#I’m also in the process of moving so the art has been slow

[palipunk]

Modern au asma aka queen of the hijab bump

#going to post this and get back to the commission grind #Asma lavellan #oc #original character #muslim character #my art #Asma Rahimateh #artists on tumblr #original art #throwback to when the hijab bump was the look #characters of color #character design #I’m also in the process of moving so the art has been slow

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot - Chapter 63

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

This week's stunning chapter art is by @mrabubu

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Marathon Sex, Somnophilia, Bondage, Feral Behavior, Feral Donatello, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Public Sex, Dom Donnie, Human/Turtle Relationships, Turtle Noises, Roleplay, Sexual Roleplay

Synopsis:  A love story of villainous proportions! Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: crutches, muscle weakness, talk of abuse, mental breakdown

“So that’s the menu.” Mikey rose up and dusted his hands.

You leaned against a counter getting some time upright and nodded over the messy handwritten note cards Mikey had brought over. Coated in loving use and old ingredients, Mikey had clearly been fine tuning these recipes for years. They felt to you like precious artifacts with their ancient evolving notes. Moving them around affectionately and wondering how many total of these cards there were, you tipped your head towards the turtle. “How are you going to bring all this over?”

“So, we got ingredients purchased and being delivered to an agreed upon location first thing tomorrow.” Mikey paused to give a raised hand to Donnie for his participation.

Donnie, who had been writing some code on his computer, scarcely looked over.

“I’ll take everything down, start placing my mise and then head over here for my regular shift around noon to cook it up.” Mikey fanned out the cards once before sliding them back into a fold. “If I did my math right then everything will be ready for dinner at 6:30pm sharp and our guests will arrive.”

You nodded, thinking over the process.

“I’ll have my assistant in spurts.” Mikey winked at you.

You rolled your eyes. “I’m sworn to rest when I need to. I get it, but I’m not letting you do everything.”

“Everyone has different kitchen dynamics.” Mikey chirped happily. “I love seeing how they all mix and our cooking chemistry though, like 90% of the time, I default to get out of my way!”

You laughed along with him. “I get that.”

“Having someone you can deal with in your space in that kind of heated situation is a big deal.” Mikey wiggled his brow ridge around his pun.

You hummed affectionately and remembered one particular time with Donnie. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah, gotta be a marker of true love.” Mikey picked his cards and was slow to take on a forlorn look. “This is it…”

“Yeah…” You straightened a little yourself.

The family dinner marked the end of the Hamato watch. Though it hadn’t been officially discussed, you knew Mikey had passed on the information about Donnie meditating and Raph had obviously reported Donnie’s first time disengaging his powers. It had been a good sign and just about every person who’d entered the apartment since had seen some form of Donnie’s practice. The little purple particles that would percolate at a certain focused step were unmistakable. Whether Donnie was testing his emotions to manifest them or simply working on their creation, you had yet to know, but since he’d gone weeks without a single mishap, he was deemed safe enough to be left to his own devices.

Leo was just a portal away if anything went wrong.

You dampened more thinking about the blue brother. You guessed this was how it was now. You weren’t going to repair things with Leo and, after tomorrow, you never would have another chance to. You wouldn’t see him again and he would be an emergency contact at most. It stung. You knew it was probably for the best, but leaving whatever your relationship was with him in such disrepair deeply bothered you. You guessed you had others like this, people from your past that you were doomed to only have a negative memory of, but it ached regardless.

“Michelangelo.”

That was Donnie’s voice and you raised your head where your back was to him.

“Yup?”

Leo would be next and then Raph before Mikey returned for his final watch.

“I want to meet with him.”

You almost didn’t want Mikey to leave.

“…”

Maybe you could ask Raph to switch so you could sleep through most of Leo’s shift.

“Well?”

“Why?”

You blinked.

“Obvious.” You turned to find Donnie with narrowed eyes, but little heat as if he found the exchange tenuous.

“If it was, I wouldn’t have asked.” Mikey bit back with a similar lack of heat, but faint irritation.

You didn’t interject, but sent confusion toward your mate who didn’t look.

“I need to… speak with… him.” Donnie swallowed bile.

“About what? Why now?” Mikey folded his arms.

Now on one crutch, you moved from where you were leaning your weight on the counter and hooked it with learned ease to your body to go over to Donnie.

The movement caught his eye and he watched you with his closed off affection.

“If I could discuss the matter with any of you, I would have.” Donnie told you, though he spoke to Mikey.

You heard Mikey unfurl with a huff.

You tilted your head in question.

Donnie’s eyes had little response.

Mikey made an upset sound.

Donnie’s lip moved a centimeter which was the most smile you could get under these circumstances.

“He can come to dinner.”

Donnie’s head flew to Mikey in fury. “A joke!”

“Nope.” Mikey’s brow ridge bobbed, smug. “Not a question either. That’s the only way I’ll pass the message along.”

“This conversation is not for any of you!” Donnie’s lip curled back, but it was obviously out of tender fear as opposed to actual anger.

“I’ll head out when it's time.” Mikey’s shoulders bounced. “Give you space.” 

“Not for…” Donnie trailed off and looked at you in a similarly anxious way.

You weren’t meant to listen either.

You frowned.

Donnie’s gaze shot away in a pained way.

“We’ll.” Mikey was quick to add. “Step out.”

You looked to Mikey.

He nodded to you for encouragement.

“You need to talk to Splinter that badly?” You asked quietly.

Donnie flinched at the name and his wounded gaze stayed glued to the floor.

Mikey bent his elbows to the counter and waited.

“Yes.” Donnie spoke as small as he could.

Your chest tightened.

You knew you’d been keeping things from Donnie, but to hear the inkling that he was doing the same felt like a new wound.

It wasn’t on purpose, you wanted to scream.

You were going to unload on him as soon as you were alone.

That meant he probably would too.

The realization sobering, you leaned heavily into your crutch.

One more day.

“Dinner. The whole dinner. You don’t get to kick dad out after just because you feel like it.” Mikey laid down his ground rules.

This time Donnie surfaced slowly and with actual anger. “You expect me to entertain that-” He bit his tongue to keep a derogatory word out of his mouth. “-in my own home?!”

“You’re doing that with us, aren’t you?” Mikey spoke without malice.

The younger turtle even seemed oddly stoic.

He almost looked like Donnie when slipped all of himself under that emotionless mask.

Donnie’s eyes only narrowed.

“It’s either that or you try Leo, which, good fucking luck. Then there’s Raph and we both know how that’s going to go.” Mikey’s head cricked with the slightest tip.

Donnie inhaled slowly.

“You asked me for a reason.” Mikey spoke knowingly.

Donnie juggled something mentally before looking back to Mikey. “I did.”

“My terms or nothing.” Mikey lifted up and out of the conversation.

He walked over to where Leo’s portal would appear.

You saw that, as soon as Mikey’s back was turned, Donnie let a whole litany of emotions pass over his face.

There was outright fury.

You could see how much he wanted to strangle the other turtle.

There was bargaining.

He tried to work out a thousand ways he could get out of this.

There was anxiety.

The chance to speak to Splinter was slipping through his fingers and you could see just how much your boyfriend needed to do this.

You touched Donnie’s arm lightly.

He jarred from his swirling mind and you saw the whirlpool settle at the sight of you.

Another tap was more of a nudge.

You had his back.

You could take the verbal heat off if need be.

You could be Splinter’s chaperone.

Donnie’s expression welled with gratitude before he looked back to where Mikey still had his carapace to you both.

“Done. Do ask-” Donnie’s voice was gravel.

“For him to be on his best behavior?” Mikey cut Donnie off with a turn of his head that just barely showed his face’s silhouette. “I’ll ask him. I’ll do what I can, but he’s my dad.”

Leo’s portal appeared and the blue light reflected off Mikey’s eyes for a malevolent gaze.

“Our dad. The three of us.” Mikey spoke venom. “Don’t you forget.” He stepped through the portal.

-

The rest of the time until Mikey’s return was done in a preparatory wait. Leo had appeared casual with a levity that said he was ready to get this last shift over with. You imagined that he might even enjoy the dinner since it was a final blemish for him to endure. Skirting away from him to keep the mood light, you had very little to do. You mostly stuck close to Donnie who was trapped with the weight of what was coming.

Your mate stood in various parts of your apartment with nothing to keep his hands busy and eventually you coaxed him out of sight where you lingered in his space. Sneaking behind a partition felt juvenile in your own home, but you signed to each other regardless.

‘Why now?’ You started. 

‘Can’t explain like this.’

‘Later? Alone?’

‘Both of us.’

‘I’ve been planning to.’

‘Good. You’ve been avoiding Blue.’ 

‘Yeah. Long story.’

Donnie made the motion for ‘kill’ and raised his brow with delighted question.

You shook your head and placed both your hands over his.

He brought them up to his lips.

You mouthed, ‘I can’t wait to be alone with you.’

“Me too.” He murmured warmth and came down to press the side of his head to yours.

You lingered like that as long as you could.

-

You did your best, but the closer it got to Mikey’s and subsequently all the turtle’s final appearance in your home, Donnie’s stress was transferring to you. With each second hand tick of the clock, Donnie got more on edge. You meant to be strong for him. You wanted to show him that this was alright; that even though you didn’t know what big thing he wanted to discuss with Splinter was, you would be unflappable.

The only problem was, you were painfully in tune with your partner and him being upset was then permeating you through your bond.

You hated to see him uncomfortable and, though Raph recognized the dense air in the room, you could tell the older turtle was mislabeling it. All four men hadn’t been in the same room since the hospital discharge. You imagined Raph, rightfully, imagined the entire bale together bothered Donnie, especially in his own home. If there wasn’t some big talk added on top, you were sure that would have upset Donnie too, but you found it hard to believe that would have driven him to his current state.

You guessed Raph might have also thought Donnie was concerned to then be alone with his ninpo. 

You hadn’t gotten to talk to the older turtle and now still wasn’t the best time because he was just as distracted as you in watching Donnie move about like a stubborn plant searching for a crack of sunlight. In slow rotations, Donnie swayed, barely perceptible and feeling out his space blindly. He couldn’t do an activity because he was too emotionally confined to the pot, but he was deprived of something vital which had him wriggling with all his remaining strength.

You could hardly breathe by the time Leo’s portal appeared.

Raph was up and prattling on about lending a hand just to have an excuse to leave.

In a file, you watched as Mikey and Raph carted a bunch of food, pots, pans, utensils, and other kitchen gadgets in until your home was overflowing. Donnie made space on his desk and helped arrange the spill before Raph turned with his hands on his hips.

“Alright. I got class and then me and Leo will come by right on time?”

“6:30.” Mikey swung a spoon to cement his point.

Raph threw his own finger up genially and spun on one leg to leave through the portal.

“Ah!” Mikey suddenly fussed and passed the spoon off to you. “Hold it! I have something else to grab! Forgot something! You know me!”

Donnie’s head shot up where he was clearly cataloging as everything had been accounted for thus far.

“Don’t spike the food!” Raph complained but pressed a hand up to the top half of the portal like he was holding a door.

“I’m not! In this house?!” Mikey shot you a wink out of Raph’s eye line before ducking through the blue light.

“Yeah, yeah.” Raph shook his head after Mikey. “See y’all.” He gave a parting nod and disappeared as well.

“There shouldn’t be-!” Donnie furiously searched for what was misplaced.

You were about to help when Mikey returned with two stumbling leaps and a bottle of soda in hand.

Donnie gave an irritated face.

Mikey shook his head. “This was just cause I saw it. I actually forgot…”

It brought Donnie’s brow up before there was a blur and the portal shut.

For a moment, you didn’t register a change.

Then Donnie inhaled sharply and went ramrod straight.

You looked to find Splinter standing where the portal was holding a baking dish wrapped in foil. With his eyes downcast and wearing a little cardigan, he looked the picture of trying to do his best.

Your heart squeezed and you were in motion with a clunk of your crutch. “Splinter.”

“Y/N!” He walked up with his dish and found it occupying his hands. “I was worried! The boys kept me updated. I’m glad to hear that you…” He breathed a bit unsteady. “I am sorry this happened to you.”

“Yeah…” You’d heard that more times then you could count. “It is what it is…”  

“Still! Those police are an absolute joke! Useless! A waste! Morons!” Splinter huffed.

You couldn’t help but smile.

“Big Mama has been on a rampage.” Splinter told you casually before heading towards Mikey.

“Huh!? What?!” The younger turtle lowered himself to take the dish from his dad. “She what now!?”

“She was disrespected!” Splinter spoke as if this should be obvious news. “She has been methodically tearing down and restructuring the entire city center in her fury! So very her!”

“She’s…” You shook slightly in a rotation.

You looked to Donnie and couldn’t tell whether he knew that or not.

“Doing it for you!” Splinter threw a gesturing hand to you as soon as he was freed from his dish. “Oh, this is my very special green bean casserole, by the way! Also for you!”

“For…?” You took a few steps. “Wait, Big Mama can’t be doing that for me.”

“You, you.” Splinter waved a hand and looked around the packaged kitchen. “This place is too small!”

Mikey tapped his dad’s head with a spatula. “Don’t complain.”

“Hmph!” Splinter rotated. “You were her guest. Her new hotel’s poster couple! I’m surprised she hasn’t killed off and replaced the entire police department. Morons!”

He’d repeated himself, but the words didn’t seem real. “It didn’t seem like she liked me.”

“She likes you plenty! She wouldn’t do that for anyone!” Splinter turned, remembering something. “Put that in the fridge, orange!”

“I’m gonna be doing fridge Jenga, dad.” Mikey rolled his eyes. “Y/N, wanna help?”

“Uh, yeah!” You moved to set your crutch on a nearby counter. 

Splinter saw he was in the way and scrambled a few nervous steps out of the kitchen.

As you passed him, you saw him keep his head down as if he wasn’t allowed to look around the living room proper.

Concern stuck to your features as Mikey held the fridge open for you.

Stepping around it, he used the door as a barrier for a private conversation. 

