#also the skeletons lived in the underworld

[writer-room]

Rewatching the earlier, and even pilots episodes, of Ninjago are so WILD man. First of all, you notice all the things that are just plain forgotten about or pushed aside in later seasons. Kai originally being the main character, sure, we all know that one, but Cole was heavily implied to be, or become, the leader of the Ninja, that was Cole’s thing. Zane was automatically described with having a sixth seer sense, when nowadays it shows up very, very infrequently. Lloyd used to basically be the Avatar, does anyone remember that? This kid was just the Avatar.

And then you remember the silly things. Like how the skeleton army was once a threat. Like...the skeletons. We battled a giant snake, smaller snakes, robot armies, sentient video games, Garmadon a billion different times, the Overlord, Oni...and the skeletons used to be a worthy adversary. The skeletons.

Did you all remember that Cole’s earth dragon used to...breathe earth? I’ve been forced to remember. Rocky used to breathe earth as a form of attack. It was shown through brown swirly wisps in that beautiful, incredibly shitty 2011 effect. The Underworld used to be implied to be the place where all dead people went, or at least the bad ones. We never heard of a Departed Realm. Do we remember the time Cole had a scene that was a direct parody of Michael Jackson? I sure do. Genuinely the highlight simply because I don’t know how to describe the emotion I felt upon seeing it.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #kai #cole #zane #skeleton army #rocky dragon ninjago #dragons #early ninjago seasons #ninjago underworld #skulkin #talk #text post #garmadon #kai smith #cole brookstone #zane julien #also the skeletons lived in the underworld #there was no departed realm yet. was this just where we were expected #to believe people went when they died? to the skeleton army? #garmadon hired these guys. he wanted these guys to help him #there was so much happening #in the pilot episodes the main villains were the skeletons with garmadon looming in the background #then there were the SNAKES that lloyd unleashed. which. now i love lloyd with all my heart and soul-- #but at least 80% of all the ninjas problems wouldve never happened if lloyd didnt unleash those dam snakes #no pythor. no great devourer. no aspheera. no villain team-ups. no dead guys back from the dead. no underground city that momentarily #worried them. no ancient cities to find #like a good solid CHUNK of the ninjas problems straight up would not have happened if baby lloyd just put that cover back on the snakes #im sure the writers and artists can do something angsty with that. i believe in you guys #baby lloyd fr was the reason the apocalypse was unleashed like 20 times if you wanna squint do you think that keeps him up at night

[mediumgayitalian]

“Oh, gods.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, gods.”

Nico scowls, wrenching just eyes away from Will’s poorly-covered grin and shaking shoulders.

It’s not that bad. It isn’t.

Sure, the complete lack of lighting except Greek fire torches makes the cabin look like a little piece of the Underworld, right here on the surface. But that’s comforting. Honestly. Nico knows the Underworld. It’s — familiar.

And, yeah. It would, probably, be pertinent to have some furniture, or something. At least somewhere for him to store his clothes, because he has more than one set of those now, and maybe a shelf, or something. And, admittedly, the obsidian altar could take up a little less space than it currently does.

But it’s not that bad.

“Are those. Coffin shaped beds.”

The tone of Will’s voice is unlike he’s ever heard it. He turns back to face him, slowly, and finds him biting his fist, hard, every muscle of his body tense as live wire.

“I was twelve godsdamn years old,” Nico snaps. “Forgive me if interior design wasn’t my passion.”

Solace loses it.

In his defense, not that Nico is too worried about defending him, he does appear to try very hard to not lose it. When the first giggle slips out of his lips, he clamps his jaw shut tighter. When his whole body begins to shake with the force of repressing his laughter, he curls inward, as if making himself smaller might reduce the chance of a lapse in control.

But then he glances back inside and looks, really looks, at the dreary, stone walls, the lone skeletons standing guard, and the plush, teakwood black coffin bunk beds, and he collapses to the floor.

“I’m going to open a chasm beneath you,” Nico threatens. “You are going to fall and crack your spine into a million pieces on the bank of the Styx, rotting there with every other forgotten hope.”

“You are a Black Parade lyric personified,” Will wheezes.

Nico doesn’t know what that means, so he kicks him. Unfortunately, he only laughs harder.

“I mean it, Solace. It’s a long way down to the Underworld. You will spend the entire fall petrified with the knowledge that nothing can save you.”

For added effect, Nico makes the floor under the medic’s body shake, makes the tip of a skeleton hand peek out from the earth.

Ironically, this stops Will’s laughter, but not for the reason Nico was aiming for.

“Hey!” A bright blue flipflop-clad foot darts out and collides With Nico’s ankle, sending him sprawling. “I said no spooky magic for the next two months! Put that skeleton away!”

“Fuck off, Solace! It’s barely half a bone! You are so annoying!”

“That’s my specialty.” Will pushes himself upright. He waits until Nico sits up, too, so he can catch his eye before his face splits into a dazzling grin. Actual sparkles seem to flicker beside his face. “And you are ever so easy to annoy.”

Nico stares, unimpressed.

“Anyways.” Will coughs. “You can’t stay here, Neeks —”

“Don’t call me that.”

“— it’s straight-up too depressing.” He peers inside. “It’s also cold, and, like…borderline unliveable? So. As your doctor, I can’t allow it.”

“You’re a medic,” Nico says, raising an eyebrow, “first of all, not a doctor. Second of all, you can’t tell me what to do. Third of all — where am I supposed to sleep? The woods?”

“Hm. Good question.”

Will gets to his feet, brushing the dirt off his shorts and offering Nico a hand. After a second of hesitation, he takes it, allowing Will to haul him up.

“C’mon!”

Nico snatches his hand away, face burning. (Gods. Why does Will have to be so…touchy-feely? And why does it always do weird things to Nico’s stomach?) But it hardly takes a look over Will’s shoulder before Nico’s feet are following after him, without his permission.

“Where are we going?”

“Well, my dad’s kind of a hoe,” Will says matter-of-factly. Nico chokes. Will’s grin widens. “And our cabin was built with that in mind. I know we’ve got an extra bunk or two for ya. Hurry up!”

This…cannot be allowed. Nico doesn’t have a ton of Camp Half-Blood experience, or anything, but as far as he knows, Hermes is the only cabin that can really do that. He doesn’t want to incur the wrath of Apollo, or whatever, by staying in his cabin uninvited.

Well. Will’s inviting him, technically. And there’s a confidence to his offer, like maybe this isn’t the first time he’s done it.

“What if I don’t want to live in your stupid sunshine-y cabin,” Nico grumbles, trying to cover up his nerves. “Holding hands and singing about how much I love being alive isn’t really my cup of tea.”

Will snorts. “Oh, di Angelo,” he says dramatically, shaking his head, “you are in for a world of discovery. Welcome to the Cabin Apollo. Take your shoes off at the door and remember that Kayla bites.”

———

Living in the Apollo cabin is strange.

Four days in, and Nico is only just starting to get used to it. He’s not entirely unused to sharing space with people — he’s had two sisters — but the Apollo kids argue like they enjoy doing it. One minute, Will and Kayla will be screaming at each other at the top of their lungs about touching each other’s shit, then they’re teaming up to pull Gracie off Yan’s face for the exact same argument, only now they offer sage advice on respecting boundaries and compromising. It’s bizarre.

(Austin is pretty chill, actually. Nico has noticed him starting quite a few fights — it was he, in fact, who moved Will’s shit and then gracefully framed Kayla — but he has a very powerful eyebrow raise and a very powerful image as Unproblematic. He has quickly become Nico’s favourite.)

He’s only just barely beginning to understand how they work together, and the struggle comes in because everything is so chaotic. When Nico spent time with Hazel in New Rome, she was in the barracks. He never really had to worry about squabbling over counter space in the bathroom with her, because she had her own little toiletry caddie like everyone else, and bathrooms were public. With Bianca — well. There’s no one alive who knows this about her, but she was bossy. She was sweet and wonderful and self-sacrificing and brave and kind and the centre of Nico’s life, but by the gods, did she take her authority as a big sister seriously. She ordered Nico around all the time. He never had to worry much about when he would have the chance to use the bathroom they shared at the Lotus, or who got the T.V. remote, or who go to sit on the bus instead of standing, because he was not the one deciding. He could stick his tongue out and whine all he wanted, but she was boss. He knew that.

The Apollo kids are not like that.

As well as Nico can figure, it’s kind of a free-for-all. You want first shower? Either wake up the earliest — a strategy only Will every manages to employ with any success — or manage to jab an elbow in someone’s rib and sprint. You want whoever’s humming to shut the hell up so you can sleep? Make sure your threats are quick and believable, or just straight up start throwing shit until they finally stop. You want the coveted middle of the bench spot at breakfast? Well, tough shit on that one, actually. Nico has yet to make that one happen for himself.

He won’t admit it, but he has kind of learned to enjoy it. It’s annoying, and the Apollo siblings do indeed sing at all hours of the day (although the content usually skews more towards diss tracks and delighted insults, if not straight-up curses), and it is so godsdamn bright in there, seriously, is it a gimmick or what, but there’s something to be said about the fact that he’s so surrounded by people and chaos that he hasn’t even had the chance to feel lonely. Not even at night, panting to himself after a nasty nightmare, because all it takes is a particularly loud snore from Will one bunk down to remember where he is. To remember that he’s safe — by demigod standards, at least.

But, still.

He kind of misses his privacy.

“Will,” he whispers urgently, on his fifteenth day of rooming with the Apollo weirdos.

The medic hums noncommittally, attention very focused on the test tube in front of him. Nico has been fighting the urge to try and launch a piece of dust inside it for forty minutes, just to make him explode.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sounds good, Nico.”

Nico narrows his eyes. “You’re ignoring me.”

“Uh-huh. Agreed.”

“I can say anything I want right now.”

“Sure. Maybe double check with Austin.”

“…I’m going to put a colony of ants in your pillowcase.”

“Good idea.”

“Then I’m going to douse your hair products in gasoline and set them aflame.”

“Baller.”

“After that I’m gonna read your super secret diary to the entirety of camp at singalong tonight.”

“You betcha.”

