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redhawtriot · 4 years

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Baby Boom (Bakugou x Reader)

Tip Jar ☕- Not expected but always appreciated💞

I felt as though since this story had such a specific narrative (especially delving into the harsh world of modeling and the effects of discrimination) that it would reach out to a very specific niche of reader.

I was actually astonished by loud support this fic has obtained so for, so thank you so much! I cannot stress enough how much that means to me.

HnM 💕

Tag-list: @steggy4ever @library-trash @watevermelon @glimmadora-ble @persephones24 @dragonempress123 @your-pri-ncess @broken-from-fandoms @hot-pocket01 @tsukineho

Month 1, Month 3

--Month 2--

No.

You looked at the stick of plastic in your hand with wide eyes as your mouth stuttered into a slack jaw—your breaths hardly making their way in and out of your lungs evenly.

You squeezed your eyes shut so hard that you saw white spots underneath your lids before you snapped them back open again, internally praying that you would wake up form whatever nightmare you were having.

However, you couldn’t blink away the big, fat smiley face that stared back up at you from the piece of purple and white plastic that sealed your fate.

No. No. No!

The sudden urge to puke came back with a vengeance and you threw yourself to the toilet, slamming your knees to the ground in the process. As your stomach lurched up into your chest, you couldn’t tell whether the tears forming in your eyes were from the harshness of the motion or something else entirely.

“Gah!” you loudly choked out as you pulled away from the mess in the toilet.

Once the nausea became slightly less debilitating you leaned back against your bathtub, throwing your head up as you groaned to the ceiling, “No, no, no, nooo…” you softly sobbed. You tried your best to keep from bawling so you didn’t find yourself with your head back in the bowl, but you couldn’t help the stream of hot tears that spilled from your eyes as you stared at the vent in the ceiling.

How could this happen? How could you be… pr...

A sudden stirring in your gut made you swallow hard as you tried to keep your stomach out of your throat.

Don’t be an idiot, Y/N. You took sex education in high school. You put the condom on the banana and were scolded with constant threats of STDs and the fires of Hell like everybody else. So yeah. You know how it happened.

You sighed as you thought back to all the guys you had slept with recently-- which was luckily not too many within the past few months, and only one since your last period.

Fuck, you didn’t even remember what the damn fathe-- guy looked like.

Well, excluding his rippling muscles.

You threw your head into your hands as the uncanny image of a body builder newborn infiltrated your mind. Well, that didn’t fucking help at all. Grabbing your hair tightly as you stared at the tile between your legs, you cursed yourself, “You dumbass! How could you be so goddamn stupid!? Stupid, stupid, stupid!” you repeatedly knocked against your skull.

You reached into the recesses of your memory for any information you might have about the guy. Where was his apartment again...? On the other side of town somewhere right… Near Club 52? God, you didn’t even fucking know! and what did it matter anyway, huh? What were you gonna do? Storm up to his place, pregnancy tests a-blazin’, and tell the complete stranger that you were carrying his kid?!

With a weak and tired moan, you lifted yourself off of your bathroom floor and went to the sink to rinse your bile infested mouth out and wash the salty tears off of your cheeks.

But not before you got a good look at yourself in the mirror.

Swollen eyes.

Red nose.

Drying, teary snot pooling on the rim of your upper lip.

“You look like shit,” you harshly reprimanded yourself before turning the sink on and sticking your face into the cool water. Your hands blindly reached around your counter until you finally grabbed a nearby hand towel to bring to your face. As you patted your cheeks dry, your eyes wandered to the counter where three other positive pregnancy tests that you had taken earlier that morning resided.

The trio all sported a similar smug smile as they looked up to you as if to say ‘we told you so.’

The little shits.

“Shut up.” You quickly grabbed all four tests and with a hint of bitterness chucked them into a nearby trash bin before making your way to your bedroom across the hall.

Plopping down onto your screeching mattress, you took your phone out:

Boss Lady

[2:50 pm]

Hey, brat. I hope you’re doing better.

Don’t forget that we have that runway fitting next week. And the test shots. And the international scouting event.

Think. Thin.

No carbs. No red meats.

NO ALCOHOL!!!

Fucking no alcohol for nine whole months. You attempted to scoff at this, but what came out could have probably been mistaken for the last sounds of a dying animal.

Kimi:

[3:31 pm]

Hope you made it home safe last night!

As you read this text, a piece of you wished that maybe you hadn't made it home safe last night... Your brain briefly wandered into the dark territories of ‘what if’s’ as you imagined falling in front of the train at the subway, walking past a drug deal gone wrong, hell-- drowning on the water you took with your Pepto Bismol. You quickly brushed these thoughts away as you continued looking through your phone,

Boss Lady

[4:45 pm]

Oh, also Deku just asked for a meeting with you personally.

You’re going of course. Glad you got his attention. Good girl.

Tomorrow. 5:00pm. El Vino’s downtown. (EAT LIGHTLY!)

Inches! Inches! Inches!

You slammed your phone down onto your mattress as you loudly sighed.

Inches. Your entire livelihood depended on your damn inches and now there was no way you could maintain the “golden ratio.” The thought made your blood churn.

Modeling… was all that you had. You didn’t have any other fucking talents—no quirk to depend on-- so when would your growing stomach steal your life away?

When do people even start ‘showing’?

You haven’t come across many pregnant women, but all of the ones you have seen either looked like normal people or like freaking beach balls. For some reason your brain couldn’t conjure an intermediate.

Did they just blow up out of nowhere? If so, then when? How long could you pull a ruse off before your growing organ snitched on you? 5 months? 6 months? Next fucking week?

You realized then that you knew next to jack squat about pregnancy.

Or damn kids for that matter.

Okay so... abortion? For some reason, even just the thought of that word made an icky taste surge in your mouth—or maybe it was the leftover vomit, who knows?

To be honest, you had never really thought much on abortion before—it was one of the many topics filed into your brain under ‘that does not and will not pertain to me, so why the fuck should I care?’ Filtered out and forgotten, your feelings on abortion had yet to be developed.

Until now.

After a few beats, you opened your phone back up and began to dial Kimi, fearing that you might soon explode with the brunt of knowledge that weighed heavily upon your shoulders.

You paused.

Had you ever actually talked to her about anything that wasn’t exclusively work related? In the past two years of knowing her, have you ever actually learned anything about her, and she about you? Very suddenly, you were slapped in the face by a crude fact: Kimi was just a work-friend.

That was fucking fine and dandy up until now. You pretty much either worked, or drank, or showed up to work drunk. But now…

Shit.

Who the hell else could you call? You barely had any friends, and you hadn’t talked to your family in what felt like ages. Who was there for situations like this? If half of your life was working, and half of your life was drinking, and your work friends were a no go… what about your drinking friends? Your mind briefly fled to the stashes of your best buddies-- vodka and tequila-- that you kept in your kitchen.

But not even they could save you now.

Fuck you really were alone.

That night, you found yourself constantly flipping your pillow to find a new dry spot to assault with fresh tears. You hadn’t cried so much since you were a kid. Wait-- come to think of it, you couldn’t even remember the last time you had cried at all.

So, was it hormones? Pregnancy hormones?

The surreal thought made your tears fly down your face even more furiously.

The next evening there was practically no trace or evidence of your mental breakdown from the night before as you strolled up to El Vino’s. It was honestly kind of frightening how quickly you had managed to pull yourself together before this little meeting—but mostly, it was empowering.

Okay, Y/N. You fucking got this. Hormones or not, you were still a baddie to your very core.

Deku was easy enough to spot in the little Mediterranean themed restaurant—with the green-ass hair and all. You strolled up to the table with the warmest smile that you could muster, “Mr. Deku,” you quickly approached his table and gave a slight bow.

“H-Hey!” You seemed to startle him with your sudden appearance. He jumped a bit in his seat and awkwardly shifted as you made your way to your own chair. His face was a bit red as you maintained your eyes on his shying expression.

“Look, before you say anything. I just want to say sorry,” his shocked eyes suddenly snapped back up to yours as you continued, “I had no idea that the event was yours and I probably ruined the rest of the night for you. If you want me off the brand deal, then I completely understand, just... don’t blame Ainu’s agency.”

His mouth fumbled over itself for a moment, causing you to quirk an unsure eyebrow before he could finally speak up, “No t-that’s not what I am here for at all, Miss L/N.”

“Call me Y/N. please,” your smirk was a little less sure than usual and you prayed that he couldn’t detect how off he had thrown you. This was going much different than you had expected it to. For one, he wasn’t trying to ‘put you in your place for disrespecting him’ or bargain sex ‘as an apology’ like most power hungry men in his position would.

“Okay, M-miss Y/N,” the blush that adorned his cheeks confused you even further and you felt the space between your eyebrows involuntarily tighten. That was another thing… He didn’t seem like a typical man in a position of power. He was… soft... you didn’t know how else to explain it other than unusual for a man of his size and stature.

“I actually wanted to apologize to you,” he spoke up once more and you were completely lost by then. You could only blink as he continued to speak, “You really got me thinking about things the other night-- you were totally right. The brand of my sneakers did lose its true meaning. I really meant to have it be a symbol for kids growing up without a quirk to enjoy—to give them hope, but it turned into more of an endorsement to myself. The whole thing. It was wrong. That’s why I have decided to give 100% of my personal Red Sneakers profits to establishing my Quirkless Youth Initiative,”

You looked around for any hidden cameras—any hidden agenda behind his motives before looking back to him with a stiff expression. You had to physically keep your face from scrunching, “And just how are you going to make a living out of a mindset like that?” you dared to call his bluff.

“It’s just gonna have to work. It’s what my mentor would have done—given 100%. Beyond actually.”

Holy shit. This man was being serious. ‘100% and beyond’ serious, to be exact. Your face scrunched up once more, “Why do you care so much anyway?” you cut back on your tone as you noticed his eyes widen a bit at your accusatory voice, “Not to be rude, but… what’s a strong hero like you doing caring about us quirkless?”

He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment or two. Contemplating on whether or not he was going to lie, you noticed, “I… I… didn’t have a quirk until much later in life. I was 14. Growing up, I always wanted to be a hero, and I just wish that I had someone back then believe in me. I want to be the one that tells kid’s—with a smile-- that they can do it. That they have at least one person who believes in them.”

His name-- Deku-- it meant worthless. The puzzle pieces were finally coming together and things began to make sense. It was a name that either himself or others used to describe him when he was growing up probably, and the man had taken it and spun it around to make it his own. Even you had to admit--

“That’s pretty damn impressive,” you couldn’t help the curl that tugged into the corners of your lips as Deku bashfully looked away from you,

“It’s nothing, really!” he tried to deflect. You gave a small laugh before smoothly bringing up the glass of wine in front of you to your lips. As soon as the liquid rushed in your mouth, your eyes flew wide open with realization,

Shit! What the fuck were you doing?

You immediately spit the alcohol back into your cup and snapped your eyes back to Deku who had, thankfully, been too caught up in his own embarrassment to be paying attention to you. You gave a sigh of relief and sat the wine glass as far away from you as inconspicuously possible.

“So,” you leaned into the table a bit to get his eyes back on you, “Tell me about this Quirkless Youth Initiative,” you smiled.

From that point on, you and Deku actually found talking to each other relatively easy—okay, extremely easy. In fact, you stayed past the point of dinner and ended up talking at your table hours after the bill had been paid.

You talked about everything and nothing altogether and didn’t know just when to end the conversation. You lowered your borders for some reason. Well-- you knew the reason. It was because you had been dying to talk to someone since you found out that you were the ‘p-word.’

He ended up walking you home. Past that, for the next two weeks you guys pretty much saw each other every other day or two and talked fairly regularly. Things became habitual.

In fact.

As you stood in the beaming light of the wardrobe, getting your makeup done, you found yourself stealing little glances here and there to your phone to text with your new friend, Deku. Every buzz of your phone left you with a giddy sense of excitement.

One of the models sharing the gigantic mirror with you quickly took notice of your demeanor, “What are you smiling at, Y/N?”

“She’s texting someone,” another spoke up as your friend/babysitter, Kimi strolled up next to you,

“What?! Y/N L/N texting someone back? Have we entered the Twilight Zone??” she joked. You only responded with poking your tongue out at her before your phone buzzed again,

Deku:

[1:00 pm]

Good Luck on your runway thing today!

You:

More like run away thing🏃‍♀️💨

Deku:

I could help? Bring comfort snacks?

You:

Most of us haven’t eaten a full meal in days BB

You would literally be stampeded by women

Wait that sounded too good🤔

You will literally be stampeded by hungry women***

Deku:

You haven’t been eating?!

Since when?!

You:

That’s not what I said.

Just pre-show prep to keep the waists snatched and the legends skinny💁‍♀️

Deku:

Sorry I don’t know how your job really works.

I’ll come over again tonight after your show and bring dinner!

If that’s okay. Sorry didn’t mean to sound pushy.

“Didn’t you hear? Her and Deku really hit it off on their date,” Your attention was instantly snapped away from your phone screen.

You gave an ugly snort, “It wasn’t a date.” And you certainly weren’t lying. The friendly atmosphere between you and Izuku felt comfortable as best—nothing intimate about it.

You wouldn't have it any other way. It felt as though he was placed in your life to perfectly fill the holes in your boat just before you started sinking.

“Girl your phone is blowing up!” a co-worker exclaimed, loudly.

Kimi laughed as she pinched your cheeks, “Look at that smile on her face”

All of the commotion gathered the attention of Boss Lady, who was currently storming up to you with the ‘phone box’ (or phone cemetery as some of you liked to call it) in her hand. She liked to have this on her especially in big events like runways or show casings because some of the girls—you were guilty as charged—spent quite a bit of time on their phones behind the scenes, “Phone. Bin. Now.”

Usually, you would put up some type of argument or give a quick-witted remark, but this time around you only rushed to send one final text in before you threw your cellphone into the crate.

You:

[1:33pm]

I should get off at like 11 see you then broccoli boy🥦🤪

Kimi looked terrified as though she was the one who had just incurred Ainu’s wrath, “Still smiling, huh...?”

You hadn’t even notice that you had been.

Talking to Deku really did make you happy when you needed it. Just like he spun ‘deku’ around and made it make sense, he had spun your life around and did the same. He made you feel like life was normal—whatever the hell that was. You’d never really been classified as normal anyway, but you had some impression that this resembled what it must feel like.

For a fleeting moment you think that maybe you should just sleep with Deku and pass this pregnancy off as his since you had yet to tell him-- or anyone-- about it.

But the better half of you instantly slaps this thought out through your ears.

Hello? Welcome to psycho bitch incorporated. Seriously. What the fuck was wrong with you?

Damn, you had been separated from your phone (and Deku) for exactly 23 seconds and you were already outta your cot-damn mind. You get one friend and suddenly you don’t know how to act.

You needed to somehow find “blond muscle man” and let him know what was up. Fuck, how were you supposed to do that when you didn’t even know his name?

The runway that night went pretty much how every single other runway went, except this time-- you opted not to attend any of the after parties. Instead, you went home and had Deku over, who delivered on his promise with sushi.

You could smell the sushi as soon as he walked through the door and your mouth instantly watered. He really was god sent.

The two of you settled quickly in your apartment, deciding to risk it all and eat on your living room couch to watch TV; however, you quickly noticed that the TV wasn’t the only thing that Izuku was watching. As soon as you turned to raise an eyebrow on him he feebly attempted to avert his gaze, but you caught him anyways, “What? You better stop sizing me up unless you wanna fight, Deku,” you sang as you popped another sushi roll into your mouth.

“W-what sizing you up?!”

You cackled at the sudden redness of his face, “I’m just joking. We both know I’d probably kick your ass!”

“You think so?” he actually sounded a bit nervous in his tone, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Oh, I know so,” you shrugged with a growing smirk, “Anyway. What are you staring so hard at me for?”

The air became very still around the two of you as he looked down to think. This was something that became pretty expectant of him these past few week-- a funny little habit.

“It’s just… we’ve been hanging out a lot the past few weeks and I never really noticed it—your… dieting,” he seemed to fall into that last word a bit as if it wasn’t exactly the word that he had wanted to use.

You knew that he meant to say ‘starving yourself’ but was too reserved for that level of bluntness. That was okay with you. You weren't particularly ready to open that can of worms, “Damn, and here I was thinkin’ I was looking pretty damn good,” you joked as the both of you began cleaning up your food mess.

“No. That’s not what I meant I—”

“Joking! I’m just joking with you, Big D,” you found yourself using this nickname for him whenever you wanted to see his face fall into it’s deepest shades of red. It worked every single time,

“I have just been at this for a long time—modeling for Ainu’s agency. Since I was 15 actually,” you shook your head a little at the surge of nostalgia that wanted to bubble up your back. You clutched a nearby pillow and hugged it to your chest, “She scouted me at a mall food court. She changed my entire life—for the better of course. She is practically my mom... I owe her a lot,” you found yourself giving into the nostalgia a bit-- a small, fond smile tugging at your lips. You looked up after a few beats of silence filled the air and was met with Deku’s admiring stare, “What? You nerd!” you exclaimed with a giggle, chucking the pillow at him.

“It’s nothing. I just like hearing about you. I feel like I have been doing a lot of talking about me since we have been hanging out.”

Yeah, he was a Cancer zodiac for sure. You pretty much knew his entire life’s story after only the first week of knowing him, “Are you kidding me?! Your life is straight out of a comic book, BB! I love hearing about it!” You began talking to him from out of the kitchen as you put your leftovers in the fridge,

“You went up against the League of Villains, the Vanguard Action Front and The Paranormal Liberation Front as a freshman?? You powered up from a quirkless crybaby! (Hey!) to an amazing, uprising, super considerate, overpowered crybaby on his way to number one! Your U.A. friends all seem like comic book characters, too. I love them already from what you tell me,” you closed the fridge, revealing his shocked expression.

“Really?” You nodded, igniting a spark in his eyes, “Well, I am actually having a little get together at my place for my friends if you wanna stop by.”

“Yeah sure. As long as my favorite character, Kaminari, is there,” Izuku seemed shocked and slightly offended by your choice in favorite, so you clarified, “He sounded really cool and all with his ‘chatty zappy’ thing going on,” you suddenly rolled your eyes as a bad taste emerged in your mouth, “Kacchan sounds like a little bitch baby though, no offense.”

“Y/N!”

“What?! Kacchan can ‘Kach’ these ‘hans’! Oh come on. Not even a pity laugh? A little one?” You apparently thought you were a lot funnier than Izuku did.

“I think the two of you might actually get along. You’re very similar now that I think about it,” he trailed off on his last part, seemingly talking to himself as he grabbed his chin.

