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tickle-bugs · 3 years

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Wrestling With Love

Summary: Tahani catches Jason and Eleanor wrestling for the last Hot Pocket and has no idea how to react. Eleanor picks up on her out-of-character awkwardness and decides to help in her own way.

Anon: I love you’re writing! It’s exactly the lightheartedness we need right now! If you’re up for it, could you do one for The Good Place where Eleanor tries to get Tahani to loosen up and let her know that she doesn’t always have to be prim and proper if she doesn’t want to? Growing up in a less than affectionate family, the concept of horseplay and tickling is very foreign to Tahani, and Eleanor is happy to show her that she can be both and elegant lady and a giggling mess whenever she wants

Eleanor skidded into the kitchen, her cactus-print socks slipping frantically across the hardwood. She’d heard the ultimate transgression taking place in her own home, an unfathomable crime that only one man would have the audacity to commit.

“Mendoza.”

“Hi, Eleanor!” Jason waved.

“Unhand the Hot Pocket.” Eleanor pointed an accusatory finger and strode forward. Jason continued to tear open the package.

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s mine!”

“But it’s in the kitchen?”

“Exactly. My kitchen. Which means it’s mine.”

“But I don’t see your name on it. Aren’t you supposed to write your name on it?” Jason turned it over in his hands, earnestly searching for Eleanor’s name. She knew he was being genuine, in his sweet, dumb, way, but that was so obviously a challenge.

“Last chance!” Eleanor made a show of stretching and bouncing around.

“No.”

“...no?” Eleanor stopped.

“I found it, so it’s mine. Florida rules.” He nodded, as if the rule made sense.

“We’re not in Florida.”

“We’re not?” Jason’s eyes widened and he clutched the Hot Pocket in fear.

“I—okay. Last last chance. Hand over the Hot Pocket or I’ll be forced to unleash my wrath.” The threat came out more like an elongated sigh as Eleanor pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Let’s wrestle for it! That’s how I used to settle things with Pillboi!”

“Alright, but I have to warn you, I will probably kill you.” Eleanor assumed a vaguely karate-like pose, but it looked more like she had a leg cramp she couldn’t shake off.

“You may try,” Jason beamed.

“3, 2-”

Eleanor took off, launching herself at Jason with a war cry. He toppled over with an armful of angry, writhing blonde. He maneuvered her beneath him, sprawling over her like a weird throw blanket, and she could feel the air slowly being pushed out of her. A classic move, but no match for an Arizona dirtbag. Eleanor employed her personal favorite technique: poke until the person quits.

She jabbed Jason in the arms and shoulders, delighting in the little grunts of pain he made. One of her pokes caught his ribs and he squeaked, slapping her hand away.

“Oh?” Eleanor smirked, poking him again. A giggle slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

“Tickling is cheating!” Jason whined, rolling off of her and trying to protect his torso. She followed him, and when a pinch to his side made him laugh outright, she lit up.

“I don’t think so, bud. It’s not my fault you’re ticklish.” She wormed her hands past his arms and wriggled her fingers into his stomach. Jason fell into giggles, kicking his legs, but still held tight to the Hot Pocket.

That was alright. He’d give it to her eventually.

“Eleanor!”

“Yes? I’m listening.” She buried her hands under his arms and he squealed, trying to shove her away with one hand. He held the Hot Pocket as far out of her reach as possible, but his arm was shaking, and it was only a matter of time before he handed her the prize.

“What are you two doing?” Tahani poked her head around the corner before coming to hover in the doorway.

“I’m absolutely destroying Jason in a tickle fight.” Eleanor grinned down at him, just a smidge drunk with power.

“Why?”

“Because I want the last Hot Pocket.” Eleanor furrowed her brow.

“Couldn’t you talk things out? Reach a diplomatic agreement for both parties?” Tahani flinched when Jason squealed again. Eleanor’s fingers searched for a surrender under his arms, and it was only a matter of time until he gave in. Was the Hot Pocket easily accessible with the way Jason had curled up? Yes, but it was about the moral victory.

Chidi would be proud. Probably.

“Tahani, babe, there is no peaceful way to decide who gets the last Hot Pocket. It always ends in blood—or in Jason’s case, laughter.” Eleanor wiggled her fingers in the air over him, giving him another chance to willingly surrender, but he flipped the two of them over and grabbed hold of Eleanor’s knee.

“Hey! Tahani, hehelp!”

“Jason, cut it out. Release her at once.” Tahani assumed her ‘stern voice’ and straightened her posture. Jason didn’t even blink in her direction.

“What’s the magic word?” Jason sang, pinching at Eleanor’s knee like there was no tomorrow.

“Please?” Tahani tried.

“Nope! It’s hot wings.” Jason beamed.

“That’s...two words. It also isn’t much of a password if you just tell me the answer.” Tahani raised an eyebrow. Jason hooked his fingers behind Eleanor’s knee and she kicked, muffling her frantic laughter in her hands.

“Okay, try and guess the new password.”

“Is it—Is it hot wings, again?” Tahani chuckled.

“Yep!”

“I’m dying!” Eleanor wheezed, pushing her heels along the floor to scoot away. Hot Pocket forgotten, Jason pulled her back and tickled her stomach, laughing along with her. Jason wiggled his fingers in the air before darting down to squeeze her sides, and growls permeated her next set of giggles at the role-reversal.

“Do you wanna help?” Jason gently pulled Tahani’s hand until she kneeled next to Eleanor.

“N-No! No helping!” Eleanor pointed a shaky finger at the two of them. Jason rolled his eyes and affixed his hands to her ribs, giggling at the way she would try to curl up. Tahani experimentally ran her nails over Eleanor’s knee and she yelped.

Oh?

Tahani scooted over, brow furrowed in concentration, and hiked Eleanor’s leg into her lap. Her fingers skimmed curiously over the denim, dancing in various swirls and lines to pull the sweetest music from Eleanor. It felt like learning guitar after learning to play piano--you knew all the sounds, but your fingers would trip when met with strings, rather than keys.

She knew what tickling was, of course, but to enact it? Her only reference points were films and Jason’s guidance. With the way Eleanor was cackling, though, it seemed like she was doing a decent job.

“Counterattack!” Eleanor squeaked, reaching up to quickly tickle Tahani’s stomach. Tahani made a tiny noise of surprise and flinched away, hands flying to cover her face. When the attack didn’t persist, she slowly peeked through the gaps in her fingers to find Jason and Eleanor staring, wide-eyed.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She silently cursed the obvious waver in her voice, but the way her friends were watching her was downright terrifying. She immediately got the sense that no stern voice would get her out of whatever she just stumbled into.

“My dear, sweet, giraffe. Have you been holding out on me?” Eleanor scooted close with an objectively evil grin.

“Sorry?”

“You will be.” Eleanor pulled Tahani close, scribbling experimentally at her stomach. Tahani peeped--quite literally peeped--and wrinkled her nose with a smile.

“For the record, you’re infuriatingly adorable,” Eleanor grinned, wriggling her fingers into Tahani’s sides. She yelped and fell into loud, melodic laughter, eyes wide as if startled by her own volume. Air fled her lungs far faster than she could replenish it, and she snorted around her next batch of giggles.

“Do that again.” Eleanor’s hands stilled.

“Absolutely not.”

“Please?” Eleanor looked at her so earnestly that Tahani’s breath caught in her throat. If Kamilah--or worse, her parents--had heard her make a noise like that, she’d be the laughingstock of every event for months afterward. But Eleanor didn’t have the sneer that her family usually wore, only an amused smile and soft, genuine eyes.

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t just...do it on command.” Tahani averted her eyes, cheeks pink, but she could still feel Eleanor’s piercing gaze on the side of her face.

