#yeah that's baron here

[thetorturedlovergirl]

Maybe what we do in the shadows is the things they never did in the shadows because they have no fucking concept of hiding.

[vaguely-concerned]

I feel that during the first coffee date walk through the market, rye has a fraction of a millisecond's kneejerk trauma freakout of '...wait. wait. am I really catching feelings for a rich boy again. with how that went down last time. am I truly that stupid' (once derogatorily referred to quite openly at a party as 'young master anaxas' pet mortalitasi' to which the young master anaxas only grinned and shrugged and STILL you don't break up with his smug controlling ass for good for six more months because you have a desperate bottomless yearning pit where your self respect should go, twice shy lol). and then he actually looks at lucanis standing next to him getting harding spearmint to help with bad dreams and generally being so quietly thoughtful and sweet through the prosaic yet necessary medium of grocery shopping it makes me feel a little unwell to truly contemplate. and rye is like '*the softest fondest eyes anyone has ever turned on anything* ...you know what. I suspect we don't have to worry about that repeating, I think we're probably safe. I am comfortable being this level of stupid. (slowly dawning marital intent even at this stage)'.

(part of the reason rye buys NONE of illario's bullshit at all right from the beginning is that he's basically vaccinated against this exact type of dude after that relationship lol. charming suave guy who in the beginning pays you a lot of lavish attention and takes pains to make you feel special every time you're in a room with him -- but shallowly and mostly, it slowly dawns on you, when there's something he wants from you (and he's often doing it at the expense of someone else, raising you up to put someone else down and you won't believe this... it can turn into a seesaw at a whim. yay). and beneath that there's just a seething pit of resentment and inferiority complexes and bitterness left to fester until he can make it everyone else's problem and that IS going to start to bubble up between the cracks with you too if you stick around for long enough. no thank you been there done that wasted my youth and potential on it and all I got was this lousy shiny set of new emotional intimacy issues haunting me for life! trust me illario I HAVE, as it were, chosen the wrong dellamorte before, which is exactly how I know I didn't this time. go get him lucanis I've got your coffee

hilarious mental image: rye and illario sitting quietly together while everyone else is busy milling about during a cursed dellamorte family dinner (the vibes are so bad. you know the vibes are bad. sitting as still as you can and hoping for calm skies is your best bet without lucanis or teia favourite child privileges to work with) and rye out of the blue gazing thoughtfully into nothing over the edge of his glass with half-lidded eyes to go 'you know. you remind me a lot of my ex. not in a good way' and illario with absolutely no shame and hilariously also something that's the closest he ever gets to real sympathy going 'yeah, I get that a lot'. best talk those two ever had, unironically. their bond leveled up to its final form that day. *soulsborne boss defeated text* MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING REACHED)

[19thcenturylover]

Wingbaron yuri but cats

I'm still on this ship, but I'm a bit embarrassed to keep drawing it and I don't have many ideas, also I'm a little focused on an au of this but aja AJDJJD. But anyways, I made this drawing a month ago but I forgot to post it and tbh, it's one of my favorites of the year :3

Kitty yuri :P (I wanted to do something more detailed and I loved it)

And this fast doodle for my au jiji :3 (Sam's wings are "organic" in this kitty versión,, yea :P

[emry-stars-art]

I hate drake so much i hope he dies a painful death in your royal AU 😡

Fairly certain this is gonna be a common agreement yes

Honestly in one version of events I just imagine Drake making a stupid mistake in a battle or border dispute and getting himself killed like a coward or an idiot because he is both of those things

In ANOTHER version I was talking about with @jtl-fics and @paradoxolotl we can make it as dramatic as we want ✨

And honestly I’ve been meaning to write it! I even started writing it, but as I went I realized it has the potential to get wayyy out of hand by way of scenes (in that it would become several scenes bc there’s so much to cover) so instead of waiting to be fully finished, I am going to give us all an early sparknotes or summary of events

What I DID write all the way was what might happen when Abram and the prince run into Spear at a ball/event: here.

(⬆️POV you are a very stupid baron and you’ve just made your very last mistake)

Find the royal au writing masterpost here 💕

After all that (the snippet) goes down, Spear is probably very angry. How dare the prince act so ungrateful to his family, how dare he be threatened by the Evermore mutt, and how dare he be publicly embarrassed like that. He’s too proud to even go fume about it on his own. He’s always had people and things to take his anger out on. So he reverts back to what he knows.

No one in the castle stops him on his search of the halls. They all recognize the Spear family - of course the Spears visited often, at least before, and often enough to send their prince to live with them. The twins and anyone else in the know about the prince’s time there are extremely private about it. The staff that see Spear have no reason to think anything of his presence at all.

But Abram is still standing watch at Andrew’s door, and he doesn’t seem about to leave. Spear likely thinks it doesn’t matter much - the brat is small and unassuming except for those nasty scars. Abram even gets distracted by a small crash coming from the direction of the stairs, wandering a little way down to see.

It should have been obvious not to underestimate an official royal bodyguard. Spear hasn’t even touched the door before Abram is there, pinning an arm behind his back as something sharp again presses to Spear’s jacket. The surprise knocks Spear against the prince’s door before Abram pulls him up and back a few steps.

Andrew does answer. Likely he thought it was Abram knocking, but as soon as he sees Spear he freezes. Spear doesn’t even have time to revel in the fear he caused - Abram uses all his weight to swing Spear around and shove him hard against the far wall. What Spear vainly thought was an empty threat before feels suddenly much more real, the way Abram doesn’t try to be at all gentle or careful. The blade is biting into Spear’s clothes.

