#After a couple of trials

[yukaro353]

You have sinned and now you will be judged.

But be careful, you will not be forgiven for disrespecting the law.

🪭

You guys don't know how much I like these two together, I should have taken better ownership of this ship.

[chocoloom]

Alright, the hyperfixation’s still kicking, so fuck it. Here’s the pokemon I think the Project Eden’s Garden characters would have or would turn into if they were Mystery Dungeon’d

Damon - Servine, Applin, Noibat

Kai - Togetic, Ribombee, Vivillon

Eloise - Swanna, Honedge, Farfetch’d (Galarian) or Sirfetch’d

Grace - Buneary, Jigglypuff, Spheal (golf ball lmao)

Wolfgang - Flaaffy, Wooloo, Herdier, Prinplup

Ingrid - Pyroar, Armarouge, Tinkaton

Toshiko - Spritzee, Fomantis, Flamigo, Roselia

Jett - Poochyena, Scrafty, Revavroom

Mark - Treecko, Whismur, Deino

Eva - Corvisquire, Mawile, Sneasel (normal or Hisuian)

Ulysses - Hoothoot, Elgyem, Claydol

Wenona - Teddiursa, Stufful, Pancham, Pawmo

Desmond - Wartortle, Poliwhirl, Dewott, Clauncher

Cassidy - Sizzlipede, Joltik, Dewpider, Scolipede

Jean - Dragonite, Druddigon, Charizard

Diana - Audino, (shiny) Furret, Galarian Ponyta, Minccino

[literallyjusttoa]

Could you tell us more abt ur au where Apollo doesn’t come back exactly right after surviving being so close to chaos 👀

Yes!! Actually I had a fic that I really wanted to write about this, and I am planning on still doing that but I will tell y'all the gist of it bc I cannot contain myself. (Also this is a bit different from some of the things I've said before about this so I hope you still like it lol)

Ok so, the fic was gonna be a 5 + 1 fic, where Meg and Apollo both realize that something's ... off about him after the trials. His powers and abilities are fluctuating for seemingly no reason. Sometimes he's just a normal god, but sometimes it's like he's still a mortal. And he's also having times where he's way stronger than a god should be, like, near primordial levels. It's causing him a lot of issues, for example:

Gods don't need to eat or sleep, but mortals do. If Apollo doesn't realize his energy levels are going down, he will just end up crashing from lack of food/sleep. This leaves him perpetually exhausted and shaky.

His blood is now all kinds of crazy colors, and it changes based off of where he is on the mortal/immortal scale.

When he's in a "mortal" state of being, he's pretty similar to a demigod. Meg and Apollo learned this when Apollo accidentally did some lightning bending one day. This is not something Apollo has ever wanted to be able to do, and he freaks out appropriately.

One day, Apollo woke up sick and tired of this whole situation. He jokingly wished that someone else could just take over the sun for the day. However, Apollo hadn't realized that he had just gotten a huge power boost overnight, and his harmless little wish just created a second sun. Haha whoops.

Eventually, Apollo ends up breaking his father's rules and visiting Asclepius just so he can get some answers about this, so here's a little rough comic based on the scene I wanted to write explaining this whole mess.

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets Thursday

The next part of the one where I made Damas catch a virus because inconveniencing serious characters is funny (found HERE)

This time I give Jak a hard time, dealing with cranky sick rulers 😆 Spargans speak Mando'a as a second language in this story Because I Said So, but there's translations lol

Jak was not having a good day. First that business with Kwan at the garages, then getting scolded like a kid by Damas (wasn't trying to cause trouble-!), and now Blackwater?!

Worse, it was very clearly his fault that the freaking king of Spargus was out for the count. No one still carried that disease except for himself, Daxter, Samos, and Keira. And only one of those four was both in Spargus and a channeler.

The joint pain, the eardrum pressure, the fluid in the lungs-! All of it was Jak's fault!

Suffice it to say that Jak was not his best self when he stormed back into the throne room to collect charred wood from the braziers. It wasn't quite the same kind of driftwood that Samos used to use for the remedy in Sandover, but it was close enough in chemical makeup -- he hoped. When the elevator gears began turning, Jak wanted to throw something. Now was not the time for people to come looking for work or for someone to settle disputes. Priorities, people!

