Hello fellow victims of the ao3 Shutdown. Upon request I have uploaded This is heaven and I'd die for it to Squidgeworld under the same username as my ao3 (Deerlie_03). The site is sort of slow because of all the new traffic and its sort of time consuming to have to repost everything so I'm not planning on putting anything else up on there right now. However, if there's any fic of mine you particularly want access to in these dark times please just let me know and I'll put it up as well. You're also completely welcome to share my fics if you have them downloaded!!
I was reading “this is heaven and i'd die for it” when AO3 went out! It’s so amazing but I am on my knees begging if you have the series uploaded anywhere else 🙏😅🥺💕
I did not but, luckily enough, asking for things is how you get them! I've made a squidgeworld account for the time being and I'm currently uploading This is heaven and it's lil sequel under the same name as my ao3 (Deerlie_03) over there.
It uses the same code as Ao3 so it should all look pretty familiar but is a much (much) smaller site facing a sudden influx of new users and content so be mindful that it may be a little slow but ultimately should work. The site isn't currently accepting guest comments but you should be able to read just fine without making an account if you don't want to.
Please note: I am uploading this straight from the doc I wrote the fic in, which means it is lacking a final round of editing that the version on Ao3 went through. It won't be much different, but there are likely to be more typos and some places where the wording is slightly different. I also have no idea what the tags or notes on the original say.
recently found and read through Hamartia and it was only after I was done that I realized you were the same person who wrote my fav PJO/Criminal Minds crossover !
you write crossovers like no one else <3
Thank you <3 crossovers were definitely /my thing/ for a long time. I may well get back to them but they were above all the things that got me really into fandom a decade ago and I have had so much fun writing them over the years :)
I'm tipsy but it really is kinda fun to have minor heart issues because everyone gets so scared at heart issues but I have a really common minor birth defect and a barely symptomatic AV block. Like guys I am fine and I am vibing I prommy sometimes i just feel fundamentally weird
I hate when I remember something by an ungooglrable moniker. Sudden urge to read the "mustard poem". I dont remember anything googleable about the mustard poem. Just that it's the mustard poem and I want to read it.
I feel like it's generally not a good thing for my general mental wellbeing that every time I see or read something cool or fun online I have to pause and go "is this real?" and search for ai artefacts before I can enjoy it, and even then part of me is aware that I could have just missed something and ai is only getting better at tricking me, so then I don't let myself enjoy it anyway. Like I should not have to question reality like that, I should get to be grounded and normal about it and not anxious that I'm being tricked by a machine into believing things that aren't true and that don't even bring anybody any perceivable material gain. Y'know?
I love when I know something only by people on tumblr being obsessed with it. I'm sure my understanding of Project Hail Mary is very accurate to the source material.
Is this a safe space to admit that writing Ilya just feels like writing my good buddy Ilya Rozanov with a little side serving of "who amongst us didn't spend their formative years being a danger to themselves?" but sometimes writing Shane feels like getting naked on the internet
We need more women characters who are Male Protagonists. You know. Slightly haggard. She's splashing cold water on her face and gripping the edge of the sink staring in the mirror for a minute. She's coping badly with her deadwife
Occasionally i think about a Hollanov X Files AU I'll probably never get around to writing and I can never decide which one of them is more Mulder and which is more Scully...
for sale: Baby Shoes Stylish Infant Boy Girl Unisex First Walker Shoes Toddler Walking Crib Shoes Lightweight Non-Slip Sneakers For 6 9 12 18 24 Months Baby Shoes New With Tags New In Box Excellent Condition Never Worn
One would think after waking up in a dream like twice a month for years I'd be used to it. I'm not. There are things I remember that I'm maybe 65% happened in dreams after I'd already woken up once. Sometimes dream me spends all their money after they wake up and then real me has to panic check their bank account to make sure that wasn't real and just yesterday. My relationship to time in the morning is non-existent. I do not trust that the things in front of me are real or the things in my memory are fake. They need to give me a brain that does not do this. Or, failing that, smash my skull with multifarious hammers.
Have we ever discussed Hayden’s number??? Because why does he wear 35 of all things? I know there have been actual real life forwards who have worn the number but it's absolutely a goalie number. Why does Hayden Pike wear a goalie number? Every time I see it referenced in fics I get distracted by it lol.
Anyone got any headcanons about it? It's just weird to me, I wanna know why he picked it (or why whoever chose it for him for HR picked it)
I love em-dashes so much I love leaving visible seams where two thoughts have been put together I love obvious scars in sentences I had to tear apart to shove a little bit of extra sentence in the middle
Maybe what if I wrote a follow-up to This is heaven and I'd die for it?
That fic is Ilya being outed and the short-term consequences, but what about the next season? The season after that? I left that original fic kinda open for a reason...
things that always make me happy: serial commenters. there are three types
1) reading a longfic chapter by chapter, leaving an increasingly emotional comment on every chapter, descends into keysmashes near the end: outstanding
2) read one fic by accident, clicked the author name, now working steadily through the backlog and commenting on everything, I wake up to an AO3 inbox full of enthusiasm: precious beyond words
3) the longterm serial commenter whose comment begins with I don’t even know this fandom but because they have followed me from somewhere else: stunning. humbling. magical.
these are all *chef’s kiss* and I want to add one more: 4) left a comment a while ago, comes back and leaves another comment on the same fic, telling you that they’re coming back to reread the fic: angels. blessings. lifesavers.
Watching the Victoire play the Frost and I am so in love with the Victoire colours and so annoyed that they do not ship pwhl merch to the UK please i just want a sweater (and also annoyed that nobody can score in this game)
i am not watching the leaked movie personally but i am VERY excited to giggle about zukka during the official release because do yall remember when all we had was this
When writing Heated Rivalry fic I try to keep my hockey scores fairly believable but, like, with the way NHL scores have been looking recently maybe I should just stop. Fuck it, maybe they do win 8-1. Maybe this is a 14 point game. Sure, Shane can have a hat trick and two assists. As a treat. And it's all still grounded in reality.
When do you predict the next chapter of Now and Then to come out? I’m hoping you’re not abandoning it, it’s a really well written fic.
Honestly I'm not sure, but you've put it into my mind now so possibly some time in the next week or so. It's definitely not abandoned. I may not have had the right motivation to sit down and write it recently, but I like that series too much to just leave it :)
When Yuna has her “no son(in law) of mine will have inferior brand deals and management” takeover shortly after she learns about Shane and Ilya, how long do you think it takes her to figure out his money situation with his family?
I’m imagining her/maybe Shane playfully ribbing him about how he has no real financial manger or decent investments and what do you MEAN you just let a paycheck like that sit in your account while buying luxury cars every five minutes no wonder your net worth is shockingly low for your value, etc etc. and he’s not even offended he’s surprised and pleased that his new family is so invested in him and also enjoys watching where Shane gets some of his crazy. Like Ilya Mommy Issues Rozanov is “yes please ma’am optimize my finances and worry about my wellbeing harder” while he shovels whatever David made for dinner in his mouth.
But then at some point while she’s (lovingly) harping on his financial irresponsibility he just kind of quietly mentions that actually so much of his paycheck was going back home to his family when he was younger that he needed to blow shit on cars or whatever pretty quick if he didn’t want it to disappear. And she realizes that yeah he’s a little dummy who spent a concerning amount of money on VIP sections last year and thinks bank account interest is investing but he was also a child supporting his entire family in a foreign country with no one bothering to look out for his best interest or explain planning for a future.
David gets treated to impassioned rants every night about how “David I’m not convinced anyone even read that boy his contract in Russian”.
She starts managing him as well, obviously, and she’s kind of disturbed by how easily he just signs whatever she puts in front of him and doesn’t bother asking questions before agreeing to hand over all his management to her. He just seems thrilled she got him a Lamborghini partnership and an invite to fashion week.
The only time he puts up a fuss is when he realizes she’s not planning to take any significant cut of his money because “you’re family sweetheart” and he looks like he got smacked in the head with a shovel and has to go outside on the porch with Shane for a suspiciously long period of time.
Just to make sure it’s not suspicious that Yuna Hollander is now managing Ilya Rozanov she takes on a few more clients too. And if she specializes in managing rookies with no support network or active language barriers then that’s just a coincidence.
Officially have a Heated Rivalry watch party (ft. spiced rum) planned with the same friends I used to get drunk and do dramatic readings of weird smut fics (including foley) with. Occasionally I love the passage of time.
It went well they all loved it even though one if them did not appreciate me saying "Ilya's good with kids and Shane's ovulating" at the pool in episode five, and at least one is planning on reading the books
affirmations for bus drivers: i am sexy and necessary for society to function 💞 ten minutes is not that late 💞 i can fit through that gap 💞 the passengers don’t need to sit down before i blast away from the bus stop 💞 i can take this turn as fast as i want 💞 twenty minutes is not that late 💞 everyone on this bus desires me carnally 💞 thirty minutes is not that late 💞
It lowkey kind of sucks when a band’s most popular songs are really really good. Like trust me I WANT to be (more) pretentious about The Mountain Goats I WANT to be too smart to enjoy the two songs everyone knows but unfortunately for me This Year and No Children simply fuck too severely. I can’t even pretend they’re not some of the best songs ever written.
