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tiredfox64 · 1 month

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At your service

Prior notes: I’m such an indecisive bitch. So half way through writing this an earthquake hit so…y’all I’m so scared ;-;

Pairing: Rain(MK11) x Servant! afab reader

Warnings ‼️: NSFW, fingering, biting (ya freaks), pussy magic (that’s not really a warning but like you got it or something)

Being a servant to the Prince of Edenia should be a privilege, right?! While yes you get fed and you have a roof over your head, it can be a hassle.

He requires so much attention. He needs worship, and that could mean anything. More specifically, the servants really gotta put in the work. Kneeling before him, listening to his every request, having them praise him, and of course have his way with them.

Now you’ve gotten used to the sounds of ladies moaning at night and hearing in the morning how great he is in bed. But it doesn’t tempt you. You played it safe, only focusing on your work and nothing else. And you were an amazing servant. Great at cleaning, wonderful at prepping and cooking, you truly were a useful one. You thought all your efforts would go unnoticed. Oh how wrong you were.

Out of all the ladies, Rain had his eyes set on you for a while. Very hardworking and committed to duty. Well, when it didn’t involve pleasuring the prince at all. It almost infuriated him that someone is not falling for his charm. More like he never even had the chance to charm you. You always seemed out of reach. Even the other servants told him to stop wasting his time on you but we all know how stubborn of a man he is. No, Rain instead tried to keep an eyes on you from a distance. A distance where you could feel eyes on you yet never find who those pair of eyes belong to. Who would even be interested in watching you clean?

It’s like you were deliberately avoiding him. Every time he requested you, you sent another servant. The servants never complained but they would witness how upset Rain got. You have a job to do and you can’t let the prince himself slow you down. Except he can. He’s the prince. He made some demands that all would have to listen to.

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The guards alerted you that Rain requested, no, demanded for you. Before you could even say you’ll send another servant they repeated themselves. He is DEMANDING for you! They grabbed both your arms and dragged you to the throne room. You protested, questioning them on their rudeness and disrespect. They are just following orders. They hate to do this to you.

You fought but it was all in vain. You were thrown in front of the arrogant prince, forced to come face to face with him at last. And oh how adorable you looked to him. The way you looked up at him all nervous. Your hands clenched at the your uniform skirt to keep calm. You’re absolutely clueless about what this man wants. How ready he is to make this difficult for you.

“Finally, you’ve emerged from hiding,” He says it like the guards didn’t just drag you in, “It’s a shame I haven’t been able to see that cute face of yours so clearly. Tell me, why are you always being sneaky and hiding?”

You thought hard before answering as you were afraid of saying one wrong thing, “I’m sorry if I have upset you, my prince. I was simply just focused on my duties and I would hate to bother you.” You said politely.

Not good enough for him. But it was worth a try.

“You would hate to bother me? When I’m the one requesting you?” He said it so condescendingly that you knew there was no excuse for your actions. He makes it sound like you were disrespecting him by not listening. The last thing you need is to get on his bad side.

“I meant no harm. Please, is there anything I can do to make you happy and show my loyalty to you?” You’re making this too easy for him. That wicked smile Rain gave you left you with a bad feeling about this.

“Well since you’re so desperate to do so and I’ve seen how hard working you are, I think I have something in mind. Something that can be a reward for your hard work and can make your prince happy.” That arrogant tone let you know what he means.

“O-oh…I see. I guess I’ll be seeing you later tonight in your…chambers.” You struggled to get the words out.

“Why should we wait? I have all the time in the world to reward my most loyal servant. And she should have all the time in the universe to serve her prince well.”

There was no argument to be made. Rain would not wait for an answer. He grabbed your wrist and dragged you in the direction of his bedroom. You better hope all those servants right about him being great in bed cause you’re next. Though they seem pretty jealous of you now.

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You’re surprised that Rain was taking it slow with you, if you can call it that. He had you on his lap with your back against him. One hand was shoved into your underwear where two fingers were pumping into your pussy. His thumb pressed down on your clit and rubbed it lightly. His other hand kept your leg open since you kept trying to close them before. Your breathing was shaky and you shivered from his kisses on your neck. He dragged his tongue against the side of your neck just to get you to react more.

“I don’t understand why you would ever hide from me. Do you not find your prince to be charming? Were you afraid I’d capture your heart and you’d never want to leave me?” He actually believed that.

You struggled to answer, occupied with not moaning out loud. You wanted to snap your legs shut to prevent him from continuing but his hand had a tight grip on your thigh. It didn’t help the fact that your body acted on its own. You moved your hips in a way to hopefully get more out of it whether it be his fingers going deeper in your or his thumb pushing down on your clit more. As enjoyable as it was to see you struggle Rain felt like he should push this further. Plus, he was desperate to satisfy himself as well. He stopped and pulled his fingers out of you which made you whine in frustration. Don’t do that he’ll know you like it.

“There is no need to worry, I always take good care of my ladies. Now, be a good servant and undress.” He ordered.

And like the good servant you were you did just that. You got off his lap and started to strip down. Layer by layer you took more off till you were only in your underwear. Your head was down as you felt shame for doing this. You’re not innocent or anything you just don’t do one night stands. You deserve care and love. Don’t feel bad, Rain did say he will take good care of you.

You felt his chest press up against your backside, feeling his skin against yours. You could tell he took his clothes off as well. Rain’s hands roam around your body. Feeling your hips and squeezing them before wrapping his arms around your waist. He’s back to leaving kisses on your neck and shoulders.

“Are you ready to serve your prince? Get on the bed.” He said before placing a kiss on your cheek.

Well, time to get to it. You got on his bed where you felt the silk sheets beneath you. Rain was quick to get on top of you and look down at you. Those pretty lips, those gorgeous eyes, your luscious hair….your fantastic tits. He’s gonna have fun with you.

You took deep breaths as you prepared yourself for what was to come. You slipped the last of your dignity off, which is your underwear, and threw it to the side. Rain loved the sight of your soaking pussy. He spread your legs more just to see it, looking at it like it was the finest meal he’s even seen. His cock twitched from the excitement and the need to be in there. He pulled you closer that his cock rubbed up against your wet folds. The tip pressed up against you before being pushed in. You gasped as you felt every inch going inside you. You didn’t expect him to be so…big. Keep your mouth shut, you’ve already stroked his ego enough.

Oh but don’t think you’re the only one who is amazed here. Rain sure was surprised by how good you felt. So warm and tight, squeezing him so nicely. He even shivered a little from the feel of your pussy. You surprised him thought when you wrapped your arms around his neck. You were only doing that out of natural instincts. Bold move considering no other servant dared to touch Rain without his permission. He’s not complaining though.

He started thrusting into you. The sound of your moans drove him crazy. A vocal encouragement that he was doing fantastic. Your moans weren’t annoying to him which he never realized how bad the other servants sounded. You weren’t screaming like some bad porn but instead letting out these cute moans that brought some sort of primal urge in him. An urge to keep going and spill all his cum into you. A desire to keep you in his bed so you can always serve him whether that means pounding into you or holding you. Someone to return to.

Rain was lost in his own mind at this point but he was still going at it. Your legs wrapped around his waist like you never wanted him to leave you. Your nails were scrapping against his back as you tried your best to control yourself. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt such pleasures so it’s overwhelming to have Rain’s thick cock ramming into your pussy.

You brought him close to your body. Rain was in love with the feeling of your soft skin against him. Body to body as he went deeper into you. In that moment something told you to do something risky. Whatever powerful force was behind this decision would get you killed if it weren’t for the fact you were so into the moment and in need of a way to quiet yourself. You bit down on his shoulder. And what a reaction the prince gave. So surprised and turned on he thrusted roughly into you which made your eyelids flutter and your eyes roll back. Rain stopped for a moment to say something.

“Is that how you treat a god? My dear servant, it’s supposed to go the other way around.” He whispered in your ear before biting down on your shoulder.

You yelped before moaning loudly as he went back to fucking you. Since you want to mark him up he will do the same to you, except way more. He marked your neck with little love bites to show who you belong to. You are Rain’s servant. Loyal and hardworking. All his. His! His! His!

The passion of the moment was getting to him. You were about to cum soon. Your hands, so soft and delicate, took his face and made him look at you. You had no words to say you could barely catch a break in between moans. You were so close at this point and you brought the prince in for a kiss.

When you came it was like the heavens opened up and blessed you with new feelings in your body. Your kisses got rougher and your moans louder. Rain wasn’t a fool he knew he just made you cum hard. Your pussy was squeezing his cock to the point he was about to cum as well. A few more thrusts and soon his cum started filling your pussy. The kiss between you two was passionate and rough. After, the only sound left in the room was heavy breathing. You didn’t let Rain go at first, enjoying his body pressing against yours. But you knew he never lets servants stay in bed with him after he is done.

“Are you satisfied, my prince.” You asked so sweetly.

“Incredibly satisfied. You’ve served your prince well.”

“Should I get going then?”

What are you crazy? You think after that amazing experience Rain is just gonna let you walk away, if you even could. He won’t say it out loud but this has been the best experience he’s had in bed. So much passion and roughness. No one dared to touch him, kiss him, or even get rough with him. You’re a gem in his eyes and that’s rare.

“Like I’d let my pretty servant get away from me again. No, I would prefer if you’d stay.” He answered back before kissing you again.

This was a shock to you. Letting a mere servant like you stay in bed with him. And to kiss you back? Well you just felt like the most special person in this reality. And is that your heart beat going fast? And are your cheeks burning up? This is a confusing time but you will enjoy it to its fullest.

“As you wish, my prince.” You bit your lip to prevent yourself from smiling.

Rain can see though that you are quite giddy about this. He pulled out of you and laid next to you. He grabbed you and basically used your chest his pillow for the night. His muscular arms were wrapped around your waist so tight it’s like he was preventing you from escaping. Wow, Rain sure does like you now. You held him close to you with one of your hands rubbing his back. You’re making all the right moves by giving him attention. And after that amazing sex you two fell asleep quickly and both satisfied.

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The next morning sure was fun. Rain never let you go once! You woke up to him spooning you which restricted you from getting up for another whole hour. When he finally did decide it was time to get up that was another challenge. You stumbled out of his room with his goofy smile on your face. You looked high.

The other servants were shocked beyond belief. You stayed in his bed all night! Not only that but you left scratch marks and a bite mark on him. He sure showed them off with his outfit for the day. You had a good amount of marks on you as well. They asked how you even did that but all you could give them was a shrug. But you did have something to say.

“I think you guys were wrong about him being great in bed. Me personally, I think he’s fantastic in bed.” You walked away, still having that smile on your face. Rain was sure glad to hear that. He’ll have to reward you for praising him. Maybe tonight. And the next night. And the next night. And the next night…

After notes: 🍊👀 HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS KEEP GETTING INTO MY DEN! 👁️👁️ oh you’re back hello! Ah geez I’m sorry I posted this late in the day. I wanted to fix my raccoon tails (the hair thing). Then the minor earthquake happened which I had to think about for a bit cause we don’t get those. And then I struggled to stay awake. Great news my anxiety is gone cause I took Xanax. Bad news is I think it will make me sleepy for a while. Anyways I’m yapping. Well, I hope y’all can enjoy this one. You KNOW I love MK11 Rain that bitch. I’m sorry if it ain’t all that great. I will say I’m working on something for Havik. I’m not abandoning Rain but I do wanna mix it up a little. So enjoy and no earthquakes for anyone. Adiós!

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat 11 #mk11 #rain mk11 #rain x reader #mk rain #rain mk #rain #mk x reader #mk x you #mortal kombat x you #mortal kombat x reader #mk smut #mk fanfic #sorry if it ain’t all that great

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raainberry · 6 months

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Halloween Plans

« A plan is a set of intended actions, usually mutually. »

Yunjin x gn!reader

Fluff (suggestive)

synopsis - yunjin but make it spider-man. that’s what she decided the plans were this year.

wordcount - 1.1K

T/W - suggestive towards the end

A/N - saw this edit of spider-yunjin on pinterest y’all i almost drowned in the air it was crazy. i had to share its too good like LOOK AT HER. n e ways i couldn’t just not write something with it so here, enjoy🗣️

“You’ll love me no matter what, right?”

You chuckled at your girlfriend’s words on the other end of the line. Not even a “Hello.”, “How are you?”, or her usual “Did you eat yet?”, nothing.

“What did you do?” You playfully sighed.

Her opening line gave away her guilt. It was her go-to whenever she’d done something you could dislike.

“You promise you won’t get mad?” She asked, confirming your thoughts.

“How bad is it?”

“I mean…” She trailed off, and the line stayed silent for a few seconds apart from the faint ruffling coming from her end. “Depends on the scale.”

A soft laugh escaped your lips despite the slight worry she’d been causing so far. Quite the conflicting emotions, but it was a common effect of her using that one line.

“Okay, just tell me, I have to get going in a few. Let’s get it over with.” You told her before putting her on speaker so you could get dressed to go to work.

“Okay, so you know how we agreed on a couple costume this Halloween?” She started, and you hummed, waiting for her to continue. “Well, I kind of… went my own way.”

Your pants were only buttoned halfway when you stopped to go over her confession. Last time you checked, both of you were happy with the outfits you’d chosen. The party was a couple days away and the costumes were ready in your closet as you spoke.

You wouldn’t be upset if she changed her mind about them, but something was odd in the equation.

Sure, she was prone to impulsive decisions, but seeing as you were invloved, she would have at least asked or even told you about it beforehand.

So if anything, this whole thing was making you curious.

“Is that your way of breaking up with me?” You joked, hoping to hear more.

You heard her laugh before calling you all kinds of stupid with all the affection in the world, “If you keep asking stupid questions like that I just might.”

“Threats don’t work on me, you know that. Now tell me everything or I’ll actually break up with you.”

She gasped, and you knew just the face that went with it. The fakest and most exaggerated offense all over her features; a sight that could never fail to make you laugh, even now although you weren’t there to see it.

“You know what, thank you because now I don’t have any remorse. I’m glad I did this, it’s the perfect revenge outfit.” She said, smirking to herself at the sight of her own reflection.

The mirror she faced gave her an idea of just how much you’d like that last minute change.

“Yunjin, what are you talking about?” You whined, growing impatient.

You joined your phone on the bed, the shirt you still had to put on only a distant thought now. All you cared about was finding out what your girlfriend had up her sleeve.

“Is it a good thing or not, I’m confused.” You whined some more, and the sound of her laugh was only frustrating now.

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

Her thumb hit send on the text and its attachment with no hesitation.

She’d taken the selfie minutes prior, right before deciding to call you. She initially wanted to send it to you with no context, but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying nor as fun if she didn’t witness your reaction in some way.

The phone buzzed in your hand, making you raise an eyebrow at the notification, but you did open it immediately. Muscle memory or circumstances, you couldn’t care less about the cause behind the action.

Especially when your eyes landed on its consequences.

The line fell silent for a good while, during which Yunjin had to hold herself back from a lot of things.

She’d seen herself in that Spider-Man suit, she knew you’d need a moment.

“Oh my gosh, wait don’t tell me you actually fainted!” She yelled after a while, startling you back to reality.

Your mind had drifted into various thoughts, some more wholesome and pure than others, but all held the same amount of love for their subject.

How dare she make a joke out of this, but gosh… how you loved that woman for it.

“Yunjin…”

“You’re alive!”

“Barely.”

That laugh of hers ran through the line once again, and you couldn’t help but laugh with her this time.

“So, are you mad? I found it while shopping with the girls earlier and it was too good, I’m sorry.”

“You know, I’m nothing if not forgiving.” You said, relieving her from a weight. “But you better have bought two of these because I’m just as vindictive.”

“They only had the original red and blue one in your size.”

“Good enough. It’d be weird being seen kissing your twin anyway.” You joked, making her groan.

“Ew, never say that again.” She laughed. “I’ll return it, I’m so serious.”

“As long as you keep yours.” You shrugged with a smile, looking back at the selfie she’d sent you.

“Didn’t you have to get going?” She changed the subject, only giving away the fact that you’d managed to make her blush.

“I can be late. Do you still have it on?” You asked, doing your best to sound innocent.

“I do actually. Why? Do you want to see the live action?”

You giggled, “You know me, I love Spider-Man movies.”

You really did. It was even part of why she didn’t think twice before buying that costume. However, as much as you loved the blockbusters, you had a feeling her performance would quickly snatch that number 1 spot from any of the emblematic character’s actors.

“You’ll see it this weekend. Now go, stop being late to everything.” She scolded.

“Fine.” You sighed in defeat. “You look so pretty by the way, I love you.”

“Thank you, I love you too.” She smiled, feeling all giddy. She loved it when you called her pretty, it made her feel shy; the good kind of shy. The one where you couldn’t help but play with your hair and blush like a teenager.

She blew you a kiss from her end of the line, and the sound made you feel that exact same way.

“Talk to you later!”

You hummed in agreement before hanging up and looking at the time.

The sight made you jump to your feet. If you lingered any longer you’d actually be late. So you hurried, putting on the rest of your outfit, your shoes, and finally out the door.

You made sure to be fast and efficient with your tasks, making things and time go by quicker. Maybe you’d get a raise that way, but it wasn’t the main goal. Just a bonus.

For the next two days, you hurried everything out of your way in hopes that the party would get there quicker.

It was going to be a fun one.

#lesserafim x reader #huh yunjin x reader #huh yunjin #le sserafim #yunjin x reader #yunjin fluff #lesserafim fluff

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mickeyheartian · 10 months

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Ian Galager

I've been looking for fics mentioning Mickey's tattoo of Ian's name, and haven't been able to find many. Also, I love fics mentioning Mickey's relationship with his siblings. So, I wrote this.