“Oh, I can help with that.” Eleanor started up again, much more gentle than she was with Jason, and with each twitch of her fingers she asked an unspoken question. Each pause between scribbles and waves of pokes inquired if Tahani wanted to stop, but...she didn’t. Eleanor’s playful attitude was so contagious that it inspired Tahani to not self-destruct when she snorted again and again, like a giggly, broken record.

“I wish you’d laugh like this more often,” Eleanor sighed, pained, but she didn’t relent--she just kept giving Tahani little windows to flee. She just gripped Eleanor’s wrists and laughed with reckless abandon.

“I really shouldn’t--Eleanor!”

“Why not?”

“I-It isn’t--” Tahani’s voice got stuck on her laughter before her barely-coherent sentence had the chance to leave her mouth. Every time she tried to speak, more giggles and titters floated out of her in place of words.

“I have no idea what you were gonna say, but the fact that you couldn’t finish means it didn’t matter. Besides, there’s no need for, like, a presidential speech. Normal people laugh, Tahani.”

“I’m not normal!” That wasn’t all that she’d intended to say, but all her coherent thoughts were fighting and losing against another round of snort-filled laughter.

“Are you kidding? The only thing not normal about you is how cute your laugh is! You sound like a princess! Ignoring how angry that makes me, you are as normal as anyone else.” Eleanor squeezed her sides and Tahani squealed, then groaned. Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh with her.

“Noooo,” Tahani whined, hiding her face in her hands.

“Yes. I bet even the Queen of England has snorted once. You can be all snooty-” she dragged out the ‘o’ while poking Tahani’s stomach- “and have fun.”

“I promise that there’s nothing unladylike about making your friends laugh. It’s the only skill on my resume, which makes me a professional, which also means that you have to listen to me.” Eleanor tugged Tahani’s hands away from her face and brushed her hair away from her eyes.

“Repeat after me. I, Tahani Al-Jamil…” Eleanor raised her right hand. Tahani just watched her with a silly smile until Eleanor rolled her eyes and raised Tahani’s hand for her.

“I, Tahani Al-Jamil….”

“....have the world’s cutest laugh.” Eleanor beamed.

“I am not saying that.” Tahani tried to cover her bashfulness with an indignant huff, but the grin on her face undermined her attempts.

“Well, it’ll be a lot harder to say laughing, but I respect your desire for a challenge.” Eleanor nestled her fingers just behind Tahani’s ears, taking her by surprise. Before she could even hope to fortify her composure, she crumpled into Eleanor’s arms. High-pitched, screamy giggles erupted from her poorly covered face as she tried to turtle her way to safety.

“Alright, my laugh is c-cute! Cut it out already!” She swatted in the general vicinity of Eleanor’s hands but she missed every time. Eleanor slowed down, smoothing and tucking Tahani’s hair with light fingers just to hear a few more whispers of laughter.

The crinkle of a wrapper shattered the mirth-charged air, and two pairs of eyes turned to watch Jason dispose of the Hot Pocket packaging. The empty Hot Pocket packaging, to be exact.

“I was hungry.” Jason shrugged, completely oblivious to the murderous look in Eleanor’s eyes. Tahani could feel the simmering rage emanating from her, and if it wasn’t for the familiar way that Eleanor’s fingers were twitching, Tahani would have feared for Jason’s life.

She still did, but it was less likely that Eleanor would have the patience to kill him with laughter versus, well, a stranglehold.

“Tahani--”

“On it.” Tahani helped Eleanor to her feet. Jason’s eyes widened and he bolted, already giggling, with his friends hot on his heels.

#my fics #the good place #ticklish!eleanor #ticklish!jason #ticklish!tahani #Eleanor Shellstrop #jason mendoza #Tahani Al-Jamil

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khrsecretvalentine · 5 years

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KHR Summer Exchange 2019 for @khrkin

Notes: KHR Secret Summer Holidays 2019! For Fran (@khrkin), who asked for terrible comedy and found-family (and 1827, which I unfortunately didn’t manage, sorry ;o;).

From @kyogre-blue to @khrkin

~.~.~

The Special Investigation, Containment, and Discipline Committee, Namimori branch, was supposed to investigate, contain and punish supernatural crimes — hauntings, possessions, curses, use of magic in illegal affairs, as well as monster attacks. Ghostbusters, pseudo government version, basically. Sawada Tsunayoshi, terrified out of his mind, had received a full course of training on all those things during new hire orientation… the “orientation” that was just a shaky home-made video and a powerpoint slide with clipart zooming onto the screen.

Anyway, apparently all those scary things did exist.

However, dealing with them… was not what they actually did, day to day. In his three months at the Committee, Tsuna hadn’t seen a single supernatural thing outside of his coworkers.

He had seen a distressingly high number of stalkers, serial killers and scammers though.

“Don’t worry, Tsuna-kun!” Sasagawa Kyoko, the secretary, receptionist and nanny of the team, comforted him when he tried to bring up the subject. “It’s summer now, and we’ll have more real work. Summer is the season for seances and ghost stories, after all. That’ll stir up the spirits. Lots of people going exploring too, in all kinds of places, waking up all kinds of things… I’m sure it’ll pick up soon!”

That wasn’t comforting.

…Let’s start at the beginning.

Sawada Tsunayoshi, also known as Dame Tsuna, age 18, had completely bombed every university entrance exam he’d taken — as expected. His middle school crush Kyoko found him crying behind the school building on graduation day, completely without future prospects. With the kindness that had made him fall for her in the first place, she gave him her handkerchief and listened to his sobbed complaints.

“It’s okay, Tsuna-kun,” she said, after he calmed down. “I know a place that’s always looking for people!”

That place was the Special Investigation, Containment, and Discipline Committee, Namimori branch.

Kyoko and her brother Ryohei had been recruited after they ended up involved in a supernatural incident. It wasn’t a kind of “you know about us, so now you must join” thing. They could have forgotten all about it and gone home to their normal lives. Although the Committee did not have anything as nice as actual memory alteration, they did have a substance that could blur recent memories, which was given to most witnesses.

Ryohei refused. Punching ghosts or whatever was apparently too exciting. And Kyoko followed his lead.

Frankly speaking, Tsuna hadn’t really believed in this stuff. He figured that this was the designated ‘loser’ group that was changed with wild goose chases and hoaxes — someone had to deal with the citizens calling in hauntings and such, after all, even if it all turned out to be squeaky windows and leaking pipes in the end.

Most importantly, it was a job that didn’t care about his qualifications and didn’t require any competence test. As long as he could escape being an unemployed waste upon society, Tsuna would take anything.

He… did not expect his boss to beat him up on the first day, or one of his coworkers to have a shape-shifting bamboo sword that could cut through sheets of solid steel. Or the weird foreign kid, who might have been a coworker but Tsuna wasn’t sure, to be able to generate lightning out of nowhere. Or his other, other coworker who may or may not have been possessed.

But it was still a job. Tsuna would take anything, including all that.

The current job market was scarier than any ghost.

…Probably. Final judgement pending actually seeing a ghost.

~.~.~

Just as Kyoko said, summer was the season of ghost stories and seances. What this meant was that the police, the fire department and sometimes even government agencies that didn’t like naming themselves would transfer over cases from concerned citizens who were absolutely sure they were being haunted by the spirit of their great-grandfather, a jilted office lady who hung herself at the abandoned building a block over, or a famous serial killer. (Why did people like trying to call up the ghost of Jack the Ripper so much anyway?)

Kyoko and Yamamoto, the only two employees with basic social skills, were on the phone without rest, using their friendliest, most soothing voices. Meanwhile, Tsuna and Ryohei were given links to videos of exorcism ceremonies and some very realistic looking Shinto priest robes, sewn up by their intern Haru. Thus equipped, they became… con artists on a government salary.

