#“i am cringe but i am free” or something

[mrs-elsie-barnes]

(Thunderbolts) I feel like it would be really funny. There's a x reader where Bucky had a wife, and she just walks in during one of their meetings, holding their kids and like "where the hell were you? All I need a frozen pizza and some diaper wipes."

And alexie teaches one of the kids their first word but it's not mama or dada. It's Gin.

Bucky is pulled away quickly for a mission, leaving you holding the babies...and worrying about your husband.

Warnings: 18+ for language, domestic fluff, Thunderbolts!Bucky before the film, Dad!Bucky, reader likes pineapple on her pizza, I feel this is something I need to warn for. I don't really write kids in fics normally and I've never written Alexi before so…please be kind! Rated F for fluff and K for kids.

A/N: thank you so much for this request! Not going to lie I'm nervous writing anything about Thunderbolts before it's out but Thunderbolts!Bucky does live rent free in my head. It's not exactly as you requested but I hope you still enjoy it anyway!

Padruga - female friend in Russian

Divider by @firefly-graphics & @saradika-graphics

Masterlist | Bucky Barnes

Being married to Bucky Barnes was everything you'd dreamed about since the first time he'd strolled into your boutique and nervously asked if you had any gifts suitable for ex-assassins with limited wardrobes.

After a few hours searching for items he'd bought a new jacket for himself, black leather of course, and a smaller woman's jacket. Your heart had sunk, of course there was a woman already in his life. Tall, handsome, a rakish mop of hair flopping into his piercing blue eyes, she was a lucky lady.

Bucky had looked at you, those blue eyes looking straight into your soul, "it's for my sister, sort of, well, she's not my real sister, but she's like a - it's not for …I don't have a girlfriend."

"Oh, good." And then you kicked yourself for sounding so stupid. Bucky had given you the widest smile and written his number on a scrap of paper.

"Call me." He'd winked.

It was becoming harder to appreciate your luck when you were covered in bath water, probably the only shower you were likely to get unless Grant went to sleep quickly.

Bucky had been called out to an emergency meeting on his way to the store and as much as you loved his dedication and hard work you really, really, needed him to come home with the groceries.

You were running low on literally everything and you knew eventually you'd have to do a full shop, but now just the essentials would do. You couldn't have a repeat of lunch, hunting down some crackers, cheese and cucumbers sticks.

Distracted for a moment, Grant lined his rubber ducks up on the edge of the tub, splashing them in one by one.

"Look Mama!" He said, gleefully, "'dis one is Daddy!" He took the duck, left wing coloured in black, and made it dive into the heap of bubbles surrounding him.

"Well done, Sweetie!" You cooed, turning away quickly to hide a yawn and checking your phone.

Get your ass home or I'm ordering the pizza in instead

From the nice place

Get me some fries?

No

and I'm getting pineapple

Doll cmon now youre being cruel

It wasn't unusual for Bucky to keep his work secret, but he would normally be able to say when he was coming home. Perhaps it was really important.

Grant had just gone to sleep when the doorbell rang and you cringed, setting your pineapple heavy pizza down on the coffee table and pausing your movie.

There was a familiar silhouette in the frosted glass -

"Alexi, is everything okay?" The door swang wide open before you could even reach it. It had definitely been locked, but it was hard to keep any of the team out for long.

"Padruga! I am returning the small one." A very familiar mop of hair popped over Alexi's shoulder, face covered in cookie crumbs. For all that Grant was like you, Natalia was all Bucky, soft curls and sparkling blue eyes.

"Mommy!" She jumped from Alexi, landing heavily in your arms, "we went to Dairy Queen and I had two ice creams and one of those ice creams was vanilla and the other was choca-chol-choco-brown-extreme-blizzard-extreme."

You turned a cold eye on Alexi, "I thought we said park, dinner, home?"

"Ah how can I resist to spoiling the daughter of the Winter Soldier, if she wants extreme blizzard milk drinks I cannot say no." He shrugged, an indulgent smile peaking out of his beared.

"God," you rubbed a hand over your face. "She'll never sleep - Petal, can you go and get your pjs on please, I'll come up and help you do your teeth."

Natalia climbed the stairs quickly, sounding more like a herd of elephants than a four year old.

"Do you know what's going on with Bucky? I expected him home by now."

Alexi looked concerned, but didn't immediately start a tirade about the strength of the Winter Solider, so you felt reassured it couldn't be too serious.