A round man with three jagged scars across his forehead barged out of the elevator with a purposeful stride. When he saw Jak, he faltered, and stopped to look around, clearly expecting Damas to be somewhere in the room.

"You there," he barked, "boy! Where's the king?"

"Busy."

Jak shoved the coal into his belt pouch and wiped his hands on his shirt.

"Come back later."

The man didn't like that. He puffed out his chest and glowered at Jak’s back.

"This is important!"

"I'll take a message."

Jak rolled his eyes.

"Damas isn't taking appointments right now."

"I ought to box your ears, boy," the Wastelander snarled, "You think you speak for the king?"

Jak turned and faced him. He looked almost bored.

"I speak from experience, buddy. And you're welcome to try. But I can't promise you'll like what happens."

The man -- Ektor, Jak would later discover -- stormed up the walkway, clearly intending on some kind of confrontation.

"When you're done playing, go get the bloody king."

"I said he's busy!"

Jak planted his feet and met Ektor's glare, just daring him to push his luck when he had the high ground.

"What's important enough to go bother him, huh?"

Ektor did not have a particularly good impression of Jak. Kid just shows up out of nowhere, turns into a demon -- literally -- in the ring a couple times and suddenly thinks he can walk around the tower without a summons? Like he owns the place? This brat was just looking for trouble. And Ektor consoled himself with the knowledge that when the king caught him in the act, it wouldn't be pretty.

"How about Apex Metalheads moving in a bloody pack formation, just ten miles from the city! Is that "important enough" for you, "your highness"?"

Jak furrowed his brow.

"Again? Wouldn't Kleiver already have headed out to deal with that?"

The look Ektor gave him was almost pitying.

"This is why bloody children got no place in the ranks!" he groused. "No, Kleiver isn't "headed out". They're too close to the city, idiot! He's on the turrets!"

This was not what Jak needed right now. Growling, he turned on his heel and snatched up his talk-box.

"Dax, I need you to take the coal and get that medicine made. I gotta go deal with something."

"H'oh boy. How bad of a Something?"

"Average." Jak unhooked the leather pouch and dropped it on the throne in tense motions. "It'd be faster if you were on the guns, but somebody has to hold things down here. I've got the Beam Reflexor. See you in a couple hours."

"Roger roger, good buddy. I am very on-board with not going on whatever dangerous hunt this is."

"Yeah. You get the fun job."

"....suddenly not so on-board."

Jak stowed the radio, tightened his bracers, and turned back to Ektor with a sigh.

"Alright, show me where they are."

Ektor looked at him a little differently now.

"Kleiver wasn't kidding about you having some kind of death wish," he said, shaking his head with a low oath.

Ektor wasn't the only person Jak ran afoul of in the coming evening.

Damas did not want to stay in the apartment.

The temporary relief the first of the ten charcoal mixtures had provided gave him a false sense of strength, clearing away the pain and the respiratory difficulty. Damas thought he could just go back to work like nothing had happened!

Jak was bone-weary, fingers still numb from how many times he'd shot components off the backs of the Apex Metalheads. There'd be an absolute goldmine of salvage for the next round of scouts. All Jak wanted to do was sleep. But someone kept trying to jeopardize his recovery.

Jak braced himself against the door controls, blocking a man just as stubborn as he was. They glared at each other while Daxter ignored them both to grind up the next charcoal batch. Damas tried to reach around him, and Jak knocked his arm away just as quickly. His reaction time was slowed with exhaustion, and his reluctant patient took advantage of that.

Damas took hold of the iron ring over Jak's chest. He had enough strength back to lift Jak up to eye-level, leaving him on his tiptoes.

"I will not," he hissed, "be kept back like a witless noble when I have duties to attend to. Do not test me, boy."

Jak barely flinched.

"And then what? You collapse into one of the pools when the eco toxin rebuilds? Are you trying to get sicker?!"

"Not to mention," Daxter called, more calmly than Damas thought the situation warranted, "There's already peeps who act like bein' king around here only lasts until you show weakness. And frankly, I don't want any of those suckers in charge. Just take the vacation already, would you?!"

The boys had a point. He hated that the boys had a point. Hated that he'd been reduced to relying on children just to stand.

