#new Alien was good in part because only one character annoyed me; and while he got people killed he died

[medicinemane]

Honestly a lot of my favorite horror ends up being games I 100% will never play and wouldn't enjoy playing, but that I managed to find someone who was able to convey enough to me to make me really care (though often leaving holes that I really want to fill but either can't sit through the whole playthough, or can't find the right playthrough, or... similar, you know?)

Dead Space, Marrow, Siren... all games I really like, games that have a lot (or uh... what's it called... Som... Sola... Signalis!)

But Dead Space I can't find the right playthrough, and Marrow I just crave something more from an imperfect game (video I watched is by doshdoshington)

Or supergreatfriend's playthrough of Siren is pretty much flawless... but... it's like 59 15-30mintue long videos, and the 60th explainer video is nearly 3 hours long on it's own... I always make it like 20 videos in before not being able to pay attention anymore

(Also like his playthrough of Deadly Premonition)

So you maybe see my problem, all these great pieces of horror I can really only engage with through these weird one off means that never quite leave me satisfied (like no way I'm beating MyHouse.WAD, I'm not even close to that good nor do I enjoy playing DOOM even if I respect it)

Love horror, just can't stand anything made in the genre because it all sucks and is boring and has stupid twists or pacing that annoys me and I hate everything about it except a few gems I can't interact with

But like I said, love horror

[mathclassd00dles-blog]

Hi can you tell me more of your Rise Alopex whst relationship she has with each of the turtles

Omg yes!

My original plan was to make a rise comic series that had Alopex as one of the main story branches. I have been busy with work and haven't had much time to work on it lately but things are starting to slow down so I might have time to go back to it soon.

Much like the other iterations of Alopex, she was created on purpose, but this time she was created by John Bishop as some kind of animal super soldier for the EPF(she's not the first one he’s created either) and she was raised in the EPF by her ’handler’(think like a K-9 handler in the military or police force, someone who raises, trains, and ’handles’ the animal is usually considered a handler) he is currently unnamed for the time being.

⬇️More under the cut⬇️

Her first time in New York was just before the invasion, John Bishop ordered that she(along with some other EPF mutants) were needed in the base in New York so she was flown in from the California base. She was there during the invasion and for a short while after before she was flown back home although she found it a little suspicious how Bishop seemingly knew about the invasion beforehand. Koya and Takeshi(tiger claw) are also mutants in the EPF.

Almost a year later she is requested to come back to NYC for a mission. She was raised on the belief that she was a soldier to protect the earth and all its residents from aliens. This is also when she meets turtles up close for the first time.

Her relationship with the turtles starts off a bit rocky because she is technically working for ’the other side’. To the Hamato clan she's a villain and to her, they are a thorn in her side every time she sees them while on a mission. She generally tries to avoid them as much as possible rather than engage.

The first turtle she meets is Donnie and oh my stars do they start out hating each other guts. It was a fight at first sight for those two. A pull of a tail and a bite to the arm, chaos ensued. The animosity does cool down a little between those two(eventually) and their quarrels fall into some kind of rhythmic rivalry. They throw punches and insults at each other. The first time Leo sees how they interact he calls them an old married couple and they both get offended by this statement (she doesn't meet the other turtles till months later).

She won't get to meet Mikey or Leo for a good long while, at least not while she is still working for the EPF under John Bishop. There’s a lot of character development that has to happen inbetween before she really meets the rest of the brithers a bit more personally.

The first time she meets Raph is when she falls into hidden city and accidentally bumps into him. It's only a quick interaction but she looks at him and thinks he's a dinosaur because he is just MASSIVE. but that is the only interaction that happens between those two for the time being. They don't introduce themselves or anything at this moment they won't even see each other again till she is out of the EPF.

The first time Leo meets Alopex, she is critically injured and ends up getting help from the team medic(Leo).

Mikey would probably meet her after she gets some medical attention and he would realize that she is the one who was annoying his purple-clad genius brother Donnie lately but she was always left unnamed during his rants. Mikey secretly ships it thinking that his brother stepped into an enemies-to-lovers trope. Which in all honesty is true. But those two don't get there for a long time.

But I think for the most part they would all get along. She and Donnie will also get along too... eventually… their bickering arguments are always a good show, remember to bring popcorn.

Alopex hates Bishop's guts, she always has since she was a kit. She was mutated at a very young age by Bishop because his research showed that the younger the subject is at the time of mutation the more control they have over it and the better they can train certain habits of their species in or out.

She has trauma regarding certain punishments while growing up, one of which is the muzzle. To Bishop, the muzzle punishment has shown to be the most effective towards her. (it's not a normal one either, she can't take it off herself)

She's about 17 years old present day, 16 during the invasion. She's technically a red fox but since she has melanism her fur is mostly black with a few white areas, on her chest and stomach, each paw, tail, mouth, and dots for eyebrows and bright yellow eyes.

She doesn't have powers since her mutagen is not from an oozesquito but from a research institute called TCRI, or at least that's what she's been told.

She loves pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, and just about any kind of pumpkin-flavored treat, however, she's also a fan of fried chicken. Favorite color is green.

She also loves motorcycles and has a good understanding of how machines and engines work because of it. (this is something that Alopex and Donnie could possibly bond over)

She hates heights(specifically when flying, planes, jets, helicopters, all of it), the muzzle, John Bishop, and Takeshi(mutual hate, more story on him later if interested), and tomatoes.

(my art style changes multiple times throughout this post, some sketches are from months ago and some are more recent)

Please let me know if you have any more questions about this au!

[ramzawrites]

Petty Love - Rise!Leonardo x Reader

FEM

Pairings: Leonardo x Reader

Characters included: Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Big Mama, Draxum

Warnings: swearing

Series: A request!

Summary: From the first moment Y/N and Leo interacted with each other, the two knew they despised the other. Leo was an annoying, egotistical ninja while Y/N was an annoying, egotistical ninja herself. What was the saying again? Opposite attract and similar repel? Surprisingly though over time the two had to admit they did enjoy the fights the two had. It was fun to test their mettle on each other whenever they had the chance. When another person enters Y/N’s life and begins to challenge her how Leo used to do, he had to admit, this didn’t sit quite well with him.

An enemies to friend to lovers fic

Word count: 13950

Authors Note: 1) If you saw this fic before, no you didn’t. Okay, yeah I posted it before but I was kind of really unhappy with the way it ended and a few other things but this means I looked it over more and 2k words more! Yay? I don’t know, this is the biggest one part fic i ever wrote. My fic that has 4 parts has only like 2k more words than this lmao 2) I hope I caught most mistake, I did my best, please tell me if this all feels maybe too disjointed or so, I read this so often now that I have no idea how it all flows (besides i can always appreciate some feedback)

Request: The request can be found here and was by @/mitarashi01 (dunno if I can tag you, so xD)

Big Mama has always been a thorn in the mutants’ sides. Mostly because she wasn’t just an enemy they could fight and that’s it. No, she had a whole organization behind her. They could try but frankly she might just be out of commission for a few days and even during that time her henchmen would keep her business up.

So, the best they could do was sometimes keep an eye on the spider yokai and deal with any weird schemes they come across. Personally, they liked to believe they have become just such a big thorn in her side similar how she has been to them. Wasn’t there a saying of do unto others as you wish they did on yourself? Something like that.

Keeping eyes on Big Mama usually meant sneaking around her hotel and trying to see what info the group can find out. At one point Leo did try to get information out of multiple employees but that usually resulted in them being chased out by big yokai with big weapons.

Now they never gave up though. They won against the Shredder! They fought back a whole alien invasion, preventing a horrible apocalypse! A measly little, but actually kind of big, spider wouldn’t deter them!

It was one of those casual sneak-in missions, that also doubled as stealth training, because might as well, when they spotted someone unusual in the hotel.

Most yokai there wore the hotel’s uniform. Those who didn’t usually belonged to security or were the guests. But even between those people this woman stood out. She was shrouded in dark cloth. Silver wrappings around her ankles and hands, closed off sandals on her feet, a silvery scarf was wrapped around her neck, two ends flying behind her back. The dark cloth was also wrapped around their head, a mask pulled over her nose. A katana was strapped to her hip. Besides the few flashy accents, they would say that this person looked like your stereotypical ninja.

This of course pulled the turtle ninja’s attention, even more so when she walked through the hotel towards Big Mama’s office as if she had done it a thousand times already. Her movements smooth and quiet against the carpeted floor. Over the years the brothers could at least tell when someone clearly had some sort of training, which this woman definitely had with the way she carried herself.

It took only a few glances between all of them that they knew that this was a person they all should follow for now. Maybe a new contractor of Big Mama’s? Maybe an assassin even, Leo mused. Either way it was probably a good idea to find out exactly why she was here and marching through the hotel straight towards Big Mama’s office.

The group broke off, Leo and Mikey stayed inside to try to get through the vents to maybe hear what is going on while Raph and Donnie tried to gather intel from outside using one of Donnie’s machines.

There was indeed a vent that still led straight through Big Mama’s office on the ceiling. Honestly it was a miracle she hadn’t made a move to close off said vent in any way, but Leo didn’t want to look a gifted horse in the mouth. With Mikey at his side, both inched closer to a grate to also try to take a look into the room.

Leo knew for a fact that Raph and Donnie were in position, but he couldn’t spot them when he looked at the huge window. Seems like the constant sneak training was actually doing something.

The door to Big Mama’s office opened and the weird ninja woman stepped inside, it was only when she closed the door that Big Mama finally looked off her paperwork. Her expression was at first a stern, annoyed one, probably assuming it was someone else interrupting her work, but when her eyes landed on the ninja, she sported a big smile.

She stood up to walk over to her guest, her arms wide open “Ah! There you are my little Sneaklypoo!”

Leo really had to pull himself together to not laugh at that name. He could only assume how the mystery woman might be grimacing behind her mask. The way Mikey’s shoulders shook for a moment, he assumed he had to withhold a laugh as well. Honestly it wouldn’t be the first time that one of their sneak missions went south because of a rogue laugh.

The ninja in the room took a deep bow to greet the spider yokai “It’s nice to see you again, Big Mama.” Her voice was steadfast. No ounce of fear seeped through. Either she might be overly confident right now or she really didn’t have a reason to fear Big Mama.

“I’m so happy to see you again. Now come over, little one, I reckon you know why I have called you?” Big Mama walked back over to desk to sit down on to her pretty gaudy chair.

The mystery ninja followed suit and sat down on the chair in front of the yokai. She pulled her legs up to sit crossed legged on it. The way the other employees reacted to Big Mama usually, Leo figured he’d never see anyone sit as nonchalantly as she did in this office. Once again either this was because she was stupid or was actually capable. Maybe a mix of both.

The ninja sighed “Yeah, I’m here for my missing payment and you probably want to schedule more fights but also I had a request to make concerning those.”

Oh, bad move. You do not bargain with Big Mama in any way. There were too many strings attached. Or webs attached. You know since she is a spider.

Leo had to physically shake his head to figuratively throw out his joke, this was not the time to joke. Well, there was no harm in it really, but Leo should really concentrate on what was happening. Not only was Big Mama paying this ninja for something, but this ninja had the gall to ask a request of her as well.

“Mhm, I told you your payment would arrive in due time.” She didn’t look at the ninja, staring down at one of the papers, tapping her pen that she was suddenly holding against the desk.

“Mama” the ninja spoke. Her voice now stern and laced with what Leo assumed was a wordless threat. Strike two. Strike three and he can already see her getting chased out the building by security.

“Y/N.” Big Mama responded with the same kind of vitriol.

Mystery ninja had a name! It was getting quite annoying to call her just the ninja. Quite forthcoming of Big Mama to reveal it.

Mikey side-eyed Leo as if to also silently confirm that he caught the name as well. The name didn’t stick out to Leo. Never once heard of her, so he huffed a quiet breath out, shrugging as a silent answer. As a response Mikey nodded. This sounded more like something they would have to ask Barry about. If anyone would maybe know about the people that worked with Big Mama, it might be him.

Y/N let out a big, disappointed sigh. If he could, Leo would tell her “Told you so, can’t bargain with Big Mama like a normal person.”

Instead of Y/N laying in on Big Mama more to maybe brute force her way through this discussion, Leo assumed that’s just something she would do, she just moved her open hand into the air, which in return made Big Mama raise one of her eyebrows.

This time when she spoke her voice was almost playful, she seemed to almost chide the crime boss teasingly in front of her, a stark contrast from before “Mama, I thought this was a private discussion!”

It was now that Leo had to painfully realize that Y/N was pointing with her hand towards the vent. The vent that both Leo and Mikey were squished inside. Mikey must have realized this as well by the way he looked at Leo with a painful grimace.

Big Mama sighed exasperatedly “Not again. Oh, turtleypoos! Come out!” She looked at Y/N for a second “I have a new playmate for you guys!” How did she immediately know it was them? Well, maybe it made sense seeing how often they have been annoying her recently.

“I’ll pay you triple your usual fee if you deal with them.”

At this point Leo tried his best to crawl back out but he forgot how small vents could be. Especially to turtles with big shells. Oops. He couldn’t even grab his swords to teleport out of this cramped space.

“Well, you are my boss! Wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” Y/N chuckled.

Leo had to watch in horror as Y/N gracefully jumped up, held on to the grid of the vent, seemed to open it without much trouble, pulled herself up and just stared at him and Mikey. Her eyes glinting in the darkness of the vent.

“Nice to meet you, I would shake your hand, but I am kind of indisposed.” Leo chuckled. His coping mechanism was still humor and will be for the rest of his life. Mikey just let his head fall down onto the cold metal, making a loud clung sound in response.

There wasn’t even so much a twitch in the facial expression that Leo could see on Y/N’s face.

“And you are the guys that have been Big Mama’s pain in the neck? How cute.”

Something about that comment just hit Leo in a way that made him uncharacteristically angry. Sure, they weren’t in the ideal position right now, but they were plenty capable. Probably more capable than her! They’ve been at this for how long now? This is the first time he even heard of her. Sure, ninja and all if she even is one, but also where the hell did she get her confidence from? She was just another henchman of Big Mama’s.

Before Leo could respond though Y/N disappeared. Falling back down onto the ground, standing directly under the vents. Then there was the horrible sound of metal colliding with metal followed by the sudden feeling of vertigo as the front part of the vent flew down, gravity literally pulling both Mikey and Leo out of it.

Both reacted immediately, pulling their weapons out, expecting to see Big Mama in her huge yokai form. But she was standing at the back, still in her human business attire. Her arms crossed as she just observed what was happening with amusement.

That said Y/N was standing in front of the two turtles with her katana out. She moved it up towards her head. Falling into some sort of fighting stance, further proving to Leo that she must have had some sort of training.

“Oh, two Battle Nexus Champions are about to fight, it’s a shame this isn’t being recorded. But that is life, no? Deal with them however you wish, my little magpie.” Big Mama waved her hand, as if finally giving Y/N the sign to attack.

By the way her legs tensed she would have if Raph and Donnie didn’t came crashing through the window in a big red glow. Raph immediately landed in front of his brothers, Donnie had his bo-staff in hand, standing at his eldest brother’s side.

“Sorry Big Mama but no entertainment for you today. Me and my brothers are leaving.” Raph growled, twirling his sais in his hands.

Leo would have expected for Big Mama to call in reinforcements, gnash her teeth together, finally transform, but no. She just stood there as if the four mutants weren’t ready to beat her up once again. As if she was just watching a show.

“Guys, jump! I’ll catch you!” Raph yelled out, running over to the now broken window but before he could reach the window, Y/N suddenly stood in front of him. As soon as he moved, Y/N quite literally jumped into action to cut their escape off.

“Already leaving the party, big guy? That’s rude you know?”

She fell back into her fighting stance “Besides, I’m finally getting my chance to test my mettle against the turtleypoos? I’m not giving this up. Let’s tango.”

Something about her was just so infuriating to Leo. Maybe it was just because she simply was the enemy. He should be annoyed at the enemy, right? But even with Hypno or Big Mama he could keep his composure rather well. Maybe her attitude just reminded him too much of himself. Damn, was this how his enemies felt when they had to fight him? Nah, she was just genuinely infuriating.

Leo got his katanas out “You wanna dance? Then let’s dance.” His mind wandering back to what Big Mama said before “Champion versus Champion” It shouldn’t surprise him that a Big Mama’s henchman might fight in the Battle Nexus as well. He had to admit, he was intrigued as to what her abilities were.

“Nardo, let’s just leave while we can.“ Donnie sounded more than annoyed.

Yet Leo stepped forward, ignoring the pointed looks of his brothers. Was this selfish? Yeah. Was this stupid? Yeah. It’s just, he couldn’t wrap his head around the person standing in front of him. She exuded confidence, Big Mama seemed to trust her as well, more than the average employee at least. Besides, couldn’t hurt to test out the abilities of their new enemy, right? After all she clearly worked for Big Mama.

“Alright, Blue.” Y/N’s eyes were now fully trained on Leo. Her eyes making sure to catch any sudden movements of his.

He rolled his shoulders before he too got into his own fighting stance “Leonardo.”

“Leonardo.” She repeated.

Both sprang into action. Leo tried using his height to attack her from the top with both of his swords, Y/N must have seen through this, ducking down, her own sword sliding across the two blades to stop them from colliding with her head, while she used her own momentum to slip past him. Her knees hitting the ground only for a second before she jumped up and was suddenly standing behind the turtle.

Both turning around to look at each other. Leo had to admit he was impressed and by the slightly narrowed eyes combined with the small crinkles around them, he assumed that she must be smiling beneath her mask. Oh, so she was enjoying this? Let’s see for how long.

He jumped again towards her, this time before he could even properly get into contact with her, he opened a portal to fly through and drop down on her from a different angle. Her eyes widened as she saw him disappear, only barely being able to dodge the turtle that was literally flying down on her from the back.

As she rolled to the side, she angled her hips and swung her legs around. Connecting with Leo’s ankles as he made contact with the ground again. He lost his balance, forcing him to catch himself with his hands. Y/N took the chance to jump back up on her own feet again. Trying to swipe at the turtle in the process but Leo just had to push himself off the ground and away from her. He immediately jumped back up, his sword in a defensive position, expecting Y/N to attack him but she didn’t.

No, why would she attack him if she could play with him? She didn’t even take this seriously, did she? At this point Leo was sure he could see her smiling beneath her mask! She definitely knew what she was doing. It was different than fighting any of the other villains. In a weird way, both their fighting styles just flowed seamlessly together. He had to wonder what kind of aces she might have up her sleeves if the two started to go full out.

“Leo! We are going!” Raph spoke up before either Leo or Y/N could attack each other again. There was a finality to his tone, a promise of getting chewed out later at home for this frankly reckless stunt. Genuinely Leo was incredibly lucky that Big Mama seemed to get enough entertainment from this and wasn’t annoyed enough to call security. And the worst part was, he knew that.

Leo took another glance at Y/N who was still ready to fight. His grip tightened around the hilts of his swords. The next time he swung them was to open a blue portal in front of his siblings. All four didn’t waste a second to jump through. Landing in the living room of their lair.

Once the portal was closed all three of his brothers turned to Leo.

“What was that?!” Raph asked. Oh, he was angry, and Leo couldn’t even fault him.

Leo put his swords back on his shell, his hands on his face as he groaned “I don’t know! I guess I wanted to know what she can do? A ninja looking person working for Big Mama? I- I don’t know.” He sighed “I know this was stupid. This could have gone really bad, I know. This is on me.”

He really meant it. He didn’t go through an almost apocalypse without learning a few things. This included how to best work in a team, and this was not it. Even if there was an admittedly intriguing person out there that just managed to somehow really get under his skin with simple taunts.

Raph sighed, his own shoulders relaxing as he let the tension out “Well. It all went well, let’s just make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Leo might be the leader now, but Raph will always be the big brother.

Mikey and Donnie still seemed somewhat skeptical.

“So, what do we do? Should we try learning more about her? Is learning about Y/N even… useful? She is one of many employees of Big Mama after all.” Mikey spoke up, probably trying to keep things going so there wasn’t any room for more arguments. He knew that Leo would beat himself up for this enough anyhow.

Dr. Feelings or even Dr. Delicate Touch might come around for a visit.

“We could ask Draxum? If she was or is the current Battle Nexus Champion, then there is a chance that he might know about her? She might have done some work for Big Mama beforehand that he caught wind of. If he does know something we can still decide if she is another person to keep tabs on.” Donnie offered.

So as soon as they could, the group visited their other dad. The relationship between the turtles and Draxum was still on the tense side, but they were working on it. Mikey firmly believed that he was a good person and if he was willing to offer Draxum this chance, they might as well follow suit for now.

Draxum sat awkwardly at the table while the turtles sat at the other side. All of them had a cup of tea but no one, including Draxum himself, but Mikey dared to touch it.

The yokai sighed “I haven’t heard much about a Y/N if at all but from the description I would wager that she is indeed the current Battle Nexus Champion. I don’t keep up with frivolous things like that, but the Champion is usually pretty well known in the Hidden City.”

Really? And Leo never got the chance to properly take advantage of that? Damn.

He leaned forward “I think her stage name might be Silver Magpie. Always thought it was a rather… weak name. Too showy.”

“Says the Warring Warrior Scientist.” Leo deadpanned.

Draxum scoffed “It’s a strong name!”

Before Leo could make another quip Donnie interrupted him “The name does make sense though, right? Wore silver and Big Mama did call her magpie once. So, let’s assume the current champion is Y/N. What else do you know about her, Draxum?”

“Only that she isn’t always in the Battle Nexus. There were talks about her if she will even defend her title since she tends to disappear for a while before returning. That’s all I can really tell you. I can only hypothesize that if she keeps fighting in the Arena, that Big Mama might use her talents for her business. Makes sense, no?”

“Nothing more?” Leo asked.

Draxum nodded “Like I told you. I never much cared for the Battle Nexus. Not like the average viewer might at least.”

Leo narrowed his eyes at that. He didn’t particular like the sound of that.

“So, what do we do?” Raph asked his brothers “Should we try to seek her out and what, ask what her deal is? Or do we just keep our ears and eyes open for what might happen.”

