#because I know you're having a bad day

[ellies-little-gun]

Today is a good day, surprisingly. Usually, snow means nightmares and not eating enough, and worrying Joel into an early grave. But not today, today is a good day. Because today, Joel is off rotation, and school is canceled because the snow drifted and they can't get the doors open. That means spending the whole day with Joel, just the two of them.

Which lead them to where they are now. Be a shame to waste it, Joel tells her, helping her pull her hat onto her head. They march outside, bundled up against the nip in the air. Ellie starts the snowball fight, purely because she can. Nails him directly in the face too, she's pretty proud of it. She silently thanks Tommy, for showing her how to make one.

She takes cover behind the shed in the backyard, when she sees Joel making a snowball, no doubt to retaliate. Joel takes cover behind the big cottonwood. They spend who knows how long hucking snowballs at each other and laughing harder than Ellie thinks they ever have. Turns out Ellie has excellent aim when it comes to throwing snowballs. Joel, they discover, does not. A fact that Ellie spends a good ten minutes cackling about, bent over at the waist and face red.

Joel takes the opportunity to shove a handful of snow down the back of her shirt, and she will deny the shriek she lets out until the day she dies.

She tackles him, and he lets her. Falls to the side like she took him down when they both know she couldn't knock him over at all if he didn't allow it. She grabs handfuls of snow, pelts him with them, giggling the whole time. He retaliates, flips her to the side so she lands with a huff.

They stay like that, both laying on their sides and throwing handfuls of snow at one another. Joel laughs so hard no sound comes out and she knows he'd be clapping, if his hands weren't occupied. His seal laugh, as she calls it, is one of her favorite things in the whole world.

They stop after a while, stay on the ground panting to catch their breath and giggling together. They both roll onto their backs, snickering under their breath. She looks up at the sky, points out a cloud that looks like a butterfly. Looks like Sarah wanted to be involved, she tells him, just to see the way his eyes go soft and fond. He shifts in place, brings his arms up. Swooshes his arms and legs back and forth, eyes on the sky.

"Making a snow angel," he answers, when she asks him what the fuck he's doing.

He sighs when she tilts her head in confusion. Stands and pulls her to her feet, mumbles something about FEDRA doesn't teach shit do they under his breath. Introduces her to the fine art of making a snow angel. Shows her how by example, moves to a fresh area to start. She flops down next to his when it's done. Makes her own.

"What do you think, Kiddo?" Joel asks as he helps her dust the snow off her back, once she stands up again.

She turns to look at them. His is way better than hers is, she can admit that. But she doesn't think that hers is bad, just that Joel's is better. Which makes sense, given he's like a hundred and has been doing this for far longer than her.

It does something to her, though. Seeing them side by side like that. Makes something warm and gooey and soft spread through her chest, seeing his much larger angel next to her smaller one. Smiles when she notices that the "wings" of their angels are crossed over each other. She likes it, like they're holding hands or something. Like they're family.

"I think they're perfect," she tells him.

"So do I, Kiddo, so do I."

Ellie beams at him, and he grins back. She wants to tell him, how much this means to her. How much he means to her but isn't sure how to do it. How to get the words out. Because how could she ever put anything Joel means to her into words. Joel is her best friend, he's the best thing that ever happened to her. How can she possibly put that into words? There aren't any words big enough, to encapsulate everything Joel is to her, everything he does for her.

Settles for asking, "Cocoa?" with a lopsided smile, the one she knows is his favorite.

"Cocoa," he agrees, looping an arm over her shoulder to lead her back inside.

Her jacket is soaked through, and she’s absolutely freezing, but her heart feels warm because Joel is with her.

