#i guess it makes more sense when there’s a bunch of people but like bro i got here early i’m the only one in this suite

[ziracona]

They decided it would be a great idea to shove their own canon down our throats instead of just briefly mentioning them and leaving it at that. As for the remaining characters I didn't mind Varric and didn't really like Aveline, Sebastian or Fenris. Though not liking the latter two seems to draw quite a bit of ire from certain sections of fandom.

I almost didn’t answer this because while I agree once again, this is the kind of opinion people try to kill you over, and I don’t get to be on anon, but yeah. Varric was ok. He’s a centrist and that was annoying sometimes, but there was a whole lot to like to help balance the board. Aveline was really funny and had some admirable qualities, but she was a bastard cop, and that’s hard to uh. Apologize for. so. Fenris I went in expecting to be my best friend bc I’d heard SO many good things abt him but it turned out he was just hot. I kept putting in time expecting he’d get better but he didn’t. Like, he was ok. But. : / Just ok.

And then Sebastian I’d say should be melted down for scrap except there’s nothing salvageable to scrap.

[bubblergoespop]

My Top Gavin Quotes

this man is just pure love given form istg. @xanyiaz as promised, it’s gav’s turn, ta daaa~

“You can. I know you can.”

“What? I took my shirt off that was his tip.”

“Yes, I just sexualized a building.”

“I’d make an incredible Princess Peach. I’m a vision in pink.”

“My love.”

“Tell your guidance counselor that Gavin says hello. And that I hope the stains came out of his shirt.”

“Deviant, hold me back, the joke’s writing itself.”

“I know perfectly well what a miicrowahvé is. I just don’t know how to operate it.”

“I don’t suppose you feel like sharing his address, in case I wanted to help him… ‘move on’ a little more quickly?”

“Like Empathy Daemon Caelum? Talks too fast, little horns, almost too-sweet Caelum?”

“Oh, nothing special, I just want to see if I can send Vega into orbit around his namesake.”

“But you don’t mind sucking hard?”

“I’ve tasted every kind of ecstasy that the people of this world can experience, but yours is the one that sets my heart on fire.”

“I know feelings. Even the ones I haven’t given myself a chance to feel. I love you. I have loved you. Tried to show it in the ways I knew how, even before I could admit the words to myself. I love you.”

“Oh come on, do-able can be a form of praise.”

“Maybe I don’t care who hears. As long as I get to.”

“When I’m with you, I feel like I’m home. More than that actually. Being with you changes what home means.”

“Oh no! Oh I just realized something, Deviant! I’ve never had to whisk a combination of egg yolks, water, oil, and vanilla before! I guess you’ll have to show me how, by coming up behind me, wrapping your arms around mine, and guiding my hands.”

“Well, as of this morning, the human population has decided to reverse their historical position and now defer to my judgment on what time it is. And I say it’s still bedtime.”

“Is this what they mean when they say relationships are about compromise? Pinning your partner in place until they agree, under duress, to carve out a few minutes of sleepy cuddling?”

“What an odd way to refer to Huxley.”

“You make me so very happy, Deviant. In ways I’d never given myself lease to imagine.”

“You are sin given form, aren’t you? Looking up at me like that. Perfection.”

“Nothing will stop me from keeping you safe.”

“You’re my sky, Deviant. The space between my stars. What I feel for you… in a lifetime of sensing the emotions of others, I never imagined I could feel like this. This much. And I am so grateful for it. And for you.”

“Oh 7/11, I owe you so much.”

“I do have a more… chaste idea. I know, the shock may kill you.”

“It’s sweet, Damien. You’re allowed to be sweet.”

“Yes, I am bad. But I’m very good at it. And I’m yours, my love.”

“What? I’m not grinning, I’m not doing anything. I don’t know what you could mean by that Deviant.”

“Yes, it belongs to you, my love. However you want it. However you’d like it.”

“Who says I can’t study laying down with my eyes closed?”

“I’m allowed to whine. It suits me.”

“Put me where you want me.”

“Well I’m the tooth fairy, can’t you tell?”

“Your scent teasing my senses… If that’s weird, then what the hell do you call what we did last night?”

“You burn rapture through my body, until my vision hazes… and haloes and bends. Like liquid.”

“Your touch ignites my stars.”

“I don’t think you feel gross.”

“Not our fault we’re forever surrounded by a bunch of tyrannical Puritans.”

“I don’t know how well I can pass for a ‘bro’, but I’ll bravely soldier on in Huxley’s honor.”

“Yes, baby.”

“You changed my life. You change it every day. You make me better. And I love you more than human words can convey.”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect match, there is no form of a relationship that doesn’t come with disagreement and effort, but the feelings we hold for one another and the work that we put in for one another are enough to weather any storm. And that’s the difference.”

“And what greater crime is there than to disappoint a rat? Maybe Huxley is wearing off on me after all.”

“‘Adult Pink Fruit Monarch’costume, here I come.”

“Yours is a soul that makes the stars shine brighter. And you’re beautiful for it. Always.”

[elliespuns]

hello!! first of all, i don't intend to say this as a way to create a fuss or anything like that, i just see your blog as a space where we can debate a lot of tlou related topics and i want to know your opinion about it :-) anyways, while i did enjoy the hbo series, i also think it was very flawed in translating both joel and ellie's personalities - but i want to focus on joel's atm.

i don't think joel is "insensitive" on the game, but i do believe the fact that he tried so hard to hide his feelings and barely ever showed his soft side is a SUPER important characteristic of his.

i don't mind the way pedro played joel but at the same time i just cannot see both of them as the same man. and i don't talk only about the scenes where joel was visibly anxious or cried, but also the torture scene. i think it is one of the most iconic scenes on the game (also, I'm the one who asked you to take pics of it a couple weeks ago LOL) specially cause it shows us joel doesn't have to go out of his way to be a menace. the fact that pedro had to scream and etc to make them fear him bothers me sooo much.

i think pedro was more than capable to play a joel that is both too much of a father figure for his own good AND a tough son of a b*tch that can and will kill people with his bare hands to protect whatever is important to him.

from my point of view, crying during the "i saved her" scene is really out of character for game joel. when the guy just confesses he killed a bunch of people, "doomed" the whole world just to keep his little girl safe and then lied straight to her face, but his expression shows no hint of sadness whatsoever, that, for me, is the peak of his character.

"if somehow the lord gave me a second chance at that moment, i'd do it all over again". of course he's hurt that ellie doesn't trust him anymore, and of course he wasn't exactly happy to kill those fireflies, but he did what he thought was right and he'd rather have ellie hate him for another thousand years to come than know he just left such a sweet girl to die in the hands of a crumbling group, in the name of a cause he never really cared about. he knows his actions will have consequences but he doesn't cry cause he is willing to die for it (and he really did).

sorry for rambling but i really want to read other people's opinion about it!!

First of all, I love how perfectly you've just described game Joel. This is exactly how I feel about our man, and even if I tried, I could never put it into words like this. Hands down, bro, this is so well said.

Both Ellie and Joel were portrayed differently in the show (it's not the worst thing; I know that people who don't follow the game fell in love with these versions of them, and for them it's as magical as it was for us when playing), but I guess, for the game lovers, it's harder to see past this fact simply because getting to love a character and having to learn everything there is about them, growing up with them only to find out the creators (people who gave them this exceptional and amazing character) didn't care enough to stick to what they came up with is kind of a bummer. I mean, you can choose to ignore it on the screen, but yet it's something so 'palpable' you have to watch with a little *sigh* in your mind.

"It shows us joel doesn't have to go out of his way to be a menace. the fact that pedro had to scream and etc to make them fear him bothers me sooo much."

I agree. Game Joel has this death stare that makes people fear from miles away while show Joel doesn't. I think Pedro could pull it out without a blink of an eye—if only they'd given him this Joel to play.

People say that making show Joel more "sensitive" was to make him more realistic because in the game, the characters are portrayed as having to deal with the impossible (like killing 10 clickers and a bloater without any damage, etc.), while in the show, he's a real man, so real attributes and emotions are needed. I get that; that makes perfect sense. But I still also agree with folks who say that keeping Joel's "detached" and "thin-skinned" characteristics wouldn't hurt anyone because what's unrealistic about that?

Game Joel and show Joel are completely different characters in my head. I love them both. I can switch them in my head and tune into both Joels, but I still prefer the game when it comes to the story and the character Joel is.

It's funny because when I watch show Joel, I can't help but see a puppy version of game Joel, tbh. Pedro is literally able to play anything, so his version of "sensitive" Joel serves me just right when I tune into the show. But knowing Pedro would kill the "callous" and "unaffected" version of Joel, and it bugs me so much we'll never get to see it.

Btw, I'm working on your request, more photos of Joel torturing David's men are coming!

[glitterpensupremacy]

(NOT MTS CONTENT) Alright, as a Miraculous fan (with a particularly vested interest in Chat Noir) I’m making my thoughts on the new Chat Noir look clear.

I’m not super upset that he doesn’t have a new outfit, since, let’s be honest, Ladybug and Carapace needed it WAY more than he did.

I’m also not that concerned about his new proportions. Yeah, they’re a little funny looking, it that might just be the camera angle. Either way, he’s getting older so it makes sense that his facial structure is changing (plus I give my own CN a slightly more angular face to indicate that he’s a sweet kid, sure, but there’s a lot more to him than just “good perfect bean”.

So then, what’s got me emotionally invested enough to make a Tumblr post? (By now it’s probably pretty obvious…)

The hair.

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH- it’s not that I think the hairstyle is bad or ugly. It’s very stylish, and the smooth swishy look would be more than welcomed on a different character. But that’s the problem, this is the wild and chaotic Chat Noir, the catboy of destruction who tells terrible puns. His hair should not be that neat, and it should not be that perfect (yeah it’s a little messy, but only enough to have that “effortless, natural look” you’d see in a shampoo ad)

Maybe I’m overreacting; after all, it’s just a hairstyle, and I’m treating it like it’s the end all be all for his character in Season Six. However… it’s not just the hair. While watching Season Five, I noticed that Chat Noir doesn’t really joke around as much as he did in previous seasons (especially in the second half of S5), and isn’t really allowed to get mad or be rebellious outside of when his role as the love interest needs him to (trying to cataclysm Dark Owl because of the Married LadyNoir vision, trying to cataclysm Dark Cupid because he’s being a protective boyfriend to Marinette, telling off Nighttormentor because Gabriel forced him to go to London, sure, but the show makes it clear that the REAL problem is him trying to keep Adrien and Marinette apart). Other than that, he’s the perfect well-behaved supportive partner.

