#and all the rest of the warnings

[sofiadragon]

Ever find a larger bill in the laundry that you thought you lost or spent? I feel like that. The tiny little slash fic website from the early 00s that I read "If you are prepared" on is long gone, all links broken, but I found it over on Walking the Plank, which is somehow still operational. I found it and I'm about to completely ruin my emotional state for the next several days by re-reading it.

If You are Prepared

I sure hope this is the dark, intense journey through deep lore pre-OotP Harry Potter that I think it is. I so hope this is the fic I think it is. I reposted a work of mine on AO3 and spotted a reference to the online slash fic magazine Swish and Flick while I was cutting and pasting the old rtf into chapters. That got me to googling around looking to see if there was any trace of it left after 22 or so years. Found a screencap with some links to different stories and... I know this title. It lept out at me, through a screencap taken of a half-busted wayback machine archived webpage from 2003-2004. It jogged memories two decades old.

Go ahead. I dare you to read it. First chapter is Snape's POV:

At the first sight of the Muggle neighbourhood I’m reminded of one of the reasons I became a Death Eater so long ago. I feel nauseous and I can scarcely resist taking out my wand and casting a growth spell on their perfectly cut grass. I hurry up the stone walk way, amusing myself in imagining the look on the Muggles’ faces were they ever to see my garden. I knock three times on the oak door.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

How much longer 'til your luck runs out?

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[thewisewill80sbyers]

STRANGER THINGS 5

[painfulguess]

mspaint forsaken doodle pages

[bibiscate]

IT-ITS STILL MERMAY!!!! IM NOT LATE YOU'RE LATE!!!!!

but seriously tho I wanted to post my sun&moon merfolk dudes only when I had digitalized it and colored and shit

I have so many tidbits on them and their biology and morphology and all that jazz (I made a whole new species just because) but it was a month full of exams and I CANT stop playing don't starve and cotl I feel like Im going crazy

Oh yeah, and those designs are just concepts and I already changed them a bit ekdkskd but I didn't wanna end the month with nothing, so mermaid AU letsgoo

A BIT ABOUT THEM:

Not really based on any particular species, there are some details here and there, some shark stuff cause I like em anddd some others fishes but as I said I changed them a bit and this is just concept art fase

Moon was gonna be a electric eel but I've seen enough people do that so I decided to just ignore most anatomy and do whatever FEELS like them, I hope I'm successful at least with their designs latter

Yes there's a bit (a lot but shhhh) of lore but I'm going to bed skdkwkdks

[letsplaythermalnuclearwar]

hey wouldn't it be fun to give Hunter a bunch of Grimwalker things that no one but Belos knew about and everyone assumes is just Belos being cruel until they try something different and then it turns out it was actually necessary for Hunter's wellbeing?

so like one day Hunter mentions never having ice-scream or cake or really any other type of dessert. and everyone's like "that's so sad we have to get him ice-scream right away." but then Hunter spends the next couple hours being violently ill and it turns out Grimwalkers can't handle processed sugar

or he was never allowed to go to the healers when he was injured and he always had to stitch himself up (or Belos would do it sometimes if it was bad enough). and everyone's completely horrified because that's terrible and evil and what could the point of that be except to make Hunter go through more pain? and then someday he breaks a leg or something and they take him to the healers and it just. doesn't work. nothing happens. and it turns out healing magic is completely ineffective on Grimwalkers

anyway I think it would be fun to make the line between what was care and what was abuse a little blurry every now and again

[hollowsart]

-turns myself into a Paper Mario Partner-

I'm a Pokey :>

Note: the sprite is incorrect, the regular cactus tail is perfect.

I gave myself arms & hands cuz I thought it'd be funny and tbh I really vibe with the look of it.

you can see my design concepts and 2 other ideas for what species I'd be that I got from 2 different quizzes I took.

In the end I felt like the Pokeys deserve some love, they're just funky little cacti creatures <3

almost forgot the sprite sheet below:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

King the silly guys, Lupin III!

(for @dying-suffering-french-stalkers)

[age-of-moonknight]

New Champions (Vol. 1/2025), #6.

Writer: Steve Foxe; Penciler and Inker: Ruairí Coleman; Colorist: Arthur Hesli; Letterer: Travis Lanham

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[daemon-in-my-head]

Fuck it; Durgethara fluff be upon ye!

No rating; i just felt some kinda way; it's rly just fluff (by my standards); they're fucking hurting me; unedited cuz I am rly just feeling some kinda way abt them. 1.3k words. Potentially, possibly, a hint of hurt/comfort; or no comfort—depends on how you understand it

Statuesque—perhaps the only fitting word to describe how he appeared now. Caged, as if the moonlit ray had trapped him on that field of blooms never meant to meet. Trapped, as if the weight of his little world had finally, truly halted his endless steps. As if the man had indeed turned ghost; as if his marble skin had solidified, true to the stone it resembled, the only movement coming from the uncoordinated, untamable silver strands cascading down a scalp bowed toward its celestial captor.

