#Thank fuck my brother is covering comics this month

[corpsebasil]

Second in Command Part 2 18+

part 1

The entire crew had gone off to a tavern when you docked, the workers at the pier saying that the upkeep to the ship would only take a couple of hours. So you found yourself slightly drunk, watching Tolya and the Sun Summoner’s tracker friend as they linked arms and danced around, laughing and singing along to the rather raunchy bar song the occupants sang.

“How do you think he managed to get that hat?” Nikolai asked against the shell of your ear, eyeing the pirate hat that sat on the prized Grisha’s friend’s head.

“Beats me. At least it covers his lack of hair from my sight.” You shivered comically and Nikolai let out a boyish laugh, tightening his hold on you.

Your captain and you leaned together against the wall, your back to his chest, and you would be lying if you said the way his fingers ran softly back and forth against the slip of skin revealed by your shirt, his hand running across your midriff, was unpleasant. You almost jumped when his hand slipped completely under your shirt, palm resting flat against your lower stomach and tugging you closer to him.

“People are going to stare.” You whispered, but blushed when he propped his chin on your head, his eyes closing blissfully at the feel of you. He’d wanted this for weeks, had wanted to hold you since you’d shamelessly put him in his place days after you met, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to bask in every second of touching you that you allowed.

“Let them stare.” He said, and his other arm wrapped around your middle, holding you tight.

“You two,” a female voice said, and his eyes opened to see Tamar approaching with a glass of red wine in her hand. The rest of the crew had been drinking piss poor ale, but somehow you and Tamar had been mainlining vodka sodas and wine like it was your job. “are fucking adorable.”

“Don’t fuel his ego,” you quipped, and his smile grew when your hands came up to hold his arm, settling even closer into his chest. “it’s big enough as it is.”

Tamar’s head shook and she raised her glass in a gesture that meant cheers, before she tossed you a wink and moved to hunt down her brother and stop him from embarrassing her more than he already had.

“Want to get out of here?” Nikolai asked, removing his hand from your stomach and turning you in his arms, pulling your chest flush against his.

“And do what, Captain?” You teased. Saints, the drinks must’ve gone straight to your head. Just last night you had been adamant about keeping the two of you a secret, and now you were draped against him in front of the entire crew.

He grinned lazily, leaning in to brush a chaste kiss against your mouth.

“If I recall,” he said, reaching up to tuck your hair behind your ear. “you owe me a lingerie viewing.”

“A fashion show, perhaps? Try on my favorite sets and parade them in front of you?”

“It’s been my fantasy for months, darling.”

You giggled stupidly as he smiled, his gorgeous, gorgeous face only a few inches from yours, then yelped when he scooped you up bridal style and bid a loud, careless Goodnight to the crew. Your face turned red when someone wished him luck, riotous laugher echoing around the tavern, but your embarrassment faded the moment you two moved into the night and he set you on your feet.

“Ignore them.” He said, rolling his eyes at the tavern door, and then kissed you, your skin burning as you forgot to be ashamed at being so obviously on your way to his bed.

-

To Nikolai’s dismay, the lingerie fashion show did not end up happening. Instead, he watched from his bed, expression twisted in embarrassment as you snooped around his room, lingering by his bookshelf.

“Oh my god, you’re nasty.” You cackled, picking up a novel that he’d finished only a week ago. “‘Edmund’s mouth moved down her neck, licking and sucking her unblemished skin before his lips closed around her ni—‘”

“That’s enough, thank you.” Nikolai sighed, face red. You’d been reading bits from his rather interesting book collection for over five minutes now, your smile growing wider and wider as you scanned the pages, somehow managing to find the filthiest chapters and completely ignoring the very romantic parts. “It’s a love story. They’re in love.”

“You’re just as dirty as I am, Captain.” You laughed, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively. “Oh wait, I think I’ve read this one.” You picked up another book and cleared your throat, ignoring him when he climbed out of bed and strode over to you. “‘Meredith let out a loud moan when the prince—‘”

“End it. Please.” He groaned, yanking the novel out of your hands and pulling you towards his bed.

“I think she says those exact words about a paragraph down.”

“If you don’t stop, I’m not fucking you. I’m going to make Tamar my second, and you can swim with the fishes.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would dare. Try me, sweetheart.”

You grinned as you shoved him down and straddled him, pushing his coat off his shoulders. He shrugged it off, tossing it carelessly aside, then tugged your mouth down to his. He let out a soft groan when your fingers slipped into his hair, your nails scratching lightly.

“Shirt.” He mumbled, reaching for your hem. “Off.”

Your head spun as you obliged, letting him run his hands up your smooth back and waist. He looked down at you admiringly before removing his own shirt, and you almost choked at the sight of him bare in front of you.

“Saints, how many push-ups do you do a day?” You grumbled, one brow raised, and he let out a soft laugh.

“Would you believe me if I said I’m naturally this stunning?”

“Yeah. Sure.” You lied, then squeaked when he rolled you over, pinning you under him as one hand moved to your pant buttons. Your heartbeat quickened, faster and faster as he slid your trousers off and tossed them to the floor. But when his fingers hooked into the sides of your underwear you shot up, grabbing his wrist. “Wait, um—” You swallowed. “Before we do anything, I haven’t..” You looked away, embarrassed, and cringed a bit when Nikolai moved off the bed.

“Y/N,” he said, voice soft, as he slipped his own pants off and turned the lights out, climbing under the covers. “get in bed with me. It’s fine.”

“I’m nervous.” You admitted, cheeks heating at the gentle expression on his face. Why did he have to look so sweet when you were confessing something so lame. But you moved under the blankets, allowing him to kiss your mouth, then your forehead.

Then he moved your back against his broad chest, both arms around your waist as you settled up close to him, your head resting against the curve of his shoulder. His lips brushed your hair when he spoke, the sensation making you shiver.

“I’m going to go slow.” He murmured, and your stomach twisted at the roughness of his voice. You swallowed and nodded wordlessly, feeling him adjust enough to slide yours, then his, underwear off the two of you. “I need you to curve into me a bit more.” He said, running a hand over your bare hip, and you gasped a bit when you felt him against your entrance.

He made no move to push inside you, only massaged the skin at your hip and upper thigh, turning his head so that he could place soft kisses onto your neck. And when his hand wrapped around your front and gently stroked you, you almost whined.

“It might be uncomfortable. At first.” He told you, gathering your wetness onto his fingers as he gently worked them inside, getting you adjusted to the feel of it. You’d done this to yourself before, but his hands were bigger, and the stretch made you gasp and press your face against his arm. “You feel fantastic.” He sighed, curling his fingers deeper, and you let out a soft moan of pleasure.

Nikolai gritted his teeth, wanting nothing more than to slam up into you, but took his time like he’d promised, working you closer and closer until you were trembling, grinding against him, mumbling his name against his skin. He circled his fingers against the most sensitive part of you, closing his eyes and biting back a groan when you came, your face pressed against his shoulder as you gasped his name.

When you’d gotten your breath back he kissed your neck again, his hand still rubbing that spot. You whined and wriggled away, letting out a noise of complaint, and he huffed a laugh.

“Nikolai,” you mumbled, turning your head to kiss his arm. “I want you.”

Those words might’ve been the best things you’d ever said to him. So he looped his arm under your thigh, keeping your back to his chest as you curved against him, and slowly pushed the head of him inside. You gasped and squeezed your eyes shut, practically panting as his other hand continued to rub slow, soft circles against your skin, and he pushed forward inch by inch, letting you adjust.

Once he was fully inside, hips flush against your back, you slowly gasped for air, the feeling of complete and utter fullness making breathing difficult. He kissed your neck and ran his thumb over your leg, whispering to you as he pulled out and slowly, so slowly, moved back in.

“You okay?” He asked, voice sleepy and soft as he moved. You could only sigh, rocking back against him as he kept up a languid, gentle pace, every stroke making his head spin and his chest tighten. “Saints, you feel—” he groaned and pressed his forehead against your neck, increasing his pace by a degree, earning a noise from you that made his blood pressure rise.

“Nik,” you breathed, gripping his arm. “want you…on top of me.” Your voice was strained as he pulled away and moved over you, thrusting back in with enough force to make you gasp, your nails digging into his back. “Nik.”

“Y/N.” Was his weak response, and you took his face into your hands, kissing him sweetly. It took every ounce of composure to hold back but, when he felt you tremble underneath him, your grip tightening on a whimper, he broke, biting back a groan as his mouth sucked on the skin of your neck.

You laid there in the silence, both catching your breath, before you finally calmed, running your hands through his hair and over his neck and back.

“That was—” Nikolai swallowed and pulled away, rolling over and closing his eyes for a moment. “Good gods, Y/N.”

“Mhmm.” You mumbled sleepily, turning on your side to wrap around him. He was so warm, and his body was perfect, and you felt yourself slipping into a dream filled trance as his lips kissed the top of your head.

“My love.” You heard him sigh, and your heart warmed as you finally fell asleep.

-

The next morning, after showering and washing up, you slipped on one of Nikolai’s oversized shirts and headed down to breakfast, running a hand over your tired face as you went. He was already seated at the table, boot propped up on the chair beside him, and you smiled shyly when he moved his leg at your approach.

“Good morning, darling.” He said, eyes sparkling with mischief as you walked over to him. “And whose shirt might that be? He must be devilishly handsome to win your heart.”

“Yours.” You murmured, still feeling half asleep, and didn’t truly consider what you were doing before you gave him a soft kiss and sat down, propping your head against his shoulder. Lord he smelled good. You made a mental note to make sure his cologne was constantly stocked from now on.

He looped an arm around your waist immediately, going back to his conversation with Tolya, but the man could only gape at his captain and friend in surprise.

“When did that happen?” He asked, pointing to the both of you, and your face warmed.

“I’ve been telling you this for weeks.” Tamar argued, shooting you a grin. “Idiot. For a hopeless romantic you sure can’t recognize it when its under your nose.”

“I find romance to be more noticeable when it’s under you.” Nikolai teased, earning a pinch from you in response. “Woman, don’t injure me. I’m fragile.”

“Sure you are.” You grinned, allowing him to pull you closer into his side, and your heart softened further when he pushed his plate towards you and offered you some of his own breakfast.

Hello hellllllooooo ladies and gentlemen I hope you liked this one! Make sure to send me the nastiest filthiest most horrendous requests you possibly can because I am up for it!

Also if anyone has some comedic plot lines I’d love to flex my skills at humor thank you and goodnight <3

[peaches2217]

🥰 Saying 'I love you' without saying it (Brotherly Mario and Luigi moment!)

YEEEEEEEEEEES! BROTHERLY LOVE LET'S GO!

