The Burdens of Being a Sexy Hunk (Johnny Bravo SI/Cartoonverse) (Patreon)

Childhood heroes had a far greater influence on people's futures than most realized. A kid could have many heroes growing up -- their parents, their favorite cartoon characters, even ones they made up inside the comfort of their own mind. However, there could only be one Hero, capital H. The one that you always came back to. The one that you thought about on the occasion.

Mine was Spiderman. Which really isn't relevant. What is relevant is that one of my childhood heroes was Johnny Bravo.

He, more than anyone else, taught me what it was to be confident. And the dangers of being overconfident. The show followed Johnny as he went about trying to pick up chicks, usually getting into some old-fashioned Cartoon Network shenanigans, that usually ended with things returning to the status quo but with a moral lesson imparted along the way. Tall, built like a brick shit house, blonde hair that added another foot of height, and a jawline so squared it could be used to measure right angles.

That was Johnny Bravo.

And that was the face that I was looking at in the mirror. Just the face, though. I had the body of a stick figure at the moment, telling me that it was before that fateful moment where Johnny Bravo decided to become a beefcake for the sake of his date on prom night. A date that wasn’t actually a date, since it never materalized because the girl moved away. Meaning, at the very oldest, I was eighteen years old.

“This cannot stand,” I decided, taking a step back. I had no idea what this was. I’m pretty sure that I was lucid dreaming or something. But, lucid dreaming or not, real or make-believe -- Johnny Bravo was built like a brick shit house and it should stay that way. I turned for a dramatic moment, only to trip over my own two feet when I slipped on a bar of soap, landing heavily on my back with a thud.

“Johnny? Are you okay?” I heard a woman’s voice call out from somewhere in the house. Bunny "Mama" Bravo.

“I’m fine, Mama!” I called out, looking up at the ceiling with grim determination. My hands curled into fist-

“Okay. Just be careful,” Mama Bravo called out as I pushed myself onto two feet and made it into my bedroom. It looked like a generally unkempt bedroom that would belong to a teenager in the mid-nineties -- radio, a bunch of posters on the wall, with no computer or phone to speak of. Looking at a calendar on the wall, I saw that it was August 1st, with the return to school marked on August 14th. Huh.

Kinda of a weird time to lucid dream, I thought with a shake of my head, stepping into the living room where Mama Bravo was sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Her red hair was showing hints of going gray, her slipper-clad feet kicked up on a coffee table, and her eyes hidden behind a pair of purple shades. “Mama,” I caught her attention from the shopping channel. “I need training equipment. Weights. Pull-up bars. And especially resistance bands -- a bakers dozen.”

“Oh, is my little bunny trying to become a man?” Mama Bravo questioned and… no. No. A hand snapped up, cutting her off before I could die of second hand embarrassment.

“Mama. Please. It’s a matter of life and death,” I implored, making Mama Bravo chuckle before leveling a look at me. “Well, maybe not life and death. But it’ll be the death of mah social life -- I gotta start the new year off right, Mama!”

“Well, it’s nice to see you so passionate about something, but I’m afraid I just ordered a Bedazzler and Thigh Master. You can use them, if you want,” she offered and I sucked in a sharp breath. I recalled both of those blights upon the nineties household. Especially the bedazzler. So many people stapling sequins into their clothing until they were practically chandeliers. The horror. A crime against fashion, and I didn’t even care about fashion. “Or you could buy them yourself. I know the local news paper. I could make a call and get you a route.”

Cardio. “Give ‘em a ring, Mama. I’m ‘bout to be a delivery boy,” I decided, snapping my fingers and shooting finger guns at her. Mama Bravo simply smiled, a warm proud expression on her face as she got up to the landline in the kitchen. Hadn’t seen one of those in a while. It hurt to think about, but the nineties was kind of a long time ago, huh?

I shook my head clear of thoughts as I headed into the garage, finding a flaming red bicycle complete with a little basket on the back. Checking the air pressure and the breaks, I verified their integrity while Mama Bravo got me a job. Her connection must have been a good one, because less than five minutes later, she poked her head into the garage. “You have a route and you start today. Head over to the Quahog Informant building, and don’t be late on your first day!”

