#this is admittedly not a lot to go on

[crabsnpersimmons]

beating artblock the only way i know how

💖 drawing robot kisses 💖

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

[blatantprinterpropaganda]

this feels like bison just joined the ranks of gmmtv siblings/friends who come out of nowhere with readily prepared "signs they're into you" lists, like pa bad buddy and pepper thamepo, only bison's version is the punchiest i've heard yet. if 👆 you're not dead, 👀🔪 that means he like-likes you 💖🥳

[seiwas]

for writing game, iwaizumi + assistance <3

hope this sparks some inspo and thank you in advancee

hi there!! thanks for sending in a prompt 🫶

contains: friends to lovers (ish), halloween parties, reader is dressed as catwoman, expletives, iwaizumi is thiiiiis 🤏 close to murdering seijoh4 (jk)

iwaizumi + assistance

this is a set-up.

iwaizumi knows he shouldn't have fucking believed anything the boys "promised" him back when they assigned him this costume.

the suit is fucking tight, spandex digging into his groins and all other crevices that definitely should be aired out after after a few hours. he's had to constantly readjust his stance almost every few minutes, the black fabric compressing his thighs and torso, significantly constricting the range of motion his shoulders and arms are typically used to. if anything else, it could double up as a back brace from how rigidly straight it's kept his posture all night.

he'll give it to makki though; he did outdo himself sourcing this year's costumes―this batman set looks pretty damn legit.

except for one tiny problem.

there's no fucking pee hole. it's a zip-up, zip-down one-piece situation. and that normally wouldn't be a problem, except that oikawa "accidentally" knocked over a cocktail straight into his pants, the sickeningly sweet liquid now seeping straight into the fabric and past his boxers―cold and sticky as it touches his skin.

and so, the problem: his pants are wet, it makes him want to fucking pee, and coincidentally, the only vacant bathroom is across the hall, at your apartment.

this is why he believes this is a set up. that, and the fact that you're dressed in an outfit strikingly similar―just with cat ears.

he's been asked five times in this party if you're in matching couple outfits.

it catches him off guard, flusters him because of how badly he wants to say yes. but, you're just friends, and he doesn't even think you like him that way (despite mattsun and oikawa practically begging him to confess. makki tells him he thinks you're going to do it first).

so he politely smiles and says no, but you look good, your costume clinging to you in all the right places. thank fucking god he has a cape because he's pretty sure he spent the first 30 minutes in the party hiding his boner.

"hajime, it's fine, i swear," you stand beside him in front of the conveniently locked bathroom in oikawa's apartment. from the other side of the door, he's pretty sure he hears mattsun and his girlfriend mumbling. maybe fucking? who knows. "you can just use the bathroom in my apartment."

he glances at you before closing his eyes, contemplating, before finally agreeing to you.

"okay."

if he's being honest with himself, friends is definitely an incomplete label to what you are. as oikawa's neighbor, you are conveniently around all the time; and oikawa being oikawa, the ever-social butterfly, he's somehow managed to carve a space for you in the friend group.

(never mind the fact that oikawa's sniffed him out from the moment he first introduced you.)

you were a crush, then a friend, and now you're someone he picks up from work and drives back home three times a week, because he "has to train oikawa." you don't question it, even when you both know he stays over for dinner way past the gym's open hours.

"you know where it is," you open your apartment and urge him in.

"sorry again," he turns to face you.

"yeah, yeah, just pee!" you laugh, shoving him towards the bathroom door.

getting out of the suit is manageable, and he's able to wipe off a bit of the cocktail that's leaked to the suit and his boxers just to make sure it isn't gross and sticky when he gets home later. peeing is a big relief once he gets it over with, but it's when he has to suit up again that things become difficult.

stretching out the spandex one body part at a time is a workout in itself―the hardest task being when he has to pull it over his shoulders, adjusting it to fit properly over his arms and chest.

but then the zipper breaks.

and he truly thinks makki has fucked him over.

iwaizumi contemplates what to do next for a good, good while. he tries calling oikawa, only to no success every time; no way in hell is he calling mattsun in the middle of having sex. and calling makki isn't even an option; he'd never hear the end of it.

then you knock on the door, your voice soft and concerned as you ask, "hajime? you good in there?" you hit it spot on, too, "do you need help with your suit?"

iwaizumi presses his palms to his eyes. he's a rational man, straightforward and logical in thinking. there is literally no other option for him right now but to ask help from you. again.

fuck.

