#mostly because i see them as part of the family you can't tell me otherwise

[thatrandomlittlegirl]

saw this on twitter months ago and just /had/ to put this on paper, it's so cuteee

[scatteredskittless]

Okayy so I’ve done something similar but I wanted to see it from someone else but it’s Creepy pasta room head canons !!! I don’t mind who you do but I would love to see Jack’s most of all !! Thank you <3

Creepypasta room headcanons

A/n: At the beach rn with family.. sighhh I hate the beach (._.) BUT I LOVE THIS REQUEST !!! LMK IF YALL WANR A PART TWO (^_-)☆

Includes: Jeff, Ej, Toby, BP and Nina :333

Warnings: None

「 ✦ Jeff ✦ 」

🔪✮ MESSY ASS ROOM and it does NOT smell all that great tbh 😭😭

🔪✮ Has zero shame about it too, you come to hang out in his room he'll just kick stuff to the side and shove stuff off the bed casually.

🔪✮ Posters all over the walls, most of them are of bands he enjoys (He stole most of them 💀)

🔪✮ Jeff has a knife collection so he has a little setup for them :3

🔪✮ ALSO!!!! Side headcanon he fucking loves MSI (The song "This Hurts" by them is literally him chat)

🔪✮ There's a window in his room by his bed that you can use to get to the roof of the manor, it's actually got a pretty damn good view too

🔪✮ Has a mini fridge in his room beside his bed that has drinks in it

🔪✮ Mostly energy drinks and Pepsi with like, a singular water that'll never get drank.

🔪✮ Probably doesn't have sheets on his bed.. the mattress is full of mysterious stains

🔪✮ Musty BEAST (I love him)

「 ✦ Eyeless Jack ✦ 」

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 Jacks room doesn't smell all that great either.. he keeps all his organs to munch on and such in there.

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 There really isn't much there tbh, just the essentials to have in a bedroom.

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 A bed, a wardrobe, chair and a desk with an old computer on it..

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 Oh and a few shelves with one big window that he usually keeps closed ദ്ദി(ᵔᗜᵔ)

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 His flooring is a grey-ish carpet and his walls are painted black

👁️‍🗨️𖤐 Kinda boring, ik 😭

「 ✦ Toby ✦ 」

🪓☆ Chaotically clean room, bro is a maximalist to the extreme (^o^)

🪓☆ ‼️‼️ He yearns to collect ‼️‼️

🪓☆ there's a few shelves with trinkets he's collected over the years on them (≧ω≦)

🪓☆ Posters, banners, stickers, drawings and records littered eevveryywhere on the walls and ceiling of his room (maybe this is just projecting because thats witterly my room ☝️)

🪓☆ Has the glow in the dark star stickers on his ceiling for sure

🪓☆ His room is MUCH bigger than the other proxies, has everything he needs and more

🪓☆ I mean, he has a little couch in there that has a big stuffed animal on it and a bug blanket (His hyperfixation is bugs, if you couldn't tell /silly 🪲🪲 )

🪓☆ He spends a shit ton of time in his room because it's genuinely super cool

🪓☆ Has a Tv mounted on his wall in the corner !!

🪓☆ Oh and he has a guitar in his room that he l can't play, he just thinks it looks cool o_O

「 ✦ Bloody Painter ✦ 」

🎨꩜ VERY CLEAN ROOM. AND VERY PARTICULAR ON HOW HE KEEPS THINGS.

🎨꩜ Don't mess with any of his shit without permission first and you'll be fine 🙏

🎨꩜ Has some of the normal (Ones that he doesn't use blood in, he keeps those safe.) paintings, drawings and sketches he's made on his wall behind his easel in the corner of his room :33

🎨꩜ I also think he likes to write!! So maybe some poetry is on his wall as well in that little corner ^_^

🎨꩜ Almost the entirety of his back wall is window which he loves

🎨꩜ HAS PLANTS !!!! 🌱🪴

🎨꩜ Has a nice desk to draw on with a comfortable chair. Theres a nice smelling candle on it with a few books and a lamp (●＾o＾●)

🎨꩜ Also owns the most??? Comfortable?? Blankets?? EVER????? Amazing textures, NO SHERPA <(｀^´)>

🎨꩜ Has a drawer thingy dedicated to his art supplies (Which is also very organized, btw)

🎨꩜ HE HAS A RECORD PLAYER. YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

「 ✦ Nina ✦ 」

🪱ᰔ SHES A SCENE GIRL!!! ROOM IS SCENE!!!

🪱ᰔ Like holy shit it's so colourful ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;) 

🪱ᰔ LOTS and LOTS of homemade stuff stuck on her walls along with various other things, there's stuff everywhere

🪱ᰔ Now you already know she owns a gir blanket and a gir backpack, like cmon (灬ºωº灬)♡

🪱ᰔ Collection of stuffed animals !! Some on her bed and some in a hanging net in the corner above her bed

🪱ᰔ Has LED lights and there's no windows in her room

🪱ᰔ Has a nice desk with a computer on it and trinkets, her keyboard lights up rainbow ☆´∀｀☆

🪱ᰔ Her wardrobe and closet are FULL. She has like, so many cool clothes, belts and accessories

🪱ᰔ Convinced slender to let her paint her walls funky and cool !!

🪱ᰔ Soooo her walls are purple and she painted on with a smaller paint brush cheetah print all over them :3 (She's an icon and I love her dearly)

Please do not repost, translate, or plagarize any of my fanfictions/headcanons/writing without permission ◟( ˃̶͈◡ ˂̶͈ )◞

ᯓ★ Scatteredskittles

[aphverse-confessions]

I think making Vylad the middle kid of the Ro'meaves actually takes away from their dynamic considerably, especially Zane and his specifically. Also any time I see someone doing that, it's usually to benefit Zane's story in some way, when really, he doesn't need more intrigue than he already has

Vylad in MYS being the one to skip a grade back in Highschool makes sense and I'm tired of people saying it should be Zane that's the overachiever. You're telling me it makes more sense for Zane, who was (let's face it) coddled by Zianna his whole life due to his sickness and eye injury as a kid, to feel like he needs to do well academically and prove himself? Zane doesn't want her doting attention on him, he actively avoids doing anything that would put the spotlight on him in a positive manner. He wants to destroy her view of him so she'll leave him ALONE. I think people genuinely forget about that, because he was such a different person in MCD

While Vylad has been consistently ignored by everyone in his family, ESPECIALLY his parents. As long as he isn't breaking rules, they don't care. Of course he'd want to excel in academics, he wants even a sliver of the attention Garroth or Zane gets on a day to day basis. As much as he may joke around or make comments about how he likes the attention not being on him 24/7, there's still going to be a deep-rooted pain and jealousy that he's considered less than his brothers just for existing.

And also the idea of Garte making Zianna have Zane last as a sort of "fix" for the affair baby that Vylad is.. also doesn't sit right with me? I wouldn't put it past Garte, but just, something about the idea doesn't make sense for everyone's characters except his?

And then in MCD it equally doesn't make sense!! I'm not kidding, it actively takes away from Vylad's character for me. Backstory wise, him being the youngest means he's /expendable/. O'khasis only knows him for his death, they wouldn't care otherwise. Garroth is the heir, Zane's in case anything happens to Garroth, and Vylad- is there, and ultimately pretty ignored

And I know we love Zane, but I've seen a few people make him the youngest in MCD so he could look up to both Garroth AND Vylad but. Not only does Zane, again, not need more intrigue than he already has- but ALSO I think Vylad being the one to look up to both his brothers is objectively more heartbreaking? Imagine looking up to your two older brothers your whole life, growing to know you're worlds apart in importance- both to the world and your parents. Knowing you're just a spare part and a mistake.

And then it takes dying to realize what a bad person one of them is. You can't tell if your resentment and pain is because you're now an unnatural being- still, not meant to exist. Never meant to exist- or because you're right to be angry.

