#art prompt turned into writing prompt

[leventart-den]

I love seeing Sanji and Zoro trying to recover from a bad fight together

Just…. Both of them in pain, maybe some blood??? That’s good shit right there

Just them being quiet trying to patch the other up, because Chopper already has enough on his.. hooves? And they don’t want to be a burden

You don’t even have to draw this, I just want your opinion on this???? It is VERY important I swear

Dearest Anony!

I swear I'll draw this, I really like the idea! But since this is VERY important, I cannot remain silent and leave you for days without an answer.

Plus, damn, I love this kind of stuff, I could talk about it for hours (if I didn't have to use an online translator because my written English is non-existent).

AN (Me from the future while I was writing what is below): I tried to be short but I was carried away. Thanks for the inspiration, by the way. I'm sorry for all the blood. But I hope that you like it overall and that my answer will brighten up your time at least a little!

AN2 (even further in the future when I finished writing): When I have time I'll rewrite this into a fanfic, if you don't mind, dear Anony.

P.S. to everyone who wrote prompts for art - I will draw each of them, I promise! Thank you very much, they are wonderful! One Piece Art prompts are open for an unlimited time.

***

What I picture in my head when I read your prompt:

It’s time after a heavy battle, they are on the ship, everyone is tired, it’s the afternoon, calm and very quiet. Sanji and Zoro seem to be fine at first glance, and Chopper is so tired that he doesn't have the strength to insist on checking their condition, so he lets them go, immediately falling asleep at the table. It's so hot on the deck, almost suffocating without the wind, but Sanji and Zoro go downstairs to where provisions are stored, barrels of alcohol and where it's cool.

Sanji limps to his usual place, to a box against the wall on which he sits down heavily, leaning against the wooden surface and exhaling a cloud of smoke from the smoldering cigarette now clutched in his fingers. It's stained with blood.

Zoro glances at him briefly and silently heads to the far corner, pulling out a box of first aid from behind the drawers. It's a familiar routine by this point. They are both strong and both don't want to be a burden to Chopper when it can be avoided. They're both stupid like this. So of course at some point in their journey they came to this silent agreement mending each other's wounds and here they are. Again.

Zoro places the box on a nearby drawer and sits down opposite Sanji. The cook takes another drag and finally puts out the cigarette on the wall, throwing the cigarette butt into the iron tin can nearby, which he placed for such purposes. He grunts, finally opening the box and taking out everything he needs while Zoro takes off his shirt.

There is no tightness or awkwardness between them about such things. Not anymore. 

Sanji begins by treating the nasty gash on his forehead. It turned out to be difficult to wipe off all the blood; head wounds usually bleed a lot. Although, with his experience up to this point, he gets the job done quite quickly. Next come the wounds on the arms and torso. There are several cuts and spreading bruises. Zoro has a couple of broken ribs. He drinks a few drinks from the bottle while Sanji stitches up a particularly deep cut near his collarbone and tightens bandages around his chest and torso.

They don't talk during the process, they are too tired even for their usual banter and jokes towards each other. They would probably rather go to bed now, but the risk of upsetting and angering Chopper later is too great. So they will finish what they started, despite the fact that Zoro is half asleep and Sanji's movements are getting slower.

The air becomes heavy with blood and now the smell of tobacco is added to it. Sanji lights another cigarette and Zoro opens his eyes watching him. The cook's hands are shaking, he notes. He runs his eyes over his entire form, noting his injuries. He doesn't see much but Curly looks pale. His gaze falls down. There is a pool of blood on the floor under his feet. Zoro swears soundlessly. Looks like the shitty cook has got his legs messed up.

Zoro gives him a very meaningful look and Sanji sighs. He bites the cigarette between his teeth and fumbles with the waistband of his trousers, but his fingers are too weak right now. 

Zoro watches him for a few seconds and clenches his teeth because of the pain in his ribs, but still gets up and leans towards the cook, pushing his hands away and helping with the clothes. Sanji lifts himself off the box as far as he can, allowing him to pull his trousers down, and then leans heavily against the wall again. His cigarette is smoldering, he is too sleepy to even smoke.

