#i learned so much abt who he was and what he did and the legacy he left

[pennyserenade]

HELLO have you seen the new promotional photos of jason isaacs as cary grant in 'archie'?!!!!

first off, whoever you are, i hope you know that i want to kiss you on the mouth for sending me this. i love cary grant more than words and though i’ve admittedly fallen off the wagon a bit since i finished with his filmography, i did have an interest in this project and i’m happy to be reminded of it. the answer before i looked at this ask was no, sadly, but i since have and i must say i’m BEYOND impressed with what i’m seeing so far. looks aren’t everything when it comes to actors playing real people - i know that, and i didn’t clutch my pearls when i found out isaacs was going to play him for that reason - but i do think the look and dress and talk of cary grant is so so so so crucial to who he was. i’m so happy to see the way isaacs is already disappearing into this role through dress alone.

[horizon-verizon]

Userhttps://www.tumblr.com/witheredoffherwitch/747550490833928192/as-i-continue-to-spend-more-time-in-this-fandom-i?source=share

"Her descendants exclusively blame her for the extinction of their dragons - and not a single descendant carried her name thereafter. Her surviving lineage brands her as a traitor and that same line went extinct mainly because of the Dance."

This is a lie, right? Only Stannis recognizes Rhaenyra as a traitor, and Arianne recognizes her as the true heir. It's not known what her other descendants think about her or the Dance and succession. There isn't a single quote where they exclusively blame her for the extinction of the dragons."

Stannis Baratheon

Stannis--who is trying to make claim for the throne through male primogeniture himself and is a rigidly unlikeable guy besides...like this is what he's known for, being intolerable to be around--from what I researched is the only one to be so vitriolic towards Rhaenyra in a way that this user you're linking me to is making her legacy and the cultural feelings are towards her. It serves him to brand her as a "traitor" specifically because he's trying to invalidate the Lannister-Baratheons that are on the throne; to default to the traditions of having any trueborn male come before trueborn girls gives his claim credence. btw, he also names his daughter his heir and he will never have a boy. We can say that he could still set aside his wife but he hasn't bc he needs/needed her family and no family has come forward to offer him any of their daughters at the right time, so...he delulu. And not the fun kind, the really sad and annoying kind. Even if he did have a son, he still used his daughter to "warm up" the spot and try to get others to support him--similar to Viserys naming Rhaenyra (except he had the decency to be serious abt it) just so he can make use of potential allies. Rhaenyra needed heirs to solidify her claim? So did Stannis, and he used Shireen.

Thereby, with that and his disbelief in any religion but continued use of Melisandre to scare people, he's much more dishonest with himself about what is the "right" thing to do. And we already know that in Winds of Winter, he will burn his own daughter. So let's not take the words of the only descendant we definitely know calls Rhaenyra a "traitor", yeah? Typical hypocritical extreme nihilism. Total opposite of Dany, who locks away her own "children" to preserve the lives of others' children and contemplates family betrayal as negative in relation to power-grasping [down below].

Oh, and Robert, his brother and the person of whom he's saying he is the true heir to? Robert made use of their shared Targaryen mother--Rhaelle--to add more legitimacy to his reign. Thus to Stannis' potential reign as well.

Other mentions of Rhaenyra both in the main series and in the Hegde Knight series (so PoVs, not written histories) are:

None blame her for the extinction of dragons specifically; they mostly mention the how the "rift" or rivalry between "sister" and "brother" tore the realm part and plunged it into a devastating war. That's more the OG poster projecting their ideas onto those people outside of the Citadel.

And this is really emphasized by how Dany remember her own brother (abusive and once said he'd tear her own son from her womb, hah!) relating the tale of how Rhaenyra's son had forced his dragon into eating Rhaenyra right in front of her son (in contemplation of the "price of power" when she learns that a young girl is killed by presumably dragonfire, by one of her own dragons, the source of her ability to rise to power and protect those she wants to protect).

So here's the thing about Fire & Blood and even A World of Ice and Fire...both are books written by people who have not witnessed most of the things they write about AND are doing their best to BOTH record historical events AND push out propaganda or propaganda-like material to maintain a certain status quo. For Gyldayn, it is anti-female rulership/women in higher positions of power and with similar or close-to-traditionally-male-assigned positions.

Fire and Blood

Not only is Gyldayn already a man who has lived within the re-affirmed stigma against female leadership the Dance left Westeros in its wake, Gyldayn is trying to tell us how a woman, at all, being the heir to the throne of Westeros was itself catastrophic, and is using the war to affirm that idea. Meanwhile, when we really look at the whole of Westerosi history we realize two things:

much more women been used up, tortured, killed, etc. by men in any sort of position of power than those have been actually used their power for evil and selfish destruction once they had it or were close to it THAN IN THE REVERSE---ancillary as a Consort or the "highest"/central: Queen Alyssa, Queen Alysanne, Aerea & Rhaella's isolation and removal from the line of succession, Ceryse Hightower, Alys Harroway, most of Aegon IV's mistresses and certainly his sister wife Naerys, Daena, Elena, and their sister Rhaena, Argella Durrandon, Cassella Staunton, Shiera Blackwood, Rhaena the rider of Dreamfyre, Helaena, Jaehaera, Jeyne Arryn, Mysaria, Cassandra Baratheon, Saera, Viserra, Daella, *Princess Alyssa, Myrielle Peake, Lucinda Penrose, Jeyne Westerling, Elinor Costayne, that unnamed Lannister woman who married the man who would inherit her family's lands after taking her family name, Marla Sunderland, etc. Truly, the system already takes care of women who either just want a little bit more protection and agency or are ambitious or just want to protect their ancestral lands. (Except in Dorne, even though you can make the case of nonDornish people inflicting cultural violence against Princess Meria Martell's legacy by calling her a "toad" and saying she was a witch, but that doesn't affect the Martell women as much as nonDornish women...unless they are lowborn--Sylvenna Sand & Obara's mother).

even in his own telling of the Dance, him being a maester (the Hightowers have funded the Citadel for years and socially benefit from doing so by reputation of being pillars of the Faith), he fails to obscure just how greedy, traitorous, and destructive the green/green supporting males were...more so than most of the women he's recounting---INCLUDING Aegon, who was told to have been convinced of becoming king only to avoid Rhaenrya's wrath...which was quickly disproved by her explicitly stating that she wouldn't hurt him if he just gave up...and he responded by saying that he'd kill or seriously injure her...which he eventually did, as well as traumatize/nearly mutilate her 10 year old son as a deterrent to her many supporters

If there are descendants blaming her, they are mainly men AND they tend to be cruel, foolish, or otherwise men who should themselves never rule over a group of people for hos irresponsible they take to power. Fire and Blood rather shows us what happens when you let misogyny rule the world; it's liable to burn with how degrading you keep your women, esp those who already have dragons that you can entrust power rather than stifle and oppress. "Rhaenyra" is not a name used again for two reasons, one Doylist and the other Watsonian:

Doylist: she is mean to be a sort of "marker" between two periods of Targ history: no dragons vs the dragons...as the "peak" of the ruling Targs, when they were at their most powerful. not because she herself was so special or unique, but because of her position in the timeline

Watsonian: again, she is blamed, sexistly, for the Dance even though it was the greens who usurped her, etc....the council that convened after the Dance were full of men who didn't learn the real lesson and decided, esp after Baela's actions, to not place a woman on the throne bc "it causes too much trouble"...so the name itself is probably "cursed" in the sens that no Targ wanted to bring disfavor to themselves like how Aerion named one of his kids "Maegor"

It's a case of a man almost getting the real point, and skipping right over it. That person you link? They also missed the point entirely.

And yes, Arianne, one of her blood descendants, attributes her as the true queen...which she was. But remember, it's not so much that Rhaenyra wasn't the "true" heir, but that having a female ruler "causes chaos" so we shouldn't do it anymore.

AWoIaF

On the other hand, Yandel (AWoIaF) has several subtle exotifications & interpretations of foreign people's that come from Westerosi-Andal distaste for magic and suspicions of non-Faith practitioners. But more importantly, he was writing the book in dedication to first Robert, then Joffrey, and then Tommen and to the new Lannister-Baratheon alliance/dynasty that replaced the past Targaryen one, which had ended with a mad man but for the most part had non-mad people. The book really capitalizes on the Targaryens' boldness and possible link to power and mystery to paint the Baratheon-Lannisters as the best for Westeros, as the most righteous set of people to rule...(*cough, cough).

