Because Sometimes, Saying It Feels Rude..

Part 28 of Arc II (Part 54)

now that wasn't too bad, was it now :)

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[ID: A digitally drawn comic of Toph and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender talking about Zuko’s scar.

It begins with Toph approaching Zuko, who is sitting near a campfire. “You have a scar?” she asks. Zuko replies,  "Oh! Uh, yeah… You didn’t…?“ Toph cuts him off and says, "Came up in passing with the other guys.” Toph casually makes herself a seat out of rock and sits down next to him. “Must be pretty badass if everyone assumes I know it’s there, too,” she continues. Zuko looks aside awkwardly and says, “… It’s on my face.” “Ah.” Toph replies.

Zuko says, “Maybe you could… feel it?” “Huh?” says Toph. “I guess, if I concentrate hard enough.” Zuko reaches for Toph’s hand. “Uhm, just with your hand, if you want,” he says. “I don’t think I can describe it.” “… Gotcha. Guide my hand then, boss,” Toph says. Zuko does so, and there’s a pause as Toph touches his scar. The fire reflects in her eyes.

As Toph pulls her hand away, Zuko says, “…. You know, my left eye is almost blind, too.” “Seriously?!” Toph exclaims. “Why aren’t we a tag team yet?! The blind bandit and the half-blind dweeb!” “Come on…!” Zuko moans. End ID]

id by @strawberrygiorno , thank you!

i’ve had this comic sketched out for months but only decided to finish it now, it’s based on something i drew a couple years back of toph and zuko….don’t think too hard on when or how this takes place because i don’t really know either! it’s just a concept i’ve always wanted to draw

But why do ideas for fanfiction come to me only when I am studying for exams? like, WHY???

3rd years (updated with alt-text!)

PARAVOLLEY AU! 🏐♿️

I lied

I said I was going to continue with Sanderson, but I still need to buy the books.

I am used to read on the train on the way to uni.

I started reading Shogun.

“celebrating characters bdays is cringe” FUCK that and happy birthday norman tpn

ive been on an inazuma eleven kick lately. heres the dynamic of THE trio ever.

the parallelism (or cit?)

I recently did a binge watch of Blue Lock. As soon as this scene with Chigiri and the creepy long black aired guy (Aryu) popped up...

I could not think about this scene with Kurama and the creepy long black aired guy (Karasu) yu yu hakusho.

the only thing that differs is that in the first case Aryu compliments Chigiri's hair, in the second case Karasu basically told Kurama that he had shitty human hair LOL

you know what isn't appreciated enough? the ways in which tsukishima takes after sugawara senpai~

it's not really emphasized by the framing of the anime like other character dynamics, but there are some pretty consistent tell-tale throughlines that hint at how much tsukki respects him. the obvious start is that tsukki never sasses or talks back to suga - sure, this is generally pretty true of all the third years, but i think he seems especially yielding to suga. suga even gets to hit him and mess up his hair, and tsukki will respond to him with reserved frustration but none of his usual irony - at worst, a very earnest "could you please stop?" he certainly has thoughts about it, but he actually exhibits resraint with that sharp tongue of his lolol i have to wonder if he holds back because suga somewhat reminds him of akiteru, who plays a similar role of being supportive, guiding, and sincere.

as for volleyball, we see from the get-go whenever he steps on the court that suga is actually a very intellectual player. he keeps a keen eye on where everyone is on the court, measuring where their strengths and weaknesses are, so that even if he doesn't have hinata's attack speed, kageyama's precision, or tsukki's high blocks, he can pinpoint the exact weak spot that only needs that little push to come apart. and then he tugs on that thread to see how much of the enemy team's formation he can unravel. his strategy is consistently on point, not unlike the play style we see tsukishima adopt as he grows out of his shell.

and i'm sure that's partially just because they happen to have a natural inclination toward the mental game of volleyball. but there are also very specific on-court habits that appear to be directly modeled after suga. the first time we get to really see suga's strength in action in s1, he's running all over his team's side of the court saying "hey you, come here, i have an idea," integrating each and every member of the team in the way that best suits their abilities. the play suga specifically asked tsukki to try is the strategic blocker switch. tsukki even tries to give him his due credit for a well-called play, but suga explains it like it's actually a really easy call to make. it's not really shown, but i do genuinely think something clicked into place for tsukki that expanded the ways he can read the court.

by season 2, tsukki is using a very similar thought process to predict where kyotani will hit and do the blocker switch with tanaka. and i don't think it's a coincidence that this is during their rematch with seijoh, the team against whom suga originally deployed this strategy.

