#It's safe to leave the bog guys!!!

[random-musings-of-life]

A (Mostly) Comprehensive List of Tumblr Holidays

I saw this post about Tumblr holidays/celebrations, and there were a ton of them, so I decided to make an organized list and their meanings. I am also adding famous "fandom holidays" to this list. Feel free to point out any I missed/explained incorrectly and I'll add them!

Tuesday:

Supernatural Tuesday --- an episode of Supernatural was about a time loop where it was always Tuesday. Can be posted on any Tuesday.

Leave the Bog --- a meme with a drawing saying "When it's safe to leave the bog" and an arrow pointing to Tuesday. Can be posted on any Tuesday.

Thursday:

Out of Touch Thursday --- a video of the cast from the anime Lucky Star dancing to the song "Out of Touch" by Hall and Oates. Can be posted on any Thursday.

Thursday the 20th --- a screencap of a rapper in The Simpsons with a gold necklace that says "Thursday the 20th". Can only be posted on Thursdays which are also the 20th of their month.

February:

Galentine's Day --- February 13th. From an episode of Parks and Rec where Leslie dedicates this day to celebrating female friendship.

March:

Pi Day --- March 14th. The first digits of pi, 3.14, line up with "March 14" or 3/14.

The Ides of March --- March 15th. The day that Julius Caesar was assassinated. Many memes and jokes are made about him, the assassination in general, or bad luck.

Evergiven/Suez Canal Anniversary --- March 23rd. Refers to an event where a ship, the Evergiven, got stuck in the Suez Canal.

94 Meetings Day --- March 31st. From an episode of Parks and Rec where April doesn't think this day exists and books all of Ron's appointments then.

April:

April Fools --- April 1st. Also a real world holiday. The most popular prank is Rickrolling.

Mishapocalypse --- April 1st. On this day, Tumblr users spam one specific photo of Misha Collins, who played Castiel on Supernatural, where he is looking at the camera wide-eyed.

Neil Banging Out the Tunes --- April 13th. Refers to a photo of a rat by a children's keyboard with the caption "Neil banging out the tunes April 13th 2006".

Homestuck Day --- April 13th. The birthday of Homestuck, a web comic. It is/was one of the most popular fandoms on Tumblr.

It's Gonna Be May --- April 30th. Comes from a GIF of Justin Timberlake singing the song "It's Gonna Be Me". In the song, he pronounces "me" like "May".

May:

Star Wars Day --- May 4th. It comes from a pun between "May the force" and "May the Fourth".

Revenge of the Fifth --- May 5th. It comes from a pun between "Revenge of the Sith" and "Revenge of the Fifth".

June:

Let Papyrus Say "Fuck" Day --- June 16th. Someone who was annoyed with mischaracterization of Papyrus from Undertale established this holiday and it caught on.

July:

Dashcon Anniversary --- July 11th. Dashcon was a poorly organized attempt to hold a Tumblr convention.

September:

21st Night of September --- September 21st. The day referenced in the catchy disco song "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Frodo and Bilbo's Birthday --- September 22nd. The joint birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings.

October:

Mean Girls Day --- October 3rd. This comes from the part of the movie where Cady's crush asks her what day it is.

Treat Yo'Self --- October 13th. From an episode of Parks and Rec where Tom and Donna have a day to pamper themselves.

November:

November 5th --- Multiple holidays. It's Guy Fawkes Day (a holiday in Great Britain where effigies are lit to celebrate the failure of a traitor), and some people post screencaps of the movie V for Vendetta, where it's mentioned. November 5th, 2020 specifically had three huge news items: rumors of Vladimir Putin's resignation, Destiel (a ship from Supernatural) becoming (one-sided) canon, and the controversy over counting electoral votes in the U.S. election.

Life Day --- November 17. The equivalent of Christmas in Star Wars.

December:

Christmas Adam --- December 23rd. It comes from a Tumblr post making a pun on "eve" and "Eve" (from the Bible). As the original Tumblr post describes, it "comes before Christmas Eve and is generally unsatisfying".

Almost Christmas (Means It Wasn't Christmas) --- 11:59 P.M. on December 24th. This is from Ace Attorney, a video game where you're a defense lawyer. The fact that it's not quite Christmas is a crucial piece of evidence in one of the cases.

DL-6 --- Christmas/late December. This is when one of the most famous cases from Ace Attorney (mentioned above) occurs.

Other:

Annoy Squidward Day --- either January or February 15th. This refers to an episode of Spongebob where Mr. Krabs votes for Employee of the Month; a screen cap shows Spongebob pointing to the 15th day on the calendar with a sticker of Squidward on it.

Fuck this Post and Happy Birthday [Fictional Character] --- any character's birthday. The original Tumblr post starts out with a user saying "People who celebrate fictional character birthdays are annoying, pass it on", and another retorts with "FUCK this post and happy birthday, Sonic". "Sonic" can be replaced with a character of your choice.

[x-brik-x]

guys is it safe to leave the bog

[wreywrites]

The Ones We Carry

Summer of Bad Batch Week 4

Prompts: Cadets & “You really think you’re going without me? Not going to happen.”

A/N: Flashbacks for this and Jedi June? Apparently. Also I'm a day late. These prompts were a struggle for me (idk man) and I'm still not totally sold on this one but in the spirit of not getting bogged down, I'm posting it and moving on. Warnings: Not-so-fond memories of Kamino, Crosshair gets to swear a little, as a treat AO3

“How do you know him?” Omega asked as the recorded holo came to an end.

Zara, arms crossed, frown etched on her face, said, “I’ve known him for a long time.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe to go running when he asks nicely,” Hunter said with an equal frown.

“He’s not going to turn me—”

“I knew Cid for a long time, and look what she did,” Echo growled. “I vote no.”

“It’s not a kriffing vote.” Zara ground her teeth. She liked the guys, but she was an adult, and a trained Jedi, and didn’t need them to always be babying her and breathing down her neck in the name of keeping her safe. “I’m going, because my people asked me to.”

“Oh, he’s ‘your people’ now?”

“What about us?”

“Listen!” she snapped. “Last time I saw him was years ago on Kamino, telling the shinies stories about flying fighters in—” She stopped at the looks on their faces. “What?”

“Kamino?” Crosshair hissed.

Hunter worked his jaw. “So he was a bounty hunter.”

“No, he wasn’t then and I’d bet you the bounty I’m worth that he’s not now—”

“That is precisely the issue,” Tech said. “As a Jedi, you are worth a substantial bounty, one that would make almost any galactic citizen willing to turn you over to the Empire. What is to say this one won’t seize the opportunity?”

She shook her head. “I’m going.” She slammed a datachip on the table. “This will decode in two weeks. If I’m not back and you haven’t heard from me by then, you can go to the coordinates and start looking for me. Got it?”

Zara didn’t wait to hear their answers before stalking off to the ship, immensely glad they refueled when they got home from the last trip so she could just leave right now.

*****

“How did it go today?”

Crosshair shrugged as he finished reassembling his rifle after cleaning and polishing it.

“How about you, Wrecker?”

“Hungry,” Wrecker mumbled. “They made me train through lunch.”

“Here.” Tech held out a ration bar, one of the many 99 had smuggled to them over the last several months since their training had intensified.

