#aquila's comfort characters

[aquilacalvitium]

THEY'RE TRYING TO HURT ME ON PURPOSE

[aquilacalvitium]

MONTY NO-

Monty would be the feral uncle

[aquilacalvitium]

I ACTUALLY SHRIEKED OUT LOUD

LOOK HOW THEY'VE MASSACRED MY BOY

[aquilaofarkham]

i've been headcanoning trevor belmont as jewish for years and since it's hanukkah week, it's richter's turn now 💙 (just pretend that's challah and brisket in the second pic lol)

[aquilamage]

I haven’t been insane about Vi enough lately so time to pour out some random thoughts. free association thinking time:

been thinking about her “It's my savings. I wanna be rich, okay? So I can travel, eat well, buy cool stuff… So no one can say I can't do something!” And none of the following will really be insightful or revelatory because it’s just what she says here but. yeah! that’s vi! the main reason she’s so big on money is because she has to be to get what she wants out of life! it’s what lets her say no to people telling her what to do, and that’s important to her because she has no choice but to be independent and support herself. because no one else will. No one at the Hive had anything positive or supportive to say about her being an explorer until she went out and did it (to a ridiculously successful degree, too. I have to wonder if/how it might’ve differed if she was on a regular accomplishment level team. not the one leading them all to the mission to the Hive). she never had a choice not to be. I could also see that being a little part of why she starts out not really being a teamwork person. past experiences have taught her she can’t rely on anyone else for support. (does make me wonder about what if she’d met Chubee before leaving the Hive. obviously she still would’ve left, but how might even a bit of support have changed other things?)

I feel like we don’t talk about the fact that The Beemerang Is Also Knives enough

ok so at one point there was this post talking about people with money and how it affects their life like. if you can afford to get a nanny then you can only do the fun parts of childcare and when you stop feeling like taking care of the kid you can just hand them to someone else to take them away. and again likely not especially revelatory but I would guess that’s the kind of way queen bianca handled the bees as her daughters (she does care about them. absolutely. but not in the same hands-on attached way as we usually associate with parents) and thinking about how that kind of treatment would then apply to vi....hm

in universes where discussions of Gender and Pronouns etc happen I think she has moments where she gets frustrated with the everything of Being Referred To and Having Complicated Identity She Hasn’t Quite Figured Yet and is like. gender is cancelled how dare you refer to me. but especially anyone else calls me a girl ever i will be stabbing them

also I think a lot about what circumstances she finds out about gayness/Gender being things. and whether she’s thought about it in herself before and whether she’d been dismissed on it/told it wasn’t a thing etc. most circumstances she ends up angry about the finding out times because of (un)consicious internal conflict stuff

underground tavern stuff implies she was definitely doing quests and stuff for money with them precanon. would kill to know what specifically it was. but also the first talk with utter implies that she was doing stuff off that questboard as well which is even more intriguing. utter’s spy also implies you don’t have to be an explorer to do them but otherwise you would think you did I feel. so again very curious what was up there

[aquilacalvitium]

👏THANK YOU FOR SAYING IT👏

if gamefreak won’t tie these blatant plot threads together i guess i have to

[tsarisfanfiction]

Truth Comes Out of His Well (Chapter 5)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more) As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! << Chapter 4 Listen to chapter 5 on AO3

It repeated.

Lee lost track of how many times Kronos came in, a group of demigods in tow, and tried to force him into playing his twisted version of two truths and a lie, ending with the finale of a cacophony of lies so intense that he was left a trembling, sobbing wreck.  It was usually the same demigods – some faces came and went, but Reuben, Aquila and Claudia were staples, and Lee suspected that they would continue to be first in line for anything that involved tormenting him for as long as Kronos allowed.

Given that Lee had, somehow, yet to break and answer Kronos – not that he knew how he was still holding out, when he was reaching the point that he was having to fight off panic the moment a group descended on him – he was pretty certain the titan would keep letting them.

They were the worst for feeding him; Lee dreaded seeing any of the trio walk in with food, because they all but forced him to eat it.  If it was Kronos, he tended to release Lee’s wrists and let him feed himself in peace, which had the added benefit of being able to cradle his aching, constantly in pain, wrists and murmur a hymn to relieve their suffering even a little.

It was a dichotomy of kindness against the torture he orchestrated the rest of the time.

If there was a regular schedule to any of the visits – food, torture, being shoved into a little bathroom adjoining the room to use the toilet and sometimes clean up some of the ever-building cave grime, too – then Lee couldn’t track it.  He hadn’t seen the sun since the battle, couldn’t even feel the faintest hint of his father’s warmth, and that left him utterly disorientated when it came to time.  He was under no illusions that Kronos wasn’t doing it on purpose – the titan of time would have intimate knowledge in how to ruin timekeeping, if he wasn’t just simply manipulating time to further disorient Lee.

When he wasn’t being tortured, either by Kronos or by the overzealous hatred Marcus’ friends threw at him, though, Lee somehow found himself being bored.  He couldn’t do anything, spending almost all his time firmly secured to the cave wall, and it felt like he was left to stew in his own company with no distractions for hours on end.  It felt ridiculous, to be suffering from boredom in his situation.

Could he even call it suffering when it was the alternative to personal attention from a titan determined to break him, and getting closer and closer with every session, if Lee was honest?  He didn’t know how he’d held on so long already; he had no idea how he was going to keep holding on, just the knowledge that he had to, no matter how impossible a task it was starting to feel like.

He hadn’t known it was possible to be simultaneously bored and scared.

