#this is literally one of the stupidest things I wrote

[volno-pesh]

Rick: Hey, Aaron, wanna have a taste what my mom made?

Aaron: ...What–

Rick: Me

[icycoldninja]

Dating Gojo headcannons

A/N: I was watching jjk at 2 am as I tend to do and was hit with inspiration. Naturally, I wrote it down.

-------------------

-First of all, do not let your delulu nature consume you. Gojo is not going to be the perfect boyfriend.

-He's hardly ever at home thanks to those goddamn curses, and when he is, he's busy showering, taking his daily 3 hour nap, or just trying to relax. You might not even see him, since it'll be so late.

-Sometimes he'll bully you by stealing your stuff and never returning it, eating all your food, and literally kicking you out of your own bed at night.

-He'll let you come with him on missions because he knows he's the strongest and can protect you from any danger, though he does want you to have a little training first, just in case.

-Will bring you back souvenirs, but never snacks. Why? Cause he ends up eating them all while travelling home.

-Bothers you day and night over the stupidest things ever. For example, he will send you a text message at 3 AM alongside picture of two frogs just chilling together with the caption "This is us", then 15 minutes later, call you so you can hear him pee in this one public bathroom he found that has "great acoustics".

-You guys are prank buddies for sure. Megumi will have an aneurysm followed by a nervous breakdown one of these days.

-He will love you forever if you can make him mochi (or desserts in general) whenever he wants some.

-Will use Infinity against you in an argument by monopolizing cuddles. 5 minutes of shouting at him equals 5 hours without a single hug. It sounds easy to handle, but after you get used to being bombarded with his annoying attempts to get your attention and all of sudden it's ripped away, you're left in shock.

-Still, there are some upsides to dating him. Having a human Barbie doll to dress up is one of them.

-He'll wear whatever you want him to, whenever you want him to, experiencing no shame whatsoever. Want to go to a party in matching dresses? Done and done. Do you desire to see him in your lingerie? He can do that too.

-Sometimes makes you carry him around bridal style because...well...no one really knows why. He just seems to like it.

-If you listen carefully at the door while he's showering, you might hear one of two things: singing or sobbing.

-He loves to dance with you, and if you are the type who doesn't know how to dance or doesn't want to dance in front of others, good luck.

-Talks to you nonstop because he's an uncontrollable chatterbox, even worse than he is in public. He'll talk with you, at you, about you, and around you--there's no way to get him to shut up, don't even try.

-Sometimes these chats get dark, really dark, especially if he's been rambling for a while.

-All in all, Gojo can be a lot of fun at times, and at others, a huge pain in the ass, whereas on rare occasions he will be a sad little marshmallow that you need to pamper and cuddle. Just make sure you take good care of him, and he will repay the favor tenfold.

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Please let Astarion meet Tav's family and have a younger sibling like 6 be like im gonna marry the prince points at Astarion.

Tav : Sorry, im married to the prince

NO IM GONNA MARRY THE PRINCE

That's so fucking cute kill me. But I just realized AFTER I finished it I read this wrong 😭😭 I read it as "marry" instead of "married" so whoops now it's an asking for your hand in marriage fic.

Also, I'm going to make this a weird little, unofficial, alternate reality, off shoot of this fic to explain away why Astarion can be in the sun without ascending because I am ~lazy~

Quick summary if you didn't read it, Tav serves Selune, gets a blessing for all the good work, and uses it to cure the anti-light issue of the vampirism (but not all of it). It's not a literal extension of that fic but I'm stealing my own plot explanations. That's it! Now here we go:

~

Astarion wasn't nervous per se. He was just... on edge. And the two-week journey it took to get here wasn't helping things, not when it gave him so much time to ruminate in his thoughts. He never expected to be in the position of "meeting the family," let alone in anticipation for asking for someone's hand in marriage.

Astarion wasn't even quite sure how his life got here. He had always fantasized that a life without Cazador would be one of selfish hedonism, not one where he would be legitimately concerned about a damn six year old sibling's first impression of him.

But then you came along, effortlessly shattering all of his grandiose plans with a batt of your eyelashes. Perhaps the entire journey of falling in love was more complicated, but it felt like it was that simple. In hindsight, he never stood a chance against you, but it was hilarious that there was a time he ever thought he did.

All of his prior dreams and fantasies felt like nothing in comparison to just being with you. It had been a year since you both saved the Sword Coast, a beautiful, fantastic year. That had ended with him somehow more in love with you now than when he first confessed. Selune's blessing had certainly helped with that he was sure. He still couldn't quite believe that you would use a god's blessing on him of all people, but gods, was he appreciative. Because being able to walk in the sun again meant that he could live the life he wanted, with no restrictions. He could be the partner you deserved, the kind that a father would happily say yes to when asking for your hand.

Which brought him back to his current dilemma. Perhaps he hadn't seen any of your family members in the time you'd been together, but he had heard plenty. You loved them all to death, especially your little sister. You wrote to them constantly, the mere sight of a letter from your parents enough to put you in a great mood for the rest of the day. He was aware that your mother was supposedly a saint, a fact that your own father had instilled in you often. He knew that they had a wonderful, loving marriage and were both higher ups in the Church of Selune. A fact that Astarion didn't particularly enjoy.

As grateful to the moon goddess as he was, he was aware that you were an expectation to the very normal belief that vampires were bad. And that marrying one was one of the stupidest things you could ever do from an average person's perspective, let alone a Selunite.

Why you hadn't done the smart thing and lied about what he was, Astarion would never know. But he did know that the thought of their rejection over his admittedly sordid history was putting him in a tailspin.

"They're going to love you," You said for the hundredth time, giving his hand a squeeze as you led him up the steps to your childhood home, "You have nothing to worry about sweetheart. I promise."

Astarion highly doubted that, but you were already knocking on the front door before he had a chance to argue. The door instantly slammed open, a beaming child already launching themselves at you before Astarion could process what was happening.

But you were more prepared them he was. You effortlessly caught them in your arms, laughing at their excited shouting, "Titi! You're late!"

So this was the famous Arabeth.

"No, I'm not!" You laughed as you settled her on your hip, "And what happened to my little girl's manners huh? You haven't even introduced yourself yet."

The child glanced over at him, like she was just realizing for the first time that someone else was standing over there. She looked a little shocked at the sight of him, staring at him with wide eyes. Wide enough for Astarion to start to wonder if something was on his face.

He gave her a little wave only for her to bury her face into your shoulder, peeking out at him with her lips pursed. Which was not the best start to the whole making his darling's family actually like him plan.

"Well, as you've probably guessed this is Arabeth. She's just a little shy," You reassured as you stepped inside, muttering a quick invitation inside under your breath. He appreciated that, he didn't need the whole house to be reminded of his... limitations.

"But she'll get over it soon enough," You continued as you called into the house, "Mom? Dad? We're here!"

And just like that they were rushing into the room, acting just as excited as your sister had been. Your mother wasted no time in smothering your face with kisses while your father swept you up into a hug. It was a rather impressive display of coordination, considering how they hadn't managed to knock you and your sister to the floor in the process. Astarion was pretty sure they were both saying something along the lines of We missed you! But it was hard to tell with all of you so tangled up in each other.

It was heartwarming to see, in all honestly. Of course such a loving person would come from an equally loving family, what else would he expect?

Though he certainly hadn't been expecting for your mother to throw her arms around him next. She brought him into a tight hug before looking him up and down, "So you're Astarion huh?"

She turned back to you, grinning ear to ear with her hands set on Astarion's shoulders, "He's so handsome! Selune help us, do you remember the last boy you brought home? He had a nose the length of my arm-"

"And that's enough of that," You said with a strained laugh, pulling your eccentric mother back a few inches, "And we've talked about the impromptu hugs. What happened to asking for permission?"

"Sorry, sorry!" She said with a wave of her hand, "Let me try again. I'm Seliras, and this is my husband-"

"Marcoul," Your father interrupted, putting his hand out for Astarion to shake, "It's been awhile since we've met a boyfriend."

"He's a little more than that," You said with a sigh as everyone exchanged pleasantries.

"We'll be the judge of that," Marcoul said with a sharp but friendly grin, the grip he had on Astarion's hand briefly tightening before he let go, "From what we've heard, you're quite the character aren't you?"

Ah, so the interrogating was starting early then. It was nothing that Astarion hadn't expected. Besides, turning up the charm was his strong suit, even when he was uncharacteristically nervous.

Astarion smiled back at him, "You've heard right. And I'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have."

"Oh gods please don't say that," You groaned, but it was too late. Your parents were already leading him to sit, rapid-fire questions coming out of their mouth.

Where are you from? How did you meet? Are you serious about our Tav? What's your religion? Where's your family? What are your plans?

But Astarion answered them all, with only mild censorship for the child's sake. The child who suddenly couldn't stop staring at him. It wasn't exactly easy to sell himself as a future husband when he was a vampiric ex-slave, but he made do.

It was an overwhelming experience to say the least, but not necessarily an unpleasant one. That was one good thing about trying to marry into a family of zealots, it was a lot easier to convince them of your virtue when you received a personal blessing from their goddess.

By the end of the night, they were all throughly appeased, enough so to get off the topic of him for a moment.

"You look a little young to have a thirty-year old child," Astarion said to your mother. He was actively trying to compliment her for obvious reasons, but he was also genuinely curious. She barely looked a day over 40.

"Oh we breed young," She said with a laugh, "We had Tav in our teenage years. Arabeth came much, much later. Our favorite little surprise. Gods, I can't think of a single person in our family who didn't have kids young. Our little Tav is the only exception to the rule."

"But maybe not for much longer, huh?" Marcoul added with a grin, yelping when you lightly smacked him over the head for the comment.

"Do not start the kid talk again!" You hissed out, cheeks red, "We've talked about this!"

