#i guess they are squatting the concept of squatting

[yellow-yarrow]

why do I need to pay like 500 usd for "self organized learning" when i can just organize a study group myself or go down to a leftist bar and take part in their free art events

[turcott3]

listen here my concept on matt was being a good friend of his and you've never experimented or did really anything much with guys before so you nervously but boldly approach him and ask if you could practice giving him head and he guides you through it step by step .......... bye i had to.

21st

matt rempe x fem! reader

warnings?: cursing, wine, oral sex male receiving, kissing

masterlist and part two

-

you and matt sat distant on the long sectional long after everyone had left your 21st birthday celebration. you’d been best friends with the boy as long as you could remember so you asked if he would stay the night with you like old times.

“this wine is actually really good.” matt says breaking the silence.

“yeah it is, that’s why i bought it.” you smirk.

“now y/n, how did you buy this wine last week? just a question.

“well let’s just say the ‘how’ is cut up in my garbage right now.” you giggle, cracking a smile.

“you sneaky sneaky girl.” you points at you.

“as always.” you giggle, downing the rest of your glass. the thing about wine that differed from the other things you drank is that it makes you honest. you were barely even buzzed, but wine brought out the honesty in you.

“wow it’s so crazy, i’m 21 and i still haven’t even actually hooked up with a guy.” you scoff.

“you’re not a virgin though? i’m confused.” he adds.

“well i guess the better word would be properly. he stuck it in, nut, and then left.”

“wow.”

“did i really never tell you that?” you ask, sitting up on the couch and setting your glass on the coffee table.

“no?” he replies giggling, doing the same.

“it’s kind of embarrassing.” you reply as he gets up and sits closer to you on the couch.

“why’s it embarrassing?”

“it just is. i don’t wanna be 21 and completely unexperienced.” you say as silence rung out in your living room.

“hey matt?” you ask, breaking the silence.

“yeah.”

“can you….. teach me some….. stuff?” you asked practically in a whisper, a blush burning on your cheeks as you stared at the floor.

“teach you what?” he replies, using his fingers to guide your gaze back to his.

“i don’t know, i just-“

“yes i can y/n, i was messing with you.” he giggles.

“oh okay.” you reply, the blush burning darker.

“don’t be shy now y/n, you can trust me.” he says brushing your hair behind your shoulders.

“i know i can trust you matt, i’m just nervous.” you reply picking at the skin of your nails.

“would you feel more comfortable if we went to your room?” he asks softly, running a soft hand up your thigh. you only nod in response as the tall boy stands up in front of you.

“come here.” he mutters as you reach for him. he picks you up, your legs latching around his waist as he carries you to your bedroom. carefully, he shuts your door behind you and stops in his tracks.

“look at me pretty girl.” he says, doing as you’re told you pick your head up off his shoulder and lock eyes with him, a smile spreading across his face before locking his lips with yours gently and respectfully. you moved your hands to grab onto his face, begging to deepen the kiss. you had never imagined you’d be in this position with your lifelong best friend but at the same time it felt so familiar to you. you felt safe in his embrace and absorbed the love from his affection deeply. regretfully, he breaks apart the kiss, setting you down carefully on the bed. you sat up on your knees and looked up at the brunette who looked down on you with a soft gaze in his eyes.

“now what is it you want me to teach you exactly?” he asks, squatting down to your level, his hand placed gently on top of your hand that rested on your thigh.

“oh um, anything. i really don’t mind.” you reply shyly.

“do you feel comfortable getting undressed for me or is that not okay?” he asks.

“i think im comfortable.”

“okay just take off some layers until you want to stop, is that okay?” he asks gently and you nod, removing your shirt revealing the black lace bra you’d bought yourself for your last birthday. you notice matt also removing his shirt.

“matt you don’t have t-“

“yes i do. it’s only fair. if you’re gonna be vulnerable, so am i.”

“okay.” you reply, blushing as you shimmied out of your jean shorts, him removing his jeans and tossing them to the side.

“i think this is good.” you say, very aware of your bareness.

“okay.” he says as you look back up at him.

“do i look okay?” you ask with a gleam in your eye.

“gorgeous.” he smiles, bending over and reconnecting your lips softly for a few moments.

“okay, i’m gonna teach you how to give head, that alright?” he asks and you nod eagerly. now that you’d seen him in this light, you didn’t think you’d ever be able to see him another way, and that didn’t bother you.

slowly, he pushed the waistband of his boxers down, revealing his soft cock. at first glance he was already big and that made you nervous as to what was to come.

“give me your hand.” he asks quietly and you do so. gently, he wraps your hand around his length.

“okay, now carefully but not too carefully, jerk me off.” he says and you do so, pumping your hand slowly up and down his cock. his hand wrapped back around yours moving you a little bit faster before letting go. you keep the speed and feel the blood begin to rush to his length. he thickened in your hand quickly as he muttered and mumbled words you couldn’t make out above you.

“you’re doing so good y/n.” he says.

“you’re so big matt.” you say before looking up at him with a smirk on his face.

“give me your hand.” he requests and you do so, removing your hand from his dick and holding it up to him. slightly, he bends over and spits a puddle of saliva into your hand.

“now do that again.” he continues and you do so, working the liquid into the skin of his swollen cock.

“good girl.” he mutters, a blush creeping into your cheeks once again.

“okay, are you ready babygirl?” he asks, using two fingers to tilt your chin upward to him.

“yes.” you reply lowly.

“i’ll start easy on you, open your mouth a little bit and stick out your tongue a bit as well.” he says and you do so, earning a nod of approval from the brunette.

“now take me into your hand, and put the tip onto your tongue.” he says and you do as your told, placing his wet, pink tip onto your tongue.

“now if you want you can brush your tongue along the underside of my tip,” he says and you begin to do so, “yeah just like th- fuck, it’s so-“

“sensitive.” you smirk, taking him away from your mouth for a moment.

“yeah, that.” he replies as your put it right back wear it was.

“now you can kind of take your tongue where ever you like, you can move all the way down to the base or you can circle the tip, whatever feels comfortable to you.” he says and you act upon his words, dragging your wet, warm tongue down his shaft to the base of his cock. you moved your way back up, circling the tip just like you’d been told.

“is this okay?” he asks, holding your hair in a ponytail.

“mhm.” is all you reply as you work your tongue magic on his thick cock.

“now, if you’re ready, you’re gonna protect your teeth with your lips and start to take some of the shaft into your mouth.” he says and you do so, making an ‘o’ shape with your mouth you take some of him into your mouth, continuing to pay close attention to detail with your tongue.

“yes just like that.” he grunts as you make it just less than half way down his shaft before you begin to feel your gag reflex. quickly, you take him out of your mouth and look up at him.

“am i doing okay?”

“you are doing perfectly, is something wrong?”

“no, just don’t know how much i can take.” you sigh, avoiding a giggle,

“try to take a little more for me baby.” he asks and you nod, carefully taking him back into your mouth, pushing more of his cock in. you make it a moment further before gagging and pulling him out, spit webbing from your lips.

“god, i’m so close im sorry.” you sigh out.

“don’t apologize, here, hold onto your thumb like this, it’s shuts off your gag reflex.” he says and you copy his hand. using your free hand, you take his cock back into your mouth, your other hand gripping mercilessly onto your thumb, praying that maybe you could impress him. much to your surprise, you took him with ease, his happy trail tickling your nose as he bottomed out in your throat. you pulled him out with a pop, breathing heavily to get air back, not realizing you’d been holding your breath.

“that was so good baby, do you wanna try bobbing your head?” he asks and you do so, trying to mimic the same rhythm you used with your hand, your tongue tracing the bottom of his thick shaft.

“god you’re amazing.” he groans as his grip on your hair grows tighter, not pressuring you to move any other way. you continued this seemingly perfect routine, his moans and grunts growing closer together, his cock swelling even more. you could tell he was about to bust, as much as he didn’t want this night to end.

“oh fuck i’m gonna cum y/n.” he says lowly as you take him all the way, his warm, milky climax spurting down your throat, you pulled him out slightly, allowing him to finish on your tongue before you impressively, swallow his nut.

“you’re a fucking natural.” he scoffs, a smile spreading across his face as you wiped your lips from the mixture of saliva and cum.

“really?”

“god yes.” he says, tackling you to your bed pressing sweet kisses all over your face.

“so, can we do this again sometime?” you ask, face inches away from him.

“oh yeah? what’s our next lesson?” he replies.

“what about that, but on me?” you smirk.

“so the next one is you grading me?” he giggles.