You moved a few items in the icebox and gave a skeptical look as it would hide nothing.

He frowned and gave up trying to translate to instead focus on the task at hand. “How about I pass you perishables? That good?”

“Yeah. Standing in one place is easy. I’m just wobbly if I move too much.” You settled as a wedge in the fridge door as Mikey moved to pass things.

“It didn’t take too long to prep. I mean I’ve got a good few hours here so I wasn’t sweating.” He passed a few things over.

You methodically organized them.

“You’ll have to return my dear Tupperware.”

You paused in show of holding an old butter container that had something chopped inside.

“A family heirloom.” Mikey told you haughtily.

“Clearly.” You joked back and slipped it in.

Mikey walked you through the upcoming steps as you stuffed the fridge then freezer. When you came up with a semi-cleaned work surface, you glimpsed Splinter sitting on the couch near the closest arm and Donnie standing at a side angle near his desk. You imagined it would take some time for them to be able to approach each other and dove into the normalcy with Mikey. He ended up being a better teacher at cooking than meditation and walked you slowly through what you could best help with. In contrast, his own tasks disappeared in a flurry where he chatted casually as he moved around a full stove’s worth of burners and an active oven. You weren’t sure how he kept track of all the different cook times, but he seemed to know just when to move or extract something.

It had been at least an hour and you were casually washing some utensils for their third or fourth use when you heard Splinter’s voice. “You’ve made… quite the home.”

You didn’t hear Donnie respond and instead turned to Mikey who knowingly held up more dirty dishes.

With those soon cleaned, you moved on to oven Tetris for the many dishes that needed to be baked when you heard Donnie say something.

“You are still in contact with Big Mama.” 

“Y/N!” Mikey blurred through your vision, moving faster than your eye to put the last pans in and slam the oven door shut for you. “You gotta look at this sunset!”

“Sun… set?” You blinked.

“Yeah!” Mikey slipped around you and opened the kitchen window.

“The sun doesn’t set for another-”

“It’s beautiful, you have to see!” As if it were a door, Mikey stepped right through the opening. 

You stumbled a few steps after him in confusion and bit your lip on a noise when his arms shot out to grab you. In one perfect tipping lift, you were hoisted up and angled right through the window before you were set on the fire escape. “Wha-!?”

Mikey held a finger up to his lips and put great care in slowly closing the window.

When it was noiselessly shut he let out a big sigh.

“It’s time.” Mikey told you and then fell back to sit on a metal step.

“They’re talking?” You perked up.

“Yep. Not about to be a part of all that.” Mikey twirled a lazy finger and took a deep breath of city air. “Sky’s mostly blue.”

You leaned against the brick to look up. “Yeah…”

“It’s pretty.” Mikey murmured.

“Yeah.” You agreed.

For a long time you sat in the moment and let the bustle buzz as a dull hum until you made it over to Mikey. He moved aside to give you room and you both occupied the same step.

“Can you hear them?” You asked softly so as not to disrupt the moment.

“Nope.” Mikey tipped his head towards you. “Donnie’s got super glass or whatever he does.”

You snorted. “You’re going to slip up calling him that.”

“He can get me then.” Mikey threw up lazy fisticuffs.

“Thank you.”

“For saying I’ll fight him?” Mikey still had his arm’s akimbo and looked at you.

You bumped him with your shoulder, but left your body pressed to his. “For helping save me. For shortening my healing time. For teaching Donnie meditation. For making all this food. For getting Splinter...” You shook your head at the list. “For texting me about Donnie cooking.”

Mikey lightly chuffed and leaned a metered amount of his weight back. “I should thank you.”

“For what?” You looked at him.

You got to see up close how gooey his expression was when he turned to you. “For saving him.”

“I didn’t.” You shook your head. “He saved himself. I just got to watch.”

Mikey thought for a moment and returned. “Let me rephrase.”

“Go ahead.” You chuckled.

“Thank you for making him happy.”

Your heart jumped and you smiled brightly.

“Cute.” Mikey teased and leaned his carapace back on the steps.

You nudged him lightly where you couldn’t do the same and stared out at the darkening city until you felt a familiar pressure in your stomach. “Oh no…”

“What?” Mikey’s voice was sleepy.

“I have to pee.” You groaned and remembered how you’d been so on edge with Donnie many hours before Mikey had even arrived. That added to the current till, meant you hadn’t visited the bathroom since early that morning.

“Hold it!” Mikey sat up. “Do you know how rare this is!?”

“You think I don’t want to!? This was dropped on me the same time as you!”

“Yeah!” Mikey’s head shook with stress. “Stupid secret diner meetings with dad were not on my Donnie bingo card, but this marks the fourth time they’ve spoken ever! So I say again: hold it!”

“We have to go inside eventually!”

“Yeah, when the timers go off!”

Something beeped.

One single clear time.

“Mikey…”

Mikey paled.

“What was that!?”

“The… fifteen minute warning?” Mikey eeked out and went to grab his phone. “It’s 6:15…”

“We need to go inside!”

“We can wait!”

“Let’s just peek!”

“You peek!” Mikey scrambled up a step further from the window. “I’m not chancing nothing!”

You didn’t blame him in the slightest and inched forward slowly where your hips were weary. Nothing you couldn’t handle as you were a base level of sore as of late, you edged forward and carefully placed your fingers to the sill before hoisting yourself up to look inside. A clip of the counter blocked some of your vision, but you could see Donnie sitting with his back toward you and looking down the couch where you imagined Splinter was.

“What do you see?” Mikey was obviously impatient. 

“I can only see Donnie, but there’s no signs of a fight. He’s just…” You stared hard at the back of your boyfriend’s head. “… sitting there.”

“That’s probably fine…?” Mikey seemed to be genuinely asking.

“Yeah…” Your crouch put further pressure on your bladder. “I’m opening the window.”

“Y/N!” Mikey clanged against the fire escape as he shied another step away.

“We have to go back in eventually! Everything will burn!” You pressed the jamb lightly before cracking it.

You felt the rush of air and the scent of food waft out, but little more.

Your heart beat fast in your chest and you moved to check with Mikey.

His eyes were a new kind of wide.

‘Bad?’ You mouthed as obviously as you could.

Mikey shook his head furiously.

Your abdomen pulsed.

You pushed the window further up.

Mikey caught your arm.

You wordlessly pulled from him.

His head shook so fast his hair was coming out of its tie.

You yanked to the side and both of you struggled in front of the window.

“Is it really possible to love someone who is evil?”

Both you and Mikey froze at the sound of Donnie’s voice

Then you were nearly beating each other to try to close to the window.

“I once told her I knew there was still good in her.” Splinter’s response came next.

You heard a dull sound.

Something indistinct and electronic.

Mikey’s eyes turned white and he disappeared from you.

Blinking into the empty fire escape, you swore you heard the faint sound of a timer in the distance.

That meant the food was done. 

You had to go inside no matter what. 

Stunned, you looked toward the window with your heart plummeting and pushed it all the way up so you could climb back inside.

“I was wrong!” Splinter’s voice cracked as your belly pressed against the sill, halfway through. “Still good!? What does that mean!? She never said anything, but she must have known. Why was I so hung up on the distinction? Good. Bad…” He heaved a heavy breath.

You nearly somersaulted over, but you channeled every ounce of your physical therapy and just barely saved yourself with a careful foot to the floor.

“Love does not know such things! I loved her in spite of everything. I loved her after she imprisoned me. I loved her because I loved her. Her alignment or however you would say was not what my heart chose. I chose the woman who understood me. Who sat by me. Who liked going out dancing as much as she appreciated a good movie night on the couch!”

The last of your muscle strength was spent on dropping as silently to the floor as you could.

“I wonder if it was… my fault we drifted apart and… that may be…? Oh, but these things happen... I did not condone her activities. I still don’t, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think I liked that she’s still feisty!”

Donnie gave what was almost a laugh.

It also sounded congested.

You slithered on your belly with only the intention of getting to the bathroom and not interrupting.

“Donatello. None of us chose the life we are born into. I’d say we get to choose after and to a point I did, but a certain destiny caught up with me. Right… Wrong… Who’s to say? I made the decisions I did.”

You were close to the edge of the counter.

“What I can tell you is that when the time comes, for whatever that may be, you get the choice in how you react. When I had my hand in stopping the Shredder or the Krang, I wish I could say I thought of humanity. I didn’t. I thought of my boys. I thought of…” Splinter cut himself off and his voice shook. “I did what I did out of love. I continue to do it for the same. If you are worried that is bad, then you are wrong. Love may be the only right choice any of us can make.”

Your head appeared out from the wood and you saw Splinter first.

He had slid down to the middle of the couch at some point and Donnie now took his old spot at the sofa’s arm.

With his back to you, Donnie was slightly hunched, but that wasn’t what you were looking at.

Down on Donnie’s knee, you saw Splinter’s spindly pink hand settled on top of Donnie’s.

Neither party moved and there were tears in the air.

You meant to run.

You meant to fly.

You were going to lock yourself in the bathroom.

You weren’t going to intrude on this scene.

Instead you rose at the same time a blue light flashed.

Your heart hit the floor.

Donnie and Splinter jolted apart and turned in that direction.

“Y/N!” Mikey hissed as quietly as he could behind you.

Your head tilted toward the sound, but you couldn’t peel your gaze away.

Leo slipped out of the portal with his eyes closed and a carton of cream in his hand. “Yello, dinner party people!”

Raph’s arm appeared next, but Leo froze in his way.

Donnie spun and was heading towards you with his head down.

Staring at where your boyfriend had just been on the couch, Leo was looking at the vision of his father with huge fat tears in his eyes.

“Dad…?” Leo whispered a silent spell.

As if your blood pressure hadn’t fallen enough, it broke through the floor.

Leo didn’t know Splinter was going to be here.

Mikey’s earlier action slapped you in the face.

“What-” Leo’s voice darkened and he moved toward you.

Donnie passed you and Mikey squeaked where he was clearly still in the window based on the way he struggled.

A blue light broke out behind you and you turned to watch Leo’s head appear there, cutting Donnie off. “-did you do!?”

Donnie’s head snapped upright and from this angle all you could see was Leo’s face.

It was broken glass and horrified awe.

Raph whispered something to Splinter.

He was making sure his dad was alright.

“You…” Donnie spoke against the will of his body.

Leo was stuck by only his own accord while Mikey was very literally wedged in the window.

Donnie’s got his sights on the youngest.

“Why was Leonardo not informed?” Ice crystals could have formed on Donnie’s words and you would have believed they were real.

“Th-th-that’s-! U-um!!” Mikey’s hands splat against the wall where he tugged as hard as he could before he popped out of the jamb.

He hit the ground in a flop and shot to his feet, curling around Leo’s portal.

“Th-this looks bad, but I-I told you! There was no way Leo or Raph would have agreed! I couldn’t tell them!” Mikey stopped just shy of passing his disembodied brother.

No one moved.

“They would have stopped me! Or dad!” Mikey pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes. “You know that!”

Donnie inhaled a single time.

“I agreed!”

The scene had not defrosted, but you felt everyone’s attention shift to where Splinter had yelled out.

“When Michelangelo told me you wanted to talk, he shared his concerns about the others!” Splinter’s harsh voice didn’t have a single edge. “I agreed it would be best for me to slip in! They know I am stubborn! As long as I got here, they would not make me leave!”

Smoothly, his words slid and coiled around the group.

“Do they…” Donnie lifted his head and you knew he’d placed his villain persona on. “… control you?”

 Splinter made an audible jarred sound.

“Elderly rat at the whims of his more powerful sons?” Donnie was careful in rotating so he stayed out of your view and hit a button to turn off the oven.

“Donatello…” Splinter begged.

“All you do is lie.” Donnie’s malice broke and it dripped to the floor with several hard plops. “Always! All of you!” In a spin, you finally glimpsed your mate and the tears that flung from the velocity of his rage. “You never stop! You compulsive animals!!! HOW?! HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU SAY!? WHEN YOU TAKE NOTHING SERIOUSLY?! WHEN YOU NEVER HAVE!? HOW CAN ANY OF THIS BE REAL!? WAS ANY OF THIS-!?!”

“It was!” Splinter stepped up onto the arm of the couch with tears matting his fur. “Donatello, please! You have to understand! I take this matter more seriously than any other!”

“Oh.” The cadence of Donnie’s words bled. “This then? You take this seriously? Now? NOW?!” He bellowed and even you flinched. “OBVIOUSLY NOW IN YOUR OLD AGE! LATER! OF COURSE! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! YOU ALWAYS HAD IT IN YOU! YOU JUST HAD TO HAVE ME GROVEL! NOT BEFORE THOUGH! THIS IS THE MATTER OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE! NOT WHEN A CHILD GOES MISSING! NOT WHEN A LAB EXPLODES AND YOU SAW, YOU SAW, ONE OF FOUR NOT END UP IN YOUR CLUTCHES?! NOT THEN!? NOT TO EVEN LOOK ONCE!!! NOT WHEN A LITTLE BOY WAS LEFT AND TORTURED FOR YEARS!!!”

Donnie choked.

Splinter welled up.

You looked to the others.

Mikey had brought his hands up to cover his mouth and his tears flowed from grossly large eyes.

Leo still hung, half in, half out, of his portal across the apartment and his face was painted with the bitter weight of the knowledge.

Raph’s lips drew a warped line and his features winced, but he refused to look away.

None of them knew.

Like Leo hadn’t known about the library.

Only you knew Donnie’s past.

“Now…” Donnie threw up his tear stained cheeks and checked around the air. “NOT, NOW HUH!? NOT IN THE ONLY APPLICABLE MOMENT?! NOT A SINGLE GUN!? NOT EVEN A BULLET! WHAT A HANDY FUCKING SCAPEGOAT THAT ALLUDES ME!!! YET ANOTHER BLIGHT BROUGHT UPON BY THE HAMATO NAME!! WHY!? WHY NOW!? WHY DOES MY ACCURSED NINPO NOT MANIFEST NOW!?!”

“It’s because you’re not angry.”

Donnie turned to you with outright betrayal on his features.