Officially have a Heated Rivalry watch party (ft. spiced rum) planned with the same friends I used to get drunk and do dramatic readings of weird smut fics (including foley) with. Occasionally I love the passage of time.
as a writer you will have a specific deck of vocab words you like using a lot and when you read other peoples' work you will see a very clear spread of different vocab words on their end. this is why you need to read, to collect other writers' words like it's a card game
tshirt that says "i do not consent to being filmed" on the front and "i am in witness protection and if you film me and post it online you could be directly responsible for my death" on the back
when someone post a picture of me and my shirt online i then deploy my 87 alt accounts posing as various members of the mob to send the uploader messages demanding to know the whereabouts of the person in the image and making it implicitly clear that i plan to harm them
imagine you are charles rowland, possessed by the raw divine drive to be a knight in shining armor at all and any cost, only for your fair maiden to be a guy who clawed his way out of hell with only his teeth and bare hands. and that guy is like, oh thank god, a knight!
yes, percy rose through the ranks of new rome disturbingly fast. no, jason did not do the same at camp half blood. yes, percy's rise to leadership at both camps took about two weeks and was completely unplanned. no, the same cannot be said for jason. his rise was carefully planned and took over a decade. they're both children of the big three, but where percy thrums with raw power, jason is a sword honed by zeus and hera. where percy is a survivor, jason is a weapon. where percy is a cycle breaker, jason can't get out. jason's fatal flaw was temptation to deliberate because he never managed to make his own choices. he was every classic definition of a hero rolled into one, and he never questioned it because his happiness came after the responsibility. jason was never going to ascend as fast as percy because jason was raised on hard work and discipline while percy, an abuse survivor and child of poverty, knew when to fight dirty. where jason was a transplant, percy was an invasive species. jason was always going to die because he was never more than a tool for the gods to throw away when he outlived his usefulness, or when he started to question his place. if someone as locked down as jason can question the system, anyone can. now that luke has put thoughts of overthrow in everyone's heads, zeus has to be very careful because while jason was expendable as his weapon, percy was unexpected in every way. zeus has no plan for him. when percy dies, he will become a martyr, so he can't die, except now everyone knows that percy doesn't want to be a god either. jason had to die, and now percy has to live.
planning my fic in a normal way. 1) what incredibly indulgent scene do I want to write next? 2) what connective tissue do I have to set up between indulgent scenes to get us there?
"we need water you can eat. we need water composed primarily of minerals. we need water that calcifies you where you stand. water should not be water. water should be limescale." - the south of england
Whenever I think shit is bad here in America I see some headline from the UK like "Want To Shave Some Money Off Your £43,025 Heating Bill This Winter? Piss On Your Hands If They Get Cold" by some guy named Lord Sir Arthur Albert Pomphrey who holds 5 government positions and lives in a house worth $37,000,000,000,000,000
Father John Yogurt was defrocked from the clergy today for being asexual, following a papal ruling that "vows of chastity don't count without temptation." The Pope later commented "You gotta have that dog in you"
I have such a dumb idea for a Zukka AU and I've had it for months because it's both stupid and high effort, but also I've been thinking about it for months so I think at this point I have to write it, don't I?
Does anyone know the British TV show Race Across the World? Because I really wanna shove them together as strangers who kinda don't like each other who then have to spend weeks backpacking together across the world for TV and maybe an amount of money that really is not that much. It's very dumb but also I know I'd have so much fun writing and researching it
i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here
My local cinema puts on old movies on Monday nights and, let me tell you, the WHIPLASH I felt when I left Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and was immediately confronted with Phan hardlaunch was genuinely comparable to the time I actually fucked up my neck in a car crash
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I've been thinking about Now and Then (my ongoing Percy Jackson x Criminal Minds crossover fic), as I often do and I'm still undecided about where to go next. Please, blindly give me input tumblr.
Basically I have 2 cases planned for the BAU to attend, one in Texas and one in Alaska. I planned on doing the Texas case first but I'm itching to write the Alaska one--doing that would require some restructuring + push back some cameos I'm excited about though.
Guy at the ticket gate at a train station in London saw my friend was going back to our town and told her he has heard that it's haunted. I have not heard that it's haunted and must conclude that they are not telling us on purpose. They need us vulnerable to ghosts. For purposes.
i feel like nobody has NOTPs anymore. like if you hate a ship now it has to be for some deep moral reason and you have to justify it to everyone what happened to just not liking stuff that isnt inherently bad but just because you personally think it sucks
i pull out my handgun and shoot myself in the head and the bullet flies cleanly through the hole that was already there from when i shot myself in the head last week
My friends have started responding [Deerlie]core to things I say, and I say yes, well done, that is in fact a thing I said. And they say no, no, no, this sounds more like you than usual. This is a text that explains who you are as a person. And the texts are always about. horrors beyond imagination. Or boobs.
I don't sleep like you normies do. I just stay awake and stare blankly at a wall until the sun rises, and I can shed my corpus like the skin of the most horrible snake. This is to allow for constant yet imperceptible growth.
honey? i looked in the files and i noticed something strange. your theme is called "the woman who must kill him" and mine is "he who must die in his lover's arms". weird right? like first of all, my pronouns are they/them.
i don't usually go for crack fic, but there's something really beautiful about fic that takes a cracky premise and plays it utterly straight, to the point of genuine human pathos that's only enhanced by the sheer ridiculousness of what's actually happening
My absolute favorite thing is the blatant disparities between which ghosts have kept up with modern culture and which ones are entirely clueless. Dawn is active on social media and Charley knows the difference between a micro and macro-aggression but Janet doesn’t know what a cell phone is. They’re perfect to me
hey guys I'm doing pretty not goo--*calculates the number of people I know irl who follow me*--pretty fine and normal even and--*calculates the odds my boss is following me are slim, but not 0*--and dedicated to productivity, customer satisfaction, a commitment to quality, and--*calculates the odds the Zodiac Killer is following me are slim, but not 0*--where are the bodies.
A jatp x school spirits crossover for day 6 of @jatp-week : Monday Mix <3
I've been wanting to draw Julie and the Phantoms characters meeting School Spirits characters for a while and now I did it!! Alex and Charley have so much in common, they're so beloved <33 also Rhonda would get really mad once she finds out about all the stuff Julie's ghosts can do, while she is stuck in her old highschool and unable to change anything in the world of the living... I really want to draw more for this crossover but for now this is it :>
The MV Thamesborg is a 173 m Dutch-registered general cargo ship. Around midnight UTC on September 7, 2025, while she was transiting the Franklin Strait of the Northeast passage en route from China to the east coast of Canada, she became stuck in the Arctic sea ice. According to the operator Wagenborg there have been no injuries to the crew or environmental damage. The Canadian Coast Guard has dispatched two ice breakers to assist the MV Thamesborg.
I have such a dumb idea for a Zukka AU and I've had it for months because it's both stupid and high effort, but also I've been thinking about it for months so I think at this point I have to write it, don't I?
Does anyone know the British TV show Race Across the World? Because I really wanna shove them together as strangers who kinda don't like each other who then have to spend weeks backpacking together across the world for TV and maybe an amount of money that really is not that much. It's very dumb but also I know I'd have so much fun writing and researching it
I have such a dumb idea for a Zukka AU and I've had it for months because it's both stupid and high effort, but also I've been thinking about it for months so I think at this point I have to write it, don't I?
enough about the timeloop I wanna hear about the post-timeloop.
person who just got over the horror of being trapped in a loop and settled into a comfortable routine...but then the timeloop breaks and they struggle to reacclimatize. person trapped in a loop for years who grieved their loved ones—who are suddenly back and acting like nothing happened (because for them nothing did). teenager who aged physically and mentally during the timeloop and now they're so much older than they're supposed to be. random strangers who were trapped in a loop together relieved to get away from each other at last, but feeling oddly bereft of familiar company. service worker who is pissed as fuck to have to go back to work
person who lost their impulse control suddenly living in a world that has consequences again. person who lost their brain-to-mouth filter and now just says things they can't take back. person with choice paralysis because the future was certain and safe and familiar for so long and now who knows what the fuck will happen next. gimme timeline re-entry dysphoria!
algebra is honestly funzies when you know what youre doing it’s like a puzzle that you feel smart for solving. however when you don’t know what you’re doing it becomes a challenge called who can turn into a feral dog and bite things fastest and brother i always win
AO3 now includes chapter name and title in emailed comments THIS IS NOT A DRILL I REPEAT authors no longer have to guess what chapter readers are screaming about based on their pitch EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU AO3 CODERS
(guy who literally has easy access to painkillers voice) ough,,, everything aches,,, ouch, if only,,, there was something i could do to stop this,,,,,, guess ill just put up with it,,,,
May I introduce you to "The Ricotta Eaters" (1585), a painting I could only describe as Ontologically Evil:
I know it's technically competent, but it just has a horrid aura surrounding it. I don't even care about disrespecting the Italian master Vincenzo Campi anymore, he should have looked at this painting and destroyed it like a sick beast.