Leo huffed, not particularly liking what he is about to say “Frankly, I think it wouldn’t do us any good to chase her down. Sure, she works for Big Mama but what will we do? Ask her why and then beg her to stop? Something tells me this won’t work. Besides, maybe we are lucky, and she disappears again for a while, and we won’t have to deal with her.”

His brothers eyed him warily. Draxum eyed the display curiously.

“What?” Leo cut through the silence, feeling the judgment of his brothers.

Mikey rose one side of his eyebrow ridge in an accusing gaze “And here I thought you would jump at the opportunity to fight her again.”

“It was one time!”

“We only met her once, bro, and you have never done anything like that before. Well, not for a while.” Mikey explained.

“Okay, she annoyed me! Happy? Besides we now know that she isn’t just hot air.” Sure, they barely fought and the fact that she was Champion could have tipped him off as well but now it was proven fact. He didn’t need to explain himself, okay? Actually, his brothers deserved an explanation, there just wasn’t a good one.

Either way the turtles kept their usual routine up from that point on. Acting like this meeting never happened in the first place. They went patrolling at night when they could, sometimes fought off some of their usual enemies, trained, watched movies and the like. Life was flowing along normally.

Y/N didn’t make another appearance for months.

Then suddenly she did. The group was fighting off Hypno on a school campus and Y/N just suddenly jumped in. Deflecting all of Hypno’s attacks on their own. Leo had to admit he was a bit in awe seeing how focused she was as she fought back. Showing amazing control over her own blade. How long has she been training and fighting to gain such skill?

When Hypno threw his weapons and they came flying around, Leo jumped in automatically to deflect those attacks. Standing back-to-back with Y/N as his brothers took the chance to destroy the loudspeakers that he hid all around. Why he jumped in to protect his enemy? Out of the good of his heart of course. Letting two enemies distract each other could have been easy but sadly he had morals.

“Miss me?” Leo grunted as he deflected yet another attack.

Y/N laughed “You wish! Saw you struggling and decided you needed a hand.”

“Pretty sure if I didn’t deflect the last few attacks, you’d be sliced cheese.”

The two switched positions so Leo was now the one attacking Hypno directly while Y/N dealt with the attacks flying towards the two. It was a wordless transition. Their feet and bodies moving around almost as if they weren’t fighting but dancing.

“That’s what you think! I’m quite nimble, not the slow turtle type, you know?” She gasped out as one projectile connected with her blade.

He could practically hear her smirking which made him involuntarily roll his eyes.

A few loud crashes and suddenly heaps of electronics flew towards the ground, turning into scrap metal.

His brothers took care of the loudspeakers before Hypno could use them on people. It was actually only by pure coincidence that they caught him as he was just setting his stuff up.

With his brothers back in action it didn’t take long for them to send Hypno limping away. Before he could flee though, Y/N approached him and grabbed a necklace he had around his neck. It was a red ruby with a golden chain. So, Leo wasn’t just imagining it, it probably was a new item.

“You intervened just for the jewelry?” Leo asked as Y/N pocketed the necklace, “So you are a thief? Do we need to beat you up after all? And here I thought you wanted to collect some good karma.”

Y/N snorted “I still am. I’m here on the behalf of the original owner. Wants his little amplifier back.”

Leo narrowed his eyes “You know by the company you keep I do have to wonder what kind of person this owner is. I have to ask. Are you just evil or are you so naïve to trust anybody around the Hidden City? I’m leaning more towards you just being simply stupid.” He was clearly referencing their first meet at Big Mama’s place.

“Say, do you always belittle the people around you when you feel inferior or is this just your quirky personality coming out?”

“Inferior? Me? I’d beat you any day.” He snarled out, trying to hide his annoyance with a smug smile.

Y/N was still holding on to her own katana, twirling it around, both Leo and her began circling each other “Wanna put money where your mouth is because by the looks of it I did save your bacon today.”

Sensing that the tension was rising Mikey jumped over to Leo “Come on. Let’s go home. We just got out of a fight let’s not start a new one.”

“Yeah, listen to him, Leonardo.” The way she spoke his name was full of distaste “Don’t start fights you can’t finish.”

Donnie and Raph walked past Leo, pulling him along.

“Home. Now. We don’t wanna hang out with Big Mama’s guard dog.” Donnie spoke.

Right. Leo didn’t want to waste more time if he could be at home and be eating something nice. Before he walked through his own portal though, he looked back to look at Y/N but she was already gone. Probably took the chance when his brothers pulled him along. He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or happy about this.

From that point on the group sometimes met Y/N again. Usually, she would come in in the middle of fights, help here and there but only when it aligned with her own goal. These could range from everything to collecting a bounty in the Hidden City to grabbing something one of the people carried with them.

Either way, whenever Y/N and Leo’s eyes met, insults flew. Throwing whatever petty comment they had at their disposal. Both taking any chances they had to exchange blows. Often enough they would start fighting each other while simultaneously fighting the same enemy. These fights were always very interesting. If you’d ask them, they both would deny that they enjoyed the little fights, but others would see their smiles whenever the two readied their weapons. Excitement shining in their eyes.

Now, Leo’s brothers didn’t particular care about Y/N as well, but the way Leo reacted around her was more extreme. Whenever she insulted his abilities, he would immediately respond with a venom filled quip. It was only after yet another meet between the two, when the three figured it must be because the two were more similar than Leo might realize. After all, opposite attract and similar repel.

Both were sassy, flashy and flamboyant with their attitude, fought similarly and it certainly didn’t help that both were also at some point Champion of the Battle Nexus.

Things began shifting though when Leo one night was sitting on one of his favorite roofs alone. Just wanting to spend time on his own. He held his sword in front of him in his lap, looking at the blade. Watching how the lights of the city reflected off the cold metal. He moved it around a bit to see how the colorful specks of lights danced across it.

There were soft footsteps behind him, and a black, silvery reflection appeared on his blade.

“Appreciating your own looks, are we?” Y/N spoke.

Leo ignored her, just huffing out to show how unimpressed he was.

Yet Y/N took it as an invitation, sitting down next to him, letting one of her legs dangle off the roof. Maybe Leo should have been more alarmed when she appeared but one thing he soon learned was that she did follow some sort of honor code. Never once has she attacked him without the two making it clear that they wanted to fight each other.

“I didn’t think I would see you out without your brothers.”

Leo frowned and finally he looked over at her, she had her eyes firmly up into the sky, probably watching the moon and the clouds moving along.

“What do you want?” His voice cold, not trusting this situation at all. Leo’s grip around the hilt of the sword got stronger.

Y/N finally turned to pay attention to him. She seemed to mull something over. Her eyes practically burning through him. It made him uncomfortable to say the least. It was like she was trying to communicate something to him. Then suddenly she moved her hands to remove the hood and mask, showing of her full face to Leo.

He felt almost embarrassed. Felt like this was some sort of show of trust, never expecting her to show herself like that to one of her enemies. It felt private even. This time he could watch as the corner of her mouth turned up into a smug smile as she noticed how his eyes darted all over her face, as he gulped, surprised by this action.

Taking in the new sight. He had to admit she didn’t look half bad. She was his rival after all, only natural he supposed. Not that he would ever tell her that.

He cleared his throat “Hi.”

She smiled “Hi.”

And for a moment there was just the background noise of the city. Leo trying to understand what was going on and getting used to the new sight while she seemed to analyze his reaction.

“What’s the occasion?” he eyed her curiously, burning her facial features into his memory. Thinking this might be his only chance.

Even though she had right now a bit of a playful expression on her face he could see something hardened there as well. Something he only saw on other people who went through their own battles over time. He could have guessed that by her fighting abilities but now he could actually see it.

That was an actual person in front of him and not just the ninja that annoyed him. She was still that but there was more now. Leo couldn’t decide if he preferred this or not.

She shrugged “I’m not here for business. Thought it would be rude.”

“So, you aren’t here to stab me in the back?” He retorted. It was a rhetorical question.

“Clearly missed my window for that.” She quipped.

Leo nodded, turning his gaze back to the city. Both fell into a comfortable silence. Frankly he didn’t even know it was possible between them. Maybe he was more tired today than he realized. Tired of fighting. Of fighting her.

“Can I ask you something?” Leo tried. Might as well satisfy his own curiosity while this was happening.

Y/N just gave him an affirmative hum. If this was her way to be non-committal or if she was earnestly open to answer questions he couldn’t tell.

“What is your deal? How did you get wrapped into all this nonsense?”

“You mean the constant fighting?”

He nodded, not even looking if Y/N saw it.

She sighed as she no doubt looked for the right words “I- I’d wager it would be similar to you guys. I think at least. Not that I’d know. It’s just something I was born into. Something I could do.”

“You were born into being a ninja?”

“Something like that, yeah. My family belongs to an old clan that used to live in Japan and came over to America ages ago. I just know this is the reason why I was always aware of Topside and the Hidden City. Mom and Dad started with my training mostly to just ensure I’d be safe but then I figured I might as well use my talents and knowledge.”

Leo chuckled “So, Big Mama was your first choice, or…”

Y/N let out a soft laugh as well. A rare treat to Leo’s ears. Usually, her laugh was steeped in sarcasm and mockery. This was a light and easy one.

“No, it’s mostly a thing of she is using me, and I am using her. I use her Battle Nexus as training.”

Now this pulled Leo away from the city lights to look at Y/N who had at this point her back on the roof. Her arms behind her head. The silver scarf almost framing her face.

“Really? Training? The Battle Nexus?”

She moved her head a bit so she could look better at the turtle who was now leaning back on his hands, one side of his eyebrow ridge pulled up in disbelief.

“Honestly, it’s the best place to train. It’s also the only reason I’m wearing this gaudy scarf. The Battle Nexus appreciates a good show and if you give them that they give you interesting fights.”

Leo hummed as something seemed to click in his mind “The Silver Magpie, huh?” The name must be part of showing off.

He laughed when Y/N broke out into an embarrassed blush and she purposefully looked away, not daring to look into his eyes any longer “Not my idea. It was Big Mama’s. But if it meant that I could have interesting fights I was willing to go along.”

“Because you clearly would have better ideas.”

“I’m sure my ideas would be better than yours. Besides, I will forever life in the knowledge that Big Mama probably would have just called you Blue because you’d never make it to main stage.”

He rolled his eyes “May I remind you, I was Champion as well.”

She moved her head up so she had an easier time to snap her finger before dropping her head again “Yeah. Was.”

“So were you! Didn’t this bull yokai become the new champion?”

“Mhm, but you forget.” She mused with a grin “All that counts is that I’d be able to beat you if we ever got the proper chance to fight.”

Leo would have loved to retort that now was the perfect time since his brothers weren’t here to intervene but surprisingly, he didn’t want to.

It was the first time he talked to her and didn’t feel incredibly aggravated. Maybe it was the causal environment. Maybe both just got tired over the months. Maybe it was just somehow a special night.

Instead, he too laid down on his back, propping his head on his arms “Nope. I’d win easily. I have actual magical powers. Don’t think you have any, do you?”

“Don’t need them. I actually use my head.”

This time as they argued it didn’t feel as filled with venom like it usually was. Leo managed to somehow connect to Y/N. She didn’t come over as malicious. Thinking back on it she never once stopped a fleeing enemy to continue the fight and she did jump in multiple times to help the four turtles out. Protecting them.

Maybe it really was a big worst first impression for the two. Yet it still didn’t sit with him all to comfortably that she worked for Big Mama just so she could continue fighting in the Battle Nexus. It wasn’t worry for her but more disappointment of her decisions.

When the Mad Dogs met Y/N once again as they chased someone through the Hidden City, a group stole from the police department which was very ironic and funny to Leo, the new dynamic between Y/N and Leo was immediately noticeable.

Instead of the immediate curses and insults they gave each other a quick nod. As if they were going mentally through the plan of catching these guys. Hell, Leo even teleported Y/N so she could be in front of the thieves and cut their escape of. Mikey used the chance to wrap his Kusari-fundo around them, holding them in place for the Hidden City police to collect them.

And when Leo caught up with her, he just made a quip of that he couldn’t believe he had to help Y/N only because she was way too slow. Apparently, it was hard to watch.

And she chuckled. She chuckled!

The fighting was tame, still biting but tamer nonetheless. Nothing like how it used to be. It was obvious that the group missed something between the two.

Once they all were back in the lair, they immediately interrogated Leo. He gave them a quick rundown of Y/N’s apparent deal.

Mikey went on the tip of his toes to lay his arm on Leo’s shoulder “I can’t believe you actually were the bigger person and didn’t immediately go for the kill. You actually talked to her.”

Leo scratched the back of his head embarrassed “Well, I think she was the bigger person. She just sat down and took her mask off.”

“Wait you saw her face?” Raph’s eyes were wide.

“And here I thought similar repel.” Donnie spoke and Leo could only watch in confusion as both Raph and Mikey nodded along. He was sure he was missing out on something.

“But this confirms it! Y/N isn’t a bad person. She might be a little confused, but she’s got the spirit.” Mikey suddenly exclaimed.

To which Raph shrugged “Eh, I figured but I do trust your sense on these things more than mine. Haven’t been wrong about Draxum, yet.”

A big toothy grin appeared on Mikey’s face as he hugged Raph “I know. I’m always correct when it comes to these things.”

Soon Leo and Y/N met every few weeks on the same roof. Just sitting and talking. Both vowing that this place was neutral land. No ninjas. Just two tired warriors talking. The two even exchanged phone numbers and when Y/N suddenly stood inside the lair to the surprise of Raph, Mikey and Donnie, they quickly realized that they went from being enemies to finally being friends.

In fact, this was Leo’s first friend that wasn’t also his brother’s friend. Y/N was doing fine with them but somehow Leo and Y/N just clicked. It almost seemed like the whole Cass situation all over again. An enemy becoming a friend.

“I’m-a going, bros!” Leo yelled through the lair, ready to open a portal.

“Going out to meet Y/N?” Raph leaned into the living room where Leo was standing.

He nodded “Yep. She decided she wanted to get back into Battle Nexus and asked me if I wanted to come along.”

Raph looked at him, worried “You… Will you fight?”

Leo blew a raspberry “I might firmly believe that I could beat Y/N and be champion over her, our scores are currently 18 to 17 in my favor after all, but I honestly don’t want to deal with Big Mama and her stupid deals. No, I’m just watching and playing coach. Also I can make sure this was nothing weird is happening.”

His brother relaxed at that “Okay. Good. Not that I don’t trust you, but-“

“I know.” Leo smiled “Just worried, I get it. Now, I gotta go or she will think I screwed up my teleport.”

“Have fun!” but Leo was already through the portal. With a shrug Raph returned back to his own room.

He stepped out of the portal and arrived in the Hidden City. Y/N was already standing close by. The way she had her eyebrows pulled up he already knew what was coming.

“Did you mi-“

“Nope. No wrong teleports. Just a worried brother.”

Y/N chuckled, lightly patting the back of his shell “Sorry, forgot. Sore topic. Still on training wheels and all.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You are still a novice, now let’s move. I wanna get into the Battle Nexus and train and warm up before the first fight starts. Come on, old man.”

Y/N pulled her ninja hood up and moved the mask over her mouth. Leo couldn’t help but miss her full face. Now he can’t see how her mouth always quirked up right before she tries to deliver a new quip. The prouder she felt the more shit eating was that grin. He liked that grin.

Before the two entered the building Leo turned to her with a snicker “Do I gotta start referring to you as the Silver Magpie?”

Y/N poked his plastron, looking up into his eyes with her own narrowed ones “Oh no you don’t. I’ll kick you if you do.”

Now he was actually laughing, moving his hands up in defeat “Alright! Alright! Feisty today, aren’t we?”

With a roll of her eyes, Y/N moved again, grabbing Leo’s wrist to make sure he would come along.

They walked through the doors, Y/N ignored the counter with a secretary right in front of them but instead walked down a flight of stairs to walk into a small office. Never letting go of Leo who was walking along as if he was a lost child.

In the office sat a tired looking alligator yokai. When Y/N saw him, she hissed in surprise. At first this alarmed Leo, but Y/N let out a snort.

“What did you do to get put down on sign-in duty?”

The yokai let out a deep grumble what Leo thought must be his way to sigh.

“The nexus isn’t doing so hot at the moment. I’m filling in.”

For some reason Leo felt like he has seen this particular yokai before. So, he clearly worked for Big Mama, this wasn’t his usual position and Leo saw him somewhere.

That’s when it hit him “It’s you!” He but yelled out. Finger pointing at him.

The Alligator sighed again “Yeah. Well. You are lucky I’m off duty. I’m not the security chief right now. My second in command took over for the time being and frankly I’m way too tired to chase after you, turtle.”

Guess some of his adversaries only chase him around for the paycheck. No passion for their jobs nowadays.

“Anyway, Leatherhead. Write me down for the fights. I want my belt back. And, oh, he is my coach. Never had one but I think I have to tell you that. Might wanna use a nickname for him.”

He nodded “Yep. You got it. One Silver Magpie accompanied by Blue Bird written down.” Suddenly he stopped moving and stared at the paper in front of him, before he looked up again at Y/N with a mischievous expression. As mischievous as it can be with his teeth and huge snout.

“It’s good that you decided to come back again now.”

Y/N looked at him, eyebrows pulled together in a silent question.

“The people will be happy to see The Silver Magpie again. If you help bring Big Mama the money back in again, I’m sure she would be grateful towards you. Do good and I’m sure Mama will be happy to pay you extra.”

There was an understanding glint in Y/N’s eyes. At this point Leo knew her well enough to know that she must be grinning.

“Coach and I will go train then. I need to be ready to show off.”

He waved his huge, clawed hand dismissively towards her “Go ahead. You are a regular, I think I can fill the rest out for you.”

“You are a sweetheart!” Y/N just said and begun pulling Leo along again. Walking down the corridor to reach an open space outside with sandy ground. Other yokai were walking around, doing shadowboxing, swinging around weapons or fighting each other. Apparently this was one of the smaller arenas the Nexus sometimes used.

“So, as your coach I can order you to run like fifty rounds around here, right?” Leo asked as Y/N settled at one corner of the place, beginning to do her stretches.

“You could but I won’t do it. As a fellow ninja I can respect your abilities, but I doubt you warm up like that.”

Before Leo could retort to one of her rare compliments, that definitely didn’t inflate his ego at all, there was suddenly a fox yokai standing behind Y/N, coughing to get her attention.

He wore traditional Japanese clothing and with the sword at his side it screamed Samurai to him.

He had one of his eyebrows pulled up as he carefully eyed Y/N up and down “You… are a ninja?” His voice was smooth as he spoke. He sounded well put together. Not the type of person Leo would think to meet here.

A bit confused by him suddenly approaching Y/N, she slowly nodded her head “Uh, yeah. Trained as a ninja. Curious or do you want to try to fight a ninja?”

The fox scoffed.

As if to see if Leo also heard that Y/N looked at him before pulling their attention back on the fox who took a few steps around them.

And then he let out a laugh.

“You are not ninja.”

“What the hell dude. I’m not walking around telling people what they are and what they aren’t. What’s your problem?” Y/N crossed her arms, squaring her shoulders. Leo took unconsciously a step towards her. As a fellow ninja he felt insulted on her behalf.

“Tell me, ninja.” He practically spat out the word “How come that you are here when you are meant to be in the shadows. This place is not for ninja. You might believe you are, but you are lying to yourself.”

“Well, this ninja wants to earn a good paycheck and get better at martial arts. The way you speak I’m surprised you are still walking around and not dust already with how ancient your views are.”

Leo recognized this tone of voice. It’s the one Y/N used to direct towards him. Now that he was not involved, he was surprised how hostile it sounded. Maybe now that the two were friends his memory was skewed?

“Who are you that you can tell her what she can and can’t do?” Leo finally spoke. Not liking the look of all of this.

The fox looked at Leo “I’m Akira and I’m a samurai. I’m here for glory and honor.”

Y/N and Leo immediately locked eyes, both bursting into laughter. It took a few moments for them to calm themselves down again. Oh, this was too good.

Y/N wiped a tear away that threatened to run down towards her dark mask “Oh man. Listen Akira, you won’t find honor here. Glory? Money? Maybe. But honor? No. Not when you deal with Big Mama in any capacity.” She might be a lot of things but not self-aware wasn’t one of them. Well, sometimes.

“Why should I trust the word of a ninja. You work from the shadows, you are tricksters, you don’t know the first thing about honor.” Akira was fast to retort.

Y/N moved closer, putting her hands on her hips “Listen here furball. You were the one who approached me! You were the one who made wild accusations out of nowhere! I’m telling you how it is! You can either take it or leave it! I’ll be training and hey if you are lucky, we both will meet one day to fight in the arena. I’ve been fighting here for years now. I know how this works and I can tell you, with your attitude, you will sink. And believe me, I will watch. Now move along and leave me be. I have actually important things to do. I don’t need to try to belittle my opponents, so I have a chance to win because I’m actually good at what I do.”

The yokai scoffed, turning around to do whatever he was doing before he thought this was a good idea.

“God damn superiority complex.” Y/N grumbled as she turned around towards Leo.

Leo looked at her for a long second “Do you tend to make enemies wherever you go?”

He expected a laugh from Y/N, but she just stared at him.

“No. This is only a thing I do for special people apparently. Fair, when we two met, I was a bit cocky and all, but I was trying to impress Big Mama, but this here was just plain unnecessary. I don’t want to waste my thoughts on this weirdo. Let’s train, Leo.”

“Well training it is. Don’t want you to eat dirt here, as your coach this would look horrible on me.”

This finally elicited a chuckle from Y/N.

According to Y/N the first few fights were mostly against monsters. Some sort of plant, beast like beings. Those were mostly there to weed out the weaklings. Haha, get it? It does start with four people in the same ring as they try to defeat as many as possible.

Leo was allowed to sit at the sidelines since he was officially written down as her coach. It was just as a way so that he didn’t have to be stuck with the other viewers and Y/N promised she’d deal with Big Mama should she catch wind of him being there. And apparently Leo lives in a crazy enough world now where he trusted Y/N like that.

When Y/N walked into the arena with the other three fighters, Leo could already see how tense she was with how she was swinging her sword around in anticipation. And judging by the simple fact that Akira stood next to her with crossed arms, he wagered that her being tense wasn’t because of the upcoming fight.

