#the ninja will show up later so i’ll tag them as well

[lightning-chicken]

Putting the Puzzle Pieces Back Together - Part 1

PART 1: Little White Lies

here it is! this has been in the works for… a while, and i’m happy that i can finally share it!

also: thanks to the amazing @inspectorghoul for beta reading <3

excerpt below cut:

As he studied his reflection, Jay noticed again the pinkish-white scars on his hands, branching out like miniature trees. The sight of them tugged something in his brain—these weren’t new scars; they were old scars. From before. Carefully, he reached out to trace them, pushing up his jacket sleeve. His skin tingled at the contact. The scars ran up his arms in streaking patterns and faded at his shoulders.

And there were other scars, too: nicks and scrapes and scratches and burns scattered all over. Not to mention the notch in his eyebrow.

It was scars like these, and reports of falling mechs, that made Jay question what exactly his past self had been doing with his life. And what his past self would think of him now: joining an agency he knew next to nothing about, all because of the chance to do something good and the possibility of remembering who he once was.

“I’m sorry,” Jay confessed quietly to his past self, voice barely above a low whisper. “I won’t forget you anymore than I already have. I’ll find out who you—who we were. I promise.”

[drawnaghht]

Chizu x Kitsune and why it's gay

lol i don't have a lot of energy to post but wanted to make a short fandom post anyway? I'll just briefly talk about the more memorable and emotionally important moments between these two :3

Spoilers for the entire series, but if you didn't notice stuff, might be good reminds on several things! This isn't really like a full analysis and it's not a full summary either. I just like this ship and although it seems unanimous that this is seen as a sapphic ship, I also think it's a bit underappreciated? Or perhaps it's just the show itself that needs more regard? I'm not here to defend the show or ship, just to detangle my thoughts on how their scenes together look like to my mind as a storyteller but also what the possible crew intentions could have been. This became kinda long.

So in the series, we as viewers see a lot of moments between Chizu and Kitsune that are about honesty. Or they just talk to each other and create meaningful connections with each other through these interactions. Even with smaller stuff, there's moments in each ep where they either look at each other, or to each other.

in ep 3, "Posessions" we see Usagi asking Kitsune had stolen things and Kitsune denying this about her. Then in a following scene, when she finds Chizu and asks her where she learned to fight if she just works at the temple, she admonishes Chizu for making up a bad lie for that. "You don't have to tell me the truth. But don't tell me a lie." This sounds like a very earnest moment. Like i don't have the brainspace to analyze it more right now but basically, "oh wow, there's something interesting there."

As an episode closing scene, we see Chizu exit the Murakami house/museum to go to a dark alleyway. There she meets the leader of the Neko Ninja crew (only mentioned in the 1st ep), Lady Fuwa. I love this scene for how creepy and scary it makes Fuwa ar first with her mask, but then sort of silly and laughable with her huge pom-pom head. I'm not sure if I'm reading it right, but it seems the intention was to make a dangerous but laughable villain/antagonist, almost like a Bond villain who looks ridiculous but could still kill you. Like it's obvious from this interaction that Fuwa only thinks about herself and her own goals and thinks in shallow goals (taking over Neo Edo via "controlling" the Ki-stone). Her ideas look silly from some distant point, but she still commands respect and fear with voice and demeanor.

There's the friendship candy moment/scene in ep 4, "Run Rabbit Run" and then Chizu's flashback of her trauma being raised in the Neko Ninja crew and losing her friend Kayo. Her friend gave her this same friendship candy to cheer her up, "Things will get better Chizu". I'll leave the Chizu PTSD analysis for another time bc I feel like I could probably do with reading up on the comic to also see what the inspiration for this all could have been (+ I'm just not up to write that much tonight). The point of the scene overall is to establish a stronger connection between the two main characters as well as show us the viewer a more fleshed-out reason for Chizu's background as a Neko Ninja. Someone who's high-ranking enough to go on a stealth mission into the temple housing the Ki-Stone which provides the entirety of Neo Edo its power. But also someone who really does not enjoy being a ninja or being dishonest. Someone who's a little unsure and incredibly lonely among her ninja kin.

The flashback is a reminder for Chizu that friendship is a luxury. I also feel we're meant to take it from here that both of them value friendships in similar but different ways. Or that friendship is something lacking for both but they see it slightly differently. Neither has had many friends before, or any at all (we find out later that Kitsune only had a "ghost friend" and presumably her puppets) but they express valuing their team members in different ways. Kitsune gives friendship candy to everyone, even Spot, while Chizu just tags along in the service of her own motives/plot while pretending she's too aloof and doesn't care enough to do anything more than fight yokai. But here when Kitsune says "aren't you gonna eat that" after Chizu leaves her startled PTSD flashback she just says, "Maybe one day" with a smile. So here we see a setup by the writers that this friendship candy is important for Chizu and that she wants to continue being a real friend of Kitsune, or at the least, have any real friends at all.

Chizu goes back to the dojo to exchange info and receive more instructions from Lady Fuwa. We have a small scene where after this, she shares a moment with a random Neko Ninja kid training in the dojo in the background. She takes her mask off, tired from the training and is immediately admonished by Lady Fuwa. This kid slightly resembles Kayo, Chizu's childhood friend. Same outfit, different cat fur pattern but similar colorscheme. A kindred spirit. (I actually have a little theory about this, but that's for later, maybe a short fanfic). We can see that unlike the other adults at the dojo, Chizu still has some compassion left despite her training.

We have a moment in "Run Rabbit Run" where it's subtly established that although we haven't seen much threat or action from the ninja, they're considered "bad actors" in the city. So much so that every other gang in the city is afraid of just Chizu on her own (without her friends knowing she's apart of this crew). To us the viewers they are a little unknown but it's implied that the entirety of the city fears them.

Then there's the big reveal scene at the end of ep 5, "Common Sensei"

Chizu's betrayal, the surprise from all her new friends, and a genuine expression of disbelief from Kitsune (the "no...")

And then at the start of the next episode, "Nobody Likes a Ninja" the focus is immediately on Kitsune, on the other end of Chizu pointing a hand-crossbow at her.

And you can see the hurt in Kitsune's eyes.

So here as viewers we can make the basic connection that this betrayal hurt more than anything else that night. And the entire one half a plot of the episode we spend with the two of them as Chizu tries to apologize or make up to Kitsune somehow.

The rest of the season is spent focusing on other characters and relationships and setting up season 2. A really important part of this is the rescue of Hana, one of the only kids who Chizu saw training in the Neko Ninja dojo who didn't really take to all the fighting and training to be spies and assassins. Hana essentially becomes like a little sister to both Chizu and Usagi through the handful of episodes she's in and is taken under the wing of Usagi's auntie, sent to safety at her farm away from the city.

Then in s2 we see how much time the crew spends together after the "world has been saved" from the big butterfly hand in the sky. We see Chizu and Kitsune acting like longer-time friends already as well as Kitsune raising a "little sister" now - Kiyoko. Basically the rest of the team finds confusing and weird at first but gets used to Kiyoko quickly. Chizu mainly expresses worry but goes along with this as slowly this "little sister" (to avoid too many spoilers) is treated more and more like the other smaller kids in their home. By season 2, Usagi and the other characters see Gen and Toshiko's house as a home and treat each other as basically family. Mostly they're all still close friends, but to Kitsune especially, this has now become family. While Chizu had an abusive childhood living and training under the Neko Ninja crew, Kitsune is portrayed as having been homeless and a street performer. So to her, having new friends she can not only trust her life with but also just spend nice peaceful times with, is mega-important. So in "The Fuzzy Pony" (s2, ep 3) we have the kids playing and Chizu and Kitsune talking about it, the latter commenting, "We have a nice little family going here."

In this same episode, while playing with Kiyoko, Usagi realizes that him and her share a birthday (bc of the happenings in the series' first ep) and how they could celebrate those together ("Joint birthday parties!!") Kitsune responds with how Kiyoko would like that and how she wants to give Kiyoko everything she never had, including birthdays. Gen and Usagi are surprised about this but Kitsune is completely non-chalant about it. ("Nah, I dunno when I was born. No birthday, no party, no biggie.") This sends Gen and Usagi on a big side-plot to organize a surprise birthday party for Kitsune.

After seeing Hana play with the other "kids" of the household, Chizu thinks about the rest of the Neko Ninja children and decides to save them as well, alone this time (Usagi was along the first time). Kitsune secretly comes along to this to support her (and also to see Chizu fight, to see some action in general). There's a really fun scene between them which I can't really summarize perfectly enough, you'd have to see it yourself. But the point is, Kitsune willingly came along on her own. "Hey. I'm an orphan and orphans help orphans. I'm not asking for your permission." And there's an understanding between them that they're going to do this together. and oh man it's so sweet, I wish someone posted this scene up on youtube cuz it's just so ougghghghhh it's so sweet!!!! aaa!!

When before in "Run Rabbit Run", Kitsune was more careful with fighting crowds of regular citizens or gang members with an impulsive and untrained Usagi, here with Chizu she feels confident and is also willing to tag along, even if the potential enemies are trained ninja. To cut the summary shorter. the kids don't believe them and think it's a loyalty-test from Fuwa.

In this episode, as a last-ditch effort to save the ninja kids, Chizu challenges Fuwa to a death match duel, for the leadership of the crew. Although Kitsune is threatened and captured here, to make her watch the match, she frees herself and gleefully cheers Chizu on, demanding a complete smackdown for Fuwa. I thought this was cute. Kitsune is so violent about this duel as an "audience member" but even before during Truly Chizu would be like the 85 % of Kitsune's impulse control (this is an old meme, look it up). Chizu wins in the end and Kitsune is elated, like in a "great, lets go home, we have so much to tell the others" kind of way, but Chizu stops her. Now that she's won and become Lady Chizu, she has to stay with the Neko Ninja crew. And Kitsune is devastated, what do you mean you won but can't come home??

"But that.... that would break up our family- I mean, our team" and ouuuhhhhh, this was heartbreaking to watch. I really love this ep for the character moments between these two, ouhghhh /sob

They say their goodbyes and hug. The quiet "come home when you can" is so bittersweet it made me want to cry. She goes to the birthday party, with a note saying she's supposed to meet her friends there, still pent up. Not so much from the dojo fight, but from fact that she's not going to see Chizu anymore. So much so that she attacks the birthday balloons almost cuts the surprise party guests with her fans. It's shown as really sad. Like you can see from Toshiko, Usagi and the staff member's faces that they weren't expecting this kind of reaction from this birthday girl.

But guess what? Chizu showed up at the party as "Ohayou Pony" as a surprise party gift for Kitsune's new birthday party! this was another sillier but also nice moment because you get to see the characters really happy despite the circumstances.

So after this episode, I definitely felt, "there's no way these two aren't at least girlfriends" and also, it genuinely felt like the status quo of the show was going to legitimately change. in the following episodes we actually do see Chizu a bit less, unless it's a life-threatening situation or we see her more with the Neko Ninja.

There are some smaller moments inbetween eps which you can see yourself if you watch the series cuz this psot is long enough already ^^; For example, in ep 15, Kitsune goes to tell Chizu of the whole invaders situations to get the ninja crew on their side and I find the way they look at each other or how Chizu huffs a laugh at Kitsune trying to lighten the mood really sweet if tiny moments altogether.

in ep 17 "Willow Branch" they get to use their new kaikishi weapons more and fight against ghosts. Chizu mis-calculates and accidentally almost takes a shot at Kitsune. For "levity" it only hits her eyelash, but Chizu is worried and embarrased all the same.

then in s2, ep 8 "The Chizu Stands Alone", where the ninja crew basically turns on Chizu, there's another interesting moment where there is one last ninja ("Fumiko") who is left with Chizu against all the turncoats, but then leaves (another thing to leave to my theory posts), only to return with an ally in turn. Kitsune with the newly-built mech that Tetsujin built. How did this ninja know to get Kitsune specifically? Yeah, okay, she is the only one who can pilot it, but still! This was nice too because we're shown how the two of them are walking home via the mech and talking about what happened. How Chizu felt like maybe she was making a difference but now feels like she didn't change anything about the ninja crew at all, but Kitsune reminds her that the kids are safe and that's actually a big thing. It's still about the orphans with these two and the ninja crew storyline.

There's also a nice moment in the finale ("Invasion!") where Chizu goes to help Kitsune out of her mech after it's damaged in the big fight. The rest of the scenes with them together are mostly focused on their little family team of 5 afterwards.

So yeah, just a little view at some of the moments I remember in the series that cemented the relationship as a pairing for me! You can comment and reblog with tags or comments if you noticed anything else as well :] A lot of these moments are really sold by some of the solid writing and the excellent acting by Shelby Rabara and Mallory Low as Kitsune and Chizu respectively.

Also, this is just something I saw on twitter, but one of the main writers, Jeffrey Reddick (who also wrote the series finale) also quote-retweetd some of the promo tweets about Usagi Chronicles. He has mainly been a horror writer so far, but the important thing for me that I noticed on his profile, is that Reddick is openly gay. Although there are probably always going to be queer members in cartoon crews, we don't ever actually know that for sure usually and speculating on stranger's identities is pointless beacause well, it's just a fun cartoon, I can sense queer vibes from it whether the crew themselves are queer or not. But I also feel like some of them being seen as openly queer makes it easier to see that some parts of a show could be intentionally written with queerness in mind.

So I do believe the slightly 90s style* queer-coding was no accident :D

*(or whatever we wanna call it - it feels a little older - "show don't tell")

Overall, this ship just feels really sapphic in an old pre-Steven Universe kind of way... like I would have totally un-knowingly shipped this as a kid before really knowing anything about myself or others or even words to use about it. Basically, they are a pair. do not separate. And I think it's sweet that it exists at all, bc it really is subtle. I know in online fandoms it can feel like we don't need this kind of storytelling since we have more openly queer cartoons too, but I think for the sake of even just variety alone, it's good to have this kind of lightly queercoded story-telling wrapped inside an action cartoon too next to everything else in the mix of both cartoon and general other media we have today. I also find that this way it is easier for future queer kids to realize this about their old favourite cartoon Usagi Chronicles that it was queer. .... In a kind of roundabout way? I'm thinking about situations where more openly queer cartoons like Steven Universe or Owl House would be banned in more conservative households. I knew a little cousin for example whose parents were very particular about the cartoons they let their kids watch and so more "high-energy" cartoons like cartoon network stuff was banned entirely. So I don't know if this would actually happen in real life, but this is just one scenario i'm thinking of.

Of course you can still interpret it as *only* friends too I suppose but you can't deny that they're important to each other in more ways. Like if this was a straight ship, we would be getting ship manifestos left and right. Or maybe fanfic. They'd be called the mom and dad of the family, etc. and although that's a simple way to put it, that also shows feels like proof of intention. The soundtrack also becomes beautiful and on-point whenever there are important scenes with them together, which just adds to the "it's queer" picture.

I'm sure I'll find a better way to write about this but right now I just wanted to list everything I remembered off the top of my head. They have so many of these sweet and everyday moments as well as heavier or more serious and plot-driven moments, it's so nice to see. Usagi Chronicles in general is a very character driven show and these two are the strongest characters in the cast. I only wish we had gotten more moments or flashbacks even with Kitsune, but I suppose she is the kind of character who wouldn't even need flashbacks. But that means she just stays mysterious until we find out more info about her (again, I know she's based on the ideas we have from the character Kitsune in the Usagi Yojimbo comic, but still. At least to me, she feels like a flesjed-out character in the cartoon show, so it would have been cool to see more of her and some other characters like Gen too. On the other side, looking at these episode summaries here, it does feel like the cast balances each other out nicely.