writing is so funny because i could write nonstop for 9hrs and then hit a block where im like "how do i transition between this moment and the next?" and then i just dont touch it for 6 months
go on more walks. walk for no reason. walk to solve a problem. walk to blow off steam. walk to get outside. walk to listen, read, and learn. walk to escape distractions. walk to improve your health. walk to think. a simple walking habit can change absolutely everything.
what if you were home for thanksgiving and your mom was abby from 911 and your dad was dale cooper and they painted an accent wall in every room of the house and your mom got new dogs and named them all after maroon 5 songs and you used to be emo and are probably in denial about being at least bi and you went to your hometown bar where everyone hated your ass and you became friends with the girl who fucked your boyfriend and you sang welcome to the black parade at karaoke while your closeted brother kissed a boy in the men's bathroom
crystal woke up without her memory and was immediately inclined to be a bully like usual, but it simply didn’t work because edwin is too mean to bully and charles likes it. so she activated her subclass as the kindest person to ever walk the earth instead
Lmao op lives in the south. The tap water up here is from fucking springs. It's so clean and fresh and has no stalagmites whatsoever. Cope and seethe southerner
Normalize leaving unhinged comments on ao3 fics you like. I'm tired of being the only one brave enough to write "I am chewing on this fic" in the comment section. Be weird. Authors will love you for it
one of the worst things about being a writer is when you have to sit on your hands about a REALLY COOL SPOILER. and you just want everyone to know about the really cool spoiler you want them to know so so so badly but the best way for them to learn it would be to experience it and you also want them to do THAT so you’re just sitting on your hands vibrating and making a low whine while your dog looks at you with concern. and then your friends go “what’s wrong”. and you go PLEASE I NEED TO TELL YOU. and they go “oh okay so tell me”. and you go NO,
Having to write a difficult chapter is just me repeatedly going "urghrgh... they should invent a fic that writes itse-- *remembers AI* they should not invent a fic that writes itself"
everyone in the notes we are all holding hands. everyone who hasnt worked on a wip in weeks or months or years, its okay. we are going slow but we are going
Zukka little comic, short of, that nobody asked for but is here anyway? Thanks to the thread that I don't even know when it started, I literally found a screenshot on Pinterest and decided to draw it out. But shout out to @your-royal-momoness for starting the thread, I hope this is close to what you had pictured
saw a post that said devon not being home with her baby all the time was unrealistic, implying that ricken is doing 0% of the childcare ever, and respectfully i disagree because i think that makes some incorrect assumptions about the way ricken sucks. i do not think he would ever say or even act like childcare is A Woman's Job, but i do think he would say "of course i do an equal share of childcare because patriarchy deprives men of opportunities for us to connect emotionally with our children" and then after giving eleanor her bottle he leaves to go to a different room to write a really self-satisfied blog post about how it feels to break cycles.
Obsessed with what they're doing with Milchick this season. He's a guy with a job. An evil job. He just got a big promotion. He sees himself as a reformer. But not like, systematically, he just like, smiles a lot and plans little activities. He's being undermined by a teenage intern. He's gracious about The Board's racism. He carries elaborate fruit baskets on his motorcycle while working through the weekend. He averages firing more than one person per week. He dresses great. He almost got the CEO's daughter killed. He delivers even the most outrageous lies with panache. He doesn't have a single true ally. But! he is going to do whatever he has to do!
I think about Azula shooters often and their common refrain of "if Azula hadn't had a mental breakdown, she would've won" and I'm here to tell you that no, she wouldn't have.
There is no universe in which Azula was winning that fight with Zuko (or Katara, for that matter).
Azula spent so much of Book 2 being built up as this deadly terrifying force against whom the heroes are badly outmatched that it can be difficult to catch exactly how quickly Zuko is advancing.
Back up a bit to Book One. For the fearsome exiled crown prince of the Fire Nation, Zuko's not that impressive a firebender. He's not bad by any stretch, and he's able to lay the untrained Sokka and Katara flat pretty easily. Then he gets in the ring with Aang, who is an airbending master, and the difference between a regular bender and a master becomes apparent when Aang literally puts his ass to bed:
People have attributed this to the fact that no one's fought an airbender in 100 years, but I think it's also worth noting that Aang (a 12 year old from a pacifist nation) has probably never fought anyone before. Like, ever. And yet the second Aang thinks "okay, I'll attack back", the fight's over.
Zuko's got the same genetic predisposition for firebending talent that Azula does, yet it never seems to manifest because of his mental blocks. At the beginning of the series, he's already so beat down that all he really has is conviction, pride, and anger, so even with training from Iroh (the firebending master, thank you very much), he struggles. Yet throughout Book 2, when he has no time to train because he's on the run, he actually seems to advance faster. The fact that his bending is literally tied to his character arc (as his morals become tangled and he has to fight off aforementioned mental blocks) is pretty brilliant. Like, by the time of the Crossroads of Destiny, Zuko getting his ass handed to him by Aang is a pretty consistent feature of the show--he just can't match wits with him.
Hell, at the beginning of the series, he and Iroh (again: the actual firebending master) launch a combined power surface-to-air attack...which Aang casually swats away into a nearby ice wall. Come the Crossroads of Destiny, however, and Zuko by himself launches this bigass fireball that blows through Aang's defenses.
Zuko advances so quickly that it's scary. That prodigious talent is in him even if it doesn't come through as cleanly as with Azula. Who, by the way, was busy about to get flattened by Katara some few dozen feet away, until Zuko took over and then effectively stalemated her himself.
All of this in retrospect makes it abundantly clear why Zuko's firebending seemed to skyrocket so much when he learned true firebending from the Sun Warriors: it was really the only thing left. He's hard a hard road learning how to fight waterbenders, earthbenders, and airbenders, and even if unconsciously, he's applying the philosophy Iroh taught him about augmenting his bending style with aspects of other styles (see also, the waterbending-like fire whips he uses in the above gif). Once he actually understands fire and how it works, he's got it mastered. Hence why any gap between him and Azula effectively disappears as soon as their next fight--before her friends have betrayed her and her stability goes out the window. There's no real sense of urgency to their fight at the Boiling Rock prison. True, Sokka's presence with the sword helps, but Zuko doesn't look remotely worried and he counters Azula's every attack perfectly.
All her life, Azula only ever learned fire. She was taught by the best people the fire nation can employ, so she knows all the cool tricks, but she's still poisoned by the corrupted firebending practiced in the modern ATLA timeline. Unlike Zuko, who managed to get the basics if nothing else from Iroh (fire comes from the breath, and can be used to survive as much as to kill), Azula has always used fire as a weapon and a means to hurt others. She has no true knowledge of the craft, meaning she's got the same weaknesses as Zhao, she's just better disciplined to the point she can make up for it.
Zuko's victory was a given considering Azula's complete loss of control by the time of Sozin's comet, but even had she been in a perfect mental state, she'd have lost, because in many ways Zuko is simply the better firebender.
hey dude it’s me mark scout sorry i put u in the torment nexus for two years they told me yall were happy down there lowkey u wanna kill urself for my wife or perhaps merge into one person? pls respond
NEVER get into anything thats heavy on color symbolism bro . for months you will not be able to look at the color blue without instantly thinking of Squingle Dinglus
Reintegration is killing me actually. Like, what do you mean there's no better option? It's the best option and it fucking sucks? Even if it doesn't kill you it will make you sick and the outie has all the agency. If they want out of Lumon their innie has to die or become reintegrated. Become part of a person. Move from being trapped on the severed floor to being trapped in their outie's life, in their home, with their family and their spouse. And nothing they've done until now even matters and they don't even have to agree to it, it can just be done to them????
But the other options are Lumon or retiring. Killing your innie or giving them the chance to live by remaining involved in whatever the fuck is going on there. Letting your body be used for these things you never agreed to because it's the only way your innie can live as more than just a part of you who exists almost entirely without agency. All the options are bad and as an outie you want your life back (you work a 9-5, you sleep the proper amount, you are only really there for a third of your life and dead for the rest of it) but as an innie you want your life at all. Severance works and that's the problem because now all the options are terrible and what do you even do next?
that severance episode was the epitome of what makes this one of the best shows on tv. the acting! the pathos! the absurdist humor! the freaky cult shit! the marching band! adam scott acting against himself! the romance! tramell tillman's dancing! orpheus not turning to look back at eurydice! orpheus totally turning and looking back at eurydice! murdering an evil nordic man with a goat killing gum! one of the most stressful episodes of tv ive ever seen that also involved a wax figure and it was phenomenal
lumon's department sizes are so funny. "how many people do we need to refine some super important data?" uhhhh four i guess. at most. "what about the company marching band?" fuck ur so right. we need a company marching band with like fifty people. this is of prime importance to the lumon mission.
