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masterkeynobi · 11 months

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usually i loathe when a protagonist gets turned into a "bad" parent in a sequel series but tortall does it so well and so realistically that i can't help but think it'd be ooc any other way. of course alanna is gruff and sometimes unkind and not always present. of course jonathan must do what is best for realm and reputation; of course he's king first, father second. jon's parenting style is visible from the start in how roald acts during his page years — jon as a page sees ralon held down and beaten for the crime of bothering little alan; roald, much as he wants to, can't so much as join kel on her nighttime patrols for fear of how it'd look. jon takes alanna on as a squire because they're good friends & lovers; roald has had his knight-master picked out for him for years before he's even made a squire.

alanna gets along well enough with alan and thom, her knightling and her scholar, but she can't for the life of her understand how aly works. in my opinion this has something to do both with the fact that aly is a lot more like george in the most dangerous ways and with the fact that aly is rather significantly more of a Girl than alanna ever was. alanna had no (0) female friends growing up and only one older female mentor figure. she grew up and still lives the vast majority of her life surrounded by men of similar status. is it any surprise she finds her sons easier to talk to?

there's a passing sentence in trickster's choice that alludes to aly having once been jealous of how effusive her mother was about keladry of mindelan. i can't help but think also about kalasin ii of conté, kally whose mother's people are matrilineal, kally who should by rights have been her mother's heir. kally who calls the lioness aunt and wanted as a child nothing more than to be a knight, who will spend the rest of her life in carthak and likely never see a lady knight again. i think she was jealous of kel too, but in the opposite direction. aly couldn't and wouldn't be who kel was, too protective of her own freedom and too much like her father to ever want a shield. aly envied the easy understanding alanna had of kel's ambitions and grit. kalasin had those same ambitions but never got the chance to show that same grit. kalasin spent the four years of kel's page training at king's reach learning to be an empress.

it's the. not wanting and choosing not to do vs the wanting and not having the choice. it's the jealousy someone so distant from alanna got so much of her attention when her interactions with her own daughter were constantly snippy vs the thought that kally should've been there first, should've gotten to prove the conservatives wrong, should've been able to show kel around and shield (ha) her from the worst of their ire. no little girls will grasp wide-eyed for tales of aly cooper or empress kalasin the same way they do for the lioness and lady kel. i don't think aly minds, but i think kalasin very, very quietly does.

#sree.txt #tortall #aly cooper #kalasin of conté #keladry of mindelan #alanna the lioness #jonathan of conté #sorry for the recent verbose tortallposting it will likely continue #also everyone on the planet needs to read in the perfection of conduct and virtues by rain_sleet_snow on ao3 #lifechanging fic i simply cant stop rotating kally in my mindcrowave now

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redwinterroses · 2 months

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That was the seventh ravager skeleton he’d seen in the past two days.

Jimmy turned his head slowly as the train rattled past, squinting into the sunset and trying to figure out if this one looked like it had been hunted, or had just… died that way.

Probably hunted. Most of the wild ravagers had been hunted at this point—you had to go deep into new generation to find the herds that used to cover this area of the plains.

But the further he rode, the wilder things got. It had been two days since the train had passed through an actual town—and no, that hotel-and-pub at the last station didn’t count. That was a waystation, even if they were insisting on calling it Oakville.

“Have to have a village to earn the ville,” he muttered to himself, resting his chin on his hand and staring out the window at the passing countryside. “Didn't even have an oak.”

The setting sun cast bruising shadows from the scrubby trees and the tall, jagged boulders that broke up the flat landscape. Some of the formations were as tall as houses, and for a moment Jimmy let himself consider what it might be like to build on one of them. Use it as the foundation for a house, terraform around it—make an oasis of green in the dusty plain.

Then he shook his head and sat back from the window with a sigh. Not far enough, yet. He still had days—maybe weeks—of travel ahead of him.

The train gave a sudden jolt, and Jimmy winced as his head bounced off the hard wooden edge of the seatback. “Ow—” He touched his head gingerly. “What the—”

There was another jolt, harder this time, and the sudden high-pitched whine Jimmy had learned to associate with the brakes. The train was stopping.

