#felt like writing something small

[bitchapalooza]

"Who is she?"

Zoro cracked an eye open. "Hah?" He grumbled. "You're blocking the sun, twirly brows. Move it."

Instead of receiving a remark back, Zoro got something rudely shoved in his face instead. He repelled the cook's hands away with his own. "Well? Who is she, mosshead?"

Zoro squinted his eyes, nose scrunched as he darted from the blond to the bounty poster and photograph taken back in Water 7 before their departure. Closely focusing his sleepless eyes he finally saw what the cook was talking about. He shrugged, seeing no issue in the matter.

"Franky thought it was overexposure or something when copying the film at first but then she showed up in the other photos." Zoro's gaze lazily trailed off to the railing of the Sunny, where Usopp and Luffy were fishing(but not catching a single bite—a repeat of yesterday). There an apparition sat, a girl only Zoro has been gifted to see. She relaxed on the railing next to the boys, semi translucent, an aspect about her that has always screwed with Zoro's mind, being able to see through her and all, as foggy and unclear as it is.

"You know her." Sanji boldly claimed. Zoro shut his eyes and relaxed back onto his folded arms. "She's always around you."

"Cook," The name fell from his mouth like molasses. "You implying I got a ghost girl following me around? Do you know how stupid you sound right now? Well stupider than usual..."

Sanji tsked.

'It's fine, Zoro.' The swordsman flinched as within seconds Kuina appeared in his ear. 'I think I trust these people. I don't think they would call you crazy.'

Zoro cracked one eye open to peer at the girl. The forever thirteen year old girl. Sometimes she appeared normal. Other times she had a gnarly bloody gash on her forehead. Today, though, she was normal. As healthy looking as she was before she died.

"She's here with us, isn't she?"

"Why are you so interested in the ghost girl?" Zoro grunted.

'I have a name you, ass!' Zoro ignored her outburst.

"No. She's not here. Now leave."

Kuina stamped her foot. 'Roronoa Zoro! Stop lying!'

"She's taking a ghost shit. Lose it, perv cook." He ignored the offended gasp.

"Oh shut up, moss, I know you're lying. She's here and I'm right."

Zoro shifted, his bottom feeling numb. 'Tell Sanji I wish I could eat his cooking. It looks delicious!'

Zoro rolled his eyes. He sat up and hauled himself to his feet with a grunt. "I'm not saying shit for you."

"AHA!" Sanji exclaimed a finger pointed directly at him. Luffy, Usopp, and Robin turned from their spots on the deck to the shouting chef. "I knew it! The ghost girl is here!"

'Tell him, Zoro! Tell him his food looks yummy! Dad's cooking was always so bland and boring, always something with rice. The pork cutlet he made last week was soooooo good looking, you describing it's taste made my mouth water—and I don't even have spit or an appetite anymore!'

As Kuina rambled Zoro stamped off, agitated at the attention he was suddenly getting. He just wanted a good nap in the sun, not a damn probing session.

Kuina showed up several months after she died. He had been training in the heavy rain when he saw her looking out the window, just staring. From the room that contained her sword, there she stood. For days he thought he'd just gone insane with grief and delirium, barely sleeping enough to be considered a healthy amount for a ten year old. But then one day she lashed out. Angry at her father for talking about her like that, even after she was gone. She got so mad. So so mad. In her angry state her shrine shook, vase of flowers falling, photo cracking, candle and incense blowing out. There was no wind, no earthly tremors, only a pissed off girl—Zoro believed she was real from then on. He wouldn't tell Koushirou, he just thought there was a weird isolated earthquake and didn't ask any further question. Zoro began to talk with her like normal again. While they couldn't quite train together she did give him pointers here and there, telling him how to improve his skills when before she wouldn't share anything, let the younger boy find it out himself.

'It would be nice if I could talk to people again.'

Zoro wiped the sweat from his brows with his own shirt. "You talk to me." Way too much, Zoro neglected to add.