You almost felt offended by his comparison, “Fuck that. Oppisites attract, Similars repel. Besides. Why would I wanna be friends with a little bitch baby that bullies and pisses on quirkless people?”

“Well, when you meet him next week you might like him…”

You clicked your tongue, “So now I am obligated to come, huh?” you smirked.

“N-no well that’s not what I meant but I would appreciate if you—”

You were only half paying attention to his freak out as the abrupt craving for orange juice infiltrated your mind and placed itself on the forefront of your thoughts, “Deku. I am joking!” you absentmindedly reminded him as you scoured your pantries for a wine glass. You had taken to drinking out of these instead of regular cups to at least maintain a semblance of your old self.

Izuku’s eyes widened at the sight of your collection of wines and alcohols in one of your cupboards. You smirked at him-- throwing him look that said ‘you ain’t seen nothin yet’ as you opened your freezer to reveal the insane hoard of alcohol you had stored.

His jaw practically dropped to the floor at the sight, “Holy woah, you have an entire liquor store in here!”

“Saving for a rainy day,” you almost immediately realized the error of your words as Izuku motions to one of the windows near you. The two of you sat in a beat of silence as the pitter-patter of rainfall splattered against the glass pane.

“It’s raining today,” he grinned excitedly.

“No... I cant,” the way that the words fell out sounded about as convincing as a disguise with groucho glasses. You could really go for a drink right about now.

He looked to you a bit sadly, if not disappointed, “Y/N if this is about your diet… I am just saying, I don’t think one day will hurt too much.”

“No, I really shouldn't.” Understatement of the century.

Izuku grabbed two glasses out of your cupboard with a soft smile gracing his features, “We’ll pour you just a little bit in case you change your mind—”

Maybe one glass wouldn't hurt... No. NO! God, you knew he meant well, but he is really fucking making this hard for you!! “I cant, I’m pregnant!!” you suddenly yelled. He immediately froze,

“Wha...?”

“I’m pregnant...”

“Oh... Uhhh congratulations,” the most unconvincing thing to have ever come out of his mouth probably, “Who…”

“I don’t know,” the look of utter horror on his face had you instantly backtracking your answer, “Well—let me rephrase that. I do know who it is, but I don’t know his name. It was a umm.. ‘Wam. Bam. Thank you ma’am’ type deal.” Your face began burning as hot blood rushed into your cheeks. You literally couldn't have phrased that worse if you tried. What the hell was wrong with you?

“You don’t look pregnant...” the horror on his face now registered into your mind as pure shock.

“I sure as hell would hope not. I am like a month-ish along—I think.”

“You haven’t been to the doctor?”

“Uhh no...” He was right, you didn't even look pregnant. There was no way in hell that you needed to go to the doctor yet. Right?

“W-wait! Y/N the night we met! You were drinking alcohol!”

“So? I am probably only like a few weeks pregnant and I drank like two glasses. I am sure it didn’t do anything…?”

“Are you really sure? How can you know!? You have to go see a doctor!” he looked terrified. It was as if he suddenly was the embodiment every stressed emotion that you had been shoving away from you these past few weeks and the sight scared you.

“You’re freaking me out, Deku.”

He instantly froze, “S-sorry,” he looked down to his shoes. Maybe you just might let him pour those drinks after all. He looked like he could use both of them right about now...

The next week dragged on for what felt like eons, as Izuku seemed to cautiously dance around the topic of your “preexisting condition.” It was quite obvious that every time the topic came up, a cloud of discomfort would come and sit on his shoulders; however, the man still made it a point to urge the fact that you needed to set up a doctor’s appointment.

Eventually, you caved in and scheduled for one at a local clinic, but they couldn't get you in for a few weeks anyway-- the joint was at maximum capacity, you guessed? Apparently, there were more pregnant bitches waddling around than you thought.

Still, Deku urged you to read up and research some things prior to your appointment so that you could ask the doctor any questions that might pop up. It seemed like he was almost way too into this-- taking notes in a composition notepad that he dubbed “Baby Notes Vol 1″ and even mentioning coming along with you to your clinic visit.

It made things extremely real.

Your little safe space with Deku had effectively been conquered and subjugated by the little parasite that took residence in your body. You shook your shoulders with a sigh as you neared Deku’s door for the party.

*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK*

When the door opened you couldn't help the way that your eyebrows flew up in surprise at the sight of a woman opening the door. Uhh... did you go to the wrong house?

The brown haired girl in front of you looked just as surprised as you-- if not even more so.

Okay, you definitely went to the wrong house.

The sudden sound of Izuku’s voice coming deep from withing the apartment led you to breath easy. You deflated a little bit as you relaxed. You wouldn't have to make a mad dash in a lagged game of ‘ding dong ditch’ after all, “Y/N L/N. Nice to meet you.”

A series of emotions flashed across her expression at your greeting: shocked, nervous, then... disappointed? “Y/N! I’ve heard... so so much about you!” the smile that stretched across her lips seemed almost painful, “I’m Ochako Uraraka! I... love your hair!” she threw out the last part like a rabbit would throw steak to wolves.

“Thank’s...” you felt fucking awkward and she still hasn’t let you into the apartment, “I’ll make sure to thank the stylist and the bottle of dye she used.”

“That’s not your real hair color? It looks so healthy though!” she seemed heartbroken as she used a pitying tone and you could gauge that the pity was not for yourself.

“Nah. My agency pretty much determines what hairstyles I wear...” You made eye contact with Deku inside of the house as he made his way to the door... Thank god! you were saved from that terribly awkward interaction.

“Agency? Hero agency?”

“Modeling, actually. I’m not that badass,” you smirked before walking into the party.

Her figure deflated as if to say, ‘of fucking course’, “Oh. That’s cool!” You didn’t see much of Uraraka after that

Meanwhile, Bakugou was just a tick away from being angry enough to kill. His roommates had all three convinced him to go to this get together over Deku’s house and they weren't even going to be there on time!

He had honestly never been to a party with these losers without at least Shitty Hair being with him, so he wasn’t exactly sure how it would pan out and that really bothered him. He wasn’t exactly social at these events, but at least the three stooges kept him somewhat entertained (he would never admit this aloud).

What could those other losers possible do to entertain him?

“Whyyyyyyy?” he heard crying as he neared Deku’s home. His face scrunched in on itself even further than usual as he approached the whining noise. He scoffed at the inebriated mess in front of him,

“What the hell are you doing, round face?”

Uraraka, who was leaning against the edge of Izuku’s front patio looked up, causing Bakugou to deeply grimace at the germy snot that trailed down her red face, “Deku’s new girlfriend sure is cool. He deserves someone like her, right? She’s perfect!” Bakugou couldn't help the way that his face shriveled into itself in disgust.

It wasn't too late. He could still turn around and go the fuck home and no one would even know he was here. Well, save for bubble cheeks here, but she probably wouldn't even remember to be honest.

But as soon as Bakugou turned back around to make his escape Uraraka spoke up again, “She’s a model. They met at the Red Sneakers Event apparently,” Of course this piqued the man’s interest. There were only a few models branding the event and he just so happened to be searching for one of them. Uraraka continued with her drooling of words as Bakugou brushed past her and made his way into the house-- not bothering to knock,

“You know I am the one who gave him that idea in the first place? It’s kinda like. I set him up with his future wife!” she drunkenly cried to no one in particular as Bakugou stormed away.

He passed Iida on his way in, “Go get round face and shut her drunk ass up-- she’s outside,” he didn't bother on stopping to further explain before walking back to the commotion of the party.

As soon as he entered the packed room, his eyes landed on you. It was like the Red Sneakers Event all over again. You were simply glowing-- hard to miss-- especially with the crowd of his old classmates hovering around you like some damn flies on shit-- especially Deku. He was way too close to you-- the rat bastard.

“Oooh! You’ve been to Milan! That’s so cool, girl! So you must get to sight-see like a lot!”

The way that your shoulders leaned and swayed as you talked sent flutters into Bakugou’s heart. Fucking gross. He watched you speak very intently-- searching for the magic you had used to bewitch him, “Actually I was working a lot when I was there, so I really only got to see the sets and runways,” you made fleeting eye contact with him from across the room, furrowing your eye brows a bit at his stare before breaking the gaze.

“Do you get to keep the outfits after the shoots?!”

“Pfft. Hell no! This loser still hasn’t sent me a pair of his red shoes. What happened to helping the quirkless, huh, broccoli boi?” The most primal urge of jealousy that Bakugou had ever felt sprinted through his body as you leaned over to playfully tap that shitty Deku in the arm. The feeling was so intense that he hadn’t even registered what you had said fully.

“You’re quirkless?” Racoon Eyes inquired, snapping Bakugou out of his feral trance. His face fell a bit as he dutifully awaited your answer.

“Yeah. It’s whatever,” you shrugged.

“The competition must be so difficult!” Momo spoke up as she placed and apologetic hand to her chest. The gesture made you tense up a bit, but you reminded yourself that she probably didn't mean it in a belittling way as she continued, “I’ve been to a few magazine shoots myself and it is always girls with flashy quirks who end up in front and center!”

“Well, I compete well, I guess,” you knew that hero hero modeling and your fashion modelling were two completely different worlds. Designers saw you guys mostly as clothing racks and mannequins for their clothes, so usually they wanted their models to be as mundane as possible-- not to distract from their fabric art. So basically the perfect job for someone like you, “it’s no big deal. I get by like everybody else.”

“You just live your life like normal!”

“Awhhhh. Y/N. You’re an inspiration!”

Suddenly you felt extremely tired. You couldn't find the energy within yourself to filter out and soften your next response, “Glad I could inspire you just by breathing I guess.” you gave the girls a slight smile as you shrugged, but the undertone of your comment had not gone unnoticed-- especially by Bakugou who found himself stifling a proud smirk.

You once again made eye contact with him in this moment-- this time not daring to backtrack your gaze until he did-- a warning sign to back he hell off with that staring shit.

As the night progressed you found yourself becoming more and more tired. The debilitating sense of sudden fatigue actually felt like it had taken over even your bones at this point as the aching structures weighed heavily inside of you skin. You decided after about an hour that you were gonna make an early trip back home.

“What, why!?” Deku scanned your face nervously-- he thought you had been having fun!

“Just really damn tired suddenly.”

“Oh...” he trailed off, but suddenly realized the hidden context of your words. Baby Notes vol 1 page 4 section 3: ‘prenatal fatigue’, “Ohhhhh okay! Right! Well Let me call you a taxi or something.”

“Nahh, I’ll walk,” you waved him off as you made your journey toward small crowds of his friends-- waving them goodbye. Deku followed you in your path around his house,

“W-what? You can’t be serious! You shouldn’t do that!”

You turned around and threw your hand on his shoulder, causing him to instantly freeze up, “I’ll be fine,” you smirked throwing your hand up to his cheek to gently pat his face. Of course, he was left a shivering, blushing mess. It was a low blow, but, hey, it gave you a good opportunity to escape.

You felt a wave of relief as soon as you made it a few steps outside of the apartment. You released a heavy sigh as you continued walking away.

Finally. You internally planned the rest of the night in your head: orange juice, Netflix and sleeeep. You could finally just let yourself relax and--

“HEY!” you jumped out of your skin a little at the sudden loud shout. You whipped around to see that blond spikey-haired dude from Deku’s house attempting to close in on you.

You rolled your eyes as he neared. Hardly throwing him a glance as he approached you to walk a little behind you, “God. You’re the weirdo that was staring at me all night,” you groaned, hoping he would catch your drift.

“We need to talk!”

One of you eyebrows instantly quirked up as your lips curled into a look of disgust. You whipped back around towards him, “Look, I am actually tired as hell, so excuse me for my bluntness, but FUCK OFF!” You only caught a glimpse of his flabbergasted expression before you spun back around to storm down the stairs entering the subway.

“You really don’t know me?” he sounded pissed.

That’s when it hit you.

“Oh! it’s you!” you snapped your fingers at the sudden realization,

“You’re Kacchan!” the look of disgust that hardened on his face intensified by ten fold when he heard you use that nickname. You continued regardless as you neared the train platform, “The asshole bully who likes to pick on quirkless kids. Yeah, well, I don’t give a damn how great you think you are, buddy. You can really fuck off now!” you spun once more to ditch him; however this time around your ankle twisted from underneath you, causing your body to fall down toward the ledge of the platform where underneath the tracks resided.

Bakugou cried out something like ‘you idiot!’ before grabbing you by the waist and yanking you into him before you could completely fall down the ledge. Everything happened so quickly that you hadn't even realized that you were holding your breath until you gasped heavily into his chest.

With a shocked expression you trailed up his neck to his face until you were met with his vermilion eyes, “Shit…” suddenly a wave of familiarity crashed into you. you breathed deeply, “I-It’s you...”

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academi #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #katsuki bakugo imagine #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou imagine #bakugou x reader #bnha imagine #bnha imagines #mha imagine #mha imagines

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ofstarsandfireflies · 4 years

Text

Infinity War with a twist anyone?

Toy Story 2

Woody finds out he’s a collector’s item

Taneleer was a collector, and he had many things in his collection.

He had the last survivor of all extinct species.

He had items people could only dare to dream about.

He had things long forgotten to time.

But the one thing he wanted more than anything, was an Infinity Stone.

He’d seen what Thanos would do if he had all of them.

Even if owning one would prevent it from happening, he had to try.

But once he had one, he realised he hadn’t changed anything.

And that he needed them all.

He’d been searching for decades when he’d found and lost the Power Stone. And nearly all of his collection too.

And it was barley a few years later when more news began to surface of the other stones.

The second to be added is the Space Stone, taken from Odin’s vault while Hala was keeping everyone busy.

Then the Power Stone, which was meant to be his in the first place, locked away in the Nova Corps HQ

The Soul Stone is a mystery, even to him, so he’s afraid he won’t be able to have a complete collection, but the last two are on Earth.

It’s only when he sees the Q ship that he realises he’s in very big trouble.

Those ships belong to Thanos.

This was not turning out to be Tony’s day.

He’d been interrupted on his morning walk with Pepper by a wizard.

He’d been told that some big baddie named Thanos was after the Infinity Stones, one of which was around said wizard’s neck.

Almost been hit by car.

Been winked at by the wizard and most definitely didn’t smile afterwards because he didn’t have a little crush on him.

And now he was dealing with some giant alien while also trying to make sure Peter didn’t get hurt because the kid could not stay out of danger for the life of him.

He and the wizard had fought aide by side, both simply accepting this was how things were going to play out and doing their best to try and upstage the other.

It was absolutely reckless for Tony to blast a car at their enemies and screw up Strange’s magic mandala thing, just as it was incredibly stupid of Stephen to capture Tony in a portal that spat him out to safety while Stephen took the hit intended for the Avenger.

And as Tony was getting back to his feet, telling Peter to get after Strange and protect him, Friday starts alerting him to the presence of a second space ship.

Was it this Thanos guy Strange had been telling him about? Someone else entirely with their own motives? Friends? More enemies?

Whoever it was piloting this one, Tony knew that they were over compensating for something.

And that was when he saw not only Strange being taken by the second ship, but Peter as well, who is chatting rather frantically in Tony’s ear.

And just like that, Tony is blasting after them.

Strange should have destroyed the stone when he’d had the chance, but that was seemingly something he couldn't do, or so he'd told Tony.

Stephen wakes up to the most curious sight.

He’s in a glass display case, big enough for him to sit comfortably in, and a man watching him from the outside.

That wouldn’t be the most curious thing if he hadn’t seen four infinity stones sitting beside him

He’s trying to picture this guy as the Thanos he was warned about, but then the guy is talking.

Telling him he’s simply a collector, and now Stephen is part of that collection.

And that he should be grateful, because not only did he rescue him and the stone, but Stephen can live in his museum and be the last human from Earth.

Especially since Thanos is on his way to Earth to search for the Mind Stone and will tear the planet apart to get it.

Stephen can’t let that happen.

He has to get back.

If he had his sling ring it would be easy enough to do, but this Collector has removed it, and his cloak is missing too.

His eyes scan the other display cases, hoping to see the red cloth somewhere nearby.

What he sees standing beside it, is a recognisable blue light high above him.

Stephen quickly makes eye contact with his captor again, hoping he didn’t give away Tony’s location.

It doesn’t last long before the idiot is landing a few feet away from them, all weapons trained on the Collector.

Tony has his sling ring, and the Eye as well.

Stephen is quite impressed with how Tony managed this, both losing focus on the bigger issue until they all go flying into one of the glass walls and Peter is yelling about another ship attacking them and Stephen is yelling at Tony about bringing a kid with him on something so dangerous.

The Collector leaves them to their bickering to try and get himself and his precious collection to safety, glass cabinets shattering all around them as they yell and shout under the protection of Stephen’s magic around them.

It’s only when another hit has the ship tilting Tony into Stephen’s arms that they stop.

They don’t pull away, not even as the ship rolls beneath them, Friday taking control of Tony’s suit to keep them hovering as everything flips around them and Tony kisses him.

And he’s kissing back.

But when their feet touch the ground again, Tony is the first one to break their silence by reminding Stephen that they wouldn’t be in this mess if Stephen had listened to him in the first place.

Stephen watches Tony pull away from him and go to Peter to make sure he’s alright before glancing at the Infinity Stones laying at his feet admist the shards of glass.

And gets an idea.

One he hopes will make Tony forgive him.

Opening the Eye of Agamotto, he pulls at the power within it.

But his intentions are not to reverse time with it.

He pulls more.

And more.

He can do this.

Because for Tony, he would do anything.

There’s a bright flash of green and the stone within the Eye shatters into pieces, bouncing all over the ship floor and scattering into the clear glass.

And Tony is staring at him.

He can see the questions in those eyes, see the curiosity that is growing.

He knows Tony wants to ask him why he’d just destroyed the very thing he’d told him was something he couldn’t do.

Stephen didn’t know if he was prepared for that conversation.

To tell him he’d done this for him, given up the time stone for him.

And as he takes Tony’s hand, and feels Tony’s armoured fingers curl around his own as they walk through the portal back to Earth, he can’t imagine a better future than the one they have before them.

Quotes-

“Woody once risked his life to save me. I couldn’t call myself his friend if I weren’t willing to do the same.”

Tony to Taneleer when he reveals himself

“I mean, look at all this stuff!”

“Didn’t you know? Why you’re valuable property!”

Taneleer to Stephen

“Now it’s off to the museum!”

“Mueseum?! What museum?”

“THE museum!”

Also known as the Collector’s collection.

“What’s a cowboy without his hat?”

And a Sorcerer without his time stone

Mint Condition

Who’d have thought they were a complete set?

