#he kinda just controls… everything?

[lilislegacy]

I really wish we could get a scene where Percy reaches his breaking point and uses all his abilities at once. I want to see a proper earthquake. I want to see what he can do with his control over storms. Like, I want to see him move mountains - literally move mountains - to take care of business. Maybe the world is about to end. Maybe Annabeth is in danger. Maybe Estelle is in danger. Maybe his own children are in danger. There are several things that could make him so angry and scared that his limits shatter.

Children of Poseidon, even demigods, are often referred to as monsters. Because like the sea, they are brutal and merciless. And Poseidon has implied that Percy has surpassed every hero he’s ever seen, even hercules, when it comes to his capabilities and determination. Leo and Hazel have said you can physically feel and see his power, even if he’s not doing anything. I want to see Percy really tap into the godly part of him. I want him to send his enemies running for their mommies. And I want to read it from someone else’s point of view. Someone who can describe what it really looks and feels like.

Becasue imagine the most frightening, intimidating man you’ve even seen - his wolffish glare, embodied by his sharp features, frightening enough to paralyze you in fear - flying straight towards you on an angry black pegasus. Hundreds of other angry pegasi fan out on either side of him, looking like something out of a mythical nightmare. Then a dark, gigantic wave spanning several miles, taller than mountains, rises behind him. It’s towering over the valleys and hills, casting a shadow over the land, and coming right towards you, ready to demolish and drown every semblance of your existence. Then all of a sudden the entire sky is dark and the air is cold, and the storm hits you with unforgiving force. The brutal winds and sharp cold rain is so strong that you can barely stand. The booming cracks of thunder make your ears ring, and the blinding bolts of lightning light up the sky like electricity is at war with itself. And now… now the entire earth is shaking. The ground is rumbling beneath you so violently that every part of your body is painfully trembling, your teeth chattering and eyes bouncing. The earth around you is splitting into wide chasms, boulders tumbling and tress falling. Oh also a fucking volcano just blew up. It’s suddenly hard to breath as rock and dirt rain down on you, and you’re about to be burned and buried by miles worth of molten ash. Pompeii part 2, brought to you by Perseus Jackson.

Only this is 10x worse, because every natural element is out for your complete and utter destruction.

Because Percy controls all of that. And if he hits his breaking point, there’s no telling what he could do if he set his mind to it.

[atwas-gaming]

I've had a scenario in mind for a while now about what it would take for Sonic to finally own up to his feelings about Amy. And I think what it would take is...

Shadow.

Well, just plain jealousy and a fear of losing Amy before he even has her. But Shadow would be the best one to instigate it.

First, some headcanons about how they behave romantically:

Amy's maturing and spreading her wings. She's not moving on from Sonic, not really, but it's possible that she's starting to notice other guys. There's some hints in the Twitter takeovers that she may be developing some small interest in Shadow.

Sonic is clearly interested in Amy, and if you pay attention, he has been for a long time. What he's not interested in is marriage- at least, not yet. And Amy is clearly wifey material- she cooks, she takes care of people, she has a caring nature, she's protective, and she's extremely loyal. She's not someone you can use for a one-night stand, you take all of her or you risk shattering her into pieces. She's Sonic's friend, no matter what else he may feel about her, so he avoids any romantic interaction because he doesn't want to hurt his friend.

Meanwhile, Shadow is... not aro-ace, per se, I don't know what you'd call him. He can see that Amy is attractive, but so is Rouge, and Shadow has no interest in Rouge. He just isn't interested in the physical side of romance.

What I think it would take to get Shadow's attention is something deeper, an emotional or spiritual connection.

So here's the Sonamy/Shadamy love triangle scenario that I came up with:

As Amy ages, she feels her desire for male companionship growing stronger. Sonic takes little notice of it, but it doesn't escape Shadow's attention.

