#if some people really like those new kind of goodies then good for them

[randomnameless]

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1fpt4r8/new_collaboration_products_from_fire_emblem_three/ Can we please move on from Tree Douses? Please? Pretty please?

Umbrellas uwu

I tried to reply to some people who were all "uwu getting umbrellas after 5 years shows that Houses >>> Engage uwu" but the main sub is... well, still the main sub.

I thought there was some rule some time ago that sort of banned the "engage shit fodlan good" posts? Maybe it doesn't extent to comments ?

Anyways, I stand by what I earlier said, I'm perfectly happy waiting 24-26 days to get an artbook with interviews and special illustrations than to get an umbrella or towels. Because, hey, when I played the game, I enjoyed its worldbuilding and characters and I would like to get more of that, and not, y'know, an umbrella.

I mean, I could buy a jigglypuff umbrella, but for a jrpg/srpg/trpg/whatever FE is, when I want to buy goodies, I want to buy stuff relating/related to the game and not, just, a spoon where the word "judgral" is engraved.

At this point I'm starting to believe Fodlan became a brand : you like the concept of "Fodlan" but don't like a particular character, or the setting, or the world, or anything else.

[skyahri]

Unplanned |Naruto Men X Reader| HC

Characters: Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Shikamaru Nara, and Kakashi Hatake

Summary: Pregnancy scenarios 'cause I can.

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy. Bad words. All fluff.

Masterlist Ko-fi

- - - - -

Sasuke Uchiha

He isn't the kind of guy to outwardly dote on you.

He's never been good with words or physical touch, more so preferring quality time together. You sleep in the same bed, eat meals together when it's convenient, and lounge around together when time allows.

When you come home from a last minute doctor's appointment with some big news, none of that really changes.

He assures you that he's happy, that he loves you, and this is all wonderful, but that's about all you're going to get out the emotionally constipated man.

However, while words may not be his strong suit, actions certainly are.

It's become painfully obvious that you are never allowed to go anywhere alone ever again.

He's like a shadow, following you everywhere and anywhere you decide to go. It doesn't matter that you're just running to the market- he's coming with. Ino invited the girls over for a dinner party? Cool, he'll walk you there, hang around in the shadows outside, then walk you home.

When questioned, Sasuke only says that he doesn't trust other people. Already knowing how he is, you don't push him any further. (Not that he'd entertain you if you did.)

People notice pretty quickly. He's not subtle and it's not exactly common for the Uchiha to be so openly clingy.

You wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret for a little while longer. You knew that his status would make the whole thing bigger than you'd like and it was still so early, only about eight weeks in. But people were becoming more and more insistent with their questions.

"Seriously, did something happen? He's been watching you like a Hawk for the past month."

"It was cute at first, but now it's straight up creepy."

Sakura and Ino dramatically shiver at the notion. You laugh, imagining how unsettling this all must look from the outside.

"It's fine, I promise. He's just been a little overprotective since he found out I was pregnant."

They don't register it at first. They just nod in understanding and move to sip their tea. You can almost see it click in their heads before they slam down their cups and start freaking out.

"Wait, WHAT?"

Naruto Uzumaki

"Congratulations! Based on the ultrasound, I'd say you're about five weeks along. It's still early, but you can see a tiny sac right here-"

Your mind is going a thousand miles a minute, thinking of everything and nothing as the doctor points out the tiny, centimeter-long blob in the picture.

Naruto had been bugging you for the past three weeks about a smell. He swears it's nothing bad, just that Kurama is insisting that your scent has changed and- blah, blah, blah. You never could get any more information out of him, which just left you to eventually cave and visit the doctor. Animals have instincts for a reason and who were you to ignore them?

Turns out, that damn fox was right.

After a half-hour lecture on what you can and can't do anymore, you were handed a goodie bag of essentials and sent on your way.

You barely remember the walk home. Your mind was completely blank as it tried to process the news. It wasn't until Naruto was standing in front of you in the doorway to your home that you finally snapped out of the trance.

You stared up at him. His eyebrows were knit together and he was asking if everything was alright. He pulled everything out of your hands and not-so-gently set them on the floor.

"I'm pregnant."

His eyes blew wide and not even a second later he was smiling, pulling you into him and spinning you around. It's over just as quickly as it started. He's setting you back down on your feet and looking you over, mumbling a few hollow apologies for manhandling you. He takes a deep breath, that lopsided grin on his face never leaving.

"You're pregnant."

Just those two words have all the fog clearing from your head. Reality is forced onto you in an instant. In any other situation, it might have made you dizzy, but right now you couldn't be happier.

"I'm pregnant."

Shikamaru Nara

He really should've seen this coming.

Honestly, with how careless he is with protection, it's a wonder how you hadn't gotten pregnant sooner. A year and some change of not bothering with condoms and lazy, half-assed pullouts had finally come to bite him in the ass.

Although he knows this is all going to be horrifically bothersome, he can't find it in himself to be all that bothered. No, not when you're standing in front of him so nervously, little tears gathering on your waterline as you hold out a slip of paper for him to take.

He pulls you into a hug- a very tight, very intimate hug. One of his hands is on your lower back, pressing you into him, and the other is in your hair to cup the back of your head. He can feel the stress start to melt from your body as you relax into him, your arms moving to loosely hold him back.

"I'm sorry. I know this wasn't exactly planned..."

It definitely wasn't planned. He didn't like to think about things too hard. The only talk about the future he'd engaged in was a brief confirmation that you were both interested in pursuing each other exclusively and that neither were against marriage and kids.

But even though this was sudden and unprompted and definitely not what he was expecting when you asked to talk with him privately, he just couldn't find it in himself to be anything other than pleased. Sure, he would've liked to wait a few years and it preferably be after he'd properly proposed and married you, but none of that is deterring him.

He loved you. He didn't say it as often as he probably should, but that didn't make it any less true. You were easygoing and passive and fit into his life with no resistance. His friends liked you, possibly more than they did him. You liked to cook and he never had to worry about you causing trouble.

This was fine.

Not troublesome in the least.

"No, this is... good."

Kakashi Hatake

He was positive he was sterile. He'd have to be after all the injuries and trauma he's sustained, right? Four years and not a single scare, yet here you were, apparently three months pregnant, handing him a report from the OB's office.

He couldn't even form a sentence. He just sighed and sat back onto the couch with his eyes closed. It's only eight in the morning, it's too early for this, not that there'd ever be a great time.

"I knew you weren't going to be thrilled, but now I'm starting to get nervous. Can you please say something?"

He held his arm up and gestured for you to come towards him. When he could feel you brush against him, he grabbed your wrist and carefully yanked you onto his lap. You let out a relieved, albeit hesitant, chuckle as he slowly wrapped himself around you, his head finding solace in the crook of your neck.

The two of you stayed like that for a little while until he let out the loudest, most dramatic groan you'd ever heard leave his mouth, followed by a mumbled 'are you sure?', to which you rolled your eyes.

"Yes, I'm sure. Here, you can see for yourself."

You unfold the paper and pulled out a few pictures. He shifts you around so you're at a better angle before he takes them into his hands. It's obvious that he has no idea what he's looking at- just that the blob is already baby-shaped and very, very intimidating.

You point out some of the obvious things, the head and feet and such, before moving down to the very last photo at the bottom.

"And that little spot right there means that we're having a boy."

"I thought they couldn't tell the gender until later."

"It is later, Kashi. Fourteen weeks."

He lets you take the pictures from him so he can set his hand on your stomach. You'd mentioned gaining a little weight recently, which he honestly hadn't noticed, but now he's wondering how he could've missed it as he brushes his fingers over the slightest most obvious bump in your usually flat stomach.

He must've been zoned out for too long, because you're calling his name and setting your hand over his. He hums, a slight acknowledgment that he's heard you, but you know he's not actually listening.

He's too busy thinking about diapers and bottles and late nights and early mornings. How his son is going to be in the same class as his student's kids. How Gai is going to be a hundred times more annoying in the coming years.

But then a single thought completely derails his spiraling. He wonders what your baby will look like. If he'll be a morning person like you or like to take naps like him. If they'll accel in genjutsu or not, because while he certainly does, you most certainly don't.

He's spent time with Kurenai and Mirai. While raising a person definitely seemed difficult, he couldn't deny that Kurenai was happy. Actually, despite Asuma's untimely death, she's the happiest he'd ever seen her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just... thinking about how annoying it'll be to tell everyone we're expecting."

"Seemed more like panicking to me."

"... shut up."

[luminique]

the post abt tying a bow around lighters biceps has me thinking abt that thing where you test out different lipstick shades by covering ur partner in kiss marks n seeing what one looks best,,,,, and no I would not limit myself to his face

i think about this prompt like A LOT. as someone who lurvesss wearing lipstick, i genuinely think that he’d be the perfect candidate for it.

lucy prefers to ask you for makeup recommendations and purchasing it. not that she doesn’t trust lighter but after talking to you, you seemed to know more about it than he did. whenever it came to purchasing makeup, she’d ask you to go along with lighter to lumina square.

this was also a good way to buy some new products for yourself, a win win situation. there was a huge sale at the store for some products and many of them were lipsticks, you couldn’t possibly pass up on this opportunity. you both arrive back in blazewood, giving all of the girls what they requested for. with your own goodies in hand, it was time to do a little try-on to see which ones were worth the money.

back in your room, you began trying each one. swatching them on your hand then on your lips. the colors all looked good on you but there were a few things you couldn’t really test out this way. as if he magically knew, lighter knocked on your door, waiting for your permission before entering.

“burnice told me that there’s another nitro-fu- what are you doing?” he stopped in his tracks as he watched you try to kiss the back of your hand. he was confused at the sight, unsure of how to react. “did i… come at a bad time or is there a problem with my kissing?” he asked bluntly, thinking that there was some sort of explanation as to what you were doing. he didn’t think he was bad at kissing but maybe you were just to nice to tell him?

“oh, no. you’ve come at just the right time. i need to test these out and i think you’re the perfect test subject.” you held out your lipsticks to him and at first, he had flashbacks of when the girls put makeup on him because he lost in a drinking game against burnice. as your lover, he’d do anything you asked but he was ready to raise his hands up in protest to not be embarrassed again.

your smile never faltered though and you could see through his sunglasses. “just sit down and let me kiss you,” you reassured him and just like that, he was sat on the edge of your bed, obediently awaiting your kisses. in the privacy of your room, he could be as unapologetically needy and in love with you without having to act all cool.

your hand felt so gentle on his face, as if you’d hurt him in some way. you pressed a soft kiss on his cheek, the lipstick leaving quite the mark on him. he was a little bummed that it wasn’t on his lips but hey, a kiss is a kiss. you continued peppering his face in kisses, taking a moment between each one to change your lipstick.

he was turning into putty, each kiss made his heart beat faster. he wasn’t sure how many different kinds of lipstick you had, they were all the same to him. by the end of it, his face and neck were practically covered with your kisses. you examined each one carefully, he was beginning to feel a little shy from how close you were to him.

“you’re turning red, lighter. i can’t decide which lipstick looks good if your cheeks are the same shade!” you told him jokingly. this made his blush even worse actually, trying to hide his embarrassment by clearing his throat. “i think you look good in all of them…” he mumbled to himself, knowing that you’d hear it too.

“i want to know which one would look good when i kiss you. i think the third one has the nicest contrast with your hair.” your fingers went up to his hair, twirling it as you took a good look at your ‘masterpiece’. when you kiss him…. his thoughts were everywhere now, just the idea that people know you left those marks on him had his head spinning.

he pulled down his glasses just a little to be able to look at you. “we can always test even more, i’m all yours,” the words fell out of his mouth with no hesitation. both of you had nothing else to do for the rest of the day, there was definitely a lot more of his body that you could try your lipstick on until you were satisfied.