'Other people,' Kuina clarified. 'I know I was considered a quiet kid when I was alive but sometimes it's nice to talk. It fills the silence. Makes me...'

"Feel alive again?" Kuina nodded. Zoro put the weights away and faced his friend. "Do you seriously want me to tell everyone? I mean... It's not like they'll magically be able to see or hear you."

Kuina shrugged. 'So? At least they'll know I'm here.'

Good point.

"Fine," He sighed, easily swayed, picking the weights back up for another round. "Later then. After dinner. But I'm not making it a whole thing! I'll just say you're here and get on with it!"

Kuina wasn't listening anymore. She was excitedly rambling, loudly fantasizing about the possibility of socializing with someone other than the grumpy sourpuss that is Zoro.

He could sense the soft hum of Wado Ichimonji, leaning up against the crows nest wall, gleeful just like the spirit attached.

[jasperthejester]

me: finally accepting theres a good chance im autistic and starting to work up the courage to ask my parents to see if i could get a diagnoses but being scared to

my mom: do you ever think you have adhd? if you want to do a screening for add next time your at the doctors you can

me:

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[nerevarswritingstuff]

TIaF Teaser - Chapter 35 (2)

Shaking your head, you look up at Macaque. “What else do you like?”

“Mm?” He’s picking at his teeth, glancing your way. “Can’t think of any off the top of my head… aside from theater, music… storms…”

“Really?” You both squeeze your way through a crowd, an easy endeavor for you two given your backgrounds. Macaque is just slightly faster at it than you. “I thought you wouldn’t like storms because of…” You gesture to your ears.

The action in itself makes him scoff, as if insulted. “Maybe, when I was a cub not in control of my power, but I’ve had, oh…” He waves his hand in a circular motion, mocking thinking. “A few thousand years to harness it and tune out the things I hear.” He looks up at the sky, his tail swishing gently behind him. For a moment, past the glamour, he looks… peaceful.

“Thunderstorms remind me of the beating of the drums,” he says, his tone taking a softer pitch. “The tanggu drums, specifically. The rain, like a mixture between the bangu drums and the yunluo.” He huffs, the hint of a smile on his lips. “So—no, thunderstorms don’t bother me. They haven’t for a long, long time. Same with fireworks. If anything, storms are… a form of meditation for me.”

“Huh,” is all you can really say. You hadn’t expected such a response from him. At least, nothing so… gentle. But the nostalgia is clear on his face. Talking about theater brings happier memories for him. “You performed in a lot of operas, I’m assuming?”

“Hah—I was the top performer.” Aaaaand there’s the show-off, again. “If I wasn’t leading in the opera itself, I was the one directing it.”

[deputyrook]

fully in my illarook phase now thanks to you, i am very normal about them

🫡 I’m doing my part!

—

Illario searched Rook’s face with a barely hidden desperation, as though by looking hard enough, he’d be able to find and unearth some hidden agenda.

“You can’t be serious,” he muttered, the edge of his mouth twitching downward.

“I am,” Rook reiterated, with no hint of sarcasm or irony. “I care about you, Illario. And I trust you.”

They were so close to him that he could count their eyelashes one-by-one, and see his conflicted expression reflected in the dark of their pupils. He could smell their unique warm blend of jasmine and something sweet, the scent that had made him first turn his head in their direction the day they’d met. He’d recognize it anywhere.

“Then you’re a fool,” he replied finally, reaching up to touch their face, in spite of himself. With more gentleness than he’d thought himself capable of, he brushed the pad of this thumb over the arch of Rook’s eyebrow.

“Am I?” The eyebrow arched, and he moved his hand to cup Rook’s cheek instead.

“Yes. You know me well enough to know that trust is misplaced,” Illario murmured, “You should know better. I’ll betray you too.”

Rook- damn them— smiled, and made no effort to pull themselves away from his grasp. Perplexingly, infuriatingly, they leaned in even closer and laid a hand flat on his chest. Their touch seemed to burn.

“Until that day, then,” they said, “I’m in your hands.”

