#because of assholes that just suck at being leaders and keeping it cool.

[queenoftsage]

Another fun thing happening this week?

... hnnn... i bought new clothes for my children. Yeah well you know not the dollar ones anymore[They are very cute though! Don't get me wrong!]. Though those clothing sets are pretty affordable. I think I paid more for their new little shoes.

Yeah I had fun picking out new clothings for them. I love my children. What else can I do?

Pictured here are My children

Reyna [QUEEN of the Rams!] and KAI [Wolf Boy]. <3 <3 <3

They needed new clothes-es. So I bought them some cuter designed ones. Can't wait to get them. When I do, I'll make time to do a fashion show. lol.

That's a fun thing I did this month. I'm starting out the year having fun, even though the world is truly burning down. *shrugs*

[fanfics4all]

Not Used to Freedom

Request: Yes / No Thank you @badthingshappenbingo​ for my card! 

Don’t be shy, request things! <3 Have a nice day/night

Glenn Rhee x Fem!Reader 

Word count: 1342

Warnings: Slavery, mentions of sex slave (But not in detail) 

Y/N: Your Name 

Prompt(s):

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(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

Even in the apocalypse, people sucked. My parents traded me to some asshole for supplies. They got a lot for me, but now I was stuck to a man who treated me as if I wasn’t a human. He made it clear I was his property now, nothing more than an object to him. He was the leader of his little group and made sure they all knew I was his as well. No one was allowed to talk to me and I wasn’t allowed to speak without permission from ‘Master’. At least he let me wear clothes when he dragged me around on a leash. This has been my life since I was a child. Great parents, right? 

Now that I was a woman ‘Master’ would touch me. He loved touching my body and did it every chance he could. I hardly even flinched when he took my virginity. This was all I’ve ever known. I was nothing more than ‘Master’s’ servant, who came when called. It was the only life I really knew anymore and I hated it. The only thing I can remember from my past is my name. Y/N. I repeated it to myself every night so I’d never forget. Because even though I knew it was more than likely never going to happen, I still had hope I’d escape or be saved. 

Today I was locked in the small room I had come to know as my bedroom, if you can even call it that. All I had was a bed, ‘Master’ kept all my clothes in his room. He had to pick all of them out each day. I was stuck waiting for ‘Master’ to let me out. Y/N. Y/N. Y/N. It was the only thought going through my head when I was alone anymore. I didn’t want to forget my name no matter how hard ‘Master’ tried to make me. A loud gunshot broke my thought and my head snapped to the door. What was happening? More gunshots joined the fight and I heard screaming. My eyes widened and I pushed myself against the wall. I covered my ears to try and drown out the sounds, and shut my eyes tightly. 

Y/N. Y/N. Y/N, Just focus on your name. That’s the only thing you need to know right now. 

After a bit it was quiet. I didn’t remove my hands from my ears or open my eyes. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I was so scared. What if I got blamed for this somehow? ‘Master’ loved to punish me when he was angry, even if I didn’t do anything. I heard a few footsteps coming closer to my door and whimpered quietly. 

“You check that one, I’ll check this one.” Someone with a gruff voice said. That wasn’t anyone I’d heard before. Someone tried my door handle, but it was locked, like always. 

“It’s locked.” A softer voice said. 

“I got it.” The gruff voice said. There was pounding on the door and I whimpered. I shrunk into myself as much as I could. I did not want to get punished. I heard the door break down and started crying, quietly. 

“Wait hold on.” The softer voice said. I heard footsteps come closer and suddenly my hands were being gently pulled away from my head. 

“Hey, you’re okay.” The voice said and I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed tightly. 

“Can you look at me, please?” He asked. I slowly opened my eyes and saw a kind man looking at me with worried eyes. 

“My name is Glenn, this is Daryl.” He said, motioning to the man behind him. I glanced at him and he looked mad. I shrunk into the wall a bit more, but the man, Glenn, gently moved my face to look at him again. 

“What’s your name?” He asked and I blinked a few times. 

“Y-Y/N…” I whispered and he smiled at me. 

“Y/N, can you tell me why you were locked up in here?” He asked and I gulped. 

“It’s okay, you’re safe.” He reassured me. 

“Master didn’t let me out yet…” I whispered and his eyes widened. He looked back at the other man, Daryl, whose eyes were also wide. 

“Was it that asshole that ran this place?” Daryl asked and I nodded slowly. 

“Well, the fucker is dead.” He said and my eyes widened. 

“R-Really?” I asked and he nodded. 

“Yes. They’re all dead.” He said and I just blinked a few times. I let the news settle in and relaxed a little. 

“You can come with us, we have a safe place.” Glenn said and I stiffened a bit. 

“Oh no, you’d be free, Y/N. You can live your own life.” He clarified and I looked at him confused. 

“F-Free?” I asked. Glenn nodded and offered me his hand. I bit my lip and shakily took his hand. He helped me up and smiled at me. 

“I promise you’ll be safe and free, Y/N.” He said and I gave him a small smile. 

The two men led me through the halls that were once my hell. I clung to Glenn’s hand, but he didn’t seem to mind. We walked into the main room and there for a few other people standing around. They turned to look at us and pointed their guns at me. 

“Who’s that?” A woman in an army uniform asked. 

“Hey, relax! She’s not a threat.” Glenn said. Daryl nodded and they lowered their guns. 

“This is Y/N, we found her locked in a room. She was… was forced to work for Noel,” Glenn said and they all looked at the collar on my neck. I blushed and looked away. I felt Glenn gently squeeze my hand. I heard someone walk up to me and saw brown boots standing in front of me. 

“Y/N?” A man with a southern accent asked. I looked up and saw a man in a sheriff’s uniform. 

“How long have you been here?” He asked. 

“M-My parents traded me f-for supplies when I-I was seven…” I quietly answered. Everyone looked at me with wide eyes and a few people even gasped. 

“You’ve been wearing that since you were seven?” A young boy asked and I nodded. 

“M-Master has kept me for himself.” I said and I saw their faces change to anger. I shrunk back, but Glenn gently pulled me a little closer to him. 

“They’re not mad at you, Y/N. They’re mad at what Noel has done to you.” He said and I looked at him confused. 

“Sick bastard.” A ginger man said. 

“He’s gone for good now, Y/N. You don’t need to worry about him anymore.” The man in the sheriff’s uniform said. 

“Come on, let’s get her back.” A woman with a southern accent said. 

“Agreed.” Glenn said and smiled at me. 

“Alright, let’s head out.” The man in the sheriff’s uniform said. Everyone headed for the front door, but Glenn stopped me. 

“Here.” He said and reached for my neck. My eyes widened and I flinched, but he gave me a reassuring smile. He pulled out a knife and very gently cut the collar off my neck. He pulled it off and I looked down at it in his hand. 

“You won’t need that anymore.” He said and tossed it to the side. I looked at it lying on the floor broken and let out a sob. 

“T-Thank y-you.” I said through tears. Glenn gently wrapped an arm around me and pulled me in for a hug. The first genuine hug I’ve felt in years. 

“You’re gonna be alright, Y/N. We’ll all help you.” He whispered and I nodded. He pulled back and still smiled at me. He offered me his hand and I took it a bit more confidently this time. He turned and led me towards the rest of the group. Was I finally free now, or was this all just an act?

Tag list: @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs-blog1 @lover-of-books-and-teas @nerdygaloresposts @teenwolfbitches28 @kmc1989 @drw0301bieber @lady-of-lies @ravenmoore14 @ravenempress101 @cillianchamp @rowanthomasknapp @rachelxwayne @ready-4-fanfiction

[house-of-slayterr]

i feel like I'm SO late on this train but I am absolutely craving more of the Hughie x reader x Adrian fic.. bc HOO WEE I love my underrated boys so much

A Time to Kill.

Three weeks, it had already been three weeks since Adrian stumbled through the storm portal. Time flies when Butcher has you watching the Supe’s every move. Your task was easy, fallow Queen Maeve around until you found the easiest weakness to exploit.

Your head flicks up when you hear footsteps coming down the stairs and idle conversations. You set down the knife you were sharpening as you look up the boys.

“A Train should be next”

“Of course you’d say that mate, A Train is personal to you”

Butchers sarcasm was deeper in tone today, something about his mood slightly more playful than usual.

“We still haven’t found a way to catch him if he tries to run” MM points out.

You sigh heavily.

“You could always switch me to Atrain, I still don’t know why you have me on Maeve duty, she eventually just gonna drink herself into an early grave and take care of it for us.”

“Because dove, she hates men, if any of us fallow her she’d notice.”

“And A train only a man” you point out. “Tell me, you think he’d run from me?”

“I wouldn’t” a chipper voice calls.

You roll your eyes again, getting used to the new banter that came from the deranged boy. He fit strangely well into your group of misfits.

“Nobody asked you mate. You’re only here cause they won’t let us kick you out.”

“Ouch” he fakes offence.

“Please butcher you act like he hasn’t been helpful. He got us more on the deep then you ever have so hush.”

“I thought my friend was freaky, but the Deep is wild man. He-“

You slap a hand over his mouth.

“Thank you Adrian, we do not need to know more information at this time”

You no so gently redirect the conversation. Adrian tends to get distracted and focus on details that didn’t matter.

“Back to A train, got anything for me Hughie?”

“He’ll be at a club tonight, might be able to single him out there.”

“Which mean they’ll be too many people” butcher points out a flaw in this plan.

“Not if we get him alone there won’t. I’m serious butcher, I think I’m our best shot at this. I don’t wanna get any closer to that asshole then I have to but we do this for Hughie.”

The older man sighs pinching his nose. MM seems suspiciously quiet today and Kimiko wasn’t back from what she was doing yet.

“You seem quiet”

“I agree with Hugh, he’s becoming more of a problem all the time. The less we leave homelander with a team the easier it will be to meet our end goal.”

You nod.

“So it’s settled then. MM, Frenchie and Butcher on backup, me and Hugh will handle the problem.”

“Who died and made you leader?”

“It’s about to be you if you don’t crawl out of my ass Butcher.”

“Oi don’t be such a cunt!”

You growl stepping to him grabbing your knife before you can stop yourself. Frenchie slots himself between you and butcher pressing you away.

“Détends-toi mon amour. He’s just one whiskey short of being functional today, give him a rest.”

He pushes butcher into the kitchen to go cool off and grab a beer.

“One of those days I’m gonna break your pretty face by accident Frenchie if you keep stepping between us.”

He raises a brow at you. “You weren’t actually gonna stab Butcher”

“I just might-“

“I call dibs on his jacket if you kill him.” Adrian has a goofey grin on his face.

“Back to the plan-“ you groan, day like this making you hate your unconventional job.

“I can lure him somewhere quiet, Adrian I want you to be Hugh’s back up. This is his fight, he should be the one who gets to do it.”

“I get to go?”

“Considering I still haven’t found a way to send you home, yeah, you’re stuck with us.”

“No other supes should be there” butcher renters with a beer in his hand.

“Sucks for him I guess. Maybe he shouldn’t party alone after making enemies.”

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

You fidget with your outfit, it much more revealing then you’re used to wearing. You made sure to have eyes on Adrian and Hughie from their posts, making sure you ear piece is working.

“Yo, dickhead, you hearing this?”

“Loud and clear cunt” butcher responds back.

Frenchie scrunches his face annoyed with the banter between the two.

“We can hear you don’t worry, we’re watching all the exists. MM’s clear.”

“No eyes on the target yet but we’re all in position.”

You wander further into the party, knowing someone like Atrain was probably drowning in women, and men who want what he has fawning after him. It won’t be that hard to find him once he got there, you just had to be more enticing than the others throwing themselves at him. The thought of this made you sick, but you’d do it for you best friend. He always had your back so you would have his.

You spot Atrain when he enters and wait a few mins, letting him settle into place with his guard down. You adjust your outfit one last time before approaching.

“You’re like, Atrain right? Famous superhero?” You pitch your voice a little higher.

The man turns to you with a grin on his lips.

“That would be me, and who might you be?”

You giggle slightly.

“I can be whoever you want me to be sugar” you leave room for mystery.

“Is that so?” He runs a cocky hand up your arm.

You give a nod, trying to keep your focus but you can feel Adrian’s eyes locked on you from across the club.

“Care for a dance?” You offer your hand dragging him out to the dance floor at first.

You let your mind go blank whenever he touches you, imagining that touch as someone else. Someone gentler, someone you’d actually want to give the luxery of having their hands on your body. But you reminded yourself of the mission. These hands touching you would belong to a dead man soon enough.

When your eyes open again you lock eyes with Hughie giving him a signal to meet you out back.

“Why don’t we take this party somewhere more interesting?” You whisper in his ear, trying not to throw up at the situation.

A small grin breaks on his face as you take his hand and lead him out back. You pull him far enough away that nobody in the club can hear. You cute hugh under your breath for taking so long as you keep you distraction going. Refusing to touch his lips, you press him against the wall and start kissing at his neck.

Butcher and Frenchie try not to cringe at the audio in their ears back in the van, hearing the hero moan in your ear.

“So hero, you remember everyone that you save?” You keep your voice flirty.

“What, I save your life one time beautiful and now you wanna pay me back?”

You attempt not to gag, keeping your act up.

“Not exactly like that” your hand trails up his chest.

“You remember everyone that you kill?” Your tone is a little colder.

“What?”

Your hand finishes its trailing landing on his neck as you press him against the wall further.

“Do you remember everyone that you kill asshole? Or was she just another number to you?”

Atrain look confused but not scared yet. He’s a fool for thinking his speed can get him out of this one. Hughie steps out of the shadows with a gun, not wanting to afford any mistakes like with translucent, he wants to keep this one simple. He had no powers to overpower Atrain with. And he knew he wasn’t stronger. He aims the gun at his head.

“You?”

“Answer her question.”

“Look of this is about your girlfriend, maybe that bitch shouldn’t have been in the street.”

“She was barely off the sidewalk. You don’t even remember her name do you?”

“Should I?” He says cockily and cold.

“Robin.”

You try to encourage Hughie to speeds things up, of course he deserved his moment, but you couldn’t overpower the supe for long. He was starting to slip through your grip.

“Stupid name for a stupid bitch”

“Pretty cocky for someone who has a gun in his face.”

“You won’t pull the trigger. Come on you both know homelander wouldn’t let this slide. You’ll be melted goo on the sidewalk by the time he finds out.”

“We’ll take our chances” you seeth trying to adjust your grip.

Atrain goes to speak again but Hugh shuts him up.

“No, you’re done talking.”

As he goes to pull the trigger Atrain takes that split second to use his power and put you in line with the bullet and goes to run away. Hugh recognises your scream of pain in a second and picks you, knowing he can’t run after Atrain. He kneels to the ground catching you in his arms. You look up at him with wide eyes in pain but the sound you hear next confuses you.

