#bc it's specifically related to gifts and writing gifts

[dangerous-disposition]

i hate when i figure out i'm having writer's block for stupid reasons

edit: it's not stupid bc i'm upset, i just thing the reason is dumb and i'm having an over the top reaction to a perceived criticism of my ability to write

[weirdlizard26]

so bizarre to me that my love language is apparently recording music for people. how did this even happen

[readychilledwine]

hi, i’ve recently found your blog + wow, you’re writing is amazing! i have an idea for i would like to request, i hope that’s okay.

reader has just came home from book club w nesta, gwen and emerie at the house of wind. reader is mated to az - they’re been mated for about a few years. still reader has met nesta, reader almost always has her nose in a book - smutty book to be exact. reader is kinda embarrassed by this bc she wasn’t one to read smutty books before meeting nesta. az is starting to question why reader is always so invested in a book or why he has hardly seen reader for the last couple of weeks. az picks up the book reader is currently reading behind reader’s back & starts to get a little jealous maybe? az may confront reader about the book? i’m not to sure about the ending, but i do know az would do something like asking reader what their favorite scene & they could reenact it or something of that nature. i could totally see az teasing reader just a little bit as well.

i love for you to put your own spin on this. thank you 🩷🩷🩷

Book Boyfriend

Summary - Azriel has gotten a little tired of your reading habits.

Warnings - Az is a kind of a dick

A/n - I went the spicy mad Az route, and don't worry. Per Liz tradition, it's open for another part.

Azriel could have burned the damn book in your hands. You hadn't set it down in 3 days.

3 fucking days of you and Nesta curled into each other, drinking Rhysand's expensive wine, reading that stupid thick book.

He knew you loved to read. Books and book related gifts had been his go-to gifts for you since the mating bond snapped 100 years ago. But the obsession since Ness was made was unbearable.

He never had to fight for your attention until now. He felt a shoulder brush his. "Ah, they're in the "We don't want Cassian to know we're reading smut," pose."

Azriel froze, feeling down the bond and trying to get to your end. You had it locked down, but there was a soft blush on your and Nesta's cheeks. "How do you know its smut?"

Cassian sighed. "It's all they read, Azzy. Have you not noticed?"

His shadows darkened. You had hardly kissed or touched him in 3 days in favor of a smut novel? He could show you things, do things, most authors would only think of in their sick dreams.

He felt himself paling under Cassian's gaze. Was he not pleasing you anymore? Was he not performing to your expectations? You always seemed content, spent, and overjoyed when you two had sex.

"I need a fucking drink." Azriel stormed away. Slamming the door to your shared chambers shut. He took on look at the crystal whiskey decanter and decided to drink until you came to the room.

Azriel woke up to soft footsteps and the feeling of a blanket getting laid across him. He heard you sigh, falling into bed, then that faint creak of an unbroken in book spine opening.

Meaning you had a new book. A new smut novel to ignore him with. A new fake boyfriend to imagine between your thighs.

Azriel stood on shaking legs, and he went to bed. Watching as you snapped to book shut and set it on your nightstand title down. "Did I wake you?"

"Yup." He curled into the bed facing away from you. It was childish, but if you weren't happy, you could have just told him instead of replacing him.

When he woke up, raging headache and all, you were gone. But the book wasn't. He reached over and grabbed it, cracking the spine out of spite. 55 chapters in, and Azriel was bored. If he tried to fuck you on a table covered in paint, you'd glare at him about the mess. About getting paint 1000 places you shouldn't.

So why the hell were you reading a book about it?

It was late into the evening when you returned. Azriel had finished the book, marking specific things he wanted to confront you about. He didn't stand as the door opened, didn't greet you as you came in with a few bags. You were all smiles, dolled up in a pretty dress. Your hair was loosely curled, and makeup was done.

"Where the fuck have you been?" It came out as harsh as he expected it to. "I take a week off and you have hardly spent time with me."

He watched you jump, eyes going wide as you took a few steps back. "Nesta wanted to go into town. We lost track of time. I-"

"Lost track of time? Aren't you the female who taught Rhysand how to properly track the stars and sun?" He stalked toward you, book in hand. "Did you two go to find more vitriol like this?" He held it up, watching as your cheeks flushed and you went to reach for it.

"Azriel-"

He lifted it above his head. "You haven't touched me in weeks. You've kissed me maybe once. Hell, yesterday you were content to leave me on the damn couch. I can see why though, you're sitting here getting your needs met by some fictional fae lord instead of me. If you aren't happy anymore just tell me."

Shock hit your face slowly, mind whirling and emotions pouring into him from the bond. "Azriel, it's a book. Not another male."

That wasn't enough for him. "And how many times have you pleasured yourself to this book? Thinking about the main character between your thighs?"

You sighed. "To that one? Not a single time. I haven't gotten to read it and you already damaged the spine." The sadness in your voice made him pause, lowering the book until you could grab it.

You were always so gentle with your books, caring for them and placing them somewhere safe. Bookmarks never sat in them for too long out of fear of damage. He watched you stroke the spine, going to the bookshelf and placing it in the spot it would belong in to match your color based organization.

"Is this really about a book, or is something else going on?" You wouldn't look at him, wouldn't say his name. He could hear the soft tremble. "I'm sorry I made a friend. I'm sorry I've been spending time with Nesta instead of you. But she gets it. She gets how feeling like you don't belong in this family feels," a stab to his chest. "She gets how feeling out of place among you all feels," the stab turning into a gapping wound that had him leaning against the couch. "She gets what it's like to have a mate that is busy and expects you to be here waiting."

You had ripped his heart out. In 100 years, this had never come up. There had never been signs. "Y/n-"

He watched in silence as you held a hand up, moving to grab some clothes and a hair brush. "I'm going to sleep in a guest room tonight. This could have been turned into something beautiful, Az. We could have used these books to inspire fun in our bedroom," your hand ran along that damaged book. "Instead, you disrespected my belongings, accused me of an unthinkable act, and made this about your fragile ego."

You left the room, silence falling in the wake. Azriel stared at the book he had damaged. It was a first edition. A soft shade of blue with swirls of darkness. He walked to it, head hung in shame.

It was an escape. A way for you to cope with your feelings. No different than him training, and he had ruined it.

And now, he checked his calendar, he had 4 days to make it up to you before he, Cassian, and Nesta were gone for a month.

Leaving you alone all over again with nothing but an empty house and a book boyfriend.

General tag list:

@hnyclover @glitterypirateduck @slytherinindisguise @mischiefmanager @bloodicka @starsinyourseyes @the-sweet-psycho

@mariahoedt @rinalouu @sarawritestories @starryhiraeth @starswholistenanddreamsanswered

Azriel Taglist:

@elle4404

💕 As always, comment or message me if you'd like to be added to a taglist💕

[koolades-world]

omg no bc whoever requested the getting talked over thats me fr it happens so often 😭😭 but id like to add onto that and request smthng that happens to me a lot

imagine the brothers with an mc that feels like theyre an npc? i know this is a bad way of saying it but i dont know how else to describe it. what i mean is when it seems like none of your peers or friends really like you because when you talk, people reapond dryly or just straight up dont say anything or even act like they heard you and you have to repeat yourself multiple times just to be noticed and you just feel like the most forgettable person of the group

if you dont wanna write this like super specific prompt i get it no pressure

have a nice day :3

hello!! so glad you enjoyed the other thing I wrote that much that you requested an extension(? is that the right word???)! I just hope I don't repeat myself haha

super specific requests are my bread and butter honestly! helps me get a better idea of what you want and there hasn't been something I can't do yet

hope you enjoy <3

Mc who's treated like an NPC by others

Lucifer

at first, he's kind of part of the problem

the exchange program is just a chore to him, so he finds it easier to brush over things you say

but once he grows closer to you, he feels guilty for all the times he ever ignored you or made you repeat yourself

because of this, he finds himself hanging onto every word you say, and makes all those around him go silent when you're speaking

Mammon

he's another one who also doesn't take you that seriously at first

after he gets to know you, he acts as your voice for you if others refuse to listen

he refuses to let others trample you like that

he apologizes to you for them and eventually makes everyone forgive you themselves

Levi

he feels like he's in the same boat and relates to some level

sometimes, he also feels like he's forgotten by everyone but he also feels sometimes he's part of the problem

when he's in his own gaming world, everything is background noise to him

if someone else does it to you, he works up the courage to comfort you and give you his best listening ear

Satan

he gets mad on your behalf and won't hesitate to correct everyone around you both

he refuses to let someone he cares so deeply for be treated like they don't exist

quick to snap and respond like a smartass but be so sweet to you in the same moment

wants to make you realize that you're not forgettable to him

Asmo

he liked you from the very beginning and disliked the way others let you blend into the background

the first time it happened, he politely cleared his throat and let you continue

the second time it happened, he was much less polite

refuses to let others respond dryly and ensures their conversation with you is genuine

Beel

has always been more on the quiet side and kept to himself so he didn't notice until you formed a real bond

if he notices someone mistreating you, he inserts himself into your conversation and forces the other person to be nicer

he wants to make sure that you know that he’s always paying attention to you, so his eyes are always on you

feels guilty even though it’s not something he can control so he often apologizes leading to many cute moments together

Belphie

has a 6th sense that activates when someone is pretending you’re not there and such

if he’s present, even if he’s asleep, he turns to them on a dime and stares them down until they realize what he wants. he will wait as long as he needs

if he’s not present, he’ll be paying them a visit in their sleep!

you notice his demeanor change when it happens, and he gets noticeable sweeter <3 expect gifts and kisses

[7ndipity]

Them With An Autistic S/o

Ot7 x Reader

Summary: How the members would handle/react to their S/o being on the spectrum.

