promised I’d make you look good…so I’m playing to your strengths!”

It took another hour to nail down the incidentals of the red suit, deciding on a high collar of royal blue to match the Kevlar-lined boots, an asymmetrical hemline on the shirt, skin tight pants that show the dips and creases of his musculature and a yellow belt with a center medallion containing a glyph of Daxam’s sun shooting red rays of light.

Taking measurements in the locker room was a singularly uncomfortable experience in which Winn joked about never expecting their relationship to get this close.

Ral was there the whole time laughing at Mon-El’s discomfort.

Heading back to the CIC after Winn said he had all he needed for the time being, Mon-El overhears an agent commenting that Dr. Danvers had arrived unexpectedly a while ago. Hospitality on this planet demands that he stop by and pay his respects to her – but also he’s always enjoyed talking to her in the past. She projects a motherly warmth for which Mon-El has secretly always yearned.

“You want to be charming,” Ral reminds him, unnecessarily, “but not too charming. Remember…the last time you saw her you were only thinking about defiling her daughter. You weren’t actually doing it.”

Mon-El stops in his tracks and glares pointedly at Ral, who grins widely, before walking onward. “No one’s defiling anyone,” Mon-El says surreptitiously between clenched teeth.

“Hmmm…I wonder if Dr. Danvers will see it that way….” Ral torments him. Admittedly, Mon-El has some concerns about seeing Dr. Danvers again, now that he’s mated to her adoptive daughter.

His gut clenches with concern, but he stays his course. “Why do I keep you around?”

“Because I know things, Brother. Things you’ve forgotten and don’t seem inclined to remember. It’s right there,” Ral says, needling him. “Right there under the surface. So close you can feel it bubbling up. Sometimes you think you hear the wails inside your head or see the flames in your mind’s eye. And the smell of the blood, of charred skin and heads on fire like screaming candlesticks….”

“Stop,” Mon-El begs. Suddenly finding himself breathless, his heart racing, he places his hand against the smooth concrete wall and tucks his face into his arm, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Behind his eyelids, white and gray flash and flicker like the screaming, flickering bulbs of the intrusive cameras belonging to rabid reporters and paparazzi. “You have to stop.”

“On the contrary, brother, I have to continue – if that’s what it takes. Now that you’ve seen the truth, or at least part of it, you need to let the rest in. It’s the only way to make you whole.”

“Whole,” he echoes. “I’m more whole here, now…with her…than I ever felt for even a single moment of my life back there.”

“Good…that’s good. There may come a time when you need to choose between hanging on to me and losing her, or letting go in order to have the life you want, and you’ll do well to remember that. But that day, that loss, and everything that led up to it…the choices you made…will always be a specter over your head for as long as you refuse to give it its due. Let it in,” Ral urges. “Feel it. Accept the pain of it, so that you can make it a part of who you are and move on. There’s still work to be done and you can’t keep it at a distance forever.”

“I know,” Mon-El breathes, seeing the truth of Ral’s words for the first time.

“Sir, are you alright?” an astute DEO employee walking by stops to ask, noticing Mon-El’s distress. He recognizes her as one of the medical practitioners often seen in the med-bay and her lab coat identifies her as such.

“I’m fine, thank you. Just...” his vision flashes white and gray again ad he rubs his eyes, “a bit of a headache.”

“Would like an escort to the med-bay?” the woman asks.

Mon-El tosses Ral a glance and nods, “Actually, I was just on my way to see Dr. Danvers.”

“I just saw her in the conference room, sir. With Agent Danvers and Supergirl.”

“Supergirl’s here?”

“Just flew in a few minutes ago,” the agent informs him. “Do you need help?”

“No, I’ve got this.” Mon-El straightens his spine, gives the woman a reassuring smile, and lies, “I’m feeling much better now, thanks.”

The medic regards him suspiciously for a moment before nodding and walking away. Mon-El watches as she goes, waiting until she disappears around the corner before altering his course in the direction of the conference room.

“You’re…not looking so good,” Ral declares.

He doesn’t feel so good either. It’s not anything he can pinpoint or put a finger on, like a fever or a choking cough. It doesn’t feel like the sickness created by the Medusa virus, but rather a profound foreboding that fills his chest and spreads down his spine like the tendrils of Velestrian Rot, a black vine that burrows deep, growing out of control until it breaks apart the very thing to which its attached. His fingers tingle and his eyes sting incessantly.

He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop but his powers appear to be fritzing out. It occurs to him that he may be experiencing withdrawals from going more than twenty-four hours without siphoning electricity. Ral had claimed it was becoming an addiction. Perhaps he had been right—he usually is.

“Safety of others?” he overhears Kara ask, but doesn’t know to whom she speaks. Is there something brewing out there? Perhaps Cadmus is up to some new tricks? Something for which he needs to prepare. “You want to put him back into a cell?”

Mon-El halts in his tracks just outside the conference room. This is interesting. Who is she talking about?

“Isolation,” he hears Alex say, her tone one of pacifying rationalization. “For his own good.”

“But in a cell,” Kara repeats. “After everything we—after everything I—put him through when he first arrived. After Medusa? You want to put him back in a cell like he can’t be trusted.”