Occasionally I remember that part of my personal lore is that I fully just scammed a couple of people into being my friend as a child. Hell yeah fairies are real but no they don't come here you have to learn how to go to their world and I know how and you'll be able to do it to eventually! And I was fully just straight up lying for like 4 years. After that they confronted me about it and we literally never spoke again and my defense was very much "guys it's fully not my fault you believed me" and tbh I stand by it.
A restaurant named You're Not Supposed To Be Here, where the whole point is that the vibes are unnerving. The lighting is weird, the whole place has a faint scent that's not a bad smell, but it's certainly not food smell and you can't quite identify what the hell it is. The music is weirdly janky and you can't quite tell what's wrong with it, the vocals aren't exactly garbled but sung in a language you swear you've never heard anywhere and couldn't name if you tried. Only hiring staff who have anxiety and they're 100% permitted to show how much your presence here stresses them out.
Not enough attention given, I feel, to the fact that Edwin is Charles’s psychopomp. The boys spend decades running from Death, but Edwin’s first act out of Hell is to do Death’s job.
And this is clearly an intentional theme, given that at the end of the season the Night Nurse and the Principal fold them into the afterlife’s bureaucracy, with the Dead Boy Detectives acting as a sort of specialized offbeat psychopomp team.
But with Charles it wasn’t even specialized or offbeat. Edwin was just literally acting as a classic psychopomp. He guided Charles’s soul into the afterlife. Even the lantern is quintessential psychopomp imagery.
(Which makes Charles’s actions just so utterly fascinating, from a mythical standpoint. It’s like if Charon was taking you over the Styx and when you were nearly across you suddenly said “actually, I think I’d like to become your apprentice boatman, instead,” and Charon said “that’s not how this works, you can’t escape your final destination by appealing to me” and you said “nah, this has nothing to do with the Asphodel Meadows, I just really like you and boating looks fun but kinda lonely, so I thought you might want company,” and then Charon stared at you like you were a crazy person for a second (which you clearly in fact are) but then shrugged and said “sure, but we’ll have hide from Hades for the rest of time”. This is not normal behavior, Charles - or Edwin, for that matter)
Omg yes for those who don't know it's Reversi and it's on the bottom of the page. It'll save your life and your eyes and let you continue reading fics to 3:00 in the morning
Hey, if you do crafts (especially things like crochet, knitting, embroidery, etc), make sure to look up how to identify when a listing is AI generated. You do NOT want to waste money on an incredible looking kit or pattern that is physically impossible to make, especially if you're on sites like etsy hoping to support an actual artist.
#as an embroiderer: big red flags are curved straight or satin stitches #stitches that you cannot identify or figure out at all #thread that fades into other colors #backgrounds that match the piece weirdly well (like a floral embroidery piece with a matching vase and flowers on the table) #and a lack of videos of the piece and photos from other angles
I don't knit, but I'm sure someone has a comparable guide somewhere. I know crochet and knitting seems like more of a problem- the crochet "patterns" make vastly different items than what's pictured, and you can find some of those on r/CraftedbyAI because some people do follow those "patterns" to make a point.
Cross-stitch and embroidery seem like they'd be easier to fake, right? Like, cross-stitch patterns are basically pixel art, so what's the harm?
The cross-stich often has dozens or hundreds of colours and they change every single pixel, which is basically impossible for a human to reproduce. It's just not a pattern, dammit.
The embroidered ones break my heart, though:
Wherein someone is making a lovely embroidered piece but they end up dissatisfied with their work because it doesn't look as impossibly plush and bright as the fake.
It makes people who are new to these crafts feel like they're not doing it right, or gives them insane expectations, and it can drive people away from the craft.
I know of several cross-stitch pattern shops on Etsy that have closed because it's just not worth the investment when they're competing with AI-generated nonsense that can charge pennies because it doesn't take any time or effort to make.
If you choose other it's gotta be along the lines, like that game where you have to paint a map and the same color can't touch, don't come to my house all like "uhhh i played pinball"
Also there's no "none of these" option bc if you didn't become obsessed at some point with a kinda nerdy easily addictive offline game that will suck your soul until you can't think about anything else but the game for weeks then you are a fucking pussy and I don't respect you
not wanting to be outdone by the benders in the gang, sokka invents the flamethrower, the supersoaker, the leaf blower, and the concept of throwing rocks at people
IT"S FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!! Check out my animation of the title song from Nerdy Prudes Must Die, a horror musical from @teamstarkid You can watch the FULL stage show on their youtube channel!
I'm absolutely obsessed with Hamartia, like I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it obsessed. It has left me craving more pjo/thg fics, but none hit the same as Hamartia. I was wondering if you have plans to update it soon, or else if you have a snippet or anything you can share? Please?? I'm desperate for more, it's so fucking good. I can't stop thinking about it
Thank you so much!! I have some free time on my hands (though admittedly I've been using it to read fanfic more than write it recently) so I'm trying to get some of my fics updated soon. Hamartia is definitely high on the priority list, in no small part because I'm especially fond of it, I just keep bumping ip against writer's block regarding the next chapter. I'll push past it though, and hopefully there will be an update soon
Posting for the first time? I'm considering posting some of my older art that is already up on Instagram.. but I might just start fresh and see how it goes..
mutuals can always dm me but be warned i talk like your coworker who is trying too hard to get to know you and my response times are akin to the response times you might get if we were communicating by letter
Slow train journeys in rural England sure are an experience. You're going ten miles and it takes a day and a half because it stops at every lamp-post and the announcement says "The next station stop is Ferretley" or something and you think "I didn't know that was a place" and you get there and it isn't
For those who don't know, this piece is titled 'Unfinished Painting', by Keith Haring. He painted it about a year before his death of AIDs. I believe he actually finished other pieces between this one and his death. He left the majority of the canvas blank to represent his life and art career cut short due to HIV/AIDs. This was a deliberate choice and commentary about all that we lose (both personally and culturally) by ignoring the AIDs crisis at the time (1989). He was devastated he didn't have time to make more art. 'Finishing' Unfinished Painting is straight up spitting on Haring's grave and shows no understanding to the meaning behind the art. The AI interpretation doesn't even follow his extremely recognizable shape language and symbols. This is why people are angry about AI art. All commerce images and no meaning or humanity
A teensy but obsessed with a couple of NPCs from my DND campaign I made up on the fly. Can't stop drawing an overly flirtatious elf and a lil old eccentric gnome with a giant moustache. I finally get what people mean when they say they're obsessed with their own OCs
i really like that kinda fantasy modern blend you see in a lot of d&d campaigns these days. like i don't mean urban fantasy where it's like "there are goblins working 9-5 jobs in new york city" (tho that also fucks) i mean the total opposite when it's like "we're a ragtag adventuring party in a dingy tavern paying for our drinks in gold coins. the tavern has wifi access."
So I finally finished Just Like You (I Want a Break) and I cannot believe I have been working on this thing for more than 2 years and it's finally done. That's so weird.
died & came back & it's creeping people out how well-adjusted I am now? everyone's on eggshells waiting for something terrible to happen. honestly i feel terrific
Taking my "Edwin attended history classes at St Hilarions in the days between Hell and Charles" headcanon a step further:
Some boy in the class had a near-death experience in the past and could see him. Edwin's sitting in the corner, scrawling in his notebook, making bitchy little comments about "humanity's unchanging propensity to make itself a laughingstock" and "the audacity of those damnable whigs."
One time, the professor is like, "pioneer aviator Corrigan flies the wrong way in 1938 and ends up in Ireland rather than California," and Edwin mumbles, "bang-on, then, I suppose he was off in search of the potatoes to replace the mush within his brain." Also, "there was a World War TWO? Surely you lot could learn from the experience THE FIRST TIME!?!?"
The kid is like. Wow. Does anyone else see the snarky guy in the corner? He has high socks and knickerbockers and jumps 3 feet whenever the teacher drops something??? How is no one sharing this fundamental classroom experience with me?
He tells his very concerned BFF, who's like... Steve.... is the cunty old-timey kid in the room with us right now...
Took me around two weeks to finish these two and I’m so proud of these omfg
Also fun fact about 3/4 of the way through making Charles I completely burnt him but was able to salvage his front half… (luckily I hadn’t done his face or backpack yet)
Ao3 version that lets you open the 'director's cut' where I, the author, explain every detail in excruciating detail to you and what it is in reference to.
Something something about how the Devlin case was the catalyst for Charles' trauma response, with the loop and people being brutally murdered over and over again
And later in Hell, Charles seeing exactly how Edwin was brutally murdered over and over again
When Crystal felt sick saying "those women have been living the worst moment of their lives over and over for 30 years?" and how Edwin was in fact the only one who knew how it felt
I don't know where I'm going with this I'm just feeling things.
I'm like 3/4 of the way done with the next chapter of Believe Me so that should be coming soon (like sometime this weekend I think), the real question is what to update next?
