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eoieopda · 1 year

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meet me at the bar (ksj)

You're supposed to be staring down the barrel of the last — and most important — examination of your life, but you only have eyes for your study buddy.

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x AFAB!Reader Type: One Shot | Fluff w/ Smut | 18+ — Minors DNI Word Count: 7.5k AU: Law school, study-buddies, best friends to lovers, highly educated idiots in love CW: Bad jokes, Latin, fingering (v), unprotected sex (p in v), Seokjinnie hits it from the back. A/N: My inaugural Seokjin smut is dedicated to my donsaeng-in-law (see what I did there?) @yoongiphoria, who is now embarking on this stupid, stupid gatekeeping journey IRL. Best of luck, my lil love. I'll be waiting for you on the other side of the war! MJ FIGHTING ~ Big ups to my other lil love, M, for beta reading 💕 I posted an epilogue drabble on 7/26/23. Also: This is written based on my experience in the American legal (educational) system. I was, frankly, too lazy to study up on South Korean law for a fanfic, lol. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors will be blocked, on sight. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

You are not spiraling.

You are a paragon of health and wellness, you tell yourself as you gulp down a mug of coffee that is still far too hot, like you’ll die without it.

More bitter than the taste on your tongue is the realization that you might die with it — your third cup in fewer hours. As far as you can tell, though, it’s a win-win situation: You’ll either generate enough anxious energy to finalize your property law flashcards, or you’ll drop dead before you have to review them.

And you won’t have to take that exam…

And you won’t have to pay off your student debt…

Besides, you figure, the stomach ulcer you’re likely inflicting on yourself will be infinitely less painful than dragging your under-caffeinated corpse through yet another day of studying. Another eight, consecutive hours spent forcing forgotten subjects back into your maxed-out brain.

It’s worth it, you repeat to yourself, though this gauntlet has turned out to be a full-time job that steals, rather than pays. You can faint on top of the finish line, so long as some part of you crosses it.

You should be used to it by now, running a marathon at a dead sprint. That’s all you’ve ever done — push yourself. You attended your first day of preschool and never stopped, never took a breath. Through elementary, middle, and high school; then for four years of university. Going, going, going.

Stumbling through that eighteenth lap around the track, you kept going because — well, being a student was all you’d ever been. That’s your toxic trait, you’ve since discovered. Your concept of self is rooted exclusively within the context of a classroom.

You didn’t know it at the time, but your decision to take the Law School Admission Test — or the HellSAT, as you’ve come to call it — might have been the start of a quarter-life crisis. But you didn’t stop there. No, you took that score and ran with it. Slapped it onto every application as a desperate plea for acceptance.

When you received your admission letter, you were a bright-eyed twenty-two-year-old with a bachelor’s degree and a vaguely defined dream.

Call it naïveté or call it gravitas, there wasn’t a doubt in your smooth little brain that law school was the logical next step to take. That being intelligent and hard-working made you well-equipped for the challenge that came with pursuing a Juris Doctor. After all, you’d spent nineteen years delaying gratification — what difference would three more make?

Within the first hour of your orientation, you — a professional student — had already learned something new: You were a masochist and, frankly, somewhat of an idiot.

Thankfully, you weren’t alone.

Sitting — dissociating, more like — at a nearby table was a lanky boy you’d first noticed on your tour of the law building. His glassy-eyed stare was aimed somewhere in the middle-distance, and even though his slightly agape mouth said nothing, it communicated everything. He was the only other person in that atrium who looked the way you felt: scared shitless and riddled with buyer’s remorse. A can crushed under the boot of self-doubt.

It was the first time you and your wobbly knees went running in his direction, but it wouldn’t be the last.

He was so deep in a daze at that moment that he didn’t notice the way you threw yourself into the open chair next to him, didn’t look up at the scrape of wooden legs against the granite floor beneath them. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you announced your presence with words, however.

It was less of an introduction — the way people in a society tend to greet each other for the first time, ever — and more of a twister. Words whipped through the air at a dangerously high velocity, no syllable ending before you started on the next. Just one breath, a few consonants, and a pair of dark eyebrows shooting up to cower behind his bangs.

“Was — was that Korean?” He asked when you finally ran out of wind.

Judging by the way his wide eyes softened, you knew he wasn’t making fun of you. You’d simply scrambled his brain so thoroughly that you’d transcended the known limits of language.

More of a question than an answer, you peeped, “I think so. Maybe?” You wavered with a sigh. “I’m no longer confident that I know any of the things I thought I knew, though. So, um, don’t quote me on that.”

“You’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t catch enough of whatever that was —” He gestured vaguely. “— To even attempt to quote you.”

Within seconds and without knowing, he’d disarmed the bomb ticking away in your gut. He must’ve sensed it, too, because his face lit up so completely that you had to look away. One glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows confirmed that the sun hadn’t reappeared at that time of night.

That rush of warmth you felt then — that absolutely insane brightness — was powered exclusively by the grin taking up the entirety of his face. If that megawatt smile alone hadn’t rerouted your oncoming anxiety attack, the distinct, squeaking laugh that erupted out of his chest would’ve done the job.

You doubled over, either under the weight of your own giggling or with the relief you felt in finding someone equally lost. Eyes swimming with mirth, you wiped wetness from your cheekbone and snorted. “Was that a windshield wiper?”

“No, that was embarrassing.”

The tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks went some dizzy shade of pink.

He rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck with one hand and held the other out to shake yours.

“And I’m Kim Seokjin.”

Now, when the door of your apartment flies open without warning, it’s that same savior standing on your threshold. That designation may be melodramatic, but if that brown paper bag contains what you suspect it does, it’s deserved.

Seokjin, patron saint of breakfast sandwiches, flops down on the couch that stretches along the opposite side of your coffee table. From where you sit on the floor — hunched over your notes like a hobgoblin — you reach out your expectant arms and make grabby hands in the space between you.

You see mischief flash in his eyes, but only for a second. In the next, he’s pretending like he doesn’t see you; doesn’t hear your petulant little whines. He extends long legs out over the cushions, clutches the bag to his chest, and lets his head roll back to rest on the couch’s arm.

“Wanna know what I did today instead of practice essays?” He asks, eyes unfocused on the ceiling above.

All you actually want is whatever that smell is. You can’t stop staring at the bag of food in his hands. If you try hard enough, maybe you can summon some sort of psychic energy, make it levitate towards you.

He doesn’t wait for your response. “The math.”

“Huh?”

You frown; and as you do, you reluctantly shift your gaze from Seokjin’s hands to his face. He isn’t looking your way, but you can tell he’s grimacing based solely on the way his jaw twitches. It’s a miracle he hasn’t ground his teeth to dust over the past three years, given how often he makes that face.

In an attempt to ease the tension in his posture, you tease, “Didn’t we go to law school because we can’t do math?”

He cracks an unwilling smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless. Without turning his head, he extends his arm out in your direction. In the split second it takes for yours to spring forward like a snake, that blessed bag dangles; the scent of sausage, egg, and cheese wafts through the air and restores your will to live. Clutching your prize, halfway to feral, you tear into it without hesitation.

As you bite off more than you can chew, Seokjin prepares his rant with a sigh, “So, consider this.”

“Mmphf,” you advise through a mouthful of greasy bliss.

“Bar exam prep takes eight weeks, right? If we’re only counting business days, that’s forty — forty days, for a minimum of eight hours each.”

He becomes more restless, the more he talks. Heated, he sits bolt upright and turns wild-eyed to you.

Oh, he’s gone full-tilt insane.

“Three-hundred-and-twenty hours, then. And if you think about that in terms of our clerk wages —” He slaps his hands down on his thighs for emphasis. “— at 2,625 won per hour —”

Then, he points to you, as if the increasing volume of his voice wasn’t already holding you hostage.

“— we’ve sacrificed nearly two million won in income, just by studying for this fucking test.”

You swallow down the last bite of your sandwich, which you downright hoovered while Seokjin took the path of most resistance. After clearing your throat, your interjection overlaps with his next point:

“Seokjinnie, why didn’t you just double our monthly —”

“That’s after we paid ninety million in tuition, hundreds of thousands on study materials and registration fees —”

You cut him off. “Is this your way of asking me to Venmo you for breakfast?”

He freezes, caught fully off-guard. Shocked eyes widen like you’re the ridiculous one. “Of course not!”

He waves you off like his thoughtful gesture is no big deal. Then, like he’s tired himself out, he sinks back onto your couch. From his back, he grumbles with crossed arms, “‘M just sayin’ that I’m tired of this shit.”

You can’t help but giggle at the pathetic pout working down the corners of his mouth. “Felt,” you agree, though it feels a little bit like a lie.

Truth be told, you feel more awake now than you did ten minutes ago, and you can’t attribute it to the coffee — not when the evidence so clearly indicates otherwise.

Over the course of three years, you’ve built up quite the case against yourself. You’ve made the following findings of fact:

Whenever he pops up, Seokjin brings your mood up with him. Even now, as he marinates in anguish on your couch, his presence gives you a reason not to beat yourself unconscious with the four-kilogram prep book that sits beside you on the rug. Makes you hate your circumstances a little less, if only because you share them with him.

And, for a rapidly deflating balloon, you have to concede that Seokjin looks stunning this morning.