In general, it feels like Chat Noir and Adrien are becoming more similar personalities, which is good: I think a lot of us have anticipated this happening for his character arc… but the problem is, Chat Noir is becoming more like Adrien rather than Adrien becoming Chat Noir, because isn’t his arc supposed to be breaking free of the perfect controlled persona his father has forced him into, learning to express himself and become his own person? (There’s also the fact that I think he’s a little more interesting to watch as Chat Noir or the more expressive early seasons Adrien, but his development is the more important issue here.)

This kinda thing has me worried that everyone who believes that the finale was bad on purpose (the secret dystopia route) and that the writer’s genuinely do want us to believe that Gabriel’s actions have been valid and ethical (THEY ARE NOT: BRO IS A TERRORIST 💀.) Either that, or they just want us to watch the cute shipping scenes and not really care about Adrien’s character outside of that. Kinda a bleak view, I know, but that’s how things have been looking lately. (Maybe they’re making him look neater as a part of the dystopia route though? I guess we’ll see but it seems unlikely…)

(I probably should reemphasize that I’m not actually getting this “doom and gloom conspiracy board” over JUST a haircut. It’s more like I saw a bunch of other (personal) warning signs over the last two seasons, and this is just one other thing making me more worried.)

I know this isn’t my usual stuff but I felt like I needed to air my grievances (especially since while I have seen other people not like the new hair, it doesn’t seem to be for the same reasons as me, seeing as I don’t even dislike the hairstyle itself; just the fact that Chat Noir’s the one who has it). Hopefully this was at least interesting or even validating, but if not… Well, I’ll get back to my normal content after this anyway.

[ashyjingles]

What's your favorite trope in thiam fics? (Or in general?)

this ended up being something a lot longer than i meant to be and is less of a fav trope and more of an analysis of how i view them or whatever but like. here have it

theo learning how to cope with life outside of the dread doctors and being viewed as a monster for his actions (which,,, sorry theo ily and i will forever be a theo defender,,, but never an apologist bc wtf bro) and liam understanding him because of what he's done during his ied episodes and the repercussions

liam's reluctant to admit he feels that empathy for him at first because hey!! this guy kind of not only evil but also batshit fucking bonkers!! but he kinda realizes without empathy he loses an aspect of his humanity and when he accepts it he realizes theo was quite honestly just in an incredibly abusive situation and was just trying to survive and became a product of his enviornment (and considering one of the causes of ied is environmental factors i feel like it wouldn't be too far fetched to say liam understands that personally too)

and theos reluctant to admit that he. feels guilty for anything he did. because that means admitting that he did bad things. which when he tries to rationalize makes no sense because he has done bad things and has even enjoyed doing it because his brains a little fucked and he knows that because he's a monster. but being guilty means he's a failure to the dread doctors. and he's already rotten at the edges and the edges are starting to peel away to show a rotten core and that means he's a failure to the mccall pack because they're a bunch of saints (compared to him at least. and if not, well they're on a saints leash) and he's spent so long being anything but a failure because being a failure means being dead and he cannot shake that no matter how hard he tries until he realizes liam sometimes fails at keeping his anger in check but that doesn't make him a failure. and then without even realizing liam starts teaching theo that it's okay to slip up a few times because that's what makes people human and maybe theo doesn't have to be a monster

but when they both accept themselves and the other it leads to a relationship that no one else quite gets (sure, mason has been there for liam his entire life and i cannot stress how much i adore their friendship but sometimes understanding something because you've watched it happen is worlds away from actually experiencing it) at first but it's the sort of thing that just. fits. because they can both push each other to their limits without actually going over (eventually) but also pull each other back when they need a reminder of who they are (people. not monsters.)

tbh i love them cause there's so many different dynamics and tropes that can apply to them but this one,,,,,,,, this one is the one that well and truly wrecks me most of the time. and i don't even think this counts as a trope.

if i had to choose like a trope trope then. idiots to lovers? basic. enemies to lovers? too obvious. idk any tropes now that i think about it,, fuck. sunshine x grumpy?? but also i think i like grumpy liam more than sunshine liam because that boy has an ied and a shitload of trauma he's not gonna be a ray of happiness all the time and like hell will theo be a sunshine character. OHHHH YOU KNOW WHAT?? FAKE DATING!! or the and they were roommates thing. idk tbh dude. hanahaki if u wanna take a peek at my 4 hanahaki drafts for them lmfao

in general tho? combination of idiots to lovers but also fake dating but also grumpy x grumpy that sometimes leans toward grumpy x sunshine I GUESS. since you're MAKING me CHOOSE.

[one-and-a-half-yikes]

Im gonna be honest i think we need to understand how oswald's and fanny's relationship REALLY was, because its clear that they both describe it with still personal very very strong feelings and they do run head first into that Unreliable narrator territory often enough to make me belive theres something big missing a invisible elephant in the room if you will

Fanny says oswald betrayed her

While oswald says she was extremly toxic and wants her away (yet he still pulled all that shit at the dance like bro she was litellary just having fun at an even that you just so happened to be at Then you walked up to her asked her for a dance and acted like she was the devil and started accusing her)

And while both these things could be true in sense we need to know HOW, how was fanny toxic? How did oswald betray her? We have a silloute of a picture but not the frame or the pieces

Also I do seriously wonder how was fanny toxic to oswald? It all was very very long ago and while fanny's personality could be mirroring her now but She didnt have all the experience she has now she had to be diffrent from how she's now

(Also I truly belive oswald definitley fucked up in some way too and we don't know it yet like she had multiple boyfriends but oswald stucks out and not only that but even the thought of him angers her, it could be because if we look at the timeline he could be her first boyfriend or alternativley her ticked out of bad home life like you said but I do think there has to be more to it especialy since again we don't know that much about how he was all that time ago...but we do know fanny likes to ignore neon red flags)

Sorry for the long ask oh my i didnt mean to write it so long I hope you don't mind my mid analisis in your ask box but you did say you wanna talk more about fanny so

ヾ (‘∀ `*)

Honestly I don't mind people hitting my askbox up with analyses or their own takes on certain parts of IM I live for this and I WOULD like to interact with the Inky Mystery fandom more on tumblr cause most of the time I'm hanging out with everyone on discord, but it's nice to talk on here too lol

I'm gonna guess you're asking for my opinion on this?

I don't know if I would describe them as both being unreliable narrators, because from my knowledge Oswald has never divulged to anyone about his relationship with Fanny so we don't really know what his whole perspective on the matter actually is. We don't know if he thinks he was innocent throughout the relationship or if he acknowledges that they were both toxic and bad for each other. What we know is that Oswald was the one who dumped Fanny not the other way around and that means something to me at least.

Fanny on the other hand...I would definitely call her an unreliable narrator when this is how she's describing the breakup:

If you were to only hear from Fanny's side of things you could be convinced that Oz was having an affair with Ortensia on the side during his relationship with Fanny. But this isn't the case, and there's nothing from Fanny's side to provide evidence that this was the case. Not to mention that she's implying that Ortensia seduced Oz into breaking up with her so she could replace her. Calling her an unreliable narrator here doesn't even cut it she's just outright lying about two people who haven't really done her wrong.

But this isn't the first time either. In another chapter she makes a bunch of accusations against Oswald again.

Accusations, that again, are not proven to be true. We got Oswald's perspective during the Far Far West arc and anything pertaining to Fanny never came up. He never talked to anyone about it. He never talked to Cuphead about it. Hell, he didn't even talk to Cuphead at the group date either.

We've only had Oswald make one real accusation against Fanny from when they were together and it was in response to an accusation that Fanny made about him. We have no idea whether Oz is telling the truth or not, but I also have no reason to see why he'd lie. I don't think Fanny is lying to cover up anything, I think she's so bitter about the break up it doesn't occur to her that Oz breaking up with her wasn't to spite her or anything. Yes it hurt and it sucks the way her life turned out after the break, but that's not Oz's fault. He's not responsible for that.

All in all, I think it's good to have an open mind about their relationship, but we also have to look at the facts and the facts show that it's not on equal ground. One person is spreading rumors or fabrications and the other hasn't said a word about the situation to anyone.

Hell, even at the group date situation, Oz approached Fanny to call her out on her behavior but he could have just as easily gone straight to Cuphead and warned him about Fanny and her past. Oswald keeps what happened between them to himself and those he knows best. Fanny has openly talked shit about both Ortensia and Ozzy in front of other people casually without consideration for privacy.

The whole thing regarding why Oswald angers her so much whenever she thinks about him. I have ideas, and I feel like I'm right on the money but I want to wait and see before making a big meta post about their relationship. M shared something juicy on the discord and I am very excited when we get to see it!!!

Also THANK YOU for the ask!! This was nice I'm glad I got to gush about these two some more because I often don't lol

[delta-altair]

Angry rant ahead. I've been holding back on this one but I woke up at 3am this morning to prep for a virtual astronomy conference in a European time zone next week so whoops it's what I actually feel in words instead of in vague reblogs.

Just as I have never forgiven the people who caused 2016 to happen, I will *never* forgive the Beltway media, podcast bros, pollsters who think they're the goddamn oracles at Delphi, and fauxgressive fucking idiots for this.

First of all, if I here one sniveling whining "But Kamala is a cawwwwwp-" -- if you do not posses the common sense to understand that a chaotic, open convention where the disunity of the Democratic party is on full national display would be a stake through the heart of the campaign -- WHOEVER is chosen -- then sorry but you aren't smart enough to comment on this!!! Sorry if that's fucking mean but it's true. For once the left (and I mean from the center to the wall, the whole thing yes) collectively needs to shut the fuck up, get in line, and focus on one goddamn thing for the next three and a half months.