Zoro, meanwhile, examines his legs. There are several deep cuts and his left ankle is swollen and his knees are bruised. Zoro thinks that he shouldn't be surprised, after all, the shitty cook's legs are his weapons, the main blows fall on them, but still. If some of the cuts had been any higher they could have cut the artery and then the cook would have been dead. Zoro finds himself observing all the old scars that cover his skin. He shakes his head, pushing away the thoughts; now is not the time for them.

At this moment, the pale bloodstained hand falls down and the half-smoked cigarette slips out of limped fingers onto the floor. Zoro's gaze shoots up, he feels pressure in his chest for a second and it's not his broken ribs.

But Sanji's breathing is calm and measured. The cook just fell asleep, it seems.

The swordsman releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Okay.

This is okay.

Everything is fine.

He picks up the cigarette from the floor, puts it out and throws it into the jar with the others. Zoro winces at the movement. His damn ribs hurt with the adrenaline gone, but he'll take care of this stupid cook anyway.

He gets rid of the blood around the wounds and stitches them up, trying to keep his hands as stable as possible. It turns out to be more difficult than it seemed, but he tries. He bandages Sanji's legs after and takes off his shoes with socks, checking his ankles and feet.

It looks like nothing was broken, probably just a sprain, so for now Zoro will do what he can and tomorrow Sanji will turn to Chopper himself if necessary.

After a few minutes and tending to a few other cuts and bruises here and there, Zoro looked over his work and decided he was done. The cook didn’t even flinch during all this time and it looked worrying if it weren’t for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest from breathing. He really lost a lot of blood. Zoro decided not to even try to wake him.

Grunting, he bent down, pulling his pants up to his knees and then moved the cook's motionless body closer to himself, leaning back a little so that he would lean against him and Zoro could pull his pants all the way up. He carefully returned Sanji to his seat and sighed wearily as he buttoned up his pants. Zoro felt exhausted by this point. He wasn't sure he could make it upstairs to the cabins with Sanji as dead weight.

So after a few seconds of hesitation, Zoro went to the corner where they kept all sorts of extra things and fished out a heavy animal skin with thick fur and a couple of blankets. He placed it on the floor next to Sanji and carefully moved him onto the makeshift bed, throwing a blanket over him. He watched as Sanji reflexively curled up on himself, burying his face in the soft fur. The cook always sleeps like this, as if he is trying to hide. It never sits right with Zoro. It looks wrong. 

One day he will find out why. But now Zoro settles down next to Sanji, wrapping his arm around him on top of the blanket and holding him close to himself. He feels the other man's shoulders relax and his breath a little too hot on his collarbone. His nose is cold against Zoro's skin. Zoro suddenly feels like he won't be able to sleep, but he buries his face in the cook's hair, which smells of cherry tobacco, sea and spices, and listens to his heartbeat against his skin.

He falls asleep within seconds.

[notbecauseofvictories]

sometimes I think they put some sort of...aural drug in mediocre movies. If I played all these thoroughly middling movies in reverse, would I hear a satanic message telling me, YOU WILL BE TEMPTED BEYOND ALL REASON TO WRITE FANFIC ABOUT---YES, THE MOVIE YOU HALF-WATCHED WHILE COOKING AND ANSWERING EMAILS. YES. YES, I---YES, I'M SERIOUS. YES, THIS MOVIE. THE CHARACTERIZATION OR LACK THEREOF MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. UH HUH. MHM. YEP. LOOK, I DON'T MAKE THE RULES, I JUST WORK HERE OKAY?

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

Tim came to three horrible realizations when he came back to his game to find Damian with his headset.

1: Damian has been trying to bond by mimicking him and he hasn’t noticed.

2: Damian does not understand trash talk in video games.

3: Danny is now getting the full brunt of Damian’s wrath and scathing remarks.

Danny is currently having a great time playing Doomed.

There is currently a gremlin on Tim’s mic.

They remind him for his rouges, it was a comfort he’s been missing at college.

Maybe he can introduce Ellie to him!

He thinks they would get along :3

[bluishfrog]

Have we had dnf as hamsters already?

