#she has such great lines.

[ofswordsandpens]

I fear that "fire bending didn't come easy to zuko" and "zuko isn't a prodigy" (both true) has somehow snowballed into "zuko is a bad or at best average fire bender".... which simply isn't true, especially by the end of book 3

[hoshizoralone]

[commsroom]

... which oblivion has not yet swallowed up and buried. 🌊 (art by @hehearse, who is always wonderful.)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 74

When a new black-haired blue-eyed person appeared in the manor, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that Bruce’s adoption problem had struck again. So color many a batkid surprised that no, this kid isn’t a new sibling, no he didn’t get grabbed from the street, and actually he’s here for Alfred. Apparently Alfred never found it important to mentioned that he has a husband- that the kid kind of implies isn’t human what with the casual way he says he himself is half human- and that this kid is apparently their child. For once it’s Bruce’s turn to come home to a surprise sibling. 

Danny on the other hand just learned that his Clockpa has a semi-mortal partner who has offered to take him in, (in another dimension even! And there’s aliens!!) while the ancient takes care of some stuff at home. And yeah it’s in a rich-manor but Sam has proved that not all rich people are evil, and based off of Mr Pennyworth’s stories the Waynes weren’t bad either. Though based off of the others’ reactions perhaps he should wait to mention that there wasn’t one new family member but three…

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

Emily: “I’m really sorry Vaggie didn’t feel comfortable coming back here. If there’s anything I can do to change that-”

Charlie: “Probably not! It was kinda a sign of her endless love for me that she visited haven again at all!”

Emily: “Oh! Oh that’s nice!!”

Charlie: “Which I NEVER would have asked her to do anyway, if I’d KNOWN the truth about her history up here!”

Emily: “Right. I’m so sorry about that too, by the-”

Charlie: “I mean, I’m not the kind of girl who askes her girlfriend to go spend an afternoon sitting across from the people who ripped off her wings! And her eye! And left her slumped against a dumpster looking half dead!”

Emily: “A… dumpster?”

Charlie: “Making the woman you love relive all that without even rEALIZING it would be pretty fucked up, wouldn’t it??”

Emily: “V- very.”

Charlie: “IT HYPOTHETICALLY COULD MAKE SOMEONE FEEL KINDA TERRIBLE AFTERWARDS, DON’T YOU THINK?”

Emily: “I’m sure it did!”

Charlie: “H Y P O T H E T I C A L L Y”

Emily: “Could! I could see that, yes, if it HAD happened, that would’ve been…”

Emily: “…”

Emily: “Are you- um, is she, errr.. doing better now?”

Charlie: “SO much better she’s doing SO great these days!!!!”

IN HELL

Vaggie: (lying face down on the hotel lobby floor) “I promise I won’t stop helping you morons when she dumps me. I won’t let her dream die just because I was dumb enough to think I could be part of it.”

Angel Dust: “That’s nice toots.”

Vaggie: “Thanks.”

Angel Dust: “Not sad or stupidly gay or anythin’.”

Vaggie: “Thanks.”

Cherri Bomb: “Sad? Angie, it’s perfect!” (takes picture) “I’ve been thinking this place could use a new rug…”

Niffty: (stepping on vaggie) “Squishy!”

Husk: “Get the fuck off her.” (at vaggie) “You, get the fuck UP.”

Vaggie: “Why.”

Alastor: “Hmmm, because this is PAINFULLY pathetic to watch, even for me?”

Vaggie: “Guess I’ll be here forever then.”

Angel Dust: “Vag-GAY c’mon, ya girlfirend’s not gonna dump ya. What’s the competition even!?”

Vaggie: “There’s an angel up in heaven who's helping Charlie work towards her life long dreams as we speak, and she's taller than me, got more wings than me, not as stabby as me, and also not a mass murderer or a liar or missing an eye.”

Cherri Bomb: "Hey!"

Vaggie: "No offence to the other one-eyed ladies here, but it's different when you've got a fucked up empty eye socket."

Niffty: (sighs dreamily) "I bet losing it hurt soooo baaaaad..."

Vaggie: "Never telling my girlfriend why I'd actually lost it or how it made me look like the deranged murder angel I was, even while she tried kissing it better for me, ended up hurting way worse."

Angel Dust: “That's a point….”

Angel Dust: “...alright, so Charlie’s PROBABLY not gonna dump ya-”

Niffty: “Oh that’s a weird sound!” (giggling) (bounces on vaggie) “I think she’s dying~”

Husk: “If you fucks kill her, I’m telling her demon princess girlfriend and pouring myself a drink to go with your fucking tormented howls.”