“duh.” you reply, “or maybe we can call it the final, and we can go all the way?” you continue and he hugs you to his chest tightly.

“are you sure?”

“yes matt, i trust you. god you’re amazing.”

“i just can’t wait to show you the good sex you actually deserve. i in fact will not, stick it in, nut and then leave.” he laughs.

“well id hope not, better live up to the hype.”

“i won’t let you down.” he smirks reconnecting your lips.

“we never specified when this next ‘lesson’ was.” he sighs.

“soon. very soon.” you reply.

it was moments later that the two of you got cozy, deciding that maybe you should sleep together in the bed instead of a few feet apart on a sectional in your living room. and maybe you shouldve done this way sooner than your 21st birthday party.

[headspace-hotel]

I have an essay brewing in my head constantly about lawns. Which, well, unsurprising, since I post about how I hate lawns all the time, but I think the "lawn" and "landscaping" centered way of thinking about Places Outside is a Bigger Thing that Connects to Other Things

(What isn't? Having ideas about concepts is always like this.)

I will introduce my ideas by a situation where they apply: Sometimes life-forms mimic other life forms. One form of mimicry is called Vavilovian mimicry, where weed species in crops grown by humans evolve over time to be more similar to the crops.

Vavilovian mimicry basically helps weeds survive because the weeds are adapted to the care-taking regimen of the crops, and because the human caretakers of the crop can have a hard time telling them apart, which means they might say "Ehh...I'll wait until it grows up so I can be sure I'm not pulling up my crop."

I think there's something similar at work among flower gardens and landscaping...but it's different.

Regular people don't know the name of every plant that might possibly grow in their flower beds, and they often pull up plants they don't know just because they don't know them. They sometimes say they pull up a plant that "looks weedy" or "looks like a weed."

I think to myself...what does "weedy" look like?

This question collided unexpectedly in my brain with an insight I had about invasive species that I could not explain.

I have to get rid of a lot of Callery pear, wintercreeper, honeysuckle, burningbush, privet, English ivy, and other plants that are invasive where I live. And strangely- many invasive plants look similar in ways they don't share with very many native species. They tend to have small, round or squat, glossy leaves, and they tend to have a very dense growth habit.

I can think of several possible explanations: Maybe these species thrive in North America today because of the loss of controlled burning, but their characteristics look so distinct next to native species because they relate to things that would make a species fire-intolerant? This doesn't seem quite right, since it doesn't predict level of fire-adaptedness in native species.

Another explanation is better: they were selected for these traits by humans for their usefulness in landscaping. Dense growth habit would be useful for creating hedges or ground covers. This is why many invasives were originally planted, right? And small leaves might feel or be perceived as less "messy" when they fall.

But I think this is a clue to something else going on. What does "weedy" look like?

Some plants go on one side of "weeds vs. flowers" and some on the other, and it's almost totally arbitrary...so how do gardeners make the call so decisively?

I think about the commonest "landscaping" plants- Knock Out roses, hostas, petunias, begonias, boxwoods and so on- they share a lot of the characteristics mentioned above. Shiny or at least smooth, typically small and squat leaves, dense and compact growth habit.

Then I think about some of the commonest and most important "weedy" native wildflowers, such as goldenrods, asters, milkweeds, Joe-Pye weed, ironweed, sunflower. They all differ from the above in at least one striking way. Mostly, they have hairy leaves and stems, long and thin leaves, and a tendency to grow up tall before blooming. Milkweed has smooth leaves, but its leaves are long and very big. Hmm...

And I think I can guess where this is coming from.

Landscaping and garden designs often look like this

See how the plants are drawn and arranged to cover a space in two dimensions, mostly not overlapping with each other? This is very easy to plan and design. And those common landscaping plants I mentioned—hostas, Knock Out roses, boxwoods, and so on—are very good at acting just like a two-dimensional representation of them does. Just look, you can see them:

Now look at those important native wildflowers I mentioned:

Goldenrod

Ironweed

Milkweed

These guys don't fill much space in a horizontal plane, they go straight up. They don't exclude other plants from very much space either. Plants could grow under them and among them. So they're not very good for "filling up" space, and their opener, lankier, less dense shape doesn't do a good job at blocking other plants from growing.

In a garden of North American prairie- or meadow-adapted plants, the plants wouldn't exclude each other and stay within their designated spots because they're evolved to intermix with a great variety of plants.

"Separateness" is a big part of the typical "landscape" aesthetic. These plants are very neatly separate from each other. This is what looks "neat" and well-kept to us...the opposite of "weedy."

This could mean our garden and flower beds are affected by a selective pressure a lot like the Vavilovian mimicry situation. But instead of weeds being selected to look like intentionally grown plants, the intentionally grown plants are being selected to look different from weeds.

The subtle difference makes perfect sense. In a field, the rule is "leave the plant there if you're unsure" because that's your food. In a flower bed, the rule is "get rid of the plant if you're unsure" because having weeds is more aesthetically unacceptable than having blank space.

The point is: Ecology needs to be a big part of gardening and landscaping, because you are DOING ecology. Even if you don't know the evolutionary principles, you're acting them out.

Just like the ineffable preferences of female birds give the males weird elaborate display structures, ineffable aesthetic "senses" that govern our "built" world slowly turn it into something weird.

[happyk44]

Obsessing over the concept of Percy having so many dreams about Nico dying in front of him in different ways at camp or on quests and he has no idea what to do about them so he starts trying to get Nico to hang out with him and tries asking him in subtle ways about what's going on, trying to figure out if Nico is in dangerous without possibly freaking him out about Percy's dreams (who would feel safe if someone kept having dreams about them being murdered by faceless entities in orange shirts or killed by monsters)i

It goes nowhere. Nico is apparently fine, flitting between camp and the underworld and New Rome as he wishes. With more underworld kids coming into CHB for the summer, he's started spending more and more time there though, and all Percy can think of orange shirts and Nico's blood drenched in them

Eventually he caves and drives to camp, hunting down and cornering Clovis, who's passed out in a sunbeam like a cat. Percy steps into the grass and kicks him gently. Clovis wakes slow and tilts his face towards Percy. He stretches long, yawns loud. Percy stifles a responding yawn and squats.

"What's up, Percy?" Clovis hums.

Percy tugs at his fingers as he finds the right words. "I keep having shitry dreams," he decides on. Clovis arches a brow. Percy sits back and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What does it mean when you keep having dreams about someone dying?"

Baby blue blanket creasing, Clovis cocks his head. "Who's dying?"

Percy grits his teeth. "Does it matter?"

"Well, some dreams are just subconscious processing and some are my siblings being weird." Clovis blinks slow. People compare him to cows a lot, that baby softness on his cheeks and easy going demeanour. But Percy sees a cat more than anything. Domesticated and pampered. "And some are prophetic."

The grit of his teeth begins to hurt his jaw. "How do you know which one is which?"

Clovis hums and sits up slowly. He reaches down to his toes and flexes with a long groaning grunt. He gives a little sigh as he pulls away. "Well, I'd have to ask them if they're doing things. As for subconscious processing, that's just what's going on in your brain. And prophecies..." He hums thoughtfully. "I guess you wouldn't know until it happens." With half-closed eyes, he faces Percy. His head lags to the side. "So is there anything going on your brain to worry about this person dying?"

"Well, there is now," Percy says through gritted teeth. Clovis laughs, a trilling dreamy sound. Percy glares at him. "Clovis."

He shrugs. "I can ask around tonight." He picks at a blade of grass. "Who is it?"

Behind them, Nico is calling out to someone. It makes Percy's skin crawl. Kids laugh and Nico laughs and Percy wants to grab him and hide him. Clovis's bright orange camp shirt makes him feel like a bull, caged up with some idiot waving a red flag in front of him. He needs to rush forward and break the things bothering him. Skewer them and feel their blood drip down his skin.

He's starting to lose his mind.

"It doesn't matter." He too aware that the gap between question and answer was too long.

Clovis isn't looking at him but he feels watched anyway. "It could," Clovis says. "But at least I know it's not Annabeth. Or Grover." Percy startles and Clovis's grin is soft. "If it was, you would have said it before you even sat down." He gives another big stretch then flops back on his blanket, rolling over into a warmer brighter patch of sun. "Actually, you'd say if it was anyone." He tucks his legs up into his chest. "You'd keep quiet because you don't want to worry them. Which means there's probably some real concern there."

His eyes slide fully shut and he doesn't speak again. Heart pounding, Percy watches his serene face. He doesn't like that Clovis picked him apart like that. But not much he can complain or deny in it.