Unlike you and your day-three hair, he somehow had the energy to wash his. The mid-sections of some strands are still damp; the parts that aren’t frame his face in fluffy waves. His shampoo is something fruity mixed with something crisp — grapefruit and mint, maybe? — and it floods your senses, causing question marks to replace any coherent thoughts you might otherwise have. You’d be lying again if you said you didn’t want to find out for sure how soft those tresses really are.

The verdict?

Well, the jury’s still out, but you know you’re guilty.

If being down this bad for your best friend isn’t a criminal offense, it should be.

You shake your head to clear it. To smother the flame licking up the inside of your belly, you grab the certified mood killer off the coffee table and hold it up in front of you. Surely, the cure for a sexual tension headache is an eight-centimeter stack of color-coded, neon index cards covered in information you shouldn’t need to memorize in the first place.

“Exam’s in one week,” you say with a shiver.

Seokjin rolls onto his side to look forlornly at you. You are not looking at his bare hip bone, which appears where the hem of his shirt shifts from the waistband of his joggers. Nope.

You continue the search for the point you’re trying to make. “I can barely spell mortgage, let alone explain what the fuck to do with one.”

“Don’t think I know what land even is at this point,” he sighs. Dejected, he lets his arm go limp. It spills off the edge of the cushion and dangles until his knuckles brush against the rug. “What is this property you speak of?”

Biting back a grin is impossible, so you press your lips together instead. Just like that — just by Seokjin being Seokjin — the hellscape you willingly walked into gets a little brighter. Maybe, you think, you can do this.

You look down for a moment to shuffle up the cards you spent the better part of two days preparing. As you stare down at the staggering amount of knowledge you might be tested on, you can feel the crease returning between your eyebrows. Your grimace is back, too, like a reflex.

If you make it through this experience without premature wrinkles, you’ll be shocked.

There’s shifting on the couch ahead, but you don’t look up until Seokjin breezes, “From this angle, it almost looks like you’re smiling.”

His arm is no longer dangling off the edge of the couch. His entire upper body is. Knees now hinged over the backrest for balance, he’s upside-down and smirking impishly at you.

He has to know you’re in love with him, right? How could he expect you not to be?

You clear your throat and arch a single eyebrow as a challenge. “What is the rule against perpetuities, Seokjinnie?”

Like you, he can recite it in full at a machine-gun rate of fire. It’s been beaten so far into your heads that you might utter it on your deathbeds, with your last gasping breaths.

“No interest in land is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest,” he responds with a smug smile. “Easy.”

It’s your turn to smirk.

“Great. Now, what does any of that mean?”

Without missing a beat, he fires back, “Does anyone know?”

“Absolutely not. Next question!”

Having had the same day, every day, for seven weeks straight, Seokjin is struggling. He’s spent hundreds of hours on the same routine, feeling beaten down and burnt out, all the while. It goes like this:

Every morning, he wakes up and goes for a run in a feeble attempt to feel something other than dread. After that, he eats a lackluster breakfast, and then he promptly chains himself to his desk. When he finally gives himself permission to get up again, it’s dark out; and he’s too brain dead to check the hundred or so notifications that amassed on his phone during his fugue state.

Scratch that. There’s one person he responds to, no matter what. As far as everyone else is concerned, though, he’s a ghost.

Today is the first day out of the last fifty-five where Seokjin doesn’t feel like his brain is being hydraulically pressed. For the first time in too long, he fell into an old routine; one he’s missed. It started with a shower — and honestly, that was overdue — then, he swung by the café he’s frequented over the past three years. There, he made his usual order.

One iced americano, and one sausage-egg-and-cheese croissant with extra hot sauce.

Before he walked back up the block, he downed the former, but he didn’t touch the latter. The latter wasn’t for him, anyways. None of the breakfast sandwiches he ever stops for are.

The subsequent hours looked semi-similar to the three-hundred-and-twenty he’s already devoted to studying. Well, sort of. To be clear, the subject matter still sucks, and he’s still angry that he has to touch it at all, but he isn’t waiting for the sweet release of death in the same way he has been all summer.

This might have something to do with the fact that, for the first time in nearly sixty days, he’s not on his own.

More than that, he’s with you.

Having switched away from covenants, easements, and servitudes, he feels a slightly less stupid. Contract law is a little more straightforward and a little less caked in colonialism. Unfortunately, after six hours of burning all his brain cells on shit like liens, Seokjin has begun his descent into madness.

The worms are digging in, he can’t focus, and neither of you can stop — fucking — laughing.

“I’ll give you a hint,” you giggle, shifting in your spot on the neighboring cushion. You give his knee a pat that feels a tiny bit patronizing, but that makes his pulse race, nonetheless. “It’s a Latin term.”

He snorts so loudly that you do a double-take, just to make sure it wasn’t a sneeze. You both stare at one another for a beat, then comes the eruption.

“It’s all Latin!” He roars.

To muffle the way he’s wheezing, Seokjin slaps his hands over his face. It’s already tear-stained from his abject failure to keep his shit together. At least he can attempt to hide how red he knows it is.

Your laugh comes straight from your belly. You double over completely when his comes out in squeaks, hand reaching out to squeeze his forearm. It used to bother him, the sound he made when he truly loses it, but it doesn’t any more.

How could it, when it makes you cling to him like that?

Wiping at your cheeks, you take a deep breath, then sigh, “Does it help if I give you the translation?”

He doubts it because you just pinched your bottom lip between your teeth, and now, his mind is blank.

Really, it’s a fucking miracle he graduated at all with you around. You and that face you make when you concentrate have always made it impossible for him to do so. It’s why he wasn’t paying attention in class when this shit was taught in the first place, he realizes now.

To cool himself down, Seokjin grabs the Camelbak bottle off the coffee table, realizes too late it’s yours and not his — oh, well — and shoves the straw into his mouth. He nods once, firmly, and sucks in as much water as he can.

It all sprays back out of his mouth when you say:

“Naked promise.”

He had always wondered what his life would look like if it ever flashed before his eyes. Now, he knows. It’s not a montage of his finest moments, the most recent of which would not have made the cut. All he sees is you, wide-eyed, glancing between him and the wet spot that’s now soaking through your sweatshirt.

You press your lips together, probably to keep from laughing in his face. It’s a valiant effort on your part and a kind gesture, but honestly, he doesn’t deserve it. His fingers twitch as he clutches the bottle, wanting nothing more than to dump the remaining water on his face. He embarrasses himself more often than not, but this stings his cheeks like a sunburn.

“I am —” he raises his hands, flustered, “So sorry. I don’t remember waking up in a sitcom this morning, but I, uhhh, clearly did.”

When you stand up, you’re grinning. And not in that scary way you do when you’re about to retaliate for some prank he’s pulled. No, that look on your face is genuine amusement.

Thank god.

You shrug as you cross your arms over your torso and grip the hem of your sweatshirt with both hands. “All good, Seokjinnie,” you laugh. “This needed to be washed, anyway. You see that coffee stain?”

No.

No, he does not see that coffee stain because the tank top underneath your sweatshirt is clinging to the wet spot as you tug the top layer up your stomach. He feels bad for staring — really, he does — but fuck, your skin looks soft. Like, so soft that he has to grip his water bottle to keep a grip on himself.

Eventually, your tank top separates from your sweatshirt. It falls back down to where it belongs, to Seokjin’s dismay, and the sweatshirt keeps going.

“Nudum pactum,” you remind him as you pull the drenched hoodie over your head. Playfully, you toss it at him. It smacks against his chest, splays out over his lap.

Once more with feeling: thank god.

You sink back down beside him on the couch, and he can’t help but notice that you’re the tiniest bit closer than you were before. It’s innocent, just your bare knee bumping his shin as you re-cross your legs. Still, it leaves his tingling through the fabric of his joggers when you don’t move away.

The silence surges as it settles, crinkling like static in his ears. He almost doesn’t hear you when you ask him again: “What’s it mean?”

Uhhhh.

“It means —”

Unfortunately for him, the water he just forcibly ejected from his mouth didn’t help him. His throat is dry now, and he sounds strangled, he’s sure. The way you’re watching him so intently doesn’t help one fucking bit, either.

Are you doing that on purpose?

You nudge him physically this time, knuckles connecting gently and playfully with his leg. He wonders if you can hear his heart hammering against the wall of his chest in all of this quiet. You might, he figures, especially when you tuck your hair behind your ear.

Instinctively, his eyes flick down to the length of your neck. Without a curtain of hair in the way, it’s even more exposed skin that he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with. Making matters worse for him, you tilt your head to the side expectantly. His breath catches when he tears his gaze away, back up, and sees the way you’re looking at him now.

You are absolutely — without a goddamn doubt — doing this on purpose.

If that’s the game you want to play, Seokjin can play it, too. He turns away from you to set the bottle back down on the coaster he took it from. As he does, he finally answers your question — the nonchalance he’s faking even sounds convincing.

“It’s an unenforceable promise,” he replies casually. “One with insufficient consideration.”

He rights himself in his seat, stretches a bit further backwards until he’s resting comfortably against the arm of the couch. You hide it well, but there’s a hint of a pout on your lips when you clock the newfound distance.

Check, he smirks to himself, your move.

A flash of pink slips out. Your tongue wetting those lips before you prompt him more quietly than before, “And consideration is…?”

He slips up, makes the mistake of noticing the rise and fall of your chest as you take measured breaths. So, he sees, you’re buzzing with anticipation, too. He wonders if it’s him that’s having that effect on you, or the circumstances.

For all he knows, it could be pent up steam that you need to release. Stress weighing down your body that you want to get off.

Fuck, he wants to get you off.