Vaggie: (muffled) “what if she’s my ex-girlfriend”

Husk: “…I’ll pour you a fucking drink and listen to your tormented howls.”

Niffty: “ME TOO I’LL LISTEN TOO!”

Alastor: “Dear one, perhaps if you were NOT standing on her skull and compressing her WRETCHED cries into the floor, we could be hearing them already.”

Niffty: “Whoops~ Heheheeh~”

Cherri Bomb: (recording it) “Damn, that groan’s been going on for ages… Bitch has some lung capacity on her.”

Angel Dust: “Point one for Vag-gay! Probs as good eating out as ya are at HOLDING out on ya girl!!!”

Vaggie: “uuuughhh…uaauuugghhaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaahhhhrrrgh..” (whimpers)

Niffty: “Okay.” (GIGGLES) “NOW she’s dying~” (bounces)

IN HEAVEN

Charlie: “Everything’s totally fine I have NO idea why you’d even ASK!”

Emily: “You’ve spent the entire time up here staring at pictures of Vaggie on your phone?”

Charlie: “I’m allowed to look at my girlfriend!”

Emily: “While crying and sniffling into your sleeve?”

Charlie: (sobbing) (desperately patting down her jacket) “SHE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS WHICH OF MY POCKETS HAS THE HANDKERCHIEF IN IT, OKAY??”

Emily: (smiling) “I think you two are going to be just fine.”

Charlie: (BLOWS NOSE LOUDLY INTO JACKET SLEEVE, which catches on FIRE)

Emily: “…..not your clothes, though. You might need a new set of those.”

[dynamitekansai]

"The last time we wrestled, I walked away a champion... and you didn't walk out at all."

[diosapate]

htn ch. 6 / htn ch. 51

naming as ownership, control, violence, etc. etc.

[greyangelpain]

One Doris Thatcher 💞

[hydrachea]

I can't stop thinking about Blade saying gifts are unfamiliar.

And I can't stop thinking about Kafka and Silver Wolf, hearing that, and making it a mission to bring him gifts whenever they travel somewhere for their script - even if he's there with them. About the confusion in his eyes when they steal buy something and turn right around to hand it to him.

About his room starting out completely empty except for the bare minimum necessities, a few spare clothes and what he needs to take care his Shard Sword, but filling up with little trinkets and gifts over time. Clothes and jewelry and perfume from Kafka and posters, figures and plushies from Silver Wolf. About them also bringing food back, expensive specialties swiped from a restaurant and the weirdest option they could spot in a lone vending machine, a category of gifts that doesn't leave anything behind (except the photos they both take of the three of them eating together, or of the faces he makes when Silver Wolf manages to trick him into trying a suspicious snack while he's distracted with polishing his weapon).

About Kafka spending hours finding clothes and jewelry she thinks would suit him, because that's her love language. She gets him makeup too, refusing to let his good looks go to waste. She knows he can't put it on himself, they both do, and he doesn't care for his appearance enough otherwise - but he'll let her do his makeup for him anyway, because she enjoys it, and because he finds it soothing.

About Silver Wolf also buying him clothes, but the ones she gets aren't his style at all, and just barely his size. She gets them for him, but just so she can steal them right back - her love language is quality time, and she fills Blade's room with gifts she can borrow along with a moment of his day. It still counts as a gift, she insists, practically swimming in an oversized jacket she swiped from his closet.

About how in another life, Yingxing gave gifts to the people he loved and in this one, Blade receives them from those who love him.

[tora-the-cat]

An interesting little fun thing with team 7 is that you assume that Sakura's gonna, like, woobify and simplify Sasuke by putting him on a pedastal,cause her goal is centered around him and shes a 12 y/o fangirl so like of course her understanding of him is skewed cause she doesnt see him as a person, just an object of affection, right? She's can't get Sasuke, can't imprint on and/or traumabond with him like Naruto and Kakashi do. They don't see him with rose tinted glasses, because they've lived through their own Horrors and empathize with Sasuke's experience.

......right?

WRONG lmao!! They have too many ghosts!! Naruto's single-minded codependent ass won't get out of his own way long enough to see Sasuke for who he actually is, only able to empathize with the parts of his trauma Naruto relates to and not really capable of understanding him outside of the context of himself (because Sasuke is. His other half). And Kakashi is far too jaded to be fair to him!! He can't decide if Sasuke is gonna end up as a mini-him or a mini-Obito or maybe a mini-Itachi, but either way he ALSO is too traumatized to see Sasuke AS SASUKE.

meanehile SAKURA'S autistic ass may have dogshit empathy, but you know what she does have? A special interest in sasuke. Nothing better to do then give herself a degree in Uchihaisms. She can write character studies about him. she can read his soul. Whenever she says something about him she is right. Every fucking time! She is RIGHT!!!!

