#dirtbag alert
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heyyyyy y’all… i’m peyton [sh/th, 21+, cst—also the mun of selena, hyeon, mouse & dabin] and i’m stoked to be bringing you guys another older character of mine, hwang daesung/dylan hwang. the tl;dr on dylan is that he’s a dude soooo fixated on being the life of the party that he’s actually not the life of the party at all 😓 you can view his stats here, his pinterest here and read all about him under the cut.
dylan hwang, born june 14, 1997 in santa monica, ca, usa to a rock musician/producer/blue collar worker father and a hairstylist mother :~) dylan was their first and only child and he was absolutely cherished. his parents were deeply in love, and you could tell that dylan was a product of that—a very bright, happy, confident kid who took after his father in particular.
he had an interest in music from a young age and would frequently accompany his father to his band’s practice sessions and/or studio recordings; but he didn’t only think the music stuff was cool, he also admired how hard of a worker his dad always was and how he still made time for his family and never seemed tired like…… the most he ever complained about was a headache. in dylan’s eyes, that man was a superhero!!!
also has an uncle (on his dad’s side) who’s cool as hell too; owned a record store in queens and babysat dylan often when he was little and both parents were busy. cool cool guy
but he had a harder time connecting with his mom as she was the more practical adult in his life—very much “good cop/bad cop” and unfortunately she was the bad cop, LOL. making dylan let her cut his hair whilst his dad encouraged him to grow it out, lecturing him for climbing trees in the neighborhood, no sweets before breakfast type deal like… she wasn’t evil AT ALL, just irritating sometimes lmfao
anywayyyy… TW CHRONIC ILLNESS, DEATH / when dylan was 14, his dad went to see a doctor for the aforementioned headaches he’d been having; this turned out to be a series of growths in his brain—he passed away within the same year / END TW
tl;dr dylan lost his dad in 2012, and it turns out his dad was the glue that was holding him and his mom together as well; rather than grieve and heal together, an irreparable distance grew and it definitely didn’t help that dylan was 14… the most evil age ever??? was extremely unkind to his mom, made her cry a lot, the house was silent most of the time with them even learning to have their meals at separate times
dylan really leaned into music more than ever around this time, and even more so once his mom realized she couldn’t pay the bills on her own and needed to go back to south korea and live with her parents for a while; dylan was extremely americanized by this point and didn’t speak korean on a native level, so he felt isolated as all hell in seoul—luckily his uncle richie moved to seoul along with them to stay close to dylan so at least he wasn’t stranded in unfamiliar territory with no one who he felt like he could lean on
his mom’s parents gave her a small loan to start her own salon in jongno-gu and richie relocated his music store to the nakwon musical instrument arcade, where it still is today; needless to say, they adjusted surprisingly quickly and, in a way, dylan felt like he was the only one still grieving and consequently was being left behind (which is not true but yk he was an angsty teenager)
had a lot of sadness and frustration with nowhere to go, and from about 15 to 18 he was a problem child :( picking fights, treating the people around him like shit, getting kicked out of school, etc etc
but around 18 he got a very humbling reality check and has been striving to be better ever since/striving to be someone his dad would be proud of—his relationship with his mom is still quite complicated because, like i mentioned before, he ended up getting kicked out of school which was NOTTTT cool… eventually got his ged, but. should not have happened that way. and she’s consistently asked him to pursue something other than music with his life as she doesn’t want to watch him waste his life chasing a pipe dream, but that remains the only thing that he really wants to do; he does help out at her salon on occasion and she talks about how she wishes he would come on full-time so they could spend more time together and she wouldn’t spend all day worrying about him, but 🤷♂️ he really doesn’t want to cut hair for the rest of his life. mostly nice to her now, but never gave her a proper apology for the fucked up shit he said to her before/the way that he treated her, and is still prone to lashing out when she gets on his nerves—familiarity breeds contempt type vibe.
after he was kicked out of school, he started working for his uncle richie at his music store as a sales associate; is still there to this day, but has job-hopped quite a bit over the years… richie always takes him back when he inevitably quits or gets fired. nowadays, he’s operating as a sales associate/instrument and record player repair tech/halfass assistant store manager like… what does he not do? he acts like he owns the place.
started a band in 2019, tentatively called both haze and through the haze (sounds like: silica gel, thornapple) depending on who you’re asking. a psychedelic rock band with a bunch of random ass influences; slow start, but they’ve been gaining a fair bit of traction recently. not quite known internationally, but most people in the jongno-gu area know the name and they play shows in the area often, as well as being invited to perform at independent rock festivals throughout the year. still…. the band’s not paying the bills, so 🤷♂️ they can’t quit their day jobs yet…
here he is now: a 26 (almost 27) year old man still doing the same shit he was doing 5 years ago, seemingly at a standstill in life. personality-wise, he’s very kind and humorous—forever trying to make up for the jackass that he was as a teenager, feels the best when he’s making people smile or laugh. treats everyone he encounters like they’re special to him in some way, “because they are”. much more intelligent than he’s given credit for, but lives as a piece of comedic relief instead of letting his skills (beyond music) show. absolute party animal, can outdrink anyone and can go for hours; hosts a lot of afterparties following haze’s shows, so stop by if you’re looking for a good time. a candle burning at both ends, but if you don’t look too close, you can’t tell; has an alcohol problem, but 🤷♂️ claims that it “comes with the territory” and “is no big deal”. friendly, well-meaning guy who never made peace with his grief and has to be fucked up to feel good, and no matter what levels of success he reaches, it never feels good enough. like i said before, he treats people like they’re special but fails to maintain meaningful relationships as he runs from commitment in any form and wants to know a lot of people a little bit rather than know a few people really good. lonely lonely man.
plot ideas
i always say this, but: i love extensive plotting, so if you're trying to discuss all the little details and build a strong storyline together, i'm your girl! however, i'm also 100% game to get a loose idea together, jump in and see how it develops. that said, here are some small ideas:
naturally, dylan's band members. the band has been around since 2019, but the current members do not have to be original. if/when these spots are taken, i would like to get together and discuss the band's dynamic as a whole as well! currently seeking: bassist, lead guitarist, drummer.
a friend around dylan's age (born '96 to '98 ideally) who he met when he first moved to seoul in 2013. they've been friends for 11 years now, so this is someone who knows dylan better than anyone else in his life, and his #1 supporter but also his biggest critic - they see how toxic/unhealthy his behavior is and call him out on his bs, which quite frankly scares him LMFAOOOO so maybe there's a little distance between them now that's never been there before? let's figure out the details together
musicians who often come to spins & needles for things like guitar strings, picks, cords, various music equipment, etc etc... connections he's made this way who don't have their own band, but sometimes fill in if a member of haze is unable to play a show? connections who DO have their own band and sometimes open for haze or vice versa? jam session buddies, young/budding musicians who think dylan's way cooler than he actually is, someone who just really loves music and drops in to chat the shit with dylan.
an ex-girlfriend, probably someone introduced to dylan by his mom as she used to frequent his mom's salon. they dated for a while, but dylan wasn't serious about her/wasn't willing to settle down at the time while she was wanting a partner who could be husband material. sorry!
a random ass eclectic friend group... people who have absolutely nothing in common with dylan, but they have a great time together anyway.
party friends, and ultimately, bad influences on each other - constantly pushing each other's limits, waking up with gnarly hangovers and doing it all again the next night. perhaps these are friends who dylan will grow apart from throughout his development as he tries to steer away from drinking, but that's a bridge to cross in the future!!!
let him have his christopher wilde (from starstruck, for those who don't know) moment... someone who doesn't like him/has been talking shit about how he's "pretentious" or whatever and now he's fixating on making them change their mind. "you don't like me? but you don't even know me.. i think... i think if you knew me, you would really like me" monologue type beat.
etc etc etc... open to anything!!!
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Teenage Dirtbag III (JJ Maybank x Reader x Rafe Cameron)
Warnings: attempted NON-CON, DUB-CON, abusive relationship, domestic violence, violence (+ gun violence), gun kink, dacryphilia, attempted murder, mentions of blood, public sex, jealousy, manipulation, infidelity, underage drinking, drug use, canon ages, kook!reader
➥ banner by @vase-of-lilies | ➥ divider by @firefly-graphics
➥ series masterlist
summary: You’re charmingly spoiled. You’re too kind for your own good. You’re the princess of Figure 8 …and you’re way out of JJ Maybank’s league, but when he realizes that Rafe Cameron’s pride and joy is actually a bruised and battered damsel, he’s determined to save you.
Your rescue just comes with a price.
~
Your brief conversation with JJ Maybank was still on your mind weeks later.
It was so funny to think that you hadn’t actually done anything wrong in the grand scheme of things, but if Rafe ever found out… The thought made you shudder, gaze focused on the pool water as the man himself laughed behind you with Kelce about something. You’d been doing so good lately. Aside from that awful night after the movies, Rafe hardly touched you.
It was a far cry from three months prior.
You still winced when you thought about his fist coming down across your face, voice loud in your ear as he screamed at you. Weeks had been spent holed up in your bedroom under the guise of being sick, and it was a miracle your parents hadn’t forced you to take some tests with how often you’d been ‘sick’ in the past six months alone. You lightly sighed, reaching up to touch your chin and just relieved it didn’t feel sore anymore.
Thoughts of that conversation with JJ instilled fear in you. Even just thinking about it made you tense up, but at the same time, it also caused irritation to bubble up inside of you. JJ Maybank was just so… You pursed your lips, taking a page out of Rafe’s book and opting to label him as ‘a little shit’. Rafe was so far from some saint, but it was plain to see that JJ enjoyed provoking your boyfriend.
However, it wasn’t JJ’s fault that Rafe took that out on you.
If you had a normal non-violent boyfriend, he’d simply ignore the other blond, or at the worst, he’d just fight him. Not you. How was JJ to know that Rafe’s jealousy would result in black eyes and swollen lips and sore wrists for you? Your eyes traced the clear blue water, a frown taking over as memories of that oh so brief conversation made you feel…warm.
It felt nice to talk to a guy and not have to worry about saying the wrong thing or making a questionable facial expression or just being so alert at all times. With Rafe, you could never relax, could never let your guard down, and you were convinced that you were going to start greying by the time you turned 30. With JJ…you didn’t have to overanalyze everything that came out of his mouth and your mouth too. You hadn’t felt the need to carefully watch his face for any sudden sign of a mood shift.
You honestly couldn’t remember the last time you felt like that.
…and that made you feel so guilty for some reason.
Rafe was your boyfriend. He wasn’t a very good one, but he was your boyfriend nonetheless, and despite the fact that it wasn’t, those few minutes in the hallway felt like…well…cheating. It was insane to say that because it wasn’t anything close to it, but you knew Rafe and what would upset him. You knew, and that’s why you were hiding it from him. It wasn’t like you were lying, but a lie of omission still counted, right?
You were pulled from your thoughts by the feel of familiar hands on your shoulders, causing you to jump out of habit, and Rafe only rubbed them in what you were sure was meant to be a soothing manner. When you looked over your shoulder, he was knelt behind you, that cheeky smile on his lips as he eyed you. Rafe knew the effect he had on you…and you swore he got off to it.
“It’s getting kind of late, so we’re heading inside,” he told you.
Rafe wasn’t telling you to be the considerate boyfriend who’s just letting you know he’s heading in. Rafe was telling you because he was going in and fully expected you to join him. It didn’t matter that you were relaxed with your feet in the water and your mind elsewhere, and so swallowing down a sigh, you let him pull you to your feet. His hand squeezed yours as he pulled you along, and out of habit, you rested your free hand on his arm.
“I think we’re gonna call it a night,” Rafe drawled to the other two men in the house.
Their initial response was chuckles, Topper eyeing you both as Kelce shook his head.
“Yeah, whatever you say, man, just wash my sheets in the morning, alright?”
Kelce’s chuckles only increased at that, and you felt heat rise to your face.
“Don’t be dicks,” your boyfriend called over his shoulder, and despite his words and his tone, there was a small grin on his face, and you only felt your chest ache.
Sex with Rafe was so complicated.
He absolutely terrified you, and so that didn’t make for the most comfortable of atmospheres whenever his lips were on yours. However, something innate in your body—call it animal instinct, conditioning, or merely self-preservation—reacted to him in ways you weren’t necessarily proud of whenever he got his hands on you.
…and Rafe always wanted to get his hands on you.
Rafe liked your fear, you didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that, and you were sure he liked the sight of bruises on your skin even more. He liked seeing his mark, and no matter how temporary, you felt that it served as some brand to him. You recalled reading once that cattle weren’t branded to be considered a part of something but instead to show where they needed to be returned to if they got lost. Something had twisted deep in your gut at that.