Wrecker inhaled it, then started recounted his day, his eyes lighting up the way they always did when he got to talk about wiring explosives and timing detonators. “He actually said I did good today! Got to wire a domino string for blowin’ up walls and dams and long stuff like that. Said I was a natural.”

“Well… you are,” Tech tilted his head quizzically. It looked like he was wondering why the instructor had bothered pointing out such an obvious fact.

Crosshair elbowed him on his way to his bunk.

“Wh—”

“That’s good, Wrecker,” Hunter said quickly. “Really good.”

What none of them said, what they never mentioned, was how normal it was for Wrecker to train right through meal times, for Hunter to get back to their barracks at the end of the day with a splitting headache, for Tech to alternately babble without end all the words he wasn’t allowed to say during training or sit in silence with his datapad either ignoring or not even hearing conversation directed his way, for Crosshair’s eyes to burn from strain and his legs to twitch and bounce from pent-up nervous energy.

For the words they all heard, all day, from the bounty hunters the Kaminoans hired to train them.

Words that even the other cadets, who harbored mixed feelings about the enhanced cadets, wouldn’t repeat—not even to tease them. The other cadets didn’t hate them, but it kriffing felt like the instructors did.

Words sneered at eight-year-old children.

“Surely you can do better than that.”

“Faster—you can’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

“You should know this.”

“If you can’t handle this, maybe we should decommission you right now and save ourselves the trouble.”

Crosshair’s eyes felt like the eye drops one of the medic trainee cadets had given him had been replaced with liquid tibanna. He couldn’t even remember how far he’d been shooting today—just that it seemed unnecessarily far—

“Hey.”

Wrecker’s weight settled onto Crosshair’s bunk.

“You okay?”

Crosshair rolled over to face the wall in response.

“Don’t let ’em get to ya,” Wrecker said quietly. “We know you’re the best, no matter what those bounty hunters say.” Then he stood up, and something small took his place.

Crosshair stayed there, curled on his side with his eyes squeezed shut toward the wall until the others had finished their nightly routines and one of them clicked off the lights. When it had been dark and quiet for several minutes, he rolled over.

There was Lula.

*****

It was her first time in hyperspace.

No, it wasn’t.

The first time she had been only one, and Master Depa had been bringing her from Mandalore to Coruscant. Zara didn’t really remember it. She remembered being sad, though with the benefits of age and hindsight and knowledge of the Force, she had later become sure that it wasn’t her sadness, but his.

This trip, though, this trip she would remember forever. The joy running rampant through the Force between her and her clanmates and the excitement that Padawan Swan felt at this great responsibility and honor that had been given to her.

Nahdar bounced in place next to her. On the other side of the room, Anakin and Aayla wrestled to burn off some energy.

Zara looked down at her datapad and its collection of sketches. Soon she would be building it, the lightsaber in her designs, and then she would be carrying it on her hip like the big Jedi did, and then she would be learning as someone’s padawan! Her eagerness was palpable, she was sure, but she didn’t care. She was surrounded by friends and today was the first big step on their way to becoming Jedi.

*****

“Force, you’re stressed.” Zara nudged the wall panel, opening the door to the supply closet and revealing Crosshair sitting in a nest of blankets. She dropped a couple of ration bars into his lap. “And you’re here, when I recall all of you saying you didn’t want me here, so go ahead and explain that.”

“You said you knew this guy on Kamino. But did you know what he was like on Kamino?” Crosshair shook his head. “They were awful. All of them. Acted like they’d rather be anywhere else and getting their toenails ripped out than teaching us. Made life hell for us in exchange.”

“I was there,” she said quietly, trying to be patient. “I was on Kamino several times during the war. I know what it was like—”

“No you don’t!” he snapped. “We grew up there! We only had each other and the mudscuffers training us, and they were—No.”

“No what?” Zara snapped back.

“You’re not—You insist on going to see this man? Fine, whatever. But you really think you’re going without me? Not going to happen.”

“Is that what you’ve got the whole entire Force churning about?”

He leveled a glare at her.

“No, I’m serious. You snuck on the ship with me and now you’re sitting here stewing because I’m going to visit my uncle, the Protector of Concord Dawn, who happened to train fighter pilots on Kamino, because you think he’s the same person as kriffing Bric Sykevi—”

*****

“Yes, Master Chief.”

“Sorry, Master Chief.”

“I’ll do better next time, Master Chief.”

It made him feel better that the regs were terrified of Master Chief too, but it didn’t make him any less scared of the man, or of the punishments he could dole out and the threats he could make that only took one misstep to turn into actions taken.

He couldn’t wait to graduate, to get promoted from cadet to private or whatever they wanted to call him, to leave Kamino and never see those instructors again.

*****

“Bric—!” He was on his feet, pile of blankets left behind as he towered over Zara. He dropped his voice and growled, “Bric Sykevi is the lowest piece of bantha shit in the galaxy. If he died right now, I would only mourn because I didn’t get to kill him myself.”

“Whoa…” Zara breathed, leaning away until she bumped the wall.

“And anyone who willingly worked for him—I just—I can’t—”

“Please take a deep breath.”

He hauled in a breath through gritted teeth. “I was raised by bounty hunters hired, first by the Kaminoans and then by Bric Sykevi, to turn us into cold-blooded killing machines. That is my experience with what you might call ‘parental figures.’”

*****

Ky and Master Obi-Wan were laughing so hard tears ran down their faces.

“So Quin—Quin—” Ky wheezed, completely unable to finish her embarrassing story about Master Quinlan, but Master Ob-Wan didn’t need her to. They had known Master Quinlan since they came to the Temple as children.

“Let me guess—he tried to sweet-talk—”

“He tried to sweet-talk the guard!”

Master Obi-Wan roared, leaning against Ky as she howled.

Zara smiled. Their quiet afternoon of meditation had turned into Anakin napping in the grass—Master Obi-Wan said he needed it after their morning spar—and Ky and Master Obi-Wan trading stories about their adventures in the wide galaxy while Zara sat and listened and basked in the sunshine of the Force.

In moments like this, she could remember more clearly. A blue-eyed boy, his tongue sticking out and his eyes crossed. A red-haired man picking her up and tossing her high over his head, then catching her and spinning her around and around as she laughed.

*****

“So you decided to stow away? To what? Protect me from my actual family member because you had horrible people paid to raise you?”

*****

Crosshair remembered pain and fear and exhaustion, learning to check corners not for enemy soldiers but for angry trainers looking to take out any and all frustration on him. The only real safety was to be found with his brothers, their little band with its four members, four sides in stable square, with no blind corners.

*****

“I came along because none of us had to be alone on Kamino. We had each other. I don’t want you to—”

*****

Zara remembered sunshine and laughter and safety, the knowledge that everyone in the Temple wanted what was best for her and for her to become the best Jedi she could be. She had her creche mom and her master and her master’s master and her master’s friends and her friends’ masters and all of them working to better each other and her and the galaxy around them and expecting nothing in return.

*****

“You don’t want me to trust someone I shouldn’t? Who gets to make that choice? Do you need him to fill out an application? Run a background check? If that’s the case, you might want to run one on me too—I’ve done some questionable shit, you know!”

“You just—trust—everyone!”

