#problem...reaction...big brother's solution

You and Donnie had been good friends for a while before he suddenly kissed you.

Both of you preferred to stay in the lab, where you could do some biology studies and he tried to figure out new solutions for their fightings and afterwards curing. You chatted, helped eachother and managed to create more of the substance which turned guys to humans.

And damn. You understood he was handsome, lowkey even more than his brothers. However you still couldn't help but thinking you liked the turtle form more.

Once, when you were in his room, checking last inventions, you had a conversation about it.

"Hey, um, and why are you so tense when I'm around? I mean, I'm as a human." He didn't look at you, staring at the computer, walls, calculations, but you. Thankfully he was in his original form.

"Tense? No, no, I'm just..mmm..." You paused.

"Damn. Okay, yeah, I kinda am. It's just, I don't know, it doesn't feel right. Not fully you. Sorry."

"...am I that ugly?"

"What? God, no! Why would you think so?"

"Well, you've just said it."

"No! Donnie, you're attractive, really attractive."

"Then what's the problem? It's still me, but like you! Like a normal guy."

"You are a normal guy, Donnie."

"You aren't so tense when boys are around. It seems like the only problem is me."

"You aren't the problem. I am."

"And what the fuck does that mean? It sounds like you're a partner who's trying to end relationships."

"Well, unfortunately, we don't have anything to end! Even though I'd like to have it. Even though I think you're more hot as a turtle and I'm a fucking pervert! Is it what you wanted to hear so bad?"

He stared astonished. You suddenly realised what you had just said and started slowly blushing. You rested your head on arms folded on the table.

"Sorry. I didn't think I'd admit it out loud. Now you think I'm weird and you actually have that right."

"You think I'm hot?" A quiet voice spoke next to you, along with the sound of chair wheels.

"Donnie, I've just said it. Don't be mean, please."

He stayed silent.

"I like you too, actually. I thought it would be easier to get on if I'm a human. But obviously I just made it worse." He laughed nervously.

"No, not really," you smiled too. "You are handsome in both forms, I like all of you. It's...hard to explain, sorry."

"Would you look at me, please?"

You mumbled, took a deep breath and turned your head hesitantly. He took your face in his hands and gently stroked it with his fingers. You closed the eyes and felt a light touch of lips. The kiss became deeper and more passionate, your arms wrapped around his neck. You seemed to hit a sensitive spot, because Donatello suddenly moaned.

He immediately pulled away. The mask shifted and his pupils dilated. Both of you were breathing heavily.

You grinned slyly and rubbed the same spot again. He tried to remove your hand, but you only pulled him in for another kiss. You enjoyed soft moans and finally felt something down there.

This time you pulled away to look at Donnie. He was completely disoriented, with the fabric of his pants tightening. You bit your lip and gently ran your hand down his torso to see the reaction.

"Are you sure?"

"If you are. I've been fantasising about it for weeks, so..."

"Have you?" He swallowed hard.

"Yes."

It was the last drop. He picked you up to lay you on the table. Three-fingered palms quickly slipped under the T-shirt to stroke your soft belly and chest. All the clothes were soon on the floor. He covered your neck with kisses, squeezing breasts and playing with nipples, making you moan.

After a quick conversation you realised that his fingers are a bit too big for gentle stretching. So you decided to start it yourself.

You already soaked. Looking at him, with the liquid in his hand, ready to be inside of you. One finger inside, two. Clitoris. Two fingers. Clitoris. You were driving him crazy and you liked it.

You got fingers out and licked them. Pink tongue went up and down, before you sucked your first two fingers. Slowly, still looking in his eyes. Those same fingers beckoned him and guided his hand to your vagina. Damn, that was the difference.

"I need you. Please." A begging was almost a whisper.

He kissed you palm and got a finger out of you...just to put it to your lips. You giggled and opened mouth. After a few seconds he swore and ran cock over vulva. He already used the potion, so it was possible for you to have a penetration.

Donnie put it inside and started moving. He was pretty scared to hurt you, so he tried to be really gentle and careful. However, you wanted more. You begged for it and he couldn't help but obey. The rhythm changed into a faster one, he had to close your mouth with his arm, so no one could hear what was going on.

He came first, so there were another few minutes of touching your clitoris. Afterwards, he carried you to the bed, cleaned the table and helped you get dressed. You weren't sure if his family would burst in at any moment, so it was necessary.

When Mikey found you, you already fell asleep. He smiled softly and left, knowing that at least one of the brothers was truly happy now.

Case in point: Riordan's shit math when it comes to the Di Angelo siblings and how it messes up with bianca's character.