Gokudera had also been offered a costume, but he insisted on trying to prove the concerned citizens’ worries unfounded through the power of science — even if Gokudera’s idea of science included “energy fields” that could not be detected by modern instruments, which left “imprints” that carried an “echo of the deceased’s biopatterns” blah blah, and other things that sounded no less creepy than just calling it a haunting.

Gokudera’s success rate dropped to an all new low, along with his salary.

It was the usual combination of dumb job and crazy coworkers, just in sweltering heat.

And then, Tsuna tried to perform an… exorcism (scam) at the new Nonohana Building downtown.

The building had been suffering from a number of creepy rumors, which came to a head when several bored employees had a few too many drinks after working overtime, did a seance (of course), and then ended up in the hospital one by one after mysterious accidents (of course).

“Na-mo-ta-mo-ra-su-ro…” Tsuna chanted pure nonsense while walking through the motions roughly approximating an exorcism. The paper ropes at the end of his stick rustled as he swung it back and forth. Nearby, the building owner and several other figures in business suits watched with expressions ranging from worry to desperate hope to outright boredom. One of them was filming with her cellphone. Tsuna sweated a little more than usual, under the heavy priest robes.

Thankfully, he didn’t trip this time — that was always hard to explain away.

The air felt a little strange, as Tsuna knelt and completed the fake exorcism. And his stick — currently serving as a scam prop with paper ropes tied onto it, but in actuality a collapsible nightstick he had been given as self-defense weapon — was almost uncomfortably hot in his hand. It made him hesitate and get up only slowly.

Before he could lift his head, the nearby peanut gallery gasped collectively. When Tsuna looked at them, they were all staring at something on the high wall of the lobby, behind the reception desk.

Tsuna turned.

“Hiiiiieeee—!”

There was dark red, blood-like substance flowing down the smooth surface of the wall. There was no indication where the hopefully-not-blood came from, as it seemingly appeared out of nowhere several dozen feet up. It didn’t flow straight down like a proper rust stain either. The red smears thickened and thinned, and curved — into what looked entirely too much like writing.

PAY

—It said.

“M-Mr. Sawada!” the building owner whimpered. “Wh-what…”

Tsuna also did not know what. With trembling hands, he fumbled through his robes and pulled out his cellphone, hitting the speed-dial for the office.

The call did not go through. What came from the speaker was instead an almost cliche horror movie mix of sounds — a screech, static, and a long moan-like clicking. The screen flickered and showed Tsuna’s wallpaper, only to glitch and twist until there was something like the shadow of a screaming face among the pixels.

Tsuna wanted to pass out. He really, really wanted to pass out.

His terrified shrieking — as well as that of the gathered businessmen — was drowned out by the clatter of the storm shutters descending across all the lobby windows. The suited clients, er, concerned citizens scattered, running in several directions in a futile bid to find some way out of the lobby that was suddenly in lockdown. Tsuna’s legs trembled too much to follow them.

It was suddenly the real deal?! Unfair! Illegal!!

…Hauntings were, in fact, illegal. They had rules about them. Tsuna couldn’t remember them now, but they were definitely in the rulebook. (He had thought it was kind of funny at the time, but he definitely couldn’t laugh about it anymore.)

“Mr. Sawada! Mr. Sawada, do something!” one of the suits wailed, suddenly grabbing onto him.

Do something? Like what?!

The lights flickered disconcertingly, taking on a red glow. There was the sound of static and an air raid siren echoing across the lobby, almost loud enough to drown out the sobbing and the screaming.

Between the half-light, darkness, and eerie red backlight, a figure appeared near the blocked off doors. Shapeless under a swathing cloak, it turned slowly toward those that had been pawing hopelessly at the shutters, prompting a new round of screaming.

Now, there was even a… ghost? Grim reaper?

Tsuna was so terrified that he mostly just felt numb.

Some of the other businessmen had been frantically pounding the elevator button up, and their prayers were unexpectedly answered. With a quiet ding that was almost drowned out by the chaos — why were there sounds of thunder?! — the thick doors slid open, and blessed, pale light flooded out of the elevator cabin.

Everyone who hadn’t been standing by the elevator rushed toward it. Those that had been already there tumbled inside like knocked over bowling pins. The suit who had been clinging to Tsuna followed suit, dropping him like last season’s designer boots and sprinting toward the salvation elevator with a speed that belied his impressive salaryman drinking belly.

Naturally, Tsuna very much wanted to follow. But when he tried to do so, still staring fixedly at the cloaked apparition slowly approaching, the hem of Haru’s carefully sewn robes tangled his legs.

With a yelp, he splattered across the polished floor. His attempts to either scramble to his feet or just scramble away on all fours were impeded by those same robes, leaving Tsuna faceplanting a few more times. The cloaked figure approached slowly but unrelentingly.

“Hiiiieee—! S-s-stay away!” Tsuna squealed.

In pure, mind-numbing panic, he threw his baton at it.

What happened next could only be considered an act of providence, proof of the divine — or that the universe had a terrible sense of humor. Tsuna’s aim was and had always been atrocious. He really couldn’t even hit the broad side of a gym.

And yet, with a dull thud, the nightstick planted solidly into the center of the ominous figure’s hooded… head? It bounced off and clattered away somewhere in the shadows, but Tsuna had no mind to care about that.

Along with the ability to aim, he also lacked any sort of arm strength, so logically, getting hit by something he threw should have not been worth noting. But the cloaked figure swayed and, unbelievably, toppled over into a heap of fabric and… limbs?

Legs in jeans and sneakers, completely normal-looking arms… With the cloak bunched up carelessly, the true nature of the ‘menacing figure’ was revealed.

The lights were still flickering, there was still a horror movie soundtrack of noises echoing through the lobby, and the exits were still all blocked. But Tsuna didn’t have the mood to ‘appreciate’ that any longer. Slowly and carefully crawling over, he used two fingers to pull back the hood of the cloak. Beneath was… the face of a completely ordinary young man, maybe a couple years older than Tsuna.

“Oh, Madam President, isn’t that your youngest?” the suit, who had clung to Tsuna and then heartlessly abandoned him, had come back and peered over his shoulder with interest.

Tsuna had a truly annoying premonition.

In a while, they would indeed confirm that this young man was the building owner’s youngest son, skilled with computers and going through a rebellious phase. Since this building was quite modern, everything was controlled through electronic systems. Painting something invisible on the wall to leave an outline for the rust-colored liquid to fill was also simple, if you were creative. He had apparently planned to lock all the executives, their assistants and Tsuna in the elevators for a while to give them a good scare, then let them out without too much harm.

So basically, a horror-themed family dispute, the kind of thing no one even wanted the cops to be involved in, much less some dubious government committee.

…There were actual hauntings, zombie outbreaks, and monster attacks out there. Tsuna had been assured of this point.

However, this was not one of them.

~.~.~

It was late night, and the Committee office had been slowly emptying. Even Kyoko was already packing up. Before heading out, she stopped by Tsuna’s desk, where he was mournfully pecking away at a report regarding the latest joke of an incident.

He was mourning his overworked brain, his lost youth and innocent dreams, and also his sore eyes from staring at the computer screen for so long. At least this incident had been minor enough that only Deputy Chief Kusakabe would be checking his report, not the actual Chief. Reports to the Chief had to be written with a brush.

“Don’t stay too late, Tsuna-kun,” Kyoko said, patting his shoulder kindly. “You can finish in the morning.”

“Deputy Chief said it has to be in his inbox first thing tomorrow,” Tsuna said gloomily.

Kyoko’s lips pursed disapprovingly. “For such a minor incident? He’s just giving you a hard time because you’re new,” she said, huffing. “We should make a complaint!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tsuna assured her quickly. “It’s just so that I learn the ropes!” He appreciated Kyoko’s willingness to stand up for him — truly worthy of his first crush — but this level of… what couldn’t even be called hazing wasn’t even worth mentioning, for someone who had been thoroughly bullied all through his school years. This was just actually doing his work, not having his shoes hidden or his books torn up or anything like that.