Zara clenched her fists and inhaled sharply. “Actually,” she growled, “I trust very few people, but I value the ones I do trust, and I work to maintain a mutual level of trust. Fenn Rau is the only person alive who I knew more than ten years ago. And the other two people I’ve known for even halfway close to that long are bounty hunters. Everyone from my old life is dead. I will not turn away from this last person. Not now.”

She took four steps back down the hallway before spinning on her heel and storming back. “And you, Crosshair—” she jammed a finger in his chest, “—you had better learn how to trust people, because it’s a big kriffing galaxy, and it’s a terrible place to be alone. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

*****

He remembered late nights in the barracks, talking and laughing with the other three, the worries and stresses of the day forgotten in those moments over games of dejarik and smuggled snacks from 99.

He was never quite sure if it was because of or in spite of their training that they were so inseparable, so united, so devoted to each other. Maybe both. No matter the pain it took, cadet-hood had forged their bond as brothers, and they would never be alone.

@summer-of-bad-batch

[voxmyriad]

Cal Kestis Week 2024 Day Two: Greez Dritus's Guide to Foraging

Prompt: Food | “That doesn’t look good.” | A Rigged Game | Bogling

I got three out of four, proud of myself!

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Characters: Cal Kestis, Merrin, Greez Dritus, Cere Junda, BD-1

Additional Tags: Family Dinners, Good old home cooking, With unconventional ingredients, Look maybe they'd be delicious, you never know, Descriptions of Unappetizing Food, Could be a merrical if you squint and would like it to be

"That doesn't look good."

It doesn't exactly smell good either. It doesn't even sound good as Greez pours the...the stuff into bowls, but Cal still knocks Merrin's knee under the table. It's nice that Greez wants to cook for them at all, and sweet that he's comfortable enough to share Latero recipes that obviously mean a lot to him. They're going to be nice back.

The determination to be nice wavers a little when Greez sets out bowls of...well...sludge. It just looks like brown sludge. But hey, maybe it tastes amazing. Appearances aren't everything. Cal flashes Greez a smile and tries a spoonful, and his smile freezes. Beside him, Merrin swirls her spoon through the shades of brown, turning up something that might be a seed pod, a mysterious seasoning, or just some sort of tube.

"Interesting combination of flavors," Cere says, sounding thoughtful, possibly trying to figure out how exactly it's cloyingly sweet and weirdly bitter at the same time.

It buys Cal time to swallow, at least, and the second spoonful is better. He's never exactly been picky, though. Even in the Temple, he'd eaten pretty much anything, and on Bracca he hadn't had much choice. Prauf had always been careful to get foods safe for humans to eat, but they hadn't always been winners in the flavor department. "Yeah, I definitely haven't had anything like this before."

"What...is it?" Merrin asks, nudging the tube to one side and trying a spoonful of the broth.

"That's not always a question you want the answer to, when you've been in space a while," Cere murmurs to her, but too late.

"Bogling stew," Greez says with satisfaction. Merrin's spoon clatters into the bowl, and Cal's fourth spoonful hovers in the air as all three of them stare at him in horror. "What?" he asks, and a few silent seconds pass before he finally starts chuckling and then bursts out laughing. "Oh, your faces. You shoulda seen 'em. I shoulda taken a holo—hey, droid, did you get that?" he asks BD, who beeps an affirmative. "Oh, nice, good, that's great. Good job."

He hops down, still chuckling, to remove something baked from the little oven. "Hah! Bogling stew! Who would do that?" He sets a tray of little savory pastries stuffed with green leaves on the counter to cool. "I can't catch those guys anyway. Nah, it's bog rat." His back is to the table, so he continues, blissfully unaware of the shared looks of horror, largely unchanged from the moment when they'd thought they were eating bogling. "Yeah, they're a lot like something we got on Lateron. Had a recipe for that, and since we've been here there are plenty of 'em lying around, so I figured, why not give it a shot?"

"Very...industrious of you," Cere ventures, poking at a chunk of meat with her spoon, newly suspicious. "Are you sure we should be eating those?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, I thought of that. I got a great parasites-and-pathogens scanner." Greez waves one of his hands dismissively. "All the bits that ended up in the stew came up clean. I'm not trying to get anyone sick, after all."

Forced to be satisfied with that, Cere nods serenely and asks with interest, "How does it measure up to the original?"

"Eh, it's not as good, but it cooked down nice once I got it all out of the skin. Not to mention there's plenty more where that came from!" Greez nudges his way between Merrin and Cal to set the spinach puffs on the table, and doesn't really notice everyone immediately reaching for them as he returns to his seat.

"They taste better than I thought they would," Cal says, with complete honesty. The meat has a spongey texture—he's not actually sure it is meat—and the thick sauce, while delicious, can't really disguise the oddly fishy flavor. Still, Cal hadn't imagined they'd be edible at all. "And they're not splox."

"Splox, oh, I got plans for those splox. They look like crustaceans to me, so we steam 'em, crack 'em open, get at the meat inside. They'll be good, I know how to handle stuff like that." Greez takes a bite of his own bowl with clear enjoyment.

So they have steamed splox to look forward to? Better and better. Next, Greez is going to send Cal out to kill an oggdo and bring it back to the Mantis so they can have the biggest frog legs ever. Why not jotaz roast while they're at it, or sauteed slyyyg, or crispy-fried wyyyschokk—

"That reminds me of something Trilla and I had once," Cere says, and Cal glances across at her, distracted from the buffet of aggressive creatures parading through his imagination. She doesn't mention Trilla often, but she's examining a spoonful with a nostalgic smile. "We were exploring some ruins near the ocean. We'd seen birds lining the edge of the beach at sunset, and we went down at the same time to see what they were hunting. We ended up catching a whole bucketful of tiny shell-less crabs for ourselves. Boiled or steamed, they were delicious, but we didn't cook all of the crabs we'd caught. We left some in a bucket of salt water for the next day, and when they came looking, we discovered the parents were quite a lot bigger." She laughs wryly as she encircles her fingers, half a meter between them. "We tried cooking them too, just like you're talking about, Greez, but apparently the process of maturing makes them really dreadful."

"Think that's what happens to splox?" Cal asks, accidentally sounding a little hopeful.

"It's possible. The young of many species are often more flavorful than the adults."

"Eh...maybe I'll just try it on one, see what happens," Greez muses, tucking into his stew once more. "I guess there's no point in making a bunch of 'em if they're not gonna be any good."

Too bad he didn't think about that before cooking up bog rats, Cal thinks, catching Merrin's eye and seeing the same thought there. He grins at her and knocks her knee again, and she knocks his back, and the stew isn't so bad after all.

[romances-not-tragedies]

OC Questions Tag

Thank you, @thewriteflame for the tag!

Let us focus on the OC of my Perfect 'Verse, Miguel Chua y Hizon:

5 words to physically describe your OC:

Tan-skinned, dark-eyed, medium-height, smirking, and snarky.

Who inspired your OC?:

I do not have a singular source of inspiration for my OC, but he is the product of the questions in my mind like how would Jo Gar and Sadi Ratan would deal with someone with a victim-slash-survivor of Filipino and Chinese heritage (he is a Chinese mestizo, BTW). Someone who would rather gouge his eyes than deal with the likes of them for various reasons. Someone who defies the two men's way of thinking of his kind, someone who does not let them bully him.