[seat-safety-switch]

When industry has let you down, you gotta get weird. Do you remember the last time that one of your beloved childhood candies got discontinued by the manufacturer? Someone in a regular ol' residential kitchen, much like yours, decided to just make their own version of that candy. If those corporate motherfuckers won't give it to me, they said, I'll take it. They're eating it right now, while you sob into your Wheaties about how terribly capitalism has treated you.

Me, I love to do this kind of thing too. Spite is my fuel. Sure, it's nice to have the goodies of the past again. What really gets my motor running, though, is the opportunity to really piss off the folks trying to scalp what's left.

Yeah, we got the last eighteen boxes of this kind of connector you need, and we want seven hundred bucks for each of them. Guess what, asshole? I can trick the library into 3D-printing a bunch of them, and then trick AliExpress into making exact copies of them. Now the market price is seven cents, and none of those pennies are going to your dumb market-cornering ass. Sorry. It's capitalism.

Like any good thing, though, I may have taken it too far. The other day, the dealership wanted four dollars for a replacement clip for my sunroof. Instead of paying them that blood money, I spent hours of my own, precious time on this earth cloning it. Now, after all this effort, I can make them myself for about three dollars and ninety-six cents. Unless you price in all the failed prototypes, which nobody does. Also, they don't work as well as the real thing, so I have to make a lot so I have spares. Sometimes being a warrior against the forces of entropy means having to make a sacrifice.

If you're also into this weird hobby, let me know. I've been looking to get a new house, and I don't like the idea of paying people who know what they're doing for it. We can probably make some kind of enormous 3D printer and just crank out an entire bungalow out of microplastics. Call me.

[bunabi]

You don't have to respond to this, I just don't have anyone irl who likes DA as much as me, but as a big fan of Origins I keep hoping for the next game to scratch an itch for me and with each game I get further and further from what I'm looking for. The in depth character backgrounds (that had real impact on the game!), the combat (it turns out I lothe RTS unless it's DAO but for some reason I love DAO's combat so much), and the impact of your choices are all things that seem to diminish with each game. I also agree with your frustration at not being able to be mean, I'm usually a goodie two shoes in games but my favorite Warden was one I made pragmatic and comfortable with authority to a dangerous degree because the brutal choices in Awakening result in the best outcomes for Ferelden. Plus even if you prefer the kind choices, you can't make choices unless you're given them. Luckily there's BG3 and Avowed coming out but it still feels like such a loss every time a new DA is released.

I wanna respond because you raise good points. 😔👍🏿

I feel the same way. I'm ride-or-die for Thedas as a world — the lore is easy to jump into and the amount of half-truths makes speculation really fun — but the games have strayed further and further from my personal tastes.

No DA entry is the same in its approach or execution, so I think having mixed opinions is completely natural.

Compared to Mass Effect which sticks to it's formula pretty closely from ME1 to Andromeda, DA is constantly changing. I think it could have benefited from more consistency. I understand why that wasn't always possible.

You're allowed to be disappointed or wistful or critical without it being construed as like...giving ammunition to bozos or tearing the developers down.

If we can't discuss those things what are we supposed to do? Sit in a circle pretending those features never mattered lol? That I never liked having more roleplay freedom, never liked companion relationships having more tension, never cared about tactics? No I don't think I will.

And I say this while fully accepting DAV for what it is. Even if I wasn't blessed with a code from EA I had every intention of playing it myself. I bought the art book. I've done two zines this year and contributed to two more. My career revolves around making art directly inspired by Inquisition's. Haven't read all the comics & books but I'm as 'hardcore' as it gets.

Me, of all people, being called a fake fan for wanting blood magic or not feeling the character model proportions shows how emotionally charged and unhinged things have gotten

All that to say: I think the best way to be a fan of anything is to acknowledge the good and the bad and let others do the same. So long as those conversations are in good faith there's nothing to lose and everything to gain fr.

[aroaceleovaldez]

what do you mean by fandom infrastructure?

Oh goody I get to rant about this. Definitely gonna need a read more for this one. There's gonna be a lot of general fandom thoughts here so I'll put a big title for when I get to the actual list and pjo-specific stuff for if anybody wants to skip. Okay, my anthropological fandom thoughts:

"Fandom infrastructure" isn't official terminology by any means, but as someone who's been in a wide variety of fandoms for like 15+ years and in varying stages of participating within said fandoms, I generally use it to describe the sort of environment created by a fandom that supports and sustains the ecosystem within it (and may also extend to what kinds of attitudes are fostered within the community). This obviously looks different for every fandom (and different per platform), but I think it's really valuable to break down what systems exist in different fan spaces and how those impact the community that utilizes it, and take lessons from different spaces about what those systems do and how they're effective or not.

General forms of fandom infrastructures have shifted over time - a lot of more recent formats, at least in western fandom, tend to be very reliant on source material and you rarely see a lot of sort of classic archetypes of "old fandom" like concepts such as "big name fans" (I partially blame social media platform drifts for this - I'll touch back on that later*). A fandom with more consistent infrastructure over time (plus just a general favorite fandom case study of mine) and just a general good example of fandom infrastructure is the Furry fandom. It's a bit of an outlier to begin with as Furry fandom doesn't have an actual source material, which means it's an entirely self-perpetuating fandom, and as a result you get some really interesting community structure! (I highly recommend the documentary The Fandom for a dive into the history of the Furry fandom and even some adjacent fandoms!) One of the number one things I always like to note with the Furry fandom particularly compared to other fandoms is it's a very easy fandom to join/integrate yourself into and become a part of the community - it's one of the few fandoms that has generally agreed upon written etiquette/guidelines for behavior in the community that is very easy to find (early 2020s MCYT fandom had a little bit of this as well, but most guides were specific to individual MCYTs rather than the community as a whole and difficult to track down) and a ton of guides explaining what the community is and ways you can begin exploring it. Not to mention the absolute plethora of resources available in the community for just about anything you could think of, and tons of community-dedicated spaces where people can get involved in various ways. The furries are a very well-organized fandom in general! They're also an older and very well-established fandom, so there is much to learn from them.

I like to consider fandoms that have good infrastructure to be fandoms where the fandom is self-reliant or self-perpetuating (not fully dependent to a source material - so the fandom doesn't experience total dry spells when there's no new official media.) and one that's easy to join and integrate into.

Tangent: I have this whole personal concept about "entry-level fandoms" particularly when it comes to the cosplay community. A lot of those fandoms tend to be the ones labeled as "toxic" but when you break it down it's actually that the fandom is just very easily accessible and for a lot of folks that is their first fandom and they haven't learned general fandom etiquette yet. For cosplay, entry level fandoms tend to be relatively mainstream or otherwise easy to access the source material for and then also easy to cosplay while also offering ample room to grow (doubly easily accessible while also not limiting) - usually that the main cast of characters have very casual every-day outfits that can be easily made with a closet cosplay (cosplaying using clothes from your closet or otherwise "normal" clothes) (low barrier to entry) plus more elaborate and evolved outfits for when new fans get comfortable enough to begin exploring further (niches to grow into). Also bonus points if people are able to use their natural hair at all because that makes it even easier. Another aspect that tends to be helpful is how much one actually needs to get into the source material to begin interacting with the community - if you can get the general gist/premise of the franchise pretty quickly and not have to actually engage with the entirety of the source material, that's way more likely to be an entry-level fandom (like, One Piece for example is not likely to be an entry-level fandom, lol). Homestuck is (or more was) an easily accessible webcomic, and despite it's length for the majority of it's run it was actively updating so there was no expectation to be completely caught up, plus it was extremely common to just fully skip over entire segments. Cosplay progression: human characters in basic outfits > trolls > god tiers/etc. My Hero Academia is a mainstream readily accessible manga and anime, particularly to western audiences, and the general premise throughout the series remains relatively close to the pitch from the beginning, alongside not shifting core characters too much. Cosplay progression: civilian outfits > hero costumes and more complex characters. Percy Jackson actually very much fits the bill for this as well - its a VERY popular book franchise to the point where most people have probably had to read it for school at some point, but also it's generally not expected you'll read past Blood of Olympus or any of the side series, if you even read past the first series (and you won't be super lost if you even don't read far past the first book). Cosplay progression: camp t-shirts > adding armor, props, or maybe trying to make goat legs or etc. A more recent and very interesting newcomer to the entry-level fandoms scene is Genshin Impact because it somewhat breaks the format - it's still easily accessible (free to play game) but the character outfits are all incredibly complex. But as cosplay becomes more mainstream and just in general as manufacturing techniques improve, it's suddenly become very easy and affordable to just buy a decent looking cosplay, which is very appealing particularly for a fandom like Genshin. You can have a very nice and complex looking first cosplay with little effort, similar to the effectiveness of closet cosplays in the other examples. As varying techniques improve, the barrier to entry becomes lower in more communities, and there are more opportunities for a wider variety of entry-level fandoms. Okay tangent over -

There's a lot of ways fandoms can be self-perpetuating, but some of the most self-perpetuating fandoms I see are ones that either have a lot of room for original characters, concepts, and similar (see: TTRPG fandoms) and/or fandoms that are heavily divorced from the source material (often due to the source material being widely deemed "meh at best" but having compelling base concepts) (see: Miraculous Ladybug) which is where you often see a lot of AUs - Warrior Cats fandom is a good example of both! I have not kept up with Warrior Cats in ages, but I'm still in the fandom. I have no idea what book they're on. If Warriors stopped publishing books tomorrow I genuinely don't think the fandom would even notice. They've been doing their own thing for ages. There's a ton of room for creating your own characters, storylines, and etc within the worldbuilding of the franchise where it never stops being identifiable as Warrior Cats, which means the fandom can basically do their own thing eternally without ever cutting off newcomers to the community.

The majority of this stems just from being able to not rely on the source material to drive the fandom. If the community inspires itself, then it's able to continue to sustain itself without outside reliance. But to do so indefinitely it will eventually need new fans. And this brings me to the whole "easy to join/integrate into the community thing" -

*It's later - Tumblr used to be a huge fandom hub in general, but the content bans around 2018 led to a giant migration of communities to other platforms. That 2016-2018 era is when we see a shift in fandom in general, with fandom attitudes shifting from old-era concepts like ship-and-let-ship, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato, use of "squick," etc (in general a major loss of old fandom linguistics and terminology - nobody even says OTP anymore!). There's a couple of reasons for this sort of multi-fandom cultural drift, but in general it seemed to widely be the combo of a new generation of younger fans entering their first fandoms all at once while simultaneously being cut off from learning established pan-fandom culture. Newer fans never learn about the old community, how it functioned, or how to upkeep it, and now the fandom is fully reliant on the source material and fizzles out almost completely in the absence of new official media. (Also I think somewhat the lack of BNFs/Big Name Fans can also contribute to this, as they are often the people new fans will look up to and emulate the behavior of when learning how to interact with a fandom - this can be good or bad, depending on the BNF! - alongside being able to learn about the community's history through them, since they're almost always older and well-established members of the community. In the absence of BNFs, the community often turns more towards the source material/creators and it can get Bad™.)