Knees whining, he stands slow. Part of him misses the Achilles' Curse for that reason alone. He liked it more when his body didn't hurt because of constant strenuous activity and the passage of time. He runs a hand through his hair.

What is he supposed to do? Wait for Clovis to tell him that his siblings were being assholes for no reason? To sit down and meditate about the reason his mind was focused in on Nico dying in various ways? Or worry unendingly that the universe was giving him a sneak peek at the future and soon he'd be standing at Nico's memorial, trying to figure out which person around him was the killer?

"Percy!"

He startles and turns. His skin crawls as Nico jogs up to him. There's a little boy practically pinned to his side. The closet they grow, the more Percy wants to shove Nico down deep where no one can find him. Ocean depths. He'd like the darkness, Percy thinks. Then he slaps the thought away as his arms begin to rise, his gut yanking towards the beach.

"Hey." It comes out breathless and wispy. "What's up?"

Nico's smile is gentle. It makes Percy's stomach cramp, the idea of it gone forever, bled out on forest grass. "Joel and I were seeing if he could summon ghosts." He gazes down at the little boy still tucked into his side. The kid is looking at Clovis. "Might be a bit of a trial for him though."

When the kid doesn't stop looking at Clovis, Nico pinches his ear and he tucks his face into Nico's side instead. He gives a ragged breath but Nico's easygoing look doesn't change.

It flits to the top of his tongue, but Nico answers before Percy has a chance to open his mouth.

"Ker," he says, "is his mom."

There is little Percy has forgotten from any of his underworld adventures, including being chased by those spirits while trying to stop Ethan from escaping with the sword. Violent death and disease. Feasted on human flesh. They couldn't kill, but they could harm and give death a jumpstart.

Percy's shoulder gives a phantom throb at the reminder.

"Didn't know she'd be interested in having kids," he says.

Nico's lip twitches and his arm curved around Joel's shoulders tightens him closer. "He's technically adopted." Joel's face tilts further away from Percy. "She thought he was cute."

There's definitely more to that story that Percy doesn't know how to ask about, so he just agrees passively that Joel is cute and they move on. Joel doesn't speak to anyone but Nico or make eye contact. He's a barnacle on Nico's side.

All Percy can focus on is his bright orange shirt and the violent death that thrums in his veins and how close he is to Nico. It would be accidental, Percy thinks, if Joel killed him. It's clear he likes Nico. It would be accidental if Nico was torn to shreds.

Percy wonders how easy it would be to get water into his lungs from the bottle he drinks from, how suspicious it would be if he drowned on dry land. Quickly he leaves with rushed goodbye. His hands are already plunging into pockets for his keys. He doesn't hear Nico's goodbye.

That night he dreads his dreams more than ever.

Joel is there this time. His face is wet, half hidden in shadows. Nico is front of him, sword out, protective. Then things slip and it's not Nico and Joel anymore, but one older girl and two younger kids behind her. The kids look terrified but the girl is enraged. Her obsidian sword slashes at someone rushing forward.

The world is too bright, Percy thinks. There are no shadows. It's like the sun is standing in front of them.

The girl shouts and beats off a pair of people who charge at her. With snapped necks, they fall to the ground in front of her. She yells and shoves her sword into the ground.

It splits so easily. The grass trembles. The earth rumbles. Skeletal hands claw out of the ground. Hazy spectres join them. The girl turns and grabs the kids while people fight the entities she summoned. The world is so bright, but there's shadows at the edge of the sunlight. She won't stop running. One of the kids runs alongside her. The other is held in her arms.

The shadows twist and flex towards them. It's unable to spread into the light. They're closing in. The first kid is closer, free of the weight of another person. The shadows greet her but she stumbles to a sudden stop, spinning around and staring pleadingly at the girl Percy realizes is one of Nico's half-sisters from long before.

Are the kids' Joel's half-siblings? he wonders.

"Go!" the girl shouts. The kid hesitates but the girl shouts again, "GO!"

The shadows swallow the kid with a wispy black maw. The girl is almost there when the ground creaks and groans. It rumbles violently, separating and splitting at the very seams. The earth opens before her.

Percy can see the decision she makes before she makes it, jumping over a gap in the earth before it splits too wide. She doesn't stop running even as she tosses the other kid into the air. He screams, a bloodcurdling thing that chills Percy down to his bones.

The shadows catch him. And he's gone.

The girl pants, gripping her knees as she bends over. The earth stops quaking. There's a few seconds where the only sound is panting. But as the people they were fleeing from close in, the girl laughs breathlessly and turns around.

"Isn't it fun when we chase each other?" she says. "I think we should do that more."

The leader of the little group is some tall boy who looks like he's never smiled in his life. He's bulky. Each muscle bulges and he glares. The girl is unphased.

"How dare you?" he seethes.

She rolls her eyes. "Well, my dad protects their parents." She grins, eyes dark like the void. Her hands flex at her side. "Why shouldn't I protect them? Especially since you refuse to listen to reason." She gestures widely. "Just because Chthonic is in the title doesn't mean it's bad. Chthonic means dirt, earth." She just her chin towards one of the kids. "You are technically Chthonic." She shrugs. "Besides, you fucking morons, they're kids. What kind of dipshit is scared of little kids just because their dad picks up dead people for a living?"

Her arms haven't lowered from where she's spread them. Her hands flex again, each finger tapping in the air, one after the other. Percy can't hear anything else that's said. It all goes muffled. It's obvious arguing. Judging from the pulled weapons, there are threats abound.

Then the earth breaks.

It's not the same as the earthquake before. This is a complete cave-in, the ground falling out from under their feet. She's the only person who doesn't look terrified to be falling. They all disappear into darkness. Like teeth chomping, the earth slams back together and seals itself over.

Then there's his ceiling. His fan is going in fast circles, a soft whrrrrr.

Sweat is sticky against his neck. Oh, he thinks.

Violent death and disease being present at every meal, every training, every campfire song. Someone was probably unnerved by it. Unnerved by him. Nico's protective hold was a wall in front of the bomb. It needed to be broken down so the danger could be disposed of, bomb defused.

He doesn't know when he grabbed his phone. Only aware of it pressed to his ear by the ringing. It goes for a while. His stomach churns.

A tired "H'lo?" passes through.

His stomach doesn't settle. "Hey, Nico. Sorry." He glances at his clock and winces. "Did I wake up?"

Nico snorts. "No," he grumbles. "I'm a vampire." Quiet breathing, tense silence. "Percy? Why are we on the phone right now?"

"I..." Percy pauses. Glances up to his ceiling fan, still spinning in fast circles. "I just. Had a weird dream." Nico makes a "go on" noise. Percy bites his lip and leans against the wall, drawing his knees up to his bare chest. "Have any of your siblings had to..."

Fight against other campers? Run with a pair of kids people wanted to kill because they thought they were dangerous? Commit suicide to stop those from going after the kids once they were safely away somewhere else?

There's nothing good in those questions.

He closes his eyes. "What was camp like for your siblings? Before?"

"Uh." There's some rustling. "Not good. Most campers didn't trust us because of the whole Underworld children thing. Lucky for them, my dad doesn't really go around spawning kids on a monthly basis."

Percy snorted. His fingers wove themselves into his sheets so tight they started to go numb.

"But we didn't have a lot of friends. People avoided us."

Blood on dark grass flickers through Percy's mind. "Or killed you," he blurts out.

His mind shuts down at the words. He can't process what he's said, barely hearing the whrrr of his ceiling fan or the sound of his own breath. His skin floats away from him. Then pulls back solid when Nico says, "How did you know that?"

He swallows thickly. "Like I said. Weird dream."

"About my siblings being killed at camp?"

Nico viciously protecting Joel comes to mind and sticks in place. "No," he says after a beat. "Technically I think she committed murder-suicide."

"Which one?"

Percy hates that question. Sourness floods his tongue and he answers with a gritted, "I didn't get a name. She was fighting off other campers, trying to protect a couple other kids from getting hurt."

A sarcastic little laugh echoes through the receiver. "Yeah, that's happen more than once."

The sheets unwind from his numb fingertips. "Fuck."

"It's been over five thousand years, Percy," Nico says. "Things tend to repeat themselves a few times." Percy doesn't know what to say to that. "Why were you dreaming about one of my sisters anyway?"

"I don't know," he says. It's the truth. He has no idea. But he has theories. And he has fears. "She was just there."

Nico is quiet. The sound of his breathing is steady, and Percy hones in on it. He matches each inhale and exhale with his own breaths.

When Nico does speak again, he almost sounds far away. "That's odd." There's a creak and a thump, like feet hitting the tile. "Is that why you were talking to Clovis?"