So when we meet them they're 10 and 12. We learn that their memories of their past is kinda hazy and that they don't remember their parents but that they were in a boarding school, then they moved to the lotus hotel, then they were taken out of the hotel and put into Westover's. And at the end we learn that they're Hades's children born before the oath of the big 3.

Said oath happened after WW2 btw. So 1945 probably since Bianca remembers FDR's presidency.

Now in TLO we get an update on this backstory. Hades is speaking to Maria about moving his children to the underworld or the lotus hotel since Maria doesn't like the former option because the war has put Hades in a bad situation with his brothers and also the prophecy is out, the oath has been taken and they're running out of time to hide the kids. So logic says that it's 1945. And then Zeus immediately kills Maria and Hades tells Alecto to erase the children's memories and put them in the lotus hotel, and honestly? I like this version much better? Because why in the world would Hades Put his children in a boarding school for a few years and THEN hide them in the hotel after they were nearly assassinated? Why not immediately put them in the hotel?

And so we get to our main dilemma. Bianca having to raise Nico. This was already strange to me because it's not as if this is a Jason and Thalia situation where Jason was a toddler and Thalia had to take care of him. Nico is not a baby they have a two year age difference. But of course these kinds of things might matter more if you're young. Even then, in what situation would Bianca be Nico's main caretaker? They were put into a magic hotel that mind you, makes time go faster so for them it was a month or two at best and they would have been given whatever they needed by the staff? Same type of issue with Westover's and the boarding school if you want consider that canon. They would have been taken care of by the facility. They probably wouldn't even have shared classes or dorms? Or am I misunderstanding American boarding schools?

And then, Riordan's bad math strikes again and this time with the characters' ages. Because Nico's age in HoO becomes 14 which would have made him 11/almost 12 in TTC but that's not the big problem, no no no. The problem comes from his official birthday which is 1932.

1932... Which would have made him 13 and Bianca 15 by the time Maria dies. Which is hilarious because with the way the kids are written during her death scene as absolute non players with nary a reaction, you would think they were written to be toddlers who didn't understand anything that was going on.

That royally screws over Bianca as a character (and me as someone who's trying to write a story centered around her). Because her main thing. The one time she's allowed to have complexity is the moment where she talks about how she wants to be more than Nico's caretaker, and she's barely Nico's caretaker at all. The best in universe explanation I can come up for this is that this is how Bianca perceives things because that's all that she literally remembers. Those months in the hotel and Westovers.

Another time the plot kinda messes her up is at the beginning of TTC. One complaint that I often see in regards to her Is how quickly she makes her decision. She does not even hesitate. She does not even wait to see the camp. You know the place that would have taken care of her and Nico which would have meant she wasn't going to be his supposed primary caretaker anymore? She doesn't even wait to see if it was an actual good place for her brother? Spoiler alert: it's not camp half-blood at the time was not a good place for either of them really. Nico did not have a cabin at camp and people were not accepting of him. Hell, people not being accepting of hades and his children was something established since the first book.

But once again, this is a Doylist problem at its core. We need to turn Bianca into a hunter but we also need Artemis to leave so that she can be kidnapped for the main conflict, so she leaves before the hunters even reach camp. Half-blood. So Bianca as a character doesn't even get to make a proper choice between the camp and the hunters. To people who only look at characters on an in universe level, it comes off as very rash and not well thought out.

To be fair, on an in universe level, she's a kid so it's okay if she's stupid, but Riordan wasn't trying to make her come off as that way? He treats Bianca's decision as a legit serious choice and not the rash decision of a desperate child.

And once again, Bianca is here for Nico's sake more than anything. She needs to die. So she takes the statue for Nico. Which is so ironic and tragic if you decide to play it that way. That Bianca wanted to be more than Nico's sister, but her literal death revolves around being his sister. Normally I'd enjoy this level of angsty irony but unfortunately that's how the very narrative treats her as well. Even her post mortem decisions are there to maximize Nico's angst more than that they're there to say anything about Bianca herself. We need Bianca to only appear at the end of Botl so that Nico and Percy can have a conflict but it once again comes at the cost of Bianca herself coming off as callous. What's the in universe reason for this behavior? It's so stupid because in universe, Nico doesn't even take that much convincing? One conversation. One conversation and Nico was convinced to stop his efforts in reviving her. Does she just not know her brother enough? Maybe since they technically know each other for a year max. Does she genuinely think she's that easy to give up on? Is she that conflict avoidant? I actually like this interpretation and plan to use it. There's much to be done with a character who's rash and bold but an absolute emotional coward who'd try to avoid an emotionally charged conversation until they absolutely can't.