"He is discussing planning with Wilson and his comrades. I have advised against it but he trusts the Captain and so we do too."

"We?"

"Yelena has been very helpful and is talking to the rest of the team. We will have a plan soon."

"So you're heading out for something?"

"Yes. I am sorry."

"Fuck."

"In Russian you can say, yebat, Mommy." Natalia's little voice floated over from the hallway and you cringed. Everytime she came back from spending time with Alexi or Yelena she seemed to have learnt a new Russian word, which wouldn't bother you, except they were almost always curse words.

"I'm all for her being bilingual, but could you maybe teach her how to say her favourite colour or something." You grouched.

"Sorry."

Alexi took a slice of pizza and left the address of the current discussions on a scrap of paper stuck to the fridge before vanishing in to the night again with the promise that you could "call anytime."

It had been two days since Bucky left on his bike to, "have a quick chat with the team, baby, don't worry, I'll swing by the store on the way home." And you were starting to move from slightly annoyed to a see-saw of furious and anxious.

He'd text a few times to let you know they hadn't left yet but the situation was complex, he'd be home very briefly before they left, just to see you and the kids, but other than that he was holed away for the foreseeable.

One week after Bucky left and you were truly stir crazy. There was only so many times you could have the same conversation with the other parents at the park before you lost your mind.

You really didn't care if Timmy or Charlie or whoever had cut their first tooth. All you cared about was what your husband was doing somewhere, anywhere, and when he'd be home safe in your arms.

It was 2am when the call came in, he was home, safe and unharmed, at the abandoned airstrip twenty miles past the town border. Yelena and Alexi were with him, also safe.

Grant was a heavy, floppy, weight in your arms as you buckled him into his car seat. But Natalia was wide awake and excited, clutching her bear to her chest and staring at the street lights in awe.

"I can't wait to see Daddy," she sighed, snuggling the top of the bear's head. You made sure to put his cologne on it, every day, while she was out at kindergarten, the same way you sprayed his pillow. So you'd both have a memory. Grant's blankie was the same and, still asleep, he pressed his chubby cheek into the cotton.

"I can't wait either, Petal, we'll be there soon."

You drove through the night, the darkness closing in around your car, streetlamps dwindling and stars appearing as you made it out of the town and towards the airstrip. There was a single plane looking almost abandoned, its tail at an angle, on the landing strip. But there was the faint glow of artificial light under the door of a metal supply shed beyond it.

You slowed the car, expecting there to be someone at the gate to the airstrip before remembering it had been closed a few years previously and there would be no one to care. It must have been a rough mission, to come back like this rather than through a real airport. It was normally Sam who let you know about his return and you could collect him from the big airport in the city or he'd appear in the night from some taxi or hire car.

You double checked to make sure the doors were locked on the car, the children dozing in the back. Grant was drooling on his blankie and Natalia, despite her assertion that she would "definitely certainly mostly stay awake until Daddy, Mommy" was bumping her head on the side of her car seat every time her eyes closed.

You stopped the car opposite the shed and flashed your lights, ready to drive off if they didn't flash back.

It went dark, then light, dark…light and the door opened. You put the handbrake on and jumped from the car, leaving the door flung open in your haste, and raced towards Bucky.

He dropped his duffle bag and swung you into his arms, latching around your waist and lifting you easily. His lips were chapped and there was the tang of blood when you pulled away from a cut on his upper lip. You cupped his face in your hands and inspected him as best you could in just the headlights.

"You're okay." You sighed, breathing him in, burying your face in his neck and squeezing your legs around his waist.

"I'm alright Doll, don't worry about me. Are you okay?" His voice was rough with sleep, his cheeks chapped with cold and he smelt faintly of fire which was disconcerting. But he was here, safe, holding you close.

"Glad you're back, baby." You smiled, kissing him again. It was amazing, even after all these years, ever though he'd been on a hundred missions. It still gave you butterflies every time he came back, not just that he returned at all, but that he came back to you.

Behind you came the sound of little fists banging on the windows.

"Daddy!" Natalia shouted and Bucky carried you, giggling, back to the car.

With practiced ease he unbuckled both children and held them close.

"My little monsters, have you been good for Mommy?"

"Yes!"

"No!" Grant giggled.

"Sounds about right." Bucky looked over Natalia's head and smiled again, soft and slow.

"I'm glad you're back." You repeated, "but if you ever take two weeks to 'pop to the store' again we're over." You wagged your finger teasingly.