Missed a Day? Catch up here!

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10

Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15

Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19 Day 20

Day 21 Day 22 Day 23 Day 24 Day 25

Day 26

#ironstrange #strangeiron #osaf’s movie night

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bringbackwendellvaughn · 4 years

Text

Some Light Christmas Fun

i saw a bunch of my posts had been flagged as inappropriate by tumblr and appealed all of them so they now can show up. even the one about my obsession with psylocke. one i couldn’t appeal though (because it was a reblog) was a reply trying to identify all the characters depicted in The Raft as candidates for the Thunderbolts in Thunderbolts #155.

So now I am going to repeat some of what I said, add some more thoughts and try and identify them all.

This is actually one of my favourite past-times working out what stock background space fillers could reasonably be established characters. Let’s be honest, most of these were probably not meant to be anyone and were just people Kev Walker drew to fill up a room. But, within the story itself, they all have to be established super-villains who would be considered as applicants for the Thunderbolts. For identifying these, there are a few things to refer to here - the characters who are ultimately chosen to join the team are probably there, the next issue identifies some of these people who don’t make the cut, there was a poll featuring a vote for who you wanted to join the team (Shocker won, i voted for Madame Masque), some of the characters appear in other issues of Thunderbolts, some star in a preview story in Enter the Heroic Age and then in Heroic Age: Villains, Steve Rogers proposes several inmates of the Raft as potential future recruits for the Thunderbolts - some shown here.

1. Bison (Billy Kitson) or Man-Bull (William Taurens) Bison is a Thunderstrike enemy who later showed up on Crimson Cowl’s Masters of Evil in Kurt Busiek’s run on Thunderbolts. What we can see here is that it is an orange furred man, but the face cannot be seen. I am inclined to say that this would be Bison since Steve Rogers recommended him as a potential addition to the Thunderbolts in Heroic Age: Villains. This would be slightly off-model for him and it seems we should see his horns poking out here, but Bison is confirmed as being at The Raft and has that reason for being there. Alternatively it might be Man-Bull who is later shown to be at the Raft in some issues of Hercules. Then there is also Griffin (John Horton) who was a poll choice but like Bison’s horns, we should be able to see his wings, so I am definitively removing him as a possibility here..

2. Shocker (Herman Schultz) Shocker joins the team next issue and is depicted with this hair. I’d lock him in as a definite.

3. ? We don’t have much to go on here besides a sort of faux-hawk hairdo. I’ve ran down the list of who could be there and turned up squat. Maybe in prison, Badd Axe grew a mohawk style. Badd Axe was another of the characters Steve Rogers proposed as a possible team candidate. Blizzard is confirmed as being there next issue - maybe he shaved his head like this to try and look more tough in prison.

4. Bloodshed (Wyndell Dickinson) Bloodshed is a Spider-Man baddie and another member of Crimson Cowl’s Masters of Evil (there’s a lot of them here). He’s apparently grown a goatee but I’d be confident to lock him in as another definite here. He was another of Steve’s candidates from Heroic Age: Villains.

5. Grizzly (Max Markham) I am a bit obsessed with shoving Grizzly into the background of this run. It’s not without precedent, he is depicted in Enter The Heroic Age as being at the Raft, Steve Rogers nominates him as a team member and before this run he was a full-fledged member of the team. This character design mostly suits being Grizzly, he’s the right size and has his soul-patch. The one thing stopping me from saying it’s definitely him is he appears to have some form of faceplate on him. Maybe this was an inking or colouring error? Maybe - just maybe - it is bandages from when Ant-Man climbed into his ear and beat up his ear-drums in Thunderbolts #143. That’s really reaching, especially considering Grizzly had appeared since without his ears being wrapped, but I really want to say this is Grizzly.

6. ? This character receives a fair amount of dialogue bullying pre-transformation Mr. Hyde in the next issue. Possibly trying to deflect their own lack of power by bullying Mr. Hyde when he thinks that Mr. Hyde is a weak timid guy worse off than him. We have a very generic black-haired guy who would bully a weakling, so who could it be?

7. Mr. Hyde (Calvin Zabo) This is kind of how he is depicted next issue when he is in his non-Mr. Hyde form. A small man with black hair cropped at the sides. He is also shown in front of 6 in a line and is bullied by him for looking weak and nerdy. Here he is shown stood in front of 6 again, so this would make sense as being Mr. Hyde.

8. Amazon (Katrina van Horn) or Titania (Mary MacPherran) I want to say this is Amazon, formerly Man-Killer, as she is an ex-Thunderbolt who despite only being on the team briefly always kept showing up in the book. She was again recommended as a possible Thunderbolt in Heroic Age: Villains and while her hair has grown a bit longer here, this would make sense as being her. I’d still hazard a bit to say lock this one in though because, alternatively, it could just as easily be Titania who is seen as an inmate in Thunderbolts #144.

9. ? This one has been bugging me for a while. I so know this character. Has black vertical lines on the eyes, right? Or it might be Armadillo (Antonio Rodriguez) which someone seems to have identified as being in this issue on terrible website ComicVine (I think they just confused 11 with Armadillo though). He’d be a good choice to be here though.

10. ? There is a few characters this could be. Next issue depicts a character with a hairless head with a less human face which might have been the intention here but it’s in the back so never required this detail. If we’re going with that one, the guess would be Headlok (Murray Singleton). At the other end, if you want to say he’s wearing a mask and again it’s the result of lack of detailed, Scarecrow (Ebeneezer Laughton) - next issue shows his mask as being biege. He was a poll choice and actually receives dialogue next issue.

11. Blood Brother The survivor of the two Blood Brothers, we saw this character in Enter The Heroic Age and in Thunderbolts #156 he is identified and given dialogue. He is depicted speaking to 6 and Mr. Hyde (7) next issue. There’s no area of debate this isn’t Blood Brother.

12. ? Short guy with long hair. This seems like it could be an easy one but I’m coming up empty. Dare I suggest this could be Grizzly again?

13. ? A tall woman with nice black hair. Possibly Titania again. Otherwise, the best I can think of is that Moonstone acknowledges Black Mamba as being there next issue. It’s maybe a bit too built for her but it’s also the one that looks the most like Black Mamba.

14. ? I’m pulling this one out of nowhere but this could be Asp. The hair matches and she is Black Mamba’s bff, so it’d make sense they’d be near each other.

15. Powderkeg (Frank Skorina) Powderkeg is a real Z-list villain fodder guy. He is confirmed as being a Raft inmate in Avengers Academy #4 (a light crossover issue with Thunderbolts) and I want to say this is definitely him even if it requires a little bit more footwork.

16. Super-Skrull (Kl’rt) Confirmed next issue.

17. Skeleton Ki (Alisher Sham) One of Steve Rogers’ picks and this one is wearing a skeleton face mask so it seems quite evident it is him. Lock in Skeleton Ki as number 17.

18. ? This character is also depicted next issue, stood behind Blood Brother and 6 during the Mr. Hyde bullying scene. Based on that, it’s clear he is a male with long hair.

19. ? Absolutely no idea. Woman with corn-rows.

20. Dark Beast (Hank McCoy) AOA-verse evil version of Beast. Jeff Parker originally wanted this character to join the team but was blocked by the X-offices. Centurius filled his role instead. Dark Beast is shown on the cover to #156, was also one of the poll choices and him being drawn a bit poorly here might have been a last-minute alteration to try and change it to NOT be Dark Beast. This is definitely meant to be Dark Beast though.

21. Poundcakes (Marian Pouncy) Poundcakes is shown as a inmate of the Raft in Thunderbolts #159. The body type is a match and the hair is consistent with how she is shown in #159. Lock her in.

22. Boomerang (Fred Myers) He joins the team next issue. This is another case where this is obviously the character. 100% definite here.

23. Ox (Roland Bloch) Member of the Enforcers (and briefly the Thunderbolts Army). This is how Ox was drawn in Enter The Heroic Age. The colour of his hair has slightly changed but put him in the definite machine.

24. Mandrill (Jerome Beechman) This is Mandrill. Easy.

25. Troll (Gunna Sijurvald) She joins the team. This is undebatably her.

26. Bushwacker (Carl Burbank) Bushwacker is a former Daredevil and Punisher foil. This is definitely him. He was depicted exactly like this in Enter the Heroic Age. Definitely lock him in.

Here’s the bit in issue #156 which features some roll-call with not necessarily the character models depicted.

Of those I can’t identify the first one (Blizzard because she mentions him? Really, any number of other bad guys listed below can fit this design), the next one is either 6 or 7, then up-front in that mask is Scarecrow (confirmed next 2 panels). Next that would b Bloodshed/4, and then possibly a miscoloured Ana Kravinoff, and finally Headlok and Super-Skrull.

Extra notes: - Centurius (Noah Black) is not depicted but joins the team. - Blizzard (Donnie Gill) is confirmed as being there in this room as seen above but I don’t see any character that could really really be him. - Scarecrow (Ebeneezer Laughton) is as well but he’s been speculated all over the place. - Black Mamba (Tanya Sealy) likewise. - The leftover Steve Rogers’ suggestions from Heroic Age: Villains are Absorbing Man (Carl Creel), Answer (Aaron Nicholson), Badd Axe, Hydro-Man (Morris Bench), Lady Stilt-Man (Callie Ryan), Mad Dog (Buzz Baxter), Redeemer (Shep Gunderson), Ruby Thursday (Thursday Rubinstein) and Vector (Simon Utrecht). Some of them like Ruby Thursday are clearly not there. - He also recommended the Young Masters but none of them were ever even arrested. - The cover to issue #156 also features Abomination (Emil Blonsky), Absorbing Man, Batroc (Georges Batroc), Ana Kravinoff and Sandman (William Baker/Flint Marko) - none of these appear to be there and Abomination had been dead for a few years by that point. - I can’t find the poll itself, I can find a link to it but it just redirects to Marvel.com, and other than the winner (Shocker) and who I voted for (Madame Masque), the other choices are sourced from a forum post. Absorbing Man, Batroc, Brother(s?) Grimm, Dark Beast, Doctor Demonicus (Douglas Birely), Griffin, Ana Kravinoff, Living Laser (Arthur Parks), Madame Masque (Whitney Frost), Mr. Hyde, Sandman, Scarecrow, Shocker and Other. Noticeably nearly all the ones on the cover to #156 were listed. Other allowed you to write-in a choice but they shouldn’t really count towards this. Of these ones, Absorbing Man, Doctor Demonicus (deformed face with horns), possibly Griffin, Ana Kravinoff, Living Laser (stuck in energy form), Madame Masque and Sandman are obviously not there. - Some other confirmed Raft inmates at this time from other Thunderbolts issues include Axe (Jerome Hamilton), Corruptor (Jackson Day), Mr. Fear (Alan Fagan), Mo Money, Purple Man (Zebediah Kilgrave) and Titania. #159 gives us 3 previously unseen characters: Big Roy (a Walrus monster man), Man-Mountain Mario (Man-Mountain Marko’s cousin) and Indali (a normal looking woman who is the Queen B of the women’s wing of the prison). In other books we see Basilisk (Basil Elks), Blackout (of the Lilin), Crossfire (William Cross), Griffin, Hecate, Man-Bull, Vermin (Edward Whelan) and probably much much more but those are the ones that come straight to mind from Avengers Academy #4, Hawkeye and Mockingbird and a Hercules story. - While Crossbones (Brock Rumlow), Hyperion, Nuke (Frank Simpson) and Norman Osborn are all being held at The Raft, they are not eligible for the team.

Feel free to contribute or ignore this.

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stormkrigeren · 5 years

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DCEU Clark Kent/Superman/Kal-El Headcanon + Defense

One of my favorite DCEU Clark headcanons is that this farmboy has no idea how to hold his own in a fight. Here are my chronological reasons why I think this is true:

1. Clark grew up in Kansas very protected by his family. His parents were always sure to be nearby or a phone call away in case there was a problem with his powers - Martha was there mere minutes after Clark’s sensory overload at school (MoS), Jonathan apparently brought Clark with him on small jobs (the bullying scene in MoS, not to mention Jonathan and Clark’s very close relationship which revealed they spent a lot of time together). Growing up in a farming community with not much friendly interaction with boys his age (with the exception of Pete Ross from MoS), no one would have been around to teach Clark how to throw a punch or even get him interested in violence.

2. Clark has to control his powers and never let them be seen. A fight is one of the easiest ways for his powers to be revealed: they’re fast, stressful, keep you on your toes, and require a decent amount of physical speed, strength, and cognition. We know Clark has the last three and could use them in a fight if he kept them under control, but the first three are stressors that could trigger a lapse in concentration or control. Clark and the Kents don’t want that to happen because it would mean revealing his powers, so he has to stay out of situations that could lead to a fight - an example would be the bullying scene in MoS.

3. Clark likely has never experimented with his powers, so he has little control over them and nearly no idea how to use them period, much less in a fight. I’ve been listening to Doctor Awkward’s Man of Steel: Answers, Insight, Commentary Podcast, and it has been a real eye-opener. The episodes I have in mind when discussing this point are 30, 31, and 32, which discuss the tornado scene in MoS. To sum it up, Clark and his parents have likely avoided any use of his powers since the incident with the school bus a few years before, so Clark has had no chance to ‘test his limits’ and truly discover what he can do. We know that he doesn't discover flight or the full limits of his strength until later on in life, but this can also be applied to some of his other powers. He might not know how to efficiently use his speed and flight and strength in a fight, and even if he did know at least how to throw a proper punch, the mechanics of the simple movement would be seriously changed if he was using his powers/punching a superpowered being.

4. He lets Lombard hit him not because he knows he can take it, but because he doesn’t know what to do. I know the posturing in the pub scene of MoS leads many to think that Clark knows Lombard would just bounce off, but you can see by the way Chrissy reminds him that starting a fight isn’t worth it that Clark was almost intending to get violently involved by putting Lombard outside. The way he stands before the initial push, arms down at his sides, unprotected (Lombard is ‘on guard’ in a semi-crouch, fists cocked, and Clark is almost baring his chest to him), sort of shows that he was expecting Lombard to back down once he knew that Clark was bigger/stronger. Clark may have been trying to get out of the situation without violence, but knew it would be necessary once Lombard started pushing. Yet he continued to stand unprotected even when he decides to put Lombard out, which shows that he didn’t know how to protect himself properly from the next blow. He is used to people just bouncing off him, so he has never made the effort to try to learn how to go on the defense.

5. In the Battle of Smallville, he is constantly off balance and most of his blows are improperly thrown. The momentum of the fight is clearly a bit much for him and he struggles to keep up, especially when up against two trained Kryptonian soldiers. He does have good aim with his punches but never pulls them to ‘knockout’ with the full possible power behind them. He never uses any other part of his body to fight beside his fists (JL, I’m getting to you!), never throws any kicks or knees or elbows, it’s all fists. Which is exactly what you would expect from an untrained farmboy who only knows violence through bullies and 80s action movies. Now I know Clark would never be expected to stand up to the Tigress of Zod, but Non is canonically half-cow and has a fighting style even worse than Clark, yet we see him dishing it out to Kal-El! The only advantage Non has is know-how and experience while Clark clearly has nothing.

6. In the Battle of Metropolis, Clark has zero chance against Zod. It’s the same argument for the Battle of Smallville: he has no experience, only uses his fists, has almost no stamina, and is very off balance. The reason he wins is that Clark has a few aces up his sleeve: a) He has had a few months/weeks to figure out how to fly, he is more comfortable in it than Zod (who learned like 30 seconds ago), b) He is in more control of his sensory powers than Zod (who learned that day), c) He has a hot reporter and an amazing mom rooting for him, d) Zod is basically suicidal at this point after losing his entire purpose, he has no other reason to live besides to spite Clark and he is quickly getting tired of that.

7. When fighting Batman, Clark is nearly all scare tactics. It’s been two years since Zod, maybe he’s picked up a few things since then, but in the BvS fight scene every move Clark makes is almost meant to intimidate instead of hurt. In his two years of being Superman, he has learned that almost no one will challenge him because he is a scary alien from outer space who can shoot lasers from his eyes, so he continually plays off of that when speaking with anyone of authority (he does it with Swanwick in MoS, and a tiny bit with Finch in BvS, and with Ludlow in MoS again). Nearly every interaction he has with Batman is all about posturing and standing very intimidating, every punch is only half-thrown, and he doesn’t even break into a run at any point. The problem is Bruce is an even bigger drama queen than Clark, the entire ‘battle’ is just them chatting angrily (I love BvS, I always smile at this scene because not only does it prove that Clark can barely fight, but also shows just how big of dorks these two idiots are. I love them.)

8. Fighting Doomsday is the first time we see a glimpse of a possible fighting tactic, though it's not a good one at that. You can see Clark doing it as far back as the Battle of Smallville, though I think it’s the most prominent here. Instead of deflecting punches as trained martial artists tend to do (letting punches glance/bounce off/turn away) Clark tends to catch them by letting all the force hit him instead of something a bit more fragile. This is great because it shows that he is worried about things/people around him getting hit and combats that by taking the hit himself. It’s literally the first thing he does when Doomsday comes out of the cocoon. He is also a bit quicker and more sure of himself in this fight, but has terrible style besides ‘catching’ and still tends to leave himself way overexposed to any possible blows (literally what caused his death)(he honestly could have stabbed Doomsday from behind it ain’t that hard he can fly).

9. The fight in Justice League after his resurrection is barely improved. Clark does use more of his body (*headbutt*) beside his fists, but is still 90% scare tactics (I mean you, slow-turn-to-glare-back-at-Victor-after-he-fired-the-missile). He uses more of his powers, but I think that is because he is still suffering from amnesia and doesn’t have the ‘mental block’ (throwback to the fandom pre-BvS when everyone was discussing why he couldn’t fly as a kid (it’s because he wasn’t thinking past what he knew he could do to what he could possibly do)), so when he is himself Clark is actually holding back his punches so as not to hurt anyone. Amnesia-Clark is a bit more full-force because he has no guilt to hold him back. As for his other powers, Clark is constantly trying to appear as un-alien as possible to avoid hostility, which is the reason he rarely uses more than one power at a time (besides strength and flight). Amnesia-Clark doesn’t have that fear, so uses his powers as he pleases without worrying about the implications.