Astarion couldn't help but grin at your reaction, charmed by your embarrassment. Though... the idea of the two of you having children together sure was an interesting thought.

Astarion felt a tug on his sleeve while you were distracted arguing with your parents. He turned, smiling when he saw your little sister standing there, still staring at him with wide-eyes.

She took a deep breath before blurting out, "You look like a prince. Are you?"

"Not exactly," Astarion said with a small laugh. That couldn't be further from the truth, "There's no blue blood in my veins."

She frowned, cocking her head at him like he wasn't making any sense. But then an idea obviously struck her as she excitedly asked, "But if you married a princess, then you'd become a prince too. Right?"

"I suppose?" Astarion answered with a shrug.

"So if I become a princess, and I marry you, then you'll be a prince?"

This conversation was quickly becoming out of his depth. But luckily enough for him you were swooping in to save him.

You laughed at her question, turning your attention back to the two of them, "No offense Bethy, but I'm going to be the one marrying this particular prince."

But Arabeth wasn't having it. She crossed her arms, looking at you like she was the one talking to a child, "You can't. Because if I don't marry him, he won't be a prince. So there. I have to do it."

She looked so serious, her facial expressions incredibly similar to your own. Astarion was holding back a loud laugh as you tried and failed to reason with her, "I can marry him without the royal status-"

"No! I'm marrying the prince!"

Your parents were doing a much worse job at hiding their reactions, both of them opening giggling behind their hands as you came up with a compromise.

"Okay, okay," You said with a sigh, kneeling down to look the small girl in the eye, "How about this? I marry him first. But only until you become a princess. Then he's all yours. Sound fair?"

She thought about it for a moment before nodding to herself, "Sounds fair."

Well Astarion wasn't going to get a better set-up then that. He turned to your father, his nerves coming back for a brief appearance, "I'm assuming now might be a good time to ask what I came here to ask. Though I do promise I only intending on asking for one of your children's hand in marriage."

Marcoul nodded slowly, his face unreadable as he spoke, "I mean no offense when I say this Astarion, but you aren't exactly who I imagined for my daughter."

"Dad don't-"

"Darling, let him finish," Astarion gently interrupted, his eyes still locked with your father's.

He took a deep breathe before continuing, "That said, I've never seen her so... herself with someone else before. So yes. The two of you can marry. On one condition."

"Anything," Astarion said instantly, nearly giddy at the fact that he was so close to the official yes, "Just name it."

"You have to have the wedding here," Seliras answered for him, a massive smile on her face, "No ifs, ands, or buts."

"And I get to be flower girl!" Arabeth chimed in, her past indignation completely forgotten as she climbed all over you, "And there has to be chocolate cake!"

"Oh gods, help us," You groaned, but Astarion was already nodding along. He couldn't give less than two shits where it happened or who was involved. He could scarcely believe that it was happening at all. But that was the last thing he had needed.

He already had the ring, the most amazing person he could ever fathom being with. Who actually wanted him back.

Now all he had to do was ask.

[coffins-and-marbles]

Hey OP what are your trans Wilson headcanons? I want them from everyone ever

i love trans wilson forever so this might be a bit long!

wilson hates that he is trans, hates mentioning it or thinking about it and never brings it up if there's literally any other option

he realised he was trans super young (like 12?) but didn't know the terminology and was too scared of being further ostracized (autistic wilson, my no1 headcanon) so he just kept to himself and thought of himself as a butch lesbian in order to feel less guilty (this was a secret too, but he felt like being attracted to girls since he knew he was a guy deep down was better and more Straight...)

coming out to his parents was an absolute mess, we never see them in the show so i make them terrible in my mind for angst opportunities! and i agree that only Danny understood immediately -he already knows what it's like not to fit in. it's a big part of why he never sees his family (they tried some conversion stuff, he feels too guilty to be angry) it all plays into his constant attempts to be this Perfect Guy

as a child he always wanted to wear a suit and work a 9-5 (it was his heavily gender stereotyped idea of masculinity)

i personally think he's he/him exclusively because it makes him feel more Normal

he got top surgery and phallo ASAP because his dysphoria was terrible, he cried and had panic attacks whenever he had to shower etc (he also abused his binder to hell and back as well as trying to diy it as a kid by layering sports bras and guys DONT DO THAT)

there was a small complication with the phallo and although it was fixable it set him back like three months and he hardly left the house and cried just all day

he just literally makes every effort to appear like he was born AMAB and genuinely felt too ashamed to like blow dry his hair for years in case he was seen as feminine

house immediately clocks it because of some stupidly obscure house reason but it's not interesting enough for him to care.

house is the only one at PTTH who knows

when hilson happens house watches wilson do his t shots a couple times and just is unreasonably horny about the whole thing then they both discover forcemasc and...lets just say they have fun with it...

wilson and house feel more confident to undress at the beach with eachother because hey they both have scars

wilson still gets randomly dysphoric about the stupidest things ("house do you think my left eyebrow looks too feminine") and house uses the power of his usual sarcasm to dispel any doubts ("wilson that is the stupidest thing anybody's said ever")

okay ill stop now but when i say i could go on for pages i mean it!!!! i wrote this quickly in the morning because i dont have set headcanons usually i just go with the vibes but uhm...enjoy!!

[thatonefanficwriternooneknows]

Corrie Week Day 4: Accidental Child Acquisition

Wrote this in the last hour of work because I am a horrible horrible procrastinator :D

Please enjoy!

Group Chat: “Shebs Squad Lives (despite trying hard not to)”: Woof, Coat, Fly, Socks, Bonds, and Wrecks are active.

Socks: @Coat help me

Bonds: first time we’ve heard from Fox since deployment and it’s a cry for help

                This is normal

Wrecks: are you sure about that?

Bonds: that Fox needs help? Or that that’s the only way he’d voluntarily comm us after refusing to respond for months?

Woof: someone is bitter

Socks: @Coat! It’s Important!

                and urgent!

Fly: wow

                Exclamation marks

                That’s serious business

Coat: I’m kriffing BUSY @Socks!

Socks: trying to get in your Jedi’s Obi in not busy

                now how the kriff did you handle Rex as a cadet?

Wrecks: why are we talking about me?

Socks: it’s not ABOUT YOU!

                It’s about how KOTE HANDLED YOU

Bonds: oh

                my

                Force

                @Socks

                Did you obtain a CHILD??

Socks: kriff off Ponds

Woof: omf he totally did

                kriff

                how did Fox become a buir first?

                I had money on it being Ponds :/

Fly: you owe me so many drinks, vod

Woof: hate that for me

Coat: First of all

                I AM NOT

                Second of all

                I just winged it

                he turned out fine

Wrecks: to this day I am traumatized

Coat: you are the only Captain in the GAR with Commander responsibilities

                you turned out fine

                now

                I AM BUSY!

*Coat is now marked as AWAY.*

Socks: that did not help me

Bonds: I practically raised you lot

                I have some good advice

Woof: don’t lie to yourself, vod

                17 raised us

Bonds: lies and slander

Fly: no Wolffe is right

                17 raised us

                you just gave him the least amount of gray hair

Socks: whatever

                what do I do with this tiny fragile child?

Bonds: how tiny is tiny?

Socks: *has sent 3 holopics*

Fly: Fox

                vod

                why the kriff do you have a natborn tubie?

Socks: I DON’T KNOW!

                Someone left them at the front door to Corrie command!

Woof: seems like theyre better off with you than with someone who would leve them outside on CORUSCANT

Socks: I have never in my life wanted to be a buir

                this could have happened to literally ANY OTHER vod and they’d be ecstatic

                instead it goes to the one who ABSOLUTELY DIDN’T WANT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ANOTHER LIFE

Wrecks: you are literally responsible for every Guard there is

Socks: those are fully grown soldiers who can take care of their damn selves

                this is a being that can literally do NOTHING on their own

                I don’t have time for this osik

                I’m busy doing actually important things and not trying to get into my Jedi’s pants

                *cough* @Coat

Bonds: the shade is real

                also

                I have no clue what to do with a tubie outside of their growth vat

                sorry vod

Fly: doesn’t Coruscant have foster? Adoption agencies? Something like that?

                you could literally just go hand them over

Socks: …

                you want me to leave my tubie WHERE?

Wrecks: ah

                there’s the shebs squad’s attachment problem

                genuinely thought that skipped Fox

Socks: I can’t just leave my tubie any which where BLY

                those services are dangerous and very corrupt

                what if they ended up in a worse place?!

Bonds: worse than the stoop of Corrie Guard Barracks?

                didn’t think that existed tbh

Socks: stku Ponds

                you don’t get to kark over my troopers just because yours can’t kriffing behave on leave

Bonds: BEHAVE???

                YOUR CORRIES ARREST THE GAR FOR THE STUPIDEST REASONS!

Woof: oop

                got Ponds big mad

Wrecks: been a while since that happened

Socks: the reasons are in the Welcome to Shore Leave datapad EVERY TROOPER HAS ACCESS TO

                not my Guards’ fault you GAR type can’t kriffing read

Bonds: GAR TYPE???

                VODE KRIFFING AN YOU SHEBS’PALON!

Socks: since kriffing when???

                as far as GAR troops are concerned, the Guard stopped being Vode as soon as they were deployed to Coruscant

                you can take your sanctimonious kark and shove it in your shebs

                I’ll get someone who actually kriffing likes me to help

*Socks has left Group Chat: “Shebs Squad Lives (despite trying hard not to)”*

Woof: well kriff

                that didn’t go well

Fly: good job Pondsie

                he finally got on and you made him leave

Wrecks: truly one for the books

Bonds: kriff you guys

                like you wouldn’t have done the same

Woof: actually I was more excited to see Fox reaching out that being big mad about my troops ending up in the slammer

                they know exactly what they did to get arrested

                I made them all read the Shore Leave datapad

                they just do it anyway

Wrecks: my trouble makers would make it a to do list so I confiscated all the copies

                but I did read it

                it’s very thorough

Fly: Aayla read it then gave me a tl;dr

Bonds: kriff

--

Fox holed himself up in his office as soon as he found the tubie. Away from the noise and nosiness of the rest of the Guard. (They can’t help it, they all live on top of each other, you can’t hide osik from anyone in Corrie HQ. Not that Fox was hiding the tubie.)

