#IS PROBABLY A WHOLE KILOGRAM

[sooooootiiireddd]

hmmm I'm starting to think all those salted caramel recipes come in batches of 1 cup of sugar used for a reason...

Maybe I shouldn't have quadrupled the recipe just because I'm trying to use up an entire half litre bottle of heavy cream

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Arthropoda - Malacostraca

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Malacostraca is the second largest class of crustaceans, and what most people picture when they hear the word crustacean! It contains over 40,000 species separated into 17 orders: Leptostraca, Stomatopoda (“Mantis Shrimp”), Decapoda (“Crabs”, “Lobsters”, “Crayfish”, “Shrimp”, and “Prawns”), Euphausiacea (“Krill”), Thermosbaenacea, Mysida (“Opossum Shrimp”), Stygiomysida, Lophogastrida, Spelaeogriphacea, Mictacea, Bochusacea, Cumacea (“Hooded/Comma Shrimp”), Tanaidacea, Amphipoda, Isopoda, Anaspidacea, and Bathynellacea. Many are scavengers, some are predators, some are herbivores, some are filter feeders, and some are parasites.

Malacostracans live worldwide, in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments, and have a large diversity of body forms. They are united by their segmentation of 20-21 body segments divided into a 5-segmented head, an 8-segmented thorax, and a 6-segmented abdomen with a telson, except in Leptostraca which has 7 abdominal segments. They have a pair of jointed appendages on each abdominal segment, though some groups have lost them secondarily. In some, three thoracic segments may be fused with the head to form a cephalothorax, the associated legs becoming maxillipeds. They have two pairs of antennae, which often branch into two parts. Their mouthparts have a pair of mandibles, maxillules, and maxillae. Many taxa have compound eyes on moveable stalks. Some have a carapace which covers the head, part or all of the thorax and some of the abdomen. The carapace may be fused with some of the thoraacic segments or hinged with two parts. This is one of the most diverse classes in the animal kingdom, and their anatomy and behavior would be hard to summarize further in just one paragraph!

The oldest malacostracans are the Leptostracans, which first appeared as fossils from the Cambrian period.

Propaganda under the cut:

“Carcinisation” has become a meme meaning “everything becomes crab”, but it actually only refers to the phenomenon of decapods convergently evolving crab-like anatomy. The Infraorder Brachyura contains the “True Crabs”, but at least 5 groups of unrelated decapods have evolved similar anatomy: a flat and broad cephalothorax.

Stomatopods (“Mantis Shrimp”) are known for their excellent color vision, but they probably can not actually see “shrimp colors.” They can see ultraviolet and polarized light, but their excess of photoreceptor cells actually lets them process their environment faster than we can, rather than differentiate between a multitude of different colors. This allows them to have quick reaction times, either to escape predators, fight or flee from rivals, or strike at their prey with amazing speed.

Malacostraca contains the largest living arthropods: the Japanese Spider Crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) with a legspan of up to 4 metres (13 ft) long, and the American Lobster (Homarus americanus), which can get up to 20 kilograms (44 lb).

Many species of malacostracans are commonly kept as pets, including crabs, crayfish, shrimp, mantis shrimp, and isopods.

Cute creb eat a cherry:

[chleem]

Flashing lights #1

Series; actor Drew x actress reader

Summary: Drew gets involved in the worst scandal of his career. One way to solve it? Proving to the whole world that he’s the sweetest lover to exist. Who better to help than the one person he can’t stand? You, an A class actress with an alcohol addiction. So, will Drew clear up his reputation, or leave with a bigger mess to clean up?

Genre: fake dating, enemies to lovers(?, slow burn, angst, smut,

Warning: mentions of alcohol, swearing, mentions of k!lling oneself, mentions of rape & sa, mentions of drug usage, smoking & vaping, (read at own caution

⋆.˚ please dont copy/ translate my work

⋆.˚ this is entirely fictional, if uncomfortable then don't read

♡⸝⸝ prologue | index | chapter2

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Late February 2024

Is that five, or six bottles in front of you? 

Your vision is burry, head feeling twisted, and your limbs feel as if they weight a hundred kilograms each. “Shit,” you curse, your hands reaching over to your bag. 

In attempt to reach it without standing up, you fall, and you laugh. Alcohol was able to make that fall feel painless. Getting up however, felt like the hardest task ever, but you manage, and you rummage through your bag for your pack of cigarettes. 

You find it; but no cigarettes to be found in it. 

“Fuck!” You yell, throwing your empty pack across the trailer. Good thing your makeup staffs gone, and no one to see your about-to-erupt tantrum. Reaching for your phone, you call your manager, Laura, only for it to go straight to voicemail. Wow. What are managers even for? 

Gotta do everything by yourself. You throw your phone onto the couch, and walk out of your trailer. You didn’t care whether anyone saw you; you just cared about getting a smoke. 

The afternoon sun is blinding to you, the effects of alcohol making it even more unbearable. Is there a convenience store around? Fuck, maybe you should just ask the staff for a smoke. 

You keep walking along the other trailers, feeling some eyes on you. Well, usually at a filming set everyone is busy with their own business, but you’re Y/n. You grab attention by simply breathing. Others might love it, but growing up in showbiz, you just wish to get away from it. Even if just for a second, you would love to be an invisible person. 

You keep walking, hoping to spot anyone with a cigarette in their hands. But your legs beg to stop, and you feel extra dizzy when you bump into a hard…wall? Well, it was hard, but soft at the same time. 

Warm hands wrap around your waist just as you’re ready to fall onto the ground. Even your drunken state knows that you should be clinging onto something if you’re about to fall, and in this case, you were holding onto the person’s biceps. 

You look up, feeling as if this person was 200 centimeters. Shit. He’s tall. 

His hat is low, but you could see blue circles staring down at you, and although his face was attractive, his expression was mean. As if wanting to murder you. Well, he probably does, since a stranger fell into him. 

“You-“

His cologne hits you, and the urge to throw up hits. 

Vomit splatters on his entire shirt, and just like that, you pass out, still in his arms. 

——

Woah. Even getting up slowly triggers the muscles in your brain. 

You blink a few times, adjusting to the lights in your trailer. What time was it? Did you already finish filming? A million questions enter your head as you look around you, and you notice the five large empty liquor bottles on the table. 

Right. No memory whatsoever. 

A wet towel is on your forehead. Weird, you think, as you throw it to the side. 

But then you hear the trailer’s bathroom door open, and you immediately feel uneasy. Who the fuck could be in here other than you? 

The stranger walks out, and he’s half naked. 

And attractive. 

But he’s half naked! 

You quickly check yourself, and yes, you’re still in your clothes. 

“Who… who the fuck are you?” You say, feeling really unsafe right now. You had no gun, no weapon of any kind, and you were terrified. This stranger was extremely fit and tall, and he was standing just a few feet away from you. 

He’s staring at you with his blue eyes, and honestly, you can’t tell what he’s thinking. Is he gonna kill you? Rape you? 

“You have no idea who I am?”

“Yes, you fucking creep. Get out of my trailer before I yell,” you threaten. 

His eyebrows furrow as if you were in the wrong, and he crosses his arms, leaning against your vanity across from you. Woah. His arms. It looks very delicious-

What. “Seriously. Get the fuck out,” you point over to your trailer door. 

He throws his head back, an annoyed groan escaping him. 

What’s his problem? You think, eyebrows furrowed. Okay. That uneasiness, has transformed into anger. “Fuck- get the fuck out, your weirdo. I’m…you know what, I’m calling the fucking cops.”

You look around for your phone, but see it charging on the vanity beside him. 

“Drew Starkey,” he finally says, and you look at him, confusingly. Never in your life have you ever heard that name. Were you even suppose to remember or know this person? He groans again, not even hiding his annoyance at you. “Wow. You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

The audacity- “you’re in my fucking trailer right now. You’re in the faults here. You can’t come in half naked, and act annoyed at me. You fucking cunt-“

The door to your trailer opens, and you squint at the light coming in. 

It was your manager Laura, and she’s holding a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes, and a folded t-shirt. 