Tumblr as a platform, due to being a blogging and sharing platform, is inherently structured for long-form discussion, long-form text, documentation, and sharing concepts and ideas in nuanced ways. Also preservation - there's no time limit for when posts disappear, and there's no algorithms restricting you to only the newest posts. Tumblr's features even make it really easy to go back and find old posts, even despite the semi-broken search features. Tumblr creates environments where these types of communities absolutely blossom. There's a reason why it was the go-to platform for fandom stuff. Instagram is image-focused, actively discourages text, has a mediocre search, and no proper means of sharing except awkward reposting most of the time. Tiktok is even worse, being short-form video-centric (so even more difficult to repost in absence of sharing features) but otherwise similar (and even less text-friendly and more difficult to search, especially for older posts). Twitter has strict text and image limitations, heavily limited sharing options, and any attempts at threads get messy extremely quickly, so nuance is dead there. Reddit has long form text capabilities but no real sharing features and next to zero longevity. Facebook and Discord are locked behind requiring an account to even view it (instagram as well, to a point). And Youtube is right out (generally it acts as supplementary to other social media). Theoretically you could try to use Ao3 for that, but it's an archive, not a discussion board or social media - at best you'd probably just be going back and forth like scientific journalists which will not be easy for most people to follow. As far as mainstream western social media goes, Tumblr is the best place for "classic fandom" so-to-speak. There's a reason a lot of very established fandoms have built their own dedicated spaces - forums, art sites, etc (usually in combination) - the more splintered your community is, the less of a community it is. It's very difficult to build a community when you never know where the majority of your community is going to be at any given point! In most cases you'll still have the source material, but how is a new fan supposed to know if everybody's on twitter or instagram or tiktok at any given time? That uncertainty immediately cuts off new fans. And you need new fans to perpetuate a fandom (or in general, new people to perpetuate a community). Not every community is capable of having dedicated hosted forum boards and such (though GOD i wish,,,, i miss forum boards,,,, forum boards are awesome,,). Maybe there's a Discord, but discords are difficult to find, easily overwhelming if large, and often intimidating for new folks to join. Not to mention difficult to moderate and if they're busy then it's basically guaranteed most people are just going to get drowned out.

ALL THIS TO SAY: For a true fandom community to exist, essentially, it needs to a.) not be entirely reliant on the source material (instead being driven by activity within the community), and b.) have a cycle of new fans that can come into the community and take up the mantle of upkeeping that infrastructure and continuing the activity within the community, usually with low barrier to entry. This is where that fandom infrastructure becomes important, because that's exactly what supports and encourages that activity in the first place.

To begin with, you must have a community acceptance for deviating from the canon/source material. This is normal and fine and okay. This is what fandom is known for. This is exactly why we have the terms "fanon" (concepts largely agreed upon by the fandom but not officially canon) and "headcanon" (the canon that exists in your head/is personal to you) and AU (alternate universe)! You have to help foster this - you don't have to actively engage with every canon deviation you see, but respect when it is other people's prerogative to deviate from canon and don't shut them down just inherently for "daring to disrespect the sacred canon" or whatever. Remember the ancient fandom proverbs: don't like-don't read, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato ("Your kink is not my kink and that's okay"), ship-and-let-ship, etc. Cringe culture is dead, engage in some whimsy, and remember that ultimately you always are the one to curate your own online experience. Etc etc.

The other major thing is you need to foster spaces where new fans can easily enter and begin engaging with the community. These spaces are extremely important in fandom communities because it's what allows fans who are completely new to fandom to comfortably begin partaking in fandom at a level appropriate for them and without pressure. It's in these spaces that those whose who wish to can begin fostering skills that then leads them to engage with the fandom in larger and more complex ways, growing into different niches within the community and thus allowing the fandom to continue. (I have a whole little essay about this topic [here] which is extremely relevant to my major points here.)

"Alright so where's the PJO-specific stuff and actual examples?"

I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. So, to answer the beginning question - what is some fandom infrastructure I've seen in other communities (and/or Riordanverse fandom, back when we had that kind of stuff)? These are generally types of blog or other niches that prompt activity, discussion, and other forms of interaction within the community. I have comprised many examples though forgive me if my organization is messy because these are somewhat difficult to categorize concisely: (Also if you do know of examples in the riordanverse fandom of any of my examples, like specific blogs or etc, feel free to comment them!)

- General community hubs and community spaces. I have these as two slightly different but adjacent categories since I think these things generally fall into one of two categories - spaces meant for general chatting and interacting with other fans (community spaces) and spaces more meant to find specific topics (hubs).

Things like forums, discord servers, group chats, etc - these exist in the PJO community but are far and few between and difficult to find. If you run one I highly recommend putting a link in your tumblr sidebar (enable custom theme > edit theme > new page [bottom of sidebar on the left] > there should be a little dropdown menu where it says "standard layout" - select "link" and plug in a discord invite set to never expire. there ya go). A couple I know of include my own (one for general riordanverse and one for my askblog), the Titan Army discord, these two, Riordanverse artists server, Nicercy (Percico) events, Jasico challenges, and Above The Clouds (also jasico). There used to be a big general PJO server but it's mostly inactive now (I affectionately refer to it as functionally a knitting circle these days, cause that's most of what's discussed there now, lol). There also used to be a well-known TOA-specific one and a general Riordanverse cosplay discord but both had problems and I'm not sure either still exist. I've heard there may also be a Percabeth server floating around somewhere? But I've never seen it.

"Hubs" is what I label things like blogs surrounding specific designated topics, usually consolidating stuff like general fanworks, specific fanfiction, fanworks of specific characters/groupings/ships, etc. I believe there might be one or two general riordanverse fanart blogs floating around. I'm not sure about blogs for specific fanfiction. A lot of ship-specific blogs went inactive by like 2017 but a couple are still alive like @solangelo. (I'll get into some other examples in a similar vein to this later*) We don't have a designated blog for keeping tabs on whenever there's a Riordanverse fanzine or similar project but some fandoms do (I would love this btw and i am almost tempted to do it myself) - an old pan-fandom one was fanzinewatch. I run a blog dedicated just to reblogging fanart (and occasionally other fanwork) of Hazel and Nico - @deathsibs. I don't know of any individual character-specific blogs off the top of my head unfortunately. Etc etc.

In general the purpose of these things is to help connect the community and make it easier to find and promote things or meet people. These are good places to ask questions, particularly directions or recommendations. That brings me to another one-

- Ask/Tag games and memes. Back in ye olde tumblr days there used to be TONS of fandom-specific inbox and tag games, or people would do milestone promos or etc and do these massive blog recommendations or literally just list everyone they follow or similar. This was a really useful way for people to find more blogs for specific topics and engage with each other in general. Here's an old one I found as an example. My friend has a nice tag with a bunch of old ask memes as well, and Hermitcraft-ask-games is a great example of a blog categorizing fandom-specific ones (Hermitcraft/adjacent MCYT in this case). Tag games can refer to both posts where you respond to the prompt in the tags while reblogging or a game where you tag other people - the latter has mostly fallen out of favor cause it can get very spammy and posts can get very long with it. Less spammy versions tend to be something more akin to an ask game or a follow forever, where you are responding to a specific question or prompt by tagging blogs that fit that, usually as a recommendation. It's a little nicer and more favored because then you're promo'ing other folks and usually it's not a long chain of reblogs, plus the posts tend to have dedicated formats so they aren't super messy.

- In another similar vein, Art games/memes. PJO fandom doesn't have a lot of these! These are your "Draw 6 Characters," "Character color wheel," etc prompts. The fandom I see this the most in is MCYT fandom, particularly Hermitcraft/Trafficblr! There's a ton of little variant prompts I see all the time there (not just for fanart! also fanfic and etc!) - Characters in your style, Fanon species swap, color palette swap, etc etc. (I am totally going to try and make one of these for riordanverse, give me a bit, lol)

- Prompt weeks/months. Also similar - prompt weeks/months/etc are pretty self-explanatory. They're events that give you a set of prompts to create/post fanwork themed to over that time period. PJO fandom used to have plenty of these, though I only see a couple floating around these days. I know Jasico Week/Jasico Challenges and Solangelo Week are still alive, and TA week happened recently. Fun fact, in some smaller/largely inactive fandoms I've actually seen prompt weeks DM active people in the community to tell them the prompt week is happening which I actually really like. In circumstances like that where a fandom is so small, scattered and inactive, it's a good means to get the word out.

- Headcanon/ship/"Imagines" blogs *It's later (again)! Headcanon blogs used to be EXTREMELY common back in ye olde days of fandom. Some of the most popular iterations tended to be ship-specific headcanon blogs. PJO fandom had A TON of these (and many are still up! They just haven't posted since like 2017 at the lastest. Quite the trip down memory lane though). They were generally formatted by people submitting their headcanons/"imagines" anonymously, which would then be formatted into an image to match the blog's general format (sometimes themed to specific characters or subjects, depending on the submission itself) and posted. A good example from PJO fandom I stumbled across the other day while looking at old askblogs is Percicoheadcanons. Absolute classic format right there. Also bonus time capsule points - the most recent post is from before Blood of Olympus was published. That's just particularly amusing to me given the ship in question here.

- Shortform Headcanons / Short Memes & Shitposts Helyeahmangocheese reminded me of this one in my previous post - shortform headcanons are essentially any headcanon thrown out into the world in a short format. So you're "headcanon that [x]" or whatever with no elaboration. Just quick little snappy things off the top of your head that people can pick up and run with. Sometimes there would be blogs dedicated to these, with people submitting them in blog formats like the above, and then shortform headcanons to be posted in that format. Short memes & shitposts are the exact same type of thing - just short little silly textposts and similar cracking jokes that the fandom can take and run with. Both of these are more important to the fandom than you'd think - a.) they have a very low barrier to entry, which means they're a great way for new fans to begin engaging with the larger community. b.) they circulate new ideas for other fans to build off of, creating collaborative concepts. These collaborations help build the community with giving opportunities for people to chat/inspire each other's work and can create iconic fandom moments or community references/in-jokes. And old one from PJO fandom that floated around was somebody threw out the concept of Will Solace's weapon being a lasso/whip (because cowboys/he's Texan/etc) made of light, which then got illustrated and elaborated on by many other fans such as Cherryandsisters and was very popular fanon for a time.

- Confessions Blogs These ones can be decisive in fandoms, depending on how they're run. Confession blogs in general are blogs where people anonymously submit fandom thoughts, opinions, etc (formatted similarly to HC/imagines blogs like above). There's also usually a decent amount of funny confessions like initial misunderstandings or confusion about things. Most well-run ones of these will have rules against negativity towards other fans and similar. When done properly these blogs can be a nice way for the community to have discussions about topics that they may be afraid to broach publicly, and easily can generate community in-jokes.

- Positivity blogs / Fandom voting Somewhat opposite to (at least, more negative) confession blogs, fandom positivity blogs are a very sweet way to spread compliments around the community. Sometimes they're anonymous, sometimes not. Generally though the format is people can submit compliments or kind notes to other people in the community and it'll get posted tagging the individual in question. Trafficblrpositivityproject is an MCYT example of this concept. Fandom Voting is a little bit more odd and varies a lot between communities. An old one PJO fandom used to do was PJO Prom, where people could nominate blogs for different categories, they would either accept or deny their nominations, and then folks would vote for their top favorite blogs of each category and winners would be announced (though the event also included more than just that - like blogs asking each other to prom and etc). In other fandoms I've also seen elections where various members of the community would jokingly campaign for election (including choosing other members of their campaign), people would vote for a winner, and then do it all over again. Fandom elections tend to be a lot more chaotic and silly, versus stuff like fandom prom voting is more geared towards just appreciation towards members of the community.

