#and the plot looks great

[ilybigman]

MAGMA GGG DOODLES P1!!

did a magma w some friends and even though this wasn't the first batch i drew, im putting it first because. its a whole other category of "at least one click clack per image" because i like click clack. ok

oh also, an awesome bonus from my friend @starrycataclysm (and others);

tip tap. aka baby click clack.

enjoy this thing i guess

posting part 2 tomorrow!

[cheswirls]

short asl thing based on @where-does-the-heart-lie's modern au :) i started this over a year ago but the beginning is all dialogue and felt more like a script to me i suppose??? which deflated my desire to work on it. anyway i checked it over recently and it's completely fine lmfao, self-confidence restored here we go !

-

"Yo. Aren't you usually in the middle of your shift by now?"

"I've been banned from the hospital."

"Like, for life?"

"No. For the next, uh.. Twenty-two hours."

"That's oddly specific."

"It was twenty-four, but I fell asleep after leaving the building."

"That wouldn't have to do with why they kicked you out, at all?"

"Hmmm. I'm too sleep-deprived, apparently."

"Ah. And, um, you called me because...?"

"I pressed a random number in my call log after waking up. Lucky you, I guess."

"Yeah. Right. Lucky me. And your car keys are...?"

"Confiscated."

"Ah, right, of course."

A beat of silence. Two. Three, then "Look, if you're busy, then–"

"No, no.  You called me, so I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."

"Alright. Thank–"

"Thank someone else. Also, if you fall asleep in my car, I'm taking it as express permission to drive you around wherever I want."

"Ugh, go die. I don't even know why I bothered."

"LUCKY YOU, I guess," sounds off way too loudly in his ear. "No take backs. See you in ten."

"I thought you said–" Sabo breaks off as the call ends, leaving him staring blankly at his phone's too-dim screen. He squints, turns the brightness all the way up, and still squints as the sunlight proves too strong for the display.

Ace shows up in more than ten but decidedly less than twenty minutes. Sabo doesn't waste much brain power on it, only climbing into the passenger seat and yawning into his palm while his other hand fixes the seatbelt into the buckle. Not a second too soon, too, as Ace roars the engine to life and peels away from the curb at record speed.

Ace fiddles with the radio. He turns the music up, then dial it back down to inaudible. They hit the expressway and he leans over the steering wheel, frowning with his eyes fixed on the road far ahead. Sabo yawns again and this appears to be the limit to his patience. 

"Hey, so, I had a thought after you hung up on me."

Sabo grimaces. "You mean you–"

"Today's Wednesday."

He doesn't elaborate. Sabo is too tired to process. "Yes," he follows, after a second. He glances at the sky out the front window. "What time is it?"

"Oh, uh." Ace fumbles with hand placement so he can lift his watch to his face. "Nine forty."

Sabo takes a couple beats to try and process this, moves his eyes away from the skyline, and sighs as he pulls his phone out. 2:47 is what the display reads, which sounds much more believable.

"How did the minute hand get off?" he mutters to himself, chancing a look at Ace's busted wristwatch. Ace raises a brow, taking his gaze off the road to scrutinize Sabo. "No, it doesn't matter," he mutters to himself once more, sliding his phone away back on his person and out of his hands.

"My point is," Ace continues, like he hasn't just been interrupted by a whole thing. "Your timeout will be done midday Thursday. Did they switch your days off?"

"No." Sabo sighs. "They technically gave me the next thirty-six hours. Technically closer to forty. Something like that. I go back in on Friday. Sometime.” He tries to smile and it turns out very lopsided, from that he can make out in the rearview mirror. “Can you tell I’m tired?”

“I don’t think ‘tired’ is an accurate description,” Ace quips. “When did you eat a proper meal last?”

“Uh, yesterday. Maybe.”

“Maybe??”

“A ‘proper meal’ means different things to the two of us,” Sabo huffs. “On my account it was yesterday. I’ve had food since then, of course.”

“Alright, so here’s the plan,” Ace announces before absolutely whipping it around a curve. Sabo is his passenger in the passenger seat and had fully prepared to be so when he got in the vehicle, but he’d been vastly underprepared for this sudden course of action, which is how he ends up halfway out of his seat with his cheek slammed into the cold window. Ace doesn’t quite notice his brother’s terminal velocity until the car is once again on the straight and narrow, and only then it’s because of the audible thunk Sabo’s face makes when it collides with the glass.

“Aw shit. You good bro?”

“Ow,” Sabo mutters. “If I have broken bones I’m suing your ass.”

“Well, if you’re good enough to make jokes, I think you’re better than you’re letting on.” Ace keeps the wheel steady with one knee while he takes both hands away to crack his fingers. When he glances over at Sabo again, he looks even more pathetic – like he’s becoming one with the glass. “Anyway, as I was saying.