And Spear is angry. The Evermore filth on him, the gall to treat Spear like this when Spear should be allowed to trample this brat under his horse. The brat thinking he had any say over the Palmetto prince.

He snarls, “Andrew, control your dog!”

And he doesn’t see it, but that snaps a little of Andrew’s panic. The only thing more potent than Andrew’s memories is his white hot anger at Abram’s, and even though Abram doesn’t react, Andrew absolutely refuses to let that slide.

Spear hears, “Dont let him touch you,” and then he’s released. Finally, he can get a little justice for this treatment. He turns and raises a hand to strike Abram.

Abram takes off his hand as he swings.

Andrew gets full oversight on Spear’s punishment. They have him convicted of untoward behavior, trespassing, and then Andrew allows ‘attempted destruction or harm of royal property’ only when he’s told it adds heavy consequence.

Really, it doesn’t matter all that much. Everyone in that room for the proceedings knows why he’s really there, and maybe those three charges wouldn’t always add up to a death sentence, but Aaron has been waiting for this chance. He adds ‘intention of treason’ to the trespassing charge and tells Andrew to do what he will.

Andrew doesn’t let Abram near it when they carry out the sentence. He does go through with some of his plans for Drake - he won’t ever make Drake pay 1:1 for what he’s done, but the magnitude would have been similar, had they gotten that far. They don’t, though. Andrew is doing just fine watching the proceedings, letting it pass through his eyes and ears and only be remembered when he really wanted. He had been sure he wanted this, he’d been sure it would be satisfying and cathartic. But he wasn’t feeling those things as much as he should have been.

Part of the punishment for treason is flogging. Andrew sees the strikes fall and it looks vaguely familiar. He’s seen those wounds and scars before. And suddenly it comes to him all at once; he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to watch this. He just wants Drake dead. He wants Abram.

So he moves for the first time in several minutes.

“Enough. I’m finished.”

Aaron gives him a look but gestures to the soldiers or whoever else. Andrew stands and goes to leave and there’s a scuffle behind him, yells and pounding feet. Something unsheathed and then a heavy, sickening thud. Maybe even a cut off scream.

Even then he doesn’t turn around. He can’t make himself. Spear had charged him, he understands distantly. He doesn’t know who was just struck, but the only person that should have been so close to him was his brother.

He whispers, “…Aaron?”

“Go, Andrew,” Aaron says quietly, and Andrew finally breathes again. “Abram is waiting.”

So Andrew does go, and he spends a long time holding Abram, assuring himself that Abram is there in one piece and isn’t being harmed, Drake is no longer there and can’t harm anyone else. Maybe this is far enough in that Andrew can even let himself be held, too. So he does find the catharsis and satisfaction, but not in watching Drake suffer. Just in the fact that Abram allows him close enough to hold, to play with his hair, to fall asleep there curled up in the middle of his bed. Unused mattress to every side and no space between them.

[baronafanas002]

🦇In order 4-5-6 🦇

[black-eco-sage]

// From my CO.r.E //

"If I had a heart // 01101001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101"

(Last art piece of 2024 and first of 2025, feat. Viris!)

'

'

[rats-and-robots]

Black claws twitch with each turn of the screw. Rapid faster-than-nerve movements as the limb twists, a slow, methodical movement so strange attached to the frantic digits.

They snap--clickclickclickclick--into a fist and then flash out into a wide, spread mechanical hand.

Pink eyes stare at the man. She's covered in wounds. She really shouldn't be used to this feeling. She pushes herself up, but still stares at the man who's back is to her. Smeech's old pal, the clever little honey badger of Zaun. A scrappy little shit not even as tall as Silco, but about the same age. Garion.

"Why?"

"Don't like the idea of revenge if you're bleedin' out in a busted ol' vent shaft." The hand slams itself into a fist again and green smoke hisses out of the joints, "There's a ship leaving in the morning. A wild sort o' bunch, but reliable. Not one o' mine, but people I trust. They know their way 'round a smuggle, parts or people."

They'll get you somewhere safe.

It's unsaid, but there's that tone in his voice. That same tone he used once when she was little. When he lied to Smeech about her hiding in one of his warehouses. For Silco's sake, he'd said. He was always around when she was little, left after a year or two. She'd worked out why not long after.

Still, she stares, and asks again, "Why?"

"To get you out of my fucking hair, bitch!!" The man snaps his head around, pink flashing briefly in his eyes, not unlike hers... but it rapidly fades, that eye snapping to a far wall, "...Not many folks 'round here 'member him. Not the way we do. The least I can do for him is keep his rabid rat of a daughter from dying in a ditch."

Her grip tightens in the blanket and she looks at where he's looking. And she sees it. A small memorial. It reminds her of the statue of Vander, out in that square. But it's tiny. A little hand forged thing. It's not really even all that good.

She wants to make a quick snap, something about him being a stalker, about him being an obsessed psycho. But it's all she can do not to think about how he'll never have a statue of his own like Vander does.

"...It looks like shit." Is all she manages to spit out, "He'd fucking hate it."

Garion looks somewhere on the verge of hysterics and rage. It's a laugh that breaks out of his clenched teeth, though. His fingers click along the table and grab at a vial and slam it into some injector on his leg. She stares at it. It's like the injector Silco used for his eye.

"Yeah..." The man slumps down against the table, letting out a soft wheeze of a sigh, "Yeah, 'e would..."

