#he's no better than the rest of them

[ceruark]

*ahem* *slides you a $20*

So… about those other hinted suitors….

I thought you’d never ask~

If you haven't already read it, you can see my Entwined AU here and read about about yandere prince Sunday :>

Imperial Advisor Ratio has all the means to make you his— everything except the status, that is. Having been formally introduced to you as your personal advisor when you were both teenagers, Veritas has long since earned your unwavering trust and faith in him, something he has exploited a great number of times. It’s nice to be needed by you, to be the one you look toward and rely on when uncertainty and insecurity settle in your heart. You alone possess his loyalty and his heart, and he’ll do his best to steer you and your kingdom in the right direction— even if, sometimes, that direction may be toward himself.

It eats him up inside to know that he can’t ever have you. He’s a miserable orphan your mother so graciously picked up off the streets and had her court raise into the perfect advisor, and as far as anyone knows he’s certainly not royalty. He has your trust, he has Welt’s approval, and yet the only thing standing between you and him is the lack of a mere title. 

It doesn’t matter. If he has things his way, you’ll be a ruler who never marries and finds a successor in one of your kingdom’s bright youths. All it will take is sabotaging your personal relationships with any honorable suitors that come your way— and keeping you out of Sunday’s grasp.

Lord Aventurine is one of ten advisors for Emperor Diamond of the IPC, and his honey-coated compliments do nothing to distract you from the way he eyes your empire, your palace— the way he eyes you. You never wanted to give him the time of day, knowing he was only looking to acquire your kingdom for the IPC’s already vast empire. However, despite your efforts, you somehow manage to get wrapped up in conversation with him at every event. He always knows just what to say, knows what political affairs are plaguing your mind and how to get you to express your true opinion of them. It leaves you baffled every time, how someone so obviously possessing ulterior motives could get you to lower your inhibitions and be open with him.

And it’s true, he is after your empire— at least, at first, that’s all it was. But Aventurine does his research, and he manages to get information on everyone of importance: you, your late mother, Imperial Advisor Welt, and of course, that Imperial Advisor Ratio. Yes, he’d heard the tales of how your mother found him out in the rain, scavenging for food, and so kindly took him into the palace and raised him with the specific purpose of being your personal advisor after he proved to have an astounding intellect. He’d heard all about how Ratio from nothing to everything, pampered and treated like a prince by your mother’s court. He felt a twinge of jealousy that someone of similar origin to him could have such a different upbringing, but he brushed it off, not wanting to open old wounds.

And then he meets you. Someone clearly cautious of him, but treating him with kindness and due respect nonetheless. It was refreshing; the IPC were hated by almost everyone, and his past meant he was far less respected than the other advisors. You aren’t immune to his manipulation tactics, and he finds that the more he talks to you, the more he falls. Your heart is far too pure for the life you’ve been born into, and it pains him to think that anyone but him could possibly take advantage of it at any time. And as he manages to slither his way past the walls you’ve so wisely built around yourself, as he beholds you— the real you— he can’t help but feel that it should have been him. Your mother should have found him, and he should be the one you depend on, the one who makes your face brighten and your posture relax at the mere sight of him.

No matter. He’ll find his place by your side, one way or another.

General Jing Yuan of the Xianzhou Luofu is a massively influential and renowned figure in Queen Fu Xuan’s court. The Luofu’s most decorated general in history, he commands respect and admiration in every room he walks into, and his personable demeanor only does him favors. His interest in you is a recent development, sparked by your sharp wit and willingness to flirt back. You’ve clearly become enamored of him, and he’s no exception to the way you seem to captivate every eligible bachelor and bachelorette in the room. Patience is a virtue, and he’s not one to act on jealousy; despite the possessiveness he’s developed over you, he stands a far better chance at winning your hand than anyone else on this list due to his self-control and charm. 

Since the two are already on great terms, the Luofu has no reason to seek out a more solidifying alliance with your kingdom— but surely a marriage between you two can’t hurt, right?

Lady Kafka is a horrible idea wrapped in a tantalizing outer shell. Her empire has nearly tripled in size since she overthrew her kingdom’s rulers a few years ago and seized control, mercilessly and swiftly conquering neighboring regions and expanding her power. 

With the influence she has, Belobog was the first to extend an invitation to her to attend a royal gathering, hoping to establish amicable relations with her. Other kingdoms followed suit, yours included. Choosing to engage with her was one of the few times you disregarded Veritas’s advice, and oh, how you regretted doing that. She took to you quickly, an attractive thing with a powerful empire behind you. You shudder at the feather-light touches she leaves against your arm, her velvety voice doing little to mask the threats she directs toward your kingdom should you deny her affections; if you won’t come to her willingly, she has no qualms about taking you by force. 

Outlaw Boothill is a massive pain in your rear. The most notorious thief in all the kingdoms, his persistent evasion of authorities all around the world leaves you perplexed, frustrated, and somewhat impressed. Wanted by almost every empire, he seems to have an affinity for messing with yours specifically. He’s broken into your palace countless times, stealing anything from dinner plates and cutlery to one of Veritas’s rubber ducks. He’s managed to get into your chambers the past few times, though, and the thought of the missing jewelry and articles of clothing leaves your skin crawling.

