#the pacing is absolutely atrocious

[i-just-really-like-renga]

Everyone who had me thinking Ballad of Sonbirds and Snakes was going to be good???

I want my money back

Low key tempted to write a fuller review, might if I find the time, or the ability to care.

[krispycreamsicle]

tteotm couldn't give tantai jin a good ending because it'd violate disney princess copyright laws

[deathlonging]

ok whats all this then

[lesbian-rook]

Reading One Piece is a very weird experience because it is actually really good

[kamuro-junrenka]

I may have trash-talked yakuza 8's story way too much now that im playing lost judgment... i mean considering how much i said i hate it i did play the fuck out of that game and i cant even play a full hour of lost judgment orz

[benthemagnificent]

despite being lukewarm on the show itself as a whole it’s quite funny that i think i might be one of the very few people who is enjoying this season of t3d l@ss0 quite a bit

[foldingfittedsheets]

We had the most egregiously evil little pony horse when I was growing up. I know everyone says that. Ponies are one of the animals that truly understand how to commit crimes but she was really deeply atrocious. One time she tried to murder me. Her name was Fancy.

I feel I should slightly explain here. See, my parents bought two acres with a house and a barn and pasturage and went “We’re farmers now!” They had absolutely no idea what they were doing. And at a certain point along that journey my mom got her hands on a horse. Technically she was half pony half horse so she was this weird middle size.

Fancy belonged to a friend of hers and he showed her how to saddle Fancy. And that was it. That was all we knew about this horse. So my mom brings her home and saddles her and we decide to go for a ride on this new creature in our lives. But Fancy, being the savvy bitch she was, was far too canny for our dumb asses.

Her maiden ride went to my older brother and ended rather abruptly when the saddle slid completely sideways and my brother toppled off her, miraculously unharmed but unwilling to ever try again. This made me like Fancy somewhat, because I hated my brother.

Those familiar with horse trickery would have caught her ruse but Fancy had deliberately held her breath to make the saddle seem tight enough. But in stride she let the breath out, the saddle loosened, and my brother came toppling down. She planned that fuckup.

I was a bit more game, being a dedicated horse girl. I wanted to succeed where my loathsome brother had failed. Keep in mind: none of us had ever ridden. We had no idea what we were doing, and in the only defense I’ll ever make of that hoofed demon it was probably not pleasant to have a human flopping on her back like a sack of potatoes. But I paraded around in a circle until she scraped my leg against a fence post. I lasted longer than my brother but had to admit riding an animal radiating malice at you is not comfortable.

We didn’t really ride Fancy much after that. She was a decorative aspect to the fields. Sometimes I’d sit on her bare back while she was eating. Every so often she’d buck me off for assuming familiarity with her.

But Fany's coup de grâce took several months. Most of the pasturage had electric fence running along it to keep the livestock from testing the fences or getting a taste for freedom. My parents were constantly moving fence posts and reallocating land to different purposes which is how one of the major gates ended up with electric fence running over top. During a move the wire got left up from the last border and now it was strung over what should have been an open passage.

I was taking a ride on Fancy, living in a fantasy that I had any idea what I was doing. My mom was out working in the yard, and as she passed through she left the gate open, forgetting the wire hazard. You know who didn't forget?

Fancy.

She beelined for the open gate and I realized a second too late what her plan was. I hauled back on the reins with all my strength but she powered through, charging at the wire. If I'd caught on sooner I could have tipped forward and probably cleared it.

It was roughly chest height. But she was too savvy, keeping a slow pace right up until the passage, and I didn't have time to react. The thought of getting electrocuted sent me down into a terrified backward limbo, desperately trying to flatten myself along her back.

Her assassination almost worked. But instead of beheading me the wire caught under my chin, pressing back into my neck like a garrote. The only good news was that the wire wasn't live, but I was still in terrible danger. I squealed and wiggled and managed to twist my neck enough that the wire scraped over my face instead of pressing deeper. Once we were through Fancy stopped and turned to regard me, disappointed that her murder had failed. My neck was bleeding but my head remained attached.

My mother was absolutely terrified and I was pretty shaken myself. We unsaddled Fancy for the last time, as full on attempts on my life were a bit more than I was willing to bear for the sake of pretending to be a fantasy hero on an epic journey. My neck still has a faint scar from her homicidal tendencies.

Fancy got to remain a decorative horse for many years after that, free of our attempts to ride her. Her last torment was when my mother decided to try to breed her to achieve an animal that was less interested in murder.

But Fancy, true to form, brutally attacked the stallion sent to service her, even when hopped up on horny hormones. There would be no foals from Fancy, and her saga ended when we sold her to another unlucky soul.

[hrts4kyo]

Love Bites — ♢

♡ dom!keeho x fem!reader

♡ genre: smut. strictly, mdni. (wc; 1.6k)

♡ sypnosis: It was finally time for your new boyfriend to come over to your house. You were excited yet nervous. . you didn’t know where tonight would take you, and you also didn’t know how keeho would react to finding out about your guilty pleasures.

♡ warnings: biting, hickeys, marking kink, very slight manhandling (nothing much today !)

♡ song recs: salvatore — lana del ray + 24 — lana del ray ✭

you smiled at yourself in the mirror, proud with your hair and makeup after working on it for atleast an hour. You smoothed down your tight white top that had gathered on the top of your stomach, and patted down your light grey sweatpants so it fit you perfectly.

You wanted to wear something casual yet pretty and comfortable, just how Keeho would like it.

You headed out of your bathroom and cleaned up every corner of your apartment, whether it be your room, kitchen, living room, study room and every little crevice. The relationship you had established with Keeho was still very new. You had met him at a university graduation dinner and ever since then had been talking. You thought that what you both had was something platonic, but Keeho initiated he wanted to take it a step further when he suggested you two go out on a date. Of course, you didn’t decline. There was no denying that Keeho was a respectful, kind, and certainly attractive man.

And so you now found yourself pacing around your apartment complex, nervous to greet him into your apartment. You continuesly went to the bathroom every now and then to make sure youre happy with your appearance, and even if you were content, it did not help with your atrociously fast heartbeat.

At last, you heard the doorbell ring, causing you to stop your pacing motion and stand still in your tracks. It almost took you a few seconds to register what was soon to come, but once you finally awoke from your trance, you ran towards the door in a hurry.

There Keeho stood, a small little bag in his hand and a beautiful smile on his face. Seeing him calmed you down instantly, allowing you to smile back and greet him inside. You shut the door behind him, watching Keeho as he took in his surroundings and placed the little gift bag on the counter.

“Your place is so pretty” Keeho said in awe, looking at the beautiful flower vases and lit candles that covered the apartment in a soothing floral smell.

“Thank you, It didn’t look like this in the morning, was an absolute mess but I didn’t want to scare you off” You chuckled as you sat down on the couch, moving the throw onto the creme coloured ottoman.

Keeho turned to face you, laughing as he joined you on the couch.

“You know that I wouldn’t of minded y/n. Come on, we’ve been talking for months you dont need to be scared of me going anywher, nor do you have to hide something from me. Even better I could’ve helped you clean” He opened up his arms, inviting you to sit closer to him.

You were always shocked with how easy-going Keeho was. He never seemed to be stressed or even nervous, and you undeniably found that amusing. He was confident with himself and he had all the rights to be confident. He was flawless.

You sat closer to him, allowing him to hug you close to his chest as you rested your head against the crook of his neck. Even if you guys were new you still felt safest with him.

“You wanna watch something?” You asked, briefly lifting your head off his shoulder to grab the TV remote.

“Yeah, whatever you want” Keeho rubbed circles on your shoulder, planting a kiss on the top of your head.

“okay, ill just put something on, don’t know what but we can look together” you clicked the TV on and scrolled through netflix to find things to watch. As Keeho and you finally agreed on a movie, you put it on and allowed yourself to snuggle up close to him.

Before you knew it, the movie had become background noise to you. You were distracted and soon all the attention you had on the movie was on Keeho instead. The way he continued to rub your back, his intoxicating cologne, and his absolutely jaw dropping visuals had your entire body heating up and your face turning a flustered tinge of pink.

You tried to ignore how desperate you were getting, a pool of arousal forming at your core. You shifted on your spot, trying to rub your thighs together discreetly.

As you continued to try and find a way to mask how you were currently feeling, you felt a piercing glance towards your direction.

“is….everything okay?” Keeho asked curiously, tilting his head to the side as he eyed you up and down, trying to understand the situation.

your mouth went dry, eyes widening as you stressed about what to say. would you scare him off if you said you needed him? would he be disgusted at how bad you wanted to kiss his soft plush lips? or would he want to kiss you back and give you what you need?

“oh um….yeah I’m all good, just feeling a bit hot, it’s hot in here right now isn’t it?” you hurriedly said, trying to exert your attention back to the movie playing on the screen, hoping that it would distract Keeho from your situation.

“right…it’s totally not winter outside.” Keeho chuckled, seeing right through your lies and raising his eyebrow signalling you to tell the truth.