Suddenly you hear screaming and there’s a warm spray of blood that coats you and Hughie. And then the screaming stops. You blink in shock.

“What the fuck?” Hughie says, looking frantically between you and Adrian who now stands at the end of the alleyway.

An excited cheer leaves Adrian’s mouth as he stand there triumphantly, so covered in blood you can’t even see his clothes properly.

“Yeah!” He cheers, “fuck I’ve always wanted to do that!” He sound proud of himself.

Hughie blinks at him now having a healthy level of fear of the man they’ve let into their group. Adrian stands at the end of the alleyway holding a revving chainsaw. Atrain now, well, everywhere. Adrian’s victory is cut short when he takes a moment to asses the position you’re in.

“Shit you’re hurt.”

He rushes over two the two of you discarding the chainsaw.

“Is it bad, I remember when Hardcourt got shot. Hospital right?” He says frantically, seeming to want to say more but he cuts out many of his usually ranty details.

“You got him” you slowly break into a grin. “Adrian you genius you got him!”

“Uhh, are you in shock, shouldn’t you be in pain right now.”

“Fuck the bullet, that bitch went right through me” you assure him. “Adrian you really did it.” You groan a little in pain.

Hughie shakes his head not wanting to revel in the victory until you’re safe back at base.

“The others are just around the corner. Butch will get rid of the evidence and Frenchie and MM can help me patch you up.” He helps you sit up.

You groan in pain holding your shoulder.

“Don’t say I never did shit for you Campbell” you groan playfully.

“You took more than one for the team this time, I owe you.”

“No shit.”

“I got her” Adrian says as he carefully picks you up carrying you to the back of the van.

You blush not used to be carried while conscious. Of course butcher has had to drag you home a few times, but this was different. It reminds you there’s so much you still don’t know about Adrian. And you were eager to learn more. Maybe him being stuck with you wouldn’t be so bad.

“Well done mate” butcher claps him on the back. “Now let’s get ‘em patched up so we can actually celebrate you being useful.”

Adrian stays by your side the rest of the night. Leaving Hughie to contemplate his feelings about you. Seeing you get shot really messed him up, but you seemed so happy at Adrian’s side. He didn’t want to be in competition with the other man, but it seems he’d have to fight for your attention again.

An: sorry if this wasn’t good, I wrote this half asleep but I tried my best to make it fun

[chronotsr]

No. 3 - G3, Hall of the Fire Giant King (July 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): Erol Otus, Dave C. Sutherland III (cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 9, preferably 5+ players Theme: Standard Swords and Sorcery Major re-releases: G1-3 Against the Giants, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders, Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Dungeon #200, Tales from the Yawning Portal

So that was a little disappointing. But maybe it just middles in the middle? C'mon Gary, let's see that special skill I've heard so much about.

G3 begins how G2 ended: teleporting conveniently on the outskirts of the fortress in such a way as to skip a trek without surprising the players. Meh. Our big bad this time is King Snurre -- I haven't mentioned the Chieftains yet because they're all just midbosses compared to the this guy. And, he's kind of famous isn't he?

For a guy who is functionally a one-off NPC that the party presumably kills, he ends up in a lot of paintings. Not that I'm complaining, that 4e art is amazing. In fact, broadly, 4e's art is a little underrated, it benefits from being less restrained than 5e. I don't think that's a knock on 5e's artists, more like…the art direction seems to be intentionally tamer. Anyway, thank you 4e art, I never realized there was a dog in the background of the 5e PHB until now. Neat.

Yada yada yada the setup is exactly the same as before, but now it's got ~mordor vibes~. As far as changes change, these fire giants (even the children) expressly do not do morale checks because apparently Snurre is such a motherfucker. Scary!

Anyway, we're already in the room-by-room, so let's begin the juicy part:

There's a scooby doo trap with a tapestry in the doorway having holes for eyes so a giant guard can alert the entire building if the players don't catch it. That's evil! But not unfair, which is a good balance. Naturally, there is a ballista tripwire on revisit that does some nasty damage, so this hallway is just The Troll Zone

Snurre has two pet hellhounds leashed to his throne, but also he's wearing a white dragonskin as a cloak at all times, which overcomes his natural aversion to cold with MAGIC. What an asshole! Also, as you look at that picture from the 5e cover, there's a bevy of (unimportant) changes from the original, like Snurre is no longer in his signature pitch-black platemail, but I think special mention should go to the fact that in the original he has literally 60k worth of precious stones on his person and scattered throughout the architecture of the throne room. This room should be GLEAMING.

A Gygaxism: Queen Frupy is a 'haradin', which roughly means 'scold', which. Ok. So, so much attention is given to how uggo she is (to Gary). Actually, I think the description of her armor is kinda cool, she wears black dragonskin, studded with iron (so by Runescape logic I guess she's good with a bow?). Reaper Minis did a character that sort-of resembles the description, but their Vanja has a spear where Frupy uses a scepter:

You can actually negotiate with her, the implication of the text is that she's unreasonable but…just ignore that. Lol.

She also has a magic mirror (implied to be a furniture mirror, not a hand mirror) that reveals invisible creatures in the reflection, which is kind of awesome. Good way to catch assassins! Somehow the drow are using a gifted necklace to spy on them, but I feel like the mirror probably should've revealed in some way (maybe the mirror was also a drow gift?) She's more astute than she lets on, because she has a huge stash of mind control crap in her dresser drawers for emergencies.

????????????????????????????

Keeping with the "giant leader's treasure sucks" tradition, Snurre's treasure is genuinely crazy. It occupies a FULL PAGE, and each INDIVIDUAL TRUNK has a listing and an explicit mention of the traps. Traps range from a standard scything trap to secret snakes to the treasure being invisible to contact poison. How the hell does Snurre use this room? You're telling me he never fucked up remembering which of the 13 chests were trapped in which way? Oh, also, they're pick-proof, because fuck you thief. Naturally, the loot itself is also a fucking trap, because while there is some truly amazing stuff in there (20 randomized magic items, a decent amount of valuables, a +3 ring of protection, and a ring of 3 wishes), there is also lots of troll items (statues with a stacking curse of -1 to all tests, ring of contrariness, ring of delusion). On the whole, a big fuck you to the party. Oh, and while the locks are unpickable, you can shoot them off with magic missile, which is…why?

Snurre's dwarf-slave-advisor is bizarrely well equipped and loyal, and given the opportunity to escape he will…backstab the party. As much as people complain about how early DND has too many save or die traps, I genuinely think the regularity with which rescued npcs betray the party is a waaaaaay dumber and more ridiculous trend. I simply cannot fathom why someone as smart as Obmi would choose to keep being a slave to Snurre when adventurers showed up with the ability to free him. Honestly? Take his big lie and make it true. The lie makes sense because it makes more sense than the canon character.

The scroll that finally tips at the motivation of the giants is, no kidding, scroll #68 of almost 450 paper items, none of which are mentioned. The weird need for a number baffles me.

The kitchen is doing some lateral thinking and using one of the gas vents as a gas stove, which is hilarious.

Oh, we're only now to level 2?

All of the former kings are entombed in a Giant Tomb, which, that is entirely too cool of a visual for them to have not included a visual. In a fucking grave mistake, this room is cut from the 4e remake, so there is no incredible art of it. There is no justice.

If you somehow didn't kill the hill giant chieftain AND you didn't get him in G2, he's here in G3. And he brought the pet bears!

Gary, you're such an asshole. No one would ever think to throw their cool mace into the lava pit mid combat. This is just trolling.

🤷 Guess I'll die

"The were-rats, if losing, will turn into rats and flee down the drain" That is, actually an incredible escape plan, except that we have pre-established that this Hall is founded upon LAVA AND COOKING-HOT GAS.

Fuck the party I guess

You often hear people who got into ADND in the late 1e/2e era talk about how people speculated that Hommlet must lead to Temple of Elemental Evil because of hints about the Elemental Eye and, honestly it just kind of feels like Gary defaults to the Eye. It has come up in every scenario he has written so far (which admittedly is 2 so far), but with the power of Knowing What Comes Next I can assure you that this is going to keep happening. Anyway, there is a temple to the Eye here, complete with human sacrifice, and the allusion to tentacles eating people is already starting to signpost what we now know is true: It's Tharizdun. The Eye is Tharizdun. It always comes back to Cthulhus!

A lot of early players clearly enjoyed Poking Random Shit because if you decide to touch the Elemental Eye's altar and also play every musical instrument in the room, you get to make every person in the room roll on this table, AND also execute whichever player is nearest to the altar (no save). But, hey, you will suddenly get whatever you want most on the altar. If you are somehow dumb enough to do it again, there's a 1 in 12 chance you get a +1 in all stats, a 2 in 12 chance of something extremely bad happening, and a 9 in 12 chance nothing happens.

Would genuinely like to know how many GMs bothered following this instruction. It does teleport you towards the final encounter, so that's something.

An entire page is dedicated to disarming the tentacle wall magic trap, which to be honest looks like it'd repel a significant percentage of players because you either need an evil cleric or some good magic to dispel the wall, and the wall punishes the shit out of you for trying to disarm it. To be a mild devil's advocate, the tentacle wall IS super suspiciously placed (the shape of the room implies it's going somewhere), so at least it's not also super esoteric. If you DO bypass it, you are now the proud winner of the "discover the drow" award! Woah, elves but they're ontologically evil??????????????????????????????????? Truly novel! Eclavdra, head of the drow here, hangs out doing nothing in particular, and you may unceremoniously execute her if you want to bring her storyline to an unceremonious end.

The frost giants are here from last module, if they survived. They really want you to kill these kings!

No really why did they used to draw trolls like that

This adventure just won't end. There's a surprising amount to say about this module given that it's only 22 pages of monster murder and motherfucker traps. Anyway, welcome to level 3!

There are fake dragons here to troll you into getting excited for loot

The fire giants also have a panic room? Every giant has a panic room. Why are panic rooms so normal in the G series?

A SECOND fake dragon that is actually a gorgon, which is almost funny

Finally, a REAL red dragon, which is frankly cruelty to fool me three times

After many, many drow are fought, you eventually run into a magic-fighter drow noble who has a wand of "viscid globs", which despite the suggestive name, is actually a superglue gun? You can literally rip yourself apart trying to separate yourself from a glued object. It's a really, really bizarre item. And it has a LOT of charges -- 79.

Mercifully, finally, something that could be potentially interesting: Eclavdra's rival is hanging out in the basement and can be sweetalked into helping the party screw over Eclavdra, which. FINALLY. However, if you displease her, it's demon time.

For reasons I cannot fathom, there are mind flayers here observing the drow, and the drow are not super bothered by that.

And that's basically it! at the very end they find a tube with a map and a wish leading to the D series, and a quick explainer on the then-new Drow. Well, not that quick, it's a page and a half, but the conceptualization of the drow is basically unchanged between then and now. Evil elves, forced underground, adapted to living there, dark skin, magic spidersilk clothes and adamantine weapons, sunlight sensitivity, drow spell list.

On the whole, G3 is, an adventure. While yes the Drow twist is kind of neat (but not special, since Drow are functionally Melniboneans and Elric was already decades old at this point), mostly this module lacks the fun of G1 and substitutes lots of murder traps for any genuine creativity with the scenario. On the whole, I consider it…crowd pleasingly boring? Your treasure goblins will love it for how much nice stuff they can find, if they survive.

We will end today with the back cover, which features some hippogriff mounts. People just don't give parties flying mounts anymore, it's honestly strange the tradition died. See you in the D series later. And if you're waiting for more obscure modules…I can only promise one in 1978.

[danni-k]

Venting

“My brother is an asshole!” He said throwing back another shot. As usual Rindou was complaining about his brother being a dick. It started with him not being able to play his new mix and now he’s just a horrible person.

“I know you’ve said that already,” you reply rolling your eyes. You’ve become a sounding board for them when they don’t want to talk to each other. At times it funny hearing them belittle the other. Knowing that if anyone else said the same thing they’d be good as dead.

“No you don’t understand. He’s disgusting, he will make the biggest mess and then leave it for me to clean pulling rank.” They had just gotten back from a mission and he was pissed that he did all the heavy lifting while Ran got to be “charming and effervescent” with the targets girlfriend. He didn’t even let him take the lead in the interrogation stating that he was older so he’s the leader.

“Isn’t that what older siblings do?” You ask sipping on your own drink before you turn around on the barstool facing the empty club. They were testing the lights for tonight so the dance floor and cages pulsed their own rhythms while different colors changed above.

“It sucks.” He stated as he refilled both of your glasses.

“I wouldn’t know I was raised like an only child,” you replied nonchalantly.

“Spoiled brat.”

Raising your glass as a toast to him you said, “Only by you.”

“Why are you still here?” The question caused you to pause mid drink. After a beat you stated, “Because my bestie needed me.” Laying his head on the cool surface he said,“As many times as I’ve complained about him you’ve never stayed this long why now?” Turning towards him you asked, “Would you believe me if it was because I didn’t want to go home?”

“No,” ever since he’s known you, you’d prefer to be at home doing nothing and now here it is a perfectly good rainy day and you’re here with him and not at home reading. Laughing you retorted, “Damn you’re right. My boyfriend is late, he got caught up at work and the time got away from him.” Burying his head under his arms his voice was muffled when he said, “Take the train.” Turning back to the stage you bitterly replied, “He doesn’t like when I do that. He’s weirded out by people staring at me. Thinks someone will kidnap me and sell me.”

“They’ll bring you back. Your upkeep cost too much.” He sniffed as he went back to drinking.

“That’s what I said!” Leaning on his elbow he said, “He’s right though. Especially if he keeps this up someone will take you away.” There were many nights that drunk Ran talked about wanting to ruin her for everyone.

“Someone like who? You?” Yes smiling he said, “Maybe, Ran will try, he has a crush on you.”

“What about you? Do you also have a crush on me?”

Finishing the rest of his drink he slammed the crystal on the bar, grabbed you, pulling you in, and kissed you stating, “Nah. Your boyfriend’s here.” Grabbing his coat he walked away leaving you dumbfounded.

@bubble4u @cottacyber @summerxxplosion

[fadingstarlightcomic]

also i never posted his ref by justifying that he wasnt a major enough character, because he doesnt appear much, but he is like. pretty major in the story. but hes bad. hes like. thistleclaw/hawkfrost type. hes one of my favorite characters because i love to hate him but just, for people to be aware.

hes a part of a colony called the storm and is like, one of the deputies, and he really really really wants to be leader, because he thinks he would be good at it, but he wouldnt be. he would suck. hes very petty and emotionally driven and everyone keeps him around because hes good at his job but thats it. he has this charade of being super Nice and Cool and a lot of people swoon over him but the few cats that see through it hate his guts because hes a selfish manipulative asshole. he himself is woefully unaware of this though. he thinks hes perfect and a great guy and is So heartbroken and sad because everyone is out to get him :(

also an objectively funny fact is that he lets himself get taken by twolegs so theyll give him a bath and then he escapes which is why he has like, super soft fur and he smells like fruits and flowers and stuff

[sayakxmi]

[Magi rewatch] Episode 7: His Name Is Sinbad [Part 3]

Is that your man, half of the Magi fandom?

