#UNLIMITED ATTEMPTS!?!?

[sortanonymous]

Of all the NASCAR series to have the "yellow before checkered = restart" rule, they seriously have that rule in ARCA? ARCA?!?

[sasswonfp]

This joke came to me in a fit of laughter (ALT description provided :3!)

[weatherfey]

I think a lot about the way Dorian used to see Cyrus as the perfect older brother, the perfect prince; the way Dorian felt free to go and find himself because Cyrus was capable and dependable and ready to be a leader. That isn’t the Cyrus we see! But I think it’s a lot more interesting, for both Cyrus and Dorian, to take that seriously. They’re princes, and we don’t know what that means because we haven’t seen their home, but socially a court is an elaborately constructed farce. And of course it can be easier to be competent in any familiar environment, but I also think it’s easier to know how you fit within a court environment specifically because there is an overwhelming number of factors to define yourself against and they all have expectations of you, and if they aren’t suffocating you like some kind of spider’s web then it might be perfect, like being a star in a constellation, or just the right puzzle piece. I think it’s reasonable to think that Cyrus was something like who Dorian thought he was, at home; except that Cyrus, like Dorian, wanted to choose the things he’s defining himself against. And I think it’s meaningful that he got swindled in the immediate aftermath of discarding that constellation of puzzle pieces. He was a fool (beloved), but it happened in the first blush of freedom, when he was just starting to figure out who he was or wanted to be without all that defined expectation, which is also - not coincidentally - the state Dorian was in when the spider queen sunk her fingers into his heart and twisted his alignment. The ‘hello world! uh oh’ of it all is something they had in common.

(Something they both had in common with Opal, too.)

I do think it’s interesting to look at Dorian’s sense of responsibility in light of this. I almost think Orym was a kind of north star for Dorian through parts of EXU prime, and I ship them, but it really felt like one of the things that made him able to reject the spider queen is that Orym needed him to. I think he wanted to be someone Orym could rely on, but I think Orym’s regard mattered to him because they genuinely had that protective urge in common - the pathway the spider queen used to skitter in was Dorian’s desire to protect his friends. And that drive to protect added a lot of poignancy to the in-universe reason that Dorian couldn’t return to bell’s hells after Cyrus’s debts were repaid, not just because Cyrus was still getting his legs under him but also because Opal needed help. That’s responsibility, again - he’s finishing what they started. Duty, obligation, but this time he’s chosen who and what he’s beholden to. Like maybe he’s chosen a new version of a puzzle piece that he might have thought he was throwing out entirely when he chose freedom and walked away from home.

I loved that Fearne’s vision also haunted Dorian; he misses her, and it also feels like a solid way to illustrate the spider queen’s effect on Dorian, that the danger of his own corruption has rarely been something he had the luxury to think about. His friends have always needed him. I don’t know if he had time to process his aborted fall during his time in Zephrah, or if there’s still something underneath, but I think it’s telling that this fear doesn’t look like Opal, the one literally bleeding ichor from her forehead; it predates that, it started before Opal was the one to worry about.

And I think he knows he didn’t fail them - Cyrus, Opal, Fy’ra - accidental thunder damage notwithstanding - but, with the way he felt through that suggestion spell and its aftermath, I don’t really know what to make of his abandoning Dariax. It’s a little hard to look at that and not see a drive to isolate. Determined to leave him with a good memory, but most of all, to leave. He started that one-shot interlude having just admitted to himself that he was longing to be Somewhere Else, but I almost wonder if he still would have gone back to bell’s hells if Orym hadn’t asked.

(God, the suggestion spell. The way they processed it was hurtful to me personally. Dariax immediately shifting from ‘won’t leave Opal!’ to ‘let’s go! Opal has a plan’ kind of broke my heart, and I actually think that the spell could have worked on Dorian by just making what was really happening feel reasonable - the last shred of your friend is trying to save you, and you can’t save her from anything except becoming your murderer, so you should do that. But the spell can’t make sense out of abandoning Cyrus’s body, so Dorian just goes numb with grief and rage. Mass suggestion is 24 hours. That is 24 hours of numbness, and rage, and walking, and walking, and walking, and every once in awhile Dariax’s voice, friendly and steady and sure, ‘Opal has a plan.’ And at the end of it the ability to feel returns, but he’s so tired, and he hurts, and everything hurts too much to think about, and poor Dariax probably stops in his tracks, just ‘Dorian? What was Opal’s plan?’)