.

it's 30 minutes later when oikawa barges in your door, and the sight that greets him is iwaizumi in nothing but a hoodie (the hoodie you borrowed some time ago) and his boxers, with his hands on your waist as you hover your hairdryer over the crotch of his batman costume―cat headpiece off and all.

"you finally got together?!"

[pacexlikexaxghost]

@goldenbeastkeeper

The summer heat has been with them for some time now, the coastline baking in humidity.

It's the early morning when Garnet walks into Rose's room, where she and Pearl are. Pearl is laying back across Rose's lap, laughing as she tells some story that Pearl isn't even listening to, and the room plays it out around them.

❝I've found one,❞ Garnet says, and Pearl sits bolt upright, her fingers raking through the clouds as she shifts off of Rose's lap, looking expectantly at Garnet.

❝Found one what?❞ Rose asks, and Pearl shoots her a look. There's only one thing that Garnet could be referring to, talking about it like that.

❝A portal to Valor and Flicker's home.❞ She pauses, and looks towards Pearl. ❝Sort of.❞

Pearl stands up slowly. ❝What do you mean sort of?❞

❝Their family isn't there. The one I've found will last about a day and a half, and it goes to their world, but they are also out of time. I see that there could be trouble if they went in unprepared, so we would have to warn them.❞ She frowns. ❝They would be happier going back to that world; no worry over witch hunters and life around them that they're more familiar with.❞

Pearl isn't expecting the painful jolt in her chest at those words. She wants the two of them to get home; she does, and if they would be happier there, even without their family-

❝Oh, well, I'm glad we were able to help them!❞ Rose chirps, jumping to her feet and putting an arm around Pearl's shoulders. ❝It'll be a shame to see them go; they've been such a delight to have around.❞

❝They're both so young! Especially Flicker! They shouldn't be on their own!❞ Pearl blurts out, and Garnet chuckles.

❝I also saw that reaction. Go pack; you'll get a stable portal eventually.❞

Pearl squeaks, and shoots an anxious look towards Rose, who's started giggling.

❝Go! Go!❞

Pearl doesn't need told thrice, darting to the passage to her room.

❝She's acting like a Mom to Flicker, right? Or am I crazy?❞ Rose says the moment she's out of the room.

❝Not crazy. Go tell them; I'll wait at the Warp Pad.❞

❝How long will she be gone?❞ Rose nods towards the passage to Pearl's room. ❝Not too long, I hope? You know how she gets when left to her own devices.❞

❝Not too long. She'll be fine.❞

Rose nods, and takes off out of the Temple and towards the burrow on the other side of the cliff.

❝Guess what!❞ She says excitedly to the pair. ❝We have a portal!! Garnet found one!❞

[greenerteacups]

I think "the problem of house elves" is really interesting in that it reveals an issue with what I suppose can be broadly categorised as "urban fantasy"?, that is to say fantasy in a modern real world setting, which nonetheless uses magical creature lore. Inevitably, as an author, you're going to purposely or inadvertently draw parallels to real world "stuff" that's ladened with baggage... and it can be really hard to make it work because readers will be raring to pick apart these kinds of analogies.

House elves are a great example of this, in that, there really are creatures called house elves (or brownies) in English folklore and they really do, in the stories, seem to enjoy doing housework and chores in exchange for things like food and shelter (and shouldn't be given clothes or they'll never come back).

However, by initially drawing a parallel to slavery with House Elf labour (a real-world very dark baggage laden issue) and then not having the time to really delve into the history and complexity of her wizard / house elf relations you end up with the narrative seeming a bit confused as to how we should feel about people having house elves as servants / slaves. On one hand, we only see "bad" families having elves, on the other, we're told Molly Weasley would like one, then we're shown that Hogwarts uses them and that they, mostly, want to work for wizards without pay or holiday. People that grew up in the wizarding world seem to view Hermione's concerns with the kind of bemusement I encountered as a vegetarian kid explaining why I didn't want to eat animals to most of the people around me. This says a lot about the way House Elves are viewed there.