He couldn't tell how long he had stood there, nor how long he would continue to stand. For all he cared, he could spend an eternity here, unmoving beneath the moon’s warm, white rays, comforted by the natural silence that had finally found its way to him. Stagnant. Still. Like the chests whose rising and falling he had ceased with his own hands.

But it was never that easy, was it? It couldn’t be.

He had ignored them, those faint sounds of light footsteps, when they first reached his ears. Whoever it is will pass me by, he had convinced himself. But they didn’t simply pass by. The steps grew louder, nearer, before ceasing altogether—shattering the silence with just a single word.

"Abbil," she spoke. His head turned, his eyes widened as soon as he heard.

"How—" It wasn’t so much a question as it was a plea. His voice shook, as fragile as the pallid fingers that had awoken from their rest, crawling toward a face no longer serene, no longer still.

But she simply smiled—that gentle smile no one had ever thought genuine, the soft expression few believed she was capable of. But he knew better. He had learned. "Where else would I be?"

She spoke as though she belonged. As if they were meant to be here. As if she had always been destined to find him in this place—to witness this realm from which they had been banished millennia ago. Just as she always did. Gentle smiles, softened gazes, and, daring as ever, she took another step closer to something anyone else might have mistaken for an ancient statue.

And he simply stood. The words he had longed to speak suffocated in his throat as dark eyes found a new, fragile shine. As if this were nothing more than an illusion, and any attempt to speak would shatter it. As if blinking away the painful surge behind his eyes might tear her from him once more. As if enduring the burn could somehow preserve this fleeting moment.

But something would shatter anyway, wouldn’t it? The ice would thaw. The seasons would turn again. The same way they always did—whether he wanted them to or not.

Just as her warmth always had. That gentle determination wrapped around his frosted shoulders, his weathered back, stripping him bare in ways no force ever could. Crushing him in unimaginable ways. Remaking him, again and again and again.

He had always been taller than her. Taller than any of his kin—a trait gifted by a creator who had taken just as much as he had given. But it didn’t matter now. It had never mattered with her. As if by instinct, he arched his scarred back, bending toward her presence, meeting her where she stood. Laying a weary crown upon shoulders far too strong to ever belong to anyone but her.

He had always been taller than her. Taller than any of his kin—a trait gifted by a creator who had taken just as much as he had given. But it didn’t matter now. It had never mattered with her. As if by instinct, he arched his scarred back, bending toward her presence, meeting her where she stood. Laying a weary crown upon shoulders far too strong to ever belong to anyone but her.

He had always been taller than her. Taller than any of his kin—a trait gifted by a creator who had taken just as much as he had given. But it didn’t matter now. It had never mattered with her. As if by instinct, he arched his scarred back, bending toward her presence, meeting her where she stood. Laying a weary crown upon shoulders far too strong to ever belong to anyone but her.

"It must've felt like an eternity," her voice drifted, dark and slow, trailing off like a whisper caught in the wind. The fabric draped over her figure darkening with dampness, as idle fingers traced the changes in his skin—skin altered by time, by absence, by wounds too deep for the eye to see.

And he replied the only way he could in her presence. Not with barbed words, nor with the venom he had swallowed so often before, but with the silent stream of tears too vast to contain. His hands clutched at her sides desperately, holding onto her as though she were the last tether keeping him from crumbling entirely. Little, broken sounds slipped from him—sniffled fragments of grief too long suppressed.

It had been an eternity. Perhaps longer. And the price paid for this reunion had already been far too great. The price still left to pay—looming, inevitable—would be even greater. He knew this with painful clarity. But it didn’t matter now, did it?

Not here, not in this fragile, fleeting moment. Not when he was wrapped in the familiar scent of iron and herbs—her scent. The scent she had always carried. The scent of home.

Her hands moved slowly, reverently. Fingers threading through strands that had lightened even further since she'd last seen them, smoothing them back with the deliberate care only she had ever possessed.

She said nothing more—she didn’t need to. Every small gesture was a language of its own, a silent dialogue they had always shared. Speaking through the weight of a touch, through silences stretched thin with understanding. His hands, rough and calloused, scarred and worn, spoke the same language. Clinging to her, gripping the fabric of her clothing like a man anchoring himself to reality, to this moment.

His tears soaked into her shoulder, but she only held him tighter for it. Her arms wrapped around him with that same quiet, unbreakable strength she had always carried.

