#also the fact that this isn't a thing anymore.

[kaelidascope]

On one hand, I'm relieved to see that it isn't just me suffering in the engagement department whereas I used to get flooded with comments and the like every time I dropped something. It isn't the only reason why I've moved from fanfic work to original work, but it is part of it. The last round of engagement on the latest MM chapter was abysmal, and while I know it's not a reflection of my quality in writing, I kept beating myself up over the possibility that I took too long to update it and people gave up on it/forgot/fell out of love with my work because I as a creator was not performing good enough. It drove me into a bit of a depression for a while.

On the other hand, this is making me rethink my stance on never telling my favorite authors how much they have inspired me to take off with my writing career. This is going to get a little lengthy but I want to talk about it so bear with me here.

Closed circles know how much of an insane, unhinged fan I am of certain writers, yet I have never actually said a word to them. I think I left one comment on maybe two fics that went unanswered (which is fine. They're not active in the fandoms I'm in anymore and I'm just some guy out of probably hundreds all saying the same thing. They're not gonna reply to me) but apart from that, you wouldn't catch me dead actually admitting how much the works mean to me. But why?

I guess I was far too proud and too terrified of being let down if I exposed myself like that. Despite the fact that these authors were literal catalysts for borderline impossible feats I have done within the last year, WELL RECEIVED FEATS at that, I swore I'd never tell anyone how inspiring they were for me. (Unless a casual friendship has been established. I have had the tremendous honor to able to talk to some of my inspirations one on one but under incredibly lucky circumstances)

I had a scenario in my head that these were the cool kids, and if you ever got picked on at all for admiring anything, you know damn well you never tell the cool kids about your admiration. I was afraid that they'd take one look at the work that was inspired by theirs and laugh at it in their enclosed circles. I wasn't going to risk having my confidence crushed and lose the motivation to continue working on my projects by being a fan.

I know not all authors do this. Every time someone comes to me and tells me I've inspired them to be a better writer, I literally frame it in a collection of screenshots I have saved on a hard drive. Every. Single. Time. And I know anyone else would tell me that if the person I admire would actually be cruel enough to mock an up and coming writer, then they're not worth admiring. Which I agree with! But try telling that to sensitive little Kaeli that safeguards their interests with the fiery defensiveness of a feral bear on cocaine.

But then I see posts like this, and I put myself in their shoes. I don't know them. They could be a jackass but they could also be like me - someone who bases a lot of motivation for project completion based off of whether or not people even care to see it completed.

This is all a very long, round about away to say that who cares if the author you build a mini-shrine for in your brain thinks your cringe for liking their work? Odds are they probably need to hear that you liked it so much, it inspired you to do something with that feeling. We all need to hear it. They inspired you and now you're making something that will inspire someone else. To be a creator is to share that passion everywhere you go. There's nothing cringe about it.

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[whathorselegs]

Headcanon Chuuya almost always wants to fight the people he respects.

Just one little match, that's all he wants. A no ability sparring match. Just one.

Okay, that wasn't enough, with abilities this time.

Actually, if they were truly testing their capabilities, neither of them would hold back at all.

Okay, now with stakes.

If this person says yes once, you can bet Chuuya will find an excuse to initiate another match. He knows it's not appropriate to ask certain people to a fight, so he literally sits there buzzing like an excited Chihuahua, trying to contain himself.

The Sheep would play wrestle all the time and that's really where it all started. It was a way to teach the younger members how to defend themselves, but also to blow off steam and settle disputes. Grappling each other, shouting silly wrestling moves and pretending to box each other was just a way of showing affection.

Then he became King of Sheep and the other members didn't want to engage in play matches with him anymore. The enemies he fought were boring most days. Once he learned how to deal with bullets there was no challenge to it.

Then came the mafia and with it people like Kouyou, Iceman and Hirotsu. People who could stand up to him and had things they could teach him. People he admired and sparred with regularly. Verlaine eventually was included in this too.

Fights against people like Rimbaud that made him feel alive because they pushed him so close death.

Chuuya found the joy in fighting again and in standing opposite a person you respect on a mat, anticipating their moves, counteracting with you own, an improvised dance of strength and balance.

Begrudgingly, even Dazai was included in that, on the very rare occasion their arguments got physical. Dazai never beat him in a physical fight, but the fact that he knew him so well meant he could stand his ground when he really wanted to.

When he became an Executive and started training his own subordinates, he found yet another new joy in being the one doing the teaching. The pride in seeing his students grow. Unlike with The Sheep, his underlings here knew how strong he was and still stepped up to spar with him, because they trusted him.

Fighting isn't just a battle to Chuuya. It's communication.

[craetor]

So if Angel Bill has no great, evil plans, does he and Ford still have their falling out? Or do they stay together?