"You think they will not already assume weakness if I abandon my duties for three days?" Damas demanded.

Jak lifted his chin. "I already told everyone who came in that you were busy."

Damas pulled Jak a little closer by the ring, too astonished to even notice that he’d left the door controls free.

"You were not authorized to make that call."

Frustration bubbled in his veins, tipping too close to anger for his liking.

"Fine. Go out then. Get them all sick. Get the whole city sick, why don’t you! Go ahead!”

“Copaani mirshmure'cye, ‘ad?” Damas muttered under his breath.

You looking for a fight, boy?

Not like he needed to keep his voice down. He knew no one had taught the boys more than a few sentences in Joha -- the language Wastelanders used in front of enemies -- yet.

Jak pried Damas’s hand loose and dropped to the balls of his feet.

"You won't slow down for your own sake? How about theirs?"

Anger stirred the eco in Damas’s blood, and the eco circulated too close to the virus in his core. The pain began again, a dull ache for now that promised future knives in his lungs.

"Don't you dare, boy-" he warned.

Jak dared, apparently.

He had the temerity to push Damas, shoving him back a step.

"I deal with this all the time and it puts me down for days! You've never had it! It could kill you, don't you care?!"

Seeing the black look on the king's face, Jak pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled sharply.

"This is going to get worse before it gets better. And it's my fault you caught the virus, so I'm not going anywhere until it passes. It's hell staying inactive. I know. It's-"

His voice quieted.

"It's like the Fortress. You're in pain, and you can't leave, and you know more pain is coming. But- but at least yours only lasts three days."

Damas faltered.

Jak had not told him the story of what Praxis had done to him willingly. Damas had walked into the washrooms below the Arena by chance just as Jak had been patching himself up after earning his second war amulet. And the scars he'd seen were not the kind a young fighter picked up in combat. The shame on the boy's face as he'd scrambled to get his wrist wrappings and shirt back on had struck a chord in Damas. Without really knowing why, he'd taken off his vambrace in the space of a minute, and moved back the wrappings to show the shine of old burns.

He'd spent more than his fair share of time on "excavations" -- a pretty word for Wastelanders being punished by the former king, left carving out of the cliff what eventually became the stables. By hand. In chains. In the midday heat. A lot of men died working that wall.

He didn't know why he'd told Jak that story. Why he'd told Jak about the two years when he was in chains more than out of them.

And yet it had meant something to Jak.

In that moment, a dam seemed to burst in the boy. The whole sordid tale had bubbled out of him in a tangle of words and desperation. He spoke as though he'd never encountered anyone who understood what it was to be that kind of survivor. To bear those kinds of scars. Like someone who had been asked why he couldn’t just “get over it” when the evidence was in his skin forever. He spoke like he was expelling poison from a wound.

That thought rang in Damas’s mind like a solemn bell.

Jak had overstepped, that was undeniable. But he seemed...

He seemed like he was desperate to keep the closest thing he had to a kindred spirit alive. The boy was legitimately afraid for him, wasn’t he?

Jak looked up again to meet his eyes, and there was a lot more emotion there than Damas had been expecting.

"Please," Jak insisted, "Just- Just rest! One more day, at least one more day, please!"

Damas felt a new round of pain beginning, starting in his vertebrae this time. Still, he couldn't just back down.

"Jak," he tried to gentle his voice past the harshness of pain. "I...know you do not understand what being king means. What is required."

"If it means breaking yourself down to bloody bones for people who will never be grateful, then yeah. He understands," Daxter said bitterly.

"Come on," Jak sounded like he was scolding now, "Didn't you say you have to pick your battles wisely sometimes?"

Oh confound that boy.

Damas’s spine twinged, but pride did not let him bend. Even so, Jak seemed to sense his pain. He sighed and, without a single word -- not even "I told you so" -- he offered his shoulder to support Damas long enough to get him back to the couch. Damas’s face burned with frustration and shame alike. To lose control of his body and have to do as the boy sais was infuriating. A little of that pique left him before he had time to guard his tongue.

"For the record, since you lack experience in the matter, most fathers would not tolerate being spoken to in such a manner by their sons."

Jak stiffened, and Damas regretted it. He knew that was a sore spot for the boy and he'd carelessly lashed out anyway.