- Fandom Events / Community Projects Related to PJO Prom, (and prompt weeks/months) general fandom proms or valentine's events used to be pretty popular, especially amongst RP and askblogs. These weren't always strictly organized, but they generally involved asking other blogs to prom/to be valentines and then people would draw cute prom/holiday art or similar to celebrate. Some blogs would send out valentines to multiple blogs just as a nice cute lil treat in a similar vein to how some blogs still do trick-or-treating events. Trick-or-treating events have been a thing for awhile, generally following that same structure, but it's become significantly more popular in general now that tumblr has image embeds possible in asks rather than having to submit a post. Other fandom events can include fandom elections like mentioned before, or any number of things really, but the majority of regular ones will include gift/fanwork exchanges in some form. Secret Santa projects are very common (and PJO did have them! There isn't one singular PJO Secret Santa blog since it seems different folks did different years so I can't link it, but I participated in 2016 iirc. It looks like the most recent one was in 2021 - pjosecretsanta2021). I did find Rrversesummerbang as a recently active one as well. Zines and similarly collaborative projects are also common - PJO fandom does occasionally have zines but they aren't very frequent and generally don't get a ton of traction (which is very sad cause zines are very fun - most of it seems to be just the fandom doesn't have good ways of getting word out about events through the community). We've also had a couple of coloring book projects! I participated in the 2016 one and there was another in 2022. Some other fandom and pan-fandom examples of similar stuff is Mcytrecursive (Gift exchange for fic-of-fic, in this case MCYT-specific), Fic in a box, Mcytblraufest (AU fest), general holiday exchanges, etc. (A lot of my examples are MCYT cause man that fandom is active). There are a lot of pan-fandom ones of these, but usually involvement of specific fandoms is entirely dependent on sign-ups and it can be difficult to know or guarantee any specific communities participating. Fandom-specific ones are generally more well-known in their own communities for obvious reasons. In other projects, Riordanverse fandom even once had a Multi-Animator Project! These are more common in fandoms like Warrior Cats that are very artist and animator-centric, but the fact that we have at least one major one at all is pretty cool! Collaborate games in similar veins to big events/projects like this (see stuff like the art meme/games) can also be great ways to get the community active and engaged. Voting/poll stuff like character or ship brackets can be really interesting too and depending on how it goes down can become an EXTREMELY major event in the community (see: MCYT Tumblr Sexyman bracket). Very fun times.

- Incorrect Quotes / Text Post Memes / Chat Posts Rolling back to headcanon/imagines blogs, incorrect quotes for specific ships/character groupings used to be extremely common. And not even just dedicated blogs, but incorrect quotes/chat posts were pretty much the number one thing the average fan who didn't create fanart/fanfic/etc would post. I was actually quite surprised to see that Incorrectpercicoquotes is still alive. They post more than just incorrect quote/chat posts (not uncommon for blogs of those nature, especially back in the day), but still it feels like seeing a thought-to-be-extinct-species in the wild eating a bag of chips. Anyways, like shortform headcanons and memes/shitposts (of which these are somewhat a subcategory of), these are another low barrier to entry type of fandom engagement, which means they're great for new members of the community.

- Askblogs MY FAVORITE TOPIC. I have a list of PJO askblogs on my sidebar actually cause I'm very passionate about them and askblogs in general. For what an askblog is, my blog @askblog-index goes over that and also I answered some questions about askblogs recently, which you can find in my askblogs tag (also I'm always open to answering questions about askblogs please ask me about askblogs I love them so much). There's so many different varieties too - text, illustrated, cosplay, voice acting, combination, etc etc etc. Askblogs are a really fun means for collaborative storytelling in the community, especially with how much they tend to generate headcanons or put characters in silly little scenarios. Cherryandsister's Will Solace askblog is practically personally responsible for a solid 50% of all Will fanon. Photokinesis!Will was entirely popularized there. They're also a really great place for people in the community to build up their skills - yknow those jokes about "the best way to improve your art is to become obsessed with something and draw it one billion times?" yeah askblogs are that. My art improved so much by starting an askblog because it pushes you to draw things you might avoid normally or wouldn't expect to draw - or if it's not an art askblog, is just plain good practice for writing or voice acting or whatever. It's a regular outlet where you can build up your skills with not a lot of pressure but also outside encouragement and concepts to build off of. Character or fandom-specific daily art blogs and similar request art blogs are similarly also very useful to building up skills (and can be applied to other artforms like fic writing!) (Request blogs are not the same as askblogs though please dont send random art requests to askblogs just gotta put that disclaimer). I also personally consider them extremely vital to fandom ecosystems, though often overlooked - remember those old "ask the seven" posts that would be the terribly colored text in random fonts on a white or poorly-chosen-color background that'd just be random stuff and it'd get reposted absolutely everywhere? For a lot of people that's both some of the first stuff in a fandom that they might make, and also some of the first stuff people used to see in fandoms in general. With my whole silly theory of fandom ecological niches, those types of posts are your base of the pyramid, because it's where most fans are going to start out. It gives them a low-stakes place to begin engaging with the community and figure themselves out and begin exploring the characters and media on a deeper level. That's what fandom is all about! It's what separates fandom from just the general audience of any particular thing. Those types of posts were popular because they're just easy to make! All you need is mspaint, if even! They get across their concepts quickly and easily in an easily sharable format - that's exactly why they got reposted absolutely everywhere! The concept of those posts (and general character chat posts/incorrect quotes) still exist in other spaces in fandom communities, but in different formats - usually tiktoks, being spoken and acted out loud. The problem with that format though is it can't go anywhere - even in shortform video format there's no way to easily condense it down (and also they have a higher barrier to entry, as the format at it's simplest usually requires some aspect of showing your face/using your voice. This means you inherently have to sacrifice some amount of privacy to engage with the format, which isnt friendly to new/younger fans). Meanwhile these ask-the-seven posts are one jpeg that gets across the entire concept. And we've evolved! We have better technology! We can pick better colors and fonts and add image descriptions! We can bring the format back!

- Cosplay This one is pretty self-explanatory - just. Cosplays are a type of fanwork too! PJO cosplay used to be pretty common on tumblr actually! Particularly there used to be a decent number of cosplay askblogs (which are just askblogs where instead of responding to questions with text or a drawing, asks are answered with either a gif or image of the mun/mod in cosplay reacting in-character). Cosplay is cool! And in PJO fandom it's particularly easy!

- Roleplaying Spaces PJO fandom does have a pretty active tumblr RP scene as far as I've been able to tell, which is good! Also you can find people who want to RP pjo just about anywhere. It's just somewhat of a matter of giving them a space to do so. I talked about how to get into roleplaying recently on my blog as well. RP is also one of the forms of fandom infrastructure in this list that transfers well to other social media platforms, in large part due to social media RP making it a whole lot easier. The fandom is mostly just severely lacking in hubs to locate RPs and help people find ways to begin engaging with them.

- Public AUs / OCs Public AUs/OCs are a bit of a weird one to describe - they're basically any AU/OC that the creators (if there is a singular known creator of it) have given total free reign to people with. More often it's an AU that doesn't have a particular known creator but the fandom likes to run around with and do a lot with. In PJO fandom, the ye olde fandom OC was Peter Johnson, a son of Demeter. The AU generally was about how Peter Johnson was a new camper and Mr. D's favorite camper, and just generally a sweet lil guy while Mr. D proceeds to torment Percy because of the name jokes. A series of public AUs that's completely unique to PJO is Godswap aus - there's no one singular set godswap au, but the two most common swaps tended to be Demeter!Percy (in part due to Peter Johnson) and Aphrodite!Nico (admittedly this one was like 90% gay stereotypes/homophobic tropes and there's a reason why the fandom kind of dropped it. It was absolutely the most popular godswap for a time though, and some of the concepts from it have bled into general Nico fanon for better or worse). General pirate aus have also always been very popular in the fandom - there were some old ones back in the day, including local BNF (Big Name Fan) Saberghatz having at least one, maybe like two or three, including a cosplay. Pirate!Nico in particular was very popular. There was actually a slight resurgence of PJO pirate AUs on pjo cosplay tiktok in like 2020 or so I wanna say. Truly we came full-circle there. There's also just general popular AUs that fandoms like to run with. For awhile PJO fandom had a HTTYD au they really loved. The current fandom favorite AU seems to be Velinxi's Young Gods/Hades Game AU.

- Fangames This one might sound odd because Riordanverse fandom doesn't really have this, but fangames can be REALLY fun and cool. Fangames also often spark mini-fandoms in themselves and are just really awesome in general. There's a lot of different varieties of vastly varying complexities, but a lot of it is pretty much just "I made a game, it's about [fandom], here ya go." Some good examples from other communities off the top of my head are games like ClanGen or Untold Tales for Warrior Cats, or Featherbent from the Homestuck fandom which was a visual novel / AU fanfic. Btw, visual novels are actually not all that difficult to create. If you're interested in trying to make one I highly recommend checking out Ren'Py - it's basically a program to make visual novels with.

- Other project types / General Collaboration Related to community events, particularly Multi-Animator Projects (MAPs), AMVs/PMVs/Lyricstucks ("animated music videos" and "picture music videos" - lyricstucks are the same as the latter but usually in a scrolling tumblr post format with the song linked at the beginning rather than video format) are very cool and can be both individual or collaborative projects (in Riordanverse fandom most are probably very familiar with Viria's old lyricstucks - Nothing Left To Say and How Far We've Come). Some folks do dubs of fancomics (also used to be a thing in PJO fandom, particularly back when the PjoVoices group was active and the brief stint in the fandom when we had some Voice Acting askblogs) which can be a nice way to collaborate and engage with other fans in different mediums. "Aesthetics"/Moodboards (usually an arrangement of either 2x3 [former] or 3x3 [latter] grids of images) and the more recent "webweaves" also are a great low barrier to entry type of fanwork that has a lot of variety and versatility (just make sure to credit art/photos used) - especially if you make moodboards/webweaves inspired by people's AUs/fics/etc!

- Gifset Makers / Editors In Riordanverse fandom we don't see this often, because we're primarily a book fandom, but back in the days of the movies and more recently now with the show, editors and gifset makers are a very cool niche of fanwork creators. Gifset makers is pretty self-explanatory - they're people who make gifs. Editors can range from people who make edits of clips or put together clips of images or a whole bunch of very different things. Very wide range there. Edits (with credit to the original artists) can be a really fun alternative to AMVs/PMVs/etc if you don't draw but you have a concept (CREDIT THE ARTISTS - trust me, having your art used in an edit can feel super cool but ONLY IF IT'S CREDITED. IF IT'S NOT CREDITED IT'S NOT FUN. if you ask and credit people will probably be happy about it!). Edit blogs can also be very fun and are often a big hit in fandoms - "Where is [x]" and "[character] in places" are classics. Again just remember to credit artists appropriately and ask permission to use their work.

- Fanwork Promotion Blogs/Hubs PJO fandom does have a couple of these still floating around I think! I don't know them off the top of my head but I swear i've seen them recently. Regardless - these are any sorts of blogs that promote other fanworks. Maybe it's dedicated to just general fanart, general fanfic, stuff of a specific AU or concept. Going back to previous bullet points, character or ship-specific blogs are a form of these. They can range from elaborate and complex with how they promote or spotlight and recommend works, to just literally being random reblogs of stuff of a specific topic. These can actually also be a really nice if you're looking for a simple way to get more involved in the community, because chances are if you're on tumblr you know how to reblog things and that's about all it takes. These hubs can be really nice ways for more fans in the community to get spotlighted/recognition and become more well-known, and it also helps fans looking for specific types of fanwork. (The only caveat with these is if you are going to make a generalized hub blog, you have to actually make it generalized. You can't just exclude the things you personally don't like just because you don't like them - if you don't want to deal with that, make a more specialized hub blog for your more focused interests instead.) (Also personally I'd recommend if you're making one of these types of blogs that you're an adult, cause these blogs can require fandom tag-spelunking that may not be appropriate for all ages - ESPECIALLY if you run a fanfic hub.)