You rose with the blow of it and felt your face crumple. “You’re not mad… You’re… You’re sad…”

You watched, up close, how every emotion fell off Donnie’s face.

Left only with featureless surprise, his pupils shook with the empty off-whites in his eye before he turned.

He was going to run.

He needed to leave.

You would field the others.

You only needed to stop four mutant men.

Simple enough on a broken body.

They were already looking at you.

You would give Donnie an opening.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” Raph’s voice cut through at a volume that caused the wall fixtures to shake.

It created a new spell, this one stopping time instead of freezing it.

“NO-!”Raph reached into the portal near him and yanked Leo out of the kitchen and to his side where he threw an enraged finger over top to keep his younger brother in place.  

Leo’s eyes took up his entire face and his head shrank down into the top of his plastron in translation that whatever Raph was doing was new.

“MORE-!”Raph stormed into the kitchen where he skirted Donnie long enough to pick up Mikey. 

The youngest was thrown clear across the apartment, toward the door, where he barely activated his flight, and staved off colliding with the surface with a burst of orange sparks.

Raph then looked out at his family across the apartment and pointedly put his shell to you and Donnie. “-LIES!!!”

Again, the apartment shook.

He stood there, a shock of muscles quivering with rage before he turned with watery eyes. “You’re right!” Raph told Donnie. “You’ve been right!”

One of Donnie’s hands started to lift.

“All this time!” Raph’s features fragmented and he had to scrub them back into place like a sliding puzzle. “Not how you did it! You fucked that up so bad, but about us! Of course you wouldn’t trust us! How could anyone trust us!?”

Donnie had clear reservations, but didn’t speak.

“We’ve said a thousand times before that we’ll change, we’ll tell the truth, that we’re finally going to quit lying, and not once has it been different! We’re not going to be different until we stop acting like it is! What happened!? Happened! What’s done!? Is done and I’m sick and tiredof pretending it’s anything else!” Raph shook with what was almost a laugh. “I’m out, Lee. As of right now? I quit.” Coming up, he looked the most serene you’d ever seen him. “I quit the team. Hell! As it is? I quit the family.” 

You heard Leo scramble.

Raph looked right at Donnie. “I’m going to the roof and I’m going to explain our ninpo. I’m going to tell the damn smoggy sky for all I care. You come or you don’t. Raph is currently a solo act.”

Raph then walked straight over to the window and stared at it for only a second before he grabbed the casing.

Your body pulsed with fear, but Raph barely flexed and pulled the entire frame straight out of the wall and brick outside. “I’ll fix this later.”

Setting the window frame down with far too much care for the destruction he just wrought to your wall, Raph walked out onto the creaking fire escape and climbed up out of view.

Donnie only surveyed some rubble that had landed by his foot before he moved to follow.

You stared as your partner stepped onto the metal. 

He paused for a moment, never looked back, and continued after the oldest.

You felt a brush and looked down to find Splinter at your feet.

The old man gave you a single even nod before he too followed out the hole.

Leo made a noise.

As soon as Splinter stepped outside a blaring red wall appeared to block the path.

You heard a knob click.

You spun just in time to see Mikey in your front doorway where he had a similarly empty expression.

Your lips parted to ask.

Mikey drew a tight line with his. “No more lies.”

You wanted to yell that you weren’t.

Of the entire lot of them, you’d lived the most honest.

That wasn’t quite true.

You only had excuses.

Guilt wringing you out, Mikey left and the door closed behind it.

That left you and Leo.

With Mikey manning the front door and Raph blocking what was once a window, you were now trapped with the only turtle who despised you.

You stood in the lingering heat of the oven.

Despite melting down, Donnie still took the time to save the food you and Mikey had worked so hard to prepare.

You loved your mate so much.

Had you hurt him?

Why had you told him that about his ninpo?

Should you have stood up for him more?

You held your hands close to the oven handle.

It seemed then, and still did, that you had said what you needed to.

You needed to be alone with him to deal with everything that had happened. 

You’d already agreed to do exactly that. 

It would help if you had a few of those categories sorted. 

Donnie always did prefer you to have done your homework. 

He’d done his both with Splinter and then would come with spades having had a conference with Raph. 

That left you now needing to deal with your shit. 

So you said what you needed to. “Guess we could start with the easiest stuff.”

Leo grunted lightly in what you imagined was him getting to his feet.

“How you’ve said you wanted me dead twice now.” You threaded your fingers through the oven handle, but only held it.

“Wrong.” You heard Leo try the front door.

Either Mikey or S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was keeping it closed.

You imagined the automaton was somewhere with popcorn.

“At the gala, one. You wouldn’t remember my name.” You squeezed metal. “And the last time we really spoke. You said I hoped I would be your final straw.”

“I didn’t say hope.”

“But you did say you wanted me dead.”

“This is purgatory.” Leo decided and a thunk sounded that you knew to be his head against the door.

“Welcome to hell.” You gave a sort of smile. “We’re doing this.”

“Raph can’t quit.” Leo spoke distant.

You crossed the apartment.  

“We all agreed. No one was coerced. He’s not going to talk about our ninpo. We agreed.”

“It’s over, Leo.”

“I’m their leader.”

You stared.

There was no way to reach him.

He was going to encase himself in as many lies as he needed to protect his fragile heart.

You knew that all too well.

You had your own man doing the same. 

You were careful in signaling you were going to touch him before you did.

Leo only gave you a sharp glance, but didn’t move. “Dad’s there. He’ll stop him. Dad knows the threat.”

You took Leo’s wrist and led him to turn.

He came with his head down, locked in on his delusion, and turned toward you in a show that he would not be moved.

“Mikey took a different route. He’s got me. Mikey is always my best back-up. He makes openings with his ninpo. He takes the heat. He’s fire incarnate.”

You released Leo and sized him up.

“Then I slip in. You never got to see us work coordinated. Raph’s too obvious as a bruiser. Mikey’s the real tank. I’m the speed and precision and Raph finishes them off.” His foggy gaze gave way to how happy the memories were.

Your body ached and you used the pain to watch him clearly.

“We head home to dad.” Leo was exactly where he described. “He wouldn’t ask what we did. We wouldn’t ask what he did. We existed in the moment. That’s how it was. ‘Orange, whip something up.’ ‘You got it, daddy-o!’ ‘What’s on the menu tonight?’ ‘Well, we’ve got quite the array of the latest day old delights! Locally sourced from the finest dumpsters.’ ‘I’ll take the chef’s special.’ ‘Coming right up!’ ‘Think we’ll be able to pronounce it this time?’ ‘Not a chance, Rapharoni. Not a chance…’”

You hugged straight into Leo’s center.

He made an audible, “Oof.”

Getting as much of his carapace in your hands as you could, you squeezed him with all your might.

Leo’s arms hung limp over yours.

“’It’s knock-knees.’ ‘What the!? Gnocchi! What’s wrong with you?’ ‘You say it like no-key!’ ‘Of course there’s no key! We live in a subway! Where would we keep a door?’ ‘Leo!’ ‘That’s worse than your bit yesterday with the pho.’ ‘I thought you’d pho-geddaboudit!’ ‘Not again!’ ‘Why do you always do that!?’”

Fat tears knocked on your head one at a time.

You hugged him tighter and his sentences devolved until he was humming the tune of the past.

What had you really learned about this man?

You had no idea.

Leo never said what he meant.

Where Donnie was precise, Leo was ambiguous.

Both calculated, Leo played mental chess thinking of his finishing move while Donnie remapped the board at each step.

While each had their advantages, it was Leo’s methodology that you couldn’t follow.

Retroactive action had once threatened your relationship with Donnie.

It destroyed your knowledge of Leo before you could even place what it was.

He was too sharp.

He knew exactly how to push other’s buttons.

He was a master manipulator.

He’d done exactly what he wanted and kept you at bay.

Not without taking critical damage himself, it just so happened that you had a knack for such a thing.

You’d only inflicted him with wounds because you hadn’t planned at all.

You had time now. 

It was with yours, you found Leo, small and trapped in what had to be his teen years.

He clung to memories before the world came crashing down around them.

His family.

He never saw them differently.

That was why he spoke the way he did.

It shaped how he acted.

He created a mold then and there and pressed the rest of him through melted wax.

Only the die was imperfect.

He decided his final move as a child and never looked back. 

His family was his entire worth and everything he did was for them. 

Only he was so focused on preserving the them of that moment, that he hadn’t seen the field of play had changed. 

They no longer needed him in the way he’d decided. 

No matter how many times they tried to tell him, he kept stubbornly forcing himself through that old mold. 

Each time he extruded a blue shape that was more and more malformed.

It showed every edge where the plates hadn’t been properly set.

Trying relentlessly to make it work, Leo had spent decades refusing to rework the machine.

He only needed to try again.

The wax was wrong.

He was wrong.

He could fix it.

He just needed to try.

He’d sat stubborn.

Long past when the materials ran out and he had begun to crush his skin between boiling metal.

Through each throttle and scar, he continued until he no longer knew when to stop.

When his family acted out of the distorted image he drew, it was an attack of his very being.

He was betrayed again and again and forced more of himself into the mold.

If only he could get it right.

It would be an injustice for you of all people to stop him.

Not you. 

Not when he’d worked so hard.

He’d worked himself past flesh and to bone.

Then from the dust, he continued to toil.

He’d been right.

You both were.

You were happenstance over a sandwich.

You’d told him about choice, but his answer sheet was worn down.

How could he make any other, when he wasn’t on your plane?

He was a trapped time traveler and his portals only cut space.

He was also wrong.

Raph’s fed up speech ghosted your ears.

Things happened.

It was done.

You felt the shift.

By speaking those few words into existence and disrupting the flow, Raph had upset the status quo in the same way you had.

Then Splinter followed.

Before Mikey made his own path.

Which left two, one wholly present and the other here in body alone.

You anchored that side of him, having hugged him so long your arms screamed with a force very unlike all the stressors from your crutches.

Leo was sobbing, but he didn’t hold you.

He simply rained his sorrows down.

What could you do?

You couldn’t tell him.

He’d heard a thousand words.

They’d had family meeting after meeting.

They’d spent a lifetime and were still in the same rut.

What about Raph’s simple action had been so different?

What about yours scared Leo so deeply, to his core?

If it was what you said, then you should have reached him.

He’d said you’d dug it out of him.

Eyes damp against his shirt, you saw a mental flurry of Leo’s baring their souls.

It wasn’t you.

It had never been you.

It had been time.

Just like Donnie.

It was time.

“You did good.”

Leo babbled a few more syllables, before he stiffened in your hold.

“You did so good.” Tears threatened your vision so you closed your eyes and put all your strength into the hug. “You were right!”

“That-” You felt his hands ghost up to push you away.

“You were!” You forced your body flush with his and sent a watery grave into his eyes. “You were right to love! You were right to fight! You were right to worry! You were right to try! You were right to do everything you could to protect your family! Leo, you did an amazing job!”

A revelation did not pass over Leo’s features.

He stared down at you, spellbound.

He saw you.

The current you.

He saw now.

“They lived!” You told the parts of him, one foreign and aged mingling with the other who hadn’t properly looked in a mirror in years. “You did it. You got them all here! You protected them!”

“I…?” He believed you.

Your cheeks threatened to swallow your eyes. “Every one of them.”

“But they…”

“But nothing!” You stepped closer into him and he had to widen his stance to stay upright. “You can keep punishing yourself, but that doesn’t do them any good! They’re waiting for you! They don’t care what you did! They care what you do now! So, you didn’t save them the way you wanted? Does that really matter? The end result is the same!”

His own philosophy crashed the pieces of him together and he wobbled.

You squeezed until you thought your shoulders might pop out of their sockets. “And that’s where you are. You’re at the end of the road, Leo. You did it. You’re done. Your job is done.”

The first breath he took gave his new form life.

The second felt the years he’d lost.

The third sipped bittersweet in the many lives the old him had touched.

Then came happiness.

In a wave so large, his teeth lined up for a decade’s wide smile.

The time between flowed like a river down his face in droves.

“You can rest.” You buried your face into him, but saved your mouth. “Your loved ones are here and they’re waiting. They’ve been waiting all this time. They want to thank you. You did everything you could.”

Leo hugged you.

In one giant sweep, all that you had squeezed into him was returned until you were nearly bowled over.

You genuinely had no idea how either of you were still upright.

“He’s in good hands.” You added as soon as you got your oxygen back.

It was crushed right back out of you and together you both cried.

The downpour washed the slate clean.

You weren’t sure if you would etch it anew, but for now you were going to store it.

There was time.

So much so, especially for Leo, that you languished in it. It brought you both stumbling to the couch where neither of you could let go. It was only after being seated side by side did you feel sturdy, but Leo didn’t let go with an arm slung around your shoulders. He grew into a frustrating weight, but there was a certain comedy to it that had you both barbing each other with little spikes for a sense of normalcy. You weren’t sure if that would be your relationship moving forward, but for now it felt like you could traverse it on your own terms.

When Raph came down the fire escape in a series of clangs, Leo only arched out where he still had a hold on you and greeted his brother with a wry smile.

If Leo’s newly current presence was obvious to you, it was plain as day for Raph, who was moving forward. “Leo!”

“Hey, bro. Miss me? Bring that big beautiful mug over here for me to see!” Leo extracted his arm from you and whispered a parting sorrow in your ear. “Sorry, doll.”

For a moment you were on a rooftop until you were back in your apartment looking at Leo.

“What can I say?” He was all smarmy charm. “A fling’s a fling! No hard feelings?”

You had a thousand insults on your tongue, but Donnie’s arms wrapped around your middle and he extracted you with a bitter glower.

Leo didn’t pay him any mind and caught Raph by the cheeks to squeeze them. “Prickly, you forget to shave?”

“What can I say? It’s past five o’clock.” Raph fluttered his lashes.

“Big news: I’m thinking about quitting too.” Leo gave Raph’s face one last squish before he let go. 

“Oh?” Raph craned his brow ridge through his mask. 

