Are you a fan of Ben Schwartz? Want to talk about Sonic, Renfield, The Afterparty, Parks & Rec, or the Ben Schwartz & Friends tour? Come join the Ben Schwartz Cinematic Universe discord. We are a small server full of very nice people and we do weekly watch parties of Ben-related media. And there are sometimes cool projects like this upcoming fan zine run by @benschwartzcinematicuniverse (the original creator of the discord).
I'm not posing the link publicly to avoid attracting spambots, but please feel free to send me or @deaddeerdonoteat an ask or a DM if you want to be added!
Yasper E. Lennov is buying himself an $8 beverage. I must, he rationalizes. Otherwise I will get heatstroke. He returns to his air-conditioned apartment.
Theme: Ben Schwartz characters in the wrong Ben Schwartz universe (ie: Sonic in the sewer with the turtles, Tony Scarapiducci dealing with the Lobos and Dracula, Jean Ralphio ninth grade ninja)
Art: drawings, sketches, doodles, collages, short fic (think one shot or drabble)
No AI. Must be your original fanwork creation.
You must clearly state how you’d like to be credited and please title your creation (there will be a credits page)
It means nothing but I will hype the sh!t out of your art. No required skill level. Just bring your love of Ben/Ben characters and let it translate
Submit to [email protected] OR message privately here on the bscu tumblr
Deadline August 31 (3 months away!) The goal is for completion by Ben’s birthday in September.
I will be piecing it together with EZM and posting both on itch.io as a free download fully credited and here on tumblr as images with instructions on how to fold if printed. I will also email the files to everyone who submits.
Style and size will depend on number of submissions. Anyone who would like a hand in designing the layout once all pieces are received can message me.
Any questions can be dropped in the comments or messaged privately.
This is a zine both to celebrate the man but also connect the community
Me either until I did. JOIN US. Pretty soon you’ll be sitting back and looking at the super rad thing we made together. JOIN US. Shoot me any questions below or to my inbox. J̷̯̹̘̠͕̫̮̀̄̋̿͂̃Ơ̶̤̺̚ͅI̶̳̪͖̿̄̌̾͊̾̒̈́͘͝N̷̨̛̜̺̦͖̻̖͗̈̐͒̂̕ ̴̨̡̺̬̰̝͚̰̝̈́͑̓̇̊͌͘̕͜͝Ư̷͚̘͈͍͔̅̿̈́̕S̸̛̱̼͖̰͇̱͉͙̃͒̀͛ͅ.̴̡̻̠̦̖̓̾̋̎ͅ
Aniq contemplates his future. Aniq and Xavier finally come to an understanding (after a generous amount of snipping at each other). Yasper, left to his own devices, invents a new drink and gets touchy-touchy. LOTS of thoughts below the cut.
At long last, we get a window into Aniq's mind. He is still wrestling with the same questions that have that has been troubling him since before Yasper got stuck in the time loop with him: What does it mean that he still wants Yasper to be a part of his life? How can he reconcile the Yasper he knew with the Yasper who killed a man? (aka the Multiple Yaspers conundrum)
This chapter picks up right after Aniq has to hole up in the panic room (for the second time) as a result of stress and overstimulation. We have the Yasper Go To Therapy tag (though I'm not sure if any of the works in it actually feature Yasper going to therapy... yet...) but I think I should start an "Aniq has Generalized Anxiety Disorder" tag.
Part of why I think Yasper and Aniq are so good for each other is that their respective neuroses kind of cancel each other out. Yasper, who struggles with honesty and impulse control, is more grounded with Aniq as his conscience. Aniq, whose instinct is to over-plan, catastrophize, and ration his joy, benefits greatly from Yasper pushing him to live more in the moment. (Whether intentional or not, "Is this the song from that movie with the lesbians?" is an extremely effective way of pulling Aniq out of his head.)
It is absurdly impressive that Aniq generated a ~10-word mnemonic device on the spot to remember the sequence of buttons he needs to press to listen in on the interviews. It cracks me up so much that Yasper in the show is like, "What is that? I don't like it. Is that a porno?"