"Don't worry, I got everything we needed." Bucky carried the children back to his duffle, shuffling them around so he could lumber back with everything in his arms. "Look in there."

You unzipped the bag and inside - a pack of wipes, a bottle of laundry soap and two frozen pizzas.

[vhstown]

malala windsor ★ general headcanons

a/n: i love this girl to death you don't even know man... thank you to my friend sadi for talking to me about this character at less than ideal hours 🙏 i hope you like these! a little shorter than my other ones but i don't have much to go off okay...

When she originally gets her powers she's at the mosque for Friday prayers and her hands get stuck to the carpet and she's just stuck in prostration. Everyone sheds a tear from how dedicated she is to her religion but really and truly she's praying the skin of her hands isn't ripped off 😭😭😭 The whole mosque is empty and my girl is STILL there.

Definitely the talk of the town for a while. Loved and hated by Muslim aunties alike. There's a chunk of the carpet missing that's in the shape of her hands. Everyone just knows thats her spot.

Apparently her last name is supposed to represent the House of Windsor... I don't really have anything to add except for the fact that I think it's really funny. I feel like she actually does have a Desi or Muslim last name but really plays into the "Bri'ish" joke at Spider Society except they take her 100% seriously and now she's stuck with the Windsor on her spider ID (and she cringes bad whenever she sees it.)

Hijabi activewear for life. Wears it everywhere for practicality and also the crazy UK heatwaves.

TfL warrior. She can quite literally swing to places when she becomes Spider-Woman but she can't give up her aesthetic tube girlie lifestyle. Has her book and headphones and everything and endures the horrible ear pop on older lines with a straight face. She's kind of serving but the restaurant is empty cause it's London and nobody really cares. (Also I feel like London would be really annoying to swing through cause everything is shaped so differently and the train is probably faster..)

Loves sports. Totally feels embarrassed and tries to act uninterested but is a beast on the court. Plays every single sport you could think of but lover of basketball and badminton (she is not a coconut when it comes to badminton like me OKAY!)

Cannot cook to save her life (she's trying okay... I AM NOT PROJEC)

Has so many frankensteined hijabs in her closet from making suits. Feels like a total genius when she figures it out and geeks out about it to other spiders at HQ even if they've heard it like a billion times.

I think she knows a woman who's a lot like Jessica Drew in her universe so she's more friendly with Jess than anyone else would be. They totally like to gossip over coffee and tea and the bajillion strange UK biscuit variations in the break room (she DESPISES the 2099 cafeteria food).

Her universe's Uncle Ben is an electrician and he sometimes drags her around to his electrician jobs. She's there begrudgingly but definitely has a eureka moment when she remembers something niche and engineery he explained to her while working at someone's house when she's on a sneaky little mission.

Humanities babe. I know all the spiders are STEM people but I like to think she's into humanities and absolutely just free balls all the tech stuff and actually gets pretty good at it. Maybe explodes a few things. I think she's one of those people in her class that LOVE to debate. An absolute menace in history and politics.

She's from East London. No elaboration needed.

That's about it for now! BIG UP MY DESI GIRLS!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHHH

thank you for reading! check out my atsv masterlist here!

[lazylittledragon]

i'm still obsessed with these games and i'm not sorry anymore

[2aceofspades]

TW: Blood/Injury, Implied Death

_______________________________________________

With you

Lil one-shot I guess...??

_______________________________________________

After the dust cleared, it was dead silent. The air was thick with moisture from the dark clouds looming above them all. Someone, probably Raphael, yelled out something Two didn't quite process, his ears still ringing as his vision slowly cleared.

A faint blue glow flickered in the near distance, not too far from where Two was slumped on the ground. More muffled shouts rang out as Two attempted to collect himself, staggering to his feet and trudging over to the source of-

No.

Just the image alone was enough to bring Two collapsing back to his knees. Stupid, he thought.

"H-hey..." One's weak voice just barely got through to Two, snapping him right out of his thoughts.

He stared down at the dimming blue glow, watching it flicker and fade in and out. How the hell are you still here, breathing?

His thoughts became flooded in his head, even more so as he felt his arms cradle his brother's near-lifeless body.

"Did we win?"

Two felt his jaw clench at One's question, feeling frighteningly close to grinding his teeth until they were flat.

Did we win?

The question echoed in Two’s head, as if that would better help him process this moment. In any other instance, he would have deflected and scoffed at such an empty, meaningless question. Did it matter? he thought as he titled his head up, looking around briefly at the wasteland that surrounded them. It was over, that much was apparent.