And you can see it when he's describing Robert's role in the Rebellion, the Lannisters, Tywin in particular, and how he characterizes the rebellion:

[zeledonia]

misc slightly underbaked thoughts abt DT i have rn that are probably only gonna multiply once ive had time to let everything marinate in my brain:

- I enjoyed Gulool Ja Ja's role as the "WoL of Tural" lol. It's been really entertaining to me to travel the continent and hear about all the cool and all the wacky stuff him and his scions gang were up to, seeing everyone react with a mixture of awe and 'what do you MEAN he did that', and realize that this is just. This is what the WoL must look like to everyone who wasn't around for the action. We're experiencing the impact of a character much like the WoL, but from an outside perspective this time. - I thought the parts of the story dealing with accepting loss and grief as a part of life were very heartfelt, and some of them hit very close to home. I liked how well it tied in with what Venat told her people in Endwalker, about how she believes that people must not cling to the things they have lost and instead learn to take the loss into their hearts and move forward. There's smth to be said about the parallels between the supporters of the Zodiark plan, and the system powering the Endless. Being so set on the idea of cheating death and loss by bringing back/keeping around those that have been lost, at the cost of lives that have yet to be lived fully. - This is a small-ish thing but I thought it was a neat idea that the sidequests in Living Memory unlocked as you erased the areas, and them being your chance to help people 'finish their affairs', so to speak. Y'know, it kind of reminded me of the Aitiascope in a way - souls staying behind because they have unresolved issues that prevent them from moving on, and this time you get the chance to help. - Ok this one is deeply personal but everything about the various different relationships the promises had with Gulool Ja Ja, and the elements around legacy and exploring how the person who raised you lives on in you came at a pretty vulnerable part in my life and made me think. A lot. My family unexpectedly lost my father a little less than two years ago. Needless to say we've been grappling with the hole he left behind and the footsteps he left to fill. Watching the characters ponder over things like "what part lives on in me" and "how can I carry the responsibilities that used to be his" definitely hit me in some kinda way.

[sylwanin-was-right]

Ive said this before but i rlly hope they improve upon the writing abt the Na'vi's relationships to other lifeforms, esp the fauna, in the next films. It was rly bothersome how little importance was given to creatures like the skimwing and and ilu and even the fish in the reef just bc they were implied to be less sapient than the tulkun. It rlly did feel like the whole "way of water" and idea of unity between Eywa's children was cheapened for the exotic flare but still the same hierarchal notions of "dominion" over the "natural world" and seperation of nature and people was superimposed onto what was supposed to be an alien culture that represented various indigenous wisdom abt the connectedness and sameness of all things.

I rlly didnt like Jake's Skimwing "taming" scene in AWOW bc it exemplified this anti-sameness view the most, and paralleled not only his iknimaya among the Omatikaya but of his domineering attitude toward the ikran ("your mine", "shut up and fly stright"). Jake was furious at embarassing himself in fromt of the (randomly) xenophobic Metkayina men, esp as the acclaimed Toruk Makto, but it also came off as frustration in not being able to naturally dominate a ferocious creature. Like he was upset that he couldnt take command over it. Cuz sure u need physical strength and iron will to position urself to make tsehaylu w a autonomous predator who uve evoked into fight mode. And ofc they had to learn to ride around the village and "be useful" (ok... lol). But we rlly just saw Jake being handed the creature w no information abt the creature's legacy, no myths abt their importance in the culture, and no info abt Jake's quotidian relationship to the Skimwing. It was just mostly "vehicle reserved for warriors". This could eveb be applied to the ilu too bc even tho we saw their personalities more, they were treated as loyal pets akin to water dogs more than individuals and ofc still used primarily as vehicles. The banshee.... goodness they felt like their faces were painted on. Never more expresive or sentient than airplanes.

I think theres so much more seriousness that can be applied to the spiritrual messages Cameron and the writers are trying to depict. The Na'vi clearly express their respects to other lifeforms beyond the sentient and sapient. So the creatures we see, many if whom yet to be named or described, can be more than props to the spectacle, and individuals in their own right while still serving the story, I think.

[t4tpumpkinduo]

🪦 and/or 💥 and/or ♟️ for ask game ^-^

🪦 - are certain characters functionally dead?

i'm not too sure whag this means or how to answer i fear OTL so sorrey. i think all characters are have an opportunity to impact things especially because of the limboisms + ghosts. i guess maybe alyssa? especially cuz her bigger tethers like callahan also aren't around much so theres less opportunity for her legacy/memory to be carried. wait speaking of ghosts where are cvik n clazar's ghosts. hope there's not an evil asshole who would purposely keep them from leaving frm smwhere to make sure they don't tell anyone what he did to them. lol. lmao. l

-

💥 - should c!niki apologize to c!clingyduo?

i mean i think so? cniki did super scapegoat and try to kill ctommy in a slash srs way and as interesting and well written as it was that's still naottttt. v cool. and uhh. also she helped release cdrm from prison. i donnie think she's irredeemable at all and i don't think she had to grovel but. zero concern abt the fact she's directly assisting a group of overpowered assholes in releasing sm shithead abuser who ruined HER AND ALL HER FRIENDS LIVES so he can run around and do it again is pretty crazy. imo. to be clear ☝️‼️ ilove cniki i absolutely do but like. cmon.

-

♟️ - was c!wilbur a dictator for trying to rig the vote?

oiuwhUWGH I'VE BEEN WAITING TO BE ANNOYING ABT THIS. HELLO. OK.

to start, no, i don't think he's a dictator for it at all 👍 i think dictator is a pretty specific thing that people LOVEEE to throw around incorrectly in dsmp discussion. BUT, while he may not be not a dictator, he IS a MASSIVE LOSER 🗣‼️

my hot take abt it is that uhh. i think people tend to have an incredibly reductive view abt cwilbur. specifically in wilburian circles which i've complained abt lots before but. idk the strange incentive to sand down all the shit that makes him interesting or deeper to form this bland, more easily palatable/defendable mush of a character makes me insane in my head.

the reason i bring this up here (and how it relates to my point/the prompt) is: acting like ctommy was solely and selflessly cwilburs only motivation for making lmanberg is. imo. a retcon. if i am to be honest w you. because it's Not Textually True.

like yes, he does deeply, deeply love tommy, that's undeniable. yes, he clearly built it w him squarely in mind but it was also for everyone! lmanberg was a family! his literal actually son lived there. they all loved eachother, they wanted a place for themselves. and it was Also for power and Also sticking it to the man!! (And completely justified to be clear!! he was being smarmy abt it, of course but thts not a bad thing!! he was 100000% right.). not to even mention the cphil letters and what that entails. and to act like it can only be the one that makes him look "the best" is. annoying.

compare to ceret. if we act like ohhh poor baby eret was just manipulated into betraying lmanberg and that's the end of it no need to dig deeper. man shut UP. IT'S LAME. things can be complex! she was manipulated, textually, of course she was, but she was also selfish! she betrayed the people she loved most, and she wanted the crown, the kingship, he wanted power. and of course, you can't ignore that in a server where power is one of the only ways to achieve security, for both himself and her friends, it makes total sense tht she would go for it! it can be multiple things.

another example i'll use is uhh election era q to narrow it down. during the election arc, he super wanted to help people!! he was earnestly pitching that they wouldn't need an iron fist bcs they could just all learn to be niceys to eachother. he really took what ppl said to heart and wanted to make lmanberg the best it could be, away from someone who he thought would abuse his position and WAS abusing his position. and he was also a HUGE TOXICA CUNT. he stabbed people and shot them and was a huge bully, and more often that not was encouraging and participating w cschlatt's more assholey actions when he also. an asshole. because they both are. 😭 q wanted power. again, power = security in the dsmp. so you can rlly understand his throughline. while also going hey, shooting people with horse tranquilizer is also super his own stupid evil little choice. things can overlap.

so to the ctommy is cwilbs only priority there line. if it's all for him. if he secures the country at the expense of two of his little brothers lives.

for the lack of better term, why does he leave it up for grabs for his ego.

there's no power to secure at that point. they won. there's no thing he needs to overcome right now, there's no current threat. (to be clear cdrm is always a threat but at the time no one is really aware how far he's willing to go and the seeds he's planting) and again, i understand that he was paranoid, and wanted validation, but point blank canon this is a fully lucid bad decision.

and even then, if you wanna say ohh well maybe he didn't realize smone could stop him maybe he never realized smone would intervene. that's still. annoying and bad. 😭. to not even give the people the chance? i don't think it's irredeemable At All but it's purpose in the narrative is undoubtedly short sighted and selfish.

even Then, he had another chance to bag it smhow. and he fumbled that too!

(pretty good breakdown of what i will be adressing can be found here, w timestamps -> https://www.tumblr.com/stellocchia/661878977008467969/stellocchia-thespoonisvictory-s1-elections)

in the convo, cwilb offered cq the opportunity to do a coalition w him. his offer is they pool their votes together and whoever gets the most votes in between them is allowed to keep the whole country.

cq calls him out, rightfully, and goes hey man. you can act like you think i have a fair shot all you want but you are out of your dome if you think people will somehow vote for me more than they'll vote for you.

cq even tries to compromise when wil falters, and say why dont we split power and run it together. and wilbur tells him NO‼️ even if you believe that cwilbur believe that cq loves lmanberg, which i do, and even if you believe it when he says that he would be ok w it in q's hands, which i don't considering he refuses to meet him in the middle, q Does calls him out for him. he says yr just using me. this is a scam.

and ctommy and cwilb reply 'YEAH IT IS ^__^" like man cmonnnneudhdjk. and that's what makes cq join cschlatt!

so to cut myself off, no. he's not a dictator mm mm, just short sighted and selfish and unwilling to compromise. 👍 unrelatedly does anyone else think it's crazy that in the canonical pogtopia wins au wilbur was gnna jail schlatt after he lost over "commiting voter fraud" (despite cwilb trying and failing to do that as well) and was just leave him there. like. he was also gnna make cq build a second layer of the lmanberg walls and cq was going to leave a secret tunnel in it on schlatts behalf. huh. what. anyone else think that's crazy.

