#& it broke the discord character limit

[spookierz]

honestly i think if someone came up to me & asked me “whats your one quick trick for being happy in life” i’d tell them to become a fan of garfield

because when there’s something you like or something your a fan of & you see it going about your day to day life it instantly makes your day so much better you know?? if you lovveeeee snails & u see a snail ur day will be amazing even if some parts of it where shit because you saw a snail

& if you see garfield in your day to day life ur life will be so much better because ur seeing something you love you know? & seeing something you love makes you happy. & i think the real magic of garfield is how he is *everywhere,* but only if your looking for him. hes just prevalent enough that hes around every corner but hes not spilling out the edges in a way that gets on ur nerves like some other mainstream things. like its actually really really easy to find garfield in ur day to day life- show’s constantly reference him, hes a household name, he’s stuck to the inside of car windows. hes easy as hell to find if you look & when you find him your gonna be happy

hes also just really easy to love. hes stupid & mean but he’s relatable, its easy to project a part of yourself you may not like without feeling any shame. everyone is a little slothful & everyone hates mondays, but you cant get mad at garfield for that because he’s a blameless cat whos just doing what cats do. hes flawed so no one looks at him & feels an expectation to be more like him, no one looks at garfield & feels guilt because they arent following in his footsteps, but no one looks at garfield & feels shame because they relate to him too much. if you relate to garfield, you get a good chuckle. if you dont relate to garfield, you dont exist.

so yeah basically being a fan of garfield gives you a basically infinite source of joy bc even if you aren’t actively directly consuming the insane amount of content he has you still get dopamine boosts from having him in ur surroundings plus garfield is a blameless & relatable character that’s difficult to dislike but he still feels (& is!) human & real & solid so i think hes pretty great & he definitely makes me happy

#garfield #spookier writing #spookier #yeah sorry idk wtf happened i was trying to type a small paragraph #to send as a conversation starter #& it broke the discord character limit #spookier saying things

[burr-ell]

Yeah, this whole situation is messed up and the fact that these scumbags think it's okay to abuse and harass someone for stating an otherwise harmless opinion that wasn't even about their fave and then cry about being the oppressed by the "tumblr clout chasers" as they called us really makes them worse than the Voltron fandom.

honestly i'm reluctant to classify almost any fandom as being worse than the voltron fandom (simply because for all the nasty things they've done, i've not heard of any fe3h fans blackmailing intsys or koei to get them to declare crimson flower the One True Route or whatever; and for its faults, 3h is not nearly the tire fire that vld became), but it's definitely up there.

like, it's not enough that edelstans have their own spaces; they have to have everyone else's spaces, too. it's so childish and privileged. and honestly, i think most people were perfectly content to let them have their own blogs and their own subreddit; the only time anyone's really put their foot down has been when they've actively been trying to hurt real people, almost like a well-adjusted adult knows that real human beings are more important than pngs.

(also like. Very Incheresting that the only people they're willing to go after with this level of intensity are the people who identify as male. boy howdy shucks golly gee, it's almost as if they know they'd look bad for harassing the many, many women and people of color and lgbtq people who think the same things and have said them just as loudly. or perhaps they don't think any of those people could ever really hold those opinions without being brainwashed? either way, as far as i'm concerned, it's just bigotry in a funny hat.)

#gods i feel like being in vld qualifies me for a veterans' discount. especially shipping a rarepair #one time i was asked to give a longform explanation of vld discourse and took like an hour to write it #i broke discord character limit multiple times #i feel like i'm still typing it to this day #edelgard discourse #edelgard critical #fe3h discourse #asks

[powdermelonkeg]

Something websites (*cough* Tumblr *cough*) need to learn is that what retains an audience isn't an abundance of new bells and whistles to play with, it's a coherent experience overall.

When someone joins a website, you don't need to grab their attention and hold it. They're already testing the waters. They've agreed to sign up. You've won on that front, and they're there for something specific you already have that they're hoping works well.

What drives them away is frustration.

Frustration, frustration, frustration.

Learning curves are going to be a part of any new website experience; they're something the user comes to terms with, in their own time. But broken or bad features are going to make them jump sites.

On top of that, constantly adding new features makes them feel like all the hard work they've put in to learning what you have isn't worth it; your website looks unstable and your staff looks incompetent, because it gives the impression that you don't know what you're doing.

You are floundering. It makes your new users nervous. It makes your old users hesitate to bring anyone else on board. And why should they? Why should they put effort into it if you're going to throw that effort away next Tuesday? Why get used to a UI that you're not going to bother to keep? Why customize anything if you're going to whittle that customization away?

Between that and the broken, unattended features of this site—the tag organization failing, the inability to look up posts word-for-word, the video player either refusing to play or yanking you to the top of the dashboard, images taking forever to load, advertisements blaring at full volume when you scroll past, you have your problem.

You have the reason why your numbers are failing.

It's not that you're not interesting enough.

It's not that you're too difficult to understand.

It's that you aren't improving what you have, yet you keep adding more half-broken things and unwanted copycat features to the pile.

It's that you're losing your identity in pursuit of a hypothetical perfect customer.

It's that you are actively telling your user base that you prefer those hypothetical customers over them. And your user base, your real people who make you happen, are smart enough to know where your priorities lie.

The bulk of this post talks about Tumblr, but other sites have gone the same way. Twitter is dead and its corpse is decaying in the street. Reddit has sabotaged any trust its users had in its management. If you'd like a really old example—I used to use Fanfiction Net. It's not the most intuitive website in the world, but it was the first one I called home.

I used it to host my works. The adware now on it makes it a hassle to navigate. The bots make comment sections and private messages a dread rather than a joy. So I moved on.

I also used to use it to collaborate on stories with my now-roommate. The message limit was 300 a day. When you're writing dialogue between characters, that's nothing.

So I moved on. We started messaging on Facebook. It was better, it didn't have a limit. But then I learned Discord existed, and I could edit messages, make dedicated channels, etc. So I moved on from Facebook to Discord. And Discord had a steep learning curve, especially if you're trying to make your own server rather than contribute to one. But, most importantly, the payoff was worth it.

If Discord changed its layout every other month while I was learning it, and broke how its reactions worked, and kept shifting what it meant to create a channel? If it opted me into servers I didn't sign up for, in hopes of engagement? If its text never formatted correctly, or its search function only went back a day or two?

I would have gone right back to Facebook. Even if it's a more basic experience, basic is always preferable to unstable.

Figure out what you want, websites.

Slow growth, or a gamble?

You're paying for your magic slot machine in users.

#negative salt #long post #this has been on my mind a lot lately

[vampucci]

MUTUAL AID + ART COMMISSIONS

Latasha is a 17 year old kid who recently got a place to stay through a housing program after being homeless for several years. Within the last two months she’s had the cops called on her for going in a gym to get out of the cold, gotten pneumonia, been diagnosed with severe asthma, gone to the ER twice, found out she was on the hook for the previous tenant’s unpaid electrical bill, and she’s had to pay out of pocket for expensive medication to survive multiple times. She recently had to evacuate her apartment building because the heating was off during a winter storm, and then when her case manager made complaints, the landlord filed a restraining order against her and Latasha was evicted. She was unable to get her stuff back before being placed in her new unit.

She has absolutely nothing and has been struggling through a terrible commute to work with no bed to sleep on. I’ve been donating everything I can but I’m broke so there’s nothing I can do to help her out, and she has no family or friends in the area.