Mon-El’s heart speeds up because it sounds like they could be talking about…him. Are they talking about him? Talking about putting him in a cell, like when he first arrived? After everything he’s done, how hard he’s worked to prove himself? To prove he can be trusted?

“Kara, he’s on the verge of a full-blown psychotic break. It sounds like he’s fighting it for the moment, but there’s no predicting how long he has before his mind completely fractures and he can no longer tell the difference between the hallucination and reality. And if that break happens and he experiences another flashback like the one he had last night…Kara, I know it’s painful, but locking him up really is the best for everyone. At least until we can find a way to purge him of the hallucination.”

“They know about me,” Ral says. “It was only a matter of time, of course. Especially with how close you two have been getting. You can’t keep these things secret forever.”

“Alex thinks they can take you away from me,” Mom-El says, a dark rage rising inside of him, a fever building that spreads up his neck and face until he can feel it burning beneath his skin.

“Let her believe what she likes, brother. She can’t take me away. No one has the power to do that.”

Mon-El tunes back in, listening for what comes next, waiting to hear Kara’s voice of reason…and hope. He knows, without a doubt, that she believes in him. Trusts him. She just asked him to move into her loft with her so that she can help him deal with the nightmares and now, the flashbacks; there’s no way she going to give up on him so quickly and so easily. She always fights for the ones she loves.

“Okay,” Kara’s voice agrees. “We’ll play this your way. We’ll lock him up.”

For the second time in his life, Mon-El’s entire world crumbles around him. She didn’t even fight for him, didn’t come to his defense. He had been so certain that she would, so certain that everything they’d shared had meant as much to her as it means to him.

They’d talked about sharing a life, about having a family, and here she is bartering all of that away because he’s…too damaged. She’ll take everything away from him if he allows this. If he doesn’t do something, doesn’t move or take a stand, she’ll take away everything he’s earned and worked so hard for. His job, his friends; she’ll take away Valor.

A righteous rage mixes and swirls with the heartbreak he feels inside. He won’t be locked up. Not again. Not after what his father did.

“Now you’re feeling it,” Ral exclaims. “Let it come, Brother.”

Mon-El shakes him off, ignoring the gnat that whispers in his ear, focusing only on the red that closes in around his vision, locking down his sight until it focuses like a laser beam, focuses on her. Her head whips around to see him standing in the door, and her eyes widen with surprise, her eyebrows crinkling as though already preparing to tell him lies.

“Remember when I said not to worry about the time and the place?” Ral asks. “That I would take care of it? This seems like as good a place as any other.”

Mon-El grits his teeth and steels his resolve.

“Mon-El,” Kara exclaims, frightfully. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” he grinds out.

“Mon-El, you’re not—“ she tries.

“Don’t,” he says, raising his voice and his hand. “Just don’t.”

“Looks like some people just don’t get the same consideration others do,” Ral needles in a practically blasé manner, sounding for all the world like he’s stoking Mon-El’s anger to a fine rage.

Mon-El turns on Ral, pointing a finger. “You…shut the hell up for once!”

Kara’s heart constricts, her throat closing as Mon-El reveals to her for the first time the depths of his psychosis. “Mon-El,” she cries, covering her mouth with her hands.

Dr. Danvers exchanges a look with Alex before slowly rising from her chair and inching away from him. Alex’s eyes harden and she reaches for her belt.

“Man’s got a point, though,” Mon-El shouts, his adrenaline surging unlike anything he’s ever felt before. The taste of it in the back of his throat is like battery acid. Looking at her, at this woman he fell in love with and by whom he is betrayed, he can feel the walls inside of him splintering, bursting apart like a cage outgrown by its captive. “How long did you get, Kara?” he wonders.

She sees him changing, breaking right in front of her and it’s everything she didn’t know she feared. His handsome face transforms into a monstrosity a red anger, his lips turning an alarming shade of…gray? “I don’t understand,” she shakes her head, expressing her own confusion, rather than answering his query.

“How long did your precious adoptive family give you to grieve all that you had lost? Did you a get a whole three months like you’ve given me? Is this the extent of your generosity? Did they threaten to lock you away because you were too broken to be fixed?”

“Mon-El, we’re trying to—“

“If you say ‘help’, Kara, so help me Rao.” Mon-El blinks furiously, his eyes watering, unable to clear the angry red of his vision. “I see my dead brother,” he confesses. “I talk to him when I need to work things out, or sometimes when I just need a friend. I’m not going to be told that’s wrong by a woman who keeps a virtual construct shrine to her dead mother.”

Kara gasps and swallows the acrid acid taste in her mouth that rises in the face of his vitriol…and his truth. “It’s not the same,” she insists, though her tone lacks conviction.

“Oh, I know,” he shouts, his voice grating on her heart like sandpaper. “The difference is I know that Ral is dead…in my heart. It happened right before my eyes. I’m not still holding on to hope. You know what I’m also not doing?” he asks. “I’m not going back to that cell.”

“It’s okay,” she promises. “I just need you to calm down.”

