#he looks little brother coded which is exactly what i was going for

[ghost--core]

baby boy. baby

[nouearth]

feel the rush.

tom holland x male reader.

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. rushing a fraternity is highly-competitive, and all-so overwhelming. if it was up to you, you wouldn't have participated in the first place. fortunately, tom was here to provide you all of the shortcuts in receiving a bid to the greek life, as long as you did a bang-up job.

𝐒𝐌𝐔𝐓. one-shot [ 5.5k ].

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. male reader 〳 college!au 〳 frat!tom 〳brief alcoholic drinking 〳 closeted!reader 〳 reader is kinda religious coded 〳 sexual content: top!tom, bottom!reader, breeding, kissing, spitting, blowjob (r!giving), humiliation, dirty talk, muscle worship, scent!kink.

“You know you’re not exactly dressed for the occasion, right?”

The door closed behind Tom, sectioning you off from the party. The atmosphere of the event was tangible regardless. Strong beats throttled from wall to wall, tremors from a familiar song tickling your feet. Chants, albeit muffled, were resonant as you could only presume that someone executed a keg stand for the nth time of the night.

Chug, chug, chug, chug, and the crowd roared as if downing a keg of beer prevented Earth from being infiltrated by extraterrestrials. Granted, that was within the best scenario, in which alcohol and everything loud and deafening like university students wanting to fit in were highly toxic to those devious space invaders.

“What—how do you mean? Rushing is pretty formal, isn’t it? That’s what my mom tells me, anyway.”

You felt small from Tom’s comment, taking a peek at yourself in his mirror and shamefully finding nothing out of the ordinary with your white dress shirt, polka-dotted tie, and khaki pants. Though, you had to be honest. It wasn’t a fair assessment, considering you were judging under the purple hue of his dim lights. The compact size of his room certainly didn’t help either.

“Yes and no. Obviously, you don’t want to look like a slob. But you also don’t want to stand out too much. You’re not going to be a Greek if you wear Ralph Lauren from head to toe—that’s obnoxious. It looks like your mum dressed you for the Lord’s Supper or someone’s granddad, which is frankly the worst offender: don’t look like a square.”

“These are all I have—duly noted—so, it’s okay to dress… like you then? Won’t I blend in with everyone else?”

Tom wore a snapback, a blue polo, and white cargo shorts—which was brazen of him considering the amount of drinking and bile you had seen before the party had even began. It was simple to replicate. If it was your mother’s judgement, she would have all the men and women cover up their legs and arms, while embarrassingly leaving you as the prime example of what a gentleman should dress like.

But your mother wasn’t here, was she? Which meant, you could enjoy the holy sight of Tom’s biceps threatening to burst his shirt at the sleeve, his bulky chest at the placket—all for a little while longer before your intuition stepped in at the call of your mother, and forced those thoughts to scurry off.

That was ungentlemanly.

“That’s the point. You blend in, which means you put in the extra effort to get you noticed by the brothers—by us. Outfit aside, I reckon you’re off to a mighty start. Could be a pledge if you keep this up. I’m certainly noticing you,” Tom muttered after taking a sip of his beer, backing you with small, but imposing steps, until your ankles knocked against the footer of his bed, making you fall back. “Here, loosen up.”

He handed you his beer can.

“I don’t—“

“Just a sip to get in the mood. Not asking you to get blackout drunk here, Christ.”

“Sorry, mama.” You tipped the can into your mouth and instantly, the first taste of lager made you grimace, your face and body shriveling up like the bitter bubbles in the back of your throat. “That’s not… pleasant.”

“You get used to it.”

You were an easy target, weren’t you?

All you had to do was lurk around the party like a lost puppy, head and shoulders down as if the entire objecting of rushing was the complete opposite of being noticeable, and then Tom came around to your aid. He flashed that confident, gorgeous smile of his, immediately knowing you’d do anything to receive a bid from anyone at Alpha Kappa Psi, to be a pledge, without ever doing the hard-work of politely boasting about yourself to complete strangers.

Using your body was easier.

“You’ve done this before?” Tom took the can out of your hand and set it on his desk. He joined you at the foot of the bed after, his thigh touching yours. Then his hand on your knee, rubbing to simultaneously appease those nervous twiddling fingers of yours, and to warm you up.

“Yes—but don’t tell my mom, all right? She doesn’t know that I’m—Just… a couple of hook-ups back at home. Nothing much.” You nervously laughed to fill the silence, watching Tom’s hand warm your knee in gentle strokes that seem to ascend closer to your thigh with every cycle.

He stopped at your inner thigh. “I don’t plan on it unless you do a bad job. And/or your ass somehow rips my dick off and I need someone to take accountability for your actions.”

Your body straightened when Tom began kneading at your tender skin. “Not funny, I mean it.”

“Relax, I’m not telling your mom. It’ll be fun…” With one smooth motion, Tom turned his snapback around, the visor facing the back, and his mouth lowered to the shell of your ear. “And if I can be honest…? It turns me on knowing you’re hiding such a dirty secret from your poor mother.”

There was a shuffling, and then a firm grip on your nape that made your breath hitch. Before your instincts to pull away could react, Tom drew you in for a pressing kiss.

You breathed in, sucking the taste of liquor into your lungs, and trailed after the sweep of his lips. His nose smashed against yours, you could practically hear him inhaling you, and you barely got a sound out before your lips were pushed apart with Tom’s wet tongue. He tasted of familiar lager, yet certainly much more appetizing than drinking from the source itself as you pressed closer to him, welcoming him into your mouth with messy licks to the slithering muscle.

“Mm…”

Electricity shot up your spine when his tongue began properly mingling with yours. Sparks ricocheted off your cranium, then back down to your toes, where they flexed and brought the rest of your legs onto Tom’s bed. Heat flushed through your veins, the kiss all-consuming like Tom had needed your moans to survive. He drew you in closer, holding you close, exploring your mouth with his. You let out small whimpers and pressed into him, drowning yourself in his groans as your hand experimented with desperate tugs and kneads to his growing erection. He licked and nipped at your lips in revenge, countering your touch with a much more brazen hand down your khakis and briefs, toying with your bare chub in his palm.

“Had my eyes on you since you walked through that door,” Tom’s breath spilled over your neck, kissing at the stretch of skin in between the seconds of stripping your clothes off and his after. “You stuck out like a sore thumb. Have no idea why you thought you even had a chance, but then I thought about it for longer, watching you stick to the walls, observing everyone, drinking our punch. I knew you weren’t as innocent as you looked.”

You were lost in this sanity. Your lips were swollen and nearly numb from use, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. They tingled in all the right ways, sending signals to your exposed cock, throbbing out in the open air after many clumsy movements of shimmying yourself out of your pants and briefs.

You helped Tom with his clothes, fingers swiping across his muscular back when you pulled off his polo, palms brushing over his toned thighs when it came to undoing his shorts. Surprisingly, no briefs to remove after, which made you even harder, even when you were nearly assaulted in the face with the spring of his erection.

All of Tom was impressive, especially his hard, thick cock.

“Mom told me to make some friends—“

When Tom returned his grasp onto your nape and pushed your head toward his groin, you lost all semblance of self-control. He held you close enough to smell his cock, but far enough to deprive you the pleasure of having him in your mouth. He smelled salty, something of sweat that made your nostrils flare for more, so you pushed your head. You sniffed, lowering yourself until your nose was buried into his heavy balls, and inhaled your curiosities.

The aroma of Tom’s musk was familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. It was intoxicating. The scent was strong and pure when you pressed in. It was here, a pungent assault to your nose when you took another indulgent breath of his sweaty balls, and your senses went haywire when Tom’s fingers dug into your nape, scraping sweet lines of fire across the nape of your neck, and pulled you over his leaking cock.

Your inability to control yourself was as much of an arousal for Tom, judging by how his cock was twitching with every breath you took to fight off the urge in gulping him down.

“Wow, you really are a momma’s boy, aren’t you? Bet you have her constantly in your mind, telling you what’s right from wrong, don’t you? Tell me, what’s she saying while you’re sucking me off?”

“I don’t know what—mmf!”

Just like that, your mouth was full of Tom’s smell, full of him, god. Your eyes snapped shut and you choked down a moan as you took his thick cock into your mouth at the help of Tom’s bruising grip. One hand braced on his toned and flexed thigh while the other was wrapped around his shaft, holding him steady in your mouth. Your lips wrapped snug around him, hallowing your cheeks and flattening your tongue over veins—multiple veins that were the source of his pre-cum leaking into your mouth like a broken faucet.

Salt spread on your tongue, wakening every taste bud to an early bloom as you squeezed and stroked him at the base, forcing out more drips of pre-cum onto your tongue.

“Fuck, your mouth’s so warm…” His eyes widened at the warm and wet embrace of your tongue slobbering over his cock, groaning at the obscene sounds of your saliva spit-shining his shaft as he was leaning on his elbows. “God, look at you.”

“I’m doing okay…?” You gasped after pulling his cock out of your mouth, spitting out the thick, droopy web of saliva that connected your lips to Tom’s shaft back over the plump, swollen glans. You looked up at him for approval, wide-eyed and dazed, recovering from the stretch Tom had provided your mouth seconds prior.

When you needed a breather, you licked at the underside of his cock, tending to the inches you couldn’t possibly fit inside of your mouth with multiple tantalizing strokes of your hand. You spread your spit thick over his hard flesh, massaging every spit bubble until his cock and balls were moisturized with the slick of your mouth.

“Better than I could imagine, honestly…” Tom marveled with a chuckle, exhaling slow and deep from his gut to seemingly keep himself from spilling too early from your unrelenting strokes. His toes wiggled in his socks, a tic you found yourself simpering about because it was rather the opposite of Tom’s imposing demeanor.

He pressed two fingers against his own tongue, slicking it up with spit, before shoving them into your mouth to get a second opinion on your cock-sucking skills. Tom hummed, his hand removed from your nape to hold your chin up while he watched you take his fingers, pumping them in and out of your tight, sucking lips.

He seemed pleased.

Somehow, it was more intimate sucking his fingers off. Tom was staring. He had always been, which made you nervous since he introduced himself to you. But he was staring, as if he could control your every move with a simple look, as if he was capable of communicating with you without uttering a word. His lips parted, his brow raised, and you quickly caught on to reflect upon his wishes, diligently opening your lips to welcome a third slicked up finger into your mouth.

Right then and there, you figured Tom had taken your brain cells hostage and forged them to work in his favor. Whatever he wanted, you were absolutely pleased to do without a single complaint peeping from your end.

He pulled out embarrassing sounds that would’ve gotten you stoned if your mother ever heard them from your room. His other hand worked on your leaking cock, massaging your testicles and palming the plump tip, because he can—because you let him.

You were Tom’s puppet, and your body was at his disposal.

“See? This is fun, right?”

He slid his fingers out of your mouth ever so-slowly, the dim light catching onto the trail of spit that bridged his fingers and your tongue with a magical glint. They eventually lost their sparkle when Tom was quick to bring his hand to your ass and wet your exposed rim with a finger, circling the flesh at an excruciatingly slow pace.

“M-mm…”

It was pathetic how deprived of touch you were.

Something as simple as a tease made you writhe on all fours. All it took was a lazy stroke of his finger for you to arch your back and draw your ass out. You couldn’t manage more than a moan as Tom guided you flat on your stomach and himself behind you, continuing his taunts after freshly lubing his fingers and throbbing cock.

Upon the next turn, Tom had the generosity of delivering you of a fill that had been making your cock leak into his sheets, that had been making you rock your hips like you were an animal in heat.

After pushing your legs apart, Tom slowly slid one finger inside of you, his mouth opening in rapport, but also in wonder, as your tight hole welcomed his thick digit in with such warmth, your body locking up as pleasure entered your body.

“C-Christ…” you hissed, thighs clenching and ass squeezing around the foreign intrusion. Something like panic, mixed with agonizing, desperate need, froze you in your place, yet you could feel your body melt, beads of sweat forming over the slope of your tense shoulders and back muscles. Every contact point of your body meeting his, from his firm hand kneading your plump ass, to the tender push and pull of his finger, scorched.

“I don’t know, (M/N)… I don’t know if you can take my cock. My finger can barely move. Might have to call it a night…”

The thudding of your heart muffled your ears as Tom pressed in another finger after slowly working you open. Upon instinct, you closed your legs, only for Tom to spread them back apart before your sweaty thighs could meet, keeping yourself exposed and bare under his direction.

You chewed on a whimper, your face pressing into a pillow in your arms while Tom’s two fingers curled and pumped deep inside of you. You felt yourself pulsate around him, the tight ring of muscle unrelenting in its grip around his fingers, but Tom was determined to break you, another digit joining the pair of fingers, demeaning the tightness of your hole with an obnoxious whistle while pushing into your resistance. “Damn, look at that hole… barely fitting in three fingers.”

“N-no, I can take it. Please…” you gasped on an onslaught of curls, fast and repetitive until you were stretched enough for Tom to yank his fingers completely out of you and quickly feel withdrawal symptoms of his fill. Your thighs shook, your ass pushed out for more, your hole twitched in rapport—you murmured a whine that you needed Tom to hear, but was too self-conscious to let it be known, so you settled biting into his pillow to resist your throat from spilling.

“Such a shame. I thought you made the perfect fit for A.K.P., too.”

His touch was soft and exploring, smearing the sweat on your back over the expanse of your ass and covering it in a humiliating sheen that you’d reckon Tom was stroking himself to upon picking up on the lewd, slick sounds of lube sliding over something thick behind you.

“S-stop, stop, please. I-I’ve taken it before, just—give me a chance, yeah? Please? Hear me—feel me out?”

“You’re that desperate, huh? Don’t know if you need the pledge more, or my cock…”

“Your cock… Tom, please—“

“So, you wouldn’t mind if you received nothing in return, as long as my cock was inside of you? Fucking you? Breeding you?”

“No, I just—“

No, no, no. I don’t want you to stop. Please don’t stop. Your ass communicated those pleas in desperate wiggles. A strong smack to your ass cheeks meant to halt you in place, but it only made your hips more fervent as you graciously backed into the thick of Tom’s cock, reaching back and giving him a needy pump or two, then slid him against your crack.

A needy moan escaped when you felt the weight of his cock sandwiched between your cheeks.

“So, you don’t want my cock? I’m confused on what exactly you’re telling me. Hurry, before I lose my patience.”

You felt a stickiness to your rim. Peeking over your shoulder, you took a glimpse of Tom presumably tracing your hole with his cock and spreading his pre-cum thick over the smooth flesh. The small space grew humid with the tension between your body and his, heavy breaths adding onto the heavy air as Tom rocked into you, holding you by the waist, gliding his cock through the wetness of your lubed ass cheeks. His shaft rubbed over your hole, and your cock throbbed and leaked in between your legs at the chance that anytime now—Tom could breach you open, and fill you wondrously. Your hole clenched at the thought, aided by Tom’s hands pressing your cheeks tighter around his cock as it slid over you.

If only you could command your asshole to open, because you would’ve taken him in by now.

“I want you inside of me, Tom. F-forget the pledge, I just—I need something, someone inside of me. Please, just—Christ, fuck me. Fuck me with your thick cock. Fuck your cum into me. Fuck my ass until I’m nothing but a gaping hole dripping with your seed. Don’t even care if we never see each other again, please, Tom—”

Your eagerness took Tom by surprise, making him chuckle and slap his cock over your blinking hole before resuming on sliding his shaft against your crack, hopefully for one last turn. “Who knew you had such a potty mouth?”

You don’t know what drew you back to looking at Tom again. Maybe it was the hard, brawn structure of his body, cut straight from a sculpture of the most heroic Greek warrior. The firm lines of his abdominal muscles, or the way his snapback was adjusted backwards, emphasizing his soft, yet handsome looks. All in all, you didn’t mean what you said.

You would absolutely care if you never saw him again.

He was too good.

His rough hands over your ass, smacking them whenever you would try to angle your hips in a way to fit him in, were too good. His delicate kisses on your neck, back, and shoulders, quelling the tremble of your limbs, were too good. His soft lips, when you and him met halfway until your mouths were exchanging breaths, making the effort of holding yourself still against him excruciating, were too good.

Tom’s lips ghosted over yours, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth. You groaned as he supported your core with a strong hand, opening your mouth to take more. Every part of you, even the moisture in your body, wanted to touch him. You were sweating, drooling into his mouth, leaking into Tom’s palm when he wandered down to stroke your cock; all strong indicators that you were losing control, if you hadn’t already.

His voice, as he murmured something about your body in your ear while he was gathering you against him, was too good. His breath forced itself between your lips, breathing out a supply of oxygen into your mouth, into your lungs, to prepare you for the inevitable, and you had never felt so fragile before—especially so, when you found yourself quickly using up Tom’s oxygen when he pushed his cock into you without hesitation, without warning, your body hammered by a thousand needles in the process.

“T-Tom!” you hissed in a breath, but it only made the grip on your hips more strident when his thrust made you collapse back onto all fours. It wouldn’t be surprising if your skin was blemished with bruises the very next day with the way his fingers dug into your flesh.

Tom was generous enough to let you adjust to his size, indulging in the warmth and tightness of your entrance with only the tip of his plump cock despite feeling like he had toppled your backside with all of his body weight. Even then, those minuscule ruts were enough to make you whimper out of agony.

“So fucking tight…”

Tom pulled himself out and spread your ass cheeks apart, marveling and silently wondering to himself how he was going to puzzle himself inside of you. Some spit would surely help. He licked his fingers, then pressed it over your swollen hole, smoothing the skin before pushing the tip back in, having only a tenuous grasp on his self-control.

After the burning mellowed with the help of multiple deep exhales and kisses from Tom, you felt yourself finally unravel the moment he moved his hips. Your fingers raked against his abs as you reached back to pace his hips, palm on his pelvis to keep from completely ruining you. A shiver ran down the length of your spine as Tom smoothed a hand over your back, then kept it at the lower half, pushing deeper into you while he held you still. You made a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, pleasured yet disoriented by the ample stretch Tom was providing you with. It gutted the fog of arousal, you could feel your hole instinctively pushing his cock out with overwhelmed pulses, but Tom was persistent, driving into you deeper— harder—the moment your body tried to resist him.

“Don’t mind it hard, right?” Tom asked against your ear, gruff in between his slow, yet deep strokes.

“Please,” you whimpered, barely getting the word out before Tom’s hand found its way to your mouth, covering it and holding your head back at the millisecond your answer registered in his brain, giving him the green light to pummel you relentlessly.

Your eyes popped open when Tom soared, bucking his hips wildly into you. Cries of pleasure, your whimpers and moans of being hammered with such overwhelming desire for your body, were muffled into the palm of Tom’s hand. He squeezed your cheeks, loud groans leaving your throat, and your torso arched into the mattress.

The brutal stretch was what you’d been needing. All this pent up sex drive that you had been harboring for so long came exploding out of you like molten lava, scorching your torso and all in effect. Your body was on fire, coupling with Tom’s as sweat dripped from his forehead, and somewhere onto your backside. Your mind emptied out while you hovered in the space between deprived arousal and complete ecstasy, only perfected by Tom’s cockhead screwing into your tight, clamping hole.

“Open,” Tom demanded with a huff, and you did as you were told at the prodding of his fingers. You welcomed him in with the parting of your lips, luring each digit with the curl of your wet tongue. “You like that? You like taking my hard cock like this? Fucking you open until you’re nothing but a hole? God, look at you drooling…”

As Tom pumped inside of you at a steady pace, angling his hips so he stretched you wider, you suckled on his fingers as they remained hooked over your mouth—you were starting to guess that he loved having them sucked, or at least, liked playing with the idea of having himself inside of you in more ways than one.

It was a messy affair. Pools of saliva leaked from either corners of your mouth. The smell of sex was thickening in between the heavy pants that you and Tom would collectively exile. It wouldn’t be long until your body was drenched in sweat, and you’d come to realize that you wouldn’t be alone in that department. Tom had his sweaty arm around your throat, pushing all of his body weight onto you and gutting you open with the deep hammering of his thrusts. His chest rumbled with wild growls as he pounded into you from behind, burying your hole to the root of his shaft, fucking you with the salacious sound of his heavy and musky sack slapping against your sweat-stained taint. You whimpered when his cockhead brushed past that sweet spot of yours, an unfamiliar feeling that you had no doubts in wanting to befriend.

“O-oh, that’s s-so g-good—“ You bit into his forearms, the thick vein pulsing through looking appetizing, and you were glad you did it because—it was like an ‘on’ switch for Tom.

“Taking my cock so well—your mom would be disgusted, wouldn’t she? Knowing her baby boy is taking a man’s cock. Want you to remember this. I don’t care how many cocks you had before me. I want you to remember what my cock feels like, digging deep inside of you. And when I’m done with you, I don’t want you coming home, crying to mommy—because I’ll never be done with you. Once you get your bid, you’re fucking mine.”

This was it.

This was Tom at his peak performance.

And your body was at his mercy.

He pulled out, flipped you over, then hooked your legs over his shoulders before resuming in his relentless rapture.

You stroked yourself to the image before you, a tight fist around your aching cock, squeezing from base to tip, spreading your pre-cum down your already sticky length, while your other hand toyed with your nipples, playing with the perky nubs.

Tom’s muscular body dripped in sweat. His teeth gritted as he struggled to control his volume. Glimpses of the base of his cock would appear when he would pull out, only to be hidden by the trimmed hairs of his pubic hair when he would shove himself back in, veins of his large cock throbbing and basking in your warmth. Hard and strong kisses layered your ankles while Tom’s pecs jiggled with every thrust he made. Even if you weren’t being fucked right now, you could get off to this. You could come right now, to the absolute bliss on Tom’s face as he buried himself deep inside of you, impaling you with his cock, moulding your hole to the shape of his shaft.

It enthralled you knowing how much pleasure your body gave Tom.

The squeaking of the bed roped everything together, gathering all sorts of noises—lewd sounds of sex and delirious desire—like a beautiful symphony. Your moans against his were the choir when Tom came down to kiss you hard on the mouth, sloppy and wet as he explored you open both ways. His tongue curious into your mouth and his thick cock rearranging your guts.