…because you knew that if Rafe could, he’d brand you for all to see.
Brand you to show the world where you needed to be returned.
After your quick joint shower, Rafe wrapped the large towel around you both, holding you close as he walked you into the guest bedroom. You could briefly hear Kelce and Topper talking downstairs, making drinks no doubt as Rafe shut the door behind you. When his fingers danced along your sides, you couldn’t swallow down the startled giggle, involuntarily pressing yourself against the blond to get away from them.
“You’ve been so quiet all day,” he murmured, pressing his face into your neck as he tightened his arms around you.
Blinking, you weighed your response.
“I’ve just been in my head, I guess.”
Rafe was quiet for a moment before humming, and you both felt and heard him take a deep breath.
“You’ve been in your head for weeks then.”
You froze at that, it was only for half a second, but you were sure Rafe caught it. You didn’t like that your internal conflict was noticeable, and when you tried to pull away, Rafe only refused to let you go.
“What’s going on with you?”
The question came out whispered and gentle…but you knew better.
“Just…things. Family stuff mostly.”
The lie came easy, and you let your eyes close, telling yourself that this was no longer a lie of omission, but how could you tell Rafe that you’d been thinking about JJ Maybank? How could you tell him that you’d been lingering on a single interaction that made you feel miles better than the last year and a half of your relationship?
JJ had talked to you like a friend…like an equal, and you’d forgotten what that was like.
Everyone saw you as an extension of Rafe. His dad, his friends, and even your own parents sometimes. They were always wondering where Rafe was and what Rafe was up to, and you didn’t blame them. After all, in their eyes, Rafe was perfect. Your boyfriend was a dream come true as far as future sons-in-law went, and as far as they knew, Rafe treated you like a princess.
In their eyes, this was the man who rarely let you drive your own car because he’d rather chauffeur you around. Rafe was the boyfriend who was always bringing their daughter gifts and flowers and popping in to check on the whole family. They swooned at how often Rafe called you throughout the day when he was otherwise occupied. Rafe was more than deserving of you.
On the other side of things though…
Rafe drove you around so he’d know firsthand where you were, how long you’d be, and when you were leaving. He wanted complete control over your mobility. So many of those flowers and gifts were only given to you after a particularly nasty fight that resulted in a bleeding lip or bruised back. Rafe popped in to check on everyone…but also to make sure you were exactly where you said you were. He constantly called for the same reason.
To your parents he was a dream and to you…a nightmare.
“What family stuff?” Rafe scoffed, pulling you against him and nipping at your neck. “I don’t think I’ve even seen your parents argue.”
He laughed to himself about that, but you only pressed your lips together because you knew what was coming.
“Your family’s perfect.”
He murmured it against your skin, but the bitterness was heard loud and clear.
Rafe playfully threw you onto the bed, quickly joining you and settling himself on top of you. He pressed his lips against yours, humming into the kiss, and you sharply inhaled when you could feel him hard and throbbing against your thigh. When you shifted your leg, Rafe groaned.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad,” he whispered, kissing you again. “…and if it is…”
He adjusted himself, resting his forearms into the mattress beside your head. Rafe completely caged you in as he gazed into your eyes, running them over you and pulling his lip between his teeth. The tips of his fingers grazed the side of your face, and you swallowed.
“It’s nothing I can’t help you forget, right?”
He held your gaze, gently brushing his nose against yours, and reminding yourself that he wanted an answer, you nodded.
“Right,” you breathed.
You kissed him back when his lips pressed to yours again, and on instinct, you rested your hands on his lower back. His hips curved into yours, the tip of him brushing against you and making you sharply inhale. You felt Rafe smile into the kiss, and his lips traveled from your lips to your jaw and then eventually your neck. When Rafe nipped at the skin, you reached up to run your fingers through his hair.
Rafe was eager to be inside of you, and it was evident in the way he reached down between your legs, fingers rushing to brush over you. Your breath hitched at the feel, and you lifted your hips when he started to dip them into you. His lips were at your ear as he thrust his fingers into you, and your hips lifted again.
“You’re so tight, you know that?” he breathed, and you parted your legs more.
You were so afraid of Rafe, so afraid of him, but once he got his hands on you like this, he typically wasn’t hurting you. It’d been months since the last time he got angry enough to hold you down and force himself on you. In these moments though, you didn’t have to watch your every comment and observe his every move. When Rafe was kissing you and pushing his cock into you, it was one of the few times you could just be and not have to worry about setting him off.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groaned into your mouth, hips snapping against yours.
With every surge of them, you gasped, clinging to him in more ways than one as you arched your chest up into his. His hair was still damp from the shower, and you twisted your fingers into the wet locks. His teeth scraped over your skin and a low moan climbed out of his throat when you wrapped your legs around his waist.
The bed jostled from his movements, and when he snaked his arms around your waist, you reached down to hold onto them. The force in which he thrust into you was almost painful, but you were used to it, and it was something you’d grown to expect…welcome even. You had to if you wanted any semblance of happiness in this relationship—any brief moments of joy.
When Rafe pushed himself up to hover over you, your hands slid up his chest, and when his nose touched yours, you knew what he wanted. Lifting your head, you kissed him, and Rafe was ravenous in returning it. Every curve of his hips made your toes curl, and your nails clawed at the sheets when he fisted his hand into the hair at the nape of your neck.
He cursed into the kiss, and as the sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, your other hand pressed into his back, nails dragging along his skin. You knew it was nothing at all, but leaving your own mark or two made you feel just a little bit better. You came first, but Rafe fucked you through it, continuing to plunge his cock into you and making your legs shake.
The closer Rafe got, the sloppier his thrusts became…and the more forceful he became. When he wrapped a hand around your wrist, you didn’t protest, accepting the feel of him pinning your arm down against the bed. His free hand roughly dug into your hips and then your thigh—painfully so—and you could only half hiss and half moan in response. His hips slammed down against yours, and when Rafe came inside of you, he stilled against you, completely pinning you beneath him.
Despite the fact that you were on birth control, you never not had a brief moment of panic.
“I just like feeling all of you,” Rafe had said over a year ago. “…and neither one of us are sleeping with anyone else…right…?”
The thought of getting pregnant scared you probably more than anything. Despite the fact that you’d accepted your fate and the future that was your relationship with Rafe, getting pregnant by him seemed so final. It would be the final nail in the coffin, and the last thing you needed in your relationship with Rafe. You knew it would happen eventually, but something in you desperately hoped that Rafe would just be a little better. Even just a little.
You couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this world just to be abused.
When your boyfriend rolled off of you, he pulled you with him, resting your head on his heaving chest as you kept your gaze on the wall. Rafe’s fingers gently trailed up and down your back, and you’d just closed your eyes to try and find sleep when he spoke.
“You know that I love you…right?”
It felt out of place, and you frowned slightly but eventually nodded.
“I know,” you whispered back.
You felt his hand trace patterns up your back, fingers dancing along your skin before his hand curved around the back of your neck.
“I know that I hurt you sometimes,” he murmured, making you swallow. “…but… It doesn’t mean that I don’t…”
He trailed off, his words dying in the air, and your eyes watered as you stared at the wall.
“I know, Rafe.”
When his hand landed on your cheek, you lifted your head, looking up at him. He studied your face, blue eyes flickering between your own, and you watched the way his tongue darted between his lips.
“You know how I get sometimes.”
“Rafe, I know,” you hurried to reassure him, reaching for his arm. “I get it, okay?”
You were sitting up, now, looking down at him, and you watched him lick his lips again. His hand took yours, threading your fingers together, and you felt compelled to hold eye contact. Rafe slowly took a deep breath, and you watched his eyes narrow.
“I just don’t want you to ever think you don’t mean anything to me,” he quietly told you. “…because you do. You’re my world.”
His hand tightened on yours, almost painfully, and you swallowed. His blue gaze looked so lifeless—glazed over—and you swallowed again.
“If you left, you may as well have just…died.”
You eventually nodded when he held your gaze for a few moments more, and when he pulled you back down, he gave you a sweet kiss, hand resting on the back of your head when you laid down on his chest again. Your gaze didn’t leave the wall when he reached over to turn out the lamp.
You were waiting on Rafe’s order when you saw him again.
You felt a sense of déjà vu when he walked into The Wreck, blue eyes meeting yours and a small smile thrown your way. Only the last time this same scenario had played out, you’d smiled back, and Rafe had put a gun in your mouth for it. You shuddered to remember that day, and you turned away from JJ without another thought.
You were unsurprised—but disappointed—when he saddled up next to you.
“In some places—and I’m pretty sure Outer Banks is one of them—that’s considered rude.”
You only spared the blond a brief glance, sighing.
“I don’t know what you mean,” you lied.
You heard him snort to himself, silence stretching between you for a moment before he eventually spoke again.
“Where’s your asshole boyfriend?”
You couldn’t help yourself, throwing him a scathing look at that, but the only response you got was a wider grin and one raised eyebrow. Ward had called Rafe the moment he parked, and signaling to you that it would take a minute, he’d waved you on ahead to get the food. That was what you told JJ, and you heard him whistle.
“He let you get it all by yourself? Wow, he’s really stepping up.”
His tone was light and mocking, but you merely fixed him with an unamused look.
It was only then did you realize just how close he was, and you couldn’t help but to swallow at his close proximity. Without thinking much of it, you inhaled and almost immediately regretted it. Rafe and all of his friends smelt so…sharp. They smelled like cologne and laundry detergent and the freshly cut manicured grass on the country club golf course. It was a scent you’d grown up around, a scent you were accustomed to.
JJ just smelled like fresh air.
The blond before you reminded you of the salt water at the beach and the woodsy scent of trees and fresh rain. JJ smelled warm and light, and it was a smell that made you want to just…relax. Realizing that your thoughts were heading into dangerous territory—again—you slightly moved away from him. He noticed.
“Jesus, you’d think it was you I fought on the beach.”
“What are you doing here?” you finally asked him, still staring straight ahead as you waited for your order.
“Well, not only is this place owned by my best friend’s family…” you nodded at that, having actually forgotten that. “…but like you, I also like to eat.”
You rolled your eyes, and you heard JJ chuckle to himself. You tapped your fingers against the counter, feeling his gaze on you no matter how much you ignored it. Rafe sounded irritated almost as soon as he answered the phone, so there was no doubt in your mind that he was going back and forth with Ward about something. For just a brief moment, you wished he was here just so you had a better excuse to ignore the man at your side.
“Rafe’s not here, you know,” he eventually said. “You don’t have to pretend like I don’t exist.”
“Clearly you don’t know my boyfriend as well as you’d like to think you do then,” you snorted. “…because I absolutely do.”
You were relieved when Mrs. Carrera brought out your food, and you felt it was obvious in the way your shoulders sagged. You thanked her, thinking to yourself that you couldn’t get away from JJ fast enough, stepping away just as Rafe stepped inside. Your heart only stuttered a little at the sight of him, but you covered it up with a smile.
“You ready to go?” you asked him, frowning a bit when he pecked you on the lips and proceeded to move past you.
“I want to get a drink,” he told you over his shoulder.
You watched him lean against the counter next to JJ as he talked to the other woman, and you couldn’t stop yourself from eyeing them—comparing them. Something about the sight of them together rubbed you the wrong way, and maybe it was because the last time they were in such close proximity it had ended in a brawl.
Or maybe it was because you’d talked to JJ when you knew you shouldn’t.
You watched JJ say something to your boyfriend, and Rafe’s smirk in response didn’t ease your worries. His arms were folded over the counter, and he turned his head ever so slightly to look at the other blond out of the corner of his eye. He said something—evidently something rude by the way JJ tensed—and to your disappointment, you watched Rafe pull a dollar out of his pocket before flicking it at JJ just as Mrs. Carrera returned with his drink.
“For your troubles, JJ,” you heard him say, a cruel grin on his lips. “Don’t go spending that all at once, now.”
You couldn’t stop your frown, but as Rafe neared you, something else caught your eye instead.
JJ was leaning over the counter, pointing at something towards the kitchen while Mrs. Carrera seemed to sigh in exasperation. His white t-shirt rode up a bit, and your gaze lingered on the discoloration on his side. The sight of it made your lips part, and your frown deepened the longer you stared at it. The sight of it was so familiar to you, and despite the fact that you knew Sarah’s friends didn’t lead the safest lifestyle, something in you wouldn’t let you believe that came from some dirt bike accident.
It was too perfect, too precise of a bruise…and you would know better than anyone.
When Rafe grabbed your hand, pulling you out of the restaurant, you forced yourself to pull your eyes away.
