#i'll expand on that

[parisoonic]

pals drinking together (hand practice that got out of control)

[soap-ify]

nsfw under cut.

Reader who’s just angry. You’ve been angry for practically your whole life — an angry child to an angry mother. It was natural for you to be untrustworthy of others, always on guard and reluctant to get too close. What if they’d run away once they saw who you really were? You weren’t full on aggressive, you’ve learned to control it by now — you’d rather die than be anything like your parents.

Imagine your surprise when Johnny just happens to break through your walls with such ease, the ones you had spent your whole life trying to keep up. It’s almost baffling, really. He was quite the energetic guy — enamoured by explosives which was akin to his own temper. How could you both just happen to be so calm when with each other?

He had stepped into your life one day out of nowhere, a drink and a few jokes, and here you were now — in his arms while he was taking a nap — snoring. You would’ve taken a video if his arms weren’t so snug around you. He’s just got a way of calming you, it seemed. Every mistake you’d make had you thinking that he’d start an argument, but all he would do was laugh it off and help you out. Perhaps fire and fire really wasn’t such a bad duo.

Plus there was no way in hell he disliked a feisty thing like you when you were both in bed, your fingernails digging into his back — after countless reassurances from him that you could go as hard as you wanted — red lines marring his skin while his cock would be stuffing you all nicely, fuckimg the anger out of you.

You were convinced that he was a masochist.

[necrotic-nephilim]

as much as I love the common "Tim worships/stalks Jason" trope in TimJay fanfiction because it's Good and making Tim a weird little freak is Fun, I think the underutilized dynamic is where Jason is the one weirdly obsessed with Tim and makes it Tim's problem.

Like, the moment Jason is confronted with the information that a third Robin exists, the first thing he does is cover his wall with pictures of Tim so he can just obsess and torture himself over it. That is the behavior of a man who is Unwell over Tim's existence and I love it.

red hood: lost days #4

And as much as a shitshow as The Titans Tower Incident™ is characterization-wise (though I think it has far more merit in depicting Jason's character than people give it credit for but I digress-) there's something very fun about the fact that even after kicking his ass, Jason respects Tim and is impressed by him.

teen titans (2003) #29

And on top of that, Jason can't seem to stop trying to ask Jason to Tim to work with him in some capacity.

robin (1993) #177

batman: battle for the cowl #2

While Battle for the Cowl is an exceptionally bad comic, especially for its characterization of Jason and the "be my Robin" bit is taken deeply out of context, I do think it's interesting how obsessed Jason is with believing that Tim is extremely competent, only held back by being "brainwashed by Bruce". (hence him leaving Tim for dead later on in the comic.) Jason seeing a darker side of Tim and wanting to bring that out of Tim, wanting to see what Tim could be if he let go of his loyalty to Bruce is so fun to me, tbh.

And in Robin #177, Jason seems genuinely upset Tim doesn't want to work with him. Jason sees such a raw potential in Tim and is obsessed with it, constantly wanting Tim to work for him and see Tim be the type of person Jason is. And despite Tim rejecting him, Jason doesn't shoot to kill Tim. I just cannot get over the fanfic potential of Jason obsessing over Tim, tracking him and seeing what he's capable of and what he could be capable of. Wanting to make Tim see things the way he does. To Tim it's corruption, to Jason it's freedom. Tim trying to 'save' Jason is fun and all, but Jason trying to corrupt Tim? That's even more fun to me. Watching that power struggle between them, Tim unable to get Jason off his heels as Jason gets more and more possessive and bold with each attempt.

And when Jason sees Tim successfully get Gotham back under control after a gang war, he's impressed. He praises Tim, even. And then Tim just. Breaks him out of prison.

robin (1993) #182

The way they're constantly trying to see something in the other that isn't there, hoping the other will come around? That is the most fucked up hate/love dynamic ever. Jason keeps coming back to Tim, keeps trying to find ways to get Tim onto his side. They're always chasing each other. And I think Jason would be the one to confess love first, the one to do anything to make Tim his. And when you consider after all of this, Tim has his Red Robin arc and is at his lowest, getting the closest he ever gets to considering murder? I think it'd be so fun to see Jason take advantage of that and worm his way back into Tim's life and finally push Tim over the edge.