- General Resources This can look like a lot of things, particularly depending on what the fandom is about, but in general a lot of fandoms will have dedicated places to finding different types of information, and often important fandom terminology and sometimes fandom history. Fan Wikis may cover some of this, but not always (and depending on how the wiki(s) are run in a particular community, may not even have reliable information to begin with. I'm looking at you Riordanverse wiki). In furry fandom for example there's a ton of resources for how to get started in the community, commonly accepted community guidelines and general etiquette, fandom history and terminology, resources to find fursuit makers or other artists, various tutorials, etc etc etc. PJO fandom does not really have this! Like i mentioned in previous bullet points, while we have some hub/promotion or character/ship-specific blogs, they're relatively far and few between and commonly inactive, not to mention usually very specific in what niche they're focused on. The wiki only covers the source material (and is questionable quality at best most of the time) with there being next to no resources in the community in general for stuff like fandom history or terminology or etc. Did you know PJO fandom used to be part of the Superwholock of book fandoms (it was PJO, HP, Hunger Games, and Divergent. there was a whole symbol for it)? Did you know we used to have our own fandom lingo? Members of the fandom were usually called demigods or half-bloods, people would put their cabins in their bios (people would make little banners or other decorations to put on your blog themes to show your cabins or pjo stuff in general!), and we'd say stuff like "Spread this like greek fire" and "Amazhang" and etc. Those are actual things people said unironically very frequently. You're probably most likely to be familiar with "Persassy." We don't necessarily need to bring all of those things back, but point is we did use to have a community identity and sort of genuine subculture! And we lost that! There are so many community jokes and similar that most people have forgotten or at best kind of know of but don't remember the origins or contexts for. In other communities they have documentation for this kind of stuff - you should see some of the documentation that MCYT fandom does, particularly if the MCYT in question is a popular streamer or the SMP is primarily streamed content. Holy cow it's thorough. Resources and documentation are what help keep fandoms alive, because they give a means for new members of the community to learn the history of the community, learn established rules and etiquette, and just generally find their way around where they otherwise might be lost. It's really invaluable but often overlooked.

Okay, i think that's all the ones i can think of. This post has taken me over a full day of working on it, lol. Anyways i'm very passionate about fandom history and PJO fandom history/community in general so this was very fun for me to go on a deep-dive about. Also now i'm really tempted to put a lot of my old fandom knowledge and unnecessarily complicated lists/documentation to good use and try to help build up some of these bullet point concepts for riordanverse fandom myself because dammit somebody's gotta do it. But that's all i've got for now! As always feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything, or if you just wanna hear me babble on more about general fandom structures (i have another ramble about different types of fandoms relating to what fanworks they tend to exhibit the most!)/pjo fandom history/askblogs/RP community/whatever, I am always more than happy to talk!

[thebluestbluewords]

Full Mingo

I cannot be stopped, I cannot be contained, I’m writing Rise of Red fic now. (canon divergence, but I’m still getting to that part)

+

Ella throws an arm out across Red's chest, preventing her from walking into the courtyard. "Hold on. Don't talk to those kids by the fountain. They're the worst." 

This, of course, means that Red wants to talk to them immediately. She's the worst kid around when they're in the correct timeline, so naturally she needs to talk to the current, ancient worst kids. Even though they're probably going to grow up into people like her mom. Her current-future mom, not the bubbly girl they have right now, before everything went wrong. 

"Who's the worst?" Chloe asks, leaning out into the courtyard around Ella's arm to gawk at the kids gathered around the little fountain and sitting under the trees sprinkled throughout the place. 

Ella yanks her back in by the back of her shiny, empty sword belt. "Nobody. Don't look at them, don't make eye contact with them, and definitely don't talk to them. They'll eat you alive if you do the wrong thing, and uh, no offence or anything, but you two look a little...different than most princesses around here." 

"Aw, Ella. You don't need to be so careful all the time!" Bridget chirps. She's still holding the tray of magic cupcakes, and even though she knows the magic is going to get weird if she eats more than one, Red's fingers itch to take another one. The sugar-sweet frosting flavor isn't lingering  anymore, but the memory of the taste is making her mouth water. Whatever her mom's faults are now, she sure was a hell of a baker back in high school. The cupcakes are so good that Red almost lets herself wish that her mother could be like this now. Sweet, brainless, and able to make cupcakes lighter than air, soft and light and sweet as sugar. 

And magic. 

Can't forget the magic. 

"I have to be careful, because you keep talking to everyone and getting us both into trouble!" Ella is saying. "Don't talk to those kids, Bridget. You've gotta set an example for our new transfer students. If you show them how you talk to everyone they're gonna get the wrong idea about school and think that it's some kind of happy birthday party all the time."

"You worry too much," Bridget giggles. "It's my un-birthday today, so we should treat it like a party. Life's just sweeter when you're nice. I'll talk to them." 

"Don't." 

"Yeah," Chloe chimes in. "Um, maybe don't?"

Bridget beams at them all. 

And then spins past Ella's outstretched arm, cupcake tray in hand. 

"No, don't, stop." Red intones. Bridget's already halfway across the courtyard, but she lifts a hand anyway, like it'll do anything to stop her mother. Even without the whole evil thing, this girl is determined. "Noooo." 

Chloe's already out of their corner, hot on her heels. "Come on you guys, we have to go with her!" 

"We don't!" Ella calls. "We really, super don't!" 

Well then. 

Red leans back against the wall of their alcove. "We could just leave the goody-two-shoes to their own devices for a while. Let them get out of their own trouble for once." 

Ella shoots her a bemused sort of smile. "You say 'for once' like you already know us." 

"I feel like I do. You two are cool," Red lies. "I think we're gonna be good friends. Y'know. If those two survive." 

"They'll survive, but they might wish they hadn't," Ella says darkly, "Ulyana and her VK cronies are the worst. They look down on anyone who isn't a part of their clique, and they're obsessed with using dark magic to seem cool and edgy. They already got a group detention for breeding snakes in Morgie's room, and they just switched to breeding them behind the greenhouse instead. They're not even using them for magic or anything, they just think it's funny to drop them in people's bags when they're not looking. The snakes don't even survive most of the time." 

"Animal lover?" Red guesses. Sure, she's guilty of using the trained flamingos in her mother's game sheds to torment Isaac and the other guards, but she always keeps them alive during the pranks, and even gives them extra shrimp afterwards. Some of them look up from the krill pond when she comes in now. The flamingos aren't talking animals, so they can't berate her for whatever it is she's failed to do each day, and they can't spill her secrets to anyone. Not like Isaac and Maddox. (and oh, even thinking about them hurts, but they're in the future now, and Red can worry about fixing her friends after she's fixed her mom). "I feel like my mom's animals are my only friends sometimes." 

Ella gives her a real smile this time. "Yeah. I have mice living in my room."

Red's nose scrunches up without her conscious control. The doormouse is fine, but regular mice? Regular mice eat the sugar from her tea and chew up her secret, favorite clothes when she leaves them hidden under the bed for too long. "Ew."

"They're trained. They bring me sewing pins and ribbons when I need them for my dresses. I know it sounds weird, but they're my best friends."  "Next to Bridget?"

"Um." Ella shoots a glance over to where Bridget and Chloe have been waylaid by a pair of tall, pretty teenagers with dark hair and purple clothes. "Sure. Let's go with that." 

[eliotquillon]

Cameron seems like one of those victorian girls that shoplifted just to feel a rush.

In all honesty, I don't think she was that much of a goody-two-shoes when she was younger. It always seemed to me that what happened to her husband changed everything about her. Her morals, thoughts, ideas etc. She was probably a compelety normal teenage girl.

yeah to be clear if characters make speculative assumptions about each other in my fic that’s not necessarily indicative of what i personally headcanon for them—especially for chameron tbh. the things chase or cameron assume about each other in my fic are almost always slightly off from what i personally think about them as separate characters because they forever have some kind of communication gap going on.

that said . i do hesitate to say that her husband’s death is solely responsible for why cameron is the way she is. one of the first things house says when cameron tells him about her husband in 1x7 is ‘you knew he was dying when you married him’; he accepts his death as an explanation for why she’s so bad at giving patients bad news and why she puts marriage on such a pedestal, but the implication here is that actually the reason why cameron is Like That isn’t as simple as the one-off traumatic event that house has been fishing for. see the episode with the 600lb guy where everyone is popping at her all episode desperate to find out what part of her past makes her want to help this guy so badly because they can’t understand and it turns out there isn’t some dramatic reason at all. ‘you can’t be that good a person and well-adjusted’ house adds—he’s not talking about cameron crying over the centrifuge during this scene, he’s still talking about cameron’s decision to marry her dying husband. she was already holding a lot of the same beliefs as in canon when she met her husband.

i think cameron was probably a bit more normal as a teenager, but not drastically different—if anything, she might have been even more puritan in certain regards than she is in canon (like, fuck tritter, but he has a point when he contrasts her decision to sabotage her own college calculus grade with her honesty vs giving him the run round in s3). as chase and cameron say in 2x7 (hunting) while talking about things the hospital might dig up to prove she caught hiv through her own ‘negligence’ if she tests positive—it isn’t like there’d be anything for them to find. so i think high school cameron probably was a bit of a goody two shoes, but not to the extent chase or foreman imagine her to be; she got top grades, and was probably kind of annoying when they had any class debates about morality, but she was still reasonably social and well-liked, even if it was only because she grew up to be conventionally attractive. imo this is probably where cameron’s whole ‘people don’t take me seriously because i’m beautiful and a woman and a bit of a bitch’ complex starts. this is probably a really boring thing for me to say but my attitude towards emptier backstories like cameron’s—i.e where we don’t know anything about her family, her high school, and all the info is focused on her dead husband—is that if that information were central to who she grows up to be, or if it’d be wildly different to what we as an audience would reasonably infer, we’d have been explicitly told it at some point in canon the way we’re told about *waves hand* everything about chase and foreman’s pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps complex. this isn’t to say that cameron’s childhood/college years aren’t interesting to me—they ARE—but moreso that i think they’re kind of deliberately left empty for a reason, and that whatever i can come up with to ‘fill them’ is usually just what’s intuitive to me.

same goes for her arrest btw like logically you can kind of narrow it down (certain things would disqualify her from becoming a doctor/would lead to serious issues down the line) but honestly for me that one is more fun to just leave up in the air. could totally see shoplifting as the reason! part of me is desperate for it to have been a fight/for cameron to have been busted for underage drinking in her first and last high school party or whatever, but it’s more fun to keep us guessing imo.

[julessworldd]

Having modern!Cregan take care of you when you’re on your period

A/N: hey babies! Mother Nature has decided to make me emotional and needing cuddles so here’s the next best thing. Cregan and his golden retriever bf vibes 💚 @valeskafics @daenerysapologist my fellow Cregan lovers 😘

Warnings; mention of periods, blood, implied smut, soft golden retriever bf!Cregan. Possibly grammar errors. Tried my best to make it gender neutral

Cregan is definitely one of those boyfriends that track your cycle in his phone calendar. He knows when you yell at him for leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor. You’ll probably be starting soon

Sure enough he was right, you started two weeks later in the morning. You called out of work because it was too much to not be in bed. Lucky for youu it was his day off.

He goes to the store for some supplies for you. Also gets you extra goodies: A soft blanket, chocolates, sour candy, a thing of soup that you like. A pair of fuzzy socks because why not

Definitely the kind to throw your sweatpants and hoodie in the dryer when you’re showering. Puts your socks on himself as you comb out your hair.