Freak

AO3 link!

~~~

Somewhere in Brooklyn, sometime ago...

Mario was a mess.

He held his head high, and the spark behind his one good eye told Luigi he considered himself victorious, but he hadn't come out of that fight cleanly in the slightest. His knuckles were split open in three places. His shirt was torn and the collar was stretched beyond what a good washing could save. Thankfully, all of his teeth were accounted for, but he still spit blood every few minutes thanks to a split lip and what was probably a nasty bite to the inside of his cheek.

The further he tended to those wounds, the more Luigi panicked.

"Oh man. Mom's gonna freak." He wiped his brother’s bloodied hands clean as gently as possible; Mario was careful not to show any signs of pain, but he couldn’t hide the trembling in his hands. “Wh— what are we gonna tell her?”

Mario didn’t answer right away. He kept his jaw tightly clenched until Luigi decided his skin was clean enough, easing up only when the younger twin reached for the bandages he’d purchased in haste from the nearest convenience store.

“We’ll tell her the truth,” he said. “Some low-life decided to pick on the wrong guy and I wasn’t gonna let him get away with it.”

He clenched his jaw again as Luigi went back to work, wrapping broken skin in cheap gauze. He wouldn’t have much use of his hands until their mother could patch him up more expertly, but that was okay for now, he decided.

With any luck, she wouldn’t pry. All she’d care about was lecturing him — Mario, mio figlio irascibile, use your words, not your fists! — and then grounding him for the next month or two. That would be ideal. She didn’t need to know the reasoning behind his latest (and, to date, most violent) scuffle. He wasn’t ready for her to know.

Staring down at Mario’s hands, comically stiff from an overabundance of wrappings, Luigi felt a telltale stinging behind his eyes. “You fight for the dumbest things sometimes.”

“I don’t think someone spreading rumors about you is a dumb thing to fight about.”

The stinging became uncomfortably pronounced. Luigi bit his lip and fished through the plastic bag by his side once more, grabbing the water bottle hidden beneath rubbing alcohol and ointment and bloodied tissues.

“...It’s not just a rumor, is it?”

Luigi’s breath hitched. It had been phrased as a question, yet Mario’s voice lacked curiosity or incredulity, laced with a strong but not harsh I knew it sort of tone. Suddenly he didn’t have the nerve to look at him. He simply handed the bottle over to him and wiped the condensation off on his shorts, doing his best not to give into the desire to curl up into a ball and roll away.

It was his own fault. Like many other pre-teens, Luigi had a diary. Most of what he wrote within its pages was common knowledge, or just his own attempts at working through his thoughts. Most of what was inside, Mario already knew. The one secret he kept from his twin brother was tucked into its faux-leather covers. He’d stupidly believed it would be safe there.

An hour after realizing it was missing from his school bag, that secret was plastered on the library bulletin. By lunchtime it was on everyone’s lips: Oh my God, that Luigi kid’s gay! Always knew there was something wrong with him.

And three minutes after the final bell, the one who outed him was pinned to the ground in the courtyard receiving the beating of a lifetime. Had Luigi not found the strength to pry him off, he was almost convinced Mario would have killed the guy.

“You’re a freak!” the battered bully had shouted at Mario, Luigi’s diary splayed open and speckled with blood beside him. “Just like that— that fucking queer you call a brother!”

Mario was hurt, and he was going to be in massive trouble, and it was all Luigi’s fault. All because he was too chicken to keep it internalized, all because he was the weakling that always needed his brother, all because he was a fucking queer and any and every other derogatory accusation that had been thrown his way today. He pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them tightly and focused all of his energy on not crying, not here, not now.

“Weegee… why didn’t you tell me?” Mario’s voice was oddly soft. Was he upset? Was he sympathetic? He had no reason to be sympathetic. Luigi sniffed.

“Guess I didn’t want you thinking I was a freak, too,” he confessed. Mario and Luigi against the big, wide world. It had always been that way. He couldn’t stomach the thought of that changing, of Mario seeing him differently, of losing him for it. He would have kept this under wraps his whole life if it ensured that never came to pass.

An arm wrapped around him suddenly, and Mario pulled him in, jostling him almost painfully.

“Oh, give me a break, Lu,” he said. “You know who’s a real freak? Mrs. Loriey. She’s got a whole shrine set up to Robert De Niro in her supply closet! Photoshops herself into pictures with him! She’s probably shopped his face onto pictures of naked guys, let’s be real.”

“Mario!” The thought was shocking yet plausible enough that Luigi couldn’t help but laugh. Mario made a victorious noise and jostled him again.

“Or literally anyone who gets a kick out of putting other people down,” he continued, his voice getting lower as he spoke. “You know how desperate for attention people like that have to be? Imagine always thinking ‘How can I ruin some schmuck’s day so I can feel all high ‘n’ mighty?’ People like that aren’t just freaks, they’re losers, plain and simple.”

Luigi nodded, and though the first of his tears began escaping, his smile stayed strong. “So you don’t… think I’m a freak?” He chanced a glance sideways, where he found Mario smiling at him. The skin around his black eye was pale and wet where he’d held the water bottle to it and his split lip made his smile look awkward and crooked, but he knew well enough that it was genuine.

“Nah. But you know what you are?” he asked, squeezing Luigi’s shoulder. “You’re my bro. And I’ll always have your back, okay?”

He reached his other arm around to pull Luigi into a proper hug, and Luigi returned it without hesitation, sniffling and willing his tears to slow.

It had always been them against the world, and that wasn’t changing anytime soon. As far as bad days went, he decided that this one wasn’t so bad after all.

[bellhopping]

merry christmas fellas, here's my little summary of art

Generally I'd say I've improved a lot throughout this year. Got a proper drawing tablet, switched drawing programs, finally begun working on using more then one type of brush... it's certainly been journey! A journey with many ups and downs, but one I am glad I went on anyhow.

Under the cut is individual uploads of every piece of art in this image, alongside a writeups about their creation. Cheers!

[1/25/23, Medibang Paint]

Starting off with a pretty alright one, drew this to commerate the release of a game I'd been interested in for the past 4 or 5 years. I think it could use some tweaks, but for something drawn in mobile medibang I'm still pretty proud of it.

[N/A, N/A]

This is where my february drawing would go... IF I HAD ONE !!!

I did not draw much digitally in February, on account of my tablet randomly breaking right at the start of the month. I did draw some stuff traditionally, but I don't feel like fishing it out at this moment lol

[3/31/23, Krita]

One of my first proper drawings in krita, and of a character I should really draw more of. This was made for trans day of visibility & comes with a trans pride palette to boot, though I ended up choosing the normal palette since the other one kind of sucks. Also could've done better on the posing, but I was still getting used to the ins & outs of drawing tablet usage so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[4/22/23]

Drawing I made for earth day, honestly a solid contender for best thing I've drawn all year. I did pretty good on the pose, still dig the background a fair bit, & overall think the piece came out damn cool!

[5/12/23, Krita]

An expirement with line thickness, featuring one of my favorite ocs. Despite it's roughness you can tell I had gotten a hang of Krita's core functions by now.

[6/17/23, Krita]

Cover art for the prolouge of CAT-Astrophe Comic, the webcomic my brother & I have been working on. Overall been really happy with my work on the comic so far, I've slowly but surely been getting better at each part of the process and am still making good progress on pages n such ^^

[7/9/23, Krita]

Fanart of a character from a game, drawn for my pal Rinbin after they bought me Rain World. This single handedly inspired me to draw more robots, definitely one thing I 100% intend to follow up on next year.

[8/1/23, MS Paint]

Drawn based off of someone elses post, I don't remember what it was really. Honestly still really damn proud of everything in this!!!

[9/7/23, Krita]

Drew some snakes/snake adjacent pokemon for snektember. I'd say this is around the point where I "mastered" krita, by this point I actively knew how to use a majority of featues & had even begun downloading outside brushes.

[10/20/23, Krita]

Overhaul of a character I made & barely used in 2022, her name is now Olive. I based the whole squidog thing off of something in a dream.

[11/26/23, MS Paint]

Fanart of a webcomic I really fucking like !!!!! Not much more to say I just really dig this one, fucking love drawing in MS Paint.

[12/20/23, Krita]

And, as if to repeat last year, I end this one with a DreamSide main cast image!

Really proud of how much all of my designs have improved throughout the year, from the small tweaks to gigantic overhauls! I finally feel ready to take the next step forward, so to speak.

And that's everything! Thank you all for your time, and accompanying me on this journey. It was certainly a rough one in many aspects, but every year is rough for me so I've gotten used to it. See you all later :>

[mcfiddlestan]

Fic Passage Game: From "You can have half."

Say something, you idiot.

“How have you —“

“Happy Birth —“

They started to speak at the same time and followed it up with an awkward chuckle.

“Sorry.”

Loki grinned. “I was just going to say happy birthday.”

“Oh. Thank you. Here’s to twenty-four, eh?” He mock-toasted with a tootsie roll, making Loki laugh, and took a bite of it. “So, Thor’s here? I didn’t see him around.”

“He’s here,” Loki answered, nodding. “He’s probably in one of your dozens of bedrooms upstairs. His girlfriend from back home accompanied us, so...”

“Girlfriend? Since when?”

Loki smirked. “They broke up after high school, when he left for college. They didn’t think the long distance would work since she stayed to go to a school closer to home. He went back to visit a few months ago and ran into her at the shop she manages. They hadn��t seen each other in a while, but sparks flew again, I guess.”

“Hm,” Tony hummed leaning on the counter with one hand. “Well, good for him. She cute?”

A snort escaped Loki, more at Tony than the question itself. “Yes, actually, she’s beautiful. If I was into girls…”

Tony’s brows rose, his expression impressed. “Oh really?” They both enjoyed a laugh when Loki blushed again. After their laughter faded, though, it got awkwardly quiet again. Tony tried to think of something to get Loki talking again — because holy fuck his voice did things to him — and he managed to say the first thing that came to mind. “How’s it going with that Bucky guy?”

The humor faded from Loki’s face and Tony wondered if that was a subject he wasn’t supposed to approach. Loki cleared his throat. “Erm, we’re not — that didn’t — we didn’t really see each other for very long.”

“Oh…?” He’d heard through mutual friends that Loki had started seeing some long-haired, motorcycle riding baseball player about a month after they stopped seeing each other. He wasn’t jealous at all. But he also wasn’t mad that they couldn’t make it work either. “So, what was it? No connection? Busy schedules?”

Loki looked down at his lap, a wide grin curving his lips. “No,” he said on a chuckle. “I just didn’t stand a chance after he met the quarterback of the football team. They’ve been together since Spring Break.”

Tony stared, brown eyes wide, almost comically. “Shut up, he’s dating Rogers now? Wait. I thought Rogers was with that British chick. You know? The pretty one.”

Loki shook his head. “No, they broke up last year, before summer. Peggy went back to England for the break and met someone. An American, from Los Angeles. Her name is Angie, if I recall.”

“Really? Wow.” Tony scratched his fingers through the short, dark hairs covering his chin, contemplating all this new information. “What the hell is in the water here? Is everybody gay now?”

Loki chuckled. “I believe they would be considered bisexual. But…yes. Peggy is looking into transferring to a school in Los Angeles.”

Tony’s only response was to raise his brows. “Oh, shit. Well, good for her, too.”

“Mm,” Loki hummed in agreement.

“You sure got the lowdown on everybody, huh.”

“Not everybody,” Loki murmured, his lips just barely curving. A chill went up Tony’s spine as their eyes met and he had to look away. “I don’t really talk to a lot of people. I tend to…fade into the background. They forget I’m there and…they talk. I listen. I watch.”

This could have totally been an experience for me in my early 20s. And I wrote it with the people I knew at that time in mind.

I was a part of a band sorority that worked together with a band fraternity (technically my group was a frat too bc it was formed before sororities were a thing but y’know sexism). My sister became a Sister two semesters before me. Her boyfriend (future ex-hubby) and the guy who would be my first boyfriend (future ex) and my current BFF of 20+yrs would become Brothers the semester before I rushed. As you can imagine, having two groups of 20-30yrs old in close proximity 24/7 meant there were a lot of relationships happening — and a lot of swapping.

It was, rather, incestuous. But anyway…that’s kind of what I had in mind when Loki is recalling where everyone’s at romantically.

I wrote this one pretty quickly bc I just knew where to take it. Glad you liked it!

[maxbytes]

Steven was headed down the stairs one early, early morning. Too early to deserve the title Morning, when he was startled in his bleary state.

"Where ya goin'?" Sands asked languidly, laying on the couch with a Swamp Thing comic book in her face.

"Ah! Oh, good morning Sands," Steven replied sheepishly, trying to put himself between her and the gym bag he had on his back, "there's an early morning meditation session today with Garnet and I-" he didn't bother trying to stick the landing with that one. Sands eyed him over the green and eerie cover like she was Swamp Truth coming out of her Well.

"Ruby and Sapphire are on a weekend date on the moon," she said and put the comic down, "they had the dates circled on the calendar for months."

"Oh, right, I forgot about that, I wonder if they're really having all that much fun," Steven attempted another dodge but Sands wasn't being merciful today. She stood up and walked over to her brother, looking him over. He looked tired, yeah, but there was definition beginning in his arms and chest. His hands looked raw, like he was punching something for way too long these days.

"You're bad at lying, just tell me what's up," Sands cut to the chase.

Steven sighed, "Ok, you're right. Promise you won't freak out?"

"No."

"Promise you won't be angry?"

"Steven."

"Promise you won't launch me across town?"

"I can do that," Sands agreed.

"I'm...training with Jasper."

"You WERE training with Jasper," Sands clarifies, hands on her hips, "and now that's over."

Steven rubbed his forehead, "Sands, I know you don't like her, but it doesn't need to involve you."

"It does because I know exactly what her training is and it's going to get you killed or seriously hurt," Sands argued, "Why the fuck are you even still going out to her stupid cave anyway?"

"I...I just need help," Steven admitted softly, "I need help and she's the only one who can do that right now." Sands balked, "Before you say it, I've tried with the others. This isn't something they can help with."

"Then let me help you!" Sands countered, "Or Bismuth! Or hell, Biggs! Any other quartz could train you and you'd be much safer!"

"They won't stop seeing me as their Diamond! Or as their friend! Jasper doesn't like me, she doesn't see me as anything other than a pathetic person that needs help, and I need someone willing to kick my ass if I'm going to get this under control!" Steven nearly growled as he yelled, turning pink.

Sands gasped and stepped back some. Steven blinked and clutched his chest, taking deep breaths before the pink went away.

She carefully put her hands on Steven's shoulders, quietly, "Steven, do you hear yourself? You need someone to kick your ass? To see you as pathetic? This is fucked up, man. This isn't right."

"It's all I have, Sands. It's all I have to not be a danger to anyone."

Sands glared at him, "all the people around you, and you think you only have her?"

DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CLAPPING MY HANDS WILDLY HEHEHE

YOU TELL HIM, SANDS. I'M LOVING THEIR DYNAMIC IN THESE BITS AND PIECES. SO GOOD SO GOOD THANK YOU!!!!

[moxfirefly]

Good afternoon, this has been in the works for a while now and I finally got around to finishing it and being pretty content of it (this is gonna go up on AO3 soon along with the others that aren’t request) but I wanted to post it here first. Enjoy!

Rated Explicit (18+ only)

“Wish you were here right now

All of the things I'd do”

Gaming was always an escape.

From childhood to adulthood. There was some gaming equipment in your hands, controls, handhelds, keyboards and so on. There was just something calming about entering a fantasy world and immersing yourself in scenery and stories that made you stray from bad days and long nights.

For Donatello it was the same.

On one of his many supply scavenges Splinter had found a dumpster near a toy store that was going out of business. It was a memorable haul for them. What they expected to be routine things mixed with some type of groceries had turned into literal Christmas in July. Stuffed animals, board games, action figures and even a few gaming consoles with some cartridges and cd’s. Noticeably they were considered damaged or improperly manufactured, but they didn’t care and for Donnie he had spent a good week and a half fixing up the Nintendo and Play Station 2 consoles back into working conditions.

That alone had been plenty for him but nevertheless Mikey being so excited about playing wanted him to join him. They had played for hours and each disc or cartridge they tried out held a new story, a new set of controls to learn, new visuals and such. He was immediately hooked.

When he had gotten the first parts to start building a PC from scratch he knew there would be another world of possibilities for games.

Now gaming is a leisure for Donnie. Something he does for enjoyment and an escape when his projects become too much. The world of online gaming allowed him to also explore the possibilities of chatting with others though, the humans they were not allowed to see or speak to (with the exception of their Hogosha) but needless to say it wasn’t like Donnie broadcasted his identity and whereabouts. More so these people only came to game and speak game.

Donnie absolutely does detest the unnecessary sexism that gaming brings. Many a time he had read on chats or heard on his head set such derogatory comments thrown at female players. Never the one to stand such misogynistic behavior (he was raised better and had heard enough horror stories from April) he always shot that shit down quickly. Given his status as being far above his gaming peers he had developed respect and none of them ever shot back at him.

That’s how he runs into you.

On the opposing team nonetheless.

Once your female voice ran through the ears of the group he had been stuck in, the comments began to rain down. Some colorful, some lazy and some downright disgusting. Donnie had had enough and with some of his more illegal methods, had managed to push out the players in his party and send the audio recording to the email of the developers.

On exceptionally petty days he did far worse.

You had been stunned, wondering why the gang of immature boys had suddenly disappeared. Only one of them remained with the gamer tag specifying ‘Don_DuzMachines’ you couldn’t help but giggle at it.

You had asked if the sudden disappearance had been a weird glitch and if Don (as you assumed you should call him) had anything to do about it.

“Let’s just say I’ve got my ways” His soft voice rang through your headset.

“Well it’s hardly the first time I’ve had a gang of prepubescent boys tell me to suck their dicks” You started to move away in the map but stopped abruptly.

“Hey do you wanna play something else?” You asked tentatively. “Figured the least I can do is thank you” Donnie sat back pensively, well there was no harm in that now was there?

And so it started innocently.

Co-op games even the occasional match against one another. Each game you two always spoke through your headsets. Mostly banter about strategy or directions for who to do what or the occasional friendly jabs. You hadn’t revealed much that wasn’t the nickname you used as your gamer tag, and well Don had basically done the same.

That is until you decide to poke a little into his life. “You go to college?” You had asked, fingers gliding over the keyboard as you both partook in a raid. Donnie hadn’t expected such a question and he didn’t necessarily want to divulge much, he opted for a more ambiguous response. “I do my own studying, sort of like home schooling if you will?” Well he wasn’t wrong, Splinter had been both father and teacher to them, Donnie had just excelled more quickly and soon enough he was teaching his brothers on the academic side.

“You broke too, huh? Trust me it’s not worth the insane debt you’ll develop in six years that’ll take forty years to pay off” You chuckled with a hint of bitterness, Donnie couldn’t help but laugh and snort.

“That’s cute” You said sincerely. Donnie smiled, heat creeping up his neck.

How innocent things had been at the start.

For six months the two of you divulged little to no information. You never asked to video chat and Donnie never asked for your socials. It had just been a mutual agreement to keep the mystery that just wasn’t verbalized. Maybe it was for the better, because surely what had began as a gaming buddies situation had escalated to, well Donnie couldn’t really explain.

The first instance the two of you had been stuck on a map solving intricate puzzles. It was one of the more relaxed games the two of your partook in together when you didn’t want to deal with other players in a lobby.

“Dating apps are a nightmare, they’re only worth it for getting dumb funny stories” You had been playing but also checking some of the matches you’ve gotten on a site. Donnie swallowed, why did that settle so oddly in his stomach?

“Well any funny ones you’d like to share?” Don asked curiously hoping he wasn’t over stepping any boundaries. “One guy wanted me to cover my feet in marmalade, I really almost hit fuck it and did it” You couldn’t help but smile when Don choked, coughed and bursted out laughing.

“What kink is that even related to? I mean I know people enjoy feet but marmalade?” He was bewildered. “Come on Don don’t kink shame the poor guy, who are you to police his eclectic culinary desires?” Now the two of you couldn’t help but burst into another fit of laughter. Both your avatars were idle standing, the game somewhat abandoned in favor for the conversation.

“Hey I’m not kink shaming, we all have our weird kinks” Donnie smiled sitting back on his swivel chair. You clicked out of the dating site, chin resting on your hand. “Are we finally having this conversation? Cause I love this shit, it’s my bread and butter” You sat back in your gaming chair, tucking your knees.

Donnie felt so shy but the barrier of mistery the two of you had built urged him on. He was curious, like stupid curious what you looked like and while he had everything to figure out exactly where you were, it wasn’t morally correct for him. So why not just indulge in the conversation?

“Well it’s not feet, sorry to disappoint” He heard you laugh, an infectious sound he had grown to enjoy so much. “Feet are so passé anyways, what about bondage?” You spun slowly in your chair, the sounds of Don adjusting and clicking on the keyboard ringing in your ears.

“Bondage is a go, especially sensory deprivation” He was checking some documents April had forwarded to him in regards to a case they were dealing with, but he could multitask. You made an approving noise, nodding while taking a sip of your drink. “Into that D/s stuff?” You asked wanting to see what else he might like.