A small change, in the manga Sinbad was more "consider several options & pick one", here he's just "this is how I see it & I'm gonna stick to it".

Also, gdi, I love these backgrounds.

Aladdin's doubting if they're doing the right thing far more than in the manga. Like, I think in the manga he just... didn't. He was kinda more interested in getting it done & finding Alibaba.

And, tbh, that kinda makes sense? He crossed the desert, he's kinda used to bandits being dangerous and all that.

No, fr, he sounds like he doesn't want to do it, but will do anything to see Alibaba again.

I love him.

Also, I've really said my 3 fav characters were Alibaba, Ja'far & Kouen, and now I'm like I'VE ABANDONED MY BOY. There is another. Sphintus my beloved. Get ready, bc I will spam him in Magnostadt Arc so hard.

"Sinbad might look suspicious" LMAO

The way he quickly moves to hide behind him. 10/10

Really love the music in this entire scene.

This one sounds a bit like the slowed down Enfin Apparu.

In the manga Sinbad just tells them to take what they need, just not to kill anybody. Here he's more encouraging. Not to kill, but, like, in general. The manga was more like giving permission, and here he's telling them "you should take action if you believe what they're doing to be unfair". Which, y'know, is kinda stupid when I think about it. Anime!Sinbad is fucking lucky, because this action could have lead to a political mess, like, bro could've just said that their king sucks & they should fight him. Not a good move, Anime King Sinbad!

Like, I know Sinbad will end up involving himself in internal affairs of Balbadd, but the anime makes it look pretty bad because of this scene. Supporting an existing rebellion is one thing, but encouraging to rebel is a different one.

Also, here Morgiana & Aladdin are searching for Ja'far, cuz they think Sinbad might've been attacked. In the manga it's Morgiana who hears something & informs Aladdin.

There's another thing about Morgiana & her being sidelined in the future - she's rarely singled out, especially later on. But the anime does that already. On the one hand, it's cool to see Morgiana & Aladdin be a team, but on the other, Morgiana oftentimes is viewed as a part of a group, by Alibaba specifically. If he ever thinks about her in the first place. Aladdin and Morgiana. Hakyruu and Morgiana. It's hardly ever just Morgiana.

I've told you! No Aladdin seeing Alibaba, just Morgiana noticing something wrong & informing him, then taking him away from the danger.

Beautiful.

Looks fun.

Ok, this is something I like. The manga basically infodumps about these swords, but here, it comes up in an actual conversation. "Your red fogblade of illusion horrifying as always, Zainab. / Shut up, and use your yellow fogblade of corrosion, Hassan."

Stunning.

Skillz.

Valse Hot playing as they appear.

Morgiana wrecking shit. Neat.

Ok, it's sth I don't think I've commented on the manga read, but Cassim going ??? it's a girl?? Is a mix of "kind of funny", and a nice characterization moment. Both in the anime & manga he looks surprised and kind of guilty. He might be an asshole, but he wouldn't hit a girl. Makes sense, given his backstory.

Also, I'm pretty sure Morgiana's Mariam's age if she, you know, were alive.

Also, that Alibaba with his stupid haor & one eye visible. As if there were any doubts who he was. Well, I get WHY, but in the manga he actually hid his face properly.

Ah, here Cassim just keeps going, in the manga it's Zainab who basically tells him "doesn't matter, she's the enemy!"

Also, another thing I haven't commented on in the manga - Cassim very early shows that he is the real leader. He's the one to take command in this mess, while Alibaba just stands back & watches.

Determination monolog. His priority is Alibaba, he needs to find him, and he needs to deal with these guys to do this.

(insert Saya's short scream here)

Staring.

Realization.

I love how quiet it gets, btw.

-gasp- IT'S HIM!

[everythingfromdust]

What Homestuck is About

I don’t remember writing this, I never finished writing this, and I just found it in my drafts. If you asked me today to come up with what homestuck is about I would not be able to go into this level of detail at all. here you go.

the post;

As told by someone who hasn’t read Homestuck.

Before I begin, lets go over my Homestuck experience. At some point in like 2010 probably people got obsessed with zodiac symbols for some reason, and also candy corn horns. I saw them around and they did not affect me in any way. A few years ago I was commissioned to draw Homestuck fanart, I was linked a video of nonsense about some dude who controlled planets with his veins maybe. This was for inspiration for the drawing. I drew fanart, they liked it. After that happened I found out that I had been drawing other Homestuck fanart by commission, about a green planet or something, this was a surprise to me. I found this strange, told my friend who liked Homestuck and he told me to read it. I read the first few pages and got bored, I am sorry to your fandom, it just wasn’t my thing. What was my thing, was reading random-ass theories about Homestuck and looking at fanart as it came on my dashboard.

Now, with that in mind, here is what Homestuck is about...

Homestuck is a webcomic about 4 teenagers, Dave, Rose, Karkat (Online handle?) and Egbert. Egbert and Rose are the same age, they are friends by convenience but don’t have a lot in common. Dave is Egbert’s cool older brother who is also an asshole sometimes but only to hide his fragile ego. Karkat is a loner type who is sarcastic. Rose has a crush on Karkat but they have never met in person. Rose is also very sarcastic, but hers is more mean spirited while Karkat is just defensive with a kind heart. 

Karkat is way more into videogames than the rest of them, and ends up being the ‘leader’ of the group, ironically as most of her motivation is to be alone. However, Rose likes her, so she follows Karkat’s lead with regards to what games they play online, Egbert follows Rose because he doesn’t have other friends, Dave has to keep an eye on his little brother so follows them on their adventures reluctantly (but slowly learns to be part of the group). The first story arc establishes the characters and the world. The viewer interacts with these characters through the occasional videogame interface but mostly a webcomic format. The characters are very meta and self aware which is funny without getting into too much action before...

Suprise plot twist Karkat realizes they have been playing a game copy of their own lives within a webcomic/web-game thing. We find out later that she suspected this all along and only wanted to be alone because she thought everyone else was a simulation. 

Almost immediately Dave thinks that this plot twist is stupid, and the meta commentary on Homestuck itself reaches new sarcastic heights. The fandom takes this idea and runs with it, causing many fans to insist that Homestuck sucks. 

When they break into ‘reality’ Karkat is shocked to find that the other three have come as well. Thus begins her overarching subplot of learning to trust others and believing she can fall in love with Rose. Karkat and Rose question still if this reality is really the real one. Spoiler: It isn’t. While they try to discover the why and how of their situation Egbert is busy altering the code of the game to give himself insane powers and become ‘god tier.’ Dave is doing stuff to, but I think it’s mostly just fucking off and making jokes. 

There are monsters called trolls with candy-corn-horns at some point, but I’m lead to believe that they aren’t actually a big part of the story even though they are widely loved by fans. They probably happen early on in the story which is why they are fairly iconic for the series. The trolls are sentient too, each represents a sign of the zodiac, and each main character has a troll that is ‘them’ in an alternate game reality. So there are 4 trolls that represent the main characters, and this is symbolic somehow especially when you think about the 8 trolls who have no ‘main character’ components. 

Insane Clown Posse is involved somehow but I don’t understand if they are plot relevant or just a joke that the comic creator likes to fall back on. 

So anyway, eventually all the characters go god tier, they have to figure out their own personal way to get there and I bet it is really plot heavy and long. They can control the base code of the game, and they all start fighting with one another. 

The plot gets really huge in scope, as they find that their simulated reality 

[videobobbo]

I’m still bummed things didn’t work out

but I’m glad I took action. It was a year ago, roughly now, that the seed of an idea was in my head - just start a new raid team, it’ll work. It did! It has! It has been good, even.

But I’m still perpetually annoyed that things didn’t work, and I still carry stress and tension from that blowout with me. I hate that I do. I shouldn’t. If anything, the last day made it crystal clear that I was right, that I had made the right call, and in spite of the caterwauling and whining otherwise, I was right and the group we left behind sucked ass. They’ve lost a ton of people tier to tier, curtailed their ambitions, and the people I knew would be problems were and have been problems. Maybe they don’t think that, but I can see the writing on the walls - you cannot keep hemorrhaging people and think that’s reasonable. 

I’m perpetually bummed because the people I most liked, most wanted outside of the ones I made offers to were also the ones who got all saucy with me on that last day, which reinforced the vibe that I shouldn’t make them offers, but it was disappointing. Like, outside of whatever weird defense you have for the bad and awful assholes that were the core of the problem, you two were cool - or at least I thought so.

But I’m getting too old to be mad at videogames anymore, too old to feel this weird sense of irritation from logging on and playing a game, too old to stay in a social structure that I personally helped build for the sake of comfort, and too old to want to maintain ownership over a thing I helped build just for the sake of it. It has given me a petty joy to watch you all whittle down your prospects, going from “we’re going to do Mythic prog for sure” to “eh, maybe” to “not that far ahead even in Heroic” because it justifies my line of thought more and more. Some of you are very good at WoW, very good at playing the game individually, but so many of those types do not function in a team, do not lift up the others around them, and end up being burdens for it. It cracks me up that Dan said no to doing normal and he just got to do that, that Charlie complains constantly about all of you on stream and you just allow it, that Tim sucks ass as a leader who only knows to chew others out even when he sucks at his chosen role, that Mike isn’t well-liked, and that after Sam made the biggest fuss to push me out, he hasn’t even played in over two months. 

I remember when we took your dumbasses on in BfA, through that stupid-ass merger - and how it was clear that the underlying tension is that you pissed off people enough as a core group to push out everyone, to the point of not surviving the expansion. You wouldn’t just *say* that of course, but it was pretty clear that a bad expansion and dealing with your core was a fate bad enough for people to bail. I think it was clear that the group cohesion our core group offered brought people in and kept them around when so many of them had bailed under similar straits in BfA, and it does chap my hide ever so slightly that a decision I helped to make helped your toxic assholes thrive and keep playing when they should have been flat on their asses due to their own behavior.

But I take solace in the fact that the long-tail resolution of all of this is a stronger environment for the folks I like that came with me, and that you all are slowly winding around to diminishing your own situation yet again. There will be no merger to save you, at least not Tim, Dan, Sam, Amy, Mike, Matt, Charlie (especially not him, I do hate him and he can go fuck all the way off), at least two-three of your Jo(h)ns, and anyone who falls into that camp. Everyone else, of course, I would welcome in. Our environment is actually quite welcoming, and new people have come in and enjoyed playing with us. Hell, even some of your own that I rather like have come in and played with us and had a good time.

I mean, maybe you still think I was wrong, and whatever - if you do, that’s fine. You’ve cut your raid in half in less than half an expansion already and lost multiple players per tier. Think whatever you want, I know I had a good read on it and the facts show it, unless you want to pretend that losing 12-13 people in less than a year is just a normal raid turnover to have? I certainly don’t think so, especially not for a middling group of mid-Heroic players who think they’re Mythic caliber. The ones who are already left, and one of them even professes that leaving you all was the best decision he made (his words, not mine!). Oof.

Okay, so I am still mad about games sometimes, but I guess this is less mad and more petty? I’m perfectly content with this level of petty, especially because I’m right in my read. Get wrecked, assholes, and know that no one will be coming to save your gameplay with a merger this time. Plenty of good folks will be getting a lifeboat, but if you thought a Discord shouting match was a good call in November 2022, well, I hate to tell you this, but you will sink like the boat and submersible named Titanic. Actually, I don’t hate to tell you that. I am delighted to.

[zevranunderstander]

im not saying this is a given and that every video game needs to do this to be “good”, but i recently rewatched a bunch of hbomberguy videos and in his fallout new vegas essay he talks about the moment with caesar’s legion where you argue about actual hegelian dialectics w caesar and he also compares this moment to disco elysium in his essay and i just have to say that this is such a cool way to engage players into thinking about pretty deep philosophical and ideological questions without making it all that clear that you are *discussing philosophy* and the apporach is so unique to video games.

like, you create a character/faction who clearly is not the good guy in the story but they give you the chance to “debate” them in a sense - the way caesar talks about his motives and ideology forces you to think for yourself. like, this is *not* a moment where you are supposed to see that “oh, maybe this faction isn’t as bad as i thought they were - what a surprising twist! they are equally moral as the NCR!”, like if that is your takeaway from the moment you are actually super fucking gullible, because, yeah, ceasar is quoting smart men he read a book about and yeah, he might actually think that his approach is correct but you need to apply your own knowledge of morality to the situation.

like if you see these people torturing and killing civilians and latching people to crosses and calling everyone that isn’t like them a “degenerate”, then maybe the ideology of their leader doesn’t matter. also, you have to think about if he is just misusing said ideology to *sound* like that is what he is doing, to *sound* morally right so that people join him, despite knowing it’s bullshit. like, the game doesn’t force you to come to the correct conclusion, you have to actually think about if what he says is actually meaningful and correct and the game does not chew up the right answer for you. like you can end this game working for the actual fascists because they have a compelling leader figure and maybe joining the faction makes you see it for what it is. like, if you aren’t smart enough to realize that ceasar’s legion aren’t the good guys, you have to play along with them until you yourself go “wait, are we the bad guys?”.

disco elysium also does that a lot, like it never just *tells* you if a person is morally correct in what they are saying or if they might try to decieve you by sounding big and impressive to hide their very bigoted agenda. you have to actually think for yourself a lot and realize, that even people who might have *some* correct opinions, do not have all of the correct opinions. that is why i loved that they made kim, who is probably the most beloved character in the game and someone you often look at as a moral compass, a centrist. like. he isn’t a confrontational person, or anyone who is looking to change the status quo and a lot of his morals and ideals he has otherwise don’t mean all that much if he tries to keep his head down all the time. like, you could actually look at kim in the game and say “he usually has opinions i agree with, he probably is right about that”, but to the game kim being a centrist is actually more of a moral failing and a character flaw than just a reasonably held belief.

while i have some beef with the explaination as to why the deserter *did what he did* and there is like, a billion more examples of three-dimensional characters in the game, i loved that the deserter - the only *actual* communist you meet in the game - is a massive asshole, who is incredibly sexist and racist and just a complete cunt, not so that you go “wow, so communism sucks too :/”, but to see his failings and also the failings of communism to be something you need to be mindful of when calling yourself a communist, that you still have to be a good person and also have an actual community. like this guy doesn’t exist so that you go “communism bad, actually”, but that you can see that he isn’t wrong about everything, but he still *is* wrong about things.

like, i love that, i love the way these games tell you “if you take people to be either 100% correct or 100% incorrect all of the time, you will never learn to actually find your own standpoints on topics but always just copy other people’s morality. if you don’t learn to think about your own ideology, you will copy other people’s flaws and harmful ideologies without realizing it and you will have to learn the hard way that you are wrong”.

and a lot of games that try to discuss political ideology or societal issues (cloudpunk comes to my mind rn, but they are not the only ones doing that) are so scared of “confusing” players by having bad people have good traits and good people have bad traits or have a person with a bit of a misguided ideology or have people try to convince you that their bigoted ideology is actually good, because they are scared that people will think they endorse bad ideologies or advertise fascism. and bc of that they make people really one-dimensional and always point out, who is right and who is wrong and people basically lay out their bad intentions for you, so that you don’t actually confuse them to be a good person and i think we should force players to actually use their brain sometimes

[cardansriddle]

Eric Coulter- Impatient

Summary: You and Eric have something going on between you that is left unlabeled, all because of his commitment issues. This leads to some arguments and an angry make out session. Idk the story is better than the summary.