Him being a middle kid that Zane looked up to would mostly take away from all of that, for me anyways

ANYWAYS, this got really long I'm so sorry 🙏 (also if you do make Vylad the middle kid in your rewrite I don't like- hate you or anything, their dynamic just isn't as interesting to me unless you give Vylad some new source of interest)

.

[kerubimcrepin]

Wakfu Manga - Tome 4, Part 1

During every tome his character bio is mostly the same, save for little rephrasings, and yet it's always such a blast. The Brotherhood of Tofu has bewitched him.

I'm insane... I'm crazhyy.

Imagine being an Eliatrope demigod whose entire purpose is chilling and inspiring others to chill. Like imagine spending millions of reincarnations chilling and there's no war or tragedy, besides maybe the fact that you often outlive people due to being a demigod (but even that is remedied by the fact that you have 11 siblings).

Now imagine a war breaks out and shit. Maybe it breaks out twice. God knows if they reincarnated between these two, though they probably did.

NOW imagine that, after defeating the baddie, — even though you're the demigod of chilling, you spend thousands of years in absolute silence in cosmos trying to catch your deity mother's psionic suffering waves to rescue her, and THEN you face a fate worse than death.

Wouldn't it be fucked.

There are some very good Joris moments in this volume — though the peak was in tome 3. He looks pretty interested in this, for obvious reasons.

Of course YOU would know about century-long art projects, century boy.

The fact that an entire planet is just gone and lost is very tragic to me. They'll never know their home, even if the World of Twelve is also home to them.

STOP BEING CUTE!

Not him standing menacingly and looking right at the reader 😭🤣

He is getting so much enrichment from this. So much mental enrichment, like a cat.

He always knows when to say something ominous and scary.

Very good Joris expression.

HIS FANGS. HIS FANGS. HELLO?!

Anyway, this being the face he pulls after seeing a past incarnation of Yugo come to terms with his immenent death and never seeing his brother again, is so Joris-core. Of course he'd go "🤨"

But despite his chipper attitude here, his mood and curiosity start to rapidly deteriorate after this moment:

I think that for Joris "I am afraid of being alone so thank god my father and uncle are together with me for centuries and remember me after dying, because I don't know how I'd live otherwise" Crepin-Jurgen — talks of actual proper reincarnation with memory loss are scary and exhausting.

He didn't exactly have anyone to tell him what Kerubim and Atcham would be like, after reincarnating. Maybe he spent the couple of years that they were kittens and couldn't talk, fully convinced that he lost Kerubim forever.

That's bound to leave a mark on a person.

It's especially horrifying and off-putting because of how casual Adamai and Yugo are about death and forgetting. Joris has always valued memories — they may as well be all he has of some of the people he loves, at this point. It's the reason he gifted them his fishing rod — in a way, it is a memory of Khan.

Yet, every time Yugo and Adamai die, some new version of them — a version they won't have control over, a version who will forget everyone they have loved up to that moment, — will spring forth and take their place. They'll have new families. "They" probably had hundreds of children and hundreds of lovers in the past, but were those people even them? Is it going to be "them" after they die?

He likes Yugo and Adamai a lot. The thought that someday some strangers may take their place is... a lot.

I can't discuss this scene without including these two entire pages, because something very interesting is happening here:

Joris, quite carelessly, lifts the pillow that contains two precious items, with an annoyed expression, before aggressively questioning Adamai.

I really think he hates all the reincarnation talk.

Anyway, he has very visible fingernails again. Nail polish win.

The fact that sexy femboy Baltazar is exclusive to Wakfu manga is oppression against teachers and education workers.

Joris is worried that something bad happened, but it was just inter-adventurer party abuse, which is normal.

He's so ready for this bullshit to be over.

Standing a very asocial distance apart from everyone. As is the usual <3

[embrosegraves]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕂𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕪 ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕤𝕠𝕟 𝕊𝕙𝕠𝕨: 𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕔𝕣𝕚𝕡𝕥

(request) Kimi Raikkonen x Reader Reader talks about Kimi on The Kelly Clarkson Show

Warnings: Badly written script format. Mostly this is for people who have bad internet and can't look at pictures on Tumblr

[Kelly Clarkson] Okay, I have been dying to ask this whole time.

[Y/n Raikkonen] Please, ask away!

[Kelly Clarkson] Okay, now this shouldn't be news to anyone, you're married to a now retired Formula One Driver, Kimi Raikkonen.

[Y/n Raikkonen] And I'm blushing already! You brought up my husband and now I'm blushing. *laughs*

[Kelly Clarkson] That's a good thing! That's a good thing!

[Kelly Clarkson] Now, you've been married for a good many years now, and I know I wasn't the only one confused when news spread of who exactly your husband was.

[Y/n Raikkonen] Yeah I can see why. *laughs*

[Kelly Clarkson] What I wanna know is, what have been some of the most memorable "Iceman" moments?

[Kelly Clarkson] Because I mean, I can think of a few but I'm wondering if there have been any the world hasn't witnessed.

[Y/n Raikkonen] I mean, Kimi is very different around our family, but I think some of the most memorable moments were definitely the 2009 Malaysian GP with the ice cream.

[Kelly Clarkson] Do you know why he did that?

[Y/n Raikkonen] My money's on the fact that he was trying to distract from our first pregnancy.

[Kelly Clarkson] Really?

[Y/n Raikkonen] Mhmm! He's always been really good about not bringing unwanted attention to our kids.

[Kelly Clarkson] Alright, and what other moments come to mind about The Iceman?

[Y/n Raikkonen] Well, in quite a few of them he's got a bit of a potty mouth, which for the sake of the show, I won't be repeating.

[Kelly Clarkson] Probably for the best *laughs*

[Y/n Raikkonen] *laughs* Yeah probably. But otherwise, I think what is probably THE most memorable moment was Monaco 2006.

[Kelly Clarkson] Right! that was when he retired-

[Y/n Raikkonen] -retired from the race and went to his yacht.

[Y/n Raikkonen] Yeah, I remember watching the race from the yacht deck.

[Kelly Clarkson] How did you feel, watching him retire the car and then going right to the yacht?

[Y/n Raikkonen] I'll be honest, I was a little mad at him.

[Kelly Clarkson] Mad? How come?

[Y/n Raikkonen] Well, you know, he was supposed to be a professional racer. I don't know to me it felt like he was just- giving up. I remember saying to him, I said "I'll let it be this time, but next time, I'm walking you back to the pits myself."

[Kelly Clarkson] Did he ever tell you why he went to his yacht instead of the pits?

[Y/n Raikkonen] The very same day actually. For his sake, I won't put it on air but it was- it was a very sweet reason.

[Kelly Clarkson] He got himself out of trouble? *laughs*

[Y/n Raikkonen] He did yeah! *laughs* I'm glad I married him.

be kind to me, I've never written in script format before 😖

but anyways, aside from the atrocious formatting of this, I had a lot of fun (despite how confused I got doing the images for the other part).

as always, like, replies and reblogs are always appreciated!

MUAH <3

[blacklegsanjiii]

The crew having to get used to Rengoku would be so fucking funny. He's in his demon corps outfit and Sanji is like 'yeah we can't have that because otherwise the Navy is going to find out about everything' and Rengoku is smiling at him and is like 'haha, sure Sanji' and lets Sanji dress him up. He refuses to take off his kimono most of the time and so between that and his hair he stands out like a sore fucking thumb.

Rengoku also watching Sanji and Zoro fight and Sanji not using a sword has gotta make him laugh. He will join in randomly and there's a reason he's a Hashira so when he uses flame breathing Franky flips out to not burn the Sunny. Also Rengoku who is a year younger than Sanji and Zoro but knows Sanji from their younger years and at one point he just brushes the side of Sanji's head, runs his fingers through his hair and gives him that caring smile and says he misses Sanji's old hair, the side shaved with a long ponytail.

