#they'll change as time goes on :))

[mediumgayitalian]

fic rec friday

hi!! welcome to fic rec friday. every week, i pick five fics i have bookmarked and rec them with a little review. check them out!

let there be light, let me be alright by annaaperson

His words stopped short as he, along with the rest of the cabin, stared in wonder-filled horror at Will. Specifically Will Solace. More specifically, his hands. His hands that were glowing a soft golden light into the night’s bleeding darkness. (aka, 5 times Will freaked people out by cracking his joints and lighting up like a glow stick and the one time he doesn't)

this was very sweet. glowstick will solace is such a funny fucking character trait and it does not have the spotlight it should have. loved the will & lee and will & clarisse. and i am a 5+1 truther why are those fics like actual crack

2. Death Boy by percyspandapillowpet

The three times Nico said he hated the nickname Will gave him and the one time he didn't.

okay full and fair warning i WILL be talking about this author all the time. they carried the pjo fandom in 2016 truly. and this fic is so tooth-rotting!! love fics where nico slowly warms up to having friends as he deserves truly

3. The Thing You Need Most by @wintersky101

When he's finished in the infirmary, when he's finally done all that he can to keep himself distracted, Will staggers into the Apollo cabin and immediately crumples to his knees, tears already springing to his eyes.

no this one is so important bc sometimes i feel like this fandom falls into the repetition of sad-nico-comforting-will and while thats not necessarily bad!! its nice to have some variety. and having nico be there for will when will cant be is so important and lovely to see. this fic does it so well!!

4. I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this contract: by @nicostolemybones

Will breaks the entire Hippocratic Oath.

i read this fic months ago and i literally think about it all the time. the quiet bitterness. the rebellion borne of a deep deep love for everyone around him. the backbone made of steel. william andrew solace i would die for you

5. Beautiful pain by Phantomxlegend

Will can take the pain of others and bear it himself. Half the time it’s not even a conscious decision and he doesn’t even know he did it... until later when the pain hits.

is this a little out there? yeah. a little wumpy?? yeah. but what is the point of fandom otherwise. this fic is exactly what it advertises

thank you for joining me this friday!! happy reading!!

[tiny-smallest]

Sonic Movie Universe prediction: Robotnik is an orphan because of GUN

I think what was supposed to be, tonally, a silly throwaway line is actually winding up to punch us in the face later.

Bear with me.

I barely remember the first movie since it was so long since I watched it, but aside from one, maybe two, of the comic universes, this line is the first time we have ever gotten anything at all about Ivo Robotnik's personal backstory. And it's that he's an orphan. In a story series that explicitly sets him up with a human identity- none of that Eggman stuff as his identity, not even a whisper of the name until it's a silly insult Sonic throws out later- this movie bothers to give him a Normal Human Society Firstname Lastname and a job.

(Okay, so Robotnik isn't exactly a normal human surname. But it's established canon that is the family name so. Suspension of disbelief.)

A series that we know will later delve, at least a little, into the story of Professor Gerald Robotnik WHO IVO APPARENTLY, ACTUALLY, DEFINITELY KNEW IN THIS CONTINUITY, AS HE HAS A SPECIFIC GRANDPA NAME FOR HIM AND NEARLY CRIES.

The original line was a ridiculous rebuttal to Tom during the fight in the house during the first movie. "Rub that in my orphan face," he says in response to Tom sharing a detail of his childhood during Silly Action Scene Banter. While there is a sort of tension there since the movie universe makes no bones about Sonic being an actual child and he is confirmed to be an alien, thus making the danger present of government capture and experimentation very real and kind of horrific, the scene as it plays out isn't overly out of character for something you'd expect in a Sonic movie. And although Robotnik is the threat here, he plays a large part in also keeping the scene lighthearted because of how utterly he fails to respond like a normal human being to literally anything. The comment about being an orphan at least makes sense based on what Tom said, but it's still weirdly personal and, therefore, kind of inappropriate to say. Like dude back up you're trying to kill a child why are you sharing your trauma with me that's uncomfortable.

Which brings me to the obvious point of that line- it's not just to make the scene funny, it's to show us how set apart from other humans Robotnik is. This is a man who has no idea how to interact with anyone, like, absolutely nobody, and every single scene he's in reminds us of this, including this one.

Now that the third movie has explicitly drawn a line between Shadow's backstory and themes of pain and loss, and we see Gerald Robotnik weeping over what I think is Maria's body in the aftermath of the murder (jesus that's dark) I have to connect a few dots of my own.

The first movie had another piece of foreshadowing they threw at us, this one way more obvious: at the end of the first movie, a government agent is sent to speak with the Wachowski couple. He tells them that Ivo Robotnik has been thoroughly erased from existence. As far as any documentation of him ever existing on Planet Earth, there is none. He hasn't merely disappeared- it's like he never was.