He swallows thickly. “Can’t get something for nothing. There has to be an exchange, otherwise it’s meaningless.”

You say nothing, so he keeps talking.

“Quid pro quo, essentially,” Seokjin adds. He chuckles slightly when he realizes. “See? Told you. It’s all fucking Latin.”

The corner of your mouth twitches at his joke, but you don’t make a sound. The hand that previously pushed against his leg inches closer, just barely. It’s such a small shift that you don’t seem to realize that you’re moving it.

Maybe you feel that pull, too; the one he’s been fighting since you barged into his life without warning.

Maybe the consideration has been there from the start; a promise for a promise. I’ll jump if you do. Because it’s always been that way, hasn’t it? Since orientation.

Pulling all-nighters in the library, developing matching caffeine dependencies, getting sick too often from the strain of it all.

You and him.

Laughing quietly in the back of lectures, cold sweats through cold calls, bitching about unpaid internships while you spend indisposable income at the bar down the block without acknowledging the irony.

There are only two real differences between this night and that first one, he notes.

Now, Seokjin isn’t questioning every decision he’s ever made that led him to this point. He’s not scared shitless, not really. Not when you’re around.

You cut through the silence with a sigh that’s barely more than an exhale, so breathy that your voice dissipates as soon as it hits the air.

“Seokjin.”

He could probably hear a pin if you dropped one — can hear everything you don’t say. It’s all packed tight inside that utterance of his name like gunpowder, locked and loaded.

So, who shoots first?

You shift again. Now, when you speak, it’s deliberate and in a language he can parse.

“Tell me you want me, too.”

Bang!

His body answers for him, pushes off from where he leans until he can get his knees underneath him. He’s waited three years to kiss you, but he can delay gratification for the brief time it takes to overtake you. Pinned with his palms bearing weight on either side of your head, you wind up caged in and breathless beneath him. His right knee occupies the space between your spread thighs.

Again, it’s a miracle he’s made it this far with you around.

He hums, beyond pleased with the position he finds himself in. “Maybe. Tell me if I got the answer right.”

“Oh my god.” You toss your head back to the extent that you can, which admittedly isn’t far. Your frustration rolls off you in waves, heat palpable. “I’ll kill you, I swear.”

“Sounds admissible to me,” he teases further. He flexes an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an exception to the prohibition of hearsay evidence? Speaks to motive, I think.”

Seokjin has no idea why he’s riling himself up like this. If he could shut up — just this once — he could be kissing you by now. You seem to be aware of that fact, too, because you grip his shirt so desperately, one right move might tear it.

You huff out a laugh despite the circumstances, “This friendship is over, by the way, in case that’s not clear.”

That tiny smile on your face spreads to his. Not over, he knows, just modified. Amplified, finally. Knowing that, he continues to push his luck.

“Can I make one more joke?”

“So over!” You emphasize with a wail.

He takes a second to center himself before hitting you with award-winning drama, sincerity dipped in the kind of humor he never misses out on with you:

“You have adversely possessed my heart.”

Your jaw drops at how stupid that line was, but you reign it in just in time for his lips to crash into yours.

It almost knocks the wind out of him, the way the pieces fall with force into place. They slot together easily, just like you do. With fingers clinging, the weight of his body molding overtop of yours.

You kiss him until he forgets what life tasted like without your tongue licking into him, your little moans melting in his mouth — until you break apart, gasping for air. Panting, you ask, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting on you?”

He doesn’t, no, not at all. Thankfully, you take his stunned silence for what it’s worth. After relinquishing your grip on his shirt, you bring your hands up to cup his face gently in your palms.

With you touching him like this, he has no option but to stare down at you. Bit redundant, he thinks, since his focus has always been locked right here, right on you, by choice. Given that, it’s a little funny that he managed to miss every signal you’ve apparently sent him. But really, it doesn’t necessarily surprise him to hear that he’s even dumber than he thought.

You kiss him slowly this time, briefly, before nipping affectionately at his bottom lip. It drives him exactly as crazy as you want it to; makes his cock twitch inside his joggers, makes his brain foggy with a potent combination of fondness and filth.

Do you have any idea how many times he’s thought about this? He’s genuinely wondering because even he doesn’t know. He’s lost count of all the times he’s watched you nibble on your own lip and wished it was his instead. A million or more, if he has to guess.

Seeming to sense the way you've scrambled his brain, you nudge the tip of his nose with yours and giggle.

Seokjin can’t help but grin. “What’s so funny?”

“Thought of a good one,” you answer. Your smirk does his head in. The contrasting, goofy wiggle of your eyebrows squeezes his heart. “Better than yours, I think.”

He kisses you quick and hums, “Oh?”

You nod.

The suspense is killing him. So is the way your clothed cunt grinds ever so slightly against his thigh.

Fuck.

He wants you, he wants you, he wants you.

“You gonna make me come, Seokjin, or do I have to wait for you to file a subpoena?”

You may have to seek a refund for the prep course you paid for.

For as long as you can remember, you’ve learned best through application. You could read the same chapter, over and over, and not absorb a word. The same was true with lectures, even more so when they’re pre-recorded rambles by the weirdest adjunct professors known to man. Sure, you may eventually memorize concepts this way, but they don’t sink in deeply enough to stay. You can’t use them in any way that helps you.

To no one’s surprise, no part of your civil procedure lecture sticks until it falls into your lap.

Strike that.

Until Seokjin loses his balance in trying to take his pants off, and falls onto your floor with a yelp.

A moment or two passes while you stare at each other in shock, but that dissolves quickly. And so do both of you, right into another fit of laughter that makes your shoulders shake. Then, you jump to your feet and hold your hands out to him.

Seokjin accepts them, though he doesn’t rely on them at all when he stands back up. He seems more than content just to hold onto you, whether or not he needs you to keep him steady. You have no complaints, for once in your life.

Shaking his head, he chuckles, “Venue change?”

“I think —” You hum and kiss the column of his throat. He swallows hard enough that you feel his Adam’s apple bob against your lips. So sensitive. “This is what they call forum non conveniens.”

He’s having none of that, and you don’t necessarily blame him. As it turns out, the shoe isn’t terribly comfortable when it’s on the other foot.

You’re lifted without warning, bent over his shoulder, and hauled off in the direction of your bedroom before you can even squeak in protest. You drop like a bag of dirt — albeit a beloved bag of dirt — onto your mattress once he reaches it; his lips are on yours to swallow the gasp before it can leave your mouth.

As eager as his mouth are his hands, roaming down the curve of your waist and over your hips. With fistfuls of the pajama shorts you hadn’t bothered to change out of, his head dips down under your jaw. The warmth of his breath is quickly replaced by that of his tongue, flicking a short, languid line along your neck.

“Want you so fucking bad,” he breathes. A shiver shoots straight down your spine and you keen, head crashing gracelessly back against the pillows. “Just like this.”

And he means it — you can feel how true it is with him settled between your spread legs. He presses his hips forward to meet your clothed cunt, cock teasing you through four goddamn layers’ worth of fabric.

His lips flutter against your earlobe just seconds before his teeth graze your flesh. He continues, voice vibrating through his chest to yours, “All the time.”

You outright whimper when he grinds against you a second time. Halfway to crazy, you knot your fingers in his hair and wrap your legs around his back in a silent plea for friction. So hungry for him that it aches.

“Seokjin, need — oh, god.”

You lose your train of thought the second his hand slides into the gap between your bodies. Long fingers slip below the waistband of your shorts and panties, too. He doesn’t stop there. Not with fingertips whispering over the mound of your cunt, not until he finds you wet and wanting.

So wet that you can hear it when the pad of his index finger runs along your slit.

His mouth curves against your neck, prompting you to shift your head on the pillow. You tilt your neck just enough to meet his eyes.

To your surprise, he’s not smirking. Not even close. If anything, he looks awestruck. Like he’s finally realizing what he does to you, how your body reacts to him. From the looks of it, that discovery is flipping his whole damn world upside down.

For once, Seokjin doesn’t crack a joke and neither do you. It’s quiet, save for your tiny gasping breaths and the ripple of his fingertip swirling over your clit. Even the moan building in your chest gets the memo. It disappears somewhere in your throat when — fucking finally — that middle finger penetrates you.

And god, he sounds so wrecked when he finally speaks.

“Tried to imagine it a thousand times, you know,” he murmurs.

You clench around his finger as it curls upwards, shiver when he starts to stroke the sensitive spot along your front wall. His thumb picks up where his middle finger left off, pressing against your clit in a way that makes you mewl.

Seokjin only stops talking to kiss you deep and leave you dizzy. It’s too brief. If asked, you’d never be able to quantify what amount of time is enough, but you know that wasn’t, so you pout.

Ignoring your little whines, he continues with a hum, “How perfect you’d feel, if I ever got this lucky.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

You laugh as you say it, but you’re dead serious: “If you keep talking to me like that, you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

Marry me, why don’t you? Beautiful bastard.

“Threat or promise?”

He adds a second finger; and suddenly, you’re not laughing anymore. No, the strangled sound you make while you grind against his palm isn’t funny at all, but you can’t care about that now. Your focus is stuck on remembering how to breathe. In, out. On the stars blinking behind your eyelids when they give up and flutter shut.

He works you open for him like he’s already attuned, like it’s the fiftieth time he’s finger-fucked you and not the very first. And, quite frankly, it’s embarrassing how little time it takes for him to pull you apart at the seams.