"...Tomorrow?"

"Early morning. Rest while you have the chance. Songbird will get you there on time and safely. Want anyone to know?"

Jinx doesn't take her eyes off the little statue, "Do they think I'm dead?"

"Aye, as far as I can tell. 'aven't discouraged it. Probably best that way."

"Ugh," She makes a noise in her throat, "World's really gone to shit if I agree with my dad's ex-boyfriend." She flops back onto the cot she's on, pointedly ignoring the half-mad giggle from Garion as he goes back to tinkering with his arm.

[iridescentoracle]

yes it's 1:47am on a friday and i am thinking about girl genius instead of going to bed

i cannot stop thinking about the theoretical possibility of a twin reveal happening in skifander. like i know we just had that light tease on monday of a maybe-reveal but i'll believe it when i see it and also i think a skifander reveal actually has an even higher chaos potential. i have like five different half-formed reveal scenarios floating around in my head right now and at least two of them involve someone actively trying to murder gil but i think my favorite at this exact moment is the idea of zeetha introducing everyone to her mom & company, with gil somewhere in the middle. zantabraxus spends the rest of the introductions being Very Normal And Polite To The Visitors and absolutely not doing anything to let on to anyone around her that she has any particular interest in gil.

at the earliest opportunity that won't draw attention she asks zeetha to bring gil (SUBTLY) to zanta's chambers/whatever so the three of them can have a nice private talk. gil's response is "oh so she does want me dead then" because he has in fact been getting some extremely weird and very intense vibes off her this whole time and he's known for ages his dad was obviously wrong about zeetha wanting him dead but he generally didn't get ideas like that out of nowhere so uhhhh Weird Intense Vibes zeetha's mom is pretending aren't there = she's the one klaus thought might intend to murder gil for some reason??

zeetha naturally laughs that off and drags him to meet zanta properly. the vibes remain Weird and Intense for about fifteen seconds as she just kind of stares at him silently for a minute before abruptly hugging him and saying something about how much she's missed him and how he's grown up so well and etc etc etc

gil, very confused, trying not to reflexively judo-flip a queen: zeetha, fully delighted by just how right she was continuing to Not Tell Him was absolutely the funniest option: [after a minute] zanta (realizing something is Up here and letting go of gil): …zeetha zanta: you did tell your brother what he was walking into and how skifander feels about twins before you brought him home, right? zeetha, cheerfully: nope! gil: her WHAT—

[imageingrunge]

Update...i am a velen enjoyer now this game is so PEAK

[lemonadeandlanguages]

"I love ordering books online, it's so convenient!"

The books:

[familyofpaladins]

The Pizza Game (Chp 4)

Chapter 4: Mikey Orders a Pizza

Chapter 1 | <Chapter 3 | X | Chapter 5>

Ao3 link

Summary:

Mikey opens a time gateway. (But not the gateway you're thinking of) words: 3423

Notes:

Bit of a time skip from the last chapter! We are still in Angstville. :3 I rewrote sections of this chapter like 3 times, so I hope the final result is okay

Michelangelo sat in the Middle of his room, books and scrolls surrounding him.

I can do this. I can do this. He repeated to himself as he took a steadying breath. (He ignored his trembling hands).

For all the years and scrolls and books he had searched for and researched, creating a Time Gateway wasn’t actually that complicated.

But years it had taken.

---

Mikey had demanded that Draxum help him find the time scepter or relics. Draxum had refused, but only because he knew that the items Michelangelo wanted no longer existed, if they ever did in the first place.

Then Mikey begged Draxum to help him look for it anyway or for any way to get his brother back. It was in the wake of Raphael’s death, and his determination was the most alive Mikey had looked in months. He needed to find some possible way to fix things. That was when Draxum caved and agreed to help him find a way to create a Time Gateway.

Draxum only knew about the theory of them in general, he could not perform the ritual himself. But he knew they were risky and usually required multiple masters to have enough power to perform one.

Mikey didn’t let any of that deter him.

Mikey was then told of where they could possibly obtain the knowledge necessary to learn how to make a time gateway. Draxum and Mikey told everyone that they were going to complete Michelangelo’s mystic training to become a master. That was true, it was one of the reasons that Draxum agreed to the search, that in doing so they would also finish his mystic training at the remaining strongholds of Mystic Teachings.

And then they had left. Over the next two years Michelangelo and Draxum found the texts to learn how to make a time gateway together, though Draxum was still wary of it, claiming the process to be very risky, both for the casters, and for time itself.

However, on the journey they found something else.

They had found that the empyrean had actually been created by the Krang’s arrival centuries ago. They found a way to mystically reverse engineer it to push back the Krang.

They had made headway over the next couple of years in the fight against the krang and gained land and resources. With the war finally turning in their favor, Mikey had other things to focus on and his plans for the time gateway were pushed to the side, even though his grief had dulled but never disappeared.

And then the krang found a way to negate the mystic attacks. The war had stalled for another 2 years, and they lost Baron Draxum during that time.

Then the krang found a way to turn the mystic attack against them, and they scrambled to hold their ground.

And then Michelangelo lost another brother, and gained a new reason to try for a time gateway.

---

According to everything he read on the matter, the only things needed to create a Gateway was: Focus and Conviction set on a clear point in time of when you wanted the gateway to open to, and an immense amount of energy to tunnel through the stream of time.

(That last part was what Barry had been worried about the most. It’ll be fine, don’t think about it.)

