haleingstorm

[haleingstorm]

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats  🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love 🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? 🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis 🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help? 🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love 💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now?  🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis 🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?  🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before 🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings 🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual? 🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now 📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character 🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? 🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on ❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best? 🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity 🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh  🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work? 🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate 🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told? 🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?  🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing 🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises? 🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here ☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username? 🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them 🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them 🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it 🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

[haleingstorm]

nothing scarier than being a fan of a fic and then becoming mutuals with the author. like hi shakespeare. big fan of your fake dating au

[haleingstorm]

I hope folks know that when they leave long multi-paragraph comments on my fics and call out certain lines/word choices/characterization, I am sitting here clutching my phone re-reading the ao3 email like a little goblin. Then I go over to the fic itself to re-read the comment. Then I flag the comment email so I remember to go back and read it again.

One comment like that — just one — makes it all worth it. So thank you, if you’ve ever left one like that 💜

[haleingstorm]

matt murdock PLEADING with punisher to consider the moral and ethical repercussions of his actions and to stop reverting to murder at every turn. Bringing out the puppy dog eyes. losing sleep trying to understand. meanwhile frank is just like "the assholes I murdered deserved it". the saddest man you've ever seen, staring at his blood covered shaking hands, horrified. and a man who shoots with more freedom than he speaks. it is the FUNNIEST duo and i'll never get over it

[haleingstorm]

tw suicide ideation or at the very least thoughts of death and/or self-harm, mental health struggles (for percy)

thinking again about percy's shitty mental health and how he's literally thought about drowning. thinking about how he never wanted to be a demigod, and one of the first things he says about it is that it gets you killed in nasty, painful ways.

thinking about percy and drowning and the belief that maybe here, in his father's waters, his father's kingdom, his father's throne, his father's arms, in the ocean itself, he wishes to be pulled under and not make his way to shore, he dreams of drowning, he dreams of death, because this is his father's domain and perhaps if his father loves him enough, if he ever met his end here, if he drowned, it would be a peaceful, painless one.

[haleingstorm]

Redeemable Ares?

I know, I know. I’m suggesting it anyway.

Background: One of my teachers in high school said this to my class on the very first day of a new year: “I hate you all equally.” This piqued my interest because it broke my expectations of what most teachers tell their students, so I paid attention to him.

Two years later, I figured out what he meant by that; it was a defense mechanism. This particular teacher held all students at arms length because they would all graduate and leave, and most of them never came back around. Easier to move on if there’s not as much to move on from. He also just… isn’t a very affectionate person to begin with, but that combined with this made for one of the most guarded teachers I’ve ever had.

So my thought is that, since Uncle Rick is taking time to flesh out a few characters more and/or differently than he did in the books, maybe he’s taking a twist with Ares too.

Ares is the Greek god of war. War is not a place for kids, but they are undoubtedly hurt by it constantly despite being innocent. This applies especially demigod children, seeing as they’re constantly hunted by monsters and manipulated by the gods. If your domain is full of death and loss and suffering, ideally, you would not want to see many kids in the midst of that.

Even in peacetime, mortals also have a shorter lifespan than gods. 80 years isn’t very long if you’re immortal, and most demigods don’t live that long either. If you make deep relational bonds with people all the time, you will inevitably experience loss regularly and often. It would wear down on anyone after a while, even if there is no war to be concerned with.

My thought is that maybe Ares “hates” kids as a defense mechanism to protect his emotions and hide any vulnerability. Maybe he “hates” his kids less because they remind him of occasional moments of good he had with his partners, but all the more reason to stay away from them. He “hates” seeing kids in war.

“Look what I made!�� It won’t last. “What are butterflies for?” Not for keeping you alive. “My knee hurts!” You’ll die soon. The winter solstice? How many of those kids won’t come back next year? How many of them will be offered up as sacrifices to be slaughter by the next solstice?

Ares is the god of war. It his HIS domain that kills children that don’t deserve it. Maybe he doesn’t want to see them in his domain. Maybe he doesn’t want to think about the burden of relationships he know won’t last. Maybe (in flashes of subconscious self-awareness) he thinks he is the problem. He is bad for them and he causes their deaths so any time he sees a kid, he hates that the likelihood of their death just shot up exponentially. But that’s too much to articulate concisely so he chalks it up to “I hate kids.” It’s a lot easier.

Doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole about it, but it could happen somewhere down the line. Maybe. I think it would be cool to see in later seasons. Don’t know how that would manifest, especially since Ares and Percy beef regardless of age, but you never know.