“I don’t get to be angry now? Of course,” he scoffs, “The woman I love betrays me and you still expect me to be your little lap dog. Doing whatever you tell me, being whatever you want me to be.”

He doesn’t know what he’s saying, where all these words are coming from. They spill from his mouth like a vomit of long buried but now unrestrained bitterness. Just this morning, he made love to her as if she were his world and he thought she felt the same. But now, looking at her feels like she’s just another jailer, holding the keys to his shackles.

Tears streak down her face as her heart breaks. She came here seeking help for him and never intended to betray him, but he would never see it that way, not in this state. She wipes the tears from her face, looking up to see four agents approaching him from behind.

Something slams him in the back, followed in quick succession by three more blows, one in the back of the head that brings him to his knees. Before he can gain his bearings his wrists are gathered in front of him and a pair of Nth metal cuffs are placed on them.

A thought flashes through Mon-El’s mind, that this is not how he planned to obtain Nth metal cuffs today. He scoffs angrily at the irony, but the thought only serves to inflame his rage, reminding him that just this morning, despite the specter of death that hung over his head, his whole world was shaping up quite nicely.

“Alex, what did you do?” he hears Kara ask her sister.

“I pressed my panic button,” she replies.

“Please,” Kara begs the agents who are dragging Mon-El to his feet. “Please don’t hurt him.” She steps forward toward Mon-El, but Alex grabs her arm to stop her.

The agents’ mistake is pausing before attempting to place Nth shackles on his ankles. He throws them off with ease, watching as Kara’s and Alex’s widen in surprise as two of the agent fly through the glass windows. Despite the verbal confrontation and his clear distress, neither of them expected him to get violent. But clearly they had underestimated his psychosis.

Crashing through the glass, the agents fly over the balcony and forcing Kara to speed to their rescue, leaving Mon-El alone with Alex and Dr. Danvers. Hyperaware of her need to protect her mother, Alex draws her weapon and points it at Mon-El, but anticipating her move he speeds to her and tears the gun from her hand, crushing it in his fist.

He considers throwing the chunk of metal at one of the remaining agents, but before he can decide, he’s grabbed from behind in a chokehold by an arm with which he is intimately familiar and the world is whizzing past until he and Kara are in the open atrium of the DEO’s top floor. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she shouts, begs.

“You already have,” he chokes, her strength crushing down on his larynx. His red vision grays around the edges, until his father appears before him and everything goes red-hot again. “No!” he screams.

“You’ll do as I say,” his father declares, his own steel-gray eyes staring coldly back at him with a sneer on his full lips. “And never forget that you are…utterly…replaceable. Did you honestly think that you were only one?”

Ignoring the pressure at his neck, Mon-El wrenches himself free. “I’ll kill you for what you did to me. I will never give you what you want.”

When he shakes Kara off, she’s thrown back several feet, knocking her into the light table, both smashing it to smithereens and shocking the hell out of her at the same time as thousands of volts of electricity pass through her.

“You will,” his father insists, a smile of victory spreading slowly across his face. “And until you do…I think I’ll keep our dear Morgon here as collateral. Whether or not he’s returned to you in one piece, depends entirely upon the speed with which you comply.”

Ral drops to his knees in front of Mon-El, broken and bloodied, one eye swollen shut. “Leave this place, Brother,” he whispers. ‘The first chance you get…run. Forget about me…he will never let you be free.”

“What have you done?” Mon-El shouts, focusing his rage on his father.

“Just a promise…with more to come.” Waving his hand with a careless, carefree gesture, he commands, “Take him away.”

The scene in his mind shifts again like a red swipe across his vision and Daxam is crumbling around him once more. Ral is sprawled at his feet, his wrists and legs in chains as the room shakes and trembles. His legs are broken, meticulously broken with great care, so as to increase initial pain and long-term suffering, but that isn’t what draws his attention this time.

Like the chains, it is a detail he hadn’t seen before—his mind hadn’t let him see—the swaths of dried blood caked on Ral’s cheeks, stemming from the empty sockets where his eyes once were.

“No, no, no…what he did he do?” Mon-El cries reaching down to touch his brother’s face. “What did he do?”

“Extracted a price,” Ral answers, as the smell of smoke and the sound of screams filter through the air. “A price that no longer matters, it seems.”

“He only did this because of me,” Mon-El cries. “Because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”

“Not your fault,” Ral reaches out blindly and grabs Mon-El’s collar, pulling him closer. “Every drop of blood taken from me is a price well paid if it means this venal House finally dies with him. Know that I regret none of it, so long as that is the outcome.” A loud boom fills the air causing the ground to shake beneath them and Ral chuckles, despite his obvious pain. “The gods of Val-Or side with you this day. With both of us.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because this is your chance to get away from this place. The prison doors are open.”

“What about you?”

“You have to leave me, I’ll only slow us both down. You can still escape. He took my eyes, brother,” Ral winces, blood gurgling up to his teeth, his injuries far worse than they initially appeared. “I’ll never see my beloved Melis again – unless it’s in the afterlife. A place I’ll be seeing sooner rather than later, if the gods are good to me once more.”

“I won’t let you die here,” Mon-El insists.