Give me a song to define your OC:

Cassandra by Taylor Swift, which expresses his fears of not being believed by many (especially by Jo Gar and Sadi Ratan) and paying the ultimate price for trying to expose the truth about a family that actually committed crimes.

If I met your OC on the street, how would they greet me?:

If I bump with him on the street, he would be freaking out and go apologetic about me being hurt, like "Oh no! I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Are you hurt?" But he would be gentlemanly with me throughout our interactions and ensure that I am safe if I decide to leave.

Can your OC be your best friend? Why?:

If he is in the current state he is in the 'Verse, it is going to be difficult to get through his armor of sarcasm. But if he lets you in, you will see that underneath all the layers of snark, you will see that he cares about his family and friends, he has fears and insecurities, and that he does his best to keep himself above water. He is a sweet, smart, loyal guy bogged down by his personal baggage (and his secret mission) but tries not to show it to others due to his upbringing, training, and circumstances. Given the circumstances, it may take time, but yes, I can be besties with Miguel because I see his struggles and I go through such as well and we love to roast the two guys (because why the hell not? The feeling is mutual!)

1 adjective and 1 noun to describe your OC:

Mistrustful survivor

Soft-tagging: @avoidingcertaindoom, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @winterandwords, @laplumedemaureen, but this is also an open tag for those who want to participate in the game.

Happy Writing!

[nectaric]

@miramilocamimira asked: Hi! How are you? So this is really just cause I need thoughts on the subject, you don't have to answer it if you don't want- but What would it take for Zeus to leave? As in he abdicated or whatever and just disappeared. How would the others react? And then this is not just to question but actually just curious: Each of the big six’s favorite nice/nephew?

rubs my greedy little hands together, i'm glad you asked! i actually have a lot of thoughts about this, and was actually exploring this a little on this blog because of a series of roleplay threads i did with a friend, in which zeus "dies" and spends a while in tartarus.

i think zeus is quite a bit closer to that precipice than some people might believe. he clings to his throne pretty tightly, and would verbally tell anyone that he has no intentions of letting it go. the throne is a safety net for zeus, a thing that, despite all the trouble it has caused him, is also the one thing keeping him and his family safe. he doesn't want to release it because he fears what will happen to them, and himself, if he does.

but zeus is tired. he's ruled for a long time, and worked hard. he's suffered relentlessly as the king, and the years and experiences have bogged him down. stepping down would be the best thing for him, and a small part of him knows that. in order to step down, though, he would have to admit this to himself and he would have to accept that he can be safe without it. that he deserves a break, that whoever fills his shoes will do just as good of a job. in my roleplay world, zeus dying and another war breaking out were the catalyst for his desire to abdicate upon his return from tartarus - the experience too haunting and exhausting for him to continue.

so i think zeus is almost ready to do it. with a few reassurances that his family and kingdom will be safe after he leaves, i think zeus would be far more inclined to do so. while i don't think him leaving would necessarily mean he'd be uninvolved with olympus, it would be in a much smaller, more honorary role than anything else. tbh, i feel like the olympians would embrace the council system a little more, favouring a real democracy than a faux one. i could see hera choosing to continue to rule for a little while, but ultimately, her and zeus were such a team as rulers that if he left, she would follow shortly thereafter. there is a potential for another king or queen - apollo or athena, perhaps, but ultimately i think, if this occurred in modern day, the system would shift significantly.

as for reactions... i think there would be mixed opinions. some might be shocked, others relieved, others annoyed that it took this long, others happy for him. i think some like hestia or hades would be pleased for zeus, because they are among the ones who understand the burden best / have seen what being king has done to him. athena would be surprised, a little nervous of what this means for her, but ultimately pleased. i think, generally speaking, its the kind of decision that would shock olympus at first, until everyone actually had a chance to speak to zeus directly - and they would see that the signs have always been there and that this was always the path zeus was going to walk eventually. it would be a chance for them to truly know and bond with zeus, too, without the burden of leadership. it would be a great thing for everyone, even if it was a bit of a difficult transition.

as for your final question!!

generally speaking this is kind of how i imagine it.

hestia: she doesn't pick favourites... but if she did, i think she's quite fond of athena, ares, and persephone, and has grown close to makaria and melinoe as well.

hades: hermes, easily. he works closely with him, and has grown quite fond of the guy.

hera: zagreus or rhode. they're both far too sweet for their own good, and she tends to get motherly.

poseidon: he and apollo have some shared trauma so maybe him, orrr dionysus.

demeter: any of hades' children, which feels a little like cheating since those are also her grandbabies, but she can't be stopped.

zeus: i think, of all his nieces and nephews, zeus likely sees triton the most, so maybe him by default lol. i think he and makaria would get along very well, if they interacted more.

[infinitesimaldna]

Have You Ever Considered Killing Your Title?—Chapter 5.5

Masterpost

______

Roman had come to accept that times with his brother would be fewer and farther between as they got older, but he hadn’t accounted for exactly how much. He certainly hadn’t accounted for how a servant would constantly be the one it seems came between that time ever happening. 

“Janus! Lovely to see you as always. Do you know where I might find my brother? I know he’s done with training for the day, but I thought he would be with you. I’m surprised he’s not attached to your hip.”

Roman suppressed a grimace. Perhaps not his best conversation starter. Conversing with Remus’ servant was always so much more difficult than his own.

“The prince is his own man, my lord, and though I’m privileged with his presence often, I feel I’d be ill-intentioned if I made use of that privilege every moment of the day.” Essentially, Roman was being told he was a moron, but in far kinder words. Or maybe he wasn’t being told that, and that was just the truth of the situation coming to light.

“No, of course, of course, I didn’t mean to imply…” He faltered under the look he received, making a conscious effort to keep his shoulders from folding in as they seemed eager to do. His gaze drifted to the basket of laundry at Janus’ hip, and he realized the chore he had interrupted. Shoot. “I suppose I just wanted to see him, talk about some things.”

Janus’ gaze softened then, and Roman seized the hope it brought along with it. While he and Janus weren’t close by any means, and he could perhaps be a bit harsh to the guy at times, that didn’t mean he intended to treat him badly. He was a prince, after all—it was his duty to look out for all in the kingdom. 

“Was there an issue with the plans you worked on yesterday? You seemed bothered then, when you asked him to take a look,” Janus said.

“What? Bothered? Never.” He scoffed, turning away as he accompanied his words with a chuckle. “I was perhaps uncertain in receiving feedback on the soldiers, but the plan itself was solid. After all, there’s a reason Remus trains them and I handle the strategy.” 

Janus’ reply seemed only to be a smile, hanging in the air for perhaps just long enough to let the first drags of anxiety creep into the base of Roman’s spine before he replied. “Of course, my lord. Your ideas and how you approach the situations we face are invaluable as a resource to the kingdom. Between you and your brother, it’s no wonder our kingdom is so safe and well protected.”

“Yes, yes, it is rather impressive what we do. Speaking of my brother…?” Roman let the question hang in the air, hoping his tone conveyed something a lot stronger than what he felt.

“With Sir Logan,” came the reply.

“Ah, of course. In that case, I suppose I should leave him to it, eh? Almost impossible to find a moment where Remus isn’t working these days.”

“The day does seem to find a way to keep him occupied.”

“I might try to make it do the same for me then. Thank you for your time, Janus, I’ll let you return to your duties.” 