I'm kind of thinking of a plot point where Bill asks Ford to invent something that could sever their tie to their original plane (Heaven) so he gets to do what he wants (not, in fact, explore the universe but experience what it would be like if he took down the most followed faith on earth (Christianity) and, like, blow up galaxies and stuff)

Ford realizes Bill is a haughty, selfish prick after moving to Gravity Falls to study its anomalies. Bill gets really jealous and they have a falling out, after which Bill leaves indefinitely.

Bill, however, quickly notices how fond he's become of Ford. In a sense, they're both wide-eyed explorers, and he's always been loyal and devoted to them, which Bill, as a holy entity without the faith of its creator, craves more than anything. He also has trouble finding any revering scientist able to replicate what Ford had achieved on the unbinding them topic.

Bill slowly goes insane while Ford's life improves more and more the longer Bill is gone. He almost immediately invites Fiddleford to Gravity Falls to help study and experiment around all the reality bending phenomena the town has to offer, abandoning Bill's commission in the basement. Fidds encourages Ford to get back in touch with his brother as well, and when they find out he isn't well, Fiddleford is the only one ready to drive a few days cross-states to fetch him.

Ford's unforgiving stubbornness gets him into double trouble. During Fiddleford's absence, Bill returns to Ford completely in shambles. Ford states hesitantly that he's not on speaking terms with them, ignoring their pleads, attempts at sweetening the deal and bursts of rage. Bill begins to terrorize Ford in his dreams, also making sure he can't differentiate between dream and reality anymore, telekinetically dislocates and twists his limbs on several occasions and sets fire to items around the house, between which they appear to Ford physically, hoping he'll beg them to stop and talk or at least let them seduce him in the wake of stress relief.

When Fidd returns with Stan, Ford is in the same state he is at Stan's arrival in canon. Some interpersonal drama ensues and yeah, Bill is too hesitant to try fucking with Ford to the same extent after he's enlightened Fiddleford and Stanley about what exactly Bill is, but he'll find a way. Queue "He may be a god, but I'm a scientist", quote. Of course Bill decides that, when not if he reaches his goal, Ford will be given the chance to join him in the chaos or be the last thing in the mortal universe to go out.

Orrr you could assume that the two stay in a plain toxic domestic relationship for the rest of Ford's life, but if you want a plot line ^ there it is.

[thewisherr]

I ⏩💁 am 🤧🤧 a 💰👌 wishing 💫 star, a cosmic ✨ entity created 💦💦 when a 😎🔥 wish 🙏🙏 is made 😶 profoundly enough 🕑 (often by multiple people 👫👥 and/or over 👳 a 👌 long period 🔴 of 💦 time, ⌛🕖 that's 😐👊 role 😩 it 💧😂 is 😂 to fulfill said 💬 wish. 😢🌠 Usually, a 🅰 wishing 💫👇 star returns to 🐚😋 nonexistence after 👀 the 👏 wish 🙏 is 🌸🏳 fulfilled, however, I am 👏 a 👅💀 part 💔💔 of 12 😣 wishing stars (of 💦 whom I mutually consider ☺ my 👨🅱 siblings, that 😐😐 were created 💦 due to ➡ a 💰 massive 😯 collective wish from a 👏 star 🌟 system 😎🤣 very 😲⛪ much 🍆💲 far away from this one 💍♿ for 🍆 peace, ☮✌ as 💯 it 🔫 was ☠ deep in 🏽 a 🗣🐭 massive 😯 war 💣 perhaps 🤷 worse 🤜🤜 than ☄😻 any 🤷 that have, 😩💪 been 👏📽 observed on earth, thus 😂 far. 🌌 Due 👅👅 to 🙏🎲 peace 😎☢ never 🐘🙅 truly ⚡⚡ being permanent, me and my siblings do not disappear, and ➡👏 instead four of 💦 us at a time ⌚ will 💣💦 watch 👾 over the 🎊 star system 🌌 to 🌱 maintain peace, while ♀ the 📷 rest of us 💦😚 will ⚽ do what ❓🏿 we 🏻👌 will, 🅱 that 👏 often being 😑 fulfilling smaller wishes 😘🙏 that would not normally create a 👨 wishing 🔮🔮 star. ⭐⭐

HAHAHA OH MY GODS THIS IS GLORIOUS LMAOO

The best part about this IS THIS SHIT ISN'T ANYWHERE ON MY PAGE ANYMORE. MF HAD THIS SHIT SAVED. THAT'S DEDICATION.

I don't give a shit what your intentions were but this genuinely made my day, thank you for such a good laugh anon

[definite-human]

Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is how broadly we misapply the idea of "no pain, no gain". The problem is that it is so often assumed that the logical end point is "all pain = gain", when that isn't even remotely the case. You can't break your own arm and expect the same results as if you'd come home with sore muscles from a good workout. You're just in pain and now also can't work out until your arm has healed.