No. "Yeah."

"Interesting." His voice is faint, before suddenly loud and fast. "Hey, I have to go."

Percy's stomach churns violently. "But-"

His words speed fast together as he says, "I have to go do something, I'll call you back later."

There's no dial tone, just a loud clattering that makes Percy's heart drop directly into his stomach. Clovis's sleepy voice eclipses to max volume in his head. And prophecies... I guess you wouldn't know until it happens.

A dozen thoughts blur through his mind as he hikes up the window to the fire escape outside his bedroom. He should tell his mom he's leaving, he should call Grover, he should call Annabeth, he should make someone check on Nico.

He gropes around the top of his dresser for a spare dog whistle then blows through it hard and sharp as he clambours out through the window, shirtless, shoeless, and panicking.

Mrs. O'Leary barks up at him from the dark alleyway. Shadows still cling to her dark fur. He doesn't even bother racing down the stairs. Just throws himself over the railing. Nico's name echoes in his head like a broken record as he falls. Soft fur grips tight in his hands. He doesn't feel the pain of landing, shadows swallowing them both before he can even recognize that he did.

It's strange to appear just a few feet away from a gaggle of kids threatening your cousin and the kid he's chosen to protect. Behind the group yelling words Percy can't hear under the roar of blood in his ears, there's a couple other kids - twins of Erebus - sneaking towards them.

They get close.

But they get caught.

Nico snaps forward and Percy's hitting the ground before he understands what's happening. It goes by so fast, he can barely remember his own actions. Everyone's still breathing. But banged up heavily, or unconscious. Joel is crying wheezy little tears while his aunts try to comfort him, and Nico...

Nico is gripped so tight in Percy's arms that Percy worries he might've broken something. He relaxes slow. Nico detaches. Mrs. O'Leary's hot breath huffs against the top of his head. Nico gives her a pat on the nose, not looking at Percy as he turns to Joel and checks in on him.

Percy's watching the slump of bruised campers before him. His blood feels too hot. Sweat drips down his back but his skin is too dry. He takes a step forward. A hand shoves against his chest and he gazes down at void eyes.

The world slams back into place.

He breathes.

"You are ocean water," Nico says very quietly. "Not blood and human viscera."

His mouth is dry. There's something inside him that wants. "Water is water."

"Not like that," Nico says. Percy swallows and steps back. Nico lowers his hand. Then turns to face Joel and the twins. His voice brightens up, feigned cheeriness, as he marches towards them. "Joel, do you want to go live with my brother's cult?"

Distantly Percy feels like he remembers Nico saying something about that once, but he can't remember what, so his mind draws question marks he doesn't ask as he twists on his heel. Nico crouches, speaking in a steady soft tone. The girls are holding each other's hands. They spare looks for the people who were scared of their nephew, and spare looks towards Percy. It's the same look.

They look away when Nico says something to them, vanishing hand-in-hand into shadows. Nico whistles and Mrs. O'Leary approaches with heavy steps. Joel hugs her leg. His ragged breaths are wheezed tired and weary into her fur. Nico keeps a steady hand on his back.

There is no murder-suicide this time. Instead the shadows swell and deposits the twins, with Mr. D and Chiron beside them. Nico cuts them off when Chiron tries to question him. He takes long way out with the girls on either side of him towards the Apollo cabin.

He doesn't follow the girls back into the woods with healers on their tail. Instead he opens the door to the Hades cabin and sits on a wooden chair. There's a buzz of white noise from a nearby noise machine. Otherwise everything is quiet. Nico's phone sits where it had been dropped to the ground minutes before.

His blood still feels too hot.

It feels like hours later when Nico walks in. However, the clock on the wall says it's only been twenty minutes. Joel is tucked up into his side. He goes down without a fight into Nico's bed. Lets himself be tucked in and drift off. Then Nico pulls another chair around and settles down in front of Percy, straddling the chair backwards. His arms cross over the top. His chin rests on folded wrists.

They watch each other. Then Nico moves to rest his cheek on his wrists instead. "You've been having those dreams for a while?"

Percy makes an affirmative noise.

"They haven't really been about my siblings, have they?"

He doesn't answer that. Instead, he says, "If people kept doing things like this, why didn't you guys make your own place?"

"We did," Nico says. "A few times actually. But no one liked that they didn't know what we were doing. So they made us come back to be hated and suffer." He snorts. "The old adage - keeps your friends close and enemies closer."

Percy doesn't laugh. "Why did she adopt him?"

Nico lifts his head. "Some things had happened when she found him. She took an interest and gave him her blessing."

"What things?"

Nico looks to the ceiling. "Things that help her fill her fridge with food to eat." His eyes flicker back down to Percy. "Only Chiron and Mr. D know the specifics. But Joel is fine." He glances over his shoulder. "He's a good kid. No one needs to be scared of him." He turns back to Percy. "Now answer my question."

Blood still too hot, Percy stares at a spot just above Nico's head. Then grits his teeth. "I don't like watching you die."

"I'm not scared of dying," Nico says. "None of us are. It's why it's always been so easy to take care of them. Take the dislike, take the insults, take the threats."

Percy stares at him. Then repeats, "I don't like watching you die."

Nico stares back. "You're not going to."

It's hard to believe that. So he leans forward, reaching out to grab the top of Nico's chair and pull it down until he can feel Nico's cool breath against his skin. "If I keep having those dreams, I'm gonna take a page from your dad's book and kidnap you."

Nico's lips twitch, but his voice stays even. "Then I guess you should keep in mind to make room in your dungeon because I'll be bringing a few people along." He lifts a hand and strokes a thumb down the side of Percy's face. "I heard your siblings were pretty protective too." His fingers slip away. Percy's skin yearns. "Something about how the ocean drowns what it loves and drowns what it hates."

That's not protection, Percy thinks. It's possession.

But he doesn't say that outloud.

Not yet.

He slowly lets the chair fall backwards until it lands stable on all four legs. He wants to deny Nico's statement about drowning. But he has - at least what he hates. Ahkyls, the mountain lion that tried to attack Grover, those kids. Only one success. But the want, the need...

"I should head home," he says slowly. It takes him a minute to process his words and stand up, heading for the door.

Nico makes a low noise and stands too. "Sweet dreams," he says once Percy has walked out into the night, still barefoot and shirtless.

Percy climbs onto Mrs. O'Leary's back. "I hope so."

[gym-x-plus]

90’s baby island paradise 🫧🏝️🌺

Ok I want your opinions on this bikini.

When we first came up with the design concept, my nipples where sniff with excitement the whole time!

And then when I saw it in real life I was second guessing myself.

But, finally when I put it on and flaunted around I LOVED the print and design and felt like a total queen!

What are your thoughts… 💭

You can be honest, but keep it kind🤣

It helps us know how many quantities to drop.

©️Credit ig @karinairby

#Beautiful #fit #woman #fashion #gym #fitnessmotivation #fitness #FindYourBalance #sportgirl #lifestyle #motivationmonday #happy #fitnessaddict #selfie #home #love #workout #work #workinprogress #fitnessgirl #glute #glutes #glutworkout #squats #gymrat #legday #leg #legs #strong #fitnessmodel

[tgrailwar-zero]

Not really? Our physical body got wrecked a long time ago. We’re actually just voices given a humanoid shape by the Freyr. After we lost the Origin War we got sent into an endless repeating loop of holy grail wars and mindwiped over 6 billion times. Not to mention, I’m not even sure how much of The Interlopers was actually us and not just pre-programmed gunk considering our robotic nature back then.

Think of it like a computer where you replaced all the hardware after smashing it with a hammer, wiped the hard drive and software until it was dust and you had to buy a new one, and started it up again in an entirely different spot then last time. We got glimpse of memories in a dream, we were the ones trapped in their tomb, and we do feel responsible for their actions. So legally and morally, yeah, we’re The Interlopers.

Though we go by Patchwork Gestalt now.

DURYODHANA: "Alright then."

DURYODHANA: "Nope, he's dead. But that's part of why I called you here... alright, I'll only say this once, so listen up."

He cleared his throat, beginning to pace a bit, clearly preparing himself to be speaking for quite some time.

'I was summoned near the back end of the Origin War. Not by any official systems, but in the aftermath of where my Karna and that Arjuna had fought and ravaged the land. It was apparently one of the most grand battles of the Origin War, the two Archers putting everything they had against one another. Nobody knew who the 'victor' was. Some called it a stalemate with them destroying each other.'

