#so have this even tho it wasn’t that

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

@monthly-challenge 2024 | 12. Compliments

I used this prompt for my original characters, Nathan and Patience: the story is under the cut.

Word count: 1,085

Patience tied up her hair, squinted at it in the mirror and tried it again. It was still crooked, and didn’t sit nicely, like she’d hoped.

“Do you need a hand?” asked Rhona, as she entered the room. She seemed on the tail end of a laugh, as if there had been something very funny just said.

“I would love one,” said Patience. “I really need about three, one to wield a hairbrush, and one to tie it up, and the third to hold it to be tied in the first place.”

“Let me try it.” Rhona wielded the hairbrush and elastic with expert hands, and presently produced an extremely passable-looking ponytail. “Why do you want to be particularly pretty today?—Don’t tell me, it’s Nathan.”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “We’re getting not-engagement photos done.”

“I cannot believe you didn’t tell me this until just now. You did say not engagement, right? He still hasn’t engaged himself to you?”

“He has not.” Patience laughed and pushed a satin-sleek lock of hair back. “Nor do I anticipate it any minute now.”

“You sure this isn’t actually an engagement photoshoot that he just forgot to mention? Sure he isn’t whipping out the ring during it?”

“Well, if he does, then it’s not something I anticipate at all.”

“Why aren’t you wearing your hair down? It looks so pretty when you do.”

“Don’t flatter me! It’s simply not voluminous enough; not like yours.” “Yours is gorgeous! I’m sure—” She cut herself off. “Never mind, that joke didn’t need saying.”

“Okay, then…?” Patience replied, a little confused. “Anyway, I figured I’d tie it back because then it won’t get in my face.”

“It’s going to be so beautiful.” Rhona removed the elastic despite Patience’s protests, and began to brush her hair. “Should I come with you so you can have it properly brushed just before you enter the studio?”

“‘Enter the studio’… that sounds so frightfully posh.”

“Frightfully,” agreed Rhona lightheartedly. “Terribly. Amazingly.”

“In answer to your question….” She ignored the ribbing and subsequent laughter. “If you put the brush in my bag probably Nathan will brush it again.”

“That sounds awfully romantic.” Rhona sighed softly. “What do I have to do to land a boyfriend as nice as yours, Patience?”

She shrugged broadly, nearly knocking the brush from Rhona’s hands. “Blowed if I know. He just showed up one day and wanted to marry me.”

“Wanted to marry you—!”

“Okay, I may be summarising. He wanted to go out with me, so I said yes, just to see how it worked. Turns out it works real well.”

“You’ve been dating for over a year now, because it was around Christmas last year, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, so that makes it—what, coming up on fourteen months now?” “That’s a long time to be dating, you know.”

“Eh, not so long as you might think?” Patience put on a necklace—a delicate silver thing which had her name on a small silver bar—and smiled perfunctorily into the mirror. “Yes, we know each other a lot better than we used to, but that still doesn’t mean that we’re ready to get married. Far from it, in fact. I don’t think we’d be ready to be married in a year’s time. Though if he asked me, I’d probably say yes, even if it came with conditions.”

“All your best years!” bemoaned eighteen.

“I have plenty of better years to come,” said wiser nineteen.

“Isn’t nineteen the best age to have children, though?”

“Biologically, maybe: socially and all the rest of it, including maturity level, probably not. There’s always an age at which you can be more something, or something else. Ultimately, I’d be not looking to have children immediately if I was to marry now, which I’m not.” She emphasised the last word, smiling at Rhona.

Rhona sighed. “At my age, you were only three months away from finding a steady boyfriend. I don’t see any of that happening anytime soon.”

“And that’s okay,” said Patience firmly, then hugged her younger sister. “Everyone’s timeline is different. I will say that at your age I didn’t expect to find a boyfriend anytime soon either, and it was out of the blue: but also, consider Paul.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” she said, sadly.

“Of course I was! The thing is, dear heart, easy as it may be for me to say (and I know it’s not easy to do), you need to try and be content in whatever stage of life you’re in right now. Having a boyfriend isn’t all kisses and sweet things. There are hard conversations, and you carry the other person’s burdens as well as your own, sometimes. I can’t tell you what, of course, but that’s very much true. Please don’t feel like you’re unwanted, Rhona. You’re very much wanted, despite the fact that no boy has yet noticed this of you.”

Rhona sighed and hugged her. Patience returned the hug. “It’s just hard,” she said.

“I know. And I’ll pray for you.”

“Thanks.”

“The time is such that I should scram,” said Patience, suddenly noticing the aforementioned time. “Cram that brush in my bag, and I’ll skedaddle.”