10: The fight against the Parademons and Steppenwolf is interesting because although he doesn’t have a fighting style, he does have a goal. He fights with the intention of protecting the people and driving Steppenwolf away, so every movement is done with the intention of incapacitating the bad guy. He still leaves himself terribly open, but he does dodge a blow instead of ‘catching it’. You can see his ‘fighting style’ (or lack thereof) transitioning from catching to protect others to dodging to destroy the enemy. He also uses his heat vision and arctic breath as weapons, which seems a little desperate for him, but by then he can see that everything he does is not putting Steppenwolf down, so Clark takes it up a notch. He still doesn’t have the know-how to think militarily and keep the enemy close (why do heroes keep tossing the baddies?! just hit them!). Additionally, after separating the mother boxes he just lays there for a bit in pain but makes hardly any effort to get up and check the perimeter and confirm that the war is over, which again shows a lack of military thinking. This is the battle where he changes the way he fights because he knows that this bad guy can take what he dishes out. Every other fight you can see him holding back just a little so as not to hurt people around him, but in JL he finally begins to let loose just a tiny bit. You can see that he is still not quite comfortable with using his powers (besides strength and flight, canonically his favorite ones) to hurt, but he is trying.

One last thing, despite his super endurance, Clark is panting in nearly every fight scene I’ve watched. Another throwback to some great fanfiction I read discussing how despite the fact that Clark doesn’t need to breathe or can at least hold his breath for a long time, panting after a kiss/during a fight is more of an emotional response caused by stressors than him actually lacking oxygen (the fic I’m referencing is Eowyn77′s ‘Rosy-Fingered Dawn’ on fanfiction.net).

As you can see, in nearly every fight Clark is involved in, he is more of a Tank than an actual Warrior. This is not to say that he is almost useless in a fight, but more of a call-out post reiterating just how much of a farmboy he is even in the face of multiple alien invasions. Lois will always be around to protect him, tho!

tldr: Clark Kent can’t even throw a proper punch, must protect the smol farmboy.

#clark kent #superman #man of steel #bvs #batman vs superman #justice league #smallville #kal-el #tank #can't fight #headcanon

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controloffandoms · 5 years

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Broken Faith Pt 6 (D.G)

Prompt: I can’t get this fic out of my head until it’s resolved….

Pairing: Dick Grayson x reader

Words: 3163

Warnings: Past torture, depression, Past major character death, past violence

Notes: I’m thinking this is the last installment of the Broken Faith series.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

2 Weeks Later

You liked being at the Allen’s house. You helped Iris with chores around the house, goofed around with Bart, talked about everything with Wally. You’d missed Wally. You thought he’d been dead. Turns out that he ran so fast, the speed force sucked him in and he’d spent almost 6 years learning about the speed force. He even ran faster than before because of his time there. He liked to talk about it, and you liked to hear about it...the fact that the speed force was an actual entity was astonishing.

In return for learning about the speed force, you told him everything about what transpired after he left. You told him what Dick did in his time. You told him about joining the League but not feeling wanted there. You told him of the fallout with Bruce. You told him about Alvarez, the mission that you didn’t fully come back from, about Jason returning, about your fears, about killing Alvarez. You told him everything. Most of the talks consisted of you crying and Wally not far behind you.

When it came to talks like that, Barry and Iris took Bart out and left you both to talk. Barry knew mostly everything that had transpired since Wally had been in the speed force and had told Iris what happened. They knew that you needed Wally and that you didn’t want anyone else listening in. After all, Dick and Wally were your best friends when the whole Young Justice thing started. “There’s been one thing that you’ve avoided talking about, (Y/N/N).”

Wally’s hand continued to play with your hair as you leaned more into his side. You closed your eyes and sighed. “What happened two weeks ago,” you whispered. Wally stayed silent as did you. You picked at the fabric of his jeans before sitting up and turning to face Wally. You looked at him as he did you before you looked away. “About six weeks ago, Dick showed up, like I told you, in Smallville. He kept me from killing myself. He took me to the mansion after that, and we spent the next two weeks together. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight. I mean...I understand. If I had just caught him trying to kill himself, I would have never let him out of my sight. But it was getting on my nerves, not to mention that I couldn’t sleep. I’d get a couple of hours here and there, but I could never just sleep normally. So, I began to get up in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen and fix myself some tea and get a snack.

“About a week after being back at the mansion and getting into the nightly routine of waiting for Dick to go to sleep, fix tea and snacks, take coffee to Tim and get him to sleep, Alfred started to join me when I left the bedroom. He would talk to me and wouldn’t push me to talk about the obvious pain that I was going through. It would be about stupid things like how many new suits would we need to make in the next week because of the reckless bat family.” You gave a small chuckle at that. Your eyes were stinging as you thought of Alfred. You’d let him down.

“Well, two weeks ago, I went through the same routine. I’d gotten Tim to go get some sleep and I got a transmission from Bart about the prison breaks. I’d alerted all the teams and was gathering information with Alfred to send to the teams. (V/N) was one of the prisoners that was escaping. He’s the only villain to know where the Bat Cave was...the only villain to know my identity. Anyway, I started lockdown procedures. If I had noticed sooner that he was one of the escapees, I could have started the procedure sooner and maybe it wouldn’t have played out like it did.” You ran a hand over your face, wiping away the tears as you did.

“Alfred pointed out that (V/N) was already in the cave. I told the bats to help Jason and then come back and help me. I had Alfred hide and I strapped up with weapons and utility belts. I got to a higher vantage point and waited for him. I was shaking. I was scared. I was afraid that I’d kill again, and I wouldn’t forgive myself for that. I was afraid because I was out of the loop vigilante wise. I hesitated, then attacked. Once the smoke cleared, I started to get thrown around. I don’t know how long we fought before he threw me into the panels where we kept the suits, but when I got up, he had Alfred.” You didn’t bother to wipe the tears, knowing they wouldn’t stop any time soon.

You took a shaky breath as Wally grabbed your hands in his. His calming touch helped you to continue. “He kept talking about wanting to break me and that if he had to die for me to fully break, he was ready for it. He thought I needed another push.” You trailed off, lost in the memory playing through your head.

You picked yourself up out of the broken glass and paused as you saw him with Alfred poised in front of him. “You’re mentally unstable. All I’ve ever wanted after you first busted me was to break you. If killing me would be the final crack in your armor to break you...well, that’s a fair trade.”

“I’m already broken, asshole. Let him go.”

(V/N) laughed. “If you were truly broken, you wouldn’t be here fighting me. I think you need a little incentive.” You ran forward, unable to make it to them in time. You dropped down next to Alfred, ripping a piece of your shirt off and holding it onto the gaping hole in the man’s chest.

“Come on, stay with me Al.” Tears mixed with the blood and grime on your face.

Alfred reached up with a weak hand, placing it on your cheek. “It’s okay. Don’t let this break you. You’re stronger.”

Your scream filled the cave as Alfred stopped breathing. “No no no no,” you mumbled, starting chest compressions. “No, come back,” you cried.

“Hey, (Y/N). You’re not there anymore. There’s nothing you can do,” Wally’s hand was on your cheeks, making you look at him as he wiped your tears away. “Come on, you’ve got to talk about it, all the way through...then you can start to heal. Breathe with me and let it all come out.”

You took some calming breaths and nodded to yourself. “(V/N) had Alfred in front of him. I hesitated...I didn’t want to charge and him hurt Alfred...looking back on it, I should have just attacked. I hesitated and couldn’t get to him before he-before he took the eskrima and pushed it through Al’s chest. I tried to stop the blood. I tried-I tried to keep him ali-alive,” your body shook with sobs as Wally brought you into his arms. Your face was buried in his shirt.

“He died and that asshole wanted me to fight him. I don’t know what happened after he pulled me off Alfred. The next thing I do remember is holding onto Alfred when Bruce and the others entered the cave. Clark, Diana, Bart, and Conner showed up and no one was listening to me. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch another person die again, Wals. When I thought you had died, I was devastated. Then Jason died. Then some new members of the Young Justice team. Some of the League. I couldn’t stay and watch someone else I cared about die.”

You raised your head to look at Wally. “It’s like I’m cursed Wals. I had Zatanna check and I’m not, but that’s what it feels like. I didn’t kill (V/N), but I wanted to and that scared me. I wanted to take time to get myself together but Dick didn’t want to let me out of his sight because he’s afraid I’ll go and kill myself. I mean, I gave him ample reason to come to that conclusion, but I think that after knowing him for most of my life, that I deserve a little trust. They argued over me like I wasn’t even there.”

You sighed and wiped your eyes. “I don’t even know what I stand for anymore. After Alvarez, I became crueler...crueler than Batman. I bonded with Jason because he understood the new me. He understood me in ways that Dick didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the acrobat, but he just couldn’t understand me after they rescued me from Alvarez. Then I go and kill Alvarez and realize that I liked it. I liked the feeling of ending him...and I got that same feeling that night (V/N) attacked. It scared me. I scare myself Wally. How can I continue to fight the baddies of the world when there’s the possibility that I’d get the urge to kill them and be done with it?”

Wally stayed quiet for a little while before he responded. “When Captain Boomerang and Captain Cold teamed up and severely injured Uncle Barry, I lost it. I beat Cold within inches of death. I would have done the same to Boomerang had Diana not shown up. When someone hurts you or hurts those that you care about, your emotions go out of whack. You do things you normally wouldn’t do. You want to stop the threat before they hurt someone else you care about. When we have way too much baggage on our shoulders, we can’t stop ourselves. You’ve had way too much put on your shoulders to be able to stop and think about the consequences before acting. Especially when you’re blindsided. Had I been in your shoes, I would have killed Alvarez. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t control it. You couldn’t either.”

“It goes against everything I use to stand for,” you sighed

“So change your standards. Redefine you. You’re obviously hurting over the fact that you’ve taken a life. I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

“What if I can’t do it anymore?”

“Then I support you either way.”

_______________________

8 Weeks Later

You looked up as your hair went flying everywhere. “Thanks for the warning, Wals.”

“I need your help.” Wally grabbed you and quickly pulled you downstairs. Your eyes widened as they landed on Bart and Barry who were out cold, cuts and burns covering their bodies.

“What happened,” you asked as Wally pulled out a case.

“Cold, Heatwave, and Trickster with upgraded weapons. They’re still running amuck and I can’t take the all by myself. No one is responding to my need of assistance. I know you’re still processing, but I have no one else, (Y/N/N).” He handed you the case and you opened it to see a new and improved suit with a new mask. Your hand paused over the uniform and your body tensed. “(Y/N/N), please.”

You looked at Wally and nodded, backing into the other room to change. Iris tossed you something as you exited the room. You caught it and smiled slightly. It was your old (weapon), new and improved. You glanced to Wally and stuck a hand out to him, “lead the way Flash Boy.”

Wally laughed slightly and picked you up bridal side before running off with you.

Upon arriving at the scene, you both quickly had to roll out of the way of Trickster’s latest trap. “Oh, your brought another friend Flashy...what does this one do?”

“I’ve got this one, you think you can get Cold and Heatwave?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Wally stated before racing off.

Your moment’s distraction allowed Trickster to approach you. “Have a present,” he laughed as he tossed the teddy bear to you. You moved out of the way. The second it hit the ground, your eyes widened as it exploded.

“That’s just wrong,” you stated. “You have a couple of screws loose, don’t you?

“That’s what my therapist says,” he laughs as he pulls out a toy gun.

“Let me guess, everything that looks like it wouldn’t hurt-like children’s toys-actually pack a punch?”

He just laughed and pressed the trigger. You were quite shocked that an actual boxing glove clocked you. “Quite literally,” he responded.

You thought that after the fight you would take the boxing glove gun for your own….it was too cool to give up. The more you fought the man, the more you started to enjoy it, your fears dissipating. After landing a punch that sent the Trickster flying into a wall, you made sure to zip tie him and go in search of Wally.

As you rounded the corner, you saw at least fifteen police cars outside the bank. You shrugged your shoulders, it made sense. You walked over to the barricade, easily getting through without too much trouble. Before you could enter the bank, Heatwave was thrown out. Guns raised and you were in the firing range.

“Put your weapons down, I’ve got him,” you shouted and struck at Heatwave as he got up. He growled and slammed you into the ground. He turned his flame gun on the barricade making the first responders and news crews back up.

While he was distracted, you grabbed the (weapon) and attacked, taking him down quickly. He fired the gun at you, hitting the top of your left arm as you moved. You hissed at the pain, but put it in the back of your mind. You knocked the gun out of his hand and continued your attack. You both traded punches and kicks, both knocked each other back. One hard kick to your chest had you flying into the barricade next to the news crews.

A groan left your mouth as you sat up, seeing Heatwave going for his gun. “Not today, asshole,” you mumbled as you got up, grabbing the gun you’d confiscated from the Trickster. You closed the distance fast and just as he went to grab for the heat gun, you pulled the trigger on the toy gun you had. You almost laughed at the look on one of the cop’s faces as the glove knocked the muscled criminal off his feet, a few feet away from his heat gun.

You tucked his gun into your utility belt and attacked the man while he was down, effectively knocking him out. You zip tied him and led him over to the barricade before entering the bank.

You had to duck as a stray blast of the cold gun came right at you. You saw Wally slowly getting up as he vibrated the ice off of him. You took cover behind one of the desks as Cold fired again. Wally was soon next to you. “Trickster and Heatwave are down.”

“I can’t get close to Cold. He had Trickster set up traps all around the bank that only he knows about. I just got out of the latest trap,” Wally huffed.

“Heat and cold cancel each other out. Why don’t I just use Heatwave’s gun against Cold?”

“Uncle Barry once had them do that...it overloaded both their guns. It could work. But how are you going to get close enough for it to work?”

“That’s where you come in KF. I need you to find a spot that isn’t booby trapped.” Wally sighed but nodded. You took out a couple of batarangs and threw them one by one at Captain Cold to keep him occupied while Wally looked for a space for you to stand. Once he found one, he raced back to you and placed you on the spot.

You trained the heat gun on Cold as he did the same to you. “This wasn’t expected,” he stated.

“Place your cold gun down and surrender willingly and we’ll call it a day,” you responded.

“What’s in it for me?”

“Not getting your ass handed to you by a non metahuman,” Wally called.

“I think not,” he pulled the trigger as you did. It was hard to explain exactly what happened next. As you expected, the two guns canceled each other, but you didn’t expect to be thrown backwards and onto another trap.

Wally knocked out Captain Cold, taking his gun and zip tying him before coming over to you. “This is gross,” you complained as you wiped slime from your face. Wally helped you up as he laughed then grabbed Cold and exited the building with you. Wally led Cold over to the authorities while you waited a good six feet from him.

You wiped more slime from your suit and face while Wally walked back to you. “I’m definitely glad that I didn’t step into that trap.” You glared at him and pulled out the toy gun, shooting it at his stomach. “That was uncalled for,” he gasped.

“Sorry, my finger slipped,” you smirked. You both started to laugh as Wally picked you up and ran you both back to the house.

___________________

7 Months Later

The zeta tube announced your arrival to the mountain. You gave a hug to Damien as he approached you. “So is this what you’ve been doing since I left? Sitting on your asses? No wonder the League put me in charge of your training.”

“I’ll have you know that we’ve been very productive,” Dick stated as he brought you into a hug.

“Right,” you responded as you flipped Dick, pinning him.

“I wasn’t prepared for that.”

Jason laughed, “finally, someone that can take Blue Bird down.”

“I’ve taken him down, Todd,” Damien responded.

“Okay,” you called before Damien and Jason could get into it. “We start training tomorrow. I was thinking tonight we could do a movie and game night?”

“I’ve got the food,” Bart and Wally call as they race off.

You shook your head as the others brought out the games and selection of movies. You had come back into the vigilante life slowly. After helping Wally with Trickster, Captain Cold, and Heatwave, you couldn’t exactly stop. A month after that, you were back in (Y/C) taking down the villains you’d allowed to run amuck after what had happened to you. It felt good to be taking back the city. Soon after that, you’d team up with the bats and work on cases together. You’d done the occasional work with the League or Young Justice. After months of getting yourself back together, you were ready to be a full part of a team again.

As you sat on the couch while the team bickered over what to do first, Dick sat next to you. He pulled you into a gentle kiss. “I’m glad you’re back,” he whispered.

“Me too.”

Dickie Birds

@jadedhillon @actiongirl2005

DC Loves

@jadedhillon @marvelite1998

Young Justicers

@lettucewayne

#Broken Faith #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson #nightwing x reader #nightwing #wally west #kid flash #bart allen #impulse #barry allen #flash #iris west #jason todd #red hood #damien wayne #robin

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mysterylover123 · 5 years

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BNHA Rewatch: Season 1 Episode 11 “Game Over”

mysterylover123

So first up, I totally forgot to add onto the You Say Run drinking game last episode! Sorry, my bad. I am ashamed.

Secondly, onwards! So we open with Deku, Mineta and Tsuyu headed off to where Aizawa is fighting off villains. Deku is quick to start muttering like crazy, which Tsuyu finds creepy (nobody seems to find Deku’s muttering charming or anything other than weird, oddly. Not even Uraraka).

Todoroki is showcased here, being very...cool. I’ll stop. (This is probably Shoto’s darkest scene, at least in terms of him being something of a jerk at the beginning. He implies he’ll just kill these villains with ice if they don’t give him info. EarlyRoki is very sinister.)

Now to the Momo-Kamijirou team. Cute Kamijirou flirting antics are really fun to rewatch. They have this great back-and-forth, bickering sexual tension thing going on and it just shows up whenever they hang out. Nothing dramatic, nothing over-the-top, but there’s always a little chemistry there.

I like this little fighting trio. They’re a particularly great combo.

And now, presenting, the Full frontal Alchemist, Momo Yaoyorozu! (that’s actually a joke from FMA’s manga. The locker room scene with Ed and Al, the manga notes “full frontal alchemist”. Also, Momo’s english VA=Riza Hawkeye!) I’ll bet including this will get this post flagged. Sigh. Anyway, despite the wardrobe malfunction it necessitates, this is indeed, in my opinion, the best, most OP quirk. All-purpose. Nearly unbeatable.

Meanwhile, Tomura being all analytical and clever and figuroug out how to fuck up Aizawa’s elbow. This is one of his Bad Guy counterpart to Deku aspects that I think is pretty neat - I mean, yeah they have similar circumstances, but being over-analytical hero otaku, now that’s a Not So Different I can work with.

Now over to more of Iida somehow still not having left and Uraraka being all “just go already!” Seriously Iida what took you so long?

See what happens when you stall out, Iida?!

Now over to Kirishima and Bakugou beating up some baddies. Kirishima makes a fantastic point that if they hadn’t jumped at Kurogiri everything would be fine. Bakugou is as bullheaded as ever (though actually proves himself smarter than thought later on. He’s kinda like Edward Elric - comes across as a hotheaded brawler, but is actually a genius. That’s 2 FMA comparisons. Can we get to 3?)

