#still have no idea what I'm doing

[godihatethiswebsite]

Desert Oasis

✽ Johnny "Soap" Mactavish x f!reader (The Mummy AU)

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

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✽ Part 1 - Learning about your cousin and his past

Maybe Kyle actually used to serve with John until one mission pushed him a bit too far past his moral compass and he ended up leaving his military career behind, travelling down to see his last remaining relative - you.

You two had been thick as thieves growing up, family always visiting on holidays as his much more persuasive self - quite a charmer even for a seven year old - was fond of conning you into mischief you had no business being a part of. Now when he's not pestering you he frequents bars to help shake off the PTSD and find people with some coin to do odds and ends jobs for.

Catching up with Kyle usually always included a stroll down memory lane reminiscing about his old war stories. His troublemaking tendencies didn't change as he got older. He was just better about talking his way out of getting disciplined for it. But you'd heard plenty of tales about what he got up to with the notorious Sergeant Mactavish back in the day. More than enough to suggest the man was a scoundrel despite the praise your cousin laid on thick regarding his ability to always have your back in a skirmish.

So when an anonymous tip leads you to a man who can supposedly get you to the fabled city of Hamunaptra and they pull John out of his jail cell, Kyle just gives him a shit eating grin leaning against the bars and says, "Hope you didn't have to bend over for anyone in there."

"Nah. They said mah mouth's prettier than mah arse anyways."

Meanwhile you're standing there watching this conversation with your eyes glued to the man behind the bars with filthy desert tanned skin, bit-too-long stubble, the strangest choice in hairstyle, and cerulean blue eyes sparkling with the promise of mischief thinking 'dear lord what am I getting myself into?'

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[Edited 5/8/24: changed formatting, title, tags, and numbering system]

[tei-to-tei]

"Like twins?" "Exactly like twins, Leonardo."

Artwork for Chapter 3 of Blood Sacrifice on AO3

[eikaprime]

So... Fanfic Etiquette

What do I do here? Do I link when I update on AO3 or elsewhere? Should I post things in their entirety (not entire series I hope but maybe oneshots)? Do I only post things here if they're short? How do tags work? I know a friend tagged me when I impulse-wrote a fic for someone's art before, but. So many questions.

[salamanderz13]

I made a thing! AI-generated baby Captain Rex.

[aeide-thea]

on principle opposed to describing art i dislike as 'masturbatory' because even though it's an alluringly contemptuous word to sneer it's impossible to reconcile with my pro-masturbation stance

[welcometogrouchland]

ANOTHER SKETCH DUMP! Featuring more of me playing with lineless art. Batman reborn era trio (dick, damian and steph) I miss you...when will you return from war. Also featuring Steph designs bc I've seen ppl dissatisfied w/ her current look, some good mom Talia, and Jason Todd poetry club. Duke is confused not that Jason would start a poetry club but that he'd have such mid poetry opinions. (ID in Alt)

[briarhearts-art]

Team Red

some character designs for the 🔄 au!! with sonic and shadow having swapped places, sonic was not present for a majority of the rest of the team's lives, and their paths went a little differently. tails and amy are taken into custody by G.U.N., while knuckles is occasionally recruited as an on-n-off agent, similar to rouge in canon. sonic later joins their team after the events of SA2 (???)

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[gloriousmonsters]

love when you can ask the Narrator why the Princess is a Princess and he's like 'well i uhhhh YOU did that. maybe it's because uh... something something about her being above you... but still approachable... look i don't want to analyze or anthropomorphize your--' my guy. i am a primal being of Order and Eternity and Shaping. You're the one who convinced me I was some dude and were quite willing to take credit for shaping my view on the world through narration five seconds ago. Are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me the desire to interpret something worthy of adoration and more powerful than me as a dommy princess is written in the very nature of the universe or are you going to show me your browser history like a man

[jkvjimin]

seven days a week; jungkook's birthday countdown ↳ sun: 💛 golden 💚

happy birthday, jeon jungkook! 09.01

[mblue-art]

BAD SANSUARY // [29] glow for owl-bones's event !

pov u attacked the little error doll he gave u w/ sooo many smoochies and he felt all of it

alt. vers. under the cut !

[avizou]

made me again

[accirax]

🌟🍬🤖🎈Congrats to Wonderlands x Showtime for finishing their 4x4!🌟🍬🤖🎈

[lulu-draws-stuff]

Don't fraggle me I'm rock. er.. fraggle scared. umm....

[bixels]

While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.