And he really was so angry. It’s interesting to wonder if that’s still under the surface. He immediately turned to levity - for their sake, and his own - but that moment where the group tells him who killed Will and Derrig, and Robbie instantly wrote down Otohan’s name, didn’t just read like a player taking notes, to me, it read like Dorian putting a name in a ledger. I think it’s easy to let that go because he learns that she’s dead in the very next moment, but I think Dorian felt a weird kind of relief for that half-second, because so much of his anger at what happened to Cyrus and Opal was from being forced to acknowledge that there wasn’t anyone easy to blame, except perhaps a god; and blaming a god is like blaming the universe. What a relief, however short lived, to be faced with a problem you can solve.

[miscellaneoussmp]

Good morning, everyone!!! I hope everyone is feeling just a bit better than last night!!

Today, I'm taking an exam that I need to pass to get my two year degree. Wish me luck!!!

[rthwrms]

oh man i was reading this TERRIBLE mm romance and chA was ESTABLISHED to be a real asshole from the get go but as soon as he met chB he was did a complete heel turn and was like "ur beautiful and amazing and im want you So Bad™" WE ARE NOT THROUGH THE FIRST CHAPTER MIND U

[nebulousfishgills]

Listen.

You can listen to it on the soundtrack, you can watch clips of it being performed live, hell, you can watch someone play that bit on a video...

But listening to Raphael's Final Act while you're actually fighting Raphael just hits. different.

That was probably the hypest shit I've ever felt, and I thought freeing the Nightsong was a chills moment.

[oltammefru]

Did I ever mention here I did IS3 Relicless SW15 wolfgirls only. I did IS3 Relicless SW15 wolfgirls only.

[autisticlee]

how to make business plans: spend 2 weeks looking for a website to make a visual plan guide that you can collaborate with business partners, but you end up nowhere because all of them require paid subscriptions to do more than a few basic things. except you don't want to pay for these because you don't have a business yet and therefore no money!!!! but you need more than basic features (basically you can only put 50-100 items on your board with free account and i will definitely need more)

[lil-kissy]

Dancing Dragons (at sunset)

Finally, 11hrs later and done.

If it's not obvious Kumo is supposed to be floating.

Bonus Maskless:

[thefandomcassandra]

Malaprop (3/9): Clean Up the Debris and Tie the Noose

mal·a·prop — /ˈmaləˌpräp/ (n) - the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo ” (instead of flamenco ). — He shouldn't be here. (Sequel to Champion)

Content Warning: disordered eating, smoking, alcohol, drug use, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, body horror

Reigen's alarm woke him with screaming klaxons. It was tinny, pitchy, and the same every morning. He had set it half an hour in advance so he could slam snooze and roll over. He did just that.

Twelve minutes later, his alarm went off again. He hit snooze.

Twelve minutes later, his alarm went off again. This time he got up and slowly made his way to the bathroom.

Face, hair, teeth. Shower if he had the time or energy—not today, it seemed. Keys, wallet, shoes, out the door. Lock it. Check to see if he locked it. Double-check.

Doubt himself the whole way to work, even though he had his keys in his damn pocket.

His stomach hurt. It'd been doing that lately, little twinges that turned into pangs if he thought about it too long. He should really invest in quick food. Some kind of granola. Hell, even fucking smoothies. Anything to take the edge off.

Work was...it was work. It was always work. He pretended to be some kind of good person. He lied about being psychic. He gave some foolish sod a massage and force-fed them spoonfuls of self help platitudes about this, that, or the other and then it was a couple thousand yen in the lockbox and see you next week.

Sometimes there was something new here and there. The kid the other week who thought he was being haunted (it was a small cat that lived near his house causing a fuss), the woman two days ago who said she felt like she was being watched (stalker, easily taken care of), and the man yesterday who insisted he was also a psychic (he just wanted someone to talk to after his children grew up and left home). But overall? Same thing day in, day out.

Close shop, lock up, and walk home. There was this black cat that followed him sometimes. Today it was there so he bent down and pet it. It meowed at him and purred.

("Do you know how incredibly lucky you are that you haven't starved like this before? What was feeding you? It was keeping you alive. You will not have that luxury here.")

He walked past the convenience store and, giving in to the desire itching at his lungs, bought a carton of cigarettes so he wouldn't have to stop by tomorrow. He was going through them faster and faster these days. If he wasn't careful, he might wind up like his pops, with a pack a day habit. That'd be an easy way to hemorrhage money that he couldn't afford. So one carton for a month, no more no less, and he could cut back.

