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ridley-was-a-cat · 2 years ago

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Winter 2023 Anime Roundup

Anime of the Season – Tsurune S2

I hadn’t watched season one, so I did not plan to watch this show this season, but all the gorgeous screenshots and gifs on Tumblr got to me, and I watched the entire series during the last week of the season. Hilarious, honestly, that the show I wasn’t even going to pick up ended up being my favorite of the season.

As good as the first season was, this was an upgrade on pretty much every front. All of the intersecting relationships between the characters at different schools made for more interesting and more grounded drama than the previous season. The art and animation both absolutely sparkled, and the sound design made you feel like you were watching in person. In particular, the spat between the two cousins/best friends on the team made for one of my favorite episodes this season. Something about how realistic their disagreement was, pushing each others’ buttons like only lifelong friends can do, and the way they resolved it by tiring themselves out in a tense archery duel that ended with a fit of the giggles, just thoroughly charmed me. I adored all of these characters, and I hope we’ll see more from the franchise. 9/10

First Runner-Up – Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

I had my doubts about this early in the series, with all the boob jokes and efforts to make Tomo girlier, but they were all gone by the end. It was just a solid romcom about a loveable group of lunatics that actively affirmed that Tomo was perfect the way she was. 8/10

Second Runner-Up – Buddy Daddies

The hitman content was not as good as the stuff about two single men in their twenties suddenly grappling with the minutia of parenting a five-year-old girl, but I was entertained week after week, and thought they did a good job sticking the landing. 8/10

IDOLiSH7 Third BEAT! Part 2 – Idol shows have a reputation for being harmless vehicles for hot guys/girls, but wherever that idea came from, it absolutely does not apply to this show, which repeatedly punched me in the gut and made me feel. Ryu is a top-ten hateable villain, for sure. 8/10

Play It Cool, Guys – I believe this was pretty popular in Japan, as it’s also getting a live-action drama, so I hope that means we can look forward to more relaxing, lightly amusing shows about cute guys doing cute things in the future. I just really enjoyed watching a handful of fairly normal dudes bumble around. 8/10

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro S2 – As much as this series is a comedy first and foremost, I just really love the relationship between Nagatoro and Senpai. Their dynamic is so playful, and they have great chemistry along with a genuine friendship. 8/10

The Vampire Dies in No Time S2 – Season 1 was a little uneven with the jokes, but this season was consistently funny, episode after episode. The character interactions hit better once you’re more acquainted with everyone, and the silly situations were just better this time around. 8/10

In/Spectre S2 – The end of season one dragged quite a bit with the Steel Lady Nanase arc, but this series was made up entirely of shorter, three-episode arcs that made the best use of the medium and the characters. Kotoko is the tiny, thirsty queen we need in these troubled times. 7/10

“Ippon” Again! – For years now, I’ve been wanting a serious girls sports anime that wasn’t an anodyne cute girls doing cute things show, and this pretty much gave me what I was looking for. The judo matches had a nice level of tension and excitement to them, and the girls were free to get intense, work hard, and not look particularly pretty while doing it. 7/10

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale – This sat at the top of the chart for me this season, until the final episode had me ready to take my earrings out and square up. The infuriating story decision isn’t necessarily irredeemable, so I will watch part two this summer to see what they do, but my expectations are low. 7/10

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague – This was more of a vibe than it was a story, but I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of a bunch of yokai who are otherwise bog-basic office workers interacting with their human coworkers. 7/10

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun S3 – My love for Iruma and all his friends knows no bounds, and I’m really hoping for a season four, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the harvest festival arc felt really padded and dragged out in this season. 7/10

My Hero Academia S6 – This season had some pretty epic fights and story developments, including a resolution of sorts for Todoroki’s family situation and a boiling point for Deku’s self-destructive selflessness, but it was a little uncomfortable to watch the angry citizens portrayed as ingrates. It had a whiff of “Blue Lives Matter” to it. 7/10

Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari – In many ways, this is just a basic off-brand action shounen with a blunt main character taking his anger out on everyone he fights on a quest for revenge, but I think the female lead and her retinue of tsukumogami adds enough novelty to keep things interesting. I look forward to watching part two. 7/10

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte – I enjoyed the unusual approach to otome isekai in this, where two players in the real world became connected to the characters inside the game, who heard their voices as though the gods were speaking to them. It was nice to get a full adaptation of the source with multiple ships setting sail, but it started stronger than it finished. 7/10

Handyman Saitou in Another World – With the exception of two poorly paced episodes in the middle of the season that centered on a hideously animated monster in a group battle in the dungeon, this was a highly entertaining and refreshing take on isekai, with a cast of loveable characters. 7/10

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV Part 2 – If you stripped out all of the titty harem business, or just focused on building a genuine romantic connection with Ryu, this would shoot to the top of my favorite action/adventures. All of the dungeon exploration and fighting is just fantastic, with high stakes that get your blood pumping. 7/10

UniteUp! – It was feast or famine with this show. The first episode was straight up the best premiere I watched, and there were several excellent episodes where characters struggled with their families or with adjusting to working as an idol, but there were multiple production delays, some of the voice acting was fairly wooden, and there were several episodes that were merely okay. I wanted more Kacchan content! 7/10

Revenger – I can’t really argue with the people pegging this as an edgy revenge story, but I thought the main character had an interesting internal conflict, the fights were creative, and the guys were all easy on the eyes. 7/10

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea – The 3D CG animation wasn’t fantastic, and the second half that focused on a war between two remaining kingdoms was a little blah, but the setting was imaginative, the backgrounds were gorgeous, and the two leads had great chemistry. 7/10

The Fire Hunter – On the one hand, I really love the world building and all the intersecting plots going on in this post-apocalyptic fantasy. On the other hand, a number of questionable artistic choices mingle with straight up sloppy work to make the visual presentation an extremely mixed bag. 7/10

By the Grace of the Gods S2 – This is one of those shows that I can’t quite bring myself to call “good”, because the animation and art are just meh and the story is barely a story, but the vibe is so chill and the characters are so nice that watching it every week felt healing. 6/10

Giant Beasts of Ars – This is one of those fantasy shows that entertained me while I was was watching it, but I will likely never think about again. It had some creative world building, I enjoyed the adventuring party that formed around the main characters, and the voice acting was solid. 6/10

Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don’t Believe in Humanity Will Save the World – If they didn’t decide to tie one of the main characters’ backstories to a false accusation of sexual abuse by a spiteful child, I would have enjoyed this fantasy adventure series about a party united by their histories of being betrayed by those they trusted a lot more. 6/10

Trigun Stampede – Having enjoyed the original anime and everything else this studio has done, I expected to enjoy this. While I didn’t hate it, something about the story and characters just didn’t click with me, and I didn’t like how they animated the characters’ faces when they were talking. 6/10

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement – I am sort of in awe of the author’s sheer audacity in taking the colonialist power fantasy subtext of modern isekai and making it bright, glowing, neon text. Not a good show, but an entertaining one. 6/10

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady – I really wanted to love this one, but I thought the writing was a bit of a mess with inconsistent characterization, elements introduced then quickly forgotten about, and a underdeveloped romance that felt unearned. 6/10

#anime #winter anime 2023 #tsurune #tomo-chan is a girl!#buddy daddies #Idolish7 #Play It Cool Guys #Sugar Apple Fairy Tale #don't toy with me miss nagatoro #the vampire dies in no time #in/spectre #mou ippon #anime 2023

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nocturnalserenade · 2 months ago

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I feel like I have to somewhat disagree with this. As someone who always loved Jadeite, as a character and especially as a villain, I too was always baffled at how underappreciated (and even actively disliked) he is in the fandom. Because yes, as you said he IS a fun and entertaining villain! I can understand not liking him but why in the world would you treat him SO poorly compared to the others? His schemes were so fun and over the top, his thing with illusions and disguises was cool (and it came BEFORE Team Rocket ;P), his interactions with the senshi’s team were pretty amusing and towards his last episodes you can even see a glimpse of respect for them (naturally I’m disregarding his infamous last line since it was so stupidly out of character and random), it would have been nice to have him around longer and maybe even getting close to some kind of pseudo-redemption before his death, although I don’t think he even needs it to be interesting. BUT, the potential to do something more with him was there.

That said, I personally think his Japanese voice was a pretty good choice for him actually, although I have to admit the quality of the Japanese audio in your video is so bad it DOES make it sound very cheap haha. I know it might be a matter of preference, but in my opinion him and Zoisite actually had the best VAs in the Japanese version among the Shitennou, not necessarily in terms of professionality, but in the sense that they perfectly matched their personality, which I think is more important than sounding as villanous as possible. Zoisite has a voice that perfectly captures his vain and sneaky personality for example, with its softness somewhat masking and emphasizing at the same time his vileness, and Jadeite has that smooth, confident voice with a touch of seductiveness in his tone, that fits very well with his schemes being mostly about charming crowds of people. He’s a deceiver who excels at luring people with beautiful traps that exploit people’s desires. So it’s more fitting that his voice would be that of a calm and calculated charmer rather than a cartoonish villain who is metaphorically screaming at the audience “I’m evil!! Don’t you want to punch me??” with every sentence imo, as much as it would obviously add to the fun factor. Either way, I am pretty certain fans aren’t disliking/ignoring him because he’s not enough "fun" or because his voice isn’t on par with the others.

I'll put the rest under a cut because it turned out embarassingly long and I don't want to subject my mutuals to my rants about Jadeite lol.

You know what Jadeite objectively lacks in the anime that most fans really care about, and that the other three have? A romance and a sad death, that’s it. Kunzite only has one of those so, unsurprisingly, even he is left way behind the other two who are the undisputed stars of the group, and he lives in Zoisite's shadow and often has to fight for last place with Jadeite. ;P

I think this lack of a "sentimental" aspect for his character is what makes people treat him so differently from the rest. Because if you take as counter-example other smaller shitennou-focused fan communities which give ALL the shitennou an important personal bond/connection, like those who pair them up with the senshi or those who focus on the shitennou's relationship with Mamoru, suddenly you will not find the same huge gap between Jadeite and the others in terms of appreciation. Outside of that, he's not only mostly ignored, but when he's not ignored he's either just turned into the joke of the group (best case scenario, maybe even in a kinda sympathetic way) or just criticized to no end. And all the bashing he gets is pretty hilarious in how little it makes sense and how out of proportion it is, when you really think about it.

Literally everything he does is wrong for the fandom.

He’s either too evil, or not evil enough, too incompetent, too boring because he uses “the same plans”, too arrogant, too bland, a jerk/misogynist for not reciprocating a youma's crush, a jerk/misogynist for his contempt for humans, a failure etc. You can't win, people just LOVE to hate him. Nevermind that he does more or less the same things the other three do at the end of the day. He has a preferred strategy of course, just like the others, and he doesn’t just mindlessly replicate it like fans make it out to be, he uses smart variations of it for every new plan, which mostly work out well for a good while, sometimes even for days, before he gets caught. The other three aren't much different. They often stick to a preferred strategy and they repeat it multiple times, sometimes regardless of whether it has actually proved successful or not. Their plans also inevitably fail when the senshi show up. They can all be ruthless and spiteful and full of themselves. They can be insensitive to the people who love them. They can be overconfident and stubbornly insist with ineffective plans over and over. Didn’t Nephrite keep using his “pick one single person whose energy is about to peak” plan a lot despite always ending up getting stopped as soon as the peak happens? And Kunzite kept repeating those princess-related events to attract the Princess/Sailor Moon even though they technically made little sense and never really helped him figure out the senshi's identities. They all had their screw-up moments and it's okay! They're the villains, they're supposed to fail eventually!

Yet you're always gonna hear “lol jadeite always recycles the same stupid/failing plans, what a loser!!” as if he was especially bad at everything he did. Even though those plans more often than not absolutely fulfilled their purpose. When the others do something silly/useless (even repeatedly), it's just bad writing instead, or there's some hidden good reason behind it (which is 100% fan speculation). After all this time of seeing this happen I've come to the conclusion that it's clearly just a bias. Because all of them have their successes, their failures and their silly moments, the only thing that changes wildly is the fans' interpretations of those things, based on which shitennou they're talking about. I think the other three get a pass for mostly anything specifically because they have that romantic/tragic arc that makes people empathize more with them, and take them more seriously and with a certain protectiveness no matter what, so their shortcomings/negative aspects are quickly justified/diminished and the good things greatly emphasized. With Jadeite it's the opposite and it always was basically fandom tradition to pick apart whatever he did or did not do for fun, because fans couldn't find anything entertaining to do with him except this.

Lastly, Jadeite has also been somewhat "held back" by the fact he was the first villain. Of course his plans seem to lack variety, it was the beginning and literally the only thing the Dark Kingdom needed at that point, up until his last 3 episodes or so, was collecting energy, so even if his schemes were all wildly different and fun, the goal was always the same and people perceive this as "he always does the same stuff" even though he doesn't really. It's literally his only assigned job and he's inventing 12million ways to do it really what do you want MORE lol. The first 13 episodes he's in were also the most light-hearted of the season, the stakes weren't high, the focus was on introducing the characters, blahblahblah of course it's less exciting than later on when a lot of drama and more serious shit suddenly starts going down. It was simply not possible to make a compelling and dramatic villain arc that early, without distracting too much from the main plot. So he got the least emotional and impactful character arc of the four.

Omg I'm writing too much. Bottom line is, Jadeite always got an unfair treatment from the fandom and my point (that I shamelessly and unnecessarily dragged out a lot lol) was simply that his voice is really the last of his problems, if it even is one. There's nothing uniquely wrong in how he was portrayed or voiced imo. It's just a fandom bias. He had his limitations of course, due mostly to how the story was structured, and the anime did do him dirty a couple of times, but come on, it's really not hard to enjoy him as a villain even with the little he got. Most of the fandom simply lacks a reason to be emotionally attached to him, and is biased against him by default, no matter what he does or how much of a cool villain he actually is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So I've always had a fondness and appreciation for Jadeite, the Starter Villain of Sailor Moon, but for a long time he was the least popular of the Shittenou (Four Heavenly Kings) by far. Only in recent years has he become more appreciated, matching and sometimes even passing Kunzite in many polls. For a while, I didn't quite get it: yeah, he's pretty nondescript in the manga and has a stock villainous personality in the anime lacking the nuances and dynamics with others that his colleagues have, but he's so entertaining as a villain! It's fun to see what variation on the same scheme and which thing to lure in humans he pulls, it's fun to see him dress up in disguises Team Rocket style, and it's fun to see him being such a smug asshole who ends up falling from grace and getting more and more frustrated as a result.

But now, I have finally identified the problem. His voice.

For years, the Sailor Moon fan community dealt primarily in the subbed original Japanese version of the 90s anime. And as you can hear above, Masaya Onosaka's performance is....not great. He was a fresh new voice actor at the time of casting (something not true of literally every other Dark Kingdom villains' casting) and it shows in the way he delivers Jadeite's lines. It's smug and villainous, yes, but there's no (ironically enough) ENERGY to it. There's no oomph, nothing that takes advantage of the material and elevates it into being something particularly enjoyable to hear. Fans saw Jadeite as just a bland villain because, well, he sounds like just a bland villain. Even his evil laugh sounds astonishingly half-assed!

Now, obviously Onosaka improved as a voice actor overtime. But his Jadeite sucked. Daisuke Kishio voices Jadeite in Sailor Moon Crystal, and he sounds better. He'd have to deepen his voice a little to be Jadeite from the 90s anime, but he's got the talent to do that.

The DiC dub of the 90s may be a butchery of the source material, but Tony Daniels as Jadeite...er, "Jedite", understood the assignment. He was also a fresh new voice actor but he knew that his character should sound like a campy, sneering supervillain and relish his wicked lines. He also did much better conveying a sense of desperation when faced with setbacks, defeat and ultimately execution. Those screams at the end actually sound real.

And then we have Todd Haberkorn, voicing Jadeite in the Viz dub of the 90s anime and its dub of Sailor Moon Crystal. He is, IMO, the absolute best Jadeite voice: not only does he make his performances for each version sound distinct (with the former sounding deeper, harsher and more villainous while the latter is higher pitched and more immature sounding which makes it easy to switch over to good once he's cleansed), but he is especially fantastic for 90s anime Jadeite. He sounds like Daniels if he toned down the ham while amping up the douche, making Jadeite sound like the kind of overconfident, pretentious, misogynistic jerk you want to deck in the face. And he's just as perfect at selling his anger and, in the end, his fear. He reads the same lines as Onosaka, but he gives them so much more character.

(4:12 is the best part, btw. I literally expected "Foiled again!" to follow. :P)

#jadeite #sailor moon #long post #SUPER long post #apologies for being a bit too passionate about this #I know this was probably meant as a light conversation on analysing voice acting rather than an inquiry into why he is so disliked #so sorry for derailing it a bit haha #i've just always been so annoyed by how jadeite is treated in the fandom lol #i love all of the shitennou really but i've always liked him best specifically because he was so fun as a villain in the anime #i probably wouldn't like him as much as i do if it wasn't for his anime version tbh

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warriorsparked · 2 years ago

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Slam dunks my URL in here like it’s basketball hoop

SEND ME YOUR URL AND I’LL TELL YOU

My Opinion on;

Character in general: I love Treppy. He is an evil bastard. I think it's a shame there wasn't more of him in the comics, but what we did see, I very much liked. I like a good, evil villain, altho mod always does like to remind me that he was just doing his job, so... I can't blame him entirely. Or so Treppy thinks. XD

(@seacrestseacon as well since you asked for that URL as well). I love Seacrest, he's hilarious and energetic, and honestly, I just feel like he's ADHD in a nutshell lol. I haven't quite been able to wrap my head around all of the other crew members yet, except Blacktip, but I am slowly learning! And I do love getting to interact with a whole crew, which also makes me appreciate the time you've put into this crew and your OC's, and you've developed a whole world around them. I really like that dedication. They feel like real characters that could easily be placed in the TF universe at any given point.

How they play them: Spectacularly! Absolutely love their portrayal of Trepan. This is one of those situations where it's a very underappreciated character in a series, one of those side characters that we don't really get to know a whole lot about, but with the use of our imaginations and lovely headcanons, you get to flesh these side characters out to your hearts content, and that is exactly what the mod does. And they do a fantastic job at it. I've never had so much joy with the character, let alone seen Trepan so fleshed out. A+

(Your squaddies are OCs, so I can't comment on how you write them because they're your OC's and you write them how you want them to be, and they're great the way they are).

The Mun: Is a riot. I'm convinced they're a gremlin that lurks in the back of my mind some days XD Honestly, though, the mod is lovely and always a joy to chat with. I can't say how much I laugh when I read your replies, just the way you write is so expressive and humerous, and I love it so much. Those little inner monologues? The breaking the third wall thing? Every thread is a delight and amuses me, and it's in turn made me able to expand my own writing techniques with those ways as well. It's something so unique in RP and it's definitely something I'll never forget.

Do I:

RP with them: Yep! Across multiple blogs. Want to RP with them: Absolutely.

What is my;

Overall Opinion: Just a joy to write with. Like I said, it's always amusing getting to read your replies and getting to chat OOC. It's also really nice to have someone else in my own time zone as well lol, because that's a royal pain in the arse knowing everyone else is asleep while we're just getting home from work or something. So I definitely appreciate that. But yes, if you're not following or interacting with this mod, you should be, because they're a riot to have on the dash and the replies always have me smirking behind my screen XD

#ooc asks

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saltedpeppermintmocha · 3 years ago

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how sweet it is (to be loved by you) - Chapter 3/9

Summary:

You are the head baker and owner of a struggling bakery. When pro hero Creati comes in for a wedding cake, of course you accept.

As a business owner, you are excited about the boom in profits resulting from the publicity of working a hero wedding.

As a baker, you are ecstatic to work on an extravagant cake - your most ambitious one to date.

As a woman, you are terrified as you begin to grow feelings for the one person you REALLY cant: the groom.

NOTES: NO infidelity, NO cheating, NO divorce!

Chapter One

MATURE : MINORS DO NOT INTERACT // 18+

3 Months Before the Wedding

The day is surprisingly warm for this time of year. The morning sky is clear and the air has that crisp type of cold that makes you want to curl up under a blanket. You leave your scarf undone as you walk back from the grocery store, swinging your items lightly in their bags. You have a pep in your step.

Well, you’ve had a pep in your step ever since the night of the cake tasting. And wow, what a night that had been.

Sitting under the winter night sky eating soba with Pro Hero Shouto at a small stand after bailing from a fancy restaurant is not how you ever planned your life to go. It’s something you know that you will remember fondly for years to come, and reminisce on after your life eventually goes back to normal.

The night itself was wonderful. Todoroki turned out to be not as serious as you initially thought, throwing the occasional joke into the conversation. The conversation itself flowed naturally, both of you keeping on relatively safe and easy topics. You actually have more in common with the rich hero than you had thought, such as your opinions on certain classic book series and films.

Honestly, when you had first suggested the small soba stand you didn’t know if the man would even eat there. Maybe he would take one look at its old but loved exterior and that princely outward appearance would sour with displeasure and superiority. Maybe Haru’s cheaper (yet still delicious) ingredients wouldn’t be up to his standards and he’d insult your old family friend by not finishing it. However, instead of any of that, the hero’s eyes had lit up immediately at seeing the stand in the distance. The man had seemed just as (or even more) excited to eat there and was beyond gracious to Haru.