Your hands freely roamed over the expanse of his broad back, clutching and scratching at his back muscles when he curled his hips in a way that made you arch your body off the bed and knocked the breath out of you. God, he was so strong. So buff. You could feel his back muscles move in sync with his hips, flexing and flaring as he sank his cock deep into you. Your body stuttered, your eyes shut tight, tears nearly welling from the utter pleasure, shriveling as Tom would batter your prostate with better precision every time his hips came down on you. You couldn't be bothered to find the proper words to tell Tom how good he was making you feel, so you settled for a mixture of gasps, whimpers, and a daring scratch over the length of his spine.

That was telling enough, right?

Tom growled at the sting overloading his senses when you made your marks, grazing his teeth and lips over the palm of your hand when he reached back to take and hold the culprit of the forming welts before him. You and him shared a gaze, a kiss when he lowered himself and briefly settled on imposing you with strong, but slow and deep thrusts. To catch his breath. To catch yours. You both exchanged breaths, swapped saliva, explored each other's mouths, held each other hands, and the intimacy of it all made it all the more tranquilizing for you.

“Gonna breed that ass of yours. Fuck, it’s perfect for me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Have your hole dripping, gaping, and raw? Maybe I’ll get the bros to look at the mess you made. Maybe they’ll want in on it and have a turn at your body, too. It could be your initiation, hm? Could skip the entire process, and be a Greek, as long as you let all of us breed you. How does that sound?”

“Holy, s-shit—“

You pumped your cock, a familiar feeling quickly bubbling to a high from the pit of your stomach, all the way to your swollen nipples, and you knew what awaited you as that sensation wouldn’t falter. Your heart beat ran faster than the effort of caffeine. Even though it was muffled, the rhythmic beats downstairs were still resonant, and you were absolutely outpacing its tempo. The heat of Tom’s hands returned on your body. He caressed and rubbed your hips, thighs, chest, balls, and ass, all while he urged you to come.

“There we go. Good boy. Keep fucking that fist. Yeah, fuck—“

His palms smoothed over your skin, up the sides of your body, thumbs pressing into either sides of your hips, then maneuvered you with his strength to meet him half-way into his strong thrusts. His biceps flexed, thick veins demonstrating his rush of adrenaline and sheer strength as he brought you down onto his cock with thundering claps, sweaty skin contacting sweaty skin, constantly assaulting your prostate with his swollen cockhead.

It both frightened and thrilled you, your eyes blown, and you felt yourself quickly spill, thick and heavy over your stomach, knowing you were at Tom’s disposal. You shuddered, watching the thick ropes of cum fly high before splattering and soon pooling at the plane of your body.

“I’m close—“

“Come inside of me, please–“

You were panting as your cock finished spilling itself all over your stomach and chest, as Tom’s big cock pounded in and out of you with such ease now, the weight of his hips coming down on you making you continuously bounce on the mattress.

“Fuck.”

His breathing was even heavier than yours, laced with grunts as he used your ass like a toy, pulling hard and pushing you as he pleased, breaching you with the thick of his cock. His thrusts become wilder, sweat dampening his snapback as Tom mustered up the rest of his strength and energy to completely overpower you. His swollen cock dug deep, you could feel every veins about to burst. With a choke of your name, he delivered one more grandiose rut against your ass, the impact of his hips biting sharp into the back of your thighs, and filled you with his cum, burying you to the root.

“Holy shit…”

“O-oh, god—“

Warmth spread thick inside of you, and you writhed and groaned as your hole swallowed another fat fill. Tom’s body goes slack, crashing into your arms immediately, and he moaned on each slow thrust, creaming you from the inside and out. You strained toward him in desperation, wrapping your legs around his hips to lock him in place, and reaching over to his ass to push him deeper, to urge him to keep breeding you as your hole held Tom’s sensitive cock with gratitude, taking his thick seed without hesitation, until his cock veins stopped pulsating.

As promised, Tom kept you impaled, rocking his hips and kissing you once more, soft and passionate, something of him owing you one laced in the way he smooched your lips and refused to let you reciprocate—because Tom never came like that before. His hand was tender on your cheek, stroking the dried stain of drool that was left abandoned when he pulled away to look at you, properly this time. You sighed, brushing the snapback off his head to let his scalp breathe, and pulled him in at the introduction of a sudden draft, your legs still anchored by his hips.

You lay intertwined, sharing deep kisses in between moments of recovery, where the post-nut clarity rendered you and Tom into fit of collective shy laughter, incredulous to the affair both of you had just engaged in.

“So, you live on campus?”

“Oh—yeah. East side, near Turing…”

“Figured you’d be a science guy. Anyways, I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Give me your phone.”

“Pick me up? For what?”

“Christ. Did I fuck the memory out of you or something? Bid day’s tomorrow. It gets hectic, so I think it’ll be better if you stick with me.”

“Won’t that… be suspicious?”

“Nah. Plus, I figured we’d get an early start on your initiation…”

“You mean—“

“Fuck, yeah.”

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Holidays! ❄️❄️ more from What They Expect please! I love that AU!

continuation of 1 2 3

It’s been well over a year since she’s seen Mustang. Al’s all aflutter about it, and how puberty has her looking like something other than a twelve year old boy, but she’s really not worried. Mustang is so involved with his own shit that he doesn’t have the time to care about hers. It would be a damning quality if it wasn’t exactly what she needed from him.

She is, sort of, a little bit worried about Riza. Not worried as in she actually thinks something is going to happen, but just that if anyone out of Mustang’s little idiot brigade would figure her out, it would be her.

Maes is a distinct possibility, but also not really. The thing that saves her, always, is that no one’s really looking. She’s loud and flashy and angry and no one thinks she’s too short to be a guy because of how sensitive she is about it and no one notices she’s pretty because they’re too busy dealing with her being mad and scowling and, with these guys, she’s got an extra ace up her sleeve.

They think they already know all her secrets.

They know about human transmutation and binding her brother’s soul to a suit of armor and every questionable and terrible thing she’s done since in her pursuit to fix it.

Why the hell would she be lying about her gender? It’s not even a thought in their heads, and if it ever becomes one, they’ll dismiss it before he even has a chance to.

Eden binds her chest tight extra tight, so her chest is nearly flat, and puts on her baggy tank top and giant red coat that hides the way her hips curve and the giant stompy boots that she really does love, sets her face in a familiar scowl, and goes off to war.

If war was child’s play, that is.

“Where have you been?” Mustang demands, towering over her and nostrils flaring.

Well. Sort of towering over her. She must have had a growth spurt, because he’s really only got a couple inches on her, which is sort of hilarious. She hadn’t noticed that he was short before. “Uh, lots of places. Haven’t you been reading my reports?”

She does not laugh in his face at the way his eyebrow ticks. She spends so much time meticulously writing everything down in dedicated code in her travelogues, she really doesn’t have the energy to spare when she gets to her reports for Mustang. Besides, he doesn’t really care what she’s doing, only that it’s big and flashy enough to distract from whatever he’s doing.

Is she supposed to know that? She can’t remember. But it’s so obvious that it doesn’t feel like something that can be a secret.

Then again, the rest of the brass haven’t caught on, so.

“What were you thinking in Liore?” he snaps.

Eden blinks. “Liore? That was forever ago. Did something happen? Rose didn’t mention anything in her last letter.”

“Yes, Edward, it was forever ago, but since you declined to answer my summons to come here and explain yourself, we’re discussing it now,” he says.

God, she’d forgotten how bitchy he gets. “Okay, well that priest guy was pretty strange-“

“I don’t care about the priest!”

She stares. She had to kill the guy twice and he doesn’t care? Honestly, she thinks it’s sort of memorable.

“What were you thinking messing with that river?”

Ed tilts her head to the side. “You’re upset about the river?”

He glares. “Of course I’m upset about the river!”

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Al’s really worried over nothing.

Mustang is never paying attention to the right things.

[vacayisland]

@!; Bakin' with the heart! Branch / Baker Troll! Reader (pt. 2)

"Tag list"! @storydays @chamille-trash @valvalentine69 @starzwithapen @ykvlanq @apieceofcathair3 @kitthefanfickat @cyb3r-st4r

ꨄ︎. Unknowingly to Poppy, Viva, and his brothers, Branch has managed to regularly visit your little bakery in Pop village. Well, at first it started off as an one-a-week visit, that he wrote off as a 'pick-me up' treat at the end of a long and hard week. Then it became bi-weekly, a treat to start off his week with and a treat to end his week with. And then it became thrice a week, and so on and so forth until he began to come in every day. You became used to this simple, yet effective, routine where Branch would come in at exactly 5:30 pm sharp every day; It was right before your dinner rush, hours after your lunch rush, and somehow always the time of day where you didn't have much work.

ꨄ︎. And you weren't sure whether you should be impressed, or a little scared, that Branch had managed to figure out your schedule so well! You would put a tray of goods in the oven at around 5:15, latest 5:20, to be ready to the dinner (more dessert) rush that would come. Branch knew that, and so he would always come in 'early' to be able to be the 'first' of today's 'hot menu'. Those weren't by your words either, he had actually told you that one day and you had gawked in his response, since it wasn't a very Branch response. Yet, overall, you found yourself always growing a little excited when five o'clock hits, as you knew Branch would be coming to talk soon enough.

ꨄ︎. His visits started brightening your day, really.

Today was a little different though, as usually when 5:30 rolls around you would be up front and waiting for Branch, and this is what he had gotten used to; opening the door of your little Bakery, being hit with the smell of fresh baked cookies and breads, and then seeing your face. It always made his heart jump a beat, maybe two, but he always did his best to act cool. Yet, today his heart didn't skip a beat and your service counter was oddly void of your presence. Then Branch noticed the way your bakery didn't smell as fresh as it usually did this time of day, what wafted in the air were scents of the already baked goods; not the rising and cooking goods that usually came from your oven. That made him worried; You had never not been up front by 5:30 pm.

ꨄ︎. "Hello?" Branch called out into the Bakery, nerves building up in his stomach as his mind went wild with possibilities of what could be happening. You hadn't started a fire, at least not one that had hit the front of the Bakery. You didn't close your Bakery early, your open sign was still hanging and anytime you left the Bakery you marked it as 'closed'; even if you were just going around the corner to talk with some friends. There wasn't any health code violations, because your Bakery would have been shut down and Branch secretly always made sure you were in regulation. The more possibilities he ruled out, the longer he didn't get a response, the worse his nerves got. "Hey! (Y/N)? Are you in here?"

ꨄ︎. Branch did get a response this time around, "Branch?" which caused him to whip his head around with excitement before it flattened upon seeing it was not you. It was an ever so confused Poppy, who held a bin of baking ingredients, and next to her was Viva and Smidge. "Oh hey Poppy." Branch mumbled, shrugging off Poppy's sudden appearance a little hastily upon realizing it wasn't you. He didn't mean to be rude, or sound rude at all, yet he was a little more concerned at your sudden abnormal schedule. I mean, what if you got eaten by a Troll-eating plant?! Branch failed the miss the confused, and slightly concerned, looks that the three made before Viva and Smidge carefully walked around Branch and over to a set of tables. Poppy, on the other hand, walked over to Branch with an ever confused smile, "Branch?... Why are you screaming for (Y/N) inside her Bakery?"

ꨄ︎. Well, Branch couldn't exactly tell Poppy what he's been doing for the past few months: visiting you basically every day, chatting for a good thirty minutes to an hour before leaving. No, Poppy would get overly excited and basically call Branch out on the (horrifying) truth of his visits. So while stood there frozen, muttering a very long "uh" to Poppy, Branch took the first escape goat that someone would give him; without even thinking about it. "Branch! Don't tell me you're here for the baking class too!" Smidge questioned from behind the two, crossing her arms. Branch didn't fully process what she had said in one go, yet he only snapped his fingers and pointed at Smidge with a nervous bit of laughter, "Yes! That I'm here for that!-" That was before Branch did a double take, glancing behind him at Smidge, "wait what?" Baking classes? You had never shared that idea with him, and usually he would be the Troll you tested new recipes on! Yet, Branch's confusion was never answered, as Poppy simply grabbed his hands and took his attention away "Oh Branch! And here I thought you were making secret trips to the Bakery to talk to (Y/N). Pft, silly me! Come on, you can help us set up!"

ꨄ︎. Well, it was safe to say that the Baking class was just a little awkward at the start. Seeing as how Branch never signed up for the class, making you a little startled when you saw him helping out Poppy and Viva, and how Branch overheard that you had changed the recipe they were making last minute. And Branch would be right to assume that the last minute change of plans was because of him.

ꨄ︎. "A baking class?" Branch asked as everyone went home, having offered to help deep-clean your Bakery kitchen after everyone had been baking in there. Somehow, it had left the two of you alone and you knew there was a conversation that needed to be had. A somewhat awkward one. "A baking class that trolls need to sign up for, Branch! And you showed up unannounced." You mumbled back in a slightly correcting tone, unsure how Branch even managed to get tangled into your little side gig. Not that it was illegal by any means yet you had just though the would be out foraging for his base a little longer today! So, it was a real shocker to you, and your plans, when that was the opposite. Branch paused and glanced over at you, unamused. "Oh wow, that makes it so much better, doesn't it?" You could feel his sarcasm from the other side of the kitchen. You rolled your eyes at him, "It makes you just as guilt as me if we're playing this game, Branch." But you were used to Branch by now; Branch and his odd ways of showing that he cared. "Why were you even here? Today, you had told me, you were restocking on your bunker!" "So you planned around me?" Branch quizzed as he went back to work.

ꨄ︎. And Branch wasn't exactly sure what you were going to day; He thought you might deflect the situation and tell him no, you weren't planning around his schedule (when you clearly were) and he was just reading too much into things. But the last thing he expect you to do was softly sigh and stare down at the stainless steal table, cleaning a certain spot in circles. A small frown etched on your face, the type of frown that made Branch pause in his own cleaning again. "Hey I-" Branch started after a long period of silence, not meaning to upset you. His eyebrows frowned upward as he began to walk over to you, yet you only shook your head. "No, no. It's fine just," There was some sort of chuckle in your somber tone, "I should have figured I could never surprise the one Troll that always seems to know when something is going on!" And that thoroughly made Branch confused; Surprise him? What were you on about?

ꨄ︎. You would explain to Branch, a little later while cleaning in silence, that you had planned for that class to make a rather special Christmas dessert (seeing as Christmas was only a few days away now). Not one that was exactly in the spirit of Christmas, yet one that was more in the spirit of giving, if that even made sense. And Branch could tell you were dancing around your explanation, trying to muster up one without giving away your plan, yet you ultimately couldn't.

ꨄ︎. "I wanted to make a batch of double chocolate chip cookie with a fudgy center." You would finally admit to Branch after dancing around your explanation for a while; not wanting to admit to him what you had originally planned to bake. Branch only cocked his head to the side though, raising an eyebrow at you, "But those are one of your summer cookies." He would point out, "Why would you make them now if-" And you knew he had put two and two together by the way he had paused, his eyes going a little wide before a small "oh" escaped his lips. His eyes stayed to the floor for a moment before they looked up at yours, noticing that you were slightly more embarrassed. That only made the tips of Branch's ears flush as he tried to contain his emotions so his face wouldn't flush red either. "I was making them for you." You spat out before you lost your confidence. "You had been telling me how much you missed that summer cookie and I thought, hey, why not bring them back for a limited time? And well... I was planning to surprise you with it... Until you kinda... you know." "Oh..." Branch mumbled again, his eyes darted down to the floor. He felt his heart beat against his chest, and the way his stomach tied into a knot. Only you had been able to make him feel that way.

ꨄ︎. Dammit. Only you made him feel this way and he knew why.

[jiminscockr1ng]

✩｡°𝄞🚨D-TOWN BABY 𝄞✨°｡✩

╝ •part one | part two ╔

╰₊𓂂➢ pairing: gang affiliated!yoongi x fem!reader

╰₊𓂂➢ genre: hood au, bother’s best friend au, smut, angst

╰₊𓂂➢ warn!ngs: use of the n-word, aave, [mentions of drugs, drug dealing, death, smoking and drinking], negligence due to use of drugs (reader’s mother), reader is heavily black coded, cat-calling, riding, oral (reader receiving), swallowing semen. (let me know if there’s more please!)

╰₊𓂂➢ summary: yoongi is apart of a gang called d-town, the gang your brother just so happens to be apart of.

╰₊𓂂➢ word count: 5,625 words

╰₊𓂂➢ author’s note: the inspiration came from me shouting “D-TOWN NIGGA!” at my sister while watching the Daechwita music video. lmao, i hope y’all enjoy it.

The headlights of your black honda civic shines on the group of men huddled together on the steps of the project building.

Smoking, drinking, talking and laughing loud as hell, and hitting licks.

You huff while turning your car off. Stepping out, your long, fern green skirt flows with the wind. Cleavage hanging out of your bohemian patterned shirt. As you approach the ran down project building you can hear the men on the stairs whistling at you.

You roll your eyes at the gang members who are shouting and cat-calling loud as hell— the whole block could hear.

“Damn Ma, can I get a 360?!” One of them call out. Before you could even flip him off, two familiar voices chime in.

“Chill, nigga.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

They say at the same time. The two voices could easily be distinguished as Trey (your brother) and Yoongi (your brother’s best friend).

Or their street names: Tre D and Agust D. The ‘D’ standing for D-Town. To which you find corny as hell because you all literally live downtown. All these corny ass niggas’ names end with D.

Once you’re right in front of the group of men your brother nods his head at you. That’s just him acknowledging your existence. The two of you have a complicated relationship. It’s only complicated because you don’t like his lifestyle (respectfully) but he won’t stop gang banging.

Nonetheless, you’d still take a bullet for that man. Vice versa.

“Yo, _______.” Yoongi speaks. From the looks of it, you can already tell he’s about to say some stupid shit. He has that sorry ass smirk on his face and keeps glancing around at his little posse. Leaning your weight on to one leg, you simply arch your brow at him.

“You gon’ let me tuck you in?” Your stoic expression remains the same. A few giggles are heard and your brother shakes his head. Trey is more than used to Yoongi making advances at you— he’s been fiend out for damn there 8 years.

Yoongi looks you up and down, adjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder. You smack your teeth and harshly brush past the men blocking your way up the stairs. Prior to entering the building you yell back at the long haired, pale man.

“Tuck your dick!”

SLAM! You slam the door shut, you can hear the distant instigating behind the door as you walk up the stairs to the shared apartment. Mumbling curse words on your way up.

Yoongi’s smirk never leaves, despite the instigation his crew nagged on about. He likes that shit. He loves it. Your hot temper and all of it. He knows that if he wanted to he could shut you right up. But you being mad at him kind of turns him on… so he’ll let you have it.

You’d prefer a nice and quiet, empty pathway to your home when you get off from work. You go through enough stress as it is. Another headache is exactly not what you needed.

Stepping foot into the dark apartment, you set your purse down and walk to your room, ready to get in the shower after a long day. The apartment is fairly big compared to the other units. More than enough space for you and your brother. Although, for the past year it’s really just been you occupying the space.

Trey is never home. He’s out and about being Tre D. He stopped coming home about a little over a year ago. It’s just gang related activities after the other, selling drugs, hanging out with D-Town and fucking random girls. Repeat.

It’s reasonable that you gave up on trying to stop him. He’s a grown man now and you can’t sit around all day to inspect your little brother’s everyday life to make sure he’s doing ‘the right thing’. He’s only 2 years younger than you but you always acted as a mother figure. Taking over that role after your mother got sprung out on crack and left you both.

Working your ass off everyday, feeding him and yourself, trying to make sure he’s doing well in school— all a waste of time. Now look. He’s outside of your shared apartment, probably not even going to come up stairs and is making way more money than you.

You regret the day he met those guys. And you regret even more when he dragged Yoongi along with him.

The thought of Yoongi makes you sigh. You pick up your towel to get in the shower, blasting Lauryn Hill as you lather your brown skin with smell-good soap. You manage to decompress in the shower. Tracking wet footprints to your bedroom as you approach the window, you look outside to see if they’re still there.

Yes. Yes they are. Your brother seems to be leaving and you can’t help but notice someone is missing from the gang.

And almost on queue— as if the devil himself set it up… you hear the front door opening. Letting out a groan, you go and peak out of your bedroom door.

“No need to hide, babygirl. Come on out.” Yoongi calls.

You roll your eyes before slamming your door. But like you figured, the door opens right back up and in comes Yoongi. He silently stands in front of the door after he closes it behind him, observing your figure that is semi-hidden behind the white towel you have on. Yoongi already has a little stiffy just by looking at you.

“Stop calling me babygirl you freak, I’m older than you.” You say, responding to the comment he made. He chuckles, walking over to sit on your bed while you apply lotion on your legs. He drops his duffel bag on the ground next to him.

“Yeah, by like a few months.” Looking down at him, you noticed that he’s man spreading, leaning on his arms that are propped up behind him on the bed. Refraining from gulping, you look away.

You don’t respond to him. Instead, you continue on with your nightly routine, pretending that the fine man is not sitting on your bed ready to pounce on you the second you say go. You can hear shuffling behind you as you fix your locs, putting them in the ponytail.

“_______, I got you something.” He says and you reluctantly turn around. This man really doesn’t learn or care to catch a hint. In his hand is a book. A book that you’ve been searching for everywhere and is sold out.

“How…” is all you can mutter out. Out of all of Yoongi’s highly prestigious and unusual gifts he attempts to give you, this has got to be the best one yet. Best, because you actually wanted it. Not that that Birkin Bag was easy to donate— that was a struggle.

“Uh— I saw you were looking for this shit everywhere on your spam.” You furrow your eyebrows.

“Why the hell are you on my spam page?!”

“So I had drove damn there 2 fucking hours to get this shit.” He says, ignoring the previous question.

You love it. You want to snatch the book out of his long slender fingers, throw your bonnet on and start reading immediately. But—

“I can’t take that Yoongi.” The sentence isn’t something that he hasn’t heard before. You tell him every single time he comes up to your apartment trying to hand you something he bought for you. You never take shit from him and if you do, it gets donated almost immediately.

He scoffs. Honestly looking a little pissed off— fed up to be exact. “What do you mean you can’t take it? Didn’t you hear me, _______?” He stands up, book still in hand. “I drove 2 hours for a fucking book!” He exclaims.