How Mickey's family find out about/react to his new tattoo.

Mandy

Mandy stares at Sandy, unsure if she just heard her cousin correctly. They were sat in the Milkovich living room catching up. Mandy had returned home two days ago to an empty house, shocked to see Sandy as the first to show up. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and not just the past year that Mandy had been away.

"Mickey's home?" Mandy asks, looking at her in disbelief. "I thought he was in Mexico?"

"No, released from prison yesterday," Sandy informed her.

“Asshole! Where is he?”

“Gallaghers.”

“Gallaghers? Wait, Ian’s home too?” Sandy nods in confirmation. “The fuck!”

“Bitch you’re the one who fucked off, nobody knew where you were, how were we supposed to update you?” Sandy asked.

“Mick and Ian both had my number.” She seethes, grabbing her purse from the couch and storming out of the house.

The walk to the Gallagher house was only a few blocks, the bitter morning air biting at her exposed arms. She reached the front door and fumbled in the plant pot to the side, looking for the spare key that was kept there years prior. Ian had shown her where it was in case she needed to get away from home for a bit. She felt cold metal at her fingertips. Bingo! Still there.

Walking into the house, it was the same as it always had been. Slightly more run down since she was last here, a few more stains on the floor. But there was a distinct absence of people, the same thing she’d noticed with her own house. She can’t have been gone that long… right?

She slowly climbed up the stairs, and upon reaching the top could hear her brother’s voice instantly. “Your PO ain’t that bad, Red, just suck it up. No one likes their PO.” Mandy followed the sound of her brother’s voice over to the open accordion door, peering in.

Ian’s sat on the bed, frowning over at her brother, who sits smoking on the window. Shirtless. With Ian’s name unmistakably tattooed on his chest. What?

Before she figured out how she was going to play this, Ian spotted her. “Mandy?” He asked, pulling himself up from the bed. “Holy fuck! It is you!” He runs over and envelopes her in a hug. “When did you get back?”

“Ian!” She smiles, returning the hug. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her best friend until he had his arms around her. “When did I get back? The fuck is going on with you. Blowing up a fucking van!” she hits him. She’d read about Ian’s escapades in the newspaper when she’d been working at a small convenience store.

“The fuck are you doin’ here?” Mickey asks from the window.

“What the hell asshole!” she replies, removing herself from Ian and turning to him. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Mickey shrugs.

“Hold up a second. Firstly, what the fuck I haven’t heard from you in years! You didn’t tell me you were out.”

“Bitch I’ve been in fuckin’ prison, then to Mexico and back in since I last heard from you.” Mickey retorts.

“Secondly,” Mandy continues, “is that Ian’s name on your chest?”

“Who the fuck else’s name would I have on my chest?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure ‘cause it’s not spelt right,” Mandy laughs.

“Already told him,” Ian tells her, laughing along with her and moving back to sit on the bed.

“Oh fuck off, the both of you.”

“Awww Mick!” Mandy smiles. She turns to Ian, joining him on the bed. “Never knew my brother could be such a softie.”

“OK. Fuck off. Time for you to leave.” Mickey grumbles.

Iggy & Colin

“’Ey, look who’s back from Mexico!” Iggy cheers as Mickey enters the Milkovich house.

“The fuck have you been, bro?” Colin asks, taking a sip from his beer. Both of his brothers sat in the dimly lit living room, drinking beer with some action movie on in the background. The house hadn’t changed in the years Mickey had been gone. Still falling apart. Still dirty. Still full of idiots.

“Prison. Mexico. Prison.” Mickey says, slumping down on the sofa next to them. He scrunches his nose. “What stinks?”

“Colin’s decided showering is gay,” Iggy informs him.

“What the fuck?” Mickey shoots Colin a questioning look. Colin is about to explain, but Mickey holds up his hand. “Nevermind. I don’t wanna know.”

“Pro’ly hasn’t showered since you were here last,” Iggy laughs.

“He’s not been gone that long,” Colin says, lighting up a cigarette.

“The fuck?” Mickey asks, looking at his brother in complete disbelief.

“Nah man, he’s been gone a few months,” Iggy says.

“What the fuck! I’ve been gone years shitheads!” Mickey shouts.

“Really? Didn’t notice.” Colin shrugs.

“Too busy gettin’ turned down by every girl at the Alibi,” Iggy laughs.

“Didn’t fuckin’ notice?” Mickey snaps. “Fuckin’ idiots.” He grabs the closest thing to him, the TV remote, and lobs it at Colin’s head.

“Fuckin’ asshole!” Iggy shouts, the remote completely missing Colin and hitting him in the head. He jumps off the sofa, throwing himself on top of Mickey.

Mickey punches him before he can get a good punch in himself, the force causing them both to fall to the floor. They scramble around on the floor like children until Colin steps in.

“You can’t come here and start shit, idiot!” He says, pulling Mickey up by his shirt.

“You’re the fuckin’ idiots!” Mickey retorts, thrashing against Colin. He stops when he notices Colin’s face, idiocy replaced with disbelief and confusion.

“What?”

“Gallagher?” Colin asks.

“What are you talking about?” Mickey asks.

“Ohhh!” Iggy taunts. “Better make sure Pops don’t see that.”

Mickey looks down, noticing his tattoo on show, his vest having slipped when Colin grabbed him.

“Wait. Am I missing something?” Colin asks, letting Mickey back to the floor.

“Gallagher’s his boyfriend.” Iggy shrugs.

“You’re a fag?” Colin asks.

“You didn’t know he was gay?”

“You’re a fag!” Colin laughs. “Oh my god. And you got a guy’s name on your chest. Oh my god!” Colin breaks down into fits of laughter.

“What’s so funny, shitstain? Mickey asks, pulling his shirt back into place.

“You literally did the gayest thing you could do,” Colin gets out between laughs. “Igg’s right, Pop’s is gonna kill you.”

“Not if you don’t fuckin’ tell him!” Mickey knows his brothers are idiots, but he doesn’t think they’re that stupid. “Also I’m sure taking it up the ass is the gayest thing I could do,” Mickey shrugs.

“Ew. Gross! You take it up the ass!” Iggy fake gags.

“Everything you say gets gayer,” Colin laughs.

“But you guys aren’t gonna tell him, right?” Mickey confirms.

“Yeah, yeah, little bro, your funeral,” Colin says, rubbing Mickeys hair like a child.

“How did you not know I’m gay?” Mickey asked.

“That ginger guy was living here for months, dude!” Iggy says, punching Colin in the arm.

“I dunno. He was married.”

“And kissing a dude in the kitchen!”

“Nah he was married to a girl, man.”

Mickey shook his head, walking toward the kitchen in search of food. Idiots.

Terry

“He’s gay Terry. I’m gay. People are gay.” Sandy says, bored of the conversation and getting up from the table where the Milkovich family are filing serial numbers off guns.

“Super gay,” Colin laughs. Mickey shoots him a glare. If he doesn’t shut the fuck up, he’s gonna have to kill him.

“You ain’t marrying a man. Milkovich men marry vaginas. Period!” Terry sneers.

“Not that big of a deal, he’s already got his name on his –” Colin says, Iggy quickly covering his mouth before he can finish.

Mickey covers his face with his hands. He cannot comprehend the stupidity of his brothers right now. What the fuck!

“He’s got what?” Terry asks, unnervingly calmly.

“Nothing.” Colin says quickly.

“Yeah, definitely nothing.” Iggy confirms.

Sandy shoots Mickey a worried glance. He bites the corner of his lip, staying silent, telling himself to keep breathing. Terry doesn’t know anything.

“Got his name where?” Terry asks again slowly, shooting a death glare across the table at Mickey.

“Don’t know what they’re talkin’ about Pops,” Mickey replies, praying that his brothers don’t say anything else stupid. He shoots them both warning glares.

Terry moves to look over at Colin, who goes white. “Nothin’ Pops, he don’t have nothin’ on his chest.”

Mickey stands still in complete disbelief for a second. Before he can react, Terry stands, flipping over the table in anger, causing guns to fall to the floor in a loud crash. He stalks over to Mickey, pulling down his shirt and seeing red.

Mickey shoves him off, and Terry lunges at him, gun still in hand, striking Mickey across the face with it. Mickey sees stars. It’s been a while since this happened. He forgot the pain. Terry’s got him pinned to the floor, unable to escape.

“Fuckin’ fag. I’m gonna kill you!” he shouts, hitting Mickey across the head again.

Suddenly, the weight of Terry is gone, Sandy hanging from his back, Iggy, and Colin each holding one of his arms as he fights against them.

“Run!” Sandy shouts at him.

Ian

Ian’s lying in bed when Mickey gets home, and the second he sees his boyfriend he can’t breathe. “What happened?” he asks, jumping up off the bed to inspect the damage of Mickey’s face. Two black eyes forming, a large gash on the side of his face and a split lip.

“Terry,” Mickey mumbles, peeling off his blood-stained vest.

“You went home?” Ian asks.

“Yeah.”

“Not sure why you keep going back there,” he sighs, pulling his boyfriend toward the bed. They lay down together, Mickey laying on Ian’s shoulder.

“He found out about the tattoo,” Mickey murmurs into Ian’s shoulder.

“What? Mandy told him?”

“No. No. Stupid idiot brothers,” he sighs.

“Your brothers know about it?”

“Yeah.” Mickey offers no explanation.

Ian traces his name across Mickey’s chest. “You know, I love it,” Ian whispers to him.

“I love you,” Mickey mumbles, looking up and meeting Ian’s eyes.

“I love you, too.”

#mickey milkovich #gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey's tattoo #shameless us #fanfic #gallavich fanfic

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popculturebuffet · 9 months

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review and Analysis: This Films What Makes Me Feel Alright

Hello all you happy turtles! It's time to grab some pizza and party sized cool ranch doritos and pull your old high school sketchbooks out of some ancient backback in your closet, it's time to talk TMNT: Mutant Mayhem. As a massive TMNT nerd who was beyond hyped for this film coming from the powerhouses of both Point Grey Pictures and one jeff rowe, how did the film stack up? How did it spin kick on it's own? And why did they think Bebop nipple piercings were a good idea? All this and more under the cut, with FULL SPOILERS so if you haven't seen the film, you've been warned.

A New Coat of Ooze: Mutant Mayhem's story of how it came to be is oddly familiar: a massive movie company who has an iconic IP has no idea how to use said IP on it's own, and taps creators who have had some recent noticable and well loved succeses to make them a hit.

If that sounds familiar.. it really should as it was sony's creative desperation to get something spider-man centric only they would get profit from out that lead to Into the Spider verse and i'ts sequel. So it's funny and endearing to me that a film that wouldn't of gotten away with it's utterly unique and grungy art style without spider-verse.. happened for pretty much the exact same reasons.

Like with spidey, Paramount.. really didn't know what to do with TMNT for a while. And it's weird because when they first aquired the heroes in a halfshell from mirage, they had a pretty solid plan: the 2012 show, while messy as it went on, started out really promising and was a huge hit. The IDW comics prior to it were a massive hit for the company and are STILL around today, having outlasted other long term idw liscenses like transformers and having kept a consistent continuity for a decade while also leaving room for crossovers with ghostbusters, the mighty morphin power rangers, the goddamn batman and now street fighter.

So what went wrong? Simple.. they tried WAY too hard to mimic the transformers formula with their theatrical film, Ninja Turtles, not only not getting that audiences were tired of "Micheal Bay makes a weirdly sexual comedy about your childhood and it may have robots", but what really made the franchise work. The sequel from what i hear is slightly better but it just wasn't enoguh. Not helping is they quickly lost their shit on the tv front, as after the 2012 series concluded, they launched the creative, hilarious, and gorgeous Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.. which proceded to last only two seasons because it wasn't an instant hit, aka the same issue most nick shows fell into, not helped by the fact that Nick also seemed to pick up Cartoon Network's bad habit of hating action shows. We DID at least get a really good Rise film that gave the series a nice epilogue, but it's still sad it sputtered out so fast.

So Paramount turned to something they really weren't using.. their film animatoin department.

Paramount Pictures Animation is neat to look into as it had a steep rise.. then fell right off a cliff. It was a bit spottier at first, producing two of the charlie brown films, Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And don't come back) and my beloved Race for Your Life Charlie Brown... mostly for this theme song.. okay ENTIRELY for the theme song.

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And scattered experiments like Cool World, which was so good Ralph Bakshi punched a man over what they'd done to his idea, Bebe's Kids, and Beavis and Butthead Do America.

It wasn't till the late 90's and the nick boom they really started seeing success with the rugrats movies, jimmy neutron, spongebob and even the failures like Hey Arnold and Wild Thronberries were still neat. And yes i'd like to talk about any and all of these films at some point, they made up my childhood etc etc.

Eventually they got a cushy partneriship with dreamworks, still releasing the ocasional original effort like Rango, Barnyard and TinTin (The last of which I WILL be covering next august, I simply didnt' have room in pirate month this year. Once dreamworks left.. it seemed like Paramount genuinely had no clue what to do with the animation divsion. We had things like Sherlock Gnomes or Wonder Park, and the ocasoinal spongebob movies but it's clear that with Nick constantly cutting itself off at the knees they had no idea what to do. The closest they got was the turdtastic loud house movie and the totally awesome Rise of the TMNT films on netflix, but they just had no idea what they were doing. I mean it's telling that their trying to get extra paw patrol tickets by promiting a double feature with saw X. I.. I wish that was just some stupid joke I made as it's comedy gold. Eventually they came across an idea: Stay the course in focusiong on ips they own.. but bring in someone who knows what their doing to create something truly jawdropping.

So for Mayhem Parmount brought in two proven successes. The first were producers Point Grey Pictures, helmed by friends, writing partners and permenant teenagers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Rogen has made quite the name for himself as a producer. While Point Grey started as mainly a way for Rogen to produce comedies starring himself and a pre-outing as a sex monster james franco, over time Rogen has proven to be REALLY good at making adaptations, with point grey having had a hand in both the Boys, which I haven't seen but seems to be a MASSIVE improvment over the original comics , which isn't hard but it's still nice they tried, and Invincible, one of the best superhero shows PERIOD and a fantastic adaptation that changes what needed it, moves around pieces and ultimatley creates something really special. So tapping him to adapt a big property like this was a no brainer. He even had animation experince thanks to Sony Pictures Sauage party and while this was Point Grey's first family production, it's clear it wasn't too hard for Rogen to adapt. As for their director they picked a hell of one: Jeff Rowe. For those not familar with him Rowe helmed the Mitchells vs the Machines, sony's first post spider-verse success and the film that helped codify the 2d on 3d style that spider-verse made popular and peanuts pioneered. And it was clearly just ont hes trength of word of mouth alone as Rowe went right from machines to mayhem and only got better. From interviews, the two worked really well together: Rogen was hands on but didn't make the mistakes lord did of being way TOO hands on, simply pitching neat ideas, adding to the film and clearly being heavily involved, while still letting Rowe steer the ship. Rowe in turn learned to have a good work life ballance and give his employees one, preventing the kind of nightmarish working conditions present on other flims such as, sadly, Across the Spider-Verse.

For the direction of the film Rowe was a fan of the franchise as a kid, specifically the toys. He recalled a really sweet story about he and his dad spent a saturday trying to find Tokka and Rahzar and really loved the toys designs and uniquely grungy astetic. As such Rowe really didn't lean into or heavily research the rest of the franchise. Which set off my alarm bells when I read it in a review close to release: after all a LOT of bad adaptations come out of the person adapting it not giving one iota of a shit about the source material. Eventually though I realized I was .. over panicking. What jeff meant was more "I don't want to be overly reverent to the material and see what we can do on our own with the basic concept' rather than "THE TURTLES ARE GOD YOU FOOLS GODS. GODS I SAY!". There are still little nods in there and bits taken from other series; There's a mention of the turtles taking in a knicks game (something that happened in out of the shadows), April's design borrows heavily from her design from Rise while still being unique, Donnie has glasses like the bay movies, there apparently was a miyamoto usagi sticker on a notebook (thanks tv tropes for noticing), and there's a TON of refrences to the 87 continuity as it's clearly the one rowe knew best. And while I do get a LITTLE tired of that being the one continuity most creators seem to lean on the most, I don't hate it and plan to binge the whole giant thing soon I just feel there's a LOT more turtles to pull from, paticuarlly the idw comics, the nods are neat stuff like them having their belts form that series, the various obscure mutants. The Ninja Rap even shows up. Rowe and Rogen clearly love them some turtles.. they just wanted to do something new with it and I completely love and respect that. The biggest swing and the one that's paid off the most was leaning on the teenage aspect. Rowe and Rogan were baffled that no other version of the franchise had done the obvious: Have actual teens voice the turtles. There are reasons for that: For the various tv shows it's simply easier to know the va's wont' age out of the roll, and to the 2012 and rise series credits, they both still tried to make the turtles feel younger and had va's that still made them sound sorta like teens, paticuarlly rise... but it's not at all a bad concept and i'm shocked it took this long for someone to try it.

Another aspect was having the boys all record in one booth. Rogen had the idea.. but Rowe had to explain that it'd be a sound mixing nightmare.. but eventually agreed to it when they tested it out and he saw how much having the four actors playing the turtles riffed off each other and just how much material they got out of the boys adlibs. It adds a natural feeling to the boys conversations: it feels like four teens riffing who just happen to be turtles. It was indeed an audio nightmare.. but the nightmare was worth it and Rowe was greatful and apologetic to his sound crew.