If they did this to Ivo after this catastrophe it's not a stretch to think they did the same with Professor Gerald. Hell, I thought that after movie number one. "That has to come up later- we have a character the government explicitly turns on in this series. Like, as a major plot point. The defining moment in several characters' stories. No way does their ability to erase someone not come up later."

But now I think they went a step further.

They've already murdered a little girl and broken an old man in their efforts to contain the genius they were frightened of.

Personally, I don't think it's a stretch to think that Ivo Robotnik, very young himself at the time most likely, is an orphan because GUN decided to eradicate the entire family line in an effort to prevent anyone like Gerald Robotnik from ever existing again.

Except. The son survived. Well shit. Uh. Stick him in an orphanage and keep an eye on him, I guess.

And where does he end up as a adult? A branch of the government. Where they can keep an eye on him.

(More than that, if they did erase Gerald, Ivo clearly remembers him... so Ivo may have joined them specifically to look for traces of the grandfather he knows existed and who doesn't seem to have any records proving that whatsoever. But that's Ivo's motivations and we're talking about GUN's, so, moving on.)

It's likely based on his sheer intellect, assuming Ivo wasn't embellishing too heavily, that he didn't have to grow for very long before that brilliance was obvious. Though the government's decision to let him live was strategic, weighing the gamble of assassination with the gamble of him inheriting the genius and deciding that risking him having the same genius as his grandfather was better than trying to kill him at this point, the gambit ultimately failed. Even though he was more than likely still only a child, they'd let him live too long. In just a few short years he quickly became a very real threat to the government- as in, if given a reason, he could be a very real threat. And nothing Ivo does is ever subtle or quiet, so his genius was probably very loud, and there was likely lots of attention, making an assassination impossible, because if there would be too many questions before, there would be an insurmountable amount if he died or disappeared now.

So, since they couldn't kill him, they continued to keep an eye on him and took him on at the government when he was old enough with the intention of keeping their enemies closer. Except all of their caution still wasn't enough and he went rogue the first time he was presented with the opportunity to grab at power they didn't already have, power capable of things beyond their wildest imaginations- a monster of their own making.

Ivo, who never asked for what happened to him, very likely a victim of circumstances he had no hope of ever controlling, who responded to this trauma by making his choice that power mattered more than anything- more than morals, more than hurting people who are just like he was once. That shaping his own world after all the horrors he planned to do in pursuit of that may finally, finally "be enough."

(Be enough for what, exactly, Ivo. You never did explain that. "Who knows? Maybe that will be enough." Elaborate.)

Whether he knew the truth about why he had suffered or not, Robotnik made his choices. He stood at that crossroads that demanded he make a choice about what kind of person he was going to be in the face of all the pain and loss, and he made his choice. This movie is about Shadow making his.

If this movie really wants to beat us all to death it won't just draw comparisons between Sonic and Shadow, but Shadow and Ivo Robotnik.

(If this movie wants to exorcize our souls after we're dead, if it intends to be a trilogy and not make more movies in following the original vision for Sonic Adventure 2, it'll place Ivo at a new crossroads, and this time, he'll make a different choice.)

(Especially since Professor Gerald, in a much worse state of madness and malice than Ivo, who the movie is setting up specifically as someone Ivo loves, admires, and almost certainly misses, probably won't.)

[artekai]

Those are her vibes

[aurore-parle-de-ses-idees]

the crazy thing is i still haven't decided what to do with leah

[nandors-girlwife]

No but is it really one of your favs ships if u don't have a playlist for them

Yes I wrote this post only to share my ship's playlist if any of y'all care so WHAT anyway here they are

Merthur Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7qC8kcwkTy8zUwwMtNdHEJ?si=4CarnOY5T1ewqmF8mhQnXA&pi=u-SN42Cs1oTvei

Nandermo Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2e9mFwufBGWVoMK7f6XvuX?si=xZk2rdD2QXSmEZnYNXR6UA

Innefable Husbands Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4WikaxxtH3Ng8XzF0O8FHJ?si=aHVR_0sLQiaj1D2eIj16mQ

Spirk Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4O0QIOgqo7XqudFnVwqgNq?si=JKO0dVzrRrS8MCgEUfPT1Q&pi=u-AQYOd9ueTZGa

HaiYin Addicted Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tFgmi573GBCl6S4WmcdV2?si=QZrvfnFzRTqC6duWC7FFSA&pi=u-8vZmJe-7QKWC

Starsky and Hutch Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3b1mBG9fLViODX8RGgvcyU?si=blQ2LemBR6OuBx6hDEjtGQ&pi=u-L0oTCcAvQ1aA