So donate to her venmo @latashasmith63112 to get a fun picture from me!!! 😎

I mostly do single-character illustration (so stuff like OCs, DnD characters, your special guy), but I can and will draw anything within reason—just ask. For OCs I’d like some form of reference.

Any donation below $25 will be more sketchy, may be B&W or have a few colors. Opt for a bust for slightly more detail, full body for less.

Any donation of $25 or more can have color, more detail, simple shading and/or a partial background.

Any donation of $50 or more or so you can request more complicated color & shading, multiple characters, and/or a full environment.

Any donation of $100 or more can have all that and be more complex and detailed. I can paint it. I’ll do whatever. I would paint horses for this much. It’ll take a bit longer the more you want from me though.

You’re free to negotiate! These are very loose guidelines because I’m happy to be flexible if it encourages you to donate, so if you want something and only have so much to give, ask me anyway.

For more examples check out my tag. (I can also draw women, I promise)

I rarely take commissions, so there’s currently no limit to how many I’ll take on. I will keep you updated with your expected timeline (smaller donations will take less time).

Just send me a screenshot showing that you donated! (I will also check with Latasha to verify that she got it.) Donate to: latashasmith63112

You can send me a Tumblr ask with your screenshot or email me at [email protected]. (don’t use Tumblr’s message feature because I won’t get the notification.) My Discord is vampucci. I’ll usually respond within about a day. If you don’t have venmo let me know and I’ll work something out.

(If for whatever reason you don’t care about the art, feel free to just send her money. I will be grateful forever if you do, or if you share the post. She’s a really sweet, thoughtful kid and any help she can receive that brings her joy and relief in an unimaginably cruel world is something truly special. Thanks!)

#jjba #jojo’s bizarre adventure #diopucci #dio brando #enrico pucci #homestuck #sorry to tag browsers but it does count. they are in the post

[edith-is-a-cat]

Who would you take on Vacation? (Twst)

This was something I typed up in discord and broke the character limit Two types of vacation: Chilling - just a vacation where you aren't really bouncing around and mostly going places like hot springs, places chill like that. Mainly on vacay to chill and vibe Experiencing - BOUNCING AROUND PLACE TO PLACES, COME ON LETS GO its the asscrack of dawn You do things like have a big plan and you gotta stick to that plan (but yes rest is built in)

The people I would take on a chill vacay and why - Idia - He will not be waking anyone up early, in fact I bet he would be fussy if anyone woke him up before 10 or 11. He would be down to chill places and just play or his phone/switch/ect. (He might also be fine with being payer for the trip) Ortho - Ortho has access to google and a database that probably bigger than the sun at all times. He would be the best for finding places to chill out. Cater - HE WOULD KNOW EVER NEAT LITTLE SPOT. He'll probably also be a sleeper but he will just be able to turn a corner and point out the best restaurant or cafe ever (xoxo to social media) Jamil - STRAPPING THIS POOR MAN TO A BED AND MAKING HIM SLEEP-- he needs to be here he needs rest. Silver - Plan: laying him over Jamil so they both sleep. Riddle - Needs and entire break from his dorm and mother.. No Riddle you will not be calling her every night in fact I will be taking your phone away at night, now do you want a strawberry tart? heard there is a lovely bakery just down the street from the hotel Ruggie - LAY DOWN YOU AIN'T GOING TO BE REPAYING ANYONE RUGGIE YOU GONNA BE CHILLING ISTG Epel - There will be no Vil or Rook to tell you what to wear or do now you can lay back and take a nap (he will just die if we find any place to cuddle cows) Leona - He will love this he will be sleeping everywhere and anywhere (add him to the Jamil pile)

Experiencing - Trey - Well planned and keeping the next two in line Ace - He will complain about be woken up at seven but he will be so happy when we go to an interactive museum (He's running around with Deuce like two little kids) Deuce - Will not complain about be woken up early he is actually VERY excited Kalim - Bouncing off the walls (he loves new experiences) Though we may have to put him with relaxing with Jamil (poor Jamil he will never escape him) Octrio - Azul Is basically here to keep the tweels on a leash and you can not tell me he is the best person to haggle for prices. The tweels are just excited to be on vacay especially Floyd he wants to see EVERYTHING but will complain about being woken up at 7 Vil - HE IS OUR MAIN PLANNER HE KNOWS EVERYTHING AND WILL BE TAKING PICTURES EVERYWHERE Rook - Vil's camera man, when he gets back to NRC he will write an essay about how beautiful this experience was Malleus - Absolutely loving experiencing new things (he is sad he keeps spooking everyone he walks by) Lilia - He Is a bouncer he is very excited to see everything and he is able to keep up Jack - Watching over all the other freshman and enjoying his time Sebek - If Malleus weren't here he would be paying attention the the tours but sadly Malleus is so guess who is worrying every two seconds. (Where is grim? HES ON ALL VACATIONS BC HES MY SON)

#twst #twisted wonderland #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #ace trappola #deuce spade #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #kalim al asim #jamil viper #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #epel felmier #idia shroud #ortho shroud #malleus draconia #lilia vanrouge #silver twst #sebek zigvolt #silly little bear chatters :] #THAT WAS A LOT

[2oranges]

Hello!! It's Max @dokah , my tumblr app hates me dearly so I asked my beloved to post this for me. This does not interfere with my ability to deliver artwork!

Long story short, my mom stole the money I made from commissions, I live an hour from town and no busses run in my area so I can not get a job, and I'm also in desperate need of a new pair of glasses, as mine have broke.

Prices and payment info below the cut!

My prices: (in USD)

Headshot:

20$ flat

25$ full

Waist-up:

30$ flat

35$ full

Full body:

40$ flat

45$ full

+20$ if nsfw

+10$ per each additional character

Please message me via discord @ psycholocats (preferred) or tumblr @dokah !

I will do:

Selfship / oc/canon, irl (only with explicit permission. This is limited to friends, family, and yourself.) heavily bloodied characters, and furries.

I will not do:

Mecha, weird pairings (age gap / aged up, otherwise abusive dynamic), weird media (AOT, south park, etc.), heavy gore, furry nsfw.

Payment info in screenshot form because tumblr hates when you type it out. Message me or Friday @2oranges if you can't read it!

[toxic-lavender]

I’m opening Commissions!

Text Vers:

Hi! I’m a broke uni student. I need money to offset loan costs. So, I’m opening up commissions for aid over the summer!

Pricing:

Prices are based on the level of detail in the piece and are split based on if the commission is an icon/headshot piece, or a half/Fullbody piece.

For Icons and Headshots:

Sketch- $5

Line Art- $10

Flat Color-$15

Shaded- $20

For Half and Fullbody pieces:

Sketch- $10

Line Art- $25

Flat Color- $35

Shaded- $50

Extra costs include:

Extra Characters: $5 per character.

Backgrounds: $10 for simple backgrounds, $20 for complex backgrounds

NSFW Art: You must have your age in your bio and be 18+ to request this. The cost of NSFW work is an additional 100% of the cost of the base price and added fees.

I will draw: Furries/Anthro, Humans, Animals, Monsters, Fan Art, Shipping Content, Light to Moderate Gore, and NSFW (based on what is requested.)

I will NOT draw: Proshipping content (including but not limited to incest, minor x adult pairings, and abusive relationships), Mecha, Photorealism, or Excessive Gore.