The final bit was simply taking from teen movies, the film even outright has the boys watch Feris Buller's Day Off, which gives me one of my faviorite lines in the film, courtesy of Raph: "Being in high school means you can hyjack a parade whenever you want. "

There's more to get into as we go but with the film opening decently and paramount being so confident in the film pre-release they announced a two season tv show and a sequel, the future looks bright for the green machines. So now we've seen how the pizza gets made let's see how it came out

Perfectly Sketchy: Rogen and Rowe's "Teenage Energy" philosphy went into the design. Rowe wanted to find a unique look for the film, but it was a bit of a puzzler at first: There's SO many incarnations of the tmnt, which one do you pick for this? Do you go with the mirage comics, the 87 cartoon? 2003? the next mutation if you huffed some paint? In the end Rowe decided

Instead he made a brilliant decision: if the film was going to feel teenagery, then why not have it look like the sketches teenagers make in their notebooks? It's an idea that just oozes brilliance and still fits the franchises history like a razor decked claw glove. Part of what made the early comics stand out was it's sketchy, frank miller-esque style, and the toys stood out for largely echoing that as much as you could in three dimensions at the time. So it still fit.. but did something entirley new with it. As as a result the film has a look that simply nothing else has: porportions on most things are off, the backgrounds arne't hugely detailed , did you when you were a teen?, but still pop gloriously, and the characters all have SOMETHING that would be off model anywhere else. One of the thugs in the turtles first act of vigilnate justice, for instanc,e has a weirdly crooked head with indents. It's a look that's perfectly stylitic, fits the series history, and it's a kind of weird that perfectly complintes a series that was already having our heroes fight space dinosaurs by the third issue. I especially love how the shurikens are not even yet still throw perfectly and Mikey's hey arnold head. It's a look that pops with creativity and the crew really took to playing with. It's a style that will, much like spider-verse lead to this, undoubtly lead to more unique swings and I cannot wait to see what people come up with as a result

Protecting a World that Hates and Fears Them

The film's core comes from a rather genius decision to simply pick apart a key part of the franchise... the fact Splinter keeps the boys isolated from humanity for most of their lives and encourages them to stay hidden. Now credit where it's due some continuties justify it well enough: sometimes splinters hiding from shredder, or already had a sweet rent free sewer apartment he set up for no reason, trying to find his lost son and complete his family while avoiding a mutated alley cat or simply was waiting till the boys could defend themselves. They often have a lot of enemies... but even that shouldn't mean they can't get an education or have friends. April and Casey stick by them no matter what. They should be able to at least try for a normal life or the idea of them WANTING more than hidnig all the time should really come up more. The only ones that have really tapped into this are the IDW continuity which is just now having the boys integrate post armageddong game, out of the shadows which from what i've read has a throughly intresting subplot about the boys wanting to become human and leos' resistance to the idea (which also makes him come off as a bit of a jackass honestly as it's not his choice and "We're turtles end of story" is not an excuse). We've had the turtles say move into an apartment but this is the first to just flat out ask: why CANT the boys at least try to live with humanity instead of under them? And if so why did splinter keep them apart?

It's part of what really grounds the boys in this incarnation and makes them feel so damn real. The other of course was the decision to have actual teens play them and riff off each other. We get them making unteiotnally douchey digs at each other, such as the other three mocking Leo attempting a batman voice, casually talk about how they'd like to meet drake or have brunch with tom brady, which leo no you can do better man, or do some goofy shit while april marvels at their stupidity.. and then double down when told it might make people like them less. By making the biggest attempt so far to make the turtles FEEL like teens instead of young adults, an evolution the franchise has been undergoing since the 2012 cartoon and honestly reaches it's apex here, it makes us feel for them that much more; These are just kids who simply want to be loved and accepted, like any teenager. That awkwardness, wanting to fit in, wanting to simply belong.. it's one of the most painful parts of a teen and transplanting that to the tutles wa sa brilliant move. One of the earliest scenes is what sells this the most: the boys going to see Ferris Buller's Day off.. and just wondering what it'd be like to be normal. That lost shot of them sadly returning to the sewer... looking on screen at something they only wish they could have... it's so heartbreakingly beautiful.

The reasons WHY Splitner restricts their time in the outside world and refers to humans as "the demon scum of the earth. They lust to destroy that which is diffrent than them"

Giving Splinter a deep fear of humans is a brilliant move. It's something that really coudln't be done in most incarnations as he's been the pet of a martial arts master who treated him well, said martial arts master living in a sweet sewer apartment after being clumsily blamed for murder, got reincarnated as a rat after dying in ancient japan, a martial arts master who turned his back on his heritage because his clan let his family die, became a movie star, fucked a spider lady, had said spider lady put him in gladatorial games, then got depressed after becoming a rat but gladly adopted his sons. Here they strip that away and we're left with a splinter who was just a rat who was yelled at by other animals, shooed by humans just for trying to survivie and whose only friend was a cockroach.. who he ended up eating after humanity killed the poor guy. Finding the boys also abandoned in the sewers and covered in ooze, as oozual, not only made him into a rat man.. but also gave him the one thing he never had: a family. We also get a REALLY adorable montage set to de la soul's eye know that makes me REALLY glad the copy right hurdles around them are gone so we don't have another spider-man no way home situation because the song both slaps and has a nice soothing tone that really fits. We'll get more into the music on i'ts own later, I just really love this montage.

It also makes what follows..

We see that Splinter GENUINELY tried to go out into the world.. and the result was humanity throwing things at him despite carrying 4 small children and said children nearly being hit by a car. It's a really unsettling sequence. While yeah everyone going "rat man" and throwing things is a bit on the nose... given how a LOT of humanity acts to LBGTIQ+ persons, People of color, diffrent religions I could go on but i'm depressed enough as is, it's not really that much of a stretch that they'd throw things at a rat just trying to show his sons the world. It reminds me a LOT of the x-men and it's honestly weird to me that the othe rbiggest mutant franchise int he world HADN'T taken a page from them sooner.

It gives the film nuance: Splinter IS objectively prejudiced, leo even says so directly, but you can see how those prejudices formed and why he's so terrified for his own kids. He's worried a world that hates and fears them will also hate and milk them.. a runner that while awkwardly phrased, I don't think Seth or Jeff have heard of the term milking before, is hilarious, especially the usual refrain of "we don't even have nipples. " He just wants them safe and happy and you can tell he really does love them. He taught them the martial arts to protect them.. and the how is also really clever and a really fun idae: instead of "I learned it from a book" Or "I happened to be owned by a ninja master" or "I was reincarnated" we instead get him teaching them.. via martial arts films, instuctional videos, and the ocasional youtube thing. I love it because it honestly makes way more sense than it should as shown in the animation: splinter watched the films, learned the movements himself and then taught the boys. It's also a nice bit of meta text as Jackie Chan himself is a practicing martial artist who makes martial arts films and did his own stunts. One of his films is apparently even in the montage. It's one of my faaviorite takes of the film.

One of my faviorite scenes is Splinter's biggest pet the dog moment: the pizzza party. Splinter brings in a bunch of pizza hut pizzas

It's neat because it both clearly misses the point, Splinter really dosen't seem to get that simply bringing down a bunch of pizzas to have a human style prom and having kelvin captain kirk cutout won't fill the void inside. I mean I could think of a lot of uses for a chris pine cutout, i'm not saying it's a bad gift and it's sweet he's trying SO HARD to get his boys to open up and Jackie Chan just nails the dad energy on this one. It's just clear that they don't want to stay there there whole lives as safe as that is.

What brings it to it's head is one of the films more brilliant decisions. Originally, while I haven't found many specifics the film had other antagonists: Baxter Stockman was originally the boys teacher (they went to school during the course of this film in this draft) and became the fly again, while Shredder was TCRI"s heavy in earlier drafts. Both were nixed, the former likely due to abandoing the school plot and the latter for the entirely on the mark decision that it was just too much. Shredder.. is THE arch enemy to the turtles. The one constant in every universe. So it makes way more sense to save him for a sequel and let someone else take the reigns. As Rowe has teased Shredder's going to be a bit of a wakeup call: just as the boys think they have it figured out .. in comes shredder to kick their asses. Which really has happened A LOT across the franchise, with it being a regular tradition that the shredder beats the shit out of the turtles the first time they fight. Even in IDW where they do rally and turn the fight on it's head.. he still easily handles them all one on one before they rally as a team. It makes sense to save their ultimate test for a sequel while still giving them one hell of a trial by fire

Instead we got Superfly, who better fit into the fantastic racisim narritive. If the boys want to get love and acceptance by fighting for a world that hates and fears them x-men style.. it only makes sense they have a magneto on that other end.

Like Magneto Superfly has a tragic backstory behind his hatred of mankind.. Superfly was the creation of Baxter Stockman and what they did with Baxter both completely floored me.. and drove me to tears. Instead of what he is normally, either a put upon target coerced into villany who strikes back at both the turtles and those who wronged him, or a narcsitic monster who will gladly do whatever he wants and kill anyone in his way, here... Baxter is just a deeply lonely old man who just wants a family. At worst he steals from TCRI.. but given we see their a horrifying company who wants the mutants as weapons and will gladly torture teenagers for a buck, it's not hard to side with him. It's really nice ot see a heroic baxter.. and sad to see him go so quickly.

It puts Superfly's hatred in perspective: like splinter he saw just what huamanity does and how his kind is treated and grew up having to raise his younger siblings. Like Splinter he seems to really love them. And like splinter his attempt to take his siblings topside.. went horribly wrong with them being chased by an angry mob for just..c oming to a snack bar. But it's right after that we get the clear diffrence: Splinter just ran in fear and while he trained the boys ot protect themselves, he just wants a line between himself and humanity. Superfly.. wants them all to pay. He wants to mutate the world that killed his dad and drove him and his siblings into hiding. The only way they can be accepted.. is if humanity is mostly gone and what's left are enslaved.

IT's that sadistic streak that ultimately defines him as a villian: the turtles just want to be accepted, splinter just wants to be loved, the rest of the mutant "cousins" just want a home and have been indocrinated and browbeaten into thinking there isn't another way. Superfly.. wants things his way: he wants blood, he wants revenge and if anyone stands in his way no matter their age or being his family he will kill them. It's that anger inside that makes him a true monster.

And that extends to his own family. Superfly's an abusive parent to Splinters flawed but loving one: The rest of the mutants turn stone quiet when he subtly/notsubtly threatens the turtles if they happen to disagree, and during the chase not only are they all desperate to get the thing back but Wingnut in paticular gets the most telling line

Wingnut: Superfly's almost here and he's not going to be as nice about this! Leo: You're not being nice! Wingnut: He'll be less nice!!

While the other mutants SEEM jazzed during the bowling alley scene, it's very clear later none of them were that enthused about the idea. Both sets are afraid to speak to their parental figure.. but the diffrence is clear in motion: the boys hide from splinter because they know he'll say no, it's a standard teenage thing and as seen with the pizza party when Splinter finds the various knick knacks they've picked up on their heroic journey, his response is to try to bring the surface to the sewer. It's awkward as hell and dosen't remotely work.. but it's still a sweet gesture and you still feel bad for him when the boys quickly leave to finish their half assed plan. Splinter ultimately wants what's best for his kids and even if he's not always right in carrying that out, I never doubted he actually loved his children.

This all brillantly comes to a head towards the end: While Splinter plans to just.. isolate the turtles after their nearly milked, the one time he seems GENUINELY angry the whole film, he still wants to save April, the one good human, who warned him the boys were in danger in the first place.

This leads to a touching bit in itself: the boys COULD fight the other mutants, their trying to do a genocide after all.. but instead the boys.. just talk them down. I mean i'm used to this kinda thing by now, most animation these days is about forgivness, but it still works: earlier when meeting each other the turtles gladly bonded with their cousins, who i'll talk about in more detail later: Mondo and Mikey were both chill, raph finally found some people who liked to hit stuff, presumibly while blasting Limp Bisikit, it was really sweet. THeir relutance to stop them added a nice dimension to things: they UNDOUBTLY want to stop superfly's plan.. but they genuinely like their cousins and see them as good people in a bad situation. Likewise the cousins are utterly destraught at the fight afterwords and miss the turtles. These are simply at the end of the day teens 20 somethings and whatever scumbug is who just wanted to not be chased iwth torches.

So it's utterly heartwarming when the turtles and splinter simply offer their home. They may not have humanity.. but they'd have each other. It's also YET ANOTHER idea that seems obvious in retrospect but most turtle series never really thought of: why.. can't other mutants stay with them? They usually order suplies and stuff descretley anyway or in this case take them out of nescsity, if they can afford pizza for 5 people reguarly, why NOT let other smove in. I mean I get it meta wise, you dont' want to overcrowd things. But it's a nice thought i'm glad gets realized: that the boys aren't alone and now have a whole new family to lean on.

And of course Superfly can't take that. To him there's only one way to go: never stop making them pay. I'll also say I like just how poweful superfly is: he's got strength inunerablity, and super smarts, which I thought was a nice touch. I assumed he woudln't have baxter's intellegence and I'm glad to be wrong. He's only stopped and only then breifly by sheer numbers.

What follows is a LITTLE on the nose, with superfly just.... saying outight he and splinter aren't so diffrent, down to both having said "You'll be safe if you just LISTEN TO ME".

That part.. dosen't quite work for me. What does work is the animation on splinter during the struggle between everyone else and superfly.. the dawning realization of what he is as Superfly states the obvious and his determination as soon as Superfly says "the diffrence is i'm not a punk". Superfly just wants to get revenge on a world that hates and fears him.. Splinter just wants his sons to be happy. And he finally realizes that even if there's a lot of risk involved, they DESERVE to live out there with everyone else. There is something better than hiding or murder.

I also like how Superfly.. drops the pretense: once his plans done he just goes on a massive kaiju attack: I also like how fucking horrific his form is: the whale part's a bit goofy at first.. but then you see how much STRENGTH that gives him as he destroys it. Even if we get the ocasional joke (I didn't need that horse is gold), for the finale Superfly is just a nightmarish, imposing threat that threatnes to run our heroes lives and also maybe end them. The glee he takes in crushing the boys alive... it's fucking terrifying.

I also love the bit of the boys panning... seeing all the destruction.. and seeing the media blame them too. Their trying to HELP people.. and get blamed. I'd suggest moving to krakoa but a lo tof shit has went down and living with one old man full of fear and regret is what started this whole caper. And the boys.. fight on anyway because it's the right thing to do. Despite all the hate... someone has to stop superfly. And in doing so.. April makes sure they get the glory and praise they deserve anyway.

Finally I love splinter's turnaround right before the final fight... where he admits he was wrong.. but hasn't FULLY turned around on humans. He's simply realized he can't let his baggage with humanity weigh down his sons. And it pays off brilliantly during the time square fight, as when Splinter is downed.. someone helps him up. And what I love is that while it COULD just be someone who saw April's newscast clearing the turtles and other mutants.. it's left ambgious. As far as we know it was just a nice guy and gal helping an old man up regardless of if he was a giant rat or not. It dosen't paper over all the films flaws with the rat man mob scene but it does help quite a bit.

The film brillantly tackles prejudice and I like how unlike most films.. there's no easy answers. Our boys have to do something big and loud to get accepted and it's not guaranteed to shield them, as seen with the stingers. THey find friends , activites and get what they want.. but it's likely not the end.. but that's okay. The important thing is for the first time the turtles are out of the shadows and into the sun. And it suits them. Seriously this last twist was brilliant and i'm shocked it took a tmnt this long to just.. let them be public since 87, and since media has evolved, it means when we get to the series we can actually explore what that means: how will they adapt? will everyone accept them? will april realize Leo is into her and it wasn't just a friend thing? there's a lot of questions I can't wait to be answered.

Change is Constant

I didn't have a good segway so.. CHARACTERS! MY WHEELHOUSE. LET'S GO.

Starting with the boys, their more of a package deal here. They still have unique deisgns, takes on the cores of their personalities, all you'd expect from a good tmnt adaptation.

What changes it up a bit is the recording together: while most sets of turtles have great chemistry, this one.. really feels like their brothers thanks to the shared recording: they talk over one another, dunk on each other and goof around. This has always been a thing, and part of the franchises charm, but how they do it here feels more real, helped by the fact they clearly took some adlibs in. Both the BTS bit where they try to comfort Donnie only to both mangle the lyrics and writhe in pain and the bit with the new york accents both sound like the boys just started riffing on the prompt given, didn't stop and they rolled with it because it was comedy gold. It also means a LOT more pop culture refrences.. but it works. It dosen't feel like too much

Admitely I don't know how current the refrences are to ACTUAL teens, but they work well enough and don't feel like their horribly date the film. Plus it'd be.. weird to have a turtles work that didn't reflect it's era in some way, as all 4 cartoons and most films and comics reflect their time either in writing or in the general vibe.

The downside to this is the turtles indvidual personalities, while present.. get kinda underplayed. Leo and Raph make it out fine enough: After the radience that was Rise Leo and ben schwartz being at his peak slacker doofus (while also still being badass), we're back to Leo being Teachers Pet. But thankfully like the 2012 film they play with it: like that Leo his brother's don't really respect him as a leader, but rather than the usual raph snarling at him like wolverine, here it's more just their his brothers, they woudln't respect him anyway and benig their dad's mouthpiece just makes them ignore him harder. He's the dutiful son but he's simply outnumbered. Raph dosen't get a ton of spotlight, but gets enough to be a fun little murder baby and probably my faviorite of the 4. Instead of the usual brooding loner, sometimes ultra violent sometimes just sassy, often both, here he's more an obnoxious older brother who picks on leo the most, is happy to do dangerous stunts and badly needs therapy. He's essentially Reese from malcom in the middle as a ninja turtle. He still loves his brothers and loves a good scrap, but he's got some issues to adress.