“oh for fucks sake I want to kiss you so bad”

you hid your face in your hands, embarrassed at how you had just blurted that out without a second thought. You cringed at the silence, trying to prepare yourself to hear something absolutely brutal.

Before you knew it, you felt a hand make its way up to your face, moving your own hands out of the way. He pulled you closer to him, allowing you to feel his warm embrace.

“My love, you could’ve just told me, I dont mind one bit.”

and that is all it took for you to crash your lips against his.

You warmed up to his touch, melting into the flow of his movements. You allowed him to take control, lips moving in a beautiful synchronised harmony. His hands slowly snaked up around your waist, leisurely making their way underneath your shirt and onto your back.

you felt yourself sink into his touch, a sigh escaping your encased lips. with the opening of your lips, Keeho slipped his tongue, intertwining along with yours. You couldn’t help but moan, a feeling of pure ecstacy driving you insane.

As you continued to kiss him, you wanted nothing more than him to feel you up everywhere else. But you didn’t know how to mention it, nor did you want to break this ravishing moment.

But if this relationship were to continue, he needed to accept every part of you, including the guilty pleasures you swore to never tell anyone. As scary and intimidating as this moment was for you, you pulled your lips off of his for a brief moment, looking into his loveshot eyes.

“Is everything okay y/n?” Keeho asked, an internal distress taking over his body as he wondered if he went too harsh on you or you weren’t enjoying the moment.

“Yes, yes everything is fine, I just—oh my I dont know how to say it” you stuttered, your face turning a bright hue of pink.

“You know you can tell me everything right? I am always here, I accept you for who you are, and the sides I have yet to know of you.” Keeho placed his hand on your thigh, slowly caressing your inner thigh as he spoke to you.

You couldnt help but shudder at his touch, his hands engulfing your thigh.

“I think, no—I want you to mark me up. I want people to know that I belong to you.”

Keeho’s expression was blank, disgust not present on his face. You sat there in the pure silence, worried that you ruined the moment, but your thoughts were cut short when Keeho let out a small snicker.

“Oh yeah? Pretty girl likes getting marked up huh?” He sighed into your neck, breathing down your nape with immense intimacy.

“I can give you that.”

And within an instant Keeho began to kiss at your neck, pulling you closer to him and taking in your beautiful perfume.

You let out a gutteral moan as he lapped at your neck, marking you up just like you wanted him to. He went from the beginning of your neck down to your exposed collarbones, making sure to leave visible marks of purple and red.

“Fuck, just like that Kyo” You tilted your head to the side to give him more access, eyes shut from the pure pleasure that ran down your spine with his current state of actions. You didn’t know what it was about him, whether it was his beautiful hair brushing against your sensitive neck, his other hand grasping the back of your hair, or just him doing what you say, but you were enjoying this moment more than anything else.

Time flew past with both of you unaware of time and the state of each other. Slowly, you felt his hand inch down from your hair, leisurely running down your shoulders as he pulled out his phone.

You watched him in curiosity wondering what he was going to do with his phone, your mind acknowleding every possible scenario. But within an instant, a flash clicked, and another, and another. He was taking photos of you.

And you enjoyed it?….

You smiled, simply relieved that this experience hadnt ended in pure embarrassment. As you expected him to take more photos, he suddenly turned his phone towards you, showing the photos he took.

And you couldn’t believe your eyes.

Your neck was covered in hickeys, every corner was covered by atleast a small purple marking and this turned you on more than you could ever expect. Even if you were to wear a turtle neck you were convinced that he had left another visible marking just for your pure enjoyment. This was all enough to prove that Keeho…was the one.

“Is that good enough for my sweetheart?”

“More than enough.”

taglist ! — : @stephenyoonkeeholdup @um-im-rae @unknowzzn

[gaywalker80085]

Flat pt 3

Pairing: Natasha x Reader

Genre: smut 18+, angst, fluff

Summary: You think this relationship could actually go somewhere. What happens when Natasha finds out the full truth of what you do for work and what it entails

Warnings: top!reader, bottom!Natasha, angry/make-up sex, Strap-on (r giving), oral (r giving), drinking, guns, and arguing (don't worry Alana is not affected I made it so she's away during the conflict.)

A/N: Hey sorry it took so long for this to be put out I just wasn't in the mood to write whenever I had time. Unless there are requests put in this is the end of the Flat series. I hope y'all like it I know part 2 was kinda dry but I needed it to get from part 1 to here without any big plot holes (hopefully no big plot holes at least). But I hope you like it. Also not proof read because who has the time.

Masterlist

Part 1 Part 2 Side part

Your week taking Alana to school had gone without a hitch. You were twice as careful to not be late and y'all had fun over the week. She went to her dad's on Friday to go on a week-long vacation with him.

It's now Sunday, you and Natasha are going on a date to a nice restaurant that you happen to own but she doesn't know that. You both decided to dress up for the fun of it.

The date is at 7 and it's currently 4 and you're panicking but luckily Wanda has come over to help you. "You're taking her to a restaurant you own. Damn, that's cheap." She says to you and you roll your eyes before looking at her. "Oh shut up, she chose it I just got lucky. Plus at least I know I like the food."

"Well, what are you going to wear? You only have a little under 3 hours you know." She tells you and you whip your head towards her and start pacing "I don't even know. What if I wear something and she thinks it's absolutely atrocious." You say starting to get even more worried.

In the midst of your panic, you didn't notice Wanda getting up until she places her hands on both of your shoulders. "Y/N it's fine I will help you. What color is she wearing, do you know?" You nod your head before telling her. "Red," Wanda smirks at you and turns to start fishing through your closet.

She emerges with a black button-up with red on the inside, black pants, and dress shoes. "She will definitely like this one. Why haven't you worn this before?" She asks you. "Uh, I didn't know I owned that." You say genuinely clueless to how that got into your closet.

"Well besides that start putting it on." She says walking over to where you keep your accessories and jewelry. You got dressed and as you were putting your shoes on she came over with a silver chain and a few rings. You put them on and stand up.

"Okay, so you're dressed. What about that rat's nest head of hair you've got going on?" She says with a raised eyebrow pointing at your head. "What do you mean rats nest I don't even have any knots. You're just a hater." You say going to get your product.

You spray your head (I have hair milk but you can pretend to apply whatever you like) and move your hair around to your liking before turning back to Wanda. "So?" You ask. "Good but let me see." She says pushing your hair around a little bit. "Okay better." She says and you turn back to look into the mirror. "It looks the same." "Yeah but better because I touched it." She says and you roll your eyes.

You spray yourself with cologne and head out the door leaving Wanda in your house to leave when she pleases. You decide to drive your dodge charger today because why not. On your way to Natashas, you don't forget to grab flowers obviously.

You pull up and walk up to Natasha's door. You feel nervous even though you've been on multiple dates before and you literally stayed at her house for a week. She just has that effect. You raise your hand to knock on the door and it swings open.

Natasha is wearing black heels and a red dress that stops just above her knees and also has a low neckline. You seem to be appreciated that low neckline for a little too long because Natasha reaches her hand out under your chin to lift your head up. You see her smirking and muster out a quiet "Hi baby."

You stand there for another few seconds before pulling yourself together. You stand up straighter and extend your arm to hand her the flowers. She takes them before turning around and walking inside with you close behind her. "You have to stop bringing me flowers I have too many." She says as she puts them into a vase that already has some.

"What do you want me to buy you instead then?" You ask her as she rounds the kitchen island towards you and wraps her arms around your neck. "Mmmm, I don't know you don't have to buy me anything you already refuse to let me pay when we go out." You place your hands on her waist pulling her even closer to you.

"Yeah but I like buying you things." You say trying to put on a pout even though yours will never be as good as hers. She brings one of her hands to the side of your face pulling you down towards her lips before just barely touching them together. Right, when you start to close the gap she pulls away and pats your chest. "Let's go we can't miss our reservation."

She turns towards the door grabbing her jacket on the way out and you jog a little to catch up with her. Once you do you grab her hand leading her towards your car. Once you get there you open her door as per usual. "Always such a gentleman." She says and you smile looking away to hide the redness creeping up your face.

You get in the car with Natasha control the music and start driving. You get to your restaurant and walk-in holding Natasha's hand. The second the hostess sees you she waves you over and takes yall to a private room.

After she leaves Natasha looks at you "You didn't have to get a private room you spend too much money on me." Before you can respond the waiter comes in "Oh hey Ms. Y/L/N what can I get you." Natasha looks at you with a raised eyebrow. "Vodka and juice." You say "I'll have an orange crush." Natasha says sending him a smile.

"Oh yeah, I actually needed to ask you about some time off." He says and your breath catches. Before you could pass as being a regular but now there really is no other explanation than you being the boss. "When and why?" You say as calmly as you can muster. "August 10th through the 18th for a family vacation." He says noticing he shouldn't have brought this up now. "If you can find someone to cover you then yes." You say and He smiles before walking away.

