#seriously is there another part in canon where he's worried about like accidentally KILLING his friends? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redrobin-detective · 3 years

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Ben 10 lore that exists in my heart regardless of canon

- Ben’s personality in his mid-late teens is a mix of his Alien Force and Omniverse self. On the surface, he’s very cheerful and kind even if he is a bit of arrogant showoff. He makes jokes and plays around and acts as if he isn’t bothered by the things in his life. Those who know him best understand a good portion of his outward confidence and cockiness is just a facade to cover up his insecurities and to project the ideal, effortless hero. While sometimes seen as immature, most beings know Ben 10 means business as he takes his unofficial job and people’s safety very seriously. He’s clever, adaptable, charismatic and empathetic which makes him a formidable opponent and a loyal friend. Doesn’t open up easily but if you get to him, he become so dearly attached.

- Drinks smoothies so much for several reasons. Comfort food go brrr, reminds him of the good easy times with him Gwen and Kev. It’s also a light but generally nutritous food to give him energy for heroing. Anything too heavy and he’ll be puking (both from physical and emotional stress). Though he jokes about his mom’s health foods, his are a crazy concoction of add in proteins and vitamins/minerals bc he knows he’ll out and out collapse without it. (Still has on occasion bc boy still doesn’t eat right/enough)

- While Fame is exciting for him at first he soon begins to detest it. Not the fans, no, he can’t bring himself to hate the people who look up to him. But he hates the constant attention, that he can’t walk outside without being mobbed. the only place he feels safe is his hometown where most people are so used to him and his weirdness that they don’t react much anymore. Takes to wearing a cape and face shield when going out anywhere so he can actually get things done without being recognized and mobbed.

- Part of the reason Bellwood isn’t concerned with Ben is partially because ben’s been weird and alien for as long as they can remember but also many don’t realize how famous/powerful he is. Yeah that’s just Ben Tennyson over there, sometimes he turns into funny creatures- wait what do you MEAN he’s the savior of the universe?? He cried over a spilled smoothie the other day.

- Does mostly online schooling by the time he’s 15. At first he tries to do half day things to maintain something of a normal life but it quickly becomes overwhelming and dangerous him/the school. Finishes his GED early but the Plumbers and Azmuth make him take additional college level and alien courses to prepare him for his future role. Ben gripes but really does love learning all these things, especially on his terms (ADHD and stress + the public school system do not always go hand in hand). He’s a quick learner when he deems the information important and is made accessible to his learning needs.

- Ben definitely has ADHD speaking of which, it was nearly uncontrollable as a child bc his free-spirited parents didn’t believe in medicating. Ben convinced them he needed it and after some trial and error, found meds that worked. As he became more involved in heroics/growing up he had to change his medicine regimen (resulting in him being a bit more off the rails in OV) and needed antidepressants and therapy to manage it better. As an adult he has a whole litany of coping mechanisms (good and bad yes) and regularly checks in with his therapist and doctors to keep things under control.

- Has a complicated relationship with his necrofriggian children. Considers himself their mother and worries after them. They too feel a connection to their parent despite this being unusual for their species. A few visit (some more than others) while they grow while others maintain distance. Ben never breathes a word of them to the media for fear of them being targeted. Still he keeps an eye on them and ensures all 14 mature to adulthood (another rarity for the species). Checks in every now and again with the ones who don’t want to see him and those that do. Two join the Plumbers and Ben is both proud and worried. His youngest becomes partners with Rook Ben.

- Just in general loves kids, they’re his favorite fans and while he’ll grumble at pushy adult fans he always smiles and kneels down for the little ones. Not so secretly wanted to have children of his own but knew it was a risk overall and used a lot of that energy with mentoring and teaching. Eventually had Kenny later in life (late 30s-40s) and was over the moon, becoming such a loving and doing parent or as much as he could be with his hectic schedule.

- Omnitrix can’t come off, never has at any point since it first latched onto Ben’s arm. Azmuth tried and failed to get the device off, doesn’t let Ben know for many years as he feared the consequences. The watch loves and protects Ben even beyond it’s programming making him much more durable to damage and releasing energy charges when he’s threatened. Not even removing Ben’s arm would separate them. They’re stuck for life.

- Ben does have Anodite heritage but the Omnitrix actively suppresses it and uses the built up energy to power the transformations which is why ben is mostly unaffected by what should cause a massive energy drain on him. Theoretically if Ben learned to harness and safely use his Mana at an early age like Gwen he would have been fine but letting it build up without safe outlet meant activation would have killed him. Omnitrix Ben, however, went his whole life not knowing of his latent abilities and how the watch saved his life.

- Ben’s eyes get more green and glowy as time passes from the Omnitrix. At first they think its a trick of the light but by the time he’s an adult his eyes are pretty much glow in the dark. His veins light up too after long stretches of using the Omnitrix. Its vaguely unsettling to people who aren’t used to Ben.

- Max and the Earth Plumbers work so, so hard to keep teen Ben on Earth when half the universe is blowing up their comm lines asking for The Ben 10 to help with whatever problem of the day. Ben himself doesn’t quite understand when he’s younger the prestige and expectations on his shoulders. Max throws up a million and one roadblocks so Ben can live as normal a life as possible while he still can. Still, while doing that he Still overloads Ben with expectations and responsibilities on earth and beyond. He becomes a soldier again with Ben as their greatest weapon. He never forgave himself of losing sight of his grandson underneath the hero esp after Ben’s breakdown.

- Rook partnership with Ben ends not long after Omniverse with his promotion to Magister. Ben tries to play it cool but the thought of another loved one/teammate leaving his tears him apart. Max revealing that Ben most likely wouldn’t get a new Plumber assigned partner since he’s almost an adult and won’t need it and Rook accidentally missing their last smoothie run due to a scheduling mishap causes Ben to snap and have the nervous breakdown that had been building for almost a decade. He completely loses it for a little while and needs to take an extended leave of absence from school and heroics that lasts about a year. Spends time recovering both on Earth and Galvan Prime, does some diplomatic training, learns about aliens, actually confronts the stress and loneliness of his life. He comes out the other side stronger but still fragile and exhausted.

- Ben’s above mentioned breakdown brings him closer to all his friends who didn’t quite realize the extent of Ben’s burden. Rook had been under the impression Ben didn’t like him all that much so the knowledge that his departure was the final straw for friend/hero’s collapse was shocking. Ben and Azmuth also become closer, the Galvan becoming fiercely protective of the boy seeing as his Earth family didn’t do well to keep him safe. It takes years for him to get over his anger at Max for putting so much on his grandchild. Ben makes more friends, in and out of the hero business, finally gets a therapist and gets some of his burdens eased a bit. It’s not a sure fire fix and Ben has several smaller breakdowns the rest of his life but its something.

- Azmuth was straight up suicidal before he met Ben for the first time. Ben gave him back hope for the universe and his ability to create items for peace not weapons. The boy infuriates him, frightens him, frustrates him but Azmuth cannot deny in his heart of hearts that he loves Ben dearly. He’s very upset at Ben’s breakdown and doesn’t know how to handle the worst of the initail outbursts. Azmuth talks Ben down from a suicide attempt. He reaches out to Ben that he Too felt overwhelmed by pressure, thought himself only good for war. Ben’s arrival in his life saved him and now he will do the same for Ben. It’s the first positive step forward in Ben’s recovery.

- For no other reason than I like it, Azmuth primarily refers to Ben as Benjamin (mostly to annoy the kid but he likes the way it sounds too) and Ben in softer, more serious moments.

- Professor Paradox continues to flit in and out of Ben’s life. He says its because Ben is the most equipped to handle universal peril (true) but he’s also just very fond of the boy. Ben, existing in so many forms and having such importance also exists a beat outside of normal reality which Paradox identifies with. Ben is naturally attuned to time related problems because of this (instantly IDing Spanner as from the future before being told later deducing him to be his unborn son). Plus Ben named him, way back when. He’s just drawn to Ben.

- Adult Ben, while being seen as an impressively skilled fighter and champion, really has his strength as a universal diplomat of sorts. Based out of Earth, he helps mediate and defuse conflicts, advocate against tyranny and overall preserve peace and balance. He’s not perfect, he makes mistakes and sometimes is forced to become violent (and yes kill) but overall is regarded as a peacekeeper, something younger ben simply couldn’t understand.

- Gwen gets her degree and primarily does work with advocacy and teaching about magic/alien culture. While she and Ben are still close, there’s a bit of a frustrated divide in that she isn’t helping him share the burden of the universe. Gwen never wanted to be a hero and has enough worth to not shackle herself to a job that’ll burn her out. Ben loves heroing but gives too much of himself away trying to fix everything. They get into screaming arguments that it wouldn’t be so bad out there if she just helped him but she refuses to budge and says he shouldn’t make himself do so much. They always make up and thy still are each other’s closest relationships.

- Ben marries Kai in a political move, Kai is Asexual and Ben Aromantic. They didn’t love each other but they got on well enough and Ben was really feeling the stress of carrying the hero burden so Kai also being involved made him feel like he wasn’t alone. Both were also so tired of the universe constantly asking about their love life and said ‘fuck it we’re married leave us alone’. Gwen was always mad about it feeling Ben deserved better but the two of them were happy with it. They had separate rooms, mostly separate lives but they became strong friends and supports with their strictly platonic marriage. They had Ken via Invitro in an incubator and were loving if extremely busy parents.

- Also from the moment he appeared, Ben knew that Spanner was his future son, Kenny. He played ignorant and then was kind of deliberately teasing him in future encounters. He knew the rules of time and didn’t want to disrupt things further even if he was angry and worried as heck about why Ken felt the need to time travel. When future Ben catches up in the timeline, Kenny gets SUCH a lecture.

- Ben isn’t quite immortal but he’s also not entirely human anymore either. The Omnitrix not only keeps him safe from most harm but it lightens the effect of aging. Ben 10 is active many, many years when most humans would have been forced to retire. He’s not sure how long the watch will keep him alive and it terrifies him. Gwen too is functionally immortal however she ages like a normal human, then when her natural death came, shed her skin and became a fulltime Anodite. So in the end, it was her and Ben together wondering which of them will die first. Gwen has trouble retaining her humanity as pure energy and swears she’ll let herself fizzle out when Ben goes. When that’ll be however...

#Ben 10 #this took sooo long whoops #i wanna write about ben's breakdown so mad you have no idea

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namelessayakashi · 3 years

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Merlin/Arthur Fic Rec List

This is going to be a long post, so the recs start blow the cut!

I wanted to make a fic rec list!! So, here I am. Should be doing my uni homework that's due tonight but I am a terrible procrastinator.

I will probably make another one later on when I have more time that is more organized, but this one is in no particular order.

Last Updated 23 Sept. 2021

Also, quickly, a big thank you to @kickassfu for the making gif above for this post, ilysm Maf!!

Onto the fics!

Unsaid Love by AeonTheDimensionalGirl

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Return Fic; Angst with a Happy Ending

Wordcount: 4,022

Quick Summary: Songfic for the song Unsaid Emily from Julie & the Phantoms. Follows Merlin through the years as every century on Arthur's birthday more and more of a song is revealed to him when he goes to sleep. [Regency setting fic]

-- I am still not over this fic of @aeonthedimensionalgirl's, this fic is literally incredible. It is so good. I recommend reading it with Unsaid Emily playing on repeat in the background.

The Wisdom Of The Ages by tehfanglyfish

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Fluff; Getting Together

Wordcount: 4,200

Quick Summary: "Saving Arthur while disguised as Dragoon the Great was all well and good until the king decided the old sorcerer deserved a reward. On the run from Arthur, Merlin finds sanctuary in an elderly women's social club. What was supposed to be a one-time visit becomes a regular part of Merlin's week, as he returns each Friday to discuss recipes, commiserate about aches and pains, and lament the state of his love life." - Summary directly from AO3

-- Such a good fic, honestly, like. Merlin befriends Camelot's elderly ladies. Need I say more? It's great.

Forgetful Days by OnceFutureEmrys

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Fluff; Modern AU

Wordcount: 620

Quick Summary: "Arthur is very forgetful. Luckily, Merlin is there to help." - Summary directly from AO3

-- Seriously, @oncefutureemrys this fic is so cute and it's just great, def recommend it

Home in Your Arms by OnceFutureEmrys

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Pining; Fluff; Modern AU

Wordcount: 1,574

Quick Summary: "Arthur is missing Merlin when when he hears someone knocking on the door..." - Summary directly from AO3

-- Yes, another one from OFE, because I love her and her fics. This fic is so sweet, it is a modern University AU!

Ink On A Page by Hisa_Ai

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Pining; Fluff

Wordcount: 2,170

Quick Summary: Merlin writes his feelings on parchment, because if they are on paper, they are just words on a page, and not really his and didn't hold any meaning. One day Arthur notices him writing on one of these pieces of parchment.

-- Literally so beautiful. I loved this fic so much, and I recommend it so much. It is a canon era confessions fic, and it's just so good.

Fool Me Once by CaffeinatedFlumadiddle

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Type: Humor; Magic Revealed; Dark Humor

Wordcount: 18, 728

Quick Summary: "Uther finds out about Merlin’s magic, but can’t seem to kill him. Merlin is just trying to protect Arthur. They become a begrudgingly effective duo. Arthur doesn't understand why they think he isn't noticing this." - Summary directly from AO3

-- I mean, can I just recommend this entire series? Seriously, the series this fic is in is just--excellent. I love this fic. It has Immortal Merlin and Uther Knowing about his magic. Seriously, though, just this series is amazing ahah Exceptionally Exceptional, Calling the Middleman, Returning the Favor, In Which Arthur Lets a Sorcerer Live and Regrets It, just to name a few, are incredible and I definitely recommend reading them.

for my beating heart is far too small for the entirety of my love for you by kickassfu

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Fluff; Established Relationship

Wordcount: 1,566

Quick Summary: Arthur is trying to learn a little magic to surprise Merlin at his coronation after their wedding.

-- So, I actually gave @kickassfu the prompt for this one. And oh my gods. How they did it? So soft, sweet. It is so good, and I 100% recommend you check it out!

That’s my Man by AeonTheDimensionalGirl

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Emotional Hurt/Comfort; Magic Revealed; Arranged Marriage; Angst with a Happy Ending

Wordcount: 2,287

Quick Summary: "By ancient, prophesied law, Arthur Pendragon must wed Emrys.

Problem is no one knows who they are." - Summary directly from AO3

-- I told you Aeon would be on here again! Love this fic so much. Love magic reveals, love arranged marriages. Seriously, this is great.

the house is flooded (as is his heart) by powered_by_notes

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Domestic Fluff; Return Fic

Wordcount: 2,281

Quick Summary: Arthur leaves to do some work in town, and Merlin runs into a bit of trouble with the cottage and their chickens while he's gone.

-- They have chickens. Enough said. No but really, this is so good, they live in a cottage and they have chickens and I definitely recommend this fic.

Emrys the Really, Truly Terrible by lindenwaverly

Rating: Teens & Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Magic Reveal, Emrys Reveal

Wordcount: 15,241

Quick Summary: Arthur has repealed the ban on magic, but Merlin still hasn't come clean about his identity. The issue comes in where, Arthur wants Emrys to be his Court Sorcerer

-- literally. cackled. this is so great, i loved this one. i read it in the morning and do not regret it one bit. some of the dialogue just killed me. it's a great fic, and you should definitely read it.

Arthur Pendragon's Business Judgment Rule by oddishly

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Woke Up Married

Wordcount: 27,459

Quick Summary: "Arthur and Merlin wake up married. Camelot is in the middle of treaty negotiations with a visiting king. It's okay, Arthur has a plan." - Summary directly from AO3

Lord Drake's Bequest by Pennyplainknits

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Type: Modern Era, Fake Relationship

Wordcount: 9,966

Quick Summary: " "To my great-nephew Arthur I bequeath Tintagel Distribution, wholly and without reserve, save for one condition. You must marry, and stay married, for a period of no less than six months. You're a wonderful businessman Arthur, but a full life needs love and companionship, not just a string of affairs. Settle down young Arthur, and your life will be the richer for it." " - Summary directly from AO3

of all things magic, a cerulean haze by powered_by_notes

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warning: None Apply

Type: Magic Reveal

Wc: 7,092

Summary: "When Arthur goes missing, Merlin goes off on his own searching for him. He knows to look for things that the others simply do not and has things at his disposal that the others, again, simply do not.

. . .Magical things, of course.

In all his power, worry, anger, and relentless searching, he has no idea the missing king is being shown all the things that Merlin is doing with that power.

. . .Magical things, of course." - Summary directly from AO3

-- Loved this sm. Gods, I was supposed to read this ages ago, but only FINALLY just found the time to last night and it was so great. Arthur is kidnapped while out doing smth for Merlin and it's just really good.

On the Run by Sorceressofdragons

Rating: E

Archive Warnings: None Apply

Type: Modern AU

Wordcount: 18,155

Summary: After an unsuccessful attempt on their lives, new neighbours Arthur and Merlin decide to take off into the woods. Their destination is Morgana’s country estate, but these two city boys don’t know anything about survival—so if the foxes don’t get them, the lack of Monster Munch might. Featuring sex mishaps, weird food, walking in circles, and some obligatory cuddling. Oh, and Merlin is hung. - Summary directly from AO3

-- fucking KILLED me. This was just -- it was great. Literally, from the start I SWORE i knew the who and why only to discover I was totally off with the *why* and it was fantastic.

Hear Your Heart Sing (Love, Love, Love) by schweet_heart

Rating: Mature

Archive Warnings: None Apply

Type: Soulmate Au, Modern Au

Wordcount: 15,834

Summary: Merlin used to like the idea of finding The One – until he fell in love with Arthur Pendragon. Now he has a boss he can't date (but can't stop thinking about), a soulmate he can't find (who has terrible taste in music), and a best friend who can't believe he still hasn't got his act together (even though it's seriously not his fault).Sometimes, life is unfairly complicated, even without your soulmate singing painfully catchy tunes in the back of your head. - Summary directly from AO3

-- This one was just great. The soulmates, the songs, the misunderstandings--it was great. I loved this one.

Note to Idiot by tinylilremus

Rating: Teen & Up

Archive Warnings: None Apply

Type: Harry Potter AU, Modern AU

Wordcount: 9,762

Summary: Arthur and Merlin are members of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad who work different shifts and share the same office. Arthur, who works the day shift, can't stand the rain. Merlin, who works the night shift, can't concentrate without it.

When they both get tired of changing the weather in the magical window in their underground office, is there a more British way to settle their differences than with a few passive-aggressive memos? - Summary directly from AO3

-- HP AU! A Ministry AU at that! I literally. I loved this so much. Merlin & Arthur are both in the AMRS, different shifts, and it's just hnsdsjdkh it's so good. Really, it's great. And we get to see them on the job a bit!!! Which is fun. This one is def a great one to read, esp if you like HP AUs

as stated previously, this list is being frequently updated with more fics!!!

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ajokeformur-ray · 3 years

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Hey can I get some headcanons of your relationship with your F/O parents bc y’all are such a cute family dynamic and I wanna hear more about how you all interact🥰💗

and @arianatheangelworld

asdfghjkl; omgggg~ you’re all gonna kill me asghj 🥺😭😭thank you darlings omggg ~ 🥰🥰🥰💗 I hope that you all enjoy this, it’s always so bittersweet but also so comforting and fun to explore my dynamic with my parental F/Os and, well... isn’t that the point of it all?💖 Thank you thank you thank you for supporting and enabling me omggg ~ 💙😊

Word count: 3, 184 (holy shit I am so sorry... not😂)

It’s a quiet life, but there’s lots of underlying tensions beneath it all.

By quiet, I mean because I spend my days in my bedroom studying (not so far from reality, these relationships😂) but there are underlying tensions because no one in the household knows who Edward Hyde really is - it’s a secret between my parents and I.

What that means is that it’s tricky for Papa and myself to spend time with one another if other members of the household are awake - as far as they are concerned, Father is my parent and so is Mama, and Papa has no part in that. So as you can imagine, questions would be raised if Papa and I are caught spending too much time together (plus, this is set in the Victorian Era, so you can imagine the scandal of an unmarried twenty-three year old woman spending lots of time alone in a room, unchaperoned, with a man old enough to be her father...)

This is why Papa and I only have our time together late into the night, when said members of the household have gone to bed and it’s only my parents and I who are awake. It’s safer for all of us that way - it protects Father and his name, his reputation and his career, which in turn protects the household members from being turned out onto the streets due to a lack of employment and this in turn protects Father’s family, who always come first.

From the moment I wake up, my parents are there. As you’ve probably gathered from previous posts, I sleep with my parents a lot so it isn’t unusual for me to wake up with one of them. Rare and special occasions mean that I get to wake up with Mama and either Father or Papa.

Mama’s always up by five in the morning or she’ll fall behind on her chores so if she’s the one I slept with in the night, then I’ll get up when she does. She always insists that I go back to bed and that I go to sleep, but I rarely do. I much prefer to have those early hours with her so that I can help her with her chores and maybe, if I’m very lucky... I’ll get to be the one who takes Father his breakfast tray so that I get to see him early in the morning and so that I can crawl into his bed and get me some extra cuddles before I start my day.

If I sleep in with Father, then the opposite happens and I’m woken up when he gets brought his breakfast tray (7 AM on the dot!), and of course I end up getting up when he does because even though he won’t kick me out of his bed, he also knows that if he leaves me to my own devices in a soft, warm bed, I’ll end up falling asleep until noon and then I’ll beat myself up about it, so he makes sure I am awake and up before he’s done with his breakfast (and if Mama knows I slept in with Father, she’ll bring me some breakfast too!) to save me any emotional distress.