[haleingstorm]

For the Random WIP Ask Game :)

What we lost in the fire + 🎶, 🍩

🎶 not really! My artistic skills begin and end with stick figures and while I have a couple of playlists I listen to, there are none that are spefic to this au.

🍩 Shikamaru has absoulty eaten a raw squirel at somepoint, he didn’t realize what he was doing until halfway through and the rest of the team have never let him live it down. As for the best thing…I’m not sure to be honest, Naruto would absolutely die on the hill that it was Ichiraku Ramen but that's very much his opinion only.

Thank you :)

[haleingstorm]

*sweeps all of my AU ideas under the rug* why must I be called out this way?

[haleingstorm]

Random WIP Ask Game

💯 [100] How many words does your WIP currently have? How many words do you hope it'll have when it's done?

⌛️ [Hourglass] How long have you been working on this WIP?

📚 [Books] Is this WIP part of a series or standalone?

🎀 [Bow] How many named characters are in this WIP? How many do get a POV?

💖 [Heart] What is your favorite moment in this WIP?

🎶 [Notes] Do you have any other WIP related things, like moodboards, character portraits, playlists or similar?

📖 [Open Book] What form do you want this WIP to take when it's done? Posted, printed, published, etc?

🐀 [Rat] Name three reasons why this WIP is great at being insert genre here. (You can send a genre, or let the recipient pick one.)

🐁[Mouse] Name three reasons why this WIP is horrible at being insert genre here. (You can send a genre, or let the recipient pick one.)

🔎 [Magnifier] Is there a phrase/word you know you use too often? Will you change it in editing?

🍖 [Meat] How many fictional people were harmed in the making of this WIP?

🌈 [Rainbow] If at the beginning of your WIP the characters knew about the end, would they kill you to stop you from writing it?

‍🎨 [Palette] If your WIP was a color, which color would it be?

🍩 [Donut] What's the weirdest thing someone eats in your WIP? What's the best thing?

🔒 [Lock] Would you let your family, friends, or other people you know in real life read your WIP?

🖋️ [Pen] Describe your WIP in a single, terrible sentence.

❌ [Cross] What would your WIP get cancelled on Twitter for?

[haleingstorm]

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

[haleingstorm]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58309069/chapters/163351612

Chapter 3 of 5 Times Jason's siblings confuse him and one time his dad does

Jason used to be good at school. Zeus tries to parent, and unbeknownst to Jason the fight for best sibling contuines.

[haleingstorm]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[haleingstorm]

Would you rather fight 100 middle schoolers all at once or one at a time?

Oh absolutely one at a time. Middle schoolers are vicious

[haleingstorm]

✨reblog if you're accepting anonymous asks about anything✨

👋🏻

[haleingstorm]

I’m thinking about big three kids being influenced by their own powers

Percy being quicker to panic because he accidentally influences his own blood to rush faster. Jason who often feels like he can’t breathe because he’s altering the air pressure around himself constantly, or when he’s flying, he accidentally displaces some of the air in his own lungs and can’t inhale for a second. Thalia afraid of heights because her demigod instincts constantly tell her to take flight, leave the ground, while her human instincts scream she’ll die if she does that. Hazel and Nico both being cold and tired all the time because their bodies have naturally slower heart rates that are VERY difficult to raise. Hazel can’t wear earrings because she accidentally rips them out when she gets stressed. Nico used his powers to heal his own broken bones too often and now when he raises a skeleton, his own bones ache like he’s got arthritis in every joint.

[haleingstorm]

Son of Neptune, actually I loved this book. It had all the pieces to something I really enjoyed. New Rome was well thought out and a really different perspective. There were ways to make it more accurate to roman mythology but honestly I'm not qualified to even admit at doing that part of the whole thing(anyone else who would like to please chime in) but the split personalities of the gods makes sense in context of HOO and drives the story.

Percy Hazel and Frank make an incredible trio, Hazels backstory is compelling and the flashbacks are super interesting. Frank's shape shifting abilities are an incredible addition. Percy spends most of the book either VERY CONFUSED or confusing everyone else.

All in all there's not a ton I would change, so this is going to be shorter than my TLH series(also I want to get on to the rest of HOO because oh boy I've got plans).

Now on to the things I would change:

Octavian has to be a likeable character, I'm sorry I know we all love to hate on him. But he HAS TO BE, because then it'll set up the slow horror of Percy's new friends marching on his home. If Octavian isn't just evil, if he was friendly, kind welcoming than doesn't that make it so much worse?

