#it's gonna be epic i'm sure

[unproduciblesmackdown]

WAUGH!!!

[somepsychopomp]

More Hybrid AU thoughts ft. puppy Ody

Okay so let's just say that Odysseus, having been born from a long line of cunning tricksters from his mother's side, was quite the surprise when he was born w/ his wolf ears, legs, & tail. Laertes looks at Anticlea & her lack of wolf features and asks if this is normal. Well, the child's great-grandfather is Hermes...

Meanwhile Hermes himself catches wind that one his of family lines is up to mischief again and goes to check it out. He finds puppy Ody in his cradle and is ecstatic that one of his distant relatives is such a cute little freak. Come morning, Odysseus' nurse will find him cuddling with a toy tortoise that she's never seen before.

For context: hybrids aren't common in the world of this AU, but Odysseus isn't the only one around

(Ex. As a result of Leda & swan Zeus getting freaky, Helen is also a hybrid with flawless dark skin, piercing eyes, and pure white hair to match her splendid white wings. It's no wonder that she's regarded the most beautiful woman in the world. She doesn't often fly, but uses her wings to captivate audiences as she dances)

Laertes & Anticlea are also aware of the rumors that a king of Crete had his own hybrid son, a cross between a man and a bull. King Minos apparently devised a terrible underground maze to trap the poor hybrid in for the rest of its life.

Personally, they both think that's a terrible idea. How in the world could they condemn their own son, who's never wronged them in any way, to a lifetime of darkness? Or an otherwise equally cruel fate?

So they just... raise Odysseus. As if nothing's unusual or wrong about him. They have to admit though, he's such a cute baby. He's got the softest fur and the cutest little toe beans, and he whines in his sleep as if he's already dreaming of chasing prey.

Interestingly, hybrid Odysseus never had a phase where he leaned to crawl. His parents supposed that made sense. His legs are those of a wolf, and their shape isn't conducive to crawling. That means, to their chagrin, that toddler Odysseus was either wobbling on his two wolf legs or full-on sprinting through the house on all fours.

When his younger sister comes around, the king & queen think they're well prepared for another pup. They have a nice low-set cradle made with a heavy woolen canopy to mimic a wolf den, and had Odysseus roll around and play in the nursery so that it would smell of the new pup's kin. But when Ctimene pops out, Laertes and Anticlea gawk at her in befuddlement because she's completely normal. Where is her tail? Her ears? Her paws and fur? Why does she look like that?

At least Ody gets along well with his new sister. More than once, a nurse or Anticlea went to check on young Ctimene in the middle of the night, only to see a set of amber eyes in the moonlight holding vigil over her cradle.

As time goes on, it's quite difficult to organize safe play time between the siblings. Odysseus' instincts are to roughhouse with fangs and claws (which he's slowly starting to develop) & he indirectly teaches Ctimene to act like a wolf pup. She bites him back and yips like a dog when he treads on her toes. That does make their parents worry that Odysseus might end up as more wolf than man, but they'll have to wait and see. There's still hope for Odysseus, seeing that he's acquiring language at a rate comparable to most other children.

The two parents end up quite relieved as the years go by and Odysseus seems to growing up like any other boy. He speaks fluently without issue, had no difficulties learning to read, and in fact, is quite intelligent and curious. Since Ithaca is on the smaller side in terms of city-states, it'd be nigh impossible to keep his condition a secret from the public. So Ody is dressed in regular clothes and fitted with specially-made sandals to accommodate his wolf feet. The only adjustment needed in his clothing is a slit for his tail, otherwise when it wags or raises, Ody basically pulls up his entire chiton.

There are few wolves on Ithaca or the surrounding islands so Odysseus grows up as quite the novelty (I mean, more so than he already is). Most of his people have never seen a wolf and often mistake him for a dog, thinking he resembles the earth-colored farm dogs that are more common on the island, or perhaps the smaller swift-footed dogs that assist the fishermen. Laertes, having hunted big game before, including wolves from the mainland, is adamant that his child is a wolf. Odysseus' pointed triangular ears, stunning amber eyes, and his tawny-brown hair/coat are more similar to that of a wolf than a dog (I'm taking my inspo from the irl Eurasian Wolf btw)

As I mentioned in my first post here, hybrid Ody does have a ton of energy as a child. He loves to swim, run, and hunt with his father.

Laertes certainly takes Odysseus out hunting with him earlier than most would consider safe for a child. It turns out, not only does Odysseus love it, but he's also an exceptionally gifted tracker. His sharp nose and hearing mean that his father has no need for a hunting dog. And when they catch fresh meat, even though Anticlea insists that Odysseus must learn to eat and behave like a proper person, Laertes can't help but carve out a few strips of meat from the flank and let his son eat them raw. It's their little secret, he says with a wink.