Father always wakes me up gently... up until a certain point. He will shake me gently while saying my name, which usually gets a sleepy groan from me. Then, it’s onto talking, with his voice going from a whisper and increasing in volume until he’s just above his normal speaking level. He never raises his voice at me and we all know why. If that doesn’t work, then Father will just “accidentally” pull the covers off of me. He isn’t subtle, but he also isn’t mean about it, and if I do genuinely need some more sleep, then he will let me have that. But for the most part, he makes sure that I’m up once he is on the nights I’m in his bed.

I never ever get to wake up with Papa. It just doesn’t happen for various reasons. Firstly, because Papa’s constantly moving around like a lion stuck in a cage and he loves me dearly but not enough to stay in one place for more than a few hours unless he’s already sleeping. Secondly, because he can’t be caught in my bed or vice versa by anyone other than Mama to protect Father’s name etc. Thirdly, I may wake up to Papa crawling into my bed or easing himself in his own if I fell asleep in his bed, but I don’t ever get to start my day with Papa. Our time is night time and that has to be non-negotiable. It does upset me if I wake up in an especially needy mood, but Father and Mama will get me through the day in the meantime.

Mama likes to sneak me items of Papa’s or Father’s clothing to wear when I go to bed. She’s not supposed to but Mama is sleight of hand and I can be quick when I need to be. She and I often have silent conversations in a crowded room and all it takes is for Mama to “accidentally” make a noise, like a quick scuffing of her boot on the floor or for her knuckles to make a noise against the wooden table and I just look at her. Mama catches my eye and then gives me A Look before she turns back to her ironing. I walk past and at the point where our lower bodies are hidden by the ironing board, she stuffs an unironed shirt in my hand (usually Papa’s) and I walk off, the shirt stowed away under my arm and then placed for safe-keeps under my pillow for the night time. Sometimes it might be one of her night-dresses, but I am comfier in either Papa or Father’s clothes.

There are so many secrets between myself and my parents which are kept from the other members of the household. Between all three of us, we manage it as best as we can, though I have no doubt that the others think we're a little odd. 😊

There are periods which are weeks long where Father is so busy in his laboratory that no one sees him. It's communication .via. letters on the stairs and that's all anyone hears from him. Mama and I worry immensely but Father's always been this way and all we can do is be patient and wait for him. He's a workaholic and he often makes himself sick from all of the working and everyone in the household knows what to do when these times arise, which are getting more frequent as Father gets older.

In especially bad times, even Mama won't be able to get through to Father. I get upset if that's the case, because if he shuts away the one person he loves above all else, it's a serious warning sign. Mama and I have a pact that if she can't get through, then I will. Father is always so protective of me, and now it's my turn to protect him. I take this very seriously, understandably so, and I wait up until two or three in the morning, so late that even Mama's gone to bed and is sleeping. I wait in his study for that time, reading one of his old medical journals, and then I go downstairs, out the back door, and into the laboratory.

It's freezing in there because there's where Father used to carry out dissections and lectures back before his illness (never canonically diagnosed but it's believed to be depression or similar) got worse, so I always take him his old smoking jacket (which doubles as my blanket when I take naps in his study). By this time in the night, Father will be so tired and sleep-deprived that he's more likely to be honest with me, and it's for this reason that I also stayed up so late - Father will assume I'm unable to sleep because I'm so worried about him, and while that's true, it's also because I know him well enough to know what time of night is best for an intervention. Yes, it's slightly manipulative on my end of things, but I am my Papa's daughter and it's with good intentions so I don't linger on this thought for too long. It won't do me any good and my Father's most important. I'd do anything for him.

I find Father where I knew he would be - scribbling in a journal by candlelight, his fingers covered in ink, his hair a mess, yawning every few seconds. A cold plate of mutton is left forgotten by his elbow, only half eaten. I'm just like him when I study so I don't lecture my Father on his bad eating habits -he and I have the same work ethic so I would be a hypocrite to tell him off for something he usually tells me off for. I announce myself by putting his smoking jacket over his shoulders. Father pulls the jacket around himself with a shiver and I smile. You're welcome.

"You should be in bed, Erika." Father frowns in disapproval and I almost want to call him out on his hypocrisy.

"So should you," My tone is sharp with worry and frustration and Father takes a moment to look at me - I never speak to him like this. "Mama's really worried about you. So am I. We haven't seen Papa for weeks, and we - " Just like always, my anger turns to upset and I move away, trying not to cry.

"Erika." I turn back to my Father and I see that he has tears in his eyes, too. He's hurting and even though he's been trying to find a cure for years, he's never been able to find one which really helps him. "I am sorry, I - my work, it is. Well, let's not discuss the details." A pause. Neither of us know what to do, even when there is no one to see or hear us. "Come here." He pats his lap and I make a happy noise, which makes him smile. I love sitting on my Father's lap - it's been something I've done ever since I was a child and it always makes me feel so safe.

I go and I sit on my Father's lap (and have a quiet cry - he knows but he doesn't say anything about it because he doesn't want to embarrass me) and he continues to work, but as the hours drag on and we both get increasingly tired, Father knows that the time for working is over. On these nights when I manage to find my Father in his own mind and pull him back with just my presence (and my very existence is a reminder of what he holds most dear), I also spend the night in his bed.

"Thank you, Erika, for..." Father trails off, but I know what he's saying to me.

I snuggle into his bed, feel my Father kiss my forehead and whisper his love, and then I sleep.

The night is half the battle - getting Father to take a break tomorrow morning will be an even bigger battle, but by then Mama will be awake and we'll work together to save Father from himself.

It's not the first or the last time, but all of us in the family have our Own Moments which require special attentions and solutions, and we love each other even harder during those times.

The reunion with Papa after getting Father to take a break from his weeks of working always makes me cry, too.

Over the years, it's become almost a... tradition, of sorts, for Papa to greet me this way after a long separation.

I could be doing anything - reading in Father's study, writing in my bed, studying at my desk - and all of a sudden, out of nowhere -

"Erika."

Whispered so casually, so quietly, but my entire body freezes. I know that voice anywhere. I drop whatever I'm doing, I tear up, and I turn, slowly...

Papa's smirking at me, a cold and calculative look in his eyes, but I'm not afraid. I'm not even nervous. Anyone else would make me step back with this look, but not Papa. No.

"Oh, my - Papa!" I step forward into his embrace and I melt into the parent I've been missing most of all. I cry, of course I do, and Papa says nothing about it (he and Father aren't so different at all, once you get to know them, though I'd never tell them that. Or Mama. It's a thought I keep entirely to myself.) because he doesn't see why he should need to; he only holds me tighter.

I can almost hear his fond eye roll and it makes me smile.

"It's difficult to understand someone who is entirely incapable of asking for what he most wants, wouldn't you agree? You're the only one he listens to," our daughter.

There is pride in Papa's voice but just like always, I can hear what he doesn't say, just as he hears what I don't say. It's just how it is between us; Papa and I have a level of understanding between us which we don't have with anyone else.

That night, Papa sleeps in my bed with me. I'm never ready to say goodbye to him, or goodnight, either. The following conversation is a nightly ritual because of this:

"Just five more minutes, Papa?"

"I'll be here tomorrow night. you know that. Sleep, child."

"But - "

"Erika."

A warning. No one else receives warnings from the Edward Hyde and lives to tell the tale. So I listen.

"Fine." I know he will be with me tomorrow night. "Stay with me 'til I fall asleep?"

Papa sighs, rolls his eyes, and pointedly lays down, watching me the whole time. I couldn't hide my smile if I tried, so I don't even bother to - Papa taught me to show my emotions and to not hide them.

"Goodnight, Erika."

"'Night, Papa. Love you."

A kiss on the top of my head, and all else fades to black.

My parents and I are very physically affectionate with one another and it's... unusual, especially if you consider the fact that it's in the Victorian Era, but the members of the household find it touching. They get hugs and affection, too! Even if they don't necessarily know how to react to it, they still do get their hugs in the morning and late at night just before they all go to bed (which is between 10 and 11, whereas I go to bed anywhere from midnight to 3 AM).

If I have a nightmare or a bad dream, I am at total liberty to climb into any bed in the house, but of course I make a beeline typically for Mama's bed. She knows nightmares well and she'll simply hold me until I feel safe, and then she'll hold me some more because I get clingy and I don't like letting go. There's been times I've cried because she let me go before I was ready for the cuddle to be over (though those times were when I was much younger) so now she just lets me decide for myself when I've had enough.

With the way I sleep with my hair in two braids, I always get a mass of tangles at the back of my head. Always. I hate it and it always makes me hesitant to brush my hair, which is now midway down my back (so I can’t not brush my hair every day), because I know it’s gonna hurt me. I’ll brush the front parts of my hair and I’ll try to brush the knots out, but it hurts so I stop and I don’t want to brush my hair.

A part of me is always tempted to just leave it, but at the same time I know from previous experience that hair knots can and will get worse, so during these times I’ll take my brush to Mama. She’s always so gentle, not just with me, but also just in her nature.

She is such a tender-hearted person and I admire her so deeply for that. She’s incredibly busy so typically I’ll leave brushing my hair until the evening, when she has more time to help me. I don’t always ask her for help with my hair, so when I do, she knows immediately that it’s because I really can’t do it myself.

“Mama, there’s a - I have a knot. Can you help me?”

A small smile and she goes to get her wooden comb. It’s gentler on knots than my own hairbrush, which pulls more than it needs to, and we both know it. Mama is so gentle that it barely hurts me, and within minutes she’s done what I’ve delayed all day.

“How do you want it tonight, Erika? One braid or two?”

I fondly roll my eyes - like she needs to ask. My smile is in my voice as I ask for two, and Mama and I get to spend some time with one another quietly enjoying each other’s company.

Sometimes I return the favour by helping her brush out her hair, but she’s incredibly self-sufficient and she largely prefers to do it herself. Which is fine... I’ll find other ways to help her!😊

“Thank you, Mama.” My words are doubled up with a tight hug, and then I’m ushered off to bed because it’s late and she’s exhausted.

I technically have three parents and each one fulfills a different need for me, so all together, they meet all of my needs and I try, I try to be a daughter that they can be proud of, that they can respect and that they can love unconditionally. I try so hard every day to live in a way to honour their places in my life.

There's nothing I wouldn't do for my parents. I would die for my parents, to give them a happy ending, to give them the time to be together, but in many ways... I am that happy ending, even if things aren't perfect. It's a fight sometimes to keep secrets exactly that, but we make it work. We have to.

I tell them each and every day that I love them, I hug them and cuddle them and help them out where I can, because they deserve the world.

They are my parents and I am very grateful to and for them. They have made me who I am today and they'll be with me forever, no matter where I go or what I do or who I become. I just hope that they'll continue to walk with me for the rest of my life, because I wouldn't be alive without them... in more ways than one.

#loveletterstoledger #self-shipping #mary reilly #parental f/os #I'M CRYING OMG😭#this is OKAY TO REBLOG

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lyranova · 3 years

Text

A Fractured Diamond

Episode 6: Star Festival

——

Hi guys~! So I know I said i was taking a break and I did! I really love this chapter so much guys you have no idea 🥺! I hope you all like it too and I’m sorry it’s not very canon compliant! Also this is my longest chapter I’m so proud 😭!

Word Count: 3,129

Warnings: Language

It had been a week since they had gone to the dungeon, or was it a few days? Neva couldn't remember at this point. All the days seemed to blur together. The day after they had gotten back they were sent to visit the Wizard King, Julius Novachrono, and she had to admit he wasn’t what she was expecting. He was a total magic nerd, it was quite amusing. But she couldn’t shake the feeling she had met him before, many years ago, she had pushed that thought away when she figured it was because she had seen him walk through the Capital on occasion. Then the Capital was attacked by the undead and she ran into someone she really didn’t want to see ever again.

Neva sighed as she created more spiked Diamond pillars to pierce the undead with, she had been quite proud of herself at that, she didn’t want to use any of her close range weapons and didn’t have many long range spells, so this was quite the achievement. She was only able to make the spikes come through the ground but hey, she’d take anything at this point. Neva had created a dome around some civilians she was protecting but she knew it wouldn’t hold much longer and the dead just. kept. coming.

“ Why couldn’t all of you have just stayed dead?!” She shouted when suddenly, she saw at least half of the undead be sliced through with spacial magic. ‘No. No way, why is he here?!’ Neva thought with dread, she looked up to her right and saw the one person she disliked the most. Langris Vaude. Vice-Captain of the Golden Dawn. He was smirking down at her as usual, and all she could do was glare up at him.

“ Need a hand?” He asked before using another spell to get rid of the rest of the undead. Neva huffed before snapping her fingers to get rid of the Diamond Shell.

“ Here, this way should be safe now. If you all keep going this way, you should find some more magic knights that can help you escape.” Neva instructed, the people quickly thanked her before going into the direction she described. Langris floated down to her and walked over to her, his smug smirk on his face, she instantly rolled her eyes.

“ So, I heard the teacher's pet is in the dog house.” He commented, Neva glared at him and crossed her arms.

“ I heard you were in Kiten, looks like we were both wrong.” She snapped, causing Langris to scoff and place a hand on his hip.

“ Uh-huh, sure. Anyway, I also heard you explored your first dungeon. Congratulations.” Langris told her, she narrowed her eyes, knowing there was more. “ and you got your ass kicked by someone with the same magic as you, that’s gotta sting.” He added, there it was, Neva thought with a shake of her head.

“ Don’t you have more important places to be right now, Vice Captain?” Neva snapped as she began to walk past him, Langris grabbed her upper arm to stop her.

“ I do. But I thought I’d come and say hello to the teacher’s pet first, since y’know, the Captain gives you all sorts of special treatment.” Langris looked at her. “ You might want to be careful about how you stalk Captain Vangeance, before people begin to talk.” He added before letting her go and walking away.

Neva shook her head to clear away the memory that had been a horrible day. The Captain of the Crimson Lion Kings was found with his arm torn off, bleeding, and unresponsive. From what she had heard he was still alive, which was good, but it had made her angry that Captain Vangeance hadn’t been there to help. She stopped training for a moment as the memory popped into her head, unwanted.

Neva was beyond angry, she was livid. The Captain was supposed to be there, was supposed to help protect the city, but instead he left on ‘urgent business’, which she noticed he was doing a lot of recently. She walked into his office, not bothering to knock, and slammed her hands onto his desk.

“ What the hell Captain?! Where were you today!” She shouted. Vangeance looked at her calmly before leaning back in his seat.

“ As I told the Wizard King and everyone else; I was away on urgent business-.” He started before she cut him off.

“ Liar! You left us high and dry! What business was so urgent that you needed to leave us at that moment?!” She shouted again, she noticed a flash of annoyance in her Captains eyes before he leaned forward.

“ You’d best remember who you are speaking to, Neva. Unless you want to be reported for insubordination. Again.” He warned, she blushed and moved her hands off his desk and crossed them.

“ Apologies, Captain. But you’re always gone, and it’s always when something major happens.” She finished softly, she noticed a shift in his eyes, like his mood suddenly changed, it even felt like the mana had changed.

“ Are you accusing me of something Neva?” He asked in a dangerously low tone, Neva felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and a chill run down her spine, her heart was beating rapidly in her chest, her palms began to sweat; she was terrified of the person in front of her. This wasn’t her Captain. This wasn’t the person she had known most of her life. This was someone else entirely. She swallowed the lump in her now dry throat before attempting to speak.

“ N-No sir I…” she paused, that’s exactly what she was doing, or at least, what it sounded like she was doing. “ I’m just worried about you Captain.” She added softly as she looked away, all the anger being replaced with defeat.

“ There’s nothing for you to worry about, I promise.” He told her softly before going back to his paperwork. “ Now if you don’t mind, I have some work I need to finish.” He added, effectively ending the conversation. Neva nodded before turning around and walking away.

“ Oh one more thing; it’d be wise if you stopped stalking me whenever I am in the base. Rumors are being circulated and people are starting to get the wrong idea, and I’d like for all of it to be squashed before it reaches other squads' ears.” He told her, Neva only nodded and closed the door behind her.

“ Dammit!” She shouted as she accidently sent a sharp diamond blade soaring through the air, effectively cutting off a tree limb. Neva leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees, sweat was almost pouring off her in buckets at this point. She was so angry and so frustrated this was the only way she could think of to get rid of it. If she had stopped and looked to her left, she would have noticed three people watching her from afar.

“ S-Should we get her to stop? She’s going to be completely drained at this point.” Mimosa asked with uncertainty, she, Yuno, and Klaus had been watching her for the past hour. She had been trying to either work on her armor spell, or long range offensive spells. Klaus shrugged.

“ I’m not sure, I mean, we might accidentally get caught in the crossfire.” He said, uncertain himself. He looked over as Yuno sighed next to him.

“ I’ll go over there then.” He stated in his usual monotone voice. He even had to admit, he was worried about her, he only knew her for a few months but in those months he felt like he knew what kind of person she was and this was not her.

“ Wait a second; let her get a few more spells done then you can talk to her.” Mimosa whispered, as though Neva could hear them, and she looked over at Klaus. “ By the way, what’s the deal with her and Langris? From what I heard, they were at each other's throats during the invasion.” Yuno looked over at Klaus as well, he was very curious about it too even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“ Well, Langris used to be Neva’s mentor-.” Klaus started before Mimosa gasped in shock and even Yuno looked surprised.

“ Seriously?! The Vice Captain was Neva’s mentor!” Klaus nodded.

“ Yes but please don’t interrupt. He was her mentor for two weeks before the Captain decided it would be best if they no longer worked together, from what I remember, they almost killed each other.” Klaus stated before turning back to watch Neva. She seemed to be all tired out. “ I think you can go talk to her now.” He added, Yuno nodded before walking over to her.

Neva was trying to catch her breath when she heard footsteps approach, she looked over and saw it was Yuno. She smirked.

“ Are we being sent on a mission?” She panted, she hadn’t realized how out of breath she actually was until she stood up straight, she looked over at him and saw him shake his head.

“ No. I was just wanting to make sure you were ok.” Yuno told her honestly, she shrugged a bit.

“ I’m fine. No need to worry.” She muttered, clearly, Yuno wasn’t buying it as he pointed to the tree that was missing a limb.

“ I think that tree would disagree with you.” Neva looked and was very thankful her pale face was already red from training.

“ Yeah, that spell got away from me.” She admitted before looking at him. “ Are you going to the star festival tonight?” She asked, changing the subject.

“ Yeah, and so are you.” Yuno told her, not missing that she was trying to change the subject. He watched her eyebrows raise in surprise.

“ Who says I am? You’re not the boss of me!” Neva argued as she crossed her arms. Yuno nodded before turning around.

“ I know. But I think it’d be good for you. All of us don’t get to hang out outside of missions very much, besides, if I’m being forced to go against my will so are you.” He told her before walking away, the first part about them all hanging out was what Mimosa told him to say, whereas the end was what he wanted to tell her. Plus, Yuno wanted to get to know Neva better, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

“ Who does he think he is? Telling me what to do.” Neva grumbled as she followed behind him, if she wanted to go then she would, if she didn’t then she’d stay home. ‘Buuut,’ that little voice in her head started. ‘It gives you the chance to get to know him better!’ The little voice whispered, Neva smirked to herself, she was finally agreeing with the stupid voice for once!

——

Neva couldn’t stop grumbling that night. After her talk with Yuno she left and took a bath, cleaned up, and was ready to go by the time the others were. She had to admit, the Star Festival was one of her favorite things about the city; good food, good music, games, it was pretty nice. The only thing she didn’t like was the stares people gave them because of their Golden Dawn robes. It made her uncomfortable. Some of the looks these noble people gave them just irritated her, it was like they were looking at them as their own private security or something. She huffed a bit.

“ Something wrong?” Yuno asked as he turned to her, she shook her head, Mimosa and Klaus had wandered off some time ago so now it was just the two of them and it made her very nervous. Even if she didn’t show it.

“ No, it’s just the stares. I don’t like them.” She muttered, Yuno tilted his head a bit before shrugging.

“ Ignore them. They’re not worth your time and energy.” He told her bluntly, she looked at him in surprise before a small smirk appeared on her face.

“ Easy for you to say, you’re amazing with your magic and everyone knows it, you even have a four leaf grimoire. So they don’t give you the same looks as me and the others.” She muttered, Yuno looked at her with a confused look.

“ You’re amazing with your magic too. You should really stop putting yourself down so much, you’re one of the few people that actually has an armor spell. Something like that takes time, hard work, and dedication. You know your magic inside and out, you know what it’s made of, how it works, and what your limits are. Not everyone can say that.” Yuno stopped in his tracks as he spoke. Neva couldn’t stop the small blush from appearing on her face, she wasn’t very used to receiving compliments from anyone other than the Captain so it was a little surprising.

“ Please stop trying to make me feel better. It’s not going to work.” She muttered, looking away from him. Yuno stepped closer to her and had the most serious look on his face.

“ I’m not. I’m just being honest.” He told her deadpan, Neva couldn’t help but let out a small laugh before she looked up at him, well, she looked around him. Something caught her eye and her face instantly lit up.

“ Ooh a desert stall!” She almost squealed as she quickly ran around him and to the stall, Yuno blinked in surprise. ‘What the hell?’ He turned on his heel and noticed where she had gone, giving reason to her sudden change in demeanor, he scoffed before following her over and standing next to her. He looked over the deserts and had to admit, they all looked very tempting, he wished he had just a little money left over to buy him and Neva something from it, but he gave all his pay to the orphanage in Hage village, they needed it more than he did.

Yuno then looked over at Neva and his eyes widened slightly; her face was lit up more than he had ever seen it, a smile he had only seen once before was currently gracing her delicate features, he noticed the way her eyes scanned all the deserts as though she couldn’t make up her mind on what she wanted. His smirk turned in a warm smile, he liked this look on her, it made her look like a completely different person. ‘Hm, I wonder if this is how she normally is, not how she tries to portray herself as.’ He wondered to himself, if this was her true personality shining through, he wanted to see more of it.