You didn’t want a repeat of the aftermath of the conversation in the hall, so the days that followed were spent trying to be as normal and as present as possible. However, you couldn’t stop your mind from drifting to the sight of JJ’s skin at The Wreck. It wouldn’t leave you, and you didn’t need to be some professional psychiatrist to figure out why.
You didn’t know much about his home life, only that his dad kind of sucked from what you’d gathered from Sarah and Rafe and Rafe’s friends. However, you never had the desire to understand what that meant in full. Now, though… You couldn’t help wondering if it encompassed something more horrific than you’d imagined.
There were times when you wanted to ask Sarah about it, but it felt weird. JJ wasn’t your friend, wasn’t even close, so you didn’t think you had a right to his personal life. Especially something so deeply personal, and even weirder, you and Sarah weren’t friends. It just felt strange to go to her about something that didn’t involve you nor her but instead her friend who you were supposed to have no kind of interactions or connections with.
It was especially present on your mind when Sarah’s friends were in the house one day. You’d been in the kitchen when you heard the van pull into the yard, and you’d only smiled in response when Sarah and her friends greeted you.
“Is Rafe here?” she asked you while they all made their way towards the backyard. “John B. can’t find his Juul and now I’m positive that was what I saw Rafe tossing in the trash the other day.”
You frowned at her with a shake of your head.
“He’s running some errand for Ward, but he should be back any minute.”
The blonde girl huffed, mumbling a dejected thanks before making her way to the backyard. You couldn’t stop yourself from staring after them, debating with yourself before thinking better of it. As you made your way towards the stairs, your gaze passed over JJ who stood near the backdoor, his gaze already on you as you climbed the stairs. Ignoring him, you made yourself comfortable in Rafe’s room.
Sure enough, as you’d told Sarah, you heard the distinct sound of Rafe’s truck pulling into the yard not even an hour later. You paid it no mind, focused on your laptop screen as you finished up some lingering homework due in a few days. Distinctly, you could hear Sarah talking to Rafe as she made her annoyance with him clear, but aside from the brief penetration into your bubble, you didn’t give it any more thought.
You were so focused that you couldn’t even really note how long Rafe had been downstairs before finally joining you. You heard the bedroom door open and close, and you briefly glanced at him over your shoulder.
“How’d it go?” you asked him, eyes preoccupied once again.
Your boyfriend didn’t answer right away, but when he did, he was much closer than you anticipated. You hadn’t heard him move.
“Fine enough,” was his simple answer, and you only hummed when you felt his fingers kneading into your shoulders.
You both felt and heard him pull away, and you were forced from your own thoughts when the sound of music reached your ears from his speakers, familiar with Rafe’s Apple Music playlist. Frowning, you turned to look at him, feeling like your efforts to study were pretty obvious. However, your face fell a tad as your gaze connected with his.
Rafe leaned against his dresser, even gaze resting on you as he simply…stared. Nothing about his expression was readable, and that was your first clue that something was very very wrong. Telling yourself that it could wait, you closed your laptop, scooting to fully face him on the bed. His hands were pressed into the wood, and your boyfriend was so still as you two just stared at each other.
“What?” you finally asked, and despite the music, it wasn’t too loud enough to where he couldn’t hear you.
Again, Rafe remained quiet, but you knew that he heard you so your frown only deepened. Moving until your feet were touching the floor, you stared up at him, and even with no words being spoken, you felt something uneasy festering deep within your gut. It had been some months since you and Rafe had one of your big fights, but you knew the signs all too well, and your heart sank when he took a deep breath.
“You apologized to JJ on my behalf?”
You heard a ringing in your ears for a few seconds as his words lingered in the air, and no matter how much you wanted to, you couldn’t look away from him. In this moment, you felt like prey, and you felt like it would be the stupidest thing in the world to take your eyes off of the man before you. Your lips parted as you struggled with what to say, and you eventually snapped them shut, struggling to find a way to talk your way out of this.
“I…”
“I already know the truth,” Rafe told you, tilting his head to the side. “I just want to hear it from you.”
Swallowing, you took a deep breath.
“I…felt bad,” you slowly told him, and you watched Rafe nod.
“You felt bad,” he repeated, pressing his tongue to his teeth and the inside of his cheek.
“Rafe-.”
“When did this conversation even happen?” he interrupted, frowning now. “I’m trying to understand when you and JJ Maybank have ever been around each other long enough to have a conversation where you’re apologizing to him for me.”
“Rafe, it lasted a minute at the most,” you quietly argued.
“Was this at The Wreck?”
You knew he was referring to days ago, and your mind ran rampant, trying to figure out if it was better to lie or not. You were already caught in a lie somewhat, and you really didn’t want to make this worse. You were pulled from your thoughts by the sound of Rafe’s bitter laugh, and when you looked at him again, you could see that he was studying your face.
“Don’t think you can sit here and lie to me. When did this happen?” he repeated.
Exhaling, you blinked back tears.
“It was a few weeks ago,” you whispered, and you watched Rafe nod. “Sarah and her friends were going to the beach. JJ was in the bathroom, and I just ran into him in the hallway.”
When Rafe didn’t react, you continued, heart racing.
“Rafe, I just felt bad, that was all. I saw his face, and I felt bad, okay?”
Rafe leaned in a bit, hands and lower back still pressed against his dresser.
“Felt bad for what?” he spat, visage finally cracking. “He was the one bothering us, and I gave him what he was looking for.”
When you opened your mouth, Rafe cut you off.
“…and to make matters worse, you lied to me.”
Your brows furrowed at that, and you didn’t miss the way Rafe’s nostrils flared.
“Family bullshit, my ass. You knew you were wrong,” he threw at you, pointing at you. “See, you think I don’t know you…but I know you like the back of my hand.”
You lowered your gaze, unable to look him in the eye when he got like this.
“I knew something was wrong, and you lied to my face.”
You weren’t able to keep your tears from spilling over, and you wiped your face, looking up at him again. Your lips trembled while Rafe stared you down, and you were very aware of your throat and how tight it felt in this moment. You whispered his name, trying to get him to see that you hadn’t meant anything by it.
“I just felt bad,” you slowly told him again, voice quiet.
You wiped your face again, but fresh tears just replaced those, and Rafe studied the action. He leaned back some, looking down his nose at you, dirty blond hair curtained along his forehead. There was nothing warm or comforting about his gaze, malice stewing there as the corner of his lips curved upwards just a tad.
“Why are you crying?” he calmly asked. “I haven’t even touched you yet.”
With a shaky breath, you pushed yourself to your feet, but Rafe had closed the distance in the same amount of time. You leaned away from him, a pleading look in your gaze.
“Do you…? Wh-what do you want me to say to him? How can I fix this?”
“Do you think I want you talking to him again? Do you really think that’s going to make me feel better, right now?”
You reached up to keep some distance between you two, but Rafe slapped your hands away. Your face was next, the action happening so fast that you only had time to gasp. You’d just touched your cheek when his hands were digging into your upper arms, violently shaking you.
“I just might do something a little impulsive if I saw you talking to him, right now, so trust me, you don’t want that,” he sneered.
“Rafe,” you gasped, grabbing one of his arms.
He only responded by grabbing that wrist, squeezing it and twisting it until you were forced to try and get him to let go. His face was so close to yours, nose brushing your cheek as his lip curled over your teeth.
“Do you know what that was like for me?” he wondered, forcing you back until you were cornered against the wall. “To have that Pogue throw it in my face that my own girlfriend went behind my back and apologized for what I did to him? For what he brought on himself?”
You pushed against his chest with your free hand, and Rafe only shoved you back, making you wince.
“I mean, have you lost your mind?” he wondered, fingers coming up to touch the side of his head. “Were you just thinking ‘God, what can I do to really piss Rafe off’?”
You were full on sobbing, now as you tried to push him away.
“Wait, no, you…you were thinking that I wouldn’t find out,” he chuckled, and you got no warning before he threw you to the floor.
Your sore wrist made it hard to push yourself up, and Rafe let his impatience show.
“Get up,” he barked at you. “Get the fuck up.”
Deciding he didn’t feel like waiting for you to do that, Rafe pulled you up by your hair, forcing you to cry out as you reached up to grab his hand. Your back was forced to arch as you tried your best to lean away from him, and when he shoved you into his dresser, a choked sound escaped you as pain flared in your stomach.
Rafe seemed to anticipate your next move the moment you took a step forward.
“Where are you going, huh?” he drawled, yanking you back.
“I’m sorry,” you screamed at him, trying to pull his arms off of you.
“No, you’re not,” he frowned at you, pressing a thumb against your throat. “You’re just sorry I found out.”
You pushed at his face, and your boyfriend retaliated by pushing at yours, forcing you to stumble and fall back, the wall barely serving to catch you. In a panic, you turned and ran into his bathroom, just narrowly shutting and locking the door the same time Rafe’s fists hit against it. He hit it again, harder this time, and you flinched, stepping back.
“Open this door,” you heard him say, breathing labored.
He kicked at it when you didn’t, and you tearfully stared at it with wide eyes.
“Baby,” he slowly said. “You do not want me to kick it down. I can promise you you won’t like it.”
Wrapping your arms around yourself, you looked around. You were at a loss, mind going a mile a minute as he told you to open the door again, and more tears just kept falling. You could feel yourself overheating, and all those moments where you anticipated his next move or tried to anticipate the best move for you became worthless. This wasn’t a conversation where you were trying to prevent the violent outcome.
The violent outcome was here.
Pushing yourself against the door was in vain, because with a few more harsh kicks, it was forced open, and you were forced to the floor. Your hands shook as you fought against Rafe’s, trying to keep them off of you, but when they wrapped around your neck, breathing became your first priority. He briefly raised your head before slamming it back down, and you felt no relief when his hands let you go because you immediately saw him reach for his pants.
Even with a tilting vision and confused mind, his intent was clear.
However, a harsh knock on his room door startled you both. With a struggle, you reached up to touch your head just as Rafe’s eyes met yours. You tearfully blinked at him, wondering what he planned to do, when another knock followed the first, their fist banging on the door, and with a huff, Rafe got off of you. You licked your lips, unsurprised by the taste of blood.
You heard Rafe open his door.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” Sarah aggressively questioned. “We can hear you banging all the way out in the yard.”
You closed your eyes as you realized that Rafe’s music hadn’t been loud enough, and with an inflamed face and aching stomach, you turned on your side. A small groan left you when you wrapped your arms around your lower half, throat starting to hurt too.
“I was just trying to move my dresser around,” you heard Rafe rudely tell her. “Didn’t mean to disturb her royal highness.”
You didn’t see Sarah’s response, but knowing the younger girl, she probably rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. Where’s Y/N?”
“She’s in the bathroom.”
Rafe’s response was immediate.
“Just keep it down. Never mind how annoying it is, but Y/N told me earlier she had some studying to do. We all know you don’t care about that, but…”
The rest of Sarah’s words were lost to you as Rafe slammed the door in her face. One of your hands came up to cover your own face as you sobbed into it, lip still bleeding from where your teeth had cut into the skin. You could hear Rafe’s footsteps as he approached the bathroom, and you were relieved when he didn’t enter, just opting to stand in the doorway.
You could feel his eyes on you, but you didn’t dare look. The thought of what almost happened—and what no doubt would later on—just made you cry harder, and Rafe’s heated sigh reached your ears.
“When you’re soaking in the bathtub tonight,” he slowly began, tone smug. “I want you to remember whose fault this is.”
…and as crazy as it seemed, you couldn’t determine if he meant you…or JJ.
#jj maybank x reader#jj maybank#dark!jj maybank#dark!jj maybank x reader#rafe cameron#rafe cameron x reader#dark!rafe cameron#dark!rafe cameron x reader#jj maybank imagine#jj maybank fanfiction#rafe cameron imagine#rafe cameron fanfiction#obx fanfiction#obx#outer banks#outer banks fanfiction
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Hot Chai - (Adrian Chase x Reader)
part 8 <- ☕︎ series masterlist ☕︎ ao3
a/n: happy new year! this fic is almost done ♡ also i almost forgot to post this here today lol
summary: Adrian is mad at Chris. You're mad at Adrian. Goff gets loose. It's a whole thing.
warnings: canon typical violence (chapter takes place during ep 6: Murn After Reading), no Y/N, nothing else major i don't think but lmk if i missed something
word count: 5.2k
Can people be haunted by things that aren’t ghosts? Adrian wasn’t sure, but the image of your watery eyes, and hands shakily hiding your face — it haunts him.
Which sounds excessive. After all, how could you haunt him? You were very much alive. But if hauntings make people uncomfortable, makes it hard to sleep, and makes dread sit with the weight of a sandbag on their chests, then maybe it was accurate. Because nothing has bothered him quite this much since - well. There was the shame he felt at failing to kill Chris's racist dirtbag father, and the potential consequences this failure could lead to. But he got over that fairly quickly. After all, it's not Adrian's fault Peacemaker has a shitty dad.