As expected, Y/N didn’t have a lot of trouble with the monsters. Flipping and jumping around as if this was just another Thursday, which to her very much was. After all it wasn’t her first time going into the ring.

Leo did understand Y/N’s outfit a bit more now. The way that the silver scarf flew behind her, combined with the lights of the arena, it did kind of look like silvery wings. Only if you squinted though.

There were people in the audience who held up posters and cards, screaming out Y/N’s stage name. Sometimes he forgot that she was a known quantity here.

At one point Y/N stood in the middle of the arena while the other fighters fought, she moved her hands up in a manner to encourage the audience to cheer louder. Even doing some spinning flips to egg them on. It worked. The lights were on Y/N like a spotlight and between all the general yelling and screaming there were a few “Silver Magpie!” No wonder Big Mama appreciated her the way she was able to make the audience roar.

This must have annoyed Akira since from that point every time Y/N was about to deal with another newly grown plant monster, he swooped in and dealt with it in her stead. Leo didn’t need to be in the ring to see how Y/N was getting more and more frustrated. She tried her best to combat his aggressive attacks by using her speed to weave through the chaos and deal her own strikes.

At this point the other two contestants were forgotten. This was clearly now only a power struggle between Y/N and Akira. The time was up, and the fighters walked out of the arena. It took a good few minutes before Y/N returned. Leo was greeted by an icy stare, the last time he saw that one was way back when he and Y/N had another one of their fights and he just kept teleporting her a few feet away from him, all the while he made comments about her being all out of breath while he was fine. This was a day where he particularly pissed her off.

He grimaced “Hey, fighter. You did awesome!”

She grabbed his arm and began pulling him out of the Battle Nexus “Big Mama will have to pay me if I have to keep dealing with that asshole.”

“Doesn’t she already pay you?”

“Only for special fights. Basically, buys me to fight for her to rile up the people. This? This here is all about the price money at the end. It’s also the best way to get your name out and for me it’s amazing for training since all kinds of new people appear but also shows that I’m still useful to Big Mama.”

She stopped moving when they were out of the building. Heaving a heavy sigh.

“That bad, huh?”

“I’m this close to committing manslaughter, Leo.” When she held her fingers up to show the exact amount, her fingers were touching.

Leo blinked “Oh, damn. You already killed him? Do I need to help to hide the body?”

“No, just the amount is so small it’s hard to see. Let’s just go. The next fight will be in the next few days. Actually no, wanna train a bit? We haven’t fought in a while. Like properly. I need to work through my frustration.”

When Leo laughed, Y/N just stared at him confused.

“It’s just weird. This is how you used to react to me and now I’m the person helping you through your anger.”

“Oh, this is nothing. There were times where you got under my skin worse than this.” She chuckled and laid her hand on his shoulder “Don’t worry, Leo. You will always be my number one.”

“Good because if I get beaten by that weird dude that would be a bit of a blow to my ego, not gonna lie. I worked hard for that position.”

During training for the championship Akira would sometimes approach Y/N and the two just began spitting out insults. The fights where both were involved riled the audience up more since it was obvious the two tried to show each other up.

Made only sense that the Battle Nexus would begin pairing the two up for every challenge.

This meant though that Y/N would meet up with Leo and just grumble about Akira and what stupid stuff he said last time during prep or during fights.

One day Y/N burst into Leo’s room unannounced, throwing herself on his bed with a huge groan.

“Knock knock. Who’s there? Y/N, can I come in? Yes, of course my lovely friend, you may! It’s nice to see you! Aw, thank you Leo! It’s so good to see you!”

He gave her a pointed look, but she had her hands on her face, a muffled yell came out behind them.

“Okay. So. What’s up?” He sat down next to her on the bed.

She was an emotional person so it didn’t surprise him to see her like this and yet something big must have happened.

Only a muffled mess came out of her mouth, Leo couldn’t understand anything. So, he just carefully grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from her despair ridden expression.

“Can you say that again now?”

Her wrists still in his gentle grasp.

“He got a name!”

Leo narrowed his eyes “I feel like I’m missing something essential here. Almost sounds like your son received a name and you, as the horrible mother that you are, are in despair over that.”

Y/N just rolled her eyes. Not even a chuckle. Yikes.

“No, you don’t get it. Big Mama gave Akira a stage name. The Samurai Blitz. Stupid name but that’s just Big Mama, I guess. Do you know what that means though?”

When Leo shook his head, Y/N sat up, never removing her arms out of Leo’s own hands. He was at this point rubbing circles with his thumb into her skin, trying to distract her a bit from her anger.

“Basically, that means Big Mama is sponsoring him. He is going to be one of the main fighters in the Battle Nexus and do you know what that in return means?”

Once again, he shook his head.

“I’m stuck with him! Knowing Big Mama, she will try to schedule fights between us, and you know me. I’d love nothing more than to beat the snot out of him but it’s just… frustrating!”

“Well, he is a newcomer, and you are like one of their star fighters. Just beat him up in the fight then maybe Big Mama will drop him?” Frankly he had no idea, and this sounded easier than it was, but he wanted to ease her anger and worries a bit.

“Maybe. I hope. Let’s just do something else so I can ignore this whole part of my life for a moment?”

“I came up with a new skating trick using portals. Wanna see?”

Y/N laughed, Leo has been trying to teach her skateboarding since this was apparently something she never did “Yes, of course. Go ahead, Master Leonardo.”

The next time Akira’s name came up was when Y/N and he had to fight for the next spot in the championship. Y/N really began to drill herself and basically trained every free moment. She was tense. Her temper short and downright petty at moments. Being frankly used to her being petty towards him, Leo tried his best to help where he could.

Leo wanted to watch her big fight but alas crime doesn’t like to call in to make an appointment.

When he did have time though he made his way towards the Battle Nexus, expecting to see Y/N in front of it after having texted her that he would be coming over. When he couldn’t find her, he snuck in to investigate the pre-fight locker rooms.

Y/N was still sitting on a bench. Her arms propped on her legs, leaning over.

“Hey, Y/N.” he almost whispered, trying not to scare her.

It took a moment for her to look up, her expression was somber. Leo couldn’t help the small pang of guilt seeing her like that. Wishing he could have been there for her fight since whatever happened made her upset. He preferred her smile much more than seeing her like this.

“Did you… loose?”

Honestly, it happens. She knows it. But he also knew that one loss wouldn’t hit her that hard. Sure, might be annoyed but this wasn’t the reaction he imagined on her. Something else happened.

“N-No…”

Now that confused him “So, you won? Why are you looking like someone just kicked your puppy?”

“Leo. He forfeited.”

“He… what? Why? That’s good though, right?”

She slowly nodded “Yeah. I guess. It’s just. We fought and suddenly he apologized and forfeited.”

Leo sat down on the bench in front of her “He apologized? For forfeiting?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It felt like he tried to apologize for his comments before? But maybe not? I don’t know. It was weird. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. It’s just-“she stopped herself. Since her mask was down Leo could see her biting her lip. She was conflicted.

“It’s what?”

She shrugged “I don’t know. He was kind of sad. I worked myself up so much for this fight and then he just stood there all depressed and then he did this. I think I’m just still reeling from it all. I’m just confused.”

Not really knowing what to do, Leo moved to sit down next to her. Putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him “Well. Let’s get out of here. To me this means you won and that means I’m treating you to some good grub.”

She leaned softly against him “Food does sound good right now.”

“Onwards! To Run Of The Mill Pizza!” he exclaimed, throwing his fist into the air as if he was about to run into battle.

“What did your dad do wrong that you guys are so obsessed with pizza? Or is it a mutant thing?”

“So, you are saying no to pizza?”

“No! No. Pizza is good.”

At first Leo didn’t think much about all of this. Akira somehow might have changed his mind or someone else laid into him for being stupid. With his personality? Very possible. Or he simply didn’t saw any honor in fighting Y/N but if that was the case, he knew that Y/N would have caught on that fact and would have been even more angry.

Then Y/N told Leo that she met Akira in the Hidden City. A chance meeting apparently. And while she still grumbled about him acting all high and mighty the two did apparently start talking. After all Y/N was very much curious as to why he forfeited the fight.

It was then that a thought entered Leo’s mind “Huh, that sounds very much like what me and Y/N went through. Funny.” It wasn’t funny. Somehow it made him feel uneasy even.

Leo was on the phone with Y/N while she had to spend some time with her family, and he was busy taking care of his weapons. They might be mystical and stuff, but they still needed care.

“Ah, sorry. I’m busy on Saturday. Got a fight and you know how much I love my fights.” Her voice came from his phone that he had at this point on his desk.

“Oh, I know, Bruiser. Knuckles. Gym Bro.” He counted off more stupid martial arts related nicknames, making Y/N sigh.

“I swear. Give a man a bruise once and he will never let you forget it.”

Leo paused “Y/N. You gave me more bruises than I can count. You almost broke my wrist once!”

“Oh, don’t start this, Leo! It takes two to tango! Because of you I couldn’t use my right foot for like four weeks! You sprained it!” It was a bit funny how the static of the phone speaker mixed in with her loud exclamations. It really added to her mock anger.

“Alright! Got it! We both suck. Anyway, what kind of fight is it on Saturday? Thought there wasn’t anything scheduled for you then, Miss Champion.”

When Akira forfeited, her biggest danger to victory disappeared as well. To Leo it just made sense that she managed to reclaim her title. She was good at what she did, he knew from firsthand experience after all.

She hummed thoughtfully “Mhm, yeah. I’m just meeting up with Akira for a fight.”

Wait did he hear that correctly?

“You are meeting up with Akira? You know the guy that you love to complain about? The dude who insulted your whole family one time?”

Reminding her of this, she let out an annoyed groan “Yeah, I know! It’s just… Apparently things happened, and he wants to fight me in a less official manner. So, we decided on a neutral space to meet up and just fight. You know. For training purposes.”

This really reminded him of… well him and her. The exact same happened. The roof being a neutral space where they met up just to talk about whatever. When it all started, they also met up often to fight. Trying to figure each other out.

“Huh.”

“I don’t need to see your face to know that something about this isn’t sitting well with you. What’s up? I promise I won’t be stupid.”

“No, it’s not that.” He paused. He didn’t know what to say, really. It just felt weird to him. Something about this just rubbed him the wrong way “Do you want a referee? I could play one.”

There was an awkward silence. Maybe it was just awkward to him. He hoped it was.

“It’s not that I don’t want you there, it’s just… You know how he is not a people person and this kind of just feels personal? I don’t know. It’s a thing between the two of us.”

“Oh, yeah. Got it. No problem.” He chuckled. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Luckily Y/N picked the conversation up again by talking about what she has been up to with her family as well as talking about her favorite topic, training. Soon the conversation flowed more naturally again.

He couldn’t let go of the weird pit in his stomach. It even stayed the day after. He just felt like there was something up with Akira. He said sorry, forfeited and now he searched her out? He seemed to have such a low opinion of ninja in general as well. Leo knew something was wrong, he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

But what he knew was that Y/N wanted to meet him on Saturday and he bet he even knew where. He sparred with her enough to know a lot of her favorite training places.

Maybe it was rude for him to sneak into the Hidden City to keep an eye on Y/N. Maybe it was petty even. But he just wanted to make sure she would be fine! Usually, his gut feeling was pretty accurate, after all. Besides he’ll stay far enough away that she won’t notice him. Even as a fellow ninja.

This wasn’t him not trusting her, this was him just being a worried friend. If anything, he didn’t trust Akira. At all. Y/N could be an ass at times, but she was also forgiving, and he feared that Akira took advantage of that.

He found her at the Hidden City beach with Akira. The two were just casually chatting. He could sometimes see the two cocking one of their eyebrows up accusingly. And for a while they just stood there talking. He wasn’t close enough to hear anything, but he could tell both were somewhat tense. Both had their hands each on their own sword.

Suddenly Y/N’s hands moved to remove her hood and mask. Leo couldn’t fathom why she would do that. Not to Akira. Hell, it even took a while for her to show her face to his brothers.

And then both shook their hands with a smile. Letting go to walk a few paces back. She got her sword out and Akira followed suit.

Both fought with only one sword, but each had their own stance. Akira’s exuded more aggression while Y/N’s was more defensive.

And then they dashed at each other.

Their sword making immediate contact. Akira wasn’t deterred, trying to push with his strength and weight against Y/N. In return Y/N pressed once with all her strength at his sword, giving her the chance to jump back a few feet.

Akira immediately pursued her. Striking at her with all he got but Y/N being nimble dodges his strikes. Jumping around him, flipping over his head to try to strike his back.

The two almost fell in a bit of a dance. Their swords making contact every now and again. Y/N moving around Akira in fluid motion while he attacked with powerful and precise blows. Sometimes she would throw throwing stars towards him to distract him, but he was able to block them with his sword, not scared to use his feet or shoulder to push her.

While their fight was impressive and interesting to watch how both were able to work off of each other, Leo’s attention was on something else.

They were smiling. Both looked focused when they started out but as they kept going, getting a sense of each other’s fighting style, smiles snuck onto their faces.

They had fun and Leo did not like that. That was something he and Y/N used to do. Meeting up at a quiet place to fight. Test each other’s mettle. It’s how they got to know each other! It’s how they became friends. It was their thing. Hell, this was one of their first places they met for a sparring match.

Leo ducked down behind the rock he was hiding. Grimacing. He was jealous, wasn’t he? Of Akira? No, what Y/N and he had was special. They worked hard to earn each other’s trust, their friendship being stronger for it. But here the two were, fighting each other like how Leo and Y/N used to do and smiling with awe and excitement in their eyes. What was this all about anyway?

Was this even the first time the two fought like that? Y/N would tell him if she met up with Akira, right? Why wouldn’t she? Well, she did say this was something personal.

He hated it. The mixed feelings and the uncertainty and the worst part of all of this was that normally when he was conflicted like that he would go to Y/N with it. He can’t possibly go to Y/N right now. But then again, maybe she’d understand? This was horrible. Annoying. He wanted to bash his hand against the surface of the rock.

A few hours later, when Y/N returned to her own apartment, she didn’t expect to see Leo standing in front of her door in his casual human get up. She didn’t get any texts from him on her phone as well, so this was definitely a surprise.

“How long have you been standing here?” She asked, her keys hanging uselessly from her finger.

Leo gasped in surprised, he was too deep in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice her walking up to her own home.

“Uh, wha-?”

“How long have you been waiting in front of my home? Also scoot so I can unlock my door.” She was light on her feet. Acting like she just came back from a grocery run instead from a fight with an incredibly annoying person she should dislike.

He did as she asked so she could let herself and Leo into her apartment. He had been in here a couple of times. A few of those times the two might have broken a few things when they began rough housing a bit. Rest in peace coffee table. You held their snacks bravely until both Y/N and Leo jumped up on you.

“Not long. Wanted to check up on you. How was the battle? Did you commit manslaughter?” Not his finest work, it still made Y/N chuckle, making his heart beat faster in relief.

She walked with Leo into the kitchen, pushing off the hood and mask, grabbing some things out of the fridge to make a sandwich. In a silent question she held the bread into the air.

“Not hungry.” He settled down on the chair at her kitchen table. He was a bit unsettled that she didn’t immediately start to complain about Akira like she used to.

She moved her back to Leo, now concentrating on preparing her food.

“No, by the way. No manslaughter committed. Just a fair fight. Won this one, though.” She sounded happy. Naturally but she didn’t gloat like Leo expected her too.

Leo furrowed his brows “This one?”

“Well technically we fought before in the arena. This was just the first time we actually finished it.”

“And he actually was fighting fair?”

She chuckled “Yep. He did. He does take his honor seriously after all, even if his people skills say otherwise.”

“And you are okay with all of this? Not wondering what’s up with his sudden change of mind and all? It is a bit suspicious, right?”

This time Y/N finally turned around, her brows furrowed as well but out of confusion not anger “Leo, what is going on? If you have something to say, then just say it.”

He huffed, hesitating for a moment. What did he want to tell her? There was a lot actually but nothing too coherent. There were emotions that swirled around in him, unpleasant ones. “I don’t think you should meet up with Akira alone like that. Could be dangerous.”

“What?” She was genuinely confused at his statement. It did kind of come out of nowhere.

“Sure, he didn’t pull anything this time but who knows what will happen next time. Are you sure he isn’t taking advantage of your good nature?”

She scoffed “What? You think I’m that stupid to let something like that happen? Besides, I know a few things about him now. Don’t get me wrong I’m still kind of pissed at him for certain things but his behavior makes sense now, you know?”

At this point Leo was bouncing his leg. Nervous but also anger slowly making their way to the forefront of his mind. She was just dismissing these valid worries without a second thought! What possibly could he have told her to make her change her mind like that.

“Are you certain he didn’t just dish you a sob story, so he had an easier time to get on your good side?”

Leo flinched when Y/N suddenly slammed her hands on the table. He must have hit a nerve.

“Oh, because you would know, right? You talked to him and heard his side of all of this, right? Leo, I didn’t forget all the stupid things he said but I’m ready to move on!”

His eyes traveled to her hands that were slowly forming into fists “Why, though? Why does he deserve that?” It was a simple question.

To her though, she looked at him like he just said something incredibly stupid “Are you- Are you serious?”

Leo leaned forward, his eyes firmly locked onto hers “I am. I think this all is a huge mistake.”

She let out a huge sigh, as if she was trying to release the emotions that were slowly building up inside of her “May I remind you that if I hadn’t been so gracious to offer my hand to you first, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation? I know what I’m doing! I’m being cautious! You are acting like he will kill me!”

Leo threw his hands into the air “He is from the Hidden City! There are yokai around that threaten and do eat each other when they just make weird eye contact with each other! But right, you work for Big Mama, as if you’d have actually a good sense when it comes to people from there.”

“Oh, fuck you, Leo! I probably know more about the Hidden City and its people than you! The hell is your problem!”

He groaned, feeling like they were going around in circles “If you’d listen to me you would know! Just listen for once! I’m positive that Akira has some sort of- of- of hidden agenda!”

Y/N laughed in disbelief “Oh my god, you have lost it! What could he possible do with me that would be beneficial to him like that? If anything, we both know he is your typical honor boy, he wouldn’t pull anything weird! This is all so hypocritical of you! You were not long ago in Akira’s shoes yourself! If I would do as you said I would also have to cut contact with you, you absolute idiot!”

At this point, both were raising their voices. The tension was getting worse by the second as both stared angrily at each other. Leo was just trying to warn her, but she just ignored everything he said!

“Hey, you know we both worked on trusting each other! We put actual work into it! Do you think a nice walk and sparring match at the beach is enough?! Come on! Use your head!”

“I am! That’s why I’m so frustrated with you because you-“ she stopped yelling at him, her eyes widening as realization hit her, “The beach? Leo. How did you know that?”

God damn it. He screwed up. Big time.

“You- You watched us! You spied on me! I knew something felt off!” Her voice cut right into Leo, guilt settled down in his gut like a heavy boulder.

“No! I just- I had to be sure he didn’t try anything… I had one of those feelings and-“

He barely managed to stumble through the sentence before Y/N cut him off, shaking her head “No! That is not a good enough reason to fucking spy on me! I can understand you not trusting Akira, but you clearly don’t even trust me! You just said that we worked on building up this trust but, Leo, what trust? Not only do you not trust me when I want to work on getting past this animosity I have with Akira, but you also felt the need to spy on me as if I didn’t know how to defend myself if push came to shove! I know what I’m doing!”

Finally, Leo stood up as well, he might tower over Y/N by a good few inches, but she didn’t look intimidated at all. She just kept staring right into his eyes, silently challenging him.

“I do trust you! I really do! I was just-“

Again Y/N interrupted him, which infuriated the turtle even more “You are such a hypocrite! At first you are trying to forbid me from hanging out with Akira when you never once took the chance to talk to him yourself and now as it turns out you spy on me! Have you done this before? Was this even the first time? It’s so obvious you are just grasping for straws at this point!”

When Leo tried to open his mouth to retort, Y/N was faster “You are such an ass, Leonardo.”

Leo growled as his frustration finally reached the boiling point “I was jealous, okay!?”

This time when Y/N opened her mouth it was out of shock. No sound coming out of her as she processed these words.

Leo clenched his jaw “Okay, here. I admit it. I was jealous! I did have a bad feeling about him, which is why I followed you, and then I saw you fight and… and I couldn’t help but think that was our thing! And I know it’s stupid! It’s just- Fuck. Y/N I’m crushing on you hard and when I saw you two fight, I was just- I was scared, okay? I was scared I’d somehow lose you!”

Y/N was sometimes opening her mouth as if trying to say something only to snap her jaws shut again. She was visibly fighting with herself as she searched for the right words, no doubt overwhelmed with this whole situation.

Leo acted ridiculous, hurt her trust in him and then just suddenly dropped this bombshell on her. That was a lot. When her eyes glazed over in unshed tears, Leo’s feeling of guilt pulled even heavier on him.

He took a deep breath, trying to ground himself again. Most of the hot air seemed to have left both of them.

“I’m genuinely sorry, Y/N. My emotions took the better of me and I didn’t fight that at all. It all started because I had a bad feeling when it came to Akira because I thought he would do something but at the beach I realized I was jealous. The worst part is, I then took me frustration out on you of all people. I wanted to talk this through with you but… emotions… You don’t deserve this.”

God, he was an idiot. What did he expect to happen? He knew what the problem was. He was the problem from the very start and here he tried to push it on Akira and Y/N. That was unfair. That’s not how friends should treat each other. He broke the trust the two worked so hard on establishing.

He really was a hypocrite and an ass.

“I’m gonna leave you be. This is my fault not yours. If you want to talk this through, I’ll be there. If you don’t wanna talk to me for a while or at all, I can understand.”

Y/N was still standing in the kitchen like a statue. Her wide eyes following his movements as he suddenly went from angry to sad. Suddenly admitting to what was the underlying issue here. She knew that something else must have happened since this argument from the start was weird but this, she did not expect.

When she didn’t react, Leo slowly turned around and took a few steps to walk out of her apartment, but a warm hand landed on his arm. Stopping him in his tracks.

Surprised Leo turned around to see Y/N standing right in front of him.

“Y/N?”