“Well yeah, but I do enjoy more um... Fem Dom stuff” He finished up the email he wrote out for April and hit send. “A man with taste, not something we get often” You chuckled but decided to add. “I wouldn’t mind having a guy submit to me” You bit the inside of your cheek a little shy suddenly.

Something about that statement made heat spread south for Donnie. The concept of being dominated? By a woman? He peaked a look behind him, pushing one side of his headset down to hear what his brothers might be up to but he heard only music and chatting voices.

“What’s your favorite thing?” He inquired almost too softly.

“Erotic ASMR” There was no trace of embarrassment in your voice and that somehow made Donnie hot.

“Maybe we frequent the same sites for that” Don boldly threw out. You made an approving face before sitting forward and typing on your keyboard. A beat or two later Donnie saw an email notification from you on one of his many burner emails. He opened it finding links to audios from various sites all catered to erotic audios. Donnie whistled, this was a gold mine and true to his predictions you did indeed have some of his favorite sites to peruse.

“It’s not just male audios by the way, there’s women too” You sat back once again, nervously playing with your hair. “Thanks... Well I do like hearing both” Donnie confessed, voice avoiding a stutter.

You grinned. Oh he was even more fun that you could’ve expected.

Curiously enough that had been the tamest experience into yours and Donnie’s sex talks. Because it hadn’t really stopped at that, they progressively escalated little by little. Fave kinks had turned to fave sites, fave sites had turned into fave videos. Donnie never pictured he’d share his hidden folder with a stranger no less.

You nor Donnie could really say how the two of you had ended up one late night, with yet another abandoned game, talking about weird but satisfying cyber sex experiences. Some of your stories had been on the more comical side but a few had riled Donnie up to the point that he couldn’t ignore it. There was a shift in your voice as well, an allure that enticed him.

“Can I be honest?” You licked your suddenly dry lips. Donnie tensed momentarily, not sure what to expect. “Of course, please” You squeezed your thighs together, ‘please’ shouldn’t sound so good coming out of his mouth. You trace lazy circles on your thighs, something pushed you. “I’m kinda turned on by this...by talking to you about all this stuff” Maybe this was overstepping it, surely there was nothing wrong between two adult friends discussing such matters.

There was no need to tell Don that you had yearned to put a face to the name. But his hesitance spoke of insecurities and you could understand that.

“I am too...” Donnie looked up at what he called a ceiling in his home, the darkness of the sewer system and concrete. He’d never have a chance with you, it was a deeply rooted desire for intimacy and if virtually he could obtain it then so be it.

For all your boldness you felt a wave of bashfulness hit, crashed around your self confidence. Then Donnie steps up and you feel your toes curl in excitement. “Do you want to have a better experience?” Donnie runs both hands down his face, who was he to provide better experiences, he’d never even physically had a partner. The slow sigh that escapes your throat is comforting static in his headset. “Yeah, yeah I really do actually” You feel a smile etch itself on your lips.

“You can call me Donnie” It’s the closest to his name, and truthfully he really wants to hear you say it.

“Y/N,” You say to which Donnie makes an approving noise, he finds your name to be pretty. He rolls it in his mouth, testing the syllables, he can envision moaning it, well he wants to moan it if he can be completely honest. He wants to put a face to that name but he quickly pushes the thought out. There’s a pregnant pause where neither of you engage or make the first attempt. Not wanting to let this mood flee, Donnie swallows and closes his eyes. The hum of the abandoned game grounding him.

“Say my name again” It’s not a forceful demand, all the contrary he wants to hear the pitch in your voice when you say it, he wants to picture how each tone would variate depending on what he would do or say. “Donnie...” You smile to yourself when you say it, a hint of desire nestled in it and Don notices that and wants more of it.

There’s a lengthy sigh from your behalf, hands wandering up your thighs towards your chest. “I’d like to be there right now, would like to say it against your lips” Your bold confessions makes Donnie’s pulse quicken. He runs a ghosting touch up his plastron, the vision of a delicate hand doing it. The imaginary weight of you on his lap grinding down on his hard member. Donnie grips himself through his shorts a soft groan escaping his parted lips.

“Want you to kiss me” He swallows dryly, the approving noise you make pushing him forward. “Feel your lips all over, feel your mouth around me...” He lifts his hips, hand cupping himself and the small hitch in your breath is a sound he wants permanently recorded in his brain.

“God are you big? I bet you are” You kneed your breast, thumb and forefinger pinching the sensitive nubs until they’re perked. Donnie smirks to himself, freeing his aching member and looking down at himself. Mutant genes aside he feels somewhat shamefully proud of his cock, he wonders if you would like it... deeply buried within you. “Yeah I am, I think you can take it something tells me” You catch that teasing tone and the urge to swallow him whole and make him see stars is too much.

Your hand finds its way into your underwear, the warm wetness making you moan as you tease your middle finger between the lips to find your sensitive nub there. You bite back another lengthy moan but recover enough to breathlessly say, “oh fuck, Donnie” and that very sound makes him shiver. Never did he think he’d hear something so temptingly good, said with such sincerity. God the things he would do to smell your arousal right now, to taste the wetness. “Push two fingers in slowly” Donnie almost pleas, his voice shakey, hand pumping his cock at a steady pace. You do as he wishes, your gutted moan making more precum gather at the tip of his member.

“God-shit- you sound so good, wish you were riding my big dick right now” He wants to chastise himself for saying something like that, but he can’t deny that statement shakes something in you. He can hear it, the sound of your fingers mixed with a continuously rising string of moans. “Ohmygod” Words tumble out strewn together by your pleasure. “Donnie please, please fuck me harder” That alone makes him sit up and push forwards, one hand on his desk as the other works himself up in upward twisting strokes.

Donnie can’t erase the idea of slamming into you right here on his desk, maybe bent over, maybe you’ll let him cum on your face...

He pushes the idea away, he can’t envision your face now, not right now, not when your moans have you sounding this deliciously in need. You’re plunging two fingers into your core as your free hand runs firm circles around your clit. “Christ Donnie you sound so good baby” You moan, perspiration covering your body and Donnie can only groan his approval.

There’s a few minutes where it’s just the two of you lost in your own pleasure together. The constant chants of ‘fuck’ and ‘god’ and ‘yes’ mixed between the two of you. “Say it... again” Donnie groans out, hand quickening, briefly gathering some saliva and letting it fall on his hard member for better traction. “Don-oh, Donnie cum in me!” You’re so far gone, not caring what comes out of your mouth. The wet sounds in your head set and a vibration you figured could be static mixed with his groans was all you heard.

Donnie’s hips twitch, feels that request swim inside of his brain and the image of burying himself as deeply as you could take is all he needs. Just as your moans rise in crescendo he feels the first twitch and relief of his orgasm overtake him. He’s never felt it hit him this hard it knocks the wind out of him, each rope shooting out onto his hand and floor. In his minds eye though, it’s your suffocating heat taking it, milking him until he’s a shivering mess. It plays perfectly like a movie, he swears he can even feel your lips at his neck and arms holding him tight.

Your sounds are enough to keep him stroking, the way your voice pitched up with the sound of his name entwined, forever recorded in his brain. Your entire body tensed to the point of uncomfortable but it was impossible to stop abruptly when he sounded so lost in you. Your leg shakes and stiffens and it takes every inch of control to not become liquid and slip away into comforting bliss.

Eventually the sounds of heavy breathing slowly but surely settling are the only things the two of you can hear in your ears. There’s a mess, for you and for him. The understanding of things transpired crossing each of you two’s brains. Should you speak first? Should he?

“Um, you with me?” You settle, skin sweaty and mouth dry. There’s movement on the other line, a quiet cuss here and there and you smile. “Yeah, sorry just... made a mess” His voice has that sheepish tone and you can’t help but chuckle.

“Great thing about being a girl, we can conceal the evidence better” You stretch your aching legs enjoying each joint pop. “The female anatomy never seizes to amaze me, trust me” Donnie leans back in his chair, napkin cleaning any other soiled spot.

The silence was somewhat comfortable, the buzzing of good chemicals slowly settling.

“Was this okay?” He asked, hesitant tone in your ears.

“More than okay if you ask me” You kept it light not wanting him to feel odd or even ashamed.

You ventured on slowly, forming the question in your brain and bouncing it back and forward with a swallow. “If, and I mean if you want to, we can maybe do this from time to time” You worried a thumbnail between your teeth. Donnie’s gaze watching the idle screen of the abandoned game, he thought hard but briefly.

“I... yeah I would” He smiles to himself, even if the nagging thought that this might not last clutches the back of his mind. Why ruin a good thing? This was good more than good and you suggested to continue.

He doesn’t want to preoccupy his brain with scenarios, or if that dreaded ‘let’s meet’ sentence decides to cross your lips. If this is the inch of intimacy he gets to have and it’s with you, who he has grown so fond of, then he’s selfishly taking that inch and guarding it with his life.

Mutely you both remain on the line, no words spoken from the agreement, just simply enjoying that the two of you were present.

Even if not physically.

[popculturebuffet]

Sonic Month: The Tails Adventure aka Trouble in Paradise (Sonic Universe 17-20) (Comissioned by Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy hedgehogs! Sonic Month enters its final week and I have THREE sonic reviews hot and fresh coming for you! First up we have our second of two character spotlights. Last week we set our hearts free true with knuckles this week we fly high with Tails into my faviorite sonic continuity, Archie Comics.

And lucky me, since Emma isn’t the most familiar with this continuity, I get to go on about it a bit for her and for those of you less familiar with archie. 

So it was 1993 and Sonic The Hedgehog had , as scientests would say “blown the fuck up”, with Sonic 2 being a MASSIVE hit and everyone was lining up to get a piece. One of these pieces i’ve covered on this blog before was DiC animation who created two cartoons for it: The wacky and zany Adventures and the more serious SATAM. And since the games had a story as deep and complex as  “The flash but blue and a woodland creature and his sidekick whose a flying fox because it looks neat battle a fat man who stuffs animals inside robots because the environement.”,

The comic naturally took cues from the cartoons.. BOTH OF THEM. 

As a result Archie’s sonic started with the dark setting of satam.. but with the madcap humor and lack of seriousness of Adventures, complete with your boys scratch and grounder. If they are not..

The comics would evolve with time both under writer Micheal Gallager, who easily transitioned from the comedy stories to drama having worked at Marvel, and under two chaps by the names of Kent Taylor.. and Ken Penders

Yeah at first Ken was actually helpful, helping give Archie a mythlogy of it’s own alongside gallagher, giving knuckles his own rich history, and creating several fan faviorite characters. As the first 50 issues went on it evolved from a simple gag a day story to what it was born to be: a fun but still tense epic about our heroes fighting robotnik with tons of extra sized specials, one shots, and mini series to help expand the world and give the bigger characters (Tails, Knuckles and Sally) spotlight. It worked... then issue 50 hit. While Endgame itself is kind of a mess and I may talk about it here someday, issue 50 was a glorious climax to the series, with Robotnik outright DYING thanks to snively after an utterly awesome clash with sonic, easily the best they’ve had in any medium thus far and certainly the most tense as the two finally went hand to hand after 50 issues of robotnik mostly using evil schemes. 

Then it all got flip turned upside down: see with no games for a LONG time, Sega really didn’t care about the comic: they still let it exist but they had no promotional need for it. Meanwhile Archie, as long as it sold well enough, also did’nt care as long as it made them money. So we got things like the magic sword Sally’s family has, already kinda nuts, gaining sapience, sonic and friends being forced to go to school, ENDLESS drama with Sally’s asshole dad, Knuckles going green and joining with his enemies, it being revealed

Sonic finding his lost parents who it turned out weren’t dead, Sally finding out her mother and brother were not dead, Tails finding out his parents were not dead, Knuckles finding out his entire race was not dead, Sonic finding out his childhood FRIEND was not dead, Tails finding out the robot he made out with was based on a real person, Sonci making out with said real person and tails running away dramatically, sonic dying, sonic returning from space, robotnik returning but as his robot self from an alternate timeline we saw before, Sally hitting sonic for not giving up bein ga hero, Antoine and Bunnie breaking up, scourge trying to make out with everyone, shadow being outright evil despite having not even been that in canon, antoine having turned out to be his evil doppleganger, 80 years spent 20 years in the future wasting a godo conccept and titan tails

The comic was a mess going into the mid 2000′s and with Karl Bollers leaving because Ken Penders was a moron and Ken Penders being fired for causing most of this, Archie was desperate for someone willing to fix this mess.

Thankfully this is where Ian Flynn comes in. Lifelong sonic fan, former fan comic writer, and general encylopedia of all versions of the characters, Ian is one of THE most decorated sonic writers, writing the comic for the next decade till it was closed because Archie, Sega and Ken Penders all sucked in some way.  And i’ts easy to see why: Ian clearly took a page from most superhero comic writers, taking past bits of clunky continuity and using them to craft good stories, while taking characters writers misued or forgot about and polishing them up into straight up bangers. Anti-Sonic went from “sonic from earth 3 but in a jacket”, to the evil counterpart he was born to be, Scourge, Fiona went from a flat love intrest to an intresting traiotr, mammoth mogul became the badass he was always supposed to be, and MANY more. His run on sonic is one of my faviorite runs of all time and DEFINTELY somnething i’m going to cover some day, possibly soon given how much you guys have liked this retrospective. 

So i’m pleased as punch to cover a bit of it. Today’s tale comes from Sonic Universe. Ian had turned the comic around so well by this point he got a SECOND book, which he used to tell all kinds of stories: while two featured sonic (one dealing with the 25 years later future and the othe rbefore this handling some stuff for the main plot), most focused around his friends, enemies , and other denziens of his world, allowing ian to expland it and cover crucial plot points or just tell smaller stories he coudln’t tell in the main book. 

Case in point this one, the fourth story and one of the funnest. So join me under the cut as I give out even MORE exposition

And dive into some fun in the sun as Tails takes Bunnie and Antoine on their honeymon and they all fight some birds. Because you know this is thier lives. 

Tails, Antoine and Bunnie in Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog:

This is a VERY accessible story: you could pick it up with only some sonic knowledge and likely enjoy it, much like a marvel comic if your doing the job: you may have questions but they’ll only make you want to read more. 

As i’m recapping this story though, it’s easier to just give you an idea who these three are from the top. Fun too. 

So first up is our headliners: Tails in archie started out much like SATAM and Adventures: he was sonic’s doting kid sidekick who rarely went on missions and was there more “because game”, only taking part in things when they were direct attacks. Micheal Gallagher found a clever way to use this though, with tails slowly gaining confidence and competence... but everyone else, sally most of all, babying him.

This incident lead to tails first full solo adventure as thanks to an oil soaked seagull, he was able to power the seafox, fought an octobot underboss with the help of the forty fathom freedom fighters, and headed off for an island adventure where he smooched a robut, based on a real lif efox named fiona (the basis thing was a later retcon as the robot was unsuprisingly popular), and nearly got robtocized, beating robotink’s scheme on his own and ending up in mobius australia. So a normal week in this comic basically. 

With this Tails soon got upgraded to full fledged freedom fighter, with his inventive aspects eventually being added from the games, and was also the chosen one in a convluted prophecy involving a mammoth and ..

Yeah so we’re glossing right over that.  His primary role from here was mostly serving as sonic’s best friend and most trusted partner, the one he’d call on more than anyone. Then tragedy struck when everyone thought sonic was dead after some aliens who mutated Mobius back when it was earth attacked and he got warped away stopp ing them while knuckles came back much like jesus...

So Tails was left Grieving his best friend as they struggled along without him and things got all angsty. Sonic came back of course, he was just zipped across the universe and also found out tails parents were alive. This will be important in a moment. So tails was happy.. but the unvierse couldn’t have that so this happened. 

Yup. The real fiona showed up but having aged a few years.. she wasn’t intrested in him the way he was with her... soooo

This has rightfullly gone down as one of the more infamous moments in the comics history, one I saw as a kid in scans, but as an adult thought “This might not be as bad as my memory made it out out to be. “ Nope, even worse. Whlie the IDEA isn’t terrible, sonic dates someone Tails has feelings for but is too old for him and it creates some issues in their freindship, the over the top half assed art, seriously tails angst makes sonic’s QUILLS blow back, and how utterly rushed the romance between Sonic and Fiona was made it fall flat. It comes out of nowhere and seems there JUST to give sonic someone to date other than bunnie after they decided to drop that storyline and get her and antoine back together. 

We’ll get back to that in a moment. So instead we got this which no fan really liked as Fiona had no real character since coming back. Bringing her back itself wasn’t a bad idea, the execution was just flawed.

Thankfully 5 issues later Ian took over and spent a YEAR

Yes a year cleaning up the remaning storylines while slowly setting up his own stuff. And Fiona was one of his first orders of buisness, the other being a character she’d become entertwined with in both senses of the word: Scourge. Scrouge was originally anti-sonic, an evil greaser sonci from another dimension that sadly failed to be an actual threat, and who recently ahd made out with everyone in town while pretending to be sonic and then teamed up with Rogue.  Ian saw an opportunity in this plot cul de sac and in his first issue anti turned green, got a wicked awesome scar from knuckles abusive dad and became scrouge, a TRUE evil counterpart to sonic who replaces sonics need for freedom with anarchy, his flrity nature with being a horndog jackass, and his caring nature with being a cruel destrecutive bastard. Naturally he was awesome.

He used said previous making out with everyone to explain Fiona and Sonic’s weird relationship.. from her side at least: Fiona was in love with SCOURGE, and really wasn’t happy being a straight edge freedom fighter. She tried dating sonic because they looke dthe same but it just didn’t work, with ian setting up not only her disastifaction but her defectoin, cleverly using all this past stuff to remake fiona from an entirely boring character to an intresting villainess and partner for scourge. Tails naturally didn’t get out of this unscathed now she didn’t have to play nice with the poor boy anymore

So as you can imagine he didn’t exactly take.. any of this well. He put on a face seeming to be okay... but he wasn’t, and an arc later we’d dig into that with the House of Cards two parter. 

Since Ian had came on board , he’d brought Tails parents Amedeaus and Rosemary back from outer space via some teleporters and stuff. But their return, while happy at first, soon caused strife int he kingdom as Amedeaus, having both seen democracy work out in the stars and seen the monarchy of acorn fail time and time again.

He wanted to abollish it. The current king, Sally’s aformentioned long lost brother elias who, while an excellent character, is WAY too much to unpack, refused partly out of wanting to keep the kingdom’s tradition in tact.. and partly because of his daddy issues and not wanting to let down his asshole dad, aka the very reason I sided with the prowers on this one. He even arrested Amedeaus.. which lead to his wife and child breaking him out.. and naturally Nicole made the BRILLIANT decision to call sonic for this despite pointing out tails resentment earlier. It went.. as well as you’d expect

God that was cathartic. Ian did maybe TOO good a job showing just how ignorant sonic was of how much pain he was causing his best friend.  So naturally next issue is full of punching as Tails lays out how he resents sonic: For not talking him along on missions earlier on, for not beliving Tails stories about his own adventures, and for locking his dad up.  But as you can probably guess... while all of that’s bothered him.. most of this comes from exactly what you expected it to be. 

Aside, Sonic’s apology is geninely heartfelt. 

I REALLY need to cover this run in full at some point. So that’s where Tails leaves by this point: stronger, his relationship with sonic repaired and having slowly gone from kid sidekick to a full fleged freedom fighter and genius, with this arc FULLY showing off what that means. 

Bunnie and Antoine

The Archie Versions of Bunnie and Antoine are easily some of my faviorite sonic characters and comic book characters period, living up to the potetial their satam counterparts had by way of character development.. even if like most characters it took till ian for them to really florish. 

At the start the two were exactly what they were in SATAM: Bunnie was given a proper origin, ending up in a roboticzier and barely being saved by Sonic and Rotor, hence her being the way she is, as well as a shortlived dream of being a hairdresser once the war was over, but otherwise she was largely the same: a kind, badass cyborg who hated being half roboticized but still used it to her best to help her friends. While, much like SATAM she ended up sidelined a good bit during the 50 issue war, she still got to do much more and got spotlight stories once in a while, in general being treated like the big deal she shoudl’ve been anyway, with one of the most heartbrekaing being having a nightmare of her roboticization slowly finishing.. showing just what the poor woman fears most. 

Antoine was largely the same: A comical coward who wasn’t really good for anything and you questioned why he was kept on the main team, especially once sally started training new recruits. He didn’t really change as a character to the point that while Bunnie got an utterly awesome showing in mecha madness, loosing to a roboticized sonic but at least putting up a decent fight first... Antoine.. put sonic on trial afterwords in one of the dumbest moments of the comic’s history. 