“And then I’m going to shadow travel to Russia.”

Will blinks, frowning. “Hey, no shadow-travelling. What’s this I hear about shadow-travelling?”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Nothing, stupid. You were just ignoring me.”

Will smiles guiltily. “Aw, I’m sorry, Neeks. Got focused on this. I’m finished in twenty, then I’m all yours?”

“…Don’t call me Neeks,” Nico grumbles, furious with himself for how quick he’s relented under wide blue puppy-dog eyes.

“Sorry, Neeks.”

Huffing at Will’s quiet laughter, Nico slides off the nurse’s station counter and wanders around the empty infirmary. Things have luckily finally cooled down in here, nearly three weeks after the end of the Giant War. Some of the exhaustion has faded from Will’s features now that he’s had time to sleep properly.

Not that Nico has noticed, or anything.

“Okay,” Will says a few minutes later, holding his hands up protectively in front of his geeky little setup. “I just gotta do this last step, so long as I calculated it right, it should be fine…” He squeezes a drop of something into the liquid bubbling over the burner, freezing immediately. One, two, three seconds pass and nothing happens, so Will relaxes, sighing in relief and turning to face Nico fully. “Okay, we’re good. What was it you wanted to —”

The text tube contents explode in his face, dousing him in slimey green goo.

Nico bursts out laughing.

“Great,” Will says darkly, swiping the stuff from his eyes. “The one day I don’t wear goggles. Great.”

Nico gasps, sides aching. “Oh my gods —”

“Feel free to help, di Angelo.”

“— you look like a cartoon! Your face!”

It takes Will twelve cloths and seven whole minutes to clean himself and the nurse’s station off of the goo. Nico cackles at him the whole time, and tastefully does not mention the many globs of goo that remain caked in his hair.

“Whenever you’re done.”

Will is very, very bad at being stern when he doesn’t really mean it. And he doesn’t really mean it now, because every time he tries to glare at Nico, his mouth twitches.

“I’m good,” Nico finally wheezes, forcing his face back to normal. “I’m good, I’m good.”

He very pointedly does not look at Will’s hair.

“Dick,” Will huffs, fondness bleeding into his tone. “What did you want?”

He must notice the change in tone at his asking, because he clears the bench fully, hoisting himself on top of it and patting the spot next to him. Nico hesitates for half a second, then crawls up, sitting criss cross applesauce, knees touching.

“I need to move back to my cabin,” he manages, finally.

Will’s face betrays no judgement or emotion. “Oh?”

“Yes.” He picks at a loose thread in his jeans. “I need — space.”

The thread loosens, allowing Nico to tug on it. A hole begins to unravel along the seam as he pulls and pulls and pulls. He stops himself before it gets too wide, tearing the thread off and winding it around his fingers.

“I can tell everyone to tone it down,” Will offers softly, eyebrows creased. “We’ll be more quiet, we’ll —”

Nico places a hand on his knee, cutting off his sentence. “It’s not about that, I promise. You guys have been great.”

A wounded look still pulls at Will’s strong features, as much as he visibly tries to pull his face back to something more supportive. “It’s not?”

“No, no. It’s just —” He frowns, trying to articulate the tangled mess of his thoughts. “I have my own cabin.”

“So?”

“And I can’t stay in yours forever.”

“I mean, you could.”

“Chiron’s been giving me looks, Will.”

“So what! I’ll — write you a doctor’s note, or something!”

Nico snorts. “A doctor’s note letting me sleep in your cabin?”

Will nods fervently, although he seems to acknowledge the ridiculousness of his suggestion, if the grin on his face is any indication. “Yes! For medical reasons, you know.” He mimes writing. “‘Patient’s cabin is dank and sad. To avoid bouts of misery, patient must sleep in the presence of the coolest and best and prettiest and most uplifting people in camp.’”

“Hm. Not sure Chiron’s gonna buy that last part. Not sure I buy that last part, actually.”

“Hey.”

Nico dodges Will’s shove, chuckling.

“Seriously, though, Will. This was never a long term solution, right?”

“I know. You’re cabin just — sucks so bad, man. No offense.”

“I take great offense to that, actually. My cabin is art.”

“Sure, Eddie Cullen.”

“I don’t know who that is, so that’s a horrible insult.”

“Travesty, honestly.”

Outside the open infirmary windows, Nico can hear distant, triumphant screaming, laughter, and the clang of metal. Today’s a good day. The weather’s balmier than usual, for late August, and some of the gloom that’s hung over everyone’s head for the bast few weeks seems to have lifted.

“You can’t go back to your cabin like it is,” Will says into the silence, startling Nico, “but —” he grins when Nico begins to protest, holding up his hand. “We can definitely change it up.”

He slides off the bench, botching his landing and almost sprawling on the floor. He holds a dramatic hand out to Nico when he rights himself. Nico ignores it, rolling his eyes and getting to his feet by himself.

“C’mon,” Will says, grabbing his hand anyway. Sparks shoot up Nico’s arm. “We need to go ask Chiron for the van keys and approximately five hundred dollars.”

———

Three hours is too fucking long to be in a vehicle. Especially when Will is driving, because all he does is play nonstop country music and let everybody cut in front of him.

“I’m driving us back,” Nico informs him as they (finally) get out of the stupid van, snatching the keys from his hands.

Will shrugs. “Sure.”

Nico had expected more of a fight, honestly. But he supposes neither of them are legally allowed to drive, age-wise, and besides, Nico technically has seventy years of driving experience on Will.

(…The Lotus had a racetrack.

Nico was very, very good at it.)

“What is this place, anyway?”

“This place,” Will says grandly, throwing an arm over his shoulders, “is essentially the mortal version of the Labyrinth, minus, you know, the soul-sucking terror.”

“Okay. All that’s telling me is that you have horrible ideas and we should leave immediately.”

Will rolls his eyes. “It’s a furniture store.”

“Well, then —” he punches Will’s shoulder, huffing when he only laughs. “Say that, then!”

“But then what would I do with all the drama in my heart?”

“Choke on it, hopefully!”

Ikea is weird.

Since Will did not tell him what the plan was, he didn’t draw up any plans. Luckily, Will has the dimensions of his cabin — although where he got them, Nico does not ask — so they spend an hour or so in the cafe drawing out a plan.

“You need more than two beds, Neeks.”

“Uh, no I don’t. Unless my father has something very important to announce to me, I need a bed for me, and a bed for Hazel.”

“What if I want to sleep over?”

“You can sleep on the porch.”

Mostly, they wander around the sets. Nico isn’t really sure what he wants his cabin to look like — he has to remind himself that yes, actually, he cares about the space he’ll be spending at least the next three years of his life in. It’s a startling reality, to have control over his own space. He must’ve had some say in his childhood bedroom, but he has no memory of it. He spent the most time in his and Bianca’s room at the Lotus, but that was already furnished when they got there, and besides, it only felt like they were there for less than a year. It always felt like a hotel room, never his room. Westminster was no different. His room in his father’s palace had already been designed, too. In fact he’d based his cabin on it.

What does Nico want his bedroom to look like, without someone else deciding for him?

“I’m not getting a fucking Lightning McQueen bed, Solace.”

“But it would be so sick! And look — it’s got little cubbies!”

“I’m going to ditch you, and shadow travel back to camp,” Nico threatens. “And I have the van keys, so you’ll be stuck here for real.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Will looks at him sternly, hands on hips. “No shadow travelling for you, Death Breath. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fade into nothing on my watch.”

“I’m joking,” Nico says, exasperated, but cannot deny the warmth that fills him up at Will’s concern.

In the end, he decides on a pretty normal bed. It’s bigger than Will’s bunk (“Or anyone else’s bed,” Will grumbles, “you lucky asshole.”), but not ridiculously designed. He picks a similar size for Hazel, only the frame is white, not black, and the bedspread that comes with it is a soft, coral pink that he knows she will like.

“Wanna see if they’ve got a Mythomagic bedspread for yours?” Will teases.

That would be the coolest thing ever in the entire world, Nico thinks, and is so embarrassed that he shoves Will, shrieking, into a giant basket of pillows for making him think it.

“Obviously I don’t want that.”

“You are such a turd! I’ll get you, di Angelo!”

He does not. Nico is way too sneaky for him, and after the fifth time Nico manages to give him the slip, he gives up, sulking in a display for a bedroom of a nine year old girl.

“Fitting,” Nico teases, gesturing to the princess wallpaper. “You drama queen.”

“Buzz off.”

Next, they look for furniture. It’s pretty easy — Nico doesn’t need much, and he’s not too concern with cut or style or anything. He quickly picks out two dressers, one to match Hazel’s bed frame, and one to match his, and then a couple bookshelves.

Four hours into their trip, Nico is exhausted. They have a three hour drive ahead of them, they’ve been out all day, and he wants to go home.

But Will stops him before they go get all the boxes for their furniture.

“This is still pretty bare bones,” he says quietly, then grins at his own accidental pun. Nico shoots him a venomous look, warning him against making it more obvious, and for once he actually listens. “You know, we’re still under budget. We’ve got around $200 left — we can get a motel, stay the night, then we don’t have to drive back right away. And tomorrow, maybe we can check out some other stores, look for smaller decorations and stuff. And if we don’t have to drive back tonight, we’ve maybe got another hour in here, if you wanted to get a couple more pieces.”

Nico opens his mouth to refuse — that’s way too much effort to spend on one person’s cabin, c’mon — then pauses, thinking about it.

Chiron hadn’t even thought about it before handing them the money. Will had barely gotten the words out before he’d started counting out the bills.

“I want you to make a home here,” the centaur had said, touching his hand. There was a pain in his kind eyes, stopping any protests. “I made a mistake, Nico, the first time you came here. In another life, you felt welcome enough to stay the whole time. Take what you need.”

What does he need? What does home look like, to him?

“There was a beanbag chair, in our room at the Lotus,” he says, pushing the words past the lump in his throat. “Me and Bianca used to fight over it.” His voice shakes. A tear gathers at the corner of his eye, and he blinks it back. “It wasn’t real fighting. When I called mercy she’d — scoop me up and throw me on it and squish in after me, and we’d sit together and play video games. Or read. She liked to read.”