And, right now, that's all that matters. Joel is with her.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

spirk using telepathy to keep each other alive. kirk, desperate, psy-null and untrained, reaching clumsily into spock's dying mind and pulling, dragging spock's essence into himself, wrenching him forceably from the very jaws of death and holding him there through sheer strength of will, saying you can't die, i won't let you, you can't leave me, i need you, and binding him to life and to himself until it's impossible to fully separate them. spock, more skilled, carefully managing each one of kirk's vital signs - keeping his heart beating steady, his lungs drawing breath, his temperature within a safe range, all while suppressing kirk's pain, and at the same trying, vainly, to keep their minds from tying themselves inexorably together, but they're pressed too close and he can't, and he hopes that kirk will forgive him, for bonding them like this (he will, of course he will), but the alternative, letting kirk die, was - unthinkable.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.

[yeonjune]

Yeonjun about the strain he felt while preparing for his debut solo project ✙ "GGUM" MAKING FILM

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[eikichi-supremacy]

If nothing else Koenma is a Kuwabara stan and I'm right there with him o7 (I need to write the kuwameshi fic that goes with this fr)

[pa-pa-plasma]

hey i feel like we're really sleeping on that time Danny possessed Vlad & framed him for assaulting a minor

Editing with the clip because people don't believe me. Episode is 41: Eye for an Eye.

[shokveyv]

shut up

[dollypopup]

hm. idk, maybe the reason Luke Newton isn't announcing new projects or posting any Bridgerton content is because some of you demons treated him like hot trash instead of a creative that you wanted more work from and he decided fuck it, this isn't worth the stress. you know, like a lot of creatives who get mistreated do?

like this is a man who went from couch surfing in a friend's house and bartending to make ends meet, deciding that the Bridgerton audition was the last one he'd do before he quit, to suddenly being recognized on the street because that last audition propelled him to star in a global show where fans who have zero media comprehension blamed him for his character's actions and literally stalked him at any hotel he happens to stay at. he went from being a dude doing musical theatre and shopping at thrift stores and recording random songs with friends and posting silly memes on Twitter to being harassed on his only social media page and his friends insulted and his partners bullied by his supposed 'fans' and anything he posts being so microanalyzed that he can't do a damn thing without someone coming out the woodwork screaming about how he's the WORST and won't he think of the FANS!?

like damn he can't have a girlfriend without being harassed, he can't travel without being harassed, he can't like or not like social media posts without being harassed, he can't post a fucking MEME without being harassed, he can't take a vacation or cut his hair or hold someone's hand or just live his life without being blamed for some bullshit or another. but yeah, okay, 'when will Luke Newton come back?' as if it isn't your fault he's AWOL now

[beargregor]

Chef greg delivery just for you. it's a wonder I hadn't bearified him yet, he's my fave greg too 🔪

gays literally only want one thing (to be chopped up and eaten by a depressed man) and it's fucking disgusting

[transmechanicus]

Really fucked up that two ppl can care about each other and make their best efforts to communicate and still end up hurting each other so badly they cannot stand to be in the same room.

[lesbianherald]

if its ok to ask, how do u find the motivation to write? i have a whole oiutline and everything i just cant seem to find the motivation to Actually Write Anything and was wondering if you had any advice ?

hello ! sorry this has been in my inbox for a while because I do not know how to answer !

typically, unless i'm in a really bad depressive episode, finding the motivation comes kind of naturally because I just love it so much and its such an escape for me. when I'm writing nothing else matters other than what I'm doing. all the noise of the world is gone and I don't have to worry about like, being a person while somehow simultaneously contemplating what it means to be a person in a really safe way.

i don't know if that makes sense. i was a very lonely kid and I think maybe it became a natural impulse for me. that's not saying my writing is better or some shit like that. some of the most brilliant writers I know struggle with motivation all the time. that's just not really my relationship with it.