Nathan was picking her up in his new—secondhand—car, and Patience came in a whirl of blue satin skirts and satin-smooth hair, sliding hurriedly into his car. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she apologised.

“Hence why I left fifteen minutes extra in the planning phase, in case you were,” he said, sparkling-eyed. “You’re looking beautiful today, Patience.”

“Thanks.” She had had a year of acclimatising herself to his compliments, and while they still made her want to retreat inside her shell and freeze him out over it, she was more and more used to just accepting them at face value. For whatever reason, Nathan actually cared about her.

Which was just as well, because she cared about him, too.

“You’re looking very dapper also,” she added, taking in for the first time the sight of her boyfriend in a spotted blue bowtie. “I love your bowtie.”

“Thanks, I love it too. I colour-matched it, even.”

“Impressive. How’d you know I’d wear this?”

“It’s the thing that looks prettiest on you. I thought it was likely enough. Also I bought six others just in case.”

She stared at him. “You’re crazy.”

“I know.” He smiled, charmingly. “And you love me for it.”

“Well, yes,” she admitted, and just before he started up the car again she kissed him quickly.

Tagging @stealingmyplaceinthesun @graycedelfin @pilgrimsofworship@noisette-tornade and @choasuqeen

[franeridart]

more dragon

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

This has most definitely been said before, but we were robbed of the core four quarantining on-screen together at Buck’s place. ROBBED I say

[royaltea000]

[wipinf] thinking bout that one part in jttw96 where nezha and hong hai er fight in a dream

[chironshorseass]

the thing is, we were never meant to sympathize with luke when he betrays percy. we aren’t meant to see his inner turmoil. we aren’t meant to see hesitancy, or regret. it’s meant to be a slap in the face. luke takes percy to the woods knowing full well what he’s about to do. in tlt kronos orders him to kill percy because he’s too volatile; kronos said so himself when percy hijacked luke’s dreams and began to figure out there were bigger things at play. the thing is, when kronos orders luke to kill percy, he doesn’t hesitate. that’s the point!!! it is essential that luke is so blinded by rage and vengeance for the gods that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants (the god’s destruction). percy accuses luke that kronos is using him, but he just retaliates that the gods do the same, and they do!!! but see, the thing is, luke’s whole point is that he’s so focused on the god’s injustices that he forgets what’s important. he goes for the “greater good” but he destroys his family, his life, in the process. by attempting to dismantle a system, he turns to another system that follows the same oppressive logic. THAT is why luke fails. THAT is why it’s so important he be blinded by rage, because it’s his inevitable, tragic end. he’s doomed by the narrative from the start. yes, we’re meant to be surprised by his betrayal because of how cold and calculating it is, but also it’s important to set the grounds for luke’s character to be this angry, vengeful boy because later on we come to understand why it is that he made those choices. we see annabeth’s side of things and percy’s side. we see luke’s side. we see many sides. we see a man who is too far gone yet comes to understand, in the end, that he’s been doing more harm than good to those he was supposed to protect (annabeth is the most obvious example). we get a complex character who won’t hesitate to kill but who also won’t hesitate to sacrifice himself so that he can save the family he has left.

the thing is, luke was supposed to be angrier in the show. percy was supposed to be angrier in the show. they’re both foils. luke is what percy could become, if percy lets his anger win. so, to change—even if it’s only slightly altering—their characters, is to change the point of the story. because luke tries to kill percy in his betrayal and later percy tries to kill luke but then percy starts to understand luke…until luke is gone and kronos is gone yet the gods don’t change but percy does. and percy’s initial anger is supposed to transform and he’s supposed to see what luke saw and the cycle continues. the thing is, it’s not even one of the worst changes the show made, yet it’s still so, so telling that they failed to see why it’s important to let your characters do bad things, to make mistakes, because that’s how a story can carry on. that’s how you give a story depth.

[mattodore]

guy whose “extended one-night stand” regularly deploys polish to call a little mouse

[donutfloats]

I got a couple more grey acrylic markers cause the set I got was lacking severely in variation

Should probably get a dark red and a dark pink/magenta at some point too

This is the fun part, I can play around and see what colours I need to get the desired effects I want

[northlight14]

Speaking as someone who was constantly late to school, I think punishing kids/teens for being late to school is stupid. Like, I get it. When they’re older, they can’t be late to work and stuff and they need to understand that. But majority of kids/teens are getting to school via their parents or someone else driving them or hell the school bus which is also driven by an adult. So when a kid arrives late and gets punished for it, all that’s happening is a child getting punished because the adult responsible for getting them there on time wasn’t successful. That’s not teaching the kid anything, that’s just annoying. Especially when, as a kid I was always ready on time and it was my parents I was waiting on and then in detention I’d be expected to write down a “what will I do better” that didn’t apply to me because I didn’t do anything wrong