(chapters 1-4 available here, in which Zuko fakes having amnesia because he's a dumbass who didn't think of an actual plan to make the Gaang trust him)
writing fanfiction is just. i’m being so creative and original. i’m plagiarizing everyone by accident. i’m a genius. i’m cringe. i’m too angsty. i’m too cheesy. this is not in character. it doesn’t matter that it’s not in character because these are my characters now. i love my hobby. this is the worst possible use of my time. i’m seeking validation. i’m projecting my own personal problems onto this story and i’m barely hiding it. i know so many words and i’m using all of them wrong. im on tumblr posting about it instead of writing it.
Edwin Payne in Hell taking every chance he gets to picturing his family members faces as to not forget them. Edwin Payne in Hell writing down list after list of his favourite things (books, foods, songs). Edwin Payne in Hell scribbling his name in the margins of his notebook because he took too long to remember it last time, what if he forgets it altogether?
Edwin Payne in Hell, slowly loosing himself over 73 years. Edwin Payne in Hell, unable to remember what it is like to talk without screaming, what it is like to hear laughter without being filled with fear and the knowledge if he doesn’t run now he’ll be torn apart again and again and again.
Edwin Payne in Hell, studying his hands every time he wakes up in another body. Did he always have a freckle just there? Edwin Payne in Hell, ripping a hole in the wall between the Dollhouse and Gluttony, desperate to escape yet plagued by the fear that perhaps there is nothing left to escape to.
Edwin Payne in Hell, mapping out his horrific reality, trying to escape only to realise he’s further down than ever. Edwin Payne in Hell the sound of his femur snapping the closest thing to a lullaby he can imagine as his eyes slip shut yet again (but they snap open again, right away, in time to watch the last him he torn to shreds, because there is no respite, no rest, only running, only endless dying).
Edwin Payne in Hell noting every sin he can think of committing and praying for forgiveness. Edwin Payne in Hell cursing God for leaving him here, then letting himself be ripped apart for the thought. Edwin Payne in Hell knowing there must be a reason he is here, after all.
Edwin Payne in Hell, waking in yet another body to run yet another time, realizing he cannot recall the smell of baked beans or the faces of his parents. Edwin Payne in Hell when he has to wonder if perhaps he was a creature of this darkness, his life before a cruel hallucination.
Edwin Payne in Hell losing first the sound of his mother’s voice, then his own. Edwin Payne in Hell, was his hair brown or black? His eyes green or grey? Edwin Payne in Hell, was he sure he was still Edwin Payne? There are bodies all around him and one day he might suffocate under all the limbs that used to be him and maybe he’s lost a bit of his soul in every version of him that has died down here, how much longer can he rip apart his very being until there is simply nothing identifiable left?
i think its very easy to forget that alphonse is also kind of a little shit because he has no facial expression besides constant armor induced mewing and owo but then you read the 4komas and other such extras like the games and he always says shit like niisan this is why youre not popular. its all your fault ed it always is. im taller and cooler and more handsome than my brother. this is the effect of being raised by edward elric, whos special skill is being a hater.
i have head canons about this show, and about ghosts. about how ghosts can control how they look to a certain extent, vanity being one of the few traits they can hold after death, and if they're stripped of that control then they just default to how they looked at the time of their death.
*reads a gorgeous line in a fanfic* oh my god. how is this possible. how did they even fucking think of this. the symbolism is spot on. the planets are fucking aligned, everything is one and all and the world is complete, my soul is at peace
The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.
Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.
The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.
guy who's stuck in a timeloop for so long he stops wanting to leave it. guy who started out trying to escape but slowly grew used to and became comforted by the familiarity of the repeating day. guy who is no longer who he was before the timeloop. guy who is offered a way out and violently refuses it because he can't leave, doesn't want to leave. guy who escapes the timeloop by chance or force or accident and doesn't know how to live anymore. guy who keeps going through motions that don't match the situation and keeps having conversations that aren't actually occurring. guy who panics every time he realizes he can't predict the next instant. guy who left the timeloop but still lives with it.
yo…. when jet breaks in the tea shop and accuses zuko and iroh of beinh firebenders….
do you think any of the patrons looked at zukos scarred face - obviously done by a firebender - and immediately think jet was an asshole? like
jet: hes a firebender!!!!
patrons, thinking about the backstory they concocted for zuko and iroh where their home was invaded by firebenders and they barely survived with their lifes so they could come and have a peaceful life selling tea in a city the war doesnt touch:
No, but like Aang probably thought all those people he threw off cliffs or through buildings or delt fatal blows to were fine because he fought Zuko for so long.
Like, man got blown up. Man has had multiple people try to kill him and survived. Man got thrown through buildings and survived. He is that “why won’t you die??” Antagonist (and later fellow protagonist).
Aang has been unknowingly sending people to their deaths because he thought everyone in the fire nation was either an unkillable, little cockroach like Zuko or so overwhelmingly skilled and talented like Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee and would 100% survive that kind of damage.
"average fire nation person refuses to die" factoid actually just statistical error. average fire nation person dies once per lifetime. Refuses to Die Zuko, who is an unkillable little cockroach & could probably survive a nuclear apocalypse, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
i dont enjoy writing as a hobby because it feels like when people try to take pictures of mirrors to sell online and clearly put effort into minimizing their reflection but theres still an arm and phone in the frame or you can see their fucked up carpeted kitchen in the background with like a wall to wall collection of dusty antlers. im saying someone will notice i have a weird house because i was so focused on nobody noticing that i was naked while taking a pic of this mirror for craigslist and i cant have that but im not getting dressed because its my house. you understand of course
the thing is the king charles portrait is genuinely incredible and exactly how I would execute a portrait of a member of the british royal family but also I literally cannot fathom why the british royal family would have it made
like yeah if I were going to make a portrait of king charles I would absolutely have just his smugly smirking face leering out of a mass of red that could only be read as blood and gore, and have his military uniform fading ambiguously into the same background to lay bare the brutality of imperialism concealed by the pomp and ceremony of the british state, and make the entire thing sort of look like it was decaying to indicate the rot of the empire. like I really struggle to imagine a better visual metaphor for the nightmarish history of a dying empire than the king's spiffy military uniform and saber and sash and rows of epaulets being literally made out of a rotting field of blood and gore. but like why did he have it commissioned... why did he have it MADE and then say Looks great I'm putting it on the wall... HE EVEN LOOKS LIKE HE'S IN HELL
How to prevent Netflix from cancelling Dead boy detectives? I'm already attached to this series, it will be a pity if another good show just gonna be cancelled after first season
Tell everyone you know, in real life and online, to watch it. Word of mouth is incredibly effective. Be an evangelist for the show.
I see a lot of people clowning on the people of Pelican Town for not repairing the community center themselves or clowning on Lewis for embezzling and. like. Those criticisms aren't entirely unfair. But I think instead of coming at it from a perspective of "why can't the townspeople do this" we should be asking "why and how can the farmer do this?"
Like. Think about it. The farmer arrives in Stardew Valley on the first day of spring. By the first day they're obviously different. By day five the spirits of the forest who haven't been seen by the townsfolk in years or generations are speaking to them. By the second week they've developed a rapport with the wizard that lives outside town.
In the spring they go foraging and find more than even Linus, who's spent so many years learning the ways of the valley. Maybe he knows, when he sees them walking back home. Maybe he looks at them and understands that they're different, chosen somehow.
In the summer they fish in the lakes and the ocean for hours on end, catching fish that even Willy's only ever heard of, fish that he thought were the stuff of legend. They pull up giants from the deep and mutated monstrosities from the sewers.
In the fall, their crops grow incredibly immense; pumpkins twice as tall as a person, big enough that someone could live inside. The farmer cuts it down with an axe without even batting an eye. Does Lewis wonder, when he checks the collection bin that night and finds it full to the brim with pumpkin flesh? What does he think? Does he even leave the money? Does he have the funds to pay the farmer millions of dollars for the massive amounts of wine they sell? Or is it someone--something--else entirely?
In the winter, the farmer delves into the mines. No one in Pelican Town has been down there in decades. No one in living memory has been to the bottom. The farmer gets there within the season. They return to the surface with stories of dwarven ruins and shadow people, stories they only tell to Vincent and Jas, whose retellings will be dismissed by the adults as flights of fancy. People walking by the entrance to the mines sometimes hear the farmer in there, speaking in a language no one can understand. Something speaks back.
The farmer speaks to the the wizard. They speak to the spirit of a bear inside a centuries-old stone. They speak to the shadow people and the dwarves, ancient enemies, and they try to mend the rift. They speak to the Junimos, ancient spirits of the forest and the river and the mountain. They taste the nectar of the stardrops and speak to the valley itself. They change Pelican Town, and they change the valley. Things are waking up.
And what does Evelyn think? She's the oldest person in the valley; she was here when the farmer's grandfather was young. (How old *is* she, anyway? She never seems to age. She doesn't remember the year she was born.) Does she see the farmer and think of their grandfather? Does she try to remember if he was like this too, strange and wild and given the gifts of the forest?