Mikey and Donnie likewise aren't bad but kinda one note: Mikey gets it the worst: he's a bit goofy.. but since they ALL are this incarnation it dosen't stand out as much. He gets some nice bits and one hell of a impariment shot, but not much else.

Donnie fairs better, but suffers from the unintended consequences of a good choice. As part of grounding things a bit, Donnie isn't a super genius. He's just a snarky little otaku who does really like tech, but on the resonable level of a teenage boy. As a result he dosen't get as much to do as most donnies as he's not hotwiring shit as often or making super lasers. It works for me, it's intresting to have a donnie whose just a normal kid who happens to be really nerdy, but it means plotwise he dosen't have as much to do as Raph as the ringleader to the boys mischief or Leo as the leader of the band during hero stuff. I get why: they only had a hundred minutes and it's remarkable they crammed as much in as they did, but it's something I really hope the series can course correct. I don't mind the boys riffing and hope it continues, but I also hope we get them more as their own people too.

As a final note I love Leo's crush on April. IT feels like a better realized version of the Donnie one from 2012. Instead of waffling over wether april notices or just dosen't want to turn him down which..

And then having it go from cute to "spiraling obessive dickhole", here April notices something's weird, but is clearly more intrested in the "giant talking turtles who can help my rep" thing and thus dosen't really pry. It only REALLY crosses into that at the end when he transparently asks her out.. and she waits till prom to ask "wait this is a friend thing right". But that could be nerves or her being just as scared of her feelings as he is with his. It also helps that while he's intrested in april romantically the two do bond: out of the four he' sthe most empathetic at her barf reputation, priortizes her not out of his crush but because she asked for their help and later works with her at her club. It's still somethign the series could work on, but for "a way to both mine jokes and get leo to go against his dad's wise council" it works fine. It's better than "how dare you ruin my ship you bastards" and "Mikey stop being a sex creep. "

So moving on to April herself, I mostly like this version. She's the third time this franchise has gone with a teen april and the third to have her POC. I've liked the turn to teen april as instead of being a big sister to the turtles, and essentially another authority figure when they already have their dad, she's on their level and it opens up fresh possiblities. Mayhem is the first with this take on april to have her be a reporter again, and it's honestly nice to see that work at a school level, having her TRIED to be on their equivleant of channel one.. and end up puking. And i'm not a barf joke man but walking back into the theater after a bathroom break to see her ralphing to "UnwritteN" may be one of my faviorite cinema moments of 2023, up there with walking back into Barbie to find she and ken now had cowboy outfits they'd apparently stolen.

I also love how it gives her a personal stake: she just wants to be loved same as the turtles and like them realizes this isn't WHY to do this. She also provides a nicely needed straight man to the goofier brothers without being reduced to the old sterotype of "Joy killing female foil. ", something her fellow teen aprils and most aprils in general have thankfully achieved. April is just a person and reacts with annoyance to the boys because their going on a 4 minute tangent saying new york sterotypes while mike does a rumpshaker.

We do have to unpack that mostly though and that comes from April being kind of a dick at time's. She's pressuery when the boys are undercover with SUperfly's gang.. even though she can HEAR what their saying.. and thus hear that he's clearly indocrinated the others and that the boys may not want to harm THEM. I get her not wanting Superfly to succeed, his plan is fucking horrible, but even for a teen it's weird she dosen't see the nuance. She can also be a bhit short with them, though the latter I acknolwedge in hindsight as being like the boys: she's a teenager and teens aren't perfect. This is still a great april and continues Ayo's streak this year of great voice acting roles.

The other mutants are great. I was worried: While the cast for them is fucking stacked and Seth called in a lot of his rolodex to fill it out, and himself as credit where it's due he tends to show up in shit he produces and bring his absolute best rather than showing up because he can, i've seen plenty of films fall flat because they tried to add too many characters from the source. Just this year I felt one of the biggest issues with Transformers; Rise of the Beasts is that they tried to jam so many autobots and maximals in, a total of 10 but didn't bother to give any of them but optimus, bee and mirage an actual character.

Here while the characters are one note, they have charming designs and work more as a unit like the boys, but are still friendly and likeable enough that your fond of them like the turtles and happy when they join the family. The breakout is easily natasha dimoscu's wingnut. I already loved wingnut, but this is easily the best verison: she's cheery kind and gets some great subtle jokes, the wifi one is fucking great as is her swiping Donni'es akira voices. All of them are pretty charming though. The only one to not really feel like a character is Hannibal frog, a sad waste of hannibal burgess, but everyone else gets something fun to do: Bebop and Rocksteady are rageholic morons who then get a sweet character arc as they realize their rage is because Superfly ENCOURAGED them to be constantly angry, and it's fun to see a version of them that's genuinely heroic. Not so fun is Bebop's pierced nipples.

I am genuinely baffled by this design choice. I don't doubt Bebop would get pierced nips, it' sin character. But why Seth thought anyone would want to see that, why he made HIS CHARACTER HAVE THEM, OR WHY HE MAKES IT SO PROMINENT will be a question that will haunt me for years to come. Or until we get creators commentary to explain why he hates viewers eyes. For the record I have nothing against nipple piercings, I just question why anyone thought giving them to Bebop was a good idea. OR their so large or

I also like Scumbug and i'm happy to see Splinter in his first relationship where his partner hasn't died horribly or put him in gladiator games. I did not need to see them make out with clone high level tounge. I"ll let this discord conversation with my good friend @kammieceleek handle the heavy lifting.

I mean their a cute couple but please, NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN NEVER

Anyways capping us off we have TCRI, who are decent enough. I like remaking them as this sort of paramilitary goon squad that shows the worst of humanity. Cynthia herself.. is fucking great. I like that to anyone familiar with Krang, it's DAMN obvious who she either is, or is a stand in for, with the name, apperance and Maya Rudolph somehow doing the Pat Fraley krang voice and tics while also doing a thick german accent. She's a brillaint combo of over the top hammy.. and an utterly sadstic monster, shocking the boys just for speaking, not carring that they don't really belong to her, and willing to kill them just to get her super weapons. She's what a remade krang should be: still over the top.. but also dead seriously terrifying. My only complaint is she's a bit OBVIOUS as a sequel hook. Like Rowe was really banking on that sequel and i'm never a fan of when films do this when they don't KNOW this story will continue. It is clearly, with the film slowly picking up more and more money and more than enough in merch, but he coudln't of known that.

So with that we just have one bit of buisness to wrap up

Yo Jeff Drop the Verse

The soundtrack for this flim is liquid gold. It's so good to my ears and full of such nice cuts. Guardians cemented my love of needle drops in film in tv: If you can pull it off well do it. And this film does it so damn good. The film skews to hip hop, likely due to wanting a "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" vibe, which really does fit teendom well. I will admit it's also pretty explicit here and there, so kids may be disapointed to find they can't stream these songs, but it's still a stacked selectoin

So before I break it down track by track, something I regret failing to do with spider-verse as like this reveiw it was massively behind, I whipped up a playlist as Parmount's own leaves out several tracks. While I get the what's going on bit being left out as that bit is a good suprise why it has'nt been added weeks out from the film I don't know. You can find it here

Ante Up is a song i've heard maybe once or two here, but is a perfect gag for the opening grocery run, while still showing off just what our boys can do.. even if their doing it for some party sized cool ranch doritos. Which is still a great reward.

Danke Scheon shows up in the clip of feris buller. This dosen't really count but I do think the film is a perfect fit, since John Hughes was an inspiration for this film, and it's an idealized version of the freedom the boys desperately want. Not a John Hughes film I was ever a huge fan of, but it works and that "You can hyjack parades whenever you want" joke is so damn good.

Now we come to a track I wasn't familiar with but is easily my faviorite now: Eye Know. I"m glad more films are using De La Soul's music, mostly because it makes ME want to know them better as I haven't heard much and even after really enjoying three is the number, thanks to the weird rights limbo it wasn't avaliable to stream ad nauseum when No Way Home came out. Thankfully just a few short months ago, the whole De La Soul catalogue is up. This song is a really gentle, really fun love song with one heck of a chorus, and it nicely meshes with Splitner raising his adorable little children. It's one of my faviorite scenes of the movie.

The next track is another perfect selection but for something more hilarious and badass: While Push It To the Limit verges on a parody of training montage music it works for one where we find out the turtles and splinter learned ninjitsu from movies,, instructional tapes and whatever they could scrounge up. HOw their learning is awesomely rediculous, so it needs backing that's cheestastic.

Love is an Illusion by Ronnie Walker was nice for Leo falling for APril. It's a really crisp, dreamy love song so it fits.

Okay look i'ts only there for a second, but I can't tell you how much I love Ninja Rap making a cameo on this soundtrack. The soundtrack is cheesy good and one of the more iconic ninja turtle songs for a reason. It's not as good as say Pizza Power or the various awesome theme songs, but it's goofy fun that fit the film it was in. It's also one of Vanilla Ice's better songs, though that isn't huge compettion especially since he made a weird as fuck sequel I still can't comprehend that was also compeltely ninja turtle free for some reason.

Cavern By LIquid Liquid is fun, a nice chill beat to meet turtles to.

Dance by ESG is already a fun song and fits the boys going full blast on their plan well. THat's.. about it. THankfully I have more for unwritten. I'm not a fan of Vomit humor most of the time unless you have a paticuarlly inspired twist like say. a mad scientest making everyone in the room vomit at a bar as a thought experiment leading to an image like this

That's just beautiful. But i'm just not a gross out guy, so this gag working for me was a lot... setting the most embarassing moment of April's life to FUCKING UNWRITTEN, a song I heard 998 times over the course of the 2000's as every fucking movie and tv show overused the hell out of this throughly mid song, it was transedeant. First and only good use of unwritten. Well done.

Now we come to what's easily the best musical bit of the movie. And it has some steep competition from Eye Know and another song we all know is coming, but the No Diggity Scene is just one of those sequences that once you see it you know "This shit is iconic". This is a scene that's now etched in tmnt lore and for damn good reason. It's also a brilliant way to get up to the chain to superfly and have a few weeks of sluthing and our heroes getting better pass as our heroes easily blaze through some goons and those shots of EACH turtle getting to burst in and lead the assault?

And look I admit this montage hits a sweet spot that was also started by guardians: setting an action montage to music that somehow fits despite having no right to. In this case a mellow smooth as hell jam perfectly complmenting some frantic action. So fucking smooth.

Wake Up in the Sky grew on me as let's face it, a song that has bruno mars saying fly a dozen times nad saying he's super fly works. I just don't like it a lot because trap is'nt something that fits me musically. I prefer more intricate beats or at least a really solid one thorugh the whole thing. The more relaxed beatwork here isn't for me, but I can't deny it fits Superfly's big debut well.

Fitting me much better is the use of Shimmy Shimmy Yay for the bowling scene. It's fucking great, a song that's never not awesome and that's also a bit low key while being way more my speed.

The use of BOTH major versions of What's Up? .. is an easy close second for best use of music int he film and one of the most brilliant masterstrokes. And this all comes to Seth Rogen. When the chase scene wasn't quite working, he suggested the slackcircus version of he man. It's also awsome in that the song's themes of isolation PERFECTLY fit what the mutants are going through. So not only did they manage to stick one of the best meme songs in human history in a feature film.. but they did so with it being ENTIRELY relevant. The switch from the 4 non blondes version to slackcircus is fucking genius and the song adds nice manic energy. It'll also hopefully give this song a rightful ressurgence as the heman cover is , while hilarious, also GENUINELY good. The original ain't too shabby either.

The boys version of butter is hilarious and got me to listen to the original which is alright. Mr. Lonely isn't a bad song, and perfectly fits Splinter's mope session.

Finally we have can I kcik it, an objectively awesome song. It fit the trailer perfectly and it fits our ending as our heroes are finally allowed to mingle with the surface adn get their happy ending beauitfully. A beautiful ending to a beautiful film.

So overall mutant mayhem is fucking awesome. If you haven't seen it after all this go see it, support the hard workers who made this film possible by supporting the ongoing strike and thanks for reading.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt mutant mayhem #mutant mayhem #leonardo #donetello #raphael #michalangelo #april 0'neil #screwloose #superfly #bebop #rocksteady #jeff rowe #seth rogen #nickelodeon #scumbug

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healerelowen · 3 months

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Okay, so I just finished watching a play-through of Poppy Playtime chapter 3 and um

I have a lot of thoughts/pos

Btw, I don't support MobGames or anything in that nature. I just like the game for the story and cool characters.

Rant under the cut + Spoiler warning

My first thought is I love this chapter. I do enjoy the story telling while still being able to add more horrifying visuals that still are realistic in the world of the game. Especially with the whole 'dream hallucination' thing, which allows them to get creative.

Second, CatNap is so cool. I think he only says one line of dialogue and it's pretty hit or miss depending on whether or not you're listening. But that's why I liked Huggy Wuggy so much as an antagonist in Chapter 1. Huggy doesn't say a single word yet still manages to be perceived as threatening. CatNap is similar, in which he doesn't say much because he doesn't need to. Also purple cat, cool heckin design.

Another thing I like about CatNap is that people knew he was going to be the antagonist, he was always seen as a threat prior to the release of Chapter 3, but in the moment of seeing him in action, it pulls the rug from right under you. And I think that's really neat and it does a lot to establish how terrifying CatNap actually is.

Who the heck is Ollie. I mean, I don't hate him, and the name does ring a bell. But I'm not sure if I can recall an Ollie anywhere in the Poppy Playtime story pre-Chapter 3. Maybe it was in Project playtime somewhere and I missed it. But yeah, mysterious character I guess.

Umm, didn't really like Miss Delight that much. I mean, she works in the narrative of having a school at the PlayCare and the whole Bigger Bodies Initiative and what not. But I feel like she could've been more provoked or maybe get a little more of her character. Though there is more than one according to the tape showing The Hour of Joy, so that's probably the reason. It's fine I guess, I just want to see less filler characters going forward, if any at all. Some fleshing out of formerly introduced characters would be interesting.

Dogday, man. It honestly makes me feel so bad for him. Like, from what we can gather from what he says, the Smiling Critters all collectively agreed that the Prototype wasn't really okay with them. And CatNap, seeing that as protest, either did what he did to Dogday or potentially worse to them, or even maybe just straight up killed them. And that's so sad to think about. Also his whole bit actually unnerved me quite a bit. Usually I'm not disturbed with stuff from Poppy playtime (i.e what happened to Mommy Long Legs in Chapter 2), but that was the first time I got an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

One hell of a final fight holy shit. CatNap just going full out truly shows that he knows what he's doing, he knows who you are, and we don't have any other mention that CatNap has done that with any other Playtime Co. employee. It's very deliberate, and I like it. Also his death is brutal. All of them are, and Dogday definitely got the worst of it, but holy shit man. Looks like Huggy, if he is dead, got a more merciful death.

I mean, yeah he fell after hitting a bunch of pipes, but also we don't know if he's dead or not. Mommy Long Legs had a pretty gruesome death, being grinded up alive by a machine while knowing that if you die you'll become a part of presumably the Prototype is quite the troublesome death. I already talked about Dogday and how disturbed I was with his technical death. CatNap's was surprising, because it wasn't an 'if he was going to die', it was a 'how he was going to die'. And um, yeah being electrocuted, set ablaze, burnt to a crisp then stabbed in through the mouth by the Prototype will do it. Though I would like to see more of CatNap and Mommy Long Legs in future chapters, they're definitely my favorites.

Kissy Missy, oh my lord. The sounds of her screams from above the lift was so upsetting. I love Kissy Missy, please don't let her be doomed by the narrative please I'm begging I can't take the emotional turmoil.

Those are most of my main thoughts, though I will say more if people want to hear me talk about Poppy Playtime some more.

#rant #i love talking about lore #so fun #love ranting #yippee

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wingedwhirlwind · 5 months

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The Marvels review

Okay, long, long post. I’ve seen The Marvels thrice now and it’s time I shared my thoughts.

I was funnily enough aware of the plot fifteen months in advance. Someone posted on reddit ‘unconfirmed plot details’ and the same leak was shared on various sites, e.g. the article from July 29, 2022 “Is Captain Marvel a villain in The Marvels? Plot leak hints at yes.”

I mention this because I want to make comparisons to the early concept and the actual movie we got. First off, the leak was very accurate. Carol being perceived as The Annihilator and Dar-Benn & Co hating her for destroying Hala. But here are some interesting differences.

The movie didn’t make a huge plot twist on Carol being the villain - after all, she was only seen as a villain from the Kree’s perspective, not from her own really. And hey, mistakes happen to even the best of us right? No Big Deal.

It was even suggested that Carol kinda ghosted on fixing things for 30 years. On top of that, she was constantly trying to inconvenience Dar-Benn, bumping into her Kree squad at every intergalactic pit stop. It's like she's got a hobby: messing with their plans. Meanwhile, Hala's sun is looking like a BBQ pit, and Carol's just chilling like it's not her problem. Bit weird.

Carol, the Unintentional Walking Disaster:

“Death seems to follow you”- Dar-Benn

And that brings me to the “Kree-Skrull Peace treaty” between Supremor Dar-Benn and Emperor Drog’e on Tarnax. So, did Carol's intervention send the peace treaty straight into disaster mode? Dar-Benn was untrustworthy, and made last-minute changes to the agreement much to the annoyance of the Skrulls and she seemed very impatient when it came to ‘unnecessary precautions’, so who knows. Either way, Dar-Benn was ready for a showdown with Carol. It's like she knew our Hero™ too well and had her villain defense kit on standby. It's cosmic irony at its finest. Carol shows up to be the hero, and next thing you know, Dar-Benn's activating the bangle, and stripping the colony of its breathable atmosphere without evacuating its inhabitants first.

