#this is ancient i'm so sorry

[vigilantdesert]

“trust me, if i could go to someone else, i would.” For that aoc au we discussed earlier 👀

What Else Was I To Do?

"You have completely lost your mind." It was a statement, though usually phrased as a question. It wasn't every day that one's (arguably) mortal enemy wandered into your palace, seeming to want to be captured, and yet, here he was. The master of the notorious Yiga Clan himself, sans backup (or at least, with backup much quieter than they usually were), allowing just that. 

Urbosa, proud though she may be, was under no illusion that she could capture a completely healthy Kohga without a fight. Even a wounded one would be a challenge, and she would be suspicious the entire time. Frankly, she was against the idea in general, revenge being prescribed to her both on a moral and religious basis - the murder of one's daughter's Godmother was not taken lightly to the Gerudo. They may never have been able to prove it without a doubt, but the assassination of Queen Zelda was something the Yiga were more than happy to take credit for regardless. 

 Luckily, a captain of the guard had taken him first, and by the time Urbosa got to him, he'd spent enough time on a remarkably consistent story about some back-water soothsayer commandeering his men. It was insanity and, even if it was true, half of her felt obligated to say "that's what you were working for in the first place,' with a few choice words that did not belong in any variety of diplomacy.

The other part of her - the part that still believed him  - was currently tearing itself apart. The Gerudo took their role as Ganon's keeper seriously, arguably having unleashed him on the world countless eras ago. Actual archeological evidence for this pointed to several converging theories, but it was a cultural obligation none-the-less. Anybody who came to her expressing concern over the calamity's revival, if they were genuine, was granted at least some level of protection. Kohga had played his cards well - he often did, damn the man. If he went to Rhoam, there was a very decent chance he'd have been sent to the gallows on the spot.

She ground her teeth into oblivion, eyes closed in a tight squint as she weighed her options.

"Why should I believe you? This wouldn't be the worst trap you've set for us."

[christadeguchi]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[uncanny-tranny]

If I'm honest, the whole "love in every stitch" saying for fiber artists does not apply to me, like. I'm trying to get this fucking hook into stubborn yarn and I'll be stabbing it like it owed me money. Is that love because I hope not 😭💀

[chicinlicin]

happy get deleted day

[steakout-05]

ok so i was in the shower one time and my brain trailed off and i just started imagining what if the Enterprise got a distress signal that has been sent from the 21st century and when they look at it it's just stupid ancient meme shitpostery. like they think they've come across a really weird time-travelling anomaly and they put it on main viewer and they just get colossally rickrolled from 300 years in the past. it hasn't left my head for the past few days so now you must witness my vision

Data: Captain, it appears we are somehow receiving an unusual distress signal originating from the ancient year of 2024.

*Picard and Riker exchange looks*

Riker: 2024..? That's impossible.

Picard: Hm... Unusual indeed. Put it on main viewer.

Data: Aye sir.

and then the viewscreen activates and it's just this

[valhallavalgrace]

Leo, what has been your favorite “to-the-death” activity thus far? I feel there has to be a workshop-to-the-death somewhere in that hotel.

LEO: I think maybe Magnus was right about talking about the past… I’m not sure I’m ready to do that yet, but thinking about it and doing things that remind me of my old life, it feels like progress. prev ask (also about activities!)

[solar093-art]

ElidibusWeek2022: Day 3

"My home... My friends... No more than a dream..."

[enlitment]

Top 5 underappreciated historical figures!

Thanks for the ask! This one was super fun, but also super difficult to answer. I've purposefully avoided mentioning the ladies of the French Revolution, since I have another question specifically about them lined up.

With that being said, in no particular order:

Fulvia

Anyone in the classics circle likely knows much more about her than I do, but I'm so glad I've discovered her through Tumblr! All of the things I've learned about her so far have been so interesting. It's incredible to see how much political (and military) power a Roman woman was able to yield despite living in a deeply patriarchal society.

(also, the part of me that loves drama really appreciates the story about her stabbing Cicero's tongue with hairpins after the proscriptions and Octavian's atrocious poem about her)

2. Émilie du Châtelet

Also hardly a surprise for anyone who's been following me for a while. Again, the fact that I've only relatively recently found out that there was a female mathematician and physicist in the fist half of the 18th century with such significant contributions to the field makes me almost feel as if I've been lied to.

She is special to me both because she was incredibly smart (she was able to understand Newton like few other people in her time and she spoke so many languages!) but there's also something about her writing that makes her feel deeply human and relatable. I've read some of her texts, and not only are they written in a beautiful prose but they're also incredibly moving. Her view on how to achieve happiness in life is one of the best I've ever came across, and her arguments for the education of women always make me feel so emotional...

...when she says that it was only after she realised that the circle of (male) French intellectuals accepted her among themselves and treated her as equal that she realised she too "might be a thinking creature"... I don't know, there's something about it that always gets to me.