I get that sometimes it will be the kids fault but I feel like those cases are few and far between and punishing a kid for the adults in their life is just counterproductive

[dr-pipis]

i can't believe future anime-only kb fans will just watch the events of chapter 58 lead directly into chapter 59 without a break in the middle to watch sojo take a bath

[akkivee]

having ichiro and samatoki lose kuukou and sasara bc they couldn’t bring themselves to/choose not to fight them, and therefore unable to maybe erase the affects of the true hypnosis mic, but hifumi was able to get thru to honobono in part bc he chose not to fight honobono with his mic and therefore honobono was unable to affect him with her silencing ability is a brutal story parallel

[hobbithoes]

billion trillion ancient wips from my old ipad 😵‍💫

[sarafangirlart]

Ok now I’m imagining Cassiopeia trying to shield and protect Andromeda from being taken away and sacrificed like how Andromache tried to protect Astyanax from the Achaeans in Euripides Trojan Women.

[silkjade]

i love clorinde and don’t think i regret pulling her but i hate her playstyle T T it’s probably skill issue on my part because i am so bad at controlling her zoomies (LOL ??) idk i always just end up in the wrong direction of where i need to go and it stresses me out

[iwatcheditbegin]

This is all I’m gonna say

[hplonesomeart]

Hey!! So turns out a video I made between a certain “well beloved but highly sensitive/emotionally reactive T.V” and an “orange haired inkling-turned-human” has managed to sweep my YouTube channel and accumulate 100k VIEWS!! THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY?? My most widely viewed video EVER to exist in this moment in time?? AAAAA?? Not even mentioning the various comments and staggering increase in subs! It’s so much more then what I expected or even prepared for—might even be the most impactful thing to happen for me this year <3

…aside from graduating high school + the social connections I’ve been fortunate to make lol

BUT THE POINT IS I’d been closely monitoring the YouTube growth through the entirety of October. It’s make me smile like a dork, gawk in astonishment, dance frantically in my room from the energy boosts, and grow courage to stop being so selective/self-conscious with what I wish to share with the world! It’s kept my ambitions going!

I needed to find some way to celebrate the occasion and express my thanks—because I can’t NOT acknowledge this milestone jksjskp. Typically I try to avoid getting tunnel visioned focusing on the metrics/numbers. Mr. Puzzles had already demonstrated how much those things can mess with the minds of creatives. Caring too much about chasing views or placing your artistic value in attention seeking gets damaging. But at same time…it’s hard to deny the sense of pride the 100k achievement has filled me with. I understand that reaching 100k views doesn’t immediately make me any “better” or “worse” then I was before. I’m still just me! It only helps me feel seen by others—and that’s all I really needed. To hear some nice words & receive reminders that my ideas are cared about. So thank you SMG4 fandom for that, seriously thank you.

Please accept this Mr. Puzzle drawing as a way of sharing the happiness around. He’s so entertaining. Love him for simply existing. So glad we can all collectively be super attached to him (and the rest of the SMG4 cast of course). Can’t wait to see more incredible artworks from the fandom :)

Just incase anyone is confused by my vague description over which “animated video” I’m referring to here—hopefully this photo will help clarify lol. It’s this one!! Sorry about not outright stating the title at the start, I got carried away with writing!!

I’ve been in an odd place mentally when thinking about it. Wondering to myself if any of the attention is deserved considering it’s not even fully colored and could be dismissed as “low effort” content (despite taking several days making it). It’s easy to get into a trap of comparing yourself to others and questioning how much of the videos success is based on your skills, sheer algorithm luck, or only because you used popular characters and catered to a specific fandom. And then judging yourself by looking at other peoples videos. I’ve seen several artists post higher quality works then my own but it somehow gets less views. So why did mine succeed when others (who should have gotten just as much attention if not more) didn’t? Sometimes you feel like you’ve unfairly robbed them of that chance to be seen. However I’ve realized that I can’t ever expect views to be consistent—and comparing is pointless. So why worry about it or feel inadequate? I mean it’s pretty common for funny cat videos to go viral, so who am I to question the system lol. “Popular” YouTube videos can range from a passion project which took 7+ artists…to a clip of Toad singing Chandelier or a nonsensical Vine sketch. Anything can happen when it’s the internet! And just-so-happened my video was chosen. I should stay glad about that and get rid of all the overanalyzing. So that’s what I’ve chosen to do :)

[bookinit02]

in honor of my s5 announcement this week, here’s one of the scenes from the first episode! hope you all like it🫶🏻