[kg-clark-inthedark]

My gift for @puddtoast for @dishonoredgiftexchange’s 2024 fugue feast. I went with the prompt of Aramis Stilton thinking about lost love in the wake of Luca’s downfall while listening to his last audiograph from Theodanis Abele, and then realizing he’ll be okay when a monarch butterfly lands on the audiograph player.

I’ve been head over heels for this emotional sucker punch of a prompt, so I hope I did it justice!! Also I’m delighted to have finally drawn Stilton for the first time. Thank you for providing such fun and detailed prompts to choose from! (Btw I didn’t know what symbolism you were hoping for - if any - when requesting a monarch, so I ran with what I grew up with, in terms of the whole “carrying souls of the dead” thing. Hope that works for you!)

[unforgivenn]

Masterlist

Noah shuddered, the tears welling in his eyes mixing with the blood and sweat on his face. He tried to pull away, but the strings only tightened, biting deeper into his flesh. Andrey laughed softly, a sound that sent shivers down Noah's spine.

"Struggle all you want, slave.," Andrey murmured, his lips brushing against Noah's ear. "You'll only hurt yourself more. Accept your fate, and perhaps, just perhaps, I'll show you a mercy."

But Noah knew there would be no mercy. Not from Andrey. The prince's touch was as cold and unyielding as the chains that bound him. Nevertheless, he was too ensnared in his thoughts to make out Andrey's words. He felt as if he was teetering on the brink of insanity. There was just pain, pain, and more pain.

Every moment in this hellish place was a relentless assault on his mind and body. The constant pain, the fear, the humiliation—it was all too much. Noah's thoughts raced, a chaotic whirl of memories and nightmares. He remembered his life before this, the freedom he had taken for granted, now a distant, cruel dream. He remembered his mother making rhubarb pie for him. His sister running around the house lighting it up with her talkative nature.

Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? The questions had been echoing in his mind ever since he came here but now he heard them ring in his ears louder than before. He felt his grip on reality slipping, the edges of his sanity fraying with each passing second.

Noah's heart pounded in his chest, each beat a drum of panic. He tried to focus on something, anything to ground himself, but all he could see were the s, the blood, the darkness.

I'm finally losing it. I'm losing my mind. The thought was like a dagger to his heart. A part of him wanted to laugh at himself, at this whole shitty situation while the other wanted to just sob at his helplessness. The fear of what he was becoming was almost worse than the pain itself. He was no longer just a captive; he was a broken man, teetering on the edge of madness.

Andrey's voice broke through the fog of his thoughts, a chilling voice in his head that repeated again and again. "You're mine, Noah. Mind, body, and soul. There's no escape for you. No hope. No mercy." He wanted to help him to shut up but it felt as if he couldn't open his mouth anymore.

Wait.. What was he doing here again..?

Noah's vision blurred with tears, his body trembling. He wanted to scream, to beg for release, but he knew it would only bring more torment. He was trapped, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally. The shackles that held him were more than just physical restraints; they were the bonds of his shattered will, the chains of his despair.

I can't do this. I can't keep going. The thought was a desperate plea, a cry into the void. But there was no one to hear it, no one to save him.

The room seemed to close in around him, the walls pressing in, the air growing thin. He was suffocating, drowning in his own fear and pain.

Help me. Someone, please, help me. Please help me please help me- The plea repeated in his mind like a chant thought it went unanswered, lost in the abyss of his despair.

He was just a puppet, and Andrey was the puppeteer. And in this twisted game, there were no strings that could be cut to set him free.

(THIS WAS NOT A PART OF THE MAIN SERIES)

Taglist: @miireux134 @nuriiz134 @ash-reh @noeul-whumpppss @morning-star-whump

@parasitebunny @anutz1234 @whatwasmyprevioususername @whumped-by-glitter @someoneoninternettt(let me know if you want to be added or removed :D)

[simp-for-long-hair]

click for better quality :)

tropes gumball machine ♡

[timetravelsong]

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞, 𝐬𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭.

excerpts from a book I’ll never write

[theartofeverything]

OO OO for the ask game; #25. Showing up injured at their enemie's house? :]

Ok. While brainstorming for how to answer this, I realized a catastrophic deficit in In This Together.