[mekatrio]

complaining abt how the women were written in aa3

my aa3 verdict is that it was Weird About Women actually.. like very weird and a weaker game for it. i already went over this in my godot post but seriously, it was so weird how this game was more about what godot thought of mia, than it was about mia herself.. like i find it extremely weird that a conversation between mia and godot didnt happen at any point like what was with that, godot kept talking abt mia mia mia and its like... why didnt mia get to say anything to him?? like... shes not dead dead, we get to chitchat with her every other case. why was mia reduced to an abstraction whenever godot was around like what... and like yeah that moment where phoenix and mia's spirit pointed fingers at godot was pretty cool but it was also like.. mia was just here with us?? a little while ago...??? speaking abt "her spirit lives on through you" like no she lives on thru maya and pearl actually. i get to chat with her every other month. why... why doesnt she get to speak for herself at any point??

and i cant believe maya our good friend maya didnt have more focus like Whattt. why is everything abt maya so so subtle.. why is her grief abt mia and her mother and her aunt and having to be the Master not more upfront? same with pearl, shes just learned that she had older sisters this whole time, why doesnt her feelings on tht get explored... vice versa with iris' feelings on pearl! and brah iris.. like i dont mind ambiguity in writing and i dont need every little thing to be explored, but seeing as the final trial went on and on abt "Putting An End to Things" aka putting an end to everyone's (mia's godot's and phoenix's) troubles with dahlia.. it was weird that iris' own troubles with dahlia werent explored more? like what role did iris actually play in the faked kidnapping plot all those years ago? or how did iris actually feel abt dahlia?? how did she feel abt the fact that her sister was executed, and how was it like for her to see her again at the sacred cavern?? when it comes to dahlia, iris should be a pretty important character, and yet she almost felt more like a footnote?? it almost felt like it was more important tht iris was phoenix's love interest than she was dahlia's twin??

speaking of dahlia, it was really weird that she was lauded as this terrible demon for planning tht fake kidnapping all those years ago, but its weird how neither valerie or iris received as much flack for the role they played in it. and while yes it is terrible that dahlia then killed valerie, its VERY WEIRD that terry fawles wasnt properly admonished at any point?? he was 20 years old dating dahlia who was 14 like.... yeah theres nothing to say, thats just very fucking weird. ace attorney can be very awful sometimes. and for everyone ingame to hate dahlia for causing his death like... bro, if u look at this another way, this is a women freeing herself from her abuser. im just very weirded out by how dahlia was framed as this terribly perfect villain, despite having been implied to have been abused by her parents and then terry. obvs that doesnt excuse the things she did but its like, iykyk; im not a fan of how a woman who tried to escape the fey's legacy was effectively demonized and not afforded more nuance, even when we as the players are very intimately aware of how fucked up this family is. pearl and iris, the other children of morgan, are afforded nuance, godot is afforded nuance despite also being a killer, so its like... hm!

and this game being weird w women of course extends beyond the final case... that moment with maya and the waitress uniform was really fucking weird! and the fact that mia is just ok with phoenix doing that really shows that this game was written by a man -_- also i made jokes early in my playthru abt godot giving off gay vibes, and my basis for that was bc it kinda seemed like he was flirting with Every male witness, but looking back at it whats crazy is that well... excluding dahlia, there were no female witness in the entire game until 3-5?? which is so weird... yes theres at least some women involved in each case, we had desiree and violetta and the computer lady, but when looking at the past 2 games, its just kinda weird that women played such minor roles in this game's cases? like in the past two games we had so many female defendants, female witnesses, female accomplices, female comedic relief... but in this game, nearly every female character was tied up in a way to a man, either as a love interest or a man's point of honor. dahlia / iris were phoenix's love interest, desiree delite was ron's wife, violetta was tigre's kinda girlfriend, maggey was gumshoe's love interest, like.. compared to the first game which barely had any female love interests (angel starr and april may are arguably the only love interests), and the second game where the only "love interest" was really regina (which is still gross but not the point), its kinda a crazy comparison.. like there was such a wide variety of female characters with various motives in the past 2 games, while in this one most of them act as a love interest to a man. even our good friend mia became a love interest to a man in this game!

but yeah um... this game was weird with the way it handled its women. female characters became a point of pride for characters like phoenix and godot, it was a matter of their pride whether they could protect them or not. rather than looking at iris' relation with dahlia, the game concluded with iris actually being phoenix's lover all along. maya's and mia's and pearl's grief became a sort of footnote, misty was dispensable for the sake of godot's pride, various female characters were love interests and lacked the more compelling motives that we saw in the past 2 games... yeah..... not great :[

[sangre]

SATINE MOMENT INDULGENCE PWEESE: 3, 5, 13!!!, 20, 26, 29, 43, 49, 50, 60

sixty-nine more questions for your ttrpg characters! / ask.

YAY JAMIE TYSM 4 sharing and sending these!! POGCHIMPS

3. can they accept failure?

yes and no! :d it's a when and where thing – if it came to something smaller, like the goodnatured competition of a game or even when it comes to the learning process (like if reides tried to teach satine how to do something cute and it took 3 hours you know it would be fun and silly, and she wouldn't get frustrated).

satine has failed spectacularly for a long time!! at trying to be who-was, at trying to remember how to do that, the list goes on. so he's not unused to failure and it's not particularly irritating or cruel for her, it definitely comes as 'what happens when you're not ready to do something at the level you'd like to' in a way that's pretty neat!

however, if it came to say, protecting his party or even failing to protect people he set out to protect, he would be mortified. that's the kind of failure she won't take home comfortably at all. but in the same breath, i think she holds herself to a really high standard when it comes to theater performances? like, if he screwed up a really important part of a performance and people noticed, it would be like screwing over everyone who worked really hard to be a part of it. i think that's something she'd have trouble stomaching too. but eh!! that's part of theater just as well and i think he'll get used to it the more practice he has on stage :D

cont. / 10

5. is there something they want to be known for?

he carries the legacy of the theatre de la miséricorde with pride, definitely. i don't think she has much that she wants renown for other than to have the name of satine continue to matter to the people it has touched and continues to... so like, i think to be remembered as someone who loved to share his love of certain plays, music, etc is very important to her. as an adventurer, he's happy enough just doing the work and making the journey, which is so much better with friends!! :3

13. what are some motifs you associate with them? did you intentionally bring in those motifs, or did it happen over time?

i don't actually remember if i chose the rose or if the rose chose me. POGKSD;KLFSDG;JSD but the decision to have a rose in satine's hair has definitely defined a lot of his character/my thoughts of his like, very phantom of the opera-dreamy look! i definitely remember going a bit nutso reading about rose symbolism and seeing smth abt aphrodite saying like "immortal oil of the rose" but it's like passion and blood and classic romantics. very theatrical :3 and rose petals just feel very windblown and he has a little bit of a valentine's day color scheme so it all clicks like that for me.

another big motif for him is a pinkish red crescent moon! which i think was just a design that i liked on a keychain but definitely stems from his close associations with his once fiance refrain bloodmoon and my friend's character, satine's older brother figure, violence bloodmoon. crescent moon also lends a little to incompleteness, period of transformation/the passage of time, feeling happy at night, which are all fun and applicable since satine's class is a reflavored version of twilight cleric, which has a lot of night time spotlight abilities!! (can fly at night, make a spotlight, etc >:D) not to mention he is a reborn drow so nini time is :) time.

i think both of these came up while i was drafting up his character design and honestly i think they were more spontaneous... BUT I CAN'T REALLY REMEMBER EITHER... maybe i was planning this all along or maybe it just all fell together perfectly 🥺

20. what attracts them to someone—platonically and/or romantically, anything counts.

romantically, i think passion! vigor. VEHEMENCE. the need to speak to what you believe/the need to act on your feelings, the unthinking hurry that comes with just running with them. it's beautiful to her! it's honest and it shows a deep connection with your heart, unburdened by anything else. i guess it also shows bravery to her, to speak to what ur heart is feeling and not let anything touch or obstruct that. which is very sexy to satine! he likes storytelling and pretend and masquerade, sure, but in people he could see himself being close to... fervor/sincerity of love, for sure, is attractive.

platonically, i think patience. someone who doesn't mind a little bit of a wait. satine needs patience from people like capital N Needs. like she doesn't vibe well with someone who is like rude because they need something done fast. if someone rushed him in a theater production i think he would be less flustered than she normally would be in telling someone no just on account of, um No. ;GLJSKDHLGSDG;L, a strong believer of good things come to those who wait :) and a lover of people who show like... tenderness and compassion when others need it, esp when learning :D this extends to people wanting to know things about each other's lives too!! he doesn't want to have to spell everything out for somebody immediately either you know, she's not super private either but like... prying 👎🏼👎🏼 basically.