But… here? They were nowhere near the next station. Wouldn’t be for hours yet.

The pit of Jimmy’s stomach flipped, and he stood, grabbing for his duster to slip it on over his suit. The bone-handled revolver hiding in his pocket was a comforting weight against his side, and he took a deep breath to slow the sudden racing of his heart.

Nothing good came of trains stopping suddenly in the middle of nowhere. Newsreels he’d seen in theaters back spawnwards flickered through his memories: desperate vigilantes, settlers who’d turned to crime… There were stories of entire trains being dismantled while the passengers sat for days in captivity, abandoned when the robbers had stripped the vessels of anything of value or use.

Jimmy quickly flipped through the people he’d interacted with while on the train. No faces stood out, no one had given him special notice. This was probably just a fluke occurrence: nothing to do with him.

Which meant he might be in real danger.

He’d bought a cabin ticket, content to sleep on the flat horsehair mattresses on the train rather than risk a dodgy hotel or boarding house every night. It also gave him a private space on the train—no risk of a seatmate getting too friendly.

The downside was that he was isolated from the rest of the train by surprisingly noise-resistant walls. Which meant he had no idea what was going on further up the line.

As the clacking sounds of the wheels on the tracks continued to slow, Jimmy drew out his revolver, checking the barrel with a practiced glance. Then, thumb on the hammer, he slid open the cabin door and leaned cautiously into the narrow hall.

A shout, half-muffled, echoed from the direction of the engine. Another voice yelled something back, and then there was a loud pop, like someone breaking a board.

Even over the sound of the train, Jimmy knew that sound, and he rubbed his thumb against the recoil shield of his revolver. Someone just taken a shot—hopefully not at another person.

For half of a heartbeat, the smell of spent gunpowder and blood flooded his memories, and Jimmy swore. He pulled back into the cabin, pressing the heel of his free hand against the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.

Deep breaths, you gump, he chided himself, sweeping the flashback away into the depths of his brain. His hand was trembling and that was not what he needed in the middle of a… whatever this was. Train robbery, most likely.

There was another shot in the distance, followed by two more in quick succession. Nearer, too.

Jimmy gritted his teeth and forced himself back toward the door.

I gotta get out of here, he thought. His cabin was near the forward end of the cabin—if he could get to the outer door, he might be able to jump from the car while it was still moving, get away from the train before anyone noticed him gone.

Or you could help the people stuck here, a spiteful voice in his mind suggested. But you won’t. Coward.

It’s not cowardice to try and keep a situation from getting worse, he told himself. The only problem was that heading for the outer door also meant heading toward the gunshots. He took a deep breath and started for the door.

He’d taken only a single step when the outer door burst open and a red-headed man in a battered derby came running full-tilt into the car. Jimmy had barely time to move his finger away from his revolver’s trigger before he was bowled over, both of them tumbling half into the sleeper cabin.

The stranger swore, his elbow going into Jimmy’s gut as he scrambled to his feet.

“Watch it, greenhorn!” he snapped. His eyes went to the revolver, and narrowed. “Can you use that thing?”

Jimmy gasped for air. “When—when I can breathe, yeah,” he managed.

Another shot and the scream of a woman in terror sliced the air. The train was barely moving now—maybe as fast as a horse at a trot, and Jimmy shoved himself to his feet.

“What’s going on?” Oof, his side ached sharply when he moved. If this idiot had broken something—

“It’s the Greysides gang,” the stranger said. He glanced outside the cabin, then slammed the door shut, whirling to look around the tiny space. “They’re harmless, mostly—”

A shot, a shout, and a crashing sound put doubt to that statement, and the stranger winced. “Emphasis on mostly. They just want diamonds. And, uh… me.”

“What?” Jimmy’s skin was itching with the need to run. From the criminals sacking the train or the stranger talking to him more directly than anyone had in weeks, he wasn’t sure. Toss up, really. But the sounds of altercations were getting closer, and they were running out of time.

“Nevermind,” the man in the bowler said. He glanced at the window. “Does that open?”

“Probably?” Jimmy hadn’t tried it. “But it’s at least a four block drop—”

The sound of the door to their car splintering open cut him off, and the stranger sprang to the window, flinging it open with deft fingers. He glanced back at Jimmy, and there was a glint of something in his eyes that wasn’t fear—something that almost looked like he was having fun.