The door stayed open the whole time.  Lee had seen it shift once, when a demigod had leaned against it, so he knew it could close, but Kronos had never bothered to shut him in.  Given that Lee was still no closer to finding his way out of the manacles than he had been when he’d first woken up, it was obvious why.

He still couldn’t see much of the corridor, though, and the foot traffic passing his room – he wanted to call it a cell but did it really count as one when the door never shut? – had increased, so it was difficult to tell when someone was coming in to see him rather than just walking past to whatever it was they did when they weren’t tormenting him.

Movement out of the corner of his eyes drew his attention to his newest visitor, striding in through the open doorway.  The torches hadn’t been changed in a while and were starting to burn low, enough to cast their face in shadow until they got close enough.

It was an Asian looking guy, similar in age to Lee at a guess, with an eyepatch covering his left eye.  His face was familiar, although Lee didn’t remember the eye patch and couldn’t place him.

“Hello, Lee,” he said.  He wasn’t carrying any food, and while so far the physical torture had been mostly incidental – Lee’s wrists were taking the brunt of that – Lee was also relieved to note that the sword stayed in its sheath as the demigod sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

He was also confused, because normally demigods only came in without Kronos if it was feeding time.

“Remember me?” the other demigod continued.  “I was at camp, for a few summers.”

That explained the familiarity, and Lee wracked his brain.  It had to have been someone that had left a few years ago – the eyepatch was definitely a new addition, but he was pretty sure he’d recognise them regardless if it had been recent.  He studied the rest of his face, taking in the clear Asian heritage and racing through all the Asian kids at camp that had not come back one year.

“Ethan?” he asked, hesitantly, and the boy’s face twisted into some sort of a smile, although it wasn’t a happy one.

“That’s me,” he confirmed.  “The eyepatch throw you off?”

“It didn’t help,” Lee admitted, trying to remember what else he knew about Ethan.  He’d left camp before the war had even started, before Luke’s betrayal, even, another case of an unclaimed kid deciding they’d had enough of being unwanted even in the camp that was supposed to be a home to them and leaving.  Lee had always understood it, if only theoretically.  He’d not got far enough into the foster system to ever feel that way personally.

He could also begrudgingly understand why an unclaimed, resentful kid would join Kronos.  Chris had been another one, perhaps worse because everyone had known he was a Hermes kid – he had the same looks, the same skills – and he’d lived in his parent’s cabin and still was never claimed.  The final straw for him had clearly been when he’d been passed over for head counsellor in favour of the younger, less experienced Stolls purely because they’d been claimed and he hadn’t been.  Lee didn’t think he would’ve been able to say no to helping the other boy even if he hadn’t understood that, but it had certainly helped him throw himself whole-heartedly into trying to help Clarisse restore his sanity.

He’d always been able to see why someone that hadn’t been helped by a system would be drawn to the possibility of change.  That made sense, a case of grass looking greener on the other side even though Lee fully believed that Kronos would be no better for them than the current system.  It was the others he didn’t understand at all, Luke, Alana and the others who had been claimed and raised as a child of their particular godly parent.  How could they turn their backs and think joining Kronos was better?

“Was it treated properly?” he asked Ethan, eyes fixed on the patch.  Eye trauma was nasty, he’d seen it before, in nasty camp accidents.

Ethan shrugged.  “Nothing left to treat,” he said dismissively.  “My mother took it.”

“Your mother?” Lee asked, and his voice came out a little strangled.  He didn’t remember Ethan’s mortal parental situation – it had to have been good enough for him to only live at camp during the summer – but the way he said it, like his eye had just vanished, sounded a lot like…

“Yeah,” Ethan said, a little bitterly.  “She claimed me in the end.  Told me I would rebalance the world, and took my eye in exchange.  An eye for an eye and all that.”

“Nemesis?” Lee asked hoarsely.  It sounded like the sort of thing the goddess of vengeance would do or say – but to her own child?

Maybe he understood why Ethan was still on Kronos’ side.

“Nemesis,” Ethan confirmed.  “I don’t understand you, Lee.”

Lee blinked, confused at the sudden declaration.  “What don’t you understand?” he asked.

The son of Nemesis gestured at their surroundings.  “This,” he said.  “You could be comfortable.  You have something Kronos wants.  All you need to do is give it to him and you’d be out of here and at his right hand.  It’s a position many of us would kill for, but you’re refusing at every turn.  Are you that loyal to the gods?  Why?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Lee asked.  “I don’t understand how Kronos winning would be better than what we have at the moment.”

The laugh that Ethan let out was dark and humourless.  “Of course you don’t,” he said.  “Perfect child of Apollo, claimed the moment you enter camp and lavished with praise and love from everyone.  Why wouldn’t you want to keep things that way?”  His remaining eye sent a look st Lee that went right through him, serious and even a little pitying, underneath the dismissiveness.  “You’re living a pretty little lie, Lee.  At least my mother was upfront about it.”

“Upfront about what?” Lee asked, confused.  The resentment for Apollo kids also made some sort of sense – Lee knew they had the best relationship with their godly parent barring only, possibly, Dionysus’ kids, whose father actually lived in camp with them – but the thing about living a lie?  That didn’t.  Lee had been a camper for ten years, he could sense lies and he’d never sensed he was living a lie.

“The cost of being a demigod,” Ethan told him bluntly.  He gestured at his eye.  “There’s always a price to pay, Lee.  Look at yourself.  Apollo gave you a power – one that’s powerful, too, no wonder you always hid it – but what’s that done for you?  Chained up in a cave, regularly driven over the brink of panic because it’s so easily turned against you.”  He scoffed.  “Apollo hurts his children, punishes them for the things he gave them, but over and over again, you all fall for it until it’s too late.”

