#because I have plans for her

[leaderpinhead]

Azul - Poor Unfortunate Soul

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial current prompt. Notes: This takes place pre-land boot camp for Octotrio. I started writing this for another prompt, but seeing the prompt for FFF this week, I decided to cut almost 1500 words off what I had originally written. I also just enjoy putting Azul in situations where he's not allowed to hide behind his smugness.

Azul should have known better than to trust the Leech brothers. He knew it the moment he realized the twins weren’t at the meeting spot. He tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t hard to imagine their mother had caught them attempting to sneak out so late. Floyd wasn’t exactly quiet, and Jade would have sounded the alarm just to be a menace. 

A bright flash illuminated the water around him. Azul tipped his head towards the surface just in time to see an explosion of bright colors distorted through the water. He propelled him towards the surface. 

The whistling eruption in the dark sky made him cover his ears, his hearing more sensitive now that the water didn’t muffle the explosions. Between each round of fireworks, he could hear the happy cries of the spectators on the nearby beach. A large bonfire on the beach illuminated the forms of a dozen or so humans. 

“Help!” 

Azul almost missed the tiny cry over the clap of another firework. He searched the area around him with narrowed eyes. His vision was already blurry when he came to the surface, but the combination of staring at the bonfire and the fireworks had spawned small dots in his vision. He would have completely looked over the nearby buoy had a firework not exploded at the same moment. The light of the fizzling sparks was just enough for him to see an odd pale blob bobbing alongside the buoy. 

A small part of the pale blob lifted from the buoy. “Help!” 

Azul ducked just below the surface of the water and drifted closer to the buoy. With his vision clearer underwater, he only had to wait for another firework to see the outline of two long legs treading water. Seeing the strange limbs made him relax a little. A human—a human who sounded desperate for help. 

He drifted in the current just below the buoy. Perhaps the human had underestimated the currents and been pulled out to sea. Even young merfolk were warned not to swim so close to the nearby cliffs because of the rough currents. He and the twins had found enough sunken ships around the cliffs to know shipwrecks were a common occurrence. The Sea Witch herself was said to have saved a marooned sailor for a price. 

Thinking of the Sea Witch, Azul swam to the water’s surface. He remained cautious, only exposing himself from the eyes up. The human’s arms desperately clung to the buoy. Azul slowly drifted closer. 

The human jerked up from the buoy with a suddenness that sent Azul shooting away from them. In the light of the fireworks, Azul could make out the general features of the fuzzy figure. Long dark hair plastered against a round pale face with two wide blue eyes peeking through the strands. She looked to be around the same age as him too. 

The human gasped. Uncontrollable trembling made her teeth audibly clack together. “He-help, please.” 

The chattering plea settled Azul’s nerves. This human couldn’t possibly be a threat, not with her high-pitched voice and tiny limbs barely keeping her above water. The suction cups on his arms made it easy for him to pull himself onto the buoy next to her. There was just enough light for Azul to see the human’s eyes widen. 

Azul smirked. The language was still a bit clunky on his tongue, but he purposefully articulated each syllable. “Poor little human. I’ll help you back to shore...for a price.” 

He didn’t expect the human to lunge at him. Hands latched onto his arms, fingers pinching and pulling until she was nose-to-nose with him. His shock made the buoy wildly wobble. 

“I’ll do anything!” The human sounded almost excited now. “Absolutely anything. Even marry you!” 

Azul didn’t get an opportunity to correct the terms of their contract when her mouth slammed against his. Or it would have had Azul not jerked back at the right moment. "I am forever in your debt,” the human stuttered. Her arms strangled his neck as she continued her almost scripted speech. “I’ll announce our engagement to my father as soon as I return, and he will proclaim it to all the Sunshine Lands!” 

Azul began swimming to shore with a desperation he had never felt before. He had heard about her kind; the type of humans with weird—what was it called again?—fin fixations? Humans obsessed with marrying merfolk no matter what. It wasn’t all that surprising since the story of the Mermaid Princess marrying the land prince was wildly romanticized in the Sunshine Lands. 

Azul did not want a contract with this crazy obsessed human. 

Azul found the danger of skirting around the rockier shore nearby to be worth the risk of the stronger currents. He flung the human’s body up onto the first rock he found. She dramatically gasped and strangled his neck tighter, blabbering some kind of nonsense about “engagements” and “royal families.” 

He found the strength to break free when he realized her face was closing in again. With a quick twist and a floppy eel wiggle, Azul threw himself into the water. The girl crawled to the edge of the rock like she would dive in after him. “Don't leave! I didn’t even get your name!” 

“Rielle,” Azul said. “My name is Rielle. So if you ever see another merfolk ask for me by that name.” 

Azul ducked into the water and hurried back home. He smirked at the thought of the human begging the next merfolk she encountered to help find her “beloved” Rielle. It would be difficult to act all pure and innocent with a human lamenting a broken heart. 