we see tsukishima further mirror suga's play style (albeit adapted to the position of a blocker) in s3 as he becomes more confident and comfortable with his role in the team and on the court. he begins to take the initiative to conceptualize plays to share with his teammates, walking up to them individually like "ちょっと..." and asking if the team would trust him to make certain calls.

it's these little moments of behavior borrowed from suga that open tsukishima up to his teammates, especially his fellow first-years, and become that first cornerstone upon which they build up to a near-blind trust in each other throughout s4. the only one on karasuno aside from tsukki and suga who even sometimes makes these kinds of plays is kageyama, who is more directly suga's mentee by position, but arguably takes after him less than tsukishima does.

Turtle pile, but this time with a good ending

Ok so. Disclaimer. This is my first fic ever and its about @somerandomdudelmao rottmnt AU. (this shows how much I am into this AU, it's seriously a masterpiece)

I was thinking about the arc just before all the turtles (past and future) reunited... and I had an idea of how the turtles would react to a sick Future!Donnie.

anyways, here it is!

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After coming back to life in another time branch, bringing back his brothers from the apocalypse and concluding that death is fixable, Donnie forgot that he is not actually omnipotent, God or a perfectly oiled machine.

This grounding truth became obvious when one evening, while he was working on the time-machine, his movements became sloppier, and a pounding headache started to grow from the sides of his head. The irrational part of his brain (a very little part of his brain to be honest) brought him back to his time branch, in those days in which the symptoms of the krang infection started manifesting. But no, he shook his head as if to obliterate that stupid irrational thought. It’s not possible that the krang infection remained in his body, both Barry and Mikey confirmed it.

Now, he just had to hide it from the rest of his brothers, which could be quite a challenge given the fact that they now lived all together and there isn’t an active apocalypse that is trying to kill them at any moment to distract them. Nice.

 Thankfully CJ was spending the night with their younger versions and April.

But really, it wasn’t that bad, after running a few quick tests on himself he found that the reason of his unwellness lied in the fact that his body became accustomed to the terraformed New York’s weather… aka as dry as the fucking Sahara Desert. Right now, in the normal New York it’s almost winter and let’s just say that the sewers’ humidity index is a tad bit higher than what he is used to…

Suppressing a few coughs, the softshell decided that it’s time to go to catch a few hours of sleep. He stood up from his chair, missing the heat and pressure it provided against his shell. Galileo… he hasn’t worn his battleshell in ages.  I have to add it to the list of things to do; now it’s not the right time. He lethargically made his way to his bed and carelessly flopped down. It was in that moment that he realized just how tired he was, his eyes burned from looking at his computer’s screen too much, his head was now throbbing in a very piercing way and all his body felt heavy. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was utterly exhausted he would have noticed a big red figure looking at him from the doorway of the lab.

When Leo woke up after a long and (finally) continuous 8 hours of sleep, he wasn’t feeling as relaxed as he thought. The slider looked at the time twice to confirm the amount of hours he actually slept, but not even a truckload of confidence could erase the deep feeling of anxiety in his gut. The anxiety wasn’t unusual; it was a feeling that he had to come to terms with during the difficult times of the apocalypse. What bugged him was that he hadn’t felt this particular type of anxiety for almost two years. The twin sense. But Donnie was ok; he was the one that brought him, Mikey and Raph to safety, he wasn’t frail like the last time he saw him, he didn’t have eyebags that were darker than the night sky. He. Is. Ok.

Groaning, he decided that it was time to get up, at least to shake off his irrational thoughts and to see with his own eyes that his brother was indeed fine and healthy. When Leo arrived in the kitchen he was met with the mouthwatering smell of Mikey’s pancakes. God he didn’t even realize how much he missed them. Raph was already at the table  eating the pancakes, he smiled at the view, he would have never thought this moment could ever be possible, but here we are.

“Hey, Mr sensei? You done staring? Do you want the pancakes or not?”. The box turtle was leaning on the stove, his air put up in a bun, on one hand he had a spatula, on the other a ladle with some pancake batter in it.

“Good mornig hermanos! Michael, my dearest brother, right now, to my eye, you are an angel that has just blessed my day. I would die for just one piece of your pancake”. His orange brother chuckled and poured the mix in the pan. “No more dying, please. I’ll make as many as you want; go sit down”.

The slider made his way to the table, sitting in front of his older brother. He looked around, trying to find some trace of his twin.

“Has Donald already eaten?”