Even Haru, a man who thought rich people were the root cause of every world problem, seemed to be won over by Todoroki. While he left you both to talk amongst yourselves for the meal, once the hero tried to pay, he waved him off and said the meal was on the house. Now, that wasn’t exactly out of place for Haru, but the look on Todoroki’s face had been hilarious. It was like he couldn't imagine not paying. It had resulted in an extremely amusing argument between the two, both insisting on getting their way. In the end, Haru won as he always did. The hero promised to return and bring others. It warmed your heart.

Afterward, Todoroki walked you back to the bakery, ignoring your initial protests. The conversation continued to flow naturally between you, only stopping for a few comfortable silence. If you were, to be honest, it was one of the best times you’ve had in a while. If it had been a date, you would say it was a perfect one.

But it wasn’t a date. It would never be, and you were a complete idiot for even letting the thought cross your mind.

The news segment playing on the giant billboard on your way home only cemented that fact. It was an interview with Pro Heroes Creati and Shouto. From what you can gather, the two had teamed up to take down a villain just outside of town. Creati was doing the most talking, comfortable in front of the cameras. Shouto seemed content to let her take the lead.

They compliment each other well. Personality-wise they seem perfectly compatible, and on the battlefield, their very different quirks work well together in most villain attacks. Both heroes are strong, with both long-distance and short-range attack capabilities and limited weaknesses. In all honesty, they are a near-perfect team.

Gossip magazines often wonder about their relationship, as they do for any of the top heroes. You wonder how they are going to react when the wedding happens. No announcement has been made yet, despite how close the date is getting. Maybe they will announce it last minute, or keep it secret entirely.

After a few moments, you look away and continue your walk. It’s a bit more solemn now, a weird feeling clawing up your throat. This is the first time you’ve seen either of them on tv since you accepted them as your clients. It has become a bit hard to coincide the image you have of the people you’ve spoken to on multiple occasions with the essential-celebrity Pro Heroes they are. Especially Todoroki, with his soft smiles and kind eyes.

You wonder when your perception of them began to change.

Walking back to the bakery, you once again go over your mental list of things you need to do to finish the cakes. The designs are complete by now (although you still want Todoroki’s approval for his groom's cake) and most of the non-edible and edible supplies have been ordered. You still need to work with the schedule a bit more to ensure you have enough time to complete the cakes. As it is, you can’t afford to hire another baker. You are looking into volunteer bakers and decorators from the local schools but it’s up in the air at the moment.

The air mists around your face as you sigh. You are already exhausted, and the actual cake baking hasn’t even begun yet. This has really better be worth it in the end.

A loud screech breaks you from your thoughts. You startle, mind coming back to the present as you pause in rolling the dough. Stretching upwards towards the ceiling, your back cracks in the most satisfying way. You can’t even care that flour rains down on you from your hands above.

Peeking at the clock (08:34 a.m) you finally turn towards the door to the kitchen, listening to hear if this is something you actually need to step out for. Kana can handle most things by now. After a moment, your name is called out. You take a cursory look around the kitchen to make sure you aren’t leaving anything dangerous, pull off your gloves, and head out to the back hallway.

Down the hall, Kana stands with her back to you. She is peering out the door to the front, back straight and tense. You frown, walking over. What could have this sort of reaction?

“What’s wrong?” You ask as you get closer. She looks back at your voice, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

“Shouto Todoroki is in the bakery.” The girl breathes heavily.

You blink slowly. “Huh?” “PRO HERO SHOUTO IS IN THE BAKERY!”

You wince. Ouch, okay. That was loud. Kana looks a bit ashamed at the tone of her own voice, face reddening slightly. “Sorry.” She whispers.

“It’s okay.” You assure her. “Um, so is that all?” “Is that all?! ” She replies, voice high-pitched.

Ah, right. Kana had never been around when the two-tone hero came by, and when Yaoyorozu popped in she was in disguise. The girl has no idea that the bakery is dealing with heroes. She’s probably extremely confused as to why a Pro Hero would be in the bakery.

To be fair, you had reacted with a similar panic the first time too.

“Are you a fan?” You ask, a small knowing smile forming as her face goes even redder. Sliding past the fangirling woman, you peer your head out.

Amongst the regular setting of the bakery is the two-toned hero. Todoroki stands near the counter, looking around at one of the local paintings on the wall. He is lucky that there are no other customers around. It’s rare for the bakery to be this quiet at this time, although...if you’re honest with yourself, it’s been steadily getting even quieter around the shop for a few weeks now.

Heterochromatic eyes lock onto yours. “Hello.” His mouth curls up into a smile as he looks at you. You flush a bit as you realize you probably look a mess, covered in flour as you are. Still, it’s not like he hasn’t seen you like this before.

“Hey!” You return his smile. “I’ll be right out, just gotta grab something real quick.” He nods, looking down at the display case. You turn on your heel and head back into the hall, pausing briefly to speak with your employee. “It’s okay, go back out. Just think of him as a regular customer.”

Kana doesn’t seem to register your words at all. “Wait, do you know him?”

What can you even say, legally? “Kinda”

Somehow, the girl looks even more surprised. She opens his mouth to speak, but you stop her line of questioning by pushing her lightly towards the front. She stumbles a bit, looking back at you with a pout, but does continue walking to the front.

By the time you join her with your notebook in hand, Kana is speaking with the hero. It’s obvious that she is a fan by her shaky words and awkward smile but Todoroki seems to be handling it with grace. He is probably used to it.

“Hey, Todoroki.” You interrupt when their conversation lulls a bit, letting the two-toned eyes shift to you. Kana looks relieved. “Here for some snacks?”

“Yes. I have a meeting in an hour.” “Of course.” You glance over at the display case, happy to see that you have quite a selection for him today. “What can I get you?”

“Whatever ones you think are best.”

You pause, humming. “You know, I think Kana should pick.”

“What.” The girl looks at you with widening eyes.

“Yeah.” You say, looking back over to Todoroki for his assent. “I have something I want to show you anyways.” The hero tilts his head to the side in confusion, but nods.

As Kana struggles to decide what to give to a group of heroes, you motion the man over to the far end of the counter. You bring out the notebook and flip to the desired page before placing it on the counter.

It’s the final design of the groom's cake. Honestly, you think it looks pretty cool. It’s manageable, but still fun enough to be welcome at a hero's wedding. Todoroki looks down at the page but doesn’t say anything.

Eventually, a slight panic starts to rise in your chest. “Um, is it okay?” “It looks good.” That is his only response?

Okay. You were kind of hoping for more of a reaction. The cake is for him, after all. You look down at the cake design and wonder if maybe he is disappointed. Did he expect more from you? Maybe it is simply not flashy enough for such a huge fan of a hero like All Might. Although, that fact about the hero still confuses the hell out of you-

“You are really talented.”

Your head snaps back up to meet those eyes. Quickly you look away, not able to look any longer as you feel your face warm a bit at his compliment. It just sounds so sincere coming from that soft, deep voice. “I-uh, I mean-” You stammer. “Are you sure it’s okay? Is there anything you want to change?”

“No.” He responds. You glance back at the hero, who looks vaguely amused. “It’s perfect.” The two of you look at each other, neither saying anything. Something flutters in your stomach. “Done!” Kana’s voice breaks the odd tension surrounding you. Quickly you reach over to close the notebook, ensuring that your workers wandering eyes won’t catch a peek. You place it in the crook of your arm and turn back to her.

“Uhh...Kana.” You look at the two large take-out bags that she seems to have stuffed with pastries and desserts. “That might be a little...much for a meeting.”

Kana looks between the bags and the hero with obvious concern in her eyes. “I mean you didn’t tell me how much to put!” She accuses, embarrassed at being called out in front of the hero.

“It’s okay,” Todoroki speaks up, shaking his head as he heads over to her. “I’ll take it.” The young girl looks ecstatic at his response, perking back up instantly. You can’t help but chuckle as you make your way towards the till. “Are you sure?” You ask, just to be responsible in this situation. “It’s a lot of food.”

The hero nods, and that’s it. You really can’t afford to fight him on a sale. Luckily Kana kept track of the items in the bags, so you’re able to ring him up efficiently. The price is hefty, but the hero doesn’t flinch as he hands over a black card. Just the card feels more expensive than most things you own.

After a few minutes, the hero leaves, plunging the bakery back into silence. The only sound comes from the light copyright-free music coming over the speaker. Your heart calms a bit, and you take a breath. Why does that man always catch you so off-guard?

“Shit!” The sudden screech makes you jump, turning to face the only other occupant in the building.

“What?!’

Kana looks over to you with a horrified expression. “I didn’t ask him for an autograph!” She groans, bending over to place her head in her hands.

You let out a laugh and head into the back. It’s still early in the day, and Todoroki has depleted a good portion of your stock. Sure, it’s been quieter in the bakery recently, but you can’t afford to have your key items not available. It’s time to get back to the kitchen.

----

Somehow, after that day Todoroki becomes almost like a staple in your bakery. He comes on your quietest days of the week, and occasionally in disguise on your busier ones. It surprises you that none of your other customers recognize him, you know who he is the second he walks through the door no matter the disguise. He asks for a large random assortment of pastries and desserts every time he comes in, taking time to chat with you as your workers pack them up.

To their credit, your workers seem to be taking this odd development in stride. After Todoroki’s second appearance at the bakery, you got the feeling that he might return sometime. So you dragged both Kana and Tanaka aside when you had the chance and told them not to mention the heroes' visits to anyone. Kana, who really wanted to tell her friends, agreed when you said the hero might stop coming if he was mobbed. Tanaka had argued that the publicity would be good for the bakery (which he wasn’t wrong about) but still agreed not to say anything.

Both of your workers have now met the hero a few times, and you’re proud to say that they have exceeded your expectations in regards to the celebrity. While Kana always looks incredibly starstruck when he first comes in, she manages to act relatively normal around him. She actually managed to ask for an autograph, and practically squealed when he agreed. Tanaka spends his time making corny jokes, laughing as they go completely over the hero's head.

You are extremely happy that this is working out since you are usually in the back when the hero walks in. Normally, whoever is working will call you out right away. You’ll grab your notes and head out to talk to the hero as your worker packs up his treats, always subtly trying to get his opinions on both cakes. So far, your attempts have been futile. It’s like he honestly does not care. You usually end up ringing in his order, chatting with him until he has to head out.

It’s sort of a nice -if unexpected- ritual, honestly. You find yourself a bit more excited to start the day when you think he will appear.

So you’re kind of surprised one day when he doesn’t show up.

At first, you don’t notice. You’re in your own little baking world. Eventually, though, you glance at the clock and realize it’s an hour later than he usually comes in. Checking in with Kana confirms that he hasn’t shown up. You try to push away the feeling of disappointment that threatens to claw up your throat. What exactly do you have to be disappointed about? Todoroki doesn’t owe you anything. He’s a busy hero.

You busy yourself with your work for the day. With Todoroki buying so much of your supply recently, this is the first time you’ve actually had to cut down on your batch sizes in a while. Still, you have a large number of leftovers at the end of the day.

Kana had been sent home early due to the worsening weather. You finish up your closing tasks as quickly as possible, glancing at the relatively full display case a few times. They won’t sell tomorrow. Not with how slow it has been recently.

You look out the large window at the front of your store. The weather has definitely gotten worse, you see the tree across the way move roughly in the wind. The only small blessing is that the white dots hitting the window seem to be snow, not hail.

Do you risk it?

You haven’t had enough leftovers to warrant a run to the shelter in a while. Today though, you definitely could help a good amount of people. You don’t want to throw all of that in the trash. With a small huff, you start to carefully pack your creations away in your to-go bags. Once complete, you throw on your thin jacket and old boots, exiting the store.

Immediately, you sort of regret your choice. The wind rips roughly around you, sending freezing snow particles flying into your face. Ugh. You turn around and lock the door to the bakery, pocketing the key. Tucking your chin as much into your jacket collar as possible, you head down the street. Your only saving grace is that the wind seems to be blowing the same way as you. Sure, you can’t see as well with your hair blowing in your face, but at least it’s not that painful.

You hear a loud sound behind you, muffled a bit through the wind. Not really feeling up to dealing with whatever it is, you look down and shuffle your feet a bit faster.

“....!”

Oh, it's a voice, and it sounds much louder than before. Is someone following you? Heart jumping a bit, you pause in your steps and turn around. The wind and snow hit you immediately in your face, causing you to squint reflexively. You swap all of your bags to one hand and use the other to rub at your eyes.

Is that... “Todoroki?”

The red and white hero walks towards you, hair blowing roughly in the wind. You squint against the wind as he gets closer. He is wearing the same beautiful navy coat as before. The man is quick on his feet and covers the distance between you quickly to come to a stop in front of you. His tall frame mercifully blocks most of the wind and snow from reaching you, so you finally lower your hand and open your eyes fully.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” He actually looks contrite.

“It’s fine.” You reply instinctively, not liking that look on him. It takes you a moment to fully process that he is here. When you do, your hands move to wave in front of you, paper bags clashing against each other. “Ah, no no! It’s okay! You were probably busy.”

“Yes.” He nods. “There was a villain attack in Tokyo."

“That far?” You ask, surprised. How did he get back so quickly? “Well, I’m glad you are okay.”

A smile curls at his lips. “Thank you for being concerned about me.” His eyes flicker down to the bags in your hands. “Where are you going?” “Ah, these?” You lift them up a bit. “I’m taking the leftovers to the shelter.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Huh? “Oh, you don’t have to! It’s not that far.”

It’s almost as if he didn’t hear you. Todoroki reaches forward, hands gracefully taking half of the bags from your grasp. “Lead the way.”

So, once again you find yourself walking beside the hero down the street. In a weird way, you’re a bit thankful for the worsening weather. There are not many people outside, and those that are out are too focused on getting inside to notice the obvious hero in their midst.

“Are you cold?” Todoroki asks, after a few blocks. You glance over to him, catching his eyes.

Shaking your head, you reply. “I’m okay.”

“You should put on a warmer jacket.” He continues. “It would be bad to get sick.”

You look forward, unable to keep that eye contact. Of course, you should have put on a warmer jacket. If you had a warmer jacket, there is no way you would have left the bakery in this one. But, well, jackets are expensive, and the worst part of winter is almost done. You can make it another year. “Ah, yes. I must have grabbed the wrong one.” A horrible attempt at a lie.

The hero makes a thoughtful sound but doesn’t say anything else. For a moment you both walk in silence. Then you feel something on your shoulders. You startle a bit, glancing over at the warmth suddenly surrounding you. You are covered in something navy coloured-

Wait.

Your feet stop moving and your face heats up. “Wait.” You turn to look at the hero with wide eyes. “You can't- I mean, what about you?”

Todoroki paused just a step ahead of you, looking back at you with an odd expression. His cheeks are a bit red, from the cold? You reach up to slide the coat off, pausing when one of his hands comes to cover yours. “I’m pretty good with cold temperatures.”

The hand that covers yours is warm, but the other comes up into view covered in ice. Oh.

Right.

“Still-”

You’re forced to stop mid-argument as Todoroki begins walking again, legs rushing to catch up with him. The coat is extremely warm. You can’t help but reach up to pull it more around you as you walk.

The hero glances over at you as you catch up, a surprisingly satisfied look on his face. You stick out your tongue at him (briefly, it’s too cold out) as a response for him just walking away. The look on his face softens a bit, and he chuckles.

The weather continues to get worse as you walk, but luckily you are nearing the shelter. It looms up ahead, a small building nestled amongst others. Todoroki comes in with you, quietly following as you drop off the bags. The normal worker that you deal with is in. The man doesn’t seem to even recognize the hero behind you, simply taking your items with a genuine thank you. You assume he’s extremely busy, given the weather.

By the time you head out, the world around you is almost completely white. It’s a blizzard. Even Todoroki’s coat around you won’t keep you warm for long out there. You frown as you look around, trying to think of a potentially faster route home.

“There’s a cafe open over there.” Todoroki’s deep voice rings out through the wind.

“Hm?” You look over at the lit-up cafe a few stores down, recognizing the name. “Yea, I’ve heard they have good coffee.”

“Do you want to go?”

“What? Now?” “You don’t want to?” He looks over.

“Ah, sorry.” You shake your head. "I was a bit lost in my own thoughts. That’s a good idea to wait out the storm.” At least, you hope the storm will lessen at some point. You really do have to head home eventually. The two of you start towards the little cafe.

The cafe is nice and warm and empty. There seem to be two baristas working, one wiping down tables while the other stands behind the cafe. Both are looking out various windows, probably wondering if the snow will lighten up sometime before their shifts are over.

A surprising pressure on your lower back forces you further into the cafe. You look over, eyes wide as you realize that Todoroki's arm disappears behind you. You flush a bit as he leads you gently towards the till. The barista there startles as you both walk up, eyes staring widely at the hero. How does he deal with this every day? Still, the girl masks her surprise relatively well and a customer service smile forms on her face.

“Good evening, how can I help you today?” You glance up at the menu for a moment. “Hojicha tea please.” Todoroki looks down at you, an eyebrow raised. “I eat too many sweets at work, sometimes I need something different."

“And anything for you...sir?” The barista continues.

“Same for me, please.” He orders. The girl taps away at the cash register, the total appearing on a little screen above it. You reach for your pocket, only to come up empty. Right, you didn’t bring any money with you. It’s not like you expected to be going anywhere. The hand behind you moves, slipping into the pocket of the navy coat you are wearing. It's a weird feeling. Todoroki grabs his wallet, opening it up to present a black card to the barista.

“I’ll get the next one.” You mutter.

“Alright.” He replies smoothly, taking the card back and pocketing the wallet in his pants pocket. It's only then that you realize you essentially just demanded another outing with the man. You suck in a breath, holding it. What the hell are you doing?

“Please take a seat, I will bring the tea over when it’s ready.” The barista nods over to the tables.

Todoroki goes to head over, but you pause. “If you want to close down please just tell us and we’ll leave.” You smile kindly. “I own a shop, I understand.” The barista’s eyes you oddly. “Thank you.” She whispers, and you nod before head over to the table.

You sit opposite Todoroki, close your eyes, and feel yourself relax immediately into the chair. The warm, welcoming cafe atmosphere has already done wonders for your stress levels. “You are very cautious around workers.”

Opening your eyes a slit, you see him staring straight at you with interest. You smile softly. “Have you...ever worked in customer service?”

“I haven’t.” He shakes his head. You're not surprised by his answer.

“It...can be tough.” You admit. “Customers can be extremely demanding, rude, and demeaning. I once had someone pick up and throw the cash register at me for not having an item in stock.”

Todoroki’s eyes are wide. “Really?”

“Really.” You chuckle. “And managers can be even worse. They focus on profits, and don’t care about their workers.” You glance over at the barista making your tea. “Some would insist the baristas keep the store open even in dangerous weather, on the off chance that a customer would come in.”

Todoroki follows your gaze to the baristas. After a moment, he looks back at you. His eyes shine with understanding. “You are a very kind person.” That makes you sit up straight. “Ah, not really.” You insist. “I’m just normal.”

The barista picks that moment to deliver your tea. She has the teapot in hand, with some mugs for both of you to drink out of. Placing it down carefully, she warns you of the high temperature and head back to her work. Todoroki pours for both of you, and you sit in comfortable silence as you sip your drinks while the blizzard rages outside.

It takes a while, but eventually the storm does begin to lighten up. The tea doesn't last much longer, but neither of you is in a rush to move. The conversation begins easily between you, and continues to flow just as it had the night of the soba stand.

It’s only when you happen to catch the clock on the wall when you realize you’ve been sitting here for hours. You decide to leave, for the sake of the workers. The two of you pack up and head outside. When you step out, you remember that you are still wearing the hero's coat. You try to give it back, honestly, but he insists you wear it until you get home.

The walk back to the bakery is filled with comfortable silence, both of you lost in thought. You can’t help but feel a bit relieved as your home comes into view, an anchor of reality in this weird, yet nice night. Todoroki stands behind you as you unlock your door, a silent guardian against any villains that might be stalking around the area.

Once the door is unlocked, you turn back to the man to say goodnight and hand back his coat. You pause. The hero suddenly looks a bit awkward, heterochromatic eyes flickering between you and the wall beside you. You open your mouth to ask if he is okay when he blurts out. “Can I give you my phone number?”

What? He looks up at you, eyes wide with an unreadable glint in that two-toned gaze. Your heart clenches painfully at the expression on his face. “Yeah, sure.”

A soft smile pulled at the edge of his lips. You reach into your pants pocket and grab your phone, tossing it to him. He catches it gratefully. You watch as he fiddles with it to find your contact list, a brief moment of panic running through you as you wonder about what the last thing you were looking at. But whatever it was, he doesn't seem fazed. After about a minute he hands back your phone.

The light from it is bright in the dark. You look down at the screen. It displays your new contact information.

[ Contact: Shouto Todoroki ]

#todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki shouto x you #todoroki shouto x y/n #reader-insert #reader #bnha fanfiction #bnha fic #fanfiction #j writes

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the1northlanderprincess · 3 years ago

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Finale thoughts

First of all, holy crap. That was...A LOT. Like, almost too much going on, so, I’m only going to cover my favorite, and not so favorite, scenes.