“Apollo doesn’t,” Lee snapped.

“Doesn’t he?” Ethan challenged.  “Did Luke ever tell you about Hal?”

The name was wholly unfamiliar.  “Who’s Hal?” he asked, cautiously.

Ethan shifted in place, looking for all the world like he was sitting back around the campfire at camp, ready to tell a story.  The faint flickering of the torchlight played with the shadows on his face, making them eat up the black eyepatch whole.  “Evidence of Apollo’s cruelty to his own children,” he said.  “Luke met him, once.  He’s told the story several times since this war began, because camp has always held your father up as the pinnacle of parental godhood.  We all know you Apollo kids think you have it good, that he’s a reason why the gods should be allowed to continue with their pathetic attempts at using and abusing mortals under the guise of parenting.  He’s not.”

A story.  Luke had come up with some sort of story to demonise Apollo.  It shouldn’t have felt like a betrayal – in the grand scheme of all the things his former friend had done, it logically ranked low – but somehow it did.

“Hal was a son of Apollo that could see the future,” Ethan continued.  “But he wasn’t allowed to act on it, no matter what he saw.  He saved a girl’s life, because what monster asks someone to stand aside and do nothing when someone is going to die?  Apollo cursed him for it, for using the same power that he had given him in the first place.  Hal lost his voice, was imprisoned in a house surrounded by monsters that killed anyone that came near and spoke his own thoughts out loud to him, and was left there to suffer until he died.  Luke and Thalia tried to save him and almost got killed in the process – and they failed, too.  Hal still died, thanks to the curse his own father put on him.”

His eye glittered in the torchlight.

“I know you know I’m telling the truth,” he said, and he was right – there hadn’t been a single hint of a lie.  “If he did that to one son with a powerful ability he gave, what will he do to you, Lee?”

Ethan wasn’t lying, but it didn’t work like that.  Ethan believed what Luke told him, but that didn’t mean Luke hadn’t lied to Ethan.  It was a lie wrapped up like a truth, the way retold stories could be, but Lee hadn’t let on that part of how his ability worked to Luke, so Kronos didn’t know, which meant Ethan and the other demigods didn’t know, either.

They just knew that if they said something true, Lee would know, and didn’t realise how personal truth could be.

Lee wasn’t about to give that clarifier away, though, even if it meant letting Ethan continue operating under such an awful view of his own father.  Apollo would never do that to them.  Lee had never even met an Apollo kid that had inherited any serious degree of prophecy, or even much beyond occasional dreams – and they all knew that the dreams came from Apollo, anyway.

“I’m not a prophet,” he said, instead.  “Or an oracle."

Ethan shot him a look that was part disgusted, part cloying pity.

“You’re blind, is what you are,” he replied.  “I might be down an eye but you’re the one that can’t see.”  He shook his head.  “Are you really going to keep torturing yourself for the gods?  They don’t care, Lee.  Apollo doesn’t even need to step in with you, you’re doing his job for him, sitting down here and not taking all the chances you’re being given to save yourself.  You could be free of all of this, Lee.”

“I’d be free if you got me out of these chains,” Lee muttered, before looking Ethan in the eye.  “I’m not giving in,” he told him.  “Kronos can keep trying and maybe he will break me, eventually, but I’m not giving in.  I won’t give in.  I can’t.”

“Why?” Ethan pushed, and he sounded almost a little despairing.  He hadn’t been a cruel boy, Lee remembered.  Quiet and a little sullen, fed up of being ignored by his godly parent, but not cruel.  He was trying to help Lee; Lee wasn’t blind enough to miss it, but the help he was offering wasn’t help at all.  Not for Lee.  “Why are you putting yourself through this, Lee?  The gods aren’t worth it, and I can’t believe you don’t know that, somewhere inside.  You’ve seen me, the other unclaimed kids at camp.  I never pegged you as someone cruel enough to think that what we’re going through is good, even if you’re too blind to see what your own father is doing.  Why?”

That was the easiest question Lee had been asked since he’d arrived.

“Because I have people to protect,” he said.  “This isn’t about me, Ethan.  It was never about me.”

“You can protect them better if you’re at Kronos’ side!” Ethan exclaimed.  “How is this protecting them?”

“Because Kronos doesn’t protect anyone,” Lee said firmly.  He could see Chris, babbling and insensate and flinching away from even the most gentle of healing touches.  “What you see in Apollo, I see in Kronos, Ethan.  I won’t join him.  Not willingly.  Not ever.”

Ethan sighed.  “You’re delusional, Lee,” he said, but he pulled himself to his feet again.  “He’ll break you, you know.  You should forget about other people and think about yourself.  No-one would blame you for protecting yourself.”

Lee gave him a small, tired, smile.  “I would.”

The torchlight had all but faded away, burning down to embers, and now that Ethan had stood up, his face was impossible to see.  He left without another word, leaving Lee alone as the torches sputtered and died out.

Chapter 6>>>

[aquilacalvitium]

I'm going to list every sign of autism in the submas twins that I can think of for no reason other than I want to

1. Facial expressions

Probably what they're most famous for, neither of them seem to be able to control their facial expressions in a "normal" way. Ingo is constantly frowning and Emmet is constantly smiling. They're both canonically capable of having other facial expressions, but they always default back to these.

2. How they speak

Ingo. Shouts.