No one has ever made you cum with such little effort. You’re scared to learn what it’s like when he tries.

You catch the triumphant gleam in his eye in the split second before you bury your face in the crook of his neck. He’s earned it, you suppose, so you’ll let him relish the personal record he’s managed to set on his first time out. You might even let him brag about it, so long as he continues to make you tremble like this.

“Shit,” he chuckles low near your ear.

If he sounds muffled, it’s because you’re still waiting for your system to reboot. He knows this, knows how fucking sensitive you are, and slides his fingers out of you as slowly as possible. Still, those aftershocks throttle you; the unintentional stimulation makes you jolt.

“Yes,” you nod helplessly, squeezing your eyes and jaw shut simultaneously. “Shit is right. Perfect analysis, no notes.”

A chaste kiss is placed on your temple. It’s petal soft and subak sweet, but it functions like a defibrillator. Within a split second, he’s revived you. Eyes now open again, you exhume your face from where you buried it and blink up at him. Warm brown eyes light up when you reappear.

He’s so fucking beautiful that you almost want to avert your eyes. Key word: almost. You’ll drink in the sight of him until you drown, you think.

Seokjin looks concerned. With a shy smile, he checks in: “You okay? We can stop right now if you’re not.”

You don’t know who they are, but you know that they don’t make them like him anymore. Which is a fucking bummer for the rest of the world — just not for you. This one is all yours.

“You quitting on me, Kim?” You let your knee fall inwards to nudge his side, and you pretend not to notice how boneless you still feel. “Didn’t wait all this time to tap out early, did you?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, nonetheless. His warm palm massages the outside of your thigh affectionately, if only for a moment. Then, he pats his fingertips against the same spot. “Shorts off, champ.”

You follow his instructions and move to shimmy out of them, but not before snorting, “Champ?”

“Fine. Old sport?” He offers with a shit-eating grin. Your shirt smacks him in the face once you peel it off and chuck it at him. He pouts. “Hey!”

“Thanks, I hate it.”

He tugs his shirt over his head, launches it over his shoulder without looking. Your unabashed stare immediately clocks the slight hint of his abdominal muscles. Lean, but not sharply contoured in a way that looks painful to touch. Soft. Perfect, even.

What lab were you engineered in?

“For someone with so many opinions, you don’t offer many suggestions.” He shoots you a pointed look while he unties the knot at his waistband drawstring. “What’s your proposal?”

You’d love to bite back at him. Really, you would, but he pulls his boxers down alongside his joggers, and every meaningful thought you’ve ever had goes flying out the fucking window. All that’s left is I want you, I want you, I want you.

Automatically, you reach out with a tentative hand, craving nothing more than to feel his velvet length in your hand. To your surprise, he stops you. He catches your hand in his, lifts it to his lips, and brushes a kiss over your knuckles.

“Rain check, baby,” Seokjin smiles against your skin. There it is. That’s the one. “Need to fuck you, posthaste, or I’ll simply pass away.”

You open your mouth to comment; he breezes right past you. He points to the mattress, then to the wall to your left. “On your side, love.”

That works, too.

“Face away from me.”

Never in your life have you moved so fast, all but throwing yourself down where he told you to. As you land with a slight bounce, you mouth to yourself, Posthaste? Nerd.

A second slips by, then Seokjin slips into the space behind you. His lips tickle the back of your neck when he kisses the base of it, causing you to gasp yet again. Maybe that’s just how you breathe when he’s around — like you don’t know how.

His hand drifts down the length of your side, passing over the doughy flesh of your ass. He gives it a squeeze for good measure — because of course he does — but he doesn’t linger, not now.

That hand continues until you feel his fingertips scratch affectionately at the back of your right thigh. He doesn’t need to ask; you lift your leg, allowing your knee to hinge overtop of his hand. Now that his hands are occupied, you offer yours to assist.

This time, he doesn’t stop you when you wrap your fingers around his length. And fuck, there’s so much of it. Part of you wants to ask where the hell he thinks he’s going to fit all of it, but you’re not a quitter, so you keep your mouth shut.

Seokjin shivers under your touch, breath catching in his throat so blatantly that you can hear it right behind your ear.

“Hmmm,” you tease, squeezing the crown gently as you circle your wrist. “Does that work for you, champ?”

His forehead drops against your shoulder. The groan you force out of him is twice as long as necessary, followed by an unwilling laugh. “You’re right, okay? You’re fucking right. It’s awful. Just so fucking bad.”

Your thumb swipes over his leaking tip, smearing the bead of pre-cum waiting for you there. You’re relentless. “Sure you don’t like old sport better? Huh, buddy?”

“Baby,” he warns. There isn’t much heat to it, but it burns white hot in your core anyway.

The stretch of his cock does, too, when you finally stop fucking with him and start letting him fuck you. The breath he holds as he enters you slowly is let out in a shuddered groan when he bottoms out. Perfectly full and fully incapable of teasing him further, you simply melt back against his chest.

He’s careful to start, testing the waters and refusing to push you too far, too fast. You want more, though, you always have. Greedy, you rock your hips back against him to force him deeper into your weeping hole. He takes the hint, fingertips pressing bruises into the underside of your knee as he picks up his pace — and you’re far too blissed to care.

He pistons into you eagerly, deliberate. His hips clap against the flesh of your ass, but the sting of it all can’t compete with the way he splits you open. Makes you reach back to cling to any part of him you can get your hands on, claim whatever you find for keeps. Buried to the hilt, and somehow, he’s still not close enough.

You’re close, if your fluttering walls have anything to say about it. You’re babbling, too, so lost in pleasure that you can only repeat — over and over — how fucking perfect he is. How perfect for you he is.

Seokjin peppers kisses down the curve of your shoulder as he thrusts. It’s the only real indication you have that he’s at a loss for words, too; that he’s compensating for the quiet. He kisses you with an open mouth, teeth grazing the space he finds, leaves a mess on your sweat-slicked skin.

“Fuck,” he grunts. You mewl. “Can’t stop thinking about —”

“Just like that, please.”

“— how many times I could’ve —”

You wail, “Shit, Seokjin, don’t stop. I’m so close.”

The staccato strokes will be the death of you, you’re sure of it. Thankfully, he doesn’t stop. Not when he kisses the back of your neck again, and not when he murmurs directly in your ear, “— had you like this, if I’d said something years ago.”

Please, please, please.

It’s all you can say, again and again, as if he isn’t already giving you everything you want before you even ask for it. Responding to every movement you make, fucking into you with precision so that each vein of his cock brings friction where you crave it. Fucking you through your orgasm when it catches you in a riptide and sends you reeling.

“That’s it, baby.” His voice is soothing despite the recklessness of his thrusts. “So good for me. So fucking good.”

You’re still gushing when he snaps his hips forward and stills, cock twitching as he lets himself go inside of you. Still trembling when his head droops forward to nuzzle against your shoulder blade, and when you feel his breathing begin to slow in tandem with yours.

Once he pulls himself out of you, a few moments pass in fucked-out silence. It’s comfortable, if you ignore the mess between your thighs — and you do, for now. Your brain is too busy to waste time on that.

You’re exhausted and bordering on delirious when you say it, but that doesn’t make it any less true:

“I might love you, probably.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. He doesn’t move either, which makes you wonder if he’s fallen asleep with his face smushed into your bare back. But you feel the tiniest exhale through his nose; the kind of laugh you get from him when he’s too tired to be any louder.

His reply is muffled, lips still pressed against your skin, but you hear it perfectly.

For the record, he probably loves you, too.

Epilogue, posted 7/26/23.

final a/n: i have a follow-up drabble planned for these two! stay tuned 🥰

likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

tagging: @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @jihopesjoint @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @bbyorchid @persphonesorchid @quarter-life-crisis2 @zelchena @withluvjm @firesighgirl @whatthefsposts @iadelicacy @chimmisbae @cowboylikeyoongi @sailoryooons @axialitae @ugh-yoongi @minholykingofkorea @kookstempo @gimmethatagustd @Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhintothevoid

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captainremmington-13 · 2 months

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𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖋 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 - 𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖎𝖓 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞

show!Luke Castellan x daughter of thanatos!reader

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the image above or any of Rick Riordan’s characters/world-building.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: attempted murder, swearing, parental neglect, overall sad vibes

A/N : this post is to set up context for the rest of the series (i have to set up the lore so everything makes sense lmao). this is my first time writing for luke, i promise i’ll get better at it with time :))

you essentially grew up at camp, having arrived at the young age of five

monsters began creeping their way into your life ever since you learned to speak. death seemed to be drawn to you.

first was the dracanea disguised as a nanny that tried to eat you while your mother was out of the house (she was a florist that prepared bouquets for funerals). you only survived because the dracanea was interrupted by your mortal older brother. when he saw you on the ground with the nanny about to wrap her hands around your tiny throat, he screamed so loud that the dracanea fled immediately. he then called the cops on her, but she’d long since disappeared. you were only three at the time.

the final straw was when an Aeternae attacked you on the preschool playground. it lept out from the large bushes near the fence and nearly ripped your face off. you would have died if your teacher, a satyr in disguise, hadn’t scared it off.

your preschool teacher, Mr. Maciolli, escorted your to camp the next day. he had a long talk with your mother, who didn’t put up much of a fight to keep you at home. you attracted trouble that she had no time to deal with.

with that, you were uprooted from your normal life and transported into the world of the Olympian gods.