It’s not like you’re meaning to be a bitch. You’d just rather not take anything that was bought with drug money. Even the book you’ve been dying to read for months.

“Listen Yoongi—”

“Agust D.” He corrects.

“I’m not calling you that shit!” A smile cracks onto his face. Just a small one. Because, as mentioned before, he loves that shit. But he’s still fed up.

“I can’t take that. It’ll be donated just like the other gifts you attempt to bribe me with.” You say and he sets the book on the bed, stepping closer to you. “I’m not bribing you _______. I just wanna spoil you, just let me do that.”

“No! I don’t want anything you or my brother buy with your fucking D-Town money. You can keep all of that shit!” You roar while waving your arms around. He sighs, running his fingers through his long black hair, letting it fall back in place. “Money is money, _______.”

“I’m not doing this with you, Yoongi.” Arguing with him back and forth is like arguing with a wall. You two could go on and on about the lifestyle he and Trey are choosing to live.

Yoongi walks up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. You don’t pull away. Despite how stubborn you are, you’d never deny Yoongi’s touch whenever you feel him. It’s instant stress relief.

“I’m trying, _______.” He calmly says in your ear. The disembodied voice— so husky yet smooth. It sends shivers down your back and all of the hair on your arms stand tall.

“Try harder then.”

“Why are you like this?” You scrunch your face up. “Like what?!” You can feel him shrug his shoulders behind you.

“Like… stubborn and petty.” Offended, you scoff.

“Stubborn and petty like your mama?” It was a quick little insult— a joke! Everyone says it. Plus, you had to think of a come back quick or else you know Yoongi would’ve known that you knew what he said was partially accurate. But when you feel the tight hold Yoongi had around your waist loosen… you knew you fucked up.

“You know my moms’ is dead.” You immediately twist your body around to face him, your towel nearly unraveling. You quickly catch it. “Omg, I did not mean it like that, for real. I was just saying shit!” You ramble on and on about how you don’t think before speaking and how sorry you are.

Then he laughs. Like actually laugh. Not a corny little smirk or the low chuckle he does when he’s around his boys— not even a light smile. He gave you his infamous, gummy smile, shoulder bouncing laugh. He even threw his head back for a second.

You really couldn’t help but smile. You missed that laugh. Having been reunited with it after so long makes you forget everything said and done. Because that’s the Yoongi you know, the Yoongi you grew up with, the Yoongi you loved. You smile at the taller man still looking at you with that cute gummy smile even after the laughter died down.

“Stop apologizing _______, I was just fucking with you.” You scoff but the smile never fades, even when you playfully punch his shoulder. “That’s not funny!” He nods his head in agreement as if he wasn’t just literally laughing his ass off.

“It was just funny seeing you speak like that. First time in mad long you didn’t have that stick that you love so much up your ass.” Looking up at him, you can’t even be mad at what he just said. Not when all the old feelings were suddenly rushing back in. The ones you fought off years ago.

“Yeah,” you switch your focus onto the ground. “It was nice seeing you laugh like that.” His fingers lightly grip your chin to lift your head back up to look him in the eyes. Your heart is doing backflips but in your head there are a million different alarms going off, screaming ‘abort!’.

“You always make me laugh. Whether I’m laughing around you or at home in my bed, laughing about something that you said. You make me…” He trails off making you furrow your eyebrows a bit.

“Make you what?” He sighs, scratching the back of his head, looking out of the window. You shove his shoulder to get his attention again. “Make you what?!” He looks down at his shoes as if the answer was written on them. They weren’t. You checked.

“You make me… hmmph.” He mumbles and you slap your hands on your naked thighs in frustration. You grip his face in your whole hand to get him to stop looking around the room helplessly, like a mother trying to force feed their child.

“What!” You scream.

“Happy!” He reciprocates the volume, eyes going wide when he finally lets the shit flow free. Your hand slowly drops from his face. “Damn— satisfied?” He sassily asks, rolling his eyes. Too in shock to even say anything, you just stand there with your eyebrows high, looking like a dumbass.

“_______,” he starts, earning you attention. So many thoughts sprint through your mind as you stare up into his sharp brown eyes. It’s really hard to believe that after everything, he still found happiness in you. You can’t recall the last time you felt happy in Yoongi’s presence. The man that you once loved. You and Yoongi never dated, never slept together, never really announced any feelings for each other either. The relationship the two of you had was unspoken. You knew the love was there— he did too, and that was enough.

“I need you to know, that I want you.” He says seriously. Your heart drops at the words. No.

No, not now. Why now?

“I want us, _______.” You could melt underneath his gaze. You feel yourself slowly folding. Ready to submit and give into him— give into your heart that’s been begging to be his for 7 years now. “Tell me you want this too.”

Yes, tell him you want this. Want all of him. Because you do… but you can’t. It’s not the same. This is not the same as it was 7 years ago. Yoongi isn’t the same. You can’t do it.

“I can’t— I don’t… want this.” You try to stand strong but you’re weak. Yoongi always did that to you. “You don’t or you can’t— which one is it?” He says, already knowing the answer. He needs to hear it from you though. You sigh, closing your eyes. “Yoongi—”

“No _______ tell me right now why you can’t just let us be happy?” Yoongi’s frustration is valid. But so is yours. You try to walk away from him, to get away, like those alarms that kept going off in your head a few minutes ago told you to do. But Yoongi isn’t having it. He already laid his heart out there, he just wanted you to take it— for it to be yours. So he grabs your arm. “Don’t walk away from me.” You yank your arm back immediately.

“I fucking can’t Yoongi! You want me to stand here, laugh, ‘kee-kee’ in your face. Tell you I want you and that I want this just for you to go back to the streets the next second someone calls you.” You’re out of breath from all of the screaming, no doubt the neighbors were gonna report. But you aren’t done.

“D-Town tells you to jump, you ask how high. I ask you to get your life together, to get off of the streets and I’m left with the same answer. I’m not gonna be one of those bitches that hold you down when you decide to get into some dumb shit and I’m damn sure not gonna be the person people have to get in touch with because their fucking boyfriend died doing some fuck shit.” The undertone of your face is red and your hands are shaking. “It’s bad enough my brother is in to deep. I’m not trying to have to worry about someone else.”

Yoongi’s tongue pokes the inside of his cheek as he takes in everything you said. You’ve never been this vulnerable. With anyone. You’ve never said any of this to anyone but you don’t want to keep having the same interactions over and over with him.

“I understand.” Is all he says. And it’s all he has to say. You know he’s not gonna quit the streets until the streets quit him. After all, that’s how it works. But he really did understand and if that’s how you feel he won’t push it.

“Can I just lay with you?” Before you can even protest he raises his hands to clarify. “Just for tonight. Can you please… just do this for me? Let me lay with you.” You sigh, over analyzing the possibility. In the end you conclude it was fine. So you grab your pajamas and change in the bathroom. When you come back in, Yoongi is already laying in the bed. Shirtless and wearing nothing else but the pair of basketball shorts he had in his bag. The book resting on your nightstand.

Your pajamas includes a sage green tank top and a beige pair of cotton shorts. You lie next to him in your bed after cutting the lights off. His body instantly cuddles into yours.

“Yoongi,” you call out. “Your head is on my boobs.” He chuckles into the pair before raising his head to look at you. “You used to always let me lay on your boobs. They’re comfortable.” He says with a faint pout, poking your plushy boobs with his finger, making you flinch.

“Yoo— will you stop poking me!” You say frustratedly. “It tickles.” Yoongi perks up at that. “It tickles, huh?” He sings, continuing to poke you. His fingers pokes at your chest, your sides, your neck. You try to fight him off but your laughter is making you weak. “Stu— stop!” You cry out and he just giggles at your plea. It’s really over once he hovers his body over yours, locking yours in place underneath him.

Your face hurts from laughing so hard, can’t even manage to fight it anymore. The poking eventually stops but the soft giggles and toothy smile on your face doesn’t falter. Yoongi’s eyes sparkle as they bore into yours. He carefully places his hand on your cheek, thumb caressing your lifted cheekbone.

“You’re so pretty, _______.” He observes your features from above and his heart pounds against his chest. The pace aligned with yours. “Sometimes,” he nuzzles his head into the crook of your neck. “I forget just how pretty you are. So I come to bother you— just to see you. But when I have you this close… you make me want to leave everything else behind just so I can be with you.”

That’s all you really wanted. For Yoongi to leave all the bullshit alone. Maybe then you two could work.

But you know that all of this is just pillow talk. Yoongi would never do that. Not for you. Not for anyone. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Yoongi.” You speak mellowly. He lifts his head out of your neck to look at you again. “I can’t tell you how I feel now?” You roll your eyes. “You can but don’t sit here and lead me on to believing in a lie.”

He doesn’t respond. You feel his lips on your cheek. Eyes widening, you look at him in confusion. “What are you—”

“I’m not lying to you, _______.” He kisses your forehead. “Even with everything that happened, no matter what you say to me— I never told you a lie and I don’t plan to.” He leans in to give you another kiss but pauses. His face just an inch away. Your breath hitches at the close proximity, growing nervous when his eyes focus on your lips.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispers softly against your lips. Your mind isn’t working. There’s no alarms blaring, no weird gut feeling, just you. Underneath him. Without much thought, you mutter a breathy “yes.”

He leans in, his lips molding perfectly with yours. It’s soft and passionate and you’re worried that you just might have a heart attack the way your heart is pacing. Your fingers travel their way through his long strands of hair as you happily taste the minty flavor of his mouth— covering up the taste of cigarettes. When he pulls away to catch his breath, you immediately pull him back down. Now that you got a taste of him, you don’t want to let it go.

The kiss starts getting heated when Yoongi rolls off of you and pulls you on top of him. His hands roam the surface of your back, letting them slip under your tank top. You bite on his bottom lip once you pull away, letting your soft brown hands travel up his abdomen to his solid chest. Your back arches as you leave open mouth kisses against his chest. He takes the opportunity to cup your ass into his hands, occasionally squeezing the fleshy rump.

You slightly shift your hips up against him to lift up. “Fuck,” Yoongi lets out a shaky breath. “Don’t move like that.” You furrow your brows in confusion but you quickly understand when you feel something poking your thigh. In shock, you shift again. A low groan leaves Yoongi’s mouth and he places his hands on both sides of your waist.

You watch as his eyes squeeze shut, the action and the sound he let slip gave you that tingling feeling in your stomach, that familiar sensation fluttering in between your legs. You do it again. Wanting to hear that sound from him again.

“Seriously, you don’t want this to go further than it already has.” True. You don’t, but you’re a little too lust filled to think straight. And the fact that Yoongi is hard as a rock underneath you has you wet. Grinding your clothed sex onto his bulge.

“Yo, I—”

“Shut up.” You say, placing your hands on his chest to support yourself as you grind against him. The lewd sounds that escape from both of your mouths flood the room. Yoongi’s basketball shorts get bunched up in the process, the repeated action dragging the band down, exposing his boxer briefs underneath.

You lift your hips up to pull the shorts down but Yoongi stops you. He sends you a warning look that reads, ‘don’t do this.’

Regardless, you enthusiastically yank them and his boxer briefs down his thighs, letting his dick stand tall against his lower stomach. “_______, you’re confusing me.” He says while you’re busy scrapping to get the clothing from around his ankles, satisfied when they hit the floor. You turn around, looking down at him once again.

“You’re confused? Hm, I thought you were hard.” Speaking sarcastically, you turn your focus onto Yoongi’s member. You grip his length in your hand, brushing your thumb over his sensitive tip making Yoongi twitch.

“A little bit of both honestly. I mean, mostly hard but— woah woah woah, stop!” Yoongi panics once you put your mouth on his dick. He immediately sits up, his back resting against the head board. “I’m not doing this with you.” He says, to which one of your eyebrows flick up.

“Why not?” You scoff. “You don’t seem to have any problem fucking all these other bitches.” Yoongi lets out an unamused laugh, wiping his hands over his face. “You’re not other bitches. You don’t throw yourself on my dick.”

“I just did!” Technically, you did.

Yoongi scoffs, mumbling something under his breath. “It’s not the same thing. You’re invested in this _______ and you know it.” You turn your head away from him, not wanting to hear the truth. “I don’t need you to have another reason to hate me.” Rolling your eyes—

“I don’t hate you.”

“You’re just saying that.” You shake your head, scooting closer to him. “I’m not. I don’t hate you, Yoongi.” You repeat, your fingers go to his hair and you focus on the way his dark hair fall on your skin before looking at him again. “And right now… I’m horny, so.” You sit in front of him, anticipating his response.

“Okay.” He shrugs.

“Okay, what?” He grabs your waist gently, pulling you closer to him. Your lips lock onto his again and this time, the pace quickens. Yoongi’s hands reach for your tank top to pull it over your chest, you lift your arms as he pulls it off, slinging it across the room. Like clockwork, you drag your shorts down as well, tossing them in the corner without a care in the world.

Yoongi’s hands roam all over your body. Taking in the feel of your body being close to his. He retracts from the kiss to drool over your body. His pale hands over your brown skin, the only source of light coming from the window. “What do you want me to do, _______?” He asks, palming your breast in both hands. You bite your lip as you look down at him touching you.

“Can I ride you?” You ask in a whisper and you could’ve swore you felt Yoongi’s dick twitch on your thigh right after the words fell off your tongue. He felt like doing a backflip. An ability he doesn’t have but that’s how you make him feel. It’s just like you to want to ride him— it being your first time even having sex with each other.

“Fuck yes.” You let out a giggle at Yoongi’s expression before leaning over to open the top drawer of your nightstand. His eyes travel with your every movement. “What are you doing?”

“Grabbing a condom.” You popped out. He purses his lips at that. “Guess I’m not the only one you’ve been wrestling in the sheets with.” Looking back at the man with the condom in your hand, the jealous look on his face makes you want to run over to your phone to take a picture. Instead you laugh.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” You say, ripping open the packet. “I bought them because they’re a necessity. I’m not fucking anyone— but i’m glad I did buy them.” Yoongi raises an eyebrow in curiosity. “I’d rather not have the neighborhood’s dick in me raw.”

It’s almost comedic the way his jaw drop. “Neighborhood’s dick is cuh-razy!” Slipping the condom on his length, you let out a giggle. Once you’ve got it on all the way you grip his shoulders, lifting your cunt over it. “It’s okay,” you jokingly reassure. “I’ll make sure to give you a good rating.”

“Oh, you got jokes— oh shit.” His demeanor changes once you rub his tip against your wet slit. “Are you—,” He reaches out to drag a finger through your folds. “You’re mad wet.” He states the obvious and when he pulls his finger away, your arousal drags with it. Without a second thought, he lifts his finger to his mouth, sucking on it to taste you. A low moan leaves his mouth. His eyes never leaving yours.

“You ready or did you change your mind?” You shake your head slowly, feeling more aroused than ever. “I’m ready.”

Once again, you maneuver his length through your folds before aligning it at your entrance. You take a deep breath and Yoongi’s hands rub your back. You slowly lower yourself down his length, feeling the pressure of him stretching you out. Your mouth falls agape when his full length is inside of your cunt.

After a few more rounds you get used to it. Yoongi stares at the action of your pussy swallowing his length. Your pussy is so tight around him, he’s afraid he might cum too fast.

He curse in your ear as you begin to ride him faster. “Fuck— you’ve been holding back on me for all these years.” Yoongi moves his hips, helping thrust into you. Your tits jump along with you as you bounce on his cock. So deep, the sound of his balls slapping against your ass echoes throughout the quiet apartment.

“Ah, Yoongi!” You moan out and Yoongi feels himself growing light headed. “You’re making me go crazy, _______.” He slams into your pussy faster— harder. At this point you weren’t even moving. Yoongi was the one in control of your body.

Especially when he moves you off of him, switching positions to take full control. You lie on your back, abandoned pussy and all. “Yoongi, put it back in.” You beg.

He shushes you before bending down, face in between your legs. His mouth attacks your wet cunt. He flatten his tongue to fully taste your sex. Licking and sucking all of you. His mouth sucks on your clit making you scream out in pleasure while his three fingers abuse your hole. “Yoongi, fuck that feels so good.” He slightly smirks up at you.

“Tell me whose pussy this is.” He says lowly. You could’ve came right then and there just from how sexy he said it. All dominant and territorial. The way he looks— his long dark hair sticking to his face and neck.

“Yuh— oh my god!” You moan out as your legs begin to shake at the overwhelming stimulation of his mouth and fingers.

“Tell me.” He demanded a bit louder.

“Yours Yoongi! It all yours, mm.” His fingers moves faster and you grip the sheets for moral support. “F- Fuck me Yoongi. I want your dick inside me.” It doesn’t take long before he obeys. He lifts up, just before you could orgasm and slides his hard dick inside of you. With Yoongi in control now, the pace is much faster. He lifts one of your legs up, putting it over his shoulder for better access.

Going deeper inside of you, hitting all of the right spots. You pull him down towards your body, your nails digging into his back, creating little crescent moon shaped marks. Chest to chest, Yoongi penetrates your pussy as the two of you share a feverish kiss.

“I’m gonna cum, Yoongi.” You say against his lips, out of breath. He rapidly nods his head. “Cum, mm.” His thrusts slow down, instead he makes sure to go deeper, hitting your spot repeatedly, making your legs shake around him. “Cum for me, _______.”

A few thrusts later and you cream on his dick. He pulls out, slips off the condom and starts stroking his dick. You place your hands over his, moving your mouth towards his tip. When the long drags of warm semen pour out you catch every drop of it. Mouth wide open, tongue out— you swallow his cum. Licking the tip afterwards for good measure.

Yoongi’s heavy breathing fills the room as he collapses on the bed. You get up to throw the used condom out and to collect your pajamas off the floor, walking with a bit of a limp. You toss Yoongi his basketball shorts before cleaning yourself up in the bathroom and changing.

When you come back, you find Yoongi already in his basketball shorts lying on the bed still. “Not gonna dip?” You ask, trying to sound nonchalant. You don’t want him to go but you don’t need him to know that. You were just awfully vulnerable and something similar to regret is already creeping up on you.

“Naw, why would I?” You shrug before laying in bed next to him. Not even being able to position yourself, he makes sure he cuddles into you, your face close as hell to his. “So how was the neighborhood’s dick?” He jokingly asks, laughing after. You lightly punch his chest.

“I’m not finna play with you Yoongi.” Yoongi serves you a feigned pout. “Awe, you regretting it already?” You don’t say anything because you really don’t know if you are. You don’t regret the sex because— fuck that was amazing. Best dick you ever had and you really will give him a good rating. However, the things that were said could’ve stayed unsaid. You shared too much vulnerability and that’s not something you’re comfortable with. The last thing you need is Yoongi to throw any of that shit back up in your face.

“I don’t regret it.” You conclude. His arms wrap around your waist tighter, grabbing one of your legs to wrap it around him. “But it won’t happen again. This was a one time thing.”

“But you swallowed my cum.” He pouts again and for some reason you don’t think it’s feigned this time. So you lightly smack his lips. Too much of a distraction.

“Because I didn’t want to get my covers dirty, you freak.” He dramatically raises his eyebrows. “So now I’m back to being a freak.” You sigh because it seems like he’s purposely not paying attention to what you’re actually trying to say.

“Yoongi.” You say seriously making him nod his head. “Okay, I got it. it was a one time thing.” Despite his display of understanding, you can’t help but hear the underlying disappointment in his voice.

You lay in his arms for hours. Neither of you fall asleep, replaying the previous events in your head. You debate with yourself whether or not you’re being in denial, too petty, stubborn, unreasonable. Whether or not you should give Yoongi a chance. Because right now you feel safe. Right now, everything is okay while your head rests against his beating chest. Right now…

“AGUST D GET YO’ ASS DOWN HERE NIGGA!”

You jump. You and Yoongi both lift up— your face of shock is a bit different from his. He knows what it is and you think you do too. That’s why you’re shook as fuck. The shouting and calling through the window doesn’t stop. And when Yoongi arms unravels from your waist, your heart sinks.

“What is that?” You ask.

And when that same, familiar, sorry ass, corny ass smirk that you hate so damn badly form onto Yoongi’s face… you knew.

“That’s D-TOWN BABY.”