Need I go on? He's so loud and doesn't seem to have a cap on how loud he can possibly be at any given time. He's very enthusiastic, very loud and his voice is far more expressive than his face is.

Meanwhile, Emmet's voice is quite monotone. He's not noticeably loud or quiet, but he doesn't seem to put much expression into his words. He likes to repeat phrases over and over (e.g. "I am Emmet") probably in an effort to pad out sentences to make it sound like he's got more to say. He prefers to talk less than Ingo and is very direct and to-the-point, so he probably repeats things multiple times so that trainers he's battling don't feel disappointed if he has very little to say about their performance. This could also be a form of vocal stim considering he repeats specific phrases.

3. Their aesthetic

Okay yeah I admit pokemon trainers sometimes have aesthetics they stick strongly to. I.e. bug catchers, dragon tamers etc. But I'm yet to see any other character as dedicated to an aesthetic that doesn't centre around pokemon types as these two.

They are fully ride-or-die with their train aesthetic, which could very well be a hint that trains are a special interest for them both. So much so that they made the world's first Battle Subway, when every single other region has a tower instead. Neurotypicals could never.

4. Social cues

Emmet is infamously bad at social cues. He's seen multiple times in the manga very clearly walking up to two trainers having a private conversation and asking them to continue as though he isn't actively leaning over their shoulders and listening. Ingo has had to physically drag him away from these situations several times.

He's also so straight forward that sometimes people have to remind him to not be rude. While Ingo seems to have a better handle on social cues and politeness, Emmet is constantly saying or doing things that may make other people a little uncomfortable. Never with any malicious intent, mind you. He also rarely caters to people's feelings and simply states facts. For example, here's his dialogue upon winning his battles:

"I am Emmet. I won against you. But I think I just got lucky. In a Double Battle, if you misread one thing, the rest will be totally different. You know. Please win 20 battles in a row, and fight with me!"

"I am Emmet. I won against you. But this is not the end. I am sure you will show up here again. I will wait for it and win against you again. Because I am a Subway Boss. I am Emmet."

He's not being outwardly rude in either of these instances, nor is he congratulating his opponent on their battling skills, unlike Ingo who always makes sure to state how impressed he is with his opponent even when he wins. He is simply stating facts and encouraging his opponent to try again.

[ramblings-of-lola]

Heyo! I've seen you post about working on a story, so I thought I'd ask, if you're comfortable sharing, what's it about?

Hi, thanks for asking!

It's a fantasy story with four main characters. Each one is from a different nation. Each nation is based on an element and the people have both human and animal forms. When a character is in their human form, they can control their element.

Earth Shifters have deer forms, Water have aquatic forms like merfolk (whale, stingray, shark, jellyfish, etc.), Wind are birds of prey, and Fire are dragons.

My four main characters are Silva (Earth Shifter), Natare (Water Shifter), Aquila (Wind Shifter) and Ignis (Fire Shifter). They come together as a found family. I'm still figuring out the plot as I go.

Silva's animal form is a fallow deer. Natare's is currently a stingray (I might change it), Aquila's is a harpy eagle, and Ignis is a dragon and eagle hybrid (his half sister is Aquila).

[aquilacalvitium]

AH THIS LOOKS SO GOOD I LOVE YOUR STYLE SO MUCH!!!

Got a new brush set, time for brainrot

[chaoticpkk]

What's a guy gotta do to get a gif of the bishop of Aquila getting absolutely obliterated from the end of Ladyhawke? That's my Comfort Character Death™

[wyvern-flames]

𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 - 𝑆ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒, 𝑊𝑦𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛

Semi-Selective, Spoiler Heavy but tagged, 25 y/o mun, Under Construction

♞ Important Notes below for Mobile! ♞

I. hello there! my name is kuroki! i am 25 years old and have been roleplaying around tumblr for quite a while. i have many blogs around and cannot seem to stop making more. hopefully, you can enjoy your stay here for as logn as it lasts!

II. i am semi-selective, oc, duplicates, canon and crossover friendly! i am also more than happy to receive interactions/asks/requests from personal blogs, as long as you respect the other roleplayer's privacy during interactions. chances are, if you follow me, i will be following you back (unless your rules are too complex for me to follow.)

III. though i do not know how to edit or make icons (and whenever i do, it is catastrophic,) i will be trying my best to make some for clive. if you find that the posts are iconless, i probably gave up trying. aside from that, i am only recently starting to rp/write smut, i usually try to avoid it unless i am suddenly comfortable to try it (or unless the other person doesn't mind me not being experienced writing it.) normally, i prefer to keep things sfw unless really needed so as to not embarrass myself. even so, you can be flirty or suggestive, that’s totally fine. if we somehow end up requiring nsfw down the road, we could discuss it and work it out. as you may have expected, this blog will have dark themes, that includes potential triggering content (will try to tag but may forget sometimes,) so please tread carefully.

IV. very important to note that my portrayal of clive rosfield might be slightly different from others, especially with the tone and usage of words as i follow (and play) the latin spanish dub of the game (it's so excellent, i could not ignore it) and have noticed a few changes on what the characters say (for example: slight location name changes, though those i will look up and follow the english translation to avoid confusion. other than that, some flavor text that i am sure i have already adopted.) i will understand if you refuse to interact because of it, just make sure to softblock or hardblock if i followed you and you do not wish to interact so i don't accidentally either re-follow you or try to interact with you.

V. feel free to send me a message or follow back if you want to roleplay or just ask anything if you’re curious about clive or my portrayal of him. i also accept anonymous questions, random memes, and random starters!