A/N: I don’t know if people still are into Divergent, so if you are, here’s an Eric one shot for you because he is underrated and let’s admit, so much hotter than Four. 

Warnings: Making out? angst, choking.

Somehow Jay had managed to drag me into a bar full of sweaty dancing bodies, convinced me to wear a short black dress that hugged my body just at the right places and apparently planned on me getting batshit drunk, considering the amount of shots he was ordering. "Can we get twelve tequila shots?" He asked the bartender cheekily, who nodded and started preparing our drinks.

"Jay, I'm gonna be on the floor after those shots," I groaned. I had no shame in hiding the fact that I was a lightweight, everyone has seen it. I quickly scanned the room with my eyes in hopes of seeing a certain leader and once I could not locate him, I turned around and watched as the bartender put our drinks in front of us on the table. Without waiting for Jay, I licked the salt of the brim of the glass before downing the shot and biting into the lemon.

"Then darling, you better hope it's clean." He smirked without a care in the world.

I groaned and I could already feel the buzz of alcohol hitting my head.

"Hey, you're Bella right?" Someone tapped on my right shoulder. I twisted my body so I was facing the unfamiliar face. I nodded in order to confirm his question and he smiled before holding out his hand.

"I'm Zack." He introduced himself and I shook his hand politely. He then leaned in really close, invading my personal space as he whispered with a low voice. "I have seen you fight. Really impressive moves you've got there."

With furrowed eyebrows, I muttered out a 'thanks' watching as he chuckled before he leaned in once again as if I missed his point. "Maybe you'll show me more of those moves?"

Before I could reply and decline his obvious offer, I felt a presence at my back. "Leave." A familiar deep voice commanded from behind me, and I resisted the urge to smile widely at the sound of it. Despite not admitting it, I've been craving to see Eric again, he was a wicked potion that seeped into every pore and cell of my being, something so potent that even the tiniest drop left me aching for him.

Zayn or Zack, I forgot what his name was fumbled around before he left hurriedly, not in the mood to face the wrath of Eric Coulter. No one was that brave. I waited till he came to stand in front of me, eyes holding fury as he looked down at me.

"Hi, Eric." I greeted him nonchalantly, putting on a smile that I was sure looked more like a grimace.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He asked, body tense as he stepped closer to me.

"Well, I'm not an initiate anymore, I can go to clubs," I replied with a shrug, watching as his anger grew. His fists clenched as he put one of his hands on the bar and the other on the back of the stool I was sitting in, trapping me there.

"No. You can't. Have you seen how all the men are looking at you in that little black dress?" Eric growled, his breath fanning my face as he spoke. His face was way too close to mine, yet I did not mind. Instead, I craved it, I needed the space between us to simply disappear.

However, I was a stubborn woman, so instead, I put my hands on his chest and roughly pushed him away, and stood up. His eyes travelled over me unashamedly, from head to toe before they settled on my eyes again.

"Fuck's sake, Eric!" I exclaimed. "Can't go to a club, can't wear a dress, can't do this, can't do that. Are you my dad?!"

"Keep this act up and I'll fucking spank you like I am."

My whole body stilled as I felt a familiar throb in my lower abdomen at his words. His chest was suddenly too close to mine, and my breasts grazed his chest with every heavy inhale that I took.

"Fuck you, you're a fucking asshole." I spit out.

"Watch your tongue, Bella." He hissed, leaning towards me as if to intimidate me.

"I'm sorry am I spitting venom again? Hopefully, it doesn't stain that pretty blonde hair of yours." I said before stomping away and out of the club. My partying mood was ruined, and despite the tequila shots that I took, I felt myself sobering up after my interaction with Eric. He made my blood boil, yet my heart still yearned for him.

I might not have tried any drugs, but there was no doubt in my mind that Eric was the closest I've ever come to an addictive substance.

I've gotten whiplash from his hot and cold behaviour. There were times I would not see or hear from him for days, then the next minute he was turning up at wherever I was, acting like I was his property.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my arm and spun me around. The unexpected action took me off guard, causing me to slam against a hard chest that I already knew belonged to Eric. We stood in a deserted corridor, panting as our eyes locked.

"Don't you dare ever walk away from me." He hissed. He clenched his jaw, and I knew he was furious.

"Then stop treating me like I don't fucking exist! I don't know whatever issues you have, but if you want me, then you better overcome them or at least let me help you! But do not treat me as if you own me when you do not even look at me half of the time! I am not your property, Coulter." I growled, feeling my anger rise as seconds passed. My words must've triggered something in him, as he slammed me against the nearest wall while his hand grabbed my throat, choking me.

He had me pinned against the wall, his eyes were dark with rage as he focused on strangling me. I knew my expression was deadly, I was looking right into his eyes and I was not scared at all. He was holding my neck so tight that I could already feel bruises forming there, yet I did not let my numb expression falter for a second, despite the pain. Any other person would be struggling to fight him off by now, or at least try to.

Instead, I decided to surprise him by sliding up my hands up his arm, until they rested on top of his hands around my neck. I smiled before whispering my next word.

"Harder."

I knew I caught him off guard since I felt his hands loosen around my neck as his eyes widened, so I used his moment of distraction to my advantage, quickly sliding my leg around the back of his knee before bringing him down on the ground, straddling him and pinning his hands down. I knew if he wanted, he could easily overpower me and get free of my hold. He was no doubt stronger than me, yet there was something very intimate about our position. It was as if he was submitting to me by staying underneath me, his hands pinned above his head as he looked at me with a look I could not decipher.

He then closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. "You're mine."

"Not if you are not mine," I replied, watching the conflict in his eyes as he continued staring at me with that same goddamn look. "it can't be one-sided. If I am yours then you are mine."

"You're a weakness. My weakness." His eyes flickered to my lips before meeting my gaze. "And I can't have any weak spots."

"Then you have to let me go." My heart clenched painfully at the notion of never being with him. He inhaled deeply at my words but shook his head.

"Shut the fuck up." He said and it seemed as if something clicked in his brain, his eyes cleared as he freed his hands from my hold before bringing them to my face. his lips crushed against mine, cool and dripping with bitterness-- a flavour I had missed. It was just as I remembered it, still raw and passionate and full of greed. I kissed him back immediately, my body treating him like a drug that I have been craving yet could never get enough of. His hand gripped my thigh harshly, our lips moulding together as we got lost in each other.

I finally mustered up enough strength to pull away from the kiss, ignoring the way my body begged for me to kiss him again. "Make up your damn mind Eric. I'm getting impatient." I told him with heavy breaths, pulling away from him completely and standing up. I looked at him one last time, knowing my eyes held pain and agony at being separated from him after reuniting with him, and I walked away, hoping he would stand up and chase after me, tell me that he was mine as long as I was his, yet he did not, and I did not even bother wiping the tears that streamed down my face as I walked away from him, my heart hurting with every step that I took.

[tossawary]

I need to know more about “SVSSS - Baby Brother Liu Qingge” bc I love tiny and very deadly baby LQG

I have a 3k-ish Shang Qinghua POV that was supposed to be the introduction to this fic concept! So... ah... baby Liu Qingge does not appear in this, but you can see the setup for how an 8yo-ish Liu Qingge was supposed to be introduced. My hope is that this will someday become a "Shang Qinghua and Shen Jiu go on a mission with Baby Brother Liu Qingge" one shot.

-cut-

Shang Qinghua didn't really have the words to describe what it was like having Proud Immortal Demon Way's characters finally come into his second life.

He didn't have the words to describe a lot of his transmigration experience, honestly! His words had described a lot of this world already, haha, hadn't they? Sometimes a person just had to put up with it and keep going.

And then excuse himself later to go scream into a pillow! Many times!

At first, life was just him in a body that didn't fit and strange memories that slipped between his fingers like sand. His memories of a past life had settled eventually, the System finally came fully online, and his relationship with his second family was fully fucked forever. That was fine, though! That was fine! With some unsolicited prodding from his System, he left to go seek his fortune soon enough and he never had to talk to his character's birth parents or siblings again.

But Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had never said much of anything about Shang Qinghua’s family or home village, besides saying that the man had dreamed of more than his mediocre origins, so everything had been unfamiliar and original and real. Getting to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, which he had described in great detail, was a real headfuck. There were no words for the experience of recognizing things that he’d written in another life.

He saw the glistening rainbow bridge and the intimidating sect entrance and the majestic meeting hall on Qiong Ding, and he nearly screamed. He definitely squawked. His vision got really fuzzy for a minute there and he had to sit down on the ground before he fell over. What the fuck?! What the fuck?! He’d made a world! The System had really made a world out of his web-novel! He was really stuck in Proud Immortal Demon Way!

There were upsides and downsides to joining Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Downsides included: the hard training, the harder workload, the dangerous missions, the disrespect towards An Ding Peak, and being surrounded by arrogant and foolish teenagers looking to look down on someone. It was really something else to look some of them in the eye and think, "Bro, I don’t know your name, but you kind of owe your existence to me. Could you stop being such a fucking asshole about leaving your chores for me to do?! Respect your father!"

Upsides included: actually becoming a cultivator (pretty cool, even though the work of cultivation sucked more often than not), better living accommodations and food, and actually getting to see some of the cooler places, plants, monsters, and magic that were a part of his world. Sure, carting a monster corpse brought in by Bai Zhan Peak to Xi Jiao Peak for butchering was smelly and heavy and altogether miserable, but seeing an impossible animal was still kind of incredible. If this unwilling Shang Qinghua could stop being pushed around and stepped on long enough to appreciate the upsides, he’d really appreciate it!

It was interesting and infuriating to log the differences between what he’d imagined, what he’d written, and what the System had created. What sort of author described every single object in every single room? Who had time for that? Who wanted to read that? The System had filled in all the living details of An Ding Peak - the Leisure Houses, the training grounds, the storehouses, the warehouses, the kitchens, the lesson halls, the leisure gardens, the farming fields, the livestock fields, the stables, the cart lot, the water supply, the sewage systems, and so on - so that people could actually live here. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky as an author had done many things worthy of complaint and criticism, but wasting his readers’ time with sewage systems was not one of them!

The System had also filled in all the little details and decorations - the paintings on the walls of sect history, the detailing on the rooftops supposedly offering protections from dream demons, the chipped and faded paint of old storehouses that disciples would be tasked with replacing, the statues in the fields to scare off scavengers, the carvings on the doors meant to reduce resentful energy, the childish etchings of bored students the surface of the lesson hall desks, the old bench where the An Ding Peak Lord liked to sit and eat flatcakes - so that it really seemed like people had built this place and maintained it and added to it for generations.

Shang Qinghua had his quibbles here and there. Sometimes the System had made choices that he objected to! He would have done it differently if it had asked him, the author, to contribute. He really felt as though the System should have asked him to clarify the plot holes and the gaps in detail, instead of choosing precedence randomly or building off random implications taken way too literally.

Sometimes he found out that the System had built things out of throwaway lines that Shang Qinghua himself had completely forgotten about. It turned out that Ku Xing Peak made a lot of purification tools and containment vessels because Airplane had offhandedly mentioned that this was their specialty, and now Shang Qinghua had to cart around delicate ceramics to be sold to city merchants or other cultivation sects. He never would have dared to write that if he’d known that it would one day in another life be his job to do things like take inventory and chase down signatures for successful deliveries.

Places, items, and creatures were one thing, but logging the differences between the people he met and the characters he’d created was something else. At first it was okay, because he was surrounded by nameless An Ding Peak nobodies - his fellow disciples, their teachers, the hardworking managers and merchants, even the peak lord - none of them had ever mattered in Proud Immortal Demon Way. If Airplane had been the one to name any of them, he didn’t recognize the names or remember them.

Then he met Yue Qingyuan.

Wow, it was a worse headfuck than first arriving at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, when Shang Qinghua finally realized that this was the young version of one of his actual characters. It took him a minute. As a lowly outer disciple, Shang Qinghua hadn’t received “Qinghua” as a name yet (his name was Houhua, not that anyone ever used it) and the future Yue Qingyuan was still called Yue Qi.

Shang Qinghua was fourteen at the time. Yue Qingyuan must have been around the same age, so he didn’t strike the tall and handsome figure of the sect leader Airplane had described. The boy was broad, but actually a little short. He had freckles. He had acne.

But he also had a warm smile that seemed to go all the way to his eyes when he offered to give Shang Qinghua directions to the right office on Qiong Ding. He had a steady hand when he helped Shang Qinghua up, after the An Ding disciple had suddenly tripped over nothing upon being introduced. Yue Qingyuan - Yue Qi - walked him to the right office and did his best to make small talk, friendly and kind even though Shang Qinghua was having difficulty stringing more than a few words together in his shock.

Even then, it was obvious that the boy was developing the calm surety and the social charm that would make him a greatly admired sect leader someday! It was all Shang Qinghua could do not to blurt out: “Holy shit, you’re REAL?!” Which would be closely followed by: “Hey, is Shen Qingqiu really real too?!” And then maybe closely followed by: “FUCK!!!”

As the years went by, Shang Qinghua met more of Proud Immortal Demon Way’s characters, and it was weird every time. None of them were exactly like he was expecting. He kept expecting… well… he kept expecting them to look like the fanart, like flawless character models, more or less. Instead, he kept getting… people.

Wei Qingwei, head disciple of the sword-focused Wan Jian Peak, was also shorter than he was expecting, kind of stout, with a wide face and a wider smile. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had apparently had the man crack a few jokes upon his rare appearances in the web-novel, usually during tense situations, as he was reminded by the System upon thinking to himself: “Why is this guy LIKE THIS?!” So, because of just a few lines, the real Wei Qingwei had a relentless sense of humor and loved telling jokes.