I am not exactly happy that we didn’t get any interaction between Richard and Barbara in this episode for a few reasons. One, she’s his surrogate sister (or likes her as one would). Two, he called out to her/shadowed her home last week and just to have no follow-up to that doesn’t make sense. Three, how did he know there was trouble at American Dream? Unless it’s something simple as, he’s always keeping an eye on things.

That said, I found his rescue scene amusing. It was fun to see him full of energy and a sort of rascally side. Charles’ flummoxed expression was funny.

Also, while it’s nice to know he’ll be sticking around, what Shade said to Rick sounded like it should have been in a conversation with Barbara, because he’s had the most scenes with her, and has that kind of witty communication with her. It was so random.

Both Dr. Midnites suiting up was cute.

A Zeke sighting! His scenes were gold. That’s all I can say.

GRUNDY, NO!!!! Honestly it was cruel how soon he was taken out by that little twerp. I felt so bad for Rick. Thank goodness Grundy can come back.

I could have done without Mike’s actions in S.T.R.I.P.E. I was, like, really?

Courtney’s possession scene was amazingly terrifying. Brec does a good job at playing a villainous, I gotta say.

Sylvester showing up when he did was awe-inspiring. Like, seriously, I was moved with the Power of Good and what Starman and the staff represent. But, what has he been doing the whole season?

Sylvester catching Courtney was **fans self**. I love Joel McHale. If Courtney was older, I’d totally ship it. Brec was a lucky girl to get to be in the arms of that fine man.

Jennie, Court, Sylvester, and Thunderbolt combining their powers was super cool, and I liked the whole Avengers moment, but with villains mixed in.

Awww, Charles has a son. His face was so precious upon finding that out.

Beth’s parents fangirling over her status was terrific. It’s going to be fun and hilarious to see how they interact with Pat and Barbara.

KEITH. DAVID.

Okay, so the episode was pretty good. It went a little fast with how much was packed in, so it loses a few points for that. It was an awesome season and I hope it’s not too far into 2022 for season 3′s premiere (is March too hopeful?).

P.S. I still have my Shade, Barbara, and Courtney fanart to post. Hopefully I can do that this week. Be on the lookout for that.

#stargirl #stargirl spoilers #The Shade #Richard Swift #Barbara Whitmore

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years ago

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IOTA Reviews: Miraculous World: New York - United HeroeZ

So... with the recent announcement that Seasons 4 and 5 of Miraculous Ladybug will air on Disney+, with one episode set to air around March 27th (and it's out of order because of course it is), I figured I would try something new with this blog.

While I'm sure Astruc will be more active while the new season is airing, I figured I'd take a stab at reviewing new episodes of Miraculous Ladybug when they come out, as I already have a Disney+ account that I only really use to watch Star Wars and other Disney Channel cartoons I've never seen before. Well, that and the gloriousness that is Mech-X4.

And I was thinking that since a certain special is already available on Disney+, I'll review it now. Consider it my, uh...

279 Follower Special. Yeah, that’s it.

Miraculous World: New York – United Heroez is the first in a series of Miraculous Ladybug specials with the premise of having our heroes travel around the world. Because I guess that's what you do with your show when you run out of ideas for things your characters can do. Just ask Ash Ketchum and Thomas the Tank Engine.

The special is somewhat polarizing among the fandom, with some loving it, and some hating it. If you've seen some of my earlier posts, you probably already know how I feel about this.

Anyway, let's take a look at Miraculous World: New York – United Heroez

We start off with a logo letting us know this is going to be the start of a series of specials called Miraculous World.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll be remembered among other great cinematic universes like the Dark Universe and Ghost Corps.

In all seriousness, this is actually a pretty decent opening. It has some nice visuals that inform the audience of the globetrotting gimmick seen in the special, and the orchestral cover of the Miraculous Ladybug theme sounds pretty badass.

The special truly starts off in the middle of an Akuma fight, where we see that Mr. Pigeon is taking inspiration from Startrain's plan to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPACE! Apparently, this is the 51st time that Ladybug and Cat Noir have fought him, which makes you wonder if Hawkmoth is either running out of ideas, or if he just wants to see how insane Mr. Pigeon's plans can get for the hell of it.

Ladybug and Cat Noir transform into their new space forms that they've obviously had for a while, given Alya's familiarity with their names... even though those forms probably would have been useful when they were fighting Startrain. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things this special retcons.

We get a few interactions between Ladybug and Cat Noir to give new viewers an idea of what the Love Square dynamic is like, with Cat Noir fawning over Ladybug after she leaves, and Marinette gushing over a new poster Adrien is in. I'll get back to this later,

After that, we see a brief clip from a student film teaching the audience about the real life friendship between George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette (the latter actually becoming one of Washington's close advisors during the Revolutionary War), and how it lead to the completely made up, “French American Friendship week”, which is basically an excuse for Marinette and Adrien's class to go to New York for a week.

Their teacher, Ms. Bustier isn't going with them because she's having a baby (God help us if the writers resort to pregnancy jokes next season), so the only other teacher in the school, Ms. Mendeleiev, will be supervising the class instead.

Adrien isn't able to go to New York because his father won't let him, and even he lampshades how predictable this is. But as soon as Lila suggests spending time with Adrien, Marinette immediately declares she will try to get Adrien to come on the trip with everyone, because he's her friend... and then Alya mocks her for saying that in the very next scene.

And here is the first problem with this special: The way Marinette's crush on Adrien is portrayed.

We're supposed to see Marinette as being in denial about her feelings for Adrien, but when you think about how Season 3 ended with Marinette realizing Adrien and Kagami (who will make an appearance in this special later on) are happy together, it makes sense that she wants to do this. She wants to move on from her crush on Adrien and try to be friends with him.

Unfortunately, her “best friend” Alya isn't willing to let her move on, which is extremely hypocritical when you remember how often she teased her for her behavior around Adrien, to the point where her other “friends” made bets about Marinette's hesitance to confess to him (Cat Blanc). Does she even know about Adrien and Kagami?

And throughout this special, rather than acknowledge Marinette's decision to move on, she constantly teases Marinette about how she still has feelings for Adrien, instead of simply leaving her alone. She reaches salt fic levels of unlikable in this special.

It doesn't help that Marinette's anxiety around Adrien is cranked up to twelve in this special, with her constantly stammering, or fidgeting around to the point where she struggles to get through a door. Twice. And as always, this behavior is only going to be played for laughs, because the showrunners are running out of ways to make Marinette suffer for comedy. And it only gets worse from here.

While watching a news report about a necklace and sabre George Washington had given to him by Lafyette, Nathalie, bedridden from the events of the season finale, tells Gabriel that the necklace in question is actually a lost Miraculous.

And as soon as Marinette arrives, Gabriel tells her that he's going to let Adrien go on the trip. His reason?

Gabriel: Letting Adrien go to New York will be simpler than hiding my absence here from him. Besides, this will allow me to continue keeping an eye on him.

Yeah, he seriously thinks it's a good idea to send his son to the same place he's planning to attack as part of one of his plans. At least you could make the argument that whenever Adrien is endangered during an Akuma attack, he's simply caught in the crossfire because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time, like with “Style Queen”. Here, Gabriel is intentionally letting Adrien go to New York, while claiming that he will be able to monitor him while he plots to attack the city. This is like if Grand Moff Tarkin let his son go to Alderaan for vacation. And again, it only gets worse from here.

Though Gabriel waits a day to tell Adrien he's going to New York, because of he did, we wouldn't get any scenes of Adrien moping around about how much his life sucks. Well, that and a scene of him and Kagami, where the latter kisses him. This is Kagami's only scene in the special, and she isn't mentioned again after this.

As Ladybug, Marinette tells Cat Noir she's going away for a few days and trusts him to guard Paris as long as he alerts her of an Akuma or Sentimonster. What will happen to the Miracle Box Marinette inherited from Former Master In Name Only Fu is never explained.

To Adrien's credit, it's Plagg that convinces him to go on the trip even though Ladybug trusted him, and even then, it takes a little bit to convince Adrien, showing he still takes his job seriously, with him coming up with a plan in case an Akuma attacks. It's not perfect, but it's something. That all goes to hell later on, though.

We then see Gabriel once again talking to Emilie's corpse about his plan.

Gabriel: Blah, blah, blah, Emilie. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I'll get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous this time for sure. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm such a good father and sympathetic villain.

Oh, sorry. That's how I hear most of his monologues to Emilie these days. My bad.

The next scene features something I bet you've never seen before, Marinette being late for something. Thankfully, Luka gives her a ride to help her catch up, hoping that the trip will “give her some clarity”, most likely referring to her conflicting emotions. Marinette then kisses Luka goodbye and gets on the bus. This is Luka's only scene in the special, and he isn't mentioned again after this.

On the plane, it turns out that Adrien is conveniently sitting next to Marinette, prompting Alya to tease Marinette yet again while making this face.

Alya: (smirking and talking in a very smug tone of voice) Awesome, Marinette! Go and sit next to your “friend”! So you two can enjoy a nice flight together! A very long flight.

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Alya continues to relentlessly tease Marinette and makes fun of her crush for no real reason, suggesting Marinette get off the plane because “New York is the most romantic city in the world after Paris”. And this gives her a goddamn panic attack where she frantically tries to run off the plane. Remember kids, if someone has some kind of anxiety or social awkwardness, it's perfectly fine to tease and make fun of their behavior, and even exploit it for your own amusement.

And after some unfunny hilarious slapstick involving Marinette on the plane, Alya continues her streak of treating Marinette like her plaything.

Nino: If only this trip could help Adrien finally come out of his shell.

Alya: And if only it could help Marinette be more honest with herself and clearer about her feelings!

Nino: Operation New York?

Alya: Operation New York!

Nino: Let's help them loosen up!

Alya: After all, isn't the United States the land of the free?

Well, the only thing you actually got right about America is forcing others to do things they don't want to do. Just ask the Native Americans.

It's scenes like this why Alya is portrayed so negatively in salt fics. And this happens throughout the special. Now, while I'm not really a drinker, I'm guessing there's at least one person reading this post right now who is. So I have a little idea for a game. Every time Alya acts like a terrible friend to Marinette, take a shot. I'd just have a donor ready in case one of your kidneys gives up on you.

After an admittedly nice scene of Adrien thanking Marinette for convincing his father to let him come (undercut by Marinette creepily commenting on Adrien's cologne as they hug), another problem with this special rears its ugly head, as a man with oddly-colored skin arrives on one of the plane's wings.

Alya: Oh, no! That's Techno-Pirate, the supervillain who steals technology!

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Yeah. This is happening. The special is just casually introducing this new supervillain, Techno-Pirate as well as some other superheroes, neither of which had any buildup before, not even a throwaway line They're just here now.

So some of the American superheroes are to save the day, now, I guess. Majestia, the Superman knockoff, helps steer the plane back into position, her robotic daughter, Uncanny Valley, helps fix the plane's broken wing, while Knightowl and Sparrow, the Batman and Robin knockoffs, deal with Techno-Pirate. And everyone just treats this like a regular occurrence.

Marinette: Wow! That all happened so fast! I didn't have time to transform or help out!

Adrien: Good thing the American superheroes were here. I couldn't have transformed here. I'm supposed to be in Paris!

Plagg: Relax, Adrien! Let the local superheroes handle their own problems.

I have so many problems with this plot development. Just how common is the knowledge that there are other superheroes besides Ladybug and Cat Noir in other countries? How have they never been mentioned until now? Why is everyone just accepting the fact that there are other superheroes?

I get that these characters weren't conceived around the time the show started, but the way they're just thrown into the story is just so confusing and does so many things to hurt the narrative instead of helping it. In other episodes, Majestia and Knightowl were only seen in comic books, and Ladybug and Cat Noir were seen as the only heroes in the world because the world itself was fairly down to earth, barring some more advanced technology (the police's weapons in “Origins”, Hawkmoth's lair, Max's robot, Markov, the space dumpsters in “Reverser”, and the AI in Startrain).

The fact that New York is apparently filled with all kinds of superheroes for very mundane things like directing traffic and selling hot dogs just makes the Miraculous seem less important. If there was more work done to better integrate them into the story, like maybe making them an American secret or something, it could have worked. To quote a character voiced by Jason Lee...

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And the sad thing was that Power Rangers was able to pull something like this off far better in 1995. During the third season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Master Vile had successfully reversed the Earth's rotation, turning the Power Rangers into children (yes, it runs on Superman logic, just go with it). Because of this, the Rangers are unable to morph, with the villains free to attack the city. In response, Zordon sends out a distress call to another team of Power Rangers from the planet Aquitar.

Now I know what you're thinking. If Zordon had the ability to contact another team of Power Rangers for help, why did it take him so long to do so? The episode immediately answers the question by pointing out that Aquitar is a planet made entirely of water, so it's incredibly dangerous for them to head to a planet like Earth, making their intervention a last resort. And even after they come, a major plot thread is finding ways to keep the Alien Rangers hydrated, which only gets worse when the Alien Rangers' enemy, Hydro Hog, arrives to drain Earth's water while teaming up with the main villains.

The integration of the Alien Rangers into the story generally feels natural, and there is a clear explanation as to why they haven't joined the battle until now, and even then, still place some hurdles for them to overcome. Here, the special just wants the audience to immediately accept the fact that there are hundreds of superheroes in New York.

So as Marinette and Adrien's class arrives in New York, we see Sparrow watching over them, referring to them as “the little croissants”. That's another thing the special gets right about America: casually making racist comments.

Uncanny Valley's civilian form, Aeon, sees Marinette and Adrien, and, of course, she says that they're “made for each other”. If only the writers actually bothered to give us evidence of that fact that everyone loves to say for some reason. Though we do get the only instance of sanity regarding the Love Square in this special, where Sparrow's civilian form, Jess, calls out Aeon for thinking of getting them together.

Aeon: Those two are made for each other.

Jess: Seriously, Aeon? Not again!

Aeon: But I am programmed to help people, Jess!

Jess: Just stop meddling with people's private lives!

Also, I had already mentioned the unfortunate implications of Aeon being programmed to “help people” in an earlier post, but I still want to reiterate that I don't think any of that was intentional at all, and I definitely don't think a single writer on this show is actually racist. Everyone got that? Okay, moving on.

Jess and Aeon are assigned to watch over the Parisian students while they sneak out to a party on the rooftop of the hotel they're staying at, where they meet another superhero, Hot Dog Dan. He gives random people magical hot dogs that give them temporary superpowers. Marinette and Adrien share one, and they both start flying before Adrien offers to slow dance with Marinette.

Okay... It's clear they they're trying to reference an earlier episode, “Despair Bear”, by having Marinette and Adrien dance to the same song they danced to in that episode. The problem is that the context isn't right.

Adrien is dating Kagami, and he's offering to do this... why? What makes him so interested in Marinette all of a sudden? I get that he doesn't realize Marinette has feelings for him, but if someone says they only see you as a friend, do you offer to slow dance with them? Especially if their reaction to your offer is recoiling in fear?

I'm sorry, writers, but you can't try to recreate some of the magic you had in earlier episodes with Adrienette when you have clearly established Lukanette and Adrigami as official relationships at the moment. And don't give me any of that “that's not the point of the special” crap. The season finale showed Marinette and Adrien getting together with Luka and Kagami respectively, so it's natural that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing how they worked as couples. I'll get back to this point later on.

Meanwhile, Gabriel has made his way to New York, and decides to akumatize the arrested Techno-Pirate into Technolizer, asking him to steal Lafyette's sabre from the museum instead of the necklace.

Back to the museum, Alya and Nino decide to send Marinette and Adrien into a room alone where they're locked in and attacked by the supervillain Solutide...'s hologram, which was all part of Jess and Aeon's plan. In a city where there is a superhero and supervillain on every street. They seriously planned on giving Marinette and Adrien a near-death experience to get them to realize their love for each other.

That's... pretty fucking demented.

What if Marinette and Adrien did something reckless in their attempt to escape? They could have seriously gotten hurt. Hell, what if the scare gave either of them a heart attack? And let's say either of them found out what the plan was (which would be pretty easy, given “Solitude” is a hologram). Do you think either of them would be happy with Alya and Nino, even if they confessed their love for each other? And none of them even think to apologize for what they did, and this scene is never mentioned again. To quote a certain internet reviewer. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?

Though to be fair, the scene before was the only scene where Alya gets to use a brain cell in this special by pointing how wrong that plan is... for a second before she goes along with it. So close, Alya. So close...

So after Adrien gets a news report revealing that Robustus is attacking Paris (even though Markov is with them in New York), while Marinette isn't contacted by Cat Noir. The situation only gets worse when Technolizer attacks, getting the sabre in the process.

Sparrow and Uncanny Valley try to fight him off, but are quickly overwhelmed, with some of the latter's technology getting stolen by Technolizer. Marinette and Adrien transform and help out the two heroes, naturally being confused by the other's presence.

But while the four heroes chase after Technolizer, Hawkmoth shows competence for once and steals the necklace in the process, while revealing that the Robustus attacking Paris was actually a Sentimonster created by Mayura.

During the fight, rather than focusing on stopping the already dangerous supervillain powered up by Hawkmoth, Ladybug decides to trash talk Cat Noir instead. I get that she's angry at him for not following through on his promise, but can't she wait until after the fight?

Ladybug: (mockigly) “Just go and rest easy! Yeah, leave Paris with me!”

Cat Noir: I-I didn't know I was going to leave! It was a last-minute decision, that's all!

Ladybug: Do you realize that because of you, there's no one in Paris to protect the city?! Why didn't you tell me that you were leaving?!

Cat Noir: I was afraid you'd get angry!

Ladybug: And you were right, because as you can see, I AM angry!

To quote our recently inaugurated president, will you shut up, man? People say I'm too harsh on Cat Noir for the way he acted during episodes like “Syren”, but this is basically the same thing. Ladybug is prioritizing her own feelings over stopping Technolizer. Yes, she has a right to be angry at Cat Noir, but all she has to do is wait until after the battle to chew him out.

And during the battle, Ladybug outright says she can't trust Cat Noir anymore, making the latter flinch, so Technolizer throws him into Uncanny Valley with his Cataclysm activated, killing her.

In her anger, Majestia punches Technolizer through several buildings before Hawkmoth recalls the Akuma inside him before helping the villain get away. Ladybug casts her Miraculous Ladybug, fixing Uncanny Valley, but that's not enough. Knightowl is pissed, and orders Ladybug and Cat Noir to hand over their Miraculous, not listening to why they're so important, so the two run away.

To make things worse, the two find out about Hawkmoth's plan, and Ladybug explains she can only use Miraculous Ladybug to fix damage caused by a specific villain, and since the Sentimonster is gone, she can't do anything.

In his grief, Cat Noir admits that everything that happened is his fault, so he renounces Plagg and hands over his Miraculous to Ladybug before running away.

So... this scene.

This. Scene.

Where. Do I. Begin?

First of all, this is what causes Ladybug to lose trust in Cat Noir? Not the multiple times he disobeyed her orders because of his own personal feelings? Not the constant flirting and unwanted advances even though she's made it clear she doesn't see him that way? Not the time he trusted an evil doppelganger of Ladybug over the real one? It's this? Cat Noir leaving Paris alone while a Sentimonster attacked?

Okay, let's say that Cat Noir decided to stay in Paris after all. What was he supposed to do when Robustus attacked around the same time as Technolizer? What was Ladybug supposed to do when she found out about Robustus in Paris? Was she supposed to abandon New York and head back there or focus on helping the American heroes?

Second, who does Knightowl think she (yeah, she's a woman, I'll get to that in a bit) is ordering Ladybug and Cat Noir to hand over their Miraculous? What authority does she hold over them? Why should they listen to her? Why can't they simply explain why their Miraculous are so important, and that they can't give them up? Why doesn't Ladybug just explain that she's now the Guardian of the Miraculous? In fact, why does Majestia go along with the order? Ladybug still saved her daughter's life! If anything, she should be sticking up for the two.

There's actually a Superman comic where Captain Marvel storms a police station to interrogate a criminal who killed his best friend so he can find out who hired him. Though he comes close to doing it, Captain Marvel ultimately doesn't kill the criminal's boss, but still flies over to Mount Everest to grieve his friend's death.

Enter Superman, planning to call out Captain Marvel, but instead, he sees him crying. He explains that the boy killed was his best friend before revealing his identity as Billy Batson. Superman's response?

He goes to the wizard Shazam and demands to know why he did this to Billy, furious that a child was forced to go through stuff like that. While Shazam can't take back the powers he gave Billy, he encourages Superman to reach out to Billy, leading to him revealing his identity as Clark Kent to the kid.

I'm not saying that Majestia or Knightowl should have called out Master Fu or ask who made Ladybug the Guardian (as awesome as that would have been), but the point I am trying to make is in that comic, Superman made the effort to understand what Billy had been through, and understood what happened. Majestia and Knightowl made no effort to do anything like that. In fact, they never even knew Hawkmoth existed, which I call bullcrap on, given that he once MOVED THE PLANET AWAY FROM ITS ORBIT. Were you all asleep that day? Why didn't you do anything to help Ladybug and Cat Noir fight Hawkmoth? Were you expecting them to just fight this magical terrorist on their own? They don't have the same support system the American heroes have, and they could really use the help.