The same thing is true of our inner lives. Some things are painful to go through because they are effortful - in my case, that's things like 'asking for help' and 'setting healthy boundaries'. There are other things that are painful because they are actively harmful - obsessing over past mistakes, stewing in shame and self-loathing, etc.

The simple fact is that you cannot punish yourself into being a better person anymore than you can break your body into being a star athlete. Like OP said - it's about constructing a healthy self, not destroying an unhealthy one.

Every single day people on tumblr say "what if the shit moral OCD tells you was true and living by it was the only way to be a real progressive"

[romanticatheartt]

People always be like "we want complex female character" but you bitches can't even handle Feyre, who has different sides and just because she's a mother now, you think she's completely disable to wield a sword...

She was a fighter long before turning to fae. She killed a fae wolf, 2 nagas, trapped a suriel several times (the very suriel Rhys tried to trapped and failed), killed an ancient wyrm and broke a 49 years curse all the while being a human. She has all the seven High Lords power and managed to kill many of Hybren soldier just to save Rhysand. She's mated to the most powerful High Lord and we all know 'like calls to like'. She went to the Summer Court and fight side by side with The Morrigan and never backed down.

But sure... she can't wield a sword now.

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[sleepyorchidmonster]

What if king Henrik managed to steal Malleus's egg after defeating Meleanor?

The main point is that the egg WOULDN'T hatch because it needs love (and even in canon it took a couple of centuries to hatch, despite the presence of Lillia and Maleficia).

So after a few tries, he discards his plans and keeps the egg as a trophy. Years pass and a five year-old Silver finds the trophy room while playing. He stumbles into the pedestal holding the egg, but manages to save it before it falls.

The child then senses a tiny heartbeat, and realizes there is a baby inside the egg!

The egg hatches immediately. Baby Silver loved it at once (the way he did once upon a dream).

And that's how we get a Dragon Prince journey (sorta).

After the dragon hatched, Silver went to talk with his animal friends to see if they could help (he loves his parents, but he couldn't just tell them he went to the trophy room to play, some instinct of his was also telling him they couldn't be trusted).

He left the little dragon under the care of a mother bear and went to the library to see if he could find anything. He came across a few old books from before the Silver Owls that described the Draconias (the little prince was so excited! His dragon friend could become a friend friend! He didn't have any friends besides the animals! And the dragon was even a fellow prince!)

But first things first! His dragon friend needed to meet his actual family, they were probably worried sick! So he grabbed a few maps, marked out the closest fae castle, told his parents he would go play with the animals in the woods and left.

The trek was very long and dangerous, but the entire forest was on his side. Baby Silver kept talking to Malleus, explaining life as a prince, introducing his animal friends, and trying to find out if he liked to eat berries.

They avoided war-stricken areas and managed to reach fae territory. And that's when things took a turn for the worse.

Henrik and the Silver Owls found them. Apparently, the egg was missing and a search party was assembled to follow its magical traces. Baby Silver didn't know that, and went to greet his uncle, saying that he was helping out a friend find his family!!

Henrik looked at his nephew, then at the dragon, and went for the kill, literally. The kid couldn't even defend himself, as his uncle cut him down with a simple strike (dawn knight was at home).

And that's when baby Malleus's magic blew up.

A snowstorm of cataclysmic proportions struck, complete with fire tornados and lightning. At the center of it all stood two children, the tiny Silver that was bleeding out, and Malleus, who had taken a human form and was trying to close the wound (he changed forms because he was scared and emulated the only thing he could think of as strong and protection, and that thing was five year-old Silver). Meanwhile, all of the animals formed a protective circle around them.

Luckily, reinforcements soon arrived. Both Lillia and Maleficia came (that storm could only be a Draconia's doing, they would NOT lose the egg again). They made quick work of the rest of the Silver Owls before rushing to Malleus's aid.

The animals let the faes though, as if they knew the dragon had finally found his kin. But Malleus wouldn't let go of Silver, even when the kid started telling him "Look, we found your family!! You're safe!", smiling despite the pain and looming death.

With the use of "Far Cry Cradle", Lillia quickly explained the situation, and the faes made the decision to save the human. They had a much too big debt with this child, who was so innocent it hurt.

They were also keeping the human. If that despicable man was his UNCLE, then no way in hell were the rulers of Briar Valley going to give the child back to his family. It would be a disgrace to the Draconia family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, there a a few ways this AU could go.

1. The faes weren't able to save Silver. They create a monument in his honor and he becomes the only human they respect. Relations with the Silver Owls may improve now that Henrik is dead, if they can convince Dawn Knight his son died to save Malleus.

2. The faes save Silver, who lives in Briar Valley until the end of his mortal lifespan, acting as Malleus's big brother and knight. The Silver Owls are angry, but eventually come to an agreement once they realize there was no mind control involved.