Anyway, leave me a comment if u liked this! Maybe I will do other analysis abt other parts of the series later when I feel like it :) I've been a bit sick the past two weeks so I haven't been in the mood to draw but I will probably still have a bit of energy to write some simpler things so who knows, might write on other Usagi Chronicles topics!

Happy Friend Day and Happy Valentines!

[beanies-in-the-clouds]

✩ Pinned post ✩

Hi! Beanie here! I’m an 19-year-old autistic artist and writer who dreams too big and refuses to grow up.

Name: Beanie / Ona

Pronouns: they/them

Tags

I promise I’ll figure out how to link these someday

“Beanie’s art tag” - my mediocre art

“Series/character notes” - helpful posts I’ve reblogged and wish to reference later

“Tag games” - …tag games. Self-explanatory lol

“Beanie’s oc tag” - anything related to my ocs! I’ll probably make a side blog for them at some point for more professionally organized content of them

“Beanie rambles” - my incoherent blocks of text I’m inclined to post every once in awhile

“Beanie’s shitpost tag” - basically everything else

“Making my special interests everyone’s problem” - exactly what it sounds like. Mostly reblogs of fandom content.

I should make a writing tag, but until then… here’s my Ao3 :)

I like…

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Super Mario

Studio Ghibli

Animal Crossing

Avatar: The Last Airbender (and LoK)

Lord Of The Rings

Gravity Falls

Amphibia

Undertale

My ocs :D (please ask me about my characters I love them to bits)

In my free time, I like to…

Write

Read

Draw

Play video games

Listen to music

Scroll on social media (I try not to, but…)

Mess of Quotes:

(Under the cut because there is quite a sizable mess of them)

“That’s it, laughter! It’s the key to everything!” - “Sad” by Bo Burnham

“All that’s left is you and an infinite void… kinda makes you wanna play saxophone, huh?” - Lumalee, The Super Mario Bros. Movie

“Show me a creature who does not enjoy a breath of fresh air, and I will show you a stinky fish, yes?” - Saharah, Animal Crossing: New Leaf

“Your classmates will roast marshmallows over your failure.” - My literature teacher

“Well someone put the rust in rustic charm.” - Leonardo, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Episode: “One Man’s Junk”)

“If the world is flooded, it will be easy for the duck.” - Miranda, Animal Crossing: New Leaf

“Society is a harsh judge of mediocre-looking snowpeeps.” - Snowboy, Animal Crossing: New Leaf

“I put the ‘I’ in ‘I want to go home.’” - some random girl I eavesdropped on during our concert rehearsal

“You can’t overthink if your heart stops!” - “Brain Implosion Energy Drink” by Flanger Moose

“Don’t be basic, be slaysic” - a drawing on the whiteboard of a Boba tea shop I went to

“It was a fucking horse!” - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

“My inhaler just tried to play the piano.” - my friend Emma

“It’s all very heterosexual.” - my mom (about some movie I don’t remember the name of)

“Playing Minecraft but with explosions.” - a classmate playing the piano during band

“Food fight, but we throw it all at the bird!” - a classmate

“Are planes in drag?” - my mom

“A Care Bear took a dump in my mouth” - my mom reading some post

“I ain’t a goblin, y’know?” - Resetti, Animal Crossing: Wild World

“Ancient plants turn me into a veritable hootbox!” - Blathers, Animal Crossing: Wild World

“Autocorrect just made me break up with you.” - unknown

“He’s a different genre of man.” - my wonderful boyfriend, Jack (talking about Link)

“That no matter who you are or what you love or where you stand, it was always Coca-Cola in the end.” - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

“Gentlemen, if you need me, I will be living in this cabinet.” - Donatello, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Episode: “Sidekick Ahoy!”)

“And today’s doofus of town award goes to… your face!” - Pecan, Animal Crossing: Wild World

“Start the music, start the tears.” - my assistant band director (referencing the UP montage)

“Crocodiles don’t got dentists or nothin’…” - Resetti, Animal Crossing: New Leaf

“The tsunami is the final in your class.” - my friend Avery

“Stop eating the plan!” - Leonardo, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Episode: “Origami Tsunami”)

“So many good things, and that was not part of it.” - my band teacher

“Everyone’s a feminist until there is a spider around.” - “5 Years” by Bo Burnham

“A guy petting a buffalo… that’s worth something, right?” - some funky economy video I had to watch for class

“Like a god, but much better dressed.” - Sopica, Happy Street

“Heck no, do I look like a caterpillar to you?” - Kiriko, The Boy and the Heron

“Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. Enjoy the smell of a dirty sock.” - this

“I wasn’t sure they knew what a week was.” - Raphael, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Episode: “Pizza Pit”)

“Hard to be nervous when you’re a cowboy.” - my wonderful boyfriend, Jack

“Not as clumsy or random as a brick, an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” - Darthy, Happy Street

“And all God’s people said… oh no.” - my pastor

“And while people say it’s easy to steal candy from a baby, it’s also probably pretty easy to just take the baby.” - this video (timestamp 0:45)

“You’re not gonna like it when you’re 40 years old and look like a baseball glove!” - my literature teacher

“Chicago is the Miami of Canada.” - my uncle Bill

“Doesn’t matter if it’s environmentally safe if there is no environment!” - my wonderful boyfriend, Jack

“The recesses of my brain are an enigma (I don’t think before I speak)” - also my wonderful boyfriend, Jack

“It’s been so bad for the past few days and I want to sue. Idk who I’m suing, but I’m gonna sue someone.” - my amazing best friend, Kariko

“Have you seen my lost money?” - Raphael, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Episode: “Mascot Melee”)

“I’ll marry the pizza, you can be my sister.” - my mom

“I don’t think God’s a chicken nugget.” - my pastor

[rainbowtransform]

Okay so I can't watch RTMNT on mobile with parental controls apparently, so!!! I'm wondering!!! Do you have Tumblr/DeviantArt fanfics and or comics that take the cake. (This is such a niche sorta content rec ask but if I know someone's got me it's you-)

I mean you can throw AO3 stuff too, but I'd have to get my switch for it later ^-^

Hehehehehe

Post-Apocalypse Healing

Mikey & Leo, Turtle Tots

Piebald(?) (I think that’s how you spell it)

Favorite comic moments There are actual comics to this show but I don’t know where to find them tbh

Crossover with 2003, 2012, and Bay Movies

Now, onto the fanfics where I have decimated most of them, and hunger for more.

Hanging by a Turtle: “It happens almost too quickly. One moment Don has both feet on the ground, fighting some new wacko mutant trying to blow up the city, and the next? Wacko mutant does something Don can’t really process, and the ground is giving out beneath them.

Wacko mutant gets away. Donnie and his brothers? Yeah, they don’t.”

We’ve cleaned our wounds but the pain doesn’t fade that soon: “A post-movie look at how the Hamato family deals with the what happened after they've had a chance to recover.”

Operation: rest day: “Mikey gets an art block. Leo steps in.”

(SEE ALSO: Raph & Donnie (the same author wrote both and I’m recommending them.))

Baby Blues: “It seems like no matter how hard the boys try, trouble always finds them.

Apparently, going to a yokai festival is no exception. Sure, they probably should have seen this coming; if trouble always finds them, then going to the Hidden City is just wearing a giant neon sign plastered to their backs saying "Hey! Right here!" But they had tried so hard this time not to screw this up. They even listened to Splinter's orders about sticking together

Well, for the most part. But everyone was fine in the end. Leo's fine!

Except for the fact that he's five years old.”

(This is supposed to be a multi-chaptered fic, and I’ve got it on good record that it’ll come back with a chapter two soon, but it’s a really good oneshot too.)

Turtles, meet Turtles: “First it was Sacks, then it was Krang, and now it’s... themselves? Or at least, the mutants they find certainly look like them!”

(Bay Movies/Rottmnt crossover)

On Understanding Caring Hearts: “Leo was injured, badly, during a mission gone wrong. One moment he was on lookout duty with Donatello, the next he was on the ground, trying to make sense of everything as the world moved around him.

Fortunately, his brothers are there to help him through, at least, Leo thinks they are.”

Like Father Like Son: “Draxum wasn't quite ready to give up on his plan to use the turtles as his ultimate weapons just yet. When Leo is taken by Draxum, it's up to the other three turtles to get their brother back before it's too late.

Post episode The Evil League of Mutants.”

(Mind the tags on this, love)

save your tears (for another day): ““Oh my god?” Leo asks, staring at the weird, other fucking mutant turtles in the room, accompanied by two of the strangest humans Raph thinks he’s ever seen. “Are you guys - are you guys us?”

-

orrrr a crossover btwn 2012 and 2018 :)

(now with a sequel 😌😌)”

Panic Buttons: “It feels like he’s dying. His air is being ripped from him and his eyes are drooping and he’s dying he’s dying.”

A Singular, Bloody Mattress: “Dammit, he needs to think! Raph isn't the greatest at coming up with plans; he's always been more of a "smash first, talk later" kind of a guy.

And look where that got them. Raph's baby brother is bleeding out to death, they're being pursued by the stupid flame-heads with deadly (well, deadlier) paper ninjas with nowhere to go, and they're stuck in a mattress store of all places.

Leo would have known what to do. Hell, he'd have gotten them home by now with one of his portals, where they'd be enjoying the rest of their evening with pizza and a movie.

But they're not home. They're stuck with no where to run to, and Raph can't think.”

This is all I’ll give you for now :D. Read ‘em, and then let me know when youre done so I can give you more later on. And if I find any way to get the comics free, I’ll def let you know too!!

[cursingtoji]

Royals

Pairing: Gojo x Roality/Sorcerer!Reader

Summary: Yuji was told by his sensei that someone very special was coming to evaluate his new cursed energy.

Warning: fem pronouns, slightly suggestive, hickeys, established relationship.

a/n: naruto's anbu uniform is what i based reader's outfit off, so keep that in mind i guess? i apologize if i forgot some tag in the warnings, feel free to point anything out to me. thank u and enjoy <3

“How pontual” Gojo smiled when he felt your presence on the top of the building he was standing along with Yuji.

“Huh?” Yuji looked around confused till he saw a black silhouette behind him.

“Hope you don’t mind Yuji-kun, I wanted a professional opinion and called a friend”.

“Are you sure this is the best place to do this Gojo?” You asked going around the boy with pink hair staring at his figure and sensing his cursed energy.

The building you agreed to meet him was one of the tallest in Tokyo, you could barely see the people on the streets from here.

“Sensei, is your friend a ninja?” Yuji asked, staring back at your figure, your black outfit left no skin to be shown while the kitsune mask covered your whole face and two swords remained crossed at your back.

“You worry too much Princess, don’t you believe I am the strongest?” You frown upon the use of the pet name. Yuji tilted his head to the side.

“I just don’t want things to go out of control” you moved your hands to remove the kitsune mask, your identity would still be protected by the mask that covered your nose and mouth beneath it, but Gojo stopped your hands as soon as you approached him.

“Keep it on until we finish okay?” He smiled, although he did not say anything else this was enough for you to understand he did not want the curse inside Yuji to cross eyes with you. “I’ll explain later, Yuji, now can you give us ten seconds with Sukuna?” Gojo stretched his arms preparing for a quick battle.

You moved to the corner of the building to give him space but still keeping an eye on the pink haired kid.

He was so young...

Black marks soon appeared on the kid’s body and the new cursed energy overwhelmed you making a shiver run up your spine.

As the heir of a clan that for centuries has the ability to control cursed energy, this scared you.

Sukuna’s energy was enough to destroy a big city like Tokyo as easily as a snap of a finger. In the past your clan helped Sukuna by increasing his cursed energy during battles but in the end, your clan also helped destroy Sukuna by suppressing his cursed energy as much as they could. Gojo asked you to come watch a quick demonstration, if the plan succeeded and Yuji managed to live long enough to eat all Sukuna’s fingers, it would be just a matter of time until the king of curses took control of the vessel and attempted some kind of mass destruction. If the time comes you wanted to be able to perform the same act that your clan did in the past.

Although, since Sukuna’s downfall your clan did not act as sorcerers anymore, instead they turned into rulers and politicians, living in big cities as Tokyo and controlling cursed energy just by existing there, a natural balance to the modern world, they would tell you, but none of this changed your mind when you decided to break the chain and become a sorcerer almost ten years ago.

The fight started when Sukuna ran towards Gojo murmuring something about seeing him again. Gojo controlled the situation fast by immobilizing Sukuna on the floor, far enough to not harm you.

“So?” Gojo asked, looking at your direction.

“You asked me to not do anything so I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s possible” you answered the white haired man.

Sukuna’s attention now was brought to you, he tried to read your cursed energy, you sensed that, but with the kitsune mask covering your face and eyes you doubt he recognized you as part of the clan that caused his downfall one thousand years ago.

Gojo again smiled at you, proud of you being able to take such a fast reading without messing with Sukuna’s energy, which he asked you to not do.

It would be better for everyone if Sukuna doesn’t make a target of you so soon.

“Alright, guess we are done for now” Gojo raised as soon as Yuji took back control of his body. You watched amazed as the cursed energy came back to a normal level.

Gojo asked Ijichi to drive Yuji back to the school and promised to talk to Yuji in the morning.

“I don’t know, Satoru. There’s only so much I can do alone, and I’m sure the rest of my clan won’t get involved with Sukuna if he returns. This is a huge responsibility for me...” you stopped talking, not even wanting to consider the possibility of such a powerful curse having complete control to do whatever he pleases and you not being able to do much by yourself.

“I won’t put you in danger, but for now it would be good if you could stick around Yuji, just to observe... I can put a good word for you with Yaga” Gojo dropped his arm around your shoulder playfully.

“You really want me to stay at jujutsu tech Tokyo just to keep an eye on him?” You removed the kitsune mask, now allowing Gojo to see your teasing eyes.

“I have my own selfish reasons too”.

The next morning Yuji crossed his path with Nanami around the school, having worked together once Yuji felt comfortable with asking Nanami about his sensei’s friend.

“Oi Nanami, do you know Gojo-sensei’s ninja friend? I met them last night but still don’t know what happened”.

Nanami stared at Yuji like he was speaking some foreign language “...Ninja?”

The elder was about to ask him to elaborate when the said sensei turned around the corner with you by his side.

“Gojo-san, Ojou-sama” Nanami bowed low when he noticed you coming closer.

“Ojou-sama?” Yuji looked at the person walking to them alongside Gojo. He did not recognize you at first, you now were using a colored Yukata and nothing covering your face.

“Nanami please, you know me long enough to drop this title” you smiled at your friend.

Yuji quickly made the connection between Nanami using the princess title and Gojo calling you Princess yesterday.

“Oh sensei, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend. You two make a beautiful couple” Yuji smiled.

“Itadori, show respect, Y/n-sama is an actual royal” Nanami whispered to Yuji.

After the downfall of Sukuna your clan reigned for a while, being the heir of the main clan branch and if your clan was still reigning that would technically make you a princess. Nanami insisted on referring to you as Ojou-sama in public even though you two attended school together years ago and long passed the formal titles.

“Sorry” Yuji bowed, still confused.

“It’s okay Itadori-kun, we will have enough time to get to know each other” you assured the pink haired boy.

“You are moving here?” Nanami asked.

“Isn’t it great?” Gojo smiled widely, now placing his arms on your shoulders and Nanami’s. “It will be like old times again”.

“Yaga accepted my request to stay on the campus and assist the kids,” you explained Nanami. Of course he knew that by ‘the kids’ you mean Itadori and his new found cursed energy.