“Coming?” he asked, and then he was gone, jumping from the window and vanishing into the dusk outside.

Jimmy hesitated exactly two seconds—long enough to hear heavy boots tramping toward his cabin—and then with a gritted dammit he decocked his revolver, shoved it into his pocket, and leaped out the window.

For an instant, the world was a silent riot of sunset shadows and the flash of lit windows passing him so quickly they blurred into one long line of golden light. And then he was slamming into the rocky ground, the wind knocked from his lungs, and rolling through the dirt and scrub.

He pitched to a stop in the low branches of a scraggly bush, gaping up at the emerging stars as his chest spasmed, desperately trying to figure out how to breathe again. The world was still spinning. Or he was still spinning. He was going to be sick.

With a heaving gasp, air came rushing back, and with it a whole host of new bruises and cuts and if he was lucky he was dying because every inch of him hurt like he’d been stomped by a ravager and there was a hand grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the bush and—

“Get off, get off—” he groaned, smacking weakly at his attacker.

“Hey, you’re alive, good.” The red-headed man leaned over him, blocking the stars. He was smudged and his hat had a brand new dent, but his face was split with a wide grin. “First time jumping a train?”

Jimmy just groaned, and closed his eyes. The world would stop spinning in a minute. Probably.

“No time for that, bucko.” There was a hand gripping his wrist and pulling him upright, shouldering under his arm and helping Jimmy stand. “Those pillagers are gonna notice I’m not on the train soon enough, and then they're gonna come looking.”

“So get going,” Jimmy said. He squinched his eyes half-open, testing to see if the horizon had gone back to staying in one place. “I’ll find my own way.”

“I’d love to, really I would.” The stranger started walking, and Jimmy was forced to stagger along with him or fall over again. “But I don’t like the idea of getting a kid killed, and if anyone saw you follow me—”

Bad cess, Jimmy grimaced, and pulled away from the stranger’s grip. “Killed?” he said. “You said they were harmless!”

“Yeah, well—” the stranger stepped back and gave him a rakish grin. “That doesn't really go for bounty hunters that infiltrate their gang and wire their location to the authorities right before a big diamond heist.”

“Bounty hunter?” Jimmy kept his voice level, but his hand twitched toward the gun in his pocket. He didn’t think the man noticed, not in this light. He wondered if he could draw fast enough.

“Tango Tek,” the man said, doffing his bowler. “Bounty hunter, trail boss, and occasional inventor—at your service.”

Jimmy hesitated a moment. Then: “James,” he offered, watching this "Tango" person's face closely. “James Solidarity.”

There was no flicker of recognition in the man’s expression, and Jimmy allowed himself to relax, just the smallest bit.

“Nice to meet you, James Solidarity.” Tango glanced back at the train, which looked like it had all but slowed to a stop maybe three hundred blocks down the track. “Now, I say we head off before those goons get the idea to look outside for us.”

“For you,” Jimmy reminded him.

Tango flashed a big grin. “You’re stuck with me for now, Jim,” he said. “Leastaways until we hit a town. No offense, but you don’t look like you’d last long out here on your own.”

Stuck with me for now. The words stuck in Jimmy’s throat like gristle, and he swallowed past them.

“Right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

#team rancher #long post #decided i didn't want to figure out a read-more it's too late at night lol #anyway I might continue working on this i have a whole plot #but i'm just so pleased with the start i couldn't resist posting #ranchers western au #mmmm gonna need a better name than that #headin' west au #maybe #redwinterwrites

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batsplat · 1 month

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this is how i think the valentino/casey rivalry plays out in their minds