Instead of saying anything she just pulled Leo into a big hug. Wrapping her arms around his neck. Confused by this, frankly undeserving, display of affection, Leo couldn’t help but stare at her as she let out a soft sob mixed with a chuckle.

She let go of him to wipe at her eyes, her other hand still laying on his shoulder “God. You are stupid.”

He couldn’t help but let out a chuckle himself “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“We really need to work on our communication.”

“Well, I do, for sure. This time this is all on me, but I’m, uh, you still want to be friends? Even after this stupid thing I pulled? Because I can understand it if you need some time for yourself and all.” Even after the hug he was still surprised by this. He was overjoyed if this was the case, but he still expected her to take a few days for herself to sort through this all.

The smile on her face softened, her eyes were now full with an unexplained warm expression Leo couldn’t pinpoint. He just knew it was far removed from the expression a minute ago when the two were still arguing.

“You remember when I told you, you will always be my number one?”

He nodded.

Instead of answering him, Y/N laid her arms back around his neck and slowly pulled him down, while she leaned up. Planting her lips softly on his own.

What?

Leo was happy, overjoyed even, as she suddenly kissed him, but he was equally as confused at this point. He didn’t deserve this.

Y/N broke the kiss off “I really meant it when I said it.”

“But- I just- I was so- Why?”

“I’ve had a crush on you for ages, numbnuts.”

Finally, the heat rushed to Leo’s head. He was sure that his blush was obvious at this point and together with his flabbergasted expression, this must look quite amusing.

“I screwed up though…” He almost whispered.

She nodded, agreeing with him “Yeah, but you apologized and call me crazy, but I know that I can talk this through with you. We used to literally beat each other up multiple times a week and we managed to get through that. I’m willing to work through this as well. Are you?”

Of course, he was. Leo nodded. In awe at her forgiveness but also still reeling from her own confession.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m really, really sorry.”

“I know.”

Suddenly Leo laughed “Oh my god, you like me!”

Y/N burst out into laughter as well “Yeah, I do! Glad you caught up!”

“Can… Can I kiss you?”

She let out an amused snort that he knew she thought was embarrassing but he thought was adorable “Yeah. You can. Let’s chill out today and tomorrow we can talk about all of this.”

He didn’t give her a proper reply. Instead, his hand flew towards her neck, pulling her up against him again, placing his own lips softly on hers.

[outrunningthedark]

joined the 911 fandom few months back and…has it always been this annoying or did something shift recently. someone on twt said maybe mehta coming back doesnt have anything to do w buddie at all and now they are getting cooked for “raining on people’s parade and being a negative nancy for no reason” …. this whole cycle of setting expectations and bullying people for not having the same enthusiasm then getting annoyed that the tv show isnt delivering the same expectation you set is just so annoying??? glad that your blog exists and you exist because this fandom is in heavy NEED of rational minded people 😭🫶🏽

I've been actively involved in fandom since the start of s4 (was a lurker in s3) and from my perspective...things get worse as the seasons continue! In s4, there was *some* hope for canon!Buddie, but Ana came back into the picture and TayKay soon followed so expectations were lowered (because we didn't know how long they'd stick around). Thennn...the shooting happened. Plus the change in guardianship. People were on board again AND we were introduced to even more new fans who couldn't believe "the gay firefighters" weren't together yet. Season five? Eddie breaks up with Ana, Buck breaks up with TayKay..."If Buddie not canon then why did they break up with their girlfriends?" And now season six is about how "all signs point to canon Buddie" no matter what happens. (ie They were convinced Eddie would be a big part of Buck in the coma to hint at feelings and when he wasn't they changed their theories to "explain" why his absence was a good thing; same with the sperm donor arc - all that non-communication was going to pay off once Eddie confronted Buck about a decision he didn't think through and now the lack of 6A content is going unmentioned because Oliver has (twice) emphasized that there's nothing for Buck to come to grips with, he knew what he was doing when he said yes.) I think the fandom just really, really wants to be right about this one thing for two reasons: 1. It would be a game-changer. How many fans of a queer ship can say that they got the endgame they wanted? Furthermore, how many can say their canon ship started out with two straight characters who fell in love over time because a show thought that made the better story? (Not the SPN fandom, that's for sure. They're some of the biggest naysayers you'll find around here because "I've been where you are." Mind you, most us are old af and remember a time when queer ships stayed in fandom spaces because TV shows wouldn't dare take the risk of alienating audiences.) 2. Having Buddie go canon is an opportunity to get back at any and everyone who doesn't believe it'll happen; the ultimate "I told you so!" victory lap.

I do agree with the fandom when it comes to keeping opinions out of other people's inboxes unless they're open to reading it (obviously me :P), but expressing an opinion on your own page (whether that be twitter or tumblr) is what having a social media account in a fandom is for. You don't have to agree with the person. You don't even have to read it. But you can't stop them from feeling how they feel. And quite frankly, while having hope is nice to see (I do, too!), some people could use a reality check. We're not in the writers' room. We don't know what the writing staff is really thinking when they come up with stuff. Even when Kristen makes comments and Oliver gives his perspective, the fandom calls them "liars" or twists their words to fit a narrative that makes for (what they think is) a better outcome. They'll also advise people not to read the articles, but...nobody actually lies in those because they don't give away all that much information, and the information they do give is to tell fandom when things aren't about Buddie, lmao. Kristen said the coma arc was about Bobby and Chim and there fandom was hyping up Eddie's importance only to realize she meant what she said. Oliver says Eddie going after Buck in 6x10 isn't hinting at anything and they're envisioning feelings realizations at Buck's bedside, which never came. They're TELLING fandom to not get its hopes up right now and the speculation has only gone deeper into "this can't be about anything other than Buddie" because everyone is too invested to turn back now.

As for Captain Mehta - I have my own theories about this. Could his presence bring about a mention of the shooting? Yep. Could his presence inspire another conversation? Yep. But *why* him and *why* he finally has a first name? 1. Is everyone at that table supposed to call him Captain Mehta or just Mehta? Nobody knows him on a personal level? 2. Is it possible that throwing some third no-name/relatively unknown firefighter into the scene (along with Capt. Williams and possibly Julie) does nothing to gauge the audience's interest? At least the audience will remember Mehta and there's a connection between him and both halves of Buddie whereas we've seen Julie in limited quantities (and not even as one of their friends off the job) and Miranda Williams was last seen in early s4.

I'm not saying him being back can't be the precursor to important things, but people also thought the Buckleys were coming back after two years so their kids could yell at them some more and they would decline to be with their son in the hospital (why else would they have returned right then, duh!) and we all saw how that turned out. This fandom loves to say "Bestie, you're watching a FOX procedural" on the ~discourse~ days while routinely ignoring the fact that we're watching a FOX procedural. Sometimes what you see really is what you get when the show runners are (currently) pandering to an audience that includes everyone but us.

[sillyromance]

Good day everyone!

Here is my new story (WARNING: long writing). Characters: Pred! Sacura (OC)/Prey! Drift (TF RID).

Sacura is my new character; she's an autobot with two alt-modes, one of which is a dragon (the eastern one). While in the "beast" form, she can switch sizes from tiny (a usual snake) to huge(literally a train). So, she is definitely a "switch" in vore community. And... this exactly what everything is about!

I hope you'll enjoy!

They were in the garden surrounding a ruined castle in the mountains. Huge branches of wild, overgrown trees rustled above, hiding two alien visitors from the evil summer sun. Cool shadows danced on the cracked mossy rocks of an ancient human building, creating a surrealistic illusion of mystery and quiet, poetic tragedy. It was a perfect spot for meditation; Drift found it by accident some days ago and it was the first time he took Sacura with him.

They got comfy nearby one immense oak and led a simple, calm conversation.

- I wonder... - Drift's gaze switched to his wife. - How do you feel when I... swallow you?

Young fem stopped watching clouds passing blue lakes and streams of the sky which was hiding behind the roof of the ancient plants - and gave him a curious look. She turned onto the belly and put her helm on both palms; the samurai, embarrassed by his question and her immediate attention, looked away and cleared his throat.

- I mean... I can see well only my side of the story. Your little body passing my lips, your sweet flavour on my glossa, then stretching of my throat when it pushes you deeper into me... - He was slowly tracing the path from his chin to the start of his neck. - And the moment when I feel my waist weighs; the armour moves under my servos as you slip inside the fueltank, unconsciously rubbing it with your tiny hands and feet...

The samurai sighed deeply, recalling the moment. His wife smiled, blushing.

- However... - Drift's tone became serious again. - I have never asked you what it is like - to be consumed that way... And sometimes I doubt if you like all of this as much as I do. Doesn't it scary when you see my mouth open wide? My dents are so sharp that they can just slice you on two with a slight pressure. Or the second you see daylight fading and you slide along the dark esophagus? My sparkbeat must be deafing, and metal muscles squeeze you too tightly... And all these liquids...

Sacura made an interrupting gesture, then layed her hand on his knee and stroked it reassuringly.

- I don't have any discomfort when you send me to your insides. Actually, it's very pleasant - like a big warm hug from everywhere. Or a blanket wrapped around your entire body. Moreover... I can easily read your emotions while in there. - Drift narrowed his optics in disbelief but the fem simply laughed. - Yes, I do. Because at such time I am literally surrounded by you. I hear your systems working, energon circulating through your veins; listen to unsatisfied groans when something annoys you - or sense you relaxing when everything is exactly like you want it to be... It's strange. It's like I'm a part of you then; it affects me strongly. And at the meantime... it comforts me a lot.

She took his large, rough servo and started fondling its small scars and lines.

- If I could show you...

Some leaves fell down the tree at her back and shoulders; Drift leaned to her side and gently swiped them off. Her smooth, round forms seemed so vulnerable... Every time he touched her the only thing which wandered in his processor was: "She looks like a sparkling! How can an autobot be so helpless?"

He smirked to himself. Yeah... This "helpless" autobot could kill him without any problems if she would like to. What a joke of nature! - to give such enormous power to a small and friendly girl who freaks out to hurt a butterfly!

Meanwhile, Sacura suddenly winced and stared at her husband with a decisive look in her optics - she had come up with something.

- Well, perhaps I can...

The samurai rose his eyebrow.

- My second alt-mode. It's big enough to fit you.

Drift's faceplate didn't change even a little, but the mech recognised cool tickles going down his spine section.

- I guess so, darling.

The fem heard hardly noticeable tension in his voice and edges of her lips lowered. She looked down at the grass beneath her and spoke, vocaliser crackling of shame.

- Oh... I'm sorry. It isn't a good idea, I guess... If you are against it, I will never in my life...

Drift's cheeks immediately became blue.

- I didn't mean it, dear! It's just... confusing.

He turned her face back to his and gave the fem a soft kiss.

- Remember - I'm not afraid of you, whatever shape you have. Whatever weapons you have. I'm sure you wouldn't harm anyone you care about, and if you care about me - you won't make me suffer. - He paused and smiled warmly. - I think... We could commit the thing you're talking about. At least, it will help us understand each other better. Don't you agree?

Her face was immediately brightened up with happiness like a cloudy day with sunlight. Without any hesitation she desperately embraced her orange lover; Sacura's energy made them both inevitably crush on the ground. The pair laughed loudly at the occasion, making birds around scream and fly away...

............

Drift hadn't ever seen her THAT big before; and he was impressed by the size she took - her head was as large as his entire being! Now, in her dragon mode, Sacura could make anybody go offline just with her threatening appearance. Someone would say it had been a terrifying view: endless silver body, long fangs glowing under her upper lip, sharp claws on four huge, bareboned paws, strong and heavy tail with poisoned needles hidden beneath the scales...

Regardless, he personally found her magnificent.

Sacura approached her husband after the transformation had been ended - and cautiously nuzzled her elegant elongated muzzle in his shoulder. Unfortunately, she couldn't speak normally until she would get into her "human" form again, so touches and wild, animal sounds were all she could use to communicate with him. Drift noticed a shadow of inconfidence in her flaming eyes.

- You look perfect, my star. As always. - He cuddly scratched behind Sacura's audio sensors what made the dragon whine with pleasure. - Don't worry. I've already warned Bumblebee that we're going to "walk" for some more hours. I'm ready.

She nodded. Her jaws parted, letting the samurai observe a wet, glowing cavern, surrounded by steely knives of teeth. He felt hot air blowing out of the predator's maw, washing around his face, and couldn't help but shivered when her glossa draw a thin slimy line from his feet to the chassis. In spite of his fear, Drift didn't stop his darling. At first, he was a soldier who had fought in hundreds of battles; what an embarrassment it would be to back out when he had already gone so far! At the second - the mech seeked for the knowledge. He had to see what she was going through with him. And, observing a starving depths of the beast's maw which was ready to make him disappear at any second, he immediately felt sincere respect to how calm and willing she had always been to enter his own mouth.

Overcoming unexpectedly awoken instincts, Drift got closer and forced his hand to explore the dragon's shining, scabrous, wet tongue. He was going to lie on it soon after all...

The tongue wriggled amusingly of his action and curled affectionately around his servo, creating circles higher and higher, until his entire manipulator was captured in a warm trap. Nervous gigle escaped the mech.

- Well, what do you think?.. How do I taste like? - Frozen like a statue, Drift asked with edge in his voice. He'd like to pretend he was fine, but it was hard to trick his own wife.

Sacura freed Drift's arm and shut her mouth, disappointed. She peered at her surprised husband and let out a pleading moan.

- I'm not going to give up, girl. I'm all right.

She snuggled into him once more, looking at his strict face with deep sadness and doubt in the optics. He granted her a nice rub between the antennas.

- I believe, we should go ahead.

He courageously gave her his hands, so she could start over with tasting him - the dragon slowly accepted the favour, being more thoughtful and patient than before, letting Drift's mind process that there were nothing to worry about. Sacura, definitely enjoying every moment, licked his fingers, went to wrists, then to elbows... Their looks met again - he smiled reassuringly and titled his head down. The craving abyss appeared in front of him again, pouring with saliva. It needed him so badly... This time the samurai wasn't so merciless to the fem - he basically pushed himself into her ravenous jaws.

They caught and lovingly held him. Her hot glossa started working more actively, trying to reach every inch of Drift's voluminous body. He could sense how fast he was loosing an ability to move; his limbs became languorous and sticky, deadly exhaustion flood all around his tough body. The samurai was already too weak to keep his helm up; finally, he just put it on the fem's tongue, looking sleepily on its ribbed crimson surface. If he decided to struggle for some reason, he wouldn't succeed... Kinda pathetic...

Suddenly, a long, vibrating sound filled the room. His "ears" focused on the resonating, soothing rattling which shook every corner of his system blocks.

Sacura was purring.

Drift sent his concerns into the oblivion at the very moment he understood what the noise was. Thoughts about his own well-being were replaced with the ones about his wife's pleasure. He was the reason she was feeling that good. He gave her this bliss. Drift recalled the day when he swallowed her for the first time - it was... Undescribable. Fascinating. He had her whole; he felt her harsh sparkbeat, her clumsy squirming in his mouth before he made a gulp. He could remember delight of her deliciousness... Now, their roles got switched. And he was certain she loved it.

Finally, the pressure of her jaws increased; the dragon rose her head and let Drift smoothly slip into a small hole right before him. He heard an audible "glrk" with which his shoulders and shest were tugged further into the darkness of her throat.

It was a series of strong, dry, quick swallows, painful for a pred, but ineffective. Her husband never was miniaturous to say the least! Nevertheless the fem didn't stop the process - now it was only the way down for him, she do much more harm, trying to cough him out.

The mech noticed that his girl was in trouble; Sacura surely required some assistance. He began to shift a little, making his waist and hips come along - he was aware of how wide and bulky he was, and how it must be difficult for her to get over with it. The tightness of the tube he was going through seemed almost unbearable, and ironically, he felt guilty for the thick layers of metal which made him so hard to devour.

But their combined actions worked - the gulps slowed down, became calmer and visibly easier. The space around was still cramped, but it didn't crush the samurai any more; it was truly like a warm, plushie hug, pulsating with care and overwhelming love. This body demanded him to be its guest - he knew it in the very spark. And he was glad to give in himself to it as an earned prise for every time Sacura presented herself as a treat for her husband. He accepted the fact that he had to forget about his powers for this moment; he managed to see what his girl ment when she once said: "I wanna be a good prey for you". She deserved him to be submissive now, no matter his warrior pride.

At last, after some minutes of squeezing and pulling, Drift arrived at the fueltank. It greeted him with a friendly gurgling and soft blue light shining from the streaks crossing squishy, tender walls. For the first few seconds the mech felt himself hanging as if he was in a kind of hammock which swayed beneath him non-stop, although this situation didn't last long - Sacura layed herself on the ground and turned on the side, giving space to her enormous, bulging stomach.

She looked at it with mixture of relief and disbelief. She swallowed him whole. He was in there, surrounded by her; she could feel every movement her husband was making, settling down in depth of her growling stomach. It was so incredible... but wrong. It should have been... vice versa. He was stronger, wiser, older than her; he was a leader in their companionship, her "master". And meanwhile, he was in a position of a weaker one now. She literally had his life in her servos. And if she had been an enemy of his, then...

.

Sacura got terrified by this thought.

She carefully put an open paw on her round, swollen belly and stroked it gently. The mech inside "returned" the touch, pressing exactly at the place she was caressing. Purring like a big cat, the dragon eagerly embraced her stomach and leaned her head closer to the deformed metal. She would never harm him. Never in the world.

.....

Drift was trying to get use to the place he got into. Everything was unstable, elastic, tender - alive; he was afraid that just his presence in here could do harm to his beloved because of how velvety tender her fueltank appeared to be. "This must be what she sees when she gets into my core" - he mumbled to himself, looking at squishy lumps all around him. Glowing wrinkly walls were grabbing his legs and arms with mischief and great interest as if they had a mind of their own; his body was sinking into them, being massaged, gently squeezed all over. It was...nice. He silently watched how every part of him was getting examined and generously soaked in scintillating mint-colour slime. He predicted it could be like that, he didn't care much; Drift would take a shower after anyways. The samurai found a comfortable position and closed his optics, listening to Sacura's distant sparkbeat, deep ventilating, tranquil rumbling - and his own emotions.

It was still hard to process that he was staying in his wife's "stomach". Especially, because he was absolutely helpless. He left his katanas outside. It was necessary, but at the meantime... He was just one step apart from death. The samurai felt so small and helpless that it almost drove him mad. But at that moment he noticed something changing. One of the walls leaned to him, moved by something from the outside; this thing affectionately drew circles on Drift's arm and chassis through the flexible flesh. It didn't take much time for the samurai to realise it was his wife caressing his body. Fury flew away from his spark as fast as it came. He stroke her back and felt Sacura wince in delight. The room slightly tightened around Drift; now he noticed silhouettes of two big paws laying on her belly, hugging his entire form - and a press of something larger right next to his head. The bot could swear it was her helm.

He snuggled into the warm wet muscles and finally relaxed, letting the surrounding do whatever it wanted with him.

Before she was his. Now, he is hers.

Sometimes it's important to see everything from a different angle.

[mdhwrites]

I Am Getting Tired Talking About the Designs

It is the main thing outside of Clois that I see talked about with My Adventures With Superman. I’ve even seen someone call the show’s style so far as ‘hyper realism’ because of how they’re doing the villain designs which... *stares at the person until holes bore into their skull* And here’s the thing: I don’t mind people complaining about the villains technically. The fact that both Livewire and Slade feel kind of samey next to each other doesn’t help the fact that the show is struggling to give its villains time to shine. They risk slipping into a territory where they feel there as a part of the mandate of this being a superhero show rather than interesting entities unto themselves and I’d be okay with people talking about that.

Or how about the fact that so far none have had a REALLY good or interesting fight with Superman so far? Ivo is the best on both fronts so far but otherwise we’ve see Clark grab someone’s fist before responding with an attack three times now and one of those was against a robot. The only one he hasn’t done it to is Livewire and she doesn’t exactly punch, does she?

I had my brother bitch at me yesterday, if you don’t want to talk about the villains, about Jimmy’s stuff needing a little more fleshing out if he’s suddenly going to be mopey about the two getting together, especially after pushing Clark and Lois towards each other at first. That isn’t an unfair complaint and even in my last review, for as much as I liked the episode, I still admitted there were issues and lacking payoffs, especially with Jimmy. There are issues. This isn’t a perfect show, though nothing should be perfect because perfect is boring. It probably does need to take a breath though because while it is shockingly well paced, it is juggling a lot at once and it is concerning for when one of the balls may drop.

But like... Unless they’re just fundamentally getting the character wrong with no chance for growing into their design, can we just stop bitching about them? Parasite from my knowledge was originally a dude who was fucked up by an experiment and went “Well, they can’t cure me so I guess I’m evil” which is way less interesting than actually having his personality and his personal goals be parasitic to some extent so that they match his powers thematically. I’ve heard Livewire is a cocky, annoying bitch. We all remember the “Smartest person here” banter, right? That bitch with real powers, and irreversible powers as was foreshadowed by her veins, is going to be INSUFFERABLE. And Slade? The fucker is twenty years younger, minimum, than his comic counterpart and has both eyes and his battle suit in the title sequence fits his aesthetics so maybe cut him some slack because his cocky attitude now is clearly setting up for a GLORIOUS fall.

Of course, this is all assuming the show does well by these characters but at least right now they definitely have potential to become like their comic counterparts, especially with the question of how Silver Banshee is getting her screams back after Clark broke her mask.

So unless you complaint is more than “I want them to look exactly like my comic books!” maybe let an adaptation be, you know, an adaptation. I mean, so far the show fits exactly how DC has marketed itself since... I dunno, from what I hear the New 52? Especially in television because *gestures at all the DC movies* so I might not be a comics guy but I absolutely see why DC was okay with this as the rights holder because this is EASILY the most interested I’ve been in literally ANY of Superman’s rogue’s gallery. And no, I’m not a comic book guy but I see people comparing the two and you know my response when people bring up the differences in design? Most of the time I’m curious. Like what is Siobhan like when she looks like some genetically altered mutant or just a straight up alien of some sort? What’s the backstory there? But I also enjoy the cocky, wanna be supervillain of Siobhan in the show with her glam rock hair and raspy voice.