But you — your eyes dimming when he told you about the threesome. The way your face twisted into something that made his world halt to an unsteadying stop, like the nauseating swaying of a boat at sea. The way your hands hid the stricken sadness from him, too late in hiding the pain.
Because of him. He did that. He didn't mean to, didn't realize he'd say something that could upset you, but still. It was his fault.
Crying generally made Adrian uncomfortable because he had a difficult time empathizing. He doesn't cry, not since he was little. Guts once told him it's because he doesn't have feelings like people do. So he never knew what to do if someone cried around him. It weirded him out, to be honest. He wasn't much good at providing comfort, tended to say the wrong things. And his hands. God, he never really knew what to do with them in those situations, became hyper-aware that he even had hands in the first place. Hands good at killing, but useless in comfort.
He hasn't made someone cry since high school.
Scratch that. He makes grown men cry, like, all the time. Usually accompanied by them pissing their pants because they're terrified Vigilante is going to kill them. (Spoiler alert: he does!)
Like one of the guys in the alleyway downtown, that he saved you from. The one that tried crawling away after Vigilante shot his knees. Weeping and wailing and cowering.
But that's different, obviously. Tears and sobs fueled by fear.
The last time he made someone cry because he hurt their feelings, though, that was definitely high school. Made someone cry because he was just being an asshole. Even if he didn't realize it.
It was eventually explained to him that some people are just weirdly sensitive, so you really didn’t have to try that hard to hurt them. Some people just had emotions like the skin of a too-ripe fruit.
He didn’t think you were one of those people. He never saw you cry in high school, and he definitely would have noticed if you had. Adrian was perceptive like that. ‘Specially with you. I mean, sure, you cried in the alleyway and again in his bedroom but the alleyway tears had to have been from fear like that other guy before he shot his brains out, and then the bedroom tears were from, like, residual fear, he thinks. Not because your feelings were hurt.
But then he told you about the threesome, and the mood shift swept across your face like a fissure, and it was just like when he’d made that girl in high school cry, except worse. Because it was you. You, the person he's been quietly fixated on since, like, the 10th grade. The only other person whose lips he fantasizes about -- either pressed against his, or curved in a smile.
He only ever wanted to make you smile. To laugh. It’s the very sound that drew him to you in the first place.
Instead, he made those pretty lips of your warble and twist into the shape of pain.
He should have listened to you, should have let you drag him to the restroom and take off his mask and shove your bodies together. Because then you would have taken his breath away and, with it, all his thoughts. Because that threesome with Chris pales in comparison to the feel of you touching him.
The memory of the threesome warps his emotions into anger and annoyance. Why the fuck did he follow Chris back into his trailer to bang some chick he didn't even know?
Adrian stands at the front (and only) door of Chris' trailer now. They were off today, no assignments from the Task Force. No Fennel Fields shift for Adrian. Today would have been the perfect day to finally, finally hang out with you, no Vigilante business to get in the way. But if his unanswered text messages are anything to go by, you don't want to see him.
And why would you? He made you cry.
Adrian knocks, and whatever frustrations that spurred him to Chris's place is momentarily put on hold when he hears Chris answer, 'Come in, Adrian' without even coming to the door. Adrian walks into the trailer, impressed despite his annoyance as he closes the door behind him and asks, “how did you know it was me?” to the welcoming back of Chris’s head.
“You knock in a very annoying way.” Chris didn't even turn around to look at him when he said it.
“Oh.” Ouch. Rude.
Adrian opens his mouth to apologize, as he usually does whenever people point out he's being unintentionally annoying, but something about Chris's tone kind of ticks him off. Instead, Adrian says, “well, maybe I didn't realize how annoying my knock was because I was distracted by your bad advice.”
This seems to get the other man's attention. In an irritated and confused huff, Chris asks, “dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” as he turns to face him.
“You convinced me to bang that underappreciated chick with you and now they're mad at me.”
This only confuses Chris more. “Amber's mad at you? Why would she be mad at you?” His face sobers into upset understanding. “Dude, did you give her a fucking STD!? You said you were clean! Great, now I have to get checked. I was just at the hospital, man, I don't have time for this.”
“No! I don't have an STD, I'm not talking about her! I mean my- the barista I've been telling you about!”
Chris rolls his eyes, annoyance rolling off of those huge shoulders of his. He just turns back around in his seat.
Adrian's fists clench at his sides at the action. This conversation is far from over-
Small tapping sounds grab his attention. Adrian looks over and sees the alien thing that flew out of the Senator's face sitting in a mason jar with holes poked into the top. “Dude, you still have that thing?”
“Yeah,” Chris confirms without looking back.
Goff makes squeaky noises inside its glass cage. Its little blue and white bug-like body, long-limbed, strangely animated. It doesn't move or act like any bug Adrian's ever seen (at least, not in Evergreen). There's an awareness about itself that clearly indicates some enhanced intelligence.
“He tried to kill us,” Adrian reminds Chris, “and he cut off half my toe.”
He's still a little sore about that, if he's being honest. Currently he's sore about a lot of things.
“Yeah,” Chris says, sounding weirdly detached, distracted. “Sometimes I just think I'm insecure about my masculinity and I'm making up for it by having a dangerous pet.” He says this all in one breath.
His words only confuse and, honestly, slightly upsets Adrian as Chris continues, comparing himself to 'knuckle-dicks in Georgia.’
Peacemaker has not been the same since he got out of Belle Reve. Yeah, he's still the same solid mass of muscle. He's still a giant jerk that says the funniest, meanest things. He can still kick ass, still sharp with a gun and never misses his targets. But now there are moments where he struggles to pull the trigger.
The wavering lately is worrying, to say the least. Maybe even disappointing.
“Dude, my advice?” Adrian offers. “Cut it out with the introspection. The mind is a den of scorpions better left running from instead of towards.”
He should know. Adrian spent most of his childhood trying to analyze those metaphorical scorpions until he decided it was easier to ignore them completely. But things have been kind of rocky, lately, and Adrian has been finding himself taking a peek now and again. Something about both you and Peacemaker being back in Evergreen at the same time is kind of shaking up his foundation.
Chittering and tapping noises from Goff's mason jar grabs Adrian's attention again. “What is Goff doing?”
Chris spins around in his chair and they both watch as Goff uses whatever weird goop he's sitting in to draw a circle on the glass. Then he abruptly stands and grabs the mason jar in his gloved hands. When he holds it up to the cool, gray light filtering in through the skylight, they’re met with a droopy symbol of peace.
Sitting on Peacemaker’s couch, both men grow increasingly frustrated, but not for the same reason.
Seeing as Goff is attempting to communicate with them, Chris sets them up in his living room, Goff's mason jar on the coffee table, with a few rules for interrogation. There is, obviously, a language barrier, but the alien can understand English just fine.
Adrian is upset about how difficult the rules are to follow. Chris, for whatever reason, finds his confusion unreasonable. Sticking to 'yes' and 'no' questions isn't that easy, especially when Adrian has been finding it incredibly difficult to focus since last night, when he left you to cry all alone in the cafe.
Chris's impatience with him is just making Adrian even more frazzled. Usually he can deal with Peacemaker's snapping. He didn't always understand what he'd done to get yelled at, but it usually blew over.
This time, though, Adrian is finding that he is equally mad at Chris. So when Chris shouts that maybe Adrian should shut the fuck up, Adrian shouts back.
“I see how you are! Your preferred conversation partners are Eagly and Goff! Neither of who are capable of speech. Try introspection on that, motherfucker!”
Chris, for once, does not have an immediate comeback.
Adrian takes in a big, steadying breath, feeling the angry warmth on his cheeks and trying to dispel it. An apology sits at the back of his throat, rising up out of simple habit, but an image of your face -- usually all smiles and twinkling eyes -- flashes in his mind. Tear-stricken.
It's enough to force the apology back down.
Turns out, Adrian doesn't even have to apologize because Chris says he's right (I mean, he knew that already; those words didn't explode out of him out of nowhere), and continues in a tone that is unusually soft and quiet and reflective.
Adrian interrupts. Chris yells. This interrogation is going nowhere.
Adrian, having gotten the hang of the whole 'yes' or 'no' question rule, asks Goff, “would you tell your buddy it's okay to sleep with other people despite him having someone he already really likes?”
Chris yells again. “Dude, what the FUCK are you talking about? How is that relevant to an alien invasion?”
They're interrupted by a phone call, Aqua's Barbie Girl ringing clearly from Adrian's back pocket. Adrian rushes to fish his phone out, hoping very badly that it's you.
It wasn't you.
Adrian and Chris are up in the trees, hiding from the cops that are now tearing Peacemaker's trailer apart. The cops that Murn called to warn about, telling them to get the fuck out of dodge. Goff is strapped to Adrian's back, a brilliant move on his part to free up his hands.
Brilliant, until Adrian falls from the tree flat on his back, where one of the cops is looking for them. But that's not as concerning as the mason jar shattering, freeing Goff.
“Oh, shit.”
Goff shakes off the fall and flaps hurriedly towards the detective, who has her gun out and pointed at Adrian on the ground. Adrian’s less concerned about that and more concerned about what Goff’s next move is gonna be.
Chris lands beside him and both men watch in horror and fascination as the alien flies directly at the detective's face, making her fall flat on her back as Goff starts burrowing into her mouth. The move is quick and aggressive and the detective struggles and fails to rip it out of her.
They rush to her side as blood erupts from her mouth, decorating the side of her face crimson as her body begins to convulse. There is nothing they can do but run once they hear another cop round the corner of the trailer and alerts everyone else to their position.
Adrian throws Chris's cell phone outside of the car window on their way to meet the rest of the team at the abandoned video store they've been operating from.
He says he did it to keep them safe, which is mostly true. They can track them through the phone, you know? When Chris angrily advises that his phone was secure and untraceable, and that now a bunch of Eagly pictures are gone, Adrian can only bring himself to be a little regretful.
Adrian is finding something grimly pleasant about indirectly hurting Chris like this. Something scratching a weird itch in the back of his thoughts. It's similar to when he'd throw dynamites at the other man in retaliation for being almost blown up himself. But that was all in good fun. Just guys being dudes, entertaining each other with violence. Real macho-like shenanigans.
No, this was different. Adrian got some sort of satisfaction from tossing Chris's phone out of a moving vehicle right now because he's... more mad at him than he thinks he’s ever been.
And it's not because the hero he's looked up to has been weirdly introspective lately about the usual way they've handled criminals. That was more irritating than anything. It’s a lot easier to go through life without agonizing the lives you’ve taken; surely he can remind Peacemaker of that again.
No. Adrian is mad at Chris because he blames him for hurting your feelings.
“Thank you, by the way.” Chris sends him a quick, confused glance. “For telling me I could bang whoever I wanted. Real solid advice, bro.”
Chris furrows his brow. “What the fuck- why do you keep bringing up the threesome?”
“Because! If it weren't for you, I never would have made them cry!”
“Why the fuck would you tell someone you like that you had a threesome!?”
“You said it was okay!”
It's all Chris can do to keep from ripping the steering wheel off of this car and beating Vigilante with it.
Their argument evolved into weird hypotheticals by the time they stormed through the doors of the video store, but gets (thankfully) interrupted by the mean blonde — Harcourt.
“Hey! Do you have a diary?”
“No,” Chris half-shouts, voice still carrying the weight of whatever shouting match he was in the middle of having with Adrian.
Adrian holds the door open for Eagly to waddle through. Whatever qualms he has with Chris right now, the bird has nothing to do with it. Eagly is chill. Adrian's not gonna be rude and just not hold the door for him.
The conversation between Chris and everyone gets more heated once Chris reveals that Goff is now free. The team doesn't react well to this, which is probably why Chris kept it a secret up til this point.
“Yeah, we kept Goff,” Adrian clarifies in answer to Harcourt's exclamation.
“You kept Goff!?” Murn shouts incredulously. Eyes wide in angry disbelief. Like he doesn't want what he's hearing to be true.
“Because Peacemaker has masculinity issues,” Adrian explains. His lips quirk into a smirk that has absolutely no joy in it. “Probably the same masculinity issues that convinces your BFF — sorry, second BFF — to join you in a threesome even though it'll hurt that BFF's friend's feelings to do so.”
This makes Chris groan in frustration. “Vigilante! Time and place!”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Harcourt asks, exasperated.
“He's all pissy because he told this chick he's been seeing about our threesome.”
Someone says 'ew' under their breath.
“He told me I could bang whoever I wanted despite knowing about the person I like!” Adrian can't keep the whine out of his voice.