[fangsandfeels]

Playing Veilguard and making it everyone's problem

I am going to rant, and I will rant a lot, and there will be spoilers, so if you're not afraid of them and the game criticism, buckle up.

Elves and their gods

I am absolutely fucking livid about how Veilguard handles the Dalish and elves in general. The events of Trespasser made it clear that the elves started flocking over to Solas, including the elves working for the Inquisition:

After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned.

Solas had multiple spies working for him during Trespasser, and If I remember correctly, there was even a note, left by one of the elves - they were anticipating the great change and the return of the elven glory. Anyways, the established fact is that: elves learned that the stories about their gods were true and one of them now was going to restore the world as it used to be. At least, this is how they interpreted it (maybe, this is the version Solas didn't debunk) and so they started following him.

You might think, the Inquisitor and their allies are going to have a huge problem with breaking it to elves that their chosen leader isn't going to make things better and that their gods don't love them. Especially, if the Inquisitor is a human or anyone who isn't an elf. You'd imagine any attempts will end in failure because of course elves aren't going to listen to outsiders trying to explain their own culture and gods to them. You'd imagine that their trauma caused by centuries of oppression and discrimination will make it impossible for the Inquisitor and anyone else to make them see the truth.

You'd assume anyone who tries to find and stop Solas will be sabotaged every step of the way, feeling themselves horrible for having to clash with people desperate for a chance of a life without injustice - even if it means burning the rest of the world down.

You'd imagine that they will only change their mind if/when they see the harm done by Solas' actions and get to witness their gods true intentions by themselves - which would lead to a massive crisis of faith and schisms happening between elven tribes and groups.

You'd imagine will get all this incredible drama in the Veilguard, with elves initially resisting the group's attempts to stop Solas, then trying to pull themselves together after the revelation. You'd assume there will be zealous groups doubting Solas (because the Dreadwolf is a liar and a deceiver) and intending to use him to actually free the elven gods. You'd think this is how actually some of them get out.

But, NOPE. Not only Solas ends up working alone, with none of his followers throwing themselves at Rook and the party to buy him time, but also all elves now hate Solas because...Varric said so?

You meet a group of Veil Jumpers (elves devoted to exploring their ancient culture and history, learning more about their gods and reclaiming their heritage) and their leader instantly calls Solas an asshole. Based on WHAT?

I get it, Varric had met them before and told them that Solas was Fen'Harel...

(needless to say if you expect players to find and read other media in order to make sense of the events in the game, you are doing something wrong)

...but why were they so fucking calm about it, instantly eating up the "yep, he's bad" version? Even if the Dread Wolf is vilified in the Dalish mythology, wouldn't they be curious about what that means? Wouldn't they have gotten tempted or excited by the implication that other gods exist too? They weren't told the full story - why the fuck did they instantly accept the "Solas is an asshole" narrative? Especially when Solas comes with a promise of a world for the elves like it was meant to be?

WHY?

The Veilguard has no response for that. I guess, Dalish never cared about their history and traditions, and city elves were dandy about Alienages and oppression, so they easily believed some randos over a literal god promising a new, better world.

I don't even play Dalish, but I love their plotline and arcs - and I was bracing myself for some downright painful choices and conflicts during the next Dragon Age. But it felt like the writers couldn't be bothered with developing such a nuanced narrative, so they just waved it all down with "Nah, elves are chill now and they never really cared about their gods in the first place".

[tawnysoup]

Transitional phase

[milkamel]

💜 Kross pain sharing Soulmate AU ❤️ (TW: Knife, Stabbing) Killer is doing reckless things out of curiosity and desperation while Cross can't connect the dots.

Whew, I spent a lot of time on this one even if I wanted for it to be just a sketch (I should stop lying to myself- I'm always putting too much effort into things-) and I really tried to make this look interesting so I hope it turned out nice :D

Killer belongs to rahafwabas Cross belongs to jakei

Previous post about this AU

[alchemistc]

eta: based on my spiral in the tags of this post

Tommy's quiet as Buck nuzzles his nose into his neck, fingers stretched wide against Buck's back, rubbing absentmindedly.