House elves are not viewed as being akin to human and therefore do not fit neatly into human parallels. Dobby is presented as an anomaly because, unlike most houseelves, he does not dream of labour and being bound to a particular wizarding family. I think JKR tries to represent this through Hermione's ineffective activism, but it's clumsily done because Dobby's our first and most poignant introduction to House elves and he was being seriously abused without any protections in place. There's also the Black family situation which.... yeah.

I think a couple of paragraphs of explanation from, maybe, Dumbledore outlining, perhaps, the symbiotic magical relationship of wizards and elves, and how the Malfoys / Blacks were somehow unusual in their cruelty and disrespect to this relationship, would've done a lot to smooth at least some of this over.

The issue, I think the books very quietly imply, is actually more aligned, although not perfectly of course, in a real world sense, with animal abuse / humane treatment of animals than with human slavery, as house elves ( as folkloric creatures) crucially do want to do house work in their nature and their treatment by wizards is therefore what needs to be monitored through the introduction of protections (older Hermione will surely be championing these kinds of reforms). Not perfect of course as House Elves are sentient, talking creatures... but they're also not human beings and it does make some kind of sense that they wouldn't have the same values... it's just, slavery being OK sometimes, is really not the sort of message you want to imply through an inadvertent and imprecise parallel.

Just chiming into the house elf convo as I find this issue in fantasy writing endlessly fascinating and as an aspiring fantasy writer myself, quite frightening!

This is so well-put, I almost can't bring myself to add anything to it — really excellent and considered treatment of the ways that the elf relationship was probably intended to read differently than it did in the text. More attention to the elf/brownie legend would have gone a long way for me in fixing my unhappiness with S.P.E.W., because it would have given a canonical basis for thinking Hermione's actually just wrong about this relationship, and that she's somehow missing an important historical context. That's a great point.

Staging elves as an intermediary between humans and animals whose treatment mirrors animal rights conversations is a really smart way of talking about it, too, as it captures the moral dimension of Hermione's quest without making everyone else look abjectly terrible for not supporting it. Staging her as, say, the PETA of the Wizarding World, where everyone thinks she's campaigning to Give Copyright to Monkeys, etc., makes Ron especially seem much more reasonable. I'm going to think about your interpretation a lot in how I write house-elves in the future.

[sainz100]

❤️ some Daniel moments shared on September 26th & 27th

📸 credits in photos + gifs made from inesmuc's reel

[biblically-accurate-dca]

@vanweek2024 day 4 - food

peep the vanny

[notannascribbles]

i sort of feel like the longer this show goes on the more i will grow in indifference toward it and then at some point things will shift and i’ll be able to enjoy it again but from like a detached horror-appreciating perspective because i don’t love the characters how i used to anymore and i no longer feel invested in them being good and okay

[residentialsinyomakai]

Hello hello!!! Guess what. Yokai art dump below the cut!! So cool and shiny wow

Its true, I do >u<

I'll try and section these and give the usual explanations below! Image ID for more drawing specific inksplanation.

Click for full image! Since a lotta these are weirdly shaped they were cut off....augh...

McKraken and Maddiman related doodlesssss they're some of my faves <3 i will always love them even if they're not my focus characters atm (well. McKraken kinda is rn but also Babblong so YAY)

Misc. Yokai and ocs! The frog is Kerosque, the guy w the swirly pompadour thing is Swiss, and the monkey is Romono (although he's a Regretevator OC from FOREVER ago, he's still my son <33)

SWISS STUFF RAUGHHHH ! inconsistent style will be APPARENT here try not to notice shuhhhhhgh

Height for main yokai in my AU/on Casp's team! (In the anime it's just primary summons then wwwww)

Some yokai practice/design hcs bc my friend asked!! I was so happy to share 🤭 LOVE YOU CHERCHERRRR

Some of my little guys once more! Rawry' prob one of my faves yokai to draw, easy and fun to do show-accurate or stylized.