“Laura! A fucking pervert in my trailer-“

“Here you go, Drew. Again, so sorry,” Laura ignores you, handing the man, who apparently, is called Drew, the clean t-shirt. The name he just told you, it was his name? Why did he act so offended earlier, when he said it? Is he like some kind of, celebrity? Impossible; you've met almost all the top actors in showbiz, you would've known him.

“What the fuck,” you voice out, chuckling to get the anger and confusion out of you. You watch as the stranger puts the shirt on, enjoying the way his muscles flex and relaxes is… kind of arousing. But you pull away, feeling embarrassed and egoistic to admit you’re attracted to this rude stranger. 

Laura comes near you, placing the cigarettes and water on the table and sniffs you. “Yeah, you’re still a bit tipsy,” she comments, before grabbing perfume and mints from your bag and sitting down. “Can you still film?”

“What time is it?” You ask, while grabbing the pack and lighting a cigarette up. You breathe it in, and smoke out, immediately feeling more relaxed and in your element. 

“4:20.”

“What time was I suppose to be there?” You giggle, breathing in your cigarette. Oh, it felt so good to smoke. All the energy booster you needed. 

“2:30,” Laura says, sighing. 

“Oh shit,” you laugh, putting the cigarette between your lips. You forcefully spray the perfume on you, knowing the cigarette is probably going to cover the smell anyways. You take another blow of the cigarette, before putting it into Laura’s mouth. She groans angrily at you, and you just chuckle, looking over to the stranger now. He’s not shirtless anymore, and has a hat on. He’s staring at you, with a mean expression now. “What are you still doing here?” You rudely state. 

“Y/n, he’s gonna be here for a long time,” Laura replies instead, and you turn around to her. You look at her with furrowed eyebrows, confused by what she meant. Laura also stares at you with an amused expression. “What, you guys didn't talk?”

You frustratedly throw your arms around and stomp your foot. “What am I supposed to talk about to a half naked guy in my trailer? Laura, use your fucking brain.” 

You turn around and the stranger is now sitting on the couch. You ignore him, turning back to Laura. “Is he my new manager or something? Laura, who the fuck is this?”

“Drew Starkey. You honestly don’t remember him?”

“Am I suppose to?” You reply, reaching for the pack of cigarettes, hoping to bring it with you to set. But ‘Drew’ stops you, his hand, which is surprisingly very warm, wraps around your wrist to stop you. You glare at him, telling him with your eyes to get his hands off you. But he doesn’t. So you verbally express it to him. “Get your fucking hand off me or I’ll chop it off for you.”

“You can’t even walk in a straight line, Y/n.”

Annoyed, you yell, “Get your fucking hand off me."

He does, but he quickly grabs the pack out of your reach, stuffing it into his pocket. Wow. What a jackass. And who is he to care? To take away your stuff? You pray that he gets explosive diarrhea the whole day tomorrow. This asshole deserves it. 

“Whatever,” you say, walking over to the door of your trailer. And he’s right, because you trip over yourself on the way there. You laugh under your breath out of frustration and embarrassment, and turn back around, pointing at ‘Drew’ and looking at Laura. “Get this jackass out my trailer. I don’t care what he is, he better be out of my sight.”

You don’t even bother hearing what her response is, and you leave towards your set. Now, you’re in a worse mood than before. All thanks to the stranger named Drew.

——

Everyone knew you were a good actor. You’re one of the best. And to make it even more astonishing, you’re only 25 years old. Meaning, your acting could get better. But it’s already the best of the best. Maybe its your pure gift, or maybe because you’ve been doing this since you were 13. Either way, you were a fucking good actor. 

The director specifically appointed you to star in his film, which is about the world coming to an end. Director Ravens was quite famous in showbiz, so who were you to decline? Besides, your co-star was Hugh Jackman, a brilliant actor, who you've also grown to admire while filming. 

Your character was a girl in her twenties, who had fallen in love with a stranger despite knowing that the world was getting destroyed within a week. A tragic love story, yet it was beautiful. 

This scene, is your solo one. Your character finds out her brother is dead, and cries with feelings of sadness, regret, and happiness. It’s a scene that would be hard to portray, but you do it well. 

Although you were almost three hours late to set, you make up for it with your acting. One take and the director informs you that it's perfect. And no one disagrees, and the complaints about your tardiness disappears, once they rewatch the scene. You must still be tipsy, because you swear you saw some of the staff shed a tear. 

You don’t offer to watch or reshot the scene, since you wanted to be out of here as soon as possible. But director Ravens insists on another one, hoping to get it from another angle. And you do as he pleases, since, well, he’s the director. 

Wow. One of the most important scenes in the movie only took you twenty minutes to film. 

Director Ravens gives you a break before the next scene, and you walk off before he wants to give you compliments. You didn’t need to hear what you already knew. 

But as you walk over to your seat, someone already occupies it. Drew. 

“You’re still here?” You scoff, crossing your arms. 

You want to rip his blue eyes out to get him to stop staring at you. Why does he like to stare at you so much? 

He pulls a random chair close to him, perhaps wanting you to sit. “Wow. So you can remember faces.”

“Yeah, if they’re as ugly as you,” you lie, because, his face is so damn attractive, that you can’t forget it even if you wanted to. You sit down on the chair, looking ahead of you. “I thought I said I want you out of my sight?”

“You can’t decide that,” he replies. “Who are you to order me around?”

“And who are you to sit in my chair? If anything, you should be kissing my ass right now.”

“Why should I?”

“You’re seriously asking me that?” You scoff. “Look around; that’s what everyone else is doing.”

On cue, a staff member hands you a bottle of water, and you take it without saying thanks. 

“And they’re fucking idiots,” Drew says, and you turn to look at him. He’s still staring at you! Crazy. 

“Shut up. As if you didn’t enjoy the show,” you say, referring to your acting just then.

“I did.”

You scrunch your nose in disgust, “good thing you’re not an actor. You’re horrible at lying.”

“I am.”

‘’What? A liar?”

“No; I’m an actor.”

The fuck? Suddenly, a different staff member interrupts the conversation, a girl holding her phone out to the both of you.

“Can I take a selfie with you?” She shyly asks. 

Of course it’s directed to you, so you simply reject her. “Sorry, but-“

“Yeah, sure.”

Your jaw is probably on the floor right now. The girl wasn’t asking you; she was asking Drew. He stands up and takes a selfie with her, and then hugs her goodbye. 

So… he’s famous? No way, because you’ve never heard of him you entire life. Probably a newbie that got famous by luck. 

You look away from him once he sits down, embarrassed to even face him. You just thought he was some staff member that the company had assigned to serve you. But he’s actually an actor? 

“You were saying?” His deep voice interrupts your thoughts, and you feel your ears go red. Holy shit. You need a smoke real bad right now. Fuck that, you need some liquor in you right this instant. 

Director Ravens saves you, yelling that its time for the next scene. So, you hurry and throw the water bottle at Drew, who catches it as though he’s not surprised at all. 

And he smirks, lifting his hat a bit as if to get a better look up at you. “What’s this for?”

Flustered, you walk off without another look back, partly embarrassed and angry. And you busy yourself with getting into the emotions of the character, and soon, Drew is forgotten as if he never existed. 

-------------------------------

word count: 2.3k

ִ ࣪𖤐 a/n: so...what's your impression of y/n so far?

hope you enjoyed chapter one, i had a blast writing this...although, chapter four was the funniest one yet. btw, i am not joking when i wrote slow burn in the warnings, so pls be patient! and i setted this story to start in february, to match the time of real life events. other than that, rest are fictional!

elevator | other | index | prologue | ch2

[iskratempestmadness]

What would they do during a day at the beach? Would they rather stay on the shore, sun tan, maybe play some beach volleyball, or maybe play in the water?

Oh, I'm sorry that it took too long, it's just that my brain refused to think, but I still managed to do it.

Baki:

- Active games

- but it will probably last for two hours

- however, during this time he will have time to swim behind the buoys a couple of times and cause trouble to others

- so he will spend the rest of the time lying on the sand and sipping a cocktail

- he is a fan of active games in the water, like playing ball in the water and the like

- Probably one of those people who forget to put cream on his back and that's why his back burns completely (DON'T TOUCH HIM, he'll throw a tantrum)

- however, with him, a day at the beach is a constant waste of ice cream. He can stuff a kilogram of ice cream into himself and it won't be enough for him anyway

Hanayama:

- Oh, he likes to swim.

