#hm. tried to hit a specific vibe with this one. don't know if i hit it

[thestuffedalligator]

The giant was in an iron cage that had once held an elephant in the menagerie.

Here in the dungeons, it was still too small for it to sit up in. It was lying on its side, knees drawn up to its chest, facing the opposite wall.

Gretta had been forbidden to see it. Well, no, that wasn’t right – nobody had even told Gretta that it was here. Her sisters and the staff of the castle had apparently been expressly forbidden to tell her, but Margit had a soft heart and told her the night before that they had finally caught the giant.

It stung that even her little sister had been told and that she hadn’t.

She didn’t sleep after that, and she spent the long morning looking for an opportunity to slip away. Now in the gloom of the dungeon, she stood in the entranceway and watched the slow rise and fall of the giant’s breathing.

She could feel the heart in her chest beating, a quick thud-dump, thud-dump, thud-dump that shook her whole body. Once upon a time the giant was a menace that had pillaged and ransacked the whole western coast of the kingdom. It was a story her mother had told her and her sisters and had made Margit burst into tears in the middle of the night–

“I know that heartbeat.”

Gretta froze. The words had been slow, and low, and had made pebbles on the stone floor shiver.

Chains started to jingle together. “That is a heart I’ve not heard beat in three long years,” the giant said as it started to turn in its cage. “I’d know it anywhere.”

The giant settled on its other side. In the low glow of the dungeon’s torches, its grin gleamed like rubies.

“Hello again,” the giant rumbled. “Do you remember me?”

Gretta swallowed. She remembered–

She remembered being lulled to sleep as the carriage rocked on the highland road. She remembered the door being pulled off its hinges with a shower of splinters. She remembered the grey hand as wide as a wagon wheel reaching out to her–

She remembered waking up with a long, delicate stitch along her sternum.

Her hand reached unthinking to feel the long scar under her shirt.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re the giant who put its heart in my chest.”

“I missed the sound of it. It’s beating fast, so very fast.” The ruby grin flashed again. “Are you frightened of me?”

Gretta stared. Then she set her shoulders and turned her chin up to a haughty angle. “I’m not frightened of an animal in a cage,” she said.

The grin vanished. “Fine,” it said. The chains rattled again as it turned to stare up at the ceiling.

“I want to know why you did it.”

There was a very long, thoughtful pause. For a moment she was worried it wasn’t going to speak.

“I’m sure you guessed,” it finally rumbled. “The queen did – she only caught me to confirm what she already knew. A giant cannot be killed while its heart is outside of its body.” Another sound of metal as it shrugged. “Other giants bury their hearts or hide them in an egg in a duck in a well in a church on an island. I wanted something more… certain.”

“And that’s why you chose me?”

The giant was silent. The heart in her chest continued to beat, thud-dump, thud-dump, thud-dump…

The giant sighed. “It was never meant to be you,” it said. “I meant to grab the seventh daughter.”

Gretta blinked. “Margit?”

“Oh yes. Sweet, simpering, insipid Margit, who still sings with the birds and cries over baby animals. The kingdom would’ve had a conniption over having to kill her to kill me – if they did, it would be such a heinous death that they would remember it for generations in song and story. And I would’ve gotten my immortality either way.

“Instead I got you.” The giant looked back at Gretta and gave her a look of such contempt she nearly reeled. “You,” the giant said again, and she had never heard the word said with more disgust. “Who cares about you.”

“Excuse me!”

“Sixth of seven daughters,” the giant said. “Not the eldest, not the youngest, not even a proper middle child. An extra. A spare. Worthless, except for maybe an interesting marriage.”

“You have no right to–”

“They’ll just kill you.”

The dungeon was suddenly deathly still.

“They won’t be happy about it,” the giant continued, turning to stare at the ceiling again. “They’ll be very somber and austere and I have no doubt that Margit will cry over you, as she does over all little animals about to die. But they’ll say that you’re more valuable dead than I am alive, and so for the sake of the kingdom you will be given the noble task of dying. And that will be the end of us both.”

