Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.
Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.
Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.
Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.
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One last store update! After this I will begin sending emails to a subscriber list.
You can input your email of choice for my shop newsletter into this google form here.
A quick summary of some things:
I was unable to finish orders by printing their shipping labels by today, despite what I said last week, because of health issues that had to be addressed instead.
More of my product order was messed up, had enough items to fulfill every order but I’ve been left with ZERO extra stock on a couple items to put into my shop after.
I got enough interest in the Halloween keychains and stickers so I will be making them.
Full explanations below ^^
I have now packed every single order and reviewed all of their contents. However I was unable to send them out today as at some point last week I became very unwell. I’ve been going downhill for a while but it has never gotten to this degree this fast before. I still don’t really know what caused it and so I had been unable to pack over the weekend and couldn’t get all the shipping labels printed for them today.
I will be printing these labels out and taking chunks of the orders to the post office over the next few days.
But the more I’d packed the more I’d realized more of my product order had been messed up. I had ordered extras of everything and yet some of the products that I ordered just BARELY fulfilled every order — I had to use some of the initial samples to fulfill every order but rest assured they are the exact same as the products in size and quality. I have exactly ZERO of some products left over for shop stock when I’d ordered 10-15 extra of every item (as well as TOO MANY of some less popular products that didn’t need all these extras) which sadly means a few items will not be in stock when I open the store back up. I may put discounts on the unwanted extras I received because of this.
While I would expect by default to receive the products in the quantity that I ordered, I also understand that I ordered hundreds of products all in one order, and that is only one order that is being fulfilled out of the many other orders they get daily. I myself did not count out every single product to check because of the sheer amount of everything that was ordered — I had ordered over 500 keychains alone to fulfill the preorders and the entire order has taken up a full room when all spread out. But I still did not count beforehand and would only find out once I’d run out of a certain product, so I accept this is partly my responsibility too. This should not happen again as I never expect to make an order this big again, I had only done this for shop startup, and I will be making another order to restock these products. But it’s still sad it happened.
I apologize for this and I appreciate all of your patience once again. I am explaining all of this as I believe you are owed information about what is going on seeing as you’ve put money into this, and I myself said they would all be sent out by Monday. I just want to be transparent ^^
And one last thing — many of you wanted Halloween merchandise, so I will be moving forward with that! (I’ve decided they will not be glow in the dark though, as I’d have to make every vibrant color instead transparent for the glow to come through, and I believe the designs would suffer too much without these colors)
I have ordered from this manufacturer multiple times before over the years and they’ve always gotten it right with more reasonably-sized orders, so I am confident these will not have the same problems as this preorders period has.
Thank you again very much for your support and understanding up to this point!! <3
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btw as someone who now works as an online consulting therapist on a hotline, i want to say i'm genuinely happy and relieved every time a person texts us with an issue they're experiencing. it took time for me to adjust to this job mentally because after each three hour shift it felt like coming back from another world, and my thoughts kept wandering to the fact that those i've been able to consult are a very small percentage of people with similar issues in general. it's scary to think how many people are there, either not able to get help or not getting it due to shame, insecurity, fear or not believing in the possibility of that help actually... well, helping. posts like these usually only reach a few people, still, i can't stress it enough: if you're struggling, feeling unwell, dealing with something hard or unpleasant, there are people out there wanting, wishing, ready to help or at least lend you an ear. i won't deny this job is challenging, but consulting people has felt like a blessing rather than a burden, contrary to how many people with mental health issues think of themselves. go get help
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Yo! Just noticed it’s the anniversary of when I finished my second fanfic Dreamcatcher, which is the work I actually started to lean into writing fanfiction (since my first work I really just wrote for myself before being encouraged to share it).
So, in honor of that, here is some of the original second nightmare which was actually written from Dream’s pov before I ended up changing it to Punz’s.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Referenced Torture, Blood, Death, Injuries, Profanity.
Dream is wet and panting, in a puddle of watery red flowing into an equally crimson pond to his side, where the non diluted liquid gets thicker.
There’s white fur stuck in it as the body of a dog, slashed to bits lies there next to him. Both sitting in the despairing silence of the box.
Tears form in the corners of his eyes and his vision gets blurry, but he doesn’t let them fall. He just exhales.
Why does everything die around him? Why does everything he dare to care a smidge about get taken from him?
As if to follow his thoughts, the white turns to black. The fluffy bloodied dog shifts into a cat that’s long since stopped breathing. Dream turns his head, and faintly smirks at the sight of the additional body sprawled out on the floor next to him.