“I’m taking your ass home. You’re going straight to sleep and while you crash, I’ll make you something decent to eat and stick it in the fridge for you to heat up later. I’ll even make you two servings to eat two different times, since you clearly can’t be trusted to take care of yourself correctly.”

“Ouch.”

“I want you to conk out for as long as your body allows. We can reset your sleep schedule tomorrow, alright? Put your phone on silent; do not answer any calls. In fact, you know what, just give it to me.

Sabo glances over to see Ace’s hand held out to him, palm up. Fingers wiggling expectantly. His lips pull up into a grimace. “I’m not doing that.”

“Fine.” Ace takes his hand back. “But you will comply with everything else.”

“Wow! It’s so funny, I didn’t realize you turned into my mother overnight! Really tapped into your mom potential, huh? Anything exciting happen in your life that would cause that? I guess I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been a zombie for the past two days.”

“There’s nothing wrong with acting like your older brother, you dipshit, especially if you keep putting yourself through the wringer like this. You go home. You sleep. You wake up and eat. You go back to sleep. Then we do laundry. Does that sound agreeable?”

“That’s negotiable, at the least,” Sabo mumbles. “I will accept good food as a form of bribery.”

“Oh, nice, because I’m flat broke at the moment.”

Sabo makes a mental note of that, and then they’re pulling into the driveway. Ace lets him exit the vehicle by himself and then promptly manhandles him all the way onto the couch where it will be easier to force his body to relax than in a real bed. Ace knows this, so he calls him weird before chucking a loose blanket at his head. Sabo is almost too tired to function at this point, so he lets Ace have the last laugh in favor of finally closing his eyes.

Coming to is a surreal experience, especially since the sun is still out. He must make a noise because Ace is suddenly within view. His limbs are tangled in the blanket and still so heavy that he doesn’t bother moving. “Thought you would be gone,” he half-groans, eyes slipping shut again for a moment.

“I did leave,” Ace confirms. “I had to go pilfer some stuff to make stew with. It’s almost done, so I’ll hang here until then.”

Pilfer. That could mean any number of things. Sabo chooses to believe in the option where Ace is an upstanding citizen, and then remembers Ace saying earlier that he had no money. He frowns and squirms on the cushions enough to where it looks like he’s checking his pockets. “Where’s my wallet, Ace?” he bluffs.

“Somewhere around here,” Ace pipes up. “Your stomach will thank you for your contributions to the Portgas Household’s pantry!”

“Ugh, I got robbed,” he complains. “This sucks. ‘m going back to sleep.” He rolls over so his back is to Ace.

“Yeah, you do you, bro. Stew will still be here later. I’ll see you when you’re back in the world of the living.”

—

Luffy comes in late that night and slams the front door shut as loud as humanly possible. When he appears in the main room, he doesn’t seem to be upset, so Ace writes it off as a Luffyism. Sabo hasn’t stirred at the noise, so it’s all good.

Realizing this, Luffy pads closer to Ace’s side and looks at Sabo’s unmoving body warily. “Why is Sabo passed out like a corpse? Is he sick?”

“No, he’s not sick, he just can’t take care of himself. Which is why we are going to let him sleep for as long as possible.”

Luffy just nods to this, but it’s the uncomprehending Luffy-nod that means he’s just going to end up doing whatever he wants to regardless. Ace sighs, then jerks his head towards the kitchen. “He ate a little earlier, but I want him to eat again when he wakes up. There’s stew in the fridge if you want it – just leave him a little. Got it, Monkey D. Luffy?”

Luffy throws him a salute and then runs off in his socks. “Yippee! Ace made stew!”

“Think of your brother, Luffy, and make good choices!” Ace calls after him. “He’s a pathetic man who needs food to feel better or he’ll end up sleeping through Laundry Day!”

—

Sabo does not sleep through laundry day, but he does sleep for sixteen whole hours, so it’s just around noon when he forces himself up off the couch and into a warm shower.

Ace is around, which is mildly unexpected. But he’s still half-asleep, so everything is at least a little unexpected. He glances up from playing video games with Luffy to see Sabo leaving the steam-filled bathroom with his hair hanging around his shoulders. “You look like a wet cat,” he calls.

“Sabo’s awake!” Luffy cheers. “Ace thought you died at one point.”

Ace elbows Luffy in the gut, making him hunch over. “I did not!”

“He totally checked to see if your heart was still beating!”

“I’m undead, actually,” Sabo says completely seriously.

“Does that mean you don’t need to eat anymore?” Luffy questions. “Because I ate all the stew last night.”