And okay. It was a little more complicated than just thinking about When you wanted the gateway to open. There was a lot that had to deal with sensing the flow of time, and following it back (or forward but that was more complicated) and staying connected within your own timeline and not fracturing it and possibly destroying your own time line in the process before even getting there.

Draxum had worried over that too, saying the gateway wasn’t worth the risk. But he wasn’t here to stop him, Mikey thought bitterly. Neither was his most overprotective brother. Nor the brother who had the most to say about the possibilities of time travel.

That was why Mikey had to practice now, get used to the flow of linear time, and how to reach back in it. Reach back, open a gate, and pull something (some One) Back.

He couldn’t worry about the possibility of only being able to do it once. He had to be able to do it twice. So this first attempt was just practicing. If he messed it up, he didn’t want to get stuck in a time loop of his brother dying. (Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Focus.)

He had to focus on something else. Some other time. Some other time with something he could put enough conviction in to focus on…

Well. They certainly had joked about it enough.

Mikey was going to order a pizza.

He raised his hands. Moved them in the specific pattern the scrolls said to. Felt the flow of time around him, focused on When he was wanting to go, and Reached.

It was a weird feeling. Cold rushed past him, but there was a warm chord of time he was following that connected to when he wanted to go. Trying to expand the cord into a tunnel felt like standing at the bottom of a waterfall and trying to swim upwards.

He pulled a little more from the well of mystic energy he had inside to push forward (backward? FOCUS).

He could do this. He had to do this.

He needed his brothers back.

He had to be able to do this. Just a little more.

A little more.

Come on, come on!

He could feel the push and pull of the time stream.

“Mikey?”

He just had to keep pushing, put just a little more energy into it-

“Mikey?!”

Focus. He had to focus. This couldn’t work if he was distracted.

“What are you doing?! Mikey stop!” The pleas of his (last remaining) brother were ignored. He had to FOCUS-

“Michelangelo! STOP!” The cold (hot? It felt like they were burning) hands that shook his shoulders sent him out of the timestream, faster than he had entered it. He gasped like he’d actually been holding his breath. In the dying light of the orange gateway, that had been about the size of a quarter (that was all the bigger it had gotten?) he saw Leonardo’s concerned and slightly panicked face.

Michelangelo glared at him.

“Why did you do that?! Why did you stop me?! I was So Close!” he growled. (It was a lie)

“So close to what? Mikey, what were you even doing?! Do you see what it did to you?”

“I was-“ He cut himself off. How could he explain this? “I’m fine!”

“Michelangelo. No you’re not.” Leo gently took Mikey’s hands, and he looked down at them.

There were cracks that covered his hands and spread up to his elbows. They were bleeding ever so slightly.  Well, Shit. That hadn’t ever happened before. He hadn’t noticed it at all before, but now he could feel the pain seeping into his limbs.

“Oh…. Ow.”

“Yeah ‘ow’” Leo sighed. “Sit on the bed, big man.” Leo said as he guided Mikey into sitting.

Mikey stared at his hands. Was this what Draxum had been so worried about? Pulling from the source of his mystic energy, his ninpo, and using too much it was actually pulling him apart too?

“Let me see your hands” Leo said, kneeling in front of him, holding bandages and other medical supplies. When had he stepped away to grab them? Mikey rested his hands on his brother’s metal one (Mikey had been on his journey when Leo lost the real one. He tried not to feel guilty about not being there). The movement stretched the cracks and he winced.

He couldn’t help but think how 20 years ago he might have asked for some pain relief, but it was a rare commodity now, only used in extreme cases, and this was far from the worst pain he’d ever muscled through.

They sat in silence for a few minutes as Leo wiped the blood away, and applied a very thin amount of antiseptic to the cracks.

“So you gonna tell me what you were doing, that caused this?” Leo asked conversationally as he began to wrap his hands. Leo was looking at the wrappings, but Mikey still avoided his brother’s face and looked around the room. It looked like a whirlwind had swept through and threw all his books and belongings every which way. He remembered the feeling of cold sweeping past him and wondered if maybe a whirlwind HAD swept through.

His brother was still looking at the bandages he was wrapping around his arms, giving him space, but Mikey knew he was still waiting on an answer. Where to start?

“I was…�� Mikey chuckled wetly, “I was trying to order a pizza.” His voiced cracked on the last word.

Leo turned his head at that, eyebrow raised in confusion, but the corner of his mouth was twitching at the remark.  “You were… ordering a pizza?”

“In a way…” Mikey chuckled before sighing.

Leonardo was done with the bandages and sat on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Mikey leaned into him. 35(34?) years old, and he still leaned on his older brother.

“Do you remember that one time we were talking about pizza?”

“Gonna have to be more specific there, Miguel.” Mikey butted his head against the shoulder he was leaning on.

“When we were talking about summoning pizzas?”

“Haha, yeah I remember that! And old Barry said you’d need a dimension filled with pizza for it to work? Don’t tell me you found a pizza dimension” Leo chuckled.

“No, no pizza dimension, sorry,” Mikey hummed.

“Darn.”

Mikey fiddled with the edge of his bandages before he spoke again.

“And do you remember how Donnie said it was too bad we couldn’t just travel back in time to get one?” He felt his brother stiffen. “And then Draxum said that time travel was possible but you needed a time scepter or a gateway, but that pizza wasn’t worth the risk of messing it up?”

Mikey could feel Leo looking at him. Mikey couldn’t look back at him, kept going, knowing if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to start again.