Sanji waves him off by saying being a pirate with a high bounty and being wanted by the Navy was enough hassle, adding demons to that mix would be too much. Rengoku laughs and agrees. Everyone is like wait, hold on, wait. Everyone is asking why Sanji had his hair like that and they explain it was for identification purposes mostly because demon corps members don't live long normally, and if they die but aren't eaten marks and such are easy to identify because who knows what will be left.

Like it's a very grim reality the demon corps lives in. Zoro asks why they're in it. Sanji reminds him he's retired technically and Rengoku says it's a family thing, his family have been Flame Hashira for centuries. There haven't been sightings of ranked demons in years so Sanji felt comfortable leaving the corps fully to commit to Luffy and go for his dream. Rengoku says if this is the demon lord of old that he's only going to leave a good example for his little brother.

At some point, maybe a few weeks in, Zoro talks to Kyojuro alone and asks him what the cook was like when he was in the corps fully. Why he gave up the sword for the most part. Kyojuro smiles wistfully and chuckles.

"Love is burdensome, he refused and still does to be that burden. We graduated together from training and he thought either way he would free his father of that. He has known death will come for him some day, as it will come for us all, he saw a way to partially hide from demons but he is known well. His acceptance has never wavered and I always admired him for such, it has made him an admirable comrade." Kyojuro smiles.

"Made him suicidal." Zoro mutters and Kyojuro laughs loud and boisterous.

"You plan to become the greatest swordsman, correct? To take the title from Mihawk, Sanji's father. That itself is a suicidal title, a worthy one, but still the point remains. Demon Corps members don't live long. Perhaps he thought he could free himself of such tendencies, but he hasn't I see." Kyojuro responds as he eyes the galley.

"He doesn't think he's worthy of saving most of the time." Zoro huffs.

"None of us do." Kyojuro says after a moment. "We are often inflicted with mortal wounds that even those of us who use fruits and haki cannot withstand. Demons cannot use fruits as they are not living, most members don't use them because we die young." He tells Zoro and turning to look at the green haired man. Zoro stares back at him, his one eye wide as Sanji comes out of the galley with snacks for everyone.

"Your hair is getting long." Kyojuro says to Sanji.

"It's going to take more than a demon lord to scare me." Sanji waves as he leaves the two with their snacks.

[beanghostprincess]

Shanks taking care of baby usopp would be so fucking cute.

Babysitting him was not intentional. He went over yassops to get some updates on joining his crew. He actually talked to Banchina first and played with her baby waiting for yasopp to come back. They actually got along and had a very pleasant conversation He learned quite a lot about her past.

Apparently she was a part of the resistance since she was 16 before meeting yasopp and was engaged to him for 5 years. She went under cover and actually became an assistant (not a slave) to a celestial dragon. She spent those years Liberating and helping slaves all while gathering information.

She figured he waited for her to come back, it wouldn't hurt to do the same for him. (I just know usopp's mom was a badass you can't tell me otherwise She knowingly and willingly married a pirate. She has to be an extremist. She hates the government!! )

After yasopp came back he gave his spiel about asking him to be in the crew. He's a vital asset. He was the first person he asked that's how confident he is. Yasopp actually said yes this time! but give him a couple years with his family. He was so excited that he ran all the way to a ship to tell Ben completely forgetting that he was holding a baby.

Instead of going back to his house he decided to just keep him around and play with him for a while until he has to give him up. I mean he's going to get his ass beat either way. Doesn't matter if they come for him or he takes him back so we might as well have some fun until that happens.

He shows his around the ship it's not a big ship, not yet. He shows him how to raise the sale, how to steer, how to use a compass. He gives him tips on being a pirate. Mostly stuff he learn from his apprenticeship. He's really out here showing this baby around and talking to him like an adult as if he can retain any of this. Shanks doesn't even know the baby's name he just calls him yasopp's baby and eventually just little yasopp. But still he knows that this baby is going to be someone great just like his old man.

He started to get fussy so he took him out to get something to eat and look around syrup village. By this time yasopp is panicking looking for his son Banchina is surprisingly calm which just causes him to freak out even more. He finds shanks at a bar feeding his son pudding and juice. As he expected Yasopp punches the back of his head before taking his son back. Shanks got this man running across the village like a maniac looking for his child only to find him at a bar.

This is so damn sweet!! Sobbing!! The idea you have of Banchina is amazing, tbh, I just love her. I just know she's a badass too. I mean, as you said, she married Yasopp and she's Usopp's mom, so of course she's great. I love her being all calm while Yasopp panics LKAEFNKLSDNFLSKDN It's great.

And Shanks??? With Usopp??? Calling him little Yasopp and playing with him and showing him the ship?? Honestly, I think I just love Shanks with kids because he just has the biggest father energy. And this is just so sweet because Usopp would have,,, So much fun,, To make things better, thinking about Shanks actively visiting them constantly and when Usopp meets Luffy and sees the straw hat he's like???? "Did Shanks have a son my age??? WHEN????" and he keeps trying to figure out if Luffy is Shanks' son and every time he asks something like that (without actually asking asking) it just makes sense that he is his son. Then Luffy explains his relationship with Shanks and Usopp is like "Hey!! Me too!! He was so nice to me before my dad joined his crew!!" and it's just the cutest reunion between the youngest generation that was raised by successful pirates.

Crying, sobbing, this is,,, Adorable. Once again saying that Shanks with kids is one of my favorite things ever.

[darkmagyk]

Ask game: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21

choose violence ask game (send me more pls!)

the character everyone gets wrong

Annabeth, Annabeth, Annabeth. In SO MANY ways. Right down to her name, where people decide randomly that Annabeth is a nickname for Anna Elizabeth.

But mostly it's the school thing. Annabeth is always going to be the smartest person in the room, but she would (literally) rather die then demean herself to prove it. She also has ADHD, Dyslexia, and missed grades 2-6. I don't know how you can read about her being unwilling to play the Sphinxes game and then think that she'd be a good sport about school? I don't necessarily think she'd do badly. She is 100% in the "smart enough to coast" category. But she's not going to study, she's not going to apply herself. And I suspect when she finds herself disagreeing, she's not going to be open to listening to most teachers. She'll talk back, she'll argue, she'll get detention. She reads books in greek, she probably doesn't have special affection for her school libraries full of books she can't read. Free yourself from the Hermione Industrial Complex and embrace smart girl characters who's only life goal isn't getting As on tests.

Other things, Annabeth did live in Virginia some as a child. But given that it was in Richmond, her father is from Boston, and they moved at least a little (in TLT her family lives in New York State), the idea that her upbringing would be particularly southern, or that she'd have a southern accent is silly.

Also, she thinks Percy is funny. She enjoys his company. They have a lot of similarities. And she knows he's not as smart at she is (no one is) but she doesn't think he's the dumbest person alive. She doesn't hate him. About 80% of all PJO Incorrect quotes can be summed up as Percy: says something dumb, Annabeth: You're an idiot, and I hate you. And that's just...not what's going on with them.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

It's a sexual position they don't enjoy? Let us not confuse sexual positions with gender or rolls in power dynamics.

Now, if you want to discuss power dynamics, Annabeth is a sub and Percy is a dom. Because Annabeth has a long history of feeling unloved, unwanted, and abandoned and wants to feel desired. And Percy has been dismissed and untrusted and wants to feel competent and trustworthy.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Recently saw a post that said Frederick had fucked Athena. You know, Athena, the famously virgin goddess.