26. what type of person pisses them off?

(looks at the above question) GSDHKGSDF:LS<DG:L<DG UM but like, persistent cruelty? someone who doesn't learn from their mistakes when those mistakes hurt others. someone who keeps doing the same thing even though they've seen that it's wrong. if you have a good enough desperate justification/reasoning, it's not that he can't empathize with that/understand in time – i think there's a lot that he could understand/be patient with, but it does upset him to see someone doing the same shit over and over if it's hurtful like "Hey... Bitcj...... WORK ON IT" ;KHGLJSDF;GLK

29. what feelings do they internalize?

shame? probably shame. the shame of not being the satine-that-was that crops up every now and then freaks him out because it's like, she knows perfectly well that she's not ever going to live the same life twice, nor should she? nor can anyone? ever. and so i think that burden that trails him every now and then is something he doesn't like to share with people/doesn't like to talk about. because then it makes it real and makes it something he needs to work through. so i think for sure the shame and guilt that he knows shouldn't really exist. i think it's been nicer to just live the new life that brings him more peace, than directly confront what he misses about before.

she definitely wants to try, but it's scary. :( so... Shame.

43. how much do they know about the world they live in?

not a ton.... ;SDGHOUGSD;LDF' his memories about how to function are more motor and emotional and stuff like that – things satine aleth knew about the city he grew up near, etc, are harder to reach? so honestly it's been very touch and go. she's learning by experience and by spending time in different places :D but as much as she travels, she tries to absorb as much as possible!!!

49. how often do they cut their hair, if at all?

SO i talked with my DM bc i was like... DOES SATINE'S HAIR GROW?!?!?! ;ljgs0d8gsgd;lkdg and the short answer is no... as a construct i think she's got a set length and her good friend, the legendary and much-loved artificer janvi was like 'if you want to change your hair or cut it or grow it differently let me know and we'll look into it!' but i think satine is okay with it as it is. he likes the long and wavy! but has fun tying it back and wearing short, messy wigs for performances. :D

50. do they have a go-to beverage, alcoholic or nonalcoholic?

THIS IS SO HARD i'm going to reference a random ass energy drink i was in love with when i was a kid - i think the equivalent of a citrus sobe?!?! which they don't sell here anymore. i looked up the ingredients and it's like orange juice lemon juice elderberry citric acid!??!?!?! it would have to be something strong because satine has a very dull/stifled sense of taste and citrus is good for this! something cool and also syrupy and very packed with flavor. he would love [nonalcoholic] strong juice :3 though i'm sure a few diff kinds of mixed drinks are strong candidates for the same kind of thing!

60. what do they have faith in? what keeps them believing?

answered here :D TY SO MUCH AGAIN WAH!!!

[automatayaoi]

inviting you to infodump about your soul eater self insert i have one also i am placing her before you gently

WAH thank u for the infodump pass!! i am grabbing your insert and shaking her around excitedly. soul eater inserts unite

^ menace 2 society

so my soul eater si is a witch bc how could i resist the star crossed lovers tension of it all, their name is Acherontia Styx and they're a death's head moth (heavy handed symbolism? yes incredibly). their magic is very based in moths being omens of the future, and so their main role pretty much all their life as been as an oracle, first to the witch order and then to death

it's a bit handwavy bc who needs to remember details. but their family (the death's head clan? i don't actually know how witch families work in soul eater they never expanded on that) has been held in high esteem as oracles and advisors for other witches, thanks to their powers of foresight, and styx was groomed to be the heir of this legacy from the moment they were born. they lived a very strict and very sheltered life from a young age, but when they were roughly a teenager probably not long before their aging started to slow, they somehow fell into the hands of lord death

again handwaving bc i haven't nailed down the details of how or why that happened yet. i'm thinking along the lines of styx being especially proficient at their divination magic and giving the witch order an edge in the war against death, which he was Not fucking happy about and was trying to find a way to take down their advisors. i imagine they'd be well protected usually, not even counting their divination magic, so most likely styx saw a chance to escape their gilded cage in the witch dimension and took it

unfortunately it was out of the frying pan and into the fire for them, or out of the cage and into the dungeon, in this case. whether or not they surrendered willingly didn't particularly matter to death, a witch was never to be trusted. but he did see the obvious potential in their foresight magic, so he took styx in and promised not to, well, kill them, in exchange for them to become his oracle

digging into their powers more, i see their magic actually working a couple different ways; their main powers focus more on what is more or less "scouting" magic, i think is the best way to put it. they don't have perfect omniscience, of course, but i'm thinking it works sort of like...they use the moon as a focal point and as a "mirror," and can see anything the moon can see. does this make sense

the other kind of magic they can do is the real divination magic. the spell is called "Thousand Eye Wings" and is basically a form of very advanced calculation magic. you ever hear about laplace's demon? it's like that. they take the information they learn from their moon scrying and calculate a future outcome. this kind of magic is very, very taxing, as you can imagine, so it's performed far less often and only in important situations

and yeah!! Styx becomes death's oracle (taps the death's head moth name again. heavy handed.) and is sort of kept as a secret advisor for him, both bc he didn't want them to be stolen back by the witches, and bc working with a witch might not go over so well with the meisters. and that's how they pass a couple hundred years: locked in a dungeon, known only by death and his closest allies, brought out for spells that would end with other witches being killed. Not a great time!

as for my boys :3c spirit of course knows abt them as a deathscythe, and i think stein learned about them himself before death actually told him bc of his advanced ability to read souls (i imagine death uses wards of some kind to keep styx hidden while still able to use their magic). even then they didn't really talk to them much, until the revival of the kishin sort of kicked the need for an advisor into overdrive

this also resulted in them being revealed to some of the shibusen students, namely the main kids, partially bc they could benefit from their help and partially bc maka and kid were both able to pick up on their witch soul

OKAY I THINK THATS LONG ENOUGH NOW DJSKLFHDSKJ THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKING. I AM ALSO STARING HANDS OUT FOR LORE ABT YOUR INSERT.

[lintsins]

"@indygotcha I don't think that at all! I'm happy you vented" - Me

I love hearing people's thoughts on SAO, as I also have a lot of complicated thoughts on it! I also appreciate you didn't go full "SAO 2012 fanboy" on me, as they were VICIOUS back in the day. In fact, I'll give you my own rant on SAO, and hopefully I'll assuage some of your fears on SAO fading into obscurity.

For context, I'd say I'm a weird fan of SAO. I grew up with it, and thus my thoughts change on it as I got older. At first, I was a genuine fan, then THAT scene with Asuna and Oberon happened and it felt like a betrayal, and I became a hater esp bc I learned more abt writing analysis, then as I grew older, I came to appreciate it for what it was, and I feel that its cultural impact is not appreciated.

I'm not a stan, so I enjoy poking fun at the anime and some of the events in the novel (so SAO Abridged is indeed great XD), but I'm not a hater either. I feel more like a movie critic, like you don't expect a movie critic to be all that invested in the movie beyond their analysis.

I think my stance on it is best summed up in Mother's Basement's last video on the topic, where he praised SAO's Mother's Rosario arc and noted that SAO, while it has some struggles with aspects like character work and storytelling and women, it had a masterful grasp on tone/aesthetics.

It really managed to sell the mundane beauty of living in a fantastical world, [much like Dungeon Meshi does], in a way that many of its isekai descendants/precedents fail to do or are not interested in doing.

a beautiful interaction/connection between kirito and a middle aged man, who used to be an IT department head and became a simple fisherman within the game's world

I think that's a beautiful thing to explore because it's a wonderful metaphor for what it's like for people to grow up with video games. Video Games, while to most people are just games, to others it's where they made their best friendships, events, and favorite achievements. It is its own world, but also intimately tied to their real life.

this is a visual version of the metaphor. the code is shaped into beautiful rolling hills, like real life grassy plains. the code touch grass lol

Thus, Kawahara's choice in having an MC gamer, traumatized shut-in like Kirito trapped in a video game world is genius, and the show/book really do a lot to sell the everyday mundanity of what that would be like. (The cooking date episode and murder mystery episode are a lot of fun for that reason, even if they're not "plot.")

As for its cultural impact and WHY it blew up, I'll say this:

Kawahara was born at the right time to make SAO. He grew up with video games, and technology/trends made it feasible to think of VR worlds. It's like how the bullied niche of comic nerds grew up to direct Marvel movies -- his childhood interests were luckily something that became trendy as he grew older, making it prime for him get in ahead of everybody else.