“You will,” Ral cough, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth. “And you will make me one last promise.”

Torn, a scream of heartbroken rage wells up within him, pushing its way through his clenched teeth. His brother-in-bond is dying and there’s nothing he can do for him, but fulfill a final wish. “What is it?” he asks.

“Find a way,” Ral coughs again. “After this place is gone and that old despot is dead…find a way to restore what was great about Daxam.”

“What was great…? I don’t understand.”

Another boom rocks the building, chunks of the ceiling falling around them both. “There’s no time,” Ral rasps ever more weakly around horribly split lips. “You have to go now, before you’re buried with me. You’ll find a way,” Ral says, and Mon-El knows he isn’t talking about escaping.

Mon-El backs away towards the cell’s only exit, reluctant to leave the only man he’s ever called friend – called family. The only person who’s only truly loved him for him.

Sensing his bond-brother’s reluctance, Ral’s voice softens, “I’m already a memory, brother. Go before it’s too late.”

Just as he reaches the doorway, he looks back just in to time to see a chunk of the stone ceiling fall and strike Ral in the head, caving in a large portion of his skull.

It is a killing blow, he knows, instantly sparing his brother from a slow agonizing death from internal bleeding. It is a death for which to thank the gods, but instead he feels only rage for stealing the life of the only good thing he ever had in his life. The only thing that was ever his.

Mon-El hands fist tightly as his anger and grief wells up within him and then overflows. “Noooooo!” he screams.

****

Mon-El isn’t with them anymore, if he ever had been in the last few horrible minutes. He’s somewhere deep inside his own fractured mind, remembering traumatic events of long ago as if they were happening for the first time – like cutting away healthy flesh to find a bloody, festering wound beneath. Regaining her feet, struggling to overcome the effects electricity has on her, Kara manages to shake off her disorientation and move towards him just as two things happen at once.

“Nooooooo!” he screams, blind eyes focused on something she can’t see while his hands fist together hard enough to stress the bone.

And then the room explodes.

“Get down, get down!” Kara screams, as agents dive for cover under and behind any available protective surface. Red beams of light shoot around the cavernous room cutting through everything they touch like a soldering iron. His sudden onset heat vision is made all the more uncontrollable by the fact that his feet are hovering several inches from the ground.

He mumbles incoherently for the most part, only the occasional phrase making sense inside the chaos he creates. “Where is he!?” he demands. “Where has he gone?” His ravings continue as Kara ushers people to safety, her first priority getting them out of the line of his unintentional fire. When the last of the agents is removed to safety she considers her options as she observes his delirious raving. “Looking for this—“

Taking flight, Kara shoots toward him, striking him at mid-level and pulling him down to the ground, both of them sliding across the floor until they’re buried in a wall. The beams of red-hot heat shoot into the ceiling, which crumbles around them. She can barely restrain him as he thrashes beneath her and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, but she has to end this before someone gets seriously injured.

It tears her heart out, the inhuman sounds he makes, as if he’s reached down into the deepest parts of himself and found his most excruciating pain, bringing it to the surface and using his own voice as its release valve. Where is he now, she wonders? Marinating in some hellish mind palace with no way out but death?

Kara covers his vision beams with her hands, absorbing them and keeping them doing any more damage.

“He’s out of control, Kara!” she hears Alex shouting.

She knows her sister is right. He’s out of control and out of his mind and there’s only one thing she can do. Balling her hand in a fist, she rears back and slams it in his jaw, once and then a second time, both times his head rolling right back like a ball-ended punching bag that always comes back for more.

“Yes,” he seethes, his voice filled with hatred. “Kill me,” he shouts, lost in a delusion she can’t understand. “Kill me now, if you can! Your last—“

His next words are drowned out when he turns his head, his laser beams striking the glass walls to the outdoor balcony, causing them to shatter and explode. Thousands of tiny glass missiles spray the atrium like a glittering rain of deadly diamonds.

“Mon-El,” she sobs, her face wet with tears. “Please?” Kara begs, but she doesn’t know what she’s begging for, maybe praying for, other than for it to end. Like an answer to her heartfelt but unarticulated prayer, his heat vision sputters out as he lay beneath her, as if he’s gained some measure of control.

She punches him again, blood splattering from his noise and upper lip, which is when she realizes he hasn’t gained control of his heat vision, but has simply expended the reserves of yellow sun radiation in his cells—solar flaring—which makes him utterly vulnerable.

His eyes widen as his mind flares to lucidity to find Kara hovering over him, her fist coming down towards his face with alarming force. In the instant that her fist makes contact, and pain explodes in his head, he’s certain that death awaits him.

His last thought as darkness closes in around him is that this morning he awoke a hero, and somewhere along the line, without knowing where he mis-stepped, he became a villain.

The End

(To be continued)

#karamel fic #hanging on letting go series

9 notes · View notes

ginnyzero · 4 years

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The Power of FANDOM

Yes, FANDOM must be in all caps in that title.

Back when I started this blog as an author I came out as someone who is pro-fanfiction. In fact, I've been plenty honest about the fact that I've written fanfiction in the past, still write fanfiction and no doubt will continue to do so in the future.