Illario couldn’t help but let out a huff of laughter in disbelief, shaking his head with an exasperated glance back at Rook. Their expression remained unchanged, still looking at him with the same serious, genuine look of affection.

Fine then, he thought, with no small amount of irritation. He wasn’t his cousin. He wouldn’t fall on his blade to save Rook from their own stupid mistakes.

“Well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he murmured into Rook’s ear, before leaning in to press his lips to their throat.

[yellowocaballero]

Reading 'Solo Leveling' (a webtoon/webnovel about a guy who uses a game-like interface to level up and fight monsters and become ridiculously OP and the coolest and hottest guy in the whole wide world) really proves something to me that I've thought about.

The goal of a story is to achieve what it wants to achieve. Different genres have different certain marks the story should achieve. If it doesn't hit those marks, it's not a good example of the genre. In a lot of was it's not even a good story - it doesn't entertain the audience in the way that they want to be entertained. A romance novel isn't a bad story because it doesn't feature great action scenes, but neither is it a bad story because it doesn't delve deep into the sociopolitical implications of neocolonialism. Does it make the reader feel happy? Is it cathartic? Is there a happy ending? Then it's a good romance story - even if you think stories shouldn't need happy endings.

The 'satisfaction' of stories like Solo Leveling is the fact that is very entertaining to watch a guy be super powerful and mow down bad guys and have everybody around him go "WHOAH that's a cool guy". Maybe it's cool because you're projecting, or maybe you like great action scenes, or because you like 'underdog gets powerful' stories. It's a power fantasy. That is the goal of Solo Leveling, and so long as I'm going "WHOAH COOL", then it's a good story. And Solo Leveling is the example of the power fantasy video game dungeon OP protag. It does those elements, it executes them competently, it's a good story.

This is the third of these types of stories I've read more than 5 chapters of. The first was Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint. And baby. This is no ORV.

ORV a big reaction to Solo Levelling in a lot of ways, since Solo Levelling was very genre defining and influential, and it's hard to write these OP stories without having a relationship to Solo Leveling. It's like the most popular webtoon out there. The OP hero, the gaming interface and rules, the gods fucking you up, power fantasy - they're all checked off by ORV. It doesn't subvert them much. You watch kdj pull one over on a shmuck and you're like HEY YA BABY and you watch him utterly decimate some schmuck and you're like WHOAH COOL. You like ORV, basically, for the same reasons you like Solo Leveling. They're the same genre and in a lot of ways the same story.

But ORV has driven me nuts and after a while Solo Leveling has gotten boring. Because ORV has a fantastic supporting cast that puts the MC's OPness in relative perspective. Because there's cool action scenes with different teams, of different dynamics, giving freshness to each chapter. Because you get to see kdj slowly implement some nuts gambit of the course of the entire arc and when we finally hit the end point where it all comes together it's FUCK YEAH. I'm leaving out the actual depth here. But ORV and Solo Leveling do the same thing, except ORV has a great deal of other story elements that build into the main 'point' and escalate the satisfaction, joy, and intensity of those points. You don't read these OP hero novels for the supporting cast. You read it to watch a dude be cool. But ORV's supporting cast - and, like, the fact that they're actual characters, even the women - gives us a lot of other smaller 'hey yeah!' moments, gives it buildup, makes the OP moments meaningful, and gives a grand climax and huge satisfaction when kdj does what the SL guy did by himself. And the supporting cast is only one example of this. A story is a good story if it accomplishes its point, but a story like SL will never really deliver its promises nearly as well as ORV could. Not because ORV is deep and has """themes""" or fucked up shit like that. The 'WHOAH COOL's are just better. Because ORV knows why stories are good and what makes a good story.