You all of a sudden feel Natasha kick you in the leg. "Why didn't you tell me you owned a restaurant? More importantly, the one we're eating at." She says glaring at you. "Uh, I don't know I didn't think it was very interesting." You say not meeting her eyes. She can tell that's not all but she doesn't push it for now.

You both order and receive your meals. You both talk the whole time about random subjects laughing. "So when are we going back to my house?" She asks you running her foot up your leg. "Whenever you want." You say with a smirk.

Just as you're about to stand up Bucky comes busting in the door. "They're here." He says before looking over to give Natasha a small wave. You throw your head back groaning "You're fucking joking." You say reaching for Natasha's hand. "Who's here?" She says scrunching her eyebrows, placing her hand in yours.

"Some.. unpleasant business associates." You tell her. You help her put her jacket on before grabbing her waist and giving her a quick kiss. "Can I have Bucky take you home and I'll meet you there after I'm done with this?" You ask her. She looks a little upset but nods. "Take her through the back. You don't let them see her." You tell Bucky sternly. "I know I know." He says throwing his hands up before grabbing Natasha's.

You end up having to fight Zemo and his crew along with some help from your men. The few left of them by the end started to run and you busted out the door after them. The only problem though was one of them waited for you to do that and shot you in the side near your hip.

Bucky came out after hearing the shot and saw you bleeding. He shot the guy running away before coming to your side. "Damn that looks like it hurts." He says with a smile. You give him a sarcastic smile before hitting him upside the head "Yeah you think." You say before starting to walk to your car.

You couldn't decide whether to go to your house or Natashas. You tried to tend to the wounds in your car. You try to stop the bleeding from your side and clean up some cuts on your face but you couldn't really tell if you did a sufficient job. Once you pull up to Natashas and hobble up to the door you find it unlocked. Your stomach is in your throat hoping she left it unlocked for you and it's not unlocked for other reasons.

When you walk in she's standing there glaring at you and you feel even more scared than before. "Hi, baby." You say trying to smile at her and make your hand on your hip look as natural as possible. "Don't 'baby' me what was that." She asks you stepping closer and you look at the ground. "Oh, it's fine just some people I don't get along with no big deal." Natasha doesn't respond so you look up at her. The second she sees the cuts on your face she walks all the way to you gently cradling it.

"What happened to your face? Come." She says grabbing your hand that was on your side. "You should see the other guy." You say. She leads you to the bathroom connected to her bedroom and makes you sit on the toilet. Sitting though doesn't seem to agree with your bullet wound and you try not to groan too loud at the pain.

Natasha grabs her first aid kit out from under her sink and that's when she notices the blood all over her hand. She holds her hand up putting the other on her hip "Where did this come from?" She asks and you stand up holding your breath to try and ease the pain. You walk up to her putting one of your hands on her face. "I'm fine baby really I can take care of this myself." You try to tell her. "Yeah no I'm not good with that now where did it come from?" She says again pushing you back towards the toilet.

You don't sit down and instead pull your shirt up to show her the wound. "YOU WERE TRYING TO HIDE A BULLET WOUND FROM ME?!" She yells at you. "It's just a flesh wound I'm fine." You say reaching for the first aid kit. "It's literally going through you. Turn." She says and you turn as told. "Lucky you, there's an exit hole. Now sit." She demands you.

"Aren't I usually the one telling you what you do after dates?" You say reaching for her waist and pulling her towards you. "Shut up." Is all she says before she looks away trying to hide her cheeks flushing. You reach up and bring her face down to yours. You softly kiss her rubbing her cheek with your thumb.

"Stop it I have to clean you up before you get an infection." She says trying to be as serious as possible. She starts softly cleaning and bandaging the wounds on your face. You stare at her the whole time thinking about how beautiful she looks when she concentrates. "Take a picture it'll last longer." She says trying to hide a smile."

Once she finishes your face she gets on her knees between your legs. Now you really can't stop staring and thinking about what's in your pants and how much you want to use it right about now. She unbuttons your shirt so she can get a better look. You bend down to try and kiss her but she pushes you away by your shoulder. "I'm still mad at you." She tells you with a hardened stare.

"I'm sorry I don't know what else you want me to say." You tell her reaching out to cup her cheek. "Nothing right now. Once I finish this you're going to bed." She tells you. "What why can't we deal with it right now?" You ask her. Instead of responding she starts putting a few stitches in the entry wound.

"OW. YOU COULDN'T HAVE WARNED ME?!" You exclaim gritting your teeth. She doesn't respond just pushing you so she can do the back. Once she's done she stands to start cleaning up and you come behind her wrapping your arms around her waist and placing your chin on her shoulder.

She straightens up crossing her arms and glaring at you through the mirror. "I'm sorry baby." You tell her softly. "Seems like that's the only thing you know how to say right now." She says before continuing to clean. "I don't know what else you want me to say. Tell me I'll say whatever you want."

When she's done picking up she turns to you and jabs her finger into your chest. "Why don't you 'say' how some 'unpleasant associates' showing up turns into you getting shot. Why don't you 'say' what you really do for work. Like really I have no idea what you do and we've been going out for months." She exclaims pushing you out of the way with her finger so she can leave the room.

"My job doesn't really have a title I just do what I do." You say and she turns to you throwing her hands in the air. "THEN WHAT DO YOU DO?" She says taking her dress off and you have to remind yourself now is not the time. "I have people that work for me and I own a lot of the city in some way. But sometimes people want some of my power in some way or some of my properties. People sometimes steal from me and I just deal with that. It's fine." You say and she turns to you in disbelief "You're a FUCKING CRIME BOSS?" She yells at you.

"Well, I wouldn't say that."

"THEN WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?"

"Well uh, maybe an entrepreneur."

"YOU KNEW HOW DANGEROUS YOUR JOB WAS AND YOU STILL CAME AROUND ME AND MY DAUGHTER?" She says walking till she's right in your face.

"Woah that's too far. You know I would never do anything that could put you or Allana in harm's way." You say starting to get angry that she would ever accuse you of such a thing.

"DO I KNOW THAT, BECAUSE I'M STARTING TO FEEL LIKE I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING?" She says and you try to reach out for her but she pulls away hurting you more than you'd like to admit.

"First off you need to stop yelling. Second of course I would never put you in danger." You tell her to try and keep cool. "I WILL STOP YELLING WHEN YOU STOP LYING." She says walking past you, shoulder checking you in the process. "Natasha I never lied to you." You tell her following her into the bathroom.

She doesn't respond and instead starts brushing her teeth. You throw your hands in the air shaking your head and decide to get ready for bed. You take your clothes off until you're left in your boxers. You walk back to the bathroom to find her putting her toothbrush away so you start brushing your teeth.

You come out of the bathroom and she's standing there waiting for you. "You didn't lie but you left things out on purpose and that's just as bad." She says with her arms crossed. You walk until you're a foot apart and try to reach out for her but she pulls away again. "I'm sorry, I am it didn't even cross my mind at first, and then once it did I wanted to establish us a little more before I told you."

She turns around and starts to walk out of the bedroom. "Natasha." That is all you say before you start to follow after her. "Natasha, can you stop and just talk to me please." She stops dead in her tracks and turns to you with tears streaming down her face looking even angrier than before. "Can you just get out of my house please?"

You suddenly feel the full weight of the argument including the lump forming in your throat. A small "What?" Is all you can muster. She sternly says "Get out." Starting to push you towards the door. "Natasha please."

"Get out, get out, get out."

"Natasha."

"Get out, get out."

She just keeps saying it sobbing and the closer you get to the door the harder it is to keep the tears in. Once you're probably 10 feet from the door the tears come. She pauses for a second at the sight of your tears. You have a certain dad vibe that makes it extra sad to see you cry and she has to resist the urge to pull you towards her and rub your back.

You realize she probably won't change her mind about you leaving and if you stay you probably won't get much done considering all of the emotions. You drop your head and start walking to your car. Natasha watches you partially hoping you turn back around.

A few days pass and you haven't heard anything from Natasha but you also haven't contacted her. You have however picked up your phone around 100 times typing up messages you contemplate sending. You've obviously been in a slump barely keeping yourself alive without the help of Bucky. You're sitting there still sulking to yourself when your phone goes off. You grab it and your heart stops when you read who it's from. Natasha. "Come over at 6."

You immediately shoot up from your desk rushing to your house. You dress in a simple black short-sleeved shirt with black cargo pants that have a chain on the side. You stop to grab her a teddy bear on the way there not knowing what to get besides flowers.

When you arrive you knock softly on the door, the door opens and your head is hung low scared to face her. When she doesn't speak you look up "Hi baby." You say and she doesn't say anything turning around and walking away but leaving the door open.

"Uh, I got you this." You say walking up to her when she stops. You use the moment to take in her appearance. She's wearing your sweatshirt and some lounge shorts that you can barely tell are there. She reaches out and takes it looking at it instead of you. She wraps her arms around it and steps forwards pushing herself into you for you to hold her. "Why did you come?" She asks you catching you off guard. "Because you asked me to." You tell her confused and she's silent before pulling back to look at you.