Contact Info:

Email: [email protected]

Tumblr: Toxic-Lavender

Discord: lavender#1180

Terms:

By commissioning me, you agree to all terms below.

These terms may change at any time. Please reread before requesting a new commission.

I reserve the right to refuse commissions at my choice.

Payment is upfront. I will send any updates or finished work until payment is received.

You may not edit, alter, or change the commission in anyway without permission, and you may not remove the watermark.

If you choose to repost the commission, please provide a credit to me and my art site (currently tumblr).

I may use the commission for my own purposes, such as to provide examples to other commission work.

Payment is currently only accepted through PayPal. I am working on setting up a Ko-Fi, and will update this with a link when ready.

Please pay in full by one week, or I will discard the commission request.

You may NOT request NSFW work if you are unable to prove you are over 18. This can be proved during the commission discussion.

Requesting a refund will cease work on the commission instantly. Refund amounts will be determined by how much work was done prior to the refund request.

Please provide in depth information in regards to the commission at the time of discussion. I will not be held responsible for mistakes or errors due to insufficient information in regards to the commission request.

I will only take a limited number of slots at a time. If all slots are full, you must wait your turn.

Failure to comply to my terms will result in a block from my art blog and any further commission requests. You will also be blocked if you attempt to request NSFW work as a minor, and if you treat me with disrespect during the commission process.

#commissions #art #art student #money

[ilmhist]

hi, I'm broke

donate £15 to the "keeping my lights on" cause and I'll sketch your funky little guy

aka the cost of living is crisising and i hate asking for money without offering something in return

payment via ko-fi donation (5x ko-fis = 1 sketch) due upfront upon me saying "yeah I'll draw that guy"

limited revisions/detail - they're just little sketches I'm hoping to be able to do pretty quickly (of course if I draw your character completely wrong, I'll amend it)

visual references required

3 slots, any more than that and I will crumble and die the pressure will kill me

+1 ko-fi (£3) for facial tattooing/scarring

no clothing/accessories, just simple bust headshots

I may not start working on them immediately. I do have a cold and it's kicking my ass, I just also would like to have money to live.

ko-fi here

DM me here or on discord with your refs and a colour for the gradient. First-come-first served.

#this is e-begging in disguise #i hate doing ''payment upfront'' but i live in a topsy turvy country where electricity is pay as you go #and if that runs out i can't even offer sketches in return #so it's gotta be upfront. the thing i hate.

[incarnadinedreams]

Jiang Cheng was silent, as though he had finally become calmer. Wei WuXian put his hand on his shoulder again, "In the future, you'll be the sect leader, and I'll be your subordinate, like your father and my father. So what if the GusuLan Sect has its Two Jades? The Yunmeng Jiang Sect will have its Two Prides! So, shut up. Who said that you don't deserve to be the sect leader? Nobody can say this, even you can't either. If you do you're looking for a beating."

Jiang Cheng snorted, "You see how you are right now? Who can you beat up?"

-- Ch. 56, ExR translation

I've seen the take around that Wei Wuxian never broke any promises to Jiang Cheng, because in the 'Twin Heroes of Yunmeng' promise he said they would be like their fathers. Since Wei Changze left Yunmeng, then Wei Wuxian was never intending to actually be Jiang Cheng's right-hand man, and therefore no broken promises. Easy peasy.

And I personally just can't get behind that interpretation. I do think that in a more meta sense the parallel is interesting; that's part of the whole tragic irony of the situation. And that only works if Wei Wuxian didn't mean it that way, but it ended up becoming true anyway, in the most horrible and unpleasant ways. And I do think there can be some interesting exploration of the way promises can mean different things to different people without either of them really being wrong.

But I feel like it's doing a huge disservice to Wei Wuxian's character to run with the take that he actually meant to have some sort of loophole in there. It's very much a miss the forest for the trees kind of thing. Sure, you've successfully gotten him out of one broken promise... but what would that mean, if it were true?

I just don't think the line about their fathers was some sort of tricksy, cunning thing he inserted as a gotcha. He wasn't trying to legalese his way out of it, he wasn't trying to pull one over on Jiang Cheng. Viewing it that way kind of destroys what was, for me, one of the most emotionally poignant moments of the novel. If it were the case, he'd be rather shallow and manipulative for it, and that just doesn't resonate with me. Not to mention it doesn't make much sense to carefully insert a loophole into a promise he never needed to make in the first place.

As a Yunmeng Shuangjie Enjoyer, for me this scene is like the valiant last stand of innocence. Up to this point, our plucky protagonist and friends have escaped every trial largely unscathed. The comically evil villain has been resoundingly humiliated (for now), the big angry turtle of slaughter has been slaughtered, everyone made it home in one piece after a romantic(?) cave interlude, more or less. It was difficult, sure, but our heroes prevailed in the end. A few injuries, some scars, but nothing really bad - yet.

There's drama, there's strife, but at this point it's of a more personal, domestic nature: Jiang Cheng's sadness at what he feels is his father's dislike, his sense of inadequacy and being overlooked, his mother's scolding, the stress and discord within the household regarding rumors and Wei Wuxian's ambiguous role, and the pain of being pulled in between his parents. Painful, to be sure, just very limited in scope compared to what we know is coming.

But in the midst of that turmoil, this scene is Wei Wuxian giving Jiang Cheng hope for a future where he can forge his own path. That they can create something different but wonderful, with Wei Wuxian by his side, where it doesn't matter what rumors are going around or what mistakes their parents have made. It's an 'us against the world' moment; it's an outright declaration of a bond that had been, as far as we know, largely unspoken and assumed up to this point.

Whatever type of bond you read into them having, it solidifies something between them. It's putting into words his confidence in Jiang Cheng's potential when he believes his father doubts him. This is one of the few ways he is allowed to express unwavering support for Jiang Cheng in a sea of ambiguous ties and fraught relationships.

It's supposed to be tragic. It's supposed to be the shining light that gets snuffed out by the darkness and horrors that follow. The tragedy is that promises earnestly made sometimes must be broken, no matter how good the intentions were when they were made. The tragedy is that it's the enormity of their sacrifices for each other that, unknowingly, drive them apart. It's the secrets they keep to spare one another, it's the slow building of a death-spiral of conflicting priorities and duties, it's the very roles the promise was meant to bridge the gap between that makes this promise untenable, impossible to keep.

And I believe that's why we see, so much later, that this promise is the crux of Jiang Cheng's breakdown at Guanyin Temple, even after everything else that had happened.

Jiang Cheng cried soundlessly, but tears had already streaked across his face. To cry in such an unsightly way in front of others was almost impossible for him in the past. But every single moment that passed from now on, as long as the golden core remained in his body, as long as it could still revolve, he'd forever remember this feeling.

He choked, "... You said I'd be the sect leader and you'd be my subordinate, you said you'd help me your whole life, you said you'd never betray the YunmengJiang Sect... You said so yourself."

"..." After a moment of silence, Wei WuXian replied, "I'm sorry. I broke my promise."

-- Ch. 102

I believe what Jiang Cheng is really grieving is that bright-eyed, optimistic vision of the future they'd shared in that moment, us against the world, together, and there are so few ways they're allowed to express the weight of everything they mean to each other that he can only cling to a promise that represents the distillation of their ties to one another.

And if Wei Wuxian never really meant any of it, if he'd been planning an out from the beginning, if he'd never shared the dream too, that would just be kinda shitty and boring instead of compellingly tragic.