And with his one and only witness of the night taken care of, he didn’t have to worry about the twins discovering his embarrassing first interaction with a human. 

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[demigods-posts]

luke fumbling in recruiting percy has to be one of his greatest failures. a beautiful thing the show does regarding luke and percy's relationship is building rapport between them through shared moments like settling into camp, eating meals together, but especially through swordfighting lessons. the swordfighting scene at the beginning of episode 8 not only reveals that percy and luke already share similar beliefs about the fear-based system the gods have cultivated, but it's clear the conversation stays with percy when he fights ares and later calls out zeus on his waning skills as a father and a king. however, luke's plan fell through the moment percy learned that the winged-shoes were meant to drag him to tartarus. not only that, but the shoes nearly killed grover, a friend percy cared for deeply. if nourishing loyalty and trust was the key to ensuring a partnership with percy, then it was luke's faulty planning, arrogance, and impatience that cost him the greatest ally he could ask for.

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Good reveal au, where after learning phantom's identity and realizing the atrocities that the GIW have committed (or alternatively, ethical science au, where they find out the GIW plagarized them), the fenton parents decided to create the 'ultimate ghost-ending weapon' and sell it to the agents.

They go absolutely overboard, describing to the agents in meticulous detail how it evaporates any ghost it hits near-instantly and describing it quite ruthlessly in the blueprints, and soon the GIW have raplaced all their main weapons with the new gun.

Except it doesn't actually kill ghosts. It's the Fenton Bazooka. You know, the one that creates a portable portal to suck the ghost back into the ghost zone? What they actually did was retool it slightly to make it look more grusome than it actually is. They even added a beacon in Phantom's Keep, which all Fenton Bazookas will target when they open a portal, so the ghosts are always delivered to the keep.

From there, Phantom stationed an emergency medical team at the keep to treat the many injured and ragged ghosts that the GIW 'destroyed,' and to explain what just happened.

What they didn't anticipate was that now that the GIW have a mass-produced weapon that they believed would effectively eradicate ghosts, they would go on the offensive. They have a number of cities they've been monitoring but didn't want to get involved in without better tools.

One of those cities is Gotham.

And the Bats are ectocontaminated enough to register as ghosts.

Batman witnessed several of his children get evaporated by green energy weapons within mere moments of each other. He's absolutely gutted. Devastated. They didn’t even stand a chance.

He'll get his revenge, and it's frighteningly easy to track the weapon to private subcontractors. The Doctors Fenton, in Illinois. Their research calls for the genocide of all ghost kind, and apparently, that war started by killing his own children.

His children will not die in vain.

He gets to Amity Park and finds the Engineer's Nightmare of a building that is Fentonworks, but that night, before he can hack through the security and break in, one of the windows opens.

It's one of his kids that he had watched evaporate before his very eyes. They give him a silent signal of one of their identifying security codes and gesture for him to come inside.

Is it a trap? A prank in poor taste? Utterly genuine?

He goes through the window.

All of his dead kids are there, wearing borrowed pajamas and only their dominoes to conceal their identities. Daniel Fenton (son of the Fentons, this is his bedroom, has voiced a few arguments against his parent's views, but still an unknown) is among the crowd of teens and young adults, twirling on an office chair and obnoxiously sipping a capri sun.

"First thing you need to know, Bats," Daniel says after finishing his drink, "is that my parents are absolutely NOT genocidal ectophobic scumbags, and that is the reason why your kids are still alive."

[backpackingspace]

Athena with odysseus: surprise attacking odysseus and bodily slamming him to palace walls (for awareness training). Randomly kidnapping him from the palace to drop him in the woods (or the ocean or on two memorable occasions on a completely different island) (survival training), using her full strength in sparing matches (odysseus has many broken bones) dragging him up by his wrist so they're face to face. Not being careful with how often she uses quick thought or any of her other powers (what? He seems fine. She's sure odysseus has always been a freak it's definitely not brain damage it's/fine/hes /fine)

Athena with telemachus, after she accidentally knocked him out once: right right odysseus and penelope taught me how to do this when they had me babysit you. Gotta be gentle so so gentle. Gotta support the head gotta craddle humans not yank them up by the wrist (she knew odysseus was a freak why didn't he say anything??) Can't just funnel her full power into the kid gotta be so gentle.

[starrysharks]

artificial intelligence ghost

[pygmypouter]

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

[non-un-topo]

To the next adventure...

Image description and details under cut

I.D.

[A drawing of Nicky, Joe, Quynh, and Andy from The Old Guard. They are all in profile, walking in a straight line facing the sun. They are dressed in medieval clothing and armour, and each carry their own weapons and bags. Nicky has his sword, a crossbow, a quiver of bolts, a dagger at his belt and another strapped to his ankle. Joe is holding his sword, a bag, and a coin purse. Quynh's bow is over her back, and her quiver is at her hip. Two daggers are strapped to her belt, one of them matching Nicky's. Andy is holding her axe, two bags, and a dagger. They each have serene expressions and closed eyes, as if they're not in a hurry. In the background, the seasons change from winter to spring, summer, fall. There is an old tree behind them, and its branches change with the seasons.]