There are no lesbians.

How could this happen?!? This must be fixed immediately.

So an idea came to me, an absolutely awful, massively homoerotic idea. Both of my big bad guys are women. Leading armies in a ruthless war against eachother.

They banged.

At some point before the Mutant War broke out, when the Purple Dragons were trying to solidify their grip on New York City after routing the Kraang, Kendra got shot during a skirmish with a dissenting human faction on the fringe of the city. The fight went badly and Kendra’s team was scattered into the night.

Tired and wounded, Kendra stumbled into a run down mansion hidden in the woods. There was a light inside so she went in expecting to find some human survivors who hopefully wouldn’t mind letting her crash for the night.

What she was not prepared for was the General of the Kraang’s mutant forces, presumed dead after the Battle of New York, the Shredder.

Monster x Old Woman Yuri below the cut ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

(Nothing explicit, just a tad suggestive. Art at the end with some tasteful nudity if you wanna scroll down just for that. Leaving the ending up to your own imaginations 😉)

Kendra could feel her blood pounding through every inch of her body, through the tight muscles of her legs, ready to make a run for it, through the burning hole in her shoulder where she’d been shot, through her white knuckled fingers aiming an empty gun at the monster in front of her. 

The Shredder stared back at her from behind its mask, listening carefully to her thoughts. She was trying to calculate exactly how long it would take her to make it back out the door, how far she would be able to run before blacking out from exhaustion and blood loss, how many hits she could give and take before going down. The math was not working out well. She wouldn’t make it back alive from this fight.

Tentatively uncoiling a tendril of its own mind, the shredder whispered into hers ‘don’t kill me and I won’t kill you’

Kendra’s eyes widened in a mixture of horror and awe. It spoke.

‘You can put the gun down. We both know it’s empty,’ the thing mind-whispered again.

Slowly, Kendra lowered the gun. Her boddy’s last ditch effort burst of adrenaline was wearing off and she was starting to see spots.

“Deal,” she said, then promptly slumped to the floor and passed out.

Kendra woke up to three surprises. 1: She was still alive. 2: The Shredder had not been a hallucination, or if it had, she must be still hallucinating because it was still here mere feet away from her. And 3: she was naked.

“At least buy a girl dinner first,” she slurred. Why did her mouth feel numb? Did the thing drug her or was this a symptom of blood loss?

The Shredder traced the strings of her thoughts to figure out what that phrase meant and responded by triggering a memory of a laugh.

Why did it’s laugh sound like Cassandra’s? Kendra wondered, suddenly feeling much more awake.

‘I chose one you had positive feelings towards’

It heard that? Shit, could it hear everything she was thinking?

‘Sorry about the sedation, I didn’t want you waking up and forgetting our deal’

“Like I’m gonna kill you without any weapons,” Kendra scoffed.

It held her gaze. Kendra couldn’t see its eyes, if it had any. But she could feel its stare boring into her mind, turning over thoughts and memories. She could, and they both knew it.

Slowly, the Shredder reached behind its back and undid a clasp, the metallic spikes on its shoulders slid off. Piece by piece, it removed the exoskeleton to reveal smooth irridescent skin underneath. At the very last, it reached its pale clawed fingers under the rim of the helmet and lifted.

Kendra stared in fascination at the face before her, gleaming dark eyes splayed across it like the petals of a macabre flower. It was terrifying and grotesque, entirely inhuman, and yet… there was something mesmerizing in the glow of its many pupils, in the strange curves of its bones. It was beautiful.

‘Now we’re even’ it spoke to her mind.

Since only one of them was a mind reader, Kendra supposed she’d have to take the creature’s word for it.

“So what were you doing while I was out? You could’ve just searched me if you wanted to make sure I didn’t have any other weapons to wake up and stab you with.” Or you could have killed me, she thought.

‘Well where would be the fun in that?’ the creature replied with a shift of its facial muscles that Kendra more understood than recognized as its equivalent of a grin. ‘I wanted to study you,’ it continued after a pause. ‘I haven’t seen many of your species that have reached this level of maturity.’