Second, I had a much longer post with plots and everything I was going to make about the last Canadian election, but I'll make it short now. This is about *polls*, aka the "reason" why this happened (it's not, it was the media forcing the issue by refusing to show the public anything else about Biden and his accomplishment, but anyway...). Feel free to skip (but there's a cat at the bottom for anyone who actually reads my rantings), the tl;dr is that you should not trust any poll more than a week out from the election because the average person is a fucking moron.

So polling just before the previous election was called (Canadian elections are different, they can happen before the 4 year mark if the PM decides) all showed a healthy Liberal (center-left) lead. Probably majority if it holds. "If an election was held today, who would you vote for?", that was the question. But then the Liberals call the election and SURPRISE, guess what happens? They tumble in the polls so drastically they fall below the Conservatives (right) in overall vote share almost immediately. They held onto a minority in parliament because of how our systems works (we have 5 seat holding parties), but still, they took a huge hit. Why? Did some scandal happen the week after the election was called? Did the Conservatives promise everyone a free puppy if they won? No.

No, nothing happened. The reason why the Liberals fell in the polls was that people were mad that they called an early election. Despite the fact that the polls that some of the same people definitely took asked the question "If an election were held today, who would you vote for?" I guess the average person didn't have enough brain cells to rub together to understand that if an election is happening then the Liberals would have necessarily called an election. I know this sounds circular and stupid but that is literally it!! A bunch of people said "Yeah I'd vote for the Liberals if an election was happening today. Oh the Liberals (the only people who CAN) called an election, I don't like that, so I'm not going to vote Liberal."

So miss me with literally any poll that is not a week out from the actual election event. They are all nonsense. It turns out that you cannot predict human stupidity to a statistically significant degree.

We are *also* in a regime where the only thing that really matters now is turnout, and turnout is much harder to poll than voter preference, so that's another kick against polling.

I don't really have a coherent ending for this. I'm not in total doom mode because a lot of things can still turn out ok, technically. But I still remember the feeling I felt when a huge portion of American said "actually, saying you can assault women and grab them by their pussies any time you want is actually not disqualifying for being president, but we're going to make up a bunch of bullshit to explain why we're not voting for Hillary" and I still do not trust most of you because of this.

You have once chance to not totally fuck this up. Treat it seriously.

Here's my cat to brighten your day. Her name is Jupiter.

[talenlee]

Game Pile: The Arilou

New Post has been published on https://press.invincible.ink/game-pile-the-arilou/

Game Pile: The Arilou

In consideration of science fiction storytelling there are some problems that kind of have to be tangled with between the realism of here and now and the fantastic of the story can intersect. It’s because there’s a hypothetical attenuation between the scientific of the genre, the way that things need to be built out of conventions and frameworks we’re already familiar with. Sometimes this can be done with single, deeply, and fundamentally important boundaries on reality, like how in Mass Effect there’s the introduction of a new, single element one level higher than Hydrogen, and its presence allows for all the stuff in that universe that we conventionally consider to have broken the rules of our reality.

One of those challenges is the Fermi Paradox, which is – simplified – ‘hey, where are all the aliens, bro?’ If there are a lot of aliens and we’ve had a lot of time, surely we’d see some sign of them, and we haven’t. This puzzle is at the heart of a lot of different science fiction stories. Sometimes it’s addressed, sometimes it’s central to the whole narrative (spoilers for The Three Body Problem I suppose), and sometimes, in a story big enough, it just gets to be a detail in amongst many.

In Star Control 2, there is a species of little green humanoids that fly around in strange saucers that don’t behave according to the laws of physics the way that other species’ space ships do. They’re called the Arilou, or more formally the Arilou Lalee’lay, and they speak to humans as delightful tricksters who are here to help us and guide us through the stars.

They like to use the term ‘enigmatic,’ which is a good term for it. They do things that don’t seem to make much sense. Now, part of the challenge with all of this is that when you’re dealing with alien civilisations, hypothetically they should have some sense of individuality and cultural variety just by dint of having such large numbers, and yet, the genre that Star Control lives in is that there are [The culture] and then occasionally, like Admiral Vux or Fwiffo, you get individuals from that culture. Complicating this further are some cultures that aren’t cultures – the Mycosynth and Orz in particular.

Spoilers for the Orz I guess.

Anyway, the Arilou project a uniformity of purpose, a univocality of culture, and that means that their reasons are inscrutable. They appeared out of nowhere to join an alliance, but only once humans did. Then when humans were enslaved by the Ur-Quan (we’ve talked about them before), the Arilou also disappeared. They then rejoined the normal world when the humans sought them out, all because of their special, mysterious connection with humans.

Anyway, the Arilou are kinda dicks?

See, if you asked the rest of our galaxy about them, they had no idea they existed, which is pretty odd. After all, they’re very technologically advanced and somehow did everything without trading with other people. They know a lot about everything in the whole of the sector and they interact freely with them as soon as Humans are involved. And bear in mind, that’s Humans Humans. There are two cultures in the Star Control Universe that provide a wrinkle to what it means to be humans.

Most obviously, there are the Androsynth. They are uh, they’re humans? They are definitively and actually humans. They’re cloned humans who have left the Earth and undergone whatever modest genetic translation you can do across a few generations, which is nothing fit enough to guide towards speciation. Androsynth and humans could absolutely interbreed, if not for the fact the Androsynth regard humans as being a bunch of slave-keeping assholes.

Which they are.

But that’s not all, because there’s also the Syreen. Syreen were originally conceived as a kind of Sexy Space Succubus, but in Star Control 2 they were fleshed out into a fully realised culture of their own. They’re a culture of predominantly women who are completely genetically compatible with humans, which, if you’re curious about such things, means they’re basically humans. Of course the question about why the Syreen are like that is a huge puzzle for the universe to answer, and the weird thing is there’s actually a pretty obvious answer as to why there’s a culture of nonhuman humans parked a few hundred light years away.

That answer is ‘probably something the Arilou did.’

But the Arilou don’t care about the Syreen. We know this because the Syreen were the people who witnessed the way that the Arilou abandoned the universe the second humans were slave-shielded. In fact, this led to the Syreen being defeated by the Ur-Quan and that’s why the Syreen call the Arilou a bunch of weasels.

Here’s the thing: The Arilou have fucked with humanity. The nature of Star Control 2 is that it is a world whose narratives leave a lot of questions because the why of how things ended up the way they are isn’t as important as the what the player gets to do in the discovering of it. To that end, what I can tell you about the Arilou is something with no greater answer, complicated further by the fact that the source for it is largely diegetic information from the Arilou themselves.

The Arilou assert that they want to preserve humanity from interactions with entities that exist. These entities, they claim, are fundamentally dangerous to humans, and therefore, the Arilou have changed humanity, like all of humanity so as to not be noticeable to them. They do this, and then also hide their own influence on humans, their presence in our history, their homeworld and a bunch of other stuff because they believe that ignorance is the humans’ best protection.

This belief is such that when they discover Humans know things, they bemoan them because the knowledge of things like the presence of the Orz or the way that Arilou travel through space is something that’s going to create problems for them later down the line. This ignorance and this enshrinement of it, complete with their discussion of keeping secrets from humans seems to indicate that they were doing things to keep us from finding out about other alien cultures.

When I talk about the science fiction speculation of Star Control, it’s not like I’m talking about it as a fundamentally predictive kind of text. It’s a science fiction story built out of the ideas of science fiction of its time, and there’s no reason any of this stuff needs to be built out of any kind of reasonable science. It’s wild to me that when Star Control 2 released, exoplanets were a theory (a pretty well justified theory). Now they’re confirmed facts. It isn’t even that remarkable a thing, when you think about it — the idea other stars wouldn’t have planets would be such a weird idea as to be impossible.

Every time we learn a bit more about the universe, in so doing, we discover the parameters that play with the edges of these big questions. Why aren’t there, why are there, how common is this, and the beautiful thing about it is that knowing these things are deducing actual answers to actual questions and we may know those questions better — and their potential answers — comes from being able to play with them, to see these ideas used in the media around us.

And in Star Control 2, this question of why are we alone has an answer that introduces you to the question.

The Arilou are why we are alone.

Because they were looking for things to make that way.

[jade-kyo]

RvB 20th rewatch: s3

And we’re at season 3. The point where I feel like the show really starts to find its identity!

I was trying to remember what the zealots were called and I accidentally called them faggots…

For me season 3 is really when the humor kicks into high gear

It really feels like this is when the characters identities found their footing and solidified

The O’Malley/Doc/Lopez/Vic/Wyoming evil team up is so brilliant, it cracks me up so much

“What was your code name?” “Nevada” Tex’s willingness to just fuck with people is great

This is also the season where Caboose became Sarges favorite blue

“So I guess if I’m not on the team and you’re not on the team then nobody’s on the god damn team! The team sucks” another heavily quoted line for me

I love that the guy named Wyoming has the most comical British accent

Tex calls Tucker her friend and I start frothing at the mouth

Allison name reveal from freaking Wyoming of all people

You know early on it really does seem like Grif wants to gain Sarges approval

The crackpot retcon time travel arc here makes more sense than the actual time travel arc in the shisno trilogy

Man Tucker really is the one who worries about Church the most

The domestic evil lifestyle with O’Malley, Doc, and Lopez is such a good bit

Ah yes grimmons parked in the shade for two hours…

Super strong Caboose introduction!!

“Well can we at least rule out the gay stuff?” Grif you’re the one who brought up gay me thinks you’re projecting

“I miss the old days when we didn’t risk our lives and you were all a bunch of nameless assholes I’d yell at with Church” THEY DONT KNOW THE HORRORS THAT ARE TO COME SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

THE SWORD!!!!!!!

I think it’s really interesting that Tucker doesn’t try to hype himself up about finding the sword- he just says it how it happened… idk I think it’s a good reflection of his character and what he’s actually like

Friendly reminder that Blood Gulch was an elaborate torture session to get the alpha to fragment more

CAPTAIN FLOWERS!!!!!