Upon their first meeting, when Shang Qinghua was fifteen and had been sent over to help renovate some Wan Jian dormitories, fifteen-year-old Wei Qingwei had pretended to fumble a sword and, using a packet of dye and a sleight of hand, made it look like he’d accidentally cut off his own hand at the wrist. Of course Shang Qinghua had screamed and panicked! Anyone would panic! But Wei Qingwei had laughed at him and said, “Got you! Shang-Shidi, the sword wasn’t even unsheathed!” Asshole!

Qi Qingqi, the head disciple of Xian Shu Peak, was much taller than he was expecting. Apparently Airplane had once described a group of some of the peak lords by saying something like: “Each one of them was like a giant to young Luo Binghe.” That group had included Qi Qingqi. The System apparently had taken that to mean that Qi Qingqi was of a height with the likes of Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu. Shang Qinghua discovered this adaptational choice when he was almost sixteen, when this giraffe-like girl came to An Ding Peak to complain about an order someone along the pipeline had dropped completely, and he accidentally found himself (still waiting on a really good growth spurt) eye-level with Qi Qingqi’s chest.

Airplane had apparently once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that Qian Cao Peak Lord Mu Qingfang appeared a little older than his colleagues, by which he’d probably meant that the man was just tired or something, but this head disciple Mu Qingfang appeared to have ten years on all the other head disciples. Which was good! Shang Qinghua approved of their future head healer not being a teenager and having more training!

On the bad side of things, Airplane had also once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that the Zui Xian Peak Lord Zhang Qingyan liked his drink too much. This was the peak specializing in alcohol, so it had seemed to make sense! It was supposed to be funny, if anything! Well, at sixteen, Shang Qinghua found out that the System had focused too much on the “too much” part of that statement and now the head disciple of Zui Xian Peak was pretty clearly a budding alcoholic. (Sometimes a cultivator’s constitution and ability to “cure” themselves just… made a person drink more. A lot more.) Which was… not good.

At seventeen, Shang Qinghua met Mobei-Jun.

He didn’t know where to get started with Mobei-Jun.

Somehow he’d… forgotten that Mobei-Jun had been originally based on Airplane’s idea of “the perfect man” and not the super pretty, muscular but slim-waisted protagonist type? The real Mobei-Jun was… tall… and big… and thick. Mobei-Jun’s intimidating features were… more striking than pretty. The first time Shang Qinghua had come back to his Leisure House and found this spoiled brat of an ice demon napping shirtless on his bed, and gotten an eyeful of all that heavy muscle and chest hair, he’d nearly knocked himself out on the doorframe trying to turn away before he had a heart attack.

Mobei-Jun really was going to be the death of him, holy shit.

Especially because this ice demon really was a spoiled brat! Airplane had described this character as being arrogant and apathetic, so now Shang Qinghua had to deal with a Mobei-Jun who took long baths and then carelessly dripped water all over the floor and all over fresh sheets! Who ate all of Shang Qinghua’s cooking and ungratefully only demanded more food, sprawled over furniture not really fit for someone of his size, and then watched Shang Qinghua like a fat tiger! Ahhh, this demon really was lucky he was handsome!

Mobei-Jun was also kind of violent, and mean, which was… well, it sucked.

Back to the sect that Shang Qinghua was now actively betraying, however, as far as he could see, there was still one future peak lord missing.

It wasn’t Shen Qingqiu, who Shang Qinghua had thought would be the last one to show up. Shen Qingqiu had shown up and had been advancing through the ranks of Qing Jing Peak before Shang Qinghua had even met Mobei-Jun, which meant that Yue Qingyuan had finally stopped looking like someone had torn out his soul. (Shang Qinghua had been forced to grit his teeth every time that someone mentioned how privileged that Yue Qingyuan was to have been granted that year of secluded cultivation in the Lingxi Caves at such a young age.)

No, of all the peak lords, it was Liu Qingge who Shang Qinghua had yet to meet.

After meeting Mobei-Jun and becoming an inner disciple, the System had given Shang Qinghua three years to make it to head disciple, probably because the deadline for a new generation of peak lords to ascend was fast approaching. He was working hard to achieve that! Not only did he have to sabotage the current favorite, but he had to make sure all his own training, missions, work, and research were as close to flawless as he could get it! All while keeping an intruding ice demon happy! He wasn’t totally sure that he was going to make it at this rate, even though he’d been here for years.

So it was a little concerning that Liu Qingge hadn't shown up yet. There was so much left to do. A world-state that had yet to be established. Liu Qingge had work to do here!

Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu still had to develop a hatred for each other as disciples that would extend to everyone believing that Shen Qingqiu had murdered Liu Qingge as peak lords, after all. Granted, all Liu Qingge really had to do was beat everyone else on Bai Zhan Peak up to obtain the position, and it wasn’t exactly hard to get Shen Qingqiu to develop a lifelong grudge, but the guy was still cutting it pretty close.

It was possible that Liu Qingge was already on Bai Zhan Peak and making good progress, but that he was just so solitary and focused on searching out the next big battle that Shang Qinghua had just never had the opportunity to meet him. Shang Qinghua did his best to avoid Bai Zhan Peak most of the time, honestly! He was curious about where Liu Qingge was, about what the man looked like, but he didn’t let himself sweat at not seeing the future war god, when he already had so many things to sweat about. The System had taken care of bringing in everyone else, so Shang Qinghua was sure that Liu Qingge would follow sooner or later.

Shang Qinghua’s first sign that something was wrong was that, on the day that Liu Qingge finally announced his existence by beating up everyone on Bai Zhan Peak, everyone was saying things like, “I can’t believe some kid managed to topple all of Bai Zhan like that!”

He… may or may not have ignored this sign.

To be fair to this poor writer-turned-disciple, though, he’d been up all night finishing some paperwork catastrophe the An Ding Peak Lord had thrown at him to fix, as some kind of “test” of his logistics skills. Upon hearing the latest gossip, Shang Qinghua thought, “Oh, finally?” And then his overtired brain collapsed from the effort of thinking two words together in a sentence, and all he could manage from there was to feel the intense need to go to bed at a maximum, static-y volume. No words. No more thinky thoughts. Just the need for speedy sleep.

He stumbled through the rest of his day and then passed out for 18 hours straight. In hindsight, this would have been the time when the gossip was at its hottest. He missed all of it.

When he woke up, everyone was still dealing with the aftermath of what had happened on Bai Zhan Peak, but the conversation had shifted more towards replacing Qian Cao Peak’s depleted supplies and the repairs to Bai Zhan’s training grounds. Liu Qingge was the name on everyone’s lips, still, but everyone knew the basic information now. Now, everyone was just exclaiming over and over again how unbelievably young (and pretty) he was to have bested every other disciple on the sect battle-focused peak. This didn't seem too strange.

The System probably would have based the War God's appearance on his sister, Liu Mingyan, a strong contender for the most beautiful woman in all of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Liu Qingge apparently being a very pretty boy fell neatly into line with all the other character design surprises that Shang Qinghua had gotten smacked with so far.

If Airplane had known that he'd be transmigrating into his novel, maybe there would have been even more handsome men! And everyone would have lived happily ever after and nothing bad would have happened ever, probably, but also there might be more sexy guys too.

-

TBC

[south-park-meta]

How would you describe Stan and Cartmans relationship?

Cartman seems to respect him the most from the group.

Stan and Cartman's relationship is...weird.

Cartman's jealous of Stan and doesn't have the same kind of ammo against Stan that he has against Kyle and Kenny.

As far as jealousy goes: Of the four, Stan is the one the kids turn to as leader most often and Cartman loves power. Stan has a supportive 'conventional' family with two parents, a sister, uncle, grandfather, who he sees all the time. Stan is loved by them, and he loves them. Even WITH saying he outright hates Randy now, I think their relationship could be repairable if they weren't on the farm. Stan is generally good at making and keeping friends; even if he mostly hangs out with his gang, he'll make comments like 'so and so is our friend' or 'she's cool' or 'he's nice'. Cartman is very much not. He's hated by most the class and tries to separate Stan and Kyle frequently to get them to hate each other and like him instead.

As far as ammo goes: There's very little stuff that will really hurt Stan and could make him easier to manipulate. Kyle is Jewish. Kenny is poor. Stan is...Stan. I mean, in newer seasons Stan's depressed, he's cynical, he's pissy, but by and large the things Stan are can't be used against him. Like Cartman will call him a pussy, but like-- 'Okay I care about animals, I'm nice to people, so what?' -- that kind of an attack is on a trait he's grown more comfortable with about himself. Stan might not care at all about Cartman's insults, he might already know the situation sucks and is critical of it so anything Cartman says means jack, or he can mask the way it hurts him and deal with it privately. Compared to most, if not all, other characters, he is very good at not being hurt often by things Cartman says and not giving Cartman a strong reaction when he is hurt.

Not giving Cartman something to work with forces Cartman into the position of mostly being nice to him. If Cartman tears into him about being miserable jackass living alone on the farm with no friends nearby and Stan's response is 'uh yeah, ik. It fucking sucks.' instead of an explosive response like 'Shut the fuck up Cartman! I still have friends!', then there's nowhere to go. Stan wins the argument by shutting it down. So Cartman is less likely to even try engaging it.

This situation is also something Cartman's less prone to make fun of because it's one of the few times Stan's been consistently giving him the time of day without involving Kyle somehow. Cartman's come to his house. They've played games together. Cartman and Stan BOTH leaned into the bullying video because it stroked their egos. Until blowing it to pieces with the Vaccination Special, Cartman was actually getting more frequent friendship moments with both Stan and Kyle.

On Stan's end, I think Stan knows and has known from the start that Cartman's an asshole and not a good friend. Like if he wasn't friends with Kyle who actually deep down wants Cartman to turn things around and be a good person, Stan would have told him to fuck off ages ago. Cartman was just part of the package of Kyle and Kenny, grandfathered in to the group.

Their dynamic's changed a little, but this core thought hasn't. Stan's gotten more and more depressed, and feeling more and more like he's a piece of shit, too. So he and Cartman have been feeding into each other's bad habits more. He's been indulging the smaller ways that Cartman's been an asshole, like spying on people with drones. He didn't actively engage in it, but he didn't shoot it down like Kyle did. Stan let Cartman sing about his vagina in the anti-bullying campaign because Stan also used it as an opportunity to stroke his ego. They probably wrote it together going Yeah we're gonna look so good, dude! Previously it's seemed like Stan hangs out with Cartman, alone, least of all of the four, and when he does it winds up like Beaverton where they do something bad and then he feels bad about it. But in recent seasons instead of doing something with Cartman, having it end up worse than he thought and feeling bad, he's used Cartman's friendship so he can be a bit of an ass. Either he uses/plays into Cartman's behavior to verify his depressive negative internal monologue that he's a bad person, or like in Butterballs, he and Cartman feed off each other to get external validation to prove No! Really, they're actually GOOD people.

Stan didn't engage in anything too terrible that way. When Cartman does worse than 'kind of being a dick' moments, Stan still calls it out. But Stan was still being less caring of other people's feelings and more self-centered. The Vaccination Special was the kick in the pants Stan needed to finally realize it was all too unhealthy to continue.

So on Cartman's side: Basically he wants to be Stan. He wants to be liked, and athletic, and have a family who loves him, and have the natural leadership skills Stan has that makes people follow him. He thinks Stan has what he deserves.

On Stan's side: Basically Stan wants to be anyone BUT Cartman and thinks Cartman's an ass. The friendlier he is with Cartman the more he's either 1. being self-destructive in the same vein as yelling 'Fuck you!' at Kyle-- He's being an asshole to prove to others he's the asshole he thinks he is. Or, 2. because he really DOESN'T want to be seen as an asshole, he's engaging in 'please like me' behavior like the ego-stroking video in Butterballs.

[nethandrake]

Blood In The Water

stevethortony. mcu. rated t. 1.8k words.

based on this fanart i commissioned from​ @justlous-art

also on ao3.

*****

Press conferences, in Clint’s opinion, are one of the worst things he has to experience.

Every time the Avengers has to host one (which is usually almost every fucking week), it’s always the same old reporters throwing accusations, the same old debates being tosses around, the same old headaches and boredom creeping into his mind. They always end with everyone in a shitty mood.

The only upside Clint could see is that he only needs to speak up if a question’s directed his way. Otherwise, it’d be their co-leaders’ job to fend the wolves off.

Their co-leaders who are currently and unfortunately answering another stupid question from the press.

“Yes, Stark Industries will be footing the bill,” Steve says tiredly.

“We always do,” Tony chimes in. “Now, you with the green-striped tie. You’re up.”

The journalist in question straightens, fixing his tie. Clint doesn’t remember seeing him at any of the conferences but he looks awfully familiar.

“He’s from Fox News,” Natasha supplies next to Clint.

It takes everything in Clint to not bash his smash his face against the conference table. “Shit.”

“Shit indeed.”

“It is no secret that Mr Stark is, to put it lightly,” Fox Man begins, his reedy voice making Clint’s skin crawl, “promiscuous—”

“What does this have to do with the giant squid we took down?” Steve interrupts.

“—and have been known to get into relationships with men, women—”

“What is the point of this?” Thor cuts in, his cool demeanor now turned irritated. “We are deviating from the—”

“My question to you, Captain,” Fox Man continues, unperturbed, “is, what are your thoughts regarding Mr Stark and Mr Odinson’s…relationship?”

Tony stills as murmurs begin to fill the room. Pepper immediately whips her tablet out.

It’s not the first time Clint’s heard of rumors of the Avengers dating amongst themselves but it’s never been brought up during their press conferences.

First time for everything, he supposes.

Thor jumps to his feet, slamming his hands on the table. Outside, thunder crackles.

“You dare—”

Steve isn’t doing much better to rein his temper in, leaning forward with a dangerous glint behind his eyes. “I’d be careful with what you say next. Rumors of the Avengers fraternizing isn’t new so—”

“Oh, this isn’t just a rumor,” Fox Man says coolly. He jumps to his feet, holding out his phone. “I happen to have…proof.”

In a flash, Happy strides over, most likely to block the man’s path like the good Head of Security he is. Steve waves him off, beckoning for the device to be handed over to Clint.

On the phone is a picture of Thor and Tony kissing in a dimly lit alleyway. Or at least, men who are supposedly Thor and Tony. It’s hard to tell since the quality’s crap.

Then again, they’re both bathed in a soft blue glow. A soft blue glow that Clint’s come to associate with the arc reactor.

“That isn’t photoshopped,” Fox Man claims. “If you swipe left, you’ll find a video.”