HiraXKiyoi MBM Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4pqPVCBF4MA150J5p46Lkl?si=I50S8qSvRSiS0ZetP0LiWg&pi=u-XKj5oLVNRCWT

MoonjoXJungwoo SFH Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/629rkeb2aOZGivxbOZtD1V?si=UEt6bwZjTTCnj3KiS8sRFg&pi=u-0hbm4T-hSRmh

Johnlock Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5FQcrmLVlmLw5hK4PHlNbm?si=22Yt14mrSXyfTTvZN-dWsw&pi=u-HaXVuA4bTc2x

JuwonXDongshik BE Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CCdkdJnhPFGRSNsdEPDgV?si=lJQpUXWoThyP4QeKDkzuFg&pi=u-2-ueYj5xSOOs

This is my legacy

[starheirxero]

i dunno if it will ever actually happen but i entertain the idea of ird Lunar having a human bestie like all the time. i haven't solidified it yet bc all the reaons i have to add them can just as easily be done without them, but i still think its very cute......

[theheadlessgroom]

https://www.tumblr.com/beatingheart-bride/720996974641430528/theheadlessgroom-beatingheart-bride

@beatingheart-bride

“Well, I’m very glad you like it,” June smiled warmly, very pleased to hear this answer as she dug into another of her own oysters: Food, of course, was already a cornerstone of life in New Orleans (there was practically a restaurant on every street corner), but in some ways, it was twice as big a cornerstone in June’s life-before and after she married.

When she was growing up, food was always an expression of love and friendship, another type of communication; more than once did she remember going with her parents to drop off a pie or some other baked good for a friend who had fallen ill or for special occasions, and she certainly remembered the little gestures her mother and father made, making one another their favorite foods when they were stressed or upset. It was a way of saying “I love and care for you” without saying out loud, they said, and she never forgot that reasoning.

As she grew, June was no exception, keeping up that trend of making little things for those she cared about, and when she met Wilhelm, food was just another way of connecting during their courtship, sharing their favorite family recipes and learning how to make them. It was an expression of understanding and respecting one another’s roots, and June loved that cultural exchange-it was a way of telling her future husband that she loved him, and would eventually be a way of telling her son the same when he was born.

Yes, admittedly, their family and friends circle was very small, especially these days: Her parents were gone, as were Wilhelm’s, and she couldn’t exactly say she had very many friends anymore, having lost so many of them as a result of her marriage...but that wasn’t going to stop June from continuing to be kind and welcoming, even to a siren, and so she was very, very glad that Emily had liked the dish. She hoped, as they ate, that her message came across crystal clear: “No matter where you go, you’ll always be a part of our family.”

[denydestiny-doodles]

if you followed me because of the hero partner week event, tysm, that's very sweet, and i wish you the best :-)

i tag "pocket monsters mysterious dungeons" for my pmd stuff.

i have pmd wips to share, and i will keep drawing pmd-related stuff into the foreseeable future, but this blog is mostly for non-pmd stories. also, i take requests*. more on that below all the art

long-term, i have "testing patience" which is a successful gti giftlocke (long story short, i played very carefully & no one fainted). i have a lot of drawings and short comics i want to make for this

the picture above and below that features beth the chikorita is from a wip video that's kind of the prologue to testing patience. it's set to the minecraftparody song "don't mine at night" just because.

i also have a few things relating to my rrt team. i'm not sure if i'll finish the second one, but they are both comics about gardevoir cutscenes.

and a few misc. pmd pics here and there. like these

but for the most part i share art relating to my stories. and those stories involve human characters. (ok, 1 story is about vampire people that do magic, and another's about werewolf people, but they all mostly look human, so yeah).

i draw my main characters, like lad and vertig, most of all.

sometimes i draw fanart for things i watch/play. if that's not your jam, no worries, and take it easy out there!

*no promises that i'll draw any requests, but the option is there, especially if it's a pmd team you have references for, or it's related to something i've already drawn before. said requests will likely be sketches & in a more simplified style

& if it's about pmd npcs, i'll assume you're asking about the designs i draw instead of their canon ones unless otherwise stated (like how the silly thief grovyle i draw is a turtonator/grovyle fusion, or like how i draw more complicated mons off-model. stuff like that)

[raimi]

hhhhhhhhhhh

[mollyjames]

Even in food service, there is the demand for exponential growth. Each store has a profit target you're expected to hit every quarter. Each quarter the target gets bigger and bigger. The only way to make sure you hit or exceed that target is to increase sales or cut costs. Sales can only go so far though, so at a certain point there is the understandable temptation (not justifiable, but understandable) for your manager to start cutting hours. Once they do, your location has entered a Death Spiral.