“Should we give them a name?” Thorn was kneeling on the floor and looking at the tubie in Fox’s laps with eyes bright enough to put a sun to shame. It’s been awhile since Fox has seen that look.

“I think we should just call them tubie until they can pick their own. That’s what all vode do. They shouldn’t be any different.” Thire added his two credits, smiling as the tubie gargled in his direction, a bubble of snot popping from their nose.

Adorable.

“Yeah, but they don’t have a number to call them by in the meantime. We can’t just call them tubie, that’s a general word.” Stone murmured, carefully leaning over Fox’s shoulder to get a closer look at the so very small tubie.

“Maybe we should give them a Use Name? There’s a lot of cultures that have them and then pick their own when they reach majority age, so thirteen in natborn years probably.” Hound kept Grizzer close by even as the massiff wagged their entire body in excitement.

“What could be use as a Use Name though? That feels a little too like Naming them and I don’t like that.” Thorn frowned, lightly trailing his fingers down the tubies little pudgy arm, smiling helplessly when they grabbed his hand and giggled.

“Obviously it should be a variation of Fox, he did find them.” Thire looked up to Fox with a smirk and if he wasn’t holding a tubie Fox would have actually punched them.

“There are no variations of Fox, unless you want to call them Faux with the properly pronunciation, but I don’t like that.”

“What about Sox? Senth, osk, xesh? That’s a spelling play on socks. I think it fits.” Stone carefully avoided Fox’s eyes, being the only one in the room that knew his batch chat user name. Not that it mattered anymore.

“Did Cody have any advice?”

“No. He was busy.”

“Oh…well you were typing a while…were the others helpful?” Oh Thire. Ever the optimist.

“No. They were mostly concerned that I ended up a buir first, or blaming me for their troopers getting arrested for breaking the rules on Coruscant.”

The entire room echoed the patented Corrie Stank Face™ because Fox had his entire command staff whipped into the proper shape of vod that he got along with.

Competent shebs’palon’e that they are.

“Well, at least we still have Vos.” Thorn sighed, still held captive by the little tubie.

“I don’t know if Vos should count as reliable information about the care of a natborn tubie, but he’s all we have at this point.” Fox looked down into warm brown eyes and smiled helplessly at how adorable his tubie was.

“Ooooh! His Use Name should be Plots! Because that’s what Fox is the best at!”

The room filled with laughter for the first time since Fox arrived to this horrid posting, he almost forgot what it sounded like. All thanks to his little Plots.

“Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad, Plots.”

[falconfate]

Hello ranger’s apprentice fandom can we talk real quick about the stupidest thing Flanagan ever wrote

It’s about the bows. Yanno, the rangers’ Iconique™️ main weapon. That one. You know the one.

Flanagan. Flanagan why are your rangers using longbows.

“uh well recurve arrows drop faster” BUT DO THEY. FLANAGAN. DO THEY.

the answer is no they don’t. Compared to a MODERN, COMPOUND (aka cheating) bow, yes, but compared to a longbow? Y’know, what the rangers use in canon? Yeah no a recurve actually has a FLATTER trajectory. It drops LATER.

This from an article comparing the two:

“Both a longbow and a recurve bow, when equipped with the right arrow and broadhead combination, are capable of taking down big game animals. Afterall, hunters have been doing it for centuries with both types of bows.

However, generally speaking and all things equal, a recurve bow will offer more arrow speed, creating a flatter flight trajectory and retain more kinetic energy at impact.

The archers draw length, along with the weight of the arrow also affect speed and kinetic energy. However, the curved design of the limbs on a recurve adds to its output of force.”

It doesn’t actually mention ANY distance in range! And this is from a resource for bow hunting, which, presumably, WOULD CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING!

Okay so that’s just. That’s just the first thing.

The MAIN thing is that even accounting for “hur dur recurves drop faster” LONGBOWS ARE STILL THE STUPID OPTION.

Longbows, particularly and especially ENGLISH longbows, are—as their name suggests—very long. English longbows in particular are often as tall or taller than their wielder even while strung, but especially when unstrung. An unstrung longbow is a very long and expensive stick, one that will GLADLY entangle itself in nearby trees, other people’s clothes, and any doorway you’re passing through.

And yes, there are shorter longbows, but at that point if you’re shortening your longbow, just get a goddamn recurve. And Flanagan makes a point to compare his rangers’ bows to the Very Long English Longbow.

Oh, do you know how the Very Long English Longbow was mostly historically militarily used? BY ON-FOOT ARCHER UNITS. Do you know what they’re TERRIBLE for? MOUNTED ARCHERY.

Trust me. Go look up right now “mounted archery longbow.” You’ll find MAYBE one or two pictures of some guy on a horse struggling with a big stick; mostly you will actually see either mounted archers with RECURVES, or comparisons of Roman longbow archers to Mongolian horse archers (which are neat, can’t lie, I love comparing archery styles like that).

Anyway. Why are longbows terrible for mounted archery? Because they’re so damn long. Think about it: imagine you’re on a horse. You’re straddling a beast that can think for itself and moves at your command, but ultimately independently of you; if you’re both well-trained enough, you’re barely paying attention to your horse except to give it commands. And you have a bow in your hands. If your target is close enough to you that you know, from years of shooting experience, you will need to actually angle your bow down to hit it because of your equine height advantage, guess what? If you have a longbow, YOU CAN’T! YOUR HORSE IS IN THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOW IS TOO LONG! Worse, it’s probably going to get in the general area of your horse’s shoulder or legs, aka moving parts, which WILL injure your horse AND your bow and leave you fresh out of both a getaway vehicle and a ranged weapon. It’s stupid. Don’t do it.

A recurve, on the other hand, is short. It was literally made for horse archers. You have SO much range of motion with a recurve on horseback; and if you’re REALLY good, you know how to give yourself even more, with techniques like Jamarkee, a Turkish technique where you LITERALLY CAN AIM BACKWARDS.

For your viewing enjoyment, Serena Lynn of Texas demonstrating Jamarkee:

Yes, that’s real! This type of draw style is INCREDIBLY versatile: you can shoot backwards on horseback, straight down from a parapet or sally port without exposing yourself as a target, or from low to the ground to keep stealthy without banging your bow against the ground. And, while I’m sure you could attempt it with a longbow, I wouldn’t recommend it: a recurve’s smaller size makes it far more maneuverable up and over your head to actually get it into position for a Jamarkee shot.

A recurve just makes so much more SENSE. It’s not a baby bow! It’s not the longbow’s lesser cousin! It’s a COMPLETELY different instrument made to be used in a completely different context! For the rangers of Araluen, who put soooo much stock in being stealthy and their strong bonds with their horses, a recurve is the perfect fit! It’s small and easily transportable, it’s more maneuverable in combat and especially on horseback, it offers more power than a longbow of the same draw weight—really, truly, the only advantage in this case that a longbow has over the recurve is that longbows are quicker and easier to make. But we KNOW the rangers don’t care about that, their KNIVES use a forging technique (folding) that takes several times as long as standard Araluen forging practices at the time!

Okay.

Okay I think I’m done. For now.

[felicjana050896]

Hell's Great Dad Song: Charlastor's Analysis (Part 1)

Let's analyze Alastor's truth and lies. In the song Hell's Great Dad we can see when Alastor is honest and when he is lying, just by looking at whether he is "himself" or a "chameleon".

Here Alastor is telling the truth, he was there from the very beginning, just like Angel, Husker and Niffty, they were the first people in the hotel (not counting Vaggie of course).

Here, too, Alastor tells the truth, he may not believe in the idea of ​​redemption itself, but he believes in Charlie because he is aware of her power, her potential, which he himself mentions in a conversation with Rosie in episode 7, Alastor is the one who truly believes in her.

Here we have a moment of lie, but I honestly don't know whether to interpret it literally, because as we know from Viv, Charlie and Alastor have the same sense of humor (her post on Twitter), so if Alastor told her this type of joke, she would definitely laugh, it means so either they are not joking with each other (at least for now), or it has some metaphorical meaning that I have no idea about, unfortunately I am not a native English speaker, so I may simply not know something, in which case I would be grateful for additional knowledge :)

Here he tells the truth again, which Charlie herself confirms, whether we see it or not, Alastor probably manages the hotel in some way, considering that he "hired" Husker and Niffty there and helped with advertising and changed the name of the hotel, he is from management side.

Here it is still true, Alastor says that he is her guy, "your day to day" again a confirmation that he is faithful to her and will be by her side.

Here in this sentence we have a mixture, first Alastor tells the truth, then the lie.

"Your chum"- this is true, Alastor really considers himself her guy, her friend, regardless of his intentions in using her power, he doesn't want to destroy or hurt her (I've seen posts suggesting this), yes, he does take advantage of her, but he also wants to do it by manipulating her, gaining her trust, getting closer to her and becoming her close person, he wants to be someone who will be with her day after day, will be her confidant and closest person, so that he can use from her power, her potential, which she herself will give him, of her own will. Alastor is not stupid, he is aware that Charlie is much more powerful than him, not to mention Lucifer, and if he did something bad to her, Lucifer would not have no mercy for him, he knows it, so he doesn't and never will have the intention to hurt Charlie, because that would be the stupidest thing he would do (and probably the last thing too before Lucifer would crush him), he aims to become her closest person , so that she, of her own free will, will listen to him and rely on him, and he will then become the most important demon in hell (adding, of course, his release from the pact he made).