"Why didn't you text me?" She asks you. "I didn't know if you'd want to hear from me." You tell her softly and she looks down, eyes brimming with tears. "You should've texted me anyways." She tells you furrowing her eyebrows and trying to keep the tears in. "I'm sorry baby." Is all you can think to say. "I know who you are. Fully." She says backing up.

"Baby." "No, why didn't you tell me. The true reason." She asks you. You hang your head low because you know the answer and you know she knows. "I've done things okay, and I do things but I'm not a bad person." You try to explain "I didn't ask for excuses about why I asked why." She says jabbing your chest with her finger. "Because I hurt people." You say still not looking at her. "Do you even care about me and my daughter or were you going to kill us too if I broke up with you."

"What, Natasha no I would never hurt either of you." You try to plead meeting her eyes and reaching out for her, grabbing her hand. "Well, how do I know that since I apparently know nothing about you." "Baby you have to believe me-" "No I don't because I don't trust you anymore. I don't know why I did I know better than that" She says pushing her finger into your chest harder. "I wanted to tell you I swear I was just scared, and those people are all criminals who have done far worse than me."

"The bottom line is you're violent. You've brought your violence and the people associated with it into my home, around my daughter." She says looking into your eyes like she wants you to drop dead, tears starting to stream down her face. "But that doesn't matter to you does it because you don't care." "No, baby-"

"WHY DO YOU STICK AROUND IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME." "Natasha what I-." "AM I JUST TOO GOOD OF A HOOKUP TO PASS ON?" "Natasha" "IS THAT WHAT I AM TO YOU?" "NATASHA" At that she bursts into harder tears and throws herself into you.

You immediately wrap your arms around her holding her tight. "I just wanted you to care about me." That is all she says before pulling away and you don't know what to do. "Natasha I do care about you." "Really it doesn't seem like it." That is all she says still walking away.

"Yeah, I do I don't understand how that's so hard to grasp."

"Maybe because you've been indirectly lying to me about being a murderer for months and that's not really what people that care do."

"I did that because I was scared of losing you and I'm not just some serial killer it comes with the job," You say sternly.

"What about my daughter?"

"What?"

"WHAT ABOUT MY DAUGHTER? YOU JUST PUT HER IN HARMS WAY. YOU KNOW I'M A MOM RIGHT. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THIS AFFECTS HER TOO. IF YOU CARED ABOUT HER OR ME YOU WOULD'VE AT LEAST TOLD ME FOR HER."

"I DO CARE. OF COURSE, I CARE I LOVE HER, I LOVE YOU. IF I WAS AN ACTUAL DANGER I WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN INVOLVED WITH YOU BUT IT'S NOT I HAVE IT UNDER CONTROL."

Natasha just stands in front of you before rushing at you and pulling you into a searing kiss. You wrap your arms as tightly around her as you can. She starts to untuck your shirt from your pants but you quickly grab her wrists "Natasha I don't know you're really upset right now." She brings her hands to your face holding your face just over hers. "Do you want me?" She asks her eyes boring into yours. "Natasha." You say trying to hold your resolve. "Do you." She says not breaking eye contact. You nod and whisper "Always."

She moves to leave open-mouthed kisses along the side of your neck. She gets your shirt untucked and touches your stomach with her cold hand making the muscles beneath it twitch. Noticing you're still holding back she grips your jaw pulling you to face her. "Fuck me. Now." She demands you and you can't help crashing your lips against hers.

You quickly wrap your hands under her thighs and lift her not patient enough to wait for her to jump. Your tongues fight for dominance with you coming out on top. You walk to her bedroom pushing her against the door. She drags her nails through your hair and down your neck.

You wrap your hand around her throat pushing her harder against the door. She lets out a moan followed by a whine trying to push her head forwards to continue kissing you. You move to her neck to leave open-mouth kisses along with it. "Mark me." She says making you falter. She takes the opportunity to grab you by the jaw and pulls you to look into your eyes. "And fuck me like you mean it while you're at it." She says rolling her hips and your self-control is completely broken.

You move quickly and start leaving dark marks along her throat, chest, and shoulders. She rolls her hips against you when she feels your piece. She starts grinding down hard searching for the friction she desires. You pull away from the door and start walking towards the bed.

You throw her down on the bed before you crawl up to her and place one of your knees between her legs pushing it into her core. She lets out a moan quickly starting to grind down. The second your head is level with hers she grabs your head to pull you back down into a heated kiss. Despite being caught in the moment you still know in the back of your mind that Natasha has every right to hate you and to tell you to get out right now so you decide teasing her isn't worth it.

You move to start kissing her neck again but after the first kiss, she's already impatient. "Y/N." "Yes, baby?" you ask snaking your hands up the inside of her sweatshirt as she squirmed trying to get away from your cold hands. "Please." She begs and you waste no time getting to work.

Later in the night you Natasha has fallen asleep but you can't seem to follow. You were deflecting earlier you really did put them into harms way and you can't stop from hating yourself for it. You can't decide if you could ever truly keep them safe from who you are. The monster you are.

You decide it's best for them to be kept as far away from the danger as possible. As far away from you as possible.

You quietly gather your things before writing Natasha a note and placing it on the nightstand. You lean down to give Natasha a kiss for the last time and kiss her on the forehead.

"I'm sorry." Is all you whisper before turning to walk out the door.

Taglist: @winterstorm311 @rice-wiife @lost-mortemanghel @r3dheadenthusiast @cd-4848 @diaryoflife

Masterlist

Part 1 Part 2 Side part

[emkini]

WELL my best bro and I watched the first episode of the live action A:TLA series and suffice to say we will not be watching any more of them (except maybe if I want to torture myself writing a full comparison analysis).

The writing is atrocious and I felt no emotional punch from any of the scenes. This show wants to be Game of Thrones and is failing— aside from action scenes there is little to no attempt at crafting interesting shots. Aside from the very first opening scene there are zero creative changes to the story that actually improve it or even add interest, and somehow the pacing is so off that even with a whole hour of runtime it still feels rushed. I get the distinct impression that this show is more worried about being a new, crowd-pleasing take on the original than about being faithful to the original's themes and characterization.

Speaking of characterization, it leaves a lot to be desired. Now I'm not going to be too hard on the younger actors, because they are children and they're not doing a bad job for their age. Most of the actors so far do also seem to have made a decent attempt at understanding their roles, but in some cases they....absolutely failed. Iroh immediately comes to mind– he feels exceptionally callous thus far and ironically his bright and dismissive encouragement of Zuko's firebending is the most egregious example. Iroh in the original show is established early on to have depth and steel to his kindness and his reprimands of Zuko have a consistent undertone of care. This Iroh is a military general who doesn't want to be here and occasionally puts on a forced kind uncle veneer that feels more jarring than authentic. Honestly Sokka is the only character so far who has captured ANY of the original charm for me and even he's been so watered down it's laughable.

The CGI isn't....horrendous, I guess, but it's terribly overused. Bending has no subtlety and is only used for shows of skill or power. There are some impressive landscapes and locations, but a lack of atmosphere and even just good cinematography does them no favors. Wolf Cove especially feels so oddly sterile for what's supposed to be quite a small, close-knit society that I couldn't like it nearly as much as I wanted to. GranGran's exposition scene made me want to pull my hair out for how badly it was done.

In summary, the first episode was downright offensive to my personal sensibilities and I have a feeling it's not going to get better. On the upside, however, when we watched the first episode of the original show it really highlighted jut how spectacularly done it was. In just 20 minutes you get a perfect feel for the characters, something the live action couldn't seem to do even with triple the runtime.

Also Zuko's scar is just face paint and I, as an eye horror enthusiast, am extremely mad about that.

[makeste]

So... How was watching that episode?

I meant to do a post on this sooner, as opposed to late on a Friday night hours before the next episode drops (eta: well apparently there's no new ep airing this week after all so that makes my timing slightly less atrocious), but yeah. basically I loved it. it hurt in all the right ways.

music was incredible. no shot it was ever not going to be incredible. Hayashi Yuuki thank you for always making my emotions your bitch.

there are admittedly a couple of moments in the anime which I felt weren't quite as impactful as they were in the manga. one of these is the moment when Jeanist, after seeing that Kacchan is (he thinks) traumatized and crying, immediately shifts gears from trying to hype him back up to return to the battle, and instead starts reassuring him that he's done enough and he doesn't have to fight anymore and they'll figure out a way without him. when I first read that part in the manga it absolutely slaughtered me. it's so rare to see media that stars young adults as the protagonists, and portrays them as capable young warriors, and yet also acknowledges that even so, they're still just kids. and to then surround said kids with adults who aren't dumbed down, and who are actually smart and capable and who are actively looking out for them and trying to protect them even though the kids are more OP than they are.

so to have a character that looks at someone like Bakugou and sees past how powerful and determined and ferocious he is, and instead just sees a kid who has been so incredibly brave and who they've asked so much of already. and to have that character make the on-the-spot decision to pull this kid out of the fight, regardless of the consequences, even if it means they might LOSE, just because he thinks the kid is hurt and scared and past his limits, and he needs someone to look out for him. that moment says everything about what kind of person Jeanist is. just, that one part got to me so much.