We are seeing some emotional growth from Yasper this chapter: there are at least two instances where Aniq announces his intention to do something by himself and Yasper does not whine about it. Non-codependent king.
In the show, Xavier never actually apologizes to Chelsea (and she says she doesn't want his "weak apology"). In an earlier chapter, Yasper and Aniq figured out that they could get Xavier to properly apologize if they coached Chelsea a little bit first. I think it is clear from Xavier's body language that he feels guilty over what he did to her, even though in the show, he is unable to admit that to himself (or to fully own up to his actions).
Speaking of owning up to your actions... Writing the Xavier/Aniq dialogue was a lot of fun, but also tricky to find the right balance of animosity and reconciliation. How smart do I make Xavier? Under what circumstances would he grow hostile or thaw out? What does it take to cut through the bullshit? Xavier is so committed to the public illusion that he is above it all--unbothered by anything that happened in high school. Everyone else (except Brett) plays along, for the most part. But it's impossible to have a real conversation with Xavier-the-persona.
The Xavier/Aniq beef has layers upon layers (personality conflict, class, race, their respective positions in the high school social hierarchy, etc) but at the center of it all is Yasper. I don't think Aniq fully realized it until he was naming it. The show doesn't explicitly say that Yasper and Eugene dated, but it treats Ska-Pe Diem's breakup like it was something resembling the end of a romantic relationship. I think you can headcanon Yasper and Eugene as exes, or just as dysfunctional, codependent ex-friends. This fic falls somewhere in the middle (from an earlier chapter: "in high school, we used to make out sometimes"). Aniq is unaware of anything romantic; he just senses that Eugene's resentment of Aniq stemmed from jealousy over Aniq's closeness with Yasper.
Eugene "I didn't say bitch because I'm a feminist" Duckworth Jr.'s version of feminism is "when women feel empowered to have sex with Xavier."
Aniq Foot-in-mouth Adjaye my beloved, accidentally implying that he came to the reunion because he was in love with Xavier.
Another interesting question that I got to explore in this chapter: What are Xavier's feelings for Yasper, after all this time? We never see the true answer, though if we take Danner's summation of the bar conversation at face value, it seems like Xavier feels some degree of resentment over how the friendship ended.
On a related note, I don't know if anyone caught this (it may have been too subtle, but I couldn't figure out how to make it less subtle), but there was a little Yasvier easter egg in this exchange (“So, you, uh, you said you were here for love, or whatever…” / “Zoë’s wonderful. I do really care about her. I just don’t know if it’s in the cards for us.” / “Oh. That’s not… Nevermind. Uh, you should go for it, or whatever. Zoë’s really nice.”). Xavier had assumed that Aniq was talking about Yasper when he said he came to the reunion for love, and that was salient enough that he brought it up again unprompted.
In his own vague way, Xavier owned up to his actions during the St. Patrick's Day party--that he took his anger at Yasper out on Aniq, and that his actions had far-reaching impacts. He wanted to hurt Aniq, but he didn't fully appreciate the consequences of pressing charges.
Aniq and Xavier's conversation does not end with apologies, but it ends with understanding. This is not a fic where they become friends, and that's okay. Xavier's WhatsApp is full.
There's a bit in one of @deaddeerdonoteat's fics about how Yasper needs an audience for his unfiltered thoughts, but does not necessarily require that audience be paying attention, which is such a funny insight. I think that Yasper would extend the same "courtesy" to Aniq (e.g. Yasper encouraging Aniq to monologue at him about a Winston Churchill quote despite his lack of interest in the substance)
I couldn't resist making drunk!Yasper a little cuddly. He is sooo touchy in the show. But tragically, when your best friend finds out that you killed someone and got him suspected of murder, suddenly you can't go climbing into his lap anymore. I could probably write a whole essay about the role of touch in this fic… So far, the physical contact has mostly been at Aniq's initiation (because Yasper feels like he's forfeited his Aniq-touching privileges) and has required some kind of excuse (alcohol or emotional distress).
Incidentally, I posted Chapter 16 of I didn’t think we’d end up like this, which is the fic that starts with them in middle school. They’re adults now, though.
Also I think I’m coming to the end. Just a chapter or two left.