#the text is just for comic effect to be clear like don't try to read all that. i didn't put enough thought into it for people to read it #//#brr brr #valentino does end up in a more complicated place with casey but the weird thing about it is that -#- the shift only happens for all intents and purposes AFTER the 'rivalry' in on-track terms is kinda over #but then he doesn't even really continue the off-track rivalry in any meaningful way after 2012 #so there's only like a three year time period where valentino got proper weird about casey. not the same continuity #(i'm not saying his behaviour in '08 was 'normal' but emotionally it's very straightforward. to him it's normal to casey it seems deranged)#'base casey' i think was a very comfortable rival for valentino. like he's a tough one to crack obviously but it's a comfort zone opponent #you don't have anything emotionally complicated. which is basically how valentino WOULD prefer it. just the fight for the win #what's really fascinating is that insofar as casey DID unsettle valentino in later years it was in the ways in which he increasingly -#- adapted bits of valentino's playbook to suit his own needs. vale's always least comfortable when fighting a reflection of himself #heretic tag

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swordoffrivolousthings · 1 month

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Thoughts about Heroes of Olympus and how it could have been better.

Sometimes I think about what would have made HOO a better series. And I'm not talking about the obvious 'too much focus on romantic relationships' and the lack of usage of certain characters or the dumb ending.

I mean the little things that would change so much (mainly character dynamics but also worldbuilding i.e. Camp Jupiter and Gaia's reasoning)

Some of the points are inspired by @crisisreading and their posts. They are the first I saw raise some of my own points so! part 2

Make the ages vary more in the main cast, trust me

Let Percy, Annabeth and Grover get older by 4-5 years. Let them become adults and find themselves outside the godly war. Let them even finish college, I wouldn't get mad. Let them do anything beside being teenagers.

I promise this would make the dynamics more interesting. Percy and Annabeth will be more mentor figures, than fellow comrades. This would create some distance between some of the them, but ultimately create something fun. Piper would come to see some aspiring female figure in Annabeth (I think this would ether be positive or negative, depending how Annabeth changed as a character over the years, but I tend towards negative). Leo would potentially have someone older to exchange ideas with. Jason would possibly feel intimidated by Percy's vastly superior age, prowess and experience, instead of being able to clash heads with him.

Hazel would have not one, but two that people that would play parent to the others' reckless behavior. (go snort your harmful stereotypes up your ass, Riordan.) Frank, when telling Percy and Hazel about his stick, would possibly find in Percy a kind hand (not that he wasn't kind already, let me explain) and Percy would probably share with him this feeling of vulnerability - not dump it on Frank - about having your life tied to a specific thing. I mean his Achilles heel, with which he would have lived for far longer.

And a whole lot more.

2. Add Grover into the series as a perspective character

You have a new trio dynamic introduced in the first book of the series. Let the original trio interact as main characters and let us see how their relationship has changed.

Grover's opinion on the conflict between the gods and Gaia would be important. He is the Lord of the Wild, and Gaia is the literal personification of the Earth. Let us see his struggle between the loyalty he has to the gods and his friends and his powerful feelings towards protecting nature.

Also, he would act as a protector for the demigods. Because while I enjoy Hedge, he is not enough to keep them safe.

3. Throw the bullshit about Gaia getting revenge for Kronos' defeat out of the way

Gaia, as mentioned before, if the personification of the Earth. One of the first gods to emerge from Chaos.

Gaia can, of course, keep her resentment for the gods defeating the son that freed her from her pain (caused by Ouranos initially). But she is a mother goddess. She should want obliterate humanity because humans are slowly killing her. Painfully. She wants to survive and the only way she sees how if by killing all the humans. She wants to save her children, aka animals, insects, nature, and the only way she sees is bloodshed. Gods are not rational in their anger, no one is. So let her be angry and vengeful and out for human blood.

DO NOT MAKE HER A FUCKING VILLAIN, MAN! Make her an antagonist, but someone's whose ideals are worth taking in and adapting. Kinda like Luke about the demigod and minor god recognition. Where have the themes of the original series gone? Remember, an important theme in BOTL was protecting the environment. It was one of the most important moments when Pan faded. Do not let that go to fucking waste. Especially not now, in the world we live in.

4. Show the effects the war had on Camp Half-Blood. Hint it at Camp Jupiter, when Percy does not have the memories to corelate it with

We've had years since the end of the Second Titan War. How did the gods change the course of events ? (the victors write the histories) How much of Luke's reasoning for starting the war was erased. (hint, all of it.) Show us how much the perspectives were shifted and how much the people that fought in it were made into martyrs and villain, basically becoming caricatures.

