#except exercise

[alvinmichaelmurphyseville]

“I PASSED THE AP EXAMS! BOTH OF THEM!”

“NO MEDS, NO CANDY, NO MUSIC, JUST A LOT OF DETERMINATION AND SOME MEGA REVIEW THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAMS!”

“I didn’t get a grade as high as I would have gotten with the extra help, but I don’t CARE! This is MY score! All mine! Just pure ME! I PASSED AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS! Cs FOR THE WIN!”

“I’m so PROUD of me! The more I expend all my physical energy, the more I can control and direct my focus! It’s great! I always have the three management techniques to turn to, but they’re not a requirement anymore!”

“I’M GONNA GO LISTEN TO ALL MY FAVORITE SONGS AS A REWARD EVEN THOUGH I DON’T NEED THEM FOR THE DOPAMINE RIGHT NOW!”

[arkangelo-7]

I think the scariest part about Batman is the loyalty he inspires. Like this motherfucker has an army of children who might at any given time hate his guts, but are still 100% willing to throw hands for him if Bruce needs them to. And then there’s the Justice League, who also at any given time might hate his guts or find him insanely irritating and/or weird, but will also fall in line and listen to his plans if the need arises. And that’s like the most intense form of power someone can wield—voluntary obedience from people physically more capable than them.

[imnotabotdontblockmeplz]

I love loving a man but i wish it didn’t kill you slowly with stress inflammation and shit

[jojo-schmo]

I'm updating my personal ref sheets and it's really hitting me just how SMOL Kirby, Bandee, and Elfilis really are compared to the rest of the cast.

[toytle]

february icons! ^__^

[gomzdrawfr]

Hehe

[vhsc1ty]

snow white and the 7 skwirl

[viktorarcanedeservesbetter]

more modern au headcanons for @now-thats-an-oof

first one here

Jayce and Viktor's favorite guilty pleasure is all the crime/science shows like CSI, Bones, X-Files. Stuff that requires a healthy amount of disbelief because it's more entertaining that way, rather than the shows that pretend to know science or are obnoxious about science. They used to have a drinking game, but after one episode of CSI Vegas they were so decidedly intoxicated + the hangover was enough for them to never play it again.

Also, their TV set is a projector against their wall. They also pirate everything, use VPNs. Neither of them pay for any subscriptions, all mooch off of Caitlyn's accounts when they can't find something they want or the quality being pirated isn't good. (Mel and Elora locked them out of their account)

They live in a studio apartment on the first floor right outside their University. It's nice, low-priced and they don't spend a lot of time in it anyways with school and lab work. Jayce's favorite feature is the fireplace, Viktor's is the spacious shower.

They do not use candles: sets off Viktor’s asthma. Instead they have a modified (by them!) diffuser with scents like eucalyptus, peppermint, lavender that helps with breathing + won’t set off an attack. (He still does his treatments, though! Just wants a nice smelling home.)

Ximena lives about forty minutes away; they visit her every weekend. When Jayce and Viktor first got together, Viktor was afraid to meet her (he has no family for Jayce to meet, and never got far enough in other relationships to meet parents) but she took him in instantly.

Now, Ximena insists Viktor come home with Jayce every time. Sometimes she even calls Viktor even when Jayce isn't there. She sends meals (as all moms do!) with them to take, but with the recipe card so they can make it together.

Adding onto that, Jayce cooks, Viktor bakes. Both have used Ximena's recipe cards often, but hers are just better (Jayce thinks she's hiding a secret ingredient, Viktor thinks she's magic) (one of them is right!)

Neither of them are big readers for fun, but both enjoy scientific journals, reports, short stories, as long as they aren't science fiction. Unlike with the TV shows, the bad science just annoys them. For fiction, Jayce enjoys adventure/suspense, Viktor enjoys mystery/suspense. Neither like horror, or romance-only, but enjoy a good slow burn mixed with their preferred genres.