Fandom is a lot more than simply fanfiction. It's fan art, it's AMVs, it's parody, it's meta. It's simply talking about a show with you co-workers/friends. Fandom isn't just about going to conventions or buying merchandise or posting gifsets on Tumblr. Though those are all good fannish things! Fandom is the power of the people putting their time and money and emotions into a piece of media and comes at all levels of commitment. And fandom can be powerful.

Exhibit A: Dragon Ball (Z, GT, F, Kai and Super and every non canon movie ever, etc.)

Dragon Ball started in Japan back in 1984 as a Shonen Jump manga about a genius scientist and a boy with a tail on quest for the mythical dragon balls. (So she could wish for an endless supply of strawberries or a perfect boyfriend. She was 16, cut her some slack.) It started making traction in the US in the mid to late 90s as Toonami started importing more Japanese anime across the pond. And here we are in 2018, Dragon Ball Super is on it's fifth season in the Universe Survival Saga. That is over 20 years of Goku vs. the next big bad shenanigans.

The only way this happened was through a huge and still in some spaces thriving fandom. Dragon Ball became the bar and the standard for a Shonen (boy focused) fighting manga and inspired another huge fan favorite, Naruto. There is an entire group called Team Four Star that have created a parody of Dragon Ball Z called Dragon Ball Abridged where they cut down the drawn out fights and crank the character's personalities up to eleven for the humor factor. (Given that Akira Toriyama is a humor writer at heart, this can be entertaining since many of his character are already parodies.) And the success of Dragon Ball Abridged is considered part of the reason that Dragon Ball GT has been replaced with Dragon Ball Super. (Or Super has gone in the middle of Z and GT or something.)

So, boys (and girls) of every age can still debate who is better, Vegeta or Goku, 19 years after Vegeta's introduction! Thanks to video parody and the fact that DBZ merchandise still sells and sells and sells.

A lot of these super fandoms have a major thing in common, fandom world building.

Exhibit B: Harry Potter

When Harry Potter first came out, my mother bought the first book because she wanted to see what the divisive fuss in Christian circles was all about. By the time I finished college, we ended up having all seven books. Harry Potter still has a huge following, the books are still on the tops of every fantasy book search. There are new movies coming out. JK Rowling created Pottermore and tweets facts about the universe still. There is still a great deal of interest in Harry Potter.

One of the reasons of this, and it happened in Dragon Ball as well, is that the author became so focused on telling their adventure story that the world building was closer to broad outlines than actual sketches. And this left a lot of wiggle room for fans to fill in the blanks with their own ideas and own rules and thoughts. Sure, a lot of it a pre-teen and teenage Harry Potter didn't actually need to know in the books. (But did we really have to spend half of the seventh book running around the forest either, no.)

In fact, in Exhibit A, Vegeta is an alien that hasn't been raised on Earth like Piccolo or Goku has and this fact is blatantly ignored throughout the entire series and Vegeta's inability to integrate with the other warriors is more often portrayed as him being an aloof jerk rather than him just not getting Earth society and not being able to set aside his pride and ask. In Harry Potter, Harry did ask a lot of questions. Whether or not he asked the correct questions is up for debate. But in Harry Potter, given that muggles came into Wizard Society on a semi-regular basis, the wizards had a slight understanding of how to deal with it.

The unanswered questions and the fun that the fans had in creating their own answers to them really prolonged the longevity of the series. (In trying to answer some of the questions, JK Rowling created more questions!)

Of course, there is also the mega-cross over fandoms.

Exhibit C: Supernatural

I'll admit. Even after 12 seasons, I haven't managed to sit down and watch one episode of Supernatural even though 2 good looking guys, a classic car and hunting monsters should be my jam. But nothing about that premise (even well done) should have given Supernatural the legs it's had. And the fandom is or at least was rather rabid in my wide eyed let's skirt about the edges of this lurking. And nothing would account of that except the rise of the super crossover fandom.

Think Supernatural plus Doctor Who plus Sherlock all in the same universe and the characters playing off each other even if the different story's rules are completely different and why would Sherlock leave Britain? But, it kept people interested in all three of those shows. It kept people going back and watching for more hints and clues and ideas to put into their stories. It kept Supernatural in the minds of FANDOM.

(And after mega crossovers came the revival of the coffee shop AU and the invention of the florist, tattoo shop AU, then the ABO stuff, and I'm not sure where we've gone from there. Fandom, you be crazy and I love you.)

But, as it is, most the intellectual property right holders of these huge mega-fandoms have a love/hate relationship with their fans. While they love the attention that fandom can bring to their works, they want fans to only react in certain ways. It's rumored the animation company behind Dragon Ball hates Dragon Ball Z Abridged, even though the current writers and animators on the ground are also rumored to love it. (So much that it might have influenced the characterizations of the characters in Super.) Granted, not all fans have interacted with the principals (actors, writers etc) appropriately. It still makes very little sense to bite the hand that buys your merchandise and keeps up your television ratings. Especially over works that 99% of the time, the fan makes no money off of. The fandoms that embrace their fans (Buffy, AtlA, I'm looking at you) deserve all the credit in the world.