"Yes,” he huffed, looking down at his brother in his arms as he continued, “Now, shut it and save your strength. Your heart-"

"I know," One croaked out in between a few sputtering breaths, interrupting Two in more ways than one. Two tried to ignore the cast-off of blood coming from his brother's mouth, despising the sickening feeling settling in his stomach as it hit his chin. One smiled weakly up at his brother, his eyes dull and unfocused.

How dare you, Two thought to himself.

His eyes flickered from One's exposed heart, bleeding out and hardly beating, and back to his brother’s face. His brother looked beaten, bloody...broken. It wasn't a look he saw from him often, if at all. It was that damn smile that he watched waver as One's heart beat softer and softer. What cruel irony, Two couldn't help but think, a metaphorical expression brought to life by his stupid, thoughtless, idiotic brother.

Two could still fix this. Even as he held his brother tighter against his own plastron and felt his shirt get soaked by the horrid mix of blood and empyrean; he thought to himself how he'd be the one to fix this.

There was no other choice left.

“Good…” One let out the softest of chuckles, “…we…we can s-start over.”

Something in Two’s own chest faltered, even just briefly. It was enough to shut out the feeling of One’s pathetic coughs and wheezes against him. He watched how One's eyes dulled further, his gaze wandering away from Two's face.

Starting over? That wasn’t ever an option, not one that Two had ever weighed in his mind. He wasn’t sure if that was even an option now. After everything he had done, everything he sacrificed, worked for…his brother still wanted to burn it, bury everything down and out of Two’s reach. One wanted this win, he wanted the impossible.

“Impossible…” Two muttered under his breath.

He heard yet another faint chuckle. And then the dense silence that followed.

_______________________________________________

~bonus doodles~

(':

[doostyaudi]

I really like them......... Runs away

Top one is newer (i literally drew it just now) and the bottom two ones r older, ones i drew a few weeks ago

[littlecrittereli]

guys.... would you still love me if I was a Chrach shipper.....

This is for @martincrushcameback's apocalypse AU in case anyone is unfamiliar

This isn't connected to any specific event btw, there is no context AHAHA I just had this interaction in my head and it was driving me crazy so I gave in to the voices and drew it.

I feel its important to clarify I dont ship canon Zach with Chris bc canon Zach makes me want to commit a felony (/LH i am so sorry Chrach shippers) BUT THIS APOCALYPSE ZACH>??????1/11/1/2 POIGGHHEREHHRRRRRASDAS they are clawing at my brain someone PLEASE SEDATE ME

[kathaynesart]

Good eye, @luckylazylurker They're just regular military grade ID Tags. So it includes name, identification number, blood type, faith for burial purposes, and US Mutant Guard designation. The usual.

Though ironically, the boys do not fall under the newly standardized definition of "Mutant," which only designates humans who have been mutated into creatures. NOT animals that have been mutated to become more human/sapient. An important distinction, considering one can get you enlisted in the USMG and the other will probably get you in a test tube.

Also bonus points to people who can figure out their middle names.

[greghatecrimes]

alright i'm going to be a brave little toaster because this is my blog and i can write whatever i want forever! hilson, yes. toxic yaoi, yes. I get it! I do! It's great! but also... we as a fandom need to be way more insane about the women in this show. we need to step it up. 2025 should be the year of Being Crazyinsane About House MD Women. join me in the trenches, comrades. it's liberating

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[peaches2217]

“You’ve gotta take a nap, bro.”

“Then I’d have to stop looking at her.”

“She’ll be here when you wake up.”

“But I gotta make sure, yeah?”

“That’s what I’m here for, you big doofus. You know I won’t let anything happen to her!”

Luigi knew better than to take it personally, his brother’s protests and the silences between them. Reasoning with Mario when he was short on sleep was always an ouroboric cycle; the key to victory was to wear him down, tail him relentlessly in endless verbal circles, until at last he was tired enough to believe that dropping everything for a quick break was his own idea, at which point he would happily concede.

He’d always been stubborn like that. And as Luigi was quickly learning, the only thing more stubborn than an exhausted Mario was an exhausted Mario with a sleeping newborn in his arms. But he’d procured a nap himself and was armed with an endless supply of coffee and a foot-tall stack of Better Toads and Gardens. He could play this game all night long.

When another silence fell over them, he peeked over from an article on propagating winter roses and watched for a moment. Nothing new to observe. Mario still cradled his daughter’s head to his heart, his thumb stroking her cheek; his eyes were heavy yet soft and full of wonder, an equally soft (if slightly dopey) smile on his lips.