And does their grandfather haunt the valley? He haunts the farm, still there even after his death; his body died somewhere else, but his spirit could never stay away for long. Does Abigail, using her ouija board on a stormy night, almost drop the planchette when she realizes it's moving on its own? Does Shane, walking to work long before anyone else leaves their house, catch glimpses of a wispy figure floating through the town? Does the farmer know their grandfather came back to the place they both love so much?
Mr. Qi takes interest in the farmer. He's different, too; in a different way, maybe, but the principles are the same. They're both exceptional, and no matter what Qi says about it being hard work and dedication, they both know the truth: the world bends around the both of them, changing to fit their needs. Most people aren't visited by fairies or witches. Most people don't have meteorites crash in their yard. Most people couldn't chop down trees all day without a break or speak to bears and mice and frogs.
The farmer is different. The rules of the world don't work for them the way they work for everyone else. The farmer goes fishing and finds the stuff of fairy tales. The farmer goes mining and fights shadow beasts and flying snakes. The farmer looks at paths the townspeople walk every day and finds buried in the dirt relics of lost civilizations.
The farmer is a violent, irrepressible miracle, chosen by the valley and destined to return to it someday. Even if they'd never received the letter, they would've come home.
Honestly, the travesty that is Edwin Payne’s life and death is so twisted and gorgeous, so bittersweet.
There is no doubt as to why Charles wanted to stay and run away with him. How could he not? Charles, who is so brave and protective, who died protecting someone undoubtedly saw the shadow that haunted his strange psychopomp.
Edwin, who is an innocent child, had his very soul hardened by unimaginable pain. Even a centuries old, magical creature who has lived countless years and seen much, admits that he cannot begin to fathom what this poor soul has been subjected to. The fault of which seems unclear and yet someone aught to pay for this unforgivable mistake.
Fiercely clever Edwin, who after a tragically short life that was loveless and brutal, who went on to suffer even more, managed to be so cunning that not only did he escape Hell, he mapped the whole thing with frightening precision. He did it alone, just as he had always been alone.
He returns to the very site of his murder, alone, in a world quite different from when he left it, to find that bullies were still out for blood, and did the job of Death so sweetly and efficiently that Charles had no need of Death herself.
Edwin who’s homosexuality can be swallowed down and controlled with the proper British stiff upper lip, so much so that he managed it for decades until a single gentle soul offered him permission to be courageous, and suddenly it was too much to bear. To much, that he couldn’t even wait until he was out of Hell to say something. In it we can feel the spirits of those who came before us that we couldn’t save or comfort. Taking a century for him to simply be told not only that it’s possible, but okay.
Edwin Payne, the very boy who Despair calls a friend, who doesn’t hold out hope for the integrity of his goodness yet is not questioned by those around him, because even the night nurse knows he is righteous and does not deserve his lot.
Edwin Payne, who I’m sure is a friend of Death, because his virtue is something that he is oblivious to that no one else is and Death is certainly not a fool.
Forever teenager Edwin, who has never felt more alive after a century of death.
Edwin not reacting to getting burned by the iron bars in the first episode when he gets the shoes and you think he’s just trying to show off but then as episodes pass you realize oh no that’s not it-
“omg you’re so creative. how do you get your ideas” i hallucinate a single scene in the taco bell drive thru and then spend 13 months trying to write it
as far as everyone was concerned. percy had a year left to live in tbotl. and i know that we didn't see what that like for him because it didn't matter plot-wise. but i would have loved to read it. give me percy who is hardly speaking up at the dinner table. half-asleep and behind on last week's homework. give me percy who is clearly losing the will to live and trudging around the apartment like he doesn't care where his feet takes him. give me percy who is sneaking out of the house and visiting montauk. sitting along the beachside shore. wondering why his only purpose in life is that of a soldier and not of a kid.
So I may have written a little fic about this post because it's been stuck in my head
Sally names Percy for the happy ending she hopes he’ll get. she spends hours researching demigods and their ends. Heracles, poisoned and given immortality as a leash. Bellerophon, revered for his deeds and killed for his hubris. Achilles, feared by all yet slain in battle. none of those would be her boy. She names him Perseus, for his successes and his long life, and she hopes it will help protect him, this name.
Percy is thirteen, recently returned from his first week at Camp, when Sally calls him by his full name. what had caused it, she can't remember. all she can remember is her strict, "Perseus Jackson––" and her son's poorly hidden, full-bodied flinch.
Sally knew––gods, she knew––that he would face hardships. she knew he would have to learn to fight, to protect himself, to kill––but that knowledge hadn't been enough to dim her hope. it was that flinch, that fear that he'd quickly cleared from his eyes at hearing his own name, that started to eat away at her hope like rot.
people telling you they reread your fic is the biggest compliment you could ever receive. there are thousands of stories out there begging to be found, to be explored, but your story meant so much to someone that they came back to it eagerly, they went over every word again. to love is to return and loving a fic is rereading it. thank you to all readers and rereaders <3333
SDV feels like it could so easily become a fairy story.
You move to a little coastal town where you begin recovering a plot of land, some of the locals take a shine to you and you to them. It's nice, homey. Everyone is welcoming except for the established town grumps.
Suddenly you realize you never leave town. Everything you want is obtainable at the little mom'n'pop general store, or from some of the locals themselves. You never go into the city to sell goods because the mayor does it for you- right? You never really see him do it. You just lie down in bed and wake up in the morning. When was the last time you dreamed?
You need new shoes and the adventurers club sells you handmade leather boots that fit perfectly despite never asking for a shoe size. Your clothes sew themselves when you lay a bolt of fabric and a random item onto the sewing machine- you blink and it's done.
The general store sells fertilizers that turn your garden plot into a verdant field. You spend all day harvesting crops with tools that gleam silver, gold, purple. Saplings grow over a month into fully productive fruit trees, your beehives drop jars of honey into your hands.
The blacksmith cracks open geodes full of polished gemstones. There's a man in the woods who says he found you in the mines but you were 80 levels deep. The elevator works but the minecarts don't. You gave a diamond to a local girl and she ate it like a plum.
Guillermo what were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament??
(ID in alt and under cut)
ID: 1. Waist up of The Guide and Nandor on a mottled peach background. The Guide leans toward him, twirling her hair with a free hand, and asks flirtatiously, "So are you a big spoon or a little spoon?" Nandor looks over questioningly while twiddling his hands. 2. Waist up of Nandor from the Guide's POV as he turns toward her and looms with an imperious grin, pressing his fingers to his chest. He replies, "I'm a knife." Laszlo and Nadja stand in the background behind him with Guillermo passing by behind them. In unison, all three turn their heads toward The Guide and say "He's a little spoon." 3. Repeat. Nandor whips his head toward the three, cheeks flushed and mouth screwed up in embarrassment. Nadja and Laszlo turn their heads toward Guillermo questioningly. Guillermo looks away awkwardly, face red and sweating. /end ID
(based on this post by @waterfire1848) what if: sokka and zuko befriend each other in ba sing se!! after the initial shock, they eventually trust each other and even get matching earrings! besties!!
[ID: This is a three panel comic of a conversation between Sokka in his regular outfit, and Zuko as the Blue Spirit, both drawn in warm colors during a sunset. The first panel is a panoramic view of the two sitting on top of a roof in the Ba Sing Se skyline, surrounded by artificial lights. In the second panel, Sokka attentively watches a serious Zuko saying: “Halloween is so stupid. Dressing up, pretending to be someone you’re not…”. In the third panel, Sokka grabs at Zuko’s shoulder with one hand and gestures wildly with another, telling him: “You are the Blue Spirit!”; to which, he only looks away embarrassed and softly responds: “I know…”. End ID]
I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:
It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).
Hiiii, any chance you’ll be carrying on with your fics Just Like You (I Want a Break) and Now and Then??? I never read crossover fics but I’m hooked!
Hi, yeah sorry I know its been a while but I'll be back to them!! After how long I've spent on Just Like You (I Want a Break) I think leaving it with 3 chapters unwritten would basically be a crime
having thick hair and going to get your hair cut is just having to listen to your hair dresser repeat over and over again how millions of people would commit despicable crimes to have your hair
charlie bushnell the actor that you ARE. the pain and resentment and horror on his face throughout that scene. his hesitation when he was about to kill percy. the simultaneous regret and determination. the fact that he hated annabeth seeing who he had become but like charlie said in an interview, is willing to do anything. luke is supposed to be an empathetic character. the way he narrated "look, I know you didn't want to be a halfblood" at the beginning of the episode paralleling percy, showing us just how easy it would have been for percy to end up like luke. both percy and the audience are supposed to understand exactly where luke is coming from, to empathise deeply with his disappointment in the gods and the desperation that resulted from it. and my god did charlie bushnell achieve that
I'm absolutely LIVING for the increase in luke and percy parallels, but something that's been rattling around my brain since I last listened to the lightning thief musical is that without luke, percy WOULD become him. I think that it's seeing the example of the cruelty and betrayal in luke that prevented percy from following the same path. he's horrified at how luke betrayed his friends, but luke believes he's doing it for the good of the demigods, just as percy would believe he's doing it for the good of his friends. percy is regularly disloyal to the gods by being loyal to his friends. he is saved from luke's fate simply because he came second and watched it unfold before him. I'm so sorry luke but you really are doomed by the narrative. you were always going to turn against the gods, even it it wasn't you. it had to happen.
rb this and tell me what ur accent is. this has no purpose except the fact i just realized i could have like... mutuals with cockney accents or newfoundland accents or something and thats just wild
•the solid hundred americans saying "idk general american". i dont know what that is so im gonna pretend you mean "I sound like a disney channel character"
•shoutout to whoever said "gay". also whoever said "autism".