Will squeezes his trembling hands. “We can get a beanbag chair.”

“And I — don’t like the blackout curtains. The dark makes me think of — the pit.”

“Okay. They sell lotsa lamps here, too. Might be nicer than the Greek fire.”

Nico nods. There’s — more, far more ideas, now, flooding his brain; Hazel crowding over him on a rug-covered floor, shrieking as he teases her about Frank; a desk tucked in the corner where Will sits, mouthing along to his textbooks as Nico sharpens his sword; Jason running his fingers along rows of books on a big, cluttered shelf; Reyna with her fist curled around her mouth, studying a chess board across from him, hair shining under the natural light from the window.

He can have that. He can have that.

Thankfully, all their stuff fits in the back of the van. Despite his insistence earlier, Nico hands Will the keys, and he drives around until he finds a shitty motel with a vacancy sign flashing out front. He pulls into the farthest corner of the parking lot, killing the engine, then waits.

“You okay?”

Nico shrugs. “I’m…not sure.”

“That’s okay,” Will assures, pressing a fleeting touch to his shoulder. Nico grabs his wrist before he moves away, tugging down his hand and linking their fingers together.

For once, it doesn’t make him feel all sparky. The warmth of Will’s hands is grounding, and so is the gentle squeeze, the smile he feels pointed in his direction.

“C’mon. Let’s check in and sleep, huh?”

Nico’s exhaustion compounds in the walk from the car to the lobby, so by the time Will is speaking quietly to the host, he’s half asleep, leaning on Will’s shoulder. He vaguely feels it when Will shifts his weight, sliding a hand around his waist to hold him better. He blinks and they’re standing in front of a door.

“Almost there, Death Boy,” he murmurs. “Hold on a sec.”

It takes him six separate tries to make the keycard work. He gets huffy when Nico snickers tiredly at him.

“Finally, yeesh.”

He guides Nico in, dropping the backpack he brought somewhere near the door. As soon as the bed is within Nico’s sights, he makes a beeline, barely remembering to shuck his shoes and jacket.

“Please do not sleep in your jeans.”

“Mmmfuck off,” Nico groans, already sliding under the covers. He’ll regret it in the morning, but whatever.

“Goober.” Callused hands brush through his hair, resting lightly on his forehead. “Goodnight, Nico.”

Nico’s out before he can even think to respond.

———

He wakes up, in the middle of the night, scream caught in his throat and heart pounding in his ears. The air smells like smoke and fear. The rushing of the Phlegethon is so loud it’s overpowering.

A loud snore knocks him back to reality.

Crawling desperately towards the source of the sound, he hangs over the bed, eyes adjusting rapidly to the dark to see a curled lump on the floor, head resting on his own hands. A quick glance behind him confirms the other half of the bed has been left untouched.

“Stupid,” he mumbles, tiny smile chasing away the last of his fear.

He tugs the blankets off the mattress, pulls off the two pillows, and joins his dumbass, selfless friend on the floor.

———

“Question,” Will asks, swallowing the last of their disgustingly delicious greasefest of a breakfast. “Were you alive when Walmart was invented?”

“I was alive before your great grandmother was.”

“No, I mean — were you out and kickin’. Have you strolled the endless aisles of corporate soullessness, basking in the wonder of American overconsumerism?”

“…You’re such a weird, particular person.”

Will looks delighted. “You’re a Walmart newbie!”

He pulls into the dead, cracked parking lot way too happily for this hour in the morning. Nico would even say he takes the nearest exit to get to the store gleefully. He is embarrassed for him.

Walmart is…underwhelming.

As stupid as it is, Will had hyped it up so much that Nico was almost a little excited. It just looked like any other basic superstore. Will, for whatever reason, seemed delighted by that fact.

“I do not like this store,” he explained when Nico asked, expression not matching his words, “it just means so very much to me that you are joining me in the misery of having experienced it.”

They spend more time than they mean to just dicking around. At one point they nearly get thrown out by management, because Will finds a pair of NERF guns that some child dug out of its packaging and no words need to be spoken. They gear up and scamper off, hunting each other through fluorescent-lights hell.

“Please just get your shit and leave,” says the very tired looking manager, and they have the good gall to at least appear embarrassed as they mumble, “Yes, ma’am.”

It doesn’t take long when they have their head on straight. They get some fairy lights, a couple cool posters, dorky little trinkets that Nico probably doesn’t need, per se, but what was he supposed to do, leave the little plastic crow skeleton behind?

Unlikely.

With his own money, Will buys several cans of paint and a CD. He explains neither of these purchases. The look on his face gets steadily more infuriating as they make their way through the line, and Nico really, truly considers leaving him behind.

The purchase of the CD becomes very obvious very quickly. Even though Nico is driving, and therefore Nico should get music control, Will pouts and pleads until Nico gives in and lets him play his stupid country album. He justifies his decision in his own brain by noticing the radiance of Will’s smile as he belts out the words, badly, at the top of his lungs. He then spends the rest of the drive back to camp convincing himself not to be embarrassed for having said thoughts.

They get back to camp about lunch time, and Will destroys any attempt for a subtle reentry by whistling the second they cross the property line.

“Austin! Kayla!” he hollers, making Nico jump. “Come help us unload!”

“We coulda done it ourselves,” Nico grumbles.

Will pats his head condescendingly. “It has been twenty-four long, long hours since I’ve bosses my siblings around, Neeks. I need this.”

It does go by quite a bit quicker with Austin and Kayla’s help. Lou Ellen, Cecil, Yan, and Gracie come to help, too, but Gracie’s too little to carry much more than a small desk lamp. Instead, they lay down the biggest box — Nico’s bed frame — and let her climb on top of it, carrying her like she’s a queen atop a throne back to Nico’s cabin. She has the time of her life, giggling to herself like a madwoman.

By the time everything’s unloaded, a couple hours have passed, and the Hades cabin looks like a clusterfuck.

“Maybe you stay in Apollo a couple more nights,” Will suggests.

“Might have to,” Nico agrees. Will looks inordinately pleased with himself.

All in all, it takes about two days to disassemble the old furniture, get rid of it, and start putting together the new stuff. Will helps for most of it, but he has a few shifts in the infirmary, so Nico ends up trying to do a fair bit on his own.

“May the wrath of Zeus come down upon this fucking piece of shit, no good, poorly designed garbage-looking idiotic mother fuc —”

“Maybe time for a break from furniture assembling?” suggests a voice, accompanied by a quick knock in the open door. Will leans on the doorframe, grinning, box propped up on his hip.

“Will, thank the gods,” Nico sighs, relieved. He angrily shakes a tool in his direction. “Allen wrenches are fucking useless. I’m three seconds away from throwing this through the window.”

“Definitely time for a switch, then.”

Will’s smile is wide and crinkles his eyes. He’s got dimples, too, Nico is now noticing, and then very rapidly un-noticing then because gods above that is a dangerous path.

“Did you and Rachel get into another prank war?” he asks, praying the flush on his cheeks goes away.

Will glances down at his paint-spattered clothes. “Nah, this is just my painting outfit. Why ruin more than one set of clothes, you know?” He sets down the box in the middle of the room, then heads for the half-built furniture sprawled all throughout the cabin, tugging it all towards the middle. Nico inches towards the box, curious, and finds it full of dozens of paint cans and brushes, including the ones he got at Walmart.

“I didn’t know you painted.”

He flashes another grin in Nico’s direction. This one has a little mischief to it, a little teasing. His stomach swoops.

“Gotta have at least one artistic talent or my dad would disown me. Help me tape down this tarp, will you?”

It takes them twenty minutes to prep the room, protecting the floor and the furniture. Once everything is ready, Will jogs over to the CD player he gave Nico a few days ago, flicking through the stack of CDs and choosing one at random. Soft opera music begins to float around the cabin.

“Okay,” he begins, clapping his hands, “first we need a base coat. Get the white paint and the rollers.”

It takes them the rest of the day, painting until dinner, then waiting past sunset for it to dry. Nico follows Will back to his cabin that night — he wouldn’t let him sleep around the paint fumes — and the two of them return the next morning, re-donning their paint-spattered clothes. Will braids his hair, this time, tucking the little pigtails behind a kerchief. It makes Nico smile every time he looks at him.

As much as he’s in painting clothes, Nico doesn’t really do much of the painting. He stays in the centre of the room, half assembling furniture, half watching Will bring his walls to life with more colours than he’s ever seen in one place.

Will doesn’t ask what Nico wants him to paint in his murals. Instead, Nico watches as the streets of Venice begin to unfold on one of the walls, bright and blue and exactly as he remembers, even though he knows for a fact Will has never been. The shining fruit of his stepmother’s garden is next, with a notable absence of the pomegranate tree, and then the hills of New Rome, the sunflower field in rural New York Nico used to visit, the Chinese mountainscape from the first big shadow travelling jump he ever made. Even the poplar forests of the Underworld, looking much kinder and livelier in Will’s rendition than in real life, with Mrs. O’Leary and Cerberus chasing each other through the flickering leaves. Beautiful, colourful, breathtaking scenes; Nico’s favourite places, Nico’s many homes.

“I get a lot of dreams,” Will admits, dragging a smear of rich purple near the ceiling. “You’re in a lot of them. These are the places you’re smiling, the most.”

“They’re beautiful, Will.” Nico’s throat is drier than any desert he’s ever been to. “Gods, they’re more beautiful here than they are in real life.”

“Liar,” Will teases, although his smile is shy.

Nico has never seen him smile like that. He’s seen a lot more of Will in these past few days, actually; his softness, his kindness, his love.

He has only knows Will for a little over a month, he thinks. But Will loves him. That much is obvious.

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

His eyes are still trained on his work. He is on his tiptoes on a step stool, one leg extended precariously, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. The curve of his brush is careful, meticulous. Only the best for his friends, for Nico. That’s Will.

“Hey,” Nico says again, more urgently. He steps forward, wrapping his fingers around his wrist.