Buck tilts his gaze up. He's staring at the ceiling.

There's nothing wrong with a little ceiling staring. Buck is actually a really big fan of ceiling staring, when needed, but Tommy's been so good at being a sounding board when Buck needs it, way better than the silently judgey rafters, and Buck wants to return the favor.

"What're you thinking about?"

Tommy hums, lifting his head just a bit, the skin under his chin wrinkling like a shar-pei.

His hand slides up, down, palm lifting so he can swirl his fingers a bit.

Buck's always been a big fan of cuddling, but there's something extra sweet about Tommy's version of it - skin to skin, even if it's just rucking up Buck's shirt so he can get a hand in there, arms and legs all tangled up in each other, his hand always drawing aimless patterns. Buck's getting too used to it - had caught himself pouting, a little, the last time Tommy hugged him in a rush out the door and didn't do the little circular motion against the small of Buck's back that usually indicated when a hug was over. He's a little worried someone else is gonna hug him and he's gonna melt into it, tuck his face into someone inappropriate's neck.

"Eddie asked me something earlier, and I didn't have a clue how to answer it."

Buck tips his chin against Tommy's chest, a little eager at the idea of providing answers. Tommy knows how much he likes that.

"What about?"

"About you." He pinches at Buck's side. "Us, technically."

Oh. Well. Buck doesn't have facts and figures and statistics about that. Yet.

He hums.

"He wanted to know why I don't call you Buck."

"Do you two talk about me enough for him to notice that?" He's pretending not to be pleased about that. He's doing a shitty job, but still.

Tommy blows out a breath, hands drifting down, over the hem of Buck's briefs to squeeze. "You are one of the things we have in common. It's not all shirtless men beating the crap out of each other and trauma bonding over enemy gunfire," he says, wry, fingers sliding over Buck's ass and around to his hip, no real intention in the motion, just touching to touch.

And that's - oh that's kinda nice. The idea of that, just being a shared interest between them.

"I didn't know what to say," he continues, like he can't see Buck really fucking enjoying the idea of being a topic of conversation between his boyfriend and his best friend. "You introduced yourself as Evan. You've never corrected me, so - I didn't see a reason to change it up."

Buck grins, a little bashful. "Yeah. It took me a while to figure out why I did that."

Tommy raises a brow, hands still wandering as he waits for Buck to expand on that.

"Buck was a work thing, to start," he tells him, still working his way through it, because he's only recently considered exactly why he'd never told Tommy to call him Buck. "And then the 118 kind of became my family, and Buck - it just felt like Buck was who I was. The person I wanted to be. Evan was just - the guy I was before I found my people." Tommy's hand sweeps over his back. "And, like - I never hated that guy. Evan. He was just - he was just there, in the background. People only used it when they had something serious to say." Except his parents, but that - that's not the point he's trying to make, anyway.

"Good serious or bad serious?"

"Just - important. Something - something that needed both of those parts of me to be present in the moment."

Tommy hums. "So when we met, and you introduced yourself..."

"I think I was just trying to manufacture some intimacy." Buck admits, like he hadn't spent a ceiling-staring evening of his own figuring out this exact thing. "Get you to call me sweetheart right out the gate."

Tommy's eyes go soft and sweet. Buck never means to do this, give Tommy all these chick flick moments of introspection, but when they stumble into his lap he can't deny the little thrill that races up his spine at the sight of Tommy tucking them away. Tommy's hand settles between his shoulder blades, fingers spanning wide. "I'm not telling Eddie that," he teases, and Buck nips at his arm in retaliation.

[ivysangel]

Jason as a nibbler, a neck biter, a vampire. Not literally, he doesn't need blood to survive, no, but the way his mouth somehow always finds your neck, always finds a way to catch his teeth on your carotid, you'd think he did.

He comes up behind you so innocently sometimes, his hands ghosting over your hips and his hair tickling your jaw. His beautiful, soft, jet-black hair that is so quickly replaced with sharp nips of his teeth. You pull away, pushing his head back with your hand, and he groans; what did I do, his eyes say when he lifts his head to look at you. "You're biting me." you point to the teeth marks on your neck, indents a little deeper where his canines were. "I'm loving you."