- it will probably be a diving day (Hana has experience in this)

- however, he is not a fan of active games.

- it will probably just be sitting on the sand or at the beach bar (if there is a current one)

- for him, relaxing on the beach is primarily an antistress. The sound of approaching waves and this peaceful picture of water itself

- it's easy to imagine him on the sand, in swimming trunks, under two umbrellas, sipping a cocktail

- however, if you ask him very well, he will play a couple of games of volleyball with you

- also a lover of walking on the beach in the evening. He likes the picture of the sunset and the tranquility that arises.

Katsumi:

- Ho ho

- ACTIVE GAMES, ACTIVE GAMES, ACTIVE GAMES

- try to stop him

- he will play anything with you, he loves any kind of activity

- diving, surfing, just swimming or playing active games, whatever you come up with, he will support and do

- he will definitely take a couple of photos ( it will clog up all the memory of his phone

- definitely will arrange a competition on whose sand castle will be better

- however, later in the evening he will be exhausted and will lie on the sand

- perhaps these will be the most valuable moments for him. The sea, the setting sun and you.

Jack:

- he will prefer to keep the balance

- He will spend 50% of his time on land, 50% in the water

- he will probably get on the buoys and swim as far as he can

- by the way, he swims great

- I don't mind playing a couple of sets of volleyball both in the water and on land

- probably buy you a lifebuoy in the shape of a huge pink flamingo (buy him the same one, just imagine Jack in a flamingo-shaped lifebuoy (this is a useless purchase, since he can swim, but he really looks cute in it))

- in the evening, he will lie on a chaise longue watching the sunset

- it's also likely to teach you how to swim

- eeeeeeeeeeeee, in order to coat it with cream, you will have to use the entire tube

Retsu:

- also 50% of the time in the water, 50% of the time on land

- it's just as easy to imagine him in a doughnut-shaped lifebuoy, wearing sunglasses in the shape of stars

- although he can swim too

- he hardly cares for his skin, but he has such a gorgeous tan 😭

- he'll probably play a couple of games of volleyball with you

- he does not swim behind the buoys (for some reason it seems to me that he does not break the rules at all)

- probably prefer an air mattress and will rest on it

- he has excellent taste in cocktails

- but there is also a high probability that he will take fruit ice (cherry is his favorite flavor)

- He also likes the prospect of competing with you in building sand castles.

Shibukawa:

- Yeah, it's his day.

- it seems to me that he doesn't really like to swim.

- however, if he is in the mood, he may actually swim

- but what is more likely that he is one of those people who will go into knee-deep water and look somewhere in the distance

- so he's planning to spend the whole day on the beach, but that doesn't mean he won't find a way to get you wet.

- one of these methods is the water pistols that he took with him

- so it's going to be a COMPETITION.

- he's also likely to take fruit ice

- the same man who is lying on a chaise longue in sunglasses, knee-length shorts, in a Hawaiian shirt and sipping a cocktail

- I also don't mind playing a couple of volleyball games

Yujiro:

- Oh, as you know, he likes to swim

- he will also break all sorts of rules (of course, no one will tell him anything), but he will really have a great time

- it also reproduces the impression of a person who will lie on a chaise longue for half a day just looking into the distance

- active games?

- Oh yes, he can do it.

- but be prepared that you will lose in a dry hehe

- there is also a high probability that he will just read

- imagine the sound of water, the sun is pleasantly warm, a good book... For him, this is one of the best vacation options

[beneathashadytree]

LUNCH TIME - JOTARO KUJO X READER

Warnings : none I think, this is set between DIU and Stone Ocean, a sort of happy family AU, reader is gender-neutral!

Genre : domestic fluff for the loml

Word count : 0.6K words

Additional notes : This is super short, but I just missed Jotaro🫶🏽

Tip jar if you’d like to buy me a Ko-Fi!

Masterlist

“You got the shallots I asked for?”

“Yeah, they had an offer, a whole kilogram for 4.55. A steal, huh?” They looked proud as they handed him the bag with the ‘DISCOUNT!’ sticker. “They also had some fresh parsley on sale, so I got some.” After setting the rest of their purchases down, they leaned in to give him a kiss to the cheek. Loathe as he would be to admit it—if asked about it, that is—they noticed how their husband leaned in a bit, and how he even let out an absentminded (but certainly affectionate) hum at that.

“Thanks, I can work with that too.” Jotaro began to work on peeling and slicing the shallots, while they went to wash off the rest of the produce in the sink. Considering just how they fared in the kitchen, they sometimes thanked the higher powers that he was perfectly fine with being on cooking duty forevermore while they handled groceries. “What soup do you want?”

A confused look made its way on their face. “I don’t think any of the food you’re making goes well with soup. Unless you’re making miso soup, which would be too much.”

Momentarily setting the knife aside, he sighed. “Jolyne’s voice sounds weird. I think she’s coming down with something.”

“Aha. It’s probably cause of that ice-cream you two got yesterday. Honestly, what were you thinking, having something that cold in the middle of February, and on the beach no less?”

Their scolding fell on deaf ears, as they both knew that Jotaro was helpless when it came to Jolyne. Just one look at her dazzling smile and sparkling eyes and he was sold, giving in to her every whim and fancy. It was up to them to be the disciplinary parent, or else she would’ve turned out horribly spoilt.

The accusatory train of thought never got them anywhere with Jotaro, though, and they knew it was pointless to go on, so they turned to more important matters. “In that case, I can make her some vegetable soup with lemon and pepper. Works wonders, I tell you.” Standing up after having crouched to grab the broth they’d made last week and left in the freezer, he was giving them a dead-pan look. “What?”

“Do you wanna blow our house up?”

Rolling their eyes, they shoved his shoulder—which, unsurprisingly, did not make him even budge. “You brat. I made you that soup before when you were quarantined.”

“Could’ve sworn that was your mother’s,” he mumbled under his breath, amusement on his face as he turned back to dig out more vegetables for the noodles he was making. “I’ll cut extra for that soup. You just focus on not burning that broth.”

“Hardy-har-har.” With nothing more than mild annoyance, they started the thawing process. After a few moments of silence, they quietly asked, “Can you even burn soup?”

“Are you taking that as a challenge?” Jotaro snorted, somehow having already finished dicing up half the vegetables, and currently tearing open two packs of noodles. “You’ll find a way to do it. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“You know what? Starve.”

“Hardly a threat, considering I can fend for myself. You on the other hand…”

“I’m off to wake Jolyne up for medicine,” they loudly interrupted, not before giving him a vulgur gesture with their hands. “Time for the cook of the house to work solo.”

“You forgot to—“ he tried to quickly interject, then sighed as they’d already long slipped upstairs. Shaking his head, he side-stepped to the abandoned stove, turning the flames on low. “Good grief. You really would’ve burnt the soup like that.”

Taglist: @blondeboyfriend @mrsgiovanna @boorishbrambling

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[jeannereames]

Hii Dr. Reames, I hope you're having a good day.

I've seen the claim several times that Hephaistion's funeral was the most expensive (or one of the most expensive) in history or at least of its time, how true is that? I'm curious to know how much money Alexander spent and how much that amount would be equivalent to today

Hephaistion's Funeral

Making comparisons between ancient and modern costs is tricky because it's not one-to-one. Accounts say Alexander spent 10 or 12-thousand talents on Hephaistion's funeral. It doesn't specify of gold or silver, but silver is probably to be assumed if gold isn't specified. As of today (12/7/24), a gram of silver is worth $1.00, US, and an Attic talent is estimated at about 26 kilograms. I'm using Attic, although archaeologists DO actually know the silver weight for Macedonia in Alexander's reign...but I'm not sure where to find that (without a lot of digging), so Attic will do as an estimate; it won't be enormously far off.

26,000 grams of silver = 1 Attic talent. Multiplying that, we get $260,000,000 for 10,000 talents.