Somehow or other, Shadow and Amy end up alone together, probably on a mission or something. I haven't figured out the exact circumstances, but they're together for quite a while. Amy loves to talk to people and get to know them, and Shadow has a soft spot for her, so she's able to get him to talk to her about things that he's probably never told anyone before. And he knows she won't tell anyone about them, either, so he feels safe telling her.

At some point, Shadow realizes, she's done it. She's broken through his barriers, and at the same time, she's calmed the storm of emotions that he's had swirling inside him for 50-odd years. He hasn't felt such peace since... no, not even then. This is something else. He's never felt this way before, and he doesn't have the words to describe it, but he's fallen head over heels for her.

This is why he never lets his guard down, even around the people he trusts most. Because if he lets them in, even a little bit, he might let them in too far. ("Can you see all of me, walk into my mystery, step inside and hold on for dear life.")

He loses control of himself and kisses Amy.

And when he lets go, he instantly hates himself, he starts throwing his barriers back up, because... she's crying. She's crying because she liked it, and she wants more of it, but she's still so desperately in love with Sonic, and she's starting to think she'll never get it from him, so she'll accept affection from just about any man, and it's not like Shadow's unattractive, and, and, and...

So Shadow's raw and open and hurting, he knew before he said or did anything that he was going down a dangerous path, but talking to Amy felt so good he didn't want to stop. And he wants to erase what just happened like it never did. But now he has to be the one to comfort Amy, because this was his fault, Amy was just being the kind and compassionate person she always was and Shadow was an idiot for letting it get to him and making more of it than what it was and losing control. So he has to keep his barriers down for just a moment longer, just long enough to hold Amy and tell her it's not her fault, until her tears finally stop.

It leaves Shadow burning with rage, and as soon as he can, he forcefully confronts Sonic (I imagine Shadow slamming Sonic against a wall or a tree and shouting in his face 😝) and basically tells him, "Amy needs attention from a man, she wants that man to be you, but if you can't grow up and do what it takes, then I'll be more than glad to take your place."

Which scares Sonic good and proper. It's bad enough to think that he could lose Amy, anyway, but to lose her to that faker??? And it finally makes him go to Amy and (very, very awkwardly) ask her to be his girlfriend. And... I'll let y'all imagine the rest.

As for Shadow... he, quite understandably, becomes somewhat aloof towards both Sonic and Amy for a long time after that.

But Shadow's immortal, right? And there's other Amy's in the world. He doesn't have to be alone forever.

Oh, and as for why Shadow would confront Sonic instead of just taking Amy for himself: because he respects both Amy and, especially, himself far too much to do that. He knows good and well she will never be able to fully commit to anyone else as long as Sonic is still an option. If Shadow was to start dating her, she'd go along with it, but it would become a power play between him and Sonic to try to "win" Amy's affections. Shadow has no issues with fighting Sonic over just about anything, but when it comes to his own feelings, he won't stoop that low, and he's not about to hurt himself by playing such a game. I also don't think he would view Amy as "a prize to be won."

[justaz]

semi-dark king merlin au, someone from ealdor tells king cenred about merlin and he is captured and held as a slave in essetir. since merlin despises captivity and servitude, he’d rather be dead and free than alive and in chains so he acts out and pisses people (especially the king) off so they’ll think him too much trouble and kill him. at first they stick to beatings until merlin manages to get his chains around a few necks and now has a body count so they kill him…..only he wakes back up a few hours later and king cenred is Intrigued and keeps him close. merlin keeps acting out but no matter how many times they kill him, he won’t stay dead. merlin has this moment after waking up perfectly fine after his twenty seventh death where he is hopeless and believes there to be no escape, not even thru death. a few other sorcerers in chains come and help him clean up and give him a lil peptalk, realizing him to be emrys, and then they revolt and take over the kingdom and crown merlin as king and now uther is like “wtf” bc his neighboring kingdom who was kinda sorta on his wavelength about sorcery, though uther did not approve of keeping them alive, is now a kingdom ruled by magic. he goes to war with them but with magic running free and fucking emrys on the throne, they don’t make a lot of headway. anyways merthur meet on the battlefield, enemies to lovers, you get it