Throws on your favorite movie or series and brings you your surprises from the store. Lays in bed with you. Let’s you cuddle him how you want to or when you do. Doesn’t mind you tossing or making a spot like a cat to get comfortable. (Period people, yk it’s a bitch to get comfortable and no cramps happen is a hard sport)

Rubs your tummy while holding you to him. Kissing your head every so often, playing with your hair. Attempts to braid it but ends up knotting it by accident

Isn’t afraid to go get you tampons, pads, whatever you use in that time. He takes a picture of the packaging and saves it to his notes app. Gets a couple boxes each time so you never run out

One of the guys in the world that gets why you yelled at him and then want cuddles. He’s like “if I was bleeding every month just to tell me I’m not pregnant I would be angry at the world too”

Also doesn’t give you shit if your cramps are from satan himself. He’s like if you could give me the pain I would take it away and let it happen to me. Cregan our king 💚 such a good boy

Doesn’t freak out if you accidentally bleed onto the bed sheets. Just picks you up takes you to the bathroom for you to clean up. He puts them in the washer and gets new ones on before you come back to bed. He’s like it’s blood isn’t gonna kill me. More concerned if you’re okay and if you need anything else.

Suggested period sex or going down on you to help with cramps. He did his research for anything to help his baby out. Doesn’t pressure but tells the offer still stands, doesn’t matter if it’s the elevator scene in the shinning right now

We all need a Cregan in our life during that time or anytime really 😂 if you have a Cregan good for you baby, does he have brothers or sister that is the best caretaker 🥴

[thefinalboss387]

Lord Zedd Appreciation Post!

In 1994, season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered. And with it came the arrival of Lord Zedd, the show's new main villain. This character has been a large part of my life ever since.

I've always loved this character, but he also didn't have a whole lot of depth in those earlier seasons. To be fair, nobody in that period of the show had much depth. But decades later, he resurfaced in the Boom Studios comics and in recent seasons of the TV show. These new appearances gave the character some much-needed depth, backstory, and even finally gave us a final showdown.

These recent appearances took a character I already had a lot of love for, and catapulted him up into being one of my favorite characters of all time.

So here's the thing about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: It's a fun, cheesy spectacle, and a lot of people to this day will swear up and down that it's the best era of Power Rangers' 31-year history. I'm old enough to have grown up watching those old earlier episodes and I have a lot of love and nostalgia for them, buuuuut.... The writing and character work are really not that good? Later seasons do a much better job of giving its characters distinct personalities and arcs.

All of the Rangers in the Mighty Morphin era have personalities, but like barely. These "teenagers with attitude" are all upstanding, morally-righteous kids that do various activities for charity and teach classes at their youth center and juice bar...but that's about it. Billy was a genius, Zack was into music and dancing, Kimberly was good at gymnastics, etc, but they all used those skillsets for charity and all had pretty generic goody-good personalities.

The villains sit up in their castle on the moon, shouting about how much they want to destroy the Power Rangers and creating monsters for them to fight....but that's about it.

Rita Repulsa, honestly, was kind of a joke of a character at first. Her scenes were dubbed Sentai footage, limiting the writers on what they could do with her. Her scenes on the moon were surreal and barely coherent. She'd send down a monster, there'd be a bunch of random shots of her randomly laughing or cheering on her monster, she inevitably would make her monster grow for the Megazord battle, and then she'd rant about having a headache. Rinse, wash, repeat.

When Lord Zedd finally showed up in season 2, it was a breath of fresh air. Lord Zedd was not from the Sentai, so the show filmed entirely new scenes for him. The dubbing didn't have to do weird ad-libbing to make the footage make sense, they could film the footage around their writing for the character. And, to contrast Rita's goofy look and demeanor, Zedd was freaking terrifying. He immediately one-ups Rita, exiles her to the far reaches of space, and takes over her operation. He has Serpentera, an extremely powerful and humongous Zord capable of destroying entire planets.

Only, Zedd ended up just being Rita 2.0. He stayed in the moon palace, he would create monsters out of something precious to the Rangers (which was a fun new twist for Zedd), there'd be a bunch of random shots of him randomly laughing and gloating about his upcoming victory, he would inevitably make his monster grow for the Megazord battle, and he'd blame the failure on the incompetence of his minions. Rinse, wash, repeat.

A turning point came about midway through season 2, when Rita Repulsa came back from her exile (using a new actress, so she was no longer limited to weird dubbed-over Sentai footage) and used a love potion to make Zedd fall in love with her, and the two teamed up to take down the Power Rangers and rule the universe together. So begins a weird but magnificent era of the show where Rita and Zedd's story arc was still largely disconnected from the rest of the show, and they still sent down monsters and made them grow and stayed in their moon palace away from the rest of the action, but they did actually have their own story arc for the first time. Their scenes in isolation became this weird sitcom on the moon and I absolutely adored it.

In season 3, Rita's brother Rito showed up. Rito was a bumbling idiot, but also a competent fighter, which made for a fun dynamic. He'd go down to Earth and fight the Rangers and partner with Goldar, but then he'd go up to the sitcom on the moon and keep making Zedd mad by calling him "Ed". Then Rita and Rito's father, Master Vile, showed up. Apparently Master Vile is this big, ultra-evil dude that made even Lord Zedd feel inadequate in comparison, and Master Vile didn't approve Rita marrying Zedd. It's all completely wacky and I love it.

Even as Rita and Zedd became more fleshed out through these wacky family sitcom shenanigans on the moon, their role to the Rangers was still as these distant figures sending down monsters to do their bidding and very rarely actually interacting with the Rangers. Even as a child I desperately wanted to see them in action. What would a battle with Rita or Zedd even look like? How powerful are they? Rita would sometimes come down to Earth to issue orders to double-agent Kat or taunt the Rangers, but still never fought. There was implied to be a lot of history and bad blood between Zedd and the Rangers' mentor, Zordon, but it's never explored. What could their relationship have looked like?

Lord Zedd also became a little more present in season 3. There was an episode where he fought Tommy one-on-one, and he was winning, until Tommy broke his staff and forced him to retreat. He also introduced a team of Dark Rangers, corrupted teenagers he intended to use as his own brand of Power Rangers, but... well... they looked like this.

Because their costumes were so cheaply-made, there was never any actual fight with these Dark Rangers. Disappointing.

When Power Rangers Zeo began, new villains the Machine Empire chased Rita and Zedd out, and their sitcom on the moon became a universal road trip in a camper (yes, a camper). In Power Rangers in Space, they allied with a bunch of other villains and were ultimately turned good when Zordon sacrificed himself to eliminate all evil in the galaxy. Although he didn't appear again for many years, he's heralded both in canon and IRL as one of the most powerful, impactful villains of the franchise.

Overall, Zedd made an impact on me. I was introduced to the character in 1994 when I was 7 years old. In a show where all the characters were pretty shallow and static, Zedd and Rita were the ones driving the show forward and eventually even getting their own storylines with the wacky moon sitcom. I wonder to this day if this show was why I grew to love villains so much for the rest of my life. Rita and Zedd were damn entertaining and kind of became the main characters of the show in a sense? They also had a sense of mystery to them. What made them evil? What was their history with Zordon? There was also this eternal buildup to an inevitable final battle against Lord Zedd that just.... never happened. Where's the payoff?

Then, decades later, Zedd made a comeback in the Boom Studios comics as well as recent TV season Dino Fury and again as the main villain in Cosmic Fury. These new appearances ultimately gave me everything I'd been wanting for the character ever since I was a kid. After 30 years of buildup, we finally got payoff.

I'll start with the comics. Boom Studios' comics are kind of set between episodes of the original show, while also serving as something of a soft reboot? It's more modernized, the characters have cell phones and text each other, and it's aimed for older audiences, giving the comic room to give these characters depth, real demons and personality, etc.

THESE are the Dark Rangers Zedd makes in the comics. Instead of random corrupted teenagers with cheap suits, it's empowered, badass versions of the minions that have been around since the original show (and a shapeshifted Putty Rita, since the story was set during real Rita's exile).

Zedd's personality is much more harsh and terrifying. He's got the demeanor of a hardened warlord. He retains his quirk from the original show of turning objects the Rangers love into monsters, but it's explained that he does this not as a means of destroying the Rangers, but to corrupt and chip away one little thing that they love at a time until they're emotionally broken.

And OHHH BOY HIS BACKSTORY

We learn in the comics that Lord Zedd was once Zophram, Supreme Guardian of the Planet Eltar.... and Zordon's friend and mentor. He fought to save other planets from evil. He slowly grew disillusioned with the politics and bureaucracy of Eltar, and was highly manipulated by Zartus - another friend and mentee - into destroying himself and becoming a monster that Zartus could rally people against for his own political climb to power. Believing that it was Zordon who betrayed and manipulated him, Zophram became Lord Zedd and sought to destroy everything he stood for.

In the "present", Zartus becomes the main villain of the Eltarian War story arc as he begins a full-scale invasion on Earth. It comes out that Zartus was the true evil, and Zedd and Zordon team up to take down Zartus together. Though Zedd shows some remorse and hints of forgiveness toward Zordon, he is too far gone now and continues on the path he's on even after Zartus's defeat.

And THEN, in the Darkest Hour story arc, Zedd even gets a morpher of his own AND BECOMES A POWER RANGER!!!

The series ended after the Darkest Hour event. Zedd never really got too much to do as a main villain in the comics, the focus was more on showcasing other villains and storylines that the show couldn't, but Zedd was still given A LOT of depth as a character. There still was no big final battle or closure against him, and I wish they got to do more with Zedd's cool Ranger form and even his team of Dark Rangers, but he was still very cool and he was given a lot of much-needed character development and layers that still felt respectful of what came before in the show. Evil wasn't born, it was made, and by the time he realized Zartus's deception, he'd already gone too far and killed too many people to be able to take any of it back even if he wanted to.

So hey, all I really need now to satisfy my inner child is CLOSURE and a cool final battle. ENTER DINO FURY AND COSMIC FURY

Zedd gets resurrected. He's still a bit goofy, Power Rangers is a kids' show after all, and they keep his more sitcom-y elements and wit. He teams up with Bajillia Naire (haha pun), the CEO of a big evil interplanetary weapons organization, and seeks to take over the universe. Bajillia even gives him footsoldiers created in his image called Zentinals that are really cool.

In his style of corrupting innocent things, he brainwashes the Blue Dino Fury Ranger, Ollie, into his slave and lieutenant. And honestly? I liked their dynamic a LOT more than I was ever expecting to. He ends up becoming a kind of twisted father figure to Ollie, giving him advice and gifts and showing him compassion and understanding. Ollie seeks his approval and seems to actually have an emotional investment in serving Zedd, rather than doing it just because mwahahahaha.

His big universe takeover plot also leads him into invading and taking over Planet Eltar, Zordon's home planet (and his own, if you follow the comic continuity) and hey, that's a pretty fun development. He stations himself on Eltar and makes his base there, showing just how proud he is to have taken it over.

Annnnnd THEN COMES THE CLOSURE

Zedd's plan in Cosmic Fury is to essentially harness the energy of the Morphin Masters, ancient and all-powerful beings that basically created the Power Rangers (they've been mentioned on and off since the original Mighty Morphin days, so, yay continuity) and absorb all of their energy into himself, becoming the Morphin Master and the single most powerful being in the universe.

He does this. And he becomes a new form (pictured above), Master Zedd.

There is a short battle that follows. Zedd is blasting everything and completely overpowering the Rangers. There's no chance they can beat him. He's won.