#thinking too much about jiang cheng yet again #jiang cheng #yunmeng shuangjie #anyway that's just my personal take on the whole thing #i'm too scared to use the character tags for any of the other characters lol

[prpfs]

🧟‍♂️🪓 19, he&him.

zombie apocalypse scripts have me in a headlock, and i need somebody to satiate a niche plot i’m dreaming up. a gritty, hurt - driven, survival setting, and a morally questionable, edging - on - incel, all - around disgusting military idealist boy - failure. he sucks and i cannot wait for you to meet him. he has a benzo addiction and broke his teeth trying to get a bottle cap off.

looking for a deep - dive into the concept of unplanned pregnancy within an apocalypse setting. the air of malaise around unintentionally bringing a new life into a world of straight suffering, specifically brought about by a one - night stand. that, or something equally as loveless. sticking it out with each other for the sake of an unborn child, whilst driving each other up the wall. co - dependent on one another solely due to the harsh conditions, but ultimately kindling something over stretches of highway, and shared sleeping sacks, and the intimacy of rubbing guts off of each other’s faces with an old rag. devoid of what is considered a healthy relationship by old society’s standards but they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle nonetheless. on - again, off - again - ness, but pair it with a baby that will string them together no matter what. growth in my muse in the thick of it.

also:

• mxf pairings desired, but arms wide open to mxm parings in the form of trans male characters (with respectful portrayals.)

• taboo topics, dead dove content, and nsfw is welcome. limits can be discussed in pms.

• age differences are my weakness, so milfs and dilfs to the front of the line 🗣️

• provide me with a complex oc, someone that i can hate and love at once.

• my muse can lean both dominant and submissive, i prefer somebody that can explore multiple dynamics.

• i’m slightly adverse to real life faceclaims, i have a strong preference for character descriptions and art.

• open to eighteen and over only, discord - based and descriptive, between three and seven paragraphs.

like and i’ll invade your pms !!

like if you're interested and op will reach out

#mxf rp #mxm rp #zombie apoc rp #fandomless rp #oc rp #oc roleplay #discord rp #dead dove

[roguetelepaths]

someone in a discord server I'm not in anymore asked me ages ago why I think that Changelings having been and continuing to be victims of persecution is important to the narrative. you don't have to believe that the Voice of the Link was telling the truth about pre-Dominion Changeling history, but it's my opinion that it makes a better story when you do.

image text is under the readmore

Resident Goo Today at 11:18 PM okay. you asked, here we feckin' go. I broke discord's character limit while writing this because apparently when you get me on this subject I do not stop

trauma takes center stage in the narratives of so many characters in DS9. the loss of his wife for Sisko, the occupation for Kira, Julian's augmentation and the essential death of his childhood self, Garak's childhood of abuse and brutal training in the Obsidian Order, everything Mora did to Odo, etc etc.

in the first episode, we are shown that trauma is a form of time distortion. it is Not Linear. when a person goes through that kind of pain, a part of them remains stuck in that moment, and they return to it again and again long after it's passed.

enter the Founders. we are told, from the beginning, that they have withdrawn from the universe and built the elaborate system of safeguards and deterrents we know as the Dominion for the explicit purpose of being left alone. the reason, we are told, is because they were once hunted, hated, and feared.

(I feel the need to state here that if they were colonizers for the sole purpose of being colonizers, we would see them taking a much more hands-on role in the extraction of resources and the direct control of their colonies' affairs, but they seem content to rule as distant, even mythic figures. they aren't leaders. they're a symbol. the power they actually have is the power granted to a symbol. honestly, they have no reason to be colonizers at all. they don't need land, they don't need food, they don't really need resources. trauma is the only conceivable reason for them to do what they've done.)

(I also feel the need to mention the way the Link works on a mechanical level. when a Changeling is in the Link, time does not pass. one can spend days or presumably longer in the Link and have no idea how long they've been in there. this is important.)

it is very rare for a Founder to leave the Link. there are probably many, many Founders who have not left since the Dominion was established. if you consider that the Link is inherently a form of psychological time fuckery, a large portion of the Link remembers the days in which Changelings were persecuted as if those days were, like, a week ago, tops. They literally Exist Here because they are biologically in a state in which time does not progress the way it does for solids. and this trauma is affecting everyone and everything around them because of the drastic lengths that they have gone to in order to protect themselves. they are inflicting equal amounts of trauma on the Vorta, on the Jem'Hadar, on their subjects, etc etc, because they are afraid and locked in a mentality where everything is a threat, because the only evidence they have found is evidence that says yes, everything is.

tl;dr it's about cycles of violence, it's about social wounds treated as social wars, it's about how to tell hypervigilance from reality in a world that actually does want you dead, it's about sympathizing with Bad Survivors, it's about choosing between the familiarity of fear and the danger of hope. and those themes are important to me

#ds9 #changelings

[ophiedrowning]

just sent my gm two messages that each broke discord’s character limit just to academically analyze how my TSL character dreams

where the fuck did the phrase “mona doesn’t know how to handle dreams that lie to her” come from???????? i’m a FANFIC writer!!!

#tsl #thirsty sword lesbians #desdemophie #ophieocs

[hcaivoices]

please read before sending in a request Link to my YouTube channel

Rules For Requests:

I will not accept any request for the following: *Songs that are overly sexual * Songs that have a lot of swearing (by excessive swearing I mean a bunch of racial slurs, and fuck every other word. I can bleep some racial slurs but I’m not looking to sit there and re edit an entire track just to make it work. One or two is okay though that’s easy enough to take out. ___________________________________________________ * Please limit characters on the track to 3 for my own sanity. It is possible for more but too much work. *If your song is a duet please include two characters or I will have to pick a second one for you. Unless you actually want only one character to sing both parts and if that’s so include that as a foot note. *Because of the influx of requests meme songs are very low on my priority list so just keep that in mind with requests. *I have the right to refuse any request for any reason. As I’m doing this for fun the reason very well just might be “I didn’t want to”. And if that’s the case don’t take it personally. *don’t send requests for characters I don’t have . So please check my ever growing character list.

* I don’t fill requests in the order they come in. I jump around and do the ones that I want to do. I can’t stress enough that this is a hobby. So of course I’ll have more interest in doing songs I like/know. *Please keep requests 1 per post, you of course may send as may as you like but one song per ask is what I allowed. That way I can post it with your song. (it does not always let me post in audio format and sometimes I have to do it as a video and I can only do one video per post. So if both songs have to be video format I will have to screen shot the post and do it twice anyway.)

* please do not spam your request or keep messaging me to ask about it. especially off of anon as I have no way to actually reply without having a public conversation. If you’re curious about your request dm me in here or discord. * A common misconception is that a song has to sound like the character, this is not true. A character can sing any song of any gender, they will make it their own, so long as I can get a clean separation of audio the song does not matter. I can pitch it lower for them if it sounds strange in a high voice and vice versa.

I will delete requests if:

*it didn’t work for whatever reason. *it’s a repeat. So join the discord to search or check my character tags to sort through on tumblr. You can also just dm me and ask me directly and I can tell you. *they broke any of the rules above

* if you send a character that I don’t have listed *Incomplete information *if you send in a song for more than 3 characters

* if you request 2 songs in the same ask. Yes this includes you wanting 2 different characters to sing the same song separately and not as a duet. It still doesn’t always let me post. It’s a technical thing I wish tumblrs audio system wasn’t so garbage but it is and that’s what we have to work with.

