#we started as a spark

[teophan]

a fantastic commission from @themetalhiro of my Dungeons & Devil Fruits 5e Sniper Marksman, Vinsmoke “Starfall Gunner” Beretta!

it was an absolute treat to work with you, looking forward to the next opportunity to do so!

[olisgifs]

If you could just come back, you could really help bring everybody together. Please.

[lovemyromance]

Guys so apparently - out of 4.5, 800+ page books, SJM did not want people to pick up on the actual Elriel scenes on the page. She was both building and destroying the Elriel romance before ACOSF through a secret code that only ELs & GAs picked up on.

I'm here to translate what we should've picked up on years ago, that apparently is common knowledge amongst the other side!

SJM wanted us to pick up the 3 separate times she used sunlight in regards to Elain & the zero times it was used in regards to Lucien (but this still means they're mates)

She wanted us to notice an alleged dagger lesson Azriel gave Gwyn

And pay attention to the 183rd time someone looked at someone with amusement or challenge in ACOSF only- that specific moment which happened to have Azriel and Gwyn (and Nesta and Cassian and Emerie and the other priestesses) was more significant than the past 3 books.

She wanted us to remember that she used the word spark for multiple things in the TOG series and not remember the other time she used it in ACOTAR with Feyre & Tamlin.....

And Idk if you guys picked up on her "secret code" but she actually wrote the first 3.5 books for you to use as kindling and doorstops.

Apparently in ACOSF, through a series of Morse code blinks first mentioned in TOG and also her elusive book Catwoman, SJM basically tells us that the first 3.5 ACOTAR books are useless and we should just act like they don't exist.

There's probably more secret messages we missed, but I don't have the energy to comprehend more GA canva ppts 🫠 it sucks to not have a English degree that helps me understand this book on fairy smut

[tyrantchimera]

Something I've noticed about being in a small, 'dead' fandom... when you're a content creator, it's like the whole remaining fandom *reacts* when you do anything. I'm in a small but dedicated group of authors for a small fandom. If one of us posts after a dry spell, the rest of us perk up. The fans react. Other creators (like myself) are inspired to make their own stuff.

For a small while, we aren't just small-time creators. It's like we're the franchise itself! Everyone knows when we post stuff. Our content is THE content.

Wow. What a feeling.

[pigswithwings]

EVERYONE OBJECTUM ... NOW!

[geodesick]

[ID: a drawing of pye from outer wilds, standing with her writing staff. she's wearing an orange nomai space suit without the helmet, and she has a light brown face with curly darker brown fur. end ID]

figuring out how i want to draw the nomai, so here's a pye since i am obsessed with her !!!

[pushing500]

The gang spent a comfortable first night camping out around the fire, resting up for a full day of building, hauling, and tree-cutting in the morning. Alistair was getting a head start on clearing a spot for our new house, since he doesn't need to sleep. We don't deserve him, he's such a hard worker <3 <3 <3

In the morning, we were surprised by a phytokin lady with paralytic abasia who crash-landed in the middle of our construction site. She's a polluxkin, and apparently can eat toxic wastepacks! I think someone like this will be very useful in a mechanitor run!

Also, Ivy's cat likes her, and that's as good an endorsement as you could hope for!

I thought of naming our home "New Sparks" or something, but then noticed it was Jut making the suggestion, so now we have a very elegant French name that Mechi does NOT approve of. Too bad, he'll have to get used to living in Château de Amitié (Friendship Castle) now.

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[florestxiv]

"But then came the light."

I am so very normal about WoL/Zenos. 💖

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

heart to heart

cw. selfship-coded, childhood friend au, pre-canon, pre-relationship, slight angst, fluff, one piece spoilers

pairing. portgas d. ace x black!fem!reader

notes. apparently it isn't enough for me to brainrot in private about a character i've been obsessed with for a decade, you guys have to be subjected to it as well. whoops🤪

It is not hyperbole to say that early mornings are the only time of day when the Dadan Family base is peaceful.

The sun has barely risen, the morning birds have barely begun their song and most everyone is still snoring away in their cots. Early mornings and late evenings have become Dadan’s favorite time of day, citing them as the only times she is ever allowed a moment of peace.

That peace is stalled whenever Garp visits.