No demands. No explanations or reassurances needed. They had never required such things. They simply were—existing in tandem, as they always had. The wind, a breath of something returning at last to his place of solemn solitude, stirring the field around them to life, sending petals adrift like soft remnants of forgotten prayers and unspoken pleas.

His forehead rested against the crook of her neck, her body leaning into his as if determined to share every last ounce of warmth she had left to offer.

"I was so tired," he finally confessed, his voice hoarse from grief unshed for far too long. Steadier now, but never truly steady.

"I know," she agreed, her fingers tracing slow, lazy circles over the scarred ridges of his spine. "But you can rest, however briefly, now."

Her words didn’t promise salvation. They never had. She never pretended the pain hadn’t happened, never lied about the cost they had paid—or the price still left to pay. And he had always valued that in her: the quiet acceptance only someone who had walked through their own personal hell could offer. The understanding in her voice that no one else had ever given him—the acknowledgment of a burden far too heavy, carried for far too long.

The wind carried on again, as it always did, stirring the world around them with indifferent grace. But to them, the rustling of life simply faded into the background, and silence reclaimed its rightful place between them—familiar, unbroken, and profound. They stood as they always had; two fractured souls, reunited not by words, but by presence alone. No explanations needed, no apologies spoken.

And slowly, the trembling in his hands stilled. The ache behind his eyes dulled—not gone, never gone, but eased by the comfort of her nearness. The steady beat of her heart thrummed against him, a lullaby older than memory itself, steady and unyielding in its promise; the way it's always been.

[cementcornfield]

Offseason Thoughts!!

ok i know a lot of people are dreading this offseason because it’s going to be Long it’s going to be Dramatic, but honestly i’m so here for it. like lowkey i love this time of year because really it’s the time for completely unbridled optimism in a lot of ways. if we do A, B, and C, who’s to say that that doesn’t fix the team and we win the super bowl next year? you literally can’t know for sure that it WON’T work!! (i didn’t say it was a time for realism, i said optimism, perhaps delusionally so 🥲) 

plus i’m just genuinely interested in all the roster building stuff. figuring out contracts and how those might work, free agency, the draft and everything that those things entail - love it! all about it! so if you’re a sicko like me who IS into all of this (and i completely understand if you aren’t because it WILL be exhausting) i thought i’d make a little overview about the things we’ll be dealing with over the next several months. 

Here is a list of all the internal free agents we are going to have to make decisions on, along with their expected cost and the likelihood of us keeping them

^Here is our expected cap space for the next few years (taking into account expected cuts like Rankins, Hubbard, and Cappa) plus some extra commentary.

as you can see, we have MORE than enough cash and cap space to be very aggressive this offseason. will we be? it’s certainly not in our reputation to do so, but they HAVE been making baby steps over the last few years to catch up to the modern nfl. the most recent example of which is firing coaches like lou before their contracts are up! very uncharacteristic of the brown family. and i think this reflects rumblings you hear on twitter that the organization is frankly embarrassed at how this season went (rightfully so). so i think you can expect they will do SOME things to reflect this urgency, even if it’s not as much as we’d like them to do. 

the biggest decisions to be made: what do we do about tee?? what do we do about trey?? and then of course extending ja’marr, which i don’t think is a decision at all for anyone, but they’ve gotta decide how to do it to make both sides as happy as possible, when they struggled with that right up to the first game last season 😭

Tee: obviously if you’ve been following this blog you know i want to keep tee. i think we can pull it off and i think it will be beneficial to the team long term. but there is an argument to be made regarding his durability/injuries and whether the resources we’d spend on him would be better spent elsewhere like on fixing our historically bad defense. however, to that i say that we’re actually already one of the biggest spenders in terms of cap space on defense, and it didn’t help at all lmao. once we get rid of people like sheldon rankins and sam hubbard, who are definitely no longer worth the value of their contracts, we will free up a significant portion of the cap and use it to find better value free agents that can help us. the strategy going from overpaying for bad players to paying average amounts for average players. because with a top 5 offense like we had this year, we truly only need an average defense, unlike the HISTORICALLY bad one we had this year!