He knew that the answer was going to be negative; Donnie has always been a night owl, never too eager to wake up early in the morning. What he didn’t expect was his red and big brother to freeze mid bite.

“You ok big guy?”

Sensing the mood shift, Mikey approached them, putting a comforting hand over the snapper’s left shoulder. “You know you can talk to us Raphie” he smiled.

Raph sighed putting down the fork and placing his right hand over Mikey’s.

“I know… I just…” He sighed again, this time looking directly at Leo. Were those worry lines on his brother forehead? “'Look, I’ll bite the bullet or whatever. I have been having trouble sleeping, you know, with all the ‘I haven’t slept in more than 5 years' situation, and it’s fine! It really is! I know that it’s difficult to adjust, but I kind of liked my old routine. Back in the apocalypse I used to patrol the base and make sure you all were ok… it was the least I could do”.  The snapper lowered his gaze, frowning deeply. “The only person that Raph had some trouble looking after was Donnie… at the time I didn’t realize it, but at some point, he started to lock the lab the night… I guess that was when he started getting sick.”

That was a stab in the chest for all of them. No one had noticed their brother’s decaying health; it took Casey to physically make contact with Donatello’s ribs to get them to open their eyes at the situation. Leo didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about how irresponsible of a leader, of a brother, he had been... everything could have been avoided if he just thought about doing periodic checkups on his brother, it wasn’t that absurd, but he overestimated the softshell’s capabilities of taking care of himself. Right now, though, his twin sense was screaming at him, and he had a feeling that Raph wasn’t just expressing his feelings in a little breakky therapist session. “Raph… look at me.” He searched his big brother’s eyes. Black eyes met black eyes. Red bandana met red stripes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Tonight, I heard Donnie cough. Badly.”

In that moment, Leo’s heart shattered.

After  a few freezing seconds that felt like ages the cold dread was broken by Mike, bless his heart, he really was an angel.

“let’s not worry too much about what we still don’t know. This place is quite dusty, it could have been that, right? We’ll let him sleep it off and in a few we are going to check on him.” The mystic warrior squeezed his brig brother’s finger (his hand was too big).

Leo looked at his little brother, one could have been fooled by his light smile, but that smile wasn’t reaching his eyes, and his hand was gripping too much Raph’s finger.

 The slider took a deep breath, he had to say it, to voice it in some way or he was going to go crazy.

“Do you guys think it could b-“

A loud crash interrupted him mid-sentence. Raph stood up immediately “It came from the lab!”.  Mikey started levitating, his eyes becoming that fluorescent hue of orange and began to sprint-fly towards the lab, followed closely by his brothers. They soon arrived at the lab which, thanks to Draxum’s interior design sense, didn’t have heavy metal doors that are extremely difficult to open.

“DONNIE?!”

Mikey’s scream was like an arrow to their chest, a waterfall of panic washed over Leo. Why didn’t he go to his twin sooner? Why didn’t he dare to check his brother? Why couldn’t he learn from his mistakes?

The lab was still dark, the only source of light were a few LED lights that Donnie started installing to the time machine and the original green/yellow lights. In the shadows only one thing cold be distinguished, their brother’s body on the floor, next to his lab chair.

“shit shit shi- Raph turn on the lights!”

The slider reached next to the softshell Mikey, he had a hand on his forehead, he was trembling slightly, his eyes had come back to their natural color. “L-Leo… He won’t wake up! I-I tried to call him, but he doesn’t respond “.

Raph returned and put his big hand on Mikey’s shell and began making circling movements to try and soothe him, but his eyes were glues to his other little brother unconscious body.  In the meantime, Leo had already taken on his role of medic, assessing the pulse and the breathing, noticing also the deep dark eyebags. He sighed in frustration; Donnie wasn’t  going to get out of this easily. “He definitely has a fever, but other than that I can’t say anything more…”  

The first thing that Donnie noticed was that his shell was cold. On a more accurate analysis, he found out that all his body was cold. Cold and sore to be more specific. Mh… he would rate this nap a solid 1/10. Wait. Nap? He didn’t remember falling asleep and his bed surely wasn’t this cold. As he slowly regained consciousness he became aware of other sensations and stimuli, like the pounding headache in his temples, dry throat and someone who was touching him. Right now the feeling wasn’t particularly appreciated.

“ghh- cough- cough”

Where was he??

“ie? Yo- th us? Donnie??”

A rough hand was positioned on his forehead. Ew it’s sticky. Gross.

“Leo?”

He slowly opened his eyes, his retina adjusting to the blinding lights in his lab. His lab? Wait the last thing he remembered was getting up to go rest, he was starting to feel shitty and- Ohh fuck.