“You calling me old?” Kendra laughed.

‘Yes, it’s a compliment. To have survived this long on a planet with these conditions is impressive.’

“You’ve got a rather impressive track recccord yourself, could’ve sworn you were a gonner after we collapsed that building on you in the Battle of New York.”

‘I have… some helpful abilities in such situations’

“What kind of abilities?” Kendra asked with a bit of coy curiosity. She’d seen mutants do some pretty unexplainable things and everyone knew the Shredder was powerful, catch a glimpse of those gleaming spikes and you’ve gotta decide quick weather to call in reinforcements or get the hell out of there, but no one knew exactly what its powers were.

‘I can demonstrate if you let me,’ it said reaching a hand toward her.

At this point, if the thing was going to hurt her, it certainly would have by now. Kendra’s curiosity won out.

“Show me.”

Its pale skin and polished talons were cool on her bare skin but a warmth blossomed in her flesh beneath the touch, spreading outwards with a slight glow. There was a slight burning sensation in the soul of her foot where a thorn had pierced through her shoe while she was running in the dark. Then it was gone. Brushing the blood away with the soft side of one of its fingers, the shredder revealed the healed skin underneath.

‘I can do the rest if you like,’ it said, gesturing to the various injuries littering her body from the fight.

“Certainly won’t say no to that,” said Kendra with an impressed sigh. “leave the shoulder though. My team saw me get shot. I show back up without a bullet wound and people will ask questions. I’ve got some bandages in my jacket I could use a hand with though.”

Retrieving the bandages, the Shredder began wrapping her shoulder with one hand while its other sent waves of energy through her.

“Do you have a name?” She asked eventually.

‘Tang Shen’

[paulmccartneyprostateorgasm]

I do think like at least half the reason I find mclennon so compelling is how insane Paul has been since John died. Like I know it makes me a bad person or whatever but it's just so fascinating to observe. Like you'd think he'd get normaler after literal decades but no he's literally just gotten worse...

[collectiveclams]

Trying my best to figure out what these guys look like in my head before I go look at the fandom’s generalized designs for the characters.

A friend of my twin got us into the show and a week later we’re at season 8!

I definitely need to tweak Cole’s design a lot- I want him to have a more strongman build & revamp his entire face design. But at the very least I’m happy with getting his hair the way I want!

Kinda hard to see, but Zane’s got little screws for earrings! I honestly didn’t account for how much older the faceplate would make him look, I intended him to look way more boyish.

Rambling about my current HCs of the Ninja’s appearances below:

I’ve been having a bit of an trouble deciding what various flavor of Chinese & Japanese these dudes should be based on. Considering the show is based on a 2010s vague idea of “Asia” and carries traits of both Japanese & Chinese influence, I’m just going to use both. I don’t know what sorta general consensus the fandom has of their appearances bc I have barely interacted with the fandom, so if this violently contrasts with that then yippee I have original thoughts, I guess.

-Kai is Japanese. Kai, being vain and caring more about training than Jay for example, has a more aesthetic build that’s definitely form more than function. Like a natty powerlifter who’s not competing. I’m not sure what height he should be, but if he’s taller his muscle definition would appear smaller so I’ll have to keep that in mind.

- Nya has initially a more functional build- far less muscle definition than her brother. Not outwardly buff and doesn’t have pronounced muscles, but can fairly easily haul a 100lb hunk of metal from a scrap pile to her workbench. But after becoming the water ninja, her new training gives her more pronounced muscle definition. Initially shorter than Kai but grows taller as the show goes on.

- Cole is southern Chinese. He’s got a strongman heavy set build. I envision him as fairly short so his muscles can be a little more pronounced. If you stripped his muscle definition from his ninja training away, I still want him to look like one of assholes who haven’t worked out a day in their lives but still somehow looks jacked.

- Zane is what pops up when you look up “Chinese teen male stock photo” because he needs to look like The Most Generic person ever. No muscle definition at all on this dude. He’s a nindroid & so there’s no need to include muscle decision to show that he’s strong. He’s either average height or slightly on the shorter side bc gravity is a bitch and the taller make a humanoid robot, the more balance becomes a bitch to deal with. So average height or short Zane it is.