(now a caveat to this is if the bengals would actually show they’re willing to go all out and spend BIG on the BEST defensive free agents, then perhaps that’s worth more than keeping tee. but the only thing with that is that i just don’t believe the bengals would do it either way. even in 21 when we fixed our whole defense with free agency, we still did it by acquiring a bunch of smaller name value free agents, who ended up performing far above what the market thought they would. and i imagine that will be the strategy by the FO whether we keep tee or not.) 

you can also say that a large part of our FO’s failure the last few seasons has been that we aren’t keeping our Known Talents. we drafted and developed jessie bates into a star, and then we let him go because we thought we could easily replace his value for cheaper in FA and the draft….and three years later safety is still a huge hole on our roster. DJ Reader is another example of a key player for our team that we thought we could replace and we failed dramatically. looking at tee, who is the replacement we have in line? jermaine?? for SO MANY reasons that is no longer a viable plan lmao. Someone in FA? this is a weak FA class. so we’d let tee walk and then probably end up overpaying for a lesser talent? what’s the point of that? okay maybe we draft a WR high to replace tee? well i’m hearing that it’s also not a great WR draft. and to expect a first year rookie to come in and offer even half of what tee does is also not a super sound strategy! (not to mention we’d have to spend a high draft pick that should probably be used on defense!) 

tag tee? maybe! but i don’t think it’s as likely as extending him at this point. the second tag will be expensive (i think over 25k? maybe 26k) and that takes up a big chunk of our cap space if that’s what we’re worried about. plus it will piss off tee, to be tagged twice and not given the benefit of being able to get a long term deal? with his injury history especially? players hate that shit. i think it’s more beneficial for both parties to just do an extension at that point if we want to keep him. you can spread the cap hit out easier for the team, and tee won’t have to worry about his long term security as much. 

ANYWAY this got long, honestly tee should have just been his own post lmao. but this situation is deifnitely the most interesting to me and seeing how it goes will be FASCINATING. 

Trey: he requested a trade last offseason because he knows that his current contract is significantly less than he deserves for the value he offers (and that was BEFORE he got first team all pro and led the entire nfl in sacks this season, oh god 🥲) we have him under contract, but would he be willing to play under it? or would he retire like he threatened to? i’m honestly not sure, and i hope it doesn’t come to us finding out. we need to keep our star players happy, which means we need to figure something out here. do we extend him? he just turned 30, which the FO always frowns upon when it comes to extensions lol BUT he also just had his best year? i don’t think even our idiotic FO could say that just because his age starts with a 3 now means he’ll be washed next season or even the season after. what i’m seeing on twitter is that he’s expected to get at least one more deal of 2-3 years. and looking at the age of elite edge guys in the league, i think that that’s fair! and if you ask me, completely and totally worth it to keep trey. i mean jesus, who do we even have on defense if we lose him?? i think this one is a no-brainer, we’ve gotta offer him an extension for more money and i think he’d still be willing to take a reasonable deal to stay. 

Ja’Marr: oh my god. i’m still filled with SO MUCH RAGE when i think back to how CLOSE we were to getting him signed last offseason. we were RIGHT THERE. all the rumors were saying it was basically a done deal!! all the numbers and years were agreed upon!!! but our cheap-ass FO couldn’t just get over themselves and structure the guarantees to match how most deals are done in the rest of the league!! they showed they’re willing to do a modern structure for Joe, they need to show they’re willing to do it with the rest of our stars. especially our first team all pro triple crown winning stars!! jesus christ!!!

the only thing that offers me some comfort is that ja’marr is still on the same path, contract-wise, as Justin Jefferson. they also couldn’t get over the hump before his fourth year even when both parties wanted to, and he ended up signing a massive contract in june the next year. i’m hoping that we can accomplish the same on a similar timeline because oh my god i do not need all the drama of ja’marr missing training camp again! and when you look at all the other WRs up for an extension this offseason (garrett wilson probably the only one who even comes slightly close to ja’marr’s level), i think it’s fair to say that ja’marr is setting the market whenever he signs. then like with justin’s last year, the other WRs will all sign slightly below. so i’m hoping hoping hoping that there’s no motivation on either side to drag this out. but of course, we’ll see!! 

and then we’ve gotta think about the lesser free agents like Mike G, Mike H, BJ, Germaine…i have no idea what we do with them. i’d like to retain Mike G…..the three defensive vets i dunno! they’re good locker room leaders…mostly? they’re still solid if not losing a step. should we bring them back for reasonable vet deals? probably?? can we find better value in FA?? i’m honestly not sure. like you don’t want to lose these guys but it’s also hard to say that we should keep them at all costs when you look at the defensive performance last year. i just don’t know here. i’d hope we keep at least one of them? BJ maybe being the most important in my eyes? 

there’s so much more to talk about honestly but i’ll stop yapping for now! what do you guys think we should do?? i’d love to hear your thoughts! 

[wiredalienvampire]

Becoming a self/yume shipper was objectively the best life choice i had ever made

[the-anime-man]

Hey just a trigger warning for the latest episode of game changer that there's existential horror, analog horror, unreality and multiple auditory and visual glitches for those it affects, especially towards the latter half of the episode

[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closest friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lost any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[it-came-autumnally]

Girl.... what do you mean ending.... only a few lines ago you just said you're only eleven years old :')