Let us feel how much this hurts Percy, Grover and Annabeth. How it had impacted and impacts their trauma, grief and utter horror. The younger, newer campers see them as wonderful, all-just and loyal heroes of the gods. The way they hate it.

Good moment to implement the new cabins for the gods and let the new ones forget that it wasn't always this way. Let Percy's demand to the gods be forgotten, shoved under the rug. The tragedy unfolds, use it.

Since in Camp Jupiter none of the main characters have fought, let us see the subtility. Let the older legionnaires be ragged, scarred. Older and weary, with eyes glassy and suspicious. Have younger recruits have this heavy air around them. They know what happened, what killed most of the older people in the legion.

Have Jason, Hazel and Frank see these things in Annabeth, Grover and Percy too. They realise that oh. oh. these three have fought in the war, of course they would. Show them gain respect for the trio. The same kind of respect they have for the veterans back home.

5. Cut one of the Seven from the prophecy.

I know this seems radical, but it is a symbolism thing, which I think would be more interesting in a world based on Greek mythology.

It is established in PJO that three (3) is an important number: 3 Olympian sisters (Hera, Demeter, Hestia), 3 Olympian brothers (Hades, Poseidon, Zeus), 3 Fates, 3 quest members, 3 Furies, 3 godly realms (the Underworld, Olympus + the sky, the seas). Use this.

Give us six (6) prophesized heroes. It is, after all, the second most used number in the series and a multiple of 3.

I suggest Annabeth. Why? because she has her quest from Athena. Let that be her top priority, while hanging out on the Argo II to get to Rome. Let her bond with the younger demigods and have her possible death be always on her mind. Bring her hubris into play and she would think herself the chosen one, the one demigod child of Athena to survive. This would make her falling into Tartarus with Percy not letting her go more taxing on her psyche.

Show us how she hates herself because she took one of the principal quest members to certain death. She feels like she'd jeopardized the whole saving the world thing.

Cut the Seven to Six and let Annabeth die in Tartarus. Show us why a single-man quest is a death sentence. Why three (3) is such a valuable number.

6. CONSEQUENCES!!!

Jumping straight off the last point.

Change why Annabeth would end up in Tartarus. Make her ignore the string around her ankle because she thing that nothing bad can happen to her now. After all, Arachne is gone, right.

Let this be her undoing. I do not care how she dies, but make her choices, her hubris, be her undoing. Do not let her death up to a chance, a mistake or miscalculation. Show how toxic Tartarus is, because we do not see it enough, but make it Annabeth's idea, the plan by which she dies.

Do not make it Percy's fault. Let him try to do everything to keep her alive, but still failing. Attack his sense of loyalty, his self-esteem. Show how the experiences and her death affect him.

Bring the trauma from the last war back in those chapters, in a place where demigods leave something behind.

To less drastic things - let the others get hurt. Permanently. Show how this life affects and damages people physically, too.

Have one lose an eye, another get horrific scars. Lose a limb, a part of themselves. Do not make it seem like any other could have gotten the same wound.

Tailor them to their character, their pride and their skill. Hit them where it hurts most and let us see how it changes them.

Also, about Leo. Kill him too. The fact that he ended up alive is a deux ex machina. He should have suffered the consequences.

Also also, bring back the fatal flaws. They are missing from the series. Play with them, show why they are important parts of their characters. Bring back ancient Greek fatal flaws, and new ones that make sense in a modern world.

Hurt them because what hurts them is part of who they are. Show us why the Greeks invented tragedy.

7. Age up the target age. Go more young/new adult

I understand that PJO was made for middle schoolers. But the target audience had grown up alongside the characters, and as such they have matured.

This is why I said to age Percy, Grover and Annabeth up further. Leave some distance for the old and new readers to get up and personal with the new main characters. Have them find common ground with the new demigods but have their anchor in the old ones.

Make the readers work to understand and refamiliarize themselves wit the older demigods. Because they've changed.

Targeting a more mature audience allows exploring n. 6. The realistic consequences of living with the fear that something will come and eat you. How just a little mishap could change you for life. (or what has been left of it)

Please do not go grim dark. Show that despite this all, their purpose has not stopped existing. A life exists outside of your appearance or disability still exist, and while it would be hard, do not lose hope.