“ Hey Yuno, can I ask you something?” Neva asked softly, her head suddenly bowed down to hide her face. When he nodded she continued. “ Are there rumors circulating about me and the Captain?” She asked, catching him by surprise. Yuno rubbed the back of his head nervously.

“ Yea. There are.” He confirmed softly, Neva’s head lowered even more and she bit her lip. “Mimosa told me she doesn’t know where or who started it, but they’re trying to say you have a crush on the Captain and that you’re in love with him.” He added, Neva shook her head.

“ None of that is true. It’s actually pretty gross people think that, I don’t even remotely think of the Captain that way. He’s a mentor, a trusted ally, someone I can count on to have my back. Nothing more.” She told him seriously before raising her head and looking at Yuno. All the warmth and happiness from just a moment ago were completely gone, and in its place was a cold and harshness, she had reverted back to her ‘normal’ self, the one everyone saw. Yuno noticed he was a little disappointed, but he didn’t dwell on it much as they were suddenly pulled away by Mimosa and Klaus, saying the Stars were about to be handed out.

——-

Neva was suddenly bored as the Clover King began speaking, she honestly couldn’t understand why he was needed, he didn’t really do anything for the kingdom did he? She didn’t think so. But she watched as the Wizard King and King Kira began to have a small discussion and it was slightly amusing how everyone preferred Julius Novachrono to the Clover King. She watched as the stars were handed out, she didn’t recognize the new Captain of the Crimson Lions until Mimosa explained to her that she was Captain Fuegoleons sister Mereoleona, even from a distance Neva knew she did not want to mess with that woman. She seemed to be very powerful.

Neva couldn’t stop the smirk from appearing on her face as Yuno and Belle began to show off to the nobles, after the nobles tried to rag on him and Asta for being commoners that is. Even though Neva thought Belle was a little annoying, she had to admit she was a very powerful spirit. Neva could hear all the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ from the crowd and it made her very happy. Until she heard a few feet behind her.

“ He’s very cute isn’t he?” One woman giggled.

“ Who? The blonde one?” Another asked, they were speaking in hushed voices as though trying not to draw attention to themselves.

“ No the dark haired one! He’s so cute and powerful, he even has a four leaf grimoire!” The first one giggled again, Neva glanced over her shoulder and noticed the two girls looked around her age or maybe a little older.

“ Hehe maybe you should try and ask him out when he gets off stage!” The other suggested causing Neva to straighten and clench her jaw, these girls were getting on her nerves.

‘Ooh is somebody jealous?’ That little voice teased causing Neva to blush and shake her head, nope, nu-uh, no way was she jealous! She wasn’t going to be like Belle and think Yuno was hers and nobody else’s! She wasn’t jealous. She wasn’t!

Suddenly Neva’s ears picked up a few key words that quickly grabbed her attention; Midnight Sun, Royal Magic Knights, and an exam to enter. She smirked a bit, this was payback for the invasion on the Capital, it also sounded like fun and it was a way for her to prove to herself and to others that she was one of the strongest in her squad.

Neva was definitely signing up!

——-

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter I love it so much 🥺! If you don’t I apologize and I will try and do better next time, anyway thanks for reading and I hope you all have a good day~!

#a fractured diamond #oc neva #black clover fanfiction #black clover oc #episode 6

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 4 years

Text

Hitmen AU! | Head Canons | 19+ [Haikyuu!!]

𝕹𝖊𝖐𝖔𝖒𝖆 [PART i] [PART ii] [PART iii]

Here’s the second team up~! Once all the schools have been set, deffo expect lots of one-shots, drabbles, etc uwu

I hope you guys enjoy these ones~!

» » Admin Ko

»»————-　♔　————-««

A group that has been established for quite a while and has a rather solid idea of what they’re doing and capable of

Are natural rivals with Karasuno in terms of business standards, but frequently does team ups in larger schemed assignments

Are one of the best at disposing the extra unnecessary bodies that someone ends up accidentally killing (Lev and his misfires is2g)

T̷e̷t̷s̷u̷r̷o̷ ̷K̷u̷r̷o̷o̷

Big Boss man of the squad

A clever and slippery bastard that Daichi deadass hates but both are polite to one another to keep ‘peaceful’ tensions between their groups

Can literally get away with anything and provoke anything to fall exactly as he wants or how he needs it to play out for his assignments or missions

likes to be out on the field rather than cooped up in the office

Is one of the best interrogators for scraping out information from victims

loves to mess around with the rookies and any other fresh bloods that roam the streets to complete missions

is known to be the panther of the streets and has a list of people who shit their pants when they see him

“Oya oya oya~? What do we have here?” A deep chuckle came from the male as he leaned against the cold brick wall. The sight before him bringing nothing but utter amusement in his eyes as he slowly pulled out a cigarette. Lighting the stick before taking a long drag from the addictive nicotine.

“If I remember correctly, you were supposed to pay us the minimum fee for helping you ‘take care’ of some left over trash. It’s been quite sometime since then. Hasn’t it?” He taunted as he leisurely pulled out a notebook, flipping through the pages for dramatic effect as he took another drag from the cigarette dangling loosely from his parted lips. His golden eyes glowing dangerously as his companion couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh.

Glancing at him, the male couldn’t help but put the notebook away as he put his hands up.

“Alright, alright. I’ll cut the shenanigans.”

A crunch and a pained scream was heard before it was quickly muffled as the male tutted softly.

“Look, I’m being a pretty good guy here! I’m gonna cut ya a deal alright? But before I get to that...I wanna release some pent up stress since of course, you’re not the only one who’s late on payments~.”

Has rooster hair 25/8, he’s tried to tame it but gave up after the first day

has a whole sleeve of a panther on his right arm and enjoys wearing formfitting suits

is heavily built and toned from his adventures on the field

has a couple of piercings too

with his s/o he’s playful and mischievous

loves to pull pranks with his s/o or on his s/o

a cocky and flirtatious boi but can get stumped and flustered when his s/o sets him straight or combats with a wicked prank against him

N̴o̴b̴u̴y̴u̴k̴i̴ ̴K̴a̴i̴

Literal Caretaker for the two oldest

bless him oml we all need a man like this who’ll keep their friends from doing the dumbest shit

is the mediator in the group

keeps the members and more rambunctious members from doing anything out of hand that could risk them from getting their information

is the one who gathers and collects information from targets

besides getting assignments via their brain, he sets out to collect more personal details and weaknesses that’ll help the assignments go by smoothly without any problems

Smiling at the target, the male calmly chatted away on their daily life. The comings and goings of how their lives played out as well as any exciting or memorable events coming up. For him, he had been on his information gathering mission for at least a month now. Having been away from home base had him only slightly worried for what his more...chaotic friends would do in his absence, but he pushed that aside as he took mental note of how the target’s family was going through a hard time.

With surprising ease, he comforted the male and offered sound advice as well as an ear to listen.

“I understand you’re going through turmoil by now, but if I recall correctly, didn’t you mention a rather helpful investment that’ll solve your problems?” He inquired, feeding into the target’s emotions as the person before him merely nodded before explaining how the rather illegal investment was going to help change his and his family’s lives for the better.

A small smile formed on his lips as he let the information sink in. Hook, Line, and Sinker.

“I see, I’m glad it’ll work out! I promise not to mention this to anyone, just remember to keep me in your memories in case you need a friend to talk to.”

Tanned skin and buzzed black hair he enjoys the simplicity of not having to worry much about appearance

has a lip piercing and a whole back tattoo

broad shoulders and toned yis yis

has a couple of scars from scuffles and battles when he first began this life with Kuroo and Yaku

he’s very honest and thoughtful of his s/o

likes to talk and learn all about s/o

wants to be as open as he can with them without scaring them

knows exactly how to calm s/o down or rile them up if need be *wink wink*

M̷o̷r̷i̷s̷u̷k̷e̷ ̷Y̷a̷k̷u̷

One of the best assassins

is quick to analyze the situation and do what is needed to finish the mission with ease

ends up in squabbles with Kuroo every other day

is very skilled with knives and other simple yet silent methods of getting rid of targets

once stumbled upon Karasuno’s inventor and was shocked at the utter chaos he caused

will always avoid the vicinity where he hears a “ROLINGUUUUUU THUN..DAAAAAAHHH”

gives the harsh love to the rookies (specifically Lev) and trains the shit outta them all

is always ready to swoop in as back up in case one of the rookies mess up

“...seriously?” A heavy sigh came from the figure in question as he stood from his spot on the ceiling.

“They did try their best Yaku-san...” Was the response from the in ear piece before a jumble of apologies cut through the intercom. Dialing the sound down, the light brown haired male made his quick descent down the stairs. His eyes skimming across the street for the injured, yet escaping target.

Leave it to one of the most inexperienced rookies to not only not properly shot a hindering area, but to let them escape. He was sure he was going to make the new kid do drills all night until his eyes fell out of his head from the amount of precision aiming he’d do.

“Target sighted. Engaging.” Was the quick reply as hazel eyes locked onto the bloodied target. Not completely incapacitated, but injured enough to weasel out some information before getting rid of the body.

With practiced ease, he swooped in; landing gracefully on the floor as he pulled out a dagger. Then, without a second wasted, he pounced onto the figure, easily knocking them down and pressing his heel deeply into the messy knife wound on the man’s abdomen.

“I have to apologize on behalf of my stupid subordinate, but don’t worry. I’ll properly deal with you.”

Is a smol bb, and gets angry if it’s pointed out

once kicked Kuroo so hard that both him and Kuroo were put in a get along shirt by Kai

usually has lightly brushed light brown hair, no worries for bed head

has a multitude of piercings on his ears and one tattoo on his left shoulder blade

like Kai and Kuroo, his body is littered in scars and bruises from spars and missions

He’s unsurprisingly, very gentle and doting on his s/o

goes into a whole emo-mode when s/o points out his height

expects lots of affection for pointing out his flaw

will listen to s/o’s concerns and take heed whenever he goes to work

always keeps s/o out of Kuroo’s sights

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #hitmen au #haikuu!!#nekoma #nekoma x reader #tetsuro kuroo x reader #nobuyuki kai x reader #morisuke yaku x reader #kuroo x reader #kai x reader #yaku x reader #tetsuro x reader #nobuyuki x reader #morisuke x reader #tetsuro kuroo #nobuyuki kai #morisuke yaku

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geekgirles · 4 years

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Better Than I Know Myself

While I, admittedly, have enough songs that I believe would best fit Betrothed by @tipolover22 to create a playlist, there’s this one song I am convinced is perfect to describe Branch’s POV when it comes to his marriage to Poppy:

Better Than I Know Myself by Adam Lambert.

This is an analysis on the song written from the fic’s point of view, so it’s gonna be heavy on spoilers. So I’d recommend you read the story before reading this.

If people asked me why I think this song is perfect, I believe breaking down the lyrics is the best way to explain my point.

It starts out like this:

Cold as ice

And more bitter than a December

Winter night

That's how I treated you

Coincidentally, it starts just like the first arc of Betrothed; getting Branch to let go of his bitterness and start warming up to Poppy. This first verse reflects Branch’s train of thought up until chapter 6:

We all know Branch ignored Poppy, belittled her, was rude to her because of superfluous details like their different upbringings (and yes, I do consider that to be superfluous because they already knew about that when they decided to unite both kingdoms) or superficial traits (i.e. Poppy being pink), during the first few chapters he didn’t treat her or view her as his equal! And judging by how this becomes a source of regret and shame to Branch, it doesn’t seem so crazy to believe he would mention this aspect of their relationship in a song meant to express his true feelings for her.

Then, it comes the second verse:

And I know that I

I sometimes tend to lose my temper

And I cross the line

Yeah that's the truth

Now this focuses more on describing an established flaw of Branch’s, one he doesn’t display solely on Poppy, although she has been on the receiving end as well.

Branch has a relatively short temper. Simple as that.

He’s lost it at Poppy, especially before their breakthrough; he’s lost it at Mulberry whenever his antics went a little too far (like arguing with Arum in chapter 8, or accidentally bringing up Poppy’s refusal to kiss Branch in chapter 16), he’s, understandably, lost it at Creek (in this case it was a righteous anger, considering Creek’s attempts at getting under his skin or trying to steal Poppy from him)...

And as a result of his temper he crosses the line, something he ends up regretting one way or another.

When it comes to the times Poppy’s been at the receiving end of his anger, the most notable example would be, no doubt about it, the mandolin. He threw it away when his mind was too clouded by anger to think things through and he came to regret it immediately, not only because it crushed Poppy and only made matters worse between them, but also because it became something that would be brought up ever since.

As for Creek, whenever Branch’s let his words and actions get under his skin, it’s always had disastrous consequences.

Hadn’t Poppy taken things in stride, destroying the pedestal he built in chapter 10 would’ve made him look like an impatient brute.

In chapter 11 he was so blinded by his hurt and fury he didn’t hear Poppy and Suki approaching just as he punched Creek for taunting him, which led to a very serious argument with Poppy and a whole week of heartbreak for the two.

And, finally, in chapter 19, after finding out Creek tried to kiss Poppy while he was away, he almost killed him. And, as Creek pointed out, had he done it and his marriage with Poppy would forever be tainted by it, since Poppy would never be able to forgive Branch for killing him.

In other words, in this verse he’s acknowledging his flaws and apologising for them.

Now we have the bridge:

I know it gets hard sometimes

But I could never

Leave your side

No matter what I say

Again, if Branch were to sing this to Poppy, he’d be referencing how their marriage is a special case that required a lot of work before they became the power couple we they are today. Because, like all good things, they had to work very hard and compromise to achieve their happiness, but it was more than worth it. However, even if they are in love now, Branch is assuring Poppy that, no matter what, he will always fight for what they have, because he loves her and he can’t go back to living without her.

Which brings us to the chorus:

'Cause if I wanted to go

I would've gone by now but

I really need you near me

To keep my mind off the edge

If I wanted to leave

I would've left by now

But you're the only one that knows me

Better than I know myself

Leaving aside that they were bound to being together for their respective kingdom’s sake, it is true that, if things between them were really as terrible as Branch originally made them out to be, he could’ve just kept on living his life separately from Poppy. But, despite everything, early chapters and later chapters referencing earlier ones show he had actually started warming up to her long before Poppy finally snapped. In chapter 4 he was momentarily cranky because Poppy wasn’t in bed with him, even silently debating whether pink was a good or a bad colour. In chapter 13 we found out he kept and fixed the invitation she made him (reflecting canon) and started working on a new mandolin for her (and since it was never cleared up just when exactly he started working on it, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to believe it happened even before he fell for her). Not to mention, chapter 17 reveals Branch didn’t burn down the invitation because 1) it was customised for him, and 2) when he looked at it he felt somebody actually cared.

Another thing that proves that no matter how bad things get in their relationship Branch would never want to leave Poppy is chapter 12; as soon as he tries to claim she means nothing to him after she rejected him he berates himself for such a lie; she means the world to him.

The chorus also reflects the special place in Branch’s heart Poppy holds: for a very long time, ever since they became closer, his wife is the only troll Branch allows himself to be vulnerable in front of. One of the best examples would be chapters 20 and 21.

In chapter 20, in contrast to his parents in chapter 12, who had to coax him into opening up about his problems with them; Branch voluntarily opened up to Poppy about Sprite’s situation after bonding together as a little family. In fact, Poppy never tried to force Branch to tell her what was wrong, she just wanted to cheer him up, which then resulted in him lowering his defenses enough to be honest and cry* in front of her. Something similar happened in chapter 21, Branch now trusts Poppy enough to actually let his guard down around her to the point he allows himself to have a panic attack in front of her! Something he hasn’t shown to anyone else! Pre-character development Branch would never!

*It should be noted that, while Branch has cried in front of others before (namely his parents), the amount of times he’s shown his vulnerable side to Poppy easily surpasses this.

The final verse of the chorus is the key: while they still have a long way to go before they can completely see eye to eye, Poppy knows Branch better than most people, even better than his fellow Forest trolls.

There’s also the third verse:

All along

I tried to pretend it didn't matter

If I was alone

This is obviously a part of Prince! Branch’s personality that is entirely faithful to canon Branch, but perhaps it may even be taken up to eleven with the added weight of a royal’s responsibilities on his shoulders.

One of the biggest contrasts between Poppy and Branch in Betrothed is the way they both try to hide their inner struggles from their people; Branch puts on an armor of seriousness and authority thanks to a perpetual scowl and abrasive personality, while Poppy hides her worries behind a positive attitude and a smile.

However, as a result of their different upbringings, Poppy is more prone to asking for help when things become too much for her to handle, unlike Branch, who prefers to deal with things on his own. He pretends to be able to and prefer to handle the responsibilities and burdens of his status all by himself.

Thankfully, an important part of Poppy’s role in their relationship is showing Branch that he is not alone; he has her now and they are a team. As husband and wife they are in this together. Something it’s very clear Branch is very grateful for.

And then there’s the fourth verse:

Deep down I know

If you were gone

For even a day I wouldn't know which way to turn

'Cause I'm lost without you

This verse, this whole verse is chapter 12. Hands down.

Because Branch admitted several times throughout the chapter that he didn’t know what to do without Poppy. Just remembering what he loved about her was enough to almost have him breaking down in tears, the longer he was away from her, the grumpier he got; heck, he couldn’t even sleep without her in his arms!

And, just like the song says, this was all in one day! One day without his wife and he became a wreck!

Hang in there, fellas! We’re almost done!

Let’s analyse the fifth verse, shall we? I get kind of dark

Let it go too far

I can be obnoxious at times

But try and see my heart

This verse combines the several hints where Branch acted like he doesn’t think he’s good enough for Poppy due to past mistakes (namely, his line, “I don’t deserve you.” from chapter 20), and the details from his past we have yet to see. Because, hey, this is Trolls with a sped up Broppy and a little extra drama, we are bound to see some dark stuff.

And, finally, we have the sixth verse:

'Cause I need you now

So don't let me down

You are the only thing in this world

I would die without

Because Poppy is his everything. Because she’s the one person he’s always needed by his side, even when he didn’t know it. Because she’s the love of his life. And what better way to prove it than sing it to her?

So, yeah. If anyone were to ask me which song I think would best describe Branch and Poppy’s relationship in Betrothed from the former’s point of view, I’d say, without an inch of a doubt, Better Than I Know Myself by Adam Lambert.

#trolls #dreamworks trolls #trolls analysis #trolls fanfiction #trolls fanfic #Betrothed #Betrothed Trolls #Poppy #Branch #Broppy #OCs #Creek #Song analysis #Better Than I Know Myself #adam lambert

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Opinion: DC and Marvel’s Multiverses Are Crucial To The Future of Superhero Film

Alright, buckle up kids, this is going to be a long one. Get some soda and some popcorn, or some green tea and avocado toast.

Back in the long-distant year of 1989, a little film called Batman released into theaters and became the film of the Summer. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson as Batman and the Joker respectively, it was a cinematic triumph that heralded a new wave of superhero films taking their source material seriously. Followed up in 1992 by Batman Returns, a sequel which increased the fantastic elements but was criticized for its darker tones, Batman’s role in movies was cemented in place by continued success. Of course, Keaton and Burton would leave to be replaced by Val Kilmer as Batman with Joel Schumacher directing for 1995′s Batman Forever, with George Clooney stepping into the cape and cowl for 1997′s Batman and Robin, a wild disaster of a film which nearly destroyed Batman’s chances in movies. But then, in 2005, Christopher Nolan brought a gritty realism to the caped crusader in Batman Begins, and continued this successful experiment with 2008′s Best Film Of The Year, The Dark Knight, and 2012′s The Dark Knight Rises (which was....fine). By this time the DCEU was beginning to get started, so a new Batman was cast for Zack Synder’s 2016 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and this role went to Ben Affleck. He reprised the role in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad and Joss Whedon’s Justice League, but bowed out of the opportunity to write and direct his own solo Bat-flick. So director Matt Reeves was tapped to direct a new Batman film starring a controversial choice of Robert Pattinson as Batman. With all of this, the question of the past 30-odd years is: which is your favorite Batman? Which one was the best? And how do these films fit into an increasingly convoluted canon in which a film series is rebooted every ten years or so?

What if the answer is: they’re all great and they all fit into canon?

Now, before we think too hard about that, let’s take a look at Spider-Man’s cinematic installments, which is almost more convoluted and in a more compressed amount of time. Beginning with 2002′s Spider-Man directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, the amazing wall-crawler enjoyed a fantastic amount of success on the big screen, followed up by one of the best superhero films of all time, 2004′s Spider-Man 2. But Spider-Man 3 in 2007 took all of that goodwill and smashed it into the ground with a failure almost as bad as Batman and Robin a decade earlier. Plans for a Spider-Man 4 were scrapped, and eventually in 2012 director Mark Webb and star Andrew Garfield would bring a brand new Spidey to life with The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. Both films were lively and energetic, but criticized for trying to stuff too much into their films -- especially the second one. Sony Pictures was attempting to ramp up a cinematic universe much like Marvel Films was doing at the time, but it was too much too fast. 2017 brought another reboot of the moviefilm version of Spidey, this time directed by Jon Watts and starring Tom Holland, with Spider-Man: Homecoming, this time under Marvel Film’s banner (thanks to backdoor dealing), and another cinematic triumph in 2019′s Spider-Man: Far From Home. But, unlike Batman, Spider-Man’s dealings behind the scenes are nearly as convoluted as his series. Sony Pictures owned the rights to make Spider-Man flicks for years, until Marvel managed to make a ludicrous offer after Amazing 2 failed to catch on the way producers hoped. So Spidey came to the MCU under a joint production, which is how we got Homecoming and Far From Home, but also maintained a different universe with the Amazing films, and then 2018′s Venom, and a little animated motion picture also in 2018 by the name of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.

