#1 accept the gift

[abstractef]

Imagine that you're chilling in your house and you start thinking there is a ghost living with you because there is someone eating your food, drinking your wine and sleeping in your bed.

Later you go to ask your neighbour about some money he owes you (he refuse of course). And out of nowhere there is this guy that is like yeah, sorry about my friend no giving back your jewelry, he is being a little shit. Here you have his heirloom and by the way you need a softer bed.

You're Thranduil and the ghost is Bilbo

[allay-uxini]

So back in Empires season 1 when Sausage was starting to get possessed and corrupted by Xornoth he had that dramatic split from the Wither Rose Alliance which was when the roseblings felt Sausage was too far gone for saving. Then Sausage went back to Mythland and built these dark buildings which was meant to be big turning point in the narrative where Sausage has gone fully evil and there's no turning back with the buildings cementing that, and yet the buildings he decides to build are a tower and a blacksmith.

Let me repeat that again

The first thing Sausage did when he stopped being allies with the wizard and the tinker was build a tower and a blacksmith

Sausage never stopped loving those two, it's a shame they never realised that until it was too late.

[devil-acid]

happpyyy (late) birth

@neytui

[girlivealwaysbean]

So I wrote this next song a few days before my nineteenth birthday. And, um, back then, I was so terrified of change, and I was especially afraid of growing up. And I'd, like, cry at all my birthday parties as a child. Very, very emo.

Now that I'm 21, I don't feel afraid of growing up at all. In fact, I'm really, really looking forward to it. And, um, if I could give any advice to the 18-year-old girl who wrote this song, I'd tell her not to worry so much, and that she has no idea how many magical, magical things are waiting just around the corner for her. So, uh, with that, here's "teenage dream".

- Olivia Rodrigo at the Guts World Tour before playing teenage dream

[ban--tam]

wolf guy mittermeyer

[unproduciblesmackdown]

omgg lol [guy who won't stop going "more like scapeGOATED" voice] now hold! on!! lmao [same guy just saw encanto voice] Hold on!!!

[fenriskisser]

i thought turning 16 was supposed to be awesome. all i've done is cry all day because no one but my sister seems to give a fuck abkut me and my feelings and what i want. all ive been able to think about is bella or sam or any f/o comforting me all day and i know thats silly and i know that's stuoid but i still cant stop crying

[futurewife]

tw rant about how I am currently stuck in a major mid 20s life unfuckening crisis

I regret going to university so bad omg all that money for nothinggg!! I wish I had not believed in the myth of doing what you love/are good at as a career or the narrative that I was special and could do better for myself. I don't HAVE a passion. I borderline think im contributing a net negative to the world and am only here out of societal pressure for people to have children. Like most people I'm going to live an unremarkable forgettable inconsequential existence. plus now im back to like square one at 25, dropping out of a masters with zero career prospects. the only kind of dream I ever really recall having was "being someone's girlfriend/find someone to love." Which I have also not achieved. 😞🔫

And if I'm thinking this way why did I waste so much time and money fumbling through the university system for useless/incomplete degrees when what I should have focused on was just... getting money for survival and self sufficiency (in the event I cannot find a partner to co exist with- I will be going it alone, and as a single woman that can be very difficult finanically) stupiddd 🧠🚫

I actually resent being treated like im special. The problem was my parents decided i was intelligent and capable and then I never really was seen as someone needing assistance or someone who could struggle. I think that was more wishful projection and it fuked up my life and my self worth (because I couldnt produce their desired results- academic achievement? prestigious career success? being some kind of brilliant outlier?). yes im blaming my parents for this one LOL

[gospexchange]

Hello! If this is a poetry exchange, can we write poetry for it too? Only that, shorter than 1000 words?

If one of the songs or poems you receive as a prompt inspires you to write a poem of your own, by all means!

While your poem does not need to be 1000 words long, we do ask that you put a similar amount of time and effort into it as it would take to write about 1000 words of fic-- after all, no one wants to receive a single 10-word haiku as their finished gift!

Try to aim for at least 200-300 cumulative words, though this total is somewhat flexible, since writing poetry can be harder to quantify than normal fic. If you prefer working with shorter poetry formats, consider writing a series of connected poems! Or, if you're feeling generous, one poem for each of your giftee's prompts (should they submit more than one!)

[candleeyed]

having dyscalculia and loving math sucks so BADDDD it's like. my love. i adore you. I obsess over you at every waking moment. you are beautiful in ways I cannot describe, fixed yet flowing like water. and yet I cannot touch you, cannot speak to you. because of my STUPID DUMBFUCK BRAIN.

[robininthewindow]

Silly Game Time: On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you like hoodies?

10, 10 all the way. I prefer them over jackets.

they’re warm, stylish, not too heavy, sometimes they have cool pictures on them. Really, they’re great!