'Anyways, I suppose the concept of a 'deadly clash between Pandava and Kaurava' and the dense magic in the land was a suitable catalyst. Maybe it was something else. Luck? Fate? Who knows. My Karna was already gone, but I figured I had to have been called for some purpose, so I began wandering.'

'When I found him... when I found Arjuna, he was already beginning to fade away. Whatever skill he had been surviving off of wasn't enough, he was starving himself of mana. Self-inflicted penance, if I know Arjuna at all. As soon as I arrived, he started talking. I didn't even have to ask. Frankly, I wasn't going to, but I guess he had something to say and he'd be damned if he vanished without saying it.'

'He spilled everything. How his mind had been taken by a dark curse, and the same had happened for his allies. How he had said and done unforgivable things in the name of a monster that his divine father had put his all into challenging. How his heart would never know peace, that sort of thing. Apparently, Karna had struck him with such a destructive blow that it served to temporarily shake whatever curse was on his mind and body, and he returned to reason. With that, he had tricked his Masters into using all three Command Spells on him in order to finish off Karna, and then- now that they had no formal power over him, he went into hiding. And, once he told me everything, he stated that he'd simply let himself fade away as penance. So I'd guessed right, because if there's one thing about the Pandava, they're predictable.'

'…With that lore dump dropped on me, I started to leave. Clearly he was dealing with his own stuff and it wasn't my problem. But he stopped me before I could leave his little pity cave to ask a favor.'

'He had discarded something important. That, if his Masters proved themselves worthy, could collect and assist them on their journey of redemption, if that's the path they chose to take. If they didn't, then it'd simply remain in stasis. Simple as that. He wanted me to guide them to that item. That if they ever broke free from 'his' curse and could enact justice, then it was rightfully theirs. He wanted me to lead you to it, since he wouldn't be able to.'

'I very reasonably asked, 'Why would I ever help you?' which I think is a fair question. We weren't exactly friends after all. I didn't owe him squat.'

'He responded, 'You don't have to do it for me, but you're a Heroic Spirit, and that monster is still out there. So please, I implore you, help me leave at least one legacy in this world that isn't darkened by violence. Be the hope for them that I couldn't be. Be the hero I was unworthy of being.''

'…'And if that's not enough, Karna gave his everything to protect this place for the sake of ending that monster. So if not for me, then for him.''

DURYODHANA: "Talk about a cheap shot. Though considering this is Arjuna we're talking about, 'cheap shots involving Karna' are his trademark."

'Still... At that point, I knew he was desperate. Entrusting his hopes and dreams to me? His legacy, to me? Me, his enemy? The man was so damn earnest that I didn't have much of a response to that one, so I agreed to his terms. He laid out everything, I committed it to memory, and then I left him to whatever fate he decided for himself.'

DURYODHANA: "...That's the long and short of it. I figured if I used one of Arjuna's epithets, it'd eventually lead you to me. Plus, it didn't hurt to hear a bunch of people singing my praises like that. But I still don't know if you're 'worthy', and I figured this was a good enough chance. If you can't win this tournament, then what hope do you have to beating that freak in the Moon Cell?"

MUSASHI: "Oh, Archer..."

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Another day another patronising idiot who’s spouting out utter nonsense ✨

Please do your research before you try to explain my people’s history to me, under my posts 😂

1) there are plenty archeological and historical of evidence supporting that you have been in the land since at least 2000 BC.

2)most Israelis and Jews aren’t white . By saying that you’re

A) ignorant

B) denying the existence of Sephardic and mirazhi Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, Asian Jews, Ethiopian Jews,North African Jews, etc… - all living together equally and peacefully in Israel.

3) Middle Eastern Jews aren’t Palestinians, they’re Jews. Jews were considered Palestinians by the British mandate in 1917-1948, but even then there was a clear separation between Jews and Arabs in the sense of identity.

4)Judaism isn’t only a religion, it’s an ethnicity as well.

5)the term Palestine was coined by Greek conquers at the fifth century, and only adopted by Arabic people as a identity after Israel’s founding.

6) terror attackes are a pebble? Really? Tell that to the thousands of civilians murdered for being Jewish. No one deserves that, and if you think that, your sense of reality is twisted.

7) “self appointed authorities like the un”? H u h

Even if you don’t want to acknowledge the UN existence and authority, which is crazy,

There were plenty of other times we have been giving the approval of establishing modern Israel: the peel committee, Balfour’s declaration. The British who previously conquered the land agreed… I could go on..

Also, most of the lands that were no longer held by Jews, were legally bought by Jews before they built on them.

8) you clearly, don’t know that after Jews have been exiled from their occupied homeland, they illegally immigrating to Israel, whenever they could ( Aka making an Aaliyah) . That happened long before ‘48.

I guess you’re trying to refer to how the holocaust survivors in my family came back to Israel after the war has ended.

Some survived concentration camps. All of them came alone After 99% of their family were killed by the Nazis. Their belongings stolen and houses squatted in.

Keep in mind- they weren’t allowed to do so before that.

It baffles me how some people don’t understand basic history and concepts before commenting such nonsense on social media.

Fellow Jews/ Israelis, you’re welcome to add your thoughts, this is absolutely ridiculous …

[heavyhitterheaux]

If you’re still accepting concepts, taking the triplets on vacation!

“Umm, babe? Are you sure that this is a good idea?” Jack quietly asked you as you were currently packing the essentials for the triplets since this would be their first vacation.

You turned to him to give him your full attention and looked at him confused.

“What do you mean?”

“Axel and large bodies of water. We know he’s an escape artist and the last thing we need is him going overboard in the middle of the ocean.”

“And that is why he will not be leaving our sight. The entire family is going on the cruise with us and no one is going to let anything happen to him or to us for that matter.” You answered before turning around and continuing to pack.

“I’ll probably just make him walk around with a life jacket on to be safe.” Jack said before he saw Axel out of the corner of his eye walk down the hallway in the direction of the playroom.

“They know how to swim, babe. Stop worrying, okay?”

Just then Ivy was peeking around the corner and you motioned for her to come in your room.

“You said you have a surprise for us, mommy. Can I know what it is?” She curiously asked while holding her cup of cranberry juice.

“Hmm, I guess I can tell you if you can keep a secret.” You said while stopping what you were doing and squatting down to her height.

She eagerly nodded and all you did was smile.

“Me and daddy are taking the three of you on a cruise. It’s a big ship and we’re going to go to the Bahamas which is an island.”

“Oh, so that’s what grandma meant.”

“Wait, what did she say?” Jack asked while she went over to him and motioned for him to pick her up.

“Um, something about how the boat is big and that she thinks you’ll lose Axel.”

“SEE!? Baby, what did I tell you?!” Jack exclaimed while you just shook your head.

You and Jack were currently sitting in the corner in the family pool with the triplets surrounding you. Jack made sure to put on Axel’s life jacket extra tight and you simply shook your head.

“See, babe? Nothing to worry about.” Autumn had fallen asleep on your chest while Axel and Ivy were playing in front of Jack.

“Hmm, for now. This is only day one and we still have six more days to go.” 

You simply rolled your eyes before laughing.

Jack then saw out the corner of his eyes Axel stand up and try to make a break for it, but he quickly caught him with one arm and he began to pout.

“Ax, what did daddy say for you to do?” Jack asked and he started to look guilty.

“Stay with you and mommy at all times.”

“So, where are you trying to go because the both of us are right here.”

“Grandma has ice cream and I want some.” He answered while pointing towards your mother.

“Then come on I’ll take you over there, but you can’t go by yourself.” Jack said while standing up and then picking up Axel. 

“Okay.”  

When he came back over to you he simply sat down and shook his head.

“When we get back home, I’m getting him the backpack with the leash on it. I never understood why parents did that, but now it’s an entirely different story.”

[puppybugs-abdlhole]

I think Truth-Tuesdays is a cool concept. I guess my ask would be, what would be your greatest ABDL fantasy?

First, thank you for the compliment! I thought it would be fun!

Second, my fantasies change a lot, but I think my current one is that I wanna be at a home with a mommy who can breastfeed me and I have a crib, and she makes it so I listen to hypnosis to become a soaked bedwetter and slowly to lose my mental capacity so I need to rely on her!

Oh oh oh! Or I wanna slowly be drugged/hypnotized into needing diapers and acting like a puppy! On all fours, instinctively raise my leg when I gotta pee, or squat and hunch like a pup when I have to poo! And then my mommy would treat me like a puppy, but still breastfeed me and show me off to the other mommies/pet owners!

[adobe-outdesign]

This might be a bit of a big ask but what are your thoughts on the rest of the Gen 9 cross-gen evos that weren't revealed before release (Annihilape, Clodsire, Dudunsparce and Kingambit)?