Anyway I'm fucking begging you I have tears in my eyes this is why your fic needs more than the hot ship of the day I promise it won't detract from the ship it will make the ship BETTER but you have to get WHY you like these homosexuals so much and it's NOT just because they're CUTE sometimes there's OTHER REASONS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'VE BOOTED AND -

[loderlied]

i need you all to know that the main reason (besides a general hunger for attention) niles even accepts aldori’s call is because he got caught stealing his student’s work and passing it off as his own and his reputation as a teacher was obviously ruined. lmao

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF PRIORITY: SUR'KESH

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Lt. James Vega, EDI, and Urdnot Wrex With: Lt. Steve Cortez, Dr. Mordin Solus, Major Kirrahe, and Urdnot Bakara And a Special Guest Appearance by: Adm. Steven Hackett Alliance R&D has officially begun construction on the Prothean device. The team has dubbed it: "Project Crucible". We're throwing everybody who knows how to throw a hammer at it. This is gonna be the most ambitious undertaking in human history. I'm not saying it won't be a challenge- but we can do this, Shepard. You can do this. Never doubt that. Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

+BONUS (the smirk™️)

[acheronist]

giving myself a solid B+ grade overall for this month's apprentice tattooing event...... i did more last-minute appointments this time so instead of my scheduled 15, i ended up doing about 18 tattoos in total over three afternoons, and i only started getting clumsy and really mean to myself during the last three appointments on the last day. so that's pretty good i think????

[inkyclive]

Joshua supremacy 😭😭😭 I’m so soft for him. Just let me be his little princess. He can make all the rules idc

omg he’s so gorgeous and like the thing about him—at least in my opinion/my own personal interpretation—is that while he is genuinely so sweet (almost sickly so at times!) and so kindhearted and so so tender, he is also so used to being served and so used to being the Boss, the undying’s precious phoenix prince, the king of everything, and it comes out in these tiny little wisps and hints in certain interactions; a vaguely bratty comment, a gentle yet vehement assertion, a soft chuckle beneath a gloved hand……..

all of this is to say, i think he’d fucking love to have a partner who lives to serve him and be his precious lil doll (to the point where he may even feel guilty about how much he loves it, because he knows it isn’t necessarily right, but he just can’t help but feel this way about you <3). he wouldn’t push it on you, and he wouldn’t hold you back from doing things you wanted to, either, if he deems them good or beneficial for you—he’d definitely encourage you to do things if they were things you wanted to do/made you happy—but oh, to have a baby who’s syrupy sweet and devotedly doting and hangs on his every word; to have a precious lil princess who gazes up at him as if he’s painted the entire night sky by hand, speckled the stars across the atmosphere and carved out the moon himself; to have a soft sweetheart who clings to him in every way possible, hands curled around his fingers or wrists or biceps when he takes you for a walk in the gardens or when you sit down for a meal (always beside him, never across from him, protocol be damned), who snuggles in his lap or straddles his thighs and nuzzles their sugar-sweet lips against his neck or collarbone or jaw, who obediently never leaves his side unless it is absolutely necessary <33333 that sounds like a perfect dream, a paradise, to him <3

[technovillain]

everyone always says "don't make your first comic project one that you're overly attached to" for the sake of 'your big idea you're in love with is probably way more ambitious than your skill level will accommodate for' and that is a statement that i generally agree with. not me though, i'm different. /silly

i just feel like there is an alternative to that statement too which is both "you can start it anyways but just accept that later your early work will not be as good as the later work, creating a bit of a quality gap over the span of the comic" AND "the power of hyperfixating on your own characters for years at a time can make you actually do the big project so dont let the generalized advice about starting an overly ambitious project snuff the fire of your interest by making you feel like you have to wait 'until you're talented enough'. like you can always go back and re-do the old parts once you're better and that's okay. or you can leave them as a reminder of how much you've grown with your big passion project"

[fucksatan]

Thinking about a time I wrote a 7 paragraph long post analysing Walter and Skylar's relationship back in 2022 and somehow it got deleted and I was so devastated and I felt so silly and useless and I stopped posting altogether.

[reminiscentrainclouds]

You guys ever feel trapped? Yea I'm well-acquainted with the feeling of being trapped.