Luigi felt a similar smile creep onto his own face. He’d be lying if he tried to deny how precious the sight was, or how it made him want to melt into the loveseat they shared like gooey candy left too long in the sun. Fatherhood looked good on his brother. He’d always suspected it would.

Of course, it would look a lot better once Mario wasn’t visibly on the verge of passing out. And maybe after he took a razor to the stubble prickling his chin and cheeks and neck. And a good shower wouldn’t hurt, either. But for now, one hurdle at a time.

“Remember that talk we had?” Luigi leaned to his opposite side to fetch his drink from the end table, overcrowded with magazines. “You’ve gotta take care of yourself if you’re gonna take care of anyone else.”

“I know,” Mario groaned, dragging the last syllable out like a petulant child who’d been asked to clean his room, “and I’m gonna! You know that! But I gotta make sure she gets rested up first, yeah? All these new sounds and sights; that’s hard work, taking it all in! She’s too little for all that excitement.”

That dopey smile widened, and as Luigi polished off his fifth cup of coffee, Mario began cooing beneath his breath: “Sì che lo sei! Mia bellissima principessina! Mia albicoccetta sonnolenta! Papà adora così tanto la sua bambina! Sì! Sì!”

That was a good sign. A babbling Mario was a Mario desperately trying to keep himself awake, and thus a Mario mere minutes from giving into sleep. Luigi set his cup back onto the table and draped his reading material over the loveseat’s arm so he could commandeer baby duty at a moment’s notice.

“You can barely even keep your eyes open. It’s not safe to fall asleep holding a baby,” Luigi reminded him. “I’ll hold her for you. She’ll probably still be snoozing away by the time you wake up!”

Mario’s smile gradually faded, and he squinted down at his little girl, as if contemplating every divot of her visage. Luigi swore he could hear the squeak-squeak-squeak of rusty, overworked cogwheels rotating deep within his brother’s brain.

“What if she isn’t?” Mario eventually asked.

“Isn’t what?”

“Snoozing. You know? What if… what if she wakes up before I do? What if she needs changed, or…”

“Then I’ll change her. No sweat.”

Mario shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Mario, I’m a plumber. You think dirty diapers scare me?”

“No, I mean—” he gulped, catching a quiet, heavy breath. “Won’t she be scared? If she wakes up and she needs something but her mama’s asleep and her papa’s asleep, she’s gonna think she’s all alone, and—” His voice cracked as he spoke, and as soon as he stopped talking, his bottom lip began to wobble, fat tears pooling in his eyes.

That was also good. A weepy and irrational Mario was a Mario on the precipice of surrender. This would be over soon.

“No!” Those tears leaked out as he buried his face into the crown of her head, planting little kisses to her hair between affirmations. “No no no, Papà non andrà da nessuna parte, albicoccetta! Non ti abbandonerò mai!” Mwah! “Mai!” Mwah! “Mai!”

“Stars’ sakes, Mario, you’re not abandoning her.” Luigi made a point to keep his voice even and sympathetic as he scooted closer, draping an arm around his emotional brother’s shoulders. “I can wake you up if she needs anything,” he promised. “But you know she’ll be okay! As long as she’s clean and cozy, she’ll sleep like a— well, you know.”

Mario sniffled. “You’ll keep her cozy?”

“The coziest. She’ll be so cozy she won’t even know you passed her off to me!”

“...But we don’t smell the same! She’ll smell you and know it’s not me!”

“Bro. She’s a baby, not a dog.”

“But she’s so talented! So smart!” Mario hiccupped and turned to wipe his face across his shirt sleeve, already stained and crusty from the fifteen times he’d used it as a snot rag prior. “She stopped crying as soon as she heard her mama! She opened her eyes when I talked to her for the first time! She knows these things!”

If she already knows your smell as well as she knows your voice, then you really need that shower. Luigi bit back a chuckle and cleared his throat. No, he’d be every bit as incoherent and emotionally raw in Mario’s shoes. Comfort now. Snark later.

“Look at me, bro.” He pulled back just enough so that Mario could look up at him, and that alone was a victory, because he hadn’t looked away from his daughter in hours. And looking into his eyes now, red from tears and foggy with fatigue, Luigi knew with even greater conviction that he was on the right track. “If she wakes up — the second she starts acting scared or sad or needy, I’ll wake you up.”

“You promise?”