I think a lot of people kind of missed the point of Dudunsparce. Dunsparce is a tsuchinoko, a rare Japanese cryptid known for being completely useless and stealing your booze. It's supposed to be a joke, kind of like Magikarp but without becoming anything useful. Ergo, having a low-effort evo that just becomes a slightly longer Dunsparce makes perfect sense, much more so than it suddenly becoming a dragon or something.

Dudunsparce also comes in two forms, a two- and three-segment version. Not much to say about these, other than they continue the joke of it being rare but useless (given the low odds of getting a three-segment form).

Visually, one nice thing about Dudunspace is that its wings and segments are numbered 1 and 2 (and sometimes 3 depending on form). It's subtle, but it's a clever visual twist to an otherwise plain design.

However, I have to admit, there is something about Dudunsparce that bugs me a bit. I think it's just that Dunsparce has such a good design that a lot of the stuff Dudunsparce does just lessens it. For example, having the head be separate from the first body segment just doesn't look good, and neither does the tail being on a straight rod connector instead of naturally flowing into the body. I also dislike the random purple rings on the underside, which add nothing to the design and are way too low-contrast. Overall, it's a silly joke 'mon, but one that could've maybe been a little stronger design-wise.

Annihilape is a long-overdue evo for Primeape, and I gotta say, the entire thing is a brilliant reference. Specifically, to this one entry in Pokemon Sun:

Taking that 'dex entry to its logical extreme and making a ghost-type evo for Primeape is brilliant, and makes for a great concept and visual twist on the original design. The wispy hair works perfectly, the red eyes and pink nose pop nicely, and the broken shackle on the arms is a perfect visual nod to Primeape. I also love the eerie, infuriated expression.

(Part of me wonders if it wouldn't have made more sense for it to be mellow given the entry its referencing, but then again it's not actually dead yet and sheer rage is kind of this line's thing.)

I guess the only real problem with it is that it feels a bit out of place due to the sudden color shift—but at the same time I get why they did that, as it reflects the new ghost-typing and overall looks cool, so I can't really complain.

Finally we have Kingambit, my personal favorite out of all the new evos this gen. First, I'm always a sucker for cool humanoid 'mons, and Kingambit is the perfect mix of human-ish while also looking like a cool monster.

More importantly, Kingambit fits with the rest of the line perfectly. It is very, very hard to introduce an evo to a three-stage line and have it look like it actually belongs to that line (just look at Rhyperior). But Kingambit? The visuals are distinct, yet blend in so seamlessly with the rest of the line that you'd probably never guess they were generations apart if you weren't familiar with the line already. For example, the golden gloves are extended from Bisharp's hands as is the blade on the head, the shoulder pads are extensions of Bisharp's, the goat-like feet are kept, the middle blades have been extended, etc. It's masterfully done.

In terms of the design, I love the silly giant mustache blades and how they provide a focal point to draw attention to the otherwise small face. The body design is appropriately samurai-like, and the gold accents are much better used here than on Bisharp due to being more prominent in the design.

My only real issue with it is that the hair-throne is pushing it a bit. I get that it's based off of the popular samurai squat/sitting pose, you know, this one:

But having it just awkwardly scooting around when it moves feels incredibly forced and unnatural, making it harder to see as a living creature. The bottom of the hair under the legs also doesn't look great. I would've happily accepted it squatting in its default pose with the hair stopping at the legs, and it getting up to stand when following in the overworld and whatnot.

I'm also not big on the blades sticking out from the middle of the body. I get they were playing off of Bisharp's middle blades, but they look very fragile and really don't add much to the design. I feel like just having the metal rings around the middle to represent a samurai uniform would have been more than enough.

I also feel like the grey Vs on the knees weren't needed or could've at least been gold to make them pop more, though that's not terribly important overall. The top blade could've also maybe come down like 20%, just so its not competing with the mustache as much.

Anyway, overall, I think Gen 9 might have some of the strongest cross-gen evos of any game. Girafarig (already discussed in a previous review) is perfect, Dudunsparce is funny and fits the line's theme, Annihilape is a great lore reference, and Kingambit fits with the rest of its line absolutely perfectly and has strong theme. I gotta say, I'm impressed.

[usergreenpixel]

MALMAISON MEDIA SALON SOIRÉE 21: THE ACADÉMIE (2012)

1. The Introduction

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Did you miss me?! I missed you too!

Life has been hectic, but I’m back with a review of a book I came across by accident while browsing Goodreads. The setting of Madame Campan’s school isn’t used that much and has a potential, so of course I was interested.

The book itself is seemingly only available for purchase so far. On websites like Amazon that is. I couldn’t find it in the database of archive.org at least. But perhaps someone will upload it in the future.

Anyway, I’m always a sucker for more obscure media, so let’s proceed with the review already!

(Dedicated to @pobodleru and @josefavomjaaga )

2. The Summary

“Eliza Monroe, daughter of a wealthy Virginia lawyer, is sent to France by her family to get a better education fit for a lady.

At the school, she is quickly roped into manipulation games between two bitter enemies: Hortense de Beauharnais and Caroline Bonaparte.

Each of the girls will also experience love, betrayal and many other aspects of growing up.”

Coming of age stories are a classic for a reason, so let’s see how this concept is executed!

(Trigger warning for mentions of physical abuse, murder and suicide.)

3. The Story

First of all, there are too many POVs. Eliza, Caroline and Hortense EACH have their own POV chapters, where they narrate their side of the story in first person.

While this concept of switching between POVs could potentially work, the problem here is that there is too much switching, which gets very annoying and confusing. Basically, too damn much of a good writing device.

Secondly, for a fairly interesting premise, the story doesn’t do squat with it for two thirds of the book. Eliza doesn’t pick sides, characters don’t develop properly and the love subplots don’t get resolved.

For two. Fucking. THIRDS. Of the book!

The conflicts only get sort of resolved in the final third of the book, which, as you can probably imagine, just isn’t enough time to do it properly. And guess what! The author DROPS THE BALL WITH THE RESOLUTION and, as a result, nothing makes sense like she pulled the resolution out of her ass.

Another side effect is that the characters barely change at all over the course of the story, when growing up after facing adversity is the entire point of a coming of age story!

Which brings us to…

4. The Characters

I don’t like Eliza Monroe. The problem isn’t that she is a bratty teenager, by the way. The problem is that she doesn’t change over the course of the story and barely has agency, especially in the beginning.

Hortense and Caroline just play her like a fiddle most of the time, while Eliza herself just waits for something juicy to happen so she can gossip with her mother via letters.

Eliza is just a character blander than unseasoned oatmeal.

Caroline Bonaparte, as usual, is the bad guy. She is a selfish, manipulative cunt who only cares about herself and MAYBE Murat. Then she suddenly speed runs a sort of a redemption arc in the end, and even then it’s ambiguous if it was genuine or not.

Hortense de Beauharnais is supposed to be the good character, depicted by the narrative as better than Caroline in every way and almost beatified by the story.

Unfortunately, this makes her lack depth too and makes it very jarring when she does really shitty things, like trying to drive a wedge between Eugéne and his love interest due to believing that said love interest is unworthy of her brother and should know her place.

She never gets called out on her bullshit either! Our saintly Hortense, Neighbors! Oh, and she has an inappropriate relationship with her stepfather! Or well, implications of such a tryst.

Eugéne is a cinnamon roll personified. At least, until her accidentally kills his love interest, Madeleine. Supposedly, this happens because Madeleine is unstable due to enduring abuse and pining for Eugéne, yet all that happens is that she gets conveniently killed off by Eugéne and we never get to see if she truly was unstable or not. We are TOLD this, but not shown evidence.

By the way, Madeleine had the most potential out of all the important characters. An aspiring biracial actress horribly abused by her jealous, drug-addicted mother and pining for Eugéne, hoping to be rescued like in a fairy tale.

Madeleine is depicted fairly realistically, in my opinion, but then she is suddenly killed off to conveniently resolve the conflict of Josephine not accepting her as a match for Eugéne. No buildup, no significant consequences, ZILCH! Only Eugéne seems shaken by her death, but we aren’t really shown much of this either, merely TOLD.

Josephine, while definitely capable of kindness, has her own selfish bitchy moments, like not giving a fuck that Madeleine died or that Eugéne is shaken up by accidentally killing her. Her own past as a slave owner is also mostly conveniently omitted and she isn’t shown as being called out for it, unlike Eliza, who IS called out for thinking slavery is normal.

Letizia Bonaparte is a scheming snake just like Caroline, almost to cartoonish levels.