BUT the real question is what will that buy? That's why one-to-one conversion is meaningless. For instance, a cheap t-shirt in the US is under $10, more if specialized or nice soft cotton...but a cheap wool garment (chiton) in Classical Athens was about 20 drachmai or 10 days' wages. Linen was at least twice that. (Why clothes were made at home.) The standard wage for a skilled laborer was 2 drachmai a day. A single talent = 6000 drachma, so a skilled laborer earned a talent in a little over 8 years, if he worked every day, 8.5 if he took off for holidays.

(An article on the cost of common items in Classical Athens.)

So, Hephaistion's funeral (low-end) cost the equivalent of 1 year's wages for 80,000 people, or the entire population of Kalamazoo, Michigan (minus temp college students), and then some. Or you could buy 13 million wool chitones. The entire population of modern Greece in 2023 was not-quite 10.5 million.

Whether that's the most expensive funeral in history, I don't know that we have the data to say...so avoid hyperbole. We CAN say it was hella costly.

BUT I'd also caution that we must take these numbers with a grain of salt--just like the supposed cost of Boukephalas, Alexander's famous warhorse, at 13 talents. Whatever the funeral actually cost, it almost certainly didn't cost 10K talents, much less 12K.

By the Roman era, Hephaistion's funeral had become the ne plus ultra of "excessive grieving" = lack of sophrosune/self-control = A BAD THING. The "moral of the story" was that, in his final years, Alexander had lost it...excessive wealth leading to complete immoderation. IOW, Alexander the Great = Elon Musk.

It's also important to point out that, whatever it did cost, Alexander was not the sole donor. Both people and cities in the empire sent money, some to honor Hephaistion, others to avoid Alexander's ire or to gain his favor. We have no way of knowing what percentages were, but it's worth noting a general outpouring of financial contributions.

There is also disagreement as to whether the whole thing went to his funeral pyre, or to a monument (like the Mausoleum), or to a mixture of monument and pyre. I'll go with door #3, btw.

Whatever it was doesn't seem to have been fully completed by Alexander's own death, 9-10 months later. Diodoros gives us our fullest description, but he may have been working from plans, not the completed structure.

(Sketch below: Quatremere de Quincy, publ. on Magasin Pittoresque, Paris, 1849, available from Getty Images.)

[werezmastarbucks]

choke

i really like this gif, so i'm gonna use it everywhere

masterlist

word count: 1453

warnings: blood

You stood dumbfounded at the window, watching Chibs get up onto his feet and run his hands through his slick hair.

"Dead?" you uttered, to hear yourself say it.

"Bled out", he snapped back, pleasantly busy. "You got old sheets?"

"Yes, lots of them".

"Come help me then".

A minute later you were turning Ned's body onto its side, and you were fighting violent convulsions through it. You wanted either to throw up, or to black out, or to scream, and wasn't sure exactly why.

"I've seen dead bodies several times, but never... this", you puffed, keeping your throat closed not to let anything fall out. Chibs noticed your borderline panic and pushed you away lightly, tugging at his hands.

"This your first kill?"

"You sound like it's normal".

"Relatively", he said peacefully. You instantly got reminded of their different lives, Jax and him, and others in their bikers club or whatever it is. It's not like they fix bikes and listen to rock music all day long. You knew what gangs do.

"Heavy bloke", he commented, rolling Ned into three layers of sheets like a burrito. You watched him as he shifted his weight onto his hips, then lifted the body and plopped it on his shoulder, swayed a little, and then made a face.

"Yeah".

He walked slowly away from the yard, and suddenly you got reminded of Ted Bundy, sneaking people's corpses in carpets across the streets.

The amount of strength it took him to carry that dry bastard to the car exerted him almost to the point of fainting. The heat of the street was booming on his poor head, and this two and a half meter cunt weighed about three hundred kilograms. Chibs, not himself a small guy, decided that he was probably sweating through and through, and allowed himself a really quick cigarette after he finaly threw the body into the box of the car. Groaning with anger at the dead guy, he leaned against the car and killed his half lunch with two deep inhales. Then returned to the house, where poor girl was crawling on the floor of the living room, trying to scrub the blood out of the carpet.

"Nope, this has to go, too", he grumbled. You looked up at him, standing, leaning onto the doorframe. In the direct sun rays you finally noticed that the shirt he's wearing was dark purple and not black. It's like the vision was finally clearing. Your head was letting go little by little, as you cleaned.

"Do we need to throw away the whole thing?" you complained.

"Aye".

"But what if... we take this", you sat on your legs and rubbed off the sweat from your forehead, "like a pizza cutter, you know, the round one, but very big".

"Sorry, I don't have a very big pizza cutter. You'd need about a dog's size pizza cutter here", he said, his voice coarse.

"Come on, I'll lift the stand, and you just pull it out".

Another couple of minutes of labor, and you sneaked in front of Chibs into the hall to open the door for him. He brought the carpet into the car, too, and returned, like a ghost.

You walked through the house, searching, hoping for more drops of blood, but all the traces were now dissolving in the water bucket, standing against the kitchen wall. The heat was growing, flowing through the dwelling like serpent.

"You alright?"

Chibs was standing behind you, another source of this heat, and you couldn't decide how you feel about him. You opened your mouth to reply, but had no words. You nodded, unsure.

"If you wanna cry, then cry", he advised, "what happened today, is trauma. And what's been happening, I gather", he clenched his jaw a ittle, as his eyes slid onto your neck, "has been trauma".

"So, you're the psychologist of the gang?" you said, just to say something. Chibs' face stayed stone serious.

"I was a medic in the army. That thing gives you an idea about how vulnerable human mind is".

"What else do you do?"

"Cook, recite poetry, adore chocolate balls. You know these candy balls with nut inside?"

You blinked.

"You mean Ferrero Rocher?"

"Yeah, that's the one".

You felt your lips tremble against your will, and Chibs seemingly read your mind.

"Can I use your shower? I'm sweatin' like a pig, and his blood got under the shirt".

The change of pace immediately brought you to your senses.

"Yeah, there's clean towels in the cupboard. The bathroom is on the way to the kitchen".

"Thank you".

He nodded and walked away, allowing you to collapse and cry out everything you weren't ready to show him.

You were thinking, if you were in trouble, to what lengths can Jackson allow himself to go, or willing, rather, to protect you. If you had a protector in this town, except yourself. Chibs seems like the protective type: quiet, dark and knowing. Maybe you could egg him up to have your back if you have troubles with police. Older guys like him have soft spots for damsels in distress.

Sweat was like glue against your skin, and you thought of the shower he was occupying. You rubbed your shoulder absent-mindedly, pondered, watched the dust dance in the light filling the living room, until you heard the water stop. Chibs closed the door carefully, and you heard his steps approaching again.

"Hey", he called softly. The chain on his jeans glistened in the sun. So juvenile. The last time you were interested in chains on your jeans was in high school. You could never fully relate to this style of life, you thought.

"Let's go get you a drink. You need to process all this".

(drenk)

"Haven't drunk in a long time", you moved slowly, tracing the lines on the floor that's been hidden for years under the carpet.

"Every time I drink now, the first drop of alcohol touches my mouth, I immediately fall asleep. I guess it's old age".

"Old age?" he smiled, amused. Dimples again, you noticed lazily. "If yer old, then I'm ancient".

"Well, you did mention the army, so I assumed you participated in the First War of Scottish Independence?"

That was the only one you knew.

"Exactly", he grinned. "You must drink some cheap shit that it puts you to sleep. We'll get you a quality drink. And you'll tell me the whole story".

He was speaking quietly, smoothly, his low voice rumbling pleasantly, but in a tone that said that he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"After dragging around this asshole, I say I have a right to know why he's dead".

You really liked how he says 'dead'. Daed. Daed.

He said, wear something that'll make you feel vindicated. New. You went upstairs, to your bedroom, and looked at yourself in the mirror. Skin glistening with water after the shower, blue long lines on your throat from this morning, when Ned was trying to squeeze the life out of you. Shaking you by your neck like a rabbit. It looked like a gothic kind of thick necklace, blueberry color. You decided to prop it up, because you survived, and he didn't. You finally snapped. And now he's gone, rotting in the box of this dangerous man's car.