“Just a sec, Neeks, as soon as I’m done we can —”

Nico pulls until he loses his balance, falling into Nico’s arms. He stares into wide, blue blue eyes, for one second, two, then presses their lips together. Will’s squeak of surprise is swallowed by his mouth, hands sliding up his arms to cup his face, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh,” he sighs, eyelashes ticking Nico’s cheeks as they flutter close. “Oh.”

He melts into Nico’s hold. There’s a thunk and a crinkle as his paintbrush falls from his loose fingers, splattering onto the tarp, and paint-wet hands tangle into his hair. Nico finds he doesn’t mind.

“You love me,” he murmurs in between breaths, lips brushing Will’s with every word.

“Yes,” Will breathes. He kisses Nico again, and again. “A lot.”

“Good.” He’s not sure if it’s the paint fumes making him lightheaded, or the odd, slightly uncomfortable position, or the intoxicating, delirious feel of Will’s warm skin. He’s not sure if he cares. “Good.”

It’s not quite an I-love-you-too. The words won’t form on his tongue, so instead he tightens his hold, sending them that way, and presses closer, closer, closer.

Will smiles into the kiss.

He understands just fine.

#i could write an essay about how i think they’re dynamic would be immediately post three days in the infirmary #also i fit SO MANY of my personal headcanons in here hell yeah #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #pjo hoo toa #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #nico/will #will/nico #gently falling in love #love #i’m tagging it bc. will loves so clearly in this one it kills me a little #fic #my writing #longpost

[aroaceleovaldez]

non-exhaustive list of canon powers Nico di Angelo either has shown or is heavily implied to have:

Shadow-travel

Manipulation of shadows/darkness (also possibly use of shadows as a pocket-dimension a la Magicians using the Duat in The Kane Chronicles)

Becoming intangible/shadows

Complete control over skeletons/bones (dead or alive, including summoning, reanimation, and/or changing shape of them) and being able to sense their presence

Summoning, reanimating, commanding, and dispelling the dead/undead (Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, etc & varieties) and being able to sense their presence

Ability to understand/communicate with the dead/undead and potentially other beings of the Underworld

Inherent complete comprehension of Latin

Ability to perceive the usually unperceivable/possibly look upon a deity’s true form without repercussion (at least moreso than the average demigod, though possibly is restricted to chthonic beings) (ex: Tartarus, potentially also interacting with his parents, etc)

Interacting tangibly with ghosts (implied to be a Ghost King thing rather than a Hades/Pluto thing)

Partial or complete immunity to different effects of the Underworld/things within (can consume food/drink of or in the Underworld without repercussions, effects from the Lethe wear off over time instead of being permanent like usual for mortals, etc)

Astral projection/”Walking in dreams”

Dream manipulation and projection (Sending dreams to others, etc.) (presumably includes sharing/projecting dreams with others) alongside inflicting sleep upon others even from a distance.

Illusions

Manipulation of emotions/aura that inflicts specific emotions on others (ex.: radiating fear/death onto enemies)

Projection of emotions and memories onto others (can be so forceful it causes physical damage like a shockwave)

Geokinesis (all forms but also specifically generating black marble) (presumably also specialized control over precious gemstones & non-paper currency)

Temperature manipulation (seemingly only lowering temperature)/creating frost)

Control/manipulation of souls, including living beings (ex: ripping out Bryce Lawrence’s soul)

Perceiving/reading/judging of souls (most likely also a Ghost King thing over Hades/Pluto thing, but possibly both)

Converting living into dead/undead, aka instakill (ex: disintegrating monsters to bone with one touch)

Lowering or manipulation of own vitals (breathing, heart rate, etc)

Death Trance/pseudo-hibernation (possibly also general control over states of consciousness at least for self, in combo with control over vitals & dreams)

Sensing death (impending or when it occurs, sometimes receiving dreams/visions of it occurring)

Able to sense other children of Hades/Pluto (potentially also other chthonic beings in general/able to identify based on sense alone) and also just living beings in general, such as mortals (possibly via souls).

Improved navigation underground/in the Underworld and ability to traverse restricted or normally unnavigable parts of the Underworld

Enhanced strength/abilities when in the Underworld

Inherently unnaturally quiet (possibly able to silence sound on a designated target)

Hiding/shielding self from being perceived (seemingly related to shadows/silence)

#pjo #riordanverse #nico di angelo #long post // #MY BOY IS OP AS FUCK and i love this about him #so many of these are so underutilized #when will Nico get to use his geokinesis again #we only see him make marble once in BoTL and then never again #based on that he should theoretically be able to do everything Hazel can do. which also implies Hazel can do everything he can do #let Hazel summon a skeleton for once and Nico hits somebody with a rock cmon #also i still firmly believe Nico should get to turn invisible #we've seen him become intangible. his dad's notable item is a helm that makes you invisible. let him turn invisible. #but yeah big 3 kids are op. look at nico go. and this is just physical abilities not including stuff like Annabeth being smart #or cabin 7 kids being good at music or whatever #presumably for Nico/Hazel it'd be like a penchant for diplomacy and legality-related things presumably #and i like to hc he has a personal inherent knowledge bank of everyone who has ever died in his lifetime - just details about their deaths #mostly anyways and then like basic facts about who they were/next of kin/etc #so they can tap into that at any time and be like ''hold on lemme look this person/their relatives up real quick'' #i usually like to write that as how Nico confirmed what was up with Jason when they first met #he just kind of squinted at Jason and went ''okay. hm. who are you next of kin of? Beryl - OH YOU'RE THALIA'S BROTHER''

[un-pearable]

early ninjago is so delightfully batshit. magic elemental weapons exist. so do powerlines. so does blacksmithing as a valid and profitable profession. also video games. also people regularly buy samurai gear. also there IS an entire modern city but also 90% of the population lives in tiny villages with no running water. but with power lines. there is an underworld full of skeletons. those skeletons aren’t dead people they’re just skeletons

#text✨ #ninjago #jay loves the early seasons a little too much post no. 135647483

[starshapedjello]

Anyone else worried about Bianca Censori?

She’s probably fine, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure Ye isn’t holding her hostage, right? 🤔🤔🤔

Then I saw her age.

SHE’S 29 🪐

Her Saturn Return is happening to her. That makes sense. Her north node is in Scorpio, which sounds scary, but the photos look on point for this vibe lol. Pluto (Scorpio’s ruler) has always been a formidable plant. It’s also the death card in the Tarot. It represents transformation. It has never been easy to completely transform and it never will be. It takes work and a lot of it is subconscious. The subconscious is where our mind hides all the skeletons in our closet.

Scorpio is also about power struggles. In Greek mythology Pluto is the ruler of the underworld.

I am very intrigued by people with a north node in Scorpio. I want to know what y’all are learning right now. Whats happening in your lives? Please illuminate me.🥀✨

#astrology #horoscope #zodiac #astrology thoughts #astro #astro observations #astro obs #astrology community #pluto #north node #north node Scorpio #scorpio #Scorpio north node #karma #Astro karma #astrology karma #Saturn #Saturn returns #saturn return #fortune telling #astrology lover #Bianca censori #kim kardashian #Kanye #Kanye west #he #kardashian #ye

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Beelzebub come to God killer cat who is in the domain that no one in the underworld dear to come, but he dose and this area belongs to the cat who is in one of the many forms of the head of the dog and body of a skeletal figured and asked about the cursed he have

And cat just said " Oh yeah you curse alright but not from me as I just do my own things, but seem you are cursed since if your birth by someone else, I can reverse it but you'll have to be bound in a new curse "

-Throughout Valhalla were quiet areas, mostly in the underworld, where others would dare not come, which gave you the perfect place to get away from everyone and just relax and be alone for a while.

-It also gave you an opportunity to play around with your alternative forms, not your cat-like form or your humanoid form, as you could change into anything you wanted.

-You heard footsteps approaching you from behind as you had the body of an unknown creature, but only the skeleton, tall and foreboding, with the head of a dog with large fangs and bright glowing eyes.

-Nobody came to this section of the underworld, due to dark curses that supposedly loomed there, there weren’t, at least not anymore, as curses meant nothing, they were just as easy to destroy as anything else.

-To hear footsteps was surprising enough, but when you saw who approached, you couldn’t help but grin, baring your abnormally long teeth as you lowered your head, leaning over Beelzebub who didn’t look frightened in the least.

-You chuckled, “You are either very bold or very foolish to come here, young one. To what do I owe your visit?” he bowed his head to you, being respectful, “I saw how easily you took care of those curses that Hades asked you to get rid of. I came to ask for your help.”

-You knew the curse that he was speaking of, and your body shrunk, to not be looming over him, but remained in the unsettling, at least to others, form you were now in.

-You leaned in close and inhaled his scent, smelling the curse, “Ahh- you were cursed by one before you were even born, and you have carried that curse for so long, and lost so much to it. It is not one of my curses but I can remove it, for a price.”

-Beelzebub’s eyes went wide, hearing this information, hearing there was a chance to be finally rid of this curse, “What is the price?” he knew not to be too excited, as while you had not shown your cruel side to anyone in Valhalla, besides scaring them a little, he needed to be careful.

-You pointed a bony finger at his chest, “The curse is a part of you, without it, you will die. I know that is what you wish for and what that succubus’ curse aims to prevent until there is one strong enough to kill you, curse and all. I will not kill you, as it is not your fate to die by my hand, but I can remove this curse, but another will take its place. I will leave the choice in your hands, young one, it is a risk of your own choosing.”

-Beelzebub hesitated in accepting immediately before he spoke, “May I ask what kind of curse you would replace my own with, should I decide to go through with it?” Your hand lifted to his cheek, stroking gently, bone fingers against his skin, “Having lived with a curse for so long and wishing for death- what a sad little god you are. The curse will be as strong as the one you hold now, but you will be able to control it except for one week twice a year.”

-You didn’t give him an outright answer, giving only a vague idea before he took your hand, immediately accepting.

-You bared your teeth in another smile as you shook his hand and instantly his world spun before everything went dark.

-When Beelzebub awoke next, he was in his bed, you sitting on his chest in your cat form, looking amused before he sat up, feeling tired before he looked at his hands, seeing nothing different.