[zoe-oneesama]

Honestly if canon didn't want people to think this should work then they should have just had an episode where gabriel tries it with the repaired peacock or self-akumatisation and it fails. Like early on the reason he didn't try was kinda obvious: he didn't want to get sick by using the peacock. But after it's fixed that reason doesn't really work. The show needed to explicitly outline that miraculous illness can't be cured especially since the main audience is children. But it seems like they didn't think of it.

The only real way I can justify it is if Emilie is in fact just straight up dead already. And like fair, a foreign kid's show might not be allowed to just come out and say that. But when you can't come out and just call a dead person a dead person, it leaves it open for some people (me) to interpret them as Not Quite Dead. As "Mostly" Dead. And well...

[artharakka]

Beautiful, But Broken

[mohntilyet]

veilguard spoilers regarding a josie romance. but can we talk about the letter josie sends to a romanced inquisitor because. i’m sorry. fucking losing my mind at the fact that the inquisitor and josephine are close enough friends with the guy the inquisitor duels in her romance to be invited to meet his third child. implying they’ve been invited to the other two. at a baby shower and getting introduced as the one who dueled the baby’s father because he was trying to steal your girl. antivan romances insane.

NO LITERALLLYYYYY. AND HE’S AN IN LAW. ITS TOO FUNNY. i cannot imagine how they met and how yvette probably was like “teehee…. the man that my sister spurned…. has fallen in love with ME!” and the best/worst part is that ortranto really has. i like to think of them running around with each other and secretly meeting as though their families actually hate each other (they really don’t lol) . the ortrantos would probably be delighted to have their son actually marry a montilyet like they wanted, even better that they’re actually in love and it’s not arranged!

i have this image of josie going like “you can’t marry him. is this a joke, because it’s not funny. i almost embarrassed him! the only reason the ortrantos do not hate us is because he is a very kind man who saw that i was in love with the inquisitor! ….yes i suppose a very kind man like that could love you…….. yes of course i want you to be happy…… yvette gabrielle montilyet, i fear you are not hearing what i’m saying— DON’T SAY YOU ARE ALREADY AN ORTRANTO. DID YOU ELOPE? ah okay. don’t do that. i said don’t do that. yvette come back and listen to me” etc etc

of course i must believe that there was a big scene caused (once again) by a montilyet and ortranto that ends with lord ortranto making a speech where the publicly declares his love for yvette in front of all of antiva city to see and hear. so there’s no backing out from this one. in my mind there’s a rehash of the big “BECAUSE I LOVE HER!” (ortranto, desperate but genuine), “you do?” (completely aghast josie who has somehow missed the fact her sister has been giggling even more than usual), plus an “OF COURSE HE DOES!” (a thrilled yvette) that reminds josie so fondly of her own love story that she's immediately relaxed (and suddenly accepting) about this whole thing <3

[xxplastic-cubexx]

(thanks to the defrost tiktok anon) Eric would be on the cooking duty and Francesca would be trying to either push things off the table or steal something from the counter constantly or play with moving metal kitchenwares to the point that Eric has to decide that the safest way of him to cook in peace is by holding Francesca all the time while cooking so that she doesn't do anything

artistic rendition cause you be cooking here .............

[thethoriumreactor]

so like….. chaggie college au anyone

I’m thinking designs based on their demon forms instead of like human before dying give me ur thoughts yeah

Charlie fell first vaggie fell harder it’s canon

[demigods-posts]

we already have the percy whose scalp is always somewhat damp because he wants to feel the moisture on his skin. the percy who takes bubble baths twice a week soley so he can nap underwater when he's away from the beach. the percy who once drank four gallons of water in two hours and felt like he was king of the world for a week straight. but give me the percy who gets overstimulated from being in the water too much. the percy who spent his three-day weekend putting a stop to a war between the fish of the pacific and atlantic ocean. the percy who returned home with his hair dry as a bone. the percy who locked himself in his room and refused to touch water unless he was nearly dying of thirst. the percy who damn-near asked his father to disown him for a few days because being directly linked to water made him want to cry.

[something-nunholy]

Kind of obsessed with the fact that the EAH writers made both Snow White and the Evil Queen 'Live Laugh Love' wine moms, except they made Snow a 'Mommy has had a little wine' that becomes mean after a glass type of wine mom and they made the Evil Queen divorced crying over a framed picture of the child she never gets to see sad mom. Honestly, really iconic!

[eerna]

imma be so real with you I did NOT care for all the cutesy ways they presented Vi and Cait's disbalanced social status in arc 3