And third, Cat Noir. Yeah, just because I'm calling out Ladybug doesn't mean Cat Noir isn't taking any heat either. Again, I have to ask, this is what makes him give up? Keep in mind, when he was Aspik in “Desperada” and saw Ladybug get captured by an Akuma, he reversed time 25,913 times to try and save her before he threw in the towel. At the same time, he was willing to quit in “Syren” because he claimed Ladybug didn't trust him. The level of Adrien's willingness to keep going is incredibly inconsistent, and this doesn't really help his reputation as a character.

And then there's the fact that he's bailing on Ladybug when things are at their absolute worst. Yes, Marinette also briefly gave up in “Origins”, but that was after her first battle, and she was overwhelmed by her screw-up endangering countless lives in Paris in addition to being a nervous wreck even before she got her Miraculous. But here's the difference: She took responsibility. She realized people were in danger, so she jumped into action to save Alya and Cat Noir. Even then, she acknowledged her failure and felt unsure of herself, with Cat Noir helping to reassure her, showing the emotional support their partnership has.

Adrien, who has been a superhero for months, and has faced some pretty stressful situations, as soon as things head south, he immediately gives up and leaves Ladybug to fend for herself while two separate cities are in danger. And he knows that she has no other allies, because Master Fu ran away at the end of the last season, and Miracle Queen exposed the identities of the other temporary heroes. She has nobody to go to for help. He doesn't even show Ladybug her civilian form to apologize, just so he can't get any flak in his regular life. He just gives Ladybug his ring, and literally runs away.

A wise man once said “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.” Adrien has shown no responsibility at ALL in this special, barring the one moment I mentioned earlier.

It's nothing more than a forced emotional moment that has no buildup. This is basically the same with basically every time Miraculous Ladybug tries to be emotional. The writers think that despite never really having any tension or character arcs in their story, they can just have their characters cry out of nowhere, and suddenly, it's a deep moment? That's not how writing works, idiots!

Back at the hotel, Jess and Aeon are getting chewed out by their mothers (Who are the civilian identities of Majestia and Knightowl), and have a conversation about being superheroes... less than a few feet away from the French students. Though at least Barbara, the civilian form of Knightowl (again, I'll get to that later) calls out Aeon and Jess for their stupid “fake supervillain plan”, so there's that I guess.

So we cut to a press conference where the President of the United States, Camilla Hombee (An anagram of Michelle Obama's name, because Astruc has made it clear what his political views are) advises everyone to stay inside while Techno-Pirate is still an active threat. Why does this seem so familiar? And then she... transforms into a superhero too.

Oh, for the love of-- THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS A SUPERHERO?! The person in charge of the country and relations with foreign nations is a superhero too?! If she's the president, why didn't she do anything to stop Hawkmoth?! I get that America doesn't really care about news from other countries outside of America, but you would think that the frickin president, WHO IS A SUPERHERO, would at least acknowledge the existence of a supervillain in Paris as a threat!

GOD, this is stupid! And it only gets worse...

Gabriel sends a car to pick up Adrien, realizing the city was too dangerous (I still don't get the point of sending him here in the first place), causing him to tearfully say that he “wouldn't have minded being stuck here a little longer with a friend like her” before leaving. And then Alya...

Alya: What is wrong with you, Marinette?! Couldn't you see that he was just waiting for you to tell him to stay?!

Marinette: What-? But I...? He...? He made his choice. What did you expect me to do?

Alya: It doesn't matter what I expected you to do! Who's Adrien to you?! A friend or more than a friend?! There will never be a better time to be clear with yourself, Marinette! Do you want him to leave or do you want him to stay?!

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NO. You do not have the right to say ANY of that! It doesn't matter what YOU expected Marinette to do? This whole special, you've been teasing her about her feelings for Adrien, and forcing her into uncomfortable situations with him all because you want your OTP to be a thing. And now you're saying Marinette had a choice the whole time? Marinette expected herself to get over Adrien and start to see him as a friend, AND YOU WOULDN'T LET HER DO THAT! For three seasons, Alya has made fun of Marinette's crush on Adrien, while at the same time, has constantly pushed her into situations where she was clearly uncomfortable around him to the point where she discouraged Marinette for trying to move on in a previous episode (Frozer). And then in this special, she trapped them in a room with a fake supervillain (which is this world's equivalent to pretending to be a terrorist) just to get them to confess their feelings for each other. AND THE WHOLE TIME, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE MARINETTE'S CHOICE???

If Obilvio didn't make me stop caring about Alya, this was the moment that actually me despise her.

And the worst part? The narrative frames her as being right. This is somehow enough for Marinette to run out in the pouring rain while a supervillain is lose in New York, with nobody even trying to stop her, to chase after Adrien's car, where she tearfully confesses that she still loves him after the car gets away.

What is the point of this exactly? We already knew Marinette liked Adrien last season, her nonexistent character arc was learning to get over him, and now she's supposed to learn she's still interested in him? What about Luka? Are we just going to ignore Luka? What about the fact that Kagami is already in a relationship with Adrien? None of these questions are never explained.

Gabriel finds the lost Miraculous, the Eagle Miraculous, which represents Freedom, and gives it to Techno-Pirate, turning him into Miraclonizer. Using the Eagle Miraculous' power, Liberation, he can undo any mental boundaries someone has, but since he's using it for evil, it basically drives several heroes crazy without their own moral codes. And while I claimed it was an original power in one of my earlier posts, the more I think about it, Liberation is really just a different version of Reverser's airplanes. All they did was just phrase the explanation a different way.

So despite being a city full of superheroes, Miraclonizer manages to drive every hero crazy in a matter of minutes, with the exception of Jess and Aeon. So do none of the other heroes have sidekicks? Is there not even a Young Justice or Teen Titans-esque team in this city? I'm just saying, if they have a hot dog superhero, there should be at least more than two sidekicks in New York.

Aeon goes to search out Ladybug and Cat Noir, and because of some technobabble stuff, Aeon can easily figure out their identities. Again, this was something I already talked about in an earlier post, so I won't harp on this scene. It's a dumb retcon in a special full of dumb retcons, what else can I say?

So Aeon goes to find Adrien on his private plane to give him back his Miraculous... even though wouldn't it make more sense for Aeon to use it instead to save time? I didn't mention this, but right before this scene, Majestia was pushing the moon towards the Earth. Time is kind of the essence here. It also would have saved us more of Adrien's whining.

Uncanny Valley: Cat Noir, New York and Ladybug need you!

Adrien: (looks at where his ring used to be) I'm no longer Cat Noir.

Uncanny Valley: To err is human, apparently!

Adrien: My mistakes are unforgivable. I couldn't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes.

“i'M sO tOrTuReD. fEeL bAd FoR mE, dAmNiT!”

Cut it out with Angstdrien Depreste already, writers. It's gotten old.

And despite making a big deal about how much he failed Ladybug, he immediately jumps back into action as soon as he hears a recording of Ladybug saying she needs him. I know it's supposed to be a heartwarming thing by showing him wanting to support his lady, but to me, it just comes off more like he needed an ego boost. He was fulling willing to let Ladybug save the day on her own, but as soon as he heard how important he is to Ladybug, he's more than willing to become Cat Noir again. Because it's not like he could regret his decision to abandon his partner, and realize it isn't too late to make up for his mistake, right? That would imply Adrien is motivated by anything other than his feelings for Ladybug. Then there's the fact that as soon as Cat Noir returns, Ladybug instantly forgives him, despite saying earlier that she didn't trust him. It's almost like that whole debacle was only there to eat up about fifteen minutes of the special's runtime.

Hawkmoth issues an ultimatum to Ladybug and Cat Noir. Miraclonizer is ready to fire a nuclear missile (though the dub calls it a rocket, let's be honest, it's not), fully intending to start World War III unless Ladybug and Cat Noir give up. He's seriously willing to risk making The Day After a reality all for his wife. But remember, you're still supposed to feel bad for this literal war criminal.

Ladybug, Cat Noir, Aeon, and Sparrow manage to get to Miraclonizer's hideout, the Statue of Liberty, and take back the Eagle Miraculous, with Sparrow taking it and transforming into Eagle.

And then there's the design of the new hero's suit. While I'm glad it isn't another skintight jumpsuit, and the wings are a nice touch, people have raised some questions regarding Eagle's design, and how it feels like the animators really want to remind the audience that Jess is Native American. I mean, it looks like what Zack Morris wore in that one episode of Saved by the Bell barring the headdress.

And this might be because I'm a history major, and I just brushed up on this subject in class last semester, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that someone actually thought it was a good idea to give the Native American girl the Miraculous of the Eagle, the symbol of America which represents Freedom. I don't want to go too into detail about this, but, uh... let's just say if you know about the history of the relationship between the Native Americans and the colonists, you'll get why this raises a couple of red flags.

Does this mean I think the showrunners are racist? No, it was an honest, albeit questionable mistake. Do I think this is the worst Native American representation on TV. Oh, hell no. Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager was a walking amalgam of every Native American stereotype in the book, and was featured in an episode that said, with a straight face, mind you, that Native Americans used to be backwards savages, so a group of white aliens genetically altered them so not only could they survive the Earth's harsh weather, but so they would become more creative, leading to the birth of Native American culture. I apologize to any Native American human being who had the misfortune of learning about that for the first time. But over all, Jess is far from the bottom of the barrel of poor Native American representation.

So Jess uses her powers to calm every superhero down, while Ladybug and Cat Noir de-evilize Technolizer. And of course, Hawkmoth assumes that since there are other lost Miraculous, “they will be his”. Maybe focus on getting the two Miraculous you originally set out to get first, buddy.

So Knightowl and Majestia apologize for their behavior, and we learn that apparently Knightowl and Sparrow have been around for at least since the Wild West, and that the Knighowl and Majestia we've been following have been keeping up the illusion that the original duo are still alive for several generations.

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Was this special written in the 1950's? Why make a big deal out of this? Why is it so important that Knightowl and Sparrow both have a Y chromosome? The president is a woman and a superhero, the strongest superhero on Earth is a woman, and you were just saved by a female superhero all the way from Paris. I don't think people will be afraid of getting cooties from this Knightowl. Hell, we live in a world where if you don't like a female superhero, people automatically hate you. Just ask the people who didn't like Captain Marvel.

We see that Alya still learned nothing, as she continues to tease Marinete for daring to call Adrien her “friend”, as our special mercifully ends with the class sending a picture of a banner to Adrien to show their support... but not before a brief scene where a Guardian tries to take Eagle's Miraculous, before she makes him instantly pull a 180 as soon as she suggests he help to “create a new generation of heroes together”.

I'm guessing this is meant to be yet another tie-in to yet another Miraculous side project that will go absolutely nowhere. You might as well have had Nick Fury, oh, I'm sorry, Mick Flurry, recruit Eagle and Uncanny Valley for the ZAG Initiative.

But it doesn't matter, because the special's over, and once again, I never have to think about it ever again.

So... what else can I say that I haven't already said. This special sucks.

While the animation is honestly some of the best to come out of ZAG, and the action can get pretty good at times, it honestly doesn't really mean much when the story surrounding it is just so abysmal. Basically the only thing I liked about the Season 3 finale was the idea that the status quo was shifting in terms of Marinette's feelings for Adrien, and this special just ruined this interesting idea by the end faster than you can say “the series finale of Quantum Leap”.

Alya is at her most unlikable here with everything she does in this special. Almost everything she says to Marinette is either some catty comment or making fun of her trying to get over Adrien. Because God forbid she actually try to grow as a person and not let her life revolve around a cute boy. It's stuff like this that I genuinely wonder why Marinette even bothers to stay friends with her when all she does is tease her and force her out of her comfort zone. And according to co-director Wilfried “Winny” Pain, Alya is meant to be like Jiminy Cricket to Marinette's Pinocchio. I don't know which version of Pinocchio he read as a kid, but clearly, it's not the version we're mostly familiar with.

I'm still glad they didn't have Cat Noir revert back into his Ladybug-simping self we all knew and loathed in Season 3, but that doesn't mean he's still enjoyable in this special. The angsting about how sad Adrien's life is stopped being interesting years ago, and it's only done as a way to get the audience to care about him, but it comes off more like the writers are holding the audience at gunpoint and demanding they sympathize with him for bailing on the world when they need him the most.

I thought Aeon was a pretty likable character. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for socially awkward robot characters like Data or Penny. I just wish we got to know her more, and why exactly her mother felt the need to play God by create her instead of just adopting like what Olympia and Barbara presumably did with Jess.

As a matter of fact, despite being played up as a big deal, there's still a lot about the American heroes that we don't really know about. How were the “United Heroes” formed in the first place? How did Majestia get her powers? What exactly is the origin of Knightowl and Sparrow? Why are all the American heroes so open about their identities to the point where the President's identity as a superhero is so well-known she can casually transform on TV? Hell, Ladybug and Cat Noir barely even interact with any of the heroes, and that includes Uncanny Valley and Sparrow/Eagle.

Generally, the special feels very rushed at times, with a lot of ideas not really being utilized. According to Astruc, there was actually a lot of things cut from the special, including a deleted subplot with Chloe and Ms. Mendeleiev. Although, given Astruc's track record, I don't think it would have been a good one given Chloe is involved.

This leads into a personal theory I have regarding this special, that I want everyone reading this to take it with a huge grain of salt. As much as he claims that he can't change anything he's already written, I personally believe that Thomas Astruc rewrote part of this special so Adrienette could get more focus to renew interest in the ship.

Hear me out on this. During Season 3, there were a lot more shipping debates between Adrienette shippers and Lukanette shippers, with the latter gaining more traction that season. It was also the season where other ships like Felinette, Kagaminette, and even Maribat became more prominent. And all of these ships were featured in post-Chameleon salt fics bashing Astruc's sunshine child, Adrien.

So, given how Astruc already dedicated an entire episode to bashing Felix fans, why wouldn't he use something like the New York special to convince the shippers to have more faith in the Love Square? After all, aren't Adrien and Marinette made for each other? Astruc has already said so on his Twitter.

Unfortunately, right now, I like to describe the Love Square as “Shrodinger's Relationship”. While the show can claim that Adrien and Marinette would make a great couple, they simultaneously show no real chemestry happening between the two in favor of Love Square shenanigans. And yes, I'm actually thinking of talking about the Love Square in a future analysis post.

And then there's the fact that Astruc himself said that everything that happened in this special is going to lead into the events of Season 4. What do I have to say about that?

Bring it.

I already talk about Miraculous Ladybug itself on this blog almost as much as I talk about its creator, and since I have a Disney+ account, I might as well subject myself to everything Season 4 has to offer. I've already seen one of my favorite shows go to hell, so why don't I chronicle another one of my favorite shows going to hell as well?

So yeah, as soon as a new episode is officially released on Disney+, expect a review from your boy IOTA.

I survived Season 3, so let's see if the number 4 is as unlucky as some countries say it is.

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crusherthedoctor · 3 years ago

Note

Can you list anything you unironically like in the games (and cartoons and comics) that you don't like?

I won't bother mentioning music, since that goes without saying and is to be expected for a Sonic game... unless you're Chronicles.

Sonic Adventure 2 (mixed gameplay-wise, annoying story-wise) - While I prefer Sonic's SA1 levels for a number of reasons, I still think his and Shadow's gameplay in SA2 is fun on its own merit. I also don't mind the treasure hunting gameplay returning or how big the levels are this time around, since Knuckles and Rouge are still fast and not '06 levels of slow. It's mainly the gimped radar that creates the unfortunate domino effect of making them a problem.

- Introduced Rouge, one of my favourite characters for how playful she is and how she's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than you'd expect.

- Some genuinely good scenes, like Eggman's trap on the A.R.K and Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter.

- Had some good ideas going for it, like the Pyramid Base and the Biolizard as a scientific monster instead of an ancient one.

- Despite my thoughts on the backstory itself (or rather, its execution), Shadow has enough depth and subtle qualities and occasional unintended hilarity to stand out from the typical dark rival characters you see in media.

- The Last Scene's music in particular is one of my favourite cutscene tracks in the series.

Sonic Heroes (mixed gameplay-wise, loathed story-wise) - The gameplay is fun when you're not being screwed over by repetitive combat, overly long levels and/or ice physics.

- Boasts some of the most consistently Genesis-worthy environments in the 3D games, up there with SA1's and Colours'.

- The in-game dialogue that isn't the same tutorial drivel repeated ad nauseam can be interesting, funny, etc.

- Reintroduced the Chaotix, which provided me with another character I quite like in the form of Vector.

- Bringing Metal Sonic back in full force and front and center in the plot after a long absence (not counting cameos and the like) is a perfectly fine idea. Just... not like this.

Sonic Battle (decent yet repetitive gameplay, mixed story-wise) - Emerl's arc is compelling, and it earns the emotional weight of having to put him down at the end.

- While some characters are iffy (read: Amy), other characters are extremely well-handled. Shadow is probably the prime example.

- Gamma's belly dance healing animation is fucking hilarious.

- When I was young, and the game was first announced, I was really excited about being able to play as Chaos. This proved to be my downfall when it turned out he was arguably one of the worst characters in the game due to being slower than me during the writing process, but I still recall that excitement fondly.

Shadow the Hedgehog (comedy classic) - The sheer amount of legendary stupidity this game has going for it makes it practically impossible to actually hate. It helps that it's not quite as white-knighted on the same level as '06... usually. You know you're in for a unique experience when you hear a gunshot every time you click something in the menu.

- By extension, Black Doom never gained an unironic fanbase like Mephiles/Scourge/Eggman Nega did, which means I'm a lot more willing to take Doom's dumbass brand of villainy in stride. He even has a unique design... a terrible one that rips off Wizeman granted, but alas, even that is a step-up from Fridge Shadow and Bumblebee Eggman.

- Despite being... well, Shadow the Hedgehog, some of the environments would fit right in with any other Sonic game, like with Circus Park, Lava Shelter, and Digital Circuit. Even the Black Comet levels look pretty cool.

- This game understands amnesia better than IDW does.

Sonic '06 (what do you think?) - The obvious one: Shadow's character was handled pretty well, even if it came at the cost of everyone else being a dummy and being forced to interact with Mephiles.

- Like SA2, there are some good moments, like the Last Story ending sequence with Sonic and Elise.

- In the greatest form of irony ever, I like Solaris as a concept and design(s), and its backstory has potential to serve as a parallel with Chaos without being a complete ripoff. Iblis sucks, Mephiles sucks, but I'm fine with Solaris.

- Introduced legendary characters like Sonic Man, Pele the Beloved Dog, Hatsun the Pigeon, and Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove.

The Rivals duology (apathetic outside of Nega-related grumbling) - There were some cool zone ideas in both games that were sadly let down by the restrictive and limiting gameplay. I particularly like Colosseum Highway for thus far being the only full-on Roman level in the series instead of merely having a couple minor hints of Roman, and Meteor Base for the unique scenario of the space station being built into an asteroid. These level concepts and others deserve a second chance IMO. (At least Frontier Canyon got a second chance in the form of Mirage Saloon, amirite?)

- Ifrit has a better design than Iblis. Not saying it's amazing, but the Firebird motif it has going on is a lot more interesting for a fire monster than the Not-Chaos schtick they had with Iblis.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (a very frustrating gaming experience) - Erazor Djinn, A.K.A. Qui-Gon Djinn, A.K.A. Dr. N. Djinn, A.K.A. I'll Take It On The Djinn, A.K.A. Not From The Hairs On My Djinny Djinn Djinn, is one of the best villains not associated with Eggman in the series. He's a Mephiles-type character done right, and there's actual weight and reason to his actions, however sinister or petty.

- I don't have strong opinions either way on Shahra as a character, but the Sonic/Shahra friendship is sweet and well-handled.

- The ending is one of Sonic's greatest moments. The sheer contrast between how ruthlessly he deals with Erazor and how comforting he is towards Shahra speaks volumes... Still gonna make fun of the mountain of handkerchiefs though. (Before anyone lectures me, I understand the significance of it and can even appreciate it from that angle... doesn't mean I'm not allowed to poke fun at it. :P)

- Another game with some redeeming environments. I love the aesthetic of Night Palace, and Sand Oasis looks gorgeous too.

Sonic Chronicles (my personal least favourite game in the series) - Uh...

- Um...

- Er...

- I like Shade's design?

Sonic Unleashed (overrated game and story IMO) - The obvious two: the opening sequence and the Egg Dragoon fight deserve all the praise they get.

- Seeing Eggmanland come to life was an impressive moment to be sure. While part of me does feel it didn't quite measure up to what I had in mind (ironically, the Interstellar Amusement Park ended up being closer to what I had in mind), it still looks badass and works well for what it is. I also don't mind the idea of it being a one-level gauntlet... key word being idea.

- Obviously, the game looks great. Not a fan of the real world focus (real world inspiration is fine, but copy-pasting the real world and shoving loops in it is just unimaginative), but it can't be denied that the environments look good.

- This game pulled off dialogue options a lot better than Chronicles did, since they didn't rely on making Sonic OoC.

Sonic and the Black Knight (just kind of boring all around) - Despite my gripes with the story (Merlina wasn't nearly as fleshed out as her unique anti-villain status deserved, which ends up severely undermining the ambition of the plot in more ways than one, and the other characters go from being useless yes men for King Arthur to being useless yes men for Sonic), I will admit it provides interesting insight into Sonic's character.