Quahog? That sounded familiar, I thought as I hopped on my bike and my legs immediately began killing me. All the same, I grit my teeth and peddled on, seeing the rest of the neighborhood that I lived in. I even saw Little Suzy playing in the front yard with what seemed to be her parents. Paying them little mind, I was huffing and puffing like an asthmatic by the time I reached the end of the road, and taking a turn-

“What the fuck?” I blurted as I rode down another side walk, only everything was different. Like… everything. It wasn’t just the style of buildings. It was… it was like playing Mario Kart then suddenly switching to Call of Duty -- the sheer difference in graphics was that notable. Looking down at myself, I saw that I still looked the same, and the people that were out and about did too. However, I noticed something else.

A Prius. I wasn’t much of a car guy, but when I turned sixteen, I started shopping around for a car. Back then, the biggest deciding factor had been miles per gallon. The more the better. I didn’t care about anything fancy or flashy. I just wanted to fill the car up once, and not have to worry about it until I got my next paycheck. But, being a broke as shit teenager, I could only look at the older models since they were the only thing that was affordable.

Sitting in the parking lot of a pale yellow two-story house was a 2004 Prius.

It wouldn’t have stood out to me but a street over, the one that I lived on, was clearly in the nineties. The early nineties at that. The cars on the road were probably purchased in the seventies or eighties, complete with wood paneling and a dashboard so perfectly designed to decapitate you upon impact that it’d make the guillotine jealous. There were no satellite dishes of any kind, I even saw a group of guys walking down the sidewalk with boomboxes on their shoulders.

It was undeniable. My street seemed to be stuck in the early nineties, and… Spooner Street was in the early two thousands.

“... man, time zones sure are weird,” I summarized my thoughts and decided to promptly put it out of my mind as I resumed my trek. I left the neighborhood, peddling with all of the strength that my ninety-eight pound body could muster, paying no mind to the oddities. In the end, it was a lucid dream. Why did things have to make sense?

However, the deeper into the town I got, the more evidence there was that something was going on. Because I saw a group of kids vaping and shooting tik tok videos on their iPhone 18s. And IPears? And Samdung. I felt like that should be enough to wake me up -- I had read a creepy pasta once about a guy that lucid dreamed the perfect life in a coma, but ended up coming out of it when he noticed that a lampshade was the wrong shape. But, I continued right on by as I huffed and puffed, sweating gallons to reach my destination.

It was some distance away, yet I don't think the sun budged in the sky at all as I eventually arrived at my destination -- the Quahog Informant. A small, squat building on the edge of town. Rolling my bike up to the bike rack, I stepped inside to see what I could only describe as the 1950s paper outlet, which was two to three times larger on the inside as it had been on the outside. Behind the counter was a man in a tweed suit, complete with a flattop hat, smoking what looked to be a self rolled cigarette.

“You must be Johnny Bravo! Your mother told me all about you,” he greeted me, his name tag reading Dan in cursive script. He spoke in a thick international accent. “Looking to pick up a paper route, are ye’?”

I hated job interviews. But this wasn't an interview. This was a dream. “That I am, Mr. Dan! I'll take all the routes you got, sir!”

“Oh, a go-getter! I like your attitude, sunny boy! Chris, get in here and show the new blood the ropes,” Dan the newspaper man said, making… Chris Griffin?

I blinked a few times as Chris Griffin stepped out of the back room, a satchel over his shoulder that seemed stuff to the brim with newspapers. “New guy, Mr. Dan? But I'm the new guy?” Chris asked, speaking slow and labored. Tired. It sounded like he had as much of a hard time as I did cycling here.

“No, you're the old new guy. Johnny here is the new new guy, so teach him all you know! And I better not hear any excuses, or you're fired because it's the ninety fifties and labor protection laws haven't yet been established,” Dan said.

So… it was the ninety-fifties? I- no, it's not worth thinking about.

“Aw, man… Well, come on Johnny. I'll show you what to do,” Chris said, gesturing for me to follow him. At least before Dan tossed me a half dozen satchels, each one as full as Chris’, and I collapsed beneath their weight, buried underneath them.

After a brief show of my life flashing before my eyes, I managed to poke my head out. Gritting my teeth, I summoned all of my strength to stand and slowly drag the satchels after Chris, who evidently didn't notice. “So… you… just got a job here too?” I asked him, idly curious as I finally placed everything. Quahog. The house. Even the prius.

This was Chris Griffin from Family Guy. I used to love that show. Fell out of it as I got older -- my time became more valuable and I didn't have as much to waste on a popcorn TV show.