“I saw that coming and made extra.” Ace finger-guns in Sabo’s general direction. “That’s why I bought two sets of ingredients. With your money!”

“With my money,” Sabo echoes, because it’s such a wild statement to have to deal with this early in the day. Well, early for him. “Fuck you.”

“I mean, I can tell Luffy where I hid–”

“Thank you, Ace, for agreeing to share your quarters with both of your brothers so we can all do laundry today on your dime!” Sabo raises his pitch so his voice is mockingly squeaky when he says this. He starts moving down the hall before Ace can start to argue, letting his and Luffy’s voices bleed into the background.

When he comes back out, now dressed, it smells significantly better than before. “I reheated the stew,” Ace announces, gesturing for Sabo to take a seat at the kitchen counter. “Let’s all have lunch before we head out.”

“You have to drink this too,” Luffy tells Sabo, sliding a Gatorade across the counter so it sets in front of him when he finally does take a seat. “Ace’s orders.”

“Gotta get those nutrients back somehow.”

“Aren’t we so considerate, Sabo?”

“Do you even know what ‘considerate’ means?” Sabo asks, lips quirking up into a half-smile. At Luffy’s shrug, it turns into a real smile. “Well, thanks anyway. Both of you.”

“No sweat. And look!” Ace brandishes a five dollar bill for both to see. “I found this baby for us to use on coins! It’s all on me today–”

“Where’s my wallet, Ace?!”

[mintjeru]

ue ue ue...

open for better quality | no reposts

[science-lings]

You can’t tell me that Ryunosuke was mentally okay after having to spend nearly two months in the room where his best friend died after desperately having to prove that he wasn’t the one who did it. He felt like he had to pick up his dead friends dreams and belongings because it would be suck a waste for them to be abandoned. He took on a whole career that he explicitly stated terrified him because he couldn’t stand letting Kazuma or Susato down.

Anyway there’s some psychological horror to being trapped in the room where someone you loved died just feet away from where you were sleeping for weeks and weeks with the only thing to occupy your mind being relentlessly studying to replace him.

The only picture he had of Kazuma was the crime scene photo staged to look like he was implicating him for the crime and he wouldn’t be able to just throw it away.

You just cannot tell me this guy didn’t suffer some amount of psychological distress and constant nightmares on the way to Great Britain.

[aroaceleovaldez]

tbh my latest biggest theory for why HoO and onwards is such a dramatic drop in quality and consistency is just. Rick stopped making teaching guides.

Like, the Lightning Thief teacher's guide is SUPER in-depth with even stuff like sources about middle grade child psychology and exact specifications of where he's applying that, explaining what different character's goals/motivations are, their dynamics with each other and their environments, etc etc. Even specifying which specific myths certain plot elements are supposed to reference or be about.

That stuff just doesn't exist for later books. There's activity guides and smaller, significantly more simple teacher guides for later books but they don't go into anywhere NEAR the same level of depth. The TLT one is a full lesson plan that breaks down the book at every level and explains what's going on and more or less why Rick did that. The others are all basically just glossaries of terminology and some simple question guides.

And they didn't even use the TLT teacher's guide for the Disney+ show because they clearly aren't adhering to any of what's discussed in that breakdown of the book.

By creating a teaching guide alongside writing the actual book, that's forcing you to document what you're doing, why, your sources, and information about your characters and the story they're in. It's like an even more in-depth version of a series bible. But that's lacking for later books (and etc) and it shows because that level of thought and depth and attention just isn't there anymore.

[youngpettyqueen]

I know the decision to have Julian's parents have him augmented was made on the fly but imo its pretty obvious from early on that Julian has Family Issues because he avoids talking about his family like the plague and I think they should've incorporated this into the Julian and Sisko dynamic right from early on because I think it would've made for some really compelling stories and moments and could've set up a REALLY interesting Julian and Jake dynamic which they kinda started to do but never fully went for

[thenerdiestmanalive]

Time to spread my Charles and Edwin are Orpheus and Eurydice reincarnated agenda

Dream, please come get your son, he keeps going down to hell to save his partner

[clownowo]

its crazy how much he focuses on the mustache

[writeouswriter]

Don't fall for the beautiful cover you're not gonna like it you're not gonna like you're not gonna like it aaaaaahhhhh <— me screaming noticing Grady Hendrix has another wicked cool looking book releasing next year. He can't keep getting away with this, someone poach that cover designer from him, please, someone confiscate his horribly underutilized but otherwise fantastic concepts away from him, they deserve better, he deserves worse, I'm sorry, I want these things on my shelves:

But I do NOT want his writing on my shelves, it pains me. I want so badly to sell the 3 books of his I have because he keeps luring me in with the siren song of "that looks sick as hell" and then LETTING ME DOWN. But do I learn? No! It sucks! How can I part with the coolest cover concepts ever, but how can I live with such lines as this three feet away from me:

I must strike him down.