Jak gave him a Look.

"Well you're the closest thing I got to one, so you’ll just have to deal with it.”

Damas actually winced. Jak seemed to mistake it for physical pain and sighed again.

"I'll get you more water. You're gonna need it in a minute."

"Less than a minute." Daxter glared at the king as he held up another glass of the vile liquid.

"Guess what, buddy? That attitude just earned you one free trip to Vomit Town."

"Dax," Jak called over his shoulder, "He's in pain as it is. You don't have to rub it in."

Daxter narrowed his eyes at Damas. He pointed silently at Jak’s back, then at Damas. Dramatically, he drew a finger across his throat: a clear warning of what would happen if Damas brought up absent parents again.

At the moment, Damas was more occupied with both the sensation of the virus congealing the eco in his core into an infected mass, and the mixed emotions he had about Jak’s parting shot.

"You're the closest thing I got to one", he'd said. The closest thing Jak had to a father. Him?!

Confound that boy. How does he always catch me off guard so easily?

More as a peace offering than anything else, he muttered, "Did you at least give them a reason?"

"Who?"

"Everyone you told I was busy. Did you give them a reason?" he pressed.

Jak returned with a recycled bottle filled with water.

"Yeah. But you're probably not going to like that, either," he said matter-of-factly. He nodded at the charcoal.

"Probably don't one-shot it this time."

"Don't tell me what to do," Damas grumbled rebelliously. But he noticeably didn't chug the medicine.

He'd survived on worse foods before. But that was irrelevant to his gag reflex. It took some doing to swallow the first sip, and each one after that got harder.

"Tell me what you told them, Jak." He narrowed his eyes over the rim of the glass. "I can't help you out of whatever mess you're determined to get yourself into if I don't know what I'm walking into."

Jak was generous enough to let Damas keep his pride. He shrugged and dropped to sit next to him with the weary expression of someone twice his age.

"I said you were researching the tunnels under Haven for something, and to mess up your concentration at their own risk."

Damas forced the last of the charcoal down in one gulp. Soon it would start absorbing the two enmeshed ecos that had caused the infection, and he'd be able to get some relief for a few more minutes. Physical relief, anyway. His mind was racing. That excuse- Jak wasn't supposed to know about the invasion plan. It was an "utmost end of need" scenario: if the Daystar impacted on the planet, he wanted his people safe in the Underport.

"And what..." he had to choose his words carefully.

He would overlook the major breaches in protocol Jak was tossing around like confetti. The boy's heart was in the right place. And it was very Spargan to act first and ask permission after. But he still wouldn't give Jak top secret information! If Jak was getting into dossiers he has no business touching-

"What made you think of tunnels?" Damas muscled through another painful spasm and feigned a teasing tone. "Planning to invade Haven, are you?"

Beside him, Jak's cheek twitched in an exhausted equivalent of a smile.

"Wishful thinking, honestly. But they bought it."

"For now."

Damas dug his fingers into the couch as the coughs he'd hoped to avoid made their next appearance.

"But you- still- can't-" the hacking overtook the rest of his words.

Jak scoffed. "It's not like I was making any decisions for you. They were all jobs you would've sent somebody to deal with anyway."

He lurched to the side as the first of the gel-like corrupted eco eruptions shot from Damas’s mouth and into a bucket Daxter had found. Poor guy. He had about three more rounds of the medicine, three hours apart, before the coughing gave way to just vomiting. Unfortunately that part lasted a whole day before giving way to musculoskeletal pain and vertigo.

Blackwater sucked.

"I'll take over, Dax," Jak yawned. "Go get some rest. You good with doing this tomorrow?"

He didn't ask Damas, notably.

"What're you gonna do this time?”

Jak fought to keep his eyes open. "Seem lost a party of monks in the volcano. I said I'd look into it. Probably going to end up putting the fear of Precursors into the asshole in the North Market who just started overcharging rookies for water to the point where they're stealing it. I said I'd look into that, too."

"Did you." The ottsel didn't sound that surprised. "And how, in your infinite grasp of diplomacy, did that go?"

A little too tired to be embarrassed, Jak made a helpless gesture.

"I said Damas was busy, and they'd better deal with their issues before I came over to deal with it for them."