“Yeah, thinking about starting a new team. I’m still workshopping a name. I’m thinking Mayhem’s Mutants. We get ourselves a cute mascot. Everybody loves a cute mascot.” Leo tipped his head, amused. 

“He is cute.” Raph caught the joking bug. “Good luck with that, I’ll have to see. I sent out a ton of resumes and have already gotten a few calls back.” 

“That right? Well, make sure to suit up for the interviews and when they hit you with that bit at the end asking if you have any questions, you always, always, ask ‘em about parking. They eat that shit up.” Leo threw out his hand in a smoothing sailing motion. 

“Thanks. I think I will.” Raph chuckled. 

“Also, like remember though, I’m just saying, my thing has dental…! So… you know… keep your options open, alright?” Leo clucked. 

Donnie cuddled you close where he’d pulled you clean over the back of the couch.

You leaned back and bumped your head against the underside of his chin.

He rested there.

Little nail clicks were Splinter and you opened your eyes to see him crawl up onto the couch to approach his middle son.

A small fear caught you and you grabbed Donnie to share the load.

He held you tightly.

It hadn’t occurred to you that Leo’s change could be an impermeant one, but faced with this father, a certain manifestation of how he came to be could upset the balance.

You wanted to interfere, but it was out of your hands.

Splinter touched Leo’s arm before moving to cup his son’s cheek.

He then pinched hard and pulled.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Leo squawked.

“Do you know how long we’ve been waiting!?” Splinter complained.

It was the perfect response.

Leo immediately welled up with tears.

“Come on, pops! C-can’t have been that long…” Leo spoke weepy.

“Foolish boy!” Splinter scolded, but his sharp edge was disintegrating by the second. 

Raph smiled and you watched his eyes flash red.

Leo’s joined for a flicker of blue and you felt Donnie jolt around you.

Looking up you found him with a shine of purple in his iris and then the front door exploded open.

“Leo!!!” Mikey shrieked and flew straight to tackle Leo off the couch and into Raph.

“Alright, alright! There’s enough of me to go around! Stop acting like I’ll disappear into another dimension or something!” Leo complained. 

A beat of silence passed. 

“Not funny, Leo!” Raph growled and pulled all the Hamato into a hug. 

“What is wrong with you!?” Mikey hissed. 

“You dare joke-!” Splinter threw out frustrated balled fists. 

Leo laughed brightly and you felt a very specific fracture in the family mend.

You leaned further into Donnie.

He moved to envelope you, but a growl rumbled out from his stomach.

There was a pause that could only be broken by Mikey, “Dinner bell!”

Everything then went into motion. The meal was salvaged in various stages and you found that the cream you had seen Leo with was because Raph wanted to make his own dessert. He apparently had a cobbler recipe he was proud of and wanted to show off to you specifically. Splinter was able to present his green bean casserole which was admittedly delicious and supposedly his tout to where Mikey got his culinary skills. There was talk of jobs and this and that. In moving groups, you got to mostly rest as the men scarfed down comical plate loads and got into arguments over the silliest things.

It eventually broke off where Raph took full advantage of the kitchen and its central food hub as he always baked. Making quick work of repurposing a casserole dish, he eventually had time to take some measurements of a wall and Donnie dismissed him only to point outside. Raph poked his head out to find supplies on the fire escape and a calling card post-it with a caricature of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. on it that made Leo shudder. Clean up happened with Leo taking heavy point of washing many dishes and Mikey humming alongside him as a mystic dryer with orange tinted air. Raph stacked things up to eventually take with them and Donnie shot off a message to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. from his computer about what was left for the window repair.

It eventually brought a curious Raph over to the computer as he wasn’t going to let his promise go of being the one to fix it. The eldest tacked on a resume of the work he’d done around the lair where he’d expanded arch ways to better fit his size and architecture slid into Donnie’s special interest category. Both men were soon scouring blueprints and you feared it wouldn’t just be a window put back in place in your kitchen. 

Nothing you could really do to stop them, you drifted to the side, where the other pair of turtles were entertained and found Splinter alone with a cup of tea on your couch. He gestured you over and made you one where you only faintly wondered where he’d gotten his supplies. You drank an incredible cup of smooth liquid that had you sending awe at the old man who took your praise in stride. A timer went off and Leo got a little too excited. His hand went up where it had been hand mixing a bowl of cream. The fling brought ire then a laugh from Mikey who seemed relentless in hanging off the blue brother.

All of it brought smiles to Leo’s face where piping hot cobbler was passed out with fresh dollops of cream running off.

Donnie was busy fixing a schematic and didn’t step away to grab a portion.

You’d been resting for long enough and got him one sans cream as you knew the melting whip would only sog the cobbler’s crispy top, a complaint you’d known well of your partner. Bringing the plate and a fork over, you set it down beside him to take at his leisure and he passed you a distracted glance along with an affectionate mating call for your effort.

It brought a plate clanging silence to the room.

Donnie immediately bristled.

Raph was the first to break out his excitement. “Life partners?!”

Fury was abated for repulsion on Donnie’s face. “Is that your descriptor?!”

“Uh, duh.” Leo rolled his eyes. “Kinda bigger deal than boring old English to have a special way of saying ‘I love you.’ What do you call it?”

Donnie turned and tried to bury his beak into his computer.

“Nope! Not letting that go!” Leo jumped the counter with Raph excitedly gushing about romance right behind him.

It caused Donnie to up and run from the pair where they circled the apartment making kissy faces as your boyfriend got more and more flustered.

Mikey appeared by your side with a forkful of cobbler. “I’m not into the whole thing.”

You nodded for the sake of it, watching the display and witnessing Splinter doing the same with an overflowing affection.

“Cretins!” Donnie reared a hand on a turn and with it came a wall of purple that Raph and Leo both slammed into.

Leo blinked a few rapid times before he peeled his face off the projection.

“Woah…” Raph ran his hands over the clear purple swath. “When’d you learn to make less lethal stuff?”

“Was he mad mad?” Mikey asked you. “Like ninpo making mad?” 

You shook your head as you honestly didn’t believe so. 

That made this Donnie’s first projection seemingly created his will alone. 

This was confirmed for you as Donnie came forward to study the barrier with a finger curled to his lips.

“Amazing.” Leo was unenthused. “It’s literally a rectangle. Whoop-dee-doo. Wanna actually impress me, egghead? Make it disappear.”

“Here we go.” Mikey exaggerated an eye roll.

“It’s not magic!” Leo bristled.

“You were one step away from saying abracadabra.” Raph snarked.

Leo mimed the magic word mockingly to the oldest. 

Donnie had his brow wrinkled during the exchange in clear effort. 

Something then occurred to him and he leaned away with a slow exhale as if giving up.

The wall crumbled with pixels collapsing like a perfectly cleared Tetris screen.

Leo arched his mask. “Huh. Well alright.”

“Let’s try for a pistol.” Donnie flared with a tame malevolence for him.

“I’m blameless! You shoot your sensei!” Leo pointed at Raph as he exited and headed over to Splinter. “Got a cup for me?”

“I’d need to boil more wa-” Splinter yawned.

Mikey’s expression grew gooey. “About time.”

“I can stay up!” Splinter complained.

“He’ll be passed out in ten.” Raph told you.

You giggled.

“I will not! This is a special occasion!” Splinter brushed his eldest off with a wave of his hand.

Leo put the kettle on and Splinter fell asleep before it even hissed.

Burners clicked off, there was a quiet movement of gathering things and dividing leftovers. It struck you that Donnie hadn’t consumed anything, but you had a feeling he might later. All based on chance and how things held up, you did your best in choosing to take dishes he might like and a portal was soon formed to transport the rest. Straight into the lair kitchen, things were filed out with the final retrieval being Raph carrying a snoring Splinter through to put him to bed. The eldest then returned once the apartment was emptied and the three Hamato children stood in front of the portal for their goodbyes.

A less than poignant affair, you mostly got a group hug where they wished you well and there were promises of check-in texts. All in order, Donnie stood politely aside and watched on for a slight nod as his great thank you. It was accepted with a few jeers that he barked at and with that the men exited one at a time and Leo’s portal blinked away for the foreseeable future.

Donnie swept you off your feet within seconds. “What happened?”

“Which part?” You tittered as he was pressed behind you and carried you like a hostage to the bathroom.

“You were close! You smell like orange and blue all over.”

“Mikey pulled me out the window and I finally got through to Leo, for real this time.”

“You will shower and explain.” He decided gruffly and it was so endearingly him that you didn’t mind as you stripped.

He sat off to the side, peeking through the curtain as you did a quick wash of your body while regaling him with all that had occurred that night. For Mikey, Donnie cared little, but he ran a gambit of fury at the audacity of the middle Hamato for slighting you. He was still mad, but quieted as you exited the shower damp and nude. It distracted him and he only held a huff as he did his washing up at the sink where you eventually brushed your teeth. Whisked to bed in a none too romantic sense, Donnie instead ate up physical affection in a very literal sense. Mouthing over whatever skin wasn’t coated in pajamas, he obviously scented you before cuddling close where you finally asked him about how he watched your physical therapy.

He began by impressing upon you how proud he was to have you as his mate. He explained that even when he struggled to watch or help, you fought mercilessly and he couldn’t have been more enamored. He even went so far back to remark on your handling of the kidnapping, a lost time that he still applauded you for because however long it was, you’d survived. You’d eventually kissed into him, sweetly at first, in a way that reminded you of tasting a rare bottle of wine. The complexity came with airing and outpoured details.

You found out Donnie had in fact been doing mental constructions during his meditation. While Leo had stopped him from implementing new security cameras, Sinai Hospital had their own footage which Donnie had pilfered and gone through. When he played the tape back and examined it, he’d found that his ninpo didn’t just appear out of thin air, it was constructed there, piece by piece just as he had learned as a child. Hearing Mikey say meditation came with a variety techniques helped him pair the ideas and he found the schematic process to be a soothing one regardless of the lethal creation it was trying to curb. He was pleased with the progress and, as you had seen, had recently start to tap into his ninpo as a pool of energy. 

Until tonight he hadn’t been able to conjure anything, but in his increased meditation, he no longer found the raging purple flame inside him. It was now an organ like any other, only it extended far beyond his body’s reach. He could now imagine himself approaching the well as if it were a materials cache. He imagined with practice not only could he manifest anything he could imagine, but there were probably other uses for the purple ooze beyond that. 

You added what you knew about the other turtle’s power and Donnie revealed to you the conversation had on the roof. Just as Raph had said, he only explained the history and knowledge of the ninpo and nothing more. It was apparently a combined manifestation of the Hamato clan’s essence. A generational pool of power passed down, it was an exclusive art that was thought to only be tapped by wholly connecting and trusting one’s family. It manifested uniquely to each user, but seemed as unlimited and wild as all mystic arts. There was no discussion after the presensation and the trio on the roof had spent a time in silence, allowing the knowledge to permeate. 

You tucked in close to Donnie at the thought of him wholly connecting to save you, his family, and he confirmed that, in that moment, he forgot all else, but a drive to save you. Overridden yourself, you felt compelled to open up about your healing humiliations. From stink to lashing out, Donnie took his time dismantling your concerns while also rubbing those exhausted muscles of yours.

Exhaustion and eventual mutual caressing coaxed loose lips where revealed he’d asked Splinter over because he needed a firsthand account of how love worked between a supposed hero and villain. Now that the forewarned grave harm had finally come to you, Donnie found it difficult to imagine you could have any sort of safe life together so he had to turn to the only pair he knew that had chanced and survived such a feat, successful or not. You admitted what you’d overhead and Donnie didn’t fault you. He only plied affections on how you’d snuck in without his knowledge. 

Beofre he diverted back to you, there was something about the way Donnie spoke of his conversation with Splinter.

He had a finality to him.

Not as an ends, but a means to, something about his tone made you think this was the final barrier that had kept him from actually proposing. 

You had to ask if that was the case as your lids grew heavy. 

It was drawing close to dawn.

You’d spent hours catching up.

“Yes..” He breathed warmth at your intuitiveness. “I had reservations. Unrelated to the grotesque concept of asking a father’s permission, however.” 

You were both gazing at each other from your pillows. “That last bit hadn’t crossed my mind. I swear.”

“He… did help...” He admitted. “He apparently proposed to Big Mama.”

You startled as much as your tired body could.

“Her response was to reveal her plans and imprison him to fight as a slave in her arena.”

“Oh…”

“He… still has the ring.”

You reached for Donnie.

He met you with careful fingers.

You wondered if Splinter had been any sort of stuck like Leo. There was the many names the old man had and he’d been open about his regrets. A frustrating like father, like son, you supposed it made sense and felt optimistic for the Hamato going forward. 

Their familial bonds were apparently transcendent. 

“His didn’t work out, but you think ours will?” You murmured.

“He was happenstance, to be clear. An example, if anything.”

You made a curious trill.

Donnie wormed closer. “Sleep, my love.”

“What was it, Don… exactly?”

Donnie’s beak lightly brushed the tip of your nose. “I was reassured that I am unlike them. Their cycle does not apply to me. I am something new. I am me and am immune to their failure.”

You brushed his cheek with a sloppy swipe. “Only one of you.”

“And you.” He pressed closer to seal the comment, before giving you space to sleep.

💜NEXT💜

Can you believe these two have been around since chapter 21? Hard to imagine a time before my betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

#weakspotfic #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie x reader #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt x reader #donatello hamato #donnie x reader #rise donnie #rise donnie x reader #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #me #fanfiction #my fanfiction

[sitp-recs]

Some Erised Recs…

I wanted to post this yesterday but fell asleep while reviewing my blurbs lol so here’s my first 2023 reclist! Just wanted to do a lil something to celebrate these authors and artists as I did not include any Erised fics on my 2022 reclist. Hope you enjoy before the reveals, don’t forget to give these some love. You can find more lovely recs here by @thehoneybeet and here by @epitomereally

Check all Erised 2022 works!

Fic:

🍺 everything you should say by @candybarrnerd (E, 7.4k) - lush rebound fuck buddies to something else, hot and tentative, love the uncomplicated matter-of-fact tone here, sexy and refreshing!