You decided on the top you had bought years ago, always meaning to wear it, always traveling with it in hopes that the right occasion would come up; the pretty and smug black top with deep cleavage. You finally had jeans to go with it, also black, with high waist. With such a scary dog by your side you weren't even worried that someone would bother you, even in a biker bar.

You made your eyes glimmer red, like the blood you've been scraping off your floor today. Let your hair down. As you finally came down the stairs to find Chibs patiently waiting in the hall, he threw one look at you and immediately let the subtitles on his face do the job.

"Celebrating, eh?"

"I was going for... you know the look the widows have in the movies, when they're the ones who killed their husbands, so they dress up all cunty for the funeral?"

"Oh, I get it. I thought he wasn't your hubby though?"

"No, of course not. But I've been waiting forever to wear this top".

"Fair enough", he nodded readily and stood up.

"Where are we going?" you asked, clenching his eyes as you took your faux leather jacket from the rack. Wearing it now would kill you. Chibs had one, on top of his dark-purple shirt; you assumed, bikers and gangsters, and army medics were just tough like that.

[avocado-writing]

Helloo would love love love some more Gabriel/Jim if you have any? Could be literally anything maybe a continuation of the last two or something but anything at all pleaseee 💕

notes: ask and ye shall receive 😌

pairing: Jim x reader

rating: T

“You’re joking. You must be.”

“Why would I be joking?” Jim furrows his brow, perplexed. You tap your spoon on the side of your coffee mug with vigour. 

“Because Notting Hill is a classic! I can’t believe you’ve never seen that film…”

Jim can actually count the number of films he’s seen on one hand - less than one hand really - because he’s seen none of them. But you seem to be incensed by the discovery of him not seeing this one in particular, so he remains quiet about all the others. 

“Are you free tonight? You could come over and we could watch it at my place. You could stay the night if you wanted. I could set the couch up for you! Or, you know, otherwise,” you say, not wanting to put too much pressure on the situation for a first overnight. But Jim lights up at the idea, excited. To be honest it’s nice to just take things slow with him. The relationship doesn’t seem to be hurtling towards sex, neither of you have brought it up, and that’s… fine. It’s nice, actually. It’s low pressure in a way you’re thoroughly enjoying, and Jim is a great boyfriend. 

For you, the event in the park is all but forgotten. 

It isn’t for Aziraphale and Crowley, though. That flash of Gabriel emerging a couple of weeks ago has very much seared itself into their psyches. Neither of them are certain what it means but they’re reasonably sure it can’t be good, so when Jim appears in the bookshop asking what he needs to bring to stay overnight at yours they’re a little… worried. 

“He’ll probably be fine,” Crowley reasons, not wanting to play devil’s advocate - well, not any more, at least - but having been significantly more affected by Gabriel than his lover. He knows the danger of the archangel. But at the same time Gabriel has never shown himself to be any danger to you, quite the opposite in fact; he seems rather smitten. This will be the first time they let him out of their sight for any significant amount of time and there’s a nervousness in the air which can’t be ignored. 

The two of them turn to see Jim packing as many books as he can into his overnight bag, “just in case”, and Aziraphale sighs.  

“Well they both have your mobile telephone number. If anything happens then they can get in contact. Besides, I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”

Neither of them say anything as Jim hoists his several-kilogram backpack onto his shoulder and grins. 

🪽

“Hey! So I’ve ordered pizza and set up the film on the tv in the lounge. Do you want a drink?”

You give Jim a greeting kiss and he grins in a dopey sort of happiness at it. 

“Sure, thanks. What kind of drink?”

“Well, I have wine, or uh, Pepsi?”

“Yes, Pepsi. Please,” he says quickly. He recently became aware of its delights and spent a whole evening at the shop drinking a two-litre bottle and giggling between every sip. You load up the pint glasses which, in traditional English fashion you nicked from the pub, and settle in for a film night with Jim. 

The pizzas arrive about halfway through Notting Hill and you think Jim might explode at the narrative being interrupted. When the pepperoni feasts are devoured and the boxes shoved into the recycling, the two of you end up in a slouchy sort of cuddle. Your head falls onto his shoulder and by the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral you’re fast asleep. 

Jim looks down at you. You’ve managed to miss some marinara when you wiped your mouth so it’s smudged on your lip, but you’re none the wiser. Your chest rises and falls easily and your eyelids flutter as you dream. 

Because he’s pretty sure that Aziraphale and Crowley have done the same for him when he’s fallen asleep, he gently carries you to your bed, lays you down, tucks you in, and whispers ‘goodnight’ knowing that you won’t hear. And then he means to head back to the couch to go to sleep. 

At around two in the morning you stir, desperate for a wee. That is the unfortunate downside of Pepsi. You swing your legs over the side of the bed—

And your heart stops. 

Gabriel is standing there. In the corner. His eyes so luminously purple that they light the room around him. He’s been watching you for some time now, just observing the way that you breathe. He wondered if he should get in bed and hold you. Just to satiate his own wonder about how you feel. Too late for that now, you’ve spotted him. 

“Be not afraid,” he says.

You scream. 

🪽

The next morning Crowley wakes up to a text message from you.

I think there’s something wrong with Jim. 

“Bollocks,” he says. 

[physics-of-one-piece]

Ok back at it again with random doffy thoughts. Doffy has either weird color eyes or heterochromia. He either has a widow peak or his hair will grow back if he has true loves kiss(think this is funny for the whole beauty and the beast angle. Hes a beauty but he acts like a beast). And do you think he's top heavy or bottom heavy 🐦‍⬛

I love these random Doffy thoughts, Crow Anon! 🩷

Yeh, 100% agree for weird colour eyes! Hang on, lemme just...

AHA!

See? See? His right eye is pink! Well, sorta, kinda? We can't be sure it's an actual pink bcs of the shading, the shading of the panel seems to be reddish so his eye could be brown for all we know and if his eyes actually turn out to be brown I am screwed because brown eyed men are my weak point.

The Art of Queen Sacrifice's Pirate!Doffy has brown eyes and I will not lie, that destroyed me, I was GOOONE, I had to put my phone down to SCREAM AN UNHOLY SCREAM after I imagined Doffy with brown eyes. Thanks for that, @oddmawd you made my dreams come true. I vaguely remember telling my friends on Discord in like February if Doffy has brown eyes I am GONE & DONE he can do whatever he wants, so thanks for delivering that.

It depends whether we want to base Doffy's eye colour of what we saw Cora's eye colour is - brown. If it is, it is so OVER for me.

Anyway, by the coloured manga and anime it's possible he has rosy pink eyes, or red ones! And yeh, I love the heterochromia take.

I will give Doffy a true love's kiss, anything to save his hair (no joke, I ADORE Doffy's short hair, okay? I fell in love with that short-haired menace man)

🐦‍⬛, do not tempt me into writing a fairytale AU, I'm drowning in Doffy WIPs as is! Oh, he def is "looks like a prince, acts like a beast" that is a great summary of Doffy.

Doffy fits Princess and the Frog fairytale the most, let's be real. Except instead of a frog, make him become a flamingo and voila.

Do you mean top heavy by weight?

Top heavy - disproportionately heavy at the top so as to be in danger of toppling.

Aha, okay, I see! I keep learning new English terms I never even heard of, I love it, I had no idea there was a word for that.

I think he could be top heavy. Look, both DQ brothers have long chicken legs, okay? They are lanky and I love that for them! They look so silly when you look at them from afar 🤣 Idk, all I know is Doffy weighs 200 kilograms, so good luck either way. His torso is muscular so it will def be heavy. I think when he falls he falls torso first so he probably is top heavy more?

If you meant this in a NSFW way...

I think he def likes being on top 90% of time, but if he trusts his partner, he WILL become a demanding pillow prince and I totally would spoil him.

Man is open to switching. He's a freak in the sheets.

[dreadfutures]

Orchid and aloe vera from the ask list!

Thanks mo!