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[screechingfromthevoid]

"No time." "No time."

The acknowledgement of the fact that they might not have time. This is all just for a night because tomorrow may come but the next day may not.

Dorian's regrets at thinking about all the different choices and paths they could have taken. Him falling asleep to the idea of bargaining for more time. How this all could have been different.

Orym getting a vision from the wildmother, Will, getting that permission to live came so late. As Orym and Dorian are going off to do something impossible and deadly. That acknowledgement that there really is no time but that night.

If the world ends tomorrow, if they end tomorrow... It would be too soon. It wouldn't be fair. But none of this is fair, is it?

[originallymarysue]

Uh.. looks like someone broke the ketchup bottle... :/

(DW He didn't kill anyone, the blood is just symbolism)

[alwaysbooyahback]

Can we all stop for a moment and appreciate that Ink5oul’s name is Grace Wilde and that they have an inheritance? Anyway, I’m off to listen to RQG again.

[skyward-floored]

wait WAIT I'VE GOT IT

THEY SHOULD DO THE ZELDA MOVIE LIKE THE PRINCESS BRIDE WHERE IT'S A GRANDPA TELLING THE STORY TO HIS GRANDKID

[variousqueerthings]

watching this Paul Gross thing he did in the 80s (chasing rainbows) and ive been enjoying it despite the knowledge that there'd be some kind of a het love triangle thing going on and that the other two characters simply aren't that interesting, but. oh boy. is... is the woman in this constellation meant to be read as a villain???

(ME DOING A BREAKDOWN ABOUT A SHOW NOBODY WATCHED AND NOBODY WILL WATCH ✌)

PG character -- a working class man who is fundamentally good to everyone in trouble he meets, to the detriment of himself more often than not, but scraping by until he gets his big break (which he also works very hard for) and becomes the owner of a relatively successful nightclub

other two characters -- come from rich backgrounds and sort of suck him into their lives by the coincidence of the two men having been at the front in WWI and PG saving the other guy's life and consistently don't realise he's got way more working against him than they do

the lady in this situation initially dumping said other guy "to find herself" when he comes back from the war, which, fair, it's 1919, she's going to college, she wants to be sure she can make informed choices, chill enough

said lady imprinting on our working class heroic character, because he's working class. i just. cannot read it any other way. she clocks him as such at a party (that he was invited to as a veteran) straight away, insults him, throws water in his face when he doesn't take it, but simultaneously is into the whole idk... rugged unpolished nature of him

discovers a diary written during the war with poetry in it that she presumes was written by him -- steals the book and reads it out loud to her college friends and is offended that he's not flattered by this

despite numerous protests that he didn't write the poetry (and he didn't, it was written by a kid he tried to save who was later shot in front of him for desertion), she just doesn't believe him, because she desperately wants him to have the "hidden depths of a poet" or some nonsense. never mind his actual good traits -- his kind-heartedness, his tenacity, his savvy, his sense of humour, nonono she wants a Poet

also, she is a failed playwright. she writes terrible plays about things she doesn't understand (including the war), asks his opinion and is offended when he (under duress) admits he doesn't think they're very good

and now she fucking... copied down the poems without his knowledge and published them under his name with an article she wrote about said hidden poetic depths!!!! gets incredibly offended when he is upset about this, first of all with a "I thought you'd be pleased" then with a "you should be happy for me for getting an article I wrote published in a major newspaper!" (because at the end of the day it's about her)

he initially -- not knowing how to handle the situation -- goes along with it, because what do you do now? go to the publishers and say it wasn't you? out yourself in the news?? I mean??? but pretty quickly re-emphasises He Did Not Write Those Poems!

the plot then mysteriously seems to pivot into saying it was his fault for "stringing her along" because the "hidden poet" bit was the only thing she really liked about him... and she vehemently denies this (but girl, tell me one other thing that draws you to him, and you can't say because he's pretty!) and says he's hurt/betrayed her by lying. i just... don't know... if the plot... is writing her like this because she's meant to be a self-absorbed college girl who has her working class dream-boat fantasy get broken, or if it's meant to be presented as him having betrayed her. it is. unclear

and now she's threatening to write a new article about how he's a fraud. im just. waiting for the plot to point out that she's done all of this herself and she also won't suffer for any of it in the way he will...

this boy can do better than these rich kid tourists 😔

[mintsuwu]

I did a little redesign of Lady Mouse (whom I'll call Mary/Marianne for now) because I love her design but I wanted to change some of her colors and a few details so she could stand out from the other females in the movie a little!

↓ Original