-When he entered the bathroom to see if there were any physical changes, he stomped back out, holding a long black tail and pointing at the fluffy black cat ears on top of his head as his face was burning bright red, “What is this?!”

-You licked your paw, not at all bothered, “Your new curse! You now share your body with an ancient cat demon, and it gave you a tail, fangs, claws, and cat like ears.” Beelzebub calmed, hearing this, realizing a cat demon would be better than Satan.

-He thanked you for this kindness, as he felt lighter, freer before he paused, “Wait- so what are the two weeks a year that I won’t be able to control this curse?”

-You said your answer like it was no big deal, “Oh- you’ll go into heat twice a year and you will need someone to *explicit* your *explicit* and *explicit-explicit-explicit* you at least twice a day for a whole week to keep you under control or you’ll go crazy.”

-Beelzebub was white, collapsing to his knees in shock, hearing of his new fate as you licked your paw, “Do you have someone who can do that for you?” he didn’t answer, instead falling to his side, his eyes spinning as his processed this new curse.

-What has he done to himself?

#record of ragnarok #ror x reader #ror beelzebub

[kemetic-dreams]

Baron Samedi (English: Baron Saturday), also written Baron Samdi, Bawon Samedi or Bawon Sanmdi, is one of the lwa of Haitian Vodou. He is a lwa of the dead, along with Baron's numerous other incarnations Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix and Baron Criminel.

He is the head of the Gede family of lwa; his brothers are Azagon Lacroix and Baron Piquant and he is the husband of Maman Brigitte. Together, they are the guardians of the past, of history, and of heritage

Baron Samedi is usually depicted with a top hat, black tail coat, dark glasses, and cotton plugs in the nostrils, as if to resemble a corpse dressed and prepared for burial in the Haitian style. He is frequently depicted as a skeleton (but sometimes as a black man that merely has his face painted as a skull), and speaks in a nasal voice. The former President-for-Life of Haiti, François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, modeled his cult of personality on Baron Samedi; he was often seen speaking in a deep nasal tone and wearing dark glasses.

He is noted for disruption, obscenity, debauchery, and having a particular fondness for tobacco and rum. Additionally, he is the lwa of resurrection, and in the latter capacity he is often called upon for healing by those near or approaching death, as it is only the Baron that can accept an individual into the realm of the dead.

Due to affiliation with François Duvalier, Baron Samedi is linked to secret societies in the Haitian government and includes them in his domain.

Baron Samedi spends most of his time in the invisible realm of vodou spirits. He is notorious for his outrageous behavior, swearing continuously and making filthy jokes to the other spirits. He is married to another powerful spirit known as Maman Brigitte, but often chases after mortal women. He loves smoking and drinking and is rarely seen without a cigar in his mouth or a glass of rum in his bony fingers. Baron Samedi can usually be found at the crossroads between the worlds of death and the living. When someone dies, he digs their grave and greets their soul after they have been buried, leading them to the underworld.

Baron Samedi is the leader of the Gede, lwa with particular links to magic, ancestor worship and death. These lesser spirits are dressed like The Baron and are as rude and crude but not nearly as charming as their master. They help carry the dead to the underworld

As well as being the master of the dead, Baron Samedi is also a giver of life. He can cure mortals of any disease or wound, so long as he thinks it is worthwhile. His powers are especially great when it comes to Vodou curses and black magic. Even if somebody has been afflicted by a hex that brings them to the verge of death, they will not die if The Baron refuses to dig their grave. So long as The Baron keeps them out of the ground, they are safe.

In many Haitian cemeteries, the longest standing grave of male is designated as the grave of Baron Samedi. A cross (the kwa Bawon, meaning "Baron's cross") is placed at a crossroads in the cemetery to represent the point where the mortal and spiritual world cross. Often, a black top hat is placed on top of this cross.

He also ensures that all corpses rot in the ground to stop any soul from being brought back as a zombie. What he demands in return depends on his mood. Sometimes he is content with his followers wearing black, white or purple clothes or using sacred objects; he may simply ask for a small gift of cigars, rum, black coffee, grilled peanuts, or bread. But sometimes The Baron requires a Vodou ceremony to help him cross over into this world

#baron samedi #lwa #african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #africans #afrakans #african culture #afrakan spirituality #haiti

[dyinggirldied]

Have anyone written a fic where Danny, after graduating high school and burntout after fighting with his ghost rogue gallery, decides to close the portal and takes a gap year travelling around the world. He borrowed some cool stuff from Clockword that helps with language and all.

Of course, because Danny is a half ghost, it means everywhere he goes, he ends up meeting ghosts and spirits (and even some mythological monsters) of different cultures.

In Japan, he meets rokurokubi, hanako, futakuchi-onna, onryo, yurei and youkai of the like. A fun twist is that they are not bad people, just scary looking with a bit of blue-and-orange-morality thing going but they are genuinely nice and even understanding of Danny's plight of fitting in since most of them also struggle in human society.

I also want Danny to meet Krasue (the ghost with head of woman whose neck is connected with internal organs) in Thailand and be like "wow, and I thought I have seen the worst" because yeah, body horror my friend.

There might be a literal ghost festival in the Chinese Underworld. Or see hungry ghosts and goes "my parents's food might be literally alive but at least food us food i guess". Get to spook people in living world by tricking them with paying them with seemingly real money until they check and see it is Underworld money.

Mexico: The Day of the Dead. Danny may enjoy the music and food there. At this point dancing skeletons are the least scariest.

#like our ghost cultures are so diverse and interesting #and hello google and wikipedia are here #i want danny to interact more with the ghosts in other countries #danny phantom #danny fenton #ghost #ghost culture #spirit

[digitaldoeslmk]

By The Book AU Timeline

[this will be edited as things progress and the au gets more fleshed out]

less of a timeline and more the a brainstorm chart for the plotbeats i have so far

Prince > Little Sage > Pilgrim > Immortal

ACT 1, PRINCE: 2 years, S1 plus some of S2

ep0 special, MK becomes Monkie Kid

Fated Feast (tm) and dealing with it

MK learning how to use his powers

pretty much all the episodes of S1

Beijing Opera sideplot

first New Years is a Lion Dancing competition special

Macaque introduces himself

Spider Queens get exorcised, LBD reveal

Nezha and Muzha introduction

some more filler episodes of Monkie gang dealing with small easy stuff

MK gets invited to meet Guanyin

MK learning the Dao and Dharma, starts cultivation

Macaque causes trouble (basically Shadow Play ep but not), Wukong finds out

spicynoodles start becoming a thing late in the arc

S1 finale special, except it's LBD and some henchmen

Celestial Realm sightseeing moment, introduction to several immortals and gods

ACT 2, LITTLE SAGE: about half a year, part of S2 and a lot of changes

Red Son's investigation gets serious, Nezha is helping

Wukong gets more present to teach MK

most of what's left of S2, with some changes

Yingge and Longnü intro

Tang starts helping MK and Mei with magic

Mei starts training her dragon powers in FFM

Guanyin meets the Monkien gang, reveal of Tang's past reincarnations

MK gets deeper on training with his monkey form and powers

"recollections of red and blue" is set in this arc

DBK and PIF start making amends with Red Son

qpr chimera fully established, Red Son and MK get serious enough to tell their parents about it

more LBD shenanigans

S2 season finale, except not

LBD tries to trap him in a pagoda, everyone joins the fray, MK escapes because Macaque underestimates him, Wukong gets kebabed, Megapolis is lost and the gang flees for their lives

ACT 3, PILGRIM: about half a year, S3 in spirit but almost every plot gets scrapped cus its just filler anyway

they aren't on a ""journey to the west"", they are gathering allies and tools to use against LBD and Macaque

plan is, burn the motherfuckers with the Samadhi fire with the help of the four dragon king's armies to spread the fire with rain, and use some artifacts to then control the fire and put it out

drastic measure but it do be drastic times

LBD used the skeleton key to open the gates of the Diyu, so the world is slowly getting overrun by runaway spirits, as well as channeling the waters from it to freeze the land

apparently Macaque wants to consume every living thing he's trapped to fuel something, and nobody is sure what

anyway it's crisis politics time, nobody is having fun, everything sucks

time to check in with the past pilgrims for advice and some tricks they know, Monkie gang power up time

the dragon king of the north and his family are missing, time to find them

Shen Gongbao intro, he's involved but they figure it out

it's also time to draft some immortals, we love owing favors to people in this house amiright??

Mayor starts to think the henchman career isn't for him, time to dip

he fucks a plan cus he uses a pill of immortality to heal himself but oops the gang needed that

Mayor spills the beans on Macaque's plan, MK gets impulsive and runs off to face LBD

S3 special time except not

MK exchanges himself for the girl LBD got possessed, which builds the group time to wrap up lose ends

final battle time, hoards of the underworld versus whatever immortals got convinced to help despite going against the Jade Emperor's decree

MK sends a clone with his staff before he loses control back to the gang

Mei in dragon form fighting possessed MK, so that Red Son and Nezha can take a shot at MK to exorcise LBD out of him, Erlang and Muzha helping to hold Macaque back

MK gets shot with the Samadhi Fire, to explosive results

MK vs Macaque kaiju monkey battle time

Macaque gets nuked, LBD gets carbonized, Mayor dies saving people from the city before the fires get to them

everything is put back where it belongs, but there's a lot of loose ends to wrap up, ends in a bittersweet note

ACT 4, IMMORTAL: two years, S4 solely in name, basically a full overhaul lmao

oh man oh man shits gonna hit the fan lmao

the city is saved and the bad guys are gone; time for Consequences

Jade Emperor isnt very happy with the amount of unauthorized actions taken just now

MK goes to fucking trial for the crime of saving the world, it goes as well as one would think

luckily Guanyin comes in clutch and gets his sentence lightened to "community service"

there is an absurd amount of undead still walking around, which means MK has to get on that

also yknow. the devastating amount of damage in the mortal AND celestial realm

MK is given an assignment in the heavenly bureocracy, to help keep him in check and accountable to stuff. is great innit.

another part of his job is, dealing with Wukong's past sworn brotherhood cus they've been uppity since Macaque's attack and threatening to break the human-demon truce

Qi "two dads nuclear family" Xiaotian learns to deal with distant extended family relations with very specific social cues. again, goes as well as expected

under all that, Red Son still hasn't been able to get the missing memories situation fixed

also turns out even Wukong doesn't remember who MK was but he used to know. he doesn't anymore. and he doesn't know what happened. Red Son did not like learning that.

the celebration of Ulhambana in the Celestial Realm is approaching, and Red Son thinks he can get himself and MK invited to it so they can yknow, ask Buddha wtf is going on

so yknow, time to earn the trust of the Celestial Realm again, in a year. that's doable right? ahahah

and because he doesn't have enough on his plate, MK traded off a lot of his merits in exchange for LBD and Mayor speedrunning their time in hell so they can be reborn under his care

MK becomes An Uncle, what could possibly go wrong!

oh, jumpscare, Macaque is still around but Different

#lmk au #by the book au

[gil-shalossssss]

Okay so I just has the most fun brain vacation ever thinking about the Percy Jackson demigods watching Disney's Hercules. I love Hercules, not gonna lie, but it's... less than accurate. No interpretation of the myths are 100% accurate, including Percy Jackson. It was funny because these universes are just so unmeshable.

Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Hazel, Nico, Jason, Thalia, Leo, Will, Calypso, Reyna, Piper, Apollo, and Meg are piled in Percy's living room watching this

All of them are just quiet and watching (slightly confused) until they figure out that the pink lady is supposed to be Hera. Then everyone goes BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! so loud Percy's mom comes in to check on them. Obviously Meg doesn't know Hera, but she's gonna boo anyway bc why wouldn't she.

Nobody can keep a straight face when they realize that the blue dweeb is supposed to be Hermes, especially not Apollo. And do I even need to tell you how they react to Dionysius's design?

Nico continually mutters throughout the Underworld scenes. "The Underworld doesn't look like that. What place is that supposed to be? Why Charon rowing Hades across the Styx, and why is he just a skeleton? Who are these two demony dudes? Cerebrus is a lot cuter than that. Etc. Etc. Etc." Eventually everyone just tunes him out.

Grover makes some comment about Penelope the donkey and how nice Hercules is for stepping in for her

Annabeth is also making observations and corrections throughout the movie, and they also tune her out for the most part. We got two constant commentaries going on

Thalia starts laughing SO HARD when Zeus's statue comes to life and says endearing things to Hercules and does not stop until Hercules leaves the temple bc she can't actually imagine her father saying these things to anyone. Apollo tries so hard to not laugh and fails, and Jason just sits there with his poker face

Hercules: If you're my father, then that would make me a...

Everyone in the room: A demigod.

Zeus: A god.

Everyone: ?????

Grover sees Phil and is like "Satyrs aren't that sort do I look that short?"

Everybody cracks up at Phil's impersonation of Zeus reading a bedtime story

Piper and Jason both go "Poor Achelous he's getting misrepresented he's not mean he's just sad."

Meg considers herself superior to movie Meg, but pretty much everyone likes movie Meg

Percy is far too excited during the fight with the hydra. Like he has the most dramatic reactions and everyone else is just going "wtf Percy" I haven't decided if he's rooting for the Hydra or for Hercules

Nico has finally accepted that this is just a person they decided to name Hades and has no actual resemblance to his father

Everyone yells at Hercules for giving up his strength. Then Leo starts teasing Piper about not encouraging him to do it bc it's for Meg and love and stuff and she smacks him

Everyone is extremely confused about why the Titans are under the ocean and why Hades is releasing them. Piper goes, "No don't set them free you idiot!" to which Leo says, "Why, does he have a crush on them?" and earns himself an exasperated sigh and an eye roll

Everyone laughs when the Titans are unleashed bc I mean they are moving mounds of element and don't fit any Titan at all

They've just recovered when Leo goes, "FrEeEEeeEze zuEeS" and Reyna has to pause the movie so they can laugh and not miss stuff

Nobody is happy when the pillar smushes Meg

Nico wants to know where this is that Meg is bc it doesn't look at all like Asphodel

Nobody understands how Hercules got regodded

Hercules's homecoming scene is completely drowned out by boos for Hera

However, they do catch, "I'd like to stay on earth with Meg" which gets everything from "ew why" (Meg) to "awww" (Grover) to "That's not how it went" (Annabeth) to "He did a Percy!" (Will)

Reyna, Leo, Hazel, Jason, and Meg require him to explain because whAt Percy rejected immortality?

The end. It was fun. Definitely not gonna watch it again with Annabeth or Nico, but maybe without them :)

#riordanverse #pjo #hoo #percy jackon and the olympians #will solace #percy jackson #annabeth chase #leo valdez #reyna ramirez arellano #reyna arellano #reyna pjo #leo pjo #piper mclean #apollo #meg mccaffrey #hazel levesque #hazel pjo #frank zhang #nico di angelo #nico pjo #nico #william solace #will pjo #calypso #pjo headcanon #grover underwood #jason grace #thalia grace #disney #hercules disney

[imminent-danger-came]

Do you think the spooky forest illusion from back in s1 is similar to the scroll's memory-world?

I have thought about the forest illusion before—it's blue, there was a skeleton, it had scary faces, all things associated with LBD/the underworld (not to mention it's a quite literal example of MK "getting stuck in his own head" you know)—but the thought of it being similar to the scroll's memory world is super interesting!

They're not the exact same, one allows you to live through memories and the other was MK's stressed induced hallucination, but I'm also not gonna say there isn't any connection. It kinda feels like it belongs on the list of "huh why was MK able to do that", which also includes him breaking out of "unbreakable" things and being able to stop the samadhi fire on his own.

#MK just be out here doing shit #also something something the scroll emanating from MK both times he enters it something something #skeleton key something something #I'm telling you he's a battery memory monkey underworld boy #The reveal for whatever the fuck he is will be WILD #lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk MK #lmk speculation #asks #verdigris-rust

[mediamixs]

The Day of the Dead: its complex side

The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, which originated several thousand years ago with the Aztec, Toltec, and other Nahua people. The holiday is not a mournful one, but rather a celebration of life and a way to demonstrate love and respect for deceased family members. The dead are still considered members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit, and during the Day of the Dead, they temporarily return to Earth. The holiday is filled with indigenous symbolism and ritual, and is a reaffirmation towards the old ways of life. One of the most ubiquitous symbols of the Day of the Dead is the calavera Catrina, or elegant skull, which was originally created by artist Jose Guadalupe Posada in the early 1900s. The skull has become a festive symbol of the holiday, but its original inception was a statement of more than just the inevitability of death. The adoption of La Catrina as the emblem of Day of the Dead today takes many forms, from the sugar skulls in every shop to the makeup on children's faces. While the Day of the Dead is a joyous celebration of life, it also has a more quiet, reflective custom which involves making offerings to the deceased and honoring their continued life beyond the world of dust. Families bring food to the dead, and graves are decorated with offerings and flowers. The holiday is an opportunity to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed away.

La Catrina

La Catrina is a symbol of the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, which honors the dead and recognizes death as a natural part of life that should not be feared. Here are some key points about La Catrina:

La Catrina is a tall female skeleton wearing a fancy hat with feathers and is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Day of the Dead celebrations.

The image of La Catrina was created in 1910 by José Guadalupe Posada, an illustrator, lithographer, and caricaturist from Aguascalientes, Mexico. Its original name was “La Calavera Garbancera,” and it was not created for Day of the Dead, but as a satire for society.

La Catrina was inspired by Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of death and Lady of Mictlan, the underworld.

La Catrina has become a strong symbol for the Day of the Dead activities, and women paint their faces in colorful make-up and dress with elegant outfits evoking the famous symbolic skeleton. Celebrations are held in the cemeteries where people commemorate their lost loved ones, offering them flowers and some of their favorite foods and beverages from when they were still alive.

La Catrina is about living your true self and not being afraid of death. She is part of Mexico’s history and syncretism, and although she has lost a bit of her critical social character, she continues to preserve it in her history.

La Catrina is a transcultural icon whose prestige and popularity are equal parts invention and accident. Her idolization has made her Mexico’s unofficial national totem, perhaps second only to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

La Catrina is a beautiful and striking representation of the Day of the Dead celebration, and her story is just as interesting as what she represents today for all Mexicans.

#día de muertos #day of the dead #mexico #united states #november 1st #november 2

[tsarinatorment]

If you really think about it both Nico and Will have a very high chance of achieving godhood cause they are both their dad’s favorite child or one of their dads favorite children. Both are very accomplished demigods that have little to no life experience in the mortal world. I think if they both got offered godhood when they were a little older and confident that they were going to be a forever couple neither would be particularly opposed to becoming gods. Will would probably be the god of surgery or something cause he’s a healer like his godly brother but he’s more of a trauma surgeon then a medicine maker. And Nico could be a stellar god of skeletons or shadows or something. Cause Summoning Skeletons is like his main attack thing.

There are two different points here, anon. Point one is could they be gods, and point two is would they want to be.

The answer to point one is certainly a resounding yes - but not because of favouritism on behalf of their parents (despite the fandom's apparent insistence to the contrary, Apollo doesn't have a favourite child; he very clearly loves them all equally if you actually pay attention to how he acts with them all. Will gets spotlighted more because he's in the books more, but the ratio of appearance to Apollo's gushing is about the same for all three kids we get to know in TOA). They are, however, both easily powerful enough to ascend - Apollo directly compares Will with Asclepius, and I don't think I need to talk about Nico any further on this topic.

The answer to point two is where I disagree with you wholeheartedly, anon. I don't think either of them would ever choose to be a god. Neither of them are actually interested in gaining more power, unlike the famous examples of Dionysus and Hercules*, and also being a god really isn't all it's cracked up to be.

For starters, these are two kids who have spent most of their preteen/teen years in the middle of various wars, in positions of responsibility that would be tough for adults to handle and should never, ever have landed on the shoulders of kids. We see this with Percy as well - he was so tired of it all by the end of the series that he's literally done his best to turn his back on all of it. Being a god is, first and foremost, a responsibility. It's a full time job with no time off, no holidays, no nothing, for the rest of eternity. Why would two people who have been trapped in nothing but that for their mortal lives willingly choose that when they could die and spend eternity together in Elysium, doing only things they find fun with no overarching responsibilities hanging over them? At this point I'd say it's a no brainer that both of them will get Elysium when they die, whatever happens from now on, and also with Nico being the son of Hades... the rules will get bent in his favour even if that wasn't the case, let's be honest.