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

requited love :')

Snowfall ❄️

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

Agnes - Glass Animals

this was originally in the youtube description but I think Dave removed it. But it means a lot to me so I’m copying it here:

dear friends…nervously excited to share with you the video for Agnes. it’s hard to explain exactly how it feels inside a human centrifuge. you sit in a small egg-like pod about the size of a horse which hangs off a 50 foot steel horizontal frame. It looks like something out of a bond villain’s lair. it’s claustrophobic and uncomfortable and also incredibly hot.

slowly the whole thing starts to rotate like a helicopter blade. Faster and faster until every part of you becomes crushed under the extreme gravity. its like being slowly sat on by an elephant, or like your whole body being punched in slow motion. you have to flex every muscle and use every ounce of strength you have to keep going. breathing requires serious effort. movement becomes incredibly strained and almost painful. everything that once weighed 5 kilograms now weighs 50. its difficult even to keep your eyes open. it hurts in places you really didn’t know existed. veins and capillaries burst under the pressure and bruising begins. its a rapid physical overdrive.

the blood rushes from your brain making it impossible to think rationally or focus. your eyes are also drained and you get tunnel vision…only able to see small circles of the world directly infront of you and your sight goes completely greyscale…no more colour. your balance and spatial awareness goes and the world begins to spin like you’ve had way too much to drink. but the most striking thing is the way that the machine pulls on your heart. you can actually feel it struggling to beat and changing shape…flattening inside of your chest. Its similar to that horrible sinking, tugging heartache that comes only with complete and overwhelming sadness. and then you pass out.

we ran the centrifuge 18 times while i tried to sing along to a song which i find difficult to listen to at the best of times.

this was probably the most intense video-making experience I’ll ever have. But its the only way that we could just about begin to simulate for a moment what happens within Agnes.

speak soon, dave

[fragileizy]

family and i just played a game that took about thirty minutes.

here's the deal: my dad and i really want to get into snorkeling. my dad used to have a scuba license way back in the day but he hasn't been able to go scuba-ing since we moved to the states, which at this point is a very long time ago. he misses scuba-ing. but my mom would rather kill me than let me attempt to get a scuba license, and would rather kill him than allow him to regain his scuba license, because she's afraid that we will both drown, so that whole world is completely off limits to us (for now.) so we're going to snorkel instead. fun. soft. easy. a kit on amazon costs $35 a pop, which is pretty cheap comparatively. it's a first-time hobby, so we don't need anything fancy, and the kit comes with two flippers (duck feet), one snorkel tube, and one mask each.

my dad buys two, one for me and one for him. one size small (for me) because i have small feet, one size medium (for him) because he is a grown man.

my dad, for whatever reason, misclicks and orders two orders of the exact same thing.

four packages arrive at our house a few days later. he's aware that he needs to return two of these packages because we don't need four snorkel gears.

now, the game begins: how do you ensure that you open one small and one medium, without having to unnecessarily open an extra bag?

my dad takes a chance, and opens one at random: a small, for me, leaving three packages behind. 66.6% chance of getting a medium when he opens another package, a 33.3% of getting another small. but this family has a curse. 33.3% of getting something wrong always indicates that he has a 100% chance of getting it wrong. it's just always like this. (i unfortunately used all of our luck at a hotel resort bingo in the summer 2009, where i proceeded to win every single bingo game that night for four hours straight. i was then banned from participating in that hotel's bingo night ever again, as they were convinced— somehow, someway— that an 11 year old Child was cheating. at bingo.)

this is our predicament.

three giant plastic bags line our dining table. in one corner, a seniored more-salt-than-pepper-haired man, chewing on a cuticle (bad habit of his), looking over his glasses, attempting to figure out which one to open. in the other corner, me, tapping my nails on the wooden table (bad habit of mine, always stimming, annoying everyone around me with how much noise i make), trying to decipher the hieroglyphics both usps and amazon stamp across the surface of each package.

the game, of course, is not this serious; amazon won't kill us if we try to return a package that we've resealed. but it's a game. and my dad likes probability. he's always said he'd love to blackjack and poker if it wasn't so upsetting that you actually have to lose money in the process. i like probability, too, and why not make something as mundane as easy into something so difficult?

my dad and i, on opposite corners of the dining table.

"shouldn't each package have a transit ID?" i ask. "look at the order on amazon and we can match the number to the serial code."

an idea. a good one. my dad is rushing for his phone. it's under my mother's account on amazon; she pulls up the receipt. a number. a path. we grab the bags and search for this tracking number. there are no less than four individual serial codes on each tag, all in an attempt to dissuade us.

none of them match any of the tracking IDs. i'm grateful, even for a moment, to not be a bar-scanner machine at the amazon facility. i would be fired immediately.

my mom looks a little unimpressed with our lack of motion. it's been thirteen minutes. she's given up on trying to convince us to just open it, because she's seen the sparkle of good fun shining in our eyes. "theoretically, your dad's kit should be heavier because his flippers should be a size bigger so there's more plastic. we should go get the bathroom scale."

"it would, yeah. but the difference wouldn't be in kilograms," my dad tells her. "it would be grams. the bathroom scale isn't precise enough."

"the kitchen scale is in grams," i offer.

"the kitchen scale is too small for this," he counters. "we can't weigh these."

so, how do we win?

the solution, in theory, is simple: ask someone who wasn't born into the family name to open the second bag, meaning that the family curse isn't used to open it.

we both turn to my mom. pleading. asking for help. a family curse is one you can't break just because it's inconvenient, after all.

my mom looks. the packages are identical. she stares. the bags do not move, and offer no solace. she picks up the unwrapped kit that we already know is mine, and tests the weight in her hands. she moves to the next, scrutinizing, in the same way i've always seen her calculate something imaginary to me while she weighs her options on potatoes and cherry-tomatoes at the grocery store.

then, she settles: "this one weighs more."

we scramble to tear the plastic off, a pack of wolves descending on prey, something akin to the fervor of a delicious black-friday sale picked apart for scraps. the plastic bag is ripped, out the kit goes, and we search the surface for the size number on the front of the nylon mesh that incases the flippers, horrified for a brief moment that we might be wrong. our fingers trace the surface, fingertips against the plastic cover as if searching for braille.

medium, the bag states. bold letters, made tiny along the surface, but clear enough to read.

my mom has gotten it right.

all is right in the world. my father and i can sleep easy. it is time for rest. and to return the other two back to amazon and make sure my dad doesn't miss-click again. the family curse still stays, but we have mitigated around it for now.

[7-hydroxymitragynine]

hypothesis: legume sprouts should contain essentially the same nutrients and enzymes as barleymalt experiment: trying to turn peanut/pea/mung bean sprouts into alcoholic beverages by four methods 1. koji-fermentation (sake style): should be the most straightforward. i have plenty of koji, would be pretty much identical to making sake in that i would use whole/slightly crushed bean sprouts and just add the powdered koji to it 2. beer style: sprout the beans same as last time, this time toast them and make a wort. i'll probably use wild gruit i can forage rather than hops. i think peanuts will be the best option for this one since they have the least moisture as sprouts and the best flavor toasted 3. wine style: my one holdup with this one is i'll have to juice them, and i dont have a juicer. maybe i could just squeeze the juice out of them from a ball of cheesecloth. ill use mung beans for this one since they ought to have the highest water content. i dont think bean sprouts have any pectin so i should be able to skip the pectinase. im not sure if for my first attempt i should use tannin and/or acid blend or a find a natural source for those. this one seems the most labor intensive so i think i want to do just one as proof of concept 4. chemical sake: this one's kinda crazy. theres a single listing on ebay for chemically pure cellulase. it's $92 and i can only buy a kilogram at a time (so unbelievably much more than i would ever use in my life). i could use cellulase + yeast instead of koji. probably not gonna do this one unless the others show promise. i can think of some novel uses for cellulase for sure

[nerogurl]

Hiii :3 I came across your page and would like to request a matchup from fear and hunger 2. Ofc only if it's not a problem to you.