[shsl-hubris-guy]

Reasons why I won't be watching the Minecraft movie

1) That's Not Steve

I've never seen a franchise whitewash their own character as much as Mojang does with Steve, like the official art, the merchandise, and now the movie? Be so fr

His actual avatar is black. Like, that is not a white man. At all. How did we get here

[haleigh-sloth]

I’d like to give Isagi some credit and assume what he’s saying here implies he views this way of playing currently as just one of his many options.

For all the dooming and glooming about him this match I feel like people forget that he’s PRETTY damn self-reflective, and has been even in this arc. Like even up until this moment. And he still is. He seems detached and that’s because he’s just accepted that he can’t beat the other team on his own, and it sucks. But to him the way he’s playing right now is a “version”, not his end all be all.

Playing with his friends like Bachi Chigiri and Nagi and even Kunigami back when he was normal wouldn’t drive him to this state of stress, it never has. This is clearly the result of the stressful environment (something that’s been discussed a lot this arc, the environment you’re in and how you’ll use it to make it the right path for you) Rin and Kaiser have thrown him into. Which I think we can all agree is not a good one. There is no camaraderie, encouragement, uplifting of each other. Rin is crazy, Kaiser is crazy (and both of them have been taking it out on Isagi THIS WHOLE TIME BTW), Noa and Loki are self-serving dicks, Kunigami is basically absent from this arc because of the shit he’s dealing with, and Isagi is pretty much on his own.

So the desperation to just end this match (and shut Rin up) is coming out like this.

[navree]

jon seems to be the only one who has some degree of sentience if he is trapped in the computer/office in general, given that he's not only able to send an email but clearly picked a magnus institute statement to read out once sam and celia started demonstrating a waning interest in any investigation into the institute

[cryptdfish]

“white mourning.”

[lambda-core]

I am way too tired/jetlagged to make this post right now, but the reason Armada Starscream is so specifically well done to me actually isn't just the way he's got more depth than just wanting to take over Megatron. It's the way he falls back on this image he has of himself as someone who is solely focused on Megatron. And he is obsessed with Megatron, but the disconnect between Starscream and his image of himself is what gives him actual depth.

The reason this is so cool to me is like, that self-image--that he is single-mindedly obsessed with Megatron and will sacrifice everything else for that goal, no matter who gets hurt--is pretty close to what every other Starscream is. (The selfishness you associate with Starscream is a little more subtle, but it's there in the "no matter who gets hurt" clause imo.)

So if you go into this as a Transformers fan, you're already expecting Starscream to betray Megatron and try to best him and rule the Decepticons. But so does Starscream, even when he's demonstrably proven to both his peers and the audience that he's more than that. It's almost like his past incarnations--or the audience's expectation of him--haunt him. It turns his own internal man-versus-self conflict into this really cool man-versus-narrative conflict.

And what's crazy about this is, through the last moments of this arc, Starscream does grow beyond the narrative we'd expect from other Starscreams! But he never admits that to himself, because it's easier for him to cling to the idea that he's laser-focused on his hatred of Megatron. Every time he helps the minicons--every time he helps the humans--even in his last words, he LIES to himself and everyone around him that everything he did was always about Megatron. Because it's easier to simplify himself than to grasp that he might be a complex character. Because he's a person and he has all the messy conflicts that come with that. He falls back on the same ideas every single other Starscream did, and THAT is his undoing. Not that he is self-centered because he's Starscream. Not that he is obsessed with Megatron because he's Starscream. That he THINKS he is all of those things and he will not LET himself be anything else.