Adebayo speaks up, addressing Chris. “You encouraged him to sleep around even though he's seeing someone?”
“He said they weren't exclusive!” It kind of feels like Peacemaker hasn't stopped yelling since Adrian stepped foot in his trailer.
“Still,” Adebayo says. “He's, like, obsessed with you and he'll do whatever you say.”
(“Hey!” Adrian exclaims. That's offensive, probably! Regardless of whether or not it's true!)
“He's a grown man,” Harcourt interjects. “He should be able to make his own decisions and not blame it on Peacemaker.”
Chris gestures a massive arm out to Harcourt, saying “Thank you!” at the same time as Economos says, “Someone likes Vigilante romantically?”
“That's enough!” Murn sternly shouts, silencing the room. “Where is Goff now?”
They explain how Goff took over one of the cops - the Asian woman.
Fury and disappointment reverberate off of Murn. “God damn it, Peacemaker.”
You don't know why you let it break your heart. Why you let it keep you up most of the night, curled wretchedly into yourself, weeping in tumultuous silence into your pillow.
Adrian Chase, the guy you got unnecessarily and hopelessly attached to, coolly admitted to having had a threesome. There was no tiptoeing around it, either. No hesitation before saying the words that casually ripped your heart out from your chest.
It really should not have hurt you the way it did. Hell, if he had said anything about sleeping with someone else just a few weeks ago, it would only have mildly annoyed you at best. Perhaps made you a tad bit insecure, but you would have shrugged it off.
But things have been slowly crumbling around you ever since that night your old high school friends ghosted you--
No. That's not true. Your life was falling apart well before that. It's why you came back to Evergreen in the first place. But Adrian showed up and made things momentarily steady. A patchwork preventing the further collapse of your mental fortitude.
But then you found out his secret, and he suddenly had no time for you. And before you could fully make peace with the fact that Adrian Chase -- the dorky weirdo from high school -- is Evergreen's infamous Vigilante, Peacemaker came back and you were no longer the center of Adrian's attention.
Which you are ashamed to admit stung.
And as if that wasn't enough, things at home have been so off and confusing. It's a different kind of nervous than what you're used to, walking through the halls of the strangely quiet house. You could always feel their presence, at home -- your mother's more specifically. You've always been attuned to her, some kind of survival instinct so you know when to avoid her. And you have to finally admit that there's a very vacant gap in the house, and you know it's because your mother has not been around to fill it.
This has caused a very antsy mood shift with your dad, one that would make you anxious if it weren't for the fact that his focus is no longer on you. It's on your mother's absence.
This should worry you.
The confusing part is that your stomach is not twisted in knots over the idea that she hasn't been home. You don't bother asking your dad about it when you see him sitting zombie-like in the living room late at night.
(You tend to avoid asking questions when you're afraid of the answer.)
(Hence why you never questioned Adrian when he'd tell you some unprompted lie.)
Truth be told, you can't help but to feel tentatively euphoric. It's one less thing suffocating you at home. Like the weight of a boot lightly lifted from standing on your neck.
You're about to head out to work earlier than usual—you've had free reign of the house since you woke up because even your dad wasn't home that morning, and it was nice until it got eerie—but just as you approach the front door, it swings open.
Your dad stands at the threshold, silhouetted by the light at his back. When you blink and adjust your vision to the sudden daylight that's poured in, you're startled by the unkempt figure walking through the doorway. It's your dad, yes, but in a way you can barely recognize. He looks rough and unkempt, facial hair growing in unruly patches around his mouth. The bags under his eyes suggest he hasn't had much sleep. It's like he's aged 10 years.
“Hey...” He says, but it's hardly a greeting. He barely even looks at you. Mostly, it's like he's looking through you. “Have you, by any chance, heard from your mother?” He shuffles past you in the hallway, not waiting for an answer. Probably not even really expecting one.
You watch the exhausted shape of his back. You feel weirdly guilty when you answer no.
An empty sort of exhale depletes out of him, and it's the only sound of acknowledgement. He doesn't ask anymore questions, doesn't say anything else.
So you leave.
You walk into the cafe half an hour before your shift starts, just in time to hear Matty's vivacious voice call out a 'small hot chai for the tall hot guy.' He's fully ready to flirt with the customer as he hands off the drink, but does a double-take when he sees you slink around the counter and to the back.
Matty's flirty smile slips into a frown as he shares a look with Ashe, who also noticed your sluggish arrival.
The two ambush you as you very poorly tie an apron around your waist. It's Matty who speaks first. “You look absolutely terrible.”
You drag your still-puffy eyes to look at him, unsmiling. “Oh, Matty. Truly, my favorite thing about you is your penchant for unprompted insults.”
Matty just rolls his eyes at your deadpanned sarcasm. Ashe steps in to try to amend his rude comments. “What he means is-” Ashe takes in the sight of your sob-swollen eyelids and chapped lips and crooked disarray of your shirt collar. “-wow, God, no, yeah, you do look terrible.”
You scowl. “Do you two have to be back here? Someone needs to be on the floor.”
“There are, like, two other baristas out there.” Matty quirks a perfect eyebrow at you. “Other people work here, you know. It's not just us three.”
You squint your eyes at him, like that can't possibly be true, but say nothing further on the subject.
As you fix the collar around your neck, Matty asks, “So? Are you gonna tell us why you've been crying or do we gotta pry it out of you?”
“Is this about Adrian?” Ashe's voice is soft with knowing and caution.
You avoid eye contact. “He told me he slept with someone else. Two someone elses, actually. At the same time.”
You squeeze past the two other baristas and start making your way out onto the floor. They give each other a look before following.
“So the man had a threesome,” Matty clarifies, less as a question and more matter-of-factly. And completely uncaring whether the customers in cafe hear his indecent statement. “Ugh, of course that weirdo is having threesomes. I could tell just by looking at him that his dick game is insane.”
“Matty,” Ashe hisses as they give him a light backhand on his shoulder. Then, louder, calls out your name. “So you're upset he slept with someone-”
“Two someones,” you interrupt, face otherwise unphased by anything that's been said so far as you clock in at the register.
(“Again, that's just called a threesome, babes,” Matty helpfully quips as he rubs the spot where Ashe smacked.)
“Right, sure-” Ashe says. “And this was something Adrian was hiding from you?”
You grit your teeth as you float right past the two again, towards the log book the shift supervisors use that's open to today's date. Huh, look at that. There are names scribbled here besides Ashe's and Matty's. “He just told me about it, like it was a cool fun fact.”
A customer approaches the register, keeping Matty from accompanying Ashe as they follow you back.
“I'm sorry he hurt you, but...” your mouth sets into a grim line at Ashe's 'but', still unwilling to look up at them. “didn't you tell me just a few nights ago that you guys aren't even together?”
“Yeah, but...”
But he made you feel like you were singularly special. An illusion that quickly shattered at his admittance to sleeping with this Peacemaker guy. Honestly, it probably would have hurt less if it had been some nameless bimbo desperate for Vigilante's attention. No history and less intimacy.
Ashe waits patiently as you sort through your thoughts, until your shoulders slump with resignation, unable to find the right words to defend yourself.
“I get it,” they say. “I get that it hurts, but it's not exactly fair to him or to you if you haven't told him what you want.”
Ashe is right. It was wrong of you to assume you'd have Adrian's sole attention forever. You just hoped that it would last long enough until you got the hell out of Evergreen.
Oof. When did you become so selfish?
Eyes softening, you finally give Ashe a grateful look. “How are you so wise? You're, like, twelve.”
Ashe smiles. “You make it really hard to want to help you sometimes.”
You once again find yourself alone in the cafe at the end of the night. Matty had stayed an hour past their shift just to absorb all the juicy bits of gossip, catching up on yours and Ashe's conversation. He also offered up a few encouraging words, in his own Matty way.
(“If you don't tie that delicious four-eyes down, I will,” he said, giving you a very pointed look.)
Ashe, once again, insisted on staying late with you.
(“If you can clock in early, then I can clock out late, no?”)
You only smiled and shook your head and told Ashe you were fine, really. It lacked the usual desperation, though, the one that tinged your voice with hopes of Adrian stopping by. This time, you convinced Ashe to leave by telling them you really wanted the time alone to think while also keeping your hands busy. So they left with less worry than usual this time.
You received several texts from Adrian earlier today, and you think about how you ignored all of them as you finish counting out the till. They're all unopened, having only caught glimpses of the texts as they appeared as previews on your still-cracked lockscreen.
The first text was an apology that only made you scowl. At the time, you doubted he meant it, or knew what he was even apologizing for considering last night, he only seemed confused by your hurt reaction.
Then there was the text you scoffed out, where he stated he was off today and could meet up, presumably to talk. If you have to see him in that stupid fucking mask again without seeing his stupid fucking face, you think you might actually scream until both your heads pop.
Now, as you lock up the safe, you think that maybe talking wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe not the best idea, given your fragile emotional state. You really don't trust yourself not to cry more and Adrian's been no good with tears and you don't want to make him uncomfortable (though that should be the least of your worries).
And even worse than whatever it is Adrian has to say (I mean, what more could the man say? Mentioning the threesome was enough, you don't need to hear about they why or the how or the what went in who's hole-)
-Even worse than whatever else Adrian could possibly say is whatever you need to say. Speak out loud and make yourself more vulnerable than when he has you in the backseat of his Sebring with his mouth against your neck. Relinquish whatever remains of your pride as you put the power in his hands, lay bare the fragile beating of your heart and admit how much you cannot stand to be without him. How terrifying the thought that he might not feel the same, now that his real best friend is back in the picture.
The feelings whirl in your gut all nauseating and you grimace. You hate confessing. To give someone else the chance to hurt you. It goes against your self-preservation instincts.
As the song playing on the store speakers quietly peters to end and transitions to the next track, you hear a noise coming somewhere from the back. You pause, straining your ears to try to listen as the music continues playing. You want very badly to play it off as just your imagination, but you're the only one in the store; after the things you have been through recently, it would be unwise to shrug it off without investigating.
Unwilling to venture into the back just yet, you simply stand from your spot at the safe and lean backwards, gazing into the parts of the backroom you could see, and-
Huh. That's strange. The backdoor is opened a crack. You're sure you closed it after running out the last bit of garbage, but it's hard to trust your own memory when you've been so distracted thinking about Adrian Chase and Feelings.
You steel yourself, blowing out a forceful bit of air through your nose and begin to make your way to the back. It could have just been some critter dumpster diving that made the noise, audible simply because the door wasn't fully closed. You close the door, making sure it clicks firmly shut.
As you turn back around, you discover you are not alone in the store after all.
They're still at the video store/base when an announcement reveals on the t.v. that Peacemaker is wanted, due to evidence found in a diary that Chris says isn't his. It's Goff on the podium, and, distressingly, the tall guy from the woods stands next to her, the one that killed those cops and helped him and Vigilante escape.
It looks like they got him, too. He has a face that looks like its skin is stretched too taut over his skull, so maybe it's fitting that he's joined the bad guys, since he already looks the part.
Vigilante's phone buzzes with a text alert, and it makes him forget the tension in the air for a moment. Only one person would be hitting him up at this hour. Maybe you're finally returning his texts!
Sure enough, it's your name on the screen he sees when he fishes out his phone, and his face almost breaks out into a grin. But when he unlocks it, he is greeted with a picture that makes the excited fluttering of his heart freeze and the smile immediately drops from his face.
You're in the cafe, in your work clothes, tied up to one of the wooden cafe chairs. Head lolled to the side, resting uncomfortably on your right shoulder, clearly (and upsettingly) unconscious.
Another text comes in:
If you care for them, you will bring Peacemaker.
taglist: @whatevermonkey @hiddlehiddlebatchedloki @nobodys-baby-now @navs-bhat @afraidofshrimp @training4theapocalypse @abbaenthusiast @jediviolet @t0byisher3 @madhyanas
[ if you would like to be removed from the taglist, pls let me know! it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, i 100% understand if you come to find it annoying or just not currently interested in the fandom. likewise, if you want to be added, i’d appreciate a reblog and/or comment/feedback ]
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🦋✨Thin Imagine✨🦋
❌TW: ED, Alcohol, Nicotine❌
🪩🚬🕷️🖤Skinny Teenage Dirtbag🖤🕷️🚬🪩
Your phone buzzed, alerting you to a new message from your friends.
“Soooo excited! Tonight’s gonna be so much fun!!” It read.
You and your girls were planning on attending a party, your first in a very long time. For so long, you had hidden yourself away from everyone. You sheltered your soft body in oversized hoodies and baggy tees. You spent so much time staying home, while all of your pretty friends go to go out and have fun. Not anymore! You had spent the last year starving and hiding in your cocoon. Now, it’s your time to emerge as a beautiful thin butterfly.