You’re probably wondering what my position is on Kiribaku, since it’s like the only BNHA Ship I haven’t really commented on yet. It’s basically one of the big ships that I honestly only see as friends. I don’t really get the shipping hype around them. Sorry.

Now on the other hand...these two need to be shipped more. Uraraka saving Iida from Kurogiri! This is one of Ochaco’s best moments, taking on the Big Bad/final boss and tossing him out of the way to save Iida’s life, and by extension, the rest of Class 1-A. Go Uravity!

More gruesome Aizawa injuries. Holy crap. The animation on this is so brutal. (nowhere near as brutal as some of the later injuries, especially that last arc. Dear god that’s gonna be...brutal seems too mild.)

Deku calls back to this bit where Tomura just quits and decides to peace out as soon as trouble comes. It’s interesting, thinking of Tomura’s progression, that Deku’s had the same effect on him that he has on Class 1-A (alongside Bakugou): raising the standard. Forcing everyone to try as hard as he does.

Apparently the Japanese fandom has a Tsu/Aizawa ship. While I’m obviously not into that, it did make me curious to take note of their interactions. She does seem to be particularly close to him, of the kids in Class A. (not that kind of creepy close, of course; just that she’s often the most concerned for him, and he saves her life specifically here.)

And Deku manages to control OFA! How powerful was that smash? How far was Deku able to go at this point, already, without getting hurt? I really want to figure out how Deku can potentially regulate OFA in the future, and this is the only moment where he pulls off a pretty impressive smash without being broken; this ain’t no 5%. Aside from ‘putting on the brakes’ to avoid killing someone, what else helped him here?

“Watashi ga kita!” (One day, Deku will storm in, and the reaction will be the same. Who am I kidding, he already does this all the time anyway.)

So this ep is a big set up from the previous one. The USJ Arc is not one of my favorites, but it does have a lot of great moments. It’s well-executed. It’s a fine place to end season 1. First time around, I remember feeling that it was kind of anticlimactic because my boy Deku didn’t get to do anything big, but of course this is just the end of season 1, so it’s all cool.

BKDK Corner:

They don’t talk this ep, but there are the usual parallels - like in the ep where Baku first displays his capacity to work with others, trust in his classmates, respect talents from those besides himself, we also see Deku first use OFA without breaking himself, on top of his leadership/powerhouse role in the fight against villains. Bakugou being the Power of Friendship gruff Shonen Hero and Deku being a confident OP badass.

Best Girl: No new best girls in this ep. (So far, they were: Mt. Lady, Inko, Uraraka, Recovery Girl, Jiro, Momo, Mina, Tooru, Reporter Lady, & Tsu)

Ranker: Most Brutal BNHA Injuries (my picks)

5. Twisted and dissolved arm - Aizawa vs Nomu

4. Both Arms dissolved - Chisaki (thanks Shigaraki)

3. Multi broken right arm from OFA ( All Might)

2. 2 broken arms from OFA overuse - Deku vs Muscular, Todoroki, etc.

(Hon mention: Endeavor vs high End - face cut, Iida vs Stain - multiple stab wounds, Todoroki’s burn scar)

1. Blood blown up from Inside out (Toga vs Chitose) and blown up hands and feet (Shigaraki vs Redestro)

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thewritewolf · 5 years

Text

Nino’s Quest Chapter 5: On the Road

The gang hits the forest road as they make their way to the capital.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3. My ko-fi.

Lord DM: Alright dudes whatre we thinking.

Marinoodles: Did I ever get that journal decoded?

Lord DM: Yup! It basically just backs up what the dude was saying He had a master. A true Necromancer There are hints of a plot. Like raising legions of the dead Some harsh stuff, to be sure

Alya’ll Beware: I don’t like the sound of that We need to get the truth out there

Marinoodles: Hm… i dunno If everyone knows, that might bring panic And gives the Necromancer warning

Adrien Regreste: We should do something though Is there someone higher up that we can talk to?

Marinoodles: Right! That’s a great idea! If we’re in a kingdom… maybe we can talk to the king?

Lord DM: It’ll take a while. Two weeks to reach the capital.

Adrien Regreste: That’s not great Is there any shortcuts we can take?

Lord DM: If you go through the forest, sure But its lawless Tons of bandits And worse It’ll shave a week off the trip though

Alya’ll Beware: So we get there in double time AND we get to smash some baddies? Sounds like only upsides, babe

Marinoodles: We say that now Let’s see how we feel after an ambush

Adrien Regreste: With someone as clever as you with us, how can they ever catch us by surprise? :3

Marinoodles: Thank you! :D <3

Lord DM: to be clear, you are choosing to go through the forest?

Marinoodles: Yuppers!

Adrien Regreste: Yes! >:3

Alya’ll Beware: Did I stutter?

Lord DM: Nice. I’ll see you guys at Marinette’s on Saturday then.

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

Nino entered the Dupain-Cheng home with his bag slung across his shoulder. Immediately, the delicious scent of baked goods hit him and he took a deep breath to enjoy it. The food was probably his favorite reason for them hanging out here. It was nice to know that he wouldn’t be leaving hungry.

As he walked into the living room, he saw Tom and Sabine playing Ultimate Mecha Strike. They were so into their game that they had failed to notice his arrival. At a passing glance, it looked like Tom was winning, but even as he watched that seemed less and less certain.

“Sup, dudes.”

Tom glanced toward him before returning his attention to the screen. A wide grin split his face. “Nino! Great to see you. How’s it hangin’, son?”

Chuckling, Nino replied, “S’alright. Wait, aren’t you two usually in the bakery this time of day?”

“We’re closed today,” Sabine chimed in. “Bakery holiday.”

“Yeah? What holiday is that?”

“Beating Tom’s butt at Ultimate Mecha Strike holiday.” She laughed as she delivered the final move on her husband’s character, winning her the game. “But more seriously, we’re just on a break. Marinette is using the kitchen right now.” She turned around to look at him now that the match was over. “I assume that has to do with why you’re here?”

“Yeah! I’m pretty pumped for another session of Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Oh! I remember playing that years ago. It was a fun way to spend time with friends back in the day. It’s nice to see you kids still playing it.”

Tom leaned back and crossed his arms. “I never got into roleplaying games, myself. I found my love in fighting games, and I never could stray.”

“Mhm, such a shame that love doesn’t translate to skill,” Sabine replied with a smirk. Tom shook his head with a chuckle.

“Well, I have to let you win every once in awhile. Otherwise you’d stop playing completely and I’d only have Marinette to fight.”

“Uh-huh.” Sabine rolled her eyes playfully as she stood, straightening her dress as she did so. “Let’s get back to the bakery, sweetheart. The kids need space for their game.” She gave Nino a wink as she returned to the shop, Tom in tow behind her.

Once he was alone, Nino got to work setting things up. He had high hopes for today’s session, and a few tricks up his sleeves to keep the party from getting complacent.

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

“The villagers gather in the town square to see you off. Your backpacks are full of supplies and your spirits are high as you go down the Old Road.” His friends listened intently as they munched on freshly baked macaroons. “By the time you’re ready to set up camp for the night, you’ve already entered the forest.”

“Oh, cool!” Alya nodded. “Plenty of firewood, at least. Who are we going to send out for that?”

Marinette tapped at her chin. “Well, since it’s pretty dangerous around here, I should go. I’m pretty good at avoiding danger.”

“Sounds like a great plan,” Adrien said. “I’ll start setting up the tents.”

“I guess I’ll sharpen my sword while I wait for the campfire.” Alya shrugged. “Can’t cook without it.”

“Right.” Nino made a quick perception roll. The bandits nearby were well hidden and always prepared to ambush travellers that set down this road. Marinette didn’t have much of a chance to spot them, but-

His eyes widened, his jaw drops, and he just barely resisted the urge to face palm.

She’d gotten a natural twenty.

“Okay - Marinette, as you are gathering firewood your keen elven eyes notice faint, barely noticeable marks in the trees. Your eyes widen as you recognize them as a crude thieves’ cant. Probably the work of bandits.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “I see… Do I have any idea where they are at?”

“Do you want to look around?”

“...Sure.”

“Roll for stealth.” He nodded as she rolled high - because of course she did. “Right, you find their camp well positioned at the base of a hill. Even the glow of their fire and the smoke is easily hidden from most vantage points, but you’ve managed to find it. By your count, there is probably ten of them.”

“Gotcha. I’ll head back to camp and get the others.”

Adrien’s fingers drummed along the table as he watched Marinette. “How are we going to take them down?”

“Yeah, M. What’s your plan?”

“Wah- Why do I have to come up with the plan?”

“Well…” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re kind of the best at it? So far, none of them have failed yet.”

“We’re gonna need it too.” Alya stretched. “Otherwise, we don’t stand a chance against those numbers. Something tells me bandits are going to be tougher customers than kobolds.”

“Um…” Marinette furrowed her eyebrows. “Well, we could sneak into the camp. Take out a few of them unaware, maybe light some fires to cause panic. That’d at least even the odds.” She shrugged. “We’d have to get pretty lucky though.”

“With you in our team, we’ve got luck to spare!” Adrien shot her a winning grin.

Nino took a sip of hot chocolate. “Alright, so you approach the lip of the cliff where you can look down at the camp. From there you can make more plans, but first… roll for stealth.”

It wouldn’t be that difficult of a roll. Night was falling, there were plenty of trees, and the bandits expected them to still be at their roadside camp. With Marinette leading the way, there shouldn’t have been any difficulties. Everything seemed fine when Marinette and Alya rolled decent enough.

But they didn’t factor in Adrien’s consistently poor rolling. A dreaded natural one reared its ugly head and Nino couldn’t help but chuckle as Adrien stared, dumbfounded at the traitorous die.

Cracking his knuckles, Nino leaned forward. “Alright, so let me give you the deets about what just happened. You’re all walking along, right? Most of you being supes stealthy.” He turns toward Adrien, who was looking like a kicked puppy right about now. “Then there’s this guy. He’s doing his best. But there is only so much you can do when you trip on a root and cause a bunch of loose stones to go sliding down the cliff.”

Alya winced as Marinette patted Adrien on the back. “How bad is it, babe? Did they notice?”

“Yeah, they’re totally awake now. You can even see a few of them aiming bows in your direction.” He leaned back and took another sip. “What do you do?”

They all faced Marinette, who was still absentmindedly rubbing Adrien’s back. He didn’t seem to mind, though. She hummed as she thought. Then her eyes went wide. “Wait. You said a root knocked some rocks loose?”

Nino gave her a cautious look. “...Yeah?”

“So that means the cliff is unstable! We could cause a rockslide and bury their camp!”

Not for the first time that night, Nino’s jaw dropped as the party cheered. He held up his hands for silence. “Okay, so is that what you guys are going to spend your turns on?”

“You bet, babe!” Alya was grinning.

“Right, well, the bandits are going to start firing on you then.” He rolled, but with the darkness and the cover, the arrows went wide. “Okay, another turn of working then?” At their nod, he rolled again with no better luck. On the inside, he sighed. “Again?”

When they confirmed, he set his dice down and leaned forward into storyteller mode. “Right, so after some quick thinking and quicker work, you manage to loosen the soil enough that a firm strike sends an earth slide towards the camp. Most of the bandits are crushed instantly, and the survivors are no match for all four of you.”

The three of them cheered and Nino couldn’t help but clap along with them. Adrien had pulled Marinette into a half hug, quickly followed by Alya. It was all very overwhelming for their de facto leader.

While they were distracted, Nino surreptitiously opened his notes and took out the sections about them getting captured by bandits and introduced to the bandit lord. He’d have to wing it for the rest of the session, but he couldn’t help but feel proud of them. They were even more clever than he had expected, Marinette especially.

With an evil grin, he realized that this meant he could be even more devious to match.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Nino lahiffe #Alya Cesaire #DJ Wifi #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrienette #ml fanfiction #my writing #Nino's Quest

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darkspellmaster · 6 years

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Some Small thoughts and Questions regarding She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

So I’m going to wait a day or so till more people have fully watched the show to go over major thoughts on this show. I have to sit down and re watch parts of it, since I was falling asleep while it was airing at 2 in the morning by me.

I’m going to say this much, it’s an okay show. It’s not bad in the way early Winx Club animation was, but it’s not great either, like how the first season of My Little Pony was. I would say it’s an average show in animation department, and I’ll have some larger thoughts on that in a later post because the one thing I caught a lot of was that background characters are all over the place in repeats. Now I know it has to be done in shows, but when it becomes obvious it becomes an issue for me watching. Seen it done on many shows, even in trailers (Looking at you twin Dodrio in Detective Pikachu trailer), but when it becomes obvious I have issues with it as it takes me out of the show.

That being said a few things:

1. Why is it being called a Prom and not a Gala?

Okay so something that is bugging the hell out of me. Why in the heck is it being called a Princess Prom and not a Princesses Gala?

So way back in the earlier seasons of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, we have this big ball that Princess Celestia hosts called the Grand Galloping Gala, where the Main Six come to enjoy the event dressed up and all.

A Gala is defined as “ : a festive celebration. especially : a public entertainment marking a special occasion.”

Where as a Prom is “ : a formal dance given by a high school or college class”

Big problem here. There is no high school, no college setting. This is a public event done by a royal person, thus this should be listed as a Gala not a Prom. And just for the record, if they were using the term as Promenade, that would only be the walk into the party, not the party itself.

So what gives here? How is it that a show that is geared towards girls that are younger with MLP, can call it what it is, a Gala event, and She-ra can’t? It just seems like a bad move to limit it to a Prom, which internationally is less well known. Most colleges and High schools outside of the US and Canada don’t really have that sort of event. Galas though, that’s more connected to royalty, and since these are royals I would think that they would have the character’s name their events with that level of reverence.

2. Sea Hawk and Burning his Ships?

Okay, ha ha, he burns his ships. But why? Like, I can get the idea of say wrecking them if he was trying to stop people from coming onto them. That’s something that a pirate did. But this...this seems dumb. Like, what’s the reason you’re having him do this? To be more a Jack Sparrow? To be seen as a quirky figure among too many already quirky characters? What is the point?

3. Can we not just call him Spirit?

So, from my understanding, Swift Wind is just some random horse. Bow doesn’t have his own horse -who is named Arrow by the way and is a Pegasus, and they call this horse, Horsie? Now I know that it’s meant for people to get giddy over, but why not have the group name him collectively Spirit. What’s wrong with giving him a name other than Swift Wind?

Speaking of which, why not just ask for the okay before you steal the damn horse? I’m sure someone probably would be like “Cool, you want to ride him, sure.” Instead we have “Hey kids, totally fine to steal someone’s property.” Isn’t that kind of counter productive to what the show is aiming for in this case? It just seems odd to me that they’re re-enforcing something that probably the Horde would teach her to do, steal and such, over getting permission, something that would help grow Adora herself as a character.

4. Why are people not calling out the Horde’s behavior?

I’m not going to get too much into the Catra/Adora right now because personally I find it creepy. My main reason is that Catra’s actions remind me a lot of an old childhood friend who acted a lot like her, and manipulated a lot of our friendship to the point where I had to eject her from my life. I’ll wait a while before going into that situation when there’s been time.

However I want to talk about the Horde and more directly about Catra and Shadow Weaver’s manipulations. Shadow’s actions are cruel and down right evil when you realize that she’s the only mother figure either girl has had in their lives.

Both Adora and Catra grew up here as kids, which means that both were manipulated from the start and for Catra she’s become part of the poison problem that created her. I realize that there’s likely going to be an arc here, and that Catra probably will not come to the side of light. Why? Because that would ruin her arc. See Catra is pretty much the villain that wants to change things on the inside, not realizing that they are becoming what they loath, and Adora broke her cycle when she chose to walk away.

Shadow Weaver’s desire to use them both plays into the idea of how Catra has been shaped, and she’s pretty much going to be the next Shadow Weaver. She’s going to find people to manipulate like she was and allow the Horde to come into the world just because she thinks that now that Shadow Weaver is gone, she’s going to be the big shot here.

What most are not getting is that this whole thing is a cycle, and one that I don’t think Adora will be able to break. Catra is shaping up to be a bad guy. Not someone to save. She’s going to be the one that can’t be saved, because she’s too far gone in this. Both Weaver and Hordak’s actions are manipulative. Weaver for treating her like crap, and praising Adora just so that she can use her probably against Hordak to get his powers, and Hordak for allowing that to be done so he can in turn play a “Good cop” type role, given that he allows Adora to not be followed, doesn’t punish Catra.

Scorpia seems to be the only one that cares about Catra. And we’ve already started to see how Catra is manipulating things around her. Yes she doesn’t know any better, but like Adora she can learn, she can reject, and yet she doesn’t. Why? Because she likes it. She likes having that control and it’s only going to get worse over time. So why are her actions not being called out by others? Why hasn’t Weaver been called a bad person?

5. Entrapta, and her quirky nature?

Something about how they are playing her is rubbing me the wrong way? Maybe it’s the fact that they pulled a “Gotcha” with her fate in the show, or maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t care just as long as she gets to make things. Why the heck did they just not start with her as a baddie? I’m not sure maybe because I feel like they sort of pulled from Mei Hatsume from My Hero Academia, and just said let’s make her like that. Again, it’s probably just me, but it feels like a lot of the characters were quirky for quirky sake?

#she ra and the princess of power #she ra spoilers #catra #shadow weaver #entrapta #adora #sea hawk #spop spoilers #horde #hordak #spirit #swift wind #scorpia

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tornrose24 · 6 years

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I have to be honest, I only have more questions than answers. Especially with the information present in the synopsis for season 2.

The CU series was never clear on the timeline, but the story arc for this season is the boys trying to make sure they keep their grades up to go to a summer camp.

So I take it that they WILL get unexpelled somehow, but then comes the problem with the timeline, because that means the boys would get into fifth grade the following season and if the CU canon is accurate, they would 1. Get a new teacher and 2. Stop working on the CU comics to make the DogMan comics. It feels like that’s happening WAY too fast. (But then again, if that countdown board was specifically for their 4th grade year, then it would make sense).

Anyway, here are my three guesses as to what’ll happen to that summer camp thing: A. George and Harold don’t get to go for some reason or another. B. George and Harold do get to go and not much happens with it. Or something does because it’s the world of CU and SOMETHING happens. C. George and Harold do get to go the camp... but the unfortunate and ironic twist is that Krupp is put in charge. Honestly I could see this happening just so that they could have some sort of storyline for season 3 and that twist would be pretty amusing. (If it does happen and he pulls that ‘zero fun’ again, I hope he suffers HORRIBLY).