Then we have a lie: "your steadfast hotelier", why is it a lie...(?), because, as I wrote above, Alastor believes in Charlie, in her power, but he does not believe in the form of redemption and in the idea of ​​​​a hotel (btw I cannot I can't wait until he finds out about Sir Pent's redemption, I bet that this could be my favorite Alastor's face in s2 when he finds out :D ), so even though he is her manager, her producer, ATTENTION... even though that I wrote above referring to the hotel and his role in it, then... it doesn't have to be about the hotel and it's probably not about it at all... ,,Your executive producer", "Your", not ,,hotel executive producer", but ,,Your"..., Your power, Your potential, Alastor is still about Charlie in this song, not about the hotel, he is not a hotelier and does not want to be one, that's why: ,,your steadfast hotelier" is a lie because it refers to the hotel, while ,,your executive producer" is not because it actually refers to Charlie, not the hotel.

Let's face it... he didn't fix any clog :D , and in fact, this again refers to the fact that it's not about the hotel, he doesn't repair any clog, because he doesn't take the hotel seriously and doesn't care about it, he only cares about Charlie.

You can also see the change in Niffty, in the first two pictures Niffty has normal colors (apart from the lighting which also shines on Charlie, but it's just the lighting), while in 3 and 4 her hair turns pinkish and you can say "but it's water flows down her", except that we see that the stripes that form on her hair are in the 3rd and 4th picture, while they are not in the 1st and 2nd, plus they do not change their position, they do not drip, they are constant, which shows that Niffty is on Alastor's side, is loyal to him and will help him, also when it comes to winning Charlie.

And there are huge lies here... Alastor and Charlie have no bond (at least for now)...

...and certainly not a father-daughter bond, that's one big lie.

By the way, we can see how Charlie's facial expressions change. Earlier (while singing about bonding) Charlie was smiling, happy, her eyes were fully open, her eyebrows were raised. However, when the above line about his daughter comes, Charlie, although still smiling, slowly begins to frown, and at the final words, when Alastor says "I had", Charlie frowns completely, it doesn't look like he has a happy expression on his face or the one who says "how sweet", that is, the facial expression expressing consternation, as if Charlie was internally saying "What the hell are you talking about?", sorry, but again I will mention that I have seen a lot of people who, even when pointed out to them that Viv herself said that Alastor doesn't see Charlie as a daughter, they changed the argument to "but Charlie sees him as a father", NO(!), Charlie doesn't see him that way at all, which we see in this scene, she already has one father , who, even though he was absent, still loves her incredibly, Charlie doesn't need any second father and, as you can see, she is completely disgusted with this idea.

Here is the moment when after these words Alastor looks at Lucifer and makes sure that he was pissed off :D

There are still lies here, although we still see Charlie's furrowed eyebrows in first picture, but when Alastor strokes her, despite the text, we no longer see disgust, but more satisfaction.

Here's part 2:

[tomorrowusa]

MAGA is really just a variant of fascism. The racist anti-Latino orgy of ethno-nationalism at MSG on Sunday has removed all doubt.

Dean Obeidallah at SubStack walks us through it.

Here is a sample of the hate buffet served up to the cheering MAGA crowd. 1.        Anti-women: Donald Trump again called VP Harris a "very low IQ individual." Tucker Carlson said to cheers if Harris wins she will be “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”  Grant Cardone, a businessman said VP Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country,” obviously suggesting Harris is a  prostitute. -David Rem a person the campaign identified as a childhood friend of Trump, brandished a crucifix and called Vice President Kamala Harris “the antichrist” and “the devil” to huge applause. 2.        Anti-Black: -The rally played Confederate favorite “Dixie” before Black GOP Rep. Byron Donalds came out at Madison Square Garden. -“This cool Black guy with the thing on his head, what is that a lampshade? Believe this guy? Just kidding, that’s one of my buddies. He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun, we carved watermelons together,” said podcaster and alleged comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. 3.   ��    Anti-Latino and anti-Migrant hate: -Referring to Latino migrants, radio host Sid Rosenberg declared to cheers that they are causing crime and that: “The fucking illegals, they get whatever they want, don’t they?!” -“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe. -“These Latinos, they love making babies. Let’s know that they do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They cum inside. Just like they did to our country!’ again Hinchcliffe. 4.        Anti-Arab/Palestinian hate: -Rudy Giuliani declared: "The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two-years old. There may have good people. I'm sorry I don't take a risk with people who are taught to kill Americans at two." He then declared to big cheers, “I’m on the side of Israel…Donald Trump is on the side of Israel.” 5. Anti-Semitism: -“You also know the Jews having a hard time throwing out that paper, you know what I’m saying?’ Hinchcliffe stated while mimicking holding money, playing on anti-Semitic trope that Jews are cheap. Before this MAGA event, some invoked the hate-filled February 20, 1939 Nazi rally at MSG billed as a "Pro American Rally" which featured a huge image of George Washington in between swastikas. After Sunday’s Trump rally, that comparison was no longer speculative, it was 100% accurate.

Yes, they even played "Dixie" – the Confederate anthem.

This event was held at a large venue in America's media capital with the intent of exposing as many Americans as possible to their message. They are not trying to hide anything. They want to make sure every last nutcake hears their words.

As David Frum via Charlie Sykes on SubStack observed:

This rally seems aimed at the crucial bloc of swing voters who like Donald Trump but worry that maybe he's not quite stupid and obnoxious enough. They need him and his team to squeeze out of the tube that one last plop of stupidity and obnoxiousness.

The stupidest thing for us to do is to freak out. Michael Tomasky wrote an excellent piece in The New Republic.

If You’re Being Fatalistic or Panicking, You Are Helping Donald Trump

It's way easier to prevent dictators than it is to get rid of them once they're here. So quit doomscrolling and do stuff in real life to save a whole lot of work in the future.

Volunteer | Kamala Harris for President

[daenysthedreamer101]

TVD - Season 4 Ep 12

"A View to a Kill"

Do I even have to say it? Elena and Jeremy killing Kol was the stupidest, most nonsensical thing I've seen on this show so far and that's saying a lot. There is no way in hell that Kol, an Original, was killed by Jeremy, a 16-year-old human (I know he's a hunter but still), and Elena, a baby vampire who's been a vampire for a couple of months at most. Kol is over a 1000 years old!

How? Like....Ughhhh! He didn't even want to kill Jeremy, just cut his arms off (ok not saying that's good but he said "I'll heal you with my blood" so...). He easily could've killed Elena, but he didn't. When he stabbed her, he stabbed her in the stomach, not the heart.

Also, it just felt OOC for Elena to be so willing to kill someone. Like "Oh yeah let's just kill him and by killing Kol we'll kill thousands of other vampires" ...Wasn't Elena supposed to be this really compassionate person because I don't see her anywhere. 😒😒😒

.....NO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE! There's no way Elena was able to hold Kol for that long. Also, very convenient for her that she saw that Kol had the white oak stake with him cause his jacket was open (smells like plot convenience to me hmm...). And ofc they put vervain in the water system the day Elena decided to kill Kol...🙄🙄🙄

DAMN IT, I LIKED HIM! I know they bring him and Finn back for TO but that's irrelevant rn. Ever since they introduced him back in s3 they just kept on nerfing tf out of him. He's an Original damn it, he is more powerful than all of them. It shouldn't be possible for Damon to snap his neck and it should definitely not be possible for a human teenager and a baby vampire to kill him!

What tf was the point of making the Originals so powerful when a baby vampire and a human were able to kill one? Like who wrote this nonsense? 💀💀💀

Klaus and the others better take some revenge! Like, there need to be some repercussions for this!!! We saw Bekah cry when Stefan told her but like, that's not enough? I need revenge!

Also, Bonnie is kind of annoying me? Ever since that stupid professor showed her expression or whatever it's called she's been on my nerves idk. Literally, everyone rn on this show is annoying me lol 😭

Why didn't Kol compel Elena to stay put when he stabbed her? Like, don't tell me she was on vervain? There's no way she drank the water or did she? Or he ofc just didn't think of it.

Klaus's reaction to seeing Kol's body on fire and the way Elena flinched when he yelled "He was supposed to suffer on MY TERMS! "...yeah someone pls give my man Joseph an Oscar cause that was acting! Klaus better keep his promise and burn their stupid house down!