- Jay is Uyghur so I can get this dude his reddish-brown hair. Minor muscle definition. His isn’t for aesthetics like Kai, he’d rather do ninja training than do the types of sets & pushing to failure needed to achieve more pronounced muscle definition for aesthetic lifting. Jay needs to be shorter than Nya. He’s definitely taller than Cole but I need him to be just an inch shorter than Nya because that’s funny to me personally.

- Lloyd is Japanese. Solely because Oni come from Japan & I got spoilered that Gargamon is an Oni later. Lloyd is a stringy ass kid at first & has no muscle definition at all. During his Green Ninja training before the Travelers Tea, he’d be trained for efficiency & not for aesthetics with the deadline of him fighting his father possibly being around any corner. After Travelers Tea he likely kept his training to function over aesthetics and would share similar muscular definition to Jay & Nya. And he’s tall. His dad is tall as shit with 4 arms. I want this kid to go through the Worst gangly teen era anyones ever seen and only barely fit his form once he finishes growing.

Additional thoughts:

And as a big comic nerd who owns around 800+ comics (might be more around 1000 now?), hoo boy I have so many thoughts on Lloyd and Jay liking Starfarer. I cannot wait to make a fic that’s just Lloyd and Jay ganging up against Kai over some incredibly wrong take of the comic he absentmindedly said and trapping him in a 3 hour long conversation about frequent mischaracterization and mishandling of the characters in Starfarer & how what Kai said was wrong. I just need a fic of Jay and Lloyd talking to each other about their favorite runs of Starfarer and complaining about a tie-in/crossover comic that’s written particularly bad, or complaining how an author completely misunderstood Fitz Donnegan or complaining over an author change & etc. I just need to make a fic of these boys talking about average comic book fan things.

[nabesthetics]

Hm. I want to share stuff about my disaster Apprentices more often again.

[01tsubomi]

i'm taking the jlpt this sunday and had a stress dream last night abt it bc it sort of snuck up on me and now it's kind of a question of how much my actual japanese abilities will carry me (versus if i should've been cramming on flashcards this past month) but the listening portion is far simpler conversation than my coworkers and i have so. i think that maybe instead of "damn i should've been studying japanese" my perspective should just be "i speak japanese"

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

i read a hannigram fic last night where op decided it was an okay thing to mention vatsyayana and my brain chemistry is fucked now.

[transsweet]

smth based on a roommates prompt post i found :]

"cap?"

the boombox looked up from the work he'd been doing at the front room table. sweet stood before him, an umbrella and bags in their hands.

"i need to run by a couple stores in town, just run a few errands."

they wrung their gloved hands together and looked away, slightly embarrassed.

"do...you mind if i borrow one of your jackets? mines still drying from running home from work the other day..."

the speaker box was right. it'd been raining in the cyber world for a couple days now, and sweet had ran back to the two's apartment soaking wet, having forgotten an umbrella. whether it was just poor luck or bad memory on its part, capn and k_k still brought it in quickly and checked for any signs of sparking or damage.

they could be so forgetful sometimes.

he sighed and chuckled to himself softly.

"go on ahead, i got enough to last me a lifetime."

the speaker darkner's eye lit up before they let out a relieved sigh, "thank you, cap. i won't be long, i promise."

before they ran out the door, they grabbed one of his jackets hanging on a chair, zipped it up, and made their way out.

-

sweet arrived home about an hour later. (so much for "i won't be long, i promise" huh.)

k_k welcomed them home, which lead capn to lift his head up from what he was doing and greet them as well. sweet held their umbrella outside the apartment door and flicked it open and closed a few time to rid it of the acid rain droplets.

the night went on as usual. they all had dinner together, watched a movie, and fell asleep on the couch.

before capn drifted off, he realized sweet had never taken his jacket off, and seemed to have found comfort in wearing it. did they ever even intend to give it back if he didn't ask them to?

capn smiled, a soft blush accompanying it. well, i guess he'd stay true to his words. he could sacrifice one jacket. he had enough to last him a lifetime, as he said.

they look good in it, anyways.