True enough, there is one of Thor pushing Tony against the wall and god, that’s so gross. Who knows what’s on that wall—

Natasha snatches the phone out of Clint’s grasp, giving it a long once-over.

“Thoughts?” Clint murmurs.

“It looks authentic,” she admits.

Well, then. Fuck.

When the phone ends up in Steve’s grasp, Clint swears cracks form on the screen.

“I would like to know if there have been…issues between you and Mr Stark,” Fox Man continues like the oblivious idiot he is. Clint’s ready to reach pluck an arrow from his quiver and pin the asshole to a wall. “You come from a different time, a time where traditional and wholesome American values are valued. Mr Stark isn’t known for possessing such values. And it is widely known that you and Mr Stark did not get along. And with this…alien—”

“I get it,” Steve growls. It’s been a while since Clint’s seen in this furious. He looks ready to pounce, if Tony hasn’t stilled him in place.

Steve’s features meld into something soft, a look that Clint’s privately coined as the ‘Tony Look’. Oddly, it’s the same look he flashes Thor. The three of them trade glances, glances that only a super soldier, a god, and a genius would know. Tony’s lips curl into a reassured smirk. The other follow suit.

Clint wonders if that’s how Natasha and him are like. Because damn, he gets why people think it’s eerie.

“First of all, let me be clear about this,” Steve begins, “I will not let you or anyone disrespect my friends like that ever again. This is a warning to the rest of you all as well. You, however, I’ll make sure you’ll be banned from the next conference. And don’t think I won’t remember your face. Because I will. I have a good memory. As for your question, I don’t have anything to say about that. But I do have something to show you.”

Without hesitation, Steve leans over to capture Tony’s lips in his.

Clint would’ve toppled over if Natasha hadn’t steadied his chair.

“That’s…”

“Bold?”

“I was gonna say unexpected,” Clint says. “But yeah, sure. Let’s go with that.”

It’s an open secret among the Avengers that Steve and Thor have been hopelessly pining for Tony for months, even going so far as trying to outdo each other with their efforts of wooing Tony.

Judging by the way Tony’s cupping Steve’s face as they make out and the shit-eating grin Thor has plastered on as he saunters over to the two, it seems like they’ve come to a mutual agreement. A silent mutual agreement.

How the fuck did this escape the rest of their notice? Of Clint’s notice? Steve and Thor are two of the least subtle people around. The fact that they and Tony could keep their relationship on the downlow is blowing Clint’s mind.

Steve and Tony part with a quiet smack. Tony turns in his seat to fist Thor’s shirt to give his own kiss.

“I think my brain’s short-circuiting.”

Natasha scoffs. “You’re acting as if you’ve never seen two men kiss in your life.”

“Well, I’ve never seen my friends kiss each other,” Clint hisses. “You gotta cut me some slack here. I mean, look at Bruce.”

“Bruce looks fine.”

“His eyebrows look like they’re gonna climb off his forehead.”

Steve’s cheeks are flaming red when he shyly turns back to the stunned crowd in front of him. His expression quickly turns icy when he meets Fox Man’s eyes, who looks torn between hiding in a hole or lighting the rest of them on fire.

“Does that answer your question?” he challenges. “Or do you need me to give you another demonstration?”

Thor doesn’t let Fox Man reply, smirking as he inches over to Steve. “I dare say we have not finished his question, my love.”

And with that, he seals Steve’s lips with his.

Clint almost passes out.

“Okay,” Natasha says. “Now, that? That I didn’t see coming.”

Tony’s all smiles as he watches his boyfriends (boyfriends!!!!!) make out in front of everyone. It’s the smuggest and proudest he’s ever seen him.

“Suck it,” he says into the microphone, casually flipping off Fox Man, who looks like he’s ready to explode.

For some unexplainable reason, the rest of the journalists zero in on Clint after that.

“Don’t look at me,” he says, hands held high. “I ain’t kissing them.”

Natasha smirks. Bruce covers his grin behind his sleeve.

Out of the corner of Clint’s eyes, Pepper rubs her temples and pops a pill.

*****

The next day, Clint and the rest of the Avengers pile into one of the stuffy conference rooms on the helicarrier because according to Tony, ‘Eye Patch is in the mood to ream their asses’. Which is so, so unfair since Clint wasn’t the one who made out with his boyfriends in front of the press. Why the hell did he need to face Fury’s wrath when he wasn’t the one to out himself to the press?

Much to no one’s surprise, said boyfriends don’t show up.

Fury’s scowl is much more steely than usual when he storms in, slamming a newspaper onto the table.

Emblazoned on the front page is a picture of Tony flipping the camera as Steve and Thor make out in the background. Avengers: Gay Orgy?!, its heading screams.

“Is there something you people wanna tell me?” Fury begins icily.

“There is no orgy going on between the six of us,” Natasha immediately answers.

“Or five,” Bruce adds.

Clint nods his head, gesturing towards the newspaper. “Yup, yup. The only Avengers having an orgy are them.”

Fury raises an eyebrow. “And what the hell do you call this, then?”

“A threesome,” Natasha replies.

Clint frowns at her. “But that’s not even a threesome. They weren’t even having sex.”

“Threesome could mean three people as a group,” Bruce offers.

“Ah.”

“Speaking of threesomes, where the hell are Stark and—”

A resounding crash cuts Fury off, jolting everyone in their seats.

Everyone hustles out and makes a beeline for the conference room next door. Clint gets into position, readying himself to let his arrow fly.

He expects AIM beekeepers, HYDRA goons, or even Doombots. Instead, they’re greeted by the sight of the conference table cracked, the room in disarray, and the other half of the Avengers in a tangle of limbs.

Tony has sandwiched himself between his boyfriends as he sucks the soul out of Steve. Next to them, Thor glances up at Clint and the rest, beaming and flashing them a thumbs-up before Tony drags him into a kiss.

Clint’s going to need bleach for his eyes when he gets home.

“Are you sure the squid didn’t spray them with sex pollen or something?” he begins tentatively.

“Nope,” Bruce replies. “We got checked over, remember?”

“Twice,” Natasha adds.

Steve has the decency to look ashamed when he catches sight of them. He pries his boyfriends apart before jumping to his feet in haste. “Director! I– We were just—”

“Late,” Tony continues for him. “Sorry about that but—”

“We were distracted,” Thor declares.

“I’ll pay for everything,” Tony adds.

Fury looks absolutely murderous.

Clint clasps his hands. “Well! I think it’s safe to say that we all need a break. Or bleach. How about we adjourn this meeting for a while and—”

“Three of you are dismissed. But you three,” Fury jabs his fingers at Steve, Thor, and Tony in turn, “stay. We need to talk.”

Steve’s cheeks darken. Thor puffs his chest. Tony grins lazily. Their hair is disarray, their clothes wrinkled, their lips red and puffy and— Clint is not going to think about that. Nope. Not at all. Not if he wants to sleep at night.

Natasha immediately makes a beeline for the door. Bruce wipes his glasses with his shirt, following after her.

Out of the corner of Clint’s eyes, Fury rubs his temples and pops a pill.

*****

True to his word, Tony ends up paying for all the damages incurred on the helicarrier. All twenty thousand dollars’ worth of damages.

Clint couldn’t look at Conference Room Three the same way ever again.

*****

also on ao3.

[seattlesea]

bad representation in the riordanverse

Racism:

-Gave Hazel and Piper gold and ‘kaleidoscope’/brown-blue-green changing eyes and pretty much went ‘Let’s add some characters of color but they cANT HAVE BROWN EYES THAT’S NOT PRETTY ENOUGH’ as if whitewashing isn’t more than just the skin.

-East Asian characters: Riordan pretty much went 'Here are my East Asian characters- one of them looks like a fat baby on steroids and is super undeveloped, his mother is strict and cold, and all the others are just described as 'Asian' because different countries in Asia don't exist and there's obviously no difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Korean'. His portrayal of East Asian characters went like this: Frank: Chinese, chubby, hates himself, underdeveloped, described to look like a 'Chinese Canadian baby man' and a 'panda' as if that's not stereotyping, and only learned to love himself when he looked hotter.  Drew: Asian, villainized, rude, shallow, vain, and selfish. Ethan: Asian, rude, evil, a traitor, and deceased. Grandma Zhang- rude, strict, cold, traditional, and deceased.

-Hazel: Has gold eyes. Has 'cinnamon brown' hair even though dark brown or black hair would be way more inclusive and realistic. Had a mother portrayed as a rude and selfish witch who sacrificed, used, and trafficked her own child. Was the only character called or described as a witch while African-Americans were usually accused of witchcraft just for their skin color. Was the only character who was cursed. Had a mother who literally practiced voodoo. The only African-American character in the series before ToA who isn't dead (but she also died). Was paired with a sixteen year old guy even though African women are constantly forced with older men and that's blatantly racist stereotyping. 

-Piper: Had 'chocolate brown' and then 'mahogany' hair? Has kaleidoscope eyes. Put a feather in her hair (which is stereotyping)- and it was an eagle feather, which is also wrong because eagles are extremely sacred to First Nation tribes and only spiritual leaders or warriors can wear it or it has to be gifted by an Elder of the tribe, and Riordan basically went 'Feathers are very important and it's racist to make a character wear one at inappropriate times but I'm going to make my character wear one as a cute accessory to make her look cool, pretty, and headstrong and to add to her 'Aesthetic'’ even though Cherokees didn’t wear feathers (which proves he did the bare minimum of research). Constantly oversexualized (56% of First Nation women are sexually harassed and Riordan had the audacity to put Piper in an 'embarrassingly low v-neck' and to have her constantly drooled over by a WHITE MALE and have her sexualized by her 1000+ mother without her knowledge or consent).  It's said that her father was from a reservation in Oklahoma...but there are no reservations in Oklahoma, only cultural centers (which also proves that he did the bare minimum of research).  She's the only First Nations character and she's the only character (besides Nancy Bobofit) depicted as a kleptomaniac (First Nations people are constantly called thieves by racist assholes). “The week before, he’d turned down several million dollars to play Tonto in a remake of The Lone Ranger. Piper was still trying to figure out why. He’d played all kinds of roles—a Latino teacher in a tough L.A. school, a dashing Israeli spy in an action-adventure blockbuster, even a Syrian terrorist in a James Bond movie. And, of course, he would always be known as the King of Sparta. But if the part was Native American—it didn’t matter what kind of role it was—Dad turned it down.” (The Lost Hero, page 165). So her father is fine with playing an extremely racist and stereotypical Middle Eastern role but not a First Nations role. Uses a cornucopia as a weapon (how she got it- cutting it off a half-bull- is disrespectful to her culture as hurting an animal is banned and she used a cornucopia- a symbol of Thanksgiving- as a weapon). Cut her hair, which is basically taboo in First Nations culture.

-Samirah: Had an arranged marriage (at age twelve, and she believed that she was groomed to be married to a rich and respectable family and nothing else). Ripped off her hijab in front of tons of male characters. The only Muslim character. The only Muslim character and she's the only character who married her cousin (you're supposed to break stereotypes, not enforce them).

Thomas Jefferson Jr: Said that he was thankful to the British for not siding with the South during the American Civil War even though they needed the South's cotton (but they didn't side with the North either). AKA a black man and son of a freed slave was thankful to Britain for not openly oppressing him? And at the same time he was named after a racist slave-owner.

Reyna: She's brown and her entire story revolves around her being independent, strong, alone, and self-sufficient but also desperately needing love and support but then Riordan says that she can't get her heart healed AKA she went through an abusive home, killed her father, left her sister, felt alone her whole life, worked a two-person job alone for months, and had to put on a brave face for others throughout all this then was literally told 'Shut up no one wants to hear about your struggles, just suck it up and deal with it’ and have you seen all the shit brown girls have to go through and keep silent about it? 

Extra: -Latino, Puerto Rican, African-American, Chinese-Canadian, East Asian, First Nations, etc. characters and the two most powerful, best, and most skilled characters and who the stories mostly revolve around are two white guys AKA white supremacy.

-"Harriet Tubman, daughter of Hermes, used many mortals on her Underground Railroad for just this reason" and that World War II was caused by a child of Zeus and a child of Hades fighting very blatantly erases the shit those people went through and Riordan just went 'Let's use these racist movements as little easter eggs in my story'.

-Thanatos, who was chained and enslaved, is described with dark skin.

-Riordan writing the characters went a little something like this: Drew: You get common Eastern Asian features like dark hair and eyes because you're arrogant, selfish, conceited, and rude, and because you're an antagonist and you're going to be used to make one of my protagonists- who has unique traits- look good so you're going to have the basic, 'boring' physical traits so the readers know who's the more superior of the two of you. Leo: You get common Latino features like curly dark hair, dark eyes, and light brown skin cause you're the weird, hyperactive unattractive one who's very flirty but constantly gets rejected and you're the only main character without a love interest and the only way you can get a girlfriend is when she's forced to fall in love with you through a curse. Frank: You get common Chinese features like dark hair and eyes cause you're the fat unattractive loser who catches the eye of the African character who already has unique and 'special' traits so you don't have to be super attractive. Reyna: You get common Puerto Rican traits like dark skin, hair, and eyes cause you're the stoic, lonely, intimidating, and cold one who wants all the guys (two white guys for that matter) but none of them want you and they both have girlfriends with traits like blonde hair and gray and kaleidoscope eyes so the readers know who are the more interesting couples.  Piper and Hazel: You two get eurocentric features because you're the main characters I have to set apart from everyone else- including other females whom I'm going to make one of you rivals with- so the readers know who's more superior so I'm giving you unique eye colors that literally cannot be found in humans so I'm going to try to validate it by saying that it's from something mildly associated with your godly parent even though neither of them have those traits. Riordan basically said that the common features are bad and boring and that unique and special features- aka features not found in those ethnicities- are good and cool. Also- if gods don’t have DNA how can their traits be passed down to their demigod children checkmate Riordan.

-Cecil Markowitz is the only Jewish character in PJO and the first thing used to describe him is "That kid, always thinking about the potential payout".

-Lavinia said that she was going to bring her date to her bat mitzvah even though you don't bring dates to bat mitzvahs or bar mitzvahs and she said that it was 'awkward' to tell her rabbi that someone was going to be her date even though you don't explain your guestlist to your rabbi, and they're most likely not even going to be at the party.

-Only three Latino and Puerto Rican characters (Leo, Reyna, and Hylla) and all three came from abusive households.

-Leo said 'Mamacita' as if that's not stereotyping.

-Made Nico ‘pale’ even though he had olive skin and gave him black hair and dark eyes despite Italians usually having light hair and eyes just to add to his ‘Goth Boy Aesthetic’.

-Hazel described Pluto to look like Adolf Hitler.