Your friends soon arrive at your place to get ready. They curl and crimp their hair and cake on their make up. You leave your beautiful hair in its natural state. It’s not like you can’t rock any hairstyle with your new body. You apply a light layer of makeup, mostly mascara and blush. There’s no need to hide anything, only accentuate your natural beauty.
Soon it’s time to pick out an outfit. That’s a thought that would’ve made you panic before. What to wear? Will I look fat? Maybe I shouldn’t go. You have no fears now. You step on the scale to confirm. The number shown only fuels your confidence, your UGW. You pick out an outfit you never would’ve dared to wear before, something small and skimpy to show off your new form. You glance in the mirror, you’re gorgeous. You feel an envious stare from one of your friends, a look you know so very well. You used to look at others like that, desperately wishing to be them.
You soon arrive at the party. You can nearly feel the base pumping from outside the house. You enter and find yourself surrounded by people, all in various states of drunkenness. One of your friends pulls you through the mass of people. You spend the night drinking and smoking and dancing. Every guy, and maybe some girls, takes his time looking you up and down with want. When you do leave late into the night, you have more numbers in your phone than you arrived with. You never would’ve been looked at in the past, but now it’s hard for them to take their eyes off of you.
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Teenage dirtbag alert !!!!
[ ID: A drawing of Fig Faeth from the shoulders up. She's grinning and sticking her tongue out with closed eyes. She has one hand raised in a "rock-on" symbol. She's wearing a fishnet shirt, a loose t-shirt, a large bracelet, and multiple earrings. Her right ear has a chunk out of it, reflecting the other ear where an earring is. She has shoulder length shaggy hair. End ID ]
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what did pkane do? besides be on the blackhawks?
Sure here you go:
Y'know how as a young hotshot star in the league tyler seguin would get drunk and have a lot of sex and party and all those old posts just make us laugh bc what a fun-loving immature goof whose unprofessionalism messed it up for him with his first team???
Yea well add on physical and sexual assault to that and getting the full protection of the Blackhawks and every other hockeyman-- that's what the pkane experience was. especially in the off-seasons back in new york.
Drank too much, assaulted people, got away with it bc he's a precious 1st overall
There was the one rape case that was dropped bc the mother presented fake evidence, but that doesn't take away from the stream of off-ice drunken assaults that followed this dirtbag around, including choking and sexual assault. Just a real do u know who i am bs stank announcing his presence. Think of your favourite star athletes, do any of them have a stream of alleged assault claims following them around? Ofc sure, they party and use their popularity to get laid, but are they generally known as repulsive human beings?
And oh yea he was charged and convicted (for something lesser ofc) in the cab driver assault. The one where the fare came to $14.80. the driver didn't have the 20cents change so pkane's cousin held him down while he beat up the 60yr old man.
That is most definitely a human who made life worse for Kyle Beach in Chicago, where after it was known what had happened, teammates taunted him with homophobic insults as if it had been his choice to be sexually assaulted.
Sure ppl can change and grow. Sure. I just haven't seen any evidence of that publicly beyond no longer hearing of anymore assaults. His response when Kyle Beach came forward a few years back? Defended his coaches and teammates, lied about ever knowing. Even jtoews (fuck him too) lied a little better by saying he found out a year after it happened.
Why tf do fun sports things have to come at the cost of accepting shitty people?? News alert, they don't. We don't need these kinds of people.
So yea, i don't care for him.
Feel free to google his name with any bad word you can think of. Anti-semitic, too. yes you can throw that in too. Something will come up.
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mayor cherub of grimetown presents:
come one, come all, residents of the slimiest place under the sun! whether you’re new in town, just passing through, or an (unfortunate) permanent resident of this treacherous place, you’re bound to catch the eye of one of our despicable slimeballs.
!! TRADE OFFER !! / !! SLIMY DEAL ALERT !!
i recieve (you give me): your role in grimetown (e.g. “im the shoe guy at the crumbling bowling alley” / “i just arrived by train with all my stuff in a sack on a stick”) and maybe a bit about yourself or a scenario including yourself -- anything goes, really, just spitball some ideas for me to build on. you’re free to introduce new slimeballs, new grimy town landmarks, and new lore into the mix if you wish.
you receive (i give you): your true slimeball love and a scenario of how you meet (an expansion of slimeball lore, if you will. it will all become canon.) you also have the chance to unlock a new slimeball! who knows what sort of dirtbags might come crawling out of the woodwork <3
LINK TO SLIMEBALL TOWN HISTORY/SLIMEBALL LORE (not everything is tagged bc im a mess <3 but if u have been around then u know the deal. the majority of the posts for this au are filed under #slimeball alley on bastard blvd!)
SLIMEBALL MATCHUPS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED.
#cherub.matchups#slimeball alley on bastard blvd#yuli if u see this i got ur ask and ill do it!!! HEHE#IM GONNA DO THESE LATER BC IM BUSY RN BUT SEND ME STUFF ITLL BE FUN
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Can I just say before I go on a rant that I am a person who mostly enjoys everything I watch. I am easily impressed when it comes to movies or tv and I look at motion picture as fun and not always broken down to the nitty gritty. However this season of aggretsuko I fuckin will lmao!!!!! So spoiler alert!!!!!
Aggretsuko season 5 was a huge disappointment for me bc I was looking forward to this show to open and close with a bang and quite frankly it flopped.
Tbh I liked Haida’s villain moment last season and I appreciate his character development as well, but I think it could have been done with Retsuko not being put on the back burner this season. their relationship coulda been more balanced and I’m also tired of Retsuko not being full on in wanting Haida or not. She runs the show? So why isn’t she the centre?
I will say I do relate to Haida’s struggle and wanting to keep private about it, he also did really try to get himself put together on his own, and made a friend along the way, shikabari was her name? but why was that the most fun part of this season? I think Haida is not a great boyfriend but something that he showcased is how much he loves, cares about and is willing to sacrifice without wanting to burden others.
Everything else after that felt flat. Even with retsuko fucking going into politics Tonne still calls her calendar??? He’s still a dirtbag in my eyes he’s just not as bad.
The fact that the closing scene fucking shows Retsuko on a crowded ass bus thinking that her rage is the thing carrying her is only half the point! She said she wanted a quiet and peaceful life with someone she loves so I think that it would have been a better ending to just show her and Haida going on a date AFTER a long day of work, showcasing the mundane of life but showing what SHE wanted? Or her just lying in bed with Haida with the morning light on them? Ugh idk man. Just straight up FLAT for me.
#text#txt#personal#rant#tw just bc#ask to tag#anime#aggretsuko#Haida jinro#Retsuko#Aggretsuko 2023#the fact that this is the last season is just#idk#like#I really could go on#let me just say y’all I am a very easy watcher I enjoy everything mostly that I watch but this ending was shit#spoiler alert#spoiler
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"Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter!”
Season 7, Episode 24
First US Airdate: December 4, 1993
A wealthy businessman starts an anti-mutant campaign that places the Turtles in danger.
Season seven of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nears its conclusion with "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter!" As with most of the episodes during this stretch of the show, David Wise is credited as writer here.
The Turtles are investigating a series of appearances by a pair of mysterious creatures and are seen examining their footprints. Donatello remarks that since Shredder’s use of mutagen in the zoo “years ago”, new mutants have continued to appear in the city. This seems to be a call-back to the events of “Planet of the Turtleoids” that led to the creation of Groundchuck and Dirtbag. As that was in season five it’s true that for us as viewers it was a while back, but I believe this is the first time we’ve ever had in-universe confirmation that the events of the series have taken place over a period of several years.
Our heroes are alerted to a commotion at the nearby Crystal Palace Mall. Inside, a mutant wolf and turtle are terrorising shoppers. This duo will be familiar to anyone who’s seen the second live-action TMNT movie as Rahzar and Tokka respectively, though their characterisation here differs greatly from their movie appearances: rather than being BABIES – or, if you prefer, “stupid infants” - Rahzar is surprisingly eloquent while Tokkka sounds like... Beavis? I’m gonna go with Beavis. The Turtles valiantly take on these two new mutants but are outmatched, with both Leonardo and Michaelangelo going through the windows of one of the mall’s restaurants.
An interesting facet of Rahzar’s portrayal here is that from the outset it’s established he cares deeply for Tokka and considers him to be his only friend. Upon seeing Raphael and Donatello fight Tokka, Rahzar becomes furious, smashing the mall’s supporting pillar. Having left the complex in ruins, the two mutants escape; the Turtles emerge from the crumbling shopping centre but find their new enemies are long gone.
Later, in the Lair, the Turtles watch a broadcast on Channel 6. AJ Howard, an “eccentric billionaire”, is allowed to go into an anti-mutant diatribe in which he blames the many half-human, half-animals who have appeared in the city not only for the recent destruction of the mall, but for hurting the local economy and driving out business. He goes on to mention that the completion of his new skyscraper, the Howard Building, has been postponed until the mutant issue is dealt with. Beyond that, he has launched a full-on anti-mutant campaign, including promotional “down with mutants” wristbands. Announcing the next phase of his program, he introduces Dirk Savage, a burly and heavily armed man with an eyepatch who he declares is a “professional mutant hunter”.
Savage boasts about his intention to track down “every last one of you freaks”, a vow that understandably rattles the Turtles. The broadcast ends with AJ Howard encouraging citizens to request Savage’s services by way of a special hotline, 555-NO MUTANTS.
The Turtles head to Channel 6 and request April and Irma’s help in learning about Dirk Savage. April isn’t able to find much beyond him being “a professional soldier of fortune... he’s fought for governments all over the world!” Irma provides further details about Savage’s allegiances, noting that he typically fights against “rebels, misfits and other outcasts”. While at the station offices our heroes receive an incoming Turtlecom transmission from Napoleon of the Punk Frogs, who has just arrived in town with Genghis. It only takes a matter of seconds before Genghis manages to get his foot caught in a laser trap. From the bushes emerges Dirk Savage, who swiftly captures both frogs and carries them away.
Our heroes head to the spot where the Punk Frogs were captured, and determine this was indeed Savage’s doing: in a nod to the weariness that viewers may have been feeling after seven seasons of new supporting characters being introduced, Raphael notes that there are “eight zillion mutants in this series and [Savage] captures two of the good ones!” With no clear plan on what to do next, the team head back to the Lair to request Splinter’s advice.
Savage is seen transporting the Punk Frogs in his personalised truck to a special facility, where several mutants can be seen imprisoned in energy cages. The mutant hunter checks in with AJ Howard, who reminds him that the Turtles are still free: Savage assures his boss that capturing them is his top priority.
Splinter tells the Turtles that he senses Dirk Savage may be the key to solving their problem, and that they should focus on convincing him to change his ways by showing him his hatred for mutants is the result of ignorance. Later, while wandering the sewers, the Turtles discuss these words of wisdom. Donatello and Raphael are unconvinced by the idea that Savage can be reasoned with. Michaelangelo is then pulled into the air and captured in an enormous electromagnet, which Donnie helpfully explains has him “by the buckles of his bandoliers!” Before the team can free him, Dirk Savage appears, a gun in each hand and set to capture his enemies, as act one wraps up.
Act two opens with Savage angering the Turtles by calling them “mutant scum”. He attempts to capture all four members of the team, but after restraining Leonardo is pounced upon by Raphael and has a stream of water sprayed on him by Donatello from a nearby pipe. Ultimately the mutant hunter retreats, taking the tied-up Leo and Mikey with him. As he loads the two Turtles into the back of his truck, he makes a point of relieving them of their Turtlecoms, crushing the devices with his bare hands. Donnie and Raph head to the Turtle Van to give chase, but are alerted to further developments from April, who asks that they return to the station as Irma has made a major discovery.
Savage presents Michaelangelo and Leonardo to AJ Howard. The two Turtles are understandably furious and refuse to comply, but the billionaire forces them to don “compliance cuffs” - arm restraints that compel anyone wearing them to do his bidding. Napoleon, Genghis and the other assembled mutants can only look on as Leo and Mikey are brought to their knees. Meanwhile, Irma reveals her discovery to the Turtles: that Howard used to own a genetics lab which was suddenly closed, coinciding with the wealthy businessman’s disappearance for more than a year. (We can only take Irma’s word for this, as the report which appears on-screen contains no relevant information and seems to just be letters of the alphabet in sequence.)
While April and Irma are helping the Turtles, Vernon goes on-air with an editorial segment. Professing his allegiance to AJ Howard, he rails against the “nasty creatures” supposedly taking over the streets, before revealing that more than half of the city’s residents now wear the billionaire’s anti-mutant bracelets. Raphael is keen to give Vernon a piece of his mind, but is convinced to direct his energy elsewhere, as Donatello intends to infiltrate the mutant holding facility. Meanwhile, April and Irma will investigate the site of Howard’s in-construction skyscraper.