(The funniest part was that it was part of a very anti-Frederick post, and yet...by saying Athena, the goddess of wisdom, broke her millennia long, life defining desire to not sleep with men, to sleep with Frederick Chase, they were saying he was a giant Chad and extra extra special. And that Athena saw so much in him, loved him so much, she developed sexual feelings for him and was willing to throw away one of her defining characteristics for him. And that...that was kind of hilarious)

5. worst discord server and why

Um, the Taylor Swift one I joined to trade tips for my show is really pretty bad. Everyone is so mean and bitchy and, I say this as someone who is weird about how much I love Taylor Swift, Swifties are the worst.

Otherwise, I can't keep up with servers, or really any chat with more then like 3 people them. So I can't really tell if they are good or bad.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

See previous comments about Annabeth. But, also, Jesus Christ Frederick Chase. Who is super interesting, and also dealt a bad hand he then played badly. Dude is a Norse Legacy who fell in love with a Hellenic Goddess. He went out of town and his wife ran off his daughter while he was gone. He can see through the mist. He dive bombed a Titan to save said daughter. He's a Red Sox fan and has a daughter who's a Yankees fan. He managed to enchant Athena. Favorite minor character.

Also, everyone is wrong about Poseidon. He's an ass, he's a bad dad (Hades is the best big three dad. And possibly the best godly parents. And that's being graded on the scale that calculates that time he told Nico he wished he'd died and bianca hadn't. That's how bad everyone else is.) And Sally has moved on to bigger and better things.

Combining those two things: Fredthena > PoSally. Fredthena is more interesting, and during the canon of the stories, it's actually still interesting instead of Poseidon just being Sally's loser ex.

Other things: in fic, Luke is Annabeth's looser older brother, not abusive ex. Annabeth is the punk and Percy is the good boy, Jercy wants what Frankercy has.

13. worst blorboficiation

Connor Stoll. He's literally just half a character. And that's fine.

Also Octavian. Who is allowed to just be power mad.

Also...I love Nico a lot, but the way fandom acts about him is...so much.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

Nico. I love Nico, I think he's an awesome character and have written multiple fics about him. But people are so weird about him. And there is an extent to which I get it. He's one of the first incidentally queer characters in middle grade literature (as opposed to a character who is gay in a book all about being gay). He's got the emo vibes we love. And he definitely went through it.

But everyone is kind of going through it. And yet, people will unironically make posts about how Percy promised to protect Bianca and then let her die when...When Bianca set off a monster and Percy literally was like "I have a plan to get rid of it" and then Bianca said "I'll do it" and Percy was like "No, I will" and then Bianca just did it anyway. That isn't on Percy. Similarly "Percy choked Nico, its inexcusable." You know, that time that Nico helped his father trap Percy in a room in the underworld with no ways out or windows or anything. Nico didn't know, and he felt bad and tried to make it right, but it wasn't unreasonable for Percy to be pissed and attack the dude who behaved like an enemy.

[andgry4]

I have some thoughts I'd like to share but I'm not sure how they'll be recived. Anyways here I go.

So I'm huge star wars fan and my favorite character is Obi-Wan Kenobi, so of course I'm aware about him canonically aparently being bi or aroace or both. I personally don't have any problem with this I actually find it amazing and love the representation being aroace my self but here's the thing.

I don't see Obi-Wan coded as a bisexual character.

I've read a lot of things included the parts of the recent book that suggest his orientation, and I still don't see how is he coded as bi. Can someone explain me how?

Now I see how it can be (I don't have the book or the images to show you the exact things, but I'm sure you can find them easily), after all his thoughts go a little wild on the many posible ways he could or not be atracted to a lot of characters of several genders within the story and there's many more things I've learned from other peoples perspective on how could he fit onto bisexuality, yet I think I can see those same things and still they don't make him bi for me at least.

So let me explain my point of view.

First of all I feel like a lot of people, when explain about being aroace and (insert orientation, ex. Bi, Het, Gay, Pan, etc.) usually forget about the aroace part of it, as if the other "half" of the sentence is way more important and that, at least for me, is superfrustraiting, because to me, and I know am not the only one in this case, figuring out all parts of that is not easy, 'cause we don't experience atraction in the same way, no matter in which part of the spectrum you are. You see, personally, for a long period of time I didn't know wether I was straight, gay, bi or pan and it took me quite a while to learn more about asexuality and aromantism, and another great time once I knew I am aro and ace, which of the others I might experience, I know am cis and now I know am het, but I come to realice it doesn't really matter that part to me that much, am just aroace, and, maybe am still figuring things out, but like at the end of the day I don't want to be in either a romantic or sexual relationship, neither qpr no matter with who guy/girl/other. Only time will show whats next form me and my family of friends.

Now back to Obi-Wan, most of the things I've read on the book, to me, feel more like that, yeah there's the confusion with a lot of posibilities, which I found great either way, but at the end he is most definitely coded aroace aspec and yes, he can be also bi, but that confusion does not make him inherently bi. But there's the other half of the story everyone forgets about and is we know Satine is in the future (and other women in old books and stuff, but not counting them), and please tell me if am missing information, am open and I love to learn, but as far as I know there's no man in the saga and in Obi-Wan's story that is as significant in this matter (and no, I'm not counting fan's headcanons, I know a lot of them and yes I read fanfiction) again let me know if there's something I'm missing.

So for all of that 👆🏻 I can only see him coded as aroace aspec, and let's be honest most people hype up about him being bi and throw away the fact that he's also aroace, demeaning it.

So if you have another point of view or know something I don't about this, please let me know. I don't have anything against him being bi I just can't see him under that umbrella or how is it. Until I learn otherwise I'll keep my perspective.

Also because this might be the only time I talk about this, there's too much fanfiction shipping him with Cody WHY? THEY ARE PERFECT PLATONIC BEST FRIENDS, anyway personal preference, feel free to read and ship whatever you want, I actually mostly read general fics, there's too much amatonormativity in the real world to let my safe personal scape have a topic that reminds me of romance and stuff, plus I'm fine with the canon relationships.

Last note. Sorry for any grammar mistake, English is my safe yet not first language. And if you read this far thank you.

[triviareads]

ARC Review of A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles

Summary:

Rufus, Earl of Oxney, has dealt with multiple attempts by his uncle to take his title away from him. Now, his uncle is claiming that not only is Rufus illegitimate, but he has proof by way of Lucas Doomsday, a secretary who hails from a notorious family of local smugglers. Rufus hires Lucas to help him search through family archives for proof of his legitimacy, and Lucas agrees, in part because he has his own reasons for being at the estate...

My review:

This is the first book I've read by KJ Charles and I only wish I'd read her works sooner because this was a fabulous read. I adored both of the main characters: Rufus is an ex-soldier, honorable with a bit of a temper. But you can't blame the poor guy; he's trying his best to improve the estate after years of neglect while being constantly challenged by his terrible family. Luke is a secretary who comes from a smuggler clan, so he has a raffish edge to an otherwise (mostly) proper façade. He's a schemer who uses his powers for good when it comes to helping Rufus... and other times not so much.

I loved Rufus and Luke's relationship: it's one that comes from a place of mutual understanding and respect which initially makes them friends and allies, and that actually seems to fuel their emotional and sexual attraction. Rufus did read as demisexual to me just based on what he says (thinks) about not seeing the point of having sex with someone you don't care for. And he finds that with Luke fairly early on, even if Luke has to make the first move ("either fuck me or fire me"... he's a brat can you tell).

Both men have a good deal of familial demons, past and present, and the narrative does a great job of having the characters examine them, reconcile where they can, but otherwise creating their own found family they can be happy around. In a way, it's in direct contract to the villains of the story, mostly Rufus's own family, who are miserable with one another, and yet prize their (Norman... you'll see the word "Norman" many times) blood above all.

The mystery aspect (two mysteries, really, and then another mystery no one expected to find the answer to but stumbled across anyway) was mostly tight and well done. I do think the second half became a little too mystery-heavy at the cost of the romance, but it all tied up neatly at the end. At times I wish I'd read The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen just so I knew Luke's background, especially relating to Sir Gareth and Joss Doomsday, but KJ did a pretty good job of filling in those blanks for the reader.