They're not friends. But when Draco offers help, Harry takes it.

🐺 Service Bell by @shiftylinguini (E, 8k) - est relationship but make it complicated, obsessed with this nuanced pining wolf!Draco with his sharp edges and soft heart

Draco is: a werewolf, living in a cabin in the woods, minding his own business, and never going to buy plaid because he's not that much of a fucking cliche (yet). He's also counting down the days until he sees Harry again.

🎤 Meddling, Menswear, and Magic by @writcraft (M, 19k) - I’m utterly besotted with their voices, the superb level of banter oh my god. I wanna live inside this fic’s dialogue and have it for breakfast thank

Draco Malfoy is working in a job he hates and avoiding the magical world entirely, but he really is fine. When a bequest from Severus Snape brings Draco back to a much-changed magical world, he must find his place within it and navigate his growing attraction to Harry Potter in the process.

🐍 In The Company Of Serpents by @corvuscrowned (E, 25k) - an instant fave, fabulous characterization, perfect slow burn, top notch ust and some of the hottest smut I’ve read lately, so satisfying yum 🔥

There’s something wrong with the serpents at the Greengrass Ophidiarium. Luckily, a certain Parselmouth just might be able to help.

⛷️ Historians by @oknowkiss (E, 30k) - fake dating goodness with holiday vibes, the right amount of angsty pining and a gorgeous Swiss background. Just what I needed to cheer me up on a snowy day

It’s the Dumbledore’s Army Reunion Holiday, and Harry’s found himself in hot water with his friends once again, after telling them he has a boyfriend he definitely does not have. In an attempt to fix things, he’s made it his colleague on Level Nine, Draco Malfoy’s problem too. Featuring a ski chalet in Switzerland, a pair of bunk beds, and an agreement that should’ve been simple, were it not for all the bloody feelings getting in the way.

🏉 All Things Go by @sorrybutblog (E, 32k) - an enchanting 8th year romance with strong Heartstopper vibes👨‍🍳💋 our boys are so wonderfully awkward and young and lovely, my heart is melting! And the scorching UST? Superb

Draco’s back at Hogwarts by court order. Harry’s back for no particular reason at all. Some things change, some stay the same. Neither expects to spend eighth-year living in close quarters, playing rugby (poorly), staying up late, sneaking around, and finally figuring it all out.

⏳Everything is Relative to You by @thehoneybeet (E, 43k) - really brilliant take on time travel/multiverse, inventive concept exploring star-crossed lovers dynamics. It’s about the yearning!!!

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known… It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Art:

🦉Birdwatching for Beginners by dustmouth (G) - so very warm and sweet, I love the cozy vibes, the soft flirting and the ultimate Wizarding fashion as per this artist’s usual

Draco does his best to sneak out early from Ginny and Luna's Christmas party, only to be cornered by a drunk Harry Potter.

🦄 Light in the Dark by @creeeee (G) - stunning art, romantic and evocative. I love the palette and detailed outfits, want those capes in my wardrobe right now

Draco and Harry find themselves encountering more than they anticipated while performing a divine blessing within the deep thicket of the Forbidden Forest.

👔 Routinely Yours (G) by @apriicat - the softest domestic bliss we deserve, gorgeous characters (long-haired Draco!), tender intimacy, lots of cozy cuddling and boyfriending stuff

Morning routines are the best with you.

❄️ Snapshot of Moments by @drarrydoodles (E) - stunning illustrations from daily life scenes, so rich in details and full of emotion. I love how each scene comes with a short description, and the nsfw one is!!!!! 😳🔥

A snapshot of moments in Harry and Draco's relationship.

🎹 The sound of your heart by @pato-roldnart (G) - a charming and moving musicians AU, great storytelling and the prettiest boys finding inspiration together 🎵

Harry is requested to perform a musical piece for a Great Serpent, it can’t be that hard, right? What he does not expect is having to work with an annoying, distracting, good-looking Draco Malfoy.

🛌 Two Wizards, One Bed by dustmouth (G) - soft, hilarious and adorable as usual, this made me giggle the whole night! Draco’s grumpy blushing face is my fave

Harry and Draco are trapped together in a safe house. Fiery discourse ensues (intercourse, more like...)

🪢 This time, tomorrow by @bluebutter-art (M) - talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique etc etc when I tell you my heart missed a beat seeing this beauty, I’m!!!!!

Two souls, bound by fate, destined to meet again and again and again.

#drarry reclist #Erised 2022 recs

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

This summer, you starred in the very successful MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE. How has it been returning to the franchise after all these years?

It’s always wonderful and exciting. I’ve been a part of this journey now for 10 years, for three films and there are different aspects of filming it. You’re pre-filming as you are prepping, you’re getting ready, you’re training, you’re living MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. Then it’s the filming, which is wonderful, tiring, exhausting and exhilarating. And then there’s a long pause before you get to relive all of those feelings when you start promoting it. I’m excited for the fans to see it, being a huge MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE fan, but it’s also such a lovely feeling to be reminded of the journey that you’ve had because in my mind, I’m filming other things, I’m busy doing other things, so I get to sort of defibrillate those emotions again, which is just wonderful.

What do you love most about this franchise and action movies in general?

I really love building the world prior to shooting, understanding the character, getting into it. I love the training. I am fortunate to be surrounded by the best of the best when it comes to either learning to hold my breath, deep diving, jumping off a roof, martial arts, gun fighting. It is such a weird world to be thrown into, cause it’s not my world, it’s not what I do on a weekend. And the travel is a treat. 

International audiences got to know you for your role as the iconic Queen Elizabeth in THE WHITE QUEEN. How do you look back on this role?

When I was offered the role, it was such an overwhelming moment because it happened so fast. It took years to process what had happened. The process of casting took months. I remember going in and then them not calling me back and thinking that I didn’t get it. Then they called me back again three times, put me in a hotel room and then all of a sudden I got a phone call at nine in the morning and they were like ‘You’ve got the role. We’re going to color your hair. We’re going to have a table read with all the actors and you’re moving to Bruges in two days’.

I kind of work well with such pressure, but it takes time to sit down and take in what just happened. When I was receiving award nominations and I was in the room with all of the people who I look up to, I just thought ‘I don’t belong here. Am I where I should be? ‘It’s a slow domino effect of realizing how lucky I am. And today I sometimes think it was insane when that happened.

Would you describe the role of Queen Elizabeth as the role that set the tone for the future of your career?

Yes, definitely. I remember in the beginning thinking MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was what set the tone. It’s always sort of back tracing, always wanting to give praise to all the opportunities that I’ve been a part of. But it is obviously what would help my career get to the level it is today. And also it’s the fact that you’ve been given that possibility. I am going to give myself a pat on the back today. I grabbed it and I ran with it. I did what I could with the opportunity at hand. It’s not just sitting back and being grateful, it is working with what you have been handed as well.

Since THE WHITE QUEEN, you’ve starred in many big productions and have become one of the leading ladies in the industry. How do you personally feel about this ‘title’? 

It is so funny, I was having a conversation with my husband this morning at breakfast, where we were talking about our lives and what we’re missing and what we long for. You said to me that I’m one of the leading ladies in the industry. And I think I do not identify as that. I feel very lucky with the roles that I’m offered, but I always seek further and am thinking ‘Why am I not getting the indie movies? Why am I not being offered this? I should create this myself. I need to open this world for myself. I’m missing things here.’ It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for where I am, but I very rarely stand still. I am constantly moving and aspiring to do new things. Iprobably need to learn to sit back and think about how well I’m doing, grab the family and have time off as well.

This November we’ll be seeing you reprise your role in DUNE: PART TWO. What can you share with us about this sequel? 

I’m so ridiculously excited for it to come out. Everything that I have seen, the little clips when I’ve done additional dialogue recording, is phenomenal, it’s extraordinary. When we have to do some additional dialogue recordings we go into studio, so we get to see some footage. Greig Fraser has taken this film to other levels when it comes to cinematography. I don’t like lifting one role over the other, but I have to say the new characters that have come in, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, they are mind-blowing. It’s gritty and gory and Jacqueline West’s costumes and Donald Mowat’s makeup, they win every prize in my book.

How is it working in such an all star ensamble, with such big names from the industry?

I don’t value a film that I do because it is ejected with so much fame more than I do a film that has less. What I do like is meeting people who are inspiring and kind and fun. And being on a set with a lot of actors gives you the possibility to merge and to share anecdotes and stories with them if they’re open for it. You might not click with everyone, but I’m lucky enough that I did with everyone on DUNE. My point is, it doesn’t matter how famous people are or how big things are.

Before you got into acting, you had been dancing since an early age. How did your acting career actually come about?

I wasn’t a dancer, but I loved moving. My mother raised me to try things out. I did ballet, tap, dance, street, funk, jazz. I did a bridge course with four 70-year old ladies when I was 14 or 13 because I was very good at counting cards. I did basketball, gymnastics. There’s nothing I haven’t tried. And I think that open-mindedness always helped me in the world of acting. I’m never scared of trying things. I was never worried of making a foolout of myself. I’m not too worried as a person. I have always been a person of leisure in a sense that I ride the wave, I ride what is interesting for me at the moment.

I’ve never been eager to prove myself at something specific. I am a person who is not pushing myself down, but I think I was always just good enough and I never pushed that extra mile. Like, I was an Argentinian tango teacher. I was good, I wasn’t great. I didn’t go the extra mile. Acting I think is the only thing where I’ve just thrown myself in full-heartedly. 

What challenges you the most about acting?

When I was little, my morning routine and my mom’s was putting classical music on, usually Mozart. Cause she thinks that’s a good morning start for the brain. We would have a cup of tea and then we would do three card games. One was poker. We would play poker with matches and every time I was given a new hand, I was excited to see what the cards were going to be. Even to this day when I play cards, turning out my first turn of five hands or five cards is exciting. 

That’s what I feel about acting. The first time I get to walk into costume and see how they’re thinking, the first time I walk onto set to see how the set designers have done their job, meeting the actors, every moment with acting is a new hand dealt. That’s what I love a lot. Life between people is a constant dance, give and take.

You are also a mom. How hard is it being on set and balancing your career with your family life?

The privacy of life is so wonderful and I think what I have managed to do is to maintain it. This means there’s scheduling, there’s structure. Me and my family, we’ve found a really good formula to how it works. Life is life for everyone. It’s constant scheduling, whether you have a nine to five job or you work traveling the world.

Rebecca, which moment would you describe as the most defining moment of your life so far?

I think it’s the moment when I was offered the role in THE WHITE QUEEN. It took me out of my security blanket of Sweden. And it’s not that I was seeking to leave Sweden, but it opened up an entirely new world for me. Being given the lead in this BBC drama, a world that I could not even imagine what it would be like, and living abroad for so long created a new vision for me and why I kept on going. Before that, I wasn’t sure I was going to act. I’d done a Swedish film called A ONE-WAY TRIP TO ANTIBES, which I loved, but that was the only film I’d really done. So the role of Queen Elizabeth was a defining moment that my career was probably going to go in this direction.

#rebecca ferguson #interview #mi7 interview #twq interview #dune interview #dune part two #the white queen #mission impossible #photoshoot #jack waterlot shoot

[ink-flavored]

Slow-Down Announcement

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for your patience during my break, my move, and through the holidays. It means a lot that you’d all be so generous as to keep paying me while you wait. In general, your continued support is incredibly important to me. And as much as I appreciate it, I will have to ask you for a bit more patience.

Ko-Fi was an experiment I started to see if it was practical for me. I was excited about the response my AUgust 2022 prompts had gotten, and I wanted to see how my audience would respond to access to more of my writing and more of my process. I was also curious to see if I could use Ko-Fi to grow my audience, or supplement my writing career. Building a brand online is difficult, but I couldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by me.

After about 15 months, I can say I’ve had a lot of fun on Ko-Fi. I love Magnet Mondays, I like sharing what happens behind-the-scenes, and giving you all sneak peaks of what’s to come. Like I said, I’m forever grateful you thought my art to be worth paying monthly for in the first place, it’s not something I ever dreamed people would do for me. Unfortunately, posting on Ko-Fi as regularly as I wanted has become impractical for my schedule and mental health.

Keeping up with the rate of posting I promised—weekly, biweekly, and monthly, over my various categories—isn’t sustainable in my current environment. If I had the opportunity to do nothing but write for 8-hours a day, 5-days a week, it would be easy! I would have plenty of time to share my writing with you, continue my personal projects, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Sadly, my writing schedule is not so generous. My full-time office job cuts into my creative time a lot, and stacking the self-imposed obligations of my Ko-Fi schedule on top of that means that I’m “at work” a lot more than I otherwise would be.

Long story short, I’m getting fatigued trying to keep pace with Ko-Fi updates. I’m going to be slowing down my activity here, and prioritize what I can do without burning myself out. I have a flexible plan that I’ve been developing, so you know where you can find me outside of Ko-Fi if you’d still like to follow my work elsewhere.

Keep Reading below here or on Ko-Fi

First, Magnet Mondays are sticking around, but this time for free. Polls are easier than counting comments, so I’ll be hosting the weekly vote and the poems on my ink-flavored Tumblr account. I really don’t want to give up doing Magnet Mondays, since it was a lot of fun for me (and for you all too, I hope). The first poll will go up this Sunday (January 7th) and the first poem will go up the next Monday (January 15th), so I hope I’ll see you all on Tumblr! I’ll still post the final poems here on Ko-Fi for organization's sake.

Second, one of my goals for 2024 is to be more active on my new Neocities website. The freedom of having my own writing website where I can post whatever I want without the need to be overly professional like a portfolio, and no risk of getting my content reported like on social media, means that I can share a lot more of what I write. Please do check it out, and feel free to sign the guestbook while you’re there!

More generally, I want to migrate some of the Typewriter-tier behind-the-scenes posts to Tumblr and Neocities, so more people can see what goes on under the hood when I write. I don’t have imminent plans to share the exclusive content on Saturdays anywhere else—save for things like AUgust, which are already all free—but I won’t write it off.