But I will admit that I don’t know the pain of adaptation too well. The closest I’ve come is stuff like Guardians of Ga’Hoole (which frankly is a shockingly good movie for how much of a mess adapting that series to anything would be) and Percy Jackson, where I only bitched about Clarisse because making Annabethe Clarisse was both more boring and narratively pointless because Clarisse is KIND OF IMPORTANT to the second book of that series, bare minimum.

Nothing here strikes me like that and if you disagree... Let me know. I see adaptations like this as a chance to both enjoy something and learn but frankly, EVERYONE bitching about the designs and nothing else is just making me tired and that’s making me not want to learn which means afterwards, I won’t dig deeper which isn’t that what you want as a fellow fan of the character?

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[eaglefairy]

We started xenoblade 2 last night! The liveblog tag will change to "roommate chronicles part 2" now. My thoughts on 2 are...complicated. (You can see #alrestposting for more on that.) But I'm looking forward to experiencing it with my roommate and seeing it through new eyes! (Quick note: anytime there's a quote without a tag, it's from my roommate. I figured this was just easier than trying to summarize what she was saying.)

(during the opening cutscene) "Space whale!!" Me: Dead space whale...

"Enough of that existential crisis stuff, we need to make money!"

"Bana?? Chairman Bana?? Is that our Bana?!" Me: "It's Bana if he got what he wanted." Roommate: ... Me: "It's Bana if he owned this whole airship."

Roommate: "Jabba?? Is he Jabba the Hutt???"

"Rex you idiot. You don't even know what the job is."

(While Jin is talking) "What is happening here..."

"Why is this dialogue so unreal. Like why is it so strange."

Rurui appeared on screen and I just started laughing Me: "He looks like an among us..." Roommate: "...Oh, he does."

So far she's pretty annoyed by every character except for Dromarch.

We finally got a good look at Nia and: Roommate: "There are catgirls now?"

"Rex, you didn't even ask what they're trying to find! What if they're trying to unearth a demon or a monster or a god?!"

"Jin, can I ask about the mask? I'm an impertinent 15-year-old, can I ask why you're wearing a mask?"

"Whoa, Sever looks cool. Is that one of the new alien species, what're they called?" Me: "They're called Blades." Me: "Dromarch is also a Blade." Roommate: "Huh???"

"It's a demon! I knew it! We're hauling up a doomsday device!"

She said she'd be willing to believe that the salvagers are evil and the Monoceros ("black ship from the harbor") are secret good guys which is like. ha.

"It's a god. It's chthulu. We're pulling up a god."

(I mean the fun "fun" part is that Mythra and Pyra would absolutely agree with the description of doomsday device. And in fact are just as against this right now as my roommate is.)

"I'm not gonna lie. The white guy [Jin]? He's hot. I don't trust him. I haven't even seen his face. But he's hot."

This is Dickson all over again. This is amazing I love it.

[activating the control panel] "We're about to meet god." [sees the Aligo boss in the next room] "What the hell is that." Me: "Not the god you were expecting?" "What is this...man-shark?"

Game: "That's...the Aegis." Roommate: "Nope, that's the Monado. Easy mistake to make."

"Oh, we're not dead. We're in heaven? Are we going to meet god now?" [sees Pyra in the distance] "Jesus? Mother?"

I forgot how much this game doesn't explain things at the beginning. So far she's asked me "what's a Blade?", "what's a Driver?", and "what's the Aegis?", which are all very fair questions considering how many fantasy proper nouns the game throws at you with no explanation

"Yay Nia! I knew you were good!"

"If you hurt my grandpa I'm killing you."

We agreed that xc2 really needs its own Sword Valley prologue. Xc1 starts strong with the opening lore cutscene from the Titans' antiquity going straight into the battle, and only then cutting to the slice-of-life stuff with Shulk. My roommate admitted that so far she's bored by the game because it starts so slow, which is exactly the problem I had with it 7 years ago!

Oh yeah, she really hates the tutorial narrator. She's calling it Navi and giving it a high annoying voice.

The roommate was touched by Gramp's death scene (until he was revealed to be alive)

Me: "Ever have your mentor figure turn into a mascot?" "...They turned my dragon into a mouse."

"Did that boob just jiggle?" Me: "Oh, you'd better believe it."

The squeal of delight I just heard when I showed her how to play as Nia riding on Dromarch made the past 2 hours completely worth it. "I'm never playing as Rex again, he's LAME!"

[atoasttotheendoftheworld]

Things we do for love...

Like lots of people, I saw "Avatar: The Way of Water." Now, putting aside my personal opinion of J. Cameron's work (with the exception of Aliens) I had many issues, upon the end of the movie, with the movie itself. Definitely congratulations to the work of all those involved, undoubtedly there was plenty of effort and it certainly has to be acknowledged. However, the plot left me with tedium and bitterness. And, no, it's not about the end.

SPOILER!

What annoyed me most, in terms of the narrative itself, is that the story would (in my opinion) appear to be based on a variety of events that have happened in human history. Like the atrociously unfair actions of the Colonizers against Natives from different parts of the world (specifically I think Natives from the areas of current USA and New Zealand & Australia) as well as the War of Vietnam. A good setting, for sure, to have a narrative in which Humans are represented as Aliens, thus a reversal of the standard "aliens invade earth." Interesting. Except that then, throughout the film, the plot itself is just a slightly different copy of the first film, with the one major difference that the main characters have moved from forest to water and the bad guy isn't physically human anymore but has assumed the appearance of the Na'vi.

However, it all remained centered on the one-on-one fight between Jake Sully and Colonel Miles Quaritch. As in the first film. Only, while in the first film it did make sense and was more than all right for laying the groundwork of the narrative, in this second chapter it is (in my opinion) redundant.

The whole first part of the film has been completely ignored, that gory fire sequence that destroyed Pandora's ecosystem and threatened the lives of the Na'vi. Completely ignored the fact that the United States (yes, because I refuse to consider it a representation of the whole Earth) has established, without any logical connection other than that of the self-centered colonizer, that the Na'vi are the enemy to be put down and destroyed, to invade and subdue in order to steal the whole planet. Fully ignored also that, possibly, "earthlings" might be pushed by a sense of desperation for their own salvation, becoming selfishness of actions. It has been totally dismissed that it doesn't even matter whether Sully is here or not, the Pandora forest and the folk living there will still be in danger of death. It's not Sully that draws the war, it's the U.S. Military that brings it to Pandora; to all of Pandora, regardless of Sully.

Sully alone is uniquely able to understand (besides scientists genuinely interested in Pandora's biodiversity and ecosystem, thus peaceful observers and researchers) the humans' line of reasoning and their potential actions, as he was. He was a U.S. Military. Yet he isn't the reason for war, he isn't the one putting Pandora and its people in danger.

The film's narrative, though, seems to concentrate on that. On the one-on-one confrontation of Sully and Colonel Miles. Ignoring that it's just a battle, but there, someplace in all of Pandora, there is a whole war. War of which we no longer are informed, of which we no longer hear. That Sully himself doesn't appear to comprehend is there. It focused on personal struggle, on family, on a desire to protect it, and that's fine, it may be a metaphor to convey the will to stand up for all the Pandora folk and the peaceful life they live closely with nature and environment.

Nonetheless, I didn't find it well-structured and it annoyed me. For I could have enjoyed three hours of more elaborate metaphors about the triviality of evil and the differences between defensive aggression and dominative violence. Of storytelling about humans as invaders of a planet. Of many other potentially interesting things that, instead, are being ignored in favor of a philosophy about family and sea as metaphors of life and death, of hate and love. Nice, admissibly, yet a bit too mild for a second film.

That's all, I just wanted to say it. As I had this opinion about it and wished to get rid of it, since in daily life I can't engage in dialogue about the movie. (I doubt my cousin will follow it).

Ah…by the way. I firmly reject considering the humans portrayed in the film as a representation of all human beings. At most, they are representations of the U.S. Military system and the U.S. government. I don't see, on Pandora, military/scientific bases of other Nations. So, if I don't see and it's not hinted either with visuals (even hasty ones) or with a few hints in casual dialogues, I cannot assume that all humankind on earth knows what is going on on Pandora and agrees. Neither can I assume that other Nations are cooperating with the US. Therefore, for me, the humans portrayed in the film are U.S. military and that's all. Not the representation of "Earthlings." Although, ultimately, there could be a complex and long conversation about this as well.

[oddsacky]

Ok ok I need to talk about an au

I was thinking of an Undertale x Payday au that I call Underpaid and it's basically like something causes the Payday universe to collide into the Undertale universe. Everything gets messed up and now the Payday characters are in the Undertale universe. (I'm putting the rest of this after the break cuz it's long)

When the player first starts. The characters act like themselves but are like "what the actual fuck is happening where the hell am I what am I wearing?" Throughout the game the characters start to act like the character they are replacing ie. if Dallas were to replace Sans, Dallas would randomly act more like Sans for a bit before getting confused and going back to normal. It's like the game is confused and is trying to correct the new characters so they act like the old ones.

The "backstory" would be basically the same except the cops replace the humans and the Payday gang replaces the monsters. On the surface, the gang thought the government was corrupt and tried to be modern day Robin Hoods while the cops saw them as thieves. They fight and the gang is locked underground without anything. Their weapons and tools are confiscated.

As for who is who, here's what I have so far. I'll edit this post in the future if I make any changes.

Frisk: a basic cop like maybe a security gaurd or one of the blue cops you see on like normal difficulty.

Chara: not sure yet. I played around with the idea of it being the Dentist but that makes no sense at all since he was never close to being a good person ever. Then maybe Bob McKendrick cuz the gang wanted him to become mayor but I don't really know. For now, no one is Chara yet.

Toriel: Right now I like the idea of Chains being Toriel, though I have no clue who would be Asgore if Chains were to be Toriel. I really want Chains to be Toriel tho

Napstablook: I don't really have anyone in mind. Once I thought Hoxton should be Napstablook then I thought Wolf should be Napstablook then I gave them different roles and now I don't know who Blooky should be.

Sans: Dallas because he has a brother. Also he is kinda memed by his fandom.

Papyrus: Houston because he has a brother.

Undyne: Hoxton. He's got that fighting spirit like Undyne. Also it fits with who I replace Alphys with. They gay for each.

Alphys: Wolf. The both make machines and Wolf can be shy and quiet at times.

Mettaton: Sentry turret. The sentry is sentient I make the rules. I know in Undertale it's implied Mettaton is a ghost fused with a robot body but I want it like this.

Asgore: I have no clue who I'd pair with Chains tbh. Maybe Chains's girlfriend from the John Wick trailer but like she only appears for a couple seconds and nothing is really known about her.

Asriel & Flowey: I like the idea of Bain being Asriel but now that I think of it, it doesn't make the most sense (not that this au makes any sense at all) I really want Bain to be Asriel though so he is Asriel. As for Flowey, I can't think of anything that could represent Bain. My friend suggested her "oc" (more like Bain's alter ego or the alien part of him Bain is an alien it is canon please believe me) which I do like the sound of. If I can't think of anything better I might go with him. His name is Beo. I also thought of like a blue flower but Beo is more interesting.

Grillby: Gage. He ends up working at a bar which he isn't too pleased about but makes due cuz he can't really do anything about it.

Mad Dummy: I don't really know maybe someone stuck in a Bulldozer suit. Maybe Rust. He's grumpy and insignificant.

Muffet: Totally Vlad. Was gonna be Gage because he sells stuff but Vlad totally fits Muffet's role. He's crazy and he has a bakery.

Annoying Dog: Seal because my au and I love seals

If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. This is such an incomplete au and I would love to hear what others think.

Ok like one person is gonna understand this au but I thought I'd put it out there because why not

[kimberlyannharts]

Hi there! I just wanted to drop in and say how much I've enjoyed your reviews on the new Coinless comic. I have to admit I ordered a physical copy, decided I absolutely couldn't wait, and got the kindle version the night before it released.

I don't really have people in my life that appreciate the PR fandom lol. I love talking about the comics but alas no one knows what I'm talking about. I really like the grittiness and futuristic feel of the Coinless Universe.

I confess I wrote some PR fanfics back in 2013 and my favorite character to write was the Evil Green Ranger. He was so much fun because I could be an absolute a-hole. It was a way to blow of steam.

When they introduced Lord Drakkon, I was intrigued because it was very in line with my version being a sadistic killer. I know people aren't a fan of the Jason being alive retcon but I laughed because it was on-brand with what my character would do. No quick easy death for the leader on his watch. Too much fun to toy with and also having a juicy secret when battling the Coinless.

I wasn't a fan of how they made Jason act like a d!ck but I thought about it and felt bad for him in the end. I know he was a teenager when he was imprisoned, mentally/physically tortured, and isolated. He lost a large chunk of formative years: graduating, venturing out in the world, getting a career, meeting a partner.

Then he's suddenly released into this alien new world where he doesn't understand how things have changed. He's operating on an outdated mindset. Not to mention severe PTSD and having to immediately deal with another monster before he can really process this new world. I'm guessing mental health services are probably lacking in the Coinless World, poor guy.

In the end, I wanted to give him a big hug in DND. And seeing how he was in this issue too. My heart!!!

And lol.... I joyfully shrieked/cackled when he gut shot Drakkon with the shotgun!! Beautiful!!!! I do hope he ultimately survives whether he takes up a suit or not.

I'm sure the Slayer will pull through too; I also enjoyed that bit with Drakkon losing his sh*t over losing her! I can't wait until the follow up.

Sorry so long; again I don't have anyone here that gets what I'm interested in :)

I will be totally honest here, part of my hatred for the retcon isn't just from how little sense it makes - part of it was also because I feared Boom was going to pander to the crowd that wanted King Tyranno to be canon. And while DND turned out to take a interesting spin on the concept, people still came out of it thinking that Jason was now automatically Drakkon's greatest foe and rival when it had been established for years that it was Kimberly/Ranger Slayer. (You know....the person who was trying to establish herself as basically A Good Drakkon in the very series that brought back Jason??????) And that attitude still annoys me to this day. It's not the books' fault, but it's just something that'll always exist as long as the fandom and Jason fans are Like That.

But as of now my opinion on Coinless Jason is just......if he has to be here, what they're doing with him is fine. Just don't go too far with him.

Especially when literally the only thing I care about now is SLAYERRRRRRRR and the potential for possessed!Slayer vs Drakkon angst >:)

[master-gatherer]

I know I'm usually one to be more charitable towards MCU stuff, but I finally got around to finishing Secret Invasion and it was so bad. Confused plotting and themes, does not gel with the rest of the MCU, and that is being charitable. And the one thing that kept annoying me the whole time was New Asgard

So if you don't know or care, Secret Invasion is about shape shifting aliens coming to Earth and invading it all secret like. In the comics the aliens (Skrulls) are 100% the bad guys, but in the MCU they had a twist in Captain Marvel where actually the Skrulls are refugees and have been nearly genocided by this other alien species (which is honestly one of the more interesting bits about Captain Marvel, but I'm bitching about Secret Invasion, not doing my Captain Marvel autopsy, so focus). Skrulls are not the bad guys, and in fact Nick Fury has been using them as a secret force of informants and assassins since the 1990s, and that's how he's managed to become such a super spy. And in exchange he promised to help the Skrulls find a new planet to call home.

So in the show, some of the Skrulls get tired of waiting after thirty years (even though Skrulls apparently live longer than humans), and want Fury to hurry up and find them a new planet. Even though they can apparently live in radioactive locations and have in fact settled an old abandoned Russian nuclear reactor as their colony on Earth. But this isn't good enough for some of them so that subset of Skrulls are trying to start WW3 to kill off the humans and colonize the now radioactive planet Earth.

So right away we get to the problem, which is that they can apparently live in areas that humans can't, so why can't they just set up shop in Pripyat and other radioactive areas we can't live in, why do they need a whole ass planet. And this is put in stark relief when you remember this is the MCU and somewhere in like Norway New Agard exists.

Because Earth has an alien refugee settlement already, it's New Asgard. In the MCU Asgardians are also aliens, and they lost their home, and have basically set up shop in Scandinavia, we see in Thor Love and Thunder they have a booming tourist industry, in She-Hulk there's Asgardians and even shape-shifting light elves dealing with the legal system. There's precedent. And it's not like humans are using these radioactive sites anyway, we can't go there without getting sick. Why can't we just give the Skrulls amnesty and they stay there, doing their own thing under the protection of Earth and it's superheroes, which will save them from the other space empire that nearly wiped them out in the first place?

But no, the Skrulls have to do a bunch of terrorisms and try to kill the US president, so now the president is trying to declare all aliens enemy combatants (he does not distinguish between alien species, so I guess the MCU version of the president is trying to declare war on Thor, the literal god of thunder). And this whole show is a goddam mess.

Like, usually theming wise Marvel is ok and pretty consistent, their plotting sometimes gets away from them but whatever, the important part is the story, themes, and characters are usually pretty solid, ranging from a few missteps to knocking it out of the park. Not here though. The whole thing didn't seem like it was committed to what it was saying. Like the whole "evil refugee" thing is bad on its face, but it didn't even want to commit to that (because it's xenophobic and gross as fuck) so instead we get this weird mess of "most of these guys are good, but we only see a couple of them, and the bad ones have legitimate grievances but they are trying to wipe out all life on earth" and that does not mesh with what the greater MCU has established, which is that humans know aliens exist and are actively engaging in commerce with them. The concern that humans will not accept the Skrulls because theyre too alien, while it could open a discussion about how different groups experience privilege and prejudice, is treated like a foregone conclusion. "Humans aren't ready to accept aliens living among them" tell that to Valkyrie and Korg! We could have a nice contrast b/t why the Asgardians are accepted and the Skrulls aren't but no, we're just going to side step the Asgardians completely and half demonize half sympathize with the Skrull plight.

Idk man, the MCU seems to really shine lately when it leans into the extraordinary space/magic stuff and it really stumbles when it tries to do a more realistic and gritty thing. Secret Invasion was trying way too hard to be a hard bitten spy thriller, which is just undercut not only by in-story plot points, like collecting all the Avengers' DNA and literal shape shifting aliens, but also the cross continuity to other more fantastical stories. Again, they literal had a shape shifter in She-Hulk, there is now legal precedent established within the MCU of how to deal with this sort of power, you can't have a realistic spy thriller pop in a few months later like "how will society react to this new development 😱"

The creative heads behind the MCU really are resistant to grappling with the change of the status quo and what it means, and it will inevitably break the whole thing if they continue to refuse to do so and keep writing these like "it's just like our world but this handful of people have super powers."

[ilkkijangege]

136

Since I have reached character limit on the other post, time for a new one!

8 June

As always, I have been meaning to talk to him all day but I've been very shy, it's been nearly a month since we last talked kasi 🤣 I was over at GG's desk for a really long time at around 3pm and I really wanted to talk to him then but he was talking to his colleagues so I didn't want to interrupt.

Then at 4.30pm ish, I walked over to his area and saw he wasn't there so I went to the kitchen instead and saw GG. I told him about my dilemma (me wanting to talk to him but he wasn't there) then he told me how he was shocked at how old he was. He thought he was only 22 🤣 (like Vanessa 🤣 does he really give off young kid vibe? It's defo the youngest child syndrome 🤣). He said that BCB wants to move out, at least by the time he is 30. Which is fair. Let's go imma move out with you, live in CHAR.

Then GG saw that he returned to his desk and I should go over now. 🤣 Thanks for the support 🤣 but... I didn't end up going though but I ran into the IG QA and we walked to the lockers, she asked me how I was and I told her how I'm mustering the courage to talk to someone THEN OUT OF NOWHERE I SAW HIM EMERGE FROM THE SHADOWS AND GO TO THE BINS. I was shook, we locked eyes and said hello to each other and I walked up to him. Told him "you want cookies?" "What are they? Chocolate chip" then he was a bit hesitant to take them and asked "baka yan ung nung isang araw?" I told him "no! I baked them last night" 😂 so he took one and we started talking further. He asked me how "ate mary" was. I told him he's really sick, found swelling in her stomach and had sonogram, sabi nya "buntis?" Sabi ko "baka" and we laughed haahah he was so fidgety when we were talking tho, like shaking his legs, i don't wanna overthink but ya know 😂 then I told him how I've only been gone for 2 weeks because I had a panic attack but feels like a year with all the changes. He thought I was out of Ireland, he saw my stuff (but you didn't like them hmmmpp) then he told me about his Italy trip, how he was annoyed because the main reason he went to Italy was for F1 but it was cancelled because of the flooding, then he said how it was raining all the time and he was jealous how everyone in Ireland was sunbathing. But it was sunny on their last day. Then I told him "narinig mo na lilipat daw tayo 1st of September?" He said he has and I told him official comms next week and that we all have to be in Sandyford by 4th September. I also told him that I don't know how they're going to move our PCs and all. He said, he wouldn't mind it because he'll get paid to do nothing 🤣 But he said he wants to leave this shithole in the next 3 months because the last 3 months have been very difficult with him. I agreed with him and said "kaya nga nag mental health leave ako" 🤣 but yeah the pressure has been real in work. I hope his mental health is okay tbh. We just parted ways then. He thanked me for the cookies "thanks te!" STOP ATE ZONING ME 😂

Then at around 5:30, I went back to GG, talked a bit and he said he had a case for Chad's product and he needed help. BCB used to work for Chad's product so I told GG "why don't you ask BCB?" so he did and I stayed while he helped GG. He seems so knowledgeable though and really knew what he was talking about. Love that 🤣 then GG told me "you know he did 40 cases yesterday??" I was shook. GG went back to his desk and I asked him how the cookies were, he gave me "👌🏻" hand gesture and said they're good. I told him I am the cookie queen 😂 (GG agreed my cookies were good while walking back) I told him he should have tried my mystery cookie, he said I should bring it the next time. He's not a sweet person daw kasi cos his mom has diabetes and his Dad died of diabetes, I said "aww. Diabetes really runs in the Filipino genes." He said it's all the rice etc. Then he showed me American Guy alien and how it looks like Filipinos- with all the beer and rice. I told him I was reading this book and how rice has arsenic and could kill you. He just laughed. Then I asked him how he was still alive after doing 40 cases. I joked and said "baka passes lang yang cases mo" Then He said it was the WSIs in their product and how he was part of s group that was in charge of merging to the task, in total, they probably did 200 cases among them. Work has truly been crazy. Then I said my farewell "I'm going to study".