* I had zero interest in doing the song for whatever reason. It could be maybe I didn’t like it, it’s too difficult. It’s a joke song (I got too many serious requests to mess with these right now). This IS a hobby after all if the cover does not sound fun I won’t do it. Don’t take it personally though you can always send in a new request.

* I’m not going to do an entire album for someone so if you keep requesting songs from like the same movie or album I’ll just stop doing them. I have too many other requests to mess with all that. So please be considerate of other people and don’t keep requesting songs from the same movie or album over and over again. Or at least space it out a couple months.

*I also have little interest in redoing the same song over and over with different characters or the same song just in a different language with a different character. But again don’t take this personally it just becomes tedious and boring redoing the same song over and over and over again.

((Please keep in mind I am doing this for fun and for free. understand that you may be waiting a few weeks or even months for your request. Thank you for understanding and your patience in advance 😊. Become a discord member to have access to the full library and exclusives. And sub to my YouTube for exclusives from my own collection that won’t be posted onto discord or tumblr. I also take some requests there to.))

See below for characters list. ⬇️⬇️

keep in mind I do not take requests for characters to make, you may ask if I am making them but ultimately I will or I won't the choice is up to me.

List Of Characters I Have:

All characters made by me sing in their English dub voice, they all sing with their accents and most can speak their native language as close to fluently as you can get I feel along with English.

-Made by me- England China Germany Canada Austria Prussia Poland Norway Finland Iceland Denmark North Italy Spain Japan America Romano France NyoAmerica Russia Sweden Lithuania Latvia Grandpa Rome Next Character's I'm working on: Not sure yet maybe Greece

PSA: You may notice that there will be a bunch of covers posted by a certain characters at once. Like maybe one day I will post 4 England covers and no one else, this isn't favoritism. Sometimes it’s just easier to pick a character and bang out a bunch of their requests than sorting though a bunch of different ones. I’ll try not to do this very often though as I do like to keep it mixed and not focus too much on one character as I love all my bots as children I’ve made and like to use them all as often as I can. So you may see me refer to them as my sons a lot. I mean that in the sense that I created them. It’s a joke don’t take it seriously lol. Like I may refer to Denmark as ‘My Danish son’ it’s just a term of endearment for the bot itself. You might wonder “Why does she feel the need to specify this? It’s obviously meant as tongue-in-cheek and she doesn’t actually view the character as their child…” and my answer to that is “Welcome to Tumblr”.

Please don't ask me for links to my characters as they do not exist. All my voices exist within in my personal PC. They are not hosted anywhere. So the answer will always be 'no'.

I do not answer requests in the order they are received. If I’m excited about one I will jump to do it even if it just came in. Please keep in mind this is a hobby, free and I’m doing it on my own time. That being said please don’t spam me to get to your requests. There are days where I either don’t want to or just don’t have time to make any covers at all. I do have a job and a life. And then there are days I might be really in the mood to make covered and edit music and I’ll make 10 in a row. And there will be days where I don't feel like doing any at all. If you really are curious about your cover please dm me or send me and ask OFF of anon that way I can actually reply to you.

Full library is on the Discord where they are also available for download. join there to get covers when they are first dropped and a ton of exclusives + full albums.

Had some people ask that I make a request form so they know exactly what to include. Optional to use not required but this is all the info I would like to have.

Request forum:

Character 1: Character 2: Character 3: If you only want one character leave the others blank Song: Artist:

If it’s in a language other than English language it would be nice if you could tell me which one it is to.

Any other additional info. Something like…I would like Poland to sing the chorus by himself. Just anything to let me know exactly what you have in mind. ———- I will take care of the pitching and accent modifying based on what sounds the best. I try to do every song with accents but some songs they will struggle with it and slur words if that happens I’ll turn it down or off completely to give you the best version possible. (I do not take requests for pitches or accents. I will do whatever sounds best for the character and the song to give the best end result. Just trust the process.)

[vulpixelates]

i am unreasonably excited about the character concept i have for a post-non-nuclear-apocalypse/weird wild west/scifi/hopepunk game my wife is putting together... editing my message explaining the idea from discord:

human psionic

grew up in the phoenix confederacy (a weird conservative group that went into bunkers to preserve the "founding priciples" of america before the apocalyptic event and people still live in the bunkers w limited contact w the outside world); realized while she was growing up that the world outside existed and idealistically thought that she could help, so she took the skills that she learned down there (mechanic probably?) and broke out of the bunker

settled down for a while in a small town and did her job, formed connections with the people around her and began to genuinely love the community around her for the first time

one day when she was returning to the town after heading out on a supply run, it was in fucking ashes; everyone she loved was either dead or missing

she doesn't know who or what actually destroyed the town, but has a whole list of names that she's slowly been going through to try to find it out and get revenge

did a stint w the iron pony express (couriers who drive around heavily modified vehicles) after meeting link murphy (their leader) a handful of times out in the waste, mostly as an excuse to get around to new places and find clues while also making money to be able to afford supplies but she does believe in what they're trying to do

now she's this grizzled disaster femme cowboy courier who drives a modified motorcycle (complete w side cars of dubious safety for her friends) around the wastes, uses psionics to curve bullets from her dual pistols, and has a whole list of people she wants to put said bullets through

#< until i come up w a name... #oc blogging #ttrpg rambles #oc: rosario

[tsarisfanfiction]

Eclipse: Chapter 12

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Adventure Characters: Apollo, Hades Bye bye, Asclepius... Apologies to those of you who wanted more of him in this awkward dynamic, but as necessary as he was for the plot, it would make the slow burn between Apollo and Hades even slower - and it's already glacial! - so something had to go... I have a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! <<Chapter 11

APOLLO XII

Ascent up a cliff Monsters up high and down low Go, Asclepius

Tartarus was a prison.  It was not supposed to be something that could be escaped, although the hordes of monsters that broke out daily to terrorise demigods were clearly overlooked by the denizen, and it was with that knowledge plaguing the back of his mind that Apollo gripped his bow tightly as Asclepius’ hands found narrow ledges to grip and he began to pull himself up.

The last time he’d left Tartarus…  Well, Apollo didn’t actually know how he’d done it.  His awareness had ended as his form started to resolidify over the lip of Chaos and restarted in the safety of his twin’s palace on Olympus.  He could only assume that he’d somehow been granted the strength to transport himself out, a literal ascension from the deepest depths of hell straight to the land of the gods as his status restored, but he did not know for certain, and when the time came for he and Hades to leave, Bob’s status confirmed and potentially in their company, he would have to find a way to repeat the feat.

It was not a feat his son could replicate.  As impressive as Asclepius was, he was not an Olympian god and would never be a match for the power of one.  He was not even at full strength, despite Apollo’s attempts at bolstering him, thanks to Tartarus’ steady drain and Orion’s active, relentless hunt.  Battling his way through the exit used by the monsters straight to the Overworld had always been out of the question – Asclepius was not a warrior, and appearing in the Overworld would get Zeus’ attention immediately – but this other exit seemed just as gruelling in its own way.

Gold dripped down as Asclepius hauled himself up, looking more mortal than godly as his limbs trembled and strained.  Tartarus would not let him out without a fight, and the cliff was formidable and unforgiving as it slashed into Apollo’s son’s hands on every handhold.  But while Asclepius was not an Olympian, he was still a god, still a healing god, and a faint white-gold glow shimmered into existence around his hands and feet.  Apollo could feel the healing aura from where he stood, slowly tilting his head further and further back as his son continued his torturous ascent.