The pang in his stomach flared up so he bought a hamburger from MobDonalds. A treat. He deserved a treat every now and then.

It didn't help all that much.

He fumbled his keys on the way back in, dropped them, hit his head on the doorknob when he bent down, hit his head on the way back up too, then finally unlocked his door. Dinner was cup ramen. It also wasn't as filling as he would have liked. He collapsed in his bed and stared at the ceiling.

It was getting harder and harder to go to sleep these days.

His alarm woke him with screaming klaxons.

("I wonder," the fly on his garbage can posited, "how long you can keep this up. Already you are fraying at the edges. You're strong-willed, even without your past emboldening you, but I can see the scars beneath the surface. This is the truest version of yourself." It rubbed its feet together and fluttered its wings, bluebottle eyes watching with scrutiny. "When you finally give way, it will be an implosion, beautiful and catastrophic. I cannot begin to express my delight at the thought.")

Reigen took another smoke break. He shouldn't be smoking as much but it cut the hunger—the strange hunger that he could not place or satiate—so why wouldn't he? If it made the discomfort go away, even as a stop-gap, then it would be worth the monetary cost. As he exhaled a plume of smoke, he wondered what his life would be like if he just kept his head down and did as he was told.

It would be easier, sure, but certainly more boring. He liked fighting for what he wanted, tooth and claw. He was a stubborn kind of man.

("When you finally choose to debase yourself, lower yourself to that of an animal," the crow on the telephone pole pointed out, "you will truly be your most authentic self. What a pity your little friend won't be able to see the process. He might learn something from the whole ordeal.")

Laying in bed at night was a ritual more than a relief. Sleep never came, no matter how hard Reigen tried. Warm milk, alcohol, more medication than he probably should take, no matter how much of what cure he used, sleep eluded him. So lately he just laid there, stared at the ceiling, and silently screamed.

He knew how many cracks were on his bedroom ceiling. He knew when his neighbor's mistress left and his wife came back. He knew when the children across the hall had a holiday break. He knew every intricacy of the people upstairs' sex life. He knew the exact minute every morning that the dog upstairs was taken for a walk, like clockwork.

He wanted this to stop. He wanted it to end. He wanted to sleep more than anything in the world, the screaming hollow in his chest stealing any joy he might have had in his miserable life. He felt grey and washed out, as dark as the night.

And then the sun came up and he finally found respite, eyelids iron curtains slamming shutters on his mental shop. His childish complaints faded to bitter grumbles and his consciousness melted into nothingness.

Minutes later, his alarm went off.

Read the Rest on AO3

[abimee]

i gotta stop following up every single sincere moment of althaea love with a joke about how shes also a little weird to amaurotinr standards but its really funny to me. but in all sincerity for althaeas birthday hades and hythlo learn how to make a cake step by step instead of conceptualizing one because althaea was raised by two cthonic horns researches so they also got really into doing things in ''unorthodox ways'', like making an omelette by cooking an egg over a fire and such. and they spend hours trying to do it and then haphazardly carry the cake all the way across amaurot to althaeas apartment in a little tin and have to dodge people asking about it because if hades ever utters that hes doing something nice for someone he may turn into dust and blow away so hes hauling ass to get there already. and he acts above it but when its all said and done and althaea gets her cake and learns they made it by hand and she claps and screams and tells hades that she loves it before she even takes a bite he does get a warm feeling in his chest. like the grinch

[villainspo]

Reading Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four run; immediately discovering that the bad guys are rather healthily philosophical about failure.

Source: FF (2011) #1, by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Steve Epting (pencils and inks), Rick Magyar (more inks), and Paul Mounts

[sparkoflena]

I do not need to restart my Marvel Unlimited subscription while I am trying to save money

I DO NOT

NO

...except I kinda wanna reread Young Avengers comics now

[vampirehizzies]

the SAT was literally harder than the practice tests my princeton review textbook gave me and i didn't finish all the math questions which means i'm not getting a perfect 800 on it the way i did in the practice tests. literally i spent 80 dollars on this test (60 just to take it and 20 for the review book) so if my score only goes up by like 20 to 30ish points (if i get lucky) or it fucking goes down (more likely) then literally it was such a fucking waste

[i-ingestclovers]

WAIT ITS GONNA BE OCTOBER AND NOT NOVEMEBER

[idunska]

why am i convinced my supervisor does nothing all day except get bothered by me