That's the end of our interaction today 😂 But I'm very happy. I didn't think he would share about his dad tbh. I've always wondered what happened to him but kudos to him for sharing. It's probably not easy to. I told my seastar how I want to ask him if he has any guys for my seastar but I didn't get a chance to, let's build rapport muna ulit. Then I also imagined that maybe I can ask him if he has anyone for me too and maybe he'll be like "ako na lang kaya?" HAHAHAHAHA bro please let's date 🥹Oh GG showed me his roster and I saw that BCB will be off next week for a long weekend. His sister mentioned a family trip for their mom's 60th so idk if that was it. 😂 Anyways, I still need to discern how to ask him out. But I hope we can still be friends even if he rejects me. I think we can get along tlga huhu 😭 I told my seastar what happened with the cookies and she was like "wow progress" 😂 but aaahhhhh

.....

9 June

Our interaction was a bit late today because I had so much meetings and everytime I wanted to talk to him, he was always talking to someone else.

So at around 1pm ish, I went to grab water at our water cooler. Then I saw him go to the meeting room beside it for a team meeting. He said hi and asked how I was etc. Very casual all talk.

Then I went over at his again at nearly 5. I usually just stand when I am talking to him but this time I decided to sit beside him. I had 2 cans of Mango Aloe Vera with me. Firstly I asked him "kamusta" etc and he was like "balita". I asked him if he's tried the mango, he said he has 2 at home but he prefers the green one, i said same hahaha. I told him my brother wanted me to get some.

Then i told him about the Filipino weirdo in his team. "narinig mo ung nangyari dyan kanina?" Backstory, I was over at GG's desk and this weirdo just randomly came over and was all up my face, asking me weird questions. He said like he's like that but just don't mind him etc i spoke to him in tagalog hahaah he said even my ex bff's hubby don't like him. Then he kept getting called for help so it was so annoying hahaha. Then i heard he was working on IF today and I asked him why, I heard their backlog is done. He said they had a bug where the case statuses were being changed by the bot so he was asked to work on it for the day.

Then i asked him if he's working weekend, he said no, and asked about me, i said no i asked him what his plans were but he said "oh wait you're a QA" we got interrupted for help then when he came back, he was like "I'd be a great QA won't I?" Sabi ko I'll help you 😂

Then we talked about Br*hian being QA. He said he's happy for him. But I said I really wanted Mary to get it. He asked me how Br*hian is as a TL. He thought "the really tall lady" was the QA lead. Then how they wont backfill Al*nnah's role. He asked me when her last day is etc. He's worried about who his qa will be.

Then he saw his colleague had cetrine and he asked for one. I told him my eyes have been itchy cos of hayfever 😂

I wanted to ask him for lunch yeah so I asked him if he's still on lates next week, he said yeah so I'll wait til he is on the earlies 😂

Then our convo just died and i told him to enjoy his weekend and he said "enjoy your weekend too"

I had dinner with my seaster and Vane and I told them I'll give him my mystery cookie flavor. Vane said I should step back after giving him cookies and see if he does something in return and if there's nothing, I should explore my options. But I really do want to take the risk. If not now, when? I don't want us to end up like Chad where I felt if I did something sooner, we could've explored our connection but maybe I was just delusional 😂

....

10 June

I had a dream that he replied to my story (about me hurting my feet) on IG (for the first time) with the following:

"Where did you hurt your feet?

Oh I went to the shop today (inside Rise on The Cove) and enjoyed it!

Thank you for the recommendation!"

Hahhaah ok xD

.....

13 June

Another day, another landi moments with BCB.

So I baked miso and almond butter cookies to give to him. I've been busy today so I specifically planned when to go to his desk.

At around 4.30, I went over to him and was like "uy parang seryoso ka dyan ha" i think he laughed, asked me how I was and I said I was having an existential crisis, he asked why and I said I just didn't want to be here anymore ahahah

Then I plopped the cookies on his desk. I didn't tell him what the flavour is but I told him it's not too sweet. He was guessing if it was ginger cookies because of the color but I told him it's obscure and only 1 person has been able to guess what it is so I'll be really surprised if he gets it 😂 - he was laughing when I said "obscure" 😂 - I gave him 3 para "i like you" charrrrrr

Then I asked him if he's seen the lunch for Thursday. He didn't know there was a group where they post menu for the whole week. So I told him to search for thr group and when he saw the menu, he was surprised. It was a Filipino themed lunch and he was laughing at pancit canton. He asked me "okay lang ba videohan toh?" I said yeah since it's not sensitive info. He said he wanted to send it to his "ate" but it looks like he sent it to his family GC. One of the menu item is Picadillo and I asked him if he knows what it is - he didn't and I explained it to him.

He started looking up the desserts - silvanas and I told him it's like sans rival. He also looked up buko pandan (like you dont know? 😂) And said that people might not like them because kf how it looks. He also questioned what kind of Mango they'll use on the Mango Tomato salad and whether it is the sour one hahaah

So I was gonna ask him to have lunch together eventually but I told him we were thinking of having lunch with the Filos and he was like "we should have a table dedicated to us" ahahha I was gonna ask him if he's down to have lunch when he's on the early shift but it's so hard to bring it up.

He asked me about M*ry and how she is. He still has not sent her a message and asked if we have been talking. I told her she's online shopping and asking me my opinion on what to get in Michael Kors 😂 He said "typical but as long as she is okay"

He then told me he doesn't want to work anymore "tangina" ako din, ako din 😂

Then i asked him if he's seen the timeline of when we're moving, he said he hasn't so i told him to look for it on our workplace and he did.

I just left him then, he said thanks for the cookies and he'll let me know. KELAN FAM? Through IG? In person? He better do because I'm curious if he will get it 😂

Cute nya today though, wearing a white striped shirt yieeeee, i wish i could compliment him like that but I'm shy 😂 so let's just joke around ng konti 😂

Mag papamiss ako bukas and we'll see if maalala nya 😂

...

14 June

So nag pa miss muna ako today, para hindi nya na din mahalata na xa lang kinakausap ko etc

But anyways, couple outfits kami 😂 black and white ensemble. Cute pa din nya nakakainis.

I saw him in our MK at around 2pm. We were like 15 ft apart but idk if he saw me so we didn't really get to talk today. Which is g, can't show him that I'm always/too available 😂

But I wonder if he remembers the cookies? I'm off on Friday so I might just talk to him on Monday 😂 but i really wanna have lunch with him 😭

....

15 June

So it was Filo food today in work. I wasn't going to talk to him but I was in his area talking to GG so I just did.

I asked him if he ate and what he thought. He said "oh that's definitely not Filipino food" 😂 We talked about the buko pandan not being good and he even had his cup to show me he's only eaten 1/4 of it. I told him how I had lunch with the Filos and how one of them said there's a lot of chewing involved when there shouldn't be 😂 Intold him silvanas was good tho, he asked "the meringue cookie?" he agreed.

Also his outfit was good today again, black button down, opened and he had a white tshirt inside. HE'S BEEN LOOKING GOOD THIS WEEK AND IT'S TUGGING ON MY HEARTSTRINGS 🥹🥹🥹 I wish I could compliment him.

Then i asked him if he figured out my cookie flavor, he said he didn't so he asked and I told him it was miso and almond butter. He was like "miso? As in the soup? No that's not miso" then I said well miso soup has a lot of components 😂 but he said "i enjoyed it tho, thanks!" Then I told him I'm glad he did. I'm so annoyed tho, I should have told him i like experimenting because of my future cafe plans ahhaha

He told me he is off for 4 days and that he's looking forward to it. I asked him PTO or normal day off, he said PTO, he was supposed to go back to Italy but said it wasnt worth it to spend €1,000 in 2 days. I heard him say "8 thousand" so I was like "8k?? What kind of vacation do you go to 😂" Turns out he said "a thousand" 😂 I think there's something weird going on at home cos it's his mom's birthday weekend and he chose not to go. Also the fact that his mom didn't greet him on his birthday. My intuition is always right I'm telling you 😂

Then we parted ways there since I had nothing else to say, so told him "enjoy your day" and he said the same to me 😂 I was gonna go back but I didn't. 😂 But I did see he is off first 2 weekends in July and those are the weekends I wanna ask him out. I hope his schedule doesn't change. I kinda also wish we could try Escape Room again so we can spend more time outside work kinda thing before I ask him out.

I wish he's on earlies next week so I can ask him to have lunch or something 🥹🥹🥹 Anyways, need to start Novena next week and discern if I really wanna ask him out for coffee.

....

19 June

So today was an interesting one. We were on the bus together and when he got on, we locked eyes and I was sitting at the back 😂

Then we got off the bus together, I said hey and so did he.

After breakfast, he was at his QA's desk just as I was walking back to mine. We said hey again hanggang dun na lang kami. Pa-introvert kasi ate nyo today 😂

We didn't really interact much today. I haven't started my Novena yet but I have decided to not ask him out for coffee just yet. I think I'll end up in Congress still discerning about this. I told Mary about my plan and she told me not to do it because we don't talk privately. She said I should build that connection first, otherwise, things may get awkward between us. She said I should send him memes and all but how? I think once we talk more about what we're into, I guess these things will come naturally. I do want to get to know him more as a person, even if it is just friendship. I think he's a really good guy and I've always wanted a guy best friend. Vanessa agrees that I should let this connection grow, to be more present around him and all. Wait a month to see if there's something there and then maybe ask him out. I'll let the winds blow our sails and see where it takes us. At this point, he probably only sees me as a colleague and nothing more so I should make an effort to change that.

I gave people ube crinkles today and Mary offered him some but he said he doesn't like ube 😂 and that's shocking. He said he likes basic flavours because he's a basic bitch. 😂 Okay fam 😂 Then Mary said how I'm such a great baker that he should hire me for his future cafe, but he said he already has someone else in mind. BADUM TSSS 😂

Then after his lunch, I bumped into him going to the bathroom, we exchanged hellos, he asked me "you good" and also asked him the same 😂 I thought keeping my distance would be the way to go but I will hit the reset button on our connection and try to be more playful. I might start calling him kuya 😂 and if he does dress up nicely this week, I'll joke around "aba parang effort ng suot ngayon ha, sino pinopormahan natin dyan?" Or something like that 😂

Oh and he got recognised as an Escalation Champion in work today 😂 i wanted to tease him about it but I'll do it tomorrow like "wow, ginalingan mo ha 😂" or something

We're still gonna go ahead with our escape room and I'll ask him etc 😂

Also I hope I can ask him for lunch this week or something.

But Lord, I leave this all up to you. Please remind that Your plans are greater than mine.

....

22 June

So it's been a while since we properly spoke to each other because I'm a chicken 😭 so today, I did my usual, go to GG and then to him.

So I go to him "musta?" Then I teased him about his recognition sabi ko "wow ginalingan nya" tumawa lang xa 😂 but he said thanks naman 😂

Our convo was very dry today honestly, i asked him how he was and he said nothing new etc. Then i asked him if he's on lates or earlies next week, he said he's back on lates for 2 weeks. I asked him if he fought for it and he said he's not bothered WFM is shit. And i hate myself kasi I wanted to have lunch with him sometime. I should have said "ay sayang, lunch sana tayo." Always missed opportunities 😭 He asked me if we (QAs) are busy, I said kinda lol na miss mo ako noh? Di kita nakakausap ng mabuti noh 😂

Then i asked him how he feels about the new monthly schedules. He said they gave them a feedback form but they're not going to read it anyway. He said gusto na nya umuwi, I feel you 😂 He asked me ano ginagawa ng QAs nila cos he hasn't gotten an audit in a while. I told him I am not sure who he's assigned to cos I don't have access to our file. He asked if the assignment changes every month but I said if really depends. He said he doesn't care about his quality anymore cos quantity na lang sinasabi sakanila. Then I expressed feelings of quitting sabi ko mag ddole na lang ako and he said last resort nya daw un. bsta our convo was so dry so I asked him "baka iniistorbo na kta dyan ha", he said hindi daw 😂 pero I said bye na din cos I had a meeting to go to.

We'll see if kausapin ko xa bukas cos GG is off. I'll think about it. 😂

.....

23 June

So we didn't really talk today because I was dressed like Bianca and she's an introvert 😂

Buttttt I have an embarrassing story to tell. I was at the trainer's area cos of Vanessa, it was empty and there I was dancing to Black Eyed Peas' My Humps. Then I look up and sees him walking to the QA area for his QA. SO EMBARRASSING 😂

But he was dressed really nicely today 😭 Pano ko ba xa aasarin? Huhuhu

I am still contemplating whether I should ask him out... 😭

...

26 June

I am surrendering everything to God and going with the flow. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. I'm sick of being the only one putting in the effort. Like I said, he probably only thinks of me as a colleague/a QA and that's okay.

I'll let Jesus take the wheel. Maybe it is also a calling for me to refocus my energy in work in making sure that I truly deserve to be the next Senior QA.

Lord, kayo na po bahala. I trust You and your plans for me.

......

28 June

So I actually planned to ask him out today but I postponed that.

But I think it's time I let go. I was speaking to him and we were talking about his schedule and I slipped in "lunch tayo paminsan" and he was like "ha?" Or "what" I cannot remember so I repeated myself and he was just silent. It was so awkward so I just said bye and he said "sige bye ingat".

So Jesus, take the wheel 😂 honestly I don't care at this point, I'm up for promotion again and maybe that's where I'm called for. Que sera sera, baka sa congress ko pa makilala ang para sakin. 😂

...

29 June

So I practically ignored him today but I did see him very briefly.

I posted Ben&Ben's new song on my story at around 00:08 (it is 00:39 right now) and he's already viewed it, he's at the top too. It's a parinig song to him actually 😂 LIKE HOY ANO BA 🥹🥹🥹

Yoko na

.....

30 June

I have been thinking lately, I think there's been a major shift in our conversations for a while now. Like before, we would be talking really well but it seems he hasn't been telling me things. It is so hard to get to know him BAKIT BA. I wonder if nakutuban na xa if I like him or what. Like....??? Did anyone tell you? 😂

I mean over na ako let's move on bye. Di ko na tlga xa kakausapin, I will not go near his area anymore 😂

....

6 Jul

So today, for the first time in 1 week we were in close vincinity(?). Like during lunch, I passed by him but I ignored him 😂 I mean he could have said hey if he wanted to. Bakit ako na lang lagi nag iinitiate ng conversation dba?

We were both wearing beige tho 😂

We'll see if we talk to each other again. I mean sabi ko if he says hi then I'll also say hi pero kung ayaw nya edi wag 😂

.....

7 Jul

So he hasn't viewed any of my stories today, baka may iba na xang pinopormahan 😂 it's whatever 😂

UPDATE: 00:36 - HE VIEWED MY FIRST STORY AND THEN EXITED THE REST 😂

....

12 July

I handed in my notice on Monday with no job prospects. I was just done. But anyways, I think I will slowly talk to him again and eventually ask him out on my last day, 1st of September, that is if he's still around 😂 whatever happens, bahala na. Missed opportunities hurt more than rejection. I want to close my Accenture chapter with no regrets and what ifs.

....

14 July

So I talked to him today after 2 weeks. I offered him cookies but he declined saying na he's stomach is not in good shape 😂 okurrr, then I asked him how are things but we've really just been talking about work lately. He said they're not busy daw etc and then I asked him if he's gonna do overtime cos the Philippine team got food poisoning and need coverage for 4 days. He said he'll do it on Monday and I asked him "why??" He said he needs the money cos he's going to the Philippines next year. i think fair enough 😂 but I told him about the conspiracy na they're gonna introduce those shifts eventually. I can't remember na but I asked him again if he wants cookie but he still didn't want so I just said bye to him 😂

But idk, should I let go? I think I'll just continue to discern about this and see. I told a close colleague about this and she's like he's a good man by not accepting the cookies etc etc as to not lead me on but honestly, idk. Then I told my seastar about how our convo was dry etc. She asked me how I feel and I told her i feel good that i was able to talk to him etc. She asked if I should continue with it or not but it's a reflection that I have to make for myself. I'll pray for this because at the end of the day, how can I end something that has not even started?

Lord, please show me the way. 🥹

....

17 July

Okay, so today was a rollercoaster of emotions. The usual, IG QA and I would walk to the MK together via his section. While we were walking, I asked her: Should I give up? THEN I KID YOU NOT HE EMERGES FROM THE SHADOWS AGAIN LIKE BEFORE. I said hey as we were walking past him but I couldn't hear an audible "hey" back from him. But idk, IS THIS A SIGN GOD? Huhuhu please don't play with me 😭😭😭

I bumped into him during lunch but we didn't exhange pleasantries.

Then he usually don't view my stories quick lately but today, he viewed my story within 30 mins. Idk I'm always overthinking this.

IG QA also tells me that I seem bougie and maybe I'm scaring him off. See, I may love my brands and all but I'm really not as high maintenance as people perceive me to be. I am high maintenance for myself but I do not expect anyone to buy this and that for me because I am contented with doing that for myself.

I told Vane of what happened in fhe morning and she told me I should really let go. I told her of my plan to ask him out on my last day but she was really against that. At the moment, he doesn't seem like the type to want a relationship and knowing me, I wouldn't date just for fun. She told me, when men wants a relationship, it will show. Vane also really wants the best for me. I'm not saying that he's out of my league but it would be nice to not have all the what ifs.

That being said, this area of my life will be one of things I will pray for during Congress and I hope that God will give me clear signs and intervention. I am ready to let go if it is the Lord's will. I just hope thay BCB would make the effort sometimes too.

Hay Lord, I know when the time is right, You will make it happen.

I'm off until the 27th of July and hopefully by then I'll be more at peace.

.....

30 July

So last weekend, I was in Vienna for the EYSC and I really prayed for this connection, whether I should keep on chasing or let it go.

I feel God really told me to let it go and that it's not time for me yet. Final na tlga toh. I am not going to force it if it's not God's will tlga. It's sad to let go of something that hasn't even started but I know God has plans for me and for him na din. I wish him happiness because he seems like a good guy.

I also went to Salzburg to meet up with my INFJ sister and she affirmed to me that I should "attract and not chase". God really does speak to us through other people sometimes and it's wonderful.

Lord, I leave everything up to you. This may not be my time yet for a love life but I know breakthrough is coming if I put my trust in you. Amen.

...

10 August

I didn't really want to update this anymore but...

Yesterday, I was over at GG's desk and it was someone's last day on their team and there was a card going around, BCB had it and he came around to ask if everyone has signed it. He went over to GG but didn't say hi to me, but I also did not look at him. At first, this really made me feel bad for myself but one of my colleagues, reassured me that it's a 2 way street, he should have also said hey. And I hate overthinking but he definitely knows I like him/has a crush on him. I mean I am not bothered anymore but I think it just sucks.

I think it's hard not to think about these things when he still views my stories. Like skip me na lang please.

**update -- I found out from GG that he's leaving. He got a job as an IT Support for a Law Firm in the Docks. Bro, get me a trainee solicitor job will you 😂 jk

.....

22 August

I turned 28 yesterday. But he didn't greet me or acknowledged any of my posts.. haaayy.

Anyways... so IG QA and I would always walk his area going to the Micro kitchen. Then IG QA was looking over at him and apparently, as I was walking, his gaze was following me. I hate it so much, like you haven't been paying attention to me and now you are? Then it happened again during the afternoon. Lord, why are you doing this to me?

Then just before home time, I went to the bathroom and as I was exiting the women's, he was entering the men's and he audibly said "hello" to me. Ngl, I was smiling the entire time I was walking back to my desk.

Lord, naman, if there's still something there, please give me a clear sign because I really hate this overthinking. I just want peace of mind and happiness. 🥹 Ready na talaga ako mag let go eh, pero if may chance pa talaga, I want to know 🥹

....

23 August

Is the Lord testing me again? Honestly, if may crush xa sakin then sabihin nya na before it's too late, we can give it a try.

....

25 August

So he said "morning" to me today, as in with matching eye contact. He went to the QA lift and he turned around to me And he is still watching me as I walk past his area, or at least glancing at me.

Maybe I am attracting na? 😂 But Lord, please allow him to do something if there's something there.

He only has 3 more working days left in the office. I mean maybe he'll reach out on IG? 😂

But honestly, who knows when or if we'll ever cross paths again. Unless his sister plans a get together at her house or something but idt I'll ever bump into him in town or the likes.

Hay Lord, are you testing me again?

.....

29 August

So nakapag usap kami today after nearly 3 months. I mean kasalan ko naman un kasi nilayuan ko xa.

But not the point, he still keeps on staring at me everytime i walk past his area and this started after birthday ko. Srsly, am I atttacting and type mo na ba ako? 🥹

Tapos todayyyy, he was doing shadowing dun sa room malapit sa area namin, IG QA needed it for a certain hour but in the end she had to cancel so tinawag nya si BCB to come out of the room and nandun ako sa gilid so I could hear some of their convo. Tagal nila nag usap and IG QA was shook at how talkative he is. Then she goes to me "did you hear?? He was asking for you! He said "Is Bianca leaving?" with matching pointing to my area daw". Then IG QA said yes and my last day is Friday. I really thought IG QA brought it up out of nowhere but she said it was him who brought it up.

Then like 1.5 hours later? He came over to my desk and said "you're leaving?" I said yes and he asked me where I was going. I told him "Department of Social Welfare" then all of the QAs started laughing and IF (Tul*o) QA turns around to him "AKA the Dole". By this time, I thought he got the joke but it looks like he didn't because he asked me if I would be handling money, I joked and said yeah. He told me he needs €1000 a month so I said "sure". He asked me when I'll start sabi ko I haven't applied yet and I need to go to the GP to tell them I left because of the toxicity so I can get the money, he asked me for my role, sabi ko "tambay", then he was like "wait, that's an actual role??" I told him, "wala tlga akong trabaho beh" TINAWAG KO TLGA XANG BEH?? MORTOOOO!!! 😂😂 I did drop the "bruh" bomb at one point too. I told him how this place really affected my mental health kaya I decided to quit. He was probably judging me deep down for not having a job lined up 😂

I asked him about his last day, sabi nya bukas. (I mean I already knew this 😂) I asked him where he was going and he said "Beauchamps, across the river" and I asked, "that's a law firm right?" He goes "yeah it is!" I congratulated him for leaving this place and he said he's getting out of prison or dungeon ba un? 😂 He said he's starting next Monday. He asked me what my plans were and I said "I have exams." He told me "oh exams? What exams?" I said I was completing exams to train as a solicitor. He was surprised "Oh you wanna be a solicitor? Did you do law in college?" I said "yes and I wasted 5 years here 😂". He told me I should apply sa new company nila YIE GUSTO MO MAG KA WORK ULIT TAYO? 😏 then I told him how I probably have since I've applied to so many law firms and all 😂Then I invited him to my leaving party on Friday but he said they already have one kasi there's 5 of them leaving AWWW but, I hope we can keep in touch and maybe lumabas din kami? 😂

He said he is going to make friends with the solicitors there and ask if what they're doing here is illegal and sue them. Sabi ko sama ako dyan haahah then he left and our convo died.