'sasuke would NOT compliment me this directly or explicitly express worry unprompted, especially if it gets in the way of his goals' correct.

'Sasuke shouldn't hide that curse on his neck its not healthy BUT if I tell anyone about it he'll never trust me again, which might be even more dangerous for him then the curse mark. Like he can probably handle the curse mark but no one else can stop him from ripping peoples arms off.' correct.

Speaking of! 'Sasuke would not hurt me even when he seems to be...possessed? whatever the only way to knock him out of it is to present myself as Alive and thus something to be protected rather then something to be avenged, because he gets really stuck in his own head about revenge' CORRECT

'hey so um. like. Sasuke's gonna leave Konoha. I'm not sure anything can stop him at this point and honestly I'm kinda starting to doubt anything should, so the only thing I could possibly do to help him at this point is ALSO defect.' CORRECT!!!!

[grahamcarmen]

[uproariousscarecrow]

happy birthday to yukiko!!!!!!

[roominthecastle]

[myrkulitescourge]

imo karlach’s soul coin usage seems like it should have been a little more significant than it was.

she only ever really stops to consider the magnitude of burning through a person’s soul for power during an origin playthrough—otherwise she rationalizes to the player that they’re doomed anyway, and if using them gives her an edge in combat, why not use them for good instead of leaving them to be used by evil? the dialogue with lann tarv in act 2, where he tells the story of each soul he's handing over to her, tries to humanize each soul coin, and still she doesn’t really budge and disapproves pretty heavily if she's told no in regards to using them.

it just seems like something that could have caused some kind of conflict between her and wyll, given he sold his soul to a devil in dire circumstances and takes issue with the player for sleeping with mizora, because she 1) is mizora, and 2) similarly expends tormented souls during her romance scene, even if for a different purpose. but it just... never really comes up?

i love karlach. but that seems like it should have gone Somewhere, from a writing standpoint? karlach values wyll as a person but is willing to use currency forged from souls like his for the sake of a temporary power up. she knows the soul is consumed when she uses them. that whole exchange with lann tarv is there to emphasize that every soul coin she destroys was a person once. but it all kind of loses narrative purpose if this combination of factors doesn't mean anything? karlach doesn't change at all in her willingness to use soul coins, no matter what the player says or how much she cares for wyll.

idk. missed opportunity that wyll doesn't have any dialogue about this, of all things.

[thesummerstorms]

I've been dabbling in a project, mostly world building and not actual fic because my brain is a strange creature, but I have decided that in my interpretation of the PJO universe, Athena is ... well a strategist in all things.

Including the creation of her children.

The way I'm envisioning it, creating a child from her own mind isn't really a task she undertakes casually.

Yes, she does it occasionally as a "gift" to a mortal whose mind she admires. There's no romantic or sexual relationship, but it's an intense, consuming relationship all the same.

Children born for that reason (or for just that reason) are rare though. Athena might have many favorites, but she's also proud. Who deserves a child entirely crafted by a Goddess? Only the few.

I think, in a normal decade, the number of Athena campers is actually on the lower end compared to most of the other Olympians.

None of the Campers outside of Athena's own children every really figure it out, and Chiron, who knows, would sooner die than tell them.

But when there are many children of Athena, like there are in Annabeth's childhood, it's a sign that something strange or terrible is coming.

Athena is a strategist, the right hand of Zeus, his favorite child, the one who forsees and attempts to dismantle threats to Olympians' power. She moves the pieces into place without hesitation or sentimentality.

And the easiest pieces to control, of course, would be her own children.

Other demigods have other immortal parents to listen to, no matter how strong their desire for victory or their inherent cunning. Her own children are fragments of her own mind- much more reliable. Much easier to predict.

And if in the years leading up to whatever disturbance she forsees she chooses mortal parents for her children with calculation, with an eye for the skill sets and temperaments she predicts most needing in the dark times ahead...well, the child and their parent should be honored by her forethought.

It isn't even that she has no affection for the parent or child, in so much as she is capable of affection. But Athena is always, always three steps ahead, and her actions always have intent. Her children are no different.

A demigod, ultimately, is a weapon in the hands of the gods. It's best that the ones she chooses are well-crafted.

[blue-eli]

Skuld in quantum design :)