#or reflecting on my day and stuff

[dumbcloud]

💕Positivity prime time! Share five things you love about yourself, four things you're excited about, OR three people you care deeply about and why. Pass this along to someone whose posts make you smile💕

aww thanks anon! for you I will do 4 things I’m excited about 🌝

I’m going to see The Killers on Sunday!! 💥

My mom is coming to visit me at the end of the month. It’s been 2 years since she’s been to stay with me 💝

My coffee that I’m going to have tomorrow morning ☕️

Baku race weekend!! 🏎️💨

[xxplastic-cubexx]

crusty evolution redraw. in theory.

[aroaceleovaldez]

apparently pjotv twt was being weird about book!Percy's eyes being green because they don't think the ocean can be green (???) so consider this a sequel to my Grace siblings eye colors post and here is some visual references of green water for all your Percy inspo needs:

And for reference, the water around New York-ish where Percy is usually is somewhere around this color:

or some alternatives:

or here is a nice hazel green if you want his eyes more on the brown side, which is very common in freshwater ponds and streams:

or if you want him to have totally brown eyes - water rich in tannins will appear brown, greenish-brown, or very dark brown - this is sometimes called "blackwater" due to often appearing very dark or having low visibility:

[anneapocalypse]

Tired of the false dichotomy between "you should create for yourself without desiring any form of connection" and "feedback is everything and without it there's no reason to create." Neither of these things are wholly true, and it's frustrating to me that people have taken "create for yourself" to mean "you shouldn't want feedback or enjoy it, you should create in a vacuum with no hope of human connection" and are lashing back against what they think it's saying rather than what it's actually saying. I love comments and feedback and connecting with my readers as much as anyone and would never discount the value of that experience and I try to be the kind of engaged reader I would want to have because I know how much it means. I especially know how much it means to a niche creator because I've been that creator myself and I so treasure the readers who took a chance, gave my stuff a try, and stopped to say something supportive about it.

But that's also exactly the thing: the things I want to write are often things that do not in any way guarantee me an audience, but they're what I enjoy, and creating for myself is what gets me through those long first drafts where I know there is no guarantee of an audience because the reality is I'm choosing to write this thing and nobody owes me a readership. Internal motivation matters because there are parts of the creative process where internal motivation is all you have. I've seen people give up or nearly give up on projects that probably would have found an audience, if a niche one, because they convinced themselves that nobody would care and then couldn't motivate themselves to care. Or they decided that a small audience wasn't good enough; they need their work to be Popular or it was worth nothing.

And if someone doesn't want to invest themselves in creating something that might have a small audience, well, that's their choice. But creativity is inherently an act of risk, and a lot of amazing art would never be made if the creator wasn't willing to risk silence, rejection, loneliness. Yeah, those things suck. I'm not saying they don't, that's why it's a risk. But art isn't always about safety. Sometimes it's about creating because you simply have to get this thing out of your head, and you hope someone will connect with it, but you don't know until you try. So everything can't be external motivation. It just can't be. It's too limiting, it's too stifling. I can't live that way, personally.

[weeville]

there is poetry hidden somewhere here

[thedemonsurfer]

spontaneous headcanon time: Dark Sun runs hot. Like really hot

Because the thing is like, he should be unsettling to other animatronics, right? Uncomfortable to be around, uncomfortable to have him touching you. You want him to let go as soon as possible.

And okay you'd think that means 'cold', cold personality cold hands etc BUT. That's a mammal's perspective. Cold is considered unpleasant cos we're always working to maintain homeostasis, so we have an aversion to temperatures that cause us to burn more energy.

Computers, though, like the cold. Put a laptop in a freezer and except for the humidity, they'll be just fine! Apparently it's when you get to temperatures like in the actual vacuum of space that you need to think about a heater.

So to be unpleasant to other animatronics, Dark Sun would be running really hot. Maybe it's a result of modifications he's done to himself over time, or overclocking his CPU, or whatever. It doesn't bother him any, and in fact it gives him one more way to manipulate others.

[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”

[doodleodds]

Happy Valentines, Akira. Happy Valentines, Asshole.

If you can’t read what Akechi’s secondary inner-dialogue says cause I obscured it too much behind his regular dialogue, here’s a transcription in panel order: Hello, you fucking- Ah- Hello, Akira! Fuck off, why should I tell you- Just a soda- there’s a new flavor.