I would argue that that's a bigger theme in Armada, as well. Optimus and Megatron more or less spend their final fight coming to terms with their story roles in Transformers. I really feel like if you sneezed on them, they would realize they do this in every universe and in every timeline. Starscream's is the most interesting example to me, though, because he's such a departure from other versions of Starscream; hell, he acts (and looks, lol) a lot more like some incarnations of Thundercracker. But he's still got classic Starscream in him in this roundabout meta reference. He's like an homage to his namesake. It's so cool! And it works perfectly with the story he's a part of.

[squuote]

In my mind, the narrator is such a clingy creature by nature. like, as a semi ever-present voice, he is just always up in everything all the time and I think that would translate equally so into any sort of physical form. it’s not for any specific reasoning, I just think he wouldn’t get it or even attempt to try to see where you’re coming from if you tried to explain the concept of personal space. he’d say something like “Well what’s the point of that? Have you perhaps forgotten what my main purpose is? it’s literally my title, I—you know what no. You’re trying to egg me on with these completely refutable concepts.” and then he’d scoff and cling even closer. like this is just normal for him, it’s just almost unnatural feeling because he’s got a physical presence to show it.

[hawkogurl]

Nicest comparison I’ll ever make with Norman

[many-gay-magpies]

really hate that the most pervasive fan-interpretation of isaac is (or at least used to be) "soft, sad, innocent puppy in love with scott". like in love with scott maybe sure. sad sure. but he's not SOFT or INNOCENT, he's a BITCH and he's MEAN and his automatic reaction to anyone he doesn't like is to try to fistfight and/or murder them. he has his soft moments but they are far overwhelmed by what a petty bitch he is. and to me thats like the peak of his character and why i love him as much as i do but so much of the fandom apparently saw him and threw all that out the window.

[cdroloisms]

Ok there are a lot of things I don't understand about Wilbur and Dream's interactions, but one of the main things that I don't quite get is the whole breaking into the prison and burning the disks with Tommy , like ok why was Wilbur so convinced that by threatening to kill himself he was gonna make Dream do what ever he wants ( burn the disks)

And well we can say that Dream was just agreeing to whatever the hell the wanted because he wanted them out of his living room ( and because he didn't need the disks) but like ,Wilbur didn't know that, what made him so sure that Dream wanted him alive especially after the prison break ( Dream didn't need his help anymore) to the point that he thought he could use it ( his life ) as leverage

Did Dream want to keep Wilbur alive, if so, then why? I don't know man, seems like the only person that would be losing in this situation is Wilbur himself.

I got more questions but like this is what confuses me the most. Idk just don't get it

Honestly I'm going to assume you know about these reddit posts, but while like I think that people should be able to draw their own conclusions to a text without strictly subscribing to what is said by the authors, like, cc!Dream and cc!Wilbur did give explanations behind what happened in this stream that I think are worth checking out: x x

A lot of people perceived cc!Wilbur's comment specifically as speaking for c!Dream in a way that was uninformed and therefore dismissed the post, which I think is...unwise? Like, cc!Wilbur literally says that he's posting from the perspective of his character's thought process, not an out of character word of god on what c!Dream actually values and believes. Further, he literally clarifies that his character isn't entirely correct and is an unreliable narrator.

But looking between the posts and looking at c!Dream's behavior, I mean. What we can say, rather definitively, that c!Wilbur was right about is that c!Dream didn't want to lose that feeling that he had leverage over c!Wilbur. Like, he's pretty damn desperate not to lose it, actually. c!Wilbur "believes that Dream has nothing if not himself"--a perspective that obviously leaves out c!Punz, considering c!Dream's secrecy in terms of this one particular ally, but is otherwise I mean. Like. Correct? cc!Dream emphasizes repeatedly that c!Dream doesn't want to lose "that feeling of control over Wilbur," that c!Dream's power over c!Wilbur is "just in his head," that he's holding onto it even though "it's seemingly gone after the exile reveal." The rest of the server's story only throws this in sharper relief--c!Wilbur literally fucking leaves the whole damn server and c!Dream is cowering in the prison worrying about him A MONTH LATER.