Though he did get an intresting spotlight where, to prove a point, he did a solo mission... and Bunnie worried about him is shown, subtley at that, to have tagged along and made sure he didn’t die or get roboticized. And when going back to tails, Antoine not only admonishes himself for how stupid his actions was.. but once the child is gone he geninely thanks his savior

Yup this little backup is also where the comics best romance, with all due respect to sonic and sally and knuckles and julie su of course, begins, with a simple innocuous peck on the cheek that, seemingly was just a fun thing.. but come issue 46, just before endgame the writers picked it up in a great way. 

Said issue is also where Antoine finally gets character development as well as an explination for why he sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. For starters when local asshole and one of the worst characters in archie sonic, Geoffery St. John, wants to kill sonic both due to not liking him and being in his way to wooing sally (who by the way was a minor while Geoffery very much isn’t so...)

Antoine steps in and punches the asshole batman style

He also calls out Geoffery in a variety of ways, which is oh so statisfying after putting up with this prick. And look if your a fan of his: fine, your opinon is valid, i’m not knocking you. But I will knock this selfish, entitled, useless, egotistical, predatory, brownosing, faux-australian prick all I want. He spent all his screen time trying to woo a teenager, getting in the way of the guy who was doing most of the ACTUAL legwork for the war, and in general putting his dick measuring contest with a war hero over his actual duties, and that’s not even getting into the later retcon he was working for an evil wizard this whole time. 

Story for another day. ... we were talking about antoine right? Anyways this confrontation also leads to bunnie , who he saved early in his career giving out his backstory... he WAS a good hero and freedom fighter when he started, wearing his father’s uniform to honor him.. but then

It’s a great character pivot showing WHY he was so hooked on sally... and that he never had a shot, and deconstructing it: he hopelessly chased a dream that had no chacne of becoming true, with Sally never once giving him the indication she was interested.. and had to watch as he lost it. It dosen’t make it OKAY he fell apart like this but given he’s only a teenager, it’s at least understandable. Thankfully.. he finds something better

And thus the romance began. So with robotnik beat soon after, surely there were some juicy developments with these two right? A first date, some fighting together something Right?

Yeah for some damn reason post issue 50, outside of the ocasoinal moment, most of the main cast ceased to be all that important. Antoine was only used as part of Sally’s dad’s attempts to force them to marry, yes really, and aside from a story in one of the specials where Bunnie had to upgrade her cybernetics in a way where she could NEVER get them undone, something Antoine supported her with the two were just kinda there and didn’t get to do a whole lot of note.  The only exception I can think of is Antoine finding out his dad was still roboticized, and once his brainwashing was removed reuniting with the guy, who then made peace with his former arch enemy, amy’s robin hood themed cousin. Amy had a robin hood themed cousin btw. 

This changed after sonic got shot up into space and was thought dead and we got a time skip out of the deal. And not for the better: The two broke up , with Bollers intending for Antione to do a heel turn, before his leaving meant that thankfully didn’t happen. Antoine also wore an eyepatch now because time skip. Bunnie ended up dating sonic breifly, that thankfully didn’t last, that unthankfully lead to the mess described above and no one liked it whatsoever. Thankfully it was undone just before Ian’s run: turns out Antoine was his evil twin from another dimension, the same one as anti sonic, patch. Who wears an eyepatch. Which antoine suspciously started wearing after suddenly changing in demeanour. You know guys maybe there’s a reason you never beat robotnik. 

Patch poisoned the king, which sadly was not fatal, and sonic bringing elias back as well as finding antoine helped save it. The two happily reunited, and this farce finally ended.

With Ian’s run Ian not only treated the two like main characters again, but decided to deepen the relationship.. and it started with something Sad as Antoine’s dad passed, with Patch having also poisoned him because apparently poisoning old men is like pringles, you can’t just stop at one. But he told him he loved him and that he approved of his relationship. 

So with that on his mind, and the fiasco with fiona clinching it.. antoine decided to do something bold

Yup. Just before the milestone 175th issue, Antoine popped the question and the two soon married after that, in one of the most heartwarming moments in the comics’ history and one that felt earned: while the twos romance hadn’t been focused on outside of the doppleganger incident, the two had remained steady, faithful and in love thorughout this war as it ended, rekindled and got so much worse. Ian took the two from merley a couple.. to a well written one with the marriage feeling meant to be and truly heartwarming. They were wed, Robotnik attacked and killed a bunch of people afterwords, as is their life, they also had to fight off an invasion... so while they were happy they didnt’ have a chance to really honeymoon,a nd tails, having both fought his best friend and then had to go overseas to help with the efforts against the iron dominon, longer story for later, all three could really use a break. which FINALLY brings us to today’s comic. Sometimes being a wordy bastard who can’t help but gush about things he likes sucks folks. 

                       The Tails Adventure! or Trouble in Paradise

As you can probably guess by the title, this arc’s a long overdue adaptation of Tails Adventure, a metroidvania style spinoff for the game gear. I.. have not played a ton of it as whilie a great concept in execution it’s a bit

Though it’s mostly just it’s age, having to clumisly enter and exit levels and guess as what to do next without a guide. I might give it another whirl after this honestly. It’s still not a bad game and with an eshop card you CAN still get it on the 2ds as of this writing until august and for only 6 dollry doos, so if your curious, there you go. 

As for why it wasn’t adapted back in the comic’s heyday I WAS confused at first. Archie had a habit of adapting most sonic releases from the obvious ones, Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, and Sonic CD, to others like Sonic Spinball, Sonic Triple Trouble and Knuckles Chaotix, the latter presumibly because they added more characters to play with. But weirdly depsite giving them a whole new villian faction in the battle Kuku’s and tails solo adventures and eventual mini showing fans wanted more of the little guy, it never happened. But after looking at the specials release dates, it became obvious: There just wasn’t room. In the year the game came out we also got the triple trouble and chaotix specails, with his mini coming out at the same time the chaotix special did. And while next year would still work... we then got Super Sonic vs Hyper Knuckles, which while tying into nothing and really not being necessary... was still pure sugar to any ten year old seeing it on the stands, and after that was the special finishing up mecha madness.. well kinda finishing it up. We had that moronic trial issue after but I can grouse about that some other day. So I get archies priorties being “finishign up the story of the year” and

Respectively. Why they didn’t during the years AFTER this.. is because Bollers and Penders prefered making their own characters. And archie DID have great characters like Mina, Julie Su, Lien-Da, Enerjak, the various branches of freedom fighters, Larry, Mammoth Mogul, Knick the weasel and more, a lot of whom needed ian to truly shine btu were still great in concept. The problem was a LOT of those characters got sidelined for whatever reason, and we got focus on characters like knuckles stupid abusive grandpas and dad, horse sean connery, a lost tribe of knuckles people who live in a utopia and do fuck all except their leader trying to kill knuckles that one time, spider ninja lady, tails wizard uncle, the dingoes, sluth doggy dog, that wolf jackass who kicked off endgame, robotnik’s non snively realtives with the exception of his niece, any other overlander and of course Kodos, aka the worst villian in archie’s history and again

I’ve probably even missed a few but the point is they can’t all be winners and the two were more obsessed with making things more convluted or in penders case making knuckles mythlogy EVEN MORE DENSE, than actually carring about the games. Even one the games did come back, the adventure adaptation ended up a huge mess thanks to said mythlogy, while the adventure 2 adaptation was a foot note with the versions of Rogue and Shadow we got not remotely resembling the ones on screen, which was fine for the genisis days given the stories were relegated entirely to manuals, but not so great when you had a FULL GAME telling you who these people were and had time to play it or at least read a synopsis by the time both became relevant. 

Ian however did actually care: while he loved archie dearly and it showed, he also loves the games just as much, and as a result made sure to put as much of them that had been neglected in as he could: Rogue was quickly put in line with her game counterpart, as was Shadow as soon as he could, Gamma and Big both made come backs and Ian introduced Omega and as soon as he could cream (He coudln’t use her at first because Sega woudln’t let him.. because shut up), he consolidated the GIANT pile of chaos emeralds into 7 resembling the games that now had to be won via the specail zone, adapted most games that came out while he was writing in fully canon backups up until that stopped being fesable with unleashed, and even brought game characters that had been utterly underutlizied like Big and Gamma. Granted gamma died like.. right after, but it was in service of a story at least? I dunno. Point is it was clear Ian loved the games and while some fans chaffed at him adding so much of the games.. I think ti’s great. He didn’t overwrite the series own mythlogy and worked them in as much as he could, with aformetieond robotnik niece, hope JOINING team dark who were itegrated into statoin square , making it actually relevant and doing actual work with Big’s people. 

Ian got that the primary demographcis were kids and hardcore sonic fans, most of whom probably DID enjoy getting to see these characters adapated at a time when the only other adaptatoin was sonic x. To see how they fit into archie and what ian would do with them, given how much great stuff he was doing with the Archie cast. It’s not a crime for an adaptatoin to actually resemble the source materail. 

And it wasn’t just modern stuff as this adaptation and his AWESOME versions of bean and bark (which have carried over to idw’s classic continuity), show. Ian loves all of sonic, to the point the reboot continuity, while heavily games based, still kept the freedom fighters and compensated for all the original stuf lost by cramming in as much stuff from the shows as he could. Ian is the greatest sonic fan and no one loves this franchise more than he does or cares about it the way he does and yes i’m VERY much included sega. 

Anyways 80 years later we’re onto the actual comic which opens with Tails taking Bunnie and Antoine to his private island via the sea fox so the two can have their long overdue honeymoon, since it’s been several arcs since their wedding and the day after wedding involved mass kidnapping and mass murder from robotnik. So buisness as usual

Also yes tails has a private island now

Ian does his best to explain WHY tails suddenly seems to know about an out of the way island that would’ve been relaly useful a long time ago not long into the issue: He found Cocoa Island, and the two island surrounding it on his way back from his mini series. As for why he never brought up you know, a whole freaking island they could use as a base or something, my guess is, while not so far Tails can’t get there from knothole and later new mobotropolis and back on one can of fuel, it’s still far enough that it’s not relaly conveint to use as a base, as robotnik would likely just create shark bots or pirahnatrons or sic a giant telepathic whale on them like he does later. It’s good as a worst case scenario backup, and they were VERY close to worst case recently. It’s still weird to suddenly patch this in and it would’ve made more sense to be discovered at the same time Tails is said to have really used the island: when sonic was thought dead for a year. I told you I had a reason for all of this. That way it’s more recent in the comics memory and makes more sense why it hadn’t come up in a strory till now. Still that little bit of continuity with the death is why I love ian’s writing on this: again like any great comic book writer, he takes history and uses it to give something as simple as “why tails has a workshop out here and mapped this whole place”, weight: it was his refuge during the worst time in his life and thus a place of comfort, and it also shows how he’s grown: he’s gone form using this as an escape to doing that.. but letting his friends do the same, no longer holding in his old resitments and truly growing. 

So the plan is for them to split up gang: Tails is going to work in his workshop and get some private time, while Bunnie and Antoine also get some.. if in a diffrent way

I just want to take a minute to acknowledge that Sally not only knew these three were taking this trip, but that her, sonic , rotor , amy and anyone else knew they were singing off on two young newlyweds getting into some werid shit on a child’s prviate island. I  get why alternate future tails dosen’t talk to sonci much anymore.

The trio are watched by Junior of the battle kuku empire and two stooges, with Junior not moved to do anything.. till he notices tails flying and has murder in his eyes. 

We do get a nice montage though of the D’Colette-Rabbots enjoying their honeymoon and Tails enjoying his solo time as he builds his sidekick t-pup. T-pup is okay.. it’s neat he has a little robot buddy btu the design has never wowed me and the fact he later outright joins the freedom fighter annoys me. I don’t think robots can’t, Shard is one of the best there ever was, i’m more saying that maybe tiny robot dog foxes with little sapience shoudln’t. I don’t hate him but I never really warmed to the little guy either. 

We then get a fantastic scene with the happy couple where Antoine asks Bunnie if she thinks they married too early. And after teasing him, she admits she gets it: that many will say they married way too young.. but offers a valid reason why: the two have been through war together, their still going through it technically. They’ve had to grow up fast and that’s how antoine felt too.. he just wanted to be sure she was happy.. which she is

I do love this couple: while as I said there wasn’t really a lot done with them as a couple till now, they come off as a real one with real chemistry: she helped him get out of his shell and self loathing and he helped her accept who she is. Their better together than they were alone and that’s all you can ask from a couple. 

So as tends to happen to our heroes, their peace is interupted by a bunch of assholes with robots, with Antoine and Bunnie fighting some basic troops quite easily as you’d expect. The Battle Kuku’s have mech walkers. Tails likewise springs into action even getting a truly badass moment as he muses on just how far he’s come

The issue wins with Bunnie and antoine getting suckered by a giant mech set up for the finale of the arc, and Tails , while doing well against grunts, finding himself up against Speedy, son of the grand battle kuku, hot head and speedster and master flier, making a character whose design has him looking like he wears a diaper (it’s supposed to be an egg but like.. look at him)

Geninely terrifying. Granted I have no idea WHY Ian left the diaper on his design but still props to making it work. 

As you can see by the next one tails simply stalls long enough for t pup to bite his backside and to super run away, as i’ts clear speedy has him beat in speed and power. Tails only barely hides away and ONLY gets to hide because Speedy’s dad recalls him. We also get a nice moment having him contrast sonic: Tails points out his best buddy would barge in, save Bunnie and Antoine (who speedy revealed had been captured), and go full speed.. but that’s not who tails is. He’s a thinker, he’s tired and he needs a second, and trusts that his friends will be okay long enough for him to do something. 

Speaking of the happy couple, Bunnie is soon grabbed by the kuku’s from her cell while Antoine swipes a key to escape. Bunnie also lucks out as it turns out the battle lord thinks she’s with the dark egg legion. This.. is going to take some explaning.. yes even more. See Knuckles arch enemies were the Dark Egg legion, a group of echidnas who split off from the rest due to favoring the high tech they used to have and thus were all cyborgs. This came to an end when Knuckles was tricked into becoming a mad god for a while, and stripped them of their cybernetics. Horrified and desperatley wanting that part of them back, the Legion’s leader Lien Da struck a bargin with Eggman: restore their cybernetics and they work fo rhim. So now robotniks been setting up chapters all over with new bosses, and naturally put bombs in the cybernetics so if someone turns on him he can just blow them the fuck up. Bunnie uses this and finds out some valuable intel about their new foes: the battle bird armada is a centuries old empire that simply wants to rule the skies and is only eggman empire adjacent: they aren’t fully part of it but the two live in mutual agreement not to kill each other, likely since eggman has no intrest in the skies of this world and the empire is more intrestied in finding the ancient weapons of their past. We also find out in this continuity the Bablyon Rogues, those birds on hoverboards what showed up in the riders games, are former members who broke off. This would get elaborated more on in a future arc of universe following up on this one, and is a clever bit of world building, tying two groups of brids together. Ian would do this AGAIN later with th eformerly unrelated character predator hawk, because three’s the magic number I guess

Anyways, while Bunnie schmoozes, Tails awakens and amos u p, getting his bombs from the game to help take back the t-sub as the battle kukus stupidly left his workshop unguarded. He heads for the third island nearbye, one that wasn’t on his maps and is naturally the kuku’s base. He soon end sup in an underwater dog fight though and adorably geeks out over the kuku’s stealth tech. While i’m not bringing it up a lot I do like how ian found a way to integrate bit sections of the game: the fire to start us off, the underwate rportion the bombs, all while makign it feel seamless. 

Meanwhile Antoine breaks out.. but Speedy finds him

And he improvises an escape once Bunnie comes back, seemingly mistaking her for a trailer and dramatically diving to his death, ending part 2. Oh there’s also a nice little nod to the margrine gag from satam when Antoine escapes. Ian REALLY loves his mythlogy gags and their always hilarous

Bunnie is naturally upset but notices something that makes her smile and bluffs speedy when he points out how upset she was about her supposedly fake deep cover husabnd dying by noting all that work is gone.. it dosen’t work, but props to her for recovering. 

Ant is of course fine, having landed on the sea fox, and reunited with tails. Not only that we see juts how much trust the two have in one another: I wasn’t kitting abotu the feint: Antoine picked up Bunnie was pulling a deep cover infiiltration and was simply playing along confident they’ll reunite later. Awww. 

Having found some tunnels last issue and with the sea fox not suited for underwater, Tails burrows them into said tunnels and they disembark on the island. Granted he’s not much help as while having grown a lot ant is still very capable of making someone want to strangle him with only a few words and the sound of his voice

So while they go into a tunnel, and Antoine asks the understandable question of “why are we going underground to fight birds”, Speedy visits doctor Fukruov... which people keep misprouncing in unfunny way. Let a pro show you how it’s done Ian. So doctor Fuck Right Off is mad Speedy’s invading his perosnal bubble but allows him to use his computer, with Speedy finding out Bunnie is a freedom fighter and deciding to handle this using the spooky mech we saw earlier, aka the final boss of tails adventure.

Tails and Antoine storm the gate, stealthily taking out some troops before using their own bombs to blast their way in and wrekcing up the place. And I do like how this shows just HOW skilled our heroes are. Against robotnik it usually dosen’t show as while their good, he’s used to them. He’s fought them for years and in his home reality outright beat them. But the Battle Kuku’s have ZERO idea , so their far less effective, as they have no way to counter them and our heroes have fought way better. IT nicely scales them as a threat: they aren’t NOT one, i’ve seen many media make that mistake such as warden wrath with owl house or wapol and hody jones with one piece, but they also just simply arent ready for our heroes, so they aren’t doing as good as someone whose not only killed them before but spent a decade fighting them before that and years after that doing it now. 

Bunnie naturally joins the fracas as the emproro, of course, sent her righ tto them, and the happy couple reunite, with bunnie having grabbed her husband a gift

As usual their adorable.. btu something I hadn’t conciously thought about that makes Ant even more badass: the fact he’s been fighting BARE HANDED. Keep in mind his specialty is swordplay and he dosen’t have any powers like most of the freedom fighters. This sabre is also notable as it’s the one ant would use till his tragic comaing towards the end of this continuity, and looks dope. So our heroes regroup, with tails finding out thanks to bunnie snagging him some data that this entire island is a battle ship, and just where to go to wreck up the place, heading there with an awesome team shot

Tails has truly arrived, going from kid sidekick, to leading his own former mentors and big sibling figures in the freedom fight. It’s another strength of ians: taking years of unrelated and sometimes downright bad storeis and makign them FEEL like they were all building to this. If this man wasn’t already happily married i’d propose to him right now. His wife is also kick ass at writing sonic comics by the way, just saying. 

Anyways, our heroes face their final boss: the mole mech which makes short work of them once they get into the inner workings of things, with doctor forget-me-not bragging about it as we enter the final issue. 

This one isn’t much to recap but it’s utterly awesome, most of it being a long actoin scene as tails SOLOS the mole mech in a truly awesome fight while the d’colette-rabbots hit the weak points in the airship. The fight is crisply drawn, and shows off tails smarts: he uses his brain to beat the thing simply having it either hit itself or having had t-pup fire on it just right, letting it beat itself so by the time it does get a hit in .. it shorts out right after, leaving doctor fuck this is hard to refrence princess bride. Also turns out speedy was inside and he refuses help like any good villian while our heroes are forced to flee as things go straight to hell. Our heroes cleverly escape out the bottom since the fortress is taking off

So it’s time for the wrap up. the grand battle kuku betrates speedy becuase he’s not good at his job, and has the doctor get to repairs.. while the babylon rogues prepare for their arc and to take advantage of the armada flagship being barely operational, while Tails and the honeyooners head back to his cabin, the three toasting their vacation and finally getting their well earned respitel