Their greatest achievement was the modern version of whatever the distinguished innovators competition was-they both got to ride in a plane (1st class, paid for by the school!) to present their prototype for a water & air solar powered purifier to the country's top mechanics board. Mel (political science major, business minor (in Masters programs) also helped them register the patents and trademarks for it.

Speaking of Mel, other majors/minors include: Caitlyn (Legal Studies Major, Criminal Justice minor, undergrad) Sky (Environmental Science, Masters) Vi (Exercise Science major, undergrad) Elora (Business Analytics, Masters). Ekko and Powder are taking a gap year.

Jayvik have major beef with the barista at the coffeeshop closest to their apartment. Don't ask them why. (He hit on Vik in front of Jayce while also being ableist. Both of them cursed him out in their respective first languages).

Jayce and Viktor paint and sketch to unwind. Jayce sketches (likes charcoal pencils) Viktor paints (likes watercolors). Favorite subjects? Each other. (yes, they have painted and sketched each other naked.)

Failed hobbies of theirs include: crocheting (Jayce was slightly more successful, though the scarf he made for Vik was a little too long) Photography (somehow Viktor's fingertips make it into his shots, Jayce can never get the focus right) Dance (Jayce stepped on everyone's feet, Viktor only likes to sway and stand on Jayce's feet) Plants (?) (They are only allowed plants that can survive nuclear explosions now. Sky banned anything harder than a spider plant to care for from their home.)

Favorite Bar: The Last Drop (you know I had to do it). They (as well as their small group of friends) are the only academy students yet to be kicked out. Mostly for good behavior, but also because favoritism.

Things they don't fight about: Health, safety, opinions (they share most of the same ones anyways) family, friends.

Things they "fight" about: the right amount of sugar in a coffee, if Viktor needs wool socks, if Jayce needs to replace his work boots, the best kind of cookie (the great double-chocolate chip vs m&m cookie war)

The thing they actually fought about (serious version): Viktor accepting help/Jayce learning the right way to help him that wasn't diminishing Viktor's abilities. They fought for a week-still sharing a bed and eating together, working, but all silent. Finally when they came to an agreement-Viktor would stop ignoring the need for help until it was too painful to ask, Jayce would help by knowing the real signs, or doing just what Viktor asks him to help with, rather than what he assumes Viktor needs.

[damiemontclair]

I have so much on my plate already but what are everyones thoughts about an svsss fic from sy's sister pov? bc my brain is cooking rn and I've put it on the wip list.

[yarboyandy]

The patron saint of customer service workers

[autumnoakes]

okay but like here's the thing with chatgpt. outside of the negative environmental impact chatGPT and similar programs have, there is also a high chance that whatever you have it do for you is wrong. sometimes it is something small and inconsequential, but it can also be dangerously wrong. because what it does is it's looking on the internet for a source, and it will give you whatever source it finds (seemingly at random? i'm not 100% sure how chatGPT works but it seems very much like it's just picking something and spitting it out). i'm not even that old and i'm still an average college age but i remember commercials and ads telling people to not trust things you see on the internet because you don't know what is or isn't true. you might come across something that seems entirely legit, but is complete and total bullshit. that is something to keep in mind when using chatGPT that i think people don't consider. it may be wrong. it very likely is wrong. you won't be certain that it's wrong unless you ask it for its sources and examine them yourself which at that point you may as well just be doing your own research without AI anyways.

[laurelnose]

@a-voltage asked: Jedao and/or Cheris? OwO Pink seems like a challenge! [A26]

menace (extroverted) and menace (introverted)

[send me a color palette]

[sisterdivinium]

It’s tempting to think of Jillian as an atheist given her connexion to science, her confrontation with the church in s1 and simply as a counterpoint to all the religious characters around her. I’ve used the word for her myself in fic before, but I did it fully knowing that Jillian is perhaps the character who most wants to believe.

There’s an implication that she speaks from experience when she tells Kristian one doesn’t ever really leave the church…

… And her firm principle of proving faith and science can coexist shows she has no intention of dismantling faith in itself or the value people find in spirituality.