8. Hope, or lack of its importance in the Heroes of Olympus series

Alongside other callbacks and reinforcements of PJO's lore, where is Elpis (hope)? Why doesn't she appear as a larger theme in the books? I don't know.

Elpis is still in the jar, having been used as a threat of defeat. But now Kronos is gone. Have Gaia use it as s symbol for her own cause.

Make hope Gaia's argument. The most important part of why her cause stands. Gaia is waking now because there is no hope for the betterment of the planet while in human - and therefore godly - grasp. She wants to save the planet, but they, the destroyers, are opposing her.

Hope is what she wants to bring back. The hope that death will not be the end of life, but further evolvement and betterment of all species.

This argument is what the counterargument should unravel. All species? Why are humans considered irredeemable, unworthy of becoming something greater?

Why can't they not coexist and why can't humans learn how to care about the world surrounding them.

Make hope for humanity and for the environment not a question of if they are capable to coexist, but how we can manage that. Humanity and nature are not mutually exclusive, but two halves of the same whole that need each other to sustain their longevity. Yes, nature can exist without humans, but humans can't.

This does not mean that the best way forward is to kill all humans.

There is no need for hope in HOO because there are no greater questions being asked about topics that require hope, because otherwise we would descend into nihilism and fatalism.

9. Give the gods reason to act the way they act, or a look at a greater narrative problem in the series

I may be generalizing, but the gods act erratically and make choices convenient for the plot, as it is, to happen.

Hera: how, specifically, does she know that Gaia is rising and what her plans are. Why is she against Gaia, when the older goddess has a track record of helping the Olympians on different occasions in the myths. Why does she decide to act when she does, how she knows that the king of the giants (whatever his name may be) is coming after her right then.

We don't know.

Athena: we understand why she wants the Athena Parthenos back. Why not force the Romans to give it back. After all, she is a goddess, even if the Romans don't respect her as the Greeks did, she has power and sway over them. Why send her children, a supposedly important part of what brings her glory, to a near-certain death. Is it misguided vengeance, an obsession to get the statue back at all cost, or simple cruelty. These reasons could apply very well to sending the Romans, yet she doesn't.

Zeus: why lock down Olympus? Paranoia, which fair, but you are a King, why wouldn't you look after your subjects? (bc Riordan chose to ignore part of his characterization in the myths and part of his godly domain) (I know kings aren't perfect, but after the last war, one would think he would do everything in his power to stop another one before it begins) Why not seek justice for Octavian's lies, that affect their ability to win the war, and kill/imprison him? Justice is part of his domain, as Zeus Nomius.

I know that we wouldn't necessarily need these answers, but without some of them, some choices left hanging seem to be there only to add to the drama and danger of it all.

All in all, I have many problems with the 'Heroes of Olympus' series. Some of them are nitpicks and personal preference as a high fantasy reader in my free time. Some of them would really add to the story and continue the themes of PJO.

Please ask me if something wasn't clear to you. I'll happily explain further.

If you find something you don't agree with, let's discuss. I'm open to changing my opinions.

#percy jackson #jason grace #hoo #annabeth chase #pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #hazel levesque #piper mclean #percy and annabeth #frank zhang #leo valdez #grover underwood #pjo thought experiment #fic ideas #percabeth #cezy's insanities #I don't think that Percy & Annabeth would reach HOO as a couple in this version #might be my wishful thinking #but I really think that they would break up 1-2 years after PJO ended bc trauma bonds are toxic and I don't think any of them need that too #but mainly for Percy's sake bc I like him and relate to him more tan Annabeth - I think she's pretty toxic in PJO and HOO but that's my ...#... opinion and I'm not up to changing my mind about that #also didn't chose Annabeth to die bc I hate her. just thinking that it would explore her relationship with her fatal flaw more and where ..#... it leads her to bc she has the make up of a tragic figure that's destiny is made by their own choices. also dramatic irony #her hubris was barely explored in PJO except for the sphinx scene in BOLT #i may continue this. yk as a threat to everyone that reads this

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