- Like '06 and Secret Rings, the ending is very nice... well, aside from Amy being an unreasonable bitch ala Sonic X at the very end.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (apathetic) - The admittedly few new concepts sprinkled within had promise. They may not have been as fleshed out as they could have been, but level concepts like Sylvania Castle and White Park, bosses like Egg Serpentleaf and the Egg Heart, and story beats like the Death Egg mk.II being powered by Little Planet, all could have been brilliant had they been better executed.

SatAM (apathetic outside of SatAM Robotnik-related grumbling) - I'm not a fan of the environments on the whole due to them looking too bland or samey, but there are some exceptions that look pleasant or interesting, like the Void.

Sonic Underground (apathetic) - The character designs make me feel better about myself.

- Does "large quantities of unintentional meme material" count as a positive?

Sonic X (mostly apathetic outside of Eggman's handling) - Helen was a better human character and audience surrogate in her one focus episode than Chris was throughout his entire runtime.

- Actually, most of the human characters not named Chris were legitimately likable. Including everyone in Chris' own family not named Chris. Hilarious.

- Despite arguably having the most Chris in it, I actually don't mind the first season that much, partly due to slight nostalgia from seeing it on TV when it was new, but mostly because Eggman actually acted like a villain for the most part, and certain other characters weren't quite as flanderized yet. It's season 2 and onwards where things started going off the rails IMO. (Incidentally, Helen's episode was part of season 1...)

The Boom franchise (apathetic) - Along with Chronicles, the games provide yet more proof that just because someone isn't SEGA/Sonic Team, that doesn't mean they're automatically more qualified to handle the series.

- The show had some good episodes here and there, and Tails' characterization was probably the most consistently on-point out of the cast.

- Despite not exactly being favourite portrayals for either character, even I'll admit that many of Knuckles and Eggman's lines in the show on their own were genuinely funny.

Archie Sonic (pre-reboot is mostly terrible, post-reboot is mostly... bland) - Whenever I doubt myself as a writer, I think back to Ken Penders, and suddenly I'm filled with a lot more confidence.

Sonic the Comic (apathetic) - Fleetway isn't a comic I tend to recall much of aside from how much of a loathesome cunt Sonic is, but IIRC, Robotnik's portrayal is pretty good. Different, but good.

IDW Sonic (stop pissing me off, comic) - Putting their handling aside (and being too obviously "inspired" by MGS in the latter's case), Tangle and Whisper are good characters IMO.

- Same goes for Starline, before he was killed off-screen and replaced with Toothpaste Snively.

- Execution aside (noticing a pattern?), the zombot virus was a fine concept on its own and an interesting new scheme for Eggman.

- I get to remind myself that I've never drawn scat edits and posted them publicly on Twitter.

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 3 years ago

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Michael in the Mainstream: The Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad has frequently been touted as one of the worst comic book movies ever, and honestly? I don’t really agree, even if I almost wholeheartedly agree with every criticism of it. The editing is bad, the story is a mess, the Squad’s friendship is nonexistent, characters like Waller act like absolute idiots, Enchantress is a bad character and an absurd villain for these people to face… And yet, the core cast of scoundrels are all pretty likable when you wipe off the crap they’re buried under. These characters all could have shined bright if they were given competent writing and direction; the ideas are there, but the execution is unbelievably flawed due to excessive executive meddling (and probably a bit of pretentiousness on director David Ayer’s part). If only there was a director capable of taking the concept of a bunch of C-list villains getting together and performing dangerous missions and, along the way, becoming a found family…

That director thankfully exists, and his name is James Gunn. Gunn has already shown twice that he is capable of doing “a bunch of assholes become a found family” really well with the two Guardians of the Galaxy films, films that have a lot of style and flair that help make them the best films in the MCU, and considering Suicide Squad was mangled the way it was to try and be more in line with his Guardians films, it only makes sense to pull him in to give Task Force X another shot. Why settle for imitations when you can get the real thing? It’s not like he was doing anything else while Mickey Mouse put him in time out for naughty tweets, after all.

But this isn’t Gunn under the thumb of the Mouse, oh no; this is Gunn allowed to go absolutely wild. This is Gunn given the budget of a modern superhero film and asked to make a Troma picture, with all the blood, gore, and cheesiness that entails, and by god did he pull it off. Right from the get go we are given a taste of just what sort of movie we’re in for as a mangy child-murdering weasel man shows up and Nathan Fillion detaches his arms from his body to gently tap enemy soldiers on the head, and somehow things only get wackier from there.

Gunn seemed to actively go out of his way to fix every single problem of the original film. The characters, for instance, are all fairly similar to those of the first film. Bloodsport is clearly the stand in for Deadshot, but where Deadshot was just your average charming, funny Will Smith role to the point it could get distracting, Idris Elba makes Bloodsport a tired straight man to the wacky antics around him and portrays his growth through the film very well. Peacemaker is the jackass of the team in the vein of Captain Boomerang, but where Boomerang had little use in the narrative despite being the best and funniest non-Harley member of the team, Peacemaker is given his full due, with John Cena making him one of the funniest assholes ever put to film and even giving him a bit of depth and moral complexity. King Shark, AKA Nanaue, is obviously Killer Croc’s replacement, but where Croc was bland and really just stood in the background the whole movie, Nanaue is a sweet, charming, funny oaf with brutal strength who is just absolutely lovable and adorable, all capped off with hilarious vocal delivery from Sylvester Stallone himself. Polka-Dot Man is something of a replacement for El Diablo, though while El Diablo was really bungled by the narrative despite being well-acted and sympathetic, Polka-Dot Man is given ample opportunity to be funny, tragic, and useful all at once, and gives him a bit of an arc (pretty impressive for a character who was added in solely because Gunn googled who the lamest DC villains were). And finally, Ratcatcher is something of the replacement for Katana, being the second woman of the squad and the token good teammate, though where Katana was awkwardly shoehorned in at the last minute, Ratcatcher is clearly the heart of this team and brings the band together. Overall, the new Squad is leagues better than the original, and you will care for this band of criminals by the film’s end.

Returning characters get their due as well, particularly the ones really screwed over by the first film Waller and Flag get it the best of all. In the first film, Waller’s entire scheme was stupid, nonsensical, contradictory, and basically everything she did went against what was told to us about her, namely that she is a master manipulator. It was really a waste of Viola Davis, who had the presence and mannerisms down but who was constantly being failed by a shoddy script. Thankfully, that’s not the case here; Waller is very much the ultimate, manipulative girlboss she should be, from using her own troops as a distraction for another team to threatening Bloodsport with his daughter getting raped and murdered in prison over a minor offense if he doesn’t join her Suicide Squad. She is a stone cold bitch you will love to hate, and is easily one of the best comic book villains in film now (quite the turnaround all things considered). Flag is an actual character in this movie, with great chemistry with the members of the new Squad, particularly Bloodsport and Harley. Much like Bloodsport, he also gets a bit of a rivalry with Peacemaker going, which ends up being entertaining and even leads to a truly sad moment late in the film. Quite impressive for a guy who did nothing but spout awkward exposition in the first film.

Then we have Harley. I’m going to be honest, Harley has never been written better than she was in this film. While Robbie has had the character down from day one, the scripts have consistently failed her. The original film did nothing with her but sexualize her and have her spout crappy one-liners, and while Birds of Prey was a massive step up and had her written as she should be, the overall narrative of that film didn’t quite give her the due she deserved due to her feeling like a passive character pushed around by the flow of the plot. Here, though, Harley fully grasps at what’s given to and takes charge when she can, leading to one of the best action scenes in a film full of them. She ahs great interactions with her teammates and is just consistently funnier than she ever has been before, and it makes me happy to know someone who loves this character as much as Robbie does is finally getting to truly shine as she deserves.

The music and editing are vastly better. Remember how the original film had a new licensed song every minute, and almost all of them made no sense, and the music that played for Deadshot was exclusively rap artists (which was lowkey kinda racist)? Well, Gunn is bringing his ability to weave songs into the narrative with this one, but he also gives plenty of time for the music composed for the film to shine. As for the editing, gone are the obtrusive comic-book style cards that announce stupid throwaway details (and in a few cases, plot points you will very likely miss), replaced by more amusing and less obtrusive gags. The movie is also cut in a way where, you know, it makes sense. Everything flows naturally, and while there are a couple of points where time rewinds so we can see how we got to a certain point, it’s never so confusing that you can’t follow it.

The stakes are vastly overhauled. It made zero sense in the first film that Waller would assemble a team that consists of people whose powers range from “is good with weapons” to “is an Aztec fire god” to “is a big ugly crocodile man” to take on Superman-level threats. This is like if you sent a Boy Scout troop to fight Godzilla, it’s just not gonna end well and there’s an absurd disparity in power levels. Here, the team is being sent on a general black ops mission and have their skills selected by who would be most useful for the mission, and while they do end up taking on something a bit outside their context in the form of a certain cyclopean starfish alien, it’s a bit easier to swallow because of the buildup and because “big angry alien” is a lot more sensible as a threat to black op vigilantes than “ancient interdimensional witch goddess with a zombie army.”

Most importantly, though, is that this film lives up to its title. This is very much a suicide mission, and where the last team made it out relatively unscathed, this film suffers a lot of casualties. Characters die for gags, characters die suddenly, you might think a character is going to be a big, important part of the plot only for them to be dispatched right when it seems they’re getting going. For a film like this, it works perfectly, and some of the deaths are absolutely hilarious. That being said, you can kind of predict who lives and who dies based on star power alone; do you really think Harley’s gonna bite it? Come on.

I don’t really have many issues with the movie, but I will reiterate: this is essentially a Troma film with a massive budget, made by one of their alumni. Troma is a studio that makes gory, gross, and awesome B-grade movies and a similar irreverent mentality is on display here. If you can stomach gore, violence, and absurdity then this is a film you’re probably going to get into, but it’s definitely not the kind of comic book movie for everyone. Thankfully, it is exactly the kind of comic book movie for me. It honestly feels like the sort of movie I’d want to make, where I take a bunch of stupid C-list villains with dumb powers and give them actual development and characterization to the point the audience feels something for them. You’re going to be moved by a girl who controls rats, a stupid shark man, and a depressed dude who shoots polka-dots from his hands, and you’re not going to care.

I really hope they follow this up with another one, especially if they bring James Gunn back. There were a lot of characters he considered for the team, and a lot of them have potential, be that hilarious or dramatic. I mean, the man considered Mr. Freeze, that guy could be one hell of a leading man! Round out the team with some of the considered ideas like Rainbow Creature, Solomon Grundy, Chemo, Livewire, Punch and Jewelee, Man-Bat, Dogwelder, and the almighty Kite Man, and you’ve got one hell of a Suicide Squad! Also, maybe get Gunn to consider Crazy Quilt and Condiment King.

Really, the possibilities are endless, and that’s what the fun of a Suicide Squad movie should be: seeing the dumbest dregs of comic book history thrown into a place where they’re probably going to die horribly. Gunn managed to get that when Ayer couldn’t, and the results are perhaps his magnum opus. This is Gunn at his best and most free, unchained from the restrictions of forcing a film to tie into a bunch of others while also using all the tricks of his signature style to craft a damn fine film that easily holds up on its own outside the context of the DCEU. These are the kind of comic book movies we need, so let’s hope this film gets the respect it deserves so it acts as a wakeup call for studios content to churn out

#Michael in the Mainstream #review #movie review #The Suicide Squad #James Gunn #DC #DCEU #Harley Quinn #King Shark #Bloodsport #polka-dot man #Peacemaker #comic book movie #action movie

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heloflor · 4 years ago

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Fun facts to notice about Cavendish and Dakota’s personalities

So most of this is probably stuff that a lot of people already noticed but I still wanted to compile it. And this list is way longer than I thought it would (did this post accidentally became a character analysis/deconstruction ? Maybe ?). One last thing : “fun” is a very loose term here.

- When he’s excited/very happy about something, Cavendish becomes touchy. For example, you have the last minute of “Time Out”, the scene with Professor Time near the end of the PnF crossover and the resolution of “Managing Murphy’s Law” (the episode where they discover the memory eraser machine). On the same vein as “Time Out”, there’s the beginning of “Abducting Murphy’s Law”.

He also seems to be touchy when he’s nervous, as we see in “Snow Way Out”, though he seems more to bite his nails or hold his hands a certain way when nervous. Also, Dakota never really reacts when Cavendish grabs him (which I find hilarious and adorable; it’s like it was a normal thing for him).

Finally, one could argue that he can get touchy when sad, given the last minute of “Snow Way Out” (Cavendish be like “Sir this is my emotional support husband” everytime he feels a strong emotion that isn’t anger/annoyance), but it only happens once, or Dakota is the one reaching out when Cavendish’s feeling down.

- On a related note to that first point; and though it goes without saying because everyone in the fandom already knows it : Cavendish and Dakota basically have no physical boundaries when it comes to each other. They constantly get into each other’s personal space without warning, with the other not being bothered in the slightest. Like their first physical contact is literally Dakota putting his hand over Cavendish’s (“Smooth Opera-tor”) and none of them seem to care about it, as if it was normal.

They also seem to be the characters who hug and get into each other’s arms the most and, if we were to put every character in pairs (and by pair I mean that for the main trio, it would be three pairs in total) and count how many physical contact every pair had, Dakota and Cavendish would either be the ones with the most contact or very close to the first (since they don’t show up in every episode but when they do appear, they touch at least once in almost every episode).

- Another thing that everybody already noticed but still : that whole gimmick with Dakota explaining something/a joke until he’s cut by Cavendish saying “I get it” (gimmick that they kind of lost in season 2).

- While Cavendish acts in a way that makes him seem very self-centered, every time he and Dakota find themselves in a dangerous situation, Cavendish’s thoughts are first and foremost on Dakota’s wellbeing. Examples : at the beginning of “The Island of Lost Dakotas”, when Cavendish sees the construction site thing fall, the first thing he says is “You [Dakota] could’ve been hurt !”; in “Fungus Among Us”, he calls out for Dakota when the latter tries to run away after eating the small pistachions; in the PnF crossover, he keeps saying “be careful” when Dakota tries to get a ‘time clock’ but most importantly he puts himself in front of Dakota when attacked by a Pistachion, with his facial expression clearly showing that he expects to die, and when Dakota scolds him for it, Cavendish defense shows that he would have no hesitation going back in time to protect Dakota. Finally, in “Disco Do-Over”, he shows concern when Dakota’s being beaten by the old lady; during this season he ghosts Dakota with the excuse of wishing to protect him; and in the last episode of season 2, right before the “I fall down” song, Milo comments on the team’s looks, which brings Cavendish to say “Prepared and Protected”. And as he says “protected”, Cavendish knocks on Dakota’s helmet, as if, when he says “protected”, he’s mostly thinking about Dakota being protected.

- Cavendish and Dakota act differently in public and in private. When in public, Cavendish has that ‘serious’ and ‘done with your shit’ attitude, almost acting all-mighty. But when in private, he’s shown to be much nicer but also drops the confident façade and shows his fears and insecurities. For example, his panic in “Snow Way Out”. As for him being nicer, there’s the fact that he calls Dakota a ‘meanie’ in the Halloween episode, which is an improvement over “We’re Going to the Zoo”. In general, it also feels like he sees Dakota as an equal, compared to how he treated him at the beginning of the show.

As for Dakota, he acts lazy and laid-back in public (to the point where he sometimes reminds me a bit of Sans. Seriously) but, in private, he’s grumpier and talks about what bothers him.

The best example for this dynamic is at the beginning of “Perchance to Sleepwalk”, with Dakota complaining about Block not believing them about the Pistachions and Cavendish actually trying to comfort Dakota.

You know, this difference of dynamic is actually pretty sweet. As I said, Cavendish has a tendency to act like some villain who bosses around his underdog, especially during the first episodes. But the way they act in private shows that their relationship is actually much healthier than that. Also, the way Cavendish expresses his insecurities and Dakota vents to him shows that there’s a lot of communication between them, which can explain how they were able to keep up such a strong relationship for so long. The two of them trust each other, care for each other and view each other as equals. Though, I have to admit, this difference in behavior also really fuel my headcanon that the two had been married for years but had to get used to hide their relationship due to travelling in the past (and the reason why they call each other by their last name is because Cavendish noticed that people used to do that in the 18th century with people who aren’t family, so he convinced Dakota that they should try doing that to hide their relationship better; because let’s be honest, if there’s something between them, they are really bad at keeping it a secret).

- A short one, but Cavendish softens as the first season progresses. At the beginning, he mostly has that ‘all-mighty know-it-all’ attitude and acts like Dakota was his underdog, though there were some signs that Dakota wasn’t letting himself being walked over, the best example being “Murphy’s Lard”.

Then, after “Time Out”, Cavendish starts being nicer, showing more appreciation for Dakota and even showing some amusement about the bet in “We’re Going to the Zoo”. Finally, after “Missing Milo”, Cavendish completely softens up and becomes the character we’re used to see.

- Dakota seems to act laid-back as a counter point to Cavendish’s irritation. When you think about it, the times when Dakota is the most laid back are the times when Cavendish is the most irritated. The best example for this has to be “Abducting Murphy’s Law”. At the beginning of the episode, Cavendish goes on a rant about their job and you can see Dakota, who was frustrated two seconds ago, close his eyes for a few seconds. And when he reopens them, he starts talking about eating lunch. Then, when Cavendish calls him out on his attitude, Dakota becomes serious again to give Cavendish a reality check, only to then ask Cavendish if he wants food. In a way, it feels like Dakota uses his laid-back personality as a way to soothe Cavendish, to try to make his less tense.

- Cavendish seems to have a pretty low self-esteem. This is something that I’m pretty sure everyone has already picked on, but I still feel the need to mention it for one reason. First off, for those who haven’t noticed, basically Cavendish is borderline obsessed with saving the world and being someone important, and the fact that Dakota seems to be a better time-traveler than him probably doesn’t help (“Time Out”). This would also explain his need to give Dakota orders while on mission.

But one thing I want to mention about Cavendish’s desperation to be important is the PnF crossover. Indeed, in this episode, there’s a moment when Cavendish is ready to get himself killed to save Dakota (as mentioned earlier). But thing is, Cavendish’s facial expression bothers me in this scene. He looks resigned, as if knowing that he’s going to die, but at the same time, I feel like his action is some kind of cry for help or cry for attention.

But why would he suddenly feel this way ? Simple : the island of lost Dakotas. As I said, Dakota is a better time agent than Cavendish, which is something Cavendish seemed to have learned to accept, probably helped by Dakota letting him be the boss. But when he discovered the island, Cavendish also discovered just how much of a better person Dakota was. And yes, Cavendish was genuinely touched by what Dakota did, it clearly made him happy. But at the same time, it could’ve created some strong insecurities. After all, he just discovered that Dakota was willing to sacrifice his life hundred of times for him, while all he did was being an ass while on the job. So with that in mind, it’s possible that Cavendish wanted to prove himself to be a protector too and prove it to/repay Dakota, using the first opportunity he could to try showing that; being willing to give his life to show he can be great as well.

But hey, all this is just speculation from someone who almost only writes angst so what do I know.

- Dakota’s a mess during the second half of season 2, but it’s pretty justified given the circumstances. First off, when I say that he’s a mess, I mean that for a guy who’s always chill and in a funny mood, he has no patience whatsoever when interacting with Heinz (though you could argue that he already found Heinz annoying; and there might still be some disappointment regarding the whole ‘Professor Time’ situation). There’s also the episode “Escape” in which Dakota keeps switching between being sad to angry to hopeful (the hope in his eyes when Heinz starts the clone machine…) to miserable/hopeless. We also see him get up quickly, accidentally knocking Cavenpuss in the process and not giving a single shit about it. But yeah, someone please give this poor man his husband back (and I could say “someone please give him a hug” but he does get one in the next episode so…).

I swear you could make a drinking game out of all the times Cavendish’s name is said in this episode alone.

As for the justification of him being a mess, reminder that Cavendish has a track record of dying and Dakota not only has no idea where the guy is but he can’t go back in time as well, meaning that, if Cavendish dies, it will be permanent.

- In “Picture Day”, there’s that scene with Cavendish and Dakota ‘cuddling’ for warmth after arriving in the wrong place. During this small moment, Dakota has a face as if he was chattering his teeth but his teeth doesn’t actually move, giving him a borderline panicked expression. Two interpretations here : 1. It’s an animation error. 2. It’s probably the first time the two are in a dangerous place since their lost their job. In other words, this might be the first time Cavendish could potentially die since they lost the ability to time travel. So what if Dakota’s expression is from realizing just how mortal Cavendish now is, and how powerless he is to stop death ?

- Dakota doesn’t seem to follow a dream or want much from his life. As said before, most of the time, Dakota is pretty laid-back and lazy. The only time he mentions a life goal is in “Time Out” with the Mississippi purchase. But overall, Dakota just acts like he was satisfied with his life, despite not liking his job in season 2 and despite the small ‘apartment’, and seems like he just wants to have fun and be with Cavendish. Heck, in “School Dance”, he admits that he has no idea what the plan is, he’s just following Cavendish around. On that note, he also seems lazy regarding his job as a time agent because he knows that what he does doesn’t really matters when you can just go back in time and fix it (the Sans vibes are coming back !). So yeah, Dakota feels like a guy who accomplished what he wanted to do with his life and is now just want to enjoy his time and be with his husband Cavendish.