You patiently wait for the day he gets carried away and accidentally draws blood, the day when the permissiveness of your flesh gives way to this indulgent behavior of his. He'll nose at the tiny droplets of blood collecting around the puncture wounds, licking and laving as a pool of iron collects on his tongue. Pulling away, looking like a wolf who's just devoured its prey, with blood smeared on the tip of his nose and his pupils blown wide.

He'd tasted blood before when he'd punched too hard, when he'd been punched too hard; the taste was always bitter in his mouth, too metallic, and always lingering long after he'd washed it away with water, but not yours. No, yours was welcome, just as bitter and metallic but also sweet? Comforting? Welcome? Yes, welcome. He'd welcomed you into his life a multitude of times, made room for you in places he'd previously thought to be too cramped. In his home, in his mind, in his heart, but the one place he could never figure out how to integrate you was his body.

Of course, he'd had sex with you, let you touch him in ways he had never been touched before, seen him at his most vulnerable, but it would never be the same for him as it was for you. You could never be inside of him the way he was inside of you. He thought he'd never know how it felt to walk around with ghosts of you inside of him the way you did when he came too deep or stretched you out too much. He thought he'd never know what it felt like to carry a part of his lover around with him outside of a material object. Now, he knew otherwise; he knew there was an alternative—a painful, bloody alternative—but an alternative nonetheless.

[leucoratia]

My favourite loser scientist (we are legally married)

Handplates!Gaster by @zarla-s (thank you so much for this AU it has given me life for the past 6 years)

[hajimedics]

are these feelings really ours or just part of someone else’s plan?

[blackkatdraws2]

There are more things in the Parable than Stanley knows about. [Blank Scripts AU]

[guooey]

I have got to archive more obscure things nobody cares about

[forgettable-au]

In a Deltarune au of THIS au, would the "little brother" in the house trousling bones be Papyrus or Wingdings?

Okay this is an old ask and I was gonna answer with some drawings but ...

I DON'T HAVE A DESIGN FOR WINGDINGS THERE!!!! SO!!! I CAN'T...

Still, I'll try to answer :D

YES, PRECISELY

I DO HAVE A DELTARUNE AU OF THIS AU

And in this AU of my AU, the reason why we don't see Papyrus or hear his name is because it's actually still Wingdings lmao

Turns out he didn't shatter across time and space here

I need to make a design so I can draw some of these ideas but, uh, I'll explain the basics quickly!

So! Wingdings and Sans are still twins, Sans just likes to be annoying and call 'Dings his younger brother (which is something that actually does happen in the main forgettable-au lmao)

They're a bit older (I just generally hc everyone in deltarune is a bit older than their undertale counterparts) and they just moved to hometown from the city! That's were they used to work! Before Wingdings got fired for unnamed reasons! Also, Wingdings is using a fake name "Roman" !

And yeah!

Wingdings and Sans are currently in the middle of a fight? They're not on the best terms, Wingdings didn't want to move to hometown and refuses to get out of the house

Wingdings is not doing great! He has no job, no friends, he just moved out of the city he didn't want to leave, and there's other stuff too!!

Sans isn't doing that great either but he's trying to do okay! He sees hometown as a new opportunity and a he's already making friends with the locals! He's trying to get Wingdings to do that as well, it's not working!

Why would Sans ask Kris to hang out with his brother, a grown man? I DON'T KNOW, BUT LIKE, THAT'S WEIRD EVEN WITH REGULAR PAPYRUS! (I know a lot of people think Paps will be a teenager in deltarune, but idk, that feels weird?? Why would Toby make so many characters older and then Papyrus younger??? It's still a possibility tho... and it would be interesting to see)

You know how in forgettable-au they both still use proper grammar before the incident? That doesn't work here (because Sans in deltarune is clearly using lowercase and I can't just change that), sooooo... they both use constant lowercase!

Or I could just ignore that one theory of uppercase and lowercase and accept it's probably just a stylistic choice....but I won't do that............

And yeah that's basically it! :D

Imagining this au of my au as a thing to happen in game is very funny, because if something like that actually happened I don't think the fandom would ever recover.... just imagine the chaos...

For anyone that might ask this:

Why would the voice at the start of the game react to us naming our character Papyrus if Papyrus isn't in the game?