Class, this is where I would like to direct your attention to the origin of the extraordinary events we are discussing today. Or is it the origin?

Into The Spider-Verse successfully proved that not only is the idea of multiple universes all connecting on screen a good idea, it’s an Oscar winning idea. Spider-Verse is hands down the best animated superhero film ever, and one of the best superhero films period. But here we must take note of certain ideas. The film provided much setup for a world where young Miles Morales begins to emerge with spider powers, but then Spider-Man is killed right in front of him before he can learn how to use them. Enter a Spider-Man from a slightly different parallel dimension, who not only turns Miles around, but find himself inspired to realign his own life. Spider-people abound through the film, all of them having equal weight and the possibility of spawning their own franchise without having to worry about impacting the canon of other universes. This is something comic books have done for literal decades, but Spider-Verse did it with such care and devotion that it won Best Animated Picture and became a mainstream smash hit. Marvel and Sony both sit up at attention; could this work with the major mainstream films they’ve been producing? So the experiment begins: we have a teaser trailer for Morbius, based on a vampiric Spider-Man villain, which features a cameo from the Vulture character first seen in Homecoming. And after dropping hints that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man could cross over with Tom Hardy’s Venom, Jamie Foxx recently posted about being cast as Electro -- a role he played in Amazing Spider-Man 2 -- for the third Tom Holland Spidey flick. Pictures went up on his Instragram seeming to confirm that not only was this the same Electro, but that all three previous Spider-Men -- Maguire, Garfield, and Holland -- would team up for the film. Multiple universes collide, a live action Spider-Verse, where everyone is crossing over with each other. Now, this lines up perfectly with Marvel’s MCU plans, as Doctor Strange has established in his film that multiple universes exist, and his announced sequel is even titled Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s here. It’s happening. Every Spider-Man film is canon, they’ve all happened, and we don’t need to worry about which of them make sense or belong. They all make sense.

But just before this announcement, a month or so ago DC let slip that their plans for an upcoming Flash movie are taking cues from the Flashpoint comic books, in which Barry Allen goes back in time and accidentally creates a brand new timeline that he has to correct. Michael Keaton has even been cast as Bruce Wayne, the same Bruce Wayne that he played 30-odd years ago, a casting choice many fans have been clamoring for for years. On top of that, once word was put out that Keaton’s role would be similar to Samuel L. Jackson’s role as Nick Fury in the MCU, Ben Affleck was reported to be joining the picture as Batman also, a team-up no one saw coming. Even Christian Bale is being courted to join the universe-spanning flick, but reportedly only if director Christopher Nolan gives his blessing. Multiple Batmen teaming up together in a Flash movie to combat crime? Of course I’ve already bought tickets. Batman is the biggest box-office draw outside of The Avengers. And this concept opens up plenty of opportunities for DC, who’ve done Elseworlds stories in the comic for years. Joker with Joaquin Phoenix proved that DC films not directly tied to the DCEU can and will do well on their own; The Batman with Pattinson will no doubt further confirm that. But now Batman Returns is once again a viable film mixed into a comic book cocktail of wonder and excitement? And what’s wonderful is that this isn’t DC’s first big attempt at this. Slowly and surely, The CW’s Arrowverse TV shows -- Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow -- have been doing multiverse crossovers for years, building up to 2019′s mega-event Crisis on Infinite Earths, which saw Brandon Routh reprise his role as Superman from 2006′s Superman Returns, which itself is a sequel to Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Superman II. And for one wonderful scene, TV’s Flash, Grant Gustin, got to interact with the DCEU’s Flash, Ezra Miller, confirming that these TV and film universes are indeed one big cocktail of parallel lives and dimensions that all interconnect while still being separate. Hell, we even saw Burt Ward, Robin from the 1966 Batman show, alive and well an in his own little world. Batman ‘66 is part of the wider DC Multiverse! How crazy is that? And we even got a small tease that Batman ‘89 is part of all of this as well, when we got to see reporter Alexander Knox look up to the Batsignal in the sky as Danny Elfman’s iconic score played. In one fell swoop, in as few as a casual couple of cameos, DC made all of their live-action properties canon in the multiverse, meaning no matter which version you like the best, they all work together and work from a franchising and audience standpoint. The 1978 Superman and the 1989 Batman both existed in worlds that ran sidecar to 2019′s Joker and 2011′s Green Lantern. It’s wild, unprecedented in cinematic history, and wonderful for fans of all ages.

Why is this the future of superhero flicks, though? It ought to be simple: no matter what movies come out, no matter how wild or crazy or outside “canon” they seem to be, they all can work and they all can coexist without having to confuse fans. Many people were feeling the reboot fatigue as early as 2012′s Amazing Spider-Man, and while there was a huge tone shift between Batman Returns and Batman Forever, the Bat-films were considered all part of the same line until Batman Begins started all the way over. Now we have Batman 89 and Returns in one world, Forever and Batman and Robin in another (which was already a fan theory, mind you). Sequels that don’t line up with their predecessors can just be shunted into a hidden multiverse timeline and left alone without the convoluted explanation of having to “ignore” certain sequels. Superman III & IV were ignored when Superman Returns chose to connect only to the first and second films, but now we can say that they definitely happened....just somewhere else. There is now a freedom of ideas and creation that can once again occur when making big-budget films based on superheroes. No longer do creative minds need to be restrained to the canon and timeline and overarching plots defined by studios years in advance; “creative differences” don’t need to drive frustrated directors away from characters or stories they truly love. Possibly -- just possibly -- good ideas can become the gold standard once again for comic book films, not just ten-year plans for how to get Captain America from scrawny Marine to Mjolnir-wielding badass. Remember when filmmakers decided to make Joker the same person who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents? Or when they decided to give Spider-Man the ability to shoot webs from his body instead of technology? That certainly wouldn’t fly these days; studio mandates would require adherence to previously established guidelines, or at least what has been seen in the comic. What if now we could get a three-episode limited series on HBO Max of Gotham By Gaslight? Or a big-budget adaptation of Marvel’s 1602? Simply trying to wedge old comic book storylines into existing Cinematic Universes no longer need be a thing! We could get some of the wildest interpretations of superheroes this side of Superman: Red Son. At least, that’s the hope, anyway.

When comic books can step away from canon for just a few minutes, worlds open up and expand. An entire multiverse of ideas can become a feast of entertainment for many. And when there’s already so many beautiful, well-told stories set in alternate universes as comic book precedent, so too can there be beautiful, well-told stories set in alternate universes for film. And the best part? Now they all matter. And I think that’s the future.

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nellie-elizabeth · 3 years

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Supernatural: Despair (15x18)

I'm having an out of body experience, I cannot believe this. Last night was legitimately one of the weirdest nights of my life, and not just because of *gestures broadly* but also because of *gestures broadly* and myriad other small but still totally bizarre personal things coming at me from all angles... strap in, y'all, I've got some shit to say.

Cons:

We're gonna talk about it. Ohhhh, we're gonna talk about it. But let's start with some other shit before we get there.

So... are we ignoring "Dean was willing to let Jack sacrifice himself" or something? Like there was that moment with Sam and Dean where they talked about it, and Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam, and Sam is like "oh it's okay Dean, no worries." But at the beginning of this episode, Dean seems to be just as worried for Jack, and as protective of him, as the others, with absolutely no acknowledgment of what happened in the last episode. This... should have mattered. There should have been some regrouping and some serious talks about this. Seriously.

The Thanos snap thing... guys, when Infinity War did it in 2018, it was kind of fun and shocking and cool, and we knew the deaths wouldn't be permanent but it was still wild to watch our heroes react to such an immense loss and then leave us all in limbo for a year. This... is not that. The sheer tone-deafness of having this episode contain a moment of domesticity for AU!Charlie and her cool egg-making girlfriend Stevie, only to have Stevie vanish... and then to end the episode with the biggest queer-bait/bury your gays moment imaginable... like...

Okay, sorry, no, saving the Destiel thing until I've sorted out the rest of this nonsense. The point is, seems pretty clear that the deaths in this episode (other than Cas') are temporary, and Supernatural already has the biggest power creep problem of any show I've ever seen... they really couldn't think of another way to up the stakes for the ending, other than doing the thing where everyone gets killed? Didn't... Crowley... already do this to them several seasons back? Am I hallucinating? There's nothing new under the sun with this show.

Why does this show introduce things and resolve them in a single episode? Like, big, huge things? We just figured out Death was trying to double-cross them, and now by the end she's dead? This show either limps along and does nothing, or speeds through plot stuff at lightning-speed. These last two episodes were big and dramatic and full of Plot but in a way where it all feels kind of unreal. Pacing issues like whoa.

And speaking of. Ahem. Okay. Let's... let's do this. I have some things about the Destiel scene that I'm going to put in the "pros" section below, and hopefully as you read on you'll understand why it's really hard for me to be black and white about it. If I had to, if I had to determine whether I am "happy" or "sad" or "grateful" or "angry" I'd say... sad and angry, 97%? Like? Let's dive in, here.

Setting aside the larger context, a couple of smaller notes:

Acting-wise, what the fuck was Jensen doing in this scene? Misha was acting his whole heart out and Jensen gave him nothing to play off of. I don't understand how Jensen accidentally played Dean so obviously in love with Cas all this time, and then in this moment, no-homo'd it so fucking hard. Even the stage directions in the script page that was floating around said that Dean didn't reciprocate. That's dumb, like, in a shipping sense it's disappointing, but also... Dean, what was your face doing while Cas gave his whole monologue about how amazing you are? What a great and loving man you are? Even if he hadn't ended the whole thing by saying "I love you" and then dying right in front of your eyes, surely you would have been feeling some kind of way about the whole situation?

Also, the scene was shot so awkwardly, there was too much space between them, and then Cas pushes Dean out of the way and he just sits there on the floor with Pikachu-face while The Empty opens up and takes Death and Cas away, making these weird shocked noises... Supernatural often has awkward pacing when dramatic things are happening in action scenes, where certain people have to stand still like it's not their turn on the initiative order in a D&D fight or something, and this was one of the more embarrassing and awkward examples of that.

Cas' deal with The Empty has not been brought up practically since it happened. Cas has been sidelined as a character a lot this season, the past couple seasons, really, but we had this hanging over our heads, right? When Cas says "I've figured it out, true happiness isn't in having, it's just in saying it", the moment doesn't really work on a character level, because we didn't get to see Cas do any of that figuring out. We didn't know he was curious about his true happiness, we didn't know it was an internal struggle/debate for him, wondering what it could be. A lot of Destiel people wanted it to be Dean confessing his love to Cas, and that being the true happiness... but of course that would never happen in a million years. Others thought it would be "yay we defeated the big evil, we can all be a happy family together," oh snap, I'm too happy, goodbye. Which would have been... weirdly anticlimactic, but at least would have made some level of narrative sense. This idea that telling Dean how he feels would bring Cas peace is... well, it's okay, it's fine in isolation, but there's no buildup to it, no tension to his moment of "realization."

And now to fry some bigger fish...

Let's forget about the fact that we never thought this would happen to begin with. Is it actually... worse that it did? Seriously, queer angel man confesses his love to stoic human man who stands there without making a single expression, and the act of confessing said love, knowing it's not reciprocated, knowing he won't get to be with Dean or even be near him ever again, is enough to make Castiel so truly happy that he's willing to die peacefully and forever, all in the act of saving Dean's life? Is that not... like... textbook homophobia? People toss around "bury your gays" a lot and I think what they're missing is that the trope doesn't automatically apply just because a queer character dies. It means a queer character dies because of their queerness, or they are revealed to be queer but can't get any measure of happiness and then they die immediately. This is textbook that. The act of confessing his GAY LOVE is what KILLED CAS. It's a one-to-one sequence of events. It's not a coincidence that Cas died right after saying this. Saying this is what made him die. That's... appalling. Truly, in a very real sense, it's appalling.

Another thing I haven't seen people talk about much is the manufactured nature of this sacrifice. We just found out Billie was going to turn on them at the end of the last episode. If Cas was going to die in a sacrifice-y way, did it have to happen now when Billie was basically just knocking on the door trying to get at Dean for a last-minute revenge thing, even though Billie was already at death's door? This was so contrived, like, can Cas not whoosh them away to somewhere else? Keep them running until Billie succumbs? I get that it wouldn't have been easy, and maybe Billie could have caught up to them anyway, but my point is, they manufactured this moment to be "the only way" that Dean could survive, making Cas' sacrifice so noble and necessary or whatever... but I was sitting there thinking there's got to be another way. If they'd wanted to write in another way, there could have been. The inevitability felt so very contrived. And, as mentioned, the impact of dying on this show has lost all meaning, so even Billie trying to kill Dean, squeezing his heart in his chest, did absolutely nothing for me. I knew he'd be fine, because there are two more episodes left. And if Cas hadn't been there to do what he did, Dean would still have been fine because he's Dean. Am I making any sense?

We have two more episodes left. I am... fairly confident Misha won't be in those episodes. All context, both within the show and without, points to that. I truly think that after all this time, he gets the only ending in the whole show that's unambiguously unsalvageable and tragic. We have a world where the afterlife exists and people can hang out there, but The Empty is a different beast, and this means Cas is... gone. Permanently. Like, his consciousness no longer exists, he's caput. They could bring him back from The Empty, in fact, they've already done it once... but if they decide not to, that's just... where we leave things, and that's brutal and unnecessarily grim. The other characters, even if we get an end-of-show TPK (which would be STUPID, more on that later), could at least have canon or implied-canon reunions in the afterlife. If we don't see Eileen again, we can get the implied ending of her coming back to life, or Sam dying and joining her in Heaven. Same with Charlie, with Charlie's new girlfriend, with Bobby, with Donna, with every other character that's died along the way, including Mary Winchester and OG Charlie, OG Bobby, whatever you want. The fact that Cas gets this, after everything, is truly the part I'm the most sad about, setting aside love confessions entirely.

So as I said, two more episodes. I'm worried that Cas dying is gonna get swallowed up with everyone dying and not get its due, thus making the confession completely isolated. Like, here you go, gays, have this one scene, which, in isolation is quite heartfelt from Cas' perspective, but can be carefully boxed up and not touched for the last two hours of the show. If they don't want to touch on how this would affect Dean specifically, they don't have to. He can be generally angsty and sad about Cas, but they could get away with never bringing it up again, and that is some grade-A level bullshit right there, my friends. At minimum, Dean needs to tell Sam about this. He probably won't, but he should, if the show has any sense of integrity left in its bones.

Ahem. Like I said, I have... lots of thoughts. More on Destiel later, but let's turn to the "Pros" section and talk about some other aspects of this incredibly crowded episode.

Pros:

Despite my issues with everything that didn't get resolved re: Dean letting Jack die, I did kind of like the "to somehow" scene, because it was a nice little breather for the brothers, it solidified them as being on the same side to the bitter end, that despite all the crazy shit they've been through, that they've put each other through, they'll have this as a bedrock at the end of the day. I'm not a brothers-only sort of fan, at all, in fact, I think a brothers-only ending betrays most of what's beautiful about this show in its good moments. But they are the stars, they are the protagonists, they should be the center of their own story, and I like it when we get check-ins like this, that shows how unshakable they are underneath all the other crap.

Charlie and Stevie... okay, cute that their names are like that, cute that Charlie said: "I liked the way she handled herself" and that's how they got together... eggs are cute, whatever... and if these deaths are impermanent, which... come on... they have to be, I do like that Charlie gets to have a girlfriend and be happy as a hunter and as someone's partner.

I liked the tense car ride with Sam texting Eileen, with Dean, Jack, and Cas all silent in the car with him... that was a nice moment of solidarity, all of them entirely on the same page about being there for Sam and helping Eileen however they could... even knowing the futility. What were they going to do when they got there? That was a great tension-building moment, in isolation, even though the deaths are likely temporary.

Cas and Jack's talk was good, I'll admit I've definitely been won over by Cas and Sam as Jack's dads... Dean too, once upon a time, but dude needs to do some groveling before he gets to be Dad again, seriously. It's nice that in the midst of all the chaos, there was a check-in moment. Jack is the embodiment of a lot of our end-game themes, here. He had a noble destiny to sacrifice himself, and then it fizzled out and didn't work, and now he's just left in the aftermath, not sure what to do with himself. It was important that Cas tell him that Jack is worthy of love and family, even if he's not "useful" in the way he thought he could be. Definitely nice to have that nailed in.

If we're following the Infinity War/Endgame line, the last two episodes will be majority Sam, Dean, and Jack, but at the last moment there will be a way to reverse it, and everyone else will come back in a moment of triumph. But probably not so much Castiel, which... well... see above complaints. The point is, seeing Charlie, Bobby, Donna, Eileen, etc. all burst forth for one final moment of glory could be really cool, if they manage to stick the landing with it. It'll be an incredibly manufactured sense of triumph and nostalgia, but it will probably work on me because it's been... guys, I don't know if you know this, but it's been kind of an emotional year. :)

I will say, working under the assumption that the dead characters will come back, I'm actually oddly... not mad about Donna dying. It was actually a legitimately shocking twist. A rule was set up: if a person had died before and been resurrected, or if a person was from another universe, they could be Thanos snapped by Billie. Makes sense. Sam and Dean are in danger because of all their deaths, Jack and Cas aren't safe for the same reason. Charlie, Bobby, Eileen... sure. But Donna should have been safe, given the parameters we started with.

And then Dean and Cas are confronting Billie, she says she's not killing anyone, we realize it must be Chuck... and then Donna, who isn't from another world, who has never died... GONE. I gasped.

And the hits kept coming... Billie is dying because Dean killed her with that small wound, and didn't even know it. That's another excellent twist. The past two episodes, back to back, have kept me on my toes about who to ultimately be afraid of. Chuck? Billie? The Empty? It's so much better than this slow march to Chuck vs. Sam and Dean that we've been getting all season, even if we do loop around to Chuck again as the final Big Bad.

The Empty is actually quite a complex, interesting idea for a villain, this entity that doesn't get involved in petty squabbles, doesn't have personal vendettas, but actually just wants to sleep and be left alone. Having Meg be the Empty's face here at the end is also a nice touch. I wish we could have had more of this, truthfully, and I'm curious how The Empty will play a role in how things shake out, if at all.

So... I want to go back to something I've been saying these past couple episodes, about how if this show has a grimdark ending, it will be a betrayal of everything they've set up. It will be so stupid that my anger will manifest in yet another round of hysterical giggles. What I suspect is that we'll get something peaceful, something where trauma will linger but people will get to start anew. Maybe Jack creates a new world outside of Chuck's power. Maybe Sam and Dean take over as God and the Darkness, as some people suggested, and Jack is the new Death. Maybe maybe maybe. Bottom line, I could be satisfied with the majority of this ending, and I can even (obliquely, reluctantly) understand that they wanted one final perma-death to really make the stakes feel higher. If they aren't killing off the Winchesters, that leaves Castiel. So what I'm saying in this paragraph is basically that I'm not guaranteed to despise the ending of this show yet. They could still get it right.

God, that sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it?

Before I end this, I want to talk about, as promised, the few Destiel-related points that I'd classify as "pros", albeit with a big asterisk.

First off, Misha clearly found the moment very cathartic, and he pulled out all the stops, and, in isolation, the confession was hella romantic and quite poignant. Without context, just reading these lines? "The one thing I want, it's something I know I can't have" and "because you cared, I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack, I cared about the whole world because of you..." like, that's some premium content, I won't lie. I also kind of enjoy the idea that Cas finds happiness in saying the words out loud, in being true to who he is. I hate a lot about what happened to Cas here, but if Cas' arc, in its totality, is about embracing humanity, and Dean is the anchor to that, this really does come full circle. He pulled Dean out of Hell, he saved him, he loved him, he'll die for him, and in accepting that love, that human love, he is finally at peace with who he is. Now, mind my comments above, I'm still not happy, but I can see how in one sense, this is narratively poignant. And if others are satisfied with it, I'm happy for them.

(Added bonus, while Jensen's acting was WACK for the majority of that scene, I did like the ending shot, the silence, him not answering Sam's call, crying silently into his hands. That was very nicely shot and acted, I thought.)

Secondly, and this isn't actually praise for the show, it's more a... meta experience? I have to say, the idea that Destiel became sort of canon, but in the most homophobic way possible, in the year 2020, while we're all still waiting for election results to come in is... one of the wildest, most hilarious things to ever have happened to me. I mean it, last night sitting alone in my house I kept cackling loudly to myself, in complete and utter disbelief. I saw Tumblr explode in a way that hasn't happened in years. I was transported back in time nearly a full decade, to the person I was when I started writing these reviews, or even before that, when I was new to Supernatural, new to the whole concept of being truly involved in a fandom.

Here's the thing... I never. Ever. EVER. Thought we would get any sort of textual confirmation. I thought at most, if they went for a happy ending for everyone, we'd get Dean and Cas as hunting partners, and we could all fill in the post-canon gaps. I once told my sister that I'd be happy with a one-sided love confession from Cas to Dean, because that part was practically canon before last night, and in a way, I am happy. I'm happy that this crazy thing actually happened, and if nothing else, all of those clowns can put away their makeup. I was never with them. I never believed, and there's this sliver of me that's happy to have been wrong. It's completely bogus how it happened, but the fact that we live in a reality where it happened is still kind of tripping me out in a major way. So I'm happy, I'm... flabbergasted, but I'm experiencing a very unique, unprecedented soup of emotions this morning and I never would have felt like this if Cas had died with a no homo parting.