you were the youngest camper by far. the older campers took you under their wing, helping you adjust to camp life as best as they could. they gave you a wooden sword and taught you the basics of combat. they made sure to keep you away from anyone who could cause you harm. and most importantly, the many unclaimed demigods that you met while staying in Cabin 11 taught you that the gods didn’t give a flying fuck about their kids.

though it was difficult at first, you were happy. sure, you missed your mom sometimes, but you reminded yourself that she hadn’t been interested in keeping you around anyways.

your first five years at camp were relatively peaceful. you developed your personality and learned your likes and dislikes, just like any “normal” kid.

however, there were occasional incidents that were absolutely unexplainable.

the worst one of all was this: a son of ares kept throwing pebbles at you while you were supposed to be picking strawberries. no matter what you said, he wouldn’t quit. after a particularly large pebble hit you in the back of the head, you turned around and screamed “stop it!”

the kid immediately collapsed, his skin turning pale. the other campers rushed him to the infirmary, and the apollo kids immediately got to work.

they concluded that his heart had stopped. he had been dead to the world for almost a whole minute. if not for the nectar that had been poured down his throat, he probably wouldn’t have made it.

campers did their best not to anger you after that. nobody could explain what had happened, but clearly, you had caused the son of ares to have a close brush with death.

you were claimed by Thanatos, the god of death, at the age of ten.

your social life turned on its head after that.

basically everyone except for Chiron and Mr. D avoided you like you were the walking Black Plague (which you kinda were)

after getting claimed, your powers increased. you could touch a small plant and kill it instantly if you wished to. wherever you sat, the grass would wither around you. you could even kill small animals with a simple touch (only if you wished it to die).

nobody wanted to risk crossing you and getting killed. so nobody tried to get close to you. they would say the occasional “hello”, but that was it.

you grew to resent not only your father, but all of the gods. they had everything, it seemed, while you had nothing. they didn’t even have the heart to check in on their own children.

you learned to thrive without any companions. you spent your days sparring against invisible enemies, building muscle, and developing stamina. you rarely conversed with the other members of Cabin 11, staying in your bunk in the far corner of the cramped space. during your down time, you killed flowers, dried and pressed them, and used them to make collages.

things were relatively stagnant for awhile.

until you turned fourteen.

at age fourteen, luke castellan arrived at camp, and changed your life forever.

Thank you for reading! Pls let me know what you think in the comments!!! I plan on making this a series, but I’m not sure how I’m going to format it yet. Stay tuned for the first official installment!

Let me know in the comments if you want to be added to the taglist!

#luke castellan x reader #luke castellan #percy jackson #percy series #rick riordan #pjo series #pjo tv show #charlie bushnell #demigods #percy jackon and the olympians #the lightning thief #thanatos #luke castellan imagine #luke castellan x you #luke castellan series

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chronicbitchsyndrome · 1 year

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i feel like before you complain about how "former gifted kids are always acting like they're oppressed because everyone doesn't treat them like they're special anymore," i think you should probably try to understand the common timeline that a kid getting funneled into the gifted program follows.

usually, a child starts getting funneled into gifted tracks around preschool-to-kindergarten. typically, what will happen is a kid will show socially unusual interest in and affinity for a basic life skill that also happens to be taught in school--usually either verbality, reading/writing, understanding and manipulating shapes, or basic numerical concepts, or some combination of the above. they might start talking fairly early, for example, or start reading complete sentences earlier than their peers, or show a lot of unusual interest in basic arithmetic. they might get IQ tested, they might not; this is pretty irrelevant because IQ both has almost no correlation with any measure of "intelligence" other than the IQ test itself, and is an extremely poor predictor of academic success.

based on this, the parents are encouraged to push this child into academic settings earlier and at a faster pace than their peers. once in grade school, they'll be funneled into the gifted track. often, they'll have to "test in" to the gifted track, but they tend to weight what the kid is showing an affinity for the most when "testing in." what the gifted track looks like is different for every school, but generally the common factors are more work, assigned at a faster pace, and dealing with concepts that their "typical" peers are not taught until a year or more later.

this is where the most common timeline becomes important, and diverges from what i think a lot of people's perceptions of gifted kids are. the kid fails. the kid does not have some kind of magical universal affinity for every aspect of academia. in fact, the kid has, in the context of their neurotypical peers setting the standard by which they have to live up to, significant deficits in areas other than the one they showed interest in at a young age. for example, maybe they started reading incredibly early, but once they get to grade school, they start failing every math test. they write numbers backwards and copy them from the board in the wrong order. they get basic arithmetic wrong.

here's the thing: the gifted kid program accidentally self-selects for developmentally disabled children with academic splinter skills. splinter skills are incredibly common in people with developmental disabilities; frequently, they don't get perceived as such because they're very often completely nonacademic (and may not be perceived as a "skill" at all, particularly in the context of more profound developmental disabilities--someone learning to use AAC very quickly, for example, is still perceived as a deficit no matter how quickly they do it, instead of a skill in developing communication methods with significantly less support and interaction than those who learn to communicate verbally). developmentally disabled people with academic splinter skills are significantly more common than abled people with an uncommon affinity for all areas of academia, or abled people with splinter skills.

once a kid starts failing, generally the timeline splits off into two possibilities, mostly dependent on how supportive their parents are, how well-funded their school is, and what psychiatric resources are available in their area of the country. option one is that they just keep failing, and get punished more and more violently over time for their perceived "stubbornness." they are perceived as obviously capable of doing the work the gifted program is assigning them, since they were tracked into the gifted program to begin with, and their grades in this other specific subject are stellar, so obviously they're just lazy and need to be whipped into shape via punishment.

the other option is that the kid's developmental disability is clocked by a teacher or counselor, or even their parents, and enough strings are pulled to get them evaluated by a school psychologist. then, they'll get dual-tracked into the gifted program and the special ed program, with classes divided along where their splinter skills and deficits lie. the special ed program is not actually a good place for disabled children and is incredibly traumatizing to be in.

either way, they come out of school with a significant amount of trauma. legitimate trauma. from being a disabled person in the public education system, which fucking sucks and is an awful experience i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

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puppiesandnightlock · 4 months

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HELP ME

alright you guys you should know by know im indesicive so its up to YOU THE FANDOM to help me choose a title for the A Robin's Song(the name y'all chose last time) sequel

*also this is not as damian centric as the og so keep in mind a robins flight is like the least likely to work and if it wins i might just choose the 2nd highest one*

for context, this is the sequel summary

Jon and Damian had made peace with the fact that they would never reconnect. Every little part of their childhood history, built up since preschool had come crashing down, both leaving hidden feelings unsaid. But now, five years later, they have the opportunity to fix everything that had gone wrong, and maybe, just maybe, they could make it something more.

Sometimes, all you need is a second chance.

p.s. check out the og here!

edit: so i did a mini poll with the top three and this was the winner!

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burst-of-iridescent · 9 months

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Have you discussed that zuko was racist towards aang, katara and sokka in the show, and didn't seem to grow from those beliefs considering how he mocked aangs culture in tsr, or do you ignore that? It seems you cherry pick which flaws you point out.

a few points to note:

A. zuko undergoes something called a redemption arc, where he unlearns the beliefs he held before and actively changes for the better. i don’t need to point out what he did or believed in the past and hold him accountable for it, because the show has already done the job for me.

B. you talk about zuko mocking aang’s culture in tsr, while completely ignoring the context of the situation, and everything i have mentioned about it in my previous responses. let’s look at the lead-up to that conversation:

Aang: The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper. While you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself. Zuko: That's cute, but this isn't air temple preschool. It's the real world.

and for zuko’s next remark:

Aang: You need to face this man. But when you do, please don't choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him. Zuko: Okay, we'll be sure to do that, guru goody-goody.

these are the only two comments zuko makes about air nomad culture in the episode, and they are a direct response to aang’s attempts to impose his own cultural beliefs on katara.

zuko is angry on katara’s behalf here, and he has a right to be, because as i have said time and again, you are entitled to your own beliefs, but you are not entitled to use those beliefs to dictate the actions of others, especially when they do not come from the same culture that you do.

would you be happy if your friend from another religion decided to start preaching to you, based on their own religious beliefs, about how you should deal with your mother’s murderer? i bet you wouldn’t, because you know that’s disrespectful and insensitive.

i agree that zuko’s remarks weren’t nice or respectful, but they are a response to aang’s own disrespect of katara’s agency and cultural beliefs. the southern water tribe evidently doesn’t practice pacifism, so why on earth would aang have any right to presume that katara should adopt a pacifistic approach? or that it’s the only way for her to get closure and begin healing?

and unlike zuko, who takes accountability for his past wrongs towards the gaang and actively works to redeem himself, aang never understands that what he did to katara was wrong and never tries to make amends for it. that is why i address it, because the narrative sure as hell doesn’t.

C. you are not arguing in good faith, and you never have. for that reason, i will not be debating with you any longer, because there is no hope of having a fruitful and productive discussion when that was never your aim in the first place.

#anti kataang #aang critical

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archie006 · 11 months

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☆Question about working with Deities as a baby witch☆

So, for context, I had all my deity candles lit just to be in their presence. I had gotten Anubis a new candle I found on my home. It is a big candle with a wolf carved on the front. I could tell he immediately liked this candle and immediately wanted my attention to speak with me after I lit it. His flame is always very high, sparks every now and then, and is always flickering (especially when I'm doing tarot or talking with him). After talking with him when he wanted my attention, he had told me these things.