Also english is not my first language and I have no idea how to use punctuation in it, hope this won't create a problem💜💜

🦇

First of all I am attracted towards men and women

18🐈‍⬛Polish🐈‍⬛autistic🐈‍⬛Intp🐈‍⬛capricorn

🦇

Appearance

-165 cm heigh

-a bit on the rounder side

-dark brown eyes

-currently I have straight, shoulder length black hair with round baby bang

-glasses

-pale in winter and I tan quickly in summer

-I tend to do do heavier make up but only when I have time and motivation

🦇

Personality

I am a little bit shy and socially awkward but I warm up fairly quickly to people. Often people closest to me say that I can zone out and fly off to my own imaginary land during meetings if we won't talk about anything for too long. Sometimes when I'm not doing anything I start humming to myself. I love singing and when I was little I really wanted to be an opera singer but my parents told me it was a bad idea😔. I have a habit of suppressing my emotions because I don't want anyone to be overwhelmed with my traumas and depression. That's why when I feel helpless (which is fairly often) I just start crying.

I can be really patient and caring towards people I love. Because of my patience and need to care for others, I tend to attract traumatized people but it really doesn't bother me. It brings me joy to see the one's closest to me happy.

My love language is mainly physical. I love hugging and kissing. In my mind gestures are more important than words, so instead of saying "I love you" I bake cakes and make whole varietes of sweets just to show my affection.

I am really talkative, often when I will start talking about my recent interest I won't shut up until some tells me to. Listening to someones speech about their hobbys also brings me a lot of joy and friends say I am the best listener and always come to me if they need to vent or just talk about something.

I have a soft spot for animals and I am an animal rights activists. I just can't stand seeing any living creature suffering. I have one rescue cat that I found in the dumpster in my city and I'm plannig on volunteering in my local animal shelter when it will open.

Lastly I have unhealthy relationship with my body. Few years ago I gained a lot of weight due to my old antidepressants. Right now I lost about 3/4 of kilograms that I gained but still some comments made by people closest to me hurt to these day. Sometimes I just need a reasurment that my body is beautiful.

🦇

Interests

I am a huge biology geek and plan my future with that in mind. I'm an art lover and my favorite painter is Vincent van Gogh.Just thinking about his life makes me feel sad and I if I could I would give him a big hug. When I was younger I played in local theater but it closed and our current one only accepts poeaple over the age of 25. Between studying for final exams I often paint, especially flowers. For past year I studied Czech language for fun and I will continue doing it after finals. Also I love reading gothic novels and watch old horror movies.

🦇

Small facts

Due to my autism I am really sensitive to sounds to the point of being afraid of school bell. My favorite drink is tea. My favourite flowers are carnations. I love trying out new foods and this is probably the only one category where I am open to trying new things. My favorite color is purple.

🦇

This is my first time doing something like this so this description might be a little bit messy. I hope you have a wonderful day/night.💜💜

Because you explicitly stated that you're bisexual, I tried focusing on compatibility above all else and ending up giving you two female matches.

Your first match is with Olivia. At first, I think Olivia would be intimidated by you. Keeping in mind that you're a Capricorn, there's a 50% chance of you sharing a radiating or shadowed soul.

The heavy makeup and studies of high science combined with your academic versatility, reminding her of her sister. But while her sister felt like an unattainable goal, your shyness, appearance and introversion makes you similar enough to her, that you are like the same type of person.

The type of people to appreciate the story of Vincent Van Gogh. There's the understanding of that fevereant passion you have towards that one special interest. Even if he died believing he was a failure as an artist he kept painting because he loved it. You two can talk to each other for hours knowing that the other appreciates the special joy that comes with one's special interest.

Confusing her admiration for jealousy, she'd internalise these feelings and sometimes would feel as if you were encroaching on her space. She knows these feelings are irrational! When you're nearby she is small because you take up the world. She wants you to be around her, but can't help but feel in some intrinsic way that you're better off without her.

Either because you're too good for her, destined to be with someone better off to share your radiating spotlight. Or, because you're better than her, by dictum of her insecurities, despite being dealt the same shadowed hand.

Opening up to each other, your interests and experiences make you come across as down to earth. She'd be surprised your struggles deeply relate to her own. That you could suffer insecurity over your body and have your environment strip you of your urgency. Now that you're older you have the control back in your life to learn how to sing and pursue the theatre again. Just like how she and her sister were able to find freedom to pursue the sciences at university.

In the gothic literature you adore, depicting the beauty in the darkest parts of life, a common theme is coping with grief. Loss is a part of life, disease, illness, death and most importantly to Olivia, disability. She feels seen to have someone that can find the beauty in her existence.

It's a cruel fact that a lot of people think pity is kinder than honesty. Due to her disability, she's used to people pretending to be her friend then distancing themselves away. The trademark Capricorn stubbornness that makes her reflexively withdraw, is what you use to chip away at her defense's.

Every time she reflects on her own self-doubt, you're there to meet your words with actions. I could imagine you preparing desserts and Olivia using her Advanced Botonism to brew tea from carnations, for a picnic date.

When you plan to hang out, she decides a place she'd consider her territory (greenhouse, botanical gardens, ect) so she doesn't feel as rejected if you bale out. Once you meet her at the destination she's excited and when you bring her gifts she's ecstatic (baked goods), it's evidence that you actually want to be there.

You could make flower arrangements and paint a portrait of the results, together. Helping to teach one another your skills, you help support instead of outperforming the other. It's moments like these where due to your thoughtfulness, for the first time, Olivia feels equally acknowledged instead of overshadowed in a relationship.

Samarie is definitely the type to body worship! Her type of love is of complete dedication, like Gomez and Morticia (THE gothic couple, that is the antithesis of the modern American family depicted on tv, by the wife and husband absolutely adoring each other). Your body is perfect! You are an amazing singer! Every perceived insecurity is a part of you that she adores and untapped potential is a spotlight that's yet to be shined on.

Vincent Van Gogh who thought his work like himself would be forgotten, ended up being adored by so many. Like how she sees the spotlight in you, could she be special too, just yet to be recognised? A gothic romance, can you see the beauty through her dark past?

Samarie is incredibly skittish. Easily scared away by the presence of the other terminal contestants. The empathy in your thoughts is what draws her in. She would hear the kindness in your thoughts when you noticed her, not used to hearing any direct positive reinforcement from anyone.

Then, she would hear the voices of your insecurities and want to tell you differently. You wish you could look a bit more like her. While you struggle with feeling overweight, she struggles with feeling underweight and lanky. Thinking of herself standing out in all the wrong ways, she wishes she could look a lot more like you.

She is like a cat, requiring the patience you have that invites hurt souls to trust you. Abused her entire life by the Vatican, she sees herself in abandoned and mistreated animals. Something small, weak and eventually discarded.

Like the rescue kitten you took in from that dumpster, will you nurture her the same way even though she's been thrown away? Can she hold out for hope that your hand will stroke instead of slap?

In Marina's Ending B, one of Samarie's doppelgangers follows her to the city. Like getting into various cliques to get closer to Marina, I could see Samarie merging herself in various scenes in the city to do with theatre, hoping to do the same thing to introduce you to the right people.

Through reading people's minds, she was able to form a parasocial relationship with Marina. She has the mental map of how mutual affection is supposed to play out that she has never experienced. You'd ask her what her favourite flavours are and she would just assume you're thinking about baking. Like how killing Marina's father causes her to spiral into her delusions, there's a disconnect between her thoughts and actions. Filling in the gaps, she assumes most others want nothing to do with her.

Perhaps you could do something nice for her? Next time you see at the train, you tell her you'd remembered your previous conversation and had some baked treats just for her. Her whole reality just shuts down for a couple moments, trying to process that your affection is something is actually happening in the real world.

Internally screaming with panic, she has a delayed reaction before accepting your gift and fleeing the scene before she combusts. She'll be back soon, don't worry.

Tldr; Olivia and Samarie, but overall I think that Samarie is your best match.

[limey-self-inserts]

Howdy Limey!!

Wanted to ask this for your Arcane s/i :D

12. how would the fandom view your character?

1. what are the basics of your self insert? name, date of birth, height, etc.?

11. what kind of outfit(s) does your self insert wear?

14. what hobbies does your self insert have?

Rooting for you always!!!

Clover @tex-treasures

Heya Clover, thanks for the ask!

1. what are the basics of your self insert? name, date of birth, height, etc.?