Since the time travel stuff with Church was a simulation does that mean Flowers actually had a heart attack or did the dude fr die from aspirin somehow unrelated to Church? Or was the time travel actually real and they were using Wyomings time distortion unit?? But like that was the only time travel that actually happened???

“Man first I kill myself then I realize I’m a honking dork” bro just like me fr

Requesting that Caboose speak at my funeral

“Mechanized… Americans” I cannot emphasize enough how much I love that line delivery it is one of my biggest vocal stims

Also a great example of how rvb has this sense of realness to its dialogue because people actually stutter and ramble on about a whole lot of nothing like that! It just makes the characters feel so relatable and real!

Church apologizing to Tex for getting her mixed up in everything and not being better for her and OH MY GOD THEY MAKE ME FERAL I AM ALSHAKBSKSHDKDH GOD HE HAS NO IDEA HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT THEYVE BEEN THROUGH!!!! HE DOESNT REMEMBER!!!!!!! YET HE STILL KNOWS SHE DESERVES BETTER AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Tex loves being part of the shenanigans omg she’s so silly. It’s what she deserves.

SHISNO!!!

Chex divorced but still in love vibes are immaculate man I love them so much

DONUT SCREAM LIKE A WOMAN

I love how O’Malley understands Lopez yet didn’t know he was being told to say stuff about his butt by Lopez

Donut discovers his bloodlust

I don’t really have a ton to say about the blood gulch seasons cause they’re the silly goofy seasons but I always enjoy rewatching them. They’re such a blast!

[quasitsqueeries]

Space Marines are not your friend Part II

I keep thinking about this, and apparently a lot of other people keep thinking about this, because the conversation keeps happening. I think I didn't get it quite right the first time round, which is normal and we should embrace being wrong and changing our minds with new information.

So, sometimes you say the Imperium is Fascist and you learn form some dude online that actually they're a dictatorial theocracy or something. This is called splitting hairs but I think there's potential here for a more interesting conversation. It may come as a surprise but Warhammer 40,000, a game about spending whole Sunday afternoons moving little toy soldiers and tanks around on your dining room table with lore written by a whole bunch of different nerds over the last 35 years doesn't have a coherent political narrative.

We're not going to get the answers we're looking for by going over every bit of lore with a fine-toothed comb. Also please don't ask me to do that, some of the writing is really terrible. I've talked before in, I guess, Part I about how Warhammer 40,000 draws on the aesthetics of Fascism and I think this is what's really important. It really doesn't matter if the Imperium fulfils all of Umberto Eco's characteristics of Fascism or if you can find some other political ideology that you think fits better. The fact is that Warhammer 40,000 is a piece of largely visual media that draws on the imagery of Fascism, the same way it draws on the imagery of Feudalism and the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

There's a lot of talk lately about how people like Rick Priestly and Brian Ansell (may he rest in peace) and Richard Haliwell weren't really trying to make statements with their games but just wanted to sell miniatures, and they borrowed liberally from things like 2000AD because it was cool. I think that in itself says something about the game's ideology. It was developed and written in the context of Thatcherite Britain and I wonder if in that context there was an idea that it wasn't necessary to have the thing make political sense (and maybe that's naïve in hindsight, idk?). I don't know for sure but I wonder if 40K comes out of a time when you could be like "hey these cops are Fascists" and wouldn't need to expand on that. People would just get that you were painting in braod strokes and wouldn't demand that you prove that their brutality wasn't justified. I think it's fair to say the writers didn't foresee how big their game would get, or its popularity among military bros, or the rise of Fascism in the Anglosphere in the 2010s.

So, what do we do with this? I think it's important to recognise two things. Firstly, the Imperium isn't just a Fascist state. It's also a Theocracy, and Feudal. More than one of these things can be true. But secondly, we tend to assume our political concepts are universal and timeless. They're not. Here's an interview where Corey Robin situates the Left and Right historically for Adam Conover:

The point being that the Right isn't just authoritarian, it's a movement to reestablish the power of ruling classes in response to modern Democratic movements. Similarly, Fascism is a distinctly modern concept. It's an attempt to return to the idea, as identified by Robin above, that certain people should rule over everyone else, and it's a reaction against a move towards Democracy and people having freedom from authority.

So, political systems are historically constituted, I think it's fair to say that 38,000 years in the future our politics will be unrecognisable to us now. So like, does Fascism exist 38,000 years in the future, would it even be possible when you're trying to govern a billion worlds, is it "necessary" when state control of humanity is total, and Democracy, Socialism and Trade Unionism aren't even distant memories? Maybe the answer is it doesn't matter. I don't find that terribly satisfying.

The Imperium's political system isn't not Fascism. Rather, the writers of Warhammer 40,000 depicted a political system that's a sort of aggregate of political systems that are recognisable to a modern audience (and particularly pertinent to an audience living in Thatcherite Britain), and Fascism plays a major role in that aggregate.

So the upshot is, if you want to call it Fascism, you are correct, and if someone calls it Fascism and you want to say actually it's this extremely specific political thing you've just come up with to disprove them, consider shutting up.

[scarlet97531]

This is my first time fronting and I didn’t really think about what being a fictive meant until I looked up my name and saw this

There are… way too many people who know me here. People that know too much about me. It’s kind of scary. I know enough about the internet to know what kind of content has been made about me without needing to look it up. It’s a really weird situation to be in. I guess I’m probably better off not thinking about it too much, but I just wanted to share. Being a fictive can be scary, in a lot more ways than one.

It’s also just scary being a new headmate. I don’t seem to be as connected to the rest of the system as most of our new members are, I had to find pictures to see what my headmates look like instead of just being able to remember like we usually do. My headmates are really strange… I don’t really know what to think of them. I guess it makes sense though. We all come from really different places.

I’m in a new place in a new world and sharing my head with people I never could have imagined could exist before… I guess I just don’t really know what to do.

I don’t think there’s really much I can do. I’m one of one hundred.

I’ll probably just fade into the background like most of the others soon enough.

It’s weird how uncomfortable it is to be a human again. I would have thought it would be familiar, but my hands, my nose, my ears, it all feels wrong.

Im in Canada?? Why am I in Canada????

I’m sharing my body with a bunch of adult men! That is so weird and uncomfortable, what am I even supposed to do with that?? I know they’re probably not gonna do anything weird but it’s just so strange.

.

I. Uh

A dragon just

WHY IS THERE A DRAGON HERE??

🌺 - Welp looks like Scarlet got her, rip ((Scar is our caretaker, they’ll be going to stay with the other younger headmates))

(((it’s always so fucking funny when people see Scar for the first time though, big ass dragon just comes crawling out of the darkness like. Hello child, absolutely nothing bad will happen if you follow me into this void just trust me bro)))

Anyway thats a lotta words up there I’m not reading all that

[spacelizzbian]

Ahsoka s1 ep6

Love how they reminded us of the fact that there are "former imperials working at every level in the new republic" ain't no way they're getting back to the normal galaxy this episode? like bro, dw I didn't forget the New Republic kinda sucks 😂

Deadass thought Ahsoka was gonna spill on her world between worlds experience 💀

Hm, Ahsoka seeing Sabine giving the enemy the map as a fault of her own shortcomings as a teacher when it shows that she really was Anakin's padawan.

Urging Sabine to do what's right and putting feelings aside, while being unable to do that herself and fearing what could happen because of it..... this coming after the episode where Anakin's legacy and Ahsoka's unease with it was explored is 😭😭

Though it is throwing me off that she's still saying the same stuff as before her epithany last episode?

I understand it would be too easy if those fears caused by Anakin's betrayal would be healed after one episode and they probably wanna save that moment for a more exciting scene than her and Huyang sitting in the mouth of a space whale. But it'd have been better if Ahsoka showed that she has progressed in this regard?

I cannot believe they did the cheesiest thing and actually had Huyang say the thing.

This show so corny I love it

Pour one out for the Wolfren people, there was a prison on board lmao

God I hope he keeps his promise, he's a more interesting dark sider if he does

Something about them being so far from civilisation is actually creeping me out....

They were in hyperspace for all of the events of last episode, probably longer, that distance between galaxies is incomprehensible.

If anyone gets stranded or hurt they'd be so far away from help, the typical "fleet arrives to the rescue" at the last second can't happen now.

I don't think it's ever sunk in for me how hopeless Ezra must've felt being stranded here

A signal?!? Really??? That was fast lol

You know, for a literal different galaxy, I'd have expected this planet to look funkier.

Even Dathomir looked more mythical than this

I guess I take back all that dreadful pondering about being stranded far from home in a deserted galaxy cause apparantly there are fucking people living here

ok sure

Poor Sabine, not Jedi enough for Huyang, too Jedi for them witches 😔

I swear to god if they show us another iteration of order 66

I don't think I've ever commented on Shin and Baylan's designs but I love how they almost have a game of thrones fantasy knight vibe about them. Makes sense as this convo suggests they seek glory from the past.

Props to Kevin Kiner, the music is stealing Thrawn's intro scene

Wild guess Im throwing out there, Enoch is Ezra but like ... brainwashed as Savage was

Either that or he is deep undercover as one of those stormtroopers, that def sounds like something he'd do

Bro why there so much familiar kind of typical star wars life on this DIFFERENT galaxy?? 💀

OH HE JUST A BIG LIL PUPPER 🥺🥺

Damn, last episode really felt like clone wars in style and this one really feels like rebels lmao

Shin self identifying as a trained Jedi? Interesting.

Her doubting what Baylan is saying?

Oh?

I cannot wait for Baylan "destroy the past" Skoll to face off against Ahsoka "recently started healing from the wounds of the past" Tano again. I can practically feel the emotional culmination of this show and Ahsoka's character concluding

Oh these creatures are gonna get fridged so bad aren't they?