“And, and do you remember how me and Barry were gone for two years to complete my mystic training, after-“ deep breath”-after Raph died?”

“Yeah?” Mikey could hear the confusion and concern in his voice.

“I- I asked Draxum to help me find a time scepter or whatever, but he said they didn’t exist, but I kept asking about anyway to go back. And then he agreed to teach me how to make a time gateway.”

“Mikey.”

‘I- I just wanted to get Raph back!” Mikey plowed on, “You and Donnie were so angry and upset! Without Raph you were both throwing yourselves into fights and I was afraid I’d lose you too! And and I wanted him back too! So I made Barry teach me! On that trip I found all the books I needed, but it still took time to learn, and then we found out about the empyrean and we started winning and I- I stopped working on the gateway, trying to finish the fight with the Krang! And I forgot about it! And then- and now- now Donnie is dead too-” Mikey was sobbing by the end, voice cracking so bad the words barely made it out.

“Oh Mikey” Leo breathed, eyes wet, turned and wrapped him in tight hug, letting Mikey sob into his chest.

It’d been only two weeks since Donatello’s death.

“I want our brothers back, Leo. How are we supposed to do this without them?”

“I don’t know Mikey. I don’t know” And Oh. Oh shit. Leo was crying now too.

Mikey knew that Leo took Raph’s death very hard. They all did, of course, but Leo especially. They’d been co leading missions and supply runs and just watching each other’s backs. When one couldn’t handle the load, the other took it up. But then Raph was gone and Mikey himself had gone on a Mystic Journey for almost two years leaving them alone. So Leo and Donnie had relied on each other even more than before. And now Donnie was gone too. Mikey should have been more surprised by how well Leo had been holding himself together.

Mikey now realized why his brother had looked so panicked when he stopped him from opening the gateway. He didn’t want to lose his last brother.

“Shit, I’m sorry Leo” he cried and hugged his brother harder.

“Shhh Mikey” Leo whispered and rubbed soothing circles on his shell. He didn’t say it was okay, because nothing was okay.

They sat in silence for a while longer. Part of him was ashamed for crying so much when they were already surrounded by so much death and destruction. The other part of him (Dr. Feelings? Hadn’t heard from Him in a while) said that this was needed, that keeping everything locked up would just cause problems later.

They held each other and shared their grief for a few more minutes. Then they finally untangled themselves, and went back to leaning shoulder to shoulder.

“So this,” Leo pointed to his damaged arms, “was caused from you trying to open a time gateway?”

“Yeah,” Mikey sniffled.

“Guess this is why Draxum said you needed a team of sorcerers huh.”

“Yeah, trying to push the gateway through time was pretty tough. Guess it was a good thing you stopped me, I hadn’t even noticed the cracks.” Mikey rubbed at his arms, the more they sat there the heavier and more sore they felt.

“Even though you said you were close?” Leo asked, concern once again on his face.

“I wasn’t. Not really,” Mikey admitted. “I’d say I only got about… 60%? of the way there? But I was…. Also trying to go farther back than I really needed to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t kidding, earlier, when I said I was trying to get a pizza.”

Leo raised a brow in question.

“I was practicing. Seeing if I could even do it at all. Figure out how it feels to navigate the time stream. We joked about it so much,” Mikey chuckled wetly, “I thought I’d practice by pulling a pizza from the past.”

“Oh my god. You really did try to order a pizza via time travel” Leo said face palming, but Mikey saw a hint of smile, so he’d call it a win. “Wait, you were just going to pull the pizza through, not you go through the gateway itself?”

“Yeah that was the plan, though I’m not sure if it would have worked like that. That’s why I was testing it. I thought… I thought if I could just- just go back in time to right before they died, that maybe I could bring them here. Nothing else would be changed, we’d just get them back in the here and now.”

“Mikey, I’m not sure that would have worked anyway.”

“And why not?” Mikey demanded. He had worked too hard, to be told it was a fruitless endeavor (even if he already knew it).

“Because they did die,” Mikey refused to look at the purple and red bandanas tied around the sword handle that proved it. “And if you would manage to bring them here… It means you’d have pulled them from some other Time line, breaking it into branching timelines.”

“You sound like Donnie,” Mikey grumbled. Leo just smiled sadly.

“And if you did do that,” Leo continued, “you would have just made another timeline where we still lose a brother. And I don’t think either of them would want that.”

Oh.

Mikey hadn’t thought about it like that.

He still didn’t like it.

“I suppose you’re going to order me to not attempt it again?” Mikey asked, expecting a resounding “you bet your shell!”

But he was met with silence.

“Leo?”

“Well, I can’t really order you to do anything. But… I… don’t think you should try again, for pizza or our brothers,” Mikey pretended not to notice the tremor in his voice on that last word. “It seems too much of a risk for you to lose yourself in trying, and my Ninpo isn’t strong enough to help either.”

Leo paused and stared at his hands.

“Master Splinter used to say something about not wallowing in bad things of the past, that we just have to make do with what we have now. That all our experiences, good and bad, help to shape who we are.”

Mikey could remember his dad saying something like that. He thinks it had originally been said about his own fate of being forced to fight in the Battle Nexus and then captured by Draxum and mutated into a rat. And that while those events were awful for him, he wouldn’t change it for the world, because it had also given him his sons.

“So you’re saying that if we go and start trying to fix all the bad things in the past, we might miss out on the good things that also come from them?”

“Now you’re getting it,” Leo smiled at him.