Speaking of Krupp, the synopsis mentions he’s being ‘sent away.’ Sent away where? We do see a few brief moments of him in the trailer but there’s nothing to support that info. It only raises questions as to how long he’s out of the job until the future!Melvin issue is solved. Considering how frequently we see CU in the trailer, it’s not like he was sent somewhere far away where George and Harold can’t get to him. For the love of god show, PLEASE DO NOT UNDO THAT SMALL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FROM THE END OF THE LAST EPISODE!

Though if ‘sent away’ meant he somehow gets suck as CU for most of the season, I’d accept that. (*Imagines CU getting to stay with the boys in their treehouse like a secret pet*)

Also, I hope to god there will be a hint to the appearance of the most fan-demanded characters (Edith and Professor P) though by this point I’m prepared to accept that the writers won’t include them and that it would be a huge miracle if they show up in season 3.

Random thoughts: 1. So what’s with the sloth? 2. Krupp twisting into the curtain and untwisting in it to turn into CU HEAVILY reminds me of the transformation scene from Beauty and the Beast. It’s already among my favorite of the switching personality moments. 3. Looks like Rected and Anthrope get to be the bad guys of the day finally. 4. The season two monsters/baddies aren’t as impressive looking as the season 1 rogue gallery, but they do give us hints as to expect from future episodes. (Though I wonder who the monster with glasses is. They make it look sophisticated.) Though me wonders if Melvin brought them over via time travel. 5. Krupp in a dress. Just Krupp in a dress. (I mean, that could be the mystery sister we’ve heard about, but I still hope that’s actually Krupp in that pink and white get up. The fan art of that will be glorious). 6. That bit with Krupp and the dodgeballs makes me think that he’s going to aid Melvin instead of the boys, which is unfortunate because I REALLY wanted that reluctant team up scenario. Then again that WOULD be in-character for him. It only makes me prepared for the urge to strangle him all over again. 7. That or he’s just getting revenge on the dodgeballs since he got slammed in the face with one on that one episode. 8. Oh hey Venom!pants is in the trailer. 9. Why is the lake water yellow? Please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is... I really hope that bit with the boys dumping nacho cheese on them is hinting that they are skiing in cheese and not something ELSE that’s yellow. On a side note, I wonder how many AU ideas or headcanons will accidentally get a reference in this season (like last time).

#captain underpants #the epic tales of captain underpants #cu epic tales spoilers

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dr-dendritic-trees · 5 years

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Here be the Endgame thoughts, they are filled with spoilers.

So, I had SUPER low expectations for Endgame. I have been finding the big teamup movies increasingly cumbersome, I still can’t summon the energy to sit through Infinity War.

But on the whole I thought it was a very good movie. I enjoyed it more than I didn’t.

Whether you like Endgame or not, in my opinion, comes down to whether you personally found it emotionally satisfying. If you did, great, if you didn’t, I’m not here to try and talk you around, I’m sorry to hear the movie didn’t do it for you, and I hope you find some really good fanfic to make up for it.

And in the end, that’s what it came down to. It worked for me. It happened to have in it, the things I personally needed it to have. It met my expectations.

I didn’t want to get bogged down in post-apocalyptic details of the Snap, and I wasn’t, and I wanted to not have the universe reset by unwinding time, because that trope almost never works for me, and they didn’t.

I did get emotionally resonant call backs, cool fights and interesting character interactions. And quite frankly, my home fandom is Halo and I received the gifts of the team in matching armour, and glorious heroic deaths.

But the biggest reason why I felt leary of Endgame going in, was that I didn’t feel ready for an ending. I didn’t have an ending I wanted, because I wanted about a dozen per character. I still do, and I knew I wasn’t going to get that. But I really felt like the movie honour that. That’s what the time-travel mechanic is based on. You can’t change you past, but we can have an infinite number of avengers, making trouble in infinite New Yorks.

That’s basically it. Keep reading for character by character breakdown (starting with the bad bits, moving onto the good bits).

Unfortunately the fact that most of the movie was good, made the bad bits bad:

1. The much played up “gay character”. What crap. Seriously. That was nothing. There’s a lot of things about endgame that I think need to be viewed Doylistly, especially the character endings which are, of course, based on actor contracts. But this isn’t it “its a superhero movie, what do you expect” explains the lackadasical time travel, it does not excuse making a huge fuss over such a piddling little gesture.

2. Clint: What a fucking disaster. I hated every single thing about it. Part of the suspension of disbelief of a superhero movie, along with superpowers is that our heroes are going to beat up rooms full of people, and that’s going to be good, and we’re going to cheer. So I didn’t have time, in the tiny little clip we got, to feel anything at all about Hawkeye slicing through rooms of ‘baddies’. So the whole, fall-and-redemption arc fell totally flat, and added to that, I got to sit through the image of a white man slicing through rooms of people of colour, and it was gross, and I didn’t like it. I get that Clint has been criminally underdeveloped by these films. But it was too late to fix it in Endgame, they should have just admitted it.

Also, it cost us the alternate take on Clint and Natasha’s final scene that my friend suggested “I have to save you you have a family” vs “No, I’ve had a family, I’ve had all that time, you’ve only just found yours, so I have to send you back to them”.

3. Thor: Not only was everything they did with Thor a small-minded mean-spirited joke, it was one they kept dragging on and on and on. I hated it. That being said, two points. Firstly, in a weird way, I feel slightly better about Frigga’s death now, giving her agency over it makes it marginally less fridgy. And also, the final Thor look, with the braided beard! Superb! Amazing! Wonderful!

4. Wanda: for the first time ever I had a feeling about Wanda. I was surprised.

5. Bruce: I have no real feelings one way or another, about the professor hulk thing. It sets up the end of the movie well, I think on balance they’re more interesting as characters when they’re split up. But maybe it’ll grow on me.

6. Nebula: I still haven’t seen GOTG2, but I love Nebula now! I love her and Rhodey together, I want them to get a movie.

7. This isn’t a character, but the overall rhythm of the finale, where the avengers finally avenge the world and then the dead they avenge come help them fight. It could not be better, it was wonderful. Also the final scene with all the ladies brought me joy beyond telling. I’ve subsequently seen some critiques that it was “just pandering, not real feminism” but I just don’t care guys. Its an action sequence in a big final act showdown, all it needed to be was pandering. I love to be pandered to, quite frankly.

8. I still haven’t seen Captain Marvel, but she’s extremely shiny and exciting and I am in love with her.

10. Steve: Steve fighting himself (complete with Winter Soldier callbacks) was amazing fanservice, but also surprisingly moving, as a commentary on Steve as a character. Steve with the hammer was everything. As to the ending, I liked this more the day after the movie than when I first saw it. Overall I thought it was really good. I know a lot of people longed for Steve to get a retirement, but honestly, I would never have found that believable. Steve, will always fight. And even though Steve’s been circling around the idea of ‘moving on’ since Avengers, he never did. So I felt this completed things. I like the implication of openeness. Steve is the moral core of the story, so Steve, as the keeper of the infinity stones works for me. I’m sure he and Peggy kicked Hydra ass across all sorts of parallel timelines and it was great. One quibble: I would have put that dance in Peggy’s office, I think it would have called back to Peggy’s arc in Agent Carter better.

11. SAM GOT THE SHIELD SAM GOT THE SHIELD SAM GOT THE SHIELD.

12. Bucky: I mean, I ship it too and all, but where Steve has been failing to move on forever, Bucky hasn’t. He’s got a whole life, and ultimately, the life he has in the films, rather than our hearts, hasn’t had a lot of Steve in it. I’m fine with letting the man go back to his goats in Wakanda. I trust that he and Steve have made their peace. And quite frankly I now ship Sam and Bucky like never before.

11. Natasha: I loved it. I loved her arc. Did you guys notice that she and Steve switched places in the movie. Steve pulled of a heist and an undercover mission, and ran off to find a life. Natasha became the leader of the avengers and sacrificed herself for her family. It was perfect. My only complaint is that I wanted more of what we got. If the cut out all the bits I didn’t like, we would have had time for a much longer ending for her, and also for Steve to see 2012!Natasha. I just rewatched Avengers and they hit it off so fast and I wanted that.

12. Tony: It was perfect. It hurt and everything about it was amazing. In some ways I feel like there isn’t much more to say, other than that I am choosing to believe that Tony’s extreme Dad skills have created an alternate timeline where Howard is a much better Dad. Also, while much gets made of Tony and Steve’s original disagreement (you’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play), I feel like that was basically resolved in Avengers itself. For several movies now Tony and Steve’s disagreement has been about trading freedom for safety, about the suit of armour around the world. And Tony cut the wire guys. He kept the world safe, and no one had to sacrifice but him, and he died surrounded by three people who were protecting the world in armour he made. And I bawled my eyes out and look forward to doing it again.

#endgame #endgame spoilers

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ryanmeft · 6 years

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MCU Final Battles from Worst to Best, Part Two

I hear there’s a movie coming out tomorrow that people are looking forward to. Infinity War promises to be the biggest fight in the MCU to date, but what about the other ones? Here’s part two of my list ranking every final battle in the MCU to date. The link to Part One is below.

Part One: http://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/173198399342/mcu-final-battles-from-worst-to-best-part-one

WARNING: THIS LIST THOROUGHLY SPOILS THE END OF EVERY MCU MOVIE. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

10. Spider-Man: Homecoming

What Happens

Spidey and Vulture battle in the skies and on a beach over a stolen crate of Stark weaponry.

Why it’s not half bad

The battle itself is nothing special, and forgoes some opportunities to take greater advantage of Spider-Man’s powers and Vulture’s flight. The best parts involve the interactions between the two, stemming from the fact that, whereas usually the hero doesn’t want to hurt the villain, this time the villain doesn’t really want to hurt the hero, either. The big finish, with Spidey dragging Vulture from the mess he himself caused, is golden, but overall it felt like the battle itself could have been more.

9. Ant-Man

What Happens

Ant-Man and Yellowjacket battle mostly at microscopic size in AM’s daughter’s playroom, using her toys as weapons.

Why It’s Not Half Bad

The creative use of toys like Cassie’s train set pushes this one up on the list. It’s genuinely funny and creative to see the way a child’s toy world is transformed into a battleground, and highlights the fact that the movie’s greatest strength was the interplay of bite-sized powers with the real world. The stakes are lighter than in any other MCU movie, which takes some of the urgency out of it, but this is wisely made up for by the use of humor in a way that recalls older, more physical silent films.

8. Black Panther

What Happens

Amid a wider battle for Wakanda, T’Challa and Killmonger both don identical Black Panther suits and face off with each other, and a train.

Why It’s Not Half Bad

Because the big battle between competing Wakandan factions is really, really cool, to the point where even a few ridiculous rhinos can’t dampen it. You can really feel the stakes in this one, since it amount to BP’s own little civil war. Sure, it was a little bizarre that they tried to make big drama out of Killmonger offing a random, nameless extra, but whatevs.

Sadly, in a movie so full of neat new ideas, the writers fall back on the most tired trope in superhero movies: two similarly-equipped combatants in a mirror match while the environment occasionally gets in the way. They already did this in Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, and The Incredible Hulk, and several other non-MCU films have used the concept, so it feels like something that was pulled out of Script 101 and stuck in the middle of a better fight. Killmonger’s emotional death, however, adds enough feels to boost it.

7. Thor

What Happens

Loki tries to destroy Ice Person Land to prove he’s a better son, and Thor, who has learned compassion in, like, three days because of a pretty woman, goes a few rounds with him over this.

Why it’s Not Half Bad

The internal logic of this one is really spotty---why does Loki think destroying the world Odin stopped Thor from destroying will make him daddy’s favorite? All we care about is the actual fight, though, and it has a lot of cool touches. Thor’s brute force is pitted nicely against Loki’s cunning and bag of tricks, and Thor ends their one-on-one duel by taking a page from Loki’s book and using a trick instead of a punch; the hammer-on-the-chest thing was clever. While the “consequences” of Thor destroying the Rainbow Bridge to stop Loki’s plan were wiped away with a couple lines of dialogue in subsequent films, that’s irrelevant on this list, and in the moment, it was a surprisingly ballsy move.

6. Iron Man 3

What Happens

Iron Man uses all his resources, including multiple Iron Man armors, to to combat a baddie against which no one suit would have been enough. Then Super Gwyneth Paltrow almost ruins it.

Why it’s Not Half Bad

Yes, Super Gwyneth Paltrow was bad. Real bad. There was no reason to drag out the final battle to get that in there, especially since Tony’s initial solution of wrapping Guy Pearce in armor and making the armor go boom was basically his Mortal Kombat fatality, and it was AWESOME. But the rest of the battle still has that creative thrill that the other Iron Man finales, and most superhero flicks, are missing. Tony running between platforms and jumping between armors runs the danger of making things seem too much like a video game, but the movie pulls it off and gives us a great note to go out on for what is likely the last Iron Man finale we’ll see (at least until the 2030 reboot of the universe).

5. Thor: Ragnarok

What Happens

Thor, Loki, Valkyrie, Hulk and Karl Urban throw themselves against the forces of Hela, before ultimately deciding they must unleash a demon and destroy Asgard to defeat her.

Why It’s Awesome

The stakes for this one are higher than almost any other Marvel movie, and while some viewers might have been disappointed by the highly humorous tone of the film, the final fight is all business. The ultimate result---Thor and Loki have to destroy their entire world to prevent Hela gaining control over all the universe---is easily the biggest sacrifice a Marvel hero has made, and the battle has the secondary effect of justifying why Thor keeps Loki around. The battle itself is a little less impressive than the big finale. Basically, it’s another instance of the heroes throwing themselves at a clone army led by a nigh-invincible super baddie. Hulk vs. Fenris was cool, though.

4. Marvel’s The Avengers

What Happens

Loki opens a portal to the far reaches of space, allowing an alien army through to attack New York, and the newly formed Avengers, ahem, assemble to stop him and them.

Why It’s Awesome

For better or worse, this one set the tone for most of the non-solo MCU films that followed. It became predictable and, as a result, boring after a few years, but it still felt relatively fresh here. Everything about it, from the banter between the team members to the endless wealth of creative moves pulled---Hawkeye’s exploding arrow was a particular highlight---worked nearly effortlessly. And, of course, there was arguably the greatest single moment in any MCU fight to date. There’ve been few wonderfully hilarious surprises as great as “Puny God” in any superhero film, period. Like all such big fights (see the Lord of the Rings trilogy for more examples) it doesn’t quite have the same impact when you’ve seen it a few times, but it holds up better than a lot of others on repeat viewings.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

What Happens

A gigantic fleet mostly fails to stop Monotone Space General from using an Infinity Stone to wipe out his race’s rival planet, so the Guardians land and stop him using the power of friendship and sick 80’s dance moves.

Why It’s Awesome

You might be asking why this one is so high on the list. The space battle is effective but not revolutionary, and for a moment it looks like we’ll get a typical Marvel ending to a fairly atypical Marvel movie. Then it busts out what I’m fairly sure has never happened in another movie: an intergalactic, genocidal warlord gets defeated by the power of friendship and a dance-off. That a cosmic baddie who is supposed to be nigh-unstoppable gets taken down by the song “O-o-h Child” is not only a riotously funny surprise, but for a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, the remaining Guardians joining together to use the power of the, well, Power Stone is shockingly effective. In terms of group-of-heroes vs. army-of-bad-guys style showdowns, this one is hard to top.

2. Doctor Strange

What Happens

Doctor Strange and company battle Kaecelius’s zealots, before Strange ends Dormammu’s threat to earth by trapping him in a time loop.

Why It’s Awesome

Because it’s not only clever and unexpected, but it fully utilizes the trippy, LSD-ish visual style and insane plotting that typified Steve Ditko’s famous 60’s original run. Even if you don’t care about that, though, there’s little question that trapping Dormammu in a time loop that Strange will only break if he leaves is not your typical showdown. Strange dying over and over again, having volunteered himself to suffer forever in order to protect humanity, has the air of ancient mythology about it, and is just damn effective, to boot. The movie itself had a mixed reception from fans, and you don’t hear much talk about it now, but it had a lot of interesting plot beats, and this was the best.

1. Captain America: Civil War

What Happens

Zemo leads the heroes to believe he’s going to unleash an army of Winter Soldiers on the world, but when they go to stop him, they find his plan is actually to turn them against themselves.

Why It’s The Best

This one has it all. First, since this basically an Avengers film in many ways, we’re led to expect the typical Avengers ending, with the heroes squaring off against an army of personality-free super-baddies. I actually audibly groaned when the plot revealed the existence of a Winter Soldier program. “Here we go again”, I thought. I can’t overstate my satisfaction when it turned out to be deliberate feint on both the part of the filmmakers and the bad guy.

Of course, a final showdown was necessary---this is still a popcorn movie, even if it is one of the best. More than any other MCU film, though, this one needed to feel personal, and boy did it ever. On every level, from direction to writing to acting, Iron Man squaring off with Captain America one-on-one for the right to kill Cap’s best friend for assassinating Tony’s parents was perfectly executed. All the little details, from Downey’s face when the truth is revealed to the undramatic way Cap drops his shield and Stark’s despair over the whole thing, are as pitch perfect as movies like this get. This was the last movie with most of the traditional team before Infinity War promises to shuffle the deck, and if its the de facto end of an era, it could hardly have ended on a more gripping note. These movies may not be Citizen Kane, but this came as close to greatness as they get.

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miraculous-content · 7 years

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Miraculous Season 2: Episodes 1-6 (review)

A few people requested that I talk about the episodes of Miraculous that have aired in France. For those who maybe watch the show in other languages, I’ll be putting it all under a “read more”.

I’ll make another post - also under a “read more” - if anyone wants me to elaborate on any of my opinions, so feel free to send asks if you so desire!

Episode 1 - The Collector

Compared to the opening episode of Season 1, this - in my opinion - is a vast improvement. All of the tiny plot details mesh together beautifully and combine into a great episode.

Highlights

- The reveal of Gabriel being The Papillon. You already know before the de-transformation, but just the slow build-up is beautiful. It’s also great seeing Nooroo again eVEN IF IT RIPS MY HEART OUT.

- Marinette and Master Fu’s conversation. More plot development and another look at the fox and bee miraculous! I like seeing them occasionally.

- Chat’s reactions to Gabriel possibly being The Papillon. My heart was absolutely breaking. Also, Ladybug being supportive of Chat is A+ 10/10

- The fight scene is really good (a lot of the fight scenes in Miraculous are, honestly). The angles are really dramatic, and my favorite shot is when the camera is moving in a circle as they fight.