VI. my face-claim is Ritsu Namine and i can roleplay in both English and Latin Spanish. the icons used are made with poohsources's aquila psd and the screenshots were provided by capsource.

[lex1nat0r]

Grimdark Magazine #39

I’ve been subscribed to Grimdark Magazine for years but my actual reading has been spotty at best. As someone with Opinions on “grimdark” I want to fix that, and so I’ll try keeping up with the new issues by putting down my thoughts here. This is my third time doing this on tumblr.

To be clear: this is mainly kvetching about genre(/aesthetics?). And also: not weighing in on whether any given story should be included in a “grimdark” magazine. I’m just fucking about, really.

Just looking at the short stories themselves unless I come across a review for a book I’ve actually read or an interview with an author I already know.

Actually starting out with something to say about one of the essays this time: "Grimdark is a State of Mind" by Krysle Matar. I like this, this is good. Relevant paragraph:

"Grimdark as a genre holds space for the depths of human depravity, sure, but also for the stubborn assertation that none of us are beyond hope. It gathers to it the traumatized, the broken, desperate, the wretched masses. It is built on big questions, some of them ugly, but all of them important. If heroes can only be unfailingly good, where do we, the tragically imperfect, turn to be seen and understood?"

This gets it, I think.

"Dead Reckoning Part II" by Christian Cameron

GRIMDARKNESS RATING: Close encounter.

A spaceship is pursued by an alien ship.

If there's a Dead Reckoning Part I, I've not read it. This is too technical, I think, to work as grimdark. There's a tension in the story, but not the atmosphere of misery I want from grimdark. It's good space opera, I'd read a book of this, but no grimdark.

Then there's a small materials science lecture with the essay "The Quest for Transparent Aluminium: Materials Science in Science Fiction" by John Mauro. Wouldn't mind seeing more stuff like that.

"Waiting for the Witnesses" by Gautam Bhatia

GRIMDARKNESS RATING: Cooperating witness.

Five people arrive on an obsidian plane to await the arrival of the Witnesses.

Shoutout to this one off the bat for being one of the few published works I've seen to have a character with xe/xir pronouns. In terms of grimdarkness this is a tricky one. The world-at-large is explicitly doing pretty well - there's no doom on the horizon. But it does have a post-apocalyptic atmosphere and the sense that it's all somewhat fragile. Bastards it's got, at least. And given the required sacrifice of the hopeful but ambiguous ending, I think it lands comfortably over the line for me.

"The Skin of Aquila Cadens" by Chris Panatier

GRIMDARKNESS RATING: In bloom.

A woman attempts to terraform an exoplanet into a new home for humanity.

Grimdark. Earth is, at best, a shithole. The protagonist is many lightyears away anyway and has nothing to come back to given the time dilation. A very lonely short story - the woman is the only human character there. Under an alien sun, on a mission that may be Doomed from the start - a mission that has already made Bastards of everyone involved. Solidly in the black (grey? note to self: work on this color scale for grimdark).

"Observer" by Eric Malikyte

GRIMDARKNESS RATING: Witnessed.

A soldier and an AI drone doing counterterrorism.

Also solidly grimdark. The government sucks, several places have already been nuked, there's some kind of climate disaster. Solidly hits my criteria. Not much to say about this one, really.

GRIMDARK MAGAZINE #39 OVERALL GRIMDARKNESS RATING:

GRIM: YES

DARK: LIKE SPACE

[aquilacalvitium]

OP I LOVE YOU FOR THIS ANALYSIS

I think about Sun and Moon's original versions a LOT, and I don't get why people say they're not expressive!

Or perhaps, I do, and I just wanna ramble. Anyways! Big ol warning for lots of talking, some fursuit gifs and analyzation of body movement.

So, they have flat, immobile faceplates, right? Technically, yes!some argue that this makes them immediately inert and expressionless and opt to enhance their expressions. And this is a-okay! Do what you like!

But as someone who used to be a costumer, and wears a fursuit on occasion,

(Sorry, I love this gif so much)

BUT! When in a mascot costume, fursuit, or any other costume with a mask over one's face, the performer has to learn how to move in order to portray the emotions necessary for character engagement with the audience! Whether it's exaggerated head bobs, using your hands to talk, or making everything a bit of a spectacle, even the way you tilt your FACE can affect how you look.

Even MUPPETS do this with their limited range of expression. And we can easily draw those conclusions of how the boys were programmed to act in canon!

Take Sun's default animation in the daycare, just standing there.

It's very obvious here what he's trying to portray, and who his programmed audience is- little children! When costuming around little kids, you wanna use big gestures, and get on their level because you can seem HUGE AND SCARY to them! You wanna get down towards the ground, make big sweeping cartoon motions, and make sure all your movements are ROUNDED- not jabbing, sharp, or sudden- so that the kid isn't ever surprised, but rather delighted by your performance as a costumer. I'll show you an example by the amazing performer, Temba the Bat! (Made by Toxicoon, I believe.)

Big sweeping motions, slow without being too spooky, and generally friendly motions while swaying the head! Looks kinda similar right?

Another point is, though, these exaggerated motions don't really... turn off when feeling other things. Sun and Moon don't have a customer service mode, and that's WILD to me that their programming requires them to act like this all the time. Exhibit B: Sun's pain in the transformation scene.

He's making such exaggerated motions and movements to INDICATE he is in pain or holding something back. He's gripping his face like something is trying to come out of it, and even dramatically falls backwards to indicate a loss of control in his body. Whether the way the fall looks so cartoonist was intentionally programmed in, I couldn't tell you.