The Tails Adventure or Trouble in Paradise is a REALLY fun arc. It shows off not only ian’s love of the games, giving us a fun adaptation of tails adventure, but his masterful storytelling: he ties it into the main plot, not only giving us a new threat but one giving a past one context for being in this unvierse now, while also debuting tails getting his own sidekick and giving antoine a sword. Nothing EARTHSHATTERINGLY huge to the future of the comic, but still intresting little things to add to the overall continuity. And he ties it all in their history, from Bunnie and Antoine getting a honeymoon after it beign delayed for a ton of arcs, to Tails showing just how far he’s come. It’s a fun arc and evne if you haven’t read a ton of archie you can really enjoy it and I HIGHLY recommend seeking out ian’s run however you can. 

Next Time: MORE ARCHIE.. thankfully this time without an 80 year history lesson as we visit the first group of freedom fighters! Thanks for reading!

[andithiel]

I've been feeling a bit detatched from my writing lately, but I wanted to do something for Harry's birthday. So I managed to get out 2k of, I think maybe fluff? Many thanks to @booktopusmunro for the speedy beta and encouragement ❤️ Happy birthday Harry! Sidenote: Sega Mega Drive was called Sega Genesis in the US. This fic is loosely based on a scene from the Friends episode “The One Where Rachel Finds Out”.

Start Level

“Everybody! Hey, everybody, settle down! It’s time for Harry to open his presents!”

Ron’s sonoroused voice made Harry wince as he sat cross-legged in his favourite squishy armchair. A belly full of birthday cake and the comfort of  his friends surrounding him made Harry sleepy; but as he watched them all scramble to get seated as close to him as possible, a warmth rose in his chest. Ron had, of course, already sat down on the sofa closest to Harry before he made the announcement, but at Harry’s single raised eyebrow he shrugged with a crooked grin.

Harry snorted. He knew that with five older brothers, it was inevitable that Ron knew how to get to the front first. He looked around the room, trying not to tear up at the sight of all his friends gathered around, sitting on each other’s laps or perched on tables and armrests, all looking expectedly at him.

“Oh dear, what’s wrong with him?” Pansy stage-whispered to Hermione.

“Nothing,” said Harry, to let Hermione off the hook. “I’m just happy to get to spend my birthday with the people I love.”

Well, all except one, he thought. Draco hadn’t been able to get out of his work shift, and Harry refused to admit how disappointed he’d been when he’d found out about that, because it wasn’t reasonable for him to be. It wasn’t as if he expected Draco to be around all the time now just because they were sort of friends, or at least hung out in the same friend circles. But still, it wasn’t every day you turned 25 and wanted to celebrate with the people you cared most about.

Harry accepted the gift that Ron handed to him with a smile and a “Happy birthday, mate.” He tore the wrappings off to reveal a set of Wizards Chess. At Harry’s puzzled expression Ron explained. “Well, since you lost your old set I thought I’d give you a new one so we can play again!”

“Right,” Harry said with a tight smile, not mentioning that he knew damn well where his old set was (buried deep in a box in his attic because he was sick of losing to Ron all the time). “Thanks,” he managed to grind out, hoping it sounded sincere.

The rest under the cut or on ao3

“Maybe this one will be more useful,” said Blaise, as he handed Harry a thick, heavy parcel.

“Thanks Blaise!” Harry turned the package in his hands. “Hmmm, it feels like a book. Pretty sure it’s a book.” He unwrapped it. “And it’s a book! It’s— oh.”

“What, Harry?” Luna straightened up a bit to try and get a look.

“Um, nothing,” said Harry, trying to hide the Kama Sutra for Beginners behind his back. “Nothing, it’s, uh, I’ll have a closer look at this later.”

Blaise smirked and Harry whipped his head around to the stack of gifts next to him, wanting to occupy his mind with something other than the writhing bodies on the cover of the book currently taking up all the space in his head. “Who’s this from?” He picked up a big box wrapped in black paper with little golden snitches on it and a big golden bow on top.

“Oh that’s Draco’s,” said Pansy. “I promised I’d give it to you since he couldn’t make it today.”

“Right, right. Thanks Pansy,” Harry mumbled as he carefully peeled the tape from the paper, both so he wouldn’t tear it and so he could busy himself with the task instead of thinking about how Draco was holed up in St Mungo’s on Harry’s birthday.

He finally managed to get all the tape off and unwrapped the gift slowly. The sight of the box made him let out a gush of air, unable to believe that this was really real. Had Draco actually bought him—?

“What is it, Harry?” asked Hermione, trying to lean in closer to see what was in the box.

“I can’t—” Harry began, before swallowing and starting over. “I can’t believe he remembered.”

“What? What is it?” came a collective query from the group, everyone edging closer now.

Carefully, Harry opened the box to see if the content really matched the exterior, and when he’d made sure it really did, he had to pause again to blink repeatedly against the sting in his eyes. Then he picked up the black plastic box, twisting it in his hands. The room was silent, probably because few of them knew what this was.

“It’s a Muggle video game,” Harry tried to explain. “It’s… It must’ve been weeks ago, months maybe. We passed a Muggle second-hand store and I saw this and I… I made some throwaway comment about how Dudley used to have one of these but I was never allowed to play.” He stroked his thumb over the white letters forming the words “Mega Drive SEGA”, while memories of how he’d desperately wanted to play resurfaced in his mind. This console, like so many others before and after it, had not lasted long in the Dursley household. Before Harry had had any chance at trying it out, Dudley had stomped on it after the umpteenth attempt of getting past Dr. Eggman in the Oil Ocean Zone.

“Oh,” said Hermione softly in his ear, making him realise how close she was. “I remember these! Never had one myself but I sometimes played on my friend’s.”

Harry couldn��t stop staring. It wasn’t an extravagant gift, money-wise, but the thoughtfulness and the effort it must have taken Draco to find this for him was astounding. The game was almost mint condition. Draco must’ve gone back to the store to get a better look, and then found it in another store, because the one they’d seen had been old and battered. The gift made something stir in Harry, something he hadn’t allowed himself to think about before, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for even now.

“Oh, come on, remember when Draco went to Healer school and he fell in love with Keith Hendricks and bought him that ridiculously expensive non-spatter cauldron?” Ron chortled on Harry’s other side.

The room fell quiet and it took a few seconds for Ron’s words to process in Harry’s brain. He snapped his eyes up, looking sharply at Ron, whose ears had gone bright red.

“What did you just say?”

Ron’s eyes went wide and he gave Pansy, who was staring at him with a thunderous expression, a panicked look. “Uh…” said Ron, then cleared his throat several times while shrinking into the sofa. “Er… huh… ummm, non-spatter cauldron?”

“No. No, no,” said Harry, trying to wrap his head around Ron’s words. “The um, the ‘love’ part?”

Ron was now spluttering, frantically looking around the room for any sort of help from someone, and that was enough for the truth to register in Harry’s brain.

“Oh. My. God,” was all he managed to get out.

“Oh, noooo nononononono,” Ron chanted, rubbing his temples. “Noooo, I’m such a lousy friend!”

“I cannot believe this is the first time I hear about this!” Pansy snapped. “And to think that Draco confided in you, of all people!”

Ron straightened up and threw her a sharp look. “Hey! The ferret and I have a very trusting and mature friendship!”

“Yes, clearly he did the right thing trusting you with this information!” Pansy said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well it’s not like I’ve told anyone else! I’ve even kept it from my own wife!”

“Oh, bravo, Weasel, ten points to Gryffindor.” Pansy inclined her head in Ron’s direction and clapped her hands in mock applause. “And then you chose this moment to spill the beans, very clever. I’ll have you know that I’ve kept it a secret that he had a crush on Potter back at Hogw—” she said, but interrupted herself. “Er, nevermind.”

Harry felt like he was watching a ping pong match, his mind reeling at all this information. Draco’d had a crush on him at Hogwarts? And now he was in love with him?

“Aha!” Ron shouted triumphantly. “Who’s the bad friend now?”

“Can the two of you shut the fuck up?!” Harry said, surprised at his own words and the force behind them. “I need to think.”

“Yes! Yes, give the poor man some space to think!” Ron hastily said, his expression amix of relieved and frantic.

But before Harry had time to properly panic, the door opened.

“Well, I had to bribe Healer Merriweather by taking all her night shifts for a month, but at least I managed to get here,” said Draco as he stepped inside, impeccably dressed as ever. “Please tell me I haven’t missed the cake.” He paused in front of the doorway, looking around the room, all eyes turned on him. “What? What happened? Is there something on my shirt?” He started patting himself all over, looking for a non-existing stain.

Harry could only stare at him, at the way his hair fell into his eyes and how he had to constantly flick his head to keep it away. The flush on his cheeks from apparently having rushed from the hospital, just to be able to celebrate Harry’s birthday because he knew how important it was to him. Or maybe because he’d seen how disappointed Harry’d been when Draco’d told him he wouldn’t be able to make it and now he‘d wanted to make it up to him. The care with which he had selected a present for Harry just to make him happy. There was a swooping sensation in Harry’s stomach, and suddenly his mouth started speaking before he could stop himself.

“You’re in love with me?”

Draco froze, his eyes widening comically before flitting around the room to finally land on Ron, who seemed to try to make himself a permanent part of Harry’s sofa. After a split second, Draco leaned back into the hallway, not meeting Harry’s eyes once. “Wait, what’s that? Oh, no! I see Head Healer Patel’s patronus, oh this can’t be good, I really must be off.”

He turned around and bolted for the door, but with the reflexes of a seeker, Harry apparated into the hallway, right in front of the stairs.

“You’re in love with me,” he repeated, more like a statement now, or maybe a confirmation to himself.

Draco folded his arms across his chest, lifting his chin. “I have no idea what gave you that impression, Potter, but—”

“Ron told me. Or, well, to be fair he accidentally let it slip.”

“Weasel,” Draco hissed. “I should’ve known it was unwise to get drunk with him. That red-headed buffoon act is a great cover to trick people into trusting him with—”

He didn’t get any further, because right then, Harry decided that he needed to do what he did best: use his gut. And his gut told him that he was pants with words, especially compared to Draco. And he wanted to make Draco stop talking, so he did the first thing that came to mind. He stepped closer and pressed his lips to Draco’s. It was probably the most chaste kiss he’d ever experienced, and yet it gave his stomach that funny swooping feeling again. Draco made a funny sound, like a mix of a squeak and a sharp inhale, and Harry realised that maybe this wasn’t what Draco wanted and started to pull back. But then he was thoroughly proven wrong when Draco grabbed him by the collar and pushed him backwards until they hit the opposite wall. Harry gasped when his head thumped against it, and then again when Draco opened his mouth and really kissed him, hands still fisted in Harry’s shirt.

It was the kind of kiss that, had they not been in Harry’s hallway, it would’ve led to other things. Harry’s body responded immediately, and he desperately wanted more. But their frantic snogging came to an abrupt halt when they suddenly realised they weren’t alone anymore.

“Oh,” someone said softly, and Harry didn’t need to look to know it was Luna.

Then someone (who sounded a lot like Pansy) shouted “What?” and there was the unmistakable sound of all their friends rushing to get to Harry’s front door first, then someone else (definitely Ron) yelled, “I don't need to see that!”

Harry kept his gaze firmly on Draco, cheeks gone pink and lips wonderfully kiss-swollen.

“Let’s go to your place, yeah?”

Draco nodded, eyes bright, his bottom lip disappearing between his teeth. Harry couldn’t wait to suck it into his mouth again.

“Right, hang on for one second,” Harry said, fishing out his wand from his pocket. “Accio Draco’s present!” With a spark of satisfaction he heard Blaise mutter “Ow!” when the box undoubtedly smacked into his head as it zoomed towards Harry’s outstretched hand.

But just as he was about to catch it, Draco cast a Depulso, making the game fly towards Luna, who caught it with an expression of curiosity as she twisted it in her hands.

“I’m very happy that you like your present so much, but trust me, Harry,” Draco murmured into his ear, “there won’t be time for any video games when I get you alone.”

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 12 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Funsies) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

After locking Wei Wuxian into some comically large chains, Wen Chao has him thrown into the dungeon, with an unpleasant surprise.

This Fucking Dog

Being a fan of The Untamed involves occasional second-hand embarrassment, like when they fly on their swords, or the zombies all have the same wig, or a fight sequence moves slower than everybody’s granny. It's ok because each of these things is offset by excellence in acting, story, costumes, weapons, sets, etc.

Then there's this fucking dog. 

The department of questionable practical effects really outdid themselves with this thing. Just seeing this awful creation on screen gives me so much cringe squick I can barely look at it. But for you, dear readers, I FORCED MY EYEBALLS to watch the entire dog sequence OVER AND OVER. Then I applied some brightness adjustments and looked at it EVEN MORE. 

Let's get desensitized! I’m going all in on this monstrosity.

First, this dog does not ever move its body or its feet. Its legs are totally immobile. It appears to be made of a big sawhorse with a stick for the neck. The head swings up and down and side to side. That’s it.  

“Animatronic” is too generous of a term for this thing. The animatronics at Chucky Cheese learned to play musical instruments and host birthday parties decades ago. This dog cannot play an instrument and it has to wait for Wei Wuxian to walk over to it before it can attack him. 

When it falls over after Wen Ning K.O’s it, it’s like a chair falling over. It just topples to the side, legs sticking straight out.  

(more after the cut)

Next, It has a mouth full of teeth, which opens and closes. And it has drool the texture of Astroglide Extra-Thick Gel. But...no tongue.

Seriously you guys, it literally does not have a tongue. They just sculpted a little bump at the at the bottom of its mouth, despite dogs being known for, like, lolling their tongues out of their mouths at every opportunity.

Moving along, it has dull, lifeless eyes, and its eyelids are visibly disconnected from the rest of its head, like a doll that mechanically shuts its eyes when you lay it down to sleep.

Finally, its fur looks like a fucking muppet, and it has random shiny spots all around its eyes and lips. These are probably supposed to be body fluids of some kind, but they just look like someone was careless with the cra-z-glue.

Xiao Zhan gamely tries to act opposite this ridiculous fail prop, but there is nothing remotely scary about it.  

Here is Wei Wuxian being scared. I replaced the animatronic dog with a reversed clip of my dog Pepper asking for a piece of cheese, and I think it looks more convincing this way. 

Ok, let's be done with this stupid fucking dog. Wen Ning knocks it out, Wen Chao criticizes it in the morning, and nobody ever speaks of it again. 

Wei Wuxian is so mortified to have endured this farce that when Lan Wangji asks him, much later, “why are you afraid of dogs?” he does not say “don’t you remember that time I got chewed on by a giant animatronic dog at Wen Chao’s place?” but instead pretends that this never fucking happened. 

Wen Ning to the Rescue

For contrast, the next dungeon scene is a really touching and important encounter between Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian. 

Wen Ning comes and knocks out the creature, and gives Wei Wuxian medicine. 

Wen Ning is doing this in defiance of his clan and his sister, simply because Wei Wuxian is his friend. Yes, he feels indebted, but Wen Qing saved WWX’s life once, so the tally is already even. Wen Ning is just super attached to Wei Wuxian, and vice versa; WWX calls him Wen-Xiong in this scene. 

When Wen Ning explains how to use the medicine, Wei Wuxian changes the subject to ask how WN and his sister are doing. He is bleeding, chained up, high on adrenaline and fear, and what he really wants is to hear how his friends are doing. When Wen Ning talks about Wen Qing’s troubles, Wei Wuxian wishes she would accept help, instead of always going it alone. 

Wei Wuxian thanks Wen Ning formally, and tells him no words can express his gratitude. Whether this is a literally correct translation, the gratitude both of these young men feel toward each other transcends words. It will become a driving force in both of their lives as they save each other from increasingly awful situations. 

Wen Ning tells Wei Wuxian about the burning of Cloud Recesses....the burning of the half we never visit. It would suck to damage that exquisite set, so I’m ok with that production choice, but creates some cognitive dissonance when characters get upset about the fire. 

Wei Wuxian reacts to the news of Lan Wangji’s injury by punching the concrete floor of the dungeon, which is dumb but also highly relatable. 

After Wen Ning leaves, Wei Wuxian decides to save the medicine for Lan Wangji, who might not even need it, while WWX is bleeding right now and definitely needs it. No matter how bad things are for him personally, Wei Wuxian is always thinking about ways to help the people he loves, and constantly seeing his own needs as less important than everybody else’s. 

Breakfast Time

After his night of terror and maiming, Wei Wuxian emerges as chipper as ever. Almost like he is already an expert at hiding his trauma from the people close to him. 

Lan Wangji gives him a careful look, taking in the sight of his ripped clothes and bloody neck and hands. 

Jiang Cheng is angry at Wei Wuxian for joking about his injuries, so he shoves him, potentially causing more injuries. 

Wei Wuxian laughs off the signs of torture and attempted murder and everyone goes along with it. Nobody knows what happened to him other than "dungeon" and what he looks like right now, and they’re all just like, okey dokey, I guess you’re fine.  

He’ll carefully laugh off his months in the burial mounds in the same way, later, and Jiang Cheng will accept it nearly as readily as he accepts this. But by that time Lan Wangji will see right through him.

Nie Huaisang mentions the Lan Clan in the course of discussing breakfast, and then everyone pauses awkwardly because they know that mentioning this will make Lan Wangji think about the recent attack on his home and the deaths of many of his fellow disciples. Whereas if nobody had mentioned it, he totally wouldn't think about it. That's how grief works, right?

Insult to Injury

Wen Chao decides to spend some time gloating about battles and insulting people's families, which he does with Wen Qing standing behind his eyeline so that she can warn Wei Wuxian not to let his brother go off. 

Jiang Cheng is not going to let anybody who isn't his mother insult his father like that, but in a reversal of their normal roles, Wei Wuxian restrains him and helps keep him from doing something rash.

Monster Hunting

Wen Chao makes everyone read out loud until Nie Huaisang wisely faints and gets carried off. Then he gathers everyone for a monster hunt.  It's unclear why he wants to go monster hunting but he sure does, and bringing the hostages along might make them all die, which would be a nice bonus.

The cultivators wander around en masse in a small section of forest, thoroughly covering every inch of it. This is a great way to hunt for a dead body but not so good for living prey. 

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng stand around like bitchy queens at a dance club, talking smack about Wen Chao and his girlfriend. 

Wei Wuxian brings out a salty phrase and Jiang Cheng wonders what websites he's been going to. 

Dude. Lighten up.

Leave that Boy Alone

Wei Wuxian notices Lan Wangji struggling, and now that he knows the backstory, he's determined to help. Jiang Cheng is determined to stop him.

This is, once again, the fundamental disagreement between the brothers, and it's never going to be solvable. Jiang Cheng's specific dislike of Lan Wangji may be rooted in jealousy, but his belief in not helping outsiders runs a lot deeper than that.

For Wei Wuxian, there is no such thing as having helped enough. If someone is his friend, he will never stop helping them, and he has a lot of friends, and makes new ones wherever he goes. He's always going to be giving something of himself, to the detriment of any conflicting obligations. 

Jiang Cheng tells him that Lan Wangji won't accept his help, and Wei Wuxian says that's not the point. 

What other people think, want, say, or do, is not going to have any effect on whether Wei Wuxian does what he feels is right. This is a bit of a problem where a person's right to self-determination conflicts with Wei Wuxian's need to help them, as Jiang Cheng will eventually discover.

Jiang Cheng's least effective argument is the one he relies on most often when they disagree: other people's problems are not our responsibility. He's saying this to an orphan who was eating trash and stealing scraps from dogs before Jiang Fengmian came into his life. 

Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to realize the underlying logic of this argument. If it's wrong for Wei Wuxian to help the people he cares about, it was also wrong for Jiang Fengmian to help Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng loves Wei Wuxian and would willingly die for him, but he, like his mother, rejects the philosophy that brought them together in the first place.  

Wei Wuxian walks away from an upset and shocked Jiang Cheng to offer a piggyback ride to Lan Wangji.

...who won't accept it, but who will remember the offer forever.

Writing prompt: Thoughts of an animatronic dog

Soundtrack:  Five Nights at Freddy’s by The Living Tombstone

[omgrachwrites]

A Welcome Visit - Sam Wilson

Pairing: Sam Wilson x Torres!Reader

Summary: You and your son get a surprise visit from your favourite superhero, making you feel like you’re in high school all over again.

Warnings: fluff, swearing

Words: 1455

A/N: How good is the falcon and the winter soldier though?! I haven’t had the chance to watch the new episode yet! Torres is the cutest, I love him! Hope you guys enjoy this and please let me know what you think, I love you all! xxx

The diner was quiet today, for which you were eternally grateful, one of the waitresses had called in sick so it was just you and two other waitresses in, it was supposed to be your day off. You had owned this diner with your ex-husband, you two had been on the verge of a getting a divorce when he was taken by the blip. When he returned a few months ago it was clear that it wasn’t going to work so you mutually parted ways. Now, the most you saw of him was when he visited your son, James and took him every other weekend.

You smiled as middle school sized footsteps thudded against the floor as James ran from the back to where you were standing behind the counter. You kissed James on the cheek as you ruffled a hand through his curls, laughing when he scowled and poured himself some soda.

“Homework done?” you asked, raising an eyebrow, “you know the rules, no soda until you’ve finished your homework,” you smiled as you folded your arms, leaning against the counter.

James rolled his eyes, “yes mom,” he sighed, like you had asked him the same question a hundred times. James glanced over to the door as it opened and he gasped as his jaw went slack before he beamed at you, “mom look,” he lowered his excited voice, “it’s The Falcon! He’s so cool!” there was nothing but pure awe on his face, “can I go and say hello?”