-Telling me to take care of myself, stop doubting myself, be more confident

-Told me about a future breakup I will have with a close friend of mine (I've been friends with her since preschool, even earlier than that). He wants to prepare me with the burden of that.

-and most important, he wants me to start working with him. He told me that working with him will bring my balance in my life, help me with my emotions, and help me move on with this friendship breakup in the future.

So I'm just wondering if I should go on with working with him, especially as a baby witch, and how to even start working with a deity. Any tips? Any and all are appreciated! Thanks friends!☆

(I realize now after posting this, I'm doubting myself 💀

My apologies, Anubis. I just want closure 😭)

#anubis #kemeticism #pagan #paganism #witch #witchcraft #anubis worship #deity work #baby witch #anpu #god anubis #anubis deity #kemetic witch #kemetic

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divinesouldariax · 2 years

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Ashton Greymoore: Chronic Pain, Physical Touch, and the Juxtaposition of Toughness and Vulnerability

(Spoilers up to episode 38 of campaign 3 of Critical Role)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Ashton in the context of the recent confirmation in canon that they experience chronic pain, and I’ve just finally managed to put all (or at least, most) of my thoughts about it in the same place.

We got this exchange in the most recent episode of 4-Sided Dive, during a segment where Taliesin was talking about how Ashton is changing the way they think about his past and what it might mean, after saying that he’s starting to trust the group more:

(Four-Sided Dive episode 8: Why are you like this?!):

Tal: Just…like, to throw out–Ashton only, like, really touched another member of the group very recently. There hadn’t been a lot of close physical contact until like, the last game (Sam: Whoa). That was the first, like…yeah.

Sam: Is that a thing?

Tal (matter-of-factly): Uh, yeah!

Sam: Not a toucher?

Tal: Everything hurts.

Sam (incredulously, still trying to wrap his mind around it): Everything hurts?

Tal: Everything hurts.

Matt: Yeah.

Sam: Always?

Tal: Yeah. Uhh–

Matt: Chronic pain, man.

Tal: Beating the living fuck out of things helps you ignore it, and yeah, once this (gestures at head, indicates Ashton’s rage) starts going, it kind of lessens, but yeah. It’s just, everything’s always low-key bad. Not even that low-key. (Sam: Wow.) Yeah. It’s why they’re a dick. (laughs)…But yeah, there was an actual like, “oh god, okay, physical contact, this is happening. Alright. Okay.

The moment it seems like Taliesin is referring to where Ashton allowed physical contact was this sequence with Orym:

(Campaign 3 episode 38: A Dark Balance)

Marisha (as Laudna): We’re like a…a real family.

Liam (as Orym): Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Tal (as Ashton): Could be.

Liam (as Orym): Get down here. (puts arm around Ashton’s shoulders and tugs them down towards the tree)

Tal (as Ashton): No, I–careful, I–yep, yep, okay, this is weird.

Liam: I start to give him a noogie, but it hurts.

Everyone else: (laughing and agreeing)

Tal (as Ashton): Yeah, this is weird. Ah, this is weird…okay. No, I’m okay. I’m okay. (continues mumbling in what seems like a forced-calm voice and looking unsure)

Ashton’s obvious uncertainty about this contact (especially when he said “careful”, which I missed on my first watch because there was cross-talk happening) rang so, so true as a “I don’t actually mind you touching me, but I am very nervous that you’re accidentally going to hurt me” thought process. This is a process I’m personally very familiar with as someone who experiences chronic pain (I had to tell a preschooler multiple times today that she needed to hold onto more of my hand than just my pinky while she was balancing on the bench or she might hurt me because I was genuinely quite worried that she was going to dislocate my finger if she fell, lmao).

Like a lot of things that Ashton does, it seemed to have registered with the other players and with the audience as an “I’m edgy, I don’t have friends, and I certainly don’t let people hug me” schtick. Which is, of course, the point.

Ashton swears and presents punk and pushes people away and is (as Tal said) just generally a dick to distract people from their chronic pain and his loneliness.

And it works! It’s extremely effective! Absolutely none of what I’m saying is intended as negative criticism of any of the people involved (because I think this is going to be resolved in-game, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a conversation happening behind the scenes as well, even though Sam still seems completely bewildered by the concept of chronic pain lmao), but the edgy charade works so well that even characters who are usually thoughtful and careful tend to overstep boundaries and assume that Ashton is always fine with their body being used as a resource and can take extra pain. And Ashton doesn’t give them any obvious reason not to keep doing so!

Some examples:

(Campaign 3 episode 24: The Hellcatch Valley)

Tal (rolls a nat 1 dex save, Ashton ends up with a harpoon bolt through his side and 24 points of piercing damage. As Ashton, sarcastically, after it takes everyone a minute to notice): I'm sorry. You were all busy. I didn't want to interrupt anything!

(Some scrambling to help, they end up pulling the harpoon out)

Sam: I’ll cast Cure Wounds…just a level one. You heal 10 points.

Tal (as Ashton): That is good. Ow! Ow. Well, it's been a great day. I'm going back to sleep. Goodbye. (laughter from the group, continues OOC and quietly, unacknowledged by the rest of the players) I don't make it to the bed. I just fall over.

(The party returns to their previous conversation)

And:

(Campaign 3 episode 28: The Deathwish Run)

Liam: Orym springs up and lands and sits on Ash's shoulder– (needing a higher vantage to keep an eye out over a crowd)

Tal (as Ashton): “Ah–” (startled, possible pain, but accepts it and helps steady Orym)

Liam: –but I want to look for anyone that we recognize.

This one in particular stands out to me because Orym very clearly does not ask if it’s okay to use them as a perch, or give Ashton much of a chance to respond. There’s too much going on at the time to Taliesin to respond, either, since Otohon Thull and Ratanish walk over to them immediately, but based on what Tal said in the most recent 4-Sided Dive, it’s very possible that Ashton would have rejected that contact given the moment to do so. Tal may have even dismissed it as something Ashton wouldn’t have let happen but there wasn’t a good time to retcon it, which is why he phrased the statement about the contact in episode 38 being the first time he’s allowed it.

Other examples that I didn’t want to search through transcripts for, in the category of “Ashton does a Thing even though he knows it will Hurt without telling anybody that it hurts, whether that’s because somebody asks/demands it of them or of their own volition”:

Ashton carrying the statue out of Jiana Hexum’s house for Fearne

Carrying Orym inside after he fell off the skyship

Carrying FCG up and down ladders in the Fownsee Hollow

Carrying Laudna’s body for miles

And then there’s every time Ashton is very vocally expressing that he’s in pain (they’re not subtle about it lmao) and doesn’t get checked in with afterwards. Some examples of this are:

During the carnivorous plant fight in the jungle

The aforementioned harpoon incident

Later that day when he rolls a nat 1 to swing the hammer and ends up dropping it in obvious pain (“Ow! OW. Ohh, yep, can’t do that. I–ahh, yep, gonna go pick that up.” in exactly the same tone and cadence that I hear from myself when I’ve just done something that I should have known was going to fuck up a joint, especially when I’ve got another injury compounding the baseline pain)

Sometimes they do get checked in with, at least briefly, but usually not past the initial “cast a healing spell and move on because there’s too much happening to really take the time to make sure they’re okay” stage:

The Ratanish fight at the ball when Dorian secretly casts Cure Wounds

The time Ashton gets Phantasmal Killer cast on them during the fight where they meet Dusk/Yu and Orym takes his hand to lead them back over to the group, and Fearne casts a Cure Wounds afterwards

Still, as Taliesin said, Ashton only very recently started feeling more comfortable being vulnerable with the party. It’s why they asked Imogen and FCG to check their memories, why he allowed himself the “Ashton, are you going soft on us?” “No! Yes. Fuck. I need a drink.” confession after the “You make me happy” speech, why they didn’t pull away when Orym put an arm around him. Previous attempts to ask them about their pain probably wouldn’t have resulted in them opening up. But now? They’re changing.

We really are seeing an Ashton who’s going soft. Again. “I was soft, once”, and he’s returning to that state: not physically reverting back to a non-genasi body, of course, but just letting down the emotional rock walls that have been protecting an affectionate, caring, genuine interior, of a person who desperately wants to be vulnerable, and just needs a little convincing (as he admits to Fearne, “I'm having this moment where I'm realizing that perhaps one of the reasons why I allow myself to get the shit kicked out of me is in the hope that people are actually fucking watching.”). He needs these people to prove that they’re not about to leave him, not about to realize his weaknesses (even though he wears most of them on their skin like a signpost–if they just keep acting tough, if there’s no cracks in his facade like there are in his body, then nobody will notice) and abandon him like their last family did, before they’ll let themself be truly vulnerable.

And it’s why, I hope, something will shift in the way that Ashton and the party respond to his pain. I would love an acknowledgement that chronic pain brings limitations, that they let the disabled character be disabled (preferably mechanically, because I know they can incorporate that kind of mechanic–they’ve done it before with mental illness, with Caleb, with Imogen, with FCG, and it would mean so much to me if the same sort of consideration could go into a physically disabled character’s mechanics. But I would accept pure story/flavor acknowledgement as well).

I also hope there’s going to be an in-game conversation about how Ashton feels about being touched, letting him set boundaries and tell the party specifically what hurts too much, when to ask permission, when not to touch at all, and when and where it would be welcome.

It’s obviously something Taliesin is thinking about, and I think it deserves to be discussed in-character. This period of time where they’re stuck on a skyship with nothing plot-urgent happening seems like a perfect time to have those conversations…(holding out hope for that next episode lol).