Fandom has even managed several times to have movies made for cancelled television shows. Now, the quality of these movies is up for debate. (Personally, I loved the cinematography in Serenity and the way it opened the universe a bit more, a lot of the story was simply meh and would have played out better over a long television show.) Fandom interest has gotten producers interested in continuing that franchise even when the studios have decided not to do more with it.

Now, fandom definitely has it's dark and ugly sides. However, I'm still going to lean that there are more positive sides to having fan art and fan fic and parody and meta in free publicity than downsides. We, as creators, can always hope to have a fandom no matter how big or how small.

Viva La Fandom! Squeee!

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disorientedblog-archive · 5 years

Text

Arrival, Return (Stay the Course) November 2018

by Erin Wong / photo: Sam Kay

After a timid knock, I peer around the corner at my boss glaring into her computer. Hey, I say softly in fragile Chinese. Can I have a minute?

She nods, and waves me into the meeting room, barely pausing to look up. What’s up?

I have to take a call, I murmur, and continue to stare at her, still standing in the doorway, a child clinging to her mother’s skirt. Her face opens as her eyes find mine, and she breaks into an empathetic smile.

Should we maybe take the call together?

My shoulders relax as I settle next to her and dial. A voice answers and meets my own with surprise, so I rush to introduce my colleague before virtually disappearing amidst the rapid Mandarin that ensues. At first I listen in earnest, concentrating on the clipped music as someone might grasp at fading sound. But eventually, as a child would, I allow my mind to wander in between the complex corridors of their language.

For apprentices in Chinese – and I imagine many types of discourse – phone calls pose the additional challenge of conversing without the unspoken apology of a bowed head and series of smiles, without the diversion of humor or charisma. Yet these buffers serve of critical importance, because in hiding my appearance, I experience both ordeal and private blessing. We avoid the essential, mystified moment in which my fellow observes, wait, but you look Chinese, and I must say, yes, well I am Chinese; and yet I miss the parrying emphatic pause in which I reclaim a sort of common ground – and so I’m here to keep on learning.

Sometimes we never arrive at understanding. This first moment can extend anywhere from a grunt or shrug to the entirety of our relationship. One can never know whether these new encounters will bring a gush of welcome or a sniff of contempt, whether I am allowed the agency of an American expat or reduced to the daughter of negligent parents. I am given only one faithful assurance: that I am an oddity in Beijing, and my existence here is defined and disrupted by the ever-present dues of a past divergence.

—

For the first fourteen years of my life, I thought miraculously little of this divergence – that of my ancestors’ departure from a distant continent to the one I call home.

My childhood took place in suburban Seattle, insulated by way of entry into affluent neighborhoods and private schools. My parents folded easily into western convention: my mother, a Hong Kong native with British education, who moved to the Midwest at the age of sixteen; my father, a third generation immigrant, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. On Thanksgiving weekend, they would drive my brother and me down to Portland, where we’d bake pies with white aunts and uncles, then sneak into the movies with a troupe of Hapa cousins. White America bore my first friends, role models and educators, the first romantic rhapsody when a boy takes your hand and asks you to dance. And in the darkness of a grade school gymnasium, it was possible to believe myself both seen and invisible.

Once removed from this vacuum, however, I began to see etchings of color. Between packing my childhood into boxes and stepping off the plane in Hong Kong, this epiphany gave way to a series of unshakable patterns and behavior as high school flooded around me, like rapids at a crossroads of culture.

I pursued familiarity in those from the U.S., with whom I shared a cadence of language. Though I oscillated between overlapping groups of Korean, Hong Kong, and American classmates, I related most to the latter, and shamefully attempted to win their allegiance at the expense of the others. More than once, I sat in earnest discomfort, listening to new friends mock the accented English or alien pop music of another student—a practice I could not justify, not only for the acceptance I enjoyed in Seattle, but also because Hong Kong was clearly a part of me. I knew this now in the arms of extended family, and in the mirror, as my placement of features echoed in the millions outside. Still, I grappled to retain the exempt invisibility I once possessed. When asked if I cared for the eccentricities of other Asians, I repeated without hesitation, no way, you’re right, that is weird.

The city seemed to echo our high school hierarchy, with whiteness concentrated in office buildings and elite clubs, while local Chinese manned the wet markets and sustained the service economy. Although padded in privilege, I watched without direct harm the results of a system in which social capital stretched along intertwined axes, a system that promised my family and I would forever place below the utmost echelon. This dichotomy, though imperfect, proved just enough to insert itself insidiously in the mind of an adolescent. And in my youth, I learned to hate this part of myself, to hate this new environment that forced me to forfeit worldly access.

Thus I retreated to the U.S. for the remainder of high school, and learned to hide these aspects well. I distanced myself from Chinese America, eager to rewrite statistical bias and failing to find solace there. Though I flexed the ability to feign whiteness, I could no longer ignore stereotypes or prejudice; but this time, rather than implicate others, I resorted to a silent resignation.