“You sure you don’t wanna come with us,” you ask Ace a final time before you leave for your hometown.

Ace shakes his head with a small smile, “they’re more your friends than mine.” A true sentiment, in your six years of knowing each other, there is still a distinction between your friends in Windmill Village and your friends living among bandits on Mt. Corvo. “Tell ‘em I said ‘congrats’ though. We might end up seeing them later down the road.”

“As marines!” Garp calls over his shoulder gruffly, not waiting for you to catch up. He has one more year to change his grandson’s mind about becoming a marine before the two of you left Dawn Island for saltier pastures. If he knew that fact, however, you’re sure the marine would grab you both by the back of your shirts and drag you to the port in Windmill Village this second. “You should take after those boys!”

The boys in question are Demarius and Stacey.

They’ve adored Garp since before you knew Ace was his grandchild, constantly pleading for him to take them to a naval base. He promised to do so once they turned 16. The least you could do was bid your friends farewell before they lived out their naval dreams.

Ace rolls his eyes, “Pirate!”

“It’s too early in the morning for you two to start that old fight again,” Dadan grumbles, turning around to head back inside. This was enough kissing Garp's butt for her, tucking away her handkerchief. “I get nothing but headaches when Garp comes around.”

You snicker at the grouchy woman’s exit, looking over her shoulder. The door to the room you share is shut close but you can easily picture Luffy stretched out and snoring, limbs all over the place wildly. He’ll be adding to Dadan’s headache soon enough. “Alright, well, I’ll be back later,” you tell Ace unnecessarily.

“You should spend the night in town,” Ace’s disgruntled expression shifts into something warm. You remember a time when he seldom smiled and could only offer you scowls. It’s hard to believe how much he smiles now, your lips quirking instinctively at the sight. “You haven’t been in town for a while. Everyone probably misses you.”

You lean forward, wiggling your eyebrows, “aww, trying to get rid of me now? You’re just trying to get more of a cut at dinner.”

“Maybe,” Ace’s grin widens and you share a laugh before Garp calls after you, further away than he was last.

Damn for an old man he moves fast. “See you,” you nudge your freckled friend before turning on your feet, nearly tripping as you stumble after his grandfather. “I’m okay,” you call over your shoulder.

Garp is grumbling to himself as you approach him. You don’t need to hear his words clearly to know he is thinking about his pirate obsessed grandsons. “Those dolts,” he mutters. “You used to play marines all the time with those kids in town. Now they’ve got you talking about being a pirate. You’ll all be marines, mark my words!”

“I really only ever wanted to just sail on the seas,” you tell Garp truthfully. Even as a child when Demarius demanded you play marines because he always wanted to play marines, you never played because you aspired to be one. It didn’t have to be the marines, it didn’t have to be pirates, you just wanted to set sail on the ocean blue. Pirate merely became the subsequent medium you vowed to pursue. “The marines kinda seem,” you mull over your next words carefully. “Strict. I just wanna see the world, not be told what to do.”

“Discipline is a good thing,” is his rebuttal. He certainly was very strict in the training you unwittingly got pulled into once he discovered your true intentions.

Silence falls between you both but it isn’t comfortable, not like the silences you’re used to.

Silence in Dadan’s home is accompanied by snores or the movement of someone heading to the bath. Luffy mumbling in his sleep about the many adventures he and his dream crew are on causing you and Ace to share a look and chuckle quietly under your breaths.

It’s when you tell yourself ‘Today’s the day I actually do it’ and you count away in your head the number of Ace’s freckles until you inevitably mess up the count and have to start all over again.

It’s when it’s raining and you, Ace and Luffy sleep in an empty hollow of a tree, the croak of the frogs singing to the drops.

Silence with Garp is suffocating and the jungle is too quiet and your brain too full of anxiety-ridden hypotheticals to even think about your childhood friends you’d be bidding farewell to. Instead, the ones you wouldn’t be saying goodbye to were at the forefront of your mind.

Another minute of silence follows before you’re unable to stop the words from falling from your lips, “Mr. Garp?”

Garp hums gruffly, bark worse than his bite, “what is it?”