“Yeah, my mom says I need to learn more responsibility,” Chris gripped as he saddled up on his bike. “Why are you looking for a job?”

“I need money to buy resistance bands so I can become the beefcake that I was always meant to be,” I answered. “I want to start the new school year with the right foot forward.”

“... why your right?” Chris questioned and I… wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I didn't.

“You're going to be a freshman, right?” I asked him. If memory served, Chris was roughly fifteen in the show.

“Yeah! How'd you know?” He asked me as he straddled his bike and I did the same, the satchels stretching a bit to still remain on the floor. They acted as dead weight as the two of us took off, and I'm pretty sure we had the same amount of difficulty peddling. Not that I wasn't grateful, but Dan the Newspaper Man might not have the best hiring policy.

“I go to school with your sister,” I answered. That had been revealed to me in my brief flashback as my life flashed before my eyes. We swam in different circles -- I was a junior year loser while she was a sophomore year loser.

“You know my sister?” Chris asked, somehow surprised by the information.

“... I just said I go to school with her,” I felt compelled to point out as the two of us cruised along at a good one mile per hour. “So, what exactly do I have to do to be a paperboy?” I decided to change the subject.

“... I don't know. It's my first day too.”

Well, this was going to be interesting.

…

As it turned out, each bag had a number of addresses that had to be hit on a route. The routes went all over the city -- businesses, suburbs, apartment complexes, and individual houses. They were pretty spread out. Extremely spread out. So damn spread out that when I input them all into a GPS, I discovered that the only route that I didn't have was the route that Chris had.

Which I was pretty okay with. I wouldn't be able to outrun that pedophile weighed down with three hundred pounds of ink and paper. So, I let Chris take that route. He managed to dodge him in the show, and if he didnt… well, better his ass than mine. The rest, I worked myself.

If this was an episode of Johnny Bravo, this would roughly be where a timeskip occurred. A montage of activities that highlighted my progress -- at first, the scene would show me actively dying as I tried to complete the routes for the first time. Buckets of sweat, panting for air, practically blue in the face with exertion. Each time I threw a paper, something disastrous and comedic would happen -’ like I'd break a window or knock a cat from a fence.

When I returned the empty satchels, Dan the Newspaper Man would simply shake his head as he tsk'd at me. He would drop a couple of bills into my hands, my pay being docked for the late deliveries.

Then it would show a little while later. I'm doing the same routes, with a little more ease. Still physically exhausting but I wasn't on the brink of death anymore. Each paper was flung from my grasp with greater strength and accuracy. Not great, or even good, but better. A clear sign of improvement. As such, when I stood before Dan with an outstretched hand, the stack of bills would be higher and he would nod approvingly.

On the third go around, even more time had passed. I was riding my bike with speed, confidently throwing newspapers that landed perfectly in the letterbox in every house. People greeted me warmly, waving at me, and I would wave back with a smile, completely unbothered with what had once been a herculean task. This time, when I was paid, I was paid a fat stack of bills -- a huge sum of money while Dan clapped me on the shoulders and back as I was awarded employee of the month.

With that fat stack of bills, I would place an order for resistance bands. Not just one. A full dozen of them.

“Bunny! You have a delivery!” Mama Bravo called out to me, and I darted out of the kitchen, knowing exactly what it was despite me not even having put down the phone to place the order. At the door was a delivery guy, carrying a stack of boxes so tall that I couldn’t even see his face. That didn’t stop me from snatching them out of his hands and kicking the door closed behind me.

“I’mma be in my room, Mama! I’ll be building my body like a sculptor shapes… well, a sculpture!” I announced, making her chuckle as she watched her shows. I couldn’t afford an interruption. I needed absolute focus. And protein shakes. A lot of protein shakes.

“Okay. Have fun, bunny!” Mama Bravo said, turning the volume up as I closed the door to my room. I shredded the packaging and held the first of the resistance bands in my hands. The appearance was deceiving -- it just looked like a big rubber band. But, with it, I would set forth on my destiny.

To be a Beefcake, with extra beef.

I stood before my full length mirror, not quite the scrawny runt that I had awoken as. But still a far cry from what I would become. I was dressed in sweats -- sweatpants, a tank top, and a sweatband around my forehead. Taking in a deep breath, I grabbed hold of the resistance band…

And then I began to exercise.