This all ties in with my last post about the topic (it doesn’t have to hurt more to be love!), and it’s something I obviously feel very passionately about lmao. I want to see a disabled person with chronic pain that does limit them, that inconveniences their friends sometimes, and I want to see them get loved and cared for and accommodated because their pain is a part of them, and it’s not something that can or should be ignored.

In other words, as Matt said, “To clarify, there is strength, and there is pain. There is pain, and there is strength.” Pain and strength, strength and pain, equally present, equally important to his life and to their character. We’ve seen so much of Ashton’s strength. It’s time to let them show their pain.

#ashton greymoore #critical role #critical role meta #bell's hells #critical role campaign 3 #yeah i'm main-tagging this #everyone should read my essay i worked hard on it #edit: i added the 'get hit to see if people are watching' quote #bc i woke up this morning reread the essay and very strongly regretted forgetting it the first time #bc it's SO important to the way i view ashton's character #incomplete analysis without it

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crooked-wasteland · 8 months

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What's the point of making Ozzie a demon if he's not going to be evil, dangerous and deadly like demons are supposed to be? Vivziepop sucks at making demon characters.not only do her characters look nothing like demons and now they don't act like ones??? Hazbin Hotel is doomed,might as well make Hazbin a preschool show at this point.its also embarrassing that the king of hell (Lucifer) is just Stolas 2.0 from reading the leaked scripts.Id like to add more but im far too tired because this is getting absurdly painful.

I think there is valid criticism in this critique, but I also feel that, in a way, it is rather exaggerated outrage.

When it comes to demons behaving any specific way, that mainly comes down to poor world building. Spindlehorse has done very little to actually dictate how this world of hers works, and many times, it appears she actively contradicts values previously assumed.

Are there vastly different laws and social expectations between rings?

Loo Loo Land, and once again in Oops, Greed is shown to have an extremely lax approach to crimes of violence.

However, in Harvest Moon, having previously killed people results in Millie being banned from participating in the episode.

Stolas being in public with Blitz gets no notice or response of attention in Harvest Moon and again later in Ozzie's. But then the internal logic contradicts that same episode with Walley acting like it is actually a huge deal. And then for a third time the series presents an about face with Beelzebub dating Tex as if there is nothing special going on there.

Stolas cheats, but he is not wrong for that, which makes it not a flaw.

Then, the world building tries to reinforce the idea that this relationship would be a problem by trying to highlight a demon racial and status divide in Western Energy. Only for Queen Bee and Oops to backtrack again and make it extremely normalized with Beelzebub dating a common Hell Hound and Asmodeus' conflict not being about who he is dating, but the act of dating in the first place.

Going into the idea of "good" and "evil," I don't really think that is a good argument to make. There has to be some sense of conflict for a story to maintain interest, and if the idea of "evil" is the norm was played to a logical conclusion, it would feel more like a joke than anything else. Like in Good Omens, where Hell is dictated by doing the worst thing possible and anything that produces a moral positive is bad. It would completely isolate the audience from the values of the cast, which is why Crowley is depicted as having a personality and values more aligned to humans. As such, it doesn't feel like a good faith platform to stand on when criticizing the show.

What I will say is fair, however, is that Medrano has achieved an Olympic medal in trying to make her characters entirely flawless. There is no consistent character flaw that any of her cast maintains out of what is deemed necessary by the plot or depicted as not a flaw by context.

Asmodeus is quite literally perfect for Vivienne's standards. His whole life revolves around his partner, and he is willing to do whatever it takes for that partner, including murder. But that is good, actually.

Blitz is inconsistently too insecure in his relationships. He's insecure when it comes to FizzaRolli and Stolas, resulting in him burning down his own family home and violently rejecting Stolas after the night at Ozzie's. But he's so secure in other relationships that: (1) despite knowing Barbie doesn't want to see him, he tracks her down, (2) he is overbearing of Loona despite feeling like she hates him, (3) abuses Moxxie, despite having issues with losing people.

And I think that's what this criticism is actually addressing. A lack of understanding the stakes and values the world plays on while simultaneously being handed characters who are so volatile in their own values every time we see them that it is pretty much impossible to defer those values passively.

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #vivienne medrano #vivziepop #helluva boss #vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #spindlehorse criticism #world building #inconsistency #bad writing

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duhragonball · 9 months

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Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (4/5)

BIG

ORANGE!

The whole movie has been building to this. The Red Ribbon Army wants to take out Gohan, but they don't want to ambush him at home like they did with Piccolo, because Gohan lives in the city and there would be too many witnesses. So instead Commander Magenta has Gohan's daughter kidnapped from preschool, in order to lure him to the RR base. That way Dr. Hedo's new androids, the Gammas, can fight him on their home turf.

What the Red Ribbon doesn't know is that their kidnapping only got this far because Piccolo has infiltrated their ranks, and he managed to convince Pan to play along. His plan is to use Magenta's plan as a way to motivate Gohan so that he'll fight to his fullest potential and defeat the Red Ribbon Army.

Complicating matters even further is the fact that the Gammas are programmed to think of themselves as superheroes, i.e. the "good guys". When Gohan asks why they're doing this, Gamma 1 insists that it's all for the sake of bringing down Gohan's "evil secret organization". Naturally, Gohan has no idea what he's talking about, and it all sounds pretty stupid when Gamma's side is the one doing the kidnapping.

One thing that bugs me about Hedo and the Gammas is that this movie doesn't really spend a lot of time providing any context to the "super heroes" that Hedo loves so much. Everyone says the Gammas look like old fashioned superheroes, but I sure don't see it. Maybe they're meant to evoke the Sentai genre, but does that exist in the Dragon World? I mean, this fictional Earth has actual superheroes in it, like Mr. Satan and the Great Saiyaman. Shouldn't Dr. Hedo be idolizing those guys, and designing the Gammas to look like them instead?

I guess I should use an example. So in Batman: The Animated Series, there's an episode about "The Grey Ghost", a fictional hero within the world of the show. Bruce Wayne watched Grey Ghost episodes as a kid, and the character partially inspired a lot of the gadgets and tactics he later used as Batman. The episode was about the actor who played the Grey Ghost, Simon Trent, who was voiced by the late, great Adam West, just to hammer home the analogy.

Anyway, the way they made that work was by showing clips from the Grey Ghost's TV show, and flashbacks to when Bruce used to watch it as a kid, and all the merchandise made for the franchise. Grey Ghost was a pretty standard Golden Age pulp hero, like the Shadow or Green Hornet. The BTAS writers didn't just assume you already knew what kind of hero Grey Ghost was. They showed you.

Now, in Super Hero, they sort of take that concept for granted, and all we see of Hedo's "super heroes" are a few actors in costumes, or just the costumes as Dr. Hedo imagines them. We're never given a sense of just what the Gammas are supposed to be imitating. They're supposed to be very flamboyant and over-the-top, but they don't look that much flashier than Piccolo. I mean, he wears a cape too? He broods, he flies, he shoots lasers out of his eyes. Oh, and he has a kid sidekick who grew up to become even flashier:

Fuck yeah! This movie doesn't do much with Super Saiyan, but it looks damn good when it happens. See, Great Saiyaman got the super hero pastiche right because Gohan was using it as a disguise. He had to dress differently to protect his secret, and then he started getting into the act, talking all high and mighty, and doing Sentai poses. Then he'd take the costume off and act like his ordinary self. So the superhero tropes were obvious. Arguably, Gohan was already a superhero anyway, but as Great Saiyaman he turned that up to eleven by having a secret identity, a transformation watch, and a pesky love interest determined to expose him. The trouble with the Gammas is that they're only six months old, and the costumes is all they are. We never see the tropes that they're meant to resemble. The movie either assumes we already recognize the reference, or there is no reference. That's a tough tightrope to walk.

Anyway, Gohan and Gamma 1 fight for a bit, and Pan's excited to see this because at the beginning of the movie she told Piccolo that she never saw her daddy fight before. Earlier, she wondered if he would really leave his work to come rescue her, and Piccolo said he'd beat him up if he didn't. So Gohan had a lot to prove here, even if he didn't know it

But Piccolo is still concerned, because Gamma 1 seems to be learning Gohan's moves as they fight, which means Gohan will have trouble defeating him. He needs to fight at a higher level, and Piccolo has an idea to motivate him further...

Up close, this looks kind of silly, like you can obviously see he's not even holding Pan by her collar, and he's got his other hand holding her up. I guess Piccolo was afraid of damaging her preschool uniform while he toyed with Gohan's emotions, which is pretty much the most Piccolo thing ever.

But from a distance, it just looks like he's hurting Pan, and she cries out, which upsets Gohan... and the Gammas. Gamma 2's like "What are you doing!? We don't hurt kids!" And that surprises Piccolo and Pan.

But it still works. Gohan flips his shit and transforms to his Mystic/Ultimate/Elder Kai Unlock form. You know the one, he used it to fight Super Buu, and then he used it in the Tournament of Power. Piccolo is thrilled by this development and Pan wants to celebrate with double fistbumps. Pan is adorable in this movie.

The fight is a long way from finished, but Gohan does a lot better in this form. Also he blew away the rainclouds over the Red Ribbon Base, so we can see the fight better. Now, Gamma 1 is on the defensive, although with his powers, that's not a bad place to be.