“…Well, okay,” Kyoko conceded after a moment. “But tell me if it gets too much, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow!”

Once she had stepped into the elevator, drops sliding shut behind her, Tsuna let his waving hand drop and slumped in his not very comfortable office chair with a groan.

He had always received abysmal scores in composition, but this was far from Tsuna’s first time writing a mission report, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know what to do. Even if there remained a 50-50 chance that Deputy Chief Kusakabe would send it back to him for corrections, that was still an improvement over his previous 4 out of 5 returned as unacceptable.

Tsuna was really just dragging his feet and procrastinating too much, partly out of embarrassment. He had actually gotten caught up in that prank and believed it. None of the others would have fallen for it, he bet. But mostly, it was taking so long out of boredom. Writing reports… was really boring.

Sighing, he sat up and went back to typing.

Half of the lights in the office had automatically turned off once the motion sensors no longer picked up anyone around. With almost all staff done for the day, the only sounds were the clicking of keys from Tsuna’s desk — and muffled cursing from Gokudera’s, where he was supposed to be working on his own report, along with a formal apology to the owner of the construction site he’d blow up instead of ‘exorcising’.

Tsuna had already been almost done anyway, and once the main recounting of events was done, the more formulaic closing sections came to him with the ease of practice.

His head snapped up in surprise at the sound of an office chair skittering back. Not his chair — Gokudera’s.

His coworker stalked around the row of desks with a scowl and a slouch that any delinquent would have been proud of. With the Chief absent, Gokudera had even dared to wear his regulation black suit unbuttoned, with his tie pulled loose. Frankly speaking, he terrified Tsuna only slightly less than Chief Hibari and Chrome in one of her kufufu moods, so Tsuna made every effort to remain very still, in hopes of being overlooked.

No such luck. It was precisely his desk that Gokudera shambled his way over to, and when Tsuna failed to look at him in a timely manner, he kicked snappishly at the legs of his chair.

“Hey, new kid!” Gokudera barked.

“Y-yes!” Tsuna spun around, spine ramrod straight and his gaze somewhere to the left of Gokudera’s head.

Unexpectedly, a phone was thrust at him, making Tsuna fumble as he tried to take it, missed, and finally clutched it in his sweaty paws. “This is… my phone?” he realized. How did Gokudera manage to get it? Tsuna thought he might have left it on his desk, or maybe in his bag, or… Well, he wasn’t sure where he’d left it, but he hadn’t handed it over.

“Getting hacked by some amateur, that’s just embarrassing,” Gokudera grumbled. Sticking out his lower lip in a way that was probably meant to be intimidating but would be more sullen to anyone except Tsuna, he looked off somewhere to the side and rubbed the back of his neck. “I put in some actual security for yah. And a couple sensors for fluctuations in od, in case you finally manage to run into some actual deviations in ambient true energy.”

“Like a ghost sensor?” Tsuna guessed, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else Gokudera could be talking about.

“Don’t call it something so unscientific!”

“Hiieee! Yes! Yes!” Tsuna squeaked, ducking his head and trying to hide behind his newly modified phone as Gokudera snapped at him.

Clicking his tongue irritably, Gokudera turned and shambled away, perhaps back to his own report and apology letter that were still waiting for him. He was exceptionally brilliant, Tsuna was aware, so a few updates to a phone wouldn’t take him long, but the fact that he had taken the time to do it…

Tsuna smiled down into his lap, fiddling with the device.

“Th… thank you, Gokudera-kun,” he mumbled.

His didn’t have the guts to raise his voice, but in the quiet, empty office, there was no doubt Gokudera heard him.

~.~.~

Sasagawa Ryohei and Yamamoto Takeshi returned the next day, making the office much livelier. Ryohei had been on helping look into recurring disappearances of hikers on the ominously named Death Mountain, while Yamamoto had been sent to the beach regarding a supposed sea monster attack.

Both of those definitely sounded like better assignments, so it was no wonder the more senior agents snatched them up. …That being said, Tsuna was aware that his pathetic stamina and physical capabilities wouldn’t have been up to running around in the mountains, or even out in full sun on the beach. Ryohei and Yamamoto, being sports club types, were far more suited to those kinds of missions.

“So was it a real one this time?” Kyoko asked when she stopped by her brother’s desk that morning. Since it wasn’t a private sort of conversation, naturally everyone listened in.

“Nah,” Ryohei waved one hand wrapped up in bandages like always. “They all just kept getting lost to the extreme. Only thing out there was piles of beer bottles. I made a few groups help cleanup, and since they all made it back, everyone calmed down about the place.”

Kyoko laughed, bright and cheerful. Tsuna, two desks away, sighed. Typical for their office, really.

Pushing off from his desk, Yamamoto rolled over in his chair. He spun around to face them smoothly and said with a grin, “Mine was real.”

“Oh!” Kyoko gasped excitedly, and even Gokudera, who detested Yamamoto fiercely, leaned closer to listen in.

Yamamoto’s smile widened as he began to narrate. “There really was a sea monster, tentacles and everything. It was a kind of mutant octonus thing, but also with lobster pincers. It swallowed a bunch of people and a few boats, and when it spit them out, they were covered with goo… very gross.”

“Mutation? From pollution? Radiation?” Gokudera muttered to himself.

“It’s good that it spit them out,” Kyoko said. “Were they okay?”

“Oh yeah, they were fine,” Yamamoto said. “I mean, grossed out, but fine. It turns out… somebody dropped an ice cream cone into the water, and it really liked the taste, so it was looking for more. Once it figured out where to look, it mostly just kept eating ice cream trucks…”

Kyoko laughed again, but Tsuna could only groan internally and palm his face.

Really? A real life monster, and it just… wanted ice cream? Why was his job like this? Why was the world like this? Ice cream?! What about the hunger for human flesh! What about revenge against mankind! What about invasion of the sea dwellers! Manga had lied to him!!

Even when the monsters were real, the cases were still ridiculous.

…Well, at least he was getting paid. The benefits were also good.

Their gossip time came to an abrupt end as Yamamoto spotted something behind them and quickly sat up straight, his expression serious and professional. A quick glance confirmed — it was Deputy Chief Kusakabe, coming over from Chrome’s… office, or maybe cell, Tsuna wasn’t clear. In the presence of an authority figure, everyone quickly turned to their desks and computers, trying to project an image of productivity and focus.

Their attempts weren’t very good, but Kusakabe didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t like the Chief anyway. Although he was certainly stern, he had always been patient with Tsuna’s many, many, many screw ups.

Trailing behind him was Chrome. Tsuna blinked in surprise — it was rare for her to leave her area.

“Sasagawa,” the Deputy Chief called out. “Your status?”

“Yes! I’m extremely good!” Ryohei sounded off without hesitation. “Ready to go any time!”

Kusakabe nodded. “Good, then come along,” he said. “The rest of you, don’t take any cases today. Stay at the office and hold down the fort. I will contact you if the situation changes.”

He didn’t explain what that meant, walking off quickly with Chrome and Ryohei in tow. When the Deputy Chief’s figure vanished into the elevator, Tsuna glanced at the others. “W… what situation?” he wondered. “What was that all about?”

“Are you dumb? There must be something big going down, if the Deputy’s taking Dokuro out,” Gokudera said snappishly.

“Sounds like it,” Yamamoto agreed, somewhat pensively. Agreeing with Gokudera earned him a sharp glare. “And we’re on standby, so I guess we should be ready to help, if it comes to that.”