But all throughout our interaction, HE WAS REALLLLYYYY FIDGETY. As in he would swing his lanyard around, putting on his neck here and there, using it like nunchucks. Like are you nervous? 🥹 sige na, ask me out let's give this a try 😂 but also, I was really taken aback when I saw him come at me. I was standing up cos I think I was talking to Wal*ce and when I turned around, I saw him and he wanted to talk to me. I swear, I was so nervous and nabubulol, we haven't spoken in nearly 2 months and first time nyang mag initiate ng proper conversation.

Then i stayed back an extra hour and when I left the building, I saw him walking back to the building, probs bought dinner and he smiled at me, said something (see you later ata?) and I said "see you tomorrow"

Idk what is going through his head but Lord, I pray you give him the courage to act on it before it's too late. I will say goodbye to him tomorrow and I'll probably say "keep in touch ha" or "we should grab coffee sometime" or awkward ba un? Ewan bahala na si Batman. Another chapter closed na nga ba?

Oh yeah minessage din ako ng sissy nya, if I find jobs daw sa T*kT*k, tell her and she'll refer me 😂 SIS PWEDE BA REFER MO NA LANG AKO SA KAPATID MO? 🥹🥹🥹😂😂😂

Realisation: what if I wasn't at my desk when he came over? He really took a chance with that ha 😂 at dumaan ako sa isip nya na "punta nga ako kay Bianca" ahahah delulu and IG QA made a reaaallly good point, he could have asked her where I was going but he didn't. Maybe he really is interested? And now he found out I'm leaving, the awkward work dynamic wouldn't be there anymore?

....

30 August

So it was his last day today. He came over the QA area a few times, to say bye to people and all but as always, stupid me kept on ignoring him.

But IG QA and I made sure we walked towards his area a couple of times for the last time. There was one time our timing was perfect, he had just turned around and was standing and IG QA said he was looking at me. Huhu

IG QA and I went on lunch together and he went on lunch like 15 mins after us. Literally, there were soooo many free tables but he chose to sit in the one in front of us, like he positioned himself in the way he can see me and I swear in my peripherals, I could see him looking. Thennnn we went up at the same time but IG QA and I waited for the next lift. But I could see he fixed himself 😂 So when we got to our floor, we walked to his area again, he had just arrived and IG QA looked over, he was blushing and apparently was smiling and looking down like kilig smile. Huhuhu is it me?? 🥹🥹🥹

Then around 4 ish, he came over with a cap and asked his QAs to sign it. He kinda saved me for last yiieee. I only managed to sign Bianca C. Cos I couldn't find any more space. He said it was his favourite hat and he is going to frame it. As usual, hiya nanaman ate nyo. Missed opportunities tlga.

So diba I had a plan to say goodbye to him in person? I specifically stayed back 40 minutes just for him, only to find out that he was not on his desk. I swear he was probably on the 5th floor playing foosball 😡😂 so there, my plan didn't happen. I messaged him on IG instead but he has not yet replied. But it's g, it's not meant to be 😂

Sa susunod na habang buhay na lang 😂

Thank you for following my BCB shenanigans since April. This is the end of my chapter. Even though nothing happened, I'm still grateful because it taught me yet another lesson. I need to "attract and not chase". I truly wish him happiness. He's a great guy and I hope he finds the girl he's meant to be with.

Update: he replied like 14 hours later: thank you so much! Best of luck to you too! I hope you find your dream job. 😁

.....

31 August/1 September

Swear, he keeps watching my stories still. Sometimes even quickly as I post them. Is he really curious? Kelan mo ba ako tatanongin? Or just shoot your shot please let's do it 😂

Also since we're both gone from Accenture, it'll be easier for us to start anew 😂

....

9 September

Dear BCB,

I know you'll never see this letter but these are words I want to tell you.

Maybe I forced myself on too you too much. I let myself get to the best of me, yet again.

I know that God has plans for me, even if it means that I'm really forever alone in this lifetime. I want you to know that I prayed for you. When Vanessa told me you were having a hard time, I prayed to God to grant your hearts' desires. A few days later, I heard from the grapevine that you got a new job.

Yesterday, I prayed for you again and I was crying. I prayed for God to allow me to let you go if there is truly nothing. I also prayed for the woman you're supposed to be with, may she exceed all your expectations because you are a good man and you deserve someone who will treat you right.

Maybe we are just two strangers destined to meet but never fated to end up with each other. I don't know if our paths will ever cross again but I'll be cheering you on. I think what pains me is all the what ifs. What if we had the chance to give us a try? All I know is that one day, I'll see your sister's post or someone's that you got engaged or even your wedding day.

For now, I'll focus on myself and continue praying for your success.

Thank you for making my heart flutter even just for a short time.

Never yours,

B.

.....

25 Feb 2024

It's been a while. I'm not going to lie when I say he has not crossed my mind because he does.

I made the decision that should the universe allow us to meet again, Ireland is small so it's still likely, then I will probably shoot my shot.

He's in Japan right now and he posted a series of IG stories yesterday, I replied how I'm jealous and I hope enjoys. He replied with "thank youu!" As in may extra uu and a 😊 😂😂😂

Basta, bahala na si Bathala!!

[nellie-elizabeth]

Roswell, New Mexico: Missing My Baby (4x08)

I am so predictably easy lol. Literally you give me angsty Michael freaking out about Alex, and I'll forgive you anything.

Cons:

I really enjoyed this episode, but I'll of course try and step back and be objective about it! I think my main overarching complaint is that certain things in this episode would have been fine normally, but I feel a little weird about the pacing. I know that's a common refrain from me, but there are only five episodes left of this whole show, and it's a little concerning how we're still sort of lining up key pieces. Mostly, I'm talking about the Tezca stuff. It feels so late in the game to only now be clarifying the basic motivations and positions of our new characters. Clyde was my least favorite part of this episode, because the sinister reveal that he's the bad guy doesn't really hold weight when we saw him toss Dallas and Bonnie into quicksand last week. And what about the fact that Tezca is the one who quicksanded Alex? I just feel like the season spent quite a long time meandering before leading to this nexus point, and that does make me worried about what we'll be able to fit into the final episodes.

The big character thing that I need to mention this week... it's our girl Liz. I love Liz, I like having a female protagonist who is allowed to be messy and make these big mistakes and all that jazz, but this week she really, really rubbed me the wrong way. She's going around acting like she's the one who has the right to make big decisions on other people's behalves. She's the one who decides to keep Alex's disappearance a secret from Michael, and her reasons of "Michael might react poorly" and "I wanted to spare him from pain" are just... not good enough excuses! She also feels like she has a right to what Max chooses to do with his body and his powers, which is not a good look. And finally, after all the lessons she's supposed to have learned about the ethics of her alien scientific exploration, she goes ahead and takes Shivani to the pods, without running it by Max, Michael, and Isobel, and then Shivani finds out Max is an alien because of it! That's a huge secret to let slip, Liz. This is a big deal and it's super annoying that she's behaving in such an irresponsible and self-righteous way.

And then on the Echo front... you know how we're all pretty sure there's a wedding at the end of this season, because of the behind the scenes pictures? And how this season has the whole Echo proposal thing, and it keeps getting talked about? I am in the position right now of actively hoping these two are not going to get married at the end of this season. Unless the finale has like... a significant time jump and they've really worked on their bullshit together. Because right now? They are not in a marriage place, they're in a "we barely seem to know each other or how to interact with each other" place, and it's super bizarre to see them behaving like this so close to the finale.

It bothers me that we had to spend time in this episode with Liz getting sage relationship advice from Shivani and Michael, with Max angsting about Liz to Michael as well, when I'm sitting here thinking that the two of them are such awful communicators, it's frankly stretching credulity that they're even managing to stay together at all. This isn't how I want to feel! Unlike with Michael's character, who I feel has really grown and matured over the years, Liz and Max seem to be falling back into the same patterns we've seen a thousand times, with no sense of them understanding that their behavior is toxic. I want to root for these two, I've always thought Echo was a really good ship with a lot of angst and complexity, but I am just really struggling to connect to them right now.

As a last note and in the interests of thoroughness, while I am overall very pleased with how the Alex stuff was handled, I do think there were some awkward momentum killing moments that seemed odd to me. People were acting all urgent about Alex one minute, and then Rosa is talking about stopping to have pancakes with her dad first, and Michael is giving Liz relationship advice, and Liz has time to work on the cure for Michael and Max instead of focusing on her missing friend... it seemed like once they knew he was in trouble and actively reaching out for help, there should have been less time to sit around and have idle brooding conversations about other topics.

Pros:

So, let's start with the other plots before I dive into the Michael and Malex stuff, because you know that's the main thing I want to squeal about.

As I said, I wish the Tezca revelation had happened a bit sooner in the season, for pacing reasons, but I honestly really liked the material with Isobel and Tezca! The reveal that she was in fact an unwitting tool, a victim, of Jones, instead of an ally, was one that worked really well for me and that I never would have seen coming! I loved the tension between the two of them, and Isobel's determination to find answers. She really carried the main plot forward in a way that I found satisfying. Isobel's romance entanglements in the first half of the season left me feeling a little cold, so I'm just having fun seeing her back in the thick of things, fighting for answers.

And honestly, despite everything I said above about Liz, I thought the final scene of this episode with Shivani dropping the canister, was one of the best Liz scenes of the whole show. Great performance from Jeanine Mason, as we watch Liz grapple with the horror of Shivani's loss, and the lengths she's willing to go to save her dead daughter, coupled with the fact that she, Liz, is a hypocrite and she knows it: she got Rosa back, and she saved Max, and Shivani is right to point out the inherent unfairness of that. Why is Liz the only one who gets to bend the rules to be happy? Why can't she use use the incredible scientific miracles at her disposal, to save other innocent lives? You can see the pain on Liz's face as she tries to get through to an increasingly rattled Shivani, all leading to that moment when the canister drops and doses them both with the alien mist. I was honestly on the edge of my seat for that whole scene!

And now, for the whole point of this episode... the Michael and Alex stuff.

I want to start by saying that sometimes, honestly, being in this fandom can be kind of a bummer for me. When I was looking in the tags and seeing people's reactions, I saw a lot of anger and disappointment over this episode. I can only assume people's expectations were too high, that they'd talked themselves into hoping Tyler would be in the episode, or that they just wanted an even more extreme reaction from Michael, more anger, more urgency. I... get that, I get being disappointed that we've seen so little of Alex this season. But the part that makes me feel kind of bad whenever I check the tags is that everyone seems to take this lack of Alex as a deliberate choice on the part of the writers to undermine him, as opposed to them writing around a medically necessary absence of the actor.

Malex is my favorite part of the show! Truly, I get wishing things were different. But to pretend that anything not spent on Alex is a waste, that the show is pointless without him and that dragging out his absence is making the show terrible, is just not a justifiable position as far as I'm concerned. This has never been a show about Michael and Alex. If it's a show about any two people, it's a show about Max and Liz! I wish people could temper their reactions and appreciate that given the actor availability issue, they did what they could to build up the suspense about Alex's absence, and then to unleash a hell of a reaction from Michael on us when the time was right. Personally speaking, I was quite thrilled with what we were given.

To start with, I like that we get Maria, and Liz, and Rosa, all giving a shit about Alex. I wish this was something the show would do more often, I definitely think that Alex's friendships and connections with characters outside of Malex have been pushed aside a lot, especially in seasons three and four. But when they do give it focus and attention, I'm not going to complain, I'm just happy to see it! Rosa showing up to help Maria channel her potential new abilities was really satisfying to watch. Just everything about Rosa, the way she's come into her own, settled in her skin, makes me so happy. This is exactly what I would have wanted for her, and it's a lovely way for her to pay it forward, after Isobel helped her with her powers back in season three.

Then there's Michael's emotional journey through hearing the news. At first he's skeptical, and he actually stays pretty calm until it dawns on him that everyone, including Liz, Max, and Kyle, were all in on the fact that Alex might be in trouble, and that he was kept in the dark. At this point he rightfully freaks out, but what I love about the way that this was written and performed is that clearly, so much of his anger is actually aimed at himself. His guilt is clear the whole way through: Rosa points out that maybe Maria was the only one listening to Alex, and Michael pushes back, saying that he was thinking of Alex every second he was risking his life with the dark triad. And maybe that's true, in a sense, but I think it's pretty clear that Michael knows his focus wasn't on Alex. Then again with Max: he punches him, he says some awful things to him, and I don't really blame him for being pissed at Max, but he also says "I could have been looking for him," which feels like a condemnation of his own distraction as much as it does a condemnation of Max keeping the secret. Michael is realizing that Alex has been in trouble for days now, and that he hasn't even noticed. His friends were wrong for keeping it from him, and his anger is therefore justified. But the guilt is real too, even if he's perhaps being a little hard on himself.

And I love this. I love that even though it's not Michael's fault, that he had a lot of other things on his mind, and perfectly good reasons to think Alex was fine, that of course he'd go to this place of guilt. It's tied up so much in everything he's been learning about Oasis, this life-long yearning for his original home coming back to him in such a big way. Alex is away for one week, and he's busy fantasizing about leaving the planet? Of course he's a mess when he realizes Alex has been in trouble and trying to ask for help! He tells Liz that he lost sight of the home he was trying to build here with Alex, and I think we'll see his focus stay on that from this point forward. God, honestly, for all the issues this season has had up to this point, Michael's stuff has been my favorite all the way through. Such a delicious way to deepen his character.

Speaking of his character development, we then see that Michael's initial burst of rage cools off, and he makes amends to those he's wronged. I saw some people annoyed that Michael offered apologies to Max and Maria, when in fact they were in the wrong, but honestly I love that this happens. First of all, Maria and Max also express remorse, as does Liz. It's not like the show isn't acknowledging that they were in the wrong to keep the truth from Michael. But let's put this in perspective: Rosa and Liz found out last night. Max finds out maybe like... two hours ahead of Michael, at the most? It would be a different story if they'd been lying to him for days, but as much as I think Liz was wrong for doing what she did, I also think it makes a bit of sense to want some more definitive information. It's a misguided decision, but it's not totally monstrous.

Same with Michael's response: totally reasonable to lash out in that moment of fear! But it's a great sign of his character growth that he's then able to pause and reflect, and work together with his support system to find Alex, instead of tearing off on a rampage with single-minded focus on Alex and nothing else. Sure, it was fun to watch him lose his shit in season two, tying people up, building bombs, all to get Alex back, but Michael has grown as a character since then. He's learned to lean on other people. That's a good thing.

So many great lines from Michael this week that I want to call out. I really liked the way he talked to both Liz and Maria about Alex. He has that line to Liz about how you can't hold onto sand because it will just slip through your fingers. That's basically his way of saying that a relationship won't work if both people don't want it to. Such an important lesson that Malex had to learn together, as they took it in turns to be ready for one another, but had to wait until they were on the same page for things to finally click! And then one of my favorite lines of the episode, said to Maria: "I know you love Alex too. And that means we are always on the same side." Like!! Amazing. Perfect. No notes. I know most of the fandom vehemently disagrees with this viewpoint, but I wish more of the show was about Michael, Alex, and Maria, and the entanglement of their relationships and feelings over time. Obviously Malex is my OTP, but I love Maria's friendships with each of the guys and I loved this moment where the two of them were united in focusing on their love for Alex.

Alex playing "Would You Come Home" on the piano? Michael joining him on the guitar? The pendant glowing on Michael's chest? The lights leading them to a map? All of this shit was the CHEESIEST thing in the world, and I mean that absolutely as a compliment. Give me all the over the top sappy romance stuff, give me Michael looking like his heart is cracking open as he hears the song start, a single tear slipping down his cheek as he plays along... I was absolutely eating all that shit up, and I think it followed so beautifully from his initial anger reaction.

Another favorite moment of mine is Vlamis's performance on "I HAVE TO HELP HIM", as he's about to jump into quicksand after his boyfriend, with absolutely no plan. "I wasn't listening to him, I wasn't paying attention." Like, fuck me up, that's so powerful. His sheer desperation, and then the way he breaks down as Max pulls him into a hug... wow. I got a little choked up.

Speaking of Max! I loved all the brother stuff this week, I was hoping that the secret Max kept from Michael would be about Alex (since we knew about that from the episode description), and honestly the way this all played out was exactly what I would have wanted it to be! The initial anger, the punching, Michael absolutely ripping Max to shreds for putting his relationship issues above Michael knowing the truth about "the man he loves"... The line "I hope the wedding's worth losing a brother" is absolutely incredible, that went so hard.

Then we get Max showing up just in time to save Maria from the quicksand, and he also stops Michael from diving into the sand after Alex. I love that he was the one to talk him off the literal ledge. Max has always understood that Alex means everything to Michael. He compared Michael's feelings for Alex to his own feelings for Liz, back in season one, and he has been the one character on the show to consistently and repeatedly make such comparisons, actively paralleling their relationships with their respective significant others at key moments. So I loved that as a continuation point, and also just as a big ol' fan of all the sibling feels, watching Michael bury his face in Max's shoulder and cry was... very good. And it just gets better, with Michael apologizing for hitting Max, Max apologizing for hiding the truth from Michael, Michael talking obliquely about his own guilty feelings, and then affirming that all that matters to him is getting Alex back. Max calling Alex the love of Michael's life was also... very nice.

Wow, I really talked on about this one, huh? Could have guessed that would happen. If I had to say it succinctly, it would be this: sure, there are things I wish could have been different in this episode, even including the Michael stuff. Yes, absolutely I wish that we had more time with Alex in our final season. I'm guessing we see him again in episode ten, but who knows how active a role he'll play in the endgame? It's a bummer, and I do get that. But this was a PRIME episode for all my Malex feels, and I bet when the show is actually over and people can re-watch over the season without the suspense and uncertainty coloring their opinions, they'll have to agree that watching Michael break down and scream and punch his brother and play the guitar with the ghost of his missing lover, is all pretty dang satisfying to see.

8/10

[dr-lizortecho]

Just a Guy From Roswell

(in which I share more unsolicited opinions, keep spinning the same idea around in my head, and focus on the good parts of echo’s 3x12-13 interactions)

So on the topic of Max’s story arc this season, and whether it’s regression or out of character or just annoying to sit through. It’s been pointed out to me by a few different friends that they thought this part of Max’s story was sealed and delivered at the end of season three, because of his ‘decision’ to keep his powers. Which I’m about to argue there was almost no choice to that situation (as it was written) and that the events of 3x12 were an exception not the general rule. Because Max’s journey through the last two episodes is so disconnected from his journey as a whole. He’s primarily focusing on his and Liz’s relationship, while dealing with a new fear he hasn’t had much time to sit with.

Starting with the events of 3x12 Max has just been released from the pod and Dallas has joined their group, as well as the squad being introduced to the concept of triads. Not to mention Max’s life is hanging in the balance while he’s forcefully trapped in someone else’s body. Creating an interesting mix of negative emotions that his character only has a short time to deal with, in the face of the biggest threat they have faced yet.

In 3x12 Max goes to see Liz in her lab with coffee causing Heath to practically run out of the lab, while Liz starts acting strange. So when she delivers the news about his powers it’s in a heavy handed way, lots of pauses like it pains her to get it out. So even though Max’s worries seem immature (believing she could only love him for being an alien) they are grounded in actual real world evidence and anxiety. Which could only be heightened by being leveled with this ‘choice’, because it isn’t a choice. No one presents it as one, and Max would never consider it one. Because the serum was their only chance of defeating Jones, whether or not it removed his powers. So he didn’t have that choice, because he had to use the serum for his own health and the safety of everyone he loved.

He wanders off to Alex, where most of the discussion of his abilities and what that would mean for him and all his relationships takes place (we aren’t getting into how Alex handled this conversation cause I’m going with he hasn’t actually interacted with Max since high school). Max mentions he feels like his powers define a part of who he is, that it’s the last thing connecting him to both Michael and Isobel. Even displaying outright fear that they will ‘replace’ him, “two of the people who have defined me for most of my life …. I won't be anything like them. But they're forming a new triad with Dallas anyway”. This fear plays a major part in his comfortability with keeping his powers displaying itself for the first time in the whole series. Because right now in his story his body has been snatched, he’s playing hot and cold with his ex, and his siblings have a new brother (and aliens come in groups of three apparently). So Max sees his powers as of now as the only thing connecting him to his siblings (which even though the writers didn’t mention it, losing his powers would also sever his and Isobel psychic connection, something he’s accustomed to being there at all times). So in the face of possibly losing everything that he feels like defines him (my boy using his tertiary introverted feeling) he settles for the answer that he feels will preserve the most of him. Which is keeping that link to Michael and Isobel, regardless of his personal feelings about his powers (because again his hatred of them stems back to them being his likeness to Jones and his childhood trauma).

In this same conversation Alex assures Max his fears are unwarranted because he’s operating off the assumption that “{he’s} gonna lose {his} purpose if {he’s} not their savior anymore”. So he continues to assure him that Max’s “siblings don't love what {he} can do for them, they love {him}”. To which Max scoffs, and then presents the idea that Liz might not citing that she “fell in love with an alien. I mean, what happens when I'm no longer the secret to the universe?”. Which from where he sits is a valid fear, because he believes himself unlovable and that her only interest could be from a scientific perspective (which most of their relationship had been built on, between him being dead and her secretly experimenting with his dna until their breakup).