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[angelmichelangelo]

wanted to talk about my favourite scene in my favourite episode because i have a lot of feelings about it so here we go.

so it’s this particular scene in ‘of rats and men’ - anything to do with the rat king and i am there. he’s a really cool villain and i think the added bonus of him using solinher to fight the boys is really interesting but there’s this ONE scene that is always in my head when i rewatch it.

so after we see mikey hide away ice cream kitty we get a little comedic scene with him and his brothers + april and casey until splinter comes in, having just had the rat king invade his mind, he’s clearly unwell and weak, he goes to the freezer for some ice and a cheese sickle to which mikey tells him no and straight up slams the door in his fathers face to keep him from seeing the mutated cat in there.

to which splinter doesn’t take kindly towards.

remember, at this point, it’s not obvious to them that splinter is basically being possesed. he towers over mikey (ik he’s crouching here but the shot is really well done, pulling back to really emphasis how much he towers over these kids) and mikey just looks up in fear. again, splinter’s eyes don’t turn red straight away, he doesn’t show any obvious signs of change so to mikey, he’s suddenly aware of the fact that he’s pissed his dad off big time.

then, splinter strikes him, sending him across the kitchen.

we don’t see it, just a flash of red but it then immediately cuts towards the brothers reactions which again, i find interesting

it’s total shock. usually when one of them is hurt or down, we get angry reactions, something protective. but here they’re not mad. they’re just in utter disbelief that their father has just struck one of their own.

and i know splinters done this many times in the past but that all happens during training. it never occurs just because mikey is being odd. casey (and i know he was still grappling with his fear of rats here) actually recoils at this.

then we get a chase scene. again a little comedic just to lighten the tension but splinter is honing in on mikey. he wants to get to him, ignoring the other five teenagers who are in the room with them.

then we get these shots (the main reason i wanted to talk about this scene)

mikey is pushed against the fridge, exactly where he started. and you obviously can’t tell from screenshots alone but mikey is actually trembling with fear here. he’s hyperventilating and it’s not because he’s out of breath. he’s a trained ninja. he can go far longer than the little lap around the kitchen he’s just done. he’s positively terrified, and it’s not like the kind of fear in “invasion of the squirrelanoids” where he was making quips and making jokes to un-scare himself. this is a new fear because this is his father that is attacking him. he doesn’t even say anything during this moment. he just whimpers. he just trembles in fear until leo calls out to the others to “help him!”

then after splinter is pinned down, the rat king breaks through and we get reaction shots from the rest of the characters as they realise what has happened to their sensei.

i think it’s really sweet that april immediately goes to mikey, putting a protective arm over him. his eyes have shrunk to pinpricks (a neat little trick i really love that they show throughout and show when they’re scared or shocked) mikey doesn’t move or try to get back up, staying down with april it’s a nice moment (also we needed more of this duo! orange coded, blue eyed freckled friends for the win!!)

another little detail i found interesting was that after splinter seemingly goes back to normal everyone rushes to his side. april stands from where she’s crouched down with mikey and leo, raph and donnie are there to help him.

but mikey doesn’t get back up. he stays on the floor, perhaps coming out of his shock. he makes no attempt to reach his dad which.. breaks my heart little actually.

and as much as i love this episode, i really do wish it had some mikey + splinter pay off. we hardly see any moments of them together, especially since each brother gets their share of dad moments where he passes down some sort of wisdom, mikey gets a very brief “love yourself you don’t need to change” lesson in “mikey gets shellacne” and that’s it. we really were robbed of more of these two as father and youngest son. and ik all of them get attacked and scared by possessed splinter at some point but it clearly really affected ooor mikey here after being targeted in this one scene.

anywho. that’s my rant over. if anyone has any additions to this post feel free to add them as i’d be interested to see if anyone else is as crazy about this scene as i am lol

[nattikay]

Jake is a Good Dad and I will Die On That Hill

Howdy Avatar fandom. Over the past six months or so I’ve seen a lot of criticism directed toward Jake Sully as a father, ranging from him simply being a little too strict at best, to outright neglectful and even abusive at worst. This, my friends, is some grade-A nonsense, and today we’re gonna talk about why. Strap in, lads, this is gonna be a long one. Let’s roll.

So before we get into breaking down the events of the main storyline, let’s address the idea that Jake was always the super-strict “military dad” throughout the kids’ lives: put simply, bullcrap.

Out of the film’s over-three-hour runtime, we get to see very little of the Sullies’ lives before the RDA’s return—only about six minutes’ worth. If Jake was meant to be this strict militaristic dictator during this time period, especially in a way that would significantly impact the kids’ character development and their relationships with him, this would be the time to show it, or at least hint at it. But instead of any of that, we really get quite the opposite. Jake laughs and plays with the kids:

Jokes around and cuddles:

Teaches Neteyam to fish:

He even says in his narration:

“Happiness is simple…whoever thought that a jarhead like me could’ve cracked the code?”

Guys, this is quite literally the best time of his life. This man absolutely adores his family with every fiber of his being, they are his whole world. Like, look at him! He has stars in his eyes!!

We have zero reason to suspect that Jake was overly harsh or strict in a way that would impede his relationship with his kids during this time. The Sullies appear to be a normal, healthy, close-knit family. 

It’s only when the RDA returns and reignites war that things change. 

I’ve seen some people claim that Jake’s personality changed it the second movie. I disagree—it was not his personality that changed, but rather his priorities. 

A1 Jake was a disabled marine vet who was offered his brother’s contract after said brother was unexpectedly murdered by some thug on the street…and part of the reason he agreed to take that contract was that there really wasn’t much else left for him back on Earth, so why not go? A1 Jake had just about nothing left to lose, and therefore could afford to be more reckless.

A2 Jake, however, is another story altogether. A2 Jake can’t just run around poking and prodding and taking risks like A1 Jake did because now he has a wife and four children who rely on him and who he loves more than anything else in the world. It’s not just himself he has to look out for anymore, it’s them. He now has everything to lose. He says as much himself:

Not to mention that he’s older now. Did you really expect the 37-year-old father of four who’s been leading the clan for 15 years and is suddenly thrust back into a brutal war to behave exactly the same as the 22-year-old fish-out-of-water ex-marine sent to fill in for his scientist brother out of the sheer convenience of sharing a genome? A2 Jake’s behavior is not a sudden 180 from his personality in A1, it’s a natural progression and reaction for his character given the changed circumstances. 

“A father protects. It’s what gives him meaning.”

This is essentially Jake’s thesis for the movie. This is his #1 priority, his purpose, the lens through which all his actions must be viewed in order to understand them, and it’s important to establish it upfront because it sets up everything else.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the train raid sequence as its aftermath. Jake begrudgingly allows his now-teenage sons to participate in the war party—from a distance, as spotters. Neteyam seems content to fill this role, but Lo’ak, against orders, eagerly insists that they “have to get in there”, even goading his brother: 

Tailed by an exasperated Neteyam, Lo’ak grabs a weapon from Tarsem and lets out a half-hearted warcry:

...let’s be honest here, Lo’ak doesn’t really seem to be taking this raid anywhere near as seriously as he should be; he’s treating it more like a game—on which point, y’know what, let’s pause to talk about Lo’ak for a moment.

Because the primary purpose of this post is defending Jake, it may at times appear that I am being overly critical towards Lo’ak. This is not my intention—I love Lo’ak as much as I love the rest of the Sully family (which is a lot lol). I think the things he struggles with are reasonable and valid struggles to have considering his circumstances. However, that does not always mean that he is in the “right”. Jake and Lo’ak’s conflict through the movie is not as simple as “son right dad wrong” or vice-versa; rather, it stems from a generational/age gap in experience and priorities. 

In this case, for example, Lo’ak is treating the raid more like a cool action game than a real battle with real stakes. Which may not be much of a surprise—he’s 14! He’s young, he’s naive, he’s never experienced anything close to real war until the past year or so—he probably genuinely does not fully grasp the stakes of this situation just yet. And why should we expect him to, really? He’s never had to before.

Jake, on the other hand, knows the stakes all too well. This ain’t his first rodeo. He was a solider both on Earth (where he was injured severely enough to become paralyzed from the waist down) and then again on Pandora driving out the RDA in a battle that killed several of his friends and allies, including almost completely wiping out the entire Olangi clan. 

Jake understands the risks of war and doesn’t want his kids anywhere near it. We see this not only in the film where he only allows Neteyam and Lo’ak to participate in the raid “from a distance” and ultimately fleeing his own clan altogether once his kids are directly threatened, but also in the comics in which he consistently turns down Neteyam’s pleadings to participate in the war efforts. Unfortunately for him, his sons do happen to be coming of age at around this time and there’s only so much he can do to keep them out of it, so he tries to let them participate in relatively safe ways, like as spotters.

Lo’ak…doesn’t understand this. Not really. And that leads to him recklessly taking unnecessary risks—be it out of curiosity, to get in on the action, or even simply to prove himself. Which understandably scares the crap out of Jake.

When the raid is over, Jake desperately searches the rubble for his sons. He finds Lo’ak quickly and makes sure he’s alright:

…before taking off to search for Neteyam, who he also promptly checks over for injuries. 

which is something I’d like to point out here: although Jake sometimes gets gruff with his sons, he never leads with that. He always always always makes sure they’re ok first. That’s important. We’ll come back to it throughout the post.

Anyways, it’s only after making sure that Neteyam is ok that Jake’s initial bout of fear subsides and morphs into frustration and anger: what were you thinking?! And it’s a fair question. If the boys had followed orders, they wouldn’t have been at such risk in the first place. Once the party returns to High Camp, Jake addresses this point with them, reminding them that by disobeying direct orders they put themselves in very serious danger, and reiterating to Lo’ak in particular that his recklessness nearly got his brother killed and grounding him.

In other words, Jake’s response to his sons going against his orders was…a lecture and a grounding. That’s…a pretty reasonable parental reaction, actually. Sure, you could nitpick and say his tone was too harsh, but given the situation, I struggle to blame him…

…which leads into the next relevant scene: while Mo’at and Kiri tend to Neteyam’s scratches, Neytiri gently chides Jake for being too hard on the boys, concluding with the infamous line: “This is not a squad. It is a family.”

Now, what I find interesting about this scene is that neither party is really in the wrong here. Jake is doing his best to fill his role as a father by watching out for his kids’ physical safety—even if it means being a little strict. Likewise, Neytiri is filling her role as a mother by looking out for her kids’ emotional well-being. As she should!

That said, I think people who use this line as proof of Jake’s supposed parental failure are forgetting the context. While Neytiri’s line is true in general, when the boys sign up to participate in a war party, they kinda do become a “squad”. In that moment, in that context, they are a squad, they have to behave like one lest someone gets hurt if not killed. 

I also think they forget Jake’s reaction to Neytiri’s line:

Look closely. There are tears in his eyes. This dude was terrified of the possibility that he may have just lost one of his sons in the raid, and all his strictness stems from that. And Neytiri seems to recognize this as well, as she can’t seem to decide how to respond. She probably worries about the same thing, after all, even if she handles it differently. 

On that note, let’s look at the next time Lo’ak disobeys instructions: going to the old shack with Spider, Kiri, and Tuk, where they first encounter the recom unit. 

Something interesting about the aftermath of the recom rescue is that no one gets lectured this time actually. Remember what I said about how, no matter how upset he is, Jake always checks to make sure the kids are ok first and foremost? Sure enough, that’s what he does here:

Not only for his daughters, mind you, but also both his sons (we’ll address the daughter-favoritism claims later):

With the recoms now targeting the Sully family specifically, Jake, feeling out of other options, makes the difficult decision to flee and find refuge among the Metkayina clan. 

whoops, there’s that “protection” theme again

When their request for sanctuary is somewhat reluctantly accepted, Jake calls a family meeting and tells the kids this:

Remember how earlier we established how “a father protects” is essentially Jake’s thesis for this movie? Well, this is an offshoot of that: Jake believes that hiding amongst the Metkayina is currently the best was to keep his family safe; therefore, throughout the Sullies’ time with the clan, Jake’s primary goal is to lay low and get along with the clan so as not to tread on their hospitality and get kicked out (even if and when that means setting aside one’s own pride). This, then, is the lens through which Jake’s actions must be analyzed while his family is staying with the Metkayina.

The first time this becomes relevant is after Neteyam and Lo’ak’s little scrap defending Kiri from Aonung and his posse. Jake is clearly not thrilled about Kiri being bullied, but again, his top priority is keeping his family safe and right now this entails maintaining a good standing with the chief, which in turns means that his sons getting into brawls with Tonowari’s son is a very bad look. Which is why, after a moment of internal conflict, he asks Lo’ak to apologize to Aonung (he even tries to explain when Lo’ak protests:)

On that note, while remaining on good terms with the clan has to take precedence at this moment, Jake is clearly quietly proud of his boys for kicking butt, as we see from his exchange with Neteyam (though yes, it is unfortunate that Lo’ak didn’t get to see this bit).

…which brings us to one of the bigger moments that people point to when accusing Jake of being a bad father: the “you bring shame to this family” line. Now, I can understand why this line doesn’t sit right with viewers initially, especially since we have just seen firsthand the truth about what Lo’ak experienced over the past few hours. However, when you consider what’s going on from Jake’s perspective, the line is not quite as unreasonable as it first seems.

Let’s back up a bit to when Lo’ak first returns to the village after meeting Payakan. At first Jake is just relieved that his son is ok (remember: he always checks first)

In fact, once it’s clear that Lo’ak is ok, it seems Jake just wanted to let it go and head home…the real conflict didn’t begin until after Lo’ak lied to take the blame for Aonung.

Up until this moment, Jake only knew Aonung’s side of the story, that he’d taken Lo’ak outside the reef and he got stranded there (it’s unclear whether Aonung specifies that he abandoned him out there on purpose, the little punk, but I digress). But when Tonowari (rightfully) declares Aonung’s responsibility for the incident, Lo’ak speaks up to take the fall, claiming that the whole ordeal was all his idea, which Aonung had tried to talk him out of.

Lo’ak does not have a reputation for lying…but he does have a reputation for pulling reckless stunts that put himself and others in danger, so for better or for worse, Jake has literally zero reason not to believe this claim. 

In other words, for Jake, the situation has just gone from “my son got taken advantage of by the local bullies and put into a precarious situation but he’s home safe now” to “my son dragged a bunch of other kids to a dangerous location where he knows he’s not supposed to go despite the chef’s son trying to talk him out of it, endangering both his life and theirs, getting lost in the process, and thereby worrying and inconveniencing the entire clan on whose hospitality we rely by making them go out of their way to arrange a whole search party in the dead of night just to find him.”

…yeah, no wonder he was flippin’ ticked. No wonder he “didn’t want to hear it” when Lo’ak tries to explain that he was “only trying to make friends”. We as the audience know that’s true, of course, but as far as Jake knows in that moment, based on what Lo’ak himself claimed just moments ago, he was trying to “make friends” by…dragging them out to a dangerous location despite their protests thus jeopardizing both his and their lives as well as his family’s standing in the clan who can kick them out at any time. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to “hear it” either.

When you look at it from that perspective, “you brought shame to this family” doesn’t really seem quite as extreme, does it?

And yes, I feel for Lo’ak here, really, I do; he’s just been through a lot and yes based on the actual events that just occurred his father’s anger is the last thing the poor kid needs and I totally get why it would upset him…but at the same time, I can’t help feeling that he kinda brought this particular lecture on himself by voluntarily taking the blame for Aonung. Not really sure what he was expecting: that Jake would somehow read his mind and understand the way things actually went? That he would see through his lie and praise him for being so amiable towards Aonung by taking the fall perhaps similar to how Neteyam so often claims the blame for Lo’ak’s own reckless shenanigans despite how rude Aonung had been to him thus far? Or perhaps he just blurted out the blame claim as an olive branch of sorts to Aonung (genuinely trying to “make friends” in a way) without really thinking about the consequences of doing so. Who knows. But regardless of how Lo’ak did or didn’t think things would go, I think it’s a little unfair to blame Jake for his reaction. Based on his knowledge of the circumstances, which in turn were based on Lo’ak’s own account given only moments before (remember, Jake had zero reason to suspect he was lying), his reaction is actually pretty understandable.

Speaking of Lo’ak’s adventures with Payakan, the next time we see him clash with his father is when Tonowari lectures him for bonding with the outcast, and Lo’ak defends his new friend. Remember: Jake’s top priority is keeping his family safe which currently means not getting kicked out of the Metkayina. Lo’ak, regardless of whether or not he was in the right, was clearly upsetting Ronal and Tonowari in this exchange—Neytiri is actually the first to step in and warn her son:

…and when Lo’ak persists anyways, Jake has to step in in hopes of smoothing things over with the chief. 

It sucks that this upset Lo’ak, especially because we the audience know that Lo’ak is right about Payakan, but again, Jake is currently more concerned with not getting kicked out of the clan than with his son winning an argument about the validity of a tulkun’s outcast status.

.

...aaaand here comes the hardest part of this essay to write. Admittedly I wasn’t aware of this argument until recently, but now that I know it’s out there I feel obligated to address it here. Apparently some folks are out there claim that Jake did not display a sufficient amount of emotion at Neteyam’s death, and this somehow proves that he wasn’t as attached to his sons as he should have been. And all I have to say to that is: did we watch the same movie?? 

That man broke upon his son’s death. Did he wail and cry like Neytiri, no, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t heartbroken—wailing and crying simply aren’t how his character responds to trauma. He’s a solider, he’s probably trained to delay any external breakdown at least until a given battle is over.

But you can still see it in his face. You can hear it in his voice which breaks and shudders when he realizes that Neteyam is dying and tries to give him a few last words of comfort, wanting so desperately to ease his pain to the best of his abilities. 

...yeah. This man is broken in this moment.

…but his job isn’t over yet. The battle is still raging. He still has three more kids who still need him. As much as he may want to, he cannot take the time to fully grieve in this moment.

…which brings us to the big one, the main line people point to when arguing that Jake is a bad father:

Now, let’s be honest: was this an awful thing to say? Yes, absolutely. Should Jake apologize to Lo’ak for it after the fact, if he hasn’t already? Definitely, one-hundred-percent. I’m not disputing that in the least.

however…

In this moment, Jake has just spent the past however-long locked in a vicious battle, and hardly minutes before watched his firstborn son bleed out in his arms. And now he learns that his daughters—one of whom is a pre-pubescent child with no chance of defending herself—are still caught on the “demon ship” with the recoms, who have just very clearly proven that they have absolutely no qualms with killing these kids. Quaritch taunting in his ear certainly is not helping. 

The only thing Jake could properly focus on in that moment was getting Kiri and Tuk off that boat. Repeat: he wants to get his kids OFF the demon ship, not risk bringing any of them back ON. On top of that, Lo’ak, as established very early on in the film (see: train raid), has a reputation for struggling to follow orders…even when not emotionally devastated by the death of his brother. 

All these things considered, is it really any wonder that Jake did not want Lo’ak coming along on this mission? He’s already lost one son, why in the ever-loving flip flap would he want to risk losing the other by intentionally bringing him back to the danger zone with no guarantee he’ll come out again, especially given his apparent propensity to ignore orders and throw himself into danger? 

Heck, the only reason he lets Spider come is that Spider knows where the girls are and, unlike Lo’ak, Spider doesn’t have that same reckless reputation. Spider, in that moment, appears to be able to compartmentalize the fresh trauma well enough to focus on the task at hand, and can be trusted to do as Jake asks. Lo’ak…can’t. So, Jake wants him to stay behind.

Did he express it horribly? Absolutely. But saying one stupid insensitive thing in a moment of numbness underlaid by grief, pain, and fear does not make him a horrible dad overall, and I think it’s a little unfair to say that it does.

On that note, I do not believe for one moment that Jake genuinely blames Lo’ak for Neteyam’s death. Now, Lo’ak may well view it that way and I’m sure it’ll come into play for his character arc in future movies, which can be a topic for another day, but as for Jake’s perspective, no. I don’t think he truly blames Lo’ak. Even if he couldn’t necessarily process it all right away, I think he knows that Lo’ak is going through as much heartbreak as the rest of the family…especially given that Jake himself has firsthand experience losing a brother. He just said something dumb in a moment of pain.

(On the topic of Lo’ak being unable to follow orders, less than five minutes after Jake, Neytiri, and Spider leave for the ship, Lo’ak…immediately disobeys the order to stay safe on the island and heads back out to the ship anyways. Obviously in the grand scheme of things it’s good that he was there to save Jake from drowning after the scuffle with Quaritch, but still, good gracious son. Way to spectacularly prove your dad’s point.) 

So now we come to the point where Lo’ak saves Jake’s life. After a mutual choke-out with Quaritch, Jake is left to drown until Lo’ak finds him and pulls him to the surface, at which point he gasps for air and chokes out Neteyam’s name. 

This can be interpreted in a few ways. It could be that Jake is so accustomed to Neteyam being the “responsible” one that he irrationally thought it was him coming to the rescue, momentarily forgetting he had died or somehow thinking maybe by some stroke of fate he pulled through after all—this seems to be Lo’ak’s assumption, given that he promptly corrects him.

Now, some may take Jake’s “oh, Lo’ak…” as a show of favoritism, or proof that Jake values his first son above his second. I don’t think this is the case though—I don’t think Jake’s apparent disappointment is about Lo’ak being there so much it’s about Neteyam not being there. In other words, it’s not a personal slight against or disappointment in Lo’ak, but rather a form of still-very-raw grief for Neteyam who, remember, only just died, like, an hour ago.

It could also be that Jake is still so distraught following Neteyam’s death that it’s consuming his thoughts…he was able to shove it down and compartmentalize long enough to fight the recoms and get Tuk and Kiri off the boat, but that compartmentalization broke down while he was literally drowning and it took him a minute to focus and put things back together (which he manages to do a moment later when Lo’ak tries to apologize for his brother’s death):

The most excruciating interpretation I’ve seen is Jake thinking he had drowned and is rejoining Neteyam in the afterlife. ouch. Though that is, of course, just speculation.

Regardless, at this point Jake has just about given up. He’s exhausted, he’s in agony, both physically and emotionally. He’s completely drained. He wants Lo’ak to live but is ready to give up on himself (“I can’t make it. You can.”). It’s only when Lo’ak insists: 

 ...that Jake realizes he still needs to press forward. Because his other kids still need him. His other son still needs him and he’s not willing to give up on him. So he takes a deep breath (literally), puts his trust in Lo’ak, and lets his son lead him through the flooded passageways out of the wreck. When they finally break the surface, we have this lovely moment:

This moment is a resolution to one of Lo’ak’s primary emotional conflicts throughout the movie: living in the shadow of his legendary war hero father and prodigious older brother, finally getting the recognition and affirmation he so craved from that father. Some might argue that in terms of “ideal” parenting that this kind of moment should have come sooner, or that Jake’s recognition of his son should never have been in doubt in the first place, and while there may be some truth to that, I struggle to really blame Jake for it for reasons I just spent the past 4000 words discussing. I think the fact that this moment happened at all shows that despite their clashes and struggles and miscommunications, Jake does and always has cared very deeply about Lo’ak; his lectures and frustrations come not out of malice or some personal distaste, but out of fear for his well-being.

We see Jake comforting Lo’ak again after the family returns to Neteyam’s body on the rocks.

 As I said before, I don’t think for even the briefest moment Jake genuinely blames Lo’ak for Neteyam’s death. I don’t think he would be comforting him like this if he did.

…which, I suppose, brings us to Neteyam’s funeral, and Jake and Neytiri visiting his spirit within Eywa. No parent should ever have to bury their child and good golly gracious this scene ripped my heart out but I digress. I don’t even really have a lot of commentary to add to these scenes…just…just this. It speaks for itself.

look me in the eye and tell me this man “doesn’t care about his sons”. I flipping DARE you.

.