Donnie and Raph visit Mondo Gecko, making his first appearance since his debut two years earlier. As per the conclusion of that adventure he appears to still be residing in the sewers as a neighbour of sorts to the Turtles. Upon learning of the activities of Howard and Savage, Mondo agrees to assist, angered by the capture of his good friend Michaelangelo.
Savage places a table of food in an alley, luring Tokka and Rahzar into the open. This turns out to only be partially successful, as he’s able to capture the snapping turtle but not his partner. After escaping, Rahzar can only watch from a nearby rooftop as Tokka is loaded into the back of Savage’s vehicle and transported away; enraged by the loss of his buddy, he vows revenge before howling at the moon. On his way back to the mutant detainment facility Savage also encounters and captures Mondo Gecko. This time Donnie and Raph are ready, and follow the mutant hunter in the Turtle Van.
As April and Irma arrive at the Howard Building, which is covered in an enormous sheet and surrounded by guards, Donnie and Raph watch Savage unload his mutants at the facility. After he leaves again our heroes use a vent to gain entry to the mutant detainment building. Inside, they watch – along with the captive Leo and Mikey, as well as the other jailed mutants – as AJ Howard places his special cuffs on Mondo Gecko and Tokka. After an off-hand remark from Mondo about how the billionaire will never be able to kill destroy the city’s entire population of mutants, Howard reveals that isn’t his intent, and that his captured prey will serve as his own personal army. The assembled mutants are shocked as Howard removes his rubbery face mask to show his true form: that of a half-man, half-slug.
The impact of Howard’s revelation is watered down considerably by the fact that when we return for the concluding act, he’s seen pulling off his mask again, this time spouting new dialogue as he does so about being not only a mutant, but the greatest one of all. He further explains that it was an accident in his genetics lab that led to his current form (hence his year-long disappearance alluded to by Irma earlier). Donnie and Raph emerge to confront Howard, but through his compliance bracelets the slug turns the jailed mutants against them, forcing the two Turtles to retreat to their van. With his true intentions now known, Howard declares that he needs to implement the next phase of his plan immediately and marches off with his new mutant army.
Donatello is beginning to warm up to the idea suggested by Splinter earlier about Dirk Savage acting as a potential ally. From a phone booth, he calls the hunter’s hotline and leaves a message indicating that two mutant turtles have been spotted. Meanwhile April and Irma watch as Howard relays a message to the guards surrounding his building, informing them that as the mutant issue has been dealt with, they can stand down. With the coast clear, the two ladies sneak inside, finding what initially appears to be a relatively innocuous building.
Savage takes the bait, arriving at a fish market to find Donatello and Raphael. Before he can capture them Rahzar intervenes, still livid at the capture of his friend. The Turtles battle the mutant wolf, ultimately using one of Savage’s own restraining weapons to deal with their foe. It’s only after being saved by Donnie and Raph – and subsequently lectured by them about how not all mutants are bad – that Savage learns he was working for a villainous slug-man the entire time.
AJ Howard guides his army to his new skyscraper, revealing that its true name is not the Howard Building but rather the Mutant Building, a towering statue of his true form mounted on its roof. As he pulls away the sheets at ground level, April and Irma have made it to the top, and head inside to find a control room. Donnie and Raph are informed of this discovery and head off with Savage to confront the bad guys.
Michaelangelo and Leonardo are taken to the top floor by Howard with the other mutants, and due to the compliance cuffs are forced against their will to capture April and Irma. Both ladies are made by Howard to wear his “Down with Mutants” cuffs: far from being a mere propaganda tool, the slug reveals these are miniature versions of the restraints worn by his army. Soon, he announces, they’ll be used to bring everyone in the city wearing them under his control. Across town at Channel 6, Vernon is seen gushing about the bracelets to a surprisingly wary Burne Thompson. As the bracelets are powered up April’s rival is seen marching out of the room, his boss furious at the idea of him taking orders from anyone else.
Dirk Savage is also wearing one of Howard’s anti-mutant bracelets, which activates as he flies the Turtle Blimp, accompanied by Donnie and Raph. Despite this setback the team manage to open fire upon Howard’s statue, and the resulting destruction of the control room breaks the control of the bracelets over the humans who had been wearing them. Howard still has sway over the mutants, but only temporarily – it doesn’t take long for Savage to snatch the control unit out of the hands of his old boss and destroy it.
A further complication arises as the building begins to shake. Howard reveals that the explosion which destroyed the control room must have overloaded the building’s power generators. Donatello drops a dizzying number of ropes from the Turtle Blimp, allowing everyone to fly away safely before the entire skyscraper blows up.
Later, Savage makes a brief apology for the way he’s treated the assembled mutants, pledging to try and understand them in the future and offering his help if needed. Michaelangelo suggests this is almost a happy ending, but something is still missing: the Punk Frogs then step in, offering to buy the Turtles a jumbo pizza, and this is enough for Mikey to now be entirely satisfied.
Michaelangelo might be content with this conclusion, but I’m considerably less impressed. For the most part “Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter!” is an exceptional episode even by the standards of what has been a surprisingly strong season. While the series was set up around the premise that the wider world would be hostile to the Turtles – in this continuity that was established from the outset as the reason Splinter trained them to be ninjas, a means of defending themselves rather than to kill Shredder – only season three’s “Turtles on Trial” explored this idea in depth. In the years that followed, the Turtles became real-world celebrities who spent more time selling cereal, raising awareness of public transportation and going on tour as musicians than they did being depicted as underdogs struggling in a world that didn’t understand them. Arguably this fed back into the series, as the team have spent years wandering around mostly without disguises, meeting little resistance from the residents of the city and often being treated as celebrated heroes. It’s only here – in the seventh season of the show, as the need for the Turtles to serve as real-world pitchmen and role models for hire fades away, that we begin to see a re-alignment take place, freeing the team to become ninjas who reside in the shadows once more. To that end, here we return to the idea of a media-driven narrative turning opinion against the Turtles. These themes felt worryingly prescient when I wrote about them in the Turtlethon entry for “On Trial” a few years back and viewed through the lens of this episode seem just as relevant to our real-world political and cultural climate now. The difference is that while the season three approach to this story resulted in an effective story with an ending that felt all too plausible, this one manages to stumble right before making it over the finish line.
I don’t know what it is about season seven: for some reason the overarching theme for this year seems to have been terrific stories that invariably wind up with half-baked, unsatisfying conclusions. (Baxter’s final appearance is the most obvious example of this.) Whereas Clayton Kellerman’s insistence on continuing to profit by directing hate at the Turtles even after being saved by them felt all too real, here Dirk Savage’s willingness to cast aside his hatred of mutants so readily comes across as entirely inauthentic. Far worse than this, though, is AJ Howard’s fate being omitted from the end of the show completely. Did he feel any remorse for treating the mutants the way he did? Was his perspective changed after being saved from the exploding buildings by the Turtles, or would he simply vow to get revenge? We’ll never know, and it’s one of the great missed opportunities that this villain – part Ross Perot with his pie charts and presumably paid TV broadcasts, part Richard Nixon in voice and general demeanour – didn't get used again. I could easily envision an alternative direction for seasons eight through ten where it’s Howard who becomes the main villain of the series as Shredder and Krang fade into the background, a cartoon counterpart to Null from the Archie TMNT Adventures continuity whose influence and power make life much harder for the Turtles.
Comparisons to “On Trial” notwithstanding, there’s no shortage of other things going on here that are genuinely interesting. The revelation that Shredder’s schemes led to the creation of a variety of unseen mutants is intriguing, but even here there’s a sense that much more could have come of this: we see several mutants in this adventure who are all original designs, but they could so easily have been existing characters from the Archie comics or the toy line. It’s not hard to imagine the likes of Scratch, Panda Khan or Halfcourt receiving cameos here, or even Ace Duck finally getting some proper screen time. At least we get guest appearances from Tokka and Rahzar, albeit years after their debut in The Secret of the Ooze. This is more relevant to Turtlethon entries for the live-action movies – which I still intend to do before this project is over – but the inclusion of this duo in the cartoon after so long feels particularly odd given that they were effectively an unsuccessful attempt to outdo its own Rocksteady and Bebop. Perhaps Playmates were keen to have Tokka and Rahzar incorporated into the show, as both did have a couple of action figures at retail during this period.
Without a doubt this episode is going on the Required Viewing list, but with the caveat that as good as it is, it had the potential to be something far greater than what we ultimately received. We say goodbye to the remaining Punk Frogs and Mondo Gecko here for the last time, with the conclusion of season seven and the classic era of TMNT looming on the horizon. Before then our attention must turn back to the Technodrome Crew for the subject of the next entry, “Invasion of the Krangazoids”.
#Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles#TMNT#TMNT 1987#Ninja Turtles#Turtlethon#1993#Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter#Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter!#Dirk Savage Mutant Hunter#Dirk Savage#AJ Howard#A.J. Howard#Tokka#Rahzar#Tokka and Rahzar
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Hi hi! So I’m interested, a stranger things ship, I’m gay and ftm (he/him) I have short dirty blond hair blue eyes and snakebites. I like sketching, drawing, animating and reading. I love pastels and soft colors and I’d like to think of myself as more of a “babycore” person. But I also do love horror/gore! I’m a pretty reserved and quite person and i find it hard to trust people, I’m also a huge animal lover (specifically possums and bats) and tend to keep to myself, kinda fading into the crowd
hi hi babes! i think you and will would go great together.
NOT BECAUSE HE IS GAY, but omg would you two fuckers go together <3
i feel like you two would give each other drawing/painting tips like all the time, and you'd help him discover his style and come out to his family (you do it via cake left on the table. poor baby has such bad anxiety he gets the rainbow cake, gets them to write "i like boys :) " and then has to leave it on the table and go upstairs to cuddle with you because he's panicking so bad. (spoiler alert : Joyce already knew. jonathan wasn't as shocked, and el was literally so elated he finally came out. mike, however, kinda lost contact with him after he came out. and then el broke up with him bc he was talking shit about will to some of his assholish new buddies and she started dating max. DOUBLE DATES))
i also think he enjoys the babycore thing. he thinks it's pretty cool, and chooses instead to explore a "softcore" aesthetic before settling on a more pastel colour scheme. y'all pick out outfits together all the fucking time omg
also one day you just get sick of his bowl cut and when it grows out you take matters into your own hands and you cut it yourself. you two eventually have to pool some cash to go to a hairdresser because you slipped up with the scissors, but when he comes back out he looks so much better than that godforsaken bowl cut
you guys get weed from jonathan and argyle as will gets bolder and more crazy, you are the one to introduce him to his teenage dirtbag years. Joyce honestly doesn’t mind it because he’s getting out and making new friends, but you two are a bit reckless.
he likes horror movies, but only when you're there to hide his face in.
he also tends to do the crowd fading thing as to not be called out as a fag :D and so you two can blend pretty easy.
he enjoys your animal obsession and you have a lot of stuffed animals and a cool bat ring that he got you on your birthday
in total omg u two are so fucking cute
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twitch
February 4th, 2023 Stream [Hi-Fi Rush, Sunday Gold] Summary
Abysmal turnout of viewership aside (surprising no one), I started the stream with Hi-Fi Rush. If my social media posts have been any indication, you can probably tell that I love the absolute bones of this game. I can't remember the last time I played a game where, from start to finish, I spent most of the time grinning like a doofus from the sheer amount of fun and joy I was getting out of it. A good part of that has to due with mostly everything being synced with its music, but I've always been a sucker for rhythmic elements in games.
The game being depicted and its story told like a 'western-anime' gives it so much color, expressiveness and free reign to take itself with so little seriousness; it's legitimately funny at times and Chai is an absolute idiot goofball moron buffoon git and I couldn't love him any more for it. While the combat may not be as intricate as other character action games, there's certainly enough depth to require quick decision-making. The rhythmic nature of the gameplay means that button-mashing is a fine way to get nowhere fast, but why would you mash to begin with? Attacks being enhanced and racking up a higher score by playing well are reward enough, but when you get in the zone and start vibin' out? Reacting on time with everything being thrown your way, cleaving through enemies while avoiding and parrying their attacks? Hearing the non-existent crowd chanting and cheering when hitting S rank?
I'll elaborate more if/when I sit down to write a review on the game, but good god, Hi-Fi Rush just feels brilliant to play. It makes me feel like the coolest dude around, and in lenient enough to still let you feel cool if you whiff on inputs or take hits. I was playing on medium difficulty which got a bit spicy from time to time, so I can only imagine how much more the game demands of you on hard or above. For a game that dropped seemingly out of the blue, I can't sing the praises of Hi-Fi Rush enough. Easily a contender for game of the year and has found a snug place in my personal top ten.