He mutters to the corpse under his breath, rolling his eyes, “To be fair, you were being a bitch. Like don’t blame me, you know you d—deserved it… I mean I lasted like—how long before beating your head in? That’s pretty impressive—pretty fucking impressive, you know.”
Tommy’s body doesn’t respond, just stays there, unmoving and uncharacteristically quiet. His face swollen and bruised, not unlike the innocent cat he beat to death.
Then his body evaporates and Dream finds himself in a new room, accented with black walls and bedrock. It’s detail is perfectly ominous like he wanted.
He’s kneeling, unguarded by armor with an audience of people surrounding him. His heart beats rapidly threatening to burst out of his chest at the danger. But he ignores it.
Indignant, Tommy rips off the mask that always covers his face. Exposing his pale skin to the cool air and the venomously judging faces.
Despite the frustration at his denial of privacy, he doesn’t so much as dignify it with a flinch. It was expected. He was ready. He’s not about to show weakness in front of a crowd.
They are silent as the axe lands, and lands again before lady death finally embraces him.
They are silent as the sword finds its place in his chest and he falls to the ground, bleeding out into the cold stone beneath him.
It’s ok. He knew this would happen. It was expected, it was planned. He didn’t know they’d kill him twice, but it’s fine.
On one life, he makes his way back down with sharp pain running through his veins. Somehow it seems duller than the pain in the prison cell, though it can’t have been less excruciating.
Tommy once again stands above him savagely firing arrows away. As they pierce his flesh and bone, he searches the cold faces around him and listens intently, hoping to hear one sound of objection to his approaching final death.
Surely, someone will say something, right? Surely, someone will oppose his final death, right? Surely, they woundn’t let Tommy kill him off in cold blood. Would they?
But there’s nothing from them. Absolutely nothing. Standing there, dripping in blood, he feels his heart entirely disintegrate into nothing. Leaving only a hollow emptiness in its wake.
Then suddenly he’s freezing from more than just death and despondency. He’s surrounded by ice. Their pillars, tall and sharp, casting the land in a pointed terrain. Despite the bone chilling air and his frozen insides, he stands, planted to the ground, looking at a sign pinned to the glacier. The wood marking the death of his parrot that travelled so far only to die there.
A deep sigh is released from his lungs and the scene smears into broad strokes of colors. Until a well known bleak room encases him in lava and obsidian again.
Sitting there with nothing but the annoying sounds of the prison to keep him company, he wonders if he’s always destined to lose everything. Was it always going to end up like this? Was he always going to end up alone?
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(More thoughts and drafting! Some weird formatting I know but it was all one block in my notes)
Emma is doing just fine. Average. It’s really not so bad.
She’s just been dealing with a lot of change. And with too many things not changing.
Which is… an odd thing to struggle with.
Because she likes change. Daunting challenges. The unpredictable. Doing new things every day and never being scared of them. And she likes independence.
She had thought so, at least.
After the show, she had been hit in the face with just how… isolated she was. She had only had two friends before the first season, but she had left them behind. Her mother wasn’t doing the best, and she didn’t have any nearby family.
She found herself laying in her bed in the middle of the day most of the time, scrolling through her contacts and old conversations.
Or scrolling through her comments on TikTok.
A few weeks ago, she had tried some stunt involving a motorcycle and an inflatable pool. She probably wouldn’t have messed it up if her hands weren’t trembling.
(She had forgot to check the breaks, and wasn’t sure if they were working.)
(They were.)
The blood dripping down her face and the gash in her lip didn’t sting as much as it did watching the video.
She looked ridiculous, and she probably always did. It was better when she had someone else to do it with. Maybe she was losing her touch.
She didn’t post the video.
She turned back to dancing instead, which did feel less embarassing, despite the constant mocking feedback. Sure, the jokes were “funny”, but she didn’t care about any of it. She didn’t feel the rush, she wasn’t planning every day, and she wasn’t known or loved for anything.
Except for what she lost.
And, the show, to an extent.
-Ugh, she misses the show. She shouldn’t, but as stupid as it sounds, she really did. She missed doing crazy things and talking to people. Having a chance of winning. Beating everyone. Being cheered on. It wasn’t always great, but at least it was something. She misses doing something.
And she really misses Bowie. She missed Bowie, but she knows better than anyone that she can’t go back to that. They just- have better things to do now. He probably does.
He’s got Raj- which is great! And she’s happy for him! She’s happy for everyone. For Wayne, however he’s doing, for Julia, despite everything.
And Caleb. For having Priya.
Emma is jealous that Bowie gets to have someone.
Emma is jealous that everyone else gets to have someone.
Emma is jealous that, unlike everyone else, winning the show probably wouldn’t have made her any happier.
She isn’t sure what would.
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