The sex:

Raw. Intimate. Sexy. I can't write this review without including the droit du seigneur aspect, which starts as a joke between Rufus and Luke, but very much ends up as a kink of sort for them in that Luke wants to be taken in the manner of a feudal lord in the olden days sleeping with a vessel's wife first on their wedding night (possessive, a bit rough), which I thought was very hot, and very well done. Luke is a bit of a brat and wants to make Rufus work for it, but Rufus is absolutely willing to rise to the challenge (both Luke and Rufus seem to have a competence kink too). A relentless man, if you will.

Because of how the plot progresses, there's actually a lot more sex scenes in the first half of the book than in the second, but honestly the wait pays off because by the time they're reunited, the emotions are just that much heightened by the fact that they love one another now. I was actually near tears when Luke admits that when he first asked Rufus to "fuck him like he owns him", he really wished that he was his. It was so so romantic.

Overall:

I'd recommend this book to anyone, but specifically readers looking for a romance intertwined with a mystery or adventure, and anyone looking for a queer historical romance. I loved this book so much, and I'm looking forward to reading more KJ Charles.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

[our-genderfae-experience]

Hey Asking for advice as I'm going through another [sparkle sparkle] gender crisis [uiii ] So I tend to present really androgynously/masc most of the days. It's comfortable, it's not tight fitting, it looks eccentric, you can't tell I'm afab so bonus points, and it feels like me. On those days I just go by they/them. In my mind. I'm not out, mind you. My parents aren't supportive. :') But then I have days when I'm fine with people she/her-ing me. Even tho I present the same way, because it feels good. And then there are days when I dress like a dude and act like the most fem person ever. Then there are days when I totally switch up my style, go from loose baggy men's jeans and overshirts to the classic flared jean and crop top and I'm definitely a girl. Except for when I decide I'm uncomfortable and just switch up, go to the bathroom, put my binder on, gel my hair and start acting like a dude dressed in girls' clothes. [A little note:I started carrying a few men's items like cologne and gel at first for fun and to spruce up my looks whenever I need some confidence, but yeah they've been life savers :] ] Then I don't even bother with pronouns, people are just going to assume whatever ig. And then there are days when being called a girl is just straight up offensive and I just hate all the hair on my head and need to shave it but then I don't feel he/him, because boy is also nasty those days and I'm just an angry gremlin and idk. And then there are days when I love flowery patterns and knitwear and those hippie round hats(not beanies, idk what they're called. The ones that look like a fishmonger's staple piece and are a sort of floppy downsides) and I love menswear those days but paired with dresses and sometimes makeup and sometimes shorts and it's all weird and genderfuck and I just don't bother. Then there are days when I just play with my appearance for fun, not because of gender but because it's also how I express myself and idk. Basically I just broke my gender and now it's also a style somehow but not always and it's so fucked up. And I've done my research and the top labels would be one of the demis or genderfluid but meh And I'm mostly sure I'm not bigender/trigender/pangender etc because it doesn't resonate and also I never got this thing with half a gender or more than one, I just thought demi-s at first because it leaves room for parts and bits that don't really fit. And I also dunno if what troubles me is my gender or my style as binarised and if I'm reffering to stuff correctly because SINCE WHEN IS GENDER SO COMPLICATED MOST PEOPLE DON'T EVEN THINK ABT ITT whyyyy And I'm usually fine with being called a girl but !not! with being feminine and I feel like ~ meh~ and I want a dude's body and stubble, yeah, stubble would be cool. And I think that when I was a kid I never particularly cared, I mean I was tomboyish sometimes but not always and it usually depended on the environment. And yeah I hated dresses but now I don't and being called a girl never gave me pause but now it does and it is uncomfortable too. And I'm also thinking it's just me overthinking everything because nothing EVER gave me pause until my pinterest insisted "yeah ur trans" because of my more masc style and I was like "fine let's see. I might get rid of the soft fem outfits in my feed" and it was a downwards spiral. And I had been warned that after questioning ur sexuality comes gender identity and I said "I'm fine, I'm just nonconforming cis" and now idk nothing makes sense anymore. I'm sorry if this is triggering at all to anyone, with my binarised thinking and stuff but thing is: IM NOT OUT YEYY(not that id know what to come out as and not that my family would support me :l ). That's how people perceive me. And I just want to give a picture of what caused me this questioning. I know it's a lot to handle, but advice? And also some fashion tips. Tyssm <3

Hi!

Yeah, parents not being supportive can be an issue - I hope you're safe otherwise!

As for gender identity, have you looked into apagender? It doesn't explicitly include the fluidness you feel, but it seems to match the overall vibe you seem to be feeling.

And fashion? This is not the blog you should be asking - I have zero fashion sense

[dross-the-fish]

What gender are you? Just curious, you don't have to disclose if you don't want.

Genderfluid. More on the masc side of the spectrum than fem. I pretty much exclusively use "He" or "She" and it's based mostly on how other people tend to perceive me. Most people who see me in the wild tend to default to male pronouns because I'm tall and have a deep voice, I also tend to wear men's clothing so almost no one recognizes I'm AFAB unless I wear make-up and grow my hair out. It didn't feel wrong or uncomfortable the first time someone called me "he" nearly a decade ago so I just went with it. Most people who hear my voice over the phone also tend to call me "Sir" and I saw no reason to go through the trouble of telling them otherwise. There are people that I've been acquainted with for years that didn't realize I was afab until very late in our relationship and while a few of those people got bent out of shape about it most of the others are in the queer community themselves and were ok with it.

So it's not so much a thing I chose as just...what I am. Occasionally someone will read me as female and I'll get dirty looks for being "butch" or "dyke-ish" unless I'm actively trying to look more feminine.

It's kind of weird but because I've been rolling with it for years it's become a natural part of how I view my own gender and I've grown to feel very comfortable in my male identity, sometimes more so than the female one I was born with although I still feel that identity fits me as well. My family exclusively calls me "She" because that's how they've always known me and that doesn't feel wrong either.

Online where you can't really see me you can use which ever pronoun you want. Both are correct.

.

[mdhwrites]

Thoughts on Helluva Boss?

I really liked the pitch!... I also haven't watched any of it since the episode where Blitzo and Moxxie get captured.

So I really like slice of life and sitcoms and just general comedy and I thought the premise of "Murderous The Office" was actually a fun one. Have fun with the fantasy, the religion, the world, etc. like that most sitcoms can't do because... You know, they're theoretically grounded in reality. Effectively, this was going to be Family Guy or Archer but with no breaks.

And I found there were a lot of breaks. Just a lot of "Okay, I get this, is actually the Blitzo and Stolas show, easily the two least interesting characters to me at introduction because Blitzo is just an asshole and you're having to go hard on the abusive wife angle to try and make how Stolas CONSTANTLY is trying to get fucked by someone other than her something we all can just ignore." It just... Wasn't the show that was originally pitched to me and nothing I've seen on Twitter makes me change my mind. Otherwise, for what I did see... I absolutely get why people find the show polarizing. It's like Dane Cook. It's thinking that somehow sex, gore and profanity are really that shocking anymore while still not being as grotesque or violent as something like Happy Tree Friends because it uses that veneer to tell a real story. The show has the modern problem of billing itself as one thing until it changes into something else the minute the plot shows up.

If you just want to do a plot focused show, JUST DO THAT DAMNIT. Or have a point to the build up but if Stolas isn't in an episode, you can mostly skip it it feels like. Or that's how it felt to me. And I'm not even saying that its shock humor is all bad. It has some good jokes, it has some bad jokes and for me it mostly depended on if it was a real character response and conversation or pure profanity. That's why Moxxie was EASILY my favorite character in the show. While he felt out of step with the setting, or even his job at times, he has easily the most real responses. Not even just human but like... Real responses rather than just more profanity. I REALLY liked him trying to prove himself to Millie's family. Honestly, I just wish the show was way more about them.

