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#(it definitely shouldn't have)

duckdotcom · 6 months

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do you think the guard who only lies does it for fun or is it like a curse situation, like does he have to jump through elaborate communicative hoops when meeting new people in order to get across that he has a lies curse and they need to just assume the opposite of what he's saying is correct and he really wishes he could just say something real and true for once, no matter how small?

#(very pointed voice) i do NOT have a curse that makes me lie and you DEFINITELY SHOULDN'T interpret everything i say with the curse in mind

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brekitten · 2 months

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Tucker could make fun of him for not reading comics all he wanted, but Danny really did enjoy reading them. He just didn't have much time to after the Accident, with all of the ghost attacks.

He had the time now, he supposed. There were no ghost attacks anymore, not with Vlad "taking care of them".

He was almost scared to find out what the Fruit Loop meant by that.

Danny sighed, staring up at the bare white ceiling of his bedroom. He missed the stars he'd had stuck to the ceiling of his room back home. Because Vlad's mansion wasn't home, was it? It wasn't ever going to be, no matter what.

Again, he began to think of the heroes he'd always admired, the ones that he had always fantasized about when he was younger, as if they would fly out of the comic books and take him and Jazz away, take them to parents that would actually pay attention to them. Now, Danny would take his parents not paying attention to him over them being dead.

Danny sighed, his eyes slipping closed. He wasn't tired, but he wanted to pretend that he was somewhere warm and safe, anywhere but here.

"Man, I wish superheroes were real... I could really use one right now."

Then came a gentle whisper in his ear, one that promised the safety and warmth he was desperate for. "Your wish is my command, little Prince."

Danny jolted upright, but it was too late. One moment, he was sitting in a bed that wasn't his own, could never be, no matter how hard he tried to pretend it was, and the next, he was sitting in a field, cornstalks swaying gently in the warm breeze.

Where... was he?

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oifaaa · 1 year

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Like obviously there's a ton of reasons why jason just didnt kill joker in utrh or in any subsequent comics after, first and foremost being that he's dc's little cash cow, but I always did like the in universe explanation being that Jason himself doesn't want the joker to die

Not bc the joker is important to Jason in anyway shape or form quite the opposite in fact, joker dying wouldn't benefit Jason bc the joker doesnt matter to him outside of being a living constant reminder of Bruce's failure that can be used to hurt both himself and bruce, if jokers dead then the healing process can start and Jason doesn't want that he wants to be angry and hurt

So Jason doesn't go kill Joker to get revenge bc he already got his revenge when he beat Joker with a crowbar in utrh and killing the Joker himself wouldn't bring him any more catharsis since he doesn't really care about the clown outside of using him as a prop in his ongoing feud with Bruce

#dc #jason todd #joker #bruce wayne #once again and always the joker as an individual should not matter to jason #and jason definitely shouldn't currently be a side character in a joker comic #ignore me tho #it just annoys me #that like obviously jokers not gonna die anytime soon #so when you refocus jasons anger onto joker #instead of Bruce #and have jason have all this energy into killing a character that for outside reasons is unkillable #you make jason look stupider less skilled and trap him into a never ending cycle #just let him be free #joker has enough people who wants him dead #i need jason to never be near joker again #for my own health

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mamawasatesttube · 9 months

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i do genuinely think an adult, fully-realized kon would be able to defeat superman in a fight. not just saying that bc he's my fav or whatever but because like. ttk is so op. telekinetic power with the range and raw strength to destroy every single gun in LA, and the finesse of control to not destroy anything else? that alone is a huge force to be reckoned with. add kryptonian abilities on top of that and you've got a fucking powerhouse. like um devs? op tbh pls nerf (except don't, because i find that sooooo tasty.)

because to clark, i think this is a good thing! it isn't quite so lonely when he's got a little brother/son/they really can't label it but they're family, who understands the alienation. the burden of having so much power. the fear of what your own hands can do. he sees in kon a kindred spirit, although it also saddens him that kon has to feel this burden too.

but kon?

oh, kon is terrified of himself.

#guy who has mind control and ''i was made as a weapon'' trauma realizes he can't even rely on the fact that superman could always stop him #he doesn't handle that well #it's tragic for him that he's so scared of himself bc *i* find his insane op-ness so fun cool and sexy.#also it should go without saying but like raw strength isn't everything in a fight and clark has more experience etc #like i don't think it's any sort of OOH WELL THERE'S A DEFINITIVE POWER RANKING anyway #but i think that adult fully realized kon does stand a very real chance of being able to beat clark in a fight #and that that fact scares the shit out of him #bc superman? that's his idol he shouldn't be able to ever touch him #clark is proud of him (what dadbrothercousin doesn't love to see his sonbrotherwhatever grow and even surpass him in his eyes?)#meanwhile kon is about to have a nervous breakdown #it's fun. not for him but for me <3 #kon #clark #rimi talks

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cerise-on-top · 2 months

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Hii you know how you wrote about reader getting hurt because of their job please could you write that with graves or nikolai x

Hey! Sure I can!