“On Polterpup.”

“You won’t just grab a nurse, or make Peach—” Something like horror flickered across Mario’s face, and suddenly he leaned in, his brows scrunched and his tone sharp. “Swear you won’t wake Peach up. No matter what. Don’t even think about it! Swear that on Mama’s grave!”

Luigi blinked. Well, if he’d been entertaining thoughts of waking a new mother after she’d spent all day in labor (which he wasn’t, at least not too seriously), those thoughts went flying out the nearest window. Mama Mario would personally descend in a chariot of angels to smack him with a rolling pin for committing such an act in the first place; what wrath would he incur if he also spited her name in the process?

Yeesh. That was an intense request, even (or maybe especially) for Mario.

Still, he clapped a hand against his brother’s shoulder, nodding firmly. “Sulla tomba di Mamma. Lo giuro.”

Finally, Mario’s face softened, and he lowered his head with a sigh. Luigi met him halfway; he cupped the back of Mario’s head and touched their foreheads together, and there they savored a moment of quiet resignation, taking in each other’s calming presence.

Wow. It had only taken three hours to reach this point. Honestly, Luigi was quite impressed with himself.

“Alright.” With one last sigh, Mario broke free and turned his attention back to the bundle in his arms, kissing her forehead gently. “You be good for Zio, okay, sweetie? He’s gonna take good care of you.”

Even in the weariest depths of acute oxytocin intoxication, Mario knew (with minimal convincing) that his own child was just as safe with his twin as she was with him. Luigi cleared his throat again, some fluttery but not unpleasant feeling bubbling in his chest. He knew better than to take that for granted.

Zio. Oh, he loved that title.

He found himself uttering his own stream of soothing nothings as he plucked the baby from Mario’s arms, leaning back against the couch cushion so he could prop her against his chest. Stars Almighty, she was her papa’s spitting image. Her chubby cheeks, her strong jaw, her dark hair — she was Mario if he had Peach’s eyes and nose and shaved off his mustache and was also thirty years younger. A little Mini-Mario.

Luigi clicked his tongue softly at his precious little niece, resting peacefully in his arms, entirely unphased by the transfer. Another trait she’d picked up from her father, it seemed: she was one heck of a heavy sleeper.

He would tear down the sky and blow up the stars for her. Funny, how quickly one can devote their entire being to something so small.

“C’mon,” he said, facing his brother again, “let’s get you somewhere more—”

Mario was out cold. He hadn’t even laid back or made himself comfortable; he just slumped forward, his mouth open slightly, his eyes lightly shut.

Great. Speak of the devil…

“Hey.” He glanced back down to the infant in his arms, ensuring her neck remained stable as he nudged his brother with his shoulder. “Come on. Don’t do this! There’s a perfectly good sofa literally right across the room!”

His rationale went unheard. Mario swayed in place for a moment, eyes still closed, and then slouched into Luigi’s side, his head landing square on his shoulder. A quiet snore escaped him as he made contact, and then nothing.

Luigi stared down at his unconscious twin in stupefaction, eventually casting a longing gaze at his gardening magazine, still open and waiting for him on his opposite side. Mario wouldn’t be moving anytime soon. He could, in theory, free himself, but given how the hypervigilant dad-to-be had trained himself these past months to startle awake at the slightest sudden movement…

Well. Their shared moment of resignation hadn’t just been for Mario’s sake, then.

Ah well. Best not divide his attention while babysitting. With a lighthearted huff, Luigi carefully repositioned himself, pulling his legs beneath him and leaning against the loveseat’s arm (and creasing his poor abandoned magazine in the process) so he could more appropriately support Mario’s bulk. Both father and daughter remained undisturbed as he shifted into a more comfortable position.

“Starai una rompiscatole come Papà?” he whispered to the bundle in his arms. He tried to sound annoyed, if for no one’s sake but his own, but he couldn’t possibly drop the grin that tugged at his cheeks.

His niece smacked her tiny lips, nestling a bit deeper into her blanket with a quiet noise. At the same time, Mario snored again, settling against his brother in his sleep.

A Mini-Mario indeed.

“Oh, sì!” Luigi nuzzled his nose into the crown of her head, planting little kisses to her hair as she snoozed. “La rompiscatole preferita di Zio! Sì che lo sei! Sì!”

[jesterjaxx]

Non-djuncan week art i did on my phone at work

[caccry]

I've got Teen Wolf brain disease and blacked out for two hours and when I snapped back to reality they were on my screen........... little guys that I like

[kumari8670]

Her name is Helga Sinclair, and she's acting on behalf of her employer who has a most intriguing proposition for you...