The thing about the Death Spiral is it is nearly impossible to escape. It starts innocuous enough, with a few hours getting shaved off every week. And true enough at first you probably didn't need those hours. They were the slack, the extra hands that helped distribute the work and made it easier on everyone. You might not even notice they're gone. Maybe the morning rush is a little harder to handle, maybe there isn't as much time to chat as there used to be. But on the whole nothing has changed. You're still hitting your sales quota and, hey, everyone seems to be working a little harder. That's good, right?

Then the next quarter rolls around. You exceeded your quota. Upper management is very excited. But now your new quota is even higher than it would have been if you had simply performed to expectations. You raise prices a bit, push more expensive drinks, and sure, cut a few more hours. Bit by bit the slack gets tighter. The fat gets trimmed. All because continual growth, continual improvement, is not just demanded, but expected.

The endgame of the Death Spiral is the expectation that every worker will operate at 100% efficacy 100% of of the time, and that nothing will go wrong ever. It never reaches this point, as any food service worker will tell you, shit goes wrong. Service gets worse, you lose a few customers, and you miss your quota. This is the point of no return, because the only way to solve the problem is to add more hours. But there's no way upper management will approve spending more money. On a failing store? Don't be ridiculous. Maybe get those numbers up and we'll consider adding hours back. But the only way to get those numbers up is with no hours. It's a Catch-22. You're trapped. Slowly, inevitably, the store fails, and then closes.

The Death Spiral is a doomed strategy, but it is the one corporations push in response to investor pressure. It tricks workers into more work for the promise of relief later, if they do well and succeed, not realizing they'll only be asked to do even more next time. So how do you fight it? Know your worth. Don't let anyone give you more work without some kind of kickback. Don't fool yourself into thinking that being indispensable will lead to a reward later.

But the best defense? Join a union.

[justgivemeabookplease]

Shrek 2, while a cinematic masterpiece, is also an interesting look at queerness and comp het.

Fiona is married so it's time to reunite with her parents. But instead of marrying a prince, she's married to an ogre. Not just that, but she's also an ogre. (Yes everyone knew she would sometimes be an ogre but that was when she was a child, she didn't know she would be an ogre for the rest of her life, and besides once she met the right prince she would stop being an ogre. She was supposed to stop being an ogre.)

But okay they're both ogres. We can still ask about when they'll have children because even if they're ogres they can still have kids, right? That's what married princes and princesses do so naturally that's what everyone does. Even if ogres might not be great parents (I've heard that ogres eat their young, is that something you people do?) it's still something that should be discussed.

And okay you can stay in Fiona's childhood bedroom filled with all the reminders that hey, everyone thought she was just a princess and princesses marry princes. Her toys left out from the last time she played with them. The prince slays the ogre. The princess offers a token of gratitude for slaying the ogre. Fiona wrote Mrs. Fiona Charming a million times in her diary because what else was she supposed to grow up to be?

And Harold you have to fix this, your country can't be ruled by ogres. You were unfit to rule when you were a frog but I changed you, I made you better, I made you a prince. You know how this works. Think of your daughter's safety.

Shrek goes to the Fairy Godmother and oh honey, ogres don't live happily ever after. It's just not done. It hasn't happened in all of fairy tale history. You have to change the both of you to be happy. You have to present as a prince and a princess. It will be better. You'll fit in better that way. You'll be accepted that way.

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Planning to go up to Kuwohi tomorrow in honor of the name change/minor step in decolonizing the only good thing left in TN

[lucybellwood]

Lemme tell you a gay little story about an eagle.

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Happy Pride.

[rabbithaver]

listen in the long run, i don't blame people who decide not to vote dem. i don't even know what i will do myself. there's a reason i tend to reblog from both perspectives — i earnestly do understand the fear. but i will say that as someone who is disabled and unable to hide their queerness, if trump wins this election, my situation is going to become very, very precarious. and i know i don't have a right to whine about that considering what other people are going through. i KNOW.

but the first time trump got elected, all i heard from other disabled folks is that it suddenly became borderline impossible for anyone to get access to disability benefits. i cannot work — i wasn't even able to graduate high school, for fuck's sake. if i am not able to get on disability income, i will only have a place to stay as long as i don't get on my dad's bad side. and lately... that's been getting terrifyingly easy. it's only going to get easier as my dad slides further and further right.

but also, at this point i don't even know if i can be afraid for myself and still call myself a good person. so many other people have it unimaginably worse right now explicitly because of the actions of biden

[badcountryofficial]

It was always there it was never there it all existed at the same time

[tealime9]

anxiety eating while waiting