Gretta opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She opened her mouth again. “Is that it?! If you’re so sure, why don’t you – why don’t you break out of your chains? Ransack the castle? Run back to your mountain, do something?”

“What an odd thing to say,” the giant said. “You know that if I live, I can escape to murder and pillage and ransack again. Surely, any good princess would want only the best for their people.”

Gretta said nothing. The heart in her chest went thud-dump, thud-dump, thud-dump…

She could feel the giant’s grin. “The queen had me captured so she could confirm what she already knew,” it said. “It seems to me that you’re here to do something very similar.”

Halfway up the stairs from the dungeon, Gretta ran into her mother.

Gretta stared. Her mother blinked. Gretta considered her options.

She set her head at a haughty angle. “I know you caught it,” she said.

There was a very long, thoughtful pause.

“What did it tell you?” her mother asked.

Gretta looked at her mother. She looked at her mother’s hand on the hilt of her sword.

She felt the beat of her heart go thud-dump, thud-dump, thud-dump.

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” she said.

She ran away that night.

[ivanaskye]

(wo)men are flipping on tv, or, ivana's olympic watching experiences so far i guess

(artistic) gymnastics: the absolute classic of flipping on tv. you're probably either already watching this or not i guess. if you are on the fence men's is much, uh, more competitive than women's right now. speaking of gender the 6 men's events vs 4 women's is sure some kind of way--and of those 6 vs 4, only two (vault and floor) overlap! and of course women's floor has music and includes facial expression in judging whereas men cannot have music, that is too girly. what precisely is manly about a single high bar as opposed to two bars of uneven height? no one knows.

trampoline: speaking of gymnastics this is technically a subcategory of it, along with the above and rhythmic gymnastics my beloved (but not having yet happened). uhhh ok so in trampoline people Go, up into the Air, apparently 26 ft+. then flip. very concentrated flip per second here, recommended if you want flip. each athlete's run is very short though, which may impact followability

diving: this time we flip into water. synchronized diving is very easy to tell if people are doing well bc you just kind of go, hm, are they doing the Same thing? in all diving you know someone's done something right if they make very little splash into the water. ok ive also literally only watched one event here

skateboarding: if you take anything from this list, let it be this- please please please watch olympic skateboarding it is so fun. skateboarders attempt two 45 second runs (of which only the best score counts) and 5 individual tricks (of which only the two best count). as such they are incentivized to take a lot of risks and fall down all the time. it's great. also makes for great ease of watching: you know they did well if they landed All That, and probably didn't if they are on the ground.

bmx (jump version): kind of like skateboarding but worse bc risks are less incentivized

boxing: absolutely incomprehensible to a mere mortal. apparently the judges determine who wins each round based on.... uh..... who... seemed to be doing better. so, vibes? vibes. it's not something as pedestrian as 'who landed more hits'. absolutely mystifying. also moves very fast.

judo: moves much slower than boxing! so you can at least tell who is doing what to who. as for whether what they are doing scores points. well. uh. see. the match instantly ends if one fighter throws the other with "strength, speed and control". if they have only two of these they get a point; two points wins. how are any of these words measured? uhhhhhh. vibes!

handball: i checked into this for maybe ten minutes to see if i could figure out what handball 'is'. i still don't know. there's a ball in a hand. soccer-like but with a hand instead of a foot. how do the rules actually work? a mystery.

table tennis/ping pong: actually pretty followable though not engaging enough to me specifically that i watched much. mb not enough flipping. my god these people move fast.

equestrian jumping: in some ways like many other events, except the creature jumping is a horse. i like to imagine what the horses are thinking about this whole situation. i tried to look up what a horse's name meant and discovered he has a website (he has no idea he has a website) where his sperm is sold for hundreds of pounds (he has no idea this is happening either). very followable as there are no positive points of any kind, only penalties. did that horse clear the bar without knocking it over? congratulations that was a success.

equestrian other things: opposite tier of followability i have no idea what these creatures are doing.

track: running is the easiest thing to understand, closely followed by swimming. who gets from point a to point b fastest. we can all understand this. however mostly it is not very interesting

triple jump: jump far*. the closest part of the indentation they make in the sand to the starting line is what is judged as their distance. *technically, triple jump is 'jump far with extra steps'. long jump is the true 'jump far' but i haven't seen any yet.