“What a great set of teachers you will have Yuji-kun” Gojo tight his grip around you and Nanami “Why don’t you go find Fushiguro and Kugusaki while I show y/n her room?”.

“Yes, sensei!” Yuji smiled and bowed again before leaving to find his team mates.

“Let’s keep y/n secret between us, okay Nanami?” Gojo asked now that the three of you were alone. “Sukuna might not find out about y/n’s origins if she doesn’t mess with his or Itadori’s energy, the elders agreed to keep her around for now as protection”.

“I see… Well let me know if you need anything, Ojou-sama” Namami replied and fixed his tie.

“I need you to stop using that title, Kento” you smiled again at your stubborn friend and dropped Gojo’s arm from your shoulder going back to the path that led to your dorm.

“Always so polite, Nanamin” Gojo teased “Just don’t forget I’m the only one allowed to get on my knees for her” he released Nanami’s shoulder leaving his fellow sorcerer flushed.

“What did you tell him?” you asked Gojo when he got back to your side.

“Nothing he doesn’t know already” his large palm touched your lower back.

Your arrangements with Gojo were something known only by the heads of your clan, the two of you and few close friends. A promise made almost ten years ago allowed you to attend jujutsu tech and become a sorcerer if the only descendant of the Gojo clan married you by the time both of you got to your thirties. There was nothing in it for Satoru, but he agreed even though he barely left his teenage years.

“Satoru, What are we gonna do now?” you asked looking at your feet.

“We can start by getting you a pretty uniform, maybe a short skirt and a v-line” the hand that wasn’t at your back moved to the collar of your Yukata exposing more of your neck and collar bones and all the purple and blue marks painted there “A masterpiece like that has to be shown”.

“You are shameless” you slapped his hand away and adjusted your Yukata back. His flirty personality taking your mind away from the new responsibility of being Yuji’s guardian. “You know, we are two years away from the arrangements and I still wonder why you accepted it” you confessed, stopping in your tracks.

“Oh Princess, I’ll always be taking the side of rebel soul and you so happened to be the one that stole my heart from day one, you are not getting cold feet now, are ya?” he leaned and placed his arm on the wall behind you, an old habit that made you flushed when you two were younger, but now you can only bite your lips and raise a hand to lower his blindfold and meet his shining eyes full of admiration.

“Marrying the prince that saved me and the strongest jujutsu sorcerer? How could I get scared of that?”.

“Prince huh? I can get used to it”.

© all content belongs to cursedmoonchild. please do not modify or repost; if you find reposted content please let me know, i have not consented to the repost of my content

[nonbinarykai]

Ok since two people asked

Why Lloyd is my least favorite ninja and how I rewrite him

Notes:// you know the rodeo by now, long post so it’s going to be under a read more, and I’m not gonna tag this with Lloyd because of the criticisms I have against his character, if you don’t want to hear Lloyd be critiqued then don’t reas the post

Why I don’t like Lloyd

Maybe it’s because I’m a Kai kinnie or maybe it’s because I have a bias agaisnt the younger sibling but Lloyd has never really been a favorite of mine

He was enjoyable in s1 but after that he kinda lost all personality for me and I stopped enjoying him

I think this is mostly for two reasons:

1. His screen time

2. His “character arcs”

I’ll go ahead and knock out his screentime here because it pretty much speaks for himself

Lloyd takes up so much screentime in the show that it’s actually jarring, he’s the character with the most seasons, having s1-2, s4, s8-11, and finally s14 ((the island special)). Which I think makes lloyds writing flaws all the more noticable

A big reason, albeit a bit of a petty one, for why I don’t like him is because he constant hyjacks other characters plots and makes them about him, this happened with Kai in both s4 and s11

Even if he’s not the main focus of a season, he always has a side plot focusing on him like in s3 and s12

The writers need to include Lloyd in other seasons is making it harder for the other main characters to actually have enough screentime to grow and develop on there own

And as a side effect of this, Lloyd gets to become the most important character in every season he is, taking roles from other characters who needed them

My best example is Cole being leader, he was set up and established as leader in the pilots and s1, and he did pretty good in it! Cole being a leader is a interesting concept that I would have loved to see been developed

But after Lloyd grew up they threw that plot point into the trash so they could have the mystical green ninja be leader even though throughout s1-7 he hardly actually talks to the main cast and him being leader doesn’t add any interesting dynamic like cole and kais rivalry despite Kai being a sort of right hand man to Coles leadership.

And in s1-s7 especially everything literally revolves around Lloyd to the point where his existence is more important than everyone else’s, and everyone’s motivations are to protect him.

Again I understand he is important, he’s the green ninja, but you have to let your other characters grow and develop, Lloyd is not the only main character in your show

Like for fuck sakes I don’t need 3 arcs about Lloyd and his dad, can I finally have another Kai season

Lloyds character arcs honestly kinda suck

Im going to be honest with you

Lloyds kinda an ass

The reason I like jay more then Lloyd even though jay has been way more mean spirited then Lloyd throughout the entire series is because you can atleast make the argument that jay doesn’t know when his jokes can hurt. And the show doesn’t portray jay as in the right, he gets what he deserves for some of the meanier things he says.

The same can’t be said about Lloyd

Lloyd says things to the other ninja that is honestly so mean spirited it’s jarring to hear it from him

Best example being when Lloyd told Kai to get over his shit when Kai was grieving in s4

But what makes it so frustrating is that the show always portrays Lloyd like he’s in the right which is why a lot of his character arcs feel flat or uninteresting

The only time this doesn’t apply is in s2 and in s3, in s2 the show paints Lloyd as being unfair to Misako when he RIGHTFULLY gets mad at her for abandoning him, I’ll get back to this later

The second time in s3 is when he’s traveling with Garmadon and having to be taught to balance his powers, which is actually one part of s3 I really liked, it was nice to see these two bond and have Garmadon teach Lloyd something that wu would other wise not teach him. And it’s a real shame the season cut it short AGAIN

The biggest example of the show making Lloyd seem in the right no matter what is in s4, Lloyds whole arc there was to learn how to view things from a different perspective and appreciate the things others have done for him. And this is would work if the show decided to do the same.

Again back to that scene with Lloyd and Kai in s4, the show treats Lloyd as if he’s in the right and it’s never addressed after this. Even though this is supposed to be the beginning of lloyds arc where he’s supposed to learn to view things from a different perspective

This scene would have worked if

1. The show didn’t paint him in the right for this, either by having Lloyd apologize or having the show acknowledged how it might have hurt Kai

2. If the plot Lloyd has remained a side plot instead of taking up the entire focus

Seriously, s4 could have been the ONE season where you can have a Lloyd side plot thats not forced and yet they fucked it up and made it the entire focus of the season thanks a lot.

To quote what I said in my Nya anayalsis awhile back

“I’m not upset that he has a flaw, just that it’s not recognized as one”

Lloyd would work way better as a character if the show just let him have consequences for his actions

Ever since he grew up and got the green ninja role he’s been treated like he can’t do no wrong which is clearly not true

But since we’re already on this topic

Hurting Lloyd doesn’t make him a good character

I feel like Tommy ((and sometimes the fandom)) really misunderstand what the use of suffering for in a story

There atleast 3 reasons writers make there characters suffer

1. To undergo a arc and realize where they have been wrong or to give a character a lot more depth to expand upon

2. If the story is a fallen hero one and the character suffers because of his Huberius

3. If the story is a tragedy

Ninjago is neither a fallen hero story or a tragedy and his pain doesn’t develop him as a character

A lot of writers don’t understand that suffering isn’t what makes a character good, it’s what pushes them to become good, you can’t just throw a character at the wall and expect them to instantly be a well written fleshed out character

A lot of the suffering Lloyd has to endure is mostly for no reason and it’s really mean spirited because it adds nothing to the plot, it’s just there to hurt him

Let’s bring up s11 as an example, Lloyd didn’t HAVE to fight the ice emperor from a writing standpoint, if anything it should have been kais battle because his lose of power and Zane going evil would have been a perfect reflection of s4 and tie it up after it ended kais character a bit open ended

But no let’s have Lloyd do it instead because haha isn’t trauma COOL and HIP

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that all of your stories have to end on a happy ending or anything like that, if your a writer then your allowed to do whatever you want with your personal writing

What I am saying is that ninjago is an actual SHOW made by PROFESSIONAL writers and they can’t understand the concept of a story structure

And the lack of actually addressing his trauma is really bringing down Lloyd as a character

Because it comes to a point where you understand why Lloyd is sometimes mean or distrustful of other people and it’s frustrating because you know that it’s flaws of him that are never going to be fixed because there writers want there trauma baby

How I would rewrite him

I’ve seen a lot of people suggest Lloyd become a villain in a future season and you know what, I sort of agree

But not in the way you think

I feel like it would be way more compelling if Lloyd was a villain but is still a ninja, instead of Lloyd switching sides, the show is switching perspectives

More or less I want Lloyd to be a reflection of the “true” villain, which is how wu ((and subsequently Lloyd)) put small Victories as more important then the ninjas life, passion, and desire, and how there black and white thinking of good and evil ends up to a lot of problems because there’s a lot of grey area there choosing to ignore

I want Lloyd to start of being loyal to wu’s philosophy and the protagonist, for random example let’s say Kai, sudden turn on these ideas in order to look outside the box to find if there truly is a better way to protect people without harming himself

I want Lloyd to be upset over what he thinks is a turn to the dark side when in reality, it would make his motivations make sense and not make his turn to “villainy” be out of character.

And over the course of the season he starts to realize how wus and subsequently his leadership has hurt the others and himself, and have him reflect on if all the pain they suffer through just to clean up wus mistakes is really worth it like wu says, or if there’s a better way like kai says

As for Lloyds actual character himself, I’d like for his flaws to be more noticeable

Have Lloyd be a gifted kid who gets praise when he doesn’t deserve it but still kinda acts like a brat because he’s still mentally like 10

Have him be a control freak who follows the rules way to strictly and is all serious when they have to do missions

Have his idealization of wu be realized and critiqued because honestly wu sucks ass

Would this make his character less like able? Maybe, but then he’d actually have depth and something to improve on

He can still have his s3 and s4 arcs, it’s just now they’re more important because he’s actually learning to be better

AND BEFORE ANYONE SAYS IM PURPOSEFULLY MAKING LLOYD WORSE SO THAT KAI LOOKS BETTER

ILL HAVE YOU KNOW AWHILE BACK I MADE A POST SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING ABOUT KAI AND HIS FLAWS SO THERE (/hj /lh)

[pthalomars]

Ninjago fanseason!

Here’s the first part of my synopsis post, I’ll make sure to reblog it and add more of my summary as I write it out. 

Trigger Warnings for this: blood/gore, hospitals+surgery, injury, there will probably be more and I will make sure to tag accordingly (if there’s anything else that I miss, please let me know so I can tag it!!)

Anyways, here’s how it starts...

Battle in Ninjago City

A group of assailants are on the rise in ninjago city. The ninja show up to thwart their latest attack and a battle ensues on the streets. The assailants are spread throughout the city, so the ninja are forced to split up into teams. Cole with Jay, Zane with Nya, and Lloyd with Kai.

Lloyd and Kai are fending off their attackers, but Kai notices something is wrong. His powers aren’t working. Pathetic flames are sputtering out of his palms and fizzling out into smoke. He’s losing his powers again. 

While Kai is distracted, one of the enemies has a laser gun trained on him, ready to strike and take him out. Lloyd jumps in front of Kai at the last minute, taking the laser beam straight through his left shoulder. Dangerously close to his heart. Kai and Lloyd are on the ground, and when Kai comes to his senses, he frantically gets him and Lloyd into an alleyway for cover. 

Lloyd is losing a lot of blood, and Kai is doing his best to tend to his wounds. He screams into the com that Lloyd is down and that they need medical help, now. Zane assures him that an ambulance is on the way, and to stay with Lloyd until paramedics show up. 

The attackers start to make their way into the alley, only to be strewn aside by Nya and Zane. Cole and Jay have showed up as well, and now Kai and Lloyd are at least safe from them. Kai has Lloyd propped up against a wall, keeping pressure on his wound and telling him that he’s gonna be alright. Lloyd is whimpering in pain and tears fall from his eyes and stain his red-painted gi. “It hurts..” Lloyd murmurs. Kai lets out a choked sob and holds him close. “I know, I know it does buddy. It’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay I promise.”

Medics finally show up and get Lloyd out of there. Kai and Nya are able to ride in the ambulance, and so they make their way to the nearest hospital.

The Ambulance

The ambulance ride is tense. Paramedics are working to stabilize Lloyd enough so that he can survive until they arrive at the hospital. Kai and Nya are shoved in a corner, as to not get in the way of the medics. Kai doesn’t say anything, his eyes are empty and he’s a million miles away in his mind. Nya is beginning to process the events of that day too, and all she can do is look between her brothers and silently let her tears fall. 

She leans on Kai and goes to hold his hand to comfort him, but she stops short of his wrists. He still has so much of Lloyd’s blood on his hands. It’s on his gi, it’s in his hair, it’s underneath his fingernails. She figures it’s best to hold his arm, so she does. Thankfully, the ride is short, and they make it there in time for Lloyd to go into emergency surgery.

The Hospital

Lloyd is rushed into surgery and Kai and Nya are left in the lobby of the hospital. Kai wants to be near Lloyd, so he stays as close as staff will allow him to. Which means he ends up sitting on the ground in a hallway for a very long time. 

Nya sits with him for a while, before she gets up to get them snacks. Then to call the others and let them know where they are. Then to get some fresh air. She checks in on him periodically, but also figures he needs space to process what all happened that day. 

Eventually, the others show up. Cole, Jay, Zane, Wu, and Misako arrive and start asking a million questions. Nya looks exhaustedly at them, and tells them that she’ll fill in the rest later. Jay leads Nya to sit down and Cole asks where Kai is. Nya points to the hallway across the room, and says that he should be at the end of the corridor. 

Cole makes his way down the hall, and low and behold, Kai is still sitting in the same spot. The master of earth knees down, putting a comforting hand on Kai’s knee. Kai looks up for the first time in hours and Cole sees the dried tear streaks coming from his red and puffy eyes. 

“Hey buddy, how are you holding up?” he asks. Kai averts his gaze and curls further into himself. Cole’s eyebrows pinch upwards, and he goes to move some of Kai’s hair out of his eyes. He notices the blood in his hair and worriedly asks him if he’s gotten medical attention. Very quietly, Kai says, “ ‘s not my blood.” and then Cole looks down at Kai’s clothes, and his hands. It finally clicks. It’s Lloyd’s blood.

Cole sighs, moving to stand up. “Let’s get you cleaned up, huh?” Kai doesn’t respond, but allows Cole to help him get on his feet. They make their way to the nearest bathroom.

Once in the bathroom, Kai starts to wash his hands. He watches as the dried blood begins to run off of his hands and drain into the sink. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, but his hands are still red. The water is scalding hot and he’s started to rub his skin raw. Cole sees Kai become increasingly upset and then notices his hands again. Steam is rising from the sink and there’s no more blood. Cole turns off the sink and grabs paper towels. He dries off Kai’s hands as delicately as he can before looking at him. “Your hands are clean, Kai. They’re clean.” Cole brings Kai in for a hug and Kai shatters in his arms. Cole presses a kiss to the top of Kai’s head and wraps his arms tighter around him. They hold each other for a long time before they finally leave the bathroom. 

Cole brings Kai to the lobby, where everybody is sitting together, finding ways to pass the time. Zane and Jay go to stand up and greet Kai, but Cole gives them a soft, warning sort of look. A look that tells them that Kai isn’t ready for that quite yet. They sit back down. 