- Finally, I know everyone already noticed this, but Dakota has that tendency to just stare at Cavendish with a smile or a smirk while Cavendish is ranting. I’m just mentioning it because it’s adorable.

#Milo Murphy's law #mml #mml spoilers #Milo Murphy's law spoilers #Dakavendish #Vinnie Dakota #Balthazar Cavendish #Flor talks #I might have overdone it #this post was supposed to be like 3 ideas #but then it turned into 5 pages #oh well #at least it's more precise #probably

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lost-in-sokovia · 4 years ago

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Hot Boy Summer

hiiiii! i’m so freaking excited to write this! this is for a challenge started by a few of my friends @captain-a-rogerss @optimistic-dinosaur-nacho and @donutloverxo !! you should really check it out under #CaptainsWeeklyChallenge ! anyway, i hope you enjoy! (ps: not putting anyone’s requests on hold, i just wanted to make sure i got this done. all requests are still in the making!🤍)

Warnings: swearing, fluff, suggestive content but nothing bad or mature

Prompt: “You’re such a brat.”

One of your favorite pastimes with Meg was annoying her older cousin, Ransom.

Was it because you had a crush on him? Don’t judge, that’s rude. You and Meg were close and she regularly brought you home with her for family holidays. It always exhausted you to be around that chaotic family, and even though Ransom was a total babe and in reality annoyed the hell out of you, you never admitted it. Joni, Meg’s mother, always had the persona and mannerisms that conveyed was high. Always her long and dragged out “hello, (Y/N)” with the hug and asking about your chakras and horoscope or whatever. She got on your last nerve most of the time and Meg found that hilarious. You knew deep down Joni was a good person and wanted the best for her daughter, but my god could she run you up a wall.

Meg’s grandfather was a sweetheart, but the rest of that family was absolutely out of their goddamn minds. And though he was insane, Ransom was drop dead hot. You never quite minded his smartass remarks, his cold glares, or the fact he thought his family was an absolute joke. It all just kinda rolled out of your head when you’d see those captivating sky blue eyes and evil smirk.

Meg had first thought it was a joke when you confessed your crush on Ransom to her one long night at school. She’d laughed, but after looking at your nervous face she stared. “What the hell?” She had asked. Your face was a combination of paleness and being flushed. You shrugged shakily. “I don’t know... he’s hot, Meg!” She scoffed, flipping back her long brown hair. “He might be hot to you, but he’s a hot prick. Doesn’t being a prick kinda cancel out being hot?” She pointed out sternly. “You know I’ve got a thing for bad boys,” you mumbled sheepishly in defense. She laughed again. “(Y/N), this isn’t some movie where everyone wants to date the hot villain. Do not date the hot villain in this situation!” She yelled. You gave her a sad glare before standing up and falling face first onto your dorm bed.

Now you weren’t dating him yet, but you sure as hell were next to him any chance you got. At first he thought it was funny, one of Meg’s college friends having a cute crush on him. But as time progressed and you became more in his way and more obnoxious to him, it made his blood boil.

It was the end of exams and summer was finally here. You were staying with Meg all summer and thrilled you were going to have opportunities to see Ransom. As you got more and more anxious the days leading up, Meg had made you promise you weren’t going to get so attached to Ransom or even forget you were there with her, and you agreed. You’d packed all your clothes (making sure to pack that one bikini that always got attention) and belongings and were on a plane to Massachusetts in no time.

When you’d arrived at Harlan’s, you were greeted with a big hug from Joni. “(Y/N), how are you sweetie?” She asked with a light tap on the back. You forced a laugh and smiled awkwardly. “I’m great Joni, h-how are you? How’s Flam?” you asked in an effort to move the topic off you as your patience lowered every time she opened her mouth. She smiled with accomplishment as she opened her mouth. “Oh you know, it reached two million followers yesterday on Insta, no biggie.” She was obviously fishing for compliments.

“Well congrats, that’s amazing,” you nodded with gritted teeth. She waved a hand and rolled her eyes slightly. “Did you get that moisturizer I sent you?” She asked. You looked over at Meg with eyes wide with annoyance and she quickly came up to help. “Yeah mom she really enjoyed it... We’re going to go get settled,” Meg explained quickly as you gave a small wave before following her.

You exhaled heavily as Meg led you up to her room. She scoffed in amusement. “Ready for a whole summer of Joni Thrombey?” She asked. You laughed under your breath and shook your head with wide eyes. “Mm, maybe Joni could just hook me up with her nephew instead...” you replied suggestively. Meg rolled her eyes and sighed. “(Y/N), he thinks you’re one of the most annoying people to have ever walked the planet, mostly because you’re friends with me. But still I don’t see your chances getting higher with that asshole,” she said. You frowned, unzipping one of your suitcases.

“Okay but I brought that one really sexy bikini I have and I’m not going to get a wedgie for nothing so he better at least say I’m not the most annoying or I look hot or something,” you huffed. Meg laughed, picking up the swimsuit and tossing it at your face.

~•~•~•~•~

Though the first day was uneventful, full of unpacking, saying your hellos and greeting everyone, calling to update your parents, eating, and sleeping, the next day was when the real fun began.

Harlan had decided it would be “nice” to get the family together since all the kids were now off school. You had raved to Meg how excited you were to see Ransom and try to prove you were a grown college woman and totally girlfriend (or wife, but baby steps right?) material. She groaned when she heard the news and hit her head against a wall.

“What? It’ll be so fun!” You tried to reason as Meg glared in the mirror while applying her makeup. She put product in her wavy brown hair and sighed. “Yeah it’ll be fun for you. You happen to forget that Ransom is just one member of this family, this very chaotic and hell raising family,” she bit. You scoffed and slipped a crop top on. “You’re just jealous because I might get a boyfriend.” You stuck your tongue out.

Meg was just about to argue back when you heard the front door downstairs being opened with muffled greetings. You sprinted over to your closed door and concentrated hard for any sign of the name “Ransom.” You pressed your ear hard against the door and your eyes lit up as you finally heard the name you’d been waiting for. Your heart rate picked up and you looked back to Meg, who was applying mascara unenthusiastically.

“You’re going to annoy the shit out of him,” she warned quietly. You glared. “No I’m not... I swear I’m mature. Mature enough to be attractive though, not like some stuck up old librarian lady or something,” you explained nervously. Meg laughed. “This is coming from the girl who still sleeps with a nightlight,” she retorted. You flipped her off with a fake smile before slipping out the door.

You ran down the long flights of stairs (nearly knocking into poor Fran, who was just trying to escape Ransom) and breathed quickly. You nearly tripped down the last few steps and cursed under your breath before catching up with a particular tall, dark haired man. You slipped in front of him and smiled smugly at him.

“Hey Ransom,” you greeted as chill as possible. He was more beautiful than you remembered (even though you had just seen him at Christmas); his hair was cut a little shorter, he wasn’t hiding under cable knit sweaters or long overcoats, and his blue eyes caught the sunlight. When he saw you his mouth parted and he stared with furrowed eyebrows for a moment. His head then tilted back as he groaned loudly.

“Meg!” He yelled. “Come get your dumb friend out of my way!” You blinked a couple times before leaning against the knight’s armour in the hallway. “No look Ransom, I’m just here to chill with Meg all summer. It’s not a huge deal. It’s totally fine, you’ll have no trouble from me,” you offered. He raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “Yeah that’s what you told me at Christmas, then you tried to kiss me under the mistletoe,” he retorted with a bitter laugh. You cringed; yeah, you had hit the holly jollies a little too much that night. You cleared your throat and began to trail Ransom as he began to walk away from you.

“Well lucky for you there’s no mistletoe in the summer,” you replied sarcastically. “Yeah, but there’s still you,” Ransom bit back in mock sarcasm. You halted to a stop and gaped at him as he continued to walk off. Damn, he really came for you.

As you stared, Harlan had appeared behind you and greeted you with a pat on the back. “So, have you said your hellos to Ransom?” He asked. You nodded, your eyes still focused down the hall. “Mhm,” you hummed back. He chuckled lightly before walking off slowly, and you scoffed as Ransom’s remark echoed in your head.

Not a big deal; a big girl like you could handle Ransom’s snarky remarks, right?

~•~•~•~

After plenty of lame and useless attempts at trying to get Ransom’s attention just through basic human interaction, you’d decided it was time to put that bikini to use.

Who knew there was easy access to a pool out where Harlan lived? You thanked your lucky stars that the white suit wouldn’t just be taking up space in your suitcase. Sure, most of the Thrombeys were now gathered and would probably be there as well, but you get what you get right? You slipped it on in the bathroom connected to Meg’s room and sighed, already pulling the bottoms out of all the uncomfortable places it didn’t belong. You looked at yourself in the mirror and raised your eyebrows. Wow, dressing for a man and not yourself; you never thought you would stoop so low for a crush.

You opened the door and met Meg with her emerald green bikini as she whistled and looked you up and down. “Damn sis! All this for my asshole older cousin?” She asked as you rolled your eyes. “I know, I was thinking the same thing,” you mumbled back. She grinned sarcastically as she grabbed the sunglasses from her dresser. “Yeah, it’s a good thing you’re not obsessed with him or anything, that would be weird,” she commented with heavy sarcasm. You laughed monotonely and threw a small bottle of sunscreen at her arm.

“Whatever, let’s get going. I wanna get out of this suit asap,” you mumbled before opening the door. Meg followed you out and snorted from behind. “(Y/N) it’s already riding up your ass,” She commented. Your face felt hot (from both embarrassment and how annoying Meg was being) and you spit out the first argument that came to mind: “Well maybe I want it there, Meg.”

You trotted through the full house and outside and plopped onto one of the long, clothed chairs perfect for tanning. Ransom was over in a shaded corner reading from a Playboy magazine (to which you thought why was he looking at pictures of women in bikinis when there was one right in front of him?) through dark sunglasses. His hair was combed back with no gel or product in it and he wore dark blue swimming trunks with no shirt. Jacob was in the shadows behind him with his eyes glued to his phone screen, the damn kid. You however couldn’t help but stare for a moment at Ransom’s abs as you blinked and took a deep breath. You laid your head back down and closed your eyes for a moment as you let the sun warm your entire body. “Damn Ransom,” you muttered bitterly.

“Alright this place better not turn into some splash pad for three year olds now that you’re here,” Ransom announced. You opened your eyes and looked back over, his eyes still glued to the magazine. You scoffed loudly in exaggeration as Meg shook her head in astonishment at you. “Please Ransom, we’re just out here to do the same exact thing as you; chill,” you called back. Joni who was drinking champagne in the hottub glanced over briefly. “Meg! (Y/N)! Looking totally adorable girls! Love the self love!” She complimented as hip as she could get.

“Yeah thanks mom,” Meg called back i enthusiastically. Ransom rolled his eyes and looked up to see what the fuss was about and was dumbstruck when he did.

God, did you have to look so hot in that swimsuit? Your skin glowed in the sun as your crossed one leg over the other. That swimsuit was very small... His eyes traveled from your legs to your bare stomach up to- no, no. He looked back down and exhaled loudly. No, think about how annoying you are. He wasn’t going to stare at you. No... He felt awkward. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Ransom never thought he’d feel something towards you. It was weird, he questioned his standards and tried to take his mind off you. This was really conflicting and he’d never thought so much into a hot girl- no he wasn’t going to call you hot.

While Ransom sat in the corner and tried to handle his frustration, you layed in the sun and pitied yourself. You basically tried everything. If Ransom wasn’t going to pay attention to you in this, there was no hope. You frowned and stretched your arms and legs before crossing them again.

You glanced over at Ransom, who’s eyes you’d found staring at you. (He couldn’t do it. He looked back at you, sprawled out on the chair. Screw his reputation, he wasn’t going to pass this up.) You blinked a few times before raising an eyebrow. “Like what you see, Ransom?” You asked suggestively. He scoffed in astonishment and shook his head. “You’re such a brat,” he mumbled. You smiled wickedly and sat up. Meg looked over and tried to grab your arm. “(Y/N), where are you going?” She asked. You looked back as you made your way to the pool. “Just going for a swim because I’m getting a little hot in the sun,” you explained casually.

Ransom shook his head and chuckled under his breath. “Really, (Y/N)? This is what we’re gonna play?” He asked somewhat aggressively. You looked over and shrugged innocently. “What are we playing, Ransom? Can’t a girl get in the pool if she needs to be cooled off?” You lowered your sunglasses for a moment and winked. He glared with a mouth opened in shock; since when did you start acting like this? Where was Meg’s college friend who had a cute little crush on him?

You were milking the hell out of this. You enjoyed feeling somewhat in control over Ransom. His frustration amused you, and you were pretty sure he’d pop at any second.

You stepped into the cool water and shivered slightly. You slowly continued to submerge your body and looked back over at your target. He held his head with his fingers against his temple, his mouth slightly parted. You grinned smugly before placing your glasses to the side and going completely under the crystal clear water.

Jacob looked up briefly from his phone and laughed viciously. “Seriously, Ransom?” Ransom turned around and held a finger close to his face. “One more comment out of you and that goddamn phone finds a new home at the bottom of that pool,” he snarled. Jacob rolled his eyes before looking back down while Ransom whipped back around.

You hair was now wet and water drops speckled your chest and arms. Ransom groaned and threw his magazine on the ground before standing up. You glanced over and did your best to hold back laughter from the scene Ransom was causing. He began to quickly walk towards you and you full on laughed.

“Ransom don’t get your britches in a bunch,” Meg commented from her chair. She’d given up; you were a lost cause. You were under the spell of her disgusting older cousin and all she could do was sit back and watch the curse take its course.

You waited for Ransom at the edge of the underground pool and put your arms on the warm concrete. He kneeled in front of you and you raised an eyebrow. The sun reflected off the water and Ransom tried his best to keep his eyes on you through his dark sunglasses. “You think this is funny?” He bit. You shrugged. “Little bit. I’m only having fun if you are though,” you replied smoothly. “Trying to make me look like a perv? You knew exactly what you were doing when you put that goddamn bikini on. A little small (Y/N), don’t you think?” He whispered harshly. You stared at his angry expression before glancing around at the oblivious grownups in the yard.

“Glad your family isn’t paying attention, huh?” You remarked. He growled lowly and you smiled. “Come on Ransom,” you urged plainly. “You know you want to.” Ransom raised an eyebrow. “Do what?” He hissed. You puckered your lips for a brief second and winked teasingly. He laughed bitterly.

“Jesus Christ,” he growled before putting his index finger under your chin and pulling you into a rough kiss. You shifted your weight onto your arms and pushed yourself up higher and further into the kiss.

Your stomach twisted and turned and you felt like screaming in victory.

He pulled away and glared in defeat as you smirked. “Now that wasn’t that hard, was it?” You cooed. He sighed. “You’re a real bitch, you know?” He asked. You hummed amusingly. “Yeah Meg would know a lot about that.”

haaaaaa i hope you enjoyed! i loved writing this and i hope you enjoyed! (and of course thanks to my girl @lookalivefrosty for getting me through a rough spot where i didn’t know wtf to do😂)

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babylooneytoonz · 4 years ago

Text

Blood Trails [ Pt. 7 ]

Chapter Summary: Time skip to two weeks later, when Tony Stark comes up with a fool proof plan on how the Avengers will protect Johanna. Although Bucky doesn't agree, he still decides to go ahead with this. Is this a coincidence or is Bucky having other hidden interior motives? Who knows?

Warnings: Cute fluff, daddy daughter moments

Word Count: 2900+

Masterlist

You had been living at the Avengers Towers for two weeks now, two mostly uneventful weeks; where you had been interrogated almost three four times again, and then on the fourth day, for some reason, you didn’t know why, they had decided to take you off the cuffs when they saw that you were pretty much behaving yourself and not giving them a hard time. The truth was, you were sort of liking living here. It was much better than the crap and the torture that Vasili gave you and this felt refreshing. In fact, Bucky even let Sasha come see you, and for some reason, the little girl pushed the monster in you into hiding, bringing out the real hidden you that had been laying dormant for ages.

“You do realize that we are actually hiding a fugitive in here, don’t you?” Tony crossed his arms dismissively over his chest. He had always liked you , you were one of his favorites, and this was the only single reason he had not blurted out to anyone that the Avengers were actually hiding a HYDRA assassin and protecting her from law.

“What do you want me to do? Throw her out? Hand her over to the CIA? They will rip her apart. Besides, she seems to be doing better.” Bucky’s eyes turned towards you, as he noted you making weird googley eyes at Sasha, who was standing outside the glass room where you were locked in, but the two of you looked merry, even with the glass separating the two of you.

“Oh, would you look at that Barnes? The mother of your child and your child are just getting along so perfectly. Who can say that she doesn’t remember a thing?” He dramatically pretended to wipe a tear, and then smiled, this time a genuine, carefree one, directed towards you as he cleared his throat and turned towards Bucky. “I think she isn’t as bad as how you used to be initially.” Bucky just rolled his eyes at Tony’s words, but his eyes were fixed on you as he studied you. He could see that you were kneeling down, your palm was pressed to the glass, and Sasha had, for some reason, her lips pressed to the glass where your hand was. Bucky couldn’t help but smile at what he was looking at, before Tony’s phone started ringing, and he walked off, speaking on the phone.

Bucky made his way to the coffee vending machine, and he poured you a mug of coffee. With equally slow steps, he walked up to where his daughter was, and when Sasha saw him towering over her, she turned around and smiled, Bucky looking down at her as he said, “You wanna come inside with me? We can give her a coffee. She looks miserable without it, don’t you think?” He threw out his hand towards her, and could notice that you were noticing the small interaction between the father and daughter from behind the glass, a hint of a smile playing against your lips.

Sasha took her father’s hand excitedly, and there was a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. She was finally going to meet you, without having the wall of glass separate the two of you. As Bucky and Sasha reached the door, he slowly lowered himself so he was in a squatting position in front of her, and face level with her face, “Sash, I know you’re my big girl.. and Daddy can tell you anything.. right? And daddy also knows that you will understand.”

“Yes daddy, you can talk to me,” the little girl smiled, her blue eyes radiating with warmth as she ran her fingers through her loose strands that had managed to fall out of her fishtail braid.

“Well, ah – “ Bucky squinted his eyes slightly, “she, uh doesn’t really remember anything. The bad place we got her from, they did some things to her, that made her forget..”

“Is that why she doesn’t remember who I am?” She asked, her eyes widening, with a glimmer of sadness in them, and Bucky nodded.

“Yeah, which is why.. can you try not to call her mom, baby? She might just get scared, you know?”

“I will try, daddy. I don’t want to scare her away, now that I’ve found her.”

“You do know that you’re my best girl right?” Bucky smiled, and the little girl fixed her forehead with Bucky’s, chuckling in her sweet, childlike voice. “Yeah, I am your best girl.” Bucky chuckled genuinely, and he stood up, taking her hand again, her tiny fingers clasping naturally against his hard metal ones, as the glass door swiped open automatically, and you turned towards the two of them, still kneeling by the glass.

“Well, hi. Is that for me?” You pushed yourself up to your feet, awkwardly shuffling the weight of your body from one foot to another. You were dressed in a loose fitting tunic that reached your knees, and you didn’t care that everyone in here could see the various marks and dried up cuts that covered your legs.

“I thought you could, uh, use some caffeine.”

“I really do, appreciate it.” You smiled, taking the mug from his hand and bringing it to your lips, as you blew twice on it and took a sip, letting the froth give you a fake moustache, to which Sasha just started giggling.

“What? What’s so amusing, скучать?” You looked down at her, amused, and then back up at Bucky Barnes, noticing how he was also trying to muffle a smile from breaking out against his lips. That’s when you realized that you probably had froth all over your face. Embarrassed, you pursed your lips together, your cheeks flushing red suddenly, as you turned away and quickly swiped your sleeve over your lips, trying to ignore the little child’s very obvious giggling.

“Well, I think we should leave – “ Bucky began speaking; but Friday’s voice ringing through the cell suddenly made him clasp his mouth shut, as the two of you started looking at each other; your frown only widening.

“Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark wants to see you and the rest of the team in the meeting room. They’re all already there and waiting for you now.”

“Thank you Friday, I’ll just – “

“Also, Mr. Stark wants you to bring Miss Johanna to the meeting room.”

You raised your eyebrow questioningly towards Bucky and he just shrugged, running his hand through the back of his head.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Your stomach felt like it was knotting up, and you began nibbling on the insides of your cheeks to make your nervousness go away. It wasn’t nervousness per say, but you really didn’t understand why you had been called suddenly, when all you had done the past two weeks was be nice. You hadn’t tried to escape, you had listened to what was asked of you and yet, today you had been called into the meeting room. Your first thought was whether they were planning to send you back..to Vasili Dreznov. You dreaded it, but at the same time, you mentally scolded yourself for being so paranoid. Sending you to Dreznov will be the last thing to cross their mind.