Ah shucks my wild angsty guess disproven so quickly

Tho Ezra just chilling with a bunch of lil creatures is also very him

They can sense Ahsoka approaching in the whale?¿?¿? That sure is convenient for them

Lmaoooooo Morgan is so angry she's like "sOMEONE FUCKIN KILL THIS DAMN WOMAN ALREADY IVE HAD IT

👏 UP 👏 TO 👏 HERE 👏

WITH HER IMMORTAL BS"

Thrawn upon learning Ahsoka's master was Anakin: "oh, psssht, I know what buttons to push, easy"

[twoidiotwriters1]

The Curse of Oenone (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: I just had to use a Hercules GIF i love that movie sm -Danny Words: 2,694 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter // Next Chapter Listen to: 'Vida La Vida' -by Coldplay

XIX: The Son of Olympus

First impression of Heracles: Hot. He's a god, so of course he'd look the part. He kind of reminds her of Percy, if Percy were a Gym-bro.

Piper's the first to speak. "Hello."

"What's up?" Hercules replies.

"Uh, not much." Piper glances at Ara, and the girl encourages her to keep going. "Well, actually, a lot. I'm Piper. This is Jason and Ara. We—"

"Where's your lion skin?" Jason blurts out.

Piper elbows the boy. Luckily, Hercules seems to find the outburst funny. "It's ninety degrees out here. Why would I wear my lion skin? Do you wear a fur coat to the beach?"

"I guess that makes sense." Jason pouts. "It's just that the pictures always show you with a lion skin."

The god glances at the sky with annoyance. "Don't believe everything you hear about me. Being famous isn't as fun as you might think."

"Tell me about it," Piper mumbles.

"Are you famous?"

"My dad... he's in the movies."

"Don't get me started with the movies! Gods of Olympus, they never get anything right. Have you seen one movie about me where I look like me?"

"I'm surprised you're so young," Piper agrees.

"Ha! Being immortal helps. But, yes, I wasn't so old when I died. Not by modern standards. I did a lot during my years as a hero... too much, really." He eyes Jason. "Son of Zeus, eh?"

"Jupiter," Jason corrects.

"Not much difference," Hercules shrugs. "Dad's annoying in either form. Me? I was called Heracles. Then the Romans came along and named me Hercules. I didn't really change that much, though lately just thinking about it gives me splitting headaches... At any rate, if you're Jupiter's son, you might understand. It's a lot of pressure. Enough is never enough. Eventually it can make a guy snap."

He looks at Piper. "As for you, my dear, be careful. Sons of Zeus can be... well, never mind." He locks eyes with Ara. "You're the newest Olympian sensation, aren't you?"

"Ara Jackson," she considers shaking his hand, but she doesn't want him to feel how much she's shaking.

He tilts his head. "Who was your godly parent?"

"Aphrodite."

Hercules burst out laughing, making Ara want to punch his nose. "Has the quality of heroes decreased, or are Aphrodites more sturdy than in ancient times?"

"We've always been sturdy," she scoffs.

"So the quality decreased," he muses. "That sucks."

"You su—"

"Lord Hercules," Piper intervenes. "We're on a quest. We'd like permission to pass into the Mediterranean."

Hercules turns to her, still chuckling. "That's why I'm here. After I died, Dad made me the doorkeeper of Olympus. I said, Great! Palace duty! Party all the time! What he didn't mention is that I'd be guarding the doors to the ancient lands, stuck on this island for the rest of eternity. Lots of fun."

He points at the pillars.

"Stupid columns. Some people claim I created the whole Strait of Gibraltar by shoving mountains apart. Some people say the mountains are the pillars. What a bunch of Augean manure. The pillars are pillars."

"Right," Piper replies. "Naturally. So... can we pass?"

"Well, I have to give you the standard warning about how dangerous the ancient lands are. Not just any demigod can survive the Mare Nostrum. Because of that, I have to give you a quest to complete. Prove your worth, blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I don't make a big deal of it. Usually I give demigods something simple like a shopping trip, singing a funny song, that sort of thing. After all those labors I had to complete for my evil cousin Eurystheus, well... I don't want to be that guy, you know?"

"Appreciate it," Jason nods.

"Hey, no problem," Hercules continues, eyeing Ara. "But I kind of want to see the little one in action."

"Call me little again, and I'll use you as the demonstration dummy," she says dryly.

The young god snorts. "So what's your quest?"

"Giants," Jason explains. "We're off to Greece to stop them from awakening Gaea."

"Giants. I hate those guys. Back when I was a demigod hero... ah, but never mind. So which god put you up to this—Dad? Athena? Maybe Aphrodite?" He glances at Piper with a sly smile. "As pretty as you are, I'm guessing that's your mom too."

Ara senses the danger, but Jason thinks she's about to snap and acts faster. "Hera sent us. She brought us together to—"

"Hera."

The air around Hercules changes, and Piper tries to fix it. "We hate her too. We didn't want to help her. She didn't give us much choice, but—"

"But here you are," Hercules glares at them. "Sorry, you three. I don't care how worthy your quest is. I don't do anything that Hera wants. Ever."

"But I thought you made up with her when you became a god," Jason frowns.

"Like I said, don't believe everything you hear. If you want to pass into the Mediterranean, I'm afraid I've got to give you an extra-hard quest."

"Man, c'mon!" Ara complains. "You know I'm forced to follow orders!"

"And yet you wear that mantle with pride."

"But we're like brothers," Jason insists. "Hera's messed with my life, too. I understand—"

"You understand nothing. My first family: dead. My life wasted on ridiculous quests. My second wife dead, after being tricked into poisoning me and leaving me to a painful demise. And my compensation? I got to become a minor god. Immortal, so I can never forget my pain. Stuck here as a gatekeeper, a doorman, a... a butler for the Olympians. No, you don't understand. The only god who understands me even a little bit is Dionysus. And at least he invented something useful. I have nothing to show except bad film adaptations of my life."

"That's horribly sad, Lord Hercules. But please go easy on us. We're not bad people," Piper uses her charmspeak, but it's hard to sweet-talk a god.

Hercules's eyes harden. "On the opposite side of this island, over those hills, you'll find a river. In the middle of that river lives the old god Achelous."

"...and?" Jason frowns.

"And I want you to break off his other horn and bring it to me."

"He has horns," Jason pauses. "Wait... his other horn? What—?"

"Figure it out! Here, this should help." Hercules tosses a tiny book at Piper. "Bring me that horn by sundown. Just the two of you. No contacting your friends. Your ship will remain where it is. If you succeed, you may pass into the Mediterranean."

"And if we don't succeed?" Piper scowls.

"Well, Achelous will kill you, obviously. And I will break your ship in half with my bare hands and send your friends to an early grave."

"Touch my ship," Ara warns him, "and I'll stick my sword up your—"

"Couldn't we just sing a funny song?" Jason pleads.

"I'd get going," Hercules says with disinterest. "Sundown. Or your friends are dead. And you," he summons a chair for Ara. "We should talk."

Ara shouts a lot of insults that make Piper and Jason look back in alarm as they walk away, but either Hercules finds her amusing, or he's not allowed to hurt a child of Olympus, because he lets her yell until she tires out.

He makes two drinks appear. "Grape. Non-alcoholic for the crybaby."

Ara scowls at the glass. "I'm not a baby."

Hercules sets his club next to her. Ara's barely a head taller than the weapon. "You sure?"

She kicks the club and snatches the grape juice. "I knew you were a jerk, but I didn't know you were petty too."

"Children of Olympus are all petty," he sits down. "Blend too much free time and excessive egos, and you get one of us. We're provoked easily, and we have a talent to incite."

Ara looks back at the ship. Someone's on deck staring in their direction, probably Leo. She's stuck here with Mr Simpathy, so why not employ the time for something useful?

"What being a son of Olympus entails..."

"Do you know what it entails?" He interrupts her.

"Well... I serve the gods."

"Until you die," he pauses. "Although they could promote you to some other thing if they like you. But basically, your life is theirs."

She shrugs. "I don't mind being put to use."

"Because you don't understand what it means," he drinks his wine. "This isn't a reward, kid. You're a threat to all mortals."

"That was before," she argues. "I'm not like you."

Hercules raises a brow. "Then why do you hold that sword? And wear my cloak?"

"I fought a war, and been to dangerous places, all just to keep my loved ones safe. I am not you."

Hercules rolls his eyes. "You pledged your life to Olympus, and you did it for one reason only—You're starving," His words resonate within her unpleasantly. "Have you done something about that hunger, or has it done nothing but grow?"

Ara replies quietly, avoiding his eyes. "I don't know..."

"How long have you been a daughter of Olympus?"

"A year."

Hercules frowns. "How old are you?"

Ara keeps her eyes down. "I'll be fifteen in a few days."

"You're younger than Achilles and I when we were chosen..." his voice sounds different now. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you turn into this?"

She clears her throat. "I got tired of burning shrouds. If the gods won't help us, then I will."

Hercules's demeanor changes, he looks pitiful. "We don't help people."

"Maybe you didn't, but I will."

"We're killers. That's what the gods will ask of you, to take out the trash so their home is clean. We'll never be role models."

"I don't want praise," she replies defiantly.

"You say that now," Hercules shrugs. "Get a couple more blessings and see if the treatment doesn't start to feel a little unjust."

"I might die soon, so it doesn't matter," she says bitterly. "Might as well do something good with the time I have left."

He tilts his head with interest, like he's listening to something Ara can't. "Ah... yes, I see it," He smiles and looks to the horizon. "I know the story—Oenone swore Paris would regret leaving her. He'd never get his ideal life with his ideal woman. The nymph then killed herself out of guilt, as the unstable creature she always was."

The girl doesn't even bother to ask how he knows all this, she assumes gods have their ways to poke around a mortal's business. "Well, according to Aphrodite, this life will be no different if I don't do something."

"That's wishful thinking."

"The fates chose us to be part of this prophecy—Two souls in the right place, and right time."

The god shrugs again. "How do you break a centuries-old curse?"

"I don't know. Might be tied to the Mark of Athena—"

Hercules snorts. "You're not a child of Athena, so I doubt it."

"Janus said one of my paths was threading in that direction."

"It can't be the Mark of Athena," he brushes it off.

"Then what is it?" She asks with irritation.

Hercules makes a face. "Do I look like an oracle? I don't know. The price you'll pay has to be high, equal to the value of your curse. They won't set you free otherwise."

"There is no real freedom in a world ruled by prophecies," she scowls.