But! If i'm in a bad episode or feeling stuck or like I've written myself into a hole, I typically listen to music that reminds me of whatever I'm working on. and then I listen to it all the time and visualize it in my head when I'm doing things like running errands and doing laundry.

also, for me writing works best if I just KEEP GOING and don't stop and ponder too much, Even if I HATE IT. especially if I'm just lost on a word or phrase. usually I'll just write something like "fix this later bee" or "research this later?" and move on. whose going to see it? if you're studying writing, just make sure the notes you leave have your name then search it before you turn anything in LMAO

usually when i'm writing and i note something is wrong I'll keep another tab open with a checklist of things I need to address or fix in the next draft instead of trying to make things perfect in the first. i think the need for perfection or overthinking often holds people up. I see that a LOT in my students.

sometimes in long form (feature films specifically) the urge to go back and correct becomes too much or I really do need to change something for future scenes to make sense. In that case I usually go sequence by sequence.

the fear of being 'bad' often stops people from even trying. but the only thing that will make you better is to get the "bAd" out first. Usually, I find people who really want to write who can't have something rooted in this fear.

IDK i hope that helps! Sorry it took so long.

[1singulargrape]

yuuji cannot use a chair to save his life

Sukuna was sitting on the floor, his upper arms resting on the couch behind him. His head was tilted to the side as it rested on his fist, and he lazily looked at the screen in front of him.

Yuuji was playing a video game, a "shooter game" with many colors and sounds that looked more like the mess the brat watched on his phone rather than anything coherent. Trying to follow along made Sukuna's head spin but there were a few things that were easy to catch on.

Yuuji's character exploded into a colored puddle, and without missing a beat Sukuna laughed at him. "You suck at this," he added.

Yuuji turned to glare at him, straining his neck while doing so, "I haven't played in months and the other team has a sniper, so if I don't try to move up we're never getting back mid."

He turned back at the sound of his character respawning, "And my team only has short to mid-range weapons so we're at a disadvantage here."

Sukuna couldn't be bothered to understand what any of that meant. "I'm only hearing excuses. If you were actually good at this game of yours you wouldn't need teammates to win."

"It's a multiplier game, having teammates is the whole POINT!" He screamed the last word as he narrowly evaded an attack that would have surely got him killed again, exploding his opponent in the process. His momentary glee was quickly crushed as his character also exploded for seemingly no reason.

Sukuna didn't try to hide his chuckles while the young man anxiously looked at the map while respawning. The match ended before he could get onto the field again.

Despite the general chaos of the game Sukuna only needed one look to know the results. He smiled with all his teeth, poking at Yuuji's temple with his free hand, "Maybe you should give up for now. What is it? The fifth loss in a row?"

"Oh, shut up," he fell back, landing on Sukuna's chest, "I just need to shake the rust off," he closed his eyes for a moment, knowing how to queue for another match without looking.

Sukuna huffed fondly, "You've been saying that for the past 30 minutes, brat."

Yuuji didn't add anything, only pouting a little. He made his character jump up and down with the hand he still had on the controller. Sukuna tightened the arms he had warped around Yuuji's waist, filling the gap until the younger man sat back up for the next match.

.

.

Yuuji was on his phone, checking over his social medias, laughing at memes and catching up with the tea of strangers online while sending out anything interesting to his friends

What had started out as him sitting beside Sukuna was now him halfway over the other man's laps, his upper back and neck held on a massive arm and hand.

Sukuna was reading old history books, saying he wanted to "catch up" to what happened while he was sealed. One time he mentioned to Yuuji how lacking historical records felt compared to the reality of life during his time, but that didn't stop him from reading them; in fact having a basis to compare how things were when he was still alive compared to what was recorded granted him a far better understanding of other recordings, according to him.

Yuuji didn't really get why he'd spend so much time reading from the source when there were so many videos online detailing their country's history. He had provided Sukuna with a phone for that reason but he only used it for 2 weeks before permanently retiring it to a drawer saying that "it was no wonder the brat was so stupid with the amount of trash accessible through that thing”.

Not what Yuuji had expected when Sukuna had spent those 2 weeks with an average of 12 hours of daily screentime, but hey.

While he was scrolling, Yuuji came across something that made him grin. "Hey, old man!"

