#but lots of love too

[nypon-soppa]

@teathattast

[wanologic]

reminder to take care of your loser human body

[jonnywaistcoat]

I'm really glad to see that everyone seems to be having a good time with The Magnus Protocol, and my heart is very full with all the wonderful comments people are making, but I do need to flag something up.

For some of these episodes, a lot of folks are giving me credit for stuff I did not actually write. The cases for episodes 3 and 4 were both by guest writers, Graeme Patrick and Cole Weavers respectively, and they really deserve some love thrown their way.

That's not to minimise my own part: me and Alex certainly do editing work on them, and add in a few bits here and there to make sure everything cohesively fits in with the overall story and tone of the show, but if you enjoyed these episodes, then Graeme and Cole are the ones to thank for it.

And for that matter, Alex wrote episode 2 and deserves more of the accolades for how good that one was than I think he got (my edits just made it a bit... squishier).

Protocol is much more of a team effort than Archives was and so while, in a broad sense, you can still lay most of the blame for bad things happening to characters you love squarely at my feet, it's genuinely important to pay attention to the "written by" section of the credits this time around, 'cause often it's not gonna be my name there, and someone else deserves the thanks for giving you a horrible treat.

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on a chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Into the pit? More like into the daddy issues

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[pokimoko]

Asexual bird? Please

How about two asexual birds?

[eternalfrowning]

a kakashi from this afternoon,,

[razzafrazzle]

literally my favorite aspect of sock opera is bill calmly but repeatedly failing to buckle his seatbelt. like its funny enough that Bill Cipher of all people is putting on a seatbelt but its so funny that he keeps fucking it up. but he's still just smiling like a dumbass the entire time

[beybuniki]

Pro Hero!Bakugo trying to socialize with IT!Deku but it somehow doesn't go as planned because ofc it wouldn't fuck his baka lifeeee (for @habken 's scammers to lovers au! )

[tapakah0]

Animation based on this gorgeous animatic that I kept rewatching for 2 months (and finally gave up) made by @wolfythewitch

[weaselmcdiesel]

Do You Love The Color Of The 413?

[mizukkay]

yea lance's right.

[rissaito]

“don’t cry, my child”

i was thinking about how venti canonically refers to the people of mondstadt as his “children” and how kaeya is included in that… then the brainrot took over and then i thought, what if when kaeya was a little kid and he felt lonely sometimes, venti would decide to shapeshift back into his little wind sprite form to comfort him…

[inkskinned]

i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.

most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.

it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.

and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).

i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.

grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.