Because the melodrama with Blitzo's backstory and Stolas' failing marriage? I don't know. It just all felt really standard and boring to me. Like... This would be a comic book plot/backstory with humans involved and you wouldn't need to change literally anything. And that's just... Not interesting. Frankly, that's probably also what made me lose interest. The more it focused on its plot, the less it did with its actual concept. The less these characters felt like demons or that felt like it mattered. We have shows where every human being is awful, murderous, addicted to drugs, a part of a gang, etc. like that. Just look at fucking Riverdale.

And that's a problem with Vivzie's entire brand really. I'm not even against Vivzie, I'm still excited to see what they do with Hazbin Hotel, but... the brand is "We're the violent, edgy cartoon" and like... Really, how much worse is it than some Family Guy episodes? Helluva Boss sometimes just feels like the real pitch is "Every character is Roger from American Dad" and that's not a good brand pitch.

Though yes: It is GORGEOUS and the designs are great. It's a treat for the eyes, even if the writing isn't particularly special.

I also just don't think this attitude leads to interesting or creative writing and like... The biggest thing with their concept that Helluva Boss does is Angels actually being terrible... Which isn't new. Or is it the secretly homicidal rednecks because that's literally just a horror genre? This stuff isn't interesting because it's not asking genuine questions about its setting or its characters.

It's just "What is the most aggressive and/or offensive thing we can do?" and that's just not a storytelling style I like and it's very one note. It's why the show has to go so hard the other way to try and make Blitzo and Stolas 'sympathetic' and at that point... What the fuck was the point of the show? There's always more shit to shovel?

Because shit ain't interesting.

[insomniamamma]

I'm back from seeing my family for Christmas. All in all it was a good, if emotionally hard trip. This is the first time I've hung out with my dad since his open heart surgery and Alzheimer's diagnosis. I hadn't seen him in a little over a year, so the change in him felt very drastic. He's lost a ton of weight, which my mom told me about, but still, seeing him that thin was a shock. He looks frail. The first night we were there he seemed very out of it, but he seemed brighter over the next few days. It's so damn strange. He can't remember what he had for breakfast or what he did five minutes ago, but he can tell you stories from when he was in the Navy like it was yesterday. He can't dress himself. My mom has to feed him his galaxy of pills with yogurt because he has a hard time swallowing them otherwise. Mostly what he wants to do is hang out and watch movies. His sense of humor is still intact. He loves to tell terrible jokes and sing badly like he always has. But at the same time there is so much he just can't do now. And he can't always tell fantasy from reality. We were watching South Pacific and he explained to us before Joe Cable dies that no one really dies to make movies and that it's just pretend, which I know Mom has had to explain to him a few times. It's almost like Dad software running on toddler hardware if that makes any sense. He's like this childlike version of my Dad, but he's still very much him.

And he's happy. I know that in later stages, Alzheimer's patients tend to get angry, but for right now he seems content. And he was so happy to see us. He kept saying that this is the most wonderful Christmas he's ever had and that just made me want to cry. (which i did. In the car on the way home because I didn't want to do it in front of him and Mom)

Mom's in a hard place. For right now, she can care for him at home, but he has some bowel issues that make it hard for her to take him places and she can't leave him by himself. She pretty much has to care for him the way you would a little kid. He can't dress himself. He can't make food for himself. He has trouble cleaning himself up after he uses the bathroom. She's trying to care for him and do all of the things that he used to take care of. My cousins live way closer so they come when they can, but for the most part, she's on her own. She has some people who will come in and stay with Dad for a few hours at a time so she can get out of the house and run errands, but that's about it. She's looked at local memory care facilities and they're pretty bleak.

I worry for Mom because she's like me in that we tend to grit our teeth and push on.

This all sounds terrible, but for the most part it was a very happy Christmas. We got to watch The 'Burbs with my Dad (this is me and Dad's Terrible Movie that we love), my son really loved the weighted battle vest I made for him, and, for right now, he still believes in Santa.

It was hard, but good.

[theadventurerslog]

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride | Part 1

The Adventurer’s Log

King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride Part 1

Release Date: 1994

As always for King's Quest, not a blind play.

Introduction:

It's time for King's Quest VII, the last game I'll be doing in this series, at least for a while.

A couple of notes:

ScummVM allows for subtitles. Unfortunately, the game's subtitles were never completed and were taken out but ScummVM adds them back in. Except it warns of errors, not always matching and that they're not complete, so I left them off. They were also quite ugly. Definitely a let down after VI! It would have been nice if they'd learned from VI and kept it up…

No dead ends! At least not intentional ones. There are apparently a couple spots you can glitch and get stuck, but otherwise far more forgiving. No point system either as far as I can tell.

As for other changes, well: there have been some shifts in the series from text parser to point and click with verbs and of course graphical changes. VII brings another shift as quite a lot has changed.

We now have a very cartoony, Disney inspired style. It's still a point and click, but a lot more streamlined (too much so in my opinion) which I'll get into more when we get into the game proper.

This game alternates between two protagonists! We get Rosella back, but now it's finally time for Valanice to get her time too. It's funny: shortly before I decided to get King's Quest VII I was grumbling a bit that all the Daventry family get their time except for Valanice and lo and behold I just needed to wait for VII.

The game is split into chapters each one focusing on one of our pair. And, well, I'll let the intro speak for itself. I apologise for the sound quality. That's just how it was and I don't know if there was something I could have tweaked, or just. old. And not the best quality. The actual game is better.

Rosella laments the possibilities of incoming marriage and wants more adventure. She and Valanice discuss suitors - "Prince Throckmorton!" Boring! Rosella gets distracted by an odd winged seahorse critter and lured into a pool. Valanice takes the plunge and dives after leading them both into some kind of portal tunnel until they get separated.

And so we begin with Chapter 1.

Chapter One - "Where in the blazes am I?"

It's Valanice time! Okay, so interface stuff:

It can't be seen here because a scene was still playing but when you're playing the cursor is a wand. When you're at a hot spot it sparkles. There are no verbs to select, you just click and she'll take the appropriate action.

Got our inventory in the black box there. The eye is for looking. You drag an item over and you get an image that you can rotate around to see it all from angles. Like so:

The red gem is the menu. The slider above lets you pan the scene side to side but I mostly ignored that. It also slides as you're moving so I think it may be meant to give you an idea of when you're hitting an exit of that particular scene? Maybe? The cursor also turns into an arrow at exits too.

Tech talk aside before I get back into the game proper.

Now, I would like to say I set off for adventure! Except I ran into a hiccup of my own making. I've been using ScummVM for a long time now mostly to run Monkey Island. Then after the special editions of the first two games came out it essentially became my Curse of Monkey Island launcher. So, while I've been using it for ages I had a set up that worked for me and (almost, this almost being key) never looked back. All that to say I don't really have a good understanding of how things work. Going through King's Quest has taught me a little, but still very much a total amateur.

A while back I got the OpenGL + xBRZ scaler for Curse of Monkey Island and it's great for it! Cleans things up nicely without making a smoodgy mess or anything like that. So, I thought in my infinite wisdom of not knowing what I'm doing, it might be good with another cartoon-y 2D game like KQ VII and switched to it.

That was a terrible idea. I didn't see much if any difference and I've rarely if ever heard my computer fans go that loud. After some panicky and baffled moments of wondering how the hell a game from the 90s could be making my computer sound like it wants to explode I realized I had that shader going. I switched back to 2x and all was well again.

There might be better shaders to use for it. After having some issues with recording the intro and then that, I just wanted to get on with actually playing the game and left things at that. Live and learn.