Sure enough, Sam Wilson aka, The Falcon walked in, in all his handsome glory as he took a seat at one of the booths. You felt a blush rise to your cheeks, you felt as star struck as your son but for a completely different reason. The waitress that you were on shift with wandered over to him to take his order, and you turned back to James who gave you a strange look when he saw the blush on your face.

“No sweetie, the poor man has just sat down; let him have his food in peace.”

James pouted as he began to sulk, shaking his head. You didn’t know Sam personally but he worked for the air force along with your brother, Joaquin. He had been as excited as James when he realised that Sam was going to be working with him. A couple more customers came in and sat at the counter, you chatted with them as you prepared their coffee.

You glanced up when you heard the little bell above the door tinkle and in walked your brother with a wide grin on his face as he went to sit with Sam. Had they just completed a mission together?

“Uncle!” James shouted with glee and before you could stop him, he rushed around the counter and launched himself into Joaquin’s arms. You winced with a sigh; you had wanted Sam to have some peace as he ate his dinner.

“There he is! My favourite little man, you alright? Where’s your mom?” at the mention of you, you ducked behind the coffee machine, your cheeks blazing.

James muttered something that you couldn’t make out, no matter how much you strained to hear it. Unfortunately, you heard the reactions; you heard Joaquin burst out into peals of laughter while Sam let out a deep laugh that made you feel all warm and tingly inside. Despite yourself, you leaned around the side of the coffee machine to see what was going on.

Joaquin had his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with laughter while Sam smiled and raised an eyebrow as he looked over towards you and grinned. You flushed and offered him a small smile, you seriously wanted to know what James had said to them.

“James!” you called over with wide eyes.

James pouted as he got up from his seat, turning back to look at Sam, “will you please sign my comic book, Mr Wilson?” he asked, at least he was polite.

“Sure, little man,” Same beamed and James excitedly ran into the back.

Joaquin followed James, smirking at you; you stopped Joaquin with a hand on his arm, “what the fuck did James say?”

Joaquin didn’t answer, he only winked at you as he walked past you, whistling all the way, you glared after him, feeling annoyed. You bit your lip and decided to offer some coffee to Sam as a peace offering. Nervously, you wandered over to him, willing the flush on your cheeks to go away as you filled up his cup.

“I’m really sorry about that by the way,” you smiled, “my son doesn’t understand personal space.”

Sam laughed as he gave you a warm smile, “thank you, and it’s no problem. He seems like a great kid.”

You flushed with pride as you ducked your head, “even so, it must get annoying after a while.”

Sam looked puzzled as he shook his head, “I’m still getting used to it, I still can’t believe they’ve made a damned comic book.”

You giggled, “yeah, it came out a couple of years after the blip, everyone thought that you were a real hero,” you flushed when Sam grinned at you, “your comic books are James’ favourite, I’m kind of jealous.”

Sam smiled, shaking his head as he sipped some of his coffee, “they should make comic books about you, don’t you run this place and look after James by yourself?”

Normally, you wouldn’t talk about this with someone you hardly knew, but Sam was so handsome and kind that you couldn’t stop the words spilling from your lips, “it’s not so bad, Joaquin, Torres to you,” you laughed, “helps out where he can and James’ dad isn’t too bad, he’s a good dad.”

“Well, I think it’s really great, Y/N. You should be proud that you’ve raised such a good kid.”

“I think you’re great too you know,” you blurted out, feeling heat wash over you as Sam smirked, raising an eyebrow as you immediately started to babble, “I mean, being a hero, the fact that you’re a hero is great.”

You laughed nervously as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and before you could say anything else, James was running back with his comic book in hand and he gave you a strange look. You had the sneaking suspicion that he and Joaquin had been watching your interaction with Sam; you glared at your younger brother as he threw an arm around your shoulders.

“This is my favourite issue!” James beamed as he passed Sam the comic book.

Sam smiled as he raised an eyebrow at the cover, “damn, I’m gonna have to start reading these,” he muttered as he opened the front page and started to sign it. He was writing for a little while, it looked like he was writing a little message for James, “there you go, buddy.”

When Sam slid the comic book back over to James, James grinned as he read the little message, his face glowing; “thank you so much!” it was so amazing to see him so happy.

“You’re welcome bud!”

“Thanks Sam,” you smiled at him and he nodded, winking at you. You bit your lip and looked back at the counter to see your employees smirking at you, “I’m sorry, I should get back to work,” you smiled, fiddling with your fingers.

“Of course,” Sam nodded.

“See ya later, sis,” Joaquin grinned at you as you made your way back to the counter and glared at your employees playfully to keep them quiet.

All afternoon, you kept sneaking glances at Sam, he was so gorgeous as he laughed with your brother but what you didn’t notice was the fact that Sam kept stealing glances at you too. When it was time for Sam and your brother to leave, Sam walked up to the counter with a grin that made your heart flutter and he paid his bill with one of the other waitresses.

“It was good to meet you, Y/N,” he smiled.

You blushed as you nodded, biting your lip, “it was nice to meet you too, Sam. Thank you so much for being so great with James.”

Sam shook his head with a smile, “it’s not a problem at all,” he slipped you a piece of paper and you blushed when you realised it was his number. You weren’t exactly ready for another relationship too soon but you were going to call him.

“Call me,” he grinned before heading back to Joaquin, “let’s go, Torres,” he glanced at you over his shoulder.

Joaquin threw his hands up in the air, “dude, my sister? Really?”

“You really need to marry him, mom,” James sighed.

--------------------

@smiithys @elayneblack @amelie-black​

[mellometal]

Hi, everyone.

I have something extremely important to talk about that is NOT fandom related. I really do hope this can reach everyone on here, especially since it's still Autism Acceptance Month.

A few quick questions for anyone who happens to see this before I dive right into this: Have you ever heard of Dhar Mann? If so, have you ever seen his videos? What do you think about them?

If you don't know who Dhar Mann is, he's a content creator whose main platforms are Instagram and YouTube. He makes these videos about various scenarios from a couple on the brink of divorce, to kids bullying one of their peers, even about Autism Spectrum Disorder. All of his videos have some kind of message at the end that really drives the point home. One of his most recent videos is about ASD, which is what I'm going to discuss today.

Personally, I think some of his videos are interesting, despite the concepts being reused and recycled over and over; however, how I feel about the video he made about ASD is the complete opposite. I'll summarize the video he made so you don't have to watch it. (If you really want to watch it to see exactly what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna stop you. Do what you need to do in order to form your own opinion.)

The video Dhar Mann made about ASD is about this boy who excludes his autistic brother from participating in activities with his friends at school. The boy bullies his autistic brother and does pretty much everything to make his brother's life Hell, even going as far as to pretend that he doesn't know his own brother. The boy "instantly regrets his decision" when their mom is called into the school to discipline her son for bullying his autistic brother. What his mother says is what REALLY upsets me. The message of this video in particular is this, WORD FOR FUCKING WORD. I wish I was kidding. But here's the message below:

How the video concludes is the boy reluctantly includes his autistic brother in every single activity, the boy sees his brother's potential, and they live happily ever after. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

As an autistic woman who works with disabled people for a living, that message Dhar Mann put in this video specifically is not only extremely ableist, but is also spreading misinformation about ASD.

News flash to all the people who still spread misinformation about ASD: Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school, nor is every single autistic person a young white man who's a Super Genius™️. (I could go on all day long about how the media stereotypes autistic characters and autistic people in general, but that's a whole other topic.) No autistic person is the same, meaning we all fall on the spectrum in different places and all that jazz. There's no "look" to autistic people either because no autistic person looks the same.

Autistic women exist.

Autistic girls exist.

Autistic nonbinary people exist.

Autistic BIPOC and AAPI exist.

Autistic people who are completely nonverbal exist.

Autistic people who are completely verbal exist.

Autistic people who are in the middle of being nonverbal and verbal exist.

Autistic people who require minimal to no support exist.

Autistic people who require moderate support exist.

Autistic people who require full support exist.

Autistic LGBT people exist. (Reason why I bring this one up is because the media almost always shows cishet autistic men and I don't see autistic LGBT representation very often, if ever.)

Autism isn't something you can "catch". People have this same mentality about ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome too, which, by the way, you can't "catch" either.

Autism doesn't "go away" when you reach adolescence or adulthood. Why? BECAUSE AUTISTIC TEENAGERS AND AUTISTIC ADULTS EXIST. Autistic kids grow into autistic teenagers, then into autistic adults.

You can't "cure" it either. Unless you can build a time machine and a device to go back in time to change how a person's brain develops, there is no cure. ABA therapy is a fucking shit show in itself that does more harm than good.

The title of the video is a real squick for me too. It's mostly because I don't particularly enjoy people using person first language (the "boy with autism" part). I've seen many other autistic people on multiple other platforms sharing that same sentiment and preferring identity first language (autistic person). There are also others who prefer using person first language and those who don't have a preference. That's all perfectly valid. Whatever you prefer people using when referring to you, or whatever you refer to yourself as, in this case, is totally valid and I love you. This goes for disabilities in general, not just Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Regarding the message in this video, here's my response to it! A quick heads-up, my response is VERY long and VERY passionate. I was VERY close to making a response video where I tear that video apart AND tear Dhar Mann a new asshole. Unfortunately, it worked me up so much that I was really struggling with what I wanted to say and I had to stop multiple times because I kept stumbling on my words. That's how angry this message made me. I'll try my best to explain whatever parts you have questions about. I put my response in the nicest way I possibly could, despite me seething with rage, wanting to go OFF on him.

(The first part of my response are the first three screenshots, and the second part are the last three screenshots.)

The first part of my response, I did forget to add that the message is offensive and disrespectful to autistic people as a whole. I apologize. My initial comment got way too long. I pretty much covered that when I told him the message is ableist. I wanted to clear that up before anyone asks about it.

The second part of my response is me opening up about my experience with being diagnosed with ASD, formerly known as As//per//ger's Syn//dro//me, at sixteen years old. I also went into how not calling ASD what it truly is (which is a disability) and calling it a "different ability" instead is extremely harmful and is treating being disabled like it's a bad thing.

By the way, saying that a disabled person is disabled isn't a bad thing. I'm disabled. It is what it is. Does it have its challenges? You bet. Does it help me with certain things? Hell yeah. I can really absorb information about my favorite bands, characters, shows, books, etc., and tell you a lot about those things. For example, I can tell you that Su can't ride a bike or read manga and she's okay with that. I can also tell you she can't tie her shoes very well, which is why her boots don't have laces and are slip-on and/or zip-up. But that doesn't mean my struggles are nonexistent or that I never struggle. I do, and it makes my life Hell at times.

The narrative that autism is a bad thing to have, every autistic person is somehow broken and they all need to be "fixed" is also super fucked up and not true. That's the narrative that I received when I was diagnosed by a therapist I had. I'm gonna be real here, I cried when I was first told that I was diagnosed with ASD. I felt like I was broken. I already felt like a total outcast. Being told about my diagnosis made me feel even more broken than I already felt. I was so ashamed of myself, despite me not doing anything wrong whatsoever, that I masked for SEVEN YEARS of my life. I masked for so long that I forgot I was even diagnosed with ASD in the first place. I wasn't taught how to really put my special interests into good use. I kinda had to figure that out on my own. I was pretty much under the assumption that me being interested in anime, cartoons, music, comics, theatre, writing, etc., to the point of obsession, was somehow weird and hurting people around me. You know, despite those things being harmless. Despite me being able to separate those things from other things that are important (like work, for example). Despite my only surviving parent, other family members, and the woman he was dating at the time completely overreacting and not bothering to see exactly what makes these things so special to me.

(By the way, having a disability does not completely make who a person is. There are a lot more things that make who a person is than that.)

It's kinda shocking that I wasn't able to come to terms with my diagnosis until this year. Considering that I masked for so long due to being ashamed of myself, plus being treated like a burden for being disabled, it's probably not very surprising. I initially thought at the time that it was the worst thing to have, as I was already struggling with enough shit back then, but came to realize it's not a bad thing. It doesn't change who I am. But I'm glad I came to terms with it finally nonetheless.

This is getting way too long, so I'm gonna wrap things up here. If you've read this far, thank you so much. I'm sorry this got so long!

If you watched the video, what are your thoughts on it? If this is your first time hearing about Dhar Mann, how do you feel about him? If you're a Dhar Mann fan, did this change your opinion on him in any way? Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Have a great day, everyone!

[foreverfangirlalways]

Who Does Virgil Really Like?

Based off this post by  @more-incorect-quotes and this comic by @illogicallyinclined

(Also, a huge thank you to @thefingergunsgirl for some of the plot points!!!)

Summery: After a 20 question game gone wrong, will Virgil be able to tell Logan who his crush really is?

Ships: Analogical, hinted at Dukexiety, hinted at Prinxiety, Moceit

Warning: Misunderstandings, weird flirting, lowkey stalking

-let me know if I need to add more warnings-(I hope you like it! )

—-

It was a relatively calm day in the Mind Palace. Patton is eating cookies, Roman and Logan are working on the final draft of a new song, and Virgil, Remus, and Janus are play 20 questions.

“Janus, how would describe your perfect date?” Virgil asked.

“Well, I definitely wouldn’t take my partner dancing after a nice dinner and then talk a stoll before walking them home.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at Janus. “What? I’m a liar, not classless.” Janus said while winking at Patton.

Patton blush and accidentally crumbled one of his cookies. Remus laughed. “Alright, my turn before Dadceit and Daddy inspire me to make another fic!” Everyone groaned and rolled their eyes, and Janus gave Patton another cookie.

Remus clapped his hands, then eyed Virgil.

“So Tickle-Me-Emo, tell me, what’s your ideal boy?”

‘Shit! What do I say? I have to say the truth, but I don’t want to make it obvious... oh! I know!’ Virgil thought while chewing on his lips, then he hid a secret smile.

“Oh, he’s creative, knows how to handle weapons, and loves nicknaming.” Everyone acted all almost exactly how they did with Janus’s answer, except Patton wasn’t blushing.

“You just described me! Ha!” Remus yelled, looking gleeful. Janus, who knew the lies that Virgil told himself around a certain tie wearing aspect, just smirked and decided to “play along.”

“Or he could be talking about your brother.”

Virgil fought the urge to get up and go slap Deceit’s smug smirk off of his face. At Deceit’s words and Virgil’s glare, Roman made some dramatic princy noises.

Remus just blanched, not believing that HIS emo could have fallen for his dull brother. He looked at Roman’s delighted face and then at Virgil’s glare. “There is no way he likes that! Remus shouted, pointing to Virgil and then gesturing to all of Roman.

Roman then made some offended princy noises. “HOW DARE-!” Patton silenced Roman by throwing a piece of the popcorn that Janus had just summoned for them to share at him. “Now kiddo, you know the rules, no yelling in the famILY room.”

Virgil took a minute to wonder when Janus had gotten up, sat beside Patton, started cuddling Patton, and summoned popcorn, but he was interrupted by the look on Logan’s face.

He looked mildly interested, but Virgil has known him long enough to know that his feelings are hurt. Is it because Janus is not sharing the popcorn with him or...

Virgil had a realization. “Uhh, on an unrelated note, I have to be, not here.” Virgil gave a two finger salute and then sunk down to his room to freak out.

Both Remus and Roman got up at the same time, noticed that the other had gotten up, and then lunged at eachother. “How dare you think Virgil likes you, you’re just a stinky wannabe Mario!” Roman yelled at the same time Remus shrieked, “Virgil is my bloodsucking vampire bat, hands off!”

While they rolled around on the floor, laying claim on Virgil and insulting eachother, Janus kept Patton from interrupting their fight by kissing him on the check and whispering, “Come on darling, just let them work it out themselves.”

Patton was suddenly a speechless, blushing mess who was just mechanical eating popcorn and avoiding Janus’s teasing gaze.

Logan, who everyone had forgotten about, looked forlorn. He liked Virgil, but clearly it is one sided. He always knew that he never had a chance.

Logan just sighed and started to sink down to his own room, not noticing the knowing, glowing heterochromic eyes that were following his movements, and hearing his deceitful thoughts.

-_-_-_-

Over the following week, Roman and Remus have both tried to woo Virgil, oftentimes resulting in them fighting.

Janus has gone through about 15 bowls of popcorn, 11 of which were shared with a blushing Patton.

Logan has been getting more sad every time he notices one of the twins antics, and has gotten to the point where he almost can’t stand to look at them. He realizes that this is illogical, and who Virgil choses to give his affections to is none of his business, but he still gets jealous, despite himself.

And Virgil... well, Virgil is at his wits end. He’s sick of finding dead rats in his toilet and getting random, blood covered knives from Remus. He’s tired of shooing sing birds away and cutting the heads off of the roses that Roman gives him. Virgil HATES roses.

About 8 days after the whole 20 questions incident, Virgil and Logan were sitting on the couch in the famILY room. Virgil was scrolling threw tumblr and Logan was reading about constellations.

After about 20 minutes of silence, Virgil couldn’t take it anymore. He tossed his phone onto the loveseat, and groaned. When Logan question Virgil about what was wrong, Virgil took a daring move, and laid his head on Logan’s lap. Logan turned faintly red, and just stared at Virgil.

“Hey Lo? Can you give me some advice?” Once Logan nodded tensely, Virgil added, “Its relationship advice.”

Logan felt like crying. ‘Of course he needs relationship advice. He obviously likes Roman, and as his friend I am ok with that and will help him.’

Janus, summoned by Logan’s thoughts, was sitting against the wall with Patton on his lap. They were both eating popcorn, having already done this multiple times this week. They could both clearly see the two on the couch, but neither one seemed to notice the couple watching them. Not even when Janus had to muffle Patton’s squeal with his gloved hand upon Patton realizing Logan and Virgil’s position.

“What seems to be the problem?” Logan asked, trying and failing to keep the hurt out of his voice. Lucky for him, Virgil didn’t notice.

“Well, I have a crush on someone an-“ Virgil was cut off when he felt Logan put a comforting hand on his chest. Virgil looked up, and smiled faintly at a faintly smiling Logan.

“I’ve been trying to tell them for the past few months, but they haven’t seemed to notice at all.”

Logan side-eyed Virgil. ‘Is he serious? I think Roman knows, he gave you a bouquet of roses yesterday. Which is a little pointless, given that you hate roses, but... oh.’ Logan thought, coming to the conclusion that Virgil didn’t realize that Roman likes him back. Janus relayed what he was hearing from Logan thoughts to Patton, and they both rolled their eyes at the two oblivious sides.

“Really?” Logan asked, now full on looking at Virgil. “They don’t sound particularly observant.” Janus had to keep Patton from yelling out “he’s not!”

Virgil just smiled, and decided to try something. “See, that’s the thing. They’re actually really smart. Just...” Virgil took a breath and intertwined his fingers with Logan’s, “dense.”

Logan fought all the butterflies that were raging war in his stomach, and decided to record Virgil admitting his feelings, so that he can just send the recording to Roman and cry.

“Perhaps you just need to take the obvious route. You could try saying a simple...” Logan held back a gag and position his phone more directly over Virgil’s face. “I love you.”

Virgil considered. ‘Could it really be that easy?’ “You think that would work?”

Logan nodded, and put on a near perfect mask of nonchalant. “It’s at least worth a try.”

Virgil looked to the away and nodded. “I... guess you’re right.” Virgil took a deep breath and Logan shakily pressed the record button.

“Hey... Logan...” Virgil said, gripping his hand tighter. “I love you.”

Janus and Patton just stared, leaning forward. Logan blushed, and decided to never delete that recording, ever. “Yeah! Use that exact phrase!” Logan said in false cheerfulness.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” Virgil yelled at the same time Janus and Patton facepalmed.

Logan regrettably let go of Virgil’s hand. “And if that doesn’t work, we can always try a different approach.”

“Oh my God.” Virgil said while covering his face with his hands, trying his hardest not to reach up and shake the denseness out of Logan.

Logan, not seeing Roman and Remus walk in the door way and be freezed and silenced by Janus, continued.

“Don’t worry Virgil, I’ll make sure Roman realizes how much you really like him.” Logan says.

Janus looked dumbfounded. ‘How dumb can Logic be?’

Patton looked disappointed and almost started laughing.

Roman looked triumphant and Remus looked pissed.

Virgil, however, just looked done. He quickly sat up, and turned to face Logan. “Wait, you mean to tell me that you think my crush is on ROMAN?!”

Logan gulped. “Umm yes. Was I wrong in that assumption?”

Virgil just started laughing. He laughed until his laughter turned to tears. Logan immediately became alarmed and took Virgil into his arms.