So basically Octavian is the augur yes? He and Reyna and Jason were a trio(intentionally pushed together for the most part, ideally your leadership likes each other). But Jason has been gone for almost 7 months, that's an ISSUE and they need to figure out how to move on.

Octavian can't be preator because he's augur but they also can't just keep the seat open indefinitely because Jason is almost surely dead and both of them are having a rough time and trying to balance the idea of honor and duty with their love for their friend who they can't even mourn property because he might be alive

Don't you see? Don't you see how that gives these two characters so much more depth. (Wouldn't it be so much more terrible to now watch Octavian and Reyna march on Camp Half-blood?)

Anyway! On to the next thing, Percy needs to spend more time in Camp Jupiter. After his quest is best but I would be willing to compromise with before. But regardless he needs to start building connections to see these people as people(and more importantly see the flaws in the system. New Rome might be safe but at what cost? *Cough* child shoulder army *cough*

Frank and Hazel need to have met Jason not personally but have been at camp while he was praetor. This is important for the future.

I could maybe see Hazel not being there, but Frank absolutely has to be. No discussion. Jason only went missing around December. Both of them could have been there before that. And it's important to set up the idea of who Jason was pre amnesia

Also Percy can not be elected preator. I get what Rick was trying to do, it didn't work. So we're just going to ignore that clusterfuck.

Otherwise honestly son of Neptune in my opinion can stay the same. What do you guys think? Should more things change?

[haleingstorm]

Okay, listen listen I swear I was going to finish this a long time ago and completely forgot so welcome to the last edition of TLO 2.0 then we’re on to greater things.. I’m going to preface this with, I absolutely am forgetting things that should be changed please drop your own ideas! I’d love to hear them, and they’ll help my very poor memory.

At this point, our friends are well on their way to the end of the story, and to be honest. I deeply enjoyed the end of this book for the most part, and I thought it set up a really interesting dynamic where nature spirits and gods!! Listen far more closely to Geia than they do Zeus. That is something I will absolutely be exploring in future parts(we let go of the fact that GRover is Lord of The Wild far too quickly)

Listen, listen, before the final battle Jason has to have a flashback dream of New Rome, a senate meeting perhaps? Or when he was crowned praetor, regardless it has to be something. Something that gives us insight on who Jason was as a Roman(and how different it is to how he acts now) ideally Aeolus will comment on this as well. Jason is not the same person he was once

He summons the lighting bolt to fight Enceladus,and for some reason he does not expect an answer. He is ready to fight with nothing but his bare hands - cue flashback of the last time he was on Mount Othrys - give us more about the Roman side of the war! Was it just as much of a massacre as Manhattan? Were there traitors from the Roman side of things? Who was the praetor before Jason?(let this fight flesh Jason out, showcase his history, make him complex and interesting and show how loyal he once was to the Legion)>

The fight at the wolf house can stay the same - I actually really enjoyed it. Especially the part where Jason dies and Piper brings him back, it’s nice foreshadowing for the problem with the Doors of Death

Now that we’re back at Camp things get a little dicey, first and foremost neither Piper nor Leo become head counselors, it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Drew takes Piper aside and tells her the whole story of Silena, she holds no details back, the good the bad the ugly. The truth must be told. Piper is horrified and heartbroken(and yet didn’t she do the same thing? How far would she have gone if push came to shove?). Piper admits to meeting Aphrodite and Drew and she shares a quiet bitter moment, for all that their mother is the goddess of love, she doesn't truly love her children.

Jason has another vision of his life in New Rome, but it feels like he’s watching a stranger's life. He can’t imagine doing what a person in the bison did. He was prime and proper, a true roman while Jason tried to take a Giant on with only a piece of wood and when that broke his bare hands. He curls his hands around the photo with Thalia and does his best to commit her face to memory.

Leo is terrified to show his cabin his fire, but he is so tired of living in fear. They surround him in hugs, clasping him on the shoulder and promise to build the boat with him. It’s the first time Leo has felt truly accepted(he does his best not to see how the oldest keep a careful weary eye on him, keeping the littlest away from his hands. He knows first hand how destructive fire can be)

War is on the horizon, and a war council is called. They reveal that Percy is most likely at the Roman camp, and that if they can not make peace with each other the two camps will destroy each other long before Geia does