Napoleon Bonaparte is a stereotypical shortie, and also almost being a pervert to his stepdaughter. Ewww…

Madame Campan is a stereotypical kind and strict mentor.

So yeah. Most characters don’t feel interesting at all.

5. The Setting

The setting is mostly just mediocre, with occasional common cliches like claiming Robespierre REIGNED in France or that nobility during Frev was automatically in danger. But these are far from the worst offenders, so eh.

The descriptions are surprisingly good though, in that they are integrated into the book in a balanced way, so here at least one win for the author!

6. The Writing

Problems with the writing start WITH THE TITLE. More specifically, combining French spelling of a noun with an English article. “THE ACADÉMIE”, “THE TERREUR”, etc.

It’s unjustified and clunky at best. At worst, it looks like the author is just throwing in French words because the book is set in France. I would understand if it was a foreign character trying to show off and making these weird mistakes, but ALL CHARACTERS speak like that!

It’s… definitely an odd choice.

Other than that, however, a bit of props to the author for at least trying to write realistic bratty teenagers.

7. The Conclusion

Honestly, this book isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen. Not by a long shot. However, I would still recommend to give it a hard pass. It’s not bad. Not even so bad that it’s funny. And not even rage inducing.

Just… meh. Bland. Nothing to write home about.

On that note, I declare this Soirée at the Malmaison Media Salon as finished. Hope you stay tuned for more future reviews though!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

[iss600]

Overanalyzing Free Ranger P.2

T.L.;D.R.: After extensive and definitely unnecessary analysis, Free Ranger has the best walk cycle, worst posture and an hourglass body shape. I think.

Welcome to part 2 of overanalyzing Free Ranger, my favorite tornado spinbirb. He's still on my mind, I'm still fixated on this man and I don't think it'll end any time soon, so let's get into this one. Continuing from the first post, I do have a little to say about his walk cycle, a lot on his posture, and some on his body shape.

As a heads up, I don't own Swap Force on anything but the Wii so the following screenshots were sourced from these videos. Despite that, the quality of the screenshots are...well...not very good. Also, I used Upscayl and Scapix to AI upscale some images of concept art just for the sake of clarity because they were so grainy and pixelated.

Meet the Skylanders: Free Ranger Free Ranger Soul Gem Free Ranger Path Guide #1 All Victory Poses

First things first. When he runs, he appears to bounce side to side like an actual chicken. It's not a lot, and it's definitely more in the arms than the legs, but it's just kind of cute. And I specify "appears" because going through his run cycle frame by frame appears to show that he is just walking straight, but I like to imagine that he sways his body side to side (forwards and backwards?) like an actual chicken. Adds some more animalistic traits to him, which I always feel like Skylanders are lacking in. They're animals, but they don't always show traits that add that layer of "yup, they're that animal".

And I know that he has an idle where he preens himself. It's very cute.

And moving on from that, what is wrong with his posture? He looks like he's standing with his knees bent all the time. Like he's halfway between squatting and standing. He stands straight when he walks slowly and when running (I think), but when he's standing, he's got this weird crouch. I don't know why it looks like he never stands up, but he does. For the love of the Ancients, Free Ranger, I don't think it's good on your knees to stand permacrouched.

And now, to the reason this stupid post took as long as it did to write. Free Ranger has an hourglass, or at least I think he does. His armor is thick and it's darn difficult to get a decent image of him standing and facing forward enough to get a good look. But, from a lot of doing my darndest to figure it out, I think he does. It's not exaggerated or drawn in such a way to be deliberately attractive, it's just a regular hourglass with naturally curved features. Nothing much.

It's definite that he did at one point in development have an hourglass though, and a really noticeable one at that.

Top 2 image sets are taken from the linked videos. The bottom two are pieces of concept art taken from Strata: The Art of Swap Force. You can see that I drew lines of where approximately his waistline is. His torso does seem bigger but I chock that up to the way the Skylanders artstyle proportions characters. At the very least, he has a really small waist in comparison to his upper torso and legs.

Then again. I might just be insane. But this was enough justification for me to give Free Ranger this body shape in my own AU so...that's a thing. I guess.

OK no but seriously why does he stand that way? Especially looking at it from the side; it may just be the Wii graphics but the poor roo looks like he's breaking one of his legs.

Oh, and I forgot to mention it, but his head twitches like crazy. Even when he's slowly walking, it's moving a lot. Don't know whether he's a really observant chicken, or a really nervous one. Going from his entry in the Earth & Air book of elemenets, it's implied to be the latter. Big old ??? for that though.

Also, more on my AU's Free Ranger coming...sometime. Who honestly knows? I don't. But I'll get it one eventually. Anyway, bye.

Ship DoomRanger, everyone.

[no-psi-nan]

4) Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

hsfjdlshfks I generally don't go looking for new ideas, they just break into my house and start squatting there lol. Aside from the spontaneously generated ones, I actually take a lot of inspiration from other fans! Blorbo discussions especially tend to spark interesting thoughts that lead to headcanons and stories. Sometimes fanart (all kinds) causes me to go down a different thought path than before - like, I recently saw some truly banger torisai art that changed the planned ending of a WIP lol. It's never direct inspiration though, like I genuinely wouldn't bother making something that already exists unless I thought I could bring something radically different to the table. I'm making the stuff that I wish existed but doesn't!

20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Lol. Yeah all my romantic stuff is sweet and cozy and heartfelt because I'm cheesy and love that stuff. Even my most deranged lemons are super affectionate <3 I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to call me out on other patterns lol.

27) What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

The best parts are the initial concept & brainstorming, plus writing blorbo dialogue. I'm sure it's extremely obvious that I love writing Akechi dialogue in particular – the less hinged, the better!

Worst part is the post-posting creative slump, where I've gone through all the effort of creation & posting and then there's no feedback and it just feels bad. Hate having to wait out stupid human feelings to get back to creating. It doesn't always happen (I was actually really pleasantly surprised by the reception of the toilet blog lol) but it's just a real bummer when it does!

29) What’s your revision or editing process like?

Not too intensive for me since I kinda edit as I go along. Before I get started writing, I always go over the last part (sometimes all of it), to get back in my groove, and I'll tweak it if it needs it. Once I'm done writing, if I have a beta I'll send it over, and either way I'll wait a few days before giving a final read-through and posting. Naturally a few months later I'll be reading the fic on AO3 and find typos or grammatically weird sentences, but that shit happens to professional authors too so whatever lol. Update it and carry on...

40) If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

All fanart is definitely welcome lol, but generally the romantic fics are nearer and dearer to my heart so shippy drawings inspired by my fics would have a same-type-attack-bonus on my heart!

74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

The CSS/HTML probably lmfaoooo.

Otherwise, probably the pairing if it's one of my captained ships, and the way I write my dialogue and don't spend any time describing shit like settings or clothing lmao.

Thanks for the ask @hillbilly---man!! 💜💜💜

[Context] <- still open for these!

[bonefall]

Haha, now i've tricked you into giving a reference for your Spottedleaf design. I've been playing around with how i'd like to draw her for my own design and the skull/death motif was something I hadn't though of but was delighted by and wanted to try drawing.

Also loved seeing more emphasis on family dynamics in your rewrite, especially since canon seems to neglect it so often. The clans are very community based but god forbid the characters interact with each other.

FIEND! VILLAIN!! YOU MONSTER FRISBEE!!! I HAVE BEEN DECEIVED

Absolutely! Feel free to yoink it, I'll be glad to see it when you're done if you end up posting it, feel free to @ me if you do~ I'm happy that so many people are vibing so hard with Death-motif Spottedleaf. Really I've deceived all of YOU, into FEEDING me with mortuary Spottedleaf takes (be the change you want to see in the world, as a wise dude said about runningnose)

In fact if you wanna check out my inspiration, look at tar spot blight (Rhytisma acerinum). It's what I was basing Spottedleaf's spots on! It's also what Fireheart is going to use to channel her, later. Spotted sycamore leaves (because England).

I was just saying this in a chat with Ruse, but Redtail and Spottedleaf are such beloved characters to me because of how they as siblings share this intimate connection to death itself... Redtail's death kicks off the narrative, and Spottedleaf becomes Fireheart's (and by extension, us as readers) insight to StarClan and spirituality as arcs go by. I think those are REALLY cool uses as characters! I wanna build on that!

Community

For real canon does NOT understand the concept of a community. It cares foremost about romantic interests (amatonormativity my detested), parents and siblings being secondary, sometimes you'll get grandparents and cousins vaguely acknowledged, and friendships mean jack squat. It sucks. It makes a weaker narrative.