Well, that concludes the debunking of scenes that supposedly make Jake a bad father. But before we go, let’s look just briefly at this scene of him being a good dad with Kiri. I didn’t mention this earlier because while I’ve seen a lot of complaints about Jake’s interactions with Neteyam and especially Lo’ak, few people have qualms with the way Jake treats Kiri and Tuk—in fact, many people claim that he shows favoritism to his daughters, going out of his way “baby” them and treat them more gently and lovingly than his sons. I disagree and hope the above has done a thorough job dispelling that notion: Kiri and Tuk don’t go around throwing themselves headlong into the same kind of danger that Neteyam and Lo’ak do. They aren’t begging to participate in battle, they aren’t disobeying orders that land them in mortal peril. 

In other words: Jake lectures his sons more than his daughters out of necessity, not nepotism. Remember: Jake’s #1 priority is protecting his family, keeping them all safe and alive. That means that when one of his kids pulls a stupid stunt that puts them in danger he feels the need to crack down on that in hopes of preventing it from happening again. Lo’ak is, quite frankly, prone to pulling those kind of stunts, so he gets lectured a lot. Kiri and Tuk do not typically pull such stunts, so they don’t get lectured. It’s as simple as that, really.

Buuuuuut now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk just briefly about Jake comforting Kiri.

Like with the scene of visiting Neteyam’s spirit, I don’t have much commentary to add to this scene—it’s a very sweet scene and it speaks for itself really. Jake is very gentle and doing his best to listen to Kiri, even if he is a little unsure about her claims. He doesn’t criticize or invalidate, he just tries to be there for her. What can I say, that’s a good dad right there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

One last little point before we wrap up for real: the fact that Lo’ak and Neteyam occasionally refer to Jake as “sir”. I was originally planning to address this earlier but it didn’t quite fit in with the flow of the discussion and I consider it such a minor point anyways, I figured I could save it for a side note—but seriously, it baffles me what a big deal people make of this. 

It would be one thing if “sir” was something that Jake strictly enforced, if it was the only thing he allowed the kids to address him as, if one of them called him “Dad” and he barked back, “no! it is sir!” But…literally none of that is the case. He never explicitly asks them to call him “sir”, and they call him “Dad” just as often if not more.

The kids referring to Jake as “sir” in tense moments is a simple show of respect, nothing more. I recall my own dad also wanting to be called “sir” when we were in trouble and it was never really an issue. And I suppose your milage may vary depending on where you live, but growing up in the southern US, “sir” and “ma’am” are just very common basic courtesy in many situations (not just familial). 

Sooooo….yeah, the idea that Neteyam and Lo’ak occasionally calling Jake sir is somehow proof of Jake being too strict or cold or whatever else is really making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s not that deep y’all.

…aaaand I suppose that’s it for this post. 

In conclusion: 

Look guys, Jake does not have to be your favorite character. You don’t even have to like him, or agree with everything that he says or does. He isn’t perfect (which, by the way, literally no one is). But if nothing else, I hope this behemoth of a post has at least helped you understand his character and why he acts and reacts the way that he does.

Jake Sully may not be a shining beacon of parental perfection from a psychological development perspective (and all things considered, expecting him to be such is, quite frankly, a little silly), but good golly gracious he is trying his absolute darnedest in incredibly difficult and precarious circumstances beyond his control i.e. the RDA coming back to quite literally take over. This man’s family means absolutely everything to him and I’m done sitting back and watching y’all slander him just because he didn’t react to x situation the way you think he should have.

thank you and good night

[danieyells]

so @yuri-is-online briefly brought up this theory before but

Zenji says the doll looks just like his little brother.

Zenji and Jiro have the EXACT, DOWN TO THE HEX CODE same hair color and similar eye colors. The doll's is a little different, and the eyes are closer to Jiro's eye color than Zenji's.

There's also the campus chat which the game did not see fit to give me at the turn of the hour damn you where Zenji eagerly wants to help Jiro find something in the infirmary.

So anyway Jiro and Zenji are probably brothers. One of Zenji's voicelines even has him complimenting his own name, which makes me think it's a pseudonym.

Jiro says he was in an extended coma, although we don't know when exactly that was. Zenji says he has a story about "a hapless fool of a man" that he wonders if he'll ever get to tell you. . .I wonder if they're related stories. Maybe Jiro's coma has to do with Zenji's pact.

Jiro also says he saves lives that can be saved, but it's part of his job to decide the order of priority. I wonder if he looked at Zenji dying during the clash and decided he couldn't save him. Or maybe he was going to try and Zenji told him that he knew he wasn't going to make it and Jiro should prioritize someone else. I think that'd sound like Zenji.

. . .Jiro also mentions that it's been a long time since he had a family. If his annoying and fussy older brother died a while ago, I wonder if that's what he meant. . .unless he just doesn't remember Zenji is his brother at all. Also he said noise doesn't bother him when he's reading. . .I wonder if he got used to reading while Zenji played his biwa and sang nearby. And now it feels weird to read in silence.

One of Zenji's voicelines also has him ask you if you're going to Mortkranken. Of course, Zenji is noted to worry over others, so he asks if you're hurt and hopes you'll take care. He says he doesn't mean anything by asking if you're going to Mortkraken. . .and he also doesn't mean anything by asking if you have siblings. . . .

i just. it's a solid and likely theory. i think they're brothers and Jiro just never mentions it, either because he can't remember/doesn't know or it hurts to think about. Maybe it'll come up in the Mortkranken chapter, or whenever we start learning more about The Clash.

[iolypse]

alright! shit went down last night, huh?

I'm gonna run through the events that took place, then break it all down. (this whole thing is 1.4k+— sorry!)

qcellbit, our newest mad theorist, spent some time going around the island asking the members who've been here the longest about their experiences. how they got to the island, if they remember anything from before the island, the dragon, the duck, the messages, the binary code fuckers, cucurucho, the eggs, etc etc.

one particularly interesting bit of info was given to him by qphilza, who explained the existence of the airships and his investigation of a particularly large one. after showing qcellbit some items he looted from said ship, including a netherite pickaxe, enchanted golden apples, and chorus fruit, he talks about how a binary monster chased him all the way back to mainland, trying to kill him the whole time. he mentions that when accidentally right clicking it, a baby certificate popped up just like what happens when you right click the eggs. he then recounts that qfit threw a bomb to kill the entity, which promptly despawned so they couldn't loot its body.

he says that a short amount of time later, the entity appeared again and gave him a book with coordinates on it. said coordinates lead to an odd machine built at qluzu's house.

later on, qcellbit explains all of this to his fellow theory brothers, and with qphil in tow, they go to investigate. it's exactly as qphil said— an odd machine, specifically a few blocks of which are admin placed, and what looks like a screen that could hold code inside? the machine also has an eight on it. maybe tracking the number of eggs?

(the original number, maybe. there are only seven eggs alive right now, ten eggs have existed total. with tallulah and richarlyson as late additions, yeah, that makes eight original eggs.)

qcellbit, qbad, qmaximus, and qfoolish all discuss this. one of them is suddenly given a book with code that translates to say "LEAVE". they debate this for a little while— is it saying to leave the machine, or leave the island? they aren't sure.

I'm not really caught up on qluzu's lore, but apparently there's some alternate version of qluzu called arin, and arin is a machine of some sort. arin may allegedly be part of the machine they look at now?

they then decide that they need to at least see if it would be possible to escape. the portal that the initial trains came through still exists, so they all leave their kids with qphil and go investigate.

qphil, now alone with chayanne, richarlyson, and leonarda, all of which have a single life, sets up a table and decides to ask them about their past. do they remember anything at all from being kidnapped and returned cracked? no. he turns to richarlyson, then— newest egg, the only one left uncracked— and asks about the dragon. was it small like a little lizard, or large, larger than luzu's house? richarlyson specifically says that he thinks— doesn't know, but thinks— that the dragon is very, very large.

it's then that a binary entity with a name translating to "AI" attacks (very briefly, it appears with cucurucho's skin, though I personally believe this to be a simple glitch unrelated to any actual lore, same with the eggs occasionally appearing with normal mc skins), immediately going for chayanne. qphil quickly sends out messages telling the others to come back now, and he and the eggs try their damned best to fight it off. qphil has to pop an enchanted golden apple, and it seems like the eggs' guns aren't really doing anything. the binary entity isn't going down. it flees just before the others return. they never quite reached the portal.

qphil takes chayanne home after this. chayanne tells him that he's missing his gun. did it break? he's not sure. it might've, but it's gone now.

meanwhile, qroier and qbobby are on a boat ride, far from mainland. they make it to shore, and that's when the binary entity— the same one that just attacked qphil and the eggs he was looking after— attacks. it forces them into the water, and bobby drowns while trying to escape it. the entity exclusively attacked bobby the entire time, not once going after qroier. as soon as bobby was confirmed dead, it swam to the surface and flew off.

there's more that happened after this— I haven't watched the full clips, but some include a mob typically only spawned by the binary entities showing up and attacking qbbh while he and tallulah were making a beach house, and cucurucho appearing within the hidden parts of qcellbit's base while he was in the middle of theorizing.

so! onto the actual analysis part of this bullshit.

the binary entities. there's at least six of them, 01101100 "l" (lowercase L) who originally attacked qphil, 101010110101 (has no direct translation, too many numbers) who attacked arin, 1001010 "J" who attacked qcellbit, 100101001 ")" (?????) who attacked leonarda, 01101001 "i" who attacked qmariana, and now 01000001 01001001 "AI" who attacked qphil and qroier separately (not including other binary entities I may have missed).

some of them are very determined to kill the eggs (looking at AI specifically), while others freely attack players (lowercase L), so it's hard to pinpoint if they have a collective motive here.

I've seen some people theorize that they are the interference in the messages players have been receiving— jumbled numbers and letters and morse code hidden within the videos, a voice asking "are you there?". I would have said they're trying to get players to leave the island by making it more dangerous and more unappealing, getting rid of the eggs so they no longer have any reason to stay, but then there's AI, who specifically attacked while the theory brothers were attempting to escape. A distraction, most certainly— I don't buy that this is a mere coincidence.

something I have noticed is that their activity has been more and more frequent the more the theory brothers spread what they've discovered, today revealing to qroier most everything they've been able to decipher, just a few days ago explaining things to qphil and inviting qcellbit to the group.

clearly they don't want people knowing things. they don't want the code deciphered, they don't want the island residents to learn what's happening beneath the surface.

so they're not trying to get them to leave the island, and the code within the video is likely not theirs (it's in a totally different format anyways— morse code and jumbled numbers and letters as opposed to pure binary code). when they received the book telling them to leave, it most likely meant to leave the machine. they're tormenting the eggs to further build emotional attachment and discourage attempts to escape or solve the code.

so whose code is this, if not the binary entities'?

no fucking clue! I do quite doubt it's cucurucho, and it's most certainly not the duck. it may be an outside source knowledgeable to the census bureau's potential crimes, or a possible survivor and escapist from long ago. the island was definitely once inhabited judging by the run down buildings that existed when the first batch of island residents arrived.

one thing I've been thinking about lately is the fact that they had to bring power to the island.

we haven't really seen anything come of that, have we? why would the island need power? there's odd outlets put in the wall, what's their use? why would something need to be linked to the wall?

wasn't the attempt kind of unsuccessful? both groups fucked up the puzzle in the train station, but they were let out anyway?

small little theory of mine is that they somehow drew power from the eggs to bring the brazilians there, cracking them in the process, but I really don't have any proof or anything to back this up. it's just a potential explanation as to why the eggs disappeared and came back cracked on the very same day the brazilians arrived.

I will say that some of the eggs have acted somewhat different since that all happened. while it may just be a response to the trauma they experienced, I feel like chayanne and tallulah have both been wandering a lot more than they used to lately. they always stuck fairly close to their parents, but it seems like they've both been straying a bit.

I'm honestly spitballing at this point, just trying to get a grasp on all this info. at the very least, I'm almost 100% certain the dragon never existed, and something is super fucking wrong with this island!

[wyllsravengard]

mutuals i know you don't know arthur morgan and a lot of you never will but i really need you to know how Moving and Compelling the cowboy game is like im being deranged of course and i do hyperfixate so often but arthur morgan is such a well written character he has such an amazing arc and genuinely it makes me sick thinking about him for more than a single minute. his entire story is based in this inevitable doom and its obvious from the beginning of the game that things are starting to go wrong. you learn about arthur slowly, and at the start - he's exactly the kind of man and protagonist you expect. he's cold and he's uncaring at least seemingly and he's awkward and he's badass and what every man who plays a game like this would want. but then he isn't. you start to play the game and you look at arthurs journal and you get to see him introspect and you get to view the sort of tenderness he sees the entire world with. he is so tender he is so thoughtful he is so considerate of nature and he takes so many things to heart. he has something to say and introspect of everyone he meets. he cares deeply about this world he's in and struggles so much to find a place with in. he admonishes himself and praises characters like charles who seem to be so good naturally. he believes deeply in his own evil and acts on, and he has a code sure - but he never feels good about what he does and it causes him such deep strife. he clings onto the life he has because its all he knows. being an outlaw is all he has ever known of himself, been like that since he was fourteen. just a boy and the two men who adopted him into his gang. he clings so desperately onto this belief that even when things fall apart, all arthur can hope for is that he can save those he cares about. its what he has always wanted deep down. its who he is which is someone who is sensitive and careful and wants deeply to live in a good world and be apart of a good world. the gang falls apart and everything goes to shit and where does that leave arthur? when young men and good men die? the man he admires as his father dies and whats left of them becomes the worst version of himself and so arthur, after all of this time, becomes his own man. at some point, he realizes what matters most to him is his brother and the woman he has a child with. and he realizes that he is simply afraid but what of exactly? of believing that he was good all along. of accepting that he has changed and that he was always good. its all so very complicated and shit starts to go down hill so quickly and just when you think it can't get worse - arthur goes to the doctor. hes sick. its tuberculosis. ailment that he received when he beat a man who couldn't pay his debts and committed a sin so great. arthur is going to die. he's sick. its not a bullet that will kill him but the weakness in his body. the same thing will happen to him in some crazy tragedy. arthur will give his life up for john and he won't regret it. he'll tell the shell of his father figure that he gave up everything for him. he will die alone in the mountains and see a stag bathed in yellow gold. but he will believe in goodness at the end because of a nun in saint denis and the woman mothering his little brothers child. he will believe deeply in the kindness of the world because he chooses to. arthur will die because he is doomed to die. there's nothing he can do except go, and he will never live to know what an impact he had on those around him. every life he's ever touched so profoundly effected by him and he never gets to find out. the man he used to admire so much, charles, buries arthur somewhere where the sun always rises. even in death he haunts the world of the game like a ghost. arthur morgan is dead and you'll hear him every where you go. john inherits his dead brothers journal and his guns and everything else and he learns a side to him he never knew. arthur morgan is dead and the world rippled in his absence like a drop of water pulsing through a lake. and he loved. most of all he loved the people around him. he loved.

[bonefall]

I'm still wading through some brain fog so I'm not writing as much as I want to, currently. But I have just been absently sketching Willowpelt because she's been on my mind

I had initially been working with the "hyena" face in mind, but I've been playing around with the "villainous role" idea for Ferncloud's Parting. I mentioned it to my partner who pointed out that big, strong profiles like that are overused for "vengeful" characters.

Besides, I really love drawing that face shape anyway, so I figured I'd move away from it since it's going to be on a LOT of RiverClan cats in particular (they have longer muzzles than other Clans because they hunt in water).

I'm leaning towards "bat" now... maybe I'll retool it so it's more deer-like. Deer are totally underused as inspiration for harsh characters...

Anyway ready for some WIP material? Plus a recap of Ferncloud's Parting for all who need a refresher

(oh wow it got long. The power of girlies <3)

FERNCLOUD'S PARTING... Refresher!!

Replaces Graystripe's Vow completely, taking place just after the Impostor has been deposed and is imprisoned. Ferncloud is now the main POV, accompanied on her journey by her childhood best friend Cloudtail and the Impostor's surviving lackey, Bumblestripe.

The goal of this SE is to explore Ferncloud's relationship to her younger brother, Ashfur.

(BB canon: Ferncloud and Elderberry are the older kits of Brindleface. Ashkit was a singlet born shortly before his mother's death, raised by Fern, Elder, and their grandmother One-eye. Fireheart botched the Queen's Rights while claiming Cloudkit, but for all intents and purposes was socially his Mi... which he was not good at being. Cloudtail was Ashfur's mentor and Ferncloud's childhood friend.)

Ferncloud is asking herself the question; "What could I have done to prevent this?"

A lot of secondary questions revolve around this... Does this make her responsible for what Ashfur has done? Did she teach him anything that contributed to who he is today? Does that make her responsible?

Cloudtail is in a similar situation, as Ashfur's mentor and someone who only ever wanted to help his friend. Could HE have prevented this? He wants to find out.

Graystripe, oldest cat in ThunderClan, accompanies the little group as far as the mountain... and decides to stay there, with his golden boy, Stormfur.

Bumblestripe had come along with them all, for... a lot of complicated reasons. But the most relevant is that he had been one of the Impostor's most loyal, brutal enforcers. Berrynose was killed in a huge skirmish, and now there's just Bumblestripe left alone to shoulder his sins.

After saying goodbye to his father for what's probably the last time, getting to meet the mythical oldest brother he's been compared to his entire life, and seeing Cloud and Fern looking to visit the Old Forest Territories... Bumblestripe goes with them even further to make sure the old cats stay safe.

Like Graystripe's Vow, I'm planning to keep the split chronology. It goes back and forth between Ferncloud in the Broken Era, and Ferncloud back during the Fire Era.

The ultimate moral here, the point I want to build to, is that Cloudtail and Ferncloud did exactly what was expected of them. They raised a loyal warrior who holds the code above all. They're only responsible for Ashfur insofar as they were responsible for teaching him the same values of vengeance, violence, and distrust of outsiders as was expected... in Firestar's absence.

(Though... there's lots of other questions that I don't think FP will answer. Like, COULD they have truly stopped him? Can they ever understand WHY, if they don't currently? There's a LOT of feelings here and I don't know if all of them really have answers.)

WIP STUFF TIME

Here's new stuff, I've either not mentioned this before, or I've mentioned it in passing without actually linking it to Ferncloud's Parting.

I have a LOT of ideas here that I have to start sorting through. I think these characters are all really interesting so it's really a matter of cutting down all these little details into something more coherent.

When Ashkit is young, he's a child. There was nothing particularly outstanding about him, besides the fact he was a bit lonely and eager to please.

There's a bit of an air of "loss" when Ferncloud thinks back to Ashpaw's childhood. Elderberry and One-eye will be dying soon after the "flashback" segments, so when she goes back to the modern era, thinking about them feels bittersweet.

I also want to sneak in that Ferncloud feels jealous over Cloudtail's mateship with Brightheart lmao, because she has a crush on Brightheart. (Note, maybe tie this to Ashfur being obsessed with Squirrelflight, with Fern questioning if her jealousy rubbed off on Ashfur)

Through helping WarriorClan, Bumblestripe feels REALLY good. They don't know anything about his past, his struggles, or his failures as a person. He's just a hero to them and that feels... good.

Watching Bumblestripe be good, learning more about his issues and WHY he did what he did while following Ashfur brings Cloud and Fern some insight... but not entirely what they need. Is Ashfur just a Bumblestripe on a bigger scale? Or are they just learning more about how good of a manipulator Ashfur is? In which case... where did that ability to manipulate come from?

Fang/Honeysuckle might be Bumblestripe's half-brother. If that's the case, Bumble is... frustrated by it. MORE of his dad's complicated legacy.

Ferncloud and Cloudtail probably have some short discussions about how much is really appropriate to teach to WarriorClan... after all, they're here questioning if any part of Ashfur was THEIR fault, what if they accidentally teach them something terrible?

But at the same time, Ferncloud is the Educator of ThunderClan, and these cats can't write. The Glyph system would be very useful to them, and they're begging to learn more about Clan culture.

Putting a pin in that part, for now. Will tie back more into the conclusion that the Clan cat party ultimately reaches.

BACK IN THE PAST; Firestar is away bringing back SkyClan in Firestar's Quietus. Everything that is done is without him.

Longtail, the deputy, is blinded and a leader does not immediately rise to fill the space in ThunderClan.

And in BloodClan, their trading partner... Scourge does the same. Oops! WRONG TIME, SCOOJ!

Planning to retire, Scourge announces an event called The Frenzy. He will choose the next leader from whoever accomplishes the biggest achievement in the given timeframe. This is how BloodClan passes on leadership.

He gives his chosen heir, Claw, their first Frenzy Achievement-- the fang of a dog from his own collar. Anyone who wishes to take power instead must accomplish a feat even bigger than what had allowed SCOURGE to take power in the first place; Killing a dog.

Fury is a challenger. She does NOT want Scourge's chosen heir, Claw, to lead BloodClan next. Claw will continue the trading and friendliness towards Clan cats, which Fury wants to end.

ENTER WILLOWPELT

Willowpelt ALSO wants this trading with BloodClan to stop. She feels it's gone too far.

BloodClan killed her mate-- Whitestorm. Firestar might have been willing to just throw his life away for this, but she's NOT.

She's recovering from a boar bite, currently, but it's scarring up nicely... and she's willing to pretend she's injured a little longer if it shakes suspicion off her.

She doesn't WANT to be allies with Fury, but if her goal is to bring BloodClan back into isolation... then, Willowpelt will do it.

And Fury promises her something else; Revenge. Scourge is the reason why Whitestorm died, and together, they can ruin his plans and make him watch as his peaceful little power transfer crumbles into ash.

GOOD SETUP IMO but I still need to work out what nefarious deed they'll do, exactly. All I know is that Fury will betray Willowpelt at the height of it. Maybe something about taking over Barley's barn. Maybe Elderberry gets killed.

But, I have one very strong feeling in mind; Ferncloud probably ends up killing Fury while Ashpaw watches or even helps.

Hmm... maybe Graystripe (becomes deputy as soon as Firestar gets back for handling this crisis so well) ordered them to let Fury go.

But Ferncloud looked at Fury, and decided that Willowpelt was right about one thing. Most BloodClan cats cannot be trusted.

The code does not apply equally to outsiders.

Maybe I WILL have Fury end up killing Elderberry in some way, and then give Ferncloud and Ashpaw a conversation about it. "Those who don't live by the code will not be protected by it. And we must protect our Clan... even if Graystripe doesn't realize it."