Warnings: Mentions of sensory issues, feeling over/under stimulated, depression, meltdowns, stimming.

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anon who requested this! This is a list I’ve actually wanted to write for a while, but I’d been slightly nervous/unsure about it. But as someone who’s also on the spectrum, I know how much comfort similar posts from other blogs have brought me! I also tried to keep this one a bit lighter, since someone asked for a separate list about meltdowns/shutdowns, but if there’s any specific reactions/hcs like this that you guys want, let me know! (Please note that these are based off my own knowledge/experience, so I’m sorry if they don’t fit for everyone)

Masterlist

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

Jin:

I feel like he’d be slightly confused and worried at first because he’s not sure what to do/how to help you, but once you explain a bit more, he gets a lot more comfortable, and really is such a good caregiver when he needs to be.

Catches onto your different stims pretty quickly and what each one means.

Like, y’all have whole conversations solely through funny little hums and stim noises.

Really good at reading and matching your mood/energy. You wanna talk about the Mayans nonstop for two hours? Cool! You want to just sit silently and do nothing? Also cool!

He’s really good at normalizing your symptoms and making them seem like nbd(because to him, they aren’t) Food sensitivities? He’s got them too! You hate loud noises and crowds? Same Honey, let’s get the fuck outta here! He knows they’re not quite the same thing, of course, but if it makes you feel more comfortable and safe being your true, unmasked self with him, then that’s all that matters to him.

Really good at calming you down when you feel overwhelmed or on the verge of meltdown.

Does his absolute best to bring your mood up whenever you’re struggling or feeling really down, pulling out his best dad jokes(even if they don’t make sense to you), bringing your favorite snacks, etc.

Yoongi:

I think he would handle it really well. Does his research after you tell him, and asks you about it casually during dates/hangouts.

So fucking respectful of your boundries. If you prefer to have your own space, he’s totally fine letting you do your own thing. If you need more closeness and cuddles, he’s all over that too, letting you sit right next to him while he works.

Not only lets you rant about your special interests, but makes the effort to take interest in them and asks questions. Randomly buys you little things related to them.

He’s so calming and soothing when you’re feeling stressed or overstimulated, understanding whenever you randomly need rest or quiet time(stress nap buddies)

Keeps things like extra sunglasses and headphones in his bag for you, just in case you forget yours.

Would have a lot of fun if you have audio stims, letting you listen to his new songs because your reactions and enthusiasm are so cute to him. Makes you panning audios as gifts.

Always there to look out for you whenever executive dysfunction decides to kick your ass. Washes the dishes, doing the laundry, restocking your safe foods, etc. He would also be really good at body doubling.

Hobi:

I honestly think he would be really good with an S/O on the spectrum. Like, he literally designed Mang, who is soo ND coded like omg😭, so I think he would be able to understand you really well.

(if you haven’t seen the videos of him talking about Mang’s personality and character traits during the re-design process last year, pls go watch them, I almost cried)

Loves buying you new fidgets and stim toys whenever he finds new ones to try(he even has a collection of chewlery that he wears bc he thinks they’re neat).

Is really good reading you and distracting you when you start to get overstimulated or anxious, sometimes noticing before you do.

Lowkey protective over you in spaces and situations he knows are stressful for you, positioning himself next to you whenever he spots things he knows bother you.

You know how Yoongi described him as a vitamin? That’s how it is for you now too.💛

He’s so stimmy himself, so he would find a lot of your stims really relatable and endearing. Like, if you start happy stimming, he can’t help but join right in, bouncing or squealing with you. It makes him so happy that you feel comfortable enough with him to share those parts of yourself with him.

Namjoon:

Instantly super supportive when you told him, making an effort to research on his own, as well as listening to your personal experiences to understand as much as possible.

Happily sits and lets you info-dump about your special interests. He honestly loves seeing you so passionate and animated about whatever you’re talking about and loves getting a glimpse into how your mind works(it was probably during one of these moments that he realized he was in love with you)

Surprisingly good pebbler, he’s always finding cool rocks or shells for your collections.

Doesn’t mind speaking for you on days when you’re nonverbal.

The sweetest when you’re feeling overstimulated. He closes all the curtains to make it dark and cozy and sits with you, talking as softly as needed or not talking at all, tapping your hand gently now and then to let you know he’s still there.

Soo protective over you, almost to a fault at times. Like, you might have to scold him once or twice about babying you, but he really doesn’t mean to, he just wants to make sure you’re safe and happy.

The world feels a lot less scary tho with him next you. You know if you need anything, he’s got your back.

Jimin:

The softest boi🥺 He was honestly a little scared when you first told him, because he didn’t want to do anything wrong and was worried he wouldn’t be ‘good’ at looking after you, but he quickly relaxed and grew more confident as he learned more from you.

The best comforter when you’re feeling overwhelmed or depressed, full of quiet reassurances and long hugs(if you’re okay with those). He’ll gladly cuddle with you under your weighted blanket for however long you need to feel better.

Literally set up a little “nest” for you at his place with a like beanbag chair and your favorite types of blankets/pillows, so you have your own place to just ‘be’ and recoup when you need it.

Carries fidget toys and sensory aids like sunglasses and headphones with him at all times, just in case you need them.

Really good at communicating with you on days when you’re nonverbal, whether through texts or little notes(which he always adds little doodles on to make your smile😊)

Makes sure you never feel guilty or like a burden to him for letting him in on those tougher days. If anything, they make him love you even more because of the trust you have in him.

It really makes him feel so proud and happy inside that you find so much comfort in his presence and that he gets to take care of you.💜

Taehyung:

Another that I think would be particularly good with a neurodivergent S/O. Like, everyone jokes about how he’s weird, so I think he’d love that you’re both your kind of own unique kinds of ‘weird’.

Happily rewatches your favorite comfort shows/films with you, and speaks in fluent film quotes with you.

Loves when you fidget and stim with his hands or fingers.

If you like pressure stims, he’s a dream come true. Like, the man’s a living weighted blanket, so when you basically give him a doctor's note for cuddles? He’s never gonna let you go.

As relaxed as he might come across sometimes tho, he’s super observant of your stims and triggers and takes it so seriously whenever you start feeling overwhelmed or stressed.

It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, if you need a break, he’s getting you to a quiet place where you can sit and just recalibrate.

Rivals Jin and Yoongi for top spot in the acts of service department on your bad days, making sure you eat properly, doing any household chores that need done. He even learned how to wash your weighted blanket so you don’t have to.

Jungkook:

Was definitely a little lost and overwhelmed when you first explained everything to him, but he really takes it in stride and tries to learn as much as possible to help make things easier for you where he can.

The King of comfort squeezes. Like you’ve seen his arms, he gives the best hugs, I just know it(especially on those “the weighted blanket isn't enough, I need a hydraulic press” days)

Loves learning about your special interests. Like, It’s no longer just your special interest, it’s our special interest. He’s even studying and finding things for it on his own to surprise you with.

Honestly plays with some of your fidget toys more than you do, lol! You might even end up giving him a few of his favorites😊

Gets super happy and smiley whenever you get echolalia of his songs.

Another member of the protective squad, ain’t no bad stimuli getting to his baby if he can help it!

The gentlest with you when you're overstimulated or having a tough day. Anything you need, he’ll do without question. All he cares about is making sure that you feel safe and comfortable🥺

Taglist: @sopebubbles-replies @btsw1fe @this-must-be-my-tardis @whitefoxgirl @bethanysnow @coffeedepressionsoup @main-bangtansmauyeondan @feminympho @a-gayish-unicorn @dfqcsqueen @mother2monsters @captainorangegoose @k4ngelz

[plutonian-moon]

random astro

observations p6 !! ☆° ✩࿐

take what resonates leave what doesn't!!

▪2H aqua/cap (both saturn ruled) can have bad self esteem !!tw : ed!! : they can even struggling with food & body image !!end of tw!! ☆

▪we 12th housers need alone time to process thoughts and feelings ! ☆

▪4H gemini/IC-mercury/4H mercury can mean that u r oversharing family issues that u have or ur childhood trauma ☆

▪mutable dominants can changing their personality alot even without meaning this its just comes naturally to them !! ☆

▪u cant change minds peoples who r fixed dominants lmao ☆

▪3H uranus/aquarius mercury/mercury-uranus have very chaotic minds ☆

▪3H moons/gemini moons wants venting 2 someone when feeling bad about how they r feeling or just about this situation 2 feel better or u maybe like writing ur feelings alot bc this can help u ! ☆

▪3H placements (esp venus) + gemini placements in big 6 have pretty hands ☆

▪4H saturns/4H cap have parents that never allow u to have fun bc they were very strict :-( ☆

▪pisces placemets/stelliums can have artistic gifts ! ☆

▪5H is telling u about ur hobbies so here r some examples which hobbies u can have based of ur 5H placement/s , 5H cusp + 5H ruler :

5H pisces/5H neptune - drawing, spirituality/occultism, paranormal things, psychology, music, astrology, numerology ☆

5H gemini/5H virgo/5H mercury - writing, literature, history, sociology, mbti (u can like finding who u r bc u can struggle with this or just 4 fun) also with 5H virgo im thing of health relating topics like u can b very interested in reading about mental health issues for example also u can b very picky about ur hobby hmm with 5H gemini u can change ur hobby alot or have many hobby at once lolol and u can be very open 2 new hobbies ! ☆

5H scorpio/5H pluto - occultism, psychology, criminology, taboo topics (traumas etc), astrology, mbti, horror movies/games, with this placement u can b secretive about ur hobbies or only small group of peoples close 2 u know about them yea ☆

5H libra/5H taurus/5H venus - fashion, designing clothes, makeup, drawing ☆

5H sagittarius/5H jupiter - learnings new languages, others countries/cultures, philosophy and u can also b very open to trying new hobbies i think its just mutable signs energy lol ☆

5H aquarius/5H uranus - games, astrology, mbti, hmm im thinking of some unique hobby with aquarius energy like ur hobbies can be very different from others peoples ☆

▪aquarius placements/dominants can makes that u will fighting for lgbt+ rights etc u just cant stand homophobic, racism etc !