He received only a slight bow in reply, but thought nothing untoward of it. Janus had been a part of their lives for 6 years now, helping his brother through the years and always appearing to be a close confidant. Especially when Roman himself couldn’t be. It was… painful, the way time seemed to pull him further and further from Remus, but it wasn’t something he would let bog him down. After all, one day one of them would be king, and there would be little to keep them separated then. Certainly not any servants, and not…

Roman shook his head, clearing the image of a gleaning crown and a less-than-impressed grimace from the front of his mind and forcing it to fall like sand away. So his afternoon couldn’t be spent with his brother, but so what? Responsibilities still had to be fulfilled, and he was sure to find something on his end. In fact, training might be just the thing he needed then. Perhaps with enough practice, he could even best Remus in their next spar, within Remus’ preferred method of the German style too! Yes, that was a plan for the afternoon, and one he had no quarrels adhering to. 

Especially when on his way to retrieve his sword from the armory, he caught sight of Sir Logan by himself, standing guard near the perimeter of the castle, no trace of another person having accompanied him in sight. 

He had no quarrels with that, no. And as he made his way to a far field to practice, separate from the training area and the memories it held with it, he reminded himself how no quarrels existed within his mind. 

Yes, he thought sharply, his sword having pierced his target far deeper than one might consider necessary. He had no quarrels with it all indeed. 

------

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[daekie]

i reblogged an oc ask meme from u and its only courteous to send questions! so here u go despite the fact we've never talked lol: ghost and betrayal for an oc of ur choice!

FAIR ENOUGH. FAIR ENOUGH. unfortunately ashton carver the vampire is taking up a lot of brain real estate and not even paying fucking rent (asshole. i’m getting art of him and maybe i’ll be able to think about other OCs after that) so ASHTON TIME

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts? Ashton has tried to make himself into a thing that isn’t bogged down by his ghosts and he’s kind of succeeded. Not really. Mostly she uses it as fuel, because -- You ever find out that you’re infected by the malevolent cells of your vampiric bloodline’s progenitor, that you pass those cells onto anyone you use your powers on, and that those cells are completely capable of transforming their host into an avatar of said progenitor? And that you might’ve been meant to be an avatar, but you’re more stubborn than god, so it didn’t work? And you used your powers on your ex, who’s now in a position of immense political and social weight? And you used your powers on your other party members? And your boss? And your friends? Because your powers were useful, and nobody else had them, and -- Sometimes they just kind of sit and think about it. About how on some level, that’s still part of why he’s doing this: it’s not just to have total control and agency over his own self. It’s because if she wants the people she cared about to be safe - from her, and from everything her bloodline entails -- she had to leave. They had to leave. And maybe if he gets strong enough, maybe if he burns his progenitor’s fucking blight from this world and from his blood, then maybe -- but monsters like him don’t retire. There isn’t an after. If she’s lucky she’ll go out in a blaze of glory and take that thing with her. But that underlying knowledge of what could happen always haunts her, right alongside the ghost of the person she used to be, back when she actually did care about them; back when she was human enough to care about one person like that. And then he goes off and summons a bunch of demons because that’s how we cope these days. There’s no therapy when you’re an internationally wanted vampiric criminal!! There’s just looking at yourself in the mirror and going YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT and then wearing your ex’s face next time you take public transport because you’re being so so so normal about those feelings you are pretending you do not have and can no longer understand.

betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them? Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Betrayer, liar, murderer, devil-worshipper, soul-devourer, you gotta give her whole secondary subtitle all at once or you’re not being accurate, come on now.  All jokes aside, Ashton’s reputation for backstabbing and betrayal is mostly exaggerated, but you nonconsensually turn a man into the hulk to fight a demon and then immediately leave the city without saying goodbye + devour the soul of an ancient vampire for power + go on a mad quest for power involving mass murder + start worshipping demons once and he takes it so personally. The relationship is, uh, strained, but that’s kind of what tends to happen when you infect a guy with sentient vampire flesh cancer and then ghost him. They’re not friends anymore. Betrayal of Ashton herself, though... becoming a vampire was the big one. He really was in love, and he really did think the guy cared about him, and he really did trust the guy. Three months locked in a closet earning the privilege to have fingers or a mouth did pretty safely debunk the notion.

[quizzicalwriter]

My Love Mine All Mine was amazing and it really pulled at my heartstrings!!!

My favorite parts were:

You had been talking about your plans for the upcoming weekend, and how you were excited to see Dallas again. He wanted to reply and tell you how he had enjoyed spending the day with you, how he hoped to have you to his lonesome, a day with only you.

That part was so sweet and it was right before all the angst 😪

“It’s okay , doll. We’re fine, see?” Him trying to reassure himself and the reader that things were ok even though the reader was unconscious was heartbreaking in the best way!! It hurt my heart when he tried to follow the reader when the doctors and nurses wheeled her away even though he was severely injured too 🥲❤️‍🩹 Also I loved when he referred to the gang as his brothers 💗

Dallas wasn’t a weak man, he wasn’t. He’d seen horrible things and hadn’t shed a tear, but you-you would stick with him. Even if you recovered, the sight of you connected to seemingly every medical device known to man would haunt him for the rest of his days. 😭😭😭

The next time you needed him he wouldn’t be bogged down, he’d be alert, he’d- he’d be better than he had been driving you home. Dally not only feeling guilty about being the one that was driving but also because he couldn’t get to his feet fast enough when the reader woke up screaming so much so that he stopped taking his pain meds is the kind of gut wrenching angst I live for!!! 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

His eyes fluttered shut as he savored the feeling of your lips on his. Nothing could have prepared him for the relief he’d feel in that moment, knowing that you were safe, awake-alive. It was almost too much for him to bear, but you kept him grounded, lips soft enough to leave him craving more of you. AAAAHHHH THE ENDING WAS PERFECT!!!!!!! It was so soft and sweet, I love it!!!!

Thank you so so much!!! This is genuinely so sweet, I’ve kept it in my inbox to look at for inspiration hehe. I’m so happy you guys love my work so much, it makes me so dang happy. I have a few more works I’m editing at the moment and I hope to have them out soon!

[duhragonball]

GT was obviously terrible, but in keeping with your positivity page, do you think there is something that the series, overall, had something going for it that was genuinely good? Like, an actual good idea, or is it just utterly irredeemable?

I've been saving this ask for last, so I guess we'll make this my final word on GT for the time being. I've got more stuff to cover going forward, and I don't want to get bogged down on old business.

If you're asking if GT could be "fixed" in some way, I think it's possible, but it would take a lot of work and it ultimately wouldn't be worth the effort. Toei would need to rewrite and reanimate just about everything, sort of like how they remade "Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans" in 2010.

The thing is, they improved "Plan", but the finished product still wasn't all that great. They basically took a low quality, hour-long adaptation of a video game story, and turned it into an okay-ish half-hour version in HD. Now imagine Toei doing that thirty-odd times, and that's probably what a "GT redux" would look like. You could tighten up the story, give the supporting characters more spotlight, make the battles more exciting, but in the end you're still retelling this tale that didn't exactly light the world on fire the first time.

And it's easy for fans like us to say "Well, they should take the team that made DBS: Super Hero and have them remake GT." But that would be a major undertaking, and I'd rather see those resources devoted to making something new, not remaking something old. It could be done, but it probably never will, and that's probably for the best.