“Like the finding out about the empyrean when I left after…?”

“Yeah. It helped us push back the Krang, and regain some area and resources.”

“But it didn’t last for very long…” Mikey said dejectedly.

“No, I guess it didn’t, but maybe it gave us enough time and space to find another way to finish them off for good. We still have hope that we can turn things around. As long as there’s hope that we can fix things here in the present, we shouldn’t use time travel. That… time travel will be the last possible course of action, Okay?”

“Okay, as long as you promise me you won’t die too,” Mikey knew that Leo couldn’t really promise that. But he needed his brother. Needed to know he wouldn’t throw himself into danger recklessly in vengeance or self-sacrificially.

“I promise to do my best to stay alive, as long as you do too.” That was really the best he could ask for in the situation.

“Ha, I can do that.” Mikey huffed a laugh. He continued, “So ordering pizza via time travel is a last resort, huh?”

Leo laughed the first real good laugh Mikey had heard in a long time, “Is that what-“

“What you said 15 years ago when we first had the conversation about time travel? Yep!” Mikey popped the p.

“Oh real funny old man!” Leo laughed, and locked an arm around his younger brother and gave him a good noogie.

“Old Man! Have you seen the wrinkles you’ve got!” Mikey said, affronted, while he failed to wiggle out of the hold.

“Not as many as you! And all that grey hair!”

“Excuse you! This is not hair, NOR grey! And it makes me looked distinguished, thank you very much!” Mikey said with a flip of said hair. (It was actually algae that had grown while on his mystic journey with Draxum. He had been going to get rid of it, but the rolling laughter it gave Donnie at seeing the look of jealousy on Leo’s face, that Mikey got to have Hair when he didn’t… well, Mikey decided to keep it).

“It makes you look like an old man!” Leo laughed.

“You’re just jealous.” Mikey sang.

“I am not! I-“ Leo was interrupted by his communicator beeping.

“Sensei?” The high pitched voice of a 12 year old Casey asked, “Have you found Master Michelangelo yet?”

“OH RIGHT! Yeah Casey, I got him, be there in a minute!”

“Understood, Sensei!” The call ended. Mikey raised an eyebrow.

“What was that about? And Yeesh, that kid needs to relax. He knows he doesn’t have to call you that all the time right?”

“I’ve TRIED to tell him that! But the kid just won’t have it,” Leo sighed, throwing his hands up in the air, but he had a fond smile on his face. “And he made something he wants to show us, and I was supposed to come get you. We better get going.”

As Mikey followed his brother out of the room, he thought to himself, that as long as he had people he cared about, like his brother and Casey and April, around, that everything would be okay. He would keep looking forward.

<<Beginning | <Prev | | Next>

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I tripped and clicked on the first episode of A Crown of Candy again uh oh

[livelaughlovelams]

Oh man, just let me inhale, and I can ramble individually about random figures in the American Revolution who nobody cares about, and then the war in general, and if we have an extra 3 hours, I'll recite all Hamilton.

Just you wait.

😏

the spn drama could take a whole year to explain in the least so i’m good

[omgellendean]

So, Sacha Baron Cohen recently endorsed Kamala Harris in a fittingly racist islamophobic manner, by bringing back his character Borat. Yes, it's 2024.

Anyway, here's a 2022 investigation of SBC's vile Zionism and connections to the USA and Israeli intelligence, as well as an insight into the role of the US-American cinema as a propaganda tool.

Article: https://www.mintpressnews.com/closer-scrutiny-reveals-close-state-power-sacha-baron-cohen-really/279355/

Archived link: https://archive.is/7dSTL

Some quotes:

When asked about the national security state’s role in shaping pop culture, the former intelligence officer [John Kiriakou] said that it is “far more cynical” than most people realize, explaining:

” There is a branch inside the CIA’s Office Of Public Affairs whose job is solely to work with Hollywood Studios. This is something that the FBI has been doing since the 1940s. They’ll cooperate and give the red carpet treatment to any Hollywood studio that’s willing to make the CIA look good. “ [...]

In the end, “Brüno’s” production company did interview someone they claimed was a terrorist (in the Letterman interview, Baron Cohen described the man as such eight times in the space of three minutes). However, the person in question – Palestinian grocer and NGO worker Ayman Abu Aita – vigorously denied he was a terrorist at all. He claimed that Baron Cohen had told him the interview would be about his peace activism and that his life and business had been destroyed as a result. Abu Aita sued for nearly $100 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2012. [...]

Even from an early age, Sacha was reportedly obsessed with the Jewish state. “He was very Zionist, very involved in Habo,” recalled one friend, referring to Habonim Dror, a left-wing Zionist group of which he was a member. Others remembered him as “a very nerdy, very funny, Israel-oriented guy” who went to live on a kibbutz in his youth. He appears to idolize Shimon Peres, traveling to meet him in 2012 and sharing quotes from the former Israeli president on his social media accounts. Peres, of course, oversaw the genocide of Palestinians in 1948, attempted to sell nuclear weapons to Apartheid South Africa, and carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Galilee region. [...]

Unsurprisingly, Baron Cohen has also campaigned fiercely against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, presenting it as viciously antisemitic. “Boycotting? Yeah, fantastic. As long as they are Jews, it is alright. I’m not a racist, but keep the Jews out,” he said, in an attempt to satirize their position. [...]