Also, if they did ascend, they'd be mostly separated - Nico would clearly become Chthonic and remain based in the Underworld, while Will would be one of the Olympic gods on Olympus/the Overworld. They would be able to interact occasionally, I'm sure, but for the most part they'd actually be separated from each other. Again, not really what they'd be going for, I don't think.

So no, while I agree both of them could ascend to godhood, I disagree that either of them would ever choose to.

You do make a good point about their general lack of mortal world awareness/skills, but with the existence of New Rome there are clearly options for adult demigods that don't involve returning to the mortal world - personally I headcanon that Will will go to New Rome University, get his doctor qualifications, and then return to Camp Half-Blood as an adult head of infirmary to take the pressure off of his younger mortal siblings, while Nico will continue with general Ambassador of Hades/Pluto things - so responsibilities while they're still alive, but ones they can shed once they die!

*No, I have not forgotten Asclepius' existence, but Asclepius was never given the choice. He was killed and then ascended all on Zeus' whims - we have no idea if he would have wanted to ascend if given the option.

#Anonymous #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #riordanverse #tsari analyses things

[pb-dot]

Time to Nerd Out over Undertale

So I found myself listening to some undertale covers here the other day (RichaadEB on the excellent PlayFrama YT channel for the curious) and it struck me how I'm still not over how good Undertale was. It's not just that the music is truly amazing, although I challenge anyone who's played the game to listen to, say Bergenstrückung or SAVE the world without getting a bit emotional. The game is just the kind of experience that is so vast that it's hard to see from up close.

I mean, let's start by talking mechanics, why don't we? Undertale is built around the idea that classic turn-based RPG menu combat is inherently violent and that violence is inherently bad and worthy of being rebelled against. It's refreshing stuff. You don't get Experience points for killing enemies, you get Execution Points, your Level doesn't go up, your LOVE - Level Of ViolEnce does, and the reward for doing so are progressively simpler and less rewarding boss fights (up until a point, more on that later) and an emptier bleaker world.

Undertale sells itself as "The RPG game where you don't have to destroy anyone," and it's very much the mindset one's supposed to carry into the game. It builds tension towards a fitting final boss for such a game, a powerful man who will absolutely not change his path or step down, a man who has sacrificed everything good in his life to do things he considers abhorrent for the greater good. Asgore Dreemur, the penultimate boss of the game's initial route, is determined enough about the whole thing to break through the game's fourth wall to destroy the button that'd allow you to spare his life under the right conditions. Only one of you can leave this encounter alive, and in true game logic, you dying doesn't give you an alternate ending as much as a game over. It's a bleak spot, and it doesn't get less so when the final boss turns into this mixed media bullet hell nightmare (designed by the ever-unsettling Everdraed ) that shuts down your game when you lose to him.

Where I would argue Undertale goes from good to transcendent, though, is in the second of three possible playthroughs, where you, the player, is enticed by a character seemingly living partially outside the continuity of the game to go back and give it another go. Perhaps, the game posits, your quest to resolve the plot without killing anyone doesn't have to end with a failure. I also love that the way you prepare to take on the tall task of trying to talk some sense into Asgore is by helping basically everyone else get their shit together so they can give you an assist on talking down the reluctantly murderous goat-man. It's mostly more shenanigans, except one sequence that I can only describe as "truly horrifying," True Lab.

The final boss you fight once the goat man has been smacked some sense into by his ex-wife, her skeleton boyfriend, and just about everyone else who's ever worked for him is a bit of a twist. It doesn't come out of left field exactly as it does resolve some foreshadowing, but it does go both wild and hard. Asriel Dreemur is at this point a bit of a mirror of the protagonist, an innocent child who is functionally being sidelined by an external force that uses his child's wonder and imagination to its own ends. You know, a bit like you the player do for the protagonist character Frisk.

It is actually really interesting to me how Undertale does its metafictional elements. Initially, the game prompts you to "name the fallen human" as a name input before showing our protagonist character falling into the underworld the game is set in. The implication is clear, your player character is the fallen human, and thus it makes sense when characters start calling you the name you chose. This is, however, a clever twist, as the protagonist isn't the fallen human, but rather a child named Frisk. The fallen human is a character from earlier in the story who looks a lot like Frisk and has a similar arc, although theirs ends considerably grimmer. They are also who possess the final boss and have twisted the wonder and playful energy of a child into a megalomaniac tyrant, letting the desire to keep playing twist time and space into this never-ending spiral of violence.

It's heady stuff, and to make it worse, alternatively better if you're into this kind of stuff, it ties into Undertale's most profound theme: When it's time to stop playing Undertale. Now, that sounds like a mean-spirited joke, but Undertale is, I would argue just as much about letting go of the story as it is about telling it. You see, after you complete the second playthrough, most commonly referred to as the True Pacifist route, the game is arguably over. The stated goal of telling an RPG story where nobody has to die is achieved, just about every character story is resolved, hilariously awkward dates are had left and right, the peaceful way of achieving Asgore's goals are found, peace between Humans of the world outside and the Monsters of the underworld is implied to be just around the corner. The story is, in many ways, at an end.

"Gee, Peebs," you might say, "that sounds like some portentous narration going on there" because you're a very perceptive reader like that. "Also," you might add, "isn't there a boss fight with a skeleton in there somewhere?"

And indeed there is. The Sans/Megalovania fight is easily the most famous part of Undertale, partially for how insanely difficult it is due to a confluence of unexpected mechanical interactions. Sans only does one damage at a time, but that damage is per frame and he attacks A LOT. He has no defense so one strike will cause the bone boy to crumble, that is if you could hit the dodgy bastard at all. Hell, if his onslaught of bone-themed attacks don't get you, he has also figured out that if he stops attacking you and just has a nap instead it'll never be your turn. It's a very clever fight, and Megalovania is an iconic track for a reason. That said, the most ingenious part about the whole thing for my money is that you're not really supposed to get to it. It's arguably an extended part of a fail state, but the fail state isn't mechanical as much as it is thematic.

So, after finishing a True Pacifist run, the one remaining designed way to play Undertale is by going through what's called a Genocide Run, although the game's creator Toby Fox has stated he prefers the term No Mercy route for reasons I am sure are obvious. In the No Mercy route, you play Undertale like any other RPG. When you get to a new area, you grind it, killing every monster that you encounter until it stops giving you good XP. In Undertale, this is taken a step further, as you will literally kill all the monsters present until the game presents you with empty encounters. I will mention I'm not really working off personal experience here, as the No Mercy route struck me as tedious and unfun, and I was pretty happy with the second ending in the game so I haven't played it myself.

The approach of the No Mercy run does change the game around you. Characters will be less friendly to you, and their boss battles will in many cases be harder as conflicted characters go all out to stop the combine harvester of misery that you've become. The game is, I would argue, less fun as your growing levels make you strong enough to trivialize bigger and bigger parts of the game until not even the bosses going all-out even provide a challenge. Near the end, you encounter Sans, a character you haven't fought in any of the other routes, a jokester and moral guide of sorts, and, unless you are entirely unreasonably good at the game and prepared for a surprise, he absolutely bodies you due to the mechanics mentioned above. It doesn't matter that you have high enough defense for Sans to do only one damage to you, he'll do one damage to you per frame for just about as many frames as it takes, it doesn't matter that you'll one-hit kill the slacker bag of bones, he's just going to dodge it. The only thing you can do is get really REALLY good at dodging Sans' many many attacks, and all the while, your moral guide and former friend berates you for not leaving well enough alone. What you've done is fucked up, and it's fucked up that you did it just to see if you could.

It's an interesting point to arrive at given how modern fandom is just about designed to lead you down the path to get you there. Fandom is about wanting to experience everything about a work, every line adapted, every scrap of worldbuilding expanded on, every weird little gremlin made protagonist for a day. It's the kind of sentiment that has people seek out gradually more expansive cuts of movies, to want to listen to unedited podcast episodes, to troll every line of game code for unused content, to test every interaction. The goal, I would argue, is trying to find a way to never stop consuming the content you like, to ride the high of it forever by just getting increasingly granular and obscure about which parts of it one keeps getting into. This, Undertale argues, is where love turns into obsession, where fandom enthusiasm turns sour.

Playing the No Mercy route isn't something you do because it's fun. The clever puzzles of sparing every enemy and boss is replaced by tedious grinding. The sympathetic characters all die trying to stop your murderous ass, and the marvelously cathartic ending is replaced by disappointment and anticlimax. No, you play No Mercy because it's there, it's possible to do, and despite how obviously unpleasant it is to actually play through, it does provide new content, new lore, and at least one highly memeable boss fight.

Is it worth it? I'd argue no. Even in a world where the sole good part of the No Mercy route isn't available in a million different iterations online, even in a world where completing the No Mercy run didn't flag your save file in ways that change future runs in small but unpleasant ways, it's not something you're meant to enjoy. The No Mercy route is the game's way of telling you there is a right time to stop playing Undertale, and it was before even starting that cursed run.

One of the reasons I think this is such a clever move is because it sidesteps one of the chief criticisms of trying to work morality into gameplay, i.e. "Why is the game giving me shit for something it told me, no, required me to do?" See the criticisms of The Last Of Us, Spec Ops: The Line, and others for examples. Undertale doesn't tell you to do the No Mercy run and shame you for it as much as it lets you know that it's there and just let the natural fandom impulse take you on an ill-advised journey. Granted, there is a level of the same as the whole thing is designed with the purpose of delivering, functionally, the same message, but the confidence Undertale has in not insisting you see every last inch of its content does counteract it a bit in my mind.