A nurse comes out and informs them all of Lloyd’s condition. He’s alive and he’s stable, but he’s going to need to stay at the hospital for a while until his condition improves. And unfortunately, they aren’t able to let the ninja stay with him through the night. They have to go home. Kai protests, stating that he needs to be there for Lloyd, that he can’t just leave him alone. Wu puts a hand on Kai’s shoulder and reassures him. “He’s in good hands, he will be okay for the night.” Wu says. After a moment, Kai sighs and reluctantly agrees to leave.

The First Night Home

The gang gets home and everyone is so exhausted from the events of the day. It’s about 1 in the morning and everyone heads to bed. Cole asks Kai if he wants to stay in his room. Kai nods and lets Cole lead him to his bed. They fall asleep in each other's arms, and Kai is too tired to cry anymore. Cole holds him and pets his hair. He could take a shower in the morning. 

The first week(s) home

Each day that passes, Kai begins to come to a realization. Lloyd was hurt because he was protecting him. If he had been able to use his powers, Lloyd wouldn’t have had to get hurt. It was his fault that Lloyd was in the hospital, that he had a hole blasted straight through his shoulder, that he wasn’t home. 

He still visits Lloyd every day. His little brother isn’t always awake, but he just needs to make sure he’s still alive. Usually one of the others will go with him, and sometimes everyone will tag along. Lloyd gets better with time and his recovery goes along smoothly.

Kai comes to another realization. Without his powers, he is useless. He can’t protect himself, let alone anyone else. The rest of the team has to compensate for him, and because of that, they get hurt. Kai has to leave. 

The others notice that something is off with Kai. Cole, in particular, sees that he’s acting very differently. He asks him if everything is okay, and every time Kai responds with “I’m fine” or “it’s nothing important.” Part of Cole feels bad, and wonders if he’s being too pushy. But his concern for his boyfriend overpowers that minor worry.

Kai spends the majority of his time thinking over his departure. Where is he going? What is he going to do? Why is he leaving? He doesn’t have all the answers right away, but to him, that didn’t really matter. All that mattered to him was that he was a danger to those around him, and to keep the others safe, he had to take himself out of the picture for a while. At least until he got his powers back and could carry his own weight.

But he couldn’t leave. Not yet. He was going to wait until Lloyd came back home. He had to make sure he was going to be okay before he left. He had already failed him once, he didn’t want to make it worse by leaving without ensuring that he was in hands he could trust.

Lloyd comes back

Lloyd is finally able to be released from the hospital. The ninja have worked hard to get the monastery clean and ready for him to come back home. After what felt like forever, they would finally get to have him back. 

The doctors gave strict orders that, even though Lloyd is stable enough to be released, that he must be given enough time to fully heal and recover from his injuries. No training, no fights, nothing. Just bed rest and lots of physical therapy sessions. 

The gang brings Lloyd home and they all share very careful side hugs with their boy. Kai is so relieved to have Lloyd back, but he also knows that it was time for him to go. 

They all sit down for dinner and the room is lighthearted. Everyone is laughing, cracking jokes, and enjoying each other's company. Except for Kai. He’s trying to fake it, but it’s painfully obvious that he just doesn’t have the energy. Nobody pushes him though, nor prods at him with questions. For once, Kai feels relieved that he isn’t being put under scrutiny.

Eventually, Kai excuses himself and heads to his room. He explains that it’s just a headache and that he was going to lay down for a bit. 

After a short period of time, Cole gets up to go check on Kai. He knows it wasn’t just a headache.

(dialogue)

[[Cole: Hey babe, just wanted to check in on ya. Everything okay?

Kai: … jus’ not feeling well. 

Cole: Do you want some company?

Kai: I’d rather be alone right now.

Cole: That’s okay. Just know that I’m here for you when you’re ready. I love you, Kai.

Kai: .. I love you too, Cole. I really do.

Cole: I know. I hope you sleep well, good night honey.

Kai: g’night, rocky.]]

Kai’s Departure

Later that night, everyone has gone to bed except for Kai. He’s laying in his bed, staring holes through the ceiling. He knew that he would leave once Lloyd came home. He was alive, recovering, and safe with everyone else now.

He gets up and starts packing the essentials. He realizes he’s gonna need different clothes for when he’s gone. There are multiple reasons for this. He needs to be less recognizable, he doesn’t want people to see him and immediately know who he is. His signature color reminds him of his failures, how his fire has both failed him in his times of need and hurt those around him. And most importantly, it reminds him of Lloyd’s blood that remained on him for so long. The way the blood dried on the fabric and never seemed to wash out from underneath his fingernails. He doesn’t like the color red anymore.

(as a characterization for his outfit, the colors are dark grey and black to resemble charcoal and ash. This is meant to be symbolic that his “fire” has been put out and that he has to find a way to “reginite” himself)

As Kai is putting together his new outfit, Wu walks in and sees what he’s doing.

[[Wu: Kai, what are you doing?

Kai: I’m.. I’m leaving.

Wu: Leaving? Why? Where are you going?

Kai: Master Wu, I.. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have my powers, and I’m dragging everybody else down. I can’t even protect myself, let alone those I love, or even all of Ninjago. Everybody else has to pick up the slack that apparently I can’t carry on my own. People are getting hurt. My friends are getting hurt, Wu, and it’s my fault.

Wu: Is this about Lloyd?

Kai: Yes, yes of course it’s about Lloyd! He got hurt trying to protect me because I panicked and wasn’t paying attention. He could’ve died, and it would’ve been my fault. 

Wu: Kai, you know he did that because he didn’t want you to get hurt. I’m sure you would have done the same.

Kai: Of course I would, but that doesn’t matter. There was- there was so much blood. He was crying and I had to keep pressure on the wound but it was hurting him and there wasn’t anything else I could do. There was so much blood, and it was everywhere. I was supposed to keep him safe. But I couldn’t because I don’t have my powers, again. You know how I reached my true potential because I realized I was supposed to protect the green ninja? Some fuckin’ protector I am, I couldn’t even keep him from getting shot and almost dying. AGAIN. It seems like every five minutes, I lose the only thing that makes me worth something!!

Wu: Kai-

Kai: You know, after all the years you’ve spent training us, training me, that I would be able to carry my own weight. But I can’t! I can’t and I don’t understand why! So- so I’m leaving. I can’t stand to see other people getting hurt, so I’m gonna go figure some things out. I’ll come back when I’m ready, but I just can’t do this right now. And don’t try to talk me out of this, I don’t wanna hear any-

Wu: I’m not going to try to talk you out of it. 

Kai: -what? 

Wu: Even if I tried to convince you otherwise, it is clear that your mind is made up. If this is what you have to do, and this is what you think is right, then go through with it. It is not my place to tell you what to do. You may be my student, but you are also a grown man and you are allowed to make your own decisions. 

Kai: I.. wow I wasn’t expecting that..

Wu: I know, but I hope that it was better than hearing me chastise you and tell you that you weren’t allowed to leave. 

Kai: Yeah, yeah it was better than that. 

Wu: However, you must understand how your absence will affect the others. Have you told them that you’re leaving?

Kai: .. No.

Wu: They will be searching for answers, and they will most likely be looking for you. 

Kai: I know. If they ask about me, you can tell them why I left. But don’t tell them where I’m going.

Wu: Why not?

Kai: Because even I don’t really know. 

Wu: I understand. Please be safe, Kai. The monastery will always be your home, and we will be here for you when you are ready.

Kai: Thank you, Master Wu. Thank you.]]

Kai makes his way out, but as he is leaving, Lloyd looks out of his window. He sees Kai walk out of the monastery and into the night. But Lloyd is still in a sleepy daze, and immediately falls back asleep. He assumes it was all just a dream.

[drabbles-mc]

Handled

Juice Ortiz x F!Reader

Combining 2 Anonymous requests for this: I was wondering if you could do a Juice x female reader, where reader has been kidnapped by a rival gang and beaten for info, that she doesn't spill. And, in a sort of exchange, two men stab her in front of the sons, including her old man (Juice), and she instantly rages and just does some out of the blue ninja shit that they didn't even know she could do, and takes them out before dropping to the floor. & what if, we/you had a scenario where the reader drops into the splits to trip up two guys because they're charging her or something - literally don't mind which guy is for the pairing and whether fluff or stuff ensues. I kinda just want to see it written in your style. Like, "since when could she do that" and, etc.

Warnings: language, depictions of violence, blood, injuries, murder

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a fight fic but I think I did alright! Had to throw in a little bit of Juice being a lil softy because it isn’t truly a Juice fic from me without it haha. Enjoy! xo

SOA Taglist: @mijop @adela-topaz-caelon @masterlistforimagines @garbinge​ @chibsytelford​ @xladymacbethx​ @i-just-read-stuff (If you want to be tagged in my fics don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know!)

You’d been put in a lot of compromising positions because of your proximity to the club. You’d been hauled in for questioning more times than you could count, and you’d gone toe-to-toe with a lot of people that you never wanted to have to cross paths with again. Being involved with the Sons meant you had to know how to defend yourself, because they weren’t always going to be around to do it for you. They might be your second family, and you might be someone’s old lady, but for you that was never an excuse to not be able to handle your own shit.

Long before you even knew who Juice Ortiz was, you were involved with Samcro. Growing up in Charming you couldn’t avoid knowing about them, and somewhere along the lines during your rebellious teenage years, you fell into the fold of the club and the community that surrounded it. You went from a silent presence, to a true friend of the MC, to an old lady. It was the wildest ride but you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

You remembered when Juice started prospecting—all smiles and full of jokes. If anyone had asked you for your opinion then, you would’ve said that the MC was going to chew him up and spit him out. But you would’ve been wrong, and in the midst of all the chaos the two of you ended up together. He was good for you, always kept you laughing. And you were good for him, too, helping him not spiral out and get ahead of himself—you kept him grounded. The bedlam was manageable when you faced it as a team.

All of that was running at hyper speed through your head as you found yourself bound to a chair in the back of an old warehouse. Being detained in an interrogation room at a police station was a stay at a five-star hotel compared to what you were going through now. It made you miss it. The metallic taste of blood coated the inside of your mouth. You spit it onto the concrete, staining it red. You mustered the deepest breath you could as you looked back up at the men who had taken you.

“I told you,” you shook your head, “I don’t know shit. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” you pulled against the restraints on your wrists, “I’m not a fucking rat.”

You felt another blow land to your stomach and you grunted, trying as hard as you could to bite back the pain. It was bad enough that you were stuck in this situation to begin with, you didn’t want to give any extra satisfaction of showing more pain than you had to. You were fidgeting and twisting your wrists relentlessly as you tried to loosen the binds. For a moment you thought that you were getting somewhere, but that sense of victory quickly got pushed to the side when you heard a clamoring coming from the other end of the warehouse. You had a feeling that you knew exactly who it was that was causing the ruckus, and you had never been so relieved to hear the yelling and cussing of some of your favorite men on the planet.

“Go!” one of the men shouted to the other, nodding in the direction of the noise, “Handle that. I’ll take care of her.”

As soon as the other man was a few strides away, you figured you weren’t going to have a better moment to try and catch him by surprise. You’d managed to wriggle one hand out of the rope that had previously been tied around it, and the slack gave you the opportunity to untangle the other. Your wrists were raw and bleeding but you didn’t care—you were closer to freedom than you’d been in hours.

You kept your hands behind your back and waited for the right moment. There was a gunshot and the man in front of you was visibly torn—not wanting to leave you unattended but also not wanting to leave his partner to face the gunfire alone. Neither them nor you even knew how many people the Sons had sent your way.

“Fuck,” he muttered and took one last look at you before taking off towards the chaos.

As soon as his back was turned you reached and freed your ankles. You stood up and ran at the man’s back. You leapt and threw your arms around his throat, choking him as you took him down to the ground. You collapsed on top of him, arms still tight around his neck as he attempted to elbow you off of him.

By that point, the two pockets of disarray found each other. You had no idea what had happened to the guys’ guns but there was no shooting as they approached you. You looked up for a moment to see your other assailant sprinting back towards you, and you assumed that he was being chased by at least Juice, if not someone else as well.

The split second made your grip falter just slightly, and the man underneath you flung his head backwards, hitting you directly in the nose. You cursed as it knocked you backwards, blood instantly beginning to gush out of your nose. You saw the man rising to his feet and you did as well, as quickly as you could manage.

The blood dripping from your nose completely faded from your mind as you assessed the situation in front of you. The man who had just given you your bloody nose reached down into his boot, pulling out a switchblade. You would’ve been lying if you said that it didn’t send a jolt of fear down your spine. Fighting two-to-one was difficult enough, but being outnumbered and one of them having a knife was pushing it even for you.

You stanced up, ready to fight and do whatever you had to do to survive. You were able to dodge a few blows from the man who was empty-handed, all the while keeping the knife in view. It was just a matter of time before the two of them closed in on you and you knew that, you were just trying to buy yourself enough time to get some backup.

There was a sharp pain in your side as you felt an arm wrap around your throat from behind. You screamed out in pain, eyes clenching shut for a moment as you tried to focus on anything besides the fact that you knew there was a blade sticking into your side.

When you opened your eyes you saw Juice and Chibs come crashing onto the scene. In all the time you’d known him, you had never seen Juice look so hurt, so angry as when he was taking in the scene in front of him. Just as he stepped in to try and help, you reached, yanking the knife out of your side and swinging your back to jam it into the thigh of the man behind you.

He grunted, grip on your throat tightening for only a moment before loosening as he leaned forward onto you. You took the brief moment of weakness to twist yourself and sweep his legs out from underneath him.

The other man ran at you and without thinking you dropped down, legs splitting as you tripped the man running at you. You swung your legs and body so that you were straddling the man you stabbed before you ripped the knife from his thigh and repeatedly sank it into his stomach and torso.

You were just about to turn around and finish the job when you were gripped tight by the back of your neck. You instinctively threw your elbow back and were rewarded with a cracking sound. Just as you spun your body around you saw that Chibs was already grabbing the man, pressing a knife to the base of his throat.

You weren’t sure if it was the relief of knowing you finally had a helping hand, or the blood loss from the stab wound in your side, but suddenly the tension began to disappear from your body. So much had happened in a matter of seconds that even you really couldn’t process it all. You stumbled a few steps before you felt Juice’s arms wrap around you to keep you from falling completely to the ground. You let him support your full body weight as you pressed your hand against the gash in your side.

“Get here faster next time,” you let out a humorless laugh as you shut your eyes, trying to ignore the searing pain that was spreading through your body.

“In our defense, love, you had it handled jus’ fine on yer own,” Chibs was walking towards you and Juice, wiping blood from the blade of his knife onto his jeans.

“Can we finish this conversation later?” Juice’s voice was dripping with concern as he tried to figure out the best way to help you move without making your injuries any worse.

“I’ll be fine,” you shook your head slightly, not expecting to feel so lightheaded.

“You ripped a knife out of your own body and killed somebody with it,” Juice couldn’t take his eyes off of your face that was streaked with sweat and blood, “and while seeing you Hulk out was shocking and impressive, you also did just about the dumbest thing you could do with a stab wound.”

“But it at least looked cool, right?”

He shook his head, “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

You knew that his annoyance was rooted in concern. You would’ve been more concerned if they had shown up any later than they did. You weren’t going to heal up quickly by any means, but you’d survive. There was no doubt about that.

“I would’ve gotten that other guy too, you know,” you looked over at Chibs.

He chuckled as he stepped in, bracing the other side of you to help Juice assist you with walking, “I know. Just wanted in on the fun, that’s all. Next time I’ll leave it all to you.”