One day, when Odysseus is perhaps seven or eight years old and on a hunting trip with his father + a few other men, he's hot on the trail of a herd of deer when he suddenly stops dead. Laertes is confused and asks Odysseus if there's something wrong. All of a sudden, Odysseus is trembling from head to toe and crying softly about wanting to go home.

"It must be a bear," a friend of Laertes says. It's about the only animal that could possibly spook Odysseus. The only issue is that, while wolves are rare on Ithaca, bears are even more elusive.

Laertes tries to coax his son to keep moving, but Odysseus can only cower with his tail between his legs and his ears flat against his skull. He starts to cry and insist that he wants to go home, even clinging to Laertes' thigh out of fear.

Having no idea what's wrong and never having seen his son like this before, the king decides to call off the hunting party and return home. As soon as they escape the mountainous forest, a sudden storm rolls in from the sea and pounds Ithaca with fierce winds and heavy rain. Laertes thinks that, had they stayed, they surely would've lost a man or two in their attempts to escape the storm.

A year later, Laertes is attempting to teach Odysseus how to tend to the land. A good king doesn't just lead his people, but feeds them as well. As the prince and heir, Odysseus should know useful skills such as farming, animal husbandry, and how to raise olive trees. Odysseus follows along with only a mild interest, finding it not nearly as exciting as hunting, when he sneezes and covers his nose with his hands.

"Papa!" he says, "The ground here smells bad."

Not having forgotten Odysseus' instincts on the mountain, Laertes tries to find out exactly what his son means, but Ody is still too young to fully explain himself. So Laertes conducts a test. He organizes for all the usual farmlands to be tended to as usual, but only puts half as much man power into the patch of land that Odysseus insists "smells bad".

Come harvest time, and that particular patch of ground failed to produce anything useful due to a blight hidden deep underground. It's an unfortunate loss, but it was only a few acre's worth of land. Laertes is glad that he spared the poisoned land his people's efforts.

By the time Odysseus is like 10-11, he's out hunting and exploring the woods on his own. He hears tale of a massive boar terrorizing the mainland, some beast so huge that spears and clubs have no effect on it. He thinks little of the stories, assuming such a huge creature wouldn't be able to swim. That is, until stories from the costal villages reach the palace of an unkillable boar ravaging their farmlands.

The boar might have a great deal of stamina, but so does Odysseus. Without his father or anyone else, he tracks the boar all over the island for days at a time, never losing his way home since he paws at the trees and leaves a scent trail to follow. Odysseus hunts small game like birds and rabbits to keep him sated and sleeps in tree boughs so as to not be caught by surprise.

It's a game of attrition, to see who can outlast who. At last, muddy and disheveled but no less excited by his greatest hunt yet, Odysseus finds the boar. It's been driven mad by the scent of wolves wherever it goes and is looking for a fight. Odysseus had been carrying a bow and quiver with him, but had been saving all his arrows for the boar. He spots a gash in the creature's hide, a few inches deep, from where a spearhead might've pierced it but failed to deliver a lethal blow.

Odysseus narrowly dodges the boar's first few charges until he can get a safe distance away. With the proper footing and stance that his father showed him, he raises his bow and fires just as the boar turns to face him. The arrow hits true and fresh blood spurts from the old wound.

An empty quiver later, and Odysseus is attempting to gnaw off one of the fallen boar's legs with just his teeth. He's so hungry and surely, his mother and father wouldn't reprimand him for enjoying the fruit of his labor even in such a messy fashion. If only he had a long knife to carve out the truly valuable meat like the organs...

Odysseus freezes as he catches a new scent on the wind. It's like nothing he's ever smelled before. It's like an oncoming storm, but hotter? It's electric, kind of like the tang of metal, and makes all his hairs stand on end. What is that?

"Show yourself!" he says, leaping to his feet with blood in his teeth, "I know you're watching me!"

Despite not hearing or seeing anything, he knows that someone else is with him.

"I can smell you!"

And a woman, taller and more grand than any being Odysseus has ever seen before, appears out of thin air. Somehow, Odysseus doesn't yelp in surprise when she appears.

She doesn't necessarily smell hostile, despite her towering presence.

She smells... like a friend.

[chirpsythismorning]

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

[juno-stuffs]

dumb little trashy tiresias doodle i did a bit after the vengeance saga released.

[kanerallels]

Time to ramble about my fic problems in the tags and hope that makes them go away

[space--butterflies]

Gigi doing the last animatic... everyone crying... i'm crying... ough i'll never recover from this

[thehyperfixationspeedrunner]

Ah yes, the ocean saga (Buck's version)

Storm

Luck runs out

Keep your friends close

Ruthlessness

(Gif by @lover-of-mine )

[cherrirui-official]

Cringetober day 9: Crossover Ship / Rarepair

I'm genuinely sorry to the 9 people who thought I wasn't gonna really get too into cookie run bc I told them that. I was wrong, I got the game again, this is my formal apology. Anyways I think they are so so silly and so so yeas, yaassss. !! Reminder that I won't be doing all days, only a select few !! Also original image under the cut vvvv

[bookwyrminspiration]

attempting to connect the thunder saga to acod but i haven’t reread it lately and my brain is tired what are your thoughts???