I guess I can't completely blame the writers, since Warrior Cats is such a corporate product after all, but... man. At LEAST let the cats say grandpa. Come onn

[riikive]

DANGEROUSLY KING ⌕ 김선우

masterlist

pairing. kim sunoo | genre. fantasy, paranormal, etc. | warning. blood, knife, cutting, etc. | word count. 1.3k

note. I publish this oneshot in my old account, but that account is now deleted. I wrote this story back when I saw the full version of dark blood. Looking at Sunoo concept photo, made me want to write this story. So I did! I hope it is your liking! If there are more people enjoy the oneshot, then I might make a series out of this!

Spinning around the black king chess piece, in the dark room. There was only a candle lit up in the dark room. Two people were in the room playing an intense game of chess. A male with his legs crossed smirked as he made his last move. "Checkmate, I guess I won for the 10th time," he smirked. But not any kind of smirk. The smirk that has an evil plan, the smirk that everyone is afraid of. The evil smirk. 

The other male felt shivers as he looked at the chessboard. Rubbing his arms as he felt spiders crawling dangerously inside of him. He couldn't even look up at the male who won for the 10th time. 

the rest under the cut

Sunoo spinned the black king chess piece again and looked at the poor man who was frightened. "Y-you cheated!" The frightened man pointed at him. He frowned and glared at the man before dropping the king chess piece onto the table. The male gulped nervously and stood up before slowly backing away. He stood up and slowly walked closer to the frightened male. The male slipped on his foot and fell onto the ground. 

Sunoo squatted in front of the male and took his hands on the poor man's chin. He lifted the man's chin. "Me? Cheated? Oh, you poor thing. I didn't cheat. Why would I cheat?" He looked at the man with an innocent face. The male gulped once again. Sunoo laughed before looking at the man and lifting his chin even higher to make the man look at him. "I never cheated. But I know you did." 

"H-how did you know?" The male stuttered. Sunoo smirked. "I know your every move."  The man gulped. "Oh don't be scared. I won’t hurt you….. or will I," he chuckled under his breath. Sunoo let go of the man's chin. He signaled someone to come closer. You couldn't see from how dark the room was, but there was another person in the room besides Sunoo and the man. The person walked up to him and gave him a dagger. He took it behind him before he took off the sheath.

The male backed away as fast as he could until he hit the wall. It's game over for him. Sunoo stood up from the floor. His heart was pounding faster and faster against his chest, shaking uncontrollably as he watched Sunoo walking slowly, dangerously closer to him.

"Oh my, you poor poor thing, why are you scared? I promise it will just hurt a little bit," Sunoo chuckled. He squatted back down. The man flinched as Sunoo carelessly stroked his cheeks. "You look so pretty, but your personality ruined your face." He frowned innocently before taking the dagger up to the man's cheeks. 

The man felt his breath hitched. He looked at Sunoo with horror in his eyes. He looked at the man who was behind the dark king. Asking for help in his eyes, but the man didn't do anything. He just stared blankly. Sunoo looked at the dagger and spinned his waist. 

Sunoo took the dagger near the frightened man before carelessly stoking it against his cheeks. "You know the consequences when you lose to the black king in a game of chess, Chul." he tonelessly said. Blood slowly drips down from the cut on the cheeks. Chul nodded uncontrollably. "I-I."

"Hush, child." Sunoo put a finger on his face. "I don’t want to hear another word." He carelessly stoked the blood of the open cut. Chul winced in pain. Sunoo used his unused hand and lifted his chin.

"You look even more pretty with blood dripping down your cheeks. The frightened look in your eyes. Makes me want to kiss you." Sunoo smirked. He dropped the dagger before kissing right on the cheeks and sucking a little blood. Chul's eyes widened while shaking in fear. 

Sunoo kissed the cut once again before backing away. He smirked when he saw Chul's expression. He stood up from squatting and went to the chessboard. "Every move each piece moves the king always knows the next moves." He moved the chess pieces. "Don't let the king know your next move." He used the black king to hit a white pawn before picking up the white pawn that fell from the board. 

Sunoo walked towards Chul and squatted down again. He showed the white pawn to the man. "You are like this chess pawn. Lost and frightened." He looked at the pawn while saying those words. "Just like this pawn. There are many pawns in the game of chess and even in this world. Each pawn needs to be careful or else." 

"But here you are, dare to play a game of chess with the black king. Ending up losing 10 times. You even made a vow to the black king, if you lose to the game of chess then you will become a puppet." Tears were falling unconsciously. Sunoo squatted back down and frowned. "You're crying? Your poor thing." He wiped the tears. "Don't worry I will take care of you." He went on his knees and then leaned closer to Chul."Good night," he whispered to Chul's ear before biting the neck.

After a while, Sunoo backed away and wiped the extra blood. He tonelessly looked at Chul who was unconscious. He stood up and gave the dagger to the other man in the room. Before fixing his school uniform, he left the room without saying another word. 

Walking slowly and steadily, like he was in the runaway with a smirk on his face. Everyone in the hallway was frightened and didn't bravely look at him as he walked past them. He entered another room and saw the vice president inside already. The vice president saw him and walked up to him. "How was the game of chess?" 

Sunoo picked up a white pawn that was on his desk and smirked. Spinning it around with his fingers. "Good, I won ten times," he answered. "Like always," the vice president said. Sunoo hummed in response as he put down the white pawn and took a black king. Knocking down the white pawn with his black king.

"It was a fun game. The white pawn was a cute one." He said as he sat down on the chair, legs crossed. "But his personality was ugly." The vice president nodded. "How was everything while I was good?" He asked as he took the cup of what looked like wine.

"Dangerously good, I took care of everything." The vice president told him with a smirk on his face. Sunoo nodded as he spinned the cup in his hands. He took a slip of the so-called wine. Before playing with the pawn. Putting down the pawn and taking the black king into his hands. He stared at it and smirked as he played with it on the tips of his fingers. Gently kissed it before looking at the vice president.

"So is there anything I have to do, Jungwon?" He asked him. Jungwon thought for a second. "Well, I got the news." He leaned on the chair as he played with the king in his hands. "What is it?" The vice president walked closer to the desk. "Well, there is a new student." He put down a stack of papers about the new student. Sunoo took it from him and looked through it. "Oh, a female?" He asked while glancing at the vice president. He nodded.

"I see." he skimmed through the papers before he carelessly put down the papers and took a new white pawn piece into his hands. He spinned the chair, looking through the window behind him. He saw the female who looked like the one in the papers he just looked at. Rolling her suitcases towards the school. They looked pretty nervous. He smirked and looked at the pawn. "A new game of chess is just starting. Let's see how long the new pawn stays in a dangerous place."

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[kimberlyannharts]

If the first 12 issues post #100 had been all about the vessel I might buy into Dark Specter possessing him being this tragic thing but instead we had to:

Give Zedd Ranger powers?

Focus on the omegas? I literally cannot tell you a single thing they did relating to this arc until Drakkon was like “destroy this arch” and then they didn’t. Oh Alpha-1 I guess. I forgot he was here.

M/tt stuff. The new green stuff should have only been one arc. And not folded into any of the Eltarian War nonsense.

It just feels like there’s no weight to anything about it! The Zordon/Vessel issue was very well written imo but like. I don’t feel anything about it! Why and how does his body have consciousness! Make it make sense

it's very frustrating because i ADORE plots where a robot/homunculus/tool of war discovers they can have their own identity and purpose outside of whatever they were built for, and obviously that's the intended story for Vessel. And on paper the concept of Zordon's body being dug up and violated for evil use is an extremely interesting and morbid concept. But it's not given enough time to build it up as a story of discovering he has a choice - having Vessel experience the joys of living, maybe becoming friends with one of the rangers, and THEN realize what he is and having his talk with Zordon - before getting the tragic payoff of his choices being ripped away from him. It's just Vessel is Rita's ruthless new henchman with no discernible personality besides "he's really strong" for a few issues (because for some reason they wanted it to be another mystery secret identity plot????) until suddenly he decides to visit Zordon and gains sentience in the span of a single issue, and then gets a five-second fight with Rita until he's possessed by Dark Specter. The rangers barely know what he is and don't care about him at all because they weren't given any time in the story with him. They were too busy crying screaming throwing up over M/tt and/or squatting on Safehaven kjfkjd it just feels so detached from everything else

Which is why the Zordon/Vessel issue was so good - because it was the only time Vessel's story was allowed to actually.....go into him in depth and his relationship with someone else without being interrupted by all this other irrelevant nonsense