My explanation for that is: Well, if theories are correct and that voice IS Gaster, he probably knows that we know Papyrus from playing undertale! He's acknowledging that... not the fact that Papyrus is in deltarune...but there might be someone similar we can meet, he knows who we expect

Okay that's it! That's the AU of my AU! I really want to make art for it

But I seriously have no idea how Wingdings would look...

I'm just...very bad at designing regular clothes.....

[inkedberries]

day 4 of kudoichi week - [vampire au]

it's feeding time! and we love the flavor of guilt in this early morning! honestly it's such a whole affair with these two, yoichi should just say thank you for the food and get it over with lol but it's me who wants it all to be very dramatic hihi

[roses-and-revolutions]

Not Blue, Black

Everyone always assumes that Danny's eyes are blue. He’s shown pictures of his family before and his dad’s eyes are blue, and so are his twin brother’s and his daughter’s, and his big sister’s. So his must be too! Well, his mom seemed to have this weird purple thing going on so no one was too sure. And no one seemed to care either way, especially not Danny. Besides, why would anyone care about eye color when they had such an amazing young man working alongside them?

Danny was the perfect intern. He’s always on time, never giving trouble, always giving helpful suggestions, and good at not only his job but everyone else’s too, making it handy to have him around the office. He was also the workplace hottie, with many guys and girls hovering around him, desperately trying to make him theirs despite him announcing himself happily married the first day he got here. (Everyone knew who his husband and wife were since he couldn’t help but show them off every chance he got. Everyone knows they’ve got no chance, but one can dream.)

He also seems to light up just about whatever room he happens to be in. Just his presence alone made even their shittiest days in the office seem like just tiny inconveniences in the eyes of the universe. Unless he himself was pissed, which didn’t happen too often. But when he was, everyone felt it and knew to avoid him like the plague. But, other than that, Danny was an all-around good guy and was for sure going to get the job after he graduated from Gotham U. 

You, on the other hand, weren’t too sure about your position in the company, as you were Danny’s antithesis, everything he was not. You were always late for reasons no one cared to understand. Just about every issue in the office was pinned on you whether you were involved or not. You couldn’t ever think about helpful suggestions and just rode off the backs of others. And compared to everyone else's good looks, you were the workplace monster. 

You had a scar on your face and body you got as a kid. You got it in an accident and it deformed your right side quite a bit. It was challenging to adjust to yes, but over time you learned to live with and accept it. Others not so much. The stares you got almost daily, from everyone in the office to school, even random strangers on the street. All of them made you feel scared and sick. Like you wanted to dig off your skin and rip off your flesh and replace it all with something newer, better, more normal. But you couldn’t and had to live like this for the rest of your life. You had to live with the stares for the rest of your life.

Your only saving grace was this job, the one you were assigned to when you first got the internship. You were awful at it at first, resulting in many scoldings from the manager. But throughout the year you were here at this company, you dedicated your time and effort to be good at at least this one thing. And now you were proud to say that you were damn good at it. The best even! So good in fact that everyone decided that they would drop their workload onto you and let you handle it even if it meant extremely late nights at the office.

And that’s how you got to be here, on the company roof at 1 a.m., debating whether or not going home to actually sleep and eat would be worth the scolding you would get from the manager when you arrive to work ‘late’ again..., among other things.

You know having these kinds of thoughts was bad for your mental health (your therapist grilled it into you every time you even mentioned them to her), but it was freeing in a sick sort of way every time you thought of each scenario that could play out if you just-

“Hey!”

Jumping back to your senses, you turned around and saw none other than Danny Fenton standing right behind you. You two were never all that close in proximity before now so you only knew that he was big. You weren’t expecting the absolute unit that was standing behind you. You knew you were short but having to crane your neck to look at his face only put shit into perspective.

“Another late night?”

You only nod dumbly as he moves from behind to stand next to you, looking down at the bustling city below. A deep sigh came from him as he pulled a candy from his back pocket and popped it into his mouth. He was always eating candy. Did he have low blood sugar or just a sweet tooth?

“Same. It’s like we can never go home, huh?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at Mr. Perfect’s suffering just a bit until you realized what he meant. You scoffed and rolled your eyes. 