▪6H uranus + 10H uranus can changing their jobs alot ☆

▪u can relate to ur draconic chart more if u dont relate to ur natal chart ☆

▪persona charts can tell u alot more about specific placement than looking ONLY in this placement in ur natal chart ☆

▪12th house rules hidden enemies .. when u r like me 12th houser then u need to b careful with peoples bc they can b ur hidden enemies hmm (esp when u have 12h sun, 12h mercury, 12h venus, 12h lilith, 12h pluto, 12h mars) ..

when u have for example ☆ :

mercury in 12h then ur hidden enemies can be peoples that r "friends" with u .. they will b just faking that they like u but .. they will b secretly hate u and talk shit about u .. ☆

▪when u r 12th houser then peoples energy can draining u alot .. so thats why its important 2 have alone time ! ☆

▪chiron in 1h, 4h, 7h and 10h can makes that others easly see ur pain (this can apply also 2 asc-chiron and sun-chiron peoples (esp. conjunctions) ☆

▪virgo 2h/aquarius 2h r picky when it comes 2 eating food ☆

▪3h also rules school hmm ur 3h sign + 3h ruler sign and house + aspects can give u how u r in school, how others see u in school !! ALSO CHECK 3H PLANETS IF U HAVE ANY ! ☆

[nicksbestie]

Hiii could i request a Johnnie Guilbert x gn reader where johnnie has a giant crush on reader and reader flirts w him and flusters him

Yes!!! This was so fun to write bc it's my first fic for this fanbase, so pls give me feedback!! and send in more reqs!! <3

Hallway Crush

word count : 1909

no warnings!

pairing : johnnie guilbert x reader

enjoy! <3

School had never really been Johnnie’s thing.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough to pursue an incredible education, it was just that he didn’t normally have the motivation. He wasn’t dumb, he was incredibly intelligent, but he just didn’t have the energy to push to show it most days. He was the kid who always passed, very average but not stellar grades, but every now and then shocked his teachers and classmates with pulling out a top of the class grade. He would laugh and call it his magic trick if you ever asked him about it. However, music was his thing, and because of that, he took every musical arts related class that he could during his years in high school. 

He was a quieter kid, with a much more alternative style of dress, and because of both of these factors, he was a bit of a loner. He wasn’t disliked, per say, but he wasn’t popular, and he didn’t go out of his way to attempt to gain a large group of friends. He had a few friends his age who went to other schools that he saw quite often, and those were good enough for him. He didn’t see a point in trying to put himself out there, so to speak, when he was quite comfortable where he was. Quality over quantity, right? That, of course, didn’t mean that there weren’t times in his life where he wished that more people adored him like they do for a lot of the popular teenagers. 

Sometimes it helped to be more on the outcast-y side. He could get away with silent observation, learning things that nobody had any idea that he knew about. He was a kid people talked so much around, but not to. They weren’t worried that their secrets would be spilled or spread around in any sort of way because they didn’t believe that he had anyone to tell them to, or that anyone would believe him in the first place. But other times, he wished he had more of the school, or at least his grade’s, support. Like now, when he had a massive crush on the most popular student in the entire school. Maybe, if he did, he would have more of a chance. 

He tried not to think about it a whole lot. It wasn’t good for him to dwell on things, as he had learned early in life. It caused his mental health to struggle if he stewed on a specific negative topic for too long, and even though the topic of a crush isn’t inherently negative, the fact that he didn’t feel like it would ever go anywhere was. Being that he didn’t have a lot of friends at the school he was at, he wasn’t a stranger to staring looks and laughing sometimes. He wasn’t exactly bullied or picked on, but when people ran out of new, fresh, drama to talk about, it was easy for them to turn to the kid who was never really speaking to many people. 

He used music to escape his own head, and he always had. It had been a coping mechanism of his for so many years, before he was even old enough to realize what it was, or what had caused him to need it more and more. He was incredibly musically gifted, a natural talent within the dexterity of his fingers for guitar, and it was always a calming thing for him to partake in. Sometimes he wrote his own music, but most times when he just needed a quick release, he would pick a song that he had been resonating with lately and strum through it a couple times. He would get lost in the feeling of the music and the feeling of the strings underneath his fingertips. It was always a thing that caused him to completely lose track of time, and he loved it. It was always a perfect thing to enjoy something you were also so good at. It kept that passion for it alive.

The music room was where he went during his free time. He couldn’t drive, and luckily, his free periods lined up with the music free periods, so he could always be found in that room, playing something on his guitar in the back corner. He also went there during lunch, preferring to spend the time doing something productive for his music. He really wanted to go into a career in music, and he was working so hard to achieve that despite many of the struggles he was facing at the same time. He poured his heart and soul into every song, every piece, that he wrote, and even when he didn’t like the music very much, he was proud of his ability to be vulnerable and put it onto the pages. That had taken a lot of personal growth for him to realize that to put good songs and things that he was proud of into the world, he would have to bare parts of himself for view.

It was during this part of his day, lunch time, when he was sitting in the music room, playing on his guitar. He was the only one in the room, and like usual, he was sitting in the back, not wanting to disturb anyone who could potentially choose to walk in. And after about ten minutes of the lunch period going by, there was someone who walked in, and Johnnie wanted to curse all ancestors before him for this type of bad luck. It would be the one person that he wanted to see more than anyone else in the school, but at the same time, he wouldn’t have been able to really talk to without humiliating himself. Only his luck. 

He didn’t speak to you when you walked in, but he did offer a kind smile when you looked up and made eye contact, before looking back down at his guitar and continuing to work on his own music. You had stopped by the music room because you had a music project that had to be completed, but you weren’t very musically inclined, so you felt very grateful that you didn’t have to present it, only had to turn it in. However, you did still have to make an effort, but you didn’t have a guitar at home, so you were stopping by to use the ones in the music room. You only knew a couple of chords, but it was the most that you knew on any instrument, so it was your best option. All you had to do was come up with a simple melody, a short strumming pattern, and that would pretty much be it, but for someone who wasn’t great at music, that was harder than it sounded. 

And it sounded pretty bad. Johnnie would never have said that directly to your face, but if you had turned around and watched him in the back corner, you would have been able to see him slightly grimacing whenever a chord sounded particularly bad. He wasn’t judging, necessarily, he remembered very well when he had been playing the exact same way, and if he felt anything, it would just be sorry for you because he could see on your face how frustrating the chords sounding incorrect were for you. After about ten more minutes of this, he stopped playing his own guitar, quietly watching and listening to the chords you were attempting to play. He listened to a couple shaky renditions of them, and attempted to play them on his own instrument. 

As soon as he did, you turned around, noticing how he froze as soon as your eyes were on him. 

“No, go on. Please. That’s exactly what I wanted it to sound like. How did you do that?” 

Taking a leap of faith, he got up to move across the room, pulling a chair up next to you and reaching his hands out. 

“May I?” 

You handed him the guitar, nodding, intently watching the way that he adjusted it on his lap before beginning to play it again. 

“You’re not pushing the strings down hard enough, and your fingers are too far away from the fret. That’s why it sounds so… that’s what you need to fix for it to sound a lot better.” 

You laughed, gently taking the guitar back. 

“Sounds so bad, it’s okay, you can say it.” 

He smiled, a blush gently dusting his face. 

“I wasn’t going to say bad. I was going to say buzzy but I felt that might be slightly insulting.” 

You shook your head, taking his advice and focusing on repositioning your fingers the way he had instructed. Strumming downwards, a smile broke out on your face when the first chord sounded so much better. Confidence boosted, you moved to the next one, wincing when it sounded worse than the original. His kind expression didn’t disappear, and instead he moved closer, a question in his eyes before he spoke it. You attempted to hand the guitar back to him, assuming he was going to ask to hold it again for a demonstration, but he quickly cut you off.

“No, keep everything where you are. Can I touch you?” 

You couldn’t deny the fact that your heart was racing. Despite your opposite styles and aesthetics, you had always found the style that Johnnie wore incredibly attractive. It wouldn’t fit you the way that it did him, but it looked so damn good on him, and apparently, he was oblivious to that fact. You wouldn’t have called it a crush at first assumption, but maybe that’s exactly what it was. You hide those feelings, throwing on a cocky look and smiling at him. 

“What exactly are you asking for?” 

He stammered in defense before noticing that you were smiling at him, and the dusty pink that had been on his face now turned a much darker red, and he just shook his head, looking back down at the guitar, refocusing. However, you thought if you were going to be getting closer to finishing this project, you were at least going to have a little fun while you were at it, especially with such a pretty boy right in front of you. 

“Don’t worry, I’m just messing with you. I’d say yes regardless, though.” 