Much of the movie is actually spent “on location” in “Kazakhstan,” where Borat takes the viewer around an unimaginably poor-looking village, making fun of how backward “his people” are. There are no Western egos or ignorance being punctured here. In fact, it was shot in a gypsy encampment in Romania, where locals were paid around $3 each to be humiliated by a man who spoke to them in a language they did not understand. The villagers were told they were appearing in a sympathetic documentary highlighting their lives. “Borat” made over $262 million at the box office. [...]

The racism was further amplified with the 2020 release of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Within the first two minutes of the sequel, Borat informs us that Kazakhstan has canceled their traditional event, “the running of the Jew,” but fortunately his country still has Holocaust Remembrance Day, “when we commemorate our heroic soldiers who ran the camps.” Borat also received an award, which he stated will be “put in our national museum along with other treasure we have confiscated from Jews.” [...]

In actual fact, as many have pointed out, Kazakhstan was a haven for Jewish people during the Holocaust, not a perpetrator of it, saving thousands of Jewish lives by taking in people from Eastern Europe and other states of the U.S.S.R. Today, the country is commended by Jewish groups as a model of tolerance. It is also, notably, not a helplessly sexist nation; Save The Children ranked it higher than the United States in its list of best countries to grow up female.

This is a rather inconvenient truth for the Israeli state-building project Baron Cohen supports. Ironically, perhaps the most shocking and newsworthy case of exposing bigotry Baron Cohen has documented has never been revealed. While in character as Brüno in Jerusalem, Baron Cohen was beaten nearly to death by an enraged crowd of homophobic Israelis, who, angered by his camp and sacrilegious attire, started stoning him, on camera. Baron Cohen was reportedly “nearly killed.” Kiriakou told MintPress that Baron Cohen told him that a rabbi even spat on him. It was the only time in his career that he broke character and desperately yelled that he was an Israeli Jew, not a homosexual foreigner. The comedian fled for his life and found refuge in a nearby store bathroom. This footage has never seen the light of day. Perhaps it sends the “wrong” message.

[misswynters]

Tag you’re it!

— short drabble

featuring. ekko x reader

Ekkos super lucky to have a cool and awesome partner like you in his life. He gives you his jacket <3 and i absolutely need him fr fr.

Zaun’s night was alive, a symphony of life and danger. Neon lights buzzed erratically, painting the streets in streaks of vibrant pinks and greens. The air was thick with humidity and the acrid stench of fumes rising from the ever-churning pipes of the undercity. You stood alone on one of the higher walkways, gazing down at the labyrinth of narrow streets below. It wasn’t safe to linger in one spot too long, especially not for someone with your reputation.

You adjusted the sleeves of the pink and black leather jacket you wore, Ekko’s jacket. It hung loose around your shoulders, the fabric worn and patched in places but still carrying the faintest scent of him. The shorts and cropped tank top you paired with it left your legs free to move. And an essential choice given your weapon of choice: rollerblades strapped snugly to your feet. It was fast, so fast that it left pink marks on its wake.

Below you, Zaun moved like clockwork. People shuffled between stalls, exchanging goods, whispers, and the occasional stolen glance over their shoulders. Somewhere in the distance, a fight broke out, the sound of shouts and the shattering of glass punctuating the night. You exhaled deeply, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

Your girls weren’t with you tonight. The Indigo club, a group you’d built from nothing, had made a name for itself in Zaun. You helped the downtrodden, fought back against the gangs and chem-barons in your own chaotic way, and had fun doing it. For tonight though, you’d sent them home. Sometimes, the quiet helped. But it wasn’t working. The memories pressed against the edges of your mind, unrelenting.

The Enforcers had come without warning. You were only seven, sitting at the dinner table with your parents and siblings, laughing over some silly story your brother had told. Then came the shouts, the crash of boots against the door, and the sharp, metallic ring of gunfire.

Your family’s blood had stained the floorboards, and you’d been left alive, frozen in shock, staring into the lifeless eyes of your mother. That was when Silco had found you, a trembling, hollow child, and taken you under his wing. He’d molded you into something sharp and unbreakable, but even he hadn’t been able to keep you tethered. You’d escaped his world, too, carving out your own existence in Zaun’s shadows.

A sharp sound brought you back to the present.

“Gotta say, you wear that jacket way better than I ever did.”

You turned, a smirk tugging at your lips. Ekko stood a few feet away, his Z-Drive glowing faintly at his side. He looked at you the way he always did, like you were a storm he was more than willing to stand in the path of.

“Yeah?” you teased, placing a hand on your hip. “Could’ve fooled me. It’s a little big.”

He grinned, his gaze sweeping over you. “It’s not the jacket, it’s you. You make anything look good.”

“Smooth,” you replied, rolling your eyes. But you felt the warmth creeping up your neck.

Ekko stepped closer, his expression softening. “You okay? You’ve been out here alone for a while.”

“I’m fine,” you said, your voice steady. “Just needed some air. It’s been quite a day.”

“More like a life,” he muttered, his tone bitter. He reached out, brushing his fingers against your arm.

You looked away, the weight of his words pressing down on you. “Atleast i’m not alone. I have my girls, and I have you.”

“And yet, here you are, by yourself,” he said pointedly.

“Maybe I wanted some company.” You shot him a sideways glance, a challenge in your eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I heard someone was lurking on the rooftops in my jacket,” he replied, smirking. “Thought I’d check it out.”

“Well, now that you’re here,” you said, stepping back and adjusting your rollerblades, “how about a game?”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “What kind of game?”