3. The faes manage to save Silver, but the wounds were so grave that he had to stay in magic stasis for a few hundred years. Receiving the BOTW Shrine of Ressurection treatment. Due to the nature of the magic, he lost his memories, got silver hair and became sleepy. He later wakes up and becomes the Silver we all know and love. Malleus still sees him as the older brother, but thinks that now it's his turn to protect the human!

[wingedshadowfan]

i'm not a native english speaker so i might be reading too much into this but i think caitlyn's choice of words here is really important!!

let's not forget she's incredibly eloquent and well spoken, but she gets hesitant and flustered here. she's debating what to say so she can communicate her feelings to vi clearly and avoid any misunderstandings.

her first choice by elimination is easy - she doesn't say I'm seeing someone because she isn't. not anymore. and she wants to emphasize to vi from the get-go that whatever it was, it's very much over now. in fact, most likely immediately after they reunited and got back from zaun with jinx - because while vi was out, she slept in caitlyn's bed. caitlyn took care of her.

her next two choices by elimination leave her with very few options. she doesn't say i've been seeing someone because that implies continuity and doesn't necessarily mean it's over now. she also doesn't say i was seeing someone because while that implies it's over now, it also implies that it was continuous, not a one-time thing. but cait wants vi to know it was shortlived, insignificant, maybe even that it has been over for some time now. almost like she's embarrassed about it. bcuz she's fully aware it was a mistake.

so she makes an interesting choice - more specifically, uses an incorrect tense. on purpose.

i saw someone.

if she hadn't literally prefaced it by breaking off the kiss to say, uh, listen, while you were gone... it would literally mean she saw someone - like just now, coming up the stairs. but this way, she sends a clear messege to vi in so few words.

it's over. it didn't last. it didn't matter. and i'm embarrassed about it.

and vi doesn't need more to understand.

she also did some embarrassing things when they were apart.

Do you think part of what made Vi sound so happy and endeared and almost amused when she said "Cait, I don't fucking care," was that in this moment, in the middle of making out, Caitlyn pulls away and stumbles out an honest explanation about how she had been with someone else?

This is the Caitlyn she knows. Not the puppet dictator, not the vengeful daughter, not even the suave girl who leaned against the wall and told her she's predictable a mere few seconds ago. This, the dorky, awkward, nervous Caitlyn is the one she first fell for, the one she first met. And yeah, Caitlyn is complex and can be dark and she's not the same, maybe she never was. But that part of her, the part that stuttered at Vi's flirting in the brothel, the part that tried to offer herself up to the Firelights in her place then sputtered in disbelief at Vi's appearance, the part that earned the name Cupcake, that part is real. Maybe it's tarnished, maybe it's changed, but it's still a part of her. And Vi had missed it desperately.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

questioning sexuality is so exhausting

[halojalex]

whenever people say jack and alex dated/g&c is about jalex/etc they're generally joking but i want people to know im being so real when i say that i think jack and alex were together for a brief time

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[mermaidsirennikita]

sometimes it drives me literally insane to see romance requests that are like

--I want a romance wherein it's basically the happy epilogue throughout the book

--I want a romance that has great communication and they never withhold anything from each other ever

--no "miscommunication trope"

The last thing is just a general gripe about how so many of the things people say are tropes are not tropes, and it's pedantic and snobby but like. Miscommunication is so broad. It's not a trope. People are miscommunicating. WHAT are they miscommunicating about? Is one of them keeping a secret identity from their partner? Because a secret identity romance iS a trope. Is one of them withholding their feelings out of fear of rejection?

Because people DO miscommunicate. Often writers do write it clumsily. If people miscommunicate for no reason, sure, whatever. But if they miscommunicate BECAUSE of a REASON--like, often it's not even miscommunication lol. It's the hero keeping his dire supernatural secret from his wife because she'll die if she finds out (honestly, valid to me, but whatever). It's the heroine finding it difficult to trust the hero with her heart because her dad left when she was young (maybe cliche in theory, but actually a very real thing that happens).

If all you want is plotless nothing wherein everyone is happy and nobody makes mistakes, I personally have a hard time thinking of it as a book, because there is no story. It's just vibes. And essentially EVERY time, people have to mess up and make mistakes in order for there to be a plot.

I just don't understand the point.

[gensnix]

So apparently totk isn’t getting a dlc here’s some botw->totk things that make me go mmmmh 

[maybeinanotherworld]

i will literally never escape the dan and phil brainrot. i was talking to some friends today about a midterm we have coming up soon. listen to me, i was talking about a midterm, for my intermediate classical mechanics course. the midterm is on october 19th- you know what i said? you know what i said to my two friends while we were talking about our physics midterm? i said "hey that's the day dan and phil met in manchester in 2009" i'm doomed this is just my life forever, isn't it?

[moonchild-in-blue]

Sometimes all you need is a good ol' coffee shop au tbh.