When Luther supposedly nailed his objections to that fateful church door, he didn't intend to shake the core of what faith actually is—quite the contrary, one could argue.

Neither is Jillian trying to destabilise faith in itself... The difference is that she just decided to build her own door instead.

The church might stand in her way, yes, but one could could make a case about how it is more due to their keeping of divinium than to the criticism she directs at Vincent on the subject of Hell and the subjugation of women. She might well believe it—or any part of her performance during most of season one, really—but her conflict with the institution lies less in the way of ideology than in matters of practical consequences.

Were it not so, wouldn’t she have been a little more resistant to her son’s visions of an angel? Why believe in a child’s prophetic drawings otherwise? Even if she by any chance didn’t consider the giver of those visions an angel, the very fact of taking a vision seriously would suggest some degree of fidelity to the very idea of there being something more, something else than the life we know in this plane of existence.

If she doesn’t admit the existence of a god outright, she at least lends credence to the idea that there is something. We might not be able to take her fully at her word in the scenes where she’s playing her part as a seeker of knowledge maligned by the Vatican, but there is some amount of truth to what she says. She might not have truly found Heaven, she might not be able to prove her portal actually leads there...

… But she most certainly wants to be right. For Michael’s sake, there must be something else, even if not precisely what has been foreseen by scripture.

And, even so, she finds worth in that very scripture she doubts.

Perhaps she’s being honest when she tells Vincent she likes the stories—there’s a lot of knowledge to be found in even the simplest of them to she who knows how to seek it.

Perhaps there’s an underlying attachment of hers to the Bible, a past she cannot really abandon. It’s not all that common for people with absolutely no ties to Catholicism to have something like the image of a saint as decoration hanging in the background.

Sure, there are other religious elements scattered in her workplace including a Buddha, but it’s a man who used to be an archivist at the Vatican she hires, not a defected monk or rabbi.

Yes, she will work with anyone who is equally willing to work with her. It’s not from the goodness of her heart as there is a component of selfishness in such cooperation—one to which she admits herself—but her attitude is also a testament to the openness she has concerning the results she might obtain. Maybe the OCS is right, maybe there’s a God and saints and Heaven and Hell…

It doesn’t really matter as long as there is something, something to work towards, something to seek.

Or it didn’t matter—while Michael was alive.

She has had her proof of there being more... And she has paid a high price for learning of it.

It’s a pity we don’t know what she would have done with this information. How do we react when what we believe is confirmed to be true but not in the way we expected or desired?

Whatever shock the nuns have experienced to their faith in this business with Adriel, the perversion of the power of prayer and all else they've survived during season two, Jillian is likely to have felt the very same blow right alongside them.

[silvermeww]

for your Kalosian Woods AU, I have two questions! (1) what’s the direction you’re gonna take Amourshipping/Ash and Serena’s dynamic in? Their friendship along with the romantic subtext felt like it had a lot of potential in XYZ-proper but never really got utilized. And (2) how’re you gonna tackle Showcases? I’ve been meaning to work on a Showcase restructure but I’d love to hear your ideas :D

Hey there!!!!! For the first question, I 100% acknowledge the force of Serena’s crush on Ash in the XY series— even if I did tweak it so that she would fall after meeting him for the first time, watching him train for the Gym and having seen him fall off Prism Tower inspiring her to see him through tinted lens (and how it evolved from the admiration she had for him when they were kids so long ago). While XY anime itself had the weird notion of making everyone down for Ash (a terrifying scene after coming out of the professional haters of BW and literally every series before it) (ngl though I am a believer of the polycule + Bonnie idea lol, it exists in my heart), I can’t deny that side of Amourshipping even if I’m not a shipper myself or even much of a good writer for romantic relationships imo. In my AU I want to show how that love for him grows and eddies throughout the series: from their first meeting to taking up her own dream of showcases to seeing Ash lose himself in his endless hunt for strength— how she puts him on a pedestal because he was the first Trainer she knew, the strongest one she knew, and back then how she didn’t know better, relying on him instead of taking the risks herself and working with other people for a change. You’re absolutely right in the potential their relationship have in XYZ especially; with Serena coming to the tail end of her first Showcase season, ending up in the same place as before but with a totally changed perspective, and Ash fixating more than ever on being the best of the best, distancing himself from everyone else… and of course, all of that feelings and realisations coming to a head in Snowbelle, the Crisis, and the aftermaths. And also having both of them face each other at the end of it all and realising how much changed. I’m not really sure if I’m wording any of this right or if what I’ve said even makes sense heh, especially since I’m not too far ahead in this AU, but their friendship and that romantic subtext is definitely going to play a part in this series, and even if the plot details changes like the weather I’m going to do my best in keeping it as true to its potential as it should be (because a girl can be in love and also grow as a person, in spite and despite and even with it— you’ve just got to find the right angle).