Let's talk about Gohan a bit. One common critique about this movie is that it's all about super heroes, but Gohan never whips out his Great Saiyaman outfit. And I agree, it does feel like a missed opportunity, but I also think there's a very good reason for not having Great Saiyaman in this movie.

For one thing, Great Saiyaman would probably steal the Gamma's thunder. It's their only gimmick, and if Gohan's vamping it up in his own hero suit, then it dilutes the concept. Like I was saying before, Piccolo and Gohan are pretty much superhero characters already, so things are already strained enough.

More importantly, though, one of the major themes of this movie is "I wish Gohan would do (x) like he used to." Pan wants to see her daddy fight. Piccolo wants to see Gohan train. Magenta wants him to be the kid who defeated Cell, because otherwise he wasted two billion zenni on a pair of androids. If Gohan's just a mild-mannered biologist, then this battle was pointless.

The audience wants Gohan to be the Great Saiyaman, because Great Saiyaman is fun and cool, and it fits the tone of the movie. Only it doesn't fit the tone of the movie, because it never happens in the movie.

Well, some of the audience wanted Gohan to be Great Saiyaman. Then you have others who wanted Gohan to become this edgy badass, like when he slaughtered all the Cell Juniors, but to the nth degree. I remember after the movie came out, some fanartist was bitter because they should have done what he did in his fancomic, where Cell comes back and murders Videl and Pan right in front of Gohan, which makes him go berserk. Twitter dunked on that guy for a few weeks, and rightly so. Here's the thing: The Gammas desperately need Gohan to be that edgy fancomic version. Their programming only makes sense if Gohan's the villain in this story, and that would be easier to believe if Gohan would flip out and decapitate someone.

But that's not how Gohan works. He's not a machine like the Gammas who can be switched from one mode to the next. The Gammas have to be superheroes, but Gohan can be all sorts of things: father, husband, Saiyan, Earthling, warrior, scientist, superhero, etc. Piccolo can kind of steer Gohan in the direction he wants him to go, but he had to stage a phony kidnapping for this. And Piccolo is Gohan's best friend and mentor. If he has this much trouble putting Gohan in a box, then how can anyone else?

Gohan is a complex character, with many different aspects to him, and this is what makes all of his different facets work. The whole point of Kid Gohan flipping out and crushing the bad guys was that he was usually so meek and unassuming. If he was a badass all the time, it wouldn't matter. If he was Great Saiyaman all the time, no one would care. If he truly sat in his house studying bugs all the time, it wouldn't mean anything. What makes Gohan cool is that he can be all of these things and more. But he'll never be evil, and that's what's got the Gammas so flustered.

So Dr. Hedo gets worried about Gamma 1 and sends 2 in to back him up when...

OH YOU DIDN'T KNOW?

YOUR ASS BETTER CALLLLLLLL SOMEBODYYYYYYY!

Speaking of professional wrestling, check this shit out.

A brainbuster DDT? In my Dragon Ball? It's more likely than you think!

So while Gohan works over Gamma 1, Piccolo shows off his new power-up to Gamma 2. Unfortunately, it's still not enough. Gohan can fight evenly with 1, but it's the classic DBZ android problem, where the androids can fight at full strength without getting tired, and Gamma 1's battery is still at 82%. As for Piccolo, he soon discovers that his power up doesn't quite tip the scales against Gamma 2. Here we see him do a cool Special Beam Cannon, but 2 just throws up a force field to deflect it.

More importantly, Piccolo taunts 2 about how he seems like an okay dude, except he's following bad orders. 2 insists that he was created to follow orders, but Piccolo knows that on some level the Gammas must realize that this is wrong. And that dilemma is probably what's keeping Piccolo competitive in this fight. Gamma 2 is too distracted to deal with him properly.

So Gamma 2 gets so frustrated that he batters Piccolo and throws him down into the depths of this crater the Red Ribbon Base is in. I'm not sure how this place works. It looks like there's catacombs at the bottom or something. How ancient is this thing? Anyway, Piccolo does the anime thing where the hero seems to plummet to their depth, and then they have this big epiphany about friendship or believing in yourself or something. Except instead, he just flashes back to when Shenron boosted his power... and gave him "a little extra".

Awwww yeah!

Yeahhhhh!

Well now you fucked up, Gammas, because Piccolo's orange. What does this mean? Well, for one thing, Piccolo's antennae float instead of dangling over his brow. For another thing, he's got red eyes, which is always cool. Also his bara titties are even more bara than ever.

And I think you can work out the rest for yourself. One punch and Gamma 2 is down.

At this point, Magenta gets nervous and orders his troops to shoot Orange Piccolo, and that doesn't work at all, so everyone starts to run away. Carmine tries to cover Magenta's escape, but Pan chases after them, so Carmine starts shooting at Pan, but then...

Gamma 2 disarms Carmine with his pistol, and says he now understands who the real villains are. Kind of impressive he got his wits together so soon after taking that punch.

Then Pan wrecks Carmine's shit, which I just noticed is kind of like how Gohan took down Cell with two hits. I'm pretty sure it was a punch to the gut followed by a kick to the head, but Pan's only three, so it's okay if she gets the order wrong. The important thing is Pan gets to beat up a bad guy all by herself. If this were GT, they'd have Giru save her or something.

So Piccolo tells Gohan the fight is over, because it seems like Gamma 2 has finally seen the light. I guess Gamma 1 doesn't need much convincing, since he was having a similar crisis in his own fight.

So the fight is over, right? Not quite. Magenta runs, but he doesn't run away. Instead he goes deeper into the base and tries to activate his ultimate weapon, Cell Max. Dr. Hedo follows him and warns him that it's too dangerous. Hedo completed Cell Max's body, but his brain is still in development, and he'd be uncontrollable if brought online.

But Magenta doesn't care. As he sees it, things went wrong today because he trusted Hedo. The Gammas lost because they weren't powerful enough to defeat the enemy as quickly as Hedo boasted. Hedo says that they were only having trouble because they couldn't sense any malice in their opponents, but Magenta says that's the problem. Hedo insisted on programming them with all that superhero nonsense. Magenta wanted weapons, not cartoon characters, and so he's going to end things by unleashing Cell Max.

So Magenta shoots Hedo to stop him from interfering, but it doesn't work, because Hedo has bulletproof skin, thanks to some enhancement he made to his own body. So Magenta reveals that he has his own enhancements and takes off his shirt to reveal he's a cyborg. He admits that his body modifications might not be as sophisticated as Hedo's, but he's confident that he's strong enough to win in a fight.

You know, I was wondering why Magenta didn't make himself taller while he was having himself converted into a cyborg, but then it occurred to me that maybe he did make himself taller. He's still pretty short, but he's taller than his dad, Commander Red, so maybe he used to be the same height as Red, and made himself the height he is now. Maybe this is tall enough for him, or this was the practical limit of his cybernetics.

None of that matters, though, because Magenta forgot Hedo's other trick, that cyborg bee he used to spy on him at the beginning of the movie. It carries a powerful venom that can kill any living organism with one sting. Even cyborgs can't withstand it, because the venom disables their biological components. It seemed kind of weird when Hedo spelled that out in the limo scene, but now that we know Magenta is a cyborg, it makes sense. This is what they call Checkov's Cyborg Bee Sting.

So now the fight is definitely over, right? No, because Magenta presses the button to activate Cell Max right before he dies. Seriously, Hedo really fucked up here. Sure the bee sting was fatal, but it took a while for Magenta to actually keel over, and Hedo kept gloating about stealing Magenta's money instead of watching him.

Meanwhile, Bulma has arrived with reinforcements: Krillin, Android 18, Goten, and Trunks. I'm not sure why she did this, or how she even knew where to go, but it's Bulma, so she might have traced Piccolo's cell phone or something. Anyway, the big story here is that Goten and Trunks actually look like teenagers, and pretty close to their designs in the final three episodes of Dragon Ball Z. Fans have been asking about this ever since Battle of Gods premiered in 2013, because Goten and Trunks were supposed to be like 10 and 11, but they still looked like they did at ages 6 and 7. This kind of made sense, because Goku looked pretty teeny at 15, and Gohan was kind of small for 11, but the premise really felt strained beyond belief as Dragon Ball Super wore on, and the boys got older and older with each new story arc.

This movie tries to rationalize it by having Piccolo be all surprised to see this growth spurt, and Gohan tells him that this is how it is with Saiyan children. They stay small for a long time and just suddenly grow in their late teens. Okay, but Mai's not a Saiyan and she wasn't growing up either... Oh well.

Meanwhile, Hedo desperately tries to cancel Cell Max's activation, but it's too late. Different flavors of Kool-Aid are being pumped into his incubation chamber. Purplesauraus Rex, Pink Swimmingo, Great Blue-dini, Kickin' Kiwi Lime, and Black Cherry, the most powerful flavor of all.

I guess I have to give Hedo credit for trying, but the guy's busting out of the chamber right now. Cell Max is already active, my guy. It's just a matter of how strong you built the chamber. Meanwhile, the good guys are unaware of any of this. They're too busy asking Piccolo what he's gonna call his new orange transformation. "I guess I'll just call it 'Orange Piccolo'" he says. Thank you, Piccolo. Just for being you.

"Never mind that shit! Here comes Cell Max!"

Everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about, Dr. Hedo, but then... yeah, you'll see. We'll all see, won't we?

#dragon ball #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #dragon ball super #dragon ball super super hero #piccolo #gohan #pan #son pan #dr hedo #gamma 1 #gamma 2 #magenta #carmine #goten #trunks #cell max

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