-Carter Kane said that Elvis took African-American music and made it sound like rock 'n roll and described it as cool- like no it’s cultural appropriation. 

-Leo was abused and Riordan thought that it'd be funny to make all the other characters line up to punch him and then try to make it look funny. 

-Gave almost every single POC character a white name and sometimes gave them white first names and POC surnames, and Reyna and Bianca are the only POC characters with names from their culture/native language and one of them is dead and reborn as someone else and the other’s full name wasn’t revealed until the fourth book in her series and she hates using it.

-Made two POC characters with names from their culture- Samirah and Olujime- go by white nicknames (Sam and Jamie) to make it ‘easier to read’ despite having white characters with the same amount of syllables in their names (like Annabeth) that didn’t go by nicknames.

-Never actually described the characters of color with physical traits from their ethnicities (Reyna, Hylla, and Leo with big eyes, thick eyebrows, brown hair, wide noses, full lips, etc., Piper with almost-oriental eyes, shovel teeth, high cheekbones, black hair, etc., Nico with light or brown hair and eyes, olive skin, a narrow nose, etc., Hazel with a wide nose and lips, dark brown eyes, black or dark brown hair, big eyes, thick eyebrows, etc.).

Anti-LGBTQ+:

-Nico was forcibly outed by Cupid and Riordan and the fandom didn't care and the only thing they thought was 'Aww, he has a crush on Percy! So cute!' AKA romanticizing a forced outing. 

-Riordan said that he didn't want to make Reyna lesbian or bisexual because he thought it'd be stereotypical making her LGBTQ+ because she didn't want men anymore even though she could've been bisexual all along but Riordan casually dismissed the idea of that saying "Having a girl end up with a woman after dating men is a bad stereotype" and basically said that real bi girls don’t exist.

-The Hunters of Artemis were made so Artemis/Diana could protect those girls from men and their behavior towards women but Riordan dismissed lesbian relationships- even though nothing about that was said in real Greek mythology- meaning that he thinks that women need protection from other women just as much as they need protection from men.

-Alex Fierro is the only gender-fluid or transgender character and she/he’s seen as rude, snarky, and sharp and Magnus could magically tell when Alex changed gender.

-Riordan said that he wouldn’t make Reyna a lesbian because of stereotypes despite the reader asking if Reyna was going to get a girlfriend, not come out as lesbian AKA Riordan thinks ‘Girls liking girls’ is automatically ‘lesbian’ and completely dismissed bi, pan, poly, omni, etc. girls.

-Used a self-insert to make fun of wlw readers who saw themself in Reyna and thought she could be a cool character to relate to.

-Enforced LGBTQ+ stereotypes like the cold-hearted Asexual, the flamboyant bi/pan, the snarky gender-fluid, the emo gay, the laid-back and rebellious lesbian who dyed her hair pink and chews a lot of bubblegum, etc.

-Has one-hundred fifty-five characters total minus gods/goddesses, Titans, giants, nymphs, dryads, satyrs, monsters, etc. and only has fifteen confirmed LGBTQ+ characters (do the math, that’s exactly one out of ten regarding OCs).

-Only one character that isn’t cishet.

-Saves most the LGBTQ+ for the side characters or only confirms characters LGBTQ+ once they’ve become a minor character despite being a main character before.

-Only stated that Reyna was Asexual outside of his books and on Twitter as if that’s not exactly what J.K Rowling is doing.

-Used the LGBTQ+ community to make Piper seem like the ‘special snowflake’ and to set her apart from her siblings to make it seem like she’s better than all of them and used Hera/Juno and Aphrodite/Venus as excuses for his homophobic mindset that believes that straight is the default cause “Suddenly, much of what she and I had talked about started to make sense. Not being defined by Aphrodite’s expectations. Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” in synonymous words is 'The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect' are different'. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms AKA if he thinks that LGBTQ+ people are ‘different’, he thinks that straight is the ‘default’. Remember- an author writes their own personal beliefs.

-Josephine is the only black LGBTQ+ character.

-Reyna is said to be Asexual despite feeling sexual attraction towards Percy cause no one likes someone five minutes after knowing them and it’s anything but sexual attraction.

-Magnus and Alex are the only LGBTQ+ relationship whose growth and development is actually shown in the story (while there was also Apollo and Commodus, Piper and Shel, Will and Nico, Apollo and Hyacinthus, Emmie and Jo, Lavinia and Poison Oak, etc.).

-Riordan never canonically said the name of any sexuality and is clearly uncomfortable with the LGBTQ+ community shown by his little to no writing regarding physical affection and deep emotions in his LGBTQ+ relationships.

-Only added in LGBTQ+ relationships for publicity- Percy Jackson and the Olympians release dates: 2005-2009. 2005-2009: LGBTQ+ support was nearly at an all-time low. No LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or references in the books. The Lost Hero-The Mark of Athena release dates: 2010-2012. 2010-2012: LGBTQ+ support was still very low. Still no LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or references in the books. The House of Hades release date: late 2013. Mid-2013: the giant spike for LGBTQ+ support and allies. One confirmed LGBTQ+ character. The Sword of Summer release date: late 2015. 2015: LGBTQ+ support was good and gay marriage was legalized. A few LGBTQ+ references but no confirmed characters. The Hammer of Thor and The Ship of the Dead release dates: 2016-2017. 2016-2017: LGBTQ+ support was quite high. Two confirmed LGBTQ+ characters and the first canon LGBTQ+ relationship and kiss. The Trials of Apollo release dates: 2016-2020. 2016-2020: LGBTQ+ support was very high. More LGBTQ+ characters confirmed in one book than all the other series combined. Kind of obvious he was just following the public opinion.

-Legit said ‘Reyna can’t like girls cause she has had crushes on guys before’.

Ableism:

-It was heavily implied in The Battle of the Labyrinth that Rachel Dare had schizophrenia/psychosis but it's never brought up again.

-Grover's fake feet made it look like he was disabled from the Mist and it was said that he was bullied because of it but it was never brought up again.

-It was said that Tyson looked like he had down syndrome from the Mist covering his one eye but it was never brought up again. 

-It was stated that every character but Frank has ADHD and dyslexia but never actually showed any symptoms after Percy Jackson and the Olympians and characters like Piper and Leo were even able to read English writing throughout The Lost Hero and the only symptom of ADHD Riordan showed through his characters was ‘a lot of fidgeting’ as if that’s not a blatant stereotype. 

Pedophilia:

-Luke, a twenty-two/twenty-three year old had a crush on Annabeth, a sixteen year old. That's a six-seven year age gap. 

-The only two girls put into relationships with much older men are black (Hazel and Sadie).

-Hazel, a thirteen year old, got together with a sixteen year old guy. Hazel's crush on Frank is normal- a girl having a crush on an older guy, but Frank's crush on Hazel is disgusting- an older guy looking down at a child and thinking about making out with her.

Misogyny:

-Aphrodite's kids are seen as useless, weak, snobby, shallow, vain, and selfish just because they’re feminine. 

-Riordan portrayed Aphrodite’s kids as feminine despite Aphrodite being the goddess of love and beauty, not femininity, as if romance and beauty are reserved for women only. 

-Piper is the only 'tomboy' child of Aphrodite and she's portrayed as tougher, stronger, and better than her feminine siblings (and it's portrayed that way multiple times throughout the story like other characters telling Piper she’s "-tough for a child of Aphrodite").

-Piper immediately stereotyped and disliked every single feminine character like Drew and the rest of the Aphrodite cabin just because they liked makeup and skirts as if that’s not shallow criticism. 

-Feminine characters like Drew, Isabel, Khione, and Medea are used or even created solely as antagonists to make Piper- the tomboy- look better.

-Calypso is the only feminine character and she sucks at everything. 

-Riordan’s take on female characters: Drew: a vain, rude, selfish, snobby, and bitchy mean girl. Silena: a shallow traitor. Reyna: a cold-hearted robot. Piper: internalized misogyny that was never brought up again. Calypso: an island whore. Athena: a rude, aggressive bitch with no emotions. Aphrodite: shallow, vain, conceited, and self-centered. Hera: completely evil with no backstory added into it. Marie: an evil witch who selfishly used and sacrificed her daughter.

-The Hunters of Artemis were blessed by Artemis to protect them from men but Riordan made it only about the men in their lives (again) and portrayed the whole 'losing men' thing like it was a burden and that they're 'giving men up' even though they join the Hunters to leave men. He distorted the original meaning of the Hunters- protecting women- by making it about the Hunters hating and being forced to leave men even though they're asking to have no men in their lives, cause that's the point of it. 

-The Amazons and Hunters of Artemis despise men and literally attack them if they so much as speak as if sexism is reserved for women only.

-Portrayed femininity as weakness (and masculinity as strength, it’s even in the word- tomBOY).

-Constantly pit women against women for the sake of romance and love triangles instead of normalizing women getting along despite liking the same people and let the female’s relationships get controlled and influenced by the men in their lives.

-The men always outpower the women in powers and skills. Riordan’s portrayal of powers and characters- Percy: You’re going to have epic water powers and can even create your own personal hurricanes and even though you’ve only been canonically training for eight months total you’re going to be the best swordfighter despite multiple characters having years more training than you. Jason: You’re going to be able to fly, control lightning, create storms, and electric shock people into another dimension. Leo: You’re going to be able to create and control fire and blow shit up with just a screwdriver. Frank: You’re going to be able to shape-shift into any animal you want, even a whole dragon. Nico: You’re going to be able to control darkness and shadows, literally teleport, and raise a whole army of undead soldiers. Reyna: Powers? Nah, your only ability is to lend strength to others as if that benefits you at all. Annabeth: Powers? Nah. Piper: You’re going to be able to manipulate and seduce people and are literally going to use your body and attractiveness as a weapon and your power is literally called charmspeak. Hazel: You have more powers than all the other characters combined that can literally destroy anyone in less than a second but you’re never going to use them or even remember that you have them cause screw the female character being more powerful than the males. 

-The men always accomplish the most incredible feats and if the females ever do accomplish something great (Reyna healing the riff and defeating Orion while the Hunters and Amazons couldn’t combined, Annabeth going through Tartarus, Hazel learning to control the Mist, etc.) they are never praised or rewarded or all the credit goes to the men. 

-Ares/Mars in real Greek/Roman mythology was the feminist patron of the Amazons who loved his daughter very much and killed a rapist but was portrayed as the dumb, cruel asshole who loved nothing but bloodshed and tried to kill a twelve year-old kid who was trying to help him while Poseidon/Neptune in real Greek/Roman mythology was a greedy, short-tempered, and arrogant asshole who raped almost as much women than Zeus/Jupiter but was portrayed as the kind, caring, and gentle father figure. 

Fatophobia:

-Frank is the only chubby character and he hates himself because of it, was constantly fat-shamed, and only learned to love himself after he got rippling abs, muscles, and looked hotter (because fat = ugly in Riordan’s mind, even though it's not). 

-Clovis was depicted with a pot-belly and Drew described him as 'repulsive'.

-Dionysus/Bacchus is also depicted with a pot-belly and he's portrayed as a useless, rude, lazy, and drunken asshole. 

Lookism:

Basically how Riordan wrote his characters- Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Reyna, Hazel, Piper, and most minor protagonists: You’re all going to be super attractive, have at least one character or more pining for you, have your looks constantly commented on, and some of you will even use your looks as a weapon cause that’s not obvious sexualization cause you’re all the main characters and protagonists that readers need to know are the protagonists. Nico, Leo, and Frank: You three are originally portrayed as unattractive but at some points are described as cute and two of you are insecure about your looks cause you’re scrawny and chubby and one of you hates yourself cause of your body and only learn to love yourself once you magically gain abs cause more muscle obviously equals more attractiveness.  Luke, Silena, Chris, and Ethan: You four are going to be super attractive because you’re traitors but all of you make up for your actions and decide to help the demigods and become protagonists again. Octavian, Bryce, Michael, Titans, giants, etc.: You all are the antagonists so you have to be super ugly with multiple physical imperfections cause you’re not allowed to be attractive since you are against the protagonists and I have to set you guys apart and show the readers who’s the better and more superior character. 

-Frank hated himself cause he was chubby and only loved himself once he got skinnier and gained muscle through magic but even then was called ‘cute like a panda’.

-Leo was described as scrawny and unattractive and was insecure about being short but even then was called ‘cute in a scrawny way’.

-Piper had facial imperfections and even a pimple on her nose but once she got claimed all of those disappeared and they stayed gone even after the blessing washed off despite all the magic being gone and only then was Piper’s looks commented on multiple times. 

-Lester/Apollo hated his appearance cause he had a little flab and acne and his physical imperfections were used as comedy by making fun of it as if insecure readers don’t exist.

-Percy and Annabeth had one canon physical imperfection- a gray streak in their hair- and that magically washed away.

-None of the other characters were described with any physical imperfections like pimples/zits/acne, body hair (despite none of the characters having the care or time to wax or shave), bushy/frizzy or messy hair or eyebrows, big or small hands or noses, blackheads, super thick or thin eyebrows, blemishes, birthmarks, scars, stretch marks, braces, lazy eyes, yellow or chipped teeth, eye bags, glasses, moles, dimples, love handles, flab/fat, visible veins, freckles, etc. unless it added to their ‘aesthetic’ despite none of those being bad and saves it only for the antagonists as if ‘physical imperfections’ = ‘evil’. 

Bias:

-Riordan portrayed the Romans as cold, cruel, ruthless, strict, and overall horrible despite them being the more inclusive camp regarding family and godly parents, have multiple families and rules that ensure their camper’s safety, and hold the nicest characters in the series while the Greeks are portrayed as fun, wild, reckless, silly, and cool despite holding the most prejudiced and rude characters, outcasting and ostracizing characters of certain godly parents just for their parentage, stereotype almost every single cabin, and make some campers without siblings live, sleep, and eat alone. 

-Every Greek traitor (Luke, Silena, Ethan, and Chris) were portrayed as powerful, kind, attractive, and awesome and each made up for their actions but each Roman ‘traitor’ (Octavian, Bryce, and Michael, and only one of them are actually a traitor) were portrayed as unattractive, cruel, ambitious, ruthless, and extremely weak and never actually did anything useful.

-The Greeks were part of the Union and the Romans were part of the Confederacy (adding on to Riordan adding racist movements as fun little easter eggs in his stories).

-Four out of seven of the main Seven are Greek.

-There are at least 70+ Greek characters and less than thirty named Romans.

-The Battle of San Francisco Bay was used for the sole purpose to weaken the Romans and make the Greeks seem stronger than them and while the Greeks went through two whole wars, their camp laid almost completely untouched but the moment the Romans are introduced, half their population is wiped?