Where is Elijah? PLS COME BACK WE NEED YOU SO BAD! 😭😭

RIP MY BABY I'LL MISS YOU! YOU WERE SO CUTE AND SASSY AND CHAOTIC I LOVED YOU! 😟😟💔 (also how do we feel about the bangs lol)

[moonlitlex]

i have so much to say abt chalice of the gods so im just gonna copy paste my review from goodreads here. you can also read it on goodreads

ok. i promised i would hate this book. and i do. i hate this book. i also hate rick riordan. in addition, i hate capitalism. i promise that’s relevant.

let’s talk about the book now. i’ll cover the things i love first. i love percy jackson. i love grover. i love annabeth. i love sally. i love paul. i love percy annabeth and grover together. all of these things are very obvious and self-explanatory. percy is hands down THE main character of all time. i have nothing bad to say about him. his literal fatal flaw is loyalty. he’s actually perfect and has no flaws. this is expected from the son of sally jackson, the perfect person. paul is sweet and kind to sally and that’s really all that matters. annabeth is awesome and supportive and so is grover and they’re all besties forever. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.

the jokes are better than before. there are definitely some legitimately funny jokes in this book, which i was really missing from the last few rick riordan installments. and i don’t think this is because rick suddenly got funnier. i think it’s because this style of joke works for percy. of all of rick’s protagonists, percy seems the most natural fit for these jokes.

sally is great. grover and annabeth are generally on form. so is percy, as much as can be expected from rick riordan at this point. i will elaborate on this later.

now to complain. this is the stupidest premise i’ve ever heard of. percy is a high school senior. he is going to go to new rome university. he needs 3 divine recommendations. this is already a stupid premise but don’t worry, it gets worse. poseidon reveals that the reason percy needs these recommendations is that it’s a special requirement for him specifically made by zeus. and the reason he gets to have this stupid requirement is that he’s a child of the big three and shouldn’t exist.

hello. zeus. yes, lord zeus, it’s me. alexis.

what the absolute FUCK are you saying.

this doesn’t MAKE SENSE. the only reason percy shouldn’t have existed was that the gods had a stupid pact to not have any kids because of a stupid prophecy. two things here. one - that prophecy is OVER. everything turned out fine. thanks to percy jackson. you’re welcome, gods of olympus. two - percy has literally saved olympus TWICE now. two times. this is genuinely such a dumb and made up reason to send percy on a quest that i can’t even turn my brain off and enjoy it. it’s not fun. leave percy alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE.

it’s literally insane how stupid this setup is. rick keeps writing books about how the gods are horrible and take advantage of the demigods and the demigods live terrible lives. in this book, percy has LITERALLY saved olympus TWICE and motherfucking zeus (literally) had to be talked down from making him get 25 letters of recommendation to 3. this is AFTER percy spent 3 years in pjo almost being killed and got his memory wiped for 6-8 months depending on which book you read in hoo and then got sent on a quest to save the entire world AGAIN. this CHILD got like a 2-4 month break (depending on which book you’re reading) and he woke up with no fucking memory and had to spend like 2 more months fighting monsters and the literal primordial earth goddess. and now he has to go on literally pointless quests that someone who didn’t just get back home from saving the actual world could ALSO just do. because he needs to get some fucking letters of recommendation.

look. genuinely. percy jackson should snap at this point in the story. this boy should’ve snapped like at least 5 books ago. at minimum. rick wrote the perfect setup to show us percy’s instant descent into madness. he should LOSE it. all the gods have done for the ENTIRE time he’s known he’s a demigod is treat demigods like disposable tools. this is the point in the story where percy goes. wow. luke was right. you guys are all assholes who don’t care about us even a little bit. i am NOT saying what needs to follow is a fanfic-esque dark!percy story where he successfully destroys olympus or something. what i AM saying. is at bare minimum this is where percy goes you know what fuck you i hate you guys and washes his hands of being a demigod at least temporarily. at the very least he should sit back and think yeah, i don’t really want to go to new rome university. it’s not worth it. i will just go to a different university. look. it’s percy jackson. he can literally one shot all but the most fearsome monsters (typhon, the giants, a drakon, etc). he is literally going to be 100% completely fine going to mortal university AND he wont have to deal with zeus’s annoying ass.

listen. MY percy jackson wanted to kill smelly gabe as a 12 year old because he abused his mother. MY percy jackson doesn’t like bullies. MY percy jackson challenged ares to a fight just on the basis that ares was a fucking asshole.

MY percy jackson is not going on useless fucking quests to go to new rome university of all places.

which reminds me. why DOES he want to go to new rome university. this is percy jackson. he LOVES new york. why is percy “what did they do to my city” jackson going to university ACROSS THE COUNTRY from the city he loves. why is he doing that. and hey look. sally and paul (and soon estelle) are ALSO going to be in new york. so like WHY is he leaving for real. percy my fatal flaw is loyalty jackson. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE OK! it’s percy he is seriously not going to have issues with common monsters attacking him. we literally saw him fight off titans and giants a fucking hellhound isn’t gonna get his ass. WHY is he leaving. it does NOT make sense.

there’s this scene ok. where sally tells them she’s pregnant. and percy’s like oh my god…. i’m going to be in california…. and my sister is going to be here…. and i was just sitting there going. yeah bro. why are you going to california. i literally do not understand. you literally are from nyc. you live here. your family is here. your friends from chb are like a short pegasus ride away. there are like 50 universities in new york. just go here. why are you leaving. you are percy jackson. being a new yorker is literally one of your defining traits. stay here. WHY AR EYOU LEAVING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND PERSEUS

and listen. if your argument is that annabeth is going to be in nru. why the FUCK is ANNABETH going to nru!!!!! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT!!!! EXPLAIN IT!!!! percy LITERALLY says annabeth is such an overachiever she’s already run out of ap classes to take. he literally says that. why the fuck is this girl going to nru where let’s be real her admission is guaranteed. annabeth is 100% someone who would want to go to an ivy. and would you fucking believe it there’s an ivy right here in nyc. like let’s be fucking realistic here. annabeth started her architecture career at SIXTEEN designing the city the fucking GODS live in. so like. don’t you think she’d want to be a bit more challenged. don’t you think she’d want to go to a university that is actually recognizable to mortals. annabeth did NOT love new rome that much like did richard forget what he wrote. this girl was freaking out about new rome until percy said he only likes it because they could live together there. she literally does not care about new rome and she is WAY too ambitious and academically inclined to be happy with going to some small as uni 99% of employers have never heard of.

this isn’t even the worst character assassination in the book. that award goes to the way rick wrote percy. percy. my darling percy. my beloved percy. perseus jackson. light of my life. as i said before, he is MOSTLY on form. the him really wanting to cali thing is definitely ooc for him but it is NOTHING compared to the sheer amount of times rick portrays percy as stupid in this accursed novel. his internal monologue is constantly shit like i’m always so behind annabeth and omg i’m being so dumb right now and annabeth calls me seaweed brain because i’m an idiot and blah blah fucking blah.

dick riordan has forgotten that perseus jackson is, in fact, not stupid at all. he is INCREDIBLY clever. he is just not particularly academically inclined/not very book smart and it would also be perfectly understandable given the fucking books that riordan wrote to interpret that as percy being very discouraged from engaging with his studies. he genuinely enjoys chiron’s class at yancy because chiron is an engaging teacher and encourages him. he spends 90% of his time in pjo deducing what’s going on with extremely limited information because rick decided none of the characters can tell him anything because of plot and exposition reasons. in son of neptune he literally just coasts on having sherlockian (not bbc that’s a whole other angry review) powers of deduction. to the point where the characters around him are amazed at how he’s figuring stuff out. literally in house of hades annabeth’s pov’s are constantly her commenting on how she gives percy shit for being a dumbass but he’s actually really clever.

it genuinely feels like at some point during the writing of mark of athena rick decided to just slowly start making various fanon ideas canon. percy being stupid is very commonly accepted fanon because he doesn’t realize how smart he is (and fans don’t realize he’s an unreliable narrator) and the fans also love to infantilize characters with more in your face adhd (leo is another victim of this phenomenon). we’ve spent 5 books in percy’s head and he doesn’t think he’s particularly clever so it makes sense to ignore the mountains of evidence pointing towards his quick and creative thought process in favour of haha percy is dumb jokes.

the wild thing is, percy isn’t even that hard on himself in pjo. he obviously doesn’t see himself in the same way we later come to find out other people see him (mainly thinking about hazel and frank in son of neptune, which is the only time in hoo he genuinely feels like the same character as pjo percy) but he’s not really dealing with crazy self doubt and self esteem issues. he does have his down on himself moments but they’re all extremely understandable given the context because he literally faces impossible odds in every single pjo book. at one point he’s disappointed he couldn’t tell that ares and luke manipulated him… like yes bestie that’s a very valid thing to feel upset and betrayed about. it doesn’t mean that he’s actually stupid though and genuinely he comes across more as humble and not realizing just how awesome and cool and interesting he is than anything else. percy consistently shows that he is really clever. half of pjo is percy figuring out a new and interesting way of defeating his enemies and the other half is percy figuring out how to bait his enemies into a duel to improve his odds. it’s horrible what rick does to percy in his internal monologue.

it’s to an insane degree. yes i realize i have already written 500 words about percy not being stupid alone but i must stress how egregious this is. it’s literally characters who have previously acknowledged percy’s intelligence who start remarking about how he’s stupid. in house of hades percy and annabeth get out of fucking TARTARUS and reyna makes a jab about how percy wouldn’t be able to find his way out of a paper bag without annabeth. that is an INSANE thing to say for reyna and for rick. rick has not written a stupid character so it’s weird to make that something a character does without really trying to show them being wrong. from reyna’s perspective, this is a guy she was complimenting a few short weeks ago. this is a guy she immediately wanted to make a leader at the camp that she loves and is her home. this is guy she barely knows and she pretty much immediately proposes to him. WHY would she suddenly start making jokes about how dumb he is? it’s not like she actually knows him better now. he came to the battle with reinforcements and basically immediately dipped after the feast. how are we to accept reyna treating our beloved perseus in this horrific manner? we simply cannot. it is unnacceptable. this is inaccurate.

it’s so WRONG to do this to percy. yES I UNDERSTAND I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TOO LONG. I DON’T CARE. PERCY JACKSON IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND I NEED TO DEFEND HIM FROM THIS SLANDER. I AM ONLY PARTIALLY JOKING. listen. liSTEN. this is the guy whose signature move is manipulate your enemy into dueling with you when you’re outnumbered or outmatched. he very coolly manipulated bob into killing his own brother (btw this was very hot and sexy and clever and attractive perseus is king of gaslight gatekeep girlboss). he is NOT stupid. he is impulsive. he is extremely oblivious about some things. he is NOT stupid. i watched perseus jackson grow up for 5 books and he is not stupid. i always say this. i always say that percy is not stupid and richard riordan refuses to listen to me.