On top of that, Kawahara’s amateur writing was kind of a plus. Amateur anime writers tend to lean more into tropes that they like, as he did with his admiration for Berserk, as well as bald wish fulfillment, which is perfect for mainstream anime. Don't fix what ain't broke, even if you might not win mainstream writing awards or something. Plus, Death Games were HYUGE at the time, like Hunger Games, Danganrompa, Future Diary, and Fortnite, which drew people in (even if that's not really a huge part of SAO's legacy in this analysis).

Culturally, we were finally at a place where the internet was ubiquitous with young people AND Kawahara's longtime experience with gaming meant that he could accurately capture an experience that the new mainstream would finally be knowledgeable enough to appreciate-- the digital world.

As I've said before, Kawahara was amazing at blending/connecting the real world with digital ones. "IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE," Asuna and Kirito's "real name vs username" conversation mirroring conversations many people have with friends they've made from online spaces, Kirito stumbling across his cousin in the digital world without realizing, Kirito trying to bring his digital daughter into the real world with robotics, Yuuki being a girl who can only really live inside VR because her body is too weak to go out into the real world.

In the past, this wouldn't have been a trend because too many people touched grass for that to be a popular topic. After all, the idea of people 'living' on the internet didn't make sense until relatively recently. But because the Internet had become so entrenched in Gen Z's lives, Kawahara's interest in connecting the real with the digital resonated with a lot of people.

Previous 'isekai' like log horizon I feel still came too early to hit that ipad baby generation lol and also didn't really do the transition/explanation of isekai very well. Log Horizon made it into a mystery off-screen, which means it kinda throws you in the deep end, whereas SAO made it a plot point, so we experience the transition from ep 1. This connection of the real world to the virtual world is important, as gaming and the internet are not disconnected from our reality but instead are intimately tied to it.

So, while others have said that Kawahara's idea of "trapped in a new world" was nothing groundbreaking for fantasy (It's called portal fantasy, and Narnia lol is the easiest example to point to), I'd say that misses the point -- portal fantasy is nothing new, but the connection to the Internet/video game/modern aesthetics to the new world IS new. That's SAO's impact and genius.

Isekai meaning "trapped in a new world" is a bit of a misnomer, because what's important isn't just the new world, but also the online/gaming aesthetics. It's not just getting trapped in a new world, but also having a smartphone with you. It's not just having magical powers but having a respawn mechanic like a video game. It's not just European fantasy, but also DND/RPG fantasy, with lingo like "bosses" or "area of effect" or "leveling up."

protagonist of "in another world with my smartphone" with Kirito's face and swords pasted on top. he doesn't look different.

So, while a lot of people discredit SAO's influence in popularizing "isekai" as a legit genre (either bc it doesn't quite fit the way the genre has grown or bc portal fantasy has always existed or bc they hate isekai), that's actually a cultural impact I wish more people would talk about. I can't prove this, but I'd say SAO carved out a new space that would go onto usher in shows like Dungeon Meshi AND SCUM VILLAIN MY BELOVED (which uses a plot device that looks like video game UI called "The System" to drive its plot).

from my Scum Villain animatic

Well, I'd argue Dungeon Meshi is easier to prove, as the show, while not an Isekai, similarly utilizes DND/RPG aesthetics like with the Dungeons/Dungeon Masters/Respawn mechanics (Danmachi was one of those SAO inspired shows and shares these aspects with Dunmeshi, so I feel safe in arguing this.) There's a direct timeline of SAO to "In Another World With My Smartphone" to "Campfire Cooking/Dungeon Meshi" (in terms of anime, at least. in terms of novels, it's a bit more concurrent, but the point stands, as SAO came before them all).

Scum Villain and the "transmigration"/"system" genre is much harder to prove. China, Korea, and Japan often influence each other.

Think the Hallyu Wave or the "Cool Japan" initiative, or the way period C-dramas have created shows like "Ya Boy Kongming" or Apothecary Diaries, or the way the Chinese myth/novel like Journey To the West influenced shonen anime with Dragon Ball) or the way Kpop idol culture influences China, or donghua looking like anime, etc.

I'm not read up enough on the origins of modern trends like isekai and Transmigration / System stories to be able to trace influences the way I wish I could, as that would require things like Korean/Chinese/Japanese fluency and Chinese/Korean/Japanese phone numbers to access their social media sites and such. As such, similarities could be the case of parallel thinking, as I've said that the culture was moving this way regardless of Kawahara.

All I know is that Solo Leveling and Scum Villain were released after SAO's "video game aesthetic" impact on anime, which is an industry that has been influential on Chinese/Korean netizens/culture/art (and vice versa).

So yeah! SAO may not have executed the Blackened Swordsman trope as well as Guts, and he may have inspired a bunch of bland black-haired OP isekai protagonists that Bingge went on to satirize, but it also DID manage to spawn a new genre with its wonderful weaving of video games with reality (including Binghe's story lol).

It may not fit the label of isekai as we've come to know it, but it's like those early genre influential works that transition us from the old to the new, and it should get its flowers for that instead of languishing away into obscurity.

Especially because I feel like we could reframe its flaws into the awkwardness of being a cultural transition, where Kawahara has to shoe-horn a death game to draw people in bc the draw of slice of life isekai hadn't yet been pioneered. I mostly remember slice of life being associated with moe blob high school anime like Lucky Star or K-On! at the time.

For instance, OP fighting abilities is one of SAO's chief criticisms and said criticism is only really a problem in stories where fighting is the appeal because it messes with stakes. Slice of life can often have OP MCs because the point isn't really about the fighting like that, like Frieren's OP elf main character.

With how much Kawahara shined in the mundane aspects of the show, I wonder if slice-of-life fantasy had been a thing at the time, would he have approached SAO differently? (SAO's cooking date episode -> Campfire Cooking's cooking show). Same thing with the slice of life aspects of SAO being called filler bc it doesn't contribute to getting out of the death game. (SAO "why aren't we watching the frontlines?" -> Dungeon Meshi's "why aren't they rushing to save Falin?")

Much like how Akira Toriyama hadn't known how to handle power creep in the Dragon Ball franchise because there weren't any prior shonen to learn from. Such is the trouble of being a pioneer, and I think a cultural retrospective on SAO along these lines would be wonderful in that regard.

just gonna leave this here.

If you’re wondering who the other two are, read this

(semi-related to my Bingqiu Jinlan City Reunion Weeb AU fic)

[choptop-sawyer]

Hi again 😎💫 im here to dig at ur brain again bcs i. M. Aaa sorry i just love ur stuff but. I have this kinda rly specific storyline type hc area and I'd love to hear any hcs you might get from it if its at all jr thing. But um I keep sometimes thinking back to the idea of kinda, vaguely growing up in the same area as the Sawyers, being childhood friends (and being stupid 2gether, running arount the countryside, ditching school & playing in corn fields) -

But then having to leave in your late teens to school / whatever (I mean 😎 my sappy ass also thinks abt mutual pining w Bobby but you know...... nearly unrelated.......)

Then, later on (Bobbys now Chop Top, Nubbins is..... dead I guess but also >:( maybe not, the family is up to being a mess etc) returning to town to take a break from work or whatever. N meeting up w the family again, i mean, oblivious to the bullshit they get up to but.... yk

This is a bit rambly i should probs have waited to sleep but I can't get the thought of returning to the Sawyer door wearing Bobbys tie dye sweatshirt that hr borrowed u years ago and all the impact of being a former family member bc u were also kind of an outsider or whatever but also the drama of leaving so uwu sksjd

This got so long. All i wanted to ask is: sawyer family headcanons for a childhood friend returning to town after being away for years. Rip.

THANK YOU FOR SENDING THIS god I love the image too of just standing in the doorway,, you're not home, you've changed a little bit, but you still fit into some of the old aspects you know so well they fit you and cover you.

Actually this is great because that fic that I swear exists has pretty much the same premise but!!! I can make this one less tragic than that one. 😎

(This is mostly Chop Top n you centric please don't mind)

Also this timeline is all fucky. I think that as soon as Chop came home from Vietnam the Sawyers had basically uprooted themselves and were living in North Texas because of the... Hardesty incident. But like can we pretend that that never happened they r still there in Newt? Just for this. (Hope you like it!)

Chop Top's Childhood Friend Returns

You don't think you would have turned out the way you did without the Sawyers.

They were the main element of your childhood, a mystery that you had to be a part of. A mystery, because they were closed off. Mistrustful. The sickness of small towns carried to the extreme, because they were mostly alone. The loneliness made them more miserable, the misery made them more isolated. A cycle, a legacy.

So it was a a miracle that you were even allowed to be apart of some of it, but you attribute that miracle to Bobby.

He seemed to think you were as much of mystery as what you thought the Sawyers were. Two kids looking through a small window into another world. But he liked that. He liked that you were something different, something new. From beyond that small world of loneliness that lived in the house.