And then... there's Moon.

This is SO cartoon villain sequel, isn't it? The hands tapping delicately on the surface, the exaggerated head tilt, all of it is so wildly exaggerated in such a smooth way to let you know "Ah! I'm in danger! Great!"

And yet... he still is low to the ground. Still in that pose of going after someone SMALL. Performing for someone small. His evilness is almost completely exaggerated and, dare I say, fabricated by his programming. Of course, the virus probably had something to do with it but LIKE! Look at that range of motion!

Idk what the point of all this is, I just wanna say: it's totally understandable to make the boys super duper expressive in the artistic, flat 2d styles i see a lot!

But man I do hope someone draws them biblically accurate while expressing something else because that would be hilarious to see Sun throwing a temper tantrum by banging his fists on the ground and flailing while his face is just

:D

[aquilacraft]

MY BOY

HE HAS RETURNED

[tsarisfanfiction]

Truth Comes Out of His Well (Chapter 4)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more) As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! Warning for some sensory overload in this chapter! << Chapter 3 Listen to chapter 4 on AO3

“Alana,” Kronos said.  “Your turn.”

Next to him, Aquila startled.  “He didn’t answer mine, Lord Saturn,” they protested, sounding put-out.  Kronos shot them a look and they recoiled slightly; even Kronos’ own demigods clearly feared him, Lee realised.

The daughter of Demeter, a couple of years older than Lee, stepped forwards as the girl with Reuben and Aquila dragged her friend back, out of Kronos’ immediate eyeline, for what little it mattered when the titan had returned his inspecting gaze to Lee.

For his part, Lee couldn’t help staring helplessly at the girl he’d once considered if not a friend, at least someone he’d got on with, and wondering when things had gone so wrong that she was staring at him so dispassionately, almost looking through him rather than at him.

“My favourite flowers are dahlias.”  Lie.  “I grew up in rural Ohio.”  Lee hadn’t known that about her, but that was probably the point.  “The only time my mother ever acknowledged my existence was when she claimed me.”  Lee knew other demigods had it bad, had heard sentiments to that degree scattered throughout camp across the years, but hearing it here and now, surrounded by demigods that had decided to throw their lot in with the titan best remembered for eating his children, vehemently against their own parents…

The weight hit so much harder.

“Well?” Kronos prompted when he didn’t react.

Lee shook his head, dragging out the stubbornness again because it was the only defence he had.

“This is not optional, Lee Fletcher,” the titan growled.  “One way or another, you will answer.  I suggest you take the easy route while it’s available.”

The sheer absence of a lie in his words should have been enough to get Lee to cave and save himself the torture, but he couldn’t do that, because surrendering and helping Kronos meant betraying his siblings, his father, and he couldn’t do that, no matter what was at stake.  Besides, truth wasn’t always what people thought it was.

Truth was finicky.  What was true for one person was a lie for the other, and it had taken Lee years to work out exactly how his sense worked (Apollo had helped with that, in his dreams, answering questions and explaining just enough for things to make sense).  Luke had known the basics, but if Kronos was trying to use it to intimidate him, he was missing one crucial detail.

Truth was personal.   It preyed on belief, powerful and unwavering.  If someone believed in something whole-heartedly enough, then it was their truth, and even if Lee knew it was a lie, it didn’t set the tingle going down his spine.

Just because Kronos believed he could break him didn’t mean he could.  It was admittedly a small sliver of hope, because Kronos was a titan that also apparently had access to everything Luke had ever known about Lee, and Luke knew quite a lot, but it was enough of one to matter.

Lee met Kronos’ eyes firmly.  “Go back to Tartarus,” he growled, words tumbling together in the back of his throat.

Gold eyes flashed in anger and the titan stepped forwards, kneeling down and gripping his shoulder again.  It hurt and Lee had the sudden flash of fear that if he kept not cooperating, then Kronos would break him physically, even if he couldn’t mould him mentally.

That was better than being used to hurt his loved ones.  Much, much better, even if the concept was terrifying.

“Claudia,” Kronos snapped.  “Your turn.”  The girl of the original trio stepped up, and Alana faded into the background again, making no indication on her thoughts of Lee, or the fact that he’d refused to answer her.  She’d always been smart.

Claudia was sending Lee silent daggers with her eyes, arms crossed and muscles bulging.  Where Reuben had a dove, she had two crossed spears tattooed on her arm, with the same letters.  “I am a daughter of Mars,” she proclaimed, spitting the god’s name as though she couldn’t think of a worse father to have.  From his interactions with cabin five over the years, that seemed bizarre to Lee.  Ares wasn’t close with his kids, not compared to Apollo, but he wasn’t often resented by them.

Then again, the fact that he gave them shiny new and dangerous weapons from time to time probably helped.  Clarisse had loved her first electric spear, and had become a lot more protective over the replacement when she’d received it, presumably after realising that even godly-given weapons weren’t infallible.

Claudia started to speak again, to either spit out her lie or throw another truth into the room, but Kronos held up his free hand with a sharp jerk that promised retribution to anyone that disobeyed the gesture and she instantly fell silent.

“Truth or lie?” the titan demanded.  Lee swallowed, not sure what to think of the change but figuring it was only going to mean bad things for him.

“What happened to two truths and a lie?” he asked.  The words came out slightly muffled, but Kronos’ dismissive hand wave – with entirely too many sharp gestures and wary looks from the closest demigods – proved that he’d understood Lee without any issues.