In a scene prior to this, Fury tried warning Carol to stay away but she still chose to play into Dar-Benn's hands.

Which makes the next scene so incredibly flat. Kamala promises a now orphaned Skrull child that Captain Marvel will fix things when 1) Carol has broken her promise to Monica, 2) She hasn’t yet found the Skrulls a new planetary home, and 3) Hala's suffering is apparently just background noise to her.

They could at least have explored the trope Never meet your heroes, or included more flashbacks. Don't get me wrong, the trio's banter and teamwork are cute, but that "lie" following Carol around is like a clingy ex – it just won't let her be. As a superhero journey, there could have been more emotional depth. More stakes. Ahem, more length to the movie, perhaps?

→ A rumored deleted scene that would have changed everything:

Captain Marvel had a lot of deleted scenes. Some were featured in the extras, like Yon-Rogg visiting the Supreme Intelligence and seeing himself, and, Yon-Rogg teaching a class of young students about the Skrulls. And all those scenes which were only mentioned in the interviews :/

There was a short frame featured in the official trailer for The Marvels. And I think the scene went something like this: Monica and Carol land on Hala. But there's something different – rain, a phenomenon the Kree survivors have never experienced. It's a celestial celebration, thanks to none other than DAR-BENN, who brought atmosphere and water back to their desolate world. As the rain falls on Hala for the first time, Carol has an epiphany. The Annihilator label isn't just some cosmic exaggeration; it's the bitter truth from the Kree's perspective. She gazes at the struggling survivors, realizing that in their eyes, she's the great villain who razed their home. The weight of her actions hits Carol like a cosmic punch and she grapples with the realization that stopping Dar-Benn might mean destroying Hala all over again.

Kamala, the Marvel We All Need:

So, the first time I rewatched the movie was all thanks to Kamala <3 She's like the beacon of hope in the MCU, bringing a fresh vibe that we didn't know we needed. Who wouldn't want her as their superhero BFF?

Dar-Benn, the Fashionista Villain?:

Now, let's talk about the 'queen', Dar-Benn. This Supremor's got style for days. Three different outfits or more. At least. Earrings, nail polish, rings on both hands – she's like the Empire's fashion icon. Wonder if that was intentional… hard to tell because there was zero backstory on her! Did she know Vers and Yon-Rogg? She was a Starforce operative after all. What about Ronan? In the comics, Dar-Benn had a joint Emperor Ael-Dann. Is that character also gender-swapped? What happened to them?

But, oh, that villain smile of hers that we loved? Poof, gone. A tragedy that hit me harder than Thanos' snap lol. Now she’ll just be another forgettable tale in the Marvel universe, "Why, writers, why?". But I'm not ready to say goodbye to my Supremor crush just yet. There will be a whole post and a new fic dedicated to Dar-Benn soon.

Now the last act annoyed me. Dar-Benn, exhausted from carrying the weight of saving Hala solo, faces a three-on-one beatdown from Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica. Where was her army? Bodyguards? I mean, seriously? The Kree Empire, with all its might, couldn't spare a helping hand? Heck, even her right-man Ty-Rone, who was practically her personal fussing machine? Did they all vanish into thin air, or did Carol perhaps pull another "I'll fly through your spaceship" stunt?

Either way, it's like the ultimate cosmic irony – the most stylish Supremor left to face the music alone.

CGI Magic and a Sudden End:

The scene where Carol returns to reignite Hala's sun – pure cinematic wizardry. The first time had me on the edge of my seat, especially since it mirrored the iconic frame from the comic "Captain Marvel: The End." But then, bam! We're abruptly whisked away from the Kree people celebrating to Carol, looking all majestic. Cut to the next scene, and I'm left staring at the screen like, "Wait, what happened to Hala?" Their leader is gone (again), and there's still the looming shadow of famine. I need answers, and I need them now. Did the sun reignition fix everything, or is Hala still stuck in a perpetual struggle? Did the Kree people get the closure they needed, or are they just left in limbo? It's like Marvel handed us a box of questions and said, "You figure it out!"

Closing Thoughts: A Marvelous Cosmic Ride

Great movie. Would I watch it again? Absolutely. Each time unveils new details and new emotions. Waiting for the deleted scenes and the official art book.

#captain marvel #carol danvers #captain marvel 2 #the marvels spoilers #the marvels #yonverinos #yon-rogg #dar-benn #kamala khan #monica rambeau #forgot my rose-colored glasses #dar benn #mcu #ty-rone #but nobody knows who he is #kree

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vampireghostlawyer · 7 months

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just got home from seeing Saw X with @endlessly-vivid and I HAVE SO MANY. SO MANY EMOTIONS ABOUT IT. [spoilers for saw x under the cut]

-THIS WAS FUCKING AMAZING. GENUINELY. PROBABLY MY FAVORITE SAW SINCE SAW 3, AND DEFINITELY IN MY TOP 5 SAW FILMS OF ALL TIME.

-THE REFERENCE TO THE FIRST FILM WHEN KRAMER GETS UP FROM THE BLOOD (?) TRAP THING

-the reveal was SO SO FUCKING GOOD. we obviously know john and amanda survive, but having the kid to keep the audience on their toes and desperately trying to figure out HOW we get to saw 3 after this was great

-THE VICTIMS WERE SO LIKABLE. genuinely this entire cast of victims were acted and written phenomenally. every single one of them, even someone with so little screen time like valentina or a person we're set up to hate like cecilia had SO much character and i was rooting for all of them at the same time. gabriella's performance was especially amazing, but all of them really were great

-on top of being likable, they were also all so humanized. the little details like mateo needing a translation of the tape and gabriella tossing the tape away when she got scared or trying to hit the radiation with the hammer were so great.

-ALSO how close they all got to surviving their traps was so heart wrenching and insane like i was on the edge of my seat every time.

-AMANDA AMANDA AMANDA. she has always slayed, she has always been an indie horror sweetheart but this movie was one of my favorites pieces of her that we've seen. there is so much more depth and incentive added to a lot of her actions in saw 3 now and it is gorgeous. also shawnee smith gave a beautiful performance as always

-THE HIGHLIGHTING OF JIGSAW'S HYPOCRISY CONTRASTED WITH CECILIA'S WAS AMAZING. cecilia, a wealthy white woman taking advantage of those she has privilege over being a mirror to the way jigsaw blames people for systemic problems that are often times out of their control. cecilia in general was a great villain.

-HOFFMAN CAMEO I SCREAMED.

-my one gripe with the film (sorry i love to critique) is the traps. they were all super creative and it was awesome to see an extra level of complexity added to some of them compared to prior traps, but some of them were so anatomically and medically impossible that i got annoyed watching 😭 mateo acting completely normal after removing like two inches of brain matter and everyone having unrealistically short periods to complete their tasks was annoying BUT the traps were all hella cool so i cant even be truly angry. my favorite was probably mateo's. it was the first saw trap in a while to make me wince and definitely one of the traps where i would be using those tools to kms asap instead of actually attempting to survive lmao

-autumn brought this up to me and i agree so much but the return to some of the classic saw editing was so refreshing and nostalgic.

-i have so many other thoughts but this is all i can organize right now. AHHH, 4.5/5 stars, can't remember the last time i was so hyped in a theater

#clem.txt #saw x spoilers #saw spoilers #endlessly-vivid #saw

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soloistschornicles · 1 year

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⌜ 𝘛𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘌𝘙 ⌟

⩩﹕𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬﹒ The supernatural has roamed the Teyvat landmass for centuries. Whether it's true or not, people's curiosity tends to be those. They don't know if it's some sort of legend, a myth from ancient times that hasn't been disproven yet, but they don't care, they're too enthralled by those who believe in such things.

Have you heard this tale before? A story about an apprentice who hails across the sea and met a spirit who wanders aimlessly on the land of Forevermore. You haven't? Such a shame…sit back seelies, this story is going to be so interesting that you won't know what hit you when it's over.

⩩﹕𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬﹒ongoing

⩩﹕𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫﹒Genshin impact is an action role-playing game developed and published by yours truly, miHoyo.

⌜ 𝘛𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘌𝘙 ⌟

𝐈.

“Huh? An invitation?”

[Name] lived among the people of Liyue, The Harbor of Contracts. Working as a young apprentice under Doctor Baizhu, a skilled herbalist works at Bubu Pharmacy alongside his somber assistant, Qiqi.

One day, they came home from tiring work, endless herbs that needed to be processed, and medications and prescriptions that needed to be tended to the worrisome patients and customers. On the doorstep of their abode, they spotted a polished-looking envelope with a familiar seal that fastened the letter.

Taking the letter by hand, they went up to their bedroom, where their safe haven was situated. Glancing a questioning gaze upon the envelope. A faint sweetness and powdery aroma were wafting from the said envelope once they opened it. They knew this smell too well to be mistaken; it was the scent of a sakura bloom that was often to be seen at Narukami Island of Inazuma.

They began to unravel it slowly and saw a letter written in elegant calligraphy, and the name of the sender was not something they expected. They immediately opened the envelope and read the contents.

Blooming Flower~

Sender: Kamisato, Ayato

Salutation, my dear [Name]. I am most pleased that you received my letter, and I hope that you do not mind me contacting you after such a long time, though I am quite certain that you would be gladdened to know that this year we’ll be inviting you for a break at our family house, at Kamisato estate.

I have been informed by my informants about your recent work and your long period of working hours at your disposal. I’ve seen many reports of your success in the past two years since we spoke.

And so, I wanted you to be aware of how proud we are of you and how much we wish to share the news with you in person. Myself and Ayaka, have been looking forward to your arrival at the Kamisato estate for some time now. We’ll even have to cease our work schedules just to show you the beauty of Inazuma, which is in store for you.

Furthermore, don’t fret. I had already contacted your executive.

Sincerely, Ayato.

𝐈𝐈.

“You wish to know more about Inazuma? From my prior encounters as a wandering Samurai…That land is nothing more than a grim and eerie rendition. The only thing that is truly pleasant about it was the tranquility that nature has to offer…”

The sound of leaves rustling came to an abrupt stop as the wind seemed to have picked up. The sound of birds chirping happily in the distance made its way to Kazuha’s ears, along with the distant sounds of people talking.

“I’m glad you came by. It has been a while since our previous hangout. I hope your trip from Liyue was a breeze.”

White-blue hair fluttered by the gentle wind, glistening under the sun’s ray. A young dignified girl of the Kamisato Clan, Kamisato Ayaka, came to greet you with her humble present. From what you can recall, your dear cousin was a renowned Shirasagi Himegimi of the Kamisato Clan. Known for her beauty, strength, and intellect. Inazuma’s ideal epitome of perfection.

Under the gentle mask, was a daunting burden anchoring her shoulders…

“Ever heard of Inazuma’s 7 wonders? They’re in fact, famed for telling children some ghost stories so they could return home before the sun sets, not an exact method in my opinion, but I’m not a parent, so who am I to judge?"

A bubbly pyrotechnician, the current owner of Naganohara Fireworks. Yoimiya. Her words sparked interest and curiosity among the youths as they huddled around her, listening to her narrate a few of the stories she’d heard in the past about the famed seven wonders. Suddenly, you were also piqued in interest and decided to sit within the sea of children.

𝐈𝐈𝐈.

“Hm? You’re saying that this boy was threatening you but then disappeared through thin air?” Heizou’s olive green eyes glistened with skepticism and interest. Suddenly, a string of chuckles was heard from the said boy. He stopped himself when he noticed your glare coming his way.

He cleared his throat, swallowing every bit of his insanity. “No offense, I do love supernatural things just like few people. But, even if we were going to believe such stories as those… It wouldn’t matter. After all, these are only tales told by people in fear.”

You sighed defeatedly. I guess you’re going back to the estate. However, his hands stop you. His emerald eyes hold firm determination and belief. He then leaned his head towards your ear, his hot breath tickling the side of your face. A faint blush erupted from the side of your cheeks.

“I believe what you were saying, however, in this world, no one is capable of trusting what lies within the depths of the unknown. People are too afraid of what they’ll discover. So it’s best for them to stay put in the safe zone, and you shall do the same.”

𝐈𝐕.

“My, aren’t you rather bit close to the line? Does not matter, what matter is~ What does a youngling like you doing at the Grand Narukami Shrine at this hour? Aren’t your family or friends would be worried sick when they found out about your little escapade, hm?”

The self-proclaimed head priestess, Yae Miko, was circling your seated form with opulent eyes that resembles a fox, or in Inazuma’s dialect, Kitsune. Her salmon-pink hair flittered through the breeze. Her figure is radiating dominance and voluptuousness—a sense that overwhelms you, and you scooted an inch, but your back was met with a block of cold concrete.

Miko grinned as she took slow steps toward you. “Don’t fret, kit. This vixen doesn’t bite, at least, on some occasions.”

𝐕.

Falling from a well wasn’t your ideal trip to the Kamisato Estate. Everything went fast, and you were unaware of an ominous presence lingering about, which then pushed you into your unfortunate situation. Attempting to climb out of the worn well, you fell back again. Slipper walls are stopping you to reach the top, thinking of ways to get out, you heard the voice you’ve heard from Chinju forest.

“Curiosity killed a cat, but the satisfaction brought it back.”

Casting upward, you saw the boy earlier, who saved you from the horde of electro cicin insects. His frown from earlier was twitching into a sly grin. His indigo eyes glowed under the moonlight.

“Who knew we met again, with you in an unfortunate position, as usual? First, are the hordes of insects. And now, you fell into a sewer-smelled well. Tell me, do you perhaps attract inauspicious circumstances, if it does? I couldn’t help but laugh at your misery.”

(づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡ ┊ @raideneiari ・@cynzcir・@louise-rosita-leroux┊{ send ask if you wish to be tag : OPEN }

ˢᵖⁱʳⁱᵗ'ˢ ⁿᵒᵗᵉ: Hope you guys enjoyed this teaser of the upcoming fanfic series: Wanderer-San of Inazuma❣️ Inspired by! Toilet Bound of Hanako-kun. STAY TUNED, seelies ໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७✎▤

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doomednarrative · 2 years

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Okay @tibby encouraged me and got me thinking about it again so I’m going to write this out:

There’s something about Saw 3D that majorly bothers me as someone who enjoys Hoffman’s character and who tries to actually give him a consistent characterization, and that’s the entire existence of Matt Gibbson and his relation to Hoffman’s backstory.

The thing about Hoffman that, to me at least, made him compelling was that he Is a cop who will let some shit slide, like defending Rigg for hitting that one guy when it was clear he was abusing his kid even tho they didn’t have evidence to convict him, but who hadn’t done anything extremely egregious up until going after Seth. For the most part before that, he was pretty well respected by his department and the station and seen as a “good” cop who was really trying to do his best. (We know those don’t exist of course but stay with me for the sake of examining the narrative.)

Angelina’s death being the thing that sends Hoffman over an edge he’d never crossed prior due to his inconsolable grief and need for revenge to see “justice” served (and added drinking problem) is a Very compelling narrative to follow and works well with him being a cop who’s given power to do things that others usually can’t due to the authority he holds. He knows how the systems work, he knows how evidence is handled, it gives him an edge in covering his tracks. And that’s what makes it more compelling when John catches him too because he still fucked up enough to be found out.

But it’s Also compelling in how killing Seth makes Everything Else work for him later down the line. Because that One action, killing someone and not being able to take it back, is a catalyst for everything else that happens to him. AND, at first it’s obviously something that he actually Regrets! That whole scene in his apartment complex clearly has him on edge and dealing with the repercussions of his own actions. And it’s also really interesting to see how those feelings mix in with how he talks to John while he’s got him strapped to the chair in his lair. He is fucking Angry, spitting out venom about Seth deserving to die and how John doesn’t get how he feels, but it’s also clear this is mixed with some sort of regret too. And That’s why its more compelling later on when John blackmails him into joining him how he uses those underlying feelings of wanting to enact righteous violence and working against a corrupt system to his own advantage, all while slowly driving Hoffman further and further down the pipeline of doing the work of torturing people without having any personal feelings involved in it (that one bit during them setting up the wire trap and all that has Hoffman verbalize that he didn’t expect to feel remorse, and John chastises him for it and pushes him away from thinking like that.) All of this eventually leads to what we see of how Hoffman’s become in V and VI, a guy who’s so detached from the torture and violence he’s acting out that it just doesn’t phase him, and how far off the path he’s fallen. And as far as villain narratives go, it’s a good one! And it’s also a great show of how much John further fucks up the people he took under his wing in different ways. He destabilized Amanda in worse ways than she already had been, and he pulled out the more underlying violent tendencies that Hoffman had lying dormant until it becomes his eventual downfall, and That is the kind of tragedy I like to see personally.

But, circling back to the original intent of this post: I hate everything that Saw 3D does with Gibbson because it actively undermines the Entire point of how killing Seth was the first true point of Hoffman’s downfall. Adding another killing under his belt takes away what would have actually made a more compelling and consistent characterization for Hoffman. Seth was something that Hoffman had to actively plan out and carry out on his own from a point of his all consuming grief, and having him actually deal with the consequences of taking a human life and then having someone Else (John) intervene and lead him down a darker path from that point on is a much more engaging way to write a character than suddenly giving him a retconned second killing that he committed before this other one ever happened. You can tell they literally only did it to give Hoffman more of a reason to want to destroy the prescient, when by that point, he’d already had motive enough considering oh I dunno, he’d already killed Erickson and Perez and would need to eventually cover his damn tracks if he didn’t want to be caught. Adding in Gibbson and this other person that Hoffman killed just weakens his narrative overall and it actively pisses me off, along with so many other things that 3D managed to fuck up on.