(Also I’m going to have fun with that crush, so it might meet some light-hearted banter and miscommunications and all of that stuff. I mean, hey, these are kids on a journey lol. There are going to be awkward moments for everyone at some point, but they’ll grow past it as with everything else. Also fun memories. :P)

For the second question, wow, I’ve been giving it so much thought lol. I’m nowhere near the Showcases right now (although it is closer than what canon gave us in my AU) and yet it’s all I can do to plan for how it works. I have spitballed a few ideas with friends but for me (so far) I honestly want more of it to be outdoors. Showcases as a whole has this pesky problem of being a one-to-one copy of Contests but ‘declawed’ by having no battles, and it really gets me because if we’re discarding battles then we have to actually redefine Showcases as a whole— because the battle portion is the ultimate showing of precision and control with your Pokémon and their moves, which is what Contests are all about. Especially with AG and DP, we see examples of atypical Appeal rounds with Harley going for a more terrifying show of power, while Kenny (as :/ as a character as he was) goes for showings of strength— even though they are not ‘beautiful’ they still get to pass, because it really is about how your bond can perfectly translate to moves that can command the audience and grab their attention, naturally highlighting the Pokémon. With Showcases though, to me, they are more about creativity— about how a Performer can work with their Pokémon to get past certain obstacles which are based off a certain characteristic the Kalos Queen should have (the Theme round or whatever it was called lol) and then the Freestyle showing off what they uniquely bring to the table, their own brand, what they want to be remembered by (in which I thought that they could bring props to that originally but eh, that’s what my AU is for!). Sheesh, I went through such a big rant and I still feel fired up heh, but ig this is to say that since Showcases are about creativity, the outdoors location would be a great way to show how they deal with everything. On a sunny day, would they use Grass or Fire Types? Would they call out a Rain Dance and form a rainbow? Of course they wouldn’t actually have an open venue if it’s raining or snowing, but in different terrains can you see the characters stand out, I feel like. Also giving all sorts of Pokémon room like Flying or Ground. I have a bunch more ideas of course, about it being connected to PokéVision (still mad about how that concept got dumped) and having small events where people can get to know the up and coming Performers, getting hints for the Theme section so we don’t get the most unbalanced group of people and have a real competition (that always bothered me ngl), as well as other tweaks to that whole system. Showcases can be good in their own light, it’s just the rep of it being baby ‘only girls’ Contest (still thinking about the girls bit ngl) along with the stupid popularity bit of it (not that the concept is bad in and of itself, just that it should have a place and not be the be all end all of passing to the next stage) (it’s only good for the Freestyle, can I say that?) that makes it flop. Also because it came in so late and left so early. And the rivals kind of sucked because they weren’t given any time to grow. And the way Serena wasn’t challenged enough through them. So basically, I’ve got A Lot of thoughts about it and it’s going to be a headache to go through because it desperately needs a redesign to be viable in any way. But that’s the fun bit about an AU, isn’t it heh. Tell me about your ideas, I’d love to hear about them and thank you so so much for the ask!!! :D <33

[sodrippy]

crazy how much you can lift when you arent killing yourself with some cardio bullshit right before

[melonbite]

love bktd yuri so much. something so romantic about two girls.