It was poor form to have two time skips back to back, so if this was an episode of Johnny Bravo, they probably would have flown into each other to be considered one long montage. It would be the same basic formula, but some small differences. Especially in comparison to the original montage when Johnny Bravo attained his true form -- my time as a delivery boy had changed me. Pulling the resistance band wasn’t that much different than throwing newspapers. I had prepared myself for the challenges ahead.

Another difference was that Johnny had been ignorant. It wasn’t his fault. He simply followed the instructions, knowing only that you needed to work out and drink protein shakes to turn into a slab of beef. I knew better -- muscle groupings such as arms, shoulders, back, chest. Not to mention core exercises. And we couldn’t forget leg day.

That was my routine. Arms. Back. Chest. Core. Legs. Arms. Back. Chest. Core. Legs. Arms. Back. Chest. Core. Legs. Over and over and over and over again. Every workout was punctuated with a protein shake, made with extra protein powder and Love from Mama Bravo.

Johnny had stopped with a single resistance band. He destroyed it in a final display of power before revealing his newly attained physique. I didn’t. When one band stopped having the desired effect, I added another. And another. And another. It wasn’t enough to simply attain perfection.

No. I would improve upon perfection.

If this were a montage… then it would end with all of the resistance bands snapping as one underneath my awesome power. I would stare into the full length mirror…

I smirked, curling an arm and saw nothing but bicep. “Looking good, good looking,” I told my reflection, running a hand through my blonde hair before I reached into my pocket and pulled out a glasses case. Popping it open, I saw my new reflection in the dark square shades. I breathed in deeply, taking them out of their case and closing my eyes as I slid them on.

Opening them… I saw a brand new world.

…

Time was pretty weird. I’m almost certain that a total  of about six months had passed during the two montages, yet I found myself walking towards Quahog High School a week later, ready to start my senior year dressed in the signature look -- blue jeans, black shoes, and a black t-shirt. Most important of all, the black glasses and the foot-tall blonde pompadour.

The effect that I had was immediate as I strode towards the gates of high school, feeling nothing less than absolute confidence. I had all the reasons in the world to feel confident. Over the course of a week, I went from a five-foot manlet to a six-foot-tall Hunk, capital H because I deserved it.

With dramatic flair, I shoved the double doors open as I strode through them. “Hello nerds,” I greeted the people of the hallways with nothing short of disdain. Their weak flabby arms. Their acne-riddled faces. Disgusting. Filth. They weren’t fit to look upon my glorious form. “The King of High School has arrived. You, you, and you -- get on the ground. I don’t want to get my shoes dirty,” I said, picking out three high schoolers.

Naturally, they did what I said. Partly because they understood the social hierarchy, which I stood at the very top of. Secondly, I imagine doing whatever a super ripped beef cake such as myself said was a good way to avoid getting your face pounded in.

The three of them lined up, and I stepped on the first, earning a grunt of pain. I paid it no mind as I began to strut through the halls, the three kids having to hop up and race to dive underneath my feet. All the while, I looked around to see that the high school looked more or less like it did in the show -- light blue walls, dull gray lockers, and fluorescent lights. The air carried the scent of perfume, cologne, BO, and bleach.

The teenagers looked on in awe at their new overlord. I searched their faces, looking for the familiar ones. The popular clique and Meg’s friends. I’m pretty sure that they were the only high schoolers that got any degree of screen time, and it was beneath me to waste my time with no-name cast members.

It was as I turned the corner that I saw them.

Meg stood out. Well, her pink hat did. She was short, a large nose and a weak chin. She wasn’t pretty, I quickly concluded. She wasn’t the hideous freak of nature that the show portrayed her as either, but she wasn’t pretty. Yet, her mother possessed those same traits and Lois was considered the hottest piece of ass in the show based on the sheer number of people that were trying to fuck her. And I knew that she could become hot with effort.

The same way that I did.

So, I strode forward as she got something out of her locker and it would seem that I wasn’t the only one that noticed Meg. A group of four teens approached her, snickering all the while. Meg noticed, her shoulders hunching, before the ringleader spoke. Hot. Blonde.Ruby red lipstick. D-cup tits. I’m not even sure how I knew that, but I suppose knowing cup sizes was one of the innate skills of the Chadest of Chads.