“Tag,” you said simply, your smirk widening. “You and me. I’ve got my wheels, and you’ve got your fancy time-travel thing. Let’s see who’s faster.”

Ekko crossed his arms, a playful light in his eyes. “You’re seriously challenging me? You know I can rewind time and i have a hoverboard, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you said, waving him off. “We’ll see how much that helps you when you’re eating my dust.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Alright, you’re on. But don’t cry when I win.”

“Keep dreaming, Z-man.”

The game was chaos, pure and simple. You darted through Zaun’s twisting streets, the wheels of your rollerblades clattering against the uneven ground. Ekko chased you with his hoverboard, his Z-Drive whirring faintly every time he rewound a moment to close the distance.

You weaved between stalls, leaping over crates and sliding under low-hanging pipes with practiced ease. Ekko wasn’t far behind, his agility and quick reflexes keeping him on your tail.

“You’re not bad for a guy who can rewind time!” you called over your shoulder, laughing breathlessly.

“Ha! You’re not bad for someone I’m about to catch!” he shot back, his voice filled with exhilaration.

Just as he was about to grab your arm, you executed a sharp turn, ducking into an alley and out of his reach. His frustrated groan echoed behind you, and you couldn’t help but grin. The chase continued until you reached an open courtyard, the neon lights reflecting off the slick pavement. You skidded to a stop, panting but grinning triumphantly.

“Give up yet?” you teased, leaning on your knees.

Ekko appeared seconds later, breathing just as hard but with a smug look on his face. “You wish.”

Before you could respond, he lunged, wrapping an arm around your waist and spinning you around. You laughed, the sound echoing through the courtyard, as he set you down and held you close.

“I fucking adore you” he said, his forehead resting against yours.

“I know you do,” you replied, your breath mingling with his. For a moment, the world seemed to slow. His eyes searched yours, and you felt the weight of his gaze, the unspoken connection between you.

“You’re it,” he whispered, tagging your side lightly.

“Cheater,” you murmured, but there was no heat in your words.

“That’s me,” he said with a grin, his hand slipping down to intertwine with yours. He knew he can never be on your bad side, i mean with the way he always looked at you. With those cute puppy brown eyes. Absolutely cute. Absolutely handsome indeed he was. You were lucky to have him in your life, treating you with the outmost respect and kindness you didn’t think you deserved.

taglist. @diffusebread @xxblairslairxx @thesevi0lentdelights

banner. @anitalenia

[greenygal]

POV: You are Dimo. You are a Jäger, one of a group who are ferociously loyal to their Heterodyne masters and famously social with each other. You have always had these touchstones to lean on.

Except…suddenly there aren’t any Heterodynes. Everything is in chaos and a mysterious enemy is ravaging Europa. For everyone’s sake, the Jägergenerals make a deal to serve under a new master, Baron Wulfenbach.

Except…the Jägers are still loyal to the House of Heterodyne. So to honor that loyalty, you volunteer to go looking for a Heterodyne. You know, in case one is hidden behind the couch cushions or whatever. And it’s rough! You are officially detached from the Jägers. You can’t come back unless you find a stray Heterodyne, whom you have no reason to think actually exists, so you’re probably going to be out here forever or until you die. Which is a real possibility, because everybody in Europa hates Jägers due to all those centuries serving some of the worst sparks in Europa. (Which, all right, is fair, but still. It’s hurtful.) But you have your fellow volunteers, a little squad of three. You have another Jäger, Jenka, checking in periodically and generally riding herd. And somewhere out there are the rest of the Jägers and the Jägergenerals, doing fine. And over the years you adapt to independence; you learn to plan, and you even find yourself giving orders to the others sometimes.

And then you find an actual Heterodyne, holy shit! She’s eighteen, alone, and green as grass, but she’s got steel in her spine and she’s a crazy strong spark; you have a new mistress! Best day ever!

Except…she gets implanted with the mind of The Enemy. That’s not great. (This happened to her after you found her. You Have Failed Your Heterodyne. ETA: Also you only know about it because you listened sneakily at the door. You’re not sure this is proper Jäger behavior.) But never mind that, she’s got it under control, you all get to Mechanicsburg and she kicks ass and does SCIENCE! and fixes the Castle and reclaims the city and at the end of it she is secure as the new Heterodyne of Mechanicsburg.

Except…

Except then something happens to Mechanicsburg. Is it permanent? Dunno. But the Heterodyne was in there. The Jägergenerals were in there. Anyone in authority in Mechanicsburg was in there. Even Baron Wulfenbach was in there.

A bunch of Jägers were not in there. And they don’t know what to do without someone giving them orders, and…look, you didn’t mean to become a General. Honest. But Jenka’s off monitoring the situation in the rest of Europa, and the only remaining Jägergeneral has somehow gone undercover on the personal staff of the new Baron. They gotta be where they are, and you gotta be where you are, managing dozens of increasingly desperate Jägers and human refugees and trying to figure out what the fuck to do next.

And then the Heterodyne shows up somehow! All is not lost! She’s determined to fix everything! And someone else can be in charge now! Yay!

Except…remember the Enemy? Yeah. She’s still in the Heterodyne’s head. There are things that aren’t safe for her to know. So you have to keep secrets from your Heterodyne, and manage those things yourself without her catching on. It’s hard, but you do it. You do it so well, in fact, that you have a sinking feeling that people are just going to keep asking you to be responsible for things. You’re doomed.

POV: You are Dimo, and you need a drink. And a vacation.

…you’ll probably get the drink?