......uuuuuuntil Bajillia Naire betrays him and sucks him into the device they'd been using to trap the Morphin Masters. Turns out her plan all along had been to kiss up to Zedd and get him the ultimate power he wanted, so that she could sacrifice him to unleash a wave of pure evil across the universe that will destroy all things good. This mirrors Zordon's sacrifice that erased all evil from the universe and caused Zedd's original defeat way back in Power Rangers in Space. Yay continuity.

Eventually, Bajillia is defeated and the Rangers talk Zedd into giving up his Morphin Master power to save his own life. This is done when Ollie, the Blue Ranger that he had previously brainwashed, connects with Zedd and reminds him of advice that Zedd had given him before. Even without the brainwashing spell, Ollie understands Zedd's mind and how he works and manages to talk him down. Zedd is trapped in an endless nightmare of being with Rita (which is a fun fate for him), and it's said he will be stuck there until he reforms, however long that takes.

And like.... okay. The big final battle with him was a bit different than I was expecting. But I really like it?? His big universe takeover plot had essentially worked, he won, and his defeat was a fun nod to his previous defeat from decades ago and even his relationship with Ollie had a payoff.

Cosmic Fury had finally given us closure to a villain that, for decades, had a ton of buildup and no real confrontation or battle against. They did it in a way that was true to who the character previously was, and even added some interesting new directions for the character. This, on top of all the depth and backstory he was given in the comics, has made him a surprisingly complex, complete character, and that's what I had always wanted for him ever since I was a kid.

[naffeclipse]

Heya Naff, slightly late but Happy New Year!! 🎆 Hope you’re doing well and I wish you much inspiration and many good things this coming year! <33

I had a little query pop to mind recently if that's okay:  what if reader in the Deep Dreams universe had megalophobia and/or perhaps even thalassophobia? 

I know this might make less sense for fisher Y/N as we know them, so it could hypothetically be some other person, a friend or a future Y/N who makes friends with juvenile Sun and Moon and then only later discovers they've grown to be big sea beasties - maybe seeing them in their dreams is fine but for real it's a different matter, at least until they get used to them :)

How might the boys react?

Having a slight bit of megalophobia myself, the best way I can describe my experience is a gentle anxiety with the need to seek shelter and cower there, but people's experiences can vary (and possibly change depending on the conditions). Also that kinda makes it 10x funnier that I have an affinity for giant creatures xD

Hi, Piixel! Happy New Year to you, too, babe! ♥ Thank you so much, ahhh, you're much too kind! :D I hope you have a beautiful year and an abundance of lovely things happen to you!

Oh ho! Fear of big things and of large bodies of water? I'm sure that totally wouldn't be a source of great fear and conflict with a poor little reader soulbond to a couple of mers hehe (The Sea Beast is an excellent movie btw!! ♥)

Y/N with megalophobia and thalassophobia wouldn't be caught dead on the ocean. You have dreams about two massive mers, and those creatures are always sweet and gentle and attentive, but you're still convinced it's some weird nightmare (even though no real spooky events unfold in said dreams). The mers coax and plead with you to go out to sea so you can all meet, but that's a solid no from you.

Then through a very terrible chance of fate, you're on a boat for whatever reason but very much against your desires, before you get swept away by a rouge wave and left behind. You're alone, struggling to swim in a massive ocean when—oh goodie, that looks like a giant mer floating right below you. What else could go wrong today?

Needless to say, after seeing Moon, then Sun, and realizing that these massive mers you've had dreams about are here in the flesh, you pass out from sheer fright. It's a lot for you to wrap your brain around, but when you come to, you're on Sun's back as he floats gently along the surface, keeping you dry as you begin losing your mind out of the horror of it all while Moon watches you from close by. You can't jump into the great wide ocean to escape the mer carrying you but you can't stay on the thing's scaly back either, so you may have a panic attack. Sun stops and turns his head back to give you his full attention while Moon tries to take you in his hands but that does not help your situation. They can feel your panic and horror, but you can feel confusion and distress at not being able to help, and in fact, them being the cause of your fear.

Their attempts to calm you down are met with resistance as you want to be anywhere but here in the ocean with two giant mers.

Sun and Moon are bewildered and upset, to say the least. You did often seem nervous in your little dream rendezvous but they thought they did a lovely job of reassuring you it was alright and that they would never hurt you and there's nothing to be scared of. Turns out, not quite. So, they take you safely back to the island shore where you more or less escape from the massive monsters and flee inland. But, there's not a whole lot of places to go on the little island and you've got to sleep eventually, so Sun and Moon decide to spend more personal time with you and show you that really, they're the two baby mers you happened to scoop up one summer day when you were just a tot and didn't realize how scary some things could be.

They'll be patient. You'll see that there is no place safer than with them in the water. They'll help you face your fears and then reunite with you.

If you ever leave your house again, that is.

[forever-fixating]

WIP Wednesday

Howdy, yall! Thanks to @onthewaytosomewhere and @priincebutt for the tags! Aunt Flo came for a visit (if ya know what I mean), so I was down for the count for a couple days. But I have some goodies all the same. Teasing both stories yet again because I'm a nerd and can't stop at just one. Under the cut, enjoy!

living in a new normal

June and Nora arrived two days before they went set to depart for Paris. They made a day of shopping for last-minute items. Henry desperately needed some fresh wardrobe pieces for future date nights with Alex. Absent Pez, June was happy to dispense her fashion expertise.

“Oh, what about this one?” she suggested, selecting a soft pink linen shirt from a rack. “It would really complement your complexion. Plus it’s light enough for a summer evening stroll.”

Henry held it to his chest and looked in the mirror. “I think you’re right. I tend to stick to familiar colors. Lots of blues and such. My best friend Pez is always goading me into branching out.”

“Nothing wrong with having a signature color,” June smiled. “With those eyes of yours, blue is a no-brainer, but it’s always good to have a little variety.”

Henry folded the shirt over his arm with his other selections. He and June drifted toward the front of the store. As they paused near a display of trousers, Henry said softly, “I want you to know that I care about your brother very much.”

June looked up at him, her expression inscrutable. Henry licked his lips. “That is to say…this isn't some fling for me or an easy way to get a free vacation to Europe. I’m not going to drop him once the tour is over. I know a lot can change in three months, and Christ, maybe he will be the one to toss me aside-”

“He won’t,” June said firmly. 

“You can’t know that.”

“I know my brother,” she insisted. Henry’s mouth snapped shut at the certainty in her tone. She took a deep breath. “Despite what the tabloids might say, Alex isn’t some playboy screwing models or actresses left and right. When he’s in a relationship, he gives it his all. Maybe too much. The dumbass may claim he can do casual, but the only person that has ever really worked out with was Nora and only because they both had eyes for other people.”

Alex’s laugh rang out from another part of the store, full-throated and carefree. June smiled in the direction of it. “I never met Jasper. After what we “affectionately” call the fuckening, I was worried the trauma Alex experienced would keep him closed off from seeking out happiness for a long time. You were an unexpected but very welcomed surprise, Henry. You brought the light back out in him. I may not have seen you two interact all that much, but I can tell from the tone in his texts and phone calls how much he cares about you.

Henry felt his throat tighten at her kind words. She reached out to grasp his free hand and finished by saying, “I know you’re concerned with what people will think. But you’re not in this alone. The thing you’ll learn about the Claremont-Diaz clan is once you’re in, you’re one of us and we look out for each other. Remember that, okay?”

A Tournament for His Heart

As Alex watched them talk, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. Phillip nodded, and Alex stood, following him through another door. This led to an office, dark save for the moonlight from the window. Alex watched as Phillip pressed part of the mantle, and a panel in the wall released with a click and swung out. He looked at the prince, who said, “Follow the passage.”

Hope rose up within him as he stepped over the threshold. His footsteps echoed off the stone. He summoned a small orb of light to guide his path, and it floated in front of him like a phantom. As he walked, descended a set of stairs, and continued down another passage, another sound joined his footsteps. Soft at first then growing stronger with each step: piano music. Finally, he saw a sliver of golden light as he reached the end of the passage. Alex’s hand reached out and pushed the door open wider. Revealed was a small library, a fire crackling. A familiar figure sat at the piano. The golden head, hair longer than Alex remembered, looked up from the sheet music.

“Hello, cariad.”

A/N- My bestie Kate has been such an incredible help with these stories, especially LIANN. If yall thought Love on the Menu was romantic, JUST YOU WAIT. Paris is gonna be two parts and loaded with enough romance to give you cavities. Stay tuned!

[lazywhispersobject]

Review: ‘Madame Web’ is actually a good movie. Yes, really.

I'm not gonna lie: while I was heading to the theater, I was concerned going into “Madame Web.” The majority of X, formerly known as Twitter, users seemed to be against what they saw as meager storylines and weak writing, characters, and performances, especially compared to other Sony/Marvel superhero movies, so I was hesitant. I was expecting “Madame Web” to be a lot worse than it was, but a few good performances and strong found family themes elevate “Madame Web” above some lesser Sony/Marvel superhero movies.

Columbia Pictures’ “Madame Web” was released in theaters on Feb. 14 and follows Cassandra Webb (played by Dakota Johnson), a paramedic in New York City. Webb finds herself having to protect three teenagers from Ezekiel Sims, a murderous adversary with superhuman powers who is hunting them.

“Madame Web” is set in 2003 and sort of pays homage to the conventions of the comic book movies of that era. The muted color palette and minimalistic special effects are all designed to remind viewers of movies like 2002’s “Spider-Man” or 2003’s “Daredevil.”

Also, like many of those movies, Webb is depicted as aloof and antisocial, with her friend having to drag her to social gatherings. Occasionally, with these characters it doesn’t feel realistic, but Johnson really sells it which makes it all the better when she finally finds her chosen family.

The other star of “Madame Web” is Adam Scott. I’ll admit that Scott and his glorious deadpan was half of the reason why I actually watched the movie in the first place, and he absolutely killed it as Ben Parker, a name most Spider-Man fans will recognize.

That’s the other thing about Sony’s recent Spider-Man Universe — it doesn’t have Spider-Man, but it gets really close. Sony is trying to convince people that its movies are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but they’re not. It is this confusion that is driving audiences away from its movies after films like “Morbius,” which was both a critical and commercial failure. It’s a shame too, because with better marketing more people might be able to actually enjoy this movie.

I mentioned that Adam Scott was half the reason I wanted to watch “Madame Web,” the other half was because of Isabela Merced. Merced, known for her starring role as Dora the Explorer in 2019’s “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” brings layers to the role of Anya Corazon, who was my favorite of the three girls. The A-plus-student Corazon was one of my favorite characters in the 2017 “Spider-Man” animated series. Still, Merced portrays her as more than just an intellectual here, which I appreciated.

Sydney Sweeney and Celeste O’Connor were okay as Julia Cornwall and Mattie Franklin, but the script doesn’t give them much to do other than be a goody-two-shoes and a rebel, respectively.

The writing for “Madame Web” is kind of basic. The hero gets powers that she can’t control, finds the other main characters and must come into her power to save them – it’s all been done before. I am willing to forgive it, though, because of the ending.

I’m a sucker for the found family trope. It’s one of my favorites and “Madame Web” is a great example of it. Webb is initially reluctant to save the girls, but after learning that their real families have abandoned or left them, she takes it upon herself to protect them. By the end, Webb accepts Corazon, Cornwall and Franklin as her chosen family.

The villain in “Madame Web” is also bland. Sims sees a vision of Corazon, Cornwall and Franklin killing him, which is fine, but what I don’t get is why he doesn’t just try to talk to them first, instead of going right to hunting them.