And that's the thing, they let it be unambiguously about Dean, not just in that one moment, but all along, and that's really satisfying in a meta narrative sense that when everyone was reading it as "Castiel is in love with Dean," they were... correct. It doesn't really matter when they decided this, in last night's episode they made it crystal-clear that it wasn't a whim, wasn't a recent development, in-universe. This has been Cas' truth from very, very early on, his entire experience since meeting Dean has been shaped by him, he's loved him all this time. That... I don't know, it's absolutely bonkers that this is all we're going to get, but it does mean something, if you want to let it.

Welcome back to 2012, Tumblr. Last night was a wild ride, I won't deny.

I'm giving the episode a bad score, but I just want to say the Destiel scene gets a simultaneous infinity-out-of-ten and also zero-out-of-ten, imploding the multiverse instantly. That's where I'm at, folks. Insert gif of Chidi dropping Peeps into a big pot of chili. I'm gonna go take a nap.

6/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn #spn 15x18 #destiel #i'm experiencing actual shock #i keep laughing #but like #you know how sometimes people laugh or smile inappropriately at funerals?#it feels like that

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ascottywrites · 4 years

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Best...Friends?

That Bad Friend Scott McCall tag really gets to me sometimes because even though the fandom kind of pushes it to an extreme, even before the whole Donovan and Theo business I can see how much of a suck-ass friend Scott could be. Like I don’t mean that friends should be up in each-others assholes during every given moment of the day but it is a horrible feeling to be cast aside like so much trash or easily forgotten and in cannon that happened more often than it should have for two people who call one another ‘family’.

And I know, extenuating circumstances, storytelling, ‘poor story telling’...yada yada, but I’m also a petty ass and sometimes I need to consume the distortion in the fandom to thrive.

**Also, lets be honest, sometimes the fanfiction is truer to the characters portrayed than the actual cannon. ijs

This whole post is also known as “I’m a petty asshole who lives in the south so doesn’t get enough opportunities to actually be a petty asshole.”

Anyway! On with the list! :

Steter:

On Edge by Bunnywest (Complete: 8/8| 23,707)

“What do you mean, Stiles is missing?” Peter demands, scowling at the phone. "Missing, Hale! Can you help find him or not?" The sheriff's voice cracks, and Peter can tell he's out of his mind with worry. Peter doesn't blame him.

In which Stiles gets bitten by a rogue alpha and bolts into the preserve, terrified and out of control. Peter's the one best qualified to find him, because Stiles is Peter's mate. Peter maybe hasn't quite gotten around to telling him that part yet, but Stiles is his, and he's damned if he's going to lose him to some feral alpha. He's going to find his boy, bring him home, and as for the rest? Well, Peter has a plan. It's Peter. He always has a plan.

pack of two by ScarSacrifices (one-shot| 1,735)

“You’ll be alright. No one can hurt you now,” Peter breathed out clutched the sobbing boy to his chest. Peter took a shaky breath and smoothed his hand down the boy’s hair making low shushing sounds as he did so. “Just listen to my heartbeat sweetheart, I’m here. You’re not alone,” he clutched him tighter, “not anymore.”

A Blowtorch? Really? by MysticMusic (Complete: 2/2| 4,757)

“He’s homicidal,” she sputtered.

“No, Allison. The witches are homicidal. He’s smart,” Stiles hissed, “and if you took your narcissistic head out of your ass for five minutes, you’d see something called self-preservation instincts. Seriously what the hell is wrong with you? A blowtorch? Really? How fucking stupid are you?”

Or, Stiles defends Peter when Allison attacks him with a blowtorch like a lunatic.

I'm Only Heard During the Silence Between My Screams by Irukashi_Narukib (wip: 42/?| 52,721)

Stiles thinks no one is listening, so he just... stops talking. It's just like that asshole Peter to refuse to take the hint.

Infinite Space by DiscontentedWinter (Complete: 13/13| 32,124)

Stiles needs Peter's expertise to help stop the latest threat to Beacon Hills. And, as the pack falls apart around him, he might even need Peter for more than that.

Black Fire by Green (one-shot| 10,934)

Deaton is all about the balance of the universe, about order. Stiles's new magic - gifted to him from the Nogitsune - is the complete opposite of that. Deaton calls Stiles's magic "dark" and seeks to imprison him in Eichen where he's no threat to the balance. Peter and Stiles go on the run - but they can't run forever.

The Only Sound by Elpie (Horribibble) (one-shot| 4,407)

Stiles becomes acutely aware of the weight and vibration of his voice in his throat. He knows what volume feels like, and understands the intricacies of modulating it through context clues. If his voice shakes at first, no one seems to notice much.

Except Peter.

What It Takes To Not Be Broken by Whispering_Sumire (one-shot| 17,410)

He's pretty sure Death is nipping at his heels at this point.

But he has to stay awake, has to keep Gerard away from Erica and Boyd, the two Betas still tied up with mountain ash and electricity on the other side of the room, and it looks like they're trying to scream through their duct-tape, still, but he can't hear it, not anymore.

The terrible, all-consuming, staticky silence had over taken him after about the third time Gerard's lackey- Ben, he thinks his name was- had stuck a military grade taser to his ear, a low enough voltage not to cause brain damage, he'd said, because the point of this was for him to talk.

[Or: The one where Stiles is kidnapped and tortured by Gerard, and his injuries lead to a complete loss of hearing, among other things.]

Sterek:

Something With a T by Futureworldruler (wip: 10/?| 22,723)

It started when Derek showed up at his house with a car full of plants.

Or Derek gets help, moves in with the Stilinskis, and slowly builds a new life for himself

Alpha, Mage, Pack by Foxfire2018 (wip: 36?/| 401,116)

Set at the end of Season 2. Stiles was kidnapped and tortured for hours. Yet no one came for him. Hurt and cast out of the pack by people he thought cared for him, what is he to do? He finds himself accompanied by someone he never expected and someone he is eternally grateful for. Derek feels betrayed and foolish for what he allowed to happen. Out of anger and hurt he forced a valuable member he really started to care for out of his pack. With the pack scattered and people hurt, what will come of them? Will they bond together again in time for the next big bad?

User Error by Poison_Love_Words (wip: 10/?| 37,767)

Given enough coffee and a few flirty texts from Mr.Bookish, Stiles could rule the world from his basement office at Triple S. That is until the day his best friend stabs him in the back for a pretty face and the (false) promise of fame and fortune.

Based on the Prompt: Omega Stiles is the real brain behind the up and coming tech company but Scott the public “face” starts to believe his own press and falls in with his new girlfriends bigoted family. He lets them talk him into kicking Stiles out of the company. And then Stiles gets revenge by going to work for the Hales.

I'll Bare My Back (If You Hold The Whip) by Kinkubus (wip: 5/?| 16,435)

After the fiasco with the Nogistune, which Allison barely survived, Stiles is pushed to the fringes of the pack. Alienated from his previous friends and abandoned by the Sheriff who can't deal with his broken son, Stiles slips further and further into a pit of despair. That is until he finds someone even more desperate than he is, and together they forge a bond that will revitalise both their lives and the lives of Scott's crumbling pack.

So this is my first fic and it's unbeta'd so any mistakes, please feel free to correct me. That being said, I have not paid attention to canon at all in this story. Allison lives. Gerard is dead, and so is Victoria but the Alpha pack hasn't arrived yet and to be honest the timeline is shot to pieces. Therefore please suspend your disbelief. This is primarily a story about Stiles fighting through all the odds to adopt the entire pack and cuddle them to death, whilst also feeding them healthy food because yes I know you've got werewolf metabolisms Peter but good eating habits are still important ok!

Choose! by Skeleton_Wolf (one-shot| 1,437)

Scott made him pick between his best friend and the pack that treats him like family. Is he really his best friend if he makes him pick? Can Stiles choose?

Thunderstorms & Polish Lullabies by Whispering_Sumire (one-shot| 10,057)

Boyd is there, hovering over his claws, Isaac looks devastated, Jennifer looks bewildered and concerned and horrified, Kali looks smug, the twins are carefully keeping their faces blank but they're playing along, and- Gods, he's really going to be forced to do this, isn't he? Pack, his Pack, the make-shift family he'd all but accidentally gathered is going to die by his hand, and even if it's forced, it'll still be his fault, for wanting them, for needing them, for biting them.

Loving them.

He wants to close his eyes but he owes Boyd more than that.

And then, abruptly, in this saturated technicolor still-picture moment of chaos and violence- the eye of the storm- the door to the loft crashes open. With the water and the metal and the force of it, the sound is almost guttural, and far too loud- even Kali seems startled.

[Or, the one where Stiles time-travels just in time to save Boyd and Derek from the Alphas, and manages to heal everyone, including himself, just a little in the process.]

The One You Choose by Livinginfictions (Complete: 7/7| 13,440)

Stiles hadn’t seen Scott in over a week, except for glances he caught during school hours.

Not Too Late to Learn by bubblessunshinedelight (wip: 20/?| 30,596)

After 14 years Stiles realizes Scott doesn't really know him.

or Scott finds out Derek and Stiles are dating and is a dick about it...for a while.

You Belong with Me by halcyon1993 (Complete: 4/4| 19,656)

Derek is tired of watching Stiles get treated like crap by his so-called friends. When both the Hale Pack and the McCall Pack end up in the same nightclub, Derek decides it's finally time to convince Stiles that he'd be better off with him as his Alpha.

That thin line between right or wrong by orphan_account (Complete: 7/7| 15,718)

An AU based on the Donovan-storyline from Season 5A. After Stiles is attacked at the library and accidentally kills Donovan, he’s in shock, panics and runs. Hurt, confused, ridden with guilt and depressed, he wonders how it ever came to this point where nothing will ever feel right again. So, he decides to call the one man who knows won’t judge him. But will Derek arrive on time to save Stiles’ life?

This story basically alternates from most of Season 5, ignoring the rest of the series. Since I hated what they did with Stiles’ character after Donovan’s attack, I decided to change it all. This story is completely written from Stiles’ POV.

A Heavy Price by Estellestafford (one-shot| 4,202)

Every Emissary wants to work for the Hale Pack, Stiles just wanted to be Scott's but then Allison happened to get some magic so that was out the window and now he finds himself in office with some hot guy offering to make him an Emissary in exchange for fulfilling his desires.

Go Away, Scott by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere (Complete: 45/45| 66,227)

After the incident at the warehouse, Stiles is fed up with Scott. He finds himself drawn into Derek’s pack and in the process, drawn to Derek himself.

With the Alpha Pack closing in, Derek needs to learn how to trust his pack and those around him. And who better to help him than Stiles?

A Healing Silence by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere (Complete: 28/28| 36,329)

Stiles is slowly pushed out of the pack following his fight with Scott about Donovan's death. After receiving a phone number from an old friend, Stiles is surprised to find that it belongs to the one person who may be able to bring him back to himself.

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polkahotness · 4 years

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SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 4

FFN // AO3

Switch

Adjusting to Freshmen-life at Hillwood High School had proven to be more difficult than either Arnold or Helga had anticipated. As they watched their friends thrive in their new environment, both felt as though they were still struggling to find their place within clubs, classes, and cliques. Each day during the first few weeks was a rush to navigate through the unfamiliar hallways that were filled to the brim with bustling students who had long since learned the various shortcuts and routes to most effectively get to their next hour's class.

Arnold and Helga on the other hand, were still taking the less-direct paths which led them around corners and into one another on a semi-frequent basis. And while this collision was not something that the pair had never accidently done before, on this particular afternoon, it would prove to be an encounter that would forever change their young lives.

SMACK!

Right around the corner of the 500 and 300 wing, Arnold Shortman ran directly into Helga G. Pataki, both of their armfuls of textbooks, notebooks, pens, and other high school essentials scattering around them like confetti from a canon.

"Seriously, footballhead?!" Helga exclaimed as she began collecting her various items that had mingled with Arnold's on the floor of the hallway. "Personally, I would have thought that by now, you'd know how to use your own two feet properly!"

"Sorry, Helga," Arnold grumbled as he too began feverishly gathering his things as quickly as possible. The warning bell had already rang, and both he and Helga were sure to be late if they didn't hurry. "I guess I was just in a rush."

"I'll say," the young blonde responded while glancing up to sneak a glimpse at the boy who had stolen her heart ages ago and still possessed to this day. Her eyes lingered on the boy with the oddly shaped head for a long moment as he picked up his belongings, though her gaze brought heat to his skin causing him to look up and meet eyes with his feisty classmate.

"What?" the boy asked her while pausing momentarily mid-reach for his phone which lay face-down in its black protective case.

"What, what, Arnoldo?" Helga spat back at him while maintaining their eye-contact and reaching to grab her own phone.

"You're staring at me," Arnold noted while finally palming the phone and reaching back to shove it into the pocket of his jeans. Without leaving Helga's eyes, he reached towards the next item on his horizon—his Algebra 2 textbook, which he needed for the class that he was nearly positive he would be late to after his run-in with Helga.

Out of everything she had dropped, Helga's own cellphone was the least of her worries—her focus instead on the notebook that lay just head of where Arnold was squatting before her. Inside the pages of that notebook were some of Helga's deepest thoughts and strongest feelings regarding him and their complicated relationship.

He could never find out what was written on the lines of the papers inside.

Taking the phone she'd grabbed to cram it into the side-pocket of the zip-up sweater she was wearing, she soon snatched the notebook while silently breathing a sigh of relief that Arnold was none-the-wiser as to what lay inside. "Uh, newsflash—it's not me who's doing the staring here, it's you." Her retort merely triggered Arnold to exchange a blank look with the quick-witted blonde before he picked up the last of the items he had dropped.

"Whatever you say, Helga," he recited—a typical ending to a typical conversation with the girl he still harbored feelings for even after all of these years. Oftentimes he would lie awake until the early hours of the morning while staring ahead at the stars that shone brightly above him through his skylight. His mind would endlessly replay moments the two of them had shared since their fifth-grade trip to San Lorenzo and wonder where it was that they went wrong.

Could it have been that they were too young?

Had they simply not been ready?

And more importantly, was there still a chance to remedy what the pair had seemingly lost?

For Arnold, the answers to his questions lay trapped inside the mind of one Helga G. Pataki; the object of both his desires and absolute frustration. He could never seem to wiggle himself back into her thought process, no matter how hard he tried—and he had certainly tried.

As the two parted ways for the next hour that would begin in less than a minute's time, neither realized that the phone in their pockets could hold the key to unlocking the mysteries that either teenager ruminated over time after time. Perhaps it was in their accidental switch that they would find their answers after all.

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

DING. DING. DING. DING.

Just as the bell let out its final ring, Helga slid into the seat of her English class. Panting from her jog after her crash with Arnold, Helga tossed the things she'd gathered in haste onto the top of her desk. Glancing her way, Phoebe immediately knew that something was troubling her best friend.

"Is everything alright, Helga?" She asked as their teacher continued talking in the opposite corner of the room to one of their fellow students. "You seem to be… discombobulated today."

"That's the understatement of the year," Helga answered while sorting through the compilation of things she'd gathered in haste just moments ago. "I swear to you, Pheebs, if I run into Arnold one more time, I might kill him. This is the third time in two weeks that he's almost made me late for class."

"Considering how often the two of you run into one another, I think it may be improbable to expect it won't happen again," Phoebe mused with a soft smile. She knew of the mutual feelings that Helga and Arnold shared for one another. She herself had engaged in dating shortly after the infamous trip to San Lorenzo, however for Phoebe and Gerald, their partnership had proven to be successful in all of the ways that their best friends' relationship hadn't.

Despite this, both Phoebe and Gerald never let go of the hope that their friends would one day reconnect in a way that would work out for the better. From their objective points of view, Helga and Arnold were perfect for one another. To them, it seemed that their friends merely lacked the motivation at being truly honest with one another; the real kryptonite that plagued and stood in the way of their seemingly imminent relationship.

"I don't know, Phoebe," Helga finally said as she softly traced the cover of her precious notebook that Arnold had once again almost seen the contents of. "You'd think the way the universe keeps shoving us together, something would have happened by now."

"But something did happen," Phoebe offered, though Helga was less than receptive.

"Yeah. In the fifth grade," she sneered before rolling her eyes and leaning back into the chair of her desk while crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Maybe it's time to give up and face the facts. Arnold and I are just… never going to work. We'll be forced to run into each other for the rest of our lives… our feelings littering the floor in a mess of emotional debris we keep having to pick up and hide away like some kind of… goddamn racoon, or something. A crow, maybe. They collect things, don't they?"

The question confused Phoebe who was accustomed to Helga's nonsensical rants that typically revolved around Arnold only to jut off in another direction entirely by the end. "Y-Yes, they do, but Helga—"

"Honestly, it's fine, I guess," Helga continued as though she hadn't heard a word her friend had said. "So, we collect our feelings like objects. Big deal. If he isn't willing to show me his, then I sure as hell am not willing to show him mine." Seeing that their teacher was still conversing with someone across the way about what appeared to be a previous assignment, Helga snuck her hand into the pocket of her sweater to grab the phone that lay inside.

"That's all there is to it," she said while pulling out the phone and clicking the button on the side to illuminate the screen. "I'll keep my feelings to myself and Arnold—" Helga stopped mid-sentence as she stared down at the screensaver that looked back at her.

"Helga?" Phoebe called her friend's name with a twinge of fear beneath her voice. "Helga, what is it? Is your phone alright after your hallway mishap?"

"I don't know…" she uttered before holding up the phone for Phoebe to see, "because this isn't my phone. It's Arnold's."

Meanwhile, a hallway over, Arnold Shortman had yet to notice that the phone residing safely in his pocket was not that of his own.

Slipping into his seat at the moment the bell chimed it's final chime, he too was glad that he hadn't collected another tardy slip like he had as a direct result of previous run-ins with Helga. It always seemed that the two of them found one another at the intersection of the 500 and 300 wings—Arnold silently wondered why he kept taking that route when he knew their colliding was almost fated to occur.

Perhaps he did it because he wanted them to bump into each other.

Maybe he secretly hoped that one of these times, just once, Helga might not snap at him and instead spill her feelings rather than her notebooks, pens, and papers.

"Hey, Arnold!" Gerald whispered out to his friend from the next row, and Arnold turned his head to direct his gaze towards him. "Did you get my message?"

"Huh?"

Pulling out his own phone and holding it out underneath his desk, he wiggled it back and forth as if the action would further illustrate his question. "Your phone! Did you get my text?" His voice was barely a whisper and more of a calculated soft-shout. It was a good thing their teacher spent the majority of his time playing Sudoku behind his desk rather than paying any attention to the going-ons of his classroom.

"No, why?" Arnold responded while fighting with his jeans to take out his cellphone.

"Just check it, man," Gerald instructed before continuing to explain what the message said; alleviating the need to read the text in the first place. "We're meeting at Gerald Field after school today for baseball. You in?"

"Sure. Sounds like fun," he remarked before furrowing his brow. "But why didn't I feel my phone vibrate? You must have texted me right when Helga and I ran into each other."

"Ah man, again?" his friend said with mock surprise. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I think the universe is trying to tell you something and you'd better start listening. Next time it may do something more drastic than ramming you into each other."

As Arnold finally freed the phone from his pocket and looked down towards the screen, his eyes widened in horror. "Uh… about that…" he muttered as Gerald eyed him curiously.

"What, the universe or baseball?"

"Both," Arnold answered before holding up the phone in his possession. "This isn't my phone."

"Then who's is it?" Gerald soon asked; Arnold clicking the button on the side to light up the screen which revealed a lockscreen with the image of a pink neon heart against a dark backdrop.

"Helga's."

"No…"

"Yes," Arnold insisted with a shake of his head. "Maybe the universe already took it up another notch…"

"Yeah, maybe," Gerald affirmed before shrugging his shoulders. "Or maybe it just doesn't want you to play baseball this afternoon."

"Gerald…"

"What?" He exclaimed as their teacher rose from their desk to finally make their way towards the front of the classroom to begin the hour. Apparently, he'd finished his latest Sudoku puzzle. "So, you gotta exchange phones with Helga. Big whoop. Use it to your advantage."

"Alright class," the teacher addressed the class. "Take out your textbooks and flip to page 2-0-2," he instructed as Gerald and Arnold followed suit; the football-headed boy setting Helga's phone carefully down to rest on his lap.

"What do you mean to my advantage?" Arnold whispered over while pulling out his algebra book and turning the pages to find the appropriate number.

"You know," Gerald muttered back while flipping through his own book. "Maybe we can hack in or something."

"To her phone?!" Arnold said loudly; a few stray eyes glancing in his direction at the minor outburst. Quieting himself, he leaned over to whisper back, "I'm not breaking into Helga's phone, Gerald. That's a breach of privacy. If she ever found out, she'd kill me."

"Yeah. If she found out," he soon responded. "And she won't."

"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"

Gerald shrugged his shoulders while thinking for a moment before saying, "I don't know. I'll talk to Phoebe."

"No. Absolutely not, Gerald," Arnold insisted as silence fell over the classroom at his words. Suddenly feeling a heat surround him at the countless eyes resting on him, their teacher included, a dark-red blush filled in Arnold's cheeks as he realized he'd been caught. "Sorry," he sheepishly told the teacher, who proceeded to begin explaining the latest in their mathematical lesson-plan.

Midway through his explanation, a wad of paper landed on the top of Arnold's desk; his eyes shooting over in the direction from where it came—Gerald. Picking it up and unfurling it, his eyes scanned over the words his friend had scrawled down for him to read.

After class, meet me by my locker. I know a guy.

Frowning at the two sentences staring back at him, Arnold turned to shoot his friend a glare before shaking his head and mouthing the word, 'No.' But even though he had no intentions of breaking into Helga's phone, a part of Arnold couldn't help but wonder what lay behind the screen and inside Helga's mind.