“Shhh, Virgil, sweetheart, I need you to calm down for me.” That just seemed to make Virgil cry harder so Logan grabbed Virgil hands and squeezed them in a 4-7-8 pattern. Virgil, knowing what Logan is doing, starts to follow the pattern. After about 5 minutes Virgil is calmed down.

“Virgil, can you tell me what is bothering you?” Logan asked gently. Virgil just nodded defeatedly. “You.”

Logan froze, not knowing how to respond to that. Virgil continued. “I have liked you for almost 2 years. I have tried to tell you about my crush for months. I admit, I could have been a bit more obvious in my clues to Remus, but I thought for sure you would know who I was talking about. You are creative when you come up with raps, you threw a computer at Thomas and knowledge is a weapon, and you called Roman a ‘Roman Scenturian.‘

Instead you avoided me for days, didn’t believe me when I said I love you, and think I have a crush on Roman? Can you see wh-“

Logan interrupted Virgil’s rant by kissing him. If he was totally honest, he barely heard a word after Virgil said, “I have liked you...”

The couple sprung apart as soon as they heard cheering. They both stared at Patton, who was sitting in Janus’s lap with popcorn all over and around him, and the biggest smile on his face.

Janus was also smiling, and looked over at Remus and Roman, who were looking fondly at both couples. Janus unfroze them.

“So...” Remus starts, “you like Logan, huh?” Everyone laughs. “That’s fine, I’m gonna go see if the Dragonwitch wants to go on a date.” Remus winked then sunk down, headed towards the imagination.

Virgil then looks at Roman. Roman takes a step forward, and Logan tightens his grip on Virgil. Roman just laughs.

“Don’t worry Lo, I was just wanting to give y’all my blessing! Also, do you think that O will want to go on a quest?”

Virgil giggled and nodded. “Yeah, I think ol’ Orange would love to go ‘rob people legally’ as he put it, with you.” Roman waved and then headed to find O.

The couple on the couch then turned to look at the couple by the wall. Patton looked ecstatic while Janus looked amused. “Well, that certainly didn’t take forever.” Janus said, breaking the silence.

They all just shook their heads, and Patton dragged Janus to the kitchen to start on dinner (and totally not eavesdrop).

Virgil looked at Logan. “So, if I say something do you promise to not be stupid this time?” Virgil asked teasingly. Logan smiled and nodded.

“Logan, I love you.” Logan kissed Virgil and smiled. “Virgil, I would love for you to be my boyfriend.” “I would love that too!” Virgil said before kissing Logan again.

-----

Note: Incase you are wondering, Roman and Remus were just really trying to make Virgil like one of them more than the other, and were actually surprised when Virgil described them and not Logan during the game. They did not just immediately move on after seeing there was not shot. They were coming to tell Virgil that they actually like other ‘people’ but kind of got stopped 😅

Taglist- (I went ahead and did my Analogical Taglist 😅)

@five-falseh00ds-ph0nated

@illogicallyinclined

@more-incorect-quotes

@thefingergunsgirl

@kawaiikat54

@yikesdodson

@sanders-sides-with-quinn

@aleiimm

@peachy-pidge

@nerdycupcake559

@softestvirgil

@dragonwithproblems

@teacupfulofstarshine

@lynxsans

@rainbowemonightmare

@impatentpending

@star-crossed-shipper

@falsehoodx

@007ardra

[shotsbyshae]

Cannonball

Warnings: Language

Words: 3.4k

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader, Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Summary: When things go bad, you always end up at his door, and things are really, really bad.

Song: Cannonball by ZZ Ward

A/N: This is loosely based on a reader request and can be read as a stand-alone or prequel/sequel to Not Afraid Anymore. (Yea, this rabbit hole is Going. All. The. Way.)

I’m down on my knees and I’m screamin’ I’m a fiend, and I’m beggin’ you, please.

2023

Death.

It’s the end of one’s story.

There’s no running from it.

Death always comes ‘round.

Because all stories have to end – don’t they?

Well, who makes that choice?

Who decides when it’s time for the story to be over?

Of everything that’s happened, you know this can’t be the end of their story.

All that they’ve been through – the lives they’ve saved.

Only to make the ultimate sacrifice.

They defeated him, but Thanos still won.

It isn’t right.

You slide the zipper closed on the duffel bag, slinging it across your shoulder as you hear his deep voice from the door, “Where are you going?” You smile a little to yourself, because you never realized how much you’d miss him until he was gone like the others. Fury continues as you turn to face him. “Stark’s service is in an hour.”

“I’m not going,” you reply quietly. “I – I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?” confusion on his face is evident as you begin to walk out of the room.

“When I was first started at S.H.I.E.L.D., you and Coulson gave me The Shadow Project,” you glance up at him earnestly. “I don’t know why you trusted me of all people, but you did. Aside from the Initiative, Shadow’s all I know – it’s my job.”

“What are you saying?” you can hear the concern in his voice.

“Let me do my job, Nick.”  

If you’ve learned anything, it’s that death doesn’t have to be the end.  

2011

The cell phone from the center console of the SUV begins to ring and you answer it quickly, knowing who’s on the other end.

Nick Fury has many secrets, and a little rendezvous like this of yours is just one of them.

Sometimes even S.H.I.E.L.D. encounters that which cannot be explained.

When that happens, you have to make a phone call to him.

“Hi, Garth.”

“Change of plans,” he says. “I can’t make it.”

“That’s not how this works,” you reply, brows furrowed. “You know that.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Garth states. “I’ve got a couple guys in the area. I gave them the location and they’re going to meet you for the information.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose with an audible sigh into the phone, “I don’t like it.”

“You can trust them,” Garth says reassuringly. “They owe me one, you could say I saved their pretty faces.”

You’ve been meeting him for six months now and the idea of Garth saving anyone still baffles you, even though you know what he does for a living.

You’re standing beside the front of the SUV when the black car pulls to a stop in front of you, same model as Garth had described in his phone call earlier. The two men who climb from inside are nothing like what you expect, given your history with Garth.

They share a look of slight surprise between the two of them as you ask, “You must be Garth’s friends.”

“I wouldn’t go that –” the shorter of the two begins but is interrupted by the other one.

“Yea, that’s us. I’m Sam,” says the very tall one. He’s cute, with shaggy dark hair. “This is my brother Dean.” He gives a smile and you can tell right away he’s trouble.

“Alright then,” you nod, getting to the point. You close the distance, holding out a manilla folder, which Dean reaches for – he must like to be in charge. “Here’s everything we have on the group – there’s about twelve of them.”

“Nest,” Dean corrects as he flips through the surveillance photos. You fold your arms across your chest, uncomfortable at his tone and gold-green eyes flick up to yours, small smirk on the edge of his lips. “Not group – vampires are a nest.”

“Yea – okay,” you respond. “Well, have fun storming the nest.”

You’re halfway back to your door when you hear Dean stumbling over his words, “Wait – how do we contact you?”

“Really?” Sam whispers as Dean slaps the folder against his brother’s chest.

“Why?” you question, glancing back at them curiously.

His lips twitch as he thinks of his response, “To let you know the job’s done.”

A knowing smile crosses your face as you open the door to the SUV, “Call Garth – he can get me the message.” The look of defeat on Dean’s face is almost comical. “After all, he’s my contact.”

2012

It’s official – Tony Stark will be the death of you.

After the events of New Mexico with Thor, he’s going above and beyond to showboat. Fury has tasked you with him temporarily – his idea of a joke – you should get to know Stark.

However, keeping Tony Stark in-line is about as easy as herding cats.

You’re at the end of your rope with him, so an information drop is exactly what you need to get away – even if it’s for a little while.

You open the door to the small diner, glancing around for Garth as you walk inside. It’s not unusual for him to suggest grabbing lunch during a drop. You recognize the face sitting in the booth instantly and you can’t help but laugh as you slowly approach the him. A plate with a burger and curly fries sits on the table.

“Hi,” Dean greets, the smile on his face causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle.

“Unbelievable,” you shake your head. “What do you want?”

“I’m just here for the information – unless,” there’s a glint in his eyes as you slide onto the green vinyl seat across from him. “What do you want, Agent?”

You breathe deep, laying the folder on the table as your eyes dart around at the other patrons in the diner before settling back on him. Reaching across you pluck one of the fries from the plate, “Alcohol – that’s what I want, but that’s probably a bad idea.”

“Probably,” he agrees, but the boyish grin on his face says otherwise.

***

The sound of buzzing awakens you – your phone. Reaching across to the nightstand, your hand searches blindly but finds nothing. There’s a momentary pause in the buzzing sound before it starts up again and you groan in annoyance. You stick your head out from under the covers and look over the side of the bed, seeing the glow of the screen from the floor in front of the nightstand.

Grabbing it quickly, you put it to your ear, whispering as you answer, “Hello.”

“It’s about damn time,” Fury’s voice says loudly through the speaker and you instantly pull the phone away from your ear. It is too early, and he is too loud. “I need you to come in. ASAP.”

“Huh,” you sit up, wincing as you rub the base of your neck. You can feel the headache starting – fucking tequila.

“They found him,” his voice says quickly through the phone. “Frozen – he’s one giant ice cube.”

“Found who?” you glance over as the man beside you stirs, his hair messy and gold-green eyes heavy with sleep.

“Captain America,” he responds.  

You snap fully awake with a jolt, “What?”

“You heard me,” Nick says. “Get here – now.”

You drop the phone on the bed as you jump up, pulling your jeans on quickly, “Shit!”

“Everything okay?” he questions as you straighten your shirt.

“Yea,” you say quickly, tugging on your sneakers. “It’s work – I gotta go.” Glancing at the man still lying in bed as you gather the rest of your things, you give him a small smile. “Thanks for this though – it was great. I’ll –” You hesitate, not used to being on this side of the situation. “See you around.”

You open the motel room door, and he smiles at you one last time, “Of course.” The door closes behind you and he falls back against the pillows with a sigh. “Well, that’s a first.”

2014

“Where’ve you been?” there’s a tone in Steve’s voice, one he’s never had with you before.

Keeping your eyes fixed on the elevator doors in front of you as you push the button, you decide to keep your reply calm – casual, “Out.”

Once the doors open you step inside quickly, grimacing as you see him follow you from the corner of your eye. The weight of his gaze feels like a ton of bricks as the doors close and after a moment you finally jerk around to stare up at him.

“What?”

“Fury said you were on assignment,” his arms are folded across his chest, judgmental blue eyes baring down on you. He’s wearing a white t-shirt under a navy-blue jacket and khakis.

“Yea,” your tone is exasperated. “And?”

“You never wear perfume on assignments,” Steve responds with a knowing look, eyes narrowed slightly.

You shift uncomfortably, unaware he’d noticed, before you roll your eyes, turning away from the man, “Well, it’s my assignment – not yours.”

“I’m getting real tired of Fury’s secrets and side missions,” he says angrily. “I need a team I can trust.”

“Whoa – hey,” you turn back to him in surprise, raising your hands in defense. “Where’s this coming from?” He takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What the hell happened on your mission?”

“Nothing,” he shakes his head.

“Steve,” you wait for him to look at you before you continue. “You know you can trust me – right?”

He can see the pain in your eyes as you ask and he nods quickly, “Of course – I’m sorry –  I didn’t mean –” The words fall out of his mouth and he tries to make it right, giving you a smile. “It’s just been a day. Really – I’m sorry.”

He lifts his hand up, pinky finger extended. More of an apology than words between the two of you and you smile as you wrap yours around it, “Okay.”

2015

You trace your index finger lightly along the scar-like marking on the inside of his forearm, saying quietly, “This is new.”

“Yea,” he takes a deep breath and you feel his chest rise against the side of your cheek. “Long story.”

Lifting your head from his chest you eye him suspiciously, “Is that why you called?”

“I lost a friend,” he says quietly, staring blankly at the ceiling. You understand now why he reached out, after all, you ended up calling him after Coulson died.

The words come out hesitantly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

“Hey – no,” reaching for you as he rolls towards you. He pins you to the mattress in a matter of seconds, gold-green eyes inches away from yours, staring at you intensely. “I didn’t come to talk.”

“Well, if you needed –”

“I know,” the words are hot against your lips as he brushes his mouth against yours in the slightest touch. You lift your head, pressing your mouth firmly to his, needing more, but the sound of your phone buzzing from nightstand makes you groan, and his lips smile against yours. “You should probably get that.”

You shake your head, then pepper kisses along his jaw as you whine, “Nooo.”

Dean reaches for you phone, glancing at the screen before he hands it to you with a smirk, “It’s Captain Spangles.”

You sigh before answering, “Hi Steve.”

“You’re coming – right?”

“What?” your voice is strained, mind elsewhere as Dean’s lips travel along your collarbone.

“Tomorrow – the new recruits,” Rogers clarifies. “Have you got any of my messages?”

“Yea.” You haven’t. “I’ll be there.”

2016

After Germany, you’re so angry with all of it.

Mostly at yourself.

For waiting too long.

Everywhere you look reminds you of Rogers.

So, you leave – ending up in the same place you always do when things go bad.

When everything around you is broken.

Because this can’t be broken – it was never whole to begin with.

Dean had recognized the look in your eyes immediately, because he’d been there before.

“Do you want to –” he manages the words even as you try and silence him with your mouth. “Talk about it?”

You plant both hands firmly against his chest before you shove him hard against the wall, knocking the air from his lungs, causing him to grimace, yet smirk at the same time. “No.” It comes out as more of a low growl than an actual word.

“Okay then,” his voice low as he nods his understanding.

2018

“Howard,” Steve says his name quietly, staring at you from across the lab.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat again. “I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t know how.” Watching as he places his hands on his hips, you add. “I never told Tony either – Fury did.”

His glare lands on you angrily, “And if he hadn’t – what – we still wouldn’t know?”

“No,” you respond, thinking on it. “I mean – I don’t know Steve.” He shakes his head with disgust. You turn, pressing your palms on the lab table as you lean forward, dropping your head between your shoulders. “I was a lab experiment - created with Howard’s DNA. I never knew my mother or him. When I was five, Coulson found me. He was a new recruit then, and they thought all of Hydra was gone, but we know they’re never really gone.” Turning back to look at Steve, you see the sadness in his eyes as you continue with the story. “He saved me – placed me with a family under Fury’s orders.”

“That’s why you joined S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he comments quietly.

“Yea – I mean, my father,” the term comes out strangely. “Howard founded it and it felt like one way that maybe I could get to know him. Plus, the whole super-secret spy aspect is a real selling point to a kid who loved Kim Possible.”

Steve has a look of confusion at the reference for a moment before he exhales slowly, “So, Germany – that’s why you stayed.” There’s an almost sudden realization that washes over him. “Because Tony’s your brother.”

You bite the inside of your bottom lip as you nod, “Just like you fought to save yours.”

“What the hell?” Steve’s face changes abruptly to one of shock and confusion. It takes a second for you to realize he’s looking at something over your shoulder.

You turn and see the monitor across the room, the news broadcast showing the giant alien ship above the city.

The beginning of the end.

2020

Information drops aren’t what they once were.

After the snap, there’s still the occasional situation that requires outsider expertise and you still pass that along to the Winchesters, but things are different.

The whole world has changed and while you and Steve may be more complicated than ever before – he needs you. Still like a lost puppy after grief group.

He was the captain, they had all followed him that day and less than half of them came home. Steve took that loss harder than anyone else with the exception of Tony.

So, you help in whatever capacity Steve needs. Even if it’s picking a fight over the most trivial of things just so he can yell and let off steam. You take it, because you’re his friend and the two of you have lost too much as it is.

You bring Natasha in on The Shadow Project what with Fury and Coulson both gone, someone else needs to know in case anything happens to you.

“Why not just bring Steve in on this?” Romanoff questions you as the large screen across the room tries to make connection on a video chat.

“Well, well,” Dean’s face appears on the monitor with a smile as he leans back in his chair. “Look who it is.”

Natasha quirks and eyebrow as she glances from the screen over to your face, noting the slight look of embarrassment there, “Oh – okay.”

2023

When he opens the large door to the bunker, there’s no hiding the surprise on his face.

“Hi Dean,” your voice cracks as you speak.

He’s never seen you like this before.

Broken is a sight he knows all too well.

This is different though, and it feels like someone gut punched him, knocking all the breath out.

Defeat.

“I lost them,” you say quietly.

***

Dean leans back in his chair as you finish telling him everything, “Where’s Steve now?”

“Returning the stones,” you respond.

“You don’t think he’s coming back?” his eyes watch you carefully.

“When he wouldn’t let me use the stones to at least try and bring my brother and Natasha back,” you shake your head with a sigh. “I – I said some pretty hurtful things. I doubt he comes back – I wouldn’t.”

Dean takes deep breath, tapping his index finger on the wooden table, “Death is tricky.”

“But it’s not permanent,” you say quickly. “You said so yourself that you and your brother have died before.”

“Yea – but that was different,” he responds.

“You have friends that are angels and you have the spell to get into hell,” your tone is past desperate. “Isn’t there some kind of deal I could make?”

“No,” his response is adamant. “Absolutely not.”

“Dean,” you stand up in frustration. “Please – this isn’t fair.” Walking past his chair you ask. “Where’s Sam?”

“He’s gone to visit a friend,” he says calmly.

“I know you’d do whatever it takes to get him back,” you say as you turn to face the back of Dean’s head. “I’m just trying to do the same.”

“I’m sorry, maybe there’s another way. When Sam gets back –” Dean feels the sharp stab in the side of his neck and his body reacts instinctively as his hand grabs for the source of the pain. “Sonofa.” His hand grips yours tightly and gold-green eyes look up at you in betrayal as you pull the syringe away.

“Forgive me,” you say softly as your other hand cups the side of his face. “I don’t have that kind of time. It’s just a sedative.”

“And if you die,” Dean’s voice is barely audible. “Would your brother want that?”

“He’s got a family – a daughter,” you blink back the surge of emotions threatening to overcome you. “I was forced to grow up without my father. I won’t put my niece through the same fate.”

The sedative finally kicks in as the weight of his body begins to lean against the table. You ease his head down against the wood and gently place a kiss on his temple before you head off down the hall for the storage room. It’s been a few years, but you remember seeing a drawer marked for spells and you know there’s a one in there that will take you straight to hell.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

You just hope once you get there you can negotiate some sort of agreement with whoever is in charge to bring back both Tony and Natasha.

4 Days Later

“How?” the initial shock has worn off and Tony is casting a suspicious glare in your direction.

“I have a few connections,” you reply nonchalantly.

“In what?” the look on his face is incredulous. “Resurrections? You brought me and Natasha back – how?”

“The Shadow Project – ever heard of it?” you fold your arms across your chest.

Tony looks intrigued by this information and he leans against your bar, “No, go on.”

“It’s classified, Fury assigned me to it before the Initiative was started good,” you respond. “That’s my connection.” You move passed him to your refrigerator. “Now, can you just be glad you’re back? Maybe go spend time with your family?”

He turns around as you pull a bottle of water out and close the door back, “You are my family.” You look over at him with a small smile which he returns. “But I know what you meant – I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You watch him leave, hearing the door close behind him and you start down the hall to your room. The loud knocking from your apartment door stops you and with a sigh you turn around.

“Seriously – Tony,” you say loudly as you approach the door. “We can talk more about this later.” Opening the door, your eyes widen in surprise because Tony isn’t standing there.

“No,” Steve glares at you. “We need to talk.”

It’s the angry look on the face of the man standing beside Rogers that worries you the most, because he’s the only one who could know what you did.

Dean’s voice borders on a snarl, “Now.”

[popculturebuffet]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor. 

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm. 

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle. 

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article.  It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it. 

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios. 

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film. 

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird  made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property. 

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother. 

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land. 

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself. 

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself. 

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms. 

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin. 

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him. 

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes. 

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together. 

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder. 

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics. 

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home. 

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out. 

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant. 

The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.  

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t,  So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining. 

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s  mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here. 

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge. 

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go. 

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch. 

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work. 

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole.  The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out. 