Hercules can't hide his amusement. "You're so intense. All children of Olympus die by their doing, you know? Honor, power... what's your poison?"

"That's it, I'm going back to my ship now, this is useless!" Ara stands up from her chair. "You won't treat my work as a worthless effort."

"You are fourteen," he corrects her calmly. "No one's saying you're worthless, you're a kid."

Ara blinks. "What?"

He finishes his wine and tosses the goblet over his shoulder. "You're drowning, and what for? You're a child that acts like a child and you tricked yourself into thinking that's wrong. Your ambition, little dove, it's eating your youth away."

Ara stares at him. She likes being young... or she did before Percy brought all these grown-up situations, and she had to catch up with him so he didn't leave her behind. Her brother was her entire world for a long, long time, and at some point, they grew apart, just like she'd always feared. Ara's solution was to force her way into the spotlight so she wouldn't be ignored ever again.

"Let's see, you have..." Hercules examines the embroidery on her cloak. "Six blessings? You're burning out faster than Achilles and I ever did."

Ara's too angry and confused to process what's been said to her, but Hercules keeps going.

"You know why the gods don't give all the blessings? Above ten would be a VIP pass to things a human can't handle," Hercules sighs. "You won't be here for long, and they've always liked playing safe."

He says it like Ara is the most recent doll in the market, and soon she'll go out of fashion and the gods will forget she was even there, just like Helen.

"Any advice?" She asks.

"Yeah," he leans back on his seat. "Watch your mouth. You're young, and there are forces out there that won't hesitate to put you in your place. Teach yourself to be scarier with no symbols of power that announce it to your enemies. And one more thing..."

He looks back at the ship, Ara turns and spots Leo leaning on the railing. When she looks at him, he waves effusively and blows a kiss in her direction.

"Achilles stepped into this role and lost Patroclus," Hercules says absently. "I lost my mind... you will lose, Ara Jackson, and that will be the beginning of the end. The path you chose is nothing but sad and lonely."

"It was bound to be that way no matter what," her voice quivers.

Hercules glances at Leo again. "Yes... you better get used to it. That boy can start over if he survives, you cannot."

Ara nods and adds weakly. "Is it better than being mortal, being a god?"

He responds thoughtfully. "Being a god is... slow-paced. Nothing new happens, nothing old ever comes back. If you interact with mortals, you forget their faces as soon as they leave—if an immortal reaches out, it's meaningless."

"By that, you mean..?"

"Immortals, they don't even look at you. Might as well be hallucinating those meetings."

"Cool," Ara replies dryly. "Well, uh... I have nothing else to say."

Hercules laughs. "I could talk you to death... I'd never known a demigod like you, let alone a daughter of Aphrodite," he looks at the small figures approaching. "But your friends are back."

Ara approaches them anxiously. "Gods almighty—You okay?"

"All good," Jason nods.

"Good," Hercules hums. "You got it. In that case, you are free to go."

"You heard him. He gave us permission," Piper nudges Jason's arm. "That means our ship will be able to pass into the Mediterranean?"

"Yes, yes. Now, the horn," the god demands impatiently.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"Achelous was right," Piper lifts the horn as if it were a bazooka. "You're his curse as much as he is yours. You're a sorry excuse for a hero."

Ara and Hercules share a look as if saying. "Are we hearing that right?"

"You realize I could kill you with a flick of my finger," he raises a brow. "I could throw my club at your ship and cut straight through its hull. I could—"

"You could shut up," Jason continues. "Maybe Zeus is different from Jupiter. Because I wouldn't put up with any brother who acts like you."

Hercules's face gets purple with anger. "You would not be the first demigod I've killed."

"Woah!" Ara steps in. "Let's not throw death threats around, okay?" She turns to Piper and mouths 'What the hell?' but her sister ignores her.

"Jason is better than you. But don't worry. We're not going to fight you. We're going to leave this island with the horn. You don't deserve it as a prize. I'm going to keep it, to remind me of what not to be like as a demigod, and to remind me of poor Achelous and Deianira."

"Do not mention that name!" Hercules snaps. "You can't seriously think I'm worried about your puny boyfriend. No one is stronger than me."

"I didn't say stronger, I said he's better."

Piper lifts the horn a little higher, and from it bursts out a wide variety of fresh food and baked sweets—a whole godly feast. Piper pulls Ara away from the mountain of edibles. "Go!"

Jason seizes them, flying back to the Argo II.

"Kill!" Hercules screams in anger, crawling out from under the food.

Everyone seems to know what's happening except Ara. Leo flies the ship away without asking questions, and Percy summons a huge tide to keep Hercules from throwing coconuts at them.

Next Chapter ->

Taglist.

@siriuslysirius1107 @ask-giggles1303 @asnyox-the-hoarder @im-planning-something-look @bandshirts-andbooks @coolninjapaper @thewaterlily @whenisthefall @1randomcomic @you-bloody-shank @sunflowergraves @owlalex44 @taylordaughter @typicalsolangelolover @writingmia @espressopatronum454 @slytherinnqueen @orbitingpolaris @obxstiles @ellipsisspelled @thepixiechicksh

[pesterloglog]

Dave Strider, Dirk Strider

Act 6, page 7748-7756

DAVE: ok actually maybe i will get into it

DAVE: i dunno why my friends got to have adults around who cared about them

DAVE: they complained bitterly about stuff so i guess i convinced myself they were all in the same boat as me

DAVE: but thats not how it was

DAVE: their complaints were trumped up nonsense and i bought it cause... i dunno

DAVE: i didnt have any frame of reference

DAVE: but his dad and her mom no matter what they said it was so obvious they cared about them deeply

DAVE: even jades weird fuckin grandpa who died when she was young obviously would have done anything for her

DAVE: why did i get such a raw cut of the asshole deck

DAVE: and why did it take me so long to figure that out

DAVE: and like hes dead now so thats that

DAVE: so all thats left to do is look back and try to put the pieces together of my first 13 years

DAVE: and all i can think is what the fuck WAS that?!

DAVE: i dont come away with the impression i used to try convincing myself of, that he was like "mysterious" or "stern" or "aloof"

DAVE: the only feeling left is this insane impression that i was raised by somebody who fuckin HATED me

DAVE: and the whole act of even "raising a child" was some totally fucked up game to him

DAVE: like parenthood was one of the highest tiers of irony in his solemn bullshit bro-ninja code

DAVE: so he went through those motions and did whatever he thought was "funny" or "badass"

DAVE: but under that weird stylistic and totally sociopathic approach to parenting i cant even IMAGINE there was any emotion toward me other than some sort of loathing

DIRK: What...

DIRK: Did he do?

DAVE: i dont want to get out the laundry list

DAVE: but for reference laundry wasnt one of those things

DAVE: that was just one of the many little domestic things i just had to sort of FIGURE OUT

DAVE: sorta like i eventually had to learn what the REAL purpose of a refridgerator was from movies

DIRK: Wait.

DIRK: What??

DAVE: i dunno theres too much to even get into

DAVE: just

DAVE: i dont remember the atmosphere ever not being nerve wracking

DAVE: all havin to sneak around and...

DAVE: ugh my shitty childhood spider senses are tinglin just thinking about it

DAVE: it was "training" you know

DAVE: but you know what it really was it was some vicious shit that was bad and sucked and i hated it

DAVE: it didnt make me stronger

DAVE: it did the opposite

DAVE: it made me never want to fight

DAVE: it made me never want to see blood or be near danger or hear metal sounds

DAVE: it made me hate the idea of being a hero cause he was a hero and he ruined the idea of heroism

DAVE: i dont even want to be fighting this shitty version of jack but hey nobody else has secret welsh powers so i guess i have to

DIRK: ...

DAVE: what gets me is how long it took me to put all this together

DAVE: to stop seeing it as some kinda roughhousey and eccentric life i had but was otherwise normal

DAVE: it took years to deconstruct it all and put it back together to understand how fuckin mad i should be

DAVE: and in particular how stone cold deeply uncared for i was my whole life

DAVE: like... being merely "monitored" by a violent robot

DAVE: i only started getting it after spending a lot of time in person with a bunch of people who actually did care about me

DAVE: and i could start feeling like

DAVE: actually somewhat human for the first time

DAVE: instead of...

DAVE: some sort of runty afterthought to a household cabal of smutty puppets

DIRK: ... Puppets?

DAVE: the fuckin puppets!!!

DAVE: i know how it sounds but i am NOT joking and there is NO shred of doubt in my mind that he loved all those puppets more than me

DAVE: honestly it is very possible that he was just insane and thats that

DAVE: i guess it didnt help either that we lived with what we have come to understand may theoretically be the most evil doll to exist in any universe ever

DAVE: in fact its my tenuous understanding that he came down to earth with that thing and like actually grew up with it

DAVE: maybe...

DAVE: maybe spending 30 some years being unseparable from that hell puppet had some effect on him??

DAVE: maybe if it hadnt been casting a pall over our apartment 24/7 since he took me in...

DAVE: grinning...

DAVE: glaring...

DAVE: laughing in my sleep...

DAVE: maybe our lives wouldnt have been quite so...

DAVE: maybe we would have...

DAVE: ugh

DIRK: What?

DIRK: You ok there?

DAVE: .....

DAVE: .....

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: That doll.

DIRK: That was Cal, right?

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: Right.

DIRK: My version is "empty", apparently.

DIRK: Whatever that means.

DAVE: huh

DAVE: how do you know that

DIRK: A source.

DIRK: One supposedly knowledgeable in jujus.

DIRK: I never quite knew what that meant, though.

DAVE: well

DAVE: whatever his was

DAVE: "empty" is never how i would have described it

DIRK: Hmm.

DAVE: man

DAVE: i dunno if i figured something out here

DAVE: like um "explained" something or

DAVE: if im just driving myself crazy with this talk and nothing even needs explaining

DAVE: it doesnt change my past or how i feel about him

DAVE: he was still pretty much awful no matter what the reason

DAVE: and im sure thats the only feeling ill ever have about him

DAVE: so who cares why it was like that

DIRK: Yeah...

DIRK: That...

DIRK: All sounds really bad.