Once a knight for a kingdom with cruel rulers, Boothill saw the way your subjects genuinely adore and respect you and decided to do his own research. Masquerading as a palace hand when he’s not out causing chaos, he quickly finds himself flustered by your authenticity and kindness toward all your servants, even him. You’re everything a good ruler should be, and he can’t help but wonder what things could’ve been like for him had he served you. 

He never takes anything of real value from your palace like he does with the other royals— just knowing he’s got your attention is enough of a prize for him.

(hopefully this provides some insight as to why Sunday has such an urgency to slap a ring on your finger LOL)

[prideprejudce]

please tell me it’s not true that the one billionaire passenger coerced his terrified 19 year old son into going in that underwater coffin because it was father’s day weekend

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[suntails]

WIPs

[quantumshade]

idk how so many of yall are missing the point of ricky september as a character. he's there for two reasons: firstly his role as a sort of doctor stand in is to show the audience that lindy would have listened to and respected a white doctor. the second reason is to show that no matter how much they say they like each other, those people leaving finetime are going to sacrifice and kill each other as soon as it becomes beneficial to them. lindy idolized ricky, but she killed him as soon as it provided an advantage to her. the same thing is going to happen with the rest of that group, because that's what fascists do. there's no two ways about it, they're all going to die.

[arson-09]

Tamlin is actually such an underrated character in acotar. Because of feyres very biased narrative she forces readers to ignore the complexity of his character and man. its sad

Tamlin is a character who is genuinely GOOD at his core. He changed so much of the spring court for good, eliminating slavery within the spring lands and mortals having more protection. Hes a morally good character that made a few mistakes and is boiled down to just those mistakes. Locking feyre in the house and the magical/emotional blow up, which are both pretty decent fuck ups (i dont think siding with hybern fully counts as he was a double agent all along and tamlin was decently justified in thinking feyre was being kept against her will. lets be fr here) and even after he’s extremely fucked over by the nightcourt, his lands and court burned to shit, he still saves rhysand. Saves rhysand and tells feyre to be happy, even when he has every reason to NOT do that!

Hes a character that clearly holds himself to a higher standard. throughout acotar he puts lucien and feyres safety above his own, even sending feyre away when she was the only one who could save him. Even though what he did to her wasnt great its not completely irredeemable, rhysand did much worse things to feyre and other people but hes living his best life while Tamlin seems to find himself unworthy of being a person (acosf wheres hes been in beast form for roughly over two years) hes a perfectionist who now doesnt even think he deserves anyone because he accidentally hurt the people he loves most.

Sjm accidentally created a beautifully rich and morally righteous character who is so extremely fucked by the narrative. Which doesnt even work half the time as sjm cant seemingly commit to making him a full villain (seemingly by accident again she gave him quite a reasonable explanation to everything he did ‘wrong’ but still chooses to make him a punching bag)

If Tamlin was genuinely a morally evil character he wouldnt have NEARLY the amount of fans as he does. Hes a character that requires the minimum amount of media literacy and comprehension to understand and i LOVE him.

[yuwuta]

the calling your boyfriend “bro” thing is so funny in general with the jjk boys bc all of them are losing the idgaf wars so very terribly, but yuuta is a particularly funny case bc he is canonically formal even with his friends so part of him is relieved you want to speak to him to casually, but the other part of him does not love that this is the word you’ve chosen so he just ends up being so awkward but he refuses to correct you or anything at least towards the beginning of your relationship—honestly you could get away with anything for a while bc it takes yuuta eight business months to recognize if/when you’re messing with him—but later on down the road he gets so perplexed and if you call him that and genuinely confused bc WHO are you referring to?? you’re married, he’s your husband, not anything else

[eyrieofsynapses]

hey, Leverage peeps, I've got a thought. I've seen a lot of posts and memes joking about Nate's inability to understand that his clients do not want money, they want revenge. I also find this funny. but I was thinking about it and I realized something: there's a personal reason behind it. there is a very, very good reason why Nate doesn't get that.

Nate's drive to lead Leverage, outside of the crew, originated from his son's death due to his insurance company's refusal to cover the bill for the required treatment. we all know this. if his company had paid for Sam's treatment, everything would've been fine.

…or, if Nate had been a little wealthier, had a little more change to spend… maybe he could've paid for it. maybe Blackpool never would've had a say in any of it. maybe Nate would've had everything under control from the start.

we've discussed at length in the fandom how money equals safety for some of the others in the crew (Parker and Hardison grew up with little to none and know its importance to survival, Eliot needs it to stay ahead of his old enemies, etc.), but I don't know that I've seen any discussion on how it's relevant to Nate. for him, however, money equals security in healthcare and in housing (he lost the house, remember?). Nate's older than the others. he remained in the same place for much longer, and he had a stable life for a while. the others haven't been in that position before. many of their clients, however, are at that place in life.

yes, for the others, money keeps them ahead of the game and it keeps them secure. but none of them ever lost a kid because they couldn't pay for healthcare. none of them risk losing the life of someone who is completely dependent on them when they don't have enough.