When c!Wilbur makes the assessment that c!Dream is going to hold onto the perceived leverage he has over c!Wilbur tightly, EVEN WHEN SAID LEVERAGE DOESN'T EXIST, to the point of doing almost everything c!Wilbur tells him to? He's 100% right. c!Dream doesn't want to break the illusion. When cc!Dream gives the two examples of what c!Dream wouldn't do, he mentions that c!Dream wouldn't "kill himself" or "give over the revive book," which, I mean. Is literally just saying the same thing twice. Which, again, just goes to show how far c!Dream is willing to go in order to keep holding onto a feeling of control, that--once again! Is emphasized by both ccs AND by the literal text (as we can see that c!Dream at no point is able to actually use the "leverage" he has over c!Wilbur from reviving him to do LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL) as not existing in any meaningful manner. This isn't a case of c!Wilbur having an inflated sense of self-importance or a case of him pushing his way into this conflict recklessly w/ a delusional belief that his pitch will work. This is a case of c!Wilbur (as is like, usually the case with him and c!Dream) reading c!Dream like an open book and getting exactly what he fucking wants by force, literally shouting down at c!Tommy and c!Dream until they both comply.

(And it's worth pointing out that like. This whole thing does have a visible toll on c!Dream. He's extra jumpy and defensive in the stream on the same day after Inconsolable Differences, says he went for a stroll outside the prison (something he basically Doesn't Do after he gets the prison back in Daedalus) explicitly to "keep his mind wandering," he bristles at the perception that he's being accused of a terrorist--the exact wording that c!Wilbur uses against him when he makes him write the book in the prison. c!Dream's behavior, while not yet pushed to the point where he starts lashing out in self-defense, was pretty obviously off as soon as c!Wilbur started making demands--he grows quieter, more still, visibly less comfortable--honestly, not at all unsimilar to certain behaviors that we saw in the prison arc.)

And I mean. At the end of the day. Why wouldn't c!Dream want some reason to believe that c!Wilbur would work with him? Why wouldn't he want some kind of leverage? The guy is pretty obviously worried about him, if not outright scared of him. He was ranking c!Wilbur with the likes of c!Sam and c!Quackity when he mentions him in the Finale, for god's sake. c!Wilbur was the person that first called him the tyrant that c!Dream ends up believing he has always been. c!Wilbur was the originator of L'manburg, which c!Dream blames for the literal loss of his home. c!Wilbur is like. Extremely charismatic, extremely good at convincing people that he's well-meaning, that what he's saying is right, that this-person-is-the-enemy and you-want-to-stand-for-freedom and that so-and-so is a cause worth dying for, isn't it. c!Dream was The-Man-That-L'manburg-Opposed from the minute that c!Wilbur decided so and this narrative would follow him literally for the rest of his life.

So yeah c!Dream wanted to keep c!Wilbur alive out of the delusional belief that doing so would mean he has leverage over him. Why he wants that leverage (even though he never uses it and the fact that it literally doesn't exist), I mean.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID: a black and white animatic based on the owl house set to "Letter to an old poet" by Boygenius. End ID]

Not sure when/if I'll finish this (I have the rest planned out!) BUT I liked it too much to just sit on it forever!!! So take this messy work in progress. She's not perfect but she makes me Feel Things

(sorry about the lack of ID, I don't know how to write them for videos! If you have any suggestions/want to give it a go, feel free!)

[zend-pixie]

actually crying i swear this frame was an accident

[loveydive]

okay. finished veilguard. um. it sure was definitely a game.

[hauntingblue]

NAMI NEEDS TO GO UP THERE AND FIGHT BIG MOM I AM SO SERIOUS!!! THIS IS A BATTLE FOR THE ROMANCE DOWN TRIO!! SANJI DO NOT DARE TAKE HER SPOT!!!