BUT, in the anime it all happens much faster and the moment gets kind of lost because Kacchan almost immediately starts doing his Deku-style muttering, and Jeanist quickly realizes that his initial read was wrong and this kid is actually FULLY AND COMPLETELY LOCKED IN MORE THAN EVER. which is exactly what happens in the manga as well, to be fair. but in the manga I got to read and absorb it at my own pace, whereas the anime just keeps on going with no concern over whether you've had enough time to process everything that's going on. and so that moment just kind of slips by, and almost isn't even noticeable unless you're looking out for it. it's not really a complaint, because there isn't really any other way the scene could be adapted, probably. but it does give me a good excuse to write a mini-essay about how much I love it, so yeah.

moving on though, in spite of my wishing we could have somehow lingered on that part a second or two longer, I did absolutely love the reveal of Kacchan mumbling and analyzing Deku-style. the first of many outstanding Okamoto Nobuhiko performances in this episode. full nerd powers activated. we'd already seen him do this in Bakugou Katsuki: Rising as well, but this is where it really stands out and it was awesome.

and by the way, shout out to the Big Three who are fucking great. eventually when I get around to posting my manga recaps for this part of the story, those will get more into their antics. for now though, I'll just say that everything was very well adapted. and the part where poor Mirio is all "???? sorry????" when TomurAFO has his brief little Tenko outburst was everything I hoped it would be, and Mirio's actor absolutely nailed it. like I knew it was coming and was anticipating it, and it still slayed me. easily a top five funniest moment in the whole damn series.

Kacchan standing up and telling Jeanist to look after the others filled me with just as much dread as the first time I read it. and the first time I read it, I had already been spoiled. so what I'm trying to say is, knowing what's about to happen does not in any way lessen the intensity of this moment. if anything it just enhances it.

the reveal of Kacchan's powerup was so incredibly badass. I can't even describe how badass it was. just, BOOM. now you see me, now you don't. LA DEE DA, HERE I AM! and the narration in the background talking about his quirk. chef's kiss.

no matter how many anime characters I see pulling off the omae wa mou shindeiru, I will never, ever tire of it. it's the single most badass thing anyone can ever do. especially when they were being underestimated the entire fucking time, and now all of a sudden they're out here scaring the shit out of the big bad himself. no one is faster than Kacchan. KACCHAN CAN RUN FASTER THAN ALL OF YOU. HE CAN FUCKING FLY!! HE'S BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW!! GOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

and then Nobu hits us with the coup de grace. "Izuku… can I still catch up to you?" fellas is it gay to spend your last thirty seconds of life having an imaginary conversation with your beloved rival even as you're zapping around like a bolt of lightning, kicking more ass than anyone on earth has ever kicked.

and I was already dead by this point, but then the All Might vestige scene kicked in and resuscitated me so I could die again even harder. worth it.

so what really killed me nineteen times during this part was the way that Kacchan sounded so completely and utterly different from how he has ever sounded before. this is a scene that's taking place entirely in his head (or… in OFA land… maybe???? goddammit Horikoshi still owes us an explanation. THAT VESTIGE SHOULD NOT BE THERE I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYBODY SAYS). there's nobody else around. nobody to perform for. nobody to show off or look tough for. it's just him, and this big mysterious yellow All Might ghost thing.

and he sounds like an entirely different person. nervous, shy, sheepish. no crudeness, no insults. just, aw shucks. hand to back of neck. avert eyes. so this is kind of awkward, but... the thing is, I always wanted to... but I was such a brat when we first met... and I just never found the right moment after... anyway yeah I'm sorry and it's really dumb. but I really just. wanted to get your autograph.

just. this is him at his most sincere. this is who he's always been, all along. the one and ONLY time we've ever gotten a glimpse of him with absolutely no walls. and he is NOTHING like what he presents himself as to the outside world. he is sweet, he is gentle, he is self-effacing. he is painfully vulnerable, which is doubtless why he never dares to show this side of himself to anybody, ever. and he is ultimately so calmly accepting of this one last regret during what he believes are his final moments.

anyway. so yeah. it destroyed me. what else is there to say.

and then it happens. and once again, not to shit on the anime at all because this episode was fantastic, but this was another part that seemed much clearer in the manga. particularly that one page where we see that everyone else -- Jeanist; Mirio; Hadou; Tamaki; even Mirko -- tried to save Katsuki from that final blow, but they were all just a split second too late. the anime did its best to show that, but I think it was just harder to convey in that format. whereas the manga did it beautifully in a way that couldn't really be replicated.

but on the other hand, one thing the anime did VERY well was showing Kacchan's ragdoll body just flop lifelessly away afterwards. holy shit. I watched like a half dozen reaction videos to this episode on Youtube, and in most of them the anime viewers didn't quite realize how bad of a hit it was at first… until they showed that. then they were like, D: D: D:

and then last but not least… the image that broke the internet so hard that it spoiled me even in my paranoid social media isolation. Kacchan lying lifelessly on the ground. it's such a well-drawn panel in the manga, and the anime absolutely did it justice. having him be so pale was a wonderful touch. you see him, and you just immediately know. there's no room for doubt at all. it's powerful af. the Youtuber reactors all lost their minds. one woman actually started sobbing. phenomenal cinema.

so yeah! needless to say I thought it was spectacular. pour one out for the anime-onlys though. and now their watch begins.

[farfromdaylight]

i try not to complain about heavensward. i really do. it's a beloved expansion. people love ishgard. i love ishgard.

however, heavensward FUCKING SUCKS.

listen. so much of heavensward's plot is either badly written or badly paced or both. if you play through it once and don't think about it further, it's a great game. if you even glance back at it, it falls apart like a house of cards.

Actual shit that happens in Heavensward (spoilers):

You fight against the Heavens Ward to prove you're not a heretic. Five minutes later you have to go back to Ul'dah to save Raubahn.

After several levels of exploring Dravania and reaching the Churning Mists, you finally find Nidhogg's lair. You can't get there. You turn around and go back to Ishgard.

While you're fucking about waiting for the manacutters to get done, you go get the sultana back. Literally the entire plot momentum built up from your big road trip across Dravania comes to a dead halt as you go back to Ul'dah.

You slay Nidhogg. You go back to Ishgard. You spend eight quests killing time until the Vault, learn that class warfare is a thing, and fight off one of the Heavens Ward, who BACKFLIPS AWAY FROM YOU.

Immediately after the Vault, you go fight a whale.

The Emperor of Garlemald shows up in the Sea of Clouds just to tell you that you suck.

At the exact moment Y'shtola would be convenient to the plot, she returns.

The archbishop gets to Azys Lla way before you, but helpfully waits until you get there before continuing the plot.

and so on. i'm sure there's more.

here's my problem with heavensward: individually, there are a lot of great plot elements in it. however, they are presented in such a fucking buckwild manner that a lot of them are diminished. let's take the Hilda section for example: it's great to learn about Ishgard's class struggles! Of course this is great worldbuilding! However the actual section where you learn about it feels like (and basically is) filler. You finish the Aery, learn a lot of important Dragon Lore, and come back to Ishgard. You then have to fuck about until you're a high enough level to do the Vault, and in that section you do some of the worst fetchquesting in the game. It is atrocious.

Are there things I like about Heavensward? Absolutely. I fucking love Ishgard. I think the overall worlbuilding is phenomenal. Dragon vs man is a compelling storyline. But my god, the plotting and pacing are SO BAD. You spend an unbelievable amount of 3.0 dealing with the Ul'dah plotlines of post-ARR when you should be fully immersed in Ishgardian politics. It would not have killed you to leave the sultana stuff for HW patch quests, guys.

The best comparison I can make is that it's like if in Shadowbringers, instead of seeing the Meanwhile In Garlemald sections, you instead had to just abandon the First and head back to deal with that shit right before fighting a Lightwarden. It brings the narrative to a dead halt. It just doesn't work.

And like, I get it. It's not easy to write a game like FF14. The fact that later expansions are as well-written as they are is frankly a miracle. This is a huge worldbuild with a ton of plot threads and it's incredible even half of them get wrapped up. But viewed in isloation, Heavensward is one of the most tonally inconsistent parts of the entire story.

[unclaimed-garbage]

My First Impression Rant on S2E8: “The Full Moon.”

SPOILERS FOR S2E8 “THE FULL MOON” OF HELLUVA BOSS

[Things that I liked about the newest episode]

The Art/animation:

The art/animation was super good as always. The fight scene were choreographed rather well and it was just awesome. (Shoutout to the effects team as well).

The music and voice acting:

The music and voice acting were also really good (though at some points, certain characters didn’t sound right??? Like there was one scene where Moxxie confronted the Cherubs and his voice sounded COMPLETELY different. Aside from that though, the emotion in Blitzø’s voice for example where absolutely STELLAR.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many good things to say about this episode because tbh, it was a HUGE let down for me.