“The game has changed,” he growled, voice thick like gravel.  “Truth or lie?”  His hand slipped from Lee’s shoulder to wrap around his throat instead, pushing until he could feel the cool stone of the cavern wall against the back of his head.  “My patience is not infinite, demigod.”  That was quickly becoming apparent as the grip tightened and his windpipe began to fear being cut off from the air.

“No,” he strained.

Kronos scoffed and released him.  “Next statement,” he snapped, as Lee’s head sagged forwards, gasping slightly.

Claudia didn’t hesitate.  “I ran away from home when I was ten,” she said, and the prickle of a lie ran up Lee’s spine.

Calloused fingertips brushed against his ear before forming a fist in his hair, yanking his hair hard.  Lee was sure several hairs had just parted company with his scalp, and that more were on the verge of joining them.

“Truth or lie?” Kronos asked.

Lee grit his teeth and stayed silent.

He was a terrible liar.  That was common knowledge in camp, and not all that rare a trait for an Apollo kid to have – Joy physically couldn’t lie, after all – although Lee suspected it was a direct consequence of his own ability.  There was something poetic in being able to uncover everyone else’s lies while being unable to hide his own.  Most of the time, it didn’t bother Lee – he didn’t like lies, mostly for the way they made him feel, and always tried to be truthful – but sometimes it was annoying.

Either Kronos also knew that, from Luke – likely, because he knew Luke knew he was a terrible liar – or he’d already worked it out, because yes/no questions like this were his bane if he was trying to hide something.  If Lee was confident in his ability to lie, maybe he would have started to answer, mixing up truths and lies so Kronos couldn’t trust him.

Unfortunately, he knew that if he tried to claim she’d told the truth there, Kronos would see through it in an instant.  Luke had been one of the ones to first point out to him that he was a terrible liar, and Lee had always wondered if there was a possibility that a child of the god of thieves and liars could do something similar to him.  Apollo and Mr D had also told him, with drastically different words and ways, that his skills didn’t lie in deceit.

All Lee could do was stay silent.

He’d had years of practice of not calling out when people lied – living in a camp full of teenagers meant that lies seemed to float around near-constantly, mostly small and inconsequential white lies but sometimes bigger, more important things that made or broke relationships.  He could do it.

Even if he’d never tried to not do it during an interrogation that felt barely a step away from looming torture.

Kronos shook his head slightly, forcing him to meet those horrible golden irises of his again, and they bored into him as though the titan had his own truth-sensing ability.  Lee hadn’t even considered that he might do, too – he associated the truth with Apollo, lies with Hermes, and how the mind worked with Dionysus.  Kronos was the titan of time and agriculture – neither of those should lend themselves towards lies.

But also he was a titan.   Lee couldn’t tell when a god lied – his head hurt when gods spoke to him, a constant clash of lie-lie-lie, and Apollo had explained to him that it was because gods knew so much more than Lee could comprehend, so everything triggered as a lie because Lee could sense there was more, even if the god was actually telling the truth.

Apollo and Mr D both actively blocked his ability when they spoke to him, now, to save him the migraine.  He still wasn’t quite sure why Mr D did it, but he wasn’t complaining about it.

For some reason, though, Lee wasn’t getting the same incessant feedback from Kronos.  Maybe titans were less complex, or maybe it was because he was in Luke’s body, rather than his own.

Maybe that made him functionally closer to a demigod, or demititan, than he should be.

Lee wasn’t going to ask.

“You will answer,” Kronos promised him, voice low and gravelly.  The weight of a truth fell from his tongue.  “Third statement.”

Golden eyes pinned Lee in place, a metaphorical restraint to go with the physicality of manacles and a hand balled in his hair, as Claudia dropped another truth.  “I left the legion when I was fifteen.”

These demigods with tattoos on their arms and their strange words had Lee wanting to ask questions.  Legion, and legacy, and Lord Saturn, Mars, Vulcan.  The Latin for Greek, used as a clear slur.

There was something going on there, something that niggled at him as being big and also very concerning, but he couldn’t ask questions, because Kronos would use that against him.

It would also reveal which things they’d said were truths.

“Well?” Kronos asked him, raising Luke’s eyebrow again.  Just one, in a look that would be inquisitive if the eyes below it weren’t burning with unmasked fury.

It was foolish to keep antagonising that fury, Lee knew, and he liked to think he had a reasonable degree of self-preservation.  Being a demigod at risk of being attacked every time he stepped out of camp did a lot to nurture one of those.

His self-preservation did not outweigh his need to protect his siblings, and he knew they were safer as long as he didn’t answer, so he set his jaw defiantly and stayed silent.

“This stubbornness of yours is pathetic,” Kronos sighed.  He let go of Lee’s hair and stood up, turning away from him and striding across the room.  Lee sensed the other demigods also tracking the titan as he found his way to an outcropping and sat himself down on it as though it was a lavishly decorated throne, and not simply a chunk of rock at odds with the rest of the cavern.

The sight put Lee on edge, for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint.

Kronos waved a hand loosely in their direction.

“Lie,” he said.  “All of you.  Now.” 

Lee’s breath caught in his throat.

For a moment, there was silence, the demigods looking at each other.  It was difficult to lie on demand – for all of Kronos’ talk of Lee being good at two truths and a lie, he’d always actually lost because he was both a terrible liar and also couldn’t think of one, ever – and for a heartbeat, Lee had the faint hope that they wouldn’t manage it.

