Mini Prompt

"It's me or him, Bruce!" Jason screamed, green covering his vision as he held a gun to the Joker's head.

"Pull the trigger."

"What?!"

Batman Bruce His Dad simply tilted his head, voice quiet, emotionless almost.

"I have decapitated that thing no less than three times for what he did to you. Pull the trigger."

I'm done arguing about oldest or middle child Techno, this is a safe space for youngest!Techno truthers only

tfw you come together and maximize ur joint hella good genes slay

the result of that joint slay:

FMA fic I'm never going to write:

Hoenheim's lifespan and continued existence is entirely tied to the hundreds of thousands to possibly millions of dead his soul eats off of, slowly leeching life from the dead kingdom of Xerxes.

...It stands to reason, then, when begetting life, that spiritual artefacts make themselves known in the begotten sons of the dead. There are only four that can claim true heritage of Xerxes— the immortal, the synthesized man, and the heirs to the memories of a long-gone people.

Or. Well. Gone in body, certainly. But that's hardly stopped anyone from wanting to step up and parent.

funniest answer for "what happened during Jason's fight with Krios" is, rather than Jason having a physical one-on-one unarmed fight with Krios, Jason just tears Krios a new one re: legislation by chewing him out for unauthorized activity in a state park. Because one of Jupiter's big aspects is law!

Jason sends the entirety of the Titan Army forces in California marching out of Mt. Tam State Park with their tails between their legs with one strongly worded argument and some threats to inform San Francisco Fish & Wildlife. And he gets made praetor for it.

If Blade and Dan Heng weren't at odds with each other and still in love, they might not be involved in the plot at all. They'd most likely be on an eternal honeymoon (and too busy taking advantage of Blade's immortality for nasty sex stuff probably), which is bad because the plot needs them in order to happen according to Elio

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

Texas [at some eventual ultimate point of time] : FLORIDAAA, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!

Florida [whipping out his phone very calmly and starting to text] : Wait let me ask Gov first.

Texas : That's not how this wor-

Florida : He said no.

Texas :

Florida :

Texas :

Florida : Byyyyeeeee!

Texas : OH NO YOU GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHI-

People should stop writing the Olympians as family who hate each other and more like family who love each other so so so much (less, more, depends on the person. Maybe their love is the “I would do anything for you” and maybe it is “I will do anything to you”. Maybe it's kind maybe it's harmful. It's love. And sometimes — maybe, not all of them, but sometimes — they hate it) but are also toxic and unable to show it properly, which results in some very bad but fun dynamics where they hurt each other, knowingly or unknowingly, and don't know how/can't bear to apologize

*lies on the floor thinking about how Halsin still thinks about his mom and dad*

something something no matter how old someone is, they were someone's baby once

not a fan of dadow but shit man it does kinda make sense sometimes idk

Enemies to Friends to Lover

Is one of my favorite romantic trope ever!

Especially when there is the crazy one, who bring trouble and caos but who also just wanted to be love

And then there is the calm one, who at the start doesn't want anything to do with theme but in the end they developed complicated feeling for the crazy one and then helped them become a better person by offering support and, most important, love.

In a way there are also Luz and Amity who fit the trope but they are reversed (the calmer one needed to be saved and loved be the chaotic one)

My crack theory for ATN is that John will use Kiriona to preserve the sun (and the nine houses) by transferring the 'godhood' to her, which is why he didn't resurrect her in a regular body but in an immortal one, also why he's been flaunting her as his heir tower prince yadda yadda, so he can go fuck off and become mortal again and live the rest of his days on earth, frying that bacon Tamsyn talked about.

The tension of the book will either be him failing in doing that or succeeding and now they have the job to turn Kiriona mortal again.

With this also fulfilling the generational ructions she talks about.

If anything, John is crafty, and it'd be foolish of us to think he doesn't have a plan, what that plan is gonna try to achieve is where I fall flat, but we know the first step has been completed: the Tomb is open and Alecto is free (and if we consider those dreams are his actual connection to Alecto, he might've known about Harrow's soul swap and getting her back was also part of the plan).

The way Chloe Gong pulls off fake deaths the way she does is an amazing testament to her skill as an author.

Usually fake deaths cheapen the blow of losing a character. You have to go through all of the emotional turmoil of losing a beloved character and watch everyone mourn them only for everything to be okay because actually they were kind of integral to the plot and the author needs them but also they also wanted to make the book sad for a little bit but hey everything is okay now!

But Chloe Gong doesn't do this. She gets you invested in what you usually know from the start is a doomed story. She makes you very desperately want to believe that the character that you know is going to die won't die. And then. She kills them.

And it's horrible. You mourn for them. You have to watch the other characters react to the death. But most of the time, it's a fake death. And even if you know or suspect this from the beginning, it still hurts, often just as much, if not more, than it would if the death were real.

And not just because of the way she writes grief, which gets more and more painful with each new book she releases. But instead of killing off a character for a quick gut punch and bringing them back because they were actually way too important to kill and she needs them for the plot, she uses fake deaths to create these absolutely insane scenarios that are often, at least in my opinion, more painful then just killing off the character.