But what you're really asking is if there's anything genuinely good about GT. When I consider the series in a vacuum, I think the answer is probably "no." There's some screencaps I took throughout this liveblog that look very pleasing. This one of Goten, Trunks, and Palace keeps springing to mind:

There's some others I could point out, and maybe one of these days I'll put together some sort of gallery, but they're mostly few and far between. I find them more enjoyable when they're stripped of the context of the anime they came from.

I also really like the idea of Pan as this feisty 110-year-old lady.

And some of the character designs are pretty cool. Baby right before he gets killed, Bulma's outfit in Episode 2 and 3, and Omega Shenron looks like a big deal, even if he failed to live up to the hype.

But you might have noticed that I'm kind of scraping up little things from the edges of the main story. That's because most of the "best" of GT is a mashup of things culled from better works.

Baby borrows heavily from several other DBZ characters and plotlines. What makes him unique is his dream of "Tuffleizing the universe", but we never get to see what that means or how he feels about it. He just wants everyone to have a "bad guy smirk" like he does all the time.

Super 17 is just Fusion Reborn and the Androids Saga crushed up and poured in a blender. It's especially insulting to me because that's some of my favorite stuff from DBZ, and Toei went out of their way to make a crappy version.

The closest thing GT has to any sort of throughline is the idea that the Dragon Balls are inherently dangerous. The Black Star Balls shows that if they're not made properly, they can blow up entire planets. Then the classic Dragon Balls turn evil, proving that there is no proper way to make safe Dragon Balls. This is a pretty shitty premise for a show with the word "Dragon Ball" in the title. In the finale, Trunks assures Pan that the Dragon Balls will return some day, but why would he want them to return? After all the destruction they've caused, you'd think Trunks would be relieved to be rid of the dumb things.

So what does that leave? The show itself is rotten, and Toei would be foolish to try to repair or remake it. What does it offer to the fandom?

And I think the answer to that is: Inspiration.

Marron is barely in GT at all. I meant to talk about her more, but I was surprised to find that she has even fewer appearances in GT than I remembered. She shows up in the Baby Saga for a couple of episodes, and then she's with Krillin and 18 when 17 attacks them, and that's it. And yet, there's a lot of fans out there making content about teen Marron and/or adult Marron. I don't know a lot about it, since I'm not particularly interested myself, but what does intrigue me is how it had to have started with the version of Marron we see in GT. Fans saw her, wanted more, and made their own version. Sometimes they stick to the GT design, and sometimes they steer clear of it, but it's always a response to the GT portrayal, one way or the other.

I won't lie, I've gotten some ideas from GT in the past, and I've developed a few new ones now that I've rewatched it again. The video games have done a better job presenting Super Saiyan 4 and the main villains than GT itself. A fan could probably write a kick-ass fixit fic about GT. Maybe someone already has. And there's plenty of smaller fics out there, shipping the younger characters, or just giving them the attention they didn't get from the source material.

I mentioned this before, but a lot of Luffa was inspired by my frustration with GT's refusal to give us Super Saiyan Pan or Bulla. Luffa's flash forward 1000 years into the future has a lot of resemblance to Goku's inscrutable presence in Age 890. Pan going from Age 4 to 110 had a lot to do with Keda going from 9 to 99 in my fanfic. The trick is that when I do it, I'm trying to give those moments more dramatic weight, something they sorely lacked in the TV Special and Episode 64. I think the Marron fans and Goten shippers are coming from the same place.

So it's dishonest for anyone to say "Oh, well you borrowed ideas from GT, so that means you actually thought GT was good." No. It's more like salvaging lumber from a collapsed barn and using it to build your own barn. GT is a challenge. You watch it and the show takes all your favorite characters and makes them suck and suck, and it's so disappointing that it basically dares you to do something better. Every time I think about the Shadow Dragons, and how that should have been a slam dunk for Toei, I start to think about how I could do it right. And maybe one of these days I will.

Alan Moore sums it up a lot better than I could, when he gives writers the advice to read bad books for inspiration. There's a lot to be gained from analyzing a bad story, because it helps you understand what went wrong, and how to avoid the same pitfalls in your own work. And I think that goes for bad anime too. That's why I'm here.

And there's always diamonds in the rough, too. GT #43 is one of the worst of the worst. It's just a terribly animated episode, and yet it somehow includes this gorgeous shot of Vegeta. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And as Diamond Dallas Page always says: That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing! Bang!

[punch-love]

7, 8, 13, 14, 22, 23, 38, 39

sorry for being greedy again lol :)

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“You’re smart. You’re funny.” Peter continues, his fingers tapping against Wade’s chest in a comforting metronome.

“You’re terrifying.” Peter says, and Wade hears his own awe in the words. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you before.” Wade repeats distantly.

It grows silent again; Wade moves his body down so he can press his ear against Peter’s chest, listens for the heart. Peter is stiff underneath him, hands crooked and unmoving over his own.

“Isn’t it terrible?” Peter asks very quietly.

Wade wonders what he means; the sound of his heart is grounding, steady. It’s been years since anyone has let him listen to their heart.

“The way I feel.” Peter says.

“No.” Wade never has meant anything more. [atlas]

It's my favorite ending that I've written. I only write unreliable narrators, so this is the first time you really see what Peter actually, genuinely loves and admires about Wade in a way he can't flinch away from. At this point, we only know Wade's insecurities, so the ending is a mirror where Peter is the one being insecure/feeling unworthy of love and Wade is the one who immediately dismisses it. The double meaning of "isn't it terrible, the way I feel?" both his physical body/the intensity of his emotions. The way that Wade feels safe for the first time in the narrative to just exist. Everything I wanted to accomplish with it feels accomplished. It's an ending where I don't feel like there's more of a story to explore. You know what happens to them, you know?

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“I can’t be that financially viable.” Peter croaks instead. “Let’s be real here.”

“You’d be surprised how much a guy is willing to pay to put you in a paper cup and toss you outside the city,” Deadpool responds coldly.

“I’ll give you five dollars and a sweet kiss on the cheek if you leave me alone,” Peter says Deadpool’s face is doubling in his vision, tripling, a whole army of scary clowns.

“If I showed you my rates I think you’d piss yourself.” Deadpool snorts.

“Five dollars, a sweet kiss on the cheek, and an IOU.”

“How many legs do you think a spider needs to walk?” Deadpool flicks Peter’s twitching bicep.

“Preferably all of them.” Peter laughs nervously.

“I’ve seen them work with one.” Deadpool grabs his knife from his belt and drags the tip slowly across Peter’s costume, the frayed threads snapping in its path and bleeding into a thin, painful line as he makes his way down to his thigh. [it's an acquired taste]

I just love the juxtaposition of Spider-Man being his peppy, banter ready self vs. Deadpool being frustrated that his job is taking too long and is very much ready to kill or maim him for it. It's funny, but it's also like, oh this is going to go south real quick, isn't it? I really like balancing quips with, like, the physical gravity of what is happening, and I think this scene does that well. I also just love the idea of Spider-Man being like "five dollars, a sweet kiss on the cheek, and an IOU" to the mercenary trying to kill him for an unfathomable amount of money.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

You have to write poorly to write well, and you have to write often to write at all.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I think any advice around the necessity of a traditional structure. I was taught to write on the basis that every novel needs specific things/character types to be like, a good piece of writing, and that's just not true. It's better to take a seam ripper to tradition, then get bogged down by the patterns of people that aren't you.