Hell even after Botl, it's the same song and dance. Hades makes an absolute vile remark at Nico's expense. TSATS makes it into a joke moment and has you believe that Hades simple said that Bianca would have been a better demigod. No ladies and gentlemen. Hades literally tells Nico that he wished Bianca had survived instead.(The fact that I still think that hades is the best godly parent just shows you how low the bar is more than anything.)

I swear to God I spent so much time racking my brain trying to understand what this could mean for Bianca's character.

This is how I basically look like trying to milk every scene where Bianca is there as a character or is mentioned for every drop of characterization.

At the end of the day, I can't blame most of the fandom for being ambivalent towards her at best. The story by design is about Nico. It's designed for you to sympathize with him and yeah if I'm to look at it from Nico's perspective. He DID get abandoned, regardless of Bianca's intentions. From his Perspective , which is the one most people would take, his sister took the very first chance she could to ditch him for people she barely knew hoping people either of them barely knew would take care of him even though they haven't even seen the place yet, and then ignored him for months while he was desperate for a single conversation with her. Honestly had Nico outright resented his sister for leaving, I think the reaction towards her would have even been worse.

(Another sidenote, my very hot tea Is that I like to believe that had Bianca lived her and Nico's relationship would have become worse as time went on and as the camp's anti hades sentiments really started taking their toll on Nico. But I'm just an angst lover)

Worse is that this story is told from Percy's perspective and these two only have like 3 actual conversations together. One of them is her dying, one is about her making her first main decision and that's at the expense of Nico who's probably the fandom favorite behind Percy and Annabeth and the other is her trying to explain her aforementioned decision to Percy and even then, she talks about it in such broad strokes. "I want to be more than X" tells us about who you one day wish to be not about who you are at the current moment. And even when we have Nico as a POV character, Bianca is only there for "dead family member" trope. There's barely any moment where Nico remembers anything important about her to give her any depth. The cards are just stacked against her. Even the people who are at the "Bianca did nothing wrong camp" are barely interested in her. I swear to god whenever an AU comes up where she's alive, the focus is STILL on Nico. Oh Nico would have been such a happy person had she lived! And Bianca? Uhhhhh she would have fucked off with the hunters I guess?

Can we talk about the hunters while we're here?

Watching season 4, at first it seems like that is exactly where they were heading- Carmy getting away from that negative headspace and going back to how he used to be. Sydney learning to trust him again so that she can start making the decisions. It’s all going well, except that instead of giving the relationship a natural progression to that conclusion, the show chooses to stale the relationship, in preference of keeping the same factors that got in the way in season 2.

Claire. Oh Claire. Carmy chooses to confront how terribly he ended it with her and goes to apologize. This was good and necessary. Claire was the conflict that got in the way of their partnership in season 2, and his guilt over her helped lead him to spiraling in season 3. The apology scene should have been it. Them leaving each other in mutual understanding that they weren’t the best for one another, should have been it. Claire was too triggering for Carmy, and I wrote down my reasons for why I think that was the case, but whatever reason it was the show never gave it. Carmy described the feeling like being on fire. They broke up, they weren’t good, that should be the end of it… but it wasn’t! Instead of allowing Claire to fade into obscurity, the show brings Claire back! Three times. She danced with Carmy in the wedding. Claire comforted Sydney at the hospital. Carmy called Claire before he met his mother. Claire, who was the obstacle between the two main character's path, now seems more prominent than ever and is now a potential future partner for Carmy.

And that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense to the narrative established in 4 fricken seasons. Carmy can not have The Bear and Claire. Carmy is much too scatter brained for that. He actually can’t have any romantic relationships outside of someone already working in The Bear because of the amount of time the business takes. Sydney put her foot down with that. In season 2, she told Carmy how she needed his full focus, and did not want to share it. Sydney pretty much told Carmy no romantic relationships...one, it wouldn’t work with how busy they are, and two, she wanted to be his full focus. Carmy recognized that too. They didn’t bother to say to give the restaurant your full focus. No, it’s give each other that focus. This means that, other than finding partners from people they hired, which is inappropriate, the ONLY possible romance is with one another.

And both Carmy and Sydney are down with that. It’s been well established that they both share a romantic interest in one another. This is going to anger some folks, but I’m speaking purely about what the story has given. Now mind you, I love me some good, close platonic heterofriendships, and would have been happy to accept that for them, but the way it was portrayed showed that it isn’t.  In the beginning of season 2, Carmy tried asking Sydney out at the end of episode one, but couldn’t do it, but then planned to take Sydney out on a work “date” , this was after giving Claire the fake number. Sydney showed obvious jealousy whenever Claire came into the picture, or was mentioned by Carmy. Sydney doesn’t want to share Carmy. The feelings are there for both of them, so why did season 4 go in the direction that it did?