Sukuna turned one eye to look at him which was enough acknowledgement for Yuuji, "Look at this," he turned his phone to him.

A picture of an adult tiger lying on its side with a cub pawing at its face was shoved into Sukuna's vision. "It's us."

Yuuji was grinning from ear to ear, giggling to himself. He took back his phone after receiving a hum of acknowledgement and they both resumed their respective activity.

Once Yuuji was fully focused on his screen again, Sukuna allowed himself to smile.

.

.

"Are you done showing off?" Yuuji asked annoyed. As his answer, Sukuna pushed back, going from doing push-ups on one hand to one finger and it only pissed off Yuuji even more.

Originally Yuuji was simply working out a little and was joined by Sukuna who not only matched Yuuji's moves but also made a point of one-upping him at every turn.

Yuuji watched from the side as Sukuna finished his set of 1 finger push-ups, wholly unimpressed as he was pretty sure he could do the same.

He simply knew that Sukuna would one-up him again somehow and he didn't want his light work-out session to turn into their usual competitions.

"Is that all you got brat?" Sukuna was smiling with all his teeth, still holding a perfect plank position, "Was such a simple move enough to scar you into surrendering?"

Well, Yuuji couldn't let that slide. "I just think that this was way too easy for you."

Yuuji walked closer and got on Sukuna's back, sitting in the middle of it. He knew that a man who could carry entire buildings wouldn't be bothered by his weight, but he was still annoyed by the fact that the other did not budge. Not even breaking a sweat.

"Is that it?" Sukuna changed the arm holding him and started another set. "This is still a lightwork brat. Unless you also want me to sit on your back as well to see if you can match the strength of a single one of my arms?"

"I can carry you pretty easily you know that?" Yuuji added with a frown.

"I'd love to see this," he added mockingly which only made Yuuji angrier.

The older man finished his set. A bit passed and he eventually laid down on floor, Yuuji still on his back.

"Hey what are you doing now?"

"Given how comfortable you seem up there I have decided to claim victory this time and let you enjoy yourself. How benevolent of me, I know."

Determined not to leave this as a loss, Yuuji got up and immediately deadlifted Sukuna off the ground.

.

.

Most beds weren't comfortable to Sukuna, made in sizes too small for his bulk and extra limbs, yet sometimes he'd ditch the massive one in his room to sleep in Yuuji's.

And what could Yuuji do if he was tired as well? With Sukuna lying on his back, arms splayed open and legs dangling off the edge, there wasn't that much place left for him to sleep on.

Yuuji crawled up the bed and laid directly on Sukuna's chest, hair tickling the bigger man's chin. He wrapped his arms around the other's neck while 2 hands placed themselves on the small of his back. 'For stability' they both thought.

Like this they both drifted to sleep, hearts close to one another and beating in sync to a slow and steady rhythm.

.

.

.

.

On some day they'll go picnicking together, as if they weren't spending enough time with one another.

They ate, they talked, then they both fell silent, a comfortable sensation covering them both as they simply enjoyed each other's presence as well as the nature around them.

Sukuna's head was laid on Yuuji's laps. Gentle fingers ran through his hair and massaged his scalp; the sun kept them warm and a soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees around them.

Yuuji had already zoned out, moving his hands automatically in a way that felt right to him, whereas Sukuna had started to drift off to sleep.

Small moments of peace they wish could last forever

[bayetea]

seeing non-black people critique rick's portrayal of black characters is interesting sometimes. only like 30% of the critiques I see make any sense to me to be honest

[telluricdog]

kingisle whenever they need to coax older players back: HEY YOU PERSON WITH A WALLET!!! REMEMBER DRAGONSPYRE?!? REMEMBER HOW SAD THE LAST ACT MADE YOU FEEL? HERE'S SOMETHING REFERENCING DRAGONSPYRE!! ISNT THAT YOUR FAVORITE?!

[stormyoceans]

LINE READING SO DEVASTATING I NEED TO DIE ABOUT IT