His head snapped back up, an unbelieving laugh slipping out of his lips. 

“You can’t just say things like that.” 

You smiled at him, motioning for him to continue what he was doing, and he did. He moved around behind you to adjust his arm on the guitar as well, and gently moved and applied pressure to your fingertips before telling you to try strumming it now. 

“Why not?” 

He shook his head, instructing you to test out the chord again before replying. 

“You just can’t.” 

The chord sounded wonderful in comparison to what it had sounded like thirty minutes prior, and you were so grateful for all of Johnnie’s help. His head was right next to yours, a gentle smile on his face, a little bit of pride, and a lot of blushing prompted your next question.

“Can I kiss you instead?” 

He turned his head to stare at you, nearly wide-eyed, shocked with the realization that this wasn’t a dream, it was actually happening. This time, he didn’t hesitate to reply. 

“Yes. That you can do.”

[eggtrolls]

haiku misinformation: a fact check

there's an post going around about haiku that has a lot of incorrect information about haiku, its terminology, history, etc. I will try to debunk some of the biggest inaccuracies here. everything in quotes is a direct statement from the original post. this is also really, really long.

"Haiku are made of 14 on, which are essentially the equivalent to Japanese syllabic structures, except the nature of how Japanese as a language is constructed versus English means that any given proper haiku could be translated in extremely and intensely different ways, each giving a subtle but distinctly different meaning."

Starting off strong - haiku are (usually) made of 17 on. It's the classic 5-7-5 pattern! 5+7+5=17! [possibly this is a mix-up with wakiku (脇(わき)句(く)) which is another type of Japanese poetry that does use 14 on but who knows.]

Definitions: an on is a phonetic unit, the equivalent to a mora (pl. morae) in English. this concept a) exists in English and b) like on, is related to syllables but distinctly different from them (i.e. ba is one mora but baa with a long vowel is two morae). On can be counted using the number of hiragana (phonetic syllabic characters) when the text is transliterated, so a word like Osaka that has the long O sound (made up of 4 kana) would be 4 morae or 4 on (o-o-sa-ka; おおさか). it's not really a syllabic structure at all, and more importantly has nothing to do with translation. idk where that last part comes from because that's really...not the point here. Yes, any given "proper" haiku could be translated in different ways with a subtle but distinctly different meaning but that's true of just...translation, period. check out Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang for more on that.

Furthermore, haiku were/are not rigidly locked into the 5-7-5 on pattern. That's just not true, which is why I said usually above. Easy example: a 1676 haiku by Matsuo Basho that uses 18-on:

冨士の風や　扇にのせて 江戸土産; ふじのかぜや おうぎにのせて えどみやげ; the wind of Fuji /I've brought on my fan/a gift from Edo <- that first line is 6-on!

2. "The best way I can explain what I mean is that in English a good poem can be defined as a shallow river, whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well."

Not dignifying this with a response. Deeply incorrect and untrue. @bill-blake-fans-anonymous can handle this assertion.

3. "The presence of the kigu. There is a specific series of characters/words which are used to imply a season, and specifically a specific aspect of a season which the haiku revolves around. The creation of a haiku is often done as a meditative practice revolving around the kigu--you're essentially contemplating on this particular natural feature (nearly always the temporal aspect emphasizes either ephemerality or the opposite as well bc Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty begin coming into play) and building an evocative and purposeful point that revolves around it like a hinge. It functions as both ground and anchor."

First (and largest) problem: the word. is. kigo. kigo. It's ki (季; season)-go (語; word) = 季語. Both the English and Japanese language Wikipedia, or a 3-second google search, will tell you this immediately. I have no idea where the term kigu comes from.

Second problem: plenty of haiku, both traditional and contemporary, do not use kigo. these are described as muki (無季; seasonless). Matsuo Basho, the haiku-writing poet non-Japanese people are most likely to know, wrote at least ten seasonless haiku that exist today. Masaoka Shiki, the Meiji-era haiku poet and reformist, wrote hundreds of kigo-free haiku and as an agnostic, tried to separate haiku from Buddhism and focus more on the shasei, the sketches from daily life. you can actually, today, buy what are called saijiki, which are lists of words and terms that refer to specific seasons (in the traditional Japanese calendar, so there are actually a lot of "micro" seasons as well). some saijiki include a whole section of "seasonles" words - here's an article about non-season kigo in a saijiki.

so the claim that English-language haiku are invalid or not "real" haiku because they lack a kigo doesn't hold up, unless you invalidate a whole bunch of Japanese haiku as well. the op also claimed they would categorize a lot of English "haiku" as senryū which is...an opinion. Yes, haiku tend to be focused around nature (more on that below) and senryū tend to be more comedic or about human foibles but...that's it! it's a tendency! it's not a hard and fast rule!

Third problem: the claim that a haiku is as meditative practice revolving around the kigu kigo...yeah, no. the earlier form of haiku, the hokku, were the introductory poems of the longer poetic form, the renga and the hokku gradually became a standalone poetic form known as haiku. the hokku had a lot of purposes and we have a historical record of them going back ~1000 years to Emperor Juntoku where they were declamatory poems tied to events (births, deaths, etc.) or social events (moon-viewing parties) - not really meditative. haiku, if a genre can focus on a single idea, focus on an experience and that can be real or imaginary, direct and personal or neither.

Here's another Basho poem for your consideration:

夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡 (natsukusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato; summer grasses--/traces of dreams/of ancient warriors)

both the dreams and the grasses are those of Basho (contemporary) and of the warriors (ancient); it's about travel, it's about connecting the present to the ancient past, it's not really so much about the summer.

(Fourth, minor problem that I'm not really going to get into: you'd have to take this 'Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty' up with haiku scholar Haruo Shirane but he explicitly says in the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) that "pioneers of English-language haiku [such as D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and the Beats] mistakenly emphasized Zen Buddhism in Japanese haiku".....so.)

4. "The presence of the kireji...it's a concept borderline absent from English because it's an intersection of linguistics and philosophy that doesn't really exist outside of the context of Japanese."

Let's begin with clarification. What is kireji (lit. a 'cutting word')? It's a class of terms in Japanese poetry that can do a few things, depending on the specific kireji and its place in the poem. In the middle of the poem, it can mark a thematic break, a cut in the stream of thought highlighting the parallel(s) between the preceding and following phrases. At the end of the poem, it provides a sense of ending and closure - it helps mark rhythmic division, to say the least, and it is seen as the 'pivot' word.

Two problems with claims above:

a. there are haiku that do not use kireji. For the hat trick, here's a Matsuo Basho haiku from 1689 AD that is kireji-free: 初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也 (hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari; the first cold shower/even the monkey seems to want/a little coat of straw) <- NB: I love this haiku so much

b. the idea of a kireji, as in a pivot word that provides an inflection point with rhythmic division and structure, exist not just in English poetry but in multiple different types of poetry across time and space! The caesura in Latin and Ancient Greek! The volta in sonnets! Whatever is happening in the third line of the Korean sijo!

final thoughts:

the op included language, which I won't quote here because it was messy and tied into other rbs, about Orientalism and appropriation in English-language haiku, which is definitely a real thing. but this blanket statement ignores that the relationship between haiku and "the West", much like Japan and "the West", was and is not a one-way street. Western writers were influenced by haiku and, in turn, those writers influenced Japanese writers who wrote haiku inspired by these influences - this process has been going on for well over a century. Furthermore, English and Japanese are not the only languages in which haiku are written! Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore was writing haiku in Bengali; other Indian poets were and are writing them in Gujrati and Malayalam, particularly by the poet Ashitha. the Pakistani poet Omer Tarin has written haiku about Hiroshima! The Spanish poet Lorca published haiku in, get this, Spanish, in 1921 and the Mexican poet José Juan Tablada published more in 1922! Italian translations of Yosano Akiko were published in 1919! any discussion of the idea that English/non-Japanese-language haiku aren't really haiku because they don't hold to the "rules" (which Japanese authors have been revising, adapting, critiquing, and/or straight up flouting for centuries) or because English/non-Japanese poetry is "a shallow river whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well" just shows a lack of knowledge around traditions and depths of...well, poetry itself.

my god this is so long.

in summary: this is a complex topic. If anyone would like some actual information about haiku, its history, common themes and forms, or a collection of good poets, the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) and Haiku Before Haiku : From the Renga Masters to Basho (2011) are great references and really accessible in their language! hmu if you're interested and I can send you some pdfs.