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

I have been recently re-editing chapter 8 of love-punch because it's the weakest chapter (to me) writing wise. It was also my first published "smut" piece (even though it's not even really that) so you can tell I was a little nervous about my approach. I don't think my style has changed so much as my approach to it. I've taken a lot of descriptions and just let the action or reaction speak for itself. I'm not re-writing it publically, though, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

I wouldn't! I think they all stand up to my expectations of them. I think the only thing I end up editing is love-punch because due to the multi-chapter structure I don't really get to edit as a completed "piece" so the style, by the nature of time, gets a little dated and needs a brush-up. I also wrote Spider-Man as Spider-man up to like, chapter six or something, so I need to go back and fix that sometime.

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

I got a review the other day on the latest love-punch chapter that quoted my favorite section and said that they had been looking for a fic where Peter uses his super strength against Wade, and that the scene where they wrestle each other in the chapter really fulfilled that for them. It was nice because you don't really get to choose your audience and what your audience likes about your work but when someone reads it likes it for the reasons I, personally, like it always makes me happy. I wrote this because I wanted to read it, so when other people who are looking for the same things find it everything feels so full circle.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

The rudest review I got was someone asking me why I had to make Peter trans and then when I explained it they complained that I made them switches because they wanted him as a cis-gender bottom. It was infuriating. I'm like, not the most cool-headed person in the world, so I just yelled at them until they were like "wow, you are literally attacking me right now" and then I deleted all of their comments after I cooled down because I didn't want their words to trigger any of my trans readers who were reading my comments. I like yelling at people much more than I like being nice (especially if that's the energy they're putting out - I will match your energy) so I usually get out some aggression until I calm down, and then I usually just delete them. I think that some writers are too nice with their rude reviewers and I like to be a reminder that if you talk shit, I will actually hit you.

I don't get many rude reviews though. I do get comments that trigger the hell out of me because I write a lot of my personal experiences/traumas into my work, and sometimes they'll be like "wow that's so romantic <3" about something that is straight up abusive and that always ruins my day/makes me want to stop writing, but they're not being rude, just romanticizing something I was hoping they wouldn't. My rudest fans are people who want to befriend me/have access to my personal information or life and get upset when I set a very clear "I'm not here to be your friend, and you are not entitled to know anything about me outside what I write" boundary. The majority is very decent to me, though.

[honest-moth-of-silver-grove]

I posted 42 times in 2022

That's 4 more posts than 2021!

5 posts created (12%)

37 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@elytrians

@muchymozzarella

@hamartia-grander

@demigoddessqueens

@thotty-bog-body

I tagged 42 of my posts in 2022

#not writing - 32 posts

#not mine - 10 posts

#art tag - 6 posts

#lol - 4 posts

#resident evil - 4 posts

#@hermione-grander - 2 posts

#my love! - 2 posts

#i dont think im capable of normal anymore - 1 post

#me w/ my villians - 1 post

#next tumblr april fools pls and thank u - 1 post

Longest Tag: 82 characters

#like i adore all of the adaptatiosn but am also sad that were loosing the og myths

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

hey... r u alive??

Am,,, I...?

(Lol, jk- yes I am. And I'm working on stuff I promise.)

((On A Totally Unrelated Note: Do NOT stop masking and get covid again because it can literally steal months of your life.))

0 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

#4

not for nothing but i absolutely do see the trend of newcomer tumblr users only liking posts and not reblogging them

0 notes - Posted May 6, 2022

#3

actually have a wip!!!

woo-hoo!!!

6 notes - Posted March 30, 2022

#2

update. ask box still closed.

i survived the fall semester only to get covid.... ugh. omnicron is no joke.

stay safe out there y’all!

-Mothmom 💚

7 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Nurse!Reader x Carlos Oliveira & Nikolai Zinoviev Headcanons

A/N: (Everyone’s a touch OOC as I doubt either one would willingly drag a civilian along, albeit for different reasons: Carlos because once you’ve been escorted to safety, you’re no longer his immediate concern; Nikolai because he was never all that interested in saving civilians, to begin with, but let’s say you’re just so darn cute/special that you alter canon circumstances, okay? Okay. Also, all of them survive RE3 in this, so yeah.)

☣     ☢     ☣     ☢

When shit starts hitting the fan, you don't panic immediately. After all, you work in a hospital, what better place to be during a pandemic, right? 

Wrong! Oh so wrong. 

You see the effects of the T-virus up close and personal, and it’s not pretty. Prior to this point, you thought such viruses only existed in science fiction or cheesy B-grade horror movies. But here it was in your workplace, quickly overcoming all quarantined forces, hospital staff, and security. 

So you flee. You leave through a back exit and get the hell out of dodge, or at least, the center of dodge. You soon find, however, that it’s not just the hospital that’s overrun, but the city as well.

Maybe that’s how you meet them…

Carlos:

He swoops in and saves you from a hoard of zombies, looking like an A-list action star as he does it. (It’s the hair- it’s incredible.)

He tells you his platoon is rounding up survivors in the subway, that it’s a temporary shelter until they can get the trains up and running again. That he and his teammates were sent in to get everyone safely out of the city. You’re not sure if you believe this plan, but you follow him eagerly as he leads you to the subway. 

On the way, you tell him who you are. When he finds out you’re medical personnel, he’s both impressed and relieved. He tells you his captain has been injured, and they haven’t come across a doctor or nurse that hasn't already been infected. You of course offer to help in any way your can. (Because you’re awesome like that.)

You’re not surprised when he tells you he’s working with Umbrella because you also work with Umbrella as a hospital employee. But to you, they’re a pharmaceutical company, why would they need military personnel? It doesn't sit right with you, but Carlos is an absolute sweetheart. (I mean the man is cracking jokes in the middle of the apocalypse.) So you trust the guy.

Carlos does his best to assure you you’re not a burden or some sort of unwanted weight when you first arrive at the subway car. Mainly, because he can tell by the way you keep offering to help get the trains running, even though you’d be no match for the horde, but also because of Nikolai’s snide comments about Carlos bringing in “yet another one” when the cars still weren’t working. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s our job to protect you.”

Carlos takes you to his Captain- Captain Mikhail Victor in charge of Umbrella's Delta Platoon. You try and treat the Captain’s injury the best you can, using what little supplies from the first-aid kit that’s available. You apply a generous amount of first aid spray and wrap a makeshift bandage around the cut. You would have attempted sutures if the kit had any but unfortunately for the Captain, it didn’t. The wound isn’t deep but it’s in a compromising place. You know this man won’t make it out of here on foot. 

Overall, you feel you’ve done an inadequate job because you know the Captain is still incredibly vulnerable, but both Carlos and Mikhail assure you, you’ve been more than helpful. 

But you want to help more! When Carlos admits he and Tyrell won’t be catching the train and will instead stay behind to look for Bard, you offer to come with them, to help them navigate the hospital. 