You learned quickly that he had a desire for anything beyond that world. So he'd invite you out with him, when you were kids, to run free in the tall grass, when you got older, to drive with him to places unknown. He had a knack for finding these odd places, and he always brought you along with the music cranked up loud on the radio.

Bobby told you many times that he wanted to see the world. He had this lust for life that went beyond the restlessness of the young. He also said that he wanted to bring you along with him when he saw the world. You didn't ever mention how that always made your heart skip a beat when he said that.

Maybe you should have. But the past is the past and you can't change that.

You knew the other Sawyers too, but Bobby tended to avoid them sometimes. But occasionally, you got to hang out with them.

Nubbins was an enigma. You didn't think Nubbins was his real name. But that's the only one you heard from him, but the name situation was the least confusing thing. He was the most open person you knew. And yet you couldn't understand him, and decided at some point that you wouldn't ever. But he was fun. His energy was infectious, if he was filled with joy, you couldn't help but laugh with him too. That was Nubbins, so absent of any purposeful deceit that he was almost a mirror, you saw yourself around him, sometimes it was uncomfortable, but other times it was fun.

Bubba was the opposite. He seemed to be legitimately wary of you. Bobby once told you that Bubba didn't like to leave the house, ever. He stayed and did the chores. You wondered if he minded, being stuck with all the chores but Bobby said he didn't. It was comforting for him. Always having something set to do. You only saw him once. Nubbins had made him tag along when he needed him to hang some things from a tree. Bones from indeterminate animals, a clock with a nail through it. You don't think Nubbins actually needed Bubba to reach the branches (he climbed pretty well) but he just wanted his little brother to see his work. Bubba didn't make eye contact with you the entire time. He was wholly focused on his task of helping Nubbins. But he was gentle when he helped his brother, careful, and for that you liked him.

Drayton was... well. He was the one Bobby argued with the most. He was his brother, but with how much age between the two, it was almost hard to believe sometimes. Drayton was the one that everybody in Newt knew the most. People liked him well enough, but they said he was odd behind his back. He knew that. You don't think he trusted anything outside the insular world he and his family had existed in for years, and was at odds with Bobby because he didn't get why Bobby wanted anything to do with the world outside.

Oftentimes you would see Bobby after he and Drayton got into it. He'd be fuming, but he'd smile when he saw you. You'd leave with him whenever he came to you. These adventures were the most fun you had when you were there.

The other times you'd go off were when he'd convince you to skip school. Bobby never went himself. He didn't get the idea of all those kids sitting in classrooms for hours, doing nothing but writing and listening. Why do that when you can find things out for yourself? Get into some trouble? In his mind, he was saving you from a very boring thing.

You two knew the area around Newt well. The fields and the flat expanses were the best kind of playground. Your dreams were still set in them. A kind of sunshine filled melancholy.

Bobby told you things in the grass. His dreams yes, but his own thoughts. On music, on late night radio, on movies, on you. He perhaps thought of you as wonderful as voices on the radio, stars on the screen. He never told you that though. But your name was never far from his mouth when Bobby talked about the things he loved.

You and him loved each other as much as two kids who didn't know how to could. He was always on your mind now, with not much tangible objects to remember him with. A photograph taken by Nubbins, your faces blurred because you were laughing. A button, the pin on the back bent. A sweatshirt, which he tie dyed himself, and gave to you one night. The colors were faded. You never did get to return it.

The years away did nothing to lessen thoughts of him. No, they just blurred all together now, and the stream of the sunshine filled melancholy was almost endless. You needed a break. There was only one place you could think of that could help you with that.

So you came back. All things led back to this place eventually. Newt was dying, or dead. Didn't you see somewhere that when a ship went down, it took everything with it? You didn't want to stay for long. But you had to see all of them, you had to know that they were all not these strange figures you had dreamt up.

You went right to the house. You'd never actually been allowed inside, Bobby just always said something along the lines of 'Grandma and Grandpa are napping upstairs' or 'there's a mess' (never mind that he could care less usually about messes.) But you figured he had had a good reason. Maybe he was embarrassed.

When you knocked on the door, your heart was pounding. And that was all. Nothing happened, no indication that anyone was there. You waited, the sweatshirt was too hot but you didn't want to take it off.

Maybe you should come back another time. You were just about to turn around and leave when the door burst open, almost whacking you in the face. And there (you couldn't believe your eyes you couldn't this was a dream) he was.

Bobby had a hammer raised over his head, grinning, he was poised to swing it down, but then he saw you and he felt as if he was in a dream too.

It's been so long. He thought he made you up, a dream to carry him through misery, and you looked the part, even as you stood before him on the doorway. The light of the setting sun shone behind you, heat waves shimmered in the dusk, and you... you.

Facing each other, you stood, just staring. Over head the sky grew colorful, in the fields the grass whispered in the wind. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Bobby dropped the hammer and grabbed for your face, and he held it, fingers digging in so tight it hurt.

"H-hey you." He said, and fell to his knees, releasing your face. You numbly touched the marks his fingers left. Bobby still looked like a man who had seen a ghost.

You called his name, and his eyes looked lost, like he hadn't heard it in a long time. He looked up at you, and you could really get a good look at him. His face was leaner, he looked sickly and wiry, but his eyes were just as you remembered. You sank down to the porch to sit with him.

"Fuck... FUCK I didn't... I- I thought ya'd forgotten all about me... uh.. uhm. Fuck! I mean, r-really! Turnin' up out of the blue like you're some kinda... ghost or whatever... WHOA man... like, ya here to return m-my, my sweatshirt? You're wearin' it, you can keep it! You look better in it anyway... heh, fuck." He rambled on and on, hands tensing and twitching as if they were moving to touch you again, just to reaffirm your existence. Did he know how glad you were to see him? Did he know that you hadn't felt right for the longest time being away?

You forgot all about the sweatshirt, the hammer he had raised with a sadistic grin. You reached out and held one of his twitching hands, and he stilled and stopped talking. There was a peace now.

It didn't seem possible for your heart to feel this full. But it was. And by god, if this wasn't the best decision you made in your life to visit your old hometown, if only just for this moment.

Bobby stood, with your hand still in his, pulling you up. He smiled at you, and you knew you still loved him, and in your deepest heart, you knew he loved you too.

But this time around, maybe you and him could love each other right.

[heroes-of-olympus-next-gen]

Maybe we can have the grandkids from abt 15 to having their own families?

You asked and I deliver. Here's an Apollo moment with Bianca. If you have anything more specific for me to write, I'll be happy to do so :)

I’m here

Gods weren’t supposed to be involved in their children’s lives. That was rule number one in the guidebook on how to become a god. But Apollo wasn’t one of the Gods who lived up to that rule. He loved his children. After his time as a mortal, he dedicated himself to learning the interests of all of his children. Claim them the second they step into Camp Half-Blood. Let them know that he isn’t a complete jerk that abandoned them and gave them both daddy issues and raging bisexuality. Well, that was what he was pretty much all he was doing, but he wanted a better reputation than that.

Let’s be honest, demigods don’t live that long. Especially the ones from the first generation of Gods or the primordial of the second generation as they are the ones most likely to get attacked by monsters and inevitably died. Apollo was trying to make peace with that fact. He had enemies who loved going after his children. There weren’t a lot of things he could do about that. Lee and Michael were two of his many children that had died over the years.

But there were a few exceptions to the fatal fate of demigods that escaped the curse of the monsters. Will, Kayla, and Austin had managed to make it into adulthood and even further than their 18thbirthdays. Gods weren’t used to having legacies. Especially from their Greek aspect. But when they in fact have legacies there wasn’t a greater thing than that. More people that he could be proud of.

Still, Apollo was a God and not supposed to bond with his children and legacies. That wasn’t preventing him from looking after them. He knew that was the way things were going to be, but that didn’t make it any easier for him.

Will and Nico had gotten married and had three kids together. He loved watching them growing up, and especially Bianca, their oldest. When the three of them were born he was babysitting for them, but he knew that it would be for the best to distance himself from them. That wasn’t the best choice, but it was the only choice he had as a god.

Bianca loved waking up even before the sun had risen. There was something with how calm nature that made it worth waking up. Even though it was the beginning of June, there was a cold morning breeze. She went to the park close to her house and sat on the roots of her favourite tree. She watched the sun rising from there. She was enjoying the serenity around her until someone sat next to her. She wanted to move and go somewhere else as she didn’t appreciate her peace being ruined by a random stranger with a Metallica shirt. Points for the music taste, but still.

“I thought you would call me off for annoying. Maybe even kicking me out of the park.” He chuckled.

“What?” It took her a bit to put the pieces together. “Apollo?” She said cautiously.

“What gave it away?” Apollo asked her a bit impressed. He kind of tried to conceal his identity, but he kind of did it.

“Instincts.” She took a sip out of her coffee. “And I’m a member of the antisocial generation. Nobody sits next to a stranger.”

Apollo hadn’t seen her in person in years and she had definitely changed a lot. “You have grown up.”