“yeah, ‘oh fuck’. Donnie, it’s quite important, look at me.” He directed his gaze towards the source of the voice, to his left. Leo was on his knees, worry lines dug into his forehead. Behind him there were his brothers, both of them had similar expressions on their faces.

“Donald?” oh right, focus.

“yeah?” God, his voice was raspy.

“Do you think you can get up on you own?”

He really really really (3 reallys) hoped so. “I- yeah I think so”. The softshell began to get on his elbows, ignoring the blinding pain on his back and how much his vision was swaying. He couldn’t ask for Leo’s help. Not right now, because now thing are different, he is fine, he isn’t weak, frail or uncapable of doing the most basic things, like getting up or walking aided by a stick, like an old men. He had it, he fixed it. He managed to sit upright, his vision went black just for a few seconds as his body was trying to adjust to the change of position. When his vision returned normal, his eyes were met with a comforting and warm light which definitely wasn’t coming from the lightbulbs of the lab, it was coming from Mikey’s ninpo. His mystic brother was so gentle that he didn’t even realize that he was floating mid air.

“wait Micheal, I can walk, I swear”

He heard a few scoffs, coming from different directions.

“yeah, keep telling yourself that. Dummy.”

The warming feeling of his brother’s ninpo was a bit too comforting and sleep felt like a good idea.

“Donnie please try not to fall asleep”. This was Raph, he used his ‘big and responsible brother voice’, oh how much he missed that.

“mh, just resting my eyes”

Suddenly he flopped on the big couch in the ‘livingroom’. Mikey was in front of him, a frown of worry on his face. “Leo, I’m going to use my ninpo a bit harder now, I think you should stand back a little.”

Leo actually listened to Mikey, his gaze though didn’t leave the softshell. Raph looked worryingly at Mikey “Are you sure you are going to be alright?”

Mikey raised his arms towards Donnie, “Don’t worry big guy! A little Krang research didn’t aver hurt no one!”

Wait, Krang? It was in that moment, that Donnie realized that his brother thought that he was still infected. That he was still sick and weak. His brother was going to risk overusing his ninpo on a little cold.

“No wait Mikey!” Cough cough. “It’s not the Krang, I’m sure of it!” another cough.

Leo walked closer to the couch, positioning in front of him, his eyer on fire. “Donnie don’t be stupid. You couldn’t see it coming the first time, so why would you predict it now? Why wouldn’t we check after finding you unconscious?! We can’t lose you AGAIN Donnie! You can’t fix everything! And even if you can, sometimes prevent is better than cure!” His brother’s eyes began to water. “I can’t keep losing you… please let us check”.

Raph reached the slider and put a big hand on Donnie’s shoulder, “Leo’s right Donnie… we can’t be so sure, things are already too complicated right now, let us be sure about at least one thing, let us do it. Let Mikey check.”

The box turtle turned to him with a  bright smile, “It’s going to be quick, trust me”

Cold shivers run through the softshell’s body, and resulted in a shiver. “promise me that if you start feeling that something is off you are going to stop.”

All his brothers looked at him with an unreadable expression.

“Said the turtle who fainted, probably because of exhaustion.” Ok fair enough.

“touché”

The process was actually quite quick. As soon as Leo and Raph took a few steps back Mikey began to glow (he never got tired of seeing it), and when his little brother took his hands a hot sensation ran through his body, banishing the shivers from just a few seconds earlier.

After a few minutes the warm feeling was already gone, replaced by the sewer’s humidity.

Mikey smiled at his brothers “Donnie was right, there is no Krang.”

“told you so” cough cough.

A general sigh of relief could be heard from all of them.

“it’s this place’s fault, it’s too cold and humid compared to what we were used to.”

Leo flopped on the couch, right next to him and punched him on the shoulder. “Oh no! It’s totally your fault! You have again neglected your health like the workaholic you are! You can’t keep doing it!”

Mikey sat on the floor in front of them, “Leo… why don’t we argue later? Dr Delicate touch is going to pay a vist for sure,” he looked at Donnie, who was looking like he could fall asleep in any moment. “why don’t we make a turtle pile? It’s been ages”.

A turtle pile. Everyone remembered the last time they did it. That time Raph was a robot with a metallic and cold voice. Donnie was as frail as a stick, he was so weak that he couldn’t even sit.

But this time it was different.

Raph was real.

Donnie was just under the weather.

Death is fixable.

They are ok.

They are together.

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the End. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!!