The wacky part to me is that all of this shameless praise is without getting into the music, you know the reason I started my breathless cheerleading in the first place. Toby Fox, as it turns out, can compose the hell out of a soundtrack. Megalovania is the most famous piece and rightfully so, but there's also Bergnegstrückung, Death By Glamour, Bonetousle, and a bunch of others. Just about every boss theme is so instantly evocative of their characters that the game feels like it has voice acting although it provably hasn't, and the wide range of styles stretches from ambient to jazzy to a couple of songs that would not sound at all out of place on a metal album. It's a cover artist's dream, as the simple but effective melodies leave ample room to put your own spin on things. I personally recommend the Insaneintherainmusic's whole Live At Grillby's album for the jazz and RichaadEBs Determination for the metal stuff.

Undertale is a weird work to get worked up about at this point for me, I think. People just about unanimously agree it's good, but it feels like an understatement to say that. This game changed indie gaming, charting out a course that's defined just about the entire creative space since then. The supreme confidence with which Toby Fox and his minuscule team wielded their own irreverent nerdy humor with laser-guided precision and made us all weep over a goat woman and a stout skeleton bonding over terrible terrible jokes, made us sputter with ineffectual rage at a rude flower and cry tears of joy as we contemplated whether to give the homicidal goat-man a hug or not. Undertale is weird and wild and meta, but I'd argue that it's most important feature is that it's earnest. It expects us to roll our eyes at it, but it'll roll 'em right back as it delivers some meta jab.

Perhaps Undertale's greatest strength, though, is probably also the reason it's kind of faded out of the public consciousness outside of the Megalovania meme and the sequel Deltarune. Undertale is a very complete story. It's the story it is designed to be, it closes off its loops, dots its is and crosses its ts. Thematically, it's about telling you a good story and closing the book on that story, trying to preserve it in your memory rather than have you re-experience it again and again. Granted, there is lore and implications and obscura with the whole W.D Gaster thing and Chara, the thing isn't hermetically sealed, but once you're done with the story you're supposed to be done with the story. It makes for a great experience in my opinion, but I suppose it doesn't naturally lend itself to being preserved in the public eye.

I will say this though, as far as sequels to things with functionally perfect endings, DELTARUNE is doing a way better job than those post-show Madoka Magica movies has ever done, although I haven't really gotten into it myself. To me, the story of Undertale is so perfectly conveyed and closed off that going back there feels wrong. Like I left it just the way I wanted it to end, and any further meddling on my part is bound to just make it less perfect. Maybe that means I've understood the assignment, or maybe it just means I've put the darn thing on an unreasonable pedestal. Who am I to say?

#peebs thinks #undertale #gaming #I feel like I'm a bit down on fandom in this piece #and I don't want to harsh anyone's buzz #I've just come to see fandom very differently after the mainstream entertainment giants started getting invovlved #capitalism does get it's grimy claws in everything eventually I guess #but that's a topic for another essay #I should really get into why I think the ending to Madoka is basically perfect one of these days #but I probably should rewatch it beforehand #and I'm not sure I have that in me right this instant

[necromancy-savant]

Multiples of 3 for book asks!

3. what is your preferred genre?

My preferred genre is the stuff you find in the nonfiction section that's all myths and poems

6. do you track the books you read? if so, how?

Nope; never occurred to me

9. do you have a favorite author?

John Milton \m/

12. which book will you read next?

Probably The Two Towers bc I read Fellowship, loved it, and then got distracted by like 5 other books. I need to finish reading Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion

15. have you been/are you in a book club?

I was in a Shakespeare club in grad school! I brought in the production of David Tennant's R2 for us to watch that @skeleton-richard introduced me to

18. do you have any rules if you loan someone a book?

I mean don't write on it or like intentionally be rough on it?

21. do you prefer to read or listen?

Read. I watch everything with subtitles if I can

24. what book to movie adaptation to you dislike?

I mean one time I saw some Iliad adaptation that didn't even have the gods and was boring af but I don't remember what it was. And one time I saw about 10 minutes of some CGI Beowulf bc it was so ugly I had to turn it off

27. is there a book that scared you?

Yes. Well, recently I was having a bit of trouble sleeping thinking about the demons in Camp Damascus, but also I used to stay up late in high school reading my giant Edgar Allan Poe book and then I could never sleep. I don't even remember which ones were the scariest. There was one about a coffin on a boat that fucked me up and wasn't even that scary.

30. is there a book that changed your life?

Phantom of the Opera, then Paradise Lost, then Richard III, and I think now The Locked Tomb

33. what was your favorite childhood book?

Redwall

36. what’s the most you’ve reread a book?

I literally have no fucking clue. I've memorized all of Richard III's lines in that play. I lost count of the number of times I've read Paradise Lost about 10 years ago. I can predict the next words in my translation of Phantom and read it in its original language just because I know what it's going to say, I know all the words to Earnest and Julius Caesar, I have no clue how many thousands of times I've read Enuma Elish or Ishtar's Descent to the Underworld or anything else I've every tried or had to translate. Basically I read the same few books and stories over and over and over and over and

39. favorite quote from your favorite book?

Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay curs'd be thou; since against his thy will Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I flie Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire? Which way I flie is Hell my self am Hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatning to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.

42. do you buy new or secondhand books?

I have so many books I got for free from the grad school English department that they were literally just giving away. I got a whole Faerie Queene that way. I got a complete Chaucer's works that way. One time I went in and some students were going through stuff and I was like "yo is that a fascimile of Poetaster??!!" and my classmate said, "here, it's yours: it should go to someone who will love it" and I was in Heaven

45. thoughts on separating the author from the work?

So...this gets into so much internet discourse and so much discourse within critical theory over the last like 40 years. Basically, yes, historical context matters and knowing who an author was as a person can give some insight into a text, but I'm also not going to give a currently living author money whom I don't want to support. You should read problematic stuff from hundreds of years ago to learn your history; hell, I'd venture to say that if you can do so without giving them money, you should read problematic shit written recently and today to know what it looks like and learn to draw your own conclusions

48. what book would you give someone if they wanted a glimpse into your psyche?

Richard III

[ducksbyday]

HELLO TUMBLR PEOPLE

I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO WRITE MORE SO I SHALL OBLIGE

I will never get over how sweet the tumblr/qsmp community is. yall are so sweet and amazing and oof- hugs for all

PART 2 QSMP MEMBERS + THE KINGDOM (DDG) WOOOO

[You can find part 1 here]

PHILZA - FIRJEN/LJORD

The only kingdom to fully get wiped off the face of the earth for good, leaving almost no trace of it ever existing in the first place (the king deleted his YouTube channel :,( )

In the north peak of Midisti, deep in the snow was once the freezing kingdom of Firjen. It was a kingdom with little allies that mostly kept to themselves. It was once ruled by King Joris who, after losing the war against Entropia & friends, lost everything. The Goddess Eclypsa took notice of the unnecessary blood spill and became enraged. Fueled with grief and anger, she decided to save King Joris by bringing him to Ljord. Here she gifted him the dragons of Bovisti.

The king, broken but determined, rebuilds his empire in the new snowy lands of Ljord. He recruited new people, found some of his old companions, and eventually got revenge on Entropia after capturing King David and feeding him to the dragons. But his glory didn't last forever. His men turned on him, kicked him off the throne, and threw him in jail, never to be heard from again.

Philza seems to me like a person who'd do well in Firjen/Ljord. Either as someone who stayed loyal to King Joris and went down with him or as one of the people who turned on him in the end. Perhaps he realized that the revolution and appointing a new king did not make things any better, and joined the refugees to Fenrin to fight for freedom from the outside. Also, he has a history with cold lands (the Artic Empire & his DSMP base with techno). Plus he is currently taking care of two dragon eggs, which is fitting to me.

MISSA - HELLIOS

Truly a great place to be. As the name says, Hellios is the kingdom’s version of Hell. If you're bad and you die, you get doomed to live in a black, lifeless realm for all eternity named Hellios. If good, you go to Elementos, a haven with everything a person can dream of.

Hellios is run by Celcrius (the God of the underworld) and his mage Arjan. They are known to dabble in dark magic, necromancy, and mind control and will use it without hesitation. This has been made very clear since the beginning. In episode 1 of their series, they resurrect an old king intending to take over the kingdom of Tyksa.

Q!Missa being a walking, living, breathing skeleton fits in well with how Celcrius goes about his business. I see Misa possibly being one of Celcrius' workers who was brought to life by the mage. He could've been an informant, sent to the surface to collect information. I like to think Celcrius told him to spy on people from a distance, but Misa misunderstood completely. Instead, he started trying to blend in with civilization so collect info that way. People might've been a bit freaked out at first, since he's a walking skeleton but eventually got used to it. "But he's so kind though!"

QUACKITY - BOR

Kingdom Bor is.. a strange one. I don't know much about them except that they live inside hills and mountains, are OBSESSED with carrots, and don't seem to take anything seriously.

They're most known for the song the king wrote about importing carrots. Further, the kingdom is known for the song the king wrote about jumping around. Also, the king blew up a part of his own kingdom because looking at it made him sad. He also started beef with Hellios for some reason. Idk even how.

In general, the whole kingdom is just a bunch of lads messing around and being stupid. The fact that they survived for two seasons and won multiple wars is incredibly shocking to me.

I think Q!Q would fit in well seeing the many many times he went missing, and then came back, and then went missing, and then came back, and then- you get the point. He's unhinged, a little bit crazy and I think he would be busting it down if he heard the songs about carrots and jumping.

WILBUR SOOT - MURA (kinda)

I wanted to assign Wilbur to a kingdom but then later changed my mind. I think it be cool if he was a nomad, traveling from kingdom to kingdom to play music and have a good time. But if I did have to assign him somewhere it would probably be Mura (the kingdom of former nomads, who sworn to never participate in wars).

This is all for now, since it it getting very late for me and I am very sleepy. I hope you enjoyed reading this! :D Sending love to everyone <3

#The kingdom ddg #qsmp #quackity smp #quesadilla smp #qsmp philza #qsmp missa #qsmp quackity #qsmp wilbur #So glad I got to talk about my favourite skrunk Koning Joris #The fact that all his content is gone still makes me sad LMAO #I never truely got to see a lot of the Kingdom of Firjen/Ljord #But he was always one of my favourites #now I go sleep #good night tumblr people