DIRK: I don't know what to say though.

DIRK: Maybe I shouldn't say anything.

DIRK: Since I just remind you so much of him, for, uh. Obvious reasons.

DIRK: I don't want to make you feel worse, or make it sound like I'm offering a defense.

DIRK: For him, or me.

DIRK: Because I don't have one.

DIRK: For either of us.

DAVE: come on man

DAVE: YOU didnt do anything

DAVE: this was just some douche bag with your exact dna, who happened to grow up to be my bro

DAVE: you had a completely different life full of like

DAVE: different choices and actions and stuff

DAVE: and even if you were gonna turn out like him youve barely cleared the half way mark on actually chronologically gettin there

DAVE: in some way ranting about all this is probably just uncool of me because...

DAVE: you arent him

DAVE: youre not resposible for any of this shit but im sorta implicitly tacking it on you anyway

DAVE: so

DAVE: sorry about that

DIRK: I'm not sure it's true though.

DIRK: At least, I don't feel that way.

DAVE: what way

DIRK: That I'm not him.

DIRK: The fact is, I am.

DIRK: It's something I've come to understand about myself.

DIRK: All splinters of me are basically me, no matter how much I want to resist that truth.

DIRK: Or pretend they aren't reflecting my own qualities back at me.

DIRK: I bear a certain responsibility for all of them.

DAVE: splinters...?

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: I guess the concept isn't that unique to me.

DIRK: We've all got other versions of ourselves running around here and there, throughout the various compartments of this messed up cosmos.

DAVE: right

DIRK: I just happen to be particularly connected to mine.

DIRK: I've felt...

DIRK: Haunted by them.

DIRK: And what that really means is, I'm perpetually haunted by my own bad qualities.

DIRK: So, when I hear about stuff I did in another reality,

DIRK: I'm not sure what my adult self might have ever tried to do to atone for that stuff, if anything...

DAVE: pretty much dick squat

DIRK: Yeah. But in any case,

DIRK: I'm sure I was completely in the wrong, and I'm sorry I messed up your life.

DAVE: ...

DAVE: thanks

DAVE: but

DAVE: it still feels a little odd accepting an apology from somebody who i just met and technically had nothing to do with my life

DAVE: even if you do feel guilty splinterways or whatever

DAVE: it is just a messed up situation

DAVE: and i guess i had to vent

DAVE: and there was never anyone i wanted to say all that to

DAVE: and the only thing that was gonna drag it out of me i guess was like a teen stand-in phantom of my dead bro

DAVE: just some perfectly innocent dude havin to take the brunt of this shit

DIRK: I'm not particularly innocent though.

DIRK: I've messed a lot of things up.

DIRK: With my friends.

DIRK: Honestly, that's why I wasn't that bent on sticking around, when I showed up.

DIRK: And pretty much jumped at the offer of flying here to get ready for some yet to be explained battle.

DIRK: Battles are easy. Just you, a sword, some bad guys... it's a lot simpler than having to answer for things you did.

DIRK: For the most part, I feel pretty bad about the role I played in my friends' lives.

DIRK: Especially Jake.

DAVE: what happened there

DIRK: I don't even know.

DIRK: An unmitigated disaster for which I'm entirely to blame.

DIRK: It's not any one thing. I think I was just a completely toxic element in his life from day one.

DIRK: I don't know what he's doing now.

DIRK: I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to avoid me as much as possible.

DIRK: I'm sure that's for the best.

DIRK: I think I need to stay out of his business for a good while, so I don't risk poisoning another innocent kid's life.

DIRK: Like I did with you, apparently.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i mean

DAVE: maybe its a little different cause relations between peers is a whole other thing

DAVE: its tricky shit and youre both figuring stuff out on a relatively equal footing and youre both at the same point in your lives

DAVE: its not like when one person is older and supposed to be a lot more...

DAVE: never mind this is a fucked up thing to think about

DAVE: but the bottom line is yeah laying low while you sort out your stuff cant hurt

DIRK: Right.

DIRK: The thing with that, with my adult self's...

DIRK: Ways.

DIRK: The sad thing is,

DIRK: I can really see it.

DIRK: How someone like me can go unchecked in life, and turn out to become a much worse person than I already am.

DIRK: I guess I'm just relieved I still have some time to make sure that doesn't happen.

DAVE: you dont actually seem like a bad person to me though

DIRK: No?

DAVE: nah

DIRK: Why not?

DIRK: We did just meet, after all.

DAVE: because

DAVE: i dunno if truly bad people wrestle so much with whether theyre good or bad

DAVE: i think if i ever sensed my bro like

DAVE: struggled at all with what he was doing or who he was

DAVE: or showed any sort of doubt

DAVE: that might have changed everything

DAVE: but there was never a crack in it

DAVE: or the slightest hint of introspection behind the aggressive cooldude facade

DAVE: if there was i sure never noticed

DAVE: i mean personally

DAVE: i think about it all the time now

DAVE: what it actually means to be good or bad

DAVE: or if not something that starkly moral

DAVE: at least just trying to examine the difference between being decent and being a douche

DAVE: maybe its because of him i worry about that now

DAVE: but for me i think that internal struggle is kind of mild

DAVE: for him...

DAVE: or you i mean

DAVE: it sounds like some pretty dark shit

DAVE: like grappling with...

DAVE: becoming evil vs simply trying not to

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: That's not too far off.

DAVE: but the point is

DAVE: even just talkin to you a little bit

DAVE: its obvious youve been fighting with that

DAVE: which means that you care enough to put in some effort

DAVE: i think that counts for something

DIRK: Maybe.

DIRK: Not sure if I'm ready to accept a pat on the back for recognizing I have some problems, and worrying about whether they'll destroy me and fuck up the people I care about.

DIRK: That might be setting the bar kind of low.

DAVE: well when it comes to the subject of him

DAVE: the bars already pretty low dude

DIRK: The weird thing, honestly,

DIRK: Is that it's actually kind of refeshing to hear a sincerely leveled critique of all my negative qualities, coming from another person invested in a relationship with me, rather than from a fucked up iteration of myself as some bizarre "trollish" form of self abuse.

DIRK: The only thing I've ever been exposed to are either various forms of self loathing either from me or my auto-responder, or attitudes completely oblivious to my real issues, as expressed through my friends.

DIRK: My friends always seemed to cut me so much slack, or were just never aware of the kind of person I really was.

DIRK: Well, Jake probably is, by now at least.

DIRK: But he's also the sort of guy who's just as likely to blame himself for stuff I did, as he is to blame me.

DIRK: Jane and Roxy, though.

DIRK: Never seemed to see anything wrong with me.

DIRK: If anything, just the contrary.

DIRK: Roxy in particular had a certain... fixation.

DIRK: She meant well, but was so enamored of me, and seemingly everything I did.

DIRK: Which I think was the last thing I needed.

DIRK: To be idolized in some form by other people I respected.

DIRK: I had enough of that feeling coming from within, particularly when I was younger.

DIRK: And since then, I've been plagued by the insane ego of my youth in the form of an artificial intelligence I designed which essentially trapped that state of mind in a sort of horrid suspended animation.

DIRK: Until... recent developments, of course.

DAVE: so

DAVE: was that stuff true

DAVE: when you said you idolized the other version of me

DIRK: Yeah.

DAVE: and not just some bullshit like how i used to say the same thing about my bro when i didnt know any better

DIRK: It's definitely not like that.

DIRK: I never lived with him, or met him, so couldn't have anything like the contentious relationship you had with my older self.

DIRK: He was a historical figure from centuries ago.

DIRK: There was a lot to admire, and think about fondly.

DIRK: Especially since I was alone, and never had any direct contact with another person, or any concept of civilization.

DIRK: So even though I'm sure I romanticized what his life was like, and the early 21st century in general,

DIRK: It was nice to think about you.

DIRK: I passed a lot of time that way.

DAVE: you say there was a lot to admire

DAVE: like what

DIRK: Well...

DIRK: He was pretty famous.

DIRK: Made some successful movies.

DIRK: At least under a somewhat expansive definition of "success".

DIRK: And an even more expansive definition of "movie".

DIRK: His work accumulated a lot of subversive political influence, which got him in trouble later.

DIRK: He made like a million bullshit Statues of Liberty, scummed them up with jpeg artifacts, and littered them all over the planet.

DAVE: holy shit

DIRK: He was also a pretty badass swordsman, and an active member of the resistance movement.

DIRK: He slaughtered the clown presidents on the roof of the White House, and flew away on a shitty skateboard.

DIRK: Then it seems he gave the Batterwitch a pretty good run for her money.

DIRK: It wasn't enough, but at least he went down fighting.

DAVE: that

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: ima need to hear more details on this some time

DIRK: Sure.

DIRK: But as you can tell, clearly there was a lot to look up to.

DIRK: I thought about the examples you set constantly. The creative ideals, the advanced theories on irony and humor, the tales of courage and martial prowess.

DIRK: Really, I modeled everything about myself after you. Or at least everything good that I was trying to become.

DIRK: And I probably spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining what it would be like to live during his time, and to be able to have something resembling a sibling relationship, or be in some sort of master-apprentice situation.

DIRK: When I finally learned you existed, and started to understand who he really was in relation to me, that put a lot into context.

DIRK: I realized he was a version of you who got a chance to live up to his full potential.

DIRK: And when I understood there was a young version of you, in a situation sorta like mine, whose time on Earth got cut short when you were thrown into all this,

DIRK: I was at least happy to think there was some reality where you got the chance to do everything you wanted to do, be successful, and fight for all the right things.

DIRK: Even if ultimately it didn't lead to a great outcome for humanity, you had an opportunity to live a full life and show what you were made of.

DIRK: While I guess I had... the same opportunity on your world, somewhat less fortunately.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: but then for all my bitching i guess i still never grasped your full reality

DAVE: just like you probably didnt grasp mine, but just reading into the mindset of a historical figure as best you could

DAVE: what if i wasnt as heroic as it seemed?

DAVE: what if adult me was kinda douchey too in a way you couldnt observe

DIRK: Perhaps.

DIRK: But beyond a certain point, I think accomplishments speak for themselves.