Could the secrets Arnold seeked really be locked away inside the phone precariously perched on his lap? And to what lengths was he willing to go to discover them?

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

"Gerald, I really think this is a bad idea," Arnold stated as he walked by his side from their lockers in pursuit of the 'connection' that awaited them.

"Relax, man," Gerald reassured his nervous friend while giving him a slap on the back and using it as a way to continue pushing him forward on their mission. "Fuzzy Slippers knows a guy who knows a guy who's cousins with this girl who knows how to hack into anything. They call her 'The Giant.'"

"The Giant?" he repeated with heavy skepticism. "I'm assuming that means they're tall or something?"

"No clue," the tall-haired boy admitted. "All I know is we're supposed to meet her in the 100 wing by that cluster of lockers nobody uses."

"The 100 wing?" Arnold intoned with obvious bias. "Gerald, nobody uses that hallway except to go into the wrestling room from the side door. Well, and the cafeteria, I guess. And to do shady things…"

"And just what is it you think we are doing? We're breaking into Helga G. Pataki's phone. What's shadier than that?" he emphasized. "Besides, wrestling doesn't start until after school PLUS we've already had lunch… so right now during sixth period with two more hours to go before school's done… Man, it is the perfect meeting spot."

Not wanting to argue about whether or not they should follow through with his insane plan, the flaxen-haired boy moved on to ask a different kind of question just as they rounded the corner that led to the entrance of the 100 wing. "How long do you think it'll take?" he paused as though waiting for Gerald to tell him he understood what he was saying. To be more direct, Arnold reiterated himself. "You know, the hacking-in part."

"Shh!" Gerald shushed. "Keep your voice down, alright? We don't need everybody knowing that we're over here."

"Why not?" Arnold reacted right away. "We're not not allowed to be in this hallway. There's a bathroom down here, we could always say we're going there or something." The pair continued to walk in silence for a moment as the slowly made their way down the infamous wing.

"I just can't be late to last period, again, Gerald," Arnold let out and he dropped his head back in annoyance while he continued to talk. "Mr. Nelson is a stickler for being on time—do you know that he locks the door when the bell rings?"

Perking his head up, Gerald said, "You've gotten yourself locked out of History class?" before letting out a jealous scoff. "Man! I wish I could get myself locked out of that class. History blows and Nelson's tests are impossible to pass."

"I knowthat," he replied blankly before going on to stress, "That's why I don't think this is such a good idea! Who knows how long this is going to take."

"Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes," A shriek called out; both Arnold and Gerald looking around themselves to find the source of the high-pitched voice. Emerging from behind the grouping of unused lockers, a small girl who barely stood at five-feet-tall approached the friends while pushing up her large glasses which were sliding down her nose. "Of course, that's all depending on the make, model… year."

"Oh, uh…" Arnold stuttered while fishing out the phone from his pocket once more and holding it out for the unassuming girl in front of him. "I don't know. It's just a phone. I think it's like mine… so—"

"Hold up," Gerald interrupted as the girl took Helga's phone from Arnold's hand to begin inspecting it. "You mean to tell me that you're 'The Giant?' The school's best hacker AND Ralphio's seventeen year old cousin?"

"Wait, who's Ralphio?" Arnold questioned, though his inquiry was lost in the girl's answer.

"All that you need to know, Gerald Martin Johanssen," the girl called him by his full name which immediately made him flinch with frightening surprise, "is that I can do exactly what you're looking for and I can do it for a small, minimal, and inconsequential fee."

"If you're looking for money, we don't have any, so—" Arnold began to tell her, though 'The Giant' was quick to dismiss him.

"I'm not interested in money," she stated before looking between the both of them. "I'm far more interested in secrets."

"Secrets?" the teenage boys repeated in unison as 'The Giant' nodded her head while gently tapping the back of Helga's phone against her hand.

"There's nothing more elusive than a good secret," she explained with a mischievous smirk. "And, as a hacker, secrets are a large part of my work. So. What secret do you have for me? One secret for one code, that's the rules."

Gerald and Arnold exchanged a look for a moment before the blonde softly muttered, "Gerald… I don't know if this is worth it."

"C'mon, man! Don't you want to know about the inner workings of Helga's mind?" He whispered back as though the girl ahead of them wasn't actively listening to their every word. "What happened to the bold kid running through the jungle to save his parents or fighting the man to save the neighborhood? Huh? Where's that guy, right now?"

"It just seems… wrong," Arnold replied while reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and stealing a glance at 'The Giant' who looked on in curiosity. "I don't think I should break into Helga's private property."

"Arnold," Gerald stated blankly. "You and I both know that she's probably doing this exact thing to your phone right this minute. I'll bet you twenty bucks that she's standing in the hallway, talking to Phoebe and trying to guess your passcode so she can look at whatever secrets you've got hiding in there."

He thought this over while trying to imagine what Gerald had so precisely described for him.

"And you know what?" he went on to say, Arnold's eyes shooting back over to his friend as he continued. "With how smart Helga is… I would also bet that she doesn't even need a secrets-dealing hacker to do it either."

As Arnold considered Gerald's point, across the school and downstairs in the 600 wing Helga was staring down at the locked screen of the phone she'd mistakenly grabbed nearly an hour ago. "Stupid football-head losing his phone…" she muttered before huffing out a deep breath and dropping her arm while still holding the cellphone tightly in her grip. With exasperation, she rested her head against the metal of the lockers she leaned against while waiting for Phoebe to finish grabbing her books for their next class.

"I'm going to need a hacker if I ever want to get into Arnold's phone."

"Helga!" Phoebe scolded before shutting her locker with the appropriate book she needed in her grasp. "You can't break into Arnold's phone. It's his personal property."

"So what?"

Phoebe frowned while knitting her brows together in an expression of great concern towards Helga's judgement. "It would violate his privacy."

Helga remained in control of her tone as she brushed off the objection. "He's not going to find out. This is Arnold we're talking about, here. The kid barely knew I existed up until that nonsense on the roof of the FTi building."

"I'm not so sure that I would agree with that, Helga, but to break into Arnold's phone is another issue of which I wholeheartedly disapprove." She shook her head more to herself than to Helga before softly squeaking out, "What about his trust?"

"What about his trust?" Helga repeated while emphasizing a different part of the sentence entirely which gave it a distinctly sour aftertaste.

With a tired sigh, Phoebe said plainly, "Mutual trust is something that, once broken, is nearly impossible to repair. Suppose that Arnold didn't find out right away. Helga, I know you are smart enough to realize that Arnold would discover it eventually. It could hinder your relationship should you already be engaged in one, or… think of the damage an exposed secret of that magnitude could have on a potential relationship between the two of you. Is that something you're willing to sacrifice so you can snoop through his phone and perhaps find nothing of significance?"

Groaning at Phoebe's opinion on the matter, Helga shot her a hopeful, yet irritated look. "You could get me in though," she stated rather than asked. At Phoebe's lack of response, Helga went on. "Arnold's phone. Hypothetically speaking… you could hack into it. Am I right?"

Chewing over Helga's assumption, she decided to hint rather than answer. "Possibly."

"And you really won't help me out with this?" Helga begged yet again, an ace hiding up her sleeve as she spoke. "You'd really make me sit in the library and skip my next class, OUR next class that WE SHARE together? Hmm?"

Trying to walk away from Helga as she grew more and more persistent, Phoebe couldn't escape her longer strides that allowed her to catch up with ease. Just within reach, Helga called out as they walked, "You want me to have to watch some long parade of videos which frustrate me SO BADLY that I end up going back to you and EXPLODING like some kind of wild ape?"

"Helga, please," Phoebe ordered from over her shoulder. She was angry at how right Helga was. Maybe it would be the smart thing to skip what was implied and simply unlock the phone. At least by doing that, Helga would leave her alone with all of this nonsense.

As she thought this over with each step she took, Phoebe continued to listen while Helga kept painting the grim tale of her eventual compliance. "Picture it. There you are. You're right there in the middle of the hallway while I'm bugging you even worse than I am now. And what do you do, Phoebe?" Helga moved from talking to one side in lieu of the other. "What can you do when I'm just jib-jabbin' away like a bird on your shoulder squawking and pecking at you as I chirp, 'Help me, Phoebe! Help me! Open the phone and help me!'"

Stopping mid-stride, Phoebe pivoted around to face Helga with an angry albeit bored expression dusted over her features.

As if silently telling her to continue, Helga took the imaginary cue and began speaking to the dark-haired girl with a mock sympathy so sweet, it could cause cavities. "I'll tell you what you do, Pheebs. You, being the kind-hearted, good, and true-blue friend that you are… you give in. And I'm sorry, but you know you will, I'm not wrong, am I?"

Phoebe knew she was right. Phoebe also knew that it didn't matter. Helga would find a way regardless of her assistance or not. Helga herself went on to express her exact thoughts, but with her own words. "The only person I know better than me… is you."

Catching the glare that was sent her way, Helga soon held her hands up in defense. "It's not a bad thing, I mean, criminy! I'm pretty predictable too, we both know that."

"I guess so…" Phoebe quietly agreed, and Helga swooped in to play her final card—the ace she'd been saving for this very moment.

"Look. Phoebe," the teen began before giving her friend an exaggerated shrug. "I'm just trying to give you a shortcut here-a one-way ticket to jump you and I to the end of this headache."

"But Helga—" she tried to stand her ground, the foundation feeling flimsy beneath her weight as she began to faulter under Helga's towering presence.

"Please, Pheebs? I'm so, so close here and if you do it now, you'll save us both a stupid-long process," She paused for dramatic effect while holding out her one hand as though using it to weigh the choices she was presenting, "OR, we can give it a go and do this pointless dance which, worst case scenario, you still don't help me and I just go reach out to the depths of the 100 wing and hire someone to do it for me."

Phoebe eyed the pleading young woman who stood before her. She didn't want to give in to Helga's cries for help, but she knew in her heart of hearts that by refusing to help, she was merely prolonging the inevitable. What were the ethical ramifications of denying her friend and forcing her to find another way? Could the method that Helga ultimately finds lead to something far worse than imagined? Worse yet than any threat the consequences of Phoebe helping right away may pose to the universe?

The scowl on Phoebe's delicate face hardened as she prepared to hold her stance. "Helga, I'm sorry, but I must refuse to parti—"

"Wait, hang on a sec, Pheebs," Helga stopped her from finishing as she held out Arnold's phone to look down at the bright screen. "Arnold just got a text message," she reported flatly, and Phoebe arched her brow.

Without thinking, she blurted out, "From who?"

Flipping the phone so the screen could face her four-eyed friend, Helga replied, "From me."

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

"I can't believe you told her about the dress-up thing," Arnold noted with a small smirk. "Honestly, I'd forgotten about it."

"As you rightfully should have," Gerald countered with a lone shake of his head. "I mean, we looked fabulous—"

"Right?!" the blonde agreed with excitement before toning down his demeanor. "But, you know… not everybody needs to know about it."

"I just hope that those pictures never see the light of day… ever." The two shuddered at the thought, though Arnold maintained his for a few seconds longer. Turning to look his way with worry, Gerald crossed his arms over his chest before saying, "You don't happen to have copies of those pictures on your phone, now do you, Arnold?"

Swallowing hard, he merely grimaced while managing, "Well…"

"Arnold!" Gerald shouted while throwing his arms up into the air. "Come on, man! That was like… our secret! We don't need to advertise that little experiment."

"It wasn't that bad," Arnold insisted.

"We put on make-up."

"And it looked good,"

"I know that, okay?" Gerald stage-whispered back to his unphased partner-in-crime. "Don't you think I know we looked great? It was disturbing."

"Eh," he sounded while tilting his head back and forth to weigh out his answer before speaking. "I thought it was interesting. Kind of cool, actually. You really didn't think it was fun?"

"Sure, but I'm not admitting that!"

"You might have to, now," Arnold teased while receiving the other end of an intense glare. "Why be ashamed when we looked so good?"

"Because it was last month that we did that," Gerald explained while using his hands to wildly gesture about himself. "Maybe if we were six it would be cute but we're almost sixteen now and—"

"And we put on dresses that we found in the crawlspace at the boarding house," Arnold continued to say as Gerald desperately tried to hush him without success, "and then Grandma gave us her make-up which we then used to—"

"Arnold…"

"—make ourselves, as you even described with your own words—"

"C'mon!"

"—as 'fabulous.' We were fabulous and we were wearing dresses with make-up on. What's the worst that could happen?" He patiently waited for an answer that never came. After a moment, he gave Gerald an answer of his own. "The worst that happens is Helga finds them, or 'The Giant' leaks them and then everyone can be jealous at how good we looked. I'm not ashamed."

Slowly shaking his head back and forth, Gerald watched Arnold while humming his usual song. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I've said it once, and I'll say it again—"

"I'm a bold kid?" Arnold offered, though it wasn't what had been on his counterpart's mind.

"Nah, we established that a while ago," He said before handing over Helga's phone which he'd been holding since 'The Giant' had returned it to us opened and free from a passcode. "What I was going to say was that this is your dad's fault." Waving a hand over where Arnold stood, he continued while contorting his mouth into a twisted sneer. "All of this? I blame Miles. Dude has no shame and neither do you."

Taking the unlocked phone and easily swiping his way to the 'messages' menu, Arnold let out a single laugh. "I may have no shame about wearing a dress, but I have plenty of other kinds of shame, and those are thanks to myself."

Opening his mouth to argue, Gerald stopped when he saw his friend's fingers begin tapping away on the screen. "What are… what are you doing?"

"I'm texting Helga," he responded, then paused to look up and out thoughtfully while musing to himself, "Well, I guess I'm texting me, but, you know…" Arnold's voice trailed off as his attention returned to the message he had been feverishly typing.

"Why?" Gerald asked. "I thought we were going to explore the inner workings of Helga G. Pataki's mind!"

"Maybe that's what you would do," Arnold retorted before hitting the send button and lowering the phone altogether. "I told myself that the only way I would go through with this was that when the phone was unlocked, I would text Helga so we could arrange a switch. That's all."

"Okay, so what did you text her?"

Helga:

I know you have my phone, Helga. And I know you're probably reading this right now. Guess I'll find out in a minute when the 'read' receipt comes back.

"Would you look at that," Helga remarked, "he just has me labeled by my first name in here. The only other contact like that is Gerald's. And his parents, I guess."

"You already looked through his contacts?" Phoebe asked while looking over at the screen she'd helped to unlock.

"Doi," was all she said before beginning her own message to send back to the name she recognized as her own. All the while, she imagined Arnold receiving her text and smiling that dopey grin at the words she'd carefully typed.

Footballhead:

Took you long enough to get into my phone. Geez, Arnoldo. I take it your giant-head didn't come with an equally giant-in-size and freakishly-shaped brain, now did it?

"That Helga," Gerald commented while looking over Arnold's shoulder as he began wording his reply. "Always the clever one, isn't she."

"Always," Arnold affirmed before tapping send once again; the two-minute warning bell resounding through the 100 wing that the two still lingered in.

Helga:

No such luck, I'm afraid. But how do I know that you unlocked MY phone before I unlocked yours? After all, it was ME who texted YOU.

DING. DING. DING. DING.

"Two minutes," Helga noted while looking up to the air above her as if the noise had come out of the atmosphere rather than the speakers in the hallway. "We don't have to switch back yet…"

"Why wouldn't you want to get your phone back? I thought you didn't want Arnold looking through your things."

Helga's fingers danced across the keyboard of the screen as her body instinctively began walking towards the destination of her next class. "Because, Pheebs, he's already in," she clarified before hitting 'send' and sliding the phone safely into the pocket of her sweatshirt. "Now, we're just playing a little game."

"And where does that game end?" Phoebe probed as they took off down the hallway towards the end of the wing where the science rooms were located.

"I'm not sure yet," she responded just as they passed the threshold of their biology classroom. "Probably in us switching our phones back and going our merry way. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Footballhead:

You may have texted me first, Hair Boy, but that doesn't mean I didn't have PLENTY of time to peruse your contact list, messages, emails, and of course, your many, MANY pictures.

Both Gerald and Arnold widened their eyes at the message that stared back at them from the bright light of Helga's phone.

"So, that's it," Gerald stated in defeat. "We're officially screwed."

"She's bluffing," Arnold immediately announced before zealously concocting his next message. "If she got into my phone, she got into it because of Phoebe, right?"

"Probably, yeah. Why?"

"If she got in because of her," he theorized, "then that means she's with Phoebe."

"So?"

"So," Arnold reiterated, "there is no way that she would let Helga go through my all of my stuff while she's still around." Clicking 'send' with a light tap of his fingertip, he added, "I think I can keep her distracted through the next couple hours until school is over."

"Why wait until school's done?" his childhood companion wondered. "You two can switch phones back after this period is over, no harm, no fowl! Why wouldn't you do it right away?"

"Because," his words were slick with amusement at the question, "I'm kind of enjoying this."

"Enjoying it? What are you, crazy, Arnold?!" Gerald practically shouted as they started on their way to the period that they may be late to after all, though Arnold hardly seemed to care anymore, despite the constant warning from his friend. "You're playing with fire, man!"

"Not fire, Gerald… only Helga."

"Which is worse," he argued; Arnold instantaneously disagreeing.

"It's all going to be fine, Gerald, I promise," he tried to reassure with a confident upturn of his lips and a light pat on the back. "Trust me."

And so began the exchange of a century.

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

Helga:

I don't have anything to hide, Helga. If you want to go hunting through my phone for some kind of blackmail-material, you won't find anything.

She stared at the words of Arnold's latest message that shone from under the table she sat at in the back corner of her biology class.

Footballhead:

Who's to say that I haven't already FOUND all of your dirty little secrets and am currently planning to expose you for the weird, football-faced dingus that you are?

Arnold suppressed a laugh before replying while typing with one hand at his side and out of his teacher's sight.

Helga:

I have nothing to be ashamed of that you can find on that phone, Helga. The things I'm ashamed of are words that were never said and feelings I never acted on.

Mouth agape, Helga fought the urge to let out a loud gasp in reaction to the words Arnold had so boldly sent across the airwaves.

Footballhead:

And what words and feelings might those be, exactly?

A half-smile curled up at the corner of Arnold's mouth. This was his chance to use an inconvenience as a blessing—a way to reach out to Helga by using the only means that she seemed to understand: written word.

Helga:

You know.

"Two words?" Helga muttered to herself as she finally was able to read the message that she'd had to ignore for nearly thirty minutes to do some lame science experiment. The bell would ring any minute and she would be free to roam the halls with Arnold's phone still in tow.

Footballhead:

Why no, genius, I DON'T know. Why don't you and your dumb head enlighten me?

Walking slowly out of his class at the bell's chime, Arnold seized his moment in the back and forth he'd been enjoying—a back and forth that he knew Helga was enjoying, too.

Helga:

I guess I could do that. Only on one condition, though.

Footballhead:

Name your price.

Helga watched the bubble on the message screen appear and disappear rapidly as Arnold worked out the perfect reply. Her hands sweating, Arnold's phone became slippery no matter how tightly she held onto it, and she waited with bated breath until his message at last appeared on the screen.

Helga:

Slausen's. Today, after school. You can even order whatever you want.

It was Arnold's turn to wait anxiously as Helga typed her reply, though she didn't make him wait quite as long for a response.

Footballhead:

And what is it that YOU happen to be getting out of this little, late-afternoon ice cream social? Besides your phone, that is.

Trying to hide his growing smile, Arnold knew exactly what it was he wanted to say next.

Helga:

I get the chance at trapping you in an honest conversation with the bait of free food. You get to eat, and I get to tell you how I feel and HAVE felt since that Summer of 6th grade when we grew apart.

Chewing on her lip, Helga debated her next choice of words before sending one more question that she knew she wouldn't be getting an answer for. At least not by way of text.

Even so, she knew that she had to try.

Footballhead:

Just how was it that we grew apart? Why DID you stop talking to me? Did I scare you off?

Sighing at the words he knew Helga had struggled to successfully send, Arnold decided to give her just enough information that it would only make her want more.

Helga:

Absolutely not. It was ME who scared MYSELF off. I chickened out.

Intrigued by his vague explanation, Helga wasted no time in answering.

Footballhead:

Why?

The one word that Helga had sent brought butterflies along with it. They gathered inside of Arnold's stomach to flurry and flutter in circles as he sent her what he hoped would be an invite she would finally accept.

Helga:

Meet me at Slausen's after school and I'll tell you.

Before she could tell him that she was interested in his proposition, another message popped up on the screen.

Helga:

And make sure you bring my phone. As fun as this has been, we should probably switch back before we go home for the night. What do you say?

The 'typing' bubble didn't have to float for long before Arnold received Helga's reply; the message once again containing only one word.

Footballhead:

Deal.

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tumblunni · 6 years

Text

Man, god, im just suddenly thinking about "ak/ur/oku" and like.. How the fuck did that even become such a huge thing in early 2000s fandom? Dear god so much early gay shipping in fandom was super unhealthy "sinful" bullshit made by straight people for fetishy purposes rather than genuine representation. But a/kurok/u was such a weird one because it was like.. Just globally accepted and never aknowledged to be problematic?? Man i still remember how lil 13 year old me didnt know there was anything wrong with it, like seriously when stuff like this becomes popularized it ends up sending bad messages to actual queer youth. Learning about your sexuality via the internet cos there's no sex ed irl for you, abd you end up stumbling into toxic fandoms before you have the critical thinking skills necessary to know that this stuff is bad and shouldnt be imitated. Like seriously one of the things i worry about EVERY NIGHT AT 2AM THAT KEEPS ME FROM SLEEPING is that stupid lil 15 year old me made a post on deviantart going like "are pedophiles really all bad? I mean it sounds like an illness. I mean maybe theyre just scared and they want help." Like im terrified constantly that someone will find that old thing and judge me as if i still believe that apologist crap, or as if it was actually an opinion i formed from a fully developed mind, rather than from a kid who (as far as i knew) had never met a pedophile, thinking about pedophiles in the abstract, while being influenced by fuckin pedophile-dominated fandoms and having NO IDEA. and of cooooourse i wanted to believe that i was mature for my age, i thought that was a compliment.. Uuuuugh...