Okay, time to introduce some male historical figures as well! This one is a residue from the time when I was really into the American Revolution.

3. Peter Stephen Du Ponceau

He was probably the only one in Baron von Steuben's original group that was able to speak decent English when they first arrived in the US to join the revolutionary war, which a) makes him quite important b) is kind of funny to think about.

But what I especially like about him is that he was a talented linguist who seemed to have genuine respect for other cultures, which let's face it, was quite rare in his times. While taking part in the American Revolutionary War, he recorded and studied the languages of Native American People. How cool is that?

(He was also potentially queer and I do have a soft spot for queer history)

Okay, guess should bring up someone interesting from Czech history as well. I fully confess that my own country's history is not necessarily my favourite area of study, but for her, I'll always make an exception:

4. Milena Jesenská

Probably most well known as Kafka's (kind of?) girlfriend/pen pal, but there is so much more to her story!

She was a writer and a journalist during the first half of the 20th century. She was really talented and soon made a reputation for herself, which let's face it, wasn't an easy thing to do for women in her time.

After Czechia became occupied by Nazi Germany, she joined the resistance movement and helped Jewish families to escape. She was later transported to a concentration camp, where she worked as a nurse and was said to have been "a moral support for other prisoners". She unfortunately died there when she was only 47. Still, what a life!

5. John Polidori

He's not necessarily my number one favourite person but I'd argue he is one of the most unappreciated figures. Vampires in fiction are massively popular but he rarely gets credited as one of its first authors. (Also the theory that Lord Ruthven, the charismatic, immoral aristocrat featured in The Vampyre is heavily based off on Lord Byron is not only entirely plausible but also quite funny).

Whenever I read something about the Geneva Squad, I always end up feeling kind of bad for him. As a foreigner, someone who was of a lower social status and - since he technically came along as Byron's personal physician - a paid employee, it just seems to me like he was never actually fully part of the group. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me, he felt kind of like a perpetual outsider. Lord Byron also got the credit for writing The Vampyre that should have gone to Polidori.

He was of course far from a perfect saint, with his drug and gambling addiction, but I still can't help but feel that he deserved better.

[taldigi]

blah blah blah yosuke yosugay blah blah blah

anyway

Sometimes shit adults say that seems innocuous to them can absolutely fucking devastate a kid's worldview -- like- my mother telling me that she'd still love me if I was gay (even if she would be sooo disappointment and that "she'd rather I not" but "a mother's love is obligatory" you know you know) when I asked-- but later being told, unprompted, that she wouldn't let me cut my hair short lest I "become a dyke" with such vitriol and disgust that it did a fuck ton of mental damage and instilled hilariously absurd levels of fucky behavior and fear of- not only disappointment, but transforming into something abhorrent and wrong and bad. I mean, it's fundamentally untrue- because I shave my head now and haven't spoken to her in years.

looks at nails anyway turning this back to fandom shit- because I'm a funky little lesbian who needs an emotional support blorbo to attach onto for my mental health. I choose (mostly unwillingly, as I do not decide such things as much as my heart does) to project that specific event very heavily onto legendary closeted boyfailure Yosuke specifically, because "Yes you can dye your hair sweetie, but no weird colors, okay? You don't want people to think you're funny." is absolutely something that was said to his face and was most likely a huge seed for growing into a huge complex. That and, the fact that yes I was alive and young during 2011 in a rural community and yes I know rural japan is hardly like methodist farm town america but some shit doesn't change and I remember 2011 and I remember it being really unkind.

me: he's a cartoon character hee hee hoo hoo.

also me: I can't believe they somehow made a character that resonates with me so deeply down to the eternal funnyman coping mechanism and the "headphones on all the time" disease. I can't fucking believe i've been cursed with him as blorbo.

[necrotic-nephilim]

i recently remembered DickTim Week 2024 is happening very soon and i looked at the prompts again to see if i could get anything out for it and. the Hades & Persephone AU prompt for day 1 has got me really thinking so here's a vague concept i plan to write.

i've been pretty burnt out on modern Hades & Persephone retellings because of how they always seem to fall into the same generic "innocent wide-eyed girl runs from her evil mean mother into the arms of a dark mysterious man because actually she went willingly and chose to marry him" which has gotten repetitive for my tastes. (for clarity i don't care if this retelling is your cup of tea personally, so long as you're not actively trying to rewrite the original myth and claim untrue things about it, if this is your favorite flavor i sincerely hope you enjoy the buffet i just have little interest in it since it feels overdone for me and exhausted of it's supposed commentary atp)

but? but. biblically accurate Hades & Persephone AU has me all kinds of interested. because wait listen so hear me out right. Hades!Dick and Persephone!Tim, obviously. i feel it'd be more loosely inspired by with themes and imagery (though playing with death and nature powers could be interesting, i haven't decided) rather than explicitly making them gods and all. but. something dark and fucked up where Dick and Bruce are especially estranged. maybe to do with Jason's return, maybe to do with them just clashing and having their usual explosive arguments. and Bruce knows the peace needs to be kept, if he and Dick are at odds then everyone starts to pick sides and things just fracture so he needs a peace offering.

and the peace offering is Tim.