Hesiod had said it took nine days to fall to Tartarus.  Apollo had no idea how many it would take to climb out.  Many, many days, no doubt, in a task that was daunting even for a god, but gods were not so easily defeated.

Most gods shied away from things like hard work, choosing to coast along on their natural prowess rather than put effort into things.  They liked to enjoy themselves and their existence, and for many of them, that meant lazing around as they oversaw their domains.

Apollo had never been one to sit back and laze around – sure, a break was nice every now and again, but doing nothing was boring and he’d much rather spend the time shooting, composing, learning, or taking an active role in any of his domains.  His times mortal had also pushed him into having to work hard – building the walls of Troy had not been a walk in the park without his godly strength to aid him, and the entire experience as Lester had been nothing but trial after trial, pushing him past limits he hadn’t know he could pass.

Asclepius, though, had been born mortal.  He’d always had to work for things; the reason he was the superior healer despite being the weaker god was purely down to his work ethic, the way he’d pushed and pushed and pushed in his desire to be able to help as many people as possible, surpassing Apollo through a sheer single-mindedness that only a mortal-born could ever hope to achieve.  Creating the Physician’s Cure had not been an easy thing, either, and while Apollo had helped him with that, when asked, the brain power and persistence had been mostly from his son.

It was a trait he saw in his children more often than he admitted to anyone, a trait that he always insisted they’d inherited from their mortal parents rather than him – persistence, and an inability to give up.  No matter the trial, his children never seemed capable of giving up, of walking away and saying, “I can’t do that”.  For more than a few of them, it had developed into their fatal flaw, their cause of death as they kept pushing long past the time they should have stopped.

He admired and feared it in equal measure.

Right then, he admired it, and drew comfort from the knowledge, because it meant that Asclepius would make the climb.  He would not fall, and even if he did, he would try again.  And again.  And again.  As many times as it took until he was out, until he was safe, because it was something that had to be done, and Asclepius had never shied away from that.

It was difficult to tell how far up his son had managed to get; Apollo’s eyesight was keen and he could still make out every detail of Asclepius – the grimace of his lips as the cliff tore open his form anew, the determination in his brow as he pulled himself up despite the pain, the bright glow shimmering around the constantly opening and closing wounds – but the scale up of the cliffs of the Pit defied even a god’s comprehension.

Asclepius was high, but he had not yet reached the miasma of thick clouds that obscured the roof of the humungous cavern, not to mention the true start of the chute-like entrance he would need to climb out of in order to reach the Underworld safely.

His glow was increasing, too; it was no longer merely about his hands and feet, but the faintest lines of light were beginning to crisscross his skin, gleaming pale but gradually strengthening the higher he got.  It wasn’t dissimilar to the bright gold Apollo recalled webbing into his form as he, impossibly, pulled himself up from Chaos, reversing the unravelling of the Progenitor, and he hoped it meant the same thing.  Asclepius had not lost his divinity, had not been reverted to a mere mortal once more, but he had been pushed far, far from the domains from which he drew his power – domains he was now, slowly, edging his way towards again.

Part of him was surprised that Hades had allowed him to linger and watch his son’s ascent; he had thought that his uncle, clearly still antagonistic towards Asclepius even if he had agreed to free him from Tartarus itself, would have insisted on pushing on with their quest once Asclepius had begun his ascent.  There was no benefit to the older god for them to be standing here, at the base of the exit to the Underworld, watching a younger, weaker god scramble his way arduously up (well, Apollo was watching, couldn’t not watch.  Hades had turned his back the moment Asclepius’ ascent began and had not so much as glanced over his shoulder since), but Apollo was grateful for it.

He would not be able to see Asclepius all the way to the top – even his sight was not keen enough for that and could not pierce the miasma above them – but to be able to see him even part of the way up, to see that while it was a trial there were no signs that it was one his son would fail, was a great reassurance.

But Tartarus was a prison.

And Tartarus did not let its inmates leave so easily.

Apollo did not know what the flying beast was; it looked not too dissimilar to one of the Erinyes, although if it was it was not one of the Three, but another he had never known existed.  That did not matter when he saw it swoop towards where Asclepius clung to the cliff, a beacon of pale light in the distant haze of the lowest reaches of the miasma, and did not stop to think any further.

With a single intent, an arrow was nocked, the fletching brushing his cheek with the lightest of kisses as his longbow reached full draw, and he let fly.

Apollo was the god of archery.  He never missed.

It struck where the heart of the creature ought to have been, and a piercing cry would have rattled his eardrums were he still mortal, but while its flight faltered, it did not fall, and so he sent another.

And another.

His barrage was relentless as it swooped down on his son, claws outstretched and tearing at his chiton, his back, his skin.

Ichor poured down, but Asclepius hung on tightly and Apollo kept shooting, aiming at the muscles of the wings when fatal shots clearly weren’t working.  If he couldn’t kill it, he could still down it, stop it from tearing his son apart and pulling him back down to the floor of the Pit.

His quiver, once bristling with as many arrows as it could hold, depleted down to a single arrow, and then none, forcing Apollo to slow as he had to summon each one independently – he really needed to store and carry more arrows somehow – but he kept going, kept shooting and turning the thing assaulting his son into a pincushion full of arrows

One of Asclepius’ hands lost its grip, palm slick with gold, and his whole form lurched downwards, feet scrambling to take the sudden increase in weight, and Apollo’s heart leapt up into his mouth as his son scrabbled at the cliff face desperately.  The Erinys-like creature swooped in again, golden ichor falling like rain, and Apollo nocked another arrow.

It hit the creature just as it reached to pluck Asclepius from the cliff, slamming into the meat of the wing’s shoulder, and with a bone-shattering scream it lost its rhythm and crashed straight into the cliff face itself before tumbling down.

Down.

Down.

Apollo lunged forwards as it screeched and flapped tattered wings desperately but failed to catch itself.  He still didn’t know for certain what creature it was – a child of Nyx, perhaps a forgotten Erinys – but that didn’t matter.  It had attacked his son and that was a crime Apollo would not forgive.  Hands reaching forward, grasping, he tore one wing away entirely as, with a roar of fury, he flashed, a miniature sun down where the sun had never before shone.

It didn’t even have time to screech one final time before it exploded into a shower of dust.

Above him, Asclepius flailed for the cliff again and latched onto it, clinging to it like his life depended on it.  His injuries were gone, his glow a little bit brighter, and Apollo watched as he took a moment to pause, to breathe through the adrenaline, before he reached for the next handhold and continued to claw his way up the cliff.

The sound of a blade whistling behind him had him shifting part of his attention to his periphery, another arrow materialising in his hand, ready to be nocked and fired at the next threat.

He almost dropped it at the sight of Hades standing behind him, still facing away from the cliff and Asclepius but cutting swathes through an approaching horde of monsters.  Nothing that Apollo could see was powerful, but they were numerous, crashing against the might of Hades like the onslaught of a never-ending waterfall.

Hades, of course, was near enough unaffected.  He was one of the most powerful gods for a reason, and no rabble of regular monsters was going to even ruffle his shadow, no matter how many of them there were.  He hadn’t called Apollo to assist him because he didn’t need help to handle things, but it still struck him as odd that he hadn’t even alerted him.