[tommiruewrites]

tewkesbury hc's !!

a/n: some of my random (and somewhat self-indulgent) flower boy headcanons after watching enola holmes 2! enjoy :)

requested: yes | no

requests: open | closed

request rules here

remember to like, comment, and reblog to support my writing <3

❀ loves the combination of chocolate and orange

❀ just loves citrus in general

❀ favorite color is purple, second favorite blue, third yellow

❀ knows an insane amount about plants and will sometimes randomly spew out a random fact

❀ the two of you are walking down the street, chatting about topics not at all related to nature, and all of a sudden, he's like, "did you know-" {proceeds to tell you the most insanely obscure plant fact ever about a flower you've never even heard of}

❀ loves animals

❀ and he's always so proud of himself for knowing it too

❀ random plant facts are also his go-to conversation starters

❀ is extremely clumsy and constantly knocks things over, trips over his own feet, etc. but all of a sudden, all the clumsiness leaves his body when dancing or fencing ?? he has beef with coordination idk

❀ his favorite flower is the one that reminds him the most of you

❀ he knows the meaning and symbolism of every flower, so he always has a reason or message with each on he gives you

❀ he also looooves poetry

❀ not afraid to pour his heart out to you poetically

❀ but only once you've been close a while, in the beginning he's a hot, awkward mess, tripping over his words left and right

❀ he does much better writing out his feelings at the start

❀ hides poetic notes in your flower bouquets, or leaves pressed flowers in your letters

❀ extremely dramatic

❀ the type of dramatic to claim he's on the brink of death after getting a single paper cut

❀ in fact, he's so dramatic that when little things happen to you, he overreacts for you. what a gentleman

❀ definitely a hopeless romantic 

❀ extremely good with kids

❀ slightly afraid of the dark

❀ his favorites are deer and horses, but he also just loves birds

❀ was a late bloomer when it came to walking, but started talking super early as a baby (it just makes sense okay)

❀ sometimes dances around in his room, alone, pretending he's dancing with you

❀ also practices romantic things to say to you in the mirror

❀ has super fancy-dancy penmanship and makes it look effortless

❀ really likes art, specifically romanticism style paintings

❀ plays the piano beautifully 

❀ also understands latin and is fluent in french because he's fancy

❀ very easily entertained

❀ also has a very short attention span for most things and gets distracted easily

❀ main love language is words of affirmation, followed closely by gift giving and acts of service

❀ loves his hair being played with

❀ owns a journal where he logs each day

❀ absolutely loves jam

❀ avid lover of jasmine tea and green tea

❀ also puts a ridiculous amount of honey in it

❀ oddly afraid of frogs and toads

thats all i can think of for now, hope you enjoyed that. 

side not, posted this on 11/11 at 11:11 my time bc im so cool like that. you're welcome.

[cursed-man-prayers]

Before folklore came out, I would tell people that liking Taylor Swift was the straightest thing about me. Then folklore, evermore, and Red TV came out. As I saw the queer themes in those albums, I began seeing them in reputation, 1989, Speak Now, Fearless, and debut. The themes have always been there, fluctuating in subtlety but steadily increasing since 1989. So why did I think of Taylor Swift as so quintessentially straight? You guessed it: Compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity.

Taylor was supposed to be universally relatable. When she explained her songs, she refrained from using gender-specific language. Us. We. That person. Someone. And people that as “Me. I. A man. That guy I told everyone I was dating.” We were told she dated men, and a woman dating a man = heterosexual. No other options.

Even now, Genius will remove lyric annotations that imply her lyrics might not be about a man. Even with Hits Different, Question…? and Maroon. Taylor says reputation is about Joe and swifties believe her bc “Taylor wouldn’t lie to us!!!” even though there’s so many inconsistencies with the narrative that Rep is about Joe.

To say outright or even imply that Taylor might write songs about women because she likes women is met with scores of comments about how we “shouldn’t speculate on her sexuality!!! she said she’s straight!!! stop being disrespectful!!!!” But Taylor, as she has never said the words “I’m gay” has never said the words “I’m straight.” What she has done is align herself with. LGBTQ artists (YNTCD music video, Phoebe feat., posting support for queer musicians on social media, and, of course, the Pride parade that is her list of openers for the Eras Tour).

If Taylor didn’t people thinking she’s queer, she would’ve thrown in “as a straight woman…” in her speech before performing Delicate at multiple Pride events, when being interviewed about her advocacy during the Lover era, or at literally any point in her adult life.

Writing about women from the male perspective is queer. Her dressing in drag for the Man music video and showing herself in bed with a woman is inherently queer. The way she writes songs about her love interests’ girlfriends is queer. People bend over backwards to justify the gay shit she does, the same thing people have done for centuries with Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and so many sapphic artists throughout history. Taylor Swift is THE songwriter of our generation. She IS the music industry. But swifties, and hetlors all the more, would rather believe she is stupid and ignorant rather than intentionally using phrases like “hairpin drop,” “lavender haze,” “all the bricks they threw at me,” “you’re the West Village.” When she describes her muses as having scarlet lips, having hair that falls into place like dominos and braids in a pattern, gorgeous, it’s just because she thinks men are really pretty I guess (insert MetGala 2016 Joe photo). When she describes men as toys, playthings, “dudes who give nothing,” she’s being satirical. When she says “weird rumors,” that can’t possibly refer to rumors about marriage, pregnancy, or her having had multiple children during the pandemic. It’s *weird* to say that Taylor is queer. It’s weird and bad and gross. Why? Because people saying this believe being queer is weird, bad, and gross.

But it’s not weird. Being queer is beautiful, a gift. And that gift comes with a world that hates who we are. Of course Taylor is too soft for all it. And I admire her softness, that she continues to write vulnerable music. Midnights (esp 3am Edition and Hits Different) holds her loudest lyrics. She’s never beating the rumors and she doesn’t want to. Even if she never says the words “I’m gay/bi/pan/a lesbian,” the eardrum-shattering volume of her lyrics is more than enough for me.

[talon-dragonbeast]

misceanimalis identities and alterhumanity

(also called: ✨misceverse propaganda✨)

a few days ago i promised to write a post about the misceverse and how it applies to myself/my identity. so, here it is!

[as a disclaimer, im still very much aroace so rest assured this post will be completely sfw. however, im aware that some people can be uncomfortable with this stuff so ill be putting the post under a read more]

so, omegaverse. a few of you may remember my post/essay on how i view gender through draconic lenses, and how my species classifies ourselves not with sex but with how we contribute to society, our Role. well, last week i saw some of my mutuals (shout-out to @/were-bastard and @/professional-jaywalker, the birds ever /pos) reblog stuff about something called the misceverse, which was inspired by omegaverse fanfic tropes, and... well. it piqued my interest. i had read a few of these stories myself when i was younger, so i knew more or less about what it was all about, but i didnt know there was an entire community centered around it!

what struck me the most about these communities was the normalization and celebration of animalistic behaviours, specifically as they relate to relationships, something that, as a nonhuman, is obviously very appealing to me. i struggle a lot to express affection in the expected/"human" way, as my instincts tell me to act more like the creature i am. things like nesting, scenting, giving gifts or having a special language of animal noises to communicate with your loved ones are things i do naturally, and that i fight to suppress every day. upon seeing all this in the misce community, plus the classifications that match so perfectly with my dragon Roles, i was sold.

so, what even is misceanimalis?

also called miscecanis, its a community centered around the omegaverse, that is, a universe where people have secondary sexes as well as the normal ones: alpha, beta or omega. (they were inspired by that one study on wolf behaviour and pack dynamics, which i find really funny bc its considered incredibly inaccurate nowadays). people on this verse exhibit animal behaviours like nesting, forming packs, making animal noises or "subvocals", and, of course, experiencing mating cycles (i will not get into that last part, but basically omegas have heats and can get pregnant while alphas have ruts and can get people pregnant; betas are usually the "normal" ones, but this may vary between verses). also! a very important thing in omegaverse is scenting. everyone has a unique scent, so people can identify your dynamic right away; its used as a way to mark your territory and your mate and to express emotions.

about me!

dynamic: i am bidynamic; both an omega and a beta, also called a gamma or oeta.

for me, this means that im socially neutral (but leaning submissive), i exhibit protective and nurturing behaviours like an omega, and give a calming effect to people like a beta. my presentation though is fully omega: i am very timid, uncertain and introverted, though if im feeling confident enough i can come off as more casual/laid-back.

scent: my scent is vanilla, very sweet as is typical of omegas (funnily, i found that this scent is almost unbearable for most people, but i adore it).

i use vanilla body lotion and perfume for myself, and a soft vanilla air freshener for my den.

behaviours: i am misceavian, which means my behaviours are mostly based on birds (nesting, gift-giving, mating dances, all that stuff). my subvocals are both avian and draconic: purring, chirping, etc. i also experience heats but they are very mild, and are less frequent than for monodynamic omegas.

anyway, i think thats enough for today! wow i rambled a lot, didnt i? i hope you enjoyed reading this, and maybe even fell for my propaganda i mean, considered a misceanimalis identity for yourself! i found that the community is very nice and open-minded, and i think more alterhumans could benefit from joining it!

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

good things about ep. 7:

this episode was by far the best at working with film as a medium. there were still issues, to be mentioned soon, but this ep did a lot of things that impressed me on a level of cinematic structure and format:

some actual tension!! simply showing the trio running from cerberus created investment and stakes for me in a way no monster fight or other obstacle had before (a matter definitely enhanced by the music)

the use of flashbacks!! now, i have some issues with the content of those flashbacks, but since im basically getting two degrees in assessing media i know how to give credit where credit is due lmao. these flashbacks were doing interesting things cinematically, creating parallels with percy's experiences in the present, especially that last flashback where they continued poseidon's voiceover into the present moment. fuck yes!! use the medium of cinema to your ADVANTAGE!!

related to the use of flashbacks, the match cuts!! they were so good, as they helped make visual those narrative and characterological parallels being constructed through the flashbacks. film is an inherently visual and auditory medium, and it was so refreshing to see the show experimenting and making effective choices with those tools

some issues with ep. 7 and the series as a whole:

i'll admit it. im tired of the trio already knowing everything about every obstacle they face (having to improvise in the fight with cerberus was so refreshing and retained more of the spirit of the book as opposed to uh. every other obstacle). and i think this connects with show's overall struggle with writing, adaptation, and the medium of film. these writers have committed the cardinal sin of assuming their audience always needs explanation. in any writing class (fiction and screenwriting are my personal expertise), you are told to assume your audience is smarter than you think, bc a writer's instinct is to assume they need to be clear about action and themes out of a fear of confusing their audience and the end result of that situation is a boring, overly explanatory piece of work. (an re the young viewers, kids are freaking smart!! i literally teach kids of the age range these books are directed for and they are so quick-witted. kids don't need stuff handed to them on a platter, they know how to put puzzle pieces together.)