Mulled over this for a few days and I'm thinking perhaps we can tie Ody's arc in Scylla/Mutiny to Thaena's warping idea of what being a guardian means.

Odysseus decides 6 men is a sacrifice he gets to make alone, as Thaena thinks the destruction of the Vané nation is worth buying time and that she can force that call. "Give up your honor and faith," like how being a Guardian becomes so distorted from its original purpose she's appoints herself master of who lives and dies. Literally. "We must do what it takes to survive" as her justification--she's saving humanity, so anything towards that end is excusable or necessary.

And as Eurylochus cannot abide that and stabs Ody in the back, Teraeth stabs and kills his mother. A parallel to "then you have forced my hand," because he literally had no other choice but to die and take a nation with him. Neither of them wanted to, but they had to. Because "there is no price he won't pay."

We could also tie that to Relos Var I suppose--man, Thaena would hate how similar they are. The justification and impossible prices he'll pay.

I'm sure there's other ties that can be made, but that was the first one that came to mind

[vulpinesaint]

sorry thinking about how i wrote an entirely lovecraft themed poem about transgenderism for my beginning creative writing class last semester and one single person besides the professor in that room full of english majors recognized that it was referencing lovecraft. i do not mean this in a way that shames people for not having read stuff or for not having the means to read stuff. but oh my god guys does anyone who is getting a higher level education in literature even look at the literary sources of common phenomena in media nowadays

[n4talia-chaparro]

I forgot I have this art too. Lol

╭˚꒷˚︶︶꒦꒷︶꒦︶꒷꒦˚꒷˚︶˚︶︶꒦꒷˚ଓ ‧. ⁺

Andd....more AU related I guess...???

So cringe ikr (well some of them are shitpost or unfunny art-)

꒷꒦︶🌻︶︶꒷꒦︶∪∪︶꒷꒦︶︶🌻︶꒷꒦

And first time revealing Krupp's awful design in front of everyone in the fandom (well I already show the design on YT but not here so-) YIKES...now you know why this AU fucking sucks..😬 fuck. :(

[vihola]

ffxiv keeps killing my faves, and I still haven't even finished Heavensward. Stop hurting me, evil game

[waiting-duck]

Do you guys think sans Undertale could win against the dead sea? (hypothesis in tags)

[moonsidesong]

played the fangame danganronpa another with a friend and i didn't really like the ending but i very much enjoyed mekaru bc she's just woman byakuya togami. i'm going to talk a lot in the tags now

[a-story-teller]

Had another dream story idea and it's BAD out here y'all. My subconscious said "you don't go for sad old white men yaoi? Well here's one and you have to care about it so much. Good luck"

[theplatypusblue]

The Spinjitzu Master

some yapping below the cut :D

hey guys i made a comic!! I actually finished something!!! yayayyayay!!!!! I've been so busy and stressed lately and this was a nice thing to chip away at to de-stress n stuff. The one time I tried doing a multi-page comic like this I totally lost steam in the middle of it and didn't finish, so at the very least I'm happy that I managed to like. get anything down on the page at all lol.

Anyway I'm always thinking about this little guy.... his life was so sad bro like what the heck. Granted we don't actually know that much about his life, but you can extrapolate stuff, and that's basically what this comic is. I like to think that the fsm kind of stumbled into some of the things he did early on in his life. There's like, no way this dude was nearly as cool and epic and in-control as the narrative makes him seem. In my mind he's just as lame as the rest of his lame-ass family; it's just that everyone (his sons, the ninja, the entire rest of ninjago) idolizes him so much and can really only see him as this kind of legendary figure. In reality I think he was just a lonely kid dealing with a lot of like. war and conflict and general suffering. And then (at least in my mind) he managed to get a couple of lucky breaks which eventually lead him to carve out his own little space for himself in ninjago. So I was thinking about that kind of thing 👍

(And then you can see how all of that stuff bleeds into how he raised wu and garm, but that's an entirely different thing for an entirely different day lol)

I'm like 90% sure I got something wrong/mixed something up lore-wise and that this whole thing doesn't actually make sense as a result. but also! The idea felt clever enough to go ahead with it anyway :3 and I wanted to post it before the show dropped more fsm lore (seriously when is dr gonna get into more ninjago history... I can feel it on the horizon it's like the one big thing I'm looking forward to... give me more lore dumps!! more flashbacks!!! more!!!!!!!)