The earlier cheerful gossip mood had all but dissipated, and everyone began to turn back to their tasks with a lingering sense of tension, even as Kyoko quietly wondered whether to let Lambo know. Tsuna cursed internally. With the current state of things, Deputy Chief Kusakabe had almost certainly had no time to read his report. If he’d know it would be like this, he wouldn’t have bothered staying late yesterday to finish it!

~.~.~

The weather recently had been sunny and very suitable for summer, but by afternoon, thick gray clouds had overtaken the sky and wind battered in strong gusts against the windows. Although it was still early, typhoon season had begun.

After lunch, Kyoko read out the weather forecast. “Meteorologists were taken off guard by the sudden appearance of the storm front rolling onto the Kanto coast…” she said distractedly, her eyes skimming the text on her screen. “Expected to make landfall around sunset… Category is not yet determined… I’d say we should head home a little early to make sure we’re not caught out in the storm, but with the way things are… what should we do?”

The Special Investigation, Containment, and Discipline Committee, Namimori branch, wasn’t a large group to begin with. With the Chief, the Deputy Chief and even Ryohei out, everyone left was about the same age and with little difference in seniority. When it came to making a decision, they could only exchange uncertain looks, no one willing to take on the responsibility.

After about a minute of silence, Kyoko accepted that there would be no answer. “Okay,” she said. “Deputy Chief didn’t say we needed to stay late, and we don’t have a night shift to begin with, so let’s have one person stay until closing, and everyone else can head home early. Who lives closest?”

Ah, Kyoko-chan really was amazing, Tsuna thought.

“Probably me,” he volunteered. “I can stay.”

It was summer, so it wasn’t like sunset was at all close to the normal end of business. It would be windy, but he’d make it home fine.

…Or so Tsuna told himself while foolishly smiling at Kyoko. Things like logic and actual thinking were not involved.

Since meteorologists had completely failed to predict this storm coming in at all, why did he think they’d be able to predict when it would arrive? By five PM, it was so dark out that the few passing cars needed headlights, even hours away from sunset. The sky was a roiling gunmetal gray. When Tsuna stepped outside, he was nearly blown off his feet by a gust of wind, and his backpack was shoved up so hard that it hit the back of his head.

Stumbling along with a series of yelps lost on the wind, he managed to grab hold of a lamp post and clung for dear life.

There was no one else out on the streets, because every other person in Namimori had more sense than Tsuna. Aaah, why did Kyoko-chan’s smile have to be so cute and wonderful? Why did he have to go and try to act all reliable? Bemoaning his own foolishness, Tsuna squinted against the wind and tried to get his bearings. There was nothing to do but hug the buildings and stagger off in the direction of the train station.

However, Tsuna only made it a block over before a hand clamped onto his shoulder and he was suddenly dragged into a narrow alley between buildings.

“Hiiiiee! Take my wallet! Take my bag! Take anything, just don’t kill me!” he started begging immediately, throwing his arms over his head and cringing away.

But the presumed mugger, or maybe human trafficker, or maybe serial killer made no demands and didn’t hit him. After several long moments of silence, Tsuna dared to peek out, trembling.

What greeted him was infinitely more terrifying than a petty crook. Or a human trafficker. Or a serial killer.

It was his boss.

“Ch-Ch-Chief!” Tsuna stuttered helplessly.

Hibari Kyoya stared at him with the same blank coffin face as always, somehow still faintly exuding an aura of violence and murder. Unlike usual, his suit jacket was missing, and his tie was askew. He was also soaked, even though it hadn’t started raining yet.

“Phone,” Hibari ordered sharply. As Tsuna scrambled to obey, he added, “Call Kusakabe.”

“Y-yes! Right away, sir!” Tsuna blurted out, fumbling as he went through his pockets. Where had he put it? Oh, he better not have lost it. He’d be losing his life next…

Fortunately, his work phone turned up before Chief Hibari could lose his temper and give him another beating that was precisely short of putting him in the hospital. This was, Tsuna felt distantly aware, completely illegal and abuse of an innocent subordinate. But even Deputy Chief Kusakabe had just said it was “training,” and since Tsuna only saw the Chief once a month at most, it was still preferable to… shudder, returning to the job market.

It was only with his phone in hand that Tsuna realized it was continually beeping and vibrating as some kind of alarm went off. Given the juvenile punk font of the notification on his screen, Tsuna could guess this was Gokudera’s ghost sensing app.

He couldn’t tell how its metrics are supposed to work, but the weird typeset certainly looked threatening. It was also annoyingly hard to dismiss.

“J-just a moment, sir!” Tsuna squeaked, darting a nervous glance at Hibari.

The Chief was no longer paying him any mind. Hibari’s attention was on the main street outside their little back alley, and his expression was subtly furrowed. “Hurry up,” he ordered shortly, lifting up one of his tonfas. The other was notably absent, along with his belt and one of his cufflinks. “It’s here.”

…What was?

Down the street, a manhole cover was suddenly thrown into the air as a geyser of water burst up from underground. Then another, and another, and another, geysers burst up one after another, moving down the street — toward them.

“W-what the…” Tsuna muttered, staring in shock. The phone in his hand blared an alarm, louder and louder.

Water was flooding down the street, crashing against the buildings and sweeping away anything that had been left outside. But as the wave rushed past their alley, Chief Hibari inexplicably… lifted his tonfa and struck out at it.

The force of his blow parted the water halfway across the street, revealing the asphalt and the painted lanes — and making Tsuna’s eyebrows climb in shock and some horror. He’d known their Chief was strong, but this was just shounen anime levels of ridiculous. Thank goodness he’d apparently held back when beating up Tsuna. Thank you, Chief, you’re so merciful!

Something moaned unhappily, and waves twisted around to bear down on Hibari.

Great. So it was a water monster.

Hahaha… ha…

Frantically, Tsuna pounded on his phone screen. He could barely tear his eyes away from the spectacle of his boss fighting a wall of water that continually reformed under his devastating attacks, but somehow he finally managed to hit the contacts and the Deputy Chief’s entry.

“This is Kusa—”

“Sir! Sir! Sir! Chief is here! And fighting! And water!” Tsuna wailed without waiting for Kusakabe to greet him.

“We’ll be right there,” Kusakabe said with an unnatural degree of calm. Presumably, they could track his phone’s GPS to fight out where ‘here’ was.

Tsuna did not pay this or the end of the call any mind. Screeching, he threw himself aside just in time to avoid a lashing water tentacle that struck down the alley. The heavy industrial dumpster which took the hit in his stead was dented into a rough V and was thrown free of where it had been chained down.

This was it, the real deal. A real monster or supernatural phenomenon or ghost or whatever. Tsuna’s internal whining about his boring con artist job had finally been answered.

And now he was going to die for it.

But before the next water whip could turn Tsuna into another rough V shape, Hibari forcefully punted him aside. …Well, no. Despite the pain, all his organs were still intact, so it wasn’t that forceful, really. Ah, Chief, so merciful…

“Useless!” Hibari barked, but he didn’t have the attention to spare for the glaring that usually accompanied such a pronouncement. Although he was still fighting with relentless intensity, even a useless wimp like Tsuna could see that he was being forced back step by step.

Distantly, he considered drawing his own weapon, but really, what good would it do?

And in the middle of the chaos, it began to rain.

It came down suddenly and heavily, almost blinding Tsuna. And even though the volume of water added shouldn’t have made any difference yet, the wave blocking the alleyway and advancing on Hibari swelled and reared up.

‘Oh no,’ Tsuna thought, just before it crashed down over both of them, completely disregarding Hibari’s last attack.

Blub, blub, blub — a few bubbles sprang free before Tsuna managed to clamp his mouth shut. The underwater currents sent him spinning head over heels, and he was vaguely surprised that he hadn’t been thrown into any of the buildings. The alley had been narrow, after all, and despite having lost his bearings, he thought that he had already floated quite a ways. When he tried to pry his eyes open, he couldn’t see anything at all.