“There’s not gonna be a next time,” Juice shook his head, staring daggers at Chibs for even joking about the possibility.

“When yer all healed up, you’ll have to get the rest of us flexible enough to do that little drop and spin move ye did back there.”

You mustered what you could of a laugh as they helped you into the back of the van, “Liked that one, huh?”

“Will you stop making her talk?” Juice snapped.

Chibs held his hands up in mock surrender as he walked to the driver’s door, “Sorry. Jus’ didn’t know you were dating a lass who is a goddamn black belt.”

Juice stayed in the back with you, applying pressure to your side as he cradled your head in his lap. You could hear the unsteadiness in his breath as he tried to stay as calm as possible. He’d been in plenty of situations with bloodied and injured people before, but it was never you, it was never this bad. You reached and rested your hand on his knee, giving him a reassuring squeeze when you saw the sadness starting to creep into his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you tell him.

“Like what?”

“Like that,” you allowed yourself a small smile, “C’mon it’s gonna take more than a couple guys with some rope and a knife to do me in. I’m tougher than that.”

“I never said you weren’t tough.”

“I just feel like you should be a little more impressed, that’s all,” you laughed, immediately wincing once you did.

It got him to crack a small smile, “I’ll take the time to be impressed once you don’t have blood gushing out of your side or your face. Is that fair?”

“I guess,” you smiled, “I’d ask you to kiss me but I don’t think you want that right now.”

He dipped his head down, pressing his lips lightly against yours for a moment in a gentle kiss despite the blood all over your face, “That’s not to reward reckless behavior, you know.”

“All of our behavior is reckless,” you shook your head slightly.

“Oh sure,” Chibs piped up as he drove, “But I’m the one who was makin’ her talk.”

You smiled and Juice chuckled quietly. Both of you did fall into a comfortable silence after that, though. You listened to Chibs’ half of the conversation as he called to get medical help ready for you back at the clubhouse. You were just ready to get cleaned up. You could deal with the bandages and the stitches as long as you were able to take a shower and get the blood and grime off of you.

“I love you,” Juice’s voice was soft, “And I’m sor—”

You cut him off, “Just leave it at I love you.”

He smiled and you could see a little bit of the light return to his eyes, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[candyopala]

Stuck in his ways, Chapter 7

Chapter Summary:  Y/N and Obito have to get around the awkwardness of the events from that night, and what better to help with that then team seven in all its glory?

Words: 2.3k

AO3

Please like or reblog if you enjoy, check my rules for requests too! My dms are also open if you want to chat or anything else. 

After spending a whole day on the hospital, Obito heads home for some well-deserved sleep. It is only on the next day, on his way to the field, that he starts properly processing what happened that night with Y/N. Her bandaging him up with a weird look in her eyes, him crying in front of her… the warmth he felt when she held his hand. Why did he do that in front of her anyway? They barely know each other, she teases him to no end, but he can’t help to already feel close to her, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. 

The way she held him…. He hasn’t felt this way since long ago, he felt accepted in an intimate way, he felt genuine companionship with her. Obito feels bad when he remembers too the reason for that whole situation, he wanted to get rid of the girl; he wanted to make her go away without giving her a chance. 

I’ve been so blind, shutting her off like that…

Without knowing anything about his failures and only knowing that ugly side he shows to everyone, she still helped him through a tough time. He can’t help but feel his heart flutter with embarrassment, he didn’t even give her much of a chance. She might not be from Konoha, but there’s still good in her. He needs to take his mission with her more seriously.

He walks down the market streets, instinctively analyzing every single action that happens around him, seeing the faces of the people going up and down the roadway busy with their things. It’s not long before he spots four familiar figures walking down the street together: team seven. Naruto and Sakura discuss loudly about a matter Obito doesn’t bother try rearing, followed by Sasuke and Kakashi tagging along. Obito tries to say hi to Kakashi, only to be attacked by a running Naruto that throws himself onto him with all his force: 

“Big bro Obito!”

“Hey! Calm down now! It’s only seven a.m. for Kami’s sake!” He scolds while laughing aloud and hugging the thirteen-year-old back

“I’m learning something new, you have to come see it! Are you busy?”

“I’m going to the training grounds, I can’t Naruto, sorry”

“Come on! Train with us!”

“Hey Naruto, stop bothering Obito, all right? He’s busy” Kakashi tries to intervene in Obito’s sake

“Huh… actually…” 

Obito’s mind starts functioning, he does need to teach some new stuff to Sasuke and bringing Y/N along would be good for her training. He decides to join them, he actually feels deep down the need to introduce her to new people, to get her more settled into the village. 

“I guess I’ll come along. There’s someone I want you guys to meet”

“Oh, is it her?” Naruto says with a devilish sparkle in his eyes.

“Her? Are you dating?” Sakura jumps up, immediately invested into the conversation.

“Finally” Sasuke also joins to make it all worse.

“Guys, calm down…” Kakashi once again tries to save his friend from his hyperactive trio “He’s just training a new member of the village”

A collective “oh” is heard from the two in disappointment. Great, now even the kids are invested in his love life. Obito tells them a little bit more about her on the way to the field, and he notices that even Kakashi seems a little bit more enthusiastic than normal. 

When they reach the training grounds, he finds Y/N laying back on a tree, with a surprised look on her face when she sees the kids. Obito tries to introduce them, but they end up introducing themselves, with a hyperactive Naruto leading the presentations followed by his teammates and his teacher. 

“Nice to meet you guys! Are we training together today?”

“Yup” Obito tries to say in the middle of Naruto’s ramblings 

“How’s your arm?” She asks him back in the midst of it, a bit of what seems worry flashes her eyes, only to be quickly concealed with a look to the side.

“Oh, feeling like new. Some medical ninjutsu quickly solved it.” He states as he gets more embarrassed by the minute, once the memory of their shared companionship floods his mind. He needs to try to actually be nicer to her. 

Meanwhile, Sakura flies a sly meaning smile in Obito’s direction, to his utter desperation. Watching the whole scene develop, Kakashi once again intervenes, trying to get to the subject of training. 

“So, Y/N, dumbi- ahem, Obito told me you need some help with discovering your chakra nature. Coincidentally, that’s what I’m currently doing with the kids, so we could help you with that”

“That would be great, thanks guys! Out of curiosity, what horrible things did my mentor say about me?” 

“Only the most terrible embarrassing things I found on your file” Obito teases back in a flash, without doing much thinking, letting himself play around a little.

“Oh then I should tell you friend about your new nickna-“

“Let’s start training, shall we?” He interrupts her before she can say it, since letting Kakashi know about that would be the end of him.

Kakashi started trying to teach Y/N a couple of techniques, teaching her to concentrate her chakra and showing her the right hand signs. Obito also explained about the ideal state of mind each element requires, the type of energy each one of them consumes. 

Raiton was immediately out of question, and despite her special punch technique, doton seemed to drain too much of her energy, as well as suiton. She was able to produce a small amount of katon, only achieving smaller jutsu still due to the immense amount of chakra these require, so the fireball jutsu was out of question. 

Futton was their last attempt and the one they were more successful with. She could produce wind with her running speed, creating vacuum spots, using the element in a less concentrated way than the rasengan requires, since she is still inexperienced with chakra concentration at that level. 

Obito was actually pleased with today’s developments; he thinks that she can become even stronger by actually doing jutsu in battle. Naruto was also overjoyed to learn that his new village mate had the same main element as himself, showing her his still developing rasengan, proud of his own training and giving her some tips. 

Obito let the pair talking and went to oversee Kakashi and Sasuke, now training his chidori technique. His little cousin had also developed a lot, and was now opening up to be a wonderful kid thanks to Naruto and Sakura’s insistence on their friendship, and Itachi’s efforts to make him socialize more. 

He then also let them train and sat down together with Sakura, who was watching her colleagues train too, while she herself studied some medical ninjutsu books. The small girl looked at him with curiosity, noting the different expression on her sensei’s friend, who was usually much more uptight and serious. With that knowing look again, she simply stated: 

“Mr. Obito, your main element is katon, right?”

“Yes Sakura, why?”

“Ah nothing, I was just wondering… katon is compatible with futton, right?”

“Yes, both can be used together to create more powerful jutsu”

 “So… we could say that you and Y/N are compatible”

Obito’s eye goes wide with the way the girl says it. Both of them know she is not talking about just jutsu here. The implication of what she said makes him go as red as a pepper. 

“N-no Sakura, she is my colleague, we are just that.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about sir, excuse me.”

The girl gets up and runs into Naruto and Y/N’s direction, winking back at Obito on her way. 

 ~”~

 The team gathers up for lunch, Y/N sits beside Obito’s friend Kakashi, opposite to her mentor, who sat in front of her. She avoided his eye contact, still feeling a little inappropriate for her behavior that night. She fears that what happened was too intimate for her own comfort, that she should not try to get that close to him. She should be his teammate, nothing else. She must ignore that pull that she feels from him, that desperate need she feels to talk to him about why he was crying that night. 

She tries to strike up conversation with the ninja beside her, and he is very receptive, if not for his general lack of energy and relaxed demeanor. She sees a small little orange book protruding from his pocket, is that what she thinks it is? It is! The greatest book series of all time! 

“Hey, is that Icha Icha?”

“Yes it is! I just picked up the latest volume!” he immediately assumes a whole different behavior, now fully invested in the conversation.

“What chapter are you on? Did you reach chapter 37 yet?”

“No, and no spoilers, please! I dying to know what she will do when she finds out about that thing”

“Dude, trust me, it’s going to be awesome”

They both strike up conversation about it for a couple of minutes, Y/N talks excitedly about the romance’s structure and how she finds it poetic in a way. They both discuss the general plots, praising the author despite Naruto’s loud complaints about him being a total pervert. 

When she finally looks at Obito’s direction, she sees the jonin hunched forward, with an unimpressed look on his face, matching Sasuke’s that also seems to be bothered by the subject matter.

“Great, another one, they will talk about it forever” The young Uchiha comments.

“I don’t know what you guys see in this stupid book anyway” The oldest complements.

“He didn’t even give it a try; can you believe it, Y/N?” Kakashi teases in response.

“Sacrilegious! How could he say such things?” She retorts with fake shock.

“Shut up, you two perverts.” Obito says with a scorn forming on his lips, something he usually does that Y/N is starting to find extremely fun and… endearing? 

Y/N, Kakashi and the kids laugh at his little tantrum, and later even himself. He is acting different today, more open, with a more lighthearted attitude, a lot less uptight and grumpy. Y/N feels a little happy knowing that he is feeling better, but she quickly shuts off the realization. 

Concentrate on what’s important here. 

They quickly fall back into training, with Y/N sitting back due to her extreme exertion during the chakra nature tests. After he has finished with his portion of the training with Kakashi and Obito, Naruto joins her. They sit together observing Obito discussing the fireball jutsu with Sasuke, Y/N can’t help but notice the proud look on her teammate’s face when his little cousin does a perfect ball of fire, making her let out a small smile. He’s not so cynical after all.  

Naruto begins to talk about how he needs to be as strong as his father is, and Y/N learns that he is, in fact, son of the Hokage. He talks and explains a lot about the village and also talks about how his mom is always bothering him to make his bed in the morning. The kid is all over the place until he focuses on the subject of Obito. 

He begins to tell her about how he is like a big brother for him and how he taught him his most deadly jutsu, something about a sexy jutsu, and how he is cool even if he has no girlfriend. Y/N, being the innocent thing she is, prods him for more embarrassing details about her mentor. 

“One time he got stuck in the sexy woman form and Jiraya followed him around the village for a day! He had to hide from the pervert in the sewers! And once he choked with candy in the middle of a jonin reunion, Kakashi told me that”

Y/N cannot help but bust out in laughter at the image that forms in her mind, not being able to breathe while the kid continues to spill out embarrassing stories about the Uchiha. Naruto is suddenly stopped when Sakura lands a punch on top of his head, screaming in annoyance with her teammate’s attitude: 

“Stop ruining everything!”

What she meant with that remains a mystery to Y/N. The discussion has to be separated by a tired Kakashi, holding Sakura back with all his force. Y/N is caught off guard by Obito’s presence by her side. 

He helps her get up, giving his gloved hand in support. She accepts it, steading herself up. 

“So, that’s all for today, sewer boy?”

“He told you about that, huh?”

“Of course he did”

“Yup, that’s all for today. Let’s head home”

“Let’s? I didn’t know you had moved into my broom closet, Obito”

“You know I’m not letting you walk around exhausted like that, Y/N”

The change in his tone scares her. He sounds serious, almost protective, and he calling her name like that sends shivers down her spine, in a not so bad way. He also didn’t call her a dumbass, is that an improvement? 

She once again insists on walking by herself, but he insists on it so much that she eventually gives up and lets him accompany her. They discuss her new technique possibilities on most of the way, only for the subject to change as they reach her apartment. 

“So, what did you think about them?”

“They’re nice kids, all of them seem to look up to you, Naruto especially”

“He’s a good kid, they are all like family to me”

Y/N agrees with her head, thinking to herself about the word family. She once had one, but lost them very early on. Moreover, once she found another person she could call that, she lost them too. The memories flood her mind, making her face go serious and eyes to go foggy. 

“Take good care of them Obito, what you have here is… amazing”

“I will, I promised that long ago”

They reach her door, saying their goodbyes quickly. As Y/N closes her door, Obito calling her name again interrupts her.

“Oh! Y/N! I forgot; we have an important meeting with the Hokage tomorrow at ten in the morning. We will be heading out for our first mission, be ready”

[pinkpandaslikehoney]

The Sorta Misadventures of Santa’s Village

Here is my first fic and a Christmas gift to @master-of-fluff! I hope you (and other people) like it.

“TIS THE SEASON TO BE HOLLY! FA LA LLAMA LAAAAA, LA LAAAA LLAAAA-MAAAAA!”

“Not AGAIN!”

“You’re not even getting the LYRICS right!”

“This is the seventh time within the last ten minutes…”

“SHUT UP JAY!”

—

Lloyd doesn’t even remember how he got into this situation, but he’s currently enjoying watching Jay and the others argue again about the same thing for the 4th time in the last 15 minutes.

“Come on guys, pleeeease?” Jay pleaded.

“Jay, nobody wants to go into Ninjago City right now, especially after what happened last Tuesday.”

Everyone shuddered simultaneously as memories of reporters and journalists mobbing them resurface. All they had wanted was some hot cocoa.

“But Zane, it's a whole new week! How was I supposed to know that those newspeople were waiting to ambush us after somebody decided that they wanted some chocolate lava cake at the last minute?”

“Don’t drag me into this, Zaptrap!”

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it, Dirt Clod?”

“What I’m gonna do…I’ll show you what I’d do you-”

It’s at this moment where Nya and Pixal come to the rescue. And not a moment too soon, because Jay and Cole look like they’re going to duke it out smack in the middle of the courtyard. Unfortunately, Kai jumps in Jay’s place, truly a shock seeing how he seemed to be vexed the most by the blue ninja’s shenanigans.

“Maybe we can just take a few extra precautions this time. We could even swing by Skylor’s noodle house or laser tag. And isn’t Santa’s Village open this week? Their tarts are a must.”

The last bit intrigues Lloyd, thoughts of doesn’t Santa live in the North Pole and I thought he made toys, not pastries swirling through his head. Unfortunately, he gets so lost in thought that Lloyd murmurs ever so softly, “What’s Santa’s Village?” Half a second later, Lloyd realizes his grave mistake, but of course, is too late by then. Grasping on to fragments of hope, he silently desires his wretched inquiry to go unnoticed, because oh how he doesn’t want to go and wants to stay home instead please no-

The incoherent squabbles disappear as if they were never there.