OCSSSSSS. AND BADDINYAN. MY EVIL CAT <3333 the guy next to the frog in the middle is an oc idea but idk for what yet =▽=

AUGH. THERES AN IMAGE LIMIT? Well in case you're wondering it's 30....post the rest after I get tomorrow's doodles. See you then and thank you for looking at and reading about my arts!

[dailyriolu]

A silly guide on how I draw normal Riolu vs My sona

[hipsternumbertwo]

Meet the Cast (Part 2) [Digital Ticket] [Part 1]

[ratatatastic]

"ive played in a canadian market ive been in st louis in the summer they won—ive never seen buzz like this" "we're really lucky we get to play hockey in such a nice place" the C and A clocking in on their Praise South Florida as a Hockeytown shift

2024-25 Media Day | 9.18.24 (x)(x)

[veryloovy]

"Home" in regards to "Intermission"

I'm writing this as an excuse to talk about lesser-known aspects of "Home", admittedly. So "Home" actually happens because the trio got together to watch the tape N found in "Cabin Fever". "Intermission" instead ends on Uzi suggesting that she poke around in their memories, which is what happens in "Home" but it's not for that reason. Uzi looking in their memories was an unintended thing. You can see the tape paused on Uzi's TV every time "Home" returns to Uzi's room.

The implications are that the trio were watching the tape when the Solver activated and began deleting N and V's memories, Uzi grabbing the hacking tools she used in episode 2 to save them. Look closely, it's the same head devices she uses on N and V in episode 5.

"Cabin Fever" ends on N looking at the tape, and "Home" opens on what is on the tape. The tape is the through-line between the episodes, and it is completely absent in "Intermission"s plot.

What's REALLY fun about this is that this was probably a "movie night" suggested by N if we take his manor counterpart suggesting the same.

That OR N suggested it was a sleepover, because Uzi is really annoyed by the idea that their gathering be called that. (Truthfully, doubtful on this because it being a straight-up movie night seems more likely and Uzi just doesn't want to call it a sleepover)

Which would be the first time any of them have ever gathered in her house if Khan is to be believed here. (Makes some of my own fanfics non-canon, but the man's said this, so that's the canon as far as I'm aware)

Girl had a sleepover/movie night because her crush wanted to see what the fuck was on this random tape he found on a campground, and the dude invited his former crush/friend(?) along for the ride. Then, the tape activated an eldritch cyber entity that deletes memories in the dude and his former gf, which the girl had to fix. Fun times.

[mamawasatesttube]

personal facts about me: if i have to see one more post about clark seeing kon as a weapon rather than a person/clark treating kon poorly (WHERE. POINT TO WHERE) i will start biting people

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR by Seanan McGuire.

Ah, yes, my favorite January tradition: heartbreak in tiny series installment form :)

This one is about a turtle-obsessed disabled Russian girl who gets adopted by an American family and fitted for a prosthetic she doesn't ask for, want, or need, and then she splashes through her Door.

I love Russian language and culture things (shout out to accidentally double minoring in college), so I was excited for a Russian protag and a Russian-coded Door world! Excellent enrichment in my enclosure. Neat cultural expansion on the Wayward Children universe (multiverse? cosmos?? insert appropriately scaled setting word here).

I also liked the aquatic nature of Belyyreka--terrifying giant frogs and delightful giant turtles and delightful talking foxes on the riverbanks were all lovely, and the worldbuilding about different weights of water was neat! Very mind-bendy kind of setting, I dig it.

This installment felt very slim (146 pages in my copy), and Our World Heavy--the first 46 pages were in Colorado, and the last 100 were in Belyyreka, but it felt like we did More Frequent and Larger Time Skips in Belyyreka compared to Earth? Kind of speedrun mode, sans Quests, really (this one was a lot more oriented toward Finding/Building Your Family, which was signposted pretty clearly upon our arrival in Belyyreka). Mostly a quieter installment up until the, y'know, Typical Impending Tragedy of Return at the end. (Did I almost put it down at 1AM last night with 30 pages left so everyone could Be Happy? perHAPS,)

Overall: I had a good time! But, ow, my heart (once again and forever).