I could make it clear that Fury is not a threat at that point, having been beaten in some way and Claw ascending to BloodClan leadership. OR I could have left it open-ended, like, maybe Fury would be a future problem, maybe not. Not sure yet.

Willowpelt of course will also need to experience some consequences for this... unleeeess, I have Graystripe let her off really easy exactly because she's Clanborn, which even Cloudtail is frustrated about, maybe even coining the term "Codebreaker" as an insult under his breath.

In any case, Ferncloud never told Cloudtail about how she secretly killed Fury. It's too juicy to have her reveal it to him in the modern day, explaining that it IS her fault, she DID teach him the wrong thing.

Hmm... I'm talking myself into it. Though I did also like the original vibe that Ashfur's tyranny was kind of unknowable, trying to make sense out of a senseless thing he did. I think it feels a lot more interesting for Ferncloud to have been hiding this for literal years, and now feeling like she has to "pay the world back" for what she did.

Maybe even build towards something metal about Fury's grave. Hmm... maybe to hide the murder, she buried her in Elderberry's freshly dug one, since no one would notice the soil had been recently disturbed as it was JUST dug.

Buried my sister and my secret victim in the same grave. ~Just Girlie Things~

Cloudtail sitting here, War Criminal to the right and Secret Murderer to the left like "can i ever be around normal people. like, just once"

Jokes aside... Cloudtail needs to point out something very important. Ferncloud regretted what she did, and she never did what Ashfur is doing. She never sought power, when Firestar came back she's lived a long life without ever once undermining him, and even her beliefs have softened over time.

She was a Traditionalist back then, but is Fire Alone now. After everything. The destruction of the forest, loss of her kits, WindClan rebellion, reveal of Squirrelflight and Leafpool's secret...

She's helped to raise every new generation as the Educator. And yet, Ashfur, the Impostor, is unique.

And look at Bumblestripe... being Graystripe's son didn't stop him from being the Impostor's lackey.

We all make our choices. HE made his. You made your own.

But... I don't feel like Ferncloud can entirely accept that as an answer either. There would be a very forlorn sort of feeling here. Yes, we all make our own choices-- but we influence each other. For better and for worse. And she refuses to avoid responsibility for that.

Maybe in that moment I'll have her make the choice to return home, and BE the one who becomes the Light in the Mist to face Ashfur in the Dark Forest. Seems to be coming together.

[dandylovesturtles]

uh just a little something because I was thinking of something earlier and idk I like quiet moments of intimacy between people

set in the bad future timeline but like nobody's dying or anything, it's just #autismproblems but also it's the apocalypse