Aravor Kralos - short brown hair with blue eyes, which have circles of purple and white in the irises - date of birth isn't really given out, but they're about 25 years old in the 2nd Act of Arcane (Season 1), which is when they start having most of their appearances - 5 feet 7 inches, or 174 centimetres tall - estimated around 148 pounds or 67 kilograms in weight - most notable features are the purple cat-like ears and extended canine teeth.

11. what kind of outfit(s) does your self insert wear?

anything good for movement, baggy trousers and slim shirts, with additional wraps implemented to minimise the clothing flapping around too much.

12. how would the fandom view your character?

probably not very positively. some might view Aravor as an attempted push for a romantic option for Viktor instead of Sky, despite the fact Sky has the actual romantic crush on Viktor and Aravor's more interested in his teachings and sandwiches. other people might view them as a copy-paste of Vi (a Zaunite that wears a crop jacket and has a knack for parkour). then there's the whole shape-shifting and - yeah, even though Aravor is very much relegated to secondary character rungs, they have enough characteristics that could make people say they're overpowered.

14. what hobbies does your self insert have?

they're actually a bit of a jeweler! making pretty things for people to wear, out of scraps they can find or other pieces they can steal. whether braiding wires together or filing down metals into smoother and shinier shapes, their hands are pretty chapped and scarred from some of the past works they've done.

Sky has a silver pendant that Aravor made for her, and Viktor has a brooch made of blue crystal that looks a little like the old unrefined Hextech crystals (don't worry, no magic in the jewellery).

[kaydeedums]

What Do You Think About The Farmer? (Stardew Valley) (4/6)

Ship: Haley x Female Farmer Also on: AO3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/63275293/chapters/162084325) [Chapter 4: 9 out of 11]

“What do I think about the farmer? Let’s see…” It wasn't originally on her list, but whenever she wanted to vent (Consider Alex had horrible memory) she'd go to her bestfriend.

Alex put down his weights with a soft thud, rolling his shoulders before rubbing his chin in thought. A thoughtful smirk played on his lips as he leaned back against his drawer, crossing his arms over his chest, shamelessly trying to flex himself in front of Haley.

"She’s a great listener—resilient too. The kind of person who just gets you, you know?" He nodded to himself before flashing a grin. "I think she’s a great partner."

Haley’s eyes nearly bulged out of her skull. " WHAT?! " 

Her voice echoed throughout the house, thank Yoba his grandparents have trouble hearing or else they would’ve been scolded by now. Alex blinked, then chuckled at her reaction. Alex teased, clearly amused. "You didn’t know?" Haley scoffed, placing her hands on her hips. "Do I look like I knew?! Because I definitely wouldn’t have reacted like that if I did!"

Alex shrugged, completely unbothered, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off of him. "Her grandfather used to be friends with my grandparents, it’s only natural that we get along together.” Haley opened her mouth, then shut it again, her brows furrowing in frustration. She hated how casual he was about this. How could they have kept this from her? Was she reading everything wrong? Was there even a point in asking around if this was what she was going to get? She hesitated before pressing further. "So, like... what happened between the two of you?"

Alex smirked, tilting his head back slightly as if recalling a fond memory. "Well, for one, I pick up deliveries from her farm sometimes. This one time, she was struggling to carry a whole load of produce to the bin—seriously, she looked like she was about to collapse." He chuckled at the thought. "She practically begged me to help her out. So, being the hero that I am, I stepped in and saved the day. After that? History." 

Haley’s stomach twisted slightly at his casual tone. It was the way he said it—like they had some established bond she had no clue about. She swallowed before asking hesitantly, “S-So… How long have you two been dating?”

The football player blinks, “Dating?”

The blonde stiffened. “...You’re not?”

Alex snorted. "What? No way. We’re just sort of gym buddies. Minus the gym, of course." Haley let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Oh. That was… somehow relieving. "She comes here to work out every now and then since she was struggling with her farm chores. She needed the strength—chopping trees, breaking rocks, carrying loads of crops? That stuff takes a serious toll on your body."

Haley crossed her arms. "She’s still so tiny. Wouldn’t she have, like, grown by now?"

Alex scratched the back of his head. "I guess all the work wears her down, but when she’s in her gym attire, you can tell she’s well-built."

Alex scratched the back of his head. "I mean, yeah, she’s small, but that doesn’t mean she’s weak. When she first got here, she could barely lift forty kilograms. But now?" He smirked, leaning forward slightly, voice dropping as if sharing a secret. "You should see her abs—"

"OKAY, I THINK THAT’S ENOUGH!" Haley’s hands shot up, frantically waving him off before he could finish. Her face was burning slightly at the idea of Alex of all people describing the farmer’s body in that much detail. He gets to see it every week? For Free? Alex just laughed, grabbing his towel and tossing it over his shoulder. "What? You asked." The shorter woman groaned, pressing her palms against her temples. 

“If we’re being real,” Alex begins, “Don’t get me wrong I respect the honesty from her, but if she did like guys in the first place, I probably would’ve tried to shoot my shot, anyone would’ve been lucky to have her—Not just because of her appearance, but because she’s a pretty great person overall.” He finishes exiting his room to grab himself a drink. Haley sits on the edge of Alex’s bed, pondering to herself. 

What was she even doing? She had gone into this expecting to have her feelings validated —to hear someone complain, to find a single person in town who didn’t like the farmer. But instead?

Everyone she talked to respected her. Admired her. Liked her. And now she was left wondering why she didn’t want to. For the first time, she wasn’t sure if she had a real answer. Haley was starting to feel hopeless. 

Haley was going to lose her mind.

This was supposed to be a simple afternoon. She had been in her darkroom, carefully developing some film to get her mind off that unproductive conversation. Being alone in her secret room was a safe place for her, the single red bulb illuminating the tiny room gave her some solitude from the outside world’s ever-bizarre happenings.

“Delivery!” Then lo and behold the farmer—who conveniently had an order—wandered in. Oh Yoba, please don’t make your way here.

The door swings open, the farmer’s head sticking out from the other side “Hey Haley, I saw a chair leaning against the frame, so I figured you’d be here.” She fully enters the room, “Do you happen to know where your sister is? I got like a box of Survival Burgers in here.” “DON’T CLOSE THE DOOR-”

Then, because the universe hated them, the wind had slammed the door shut behind them.

And now they were trapped. In complete darkness.

"Great." Haley groaned, pressing her back against the nearest wall. "Just perfect." She heard the farmer jiggle the doorknob. "Uh…" They let out a sheepish chuckle. "It’s locked."

"No kidding!" She snapped. "This door automatically locks from the outside, genius! That’s why I always keep it propped open!" The farmer gulped nervously. "So… what now?"

"Now, we wait for Emily to realize we’re missing." Haley crossed her arms. "Or for me to die of boredom—whichever happens first." She sat herself on one of the clear desks in defeat, with the farmer trying to follow suit. The darkroom was tiny, shelves and tables took up most of the space, leaving barely enough room for two people. Every time she moved, her arm or shoulder brushed against the farmer.

Which was infuriating. Because now she was hyper-aware of how close they were. “Can you stop fucking moving!?” And it got worse when the farmer shifted, too. “I’m trying not to!” Then suddenly—they were face to face. Haley froze.

Even in the dim red glow of the safety light, she could see them. The way their eyes caught the light, reflecting warmth and curiosity. The way their sweat were scattered across their cheeks like tiny stars. The way their lips parted slightly, like they were about to say something—

Haley's eyes scanned the physique of the person in front of her. Her mind wandered back the Alex's comment about how the farmer looked like under all that baggy clothing, her stomach flipped as she feels herself get a little heated at the idea.

Oh. Oh no.

"Uh…" The farmer blinked. "You okay?" Haley realized she had been staring for way too long.

There was a thud from outside. Haley nearly jumped, but then— "Haley?" Emily’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. "Why’s this locked?"

"Oh, thank Yoba—Emily, OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!" There was a brief pause. "Why is the farmer there with you?" She must've seen her straw hat outside the room.

"JUST OPEN THE DOOR!" Haley repeated, after a moment, the lock clicked, and the door swung open. Cool air rushed in, and Haley shoved past the farmer before Emily could say anything else. She refused to acknowledge the way her pulse still hadn’t settled. And she definitely refused to acknowledge how pretty the farmer looked in that soft red light.