•to those curious; 'newfoundland' accents are what everyone i know says to refer to the stereotypical "canadian accent" that bad american TV has, 'cause you're basically only gonna hear that in a random fishing town on the Maritimes' coast.
•the fact that almost every french person called their accent sexy
•all my fellow canadians who are saying "canadian but i dONT SOUND NEWFIE" like yes babe we are not all One Single Fishing Town Accent (no hate to the newfies tho ily)
•the one who said "i sound like siri. i have no accent" meanwhile siri is So Fucking Accented to my ears
•the amount of people with english as a second language in the notes who now love their accents <3 that's great, love urself
•everyone going "i'm TOLD i sound british. please not that"
•the one person who described their accent instead of just saying a word. they happened to be canadian and i was like "you just. absolutely and totally described how i talk"
•the amount of californians going "californian but i dONT SOUND SURFER OR VALLEY GIRL" like the US version of "im not newfie"
•the one single californian who was like "yeah i sound surfer. what are u gonna do about it"
alternate universe where instead of "glass half full" and "glass half empty" optimism and pessimism are expressed by the phrases "trapped in the labyrinth" and "still solving the labyrinth"
are you a “mark for later”, bookmarking unread fics on ao3, bookmarking unread fics on ur browser, 25 fic tabs open, or a “i’ll just find this later in my history” gay
AU where Mr. D claiming to be Percy’s dad accidentally counts as Claiming according to Greek god law or whatever and now all the other gods legitimacy believe Percy is his son, but if Mr. D corrects it, he has to explain to Zeus why he pretended he was Percy’s dad so now he’s like “YEP ol’ Perry Johansson is MY child wowie just look at the little fry, you have your mother’s eyes. Please stop standing next to water or you will blow my cover”
Meanwhile Poseidon is just standing off to the side like “how on earth did I dodge THAT bullet”
hey i was wondering what is happening with now and then and if it has been abandoned?
Hey, it has not been and I'm working on a new chapter, I was just busy for a while and then I broke my ankle and kind of destroyed all my motivation for a bit, but the update might be out tomorrow and, if not, will be posted within the week
So some of the ghosts were alive at the same time (which is very exciting to me!!!) so I drew them how it would look if they knew each other before they died
Humphrey (age 45) and Mary (age 4) - Mary wants to be returned to her mother as quickly as possible
Fanny (age 58) and the Captain (age 12) - he's tipping his cap to her because he's a polite young man and she would yell at him if he didn't
The Captain (age 45) and Julian (age 0-1) - this man should never be given a baby
Then Pat and Julian but I didn't draw them bc it would just be two babies staring at each other lol
equally fucked up alternate version of the orpheus and eurydice myth where i successfully bring the great love of my life back from the dead without looking back but the unresolved trauma of their death leaves me so scared of losing them a second time that i can't bear to look at them ever again
forever obsessed with percy being weird. off-putting. strange even. a cryptid maybe. an urban legend if I may. my boy is the son of one of the oldest, most powerful gods, has been in FBI's records since the age of twelve, fought and won two wars against immortal beings, went to hell and back. I think he's allowed to be a little odd.
I love the way that the swagger stick belonging to Havers recontextualises so many silly Captain scenes. When the Captain uses the stick as a microphone or a magic wand or anything like that, he's using the only thing he has left of the love of his life as an instrument for joy and I think that's beautiful
the "this wretched war" line makes me sick to my stomach like genuinely ill, I'm glad you understand.
WOAUGH because like the captain clings to the war so much. He uses it as a source of pride and he can go on and on about guns and tanks, but deep down he fucking hates it. He’s a sensitive man who wants nothing more than a sense of purpose, if that comes from international conflict, so be it. The war is a double edged sword for him, it gives him stability and purpose and allows him to be respected (somewhat) by others. But on the other hand it’s war and it fucking sucks and it’s stressful and he’s pretending to be something he’s not and he wants to be home for christmas and his love is on the frontline and he’s constantly wondering whether or not he is even alive.
To me “this wretched war” is more than just ‘aww he misses havers :(’ (though of course, that is enough to make me feral) to me it’s the fact that the captain has tied his entire identity to something that he despises, (the inherent self hatred the captain has is something that can be sooo personal) but he did it anyways because it’s the only thing that brought him and havers together
I’m… I’m so sorry for this, I didn’t realize how much I felt about that line until I started typing 😭
Here they are all together: 6x6 inch hand-embroidered hoops (except for Ghost Pigeon, they’re 4x4). It feels like ages ago I started this project, and here we are at the end and at the end of the series, too.
These are some of my favorite characters from any television series ever, and I really appreciate all the love everyone has shown these hoops. Thank you @gavinottesonart for creating these designs for me. I literally couldn’t stitch a stitch without you.
no but do you understand??? when cap learns how to relax with kitty, he ends the day by wandering in with his jacket off, the jacket with the medals and badges that were never his. do you get it??? he takes it off. just for a while he isn’t bound to it, he temporarily grants himself relief from it - something he put on the day he died, likely a source of so much shame and regret and embarrassment. he gives himself a reprieve from that reminder, slings it over his shoulder like an afterthought. that is fucking monumental character development!!! i love him so much truly one of the most characters of all time
Iconic Mike Cooper things people don’t talk about enough:
•The fact he types literally everything in comic sans. Dyslexic Mike confirmed?
•That time he ate a trifle in bed
•The fact he is THE SINGLE MOST impulsive man alive. He is literally so reckless with money. Why did he make like 80% of the decisions he ever made. Relatable king
•Thr fact he was willing to go sledding with the vicar multiple times
•The fact Humphrey isn't on Mike's ghost chart. Not directly a Mike thing but also an Alison thing.would Humph freak him out too much or what?
•The fact he video calls Obi the second he experiences any emotion or problem. Why is Obi your go-to guy. I love him but when has Obi literally ever offered any helpful advice
•The fact he keeps a wagon wheel in his pocket. King
Two bros undercover sneaking around the market, k i s s i n g, stealing each other’s food, getting caught in a summer storm, kissing some more, catching a cold, and so on.
Ghosts’ Larry Rickard Explains Why They Chose the Captain’s First Name
Photo: Monumental,Guido Mandozzi
It couldn’t be a joke. That was one rule laid down by the Ghosts creators when it came to choosing a first name for Willbond’s character. Until series five, the WWII ghost had been known only as The Captain – a mystery seized upon by fans of the show.
“It was the question we got asked more than anything. His name,” actor and writer Larry Rickard tells Den of Geek. “Once we got to series three, you could see that we were deliberately cutting away and deliberately avoiding it. We were fuelling the fire because we knew at some point we’d tell them.”
In “Carpe Diem”, the episode written by Rickard and Ben Willbond that finally reveals The Captain’s death story, they did tell us. After years of guessing, clue-spotting and debate, Ghosts revealed that The Captain’s first name is James. At the same time, we also learned that James’ colleague Lieutenant Havers’ first name was Anthony.
The ordinariness of those two names, says Rickard, is the point.
“The only thing we were really clear about is that we didn’t want one of those names that only exists in tellyland. It shouldn’t be ‘Cormoran’ or ‘Endeavour’. They should just be some men’s names and they’re important to them. The point was that they were everyday.”
Choosing first names for The Captain and Havers was a long process not unlike naming a baby, Rickard agrees. “It almost comes down to looking at the faces of the characters and saying, what’s right?”
“We talked for ages. For a long time I kept thinking ‘Duncan and James’, and then I was like ah no! That would have turned it into a gag and been awful!” Inescapably in the minds of a certain generation, Duncan James is a member of noughties boyband Blue. “Maybe with Anthony I was thinking of Anthony Costa!” Rickard says in mock horror, referencing another member of the band.
Lieutenant Havers wasn’t just The Captain’s second in command while stationed at Button House; he was also the man James loved. Because homosexuality was criminalised in England during James’ lifetime, he was forced to hide his feelings for Anthony from society, and to some extent even from himself.
In “Carpe Diem”, the ghosts (mistakenly) prepare for the last day of their afterlives, prompting The Captain to finally tell his story. Though not explicit about his sexual identity, the others understand and accept what he tells them – and led by Lady Button, all agree that he’s a brave man.
Getting the balance right of what The Captain does and doesn’t say was key to the episode. “It wasn’t just a personal choice of his to go ‘I’m going to remain in the closet’,” explains Rickard. “There wasn’t an option there to explore the things that either of them felt. That couldn’t be done back then – there are so many stories which have come out since the War about the dangers of doing that.