"Yeah," Daxter sighed, "I was afraid you were gonna say something like that."

It was a little disturbing how the boy seemed to have set himself in a role like an enforcer. Like Sig's cover act in Haven.

"That's. Not. Your job," Damas gasped between retching coughs.

"I know: you said," Jak acknowledged. He rubbed his face with fingers just barely shaking. "Too late to take it back now."

He thought Damas was still upset about the crossing of boundaries he'd done. It was more than wounded pride that drew his concern though. Older feelings. Unpleasant memories.

"Crowns. Were not m- meant. To. Weigh. Down the. Young." Damas managed to fight through the pain in his joints to elbow Jak.

"Not. Your burden to. Bear."

Jak hesitated. Then,

"I know.”

[zaynes-left-chesticle]

Me: *finally makes it to the next Ice Trial* Oh, hell yeah!!! 🙂

Also me: *gets absolutely obliterated and dies 15 seconds into the first stage* Oh, fuck no... 🙃

[feuerwizard]

starter for @featherstcnes || caleb & beau

No matter how much he tries to feel at ease, Caleb will never shake the feeling of being out of place in this comfortable home on the streets of Rexxentrum. His cottage is a quaint and charming place, evoking memories both fond and painful of his childhood home. His friends have put in a great deal of effort to create a warm and inviting atmosphere within its walls. Colorful artwork from Jester adorns the walls, vibrant and playful. Yasha's thoughtful touch can be seen in the fresh array of flowers. The aroma of Caduceus' teas tucked away in his cabinet. Little notes from Essek, scattered about his office.

And upon his counter, a sending stone. Though it currently serves no purpose, with its other half resting idly in the possession of someone currently lounging in his kitchen. Caleb's culinary skills leave much to be desired, a fact he has quickly learned since moving out on his own. The proof of this in the lackluster stew he passes across the table to Beauregard, catching the way she looks at it. He has never claimed to be a good cook—a young Bren never learned how, and Caleb never needed to learn.

“We should discuss what we are going to do now, Beauregard.” Months have passed since Ikithon's trial, and both he and Beauregard are aware this would never end with Trent alone.

[azems-familiar]

...........i may or may not be writing kotor/totj fic again tonight,

“Must we exile even her?” Vash asks softly, as the silence stretches and the sun begins to dip towards the horizon. “If she’s penitent-”

“She is the worst offender of them all!” Vrook snaps back, gesturing with one hand. “Among the first to follow Revan to war, according to all reports one of the creators of this planet-destroyer and the one to give the order - what does penitence absolve her of?”

From the other side of the room, Kavar says, “She’s also the only one who came back.” There’s something exhausted and dust-dry in the words, and Nomi slants a look at the other master, younger than her by a little less than a decade, but old enough to recall Ossus.

There are dark circles under his eyes and an unhealthy pallor to his skin that speaks of little sleep and poor meditation, and his aura is locked down more tightly than Nomi can ever recall sensing it during a meeting - as if he’s preparing himself to take on a shadow’s mission once more. She…suspects she knows why, in truth. Not only is Knight- former Knight Petheir his padawan, but he had been the one to bring the infant Revan to the Temple all those years ago, and…there is a set of battered, blackened dog tags around his neck, resting over top his tabard. She hasn’t asked who he knew in the Republic military well enough to be known as their next of kin; the man has never been in contact with his blood family. But grief is a heavy companion, especially when fresh, and the Mandalorian Wars have brought it marching back to their sides once more.

Gaze lingering on the dog tags, Nomi finds herself thinking of Yavin IV, Ulic’s and Exar’s bodies lying across from each other on a temple’s stone floor, lightsabers between them. She thinks of Cay bleeding into the Ossan sand, the light of ten dying stars overhead, crying for his brother, and how it had been ground-shattering fury that drove her in that moment, a scream trapped in her chest and echoing into the Force instead of the air, binding Ulic within his own skin. Something in her had shattered, there on Ossus, something she has never been able to reclaim. Cay had been lost, and then dead; Ulic had cried, and then gone numb entirely, and it hadn’t been her fault but the guilt festers anyway. A deep, secret poison, one she has never let show.