Back to the game!

So Valanice appears in this desert in a whirlwind, but there's no sign of Rosella. She calls for her. She walks around looking around and gets her petticoat caught on a cactus which tears it because it's really not Valanice's day. On the other hand that petticoat piece became an inventory item so that's always good! She now has Rosella's comb and a piece of ripped fabric. Right after the tearing a jackalope bounds by being very annoying and obnoxiously laughing because again, it's not her day.

I wandered off to the left first and found a giant statue and a pool.

There were several points of interest here. I grabbed the stick. The sparkles were salt crystals and I took some of those. Looking into the pool shows a scene of another little statue holding a shallow bowl with two pieces of something in it. And you also get a view of the stairs going down.

Checking the pool again leads Valanice to trying a little and discovering it's salty.

As for the statue itself there's an inscription at the base that gives some clues.

The blue beads around the statue's neck can be moved around and the head itself can be twirled to create either the current head which I guess is the moon? Because the other is definitely a sun.

There wasn't anything else I could do there so I carried on. I briefly dipped into full blown desert dunes and noped out of that.

Going the other way I found a stone temple or shrine. However, I didn't get to explore before a giant scorpion showed up and I got my first death.

Deaths work a little differently in this game. They're more forgiving. Not much of a message by text but Valanice (or later Rosella) will make some comment related to the death and sometimes a vague sort of nudge about what to do. When you try again it puts you back right before you did whatever you shouldn't have done.

Also in this case there's a small window of time where you can run away back outside. Which I did on the retry.

From there I found another screen with two holes and a little door in a house built into stone with a sign saying Rare Curiosities the proprietor of which is Ricardo Eduardo Rodriguez Roo Rat.

Knocking on the door let me meet Mr. Roo Rat himself! But the poor little fellow has lost his glasses and can't see so he wasn't willing to converse much, but it didn't stop him from speaking in rhyme. After he disappears inside, the darned jackalope pops out of the holes and what a shock, he has the glasses.

I caught this mid-jump for quite the shot... Jerk also kicked up a bunch of sand at Valanice and laughed some more before disappearing back down its burrow. What a jerk.

I continued to explore finding an area with a cave, damp sand where water was dripping down and a gourd. There were also more paintings with clues on the one wall. I couldn't do much here yet.

And going further to left leads to another statue.

There's an arrow-like indent that can be looked at more closely.

So clearly I needed something to fit in there.

Further exploration outside led me to another patch of desert area against stone walls, very similar to a spot in KQV actually. There I met a ghostly man.

This fellow died and is wandering the desert in perpetual thirst. He warns Valanice away after she asks if there's anything she can do, but he also mentions a portal out of this land through mountains--the mouth of a great statue that was closed by an evil enchantress. That we've seen! Valanice protests leaving him, but the thirst drives him mad and he doesn't know what he might do, so go, go. Then he leaves.

I had a collection of things to do by now:

Get water for the spirit

Find a way past the scorpion

Get the glasses back for roo rat

Find the piece for the closed statue door

First thing's first was the water. I knew that inscription that was on the statue by the pool would help.

I went back to the area where the wet sand and cave was. I entered the cave where I found a basket inside of which was a corn kernel. There was also a row of pots. The first few kept breaking leading to a very annoyed Valanice.

But I was able to pick up the final pot.

Outside I planted the corn kernel in the wet sand and it grew into a full plant and I was able to pick an ear of corn.

I had everything I needed for the pool statue. I used the pot to get salt water from the pool and poured that into the statue's basin. Using Rosella's comb on Valanice causes her to think of Rosella and cry, so then you use the comb on the basin and Valanice cries into the basin. Put the corn in the statue's hand and twirl the head and voila. The water is purified.

I went back out to the desert, this time into the dunes, which I started to regret, but thankfully found the thirsty spirit very quickly and gave him the water.

In thanks for the water he led me to his remains and gifted me with the choice of a rope or bug reducing powder.

I took the powder. Then he faded, now at peace.

There was also a hunting horn which I took too.

Had to blow the sand out of it. Valanice comments on the usefulness of being long-winded sometimes.

All going well! ...except I got lost in the desert trying to get back and stayed long enough to die of thirst. And I must make it clear that it's a lot more generous than KQ V about that, but I just could not find my way back. Retrying brought me back to the remains and I then found my back very quickly... Oops.

I went back to the temple-y place where I could fearlessly confront that scorpion. Bug reducing powder go!

Who's a cute a little itty bitty fellow. Off it scampered.

I then went to examine that statue? Structure? Altar? There was also a carving of a face on the wall with one eye partly opened letting in some light.

And I didn't know what to do with it yet so I left it for now.

Instead I went back to the curiosities shop and the jackalope and got my revenge.

Blew the horn into the burrow. The jackalope flung himself out, the glasses were tossed and he dived back into his hole though not without losing a little fur to the cactus (which I of course grabbed too). Valanice seemed satisfied and I sure don't blame her.

I returned the glasses to Ricardo Eduardo and he was willing to start trading with me. For most of my stuff he only offered junk, junk that rhymes mind you, but still junk, that Valanice refuses in various ways. However, offering the comb leads to some information, if not a trade because Valanice doesn't want to part with it and the return trade was more junk. However, information: he heard of a princess in the west and that the troll king lost his heart and plans to wed a princess, a foreign princess. Valanice thinks that could be Rosella and he says she'll have to go beyond the woods and far below. There was much rhyming here.

While I was around this area, I ended up back near the corn and discovered the gourd had split open revealing a gourd seed. I took the seed and was able to trade it to Ricardo for a turquoise bead.

I knew there had to be something I could do with that shrine place so I went back to try again and realized I could have pressed the big water droplet in the centre. That caused the orbs to rise and I could move them around until I got the correct configuration.

This was the final configuration that gave me a piece that looked just like the indentation on the sealed door statue. I gotta be honest: I don't understand this puzzle. The beam colours change depending on where the orbs are based on colour mixing but otherwise I got nothing. I just fiddled until something worked. I'm sure there is a logic here with all the symbols but I'm just not really seeing it.

I got my key piece anyway! Except it was too small to fit in the indent, so I was missing another piece.

All I had left was the pool. I got stuck here for a bit. I had the clue painted on the wall:

I figured the blue circles probably corresponded to the beads on the statue neck and I knew needed to empty the pool.

There was wandering and fiddling until I found out you could click on the statue's wrist and it flips the bowl upside down. I didn't wave my cursor around enough! Missed that hot spot. With the beads aligned correctly and the bowl flipped the water was drained.

I went down the steps to another statue.

Once again I'm glad to have stairs I don't have to do myself.

Got an offering bowl here holding two turquoise pieces. If you just take one water floods in and drowns you. So that was another death. I put in the turquoise bead and took one of the pieces that looked like my piece and all was well until I tried taking the other piece too. Hello flood waters and death 4. So you gotta pick the right piece and that piece only. Combine with it the piece I already had and presto, one complete piece that fits in the statue.

And the statue's mouth opened into a door leading into a tunnel. Nothing can be so simple however, and a creature comes out and menaces Valanice

So ends this chapter.

And chapter 2 begins.

Next time: Chapter Two - "A troll is as a troll does."

--

Deaths: 4 Time: 1:15

Kind of miss listing my points. This feels emptier.

[christelgothamite]

Gotham Vs Elora : the race begins.

Christel was phasing outside the funeral house. She was internally debating weather she should enter or not.

It was her fault that Jack and Gold were murdered. Stella murdered the couple to get to her.

Jack and gold were her work friends when she had gotten the Wayne intership a year back. Her intership was over now but she was still in talking terms with the couple. Stella must have noticed them.

Christel sighed. She could hear the parents of the duo crying together mourning their lose. What can she do to numb their pain? She was the one to cause it.