hammer throw, shot put, discus: the throw things real far events. to which javelin is added but i don't think ive seen even a bit of that. wait im not sure i saw any hammer throw yet either. anyway. the builds of these athletes are so mountainous. which is great.

elsewhere in field i haven't watched any pole vault but that one guy did get betrayed by his own junk so there was that

shooting: unfortunately the memeable people everyone has seen are in air rifle which is perhaps the least interesting event to try to watch of all time. you can barely even see when they pull the trigger and you don't get to see the target itself, only a graphic of it. mystifying presentation choices. skeet and trap however are followable as moving targets are shot, scored on a pure yes/no of did you shoot that thing or not. americans hilariously uncommon in shooting events despite our gun culture; don't you know, it's not actually american to shoot something accurately!!!

[marinettesaltprompts]

May I offer another deconstruction of a Maribat trope? More specifically the one where a Batboy comes to Dupont, immediately hits it off with Mari & helps expose/ruin everyone and they live happily ever after!

You can't tell me they wouldn't take (1) look at Gabe & immediately have him as a prime suspect. Thus, maybe Tim, Jason, Dick or Damian goes for 'study overseas' & Gabriel graciously offer to let them stay with him for the business connections.

Cue them also immediately picking up on the rancid vibes of Lila, Bustier, Damocles BUT ALSO Marinette bcz surprise! They know how to spot a stalker! They also know how to remain objective & actually investigate. They point out to Adrien that the high road approach is wrong but still take into account that (1) his upbringing conditioned him to be passive & (2) Mari didn't tell him abt the threats and from what they've seen, Adrien definitely would've have let that slide.

And no, they don't bring Mari into the fold bcz they overheard her complaining to Alya abt Adrien's sudden divergence from the private schedule she somehow got her hands on? How she was going to sabotage a random girl for winking at Adrien teasingly?? How they're gonna have a family & hamsters??? And how she expects everyone to listen to her bcz she's their 'Everyday LB'???

Yeah, no. And if they find out she's the actual LB, still NO.

Bcz they see how much of a mess everything is. How she keeps CN out of the loop, expecting him to be the distraction, the goofy sidekick & meatshield. How that applies to the rest of her 'team' who aren't given consistent training. How she makes herself the lynchpin for everything.

More importantly, they see how underutilized CN is. So they take him under their wing in & out of the mask. Experimenting with his Cataclysm & enhanced senses, showing him the darker nitty-gritty places where the downtrodden go to be forgotten, how to act instead of react & assert himself in ways that matter. CN gains popularity as others note how proactive he is in stopping pettier crimes outside of akumas, how he takes the trouble to visit past victims & lend them an ear, etc.

How he & the other vigilante work even better than him & LB.

Naturally, she throws a fit, thinking they're trying to 'undermine' her. Nevermind that they've made more progress in the past month than she ever did in almost 2 years. When she tries to demand CN hand over his miraculous, he refuses, done with her bossiness, & she declares him a 'traitor'.

Cue Mari getting a restraining order & more blogs pointing out the unfair power dynamic of the hero duo. In the end, HM isn't even defeated with a bang but a whimper as CN & the Batboy knock Gabe out before he transforms, send evidence to the police and leave. LB is now left alone to explain to Paris what happened & deal with the fact that they now think she's either incompetent or a glory hound who purposely didn't do her job to milk the attention while Marinette is ALSO blamed for the fallout at Dupont bcz she's as complicit as the rest of them.

CN & Adrien disappear from Paris and maybe the Teen Titans gain a new member. One who's treated as an equal, a friend & after a while, family.

(Idk, for some reason, him joining the Titans sounds more plausible than the Batfam. Thoughts?)

I definetely think the Titans would be a better group for Adrien in terms of social growth because of the variety of people in that group, but the Batfamily is definetely a close second. It doesn't hurt that he's the closest thing to a Batfamily character outside of the costume (we'll just say that he's Selina's nephew ;) )

Lovely post btw!