Ulic Qel-Droma chose to redeem himself, even cut off from the Force, she’d told the High Council, as they’d gathered on Coruscant to try to rebuild their fragmented order. He engaged Exar Kun in combat, without support from the Order, and struck him down, though he was killed while doing so. Cay - her voice had hitched on his name - wanted nothing more than for his brother to return to us, and while Ulic’s actions are certainly far too reprehensible to be pardoned, even in death, I’d like to request his change of heart be noted in the Archives. Let him be known as dying seeking atonement, even if only to the Jedi with the clearance to look.

(She doesn’t know what Ulic would have wanted. She never has. He didn’t say a word to her after giving her Exar Kun, or to anyone else, as far as she knows. But when they burned his body, on the Yavin moon, she gave him and Exar a shared pyre. It had seemed…the least she could do for a man she had loved, who had never loved her.)

…to say she understands the weight on Kavar’s shoulders would be an understatement.

“Please,” she says tiredly. “The time to debate this was three days ago, when the votes were cast - and as I recall, we had a debate lengthy enough to rival the Senate. I agree the early vote was…distasteful-” not exactly the word she’d like to use, but as the High Council’s leader she has to be professional- “but we had no way of knowing Knight Petheir would even come back. Revan’s influence is as strong as Exar’s and Ulic’s was.”

Their youngest and newest Councilor, Atris, shifts in her chair. She had recused herself from the vote on young Qatya, stating that their past romantic relationship made her biased, but considering her response to the verdict Nomi wonders if that bias had inclined Atris towards exile, rather than away. Still, the echani woman has looked uncomfortable as the hour for Qatya’s trial draws near.

(The masters were right, Cay, she’d said, tugging him back towards the palace window. Cinnagar buzzes around them, an insect hive roused to furious action. If they don’t leave now, they never will. Ulic must make his own choices, and suffer his own consequences. We’re leaving him here.)

The same tragedies, again and again. How many more times must this repeat? How much more pain, writ galactically in blood, echoing the recent past?

[alexcabotgf]

not to be true crime posting on main but i think i'm falling down the wm3 rabbit hole again

[redbootsindoriath]

Fëanorian Week 2023, Day 1: Maedhros

I’m so late with these I’m not even fashionably late.  But better late than never (cf. Fingolfin, probably, after finally getting to Middle Earth).

To anyone who went “Hmm I wonder if the theme this year is going to be classical sculpture?”, well, congratulations, you’re right, though I don’t know how you would have guessed that.  I was originally going to do something where I based each drawing off the meaning of the name, and since “Maitimo” means “well-shaped one” the first thing that came to mind was a Greek or Renaissance statue.  But after finishing it I decided that it had been a lot of fun and I might as well do the rest the same way.  And it sort of fit into the whole Fëanorian theme since Nerdanel is a sculptor.

[nopalitosx]

nona's age is so fascinating because her soul is billions of years old, however the soul of the earth specifically shaped by john and personified as alecto is only ten thousand years old, and then she's been asleep for most of those millenia, so alecto was only really around for a few? hundred years. and alecto's consciousness specifically manifesting as nona is only six months old, living in the body of a nineteen year old.

same is true for pyrrha though on a much smaller scale. she was presumably in her 30s (edit: someone pointed out that she's in her 40s or 50s actually, ty for the correction) when she died the first time, and then is resurrected and lives for a couple hundred years at canaan house, in the body of an unaging 30 something. and then she dies again, but her consciousness lives on for ten thousand years in someone else's unaging 30 something year old body-except she's not present for most of it. so when we see her in nona, she's only been back for a few months really.

[fingertipsmp3]

Why have I only just realised that Cytherea was so interested in Gideon because of her name being Gideon

[mewnia]

(also feel free to recommend other options or ask questions)

[halfbloodbatacademy]

In my personal experience, the decisions you make at 13 years old are very VERY different from the ones you make at 18 years old…

Just saying that for whichever part of the PJO fandom is hating on a teenage protagonist after a book based around his friend was released… Y’know, cuz for some reason y’all just don’t get that… Just saying

[eifri]

i am free

[thetriangletattoo]

look at what I made look at my baby

[wryn-redacted-thrives]

back in that annual waiting game of “how long can i put off going to the doctor” that inevitably leads to a lot of shit going down in december