Are you interested?

[quickfixinator]

alright I'll cave and finally post about this, I've sat on it for at least two weeks at this point.

this is inspired by Snakes in the Garden by Miss_Ginger_Bread on AO3. fantastic fic, I've never read anything and have images come to my head the way this fic made me.

idk or I could just be a sucker for sibling bonds and this hit the right spots. either way, it is phenomenal and I really enjoyed it.

me rambling about art below, really not important I just feel I had things to say. for better or for worse.

traditional art kills me. forgive me, I don't have the motivation to set up my drawing tablet so I've done everything traditionally for the last month or so. yes I am aware I screwed the gravity falls style up a bit, I promise it bothers me more than it does you. this piece went from being in a completely different style to borderline gravity falls style and I'm still not 100% sold on it, but I'll live.

also stan's right (left..?) hand, the one gripping the wheel, makes me angry. I screwed the lines up and then couldn't fix them the farther along I got so it just looks goofy. and the colours just aren't right. but it's markers, you gotta do what you gotta do. I could go on, but I'm going to stop now.

okay I'm posting this now before I chicken out and save it in my drafts for another few weeks I'll come back and fix any issues if I can look at this post after this

[descendant-of-truth]

I think the reputation Kingdom Hearts has is a prime example of something I've been thinking about recently, which is: if you go into a piece of media without taking it seriously from the get-go, any of its attempts to be serious will come across as funny.

Let's be real, KH is viewed by the general public as a bit silly, right? Like, you're telling me there's an RPG series where you play as an anime boy but your party members are Goofy and Donald Freakin' Duck? And it's filled with complicated plotlines about clones and hearts and time travel?

The crux of what makes people not take the game seriously is the fact that it's a Disney game that wants to be taken seriously. Those two things combined instinctively make people want to laugh at it; after all, Disney is just kids' stuff, it's not meant to be taken that seriously. Even if you're a fan of Disney, it's so inherently different from something like Final Fantasy that the tonal clash alone creates a certain expectation.

That expectation being: this is going to be stupid, and funny because it's stupid. The same level of joke as making cute characters swear or use guns, I think.

Kingdom Hearts is, of course, a lot more sincere than that. But if you're not willing to meet it halfway, then its sincerity becomes the joke.

Of course, even KH fans like to laugh at how the dialogue reads when it's taken out of context, which takes me to something I've actually wanted to talk about for a bit:

Data Sora: Mickey! It's Riku. They put bugs in him!

Make no mistake, I'm not saying people are wrong to joke about stuff like this. But the whiplash I felt at seeing this moment become a meme was kind of insane, because it genuinely never struck me as a funny thing to hear Sora say.

Using the term "bug" to refer to a computer bug felt completely natural, and it's a much more tangible term than "glitch" which brings to mind more like, environmental or physics-based glitches. Similar deal with the word "virus," even if that would've sounded cooler.

But either way, by this point in the story, they've been talking about bugs with complete seriousness for over an hour. They've been a corrupting force that you have to fight the whole game, and when Data Riku is injected with the stuff, he screams before freezing up and staring dead-eyed into space, as shown in that screenshot.

That's freaky! And a really scary thing for Sora to have to see happen to his best friend!

So him telling Mickey what happened in a panicked voice didn't even register as a line to take special note of, because why would it? What else was he supposed to say? I was way too invested and stressed out to care about what it would sound like out of context; I was IN the context! And the context had me on the edge of my seat!

This is the case with a lot of lines in this series that get paraded around as evidence that the writing in KH is sooo chaotic, so silly, so embarrassing, so cringe. I'm not saying that every line of dialogue comes across as totally natural, the series is capable of taking me out of the experience because of something being stilted or awkward. But rarely ever when it's trying to be sincere or dramatic.

Replica Riku: Because I'm you. Riku: No, I'M me. Replica Riku: "I'm me," he says.

This is another example. When I actually sit back and watch just that first bit of the cutscene, yeah, it sounds a little ridiculous. The back-and-forth happening here is just redundant enough to follow the "rule of threes" to comedy, so I get why people get a good chuckle out of it when it's isolated to just this.