Bucky cleared his throat, and you were pulled out of your thoughts, your head sharply turning towards him. He raised his palm slightly, asking you to step into the meeting room before him. You nodded, and stepped in, your footsteps loud enough to alert the other occupants of the room enough to turn and give you a glance.

“Well, Y/N.. I mean to say Johanna, why don’t you take a seat?” Tony pointed towards a leather chair that was a few steps away from where you were standing. You turned to give Bucky a quick glance and he blinked, as though telling you that it was okay to do it. Biting your lip, you lowered yourself into that chair, placing both your elbows on the table as Tony cleared his throat again, “Well, I’m not going to beat around the bush, but we’ve got a problem. I just received an anonymous intel.. something is going to happen. Something bad, something dangerous, something that will change everything.”

“Well, you are sort of beating around the bush here. What’s the crack?” Clint walked up to the empty chair next to you, pulling it casually and plomping down on it like this was the most normal Avengers meeting and you were a normal part of it, which was hilarious. Nothing about this meet made you feel like you were a villain that had actually been caught by these people.

“Way to ruin my mood, Barton. Well anyway, there is something weirdly fishy going on here.” He clapped dramatically, and the holographic screen started displaying a video footage. The footage playing was of a colony. Everything looked normal; women and children walked about the streets, cars passed by, and everything looked like a normal upper middle class colony. “Now I know you all must be thinking what’s so fishy about this little colony in New Jersey. This is what’s fishy! Nothing really looks fishy?”

“You’re really not making any sense,” A female voice called out from behind you, and you just turned around, to see a woman with a slender frame, and long dark hair step in, her eyes darting around the room and fixing on you for a bit before fixing on Tony. You knew her as Wanda Maximoff, and you knew her from your third day of captivity in here when she had come to see you, immediately returning from her mission.

“Thank you for your input, Miss Maximoff,” Tony mumbled, faking an accent and then turned back to the holographic scene. “Jokes apart, something is going on in that colony, and that’s what the intel said, and that is what we must find out, what exactly are they hiding?”

“This is still vague, Stark.” Bucky raised an eyebrow.

“Well, Barnes, this is all I know. It could be anything, someone in that colony might be making a freaking bomb that may destroy all of America for all I know, but I don’t.” Tony continued, glaring at Bucky before he abruptly turned and bent over the keypad, his fingers typing something against the keys and an animated 3D representation of the colony sprang up in the middle of the room. “Well, I’ve done you all the favour of narrowing down your search for you. Well, technically my systems have. And these are the only suspects that have been narrowed down.” Two houses out of the entire lot were suddenly highlighted as the color of their rooftop started turning red. Tony explained in a detail that the mission involved going to live in that colony in New Jersey undercover, and trying to find out what exactly was going on there, and it meant, that the interaction had to be formed with the occupants of these two houses because these were the most suspicious ones, and one of them was definitely hiding a secret.

You kept sitting there awkwardly, listening in, trying to process the information that was so openly being discussed between you, which you had no idea why. Little did you know that Bucky and the rest of the team also had the same apprehension and thoughts as you, in fact everyone except Tony seemed to think this. Finally, you gave up when you could listen no more and slowly stood up, your sudden movement causing a sudden hush to fall over the room.

“I’m sorry, I think there’s been a mistake here. I don’t understand why I have been asked to be here. I’m not one of you,” you frowned, looking at Tony.

Tony smiled, and the next moment, he had turned round the desk, and was already walking towards you, while you looked on in confusion. He finally stopped walking and fixed himself just next to you, and cleared his throat. “On behalf of the rest of the team, I don’t think they’re gonna mind, I would like to make you an offer. You’ve been here two weeks now, and I was wondering if you ever considered joining us.”

Bucky’s eyes almost widened, when he heard what Tony had just said to you; so much so that he pushed himself closer to Sam, and mumbled into his ear, “What the hell is going on? You knew about this?”

“No freaking way, Barnes,” Sam whispered back, just as startled as Bucky was.

“Woah, hold on a minute. You’re offering me a position here? Knowing well who I am and who I worked for.”

“Well you said it yourself. Worked. In past tense.” Tony mumbled, scratching his jaw when Bucky grabbed his arm forcefully and literally pulled him aside so he could talk to him, alone, “Okay, what the fuck are you trying to do?”

“Hey, you’ll thank me later, metal man,” Tony yanked his arm away, and walked off, letting Bucky just glare at him, like nothing had even happened.

“So Johanna, you in?”

You couldn’t hide the budding frown on your forehead, as you suspiciously eyed him, trying to psychoanalyze him, try to figure out if he was just mocking you, but Tony Stark looked at you with what looked like an utmost sincerity, that confused you even more, “What’s the catch if I say yes?”

“If you say yes, you’re protected, you’re not a fugitive anymore you’re free from HYDRA, atleast to an extent that you don’t have to work for them anymore, and if you say no.. you’re a traitor to this country and you know the rest.”

“So basically –“ your arms crossed over your chest as you took a deep breath, “ трахни мою жизнь but I don’t have another option is what you’re telling me. Because it’s like choosing between wanting to die either by consuming poison, or by drowning. But you got to die in the end.”

“We aren’t that bad, Jesus. You make us sound like we are horrible. Well woman, we have fans all over this world – “

“Tony, seriously that’s enough. Give her a break,” Wanda stepped up next to you, and for once you were thankful that someone had spoken, broken their silence for it felt like you were being cornered in here by one man.

“Tony, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?” Bucky finally spoke, and that’s when you realized that he had been strangely quiet all this while. You watched from the corner of your eye, as Bucky and Tony stepped out of the meeting room, and the door slammed shut, leaving you alone with the rest of the team.

“What the fuck was that?” Bucky almost growled, when he had brought Tony out into the hallway.

“I am only doing you a favour. Isn’t that what Steve did? Did you forget about yourself?”

“That was different.” Bucky stated, simply.

“Yeah you’re right Barnes. That was different. I didn’t like you back then, and neither do I like you now, but her –“ Tony crossed his arms over his chest, and took off his glasses, now standing chest to chest with Bucky, “ – she was a nice one. I knew her before you even knew her. And if there is anything I can do to make sure she doesn’t have to step foot back from where she just came here I’m going to do that. And besides, I cooked up just the best little plan so she gets her memories back.”

“So that’s what you truly want,” Bucky deadpanned, and shook his head, moving away, back towards the meeting room, leaving Tony to quietly follow him until all eyes turned towards the two of them, including yours. You finally took a deep breath, and brought your hands up to your hair, fluttering your eyes shut just for a split second, before you opened them again, “I accept.”

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Three days later, you found yourself in your first official meeting as an Avenger. Natasha and Bruce Banner still weren’t back from Afghanistan, so it left Bucky, Sam, Clint, Tony, Wanda, Vision and you.

You kept watching as Tony slammed two heavy looking files on the round table in front of you.

“Johanna.. Bucky..” Tony deadpanned, grabbing a file out of the two and tossing it into the air, that Bucky caught midair using his metal arm, “that mission I was talking about. The one about that colony in New Jersey.. You two would be going undercover.”

Bucky looked at you, and you looked at him, then back at Tony, nodding. This seemed fairly easy, for your first official mission. It was only when you felt Bucky almost groan, and you noticed that he was reading the file that was handed to him, that you realized that this wasn’t the end of it. You snatched the second file that was laying on the table, and a frown caked over your forehead when you saw what the mission was all about. You and Bucky were going undercover, pretending to be a newly married couple who were expecting their first child together.

Of course, it just couldn’t have been a straightforward, kicking some asses kind of a mission for you.

“Come on, it won’t be that bad,” Tony chuckled, and Bucky just threw him a glare, knowing well aware the games that he was trying to play, and the conversation he had with him three days back came spiraling back into his mind; where he had confessed that he had an idea that could bring your memories back. Maybe this was this intelligent idea of Tony Stark, when even Wanda and Vision could have been send undercover, he actually chose the two of you.

“When do we leave?” You turned to Bucky, your expression blank.

“Tomorrow. Think of it as a vacation. The two of you deserve it.”

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#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #james buchanan barnes x reader #james buchanan bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #winter soldier x reader #winter solider imagine #bucky barnes x you

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vs-redemption · 4 years ago

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who are your favorite top ten black clover characters & ships? talk about them! ~tat!

From Cindy: Hello tat! I hope you are doing well today and thank you for visiting my blog. It was really fun to write this because I got the chance to really think about the characters in depth. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a shipper so I couldn’t come up with 10. I did my best to think of and write about as many ships and brotps as I could though.

Also, I got your other ask about BNHA as well! I have a Japanese lesson I need to prepare for this evening, but I’ll definitely get that posted tomorrow sometime!! Thanks again!!

This is very long, so I put it under a cut :)

Top Ten Black Clover Characters

Yami Sukehiro

I love everything about this guy. He’s hilarious, number one. Everything he says cracks me up and the nicknames he uses for people are gold. I like that he insults people and makes toilet jokes so casually. He comes off crass, but it’s the fact that he treats everyone equally that makes me respect him so much. He holds everyone, including himself, to the same standards. He doesn’t care about your past, wealth, appearance, gender, unconventional magic abilities or wacky personality. No matter who you are, he will call you out if you’re not acting the way you should, but will also back you up and support you when it’s needed. He’s a great leader because he treats everyone equally and is also very accepting that everyone is different.

Luck Voltia

Luck was one of the first characters I fell in love with. I don’t have a lot deep meaning behind how I feel like I do with Yami though. I just really enjoy his chaotic energy and the fact that he wants to fight people all the time. I also think his magic is super badass. His little lightning boots and gloves are so cute. I just wanna cuddle him and ruffle his hair.

Finral Roulacase

I feel so bad for Finral. This poor love starved boy doesn’t deserve the heaping amounts of anxiety he always seems to be feeling. I know he’s supposed to be the ‘perverted’ character, but compared to characters from other anime (Mineta [BNHA] Meliodas [SDS]) he’s not that bad. He tries so hard to be a gentleman by taking people on dates, complimenting them, giving them flowers, and not physically molesting them lol but they never give him a second glance. I also love his character growth so far. Watching him find self-worth beyond being just a mode of transportation, and confidence enough to stand up to his brother has been really fun to watch. I’m so proud of him and I think he’s amazing!

Zora Ideale

This guy. Haha His blunt honesty is so uncomfortable but hilarious at the same time. Like Yami, he calls people out but is somehow so much more offensive about it. I love how he just gives people unsolicited criticism and then adds injury to insult like “oh by the way, here’s a freaking stink bug in your nostril.” To be fair though, he is just as harsh on himself and will acknowledge (to himself) when he made a mistake. His backstory is also so tragic! It is seriously messed up what happened to his dad, but I love that Zora uses that trauma to try and change the word for the better by being the best magic knight he can be and also encouraging (threatening?) other magic knights to be better too. He could’ve so easily become a villain, but he didn’t and I think that’s really honorable.

Mereoleona Vermillion

Oh my god. I love this woman so much. The fact that she was supposed to be the captain of the Crimson Lions but said “nope” and then just went off by herself to live in the most dangerous places in the wild to get stronger is just phenomenal to me. I also really like that, even though she’s a royal and a member of the Vermillion family, she doesn’t just focus on her own squad. It was great when she showed up at the Black Bulls hide out and straight up kidnapped them to have them join her training. I’m just in awe of both her physical and mental strength. She was so cool when she went up against all those elves by herself. I’m not caught up with the manga, but I think I saw a spoiler about her recently and I’m very excited to find out more about it. I pretty much wish I was Mereoleona. She is my spirit animal.

Charmy Pappitson

There is a lot to adore about Charmy. First and foremost, she is an adorable badass. I love that her passion for food is something she shares with her allies and friends instead of being something that makes her greedy. I feel like Charmy is underrated because her magic is great for restoring mana, defense and offense. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t she one of the highest ranked knights in the black bulls? I also love how she gets away with a lot of shit just because she’s cute. The episodes where she straight up just hops onto the wizard king’s lap and feeds him snacks without anyone batting an eye get me every time!

Vanessa Enoteca

Sometimes I think about how Vanessa was willing to give up her own freedom just to save Asta’s arms, and how she gave up drinking for a few episodes in order to focus on a way to not only make herself stronger for upcoming battles, but the rest of her teammates as well. I like her dedication to the Black Bulls. Her thread magic is also pretty cool and I like the clever ways she’s learned to use it.

Fuegoleon Vermillion

Poor Fuegoleon is so calm and sensible compared to his siblings. I like that he’s a fair leader that makes sure to consider all angles before passing judgement on someone. He is also a dependable captain and full of great wisdom that aids in character development for important characters like Asta and Noelle. I love how he competes with his sister though, and watching them bicker in the episode where they throw a birthday party for that nun lady was silly.

Asta

How can you not like Asta? He has such a big heart and the best self-discipline out of anyone in the show. He would always rather talk things out before resorting to fighting and likes to understand the motivations behind the actions of his enemies. He is unashamed to be himself and continues to pursue his goals even when other people mock him or put him down. I also like that he is more perceptive of how people think or feel than it would seem sometimes.

Sekke Bronzazza

His personality is pretty much the worst (and I think he actually tried to kill Asta after the magic knight exam… asshole) but the way he always manages to fit “ha-ha” into his speech is so funny to me and always cracks me up. And the way everyone calls him the “ha-ha” guy is very amusing to me, especially when he tries and fails to politely correct them. I also love how he always ends up in the most random situations (in Yami’s bathroom or working for the king).

Top Ten Black Clover Ships/BroTPs

Finral x Vanessa

I guess I just think back to that fight against the Despair guy from the Third Eye because both Finral and Venessa sort of worked together and pushed past their limits for the first time. I think Venessa is also the one that put the green in Finral’s hair, right? I don’t know. Venessa is good for Finral because he’s so insecure and she’s so supportive of other people. They’re cute together.

Yami x Charlotte

I think everyone ships this? lol Charlotte’s independence and personal strength are important to her, and the fact that Yami acknowledges and respects those traits in her makes them a great match. He also constantly encourages her to show her softer side, saying that it’s okay to lean on other people and ask for help. He could help her find balance and be comfortable in her own skin.

Asta x Mimosa

Mimosa is a much better match for Asta than Noelle because Noelle constantly needs validation and attention that she’s just never going to get from Asta. His brain just doesn’t work that way. Mimosa is content with supporting Asta with her magic as best she can, and doesn’t get jealous or competitive in the way Noelle does. Mimosa is soft and gentle which is a nice contrast to Asta’s loud and rough personality.

Yuno x Charmy

I know this is almost like a crack ship, but I can’t help but like it anyway. Like Asta, Yuno isn’t going to be the type of guy to actively pursue a relationship or be overly affectionate. This doesn’t seem to affect Charmy who seems fine with even the most minimal of interaction haha. I think it’s so cute how much she supports and roots for him when she sees him in a fight. And Yuno doesn’t seem to mind her trying to feed him and take care of him either.

Magna x Luck (brotp)

Lucky’s personality is quirky, chaotic, and frankly just difficult to understand, so I think it’s hard for people to get close to him. He comes on so strong with the pranks and desire to fight, plus he doesn’t really know how to hold back. The fact that Magna can endure all that while also seeing Luck as a person on a deeper level than just being some spazzy boy is really wholesome to me. I think it’s good for Luck to have someone who can respect him that way without asking him to change his behavior. I do not think this would work romantically though. Magna is actually pretty sensitive and emotional, and gets pretty upset when Luck is stronger or does better than him in something. It ultimately just drives Magna to work harder, but I think that sort of competition might be bad news in a romantic relationship if he’s always feeling inferior.

Yami x Jack the Ripper (brotp)

I want their friendship! I really do. The way they go from relaxed and having fun to ready to beat each other’s asses is hilarious. And there’s literally no reason for it, they’re just like unnecessarily competitive and I’m living for it. Whether they’re celebrating at a festival, about to have an important meeting with the wizard king, or in the middle of a huge fight with a major bad guy, it doesn’t matter. They will trash talk each other and probably end up brawling. I love it.

Gauche x Grey

The episodes where Gauche had to fight with Gordon and Grey were really cool because those three are probably the oddest oddballs of the Black Bulls. I don’t know if I ship them romantically or just at friends, but the development of the relationship between Gauche and Grey has been interesting and I wouldn’t mind seeing more. Also, please give Gauche something else to obsess over besides his sister lmao

Mars x Fana

I don’t have any strong feelings for them as characters individually, but I like that they fought so hard to protect each other as kids and how they continued to fight for and protect each other after being reunited.

#Tat anon #chat with cindy #black clover #black clover ships #yami sukehiro #luck voltia #finral roulacase #zora ideale #mereoleona vermillion #Charmy Pappitson

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dramatic-squirrel · 3 years ago

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I feel like I have too many problems with Miraculous Ladybug and that my love for the show really doesn’t show. I love ML, the specific problems (many of which I have yet to publicly post) do not detract from that, so here is a list of things I think are great about the show. (Note, my opinion is somewhat influenced by being American.)

Marinette’s super power of luck: It’s a neat concept. I’m not the most well versed in superheroes so I’m not quite sure if it’s been done before, but the way her powers work is fun and at the very least it’s not a superpower one sees often.

The magical girl vibes: Considering it’s original premise, ML has a lot of magical girl aspects to it. Transformation sequences, villains of the week, talking ‘animal’ mentors (i.e. the kwamis), the villain that never shows up in person except for like, season finales. And while I’m not that into magical girl animes, I’m also not that invested in superhero stories either. But, I feel like Miraculous takes the best parts of both and makes a really interesting show.

It’s French: This is where my American side gets exposed. I like that the show does not take place in the U.S. So many superheroes are American superheroes, where the cities are in the U.S. and I friggin hate it. But, I love Paris and I love that the setting is different.

The characters in general: In my opinion, there are too many characters in ML. But, at the same time, it pretty much means someone will always find at least one character they like. It means you can have so many different interactions and have favorite pairings (not necessarily romantic). I won’t speak to how they handled representation of various groups, as I don’t think it’s my place to say, but it’s nice that all of the main recurring characters are unique. Each with a unique design and personality and interest/hobby.

The love square: At this point I’m kind of done with the love square in canon. But that doesn’t mean it can’t and won’t get better, and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t good parts about it. On a basic level it’s hilarious. Two lovestruck idiots being idiots, basically, and that’s amusing to watch. And while it hasn’t quite happened yet, there is potential for the feelings that Adrien and Marinette have to transfer over to the other personas (i.e. Marinette developing feelings for Chat and Adrien developing feelings for Marinette). Most importantly, it makes their relationship deep and complex on multiple levels. Each of them gets a chance to know the person they are in love with, not on a crush level, but on a friendship level. They get to know each other without being blinded by love, being able to recognize each other’s potential faults and at the same time appreciating how genuinely awesome the other is. At the same time, we can still see them act like cute bumbling lovestruck idiots from time to time.

This was just what I could think of at the top of my head. But yeah, despite the complaining I might do about the show and the frustrations I have about it, I do really like the show. My frustrations come from a place of love, knowing that the show could reach a better potential given a few changes.

#miraculous ladybug #good points about miraculous ladybug #what I love about ml

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nostalgicreading · 4 years ago

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Adults are stupid and kids are smart

Title: A series of unfortunate events: The bad beginning

Author: Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler)

Genre: Mystery, black comedy, comedy-drama

Publication year: 1999

Main character: Violet, Claus, and Sunny Baudelaire are three siblings who became orphans by the beginning of the first book; their parents having passed in a mysterious fire in their family's mansion. Throughout the series, they are known as the Baudelaire orphans. Violet is 14 by the beginning of the series and loves inventing and building things, Claus is 12 and loves reading and researching, and Sunny is about 1-2 and loves biting things. All three siblings also have a peppermint allergy.

Story: The first of 13 books follow the Baudelaire siblings as they become orphans and are sent to live with a distant relative, Count Olaf, a theater loving criminal mastermind. Count Olaf lives in a ramshackle house and forces the children to do tedious shores and share a bed. He also constantly has his theater troupe over, who are equally as evil and rude. It quickly becomes apparent to the siblings that he is only after the Baudelaire fortune, which Violet will get control over when she becomes 18.

Reading experience: What first got me into this book series was actually the Netflix series. It was a fun experience and made me want to know more about the source material, see how similar they are.

This book is surprisingly amusing despite the fact that the main characters are miserable for the most part. They just lost their parents and now live in a physically and emotionally abusive house with a man that only wants their money and will probably kill them after he gets it. Even the author and narrator says that they will have few happy moments and that things will only get worse. So how is it amusing?

First of all, Count Olaf is a fun villain at times. He is evil to the point of absurdity and you can't help but laugh at his antics. His love of the theater and the spotlight also adds to his character and makes his commitment to a certain role and his interactions with other amusing. All members of Olaf’s theater troupe are funny for the same reason. They are very much the bad guys and the last thing you want is for them to succeed, but they are hilarious.

Second of all, the author has a fun and interesting way of writing. Snicket often use a lot of big words and phrases that he explains in an educational and fun way. Even if it's kind of like a small sidetrack, I don't feel like it takes you out of the story. It sometimes even add a bit to it.

The book also portrays kids as the smart ones and adults as almost worthless. Most adult blindly trust the words of other adults and the law, and tend to ignore or dismiss the kids. The kids are always the ones to almost immediately see through count Olaf's ridiculous disguises and schemes. The kids also always have to handle everything themselves since they can't trust the adults.