Lowlights

- I know this is kind of a nitpick, but it bothers me how Lila technically gets away with stealing the book from Adrien. I appreciate the character it took for Marinette to lie and say that she took the book for herself, and I know that Lila still technically got yelled at (just not about the book) and also had that whole episode where she was akumatized but, I dunno. The fact that Adrien nor Gabriel ever know who really stole the book irks me just a little. Anyone else agree, or is it just me?

Notes

- I wonder if the camera in Gabriel’s room only captures video, or only takes pictures every couple seconds? I looked back on Volpina just to check (the images don’t line up with the original footage by I digress--), and I feel like they’d at least hear Adrien talking to Plagg or see Adrien talking to seemingly nothing?

...Unless they really do know that Adrien is Chat Noir... oh dear.

- I no longer know how to feel about Gabriel.

- The biggest plot twist of this episode for me is that Nathalie knows. I was not expecting that at all. It also changed my opinion of her a bit because, I remember seeing her in Origins, looking away from Adrien when he was thanking her. At first, I thought she was just trying not to show emotions, but now I’m not so sure. How much does she care about Adrien, really?

- THE TAIL???? IT COMES OFF??????????????

the other big plot twist

Episode 2 - Baddy Bear

The “Chloe redemption” begins, I suppose? I know a ton of people have been wanting this for a while. I’m more of a “I love Chloe but I hate Chloe” person; I love how over-the-top she can be, but she’s really obnoxious when they don’t take her all the way with it. The episode finds a bit of a middle-ground with that, where I like her half of the time and find her a bit irksome for the other half.

Highlights

- Adrien being stern with Chloe made me gasp. I had been waiting for this moment since Kung Food and it was so worth it. (I think the scene itself is also very nicely shot.)

- The Papillon relying on Chloe’s “natural cruelty” had me laughing so hard. The fact that they actually referenced the fact that Chloe has akumatized so many people was a super nice touch.

- I already liked the butler from the Antibug episode (one of my few highlights from that episode), but I like him even more here! He’s so patient and nice and AHHHH.

- The Adrienette. Oh sweet love square, the Adrienette. This episode nearly killed me. Adrien, you oblivious fool. Also, Marinette’s look of complete dead as Adrien compliments her macaroon was beautiful.

- Chloe trying her best to be nice was enjoyable to watch, and she actually has some cute lines later on, like when she was helping Ladybug (right as she pulls on Chat’s tail and right before she starts turning the umbrella).

Lowlights

- Completely personal preference, but any comparison between Chloe and Marinette irks me (maybe because it reminds me of The Evillustrator?). I know Alya was teasing Marinette, but I kinda twitched at that one line. I suppose it just feels like a really obvious joke that the show’s above at this point.

- Chloe’s ego gets a bit cringe-y near the end of the episode. Ladybug and Adrien brush her off, but I still think they could’ve toned it down just a little bit.

Notes

- Nice subtle “Chloe’s mother left” for the few seconds we see Chloe’s drawing memories. I wonder if she left on a business trip or if she left because the mayor is such a jerkface. I could understand either.

- The bear is cute and I want it. WHERE ARE THE “CHLOE’S BEAR” PLUSHES, ZAG???

- I’m glad that Chloe didn’t turn in one episode, especially because I do feel that she made progress. She did something nice for the sake of Adrien, and now she just has to do something nice because she wants to.

- I know that most people hate that Chat got put under someone else’s control, but it doesn’t bother me when it happens, so I don’t have anything to say about it.

- I’m a dork for size-changing so tiny butler had me dying.

Episode 3 - Audimatrix

The meta is so strong in this episode. Also, CHAT JUST WANTS HIS KISS.

Overall, honestly not my favorite. I think it might be because I was getting second-hand embarrassment. I don’t think the episode is bad though. It’s good!

Highlights

- Ladybug’s entrance. It’s awesome and you can see her inner Marinette as she lands.

- Chat has finally seen the kiss. That alone is worth its own point in the highlights.

- The animation seems a little more bouncy this episode. It’s nice.

- I enjoy Audimatrix’s design and the lengths she goes to just to get her story. The episode reaches a bit of a dark place and I think that’s cool.

- Alya and Marinette’s talk when Marinette returns. I could really feel the friendship between them.

Lowlights

- I don’t understand how Marinette could make the mistake with her babysitting being on the same day as the interview? It’d be one thing if Nadja wasn’t doing the interview, but she is, so shouldn’t Marinette seeing Nadja remind her immediately of the interview on the same day? Whether Ladybug or Marinette accepted first, I feel like even fumbly Marinette wouldn’t make this mistake?

- Going off of the last point, the babysitting subplot feels a little awkward here. It might be because the plots of the last two episodes felt so solid, but the subplot and main plot feel disconnected.

- The people helping Nadja’s show are really frustrating. I know they’re supposed to push Nadja to her limit so she gets akumatized, but they have to nail her for every little thing that goes wrong. I’m guessing that maybe Nadja has already tried and failed to get her own show or something, but it drives me a little crazy.

Notes

- “I love croquettes!” Chat is cute.

- This episode has a different feel than other episodes, likely due to the interview. It’s not bad, not good, just different.

- Ladybug’s “lucky vision” highlighting all the boxes had my brain reeling. So many boxes...

- I need more of Ladybug just pinning akuma down. That move she did was rad.

- I was actually uncomfortable the first time I saw this episode because I didn’t have subtitles, and it made it seem like Ladybug was the only cause of Nadja’s akumatization, which I thought was so wrong because Ladybug has every right to leave after being pressured so much. I’m glad that wasn’t the case.

Episode 4 - La Béfana

Can we all agree that Chat Noir and Ladybug singing together is cute? Yes? Okay, great. Speaking of great, this episode was pretty great too!

Highlights

- Some plot development with the charm that Tikki gives Marinette! It’s so cute that Marinette turned it into a necklace.

- Marinette’s grandmother is a really solid character. Her design and personality are both very nice, and having her related to Marinette gives her a bit of an advantage since a connection is already there.

- This episode avoided a lot of tropes that I’d been steeling myself up for. I was ready for the whole “Marinette thinks they’re planning a birthday party but they’re not” since she was building it up so much, but no, they were actually planning her party! In-between, I was expecting the “Gina doesn’t understand that Marinette is a grown-up now” thing to go on forever, but they kept it relatively short. Then, I was ready for the akumatization being because “Marinette lies and talks about the dentist but then Gina comes across the party and realizes it was all a lie”, but they avoided that too by having Marinette be honest.

- Another interesting akuma, this time with both a witch and candy theme! How fun, considering this episode was first aired around Halloween!

- Everyone rallying together just to protect Marinette was so sweet. Not that I thought they’d just leave her, but the fact that they’re all trying to help really helps show that pretty much everyone likes Marinette, which not all episodes portray well.

- Yet another great moment with The Papillon - seems to be a lot of them this season - with him having to say “please”. My sides started hurting with laughter.

- So, this is the second look of complete dead from Marinette’s end, yeah? The Adrienette this season has been awesome and this particular one presents a nice callback to Gamer (regardless of how I feel about that episode, I’m fine with the lucky charm making a return).

- The fact that Marinette actually made something out of the tiny “shirt” that Gina gives her is precious. Marinette is almost too pure, honestly.

Lowlights

- Even though I am glad that they avoided those tropes I mentioned earlier, the first at least is still there, and even though it’s only about a minute long, it feels a little awkward having this motorcycle-riding grandmother doing all these simplistic things with Marinette. I’m guessing the reason is because, back in Gina’s day, she probably wasn’t allowed to do much at the age of fourteen, so she’s just a little back in her own time, but... I don’t know. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, but it’s probably the least fun part of the episode.

- I know that Gina wanted to spend the whole day with Marinette and she’s very attached, but seeing her sulk that Marinette is going to this other birthday party feels a little off. I’m sure Marinette would’ve taken her if it wouldn’t’ve been weird for a grandmother to be mixed in with all these teens, but yeah.

Notes

- This is our MariChat episode, and it delivers! Chat wishing Marinette a happy birthday warms my heart.

- Actually, Chat in general has a lot of good moments in this episode!

Episode 5 - Riposte

They somehow fit all four sides of the love square within the first five episodes and I am 100% okay with that. We also get another new character in this one, which is once again fun because this was a great episode!

Highlights

- This is another episode where the action is just top notch, particularly with Adrien and Kagami fencing. Marinette’s look of awe as it ends sums up my feelings pretty well.

- I felt bad for laughing, but the slapstick with Armand D'Argencourt was hilarious.

- It would’ve been so easy to have Marinette give Adrien the point just because it’s Adrien, but I appreciate how they made her seem very genuine in her decision. I legitimately believe that she thought Adrien touched first.

- I enjoy Kagami as a character. Even though she’s the akuma for the episode, you do feel bad for her, and she’s never aggressive with the other characters in her civilian state. She takes her loss like a champ, even if it upsets her. In akuma form, it also intrigues me how she doesn’t go after Marinette, the one who made the call that Adrien won. She just wants her rematch, and the akuma side of her is the one that doesn’t care if it’s an unfair fight.

- The character moments in this were nice and solid. Even though Adrien is still playing his “just a friend” card with Marinette, we see a little more of how he feels about her in general, and we get to see Marinette express a bit of sadness that she’s still “just friends” with him (after that dance in episode 2, can’t blame her). Tikki also plays her typical supportive role, which is good because I feel that Tikki is vital to keeping Marinette grounded emotionally.

- The Ladrien in this episode, I am so weak. I’m always happy whenever they’re just complete love-struck dorks with each other, and the kisses had me squealing.

Lowlights

- This is an extreme nitpick, but when Ladybug is calling Chat Noir, she talks about him “keeping them waiting”. I’m pretty sure she knows that they can only listen to messages on their communicator after they’re transformed, and Riposte hasn’t even been around that long, so the fact that she seems confused/irked by the fact that Chat isn’t here yet is odd.

Notes

- I went frame-by-frame in case you guys were curious; Adrien does actually touch first. I saw his “weapon” bending before Kagami’s did.

Episode 6 - Robostus

Probably the most fascinating akumatization; who knew a robot could get akumatized? Also, I couldn’t even believe it when this episode aired because it’s like, I know I’ve had my lowlights here and there, but I’m very picky and I’d actually liked the first five episodes so far. And then, guess what? I like this one too!

Highlights

- Markov. Just Markov. This little robot is so cute, so endearing, and I love his motivation for wanting to be human.

- Everyone who's been following me for a while know that I didn’t like Gamer, and I’m very pleased that I have an episode now that I enjoy where Max gets some good screentime. He hasn’t changed much in terms of my least favorite to most favorite students, but he plays a nice role here.

- The comedy in this episode isn’t half-bad. I started snickering when the lamp had taken over the mayor’s office. Honestly, I think it would’ve done a better job as mayor anyway. Also, Marinette tricking Ms. Mendeleiev into letting her talk to Mr. Damocles.

- My mouth dropped open as Robostus completely shut down The Papillon’s lair and started firing missiles at him. It blew my mind that Robostus could even do that.

- Bringing the virus back to shut down Markov was such a nice choice for defeating him, especially as the lucky charm also had to play a role in things.

- We got more explanation for how the miraculous wishes would work, so yes! More plot please! That’s always fun!

Lowlights

- I wish they’d used a different way of showing that the computer was infected with a virus. Both me and my best friend are computer nerds and... yeah, it kind of irked both of us. It didn’t ruin anything and it does show what’s happening better than portraying it as an actual virus would, but still. Also, the style of it doesn’t feel like it fits with the show.

- The animation feels a bit more stilted this time around.The animation on Markov and the electronics are fine, but, well, they’re mechanical, so that kind of makes sense. The other characters seem to move a bit more stiffly than usual. In addition, Master Fu’s eyes in the final scenes aren’t staring at Marinette correctly at times, and it’s a little distracting.

- I recognize that the akuma seems to pick its own appearance and Markov naturally wouldn’t be very creative, but I wish they’d either picked different colors or given Markov a human-ish design to fit with his desires.

Notes

- Mr. Damocles and Ms. Mendeleiev are so salty about Markov and Max fixing the computer and it’s very amusing.

- I’m not sure how I feel about Max debating on what to do with Markov, considering that Max has already been possessed by an akuma. I imagine the point is that he’s afraid Markov is too emotionally unstable, but still.

- I wonder if the miraculous wish had something to do with Fu and the Guardian’s temple being destroyed?

Overall

This season so far has surpassed all of my expectations! It’s incredibly rare for me to have this many positive things to say about episodes that come right after another, which means that I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the season!

As for if I had to rank the episodes (this is a bit rough because they’re honestly so close)...

1. Riposte

2. Baddy Bear

3. Robostus

4. La Béfana

5. The Collector

6. Audimatrix

#MC's reviews #ml spoiler #ml spoilers

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daleisgreat · 4 years

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The Fate of the Furious

A little over a year ago I reviewed Furious 7 to coincide with the theatrical release of the spinoff film, Hobbes & Shaw. On a quick side note Hobbes & Shaw was a surprisingly bad detour for the series that I would rank right at the bottom with 2 Fast 2 Furious as the only two subpar entries from the franchise. It is safe to say I do no plan on reviewing it here. What I am reviewing today is the latest core entry in The Fast and the Furious brand in 2017’s The Fate of the Furious (trailer). Fast & Furious 9 was supposed to hit theaters earlier this summer, but the pandemic and current closure of a majority of theaters prompted Universal to push it back to April 2021. So while today’s entry will not have the honor of coinciding with the latest theatrical release like I did with my blog last year, it does have consolation prize of coinciding with the blink-and-miss-it release of the critically panned videogame, Fast and Furious: Crossroads, a couple weeks ago. I have yet to play the game, but I feel safe to say The Fate of the Furious is likely exponentially better than it. Veteran director Gary Gray takes his first attempt at directing a F&F film and opens The Fate of the Furious off with Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) enjoying themselves in an extended honeymoon in Cuba before Vin’s cousin finds himself in trouble and Dom has to naturally race the local goon to settle the score. It is one of the best races of all the films where Dom tricks out his cousin’s lemon of a ride with a Cuban formula of NOS that propels Dom to push the car to its limits and have a thrilling finish which raises the ‘yeah, right’ factor of the F&F films to new heights, but in all the right ways.

Not all is peachy for Dom though because not long after that killer opening he meets this film’s antagonist, Cipher (Charlize Theron). Fate of the Furious quickly establishes that Cipher is no pushover villain as she forces Dom’s hand to turning on his team on a routine black ops mission in Germany where he steals an EMP for Cipher. From here the film shifts into how Cipher has her hooks into Dom and has him doing jobs for her across the globe to setup one ultimate heist in Russia to close off the film in a dazzling array of the eye-popping stunts and special effects the brand is known for. Seeing how Dom’s team responds to his betrayal and try to stay on his toes is a fun game of cat and mouse. Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) returns to assemble the team on these unofficial black ops missions and has a new apprentice by his side going by Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood). Roman (Tyrese Gibson) has a fun friendly rivalry with Little Nobody throughout the film. This is probably the best performance Tyrese has put in throughout the series, with him disposing of several baddies with his signature flair in the last act especially standing out for him. Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emanuel) return to display their hacking prowess. A quick line of dialogue addresses the Paul Walker dilemma by the gang respecting Brian and Mia’s choice to live their family life and not get them involved. Hobbes (The Rock) is as awesome as ever in his larger-than-life persona. One of the most entertaining scenes in the film is where Hobbes finds himself locked up with Furious 7’s villain, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Watching the two go on a showcase prison break was a delight and a half to consume.

In a questionable twist, Hobbes ropes Shaw into working for the team to help bring down Cipher and Dom. Surprisingly the rest of the team has no problem welcoming Shaw into the team despite Shaw murdering their former beloved comrade, Han, in the Furious 7. I have a big problem with this since Shaw shows no remorse for his past and no one on the team confronts Shaw about Han’s assassination here. Shaw does play a big role in the final big Russia action scene to help assist the team, but it is quite the stretch to say it absolves him of murdering Han. Granted, there are a lot of suspend disbelief moments with any F&F film, but this is a glaring flaw that goes unaddressed in this film. Speaking of ‘suspend disbelief’ moments, as far as the action and stunts in Fate of the Furious goes, I can safely assure that this film lives up to the high bar the series has established. There is a absurd scene involving an army of hacked smart cars that I was able to turn off my mind and roll with. Same goes for a military grade tank and submarine chase on the Russian ice. Gary Gray pulls out all the stops in that final act at the Russian base and the final half hour will fly by before you know it. I remember coming off my initial theatrical viewing of this thinking that Cipher’s ruthlessness seemed too forced and put on, but I came around on her in my second viewing. Her constant bullying over Dom to keep him doing her bidding throughout and being presented as the mastermind of all hackers makes Cipher reside in the top tier of villains for the films. It ultimately all comes together for another outstanding film for the franchise.

Like most past F&F BluRays and DVDs, there is a hearty amount of extra features on this BluRay. Gary Gray offers up a solo commentary track which offers up plenty of production facts and insight. Highlights include his love for the opening Cuban race, relating his past chemistry working with The Rock on Be Cool paying off dividends here, pulling off the ostensibly impossible feat of closing off Time’s Square and how Gray slyly snuck in a reference to his past work on Friday that went right over my head. There is a little over an hour worth of additional bonus material on here. They are split up into many smaller features, and of those I would recommend checking out Zombie Cars, Malecon Stunt Race, Streets of New York and Iceland Stunt Drops the most as they all do a masterful job at breaking down the stunt work and the logistics that made these ambitious scenes possible. I re-watched all the previous films along with a commentary track from the crew at Giant Bomb, but all their commentary tracks were planned in time to build up to the theatrical release of this film so instead of a commentary track they released a spoiler-cast analyzing the whole film and ranking all the films at the end. I re-listened to it last night and they do a thorough job dissecting their highs and lows with it. Click or press here to give it a listen. The Fate of the Furious held up much better than I originally thought. Thinking back on it, a part of me likely felt awkward how to take in a F&F film without Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster undoubtedly played a role in my initial mixed take on the eighth film. It also helped that I came around on Charlize Theron’s performance on my second viewing too. Aside from my reservations with Deckard Shaw being fully welcomed into ‘the family’ by the end of the film, I had a riot with The Fate of the Furious and it continues the roll of outstanding entries in the series since the fifth film. Here is hoping the ninth film does not suffer any more delays and that it will hit theaters this April!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Pilgrim vs the World The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #Fast and Furious #the fate of the furious #vin diesel #Paul Walker #michelle rodriguez #gary gray #ludacris #the rock #Jason Statham #tyrese #scott eastwood #kurt russell #charlize theron #nathalie emmanuel #luke evans #Elsa Pataky

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northbndtrain · 7 years

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Hey I'm a late Reven8e watcher and I love your Jack and real Amanda posts. Especially the season by season tracker of their development. I think the slow progression of their relationship and the trust they build over the course is something you don't see a lot on TV nowadays. You mind if I ask what do you think about the couple Amanda and Aidan? At the top of my head they don't seem like a bad couple but he always felt forced into the series to me. And it seemed their bond was never as deep

Hi! Thank you for the compliment, and I am so glad you enjoy the posts! I’m doing a re-watch right now and would like to eventually finally get the S3 and S4 “moments” lists done, too.