[lindalofbroome]

02 - Ambition

‘The sad thing is,’ Britta found herself saying, ‘that Vashti could no doubt be a very good trader if only her father would trust in her talent and leave her alone.’

STAR OF DELTORA The Hungry Isle Ch 18 - Friends

i dont know if rodda would write more for this series because it's pretty closed now. but there's still a part of me yearning for more. and i want so bad for vashti to have some agency and some redemption. she was the antagonist in a literary sense and she does have that White Woman™ vibes, but she's also just a kid and i dont think she's evil at heart. sod didn’t really end up going down the direction of exploring the moral greyness of people and your individuality as much, but like i can dream.

i feel like her parent/s were in her ear ever since she was born, fuelling a desire in her to win the apprenticeship and to be The Best. they nurtured her as a tool, but not as a person. not excusing her bullying and undermining, because that’s horrible, but does she know anything else? if her ‘superiors’ are not treating her with kindness and goodness, why would she treat her perceived ‘inferiors’ any differently.

anyway this post could be interpreted as vashti’s ambition. it pushed her to want the apprenticeship enough to cheat and bully. taking every advantage she could. on ship and off ship. take no prisoners mentality. belittling and dehumanising her opponents in her mind, clouding her judgement. similar to jasmine’s opponents in the rithmere games. a burly del-ignorant brute? a devious scavenging rascal? a poor shopkeeper’s daughter? vashti let her assumptions cloud her judgement, and now her enemies are bonded against her. she didn’t really have a chance.

but this post was about her parent/s when i drew up the sketch. i don’t know if her mother, irma, was as directly involved. the books reference her father, loy, much more often in meddling. so i dont know if she’s just like, his trophy wife or something like that and just let things happen warily, or if she held the same ambitions and was his accomplice. either way i would still direct blame on her, even if she was only indirectly responsible because i can’t believe that she was in the dark on the matter.

the vibes im getting out of this parent-daught relationship reminds me of that B99 episode where peralta and holt are talking about the kid graffiting police cars

Peralta: His daddy comes in and bails him out every time. He’s a lucky little jerk.

Holt: No, I wouldn’t say he was lucky. I feel bad for this kid. I mean, what kind of father cares so little for his son that he lets him get away with everything?

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE S01 E02

it’s not directly the same. but, at least to me, it’s clear that vashti is not seen as a daughter to be loved and led and encouraged to a prosperous future by them, but a tool and a key to a prosperous future for them. you know?

‘From what I have heard since I have been in here, Vashti’s father has been training her and her younger sisters for years with this contest in mind. He already has three ships of his own, but he wants control of the Trader fleet as well — especially the Star of Deltora.’  [Jewel said.]

STAR OF DELTORA Shadows of the Master Ch 9 The Announcement

like bruh??? imagine. having the fucking audacity. i hope that in a world where vashti wins, she eventually learns that he doesnt and shouldnt have power over her and something she won. it doesnt matter that he raised her, that he taught her things she knows. not everything she has was from him, and theres room for stuff outside of him.

i. also forgot she had siblings because it’s never mentioned again except in that quote. but i guess vashti is always on the periphery anyway. but i was thinking that the other candidates are older than britta, who just scraped in at 15, but i dont have concrete numbers in mind lol.

as i was working on this i was thinking maybe vashti was 18. i cant remember if i really had reasons for that or if i chose that arbitrarily alskdj like i guess she might be more used to being composed and more experienced and stuff which makes her intimidating. but she can be younger and still act like that.

but then i was thinking about since she technically also just scraped in (but on the other end) and then the implications of that hit me in the face. like her parent/s were already on her case, but the fact that she just got in probably increased their desperation and longing, and it would’ve been even worse than previous years. the familiar anticipation was manifesting into a lustful grab for power. it was scary. it was overwhelming. there was nothing but a need to make them happy. it’s no longer about a personal accomplishment but a trophy to sate her parents’ hunger. and of course it wouldn’t last. and if they had a taste for something so big, they’d only demand more and more. where would it end.