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level. 

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as  barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington. 

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen’t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh. 

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film? 

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow. 

[aahsokaatano]

King I would love that essay about Changing Channels

Fjdjshjdhdjd thanks for reading my tags Jesse you're the real VIP here.

Okay SO "Changing Channels" is the 8th episode of the 5th season of Supernatural. I give this information bc it's important in looking at the context of the episode - now I've complained a LOT about how SPN is terrible at giving us canonical timeframes within the episodes (y'all i was SHOCKED to discover the first season is supposed to cover a little over a year's worth of time, I thought it was like... 4 or 5 months) so I can't say for sure how long before and after the other episodes happen in-universe around "Changing Channels" BUT

The episode before is "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester" where Dean and Bobby bet years of their lives in a game of poker with a witch. The episode after is "The Real Ghostbusters" where Sam and Dean end up at a fan convention for the in-universe Supernatural novels.

Why am I pointing this out? Because it's important, please, no audience participation, this is like a Brian David Gilbert panel.

[under a cut bc this got...... STUPID long. Who knew I still had this many opinions about SPN in 2020?]

Okay first of all I wanna talk about the cinnamon topography of this episode - I love the way the first 5 seasons are shot because you really feel the americana gothic horror aesthetic they were going for (I have a whole ‘nother rant about the first 5 seasons vs the last 10 but thats for another time). Everything is a little washed out and grey-toned, the camera angles generally serve to make Sam and Dean appear even taller than they actually are (larger than life - again, another post for another time), and there’s honestly a LOT of shots from the ‘monster’s’ perspective, which is really neat! I’ve said it before (on another blog - YES i have a dedicated spn rant blog, don’t @ me hdjfhfjfh) but the episode that really got me hooked on spn back in the day was the second one, about the w*ndigo. Yes, it’s a racist, culturally appropriating shitstorm, but the way its SHOT is fantastic. I’m honestly not a horror fan, but that episode could have easily relied on jumpscares and they DIDN’T and it was scary as all fucking hell and just - fuck okay getting off topic. 

In “Changing Channels” we get that distinctive grey-washed tone in the beginning and the very end of the episode, but the middle? When they’re in TV Land? Everything is bright. Almost comically so, I mean - okay look at these two shots of Sam (apologies about the crappy phone pics, netflix won't let me screenshot)

This one is from the start of the episode, in the "real" police station

And this is from a little later in the "TV" hospital

Ignoring that my phone is washing him out a lot in both pics, you can still see the warmer tones in the hospital shot as compared to the cold greyness in the police station one

Okay, now look at this picture

Dean inside the Impala, and those warm tones are back. Why? Because even though Sam and Dean believe that they’re back in the “real” world, they aren’t - so instead of the grey-washed shots that we’re used to, its the bright and warm shots that we see in “TV Land”! So the viewers pick up, even if its just subconsciously, that the boys aren’t out of the woods yet - everything is still too bright to be the in-universe reality we’ve come to expect from SPN by season 5

Which is also why i love this shift so much

These shots are literally SECONDS apart. The first is in "TV Land" and the second is in the "real" world. I have some red strip lights behind my bed, which are reflecting off my laptop screen - notice how much brighter they seem in the second picture? That’s because literally all of the warm colors have been drained out of the shot. As soon as Gabriel snaps them all back into “reality,” things get so much colder.

Okay, so the second thing I want to talk about is some of the very pointed dialogue choices within the “shows” the Winchesters take part in. Not between Sam and Dan and Gabriel, but from the, for lack of a better term, NPCs within the shows.

In the hospital, Dr. Piccolo tells Sam that he is “the finest cerebrovascular neurosurgeon I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So that girl died on your table; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Sometimes people just die.” Standard cheesy soap opera dialogue - but lemme just swap some words here and - 

“You are the finest hunter I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So that girl died on your hunt; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Sometimes people just die.”

Or even - 

“You are the finest hunter I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So Jessica and Mary died above you; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault [but Azazel’s]. Sometimes people just die.”

Keeping in mind that the NPCs are basically Gabriel’s mouthpieces, its easy to see why so many people ship Sabriel. I’d actually love to see a fic that explores them talking about this moment in particular later on and the kind of gentle forgiveness that Gabriel can give Sam... getting off topic again.

In an abrupt about-face, the herpes commercial (much meme’d within the fandom) is straight up Gabriel shaming Sam. Because if you replace “genital herpes” with “demon blood” it’s.... dark. And very intentional.

So that’s what I did! (I combined all spoken lines to make the message easier to read, rather than splitting them up across 3 speakers as in the episode)

“I’ve drank demon blood. I tried to be responsible... did I try. But now, after being forcibly detoxed, I fight my addiction every day to reduce the chances of passing back into that toxic mindset. Ask your loved ones about a demon blood intervention today. [...] I am doing all I can to slightly lessen the chance of drinking demon blood again. And that’s a good thing.”

Like... the subtext throughout this episode sure is. Something.

Okay this is getting ridiculously long so I wanna wrap up by talking about The Best Scene In The Whole Goddamn Show

I’m talking, of course, about Gabriel’s Confession

“Max,” you might be saying, “there are so many better scenes out there, even within the first five seasons!” and to that i say, again, no audience participation, please. Also, you’re WRONG and here’s why!

Gabriel’s confession hits every goddamn emotional chord that the fandom begged for on this show - fear, rage, grief, pain, guilt, and even, yes, absolution. 

Okay, here’s the scene again for those of you who don’t think about it at least once a week like me

Now this video is missing some of the conversation, but most of it is there, enough for you to see what I’m talking about. Gabriel up to this point has been, essentially, a nameless antagonist - this is the third episode he appeared in, and before this, we didn’t even know he was going by Loki. He was just referred to as ‘The Trickster’. But here, not only do we get a name (a real name at that), but we also get a glimpse of his backstory and a hell of a lot of character development in less than 5 minutes. I mean, Sam didn’t get this much character development throughout the entirety of season 1! There’s a good reason Gabriel has been a fan-favorite for a very long time, and I think a big part of it is this particular scene.

Because here, we get to see Gabriel being vulnerable. And we even see Dean show a little vulnerability, as he can empathize being the third party to explosive arguments between the two people who mean everything to him.

I mean... okay, it will never see the light of day, but I wrote a little bit of a Reverse ‘Verse fic (because I’m a sucker for Reverse ‘Verse) and this was the scene I started with. Not s1e1, not even the resurrection in s4e1, but this scene. Because this scene, more than any other, is critical to the way not only Gabriel’s (first) arc plays out, but also to how Sam and Dean conduct themselves for the rest of the season (and maybe a bit beyond, it’s been a hot minute since I watched s6 and later). Dean is angry but determined, he has a point to make, he is going to save Sammy and if he can’t do that, then he’s going to damn well die trying. But Sam... it’s after this episode that we start really seeing how bone-achingly tired Sam is. It’s after this conversation - where one of the other archangels, one of the few beings who can truly understand how powerful Michael and Lucifer are - says that there’s no other way around this that Sam seems to start inching towards giving in. Saying yes.

Sure, in the actual episode, he seems outraged by the idea, practically scoffs at it - “you want us to say yes to those sons of bitches?” - but it’s after this where Sam really seems run down.

I mean, look at the episodes before and after (HAH you thought I forgot about that first point I made at the very beginning of this post! I did, briefly, but I’ve circled back to it, thanks for being understanding). In “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester,” Sam behaves much as he did since the start of s4, which is to say, ‘annoying little know-it-all brother tossed into the middle of the apocalypse and just trying his best’ and it works well for the mad scramble for any scrap of information that’s happening in s4/early s5.

But in “The Real Ghostbusters” it’s different. This is another funny meta episode - except, while Sam and Dean are technically aware of the joke, they aren’t as amused by it as the audience is. And it’s not because of the ghosts. It’s because they’re just... done. Especially Sam. Dean has that nice little moment with the cosplayers at the end of the episode, but Sam... threatens to shoot Chuck. Sam ‘goes darkside’ more often than pretty much any other character in the show, but that moment is different. It’s a flat promise, not a threat. He’s not being an asshole, like he is after losing his soul. He’s just... done. And it’s obvious to see.

Gabriel’s confession is the turning point for Sam in s5, and it informs a lot of his behavior through the rest of s5, and possibly beyond! Like I said, I haven’t watched past s5 in a very long time, so I don’t feel confident enough to analyze that specific sort of character line, but I feel confident in saying that hearing one of the most powerful beings in the universe basically say “it doesn’t matter what you do - your destiny is unavoidable” and then he’s proven right (Sam says yes to Lucifer, and Dean eventually does say yes to Michael down the line!)... like, that’s really gotta fuck up your world view that was built on free will and throwing off the shackles of fate. Sam managed to avoid his ‘destiny’ in s2... but then it turns out that that wasn’t ever his destiny. Lucifer was his destiny.

Talk about an obscured view of the inner self.

[bruh-haikyuu]

A/N: Iwaizumi domestic AU!! I am here to quench your Iwaizumi Hajime father-of-three thirsts.

On another note: Haikyuu manga ends today :(( Guess who’s gonna fucking DIE. Anyways, this manga has left so much of an impact to me, I feel like it’s already imprinted in my heart. Thank you so much to Furudate for making such a wonderful story, and may their stories flourish! I’ll still make content though, I’m really waiting on that new light novel and the second cour of the anime pspsspsps 👁👁

ménage. | iwaizumi hajime episode 1 – haimish.

summary: in which your oldest son is about to begin elementary school, but your husband misplaces the documents while in a frenzy.

word count: 2215

warnings: manga spoilers!!

(adj.) homey; cozy and unpretentious

At seven and four, Kazuki and Isao were at the age where they couldn’t keep their messy doodles confined into the sketchbooks you’d bought for them.

The first victim to their mischief was the wall in the kitchen beside the door leading to your backyard. It was a small parade of animals, with streamers and party hats. Tiger-san with his jagged crown, the dainty family of rabbits, and the hefty Bear-san (“No, Mommy! That’s Cat-san!” your second oldest had huffed indignantly at the clutter of crayon circles) who was at the very front of the entire crew. Your boys were lucky enough that it had been you who’d walked into their little streak of artistry. An understanding glance had been enough, seeing that you probably weren’t so different back then. You’d clean it up with a secret trick your mother had taught you and everything in the Iwaizumi household was back in business. Easy-peasy.

But had it been Hajime who’d encountered their mess... let’s just say you wouldn’t hear the end of the boys’ shrill wails until the next week.

Unfortunately for you and your trusty washcloth, Kazuki and Isao’s artistic escapades didn’t stop at the kitchen wall. Next, it was the floors, the windows of the entrance and even on the door to your bedroom (with a side of elephant stickers that you’d admit were pretty cute). Thus, it didn’t take very long for your husband to finally be faced by their “little” temperament. And not very long for the boys to be faced by their father’s wrath.

But there was simply a stubborn rock settled somewhere in your sons’ heads—they get it from Hajime, you’d kept telling yourself—and for simply the reason of being boys in their early youths, they kept on drawing. Everywhere. Anywhere.

At least the both of you were thankful enough for Hina-chan. Still a tiny ball of warmth curled up cozily against in your arms, Hina was the youngest and the only daughter in your modest family of five. And the least likely source of your daily hurdles.

“By the time Hina learns to hold a pencil, should we just introduce our home as an art gallery or something?” Hajime had asked you rather comically after seeing the colorful family portrait Isao had drawn in one of his reference books.

Though Kazuki, your first child, was completely aware of his responsibilities as an older brother, it was concerning enough that he still hadn’t let go of his childishness. He was seven now, and in a few months, delving into April, he’d be in first grade. Maybe he was simply rowdy in nature... who knows? With a gruff husband like Iwaizumi Hajime, anything was possible.

Elementary school... you pondered, gazing softly at your family in the living room. Hajime cradling Hina in one arm while he and the boys cheered wildly at the service ace that was displayed on TV. How exciting.

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“Remember to ask for ‘Ichimura-sensei’, alright? She was the teacher I talked to when Kazuki and I checked the school. She’ll know the details I asked her about in the last meeting so you just have to give her the application form.”

Hajime suppressed a chuckle at your adamant ramble. “You’ve only been telling me this all week. I won’t forget, you know.”

“Sorry,” you sighed, bouncing your sleeping daughter in your arms. “I just want to make sure nothing goes wrong. This is our firstborn we’re talking about.”

“Trust me, Y/N,” he smiled. “It’ll be fine.”

You could only nod quietly. Was it the maternal instinct within you that was acting up? It all felt too soon, too quick. If you blinked, Kazuki would’ve already gotten married already... You weren’t ready for that.

But the least you could do was get used to the changes that were going to happen around the house. Starting with this.

“You’ve brought the form with you, right? You didn’t forget it?”

You felt bad that your husband was being held up at the entrance to your little home, but it couldn’t hurt to be just slightly careful. Unclasping his bag, he scrabbled through it, shaking his head.

“Don’t worry, I’ve put it in a folder here last night, so there’s no way it would—Eh?”

More rummaging.

“Hajime, is everything alright?”

He was pulling things out of his bags now. 2000-yen bills, crumpled receipts, his packets of protein shakes, Hina’s diapers. But no application form. Nothing.

“I-It’s not there.”

“Huh?!”

“H-Hold on, I’ll check our bedroom,” his voice was in the least reassuring tone he could muster and you felt your heart drop a million feet into the ground.

Why would this happen now of all times? The document was already filled and sealed with your inkan*, payments documented, crucial information written on that single sheet of paper. Crucial information you couldn’t afford to fill in twice... and it was missing?

You really didn’t want to think about how today was the last day to submit applications—

“Kazuki!!” Hajime’s thunderous voice cut through the silence.

A tiny echo of pattering footsteps and Hina shifted against your chest but did not wake. You were thankful enough; anymore ruckus and your sanity would snap.

Yawning, your eldest scratched his dark bedhead and sauntered over to his father who fisted a sheet of paper in his hand. “Daddy, you’re too loud...”

Putting the paper onto full display, your eyes nearly bulged out of your head at what was on it.

Had the form always been so... colorful? You could barely see any writing on it, covered by the persistent doodles your son had scrawled over. Mixes of hiragana he’d been practicing, completed with small side drawings—Anpanman*, some horses and a purple paddy field. All in all: it was a mess. But it was clearly the form you’d filled in. And it was clearly Kazuki’s mess.

Hajime scowled, the space between his eyebrows wrinkling. “Did you do this?”

“...No.”

“Well it couldn’t be Isao or Hina, couldn’t it?” he seethed. “Don’t take me for an idiot. Isao’s been having playdates all week and Hina can’t draw yet. What did I tell you about drawing outside of the papers and books we gave you, huh?!”

“B-But I was just trying to help!” Kazuki exclaimed. “You and Mommy are always so busy taking care of papers. So I thought if I helped you write in it... you’d come and play with me again.”

Suddenly, a lump rose in your throat. You were always so busy taking care of Hina and Isao and their immeasurable demands, and your husband was either at work or out playing volleyball with the neighborhood team. You wondered how lonely it was for him the entire week you were taking care of the registrations.

How lonely it was, despite being surrounded by so much people.

Your husband, however, was completely unfazed. “Go to your room.”

“But Daddy, it’s not—!”

“Kazuki.” Each syllable he drew out sent a shiver down your spine. In a split second, the Iwaizumi household’s living room grew cold. “Go. To. Your. Room! Put your arms above your head and keep it that way until I come back!”

As if on cue, the waterworks emerged.

“I hate you, Daddy! I hate you! You never listen to me!” and that was the last thing you heard from the tear-streaked boy before he stumbled through the hallway, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

“...Mmn,” Hina roused, her tiny button nose flaring, and you instantly knew what was to come. Oh no...

Sighing in defeat, your husband crossed his arms and ambled back towards you and the bawling baby in your embrace. Pressing your lips together, you mumbled to him. “You could’ve been a bit nicer to Kazuki. Now look what happened.”

“He’ll never learn his lesson if I don’t get strict,” he said, the guilt crossing his eyes. Swimming. Settling. “I’m going to go ahead to the school before they close for the day. Ask if they’ve got anymore forms I can fill in there.”

You nodded, hands coming to rub gently against your daughter’s back as your husband kissed your forehead—a daunting ritual you did before whenever he left the house.

Then, he bent down to softly coo at the red-faced infant. “Hina-chan, how about a kiss for Daddy before I go?”

The result: Hina only cried louder. Repelled by the sudden change in volume, Hajime scratched the back of his neck remorsefully.

“I get it, I get it... I’m the bad guy today,” he rustled. “I guess I’ll be off now. I’ll leave the house in your care, Y/N.”

You smiled at him, your hard-working husband with a weak spot for your little family. “Be careful, Hajime-kun.”

As soon as the door clicked shut, you were left to your terror again. A crying seven-year old, a crying baby, and if all the noise were to wake up Isao from his afternoon nap... Geez, what a mess...

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

Hajime really felt like he knew this guy somewhere... High school? A volleyball match? That refreshing aura wasn’t really difficult to tell apart, either...

“You’re number 2 from Karasuno High, ain’tcha?”

“Uwaah... Seijoh’s Iwaizumi Hajime...” Sugawara twinkled, the grey cowlick on his head standing up straight. “The atmosphere of an powerful ace really is hard to miss.”

Hajime blushed. When was the last time someone called him a ‘powerful ace’? He had you to call him that whenever you were feeling nostalgic, but otherwise, that label was a shard of the past.

“Sugawara-san, right?” he recalled. “You work here at this school?”

The man chuckled. “Yep! I’m a teacher now. How about you, Iwaizumi-san? What are you up to here?”

“Oh, I’m looking for Ichimura-sensei. I want to talk to her about the registration for my son.”

Sugawara shook his head for a moment before replying.

“Unfortunately, Ichimura-sensei is out with the flu. That’s why I’m covering the weekend shift for her. You can just give the forms to me, and we can look over the terms and conditions.”

What luck, Hajime thought. But at least having this guy around wasn’t going to be as bad of an experience.

“Ah... about that...” he started. “My kid drew all over the application form and I don’t remember making any copies. So, would it be a problem if I did it again right now? Me and my wife are in a bit of a tough spot at the moment.”

By the grace of God, Sugawara said, “I don’t think it’d be a issue. Let’s go to the office and discuss it together. Before that, can I ask for your ID, Iwaizumi-san?”

“Ah, yeah, sure, let me just get my wallet...” filing through his bag, Hajime rifled through the stacks of paper, looking... searching... And when he got to his wallet: “Huh?”

There it was. The application-payment form he’d filled in last week, in its pristine glory. And with absolutely zero drawings on it. There was his family seal and everything. Down to both of your signatures, in the blue ink you’d insisted on using (Hajime never really bothered to make out the different uses of different inks).

“The form...” he muttered. “It must’ve slipped from the folder or something. Then that means the one at home was probably a copy...”

Freezing, Hajime realized. Crap. What have I done?

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

By the time Hajime got home, the house was already quiet again. Isao and Hina were asleep in your bedroom—Hina in her crib and Isao laid spread-eagle on the limited expanse of your queen-size bed. Taking the opportunity of a silent home, you decided to use the time you had to eat some sweets you’d secretly stashed in the fridge away from your children’s eyes.

“What a ravenous wife,” he’d teased, only for you to smear a dollop of whipped cream across his face in retaliation.

It didn’t take him long to realize the muffled sobbing from Kazuki’s room had subsided too. Curiosity getting the best of him, your husband stepped inside the danger zone.

Hajime always thought that Kazuki was a peaceful sleeper. He could sleep anywhere and still look like he was having the time of his life. During times like this, where Hajime was drained empty at the end of the day, he couldn’t help but feel jealous of his son.

Gingerly picking him up from the carpeted floors, Hajime rested Kazuki’s head on the crook of his broad shoulder, his gentle breathing blowing faint breezes next to his nape. Looking down at the smattering of papers on the ground, he reached down to read one that Kazuki had presumably written right before he was knocked out cold.

I’m really sorree Sorry Daddy :( I promise to never draw on your things ever again. Kazuuki

Below the large lopsided text he’d written in crayon was a smudged drawing of (what seemed) to be him. Well, if Hajime was a stickman with prominent eyebrows that stuck out of his face.

“I’m sorry too, kid. Guess I was being unfair, huh?” he murmured. “I’ll make it up to you once you wake up. We’ll all play together. Me, you, Isao, Hina and your mom. We’ll use as much time as we have left.”

And Hajime never backed down on a promise.

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

Glossary:

inkan - personalized seals used in lieu of signatures in paperwork

anpanman - a Japanese children’s superhero cartoon character, looks like this