The art style and illustrations on the covers and in the books are beautiful and interesting. You can often find foreshadowing in the last illustrations on what is going to happen in the next book.

#a series of unfortunate events #the bad beginning #lemony snicket #daniel handler #violet baudelaire #Claus baudelaire #sunny baudelaire #the baudelaire orphans #the baudelaire children #count olaf #book #books #book review #booklr #black comedy #comedy-drama #pokémon mystery dungeon rescue team dx

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heartless-error · 4 years ago

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I'm home

Fandom: DC comics, Batman

Pairing: Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)

Rating/Tags: JayTim Week 2020 - Day 4: Free Day, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Developing Relationship, Getting Together

Other(s) links: AO3

Jason knew no matter how hard they tried, the cave was no longer his home, nor was the manor. It might sound sad, but didn't matter how many lies they told him or deals made with him to bring him back to the family, such places were no longer considered his home for a long time. However, of all of them, the relationship with his replacement was the one which seemed to have improved the most, and as the comfort and trust between each other had increased, it was obvious his relationship had changed too, they were... Well… He wasn't sure what they were yet.

But Tim being adorable when he slept didn't help him at all.

OR:

5 times Jason saw Tim sleep and 1 time Tim did.

I'm home

That night, if Jason were in the batcave, it was because he had no choice.

He wanted that to be recorded. Don't get him wrong, the relationship with the bats was improving a minimum, for once both parties had agreed to try to resolve their differences and fix years of roughness and conflict between them. However, this didn’t mean that some tension wasn’t yet present in their interactions, and much as his first instincts as see them wasn’t taking out a gun, it was still a bit awkward to act as if nothing had happened.

Everyone knew that it was a process and they had to take time, so sharing some simple cases, and not killing each other’ during these were the first steps to take in the right direction.

Of course, sharing such cases meant that Jason sometimes had to put a feet int the cave to get a more detailed update or pick up something he needed for, like right now.

This time Grayson had forgotten to send him the entire update of a case that they had right now, reason why he had been forced to appear there to demand it. Although if he thought about it, maybe Dick would have done it on purpose to drive him out of his mind and see him in the cave, forcing him to go there and socialize.

Good strategy, bastard. He'll be punched later in the mission with some vigilante excuse, like "you had something on your nose" or "Batman told me to do it," Or better, he could punch him right now without hesitation, who would stop him? moral? fraternal love? Bullshit.

No matter how hard they tried, the cave was no longer his home, nor was the manor. It might sound sad, but it was so, and it didn't matter how many lies they will tell him or deals made with him to bring him back to the family, such places were no longer considered his home for a long time.

So, he started to search Grayson's stupid ass not to waste any more time. But it was then when he walked through the batcomputer and something else caught his eye.

If there were things that he knew about his replacement, other than that their relationship was still somewhat tentative and strained -but cordial-, is that the guy barely rested, and he was fucking crazy. He was smart, yes, but he sacrificed himself for simple missions to insane points, he didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat well, he worked as CEO of Wayne Enterprise by day, as a vigilante at night, he also had online classes, and his diet consisted of energetic bars, coffee and Monster in industrial quantities.

Yeah, as he said, fucking crazy. Jason didn’t know how he was still alive, even after having survived all attempts on his life, of his courtesy, of course.

So, the sight of the boy asleep above batcomputer’s keyboard wasn’t as surprising as it should be.

He was wearing Green Lantern pajamas, Wonder Woman socks -like his- and the cup he was holding while he was asleep was white with a message that said "there’s still no vaccine for stupidity." His shiny black hair was very tousled, his skin was very pale and his face had some dark circles that didn’t disappear even after sleep, he could almost hear him snoring, he was drooling on the keyboard too, and his cheek crushed against it was writing a deep and interesting report titled "fhidsgbobvhuyfdvashufso".

Jason didn't know whether to feel pity, compassion, or amusement at such a spectacle. It was a mix of all of the above.

In the end, he considered if the boy was exhausted enough to sleep under those circumstances, it was better to leave him as he was, he owed him. So, he did, turned around and left.

When he punched Dick a few minutes later and he started to yell at him, he said:

“Shh. The replacement is sleeping.”

The punch he received back was silent, but effective.

II.

Alfred's excuses for bringing him into the manor were a thousand times better than Dick's or Bruce's.

He went on, and was going to go on, never considering the place as his home again. But Alfred's tricks had something the other two pedants didn’t: Alfred's food. Whether they wanted it or not, it was a real plus and a compelling reason to put aside their grudges and deign to step on the place.

Although as much as being lured with delicious food like a wild animal was a good explanation why he was now wandering through the carpeted hallways of the Wayne Manor, he had to admit that the approaches he had been taking with the family had been having its effects, there was less tension now.

They were still assholes sometimes, but with less tension and a little more understanding or appreciation on both sides.

Of all them, the relationship that seemed to have improved the most and that was a pleasant surprise for everyone, including him, was with his replacement.

The one who he found when he entered one of the most remote rooms of the manor.

He didn't even bother saying hello, but rolled his eyes, this time with amusement.

At this moment, he had spent more time in the place, and he discovered along with the third Robin that they worked very well together, starting to take more and more team missions than they should. Another thing that he had also noticed is that Tim could fall asleep anywhere and under any circumstances, he didn't care.

It wasn’t a surprise looking at the rhythm of life he led, but Jason had found himself appreciating the fun and entertainment provided by being able to find the boy sleeping anywhere. Without realizing it, it was already something he had begun to expect every time he was there, giving him a kind of routine and a sense of normality that he didn't expect to enjoy.

This time Tim was on the sofa, his legs still on the floor but his torso lying on the padded surface of the furniture. He would bet the boy had an early conference call judging by the laptop on the table, or because his pants were the ninja turtle pajamas, but his top was the typical jacket, shirt, and tie you could attribute to the CEO, Timothy Drake-Wayne.

It was hilarious, stupid. Made Jason snort with fun and approach to look like the other slept peacefully, murmuring in his dreams and hugging one of the cushions on the sofa tightly.

This time what he felt was simple relief to see him sleep, since he would need him at his 100% for their mission tonight.

And although his first instinct was to leave again, he stopped to think for a moment, considering that he was starting to realize how difficult it was to repair interpersonal relationships, so he forced himself to try. So, he walked over, scooped up his feet as gently as he could to get him properly on the couch, grabbed one of the blankets on the end of it, and covered him, so he wouldn't catch a cold or something. He didn’t know, but since he slept for once, at least he could be more comfortable than usual.

When he finished, he tried to convince himself that the way Tim had smiled softly in dreams hadn’t affected him at all.

III.

“I'm fine…”

“Shut up.”

“But I'm fine…”

“I said shut up.”

He already knew he was fine, fuck, he didn't have to repeat it. Jason was the first to know that he was fine, who was treating the wound? Eh?

On top of that the gremlin had the audacity to raise his head and look at him in a kind of pout, like a sad puppy or something. He certainly looked like it with those huge eyes and those long eyelashes, he was regretting giving him those painkillers to ease the pain.

The red team had completely killed it this night, like all the others during the last months. Undoubtedly, discovering the good team they made had been one of the best surprises among the Gotham vigilantes, though not so much for the villains who were kicked in the ass, of course.

Precisely because of one of those villains, quite spiteful in his opinion, they were in this situation.

They hadn't expected the little ambush across the corner at the end of the night, so they were caught off guard, and they took a couple of unplanned injuries courtesy of some thugs already on the way to jail.

Jason didn't like that punch in the face, or the stab Tim had received in the shoulder. The last in concrete hadn’t liked him at all, had angered him, very much, maybe more than normal. He almost took out the real bullets again to make it clear that if anyone had the right to stab Red Robin in Gotham without any repercussions, it was him and Robin.

So no, he hadn't liked that attack on his partner. Nothing at all. He could have been angrier with the attacker but leaving the scene and treating the other was more important after knocking out that guy.

So, without wasting a minute he carried the other, fled the scene and ended up in the bathroom of one of the Red Hood safe houses treating his injuries.

Tim, the little shit without a sense of survival and self-preservation, insisted it hadn’t been that bad, it didn’t matter the desperation with which he had swallowed the painkillers and the points that he had to apply to close the wound, he was convinced that it had been a slight injury.

He will teach him what a slight injury is, the stupid shit.

Although when he finished closing and cleaning carefully the wound on his shoulder, Jason realized that he had no explanation for the annoyance and anger that he carried with him about the whole thing.

Yes, Tim was now his partner in Gotham, they were starting to be feared as a team, and maybe, maybe, out of the vigintalism work he could have realized that he likes the nerd more than he had originally imagined. After all the little bird shared his acid and sarcastic humor, caught his literary references, played more with gray and twisted morality than others thought, he was one of the most attractive men in Gotham, and he also liked chilli-dogs. So yes, Jason wasn’t a stone, it was true he was taking a certain fascination with him. One whose reach didn’t want to start thinking about, because although they don’t always come out unscathed from every patrol, Tim was right in saying that the wound he had acquired tonight wasn’t proportional to his reaction.

He didn’t want to give him the reason, Jason wanted to convince himself that the discomfort on his chest wasn’t because he was worried about him or anything like that because that would mean that he cared for Tim a lot. And he doesn't, right?

His plans for constant denial went to hell when he finished cleaning the wound, and he felt a light and soft brush on his cheek, courtesy of Tim's fingers that had startled him.

“What?” He asked, looking at him confused but agitated.

The painkillers seemed to have worked, judging by how the boy was leaning tiredly against the wall and looked sleepy, almost asleep. With those baby blue eyes cloudy and looking at his face as he tried not to close them.

He ran his fingers down his cheek to his cheekbone, touching where Jason still felt a little numb, surely where they had punched him and was beginning to have a bruise.

“You are hurt too…” He whispered, clearly falling quickly into the dream world.

“Tch. Just a punch.” He said, finishing his task and shrugging.

“But you're hurt...” The smallest frowned, almost seemed annoyed, but he had already closed his eyes completely.

“Who cares?” He teased, snorting with amusement.

There it was again, that boundless kindness Tim possessed and intrigued him so much. It had never stopped to amaze him, really. By now, Jason couldn't help but wonder how anyone could be so generous after all he’d been through, especially Tim.

He was fascinated by the way he gave everything for someone, everything. He just gave, gave, and gave, and gave without stopping, without reservation, gave all of himself and what he had with such force and intensity that it even frightened, regardless of the consequences. And even after receiving betrayals, stabbings, and disappointments in return, he was still there with a stab wound in his shoulder, lying in his bathroom, and worrying more about him and the punch in the face he had received.

It was admirable.

“Me…” Tim muttered.

Jason felt his chest sink, almost surprised.

“Yeah, sure” He said sarcastically and snorting.

As if he were to believe that. The medication had to be working a lot for him if it was making him forget that not long ago the one who was stabbing him was him. He shouldn't matter to Tim; he was the last person Tim should care about. But a part of him told him that the medication didn't matter here, Tim would keep thinking the same thing because the way he had forgiven him so easily indicated it, and Jason didn't even want to start thinking about how that made him feel.

“I care…” He whispered weakly, almost asleep. “I care about you, you're my Robin.”

He dropped that while Jason was keeping things in the medicine cabinet absently, making him froze and wondering if he had heard correctly or not. The weight and the annoying feeling that had been installed in his chest twisted, and he looked up uneasily to realize that the other had already fallen completely asleep against the wall.

He had dropped the bomb and retreated.

The thing was that maybe he wasn't even going to remember it in the morning, but surely those words, along with the tender touch of his fingers, and the way his heart jumped listening to it was something Jason wasn’t going to forget, how to do it?

He always thought he had been the least loved, least valued Robin in Gotham and the community. After all he was just the violent street boy that had to fill the shoes of the amazing and perfect Richard Grayson. He didn't do much either, he was like Robin for a short time and it was his career as Red Hood that allowed him to help Gotham from another perspective, also he died of reckless. Why would he be anyone’s favorite Robin?

Apparently, he was Tim's, if he could trust his wounded drugged words.

But it was that the moment and the place where he realized that it wasn’t worth trying to fool himself, because his chest continued to twist, but this time in a more pleasant and warm way, his discomfort was gone, and when he recognized that maybe he was a little more fascinated by the other than he realized, he felt a certain weight disappear from his shoulders.

He looked at his partner asleep, leaning on the wall in his half-worn suit and with a bandage covering his shoulder. He noticed the way he wrinkled his nose like a cat, his relaxed expression so different from when he was awake and constantly alert, his long eyelashes, and the scars that completely covered his body, narrating a life of sacrifice and danger.

With an exhausted sigh, Jason decided to pick him up off the floor with care and allowed him to sleep in his bed that night.

Before going to sleep on the couch, he smiled because the way the other had instinctively wrapped himself like a burrito in his blankets definitely was adorable.

IV.

They didn’t even watch half of the movie when Jason felt a weight light fall on his shoulder.

The Jason Todd from a year ago, would have simply bothered, overwhelmed, and pulled away, perhaps pushed the other. Now he just smiled, almost touched, and settled better on the couch so that the body of the other wasn’t seen in a bad posture after a while.

Tim had finished his last assignments that afternoon, concluding his semester. Apparently, the Wayne Enterprise board looked like to have behaved well this time too, so when the meeting ended, the current CEO sent Jason a text to plan a movie marathon to honor the occasion.

Of course, not was the first time they did something like this, Jason was more than sure what was going to happen. So, he didn’t flinch when Tim fell asleep against him.

Seriously, it was ridiculous.

If someone had told him long ago that he would end up having marathons of the Lord of the Rings with the boy whose blood he tried to write on the walls, maybe he would have shot them. However, against everything, he had found himself enjoying and longing those nights.

There were always quiet nights, when the patrol had ended, or they needed to hide from the world together. They weren’t aware at what point they managed to find so much comfort in each other's company, but surely between healed wounds -like that stab in his bathroom- and completed missions, they must have realized that not only did they get along, but they liked, complemented, and helped each other in more ways than one.

As ironic as it sounded, Tim and his boundless goodness got kept the Lazarus Pit's anger at bay. Not in an exaggerated way, since its effects kept inside him and it was clear that they were not going to disappear, of course it was something he would have to live with now. But Tim, so smart, kind, and perceptive as he was, had learned to read the signs, to interpret them. Soon as he started to get along with him, he could sense when anger appeared, he had learned not to stoke it, not to push it, and give him space when he needs it.

He hadn't said it, of course, because he was a little self-sacrificing shit that did those kinds of things without wanting recognition or anything in return, but Jason had noticed it and inadvertently began to return the same care and caution with which the other surrounded him on his bad days. Without realizing it, he saw himself cooking so that he didn't only eat energy drinks, he canceled some of their joint patrols too when he noticed that Tim wasn’t particularly in the mood, and sent him to sleep when he was too tired. And when he didn't want to, he would play a movie and within a few minutes he was snoring.

Like now, for example.

Jason looked aside and the tender smile he had kept until then grew. No doubt Tim had shown up at his door with popcorn, drinks, and was ready to spend the night awake with laughter and his favorite movies, he had to give him that credit. But knowing him, he had slept rather little to be able to finish all his assignments on time, so the moment he was wrapped in a blanket, comfortable, warm, with the lights off and the television in the background, it was impossible for him not to fall asleep.

Now, he was completely leaning on Jason, lying there placidly while breathing slowly and not even worried by his surroundings, with his guard completely down. As if falling asleep on top of the Red Hood was nothing special.

Jason felt that amusement turn into affection, devotion, even pride as he realized how safe he had to feel around him, so he could sleep like this without reservations. The boy was ridiculous, but he was even more ridiculous for being at his mercy without resistance. Because being so close he could smell the citrus scent of his hair due to his shampoo, as well as feel his small body completely leaning against his. He couldn't see his face, but in these cases, he didn't know if it was better that way.

While the comfort and trust between each other had increased, it was obvious it was because his relationship was now... Well… He wasn't sure what it was. Indefinite, if he had put a name on it somehow.

They flirted, joked, were close, had dates (or something like that) and saw each other when they could.

They hadn't talked about it, but Jason wasn't dumb, and Tim wasn't either, he knew they were both aware of the change of attitude, but they didn't mention it. It isn’t as if they were doing nothing about it, on the contrary, rather he felt that they were letting it develop on its own, to follow its natural course.

Eventually they would speak about it, because at the rate they were going to, they would have no choice.

For the moment, Jason settled on the sofa wrapping the blanket that covered them, put his arm around the little one's shoulders to keep him by his side and after thinking about it for a few seconds, he kissed his hair while he was squeezing it a little and inhaled his scent. Then he looked again at the TV.

When he fell asleep, he felt that this was something he could call home.

When Jason returned from patrol, he didn't even bother turning on the lights.

He entered to the room through the window, like a good with serious problems to remember that doors existed for something, and he started to remove his armor immediately, snorting and boiling of frustration in silent.

The night had been disgusting. Not because something serious had happened, if not because it had been the typical patrol in which he had only encountered pseudo villains who thought they could aspire to something more, and people believing they were dangerous when they were actually rookies with guns trying to rob an unfortunate gas station. He had also had to cover part of Cass's territory in Chinatown, which coincidentally had been the best of the night, because a kind lady gave him coupons and discounts for her restaurant after helping her with the little mob that was trying to intimidate her.

Tim would very much like to take advantage of these discounts this weekend, so with the coupons in hand, the hassle, and boredom, the desire to return home were more powerful than ever, and he headed there in a hurry.

When he took off his armor and looked comfortable enough to go to sleep, he went to bed to find what he wanted so badly to see: The Tim-burrito.

He had convinced his boyfriend to take the night free after an especially busy project in WE, one that had kept him two days awake and working nonstop. When he suggested a break, his little bird had no will to refuse to rest, so finding him in their shared bed sleeping and almost drowned between the oversized blankets, was a complete victory.

He couldn't even see him correctly, because all that was in sight was his soft black hair, tousled and poking out between the sheets, but it was enough for Jason to smile tiredly and lie down next to him carefully.

Settling properly next to him so as not to disturb his sleep or undo his nest, Jason sighed and felt the discomfort he had felt all night slowly disappear as he was near him. It had taken some time, many attempts at emotional conversations, and certainly tentative steps to get to the point where they were not, but without doubt he couldn’t regret it when he now had his warm presence at his side, being able to listen to his soft breathing and the way he murmured in dreams sometimes, seeing his face with that expression serene that he adored so much, and above all, being right at his fingertips.

If Tim didn't want him to hug him while he slept, then he shouldn’t be that adorable in the first place. Because Jason loved holding him in his arms, he liked feel how his smaller body fit perfectly against his, loved to squeeze him and listen to those small and sharp whining of his, or kiss his head, hear his laugh, smell his hair, feel how he smiled on his skin.

He loved his babybird and his strange sleeping habits, or nesting, or stealing shirts, he liked too how little by little he looked willing to take care of himself a little more, to value himself just like he deserved. So, nobody could blame him if he got close in the mattress and tried to cover that Tim-burrito with his arm.

He was on his side and his face half covered, Jason was convinced he was completely asleep, but when he put his arm over his covered waist to bring him a little closer, he heard a snort and a weak moan from him.

Slowly and wearily, Tim opened those blue eyes a bit to scowl at him and churning in his cocoon of blankets. Jason smiled sadly but at the same time moved by this.

“Sorry Babybird, I didn’t want to wake you up.” He whispered, raising his hand to stroke his hair fondly. “Go back to sleep.”

The smallest sighed and closed his eyes numb with the caresses, but before fall asleep again, shook his head and shifted, pulling the covers away from him to get closer to Jason with an intelligible grow. Jason snorted amused and allowed it, hugging him tighter this time while he settled on his chest and intertwined his legs. When Tim was finally comfortable enough, he raised his face and leaned down to kiss him despite being half asleep, and because of that he ended up kissing his chin instead, but Jason soon kissed his lips slightly while laughing.

“Welcome home.” Tim murmured as they parted, each word tinged with love and adoration, hiding then his face in his neck to keep sleeping.

And there, with the other clinging to him and his heart about to explode from everything he felt for that man, Jason realized that it was true, he was at home.

Extra:

When Tim returned from the office, he noticed that everything was silenter than normal.

He knew Jason was home, today was his day off, and he had texted him asking what he wanted for dinner. But unlike most times than that happened, the kitchen was empty when normally there was Jay muttering and singing under his breath while cooking, so Tim soon started to look for him around the apartment.

When he found the other, he relaxed and sighed with relief, smiling at the sight.

Jay had fallen asleep reading on the sofa, head down, leaning to one side with the loose book in his hands. The last few days he had been involved in difficult cases that required too much vigilance until late, so it wasn’t surprising that he was so tired.

Without much thought, Tim dropped his briefcase from work, undid his tie, and approached him to pick up the book that lay forgotten on his lap, a collector's edition that he gave Jason for their anniversary and had made the tallest smile at him with intensity.

Leaving the book on the table, he looked at his boyfriend tenderly, and he settled him on the sofa as best he could so that he didn't hurt his neck, then covered him with a blanket and kissed his cheek, then his temple.

“I’m home.” He said, happier than he ever imagined.

#myfic #jaytimweek #jaytimweek2020 #jaytim #timjay #dc #dc comics #batman #tim drake #jason todd #red robin #red hood #fluff #free day

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