“Do you smell that? It smells like fish,” Connie D'Amico snickered.

“Really? I smell garbage!” Gina Resedes, another one of Meg’s bullies spoke up. “Pewh! Meg, have you been dumpster diving again?”

“It looks like it based on that outfit!” Connie said, and she opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped when she heard the grunting and groaning of the nerds beneath my feet. She and the popular clique looked in my direction, as did Meg. I saw that she looked sad, but unsurprised. Disappointed, but in a way that you expected, even if you hoped to be wrong. “Who is that?!”

“Bravo. Johnny Bravo,” I introduced myself. “But, you losers aren’t popular enough for me to talk to, so don’t bother,” I uttered, making the four of them sputter. Then I looked to Meg, who looked up at me with nothing less than utter confusion.

I don’t know what this dream was. It felt like it was going on a little long for a dream. But, if it was or wasn’t really didn’t matter. I was Johnny Bravo for as long as I was -- dream or reality. That meant I had to carry myself to a standard. Johnny tried to fuck everything with a hole and a pulse, and by god, I wouldn’t be any different. I would fuck my way through this entire high school. I would fuck my way through this entire town. And beyond it.

So long as I was Johnny Bravo, I possessed a burden of duty to bang as many chicks as I possibly could, no matter the difficulty, the danger, or the hoops I had to jump through.

But being this sexy had responsibilities. It wasn’t enough to just fuck some hot chicks. I had to fuck their hearts as well. Everyone should be like me. Exactly like me. The perfected version of themselves. I had to spread my self love with lovin’.

And I knew exactly who to start with.

“Meg Griffin,” I greeted her, making Meg tense. She looked up at me, her eyes behind wide-rimmed glasses, clutching her books to her chest.

“Y-yeah?” She asked, uncertain, and I sent her a soft, gentle smile.

“Wanna skip school and have hot unprotected sex at your house so you can show your shitty family that you can get a sexy piece of ass like me while I fuck your brains out?” I asked her, shooting a pair of finger guns at her. Always cool. Finger guns were never not going to be cool.

The hallway was filled with the sounds of jaws hitting the ground as everyone within earshot gaped up at me. Meg most of all. Then she saw that I was being serious.

“Oh, boy, do I!”

...

This story came from a bout of inspiration from reading The Fat Bastard Never Stood A Chance (Chris Griffin SI). It's a pretty fun story, and it got me thinking about brushing off a very old idea that I had for a Johnny Bravo SI.

This universe is an unholy amalgamation of just about every single cartoon on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Adult Swim. Some settings will be blended together if I feel like they'll be an easy mix, but essentially every single town, city, etc in every cartoon can be found in this hellscape of a setting. Amity Park from Danny Phantom? Its there. Jump City from Teen Titans? Its there. Dimmsdale from Fairly Oddparents? Its there. Danville  from Phineas and Ferb? Its there.

How does that work? Don't worry about it. How does the timeline work? Don't worry about it. My excuse is that since every show has a time travel alternate universe gimmick that the fabric of time and space has so many holes in it, it's not even fit to be a dishrag. Essentially, look at every town or city as its own universe that you can drive to and, as the story progresses, there will be more and more bleed-through. Like a team-up between Deathstroke, Drakken, and Doofenshmirtz.

The story itself won't be a serious one. It's just some dumb fun with Johnny Bravo trying to solve the world's issues with his dick. This story, I would feel pretty comfortable calling a porn story. I have a few arcs planned -- like a visit to Total Drama Island, or some misadventures with Rick and Morty. But, the meat and potatoes of the story will be Johnny trying to mindbreak shy girls into being more confident in themselves, mindbreaking bad girls into being good girls, and milf hunting.

Here is a list of what I have so far -- it's not complete yet, but I figured it would be a decent starting point.

[spoiler]

Adventure Time

American Dad

American Dragon

Ben 10

Codename Kids Next Door

Code Lyoko

Danny Phantom

Dexter’s Laboratory

Ed, Edd, and Eddy

Family Guy

Futurama

Fillmore!

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Invader Zim

Johnny Test

Kim Possible

My Life as a Teenage Robot

Phineas and Ferb

Powerpuff Girls

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Rick and Morty

South Park

Scooby Doo

Teen Titans

Total Drama Island

Totally Spies

The Fairly OddParents

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Weekenders

[/spoiler]