#can you tell ive been stewing on this for awhile #mark hoffman #saw 3d #saw #saw meta #my meta #kief rambles about saw #i have so many issues with saw 3d and this is just one of them

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recurring-polynya · 2 years

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(Inspired by your recent post on Haineko and also that fic you wrote about Hinamori getting the hogyoku) I bet Matsumoto and Hinamori could get an epic combo move, I read somewhere that if you tried to get too close to a volcanic eruption you'd get encased in volcanic ash and die inside the solid shell it'd form. Which feels somewhat thematic for them based on vibes alone.

yeah YEAH!

Rangiku and Momo are two characters I would love to see hang out more. It's clear that they already have a good relationship prior to Aizen's defection--we see them conspiring to do something for Hitsugaya on his birthday in the fireworks flashback, and Rangiku is the one who brings Aizen's letter to Momo when she's in prison, even though it's technically evidence or something.

It's actually a little weird that we know absolutely nothing about Rangiku and Gin's relationship once they left the Rukon. I kinda get the feeling that Gin blew her off completely, but maybe there was a period where they had a relationship again. I get the definite sense that they are estranged at the time of the defection. My point in this is: did Rangiku have any sense that Aizen was not what he seemed to be? I feel like out of all the people in Soul Society, Rangiku is the one who might look at Aizen and, in particular, his relationship and actions toward Gin, and say, "wow, there is definitely something about this dude that does not add up." In other words, I also don't know if she had any sense of Momo being gaslit by Aizen while it was happening. That being said, I am at the age where, a couple of times now, a friend tells me they are getting a divorce and it feels like it's coming out of nowhere, but at the same time it doesn't. It's a really complicated feeling of "I should have seen this" but also not, because hiding the broken parts of a relationship are often part of what makes it so broken. All of this is to say that I think that Rangiku would have really been there for Momo in the aftermath, partly as an exercise in dealing with her own lingering Gin-feels, and I love they idea of them working some of this out through developing some sick moves.

I do not know a lot about volcanos, but I know that they exist in one of those batshit regimes of physics where temperatures are so high that you run into all kinds of nonlinear effects dealing with the compressibility of air and ionization effects. If you wander through the rabbit warren of volcano-related horrible-things-that-will-kill-you-but-have-really-cool-names, it's all stuff like "oh, this happens when pyroclastic debris hits running water and accelerates to insane speeds" or "if the eruption column can't entrain enough air, it will collapse and rains molten material down on everything"

In other words, I think Tobiume and Haineko are two great tastes that would go even better together. Rangiku could embed Haineko into one of Momo's lava jets and use it to make a controlled lahar to throw in people's face. Momo could create a pyroclastic surge with Haineko, and sandblast the landscape, gaining the sort of +2 spiritual damage you get from hitting things with a zanpakutou. The possibilities are endless. It's not even just a case of being able to do unique things, but just taking advantages of each other's strengths. Maybe it's easy for Momo to create magma, but hard to move it around, but Rangiku can do that easily. Releasing Haineko in an area where Tobiume is going off is going to add auto-fire damage, that's a freebie.

This would take so much practice and be so much fun and Hitsugaya would be in favor of it in theory, except that he's sitting in his office with an ice pack on his head, doing all of Rangiku's paperwork because he knows she's going to be "too tired" later. That is, until Momo comes running in with the latest research journal she got Lisa to import from the Living World for her, because it turns out that with a combination of hot gas, ash and ice particles you can make volcanic lightning.

#rangiku matsumoto #momo hinamori #haineko #tobiume #they should have let me write that episode of the zanpakuto spirits arc #it would have been sick as hell and probably everyone would have died but again. sick as hell #if hitsugaya refuses to learn the lightning thing rukia would DEFINITELY be up for it #the ENTRANCE POTENTIAL #imagine getting wasted by these two fiery volcano friends and all of the sudden there's this huge crack of lighting and RUKIA IS THERE #renji off to one side doing the will smith 'behold my wife (and her friends) gesture with the giant so-oh zabimaru skeletal arm #i would just leave immediately

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tiredfox64 · 15 days

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I had an idea, I don't know how good this sounds but in the beginning of the MK1 story when the Lin Kuei trio attack Madame Bo's restaurant as an act to text Raiden and Kung Lao skills, the reader happens to be there as a traveler who also has fighting skills and fights off Smoke and finds out it's a test by Liu Kang who accepts being one of earthrealm's champions but has a hard time trusting Smoke after what happen and Smoke does everything he can to gain her trust?

Trust Me

Prior notes: Halfway through writing this the Ninja Storm theme song played in my head nonstop. I got distracted for an hour just listening to almost all the Power Rangers theme songs Σ(￣。￣ﾉ)ﾉ

Pairing: Tomas x Afab reader

Warnings ‼️: A few kicks and punches, we got those from our siblings.

You travel high and low, far and wide. The lands must be explored and experienced. Your current location? Fengjian Village in China. Quite a peaceful village actually with farmlands that stretch for many miles. You decided to rest for a moment at the tea house. Madame Bo was really nice to you, happy to have a lovely lady like you come in.

Little did you know that she was expecting you.

Lots of different people and personalities around here. You got a show as well. Two men fighting just to figure out who is paying tonight. It must have been serious because they were fighting for their lives. You can understand since the food was amazing.

The sun had set and the cool breeze blew through the tea house. You were finishing up your meal at the same time those two men were about to. In an instant the atmosphere became hostile. You looked up to see a man with silvery hair and gray attire harassing Madame Bo. You watched carefully, wary of this guy’s intentions. You jumped into action once you saw him attack Madame Bo and literally throw her over the balcony.

His eyes turned to you when he saw you running towards him. You were surprised by the smoke bomb he threw down. It made you cough which gave him the opportunity to attack you, causing you to hit the floor.

“You are brave, but against us? You are in over your head.” He mocked you.

“I don’t care who you are or what your purpose is. You will not be a nuisance to Madame Bo.” You declared before fighting him.

You fought viciously, as anyone would suspect. This guy had a few tricks up his sleeve. Magic that you’ve never seen before. Yet you stood your ground. While you were dealing with him those other two guys were fighting off the other assassins. Oh great there are two more who got some sort of freaky magic. Well at least they are taking care of that.

An amazing spectacle of kicking, punching, and slashing was performed by you and your opponent. After all that you managed to defeat him, leaving him lying on the ground. You moved quickly to check on Madame Bo who was…fine. No, really, she was. Standing up straight and smoking a cigarette like it was a normal Tuesday night. A man with glowing eyes approached you and you finally got the answers you needed.

This was all a test from Lord Liu Kang. You, Raiden, and Kung Lao were chosen to join Earthrealm’s champions. Liu Kang was thankful that you chose to visit Fengjian now since it made things easier.

He explained that the people who attacked were the Lin Kuei and that you fought Tomas aka Smoke. They weren’t thugs but were actually a clan that helped protect Earthrealm. You were still in shock about the whole thing. You couldn’t let your guard down fully even if you now know it was a test.

Liu Kang told you all that the Wu Shi Acadamy will help train you and prepare for the Mortal Kombat tournament. Looks like you will be staying in China for longer than you expected.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

Ever since Tomas fought you he has been dying to talk to you. He thought you did amazing. He really didn’t know what to expect since you were just a traveler. No one had a clue who trained you or even why you were so good at fighting. You must have been a quick thinker since you manage to figure out he was using smoke magic.

The problem is that you were cold to him. You still didn’t trust him even after finding out it was all a test. He would visit the Wu Shi Academy just to get a chance to talk to you, only for you to move away from him whenever you saw a hint of his silvery hair.

Raiden and Kung Lao told you to not hold it over his head. Madame Bo is safe. Hell, she was even in the Lin Kuei once, she’s a tough woman. Nope, you’re still not budging.

“I don’t understand, Raiden. She still treats me like some thug.” Tomas expresses his frustration to Raiden who wants to help make peace between you two.

“It probably didn’t feel good to her to be tricked like that. It may be best to prove to her that she can trust you.” Raiden gave back the best advice he could give.

“But what can I do if I can’t even get close to her.”

Raiden had to think for a moment. The others such as Kung Lao, Johnny, and Kenshi all came around as well since they heard Tomas’ frustration. They didn’t want him feeling bad about what he did since he was instructed to cause a disturbance at the tea house. They also don’t want you holding a grudge against a sweet and cool guy like Tomas.

“I got it!” Kung Lao snapped his fingers, “How about you train with us for some time. She will see that you aren’t so bad after all especially when she sees how calm you are when fighting us. Maybe giving her a gift once in a while will help as well.”

Not a bad plan. It could work. Tomas was on board with this. He didn’t want you viewing him as some thug anymore. You need to see who he truly is and he will do anything to prove it. Operation make you trust Tomas is a go go!

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

Tomas asked his brother if it was okay to train with the Shaolin for a bit. Bi-Han couldn’t give two fucks where Tomas would be at so he let him do that.

Now you really couldn’t avoid Tomas. Anytime you decided to train with the other champions he was always there. You grew annoyed by his presence. You couldn’t understand why no one else was upset by that trick of a test.

You also couldn’t understand why he was leaving you bunches of lavender and peace lilies. Okay well the peace lilies should have been a big sign but you weren’t the biggest expert on flowers or their meanings. He would leave them at your door, on your chair, he would even have the guys pass you the flowers just to make sure you would accept them.

And after some time you did. It would be a waste if you kept throwing them out. They were lovely and lavender is useful. You didn’t fully trust him yet but his efforts were chipping away at your stubborn heart.

You started watched as he trained with the others. All those fighting moves you saw before when you fought him. The aggression you felt before when seeing those moves slowly started to fade. You watched as he patiently taught the others some tricks on how to defend themselves. Not just that but he was open to being taught as well. The monks taught him new moves and involved him in meditation. Now would a violent person meditate? Nope, because Tomas is not the violent person you think he is.

You realized maybe you were being a bit too harsh when you heard him speak. His voice was less deeper than when you first heard it. It was just an impression anyways. And without his mask on there is no muffle to it. You listened to how disappointed he was, concerned that you still don’t trust him. He expressed that he is doing his best but he fears that you will always see him as the bad guy.

It broke your heart when you realized you misjudged him. He was putting in a lot of effort and you were turning a blind eye to it before. You don’t know how long he will be training with the Wu Shi and you don’t want to regret not saying anything to him. You want to make things right and the best way to do that was to talk to him.

One day you found him near the zen gardens. A place of relaxation and peace. A good atmosphere for something like this. He was meditating all by himself and you were unsure about disturbing him. He already heard your footsteps, you can’t sneak up on a sneaky person. He turned towards you expecting to see someone like Raiden or Johnny. But no, it was actually you. He was shocked and wasn’t sure what you were doing here. You gently waved towards him before speaking.

“Hi…do you mind if I join you?” You asked softly.

Tomas just stared for a good five seconds before breaking out of his trace. “O-oh yeah sure.”

You thanked him before walking closer. You surprised him even more when you described to sit next to him. Both your hearts were beating fast. Yours because you were unsure of what to say and his because of the same thing. You took a few deep breaths before speaking up.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been kind of cold to you. Maybe even been avoiding you. I just kept thinking back to that night at the tea house and I just thought you were the same guy I fought back then.”

You saying sorry was already the highlight of Tomas’ day. Before he can say anything to you, even to apologize for fighting you, you continued.

“You don’t have to apologize for what happened. I understand it was just a test and no one really got hurt. Well, maybe not physically but I did hurt you by being mean.”

You were picking at your fingers as you looked down at your lap. Now you wondered if he thought of you as the bad person. He doesn’t, he never did.

“We got off on the wrong foot and I want to make it right. Maybe you and I can train one of these days if you are willing to spend time with me.”

“Yes! Yes! Of course I would love to.” Tomas got too excited and covered his mouth, not wanting to disturb the tranquility of the garden anymore.

You looked at him all shocked before chuckling quietly. He really was desperate to show you that he is trustworthy. Seeing that it all paid off was too great for him that he had to express it. How could you ever imagine he was some cruel man who purposely beats up old ladies?

Your chuckle made him feel less embarrassed and happy to see you loosen up around him. You seem way chiller than he imagined. He’s excited to get to know you more now. You took his hand into yours and shook it.

“It’s nice to officially meet you, Smoke.”

He smiled at you. The mission was a success. All of this was worth it.

“The pleasure is all mine. But please, call me Tomas.”

After notes: It’s a bad time for me to find out that my favorite show is free on YouTube. Mhm I’m gonna be blasting that good shit on my tv. Anyways I hope you enjoy whoever requested it. I actually thought about this scenario a bit ago but never wrote it down and forgot about it. So looks like you read my mind. Trust me it sounded good to me :3. Adiós!

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taussecret · 1 year

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My first 3 some

This is my first time sharing content about myself in this manner and is something I love seeing others do, if you have any feedback it’s appreciated.

Ok so my first ever 3 some happened when I was 18 years old. My boyfriend at the time had been laying the seeds and doing the ground work by always bringing it up, sending me relatable porn and whispering in my ear whilst he was deep in me about how good I’d look between 2 guys (it’s true)

So eventually I started to come round to the idea and as a surprise I decided he would get his wish for his bday!

Now at the time I was extremely inexperienced when it came to this sort of thing but surprisingly for an 18 year old young girl it wasn’t difficult to find a guy willing to fuck me with my boyfriend! So I got a list of guys and on my partners bday presented them to him! I’ve never seen my ex react in the way he did before he could even look at the list he had me on my knees and was fucking my mouth…

After a while of looking through the guys I had who were willing to my surprise he chose a guy who trained at the same gym as me tall, muscular and always eye fucking me in the gym and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t reciprocating.

So on the day of the deed I was slightly worried my bf at the time was having cold feet as he was quite quiet in the hotel room leading up to (let’s call him Matt for the sake of the story) Matt arriving, turns out he was doing everything he could to control himself and not just fuck me prior to him arriving.

When he did we started off by having a few drinks and chatting, the vibe and energy of the room was great and there was a connection between me and Matt and my ex loved this, but I could tell there was a little nervous energy to start. I decided the best course of action to negate this was slowly stripping down and getting on all fours facing away from them and slowly playing with myself whilst they watched…

After they watched for a while my ex gestured to Matt to go for it and in seconds Matt had his tongue in my asshole and he had it deep, whilst I moaned in pleasure my ex appeared in front of me and I was sucking his cock whilst Matt ate me! Then the boys switched places (secretly to my delight) I’d wanted to see what Matt was packing for a while and he did not disappoint! I found my eyes locked on his whilst I sucked his cock like my life depended on it.

After a while of being eaten and sucking my ex wanted to see me ride Matt on the bed, we both more than happy to oblige and I could feel his cock stretching my pussy open and he commented how nice my pussy felt gripping him! I rode nice and slow to start but he eventually started hitting back between my legs and I could feel my pussy creaming around his cock and started to bounce on him. My ex commented that is was nice to finally see what that looked like as normally I’d be bouncing on him! This went on for a while rotating both in and out before I went reserve cowgirl with Matt inside me and blew my ex whilst Matt had his thumb in my ass. I loved this and is a moment that lives rent free in my head.

Before long I was being spit roasted. Matt in my pussy, ex in my mouth. Matt was really giving it to me and I was moaning hard with my ex in my mouth which ultimately made him explode in my mouth! I swallowed (good girl of course right?) and then my ex sat by and watched Matt drill my pussy for another 20 minutes or so (I think anyway, hard to keep count in these situations) whilst fucking him I asked my ex where he wanted him to finish, he said mouth and Matt came in my mouth with my eyes locked on his the entire time…

If you made it this far thank you!

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izlosingtheirmind · 9 months

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I smoked DMT in May of this year and this is my experience and how it changed my life

Important context for this is I’ve been suicidal most of my life. The prior months leading up to this experience, I had been severely suicidal, every day. I had a note ready and was certain I wasn’t making it to 30.

I didn’t breakthrough all the way and I didn’t really have to. I got very close.

At first I was just ..“dancing with the universe” is the only way I can explain it. The most magnificent patterns I’ve ever seen, colors I can’t explain. I cried of joy. I could still see my apartment. My vision was like a shutter. For ex. One moment an object would be a rectangle, then it would switch (not morph), totally switch in a shutter type fashion into a circle. And then some more shapes I’ve never seen and can’t explain.

Then I took my last hit, held it in. My reality got very weird and a bit scary. I saw someone or thing watching me from my bathroom door and my jacket hanging up began to melt.

Then right when I said “I think I want this to stop”, I was shot through a tunnel of spinning mandalas made of eyes. Quite literally that popular piece by Alex Grey. But not looking at it, in it. Fully in it. Reality was no more. When I was in that tunnel, I didn’t know nor think about my human existence. None of it existed for that time. But I was quickly shot back into reality.

I saw my apartment again, but it was crazy. My walls and objects were morphing from shape to shape, color to color extremely fast. I looked at my cat and she was morphing and changing color too. Neon pink, neon green and checker pattern stuck out to me the most for some reason.

Then reality crumbled right before my eyes. Literally. Everything turned black/white/grey and crumbled like a building being demolished. And I was back in a world I can’t explain.. it was dark. Again, my human existence didn’t exist, i was just energy experiencing.. something.

Finally I came back to reality, saw my friend and grasped him for dear life so I didn’t get taken back to that world. I was so scared I wouldn’t come back from it, and that I was going to be sent back for eternity. I thought I was either going to die or go insane. Everything was morphing as it was before. All that was going through my head was that I’m going to lose the girl I really like, I’m gonna lose my job, my cats won’t have a mom anymore, I’m never gonna see my family and friends again. I held onto my friend for dear life until it finally fully ended.