Graves’ and Nikolai’s S/O Gets Hurt Because of Their job

Graves: On the outside he may seem calm and collected, but on the inside he’d be seething with rage. However, he won’t show you how angry he actually is, keeping it all to himself instead. He needs to be the big, strong man in your relationship, so he needs to keep his cool in front of you, no matter what. I don’t think he’d be too surprised you’d have gotten hurt, though. While he may have hoped it would never happen, that was just wishful thinking. You’ll either be on Shadow Company’s medbay or in the best hospital he can find nearby. Either way, you’ll be well taken care of. If you’re at Shadow Company, then he’ll station some of his most competent and trusted people to take care of you for the time being. You will be protected by them, and you will get whatever it is you may need from them as well. Or anything you may want, really. No cost is too high for Graves while you’re in recovery. While he may try to make time for you as well, he really does, he will also have someone track down whoever hurt you. This person will then be abducted to Shadow Company for a rough time. Graves himself would take care of them, and he can be pretty effective when he wants to be. However, if you’ve recovered by then, and are among the more vengeful people, then you’re more than welcome to do as you please with the bastard yourself, Graves has no qualms about that. In fact, he’d welcome you doing what you need to do. An eye for an eye. I think he’d become a bit more protective of you afterwards. If you’re okay with it, then he’ll leave you in the hands of some of his Shadows since he can’t always be there for you. If it was up to him, he’d combine you with his work and have you just live on base with him so he could always keep an eye on you, but you likely wouldn’t agree to that. It may seem a bit overbearing, but he will reach out to you more often and does expect you to respond within a few hours, or else he’ll get worried and send someone to check up on you, even if you’re alright.

Nikolai: While Graves may be furious, Nikolai is entirely calm about all of this. Yes, you got hurt, but seeing him panic would likely only worsen the state you’re in. He is well aware of the fact that you will pull through, he made sure of that himself. However, he won’t do anything drastic until you’ve recovered completely. That way your perpetrator has enough time to kill themself before he has to take action. Naturally, you mean the world to him, so any violence against you will not be excused. Nikolai runs a PMC, so he knows what he’s doing, he knows how to deal with violence. Violence for violence is the rule of the beasts and Nikolai’s cruelty is akin to that of a starved animal. However, that can wait until you’re alright again. He’ll visit you every day, even stay at the hospital, and bring you gifts, tell you stories and keep you company otherwise. But he won’t mention the plans he has for the sorry fuck who hurt you, those are for him to know and for you to never find out. Once you’re home again, going about your day, he will seek out the bastard himself and drag him to some place in Siberia. As mentioned before, Nikolai can be cruel when he wants to be, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he let that person run aimlessly around Siberia for a few days, hunted down by him and his people, only to capture and torture them later. Death is a kind of mercy that is not for them, though, so he’ll keep them alive for the time being. They almost took you from him, there’s nothing they could ever do to make up for that. They’ll be a new chewing toy for Chimera until they die for one reason or another. Nikolai won’t get too overprotective, but he will be keeping a closer eye on you. He won’t station one of his people in front of your home when he’s away, but he will try to make more time for you. Calls become more frequent and he will try to find some excuses to spend more time with you, even if it’s just by video chatting with you when you have the time. He won’t freak out, but he won’t forget about that incident either.

#cod #cod x reader #phillip graves #phillip graves x reader #cod nikolai #cod nikolai x reader #I was thinking about wanting a request for Graves again not too long ago so this came at an ideal time #they're both very powerful people who are also war criminals and not afraid of breaking every law in existence #so yeah they'll have their fun with whoever hurt you #thinking about an angry Nikolai scares me so bad actually. he'd be so calm and quiet and that's just the most terrifying thing to me #if you're in an especially bad condition then I think Graves would become more strict with his Shadows #he knows he shouldn't be like that at work but he can't help it since he's just that worried about you #he's usually a fun and caring boss but he'd become very different when you get hurt #of course he'll go back to normal once everything is alright again but you being hurt would hit the Shadows pretty hard as well #I like to think he does talk about you to his Shadows so they definitely know who you are #and just by hearing about you most of them would like you as well. especially because Graves loves you this much and they like him a lot #so I think a lot of Shadows would also grow protective over you and I think that's so very sweet #I always liked to think that the people at Shadow Company were very close with each other #especially because Graves is a good boss and makes sure the work climate there is ideal. despite the war crimes #Graves is actually a pretty fly guy in my eyes. he's just cocky but he does worry a lot about his Shadows and you deep down #he loves his Shadows and he loves you too

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queenlucythevaliant · 4 months

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Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

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wannabecatwriter · 1 month

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Stories will be back at some point...

Sort of preparing to take a big ptofessional test within the next 2 months...

Brain=tired.