“Come on Fenton, just because you’ve done a few late nights doesn’t mean you ‘never get to go home’.”

You settled next to him, also looking down on the city as well. He was on his phone now, the blue light illuminating his features.

“She really never sleeps does she?”  He says laughing to himself.

You were kinda pissed off now. Who was he, Mr. Perfect Intern, Daniel Fenton, to compare his suffering to yours? You practically lived at this job now, once you weren’t busy with school or something else! You even bet that after this he’s gonna go home to his nice apartment and be met by a wrapped-up dinner on the table made by either his husband or wife. (HE HAS A FREAKING HUSBAND AND WIFE FOR FUCKS SAKE!) He was probably talking about his little girl just now, and how she’s up waiting for him. Maybe she was half asleep on the couch with the TV on since she was so determined to see her Dad come home. It’s Friday after all of course she’d get to stay up way past her bedtime. He’s gonna get a hot bath and wash off dirt and grim of work, and-

Danny’s laugh was low and deep, rumbling through the air, sending chills down your spine. He turned to you and smiled his pearly whites glimmer-  Wait were those fangs?

“Dude you know you mumble out loud… right?”

There was silence between you two until a bright red crept up your neck, and ever so slowly engulfed your face. Shame flooded your entire being as you cradled your face in your hands. You sighed, feeling like more air wanted to come out but your very human lungs were empty and in need of oxygen. So sucking in a breath, you looked him in the face (why can't you see his eyes?). He was still smiling, his fangs (he has freaking fangs how had you never noticed before!) poking his bottom lips making little dimples.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve been stuck here for three days doing everyone else's work. I haven’t slept or eaten or taken a shower. I-”

“I know, I know. You’ve been busting your ass for a while now so of course you’d be grumpy.”

You don’t think grumpy is the word you’d use but it was close enough. 

“So how long have you been here Fenton?”

“A week.” He replied cooly, popping yet another sweet in his mouth. (Okay he needed to stop, at this rate, diabetes would be the next one to put a ring on his finger) But you were surprised nonetheless.

You’re sure you would’ve noticed if he was here for the entire week. He must have been playing games with you.

“Am not.”

Okay, you needed to stop thinking out loud.

“Look, just trust and believe that if I didn’t want you to notice me, you wouldn’t have. But I did so…” He shrugged and looked off into the distance once more.

You think that what he said is impossible, everyone notices Danny Fenton. But the office was pretty small compared to bigger companies. And if he really was there for the entire week you should have noticed him at some point of the three days you were here. You didn’t hear him coming up behind you a few moments ago either. So maybe there is some merit to his words.

“What’s got you here for so long anyways Fenton?”

He sighed, his face looking more tired than before. 

“You know the project that my group has, the one we got two months ago?” You nod and he continues, 

“Well, it was fine at first. Everyone was pulling their weight, excited to get it done. But then it started, again, with ‘Hey Danny, I’ve got something important to do this afternoon, can you finish this for me?’. Then, ‘Danny I'm not coming in today, do this for me? Thanks!’. And ‘Hey, Danny’s good at this let him do it!’. ‘Danny I need help! Wait no…, I actually meant that I want you to do this for me.’ 

Danny’ll do this, Danny can do that, don’t worry Danny’s on it! Danny, you’ll finish the project… right?

That along with the other workloads that are trusted upon me by the managers and other employees, ON TOP OF MY OWN ASSINGED WORK!”

By the time he was done, you had already recognized that voice all too well. Danny was struggling, right on the edge of his line, using the shirt on his back the make just a little more. Danny was breaking and just barely holding it together, just like you were. You never realized it before, but you notice now that, Danny’s fucking tired. Just like you.

A wet laugh broke your train of thought. His face was a bit wet, his eyes (?) red from held-back tears.

“People think that I’ve got no flaws-” A pang of guilt shoots through you as you were one of those people, “- but I do. Metric shit ton in fact. One of them is that I can’t help but to help people, even if it’s detrimental to myself. And if my sister finds out about this she’s gonna slap me upside and force me to stay home for a month!”

Another laugh rang through the air, sounding just a bit too crazy for your liking. Even so, you couldn’t help but wonder, you just needed to ask-

“Why are you telling me this?”