[Things I didn’t like]

The goddamn plot:

The pacing here was fucking atrocious and especially bad this episode. The goddamn cherubs and Dhorks got more screen time than Stolas and Blitzø, which shouldn’t be the case given that the episode is titled “The Full Moon” and should’ve been about Blitzø and Stolas’ “deal.”

It was also incredibly strange because why in the world would Vivziepop hype up this episode only to have it barely feature the main storyline. Sure, it was nice to see less of Stolitz, but when you market an episode as being a Stolitz-centric episode that’s supposed to be where they break up, you should expect more focus.

Instead though, we got more of Dhorks’ and Cherubs’ rushed Alliance that went nowhere and was the A plot, while the most important part of the series was shafted as the B plot.

Speaking of shafting the B plot, the pacing was another issue:

The pacing was (once again) another huge issue for me. Blitzø and Stolas’ talk about their “deal” was EXTREMELY quick. Though it was incredibly well done both voice acting wise, mood wise, etc, the pacing just went too fast and it would’ve been nice to see more buildup.

Not only that, but with The Cherubs’ and Dhorks’ situation, the fight went on way too long when it didn’t even affect the actual plot or story. It just meant nothing narrative wise and just felt like a waste of time tbh.

That leads to my next issue, the stakes:

The stakes of this episode were meant to be incredibly high. This was the episode where Stolas and Blitzø were theorized (and confirmed) to break up. Despite this high-stakes moment that’s been forever in the making, with the Cherubs portion of the episode (that took up more screen time than the supposed main focus), the stakes were incredibly non-existent most of the episode and then quickly hit you like a brick in the final five minutes where the most important part comes to play.

Like sure, some may argue that the stakes and tension hitting you was supposed to be like that, but it just felt like bad writing to me.

This leads into the next issue which is tone/tonal whiplash:

This episode suffers from pretty bad tonal whiplash imo. While a good portion of the episode was used to bring Dhorks and Cherubs back into relevancy, there were moments where Blitzø went out (and met Fizzeroli later on) to buy new stuff for their monthly fucking.

Despite the audience heavily suspecting this episode would be Stolitz’s breakup episode, there was little to no buildup. In the beginning of the episode, we get Stolas and Blitzø’s duet talking about the full moon and whatnot. We know that Stolas will give the asmodean crystal to Blitzø, but we don’t know how he’ll react.

We see everything on Blitzø’s side going wonderfully, he’s buying stuff for their “deal” and whatnot making sure it’s perfect (because it’s heavily implied Blitzø is worried that Stolas is getting sick of him). On the other hand, we see no buildup on Stolas’ side. No buildup whatsoever. After the duet, he’s completely gone until Blitzø meets up with Stolas. I think that works against the episode and it’s intentions. So, it went from Blitzø being happy, to things all going to shit with little buildup imo.

The Episode’s intentions:

Honestly, this episode really rubbed me the wrong way, especially when Blitzø finally confronts Stolas about everything. It truly seems that they’re trying to paint Blitzø as the villain, when that’s furthest from the truth.

In scene one (which I’d previously screen recorded, but you can only upload 1 video from camera roll), we see Stolas asking for the book back. Permanently so he can give Blitzø the Asmodean crystal. Blitzø’s reaction here is VERY telling, as he automatically assumes he isn’t doing good enough in their “deal” and thus is jeopardizing his business and his employee’s livelihoods. This is just one example of the gross power imbalance in their “relationship” and like it or not, this scene alone proves that Stolas has created and upheld a gross power imbalance.

Scene/video two ALSO showcases the gross power imbalance in this situation. Blitzø is literally CRYING and BEGGING to keep the book because (as of this point in the episode), he is unaware of Stolas’ intentions and truly believes that the deal is being revoked and he’ll lose his business, job, and cost his employees’ jobs and livelihoods.

Scene/video three truly bothers me in more ways than one because STOLAS was the one who suggested the “deal”. STOLAS was the one who suggested they meet up on the full moon for sex. So WHY is he acting so surprised that Blitzø expected it to be about sex when that was the standard STOLAS set? It really does feel like the narrative is trying to sympathize and make Stolas seem like the victim when Blitzø is merely upholding the arrangement hess. been confined to.

Scene/video four REALLY REALLY grinds my gears after Blitzø rightfully goes off for being blindsided and given no chance to process what the hell Stolas has told him, Stolas is yet again treated like the victim while Blitzø is made to be the villain. Blitzø literally mentioned in the scene before this that he needed time to think things over and couldn’t have this thrown at him like that (and also rightfully goes off on him for seeing him as lesser and being toyed with).

Not only that, but it’s just misguided at best and downright malicious at worst that Blitzø’s trauma and abuse from Stolas is either completely swept under the rug or spun to make Blitzø be the villain in the situation when he’s merely fighting back against the abuse he’s faced.

The final part, The Hype:

Honestly, this episode was REALLY disappointing. It didn’t even reach the 30 minute mark and was the same/similar length as every normal episode, yet it was supposed to be so much more important. We were promised a good episode where Stolas and Blitzø would discuss their “deal,” yet it was shafted to the last five minutes and felt incredibly rushed and victim-blamey tbh. The hype for the episode didn’t really match what we got imo and I’m more disappointed with this episode than I’ve been with the other episodes in season 2.

Overall, I really hate Stolitz as a ship because of portrayal in the series and the episode heavily suffered because of it and also suffers from the usual issues due to the lack of proper pacing and the fact that it wasn’t even longer to allow for more time.

Rating: Tilts between a three and a negative infinity tbh

Maybe I’ll make a much more in depth/thought out say since this one was kinda a heat in the moment one I made while on my way home from Walmart. 💀

[luvneymar]

can you do a neymar fic where he falls for davis school teacher that he meets when davi gets in trouble for something at school

GOOD BOY, BAD BOY — NEYMAR JR

SUMMARY: you finally meet the parent of your star-student & he’s more than you’d expected.

CONTENT: absolute fluff, neymar is a atrocious simp, neymar gets whiplash LMAOOO. also not proof read cuz it never is. think of the spelling errors as fill in the blanks! ❤️

PARING: young!dad!neymar x preschool teacher!reader

“Davi! How many times have I said we don’t hit other children? It’s not nice!”A honey like voice scolded the young boy who stood in-front of you tears forming in his eyes. Today Davi had hit another kid for something he refused to tell you which unlike him.

He was normally a good kid who shared his toys and snacks with everyone unless someone set him off. And in this case someone did indeed set him off, with the amount of times he’s hit another child or just been a pain you’d think the director would’ve sent him somewhere else but since you took a liking into him the director placed him on your hands.

“I’m sorry but we’re gonna have to call your daddy and tell him about this.” Hearing that Davi burst into tears, brave face coming off almost instantly. You scooped him up and cradled him into your arms pacing around the room in an attempt to calm him down.

He cried into your shoulder getting snot all over your shirt as collarbone, Davi didn’t cry often cry even when he did he didn’t cry as much as he did right now.

You walked towards the side of the room where the parents phone numbers were kept and dug through the draw hysterical child still in your arms. Once you found it you ripped the piece that had his fathers phone number and tucked the paper into your pocket.

“I know Davi, but there are consequences to your actions. I’m sure daddy won’t be mad.” You muttered into his ear as he rested his head on your shoulder sniffling every 15 seconds as he got snot all over your shirt.

“I sorry. Don’t call daddy.” Davi babbled our lifting his head from your shoulder to look at you with his big brown eyes, you were almost convinced but deep down you knew this decision was needed.

“I’m sorry baby I have too.” You kissed forehead before rested his head onto your shoulder softly stroking his blonde hair once again before walking towards the sink station to grab some tissues for his snotty nose.

Once Davi had calmed down the rest of the day went smoothly as you kept both of your eyes on him at all times leaving him alone for very little time. The end of the day was soon approaching and you could notice that Davi’s happy smile was fading into a look of nervousness.

All the other kids had there parents come to pick them up leaving you and Davi in the preschool centre along with some other staff who’s were preparing to leave. As you were playing transformers with Davi you turned your head for a moment to place a piece that fell back onto the toy you were playing with.

Once you turned around you noticed that Davi was gone and looked up to see him running towards a rather handsome man, as your eyes met his you felt your heart skip a beat and quickly looked away trying to compose yourself. “Daddy!”

“Hey buddy, how’ve you been?” You composed yourself dusting off your clothes and getting up from the spot you sat to make your way towards the man who pretended to eat his sons nose.

“Mr. Dantas?” You called out as you walked towards the pair still holding a transformer in your hand unknowingly, Neymar looked down towards the toy before chuckling as he adjusted the toddler sitting on his waist.

“Oh I’m so sorry how rude of me, I’m Neymar Santos. It seems as if you guys don’t update your system to often.” He laughed deeply practically undressing you with his voice, despite feeling like a high-school girl all over again you kept your composure.

“What makes you say that?” You questioned cocking your head to the side as you crossed your arms right under your breasts unknown to the fact that Neymar’s gaze was at your chest and not at your eyes.