DIRK: I dunno if you can just completely shred every person who ever did great things because they had some flaws.

DIRK: All I can say is, it was important to me to see him the way I did.

DIRK: As a good person who inspired me, and set the standard for what I wanted to be.

DIRK: It kept me going.

DIRK: That said, I'm also glad there's this version of you who got to go through all the things you've been through.

DIRK: Like, yeah, you didn't get to be the cool celebrity who cuts down juggalos on badly defaced government property.

DIRK: And the idea of a "normal life" was rudely taken from you, and it's something you'll never get to experience.

DIRK: But this is so much more challenging, and uncertain.

DIRK: You get to apply all that potential you showed in one reality to something much bigger and more existentially critical.

DIRK: Whatever strength you showed in trying to save a dying planet, the fact is, I think we need that more here.

DIRK: And the trials inherent in being a part of something like this, I think they bring more out of you than a relatively pedestrian life on Earth would. Make you face more things about yourself. At least, that's been true for me.

DIRK: But it sounds like it's been true for you too.

DIRK: It sounds to me like the experiences you've had changed you a lot, for the better.

DIRK: You mentioned the experiences with him that were designed to make you stronger have actually made you weaker, but really, I doubt that's true.

DIRK: I bet you've become stronger than you realize, not because of anything he did, but because of what you've done, and the ways you've changed yourself through your own effort.

DIRK: I hope it doesn't come off as overly sentimental garbage, but it seems to me like you turned out to be a really good dude.

DIRK: Like, really, a better sort of dude I ever imagined talking to when I pictured meeting the legendary guy I idolized.

DIRK: I pictured him as probably being "too cool" to be the type of guy you are.

DIRK: But you know what, fuck being too cool for that.

DAVE: ...

DAVE: you

DAVE: ...

DAVE: ...

DAVE: ...

DAVE: you dont think im cool?

DIRK: Nah.

DIRK: I mean, in the right way, yes. I think you are.

DIRK: But, in the way that doesn't mean anything and doesn't matter,

DIRK: Not particularly.

DAVE: ...

DIRK: Anyway, that's...

DIRK: All my "stuff", with respect to your other self.

DIRK: Again, there's a lot more I could say about him.

DIRK: Maybe stuff you should know, or maybe it's all irrelevant to the path you're on now.

DIRK: Regardless, I'd be more than willing to answer any questions you have about him.

DIRK: Or, anything really.

DIRK: Feel free to ask me whatever, ok?

DAVE: ...

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i

DAVE: ill have to think

[thecoolcatstuff]

Today I will present my thesis on why I think Juleka and Adrien should have been best friends.

1.They have(platonic) chemistry

Most of times good compatibility isnt about characters having the same traits, but having traits that cumpliment eachother. Complementary traits often result in good dynamics, fun to watch. Now, miraculous have some pretty fun character dynamics like Chat/Ladybug, Marinette/Kagami, Adrien/Plagg but I believe Adrien/Juleka has the potential to be one of the best among them. Hear me out.

Adrien is an extroverted person molded by his father into a polite and pristine façade never being allowed out or having indeoendent thoughts.

Juleka is the daughter of a pirate rockstar(Anarka) who was born with all the freedom she could want, but has a shy and introverted personality despite that.

Besides loving the "extrovert adopts introvert" trope, I belive their interaction would be beneficial for their development, with Adrien helping Juleka to come out of her shell by teatching her his dorkish ways and Juleka showing Adrien what freedom really means( I am 100% certain Juleka would convince Adrien to do a Tattoo, paint his hair, pierce his nose or some shit only to flip out Gabriel). They could really understant eachother, help eachoter overcome their fears and give support.

(it is important to say that when I meant they have good chemistry, i do not mean romantic chemistry. Characters of opposite sex are allowed to interact and have good relations without it necessarily meant to be romantic. That is a taboo on animation and would also be pretty cool to chalenge.)

2.Juleka wants to model

Juleka's dream being revealed as someone who wants to model professionally, her having a best friend who is a literal supermodel would be the ideal setup to give her a "in" into the fashion world, and would also give Adrien someone on his corner in the industry, maybe someone to give him advice and support when dealing with the wheight of his schedule, or when being pushed around left and right by Lila or his dad.

3.It would explain things story wise

It was always weird to me how Adrien always shows up at the boat for Kitty Section practice. I mean I guess he is around since Juleka invites the whole class to show up, but its never actually a reason to why HE should show up. People are always wondering "hey where is adrien?" even when other people like Kim or Nathaniel are also not there. Adrien bring juleka's bff would make this more plausible because "cmon he is my bestie where the fuck is he?".

4.Chat Noir and Purple Tigress

The dynamic of Chat Noir and Purple Tigress was cute. Chat being carefree and flirty and Juleka being kind of stiff and awkward and fumbling against his extroverted approach all while being a lowkey girlboss on the side just gave a whole new fun to the dynamic. I can just picture Juleka awkwardly trying to make a cat pun and Chat being lit on fire by it.

5. Adrien might have gotten a home at the boat

Ive seen hundreds of post-hawkmoth defeat fics, and almost all of them we have something in common: Adrien gets adopted by the dupain-chengs and go live with them. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, Sabine and Tom are great and they would definitly help Adrien in a moment of need but the imolications of this... it really striked me odd. living with your girlfriend's parents? Sneaking into her room every night to cuddle at 15 and they being ok with it? really? Thats just weird bro.

Now, Adrien at the boat makes sense. Methinks Anarka would be more the willing to adopt Adrien on the spot. She is carefree, doesnt seem to be caugh up by details and seems to be fairly ok with a bunch of teens hanging around her deck all day. Adrien is a musician and fairly polite, so he checks out all the boxes to be her son. Besides, imagine how Adrien's chacracter would develop given the chance to live freely like Juleka and Luka does. He could develop more his "wild side" and learn how to be more confortable with himself.

6. Get to see Adrien wingmaning Julerose

Now, we all know Adrien Chat Noir is our resident dork in town. However, I feel we dont get to see it much. I imagine him trying to help Juleka woo Rose or giving tips to flirt would be very funny and amusing to see, and give him much more characterization. Besides, Juleka and Rose's relationship would be way more spicy. I mean they are cute but the whole "lowkey supportive gf" thing they always have going on gets stale pretty fast, and dont five much insight on how their relationship is really like. LET THEM FLIRT FOR GODS SAKE!

[bucketofchum]

Foster Bros AU Atumu gets a girlfriend at age 22-ish? Maybe older. Maybe 25. She's respectful so she hasn't tried to push his boundaries (he's still aroace but she's a nice person - one of the few nice people he has met in his life), so they haven't ever done anything beyond cuddling before. She's older than he is. A lot of emotional intelligence. More content with under the cut (lots of SA trigger warning)

I think this is after she had met Startop and Startop acts like a total dick bc he's jealous. Atumu tries to defend his foster brother for his behaviour. After all, Startop is the only other human being who has ever been kind to him and genuinely cared for him as a person.

Atumu casually alludes to some bad shit that happened, but he seems emotionally okay with it. Doesn't go into detail but he just mentions it. Like some bad shit happened, but it's bc he's got this deformed body. And Alice is like ?? Bc she has seen Atumu in basically his underwear and he looks fine to her. He looks FINE to her haha. Anyhow he shrugs it off like it's no biggie but she is actually curious. Will be tell her? They've been dating for, idk, like, 2 years now at this point? (Atumu doesn't really know what a relationship is so I guess he doesn't know how long they have been dating. He doesn't even know what dating is).

Atumu is intersex. He doesn't really know what it is, and he doesn't know much about it. But he knows there is something physically "wrong" with him, and that's probably why all the Bad Stuff happened. He has experienced REPEATED sexual assaults, in almost every stage of his life. Early childhood (before 8 years old - but he has no memory of that, age 12 at boarding school from a group of older boys - really fucking traumatic, age 15 when he went to a private university - first week getting drugged and date raped by a bunch of upperclassmen, and 15-18 all throughout his entire undergraduate experience just because he didn't understand boundaries and didn't KNOW he was allowed to say no). By the time he was 18, in his last year in university, he was so emotionally vacant and dissociative and had basically zero will to live. He said no for the first time in his life. And kept saying no. And hadn't had sex since.

Now, some 4-6 years later, it has been a while since he has had any sexual experiences and it's....nice. He has never wanted sex. He was already asexual before the sexual assaults, and afterwards...? He has a hard time distinguishing the difference between sex and rape. Because he has NEVER wanted it. It's all the same to him.

But the kind of tragic thing is that he has sort of internalized it to be...his fault? Like the REASON he was raped was bc of his body. He's got this fucked up body - that's why he was raped. That's why all those horrible things happened to him repeatedly. And this is what he gets for having a fucked up body.

Alice can't imagine what he's talking about since he's so fucking vague about it. He never told her about the rapes, but his vague ass language gave her some idea that he might have been SA'd. But deformed? She's seen almost all of him and the only thing that seemed strange, besides how tall and thin he is, were his large scars across his back. But he has already told her that he doesn't know what those are from (that happened before he was 8 years old, which he has no living memory of).

So she asks to see. Atumu still doesn't know why anyone would want to see his genitals. He thinks all genitals are kinda........ blegh. And his in particular are even more messed up. So he gives her a warning. She still wants to see.

He does eventually show her and.....it sort of all makes sense. Why he'd say that sort of thing. Why he'd think that. He has a penis, like normal - well, I mean not that normal cuz it's MmMmmm..hmmm we will just say more than proportional ... Hm okay no additional comment, but at the base of it, it connects to what looks like a fully formed vagina instead of a scrotum. It looks identical to any normal ciswoman's labia...just weirdly where the clit would be, Atumu instead has his penis. She has heard of "hermaphrodite" before but never knew it could be like this. (She'd spend the next few days furiously teaching herself about it on the internet).

Anyhow, in the moment, she asks if she can touch it. Atumu is uncomfortable, but he allows her to. She tries a bit, but based on Atumu's body language in response, she doesn't push it.

They don't mention it again for a while, but Alice thinks about it nonstop for like...the rest of her life.