“Let’s say that, hypothetically speaking of course, Ace and Luffy do become pirates,” you begin nervously, wincing at how the older man’s eyes sharpened at the word. “Hypothetically!” You’ve been a recipient of many of the marine’s Fists of Love, despite not belonging to his family, you don’t fancy receiving another. “They hypothetically become pirates and end up getting taken in,” you lick your lips as you try to imagine the scenario.

To your discomfort, it is terrifyingly easy to imagine Ace and Luffy in shackles.

The spectacle the World Government would make of it all. The grand executions of the sons of Gol D. Roger and Monkey D. Dragon.

The vitriol of the onlookers spewing words of hatred and damnation. No one would know who they are, not the onlookers in the crowds or the marines holding the weapons that would end their lives. Devils, they would be called. 

There would be one marine who knew them, however. Who truly knew them and not what they represented. It only breaks your heart that in your many years of knowing the older man that you don’t know what end of the spectrum he falls on. No, that’s an incorrect assessment. What breaks your heart is that it has always been too easy suspecting precisely where Monkey D. Garp would fall.

In spite of your suspicions, you still part your lips and ask, “would you help them?” Uncharacteristically, you fiddle with your fingers, the index finger of your right hand being nestled by the thumb and index finger of your left. Clad in a tacky red button up with white roosters, the stocky man’s back seems broader than usual.

It’s the long pause between your question and his answer that sinks in your chest like a knife. “They,” Garp begins but you cut the man off with a laugh.

“Don’t be so serious,” you laugh so convincingly you almost believe you’re unbothered. “I was just messing around. I’m up in the air on the pirate thing but for all we know, Luffy’ll start talking about being the Marine King the next time you see him.”

The elderly marine laughs at the absurdity of your thought, “a king among marines, that’ll be the day.”

ー

“Your shadows not with you for once?” Stacey jokes lightheartedly as he leans his head over in mock surprise at the lack of people accompanying you.

“I’m pretty sure Mr. Garp would drag them onto that boat if they did,” anything to make those two follow in their grandfather’s footsteps. “Ace sends his congratulations anyways.”

“I’m still convinced that guy was replaced by aliens,” Demarius murmurs, squinting at the mountain’s peaks with narrowed eyes. You snort at the absurdity. You, along with your village-bound friends, had met Ace when he was more angry at the world and nearly all of the people inhabiting it. To say they’d been shocked when, the next time they met him, Ace was polite and all smiles is an understatement. Demarius’ suspicious glance lasts a beat longer before he turns his dark eyes to you, shoulders set back. “You can still come with us, you know.”

You remember being 10, running down these dirt roads playing marines with your friends as a rowdy quintet.

The battles you pretended to have against whatever made-up opponents Demarius decided you’d be fighting against. He’d always been the leader of the five of you ー him, Stacy, Pierre, Lisa Lisa and you ー would find yourselves on the tempestuous seas of the Grand Line, all odds against you.

“This is not a good day for battle but it is a glorious day to die,” you remember resolutely saying, words too heavy for someone who hadn’t been in a real fight her entire life until that point.

Real fights came after you met Ace and Sabo. When you began running amok in the capital and Gray Terminal. Real battle came when their angering the Bluejam pirates caught up with them. You couldn’t say you felt glorious fighting the Bluejam pirates in the flames of their hideout. Nor could you say Sabo’s horrifying end was glorious either. There is no glory in fighting but you will do what you have to to protect who you have left.

Pulling yourself from the memories, you shake your head, “you’ll see me at sea next year,” you vow with a grin. You lower your voice so the cantankerous marine behind you cannot hear what you say next. “It’ll just be in a way that pisses off the old man.”

There’s simply one more year to go.

You, alongside the other locals, wave the boys down until they become nothing but a speck on the horizon. Well, off their asses go. You sit on the porch step of what used to be the house that belonged to you and your grandfather. I think the last time I came here it was like, you purse your lips thoughtfully. Shiiieet, 3 months ago? You seldom spend time in the empty shack now. It is only good for your occasional visits and when you’re too lazy to head back up to Dadan’s. That is where home is now.

It’s wherever Ace and Luffy are.

Ace and Luffy who you know Garp loves but will always choose work first. He always has and he always will, so you will always choose them instead.