(Hardison, perhaps, has the closest understanding, considering he hacked a bank to pay for his Nana's healthcare. but he never lost her.)

Nate thinks ahead, you know? he has a long-term view of things. I imagine that for him, when clients refuse the money, they're not just refusing a month's worth of groceries, or a place to stay the night, or the ability to keep running. for him, they're refusing control over their hard-earned, stable, long-term living situation. they're refusing the potential to save a family member's life.

I dunno, guys. I think that's a pretty good reason to not understand why people don't want the money.

[essektheylyss]

Matt like, "Actually who needs a character sheet, I'm just piloting Essek on vibes"

[theforgottengreatpoem]

Alecto using Annabeths hubris to convince her to give up Percy vs Medusa using Percy's loyalty for his mom to convince him to kill his friends

Monsters + Playing into the Hero's Fatal Flaws | Percy Jackson and the Olympians 1x03 | inspiration

[notfeelingthyaster]

tim as ceo is an absurd concept (at his age of twenty something because i am a seventeen atheist) except as a joke, but i can see him as a corporate drone around bruce (as head of some kinda department? very nepo baby)

he's the only one of bruce's kids interested in corporative work (except for maybe Duke): Dick is very community focused (officer, teacher, etcetc), Jason is dead (legally and emotionally and ocasionally physically), Cass Could Not Care Less, Steph is Not Official and you can take vet/activist Damian out of my cold dead hands

so yes, tim (and maybe duke) as future nepo baby heads of WE, thank you

[velvetsssapphic]

Me whenever this scene comes up

[egophiliac]

Wait, did you put a photo of Vil and Neige as kids in Eric’s office??

oh good, I was afraid that wasn't going to read properly and people would just be like "what is this supposed to be". :') but yeah! I like to think Eric was pretty fond of Neige as a kid! single dad sees orphan child approximately the same age as his own son and goes "hmm. okay, you guys are going to be friends now." (this did not go as well as he'd hoped.)

(also I do love how it's kind of a running joke that everyone loves Neige except for Vil, who's standing over in the corner and just seething with furious irrational hatred. someday maybe he'll find someone who doesn't think Neige is the best thing since cinnamon rolls.)

[dykedvonte]

A Defense of Benny Gecko

Benny is more of a capable leader and person than people give him credit for.

Seeing as no one challenged his position as head Chairmen for 7 years and even then he only loses the position if he’s caught, killed or forced to leave. Yes, it’s also likely House wouldn’t have allowed him to be killed but he sure as hell would of found a way to remove him if he was causing too much unrest within The Tops power structure. Even Swank and Tommy don’t outright dislike him and more so are concerned with his recent secretive and shady behavior, emphasis on recent.

Taking all we know into consideration, Benny likely knew the future direction that he wanted to take Vegas but was so caught up in the plans to acquire Vegas that he didn’t think of how to make his dream a reality. Something he admits to in canon. I see this being used as the main argument that Benny doesn’t know what he’s doing at all but I see it more in the same vein as you can’t really plan something from nothing. The transformation of Vegas is a sensitive thing that he can’t really work on until he has it. The only reason he ran to the Fort prematurely is the Courier who was causing so much of a stir he would’ve likely been found out much faster, making all that planning for nothing if he didn’t take that chance.

Benny is careful (well a lot more careful than he is regularly depicted in fanon), the Courier being able to trace him was dumb luck on their part and his hair being noticed at the Fort is a realistically small oversight that even Caesar is disappointed in because he admits Benny got farther than he should’ve been allowed by his legionaries. The fact he can plan an ambush on the Courier or tries to quickly and concisely clean up lose ends that don’t lead back to him shows he’s not just acting on impulses or in the moment decisions. Or rather he’s quite good at thinking them out, whether they work depends on how you play really. This is all to say it’s 100% believable that Benny could lead an independent Vegas (house was basically setting him up to do that). If he had known explicitly that House was setting him up to replace him, he likely would’ve bought more time by getting in closer, learning more of the system to then flip House’s edge to his favor. Again something he was doing already but likely without the knowledge of House’s feelings on him personally.

No matter what, Vegas’ future was tied to Benny; House’s plans for him, having to get the chip and if he had somehow succeeded. It’s also interesting that of all the people vying for control of the dam/Vegas, Benny’s plans are the only ones actually oriented towards a new future, not a recreation of something long past.

[valengory1234]

While I love the storyline where Alfred was there from day one and helped raise Bruce, I think the original where he’s just some guy who shows up one day and Bruce and Dick just have to cope is extremely funny

[hunybody]

when daniel molloy refuses to eat rats and deer and just straight-up becomes a serial killer on cocaine in season 3 i expect us all to clap and cheer and i’m literally not joking. also he needs to bite armand’s dick off in a sex way. armand will love it.