I don’t want your shitty gift. Oh- haha! You’re so sweet.

I hope I choke. They’re lovely, thank you.

Like hell. Likewise. There’s no way it’s just a coincidence. Still though, it’s a funny coincidence.

[danny-chase]

DC is wild cuz you look at each of the robins, trying to figure out some semblance of a timeline, and like Tim was Robin from like 13-almost 18 and that's 5 years but in universe about 4 million things happened, meanwhile Jason was robin from like 12-16? which is 4 years and like exactly 4 things happened....

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneepy cozy time....

[sarcastic-clapping]

iwtv au where louis' brother says the gay island scenario to louis before he walks off the roof

ahdjaka sorry i never responded to this but i need you to know (because it’s very funny to me) that i was planning on using canva for evil, aka a poorly edited meme of the post, but was interrupted by a century old tree in my yard getting struck by lightning and splitting in half, destroying both my yard and a neighbor’s. so i guess god said no on this one

[platoapproved]

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[darkwood-sleddog]

Every year new pack designs for dogs come out (thanks @zaryathelaika for notifying me on this one) and I….

Fucking. Why.

Company claims the weight is distributed over the shoulder. Not only is this not the case here (weight is on the dog’s back and perhaps shoulder blades), but the short pannier design ensures that when the dog’s head carriage changes so does the distribution of weight. Notice that on the photos where the head is not affecting the weight and pack that the pack has to be further back to accommodate this, making the weight on the dog’s back).

Below is a properly distributed weight location:

My other issues with the DogPak pack are the location of the girth strap closest to the dog’s armpits. It’s far too close allowing for rub and discomfort. They also show many videos of the dogs running at high speeds with packs which is a big no no (trot I’m fine with, but dogs should not run with weight on them as this puts additional strain on their bodies. Pack will also bounce against the body and can cause bruising depending on what you pack). This goes for both dogs carrying light weight and dog’s carrying heavier weights like mine.

I think at this point in my dog packing career? (Sounds like the wrong word but okay) im sick of seeing companies think they need to reinvent the wheel for these dog packs. Because they almost never do and the packs inevitably end up with major design issues that can be prevented by talking to a single person that packs dogs for real purpose or title. But at the end of the day if these sort of people (like myself) were talked to perhaps it would become clear that there’s not really a gap or NEED in the market for this. That it’s not revolutionary.

[aron-has-ocs]

A very important shot out to amazing animatics I’ve managed to find for some of my favorite Rise fics!

Links to the animatics and fics under the cut. Check out these creators!

Oyasumi [Rottmnt fic Animatic] Every Night the Longest Day - Animatic by Kryptid Krackers

Every Night the Longest Day by ashtreelane

TRAUMA | Animation meme | ROTTMNT FIC - There must be something under the water | - Animatic by 『 Sherbet • Studios 』

There Must be Something in the Water by Filsamek

Treehouse [ by Alex G | rottmnt animatic] - Animatic by Chiren_Exe

Rotten Reflections by @nicoforlifetrue

And a bonus shout out to  Pieces - I May Be Invisible PMV (ROTTMNT AU) by Javaskulls, detailing a scene from I May be Invisible but I Still Look Good by @dandylovesturtles

(Spoilers in the animatics for the fics. Be safe and read tags carefully! Love you all!)

[fidgetspringer-art]

The Shimmer Shields - Uniform design

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

In the drifting silence of his empty apartment, Shen Wei presses the door shut, turns the lock. And then, like his body was waiting until he was alone, his legs give out. Shen Wei tips/topples against/into the wall, sinks down to sitting on the front mat/in the entryway. He sits there for a long time, curled into himself with his arms around his knees. The whole time, his body braced for the sound of Zhao Yunlan’s door opening, the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. Waiting, again, for Kunlun to return to him.  But no sound comes from outside his door. At last, Shen Wei tips his head back against the wall, lets out a soft, streaming sigh. The sound trembles in the still air. It’s the closest he’s come to crying in years, that he can remember.

from the up draft of the answer fic. im cutting it veryyyyyy close to the deadline this time ahahaha (nervous!) but the writing is going relatively smoothly (knocks on wood) and i think it'll turn out pretty delicious!!