#non-sims #state of things #when they tell you CPA prep is kind of a lot #believe them #it wouldn't be too bad if I wasn't working too #and I shouldn't complain #at least I don't have crazy ass overtime anymore #so it definitely could be worse

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aroaceleovaldez · 7 months

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my notifs recently got me thinking about the very random concept of "what if there is a second, secret CHB. directly below normal CHB." and i ended up brainstorming it in the discord.

context for how this originated: one was just a random notif on my post talking about the tunnels under the Hephaestus cabin, and the other was some tags from @drksanctuary on my fake readriordan article mentioning the idea of a chthonic demigod camp.

so. my brilliant (read: "smashing my 2 brain cells together") idea: the elaborate and seemingly infinite tunnels under cabin 9 are remnants of an abandoned underground CHB that exists directly underneath camp. It's basically just normal CHB except in a big cave system, probably connected to the labyrinth somewhere and has the separate tunnels, and instead of the Olympian cabins it has chthonic cabins. there's probably also some infernal nymphs and etc down there too. since all chthonic demigods can learn to shadow-travel they probably used that to get down there, and a lot of chthonic demigods probably have geokinesis just by nature, ergo the tunnels (for when they don't want to shadow-travel, or can't).

in brainstorming with the discord we decided it could be cool if some of the cabins lined up with the above-ground cabins, either for thematic purposes or associations or whatever. Like there's maybe a Hermes and maybe Poseidon cabin in the chthonic CHB too that just link to the above-ground ones, but also like Persephone cabin lines up to Demeter cabin because of course it does. and maybe Hecate cabin lines up to Cabin 8 cause Artemis is sometimes 1/3rd of Hecate. Maybe Angelos cabin is beneath Cabin 1, and Zagreus cabin is beneath Cabin 12. Things like that.

The other ones i thought of were either Hypnos or Thanatos cabin lines up with Apollo, because twins, and the other is just right beside it (because twins). And Charon's cabin is beneath Cabin 9, ergo why the tunnel system connects to it (because Charon. Ferryman. Surface access. It makes sense in my brain).

#pjo #riordanverse #headcanon #headcanons #au #< go figure which you wanna classify it as #this is entirely silly musing but it actually kind of works out nicely cause there's far fewer chthonic deities #than there are technical-olympians #so honestly you could get away with having the secondary chb only having a few extra cabins compared to the 12 usual cabins #it definitely wouldnt be any more than the 20 cabins it has by TOA #also for silly thematic reasons i do think itd be funny if despite everything cabin 13 is still inexplicably cabin 13 in underground chb #like. it shouldn't be. that doesnt make sense. but it is. what's the numbering system for the other cabins? who knows #negative numbers would be interesting. cause theyre underground #i do already have the hc of there being a secret extra cabin aboveground in chb nicknamed ''Cabin 0/Zero''#that's a little ways into the woods and kinda run-down cause it goes unused and basically why it exists is because #the ''12 olympians'' is actually inconsistent throughout ancient greece so there's a non-zero chance they could have a demigod show up #whose parent *is* technically one of the 12 olympians but they dont have a cabin for them - like Enodia. ergo: spare cabin #anyways all this musing is intentionally very silly #i just think itd be funny for chb to find out there is a second. more goth chb that is otherwise identical #literally directly below them. for no reason.#''why'd they made a second chb directly below the first one?'' ''idk underworld/chthonic reference i guess''

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abutterflyobsession · 1 year

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rereading Unseen Academicals and noticed a detail I missed before:

Vetinari has a ‘World’s Best Boss’ mug on his desk??!

who gave that to him who gave our dear tyrant this mug who had the absolute nerve to do it

#a butterfly obsesses #discworld #of course Vetinari would put it on his deak #1) he definitely finds it humorous 2) he loves to mess with people #I love when people who shouldn't have this kind of mug do have this kind of mug #I'd call him an absolute king but he'd probably banish me like the mimes

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rabbiteclair · 10 months

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I cannot physically express the fuckery I just had to deal with at work

so instead, let's metaphorically say that I am a mechanic instead, and somebody calls me up and complains that their car always says that they're speeding

so I spend hours trying to help them through this, trying to rule out basic stuff. Except their responses to a lot of my questions and instructions are kinda hard to parse, until finally, they start letting very strange things slip

like when I ask their speed, they say it's "six". when I ask what units that's in, they don't know what a 'unit' is

and after much questioning they're like "oh yeah haha my car didn't come with one of those 'speedometer' thingamajigs" like that's a completely normal thing to say, and it comes out that they are gauging the speed by leaning out the window and eyeballing the tires now and then

but also they aren't sure how the math works, so they approximate the tires as squares.

and to simplify the math more they drop a brick on the accelerator and try not to touch the brake too often

#programming stuff #'we handle our cookies manually because our web app framework doesn't have anything for that' is an unsettling statement to start with #but it definitely shouldn't be followed by questions like #'so how many Cookie headers can we have?'#and 'but it's fine that we're sending expired cookies right? that wouldn't cause the bug we're dealing with now?'#and 'ohhh wait so you mean we shouldn't send all that Max-Age stuff back in our Cookie header?'#and 'to make it easier can you just give us a list of what cookies we should submit to this one endpoint?'

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