As you waited for a response your eyes tracked where Neymar’s eyes could possibly be looking at that had him so distracted, it wasn’t that hard to figure out that he was basically gawking at your breasts like some horny teen.

You cleared your voice signalling him to look up at your face as you crossed your arms on your breast, keeping your chest out of his sights. Barely.

“If you did you’d know that it’s no longer and was never Mr. Dantas & that was just a cover up name from my ex-wife.” He looked up at you with a seductive look, his signature look that he gave all the girls he wanted to see naked.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind then.” You answered secretly cheering at the sound of ex-wife and not current wife.

“Keep the ex-wife part in mind too.” He winked at you before turning towards the door to leave the pre-school centre. As he was leaving you completely forgot why you even approached him in the first place.

“Before you go I need to speak with you about something.” You grabbed onto his jacket stopping him from leaving the building. He spun around as he let his down from his hold on his hip holding his sons tiny hand in his large one.

“You can speak to me about anything.” He answered still looking at you with his signature look, despite almost melting when he looked at you like that before you stayed firm mentally.

“No this is serious please be serious.”

“What’s going on? Is there something wrong with Davi?” His look immediately changed into concerned one, you hadn’t meant to alarm him so you waved your hands immediately putting his worries to rest.

“Yes. Well no. Yes & No. More leaning towards yes rather than no.” You stuttered out not knowing how you were supposed to explain this.

“Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on darling.” Neymar looked at you with a smile on his face flashing you his blinding pearly whites. It was almost insulting how perfect he was. Nonetheless you remained composed.

“That isn’t appropriate I could have a boyfriend you know.” You mentioned trying to deflect from his flirtatious remarks. Neymar had a smug look on his face as he responded.

“But you don’t.”

“You sound so sure about that. How do you know I have a boyfriend?” You questioned looking at him up and down watching another smile form on his face as he looked away looking quite embarrassed.

“Just a hunch, as you were saying you needed to speak to me about something.” He deflects from the side conversation returning back to the original conversation.

“Yes, uh. Davi has been having a lot of behavioural issues recently. He’s aggressive, violent & sort of mean to the other kids. Today he hit a kid so hard their lip begin to bleed. Is everything okay?” You looked down at davi who was sucking on his finger looking at everything around him but you two.

“That’s probably the aftermath of the divorce his mom and I recently went though. It wasn’t a toxic or malicious one he just misses seeing her 24/7.” He responded as you crouched down to pull his fingers out of his mouth and wiped the saliva from his mouth.

Unknown to you Neymar was looking down at you with smile as he finished his sentence, he hadn’t known why he was intrigued by you. You were just a regular pre-school teacher but watching the way you cared for his son even when you weren’t being payed for it and how you became flustered and fidgety at every flirtatious comment he made, made him feel fuzzy.

“Ah that’s why. Well is there anyway I can help? I like Davi but he’s 1 more incident away from being suspended from this pre-school. Which I don’t want to happen.” You mentioned as you got up and walked towards the trash can just few meters away from the father and son.

“You could go on a date with me.” Neymar mentioned casually picking his son up again hoisting him on his hip as he turned around to see your reaction, watching you spin around in slow motion with a shocked look on your face was almost laughable to him.

“What?” You questioned hoping you didn’t hear him right and was just being delusional. I mean no guy you just met a few minutes ago would be asking you on a date right? especially a guy as hot as him.

“Go on a date with me.” He repeated again cheeky smile on his face as he wrote something down on a sticky pad that rested on the welcome table just a few metres away from him.

“W-What! I don’t even know you. All I do is care for your-!” You babbled on not aware that Neymar was walking towards you and placed his spare finger on your lips before placing the sticky note into your open palm all with a smile on his face.

“Shh. We can sort that out later. If you wanna help Davi. Go out with me.” Neymar repeated for one last time before turning to walk out the building leaving you standing there stunned with his number in your palm and finger previously resting on your very soft lips.

“Okay.” You whispered finally composing yourself a few second after, as you turned your head and looked out the large daycare window you noticed that Davi and his father were just driving out of the parking lot. As the car finally reached the street you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket.

(Unknown Number)

hey stranger ;)

[ponett]

I have now finally seen the Mario movie. It was Pretty Good. Here are my wordy thoughts on it. (I am going to spoil the entire movie. Duh.)

In many ways, the Mario movie does what I wish the first Sonic movie had done. They just took the characters and the premise and the world from the games, and made it a straightforward animated adventure movie. It's bright and colorful and remixes things JUST enough to include fun elements from multiple games, and it doesn't make Mario get adopted by James Marsden or whatever. It even has the music!

That's all you really need, right? Right...?

I'll get this out of the way up front. Chris Pratt was fine. He's fine

If anything, it really feels like they did the movie a disservice by letting us hear so little of the Mario voice in the previews. It took one scene for Pratt to disappear into the role for me. It was totally fine. If anything, I found Charlie Day's normal voice coming out of Luigi WAY more distracting, even if I did like him in the role.

Everyone else was pretty good, for the most part. Jack Black was obviously very good as Bowser, but I'm biased. Seth Rogen does the Seth Rogen laughs as Donkey Kong, but I thought DK was fun, too. (I liked his little rivalry with Mario where he was just constantly giving him shit.) The only casting choice I truly hated was Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. I hated every line that came out of his mouth. He sounds atrocious. Just the worst. I swear to fucking god if they do a DKC movie and we have to hear him for 90 minutes

I did think Peach was lacking, but that was on the script, not Anya Taylor-Joy's performance. It's cool to see Peach fight, but it's one of those all too common instances where the writers put so much effort into making the main girl kick ass and be an effortlessly confident girlboss that they forgot to give her an actual personality. Not that I'd point to Super Princess Peach and its mood swing superpowers as positive representation or anything, but there's a happy middle ground, surely. Shrek was 22 years ago, just having the princess do flying kung fu kicks isn't enough.

Okay. With the voices out of the way, let's talk about the big picture:

It's way better than the words "Illumination Mario movie" implied, and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. The spirit of Mario is there 100%. But I'd also describe it as "ruthlessly efficient."

This was perhaps the main complaint critics had, and they were absolutely right. People have responded to these totally average reviews with "Well, what did you expect? Shakespeare?! It's MARIO!!" Like, yes, I would prefer it if the movie I paid to see had writing that was good instead of bad. What a shocker. My issue isn't that it's not "high-brow" enough. The problem is that it feels mercenary. It feels like an editor went through and deleted almost every line of dialogue that isn't some form of exposition, at the expense of the pacing. Any scene that's not a montage or some sort of action is kept as short as they could make it, with barely any room for embellishment, character interaction, or anything other than the bare minimum word count to hit all the typical Save the Cat Hollywood screenwriting 101 story beats to the letter. There aren't even as many jokes as you might think (and the ones that are there are extremely hit or miss, including a lot of the slapstick with Mario himself).

Mario and Peach's little arc together in the front half of the film is probably the worst example of this pacing. Even having read reviews that complained about how fast Peach goes from meeting Mario (by her admission the first other human she's ever met) to deciding to train him as the new savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, I was SHOCKED at how fast it was. They don't even lampshade it.

Peach takes Mario straight into the big training sequence where he learns how to use mushrooms and jump over platforming obstacles. Peach is apparently already a hypercompetent platforming pro and a great fighter, so there's no clear reason why she's taking the time to train this random guy to be half as good as her when the world is in danger. Then they set off on their adventure, Toad joins them, and we get a VERY brief travel montage. It's about thirty seconds total - just long enough to give Peach a line about how she wants to protect this beautiful world of hers to try and give her some stakes. We get the genre-mandated nighttime campfire heart to heart, which is exactly long enough to have Mario say he misses Luigi and to have Peach give the two sentence summary of her origin story and not a second longer. Then they reach the Kongs, and their big journey is complete. (They barely interact for the rest of the movie.) So much of the movie is like this - always ready to get on to the next scene as soon as a new one starts.

I'm not criticizing the script because I expect The Super Mario Bros. Movie to be a prestige drama - although there are certainly halfhearted attempts at a dramatic arc. The stuff with Mario's family was a fun enough idea, but again, ruthless efficiency. We get one quick scene with them at the start to give Mario some pathos, because I guess Save the Cat said he's gotta have some pathos. And then Mario gets his dad's approval amidst the action of the final battle in Brooklyn to resolve his arc, just so the movie can end as quickly as possible once Bowser is defeated. (Despite now having the approval of their family and their community back in Brooklyn, Mario and Luigi move to the Mushroom Kingdom off-screen without a single word dedicated to this decision, because that's where they live in the games.)

Look. I am not comparing it to The Godfather. Don't give me that shit. I am not asking for an extra half hour to explore Mario and Luigi's childhood trauma. I am not asking for the complex inner workings of the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy. I know this is gonna be a basic Hero's Journey adventure for kids. It just feels like it's turning down so many opportunities to have a little fun with the characters, to let them interact and play off of each other, to let there be some adventure on this adventure. This is the first time we've gotten to see these characters interact with fully voiced dialogue in a very, very long time! "Yeah, it's not High Art, but it's FUN!" Stories are fun! Character interactions are fun! The script could be having so much more fun!! It is adamantly against making the Story parts of this story-driven movie any more Fun than they functionally need to be!!!