Sorry, going a little offtopic there.

But anyway isnt it kinda weird how akur/oku was just.. Not even regarded as pedophilia? And when i was a kid it wasnt just me not understanding the gross parts of the fandom, i legit never thought axel was that much older than roxas. And it was one of the more popular gay ships cos at that point as far as we knew it was the only person axel had any sort of backstory with, and he cared so much about this guy that he was willing to sacrifice his life to help sora even when he knew roxas would never come back. At the time without further context it seemed like a reasonable assumption to make? And it wasnt until Days that i realized axel was intended to be an adult rather than a teenager, and even worse A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO MADE THAT SHIPPING ART KNEW THAT. Uuugh it was so gross in retrospect to go back and see all the clues i missed that these people were fetishizing roxas's inexperience and veey much writing him as underage. AAAAAAA!

Anyway im glad that shit is now recognized as shit and now we have canon evidence of this dude being old as balls. And honestly i love the relationship of him as a big brother/dad to roxas and xion a lot more, even though as a kid i was desperate for any kind of queer representation in kh. Like.. I never really actually liked the ship that much or felt any chemistry? I just latched onto a few bad writing flubs that could potentially be interpreted as Gay Evidence because i was SO damn desperate! Like i felt like i had to support all these gross abusive ships in fandom cos if i wasnt then i was being 'homophobic', i mean they were THE ONLY AVAILABLE OPTIONS, right? :( Its only now ive grown up i can see how wrong that was, and how people just used it as an excuse to make gross shit and get away with it. Like how in Black Butler all these 'yaoi fangirls' kept erasing the rarest of rare things, a canon trans woman, because 'its sexier if its gay'. Ughhhh. And seriously that discourse still exists for poor Grell, and there's still a lot of these shitty bigoted people pretending to be allies, but like seriously this was EVERYWHERE in 2005! And lgbt rights and even lgbt communities at all were way smaller and less available to the poor teenagers who really needed that positive influence while they were figuring out who they are. So man the abusive side of yaoi fandom was WAY more powerful, and wya more.mainstream, with barely any criticism. And the whole content of this fandom was creepy fuckin adults making pedo porn, and kids who just discovered they were queer and tried to headcanon their favourote characters as being like them. Fucking predator heaven! So yeh that ruined KH for me and definately made me scared of returning to Black Butler for almost a decade. And then i found out that the manga itself has none of that pedo shit and that one of the fandom's biggest abusive gay man archetypes was actually a trans woman this entire time, and just gahhhhh....

Also like seriously this is a tad offtopic but can we kill the anime trope of either everyone looking young or everyone looking old? Or creepy things where just one character looks the wrong age in order to fetishize pedophilia? I dont think kingdom hearts was one of those intentional ones, like i mean there's super bad shit where its like 'this 5 year old looking person is really 9000 years old/actually 18 and just hasnt had their growth spurt yet' (somehow its even more insulting when theres not even a magical excuse) Or the other way around and we have a character thats canonically underage but drawn looking sexually mature with big ol knockers so its somehow okay. The existence of those horrible things is why i end up feeling uncomfortable even seeing ambiguous ages as just a trope in completely innocent anime, yknow? Like in pokemon and digimon all the 10 year old protagonists are exactly the same height as all the adults, and all the female love interests for ash have to be early bloomers in terms of chest and hips, while notably Iris is the only one who actually looks her age and also the first non love interest. Its another reason why i prefer the new art style for the latest season, they make everyone look like kids and Lillie continues to look like a kid even though she's the main girl and has all the cute scenes with Ash. The girls even got very normal looking kiddy swimsuits in the beach episode! Why is that so uncommon, to find the bare minimum thing of underage kids not being sexualized at the beach??

Soooooo yeah, thats at least part of why kid me thought axel and roxas were within a similar age range. Like i thought roxas was maybe 16 and axel was 18?? Somehow?? I dont even know, kingdom hearts isnt even SUPER bad with the 'kids look like older teens,all adults look like age 20 at the most' anime syndrome. Its probably more because id been raised on games and anime that followed that trope, before i played kh. And as a kid you just dont really know the exact differences between 'old', like i mean i knew teenagers were tall and boys get a growth spurt, so somehow it made sense to me that axel could be the same age as roxas?? And man even if i knew he wasnt, i was barely educated at all about pedophilia and i didnt know the nuances of it. I just knew 'its bad for adults to marry kids' like man i was really behind the curve in general learning due to my undiagnosed autism and abusive parenting so like HERE'S 12 YEAR OLD ME NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT THE SEX ASPECT. And i didnt know that adults in relationships with teenagers was bad too, or like 16/17 year old teens dating kids... I was so fuckin dumb... I really cant believe that not only did i believe stupid adults saying 'pedophilia isnt bad if you're non offending, its okay to make cartoon child porn as long as you dont physically abuse real kids' but also i somehow just DID NOT EVER REALIZE that axel was an adult and roxas wasnt even a goddamn older teen...

So yeh im making a lot of excuses for why my stupid younger self was blindly parroting bullshit, but im not trying to excuse how goddamn wrong and bad it was. I still wake up ashamed in the middle of the night for crapoy decisions i made as a dumb kid, and in terrified that some shreds of it might still exist out there on the internet and maybe someone else could read it?! Gahhhh! Seriously could i have accidentally helped spread that bullshit brainwashing to other kids? And seriously when people say this shit is harmless they just need to look at this, look at how being into problematic yaoi is such a common 'phase' for ACTUAL CHILDREN. Like its not fuckin NATURAL for kids to fall into this stuff, they do it because they dont know any better but the people making the goddamn founding blocks of the fandom are fuckin grown women fetishizing gay men or grown men fetishing lesbians. There's people who do know better who actually conciously decide that a/kurok/u is a good ship while knowing all the goddamn details of what it actually is and exactly what theyre supporting by shipping it. Ughhhhh!

So yeh fuckin Please Stay Safe In Fandom, Kids

And pedophiles have absolutely none of my sympathy, please ignore that goddamn shit i wrote as a little kid being fuckin groomed by a fandom without even knowing it.

This also applies a lot to the rest of LGBT+ aside from just gay shipping, like seriously it took me til age 18 to find any positive representation of trans people or even a proper explanation of what being trans is, yet before i was even 8 years old i'd seen a million 'lol gross man in a dress who gets sexual gratification from wearing women's underwear' jokes in kids shows. And when i was 12 i'd already been exposed to the fuckin hell of m/pre/g thanks to its prevelance of untagged n/sf/w shit in the kh fandom. And by age 15 i'd been exposed to pedophile apologists arguing whether child porn was okay if they only got off to that and didnt personally abuse that kid with their own hands. All of that shit but actually learning about homosexuality and gender in sex ed would have been 'too much' for someone my age...

God what a fuckin mess. Fuck im really really fuckin worried that any of my ignorant comments at those ages could have been read by other ignorant kids and contributed to that disgusting fandom atmosphere. Fuck i think about this so damn often im so damn ashamed of how ignorant i used to be yet i know the adult fuckfaces making pedo shit never reel one lick of shame any damn day of their life. I used to excuse their shit as an actual kid cos i just ASSUMED they would be ashamed and want to seek help! Gahhhh..

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meganmazing · 6 years

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another phlint rec list*

i’ve done one of these before (1), and phlint also shows up in one of my multi-fandom rec lists (2), so if you want more of these two, check those out!

click the titles and author names for links and remember to show love to your authors in the form of comments/kudos, they love it all, i promise.

READ THE TAGS AND WARNINGS ON EVERYTHING, PLEASE <3

(*except for one fic that is technically not phlint-centered, but it’s a sequel to a phlint fic and it is important and 100% recommended reading, plus Clint plays a role, so.)

Phil Comes Back

Never Sold a Lie by nerdwegian Words: 7k+ Rating: M

"The Life Model Decoys are designed with a self-sustaining Artificial Intelligence, with the project goal being for them to be able to pass as their Target Model in any given situation."

Road trip fic. Obviously.

EDIT: Now also available as podfic by the lovely, amazing shell!

YEAH, YOU DID READ THAT RIGHT. This story broke my heart, but becasue I am who I am (read: a massive sap), it has a happy ending. It’s Clint’s perspective and so the Clint feels are front and center, but I was thrown by how hard it hit me with the PHEELS. The grief is so well done on Clint’s part, and I love how the author dug right into that, BUT PHIL.

It’s not the road trip trope you’re expecting. No spoilers, becasue it’s better if you don’t know a ton going in.

ask ourselves what road to take by topaz Words: 47k+ Rating: E

Clint knew it was going to be bad as soon as he looked up from whatever the hell Nat had gotten for him to eat and saw Fury standing in front of him.

Clint and Steve being friends is generally overlooked in a lot of the stuff I’ve read, so every time it pops up in a fic’s tags I’m like, “oh right, this is a thing!”

It’s the most Hawkeye thing I've read in a long time, and I love it. It follows along with MCU movies, too, but GOD. It hurts, and hurts so good. The ending totally melted my soul.

(Barney shows up ~kinda~ but this is not the fic I referenced earlier. I read this before I actually cared about Barney, so when he ~kinda~ popped up I didn’t give a shit, BUT EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW)

I Could Live by the Light of Your Eyes by nerdwegian Words: 43k+ Rating: E

All Clint wanted was to get laid.

(In which Clint meets a mysterious man who may or may not be named Phil, and accidentally stumbles into a big conspiracy where very few things are what they seem to be.)

The quote that won me over: ""You're going to get me fired," Clint says, which is also dumb as hell. He's going to get his own ass fired, all because he can't turn down a fucking blowjob from an assassin in a three-piece suit, what the actual fuck, Barton-- ”

This is amazing. The way they play with the lore/canon of the MCU is incredible, and honestly, that universe is so interesting I wish there was more of it. I audibly when “OOOOHHHH...hell yeah” more than once. Phil is awesome. Clint has a complicated relationship with impulse control. Life is bad ass and messy.

Good Publicity (is worth its weight in tequila) by aftersoon Words: 18k+ Rating: M

All Phil wanted was a quiet drink. What he got was a devastatingly handsome archer, one meddling boss, and a job in PR for the most destructive team of superheroes he'd ever heard of.

I thought I hated AUs that had Clint as an Avenger and Phil as a civilian, but damn. Add this to the list of things I can’t say anymore. The way he gets tied into the whole team is great, and I loved how involved everyone was. Plus, obviously, Clint. Always.

If you’re looking for a good Phil-centered fic, and you like AU, definitely don’t skip this one.

Chilling with the Avengers

There's a Dog-Related Pun in There Somewhere (Don't Worry; Tony's On It) by Perpetual Motion Words: 11k+ Rating: G

Phil gets turned into a corgi. There are emotions involving Clint. That's literally the entire plot.

Tony’s name is in the title. Is it a surprise that I clicked on this story? At this point, it really shouldn’t be.

The corgi!Clint fics in this fandom are the best, and so hell yeah I clicked on a corgi!Phil one. And I am so glad I did, because it’s the cutest thing and so funny. Out of all the recs on this list, this is the one that’s pure fluff and goodness.

Pre-MCU

This One Time in Shanghai by Eligh Words: 9k+ Rating: E

Clint and Phil just keep on accidentally having sex. And then Phil screws it up with (ugh) feelings.

HELL YEAH HE DOES. The way this is written is so Phil, and the style/flow of it changes as Phil's understanding of his own feelings change, and it was just so damn well done. Plus, there are expertly done sexytimes with FEELINGS (a lot of both in this fic, tbh). All the love to the author, seriously.

(The cameo in the end had me going: is that...? IT IS.)

Series

Line of Sight (series) by shadowen 8 Works Total Ratings: E/M/T

My series bookmark just reads: If you haven’t read this series you’re doing so many things wrong. So, clearly, I kinda like it. Just a little. And can I just give all the kudos to the author for making 8 whole works in the series? Bless.

By the time I got to the tags in Part 8 (Anchor Point), I was walking on air.

The first installment is below, and it pretty much cemented my love for the author.

Fifty Pound Draw by shadowen Words: 30k+ Rating: E

There was always a chance the mission would go wrong.

This fic quite literally builds the relationship from the ground up, and I still vividly remember getting to the end of the very first chapter and thinking, “Oh, Clint”, and wanting to wrap him in a million blankets forever. Dude has been through the ringer.

The final chapter is one of Phil’s mission reports, and holy shit only in this fandom do formal mission reports make me tear up, what the hell. I love Phil so much in this. I mean, I love him always, but the way he’s written here just kills me because the characterization is so spot-on. And so is Clint’s. This is that backstory fic to stomp all backstory fics, and (at least this first part) could be stuck right into the MCU as is with zero change to any of the properties, and that kills me just a little bit more.

And Here’s That Series I Referenced in the Beginning

Landslide by JHSC Words: 91k+ Rating: E

Clint is seventeen. He has a girlfriend, a baby on the way, and a headlining act in the circus.

Then, he doesn’t.

When I think of amazing OCs, I think of JHSC. The world created here is honestly in a class of it’s own, like an elseworlds tale that my brain just immediately accepts as alternate universe canon - no questions asked. Landslide (and it’s sequel) are very heavy reads, and so I would say know what you can and can’t handle before going into this regarding depression.

Found family dynamics get me, man, and Landslide is a gut punch. It digs into Clint’s life in a way I don’t often see, and I love this series all the more for how it handles backstory. In my bookmark I rave about the pacing and oh boy, THAT CLIFFHANGER.

Under Pressure by JHSC WIP, Current Word Count: 83k+ Rating: E

Barney has a plan: leave the circus, support his family, and get control over his life.

Then his plan gets shot to hell.

I’ll be honest. I hate Barney. Rather, I did, before this fic. Honestly, I knew from how hard I fell for JHSC’s character portraylas las time that there was a good chance it would all happen again, but I’m a little mad about how much I care now.

I will go to the mat for Barney and Paul at this point, and the most recent update was so GOOD. If you want a raw, emotional story that is so real it hurts, but also sweet and romantic, then HERE YA GO. The latest update is getting into THAT CLIFFHANGER in Landslide that left me screaming, and I’m on the edge of my seat for the conclusion, guys, send help.

#fic rec list #phlint fic rec #phlint fic rec list #fic rec #fanfiction rec #fanfic #fanfic rec #phlint #barney #clint barton #phil coulson #marvel fic recs #mcu fic recs #i need to stop saying hell yeah

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pluckyredhead · 6 years

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Daredevil 101: The Nifty (Late) Nineties, Part 2

Last time on Daredevil 101, Matt and Foggy accepted an offer to join the firm of cutthroat attorney Rosalind Sharpe. Finally, we find out why Foggy was so very eager to be a part of her team.

Content Warning: Emotional abuse by a parent, lousy treatment of mental illness.

Rosalind, who doesn’t like anyone or anything, has taken a shine to Karen. The two of them happen to run into Foggy giving Anna Nelson a tour of the office, and the bombshell finally drops:

Yeeeeeah. I do wonder how surprising this was to readers who didn’t already know, or if the foreshadowing was heavy-handed enough? Also, I suspect Foggy is meant to be facepalming over there, but I like the idea that he thinks if he can’t see anyone else, they’ll just disappear.

We never get a huge amount of detail as to how this situation developed, but the fight that erupts between Rosalind and Anna fills in some of it:

Foggy never actually gets to speak for himself on the Rosalind issue, so we never actually know how he feels about her, whether he did in fact go into law to please her, if he feels that she abandoned him and his dad, etc. I do like this argument, though, because I feel like between Anna and Rosalind the two sides of Comics Foggy’s personality are made really clear: the nurturing, loyal, unexciting-but-true-as-steel side, and the cutthroat attorney of dubious moral character (Rosalind was once a mob lawyer, and Foggy has worked with and for numerous unsavory types, including Fisk).

Meanwhile, Matt’s been getting his ass kicked by the supervillain of the week, but how does he respond to this shocking information?

And that’s it. Matt never mentions it to Foggy, they all know now. It’s bizarre. I have to assume Matt felt like he didn’t really have a leg to stand on re: keeping secrets from his best friend, but I wish they’d discussed it on the page, especially since this is the second immediate family member Foggy’s kept secret from Matt.

P.S. Karen your whole look is so 1997 and I am LIVING for it.

Possibly to make all this up to Matt, Foggy gets him a surprise:

If you can’t read that last panel, Foggy’s saying “Exactly, Matt, which is why he’ll only pretend to be one! He’s really a retired police dog! He can help you fight crime when you’re Daredevil!” Foggy, you are a silly man.

Anyway, since Matt didn’t actually want a dog, Deuce winds up living with Foggy (and does actually save the office staff from bad guys at one point).

Meanwhile, all is not well between Foggy and Liz, mostly because Rosalind, who doesn’t approve of Liz, has been making it look like Foggy’s cheating on Liz with a supermodel (there are those romcom hijinks again!). Since Liz still has legal business with the firm, she pours out her woes to Matt:

Yeah, it’s pretty clear why Matt doesn’t task Foggy with keeping his connection to Rosalind a secret, or even put up that much of a fuss (where Foggy can hear, at least) about working for Rosalind, even though he hates her. (I haven’t included most of this, but Rosalind spends pretty much all of her time with the boys sniping at Matt for being irresponsible (...legit) and making ableist comments, and calling Foggy stupid and fat. So.) Matt’s very aware that he is as indebted to Foggy’s immense capacity for loyalty and forgiveness as Rosalind is.

Side note: this is literally the only time Matt is a good wingman, usually he active undermines Foggy’s romantic relationships.

And speaking of romantic relationships...Natasha’s back in town! And she’s chasing down some Russian bad guys! She’s also pretty grim right now, because the rest of the Avengers have disappeared, presumed dead, and she’s determined to avenge them.

Matt intervenes to stop her from crossing a line and, well...

Maybe don’t say that to an assassin, Matt.

Welp, that’s it, Matt’s dead now, no more Daredevil!

But seriously, Natasha carries his bloody, unconscious self back to his apartment - to Karen’s great alarm - and takes off again. Karen patches Matt up, but he’s still badly injured and needs to go to the hospital. But he’s worried about Natasha, and wants to go after her:

UH OH.

Matt goes after Natasha, who has been overpowered by her adversaries, and immediately gets his own stupid, injured ass captured as well. While playing the unhinged, well, avenger out loud, Natasha explains herself to Matt by tapping out Morse code with her fingers:

Matt and Natasha are, like...really good at Morse code. Also that’s not much of an “old KGB trick” if literally two people have ever survived it.

Meanwhile, Karen is worried about and furious with Matt, so she gets wine drunk and then starts fumbling around for someone to talk to:

“Someone who would understand what a pain it is to be Daredevil’s girlfriend sometimes...”

SOMEONE WHO WOULD UNDERSTAND WHAT A PAIN IT IS TO BE DAREDEVIL’S GIRLFRIEND SOMETIMES.

<3 <3 <3

(That’s Liz on Foggy’s couch. She’s super annoyed because he’s already gotten calls from two other women (the aforementioned supermodel and Candace) that make it sound like he’s tomcatting around. Romcom shenanigans!)

Meanwhile, Natasha and Matt free themselves and defeat Natasha’s enemies:

Siiiiiigh. So, yeah. Male writers (so...everyone except Ann Nocenti, who I have issues with but who treated Natasha better than this) really love to write both Natasha and Elektra as forever and always thirsty for Matt’s dick. And they tend to show up as sexy alternatives when Matt is in a committed relationship with someone who isn’t a ninja, like Karen or Milla. Meanwhile, Matt gets to play the hapless “good guy” who doesn’t exactly encourage these advances, but does tend to run out the window and play superhero with them rather than stay at home. And can he help it if one of them kisses him, or gives him a sexy speech about how they’re meant to be and their bodies understand each other and blah blah, and he thinks about it for a really long time afterwards?*

I blame Matt here less than the writers, who appear to believe that once Matt enters a room none of his exes can think of anything else. It’s sexist writing, it’s consistent, and it’s gross. And we’re going to have a lot more of it in the next few years. I’m sorry.

*This is how Matt behaves in his own book. In the Elektra solo series that was published concurrently with these issues, Matt cheats on and almost leaves Karen for her, but let’s set that aside because Karen is not long for this world and I don’t want to think about that bullshit.

Anyway, Natasha drops Matt off at the Night Nurse’s clinic, since he’s still got a bullet wound to take care of, and flips away. Matt gets stitched up and calls Foggy for a ride. Foggy, not really understanding the whole “discreet” thing, shows up in a limo:

Honestly this has no plot relevance but if you thought I wasn’t going to post Foggy practically crawling into Matt’s lap with his arm around him and Matt affectionately patting Foggy’s face, well...you must be new here.

Matt finally goes home and takes his medicine, which turns out to be Karen being eminently reasonable, and also adorable:

Matt, you dingbat, she has faith in you. (Whether that’s misplaced is a discussion for another time.) She just doesn’t want you doing backflips when there are holes in you. Focus on that, and not on how many chicks want to take your billy club for a whirl, okay?

Oh and hey, speaking of Matt’s exes (sort of)...Deadpool’s in town! And he’s palling around with Typhoid Mary, who convinces him to help her kill Daredevil. You see, she’s recently remembered some formative experiences involving Matt:

Sorry that text is kind of fuzzy, but basically...remember the prostitute Matt accidentally knocked out of a window to her death in Man Without Fear? Yeah, well, it turns out she didn’t die, but the fall gave her multiple personalities? Or something? ANYWAY IT WAS TYPHOID MARY. This makes no sense and I hate it, but it’s canon. I guess. SIGH.