example of the aforementioned "too much knowledge" issue: the pearls. (people have already explained the issues with medusa, the casino, procrustes, etc., so im going for a new one that's been bugging me a bit.) after percy received four pearls, the general conclusion people came to was that one pearl would break, forcing them to have to choose three people to go/one to stay and thus making the choice more "meaningful" (i.e. bc the opportunity to save everyone had been stripped). it's a fair choice, a fair reason, a fair analysis, and this is a change that bothers me but much more minimally than other changes to the show. here's the deal: the reason they had to give four pearls in the show was bc the trio already knew exactly what the pearls would do. there was no reason to give only three pearls bc that would force a character (probably percy) to raise the question of like "hey, that's not enough to save four people!" so where am i going with this?

in the books and the musical, we get the alluring line of what belongs to the sea can always return to the sea. percy gets three pearls in the book and a seashell in the musical, where he doesn't know right away the specifics of what this gift does (the seashell is an excellent example of adapting a story to a new medium, as a low-budget theatrical production can't afford the effects of smashing three pearls and causing people to vanish from the stage, so blowing the seashell to open a portal was a great move that worked for the new medium and retained the spirit of the source material - percy having an epiphany well after receiving the gift about what, exactly, the gift did and how it would help him). in the show, they issue is that they already know, thus creating the dilemma of there being no reason not to give four pearls. again, not the worst choice the show has made, but it's another example of how the show's most pervasive issue is over-explaining and giving too much information to its characters.

in short: the pjo show doesn't understand "show don't tell." they love telling even though "showing" is Most Important in film as a medium, like it's even more important to show what's going on in film than it is in prose because cinema is an inherently collaborative medium that generates a visually-dominated product. the show clearly lacks a fundamental understanding of the medium it is working with!! and that is bad!!

another issue: the lighting. this show suffers from the current trend in film to make dark scenes impossible to see in.

more characterological problems: the gods are not imposing. just to speak of ep. 7 alone, why was hades so... banter-y? in the book he literally makes percy's hand "move... against [his] will" to show him the pearls. there was none of that power and domineering energy in the show!! the pjo show keeps hammering us over the head with what should be a series-long revelation about the gods' flaws and pettiness and spite and misuse of their incredible power, and yet all of the gods seem almost like... caricatures. where is their ability to be charismatic and threatening. to be lax and powerful. to remind us that they can, have, and will kill demigods.

core thematic issue: the show lacks the humor and fun and adolescent spirit of the books. i've seen a lot of people insist the show is directed for young readers of the book, which i don't disagree with, but the lack of humor and energy and vitality is undoubtedly turning off a lot of younger viewers. in a lot of instances, everything feels so gritty and angsty, lowkey like the winx adaptation (but on a less severe scale). we have moments of sass/sarcasm, moments of levity, but it doesn't feel like a core trait of the show (much less of percy) like it does in the book. and honestly, i think that's a loss! if rick wanted a grim pjo adaptation, fine, but i wish the show hadn't been advertised as something perfectly attuned to the spirit of the book bc it's just not. if it was, i'd be laughing a lot more.

now, let's talk about sally...

i don't love how they've characterized sally in this show. i respect that they wanted to "modernize" her character and more accurately demonstrate the struggles of a single parent raising a child with learning (and in percy's case, also magical) difficulties. i genuinely do respect that choice, and i can follow the thorough-lines created in the show that illustrate this revamping of her character. similarly, i can respect that they didn't want sally to seem like a stereotypical "passive" victim of abuse re gabe, hence her explicitly pushing back at him. that said...

i still don't think these are effective or necessary changes, because i don't think sally was portrayed as overly passive or as a perfectly equipped parent in the book. i understand the argument that gabe is still presented as abusive, i.e. that he checks her phone without permission and controls access to the car, but those moments feel so technical. when i rewatch those scenes and examine the acting (both line delivery and bodily cues), sally is outwardly derisive toward gabe ("who's yancy?" / sally sighs and shakes her head, exasperated, has the long blink to give an extra beat before responding: "the school."), yet at the same time there's a banter between them, where sally insists that she's going to go to montauk no matter what, and if gabe disagrees then she won't bring back both their sandwiches for the knicks game that they apparently watch together often (implied by "you know i hate watching the knicks alone!" "so do i!"). sally holds herself confidently in this scene (hands on her hips). gabe is forced to actually ask politely for his sandwich order (and notably holds his shoulders slightly inward, visually closing himself off in a physical representation of surrender). two of my friends, diehard pjo fans who are not literature or film scholars, were both confused as to why sally and gabe seemed to be bantering within a seemingly standard relationship dynamic - not necessarily the happiest of couples, but a standard married couple (as opposed to clear imbalance of power between them in the book).

to be clear, it's not that sally needs to be a "passive victim of abuse," and it's certainly not that the show needs to explicitly depict gabe hitting sally or percy for us to understand that he is abusive. my issue is that the show seems to have not understood what made sally a strong character initially: her willingness to endure anything for her son, including marrying an abusive man who smelled so rankly human in order to prevent monsters from finding them. like, sally resisted gabe's abuse in the book! the reason blue food is a major motif in the first place is because sally and gabe had a fight where gabe insisted blue food wasn't a thing, and thus percy observes that "ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue."

in other words, verbally standing up to one's abuser is not the only way to demonstrate that a character is not a stereotypically weak, helpless, passive victim. it's definitely an easy choice with regard to cinematic staging (and the show has a pattern of taking the easy way out of conflicts and nuance), but i think the real issue is that sally's vocal protests come in tandem with the defanging of gabe. why does his body language and tone falter in arguments with sally? does he not have the upper hand? where is the evidence of an imbalanced power dynamic? there is no one way to write abuse bc the tragic reality is that abuse happens in an infinite number of ways, but nonetheless i am frustrated with the route the show went down in the first ep bc it feels reductive to the core of sally's character and her strengths: her endurance, her implicit but present rebelliousness, and her love for her son.

im also not a fan of some of the flashbacks we're getting with sally. it's not that sally shouldn't be "allowed" to get frustrated ever, but a major element of her characterization in the books is that she didn't take that frustration out on percy. i just don't see sally jackson getting upset that percy doesn't want to swim (beside that, i can't imagine percy not wanting to swim lmao). i just don't see sally jackson almost aggressively telling percy that he is the one making their goodbye ugly (because he's being a kid?? who doesn't want to leave his mom?? you're telling me sally wouldn't recognize the root of his anxiety immediately??). i just don't see sally speaking vaguely to percy about there being things she has to do that he doesn't understand instead of doing her best to meet percy where he's at with her explanation. if someone is coming to this show without having read the books, i genuinely think they might be starting to question sally's parenting, i.e. if she was really as wonderful a mom as percy insists or if he simply sees her through rose-tinted glasses. bc here's the thing: percy does see sally and his mom's struggles through rose-tinted glasses, and it's because sally bottles up and hides her struggles and frustrations from him. she doesn't let percy witness those frustrations. as such, there's an incongruity between book!sally and show!sally that doesn't mesh for me.

in short, show!sally feels like a new character to me. that's fine if that's the route they wanted to take, but again: why advertise it as a faithful adaptation if you're not going to be faithful to the core elements of central characters?

im also disappointed by how much the show has stripped annabeth of her character besides her intelligence. i have some thoughts about the adultification of young Black girls and the fact that annabeth is Black in the pjo show, mostly that i can't tell yet whether the show has the self-awareness to offer commentary on this reality for many Black girls through annabeth's character being seemingly defined by her intelligence and maturity or if they're simply unwittingly replicating this circumstance. i need more material before i can make a concrete assessment here, but all the same, i wish they were allowing these kids and especially annabeth to be kids - to make mistakes, to fall into traps, to have little crushes and get flustered, and to not know everything about every monster/obstacle before they come to face it.

people have talked to death the issue of the pacing so i won't belabor it but in general this show has terrible pacing. the first two eps are rushed (we got so little luke that im concerned his betrayal won't have much heart/meaning/oomph in the final ep), the constant unnecessary exposition creates periods of narrative drudgery, most of the fights lack tension bc the choreography is effectively nonexistent, them missing the solstice deadline has so far sucked the wind of the energy of their quest (of which there wasn't much in the first place bc the show did a poor job establishing the looming threat of a globally destructive war being on the horizon), and in general there's no sense of stakes. sigh.

i probably have more thoughts, but i'll stop for now bc i've got a shit ton of assignments to work on. in sum: the show lacks an understanding of how film operates as a medium, and while the merit of the show as an adaptation can be debated, it's simply a poorly constructed and lackluster piece of tv.