First, keeping Claire around when she should have gone on her merry way. Second, by Carmy choosing to leave The Bear altogether. Now, one of my predictions for the show was Carmy stepping down as “head” in some form or fashion and letting Sydney take the lead. Carmy is just way too internally chaotic to ever be a good leader, and that has been established well in 3 seasons. He freaks out over stressful situations. I suspected that allowing Sydney to run The Bear was going to be his way of keeping her. Him stepping down and being just one of the cooks, would have been better for his mental state while being able to still do what he loves, which is cooking with the people he loves. What I didn’t expect was there EVER going to be a choice of him leaving The Bear entirely.

For one, leaving The Bear means that Carmy completely went back on everything he had told and promised Sydney. “I wont let you fail” “ We will work on it” “I don’t want to do this without you” All these promises and declarations, and he wants to leave The Bear, and leave Sydney. The ONLY reason Sydney came to The Beef and dealt with all the bullshit there, including the low pay, the aggressive coworkers, the constant instability, was because she wanted to be with Carmy. That’s it. Yes, she absolutely considered leaving The Bear for the opportunity of a lifetime, only after Carmy went a full 180 on her and became a tyrant rather than a partner, but she ultimately chose to stay despite the stakes, and she stayed for the hope for him to be better and become that partner she desired. Sydney doesn’t want to go it alone, same thing goes for Carmy, and that’s what makes their partnership so special..

..but now that is over with. Carmy destroyed any amount of trust that he gained with Sydney. He wants to leave her behind despite telling her that she wasn’t alone. And for what exactly? An ending where he goes to find himself with Claire now by his side, now that he doesn’t have a restaurant to run? And the way this season was set up, it SEEMS like it is headed in that direction. There are far less friendly moments in between them, despite this season being the one where Carmy is trying to repair their relationship. The thing is, they gave many different scenarios where they could have gotten closer to one another, but the show instead stubbornly had them have those moments with others. Richie takes Sydney to the wedding and dances with her. Sydney refuses to allow Carmy to come with her to be with her at the hospital, and Carmy chooses to talk with Claire versus Sydney when going to meet his mom. The few moments they had between them are nothing like the friendly banter they used to have, which is understandable given the circumstances. But it also feels like the show has given up on them as a partnership.

If you’re wondering why it’s episode eleven and the protagonist Digimon hasn’t evolved yet, here’s a good reminder. After Makoto and Chiropmon made their big breakthrough last time, there’s something delightfully meta about turning the spotlight back to Tomoro and Gekkomon and asking “so what’s the holdup here?” They’ve formed an effective partnership over the last few episodes with only minor annoyances between them, but they haven’t yet hit the highs Makoto described during Chiropmon’s turn. It comes at a time when the show delivers a few things that were due to happen, but the absence of one of the most anticipated events adds interesting wrinkles to what could have felt obligatory.

At the same time, putting up with Tomoro and Gekkomon arguing again is annoying. Tomoro is especially sensitive to Gekkomon’s usual nonsense—eating his pay, not sitting still, general property damage—and Gekkomon making himself the center of attention after a few relatively quiet episodes seems sudden and aggravating. Tomoro has an excuse: with Asuka’s birthday coming up he’d appreciate some quiet reflection time and he’s still clearly a little raw about the link between Gekkomon’s appearance and his brother’s fall. It’s harder to tolerate Gekkomon’s behavior. While he wants to be involved in Tomoro processing his grief, that’s such a big ask and his refusal to take a hint, and subsequent tantrum, doesn’t garner much sympathy. As they respond to Raremon’s attack, including a triple evolution sequence from Reina, Makoto, and Kyo that feels like rubbing salt in a wound, the animosity bubbles over and escalates, leading to Tomoro saying some terrible things and driving Gekkomon feral. Well, feral-er.

Turns out Gekkomon losing his mind was exactly what the rest of the story developments needed. It’s about time some of these Five Star members started introducing themselves, but big violent guy with big violent Digimon isn’t all that compelling on its own. Kaito and his solution to the Raremon problem are exactly what you’d expect from this group. And given Kyo’s connections, his status as a former Five Star isn’t too surprising (granted, it’s hard to envision any twist involving Kyo that could be considered shocking). But Gekkomon bursting in when the grown-ups were talking provides the kind of explosive resolution that scene needed. Kaito was about to disappoint everyone and walk away from a fight with Kyo that he started. As much as we struggle with Gekkomon this episode, him re-igniting that powder keg earned him a serious dose of Finding Out and turned a tepid rivalry story into something with actual consequences.