“You…” Nya starts, “You’ve never been?”

“Ever?” Cole adds.

“Not once?” Zane finishes.

“Uhm…well, y’know Darkley’s wasn’t big on the holiday spirit. Remember when I thought Santa was a serial killer that murdered once a year but was never caught? A bunch of kids would hide in closets so they wouldn’t be next…guess you can say they got Claus-trophopic heh heh.”

Lloyd cringes as his joke falls flat and the ninja don that familiar face of pity, guilt, and silent rage.

It was Pixal who broke the silence, unsurprisingly deciding that she had a change of heart, Zane, Cole, and Nya hastily agreeing with her.

“I suppose we could go tomorrow and have some noodles for lunch,” Zane muses.

With crows of triumph, Jay and Kai scurry inside before the others could change their mind. They weren’t going to, because Lloyd just had to open his big mouth. As he walks inside and goes straight to his room to indulge in some candy Lloyd can’t help but think that as if Santa’s Village has a sufficient amount of candy hmph.  

—

Well, it’s safe to say that Lloyd was very wrong about that.

At this point he’s not even surprised too, this day just keeps getting worse, but at least Pixal’s “hide in plain sight” trick worked, at least for now. But Lloyd suspects that’s because there are so many people. And they just keep coming.

Before he knows it, all of his friends migrate to places and seemingly vanish from thin air. Lloyd’s currently getting more overwhelmed by the number of people by the second and he’s heavily considering cutting his losses by going home when a streak of blue grabs him by the left sleeve of his coat and starts speeding off with Lloyd in tow.

“Come on Lloyd!” Jay exclaims, “Let’s go ice skating!”

Lloyd’s only experience with any type of skating was that dumb roller skating contest between him and Chamille back on Chen’s island. But not only did he hate every second, but he also doesn’t really know how to skate.  Lloyd was running on adrenaline, thoughts of not losing his elemental powers, going faster without falling over, and some raw willpower and determination. However he or anyone else looked at it, the experience was bad plain and simple, and Lloyd told Jay as much.

Only to be rendered speechless when Jay steamrolled over his semi-detailed explanation retorting, “You can’t let that be your only skating experience! Actually, it’s all the more reason to try and properly learn how, in my opinion.”

Lloyd was about to say that he didn’t care about that opinion, but Jay was only trying to help and certainly didn’t deserve Lloyd being a jerk. All too soon, they arrived at the rink where it looks like Jay already picked out skates, sage green, and cornflower blue. Jay’s always sluggish and slow in the mornings but he only picks up the pace when it benefits him? Although Lloyd can’t blame him because had he not been the leader he would’ve done the same thing.

Once they got the skates on, the challenge of stepping on the ice slapped him in the face. The mental block of willingly balancing on ice with a thin blade was too much for him. Not too much for Jay to tease about though.

“So the great Green Ninja who isn’t afraid to jump off the side of a flying ship is nervous about a little ice?” But once the Lightning Ninja saw Lloyd's expressions the jokes halted. “It’s ok to take it slow, Lloyd. Tiny steps.”

Jay’s advice wasn’t half bad, it turned out. Only when Lloyd took a bigger step and fell on his knee. He was probably most comparable to Bambi on ice.

“You don’t have to take or do so much all at once, y’know that right? Sometimes it’s okay to not be able to do everything at once.”

This time, taking baby steps, Lloyd was on the ice and slowly making his way around.

“Once you’ve got the hang of that, gently push off of each foot.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, perfect! Now you can try to push off harder, once you feel comfortable. Remember, don't be afraid to fall.”

Lloyd was starting to think he wasn’t just talking about skating.

In no time, Lloyd was gliding across the ice like a pro, no doubt thanks to the stellar instruction. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

—

Turns out Lloyd was wrong again.

“Who knew ice skating was so tiring?” Lloyd mumbled to no one in particular. Jay, who never seemed to run out of energy, was still going at it strong. Lloyd, on the other hand, was looking to find a cafe or something to “relax” (because nobody can fully relax with this amount of noise) and maybe find something else to do.

Lloyd’s already imagining a tasty peppermint frappe or gingerbread latte when an eruption of cheers throws him off.

“And we have our winners!” an announcer yells.

He tries to tell himself to mind his business and get those drinks, but a random burst of inquisitiveness got the better of him. As he pushes through the crowd, Lloyd gets whiffs of something sweet and chatter of scrumptious cake leading him to wonder if it’s a baking contest of sorts. Finally reaching the front, Lloyd saw an elegant-looking white cake adorned with strawberries and pineberries and none other than Zane and Pixal holding a trophy next to the announcer.

Lloyd just lounged around until all the spectators left before walking up to the nindroids, who were deep in conversation off to the side now.

“Hey guys,” he started, “congratulations on the win! The cake looks great!”

“Thanks, Lloyd! It’s a very good thing Cole’s not around to see it…he would’ve inhaled it by now,” Zane stated.

“His stomach resembles a bottomless pit when it comes to cake,” Pixal remarked.

“Borderline blackhole.”

“Exactly!”

“Anyways,” Lloyd cut in, “How did you make that whole cake in the, what, two hours since coming here?”

The sky turned dark and everything went grayscale. Weird 80’s music started playing in the background.

“Here we go again,” Pixal muttered.  

“Twas a difficult journey, but we managed to pull through. We ran into some complications. First, a truss of whippersnappers hid a bundle of supplies whilst we gathered supplies. Then a stripling sabotaged our oven, turning it up to blistering heats causing our first batch to burn. But we didn’t abandon hope!”

“I’m about to abandon hope the way these accents keep popping up like-”

“-no time to sulk over the trampling of blueberries. We had to progress forth-”

“What are you even-”

“-things didn’t go to plan, especially with the whole white chocolate fiasco-”

“Why are you telling him about our misfortunes?”

“-but we adapted accordingly and put on a fine finish!”

Lloyd was…confused. Very confused. Especially when Zane whispered something to Pixal and the two ran off with quick goodbyes, leaving Lloyd alone again.

—

Well, at least he finally got his drink. And Lloyd found a pretty good tree to lie under too, at least until some barbarian bombarded him with snowballs.

“Come on Lloyd!” a familiar voice exclaimed, scaring the living daylights out of him. “Smith sibling snowball fight! Run before she finds us!

On cue, a flurry of snowballs flew in their direction.

“Not FAIR, Kai. Who says Lloyd gets to be on your team?!” Nya hollered.

“He doesn’t have to say it, cause I already know he would want to be on MY team, right Lloyd?”

“Before I answer that, there’s something in your HAIR!” Lloyd finished off by tossing a rock in the tree, causing the branches to sprinkle snow all over.

“What?! Traitor!”

“Get him, Lloyd!”

And he was about to, except Kai looked livid (in a playful way, classic rivalry stuff), so Lloyd decided to run for the hills and build up a fortress and stock ammo or something.

—

Hours later (don’t judge, things get intense), and it seems like the day is looking up for him again, and finally it seems like the brunt of it is over. But surprise surprise, he was wrong about that. So wrong.

He had bumped into Cole while making a mad dash away from Kai, only for Lloyd to get a request from the Earth ninja to see the Nutcracker with him.

“What’s that?! And what is it even about, a squirrel?”

By now Lloyd should know to keep his big mouth shut, but of course, the concept wasn’t hammered in yet.

“Well, that answers my question!” Cole declared.

Which is how Lloyd got stuck watching a 2-hour ballet.

—

After the movie, which was surprisingly good, the two stopped at a bakery where they indulged in Zane and Pixal’s cake. The pair had met up with Jay and Nya in an unceremonious way. Lloyd didn’t know this at the time, but he found out later that Nya was chasing Jay for calling her a teacup? Anyhow, Nya tackled Jay on top of the table he and Cole were sitting at, effectively shattering it. When they went to the manager of the place they ran into Zane and Pixal (who ended up paying for it with their prize money). That officially killed the mood, at least until Kai dragged them off going on about Skylor’s noodles only for Jay to playfully tease him about it, attracting wary looks from the staff.

But even though they are annoying, Lloyd loves his found family and concludes that his time at Santa’s Village wasn’t that bad after all.

[tooweirdforyou]

Hey!!! I really love your writing blog!!!

Okay, can I ask headcanons of X-Drake, Law and Marco x S/O that can do ballet?

X-Drake, Law + Marco With A S/O That Does Ballet 🩰

a/n : I’m sorry this took longer than usual, I had a busy weekend. Plus, I had to do a bit of research on X - Drake, especially since he’s a pretty minor character and there isn’t much to know about him. 😅 but I hope you enjoyed. And thank you! 🤍

I’m sorry if this wasn’t what you expected, especially since they’re short and might not make much sense? I’m not too familiar with ballet, other than learning from the three girls in despicable me— so forgive me if there’s anything wrong in here. I’m really sorry, anon :(

I AM SO SORRY IF I DID NOT GIVE X DRAKE JUSTICE, 😭 ITS ACTUALLY HARD TO WRITE FOR HIM- ;-;

Summary : How they react to a significant other who does ballet.

note : yall, I am so disappointed that Marco DOESNT fucking go to Wano. 😭 I was so freaking excited!

-

X - Drake

X - Drake would see you doing ballet while you’re training one day. It was on your own free time.

He would just be walking around the area outside, taking a breather from his mission for now and was just finishing up his reports to the navy HQ, when he sees you alone. He didn’t even realize you were outside alone until he saw you.

So when he sees you in your comfortable but easy to stretch in outfit, he’s stunned and speechless.

Seeing you bend and stretch your legs out, raising your leg as high as you could as you displayed your flexibility, just makes him immediately red in the face and just in shock.

Now, X Drake is more of a stoic and serious kind of man, he’s not much to express his emotions and likes to get the job done. But seeing you in your outfit and doing your small leaps of ballet easily flusters him.

You wouldn’t even notice he was there until you turn around. “Oh, Drake.” You smile and rub your thighs a bit and stood up straight, waving at him. “I didn’t see you here. Were you watching me the whole time?”

“U-Uh, no, I just came by now.” He clears his throat and takes a step closer towards you. “Do you often practice ballet by yourself like this?”

You shrug softly and smile. “Some times. I’ve been doing this since I was a child, so I’m mostly just trying to increase my flexibility and catch up on any rusty skills I have.” You answer and notice him looking away slightly and seemingly awkward, which wasn’t like him.

You only chuckle and go closer to him, patting his chest. “Flustered, are we? I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.” You say softly, smiling at how cute he seemed at the moment with his pink cheeks as he just stutters out. “It’s fine, let’s just get back inside..”

-

Law

Law would see you using ballet for the first time, during battle. And let’s just say, he was rather impressed.

The submarine was surfaced on the coast of an island, and the crew was currently exploring the island to pick up some supplies, more specifically, medicinal supplies for Law.

However, Marines seemed to be everywhere so it was only a matter of time before they found you. Which they did.

So, while Law is busy shambling marines, his eyes would look around the area for his crewmates, before his eyes land on your form.

Seeing you move fluidly around the field, over the guards gracefully and in such beautiful positions like a swan form, distracts Law as he just stares at you, a bit impressed and curious.

So when the crew finally manages to get away and back to the submarine to escape, Law decides to confront you about your movements.

“Oi, [Name]-ya. Since when did you do ballet?” He’s quick to get to the point. An amused and impressed tone could be hinted, because he was genuinely feeling that way.

You were pretty agile and moved so quick and elegant, it piqued his curiosity since he’s never seen you use or do it. How agile you moved reminded him of his secret interest in ninjas.

“It’s a hobby of mine.” You answer softly, smiling at Law and could sense his interest in your hobby. “Would you like to see more?..” you slowly ask, just to see his reaction.

Law eyes you a bit before he turns away and tilts his hat down. “..I’m busy, so maybe later.” He mutters out, making you chuckle at him, knowing he was trying to hide his small eagerness to see you do it again. “Sure, let me know when you wanna see it then. I’ll be glad to show you.”

-

Marco

Marco would first see you doing ballet when you’re with Ace, out on the deck. Ace would try to pull a prank on you but obviously, he failed because you already knew what he was planning.

So when Ace sets up a series of traps for you to fall into or be fooled by, Marco is there watching beside Thatch when you first enter onto the main deck from a room.

You might’ve set off the trip wire, but you already know what’s coming as you gracefully jump over the flying pies that Thatch had saved for dessert, grabbing them in midair to prevent them from going into waste.

As you bounce and leap with sophistication and beauty around the deck, repeatedly dodging and avoiding all the traps set by Ace, the three would just stare in awe and disbelief at how beautiful you looked, how agile you move with ease as you land right in front of Marco and Thatch, holding out the perfectly steady and un-damaged pies.

Marco’s stunned face would slowly curl into amusement and a genuine impressed expression crosses his face. “You were pretty elegant out there, [Name]-yoi. I didn’t know you could do ballet.”

A smile would curl onto your lips as Thatch takes the pies from your hands and you give a glance to Ace, who continue to stare at you slack jawed. “It’s a hobby of mine since I was a child.” You shrug as you smirk at Ace’s reaction. “Nice try, Ace.”

Marco just smiles and chuckles at Ace as well. “You better have those papers done and ready for me if you have time to be messing around, Ace-yoi.” He warns as he began leading you away, guiding you with his hand on the dip of your back.

You could only smile and chuckle at Ace’s reaction as you lean into Marco more. “So, would you like to show me some more of your ballet flexibility skills? I’d like to see more-yoi.” Marco slyly questions, a small grin forming on his face.

Knowing what he meant, you playfully roll your eyes and smile. “Maybe later. I’m going to go back to Thatch and have one of those pies.”

-

Okayy, hope you enjoyed this! Sorry it’s a bit short ;~; also I’m sorry if this seems more like a gymnast or something ;-; please forgive me and if you’d like a re-do, let me know!

Yall, don’t even try to fight with Law’s, I love how I made his 😂 even if it’s short and seems like he’s such a submissive type which is not true at all lmao ooc~

I’m a bit disappointed though, because my work isn’t showing up in tags anymore? :/ or maybe it’s just me.