(but on the bright side? the trio is killing it even with the weak material they've been given, and their acting talent is the only reason i and many of my friends have kept watching)

[jonquilyst]

LUCIAN VINCA for @akitasimblr's Mad About Dodo BC

Highly convenient that you announce a BC, because my latest spare from my legacy just aged up to a young adult! Bonus points: he and Dodo have a lot in common. So, allow me to introduce you to the newest of the Vinca family: Lucian! (pronounced Loo-see-uhn)

FAST FACTS

Traits: Bookworm, Generous, Ambitious

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Likes: Alternative Music, Singer-Songwriter Music, Pop Music, Red, Orange, Cerebral Sims, Hard-Working Sims, Discussing Hobbies, Discussing Interests, Compliments, Deep Thoughts, Stories, and Jokes

Dislikes: Ranch Music, Blues Music, Ambitionless Sims, Argumentative Sims, Arguments, and Malicious Interactions

Misc: 2-star celebrity (very close to 3 stars)

BIOGRAPHY

Dodo and Lucian have this very important fact in common: both are related to a very famous actor! In Lucian's case, it's his dad, Amias Vinca. In fact, both of his parents are super famous. His mother, Kyoko Miyamoto, wasn't famous at first, but she became a 5-star celebrity herself when she became a vlogging overnight sensation. So, both of Lucian's parents are very famous, and as a result he is famous himself!

Lucian grew up luxuriously in his parents' celebrity home along with his older sister Estelle. Both he and his sister have been trendy since birth and he has grown up with thousands of eyes watching him. Estelle got even more famous when she started painting as a teenager, becoming a 4-star celebrity, but with the celebrity life weighing down on her, she decided to quit the spotlight upon becoming a young adult so she could live a quiet and peaceful life in a cottage in Henford-on-Bagley.

Lucian, however, decided to stay in the spotlight. He doesn't mind it that much. He's only known for being his parents' kid anyway, so the paparazzi go for them more than they go for him, but he occasionally runs into some fans who want his autograph and he lives for it.

Lucian's interests include writing and books, science-fiction and dystopian fiction specifically. He aspires to create his own stories someday and wants to become a full-time writer.

Lucian is very friendly, and since he's got the money, he is a very generous guy, almost to the point where people consider him a philanthropist. He will shower anyone he loves with gifts, treats, and whatnot, even if said gifts are very expensive.

Lucian is very close with his dad, who is fit and athletic like Dodo is. Lucian isn't as athletic as his dad, but he doesn't mind doing fitness-related activities! He'd enjoy doing a workout with Dodo.

NOTES

Comes with all outfits

It's ok if his fame declines during the challenge. Lore-wise, he is always a celebrity!

He's from generation 6 of my Vinca Legacy! Family tree here

PRIVATE DOWNLOAD

(Thanks for saving me a spot!! I REALLY wanted to participate lol)

[theoceansluvr]

Connor Stoll x Reader

warnings; none ! author's note; connor stoll the boy you are to me !! my favorite pjo character AND my boyfriend(trust me bro) literally the only character capable of pulling me out of a writing slump <9 like all my headcanons this is all over the place bc 1. i got excited to write it and 2. i have way too many ideas for him

he's the world's most lovingly annoying partner.

you think because you're dating your not going to get pranked anymore ??

WRONG

he knows you could never be mad at him(not for too long anyway-) and uses that to his advantage

he apologies with kisses and gifts

which may or may not have been stolen

but it's the thought that counts !

insanely clingy might i add

considering his brother betrayed the entire camp, he's bound to have a tad bit of attachment issues

he'll absolutely back off if you don't like it because he's not a complete jerk

DATES !

lego building, pranking his brother, sitting by the lake

literally anything that involves him being able to be around you

i feel like he'd also be an incredible skater so he'd (try to) teach you !

(can you guys tell i really like skater boys ??)

anyways !

he is a GOD in the kitchen !!!

i can't explain it but im right trust me guys

likes having you in the kitchen with him whether you're cooking with him or not

it gives him a weirdly domestic feeling that he lives for

calls you the weirdest nicknames..

from godly parent related to just straight up random words. he won't explain himself at all either

"What's up, dragonfly !" "Hey, grapevine !" "How are you, BlackBerry 850 ?"

it's relentless.

MATCHING EVERYTHING !!

bracelets, shoes, keychains, pajama pants !

literally everything possible

if you celebrate Christmas or do secret Santa in general, he definitely rigs it so that your his secret Santa every time.

it's not even a secret at this point and you plus everybody else always expect it

while on the topic, he's somehow the best gift giver ever

you'll never get the same thing twice nor something you already have

probably bc he's insanely observant when it comes to you

Travis LOVES you

literally you can't date Connor unless Travis approves

you two prank Connor together all the time and he always falls for it

whether it's out of pity or you're just that good, the world may never know :0

loves playing with your hair if you allow it !

literally always asks before touching it too

"You're braids are so pretty... Can I touch them ?"

if you're someone who paints their nails he always asks you to make them his favorite color

he probably asks you to paint his too just for them to be chipped off within the hour

BIG fan of Connor having freckles SOOOO

he lets you trace them whenever you can't sleep or while you're hold his hand

biggest sap in the world for that actually !

shares all of his snacks with you

will literally hand you his bag of sour gummies without a word because you already know what he means

ermm.. matching jelly cats ??

specifically these ones

possibly projecting bc i have the sun one but who's really tracking ?

he sneaks into you cabin every once in a while because it's way too loud in the Hermes cabin

sweetest boy in the entire world 1000000000/10 would recommend getting one ! although im completely bias for him

[dwellordream]

“Young women have always been for sale. In the fifth century bc, Herodotus describes the practice of selling Babylonian daughters at a yearly auction in his Histories. He wrote:

They used to collect all the young women who were old enough to be married and take the whole lot of them all at once to a certain place. A crowd of men would form a circle around them there. An auctioneer would get each of the women to stand up one by one, and he would put her up for sale. He used to start with the most attractive girl there, and then, once she had fetched a good price and been bought, he would go on to auction the next most attractive one. They were being sold to be wives, not slaves. All the well-off Babylonian men who wanted wives would outbid one another to buy the good-looking young women, while the commoners who wanted wives and were not interested in good looks used to end up with some money as well as the less attractive women.

The Babylonian men paid a bride price, but some of their money would come back to them because the young women were given dowries, which their husbands would administer even if they could not raid it. This exchange seems odd but was not so unusual in the classical world, where women served to cement together two male-controlled families. If a married daughter died without children, her money would go back to her family, which removed any incentive to harm her.

At the time, virginity was not always necessary to a girl’s successful marriage—the Lydians prostituted their daughters to raise money for their dowries. Because of the dangers of childbirth and high rate of early mortality in ancient Greece, it was common for wealthy relatives to provide not just their daughters but also their poor relations with dowries. Athenian law even required that the State dower poor women of just passable attractiveness; teeth were all that were required. Because Athens was under constant threat from its rivals, it depended on its young women to provide it with a constant stream of new soldiers.

Classical literature is filled with accounts of creative daughter disposal. In some memorable verses of The Odyssey, the father of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, then thought to be a widow, urges her to marry the suitor with the most gifts. Greek fathers took care not to raise more daughters than they could dower. Outright infanticide was abhorrent to ancient Greeks, but they did practice “exposure,” wherein parents intentionally left unwanted infants exposed to the elements. They believed that the gods could choose to save the abandoned children, thereby eliminating their agency while achieving their aims. Husbands were not permitted to run through their wives’ dowries but neither could the wife.

A Greek woman’s dowry yielded about 18 percent per year, and if the couple got divorced, either party could request the dowry. It was returned to a woman’s guardian or, in certain cases, kept by the husband, who paid 18 percent interest to his former wife’s guardian for her support. The wealthier the family, the more likely it was that a marriage would take place between two young first cousins. Such marriages keep money in one family and tended to correlate with periods of cultural instability, when power was held by a few important families. Cousin marriage was particularly popular among the higher echelons in Elizabethan England, the Antebellum South, and in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain.

Greek girls who died in childhood were mourned specifically because they did not fulfill their destiny as wives and mothers. Their epitaphs make reference to their failure to marry, and the girls were quickly writ into myth. Like Persephone before them, they were considered married to Hades and dwelled, as wraiths, in the underworld.

In the Roman period, women did not fare better. Catullus sums up the Roman attitude toward marriage, writing, “If, when [a young woman] is ripe for marriage, she enters into wedlock, she is ever dearer to her husband and less hateful to her parents.”

The middle class continued to sell their daughters at regional markets throughout most European countries during the Middle Ages. For the upper middle classes, the social stasis of the period made marrying an heiress one of the only means to improve one’s social status, and it was nearly impossible to do without deception. The middle classes began to consult marriage brokers—a growing cottage industry in Europe—who would help them plot their rise, reconstruct their family histories, then help them relocate in order to achieve success in another part of the country. If a woman did marry up, she would find that she had much less control over both her body and her daily life—where she walked and even what she ate—than she had in a middle-class environment. In the upper classes, the legitimacy of heirs continued to be of primary importance, and as such women’s movements were intensely regulated.

Women were progressively more visible during the Renaissance. Increased trade created a new culture of conspicuous consumption, propped up by merchants and explorers who transported new goods through Genoa and Venice, Zanzibar and Constantinople, outward to European capitals and the known world. Newly available luxury goods made life easier and more enjoyable—tobacco, tea, coffee, silks, and spices facilitated a culture of male comfort in which wives and daughters played an important though entirely passive role. In ancient Greece and Rome women were kept mostly in the home, but during the Renaissance men put their velvet-swaddled wives and daughters on display, trotting them out in public, where they would often sit separately, saying little if anything but fulfilling a necessary decorative function. A woman’s beauty, or wealth, was most of all a statement about the social status of her presiding male, be he husband, father, or brother.

For much of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, sumptuary laws on food and goods defined and limited social space. By legislating who could obtain specific fabrics, foods, drink, and other luxuries, governments prevented servants and the middle classes from masquerading as aristocrats by denying them access to the materials necessary to appear richer than they were. Pre-Reformation Europeans were just beginning to let go of feudal social organization.