[archeolatry]

So there was a point in my work life when Ron Mael was my mortal enemy archnemesis. True story.

I used to work at a famous arthouse theater in West LA from about 2002 until ‘08-’09, when I moved up at another theater in the chain. Even then I was often called in to pinch-hit when the famous place was expecting a film to be busy or if they needed someone between new hires. (I left the company at the end of 2015.)

One of the downsides to working there was that parking was pretty terrible. The theater itself was built in the 1920s, and the street to the east of it was almost all apartments. Most of those were built from the ‘40s up until the ‘60s, so they were largely street parking only. Not to mention the fact that the street on the west side of the theater was getting busier-- hipster boutiques and Pan-Asian eateries had started popping up a few blocks down the road from us. (IYKYK.)

So the employees of the theater, the video store, and the less-hip restaurants next to the main drag all had to compete with customers of said businesses —as well as those of the used bookstore— for the handful of double-stacked spaces in the back alley. The best space was the fairly generous single spot by the dumpster. You weren’t gonna get towed because you blocked someone in, or get blocked in yourself, or risk your car’s bumper by parking in the other, shorter single space by the freeway on-ramp; you could simply just park your car and forget about it until your shift was over- no need to play musical chairs. And if your shift ended after midnight and you had the day’s cash earnings stuffed in your jacket to deposit at the bank, the closeness of the spot was optimal.

That is all to say that the dumpster spot was hot property.

Cue the Black Volkswagen Thing.

(I marked The Thing even then because a member of the theater’s Rocky Horror cast also owned a Volkswagen Thing, though his was white. I thought it funny that two of the same rare car* should converge in this one place, often on the same day.)

The Thing did not belong to the theater staff. It did not belong to the video store staff. (I asked.) It did not belong to the staff of the used bookstore, who had three dedicated spots and never had enough customers to need more than two employees at a time**. (It might have belonged to one of the restaurants, but we hadn’t the Spanish nor Arabic skills to ask.) Nevertheless, The Thing was parked in the dumpster spot at some point during almost every weekend, and it would be there at the worst possible time.

It seemed that I could rarely beat The Thing to the coveted space no matter how early I got there. Maybe if I showed up before 4. But very often between 4:30 and 5:55, The Thing was there. Sometimes I stuck my head out the back door during a shift to see if the space was free. If it wasn’t, it was because a car had parked there after The Thing had left. And sometimes The Thing had the audacity to take up the other single spot to the same result. It seemed The Thing existed entirely to spot-block me.

Then one day, while I was attempting to park, I saw a man coming from the bookstore towards the lot. It was Boss Accountant***.

Boss Accountant was a lithe man with a stern face and plastered hair that was too black for his age; he usually dressed in a crisp white shirt and tie with proper trousers, and seemed like he was on his lunch break from an accounting firm despite it being the weekend. He looked like the boss battle in a video game where you had to fight your way through an office building; the final accountant you had to beat to level up. I had seen him at the bookstore more than once.

I put my car into park —hazard lights on— waiting to see which spot would be freed up.

Boss Accountant was approaching The Thing.

A customer! It was a customer that had been spot-blocking me! Not even one of my fellow workers there for a six-hour haul, but someone there for a capricious ninety minutes at best. And a customer of the stuffy bookstore to boot. Clearly not deserving of the coveted spot.

I glared at him beneath my sunglasses while he took his sweet time getting there. I tried not to begrudge the old man, BUT…!

My fingers drummed irritably against the steering wheel. This fucker. I inched slightly closer as he got in the car. The spot was MINE gatdammit and no one else was gonna come along and take it.

Finally, after an irritably long time (and probably him figuring out that I wasn’t a crazed fan trying to box him in but someone gunning for the coveted parking space) the backup lights came on. I reversed. He pulled out and drove away. I pulled in, triumphant. Spot-blocked no more! At least, not on that day. In my own mind, I had tangled with The Thing and won. (I was like 23 and undiagnosed, bruh- go easy on me here.)

Then one day the dumpster spot got painted off as disabled parking, and the dumpsters were moved to the other single spot, leaving us all to fend for ourselves in the double-stack and on the street.