A pale hand shot out of the dark water and grabbed hold of his jacket collar.

It was Hibari. He glared at Tsuna, then twisted — and somehow, in defiance of all laws of physics, hurled him away. Before Tsuna knew what was happening, he shot out from beneath the surface and crashed onto a ledge a couple stories up. Rain was pelting down in full now, driven by gusting winds. Rolling onto his hands and knees, Tsuna scrambled up to the edge and looked down at the flood water that ran along the streets.

“Ch… Chief!” he called out. “Chief!!”

He needed to do something! But he couldn’t do anything! Tsuna wailed helplessly.

With an ear-splitting screech, a car skidded around the corner down the street. It sent sheets of water flying, making Tsuna realize with some surprise that the flooding was not nearly as high as he had expected. It was only just above a person’s knees. Even accounting for a strong current, how in the world could Hibari have been swept away…?

Right. Supernatural monster thing.

Even before the large black car had jerked to a stop, the rear door was flung open and Chrome, looking tiny and delicate as always, jumped out onto the rainy street. A long trident appeared in her hand — Tsuna felt sure she hadn’t been carrying it inside the car, since how could she have moved so smoothly with it? And then, just as she landed on the wet asphalt, Chrome… turned into a man.

Okay.

Twirling the trident over his head, guy-Chrome (??) slammed its tail into the pavement, and a shockwave rippled out all the way down the street.

The rain was sent flying. The water was sent flying. Tsuna was sent flying, barely managing to stay on his ledge — the fall was the kind that killed normal people.

There was a long silence as even the storm was momentarily halted.

Then, something landed on top of Tsuna’s head with a wet plunk and bounced off. It wasn’t rain. Left wiggling helplessly on the ledge was a single ordinary goldfish.

It wasn’t single for long. A veritable torrent of goldfish soon followed it down, covering the entire street in piles of flopping little bodies. The largest pile stirred, and Hibari rose up out of it, looking particularly murderous and also entirely too threatening for someone with fish in his hair.

“Kufufufu,” guy-Chrome laughed mockingly. “No need to thank me, ‘Chief’. How could I possibly leave you to struggle on your own with just your meager power? Kufufu…”

Tsuna’s first thought that guy-Chrome clearly wanted to die very much, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Without giving Hibari a chance to brutally murder him, guy-Chrome swiftly turned back into normal Chrome, his creepy laughter still echoing in the air. Chrome looked at the Chief wide-eyed, clutching the trident’s shaft to her chest.

Hibari, waist-deep in goldfish and under the pleading stare of a cute girl, gritted his teeth and, kicking his way free, stalked toward Kusakabe, who had emerged from the large black car’s driver’s seat.

“Deal with this,” he ordered Kusakabe, passing by Chrome without a look at her and stepping into the still open rear door of the car. The car door slammed shut behind him.

Then, it opened again, and Ryohei was unceremoniously flug out, followed by another slam.

Wordlessly, Kusakabe pulled out his cellphone and began to make arrangements.

Clearing his throat, Tsuna called out, “Um… Excuse me? Could someone… help me get down?”

~.~.~

The next day, the Chief did not come in and the Deputy Chief was away as well, probably handling some kind of cleanup and explanations to their superiors. Regardless, the office gossip circle reconvened with impunity.

“It’s so sad,” Kyoko sighed. “Those poor fish… I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to look at those festival stalls the same way again.”

It turned out that the water monster, which drew in a storm and flooded several locations across Namimori, had been created out of the accumulated resentment of all the goldfish that had been flushed down toilets over the years. Many of them had come from the summer festivals and the traditional dish scooping booths. Kids and couples and who knows who else would win themselves a goldfish in a bag, only to realize they didn’t actually want one after they got home.

So down the toilet the fish would go, and its little resentful goldfish spirit would haunt the sewers, schooling together with its countless wronged brethren. Until they had enough to make an entire monster.

Tsuna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Hahaha… yeah, same,” Yamamoto agreed. “I’m just sad I missed it. But hey, good on Sawada for having his first real encounter, huh? So how was it? Exciting?”

“Uh… I wouldn’t really call it that,” Tsuna said. “Did you think it was exciting, when you had your first, uh, encounter?”

“Yeah! It was great!” Yamamoto said, laughing.

Uncharitably, Tsuna enforced the ‘crazy adrenaline junky’ label in his mind. He’d suspected as much. After all, Yamamoto was good looking, popular, and talented. Why else would he stay at this kind of job?

“Did you even do anything?” Gokudera asked dubiously.

“I… called Deputy Chief Kusakabe?” Tsuna said, thinking for a moment. “I think Chief lost his own phone, so we had to use mine.”

“That’s good!” Kyoko encouraged. “The first I went out on a case I just got kidnapped…” She laughed self-deprecatingly.

Feeling daring after facing death by monster the day before, Tsuna patted her on the shoulder and offered her a smile in return. “Let’s work hard,” he suggested.

“Yeah!” Kyoko agreed brightly.

The warm glowey feeling of camaraderie sustained Tsuna through the day and writing this time’s incident report, which was more nerve-wracking than usual, given the need to avoid putting anything that might make the Chief look not absolutely terrifying and invincible. Tsuna felt he did pretty good at that, so it was utterly unfair that the Chief appeared anyway, as if summoned by the mere thought of him.

Instead of striding straight from the elevator to his office like usual, looking neither left nor right as if his minions, er, employees didn’t even exist — which was how both sides preferred it — Hibari paused mid-step and took a sharp turn, heading for Tsuna’s desk.

Tsuna watched him approach in mute shock. So did everyone else. It was only when Hibari came to a stop slightly further than necessary from him that Kyoko, Yamamoto, Gokudera and Ryohei remembered to snap their heads away and furiously pretend to be busy and not eavesdropping with their ears pricked.

Naturally, Tsuna wanted to turn away too, but he didn’t dare. Jumping to his feet, back ramrod straight, he saluted instead. “Ch-Chief!"

He also didn’t dare to ask what Hibari wanted.

The silence stretched on.

”…You,“ Hibari said finally.

"Yes!” Tsuna sweated intensely.

“Are you quitting?"

The question was blunt and simple, but also so unexpected that Tsuna only stared at his boss in confusing. "Am I being fired…?” he wondered.

“No,” Hibari said.

“Um,” Tsuna said. “Then… also no…?”

The Chief pinned him with an unreadable (terrifying) look for far too long, before finally nodding sharply. “Good,” he allowed. It was glowing praise for Hibari, and Tsuna had no idea what to do with it. Turning on his heel, his boss strode away just as abruptly as he had come, leaving Tsuna feeling like he’d managed to escape death — as usual.

“Great job, Tsuna-kun!” Kyoko said, giving him a thumbs up. He returned it numbly.

“Yeah, great job! You didn’t ditch like the last three new guys!” Yamamoto said. Rolling over, he threw an arm over Tsuna’s shoulders. “Now you’re one of us for real!”

…Oh! Was that what it had been about?

Well, it was true that a normal person would have probably run away screaming after their first encounter with a real supernatural being. Probably, the Committee had lost many recruits that way. Tsuna also… somewhat wanted to run away.

But the hazard pay was very high.

And, frankly, the monster was still better than a job interview. At least it didn’t stare into his soul and demand, in various ways without pause, that he justify his place in society and his right to exist.

Even though it was equal parts ridiculous and terrifying… he thought he just might like this job.

~.~.~

#kyogre-blue #khr #khr!#katekyo hitman reborn!#hitman reborn #Katekyoshi Hitman Reborn #gift #exchange #summer #holidays #story #fanart #fanfiction #drabble #vongola #submission

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5 Stupid Things We Need To Stop Clicking On

We are living through the final gasps of the Information Age. Experts estimate that 62 percent of all information we now receive is deliberately false, and that includes the percentage and experts I made up at the start of this sentence. The sad truth is, most of you will never have the critical thinking or research skills to know what’s real, and that will only make you more sure about the wrong things your stupid ass believes. The good news is that this article isn’t about that shit. The fake news fight is over, and stupid won. No, this article is about the dumb things we all keep falling for — even you, the genius who chose the right political side and religion.