there are such horrendous lines as “i am a guy of limited talents. if i can’t kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, i’m basically defenseless.” richard how DARE you say this about my beloved perseus. he is NEVER like this. he literally would never say that. even at absolute worst percy’s internal monologue was “this plan is stupid and will get us killed. but it’s the plan i have.” he’s NOT a being defenseless guy. what hte fuck are you saying. richard did you read your own books. RICHARD. DID YOU. at one point he says that he is constantly several steps behind annabeth’s thought process. he has literally never thought this before and it is also untrue. richard. i hate you. read your own fucking books oh my god.

ok. i think i have sufficiently harped on the fact that percy is not stupid. now i will complain about another thing. and this was just in one part but it bothered me and this is my review so i get to talk about whatever i want. if you don’t like it read someone else’s review. don’t hate read my review. i didn't charge you money to read it

at one point, percy has to wrestle a god who hercules once wrestled. and annabeth says something about hercules brute forcing it. and look. i GET that hercules was freakishly strong. i get that. i understand it. but when annabeth says hercules just brute forced it they’re both like ah shit i can’t do that. perseus. beloved. you ripped the minotaurs horn off its head with your bare hands as a 12 year old with no training. you are literally insanely strong as is. that is an insane thing for a 12 year old to be able to do. hell, that would be an insane thing for a grown adult to do. i don’t think rick realizes how op percy is. he was so caught up in making percy cool (which is, you know, extremely understandable and right and correct percy jackson is the coolest man in fiction for a reason i get it) that he forgot that he made percy extremely unbelievably powerful too. with the curse of achilles he was potentially matching minor gods in power level. he fights while sustaining mini-hurricanes and explodes glaciers and shit.

some more things. the prose is… acceptable. the plot reads like a fever dream. there is a smoothie shop called himbo juice that annabeth percy and grover are evidently regulars at. and there are. himbos. that serve. juice. so you can imagine what this fever dream looks like. like the last couple rick riordan releases, this one reads like published fanfiction too, just with better quality of writing than the sun and the star.

there are some WEIRD continuity errors in here. one of them is fairly minor but i still noticed it - percy says his father compared his mother to a princess. this is not true. poseidon compared sally to a queen. specifically, he called her “a queen among women”. i know this because i am sally jackson’s number 1 fan.

more egregiously, however, is annabeth’s yankees cap heebie jeebies. percy puts on annabeths’s cap and gets the heebie jeebies while using it. and then he goes wow annabeth. you never told me that using the cap is like this. and annabeth is like yeah well. power is like that. richard. riordan. did you fucking FORGET that percy has, in fact, worn annabeth’s cap before. and it was literally completely. once again, richard, did you read your own books.

one more good thing - when percy fights geras/gary, who is the god/personification of old age, the way he does it is by imagining him and his friends getting older and embracing it. this was a genuinely good and sweet moment and it was very touching. the trio’s talks about this after the fact are also absolutely a return to form from riordan. for like, a few paragraphs. but still.

the biggest problem is just how obvious it is that this book is a cash grab. we had pjo. then we had a sequel series. then we had ANOTHER sequel series. and now we’re getting random standalone novels that are extremely unnecessary and don’t add anything. rick riordan has dollar signs in his eyes. these are not stories that make sense. these are not stories rick genuinely wanted to tell. these are stories that are being told because the purpose of publishing books now is to maximize profit. (sidebar - i told you the capitalism thing would be relevant. you should believe me more often. smh) the only reason rick is still writing these books is that they make money. they feel extremely empty and hollow.

percy is trapped as a teenager forever because rick refuses to let him age up. percy accepting old age would make FAR more sense for a percy who’s in his 20’s and just now realizing that he lived past all the shit he thought was going to kill him and he has a real life that he likes and he could actually grow old now. but percy must be a child for marketing purposes, so he stays a child. the world itself is trapped in a cycle of the gods promising they’ll be better and the gods literally not changing at all. and for the sake of the book series, it can’t change. if we had real change in the world, that would actually mean something, silly. we can’t have consequences. we have to reset every 5 years like a fucking comic book so that we can make infinite money. this is the infinite money glitch irl. just make trash that doesn’t need to be made. the end point of capitalism is making trash no one asked for that has no artistic merit just because you can make money off of it.

by the way, dr emily wilson’s iliad translation, which was also out on the same day, is LESS expensive than this book. this cashgrab nonsense novel is MORE expensive than a book a professor in classics who has a phd spent 4 years on. this is just wrong. the fun and stupid cashgrab book should NOT be more expensive than a book that someone spent 4 years meticulously translating from ancient greek. it’s just so clear and in your face. trials of apollo absolutely felt like a cashgrab but at least there was SOME semblance of effort there. this is literally just the most plain and simple cashgrab novel you can make.

hey. you know the infinite monkey theorem? the infinite monkey theorem is that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text including shakespeare. richard riordan is a monkey with a typewriter. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.

rick riordan struck gold with pjo. it’s genuinely to this day one of my favourite things i’ve ever read, flaws and all. it’s FUN. it’s COOL. it’s THEMATICALLY COHESIVE. the characters grow and change. they feel like real people with personalities. it literally doesn’t even matter how op percy is because THAT’S how good of a character he is. he is so compelling that you want to read about him anyway even though you can tell right from the minotaur fight that this kid can decimate whatever opponent he has. the books are funny and moving because you can genuinely connect to these characters. the more i read rick riordan’s work, the more certain i am that pjo was a fluke. i don’t think he knows what he’s doing. i think he should retire from writing.

unfortunately for me, richard riordan seems to have no intention of retiring. he has announced another percy jackson book that will be released next year. i assume there will be at least 2 more books based on the setup in this one.

rick. listen. i know you’re listening because what else will you do with your time. rick, why are you doing this. hasn’t percy been through enough. when will it end. give it a rest. stop it. get some help. at the very least, read your own books before writing percy. i am right about him and you are wrong about him. you are the author and i’m killing you right now. i am strangling you and i am hitting you with weapons. all at once. i am very proficient at causing deaths. (this is a metaphor referring to roland barthes’ death of the author. i wish no bodily harm to richard riordan).

this book is… alright. percy is my smart king. sally jackson is queen of my heart. it’s a fun read but you do have to turn your brain off completely and read through some serious percy defamation.

[edit: i am downgrading this book to one star (was at 2). the more i think about it, the more angry i am. there is literally a paragraph tailor made to rub jason's death in our faces. it's about how he looks forward to getting old being married to piper and having grandchildren. it's a very low blow. jason is literally rick riordan's biggest missed opportunity and he's rubbing in how poorly he treated jason even after killing him off for apollo's character development.

annabeth still keeps putting percy down because rick doesn't realize how mean she is i guess. she's still scared of him. canonically. which is a really weird and fucked up thing to write imo. this relationship doesn't seem healthy in canon (they are healthy in my head, however, because i know what women are like) but rick refuses to address it or let them break up. i LOVE annabeth. i love her. but she is an extremely flawed character and rick never treats her as such. and it just makes it exhausting to read about her.

percy IS on form but it genuinely feels like he's tlt percy, not post hoo percy. his inner voice sounds way more immature than it has for most of pjo and in son. riordan also repurposes the "look, i didn't want to be a half-blood" line from tlt to make a dumb little joke about how high school is hard. it was a GOOD opening line. it immediately set the tone and told us so much about percy in literally just a handful of words. now it's a joke about how being a senior in high school sucks. it's this mcu-esque allergy to being sincere that pjo never had.

there is BARELY any grover in this book. i love grover so much that i was cheering any time he was there, but there is very little of him. he's in like 2 or 3 scenes and has his own side plot going on with juniper and being bad at understanding what his girlfriend wants or whatever. extremely unnecessary and not what i want for grover. this book kind of ends up feeling like it's about annabeth but from percy's perspective. she gets good moments at percy's expense. percy spends the book monologuing about how annabeth is way smarter than him and all he has is his sick ass water powers and the best swordfighting skill in 300 years, both of which are very downplayed. percy explodes a river and it's treated like this crazy freaky scary thing but two years ago in universe he made a volcano erupt and everyone was like yeah this makes sense percy is that powerful. in son he explodes a glacier and it's just a normal tuesday for him. he literally doesn't even react to it. and now we're supposed to believe his exploding and purifying a river feat is some unbelievable feat.]

in conclusion, i want a refund. no i did not purchase this book. however, i would like to be reimbursed about $5000 in emotional damages. i will also be suing richard riordan for defamation on percy’s behalf. good night new york city. and my beloved perseus jackson who lives in new york city.

[titaniumshortcake]

You've strayed far from safety, following the whims of your curiosity. This cave is taken, and its occupant does not welcome the company of strangers. She heard you long before you spotted her; now she stands coiled to strike, should she dislike your next move.

-0-0-0-

Imagine forever drawing your old cringe edgelord OCs, couldn't be me dhfjsf

Throwback to the days when Steeltalon lived alone and her home was a literal hole in the ground; a cave system well away from the reach of Isla Sorna's larger predators. She was one of my first OCs, had her since I was a wee bean of eleven years old. Being a violent cave hermit was not the edgiest I wrote her as, nor the stupidest thing I ever wrote her doing. Ah, the good old days of RP forums.

Anyway long story short I saw one of these Goretober prompts was "hooks", and how could I NOT immediately think of raptor claws

Lighting and pose ref'd from this wonderfully scary video.