Of course, everyone thinks it’s a horrible idea. One: because Bard is supposedly at the police station, not the hospital, and Two: because you have no weapons training whatsoever. You’re a walking liability. Nikolai teases Carlos about “taking on the burdens of strays”. You flip him off behind his back. 

After a ton of back and forth, you insist you go with Carlos and Tyrell, refusing to get on the train. At one point you take a seat on the ground of the platform and cross your arms stubbornly. (You’re not going and they can’t make you!)

Carlos is the first to accept the situation and roll with the punches. “Alright. But I have one rule.” He says. “No dying on me.” 

You stand, smile, and shake his hand. “Deal.”

The three of you make it to the police station, where you hang back with Tyrell in the main lobby as Carlos looks around for Bard. Once it’s revealed that Bard is still at the hospital, you offer to escort Carlos there. After giving him your best “I told you so” smirk that is.

On the way you find Jill, clearly having been infected by something, even though you’re not certain what. But none of that matters as you and Carlos bring her to the practically abandoned hospital. 

Once Jill is settled, you give Carlos some directions and a rudimentary drawing of where to locate the asshole Bard’s office. “You’ll need a voice key,” you tell him. “You’d have to look around these rooms for one of his cassettes.” 

He thanks you before asking you to look after Jill for the time being. You promise to radio him if her condition worsens. 

When Carlos comes back with the vaccine, you could practically kiss the man. You don’t, of course, it wouldn't be appropriate. (But the thought does cross your mind very briefly.) Carlos lets you administer the vaccine to Jill, you being the trained nurse and all. With all that's happened, being able to do some actual healing feels like nothing short of a miracle. 

You begin to take notes on Jill’s condition, commenting that although it doesn’t seem to be a speedy cure, her fever’s going down and her skin doesn’t look as clammy. 

The miraculous feeling doesn't last long, however, as Tyrell comes bursting through the room, clearly out of breath and pretty banged-up. He turns on the TV and to your horror, you find you have only hours to make it out of Racoon City unless you want to be vaporized. (Which, no, thank you! You certainly don’t!)  

After catching up, Tyrell being high-key surprised you’re still alive, (which honestly, you’re like ‘same’ lol) you decide to go with Carlos underground, to locate the stockpiled vaccine as a last-ditch effort to save the city. You hope whatever they made, that there’s tons of it. 

Before going underground though, Carlos gives you a gun from one of the killed security guards. It only has a few bullets but he feels safer knowing you’re not just going to walk completely weaponless into whatever danger Umbrella has waiting for you. 

See the full post

187 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cloned-sheep97]

its now safe to leave the bog guys

[pintrestparasite]

hey guys its safe to leave the bog now /reference

[fridakahloblvd]

the one time I trust an old white woman, I lose an eye…

I mean, sURE, there were some red flags. her potions didn’t work, and she talked with innuendo. her smile was kinda creepy, and she seemed a little too eager to talk to me.

I’m just humoring her at this point because she’s just a frail old woman lmao. I’m a sorcerer, I can tell she’s a little loopy.

but she was harmless! I find her and she’s surrounded by two young men who are threatening her. she had no weapons! they’re calling her a hag! 🙄 I get it, she’s a weird old lady, but that’s not a crime.

and I’m not buying this story about their sister! who’s to say she didn’t run off on her own volition? I know the genre we’re in! we meet so many star crossed lovers in act 1! maybe she didn’t like her home life! maybe her brothers are abusive!! Idk!!

so what was i supposed to do?! i met her first, and she was nice to me! she’s Auntie!! i tell them to leave her alone and they point their swords at me! and at this point I’m like lvl 2 or 3, so we easily kill them.

and it’s mostly just because I find her funny, Idk. I find Volo annoying, but I think Auntie’s great so maybe I’m just dumb. I role played the Volo surgery and save scummed back before that because I KNEW he was a bumbling idiot.

The letter the sister left behind doesn’t help either. I don’t know what to think of this situation, I just hope that the sister is safe and sound wherever she is.

Anyway, I go off. Auntie tells me to meet up with her as thanks, I go and fight the goblins and gnolls. the game tells me that I’m not ready to go after the Gith, so I decide that I’m ready to meet back up with Auntie.

I’m following the quest marker, when I step onto the sunlit wetlands. something happens, like a weird blast that changes the area into a stinky bog. ok. whatever. there’s some sheep and they’re highlighted so I grab Wyll to go talk to them.

but they turn into…gnomes? ok. whatever. there’s an illusion going on and these gnomes are trying to pass off as sheep. so I humor them. I “baa” at them. the only other options are to confront or attack them. I don’t feel like starting shit, so I let them be. maybe it’s a kink or they’re being method? I don’t judge.

so I bound up the stairs in this dispelled illusion bog-turned-wetland and there’s Auntie!

…with a young woman. and she’s forcing homegirl to overeat, telling her that she’s eating for two. and again…I’m not stupid. I clock the weird vibes. that’s Marcy what’s her name. the little sister. And Auntie’s being really cruel to her, threatening Marcy to finish her food.

I’ve read Hansel and Gretel, I know a thing or two about child eating witches. so I say something to Auntie, like “hmm. Marcy. ain’t that the name of the little sister of the two guys I killed for you?” like what’s up with that?

and she just tells me to shut it, that she doesn’t like busybodies. Astarion tells me to leave well enough alone, and not worry about strangers. Wyll and Lae’zel stay silent and just stand behind me with their arms crossed. and I suddenly wish I had brought Gale along because I’m romancing him. and he’s a wizard so he’s gotta have some expertise with all this.

but he’s not here. and then Auntie’s telling me that I gotta give up my eye in exchange for getting the worm out. and I’m just letting shit happen at this point because I wanna see where this leads.

so I say ok. but then she says she’s gotta get her long nails for this job. and I’m like, “huh?”

and she transforms into a big gnomish monster. a hag. and I’m just looking at her not knowing what to think. because just because she’s a hag, doesn���t mean she’s evil! right?

(I’d just listened to NADDPOD’s Twilight Santorum four shot and there was a nice hag there so I might’ve been biased. it’s a really funny and surprisingly heartbreaking story. the ending is so good)

Long story short, she pulls my eye out and then freaks out when she sees the worm. apparently it’s been tampered with. duh. we know. but she’s mad at ME, and says the deals off. and kicks me out.

WHAT. like…how rude. she’s like “oh I COULD do it. but I won’t. you’re not getting your eye back, but here’s a lil gift. piss off” and I just had to laugh! because what??

anyway, I’m tempted to save scum and go back and try to kill her I guess.

[firstruleofmethclub]

A lifetime ago, I lived with the (non-1st-degree) family of the guy who invented the Flow Hive (I say "the guy", it was almost certainly him and lots of other people, but it was so long ago that the fact that seeing this post triggered this memory at all is wild, but I apologise for not recalling who & how many were involved).

I was dating his cousin and we went to his property for Xmas during a period of my life where I was massively struggling with my mental health (esp. anxiety) and I had a genuine nervous breakdown when my car got bogged during a big downpour and I lost the safe-hold thought of "You'll be fine, you can leave if you need to" and it was like still to this day one of the absolute worst anxiety attacks I've had in my life. The family very kindly managed to organise to get my car towed out of the mud but I still left early to go back interstate and my partner of the time came with me, so I basically ruined Xmas for her & her family and still feel garbage about it to this day.

Anyway that's my story about bees.

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