His laughter stopped and he turned to look at you. Like really look at you. You realize that Danny’s eyes weren’t blue like you and everyone else were assuming. His eyes were black. So black. Blacker than the night sky and deeper than any ocean. And within those oceans swam thousands of bright lights, each burning 10x brighter than the earth’s own sun! Yet they could never shine through that great abyss. It was beautiful. Danny’s eyes were so beautiful. 

“Because I’m gonna quit.”

“What?” Well, you weren’t expecting that.

“Yeah, I’m going to quit. And as your good friend-” Good friend? Since when!? “-I’m going to advise you to quit as well! I predict that this shabby ass company is gonna collapse in a few months and I DO NOT want to be there for that shit show, doubt you want to be there either.”

You feel conflicted. This is the first time that you and Danny Fenton have actually spoken to each other and after basically trauma dumping on you he tells you to quit! This has to be a prank! Some sick twisted joke!

“It’s not.”

CURSE YOUR BLOODY LIPS!

Danny smiled. He looked noticeably less human now that you could see fangs and eyes, and were his ears always pointy? Dear lord is he a part of the Fae!?

“Close but not quite.” 

At this point, you were pretty sure you weren’t speaking out loud and he was just straight-up reading your mind. He handed you a piece of paper and clasped his hand over yours.

“Just think about it ok? The first one is my number, so just call when you need a friend to talk to. The second is my brother’s, he thinks you’re cute.”

“What?” You look up only to see him gone as if he was never there. Looking back down you expect to see the paper gone too. But it was still there, the flirtatious message next to the second number making the tips of your ears turn red. Once again you remember that, Danny if a fucking giant, one who was now gone without a trace…

“What have I gotten myself into?”

You decided to quit the next day.

Three months later the company ends up in a scandal so bad, that even the bats are investigating it.

You decide to give Danny a call.

All I wanted to do was write a prompt about Danny's eyes... The fuck!?!?!?

[ofswordsandpens]

Okay compiling my most critical opinions on the pjo show so far (episodes 1 & 2)

The Gods' Conflict, Foreshadowing, & Big Three Kids

The show has seemingly dropped a lot of the foreshadowing and threat regarding the gods impending war over the theft of the lightning bolt. In the book, Percy remarks about how the weather's been inexplicably weird and extreme. When he gets to camp everyone is on pins and needles about something and they don't want to talk about it but its still very present. By the time he's claimed as a son of Poseidon and everyone's like "oh fuck" and then Chiron finally explains to Percy that the gods think he's the lightning thief, everything clicks into place for the reader. It all makes sense why everything seems so wrong... because things are wrong. Meanwhile in the show, that doesn't carry through as much, so the reveal of the conflict between the gods and why that's a big deal falls flat in comparison imo.

They dropped/stalled the foreshadowing of the fates and the cutting of the string. They could very well include this in future episodes, and probably will, but I think the timing of it - Percy seeing this before he even knew he was a demigod - again carries some hefty significance and helped set the foreboding tone of things being wrong even from the beginning.

They did drop Zeus's attack on Percy in the minotaur battle completely, which does disappoint me. In the book, its lightning that blasts the car off the road. In the show, Sally seemingly loses control of the car. That change is pretty significant, because it's again losing the power of RR's foreshadowing in the book. The attack on Percy outside the camp borders was a duel attack from Zeus and Hades.

Finally, I don't like the changes they made to Percy's claiming scene, namely, the reaction from the rest of CHB. Percy being a son of Poseidon is a huge deal. When Percy's claimed, the attitude is very much begrudging reverence paired with genuine fear of what it means and what he represents. In the book, Percy is claimed. People gasp. Everyone kneels. Annabeth says, "This is really not good." In the show, Percy is claimed. People... stand there? Annabeth smiles - she's going to get her quest. The only person who has the most outright negative reaction is Luke. I won't go so far to say this is out of character for Annabeth, but it is focusing on an entirely different aspect of her character in the moment, and what the audience gets from Percy's claiming scene here, the tone, is now different from the book. Basically, the reverence and fear don't really carry across to the show, which I think is important.

The phrase "forbidden child" slaps tho.