There was no doubt that this sudden army was because of Asclepius’ departure – the timing could be for nothing else – and while Hades had permitted his son to leave, it was Apollo who had insisted on it, and so Apollo’s fault, not that he regretted it in the slightest.  With that in mind, it was a surprise that Hades had chosen to fight rather than leave it all to Apollo.

Apollo was no Big Three, but even he was enough to deal with this wave of attack alone (there was no Orion, no bane to face, in this rabble).

He let his arrow fly and it skewered through several monsters at once, exploding them all into dust near-simultaneously.  Hades didn’t need his help, but it felt wrong to not do anything as they approached.

The glare his uncle sent him over his shoulder, the first time he’d looked back since Asclepius had begun his ascent, made him pause.

“Don’t waste your arrows,” Hades told him sternly, sending a sweep of darkness out with the next swing of his sword and dematerialising several more monsters without even looking at them.  “I do not need assistance dealing with this.  Refill your quiver and watch the skies.”

It still felt wrong to stand back and do nothing while Hades fought – while Asclepius climbed, drips of ichor staining the wall as it continued to bite into his skin – but his uncle was right; he was the archer, the ranged fighter.

And his quiver was empty.

He stepped back, giving Hades the space to fight unimpeded as he focused on his quiver, summoning as many arrows as could fit while his vision filled with the dust of dying monsters, raising up thicker and thicker until it seemed like they would meld with the clouds of miasma above them.

Not many of the monsters had wings, or seemed to think to use them, but it was almost a relief when some did take to the skies, wheeling around and attempting to get past Hades that way, even though it meant they were targeting Asclepius, who himself was getting closer and closer to the thick crimson haze above them.

Hades didn’t even bother to try stopping anything that flew past him, but Apollo’s bow was ready and nothing was of the calibre of the first attack.  A single arrow was enough to vaporise anything that tried to get near his son – sometimes they lined up conveniently enough that Apollo could take out multiple with a single arrow, and sometimes they didn’t so he simply nocked several arrows at once to take out several in a single barrage.

It was a strange feeling, fighting alongside another god.  Barring Artemis, of course, and memorable occasions like the horrific Typhon fight that had needed all Olympian hands on deck, Apollo tended to fight alone.  His brethren didn’t assist him, and that was fine because they never wanted his assistance, either.  The ease with which he fell into sync with Hades, the older god handling the melee and ground-based opponents while Apollo focused on taking down the arial threats, was weird.

Foreign.

It felt more like when he’d been Lester, fighting alongside Meg, his children, Nico and the other demigods.  When he wasn’t alone, when he had someone else he could trust – when someone else trusted him.

Admittedly, Hades knew he was fighting to protect his son, that after the fuss he’d kicked up about Asclepius’ punishment he wouldn’t let anything stop his son leaving Tartarus once and for all, so it was a simple matter for Hades to leave the last line of defence to him considering the situation.

It still felt strange to face his uncle’s back and see with his own eyes that Hades never once glanced back to check what he was or wasn’t doing.

Instead, Stygian Iron flashed, a dark purple line of obliteration as monster after monster fell to the blade, not one managing to even touch the god of the dead before their existence ceased to be.  Apollo’s bow sung in harmony, the string humming fiercely as it sent arrow after arrow into anything that dared fly past the line his uncle had metaphorically drawn in the glass shards beneath their feet.

Despite the battle – one-sided slaughter, really – Apollo still kept a large portion of his attention on his son as Asclepius kept scrambling up, so he noticed the instant the younger god reached where the miasma thickened into visible clouds, a glowing spec of white-gold in amongst the sea of crimson.

The monsters seemed to notice, too, throwing themselves all the more viciously – desperately – at Hades and his promise of oblivion.  Larger winged things threw themselves into the sky, but they still weren’t like the first thing and Apollo downed them all long before they got in striking range of his son.

The bright speck that was his son gradually faded, the miasma concealing him from even Apollo’s keen eyes, and by the time he’d brought down another dozen or so of the winged beasts, it was smothered entirely.

No, not smothered.  Smothered implied suffering, even death.  Concealed, that was a better word for it.  Asclepius was concealed, not just from his sight, but from the monsters’, from things down at the bottom of the Pit that had no chance of getting so high no matter how hard they tried.

It didn’t actually signify safety; Apollo knew that, knew that Asclepius’ climb was only just beginning, but he reasoned that with him concealed from the monsters and getting ever-closer to Apollo’s own domains, which were desperately reaching down as far as they could get by virtue of Apollo himself being down in the Pit, let alone the discovery of one of his children down there, the higher he got, the easier the climb would be.

He shot down one last monster making a desperate flight for the miasma and watched as it disintegrated into dust.  On the ground, Hades despatched the last of the monsters that pressed forwards and sheathed his sword as the rest turned tail and fled, apparently aware that unless he fell – and Asclepius was powerful enough that he should not – their prey was out of their reach forever, and continuing the assault against Hades would be nothing short of meaningless suicide.

Part of Apollo wanted to stay where he was, to make sure Asclepius made it all the way out with no setbacks, but he knew he couldn’t – his son had passed from his sight and time was not trackable in the Pit.  He would be standing there forever, never knowing if Asclepius was still climbing or if he had made it long, long ago.  And if his son fell, Apollo had already proven he could sense him across Tartarus.  He would return to his son’s side immediately.

He made sure his quiver was fully stocked once more, arrows materialising until it bristled with feathers jostling against each other, and approached Hades.

“Thank you,” he said, because he couldn’t not thank his uncle for helping defend Asclepius, despite Hades’ own less than charitable feelings towards his son.

The older god made a dismissive noise.  “Thank me by focusing on the reason we’re down here and not getting distracted by any other side missions,” he said.  “Come.”

Without a backwards glance, Hades strode forwards, away from the cliff stained with ichor from Asclepius’ hands and feet.  Apollo spared it one last look, one last silent hope that his son would manage the rest of the climb and reach the relative safety of the Underworld in one piece, before following.

He might not know the geography of Tartarus as well as Hades, but his memory was flawless and he immediately realised that Hades was striking out in a different direction to the last time.

“Why are we going a different way?” he asked, catching up with his uncle and keeping in step beside him.  “Did something happen on the route?”

“I should be asking you that,” Hades returned, black flaming eyes flickering over to him and clearly looking at him.  Apollo felt his eyes land on his neck, where Orion had torn a chunk of his form away, and resisted the urge to cover it with his hand.  It was healed, Orion had lost their last encounter and ended up tangled in his own bowstring, and Hades did not need to know how much Apollo had struggled on his so-called ‘side mission’ to save his son.

Thankfully, Hades didn’t press him for answers, not even leaving him time to answer before continuing to talk.

“Your crossing of the river was pathetic,” his uncle told him, clearly not interested in softening the blow to his pride.  “Jumping over it like a frightened rabbit like your son is not appropriate for a god of your calibre, and increasing in size is not wise in this place.  We are trying not to bring attention to ourselves, as foreign a concept as that is to you, I’m sure.”

“I can be inconspicuous!” Apollo protested, and Hades snorted.

“I do not think that word means what you think it means,” he said.  “Regardless,” he continued over Apollo’s outraged gape – he was the god of knowledge and poetry, of course he knew what words meant! – “while longer, this route will bring us across the rivers at their narrower points.”

Rivers.

Intellectually, Apollo knew about the five Underworld rivers which emptied out into Tartarus, but having only been faced with the Phlegethon so far, he hadn’t stopped to consider the others – or, specifically, one in particular.