You’re absolutely right that the slow burn isn’t often done on TV anymore…hard to believe that up until the end of S4 Jack and Emily hadn’t done anything more than kiss a couple of times.

As frustrating as that sometimes was to watch in real time (and it was so, so frustrating, especially in Season 2, when they had very little interaction), in retrospect I can appreciate the fact that the writers took their time and made their case instead of rushing through the entire romance in the first season and then moving both on to new partners.

Plus, in the end, it worked out – I watched several shows around that time period that didn’t end with my favorite couple getting together, so to have Revenge really follow through with the promise they set up in the pilot four years earlier…that was a real gift.

Ah…Aiden…let me see…obviously, I’m not a fan, but that’s not just because I love Jack and Jack/Amanda. There were other problems with his character that I couldn’t get past.

(This is getting long, so under the cut it goes…)

1. AIDEN’S INTRODUCTION: You mention in your post that he felt forced into the series; that’s how it felt watching in real time, too. All during S1, there was never any mention of Aiden or even a reference made to Emily having had a serious love interest in the past, which makes sense because as far as we’re aware he was never part of creator Mike Kelley’s original vision for the show, but rather an addition that came after the show was renewed.

In a way, Aiden’s introduction was a symptom of the larger problem with S2 – that is, the writers/producers, high on the success of S1, decided over the hiatus to take their original concept, which was so beautiful in its simplicity (woman assumes a false identity to take down the people who betrayed her father), and twist it up into a bunch of unnecessary knots with the introduction of the Initiative, so that suddenly the villains weren’t just the Graysons and their employees, but also previously-unseen members of a larger global conspiracy involving all these other pointless baddies like Trask and Helen Crowley (how pointless? I had to look up both of their names because I couldn’t even remember them, even though they were all over Season 2).

The whole thing felt like sloppy miscalculation, and Aiden was right in the middle, as his tragic backstory involving his sister was tied into the whole Initiative conspiracy.

But what was also annoying was the way his relationship displaced Emily’s relationships with the other men in her life. The big story in S1 was the Jack/Emily/Daniel triangle, with Emily/Nolan’s friendship playing a prominent role as he was the only real partner she had in her revenge plots.

Enter Aiden, who took over Daniel’s place as Emily’s current lover, Jack’s place as her long-lost love interest from the past, and Nolan’s place as her partner-in-crime. It was just too much.

2. AIDEN’S LACK OF DEPTH/CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: However, even though S2 became, in large part, The Aiden Show, he somehow remained underdeveloped as a character with no real life outside of what was going on in Emily’s life.

And I guess one could make the argument that, well, “it’s Emily’s show; of course she would have more development.” Except EVERY other contract character on the show, including all of the other men in Emily’s life – Jack, Daniel, and Nolan – had more of a life outside of her than Aiden did:

Jack: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, two love interests besides Emily (Fauxmanda and Margaux), a job running the Stowaway, a job as a cop, friendships with Nolan and Charlotte

Daniel: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, three love interests besides Emily (Ashley, Sara, and Margaux), a job at Grayson, a job at Margaux’s magazine

Nolan: multiple on-screen love interests, a career as a successful tech wizard, a hacking hobby, friendships with Jack, Declan, and Louise

As a result of their various storylines and relationships, the Jack, Daniel, and Nolan we saw in their final episodes are not the same exact men we met in the pilot – they’ve grown, been damaged, healed, and discovered things about themselves.

But all Aiden ever had was a little backstory (solely to explain how he came to meet Emily at Takeda’s), and a fling with Niko (in S3) that was so brief and pointless that I can’t even remember if it was just a flirtation or if they actually slept together. And I think in one episode we met his mom, maybe?

But that’s it. Everything else about the character was Emily-related – he was involved with the Graysons and Grayson Global because Emily was, he hated Jack because he was jealous of Jack/Emily, he hated Daniel because Daniel mistreated Emily, the only reason he interacted with Nolan was because Nolan was Emily’s BFF…. So, for someone like me who didn’t care for Aiden/Emily, there was even less reason to like his character since he almost didn’t exist outside of her anyway.

3. AIDEN’S CHARACTER FLAWS (OR, “AIDEN SUCKS”): But, you know, even all that above wouldn’t be enough to get me to hate Aiden. Find him annoying, sure. Roll my eyes at him, yes. Fast-forward his scenes, of course. Forget major details about his storyline, all the time.

In the end, it was his behavior and his treatment of the characters I did love that bothered me most of all. He lied to Emily whenever he felt it was in her best interest, and when he lectured or berated her it grated – Jack and Nolan lectured her, too, but the show often had them on a moral high ground that Aiden, as a violent student of revenge himself, could never claim. He also often made bad decisions only to shift the blame onto someone else.

But I found really difficult to get past was his treatment of Jack and Emily in S3 after he found out that Emily had told Jack her real identity. Everything that followed – Aiden lying to Conrad that Jack was the one who tried to kill him (Conrad), which put the lives of both Jack and baby Carl in danger; Aiden breaking into Jack’s home and manipulatively painting himself as the savior who only took the job as Corad’s hitman to give Jack time to leave town and stay away from Emily forever; Aiden having the unmitigated gall to get mad at Emily afterward; and then Aiden threatening Jack again a few episodes later – just had me thinking, “Yeah, Aiden’s the worst. THE WORST.”

And all because he couldn’t stand that Emily told Jack the truth that was her truth to tell to anyone she wanted to tell.

I mean, in a way, as a Jack/Emily fan, I appreciated it on a story level as evidence that Aiden was desperately insecure and jealous when it came to Jack and Emily’s relationship.

But it also just cemented my belief that there was never going to be anything root-worthy or sympathetic about him no matter how much the show tried to hold him up as one of the “good guys.”

4. EMILY/AIDEN’S SHALLOW RELATIONSHIP: You pointed out in your post that Emily and Aiden’s bond never seemed as deep. I agree with you completely. For years, one of the big criticisms of Jack/Emily was from those who said that Jack was in love with a little girl who no longer existed (a myth I debunked here), and those same fans often said in the same breath that Aiden loved the whole/real woman.

Then Barry Sloane (Aiden) came along and did a “Pop on the Pop” interview in S3 where, when asked if he wanted Aiden and Emily to end up together, he said,

I love working with Emily. I love the chemistry we have onscreen. I love those two characters together. I think Aiden understands her and he’s in love with one part of the woman she is. He doesn’t know Amanda Clarke. He fell in love with Emily Thorne. If she was to show up as that other part of herself, I don’t know if he’d love that other half of Emily.

(Unfortunately, I can’t link to the interview because the link I saved now directs to Amazon for some reason, so everyone reading this is going to have to take me at my word that I wouldn’t make up a quote about a show that was cancelled two years ago.)

I remember being kind of stunned by that quote when I read it, but only because it was so blunt – the sentiment didn’t surprise me because his words were backed up by what we’d seen on screen: there can be no depth to a relationship if one of the people involved only loves one part of the other person and has no interest in the rest, and Aiden clearly had no interest in Amanda Clarke (perhaps thinking, his mind warped by Takeda’s training, that Amanda didn’t exist anymore, or that she was never “real” the way Emily was “real”).

Ultimately, the most layered of Emily’s romances wasn’t her relationship with Aiden, because it wasn’t enough that they simply had a shared background in and driving need for revenge.

It was her relationship with Jack that was the most layered, and that was, interestingly enough, in large part because they spent so much of the series apart, so much of the series denying themselves the opportunity to be together. That time and that push and pull allowed them the space to see and accept ALL of each other. That slow-burn struggle made their eventual union feel earned, real, in a way that Emily/Aiden never did.

Thank you for the ask, and I am sorry it took so long to finish it!

#revenge #reven8e #emily thorne #amanda clarke #neverstoppedfeeling #jack porter #commentary #aiden mathis #jemily #jack and amanda #emily and aiden #northpost

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thewritewolf · 5 years

Text

Nino’s Quest Chapter 4: Return Home

The party finishes their first dungeon crawl through the power of teamwork! Includes the barmaid scene alluded to in the original one-shot. ;)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3. My ko-fi.

“Yo, M!”

Marinette froze in the middle of reaching toward the intercom button on the Agreste mansion gate, but relaxed when she saw him approaching. “Oh! Hey, Nino. Great timing, I was just about to go in.”

“That so? And how long have you been ‘just about to go in’?” He smirked as he said it, already knowing what the answer would be.

Just as he suspected, Marinette’s shoulders slumped. “...A while.” She rubbed her arm. “I just… I don’t think I’m ready yet to be alone with him for that long. You know?”

“Yeah, I get you, but I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, dude.” He pressed the button and waited for the gate to open. “You’ve been getting better around him. And I know he likes talking to you.”

“R-really?!” Her head whipped towards him, excitement plain on her face before she clumsily schooled it into a mask of indifference. “Ahem. That’s… great. I’m glad he does. If he asks, you can tell him the same is true for me.”

The gate opened up and they walked through. “So, hot party members aside, how are you liking the campaign?”

Powering through her blush, she replied, “I like it! It’s been a weird transition away from the games that I usually play, but its fun. There is a lot more interaction with you guys, which is great, and it’s also nice to be working together.”

“Since you get tired of curb stomping us at Ultimate Mecha Strike?”

“It does get pretty boring…” She glanced over to Nino and met his eyes. They both burst out laughing.

The main doors opened in front of them. A mop of blonde hair popped out from behind the comically large doors. Adrien grinned at them.

“Hey, guys! We’re waiting on Alya then?”

“Sounds like it, bro. How do you want us to wait? Foosball? Arcade games? Competitive rock climbing?” They filed in past Adrien. He closed the doors behind them. From his spot in the foyer, the Gorilla spared them a passing glance and a half-hearted growl.

“Actually…” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “I was hoping we could do some cooking?”

Nino shared a look with Marinette, but she only had eyes for Adrien. Eyes that were, at the moment, sparkling with unrestrained joy. He let out a long suffering sigh.

“Yeah, okay.” He finger gunned at Adrien. “You two start getting ready while I go set up in your room, ‘kay dudes?”

“That sounds awesome! See you there!”

Marinette flashed him a brief panicked look before Adrien snagged her wrist and rushed off into the kitchen. Nino gave an exaggerated wink in return. The door closed before he could see her reaction. Knowing he’d done Alya proud, he bounced up the stairs two at a time and slipped into Adrien’s room.

The process of setting up really wasn’t as intensive as he’d led his friends to believe. A grid unrolled onto the table, a DM screen set up, his dice laid out, and it was done. But the little ritual helped focus the party and gave him more time to get into the mindset of being the dungeon master. Or, in this case, let him lounge around for a little while to give Adrien and Marinette some alone time.

After a few more minutes had passed, Nino decided that he should probably go downstairs. No doubt, Marinette would appreciate the save. Whatever Alya thought, Nino was confident that just shoving them alone in a room for a while wouldn’t work. Just because their relationship started that way doesn’t mean it was foolproof.

Nino hesitated at the door when he heard laughing. An eyebrow raised - surely getting them to open up to each other hadn’t that easy? The door opened smoothly and Nino froze at the sight before him.

It would be an exaggeration to say that both of his friends were completely covered in flour, but it wouldn’t be a huge exaggeration. It had certainly covered most of their clothes… and their hair… some smudges on their faces… and streaks across the kitchen floor and counter. They at least had the presence of mind to look sheepish as they looked back at him. It was then that Nino noticed that in their clenched fists were clumps of flour. Suddenly it all clicked for him.

So he did the only thing that came to mind - he laughed.

“Seriously, dudes?”

“She started it!” Adrien said, pointing a powdery white finger towards Marinette.

“I- No! You popped up behind me and scared me into spilling flour on you.”

“Yes. A blatant act of war. So I responded in kind.”

“Y-you left a flour handprint on my shoulder...”

“Which was justice.”

“...So I did the same.”

“Which was too far.”

“And… well…” Marinette winced as she took in the room around them, ending with looking down at herself dejectedly. “...I don’t think I can play like this.”

Adrien shrugged. “You can borrow some of my clothes if you want. And we can wash your stuff while we play.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Nino said as he watched Marinette’s face turn beet red. That couldn’t be healthy. “Why don’t you two go figure that out while I sweep up the mess in here? If Nathalie sees this, I don’t think your old man will let us over any more.”

Adrien gulped. “You’ve got a point.” He turned towards Marinette. “Come on, I’m sure we can find something to fit you.”

Once the door closed behind them, Nino chuckled to himself. Those two were complete disasters.

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

An hour later and the four of them were assembled around Adrien’s bedroom table. Alya had raised an eyebrow at seeing Marinette in a pair of gym pants and a familiar black shirt, but surprisingly hadn’t commented on it.

Once he had their attention, Nino began to recap. “If you all remember, we had just gotten into the old mines when we were ambushed by a bunch of skeletons. Since the dead don’t just animate themselves, you can bet there’s some weirdo down here doing it.”

“Hopefully they haven’t had enough time to raise a bunch more than this,” Adrien said as he frowned at his character’s hit points.

“Then we’d better hurry up to make sure.” Alya rested her head in her hand. “Hey, babe. Can you give me a quick heal? I want to make sure I can still takes the hits for you softies.”

“‘Course, babe.”

A little healing all around and they were trudging through the darkness again. Taking the lesson from last session into account, Nino had thinned the numbers of skeletons around to just a couple here and there. It did wonders for making the party confident.

Confident enough that when they found a securely locked wooden door, their first instinct was to bash it down rather than listen carefully. Which meant that they walked right into a mechanical trap. Nothing special - just an arrow trap. But the health that it shaved off Alya’s knight was enough to make the following fight with the dark adept even more harrowing.

The battle went poorly at first, with Nino barely able to keep them up with his healing magics. Then, as always, things changed when Marinette came up with a plan.

“Wait! I’ve got it.” Marinette turned to Nino. “I need you to focus on killing the skeletons. We can’t hurt them, but you can.” She grabbed Alya’s arm. “You and me are charging straight towards the big baddie. He’s at least stab-able.”

“What about me?” Adrien tilted his head at Marinette.

Her eyes widened and a faint blush darkened her cheeks, but Nino was proud to see that she managed to reply to him. And with barely a stutter!

“Y-you’ll be keeping us going with your bard song while flanking the skeletons. And don’t you still have a couple healing songs?”

Adrien gasped. “I do!”

“Awesome! Let’s see if this works…”

The plan nearly failed from the start when Marinette’s rogue was knocked out from a random strike of the adept’s staff, but thankfully Adrien was there with a song on his lips. Nino wasn’t sure when it started, but his best friend had taken to belting out a few lines of a random song whenever he was doing bard magic. Unfortunately, the singing didn’t help this time when he managed to get Marinette up with only one hit point.

Despite that, they managed to pull off the plan. The undead and their master was defeated.

“As you bury your sword into the evil mage, he hisses at Alya, ‘My master will make you pay for this. And I will be waiting…,’ before collapsing into a heap of black robes and a rapidly growing pool of blood.” He took a bite out of a cookie they had made earlier. “Nice going, dudes. The mines are silent again. What do you do now?”

Marinette was glaring at the table. “I don’t like what he said about a master. Does he have a journal or something lying around?”

“Sure. It’s written in code though.”

“Dang, that’s actually a good idea,” Marinette muttered to herself. “Well, I guess we’ll take it with us. I’m sure we can figure it out eventually.”

After taking the time to thoroughly plunder the dungeon, they made their way back to the village.

“It’s night when you get back, so the village elder is sleeping. In the morning, she tells you that they are grateful for you help, but want you to stay in town for a week to be sure the raids have stopped. They’ll pay for your food and lodgings in the meantime.”

The party nodded as they absorbed this.

“So what are we going to do for a week then?”

“Are we in the tavern?” At Nino’s nod, Adrien rubbed his hands together. “Time for me to use that Charisma and make my bardic ancestors proud. I roll to seduce the barmaid!”

Alya caught his wrist before he rolled. “Wait, shouldn’t there be a little more roleplay to this?”

Nino’s eyes flickered to Adrien and he felt some heat rush to his cheeks. “Um… I’m not sure I’m super comfortable flirting with my best bro, babe. Especially with you here.”

“Don’t worry!” A predatory smirk found its way onto her face. “Marinette can do it!”

Poor Marinette had been in the middle of taking a drink when Alya said that, and nearly coughed up a lung because of it. After a few minutes, she was able to reply.

“But- but I- And he! H-how?”

Not coherently, but she did reply.

Alya slid up beside her and draped her arm over her friend’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Adrien will take it easy on you.” She shot a wink at him as she withdrew from Marinette’s side. “Go get her, tiger.”

Adrien swallowed heavily. “So, um… hey?”

“Strong opening,” Nino muttered, which earned him a glare from his girlfriend.

Marinette nervously bunched edge of her borrowed shirt in her hands. “H-hey! Did you, um, want something to drink, or…?”

“No, I, uh, I wanted to ask you something…”

“Oh…?”

“So…” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, face tomato red, refusing to look directly at Marinette, “I know this is, uh, pretty forward of me but… Ah… How about… you and me…?”

“Um… y-yes?”

“I…” Adrien wrung his hands together and somehow his blush became even redder, “Um… n-nevermind.” He hung his head and Nino patted his back.

“Good effort, bro.” Adrien gave him a weak smile. Taking in the expressions of his party - how Marinette and Adrien couldn’t meet each other’s eyes, how Alya was grinning - he decided that here was as good a place as any to end. “Right, so we’ll call it here, dudes.”

“I take it the week went by without anything happening?” Alya asked when it was clear the other two weren’t going to say anything.

“‘Course. They gave you your gold and some extra rations for the road as a bonus.” He started packing up. “I’ll send a message on the discord tomorrow about where you guys want to head next, so be thinking about that, alright?”

A few goodbyes later and Nino was on his way home. A smile slowly crept onto his face. It was a close call today, but they were shaping up to be true adventurers already.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Nino lahiffe #Alya Cesaire #DJ Wifi #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrienette #D&D #Dungeons and Dragons #ml fanfiction #my writing #Nino's Quest

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