This leads into him returning to Liz to explain his existential crisis, “when you told me there was a chance that I would no longer be what I am, the first thing that ran through my mind was whether or not you'd still love me if I was actually just a guy from Roswell”. She quickly assures that not matter what happens she will love him, because he’s not defined by any one piece of who he is, but that he is a whole. Then Heath interrupts, returning with the last piece of Theo’s equation and says “sorry Evans, but it looks like you’re gonna get to live another day as a little green man”. Which again doesn’t present him with a choice (but with the family situation as was and being terrified of Jones, keeping his powers was probably the option he would have went for, except not for himself but to preserve his connections).

Season four kicks off with both Max and Liz doing their best to ‘fit’ in and be regular people from Roswell. Something Max felt fully comfortable in, so much so he planned to propose during the events of 4x01. Max makes the choice to remove his powers at the end of 4x06 (after they have proven chaotic and put Liz in danger, as well as having it revealed Tezca’s plan hinged on his blue flames). He tells Bonnie that “Tezca wants to use my abilities for the alighting, and I can't let that happen. You called me the Savior, I'm asking you to save me”. This comparison of being saved by removing his powers is very telling, because he believes that his powers will be his undoing. That they are why he can’t be loved (when it’s just that they are his scapegoat, cause he can’t love himself). Which is something Liz points out in 4x07 when he returns from kissing Bonnie, she says “the truth is you are scared of embracing who you really are, and instead of finding the courage to step into the future, you threw it all away”.

During this argument Max’s 3x12 fear comes back into play (the one he spent the last six months believing wasn’t possible because of Liz’s assurances). Because Liz tells him that he threw his future away, equating his powers to his future, like he can’t be a whole person without them. Only a few breaths after reminding him his future plans were to marry her. Furthermore, she tells him he shouldn’t have made such a life altering choice without asking her what she thinks about it, which is true. In a healthy relationship communication is key, but they are far from a relationship built on trust and communication. Max agrees with her, but also tells her why he didn’t say anything, “I was worried that if I told you, you'd talk me out of it”. To which her response was “because someone should have”, undermining his choice and confirming his fear. All of which ties back to the fact he thought she couldn’t love him as just a regular guy, undermining her words in 3x12 “you are not just anything to me, Max, and whatever, whoever you are, I... I love you, I always will”. Which stands true, I don’t doubt for a moment she does and will continue to, but in the moment he would hear the worst possible interpretation of those words.

For her to only continue to solidify those fears come 4x08, when she attempts to coherence him to her way of thinking. She tells him, “I think you should take my cure and get your powers back, and considering we are woefully low on aliens to fight aliens, I... I think that would help us”. Which is another example of the writers choosing to have Liz undermine Max’s fears in favor of pushing the plot forward. To which he sighs and responds “why can't you just accept that I am perfectly capable of helping - without abilities?”. Again asserting that this is a choice he made, for himself (however ill advised, it is one of the first times he has made a choice for himself and to have it immediately undermined is a lot). This has Liz responding accusingly again, playing on his weak spots, “cause that is a huge gamble, and it's selfish.” To her credit she immediately switches gears to the important part, saying “not only are you denying your powers, but you're also denying who you are”. Making it about what it should be, him not accepting his full self (which she is again approaching all wrong, because she’s not explaining why his powers are part of who he ‘wants’ to be, instead she’s relying on a narrative that because his biology supplied him with them he’s obligated to keep them, which *sighs* holds a lot of negative real world connotations, because it assumes that things like biological gender shouldn’t be altered).

Now their 4x08 fight ends with Max informing her that “I'm glad you found your path, and I support you on that, but this is how I go about mine”. To which she responds, “then we're right where we were yesterday”. Meaning she is unwilling to work through the disagreement unless he comes around to her way of thinking. So let’s just say bless Michael (he’s a god send really).

So over all, his powers are tied to self hatred and his traumas, but he’s allowed to take his own path of self discovery. And it speaks volumes that the writers chose to have him do so when his relationship with Liz was at it’s best, not during the fiasco of 3x12-13. Because it allowed him to make a choice for himself and in doing so dredge up all the nastiness from s2 that they never addressed when they got back together. Making both characters face the mistakes and patterns that have them at odds, and allowing them a chance to build their relationship on trust.

In conclusion, his story arc is just really annoying to sit through, unless you’ve been waiting for this fight since 3x13 (then it’s horrifying that they like upped the dial to ten on their s2 selves).

[navalcriminalimagines]

Every part of you

Request: Something just fluffy and domestic would be so nice...missing that old man. Maybe something like baking with him? Fluffy smut or just fluff, I would be really happy to see you write either. 💕

Warnings: Smut, blowjob, p in v, unprotected sex, kitchen sex

Words count: 2,4k

Joel Miller x Reader. Insecure Joel. No virus, no apocalypse. Divorced!Joel.

* * * * *

After his divorce with Sarah’s mother, Joel entered years of celibacy, except for the occasional hookups. He didn’t want to go down that road again, his marriage wasn’t the best one but he loved his wife and expected it to last forever, like they promised each other.

But things changed when he met you over a year ago.

It was one of those nights where his brother Tommy dragged him to a bar. You were there with some friends and the first thing he noticed about you was your smoking hot body. And before he knew it, Tommy brought you to their table to have a drink with them.

It was supposed to be one of those hookups. No strings attached. In the morning, he would’ve left and you probably wouldn’t have never met again.

But he broke rule number one on the first night anyway: never take someone home. He always found a way to go to his partner's place, or at least, found a place to do it, but never at his place. His home.

Until you.

Once you were done, he realized how young and innocent you looked. He could see the struggle on your face, as to whether you should leave or stay. He felt bad about himself and told you to stay. You warmly smiled and faxed yourself under the covers, your warm form curled up against him.

In the morning, he woke up to the smell of coffee and French toast. As you had breakfast together, you told him a bit about yourself and Joel found himself to be interested.

You left your phone number and two weekends later - he spends every two weekends with his daughter - Joel invited you for a drink. Which turned into a few ones. Which turned into taking you home again.

That was over a year ago. Now, you’re moving in with him.

He didn’t expect for it to happen. It’s just that when you mentioned wanting to move out from your crappy apartment, he simply told you to come live with him and Sarah. His teenage daughter is very fond of you, and Joel is deeply in love with you. There’s no reason this could go wrong, is there?

But somehow, it caused your first fight.

It was hard to fit two homes into one, and Joel wasn’t compromising at all. He didn’t want to get rid of anything.

“You have to meet halfway, Jo.” You told him, clearly annoyed.

“I am. I just don’t want to get rid of my couch. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, for starters, mine is fairly new, bigger and way more comfortable. But it’s not just about the couch. It feels like you don’t want me to move in after all,” you said with such sadness in your voice, Joel felt horrible.

“I asked, didn't I?” He answered, defensively.

“Probably because you felt bad about my struggle to find a new place. Just like you felt bad after our first night together.”

“…What?”

“I’m not stupid, Joel. I know you didn’t want me to stay at first.”

“But you did.”

“Well, yeah. Because it was my first time hooking up with someone I just met. And—“ you took a deep breath. “I really don’t want to compliment you right now, but the sex was—mind blowing.”

You obviously were still pretty mad but Joel couldn’t help but smirk in his beard. Sex with you is indeed pretty mind blowing. There’s love, trust, passion, and you’re open-minded concerning his kinks. He never witnessed that before. Actually, he discovered new kinks with you, pretty much like if you were his very own kink.

“Take that smirk off your face. That’s unfair.” You breathed out.

Joel closed the distance between your bodies, and gently kissed your forehead. “Letting you stay that night was the best decision I’ve made in a very long time,” he kissed your nose. “I’ll get rid of the couch.” Then he kissed your lips and moved to your neck. “Let’s ruin it before.”

You chuckled and you did ruin his old couch.

A few weeks later, you were all moved in. Joel was exhausted, he fell asleep on your - extremely - comfortable couch. You covered him with a blanket and took care of the last details before cooking dinner.

Your parents had been owners of a restaurant for the past thirty years, your father being the chef and your mother doing pretty much the rest. You spent most of your time in the establishment as a child, and your father happily shared his know-how with you.

In the past year, Joel had barely spent time in the kitchen, as it became your space. Not that he minded.

He does mind the weight he’d been gaining though.

He woke up to the smell of one of your dishes, two hours after falling asleep. He could hear you doing your thing in the kitchen. He smiled, stretched himself and when his mind seemed awake enough, he joined you.

You felt his strong arms wrapping your middle, and took advantage of your messy bun to plant wet and sloppy kisses in your exposed neck. You felt shivers all the way through your body. “Hi handsome. Sleep well on the couch?”

“Bite me.” He growled against your skin and you chuckled.

“Did that last night.” You said, referring to the bite mark you left right on top of his shoulder. He had made you cum so hard, you didn’t control yourself.

“I love when you mark me.” He whispered in your ear, nipping your ear lobe.

“Good, I’m taking you for a scarification tomorrow. My name, right above your penis.”

“Hmm,” Joel was still planting kisses anywhere he could and you could feel his growing erection against your ass. It was getting really difficult to focus on the marinade in front of you. “I can meet you halfway and agree to get a tattoo.” You laughed but somehow imagined it. It would ruin any relationship for him if you two ever break up. “Only if you do the same, obviously.” He added.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

He hummed in answer and you felt his hand playing with the waistband of your sweatpants. But you slapped his hand away before he could slide it in. “Put your hands to other use for now. Cut the onions for me,” you playfully rubbed your ass against his crotch but only to push him away.

Joel let go of you and looked around to find the onions. “Wow. I like punishment but only if I know what I did wrong.”

You laughed before throwing two onions at him, which he almost missed. As he began to peel them off, you gently grabbed the knife from his hands and squeezed a lemon on the blade. Joel looked at you, lovingly. “There. You won’t cry.” You said, handing him the knife.

“Huh, we’ve been dating for a year and you’re only telling this trick, now? I thought you loved me.” He used his best complaining voice, and he felt your hand slamming against his ass.

“What will we talk about in ten years if I tell you everything now?” You casually asked and it caught Joel off guard. He stayed silent while cutting the onions in small squares and you didn’t push it. You focused on your marinade and checked on the steamed vegetables.

“Are you picturing us still together in ten years?” He finally asked once he was done. He gave you the bowl with the onions in it.

“Well—yeah. Don’t you?” You took the bowl from his hand, preparing the pan in order to cook them.

Joel sighed. It had been a struggle since you two started to date. Your relationship had been so perfect, you had been an amazing partner, it almost feels surreal to me. “I guess my marriage broke a part of me.” He paused, staring at you cooking. “It’s like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

As you ditched the onions in a hot pan, a soft smile appeared across your face. “That will happen when your alien friends will come to pick you up, in order to bring you back to your home planet.”

Joel couldn’t help but laugh. He couldn’t believe you were real. He stared for a moment. You are so beautiful, young, funny and smart, with the biggest heart. How did he got so lucky?

He jumped on the part of the kitchen plan you weren’t using. “Or when I got so fat from your cooking, you’re not attracted to me anymore.” He finally said and you stopped everything you were doing.

“…what?”

“I gained a few pounds lately.” He confessed, avoiding your eyes this time.

“Yeah so?”

“Oh so you’re agreeing? Not even something like ‘honey that’s crazy, you haven’t changed a bit.’?”

"I'm sorry. Let me do this again.” You took a step back and got into character. “Joel! Are you crazy? You didn’t gain any pounds. Are those masculine magazines making you feel bad, again?”

“Wow. Don’t quit your day job to become an actress.”

You playfully punched his shoulder and he let out an “ouch!”. “But seriously love,” it was your loving and smoothing tone again. “Do you really feel bad about this?”

“Kinda. I’m already older than you, I can’t have that too.”

“Baby,” you settled between his legs and tiptoed to kiss him softly. “You’re perfect to me. I don’t care about your age, your weight, your height, the size of your—okay that, I do care but still.”

Never a woman made him laugh like you manage to. No matter the subject, the time of the day, his mood or your mood, you’re always able to bring a smile to his face. He’s so in love with you. “Do you get my point or do I have to take you upstairs to show it to you?” You stroked his beard and Joel leaned into your touch, humming in content.

“I won’t mind the show. But I’d rather have you showing me—here.”

“I better stop cooking and focus on my other hobby then.” You turned off everything and invited him to get down. “My favorite actually.” You whispered, before kissing him gently.

“Please do.” He pleaded, sticking out his tongue in order to meet yours.

As you kissed, you brought him against the wall of the kitchen. He moaned at your sudden dominance, and you felt his semi hard cock against your belly. Joel tried to travel under your tank top with his hands but you prevented him access. You quickly worked taking his tee-shirt off, throwing it on the floor. Your lips immediately crashed against his hairy chest, while your hands were softly caressing it. “I love you, Joel.” you whispered against his skin. “I love every part of you that you don’t.”

It was overwhelming. Never in his life has Joel felt this loved, this attractive. It was such a mix of feelings, he could have cried on the spot as well as fucked you senseless. But he only stood there, panting hard as you were taking his sweatpants and briefs off. He stepped out and you threw it away, next to his shirt. He was dying to undress you, to feel your smooth skin against his, but he knew better.

You kneeled in front of you, taking his hard member in your hand. You looked up to him with your big and loving E/C eyes. “You’re everything I’ve ever dreamt of,” you said. “Call me crazy but I’d follow you to your damn home planet.” you confess, referring to what you said a moment ago.

Joel intensely stared at your mouth when you gave him a first lick. This view was so damn perfect.

You teasingly played with your tongue against his cock before taking him in your mouth. Joel moaned, deeply and you sucked him for a moment, not taking all of his length yet. Your jaw needed to relax first. No matter the amount of time you’ve seen his cock, you’re always amazed about how thick and long he is.

Joel’s hand grabbed your hair bun into his fists, guiding you. When you were ready, you took all of him inside your mouth, your nose buried in his pubic hair. “Fuck, baby!” he growled as his cock hit the back of your throat. “God I love your mouth so much.”

You kept going for a moment until you felt his urge growing. Joel was basically facefucking you, thrusting his cock deep inside your mouth. But you weren’t done with him yet, so when only a trail of saliva was connecting you to his length, you took advantage and got back on your feet.

You passionately kissed him, allowing him to taste himself. “Sit on the chair.” You ordered him and Joel obeyed.

You striped in front of him as he was lazily stroking his painfully hard cock. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Y/N.” he said before you straddle his lap.

“So are you, Joel.” He almost didn’t catch that - maybe because a part of him didn’t want to - as you guided his cock into your wet cunt. He was stretching you open, it almost hurt but you kept going until he was fully inside you.

“So fucking tight.” he growled against your neck.

You settled for a slow pace at first. Joel’s face was buried in your chest, assaulting your rounded breasts. One of his hands was in the small of your back, following your hips movements. “You feel so good inside me.” you moaned, your hands buried in his hair. He was so deep inside you, you two almost could hear every time he reached your end. “I’ll never be able to be with anyone else but you.”

His urge was coming back and yours was building up. You quickened the pace, and Joel furiously rubbed your clit with his hand. “Yes Joel, right there!” he looked up at you and crashed his lips on yours. You could feel his fingers digging on your hip, while yours did the same on his scalp.

“I’m gonna cum.” he warned you, thrusting as fast as he could.

“Me, too. Don’t stop,”

“Never.”

It was a closed call but you came practically at the same time, both crying each other’s name.

You stayed in the same position as you and Joel came down from your high. You held him close against you, feeling his cock softening inside you. You were both panting. “Every part of me, huh?” he said.

“Every single one.”

[hakka84]

I was about to reply (in private) to the ask, but since you also replied through a reblog, I'll do it publicly. :)

I think we already "crossed swords" on the "Uhura actress" theme on someone else's post, so allow me to refrain from getting into it again. Let's agree we will never agree on it.

To be fair, as I might've said already in the post mentioned above, I too fail to see Celia Rose Gooding as a younger Nichelle Nichols. The issue never crossed (and still doesn't cross) my mind with Zoe Saldana because with AOS there isn't such a close link with TOS. Sure, they are the same characters, but everything is so different that they could even be genetically different and just have the name and surname and general birth decade in common (at least two characters are hinted to have born earlier than their TOS counterparts, to be able to be there on the bridge together!). Cho's Sulu could be the son of Mr.Sulu and a different woman, for what we know (and that could explain why he's played by a South Korean actor, when Takei is Japanese, and also why Takei didn't agree with Sulu being gay which would mean that, at least for him, TOS!Sulu isn't gay I guess?).

With Strange New Words, though... I'm supposed to watch, say, Paul Weasley in S1 last episode and believe that he's the very same guy, same stardate, same events, different ship chair of Shatner's Kirk in Balance of Terror. I know, prequels - you're supposed to oversee the different actors and all. But usually you get prequels set ten, even twenty and more years before the "main" material. You get prequels when the original adults are still teens, or when original parents are still children (or the original adults are barely newborns and the story is about their parents/families - see Star Wars Prequels Vs Original Trilogy). You usually don't get prequels that are set like 5 years before the "main" material.

My beef with Strange New Worlds is that... they didn't even try to make the characters similar/coherent to the TOS ones. Let's not talk about Spock and the inconsistencies with his relationship with T'Pring - he's an alien, we can pretend at some point something happened to change him so drastically. Besides, he was less stunted and definitely more smiling in The Cage anyway. But the others TOS-original characters? Meh. We don't know much of doctor M'Benga, besides that he's now CMO under Pike but isn't under Kirk - they'll have to explain why he was demoted at some point. Other than that, he's blank, they can make with him everything they want. Same with Una. She's as emotionless as a robot in The Cage, and Rebecca Romijn's is a fresh update to the character. Then we have Pike and Uhura - they are as physically and in nature/attitude distant from their TOS counterparts as they could. No harm done with Pike, since you can't not love Anson Mount's Pike, while Jefffrey Hunter's swings from bland to annoying, depending on the scene.

Uhura's, on the other hand... I think it's the Cumberbatch's Khan effect here at play - the character works, and is well written and charming on its own, yet it would've been better to make it an OC instead. They really wanted to force Uhura in Strange New Worlds when it wasn't necessary (as she wasn't part of Pike's crew in The Cage). Not only did they had her have a training run on the Enterprise that lasted all a season, but - judging from promo material released so far - she gets promoted/included to stable crewmember in Season 2. IMHO, it would've given them more freedom by casting Celia Rose Gooding as a brand-new character. Ortegas is, and she's a wonderful character - we're not missing anything just because she isn't a TOS-character, right? Why then force Uhura in this? With characters from The Cage that never got used again, why pick one of the "Five Non-Main"? The more you include characters from TOS the more you have to be careful with the canon to not break anything. Same can be said for objects/things, plots and alien races.

And so we're back to the topic with Chapel. Chapel could be named Kristina Snapel at this point and you wouldn't miss a thing. The only thing in common with Majel Barrett's, is the feelings for Spock and that she serves as nurse. That's it. Character wise, is a total different person. A good character, actually! Just, not the Christine Chapel we know.

As for the pairing(s).

When I discovered AOS it was early 2010 (I think). I was suggested to watch Star Trek, and I watched it in chronological order (TOS->TOS Movies->ST 2009). You have no idea how much I hated Spock/Uhura back then. Like VERY MUCH. I didn't write them, but I did play in my mind with the (now I understand stupid and harmful and narratively wrong) trope of "evil jealous Uhura who hates Kirk". I just couldn't stand them (to be fair, it was because of how poorly they had been introduced, making them both look unprofessional with the timing of the romantic scenes, and the way they made Uhura act, bordering on clingy!girlfriend stereotype material). I've come accept the pair with Into Darkness, as they were painted as a more healthy and mature couple, and by Beyond I'm fine with it, so much that I've jumped on the whole "Beyond ignored ID" so to elaborate a theory that ID and Beyond are two divergences of 2009, so to keep both Spuhura and have a chance at Spick. One direction goes straight from ST XI to ID and develops into Spirk (or Kirk/Spock/Uhura) and another fork heading straight toward Beyond and established Spock/Uhura) but that's me getting offtopic.

It might be me being in a niche, or not following the "right" people, or Tumblr might just be the wrong place (I follow on Twitter an artist who is here on Tumblr as well: on TW they are soft-key complaining about "recent Spock developments" but they haven't said anything here on Tumblr), but I don't see much backlash. After I made the original post, I went into the Christine Chapel tag here on Tumblr and there were literally only two/three Spock/Chapel enthusiasts posting and no complaints? I have nothing against the pair either - I ship hard Spirk so I can't really judge other non-TOS-canon-ship shippers. And good for them fans if they already shipped Spock/Chapel in TOS. Me? I was already annoyed by the closeness between the two as per Season 1. Frankly this is the nail on the coffin. If I didn't already stick to my "Burnham mother's as the Red Angel unwittingly created a time divergence so Disco and SNW belong to another timeline" headcanon, I'd be foaming from the mouth by now. But, since I do, I'm not here, being all zen and waiting for Season 2 to drop and give me some good entertaining with brand-new, alternate version of the characters I know.

Said all this. While I still don't agree on your opinion on Celia Rose Gooding, I can understand where you come from, for it's how I had to face the original X-Men movies trilogy. I don't know if you're familiar. But my fave - like favest comic book character, possibly my favest character ever - is Angel/Archangel/Warren Worthington III. Who is, by Marvel comics canon, handsome - like, very, very handsome - the kind of guy that would make everyone''s head turn and droll, in an angelic way though. The comic version of 90s Brad Pitt-status? Get it. Almost 17 years later, and I still can't swallow the casting for his character. Because the actor picked (Ben Foster), while certainly talented, is bland and not astonishingly handsome.

(I'm tired and have an headache so this ramble might not make sense)

Here, I can offer an old Spuhura manip of mine to raise your sour mood. Enjoy. ;)

Strange New Worlds S2

I don’t get how Strange New Worlds can still be sold as a TOS prequel at this point. Just admit it’s an AU and so be it. I swear.

People who spent the most part of the recent 10s shitting on the Kelvin Trilogy for changing the characters, insulting J.J. because he didn’t stick to TOS characterizations and relationships (despite the movies being officially marketed as an AU from the start)… have nothing to say on Strange New Worlds retcons and blatant ways of ignoring TOS-canon?

More behind the cut, in case you haven’t seen promos/trailers.

Keep reading