All I could mutter was “what the fuck”. No amount of psychedelics could have prepared me for DMT. It’s a whole other animal.

Interestingly, when I came out of it and realized I was okay and it did in fact end, I wasn’t scared of it. I thought I’d be traumatized from an experience like that and never want to touch it again. It was easily the scariest experience of my entire life. Yet, directly after, I felt grateful and intrigued.

It took me about an hour or 2 to just somewhat process what had just happened. But I quickly came to the realization that I am not ready to die. That I have potential, that my loved ones need me and that is why I was scared. Not only did I gain this knowledge, I also came back with a knowing that this is the case for every human soul on this planet. I didn’t get an answer as to why, but I now know we all have a reason for being here. Every one of us. No matter how hopeless it seems. Everyone is meant to be here and experience this life.

The second realization I came to rather quickly was that running from fear of the unknown will only make things worse. Every time. That I must SURRENDER to life and know that it is out of my control (besides my actions). This, I believe as an intuitive knowing from the experience, was a lesson that was taught so that I can integrate it into my life, and until I do, I am not to return to the DMT world. And I have taken this lesson very seriously and have been taking action to push past my fears that I would normally let dictate my life. I have a lot of work to do still, because it is a huge barrier I’ve got to tackle. And I’ll be honest I’ve been slacking.

I tried to return last week and was not granted access no matter how much of it I smoked. I got the visuals, but was stuck in the waiting room with an intuitive feeling that it’s not time yet and I still have work to do.

So yeah, DMT zapped away my suicidal ideation, made me realize how my life does have potential and sent me on a mission to conquer my fears and live the life I WANT. And I’m grateful as hell.

With psychedelics, you really have to be able to take what you can get from the experience, good or bad. But if DMT ever crosses your path and you feel ready to accept what it has to offer, I highly recommend you do. (Don’t seek it. It will come to you.)

#dmt #dmt trip #psychedelique #healing #psychonauts

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Tempting fate

Summary: The journey of a soldier made anew, riddled with the guilt of his past and on a steady path to redemption.

Warnings: Violence, injury, mild language, trauma, more warnings as the series progresses.

Word count: 7.1k

a/n: Thank you all for the support on the previous chapters, I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far :) Don't be afraid to request anything you'd like to see in the story or any one shot ideas you have.

Chapter eleven

The ride back from the African coast was charged with something uncomfortable, foreign, and everybody was stuck in their own heads, recalling the events that had happened only a few hours prior.

Natasha had narrowly missed her mind being warped by the female twin but seeing her team so affected had her mind reeling as well. Clint was the only one fit enough to pilot the Quinjet and he had called Maria for advice on what to do for his team.

“The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is. There’s been no official call for Banner’s arrest but… it’s in the air.”

Bruce wrapped his blanket closer to his body at Maria’s words, squeezing his eyes shut as if it’d all go away if he did. Steve sat with his back against the wall, his normally optimistic disposition severely dampened, the only reassurance being Natasha’s comforting presence beside him.

As for Thor, he paced around the jet, wringing his hands together in thought, his eyebrows scrunched together, and Tony sat beside Clint, unusually silent, wondering what he could have done differently.

“Stark relief foundation?”, Tony questioned.

“Already on the scene. How’s the team?”

Tony looks around the jet before sighing deeply, “Everyone’s…we took a hit; we’ll shake it off.”

“Well, for now I’d stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here.”

Tony turns to face Maria’s face on the jet’s screen, “So run and hide?”

Maria shrugs, her face full of sympathy, “Until we can find Ultron I… don’t have much else to offer.

“Neither do we.” Tony ends the call, leaning back in his seat with a groan, rubbing his temples.

Clint turns to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “If you wanna get some sleep now’s a good time cause there’s still a few hours out.”

Tony frowns, tilting his head towards him, “a few hours from… where?”

“A safehouse.”

Clint had flown the team out to his house out in the middle of nowhere, where his family was, and Laura and his kids gladly welcomed them, offering them a place to stay of they wanted it.

Thor had left not long after, claiming that he needed answers to what he saw in Wanda’s induced ‘dream’, and Cap had taken some time away from the group to think. To think about all he’d had seen in his own ‘dream’ and to think about what his next move was. He reckoned he’d come see you, not only to check up on you but to get away from everything, maybe a new setting would help him navigate his way through.

Later into the day, once everyone had settled, Tony had gone outside to help Steve chop some wood for Laura and to chat.

“Thor didn’t say where he was going for answers?”

Steve grunted as he chopped a slab of wood in half, kicking it to the side and grabbing another, “No. He didn’t seem too keen on telling me either.”

“Just give him time, we don’t know what the Maximoff showed him.” Tony comforted, grabbing his own piece of wood, and placing it on the stump in the ground.

“’Earth’s mightiest heroes’, pulled us apart like cotton candy.”

“You know Ultron’s trying to tear us apart, right?”

Steve sighed, sitting down on the stump of wood, “Yeah, I figured that much.”

Tony copied his actions, looking out into the fields of grass, “We can’t let him. He might have read our files but that isn’t us, not really. We’re a team, Rogers, and just like you said; whatever happens, we’ll do it together.”

Steve felt as if he was being exposed to a different side to Tony, a side empowered by fierce determination and genuine regard for those around him. Steve didn’t think Tony had the ability to be more propitious than him but he’s beginning to believe otherwise.

Steve was moved by Tony’s unwavering faith in his team and had given the other man a resolute nod, a newly enforced sense of confidence stirring within him, “Together.”

Royal Holloway, University of London

Thor had decided his best chance at getting any answers resided in his kind-of friend, Erik Selvig. Thor needed help finding a long-forgotten relic in history, his ticket to understanding the nature of his dream and what it had been trying to tell him.

He was sure that if he sent his subconscious back to that place in his mind, he could get something out of Heimdall, a clue he had missed; a play on words that he had failed to notice. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking out for, but he wouldn’t stop until he found it, it all seemed too great a risk to push to the back of his mind.

“The water of sight.” Erik marvelled as he gazed into the glistening pool of water before him, he had read about it, but he’d never thought it was actually real. His knowledge, however small, seemed sufficient grounds to warn Thor of its danger.

“The men who enter that water, the legends… don’t end well.”, he warned, Thor brushing past him to kneel before the water.

“Every realm has a reflection, if the water spirits accept me, I can return to my dream and find what I missed.

Erik understood that his efforts were most likely futile, and his assumption was proved correct when Thor stripped in front of him and stepped into the water. He had submerged his head, rising to the surface with deep expulsions of air, his eyes drifting backwards until they were nearly fully white.

The familiar environment from his dream returned in full force and Thor didn’t waste any time searching for anything out of the ordinary but as he came to, he was struck with that same flash of lighting from before. This time was different though, this time it was almost as if a third eye had opened to him and suddenly Ultron’s intentions were terrifyingly clear. Annihilation.

Loki’s sceptre seemed to spin around his mind, the blue hue protecting whatever was inside, cracking to reveal a yellow stone but what confused him the most, was the steady beat of a pulse. It rang through his ears painfully loud, and he was startled back to reality as he watched the stone plunge grotesquely through what appeared to be your chest.

Your face was blurred and fuzzy, but he recognised it well enough. He shot up out of the water with a heaving chest, scrambling out of it and ignoring Erik’s concerned calls for him, he needed to get back to Steve.

The team were taken by surprise at Fury’s unannounced arrival, desperate to get any advice they could out of him. He didn’t have much to offer besides what they already knew. They had all gathered around the kitchen to share their ideas but so far all Fury had done is remind them of the hopeless situation they were stuck in.

“Ultron took you guys out of play to by himself time. My contacts all say he’s building something. The amount of vibranium he made off with, I don’t think it’s just one thing. My best bet is that he’s building an army.”

“What about Ultron himself?”

Fury brushed Steve’s question off, it obviously wasn’t his main concern, “Oh, he’s easy to track, he’s everywhere. The guy is multiplying faster than a catholic rabbit. It still doesn’t help us get an idea on any of his plans though.”

Somewhere off to the side of the kitchen, Tony expelled his frustration by throwing darts rather harshly at a dart board, “Is he still going after launch codes?”

“Yes he is, but he’s not making any headway.” Fury confesses, grabbing a knife from the block and cutting up some fruits for the kids. He figured if he was going to be in Laura’s house, he might as well make himself useful to her. “He’s fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed.”

“By whom?”, Tony’s question is just barely out of his mouth before he’s flinching back, Clint having thrown a dart at the board right beside his head. He sends Clint an unamused glance and receives a sly grin and a shrug in response.

“Parties unknown.”

“Do we have an ally?”

Fury shakes his head at Natasha’s question, “Ultron has an enemy, that is not the same thing. Still, I’d pay folding money to know who it is.”

Natasha sighs, a tired smirk pulling at her lips, “Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kinda hoping when I saw you, you’d have more than that.”

“I do. I have you.”, Fury looks around at the team, stepping from behind the kitchen counter and towards the cluttered table Natasha sits at. “Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere and ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream of. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world.”

There’s a look of solemnity on all the faces in the room, fury was right, they haven’t been dealt the best cards, but they have each other and the ever-present motive that they’re all the world’s got.

“Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission, and whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction.”, Fury had perfectly sum up what everyone had been thinking and it was a frightening reality that crashed down upon them. “All this, laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard.”

In hopes of bringing the mood up slightly, Natasha wears a genuine smirk, titling her head in Steve’s direction, “Steve doesn’t like that kind of talk.”

Steve huffs, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “You know what, Romanoff?”

Fury ignores the joke being shared between the two, assuming a serious expression, “So what does he want?”

“To become better, better than us.”, Steve clarifies.

Tony steps further into the room, wearing his signature smirk, “Let’s stop him before he can, then.”

This was enough to get the team up and moving, suits being put back on and goodbyes being said. Clint had taken a moment to just bask in all that was his wife, her, his family… they were all the motivation he needed to keep going back out there.

Steve had run Tony through his plan, explaining how he was taking Clint and Natasha with him to scope out Ultron while simultaneously trying to get a hold of Thor. Tony was going to Oslo to try and find who was changing those nuclear codes and he’d reassured Steve that he’d join them as quick as he could.

Steve, Clint, and Natasha had said their farewells and were only a few metres away from the house when Thor, accompanied by a crash of thunder, landed right in front of them. Steve’s relieved expression switched to one of concerns when he saw the faraway look in Thor’s eyes.

“Thor, what happened?”

“The stone, it’s…”

“It’s what? Where is it?”

“The soldier…”

Steve had barely heard Thor’s mumbled words, but he did, and his face fell just as Thor’s had done. He needed a better explanation, but for now, his original route was changing, and he’d have to tell Tony about the change in plan.

Wakanda

You had been talking quietly with Shuri in your quarters when Steve barged in. It took you by surprise and you were quick to step protectively in front of Shuri, which surprised both her and you. Your fists lowered when you saw who it was though, you could admit you were glad to see him but you were more confused as to why he looked so determined.

“Where is it?”

You frowned at his tone, not quite understanding his question, and growing frustrated at the way he was demanding the answer from you, “Where’s what?”

“The stone, where is it?”

You didn’t have enough time to question him again before Thor was storming into the room, pushing you back by the shoulders, “Where is it!”

This didn’t seem to be the best idea and Shuri was beside you in a second, trying to calm you down before you did anything. She was too late, however, as your eyes had glossed over and you were advancing towards Thor, kicking him backwards into the wall behind him. Steve didn’t think he could handle another fight against you, so he kept his shield on his back, keeping a cautious distance between you.

“Y/N, Thor didn’t mean any harm, he’s just confused.”

That didn’t seem to faze you as you trudged over to Thor, picking him up by his suit and tossing him across the room, what you failed to notice was his hammer barrelling towards you, the force of the hit sending you flying backwards into a wooden cabinet.

Steve looked to Shuri for help, and she thought quickly before ushering him out of the room, Thor too. You had noticed Steve moving to make an exit, but Thor was proving to be more stubborn, marching back in your direction and punching you square in the jaw.

Your anger was increasing exponentially, and Shuri feared it would erase all your arduous work, so she thought back to your most recent sessions and yelled the first thing that came to her head, hoping it would calm you down.

“Bury the hatchet, Y/N! The night’s making its rounds!”

You kicked Thor away from you, standing quickly, but you don’t move. Your eyes squeeze shut and your pupils flicker behind your eyelids. Everybody watches you with rapt attention, Shuri nodding with an encouraging smile when your eyes open to look at her.

“Bury the hatchet. It’s over now.”

Your fists unclench at your sides, and you keep your gaze locked onto Shuri as you mimic her deep breaths, your eyes slowly returning to normal and your shoulders slumping slightly.

Thor doesn’t advance, he just takes a couple labored breaths before moving to stand beside Steve. Once Shuri’s positive you’ve calmed down enough, she leads the two men out the room and lets you collapse weakly against your bed.

“What were you idiots thinking? Do you know the damage you could have done?”

Steve is quick to interject Thor, throwing Shuri a sympathetic look, “We’re sorry, we just wanted to talk.”

Shuri scoffed, pointing a fiinger at Thor, “Talk my ass, this bimbo over here tried to kill him.”

“I wasn’t exactly trying to- “

Thor shut up at Steve’s nudge and Shuri’s glare, biting his tongue and looking away. Shuri sighed impatiently and Steve figured he should probably explain their sudden visit.

“We need him to tell us where one of the stones are. Thor has been led to believe that Y/N knows something about it.”

“Who told him that?”

“I… saw it in a dream.”, Thor mumbles, not meeting Shuri’s eye. He understood how ridiculous it sounded.

Shuri’s face blanks at that and she turns to walk away from the two, “No.”

Steve moves forward, stepping into line with her, “Shuri please, we’re under a lot of pressure right now and this could be our only hope to finding any answers.”

“You want to interrogate my patient about something that might not even be true, does that sound smart to you?”

Steve considers her words for a second and scratches his head when he realises how it looks on their part, “Look, can you please just… ask him about it or do a scan just, anything…please.”

The desperate edge to Steve’s voice has her relenting, stopping to face the two men, “If he doesn’t know anything about it…”

“We’ll drop it, swear.” Steve promises, a hopeful glint to his eyes.

Shuri stares at him for a moment before nodding.

While Shuri and the two men discussed how they were going to approach asking you about this, Natasha decided to talk to you again with the hopes that things would go better this time.

She had asked the guards if they could let her in to see you, and they were hesitant due to what had just happened with Thor but allowed her to enter after a bit of convincing from Clint. Stepping inside, she noticed the damage of the few moments prior and internally cussed out Thor for being so reckless.

That was all brushed to the side when she saw your stilled form on the floor beside your bed, head in your hands and knees curled up to your chest.

She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but she swallowed her pride and shuffled a little closer to you, “I heard what happened.”

You didn’t react to her words; you didn’t do anything at all, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to get through to you.

“Thor can be a little boisterous sometimes but I’m sure he didn’t mean to be so rough.”

She heard your muffled scoff and took it as a win, talking again, “Then again, fighting somebody isn’t the best way to get anything out of them.”

“Why are you back?”

She felt a little disheartened at your snappy tone but figured it was warranted, “We needed to talk to you, about the stone- “

“No, why are you back?”

She frowned at your question, not really knowing what to say, “Uh, I presumed you wouldn’t want Steve or Thor in here with you right now.”

“I don’t want any of you in here, and I don’t know anything about this stone you talk of.”

Natasha sighed, sitting down next to you on the floor and rolling her eyes when you moved away from her, “Thor, he… saw the stone in a dream and apparently, he saw you too.”

You lifted your head to look at her, your eyes narrowed in irritation, “A dream? He came here and attacked me all for a dream?”

Natasha kind of just looked at you for a moment, what you had said was true, but it seemed pretty bad when said aloud, “Well, yeah.”

You raised your eyebrows at her in disbelief and she shrugged, she didn’t have much else to give you.

You took a deep breath, “Okay, what… happened in the dream?”

“According to him, he saw the stone free itself from its protective…haven? I don’t know what it is, but then he said it had plunged through a human heart. Your heart.”

You paused at this, turning your body to face her, “My heart?” At her nod, you looked at the space just past her, trying to understand what she could possibly mean. There wasn’t a stone in your heart, there wasn’t anything in your heart.

“I know it’s confusing, and we aren’t giving you much to work with but, it’s all we’ve got.”

You leant back against your bed, running your hands tiredly over your face, this was all too much for one night, “I feel like I have... no idea who I am. There’s so much I don’t know…”

“We don’t know for sure if it’s true. Thor might have mistaken you for someone else.”

“But what if he didn’t?”, Natasha felt a little exposed by the way you were looking at her, she hadn’t seen this side of you before, “What if he’s right, and Hydra found another way to ruin me, another way to make sure I never escape them?”

Natasha moved forward to catch your eye, “Y/N, Hydra wont control you forever, so what if there’s a stone in you, they have no power over it.”

“But it has all the power over me.”

Natasha slumped at your words; she didn’t know anything about the stone so she couldn’t reassure you. She didn’t know if you even had it in you, or the effect it would have if you did. She felt hopeless, but she could only imagine how much worse you were feeling. It was because of this that the next words came tumbling out of her mouth.

“I’ll stay.”, your confused head tilt didn’t faze her, “I’ll stay, and tomorrow or whenever you feel well enough, we’ll find out the truth.”

You didn’t exactly know how to react to that, you hadn’t expected her to be so… caring. She didn’t seem like the type. Steve? sure, but not her. Though you were sceptical, you saw no harm in her offer, so you agreed and hoped it wouldn’t come to bite you in the ass later.

You had started to regret taking Natasha up on her offer.