It did not feel ridiculous after watching the series of harrowing events Replica Riku goes through before getting to that point. It certainly stops being ridiculous when he follows it up with this speech:

Replica Riku: Must be nice being real. A fake like me could never get away with saying that. That's right, I'm a phony, a fake! The way I look, the way I feel, everything I remember! And even this newfound power! I thought by finding some new strength, I could finally be someone - someone who's not at all you! But... nothing changes... I'm still just empty! Everything about me is borrowed. As long as you're around, I'll never be more than a shadow!

I bring this up to segue into another point: even KH's fans have a hard time moving past their perceptions of what it should be as a Respectable Video Game. Particularly whenever it does something that's just a little too weird, or lame, for the average mainstream.

Something like, oh I dunno... putting relevant story content on handhelds?

While this wasn't intentional, both of the examples I've used so far have come from games that were originally made for the Nintendo DS and GBA respectively. I just used screenshots from their Playstation versions because I like how their body language is animated in them.

(I also wasn't intending to make both examples about Riku, it just kind of happened)

But anyway, handheld games are also something that's generally considered to be "less legitimate" than their console counterparts. This isn't to say that handheld gaming isn't extremely popular in its own right, because it is! Series that stick to handhelds, like Pokemon, are loved for their portability.

But outside of some exceptions like Fire Emblem, if a series has games on both types of systems, the handheld ones will always be considered "less mainline" by default, regardless of what's actually in them. For an example of this, I would point to the Zelda series, and how little its handheld titles are talked about compared to its console releases. Furthermore, the Link's Awakening remake (while technically on a handheld-console hybrid) decided to ditch the pixel art in favor of going full 3D, which showcases a slightly different but related stigma.

So what happens when Kingdom Hearts, a game that debuted in 3D on a home console, starts putting the majority of its story onto handhelds?

Well, a massive chunk of the fanbase starts calling them "spinoffs," of course! Even though the ratio of console releases to handheld ones literally looks like this:

(That's a 6:8 ratio, for reference, counting KH4 and Missing Link which haven't been released yet. It's even more slanted in the handheld's favor when you consider the short length of 0.2 and especially Melody of Memory in terms of story content)

And now we still have people talking about how we waited 13+ years for KH3 after KH2, as if nothing really important happened in between those two games, or as if a game arbitrarily having a number 3 on it is going to make it more important than everything else. And this is said by people who DO CARE about the games that were released during that time! What is happening!!

People loooove to act like you can skip over games like Coded or Union Cross and they especially love to complain that a series like this would even consider putting story content on a phone. And in such a cute art style?? A cute 2D art style??? How in the wORLD am I supposed to take something sEriOUsLY when it's on... the most accessible gaming device out there??? For free?????

(I'm willing to bet that some people will be slightly more inclined to play Missing Link because it's in 3D, but most are definitely going to just be asking "why isn't this on consoles" as if the story isn't intertwined with the gameplay format they chose at all)

And so we run into the same problem as the people who haven't even played the games: dismissing something as not really worth investing their time into based on surface-level judgements. Because even if you're down with KH's brand of storytelling, there are other barriers you could have to the series that it will repeatedly ask you to lower, and you might not be willing to.

Kingdom Hearts is a series that demands you get over your biases about what counts as real art to be taken seriously, or it WILL leave you behind in the narrative. Don't want to play a phone game? Don't want to even look up the story on YouTube? Too bad, it's required reading for the next ~Numbered Title~ that you respect so much. Good luck being confused the whole time.

Don't want to play a DS game? And you won't even watch the condensed movie version that we put in our Respectable Console Collection? Okay, but don't come crying to us when its recurring narrative themes seem like they came out of nowhere later on.

This is a series that does not have spinoffs, and trying to explain that to someone who hasn't played it makes it sound absurd. "The mobile games are important?" a non-fan asks, laughing at the concept. "Yeah, it's pretty stupid," the fan responds with a laugh of their own, because even after everything, how can they really engage with this story on its own terms when it makes such silly decisions? When it has such cringey titles? When it's so embarrassing to like?

I think I might've strayed a bit from the initial thesis statement of this post, but my point is that Kingdom Hearts exposes a lot of elitism in people regarding games and art. It pushes the limits of what it can expect its audience to take seriously, delivering purposeful, engaging storytelling no matter if it's 2D or 3D, a Triple-A Video Game on your Playstation console or a free-to-play phone game. Which makes it pretty darn neat, I'd say.

And also sometimes I get thrown off by what becomes a meme, because I get so invested in the story that I forget things can be funny out of context

[spoiledskullz]

Draws my Fluttercord fankid as a sonic oc.... it was bound to happen