Then Reuben spoke.  “I like you,” he said, and the zing of a lie down his back was potent.

It was the single pebble that sparked an avalanche.

Lee could handle lies.  He lived in a camp full of teenagers, which all but forced him to have a high tolerance to lies setting off his senses more often than not.  Usually, though, they weren’t all aimed at him, and they weren’t in such quick succession, either.

And he had his limits.  Most people didn’t know that his headphones were noise-cancelling, or that they didn’t actually play music.  Hades, most people didn’t even know that they were a gift from Apollo, specifically designed to cut him off from voices whenever it got too much for him.  Lee could still have a conversation with them on – he’d learnt lipreading fast – and it had left most of camp none the wiser.

Those headphones were long gone, maybe still in his bunk where he’d left them before the battle, maybe burnt with Marcus’ body, maybe tidied away along with the rest of his things.  That would have been his siblings’ decision – and Michael knew, so he might have treated them specially.

Reuben led the charge, not even bothering to be creative but repeating the same words over and over again – I like you – each one stacking on top of the last one, but for whatever reason, likely fear of Kronos (Lee hoped it was fear of Kronos more than a desire to hurt him, tried to persuade himself it was that), the entire crowd joined in.

The words overlapped with each other, a building cacophony the same way an orchestra slowly crescendoed to a fortissimo finale with more and more instruments joining in and filling the area with sound until there were no gaps to be found, nowhere for silence to find a home and wait it out.  Lee counted his breathing, trying to hone his focus away from the lies bombarding him and keep his body under control at the same time.

He could only stave it off for so long.

Despite his best efforts, his breathing started to hitch as lies thrummed through his body, crawling out from just his spine and dancing across all of his nerves, leaving its localised, normal, area and branching out desperately for any space it could find to express itself.  It took over his back first, the trapezius first to fall, followed by the latissimus dorsi, before it sprawled out further, down past his glutes and up across his deltoids.  His limbs were second, creeping down the backs of them before it started to wrap around his torso, setting sparks that burst into flame over his pectorals and obliques.

Breathing got harder still as his chest tightened involuntarily, trying to protect itself from the sensation that wasn’t supposed to be there.  It had only got so bad once before, an occasion back when he was seven that ended up being the inciting incident for the gifted headphones.  Lee had forgotten how bad it had been, trapped with no way out.

His wrists tugged uselessly at the metal that held them in place, hands desperately reaching out to try and cover his ears, to try and block it all out, but they were too secure, and too far away.  The best Lee could manage was awkwardly straining his neck far enough to reach one, and attempting to raise his other shoulder high enough to block his still-exposed ear.

It didn’t work.  His knees drew up, trying to curl into some sort of protective ball as his breathing turned to wet gasps and moisture flooded down his cheeks, completely out of control with no way of reining it in, but that didn’t work, either.

The lies had long since turned into an indistinguishable sound, one that his truth sense could still identify as lies, somehow, despite not being able to hear the particular words.  It echoed around in his ears, bouncing off the inside of his skull as the prickling closed in on the crown of his head.

Hands grabbed his legs, forcing them to unfurl and pinning them mercilessly back to the floor.  Lee thrashed, trying to kick out and force his freedom, but they were too strong.  Another hand grabbed his hair, yanking his head upright and away from any attempts at muffling the noises.  Through watery vision, Lee could just about make out Reuben’s sneer, so close to his own face that it was almost impossible to focus on.

It was too much.

It was too much.

Lee thrashed harder, but both the metal and the hands overpowered him, forcing him to stay still as more lies were poured upon him, turning his entire being into a single, overcharged lie detector that had hit its limit a long time ago but had been pushed over the line with no regard for whether or not it could handle it.

The pleas started to fall from his lips with no conscious thought, sobs and moans.  “Please,” he begged, barely able to even feel the cold stone and even colder metal that surrounded him.  “Stop, please, stop, please, please, please.”

He couldn’t even think any more, his whole being a single raw nerve that got ignited over and over and over again.  If he was even still breathing, no air was getting into his lungs, and his vision was dark.  He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but there was a tightness to his face that had to be him screwing them as tightly shut as he could.  His raw voice echoed in his ears, gasping and begging.

Distantly, he heard a voice cut over the others, felt the restraining hands disappear, and somehow ended up with his knees up, face buried in them again.  His heartbeat was too high and showing no signs of slowing as he trembled and shook in his restraints.

Lee had no idea how long it took before the ignited nerves burnt out, leaving him a raw husk trembling and sobbing against the wall.  His eyes cracked open to show an almost empty room, the demigods all gone but Kronos still sitting on his throne of stony outcrop, golden eyes boring into him like he could see past Lee’s skin and into his soul.

Maybe he could.

Something must have alerted him to the fact that Lee was aware of his surroundings again, because he suddenly moved, fluidly finding his feet and striding across to squat in front of Lee.  A sword-calloused hand grabbed his hair, yanking yet more poor strands out from his scalp, and tilted his head back.

“I will break you,” the titan said, the absoluteness of truth blanketing Lee and sheering a swathe through the residual traces of lies that still wracked his body.  “Truth or lie.”

Even if Lee wanted to answer, he was still too wrecked to even consider trying to wake his voice.  It didn’t seem to matter, though, because Kronos ruffled his hair with a grin that was far more evil than anything Lee had ever seen on Luke’s face before, twisting the scar until it was almost unrecognisable.  “Good boy,” he said.

Then he stood and left, leaving Lee alone in the cave, still shaking and filled with an indomitable sense of dread.

Chapter 5>>>