Though more people now lived in cities, family patriarchs had long made decisions for their large clans and were not interested in giving up a privilege that had served them so well. Daughters were married to create important and lasting connections between families. Those who could not be married off in a way that would benefit the clan were often forced into nunneries. For a noble family, sending a daughter to a convent or forcing her into spinsterhood was far preferable to tainting a family line by permitting her to marry beneath her station.

This system of dispensing with daughters worked peaceably for hundreds of years, until Henry VIII came to need a son and heir. When his attempts to have his first marriage, which had produced no sons, annulled by the pope failed, Henry charged ecclesiastical and secular legal scholars in England with finding a way to divorce his consort Catherine and marry his pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn. Their solution was divorce and breaking away from the Catholic Church. Henry began the violent dissolution of Catholic monasteries in 1536. It lasted for four years, during which the crown plundered church lands, sold them off to rich allies, and used the surplus cash to wage dubious wars in France. For wealthy young women, newly Anglican, there was an additional change, perhaps the single most significant social change women would see until suffrage. Their safe haven—the convent—was now gone.

The absence of nunneries sent numerous marriageable aristocratic young women into circulation. When once they would have been in the country, awaiting the marriages arranged for them, or preparing to enter a convent, these young girls were now brought to court, which is where they were most likely to find husbands. By the time Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I began her reign in 1558, the atmosphere surrounding marriage had a new urgency.

Elizabeth’s rule began in religious chaos after her predecessor, her half sister Mary, violently restored Roman Catholicism to England. Elizabeth spent the better part of her first years on the throne fighting for her father’s Protestantism in an effort to fend off those who wished to depose her. Her legitimacy was questioned with every decision she made, and she understood that her courtiers were her key to maintaining the throne. She tightened her control over the aristocracy by reducing its size to a new low. She stripped disloyal aristocrats of their titles or made it known they were not welcome at court.

It was against this tumultuous backdrop that Elizabeth, in an effort to form beneficial social and political alliances, began having young ladies ceremonially presented to her at court. These presentations were small affairs and limited to the daughters of Elizabeth’s most important courtiers. They took place in the queen’s “withdrawing room,” a private room, but located next to larger public rooms, where she could go with a smaller party. The girls were led from a public stateroom into the smaller adjoining room at Hampton Court palace, so that other courtiers would know who was being favored.

At the more private ceremony of presentation, the young girls curtsied to the queen. The young girls had a vivid experience of being watched and assessed, enhanced by the fact that of the roughly 1,500 people in regular attendance at court, only fifty were women. These presentations came to be referred to as “drawing rooms,” and they engendered a curious experience that blended ostentatious display with the familial and private, a mix that would continue to characterize the debutante ritual for its duration

Many of the presented young women served her as attendants and became intermediaries between Elizabeth and the wider circle of her court. They helped Elizabeth to exert control over the nobility by creating an elegant buffer between the monarch and her courtiers. In order to present a petition to the queen, one first gave it to a lady-in-waiting, along with a fee that the lady in question would determine based on her closeness with the queen. Elizabeth encouraged her ladies to charge exorbitantly for this service—not so much because they’d have some independence, but so they would have enough money to be able to gamble with her.

She also regularly rejected petitions based on their lack of generosity toward her ladies. The queen could also be capricious—Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting could not marry of their own volition. Elizabeth Vernon spent a week in prison (with her new husband the Earl of Southampton) for marrying without the queen’s permission. Lettice Knollys was banished permanently for marrying Elizabeth’s favorite courtier, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. When Elizabeth discovered that another lady-in-waiting, Mary Shelton, was secretly married, she attacked her and broke her finger.

Elizabeth’s social standards and rituals persisted after her death, with queens taking over control of drawing rooms and social presentations even when there was a king on the throne. Elizabethan presentations-at-court served a very clear political purpose. Though they bore little resemblance to the feverish social theater that characterized the fully developed debutante ritual of the nineteenth century, these court presentations provided the foundation for modern debutante culture and served, too, as its myth of origin.

They show the important link between society and politics, a symbiotic relationship that only deepened as the ritual became institutionalized and spread outward to all corners of the British Empire. Elizabeth’s backroom maneuvers—quick conferences with her ladies or political advisers—provided the precedent for the many political meetings that took place at debutante parties in later centuries, and emphasized the soft power of social settings, which were controlled by women who understood that the way to power was not always hard work or even fortunate birth, but judicious conversation next to a sloshing punch bowl or quivering trifle.

The Stuart monarchs who followed Elizabeth continued the tradition of the drawing room (“with” was dropped from “withdrawing room” in the late seventeenth century), which retained its function as a matchmaking tool. Elizabeth’s successor, James I, arranged the marriage of his favorite courtier, the charming spendthrift James Hay, to Honoria Denny by granting Honoria’s reluctant father a title and royal patent. While these high-level marriages took strategy, marriage law remained chaotic. There was no legislation that defined marriage, and there were no protections for women after they were married. Rather, the absence of law meant that women might be forced into marriage by their fathers, married by capture, or tricked into marriage.

The age of consent to marriage was twelve for women and fourteen for men, and contracts were often made during the “unripe years.” It was a particularly dangerous time to be an heiress. During these years women could inherit property. Inheritance law was not clear on whether her property would become her husband’s upon marriage. Without knowing if they could control their property, many women resisted marriage.

Restrictive regulations for daughters intensified after they were wives, especially if they were considered to have broken proper codes of behavior. If a wife were to be convicted of adultery, she would lose her dowry or marriage portion and her husband could make a good case that she could punitively lose her property as well. There was no comparable financial forfeiture for adulterous men, and courts habitually disbelieved women who tried to defend themselves against claims of adultery. It is not difficult to explain widespread female acquiescence.”

- Kristen Richardson, “Marriage (Market Price).”

[tadpolesonalgae]

i know you've probably gotten a dozen of these cbmthy asks with petty sentiments but GOD do i want to see a scene of azriel just getting gagged by seeing reader be at ease and comfortable with bas or eris. two people he clearly doesn't approve of and have spent significantly less time with reader than he has, yet seem to make reader feel comfortable enough to bicker around and laugh with. i know in recent chapters az & reader seem to slowly become more friends(?) i guess??? but the whole dynamic is still very stilted and jagged and ajdhsjajsjs. part of me just wants azriel to hurry up and fall in love with reader just to have reader give up on him so that we can see him grovel. but also part of me just wants to let this mess simmer and enjoy the angst 🤩

i get azriel's thing of him not owing anyone his affections, bc i also relate to the uncomfortable feeling of someone close to you/in your social circle crushing over you so blatantly when you don't reciprocate those feelings. but also...... he was very unnecessarily dismissive and asshole-like to her the whole time during cbmthy 😭

im still hanging on for the azriel x reader endgame and but i hope we still get to see more of eris 🫣 like we get to see their platonic bond deepen? even if it's probably ooc for the eris you portrayed in cbmthy but secretly i wish we get to see him have a soft side for reader that no one expects 😔😔 and that confusing literally everyone in the inner circle lmao. like eris comes to the night court for something and he's still wearing the fox ring...

‘but GOD do i want to see a scene of azriel just getting gagged by seeing reader be at ease and comfortable with bas or eris.’

🤭 wouldn’t that be a fun scene 🤭

‘part of me just wants azriel to hurry up and fall in love with reader just to have reader give up on him so that we can see him grovel.’

I’m both anxious and excited to write that specific scene? It’s still very far off since I think it will most likely happen towards the end of cbmthy? I think? But the scene I have in mind, I think the chapter if happens in will probably be one that will take me a while to write since I’ll want to get the emotion right and make sure everything’s said that should be said? If that makes sense?

But I agree, I’m on your side with that ☹️ why can’t he just fall in love with reader now and then they can spend these six months together happily 😭 they could like get a cabin over solecist, or like, get each other cute presents for Starfall? Like Az picks out a necklace or bracelet for her and she gets him some cuff links or a pretty tie and they end up accidentally kind of matching? That would be so cute!! 😭😭😭 ugh, if only things were better between them, they could at least do it platonically, but no 😞

‘ but also part of me just wants to let this mess simmer and enjoy the angst 🤩’

Oh don’t worry about mess! I think things are about to get thrown about a little now that reader’s in on the court affairs, because obviously she’s going to want to help by reading through all those books that everyone else would find boring and tedious ☹️🧡💛

‘but also...... he was very unnecessarily dismissive and asshole-like to her the whole time during cbmthy 😭’

Right? Reader didn’t even try to come into him or flirt with him 😭 like I get she’s a bit flustered around him which makes it kind of obvious but it’s not like she’s trying to constantly get him to spend time with her, or giving him gifts, or intentionally making her feelings known since she’s so ashamed of them 😭 Az give her a break man ☹️

‘like we get to see their platonic bond deepen? even if it's probably ooc for the eris you portrayed in cbmthy but secretly i wish we get to see him have a soft side for reader that no one expects 😔😔’

I don’t know about him showing platonic feelings to her openly, since i do think that would be a little ooc for how I’ve written him so far but who knows? Maybe he’ll change once he knows that reader knows about the Prison too? Or maybe he will show platonic feelings but in his own, Eris way 🤭

‘like eris comes to the night court for something and he's still wearing the fox ring...’

The fox ring hasn’t been forgotten 🫣 neither has the ring Eris gave to her, which I imagine reader will be keeping close in order to give herself some comfort so her magic doesn’t do something it’s not supposed to 😭