Finally, as for the fate of this Ko-Fi account, I’ll be reworking the tiers a bit. Magnet Mondays will be free, so it can’t be a perk, and my plan is to post behind-the-scenes or exclusives sporadically, whenever I feel like I have something to share. I’ll keep the BTS to Wednesdays and the exclusives to Saturdays, but that will be the only consistency in scheduling. Nothing from the Manuscript tier needs to change, since I don’t plan on halting commissions.

Thank you all for being so understanding, and for being so generous this past year and a bit. I’m happy I even had the opportunity to try this out, and it would have been over before it started if I didn’t have people like you.

#annika talks

[verflares]

hey!!!! i LOVE your totk fic and adore the way you write and was genuinely curious as to what your writing process is like?? i’m still trying to get to grips with writing but im stuck in the endless loop of editing while i write so i end up never finishing anything 😭😭

hello!! first of all, thank you so much! i get so ^_^ whenever someone tells me they enjoy my work, words can't express how much i appreciate it now, as to answer your question, i would say.... chaotic LMAO. it's a little difficult to put it into words, especially to describe it because like... how You do things feels natural, right? but umm... i usually have an idea of what i Want to happen in the chapter planned out before i start writing, so i'll divide it into chunks. i'll usually put a little synopsis of the scene in each to help both guide my direction and remind me of what i'm doing as i write. as someone who actually also prefers to edit as i write, i feel it's been a good method in making sure i don't get overwhelmed! especially if i'm having a slow or bad writing day. as for getting out of editing loops, my usual go-to is to just... leave it and move on. i'll do this either by putting a little comment next to it (something like, a very loose reminder or even an idea of how i want the paragraph or interaction to play out), or jumping ahead to a different part of the chapter entirely and chipping away at that instead. here's a little example (from a snippet of the next chapter i'm still working on lol):

by the time i come back to what was giving me trouble, i usually realise it's fine the way i left it, or writing ahead has given me some new ideas of how to pad it out properly! i feel what's most important and encouraging for me, personally, is Progress - and that can be non-linear, too! as long as i've chipped away at the chapter in some form or other, i feel happy.

this is what i mean by chaotic, because it's a bit... all over the place LOL. i also don't do first drafts for example 💀 (but this is also because editing as you go makes it mostly non-essential imo) but i dunno! everyone's creative process is different, and if you find yourself struggling with something, it may just be good to either step back or just chip away at something else for awhile! you may be surprised at what your brain will come up with in the meantime

finally, if i could offer one more piece of writing advice, it's Reading. read, read, read! whether it be fanfiction or published works, nothing - and i mean nothing - will help you more than reading. exposure to other people's styles, their prose, will genuinely help you so much in your approach to your own work, and even ideas for what you're struggling with! and i obviously don't mean plagiarism or anything like that either of course. i just mean that considering what you Enjoyed about that creator's work will help you develop your own, and in the process, creating your unique style and process. it's the same for art and music - the creative process, especially if you're still getting used to a hobby, is filled with evolution and finding out what you enjoy about it. try things out! see what works for you! have fun with it, and remember that you are creating for Yourself most of all. (reggie fils amie voice) because if its not fun, why bother

#LONG POST I'M SORRY but uhhh i figure its a good reference point?? #genuinely i just wing things a lot. the more you practice at something the better you'll become #and remember tht Nothing will ever be perfect but thats okay! we are our own worst critics #ANYWAYS i hope this was helpful or insightful ?? even a little bit lol #if there's more i can say or clarify i will Try My Best #ask

[here2bbtstrash]

birthday drabble 4 - kth

Anonymous asked: 29. With best friend taehyung 😵‍💫

pairing: taehyung x reader contains: smut!! friends to.....lovers? (feels like a stretch), tae is a capricorn with a big dick, reader is a fucking menace, tits out for tata, handjob, spitting, dirty talk, orgasm denial 👀 summary: you decide to turn the tables on your shameless best friend.

want more? check out all my birthday drabbles here! requests for these are now closed 💜

Your best friend is a Capricorn, through and through. You know this because every time you try to bring up astrology with him, Taehyung rolls his eyes aggressively and tells you that it’s all made up. Exactly the response you’d expect from a Capricorn. He has a fucking stellium, for christ’s sake.

All that earth makes him a nightmare to communicate with. There isn’t a drop of sensitivity or gentleness to be found in his chart, and you can attest to that. The kid is fucking annoying, and relentless. He loves to say shit to rile you up and see how you’ll react, then pull back at the last second with his favorite line: “Jeez, I was just joking! Calm down.”

You’re so tired of him.

You’re also literally tired. The fuckery of your mental illness has been in full swing lately, anxiety gripping at your chest for absolutely no reason whenever you attempt to sleep. The sun was already rising by the time you managed to doze off last night, and now you’re flat on your back on the floor of Taehyung’s room, stifling yet another yawn as you scroll through Twitter on your phone.

“You know what helps with sleep?” Tae asks, apropos of nothing. He doesn’t even look up from the face he’s painting on his bedroom wall. He does this constantly, covering every square inch in random art until he gets sick of it, slaps a fresh coat of paint over everything, then repeats the process all over.

You yawn again in response.

“Orgasms.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you say with a roll of your eyes.

“I’m serious. I jerk off every night, and I’m out in five seconds.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not to make it weird,” he starts, and you instantly brace for impact. He always says this immediately before making it very weird. “But I thought about you when I came last night.”

He’s pissing you off extra today, and you refuse to let him win the way he normally does by getting you to overreact. “That’s nice,” you reply, choosing to match his deadpan tone instead. “What did you think of?”

“Your tits.” He answers immediately. “They were so distracting in that little crop top you had on.”

You hum a sigh and set your phone down on the rug next to you. It’s hot in here anyway, you reason, muggy summer air floating through the window he left open so you wouldn’t asphyxiate from paint fumes.

In one swift move, you peel your shirt and bralette over your head and toss them aside, then pick your phone back up and return to Twitter.

“Anything else?” You ask, as casually as if you were discussing the weather.

“Let’s see.” He’s clearly fighting to keep his voice steady, and your mouth turns up a little at the corner. “You were fishing my cock out of my pants.”

You have no idea if he’s answering honestly, or if he’s just saying it to see if you’ll do it. But you’re not about to lose this game of chicken. With a sigh of effort, you chuck your phone to the side again and sit up, crawling over to him on hands and knees.

Taehyung drops his paintbrush on the paper plate he’s using as a makeshift palette, leaning back against the foot of his bed to allow you plenty of room. You pop the button on his slacks easily and yank them down along with his boxers, and fuck. He’s hard already, and you had your suspicions he might be packing, but he’s still bigger than you expected. A lot bigger.

Your mouth waters a little at the sight, but you fight hard to make no discernible reaction. “Did I go slow or fast?” You ask as you wrap your hand around him, glancing up to meet his gaze as if to dare him to stop you.

The cracks in his façade are starting to show. “S-slow,” he says, unable to get it out on the first try.

You begin to lazily move the hand wrapped around him, keeping your pressure firm. “Just dry? No lube?”

Taehyung tilts his head back with a soft grunt. “Y-yeah, you– you spit on it.”

“Hmm,” you intone, and his lashes flutter as he watches you. You work up some saliva in your mouth and let it drop down onto his length, never breaking eye contact with him. When the wetness hits your hand, you spread it over his shaft, allowing you to move fluidly, your fist making a slick squelching noise as you pump him.

His hips rock up into your touch and he gasps as you rub circles into the sensitive underside of his head. “Shit.”

“Did you play with my tits, Tae?” You ask pointedly, enjoying the way he’s clearly struggling to keep up with you. “Or did you just look at them?”

“I–” his words break off with a strangled noise when you pick up the pace of your hand, and you have to bite back a laugh. This is too easy. “Fuck, can I?”

“I don’t know,” you respond with a shrug. “Can you?”

Taehyung’s hands are shaking as he reaches for you slowly, tentatively, like he’s afraid you might pull away and smack him at any second. Instead, you lean back a little to open yourself up more to him, and his strong hands find your nipples, rolling them gently between thumb and forefinger.

“Oh my god,” he groans as you continue to stroke him, his usual detached energy suddenly nowhere to be found. “You make me so fucking hard.” You feel him pulse in your fist as he says it, and that paired with the pressure of his delicate fingers is enough to make your core start to throb.

“Yeah?” You coax, unable to keep the smile off your face. “Gonna come on my tits, Tae?”

He’s breathing hard now, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he watches you work him in your hand. There’s a glint of something in his eyes, and you know your best friend is still in there because despite it all, he manages to quirk an eyebrow and shoot back, “Fucking make me.”

That’ll do it, you think to yourself. Just as quickly as you started it, you release your grip on him, scooting backwards until you’re out of his reach. Your tits bounce out of his grasp as you wipe your hand on your pants.

“I’ll have to try that next time I can’t sleep,” you say, as if nothing ever happened.

You swear his face moves through the five stages of grief and back again at the loss of your touch. “Wh–why did you stop?!”

“Tae,” you give a small laugh. “It was just a joke.” You pair the words with your sweetest smile, already reaching to pull your discarded clothes back on. “Calm down.”

#birthday drabbles~ #anonymous #taehyung smut #taehyung x reader #bts smut #ngl when i got this one i SCREAMED #the capricorn ENERGYYYYYY

[thewaltcrew]

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Fantasmic! and the recent reopening of the show in Hollywood Studios last month, let’s give a spotlight to three people who were pivotal in its creation: director Barnette Ricci, art director Tom Butsch, and composer and music producer Bruce Healey.

Fantasmic! was created as a stopgap attraction between the releases of Splash Mountain in 1989 and Toontown in 1993. Michael Eisner liked the idea of having a show in the Rivers of America to pack the restaurants along the riverfront, and possible ideas for what could kind of nighttime show could occupy the river were thrown about for years before it developed into a celebration of Disney’s animated feature films. But figuring out how to be able to project scenes from the films turned out to be a big problem, for raising and lowering traditional projection screens would not only be a clunky process on the river but also a slow one that would break the momentum of a show. Luckily, Barnette Ricci, a long-time show director for the Disney Parks who would be named a Disney Legend in 2019, found the solution on a research trip to Paris: she discovered a piece of tech developed and patented by a French company named Aquatique Show. The “water screens,” as they were called, used high-pressure nozzles to create fans of mist onto which the film clips could be projected through rear projection.

Ricci: By layering the dancing water fountains, special lighting, lasers, pyrotechnics and black light, along with live performers on watercraft and this new way to project animation on water, I was convinced all of these elements combined would create a rather exciting show! …It took months of searching through Disney film footage to find the right clips for the storyline and to create the film elements so they would look great on the water.

The Rivers of America was drained and reconstructed to accommodate the infrastructure that would be needed for Fantasmic!. The team was on a time crunch to be able to get the show done to serve as a proper stopgap between Splash Mountain and Toontown. Ricci wrote the script (as well as the lyrics to the song “Imagination”) and continued to re-edit it as Bruce Healey re-scored the iconic music from these films, but according to Tom Butsch, the story and spirit of Fantasmic! hardly strayed from Barnette Ricci’s initial vision.

Tom Bustch originally worked as a set designer in theater and then moved onto sitcoms before finding work set decorating on shows and seasonal attractions at the Disney Parks, where he would work for over 20 years. He storyboarded the entirety of Fantasmic! and materialized Ricci’s vision and brought it to life through the many set pieces used in the show. With a limited budget, his team made Fantasmic! economical as they could without ever sacrificing quality or scale. When they found that they were unable to afford the technology required to animate their Maleficent dragon, Butsch devised it so that a mechanical head would be raised on a genie lift (cherry picker) rigged with chains for the wings which would be flapped by performers (this dragon would eventually be replaced with a fully mechanical dragon in 2009).

Bruce Healey is famous for having reportedly produced every musical score in every parade and show at Disneyland between 1984 and 2017, but he’s done work across Disney Parks around the world and has been a composer, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor on everything from nighttime shows to television specials during his tenure. But out of the hundreds and hundreds of projects he’s worked on, Fantasmic!, on which he not only arranged and rescored the classic music from Disney films but also composed the main iconic theme to the show, is the work he says he is most proud of.

Healey: Fantasmic! still tops the list. I’m grateful for the chance to do some of my best work on that show.

It is more important to me that people around know and enjoy the music I’ve created and produced. If I’m not well known, but my music is well known because it’s part of the Disney legacy in some way, then that is great with me.

Fantasmic! was only supposed to run for a few years, but its enduring popularity has allowed it to become a classic staple of Disneyland and, with its recent renovation and reopening, will likely play on for many more years to come.

research and photo sources [x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]

#fantasmic #disneyland #disneyedit #bruce healey #tom butsch #barnette ricci #my edit #music #artist #technician #director #disney parks #imagineer

[bvannn]

Weekly update December 1, 2023

Today was awful. The rest of the week has been fine. The awful was because of medical stuff. I’m still having fatigue, and I have an absolute ton of homework this weekend so good chance I won’t get much done in the way of art, but finals week is coming up which should free up my schedule a good amount.

At the beginning of the week I got a bunch more late inktober drawings finished up. I still need to keep powering through the rest of the prompts but it’s fine I’m not that worried. It’ll be later this week if I can manage anything but I’ll keep trying.

TRGA has been slow due to exhaustion. I have all but one keyframe on Tim 1-4 done, and the tweens shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t want to mess with props but if I have to I have to. I was messing a bunch with computer stuff this week, and after effects is looking pretty nice for future animations, but for the one we’re on I won’t mess with it if I don’t have to.

Music: I definitely need to redo the verse melody I did last week, it doesn’t fit the song at all. Got a bridge melody done that works great though. Also got a bunch of other plugins and VSTs working so I have an idea for the next original song I could get working on (which should be instrumental so I won’t need to hold off because of vocals). I could also try my hand at covers, since they would theoretically move a lot faster. I think this upcoming week I’m going to prioritize animation above music if I can, I’ll try to just spend like one day on music for a good block of time, and the rest on those tween frames or reimporting stuff.