When Marshall fake died, for example, she could've just had him die and forced Juliette to deal with the grief and guilt of killing her friend as well as the implications of Marshall's death for her relationship with Roma plus everyone else's grief and then created a weird situation where Roma can just,,, get over her killing Marshall and still like her. Instead, she creates this absolutely insane situation where Juliette is still grieving for the loss of her relationship with Roma, and Roma and Ben are grieving for Marshall all with Marshall still being alive. And rather than just using Marshall as a plot device to be sacrificed to make the other characters more interesting, she makes him more interesting as well. She forces him to watch as Benedikt and Roma grieve for him, making his relationship with both of them, as well as Juliette more interesting in the process.

And then when Roma and Juliette fake died at the end of OVE, even if you suspected it, it being fake doesn't take away from the pain very much, especially knowing what happens in Foul Lady Fortune. Alisa, whose only real family was arguably Roma and Benedikt, is left behind to raise herself and she is too afraid to check to see if Roma and Juliette are really dead. Because if they are dead, then she's truly alone, clinging onto the false belief that hope won out while everything she ever knew disintegrates around her. Plus, even though Benedikt and Marshall figure out pretty quickly that the death was fake, they're still forced to cope with the grief and guilt of having had a hand in the situation and forced to flee the country with only each other, thrust into a world where their best friends are dead and the hope that they are relying on to get themselves away from everything is based on the same sense of hope that ultimately lead to the "deaths" of Roma and Juliette. And then there's the cruelty of the sense of responsibility Rosalind feels for their deaths. And how after they died, she became deathly ill, but like them, was inexplicably saved. But she can't move on from their deaths and spends every waking hour and every unsleeping night of her immortal life trying to put the broken world they left behind back together. And Celia sees Alisa and Rosalind regularly. As she watches two people who she cares about immensely suffer for years after the deaths occurred, she can't say anything. Even though her first loyalty is to her sister, she's forced to watch Rosalind grieve and become a ghost of a person who seems to derive purpose solely from the pursuit of an impossible mission. And Roma and Juliette, who so deeply wanted to make the city better are forced to watch as things get worse and worse and the people that they seemingly sacrificed everything to save continue to suffer.

In Foul Lady Fortune, the fake deaths are a little different. So far, the only characters who have fake died are Dao Feng and Lady Hong, the later of which falls into this trope a bit more loosely. In Dao Feng's case, it leads to worry then betrayal on Rosalind's part. Her worry was all for nothing, and she's once again put in a place where one of the few people she dared to care about has left her and likely never truly cared about her in return (at least as of the end of FLF). Assuming that he did genuinely care about her based on As You Like It, I am very interested to see how this ends up playing out.

Lady Hong's case is somewhat similar. Although we never really think with absolute certainty that Lady Hong died, Orion suspects that his father could have done something to her and has no concrete explanation for her disappearance. He grieves her absence even though her relationship with him was always iffy at best. Only to find out that she never cared for him as anything other than a tool for her to take advantage of. Like Rosalind, he is left feeling used and as if all of his grief and pain were for nothing.

(Hiding the part below this because of huge Immortal Longings spoilers)

In Immortal Longings, you know that either Calla or Anton is going to have to die at the end because of the structure of the games. And as their relationship progresses, you dread the resolution more and more. You want a fake death. You want them to find some hole in the rules that will allow them both to survive. And Calla comes up with a plan that allows this. She gives you false hope. She lets you cling to the idea that the horrible ending you can so clearly see coming won't happen. And then that hope is snatched away, and you're even closer to the ending. And you know what's coming. You know that Anton has to die. And then the final crumb of hope is snatched away from you and they're in the ring together. And just when it's too late, Anton tells Calla that they could run for the wall together. He's finally willing to set aside Otta Avia, without who they wouldn't even be there in the first place. But it's too late. Because this is bigger than either of them. And Calla knows that she has to kill him. And she sinks her knife into his back in some of the most excruciating paragraphs I have read in my life. You see Anton realize that although he was willing to make a run for it with her, she has bigger plans. She isn't doing him a kindness by killing him first, and even though she may be planning on ending her own life as well soon, she cares more about killing King Kasa than she ever did about him. So when, at the very end, it is revealed that Anton somehow survived, it's somehow a million times worse than if he had actually died. Even though you so desperately wanted the book to not end in on or both of them dying, this isn't what you wanted. Now, he's alive and remembers just how willing she was to sink a knife through his back. And Calla must grieve for him all over again because even though he's alive, she surely can never truly have him back after what she did.

In conclusion, Chloe Gong is a legend and a genius. Thank you for coming to my tedtalk I guess.

Currently thinking about how sad it would be for an elf MC to have a family with a non-elven LI. Like, it's bad enough that you'll outlive your partner, but your children, too? Because as half-elves, I'd assume their lifespans would be longer than regular humans' but still shorter than full elves'. Also, if MC takes on the job of helping Mal run the orphanage, they'll outlive those kids, too :(

choose your fighter: Immortals After Dark epigraphs edition