After finishing Hi-Fi Rush, I swapped over to Sunday Gold for the rest of the night. Ever since its reveal last year I had my eye on it, though never got around to actually picking it up. Turns out earlier that day it had gone on sale, so I snatched it up. The concept of a point and click adventure game crossed with an RPG had my interest, though finding out it's a heist game with a cast of utter dirtbags was a pleasant surprise.
I'd need more time to better define it, but the art and style is like a comic book if it was dropped in a muddy puddle and skillfully restored - For character portraits and cutscenes, anyway. There are Some Faces (TM) that are something else to look at. The game is broken up into two playable parts: Exploration and combat. The former is the point n' click standard fare with snooping around, searching for items and making progress. Action points (AP) are an interesting currency, because taking actions or searching things require AP while exploring, and they're restored by using items or 'ending the turn' which simulates a bit of time passing. You can't just kill time forever though, as ending turns (at least when heisting) cranks up an alert status which, if the dice rolls badly, can spook the team or trigger a fight.
AP is shared between both modes, and combat has been… Not the best so far. I'm not expecting Shin Megami Tensei-levels of planning of course, but fights seem to take longer than they really should, doubly so for the first boss fight. Credit due, there's stuff to consider like breaking guard or applying buffs/debuffs, but for the damage you deal versus the amount you take? I can forsee later chapters really trying to grind you into the ground to make things tense and desperate, but I don't think it'll be done in a satisfying or challenging way.
Still, the presentation is top-notch. Even with the limited animations, the game looks slick and the vocal cast has been enjoyable. I wasn't expecting there to be this much voice acting, but I'm not going to complain; the main characters are unlikable, but they have roguish qualities as the self-proclaimed 'righteous villains' that makes it more than possible to continue hanging out with them. I'll definitely come back to the game, but I'll likely save it for the stream for the sake of story continuity.
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rudy pankow, bisexual, male + he/him ― hey look , it’s BROOKS HYLAND ! they’re twenty - three years old , they’ve lived in shrike heights for his whole life , and they’re currently working at shrike grocers. i heard they’re pretty arrogant , but i think they’re so elusive at the same time. can they make it out alive ? || hazy, 25, she/they, est + no triggers.
tw for his bg – implied neglect , brief alcohol abuse mentions.
𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒.
a day in the life of brooks hyland ( circa high school years ) went a little something like this … a boy walks home with a miniature version of him clung to his back. he’d just picked binx hyland up from daycare , a woman’s house that was three blocks off from the high school and only three streets over from his home. his board is in his left hand because he’d never dare try to skate with such a fragile body relying on him for safety. no matter how confident he was in himself , how reckless he’d been around anyone else , brooks felt like it was him and binx against the world sometimes. he gets home to an unlocked door , possibly ajar or even wide open. his hands sweep their surroundings before binx has the chance to skim through the many empty bottles and packs of cigarettes that littered every elevated surface of their home. brooks helps binx with his homework , even though he was never good at school or even did his own projects for his own classes. he checks the pulse of their father every hour , but doesn’t dare to wake him or alert him of their presence at home. he cooks dinner , nothing big or fancy , but enough for binx to chow down on and enough for his father to wake up to without becoming agitated. binx goes to bed before him , sleeps in brooks’ bed every night because brooks didn’t trust leaving him in a room without supervision and in the care of their father. the next day is just the same.
his mother lived across town , was deemed unfit as a mom and so they were left in the care of a guy who could present himself well in front of a judge. brooks visited her often without his father knowing , without his younger brother knowing. he’d sit and watch movies with his mom , comfort her through her mood swings , read books in the backyard with her whenever she needed a moment to clear her head. she wasn’t always there , mentally , but brooks knew she cared about him and his brother more than anything else in her life.
brooks turned eighteen and moved into his own place. he didn’t have a lot of money , but he didn’t need somewhere big. it wasn’t long until his father moved himself and binx , who was only six years younger than brooks , out of town. they moved away from shrike. brooks would never forgive himself for not fighting harder for binx to be able to stay with him instead. his mother died three months after the move , leaving brooks all alone in shrike heights.
shrike grocers gave him an official work vest the day after their grand opening , giving brooks a new purpose and new chance to prove himself worthy in some kind of way. he’d spent the previous four years sulking about his loneliness , surrounding himself with parties and bad influences that helped him numb the pain in every way possible.
he’s your classic dirtbag … too arrogant for his own good , wears a smile even the devil would fall for , does his job and does it well , rides a motorcycle around town , and knows how to have a good time. the events in town as of recently haven’t done much to scare him , instead making him thrive off of the adrenaline that came with the chaos. he’s a class clown , someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
this man hasn’t shown his true feelings in years. he’s very soft for the people who are close to him , but there’s barely a handful of them left. he pushes away anyone who dares to show any kind of deeper feelings for him. brooks is loyal , but only to his friends and found family.
#shrikeintro#ignore how ?? bad this is ..#it's what u get until i make a proper pinned post.#addiction tw#abuse tw
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Evan DuRosier | OC Moodboard
I'm not strictly HAPPY with this moodboard, but at least it's got something out of my head as, say, visual notes for him. I don't get to write much at length for myself since I'm kept extremely busy with my work as a ghostwriter, but I have an idea for a series of shameless erotic vampire shorts that will not leave my head, so...Evan.
Character Details under the cut, story is blatant smut so 18+
Name: Evan DuRosier
Pronouns: He/Him
Sexuality: Bisexual
Creature: Vampire
Birth and Death: Born July 2nd, 1946, Died October 31st, 1973 (Physically frozen at 27)
Appearance: Dirtbag rocker dude. 5'11, mahogany brown eyes, only American Traditional tattoos, jaw length ash brown hair that he wears in a side part, always seems to have five o'clock shadow, wiry muscle, scar on his jaw, black nails.
Occupation: "Artist", whatever that happens to mean to him at any given point is up for debate. Sometimes, it means conartist.
Life Before Death: Evan was a prodigious guitarist and vocalist, a highly regarded local rockstar in the 1970s, who tragically disappeared along with the rest of his band right before they were supposed to go on their first big global tour. (Spoiler alert, he killed them in a fit of bloodlust when he was in the process of becoming a vampire)
Modern Day Home: Evan lives at the corner of Cardinal Street and South Main, a fictitious area in an ambiguously New York-like city, in the basement apartment that used to be his favorite tattoo parlor when he was alive. Cardinal Street is known for it's artist alley, street performers, street food, and artists of all kind; it's a great place, if you ignore the missing persons posters. Evan's heavy concrete door is plastered in various artists representations of ill omens, as well as black feathers and bits of bone matted to the door with a thick layer of paint.
Friends: Evan is just kind of...that weird hot guy who just kind of hangs around. Everyone assumes he's someone else's friend, so he moves effortlessly through circles of musicians and starving artists. He's able to feed easily from this population, and uses his innate vampiric abilities to erase the memory of him feeding.
Pet: Evan learned tragically quickly that he can't have a warm blooded pet, so he has a Ball Python named Bacchus that he absolutely adores and dotes on.
Hobbies: Art in pretty much any form. He still loves to make music, but he refuses to try to "be heard" beyond street performances, due to his past life. He's an avid painter, and his apartment is covered in grotesque murals that he's quite proud of. He's also an apprentice leather-worker, studying under the woman who crafts all his BDSM gear for him. He describes himself as an artist who does "a little bit of everything", only, he means it. He knows his existence isn't likely to end any time soon, so he devotes his time to art.
BDSM: Evan liked it nasty before he was a vampire; now, with all the time in the world on his hands, he's taken domination to an art form (using blood play as a convenient excuse to feed). He has a tendency to pay for partners, since he knows that BDSM should really only be done with someone you fully trust, but he has no desire for that kind of intimacy with another person (or at least, that's what he tells himself, mainly he just holds people at arms length out of guilt for murdering his band-mates). He's actually excellent at pre-care and aftercare; making sure that his partners/meals are offered juice and cookies, just like someone would get when donating blood.
#OC tag#Evan DuRosier OC#vampire oc#oc moodboard#Sanguine Inclinations Original Story#original character
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NEW BOOK ALERT! :D
Teenage Dirtbag {Eddie Munson×OC} - Chapter 1 Tutor (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1259356548-teenage-dirtbag-eddie-munson%C3%97oc-chapter-1-tutor?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=LlamaLoyd&wp_originator=SYOYyMVMwnUClvZvujU6%2FYEbEW1EEZOtub6uoVbx9xBAmZdakBRSyuV8PX2UrFWf74Hdbe4oO5g76W6kS3anfpP%2F1uTa3BS751WcFh9FfzmDTEtIheWK3Doo9B5INXAU "𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥?" "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸... 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘴." Rebecca "Bex" Carver just wants to be herself, but she finds herself forced to maintain an image set by her parents and her older brother Jason. Bex has had her eyes on Eddie Munson and his Motley crew of a D&D club called Hellfire since her sophomore year, some would even call it a crush but she wouldn't dare to admit it especially considering her older brother loathes Eddie and as he calls it, his satanic cult. Soon Bex finds her boring world of Popularity and Pom-Poms colliding with Eddie's much more exciting World of Freaks and Geeks as she is appointed Eddie Munson's math tutor. A forbidden romance begins to brew that Bex struggles to keep from her parents, her brother, and her friends. THIS STORY IS A HIGHSCHOOL AU. same characters. no upside dowm
#angstwithhappyending#eddie#eddielives#hellfire#munson#originalcharacter#romance#stranger#things#fanfiction#books#wattpad#amreading
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The Purge x Squid Game
Red vs Blue (communist cunts; democrat brats) xD
war started when two groups of teenage dirtbags throw broken stuffs at each other's cars.
shift into a civilized weaponized war with a game like feature of squid game rule
An eldest daughter, her family's in danger. doors about to close...too late. sirens alert
sirens stops, no one must move. her youngest brother was in back of her, shhhh don't move.
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First Impression: Phantom of the Idol
As one-half of the idol group ZINGS, Niyodo must put in the practice, effort, and love that will please the duo’s fans and lead them to popularity. Unfortunately, he refuses to do any of it. After all, Niyodo only became an idol because he thought it would be easy money; he doesn’t care to put in any work to become better, nor does he have any thoughts to spare for his fans. Unfortunately for him, that means he’s going to be fired. What Niyodo needs is a helper, someone who has all the motivation and energy he doesn’t. What Niyodo really needs is…the ghost of a former idol superstar? Well, that’s one way to do it! Can Niyodo, the “dirtbag” idol who stoops so low as to get the audience to sing his parts when he forgets them, and Asahi, the energetic and kind phantom of a girl who now drifts from venue to venue clinging to her beloved status as an idol, find common ground and perhaps a partnership that will help both? Also, can this series—which adapts a manga I’ll be reviewing in next week’s Readers’ Corner and which (spoiler alert) I loved—live up to the original?
The charm of episode one is how entertaining the main characters are, both as individuals and as a duo. Asahi, who loves everything about being an idol (especially pleasing her fans), is peppy and optimistic without approaching the level of annoyance. Her sweetness and altruism are already heartwarming, even this early in the series. Meanwhile, Niyodo is droll and hilarious as an idol who is so lazy that he’d rather be fired than put any work into his craft. Fumiya Imai, who is a relative newcomer as a seiyuu, channels Niyodo’s lack of energy so incredibly well, not only in his frequent exasperated asides but also in breathy, wordless complaints. His Niyodo is a perfect foil for Asahi, played by one of my favorite voice actresses, Nao Touyama (Yui Yuigama, Oregairu), whose busy summer season also includes roles in The Devil is a Part-Timer 2 (Chiho), Classroom of the Elite (Ichinose), and Rent-a-Girlfriend 2 (Ruka).
But the elephant in the room for episode one, something that I noted originally when watching the trailer but told myself, “Certainly this won’t actually make it to air,” is the horrid CGI that the series slips into when ZINGS performs a song. The animation is already less than stellar to begin with but feels incredibly awkward during the concert, which looks like an early episode of RWBY or maybe a VOCALOID performance. It’s a shame too, because the song itself is appropriately poppy and cute for an idol group, and deserving of a better-animated sequence. There are other places in the first episode, including in the OP and ED, where it likewise feels like animation shortcuts are being made. Disappointing choices—but I’m still bullish on the show, with this first episode making me laugh frequently while also giving me the warm fuzzies, and with the knowledge that this will continue for at least the next few episodes that cover the volume I read. So despite the poor animation, I’m all in—even if Niyodo isn’t.
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Phantom of the Idol is streaming on HiDIVE.
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