In college, it was not uncommon for a partner to say something alarming mid-tryst, where vulnerability lets loose the laws of good conduct. On one occasion, I sank into the embrace of distant friend, and he stopped to stare at me hungrily, his eyes flickering in the dark so like the freedom of that first dance. Then he leaned in and whispered drunkenly, God I’ve missed Asians, with all the tender calamity of a husky sweet nothing. Nausea coursed through me, but I could no longer tell whether rage and revulsion pulsed outward at my accomplice or inward, against my own body, as we continued on.

I recall lying awake well into the night by his side, imagining a world in which I put on my clothes and walk out of his life without looking back. In this world, I call the Asian American friends I do not have and they tell me people like him know nothing of beauty, beauty like a deep purple bruise pressed into a rabid strength born of affliction.

Years later, walking through a park in south central Los Angeles, a friend would turn to me and say in thoughtful reflection, you know, I think we might be the only white people here. To which I could only throw up my hands and laugh a small, triumphant laugh, for it had been my private mission all these years to erase my ethnicity completely. But when this goal was at last accomplished, I knew whiteness only as something in which I would never take part.

—

Despite my best efforts to hide our relation, China refused to keep quiet. As the nation came to occupy more of the global stage, I wore the threat of its industrious population like a badge across my face; and when asked to represent views I did not know, for the first time, I found I wanted to know. Of course, I faced a fraught relationship to China, with part-time inhabitance in an autonomous territory and the language capacity of an inattentive student. Yet the call of awe and adventure, ignited by my years as an unwilling envoy, convinced me that acceptance lay in wait for wayward diaspora. After two decades in hiding, I took the leap – and shattered myself across the streets of Beijing.

The first blow came from my colleagues at the international office of my fellowship. Though I arrived in the midst of other fresh-faced Americans, and repeatedly offered assurance that I did not speak well, some combination of generosity and general bias led most to continue as though I understood them perfectly. It was an active battle to emphasize the opposite, and the first few days I carried an open secret that somehow only I believed. Then, all at once, the full story broke open across the kitchen table.

As the conversation shifted into comical banter, I smiled uncertainly in a room full of laughter, causing a colleague to turn to me and ask, so how much of what we say can you understand? To which I replied meekly, at least 50-percent? An unreasonably high estimate at the time, but one that felt necessary to dampen the sting of an ousted charade. I watch as their collective expression molds around this new information, hovering in the shape of disappointment as we stare into our food. The color that crawls into my face feels just as unbidden as this tide of assumptions; I entered the role of imposter for no other reason than my face, and the immigrant version of a once-native last name. Over time, we develop an equilibrium at which both Chinese and English offer buoyance for friendship, but this moment of mortification buries itself into my subconscious, germinating into a strain of social anxiety.

I start to avoid getting lunch in large groups, leave meetings early, smile and wave instead of stopping for small talk. I ignore invitations and let new friends slide, an introversion so unlike myself that I question my motives for moving here. Somewhere, far beneath the waking mind, I acknowledge this reaction as self-defense, an attempt to buffer the sadness of what feels like failure – to my family, my heritage, but foremost, my own expectations. The city had opened fire on the naïve notion that I shared anything in common with its populace.

In an ironic twist of solidarity, compassion comes in the form of other foreigners. Yet the world continued to haunt me in a way it did not them – waiters, drivers, front desks and phone calls, always the same incredulous expression, but you never learned Mandarin, or even Cantonese? I reluctantly empathize with the opposition, as invisibility returns at the cost of silence. China is, in its majority, comprised of those who have never met someone like me; I am a surprise, and a cliché—a student who didn’t study hard enough the classical art of knowing oneself.

It’s as though we approach understanding on winding highway, and at every stage, one has the opportunity to stop or find a route elsewhere. Sometimes it’s me, exhausted with the same explanation time and again; sometimes it’s my collocutor, daunted by the prospect of additional patience in engagement. In Beijing, my anxiety and resentment compound with local surprise and disinterest, such that the off ramps double in number. And it is this looming dispassion that scares me most. I am met with the possibility that I alone without my words, without a presupposition of innocence and significance, do not warrant pursuit in camaraderie. This, compounded with the towering notion that learning Chinese might simply be too hard, that cross-cultural closeness might never coalesce, forms the paralyzing and insurmountable fear that I might never find footing in a world I had come to believe I must belong.

—

After a year of emotional tumult, I find myself back in the amicable throng of my father’s family, thirteen cousins of varied age, build and character grinning at each other as we prepare dinner for our parents. My grandmother sits silently at the dining table, watching us work with an absent-minded smile.

She and I, we rarely spoke in my childhood. Affection translated instead through heaps of steaming food and the press of an extra sweater, wide smiles across the dining room table. She might mutter snippets of advice in English, or I’d overhear her converse in Cantonese, but she largely remained a fixed point of silence, always with the same short grey hair in contrast to the brilliant floral patterns nestled around her. No more than a week away from Beijing, I realize that my time abroad may have opened a new channel of understanding between us.

Mah Mah, I offer gently in Mandarin, sitting beside her under the pretext of cutting olives, I visited your campus last year in Beijing. She turns slowly, her smile no longer absent-minded. The university, you mean? I was studying to be a doctor there.

Yes, I know. I saw the lake too, the famous one, and walked around the gardens; it’s beautiful there.