2. Gabe's Characterization, Sally's Characterization, & Why the Changes do Make a Difference

I'm going to say this with great care: The show has absolutely depicted an abusive relationship between Sally and Gabe. The show has shown Sally to be a strong woman who would do anything for her child. The show has shown Gabe to be a controlling, toxic man.

What they have depicted in the show does not read like the characters and dynamic in the books.

Book Gabe is a violent, menacing drunk. He is so disgusting and vile that monsters avoid him. This is overwhelmingly apparent from the second Percy gets home in the book, even before he is aware of the physical abuse Sally has been facing. Percy has already been dealing with physical abuse from him, amongst other things (edit to be more specific: this is including verbal, emotional, & financial abuse). I've already spoke to it here, in-depth, so I'll try to keep it short but all of this has not been translated accurately to the screen. (Is this to say that a person must be overtly abusive to be abusive? No. But does this character on-screen feel like Smelly Gabe? No.) These things have shaped Percy (and Sally) in very specific ways. As others have mentioned: Percy cannot stand alcohol. He meets Dionysus and is reminded of his step-father. He gets to Tartarus and the air reminds him of Gabe.... The character on screen, while abusive, does not share this presence at all, and that makes a difference.

Edit: To emphasize once more, I am not saying that the show has not depicted a realistic portrayal of abuse. It has (verbal, emotional, & financial so far). It has also distinctly changed the tone and Gabe's presence from the book, to the extent that it no longer feels like the same character and that does have a rippling effect on the dynamics he shares with both Sally and Percy.

3. The Lack of Annabeth

Annabeth in the show is just like... really not as present as she is in the book so far, and I'm just kinda like, why lol?

Annabeth in the books is already way more involved in Percy's life. She was in the infirmary feeding Percy ambrosia after the attack (ulterior quest motives lol), she's the one who lead Percy around camp and re-explained godly parentage to him - and its a moment where she's very sincere with him, and even trying to help him! Instead these moments are given to Chiron and Luke, which I do get the merit of, but still, these were her moments!

Annabeth in the books had already surmised that the gods were fighting, something was stolen, and the something bad was going to happen, all before Percy had even been claimed. And she shared that with him! Again, the loss of foreshadowing and little bonding moments has me :(

I'm a little worried how they're going to deal with her crush on Luke because its pretty central to her character in the books! It helps Luke to manipulate her and also keeps her from admitting he's done something wrong. Also, it was very sweet and funny reading her get flustered - It drove home the point that she was just a kid with a crush that she didn't know how to handle. But in the show Luke spoke to her and I was expecting there to be some sort of reaction to it and there just... wasn't? (This is not something I'm laying at Leah's feet btw! Only the writers/directors!) We're only two episodes in tho so maybe we'll see it some more moving forward.

4. The Minotaur Battle

Again, I've already spoken about this in depth here but !!

The lack of Zeus's lightning strike, them all coming to a standstill and just chatting instead of running for their lives, Grover being awake and just sort of off to the side watching the fight, Sally being like "Promise Me Grover Swear it"... it all just doesn't ring right to me

I wanted more panic, more terror, more urgency. Higher stakes. I wanted Grover unconscious, I wanted to see Percy drag him into camp, and I wanted to see more of Percy's grief alongside his rage. Like the book did.

The pacing in the show here, and just overall, is weird

5. Other Stuff

Mrs. Dodds fight kind of fell flat too. It was honestly too sudden and Percy killing her in the show seemed even more accidental than in the book lol. Like, accidental impalement vs intentional swing of the sword.

They really had show Grover throw Percy to the wolves and not just gaslight him, but low-key have a part in getting him expelled? Not sure how I feel about it tbh.

More New York. I wish we had gotten the part of Percy taking the bus home with Grover included cause like? Him ditching Grover was funny, but it would have been the perfect opportunity to show Percy traveling through New York and establish it has his home. Shots of him looking at the city, walking the streets, interacting with people near his building.. yeah.

More Montauk too tbh. Like more shots of him and Sally on the beach rather than just the cabin.

Nectar and Ambrosia! Unless I missed it, which I might have, why have we still not gotten an onscreen depiction of it yet lmao.