cw in depth discussion of food sensitivities? ig?

~~~

Leo knocks on the lab door before giving his code to the voice lock, just to give Donnie a little warning before he comes in. He's holding a small plate, utensils, and two bowls of stew, which don't smell particularly appetizing, but they have to do what they can with limited rations, these days.

Donnie is hunched over his work table, battleshell off which means he's taken April's suggestion/threat to get a few hours of shell time every day to heart. He's wearing his ragged and dirty hoodie, the one he refuses to part with no matter how many holes it gets, because both the color and fabric are "perfect".

He looks over his shoulder as Leo walks in, then sighs and hunches a little further down. He's tense, now.

"That time, huh?"

"Yep." He sets the bowl down on the desk, along with his spoon. "My suggestion is don't ask what's in it."

"I stopped asking after we lost the greenhouse." Donnie keeps his attention on his work. "Leave it there; I'll eat it when I'm done with this."

"Aww, come on." Leo grabs the extra chair and wheels it over, collapsing into it. "You don't want to eat dinner with your favorite twin?"

Donnie raises his goggles so the look he gives in response is more effective. "Did Mikey send you to babysit me?"

"Whaaat? Pfft. No."

Technically it's not a lie - April sent him.

"Uh-huh," says Donnie like he absolutely doesn't buy that. He's still not reaching for the bowl.

"...Dee," says Leo, his voice going softer. He nods at the bowl. "You gotta eat."

They've all noticed how he's been losing weight - and all of them have lost weight, that's not exclusively a Donnie problem, but Donnie's weight loss has been far more apparent. None of them are getting enough to eat, but Donnie isn't eating enough.

And Leo knows why. The food they're eating now isn't exactly a taste or sensory delight even for him, and he's been known to eat just about any garbage put in front of him. He can only imagine how it is for Donnie.

But he has to eat. He can't just stop.

Donnie mumbles something under his breath, but then he swivels his chair away from the table. He motions to a more clean surface across the room. "Let's at least go over there, if you insist on watching me."

"Let's move over there for our casual family dinner," agrees Leo, and he can't help but grin at the eye roll he gets in response.

They move, and Leo passes the plate and fork and knife off to Donnie. Then he stops staring at his brother for a bit and starts eating his own stew; set a good example. The meat in it is not very good - fatty and chewy, with some gristly bits - but it's protein, and Leo will take what he can get.

When he's almost halfway through his bowl, he looks back and sees Donnie has only managed to suck down some of the broth and not a lot else.

"You can't just eat the broth," he says, and Donnie grimaces.

"I know that. I know this is all we have and that if I want to stay functioning I have to eat it." Donnie hisses an annoyed breath through his teeth. "But if logically knowing things solved the problem you wouldn't be in here babysitting me."

"I'm not babysitting you. Think of me like... your eating hypeman." When Donnie raises an eyebrow at him, he grins and pumps his fist. "Go go Tello go!"

"Annoyed huff, you are the worst," Donnie grouses, but the tension in his shoulders loosens up, just a little. He dips the spoon in and ladles out a smaller piece of the meat, screwing up his face when he looks at it. But he puts it in his mouth.

Just eating that little bit seems like it takes a massive amount of work. Donnie chews for a long time, squeezing his eyes shut and fanning one hand like he's trying to cool himself down. Then he swallows, finally, and it looks like it physically pains him.

But he ate it and didn't cough it back out and that's a win in Leo's book.

He bites back any comments like "That wasn't so bad, was it?" because he knows from the look on Donnie's face it was absolutely terrible. Instead he just asks, "Think you can do a few more?"

"No," he says immediately, and Leo sighs.

"Donnie..."

"I'm trying," Donnie snaps, and Leo quiets. "I didn't ask to be like this. Trust me, I know how inconvenient it is."

And Leo hates this, hates that his brother is talking that way, hates the state of the world is such that he has to struggle just to eat, but he has to choose his responses carefully because Donnie hates to be pitied.

"I know, bro - shit sucks," he says, and puts warmth in his voice to tell Donnie this isn't a dismissal; if he wants to complain the whole way about how much he hates this, Leo will gladly listen. "If you wanna beat up some krang hounds about it later, we can do that."

Donnie actually makes a noise that is dangerously close to a laugh. "And do what, make more stew out of them?"

"This isn't krang hound! I think..."

"You really don't know?"

"I was serious about not asking," says Leo, and Donnie's lips actually twitch up.

He fishes another piece of meat out, sets it on the plate and cuts it up into smaller chunks. Leo knows he feels self-conscious, having to do that. He's hardly the only person in the colony that has texture issues, and Leo knows no one is dumb enough to try to pick a fight with Donatello Hamato over his eating habits, but... some things Donnie feels more comfortable doing only in the presence of family.

If hiding in his lab and chopping all his food up into bite-size chunks is what it takes to get his brother to eat, though, Leo will let him do it.

Donnie takes the small chunks one at a time and swallows them whole, without chewing. His mutant biology makes it easier, and he reacts less visibly nauseous this way.

He gets through two more pieces of meat like that, Leo watching him while he eats his own. He wants to tell Donnie he's proud of him, but then Donnie will definitely feel babied and he'll throw Leo out.

So instead, Leo ladles up one of his veggies (at least, he thinks it's a veggie) and pops it in his mouth.

"Slimy, yet satisfying," he says with a smirk.

"Take your hakuna matatas and shove them up your ass," says Donnie without missing a beat.

Leo doubles over laughing, and when he looks back up Donnie is grinning and over half his bowl is gone.

[slime-sandwhich-nom]

Haha..new tawog hcs <3

(also my mom always told me I was exactly like Gumball and I never forgot about it)

- gumball loves horror, horror films, games anything. Darwin does not.

- gumball standard face is :3, the problem is that people can't understand if he's smiling mischievously or if it's his normal face.

- gumball when he was younger liked to snooze in Darwin's bowl.

Darwin had to sleep in the bathtub sometimes for it

- Carrie feels lonely because she can't touch anything, not even Darwin. She feels alone despite being in a room with so many people.

- penny flirts, Gumball gets flustered.

- gumball enjoys saying words in different languages, he likes to say ciao, hola, excusez-moi,Nǐ hǎo and more. It's simple words really, hello, excuse me, or words of objects like pants, paper, anything. He just likes to do that.

- Darwin likes to hum parts of songs, while instead gumball likes to make little noises.

Darwin says that if he hears weird noises around him he knows he's not going crazy it's just gumball.

- gumball speaks alone, he just speaks out loud to himself (got it from his grandma.), Darwin instead likes to write (no matter how bad his handwriting is.) he just keeps a diary no one can read and instead looks like some kind of secret code.

- Richard knows how to cook, he's just too lazy to do so. Sometimes he does cook whenever Nicole can't because she's too tired.

- Nicole suffers of insomnia.

- gumball is he sits still for too long will start rocking slightly unconsciously, he doesn't even notice it when he does it.

- Darwin has abandonment issues, which explains his jealousy whenever gumball and penny hang out.

it surely does annoy gumball because he can't properly enjoy some time alone with his girlfriend, but he gets where Darwin comes from, so he doesn't get mad, but he gets annoyed still.

Gumball makes up for Darwin by hanging out with him the next day.

- Anais is.. lonely. The only time she ever gets someone to hang out with is Polly. Whenever gumball is babysitting her.

But it's still lonely for Anais since it's not that often.

- when people say Gumball is anxious and paranoid, they ain't joking. Gumball is genuinely anxious about anything, talking to people he doesn't know, going in public, coming in late, coming in too early, what if this happens, what if that happens. He just pretends he's all good (he is very much not)

- Darwin always wonders what would happen if they were fictional, who would be he shipped with.

Gumball knows that answer very well. He decides to stay silent for his brother's mental health. (He saw things that he shouldn't have)

- gumball is the kid who says romance is disgusting but then gets all lovely dovely with his girlfriend

- gumball originally wanted the bed on top because he enjoyed watching everyone from up there but Darwin wanted him by his side at night so he just got the bottom one.

- gumball is the one asking "would you still love me if I was a worm" in the relationship.

- Nicole is not a cat person, and it's actually a thing between cats. For example my eldest cat HATES other cats, it took him ages to get used to the new kitten. Oh but he's super friendly and cuddly with new people! He loves anything that isn't a cat. He purrs and cuddles.

So yeah. Nicole doesn't enjoy the presence of other cats around, unless it's a cat she knows, like her parents or his son. (It's a territory thing for cats, btw.)

- Darwin sometime pets gumball with his feet. Gumball lets him until it gets annoying.

- gumball sometimes joins in the gossip between masami and Leslie.

- Penny's dad is tormented by gumball. He's like when a cat goes specifically to the people who don't like cats and ignore everyone else. That's exactly their relationship.

Y'know the whole "I bought a cat despite my dad not wanting it" situation? Yeah. That's gumball and penny's family.

- Anais once ran a business where she sold candy, and she got money instead. Didn't run for long because president brown treated it like some illegal drug situation or something

- gumball when he was younger was that one kid who looks cute and acts innocent around adults but he's a nightmare to the other kids his age. He still is, he's just everyone's problem now.

- once in class they talked about scoliosis or any problem of posture and it took weeks for gumball to convince Darwin that he did not have scoliosis or any of the other things, he's just a cat and cats are built weird. It's normal.

- whenever Gumball coughs he sounds like a dying man who has smoked for 30 years, no one knows why but it scares the shit out of everyone each time.

- gumball thrives in dresses. He's the prettiest girl at the party.

- honestly gumball is just a crazy bastard, in the real sense. Like he's fully unhinged and it's not even funny, penny is dating some kind of maniac who will literally kill people just because he wants to prove a point (and he did already in the show. Multiple times.)

And..she still loves him and she just says "it's part of his charm."

- gumball whenever he has to go to the doctor (or vet, in his case.) has to be tied up and sedated real hard because he just hates hospitals. He just hates any hospital, doctor, vet, anything. He hates being there, it makes him super uncomfortable and he has tried before to escape but ended up doing more damage than anything

Anais Is only scared like a little kid, nothing wrong with that, usually it's Darwin to hold her hands (gumball can't because he's busy not being at the doctor. He doesn't wanna go near anything that relates to a doctor or a hospital.)

Darwin is relatively calm at the doctor's appointment (he cries after because he was real scared but was very brave.)

- the reason why gumball hardly gets sick (and if he does is because he makes himself sick just to skip school.) is because he was basically FED antibiotics when he was a toddler. His mother was just very anxious about gumball and his health.

then there's Anais, getting sick once a week.

- Gumball ironically thought of becoming a doctor once, simply because the subject itself is interesting. buttt he gave it up because he's too lazy to actually study all that crap.

- gumball either doesn't remember any of his dreams, or if he does it feels like something that actually happen (it didn't) or he was high or something.

Darwin remembers them very clearly and enjoys talking about it! They are nonsensical though.

Anais actually has.. somewhat..normal dreams? She dreams about daisy anyway.

- sometimes Leslie asks gumball genuine opinion on boys in terms of dating, since Leslie only knows gumball who (as a guy) likes guys. The rest seem to be straight (therefore will only talk to you about girls, instead of boys) or just aren't interested in dating.

..only because gumball actually has good points and good taste. In both boys and girls. (But Leslie is interested in boys.)

- gumball sometimes says that penny looks like a sunset and that he would prefer seeing her over the actual sunset, she hasn't recovered from it still.

- gumball figured out he was bisex because before he had a crush on penny he actively thought a few guys in his school were cute and he would date them if he had the chance. Probably had a crush on one or two of 'em.

- in the Wattersons house there's this rule of "don't trust gumball if he's either sleep deprived or after 8pm" because he'll start spitting stuff like "your nervous system has no idea your eyes exist so once they find out, you are already blind because the nervous system sees them as a threat." Or "you can get an aneurysm at any time no matter how healthy you are" and it freaks Darwin out to the point he can't sleep.

so they told Darwin, gumball just lies by 8pm and doesn't think straight when sleep deprived. Just so Darwin can sleep.

- penny is a gumball apologist. Yes her boyfriend is a dumbass and yes he did nothing wrong (she absolutely knows gumball is totally in the wrong most of the time but she defends him nonetheless.)

- gumball is normally on his tippy toes, like any cat. So to reach Penny's cheek to kiss her he has to get on a stool, needs her to crouch down or she needs to pick him up.

- penny is going insane with the whole red flag, green flag, situationship, one month rule this one month rule that.. gumball instead has NO idea how to date or what to do but he's doing a better job than any guy in existence.

- Carrie and gumball hang around in hunted houses. For fun. Gumball is the "hey ghosts! It's ya boy!" Type.

- penny enjoys getting all dressed up whenever it's for a date and gumball is Adam Sandler walking around with his clothing style

- usually it's gumball who makes a ponytail for Anais with her ears.

- yeah gumball has a sister, you know he's well educated on periods and all that shit. (His mother got him ready before Anais was born for when she'll need help.)

- gumball is just not innocent. Not in the sense that he's dirty minded, it's that he just knows stuff normal kids his age don't.

He just acts clueless and dumb so people don't expect much from him, he's too lazy to get high expectations. but he's actually smart and more mature mentally than kids his age.

- Darwin HATES vomiting. Vomit. Anything related to that. He's not scared but really REALLY grossed out, can't even think about it he gets nauseous himself.

- Darwin takes ages to type on phone so he always asks gumball who's relatively fast.

- Darwin.. can't spell. Or at least, has difficulties in it. Gumball always messes with him by giving him the wrong spelling. Darwin never realizes.

- gumball has big difficulties in math. and ms. Simian doesn't make it easier for him.

- Darwin info dumps about sea animals. Gumball now know useless facts about sea animals. (Does not complain)

- gumball likes lemons...again something he shouldn't eat but he does anyway.

- the nickname gumball is from the fact that he tends to sleep tucked in like a ball, which looks like a blue gumball. People just started calling him constantly 'gumball' because it's funny when a cat has a stupid name. (Realistic to irl anyway)

- gumball has a problem with texture.

gumball has both problems with texture AND picky on his own, his mother is going insane with it.

- gumball and Nicole are the fastest in the family, gumball is the fastest in his class if we don't count bobert.

while Nicole shows often how fast she is, gumball is too lazy for that. At least for P.E.

Normally he slows down so Darwin can keep up with him.

- gumball enjoyed eating fish but since it made Darwin uncomfortable he stopped altogether.

- sometimes people tell Darwin that his brother doesn't love him, because cats "don't love you", and that most likely if Darwin dies gumball will eat him.

Darwin response is "okay, I'll let him. He's gotta eat if he's hungry."

- yes gumball often ignores everyone like general cats do. He moves his ears towards your direction but god forbid him to stop his session of watching people from the window and stalk them.

- the coach has to literally give gumball an extra prize (food for free for example) to "motivate him" to do any kind of exercise during P.E. otherwise that cat will never feel like doing unnecessary exercise.

(20% of the time it works.)

- having gumball as a student is like having this guy hang around without a care of the fact that you're here.

Darwin instead will follow instructions CONSTANTLY, sometimes too literally though.

- gumball when he was little used to grab birds or small animals and bring the home, he never really "hunted" them, he just wanted them as a friend in the house.

- gumball is just an average cat just with the ability to talk.

So this small little thing with a massive ego. Y'know, kitty cats!

Nicole is more traumatized than anything, she's the opposite of gumball but that's just because of trauma, really. She still hasn't healed fully from it.

- when gumball was younger he used to bring random food to Darwin because he thought his little brother wasn't capable of doing it himself- like when a cat hunts for you and brings you birds or mice. He's just tryna help.

Sometimes he still does.

- gumball tilts his head when he's confused and trying to understand something.

- cats..play with their food.

You know damn well gumball dies that too. Just not with food, he plays around with people. By making shenanigans and chaos around of course, all in good fun! So yeah he's entertaining himself while everyone screams around.

- gumball stress eats

- when gumball, or any of the Watterson kids need comfort, they go to their father. If they need advice and someone to kick ass, they go to their mother.

- gumball would rather adopt than getting Penny's pregnant. He knows what kind of stuff can happen with a pregnancy or giving birth (death, specifically.) and his anxious ass will not put his girlfriend through that.

- gumball is secretly a nerd. He particularly likes biology and psychology.

He hides this fact about him though, being a nerd at a middle school is like asking to be killed on the spot.

- just like for Darwin watching gumball's ears move individually and can do a 180° is freaky, for gumball it's weird looking at Darwin move his little fish tail at will.

- Darwin taught gumball how to swim like gumball taught Darwin how to walk.

- gumball's grandma (Nicole's mom) has definitely cried like once or twice just by looking at gumball. Because that's HER GRANDSON. And he's just so similar to her child, it's like watching both her little girl in front of her again and watching how much she has missed of Nicole's life.

Gumball's grandpa just calls gumball "Nicole."

"hey Nicole!"

"I'm gumball"

"same thing"

- gumball remembers everything. He pretends not to, but he does. Even if sometimes people say something else happened or have no memory of it, he just remembers it.

This means he remembers when rob killed his entire family in front of him, and gumball is still not fucking over it.

right after it he couldn't sleep or just HAD to cling to Darwin because he thought nothing would happen if he did. If gumball can't die because he's the protagonist, then if he clings to Darwin then neither can he.

Took weeks, painful weeks, of gumball recovering from a trauma only he remembers. His own family tried their best to help him while not even knowing what was bothering him.

Gumball doesn't hate rob but in that moment he wanted to kill him so bad, and he tried too (the only time gumball hates that his own show is family friendly and restrained him from hurting seriously rob)

- gumball wears clothes from the girl section because not only does they fit him better but because they are just more fun to pick (the boy section is just copy and paste. It's boring.)

- yes, Darwin's shoes are STILL the same one gumball gave him all those years ago. They are kind of falling apart but he always fixes them or changes them in order for them to fit

- gumball has a group chat but its members are all the characters that exists on cartoon network. Like yeah gumball is friends with uncle grandpa, yes with Clarence, yes with any character you can think of. They are all friends.

- gumball is the one who says "hear me out" to the most disgusting creatures ever existed.

In fact he constantly says hear me out to penny whenever she transforms into something she finds "ugly and disgusting"

he never means it sexually or anything, on one side it's a joke he likes to do to see people's reaction, on the other, he genuinely loves penny despite on how she looks and it makes her feel better whenever he says that, so.

(he literally fell in love with a walking peanut, if her turning into a dragon doesn't bring him to his knees then idk what does)

- gumball was the one kicking his feet whenever penny texted him or paid attention to him. he still does.

- people think gumball is insane, like genuinely he's mad. And he agrees

- honest I like to believe that in gumball's universe every other animal evolved, cats, bunnies, ect but humans did not or if they did, they are rare asf (reason why humans are "weird" in the gumball world) then other things started to appear, probably from radiations or something and that's where the objects started to walk around.

So everything is still modern but built not for humans but for animals/objects walking around

- Tobias and Leslie did date for a short,in secret, didn't work out too well.

Now for headcanons that I do have and did said before but saying them again

- gumball likes to hang out at Penny's just to loaf and sleep on her chest. She plays on his phone instead (Penny's dad is always worried they might be doing something freaky but that's all he sees.)

- gumball is that type of cat who sits weird as fuck. Like no he doesn't sit like a standard cat he SITS CRISS CROSS APPLESAUCE.

- Darwin has HUMAN feet. the rest is fish. Like when you glue two pieces of different toys together

- gumball is a lanky dude, like for cats he's a tall and lanky motherfucker (like his mother, for cats she's super tall just like her mother.) he just wears baggy clothes so he looks tiny (because he's a young kitten)

- gumball says ominous shit for fun

- gumball constantly slow blinks at penny, she thinks he's high or sleep deprived

- when gumball, or any character that has legs like a cat, deer, horse ect. Wears pants they look like "normal legs" (human legs.)

- gumball's tail is usually down, he's not sad or anything, he's neutral, but oh if he sees penny you see that tail raise AND vibrate (for a cat it means he's EXTRA happy to see you and that he missed you as well.)

- gumball is aware that he's in a cartoon, it's all he ever knew so he can't be upset at that if you never saw the world differently.

Ok I'm done Tumblr is starting to lag when I type on this

[kadextra]

q!Forever & q!Bad, comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin

(little meta rp analysis & appreciation)

Comedy and tragedy- complimentary concepts when it comes to the dynamic that is these two characters.

Their lore together is truly like a soap opera to me in the way it operates, entertaining in how goofy it is- I laughed so much during interrodate. They had a whole elaborate musical prank war over a stolen gun (which neither of them even had, they’re just too dedicated to the bit.) The first thing they say to each other after q!Forever returns from the nether is “You look terrible!” 💀 and my guy gifted a bloody chainsaw as the flower of the day to q!Bad in purgatory 1 which was happily accepted.

Even when the characters show attraction for each other, it’s usually through some ridiculous romcom thing. q!Forever is in love with q!Bad dressed as pink barbie and thinks photos of her are the best gift a person could ever receive?? 🤨 q!Bad daydreams about q!Forever as a lobster with blonde hair and a six-pack??? brother be projecting him onto larry the lobster from spongebob squarepants dude what is wrong with them 😭 sometimes I wonder how they’re able to do all these bits in improv and take it seriously, it’s impressive

The characters are not normal, their relationship is not normal, it cannot be viewed normally. the ccs know exactly what they’re doing in creating whatever *gestures* this is, and it’s amazing. over the top, cute, played perfectly for comedy

But the characters aren’t just that, you can’t have them without the inverse 🎭 like a punch to the gut after all the sillies, they really know how to do tragedy well.

I very much look forward to whenever they’re at the top of their angst game, bc they both LOVE to make their cubitos suffer. to an insane degree. My god these two can’t go 3 days with their characters experiencing some peace and joyful whimsy, they *must* rp their ocs actively dying, horribly diseased, going crazy

And they go hard with it. I’m very serious when I say multiple times during the lore I’ve had to get up and walk away to calm down because it was too intense. super special shoutout to the q!Forever first happy pills arc stream & October 1st q!Bad psychotic breakdown stream. I’ve never been so shocked as I was watching those live, the stamina to do highly emotional rp like that is actually nuts. some of the most angsty mfs on this server fr (the #1 spot goes to quackity though. hey maybe i’ll make a tierlist)

So when Bad & Forever bring the best of their angst ability into serious rp interactions together that Aren’t comedic…? we are in for a treat. that talk they had right when q!cellbit died to the code, the richas rescue mission, the election, voting arguments, post-ron kidnapping, colorblind test/therapy, flower of the day. many scenes that are seared into my mind, but none is more so than The Happy Pills Proposal. goosebumps whenever I think about it… the scene ever. the way it was framed, the lines they said, how it had tense, chilling buildup before a literal explosion. how are these people capable of doing the most silly things and then turning around to stab us in the heart 50 times

So you bet I’m crossing my fingers for a meeting between @v@ & q!Bad. Forever is absolutely killing the role so far. If q!Bad gets involved I can already taste the glorious angst…. since he has specific traumatic experience in also being possessed, & having killed his possessed friends in another life. he recalled the memory when talking about how to save q!Forever last night. fun! *shaking*

anyways that’s all :D love these characters, I had been wanting to do a little meta appreciation post for a while so I thought why not now ^^

[hehe-69]

Tangerine x reader

Warring: possibly very bad writing. Definitely swearing. Mentions of death, reader had a brother but he passed.

Also your code name is kiwi…because I said so.

————————-

It’s safe to say that what went down on that bullet train in Tokyo Japan, was nothing short of a shit show. And, per your great luck, you got front row seats to said show.

Now why you got front row seats is mostly due to the fact you took a mission from a rival of the White Death, and for a man who is supposedly the most influential mob boss of the entire fucking world. Dude sure has some serious issues with holding grudges.

That and you just so happened to be off and on partners with a certain fruity pair, and may or may not have been the getaway driver for a certain job in Bolivia.

Which leads you to where you are now, in a safe house in downtown Tokyo, with the Twins and Ladybug.

Safe to say tensions were high and rising.

____________

“I don’t fuckin’ care if you’re sorry, YOU SHOT ME IN MY FICKIN’ SHOULDER! YOU FUCKING PRICK!!!” Tangerine and Ladybug have been non stop bickering ever since you and the group walked through the door of your safe house.

Well bickering may be a stretch, considering Tangerine was just screaming at Ladybug while the blond when on and on about doors and windows to peaceful resolutions of conflicts.

“In my defense you hadn’t been exactly nice to me, so how was I supposed to know you weren’t trying to shoot and innocent girl” Ladybug retorted from a safe distance as you stood by Tan patching up the bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry princess. I didn’t realize that I’m supposed to BE FUCKIN’ JOLLY TO A SLIMY BASTARD!!!” Tangerine’s sarcasm was blatant as ever.

“Tan,” you began voice filled with annoyance, it has been hours and they’re still going strong as ever. “To be fair, we were all tricked on that train. And we’re luck to even be alive right now…so can you both…Just…Stop…Talking. For like five fucking seconds!” Tangerine let’s out a hiss as you not so accidentally pull the stitch just a little too tight. But he reminds quite afterwards.

“Thank you Kiwi!” Ladybug says exasperated.

“Oh for fucks sake.” Tangerine mumbles. “She was talkin to the both of us you twat!”

“Alright you know what. Ladybug go wait in the hallway for your handler to come back with the food. And you.” You turn to Tangerine looking him in the eye. “Stop acting like a child, you’re 30 years old for Crist’s Sake.”

“I’m the child?!” Tangerine says raising an eyebrow.

“You both are!” Lemon speaks up taking off a pair of headphones you had given him so that at least one of you didn’t have to suffer through the bickering. “Look I know you’re all shaken up after this shit show, but you need to clam down bruv. We lived no one died that didn’t need to be killed. Job well done.” Lemon put simply.

“What about the White Death’s Son, or oh I don’t know…THE FUCKIN CASE!” Tangerine exclaimed.

“First of all, that’s not our fault, and secondly don’t you dare say ‘Well what would Thomas say’ because that’s just mean.” Lemon pointed at Tan. “And third of all, I’m gonna just go wait for the food. And you just sit and quit being so grumpy all the damn time.” Lemon hopped off the couch and went to wait in the hall with Ladybug.

“Great you can go talk about trains with that PRICK!”

“Tan.” You say sharply after wrapping up his shoulder.

“What is it luv.” Tan says, expecting a lecture.

“Want to talk about what’s really bothering you or do you just want to keep pissing everyone off?” You question as you tie the wrapping.

“What are ya goin on about?”

“Well… for starters I’m sure seeing Lemon in that…” tangerine is now glaring at you. “In that situation must of scared the shit out of you.” You finish softly, moving a one of his curls back into place.

“You know, I’ve never told you. But I had a brother…” You began. “Me and him were on a snatch and grab…and, it didn’t end well. I found him after we were forced to split up, thinking it’d be for the best…but it wasn’t.” You could feel the burning in the back of your throat, the kind you get when you know you’re going to start crying if you keep talking. And you were not about to cry in front of Tan, especially when you were trying to comfort him. “He didn’t make it out of that job, but I did. What I mean to say is, I can understand how that might affect you. Seeing your brother like that.”

“All I’m saying is that you don’t have to always cover up the way you’re feeling with anger. Even if it feels like it’s for the better, it’s usually not.” Most people would’ve been punch in the face by now, but after working with Tan and Lemon for years. You and Tan reached an understanding or some sorts, sometimes you’d listen to him vent about a job or you’d both sit in silence, till you were ready to talk.

“I’m alright luv.” Tan says just a tad bit more softly, a tone he takes with no one but you and Lemon.

“No you’re not. I’m sure almost getting shot the neck didn’t help at all.” You offer up another chance for him to talk or make a joke.

“Yeah, well…it’s not just that or Lemon that is bothering me…”

“What is it?” Tan looks up to meet your eyes, you’ve got a feeling, well a hope. That you know what it is.“That wreck, you’re lucky you made it out alive Kiwi.” Tan says after a pause. “I almost thought…”

“Thought what?” You say softly, your hand resting on top of his.

“I thought we had lost you…” Tan says looking at your hand over his.

“I’m still here.” You say your free hand on his cheek. “We can talk about this more when we get back to London. Does that sound good?” You offer.

“Yeah, thanks luv.” Tan gives you one of those rare genuine smiles, you wish he would smile more.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kisssss!” You a not so whisper through the door going out to the hallway.

“And now the moment is ruined.” Apparently Ladybug’s handler is back with the food because that’s definitely her voice carrying through the door.

“OH FUCK ME!” Tan exasperates and then sighs.

And god, you would love to.

__________

Decided to do something simple, to see if I hated it.

It’s been forever since I’ve written a x reader, so I’m sorrry if it sucks. All I know is that I’ve definitely been hunting for more of tangerine x reader. So I thought I might write some.

Please feel free to comment some prompts for writing or even some advice.

And thanks for reading!

Ps: I definitely did not just pull this story out my ass

I did….for the plot

[phoebepheebsphibs]

Double-Mutated Mikey

Chapter 31: Amnestic Syndrome

Continued from the short story written by @boots-with-the-fur-club

Prev || Next

It has been a wonderful few days.

Leo has been chillin' like a king.

Casey got a suntan.

Raph caught a hermit crab while swimming and giddily showed it off to everyone.

Donnie started (and won) a squirt gun war.

Splinter has been napping nonstop, which is not exactly different from the norm but he's happy as a clam and has 100% been enjoying the seafood dinners.

Even Draxum has benefitted from this whole thing, having been reunited with Huginn and Muninn. He's even offered them their jobs back as his shoulder pads! Or whatever it is they're supposed to do.

And, of course, Mikey is having the time of his life running free and uncontained. Leo can't remember the last time he saw him so energetic and happy; it's like he's a little kid again.

Mikey has asked to go explore the heart of the island today, and so the four brothers are off on a hike into the beautiful jungle. Raph and Leo mostly lead the way, though Mikey runs off in different directions and they change course to accommodate. It reminds Leo of when they were turtle tots exploring the sewer tunnels. Raph would always take the lead as the eldest, though Leo (headstrong child that he was) would often fight to take charge or go a different way that looked cooler. Donnie and Mikey would walk hand in hand together until Mikey's hyperactivity went into overdrive and he'd start hooting and hollering and race up and down the tunnels excitedly. Leo would go chasing after him in a game of tag, Raph would cry because he was afraid they'd get lost, and Donnie would remain unconcerned. Ah, what good times they had...

Leo notices that Mikey had gone off in a certain direction not too long ago, but now can barely hear him. Scratch that, he can't hear or see him at all.

"Mikey?" Leo calls out. "Where are ya, bud?"

Donnie instinctively looks down at his wrist tech. Raph starts walking in the direction that Mikey's gone off in. He walks past the brush and flora...