Romanticization:

-Romanticized Annabeth judo-flipping Percy AKA romanticized physical abuse/harassment (emotions, angriness, feelings of love and affection, ‘they went through a lot together’, etc. do not excuse hitting someone) despite Annabeth knowing where Percy’s Achilles Heel was and not knowing he lost it and flipping him on his back anyways (if Percy didn’t lose the Achilles Heel, Annabeth would’ve killed him).

-Romanticized Leo killing himself to see Calypso again and to take her off her island AKA a romanticized suicide.

-Romanticized Calypso yelling at and insulting Leo and Annabeth insulting and canonically lowering Percy’s self-esteem AKA romanticized verbal abuse/bullying.

-Romanticized Will trying to help Nico through his loneliness and depression as if that can’t be portrayed as someone just wanting to help another person AKA  romanticized mental illness.

-Romanticized every character kissing another character without asking first and without their consent AKA romanticized sexual harassment.

-Romanticized Piper taking advantage over Jason’s amnesia and mental state and jumping onto him despite knowing there might be a girl he couldn’t remember AKA romanticized manipulation.

-Romanticized Piper and Annabeth’s possessive, overly-jealous, and controlling behavior over Jason and Percy (even before they were canonically dating).

-Romanticized Nico being forced to confess his crush on Percy AKA romanticized a forced outing.

Rick Riordan:

-Refused to apologize for his actions even after being called out by people from the groups he was writing inaccurately and stereotyping (Muslim, Jewish, African, First Nation, lesbian, gay, Puerto Rican, etc.) and tried to make himself look like the victim.

-Claimed he was being ‘bullied’ by readers half his age who were just pointing out his books’ racist flaws.

-Showed time and time again that he is not willing to listen to the voices of minorities.

-Clearly didn’t do his research on ethnicities, sexualities, religions, etc. shown by how he got the simplest things wrong.

-Tried to say that he- a straight white man- was right when people of the actual groups he was writing about (gay, First Nation tribes, etc.) were wrong.

-Used excuses like having a ‘headstrong’ and ‘stubborn’ character who wants to ‘show their culture in their own way’ for his stereotypes. No, Riordan, you want to show the culture that way, not Piper. She’s a fictional character, you’re real. Dumbass.

-Literally said ‘Sorry I put feathers in Piper’s hair, I can’t change what I wrote in the past and I didn’t know that sensitive readers existed’ then continued to write feathers in Piper’s hair in the future books. 

The Fandom:

Note: Not to all of the fandom, obviously

-Draws Piper with light skin, light hair, and kaleidoscope eyes with feathers, hippie bands, and beads (yes, it's canon, but you're allowed to change it if it's blatantly racist, and the bead and hippie band thing was created by the fandom and that's also stereotyping).

-Almost always draw Reyna, Hylla, and Leo with light skin and Caucasian traits (props to the few artists who drew them with the right skin tones).

-Draws Hazel with gold eyes, ‘cinnamon’/light brown hair, and an adult body.

-Sexualizes female characters by drawing them in sexy and revealing clothes and giving them all the same exact sexy, slim, and perfect hour-glass shaped bodies.

-Almost never include physical imperfections, muscle, scars, stretch marks, etc. in drawings.

-Fancasts white actors for characters of color and puts actors/faceclaims of white people or people of different ethnicities in the moodboards or aesthetics for characters of color.

-Participates in cultural appropriation by wearing feathers when cosplaying Piper and wearing a hijab when cosplaying Samirah.

-Supports Riordan, tries to defend him, and condones his clearly racist and bigoted actions just cause they ‘like the books’ (if you are straight, white, and/or cishet, I definitely don’t want to see you trying to defend a fifty-five year-old multi-millionaire who is clearly racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic).

-Romanticize physical abuse, verbal abuse, mental illnesses and panic/anxiety attacks, etc.

-Ship pedophilic, manipulative, abusive, and wrong relationships.

-Barely allow others to have their own opinions (looking at you Perachel haters) without yelling at, insulting, cursing out, and/or even threatening them for liking or disliking different things than them including ships, characters, books, plots/faults, and Riordan himself.

-Straightwashes characters like shipping Nico with female characters or setting him up with a female character in fanfics.

-Whitewashes characters like drawing Hazel and Piper with eurocentric features, Reyna, Hylla, and Leo with white skin and Caucasian traits, Nico with white/pale skin, etc.

-Try to excuse and explain abusive, manipulative, possessive, and overall very wrong and toxic behavior.

-Fail to recognize and/or admit the toxic, racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, wrong, abusive, etc. faults in the books, ships, and characters just cause they like them.

The Percy Jackson franchise does not add good representation. You can still like the series as long as you don’t condone Riordan’s racist and toxic writing and actions and don’t try to ignore the horrible and stereotypical faults just cause you don’t want to admit that your favorite or childhood story is horrible. 

[high-supernatural]

Secrets pt.2

Kai Parker x Female Reader/Character

Word Count: 2197

Warnings: typical tvd themes, mean Kai, they kiss at the end ;);)

Summary: Kai merged with Luke and started feeling different soon after. He got sick and the reader took care of him, throwing him into a fit of confusion. She doesn’t judge him for anything and has the understanding that he’s a product of his environment and acts out of revenge and distrust of others. Kai knows this after having a conversation with her and decides to find out all of her secrets too.

***since y’all like the one shots better than the series, I’m gonna write one shots for female readers under the name V for what I would’ve/will write in the series***

V felt even more like she was losing him now. When he went to get Jo’s magic, she went into the woods, her safe space, and begged to have her old world back, no matter how terrible it was, she wasn’t alone, she had a team, a family.

She was out there for hours and went back after the sun had gone down, silently hoping Kai wasn’t in the room. He was.

She opened the door and saw him sitting on a chair he had pulled between the coffee table and the couch. She closed the door with her back facing him and walked to the bathroom while taking her sweatshirt off, wearing a tank top underneath.

Kai grabbed her wrist as she walked past trying to avoid him, “someone’s had a rough night,” he said looking at her red eyes.

“And someone’s suddenly all better,” she looked at him expressionless.

He let go and looked away, “yeah… well…” he looked at the book he had in his hands, “turned out I wasn’t really sick, I just needed Jo’s magic and had Luke’s,” he looked back at her, still expressionless.

“Well, congrats, you can go back to being an even bigger dick now,” she was about to walk to the bathroom when she saw what he was holding.

“Why are you holding my journal?” she asked.

“Well…” he completed his coined dramatic pause, “I figured since you know all my secrets I should know yours,” she just stared at him so he kept talking, “SO, I got to reading, then I thought to myself, ‘self, this is way too personal to be reading alone, you should read it with her’, and so, here we are,” he smiled.

She didn’t see any malicious energies behind what he said, but still she asked, “what kind of game is this, Kai?”

“No games,” he said childishly, “have a seat,” he motioned at the couch.

She sat with her knees to her side, staring at him, waiting for him to start attacking her with everything she has in her journal.

“Let’s begin,” he said.

He crossed one of his legs over the other and flipped the book open, clearing his throat, “2007, age 10,” he read, “the last time I went to the prison world,” he stopped to look at her, “man you’re really obsessed with me,” he said with a smirk.

“Mhm, keep reading,” she raised an eyebrow.

“2007, 11th birthday, page 12,” he gasped in sarcasm, “what’s on page 12?” he flipped to the page and read, “I was at school, I didn’t want to go to school this day, it felt different. It felt like danger. I remember begging my parents not to make me go, but they did anyways, assuming I wanted to ditch on my birthday,” he paused to say, “those assholes,” before continuing, “I convinced Audrey and Kai to ditch with me into the basement right before we heard screams. We hid behind the vents behind a tall shelf and covered our ears when we heard the first bomb. The school crumbled onto us, but we couldn’t move. I remember begging in my mind that nobody would find us, I felt like they were here for us,” he paused again, “paranoid much?” and continued, “a group of people came into the basement calling my name, but I wasn’t going to say anything,” he looked up again, “hm, maybe not so paranoid,” and went on. “They got angry when they couldn’t find me and set the basement on fire before leaving. We almost couldn’t make it out after they left, but then I heard my dad calling for me.”

Kai flipped back to the original page he came from and looked at her, “that was tragic,” she kept staring at him, saying nothing.

“aaaand not so long after, ‘2007, 1 week after the first attack,’” he read and flipped to the page numbered beside it.

“Me, Audrey, Kai, and my parents made it to the western coast of Europe to find a boat. We traveled from Lyon to the coast of the Celtic Sea,” Kai paused again to say “I didn’t know that’s where you were from,” and chuckled before returning, “learning how to hijack cars on the way. We saw nobody the whole way. When we did, they were dead, or a monster. We didn’t know what happened yet. Everything was destroyed and I felt nothing. I went into survivor mode. We stole a boat to head towards America… we made it halfway before the waters got rough. The boat started filling with water until it was fully under. Everybody got onto a lifeboat except me, I was under the water. They started going without me until Audrey jumped and saved me. That’s when we made our deal.”

Kai gasped again, “is that why you don’t like the ocean?” he smiled through his next words and chuckled, “it is, isn’t it?” flipping back to the other page.

“You having fun yet?” V asked.

He ignored her, “what was the deal with Audrey?” he asked, “maybe it’s on this page,”

“Page 24,” she told him, “The good stuff you’re looking for is on page 24.”

Kai read again, “age 15,” he stopped again, “no dates this time, weird,” he continued, “we made it to America just days before it was attacked. We had enough time to find the community of hunters we came here for, barely. Angels were taking over. The biblical apocalypse. I don’t know what to believe anymore. My dad turned into one of those murderous vamps and we had to let him go. When we were captured my mom was killed. Me and Audrey made it out of captivity, I don’t know where Kai is anymore,” he trailed his next words, “he was with us when we were caught, he was with us through captivity, but he started to change. I woke up one morning and he wasn’t in his cell next to us. I never saw him again. I want to believe he’s dead but I know he’s somewhere far worse. It’s just me and Audrey now. We have the community but it’s thinning.”

V looked at her hands and back at Kai, “there’s letters I wrote him even though I knew I’d probably never find him in the back if you want to read those too,” she said softly.

Kai closed the book slowly and put it on the table between them, “I’m good, I think I have enough to figure you out now too.”

V put her feet on the ground, “cool, can I go now,” she rolled her eyes and didn’t give him time to answer before going into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

Kai leaned against the door and heard soft sobs and couldn’t help but feel a little bad about how he went about this.

When she came out of the bathroom Kai was leaning against the wall outside of it. She took a step back and waited for him to talk, “I need to run to the gas station, come with me?” he asked.

“I don’t want to,” she responded softly. He gave her a pouty face and she ended up going anyways.

They walked to the gas station to get snacks and drinks before Kai sat at the bus stop bench, “what are you doing now?” V asked annoyed.

“I want to talk to you,”

“You talk enough, constantly,” she responded. Kai just sat smirking at her, so she sighed and sat down next him, looking in another direction.

A moment of silence went by before he spoke, “I don’t know how to talk to you, V,” he gently placed his fingers on her upper arm prompting her to snap her head and look him up and down as her reflex response.

“That’s crazy because you’re always talking,” she snapped.

He took his hand away. “I think I care about you, but I don’t know how to talk to you, and I only have a few things I want to say,” he looked into the distance, and she looked at him, “just say them,” she said.

She looked into his eyes when he spoke, “I’ve done some… really bad things. Some I won’t even admit. But they haunt me, eat at me, and I can’t get rid of them. I killed my family, kids too. And it got me locked away for 18 years. I came back and killed more of them, I didn’t learn anything from being there,” she still looked at him, listening, when he looked away to finish.

“There’s times I’m afraid I’m gonna kill you too. Or anybody, really. It’s not a revenge kick. I slept on the couch because I woke up with my hand on your throat and I thought about it for a split second. My entire life I’ve been the freak, feigning for hits of magic like a kid on drugs. I became the coven leader, and nothing really changed,” he stopped and looked at his hands before continuing.

“Except now I can feel things and I don’t know how to process. I remember everything I’ve done and I know it was wrong, but part of me still doesn’t care,” he sniffed and looked the other way to avoid tears before looking back down, “everything I’ve done in my life has been the wrong thing. I don’t know how to do the right thing. When I was in that prison world there were times I’d try to end it multiple times a day, now that I’m here I think about it a lot because I know it’d work this time. I’m not a good person, V, I never have been, someone like you shouldn’t be around me.”

“Look at me,” she spoke, “your family sucked, not you,” she moved his face to look at her with her finger, “they isolated you because you were different and they didn’t understand, that’s not on you. They beat you, didn’t let you touch or come near anybody, treated you different, and over time you turned yourself into somebody they thought you were. You tried being who you were, but everybody around you acted like you were different, so that’s who you became.”

“How do you know all this” he whispered.

“When I look at you I can see past the things not even you can see in yourself. I can see who you really are in that deep place, and I can see who your family made you out to be on the outside. You’re not evil, Kai.”

“You know what I’ve done, V—” he interrupted.

“I know what you’ve done, and I know your motives behind it. I still think what you’ve done says more about your family than it does you, because that’s who they built. I see you on the outside and see something they built in their image. Underneath that I see revenge, hatred, and an aimed vengeance. Deeper I see someone who wants to let it go but can’t because they hurt every aspect of your being. But deeper I see that you just hurt, all the time, and it doesn’t stop, and I get it, you’re confused a lot.”

There was a long pause, Kai looked away and V looked at him still.

She sighed and scooted closer to him, “you aren’t evil. Not only can I see that, but you prove it. A real psycho wouldn’t have had the conscious to sleep on the couch or talk to me about anything. If you were really a psycho with no feelings, I’d either be dead or you wouldn’t be here because you’d break the pact,” she grabbed his hand and he looked at her again.

“Get it through your head this time,” she spoke soft, “you aren’t evil. I’ve seen enough evil to see it a mile away and I wouldn’t want you that far away from me.”

She interlocked their fingers as they looked at each other. Kai had an expression on his face that told her he wanted to close the space between them but part of him didn’t believe what she was saying, he was scared and frustrated with himself.

She took her hand away to wrap her arms around his neck, bending her knees up onto the bus stop bench to her side and got closer to his face, “believe me,” she whispered before laying her lips on his.

He placed a hand on her waist and the other on her knee, giving into the kiss.

They moved their lips together for what felt like minutes but was only a few seconds before V pulled away with her arms still around him, “do you believe me then,” she asked.

“If I say no, will you kiss me again?” Kai said almost speechless.

V pulled him into another, more passionate kiss, rubbing her thumb through his hair as his hand made its way up to hers, placing the hand that was on her knee behind her, pulling her deeper.

She opened her eyes slowly, “we should head back,”

“If you promise you’ll do that again, okay,”

“Pinky swear.”