#I can just ramble and ramble

[bonesandthebees]

one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method

[matt00794]

I just need authors who's first names start with O, I, and X

redoing a catalog of all the books I own i own multiples of a couple of books with audiobooks and a couple of special editions and hardcover vs paper back and just want all that info so if I'm shopping I can just look it up and be like yeah don't need that.

[ayyy-pee]

waking up freezing and shivering, teeth chattering every night because your husband is a blanket hog. you know it's not on purpose. he just can't help it. doesn't even know he does it most times. you'd think after years together you'd be used to it, but waking up curled into the fetal position as you try to retain even a smidge of warmth is something you don't think you'll ever adjust to.

so you reach behind you, feeling your spouses large form wrapped snug as a bug in your shared blanket and you grip onto the fabric. you pull as hard as you can but you don't manage to move him even an inch. you try once more...same result.

"ken..." you whisper, wrapping your arms around yourself. no response. "kento..."

he doesn't budge. you're tempted to just get up and go grab another blanket, but your husband, despite his seriousness, can get quite pouty when you do that. so you tap him hard instead sure to jab him in the spot you know is his most sensitive. this seems to do the trick as he grunts in response.

"I'm cold," you tell nanami and he sits up quickly, realizing what he's done. his pajama top hangs off one shoulder. his blonde hair is pointing every which way and sleep is heavy on his eyelids, threatening to weigh him down again any minute.

"I'm sorry, love," nanami speaks, voice rough and deep with exhaustion, but the sincerity in his apology clear.

then he's throwing the blanket back over you both. only he adds in a little extra warmth as he wraps his arm around your waist and throws a large leg over your body.

nanami buries his face in your neck, adjusting himself so that he can be as close to you as possible. only a few seconds pass before you hear his light snoring behind you. and you know the warmth you feel is from more than just his touch.

[vintage-bentley]

“Girls and the gays” is so interesting because even though both parts of that statement describe lesbians, I always get the feeling that the people who say it are not thinking about lesbians at all

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[suntails]

growing up!

[liimonadas]

randomly rememebered a very silly maya content creator AU i came up with like 2 years ago. its just dumb fun haha

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[genlossranbooautism]

You use "arospec people can still date and feel romantic attraction " as an excuse to ship cannon aro characters , I use it as justification to headcannon characters who canonically feel romantic attraction as arospec , we are not the same

[cj-the-random-artist]

Is this my best comic ever?? Nope. Do I think I characterized either of these two particularly well in this comic?? Not really. Did I spend an unreasonable amount of time on it to the point that it would be a waste to not post it?? Yes, yes I did.

I really committed to this one, spent a lot of time on those backgrounds and treated myself to ample suffering with the perspective, which is not my strong suit but I am happy with how it ultimately looks. Yay perspective and background practice!!

(Tbh I shouldn't talk like I think this one sucks, I think I've just been staring at it for so long that my brain has decided it's not good and it's actually way better than I think it is, and honestly I am quite happy with it. The artistic process really is something, isn't it?)

The inspiration was basically me reminding... myself... to take breaks sometimes... by drawing for several hour stints during my only little bits of free time. Which totally tracks. Probably. But I've been rolling around in my brain this idea that Lambert is a very uptight people pleaser and anxious workaholic, but Narinder, at least since adjusting himself to the circumstances (which probably took at least a century, maybe two) has discovered the joys of self care, and has made an active effort to chill tf out. This has not made him any less terrifying to the cultists (save for Lambert's closest disciples), nor has it made him friendlier to really anyone but Lambert (and maybe his siblings), but he sure has found some serious peace of mind. That said, I can't place what his motivations are here. Perhaps he is secretly concerned about Lambert's sanity, because he doesn't want them to turn into what he was, or maybe he's just trying to steal away some quality time with his one and only friend, but regardless of the reason, I spent too much time on this for nobody to see it, dang it.

That said. Enjoy this silly little comic that I spent way too much time on, and I hope this silly comic brings you some joy today.

[johnconstantinesdick]

The most popular fic in the Steel Samurai fandom had an unexplained seven year hiatus only to update at like 3 am on December 21st, 2027. The author explains that they couldn’t update fic while in prison (huh?) but now that they’re off death row (WHAT??) they’ve transcribed seven years worth of writing (Jesus Christ). The update is 130k words long. Edgeworth and Maya don’t sleep that night.

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[some-pers0n]

Reading "DNI ableists" on a gif banner with flashing lights and red text in a nearly illegible font on a green/black sparkly checkered background and no ID whatsoever

[prlssprfctn]

Jason's love language is actions. Both grand and the smallest ones. He is the type of person who remembers the tiniest details about people he loves. He is subtle about it, in a way others sometimes fail to notice it.

He opens curtains when Dick enters the room because Dick can't functionate without sunlight, but he shuts him once Dick leaves, and Bruce settles down near because the old man's vision is too used to dark rooms and the natural light hurts his eyes.

Near the evening, he puts the jar of cookies from the top shelf in the kitchen on the counter because he knows that Damian sneaks one or two for himself before going to sleep. He always returns it back once Damian is in his bedroom, so Alfred wouldn't spend energy on reorganising the order of things back.

When Tim leans under the table to pick up something he dropped while they are sitting in the cafe, Jason's hand always hovers atop of his head, because Tim keeps hitting his head against the table most of the time. He puts a hand on the sharp corners of tables, too, just in case if Tim zones out staring at his phone. It happened far too many times.

Dick loves to concentrate on some repetitive motion, when he is nervous, but he is also aware that it looks obnoxious and people often get irritated at that; he also doesn't want to show that he is nervous around others. Jason keeps drumming his fingers if Dick is nervous. And if his breath calms down as he stares at his little brother's fingers tap some strange pattern, then what?

Bruce is paranoid, hyperattentive to sounds, but also awfully absentminded when he works. He is always aware of someone's presence in the room, but sometimes he dives too deep in case, not noticing people around him, and gets jumpscared for a second. He hates it. Jason is mostly as soundless as ever, but... if he always loudly stomps with his boots on the ground before entering the Batcave, then everyone is sure that he is just having another tantrum.

Does he get frustrated when family even mildly jokes (or actually criticise him, depending on the day) about how mean he is to them, and how little effort he puts in maintaining their relationship? Absolutely. Because half of them are detectives, of course, but when it comes to emotional connections and signs, they are... a little bit inept, to say the least.

(This was cooked yesterday in chat with my pookie, @ahoyimlosingmymind)

[raviollies]

Just who are you, Councilor Medarda?

[salmonlyster]

...THEY CAME FROM OUTER JERSEY!