Pointlessly Insane Products Are Not That At All

Last year, Tiffany & Co. started selling the Sterling Silver Tin Can, an empty can that costs $1,000. You’ll notice that this is far more than you’d normally pay for soupless garbage. To be clear, this wasn’t some tin can that once held Prince’s final green beans. It’s only a can. As an artistic statement, it was 50 years stale, and as a money-making scheme, it was somewhere between a portable diarrhea box and that same product without a lid. It’s the kind of idea that would make the other Saved By The Bell writers say, “Look, if you’re not ready to come back to work, take more time off to deal with the death of your son.” The point I’m making is that it’s hard not to comment on Tiffany’s silly can, and that’s more appealing to Tiffany & Co. than when we comment on how the people who mined their products all died of slavery.

“Darling, I was part of many souls transcending penetration to transform a utilitarian men’s room into an installment of signature Tiffany oeuvre.” — this Tiffany copywriter explaining to his wife why there are seven colors of pubic hair in his underpants

Read Next

8 Baffling Poop-Themed Toys Kids Are Lining Up To Buy

And it’s not only tin cans and Wu-Tang albums that are marketed in intentionally strange ways. Food advertisers have figured out that they can get more attention by being ridiculous than by being delicious. Remember when KFC used fried chicken as sandwich bread in the Double Down? Or when Chick-Fil-A announced that their fried chicken hated gay people with the Cajun Titty Jiggler? We all made fun of them, but they absolutely did not care. These are people turning pigeon meat and “deported” foreign nationals into nugget shapes. They’ll take any press they can get.

We need to stop doing this. It’s very possible the only conversation any of us had or will ever have about Dr. Pepper came when they released a special version of their soda for men only. We all went on Twitter to say things like, “Forbidding women from tasting Dr. Pepper Ten will only delay the discovery that it’s made from semen, not stop it completely.” We asked questions like, “Why would you make a soda for men only? Are you trying to find the perfect drink to pair with losing custody of your kids?” Or maybe you simply speculated, “Dr. Pepper Ten sounds like the refreshing treat you reach for when defending an accused rapist you haven’t met.”

SORRY LADIES, OUR CREATIVE DIRECTOR IS STILL DEALING WITH SOME CHILDHOOD TRAUMA INVOLVING PENISES.

Products should make the customer happy, not be so deliberately dumb that the customer hears about them during a Jimmy Kimmel monologue. You shouldn’t make every tenth new Oreo out of cat suppository in the desperate hope that cookie influencers tweet about it. And pizza, you especially need to get your shit together.

In 2012, a Pizza Hut employee happened upon the idea of a hot-dog-stuffed crust, quite by accident, when his manager caught him fucking a pizza and demanded an explanation. This marked the last time there would ever be a non-insane pizza invention. Today, pizza marketing is a series of deranged innovations, like a serial killer’s journey toward becoming the Minotaur. For instance, Pizza Hut created “smart” shoes that place an order for you. Aside from getting the elderly to wonder what they’re going to come up with next, what the fuck good do pizza shoes do anyone? If you have a use for ordering Pizza Hut via shoe, your foot is going to fall off from diabetes long before you get to do it a second time.

And did you know that Domino’s spent millions of dollars promoting something called “carryout insurance?” It’s what it sounds like — a financial guarantee that when your sloppy ass drops a pizza, they give you another one. Aside from getting us to mention how dumb that is, what’s the point? Was there a community of fat idiots eating pizza off the ground and demanding their representatives do something? Let’s say it’s just to set your mind at ease. Let’s pretend you’re thinking about ordering Domino’s, but decide against it because you’re always dropping pizza. Will this convince you? Of course not. You’re not even here. You were taken in the night by mad scientists, and now you’re a lump of brain tissue labelled “HISTORY’S SADDEST FUCK.”

“CARRYOUT INSURANCE!? Hey, boss? Yeah, I just found a loophole that gives me unlimited floor pizza. So what I’m saying is you can kiss my ass.“

All Things “Of The Year” Are Arbitrary Decisions Made By Small Teams Of Random Assholes

We are living in the darkest of times. Our current sexiest man alive looks like a rectangle who makes its living hustling milk-drinking contests.

“I’m digesting four gallons of Half & Half. Hi, I’m Blake Shelton, your sexiest man alive.”

When People magazine announced hoedown music standout Blake Shelton as the sexiest man alive while Casper Van Dien was still not dead, it hit like a bomb. Every Twitter account and Safeway express lane had a hot take on it. It wasn’t merely controversial; it was a direct challenge to what vaginal lubrication even meant. What will it do to society if passably handsome NASCAR dads are the new standard of sexy? Do we need to stop doing sit-ups? Will there be enough denim?

What will Casper Van Dien do with this boner?

You know what we should have been doing that whole time? Not giving a shit about how handsome Blake Shelton is. Don’t get me wrong, Blake Shelton is alright. His condoms probably don’t expire, and if he was arrested for sodomizing a dairy cow, you’d think “Him?” But let’s not play games. He’s not the sexiest man alive. At best, he’s “Oklahoma’s Hottest Mostly Ham DNA.” But we should remember that this isn’t some great honor decided by measuring the gonad stimulation of test subjects. “Sexiest Man Alive” is picked by four or five editors desperately trying to hang onto print media jobs, and every now and then one of them is smart enough to say, “What if we trolled everyone?” With all respect to Blake Shelton’s fuckability, if you died trying to teach a prosthetic arm how to give a handjob, the People staff would write your name up on the “Sexiest Man Alive MAYBES” board.

It’s important to keep in mind how meaningless these titles are before we get outraged. Before Donald Trump, Time gave its 2006 “Person of the Year” title to You, as in the second-person pronoun. And in 1938 they gave it to Hitler, the Donald Trump of 1938. These are meaningless choices meant to inspire terrible conversations between uninteresting people. Did you think LaTonya from Fayetteville was chosen as Jet ‘s “Beauty of the Week” because of her winning tits and smile? Wake up. It’s because her face tattoo says “Abortion is Bae.” Please, all of us, we have to stop getting outsmarted by the Jet magazines of the world.

It’s Not An Event When Fictional Characters Die

In 1992, DC Comics killed Superman — an invincible ventriloquist with laser eyes, frost breath, and chronosphere-bending flight speed — with a rock monster who was pretty good at punching. Despite it being the third time he had died, the country went into mourning and the story was picked up by the actual news. Which was weird, because if the media wanted to cover upsetting Superman stories, where were they when his girlfriend got turned into a pony and fucked his horse?

I think about this every day. Every day.

Why are we so obsessed with fictional deaths? Most of the time, they’re not even real in the make-believe universe in which they happen. Captain America and Batman die around 20 times a year, each in different combinations of fake-outs, resurrections, and universe reboots. If a dead guy’s best friends own a time machine and the Eye of Agamotto, you can probably hold off on making funeral plans. And if your favorite character dies on The Walking Dead, maybe don’t waste an hour watching Chris Hardwick cry until you see the body.

It should help you relax knowing that most fictional deaths are only abusive pranks, but the “real” ones are about as meaningless.

I mean, you knew there wasn’t going to be any more Firefly. This death cost us maybe two wisecracks.

Remember when Han Solo died? He was a 73-year-old laser gun fighter scheduled to get his own movie in three years. His death was both long overdue and completely inconsequential to the amount of Han Solo you will continue to see on your TV. His father-in-law, Darth Vader, was on screen for about 36 minutes before he died in 1983, and since his death, there have been more Anakin Skywalker stories than anyone could ever want. Anakin Skywalker is the Nicolas Cage of outer space. He stopped making good movies three decades ago, yet he’s still everywhere and radiating inexplicable cosmic energy.