Shuri had dug through memories so deep in your mind, they didn’t even feel like memories anymore. You didn’t know what exactly she was looking for, but you knew that it hurt. A fiery sensation in your body every time something new was brought to the surface, an aching numbness as you witnessed the cruelty in which you had been subjected to.

Natasha had kept her word, standing patiently in the corner of the room besides Clint as they waited. She hadn’t been the most unpleasurable company, she was supportive as best she could be, and it was nice to not have someone put so much pressure on you.

Clint was okay too, but his protectiveness over Natasha made him hard to be around, it was like he was sure you were going to hurt her at any given chance.

The session had been mostly uneventful aside for a few false clues, but other than that, Shuri was confident they weren’t going to find anything. You had thought the same until a burning sensation arose in your chest. It made you squirm, your eyes pulling together in discomfort.

Shuri had noticed it but saw it as a means to keep going, and as she did, the pain only got worse. Steve had asked her what was happening, but she didn’t know either, she just watched as your hands clenched against the seat and your jaw clenched tightly.

You didn’t know what you were feeling but you wanted it to stop, so much so, you pulled at your hand restraints and murmured a strained “Stop.”

Shuri wanted to, she did, but she was making a possible breakthrough and she couldn’t stop now. She had enough faith in you to know you could handle it.

Your breathing picked up as entirely foreign memories flicked through your mind, you were lost, you didn’t remember any of what you were seeing but you remembered the pain as if you were reliving it.

Among the rapid images speeding past your eyes, you recognised one of the rooms, a dark cell with a narrow hallway and grey walls marked with tallies.

You watched as your figure appeared in the room and the image got clearer. You could see your sunken cheeks and your pale skin in the dim light, your timid footsteps as you walked the narrow hallway. There were faint voices echoing around the room that you couldn’t distinguish, they sounded far away, easy enough to ignore.

What caught your eye next was the yellow hue appearing on your face in the memory. As you neared it, it only got brighter, so bright that you had to squint. Everything changed suddenly, you watched as your memory self was pushed roughly into a metal chair, hands and legs restrained while your eyes were covered with a black cloth.

Natasha looked to Steve as she noticed your heart rate picking up on the monitor, sweat dripping from your face. Steve didn’t look back at her, he just watched as you writhed against your seat. He wasn't allowed to intervene and it was unsettling him.

Your memory self-had been blindfolded but the memory hadn’t gone dark, you could still see it all. You watched as your chair was wheeled towards the yellow hue, the men who had restrained you hurrying away to the darkness behind you.

You could see the rise and fall of your chest as you yelled in the memory, slamming your back against the seat as the yellow light only grew stronger around you.

You felt dizzy all of a sudden, like you were losing your balance but that couldn’t be right because you were sitting, both in the memory and in real life.

The room knew why your head was spinning before you did, watching as blue streaks branched from your bare chest, it was like the veins were pumping something else, something other than blood, all leading from where your heart was.

You felt your breath weaken as the memory played out, paying close attention to how the front of the shirt you were wearing began to burn and tear away, leaving your chest exposed.

You were shocked to silence when the yellow hue faded slightly to reveal the stone, and you definitely hadn’t seen it coming when it shot right through your chest, your body jolting back as blood poured out of you.

You had awoken form the memory immediately after, screaming and shaking in your seat as the blue in your veins slowly darkened and spread across your whole body. The occupants of the room had stepped outside in fear of an outburst, watching through the protective glass as you lashed around in pain.

Even Shuri couldn’t explain what she was seeing, so the rest of the group were left completely speechless. Shuri quickly made the executive decision to activate the sedative canula in your arm, waiting as your body slowly stilled to a stop.

As much as the team wanted to know what that was about, Tony had already called three times that morning saying they needed to finish their mission, so Steve had asked Shuri to call them as soon as she could with any answers and to let them know if you were okay.

He really hoped you were.

NEXUS internet hub, Oslo

“A hacker who’s faster than Ultron? He could be anywhere, and as this is the centre of everything, I’m just a guy looking for a needle in the world’s biggest haystack.”

Tony typed away at the computer in the centre of the room, surrounded by a few workers and a massive data server room.

One of the workers frowns, turning to Tony, “How do you find it?”

“It’s pretty simple. You bring a magnet.”, he smirks.

Wanda had felt a disturbance.

She couldn’t quite explain it, it was a sensation in her bones, one that made her uneasy. It was like a shift in the atmosphere, but not hers.

Whatever it was, it had flooded her mind with dreadful things, images of destruction and pain, chaos. It was a warning, a warning that had all fingers pointing towards Ultron. She had been in the same room as him when it happened, and he had immediately walked over to her at her sudden gasp.

“What? What is it?”

She had flinched away from him, her brother holding her against him as she panted in horror, “How could you?”

“How could I what?”, Ultron was extremely confused as to the nature of her outburst.

“You said… we would destroy the Avengers, make a better world.”

“It will be better.”

Wanda’s eyes widened at his implication, “When everyone is dead?”

“That is not…”, Ultron was growing frustrated, she didn’t know what she was talking about, and she was going to ruin his plan if she didn’t stop questioning him. “The human race will have every opportunity to improve.”

Both the twins watched the robot in shock as he spoke, Pietro only now catching on, “And if they don’t?”

“Ask Noah.”

Wanda scoffed in incredulity at this, shaking her head, “You’re a madman.”

Ultron takes a frustrated deep breath before speaking, “There have been more than a dozen extinction-level threats before even the dinosaurs got theirs. When the earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, he’s winding up.”

The twins step away from the synthezoid, terror swimming in their eyes as they realise their mistake trusting this guy.

“We have to evolve, there’s no room for the weak.”

“And who decides who’s weak?”, Pietro mutters.

Ultron chuckles maniacally, “Life. Life always decides.”

Suddenly, the sound of an aircraft can be heard overhead and Ultron sighs, “There’s incoming. A Quinjet, we have to move.”

Before Ultron can stop them, Pietro grabs Wanda, speeding her out of the room and Ultron raises his hands in confusion.

“Wait! Guys!”

He heaves a heavy sigh, taking out the doctors in the vicinity, “They'll learn soon enough.”

Steve hops off the Quinjet and over a railing onto a rooftop, looking over to the lab where Ultron was last located, pressing his finger into his comms, “Two minutes. Stay close.”

He makes his way over to the building, rushing through the halls to find Dr Cho huddled behind a desk, “Dr Cho, are you okay?”

She nods, her breath heavy as she talks, “Yes, I’m fine. He shot the rest of my team, but I managed to hide before he could get to me.”

Steve nods, standing to help her up but she pulls him back down, “The gem, it’s power is uncontainable. You can’t let Ultron get to it.”

“I won’t.” Steve affirms.

“Good. Go.”

Up in the sky, Clint and Natasha watched overhead for any signs of Ultron, Clint piloting and Natasha checking any departures from the local airports.

“We got a private jet taking off across town. No manifest. That could be him.”

Clint shook his head as he watched a truck exit out from under a bridge, “There, it’s a truck from the lab. Right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge.”

Clint watched as the Quinjet scanned for heat signatures, “it’s them. You got three in the back, one in the cab. I could take out the driver.”

“Negative. We don’t want to cause any more disruption than we’re already going to. We need to draw out Ultron.”

Steve watches from the overpass as the truck below nears, shaking his nerves before leaping over the edge and landing on the top of the truck.

Ultron looks to the ceiling of the truck, groaning at the sudden thump, “No, no, no, no. Leave me alone!”

Ultron shoots a laser at the back door of the truck, Steve grabbing on to the edge of the door as it flies open, smashing him against the side of the truck. He kicks off the side, pushing himself forward and hurling himself upwards when Ultron singes the door off, just barely managing to get a grip on the truck when he comes back down.

“Well, he’s definitely unhappy. I’m gonna try and keep him that way”, Steve groans, pulling himself up.

“You’re not a match for him, Cap.”

Steve pants, attempting to catch his breath, “Thanks, Barton.”

As Steve peaks his head into the truck, Ultron blasts him back, Steve landing heavily on the car behind him, shattering the windshield in the process.

He recovers quickly, leaping onto an oncoming van and swinging off its side mirror, landing in front of Ultron on his truck.

“You know what that stone has? The power to make real change and that terrifies you.”

“I wouldn’t call it a comfort.”, Steve reaches behind him to grab his shield, launching it at Ultron and sending him flying back.

Ultron bounces back, shooting his lasers; which Steve blocks with his shield, and in a brief moment between Ultron’s attacks, he kicks his shield into the robot’s chest. Ultron rips it out, tossing it to the floor of the passing highway.

“Stop it.”

Ultron kicks him backwards off the edge of the truck and Steve lands in front of the windshield, the bot that was driving pushing his hand through the glass to grab Steve. Steve doges the blow, rolling to the side and out of sight of the bots.

In the jet, Natasha swings her leg over the motorcycle sitting at the back of the jet, Clint pressing a few buttons to get the door below it open, “We got a window, four, three… give him hell.”

Natasha drops down from the jet, kicking the bike into gear as she speeds through the highway, weaving in between cars. She catches sight of Steve’s shield on the floor and sighs, heading for it, “I’m always picking up after you boys.”

“They’re heading under the overpass, I’ve got no shot.”, Clint states, looking down to the street below and finding where to navigate Natasha.

“Which way?”

“Hard right… now.”

Natasha turns, slipping through the backstreets and coming up to an exit, the truck speeding past as she looks up to see Cap fighting hand to hand with Ultron. Ultron has Steve by the neck, hanging him over the edge of the truck. Steve turns his head the best he can to catch the shield Natasha throws him, smashing it into Ultron’s face and knocking him to his knees.

Ultron huffs, lifting a piece of the ground with a magnetic field, effectively blocking Natasha form driving any further. She drifts the bike to a different lane, catching up to the truck once again and swerving out of the way of the lasers being shot at her from the bots inside the back of the truck.

She makes the quick decision to turn onto the walkway up to the bridge, yelling at people to watch out, “Clint, can you draw out the guards?”

“Let’s find out.”, Clint flies the jet downwards, shooting the turrets from the front of the jet at Ultron on the top of the truck. This causes the remaining bots to fly after it, Clint leading them away from the truck. The bots latch onto the jet, trying to break the glass but Clint spins the jet in rapid circles, knocking them off.

In Ultron’s moment of weakness, Steve manages to grab him, tossing him into a pillar, ducking when Ultron flies back, smashing into Steve at full speed and sending them both flying into the train behind them. Steve resumes fighting him, glass shattering all around them as the civilians on the train scream in terror.

Steve groans as Ultron pins him to the wall, sending an onslaught of punches at him, but suddenly a flash of blue sends Ultron flying backwards, red mist wrapping around the trains handlebars and trapping Ultron in the opposite carriage.

Ultron turns behind him to face Wanda, “Please, don’t do this.”

“What choice do we have?”

Ultron sighs, shooting a laser at the driver on the far end of the train and bursting through the trains doors to escape.

Steve jumps over the scattered chairs, heading for the train driver, “I lost him! He’s headed your way!”

“Have you got eyes on Nat?”, Clint demands.

“Get the Quinjet out of here!”

"Have you got eyes on Nat!”, he pleads.

“Go!”

Clint slams his fists against his seat, increasing the acceleration and flying the Quinjet away from Ultron.

Steve watches in fear as the train goes barrelling towards civilians and a nearby street market, turning to the twins, “Civilians in our path!”

Pietro speeds off to get as many people out of the way as he can and Wanda turns to Cap as he stares at her, “Can you stop this thing?”

Wanda steps back, projecting her magic through the train floor and down to the wheels, using all her strength to stop them moving. Her and her brother work in tandem to prevent any casualties, the train smashing through the concrete ground as it slows to an eventual stop, Steve panting as it does.

The people on the train are quick to run off, coughing from the smoke, and Wanda heads over to Pietro, placing a concerned hand on his shoulders as he catches his breath.

“I’m fine. I just need to take a minute.”

“I’m very tempted not to give you one.” Steve announces, his expression firm as he looks at the two.

“Did he get the stone?”, Wanda questions.

“Stark will take care of that.”

Wanda shakes her head, stepping back, “No he won’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Stark’s not crazy.”

“He will do anything to make things right.”

Steve stares at her for a moment before turning away, “Stark, come in. Stark… anyone on comms.”

Wanda’s jaw clenches as she watches Cap, “Ultron can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it, where do you think he gets that?”

“Not Stark. Contrary to popular belief, Stark didn’t have any part in this.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It isn’t your job to.”

The lab, Avengers tower

“Anything on Nat?”, Clint asks as Tony strolls into the room.

“I haven’t heard. But she’s alive or Ultron would be rubbing our faces in it.”

“Speaking of Ultron. He’s gonna go after the stone, you know that right?”, Bruce comments, placing his glasses on the table beside him and leaning back on it.

Tony sighs, nodding, “Yeah I’ve been thinking about that. I think the soldier could be a good asset.”

“What?”

“Are you serious?”

Tony holds his hands up in surrender at Clint and Bruce’s exclamations, explaining himself, “He’s stronger than all of us, and if he actually has that stone in him… it could give us the upper hand.”

“Or Ultron could take it right out of his chest and kill us all with it.”

Tony grimaces, sighing, “Look, Steve told me what happened in Wakanda, his body has adapted to protect the stone. It’s not going anywhere.”

“So what, we fly him out here, have him fight Ultron and game over? He doesn’t even have full control over his mind yet.”, Clint argues, having witnesses first hand your fight with Thor.

“We don’t need him to. In fact, if he goes full super soldier, he has a better chance of taking out Ultron.”

Clint shakes his head, looking away, and Bruce gives Tony an unconvincing shrug. Tony rolls his eyes, walking over to Clint.

“Any chance Natasha might leave you a message, outside the internet? Old school spy stuff.”

Clint shrugs, scratching the back of his neck, “There are some nets I can cast. Yeah, I’ll find her.”

Over at Ultron’s factory of sorts, Natasha comes to, Ultron having knocked her unconscious and taken her to where he does all his robot building. She looks around in confusion, Ultron spotting her movement from his place at a wooden table, reassembling one of his bots.

“I wasn’t sure you’d wake up. I hoped you would, I wanted to show you. I don’t… have anyone else.”

Natasha groans as she sits up, trying to steady her spinning head and focus her eyes on Ultron.

“I think a lot about meteors. The purity in them. Boom! The end. Start again. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild.” He takes a few steps towards Natasha, his tone growing angrier.

“I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead they’ll look up in horror, because of you.”

Natasha shuffles back in fear as Ultron approaches her, trying to find her footing.

“You have wounded me; I give you full marks for that. But like the man said, what doesn’t kill me…”

Suddenly, Ultron’s head is ripped into pieces, his body slumping to the floor. Behind stands a taller, more advanced Ultron, “Just makes me stronger.”

He slams the gate shut in front of Natasha, her heavy breaths filling the room as he walks away.

After some time, Natasha regains her composure and begins using the old Ultron’s broken parts to build a form of communication to Clint, which he hears back at the tower. She clicks a button in her hands like a morse code device and on the other end, he smirks, finding out exactly where she is from the coordinates she gives him.

“That’s my girl.”

The lab, Avengers tower

It hadn’t taken long for Steve to get back to the tower and the rest of the team were surprised to see that he had brought the twins, Tony perking up almost immediately.

“I’m sorry, I must have missed a few chapters because last time I checked, those two were the enemy.”

“They’re with us now, Stark. They wanna help.”

Tony acquiesces, Bruce speaking up, “You sure she isn’t your head?”, he sneers.

Wanda shrinks back behind her brother, looking guilty for her actions and her Pietro pulls her closer to him, “We realise what we did was wrong, but we want to make things right.”

The team watch him in consideration for a moment before relenting.

“Steve, I’ve been meaning to run something through with you.”, Tony announces, walking over towards him.

Bruce shakes his head, straightening up to hear Tony’s brilliant plan once again. Tony isn’t fazed though; he just stands stall and figures out the best way to articulate his idea.

“So, as we all know, our infamous soldier holds something very special within him,”

Steve turns to the twins, mumbling a quiet “The stone.” Once he sees their confused faces, he shrugs, portraying that he doesn’t know much about it either. Tony continues.

“Yes, the stone, and while he’s wildly irrational and dangerous and impulsive…”

“Tony.”, Steve warns.

“Right, sorry. While he’s… not in the best of conditions, I believe he could be a great asset to the team. Ah ah. silence, Steve, let me finish.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose at his dismissed concern, crossing his arms.

“Think about it, he has the power of the stone within him, Ultron’s no match for that.”

“He doesn’t know how to control it, Tony. He’d be putting himself and us at risk.”, Steve interrupts, not understanding the logistics of Tony’s plan.

“Okay, but the last time someone tried to tamper with the stone, his body protected it.”

“Protected it?”, Pietro questions, brows raised in confusion.

“Yes, his body went into overdrive, and he almost killed everyone.”

Bruce watches Tony with an uncertain gaze, “I don’t see how that’s safe.”

“It isn’t, but he was only trying to attack the person messing with the stone, which in this case, would be Ultron.”

Steve looked down, not knowing what to say. Tony had a point, and it made sense, but you weren’t anywhere near ready to be on the field; he didn’t want you putting yourself in a situation that would harm you. Ultron wasn’t a force to be reckoned with and by sending you out there, they were putting a lot on the line, including you.

Steve thought back to what happened in Wakanda, how your body had protected the stone, how it had protected you. It was the only thing making him consider Tony’s idea and not shut it down completely.

He raised his head, the room having turned to him at his silence, “It isn’t our decision to make. It’s up to him.”

#Avengers #male reader #part eleven #slowburn #wanda maximoff #wanda x reader

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