Bruce (the stand-in for Zeus) offers up Tim. agrees to have Tim move to Bludhaven and be Dick's... whatever Dick wants him to be. knowing that with the implication comes the likelihood of Dick grooming Tim. and Tim has no real say and is hesitant to put up a real fight. he doesn't want this, he knows what this is going to imply Dick will do to him, but he also knows if he says no things have the possibility to just... fall apart. so he's the unwilling bride, dragged off to the metaphorical underworld (Bludhaven) with Dick, away from his family, his friends, the life he built.

and on the flip side, i think weirdly enough, your best pick for the Demeter stand-in is *Jason*. just, hear me out on that. not necessarily on the side of it being motherly, but on Jason being just estranged enough from the Batfamily to be the one willing to call it out for being bad and wrong and raising bloody hell to get Tim back. maybe it's because Jason wants Tim for himself, maybe it's truly out of a concern for Tim to have autonomy, i'm toying with the idea of it primarily being Tim's POV and him genuinely not knowing which of these is true. (and the truth possibly ends up being a complicated middle ground) and because i like Helena, i think you can use her as the Hekate stand in, the one who strikes a tentative alliance with Jason and tries to go find Tim and bring him back. Tim stuck with Dick, getting groomed and hyperaware of it, possibly even getting fucked the whole time as well, knowing he can't go back without causing massive issues for Dick and Bruce because well, Bruce did promise him to Dick. so he has to adjust his whole life, try to figure out being a vigilante in this new city with Dick breathing down his neck the whole time.

and then much like the ending of the myth, a sort of compromise is struck that's a shaky deal for everyone involved. Tim is put on an essential timeshare, going back and forth between Gotham, where he has friends and family and a support system, then getting dragged right back to Bludhaven with Dick in this brutal cycle that he slowly gets used to and stockholm'd into even liking it. Dick isn't so bad, once he gets used to the quirks of their unbalanced 'relationship'. the sex is even something he can adjust to as well. not quite a happy ending but one that sits in this realistic grey area that becomes Tim's life.

i will write this, eventually, but i don't know if i'll get to it before DickTim Week ends so by posting the idea i'm essentially putting it out into the world so the peer pressure holds me accountable. i just. really like the potential of making Hades/Persephone AUs as fucked up as they can be simply by adhering to the source material and making it a raw story of being stolen away and forced to like this new home you didn't ask for.

also a less fleshed-out aspect of this idea i have ties into Persephone becoming the Queen of the Underworld when she's taken and how the transition from Kore to Persephone could be reflected in Tim. how he makes the best of the worst situation and becomes something far more dangerous and dark when he's in Bludhaven, possibly takes on a new vigilante name/identity and leans into the worst quirks of his personality he tries to tamper because there's no point in not going full tilt Obsessively Weird if he has no choice anyway and it being one small way he takes back his autonomy, and that inevitably making Dick *more* into him, because he gets to see Tim finally just. let loose.

[humanfox030]

Why is he like this

(Context below)

Based on this conversation I had the other day

[fainlin]

I gotta admit, the reward for completing all the shrines is pretty neat. I wish the tail and face had animations though. Still super cool! I wonder if there are just different kinds of Zonai and that’s why the ancient hero looks a bit different compared to the others we see.

[chonideno]

some sections from Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative by Herbert Mason that I will never recover from

[tlgtw]

Man that DLC's final boss has got me feeling kinda fucked. I'm kinda depressed about it now that I'm done. Everything else is, was, so good. But I do not like that plot development. I honestly think it is bad. Why did they choose not to foreshadow this in literally any way? Why did Miquella attempt to resurrect Godwyn at all in the first place, then? Practice? Was this really what was originally planned? There's no actual evidence to the contrary so you gotta assume it must've been.

So yeowch...

[skullieshroom]

If they can't be the Ewinas to your Chisake then they aren't your soulmate 💅

[very-gay-poet]

no because the Minister of Magic in the third book had described Sirius as looking bored in Azkaban. the dementors take out all your happiness right? and of course this was used as a way to be like "he's such a maniac not even Azkaban can make him more crazy then he already is it just makes him bored" but we all know that he was innocent (and that was the only thing keeping him sane) but then how could he be bored in the worst place on earth? concept: what if he only had around 7 years worth of happy memories? when he was at Hogwarts with the best people in his life. What if Azkaban felt the same as living at Grimmauld place with his blood family? I mean, he'd had 15 years of practice. But what if, with all the screams and arguments, the neglect, and emotional pain, what if just for a moment he got the fleeting sense of nostalgia. Of home.