Yes, it is beautiful. I lived there for almost four years, she says, nodding, her eyes clouding over. I had heard her story before, wherein she graduated top of her class, moved from rural Guangzhou to university in Beijing, and on the brink of becoming doctor, the tremors of revolution convinced her parents to send her away.

When she looks at me again, I feel that she is seeing me for the first time, a memory on the opposite shore of eight decades. I watch her on the western bank, wondering what she must see in her progeny, none of whom remember her native language, most who will never know the depth of her story. From the east, she watches an alternate universe where, with the blessings of privilege and peace, she lives freely in the urban epicenter of her mother country.

I am lucky, I blurt suddenly, and I am grateful to be there now.

She blinks, and she forgives me. Well, I imagine it’s quite different from when I was there.

We continue on this shared wavelength, onto other places we used to live, other things we used to do – church, piano, painting – stories long since tucked away. We talk of the new Asian American support center opening up in Portland, an enterprise I once would have disregarded, but now declare a necessity. We sit quietly on the edge of a bustling kitchen, and my grandfather emerges from the ruckus to place his hand on my shoulder.

For a moment, I am transported from the world around us, in which we prepare a feast of Mexican food at a summer lodge beneath Mt. Hood, where hip hop booms within the walls and Frisbees kiss the cedar pine, away from the glamor and sex of America, into the shadow world on which our story is built. In this world, my grandparents fought tooth and claw to keep their family of seven afloat, working night shifts at the Flower Drum, fetching bread ends from the bakery to feed the coming day. From long hours as a waitress at the Sichuanese diner to his white uniform in the Second World War, from the brief exchange of faded pictures that determined who they both would marry, all the way back between the mountains of Guangdong, where, for the first time, this story began – I watch in my mind’s eye as though to remember.

I gaze at my grandmother, and into the decades of pain and resilience that sit like a well dug miles deep behind those eyes. At the bottom, I see myself in Beijing, scrabbling to find a way to the surface, to recover some semblance of acceptance. But in fact, I belong nowhere else upon arrival; my grandparents labored for years to escape that world, their sacrifice evident in our assimilation sprouting from the ashes of departure.

Shrieks of joy come from the living room, where my youngest cousin in being shaken upside down by my brother, pulling me out of my reverie. I am tempted to hide, and cry, but the hand on my shoulder squeezes, and my grandmother makes a soft noise, 嗯. She watches the tousle of grandchildren on the carpet, laughing in tiny, shaking cackle.

—

I come from a long line of irrepressible immigrant energy. My mother’s grandfather, an entrepreneurial boy from Haining, who built his fortune on fine cloth and wrote history in Hong Kong hours south of the revolution; his first daughter, on the passenger ship home from college, fell in love with an introverted academic who would whisk her from Texas to Canada before growing roots back east again. My father’s grandfather, a thin bookkeeper from the outskirts of Guangzhou, answered the call of his uncle’s fish cannery and opened an import store on the Oregon coast. He and his wife, and their children, and their children, lived through a bloody America that bore exclusions acts and riots and murder before packaging the Chinese alongside distinct fellows in a single Asian entity that made fervent gains in wealth, education, and social grace. On this battleground, they fought and won survival, amid violent slurs and exoticization, the isolation and certain despair, persisting such that one day, decades down the line, we might claim this land our own. And on Thanksgiving weekend, my brother, mother, father and I drive down to Portland together, to reunite a circle of loved ones and rest atop our tired empire, buttressed by the nobility of forefathers who simply put their heads down and beat on.

On the plane ride home to Beijing, a strange insignificance arrives, like that of a single thread, braided into an intricate fabric stretched halfway around the world. I am but one of many millions of migrants who were granted safe passage between these nations. Not only this, but other identities in both have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of darker tragedy; to seize up in light of indelicate acceptance is to forsake the brave knowledge of those before: discomfort and rejection are the pedagogy of self-acceptance; oppression, the window to truth. Like my forebears from Asia, I travel with agency, and with respect to their decision, I bow in the humility of return.

In my second year, I find footholds in friendship, working to bridge the distance from expat to local. Passersby still stare as I struggle to read, but I concentrate instead on my teacher’s rounded smile, the way she pedals her hands to signify balance between characters. I catch dinner with an old friend, and she tells me she hears a new confidence in this voice; confidence, perhaps not in language, but in the art of knowing oneself, knowing that my first name and face represent the south, knowing why my great-grandparents sewed gold into their clothing and once fled far from here, knowing the dignity, grit, and unparalleled intrigue of my Chinese colleagues and friends – uncovering at long last, a story to expound my existence, and a reason to continue its writing.

I don’t claim to meet expectations, but I do lay claim to a life here, swimming my way back to an identity I must earn, paying dues for the past divergence, day by day, character by character. And acceptance, when it does come, rains down with a depth of understanding more honest than any identity crisis, one that says this ‘white-ass’ Chinese American bit the bullet and made a home for herself, that much closer to the middle between two worlds.

Erin Wong served as a Princeton in Asia fellow in Beijing from 2017-2018 and continues to live there, working at an environmental NGO.

#China

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