[helpfromheaven]

Real Love is the Greatest Gift of All: A Devotional

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. As we prepare for Valentine’s Day this week, the…

[superbdonutpoetry]

Things That Differ are Not the Same

This blog is read not only by those who are saved, but also those who are not, hence this post. Here are several good reasons why you shouldn’t be a Bible blender. The instructions and good news given to Paul by the ascended Christ pertaining to salvation for all men, as well as edification concerning the Body of Christ during the Age of Grace, differs to that of: *Adam &…

[flammenxci]

> Kept away from second oldest step sister due to covert stunts she's pulled with our dad.

> She crossed a major line is a "nice" but skeevy af manner.

> Has a feeling she's gonna pull some BULLSHIT shortly before, during and after our dad dies.

> Staying out of contact to protect my peace, everyone else in house can talk to her, go out with her, etc, just leave me alone.

> Got news oldest step sis just got a grim diagnosis, docs don't give her long to live.

> Time to go back into "hide and watch" mode.

> For once, can life prove me wrong? Do not confirm my suspicions with that woman by using her older sister's shitty situation as a preview for what's going to happen with our dad. Please just this FUCKING once.

> Sometimes I really wish my pattern recognition skills are wrong and I get pleasantly surprised.

> Let me be wrong, just this one time.

[milkandraspberry]

[thatdisasterauthor]

👀 i would be interested in hearing the deviantart points rant

Alrighty, the deviantART points rant. For context, I had a dA account from the time I was 12 and used it steadily until I was about 20. I was also a volunteer moderator with them for about a year, and they even offered me a job at one point. (But there was no way in heaven or hell they could've paid me enough to move to southern California, and god forbid they offer remote work.)

dA was one of the original social media behemoths. Never quite to the level of Twitter or Facebook, but if you were an artist you were on deviantART. It was a fantastic site back in its heyday. Artists got their start on there, recruiters were on there, art directors were on there, the community building features were fantastic. Yeah, it had its share of weird shit, but point me to a website that doesn't.

Multiple famous artists got their start on deviantART. Back then, it was a place you got real, legitimate work from. A place you could use to build a real, legitimate audience. The titans of early 2000s digital art that pretty much everyone knows (in the West, anyway), the ones who still have a massive effect on art styles today, basically all got their start on deviantART. It influenced the entire western culture of what art looks like on the internet, and that bled out into what art looks like everywhere else because these people made beloved shows and comics and movies and books and everything else.

But one of the best things about deviantART was that it was created at a time before everyone decided social media had to be slimmed down to its barest bones. It was a complex site, and there was a lot to it. That made it really easy for all levels of artists (and just plain art enjoyers) to use, and easy for them to make it function in a way that worked for them. This fostered a great environment where people of all skill levels could interact, share knowledge, and just absorb skills from one another.

Now, one area deviantART didn't initially cater to people was built-in payment options. They had a print shop you could upload your work to, but it was like Redbubble or Printful; merch selling, not custom work selling. So if artists wanted to offer commissions, they'd have to take payments elsewhere. (Usually Paypal.) Which was fine! That worked great!

But, well. Corporations gonna corporate. I forget the exact year, but one day they launched a new feature called Points. Points were a site specific currency, and they were one of the first (if not the first) to have such a thing. There were also some other things launched with it, including the ability to accept commissions with points as payment. You could also use points to buy site subscriptions, badges, stuff from the print shop, etc., or you could gift them to other people. You could also cash them out for real currency, for a fee (I wanna say the fee was 10%, and less if you were a subscribed user, but I can't remember exactly).

The conversion rate for Points was 1 Point=1US cent. Which seems fine on the surface! But the problem was psychological, because what they didn't do was actually make it look like that. Points instead looked like dollars, because there was no equivalent to actual CENTS in the Points ecosystem. So, for example, lets say you want to charge one dollar for something. That would look like this:

$1

P100.

Or ten dollars for something:

$10

P1000

Or a hundred dollars for something:

$100

P10000

See the problem? They're the same VALUE, but points just look massively bigger. This was especially a problem for people who didn't know what the conversion rate was because they just didn't know, or they were from other countries and REALLY didn't know because it wasn't related to their own currencies at all. (I think there was also a max amount of points you could charge for a commission, like a couple hundred dollars worth maybe? It was low when you converted it to real currency, if I'm remembering correctly.)

It devalued the art market like a knife to the gut. People were suddenly taking commissions for literal pennies just because the numbers LOOKED bigger. And because deviantART was such a hub for the art community, it bled out elsewhere. Prices started to dip other places too, because people who DID understand the conversion rate knew they could go on deviantART and get shit for super cheap from the people who didn't know or care. Which made other people lower their prices to compete, and it just resulted in a spiral to the bottom.

Would the art market have still tanked in the same way without the introduction of Points on dA? Maybe. But Points were the first domino to fall, and they were a massive one. The art market has never recovered even though deviantART has been 90% dead for going on a decade.

So yes. There's my internet history rant on Points and art values. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.