I’m unsure what year this all took place, and I didn’t know (at the time) what had become of Boss Accountant and The Thing, since I saw less of them after that. Thinking back, it was probably promo and touring for Hello Young Lovers or 21x21/Exotic Creatures... that took him/it away. My moving to the other theater made the point moot anyway. (It’s definitely moot now as the bookstore was razed for a new-build apartment sometime in 2016. The new building does not have its own parking garage.)

However, enough time had passed that I didn’t recognize Boss Accountant when I sold him a ticket for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg during a slow weekend matinee in 2014. Pleasant demeanor. Polite smile. Crisp shirt, too-black plastered hair. Didn’t order concessions, didn’t dwell in the lobby but went right into the theater. The old man was surely out of earshot when my manager looked over at me. “Do you have any idea who that was?”

“No.”

“That was Ron Mael from Sparks.”

“Who?”

---

Thank goodness I watched The Sparks Brothers at home on Netflix, cuz when I saw that car I about lost my gatdamn mind.

*J, the Rocky Horror guy, told me they were rare. (Rare enough, in fact, that he thought I had mistaken another type of car for a Thing when mentioning the black one.) Looking up info now, I see that less than 30k of them were made for the North American market, and they were only sold in the US from 1973-74. A 2017 report from an informal registry of Thing owners estimates around 5k of them still exist in the entire US. Weird, right?

**The bookstore itself was highly curated and had the mid-century Spartan sparseness of a Bell Telephone Laboratories office. I didn’t care for it much; it was too hoity-toity and tended to eschew paperbacks even of Very Good Books for rare or collectible hardcovers. It wasn’t particularly welcoming, and didn’t even really have much of an Old Book Smell. But in the days before The Pocket Internet, employees were allowed to read while the film played, and sometimes you just needed a New And/Or Different Book. ***This addition is about 75 notes too late, but I felt the need to clarify. We had lots of 'recurring characters' that we ended up giving Sex and the City-style names to, as one often does in a service environment. We had a man we called Large Diet because, through physical or mental impairment, those were the only words he would/could croak out like some bizarro Pokémon (tho he later added "Thanks."). We had a man -whose real name I learned but forgot- that we called Lincoln because he had a chinstrap beard. (He was Lincolnesque in no other way. He was of average height, pudgy, and of a merry sort of disposition.) So, naturally, the man from bookstore got himself a moniker just for sticking out, despite the fact that we never spoke and only Acknowledged Each Other With A Nod In That Way White People Do For Some Reason. (You know what I mean.)

[sysig]

Wuh oh (Patreon)

Bonus:

The novel experience of being crushed by a giant rock, a visual metaphor

[dontcryminecraft]

all of this probably could have been avoided if dream had just posted even the most half-assed apology to twitter minutes after he deleted that meme. this could have been done in 20 minutes, now it's 4 days later, almost 5 and even though tubbo is done I'm sure there's more to come.

i mean all of this could have been avoided if dream had stayed in his lane and never posted that meme, much less used the word he did, because he wasn't at all connected to the original drama that sparked this but we're well past that

[deoidesign]

something that makes me sad is when people tell me the healthy communication in my writing is "unrealistic."

like guys this is how me and my partner talk with eachother... I'm writing from personal experience...

[crow-with-a-pencil]

One year anniversary of the kelp blorbo who changed my brain chemistry forever

Happy birthday Beetle :)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Pride month everyone B*) Allow me to reveal a little behind the scenes detail behind my Banner and Icon. Love was always winning <3

[alvodra]

Do you ever think about how "we get older and older" only is a general tendency and not always true on an individual level? How life expectancy of 78 years or 83 years is only true for society as a whole but not necessarily for every one of us? How we could still die any day and should live accordingly? But average life expectancy is still around 80 years and therefore we have to work towards a livable future? How that day that really sucked because you had to do your taxes and look at your savings account and because all customers today where really rude might be the last day you ever experience but if it's not, it makes sure that you actually want to keep living in 10 or 20 or 30 years? Do you ever randomly think about that your friends could die way before you? And that you'd be standing at their funeral hearing "they were too young" over and over again? Do you ever think about being left behind? Do you ever get really sad about scenarios that haven't happened but might? Do you ever realize that life ultimately leads to one end? Are you thankful for your living moments? I am.