“We wanted to tell his personal story but also try to ensure that there was a level at which you understood why they couldn’t be open, that even in this moment where he’s finally telling the other ghosts his story, he never comes out and says it overtly because that would be too much for him as a character from that time.
“He says enough for them to know, and enough for him to feel unburdened but it’s in the fact that they’re using their first names which militarily they would never have done, and in the literal passing of the baton”.
The baton is a bonus reveal when fans learned that The Captain’s military stick wasn’t a memento of his career, but of Havers. As James suffers a fatal heart attack during a VE day celebration at Button House, Anthony rushes to his side and the stick passes from one to the other as they share a moment of tragic understanding.
“From really early on, we had the idea that anything you’re holding [when you die] stays with you. So it wasn’t just your clothes you were wearing, we had the stuff with Thomas’ letter reappearing in his pocket and so on. And the assumption being that it was something The Captain couldn’t put down, it felt so nice to be able to say it was something he didn’t want to put down.”
Rickard lists “Carpe Diem”, co-written with Ben Willbond, among his series five highlights. He’s pleased with the end result, praises Willbond’s performance, and loved being on set to see Button House dressed for the 1940s. He’s particularly pleased that a checklist of moments they wanted to land with the audience all managed to be included. “Normally something’s fallen by the wayside just because of the way TV’s made, it’s always imperfect or it’s slightly rushed, but it feels like it’s all there.”
Rickard and Willbond also knew by this point in the show’s lifetime, that they could trust Ghosts fans to pick up on small details. “Nothing is missed,” he says. “Early on, you’re always thinking, is that going to get across? But once we got to series five, there are little tiny things within corners of shots and you know that’s going to be spotted. Particularly in that very short exchange between Havers and the Captain. We worried less about the minutiae of it because you go, that’s going to be rewound and rewatched, nothing will be missed.”
The team were also grateful they’d resisted the temptation to tell The Captain’s story sooner. “We’d talked about it every series since series two, whether or not now was the time, but because he’s such a hard and starchy character in a lot of ways you needed the time to understand his softer side I think before you had that final honest beat from him.”
“What a ridiculously normal name to have so much weight put on it for five years,” laughs Rickard fondly. “Good old James.”
anyway have any of you ever thought about how Jason was raised by wolves and then an army and told he had to be the best so he became the best, made himself the best using his experiences and power, who has to prove himself time and time again to the people who made him, and then he meets Percy Jackson who, with almost none of Jason’s training, without having been raised and molded into a leader, is better than him
Percy Jackson, who had a childhood, who had a mom, who seems all the better for it. Jason can finish his quests and missions and get a pat on the back and congratulations for bringing honor to the Legion and nothing else because that’s what’s expected of him, while Percy gets hugs and cookies and tears of relief and so much love because people had been hoping he’d succeed, not because it meant victory, but because it meant he'd live.
all of the things Jason’s gone through to make him that perfect leader and soldier feel like they were all for nothing because he looks at Percy Jackson and sees that perfect leader and soldier and none of the things that made Jason good are what made him great
i think the most fun thing a character can be is a hypocrite. i wanna watch them tie themselves (and their principles) into knots rationalizing their behavior, or give up and embrace their hypocrisy. or, ideally, both
i definitely get attached to ao3 commenters. i'll be writing a scene and be like omg.. user buttslapperdean4 left me a nice comment four months ago. this ones for u babe
Perhaps the reason the ghosts are ghosts is not because they haven't come to terms with something that happened in their life but to fulfil their overall life, they need7 to gain something in the ghosts life they were missing from their past life.
The common factor between all the ghosts past lives is that they were lonely people.
Robin never talks about his past life very fondly nor the people in it.
Julian was a dick politican that distanced himself from his family.
Kitty grew up in an abusive family household.
The Captain is a repressed gay man in the 1940s
Thomas was a romantic loser
Humphery lived a loveless life
Pat's wife was cheating on him with his best friend
Fanny was pushed into marriage with a man that would never love her.
Mary was an outcast in her community
Perhaps they move on when they finally feel accepted and loved by the people around them.
OK, but can we all just have a moment for The Captain and Havers using each other's names, because that was an absolute stroke of genius in the writing of this scene.
They can't say how they feel. They can't have an open confession. They are being watched by a room full of army officers, they are risking so much by even holding hands while The Captain dies.
Havers stops The Captain short when he's trying to confess. The little "I know". They can't say how they feel, but they both know what they want to say.
But then this happens
Using each other's names.
Not their rank. Not sir. Not even surnames.
Their names.
It's so subtle but it is so incredibly powerful. It's personal. It's intimate. It's a confession without words.
I will never get over it.
The way Havers hands him the stick because he is reaching for his face and they're in this hostile room and they can't have a moment like that. The way the swagger stick let's Havers hold his hand. The way they can't linger, the way once Cap dies Havers has to stand up and move his hand away. The way I love this show
Okay but the way havers is a MAJOR now (good for him my son is going places) and the way he still calls cap “sir” when he sees him again despite outranking him AUGH DO YOU GET IT?
Havers’ whole thing is giving cap the respect he deserves as he dies, the swagger stick, “sir”, treating him with common human decency, oughhhhhhh
Even in the redding weddy flashback havers is the ONLY one who respects cap in any sort of way
Don’t get me started on “I… I…” “I know…” BECAUSE I WILL START THROWING UP AND CRYING
Sorry but the differences between Cap and Thomas' deaths mean so much to me, like
Thomas died alone believing he was unloved, Thomas should have been surrounded by people but they left, Thomas thought he died for love but he didnt die for anything at all, he has to carry around a token of his cousins betrayal that he thought for so freaking long was a token of his love's rejection
And then Cap. Cap dies holding someone's hand, his death is intimate and personal and terrifying and he is surrounded by so many people and he shouldn't have been, it should have been just him and Havers, he wouldn't have died if it was. He had no intention of dying for love but he did, but he did die loved. And he has a token of that love that he can't put down and maybe it would be easier to but it just isn't possible. Havers is always there with him in a way, there is nothing that can change that. He wears those upside down medals and I'm sure they are a symbol of so much shame but he also carries Havers and his love and his respect.
Thomas lived a life with so much hope for love and died without it. Cap had no hope for love and he got it, right at the end.
Yeah, yeah, Zuko can't tell jokes. But it's time we give credit where credit's due and acknowledge "maybe a chicken flew over" as one of the funniest lines in the whole damn show. King.
Normalize going into people’s ask boxes and ask them random ass questions.
Tumblr used to be so much fun with all the asks (anonymous or otherwise), and we need to bring those back, especially now that we finally have a half-decent blocking feature in place.
Ask people things! Message them! Don’t let tumblr inbox die! It’s one of the features that made tumblr tumblr.
i don’t write fanfic for other people to read. i write fanfic because there is a concept rattling around in my skull and if i don’t get it out my head will explode
I think hardback books look nice but I don't actually like reading them--I can't with dust jackets, I have to take them off and then remember where I put them and the actual books themselves are just so much less convenient. Please let me bend the cover, please let the book not have owie corners, please release new books in paperback form sooner
[ID: The image is a variation of the “I do not control the speed at which lobsters die” meme which is from the show “Drake and Josh”. In the image there is a man looking exasperated. He is labeled as “fanfic writers” and is saying “I do not control the speed at which my fics are written”. END ID]
the one thing i want to be able to do as a writer is make people come back to something ive written. i want that piece of text to haunt them, i want their thoughts to be briefly consumed by this. i want this to be something they remember long after its time. thats the one thing i want to do
loved the new Now and Then chapter!! so excited to read about clarisse!
i just gotta say that the comments of the chap was the last place i expected to read spoilers for chalic of the gods, no matter how minor they might be sob
Thank you so much!! I'm very excited about writing Clarisse into Now and Then.
I don't mind minor spoilers but yeah. I also was not expecting to find them there
ALSO SORRY I FORGOT TO ADD I didn't realize it was Silena that was very cool! The Criminal Minds characters side-eyeing Percy and his weirdness were great, and I'm very excited to see how they handle Clarisse! Thank you!!!
It was a lot of fun for me to see people trying to guess who the girl was, a lot of people guessed Silena, a few didn't have any guesses, a few suggested maybe Thalia--I think based on the fact that they were trying to think of female PJO characters with dark hair.
I write a lot of fanfic over on Ao3 (Deerlie_03) if you ever wanna check it out, it's mostly Percy Jackson. I'm a big fan of trying to navigate the crossover in a way that is fun for me personally and I have been assured by my comments that I'm not completely terrible at it, so yay!
This Tumblr is for my brain worms, but also for questions, chats, and maybe fic requests (for fandoms I write for or interact with only please, someone once asked me to write Star Wars fic and I'm sorry but I know nothing) and whatever else I decide (probably things like updates on what I'm working on, if updates are late, etc.). If you care to, you can check out some of what I've drawn on deerlie-art here on Tumblr too.
Because I reread it recently and it's a personal favourite, I'll leave my original Percy Jackson and Criminal Minds crossover here