Mikey comes bounding out of the bushes and pounces on Raphael, causing him to yipe in fright and topple over. Leo yelps at the literal jumpscare, but his fright turns to uproarious laughter at Raphael's face. Donnie smirks to himself and mumbles something along the lines of "I knew he was there."

Raph lays on the ground, gasping for breath as Mikey sits on his plastron with an enormous grin, tail wagging happily at the prank's success. Leo is on the ground cackling.

"Okay, okay, you got me," Raph sighs, picking Mikey up and off of his chest. "You can stop laughing now, Leo."

Leo, in fact, does not stop laughing for five more minutes.

The four press on.

Leo has to hold onto Donnie's arm for support after all that laughing. Dee isn't such a huge fan of that, especially with all the heat and humidity from the tropical climate. But he seems preoccupied. Leo happens to glance over and catches him looking at his wrist tech again.

"What are you doing?" Leo asks, leaning over to get a look for himself.

"Just checking something."

Leo notices several colour-coded icons.

"The trackers?"

"Yes. Since we are on a remote island and Michael has a tendency to just go running off when excited, I have been making sure that I know where he is at all times."

Leo looks back up at Donatello's face. His drawn-on eyebrows are furrowed, a crease on his fivehead and a stare of intensity in his eyes.

When Mikey first went missing, Dee would just stare at the tracking program and reupload new lines of code, debug it, update it, even turn the program off and then on again. He sat at his computer for an entire day, trying to understand what had happened. It worked fine for a few hours after Raph and Leo had reported Mikey MIA. But then, suddenly, it flickered and died out. Donnie didn't speak for the entire rest of the night, only staring at his screen and trying to get it back online. Leo had tried talking to him about it, But Donnie remained adamant that his tech and his ninpo were unparalleled. It would have taken massive voltage or some kind of mystic EMP like what the Krang had to deactivate it.

....Now, thinking it over, and after they'd discovered Mikey's altered DNA and the fact that he'd experienced severe electric charges, it began to make sense as to why the tracker was deactivated.

But it was like Donnie had said before -- it wasn't just deactivated, his tracker was removed. And though Leo and the others had considered it an invasion of privacy, Donnie's subdermal trackers came in handy more often than not, and Leo had found it was Dee's way of showing them that he cared about them all deeply. Not being able to know where Mikey was, or if he was alive... terrified him. Terrified all of them.

All that to say, Leo understands perfectly well why Donnie has been checking the trackers as often as possible.

Leo lets go of Donnie's arm, walking side by side with him.

The hike -- while being almost unbearably hot and through thick jungles -- is actually quite fun! Even with Mikey's occasional jumpscare pranks on the three.

Donnie goes into nerd mode, analyzing the flora and taking samples for later.

Raph is having fun chasing after Mikey and playing games with him. Mikey's memory issues and slight confusion make it seem like he's much younger than he really is, and Raph has missed being able to baby him like this. Some part of Leo thinks this might become an issue later on, but for the moment, Mikey is happy to have fun and Raph is happy to reminisce on days when his baby brother used to play with him like this.

And Leo is just happy to enjoy this time with his brothers. Even if he's constantly getting trampled by Michelangelo.

Speaking of which, Mikey is due for another jumpscare any minute now. Leo is on guard, listening for the little hunter. Mikey's inherited crazy impressive instincts from the added DNA. He somehow knows how not to make a single sound when moving, even in the tall grass and thick roots. He's fast, too, like blink-and-you-miss-it fast. You usually don't even realise he's stalking you until you're face-down in the dirt with him giggling on your back. Leo looks around cautiously for him. He sure is taking his sweet time...

Raph starts checking behind ferns and large flowers.

"Gee, he sure is hiding pretty well this time. I can't see him anywhere!"

Leo starts looking with him, checking the tree limbs to see if he's going to do another aerial ambush. But he can't see him anywhere.

"How does someone covered in neon yellow polka dots get so good at camouflage?? It's like he's not even here!"

"...That's probably because he isn’t, Nardo."

Leo and Raph turn to Donnie, who is looking down at his wrist tech.

"Mikey is several meters away from us. He ran off five minutes ago and has been stationary for quite some time. I suggest we go looking for him. The fact that he hasn't moved for five minutes is mildly concerning."

Leo and Raph follow behind Donatello as he leads the way towards a small clearing. Donnie pushes aside a group of monsteras, revealing a tiny river and waterfall hidden within the jungle. Large and exotic flowers grow around the clearing, almost fencing it in. The riverbank is made from volcanic rocks -- glassy obsidian and smoothed pumice and shimmering gabro. Leo and Raph ooh and awe at the scenery.

"Mikey is somewhere in here," Donnie says, looking around. "According to my GPS, he should be right around -- yipe!!"

Donnie yelps as he stumbles forward, nearly falling into a hidden pit just in front of them. The pit is obscured by the grass and alocasias growing around it, almost covering the opening completely. And to top it off, there is a short but unexpected drop-down from the area around the clearing, like an unexpected stair.

Both Raph and Leo grab Donnie by the shoulders and yank him back. He glances back with a grumble.

"What island has a secret hidden pit lying around?!"

From deep within the pit, they hear a chirp.

"Mikey!" Raph calls, stepping around the pit and looking down into it. "Is that you?"

"Hi, Raphie..."

"Are you okay?" Leo shouts.

"M'fine, just stuck."

"Stuck? Stuck how?" Leo asks, peering into the pit.

He can see Mikey sitting at the bottom of the pit, hands and feet doused in mud and muck. He looks awfully embarrased.

"Can't you just climb out?"

"Tried," Mikey answers. "Too slippery. Rocks are too wet an' slimy, Mikey just kept sliding on the mud!"

"Well, this is the time when I reiterate why we should always bring our mystic weapons with us when hiking," Donnie grumbles, crossing his arms.

"It was just a walk in the jungle! It's not like we were going to fight anything! Why bring them?" Leo refutes.

"Oh, I don't know, in case Mikey falls in a hole and we need to A: make a portal to get him out, B: Use giant elongated hands to lift him out, or C: create impossibly futuristic tech to get him out!"

"Okay, Einstein!" Leo growls. "It was just a suggestion! You could have actually brought your bō, I wasn't gonna stop you --"

"Can we stop shiftin' blame and get to helpin' Mikey already?" Raph yells, grabbing the twins' attention.

"Right right right," Leo stammers. "Well, Donnie actually gave me an idea! We can't really use our ninpo without our magic weapons, but you know who can?"

"…Mikey?"

"Exactly!" Leo says with a smile.

He leans down and calls into the pit.

"Yo, Mike! Just make a mystic chain and climb out!"

Mikey stares up at him, cocking his head in confusion.

"How?"

"Y'know, with your... mystic abilities? Your ninpo?"

"Whazza ninpo?" he asks.

Leo swallows. Both Raph and Donnie exchange glances.

"It's... it's like a superpower you have. It's a part of the family, you can do all kinds of cool stuff! Your ninpo is usually making these cool glowy chains... though, you were starting to do some new things, too... B-but, just try making a chain," Leo says, rambling awkwardly.

"How do I make a chain?" Mikey asks, slightly annoyed. "I can't make anything down here!"

"No, not like make it with your hands -- Make it with your mind!"

"My mind?" Mikey asks incredulously.

"Sorta, I'm not sure exactly how your mystic abilities work -- but for me, I usually just think of where I want to go and the portals take me there. Just try concentrating. Think about family, that might help. Your ninpo is powered by our family bond!"

Mikey stares blankly at Leo, as if he just told him his spots were purple and not yellow. But... Mikey trusts Leo, so...

He concentrates. He thinks hard.

"...Nothing's happening."

"Just keep trying!" Leo calls down. "I believe in you!"

Leo believes in him. Mikey trusts Leo. Family bond. Think about family. Make a chain. Concentrate...

Mikey's spots start flickering.

He squeezes his eyes so tight he gets a headache. He balls his hands into fists until the claws dig into his palms. His muscles tense.

"Woah, Mikey, don't hurt yourself! You're gonna give yourself a hernia or something --"

Mikey barely hears him. He growls and grunts and groans, blood vessels in his forehead popping from the effort as he tries.

He can't let them down. He can't let them know the truth. They're his FAMILY. Just... just... FOCUS!

Mikey's markings flicker once more... twice...

Something bright and glowing golden starts to form... shapes, materializing like dust in the air.

Think about family. Think about family. Think about --

Think about how you are not a part of their family anymore, no matter how hard you try to deny it.

Mikey's markings dim, the light goes out. The chains decay before they ever take solid shape.

He sighs, slamming his fists against his thighs in frustration.

"I-- I can't do it. I don't know how!"

Leo, Donnie, and Raph each look at one another.

"...Okay, Mikey. It's... it's okay, we'll get you out another way. Hey, Raph! Don! I think I saw some vines on our way in, let's try those..."

The three Hamato brothers leave Mikey alone in the pit. Alone with his thoughts. With his failings. With only his Instinct.

The trio are back within moments, having collected several vines and bound them together to create a rope for Mikey to climb up on.

They cheer when he emerges, but Mikey doesn't meet their eyes. The cheers simmer down, replaced by an awkward silence.

"So... Mikey," Leo sighs, placing a hand on his little brother's quilled shoulder. "I think it's time we had a talk..."

.

.

.

Mikey cleans the muck from his lower half before talking. He rubs the mud out from between his toes and talons, digging under his fingernails and doing his best to get himself presentable for the talk.

He's stalling. They all know he's stalling.

But Mikey has been dreading this conversation since the day they got him back from the labs.

Mikey's feet dangle in the stream, playing in the gentle flow of water. He wishes he could just stay here and stay quiet, never have this talk. It feels different from a scolding. Mikey doesn't mind scoldings, he's used to them from the labs. Though, his brothers are much nicer about their scoldings than the scientists were. But this isn’t a scolding, he can tell. It's something worse. It's a confrontation… As Mikey is marinating in dread and river water, Raph comes up behind him and rubs his shoulder.

"Hey, buddy? Ready to talk yet?"

Mikey shakes his head no.

"Do we hafta talk?" he whispers.

"I think so," Raph whispers back. "This is important."

"I didn't mean to do bad," Mikey says softly, pulling his knees close to his chest. "I tried my hardest! I really did! But... I-I couldn't do it."

Raph hums in response. He's not sure what to say.

"...Don't feel bad about that. You tried really hard, I saw. We just... wanna help you figure this out, okay?"

Mikey takes a deep breath and exhales loudly.

"Okay."

Mikey takes Raphael's hands and shakily stands up, his big bro helping him to walk normally over to where the twins are waiting.

"Hey, Angelo!" Leo greets with a nervous smile. "You all cleaned up?"

Mikey nods, sitting himself down, just outside of their circle. They don't let that slide; both Raph and Leo scoot out to make him a part of their formation.

"Great. So, uh... I guess you're all wondering why I called you here --" Leo starts.

"Skip the jokes and get to the point," Donnie interjects.

"Yeesh, tough crowd! Okay, okay. Look, Mikey, we've noticed that you've been... uh, how shall we say... acting oddly around us."

Mikey swallows. He tries not to let his anxiety rise any more than it already is.

"Odd? U-uh, how?"

"You threw away your chucks," Leo lists.

"You couldn't recall our names," Donnie adds. "And I've seen the way you react when we call you 'Angelo'. I suspect you don't know your full name is Michelangelo, and not simply Mikey."

"And April said you asked her why she cares about you, or why she didn't look like us if she was our sister," Leo reminds him. "And you reacted weirdly when Dad showed you our family photos."

"You also didn't recognize Draxum," Raph contributes to the list. "And you don't remember what the Prison Dimension or the Krang are, do you?"

Mikey thinks about bluffing. But his lack of response betrays him. He sees Leo flinch and go pale at the mention, Donnie shudders and squirms. Even Raph's body language shifts. But Mikey doesn't get it. He's caught.

"Casey talked about the future, and you had no clue. You get confused by inside jokes or references, and I'm pretty sure you have no idea that Dad is actually Lou Jitsu."

"He's who?!" Mikey asks, though it takes a moment for the memory of who Lou Jitsu is to process.

"See, that's what's concerning us," Leo exclaims. "Mikey, we don't mind that you're confused, but... you aren't telling us the whole picture. And what happened with your ninpo kind of confirms what we've been suspecting for a while now..."

Mikey's head buzzes loudly. He feels ill.

"Mikey... you don't actually remember us, do you?"

His eyes sting, blurring over. He hyperventilates, he can't catch his breath. His hands clasp onto his skinny arms, his legs fold close to his chest, his tail wraps around him. His limbs trap him in a cage, the spines and spikes and quills stand on edge to protect him from the panic attack. His brothers The others try to calm him, but Mikey can't hear anything over his weeping and wailing.

Mikey rocks back and forth, feeling like he might vomit. Raphael places a hand on his shoulder. Mikey screams, swatting the hand away in a panic. Mikey stammers and stutters, not even sure what he's supposed to be saying. He wants to convey how scared he is, how hard he's trying to hold it together, how bad he feels at letting them down, the terror he has at having been caught in the lie. But all he can hear himself say is 'please please please' and 'sorry sorry sorry'.

Hands take his own. Mikey looks up and blearily sees the colour purple.

"Mikey. Can you hear me?"

Mikey nods. It's hard to breathe. He doesn't say it out loud, but the deep and desperate gasps he's making are obvious indicators.

"Focus on me, okay? Follow my lead. In one --" Donnie makes an exaggerated inhale, posture arching. "-- out two." His exhale is loud and exaggerated, his stature relaxes.

Mikey tries to repeat him. His breathing is sporadic, he feels like he's failing him at the most simplistic of things--!

"Hey, hey, focus on me, right? Just focus on my voice, on my breathing. In for one, out for two."

Mikey follows his lead, eyes locked onto Donnie's.

"There we go. In for one, out for two. In for two, out for four. In for four, out for six..."

Donnie and Mikey do the breathing exercises until Mikey's lungs find a rhythm. He calms, hiccups and suck-ups following suit, but they slow soon enough. Donnie manages a tiny smile, an attempt to comfort. He pats the ground around Mikey's knees.

"Mikey, can you tell me what you're sitting on?"

Mikey looks down.

"G-grass...?"

"What do you smell?"

"Fl-flow-wers...? M-m-m-mud. W-water, s-sea water...! R-Raph..."

He hears Leo chuckle.

"Name three things you can see."

Mikey glances around.

"M-Mikey sees you... sees brothers... um, sees trees? And stream... is, is that three?"

"Yes, that's three. You're doing great. Now, can you tell me how we got here?"

"W-walked here. Mikey ran, f-fell in a pit..." he starts crying again. "I-I couldn't get out, I couldn't do the --"

"It's okay, stay present with me," Donnie soothes, rubbing his thumbs over Michelangelo's hands. "Just stay focused on the present moment."

Mikey sighs, tries breathing again. Stay present. Stay focused. Okay...

Donnie talks to him, asking simple and easy questions, such as 'what do you hear?' and 'what colour is the sky?' and 'can you taste this?' after handing him a honeysuckle. Mikey calms down quickly after that.

The other two sit at a respectable distance, making sure not to overwhelm him. After some time, and Donnie's calming techniques, Leo crawls towards them.

"You okay?" he asks cautiously, reaching out to hold Mikey's hand.

Mikey nods and hums a 'yes'.

'Sorry,' he signs. 'Got really scared.'

'That's okay,' Leo signs back. 'We didn't mean to freak you out. Just wanted to talk about it.'

"Can we still talk about it?" Raph asks gently, looking Mikey over. "I mean, if you're okay with that."

Mikey nods, crawling into Donnie's lap for comfort.

"Mikey ready..."

"Okay then," Donnie sighs. "Mikey, we need you to be honest with us so we can be sure to take proper care of you. How much do you actually remember?"

"Mmmm... not a lot," he whimpers. "Mikey remembers a few things... small things. L-Like random moments."

"That would be the brain sauce Draxum made doin' its thing," Raph nods.

"But other than that..?" Leo asks.

"But… o-other than that... Mikey can't remember anything before the labs," he shamefully admits.

"Mikey, why didn't you tell us?" Donnie questions.

"Scared to," he whines. "Didn't want to admit it, didn't want to disappoint you... Y-you all love Mikey so much, and I don't... I don't know why... I don't know who Mikey is, and I just... I wanted you to... be happy. I wanted to be Mikey for you."

Mikey feels Donnie wrap his arms around him and press his face against his head. He's shaking. Leo scoots in and hugs the two of them together. Raph joins in last, his arms just barely long enough to engulf them all.

"Miguel... we want to help you get better, we want to help you remember everything --" Leo states.

"B-but what if I c-can't?" Mikey sobs.

"Then we'll love you regardless. If you never remember us, or yourself... then that's okay. I mean, it'll suck, I won't lie. But it won't be like we've lost you. You're still here, you're just figuring out who you are again. And we'll help you."

"But I-I didn't want you to know!" Mikey wails. "I didn't want to tell you that I wasn't Mikey anymore! I wanted you to love me, I wanted to-- to-- I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Donnie pulls him tighter.

"Mikey... I do love you. Whether you remember me or not. Whether you remember yourself or not. I will always love you."

Mikey sobs and clutches the others his brothers tightly.

"Mikey... there's something we need to tell you, too," Leo sighs. "Something we probably should have told you earlier."

Mikey looks up at him anxiously.

"It's about your DNA."

Mikey nods slowly, prompting him to go on.

"Well... when we got you home and Donnie did the scan, we found out what you were mutated with. It was... a lot."

"Specifically it was jaguar, basilisk lizard, boa constrictor, baboon, mandrill, and proboscis monkey," Donnie interjects.

"Thank you, Brainiac Unlimited™ for that one."

Mikey nods again, seemingly unfazed for the most part. Leo wonders if he's still processing it all, or knew the information beforehand, or... maybe just doesn't care? He mentioned doing lots of tests at the labs, so he probably already figured he had multiple creatures' genetics inside of him now.

"Well, Donnie left out one crucial piece of info..." Leo mentions.

"Leo, I still don't think it's a good idea," Raph murmurs.

"We want him to be honest with us, we need to be honest with him. He has to know."

"Know what?" Mikey asks curiously.

"Leo is referring to how your DNA was primarily mutated with Krang," Donnie blurts before Raph can intervene.

The four are silent as Mikey processes.

"...So?"

"The Krang still don't mean anything to you?" Raph asks. "Not ringing any bells?"

Mikey thinks.

"You said something about Krang at the junkyard," he recalls. "And Casey mentioned them a little. The lab people talked about them, too. But I don't really know what they are..."

"They're aliens," Leo explains. "They're very dangerous aliens. They tried to invade Earth several months ago, but we fought them."

Mikey's eyes widen.

"Am... am I an alien?"

"Part alien," Donnie clarifies. "But we still consider you 100% Mikey."

"Dangerous aliens... you fought them... I-I remembered Leo said --"

Mikey pauses, eyes bulging and breath quickening as the realization hits him like a train.

"Prison Dimension. Did... was that because of the Krang? Of me??"

"No!" Leo says, unintentionally shouting as he grabs Mikey by the arm. "No, no! That was not you! You didn't do that, the Krang... the Krang didn't even do that, actually, it was --"

Leo sighs.

"...It was my choice. The Prison Dimension was made to hold the Krang inside, but they got free because of me. My stupid ego and my dumb mistakes. A-and... the only way to... I had to do something, and there wasn't any time to think of a better solution, and so... so I...."

"You portaled yourself and the Krang into the Prison Dimension and had Casey trap you both inside," Raph finishes.

"Yeah," Leo says, swallowing as he shakes. "That."

Mikey stares at Leo, eyes popping out of his head. He'd mentioned the Prison Dimension, he'd shows his aversion to it, and Mikey had even remembered scenes where he and his family dealt with the aftermath of it all. But... he didn't expect this. He didn't expect it to be because of monsters.

"...How did Leo get out?"

"You did that, actually," Leo chuckles. "With your ninpo."

"Mikey did that?" he echoes, looking around for someone to deny it. "With the ninpo?"

"Yep. Your mystic powers were growing, and Casey told us that you became the most powerful master of magic in the future! You didn't let that tidbit go, and you kept trying to make magic portals the whole time we fought, even though our mystic abilities were nullified by... the...Krang..."

Leo's voice trails off. The four exchange glances.

"The Krang had some kind of supersonic screech that deactivated our ninpo. Could it be that..."

"Is that why I can't do the ninpo anymore?" Mikey asks. "Because I'm... Krang?"

"I-I don't know, but it's a theory," Donnie suggests. "We'll talk to Draxum and Papa about it. We'll figure it out."

Mikey pauses, looking down at his hands. his claws.

"The Krang are evil... right?"

They don't answer, but their silence speaks volumes. Mikey looks up at them, trying to meet their eyes.

"Do... do you hate me because I'm Krang now?"

This is why I said it was a bad idea to tell him.

He deserves to know! And it might be tough, but --

"You dum-dums do know you're not talking and it's making Michael uncomfortable, right?" Donnie scolds, cradling Mikey a little closer.

"Oh!" Leo snaps back. "No! No, Mikey, no, of course not! Look, we were kind of nervous about the Krang DNA, but only because we weren't sure how you'd deal with the news."

"And I was concerned about the ramifications of modifying mutant DNA with alien genetics, but yes. Emotional stability was in question," Donnie adds.

"But you are not a monster just because you have alien DNA now. You're still our Michelangelo, and we still love you."

"...You love me now...."

Mikey remembered the conversation he and Leo had the other day, and how Leo had said he'd love him if you were a worm, or a regular turtle, and if he were a monster. Leo finished his little declaration by saying 'I love you now', and Mikey had found the wording strange. Not anymore, now he understood what Leo meant. He's a monster now.

And Leo loves him now, just as always.

Mikey cannot understand this. But he accepts it for the moment, resting his head against his brothers and just… stays here. Trying to understand why they don't hate him, why they keep trying to convince him he's not a monster when the evidence is starting to stack up against him.

But Mikey just accepts it. He'll understand it later.

.

.

.

The scientists have been very interested in Mikey's control of the human covered in pink parasites. They've been doing a lot of tests and examinations.

He's not required to move or do anything. He sits and lets them do what they want. They look him over, poke and prod him, lift his scales and scutes and quills. A doctor shines a light in his eyes, giving Mikey a headache. Another pricks him with a needle and syringe. They take his blood again. They take a skin sample again. They take a saliva sample again. They do everything three times over, again and again and again.

Mikey feels numb.

His mind wanders, helping him escape this room and find some semblance of serenity as he waits for these tests and exams to be done. He's so bored and tired. But compared to everything else they make him do here, this isn't so bad.

Mikey's attention comes back to him when he hears someone talking loudly by him. He flinches, thinking that he's being scolded or ordered to do something, but no. It's just Dr. Timothy getting enthusiastic over his mutations.

"I just can't believe it! The creature can control the zombies!"

"This is unprecedented. And I'm quite surprised, I've never seen Dr. Chaplin so intrigued and... dare I say?" Dr. Finn pauses. "Excited."

"This little abomination could hold the key to ending the Krang infections once and for all!" Dr. Timothy celebrates.

"But why stop there?" A third voice adds.

Mikey flinches again and cowers softly as Dr. Chaplin walks in and joins the conversation.

"This little mutant monster shows a higher success rate than any creature the TCRI has ever cooked up before. And it takes orders so well," he says with a sickening smile.

Dr. Chaplin reaches down and grabs Mikey's face, squeezing his thin cheeks and tilting his head to get a better look at him.

"Despite its age and emaciated figure, the little beastie has unprecedented strength and fighting ability. Just what we've been looking for. I do think our tests are nearly complete."

"Complete, sir?" Dr. Finn asks, raising an eyebrow.

"He's shown excellence in everything thus far. Problem-solving, keen instincts, agility… I think it's time we move onto the next phase of our studies. The A.L.P.H.A. device is ready for testing, put him in the Interaction Room when you're done. Depending on how it goes, we may be able to move on to..."

Mikey zones out again. He's tired of this. He doesn't like being handled or tested or talked about like he's an 'it'. He's a Mikey! Whatever that is…

Mikey feels heaviness around his throat, followed by a yank. The collar and lead were placed on his neck while he wasn't paying attention. He's dragged back to the Interaction room for the test with this strange new 'A.L.P.H.A. Device'...

.

.

.

Mikey can't sleep. He keeps thinking about what happened earlier that day.

He can't shake the feeling that... something is wrong. He's missing something. His brothers love him, despite knowing that he doesn't remember them. They support him, despite knowing that he may never fully be Mikey again. But... why does he feel so distant? Why is he still so scared to be around them, but so much more scared to be without them?

In the labs, he never knew why he wanted his brothers. He never even knew they were brothers, they were more so figments of imagination, a distant mirage that he could almost touch. They were shadows. And now they're real.

So why can't he accept them? Why can't he accept that he's one of them?

Because you're a monster. KRANG, Instinct whispers. You are a KRANG. It is what I am, what YOU are. What WE have become.

...Are Krang monsters?

To the weak, yes. The weak always view the strong as monsters.

So Mikey really is a monster?

Did you doubt this? Instinct questions.

Mikey hoped...

HOPE IS A FOOL'S WEAPON, Instinct scolds. YOU CANNOT SURVIVE ON HOPE. ONLY STRENGTH AND FORCE. THE KRANG ARE STRONG. THE KRANG SURVIVE. YOU WILL DO AS I SAY AND YOU WILL LIVE.

Even if it makes Mikey a monster?

Does it matter?

Mikey doesn't know anymore... h-he wants to believe it does, he wants to believe he's not what Instinct says he is, he wants to believe that he is their Mikey!

Even if you were once "their Mikey", it hardly matters now. You are simply an amalgamation creature made to serve a purpose. The humans created you to be a monster. Too bad they couldn’t remove the ALL THE MIKEY FROM YOU.

Mikey throws the pillow over his face and screams into it. Stop talking, Instinct!

You know it is true. And your "brothers" confirmed it for you. Even THEY KNEW you were a monster. Why do you continue to fight this truth?

"Because I'm not a monster!" Mikey whisper-shouts, sitting upright and flinging the pillow into the wall. "I'm not! They said I'm not!"

You DO know what a lie is, don't you?

"But... but Mikey trusts Leo--"

Why? Haven't you learned by now? I thought you would have known better. The labs taught you nothing.

"Shut up!" Mikey shouts.

Weak, pathetic, useless, coward --

"I SAID SHUT UP!" Mikey screams, hot and angry tears running down his face.

Mikey tears his bed apart, shredding the blanket and ripping the extra pillows to pieces. He growls loudly, looking for something else to attack in lue of Instinct. He punches the mattress, his tail whips the wall and gashes the wallpaper, he grabs one of the lamps on the nightstand table and chucks it, pieces shattering and the lampshade flying off from the impact. In the flickering light from the dying lamp, Mikey sees something move in the corner. He runs and confronts it --

It's his own reflection in the mirror. Teeth snarled and fangs elongated, his claws extended, his quills raised and his tail spiked. His eyes burn brightly and the irises are nothing more than thin blood-red slits.

Mikey jerks back suddenly, terrified of his own image. His pupils and irises return to normal slowly…

You see? Nothing more than a monster. Accept it.

Mikey screams in anger and punches the mirror as hard as he can. The glass shatters instantly and his knuckles bleed.

The door swings open and nearly smacks into Mikey's back.

"WHAT HAPPENED?!" Raph asks in a panic, scanning the trashed room before he sees Mikey, shying away with embarrassment.

Raph calms, then panics again when he sees the blood and glass.

"Sorry," Mikey squeaks. "I got... I was mad, I..."

"Leo and I heard yelling and thought --"

"It was just me, sorry. I didn't realise I was being so loud... Instinct was making me mad."

"The voice in your head?" Raph clarifies.

Mikey nods.

"Humph. Well, I don't like this voice bullying my little brother. Come on, Mikey, let's get you cleaned up."

Raph hoists Mikey up and carries him to the bathroom. Mikey perches atop his shoulders again, tail wrapping around and hanging lazily over his shell.

"So, what was Instinct saying?" Raph asks.

"Um... just the usual stuff."

"Which is?"

Mikey's fingers curl nervously.

"Just... stuff about... fitting in, I guess."

Raph places a hand on Mikey's head and rubs circles onto his skin.

"I'm sorry about that..." he sighs. "I'm sorry about a lot of things..."h

Inside the bathroom, Raph sets Mikey down on the toilet seat and grabs the supplies he needs -- disinfectant, bandages, some swabs, cream, etc. Mikey holds his paw out for Raph to inspect.

Mikey is actually surprised by the gentleness of his big brother. Raphael's huge, strong hands are slow, soft, delicate; carefully pulling any remnants of glass out with a pair of fine tweezers. Mikey winces initially, but stays still otherwise. This is starting to remind him of the labs... he zones out as Raph tends to his cuts.

"...Mikey? Mikey," he hears.

Mikey blinks back to reality. His hand is bandaged.

"Oh, hi Raph," he murmurs. "Thanks."

"No problem, that's what big brothers do. Now, can you tell me why you punched the mirror?"

"I was trying to punch Instinct..."

"So, because you couldn't punch a voice in your head, you punched a reflection of yourself?" Raph surmises. "Makes sense."

"I know it sounds stupid..."

"Not really," Raph shrugs. "I used to do the same thing."

Mikey looks up and slowly recalls moments from his childhood where Raph would get so frustrated that he'd obliterate things with a single punch. Walking into bathrooms where the mirror had been cracked and taped over in a feeble attempt to fix it or cover it up.

"...Really?"

"Oh yeah," Raph says with a nod as he leans against the wall. "Raph had a hard time not listening to intrusive thoughts, and they make him really angry. I used to get so mad after Savage Raph would attack you guys. Do you remember Savage Raph?"

Mikey does, actually. Flickering images of his biggest brother growling, his eyes whited over and his teeth bared. Barbecuing villains in a sewer tunnel, attacking his brothers, calling them 'sewer monsters'.

"...Yes, Mikey -- I remember." Mikey looks up hopefully at him. "How did you stop it?"

"I can't say I've stopped it," Raph admits. "I still have moments when I almost lose control, times when my thoughts start to turn against me. But I've learned how to fight against those thoughts, take them captive before they take me captive."

"Why can't I do that?" Mikey asks.

"You can, though!" Raph assures him brightly. "Mikey, you're the one who taught me how to do that!"

"Mikey did that?"

"Yeah, bud!"

"But... I can't remember, I don't know..." Mikey pauses to think, before looking up hopefully at Raph. "Will you teach me again?"

Raphael smiles and cups Mikey's cheek.

"Absolutely. That's what brothers do."

He's not your brother anymore.

"Shut up!" Mikey growls, squeezing his eyes closed, and pressing his knuckles against his temples.

He feels Raph lift his face up. He gently opens his eyes and looks at Raph's concerned expression.

"What did Instinct say?"

"...That we're not brothers..."

"Well, that's 100% a lie," Raph says. "So just tell him that."

"But he'll fight back --"

"Then you fight back, too!" Raph encourages. "Say it out loud. Tell him he's wrong."

Mikey swallows and feels a little embarrassed, but he follows.

"Y-you're wrong."

No.

"Now tell him he's a liar."

Mikey fidgets.

"You're a liar."

What are you -- why are you listening to him? He doesn't know what he's talking about --

"Tell him you won't listen to him anymore."

I'M THE ONE WHO KEPT YOU ALIVE!

"But Instinct --"

"No, Mikey. You can't listen to him anymore. He's not helping you, he's not doing anything for you. He only wants to confuse you and hurt you. So what do we do with things that lie and hurt?"

"...We get rid of them?"

"Exactly. So tell him he's not welcome anymore."

NO!

"You're not welcome anymore, Instinct."

DO YOU REALIZE HOW STUPID YOU SOUND?! DO YOU KNOW HOW RIDICULOUS --

"And every time he tries to talk again, every time he tries to lie or make you feel bad, you ignore him. Confront him. He only tells you lies, so you can always defeat him."

Mikey nods, determination bubbling up inside of him.

"Instinct isn't welcome," he annouces.

Stop this.

"Louder!" Raph encourages.

You fool --

"Instinct isn't welcome!"

YOU CAN'T --

"Even louder, buddy!" Raph shouts.

YOU WRETCHED LITTLE --

"INSTINCT IS NOT WELCOME! MIKEY IS NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO INSTINCT ANYMORE!!"

It's quiet.

"...I... I think I did it," Mikey heaves. "I think I... I think he's gone! I can't hear him!"

Raph cheers with Mikey, and pulls him into a bear hug.

"I knew you could do it! And if he ever tries to weasel his way back in, just tell him off and tell him what for! And remember, he'll only tell you lies to make you feel bad. But they are NEVER true. And you can use that against him."

Mikey squeezes Raph around the neck as he laughs. He feels... free. A strange kind of freedom, one he hasn't felt even after leaving the labs.

It feels good.

"So... now what?" Mikey asks.

"Now we go to bed," Raph yawns, prompting another laugh from Michelangelo. "Though, your room is kinda trashed now, so you probably shouldn't sleep in there..."

"Turtle pile?" Mikey suggests, going into puppy-eyes mode.

"Absolutely," Raph nods, hoisting Mikey back onto his shoulders and taking him out and into their brothers' bedrooms to get them all together again.

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