[lesboykakashi]

main is @lesbianxisuma

this is literally just a place to dump my fics in lmao not much to say, if u wanna know more about me then go to my main lmao

this isn’t a complete pinned btw, just getting it out of the way for now

i do accept writing requests by the way ! how fast i’ll do them depends on how tired/busy/motivated i am, i’m fine with fluffy, angsty and sexual requests and i don’t really have limits but if i’m uncomfortable with or otherwise don’t like the request (either cause it has a ship that i don’t like, writing tropes or aus that make me uncomfortable like omegaverse, kinks that make me uncomfortable like ageplay/ddlg and some of its variants or simply cause it’s for a fandom i don’t even write for or am interested in) i will simply delete the request

what i will/won’t do

tagging system, all of my ao3 series, DNI, names and pronouns below the cut

tango’s talkative- my original post tag

fics from main- the fics i’ve reblogged from my main

not a fic- for any post that’s not a fic post

augustus makes shit- on my main it’s both my art + writing tag but on this account it’s (obviously) just my writing tag

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sexond- smut

tooth rot- fluff

and if i ever post angst then it’ll be tagged with #cry, hurt w/ comfort is #break ups and major character death is #can i offer you an egg in these trying times, any other type of angst is just #balling but with sadness paired with #cry

orgy- ocs

rillaboom reboots- my reblogs

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crossbreeding- crossover fics

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small- agere stuff

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fandom specific:

block people- minecraft youtube (personas n rp characters ofc)

avatarverse- avatar the last airbender and the legend of korra

ninja show- both the original naruto and once i get far enough in the show then shippuden as well, but for now this only refers to the og naruto

block game- minecraft

tarot reading- the arcana

those hermits sure can craft- hermitcraft (again, personas n rp characters)

death game numero uno- 3rd life

death game numero due- last life

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pocketed a monster- pokemon

seven queer fucks- seven deadly sins

ao3 series

mommy doms my beloved: for all of my mommy kink fics (on sunlightfilledlotus)

not so innocent: smut fics (on sunlightfilledlotus)

things that don’t fit into my other series: for all of my fics that i don’t already have an ao3 series for (on moonlightfilledlotus)

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later in life: for fics centered around all of the older atla/tlok characters (on moonlightfilledlotus)

block ppl: for all of my mcyt fics (on moonlightfilledlotus)

lost in your world-adjacent fics: for all of my fics for my friend’s wanorra au (on moonlightfilledlotus)

baby, you’re my forever girl: for all of my fics centered around the avatars and their love interests (on moonlightfilledlotus)

the avatar apartment: for my avatar apartment complex au (on moonlightfilledlotus)

if this is love then i don’t wanna be loved: for no ships left unsailed (on moonlightfilledlotus)

i know your heart, and you, mine: for my ocs

my current ao3 accounts are moonlightfilledlotus (general account) sunlightfilledlotus (smut account) and ghostlyganders (agere account)

some names and pronouns include:

xisuma

false

stress

zedaph

cowboy

hades

cub

augustus

leon

eurydice

kakuna

beef

hades

it/its

xe/xem

cub/cubs

mo/gai

queer/queers

king/kings

prince/princes

moon/moons

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🌑/🌑s

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❤️💛💙/❤️💛💙s

🖤/🖤s

🌙/🌙s

⚫️/⚫️s

🥀/🥀s

DNI if you’re anti endo or anti DID/OSDD in general, anti mogai, anti neopronouns, anti mspec labels, anti mspec gays/lesbians, anti lesboys/turigirls, demonize psychosis and psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, demonize personality disorders like BPD and NPD, demonize mental disorders in general, is racist, a nazi/nazi supporter/neo nazi, antisemitic, islamphobic, queerphobic, ableist

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

heyyyy luv could you please bless us with a secret relationship and bucky :')

specifics: bucky is always disappearing from the compound and everyone figures that it's bucky being bucky.. but he's visiting his civilian girlfriend and knows that she'll be in danger the moment they go public so he doesn't even tell the team about her.. and their circumstances of meeting could be in the aftermath of some Avengers thing?

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

Word Count: 2,837

Y/N had just hopped out of the shower and was now combing her hair and applying all your moisturizers. She was home alone in her small, one-bedroom apartment. She had some soft music playing from her laptop, trying to wind down from her day.

However, when she stepped out of the bathroom, there was a large man casually moving about her bedroom.

Y/N yelped and nearly dropped her towel from the fright.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

He immediately looked guilty and tried to make himself smaller and less intimidating. “I’m sorry, doll. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I thought you weren’t getting back until tomorrow,” she pointed out, hand still over her heart as if it would calm its racing.

He stepped over to her and gave her a hello kiss. “Got home quicker than we planned. I texted you, but I can obviously see that you were in the shower when I sent it.” He pointed to her phone that she’d left on her nightstand.

Then Bucky cupped her cheek and kissed her again, slower and more passionately this time.

“I really am sorry for scaring you,” he told her as he pressed his forehead against hers.

He could clearly hear the rapid beating of her heart with those insane super-soldier senses.

“It’s OK. Should be used to your sneaky, ninja ways by now.”

He chuckled.

That’s when Y/N saw the bruise on his left cheek. His hair was wet too. 

Bucky always showered before he came to see her after missions. Y/N had told him time and time again that he could shower at her place. Bucky always just shrugged and said it was quicker to do it at the compound. But he was actually just trying to hide all the blood that was left on his skin. Y/N didn’t need to see it. Especially when it wasn’t his blood.

“I’m fine. Just a few bruises. Don’t you go starting…” Bucky warned when he saw the concern in her eyes as she stared at his bruise.

Y/N sighed and allowed him to brush over it.

Then she moved around him to hunt for some pajamas and underwear.

“What’d you tell the team?” She tried to ask in a nonchalant manner as she shuffled through her dresser.  

“What do you mean?” Bucky played stupid.

Y/N straightened and turned to give him a look. “I mean, what lie did you tell them before you came over here.”

She didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh.

“I didn’t tell them anything. I snuck out when they were all in the kitchen eating.”

Y/N didn’t say anything, just went back to find clothes.

Bucky was suddenly filled with guilt. “Y/N–”

“It’s fine, Bucky.” She threw on a crew sweatshirt without even realizing that it was one of the many items of clothing Bucky left at her place.

“It’s not fine. You’re upset.”

She was fully dressed now and turned around to face him. “I’m not upset. I’m frustrated.”

Y/N was always one to be direct with her emotions. Never lied about being fine when she was not. Always told Bucky exactly how she was feeling, even if it took her a bit to fully figure out what that was. It was one of the countless reasons he loved her. And it made him less shy about expressing his own emotions. His mental and emotional health only improved because of it. Because of her.

“OK…” Bucky said slowly, inviting her to continue.

Y/N sighed and plopped herself on the edge of her bed. He sat down next to her. 

“Look, Bucky…I know why this – us – is secret. I understand where you’re coming from. I know…” She took a breath. “I know you do it because you think it keeps me safe. But the team…they’re more than the Avengers. They’re your friends. They’re your family. And I might not have ever met them, but from what you’ve told me, they would die before they told anyone your secrets.”

Bucky swallowed and was wringing his hands in his lap, head hung in slight shame. “I know that.”

“So why are you keeping me a secret from them?”

“It has nothing to do with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Bucky immediately shot down. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of you, Y/N. Hell, every day I wake up and wonder how I even managed to snag a dame like you. If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s you.”

She waited for him to continue and explain.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” Then he reached over to hold her hand. “It’s just…I feel like as soon as you meet them, our little bubble of happiness is going to pop.” His metal hand ran through his wet hair. “When I’m with you, I just feel like Bucky. Sometimes I even feel like my old self, that naive bastard from the 30s.” He sighed. “But as soon as I introduce you to that part of my life, I’m scared you’ll see all the things about myself that I don’t want you to. You’ll be reminded that I am – was – the Winter Soldier. That I’m not just Bucky, your boyfriend. I’m a surviving POW, I’m an assassin, a soldier, an Avenger. I won’t be able to hide all my baggage once that happens.”

Y/N watched him for a moment, love was in her eyes.

“Bucky, I knew those things all along.”

“I know. I know, doll. But I just – I don’t want anything to change between us.”

Y/N laughed lightly. “Of course things will change between us. That’s part of a relationship. We grow together.” She laughed again. “Or grow apart.” Then her smile dropped and she got serious. “But I don’t see the latter happening for us.”

Bucky just nodded in agreement.

“They love you like I love you.” Y/N shrugged sadly. “I just want to meet the people that take care of you when you’re not with me.”

Bucky gave her a sorrowful grin.

Y/N sighed. “I’m not going to pressure you to do anything that you’re not comfortable with. I just wanted to tell you how I was feeling about it all.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for telling me.”

Their night went on like it normally did. Bucky had returned Friday night, so now he got to spend the whole weekend with his girl.

When he was gone from the compound for long periods like this, Steve was the only one that really showed concern. He thought Bucky was always on some weird mental bender, going night after night without sleep and just wandering around. Bucky figured Steve imagined him trying to get drunk from one bar to the next.

Obviously Bucky felt guilty for unnecessarily worrying his best friend, especially when he was actually doing better than OK. But letting Steve believe in the false ideas was a sacrifice Bucky was willing to make in order to have Y/N in his life.

Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about Y/N’s argument for her to meet his friends. He understood completely where she was coming from. He wished he could give her that. He wished he could give her normal – that he was a different person, who didn’t have to hyper analyze every single decision in his life in order to keep himself and the people he loved safe.

But that kind of life was taken from him when he fell off that damn train.

————————————————

“You’re a god damn idiot, you know that?” Steve snapped at Bucky as he started ripping bandages from a roll with his teeth.

Bucky was currently laying down on the quinjet’s operating table.

“Sometimes I just hate that Captain America gets all the attention,” Bucky joked.

But Steve wasn’t laughing.

Because Bucky was bleeding out. 

And he was in pain, yes. But he wasn’t about to tell anyone that.

“Well, dying on me is definitely one way to steal the spotlight, punk.”

“Captain Rogers, if I could interrupt,” Vision was looking at Bucky over Steve’s shoulder. “The bullet was a through shot and it thankfully hit no important arteries or organs. Do not be fooled by the blood, Sergeant Barnes’ super-soldier enhancements will heal him faster than the average man.”

Steve ground his teeth, thankful for Vision’s scientific encouragement but also still irritated with Bucky’s condition. “Thanks, Vision.”

“See,” Bucky started coughing. He could only imagine how pale and clammy he looked. “I’m fine.”

“Oh. Well, I do still suggest we stop the bleeding or he will surely die of blood loss.” Vision piped in again.

Bucky glared at the cyborg. “We gotta work on your delivery, pal.”

Vision winced, but got out of Steve’s way.

“You just had to go and get yourself shot. You couldn’t let me take a bullet for once,” Steve muttered as he put pressure on Bucky’s giant wound.

“Well, you see, your shield was still planted in a brick wall and I saw someone pointing a gun at you. I thought my metal arm would do the trick but the bastard shifted his aim at the last minute.” He glared at Steve for real now. “I’m not sorry. And I’d do it again.”

Steve exhaled, knowing that there was no point in scolding Bucky. The man would sacrifice himself for any of his teammates and any civilian. That’s why Steve was friends with him.

“Hey, Steve?” For the first time since getting shot, Bucky sounded scared.

“Yeah, Buck.”

“I need you to do me a favor.”

Steve nodded. “OK…”

“You can’t…You can’t ask any questions. You just have to do it, OK? I promise I’ll explain later.”

His tone was starting to worry Steve. “Bucky, you’re not dying on me, you hear me? If this is some final wish, I’ll smack you.”

“I’m not dying today. I’ve been through worse shit. Just tell me you’ll do the damn favor, Steve.”

“OK. OK. OK. What is it?”

“I’m about to pass out from the blood loss. So, listen to me carefully.” Bucky’s eyes flickered around him to make sure no one else was paying attention to him. “I need you to get my cell. Find the contact labeled Smithsonian Institution Offices. Text them that I’d like my dog tags returned from the museum. She’ll know what to do from there.”

Bucky’s body relaxed once his instructions were finished. His eyes fluttered close. Sleep sounded nice.

“She?” Steve asked.

But Bucky was already passed out.

——————————————

Steve had been pacing in the welcome lobby of the compound for a solid 20 minutes now. He was pretty sure he’d correctly put together the puzzle pieces. But Steve was having trouble believing that Bucky would do what he was suspecting.

All pacing stopped when he saw security escorting a young woman through the doors.

She was beautiful. Anyone with sight would notice that immediately.

Even if her eyes were red – which Steve suspected was from crying – they were mesmerizing.

She looked uncomfortable and clearly felt out of place at the Avengers’ compound.

Steve stepped forward. “Y/N?” He asked carefully.

She stared at him for a moment, taking him in like she was trying to match up the reality to how she had pictured him in her head.

Then she nodded.

Steve eyed the two security guards on either side of her. “I’ll take it from here. Thanks.”

Then he turned his attention to Y/N. “Follow me.”

They started their journey through the large and complicated halls of the compound. Every so often, someone walking past them would eye Y/N, not recognizing her or wondering who was lucky enough to be in the company of Captain America.

“So…” Steve felt the need to break the silence on their long walk. “You and Bucky. You’re…”

“This is not how I wanted to meet you, Steve.” She quickly rushed out. “I’m so sorry. It was Bucky’s idea, keeping me a secret.”

“Oh, I know there was no way it was anyone’s idea but his own. This has Bucky written all over it. I’m just still trying to…” Steve scratched the back of his neck, “wrap my mind around it.” Then he shook his head. “It explains a lot actually: the late nights, leaving for days at a time, keeping his phone on him at all times.”

Y/N smirked then. “I send him a lot of stupid videos during the day. Mostly cats.”

They were at the medical wing then. Steve turned to face her. “I get it. I get why he did it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still hurt that he thought he couldn’t tell me.”

Y/N nodded in agreement, understanding where he was coming from. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m happy to be meeting you now. Obviously I wish the circumstances were better.” She gave him a sad smile. “He’s told me all about you. I feel like I know all of you actually.” She bowed her head. “I practically begged him to let me meet all of you. But Bucky – he’s very protective of me.”

Steve nodded. That same characteristic was the very reason Bucky was even injured in the first place.

“He might be sleeping. But he’s in the first room on the left. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

Y/N nodded. She was about to take a step forward, but then quickly changed her mind and hurriedly pulled Steve into a hug.

Steve was caught off guard by it, but quickly recovered.

“Thanks for always taking care of him, Steve.” She whispered into his shoulder.

“I think I should be the one saying that to you…”

Y/N pulled away and quickly wiped away tears with embarrassment. “Right. I should…” She awkwardly pointed to the room and walked away.

Steve was going to give them a moment. But his curiosity couldn’t be stopped.

Ever so quietly, he tiptoed to the edge of the room and stood hidden off to the side of the door.

“Doll, please don’t cry. I promise I’m OK. It’s all part of the job.” Steve heard Bucky trying to console her.

“When I got the text,” Y/N cried. “I just knew it wasn’t you who sent it. I knew something was wrong. I’d been feeling off all day.” She sniffed. “Bucky, I was so scared.”

“Shhh. I’m OK. Everything’s OK. Come here, Y/N.”

There was shuffling and Steve could only assume Bucky had pulled her entire body to him.

“I love you,” Y/N whispered.

“I love you too, doll.”

An hour later, Steve found both of them passed out. Even injured and asleep, Bucky had both his arms protectively around Y/N, holding her as close as possible. His nose in her hair. Her head on his chest.

——————

A week later, Bucky found Steve in the study.

He’d been discharged a couple days ago, but firmly ordered not to overexert himself. The team had let him heal, all of them slowly being told about Y/N’s existence and letting her be the one to nurse Bucky back to health in privacy.

“You want to talk about this?” Bucky asked as he leaned against the doorway.

Steve closed his sketchbook and rubbed his face with a sigh.

“You’re allowed to be mad at me, you know.” Bucky added.

“I get why you did it. I do.” Then Steve finally looked at him. “But that still doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“Y/N…she was the only thing in my life that was all mine and no one else’s. Everything else about me is owned by the world. My story, my history, my imprisonment. It’s out there for the world to read and make unfair judgements about.” Bucky shook his head. “I just couldn’t bare to bring Y/N into that: to be judged and criticized.”

“It’s me we’re talking about, Bucky.” Steve argued.

“But it wouldn’t stop there. Next it would’ve been Sam, then Nat, then Tony. It’s a slippery slope. All I ever wanted to do was keep her safe, Steve.”

“I know. I know.” Steve sighed. “That’s why I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re not?”

“Of course not.”

“That means a lot to me, Steve.”

“You know, it all makes sense now.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “What does?”

“Why you’ve changed so much – and I mean for the better. You seemed happier, lighter, healthier. It’s because of Y/N, isn’t it?”

Bucky smiled even at just hearing her name. “Yeah, it is.”

Steve nodded and gave him a shy grin. “I talked to the team. They understand the situation.” His eyes grew heavy with earnestness. “Your secret is safe with us, Bucky.” He cleared his throat. “She’s one of us now. And we protect our own.”