[fallowtail]

when you start to get a fic idea but by the time you vaguely work out what you want to do someone else has already written it 10x better and longer than what you’re capable of before you’ve even managed to start so there’s no point in doing it anymore 😭😭 being slow at everything you do is roughhhhh

[fleet-off]

A snippet from Off the Handle

(CW: minor accidental self-harm, allusions to suicide.)

His madness begins in the aftermath, when anger loosens its stranglehold and wraps him in its familiar seething caress. Vegas swipes his damp finger along the tips of the knives on the drying rack, traces their honed edges and well-oiled wooden handles.

Who the fuck puts wood in the dishwasher? Even Vegas knows better than that, and he’s more accustomed to the banalities of cleaning crusted blood from a set of pliers than he is to cleaning chili oil from a vegetable knife.

At least the focus required to handwash them has dampened the petty urge to stab them into the kitchen walls.

The bedroom door is shut, but Pete hasn’t left the apartment. As long as Pete is still here, this is fixable. Surely he’ll come out for dinner.

…If Pete skips dinner, Vegas will fucking--

Vegas flings his dish towel to the floor. It lands with an impotent flop.

He’ll fucking what? There’s no forcing Pete to eat when he doesn’t want to.

Pete’s fury shouldn’t be silent. Pete’s fury as Vegas knows it is world-ending, concussive. It batters Vegas’s brain against the inside of his skull and threatens self-immolation.

Vegas runs his thumb down the edge of his butcher’s knife.

There should be blood on the floor, he thinks. He’d feel better for it--Vegas has tidied up the consequences of arguments countless times, knows how to put his pieces back in presentable order almost by rote.

This listless limbo can’t last. Something is coming. Something has to break, to punctuate all that anger. Shattered dishes, ringing ears, bruised skin.

Life was miserably simpler, when Ba was around.

Pete’s anger these days is more like Vegas’s mother’s. Ba used to call her hysterical--but that was Ba’s way, wasn’t it? Pete--(Vegas’s grip on the knife tightens)--Pete has realer, more accurate words.

Ma took what she was given until the very moment she couldn’t. Life broke her, and so death--

A thin twist of pain teases up Vegas’s fingertip. He reacts several seconds late, with a flinch he doesn’t feel but supposes he should--because the blood is welling up from a cut in his finger and the lack of a flinch reflex isn’t adaptive anymore, it just makes Vegas a clumsy fuck-up with cooking burns on his palms.

Vegas frowns at the gash. It barely bleeds until he squeezes it open. Who needs a knife this sharp in their kitchen?

Vegas--more fool him--had thought he did, cheerfully whetting his new knives. “Sharp enough to fillet a man,” he’d told Macau, because Macau would treat it like the joke it was and feel included without having to live the truth of it.

At his corner of the counter, Pete had remained silent, his eyes glittery and dark like a spider’s. That look is habit now, emerges in Pete every time Vegas turns his sharp purpose towards feeding him. The new familiarity spins nostalgia-like in Vegas’s chest.

It isn’t his old life. It’s better.

Vegas’s stomach twists to recall that spark of ownership and joy over his space in their kitchen at the center of the world. What a short-sighted ass he’s been.

Pete wears anger like Ma did. If there is to be blood on the floor, what better means than the knives at the core of the argument?

Impotent. Worse--maker of his loved ones’ annihilation.

…He might get away with one, but Pete would notice if he wrecked all the blades.

Vegas swallows and scoops them up, a steel bouquet in his destructive hands. Self-sabotage waiting to happen. He opens the knife drawer.

It’s better-balanced without the knives in it. Neater, closer to the toothless thing Vegas never was.

His blood has smudged on one of his nice new knife handles. It feels like an omen.

Vegas closes the drawer. He’ll find a temporary home for the knives. They can order takeout, just for the next few days. As long as Pete and Macau are willing to eat, Vegas won’t let his family go hungry.

[bitegore]

baru cormorant seems to me to be a series that suffers miserably for me having read machineries of empire first. unfortunately everything BC is doing strikes me as something MoE did better and more believably and with much a greater and more grounded eye for how systems, complex system interaction, and oppression like. work