[burins]

2024 WRITING REVIEW

tagged by @vechter !! thank you so much for the tag i will try not to be tremendously maudlin in response! idk if @timetoboldlygo @rolameny or @try-set-me-on-fire did a fic year in review already. Also if you see this and would like to do it genuinely consider yourself tagged I would love to see your thoughts!

number of stories posted to ao3: 7! although two of those and almost all of another were written in 2023. let's say 4.75.

word counted posted for last year: 27k (minus 8k for estate and 3k for unsent letters, so 16k. Which is frankly, a miracle)

fandoms i wrote for: fatt, dc comics, hxh

pairings: superbat, leopika, dinahbabs, alyarr. I also wrote a relatively high proportion of gen fic this year! 

stories with the most kudos, bookmarks and comment threads: everybody loved how cleanly, how quietly (the tim has friends actually manifesto) which is good because i also love how cleanly, how quietly. 

work i’m most proud of (and why): literally anything i got out this year was the product of blood sweat and tears for reasons i will get into later! I’m probably most proud of the silliest fic i published, my love sits patiently, the leopika chair fetish fic. this sprang out of a joke with some friends and rapidly became ungovernable. I’m always nervous writing for a new fandom about whether i have a good handle on the characters, but the entire process of writing this was just me sitting at the keyboard going teeheehee what if! and then putting that into the fic. I think the comedy hits and the prose is good and i managed not to make it too sad (always a danger) while still keeping the leopika sauce in there!

work i’m least proud of (and why): genuinely i don’t publish things I’m not proud of! the really id shit languishes either in my brain, my dms, or in my notes app. so I’m going to cheat by saying a fic i wrote in 2023 but only put up on ao3 in april. it’s estate, not because i don’t think it’s good-- i think it’s really good!! I gave myself a hell of a challenge in writing it (“oh i want to write a shirley jackson pastiche, from the POV of a character I’ve never written before, and also he is a child” <- words spoken by a fool, and a dingus. No one made me do this!) and I think I mostly succeeded. But because it was for a zine I had a strict word count limit, which meant i had to trim down the prose a fair amount and I think it did lose some of its effectiveness in that process. Someday maybe i’ll go through my gdocs and try to resurrect some of the bits I tightened farther than they should have gone. 

share or describe a favorite review you received: i got a lot of really, really thoughtful and lovely comments this year! I feel immensely lucky every time i write something and people like it enough to tell me so. Especially because writing was such a thorny thing for me it was deeply helpful to have people in my inbox going hey, i loved this. sometimes they did literary analysis! incredible shit!!! there are too many to have a particular favorite but someone just told me that they read to the morning come, the post-utrh superbat, a week into their DC comics journey. Which is crazy because that fic obliquely references the time the Joker was the Iranian ambassador, perhaps one of the stupidest storylines in comics. (In hindsight I could probably have come up with a different reason why Clark doesn't let Bruce kill the Joker.) I hope this person has a great time, and also I’m very sorry. 

a time when writing was really, really hard: ha. well. I don’t think this is what the question was intended to get at but for 90% of the year it was physically painful for me to write! my nerve pain came roaring back in december of 2023 and I spent months and months only able to pick at stuff a couple dozen words at a time on my phone, or trying to do bits in voice to text via a truly wild phone to computer situation, or just full of ideas rattling about that I couldn’t do very much with. I try to let it be what it is but it has been a fucking rough year and many many times it made me want to bite. I have ups and downs and I’ll probably keep having ups and downs! i hope this isn’t forever because i really miss getting to lose myself in prose. but at the end of the day we are all just working within the limits of the form and sometimes that has to be more literal than i’d like.  

a scene or character you wrote that surprised you: i was originally writing my love sits patiently leaning more heavily on the jokes. But i realized that it is much funnier and also much sweeter if leorio genuinely gives himself a chair thing because he is so horny and emotional about kurapika, so then i had to write them having sex where the chair was integral while not, myself, being into furniture in that way. (i respect our kink warriors it just isn’t For Me!) 

a favourite excerpt of your writing: i’m so pleased with all of the prose in unsent letters from the end of the world, yet another alyarr epistolary fic, but i’m particularly fond of the conclusion. I rattled around a little trying to figure out how alyosha’s voice should sound in these letters after everything he’s gone through. I was thinking a little bit of Leonard Cohen’s final letter to Marianne Ihlen-- there’s a particular certainty that comes with age, and I wanted to allow alyosha some bitterness while still acknowledging that of the various tragedies he’s witnessed, everything with arrell is probably not the top of the list. And also i wanted to stay true to the ending tone of spring in hieron, which is a story about the end of the world and the lives we make for ourselves anyway. 

What I mean to say, in a rather roundabout way for which you are no longer around to chide me, is that I write you to tell myself a story, to determine my own thoughts by writing them down. To make a story, step by meandering step. I did not begin at the beginning, and I have not ended at the end, but I have, I think, come to the conclusion anyway. I loved a false god, and I will never know what, if anything, He loved. And I loved you, Tutor, and you loved me, and it was not enough. But I also loved the world. I loved it enough to change it. I thought there should be something instead of nothing, and I made it so. I hope I was not wrong to do so. From my window I can see children playing, swinging from branch to branch. I do not think I was.

how did you grow as a writer last year: i would like to say that i learned to accept my own limitations and celebrated my victories (getting a fic out for multiple events, getting to a place where I could write almost all of my love sits patiently by sitting down at a keyboard!!!) but that is a Work In Progress. 

how do you hope to grow this year: i really do not want to jinx anything so i will just say i would like to be able to write sustainably, whatever that means for me this year. I suspect it will mean a variety of different things because what counts as sustainable changes from day to day! 

who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc.): really truly cannot say enough kind things about @suedeuxnim beloved friend beta cheerleader etc. thank you for cheering me on in my dms and keeping me supplied with cat pictures. also, separately, my wonderful spouse. this is a tumblr post, not the oscar acceptance speech, and i suspect they would find it embarrassing if i went on a lot but it makes every aspect of life easier to have a partner in crime. 

anything from your real life show up in your writing last year: funnily enough the chronic pain duo fics were actually written BEFORE the big chronic pain resurgence, and also they’re from 2023. (this has actually happened to me twice, and while i’m not going to stop writing about chronic pain it does feel like maybe i am a little bit cursed.) I wrote two fics about bruce’s parenting choices and their effects on his kids and I think you can do the math! No one gets deeply into batman comics because they’re normal about fathers. Oh, in more fun things, Tim’s calendar from how cleanly, how quietly is based on the very real Daikonic Moments calendar from Omega Mart, which was our 2024 calendar. If anyone has suggestions for a 2025 calendar lmk because we got one for Christmas but it’s all bad mullets and we are not hanging it up.  

any new wisdom you can share with other writers: i spent a non-zero amount of this year feeling bummed that i couldn’t write as much as I wanted, both because writing is one of my main hobbies and also because despite my cool and untouchable image (citation needed) it is hard not to compare myself to others who are able to write much, much, much more than me! But that is silly because I am me and they are them. There have been times in my life when i was the demon of productivity and times in my life when i wrote nothing publishable all year. So my wisdom (still working on the implementation part!!!) is to celebrate what you are able to do and not what you don’t manage. And also, write for yourself and your circle of freaks and you can’t go wrong. 

any projects you’re looking to starting (or finishing) this year: anything i can finish is a win! I have a lot of projects in the hopper from almost two years ago; who knows what will happen. I did sign up for secret samol so there will be a fatt fic forthcoming, and I also signed up for another secret project (no longer secret! I'm gonna be in the Bruce Wayne pinup zine) so there’ll be something else probably in early summer. I would love to finish my jaydick injury fic. i have a second chapter of dinahbabs handler sex, but that one involves a lot of disability feelings and i’ve been putting it off because i want to do it justice. maybe superbat amnesia will happen at some point but that’s so long (and has a Real Plot) so the likelihood is slim. I have a LOT of ideas about how leopika can have sex mistakes I’d love to turn into fics but also they’re just fun to rotate. we’ll see!

[frikatilhi]

Bus eller godis

Skulle jag skriva på svenska? Eller hur menar du nu?

Men nej, bara för dig har vi en snippet från min Wedding Date AU, which I scrapped, or at least tabled for a while, when, um, someone wrote a literally perfect fic in the same vein for the bojere fanbook.

But one day! One day there will be more cake!

“Why don’t you just use Grindr?” 

Jure is sitting on Kris and Bojan’s kitchen island, swinging his legs, babbling. Bojan sees Kris eyeing him and his boots, and knows he’s worried about getting dust on everything.

The wedding is now only a few weeks away, and here he is, still single, desperately grasping at straws on who he could take. They had just gone through all possible single people they knew that might be suitable for this purpose.

The purpose naturally being making sure that your evil ex, who will definitely be present at this wedding, knows that you are definitely totally over them and have amazing success not only in life in general, but more specifically, in your love life.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You could set your location in London or something, find someone who’s already over there.”

“Sounds a bit risky, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be able to even meet up before we actually go.”

[snip snip]

“Are you sure about this?" Kris asks. Bojan shrugs.

"Do you really want to go through with it? What if you actually meet someone there? What if you meet the love of your life and were unable to do anything about it because you have to keep up some stupid pretense that you built up because you’re afraid to show up alone?”

Bojan scoffs. That’ll be the day.

“Yeah, right. Like I’m just going to run into the love of my life in fucking Liverpool, of all places?”

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

Hi, so I wrote a little fic, and I posted it. I gave it to Dani, she laughed at it, I asked if I should edit it, she said "fuck it we ball"

The entire fic will be below the cut because it's short enough to post here, but if you'd like to leave comments or kudos, it is also posted on my AO3. It's only 1k words.

Dress Up As...

This is the stupidest party they have ever thrown. They know that.

This was the stupidest party they had ever thrown, and they all knew it. No one was sure whose idea it had originally been, and no one was quite brave enough to own up to it. But it was their last party at Hillerska — their last third years’ party — and it seemed like a pity to go out without throwing at least one entirely stupid blowout. 

The theme was truly very simple: Dress Up Like… 

Throughout the entire week before, each third year had one at a time drawn a card out of a hat to find out what or who they would be dressing up as for the party. Every person had a different theme. No one should or would be dressed for the same party. In theory, that’s what made it fun. 