If George R. R. Martin went on TV to announce that a meteor hit Westeros between books and everyone in A Song Of Ice And Fire is gone, how is that different from the world you’re living in now? The guy has clearly wanted to focus more on snacks for about four books. You know what’s sadder than seeing Ned Stark get his head chopped off? Watching some fragile-hearted slob go through the stages of grief in a YouTube video afterwards. Parents, if your child is filming themselves weep over a make-believe death, that’s a bigger failure than if your child is filming themselves pee into a tube sock for Patreon supporters. I mean, you can do whatever you want, but when you cry over fake people whom you can still see every day for as long as you want, you’re only sending a message to the people around you that you’re a dramatic piece of shit. But I know something that will cheer you up!

Being Special Is Free

That’s right, I said it.

You’re welcome.

It’s pretty easy to sell someone nothing more than the idea that they’re special or important for actual money. For example, somewhere right now, a Todd is looking through a rack of keychains to see if they have one with his name on it. “I hope they have a Todd,” he might announce as he thumbs through dusty garbage. “They do! And it’s spelled right!” So Todd will buy it, a cute reminder of the worst store in the least interesting part of a city he once visited, and it will never occur to him that an Indonesian factory gambled and won that a completely shitty Todd would one day pay money to remind himself of his own name. This next part is way off-topic, but not even the Indonesians could have foreseen that this keychain would one day be used to frame Todd …

… for Toddslaughter.

Back to the point I was trying to make: We are all susceptible to this crap. Coke had its first sales increase in more than a decade when it introduced the idea of adding the customers’ stupid fucking names to their cans and bottles. And the internet has been haunted by ego-stroking personality quizzes and IQ tests since before we used it to pay girls peeing into tube socks. We are so desperate to be told we’re special that we will suspend all disbelief and critical thinking to hear it. You should know that answering a few simple personality questions does not make you the coolest ninja turtle, and you shouldn’t trust the scores of an IQ test that you watched yourself cheat on which also advertises free Slavic women and four new pounds of dick girth.

One of my favorite examples of this, and favorite things in general, is an online community called Intertel — “An International Society of the Intellectually Gifted.” It’s very difficult to get in. You can only join if you score in the top 1 percent of any self-administered intelligence test and mail in a $10 application fee. You may have considered that this in fact checks to see whether you’re stupid enough to mail in a test with a 98 percent score or less and nothing else. If you get accepted, you then pay a $39 annual fee to be a part of a genius club for people who are very specifically not. What do you get? I’m so glad you asked. For the annual fee, you get unlimited pity and the right to post a photo and bio about your unusually gullible self. It has created an avalanche of unearned ego that looks like a late ’90s Casper Van Dien fan page whose webmaster went mysteriously missing.

Image courtesy of the estate of the Casper Van Dien Fan Page & Genius Community webmaster.

OK, no, but seriously, this next image is a real screenshot from the Inertel (An International Society of the Intellectually Gifted) website. This is a real person who really thinks he’s in the 1 percent of intellectual elites, and this is his real profile.

I didn’t doctor this. This is what an actual genius named BigJim369 pays $39 a year to display. Fuck! This world is magic and you get to live in it!

Another business that exploits your love of yourself on a massive, sprawling scale is the pop-up museum industry. The name implies that there are things to do or learn inside them, but they’re more like oversized photo booths than art galleries. For instance, if you take a trip to the zany, world-famous Museum of Ice Cream, you will learn zero to one things about ice cream and eat ice cream worth $45 less than the entry ticket. What you will do is wait in line to take photos of yourself next to what you’d describe in any other context as “nothing of interest.” So to be clear, we are so self-obsessed that it’s now an effective business model to charge us money to take pictures of ourselves so we can promote you online.

You didn’t fool ME, Museum of Ice Cream. But my family loved it. Five stars.

Stop Making It Seem Like There Are Nazis

OK, so the world has enough idiot racists to elect Donald Trump president, but not all of those voters were full white supremacists. Some of them were simply too religious to know when someone is lying or too old to change their mind about politics. And yes, a troubling number of them were Nazis. But in a lot of ways, most things are fine and the world isn’t as awful as you think.

You’re welcome again.

Impossibly shitty people, like the Trump supporters who took that Garfield mug personally, seem like they’re everywhere. A lot of that is our fault — the decent people making fun of them. They use us to amplify their voices, like Han Solo (R.I.P.) convincing a hallway of Stormtroopers that he’s way more people than he actually is. Every few minutes, a website publishes a variation on the article “These Miserable Fucks Said Something Racist About A Thing And Got Annihilated By Twitter.” They’re fun and vaguely heroic, but if you read more than one, you’ll start to see that they all share the same content. It’s the same three or four racist tweets quoted in every article, tweeted by the same three or four racists who “attacked” the Star Wars with the Asian girl and “staged boycotts” of the all-lady Ghostbusters. We need to stop treating these three or four people like they’re a threat to anything other than skewing PornHub’s algorithm to favor mother-son incest.

BREAKING NEWS: Local high school’s least-likable prick still making quite a spectacle out his irrelevant awfulness.

Here’s a reassuring fact: A study of Reddit found that 1 percent of communities were responsible for 74 percent of all conflict. We are taking the intentionally ignorant comments of a Kia’s worth of debate club hobbyists and pretending they’re a tidal wave of hate we must stand together against. The “alt-right” movement is 30 boys too cranky to date and too slow to learn Dungeons & Dragons. Their supporters are a toxic group of gamers who will disappear once they turn 17, and their media outlet is a cable network whose entire audience will be dead in two more flu seasons. All these people want is for the other side to get upset, so if we stop writing thinkpieces about the rise of dapper white nationalism and focus more on how liberals hate suicide cults, we can be rid of them almost immediately.

BREAKING NEWS: C-word who only tweets C-wordy antisemitic things DOES!

Ann Coulter is a good example. She’s the skeletal remains of antique intolerance, and she has about as much cultural influence as Corey Feldman’s band, Oral Thrush and the Yeast 2000s. Has she ever done anything other than hiss wrong things at impatient TV personalities or pretend that clinical antisemitism is antisemitic comedy? She only seems like she is a thing because 10,000 of us dunk on the bitch every time she blames her oral thrush on the Jews. Without all of us explaining to each other how wrong she is, Coulter would just be wandering through Home Depot to see if there are any white employees she can ask about the toilet safety rails. And soon she would be hatching spider eggs in her mouth while her parakeet watched her body rot. “Rawk! The Jews are at it again!” it would repeat to her undiscovered corpse. “The Jews are at it again!”

We all seem to get how dumb it is when the news says “teens” are doing a comically apeshit thing like human centipede parties or detergent eating. Why can’t we use those same giant brains to figure out how one Nazi nerd looking for attention isn’t “the Right”? I know it’s tough to resist trolls, but Kim Kardashian owning all the world’s money should have taught you that there is virtue in shutting the fuck up about some things. We need to stay strong not in the battle against the “alt-right,” but in the battle to ignore them. The next time you see another column about how women won’t date conservative men, leave it alone. Let those dickless Nazis keep writing versions of that article into the empty void until they learn evil causes women to dry up. And the next time someone on your Facebook thread defends their Second Amendment rights after a school shooting, don’t validate their child murder fandom with attention. Move your cursor to the left and click on their mother’s profile. Pose as Blake Shelton, win her moist trust, and quietly destroy that child-murderer’s family. Every one of us can shut up and make a difference.

Seanbaby invented being funny on the Internet. You can follow him on Twitter, or play his hit mobile game Calculords.

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