Mario, Peach, and Toad's journey to find the Kongs is shorter than the training montage that precedes it. After the opening, Bowser mostly just sits in his castle and waits for the third act to start. Luigi's there, too, but he only gets one scene with Bowser and then the movie mostly forgets he exists until the climax. He doesn't even get to try and sneak out of Bowser's castle and get up to hijinx. He's just there to be a motivation for Mario, so he sits in a cage for half the movie. It's the bare outline of a script with action scenes added in.

Aside from the fact that it's Jack Black singing as Bowser, I feel like this overly-efficient script might be part of the reason why the "Peaches" scene stands out so much. It's a moment that didn't strictly need to be there to keep the plot moving or to provide an action setpiece. It's not even a reference to another Mario thing. It's just a fun and memorable little character moment that's there for its own sake. That's what the movie needed more of. To stop and smell the roses more often. To play in the space.

To be clear, this isn't a unique problem with this movie. Critics have been noting for years that second acts are disappearing from big Hollywood movies in favor of the Act I plot setup and the Act III action, even though Act II is supposed to be where you get to explore your actual premise. And lots of animated movies give me this exact same vibe of being too "screenwriterly," or feeling like they had an executive breathing down their necks and demanding changes based on focus testing. But these common issues are why I come away mostly feeling like the movie is on the better end of "average," rather than totally blowing my mind. You have seen this movie many times before, just not with Mario in it.

And, of course, there's the music. The score by Brian Tyler based on various classic Mario and Donkey Kong tunes (frustratingly all attributed to Koji Kondo) is absolutely beautiful, but it's unfortunately frequently overshadowed by the licensed music. Everyone already complained about things like the use of Take On Me in place of a lovingly arranged DKC medley, but it feels illustrative of the tug of war the movie is caught in the middle of, between wanting to be a lavishly faithful Mario movie and wanting to be a generic tentpole animated adventure movie. Every single licensed song used is the most obvious, overused song they could have picked for the scene. It reeks of cynical executive meddling and it took me out of the movie every time.

But there really was a lot of care and love put into this movie - more than probably any other video game movie ever made, not that that's a high bar. I don't want to underplay that too much amidst all my complaints spurred by the absolutely insane response to the reviews.

Aside from the countless background references that people will be picking apart for years, touches like the Captain Toad tune playing in the background of Toad's introduction or the Mario Kart 8 menu music playing in the kart garage really help bring it to another level of authenticity. I also enjoyed seeing some more obscure Mario enemies that felt like they were picked more for being fun to animate than for being nostalgic and marketable. No matter how many times I sarcastically pointed to the screen and deadpanned "reference. reference." I am not immune to noticing these things and smiling. I am not immune to the DK Rap. These alone don't make the movie good, but it's nice to have a video game movie that feels like it was made by people who like video games.

Most importantly, the animation is great throughout. It's leaps and bounds ahead of other Illumination work, and it's the best the Mario cast has ever looked. They even made Donkey Kong handsome, somehow. They're all so squishy and expressive, and they move so fluidly - especially in the action scenes. I particularly liked the more kinetic ones like the aerial Banzai Bill chase and the Mario Kart sequence. Truly, the Mad Max-inspired car battle on Rainbow Road where Mario literally does the speedrun shortcut is this movie firing on all cylinders.

Other, more hand-to-hand fights nail the Popeye-esque vibe Mario should be going for. He's an underdog who gets the shit kicked out of him by bigger, stronger opponents until he gets his signature powerup and turns the tables on them. My favorite animation of all probably came from the use of Cat Mario to turn the tide in the DK fight. They had so much fun making Mario move like a cat. Again, it feels like a choice made because it'd be fun to animate rather than just a nostalgia move.

It's that animation and that attention to detail that carry the film, really. They elevate it from mediocrity into being a fun watch for a fan like me, albeit one I couldn't help but pick apart with Anthony as we watched it at home. I'm glad I saw it, but there's a lot of room to improve with the inevitable sequel. I hope they do. I can't deny that I had fun with the movie, but I hope next time that fun is partially because of the script instead of in spite of it.

Stray thoughts:

Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie a lot more than Sonic 1, but probably not as much as Sonic 2. Not that these movies need to be pitted against each other.

I hated the Luma. I hated how hilarious they clearly thought the Luma was. They have the fucking Luma break the fourth wall to end the movie and start the credits. This is going to be a deep cut for fans of bad animated films, but the whole time I was just thinking of the little fish from Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss who's just the director's kid saying random nonsense. You know I'm right

I rolled my eyes at the "our princess is in another castle" joke and several other jokes that would have been dated in a gamer webcomic 20 years ago but I guess they had to be there

How much of Brooklyn did Bowser's giant floating castle take out? We know 9/11 happened in this universe because the Freedom Tower is there, hasn't New York been through enough

I can't believe there's a Diskun easter egg

The dog is the most Illumination character design in the movie. It felt like it wandered on set from The Secret Life of Pets

Mario being a gamer and playing Kid Icarus of all things just made me remember this tweet:

Yes Anthony did get mad at me for being thirsty for Bowser

[avelera]

Ugh, popped on Twitter to geek out about the Wheel of Time S2 and immediately find a bunch of WoT dudebro fans complaining that a 15 book series of 800+ pages each isn’t getting the exact word for word adaption that exists inside their heads when they read the books. And let me remind you all, these books were my life, my first fandom, and basically my personality pretty much from when I first read them in 1999 until Robert Jordan died (alas, I read to the end but Brandon Sanderson never quite captured the magic of RJ’s writing for me again, even if I think he did the best job anyone possibly could.)

So let me just say from a place of deep respect and obsession with these books that any hate for the show based on it not being a page for page adaptation is patently insane. Much of Wheel of Time relies on the strengths of prose which are untranslatable to a visual medium. Stuff like how magic (or the One Power) feels to cast makes up a huge proportion of the book. You can externally portray a feeling, sure, but there are still limits.

They forget that Book 1 was written to be standalone and has a ton of inconsistencies with later books that need to be shored up. That means logistical changes which cause necessary alterations almost all of which have actually been massive improvements in my mind. For all my love of Wheel of Time, its pacing is atrocious and I think even RJ would agree that if he could go back with the whole story in mind and edit it to be more streamlined, he absolutely would have. The show HAS to do that or we’d still be in the goddamn Two Rivers with the book pacing.

Centering the first season on the White Tower and Moiraine’s POV makes sense. The book relied on Moiraine being a Gandalf figure that gave information away at the pace of reader reveals, in tiny drips meant to tantalize a slow-paced book’s reader. That would be immensely frustrating for a tv show viewer of a story set in a sprawling fantasy world that needs tons of explanation and world building up front to have any idea what’s going on. Focusing on Moiraine, who has the answers, instead of sticking to the ignorance of the kids isn’t just a good choice it’s very nearly the only choice you can make. The White Tower is one of the most complex and interesting parts of that world. Centering it and introducing it earlier was an incredibly wise choice.

Other smaller choices make sense too if people thought about it for two seconds. Aging up the kids makes sense. They’re teens in the books and it would be incredibly awkward on screen. But once you age them up, it makes sense that at least ONE of them has been married before. Perrin makes SENSE to have been married if he left Two Rivers later. He’s a responsible guy with a good trade and a level head on his shoulders. He’s sweet and caring and mature. Of course he got married, he’s from a small farming community in a medieval-esque world with shorter life expectancies. Furthermore, I love Perrin to death but his obsessive fear of hurting Faile later is frankly ungrounded in anything that isn’t benign misogyny on some level. It doesn’t update and translate well on its own. Giving him Laila, giving him the manner of Laila’s death grounds his later attitudes towards Faile so well I literally gasped when I put it all together.

Other changes like in S2 having Min and Mat meet the way they do in Tar Valon was genius. It matters more that Mat and Min have rapport than that they meet in the same circumstances as the book (and Mat wouldn’t even remember that meeting anyway lol). The rapport set up and the way it showed Mat’s genius and con artistry was brilliant. Showing these characters LIKE each other was incredibly engaging and endearing which is so important because the adaptation has to be enjoyable to non book readers too, especially since the 15, 800+ page books of meandering pacing are pretty much impenetrable to new readers. Book readers simply can’t make up the majority of the audience, there’s not enough of them to sustain a show with any kind of budget which WOT requires. Thus, it needs to be an enjoyable show in its own right, not just a meandering exact adaptation ffs.

I can literally point to any show change and say it was either logical, practical, thematic, or simply genius. Wheel of Time desperately needs an edit to be accessible to modern audiences. What an adaptation prioritizes is always a risk that’s going to be run for a fan of the original material but so far I’ve been wildly impressed by every choice made in how logical or thoughtful and most of all loving it was to the actual important emotions and themes of the book. Any complainers are seriously missing the point of what an adaptation even is.