What made it decidedly not fun was the fact that no one was allowed to redraw their theme. Once the card was in their hand, they could not switch with anyone or draw a second theme. That factor made the whole thing more than a little stressful. Because not everyone had the clothes they needed just lying around. Some of them had even resorted to stealing from First Years just to complete their looks. 

But now it was the night of the party, and one by one they started to trickle in, costumes ready and on full display.

Some were better than others. 

Henry wore a black tank top and bright green basketball shorts, chunky sneakers and a backward baseball cap. The entire night, he carried around a can of beer and would randomly start shouting about his human rights. Dress Up Like… An American. 

Walter, his ever present counterpart, looked truly ridiculous. More so than usual. He showed up in short-shorts and a crop top, an LED flower crown sitting pretty atop his head. He had a mesh shawl overtop that went farther down than his pants did, and somehow he had managed to find what could only be described as cowboy boots. Dress Up Like… A Pinterest Girlie. 

Stella wore a baby pink nightgown with a fairy pattern and clearly not matching blue bunny slippers. She had her hair tied up into pigtails and she was carrying around a worn-in looking stuffed bear. She was drinking her alcohol through a sippy-cup and every once in a while switched to suck on a lollipop. Dress Up Like… A Five-Year-Old. 

Fredrika had it (arguably) the easiest out of all of them. She was quite literally wearing a bedsheet that she’d pinned into a toga and some sandals she’d managed to find on short notice. She’d gone the extra step to make herself a wreath for her hair, but pretty much everyone was mad at her for her lucky draw. Dress Up Like… An Ancient Roman. 

Alexander had somehow gotten his hands on neon spandex. He went all out for his costume, even finding someone to give him a perm. There was a neon sweatband on his head that had “mysteriously” gone missing from the locker room a week ago. He’d completed his look with sunglasses that were too big for his face and Henry’s orange wrist-watch. Dress Up Like.. The 80s. 

Madison wore a muscle tank and tight biker shorts. She was carrying around a big bin of vanilla protein powder and every time someone asked her a question she would respond with “do you even lift, bro?” She’d gone as far as to draw on faint mustache hairs and no one was actually sure if she was kidding about having bought into cryptocurrency as a way to commit to the bit. Dress Up Like… A Gym Bro. 

Sara had spent all week stressing about her costume, only to give in and ask Henry if she could borrow his tuxedo. The one she knew he had just lying around because it was Henry, and of course he had a tuxedo lying around. She’d stolen a ring box from Simon to keep in her pocket, as well, and she had found a top hat somewhere in their mother’s box of old Halloween costumes. Dress Up Like… A Groom. 

It was a lucky coincidence that Felice was her counterpart in all of that. They looked ridiculous, but at least they looked ridiculous together. Felice had taken the time to go to the thrift store in Bjärstad for her costume, though. Not even the students of Hillerska had wedding dresses lying around. She was able to find one for relatively cheap, too, and it had come with a veil. The dress was nice if you pretended it wasn’t from the 70s and ignored the suspicious stain. Sara had gotten her a bouquet to really sell the look. Dress Up Like… A Bride. 

Wilhelm had borrowed his entire outfit from Felice. It was a blue dress and some gold jewelry. Nothing too scandalous, though he was still sure Jan-Olof’s heart would fail if he saw it. They still hadn’t told him about Wille piercing his ears yet. Wilhelm had opted to wear his own shoes for the night, as much as Felice begged him to try out high heels. He’d promised her he’d try another time when he wouldn’t have to commit to an entire night in them whilst slightly drunk. Dress Up Like… Your Best Friend.

It was Simon that truly caught everyone’s eye, though. With the exception of a long coat and scarf that they knew wasn’t his, he looked like he wasn’t dressed up at all. Everything he wore was seemingly something he wore every day. A sweatshirt and jeans, converse and a silver chain hanging around his neck. 

“Oh, come on, Simon! You could have at least tried,” Fredrika called out, somehow already tipsy despite the party having just started. 

“I’m dressed up,” Simon said. He shrugged off the coat and scarf before depositing himself in Wilhelm’s lap. 

It was an obvious lie. 

“Simon, you wear that all the time,” Henry pointed out. 

Simon nodded, running his fingers through the hairs on the back of Wille’s head. “Yes, I do, and I’m still dressed up.” 

Wilhelm looked like the cat who caught the canary and, most of the time, the rest of them would take that as a clue to just accept Simon’s words as truth and move on. But not tonight. No, they had all made asses of themselves trying to commit to this stupid ass party plan and they would be damned if Simon ruined it. They would force him to go home and change if they had to. They’d drag him by the ear back to Bjärstad and stand guard until he emerged looking just as idiotic as the rest of them.

“I would bet all the money in my wallet that you are not dressed up properly,” Walter said. It would have been a serious threat, too, had he not looked so ridiculous. 

“Are you sure about that?” Simon asked, a smirk tugging at his lips. 

“I’d like to join in this bet!” Maddie declared, pulling her wallet out of her waistband. And, soon, they were all betting some kind of money on the fact that Simon had not properly committed to their stupid plan. 

Wilhelm didn’t say a word. He just sat back with a smug look on his face as Simon got all of his friends to bet him a small fortune. He, of course, knew what Simon was supposed to be dressed up as. He, of course, knew Simon was about to be several thousand kronor richer. 

When everyone had placed their bets on the table, his own sister included, Simon pulled his card out of the coat he’d earlier discarded. He knew they were going to challenge him on his costume. He’d come prepared for this. 

He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter, though it was difficult with Wilhelm’s arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. “Everything I’m wearing — boxers included — is something Wilhelm has, at some point, stolen from me,” he announced. He threw his card down on top of the make-shift money pot and then leaned back into his boyfriend with a satisfied smirk. “Read it and weep, bitches.” 

Dress Up As… Royalty.

[animeomegas]

LOLOL tysm for the last bit of what you said when responding my last ask. Luckily it was just saying that I write a character terribly- when literally every enthusiast of that character known to man has said that my writing of him is so in character.

Personally I don’t care if it’s ooc, but it really confirmed that you’re right about them wanting attention.

A bit random but my only other hate comment I’ve ever gotten was a guy being homophobic and saying a character I wrote for wasn’t gay (it was m!character x m!reader)

So yea, you’re totally right 😭

-💣 anon

Of course! It was all true!

I remember upsetting some people when I said that Sakura is a genius. Like, some people got SO mad.

Like firstly, it's funny (misogynistic) how I can give as many cool new traits or backstory ideas or complimentary commentaries on male characters, and everyone loves it and no one kicks up a fuss. But not with Sakura apparently lol.

Also, secondly, of course she's a fucking genius!!!! Like, hello??? Did these people see how quickly she learnt medical science and then rose to like greatest of all time status?? I don't really mind if people dislike her character or whatever, but you can't deny she's insanely smart.

Idk, I guess I'm just trying to say that some people are very weird and get caught up about the stupidest things.

But I'm glad my response was helpful, 💣 anon!! <33

[yellowocaballero]

kinda obsessed with yuri and claude in rosetta headstone,,, like theyre just the stupidest smart people, and only now are they finally communicating with each other. like the way khalid has grown up throughout the fic, and yuris complicated issues with trust and intimacy. idk, don't mind me, im just gonna go sit in a corner while rotating them and this whole story in my brain.

Thank you!!! I'm love them also. Honestly, Yuri was the only character who I put in real effort to try and keep in-character. Which was tough as hell - I feel like I only actually landed on his character a few stories after I wrote this one.

Yuri is so good. Your early interactions with him are nothing but him repeatedly trying to convince you how terrible he is. He's a lot of bluster and obfuscation and kinda tsundere but he can be painfully sincere too. Yuri grows close to Khalid because he's one of the few people he does trust - because Yuri and Khalid are the same guy and Yuri will always trust a self-centered asshole, aka Yuri trusts what he understands. But then Khalid grows too close, and Khalid's growth as a person means that he turns into somebody Yuri doesn't understand anymore, and Yuri realizes way too late that he's let Khalid into his heart, and then he panics and starts pushing him away. I think Yuri would have just propositioned him like five months ago and tried to win his affections that way if Byleth (Dimitri vibed out Khalid's aceness for her) hadn't mildly suggested that Yuri try the long way and actually getting closer emotionally with him. ("Try flowers." "How did I know you'd say that.").

I think main characters have to change throughout a story, even if it's just in self-acceptance or a change of understanding. I think a story where the most important person is a teacher should involve a drastic change in their students, and everybody should take away a different lesson. Byleth's influence on Yuri was through allowing him to be a student too: Yuri, like Khalid, understands the world through a give-and-take framework, and he struggles repeatedly to accept Byleth's generosity and care given with nothing expected in return. Yuri's growth as a character comes to a point where he expresses what he wants honestly with Khalid, allows himself to be a young person, and accepts the care that Khalid has learned to supply. Khalid believes that all people are selfish and self-centered, so he has no obligation to try and be a good person. Byleth shows him that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to others, that there are good people in the world who care about him very much, and that the least we can do is return that care.

I've said like ten times that the story is about communication, and despite how Yuri and Khalid are literally the same guy (or because of it), it takes the entire story to get to a confession scene. Yuri pulls the most teen boy bullshit and teases him and flirts with him in a way that he KNOWS Khalid isn't going to really understand, and as a result the Khalid who actually does really like him just assumes that it's not reciprocated, so he doesn't say anything. So juvenile.

In the end, you have to trust someone enough to let them turn you down. You have to trust yourself enough to say what you feel. It's not so bad to be young and do stupid young person things. If you need something said, ask somebody to say it. I should finish that follow-up story with them but it was literally going nowhere jaksldf thanks for the ask!