I also thought the dialogue mixing for him was off. Whenever he spoke in voiceover, it sounded much deeper than his actual voice.

There was a lot of good humor in “Madame Web.” Johnson and Scott have a good rapport as Webb and Parker, with Scott stealing the spotlight in every scene he is in. The girls also have good chemistry.

The music was surprisingly good. I appreciated the use of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” as a plot device, and Tiffany’s cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now” was also appropriate for the scene, because they were, in fact, alone.

Unlike most of X, I actually enjoyed “Madame Web.” If you ignore what people on the Internet say, maybe you will too.

by Tyler D'Errico - The Collegian

"Cassie"

Madame Web premiere

[wickedsrest-rp]

Happy one year anniversary to the relaunch of Wicked’s Rest! It’s been such a fun, amazing year so far, and we’re so glad all of you here today were willing to take this leap with us and embrace it so enthusiastically! You guys are what make this place as special as it is and we wanted to celebrate you and all the characters you’ve created with a “Founding Day Celebration” in Wicked’s Rest. We have IC and OOC love to share with you all and we hope you join us in the fun.

The time has come once more for the annual Wicked’s Rest Founding Day Celebration! No one's really sure which Founding it's celebrating or who the supposed founders were but everyone's always down for a party. All kinds of activities are popping up around town but most of the action is by the Common.

Food trucks are parked all around the Common and plenty of picnics and outdoor games have popped up. The Peascake Factory has gone all out and brought two trucks. There's plenty of shrimp themed offerings across the board at multiple stands for some reason.

Viva Piñata irl lives on! The piñata's spotted earlier in the week have come out in full force and have been seen gathering together, as if plotting someone's demise. The cute, colorful piñatas have become animated and are hopping around town. Some people are ecstatic to chase them, whack them open, and get all the goodies inside. Others not so much. They might explode all on their own, too, and they aren’t all filled with candy.

There's, of course, plenty of Mysterious Leg merchandise on sale, including miniature replicas of the leg in every color. Someone even made plushies.

Club Cryptid has set up a booth nearby. They have photos of cryptid spottings from around town and are looking for help identifying and naming new ones. They're also offering starter kits for anyone who wants to come join and help them uncover the truth.

Mimes are out and about offering miming lessons. At least that's what we think they're offering. It's so hard to tell with them. Wait, did one just hinge open at the waist? Maybe it's contortionist lessons...

One of the local cults is handing out fliers declaring that Founding Day refers to the day that the the one who slumbers came to rest in this wicked place. Most of the fliers have ended up crumpled in the trash but maybe there's more to it…

As the sun sets, Resters make their way to the Whye River to send off their paper lanterns floating to the sea. During the day, there are stations to decorate them and it has become a town tradition to send off a lantern. Some people send off a hope or a wish for the next year. Others share their fondest memories from the year, hoping that the joy is spread. Some even send messages to lost loved ones with the hope that their lantern guides their way home. 

Share your lantern message with an ask to the main! They can be IC or OOC (though it might be good to indicate which) and they can be anonymous or not! Share any memes or memories you've had IC or OOC and anything else from the last year you want to remember

The residents of Wicked’s Rest are what make the town what it is. Sure, they can be a little unusual or off-beat, but that’s what gives the town its charm. Most of the time, Resters accept it for what it is, but there’s one person who wants to know what makes this town tick. Lavinia Cross is on a mission to map the town’s residents and won’t stop until she gets the scoop from each and every person she can. 

We threw together a little interview for you to fill out and post in character! You can copy the lead-in text if you like (and even edit it a bit to better suit your needs!!) and post it along with the interview itself! Just make sure you’re answering in character, using both action and dialogue (just like the lead-in!) And of course, this is totally optional!

Interview Prompt: 

You were stopped while out and about one day by a woman dressed in clothes that felt inspired by one of those old noir detective films. She asked if you had a few moments to speak to her about recent goings-on in town. You could decline the interview, but your interest was piqued. Did she know something you didn’t? Only one way to find out.

Lavinia Cross introduced herself with a beaming smile, preemptively thanking you for your time. She then peered over the rim of her red cat-eye glasses at you, squinting thoughtfully as she tapped the end of her pen against her lips. “Darling,” she barked in a transatlantic accent fit for the old-timey screen, “I’m going to need you to be brutally honest with me, here. It’s for the greater good! Don’t worry about sounding silly. I’ve heard sillier.” She threw a wink your way and lowered her pen to the notebook in her hand, sucking in a sharp breath before launching into her first question.

“How have you changed since moving to Wicked’s Rest?” Oh. It was a question about you. Maybe she needed to establish a baseline, first? Well, that was fine. Onward with the interview!

—

Question 1: If you’re not a lifetime local, what brought you to Wicked’s Rest? 

Answer **in character** here!

Question 2: How have you changed since moving to Wicked’s Rest?

Answer **in character** here!

Question 2: If there was one thing you could change about our town, what would it be and why? 

Answer **in character** here! etc...

Question 3: What do you think caused the formation of the Serpent's Flat? 

Question 4: What do you think happened to Jedidiah Hodge Sr.? 

Question 5: Have you heard of the Good Neighbors? Do you believe their claims that the Flat and the Null Impact Crater have something to do with the skyquakes and disappearances? 

Question 6: Have you touched the Leg?

Question 7: Will you touch the Leg?

Question 8: Where do you think the sinkholes go?

Question 9: What’s your opinion on the booming stray dog population in town? 

Question 10: Are you afraid of the fog?

No celebration would be complete without a soundtrack to go with it! To get the party started, we put together a playlist full of songs that make us think of our favorite town and the place you’ve helped create with us. But we can’t do it alone! We’re sharing the playlist and asking you all to collaborate with us. Add the songs that make you think of Wicked’s Rest and get you in the mood to write so we can enjoy the vibes together! 

You can find a link in our discord in the #wickeds-content channel!

NOTE: Please be conscious of triggers when adding songs to the playlist. We know it’s not our typical media so we figured it was worth a reminder. If in doubt, leave it out or send a modmail to check!

[rae-arachne]

I really think a lot of you guys don't see the larger systems at play behind events. On here its always "this thing is going to ruin everything, we have to get up and fight right now to stop this specific thing or it's all going to fall apart." Every new issue is the worst thing that has ever happened and not the result of complicated political forces that have been going on for a long time and will continue long after this specific issue stops being newsworthy. Systems thinking is often relegated to saying it's capitalism's or billionaire's fault and leaving it at that, which at this point feels like blaming the Darkness in Men's Souls, especially in coming up with effective solutions. If you kill an oil executive, there's a line of succession which places someone else in that oil executive's role of promoting climate change. And that person is probably going to be more paranoid and less willing to give up their sources of wealth and power.

However, I do think this is because a lot of you actually don't have the context for our current political systems (a lot of you are literally teenagers), so this is going to be a post where I offer suggestions rather than just bitch.

All of these books are one's that I've read and personally recommend. None of them are a complete picture but combined I think they make a good baseline for thinking about our current (usamerican) situation:

A People's History of the United States

An oldie but a goodie. Please don't go around being knowingly ignorant about history. If you think/know your usamerican history from school is lacking/biased, fix it. Please don't really on tumblr to fill in those gaps.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Along with that, there's no usamerican history without indigenous history. The process of colonization is not what it appears to be and learning about it gives us a better idea of what's standing in the way of decolonization.

The System

The Color of Law

A very legal book, but not bad. He really goes into almost every aspect of 20th century u.s. that had a hand in creating/maintaining segregation (and a handful of people who resisted it).

White Trash

A lot of you see poor white men as enemies and it shows and your leftism is worse for it. You really need some class solidarity if we're going to actually solve anything, and part of that is understanding that poor white usamericans are tired of the government intervening in their lives

Doughnut Economics

I just finished this and it's now one of my favorite books (that happens a lot). It's just a really good re-framing of economics into something that's a tool to help meet societal goals, and not just a way to make the most money.

Please add more, this certainly isn't any kind of comprehensive list, just books that I know helped me put things in perspective

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Now That's What I Call Music 1998 Pop / Pop-Rock / Alternative Rock / Dance-Pop / R&B / Teen Pop / Bubblegum Pop / Post-Grunge

Alright, folks, here it is: the ultimate rush of late 90s nostalgia; the first installment in the most pervasive compilation series to ever grace US shores; and partially, my own personal guiding light that originally inspired me to start this whole dumb V/A comp-collecting hobby of mine and its corresponding blog in the first place; it's the Mount Olympus of repackaging contemporary pop hits; the one and only Now That's What I Call Music!

Now, maybe you don't know this about Now, but this *whole fucking enterprise* actually dates all the way back to 1983 in the UK. That's when and where the first Now compilation of any kind was ever conceived. And what made that such a monumentally important moment for the music industry, when there'd already been plenty of contemporary V/A successes before it from the likes of K-tel and Ronco, is that for the first time ever, eclectic powerhouse pop music labels were joining forces themselves to put out these hits albums by supplying songs from their very own respective catalogues. And, as you could guess, these efforts wound up selling like total hotcakes 🤑.

Following Now's immediate success in the UK and Ireland, other countries would soon decide to set up their own version of the series. South Africa, New Zealand, and The Netherlands would all begin in 1984, Australia would make a release in '87, and Canada and Japan would start in '88. But for some reason that escapes me, it took the US an *extremely* long time to follow suit. It wasn't until October of 1998, with Virgin, Polydor, Capitol/EMI and Universal reaching an agreement to collaborate, that the moment would finally come to pass, though: Now would have its historic US arrival.

This album, as you might expect, is really just like turning on a top-40 radio station sometime around 1998. It's largely an excellent mix of songs that got tons of airplay from that era, with different slices of all the pop and rock goodies you remember, and maybe one or two that you forgot, like "Never Ever" by All Saints, a UK girl group that had two top-40 hits in '97—that one included—and then completely disappeared from US airwaves, while continuing to string together seven more straight top-tenners back home through 2006.

And something that may surprise you, as it did me, is that despite the massive airplay that some of these songs received, they actually didn't make Billboard's coveted Hot 100 chart at all. The Backstreet Boys' "As Long as You Love Me," Fastball's "The Way," Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta," Tonic's "If You Could Only See," and Everclear's "I Will Buy You a New Life" all failed to make that chart. I mean, that Tonic track was probably the most played rock song on the radio in 1997! Why such a disconnect between airplay and Hot 100 placement? I genuinely don't get it.

This issue was somewhat remedied by Billboard a little after a month following this album's release, though. In December of 1998, Billboard ruled that there would no longer be a prerequisite that a song be released as a physical single in order for it to make the Hot 100. This former rule explains why a song like "As Long as You Love Me" never made the chart, because it was actually never released as a single in the US, but it still doesn't explain the lack of showing by all those other songs I listed above since they were all released as US singles. Did people really just not buy them despite our airwaves being saturated with them 🤔?

Anyway, it's always a good time with these trips down memory lane, and I'm glad that I finally got to tackle this opening shot from the most popular series of them all. Learned some intricacies along the way about the music industry I was never aware of too 👍.

Highlights:

Janet - "Together Again" Backstreet Boys - "As Long as You Love Me" Fastball - "The Way" Harvey Danger - "Flagpole Sitta" Spice Girls - "Say You'll Be There" K-Ci & JoJo - "All My Life" All Saints - "Never Ever (Single Edit)" Tonic - "If You Could Only See" Hanson - "Mmm Bop" Cherry Poppin' Daddies - "Zoot Suit Riot" Aqua - "Barbie Girl" Radiohead - "Karma Police" Everclear - "I Will Buy You a New Life" Lenny Kravitz - "Fly Away" Marcy Playground - "Sex & Candy"