Christel knew jack and gold's spirits were in the underworld. Their version of heaven. But Christel couldn't tell the mortals that, otherwise she would risk people knowing. Then again, the parents would be devastated if she enters the funeral.

Stella did openly admitted to being her sister, she had told everyone Christel was the reason of their death. That also resulted in many of christel's contacts both from her old internship and college blocking her. And refusing to see her. She can't blame anyone.

There is no way the parents don't know about her.

"you have been standing in front of the door for over 2 minutes" a voice stated. She knew that voice. She turned around and glanced at the person.

"are you not going to enter?" Bruce asked. He was in a black suit. Almost mirroring his batman suit but it was his playboy persona she was taking to.

Christel shook her head. "I don't think I should enter. " she mumbled. Looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "why are you here?"

"On the outside world, Jack and gold were Wayne interns. So Bruce Wayne is here to give them their final regards. They were his employees afterall" Bruce stated "on the otherside, I am here to check on my daughter-in-law"

Christek blinked. In the past she and the bat had always had some disagreements. Mostly surrounding on how he was a mission first, family second guy. But recently they could see eye-to-eye.

She had started to become a mission centric person. She wanted to keep her new family safe thus she has to continue her mission even if it meant keeping secrets from her said family. In a way, she was starting to truly understand batman.

Christel didn't say anything. Bruce hummed.

"we can enter together." he asked. Christel nodded.

They entered the room together, as soon as they entered the room. All eyes were on them. She didn't know if it was because Bruce Wayne was here or because the culprit behind their shared sorrows was here.

She hoped it was the first part.

A brown headed women slowly walked towards them "Mr Wayne. I am thankful you are here" Bruce nodded in his disguised fashion.

"of course, your son and gold truly were great interns. They had a bright future. I had to give my regards. I am sorry for your loss" Bruce stated. Christel gut were about to vomit themselves out. This women was jack's mother.

The women looked at her. Christek froze. Jack's mother gave a sad smiled "and you are? Are you jack's friend?" she asked. Christel wanted to say yes but couldn't get any word out.

Bruce was about to reply for her but someone chipped in. "that's Christel, the murderer's sister." all eyes were now on a blonde headed girl.

Christel recognised the girl. She was a fellow worker at Wayne industries. Also one of her friends that blocked her after the incident.

Eyes returned to Christel's direction. Judging, almost hateful.

Christel glanced at jack's mother. Her smile was now a frown but the lady didn't say anything. The room was in a tense state.

"YOU!" Christel heard a screech. She looked at the direction and saw a raven headed lady who looked at her frantic. The lady was being held back by her presumed husband.

"You took my baby gold away from me!!" the lady yelled out. Christel took a sharp breath in. Gold's mother and father. Christel looked at Gold's father. The man had deep dark circles around his eyes as his eyes were more focused on calming down his wife.

"how dare you come here! Are you mocking US?" the Gold's mother yelled out. Bruce cleared his throat. Eyes glaring at the scene. Christel could see the batglare somewhere inside it.

"can I have everyone's attention. It is true that Christel is the murderers sister. But I can assure you that she had nothing to do with the murder's" Bruce explained to the crowd. "Christel is not here to mock anyone, she is here to give regards to her friends. Because jack and gold were her friends" Bruce put his hand on Christel's shoulder.

Jack's mother cleared her throat. "I agree with mister Wayne" Christel felt her heart beat quicken. "just because her sister did something that doesn't mean she should be held accountable for her sisters mistake."

Jack's mother looked at Christel, no emotions showing "but for the comfort of everyone here. Please give your respects fast and leave." Jack's mother nodded at Bruce and then went towards gold's parents to talk to them.

Christel quickly took out the two roses she brought. Put it on their shared alter and walked out. Not looking at anyone.

As soon as she was out of the funeral home. She quickly broke a sob but still continued walking away from the scene. Finding herself a bench to sit on.

Why was she born inside Elora? What did she do to deserve this? Why can't stella not see that what she does is wrong?

Christel looked at the sky.

She felt someone sit besides her on the bench. She knew who it was.

It felt like hours, she and Bruce sat in silence.

Finally Christel spoke "m sorry for punching you in the guts"

Bruce huffed out a small laugh. "don't worry. It was justified." he stated. Christel was a little taken back that Batman laughed but she shook it off.

"was it justified? The reason you put the mission before your family is to keep your family safe in the long process. I implied that you don't care about your family. So in the end I was wrong" Christel explained. Bruce shook his head.

"no one can be right in this situation. You were right in some sense. I do put the mission before my family that results in me being distant from them. That day when you punched me because I indirectly hurt Hecate. And every single of my.. Our family followed you. I recognised that I should probably keep my role as batman away from my family life." Bruce stated "what you were wrong about was that I don't care about my family. I do. Truly"

Christel hummed "no person is black or white. Everyone is grey" she whispered. Bruce nodded. They fell into a comfortable silence again.

"one of my worst fears is that my children will end up like me" Bruce said out of no where. Christel finally looked at him instead of the sky "what?" she asked.

"my worst fears. My children ending out lonely and cold." Bruce said. "but now-a-days. That fear is demolishing." Bruce smiled. A genuine smile.

"I am proud of Richard. He has grown from the boy who lost his parents. He did something I couldnt. He grew from his trauma. He won't be lonely because he atracks people to himself." Bruce said. Recalling a young Dick. Christel hummed in understanding. Nightwing was like superman, a star of hope but somehow more comforting and grounded. There was a reason she gave him the nickname 'papa'.

"Jason was so close to my fears. Him ending up like me. Filled with hatred and revenge scared me. It genuinely scared me." Bruce admitted. Christel put her hand on his shoulders. Like he did earlier for her. "but now look to at him. He has Roy and Kori, he has Artemis and Bazzaro and also two lovers. Delenn and Carol. He will never be lonely. And I am proud of him for that"

Christel smiled as Bruce continued "Tim is so much like me. But he has always been stubborn about not being lonely and about having friends. He is like a better version of me and I am happy for him." Bruce looked at the sky

"Cass and duke themsleves have done so much. Duke has accomplished so much on his own. He is furtherst away from being lonely. He is like Richard a light of hope. Cass... She started out as lonely." Bruce whispered. "her upbringing making her a killer but she has grown from that and on her own non the less. She has Hecate. She will never be lonely"

Bruce huffed out a laugh as if he thought about something. Christel didn't ask. She only smiled. Bruce continued "then there is Steph and Damian. Steph has come a long way. She was always stubborn. Just like Tim."

Bruce smile fell a little " to be honest, I am.. Was worried about Damian the most" Christel raised her eyebrow.

"he is the perfect replica of me. Even with his brothers and sisters around. He had this aura of distance around him. Even after he got himself friends like superboy or his own version of titans. He still put himself in a degree of shadow." Bruce looked at her.

"but all the worries about his future crumbled as soon as I saw him playing with Aris, alek and Anas the other day" Bruce said sincere. Christel blinked.

"I never imagined Damian being a father but seeing that in front of me. I was astonished and happy. He won't be alone, because of you. Christel" Bruce stated. Christel felt tear forming.

"your family can't take away the light you bring into some people's worlds. they can try but they can't." Bruce said. "what Stella did wasn't your fault. I am pretty sure Jack's mother realises that. And in time gold's parents would too."

Tears finally fell down Christal's eyes. Tears she was holding from the start.

"your family's crime isn't your crime." Bruce said. Christel nodded, crying even more. They again fell into silence as Christel collected herself. Rubbing away her tears.

Suddenly both Christel and Bruce got a notification.

"what's this about?" Christel whsipered. Barbara's voice came from Bruce's phone

"sorry to intrupt you two but nightwing is fighting an Elora assassin right now" both Christel and Bruce got up.

"where?" Bruce asked in his batman voice.

Barbara's statement make Christel pale.

"Claudia's apartment"