Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

something I think we as a fandom don't talk about enough is the fact that during his first guide mission grover was 14. And satyrs age half the rate of humans.

grover was emotionally and mentally seven years old. seven. of course he couldn't save everyone he was seven years old!!!!

People retrofitting pro-queer politics to thought-systems that did not originally have them is always at least a little bit funny. I follow a feng shui guy on Instagram because he’s got an eye for interior design and a while ago he posted about #pride and how it’s actually bad feng shui for a gay guy to have to marry a straight woman because men are gay due to having more feminine energy and women have feminine energy so two feminine energies don’t go together, so gay people shouldn’t have to try to be straight... He was dead serious btw

To me, Machete kind of has the energy of a secondary villain/coldhearted side character in someone else's story that a lot of fans latch onto, moreso than the protagonist. Question is, would he be the villain in anyone's story?

Why, thank you! I'm actually glad to hear he gives off that vibe. I don't think he set out to become a villain but a lot of people certainly view him as one.

pretty old AU idea by now but basically the TTG gremlins are 1) very small and 2) infest the TTA tower like cockroaches

and 3) TTA starfire wont let TTA robin kill them

AU where Phoenix is a drama teacher and Edgeworth is an English teacher and they’re both really weird about Shakespeare

Or

drama teacher!Phoenix and dance teacher! Edgeworth have to work together for a high school play without trying to kill each other (it gets real fuckin close)

Heya! Sorry it’s late (as usual) but here it is! My piece for BillDip Secret Santa for @pchelaus .. hope you like my take on “Cosmic horror beyond our comprehension Bill taking a liking to flattered but confused Dipper.” !

I had a lot of fun with what features to add to give the whole ‘cosmic horror’ feel but you can never go wrong with some star speckled tentacles and extra sets of eyes lol.

I made a note document titled "Hobie and Noir's Stupid Words"

I really sat here and took notes while watching 1970's films that took place in London, and 1930's films that took place in NYC to study their turns of phrase, idioms, insults, and so on. I feel like an insane person.

Anyways how has your day been? Productive?

Introducing the Erased AU!!! or as I like to call it: The Mysterious Disappearance of Normally Oak

Hehehehe I actually came up w/ this back in May (with the help of @kaseyskat <3) but it's been modified to be more canon compliant since some recent things got the brain gears turning :]c

The premise is essentially Norm and Dood do some. very silly goofs. aka w/out telling anyone Normal decides to go back to the Doodler's home dimension w/ Dood to keep them company and through some magic shenanigans everyone now has no recollection of Normal or the Doodler apocalypse- everything is a picturesque happy ending... or is it?

Sparrow is the first to realize something's up due to her new art studio being where Normal's bedroom used to be, but the others aren't very far behind. They all have to put the clues they discover together in order to figure out what happened and bring Normal back. Speaking of, I dunno how long a human can last in an eldritch dimension after all...

EDIT:

1 2 3 4

irt poverty/homelessness + alcohol use (esp with @butchfeygela‘s tags on my post)- people really underestimate the function that substance use/alcohol use can have for someone who is unhoused. being unhoused is boring, cold, painful, + lonely. substances can allow the 8 hours panhandling to get the $45 you need for a motel to fly by. alcohol reduces your perception of the cold + can knock you out whben you can’t sleep. substances can help you cope with the physical deterioration from malnutrition, constant stress, + sleeping outside. substances can provide social connection with others who you would otherwise not enjoy or help you cope with being alone.

not only that but- many unhoused people are stuck in a seemingly inescapable position. the pathway to financial stability or even housing is difficult or even impossible. in the wake of that hopelessness, the downsides of substance use start to seem insignificant. arrest? you’re getting arrested anyway for sleeping outside, peeing outside, standing in the wrong place, etc. physical danger? you’re already beat the fuck up, anyway, right? loss of relationships? you’ve lost most people already. inability to keep a job? nobody will hire you + you can’t stay employed, anyway, because you have no car + no shower.

perhaps for you or me, the cons of heroin use or binge drinking nightly greatly outweigh the pros. that isn’t the case for everyone. if we are really serious about ending overdose/addiction, we need to start looking at giving people lives worth recovering into instead of shaming them for their own hopelessness.

This is a small thing, but I do really enjoy that we've now gotten confirmation that Roland grew up poor, since it adds an interesting dimension to his relationship to the rest of the church.

The chasseurs aren't just militant religious extremists. By and large, they're wealthy and insular militant religious extremists. The lower level chassuers most likely come from a wider base, but among the paladins, coming from established chasseur families seems to be quite common. Astolfo comes from a line of paladins, Olivier seemingly did as well, and though we don't know anything about Gano's family, he apparently grew up comfortable enough to belittle Roland for being poor.

And like, of course this is the case. Of course the violent hateful Catholics are a group full of generational wealth and classism. Of course the anti-vampire extremists were raised in whole families of anti-vampire extremists.

And by the same token, of course the paladin most willing to question what he's been told about vampires is the paladin that comes from outside their insular ranks. Roland is a chasseur because wants to help people, and if Gano is to be believed, he's also in it for the money. Hunting vampires is a job that Roland genuinely believes in, but at the end of the day, it's a job. It's a field he chose to enter into. He doesn't define himself entirely by his occupation of vampire hunter.

It's always going to be easier to brainwash someone if that brainwashing is what they've known for their entire life. Of course the outsider perspective comes from the paladin that's the biggest outsider in other ways. And of course someone that's been looked down upon by society is more receptive to questioning societal presumptions about evil.

None of this is revolutionary, but it's very fitting, and I'm pleased to have it confirmed.

Thinking about Irkens having little to no concept of bodily autonomy. They don't get to chose whether or not they want children, they're bred to be sterile. They're bred to be unable to experience sexual pleasure or desire or even platonic affection. They're bred to be incapable of living without an invasive inorganic life-support system implanted at birth and then coded and re-encoded throughout their lives to serve the Empire in whatever way the Control Brains see fit. They spend their entire childhood being trained for a career they weren't allowed to choose. Jobs are assigned to them and they can't leave unless they are fired or transferred to another position by someone with higher authority. They don't even get to choose how they dress. Everyone wears either a generic uniform or a uniform specific to their job.

Is it any wonder then why "Invader" is such a coveted job? It's the only one that allows Irkens any amount of freedom.

What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?

(an exploration of andreas over the course of 25 years, plus quotes)

Just so all of you know this was based off of this cursed post

Essentially, the Rise Turtles' bird ass feet should be capable of perching on surfaces by curling their toes around them

....as well as picking things up with them

@hatterladz

as a 16th century clergyman what does machete think of the printing press

I think by the time he was born the printing press had been around for almost a century and a half, so I'd reckon the society as a whole was largely past it's initial novelty and controversy. Machete himself is bookish and nerdy, he's very invested in gathering knowledge about various topics and trying to piece together a good picture of how the world works. Getting access to reading material would be a lot harder if every book was still copied individually by hand. His standards are pretty high though, there's a lot of poorly translated, shoddily printed and flimsily bound books around and he's prone to scrunching his nose at them.

Ok, but the reason Ferdinand loves Myne so much is because she was the first person to love him unconditionally. Now I'm not saying Ferdinand wasn't loved, clearly Sylvester loves his brother dearly, but because of how Yurgenschmidt works no one was in a position to love Ferdinand just as is. Something else in their lives had to take precedence over him, but for Myne, Ferdinand was a priority. She put him first, and no one in his life has. For the first time, someone cared about him openly without fear of repercussions, and needless to say, that fact resonated with him.