Needs Met, page 04

[erinptah]

Title: Needs Met, page 04
Rating: PG (post-coital cuddling)
Characters/Pairings: "Stephen"/Jon, l!"Stephen"/Jon, l!"Stephen"/"Stephen"
Disclaimer: This is a work of parody. Although reference is made to real persons, the dialogue, actions, and content are products of the artist's imagination only.

For some reason LJ insists on displaying the strips at something like 90% size. Not a big deal, but if the text is ever hard to read or anything, try the DA link for the full-size version.

This is supposed to be a couple of weeks later, thus the changes in clothing.




Also here on DA, with links to the rest.

Comments

[seagullsong.livejournal.com]

JONS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT IS A BAD IDEA I THINK.

[erinptah]

YOU THINK RIGHT.

And that is all I will say for now. SPOILERS, Y'KNOW.

[sirdrakesheir.livejournal.com]

WELL, THAT'S NOT OKAY AT ALL, JONS DDDD:

[seagullsong.livejournal.com]

I KNOW WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY THINKING? D:

[inspirine.livejournal.com]

OH NO. THIS DOESN'T SOUND GOOD. :(

[erinptah]

Nnnnope. Not good at all.

[secretpianist.livejournal.com]

It took ages for me to get this and then it suddenly 'clicked'. And now I'm quite disturbed!

[erinptah]

Eeeeexcellent. *fly hands*

[sarcasticsra]

JONS. WTF ARE YOU DOING. STOP RIGHT THERE.

*SITS ON EDGE OF HER SEAT*

[erinptah]

Nicely put.

*fly hands!*

[punkishgrin.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I'm having trouble summoning any feelings of dread... mostly because I'm totally turned-on^_^

I guess if two of four partners know about it... it's only half-cheating??


And, this is completely off the subject, but I keep trying to find this one fic you wrote about how the different "Stephens" would have fared in the "Expecting" 'verse (I think) and all I remember is that happy!Stephen ended up being murdered before any of that could take place... Help?

[erinptah]

XD Fair enough. Your Kink Is Okay.

Um, in the normal situation, only one of the two partners knows about it, and that's still considered full cheating...

But in this case there's also the complication that each Stephen will unknowingly end up sleeping with someone they didn't consent to sleep with. How dreadful you think that is depends a lot on whether you think the two Jons count as the same person.




Are you thinking of Four Fics That Never Would Have Worked In The Liberalverse, And One That Actually Might Work Better? It's all l!Stephen, but one of them is Expectingverse, and another involves character death.

[greenpixiehair.livejournal.com]

OH NO. JONS? NOT FUNNY ANYMORE. STOP PLAYING NOW. YOUR STEPHENS ARE DELICATE. THIS WHOLE THING YOU HAVE IS BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONE PERSON(S) THEY CAN TRUST

Ok, now I'm waiting breathlessly for the next one.

[erinptah]

You're basically quoting future strips, here :D

Haha, if you think this is a cliffhanger, wait till you see how the next one ends...

[shoebox_addict]

Ooooh, did they switch?! This is getting interesting!

[erinptah]

They did! And it only gets twistier from here...

[wishflower4.livejournal.com]

I'm, like, twelfth-ing the cries of "NO, BAD." Dammit, Jons, you're supposed to be smarter than that.

[erinptah]

I gotta say, I actually had fun coming up with a story where it was Jon(s) who did the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Thing, and Stephen(s) who had to figure out how to cope/forgive/pick up the pieces.

[gaiafaye.livejournal.com]

Can I just say I'm happy to be a part of a fandom that understands there are consent issues present here? Because I totally am.

I liked the cute/funny stuff before this, but this strip made me go, "Uh-wha??" Eager to see where it goes.

[erinptah]

Hear hear. (Now the only question is, will people consider the issues mild enough that the Stephens' reaction is overkill, or will they not feel like the Stephens take it far enough?)

It goes...unusual places. But hopefully while pulling off a few more cute/funny moments along the way.

[ntjnke.livejournal.com]

I love that the fact that you drew Stephen a little hippy in panel 5. It's one of my favorite parts of his physique, and a shame that he works so hard to cover it up.

Waiting for more!

[erinptah]

Heh, I like hips =3

More is on the way!

[jmie.livejournal.com]

You know, I really, really do love this little comic strip to pieces. And at first, when I realized what the Jons were going to do, I thought, "Oh, that's so cute, they're curious about the other half of their Stephen" which quickly turned into, "wait, consent, legal rape, crap," etc.

And now I just want to see if any of it is going to be worth it on the Jons' behalf and how the Stephens are going to react, because this entire comic strip has been like a little mindfuck of the good variety.

At first I didn't think that c!Stephen was going to let l!Stephen have at him, but he did. I think one of the things that made that incident a few weeks ago was so well thought out; 3/4 people had a safeword, and it had all this loving preparation, tender touching of cheeks, etc. I was also pleasantly surprised that l!Stephen let the two Jons play together, after that one chapter of that one story (specificity, ftw!) where we find that l!Stephen wants to give monogamy a try after admitting something to the effect of, "if I ever caught you [Jon] kissing anyone else, I'd want to smash his big, dumb head in with Sweetness."

So, yeah, no idea where this is going to end up or how things are going to end up (I don't know if it's because I'm more familiar with him, but I do really feel for c!Stephen when this all breaks down, if only because he seems like he needs a double layer of protection, having had two safewords and all,) but I'm looking forward to beholding the cluster!fuck or whatever may occur.

You know, I have to admit that I always did like in your fics how Jon was never the perfect saint, able to heal all. Of course I wish that the possible consequences weren't so grave, but freaking score for plot and interesting dynamics, at least, maybe?

Whoo, comic strip! Good luck, characters. I can't say which two of you are going to need it the most, at this point. >>

[erinptah]

Ah, yes, the third chapter of Puppy Love :P I have a feeling that l!Stephen considers the Jons playing together to be basically masturbation, at least as far as "does it make me jealous?" is concerned.

I've been wondering if anyone would comment on the double-safeword thing. I'm pretty sure Stephen has never safeworded in the Needverse (oi, sarcasticsra, there's a plotbunny for you), and while there's no indication in any of those stories that he would have wanted to, it's also not clear that he would if he did. And the fact that, here, Jon doesn't trust that he will, to the point of having a safeword of his own as a backup...

On one level, it's sweet and heartwarming that Jon is so in tune with c!Stephen's desires. But on another, the fact that c!Stephen is so heavily reliant on Jon to read his mind (and also makes l!Stephen guess what he wants, rather than spelling it out) is A Bad Thing. Especially when this story really drives home how badly Jon can screw it up when unchecked.

(The l!Stephen/Jon relationship has imbalances of its own, which will hopefully become clear in the next couple of strips, for people who haven't figured them out already...)

Yeah, this is going to be a catastrof@#k, all right. These crazy kids need all the luck they can get.

[nelleellen.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not part of the culture...

Is it bad form for a Dom to have more than one sub? Or for a sub to have multiple Doms? Or does that really depend on the people/relationships involved?

[erinptah]

I'm not part of the culture either, but my money's on "totally depends on the people." As with vanilla relationships, you get people who are into varying degrees of polyamory.

In my head, c!Stephen would enjoy the dynamics of having multiple Doms (as long as they were well-coordinated enough not to give him contradicting orders, because that would freak him out), but get jealous easily if any of them had other subs. While l!Stephen would get twitchy if there were other Doms in the picture (although he might turn that itself into fantasy fuel, as in "some evil Dom kidnaps and hurts my sub, until I come to the rescue"), and in theory would enjoy the idea of having a whole passel of subs, but in practice has his hands full with the one.