Wade then refuses to kill Matt - he just did all this to help Mary get closure, because he loves her or whatever - and he and Mary head off to pull their Joker and Harley shtick elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Foggy’s spent this issue (the 1997 Deadpool/Daredevil Annual) hanging out with Deadpool’s sidekick Weasel, and I could have sworn I did a post about how Foggy clearly slept with Weasel, but I can’t find it. Anyway, they got very drunk and played poker, and the next morning...

Aw, poor Foggy. So yeah, that’s the last we see of Deuce (don’t worry, he’s fine, Wade gives him to Blind Al). Someone get Foggy a new dog, he clearly deserves one!

Luckily, to cheer Foggy up (???), he comes home after work one day to find a surprise visitor!

Okay, so you know how Karen has been on point with her late 90s fashion? Yeah, no one ever dressed like Candace is here. Although her long lavender waves are actually very on trend for 2017.

Foggy kicks the partiers out of his house, but lets Candace stay for a while, even though they still drive each other crazy. She’s more of a club kid than a hippie these days, but still politically active and very liberal, as we see when she meets Rosalind for what appears to be the first time:

“Fur is murder.” “I approve.” I love it! Ugh, I wish these two had gotten to interact more, there’s so much potential there. (Although point of order, Rosalind: Candace is Foggy’s half sister, not his adoptive one, unless there’s more stuff about the Nelson family we don’t know.)

I’ve leave you here, but Candace - and Karen - are about to get into a whole heap of trouble as this relatively jovial period of Daredevil comes to an end.

Next up: The Trial of Karen Page!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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tennyo-elf · 6 years

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Mass Effect Trilogy Thoughts

I’m ten years late to the party (or 5 years depending on if you start at ME1 or ME3) but I finally finished the Mass Effect Trilogy, thanks to Dragon Age.

Here are my thoughts on the games, the ending, random bits, the romance, etc, etc...

After I played the trilogy I looked around tumblr and found that a lot of people thought the first game was clunky. I, for one, while I know there were kinks (especially regarding dialogue/romance options), loved the first game so much that it’s my favorite of the three games. I played Vanguard and once I got barrier I had so much fun just standing in the middle of fire blasting everything in sight. I hate shooter games because I suck at them, but ME1 allowed me to have fun. The unlimited ammo really was what got me, ‘cause I’m a terrible shot. Of course there was the whole heating thing for your weapon, but I rather have that than, “Oops, out of ammo!”

I didn’t like the battle system for ME2 and the whole working for Cerberus. The characters were pretty awesome, but it took me a bit to learn not to flirt since I wanted to be faithful to Kaidan (I play paragon, so I had to learn to stick to the middle options on the dialogue wheel). ME2 was pretty much my least favorite. I only wish I could have played with Legion more.

ME3 took the best of ME1 and ME2 and made a great game...up until the ending of course. But seriously, ME3 is great and really fun and I loved just going around doing my Biotic Charge/Nova combo. Yeah, let me just charge a Brute or a Banshee that could literally one shot me and then nova/shotgun/charge them to death before they can kill me. That, to me, is seriously fun! Biotic power ftw!

The ending though. That ending...back before I had even heard of Bioware and was vaguely familiar with the name Dragon Age (I had thought to purchase it back in 2009 but went “Nope, I probably won’t like it” - fuck, how wrong I was...) I heard about the notoriously bad ME3 ending. It was all over the place in my geek sphere. So before I played the trilogy I looked up the ending on the wiki and read about it in articles, and I knew I’d hate it. So, since I’m on PC, I looked up some mods. I never met the star child (or whatever) or had to make a choice and I’m grateful for that. (My Shep always survives because I’m a completionist and I always get all war assets thus my end score is well above what’s needed for everyone to survive.)

First I got the regular MEHEM, played the trilogy, and the ending, with this mod, didn’t feel right. It didn’t satisfy me at all. I needed to redo some things to get the ending I wanted (I accidentally killed Steve Cortez in my first pt, fuck that noise) so I played ME3 a second time and used a new ending mod called JAM. That pt went perfectly. The ending seriously made me happy, and if felt so right! The Extended Ending, plus JAM, plus the Leviathan DLC, allowed me to enjoy the trilogy with no tears (besides for Anderson, Thane, Mordin, and Legion). There was only ONE plot hole with this combo.

The catalyst obviously targeted Reaper technology (in this mod/DLC combo), but the Geth and EDI were integrated with Reaper code. So how did they survive? (You know they survived by the ending slides with the Geth and EDI calling for Shepard when the gang went looking for her.) So I have to head canon an extra side quest after Priority: Rannoch, where the Geth and EDI discuss looking for a firewall against the catalyst energies for their built in Reaper code. Maybe they get it from the Keepers on the Citadel or maybe they create one together. Of course there is worry about the Reapers getting hold of this firewall, blah blah blah, but they keep it on the hush and hush and it works out in the end. I had no issues with the destroy ending where the Citadel and the relays go boom, because it made sense to me, I only worried about EDI and the Geth. (I united the Geth with their Creators, I’m not letting them die!) So I head canon the side quest and they’re safe.

There is also the nightmares Shepard has about the boy. I also head canon that when she passes out after Anderson dies, she dreams again, and this time, instead of just standing and watching the boy catch fire, she saves him, she takes action, she stands up for herself and doesn’t let her guilt or fears or worries control her. She wakes with a start (and renewed energy/life) and then activates the Crucible/Catalyst. Perfect ending to me, yes, yes. (Watch here!)

As for the continuation of the series, after playing the trilogy I was disappointed that they didn’t continue the story post war with the reapers. I haven’t played Andromeda yet but I understand it’s in a different Galaxy with different problems and I think that was a missed opportunity on Bioware’s part to explore the other themes/consequences of the first trilogy. There is the dark matter/biotics/eezo/mass effect fields topic to explore as well as the fall out of Shepard’s decisions, such as the Krogan population surge, Geth/Qurian alliance, and the Leviathans. Leviathans indoctrination abilities are very concerning. And granted, Mass Effect 3 did hint that the Krogan and Geth Alliance weren’t a threat, it still wasn’t made certain. Personally I like to be able to have a game where you make sure the Krogans and rachni aren’t a threat based on in-game decisions from both the old and new trilogy. Also, I like the new hero to be able to formalize that the Geth/EDI/new AIs aren’t the threat they were made out to be and we can work together (for Destroy or even control ending, synthesis ending would have to focus on how it didn’t solve the real problems/took away freedom from people). Draw parallels from humans who are evil to AIs who go evil too. And everything leading up to the true threat of Leviathan’s trying to take over again and how the team work of species can over come their old oppressors. Just a trilogy about overcoming old thoughts/beliefs/etc. And it doesn’t have to take place immediately after the reaper war either. It could take place after Shepard’s death or when Shepard is very old and retired. I mean, you could make a game like that, it’d just take finesse because of the way they made ME3′s ending. It’d be tricky with the synthesis ending. but it could happen. A can of worms, yet I truly believe with the five years of development they had they could have written something that may piss off some, but ultimately be a continuation of the interesting galaxy/world the first trilogy created.

Okay, random thought here, but regarding the Asari, wouldn’t be it hard to keep their heads/back of their neck clean? So many places for junk to pile up, cleaning their heads must be a bitch.

Also, this game was annoying with the male gaze, eye candy thing going on. It was everywhere and it never, ever, didn’t annoy the hell out of me. Pulled me out of the story every time I saw it, that’s for sure. I Like Miranda, but with her catsuit you can even see her lips! And I’m not talking about her face lips either!)

Alright, so romances...I went in knowing I was going to romance either Garrus or Kaidan. I didn’t know these characters yet and I saw these two were romanced the most by female Shepards on tumblr, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with either of them. Playing a paragon Shep, and getting to know Kaidan, the romance for them made sense to me (My Shep is a spacer/war hero). I was highly attracted to his character, morals, and principals. With Garrus, I can see how a renegade Shep would be all over the “fuck rules” bit but with my paragon, if felt more like a mentor/mentee relationship turn best friends type of deal than a romance. Garrus didn’t fit with my Shepard, Liabelle. I did watch a youtube vid of his romance though and he is cute af.

Of course, later, I find out everyone hates Kaidan for Horizon (or being too emotional/whiny...which felt silly to me tbh). I didn’t. Kaidan’s reaction on Horizon made sense for his character and it felt real. My Shep knew Kaidan would react like he did and while it hurt, she didn’t love him less for it. She fell for him for his principals, why would she be upset at Kaidan being Kaidan when it’s Kaidan she fell for? Hurts yes, frustrating yes, but in the end they found their way back to one another and if felt really good. Now I’m a shenko shipper through and through.

Also loyalty to a fault can be a bad thing, sometimes you need a friend who will call you out on your shit. That’s what Kaidan did/does (though he went a bit overboard with the betrayal line, but that’s him reeling and he apologized for it). So nah, I wasn’t mad or disinterested in Kaidan after Horizon or for the beginning of ME3. I liked his character development and him coming to realize he made a mistake. You can see throughout ME3, once he comes back, how he regrets it. Ugh, the well made angst mixed with the happiness of them being back together does things to me.

In the end, Garrus and kaidan were my squad, they were my boys. I think not having Kaidan in ME2 made my dislike for the game more intense because I didn’t have my boys together. I literally shouted “MY BOYS!!” at my screen while playing ME3 when I could pick Kaidan and Garrus for my team again. It probably helped that they balanced out my Vanguard really well.

As for romanced Kaidan head canons, I will say that while they were biotic rabbits between the sheets, they were still touch and go relationship wise for most of ME3. I don’t think they were at a place in their relationship for a real marriage proposal after they find her post destroy. They definitely need time to just be and I can see that happening during leave or working on the Normandy during non war times. My husband is in the military and I asked about what would happen if they were found out and the military does give people options, either break it off or marry. I figure by the time anyone finds out they’re already engaged. That just means postings, they wouldn’t be able to work together on the Normandy. I can’t figure this one out. A part of me sees Shep retiring, another can’t see her as anything but Captain of the Normandy. Kaidan could go back to teaching, and they could meet up on Earth every shore leave Shep has...but, gah, I still haven’t figured it out yet. I do like the idea of them retiring out by Kaidan’s family’s orchard, going camping, or traveling, having kids, etc.

Lastly, the only character I dislike is Kai Leng (too one dimensional and an ass, easy to hate). The rest I will hug if I could. And I was sad I couldn’t have a third squad mate. I’d probably pick Tali mostly with the occasionally Liara or Wrex thrown in with Kaidan and Garrus. Also I have a big soft spot for Samara. I also am weird in shipping Javik and Liara (I want them to have Asari babies!!!!...after writing their book ofc), but I think Joker and EDI are cute af and you can pry that ship from dead, cold hands. Ack, and Thane dying hurt but felt inevitable since he had a terminal illness. Mordin’s death felt a bit unnecessary, he needs to be studying seashells gdi!! ALSO WHY BIOWARE, WHY KILL LEGION, WHY!!! Oh, and Kasumi needs to be able to keep the gray box and move on...humph.

Alright, I may write a small fic for shenko but I might not, IDK yet. All I know is I miss Dragon Age like I’m missing my other heart, so I’m going back to it soon-ish. Will replay this wonderful sci-fi trilogy again though, sometime in the future just not right away. I’ll always prefer my Dragon Age games, but this ride was definitely worth it.

#mass effect #mass effect trilogy #me1 #me2 #me3 #my thoughts on the games #random bits #just things I needed to say #text post #there is shenko here #but no hate #just love #and some complaining #about other stuff #but mostly love #for the games and characters

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turtlesinreview · 7 years

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TMNT Mirage Comics Issues 2-7

Since I read all these together I’m reviewing them together. I may or may not do this by arc or by issue in the future. I’ll see how it goes.

To me, at least so far, the closest thing I could think to compare the writing style of TMNT to is ‘If Axe Cop were written by grown men’. I don’t mean this as an insult in the slightest either. Eastman and Laird are a pretty clever and hilarious comic making duo, and these comics prove it. There’s this tinge of absurdist humor throughout the overall plot while the in-character humor is witty and natural. It has yet to feel like a chore to read, even the parts that are essentially expositions dumps.

Because those exposition dumps are fucking insane.

This is what I mean when I say it makes me think of Axe Cop. The plot gets more and more absurd with each passing page. It feels like the whole thing is taking you for a ride, but it also doesn’t feel like it has a horrible case of ADD either. The plot is always progressing, and there’s even a bit of downtime here and there to build up the characters. It’s great!

Where the style greatly differs from Axe Cop is about everywhere else. Like I said we get to know the characters a lot better. The mood is usually ‘gritty’ while still being clever and comedic, and while you may often find yourself surprised that something is happening, it never feels unnatural for it to happen. You go through the whole experience going ‘okay, this makes sense’, and there’s always a sense that what’s happening is a danger to the characters, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

Essentially, the comic takes itself just seriously enough, making it a pretty enjoyable read, at least so far.

From this point on I’ll try to divide topics. I’ll keep writing out of the mix since I just went over it above, but I’ll add it in its proper place for future reviews/rambles. I’m still getting a feel for what I’m trying to do here.

Story

Let’s see if I can do this without going into ‘overly detailed’ territory. I have a bad habit of doing that.

The turtles, through watching TV, learn about these mobile mousetraps called mousers, which Splinter is concerned over since they’re apparently meant to rid the city of the rat problem. This means they may make their way into the sewers.

Turns out Baxter Stockman, the mousers’ creator, is actually using them in robberies around the city and plans to hold the whole thing ransom with his mousers. Apparently he was going to cause his own little 9/11 by destroying one of the twin towers. He tries to get his assistant April in on in, but when she refuses he tries to fucking kill her ass. The turtles save her and a new friendship is formed.

After Baxter announced his plan to the public, April and the turtles go back to his lair to stop him. There’s this tense moment where April and Donatello are trying to shut down a self-destruct program while the others fight off the mousers. They save the day and April becomes their buddy. The boys head back to the lair and that’s when shit really hits the fan.

After a bit of panic the boys get a hold of April and she agrees to house them. Due to some crazy-ass mixup the cops go after April’s van and a fucking insane chase scene ensues.

Afterwards the boys stay at April’s for what I think is a couple weeks if I remember correctly. We get a lot of nice little character scenes here. Anyway after fighting some rouge foot soldiers out for revenge the boys run into a building called TCRI and it induces a flashback in them.

They go to figure out shit about their past and find Splinter in the process. Unfortunately they ALSO run into some aliens and are accidentally teleported to another planet/dimension. I think it’s planet.

They meet a robot named Honeycutt who...well I posted a bit of his origin earlier. It’s convoluted and I love it. He can make a teleporter, but he refuses to because he doesn’t want it being used for evil. This leaves the turtles stranded and also means two opposing forces, the Federation and the Triceratons, are trying to get their hands on him for their own purposes. Chase scenes and a fight in a bar ensues.

Eventually the Triceratrons get a hold of Honeycutt and the turtles stowaway on their ship, where they somehow put themselves into a stasis via meditation where they don’t need oxygen.

I don’t think that’s how that works.

Anyway this results in them betting captured and put in gladiatorial combat. After they win the fight they hold the Triceraton ruler captive, but he gets stupidly shot down by his own men leaving them with no collateral. It works out fine though because they get teleported back to the TCRI building at just the right time.

On Earth April is worried about them, and apparently everyone saw the big ray of light the teleporter (or transmat as it’s called in the comics) let out when the turtles were sent to that far off planet. No one’s been able to get inside TCRI so the government has been called to storm the building.

The turtles are reuinited with Splinter and he and the aliens explain they they were just trying to get off the fucking planet. They explain their chemicals are what transformed them all into who they are today by accident, and it’s thanks to Splinter being a talking old rat that they ultimately didn’t destroy the turtles and even tried to bring them back. Okay so there’s more to it than that but I’m condensing it here.

The transmat needs to charge and be repaired again, but the government is starting to storm TCRI. Honeycutt and the aliens work on the transmat while the security system (with the help of the turtles if I recall) try to fend off against the feds so they don’t discover their alien allies.

The arc ends with the turtles and Splinter teleported into April’s tub, and I have no idea what became of everyone else.

Characters

One of these days I’m going to write a looooooooong essay about how much I enjoy the design evolution the turtles went other. Y’know, once I’ve seen enough of each series to warrant such an essay. I honestly think the turtles tend to look better with (almost) every iteration, and it should be somewhat obvious where I don’t.

I bring this up in this section and not the art section because in some parts of the comics I’m ashamed to admit I can’t tell which fucking turtle is talking when. While their voices are starting to become more distinct, the only way to visually tell them apart is what weapon they’re holding, or if they’re doing something a specific turtle would do.

A big example was before the bar fight. The first time I read it I assumed it was Michelangelo buying the beer, but upon rereading it I realized it’s probably actually Raphael.

But does that also mean Raphael was the one hitting on this space babe? Because that seems more like a Michelangelo thing to me!

Y’see, I assume THAT’s Raphael because I know that Raph’s the first one to use the ray gun, and I’m pretty sure he was standing next to Honeycutt at the time.

Of course in that panel Leo has moved to the other side of Honeycutt, so maybe they’re just relocating every fucking panel. The point I’m trying to make here is forgive me for getting the turtles mixed up sometimes. Especially Mike and Raph whose weapons I can’t use as stronger indicators to their identities.

Anyway, the returning characters, I.E. the turtles, are pretty fucking great in this. They’re starting to show and develop their own unique personalities, and it’s nice to watch the evolution as it happens. Leo is about the same as he was before, and has seemed to change the least, for the time being at least. I do like the little ‘If Raphael can fire a laser then I definitely can’ moment because it’s an early establishment of the rivalry they’ll probably share throughout the series, or if nothing else the rivalry they share in other iterations of the story.

Otherwise Leo was just as kickass as he was in the first issue, leading the team and being the badass ‘fight with honor’ brother for the most part. He was also the level-headed one when it was clear Splinter was MIA, as opposed to Raphael.

Speaking of Raphael, he had a lot of great moments in these issues, and it sure shows why this version of him is pretty damn beloved and used (I mean besides it being the initial/canon version).

The moment that stood out to me was how despite Leonardo’s protests and insisting he help clean up at home, he decided ‘no fuck that I’m going to find Splinter myself’ and just left and came back whenever the fuck he felt like it. It’s the moment that cemented him as the impulsive hothead, a trait I feel guilty for hoping will come back and bite him in the ass later.

Another highlight was when he was sizing up April after he took a shower. Nothing of note here. Just thought the scene was funny.

Also holy shit. Sometimes I forget just how short the turtles are. I guess they are still teens. Moving on.

Donatello was the one I usually identified as ‘the one who isn’t doing anything’ in this comic, but that’s pretty unfair. He actually does a hell of a lot. Combat aside, we also get an indication of his techy side in the first panel of the second issue.

Donatello was my favorite turtle in the ‘87 series. It was because he was sensible and intelligent, and back then those were the types of characters I liked. Oh an he was purple. I like purple. Anyway, he comes up with a few good battle strategies, and holds his own in combat pretty well in these issues.

His best moment so far is probably in the second issue, though, where he’s helping April reroute the mousers and deactivate the self-destruct system. He pretty much establishes himself as the brains of the team.

Michelangelo establishes himself as the carefree and cocksure brother during all this. He was eager to be a distraction for one of Donatello’s plans, and he even had some smug comments for a certain Triceraton guard.

That’s probably my favorite scene with him.

April’s really cool. She quickly establishes herself as the surrogate mother figure for the turtles, but sadly she’s under utilized in the latter issues I read where she mostly just hangs around New York worrying about the turtles. I’m sure she’ll have more to do later, but it’s nice that they have a ‘normal’ friend as well.

This is my first exposure to Honeycutt, and I can say while he has the dumbest origin ever, I really like him. He’s a man(bot) that sticks to his convictions, even if it risks the safety of himself and his friends (though he does CARE about said friends). I have a lot of respect for him, and I hope he shows up more after this arc.

I don’t have much to say about everyone else. Splinter was barely in this set of issues, and the alien race that Kraang is based off of...well, so far I like what other series have done with them more. Hopefully this isn’t the last of them though, so my opinion may change.

The Federation and Triceraton were...neat? Funny? I liked ‘em, but the races didn’t wow me too much. I liked the random extras in the background more.

Art

Issues 2 and 3 were a leg up from the first issue. They even used what I think is charcoal for the shading. That said, the people still looked pretty gross, at least in my opinion.

That said, I think the style is truly established in the fourth issue. Less is more really applies here, and that shows as the comic goes on. I think the overly detailed shading, while not terrible, was an overall detriment to the first few issues. Four through Seven look leaps and bounds better than the first three, at least in my opinion.

Not only that, but the art gets a lot better with each passing issue. I think one of the ideal comparisons for this is April. I’ll put an issue 2 image of her against an issue 7 image and let you be the judge. Hopefully you can see what I mean.

Not only April, but the turtles also look a lot better. They’ve become much more expressive, have a lot more motion to them, and their beak-noses aren’t doing that awkward crunching thing as often after the third issue. As before, I’m very excited to see the direction the art goes in the coming arcs.

Final Thoughts

I’ll admit, it was hard to resist the urge to read more of the comic while I was writing up this review. That’s probably going to be the most painful part of updating this blog. However, that should tell you how enjoyable this comic is. It’s hard to put down, and engaging all the way through.

This arc was pretty neat, and I’m excited to see what happens next. I know I said that last time, but I have a feeling this is how I’ll feel for a while if the quality remains this consistently good. Only one way to find out!

#tmnt #prime

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