“You haven’t seen me since Jasmine was born. That was something more than 12 years ago. Not that I’m holding a grudge or anything. I get it, you’re a God.” Bianca replied. She had sapphire blue eyes and a ton of freckles.

“You look like Naomi.” He observed. Just like Will, Bianca had Naomi’s eyes and calm expression.

“I haven’t heard that before.”

“There’s a first in everything. How is she?” The God asked her.

“Still sings a lot and she is awesome. But I’m sure you already knew that.” She started twisting her thumb ring. It was not a usual thing to have small talk with a god. And the small talk wasn’t one of her strong points.

“I heard that you’re going to Harvard, right?”

“Yes, I managed to get in. I’m going to double major, political sciences and neuroscience.”

“You’re going to do great things. I’m sure about it.”

“Thanks.”

[regina-cordium]

WAIT FUCK I WAS GONNA POST MY HC’D QUARTER ELVES hey it’s thursday i’ll cr even if im not watching cr

Vesper Elaina - The Heir™️. has her mother’s mind for sums and economy. one of those ppl who always seems so calm and regal and put together, but she will be the FIRST to cause problems on purpose!!!!! aunt cassandra taught her how to pick locks and she uses it for Shenanigans. who’s gonna think it’s her!!!! who’s gonna accuse vesper, with her gentle smile and cool bearing!!!!!!!!

Madeleine Joanna - Twin 1. okay maddie’s the one i like. projected™️ on or whatever. when i pictured my lil fics, maddie was the main de rolo in ‘em. ranger/gunslinger. had a bit of a breakdown™️ at like 19. yknow those moments where ur like “oh my god im gonna amount to nothing i dont have any skills or hobbies im not good at ANYTHING” except theres the added bonus of ur parents and aunts and uncles Literally Saved The World and all ur siblings are really talented and clearly know what they’re doing and everybody’s looking at you so you uuuhhhh go to wildemount to hide at ur uncle’s place! and ur brother comes with! and then y’all get kidnapped by cerberus assembly fucks hoping to ransom y’all for white stone! ...........fuck wildemount. joins slayers take!

(oh shit i almost forgot, her animal companion is a raven named valor)

Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo IV (you can call him Freddie) - Twin 2. unflappable. calm, cool, and collected, much like vesper but less mischief. training to be a cleric of sarenrae. he and maddie are thick as thieves, got that Twintuition to the nth degree. Fuck Wildemount! they don’t talk abt it.

(percy was hesitant in naming their first son after himself. the de rolo name is heavy enough; they’re going to add the extra mantle of percival? how can percy - a man who was driven to the edge by anger and hatred and vengeance - weigh his newborn son with that legacy?

it’s keyleth who convinces him, actually. she’s starting to figure out a thing or two about legacy, and how they don’t have to be an ouroboros of self-destruction)  

Cecil - he’s sitting in the library. you get up to get a book. you sit back down. he has a fully functioning clockwork figure. how the fuck. where did those gears come from. cecil. cecil, where did you hide those??

Adelaide Keyleth - tries SO HARD to be vesper’s mini-me. follows behind her like a little duckling, holding herself tall and stately. is learning all of vesper’s tricks and pranks. god, someone stop her. she’s so SMALL for her age she can slip into the SMALLEST cracks. holy shit. took to archery like a fish to water. can shoot a moving target from a mile away. likes to shoot fruit out of people’s hands. a menace, truly.

Julian - nerd (affectionate). rarely seen without a book, and if he is he’s got a notebook instead. everything fascinates him. one second he’s reading about the history of emon, the next he’s reading about the latest developments in transmutation magic. lil wizard boy.

Viola Valora - A Child. what do children like?? seven year olds like hitting things right?? uncle grog is so good at hitting things. she wants to hit things as good as him!!! it’s not her fault nobody makes weapons small enough for her :(

Vax’ildan - A Literal Baby.

(vex was so scared to name a child after her brother. what if it worked like some kind of curse? what if it was asking for trouble, for fate to deal one more cruel hand? what if she wasn’t able to protect this Vax too?

it’s the ravens that convince her, especially the one that stands on her shoulder and peers down as the squirming newborn before throwing its head back and letting out a noise that sound suspiciously like a whoop of victory)

[wrdn-tabris]

but to actually talk abt it lets start with warren:

warren dies. warren dies right after he and terry have a fight and terry runs off to go to a club even tho hes grounded. its implied he lives with his father full-time rather than with his mother and brother.

what kind of father was warren? did he treat terry well? was he a good dad? it kind of leaves the answer up to you because after this point everything we know about warren mcginnis is through rose colored glasses that his family look back on him.

personally i believe warren was of course a loving father who cared about his sons but, was also strict because he felt he had to be with terry. theres a lot left up to you to decide (im not an expert in any of the n52/rebirth comics since im pretty sure both mary and warren are no longer in the picture in those)

but in any case. terry feels guilty about leaving things like he did with his father, and there was love there but simply loving someone doesnt mean that everything was good or that what they did or said never hurt you. theres guilt on terry, for leaving when he did. for saying something that he regrets. but warrens death is the catalyst for terry to finally take action and do what he thinks needs to be done

when warren dies, terry meets bruce. he doesnt know his father is dead yet.

he meets bruce, because hes in trouble and is fighting a losing fight and bruce who walks with a cane and has a bad heart comes out and fights with this kid. he doesnt know him. but he does his best to defend him.

and this bruce, the bruce we meet is a different man. hes old and frail and sick, the years werent kind to him! and hes angry. and alone.

this is the bruce terry meets and slowly after learning the truth of what happened to warren (still guilty though, because he wasnt there to stop it) does something to stop it. and bruce, eventually, lets him

and lets someone back into his life again.

terry doesnt want another father, warren was enough for him. im sure beuce doesnt want another kid, hes failed so much with his children already. but they grow to care about each other and bruce takes the role of mentor and father figure even if they don’t acknowledge what it is to each other. terry becomes bruces legacy, something he didnt think hed have. terry ends up embodying the most important parts of bruce and batman and make them his. is more than what bruce had ever dreamed.

batman beyonds a story about fathers and sons and the legacies we can leave and it makes me crazy

theres smth abt terry mcginnis and fathers. he collects them like bruce collects trouble kids

[macamonium]

god help

I'm writing this thing and it's gonna make me cry lol

this is (hopefully) gonna be part of a larger fic, but as I was jotting down the outline this just dripped out. its abt self-love thru good food and Bakugou learning to forgive himself the right way

maybe tw for eating disorder stuff, though that's not what the fic will be about

Bakugou emptied a full-sodium packet of beef bouillon into the pan. The smell drafted through the dorm’s empty kitchen, and his mind wandered with it.

He knew, regrettably, that he reflexively went for the full-sodium bouillon because of his mom. Mitsuki had the same impatience for low-fat and low-calorie “diet” foods that she did for backtalk and attitude. She scoffed at the TV whenever it lit up with commercials of dancing, ever-thinning crackers, or the new zero-calorie alternative for something that was never meant to be low-calorie. Sour cream, for chrissakes! It’s fucking dairy, it’s meant to be that way!

She lectured Bakugou about it when he was really little, on some Saturday in the middle of summer. He was inside for the afternoon nursing an injury from what he reported was a particularly slippery log in the forest. Really, it was payback from a sore-loser gang of fifth graders. So his ankle wasn’t really twisted, but his chin sure was bruised - that log had a mean right hook. No way in hell was he letting the neighborhood kids see his face like that, so he was there, in the kitchen, pretending to take extra care of his left foot while Mitsuki made them lunch.

Stirring the curry in his own pan, which was now simmering, Bakugou could picture it more clearly than he had in a long, long while. He had been sitting on the farthest barstool - yeah, it was that one because one of the legs was loose and he was rocking back and forth, back and forth, and when his head swung along with it his mom’s hands, stirring the pan, popped in and out of view from behind the milk carton. He smiled softly to himself now, taking stock of how he was standing. How similar it was. Was she making curry that day?

If Bakugou couldn’t remember exactly what she said, he could make a pretty good guess on how she’d phrase it. He just knew her that well. He could hear her now - it'd have gone something like this:

“You see, when they first started puttin’ the nutrition facts on the packages of food products, back in, like, the 1920s, the chemists had a field day. I mean, really, they ran that industry.”

Katsuki didn’t know what industry was, but he liked hearing his mama talk.

“And at that time, chemistry wasn’t what it is now. It wasn’t molecules and atomic structure and that kinda thing, it was grams of this and milliliters of that. Still, that was more than regular people knew, so it was left to the specialists.”

She held the spatula out for him to lick. He took it in two chubby hands.

“More spice, mama.”

“Whatever you say, baby. And wipe your chin.” He used the bottom of his shirt, but she didn’t say anything. His dad wasn’t around for that kind of thing.

“Don’t get me wrong, knowing what’s in your food is great.” She gestured carelessly with the lick-marked spatula before plunging it back into the curry. “Certainly better than whatever was going on before. They used to put cocaine in Coca-Cola, you know.”