I’m a bit worried about computer stuff, since good chance I will have to move to a new one soon, which should be great for music plugins and after effects stuff should I chose to mess with that, but will be a pain in the neck to move my slew of clip studio brushes. I’ll try to make a nice list of all the sets I have downloaded throughout the week, in order to make the process easier on myself, but it will take a while.

Last thing, I’ve finally stopped procrastinating on that comic idea I’ve had, and have started thumbnailing a comic pitch for the O’Malley Foster Home. At the present it’s just planned to be a pitch, as I would prefer it to become an animated webseries to a webcomic, but it would still be good to get some ideas out of my head, since people seem curious about my OCs, but I don’t want to infodump unprompted, and it leads to some things getting misinterpreted (I’ve seen Mikey referred to as ‘goth’ even though he’s moreso meant to be punk, and a drawing of him got reblogged by a demon themed account today because of that drawing I did of him pretending to be a demon. I also have a mutual who I think thinks that Jack is a vampire because he has a bat motif in his design, even though he really just likes bats), so them having some public lore would hopefully clarify things. Still not sure if I will or should do a pitch for Backstage as well once that is done, but that doesn’t matter until it’s done anyway. It’s a nice smaller project to do during lecture perhaps, so it’ll be fine.

Lots of stuff this week. I am still bleeding from the doctor this morning and also tired af so I’m going right to bed after posting this, tomorrow I will do homework, and maybe look over some tutorials for after effects or music stuff while I donate plasma tomorrow.

#weekly update

[penname-artist]

Newewews

Sum shit been happenin’, so in case there was a noticed lack of me, I’ve had company over this week, and we’ve been going and going and going and I am mentally pooped. I have no more spoons, my body turned into noodles on me yesterday (although maybe that was more the fault of the CBD...more on that in a sec)

But I’ll be back to doing my stuff again towards the end of this week, after a recovery day and such. But while I’m on the train of next week:

I did not quit my job last week. Believe me, I was gonna, I planned it, and then right ON the day I was set to leave, something interesting happened. The [new] manager had me start teaching how to do planograms and label changes and all my regular job to two new hires. All was going swimmingly. And then he pulled me aside and went “PLEASE I need you, I need your brain, can you work supplemental?”

So, I said I would, and we talked it over with the district manager as well and my title, officially, has been moved to part-time. This way I have the same set time to come into work, but I can work more hours in the week if need be. And what time do I work you might ask?

Three hours a week. T’ursday, nine to noon. I’m working, while not working, and making something to cover smaller expenses while I focus on my other goals. AND I can keep the shirts. And not need to go through the rehire process later on. Thank you Lord!

And with that set aside now, I can really really focus on my art finally. I have plans to start up some [ugh I actually don’t like them but whatever pays] commission work online through sites like Fiverr and Upwork. I’m also going to invest time into learning a new animation program and uploading videos to my channel a little bit more regularly. I have big goals for 2023 on that front.

And something I’m very deeply debating, in the ways of making content, is doing personal stories. I debated making all those possible stories into animated ones like every other YouTube creator has, but I kinda want to take the content that I’ve made with speedart and combine the two. You can watch me draw a thing and listen to me rattle on about a story at the same time. I may add small animatic elements too, to keep it interesting.

As far as what those stories entail, well I have some lighthearted funny ones I can go over, like my pet history, art camp, actual camping experiences, lots of mental health stories, and maybe down the line some brushing over of my trauma experiences with sudden and unexpected friend losses and grief. That, and/or the repercussions I’ve gone through as a result of that, when I get stressed and my body goes “aw HEEEELLLLL NAW” and shuts itself down.

Fun stuff.

But that’s all on the roadmap, might not get any traction til after the beginning of 2023. But I will be able to get back to writing and drawing and such, I’ve got several projects I’m still trying to get made and finished and posted and they’re being very slow.

But I shall keep y’all posted!

[anotherrevue]

The Top 25 Movies of 2022

When I think about 2022, the highs of the year feel like a return to form, for movies and for myself personally. And yet, on further inspection, it’s possible that two straight years of largely garbage movies and even more garbage circumstances have set the bar rather low. Yes indeed, this year has been better in comparison, but it has not by any means measured up to “normal”. 

There have been some bright spots – travelling all over the country to meet friends, watching movies I’ve been waiting to see for several years, etc – and there have been some dark recesses – of the mind, yes, but also whatever the fuck has been happening at Warner Bros. Discovery. And as far as my empty promises of lots of new pieces that I made in my first ever post, the ideas are still there, I just haven’t yet made most of them as coherent as I’d hoped. However, I have some breaking news for you: the year’s over, which means it’s time for the highlight reel babyyy! You’ll only find best-ofs here (sorry to The Gray Man) as we kick off another year.

Quick note to anyone who didn’t read the Shepitko piece: I’m totally on your side. It’s too long and too much like a SparkNotes summary of a biography. I wrote it while I was stuck deep down a well of love for this incredible artist who thought much along the same lines about art: “If I don’t do it, I’ll die.” Is that a sideways excuse for why I haven’t updated this blog in a long time? Maybe…

But back to 2022. An incredible year for theatres: Top Gun Maverick recreating the late great Tony Scott’s aesthetic for a fleeting 2 hour thrill ride was something I never expected. Avatar: The Way of Water leading the charge for high quality, must-see-in-3D movies on the other hand was something I completely expected and yet I still walked out absolutely in love with Pandora. The return of Jaws, ET and The Godfather in the form of picture-perfect restorations and pristine transfers was such a perfect lure back to theatres.

But as with any year, I saw most movies this year in my bedroom or on TV. 594 is a very large number, which troubles me. I worry that I watch too any movies – do I really process what I watch or is it robotic? Am I just putting on movies as a way to distract myself, and if so, is that fair?

I don’t really have answers there. It has certainly felt mechanical at times, and I felt like I reached saturation, occasionally feeling like I didn’t even care about movies. And then, just in the nick of time would come something like Crimes of the Future, a nasty piece of mystery fiction, but nasty in the best possible way, twisted by ol’ Dave Cronenberg to forefront his own preoccupations with the human body and relationships. Suddenly, I’d be back in love with films.

So what can I do? I’ll keep watching movies, but maybe slow down a little. Take time to process each movie before moving on. Watch with more purpose, more discernment. Maybe I don’t need to watch ALL of the new Pinocchios (del Toro’s is by far the most enjoyable, Zemeckis’ is a complete nothingburger and the Russian one is… unfathomably awful). And most of all, I’ll write more, because that helps me connect to movies more than just letting it swirl around in the cesspool that is my mind.

But enough of the rambling preamble. As a movie year, 2022 was twisty and all over the place. A great year for Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell (who was excellent in FOUR WHOLE MOVIES THANK YOU to the film deities!!), a great year for horror, a great year for weird shit that seemed to be aimed directly at me. A terrible year (I know I said no negativity so I’ll get this over quickly) for unfortunate franchises (Branagh’s Poirot, Jurassic World) and Tom Hanks, who was in the bad Pinocchio and generally agreed to be the worst part of Elvis. Undecided result for Margot Robbie, who was passably charming in an inexplicable film (Amsterdam) and reportedly excellent in an unmitigated flop that I’m excited to watch (Babylon).

I watched 141 movies released in 2022. Here are my top 25.

25. Causeway

24. Saloum

23. Save the Cinema

22. Bheeshma Parvam

21. The Lost King

20. Pada

19. Everything Everywhere All at Once

18. Nope

17. God’s Country

16. Hinterland

15. Hustle

14. The Northman

13. The Banshees of Inisherin

12. Prey

11. Benediction

10. Fire of Love

This was among my most anticipated movies of 2022. It’s rare for me to be so excited for a documentary – I usually stumble upon them and then get pulled into loving it. And unlike another documentary from this year that I loved (my precious Good Night Oppy, which made me cry, much like most movies about the space program), I wasn’t really pre-disposed to loving it. I’m a space guy, not a lava guy. Yet Fire of Love is special, because the premise promises a tragic love story, but from the first moment that we see the Kraffts, we realize that this isn’t tragic to them, no matter the outcome. They understand the risks fully and still it’s completely joyous for them. And the footage of the volcanoes is mesmerizing, you almost understand how inextricably drawn they felt to them. NatGeo, two years running, making my best of year list. I’ll keep my eye out for their 2023 releases.

9. The Woman King

This is Gladiator with most of the flab cut off. Gina Prince-Bythewood is one of my favourite working directors and her shift into action filmmaking is really remarkable, considering how emotionally focused her first three movies are. It makes sense though, once you realize that her action scenes are so fluid is because she herself is an athlete and she frames the scenes, not just as balletic or violent feats, but as a show of athletic prowess. From the opening – which is very reminiscent of the first Nakia scene in Black Panther – I was fully on board with the tone and scale of this movie, boosted in no small part by Viola Davis (the biggest Oscar snub of the year), Lashana Lynch (being an absolute dynamo on screen) and Thusu Mbedu (who somehow holds her own as a co-lead in this movie opposite Davis).

8. Jackass Forever

Like every iteration of Jackass, Forever is wonderfully juvenile, but there’s an added tinge of melancholy in watching Knoxville, Steve-O, Dave England and the rest of the original cast slowly come to terms with the fact that their bodies can’t take the same levels of punishment anymore. We see them hand over a lot of the stunts to the newer additions, who take the reins while also trying to get out of the giant shadows of Ryan Dunn and Bam. All that said, Knoxville and Steve-O still do the two most what the fuck gags in the movie, and Danger Ehren, as ever, is the victim of a nightmarish flurry of pain. But Jackass isn’t about violence; it’s just the most stupidly violent franchise about friends who love each other.

7. Kimi

Any movie Steven Soderbergh puts out is likely to make my best of, and it speaks to the quality of the top 10 this year that Kimi has dropped to the back half. This movie is fun as hell, an old school conspiracy thriller in the vein of (quite obviously) The Conversation and Rear Window, but set in a tech world that’s increasingly more familiar – and more frightening – to us. Of course, Soderbergh isn’t new to conspiracies (see: Erin Brockovich), but the thing that makes his work in Kimi particularly enthralling is his ability to capture natural human behaviour on screen. He makes excellent hangout movies (Oceans 11-13, Magic Mike, Let Them All Talk) because he knows that if you shoot movie stars in a certain way and pace it right, anything they do will be immensely watchable. And for Kimi, he teamed up with one of the very rare true-blue movie stars under 35 in Zoe Kravitz. She pulls the camera with a natural, easy magnetism that automatically sets us up on her side. Add Soderbergh’s excellent technical craft, and you get a lean, mean, murder mystery machine that has you in and out and completely satisfied in 90 minutes flat.

6. Top Gun: Maverick

Often the Best Actor/Actress Oscar is won by someone doing an interpretation of a real person that we’re all familiar with (Rami Malek for Freddie Mercury, Renee Zellweger for Judy Garland and possibly – god forbid – Austin Butler for Elvis). I think that should just be its own special Oscar: Best Re-Creation. And this year, Top Gun: Maverick should win that honour, because Joseph Kosinski (who I’m overall pretty mixed on as a director) does a spectacular job recreating that early Tony Scott style that made the first Top Gun so exhilarating. Funny thing, leading up to the release of this movie, I put my favourite Tony Scott movies on TV (I’ll take any excuse really). My sister walked in during the first 10 minutes of Unstoppable and not only was she completely hooked, but she insisted on watching the rest of the movies with me. So it was particularly fantastic to be able to show my sister a Tony Scott-esque movie in theatres for the first time. I wish there were more of them.

5. Avatar: The Way of Water

Yes I loved it. Am I a sucker for Jim Cameron? Also yes. The water footage is like watching NatGeo from another planet (in a good way, you should know by now that I’m a fiend for NatGeo). Cameron knows how the build tension in an action scene and he also knows how to shoot it so that you know exactly where everyone is in relation to each other, which seems to be a lost art in big budget blockbusters these days. But what gets The Way of Water to number 5 is the tulkun. What an incredible idea to have this species of space whales be intellectually and emotionally smarter than the Na’vi and yet have them choose to intertwine themselves with the Na’vi. And the decision to introduce this kind of an interspecies dynamic in the SECOND MOVIE when there’s is no analogue for it in the first, is a feat on its own. Although I should have probably recused myself from reviewing this movie, since Payakan is my best friend.

4. The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg has always been a filmmaking savant, which this movie will tell you, but I think what makes The Fabelmans so good, and what has really been working for Spielberg in this last decade, is that he tackles honest, complex emotions head on instead of eschewing it for the classic Spielberg sentimentality. He portrays the intricate and overlapping familial dynamics in the Fabelman household (a thinly veiled depiction of his own home life) with shockingly little guile or deflection and shows us not only the joys, but the strains of being an artist.

3. TÁR

Hard to talk about this movie without just lavishing praise on Cate Blanchett, but I’ll try – not because she isn’t the best thing about it, but because every discussion about TÁR is so dominated by Cate Blanchett that other great parts of the movie fade into the noise. Todd Field as an actor is best known as Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut, but his work as a director in TÁR reminds me of the second half another Kubrick movie: Barry Lyndon. To start the movie at the peak of someone’s prowess and document their downfall, and not have audiences utterly despairing by the end is a special talent that few have, and Field certainly nails it. Noemie Merlant (of Portrait of a Lady on Fire fame) is an absolute beacon of charisma as Lydia Tar’s assistant, and her performance subtly elevates the audience’s investment in the story. But I think the secret sauce to the movie, and the emotional crux, is on the shoulders of Nina Hoss, who has very little screen time, yet really underscores the whole movie with one incredible line reading. The individual pieces of TÁR are excellent in their own right, which sometimes poses a problem when the filmmaker tries to put them all together, but the movie is so well-conceived and Field has such a strong artistic voice that the brilliance of each part only works to elevate the whole.