“Thank you, Steve.”

“Can you just do us all a favor though? Can you start bringing her around? Maybe just properly introduce her to everyone at least?”

Bucky smiled. “I think we can manage that. Y/N would – that would make her really happy.”

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

I have a few more of these requests to fill. Honestly, they’ve been fun and a great palette cleanser.

Let me know what you think!

(My requests are no longer open FYI.) 

[aliceinreverselondon]

You Really Got Me – part 2: First Impressions (Kakashi Hatake x Reader)

(note: part 1)

“Will you finally tell us what she is, Kakashi sensei?”

Sakura’s question came before they even reached the elevator which meant she lasted a good two minutes before demanding answers. Letting out a long sigh, Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck. He sure hoped she would soon grow out of this slightly annoying habit of hers. Especially since Naruto was the same, but there was no chance he would change in the near future.

But he really did promise them to explain what exactly happened so he couldn’t back out now. Surprisingly, Sakura had hit the nail right on the head with her question. If he wanted to explain who you were, he had to begin with what you were. When it came to how well you knew each other, though, he would have to be careful not to give away too many personal details. No one needs nosy kids in their life.

As he pushed the button to close the door of the elevator, Kakashi let out a thoughtful hum. “Well, Y/N is a phantom. Do you know about them?” While Sakura and Naruto both shook their heads, Sasuke remained silent as usual. But this time it could be because he had already heard about her kind, as one could expect from a kid who grew up in the Uchiha Clan. “They are considered a type of tricksters, although they’re a lot more powerful as adults than your average trickster. Because of their unique abilities and backgrounds, phantoms are members of an organization that operates worldwide. It’s a lot like ANBU, except they’re independent of governments and only answer to one person.”

“So she’s an Alpha?” Sasuke asked, sounding slightly surprised for some reason. When he received a quick nod in response, he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the metal wall. “I thought they were more… serious.”

Kakashi shrugged and didn’t even try to hold back a short chuckle. “They’re not robots, they have different personalities. Y/N is… a wild one,” he added with a grin under the mask.

“Wait, what is an Alpha?” Naruto wondered out loud as his eyes scanned the faces of people around him, waiting to see who was ready to provide an answer.

“Are they the phantoms or the members of the organization?”

“Both, actually,” Kakashi replied as he glanced over at the girl. “Phantoms that aren’t good enough or simply refuse to be members of the organization are executed, this is why the two are the one and the same at the end of the day. Alpha is a nickname some gave them because you can say they are on top of the food chain. They usually work alone but every now and then they ask for the help of… specialists, humans or other supernatural creatures who have abilities or knowledge they need for the job. Those people, especially those who become regular aides, are called Betas,” he explained, this time looking at Naruto as he spoke.

The four of them left the building and Kakashi began to think about what else he should tell them about you. Your abilities? No, it would be better if you gave them a demonstration. How you met? Definitely not, his reaction to Sasuke’s question regarding your personality gave away more than enough already. To avoid further questions from the kids, he eventually decided to pull out his book and read on the rest of the trip to the restaurant.

For his luck Sakura and Naruto discussed this between themselves, occasionally trying to get some information out of Sasuke now that he wasn’t paying much attention to them. As long as they left him alone, Kakashi was okay with that. Especially because he wanted to think about the upcoming dinner with you. He wished it was just the two of you, though. After what he had done, he really wanted to make it up to you somehow. Well, maybe you could meet later to make this happen, once these three went to sleep.

Oh, how he loved and hated at the same time what you did to him. You were like a drug he just couldn’t get out of his system. But, to be honest, he had truly missed this high he was experiencing now thanks to you. He may have forgotten to call you but it didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about you once. In fact, every time he read one of the Make Out books, he couldn’t help but think about the two of you. Strangely enough, this was by far the most stable relationship he had ever had. Okay, not like he had so many other relationships in the past to compare it to but… It was still different. And special.

“You took your time, guys.”

When Kakashi looked up, his eyes fell on you as you watched them with a wide grin on your face. Tilting his head to the side for a moment, he put away his book and glanced at his watch. “You said fifteen minutes. It’s only been ten.”

“Duh, I thought you were ninjas, not a group of elderly people who went on a nice evening stroll,” you told him with a roll of your eyes.

He really wanted to laugh because he missed your stupid sense of humor, but it would’ve probably ended with him kissing you. And he wouldn’t have stopped at a quick kiss on the lips. Oh, no. If it was just the two of you, you would have skipped dinner altogether. But his mind was wandering too far again. He had to stop, damn it. “Very funny,” was all he said in the end.

“Is that blood?” Sasuke suddenly spoke up, pointing at your shirt.

“What?” You looked down and noticed the bloodstain on your chest. While you quickly zipped your red jacket to cover it up, you flashed a reassuring smile at the kids. “Don’t worry, it’s not mine.”

All three of them. All three of the kids opened their mouths at the exact same time, probably to ask for details, but Kakashi was fast enough to stop them with a pointed look. You had said it yourself back on the rooftop: there was something you quickly had to take care of. Knowing you, it was most probably an assassination and he didn’t want to talk about things like this tonight. Was it too much to ask for? Was a normal, delightful evening too much to ask for? Just one damn night.

After clearing his throat, Kakashi spoke up. “So we were about to get something to eat, right? Naruto, I’m sure you’re starving as always.”

But Naruto hesitated and scratched the back of his head as he flashed a sheepish grin at him. “Actually, as weird as it might sound, I have so many questions that I can’t even think about food right now.”

“Shoot.”

Were you seriously planning to answer his questions? “Y/N, come on,” he tried with a sigh.

“Don’t come on me. If he has questions, let him ask them.”

“We can do that inside.”

He had no luck because you clearly weren’t about to go inside anytime soon. Shaking his head, Kakashi pulled out his book and leaned against the wall of the restaurant. At least he had time to read a little more while the four of you talked. He already had a bad feeling about this conversation but for now, he decided to only listen and keep his opinion to himself. There was no need to interrupt you, he could do that if something went wrong. Which, knowing you, was highly likely.

“What kind of missions do you go on?

“Kakashi told you a few things about me, didn’t he? Well, covert missions, assassinations, manhunts… Usually, we go after supernatural creatures, but there are times when we assist in different cases too, like hostage situations. Since it’s really hard to kill us, we often help out when the situation is too dangerous for humans.”

“Cool. So what can you do?”

“Alpha’s are supposed to be powerful, right?” Kakashi looked up from his book and turned to Sasuke. Back when he had told the team about you, Sasuke didn’t seem very convinced about you being an Alpha. Sadly, he already knew where the kid was going with this, and he also knew perfectly well how you would react. But maybe he was wrong. “I can’t take you seriously enough to believe you’re one.”

“Excuse me?!”

Yes, this is exactly how he had expected you to react. “Oh, no, here we go,” he whispered under his breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

You took a threatening step toward Sasuke who didn’t even flinch at first. “You wanna see powerful?”

But when your eyes turned black, all three took a few cautious steps back to build some distance. “Y/N, please, just let it go,” Kakashi told you as he put a hand on your shoulder.

“No, no, no, if he wants to see what I can do, fine, I’ll show him. And I know just the place,” you explained hurriedly. At least your eyes were back to normal which meant you managed to calm down a bit already. That was good. He didn’t need more drama out on the street. You pulled out your phone and quickly dialed someone’s number. “Hey, Kisuke, I’d like to ask for a favor. Can I use your underground training facility tonight? I need to teach some stupid brat a lesson… No, I don’t want to kick his ass, but he pretty much called me weak so I nearly threw hands with a thirteen years old kid… Cool, thanks, we’ll be there soon.” Once you ended the call, you turned to the kids and said, “Alright, we’ll order food and eat there. Let’s go, my car’s just around the corner.”

Note: Wow, I wasn’t expecting so many of you to like the pilot. But here’s part 2, I hope you’re not disappointed 😳

tag: @spn-obession​

[logo-comics]

The Toy Army

Thought it’d be fun to show all of my toy soldiers. This is all the teams, and I’ll display each team’s individual members and their modifications later. Right now, getting all of them together for the group pictures took up way more time than I’d expected. I actually have others, but these are the classic action figures and there’s already 54 of them, so I’m sticking with these.

I’ll go more in-depth on each of them when I show the individual versions.

First up are the two generals, who I’ve shown before.

After them are two separate toy soldiers that came with a helicopter and a boat and two Fortnite figures that I swapped parts for and painted.

Next batch mostly came from Star Wars single packs, since there are so few sets that sell female figures, so I bought duplicates, and the spare head that came from one of the figures was attached to a modified toy soldier’s body, which I’ll explain later. The other two were also Fortnite figures that I also swapped parts from and painted.

The next batch were a cheap ninja set that I modified in ways that I hadn’t thought of before I got to them.

This batch, you should recognize the one on the right hand side of the picture. These, I started toying with mixing and matching arts, as well as making use of body parts in ways they weren’t originally designed for. The one on the left hand side, I did some minor things to and his bike was just painted.

This particular batch was the one where I first started painting the figures, with only one of them being modified, and that was because I got him in the state he was in prior to my working on him

With this batch, I didn’t do much, but the things I did do, I particularly enjoy.

And finally, this batch was a batch I got for Christmas last year, which I enjoyed working on.

I’ll be using this post to make a thread for the individual members, which I’ll keep tagged with “logo’s crafting chronicles”.

[turtlethon]

"Return of the Shredder"

Season 2, Episode 1

First US Airdate: November 26, 1988 First UK Airdate (Hero Turtles version): January 3, 1990

Shredder re-emerges from Dimension X with a plan to frame the Turtles.

Turtlethon continues with a look at "Return of the Shredder", the first episode of season 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987). A memorable and historic episode in many ways, so apologies in advance if I go on a bit! This one is a story by season one's writers David Wise and Patti Howeth, but with a writing credit for Christy Marx.

"Return of the Shredder" is the first episode to air on the BBC in the UK as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles at the beginning of 1990, opposite Mr Majeika on ITV; The TV scheduling equivalent of being the first jobber to lose to Goldberg.

For most UK kids, this would have been the first piece of Turtles media they'd ever seen. And without any knowledge of S1, it raises a lot of questions. As mentioned in the "Turtle Tracks" recap, things like the comic adaptation and trading cards would do a lot of heavy lifting to fill in the gaps. The other notable thing is there's STILL a lot of ninja content in this episode, and some weapons use. It was largely edited out of the Hero Turtles version but the BBC took it upon themselves to make at least one additional edit.

2021 UPDATE: When I first revisited this episode in January 2020, I only had access to a German dub of the Hero Turtles version for comparison purposes. Since then I’ve been able to acquire multiple English language VHS releases of the TMHT edit of Return of the Shredder, so I’ll discuss the changes made in a separate post.

This episode opens with Michelangelo and Leonardo witnessing a robbery while shopping for groceries. They make short work of the crooks and after making their escape, April interviews the cashier about the incident for the Happy Hour News.

The German dubbers took some interesting liberties when they adapted the above interaction between April and Burne Thompson.

USA version

APRIL: They're heroes, I tell you!

BURNE: Bushwa!

German dub

APRIL: They're heroes, I tell you!

BURNE: BULLSHIT!

This episode includes the first appearance of Burne's girlfriend Tiffany, whose shtick is that she finds turtles disgusting. She considers anyone that defends them a "lousy turtle lover".

(Tiffany definitely went on to become one of those MAGA blondes that has a selfie of themselves in the car wearing giant shades as their userpic)

We then get a scene where the Turtles explain at length their connections to Splinter and Shredder, no doubt much to the relief of anyone watching the Hero Turtles run.

One of the first major turtle mix-ups here, where Raph is depicted talking at length but has Leo's voice. There's a way better one later on in this ep though.

Splinter has a vision that Shredder is about to return. I'd forgotten about this aspect of his character, where he has some vague mystical sixth sense about things and isn't just a wise old man that got turned into a rat. I kinda hate it to be honest.

Krang teleports Shredder to Central Park(?) where he's approached by two knife-wielding muggers, all of which remains intact in Hero Turtles. Why are nunchucks verboten and knives aren't? Your guess is as good as mine...

Shredder sees off the muggers by chopping a branch off a tree that kinda falls in front of them. They're so impressed that they give all THEIR money to HIM and run away.

This isn't even the only time in this episode that he gets people on-board by just wrecking up the place.

At the Slash-For-Cash Dojo, Shredder encounters Smash, voiced by Peter Cullen in sadly his only TMNT '87 appearance.

Ironically, Smash looks nothing like Smash from famous WWF tag team Demolition (Barry Darsow) but kinda does resemble his partner Ax (Bill Eadie).

Persuasion, the Shredder Way:

1) Walk in to someone's place of business and announce you're in charge now

2) When they object, destroy their property

3) Everyone will be so impressed they'll immediately fall in line

London, Tokyo, Paris, Washington. I'm impressed that Channel 6 is apparently so well-connected, considering we typically only ever see about four people working there

Over an unspecified amount of time Shredder turns Smash's useless students into super ninjas. They're all presented with spiffy turtle shell tunics.

WHO MADE THESE? Was Shredder up all night on the sewing machine meticulously crafting turtle outfits for the entire class?

The fake turtles go on a crime spree that mostly involves Smash karate-chopping cash registers and kicking bank vaults while the others watch, making the time Shredder spent training his pupils seem completely worthless. This soon makes the news, and the Turtles end up being blamed.

Shredder breaks into the asylum where Baxter is being held and they escape. They don't take the guy who thinks he's Napoleon with them, and frankly the rest of the series will be a little worse off as a result.

April's Turtlecom has a tiny satellite sticking out of the side of it.

Not a satellite dish, an actual satellite, the kind that orbits the Earth from space.

Donatello what are you doing

I love this scene where the animation just flakes out.  

Raphael = Leonardo

Leonardo = Leonardo

"Something strange has happened, now there are TWO Optimus Primes!"

5.1 billion people on Earth in 1988, and only two of them could teach a person this very nuanced method of kicking a door in.

Bizarrely, these lines of dialogue from Burne and April were sampled in Turtle Rhapsody Remix (from the 1990 TMNT movie soundtrack).

A recurring theme of the series later on will be that Shredder doesn’t know where the Turtle Lair is located, but Baxter just found it six episodes in. I guess they had to relocate after this.  

Our heroes soundly defeat Smash’s minions and grill him for info. He tells them where Shredder is, and they’re on their way.

The whole thing ends with the Turtles tracking down a kidnapped Splinter, some convoluted hi-jinks involving Baxter's rat-catcher and a battering ram, and the bad guys getting away. Pretty standard stuff.

April exposes the Crooked Turtle Gang as imposters. An infuriated Tiffany demands Burnsie debate her in the free marketplace of ideas.

The show ends with the turtles arguing about who April was winking at in her news report, only for her to break reality by responding from within the TV that it was intended for Splinter.

“Return of the Shredder” is a notable outing in a number of ways, particularly given that it ended up being the de facto first episode of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Putting that aside, it also expands on some ideas developed in the first season about the media shaping the public perception of the Turtles, something that we’ll see more of in the future (in “Turtles on Trial” next season, for example). The idea of the team being framed for crimes committed by someone else will pop up again even sooner, in “Invasion of the Punk Frogs”.

Sadly, neither Peter Cullen nor Smash will appear in TMNT after this. Other Transformers alumni will appear in guest roles throughout the series though. One character introduced here who will return is Tiffany, who we’ll see again next season.

As I alluded to previously, this episode was heavily edited to bring it in line with the BBC’s broadcast standards, in fact it might actually be the most censored in the entire run. Some of the changes made are downright ridiculous, and I’ll cover them in a future post.