“What’s cocaine, mama?”

“A drug, baby. Makes you go crazy for a while. Don’t go trying it, and don’t go repeating it - though I suppose that’s hard in earnest, it’s what the ‘Coca’ in Coca-Cola is named after.”

“It’s named after D-RUGS??” Katsuki sat forward in his seat, but the squeaky leg cursed a whine at him and he sat back.

“That’s right: Drugs,” Mitsuki said to her eight-year old, her eyes wide. “Though people don’t make that connection anymore so they didn’t ever rebrand. They used to drink Coca-Cola when people got sick. It cleared out your sinuses, sure, but it also made you shout really loud and go streaking through the park. Ha! Anyway, where was I?”

“The. Uh… oh, the nutriss- nuturish-”

“Ah, nutritional facts. Say it with me, baby: Nutrition. Noo-trish-un.”

“Nutrition,” they said together. Katsuki smiled. Bet dumb Deku doesn’t know that one.

“So, the legacy of old-fashioned chemistry is that the nutritional value of foods isn’t really evaluated beyond the physical makeup of the food.” These were big words but Katsuki got the gist, and Mitsuki knew that. “It doesn’t tell you what those things do for you and your body, beyond ‘fat is bad, protein is good,’ and even that’s just considered on a physical level in regards to your body. There is so much more to food mentally, and emotionally, that goddamn counts as nutrition.”

“God-damn.”

“Yeah, don’t say that,” she said half-heartedly. “And I don’t just mean ‘veg out whenever you need it solely because it makes you feel good.’ Don’t totally disregard physical nutrition. I mean that food making you feel good shouldn't be totally disregarded either. Spices, for instance.” Katsuki cheered from his seat. “Yeah, you like spice.

“Food should taste good. It drives me up the goddamn wall when I see those health bitches on the TV drain out the grease from their meat. Right down the sink. That’s what makes it taste good! If you don’t want grease, eat turkey! And the ‘nutritional’ benefits of draining the grease hardly outweigh the emotional satisfaction of a good-tasting meal. At that point, it’s just a practice in self-sabotage, in pointless, self-inflicted suffering. And for what, so you get kudos from Nestle, who happens to be rolling out their new line of trans-fat free crackers? Please.”

She ladled the curry onto a plated bed of rice with a sigh. The smell made Katsuki’s tummy gurgle. He licked his lips really slowly, the same way he saw Spongebob do on the TV that morning.

“Anyway, my point is - when something tastes good, that’s good nutrition. Being healthy is being happy, and if the food you’re eating makes you happy, that is healthy. I’ll eat my pickles whole from the jar, even if Dr. Oz gives me a lip about ‘it’s too much sodium,’ and do you know why? Because I love the crunch of a fresh pickle, and I know that as sure as I know that there’s two grams of carbs in it because the sticker on the side tells me so. I know I love it so I do it, and that’s a beautiful thing. That’s something I deserve.”

She slid the steaming plate, loaded with peas, potatoes, and carrots in curry, across the table to her son. He reached for the fork, but she snapped it away at the last second. Katsuki looked into his mom’s eyes. “Say it back to me, baby: ‘Food should taste good.’”

“Food should taste good, mama.”

“I deserve this good food.”

“I… I deserve this good food.”

“That’s my baby, now eat up.”

A tear squeezed through Bakugou’s eyes at the memory, and fell down his cheek into the pan. He didn’t even remember the last part until it all ran through his head.

God, he couldn’t help it, and there was no one around to prove anything to - he made the effort to muffle himself with shallow breaths, but he let the tears flow free and hot down their tracks. This time they reached his chin. He asked the ceiling, berating himself on how foolish he was to think it would answer: did he still even deserve it?

[alicedrawslesmis]

okay i totally agree that marius is written very weird and only focuses on being awkward and funny in fanfic and honestly all fandom content. but i dont really know how to write him better? tbh i dont actually write him at all really and just ignore him cause hes weird and idk how to write it. do you have any ideas on how to make him more canon accurate?

ok a little aside before I get this train going: contrary to what it may seem I'm not actually against having Marius be the awkward funny side character, the fandom created a whole universe of characters that are semi-canon but recognizable but I do wish Bossuet was the funny side character because that's his whole thing and it's great and I say fandom is not supposed to be a Chore, you don't have to write characters the brick way just cause Alice from tumblr said so

.

BUT let's say you did want to write Marius as more brick-like without him becoming the big Red Flag that he was written as, here are some things we know abt him:

1. Marius is v book smart, he reads fast, he learns fast, he was able to finish law school, learn german and english all while starving (see: last point of this list)

2. He is very concerned with looking presentable, even tho he owns like three shirts. This is a big deal to him. Also he only wears black for Symbolic purposes

EDIT: 2.b. He wears black because of his father and is very attached to his father's legacy! Family is also a big deal to him

3. Marius is apparently hot. At least noticeably good-looking. Idk if you need to keep that in, but it's canon lol

4. He walks randomly through empty places cause he likes to daydream. It's not unusual to run into him in weird places (and by run into I mean people see him but he doesn't notice them)

5. He's lazy. He'll work enough to live but Not A Single Second More

6. He is really judgy

7. He hates the idea of debt. He will go out of his way to avoid going into debt. He'll starve rather than borrow money

8. Lastly, and the most important: He has these waves of obsessions. He will fixate on something and think about nothing else for months. It takes over his work and his social life. Like, say, infodumping about Napoleon to a bunch of radical republicans and getting his butt whooped. He can't help himself, dissociation and hyperfocus are Marius's biggest traits. So much of his flaws go back to his inability to have a healthy fixation on anything

My personal interpretation is that Marius is neurodivergent from the way he's written. So there's just this big gaping problem that is his obviously atypical behaviour that everyone who reads the book can pick up on (usually people don't even realise it's that, they just comment on how awkward/weird he is. Which, yeah, that's why it's called atypical) and it just lays there, unaddressed, to frustrate me in specific

[waitingforminjae]

I remember a few weeks ago on shawol twt, someone had retweeted a video of Jonghyun doing one of his sexier songs, like Moon or Cocktail or smth and commented “jonghyun cock” on it as a joke, and a non-shawol got mad at them bc they felt like that was disrespectful to speak of the dead like that. 

Shawol twt promptly lost their damn MINDS abt it, and prececded to get the man trending by tweeting abt how sexy he and his music was, and the whole thing remains the funniest shit I’ve ever seen in my life bc shawols are funny as fuck and petty as hell when u really get them going.

But what was really fascinating, was the underlying point buried underneath all the crass comments and jjong fancams. Which is Shawols insistence that people stop telling them how they should interact with him and his legacy. 

I’ve made no secret of it on this blog that I hate what I used call “hollywood bullshit” but now simply call “idol bullshit”. The crux of my soap box is this: Hollywood romanticizes celebrities who died young, especially of overdose, accidents, or suicide, so that it doesn’t have to take responsibility for the role the Hollywood system played in their deaths. A few examples would be the 27 club, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and River Phoenix. I’ve been passionate abt this for a long time.

But the thing abt the people I focus on, like River, is that they have been dead for 20+ years. Their legacy is settled, and in some ways there’s nothing more tragic. They are remembered for dying young, because that’s what Hollywood chose to focus on. People remember tragedy. It’s often the only thing people know about them.

So, from an objective standpoint, it has been very interesting to watch that battle over legacy play out in real time. I remember when the news broke about Jonghyun, and how I saw him trending on Tumblr and clicked on it. I read abt how a guy from SHINee had died, and although I was not into kpop, I had a very very good friend who was. I immediately contacted her, because I had remembered her talking at length about SHINee. And I scrolled through the tag. I read articles. I posted on Facebook, even, “another bright young thing dead at  27, when will we learn?”

But even then, Shawols were taking control of the narrative. I remember y’all saying that ppl shouldn’t talk like he kept it all inside and nobody knew. He spoke openly about his mental health, y’all insisted, he was a real advocate for things that mattered. He wasn’t sad all the time. 

And when they did the concert in February. God. The images and gifs of SHINee dressed in white, flanking that microphone, will haunt me until the day I die. That was over a year before I got into SHINee. I got into them, finally, this August.

And what I found here, and what I’ve observed, has really changed the way I interact with celebrities who die young. It made me realize that I, too, was focusing on the wrong things. To y’all, he is still very much with us, and you talk about everything but his death. SHINee really is still five, because you haven’t let him become a tragedy. You talk about the vast diversity of his music, his talents and skills, his words and his love. The way he loved you, the way he loved his members and family, the way he loved Roo. Like all of us, Jonghyun was more than one thing, and Shawols have worked hard to keep him alive in your hearts as the wonderfully complex human being that he was. And every time people try to reduce him to just that one day, you fight for him. You refuse to let people turn him into tragedy porn. You stand up for his legacy and say, No. Here’s who Jonghyun was, and it is more than just that one moment. 

I have never seen or heard of anything like it. It’s beautiful. And it’s what he deserves.