Had Styx really let him off the hook for his myriad of rashly made and subsequently broken oaths?  She hadn’t destroyed him when she had the chance, but it was very unlike her to allow bygones to be bygones like that.  He could understand why she would impress upon him the importance of not making further rash oaths, but she had sworn to take payment when he had been out of his mind during the supplication of Trophonius’ oracle and so far, Apollo did not feel as though she had taken said payment.

His oath to Will sat heavily in the back of his mind, his first oath since re-ascension – and so soon after re-ascension.  It was one he meant with every inch of his essence, one he would fight to keep, but what would Styx think of the fact that he had made another oath on her already?  Would she approve, or call it rash and take it to mean that he hadn’t learned the lesson she’d tried to impress upon him at the edge of Chaos after all?

Apollo could admit that he was not looking forwards to crossing the river Styx, should it lay in their path.

“You know better than I,” he admitted out loud, and tried to stay serious and not at all like he was probing nervously as he asked, “which rivers will we need to cross to reach the prison?”

If Hades thought anything was strange about his asking, he gave no sign of it.  “Between us and the prison lay four rivers,” he replied.  “The first, as you’ve already seen, is the Phlegethon.  After that follows the Cocytus, and then the Styx.  Finally, the Lethe passes along the cliffs above the prison.”

Was it Apollo’s imagination, or had Hades paused slightly after naming the Styx?

How much did his uncle know of his latest mortal trials, anyway?  He had not been in the throne room when Apollo had had his vision about his brethren watching – and betting on! – his time as Lester, and he wasn’t entirely certain the Underworld had a subscription to Hephaestus TV, either.

No, Apollo decided.  It was likely that his uncle had been too busy running the Underworld to bother keeping up with his mortal grievances.  He couldn’t possibly know about the potential strain in his relationship with Styx.

“Where does the Acheron run?” he asked, noting the one river absent from their route.  It was not a river he was particularly grieved to be missing – he had suffered plenty of pain recently without a river god adding to it – but its absence from the vicinity of the prison seemed strange.

“In the deepest depths of Tartarus,” Hades said, and this time Apollo knew he was not imagining the pause.  The way dark eyes flickered over to him accentuated it.  “It flows close to the edge of Chaos.”

Ah.

Right.

Apollo had to fight the human urge to swallow nervously.  “Not a place on my list of places to visit,” he forced himself to say lightly, as though he didn’t know that the one part of his trials Hades knew about was his battle with Python on that very edge of Tartarus.  How close had they been to the river?

He decided he didn’t want to know.  It made no difference, regardless.

“I suspected as such,” Hades observed; there was no pity in his voice, but it was not devoid of all emotion, either.  Understanding danced along the edge of his tone; he knew why Apollo never wanted to return there, and if Apollo was reading his uncle correctly, it was not a place he was keen on visiting, either.

On that, at least, it appeared they were in full agreement.

True to Hades’ word, when they approached the Phlegethon (again; the river god must be furious at how many times Apollo had crossed it back and forth by now), its banks were far closer together than Apollo had seen before.  That was not to say the river itself was any less vicious – if anything, it seemed more so, violent as it forced its way through the ravine – but it was passable with a brief increase in size and a simple step across.

That did not stop the flames from lashing out and coating his calves with gold which dripped down until Apollo’s healing sealed it shut and he willed his appearance clean and free of discriminatory ichor, however.

Hades passed through the flames completely unaffected, just as he had before, visually perfect as Apollo settled back into step beside him.

This far up the slope, the glass was downright vicious as they walked across it.  Sharper and more jagged than ever, small specks of gold began to mark the way they’d travelled as ichor succeeded in occasionally leaving the wounds before godly healing sealed them shut again.

The idea that they were leaving a visible, tangible, trail, put Apollo on edge.

Orion was defeated, he reminded himself.  All trussed up with his own bowstring and left somewhere far, far deeper down into Tartarus, where Apollo had no intentions of returning.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of trepidation as he and Hades continued to trek across the uppermost reaches of the Pit’s floor, leaving the tiniest spots of gold in their wake.

Chapter 13>>

#trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #pjo apollo #pjo hades #pjo asclepius #tsari writes fanfiction #eclipse

[crossingbaranduin]

Well, this was supposed to go on Discord... and then I wrote so many words that I broke the character limit. So, dumping it here instead!

TAJ headcanons post: Johnson brothers + their nicknames! (Light spoilers for entire series)

Mike: Okay, as much as I am a sucker for tiny!Anders calling Mike "Mikey" in the smattering of deaged!Anders fics on AO3, I had a thought the other night. From what we see in the show, by the time Anders would start talking, there isn't anyone in their lives who would likely call Mike anything but Mikkel. Both their parents solely use Mike's full name, and they're so young that they probably aren't interacting with anyone who'd call Mike something different than what their parents use. (Even Olaf calls Mike Mikkel a decent amount during the show, so if/when he'd visit during this period, it's unlikely he'd be the odd one out here.)

If Anders only knows Mike as Mikkel at this point, I doubt he'd be able to say Mike's full name at first, since Mikkel is a bit complicated to pronounce for a kid just learning how to speak. So… proposal that tiny!Anders' attempts to say Mikkel came out more as "Mik", and that's what stuck. Only gets used for a couple of years, and Ty/Axl never pick it up, since Mike has already started to go by Mike at that point. Gets used on very, very few occasions post-show once everyone's on better terms for the same reason as Andy below, with the additional caveat that Anders opts not to use it if it's not just him and Mike talking.

Anders: Two different degrees of nicknames here. Name is slightly shortened to "Ands" on occasion, mostly by Mike and Ty. Stemmed from their teenage years, stopped being used when Anders was estranged from the family, and slowly worked its way back in over time. Becomes more common post-show when everyone's on better terms again. However, Anders' original nickname was "Andy", started by Mike when Anders was very young. Lasted for a good chunk of their younger years + was also picked up by Ty when he started talking; stopped being used sometime mid-late elementary school. Not used at all for multiple decades; used on very, very rare occasions once everyone is on better terms — means either there's a rare emotionally open moment or shit has hit the fan horribly.

(PS: Dawn is also allowed to use both nicknames. She tries not to abuse said power so Anders won't get defensive about it, but Anders secretly likes it.)

Ty: Solely goes by his nickname; doesn't like being called Tyrone. Put up with their mom using it, but that's the extent of it. None of his siblings have ever called him anything but Ty; even when the brothers are arguing, using Ty's full name is off limits. (Mike did once, very early on into being Ty's guardian. The situation was immediately made ten times worse, and that was never repeated again.) Dawn also only calls him Ty.

Axl: Never really needed a nickname due to how short his name is, and there were no younger siblings to struggle with pronouncing things. However, tiny!Axl felt left out being the only sibling without a nickname, so Anders and Ty occasionally call him "Ax", though that's less of a nickname and them half-dropping a syllable while saying his name out loud. Zeb, however, has given him a litany of goofy nicknames — so many that nobody but Zeb remembers all of them. (Axl may roll his eyes at most of them, but he'd miss the hell of out them if Zeb ever stopped.)

#the almighty johnsons #mikkel johnson #anders johnson #ty johnson #axl johnson #mike johnson #headcanons #(still no idea on how to tag for mike consistently lol) #taj #this is 50% ‘I put so much thought into this’ and 50% ‘canon doesn’t get to be this sentimental but I sure do’