2. After Yang

The first of Colin Farrell’s 2022 movies remains my favourite, which is a shock because I would have put money on The Banshees of Inisherin being my number one movie of the year overall. And though Banshees has been slowly creeping up my rankings the longer I think on it, After Yang has held strong for nigh on a year. Kogonada’s first movie, Columbus, juxtaposed an emotional gentleness with the sadness of real life in a way that didn’t make me want to run away as movies like that normally do. Instead, he made the real world an enviable gentle place that doesn’t magic away tragedies but accepts them as an essential part of every person. In After Yang, Kogonada takes that sensibility and applies it to a sci-fi idea that is perhaps as old as the genre: what if a robot began to feel? The set-up is, on paper, similar to classics like Blade Runner and AI, but the movie is handled with a tenderness that those earlier movies had only sparingly. There’s a lot in After Yang about loss and grief and parenting, but also about the joys of culture and art.

1. Three Thousand Years of Longing

If you go back to my list last year, my number one was Night of the Kings, a Ivorian prison drama about the importance of storytelling. So I guess it’s pretty boring that this year, yet again, I’ve picked a film that features tales of magic and wonder. Three Thousand Years of Longing is a djinn movie, but what sets Three Thousand Years apart is the way these fairytales are portrayed. Rooted in real history, the stories have a sense of dream logic that makes every instance of magic makes sense. And the main story itself, much like another movie I loved this year (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande), cautiously but lovingly explores the awkward romanticism of two strangers in a hotel. Idris Elba’s Djinn is wary of his summoner, while Tilda Swinton’s Alithea, a scholar of storytelling, is well aware of the mischievous nature of djinns. Hijinks do not ensue, however. Rather, the two of them slowly let their guards down, as the Djinn warns Alithea of the dangers of previous wishes he’d had to grant, weaving tales of a mystical history that has her (and me) completely enraptured. Three Thousand Years feels to me like the closest a movie can get to the magic of bard recounting an oral tradition of love and war and the follies of humans.

***

As usual, some honourable mentions:

Decision to Leave, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Athena, A Man of Action, Mukundan Unni Associates, Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood, Watcher, Something from Tiffany’s (a very solid romcom) and motherfucking Ambulance because what a goddamn ride that movie is.

I don’t recommend stand-up specials often because nothing is less appealing than comedy recommendations. But Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel is really the most intimate special I’ve seen while still being hilarious.

I know I don’t talk TV often but Andor and Slow Horses have three essentially perfect seasons between them and I’m very excited for what’s next.

Finally, Dinner in America is the most punk rock movie of the year and I really hope it gets a bit more traction because there aren’t enough straight up fuck the system movies being made, which is a major bummer.

***

I want to end on a note of cautious optimism, but I’ve gone on too long already, so let me just say this: we’re probably getting new movies from our greatest working directors[1], not to mention new entries in some of the most high quality franchises. Yes indeed, folks, a promising movie year lies ahead, and you might as well stay tuned to Another Revue - who knows? I might be true to my word about writing more.

___

Soderbergh (Magic Mike 3), Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), Michael Mann (Ferrari), Sofia Coppola (Priscilla), Miyazaki (How Do You Live?), Fincher (The Killer), Gerwig (Barbie), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things and possibly And), Reichardt (Showing Up), Nolan (Oppenheimer), Shyamalan (Knock at the Cabin), Ridley Scott (Napoleon), Steve McQueen (Blitz), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) ↩

[scarletify]

My 2022

Hello! And happy new year! With the end of a year I always find myself thinking back. Unfortunately, this was another really bad year for me. I remember making similar sentiments at the end of 2021. It feels like this year life was against me every step of the way. I started the year with covid. I spent most of the year unable to comfortably live in my home due to a bad situation with floor contractors. And the last quarter of the year was bad due to private, personal problems. I know it's been no secret that I've been doing very poorly. I feel like that gets reflected in my comic work. For the second year in a row I was unable to reach my goal of 100 new pages in a year. I apologize once again for being so slow with the progress of my webcomic. I do feel hesitant to talk about this kind of stuff, as I don't know if I would be annoying or misunderstood. But the fact is, I am dealing with severe depression, and have been for a really long time. This year I think one of my biggest hurdles to my productivity was just getting out of bed. There's several reasons for this. I'm struggling financially, and have found myself very isolated in general. A part of that is because I got too wrapped up in my work, and now I find myself largely alone. I can't help to but see the irony in that, as the original intent with my webcomic was to vent out my own feelings of loneliness. Now it feels like my comic is the source of it. In 2019 I had to move to a location I didn't want to. It was supposed to be a short term situation, and then covid happened. I have been living here ever since. The longer this has gone on the worse I have been feeling, and the longer it goes the more it feels like things will never change. I feel completely trapped. I'm sorry, I've become a very depressing person. All that said though, I'm still trying my best. I don't want to give up. And I have some positive things to share in my retrospective as well. Recently I've been making attempts to reach out and broaden my horizons. One way I have been doing this has been through my Youtube channel. A source of joy for me this year has been making videos about something I love: Final Fantasy. I was surprised to find that people have been enjoying them, and the whole process has been a lot of fun and encouraging for me. I also took my first ever commission for a physical product. The character charms I made were a lot of fun to do! And it's given me a lot of hope for a new avenue I can take my work in the future. It's something I want to very seriously look into, and I want to try really hard to open an online store in the coming year. I hope this next year I can take a huge step in my personal growth. I'm a very anxious person, and I struggle to talk to people. But I want that to change. I want to keep in touch with the people I know. I want to meet new people and make new connections. I want to find the courage to put myself out there. If you read through all of this, thank you. If you supported me this last year, thank you. If you enjoyed my comic, my art, or my videos, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Here's to a new year ♥

[kalisama]

I’m Back

 Hey all, 

Sorry I completely ghosted tumblr. I’m not dead, it’s just been a rough couple of years. Feel free to read on if you’re curious.

 I disappeared around the time our dog got cancer. He needed around the clock care for what we thought was going to be a period of recovery, but he continued to decline mentally until he just wasn’t with it anymore. My pets were my babies so that hit me pretty hard. Also found out I was pregnant a month before. There were some early complactions and I ended up on bed rest for a bit. Got carpel tunnel, ended up not being able to do much in the way of art for most of my pregnancy. And then we had a baby girl. And 2 months later the military moved us halfway across the country to a place with no housing available. 😅So we bought a house sight unseen. The day we moved in my dad called to tell me something was wrong with my mom. My mom was in and out of the emergency room multiple times in the following week before ending up in emergency surgery because she almost died, and my very beloved cat suddenly passed away that same week.  All of these things completely overshadowed the fact that I was struggling with PPD. I kept saying I’d be better when there wasn’t so much stress. But I wasn’t. My anxiety was out of control and I wasn’t getting any sleep. And let me tell you, severe anxiety and sleep deprivation is not how you want to enter a global pandemic...My husband got deployed somewhere in there, and things were crap for a long while. Then, when I finally started to feel better my dad unexpectedly passed away…

It’s been a year and a half now since he’s been gone. Most of that time feels like a void. A year and a half of trying to hold my family together while being the solo care giver for my toddler. My mom was not functional for months. I took my daughter and went to live with her in Wisconsin until we could get her back up on her feet. It wasn’t a planned trip. We literally left home the morning after my dad passed, and didn’t return until 5 months later. My family will never be the same, I think everyone of us has had some mental health struggles this past year, but things are slowly getting better. I can see them adapting, evolving around the black hole of grief. Moving forward. In February I decided it was time to start making space for myself again. I’m working my way back to finding those things that I loved before my life became a blur of depression and child raising. My dad loved to see me creating art, and in his last couple of months he would often mention that he was concerned that I had given up on the things that brought me joy. I’ve come to the realization that honoring him doesn’t just mean trying to take care of everyone else’s needs and leaving no time for my own. It’s been a slow process. I’m taking some online art courses and doing art in my free time. Last month my husband gifted me an iPad which has been a total game changer as far as being able to get some creative time in while taking care of our 3 year old.

I sincerely hope to have more art to share with you all in the coming months. I’ll try to remember to update here. I had completely forgotten tumblr existed. I’m generally more active on FB because that’s how I stay connected to family members.  My DA account is still open but not active. I don’t know if I want to return to posting there, but it will certainly remain the home for all my older work. 

[tricitymonsters]

Progress report 2/13

Akello’s chapter has begun the rollout process!!!!!

Uptown patrons will be getting access to him tomorrow!

Also, I have another special announcement planed for tomorrow so hang tight.

Also, with Akello slow going out to patrons, that means I am moving into the next phase of development. 

Firstly, I plan on running a Kickstarter in a couple months!  I’ll be raising money to put towards development costs that the patreon hasn’t quite been able to cover.  As incentive, I’ll be offering limited merch which is likely to include dakimakuras/body pillows, tiddy mousepads, and more.

Details are scarce right now, I’m doing lots of research and budgeting but keep it in mind and keep an eye out for more info coming!

I’m also beginning work on the Main Game, finally! 

The main game will feature a large prologue chapter that features Mori, Amir, AND, Akello and will give the player the opportunity to choose which route they’d  like to pursue.  CGs, new lore, and some new art will be part of this!

My goal is to publish this in December.

Going into 2023, each route will be updated with new chapters regularly and you’ll be able to explore your RO’s story in a complete arc.

Once all three routes wrap up (no goal date in mind right now, but it will happen) additional episodes, kink side stories, seasonal tales, etc can be easily added. 

Additionally!  This is where I can start considering adding more full character routes like Kazu, Fira, Ren, and/or Raath.

Anyway.  I’ll be doing market research for the kickstarter so if you’re a patron or discord member, be ready for many polls. :D

#progress report #tricitymonsters

[jade-qilin]

about me !!

my name is ren or jin! i am an adult, non-binary chinese writer and beginner artist! my pronouns are she/they. i am also a christian (lgbt+ christians do exist). i’m multilingual and am fluent in english and french, intermediate level spanish, and self-teaching japanese (very slow process tbh). currently residing in canada. i’m also a university student, so my time writing is very limited.

apart from writing, i also enjoy doing art and playing video games. i really like anime/manga, mobages/jrpgs, otome/visual novels, and rhythm games! i also enjoy mythology and cultural studies.

feel free to dm/send asks about anything, even stuff that’s not about writing! <3

major serotonin providers include: mammon (obm), leona (twst), malleus (twst), diluc (genshin), zhongli (genshin), toji (jjk), nanami (jjk), dabi (bnha), seto (ygo), artem (tot).

i’m very biased towards them so expect lots of content about them <3

some notes to keep in mind:

1. this is a side blog! all likes, asks and replies to comments comes from my main blog @xiao-lantern !

2. my status may say “online” but that doesn’t always mean i’m active, sorry

3. i’m very slow to answering stuff :( it’s a bad habit and i’m really sorry if i don’t get back to you quickly

4. my fic recs have been moved to @qilin-library !! my OC content has been moved to @mini-qilin !!

#ren speaks #had to redo my intro

[kimberlyannharts]

I finally sat and read the whole thing:

The good:

The Art, as always.

I thought the Hyper Turbo Mega Super Omegazord looked cool

M/tt not being in the final shot. Lmao.

I thought the concept of like. Being trapped in his memories and having to move forward was cool.

I’m sure there’s more but I’m sure it’ll get discussed.

The bad:

Just. All of the Death Ranger has been so poorly executed. Why is Spa’ark like actually evil? The ending sucked too. Nope Spa’ark is evil there’s nothing to learn here :) (I shouldn’t be surprised. Look at how Miya’s been demonized.) Any Death Ranger’s host should have been Kiya. Kiya/Spa’ark dynamic like Eddie/Venom and healing together now there’s a story.

I still don’t understand having Journey die but I guess it’s just supposed to go with the theme but it didn’t gel. Me, personally? Would have made them the new Gold but also I came up with the Kiya Spa’ark thing while writing this so.

I guess all in all it just didn’t feel like an issue that deserved being #100. Like I appreciated the page count and the collectible card but. It just feels flat. And it just told us what we already know: No one can thrive if Jason is around.

- I guess technically M/tt was in the final splash page but he wasn't in the pre-page big morphing sequences so I still took that as a win

- it was obvious from the previews that there would be a Jason-traveling-mindscape thing with Andros but it didn't feel as fleshed out as it could have been, imo? especially since I imagined that it was going to involve Jason traveling with Spa'ark as well and teaching them how to move past their grief

- and going off of that........yeah........it really felt like Spa'ark began and ended at OOOOH SCARY ZOMBIE RANGER despite them making a whole book dedicated to their backstory and how they weren't motivated by evil and greed, but tragedy, love for their friend, and genuine confusion on how life worked (BECAUSE IT WASN'T HOW THEIR LIFE WORKED). Like you could take out the Death Ranger book and not miss anything. I feel like part of it was simply because Death Ranger didn't have enough time to be a grounded concept, but. come on. you could have shaved off some of the pages-long Megazord fights to give them more to do. I really dislike how the modern comics in particular act like giving characters a dramatic and tragic backstory that is never acknowledged in the present automatically makes them a well-rounded character

_ Journey is such an odd case. Like....I get it? yet after spending this long building up their importance just for them to die for the ~themes~ feels so anti-climactic. Someone on RB got all huffy that someone else didn't remember Harturian Kid's name after he's been "developed" these past couple of issues but the focus was given to Journey and their relationship to the Omegas so why would we think Harturian Kid was the important character here??? I didn't think they would become Gold, but I thought they would still be tied to Spa'ark - like as Spa'ark's final act as Death Ranger they somehow manipulates the death powers so that Journey's age process is slowed. (Yeah it would be a stretch but Spa'ark's powers were barely explained in the first place so it's fine.) Which still fits the ~themes~ and doesn't kill ALL of the non-binary characters that aren't a literal animal and robot

_ lmaoooooo @ the Jason comment but at the same time part of my annoyance that ALL the Omegas didn't give up their powers before we go back to one book focusing solely on the MMPR team is the implication that Trini and Zack aren't worth following if Jason isn't there :I

#transmission #anonymous #mmpr comic spoilers #spoilers #also i do like Harturian Kid for the most part but i'll never call him by his name because it's funny